#and is on hawkmoth’s side but even though i love the idea of it depressed adrien wasn’t written very well

[snipstheskeleton]

the reason i like your stuff so much is because it feels like the characters in the show. i’ve read multiple different ml fanfics and i like yours the best because i feel like you write the characters perfectly especially adrien in open my eyes. based off of what i’ve read depressed adrien is difficult to get right but you do and that’s why i love open my eyes so much

“I like the way you write the characters, it’s sooo much better than that shit way the writers of the show write them” is a compliment that’s very confusing to receive as someone who likes the way the characters are written in the show and is trying to mimic it

[goggles-mcgee]

Too Late: Tom & Sabine (Commission for miner249er)

This is a sequel to Revolt of the Akuma, also a commission from @miner249er this will be multichaptered! 

Summary: Sequel to Revolt of the Akuma. How Paris and everyone there deals with Marinette’s akumatization and the many things born from it.

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Business was slow but that somehow became the normal for Tom and Sabine, at first they resented it, they truly were busy bodies and they loved to work, needed to work, but then Marinette was akumatized and disappeared. Their baby girl was gone and it felt like there truly was nothing they could do about it. The worst part was they hadn’t even realized she was the akuma at first, they didn’t know things at school had been so bad that Hawkmoth was able to take advantage of their little Baguette’s emotions, and they hadn’t been there to help her through it. Their days seemed routine now, they would wake up at 3 AM instead of their regular 4 AM because of the guilt and the nightmares, they would prep the kitchen then Tom would start on the bread with his father Roland helping out since everything had taken its toll on Tom and he started to become forgetful in things to do with the bakery, even his timing was off. Meanwhile Sabine would attempt to do her morning meditation. The meditation was never successful nowadays because she truly could not clear her mind or calm her heart and memories of Marinette both good and bad would surface and she would be thrown into a fit of sobs that Gina tried her best to help calm. 

Roland learned the hard way that he no longer could hum his and his son’s song while making bread as it had reminded his son too much of Marinette and the larger man would break down in tears if he even heard the slightest bit of the song. He would call out for his daughter while hugging whatever he had in his hands close to his chest. Roland had never been the most affectionate of father’s, he wasn’t even affectionate with his wife, but when he broke down like that, Roland felt the urge to just hold his boy and comfort him. It pained him to see his son in so much pain, but Tom and Sabine were strong people and they picked themselves up in order to get through the day. 

Well, they tried their best and really that’s all anyone expected of the grieving parents. The day Marinette was akumatized and disappeared had been a normal day for them and maybe that’s what filled them with so much guilt. Their bakery was always busy and that was something they took pride in, before Marinette was born, the bakery had been their baby. They made it, helped and watched it grow, and they got to see it flourish. It was a lot of work and sometimes they would just get into this work zone where nothing else could grab their attention. Working with so many ovens and having to prepare so many things, there was only so much you could multitask before your brain felt full. Though those were only excuses, they had been neglecting their daughter and hadn’t realized it. Marinette knew how much they loved their bakery and how busy it could get and she always seemed to understand but now looking back on it maybe she had just pretended to be fine with it all. They tried their best to always ask how her day was when they would all have dinner together, but Tom would be the first to admit that sometimes even that just became routine rather than actual curiosity about their daughter’s day. 

They had deluded themselves into believing that Marinette’s world was rose tinted, and they had taken comfort in the lie. Maybe they truly just wanted to believe that Marinette was their always smiling baby girl and she had no problems to worry about because it would be easier to deal with than the reality. When Marinette had become fascinated with fashion and that fascination grew, Sabine and Tom had been happy and supportive of their daughter, yes their hearts hurt a bit since they had hoped that maybe she would take over the bakery for them, but then they noticed how much time her designing took up. It hurt to think about now but Sabine could remember thinking that it was a blessing that Marinette was distracted and busy because it meant they had more time for the bakery. The more they remembered their shortcomings, the more they felt. They felt too much now after not being able to for so long because of Hawkmoth.

After having to shut down any and all negative emotions, finally being able to express them was like breaking a dam. Crying was never just a little tears, it was always these heart wrenching sobs and it could be for the littlest of things like a broken toy or missing a bus. Anger, now anger was the scariest in everyone's opinion, once someone started yelling it was like they couldn’t stop, they would break things, maybe hoping to see a butterfly, then there was the crying. Everything ended in tears. Anger came quickly nowadays, more so than sadness, though maybe they worked hand in hand now. Tom had found himself more on the depressed side of things, everything made him miss his little Baguette, sometimes he still expected to hear her footsteps racing down from her room and out the door with a shout because she was running late. Sabine on the other hand, everything just made her angry, every little thing. She would even snap at Tom but she would immediately apologize because she knew it wasn’t his fault. If anything she was angry at herself, angry at the school, at Hawkmoth, Hell, even at their bakery.

 Some days she hated waking up to the work and the mingling, there were times where she was so close to just begging her husband to closing the shop for a while and taking a break or maybe closing it permanently. She hadn’t decided yet, but she just told herself to hold on, just hold on till their closing period or ‘vacation time’ as Marinette would say. Perhaps that was the reason why she wasn’t really giving it a serious thought, the whole giving up their boulangerie idea. It held memories, both good and heart-aching, of Marinette. Sabine would never talk about those memories with anyone but family now, but everytime she was working she couldn’t help but look over at their ‘Artisan Boulanger’ sticker at their storefront that was slightly crooked because Tom had been putting it on when Sabine had told him she was pregnant and he had slipped in shock and the sticker was forever a bit crooked. She couldn’t help the way her hands would clench over a box or bag when giving a customer their things, Marinette had designed them and each time she handed them over it felt like she was giving away a little piece of her daughter each time. 

“Have a wonderful day.” Sabine muttered to the latest customer of the day not even caring that her voice came out monotone.

“You as well! Merci Madame.” The young boy who had come in thanked her but Sabine just watched impassively as he hurried over to his friend. “Dude can you believe it? We get to eat pastries that the Protector ate!”

“Correction, we get to eat pastries that Ladybug ate.” His friend responded.

“That hasn’t been proven yet. That’s all just speculation man.” The first boy laughed as they made their way to the door and Sabine had to take in a deep breath or else she might have thrown something. How dare they come into their shop and talk about their daughter as though she wasn’t a person. How dare they treat her akumatization as some spectacle for them to worship and admire. How dare them all.

“Speculation? You are sorely mistaken bro, look at all the evidence! I’ll send you all the links then you’ll see.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Sabine just stared at the young men even after they had left until she no longer could make them out. This. This was why she no longer wanted the bakery, it no longer held the same joy it had when Marinette was there and Sabine and Tom hadn’t even known it until she was gone. 

“Bonjour Madame.” Sabine was ripped from her musings by another customer walking in, a regular in fact, Mlle Josephine Bernard. She had been coming to their boulangerie since they first opened and had always been very kind to Marinette. In fact, she commissioned Marinette a few times as well.

“Bonjour Joséphine." Sabine greeted with a small smile, the most she could manage.

“One rhubarb tart please and a pain de campagne. I’m making stew tonight and my fiance loves when I pair it with your bread.” Joséphine said with a kind smile as she took out her money and change and placed it on the saucer on the counter.

Sabine couldn’t help the soft chuckle that escaped, Joséphine always had exact change and honestly it was a welcome habit to Sabine. “Are you going to share the tart for dessert? It is small, are you certain you would like just one?”

“Oh no, that’s just for me. Our little secret okay?”

“Your secret is safe with me.” Sabine promised as she swiftly gathered Joséphine’s order, once she made her back to the counter to hand everything to the woman she was caught off guard when said woman placed her hand on top of Sabine’s.

“How are you holding up Sabine?” 

First instincts were yelling at her to lie, to say everything was fine despite everyone knowing it was not, but another part of her was yearning for reassurance that wasn’t from her husband or his parents. “I...I’m trying. But it’s hard. It’s hard when people come in and talk about my daughter as if she’s this thing that is more than human, more than just a teenager. They don’t even say her name anymore. Tom and I have had to move and lock away her things because...because people have broken in and stolen her belongings in order to steal or collect them. The police have been no help on that front. They told us to just get better locks. As if it is our fault that people are breaking in.” Sabine took in a shaky breath before continuing, “We get people who leave “gifts” instead. They are letters to Tom and I, accusing us of abusing Marinette...of neglecting our baby. They seem to think we don’t care about what happened to her Joséphine. We’ve had to replace some windows after one incident with a rock and some spray paint.”

“Oh my goodness Sabine! I’m so sorry. You and Tom don’t deserve any of that.” Joséphine gasped out, but Sabine wanted to argue that maybe they did. “That is just cruel and disgusting. If you two ever need anything please don’t hesitate to ask, or if you just need to talk or get out of the house for awhile, call me okay? Things...things will get better.”

“Merci Joséphine...maybe I’ll take you up on that. Enjoy your treats and tell me how Stephan likes everything okay?” Sabine responded after a while.

“I will...I will keep you and Tom and Marinette in my prayers. Merci Madame.” Joséphine said before leaving. 

Sabine’s movements felt robotic as she walked over to the door, locked it, and flipped the sign letting everyone know they would be closing for lunch. It was a small mercy that they were already at the middle of their day. Thankfully Roland and Gina would have lunch ready for them, they had been so helpful through everything but sometimes Sabine couldn’t help but feel like even they blamed Tom and Sabine for what happened to Marinette. Sabine knew how much Gina adored Marinette and she could see how much getting to know Marinette had meant to Roland, to have their granddaughter gone so all of a sudden, they too were grieving in the way they best knew how. They parented and distracted themselves with helping out Tom and Sabine as much as they could, that would be why they were staying with them. She knew how Roland was about them being late to lunch so Sabine made her way to the kitchen to see Tom baking but it looked like he was doing everything on autopilot, she wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t even heard Joséphine come in. 

“Tom. Sweetheart. It’s lunchtime, let’s go eat with your parents.” She mumbled as she placed a soft hand on Tom’s shoulder stopping him from decorating the last of the cupcakes he had made. 

“Oh...Lunchtime already?”

“Yeah. Here let me put those on display then we’ll head on up.” She took the tray of cupcakes gently from him and went out to the front again to put them on display where she saw several people looking in their shop. She decided to just ignore them...and the camera flashes, though maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pull the security gates down just while they were upstairs for lunch. In fact that’s exactly what she did. “Ready to head up dear?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, ready. Let’s go eat. It’s been a long morning.” Tom said with a small smile. She felt like it was more for her benefit but she still appreciated it all the same. Once they went upstairs they went through the motions of eating lunch and if someone asked Tom and Sabine what they had eaten, they wouldn’t have been able to answer, but they gave the obligatory remarks of, “This is so good thank you,” and,” So good. Maybe you can make it again sometime.” Maybe Roland and Gina saw through them, they probably had and the fact they made no comment about it truly was a blessing. As a way to avoid conversation if they needed to Sabine turned on the television and it just so happened to be the news.

“And as promised viewers video footage of The Protector in action. This footage was donated to us by an anonymous source who had happened upon The Protector out in the open when she was akumatized. I want to warn everybody, the footage may be shocking to some viewers. Roll the clip please.” Nobody spoke. How could they? Sure they knew people still had some weird fascination with their daughter and granddaughter’s akumatization but the news stations had stopped reporting on it or at least they thought they had. Nadja certainly hadn’t given them a heads up about this little ‘special’ of theirs like she had done previously, and yet here they were watching her and Alec talking about their daughter and they wouldn’t even say her name. She has a name. Sabine robotically pressed on the remote to see more info on the program and had to swallow back bile, ‘The Protector Really Paris’s Protector?’ that was the title and already Sabine could feel her anger rising. She didn’t bother reading the summary, she already knew what this special was about.

 She watched as her daughter, her baby girl, bent down in a patch of butterfly bushes crying her eyes out, sobbing out her hurt for anyone and everyone to hear. Her baby, even in the distance of the camera, looked so angry, so torn, she should never had to have felt like that. The video continued on with this person slowly zooming in on Marinette and Sabine had to wonder why this person was recording at all. She could never understand people’s obsessions with filming akumas, at least many filmed from a distance other than Alya and sometimes Nadja but it was always after the fact the person was akumatized. Maybe that’s why this particular video was bothering her so much, this person, whoever they were, they were filming her daughter breaking down because they knew at any moment she would be akumatized or, and the idea made her sick to her stomach, they were hoping she would be akumatized. They were hoping for a chance to have a video go viral, maybe they weren’t  but that’s the only thing that Sabine could rationalize why they would be filming her teenage daughter in the first place.

The video was a bit shaky as it seemed like the person filming didn’t want to be seen even though there was no one else there. Sabine hadn’t realized she started crying until she felt the tears hit her hand. She hated seeing Marinette in pain and her not being able to comfort her. She, her husband, and his parents watched with bated breath as they saw an akuma finally fly into frame and slowly make its way towards Marinette. Sabine wanted to shout out a warning, do something, but she  knew it was pointless and that just made the tears fall more. Everyone watching could tell that Marinette hadn’t noticed the akuma at all as she was still sobbing and wailing, Sabine could feel Tom squeeze her hand and she squeezed his right back. Then the akuma landed and merged but that wasn’t the shocking part, they had to watch their daughter stare at nothing with too-wide eyes and the familiar symbol of Hawkmoth over her face sit there as dozens...no, maybe hundreds of butterflies, white butterflies surrounded Marinette and landed on her body. 

Then a bright light flashed, it was so unlike any akumatization anyone had seen, the butterflies were gone but if you looked closely at the fading light surrounding Marinette you could see the faint flutter of wings. Then she stood up, the Protector stood up. Sabine sobbed and not for the first time cursed at her daughters classmates, they had been around Marinette the most, they knew her daughter, she did everything for them and yet they treated her like that. To the point of akumatization. Sabine prayed that her little girl wasn’t actually Ladybug like it was speculated, even if it made sense, because that would mean her daughter had been suffering through more than just everything going on at school and really, Sabine wasn’t ready to face all of that just yet.

“Now before we discuss everything in that video I will say we do have many more to share so stay tuned Paris!”

Next Chapter

[itsmeevie01]

Bio!Dad Bruce Day 5-Overprotection

After Marinette had cried herself out, Bruce guided the duo back into the kitchen. Alfred sent them all a smile before he vacated the room. On the table were four cups of hot chocolate and some of the croissants that Marinette had made during her panic that morning. When they had all settled, Bruce turned to his daughter. “Marinette, are you willing to talk about it?” The girl hunched slightly, before she looked over at him with red eyes.

“I, I can try.” She looked off slightly, seemingly focusing on the cabinets.

 “At the beginning of August, there was a storm in Pairs. I think it made it on the news. Internationally, I mean. But… it wasn’t a storm. It was…it was this- “Here, Marinette’s voice broke and she paused to collect herself. “it was my friend. She had been turned into, into, into a- “Dick pulled her into a hug, and let the girl collect herself.

“Net, if you need to stop, we won’t push you.” His reassurance was received with a nod.

