#alya definitely hasn't been planning for this her whole life

[angelofthequeers]

Ladybug and Reine Nuit: Chapter 2

Origins II

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

If you don’t take the chance to spruce up Ladybug’s outfit, then what are you doing with your life?

Part 1 | Part 3 | AO3 link

For a moment, Alya is frozen, unable to do so much as breathe. The little cat yawns and stretches, then blinks, revealing brilliant green cat eyes.

“Uh –” Alya clears her throat and tries again. “Uh – what – guh?”

“Better than my last holder’s reaction,” the tiny cat drawls in a scratchy voice, then darts over to Alya’s computer. “Ooh, shiny! Can you eat this? No, you can’t,” he gags when he tries to bite a corner off the monitor.

“Um, hello!” Alya says in a high-pitched voice. “Less eating, more talking! What are you?”

This is all just a dream. It has to be. What other explanation is there for a talking cat appearing in her room?

“My name’s Plagg. I’m a kwami,” the little cat says. “I grant powers. Yours is the power of destruction. Got it?”

“Wait…” Something click’s in Alya’s brain and she shrieks and bounces on the spot. “You – powers – am I a superhero now?”

“Uh huh,” Plagg says. Alya squeals and snatches up the silver ring to slide it onto her right middle finger. “And no one can know I exist, you should have a partner to help out, yadda yadda, you know the drill. Seriously, you got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

“Omgomgomg yayayayayayay!” Alya throws herself into her blue beanbag chair, kicking and flailing. “I’m a superhero now! I get to go out and fight crime and save people and be badass and – and – wait.” She freezes and points out the window in the general direction of the giant stone monster. “Does that mean I have to fight that thing?”

“Uh huh,” Plagg says.

“How do I transform? Is there a magic word? Do I like – I dunno – do a dance or something?”

“You just gotta say claws out. Now, first thing you gotta know is –”

“Plagg, claws out!”

“Wait, I haven’t finished explainiiiiiing –!”

The ring on Alya’s finger pulses as Plagg is sucked into it, and she’s enveloped by bright green magic, cold and forceful and powerful. Although she’s not entirely sure why, she runs her fingers across her eyes from the bridge of her nose, then brushes a hand over her hair, then holds her other arm up in the air and does a twirl until the green sparkles fade away.

“Oh. My. God.” Looking down at herself, all Alya can see is shiny black leather. She rushes for her mirror, tripping over herself in her haste, and she lets out a high-pitched squeal of excitement when she catches sight of her reflection – her superhero reflection!

Her hazel eyes are now cat-like and bright green, with the whites of her eyes a paler green colour. Her features are concealed behind a black mask with two points above her eyes and one down her nose, like a cat nose and miniscule ears, and with a thin outline of neon green. She has fake black and green cat ears on her head, while her brown hair is pulled back into a bushy ponytail tied with a green ribbon, and she’s wearing a tight black suit with a high split neck and green trim, elbow-length bright green gloves, and thigh-high black boots with green around the tops. She’s also got a thin black belt around her waist that hangs behind her like a cat’s tail and a bright green cat’s paw on her chest, along with neon green cat paw pads on her black palms and fingers. A quick look at one of her boot soles confirms that her feet have the inverse: green soles and black paw pads.

No. Way. What. The. Heck. She looks just like a comic book superhero!

“This is the greatest day ever!” Alya grabs the baton resting at the small of her back and rushes over to her glass door to burst out on her balcony. She climbs onto the railing, takes a deep breath, then leaps.

“Wahooooo!” Alya shrieks before realising that she’s about two seconds from splatting on the road below. Acting purely on instinct, she shakes her baton to extend it into a staff and holds it above her head so that it catches on a street lamp, then grabs the other end with her other hand. The lamp acts as a hook, leaving her dangling, her vision blurring from the jarring force in her arms that should have dislocated her arms but strangely didn’t.

“Okay,” Alya groans, letting herself drop to the ground. “Lesson one: don’t go jumping off balconies two seconds after getting superpowers.”

