#i want to re-read it right now and for there to miraculously be more

[tevos]

///

[plasticferal]

hey queen! can you pls do an angst story with chris. where they get into an argument and chris said things he never meant. then he apologizes to her afterwards. ( basically angst to fluff)

damsel in distress | chris sturniolo.

i added my own twist to this ask. it's my favourite prompt so thank you! 18+ protective!ex-boyfriend chris x fem!reader. fighting, touches on themes of unwanted attention, mentions of alcohol, explicit language. reader discretion is advised. p.s inspired by the unreleased olivia rodrigo song 'prison for life'.

the house is filled with familiar faces and strangers. a small gathering turned into a full blown house party from the moment the word got out. where the sturniolo triplets are, a flock follows. you sigh, pushing and shoving your way through the unwanted crowd.

all you want is to make it into the kitchen, miraculously being the only place no one wants to linger. the last person you need to see right now is your ex lover. chris is standing ahead of you, leaning on the kitchen counter, alone in the room. you shut the doors behind you, needing to escape. even if it means with him.

“if you wanted to get me alone, you could have just asked." he speaks smug, before taking a sip from his red solo cup.

“i'm not in the mood,” you dismiss. you open the fridge, eyes scanning the shelves but nothing calling your name.

you know you're not actually looking for anything, you just don't want to look at him. the entire night has you shaking with anger. from the mess in your home, the lack of care everyone is taking, the noise complaint you know you'll be getting later, and worst of all, that one guy who won't leave you alone.

you've never seen him before tonight, you don't even know his name, but all he's done is make you uncomfortable. try to dance with you, try to give you drinks. he brushes your waist every time he walks past.

all of your friends have been encouraging you to go for it, to get over chris. and honestly, you consider it for a moment. just to finally move on, but you can't bring yourself to. at least not with some random creep.

the break up is still raw. he tells everyone it was 'mutual' but it was a part on your request. he'd never throw you under the bus like that. he knows why you made your decision, he's never questioned it.

chris feels like it's unrequited love. although, you haven't lost any love for him, no matter how much you try to push him away. he has every right to despise you, but he doesn't.

every time you close a chapter with him, you find yourself in a sequel. it's like you're re-reading different stories, but the ending stays the same. your heart wants him, your brain wants to hate him.

"what's wrong?" he asks, sensing you're genuine in your frustration.

"nothing." you refuse to let him know what's happing in your world, let alone your mind. you don't need to let in him anymore, even though you want to let it out. he's the one person who could just sit and listen to you for hours on end.

"alright, just askin" his words trail off into a hush. he switches the tone, not wanting the conversation to stop.

“your friends are nice” he speaks in a sickeningly sweet tone, because if anyone knows how to kick you while you're down, it's him.

"you would think that" you scoff, implying that you've seen them throw themselves at him all night. him pouring them drinks, smiling and frothing over the attention he's receiving.

"the fuck is that supposed to mean?" his temperamental side seeps out, and you grow only more irritated.

"chris, can you get out please?" you huff, hands crossing over your chest. an unintentional way to seperate yourself from him, a metaphorical wall being put up.

"such a party pooper. you really gotta let loose, relax a bit." his words come out a lot more nasty that you hope he meant them, and it makes your face hot.

you give him the benefit of the doubt and think he's speaking with resilience, at the fact you keep shutting him down.

"i wonder why we ever broke up." you reply sarcastically, a fake smile on your face. he rolls his eyes, finishing off his drink and letting out an audible "ah," like a child finishing a juice box.

"i haven't seen you all night, y/n" his voice softens, and it becomes clear he's speaking for the sake of talking to you. he always wants to talk to you.

looking at the counter quickly to place his cup down, he looks back at you, tilting his head to the side slightly. he's not being horrible to you, he never has been. he's still in your life whether you like it or not, despite your hostility.

"sorry. i'm just tired." you lie. he knows it.

"your poker face isn't very good. i learnt that the hard way," he bounces his eyebrows, biting the tip of his tongue, eyes a bit wider as he stares at the ground and you can tell he's having a flashback.

you chuckle at the reference. the one time he caught you faking an orgasm didn't end very well, and he's been able to catch you out ever since. he's never been afraid to pull you up on your own fibs.

"sorry, again." you hug your body tighter, avoiding his eyes. he pushes himself off the counter with a stretch like hum and walks over to you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

"stop apologizing, you sound like matt," he rolls his eyes lightheartedly, and you let out a small laugh. that's always his intention, to make you smile.

"c'mon princess, let's get you a drink. seems like you need it." he nods toward to the door, rubbing your shoulder enthusiastically.

you let him try to fix your mood, because god knows you do actually need to stop stressing. you can't control what happens, just how you react. that's what chris always used to say when you were together.

feeling safe in his embrace, he security guard style moves you through the party. he hollers "excuse me!" and "coming through!" and everyone just listens, parting like the red sea. he's not the biggest guy in the room, but he sure is the most assertive. especially with you under his arm.

when you finally get to the drinks table, he makes you a vodka lemonade, saving the rest of the can for himself to finish off. it's not the most thrilling drink, but enough to keep you settled. ease the tension a bit. plus, it tastes good. no harm, no foul. as chris is mixing the liquids into cups, you feel an unwanted hand snake up around your hip.

"there you are. are you hiding from me?" your stomach drops at the voice of the mystery man towering over you, and you look ahead to watch chris's eyes snap up instantly.

chris lowers the cups, holding his eyes on the man behind you. you watch as he kinks his neck and his jaw tenses, taking a step closer. you shake your head at chris, holding a hand up subtly to tell him not to come any closer.

turning around, you stare up at the man. his breath reeks of liquor, and his shirt is drenched is sweat. it makes you sour your face and tense your entire body.

"i don't know what you want from me, but it's not gonna happen. i think you should leave." you speak sternly, trying not to let your voice shake with pure nerves. not even liquid confidence could help you right now.

"the party's just getting started," the man smiles, stumbling toward you in what you think is an attempt at a hug, but you begin pushing his body away from yours with a shove.

