#adrien needs all the love

[a-flaming-idiot]

Alya, Nino, Marinette, and Adrien are the type of friend group who you can't tell if they're dating or not. Like it doesn't matter who's actually in a relationship with who, Nino will still carry Marinette on his back when she's exhausted from staying up late, Alya will refuse to stop talking about how talented Nino is with his music and how he deserves so much more credit, Adrien will get scolded by Marinette for not eating breakfast, and Adrien will grab Alya just to fix her hair. Like they all give off the biggest polyamory vibes even if none of them are dating within the group.

[unhindged-mlb]

My favourite mlb headcannon is that marinette is more obviously muscled than adrien, both in and out of costume.

My logic is that adrien probably has a strict exercise regime thats ment to make him keep his body type whilst also making him fit enough that his fans like it. Bulking would change that and it would be a pain to deal with. We know he is (probably) on a strict diet that would make it hard for him to gain muscle mass and it would probably be cut down if he was noticeably gaining muscle as it would cause problems with marketing and could impact his public image.

Marinette on the other hand has no strict diet or exercise or overbearing comments about her appearance from half of france and as such would be able to gain muscle naturally from her superheroing and doing manual work in the bakery. Marinette is absolutely primed to build muscle as it seems like she eats well and has a good balanced diet while doing hours of very intense hero-ing several times a week.

[justaz]

kagami who drops in and woos adrien agreste but has everyone turn their back on her for breaking up their beautiful adrienette (even tho they weren’t even dating and adrien showed little signs of being interested in marinette)

marinette who went out with chat noir once and pictures of the two of them circulated and almost the entirety of paris hating her guts for breaking up their beautiful ladynoir (even tho they weren’t even dating and ladybug showed little signs of being interested in chat noir)

marinette and kagami bonding over being demonized for liking a boy and the fact that misogyny won that day.

anyways. my point is. marigami. thank you. goodnight.

[graythegreyt]

Adrino Week Day Four: Kwamis

In which Nino and Adrien have been swapped with their kwami!!! I've been adoring the art and writing for this week though I've been too busy to keep up, but I couldn't resist this prompt!!! Kwamis!!!! This week is so fun and joyful thank you to Jules and any other organizers mwah mwah... Adrino forever.... 🫶🫶🫶

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

[soullessjack]

so im on s5 of miraculous and i keep thinking about cat noirs whole “kept at a distance” arc bc it’s genuinely really interesting but gets so wasted by always winding up with him basically validating ladybugs nonsensical decisions and treatment—the same treatment that we were already shown upset him enough to destroy public properly about it. the most consistent reason LB ever gives cat about why he can’t be fully trusted or relied on is that he’s too much of a liability for their partnership to work—either because he’s too reckless, too in love with her, or his cataclysm would be too dangerous to use.

whatever it is, the baseline is that she thinks he’s a liability, and obviously that’s like salt in the wound for cat since he genuinely loves her and enjoys being partners with her, but it’s also just sad to see him continue to respect her decision and act like it isn’t a problem for him when he’s literally upset enough to physically lash out and use his powers to do so. and I know a lot of it can probably be explained by ladybug’s experience in the cat blanc timeline, but 1) she starts holding him at a distance way before that even happens, 2) she’s actively making it worse by not telling cat noir about cat blanc and why she thinks she has to exclude him for his own safety, and 3) SHE SHOULD HAVE TOLD HIM ABOUT CAT BLANC TO BEGIN WITH BECAUSE IT’S LITERALLY A WORLD ENDING SITUATION INVOLVING HIM DIRECTLY‼️‼️‼️‼️

instead she just allows him think he’s unwanted and unnecessary, calls the shots on how he should feel about “having more free time” and ironically makes him even more susceptible to being Akumatized because of it. ladybug might not be aware that cat is adrien and has a terrible home life he actively uses his miraculous to escape from, but she’s playing right into all the key aspects that adrien resents from his father; she decides what he wants without considering or asking him, she trusts him conditionally and still distances herself enough for him to just not know certain things. it’s done with good intentions, but it still clearly affects adrien very poorly, and it’s just such a frustrating glass-chewing miscommunication that only needlessly complicates the situation

don’t even get me started on Kuro Neko where ladybug falls head over heels for the changed version of her partner and narrowly avoiding her having to actually screw up and learn a lesson about accepting cat for who he actually is because catwalker is just “too perfect” for her to function—instead of being an obedient idealized version of her best friend who lets her be in control of everything (WHEN ADRIEN LITERALLY USES HIS DOUBLE LIFE TO HAVE THE CONTROL HE DOESN’T GET AT HOME).