“No, I, I can do this.” She took a deep breath. “My friend was turned into a villain because she was upset about loosing a competition. After that, we learned very quickly that someone was turning people into, into Akumas- “both Bruce and Dick jumped at the venom in her voice. “My class has almost all been turned at one point or another. In Paris, we all have to be happy. We aren’t allowed to be upset, we aren’t allowed to have a bad day, we aren’t allowed to feel!” Bruce stared at her; his face carefully blank as he processed the information. A noise in the doorway drew their attention and the trio turned to see Tim standing there. He looked shocked and the tremor in this hand as he came to join them made it clear that he had heard what Marinette had said.

“Little Bit, hey, I’ve got you” as he had moved to sit down, Marinette had thrown herself at him. As the girl hugged her brother, the others present in the room glanced at each other. Their worry was clear, and if they had their way, the girl would be staying in Gotham until this threat was neutralized.

“Who is fighting these… Akumas?” Dick’s question snapped Marinette’s attention in his direction, and she paused before responding,

“Ladybug and Chat Noir have been fighting them for the last five months. And its not the Akumas that are the worry, it’s their master Hawkmoth.”

To say that Bruce was pissed would be an understatement. Why was it that he hadn’t heard about this? Even more worrying, why hadn’t the League heard about this villain who basically boiled down to an emotional terrorist. With shaking hands, he called Sabine, intent on getting answers.

He wasn’t sure what he thought he was going to hear, but shock that Marinette wasn’t handling the situation like Sabine thought she should be not what he was expecting. When he had proposed keeping Marinette with him, Sabine had given a firm no, claiming that their daughter had to get her emotions under control. She hadn’t had any trouble before, why should this be any different.

When Bruce had gone to talk to Marinette about his idea, she had given him a firm “no” as well. As much as she loved her father, she claimed that she couldn’t abandon her friends and family back in Paris.

That evening after dinner when he went to talk to Dick about what he had dug up while Bruce had been on the phone, he was shocked at the security that Duck had to enlist Tim to break for them to even have references in the first place. Once they had gotten inside however, they entered a world much different than the one that was presented to them before. The look they got inside of Paris reminded Bruce more of Gotham than he would like to admit.

After being told that he could not keep his youngest in Gotham (Her argument boiled down to the fact that neither city was truly that safe…) Bruce tried to hire a bodyguard. When that didn’t work, he started to drop suggestions for forms of self-defense. Eventually, Marinette had to look him dead in the eye and threaten to leave on the first flight out of the city of he didn’t drop it.

Over the next week, Tim and Marinette started to spar under Dick’s watchful eye to pacify Bruce, but the man didn’t truly feel any better, until his daughter huffed and offered to put a tracker in her phone that he could use to keep an eye on her. She also pointed him to two blogs that she said were pretty reliable. One, The LadyBlog was run by a girl who, in Bruce’s mind, took too many risks. The other one, The Lady’s Spots, was run by the girl that Marinette had said was turned because of losing a competition.

 After that, the topic fell on the backburner. They did, after all have Christmas to celebrate. The day was spent with the entire family converging on the house. Jason and Steph made appearances, and Barbra Gordan showed up as well. The day after, when the Kents had stopped over for a visit, Bruce had pulled Clark off to the side, and brought him up to speed on what he knew of the situation. Partway through the festivities, as he was working to keep Clark for flying straight to the French city, Marinette got a notification on her phone that sent her tearing out of the room. When she had left the room, Tim and Bruce also had their phones go off. When they went to check, they found Akuma alerts and directions for civilians filling up both blogs. An hour and a half later when Marinette came back down, looking more than slightly angry, the others were quietly talking about the fight they had witnessed. When Clark had gone to ask her questions, the girl deflected, citing the fact that it was a holiday (even though it was technically the day after) and therefore they would not discuss depressing topics.

After Marinette returned to Paris, it was not uncommon for Bruce to have at least one of the blogs up in the background, grasping at straws, trying to find a way to help his little girl.

Heyyy

so the plan is, once this month is over, ill go back and fill in the big important days that im glssing over. right now, however, im trying to start on that plot that i mentioned. im not sure hoe long it’ll take me to the plot fleshed out, but it’ll probably carry out into a bit of october.

in other news, its Labor Day Weekend for me and that means that im going to have zero free time. each day will be posted, but dont be surprised if they are pretty short for a few days.

[dessarious]

Broken Harmony Pt8

This parts a bit on the short side because I’m trying to keep up with posting everyday but the need for sleep is getting in the way lol. I promise I’ll get some longer updates this weekend though.

Master List 1   Master List 2    Prologue   Beginning   Previous   Next

There’s complete silence for close to five minutes before Sabine stands up and walks slowly to the door.

“Maman?” Marinette’s tone was questioning but her song held an edge to it.

“I’m just going to call the school and tell them you won’t be returning.”

“Maman.”

“And set up an appointment to talk to your principal and teacher first thing in the morning.”

“Maman.”

“I promise I won’t yell. And I’m not saying anything until tomorrow about why we’re pulling you out.”

“Maman.” Every time the word came out of her mouth it was more and more exasperated. “Can you please wait until school is out? The principal will still be there and it’s less likely rumors will start flying immediately after you hang up.” She sounded tired, and not physically. Sabine was frowning but it looked to be at her own thoughts more than her daughter. 

“Alright, I’ll wait.” She went to the kitchen instead and grabbed more tea as well as snacks for all of them. 

“In the meantime, perhaps you could tell us more about your heroes. I wasn’t even aware Paris had any before we got here.” There was an implied question in Bruce’s statement and Damian was happy he wasn’t the only one wondering how they didn’t know.

“We hear that a lot from tourists.” Tom sat back in thought. “I know the Mayor is doing his best to keep the media contained so it doesn’t affect tourism. “ Sabine rolled her eyes in obvious annoyance. “But to be honest I think either Hawkmoth or Ladybug’s powers are a big part of it.”

“What makes you think that?” The question came from Marinette. There was a sharp edge to her song. It almost seemed like panic. Her father didn’t seem to notice anything and shrugged.

“It just makes sense. The Mayor can only do so much and with the Ladyblog,” He practically spat the name. “As well as other online news sites it’s bound to get out. Yet somehow it’s been two years and no one outside Paris seems to have a clue. Sounds like magic to me.”

He was right, it made a lot more sense that magic was involved in keeping things quiet because no matter how adept the Mayor was at controlling the media there’s no way they wouldn’t have even heard about it.

“You said Hawkmoth or Ladybug. I get why Hawkmoth wouldn’t want interference but why would you think the heroes would keep it quiet?” Bruce’s question was a good one but Damian was having trouble concentrating on the conversation. Marinette’s song was suddenly chaotic her emotions spiking and changing at lightning pace. What could possibly be going through her mind?

“If Ladybug is responsible I very much doubt she’s aware of it. What you have to understand is that our heroes are very young. Probably Mari’s age if I had to guess, which means they were barely teenagers when this started. I don’t know how they ended up as heroes but, at the beginning especially, you could tell they weren’t completely sure what they were doing. Even now I’m not sure they know their full potential.”

Marinette was staring at her father in something like awe. Her song had calmed but he could tell she was still anxious.

“So you’re being protected by children, and everyone is just going along with it?” Bruce sounded offended at the very thought. It was Sabine who answered.

“There’s not anything we can do about it. None of us know more than basic information about them or their powers and they haven’t been forthcoming about them. All we know is that their powers come from their Miraculous and for all we know it may be necessary for them to be wielded by children. I doubt it, but at the same time the two Miraculous held by adults are being abused and used for evil purposes so anything is possible. Either way Ladybug has saved Paris hundreds of times at this point so we have faith in her.”

“And what about the other hero?” Sabine’s face twisted in distaste and Tom blew out an agitated breath. Marinette seemed surprised by her parents responses though Damian could tell she felt about the same.

“Chat Noir hasn’t been acting like a hero for some time now. Honestly I’d love to get my hands on that boy and knock some sense into him.”  Sabine gave a derisive snort. “He claims that he’s staying away from fights to ensure Hawkmoth doesn’t get what he wants and Ladybug won’t contradict him. Whether out of loyalty or because she’s afraid of a public panic I don’t know. But not long before his sudden absences at Akuma attacks he and Ladybug were caught arguing. I could guess what about but I won’t.” She seemed to get more worked up the longer she talked.

“Maman, please calm down. Whatever is going on is between them, us trying to figure it out or getting frustrated isn’t going to help.”

Tom leaned over and hugged his wife before responding to his daughter. “You may be right but his actions are making people lose faith in Ladybug and that is completely unacceptable.”

“Perhaps they should be losing faith in her. Two years later and we’re no closer to ending Hawkmoth’s reign of terror.” Her voice was small and all he could get out of her song was guilt and shame. Both her parents seemed to have been stunned speechless. “I just mean that maybe Bruce is right. Maybe we shouldn’t be leaving the safety of Paris in the hands of teenagers.”

The silence in the room was near deafening. Damian shared a look with his father but otherwise neither moved. Tom just looked taken aback by his daughter’s words. It was Sabine that worried him though. He had the distinct impression that she was barely holding herself back from shaking some sense into her daughter.

“Marinette.” She flinched at the sound of her mother’s voice and everything about her tensed up. “The adults in this case are a Mayor who’s more concerned about money flow and a Police department who flat out refused to work with Ladybug to try and find a solution. Do I think putting that responsibility in the hands of children was a good idea in the first place? Absolutely not. But it happened and Ladybug has been doing everything in her power to live up to everyone’s expectations. The least we can do is support her in anyway possible. She deserves nothing less.”

“Yes Maman.” Her emotions were a mess of contradictions Damian couldn’t make any sense of. Joy and gratitude mixed with guilt and depression. But under all of that was an overwhelming sense of doubt. It was like a steady thrumming bass line that held everything else in place. What made absolutely no sense to him was that he knew that doubt was aimed at herself. He knew that was important even if he couldn’t yet understand why.

Master List 1   Master List 2    Prologue   Beginning   Previous  Next

Tag list for Broken Harmony

Thanks for all the positive responses! Here’s the tag list I’ve go so far. If I missed anyone let me know. There’s a few people on here that it’s not letting me tag properly. I’ll be working on that this weekend as well.

@crazylittlemunchkin @iggy-of-fans @captainmac6 @shizukiryuu @origami-dreams @yamadochie @drama-queen-supreme @miraculousbelladonna @mjisntme @zebrabaker @driftingmoonlitpetals @slytherinhquinn @politelyvicious @mystery-5-5 @constancetruggle @synnesstra @im-here-for-the-content @slytherinsheashire  @myriad-of-passionate-pettiness @cyborgcandy @rhub4rb @satans-favorite-homo @beautym3 @ayuchan07 @zalladane @moonlitarchangels @mooshoon @mindfulmagics @saphiraazure2708 @chrismarium @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @tog84 @littleredrobinhoodlum @cupcakeandkisses @kiara-rose-blackthorn @moonlitarchangels @graduatedmelon @lunar-wolf-warrior @tbehartoo @zoerayne2426 @ellerahs @heaven428 @my-name-is-michell @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @myownworldstayout @alexzandria-747 @k-rena-k

[nxrthmizu]

-Lordbug, Robin and Kitty Noir- Chapter Five: In Which Marinette Makes New Friends!

/Part One//Part Two//Part Three//Part Four//Part Five//Part Six//Part Seven//Part Eight//Part Nine//Part Ten//Part Eleven/

Description: It’s the weekend! Marinette needs to get over Lila drama (Damian is furious), so they go and hang out with other people! Luka! Kagami! 

Warnings: Curses, as usual, and Damian being a lil’ shit. Also, mentions of depression, self-harm (My poor baby Mari :( 

---

Marinette was terrified of Lila.

The girl had the entire class wrapped around her little pinky, and there was nothing that Marinette could do about that. Lila had shown her what she could be. Lila had shown her that she could destroy her entire life in a day. She was manipulative as hell, and Lila had proved it. She had turned Marinette’s entire life upside down just with a few little believable lies. Then it became more than just a few.

It had been a month now.

Lila was still constantly attacking Marinette like that. In fact, it was a miracle that Marinette hadn’t been akumatised- Hawkmoth had been quiet since his first attack.

Damian… Damian hated Lila with a fiery passion. And since Lila still didn’t know that he was a Wayne, Damian intended to use every figment of the Wayne name to destroy Lila. But he had one chance at it, and he wanted to spend the one chance wisely- To bring down the girl and protect his angel.

And one day, when Damian was in the toilet (Once again talking to Tikki because he needed to control himself- He couldn’t reveal himself until the time was right), a certain blonde got to Marinette. A certain blonde by the name of Adrien Agreste.

“Marinette,” He had called after her, seeing her sob after Lila made another lie about her being the one who threatened her to stay away from Adrien. Of course, everyone believed Lila. Every. Single. One. It was a miracle that Damian hadn’t murdered all his classmates yet, but he spent every extra second he had between doing his homework, his Robin patrols, his nightly balcony talks with his precious angel, and once in a while, after he’d forgiven them for sending to Paris (Because hey, he got to meet his angel, the girl he hoped to spend the rest of his life with) he’d text his father, along with Grayson- Plotting contingency plans (His father’s influence) on how to murder his classmates. And for each of them, he had a detailed summary of how to torture each of them to the very highest degree. He also had a mental list of every insult and assumption they each made that was absolutely wrong that they made about his angel. And how many times she had cried because of them. Due to the fact he talked to her as Damian and Robin, he had a pretty good idea of who messed up her day. And he was keeping tally. One day, he would get his revenge. He was just being really, really patient.

Alright. Back to Agreste.

The blonde had chased after his precious angel when he wasn’t looking. He had given her false hope. He’d told his angel that he believed in her (Anyone was an idiot for not doing so), and told her that he was on her side. But when she asked him if he was going to reveal Lila, he said no (What a coward).

Of course, while it wasn't really progressing at all, it lifted up Marinette’s mood. And Damian had to admit, he was jealous. How dare Agreste give his angel false hope like that? How dare Agreste, who’d stayed quiet all that time, not even defending his angel, dare talk to her? Hmm?

When he got back to class, Marinette had just entered before him. And the situation was horrible.

“Marinette! Don’t be such a jealous bitch!” Alya had screamed at her.

“Yeah, Marinette! You’re just jealous of Lila! Because she took your seat! How petty can you be, to threaten her, and ask her to stay away from Adrien?” Adrien, at that point, had shied away from the conflict, trying to talk everyone out of it. Right. The peace-maker. The very unsuccessful peace-maker.

Damian had scowled because he had heard them from outside. Marinette stood frozen in the middle of the class, taking in all the insults they were throwing at her. His eyes widened- He recognized what she was undergoing. Another panic attack.

---

Everything was just so loud. Insults from every direction. Her ears couldn’t take it. Perhaps it was because of her cat senses. The ones that wore off Plagg, onto her. It had occurred to her before- Plagg was the Kwami of destruction, after all. He was also the Kwami of bad luck. Maybe the ‘bad luck’ had passed onto her. The second she fully constructed that thought, she immediately pushed it away. Without Plagg, she’d never have become Kitty Noir. She’d never have a chance to escape from her dreary, lonely (With the exception of Damian) life, onto the life of running from rooftop to rooftop, the thrill of the wind blowing past your ears… Yes, that was the only thing she lived for, now. Along with Robin, Damian, Plagg, and her parents. Those were the only things that stopped her from killing herself.