"dude, she doesn't want you. walk away." you hear chris's direct voice over your shoulder.

the last thing you want is negative attention on chris in a room full of people who would spread the news like wildfire. you never want that for him.

"it's okay, i got this." you dismiss chris in the nicest possible way, but you're being serious.

"come on, we'll have fun," the man hiccups through his words, mumbling them and tripping over toward you again.

"get the fuck away from her." chris's breath hits the back of your neck as he moves even closer to you.

"christopher, i'm serious. stop." you speak through grit teeth, so people can't read your lips, as he lingers next to you.

you try to be as inconspicuous as you can in your rejection to his advances, but he won't give up. the man appears more annoyed, and he grabs your wrist with a tight grip.

"let go of me." you grab the mans hand, trying to pry his grip without making it obvious.

you’re shaking at the thought of attention drawing. not for you, but for chris. eyes are already on you, being his ex. it's not what he ever wanted for you either. if he could make it all disappear, he would. it becomes more difficult when chris notices, and this time, has no intention of backing down.

"i'm not gonna repeat myself, back the fuck up." chris walks around your body, face to face with the guy who has a hold on you now.

"please, chris." you beg, voice quivering.

you know his temper can change in the blink of an eye. him and matt both have that in common.

"she doesn't need your help, pretty boy." the man splatters his words, a malicious smile on his face as he leans toward chris, almost nose to nose.

chris smiles criminally, flashing his teeth.

"you're right," chris puts his hands up in defence, a downward smile on his face as he chuckles darkly, taking a big step backward.

there's a feeling of relief, and intense fear as he actually does start to back away. but you know chris. unfortunately, it's unavoidable.

you try to catch his eyes, and speak through a begging stare without using words. he looks at you with sadness, and you mime the words, 'please don't'.

the moment the man tugs your wrist as if to leave with him, making you wince with the grip he holds. you regret your counteraction instantly, because chris reacts viscerally.

he flares his nostrils and squeezes his nails into his palm, balling up his hands by his hip. his knuckles are turning white.

before you can get pulled away, chris lunges forward with a tight fist, throwing a strong, perfectly aligned punch to the mans cheekbone. it throws the man to the ground in the blink of an eye, relieving the pressure on your skin. you stumble backwards, out of the line of fire.

chris steps heavily forward, shoving a foot into his ribcage before straddling his legs, completely overpowering him. the man projects forward to swing and hit chris's mouth. chris doesn't even flinch, like it was painless. you watch chris raise his arm up again to pummel down onto the now defenceless stranger.

the surrounding crowd gasps and yells, clearing the space that chris has created with his actions. iphone cameras flash, making you feel sick. the whispering and gossip you can already hear pounding in your head is overwhelming.

you feel so futile. chris is too in his own world to even realise the repercussions. you're not saying the guy didn't deserve it, you have no care in the world for him. you care about the aftermath.

in a fantasy world, a daydream, a fairytale even, this is attractive. a knight in shining armour, fighting for his lady. a world where there are no consequences, or social media, or fear. a reality chris has suddenly forgotten about.

he looks natural doing it, too. the veins in his arms so prominent, his tight mouth and huffed breaths as he gives it everything he's got.

you're frozen in shock, watching chris pelt another punch into the man, and you want to pull him off, you know you need to, but all your body can do is watch. watch the two men roughhousing and exchanging blows, chris taking every hit with pride.

you're numb to the feeling, screaming in your head.

appearing out of thin air, nick and matt are in your line of vision, hiding the chaos ahead of you. his brothers move into action before anyone else needs to.

they've obviously been summoned, but there's a part of you that believes they could just sense it. like they telepathically knew chris was getting himself into trouble by the lack of surprise they express.

nick grabs chris by the collar of his shirt, pulling him off. matt grabs his wrists, to stop him from using his fists. the fight comes undone, finally, but chris is disoriented. he spits onto the man as he's being escorted into the kitchen by his brothers.

your eyes burn with tears that refuse to fall, and matt sweeps your hand up, guiding you with them in a hurried manner. matt is trying to snap you back to reality, but it's just white noise.

chris hits his palm aggressively with frustration against the door frame of the kitchen as you all walk through, and you take a deep breath to compose yourself. your eyes are still welling as you choke back a sniffle, and you're not sure if it's shock, hurt, or anger anymore.

you're in a trance as you walk over to the freezer. your body is in autopilot, moving without you even knowing. you grab a frozen bag of vegetables out of the tray.

"so fucking stupid," you say nastily under your breath, slamming the door shut.

walking over to chris who's sat up on the ledge of the sink. you throw the packet at his chest, and he grabs it, questioning you for a second before matt walks over and shows him to place it on his bruised and red raw knuckles.

the room is filled with tension.

matt is biting his nails, you're leaning against the closed door, and nick finds himself squatting on the floor.

"what the actual fuck was that?" nick is too stunned to even yell, he just speaks aloud.

"i asked you not to, chris. i could have handled it myself." you shake your head, vision blurry as you stare vacantly ahead. you want to lash out at him, but for some reason you can't.

"yeah, it really looked like you had it under control." he crushes the frozen packet harshly against his hand.

"we'll leave you two alone." matt cuts through awkwardly, shooting nick a warning glare.

matt knows it's not his place to go off at chris right now. he'll do that later.

"but-" nick begins, and matt snaps toward the door. you hear nick sigh, knowing he would love nothing more than to stay and listen to you tear into chris. alas, they both leave promptly, matt flashing you a sympathetic smile on the way out.

you can hear from the other side of the door, both nick and matt are hustling trying to kick everyone out. it’s a weight lifted off your shoulders. the literal mess being left behind is the least of your worries now.

you're alone with chris in the kitchen again, the second time not being anymore pleasant than the first. you blame yourself fully for dropping your guard, even if for a second.

“i begged you not to, chris.” you repeat with a stern tone, laced with betrayal and genuine hurt.

he’s silent for a moment, staring at you from across the room with no emotion on his face. you know he feels terrible, he doesn’t have to show it. or tell you.