theres so much potential for the base concept of the miraculous of destruction and its Kwami/holder being distrusted outliers among the rest of the Kwami/holders, but the magic system sucks and it kind of loses any chance when the other Kwamis are established to be catastrophic if they use their powers without a holder. and it gets even more confusing if you consider that Fu specifically chose adrien to hold that miraculous, but then encourages Marinette to keep her distance from him and barely acknowledges him as a hero in general. Like why did you even bother testing adrien for his worthiness or whatever if you obviously don’t think he’s worthy of knowing anything about you or the rest of the miraculous OR his best friend’s identity??? but you’re totally okay with her just giving them out to anyone in Paris who’s conveniently around and having her know their identity???? master fu when I catch you master fu

auugghhhfgg I don’t know the magic system thing could be its own separate post but likeeeeee I just think the miraculous of destruction whos constantly mistrusted for no reason and goes Kamehameha Krazy in another timeline is very special and could be treated so much better if the writers were good at their job and didn’t make every character’s sole purpose be validating ladybug/marinette even when she’s in the wrong

[monpetitchattriste]

I am having thoughts about Emilies ghost hauting Marinette

[wolflover2426]

Crack Prompt: Alya and Adrien were assigned to do a project and Adrien suggested that they work in his house.

It also leads to Alya snooping around and Adrien having to reel her in and then they discovered that Adrien’s father is Hawk Moth.

Adrien instantly gets into a spiral and Alya is there to reassure him during this. They came up with a plan to steal the brooch but also to mess with Gabriel for being a shitty father and villain.

Or in layman’s terms, Adrien goes through a teenage rebellion phase with Alya encouraging this while making sure to support Adrien and threatening to expose Gabriel being a terrible father thanks to Alya’s influence as the Ladyblogger and being best friends with the babysitter of Nadja’s daughter.

(Marinette is blissfully unaware of this because she’s too busy having her brain melt into mush at seeing Adrien in leather outfits and looking absolutely fine)

Bonus if it ends with Rena and Chat just telling off Gabriel after he reveals his plans with the wish and Rena giving Gabriel her absolute terrifying speech of how he should allow his son more freedom or else she will make his life a living hell.

(Let’s say, if he doesn’t comply. She’ll make him her big sister’s new punching bag)

Also, it would be funny if Alya figured out Adrien’s identity during this or Plagg simply said “Screw secret identities” when the duo found out who Hawk Moth is and exposed himself to comfort his holder

[purplecatghostposts]

Wrote a veryyy self indulgent one shot of an AU

A Félix Joins Early AU but with some Kwami Swap Shenanigans, Félix trying to pretend to be Chat Noir, and plenty of banter for fun! 7k words total!

Enjoy!!

[yayayachi]

Oh to be manipulated and possessed by your father figure :)

[words-be-upon-ye]

There are a couple tropes I really love in the space of Miraculous Ladybug fan works, but quite possibly my favorite is when the miraculous holders just get creature from using their powers.

Like yeah, I would say that hosting the power of an abstract concept given sentience, that got shoved into the shape of an animal and bound to a piece of jewelry, would kinda mess with your body a bit.

The little bit of this we get in canon is basically that Adrien loves being a cat and the whole Tikki munches incident.

But I love it when people give them ears and wings and tails, give them eyes that aren't quite human anymore. Fuck with their gender and their sense of body. Sometimes it's body horror, sometimes it's just aesthetic. Love it either way.

I just think it's so fun, a lot of the time it's combined with the like "when a holder and the kawami really respect and bond with each other there's nothing that can be done except having magic bleed into the holder" I think that's fun, but also just making the animal of the kwami a bigger deal is fun. Like if you're going to make it a ladybug you might as well give her wings and antenna and mirrored eyes.