And yeah, she’d considered it before. There was a reason that she’d suddenly started wearing large sweaters instead of her old cherry-blossom shirt and the black jacket over. It was because the sleeves were long enough to cover the cut-marks on her entire arm. Plagg would stop her, every single time. But it was only a matter of time before it got too far for the Kwami to convince her to stop, right? Then it would all be over, and the pain would all be gone.

---

When Marinette was downstairs, eating with her parents, Plagg stole his chance.

He used her phone, and immediately contacted Damian. The Kwami had memorized the boy’s number on reflex- Just in case there was one day, when Marinette got too far. Just in case there was one day, he couldn’t stop her. Just in case there was one day, when he’d have to lose his most precious cat.

“Marinette?”

Shit.

He couldn’t tell Damian that Marinette was Kitty, right?

He hung up. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!

But Tikki would’ve known right? Tikki would’ve seen Marinette’s phone call Damian, and his sugar cube would realize that it was him, right?

He got called back in five minutes.

“Plagg! Is it an emergency? Is it the angel?”

“It’s my kitty, sugar.” He responded mournfully. “Your holder has to do something. Whether as Robin, or as Lordbug, or as his civilian name, I don’t care! He has to do something! He has to save her! I… I can’t afford to lose another kitty, sugar. Not after Felix.”

Tikki was silent. Of course. Felix… Felix was not one to mind other’s opinions, unlike Marinette, but when he eventually fell in love with Bridgette… He cared for one person’s opinion. Hers. And when Bridgette died- As the previous Ladybug- Felix couldn’t take it. His one true love, the one he planned to ask out once his mess with Ladybug was finished- His one true love, was Ladybug, the girl he’d been lying to all that time. It was too much for him, and just like Marinette wanted to, he slit his wrists- Until Plagg couldn’t stop him. Until Plagg failed to convince him to live on. Felix went too far, and then there was no getting him back.

“What happened to Felix won’t happen again, Plagg. I promise you.” Tikki’s soft voice comforted him, and the cat Kwami- For the first time in eons, broke down in tears.

He couldn’t afford to lose another kitten.

---

“Damian! You have to do something!” Tikki insisted. She had been nagging him about it all night long, and honestly, although he didn’t want to admit it, he was a coward. What if he failed to cheer her up, with whatever he did? What if he made things worse?

Originally, he wasn’t planning to do anything. He was just going to keep supporting her as Damian, talk to her as Robin, and go on as usual. But it was when he saw her that he changed his mind. When he saw her slumped against her table, expressionless, face a void of expression- He almost saw himself. Just… Without the anger, the murder intent.

She’d lost all hope. Even whatever Agreste gave her didn’t last long.

“She’s heartbroken.” Damian sighed, slumping down against the toilet stall. His precious angel. What did she do to deserve that, anyway? 

“Maybe you should take her out tomorrow,” Tikki suggested. “It’s the weekend, and Master Fu only needs you to get groceries, and then you’re free for the entire weekend.” 

Damian nodded. He had known Marinette for about a month- But she was his angel now, and he would do anything to be her knight. 

---

“Marinette.” He called just as she was packing her things to leave for the day. This gained quite the reaction. It was the first actual time he’d called her by her name, and not her surname. 

“Um, yes?” She said looking up, feeling nostalgia because damn, those green eyes looked very familiar. 

"Do... Do you want to... Hang out for the weekend? We could discuss our homework, and then we could... Just go out and about.” He waved his hands around awkwardly as he spoke, because no, Talia did not teach him how to remain composed in front of the special angel in his life. Neither did Bruce, and growing up with three other brothers who were absolutely hopeless with their love lives did not help, either. 

She smiled at the comment, and it made his entire life suddenly worth it. She had smiled! Perhaps she was starting to feel better, and Damian swore that he would make her so happy through the weekend she'd forget all about that- Bitch- And she'd smile as brightly as she did before. 

---

“Good morning, Mr and Mrs Dupain-Cheng. I’m... Damian. Damian... Fu...?” His introduction ended with a little question. He didn’t really want anyone to know that he was a Wayne, and since Marinette had probably forgotten about his surname... Well, there was no need to tell her, either. 

“Oh, it’s so nice to meet you, Damian!” Sabine cheerily responded, and Damian immediately thought: That’s angel’s mother alright. “Marinette’s already getting ready upstairs.

In truth, Marinette didn’t want to get up. It was the weekend, and though she admitted that she felt a little guilty about not helping her parents with the bakery, she just... Couldn’t get the will to get up, to do things. 

But Plagg wouldn’t let it go. He’d nagged her until she got up, and he had tried to prep her up, commenting on what she should wear- (He had gotten a rough idea of what clothes Damian seemed to like to see Marinette wearing after getting Tikki to inquire the boy). In the end, Marinette was dressed in a cute white sweater with a smiley face- And a cute, plaited dark blue skirt. She sighed tiredly, a little reluctant to leave, but seeing Plagg get so excited about her going out did encourage her a little bit, and so she went downstairs to meet Damian. 

He had definitely made an effort. He had decked out in some casual clothes- A black sweater went over whatever shirt he was wearing under, and he had paired that up with some dark jeans and black-and-green running shoes. it was late autumn by then, and Damian had already brought a spare sweater and a spare jacket for his angel inside his backpack. 

When he saw her, he immediately smiled. There was his beautiful angel, blushing, looking simply adorable in her sweater. 

“Ready?” He smiled, watching as her hesitant eyes looked him up and down until they stopped at his outstretched hand. 

She took his hand. 

---

They were strolling by the riverside, her hand still in his. 

Her hand still in his. 

Damian was having a mental breakdown inside however much he tried to remain calm and stoic on the outside. He had no intentions of letting go of that hand, and Marinette didn’t seem to mind much, either. It was the first time since Lila came that she’d left from her house, with the exception of going to school. 

“They’re so many new shops.” She marveled quietly, looking at the shop lots littering down the river street. 

“Don’t you want to check them out? Let’s go.” He smiled, dragging her along, Tikki- Hidden in his sweater to give emergency advice- Nodding approvingly. She blushed, nodding, letting him pull her along. 

---

 “What boat is that?” Marinette had murmured, staring at a very-out-of-place ship resting in the harbor. “It looks... Very artistic.” She commented amusedly, smiling to herself. 

“Want to check it out?” Damian hummed, already pulling her in the direction. Today, he thought, he would bring her anywhere she wanted to go, let her see everything she wanted to see. 

“It’s so pretty.” Marinette breathed, staring at the ship dressed in fairy lights, decorated in the most explicit way there was. “Do you think we can go down?” She asked, turning to him, her bluebell eyes shining in excitement. 

Of course it’d be impossible to say no to his angel. 

“Hey, who are you?” 

When Damian turned around, he bristled like a cat. A boy with dyed turquoise hair was pointing suspiciously at them, and Damian had a large urge to snap ‘Do you know who I am?’, but he decided against it. 

“I’m Damian Fu, and this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” He said neutrally, realizing in his mind that if the boy was heading into the harbor, there was a high chance he could get the two of them onto the ship. 

“Luka, who’s that?” A girl with a hair color similar to Marinette’s came over, her face as neutrally cold as Damian’s. 

“This is Damian and... Was it Marinette?” Luka smiled at the dark-haired girl behind Damian, watching as she responded with a shy nod and smile. Damian immediately hissed again, only stopping himself when Luka gave him a strange look. “Well, I’m Luka Couffaine, and this is Kagami Tsurugi.” 

“Right.” Damian cleared his throat. “We were wondering if we could take a look around the ship?” 

Luka shrugged. “Sure. I mean, I could take you onboard. Come on.” 

---

The moment Kagami set her eyes on Marinette, she felt the urge to protect her. Marinette was small, and shy, but Kagami knew there was a lot of energy trapped underneath deep within. She just knew. 

“And this is Luka’s room. He shares it with his sister.” Kagami told her, watching as the girl marveled at the turquoise boy’s pick collection. Chuckling as Marinette looked over each one, Kagami smiled. “Yeah, he really treasures all his picks. Once, when he brought me in here, he told me the stories of how he got everyone of those picks.” 

“Wow.” Marinette awwed. “He sounds like a great guy.” 

Kagami sighed dreamily. “Yeah, he is.” 

---

While Kagami was busy taking Marinette on a tour of the ship, Luka pulled Damian aside. “Is she... Okay?” Luka struggled with his words. When he looked into her eyes, he could see the hurt, and wariness inside them when he first saw her on the harbor. “There’s this something in her eyes, like-” 

“I know.” Damian cut him off, his own eyes sorrowful. “It’s why I’m taking her out today. In hopes she’ll cheer up.” 

Luka nodded in understanding. “She looks like she needs friends.” At this, Damian immediately understood what the boy was hinting at. Feeling threatened, Damian hissed again, but not before Luka raised his hands in surrender. “Whoa. Chill out, man. I like another girl. No one’s touching your girlfriend.” 

Damian calmed down slightly, still feeling tense. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.” 

Pause. 

“For now.” 

“So... She’s not your girlfriend?” Luka asked in disbelief. 

Damian smirked, eyes alight. “Yet.” 

---

“Oh, I’ve heard about you.” Kagami suddenly remembered as they were sipping on some ice chocolate on the ship deck. “Adrien’s mentioned you before.” 

Damian immediately tensed up on the name, but not only he tensed up. So did Luka. 

“You know Adrien?” Marinette asked softly, her head tilted slightly in curiousity. 

“He’s in my fencing class.” Kagami explained, then lowering her voice so that the boys wouldn’t hear. “He’s pretty cute... I have a crush on him.” Damian had heard it despite the low volume that the girl spoke in, and he knew Luka heard it too. Ahh, he realized. Luka liked Kagami... But Kagami liked Adrien. 

---

“Thanks a lot for today!” Marinette beamed, having regained a little of her energy, hopping a little. 

“Please come back soon!” Luka grinned, waving. 

“See you, Luka.” Kagami smiled at the boy. “I’ve got to get home before my mom kills me.” 

“See you, Kagami!” Luka waved, a blush climbing up his cheeks. 

On the way home, Damian could feel like that the day had been worth it. Taking her hand into his abrubtly, he ignored her stare on him, and only held her hand tighter. 

“Damian?” 

He hummed in reply. 

“Thanks for today.” She blushed, fiddling with the end of her sweater with her other hand. “It was really nice of you to do so,” She continued. Taking a deep breath, she smiled at him. “You’re a really nice friend, Damian. I’m so lucky to have you.” 

---

Right. So Marinette didn’t like Damian, but she liked Robin. 

Those were the thoughts running through Robin’s head as he scampered through the city in his familiar route to his angel’s balcony. 

He smiled, pleased when he saw her, cuddled up against the balcony, waiting ever so patiently for him. 

“Angel?” He queried softly, dropping in front of her. Noticing her smile, he couldn’t help but ask: “What’s got you looking so happy today, hmm?” 

She blushed. “My friend took me out today, and I made new friends!” She told him excitedly. 

“Oh, really?” 

---

She was so much happier the day after. It showed. She was smiling, constantly giggling to herself, even when she took her seat next to him. 

“Well, you look happy.” Damian smiled, taking out his books. 

She giggled, like she had a little secret in her heart. “You want to know why?” 

He nodded. 

“A little robin came to visit me, that’s why.” She mused, blushing to herself and giggling again. 

That’s when it hit him. 

Holy shit, he was truly in love with her. 

---

I have to visit my grandparents later today, so I didn’t have the time to check this draft. Sowy :( Contact me if any mistakes are found~

I’ve hidden a lot of parallels in the series- And of course, there’s the really obvious one in this chapter- The ‘She’s just a friend’. Marinette is kind of like Adrien to Ladybug but with Robin.

(Tag list! @yin-390 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @constancetruggle @the-navistar-carol @never-neverland @rayray384 @mystery-5-5 @black-streak @bluerosette23 @seraphichan @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @mikantsume @graduatedmelon @thebookwormfairy @crazylittlemunchkin @shizukiryuu @screamingtofillthevoid @serenacross200 @zestyzealot @redscarlet95 @roseinbloom02 @beautym3 @resignedcatservant @sizzling-fairy-oil @tinybrie @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry )

There we go! Hope you enjoyed! 

[marinetteplztakeabreak]

The year is 2021. The first few episodes of mlb Season 5 were just aired. Tumblr’s exploding with fanfics and theories. The show’s new director is conducting cryptic polls about which friendships and teamups the fans want to see most. Adrien is finally realizing that his dad sucks and has gotten more direct in his small moments of rebellion. Kagami, Adrien, and Marinette have a group chat that’s 90% just elaborate plans for sneaking out. Marinette’s been getting better and better at acting normal around Adrien since the beginning of season four and she’s realized that regardless of romantic feelings, she desperately wants to be his friend.

Everyone’s posting about the latest episode, Lady WiFi 3.0, where Alya got akumatized because she was jealous that Adrien was stealing her best friend. Marinette was so busy panicking and blaming herself that she forgot to slip away and transform, which lead to half the episode being Marichat. Chat Noir had a few lines that may have implied he know that she was Ladybug and every word of their dialogue is now being picked apart by theorists. After they won the battle, there were copious amounts of communication and apologies from Adrien, who was immediately yelled at by both girls because “Adrien stop apologizing for hanging out with your friends you’re allowed to do that, you self-deprecating idiot.” The episode ended with Adrien becoming Alya’s secret behind the scenes co-runner of the Ladyblog, and he’s thriving at the chance to work without being directly watched by the public and she’s thriving at the fact that she has a dedicated co-worker who’s just as obsessed with superheroes (especially Ladybug) as she is.

Now that months have passed since the season 4 finale aired, people are finally calming down. Mayura got so close to winning that she managed to take Chat Noir’s miraculous, discovering his secret identity in the process. Chat Noir didn’t end up telling Ladybug about this: partly due to fear that he’d lose his Miraculous, because he’s gotten so good at being a team with Ladybug that he’s afraid Paris would be in danger without him. Also, now that Ladybug is the guardian, she’s the only one who could choose a new Chat Noir and therefore would know the secret identity of anyone she picked. Also, it’s never been directly confirmed, but everyone’s pretty sure that he knows that Marinette is Ladybug, and without his Miraculous, he would lose his only means of defense if Mayura did hunt him down in his civilian identity and grill him for Ladybug’s identity. He also seems to think that he’s the less important hero and it doesn’t matter as much if he gets hurt or captured so long as he manages to protect his Lady. His decision spawned endless discourse, but everyone can at least see where he’s coming from. The heroes are doing their best but there’s obvious moments where they’re cracking under the stress and could desperately use an adult on their team. #givemarinetteanap was trending on Tumblr for a few days. Adrien had canonically acknowledged depression and has actual medical reasons to force his dad to let him interact with friends at times, although his father still does the absolute bare minimum.