“did you think i was just gonna stand and watch?” he rebuttals.

“i would have preferred that, honestly.” you don’t understand how he can’t grasp the intensity of the situation.

"did you want him? go back out there then." he's bitter, pointing at the door. you roll your eyes, shaking your head in disbelief.

"chris," you start. he keeps talking.

“because i’m sure he’s still laying on the floor. go ahead. he might have a hard time talking now, though.” chris shrugs, speaking in a provoking manner.

“you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t press charges." you apprise.

“he should feel lucky i didn’t do worse.” he takes another step toward you, presumptuous in the way he carries himself.

"you've done a lot of stupid shit, chris. but that," you raise your hand as you speak, laughing in shock.

"that was unbelievable." you pinch the bridge of your nose, taking yet another deep breath.

"you know what's unbelievable is how you haven't even thanked me once" he ignores your words and bites back with irritation, face growing more twisted with upset.

"thank you?" you repeat, jaw dropping. you step toward him this time. you feel dejected trying to get him to understand.

"thank you for what? for causing a scene? for putting yourself in danger?" you step forward again, feeling like you could drive your heels into the ground beneath you.

"you're acting insane" he brings his hands to his head, tugging at his own hair with despair. his words sting, despite the back and forth arguing.

"you're the one that lashed out on that guy with no consideration for anyone else around you. that's insane" you speak with physical gestures unconsciously.

you're trying to reason with him, but with the state he's in, it's like trying to put a brain in a statue. you examine him, trying to search for his eyes but his body won't keep still, twisting and moving around.

"fuck, okay, i get it! i get it, y/n. you're not happy with me. you never fucking are apparently," his words trail off and he waves you away, turning his back to you. he sounds desperate for it to end.

you want to scream at him at the top of your lungs, and quite frankly, you could. your face burns and steam is about to shoot out of your ears.

"you don't need to protect me anymore, chris."

"i saved your ass out there." he speaks with his hand, four fingers direct to your chest. his words are like salt being rubbed into an open wound.

"saved me? that's a fucking stretch. your brothers saved your ass, because you don't think before you fucking act!"

"this is about YOU, y/n! what i did for you!" he slaps the back of right hand into the palm of his left.

"i'm not some damsel in distress that you need to sweep up and put in a tower, chris"

"yeah well at least in a tower you can't attract trouble." he speaks as if it's your fault, and of all the things he's just spit out, that's by far the worst. the most menacing and cut to the bone tone he's used.

"that was low, even for you." you huff, emotions at an all time high.

your breathing feels tight, but instead of reacting, you force yourself to seperate your emotions from the reality of the situation. you're both feeling very intensely, and expressing it the same way.

in hindsight, you could have redirected some of your emotions, but you also wish chris would take back some things he's said. there's no excuses.

chris re-collects himself and turns toward you again. he shrugs his shoulders, like he has nothing left to say. no fight left.

the closer chris is standing the more prominent his face is, and more specifically, his busted open lip.

you gasp in a mix of being upset, and shock. it feels like a piece of your heart is breaking off, seeing his delicate, pale skin so sore.

"your lip, chris." you exhale, stepping toward him.

he flinches when your hand raises to touch his face, and you know now that you've acknowledged it, it's hurting him. neither of you paid any attention to it amongst the turmoil.

"come here." you sigh, pulling his arm, bringing him over to where the paper towels are, in the corner of the sink.

tearing a white square into your hands, you rinse it under cold water lightly before squeezing the saturation out, leaving a damp cloth in your hand.

turning into chris's body, he looks down at you. he's still at last, and looks like he has no thoughts behind his now seemingly innocent eyes.

you cup his cheek gently, to turn his face downward. you bring the towel up to his lip, wiping his stained chin and mouth. he lets you, and doesn't even wince. he visibly gives into your touch. he's content.

"i need you to promise me you'll never do something like that again." you pull back, folding over a clean side and then wiping his lip softly, trying not to cause him pain.

"i can't promise that." he speaks in a whisper, as if he doesn't want you to hear his word.

with his lip no longer being red, you toss the damp and crumbling paper into sink, making it a problem for another time.

"why?" you look into his eyes, wiping your hands on your shirt.

his blue eyes are big but blameless, pupils dilated. holding his stare as your arm lowers.

"because if anyone lays a hand on you again, i'm going to prison for life." the piece of your heart that broke off earlier reattaches at his words alone.

chris's much shorter hair is spikey around his ears, and wet at the ends, turning dark brown from his sweat. you caress his messy curls, tucking it over the curves of his ears and taming the wispy strands. you hold his head in your hands, tiling him up and your mouths are inches apart.

"how hard did he hit your head?" you ask against his lips. he chuckles, genuinely.

he's an idiot, undeniably. but the gut wrenching, lawless love he has for you makes him that way. his low, smooth laughter, makes your heart skip a beat.

"i mean it, y/n."

"but i know, i know it was stupid." he admits.

"yeah, it was." you agree, shaking his head around slightly.

he grabs your hands with his own, engulfing them and holding them in his palms. he squeezes your hands, bringing them to his lips and kissing your knuckles.

"i'm sorry." he speaks on your skin.

"like really fucking sorry." he strains his head back with remorse, making his adam's apple more prominent, and he swallows hard. like he's swallowing his guilt.

"i said some nasty things. i wish i could take them back, y/n. i really do."

"i know, chris."

"no, you don't. i'll apologise to you everyday for the rest of my life if i have to. i've been horrible tonight."

"chris, enough," you hush him, the calmness in your tone making him understand you hear him. loud and clear. you need some time to forgive, but you absorb his words.

"i don't know how you didn't smack me in the mouth." he jokes, and you giggle through your breath.

"there's still time," you joke back. and he knows it by your tone.

"i could never bring myself to do that. as much as you deserve it." your banter eases the pressure, and you feel chris squeeze your hands in his again.

you rub your thumbs over his knuckles, looking at the little purple marks forming. he notices your face drop with stress, and he slips his hands away, moving to your hips instead.