[kehannii]

The triple threat blondies. Chloè, Félix, and Adrièn. (Maybe Zoè too…) They all grew up together in rich French/English society. They’re all sort of asshat elitist (Adrien has an button for this occasion and as of yet is the only one capable of turning off the assholery). They’re baddass. They take high society by storm. Everybody wants them and/or to be them. Hottest bachelors/bachelorette for a could many years. They’re the it trio. Like the three of them (maybe four Oml I’m picturing Zoe here too but triple threat sounds better than quadruple quarantine or whatever) chilling in a limo, chattering and shit taking and making bets about how the nights going to go and arguing over the latest scandals and then them pulling up in front of the gala hall or whatever. They all take shots or maybe get slightly high (literally any and every rich kid cliche bad decision) before the chauffeur opens the door and immediately the cameras start flashing like Kardashian level exposure before anybody even sets foot out of the car. Felix escorts Zoe out first, then Adrien and Chloe an they all look like picture perfect couples but in reality, Adrien and Chloe are bickering like children, and Felix and Zoe are just admiring the architecture and making snide comments like Oml did you see that lady’s dress?? What is that?? they’re all divas. The event happens, they mingle and dance with people, avoid forking the shitty people and gossip. Eventually, one by one they slip away to the predetermined hiding spot away from the event (it’s probably a bathroom) and just debrief each other in everything and shit talk while passing around a joint. Everybody decides to ditch to marinette’s place, Zoe doesn’t really know her that well but she seems really cool, Chloe wants to slip off her heels and fall asleep on anything (she also slipped a a couple designers mari’s business card and hyped her up and wants to tell her abt that), Felix does not want to go because he’s a bitch and marinette broke his nose last time but also he’s starting to respect her so he only protests for his prides sake. Adrien of course was going to head there after the gala by himself as chat noir and just crash there for the night but now he’s got company and he doesn’t want to bring them (and share marinette) but he can’t get out of it now so instead he just scowls and threatens to sue them into bankruptcy if they bring paparazzi to Marinette’s door.

[myfanfictiongarden]

[tizzymcwizzy]

okay trigun stampede im sorry i doubted you because of your rushed pace at the beginning, that was a good finale

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

The Enemy of my Enemy is ALSO my Enemy, Part 6

First<Previous<Masterlist

If nothing else, Jason would like to put on the record that he had tried.

He was so close to being happy, to being revived and having everything be fine, he had watched his own papers drop into his lap and had nearly cried out of sheer joy. It was the first set of paperwork he had done in quite a while – he had joined Melisande and Bucky in giving Gabriel all the things he didn’t want to do, which just so happened to be pretty much everything – but it was worth it. He was going to come back, he was going to be able to see his family again, be able to touch Marinette and Adrien for real. It was amazing.

Which, really, should have been a warning sign for him.

Because, before he had even finished the first page of his stack, a bell had rung.

He glanced up as the hatch in the ceiling opened, more out of habit than anything, and his eyes landed on a familiar face.

He practically fell out of his chair in his haste to get to Marinette, his hand snatching her file out of the air as he went. His free hand landed on her shoulder, shaking vigorously.

“What the hell?” He hissed the moment blue eyes showed a sign of opening.

Marinette blinked blearily at him, her eyebrows drawing together as if she were struggling with a particularly difficult puzzle, and he knew that her consciousness was still not quite tethered to her body yet, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as she shook her harder.

Finally, the final piece of her mind snapped into place, and her own hands came up to rest on his shoulders. Whether this was to get her balance, make him stop, or if she was just that shocked by seeing him, he would never fully know, but as blue eyes peered back into his own, he figured it was probably the last one.

Arms continued on to wrap around him and he gave a tiny gasp as he was pulled into a tight hug.

And he knew he should go back to grilling her, should be screaming about how she was supposed to be done – safe – and that she shouldn’t be here, should question what had happened…

But he indulged himself for just a moment. How could he not? Usually, the hugs he got from her were somewhat hesitant, tainted by the fact that her soul was just barely hanging back with its hands not touching him. They were both there now, for a reason he would get back to soon, but at the moment he was going to enjoy being crushed into her chest, her hands gripping the back of his suit so tightly he could feel her fingernails pricking his skin even through the fabric.

And it had been so long since he’d been able to touch her.

He pressed his face into her shoulder, giving himself a moment to just breathe. She smelled like blood. He hugged her closer. Some terrible part of him wanted to absorb her into his chest, to give her a place within his ribcage where he could make sure she wouldn’t be able to get hurt again.

Every hug has to end eventually, but neither of them seemed all that intent on doing so any time soon.

Which, he supposed, must have been why fate decided to break up their unfortunate little reunion:

“Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng?” A voice said from behind him.

Marinette went tense in his grip.

She slowly picked her head up, peering up at Gabriel Agreste for just a moment.