She eyes up a nearby building, then looks at her staff, and then gives a rather shark-like grin. Using her staff as a vaulting pole and with the aid of what she can only assume are enhanced physical abilities, she manages to leap from the road to the roof of the building, letting out a hysterical laugh as the wind whooshes in her ears but the locks of hair hanging around her face magically stay put and don’t fall in her eyes.

“What else can this thing do?” she says. She frowns at a building across the street in the next block over, then throws her staff like a javelin and whistles when it nestles neatly against the other building, laid between that one and the one she’s on like a tightrope. “Should I? I mean…I can’t die if I fall, can I?”

There’s no response from Plagg. With a sigh, Alya gingerly places one foot on the staff, then the other, then thrusts her arms out on either side and ever so carefully inches across. Don’t look down, don’t look down…

“Hey, I think I’m getting it!” Alya says. Almost as if in response, there’s a shrill scream that steadily grows louder and louder, and Alya looks up just in time to catch sight of a red figure hurtling through the air before crashing into her. Thankfully, the figure has some sort of string-rope-thing that catches their fall and leaves them dangling in mid-air from Alya’s staff, bound front-to-front, although Alya’s currently too busy trying to coax her stomach out of her throat to really pay attention to what it is.

When they finally stop swinging from side to side and Alya manages to regain a few of her brain cells, she realises that it’s a yo-yo. And the wielder of the yo-yo is a girl who looks absolutely terrified.

“Uh…hi!” Alya grins. “Your first day too?”

“How could you tell?” the other girl says with a faint laugh, finally managing to untangle them. Alya nimbly lands on her feet, but the other girl is a lot clumsier and nearly crashes on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“No sweat, girl,” Alya says. “At least you didn’t nearly rip your arms out of your sockets.” She finally gets a good look at the other girl, who’s wearing a tight suit that’s red with black spots over her chest and upper arms, with a black abdomen, ladybug-patterned legs, and black elbow-length gloves and knee-length boots. Her jet-black hair is red-tipped and in pigtails, tied with red ribbons, and the eyes behind her ladybug-patterned mask are a brilliant shade of blue.

“Ouch,” the girl winces. “That sounds painful.”

“Oh, you bet.” Alya nudges the girl. “Anyway, you must be the partner my kwami told me about! I’m…hmm, okay, hold up. I gotta think of the perfect name!”

“I take it you’re a fan of superheroes?” the girl says.

“Am I ever! How about…Chatte Noire! Nah, too simple. I’m literally just calling myself ‘black cat’ in French.”

“Well, I’m Ma – er – Mar – uh…” The girl pulls her yo-yo free of Alya’s staff. Alya winces and groans when the end of it slams her on the head, but it also brings her staff down with it, so she bends down to grab it. “Madly clumsy! I’m so clumsy. And sorry. So sorry.”

“All good, clumsy girl,” Alya says. “I don’t have any more of an idea what I’m doing. Hmm…Patte d’Ébène? Ugh, no, that so doesn’t sound heroic. That sounds like some fancy rich meal.”

The ground beneath them suddenly rumbles, causing Alya to nearly trip over her own feet despite her enhanced reflexes. A tall building crumbles to the ground nearby, and Alya immediately starts running in that direction, using her staff to propel her to a nearby rooftop.

“Hey! Where are you going?” ladybug girl cries.

“Uh, to save Paris, right?” Alya calls back, then takes off again. “Dame Lune? Eh, that doesn’t feel right. Ugh, how does Majestia even do this?”

.

The stone monster turns out to be at the stadium, cornering one of Alya’s new classmates – Kim, judging by the monster’s cries.

“Hey!” Alya nimbly lands in front of Kim, shielding him from the monster. “Pick on someone your own size! Oh my god, that’s the actual cheesiest line. Can I have a do-over intro?”

“Huh?” the monster says. Rolling her eyes, Alya lets out a war cry and charges to slam her staff into the monster…and promptly gets her ass handed to her when it just grows bigger after she hits it and then flicks her away.