A week ago, in the season 5 pilot, Natalie faked a coughing fit to stop Hawkmoth when he was about to hurt Chat. She’s still trying to take the Miraculouses and still wants Hawkmoth to succeed but she’ll literally die before any harm comes to Adrien, and she’s the only one who knows he’s also Chat Noir. Adrien knows that Mayura knows his identity but he has no idea that Natalie knows, so he’s confused about why she suddenly seems to understand why he’s exhausted after midnight akuma battles and even clears his schedule, so he can rest. She still rarely shows direct affection, but the small things are becoming more and more frequent and groups of dedicated fans are eagerly awaiting her redemption arc.

The amateur fashion business that Marinette started halfway through season 4 is taking off, thanks in part to celebrity promotions, from Jagged Stone to Clara Nightingale to Adrien Agreste. She’s under a lot of pressure dealing with actual money and orders and the stress of running a real business, but she’s clearly happy with it, and it gives her something productive to do with the time that she used to spend obsessing over Adrien. She also taught herself how to crochet for a project and now brings string and a hook with her everywhere to stress-crochet when anxiety spirals hit. It’s become something of a joke within the fandom but no one can deny that it’s a strangely calming aesthetic. The shine for Adrien in her room has been taken down and replaced with a wall of the designs she’s the proudest of, which caused a barrage of conflicting emotions for everyone watching.

Chloe has become a permanent part of the friend group as well, after she exposed Lila’s lies. She’s still has no filter and causes a few akumas when she hurts others’ feelings, but she’s genuinely trying to be a decent person, so she can make real friends. She also manages to pull Marinette out of an anxiety attack a few times by being ridiculously blunt and startling Marinette out of her train of thought.

The show openly calls Juleka and Rose a couple, they’re had a few on screen kisses and people make YouTube compilations of them saying the phrase “my girlfriend.” Half the class comes to them for relationship advice because they’re literally the steadiest and healthiest couple in the class. Also, it’s revealed that Chloe never had a crush on Adrien. She was literally just fighting Marinette for his platonic attention the entire time, which she thought was common knowledge. “Ew, why would I want to date Adrien, we’ve known each other since we were toddlers?” Someone asks Chloe if there’s anyone she does have a crush on and she says not really, no one in their class is even that cute, Ladybug’s low-key gorgeous though in a celebrity crush kind of way. Marinette is the only person in the class who’s actually surprised to find out that Chloe might have a crush on Ladybug.

Teamups with the Miraculous holders are becoming more and more common. Queen Bee has openly said that she doesn’t care about the danger of her identity being revealed and has become a frequent member of the lineup. Alix, juleka, Rose, and Nathaniel have each been given Miraculouses a few times, as well as several newly introduced characters. In an episode we only have a trailer for so far, Marinette is having such a bad panic attack that she knows she won’t be able to be Ladybug, so she discretely slips her earrings into Alya’s bag and Alya has to save the day as Ladybird. During a different high-stakes akuma battle near the end of season 4, Hawkmoth knew that he’d be causing a lot of collateral damage so he locked Adrien inside with heavy supervision to keep him safe. Unable to sneak away, he managed to slip his ring with a note into Chloe’s bag, because she was over for a business meeting and also the only person he knew that Ladybug would trust with a Miraculous. Chloe got to be Reine Chat for the day and she was surprisingly mature about it, listening to everything Ladybug told her and putting the Miraculous back where she got it after the battle was won She’d never admit it, but it was clear that she was genuinely scared for one of the first times in her life.

Now, the fans theories for what’s going to happen continue to pour in. The episode titles for the entire season were just uncovered. The finale is going to be Princess Justice parts 1, 2, and 3. The current predominant fan theory is that Sabine is going to have to be Ladybug for part of the episode and fight an akumatized Marinette. It’s been defended by so many long winding arguments that no one can remember if it’s a crack theory or genuine. The episode just before the finale is titled Emilie and it’s causing different kinds of massive panic throughout the fandom. The season trailers show tons of interactions between all sides of the love square. Adrien is going to break down in tears in Marinette’s arms at one point in the season. That trailer clip has also been overanalyzed to death at this point. Adrien has learned to bake macarons at the bakery and Marinette has learned to win a staring contest with Gabriel Agreste. All is well.

[emmdaenovice]

Towards a better future #2 - Daminette

Back!

#2

So I should probably put a few trigger warnings on this

Ah, suicide, abuse, um… depression, mature readers only?

‘If you kill us now you will regret it, the weight of two innocent, in your word’s children, weighing on your soul for eternity. Don’t you have a kid? Adrien?’ This got Hawkmoths attention ‘He’s about the same age as us, what will you see when you look at him. Will it all be worth it? all this death and tragedy for a wish? A wish that will blow up in your face?’ Chat finished wanting to back up what Ladybug said in his own way. Hawkmoth laughed once again as if Chat had said something funny, for a moment Adrien wondered what type of face Hawkmoth would make when her realises he had killed his own child, would he laugh, just as he is now? Would he be happy that the burden of his perfect son would be gone?

‘Don’t be like that’ he sneers ‘you have no idea what I want. For one I’m not here for your miraculous or even any miraculous Kaalki is just a bonus, I want to get to Paris as soon as possible you know’

‘What do you want then?’

‘A wish obviously.’ Myura pulled a bright orb of light out of her pocket placing it into Hawkmoths hand ‘I’ve found a much better way of achieving it’ he bounced the orb on the palm of his hand. Both the teens feeling a strange aura emitting from it. Though the strangest thing about this magical object that it had a shadow as black as night. The ball was only light, but it had a shadow that was absent of any light. Ladybug finally understood what it was, it was a previous wish. Tiki had told her about them before, when Tiki and Plag were brought together to make a wish that wasn’t completed like this maraculi orb or was designed to stay on this earth like the fountain of youth. Tiki said that she along with Plag destroyed all of them… Obviously not this one though.

‘I don’t want your miraculous nor do I want to kill you’ he stretches his limbs as if he had just finished a brisk walk. ‘but I wouldn’t be angered if I find that’s all that is left when I come back’ he directs his attention to Myura ‘Natalie if you please’ Gabriel handed the glasses to her. Chat immediately stiffens at the presents of Myura’s civilian name, his eyes bore down on her as he realises that his father’s partner is his secretary. Chat Noir may have a plan. ‘Goodluck with the wildlife out here’ Hawkmoth walks towards the portal Myura opened leaning onto his cane more than usual. Chat Noir caught his ladies’ eye and showed her determination. He wasn’t not ready to give up, so she shouldn’t either. He quickly tunes his attention to Natalie as Gabriel takes his last step on this side of the world.

As much as ladybug trusts her partner, she knows that as soon as that portal closed Paris, they would be doomed. She looks at her partner, fire burning in his eyes, it gave her confidence, reassurance. Who is she? How could she forget. She is Marinette Dupain-Cheng aspiring fashion designer, she is Ladybug, protector of Paris, hero to all. She will not be defeated by this, she will live on, most importantly Marinette trusts in her partner.

‘Natalie’ Chat Noir exclaimed gad to have gotten her attention.

‘Don’t try and follow us” she took a step forward.

‘Natalie wait please, I’ve always seen you as a second mother, you were always there for me, I see you every day, your more of a parent to me than he will ever be!’ he rambled quickly ‘Even if I only got staplers off you for my birthday it was still a gift it was still something. You and gorilla make my life a little less horrible’ Adrien himself didn’t himself know if those words were true or not but they were the best option to get Natalie to listen to him.

‘A… That’s impossible’ she spoke with a wavering voice.

‘As impossible as the leading fashion designer Gabriel Agreste being Hawkmoth?’ he shot back. Marinette gasped as she finally saw all of the puzzle pieces click together, it all makes sense now. Natalie took a step towards him as if to check if he were in front of her, as if she was checking if this was real or not.

‘Adrien’

‘Natalie. Natale please just this once, please do something for me’ Myura looked unconvertable and fidgeted with her fan

‘Adrien. I… I have orders from Mr Agreste’ she looked at him with such pity in her eyes. But Adrian had thunder in his veins, he would not back down.

‘I’m not asking you to go against him’ he breathed ‘ I’m just asking you to keep the portal open and call your monster off’

‘No, no I can’t do that Adrien’ she takes a step back towards the portal.

‘Please Natalie’ tears forming in his eyes ‘Please don’t let me die out here.’ whimpering he pleaded ‘Please’

‘Your abusing our relationship Adrien, I have a responsivity to Mr Agreste, but I will help you out just this once’ she sighed rubbing her head

‘Thank you Natalie! Thank you, thank you!’ he laid on the boyish charm hoping it would affect her motherly side.

‘I will keep the portal open, but that is all. Your father and I will be having a long conversation about this and your hidden extracurricular activities’ she walked towards the portal.

‘But, how am I? -‘

‘Not my problem’ she walked out of this side of the portal, back to Paris.

‘Well that went well’ Chat jokes dryly focusing his attention to ladybug.

After Marinette was finished fawning over the sheer amazingness of her partner, they quickly made a plan to escape from the vines of the Amok. After some tricky maneuvering, strength and Chats cataclysm they were free. They defeated the Amok and quickly found themselves running through the portal after the dangerous villains.

When they stepped into Paris, immediately they knew something was wrong the sky was black and it seemed that the whole city had been evacuated, or in hiding. The duo raced to the Agreste mansion, nocking down the gates in the process, which they realised a moment later was a very bad idea. Hundreds of Akumaitised civilians which could only be described as a type of un-dead zombie raced out of the mansion, with sharp teeth and snapping jaws. While Chat Noir fought off the victims ladybug quickly grabbed Chat Noir and used her yo-yo to pull them to the safety of the roof. The sky swirling with different colours of purple and yellow right above them, an unnatural occurrence that scared even the birds away.

Chat Noir guided Ladybug around the roof to his father’s study window and broke through it landing firmly on the perfectly polished floors. They attacked a couple of Akumaitised guards and quickly apprehended them, understanding why this room was so important. No longer was the room a simple home office for a lonely man holding tribute to his late wife but a giant entrance to the lair below. A magical essence one hidden by the thick layers of concrete wafted up into the room made both heroes sick to the stomach.  The remanence of torture on a Kawami, going against their wishes for years. They made quick work of the cold dark stairs illuminated only by an unnatural light in the distance, and soon found them selves in a garden. Marinate and Adrien looked at each other confused by such a sight but continued on, the magical remanence of an unnatural wish getting stronger with each step they took. Finally spotting Hawkmoth and Myura the teens both prepared for a fight to see that it was too late, the villains were chanting an ancient spell over what looked like a tomb. Unable to give up ladybug and Chat Noir rain towards the villains, Chat leaped and swung his baton down towards the two. Suddenly he was propelled backwards flying in the air momentarily before landing on Ladybug, both now aware of the faint green glowing force field surrounding Natalie and Gabriel.

‘You can’t stop me now’ Hawkmoth spoke proudly ‘I have won, my wish is almost complete’ the maniac smiled tenderly at the now open casket.  

Chat Noir couldn’t hear a thing, he supposed he was going into shock, a slight ringing noise surrounded him as he realised the body laid perfectly in the tomb like life chamber was in fact his mother.

‘What…’ chat whispered tears forming in his eyes. ‘What the fuck father!’ he screamed. Is this what all those years were for? He told him that she was dead. Adrian’s mother is supposed to be dead. But she’s not, she seems as if she’s just sleeping, peacefully, just as Adrien remembers her as, as if she hadn’t aged a day.

This statement got Hawkmoths attention

‘She’s supposed to be dead!’ he screams. Ladybug frozen in place her brain trying to come up with a multitude of plans but her body unable to tear itself from Chat Noir’s side. He starts sobbing as his transformation finally wears off.

‘Adrien’ his father speaks, realising the identity of one of his worst foes.’ I am very disappointed in you’ if Adrien had any sliver of love for his father it had now been completely obliterated.

‘You can’t say that to him, you don’t have the right.’ ladybug yelled forcing Adrien behind her. He was no longer wearing a suit, this time she will protect her partner. ‘You can’t bring her back like this! All magic has a price to pay. If you bring her back someone else will die’ she pleaded with her partners farther, trying to get him to see reason.

‘I will do anything to bring back my wife. I will do anything to bring our lives back to normal, my son. Don’t you want your mother back?’ Adrien shifted behind ladybug so that he was beside her, he will always be beside her no mater who or what they face they are teammates, partners.

‘Not if the cost is worse than the cause. This wish will destroy you. It will destroy the world’ Hawkmoth ignored his son and continued to chant the words of the dead miraculous language.

Ladybug called for her lucky charm, unable to think of a way out, the charm was placed into her hands in the form of a blue scarf. She recognised this scarf it was a replica of the one Marinate knitted for Adrien when she was fifteen, she turned it over and sure enough it had her signature on it.

Hawkmoth began to chant louder, and ladybug wondered why such a charm was given to her, why so specific what can she do with this? The chanting suddenly stopped, and the air was still. Hawkmoth opened his mouth to speak three final words.

‘Bring her back.’  

The orb of light hovering over Mrs Agreste exploded covering the whole room in darkness, the sound of glass shattering deafening. Ladybug and Chat Noir stood still listening to the pounding pulse of their own heart. After what seemed like an eternity the lights flickered back on filling the room with a faint buzzing noise of fluorescent light bulbs. Hawkmoth dropped his transformation and stroked the hair of his wife, as he mumbles to himself

‘Everything will be better now, everything will be perfect.’

Chat Noir put a hand to his head as did ladybug, the magic in this room was so unbalanced it made every cell in her body react. She walked forward towards Gabriel with Adrien hot on her tail. Natalie now also de-transformed didn’t stop ladybug as she came up to him and punched his already bloody face.

‘You idiot you have no idea the repercussions this has, did you even think for a moment what would happen?’ ladybugs nose started to bleed as she yelled at the monster.

Gabriel ignored her and gestured towards Adrien ‘Come boy, look, your mother is finally waking up’ he kept his eyes on his wife as her eyes fluttered open. Adrien’s ears rang louder as his lady tries to stop her nose from bleeding.

Emilie slowly got up and looked around, it must have been pretty strange to see your that son and husband aged 4 years in one sleep and two women she has never seen before, one being in spandex, because she started to cry.

‘What am I doing here? I’m not. I’m not. I don’t belong here’ she sobbed, Gabriel was quick to hug and console her.

‘Mother’ Adrien whispers as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

‘You’re ok, we’re here, your home’ she cries more.

‘What did you do Gabriel’ she yelled at him shoving him off her. Finding that he will not answer her she turns to ladybug ‘what did he do?’

Ladybug opens her mouth to explain but no words come out. What could she tell her? Suddenly Adrien starts to cough uncontrollably and falls to the ground. Ladybug hugs him and places him on her lap, realising with the most dread that she has ever felt in her entire life that he is dying. Gabriel tries to touch them, but ladybug hits him with her yoyo exclaiming that it is all his fault. The price for brining his wife back with magic was something equal in piece to Gabriel. His son’s life for his wife’s. ladybug continues to yell at them as Emily starts to ball even more as Natalie drops to the floor, Gabriel tries to reason with them all, even saying that this is some kind of trick. Adrien put his hand to Ladybugs face forcing her to look at him, she decided that he was more important than any petty conversation. That could be put off until tomorrow.