"hey, i'm fine. i don't care what happens to me, i just need you to be okay."

"i am okay," you reply. he drops his face with a look that expresses he doesn’t believe you. you give a light eyeroll, and small smile.

"i mean it, i swear.” you raise your pinkie finger to him, to keep your promise. knowing it’s the only way he’ll actually believe you.

chris smiles, weak with his bruised lip, and wraps up your pinkie with his own, wriggling your hands around.

"i'm always gonna want to protect you." he pulls you toward his body. he's so warm, and radiates a magnetic energy that makes you want to collapse into his arms.

you know you don't need him to, but deep down, you would like his protection. his unconditional love. selflessness.

"i'll be sure to send you love letters in jail" you grin up at him, and laughs from the chest.

his voice is like a scratched record, fatigue taking over his body. you swallow hard, all of your senses coming back. he feels so real standing in front of you all of a sudden, like it's not just a dream you're about to wake up from.

"stay the night." you speak mindlessly.

chris brushes your hair from your face, cupping the back of your neck lightly to pull your forehead to his lips, kissing just above your eyebrows gently. he rests his chin on the crown of your head, pulling you tight to his chest in an embrace.

"i'll stay forever if you ask me to."

this is the feeling he fights for. requited love.

[aliensunflower-fics]

My Recommended Fic List

So, I got this ask awhile ago, and since I have been re-reading a bunch of my old favorite fics as a way to cheer up after work I figured why not. This list will be long... and varied but mostly its older fics cuz idk there my favs. Now lets go:

Fashion Upgrade - By @soap-lady : Straight up one of my favorite fics ever, its fun, its creative, it never fails to make me laugh when I need something warm and wholesome after a bad day. Also go check out the rest of her stuff there's so much good okay like shes just a writing queen. Shes on AO3 I don't want to spoil you on her other stuff just GO experience it for yourself.

Ode To Decoy pt 1 / 2 / 3 - By @a-marlene-s : Ive always liked this short sweet little fic about Lila getting caught. Its Lila + class salt though so avoid if that's not your flavor.

EVERYTHING - By @unmaskedagain : They have salt, they have sugar, they have funny, they have crossovers. Like honestly they are a just a great writer with so much variety so go check out the masterlist I linked and I guarantee there will be something there you like.

@ravennm84 Is a writer on the saltier side but they have a wonderful selection of weird wacky tales from the salty but oh so well written Damning Evidence that sees Lila get caught in the best way to the 3 part Horror inspired Serafina other great fics from them include Marinettes Family Court Circus pt 1 / 2 and Of Moldy Bread and Cockroaches / Be Kind to Servers honestly its worth giving there blog a look.

@mochinek0 Is another writer with several beloved fics. They write a lot of Maribat and we love them for it. Ones to check out would be Blind Date / Bruce vs Gabriel just go check out there tag list of daminette for more.

Accidental Crime Boss Marinette - By @lady-literature : This is a wonderful idea and a wonderful little fic and I just... I just like it okay. Sadly I haven't read a lot of there other stuff... But I might after finishing this list considering how much I enjoy this one.

@nobodyfamousposts I love a LOT of there fics. They are one of the best when it comes to striking that sweet spot of calling out the show for some of its garbage while not getting so salty that you cant have fun lighthearted goodness. I have been looking for a masterlist of there work but cant find one so just go stalk there tags. I do recommend there Chloe's Lament Series 1 / 2 exploring how certain 'wishes' would backfire. Guardian Assistant Kevin is also a good one Miracle Queen Aftermath pt 1 / 2 / The 8 parter Burn the Witch series / The Wisdom Teeth Reveal / Kagami Vs The Wall of Faces / Resigning With Grace & Spite / I tried to give a lot of links cuz they have a lot of stuff

Kill Them With Kindness - By @luki-fanfic : Well written, good salt without going overboard. Just good vibes. I havent stalked there other stuff but if its anything like this fic its probably excellent quality.

Stephen Vladislav pt 1 / 2 - By @stormiclown : Adrien centered salt on the idea of finally giving Adrien his own proper rival. I like the idea of Adrien having a rival because its usually Marinette and this was just the right length to get those creative ideas flowing. Also just well written what more can you ask for.

Power Trip - By @storygirl000 : This was the first fic that made me go... Wait would it be more fun if Lila was actually competent? And that set me on the path to writing my own fics where Lila is more villainous and more capable. Its short, well written. Good.

Your Wish is My Command - By DemiGoddess28 on AO3 : A great 11 chapter fic looking into Lila's life if she were to win and get a miraculous wish. Its got sugary goodness for our protagonists and the class and salt for our dearest friend Lila.

LadyBugOut AU - By Miraculous-Content on AO3 : A 50 chapter fic made up of snippets and ideas. I found it really inspiring in many ways. I also love how it redeems Marinettes classmates showing how and why they were tricked but holding them accountable anyway its just... Good.

Juleka vs The Forces of the Universe - By goldenlaurelleaves on AO3 : For those of us not yet ready to accept the death of luka/mari we have this wonderful fic showing Juleka being the biggest wingman as she helps these idiots find there way together.

ChaoticNeutral on AO3 has there own Chloe's Lament fic as well as a Gabriel's Lament fic for people who need sweet salty of those two characters.

BroadwayCutie16 was Inspired by the person above and DemiGoddesses your wish is my command fic to write Lila's Lament fic going over Lilas failed wish. Honestly I always love these fics because there just so interesting and the way wishes can be taken and twisted is always a fascinating idea to me.

#WayneAngel - By Tired-Writing-Teach on AO3 : For us Maribat lovers. Its fun and lighthearted with some good gags and some light fluff.

Damian in Paris - By Lilliesandliveries on AO3 : A sweet Maribat series showing what would happen if Damian ran away from home and found himself in Paris and getting therapy.

How a Demon Commissions an Angel - By AlixAnonymous : Damian blackmails Marinette into letting him be her client so he can get his bros the best gifts, they end up becoming penpal buddies.