“Ow,” Alya moans. She untangles herself from the soccer net and runs at the monster again, but it lets out a rumbling, almost bored sigh and throws her into a row of seats around the stadium. Thank god for kwami superpowers, because otherwise Alya’s spine would totally be smashed to pieces right about now. On the other side of the stadium, at the very top, Alya spots the ladybug girl covering her mouth, making no attempt to jump in and help.

Okay, if Alya has to pull both their weights, she’s gonna be super pissed.

“You can do it, red bug hero!” calls a voice from nearby. Once she’s managed to extract herself, Alya pinpoints the source as the Adrien kid, who’s crouching near the entrance to the inside of the stadium, recording the fight on his phone with wonder in his eyes. Why is he even here? He hadn’t come along to P.E.; Alya distinctly remembers him asking to talk to Marinette back in the library.

Apparently, Adrien seems to have no sense of self-preservation, because he doesn’t move when the stone monster growls and rips up a soccer net, then hurls it in his direction. It’s purely instinct – adrenaline surges through her – Alya bounds across the stadium and throws her staff to catch the net above Adrien’s head. At the same time, a yo-yo comes hurtling out of nowhere, wraps itself around Adrien’s waist, and yanks him out of harm’s way so that Alya can retrieve her baton and let the net fall to the ground harmlessly.

“About time!” Alya says to ladybug girl.

“Sorry!” ladybug girl says. “I’m just…really not up to this.”

“You think I’ve had any experience before today either?” Alya says. “Let’s turn this guy into dust!”

“Kick his butt, awesome superhero girls!” Adrien calls from a safe distance.

“Excuse me, but the name’s…uh…Reine…Nuit…Reine Nuit! Yeah, Reine Nuit!” Alya – Reine Nuit – snaps her fingers. “Perfect!”

“Have you noticed now he grows bigger and stronger with every attack?” ladybug girl says. “We have to do something different.”

“Any ideas?” Reine Nuit says. Ladybug girl frowns.

“What’s your superpower?” she says.

“Uh…my superpower?” Reine Nuit says. “I mean, I’ve got super senses, this awesome staff –”

“No, no, you should have a special power!”

Reine Nuit blinks. “Shit. Maybe I should’ve let my kwami explain everything before I transformed.”

Ladybug girl snorts. “You think? I guess it’s up to me. Lucky Charm!” She tosses her yo-yo into the air and catches a ladybug-patterned wetsuit.

“Umm…handy?” Reine Nuit says. “So, uh, what’s the plan?”

“My kwami told me I have to break the object where the whatchamacallit – er, the akuma is hidden.”

“He’s literally made of stone,” Reine Nuit deadpans. “Unless you can figure out which rock –”

“His right hand!” Ladybug girl points. “It’s still closed! He never opens it. It’s like the Russian dolls – the object isn’t on him, it’s hidden in his fist!”

“Huh. Smart and cute.” Reine Nuit winks. “I reckon we’ll get along just fine. What’s your plan, red bug hero?”

“Hmm…”

Okay, Reine Nuit is eternally grateful that she didn’t end up with the Ladybug Miraculous. Ladybug girl’s plan involves sticking a hose into the Lucky Charm suit, yeeting Reine Nuit and then herself at the stone monster to make it drop the akuma, then getting Adrien to turn the hose on to inflate the suit and force the monster to let ladybug girl go. Once she’s free, ladybug girl smashes the dark object to bits, releasing a purple-veined butterfly that goes flapping off into the distance.

“Yeowch!” Reine Nuit cries when the stone monster dissolves into another classmate of hers and sends her crashing to the ground. “That. Was. So. Cool!”

“What’s going on?” the burly boy groans, rubbing his head, “What am I doing here?”

“You were incredible, red bug hero!” Reine Nuit gushes, jumping to her feet. “You did it!”

“Ladybug. Call me Ladybug. And we both did it,” ladybug girl – Ladybug – corrects. Purely by instinct, they punch at each other in a fist-bump, declaring, “Pound it!”

“Uh, what’s that?” Reine Nuit says when Ladybug’s earrings give off a loud beep.