“It was you,” she said, recognition flickering behind her eyes. “I thought the timing of your heart attack was suspicious, but… it was really you…”

Jason was still close enough to hear her take a deep breath. It was strange, breathing when you were dead because it wasn’t actually necessary, it didn’t feel bad if you simply forgot and you wouldn’t have to gasp for air when you realized you had stopped, so he knew that the breath she took to steady herself was more out of habit than anything.

But, perhaps, because breathing wasn’t something that their bodies needed, the air didn’t have any kind of calming effects for Marinette.

She pulled away from Jason, got out of the chair, and flashed a too-bright smile.

And then she lunged for Gabriel’s throat.

Jason grimaced at the sound of a fist crunching against the man’s skin, definitely breaking something important.

Melisande eyed the fight that had broken out. “Aim for his penis.”

Bucky didn’t even look up from the papers he had taken from Jason’s desk to pick up the slack. “Too predictable. Go for the eyes.”

Those two never had gotten over the whole Hawkmoth situation.

But, to be fair, neither had Jason, so…

He hummed absently as he thumbed through the pages of Marinette’s file. His eyes found their way to the stats that he almost never paid any real mind to, and he grimaced.

She was set to be brought back within the hour. That was good.

What was less good was the way that she had died because of the League of Assassins. He narrowed in on the fortunately not too-graphic description of her bleeding out from several injuries.

He took a deep, steadying breath. The fact that she was there meant that she was set to be revived soon, so, really, no harm done.

Except for the harm that he was going to bring to the League. He was going to be revived soon, he would be perfectly capable of getting his revenge.

… actually…

“Hey, Marinette,” he said.

Her shoulders tensed at his tone. Her fist stopped in midair, still cocked by her ear. She slowly turned to look at him.

“I’m about to be brought back. You got killed at the League. Care to tell me whether that was a coincidence?”

Her mouth opened.

Closed.

Opened again.

She grimaced and looked back down at Gabriel, who was currently a mess of broken limbs and blood and rattling gasps for breath. She sighed and pushed herself off of him to face Jason properly. “Maybe.”

He groaned a little. “When we see Adrien again, we’re having a talk about risks.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey, we’re bringing you back. I think it’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

Jason did not know how to respond to that. He sighed and reached out, pulling her into another hug. “So are you.”

She giggled and wrapped her wings around him – her hands were very much covered in blood, so this was probably for the best – and he took a moment to appreciate them. He had expected the ladybug wings he had seen on all of the akuma victims, but he supposed it made sense that they would be different. She couldn’t very well revive herself. So, she had been given whatever wings the universe thought would fit her. Apparently, the universe thought she was a bird. One with bright pink wings, so perhaps a flamingo.

He opened his mouth to tell her about it, and perhaps ask why she had ended up with a flamingo being her animal, only for water to fill it.

And then his head was breaching the surface of the water.

He struggled for air, his body automatically starting to go through the motions needed to keep his head above the churning green, his eyes darting around desperately. He knew, logically, what had happened, but his heart pounded in his chest regardless.

Green light bounced off the cave walls. Shouts echoed around him, but they were muted, as if he was still under. The water frothed around them, churning as he worked to pull himself back together in a very literal sense.

There was a frankly alarming number of assassins standing by the edge of the water, refusing to go in on some vague idea that it was too sacred for them to touch, and certainly too good for them to throw weapons in in fruitless hopes that the three of them might somehow manage to die faster than the Pit could heal them.

Adrien stood over both of them. Water crept up his legs like snakes, twining its way up his body, seemingly searching for things to heal. A frankly worrying amount of throwing knives were tucked between his fingers like claws. His usual staff was slung across his back, but he didn’t seem all that interested in using it at the moment.

He heard a gasp nearby and looked over to find Marinette, her hair stuck to her face and blood sloughing off of her in literal waves.

Jason stretched out an achy limb to grab her arm and hook it over his shoulder, kicking back in the water to try and get them both to float while their injuries were forcibly healed.

For a moment, she leaned into him, her face coming to bury itself in his shoulder. She made a strange, wordless whining sound. He squeezed her as best he could.

And then she pushed off of him, groaning a little as she forced herself to stand in the water that, really, was only up to their waists, and yet the act of getting out of it was almost painful. He could feel tiny hands trying to drag him back under by his clothes.

It wasn’t until he was fully standing that his ears popped and he was allowed to hear all of the yelling in full.

“Weapon,” she said.