Mythomania - By LadyEnna_50 on AO3 : Proof that I dont hate Adrien or Mari/Adrien. In this fic Adrien's spine gets titanium plating and he sees just how bad Lila is hurting Marinette and does something about it.

The Contingency - By AbyssalGuardian on AO3 : SALT. Also Tim/Mari but even still I love the way this was written, the style, and some of the ideas just ugh love it. Its not for those who dont like salt so just avoid at your own discretion. Its about a chaotic Marinette done with her life running away to Gotham where she meets her true black cat, and gets her life back on track.

The String That Binds Us - By FaithAndATypeWriter on AO3 : Okay so is there any Mari/Bat fan who hasnt already heard of this one? Who cares its good, its cute, I love it. May the author be blessed with snacks.

The Great IKEA Game - By @batsandbugs : Okay again... I think every Mari/Bat fan has probably heard of this one already because its just that good and that popular. But who cares I am recommending it anyway. Don't read if your allergic to fun I guess.

If this list still doesn't somehow have enough salt for you then try @goggles-mcgee fics here is a link to there Masterlist. They are in a way a professional at salt and angst and they make you want to adopt Marinette and pop her in a blanket fort.

Honestly I could keep going but this list already feels so long for other great recs though I can link you to @jayphoenic who has some great Daminette Fic Recs and some Lila Salt Fic Recs!

Feel free to reblog this and add some links to stuff you would think I or others might like! Also lets just acknowledge how many talented authors the community has like wow.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

“it could mean that they didn't think further than season five and we're about to get a lot of awkward writing.”

Genuinely, I’m pretty sure this exact problem is about to rear it’s ugly head into the plot so hard. Once it becomes obvious enough next season, I think this is about to become the biggest gripe people have with the show.

I don’t subscribe to the “Chloé was rewritten by TA out of spite” theories—however—it is almost **impossible** that season 5 didn’t, at the very least, have the bones of the plot laid out *when it was still intended as the final season,* and then those bones were **heavily** rearranged when contracts were signed for Miraculous Ladybug to continue production beyond that point.

This is quickly having a domino effect on the plot, where storylines are being re-sculpted left and right to somehow tie-up the arc of the previous 5 seasons, whilst still maintaining pre-reveal status quo for the seasons still to come. The most glaring problem with this is, of course, that they had to royally shoot Marinette in the foot to make that work.

I don’t want to put my tin-foil hat on too much, but Adrinette getting together sans reveal is just a symptom of the show continuing past it’s original intended “end of life”. We were likely supposed to get exactly what is holding Adrinette back from being interesting right now—the reveal—in the original midseason finale of season 5 instead of Kwami’s Choice.

What’s an even more cynical thought—if season 5 was the end of the show like intended at one point, there is ZERO chance that Marinette would have even NEEDED to lie to Adrien about his father. *THAT’S* what frustrates me most about the season 5 finale. Not that it’s shocking, not that it subverts expectations, that it’s so glaringly obvious the main character is making a decision simply because the plot for future seasons implodes on itself if she thinks logically for 1.2 seconds. It’s not interesting. It’s only there because they wrote themselves into a corner they never intended to be in 5 years ago.

And as the seasons tick on and on, the cycle is just going to continue to chase itself in circles under the guise of “drama” and “plot”, but in reality the episodic nature of the show means that none of the plot lines will ever conclude in a satisfying way

(Post that inspired this ask)

it is almost **impossible** that season 5 didn’t, at the very least, have the bones of the plot laid out *when it was still intended as the final season,* and then those bones were **heavily** rearranged when contracts were signed for Miraculous Ladybug to continue production beyond that point.

Now that is a theory I can get behind and will even admit to subscribing to. Season five absolutely feels like it was written to be the final season and we know that it was, originally, supposed to be the final season. It's not a conspiracy theory to say, "I think that they may have committed to elements of season five before they got a sixth season and that ended up making season five into a bit of a mess."

I'd be fascinated to know the behind-the-scenes timing of things and what was written before the season-six greenlight and what they were allowed to change after season six became a thing. Things like scripts, lore bibles, and plot lines get signed off on by a lot of people! It's entirely possible that the writers' hands were tied on certain elements of season five. If the leaked, season-five Bible is to be believed, it says that it was signed off by TF1 & Disney and has a date of 1/29/21, about three months before season six was officially announced, implying that major elements of season five may have been set in stone all the way back in early 2021:

[Image description: footer for the leaked Bible reading "Ladybug - Bible FINAL VERSION updated season 5 - approved by TF1 & Disney 1/29/21 - CONFIDENTIAL]

This may mean that the writers literally weren't allowed to make major changes to season five because they'd already gone through the approval process for the overall plot. It's also possible that they could have redone things, they just didn't have time based on production timelines or maybe they did have time and just couldn't think up a new version of season five in the time they had. There's no way to be sure with the limited information we have. Maybe season five is exactly what they wanted it to be!

It's hard to buy that, though, because a lot of the awkward writing makes so much more sense if there was supposed to be an identity reveal at the end of Kwami's Choice. Like why Adrien is worrying about how to tell Marinette that he's leaving, but he never once stops to think about Ladybug. If he knows they're the same person, that's suddenly perfectly understandable.

I also full agree that the lie at the end of season five feels like another stalling tactic and not a piece in a well-crafted narrative. It's really common for the writing to get stilted in TV shows and movie series that get renewed past their expiration dates because no plot can last forever. Even the best writers can't draw a concept out to the end of time and Miraculous doesn't seem have the best writers. Now that they've been greenlit for ten freaking seasons, I think we're in for a wild ride and I don't mean the fun kind. Serious identity shenanigans like the love square are not designed to last for 86+ hours. (The show has 26 20-minute episodes per season, so if you multiply that by 10, you get a little over 86 hours + specials and such.)

I just don't see how they're going to draw out the identity reveal for another five seasons without making the love square a toxic waste dump, but I also don't think that they're ever going to do an identity reveal in the mid game. They're saving that sucker for the end no matter how much it ruins the story. (Watch season six prove me wrong, lol. You never know.)