“We’ve only got five minutes after we use our power before we transform back,” Ladybug says. “You should go. Our identities must remain a secret!”

“Yeah, yeah, first rule of superheroing,” Reine Nuit says. She bounds away, calling, “Until next time!” over her shoulder.

In the high of defeating a real live supervillain, Reine Nuit doesn’t realise that she’s forgotten to get one crucial detail from Plagg: how to turn back into herself. It’s not until she’s in her room that it hits her.

“Crud,” she says. “Uh…claws out? Detransform? Back to Alya?”

Nothing happens.

“I can’t be like this forever!” Reine Nuit cries. “I mean, not that I’d hate being a superhero forever, but I have a life and a family, and everyone will know who I am if I don’t turn back and –” She groans and facepalms. “That’ll teach me to rush ahead without listening to the magic black cat.”

Pouting, she slumps on her bed, fiddling with her ring, which is now black with a tiny green cat’s paw. She wriggles it off her finger, then gasps when she’s enveloped in bright green light that devours her suit and leaves her as just plain Alya again.

“Oh,” Alya says. “Uh…that should’ve been obvious.”

“Next time, you might wanna try not rudely interrupting me,” Plagg says when he’s zipped out of the ring and sprawled across Alya’s bed. “Claws in to detransform, by the way.”

“Right. Sorry.” Alya sits down on the bed next to the tiny kwami. “So, uh…what’s my superpower? If Ladybug’s is Lucky Charm –”

“Cataclysm.” Plagg says. “Destroys anything you touch. One-time use before you turn back. I’m so hungry!”

Alya blinks at him.

“What?” he says sullenly. “I gotta keep my strength up somehow. No food for moi, no more superhero for toi.”

“Ugh, fine,” Alya says. “Wait, what do you even eat, anyway?”

Plagg’s eyes light up. “Camembert! Beautiful, rich, stinky Camembert!”

“…Great.” Alya facepalms. “Now I’m gonna stink of cheese. Well…small price to pay for being a superhero, I suppose.” The words send a thrill through her.  

“Damn right,” Plagg says. “Where’s my Camembert?”

“Alright, cat face,” Alya sighs, pushing herself back to her feet. “Wait here. I’ll get your icky cheese.”

Plagg’s cheers follow her out of the room. She pauses outside her door, shakes her head, then smiles and heads for the kitchen. Alya Césaire is now a superhero! Who would’ve ever dreamt that this would happen to her?

[bigfatbreak]

okay so i absolutely adore the feralnette au, and i was just wondering what's up with mari's crush on adrien? like is she over him and moved on to felix? or is she sort of in love with both? or did she never like adrien that way in this au? (also i assume that adrien is over LB and is now head over heels for Marinette right?)

hihi, thanks for the ask! I'm gonna put this under a readmore because its a lot of word vomit lmao

Marinette still has feelings for Adrien, but they're... hesitant. Not because Adrien has done anything explicitly wrong, but just because he's basically a huge neon reminder of what she can't have and what she has to protect. She doesn't hate him, but he's also among the numbers who Marinette is keeping her distance from. She has to, to keep up the act and convince Hawkmoth she has nothing left to lose.

She hasn't really 'moved on' to Felix either - she definitely has feelings for him, but it's a very different angle than how she fell in love with Adrien. No one ever really falls in love the same way twice after all, and Felix is so DIFFERENT she struggles finding a way to convince herself to keep her distance. (it doesn't work. Felix is a selfish creature at heart and will bully her with his friendship until she accepts it.)

Adrien also isn't over Ladybug, but as things escalate, Chat Noir becomes less of an escape of his life and more like a whole new set of problems, and he's having trouble... coping with that. He's supposed to hide behind Chat Noir to show what he really feels, but now Chat Noir has to kick it into overdrive to protect people from Hawkmoth. Suddenly, the domino mask he'd been using to siphon some freedom from his debilitating life has its OWN brand of problems that keep him awake at night. His escapism has turned backwards.