Ladybug stroked Adrien’s hair as he looked up at her, he looked at her like she herself hung the sky above his head. Ladybug wrapped the scarf around his shivering body, and he laughs weakly as ladybug tells him that she herself made it for him. They talk as chat begins to drift off Marinette determined not to cry, going over in her head how to fix this. If she was just a little faster a little stronger a little smarter, if they looked at the temple better, it she knew what to do with the lucky charm, if they double checked Gabriel’s house in the first place, if, if she was a better guardian. As Adrien took his last breaths Ladybugs attention was brought to Emilie and Gabriel fighting and crying. Emilie needled on the ground next to her son and for a moment ladybug felt pity towards this poor woman. Ladybug watched as Adrien’s eyes closed and in his last breath left his body quietly calling out to her.

‘Princess.’

Emilie screamed and hovered over her sons’ body almost as if she was afraid to touch him, Gabriel leaned on the tomb with a single tear rolling down his face.

‘You don’t get to cry’ Emilie screams at him ‘You don’t get the privilege’ he looks up at her in confusion. Everything was supposed to get better, why is it worse? ‘Taking my son to an early grave. He deserved to live’ pure emotion rolled off the tongue and wrapped itself around Gabriel’s neck ‘I can’t live in a world where you killed him. I can’t live in a world where I don’t belong.’ Emile picks up a shard of glass on the floor and swiftly stabs it in her neck spilling a thunder of warm liquid over the entire room.

So that’s how the morning of a bright spring began, with marinate and Adrien on the floor of Gabriel’s basement covered in their own blood as well as Emilie’s. Two dead three traumatised. Or at least that’s what they thought in that moment.

When the police and the other heroes arrived, things went into overdrive Gabriel and Natalie were soon arrested, miraculous confiscated and an ambulance called. Ladybug ignoring everything else around her carried Chat Noirs body towards the entrance of the mansion, the paparazzi already there, went silent as they realised, she was covered in blood. Although ladybug felt like going home and crying till the next millennium, she instead made a statement, to end the years of terror that Hawkmoth had thrown over Paris.

‘Hawkmoth is defeated,’ she spoke like a hero ‘he is none other than Gabriel Agreste’ like a hero who has won the battle ‘he wanted the miraculous to bring back his wife’ the body in her arms weighing more by the second ‘which he found he could do without our miraculous’ Marinette didn’t realise but she was crying  ‘Chat Noir and I fought this last battle, so the people of Paris can finally sleep easy’ she hiccuped ‘But unfortunately during our battle a wish was made which had major consequence on Gabriel’s son’ she breathed, the audience silence silently waiting for an explanation of the body in her hands ‘Adrien Agreste, our Chat Noir, is..’ her voice cracked. She coughed and forced herself to be reminded of who she is ‘He is dead. Along with Emily Agreste who was found in the basement of this home.’ Ladybug was then bombarded by a multitude of questions all of which she ignored, she walked through the crowd setting her best friend onto one of the ambulance stretchers and carefully removing the scarf from his neck. She called her lucky charm in a last attempt but to no avail, nothing changed. The blood that soaked them both was still there turning brown and drying in some places.

Ladybug then debriefed the police and her team and walked up to Adrien’s room. She slammed the door and de transformed, seeing the four Kawami in front of her handling the grief in different ways. She stood up and cleaned herself off. What was she to do now? She stayed there like that curled into a little ball for a while until Ryuko found her. She explained to her that Chat Noir wasn’t dead, Adrien was in a serious coma which he may never wake from. The surprisingly good news changed nothing for Marinette, he was still gone. She visited him once brining the real blue scarf that she knitted for him and a couple of other things to make his hospital room a bit more homely. He was being kept in France’s top-secret facility first introduced by the justice league. Ladybug was informed that information on Adrien’s survival is private information due to all the people wishing to hurt anyone related to Gabriel Agreste. She had no doubt that he would be looked after here. But she had no hope in him waking up, he was in a magical coma, which always complicates things.

It was a pain to call her parents and explain that she was back in Paris, they yelled at her for quite some time. She felt disappointed in herself for letting her parents down but wasn’t overly eager to tell them the entire truth. So, she made up a lie about the miraculous team needing Marinette to be Multimouse, she loves her parents but its just better this way. She doesn’t want to worry them more than they already do. Over the next few weeks Marinette found herself in a state of depression, nothing really mattered anymore. Hawkmoth was defeated. What more can she do. She tried to design a couple of outfits, but she couldn’t gain inspiration, all her designed looked so plain and dreary. For a week Marinette laid on her floor staring at her ceiling thinking about all the good times she had with Chat Noir/ Adrien. After the sixth day of this Viperion and Ryuko finally dragged Marinette out of her room to stretch her wings, ladybug knows she has to keep up appearances, but she doesn’t know how she will act when people ask her about him. She doesn’t want Paris to see her cry. Her friends from school have come over from time to time asking how she is, in their eyes its not everyday your crush dies dramatically by the hands of his own farther.

Now that Marinette is once again sailing rooftops and jumping off towers, she immediately starts to feel better, she forgets about her worries, she feels free. The wind on her face her friend at her side, almost like the good old days.

She renounces the miraculous of Nino and Ayla and attends Adrien’s funeral with a heavy heart, she teaches both Kagami and Luka on the ways of the miraculous so that they can finally graduate to being permanent holders. Marinette focuses on moving on. So how come she doesn’t feel any better.

She stands on the Eiffel tower. The clouds reminding her of that fateful day. she was completely alone not even Kawami to keep her company, she just needed some time to herself.

She realises now that she’s been preparing for this moment for a while. Marinate doesn’t want to die, but here she is, the miraculous would be in good care with the other hero’s, Alya wouldn’t miss her as a friend since she would have Lila and Nino, everyone would have a support buddy. She doubted that anyone would even cry if she slipped. If she jumped. If she did jump would her head finally stop? The hurt in her heart finally calm, she would be at peace. Wouldn’t she?

well that was dramatic

ah sorry

well you know that the main character can’t die in her own story

uh yeh

Tell me if you hate it~

[kamen-rider-zed]

Artiste et Muse Ch1

AO3

OHMIGOD IT FEELS GOOD TO BE BACK

This is the first time in almost a year that I’ve felt the inspiration to write. I want to thank everyone who has commented and kudo’d my work in my absence. I still read every comment and appreciate every kudo, but now I’m back, and it’s my OTP no less!

I might not get this finished by the end of the week because depression but I will finish it.

Definitely.

Without a doubt.

Just ignore the massive amount of WIPs in my backlog.

(#)

Chloe squeezed her eyes shut against the morning light streaming through the curtains and rolled over, curling up tighter beneath the soft sheets. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in ages, not since she learned the true price of having her Miraculous full time: Hawkmoth was nocturnal. Midnight Akumas constantly robbed her of her beauty sleep, but here and now? She felt comfortable and at ease. Her hands stretched out and she felt…something. It was warm, whatever it was, so she shifted closer to it and wrapped an arm around it. The warmth groaned and shifted, but she held on that much tighter.

In her half awake state, she barely registered the grunt from beneath her, but she quite clearly heard an unfamiliar voice say, “…the hell?”

She blinked herself out of her slumber and it took two seconds to realize she wasn’t in her own bed. It took only one second more to realize that, whoever’s bed she was in, she wasn’t alone. She lifted her gaze to a man, an older man, who she didn’t recognize. His long red hair and turquoise eyes seemed familiar but the only things she registered were that she didn’t know who he was and he was in the bed with her.

She screamed and shoved away from him, sliding across the sheets and off the bed opposite him. She stood, ready to demand some damn answers, but when the man’s gaze landed on her, his face turned as red as his hair, and he turned his head away with a hand over his eyes. Chloe opened her mouth to ask what his problem was, but a draft dropped her attention away from him and down to her bare body.

The man protested when she snatched the sheets off the bed and hastily wrapped them around herself. She may have, in the process of yanking the covers away from him, caught an eyeful of something that turned her own face red, but he was thankfully quick to cover up with a pillow.

“Okay, Red. You have ten seconds to explain why the hell you’re in my bed and why we’re…naked.”

“I…I have no idea how we got here, but, um…” His eyes dropped towards Chloe’s chest.

“Hey, hey!” She snapped her fingers at him and pointed at her face. “Eyes are up here, pervo!”

“I’m not looking…” He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. After easing it between his lips, he said, “I think I know why we were in bed together. Look at your left hand.”

Chloe had the sheets clutched to her chest with her left hand. Okay, so he wasn’t looking at her breasts. She shifted her grip on the sheets and looked at her left hand. Her eyes immediately fell on the magnificent ring on her fourth finger: a diamond flanked by a trio of citrine, ruby, and sapphire on either side, and set on a black band with a single gold stripe circling the entire ring. Next to it sat a plain gold band, and when she lifted her eyes back to the man, he had his left hand held up, displaying the gold band on his own finger.

“No, no no no no way in hell!” Chloe looked form the man, back to her hand, then back to him. “We’re…married?”

“Seems like it.”

“Uh uh, no way. A, if I’m marrying anyone, it’s going to be Adrien Agreste, not whoever the hell you are, and B, last I checked I’m only 15, a little too young to be married.”

“You don’t look 15.”

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion.” Though he did have a point. Her body felt different, taller and curvier than she normally was. She shook her head and grumbled, “This has to be the work of that Akuma I was just fighting.” She glanced down around her feet and, thankfully, found some clothes. Black panties and a yellow tank top, but it was better than walking around with a sheet wrapped around her. She sat on the bed with her back to the man and dropped the sheet to get dressed.

“Wait, fighting an Akuma?” Chloe heard some shifting behind her, so she assumed he was searching for some clothes himself.

“Yeah, you don’t recognize Queen Bee?” She pulled the tank top over heard head and pulled her loose hair from the collar. “One of Paris’ great superheroes?”

The sounds of movement stopped. “Wha…Ch-Chloe?!”

“Uh, yeah, who did you think I was?” She stood, working the panties up her legs. With them in place, she turned to address this stranger but stopped when Pollen and a blue kwami she didn’t recognize phased through the door.

“Good morning, my Queen, my King,” Pollen greeted with a small bow.

“May I have some berries please?” the blue kwami asked, rubbing its tummy. “I’m hungry.”

“Duusu!” The man, now clad in dark blue boxer briefs, lunged at the kwami and clamped his hands down around it, but when he turned his gaze back to Chloe, he knew the damage had been done.

“Duusu…” Chloe’s eyes widened. She knew that kwami’s name, just as she now knew who the man was. She scolded herself for not realizing it sooner; she would have recognized that red hair anywhere.

“Paon.”

Neither of them moved or took their eyes off of each other for ten full seconds. Chloe chanced a glance to his bedside table and spotted what she knew was his Miraculous. His eyes darted to her table and back, and she knew her own Miraculous sat there. They waited. Waited for the other to make the first move, with Pollen hovering between them and appearing more and more perplexed as the moment drew out.

There. The faintest twitch of his hand. Chloe’s own hand shot out, wrapped around the comb and she leapt over the bed just as she slipped the teeth into her hair and called for her transformation. The man ducked to the side and just as the golden sparks passed by Chloe’s eyes, he snatched up a pillow and threw it into her face, buying just enough time to affix his Miraculous to the waist of his boxers and call for Duusu to transform him.

He lunged, catching Queen Bee around the middle and crashing through the bedroom door and into a modest, sparsely decorated lounge area that all but proved they weren’t somewhere Chloe Bourgeois would call home. Queen Bee rolled backwards, drove her feet into Paon’s stomach throwing him behind her, then sprang to her feet to face him. He fell through a glass coffee table, but spun on his back just right so the tail of his coat swept a shower of glass shards upwards into his opponent’s face

Queen Bee lifted one hand to her eyes to block the glass, and with the other drew her trompo from her waist and spun it to deflect a barrage of feather darts. She flung out the top, but Paon sidestepped and, completely focused on Queen Bee, failed to notice it ricochet off of the refrigerator and slam into his back. Queen Bee whipped the trompo cord around him, catching the top on the end and using the momentum to wrap the line around him even tighter. She kicked him in the chest hard enough to knock him to the ground, leapt on top of him with her legs on either side of him, then caught her trompo.

The word to activate her power had just formed on her tongue when the handle to the front door jiggled, drawing her attention, and Paon’s. The door swung open and in strode a dark skinned woman with rust-colored hair in an undercut and a broad smile beneath her glasses. “Good morning Kurtzbergs! Put your pants on because I have a surpri-OH GODDAMMIT!” When she laid eyes on them, Queen Bee with Paon tied up beneath her, her face went from smile to disgust, to mild disappointment all in the span of two seconds. She spun back outside, swearing the entire way.

Queen Bee’s blood ran cold and she dropped her shocked gaze to the man tied up beneath her. “Kurtzberg? As in…Nathanael Kurtzberg?” Paon grimaced and turned his head away.

“What happened, Alya?” another woman asked just outside the door.

“I walked in on Chloe on top of Nath. They’re transformed and he’s tied up and-”

“Well, maybe this will teach you to knock from now on.” In walked another woman, this one with a dark pixie cut and bright blue eyes. “Okay you two. You’ve had all week to fuck each other’s brains out, now detransform and…Jesus, you broke the coffee table?” She groaned and slapped her hand over her eyes. “Do you have any idea how much Adrien spent on that?”

“Okay,” Queen Bee barked. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?”

The dark haired woman peeked out from under her hand. “Wait, what?”

“Hey, it could be my house,” Paon grunted indignantly.

“Shut it tomato brain. As if you could afford your own place drawing sub par Ladybug comics.”

Alya walked inside, seeming just as confused as her companion. “Tomato brain? You haven’t called him that in…like, ten years. Are you two having some kind of lover’s spat?”

Queen Bee rolled her eyes. “There’s no way I’m in love with, or married to, this absolute loser. This has to be the work of that Akuma his boss sicced on us.” She blinked at Alya. “And what the hell did you do to your hair?”

Alya lifted a hand to her undercut. “I…got this done, like…a couple months ago…”

“Tomato…Akuma…doesn’t recognize…” The dark haired woman narrowed her eyes at Queen Bee. “Chloe, what year is it?”

“2019, though I don’t exactly look 15 anymore, so I-”

She ignored whatever else Queen Bee had to say and dropped her eyes to Paon. “And Nath? Do you agree it’s 2019?”

Paon tilted his head to look at the woman, though she was upside down from his perspective. “Um, yeah, but how do you know who I am?”

She swore and turned to Alya. “Could you call Adrien and Nino please?”

“Team meeting?”

The woman nodded. “Team meeting.” Alya walked back outside, fishing her phone from her pcoket, and the dark haired woman crouched down. “Okay, this is gonna be a little shocking, but it’s 2029 and you two, at least the two of you from this timeline, got married last week. I know your identity-” she pointed to Paon “-because we’re not enemies anymore. We’re actually close friends. A little more than ten years ago, you betrayed Hawkmoth and helped us defeat him.”

“Us?” Queen Bee said. She looked the woman over. Dark hair, blue eyes, earrings… “Wait, Ladybug?”