[oddamity]

⚠️ ATTENTION PERCY JACKSON ENJOYERS⚠️

Do you love Percy Jackson? (of course you do)

Do you love The Heroes of Olympus?? (of course you do)

Do you love JASON GRACE??? (...)

...

okay no one does.

No one loves or hates Jason Grace. Because there's not much to love or hate. He's around. He fights storm spirits and gets hit by bricks. He has a gold sword. Behold, the son of Jupiter.

But what if I told you there was a miraculous new project that aims to turn this bland demigod jock into a loveable, thoughtful nerd while keeping all the events of the series intact?

That's right folks, I introduce you to...

The Lost Jason is an edited version of Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero, but with every Jason scene rewritten to turn him into a more interesting, compelling character.

Is it bold—nay, narcissistic—of me to think I can improve on the prolific Rick Riordan's work? Probably. Did I do an incredible job anyway? Absolutely.

So, if you feel like re-reading the series now that the incredible new Percy Jackson show has begun airing, I kindly ask that you give this little experiment a try. Even if you liked Jason all right, I think this new one is worth getting to know. I matched Rick Riordan's writing style to the best of my abilities (with the help of beta readers and proofreading/editing by @fistful-of-glitter), and look forward to everyone's thoughts on what I found worth changing.

The ENTIRE WORK can be found here.

(Though, be warned, chapters that required no editing have not been included, since I didn't want to just repost Riordan's book online. Have your own copy of the book ready.)

Thanks, and happy reading!

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

hi mara-

ive been bedridden with a severe chronic illness for a little while now, i have very little to look forward to but your art and writing and the orsday programming has been a huge comfort for me during this time, i want to thank you

i also dont know anyone who has read as much stephen king as me except for you- have you read many of his short stories? i really liked the Different Seasons compilation

hi anonymous, drew this for you;

thank yourself! you:re the miraculous little machine that keeps going and finding new things to burn as fuel day-after-day -- for me, too: for some reason for me all my reason-to-be is trying out "new yogurt concoctions" i make for myself the night-prior to be had in the morning (tomorrows is trying to make it taste like strawberry funnelcake using minced pieces of pastry i don:t want to eat + strawberry yogurt i had on bogo and need to use);

or reading new books (i finished The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison last night (i really liked it; made me think of the big brained scientist yakub making a race of demonic imps, 'cause of how the encroaching whiteness is like this creeping little force with shining blue eyes that casts forth this RAY that eats up the land and the people with this dull rapture-spell that erases what-was and replaces it with demonic grounds and hypnotized demonic thoughts; like carpenter ants in the wood roof transforming it slowly on the inside, i thought "wow, i:m a demonic carpenter ant" but also "i:m really in love with the word-choice toni morrison uses to describe certain things and it makes me think about all the linguistic quirks stephen king uses (ex: his love of the description "full dark") that likely comes from the personality and the upbringing -- toni writes about watermelon heart meat and boiling blackberries and i think "that comes from life and you can:t replicate those little quirks and thoughts", but also i thought "wow toni morrison is like if joyce carol oates was a good author");

or getting sandwich on sunday;

all simple and dumb things that keep me living for dumb and simple reasons; i mean all of that to say: i think you are more amazing than me in this situation, much in the same way that i:d hope i:d be more amazing to myself than that sandwich i get on sunday--sunday sandwich can be replaced with something new, but me (and YOU) can:t.

but i:ll do my best to keep writing :-))! (lately though i:m unsure what could be too uplifting considering i:ve just been writing about thought control from a dream; and the thought control in my dreams -- it comes coded with patterned contices; ex: think and the world 'shifts' and responds in a real, physical way: thoughts are being scanned lately, in a way that makes me think is unreal, but has to be obeyed; ex: i pray uncertain to do vows on the sabbath because i worry the environment has been contaminated with an etiquette breach and i:ll start to further foul the labyrinth i:ve built inside myself, then: a door opens and all the dogs run out; and i think: "here is god speaking" and i think further "my thoughts are inflamed and not mine, these thoughts are not mine, i have never been thinking and this voice is not me it is an alien and i can:t stop listening to it but i have to know it is not me" and then "i have to let the carcass do the vows and ignore thinking, and live on automatic discipline and etiquette and clean without thinking except chanting in my head repeated '1, 2, 3, 4 .. 1, 2 .. 3, 4 .. 5, 6.. 7, 8.. 1, 2, 3, 4..');

re: stephen king -- i love him; i started reading him last (?) year around october, with Salems Lot and 1) loved how much his writing reminded me of visual novels; they:re very character-driven and fun and King is an amazing "scene setter" and "story teller," in a way i can:t right well describe except that "it feels exactly like i am reading a novel adaptation of a visual novel." but i dropped Salems Lot because, though i was really enjoying it, i wanted to read other stuff and the book length were wearing me down;

then: i rediscovered a love for King via audiobooks and needing something to listen to while i was swearing off music and spending my entire days doing nothing but cleaning, cooking, exercising, and working; i:ve listened to:

Tommyknockers, Nos4a2 (Joe Hill but it counts; it:s like if King wrote Jojos Bizarre Adventure), It, Carrie, The Dead Zone, Cujo, Needful Things, Dolores Claiborne, Four Past Midnight, Desperation, The Regulators, Bag of Bones, From a Buick 8, Lisey's Story, Duma Key, Joyland, Mr. Mercedes, Revival, and Hearts in Atlantis; i:m listening to The Stand at the moment and nearly done with it -- really enjoying it.

He:s really become one of my favorite authors. King doesn:t have the best prose but i super adore his imagination and just how well he tells situations--this is dumb but lately when i play visual novels i just think "this is nearly in every-way worse than a stephen king book." he:s just fun and he translates so perfectly into audiobook format; only book of his i:ve read so far that i:ve disliked is It.