Adrien finds himself searching for support other than Ladybug, because its becoming clear they're both... exhausted. And of course there's fangirls around every corner ready to fawn over him, and that's not the same, and there's of course his classmates, and Nino, and Alya - but none of them seem to really GET how much pressure he's under. They are, after all, a bunch of teens who want to be superheroes and talk about superheroes like they're detached from the situation, because they are.

And then, there's Marinette, who's withdrawn and cranky lately - but she's punctual and honest with him even then. She's not expressly rude to him, because Marinette doesn't have the heart to be rude to someone she was (is?) in love with, but Adrien finds himself hugely relaxed around someone who seems to have absolutely no agenda wrapped around him. For someone like Marinette, a designer, befriending an Agreste would be SUPER influential, but she seems to want nothing to do with the brand. That makes him feel safe. The fact that she's friends with Felix, someone who also wants nothing to do with the Agreste brand and is only (kind of) friends with Adrien through proximity and sheer sympathy, that makes him feel safe too.

Marinette's barrel arms help with that, too, honestly. It's hard not to feel safe around a girl who can and HAS SHOWN to protect her loved ones with physical prowess alone.

Essentially, Adrien DOES have a big crush on Marinette, though he doesn't know it, and its because her whack-ass plan is working: he feels safe around her. She's never been akumatized and the chance of her being corrupted is basically zero, she's shown she doesn't care about Hawkmoth's threats and will call him out on his bullshit, and she's secretly still very tender and does things like anonymously leave gifts for people. Adrien doesn't need to feel safe in the way that he needs to defend himself, but he likes feeling safe socially. Marinette doesn't seem to care what anyone says about her, but will go out of her way to step into a situation where someone's uncomfortable, and for someone who's lived in the spotlight, literally and figuratively, his own life, that's such a god damned relief.

Now, that doesn't mean its a really... good idea for him to fall in love with her because of that, but feelings don't listen to logic and the good boy is under a lot of stress. I promise he would be trying to be closer to Marinette if Lila wasn't hanging off his elbow all the time, and he would rather himself be uncomfortable than pull Lila into Marinette's personal bubble just to hang out with a lady who's thighs are thicker than his torso lmao

[chicoriii]

Season 4, Episode 9 - Gabriel Agreste

It hasn't been planned at all, but today I had time to watch Gabriel Agreste and write a post (as it should not take nearly as much time as I needed to write that one about Ephemeral). This is absolutely a good episode, probably even the best in the whole season in my opinion (though that's really not a big accomplishment), but it won't make to my Top 10 favourites of the entire show. I would definitely enjoy it more if it was fully in a more serious tone, the silly parts are not not fitting much here in my opinion.

Besides, I expected that this episode will be at least a bit about the father-son relationship, we will see the reason why Adrien seems to start distance himself from his dad this season. I thought Gabriel would do something really terrible for him, even worse than usual, but not, it was just usual Gabriel towards his own son, who doesn't let him to have fun with his friends. So if Adrien is really distancing from his father (we can never be sure if things are really happening in this show or not, knowing how much inconsistent it is this season), it's maybe more because he is more and more sick of how much disrespectful his parent is.

Geez, I really don't like classic Disney movies, the fandom made me sick of the trope "Adrien is a Disney princess" ages ago already. I think saying that he is like one of those passive princess from fairytales is an insult. That's why I highly disliked the whole scene about it.

Marinette started pursuing Adrien again even sooner than it seemed before. So we just got another evidence that the whole "I can't have a boyfriend as long I'm Ladybug" was really only a cheap for two episodes that ever existed just for one reason: to make her tell secret identity to Alya, that's not something which has ever been intended to have an actual impact on the protagonist. That's so annoying and sad that Marinette is not developing to be a better person, she is only getting worse this season: more reckless, less responsible etc. Also Alya hasn't learnt anything despite all those failures throughout the whole shows, that all complicated plans "how to make Adrienette happen" don't work and they will never work. She also completely forgotten the reason why her best friend has been as much weak when she told her she is Ladybug in the first place. So the thing that annoyed me in her the most in previous seasons (forcing Marinette to confess to Adrien or to be close to him when she's not ready) is still present.