The woman smiled. “Yeah, I’m Ladybug, and Chloe, I want you to promise me you won’t freak out too much when I tell you my name, oka-”

“Hey, Mari,” Alya walked back in and stuffed her phone back into her pocket. “The boys said they’ll be here in about-”

“Mari?” Paon turned his head to get a better look at the woman. “Marinette?”

“Marinette?” Queen Bee stopped breathing. “Dupain-Cheng?…Ladybu…wha…” Her breathing started back up, but far faster and shallower than it should have been.

Marinette slapped her hand over her eyes again and sighed. “Oh, goddammit.”

[komorebirei]

The Water Was Never Afraid - Chapter 12: Current

(AO3)

Chat Noir landed on the roof of Montparnasse Tower, a step behind Ladybug.

“All’s quiet on the east side,” he reported.

“Same on the west side,” Ladybug returned.

For the past six months that they had been doing these weekly patrols, they hadn’t come across anything; the mere sight of them probably deterred most petty street crimes, and there hadn’t been any akuma activity.

Chat Noir had decided not to tell Ladybug about Hawkmoth. If he did, she would want to take action to put him behind bars, or at least take the miraculous from him. If he went to jail, he would be disgraced in front of the public. The Gabriel brand would suffer. Everything would change.

And, honestly, Adrien understood why his father had done everything he had. He didn’t agree with it, but he knew his father wasn’t evil. He was desperate, depressed, a little unstable, and had a skewed sense of perspective at times, but once he got out of this rut, he would be okay. They didn’t need the law stepping in and making the situation worse. This was something they could fix on their own.

It didn’t feel good to keep secrets from her, but his family was at stake.

“Well, milady.” Chat Noir stepped up to her. “I suppose we’ll call it a night.” He held out his fist.

Ladybug touched the fist with her own. Even though they weren’t fighting akumas anymore, they still bumped fists before parting ways, like a cherished tradition. “Before you go, Chat Noir…”

He met her eyes, and realized the way she was looking at him was different from usual.

“Are you okay?”

A shot of trepidation ran through Chat Noir. Had he let too much emotion show? He smiled instinctively. “Of course, Bugaboo. Why?”

She tilted her head, as if trying to see him better from another angle. “Really? I thought you never lied to me, Chat Noir.” Her voice was quiet and serious.

He didn’t have the heart to deny it a second time after that. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily. Things are a little tense in my civilian life, but I have a friend who’s been very supportive, so … I’ll be okay.”

“A friend from your civilian life?”

From the way he hesitated, the guilty look in his eyes, and the shrug and half-nod instead of a confident ‘Yes,’ Ladybug realized heartbreakingly that the friend was probably herself. Marinette.

Though it saddened her that Chat Noir didn’t have anyone he could talk to as a civilian, and she wondered why not, she was at least glad that he trusted her enough to open up to her, and that he wasn’t completely alone.

So, she didn’t press him for any more information. Though she cared, his civilian life wasn’t something Ladybug should be asking about. Grasping his hand in a show of affection and support, she smiled. “I’m glad you have a friend to lean on. I hope things get better, Chat Noir. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Chat Noir squeezed her hand, grateful for the extra dose of warmth that she was giving him. A pang of longing stabbed his heart as she retracted it. He still loved her, but it had grown into a calm, tender love that resided in him like a subtle warmth. When she did something like this, though, that warmth started to sting, like holding a hand over a candle for too long.

“I’ll see you next week at the usual spot, LB,” Chat Noir said, flashing her a grin. With a parting salute, he flipped over the side of the building and bounded away.

—

Adrien’s phone rang at 9:00 a.m. on the dot Monday morning, just as he was preparing to go into a budget meeting.

“Yes, Father?”

“Good morning, Adrien. Are you in the office?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever you have planned for the morning, please make sure you’re covered or reschedule. You’re needed in the second floor studio for fittings.”

Adrien balked. “Fittings?”

“You heard me—the photoshoot is on Wednesday. I trust it won’t be a problem for you to do some modeling.”

“No,” Adrien sighed, choosing his battles. With a goodbye to his father, he hung up and called out to Celeste, who was passing by on her way to the meeting. “Can you take notes for me and bring up the points that I mentioned to you? You wrote them down, right?”

Celeste nodded, tucking a silky ginger lock behind her ear. “Yes, sir. On both counts.”

“I’m counting on you, Celeste,” he said with a grin, which disappeared as soon as he exited his office and turned the opposite way toward the elevators. He wasn’t excited to start modeling again.

The second floor studio was a bustle of activity. Camille was the head designer of this studio, but she had several interns under her, and a small team of seamstresses to help with production. There were four large tables in the center of the room, and the edges were lined with counters and drawers. Mannequins were set up around the room, and articles of clothing and notions were strewn everywhere in organized chaos, at varying stages of completion. Adrien scanned the room for Camille.

“Adrien! Over here,” a voice beckoned him, and his eyes caught the rapid movement of a hand waving him over.

He locked eyes with Marinette, and his widened in surprise. Memories of the other night rose unbidden to his mind—of the floral scent of her shampoo, her gentle fingers kneading the back of his head, her slender, bare legs draped over his arm as he carried her to bed.

He took a deep breath, forcing the thoughts out of his mind. Those thoughts were definitely inappropriate on so many levels. He made his way across the floor to where she was, at a table on the edge of the studio across from a row of curtained changing booths. Her immediate surroundings looked neater than the rest of the studio; he figured she had tidied up for the fitting.

“Marinette,” he greeted her jovially. “I didn’t expect it to be you.”

“It seems your father liked the idea of you actually modeling for my feature,” she said with a shrug, picking up a tape measure from the table.

As Marinette moved around, gathering some additional supplies, he couldn’t help but appreciate her sense of style. She was wearing a loose, white chiffon boat-neck blouse with a colorful bird pattern, tucked neatly into light brown trousers that hugged her hips, bound with a thin black belt. A joke about birds and cats sprang to his mind, but he pushed it deep down in favor of a more professional topic.

“Is this for Style Queen?”

“Yup. I still can’t believe Audrey is doing this. I was so sure she’d written me off after I rejected her offer to take me to New York.”

Adrien smiled at the memory. “Chloé probably never told you, but she was really grateful toward you for that. Her mom was always a sore spot with her since we were kids. I’m pretty sure she owes it to you that she even has a relationship with her mom now.”

“They seemed to be getting along well at the party,” Marinette commented, putting several folded garments in his hands and leading him toward one of the changing booths with a hand on his back. It was just a normal gesture—designers were used to pushing around models as if they were literal mannequins, and Adrien was used to going with the flow—but Adrien couldn’t help but be reminded yet again of the other night, of the way Marinette had led him inside her flat and wrapped him in her embrace as he sobbed.

Thinking about it made his heart beat faster. It was weird after all. It was weird to know he had experienced that with her, and he was right in front of her now, knowing it, but she had no idea. He felt like he was tricking her, somehow.

Once he was hidden from view inside the changing booth, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath to regain a semblance of inner peace, before making any moves to change into the garments.

He was used to hiding things. This was nothing new. He had interacted with people he knew as Chat Noir on a daily basis and had to play dumb as Adrien—he had been doing it for years.

He came out to see Marinette leaning against the table, waiting for him. Her face brightened when he caught her eye, and she looked him up and down. Even though it was normal for a fitting, he felt strangely self-conscious to have her checking out his body. No, he corrected mentally, the clothes.

“Everything looks pretty good, actually,” Marinette remarked, circling around him and pinching the fabric here and there, inserting a few pins. “I don’t have to do much.”

“That’s good news,” Adrien said, fighting to keep the warmth that was threatening to spread to his face. He started to feel hot, and could feel the hairs of his neck standing on end when Marinette checked the collar and her fingers brushed his skin.

Just as Adrien was starting to worry about sweating on Marinette’s works-in-progress, she put another stack of clothes into his hands and shooed him into the changing booth.

“So,” Adrien struck up conversation during the second fitting, in an attempt to make things less awkward. “Who’s modeling the women’s wear? Did you get roped into that, too?”

Marinette laughed, a sound so delightful that Adrien couldn’t help but seek out her face to see the expression that accompanied it. “No,” she answered, “we’re hiring someone to do it. She’s coming in this afternoon for her fitting.”

“Ah,” Adrien said, a little disappointed. “I bet you would have done great, anyway. It would have been cool to see you in your own designs.”

“You’re seeing it now,” Marinette teased, making a playful ‘model pose.’

“Right, I should have guessed! You look fabulous,” Adrien exclaimed sheepishly, finding it suddenly difficult to meet her eyes, let alone give her outfit another close look.

“Thanks for that vote of confidence, anyway.” Marinette resumed pinning the current outfit and jotting down notes in a small pad, before handing him the next set of clothes.

He eyed the table to gauge how many outfits were left. His heart was racing, his hands were sweaty, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe right. Since when did he feel this way around Marinette?

He suffered through the rest of the fitting in relative silence, afraid he would accidentally give his flustered state away if he tried to engage her in more conversation.

Maybe it had been a mistake to visit Marinette again as Chat Noir. He hadn’t expected that it would make working with her so awkward. Then again, he didn’t usually work with her in such close quarters as today.

When the fitting was complete, Adrien took his leave. On his way back to his office, he dipped into the bathroom across the hall, stopping in front of the mirror. As expected, his cheeks were flushed. He groaned in frustration, annoyed that his complexion gave away too much, too easily. Turning on the faucet, he wet his hands and dragged them across his face, trying to cool down.

“My, my, my. This is interesting.”

Adrien glared at Plagg in the mirror. The kwami was floating in the air over his right shoulder, tiny fangs glinting as he smirked. “What’s interesting?”

“I’ve never seen you react like that to Bakery Girl before.”

“It was just weird!” Adrien retorted defensively. “It hit me that what happened the other day as Chat Noir was kind of… intimate,” he confessed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have visited her.”

Plagg lost a little of his smug attitude, landing on Adrien’s shoulder. “I’m gonna be honest, kid, I think you needed it that day.”

“Maybe…” Adrien sucked in a long breath and held it before letting it out slowly. He grabbed some paper towels from the dispenser and dabbed at his face. “Maybe I did. But what am I supposed to do now? I feel like I’m deceiving her.”

“Why would you feel like that?”

“She doesn’t know she kissed Adrien Agreste on the cheek and let him pick her up in her skimpy pajamas and bring her to her bed…” Heat flooded his face, just thinking about it.

Plagg regained his smirk. “She was comforting her friend. She would have done the same for Adrien, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Plagg… we were never that close…”

“What I find interesting,” Plagg came around in front of Adrien’s face and looked him in the eyes, practically dancing with mischief, “is that you’re so focused on those details.”

Adrien’s blush deepened, feeling despicable to be skewing an innocent gesture from one friend to another.

“I’d almost think you had feelings for Bakery Girl.”

Adrien gasped. “Plagg! I’m in a relationship, for goodness’ sake! Stop trying to plant ideas!”

Plagg cackled. “Too late. The seeds are already there.”

“What is that supposed to mean?!”

Plagg did a loop-de-loop in the air. “Maybe Bee Girl was on to something.”

“Okay, enough,” Adrien said, getting angry. “I’m dating someone, it’s absolutely wrong to be implying these things.” Tossing the wad of paper towels in the garbage, he stormed out of the bathroom to look for Celeste.

[angelofthequeers]

Papa Garou thoughts

It wasn’t the best episode but it was a lot better than I was expecting! It was pretty okay in the grand scheme of things. I don’t have screenshots because I’m running on little sleep and can’t be assed going back for them but whatevs.

• I’m glad they at least...tried to tackle that ‘possessive father with his pure daughter’ thing??? They did have Sabine call him out and him acknowledge that he went too far, at any rate. I’m still annoyed that Tom’s spotlight came from him being ‘Marinette’s father’ rather than fleshing out his personality, but we all know the only family that gets fleshing out is the Agrestes and their oh so dark family secret, so...whatever. I’m resigned to Marinette’s parents being props at this point. Though Sabine did get a little characterisation so that was fun.

• I’m also glad that Marinette wasn’t punished for fucking up, as usually happens literally every other time. She defused her dad by saying that Chat could love whoever he wanted, but she wasn’t punished for getting so flustered that she lied and I was fully expecting the narrative to dump on her and blame her for causing the akuma. I’m very glad that it was Tom’s possessiveness of Marinette that was blamed (while carefully not going “he got himself akumatised” because that’s pretty victim-blamey) and not Marinette for trying to protect her identity and messing up in the process.

• Tikki’s face when Marinette is going on about Marinette vs Ladybug is iconic. And Plagg shipping Marichat purely for cheese pastries made me laugh out loud. I swear to god, these kwamis are the best thing about the show.

•Hawkmoth clearly isn’t the brightest tool in the shed if he thinks that akumatising the baby again is a good idea.

• Hawkmoth going ‘of course’ when Tom wants to squash Chat Noir had me like 👀👀👀👀👀👀

• GABRIEL STOP BEING A FUCKFACE AND ACTUALLY BE A FATHER

• No but this is why the narrative’s insistence on a sympathetic Gabriel just does not work. You can’t have scenes like this, where Adrien’s eating alone again and is outright depressed and his own FATHER has to schedule to eat with him, and then toss in scenes of Gabriel being upset over Emilie or bonding with Nathalie. It just...doesn’t work. Pick a Gabriel and stick with it because he’s just all over the place.

• I was actually happily impressed with Chat in this episode. There was the usual flirting with Ladybug even though she’s turned him down, but he did show a super sweet side of him that clearly impressed Marinette when he said that he was in love with Ladybug and stuck to it despite having a girl confess her feelings for him. He’s still got a long way to go before he’s mature enough for a relationship, especially after the catastrophe that was S2 Adrien/Chat. But even though this ep didn’t go how I was hoping in terms of linking back to S2 and forcing Chat into a moment of maturity and realising what a brat he was, he was pleasantly mature in a different way by being respectful of Marinette’s “feelings” and wanting to let her down to her face rather than just avoiding her, along with clearly showing that he didn’t want to hurt her in any way. He did everything right in this episode and I very much hope that moving forward, the writers slide away from the status quo (despite their fear of doing so, even though the episodes that stepped outside the box were easily the best ones, like ‘Sandboy’) and have him realise that Ladybug has been in his position when he’s directed his affections at her and as a result, be less of a brat when she turns him down. There’s nothing wrong with having a formula for the show so long as you allow characters to grow within that formula; shows like Supernatural, while having their own problems with stubbornly sticking to the formula for fear of straying too far and out of desperation to stick with “what works”, still allow for growth and lessons within that formula that actually stick (even if SPN took like a decade to get to the point where the characters learned but eh, there was still development along the way)

• I loved Chat’s speeches to Papa Garou and how he kind of poked at that trope of the romantic prince in shining armour by extolling Marinette’s virtues as an individual and rightly calling out her father for being overly protective of her without painting her as a delicate flower. I also really loved his dedication to saving her, which we don’t see with any other akuma hostages or victims (sans Gabriel but ehhhh), because it really showed how much he cares for Marinette and values her friendship without the writers screaming “SEE LOOK FRIENDS!!!” in our faces. It wasn’t subtle but it wasn’t forced either, which is a good balance for a kid’s show. Even if Marichat isn’t romantic just yet (which won’t stop me from shipping them), it was respectfully handled and we Marichat shippers weren’t made the butt of jokes about how they’ll never work out. Instead, we got a super mature lesson about how friends are just as important as romance, and I’m really hoping they carry this message forward and it’s not just a one-off fluke because this is a fantastic message to teach kids (and yes my aro heart is happy but that’s not the point). There was a good leap in relationship development and I really hope they keep that going.