He blinked at her.

“What weapon do you want?” She clarified.

He glanced back at the assassins. They were yelling something that he was pretty sure meant ‘traitor’. It wasn’t aimed at him, but that only made the anger that had been curling in his stomach since he’d realized Marinette had been killed grow.

“Gun,” he decided. The assassins would get their wish, he would make sure that they wouldn’t touch the Lazarus waters, and if he had to use a gun to forcibly push them back then so be it.

Marinette grinned and pointed a finger gun at him. She flicked her hand upwards like she was shooting it, and, between blinks, he found a red and black gun had appeared in her hand.

He stared at the gun she shoved into his hand for a couple of moments. No matter how many times he might have seen it, he never did get used to the idea of things just popping into existence when she willed them to.

“Infinite ammo,” she said, apparently misinterpreting his silence for wondering how to use it.

He grinned regardless and lifted the pistol.

“So, do we have a plan of escape? Or are we just waiting for Ra’s to get here so he can fight us? Because I’m going to be honest, I don’t really want to fight him.”

Marinette snorted. “Of course we have a plan. Speaking of…” She inclined her head towards Adrien.

He tucked away half of his knives without saying a word and then lifted his hand. Inky blackness danced along his fingertips.

“Are we ready, M’lady?” He asked.

She hummed lightly and reached out, wrapping an arm around them both. She twirled her yoyo once.

And then she launched her yoyo at the nearest stalactite, only giving it a half second to grip the slippery stone before pulling on it.

They were launched through the air.

The people below them screamed, but it wasn’t quite an angry one, not the kind that meant they were going to be attacked. Not yet, at least. They just sounded panicked. Jason glanced back and found that the same inky blackness that had been curling around Adrien’s hand was now spreading through the water at a rapid rate, making it look somehow, impossibly, cracked. The assassins finally streamed into the Lazarus Pit, their need to preserve the sacred waters just barely outweighing their belief that it was not meant for them.

Meanwhile, their group of three touched down on the banks and took off running.

Marinette grabbed him by the hand and dragged him along behind her as she and Adrien sprinted through the halls of the base. Jason knew from the many briefings he had gotten from Bruce and Dick that the place was supposed to be a labyrinth, and he could see dozens of halls whizz past him as they sprinted, and his eyes caught on several tripwires, but neither of them hesitated at any forks in the path. They simply continued on, following a map that was just a little too perfect for him to think that they hadn’t done, at the very least, heavy infiltration to get to this point.

But before he could really think about that too hard, his eyes caught on a group of assassins streaming down the hall after them. Now they were definitely angry – and gaining on them, their weapons raised.

“Alright, I think the Pit should be destroyed now,” Adrien stated the obvious, flexing his fingers once before starting to trail them along the wall as they ran. The stone began to crumble beneath his hand, but the assassins pushed forward regardless, likely hoping to beat the inevitable cave-in.

Jason wasn’t particularly interested in letting that happen.

He picked off the assassins at the front with his gun. He hadn’t used one before, not really, but they weren’t particularly difficult things to use, and he wasn’t really concerned about being accurate. All he needed to do was slow them down, anyways.

He told himself he didn’t get a bit of a rush when he watched them keel over backward, blood and guts and viscera spraying from wherever he had hit. That he didn’t enjoy watching them get buried under rubble. That it was a bad thing that people were dying.

But, really, should you really expect someone that had been surrounded by magic for years to not pick up a few quirks?

And they had killed Marinette.

A strange grin spread across his face as the last of the rocks settled, dust sticking to skin that was wet with water and sweat and blood and who knows what else.

But they continued running. There was no telling how many assassins were stationed around the place and, even if they might be somewhat distracted, they didn’t want to test it.

Their fears were for nothing, it seemed, because they came upon a door.

And, well, he probably should have wondered why things were going quite so smoothly. Honestly, it should have been a larger red flag. That never happened in the field, especially not for him.

A hand grabbed him by the back of his shirt and he gasped as the front of it dug into his neck. He wasn’t given much time to recuperate, though, because a knife was quick to replace the fabric. It wasn’t pressed down, certainly not enough to strangle him like his shirt had, and yet he still couldn’t find it in himself to breathe.

Marinette and Adrien jerked to a stop as well, though they weren’t exactly forced to in the way that Jason had. Honestly, the way that they paused was somewhat unnatural. There was no loss of momentum, no skidding of shoes against the ground. One moment they were running, the next they were not. He wondered, idly, if the magic they wielded might be having just as much of an effect on them as it did on the rest of the world.