That was the weakest disguise that Marinette has ever had. Even Marino from Part Crasher was much better, there she was wearing a full set of mustache with glasses and big nose, as well as a helmet. This is typical silly Miraculous disguise and I should not make a big deal from it, but they could have tried a bit more.

I can imagine that Chloé fans are upset that this episode made her an evil person. Personally I don't care much about her anymore (also thanks to her fans), but I also think it's too much. I didn't think that she is able to make something that would make Adrien's life completely miserable. She definitely has to be aware how much he wants to go to school.

With all those guests wearing dark costumes, I had a feeling that Gabriel is holding a funeral banquet the whole time, only white masks and dances didn't fit to that. ;) By the way, I really liked the music during dances, it was like a spooky jazz, very cool!

I didn't expected to ever see Félix this season at all before getting a glimpse of him in the thumbnail of the video with this episode, because I felt it would be too nice to get him, knowing as much they ignoring the characters those are not needed (Lila!!!). I knew someone from the creators has confirmed that he will return, but I expected him no sooner than in season 5. I'm happy with this. I didn't know what to think about Félix exactly as a character seeing him just his debut episode. This one makes him definitely much more interesting, maybe even on a par with Lila. They both could make a good villain duo. Better not a romantic couple, just two persons who is working together only to get what they want.

At first I thought they made Félix too smart, as in this show it's very hard to discover identities of Miraculous users. He doesn't know Gabriel and Shadow Moth well enough to make a connection as easily as Alya did with Carapace. Since the actual reason why Alya knew it is that Nino acted exactly the same as a superhero, as he is in civilian life, and she spent enough time close to Carapace to notice it. But then I realized that firstly he probably wasn't sure. He was only theorizing that Gabriel could be a supervillain, seeing that he is hiding two brooches under a tie. That's definitely suspicious and he is aware how awful his uncle is, he is a believable candidate to be a bad guy. Also it seems he had to know the powers of the Miraculous very well. Félix had to know that Shadow Moth is able to create a sentimonster of his civilian self, otherwise he would not try to rip his pants. Also Gabriel made a big mistake, showing him he isn't hiding Miraculous under his tie. Now I can't wait to Félix appearing again and see the consequences of him knowing the villain identity. Most probably we will need to wait to the next season. I want him to be seen more than once per a season, and it could happen if he becomes a new villain who is using a Miraculous in season 6.

The scene in which Gabriel was threatening Félix was definitely my favourite in the whole episode. We rarely see this show in as much serious tone.

It was nice to finally see a decent akuma battle. But the thing I liked about it the most was Kagami trying to battle Senticollector without being trapped immediately. Despite she is still angry at Adrien, she cares about his safety and she truly wants him to be just happy (as we've seen in Glaciator 2).

After Dearest Family we knew that Collector is going to reappear, since otherwise Gabriel would not have gotten his magical charm. But I was almost sure that real Gabriel would be akumatised, since I didn't think that charm which sentimonster got would work with a real person, as they should count as two separate beings. I still don't think it should really work, but that's not a big deal, so I can ignore it even if it's a plot hole. There're already too many much more significant issues with this show.

After writing this post and reseeing few scenes of it, I feel more convinced that it's my favourite episode of all season 4. And I really doubt I will enjoy more any of the remaining six. It's one of very few episodes that I will really willing to see more times and I'm looking forward to watch it in Polish dubbing (though I still haven't seen anything from S4 in my native language yet). I remember seeing someone worrying that Gabriel Agreste is going to be a filler, thankfully it definitely wasn't.

If there are no that the most stupid Marinette's disguise and the whole "Make Adrienette happen" plot, I would rank it much higher. It somewhat killed the atmosphere of the episode, besides Marinette's presence in the Agreste mansion wasn't even needed for anything. I think they wanted her to be there only because she is the protagonist. Instead of that redundant things, more Adrien (there wasn't much of him), father-son relationship content and a proper Kagami-Adrien scene would fit much better.