• Although I am annoyed that Chat finally gets an episode to shine and take down the akuma and he...gets smacked around. The speeches were great and saved it, and I get that Ladybug also gets slapped around when she’s solo, but...eh. It’s probably just me nitpicking because Chat’s always the punching bag and I was hoping for more than thy, but it’s also unfair to say that he did nothing but get bitchslapped because him holding off Papa Garou bought Marinette enough time to find the akuma while holding Papa Garou’s attention so he couldn’t go grab her off it. The episode did do a good job of showing that Ladybug and Chat Noir are a soulbound team even when detransformed and unknowingly working together, so I’m super happy about that carrying over of the “you and me against the world” from ‘Mayura’ but in a different form.

So yeah, this ep isn’t anywhere near the top, but it’s pleasantly nowhere near the bottom either. It’s a nice little passing episode that’s definitely a huge step-up from Chameleon but anything’s better than Chameleon soooo. I do hope that this maturity sticks with Adrien and he finally learns to not act so entitled to Ladybug, and I hope this trend of not crucifying Marinette for every tiny fuck-up also continues because it was pleasantly refreshing to not have the narrative dump on her.

[dfcfanfics]

Is this thing on?

Greetings!  I am the author of the MiraculElse series, a growing set of fanfictions for Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, and figured that I’d start up a place where people can respond to them, make requests, comment on them, tear my writing to shreds and whatever else people do around here to writers.

That is, if anyone actually finds this or cares to respond to it..  One way to find out!  

For reference, every story here will be rated T for Teen, but should have nothing offensive in it.  There will be no sex, graphic violence, death, maiming, nudity or things you probably couldn’t show your grandmother.  (Though Granny did have quite a time back in her day...)  The object is to stay as true to the spirit of the show, its marvelous characters and the intent of their creative team as possible, keep things light and humorous for the most part, and you might just trip over lots Love Square fluff along the way.

Profiles

FFN Profile

AO3 Profile

Stories in Progress:

Sorting through ideas.

Completed Stories:

The Marinette Project  (14 chapters, 96K words)

Adrien notices that his friend Marinette looks very depressed about the school year ending.  (He doesn’t notice that it’s largely because she won’t see him every day... which is why she’s depressed.)  He decides to pay her visits as Chat Noir over the summer to lift her spirits; perhaps some little surprises can make her feel better, and maybe even confident and desirable enough to finally confess to her Mystery Crush!  ...Whoever he may be.

Are things about to go completely off the rails?  Of course they are.  Plagg thinks it’s hilarious.  Everyone else will be running to catch up...

14 chapters.  Heavy MariChat content with the usual assortment of other interactions

Reservations For Two... More May Be Coming (6 chapters, 37K words)

Adrien figures out who Ladybug’s crush is... and that it’s him.  He sends her a letter asking her out on a date, which sends her skyrocketing!  Now she just has to figure out how to get a “yes” back to him... and how to make the couple thing work with the mask she knows about (and the mask she doesn’t) getting in the way.

Six chapters.  Ladrien-focused, but all four sides get to play in their own way.  

Once in a Lifetime (4 chapters, 26K words)

Hawkmoth’s latest villain forsakes subtlety for brute force... and catches Ladybug unawares, blasting her hard enough to send her and her earrings flying.  Marinette wakes up in a hospital bed, with minor injuries but no idea how she got there, or where her Miraculous went.  Her rescuer finds herself with knowledge she didn’t ask for... and a pair of shiny temptations.

Will someone new don the red-and-black... for how long... and whose identities OR bodies will still be standing when the smoke clears?

Four chapters.  A mystery story -- see if you can pick out who the new Ladybug is before she’s revealed!  (Shouldn’t be TOO hard...)

Summer Break (6K words)

With school out for the summer, Marinette goes for a bike ride with her friends... but a blonde distraction ends it the hard way.  With her leg in a light cast for six weeks, what’s a young man to do?  Put on his ears and go make her feel better, of course.  Do creeping feelings get in the way?  Are secrets learned?  ...That would be telling.

One-shot; my first fanfic.  MariChat-centered.

Locked and Loaded (6K words)

Inscribed padlocks on bridges in Paris are a popular way for lovers to signify their devotion... even if the authorities would rather that they didn’t.  Marinette hopes that walking SOMEONE past all those tokens of affection will put him in the right mood.  But when Hawkmoth corrupts a jilted woman, she turns the locks into her tools of revenge, and Ladybug and Chat must protect Paris (and one young man in particular) from her wrath and an army of enslaved romantics.

One-shot.  “Alternative episode”, a lighter touch.

Forget-Me-Not (6K words)

Hawkmoth’s newest villain, Brainfreeze, blasts Ladybug and Chat Noir’s memories of their heroic identities right out of their minds.  Marinette and Adrien find themselves on the run, dressed in the strangest costumes...  Can they figure out their abilities and secrets soon enough to save the day, this time knowing each other’s identities from the beginning?  What will happen if their lost memories never come back... and what happens if they do?

One-shot.  “Alternative episode.”

Crack Fics:

Trouble...Made? (1.8K words)

Marinette’s crush on Adrien is revealed to the world, thanks to Jagged Stone’s reality show debut.  Now she feels like she has no choice but to confess her love to the boy of her dreams.  But there’s something she REALLY ought to know first...

Sometimes... oblivious is better.

A preposterous response to the leaked transcript of Troublemaker, written before the episode aired.    

So, Now What?

Click ‘em.  Read ‘em.  Respond to ‘em, if you like.  Or don’t.  See if I care.

If anyone finds this, hope you enjoy!  Now go get your spots on and your claws out.

-- DFC

[jellojolteon]

ok alright ok alright ok alright

I’m (mostly) moved into my apartment for the next 8 months, time for me to finish out these character sheets as celebration with Everyone’s Favorite Boy!

(This one is particularly long since I’m tying up all the loose ends I can so just... be prepared.)

So, I mean, we’ve been through this a bunch of times at this point but let’s start from the top and tell it again from Adrien’s POV.

Everything up until the, say, last year and a half or so of his life, Adrien lived in comfort, surrounded by the love of his parents and the staff of his father’s company. Charming and sunny, the office full of designers absolutely doted on him, none more than Gabriel and his mom.

Of course, everything changed when his mom suddenly vanished. Gabriel locked himself away from Adrien, trying to shield him from the scandal that erupted and threatened business. Adrien now had, essentially, two parents to grieve, and amidst the stressful chaos in Gabriel’s workplace, Adrien was receiving far less attention than he was used to from all angles.

He was basically depressed, corralled into his room to avoid the press and damned with the internet as his only real outside line. A couple months after Mme. Agreste’s disappearance, Gabe received the Cat Noir ring and began to wreak destruction across Paris. Adrien, under slackened surveillance, began to sneak out amidst his busy schedule. Emboldened by weeks of successful sneaking, he finally decided to attempt to go to public school. Unfortunately, this is about the time Tuxedo Cat decided to come out and confront a tired Ladybug. Things were looking somewhat dire when Adrien, previously on his way to school, decided to step in front of Ladybug and connect with Tux’s readied Cataclysm instead (bear in mind that his will to live is not exactly intact at this point, but he nonetheless genuinely believes in Ladybug and understands that buying her even a few seconds could be the line between life as usual and Paris in flames).

Gabriel stops inches short of ending his son’s life, his hesitation giving Ladybug enough time to turn the tides back in her favor, calling upon Lucky Charm and nearly stealing the Cat Miraculous back, and Fu witnesses the whole thing. Impressed but a bit concerned by Adrien’s reckless self-sacrifice, he opts to give Nooroo and the Butterfly Brooch to the boy. 

Meanwhile, Gabriel is pissed. A very heated exchange of “WHO LET HIM OUT” occurs and he ends up firing a lot of tutors and workers for their perceived incompetence. Adrien is NOT to leave the house unless under strict supervision of Nathalie or Gorilla (the two most competent, even though they both also nearly got canned themselves), and ONLY to do modeling shoots. There are only maybe two or three remaining tutors who come to the Agreste Mansion to ensure that Adrien does not fall behind in his most essential studies.

Adrien then becomes Greyling, a mysterious superhero who calls to the people of Paris to help their savior, gifting them with superpowers via “Mitamas”, which are akumas as we know them but good. They function as we expect, possessing objects and leaving when said object is broken or they are called back. Mitamas often are a lot more unique in appearance than akumas when sent out; in generic form they appear as glowing white butterflies and not overly different from their neutral form, but can take on more colorful and ornate appearances depending on the champion and what Adrien knows about them.

Greyling is a blessing to Ladybug, and she begins to fall in love with the mysterious, lonely kid who suddenly has her back in every battle, even if it is from afar. She doesn’t know much about him other than what little she can eke out of her classmates. Alya and Nino are particularly helpful to this end, but they like all others forget much of what they did after the mitamas have been called back.

His -special powers- are a bit vague since we don’t know much about Hawkmoth in canon, but the big thing is what happens when Ladybug gets into trouble. As we have seen, Hawkmoth has some physical control over his akumas and usually uses this ability to painfully coerce them into doing what he wants. Greyling, likewise, is able to assume some degree of physical control over his champions. The emotional stakes need to be pretty high for this to occur, but his love for Ladybug is a pretty powerful thing. He doesn’t possess every champion, but the ones particularly close to Mari/Ladybug are most likely to be on the receiving end of possession. (They obviously don’t know its her, but magic need not make that distinction.)

Adrien always feels terrible about taking people over in such an intimate way and has to come to terms with the ability as stemming from his own love. He gets better about warning the champions about it as time goes on though.

Greyling and Ladybug’s love is a bit complicated since for a good while the two never meet. Adrien learns of Ladybug because of Alya’s blog and is consistently impressed by her bravery and the incredible grace with which she handles the awful duty she was dealt. He’s one of the few people besides those Tux Cataclysms (yes, they do come back to life if he kills them as Tux) that understands how much of a curse it is to deal with day in and day out. Marinette falls in love with Greyling a good bit more slowly, but she gets the niggling sense that there is more to it than him possessing people and she can sense the desperation with which he’d rather be helping her in person. It’s this desire to do good and the ability to convince nearly anyone to help that gets her wrapped around his finger.

Adrien does not, initially, leave a very good impression on Mari. She hates when civilians try to play hero. They fortunately don’t usually, but when they do it ends badly. Having a death toll to fix is an added load of pressure in doing your job which already is essentially “don’t get killed”. Adrien’s self-sacrifice is too reckless for her tastes even if it comes from a good place.

When Mari lands her internship, she tries to put it aside in a businesslike fashion in order to work with Adrien as a model. She ends up finding out that he really is sweet and makes the absolute worst puns and is cheeky but always knows what to say to make her feel better. Mari refuses to believe she’s in love with him because Greyling already has her heart, and she and Adrien become thick as thieves. Adrien is in about the same boat, elated to have a friend (and then, more friends!!), but he really just doesn’t love Mari that way (yet).

As a token of their friendship/ for his birthday, Mari knits Adrien his scarf and does actually give it to him. The first gift from a friend he’s ever received AND it hides his miraculous so he can keep it pinned to his shirt... he never takes it off.

Nooroo in this AU is more himself as I think he might be. He’s very doting and motherly and overprotective, almost comically so, but he carries a certain level of grief with him at having to be put in a dire situation. He trains Adrien in the art of emotional reading as best he can, and though he doesn’t like the idea of Greyling being seen outside, Nooroo eventually relents and teaches Adrien to fight physically as well.

Adrien often gets lonely when Mari isn’t around and likes to vent to the butterflies in the attic. They’re the first ones to know when Adrien realizes he loves Marinette and not just Ladybug.

(To recap, love square is as follows:

Greydybug = Ladynoir, Mutually requited

Marling  = Marichat, One-sided by Mari

Ladrien  = One-sided by Adrien

Adrienette = Just friends!! Ha ha who ever said we loved each other)

[joyofcrime-elinorhigh]

Top 5 Obscure Christmas Specials You Should Watch:

 Rolls off the tongue there, doesn't it? 

 Hello everybody, my name is JoyofCrimeArt and I don't know about you, but I love Christmas. There's just something about this time of year that's just magical. Everybody seems to be in a better mood, people hate each other slightly less, and we all come together in order to celebrate kindness and brotherhood with your fellow man. There are plenty of things about Christmas to love besides that though. The music, the food, and especially the specials.  I've always been a bit of a Christmas special nut. I grew watching the classics. The Frosty's, the Rudolph's, the Charlie Browns (ect.) However, as time's gone on and I've gone older I realized that I was only scrapping the top of the iceberg. Because for every Christmas special that becomes a holiday icon, there are about a hundred that don't. Everybody wants a piece of the Christmas pie. And that'd why I'm here, to count down five of these weirder, less well known Christmas specials. That way you can check them out before Christmas time.  Now a couple of things that I want to specify before getting into this list. One.) These are a list of specials that you should watch. I'm not saying that there actually good, from an objective point of view. Some of them are, but some of them fall into "so bad it's good" category or just have some kinda cheesy quality to them that you just can't help but find endearing. Because even a lot of bad Christmas special that I found tend to have at least something enjoyable in them. Also I'll be ranking this list by how much you should watch them. Something that's very "so bad it's good" can be higher that something that's just technically better if it provides more enjoyment. Also keep in mind that, in general, I'm not very good at ranking things. My opinions on things tends to change very often, so like my list of top Toonami Ad's this list will be focusing less on ranking and more on just showcasing the best and worst of Christmas weirdness. So take the numbers with a bit of a grain of salt.  So anyway with all that said, let's dive right in. Number 5: Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe In Santa (2002)  I'm putting this one at the bottom of this list because, while still definitely obscure, it has been growing a cult popularity ever since online reviews like Pan Pizza, Mr. Enter, and The Nostalgia Critic started talking about it. It's the Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe In Santa and OH MY GOD!

 This...animated?- special follows the adventures of the Rapsitte Street Kids, specifically Ricky. He's a wannabe rapper who has a crush on the classes spoiled rich girl, Nicole. (Side note, how come in stories like this the main character always has a crush on the spoiled rich girl who's always super mean to them.) He decides to give her a teddy bear as a Christmas present, but Nicole decides to throw it out because it's so cheap.

 Hmm, no this scene doesn't feel right. I think it's missing something...