Could you tell that Jason was trying very hard to not think about the sharp point currently pressing against his skin?

“You’re traitors,” the assassin said, and apparently she was female. Whoo. Diversity win. The person about to kill Jason again is a woman.

He was going to cry.

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we are. Congrats on figuring it out. Do you want a prize?” she said, moving to raise her hand in sarcastic jazz hands.

“Don’t move,” the assassin hissed.

Something akin to frustration flickered across Marinette’s face momentarily, but she didn’t move. It was then that Jason noticed that her fingers were surrounded by some kind of strange, gooey substance. 

Adrien tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing just slightly. “How about we all let everything we’re holding go? I’m sure we can talk this out.”

The assassin seemed unimpressed. “You first.”

Adrien hummed a little, and then raised his hands, letting his knives clatter to the floor.

Marinette showed off empty hands.

The assassin seemed to realize that their being empty-handed meant nothing. Or, perhaps, that it did mean something – that their hands were now free to warp the world as they wished.

The knife dug further into his neck. He didn’t realize how much he liked the cold gleam of the metal until he could feel warm blood dripping down his skin.

“Disappointing,” Adrien sighed, giving a smile befitting of the model he once was. It was perfect, but there was nothing genuine about it, and his eyes flashed coldly.

“You were both talented. Fix the Pit and let me kill this boy, and you just might not make an enemy of the League.”

Marinette hummed, her head tilting to the side at a just slightly unnatural angle. She turned her head to look at Adrien, who seemed, remarkably, even less enthused than she did.

The assassin gave a theatrical sigh that didn’t quite cover up the cold smile starting to play across her features. “I suppose I’ll just have to make you fix it, then.”

Jason tipped his head back to rest against the woman’s shoulder. The knife followed him, but that wasn’t why he’d done it.

He pressed the gun against her side. Tilted at a careful angle that would, at the very least, puncture her lungs upon firing.

“Sorry. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

He pulled the trigger.

Pain seared through him and he bit down on his tongue to stifle a scream.

And then he was on his ass, groaning and cursing as he hit the tile. The world had transformed. His eyes darted around desperately, as if he somehow still wasn’t sure that he was dead even though he knew what a slash across the throat meant, but he was disappointed to find the same office walls that he had practically grown up in. Two people leaned over him, and tears began to sting as he recognized Melisande and Bucky.

“What, kid, did you forget something here?” Bucky asked, his expression somewhere between mildly pained and amused.

Melisande gave him a cold look and jabbed him in the side.

Bucky didn’t even seem to notice. He caught a file with a green tab sticking out of it in a practiced motion and, after giving him a tiny pat on the head, went back to work.

Jason scrambled to his feet, drawing red and black wings close to try and comfort himself. But he couldn’t. He was dead. Again. How long would he be there this time? Did he even want to know?

Fuck.

Everything he did brought him back here. His original life. Dealing with Hawkmoth. And now he couldn’t even escape properly. Every road always led to death, that was the price of living, but this was different. Every road for him led him back to purgatory. He strangled a sob. At least, if he died, things would be over, but now he had to go back to waiting. Until Marinette and Adrien were able to get back to the Pit, or maybe even later. Maybe he would have to wait for someone else to revive him, and surely that was worse. What if the face he saw when he was brought back wasn’t friendly? What if he got sent right back here again?

Damn it.

He curled in on himself, ignoring the fact that he was doing so in a public space and that everyone could still see him.

Melisande grimaced as she looked down at Jason. She pulled the boy to his feet and he simply allowed it, unable to muster the energy to really stop her. He wanted to cry, but that, at least, was too far for him. He could handle having a breakdown in the middle of an office building, but crying was worse.

But understandable.

Too bad he didn’t feel like understanding much at the moment.

He groaned and looked around. He was somewhat pleased to find Gabriel Agreste still on the floor. He was moving, but just barely. After a couple of moments, he walked over and stomped on the man’s neck. It didn’t matter, he was 99% sure people here couldn’t die, but the wheeze and wide eyes that he got from the man were more than a little relieving.

At least, if he was back here, he would be able to rag on Gabriel again. Fuck that guy. He deserved every punch and kick and extra file Jason was going give him over the next however many years.

He tried to laugh. It came out a sob.

Melisande reached a hand out for him, and then stopped, apparently thinking better of it.