(An yes, I did trace that Hawkmoth symbol, but hey if this special is allowed to be lazy then why can't I?)  -But when Nicole discovers that the teddy bear was actually the last thing that Ricky's mom gave to him before she died, she has a change of heart and tries to get it back. However the story of the special is nowhere near as interesting as the real life story of the special.  This special, (which was suppose to kick off a franchise) aired only once on the WB. And from 2002 all the way to 2015 the special was considered lost media, with no copies or home media releases ever made. Only a few pieces production art and a handful of people on the Toonzone forums served as evidence of the specials existence. It's actually kinda scary if you think about it. Imagine you're channel surfing in 2002 and find this on TV. You go on early internet to look up what the hell you just watched and then...nothing. You then go over a decade, possibly wondering if the special was real or if it was just a fever dream.  I don't know how this special actually got to air though. Very little is known about the production of this special, but the budget was at least five hundred thousand dollars. Now with a special this cheap looking, even by 2002 standards, you'd imagine that the voice acting would be about as bad as the animation would be. But no, this special actually has an all star cast, featuring Mark Hamill (Star Wars, BTAS) Paige O'Hara (Beauty and the Beast), Nancy Cartwright (The Simpsons), and Grey Griffin (Avatar TLA, The Loud House) just to name a few.  But let's ignore the animation for a second. How is the special itself. Honestly, if it had better animation, it would probably be fine. It's nothing fantastic or anything, and it is a bit cliche at points, but it's not terrible or anything. It be your average, generic Christmas special. The voice acting is pretty decent and there are actually some pretty good songs. Also Nicole actually getting an arc instead of just being the generic mean rich girl was a bit of a pleasant surprise. However, with the bad animation, coupled with a lot of moments that are just filled with odd spaces of dead air, it easily becomes a great "so bad it's good" Christmas special in the same vein as say Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.  The special is available in full on Youtube. Usually I am very much against watching things online when there not released officially, because I believe that it's better to support the animation industry in any way you can. But here I'm willing to make an exception here. Given the fact that it was lost for thirteen years, I think it's clear that this special will never be put up on iTunes, Amazon, or DVD. If you love bad Christmas specials as much as I do, it's definitely worth checking out. Number 4: Nestor The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977)  Ah, What kind of Christmas list would be complete without talking about Rankin/Bass Productions. To some there the company that defined your Christmas. To others, there the company that defined your nightmares. I fall more into the former category. (though I can totally understand the latter.) Sure there hockey, campy, and have the budget of half of a ham sandwich but hey, I grew up with them. And thus I will love them forever, despite how awful they are. That's just how nostalgia works.  Rankin-Bass became the king of animated Christmas specials in the late sixties and early seventies, pumping out hits like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Clause is Comin' To Town, Frosty the Fu*kboi, and A Year Without a Santa Claus just to name a few. However, as we moved into the late seventies and the early eighties, they were kinda starting to reach the bottom of the barrel in terms of ideas for specials. Thus resulting in some lesser known specials that most people aren't as aware of. One of these specials was 1977's Nestor, the Long Eared-Christmas Donkey.  The story follows Nestor, a donkey who was born with freakishly long ears. He is considered a misfit by the other donkey's in the stable, but little does he know that the thing that makes him a misfit may actually be the only thing that can save Christmas. The first Christmas to be exact.  And if this premise sounds familiar to you, that congratulations, you know what Rudolph is.  This special is a Rudolph rip off. Blatantly. Rankin-Bass made a rip off to there own special. However, as odd as this is going to sound, I actually like this special more than Rudolph. And I don't just mean in a "so bad it's good" way. I actually think that this special is better. Now why do I think this. What does this special have that Rudolph doesn't? Honestly, I think it's the heart.  Not to say that  Rudolph doesn't have any heart or anything, and it does have it's memorable lines, moments and characters, but I do sort of see it as one of the lesser Rankin-Bass specials for this reason. If you go back and re-watch Rudolph it's actually a very mean spirited special. Everybody is a jerk to Rudolph, from his father to frickin' Santa himself. Yes, they learn there lesson at the end, but it is honesty a pretty depressing watch up until that point.  However, in this special the only people who make fun of Nestor are characters were suppose to hate, and the other...um...

Jacks? okay Jacks.  It's only the other Jack's who pick on him. This is a lot less mean spirited because it's children picking on children, not adults And even the kids let up at some point. When there celebrating the Winter Solstice, (Remember, this is B.C: Before Christmas.) The other donkeys let Nestor celebrate with them and even apologize. Also unlike Rudolph, Nestor has much better parental figure in the form of his mom, who actually comforts his son when he's upset about his ears.  I don't want to go into spoilers here, but there are some moments in this special that are actually emotional. I know, I can't believe that either! Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey is genuinely emotional! Also there are some actually interesting ideas in it. Like there's this one character who's a Cherub. She has a very baby-ish looking body, sort of like a stereotypical Cupid. But when she talks the voice is this adult woman's voice. I don't know if it was an artist choice, or just laziness when casting the role but I love the juxtaposition of it. It creates this very other-worldly, almost alien vibe to the character, which fits given the fact that character is a servant of God. If it was a creative choice, it was a very interesting one in my personal opinion.    I'm not going to act like this specials perfect. It's cheesy as heck, and you if you have any knowledge of...the Bible, you know exactly where the special is going. (SPOILER ALERT: Jesus is born.) But for a special called Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, I think it's the best that we can get. This could of easily just been a one for one Rudolph rip off, and in some regards it is. But I think they add just enough changes to make it worth watching in addition to Rudolph. I try to watch it every year. (Though full disclosure, I haven't actually seen it this year yet as of the writing of this review. I usually try to rewatch things before writing reviews of them, but I think I've seen this special enough times in the past to have a pretty firm opinion on it. But I did want to throw that out there just for transparency.) I think it's definitely a special worth checking out if you haven't seen it.  Also, the film The Star totally stole this films premise. Like, I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but still. How are there two specials with this premise?!

Number 3: A Cranberry Christmas (2008)  Okay, I know that some of you guys probably think that it was a bit unprofessional of me to talk about Nestor without re-watching-  OH MY GOSH! A baby donkey is called a Jack. Jack...ass...  That's funny.  -Anyway I know that some of you guys probably think that it was a bit unprofessional of me to talk about Nestor without re-watching it first. And unfortunately the same is true with this entry. However, I have a good reason this time. This time, I couldn't actually find the special. Like, anywhere. I looked on Amazon for a DVD or a buy able streaming version, I checked Youtube and only found one clip, I even looked on websites I'm usually against using, just to see if it was on there and came up with nothing. I looked on the Lost Media Wiki page and didn't see anything, so I'm assuming this special is out there somewhere. But I can't find it. It doesn't even have a Tvtropes page. So Instead I'll use my memory (as well as some other info I've found on other sites.) in order to tell you all...of the legend...of A Cranberry Christmas. Because I refuse to let this special become the next Rapsitte Street Kids. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0q3VFW47Yo

 This special, which is based off a book from 1976, aired on ABC Family (Now called Freeform.) What made this special unique was that it always aired without commercials. However, there was a catch to that. While the special wasn't interrupted by commercials, it was a commercial. Because this special was proudly sponsored by Ocean Spray. From my memory they weren't to blatant about the brand itself. (They never said the brand by name or anything.) But the special did talk a lot about cranberries, and how "Christmas isn't Christmas without cranberries" or something to that effect. (It's kinda like Frosty Returns in that regard.)  But that's not where this specials weirdness ends. The plot of the movie (And keep in mind I'm reciting this from memory, so some details may be off) involves a cranberry bog that freezes over every winter. All the kids love skating on the bog, but a crotchety old man named Cyrus Grapes..REALLY- tries to ban the kids from skating because he claims that the bog is on his property. However, a nice old man named Mr. Whisker's also claims that the bog is on his property, and he's find with the kids skating on it. So Mr. Whiskers, along with a young girl who's apparently named Maggie according to IMDB, have to find the documents proving that Mr. Whisker's own's the bog. Yay, land disputes. And cranberries...the true meaning of Christmas!  The special is odd. Also..this is going to sound bad, but just hear me out. I think that Mr. Whiskers is mentally handicapped. The special never says he is, but the plot doesn't make sense if he isn't. Because this special's ticking clock as it where, is Mr. Whisker's sister coming to visit for the holidays. She doesn't like how much of a mess Mr. Whisker's house is and think's he's unfit to live on his own. So Maggie and Mr. Whiskers have to also get the house in order because if Mr. Whisker's sister doesn't approve of the state of his home, she's going to make him move in with her. And if Mr. Whisker's leaves, than Cyrus Grapes get's the bog. It's weird because Mr. Whisker's is a grown adult, yet the special implies that his sister could make him move in with her, even if he doesn't want to. Mr. Whisker also acts kinda odd thought the special, never seeming to grasp the importance of the situations that he is in. So is the idea that he's mentally handicapped, and the sister could convince the courts that he's safer with her? I dunno. It's all kinda unclear. Maybe I'm over analyzing it.  The art style of the special isn't that bad, and kinda reminds me of Martha Speaks. However the actual animation is very...well...2008 flash. Though according to IMDB Jeff Bennet and Rob Paulson are in it, so that's something.  I'd say check it out, because this is a great "so bad it's good special" but I honestly don't know if you can check it out or not. If you can find it, send me a link in the comments. It would be much appreciated.   Number 2: Jack Frost (1979)  Rankin/Bass's Jack Frost was always a special that I would see listed on the TV guide website, but for years I never actually watched it. I mean when all your other specials are about Santa or Rudolph, Jack Frost just kinda seemed like a bit of a D-list Christmas character. However, when I actually sat down and watched it a few years back, I was actually surprised to find that Jack Frost was actually one of the best specials that Rankin-Bass had made.  The story is about Jack Frost, who comes to visit the town of January Junction, the most depressing yet somehow optimistic town you'll ever did see. The town is ruled by the evil Kubla Kraus, who steals all the money from the towns people. However the town is able to get by creating there own artificial currency currency by shaving down icicles to make "ice money." Because of this, the people love Jack, and Jack loves a wide eyed girl named Elisa. Jack is so smitten that he asks Father Winter to become human. A deal is made that if Jack can get the four human essentials (A house, a bag of gold, a horse, and a wife.) by winters end he can stay human forever.  So yeah, apparently if you don't personally own a bag of gold or a horse, you are deemed as less than a person from the perspective of the winter gods. Heck, I don't own any of those things.  Can Jack woe Elisa and defeat Kubla Kraus before winter's end? Oh and he also has help from two other winter spirits named Snip and Holly. They...honestly don't contribute much and are really only there so Jack has someone to talk to about his situation.  There's this earnestness with this special. Everyone is really likable, from Jack to Elisa to Elisa's parents, to even Kubla Kraus. He actually reminds me of the Ice King from Adventure Time. He's just this lonely guy who thinks that stealing money, (and later Elisa's hand in marriage) will make him happy. He even have his own Gunther in the form of a metal hand puppet that he talks to. It's a lot more sympathetic than other Rankin-Bass villains.  Now the special does fall into the Frosty Returns/Legend of Frosty the Snowman category of specials, where it's less of a Christmas special and more of a winter special. Heck, Groundhogs Day serves a bigger role in the plot than Christmas does. However there is a scene at Christmas, and it's my favorite scene in the special. It's Christmas, but everybody in the town is to poor to buy each other presents. So instead they decide to give each other "dream" presents. i.e) An empty box. They then imagine the present that they just received. It's very sad, but also uplifting as you see just how genuinely happy everybody is to get literally nothing. I honestly think it's one of the best scene in any media in terms of capturing the true essence of Christmas, right along side the final scene of The Grinch. I highly recommend this special if you haven't seen it. While no means perfect or anything, Jack Baby Donkey is a special that I think it's still well worth a viewing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pROJxFuELQU

 Oh, also interesting fact that I learned while researching this list. Apparently most Rankin-Bass films and specials had there animation outsourced to Japan. So thus you could make the very real argument that Rankin-Bass is technically anime! Just thought that I would share that fact with you all.

I regret nothing. Number 1: How Murray Saved Christmas (2014)  An to finish off this list, we have "How Murray Saved Christmas." Not to be confused "A Very Murray Christmas," which is a different Christmas movie with a much punier name. This special is about Murray, a grumpy old butcher who lives in the town of Stinky Cigars, a town with a name so awful that nobody dares visit it. This is done on purpose because most the residence of the town are holiday mascots. Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, Baby New Years, ect. Murray does not seem to be a very festive person, and prefers to be left alone. But when Santa get's accidentally injured by a misfit elf named Edison, Murray actually becomes the most qualified person to deliver the gifts and save Christmas.  Now this special sounds as pretty generic on the surface. The "grumpy main character who has to become Santa and learn the true meaning of Christmas" plot is nothing new. However, it's the way the special does this plot that makes it stand out. The special was directed by Peter Avanzino who worked on Futurama and written by Mike Reiss who worked on The Simpsons and co-created The Critic. (As well as wrote the book that the special is based on.) These two bring an edge to the special that I was not expecting when I first watched it. The special's humor is very reminiscent of The Simpsons or Futurama. There are a lot of adult jokes and pop culture references that are both really funny, and also helps to make the special stand out from other similar specials. I'm honestly not sure who this special is made for. None of the jokes are really inappropriate, but a lot of it seemed pretty geared at adults. Sort of like Homestar Runner and especially Dan Vs, Y'know? I mean the town's doctor is actually named Doc Holiday.  It's that kinda special. To many people I can see how this would make the special feel disjointed, but personally I think it is one of the specials strongest strengths. It's genuinely funny, and most of the jokes really hit. The special is also told almost entirely in rhyme, which is a trope that I LOVE seeing in Christmas special. If you're special rhymes, there's a really good chance that I will really like it.  If I had a few nitpicks however, (and these are nitpicks.) Is that it could be a tad longer. There are a lot of ideas that the special throws out that could be interesting if expanded upon, but aren't. The film antagonist, Officer Bender, is the biggest offender of this as he only get's two scenes in the whole special. Though it is nice to hear John Ratzenberger in one of his few non Pixar roles. The animation also has that "Family Guy/Fox sitcom" kinda look to it, and while I've never personally minded that style too much I know it's something a lot of other people hate.  If you watch one of these specials this year, make it this one. I know I may not have seemed to go into as much detail with this special as I was with some of the other entries, but that's just because I don't want to spoil any of the best lines. Comedies can be hard to review sometimes because of that reason. But trust me, It's a special that deserves to become a classic. But don't watch the NBC version of it, because they cut a lot out. Including Officer Bender and Murray's entire backstory! Buy the DVD if you want to experience the special the way it was meant to be seen. It's four dollars on Amazon, and it's worth the price. (Note: I am not responsible for any refunds if you don't like the movie.)  So those are my to picks for five obscure Christmas specials that you should watch this Christmas. Obviously there are more than five, so I might revisit this topic in a part two at some point. Have you seen any of these specials? Are there any obscure or non-traditional Christmas specials that you watch every year? Feel free to tell me in the comments down bellow. Also if you do end up watching them, come back here and tell me what you thought of them. I'd love to know if you liked them. Please fav, follow, and comment down bellow if you liked the review or if you have any suggestions for future reviews or list. If it sounds interesting I might just end up covering it. Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and a Happy Holiday. I'll be back next week...for 2017 year in review. See you then.   (I do not own any of the images or videos in this review. All credit goes to there original owners.)

https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Top-5-Obscure-Christmas-Specials-You-Should-Watch-720182965 DA Link