Maybe she shouldn’t have, because the hand would have done him quite a lot of good. He nearly fell to the floor again, his hands coming down to rest on a nearby table were the only thing that kept his knees from buckling fully. He took a few deep breaths, matching the desperate gasps he could hear Gabriel make as the man clawed desperately at his throat. He couldn’t help but smile a little at the sound.

The smile, like his life, didn’t last very long.

He groaned and let himself sink toward the ground.

He closed his eyes.

And then the world around him tilted on an axis and he cried out.

Something rough, but not wholly terrible, dug into his back. He flung his eyes open, but it didn’t do him much good. Red and black danced in his vision, moving so fast that he wanted to be sick.

All at once, it all disappeared and he found himself staring into brilliant green eyes.

He stared uncomprehendingly for a few moments.

Oh.

Relief flooded into him.

Ladybug had summoned the gun he’d been using. Which meant that a miracle cure was more than possible. And, now that he thought about it, his wings had been black and red.

Maybe, later, he would feel embarrassed about his little freakout. He had been trained better, really, he was supposed to pay attention to his surroundings, and most certainly himself, but…

But, for now, he grabbed Adrien by the front of his shirt and dragged him into a hug.

Adrien made a quiet squeaking sound, throwing his hands out in front of him to stop himself from unwillingly tackling Jason further into the grass, but he recovered quickly. He looped his arms around him and tucked Jason’s head under his chin. The hug wasn’t quite as tight as the one he had gotten from Marinette, it was looser, softer. More of a hand carding through his hair and the faint smell of something floral on the breeze and slotting in perfectly against a slightly-too-thin frame.

“Guys…” Marinette said after a few moments. “We really should be going.”

Adrien didn’t even move, though his hand twitched like he was about to make a rude gesture but thought better of it. “No. You got a heartfelt hug or whatever, I get one, too.”

She rolled her eyes, but her expression was nothing but fond. “Fine. I’ll stand guard.”

Adrien gave a little hum, and Jason’s nose scrunched just slightly when his throat vibrated by his ear, but that just made the blond laugh a little and press closer to him.

Jason was pretty sure that they could have stayed there forever but, eventually, his stomach growled and his face flushed pink as he drew back. “Right. Revived. I have to have food now.”

Adrien gave a tiny grin and carefully got to his feet. He offered Jason his hand, and he didn’t even hesitate before taking it.

“Alright, Mari, you can relax now.”

Marinette popped out of a bush. Jason did not see her get into the bush, but she was out of it now. He has chosen to just accept this.

She grinned at him and stretched her arms over her head. “Where are we gonna eat?”

“Could you make something at the house?” Offered Adrien. “I’m sure Plagg and Tikki want to get out and eat, too.”

Marinette hummed lightly. “Fine. I’ll whip up some food before we abandon the place. Can we –?”

“No, we’re not going to burn the house down once we’re done with it.”

Marinette sighed and looked at Jason.

Jason hesitated before shrugging. “I mean. As long as its a controlled fire and there’s no one around to get hurt, I don’t see why we can’t...”

Adrien groaned. Marinette whooped.

There weren’t any hard feelings, though.

They started off towards their house. Their house, because this was home. Jason took them both by the hand, and neither of them so much as flinched. Marinette intertwined their fingers. Adrien swung their arms back and forth.

After a few moments, Marinette huffed. “I’m offended that you’re taller than me now.”

He, too, hated that he was so large. It was throwing him off more than he’d ever admit out loud.

However…

“Yeah. That’s because you’re my baby sister.”

“Listen here, you little shit –.”

“I spent years in the afterlife, so I’m older.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, biologically, I’m older –.”

“We don’t even know that for sure –.”

Adrien sighed. “Guys, we just got the gang back together… or whatever the Americans say… can we just enjoy being together for a couple of minutes?”

Marinette and Jason glared at each other around Adrien for a moment before settling. He was right, after all…

Adrien’s eyes gleamed. “But, for the record, you’re the youngest.”

“Ha!”

“Oh, you conniving bitch –!”

[fluffmonster31513]

there are two kinds of gender/sexuality headcannons:

1. “I’m going to try to keep this as close to canon as possible while still making room for my queer ships” (probably ends up with a lot of bi characters)

2. “ This female love interest who shows clear romantic affection towards the male protagonist? Yeah, she’s a lesbian. Suck my dick.” (ultimate respect)