Regarding your question about his short stories: only Four Past and Hearts in Atlantis -- but i think these barely count as short story collections since they:re really just both four novellas collected; Hearts in Atlantis is amazing for "Low Men in Yellow Coats" which might be near the top of his stories for me; Four Past was really good, too, with Library Policeman being my favorite from it. I:ve been slowly listening to Night Shift whenever I finish an audiobook at work and still have some hours left in my shift, but I really dislike this because it takes me ~thirty-sixty minutes to 'anchor' myself in a story to figure out names for characters and locations, and typically the stories in Night Shift end before i really can follow the story at all--example: the story about the rats? i finished that without zero idea what happened, completely washed over me. i:ll likely skip the short stories if i never find physical copies of them.

i love king though! i:d like to read all of his works; i:m going through him chronologically atm.

anyways, take care king-reading anonymous

[weirdbabs]

Re: who changed and why in Bayview, I personally think it's a matter that requires a careful reading of the chapter for times characters were thinking of wishes. *Why* Peekaboo would grant those, I'm not sure, but earlier on Ed is wishing they were someone else and especially thinking about wanting to be smarter, and now they're all changed. Doorman was wishing just for Isaac to feel safe, which is a little bit thinner but I still think connects back to Isaac now living next Max (next door - door - doorman - I've connected dots I haven't connected shit).

yeah, if it ends up being that peekaboo chose to answer the wishes of the “hundreds of hearts across the lake [that] were pleading for its power” in an attempt to gain “a shining heart to know what it would take to grant [dimitri’s wish]”, that would make sense i think. right now we have so many unanswered questions and are just shy of 24 hours since the update dropped. i think when we start getting bayview lore in the lead up to chapter 9, and we get to see what else has changed and if any other wishes have been miraculously granted itll start being more clear (hopefully)

[tactician]

as you probably know, the most recent pokemon games feature pretty significant pokedex cuts due to the sheer magnitude of pokemon that are now available to us. this means that some pokemon are simply not featured in certain mainline games, which adds a unique element to a lot of pokemon's ribbon master journeys. re: my experience with reides, working around unobtainable ribbons wasn't exactly a new experience - after all, there were no available shadow horseas/seadras/kingdras in pokemon colosseum or pokemon xd, so i knew that my kingdra wouldn't be able to get the national ribbon (granted to purified shadow pokemon) - but it still was something i had to consider and plot out carefully as i brought him up towards the more recent generations. for example, reides was unable to get the hisui ribbon (granted for taking a photo with your pokemon in the region's photo studio), as the horsea line was not featured in legends arceus... and, for a long time, i figured that he wouldn't be able to get any of the ribbons (and marks!) featured in scarlet and violet.

but then... the dlc happened. the glorious, glorious dlc.

the horsea line was re-introduced into the pokedex when indigo disk - the second batch of dlc for scarlet and violet - dropped. needless to say, i was EXTREMELY hype about this. in my previous post, i mentioned not being sure if reides would be able to join me in this current generation of pokemon. i wondered if i'd have to brave the long, long queues of pokemon shield in order to get the master rank ribbon on him and make him a true ribbon master... but fortune smiled down on me, and reides was miraculously granted access to generation 9 of the pokemon games.

before i get into reides' journey through paldea, kitakami and unova, here's a quick reminder you can find each part of reides' ribbon master journey here on my personal website, or here in my ribbon master tag on this tumblr! it spans from my childhood copy of emerald version to my... uh... adulthood (lmao) copy of scarlet version... so it's quite the sizeable read! to everyone who's stuck by me for this whole challenge and expressed support for my lovely kingdra: thank you so much! and for anyone new to the reides saga: welcome, and i hope you enjoy my posts about him!

with that handled... it's time to cover a brand new generation of ribbons and marks!

as a big pokemon fan, i tend to play new games and dlc the very moment that i can. in the current era of #gaming, that means obsessively checking for game updates on the night of dlc releases. as i mashed that + button on my pro controller to check for updates to my copy of scarlet, i felt especially nervous. thanks to people being mischievous and sneaking alleged leaks around on twitter, i knew that the horsea line was supposedly being introduced into the game... but i'm extremely skeptical by nature. (can you believe that some people go on the internet and lie?!?!) i didn't want to believe that reides' ribbon master journey would continue until i saw a little horsea (or seadra... or kingdra...) swimming around in a digital body of water myself. once my game finally updated, i sprinted over to blueberry academy as SOON as i could and began running around the terarium in search of a horsea. i found one swimming around in a lake almost immediately.

when i tell y'all... the scream i scrumpt... LMFAO. joking aside, it felt like i could finally breathe again. i was SO READY to plop reides into my file and get right to grabbing the ribbons and marks that were added for gen9. unfortunately, gamefreak had other plans for me, and pokemon home was under maintenance. after falling dramatically to my knees, i busied myself with getting the rest of my team for the dlc ready. this included grinding out the necessary bp to unlock wild starters in the terarium, then embarking on a shiny hunt for my fav starter pokemon of all time - totodile! after hours and hours of looking around, i managed to catch one successfully in a love ball and named him barge. along with the rest of my indigo disk team, barge would go on to be close friends with reides. anyway, after a lengthy maintenance, pokemon home was eventually ready to go. i leapt right in, retrieving reides and plopping him into my party. i'm a huge fan of the updated pokemon models in scarlet, so i was hype to see the one that they gave shiny kingdra. i was NOT disappointed in the slightest!

LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS HE IS. the tiny scale details... the glossy shine... my god. as much as i liked the sleekness of the models in gen8, i like the more realistic ones that gen9 introduced a whole lot more. the devs did a phenomenal job; kingdra looks absolutely majestic. with my full indigo disk team now present in my copy of scarlet, i had to take a group shot and treat everyone to a sandwich!

reides met five new pals: bane the weezing, grunge the krookodile, bento the snorlax, axe the haxorus, and, of course, barge the feraligatr! i shiny hunted for all of them myself, as i really enjoyed doing the same for my kitakami team during my teal mask playthrough.

i wasn't quite ready to take on the indigo disk plotline, though. my first order of business was grabbing a ribbon for reides - namely, the paldea champion ribbon! i hopped on a plane and flew back to paldea, signing up for a spot in the academy ace tournament.

i really love the vibes of the academy ace tournament; everyone is so passionate about the battles, and the music is an absolute JAM. i was especially happy about reides' first experience as a competitor in it, too, because my fav character in the game just-so-happened to show up for it!

that's right: arven - the man, the myth, the legend - challenged me and reides to a battle.

shoutout to him holding his pokeball upside down. just one more reason as to why he's truly one of the best pokemon characters. (btw, as happy was i was to see arven, i always feel so bad to fight his mabosstiff. that's my FRIEND!!!!!!)

anyway, after sweeping his way through everyone in the academy ace tournament, reides was granted the paldea champion ribbon for his efforts.

after nabbing that ribbon, i decided that i should really get a move on with the indigo disk's actual plot, as i wanted to avoid spoilers and also REALLY wanted to know what happened next in the plot. i was pretty invested in the hooks that teal mask introduced and was especially worried about kieran. (just why did teal mask's plot force us to lie to that poor kid, btw?! just thinking about it gets me so annoyed. i'd go through an 'evil' arc too if i was in his shoes, i'll tell you that.) even though it's not really relevant to reides' ribbon master quest, i figured i'd share some photos of his storyline adventure, too.

(btw, i'm writing this post in feb 2024, which means that indigo disk has been Around for around 2 months and thus the spoiler embargo is pretty much lifted - but, still: be warned that there are some spoilers for indigo disk beyond this point!)

the battles in indigo disk ended up being pretty tough; i was glad that i put time aside to train up my team properly. we managed to take on the blueberry elite four and kieran and ultimately Prevailed - even if the battles were quite close, at times! i was kinda sad that there was no ribbon associated with beating all of them - it would've been nice to finally get some form of an unovan ribbon on my ribbon master - and i was also pretty shocked that the dlc didn't introduce a battle tower. regardless, even if reides didn't get a ribbon for his performance in the battles, it was still awesome to include him in them, and i had a whole lot of fun.

i also brought reides along for the Shenanigans following the blueberry academy plotline.

luckily for me, briar, carmine and kieran were chill with waiting in the underdepths of area zero while i took reides on a bit of a photoshoot. it was just so pretty down there!! how could i resist!!

anyway, silly little wanderings aside, it was really cool to have reides involved in the big showdown against terapagos. i was especially happy when kieran snapped out of his funk and i got to battle alongside him. his hydrapple even used dragon cheer, powering reides up during the battle. it made the whole experience feel all the more significant.

with everything all sorted out, i ended up being really happy with the indigo disk's overall plot. i definitely liked it a lot more than teal mask's narrative and was really pleased that we could become proper friends with kieran once more. (i still wish that we could've apologized for lying to him, though.)

now that i was safe from indigo disk spoilers and emboldened with love for pokemon as a whole, i decided to pick up my ribbon-collecting in earnest once more... though the next ribbon on my list was not actually a ribbon. it was a mark! introduced in gen8, marks are basically the same as ribbons. i think of them as little stickers on pokemon, haha. the first one that i set my sights on was the gourmand mark, which has a chance of being randomly given to your pokemon after eating a meal with them! these meals can be the store-bought ones or the ones that you make yourself via the picnic system.

frankly, i have no idea WHEN reides got this mark, as i went sort of crazy with buying lots of different meals. (i really like the food art in this game, okay!!) it definitely didn't take long for one of these meals to really strike his fancy, though. he got the gourmand mark very quickly and also got the title 'reides the gourmet' along with it!

i then decided that i'd try to get the other two marks on reides in one fell swoop. the first of these marks was the itemfinder mark, which your pokemon has a chance of getting when they pick up an item in the overworld. to get this mark, you have to make use of the let's go feature, which allows your pokemon to walk alongside you. the second of these marks was the partner mark, which... can be quite the ordeal. your pokemon basically has a 1/100 chance to get this mark with every 10k steps that you take. additionally, your pokemon also has to be friendly towards you in order for them to have a chance at getting this mark. since both of these marks rely on random chance, i knew that i could get really unlucky and end up going off on one hell of a grind for them... but i decided to just take it one step at a time. instead of focusing on getting the marks to trigger, i wanted to wander around and enjoy the sights around the various regions of the game. after all, i was lucky to even HAVE reides in this generation - and these marks gave me the perfect excuse to take lots of photos with him, too!

i was especially happy to take some photos of him with aske, my shiny gallade who joined me for my teal mask journey. as you guys know, reides the kingdra is named after a character that i play in a dnd campaign. similarly, aske is named after another character in that campaign; he's reides' boyfriend!

i also enjoyed roaming around *as* reides while using the new synchro machine, too! i'm not sure if items that you pick up count towards the itemfinder mark in this mode, but i'd like to think that they do.

thanks to my casual approach to getting these marks, i actually have no idea how long they took for me to get on reides. one day, i just happened to check and they were BOTH there, so i guess the 'grind' truly ended up being completely painless. in the following screenshot, i'm hovering over the partner mark, but you can see the itemfinder one at the end of the row above it, too.

with the marks now handled, i had one more ribbon to get on reides before he could become a true ribbon master. this ribbon was the one that i was the most nervous about by FAR. the master rank ribbon is granted to your pokemon once you emerge victorious in one (1) online battle against another player... but the catch here is that the battle has to be in the master rank. for me, it meant climbing from the beginner rank all the way up there.

naturally, i procrastinated with this ribbon a whole lot. i took reides along for the (amazing) epilogue when it dropped in january, taking more pictures with him and making more memories... all the while wondering just when i'd get around to tackling the Final Ribbon.

as it turns out, i didn't actually end up procrastinating on it all that long. my friend cody visited me a few days after the epilogue dropped, and my other friend blee stayed over at my house for his visit, too. both of them knew about reides the kingdra and we decided that we'd tackle operation: final ribbon acquisition together, with blee spearheading it as someone very well-versed in vgc. over the course of a few days, we managed to get up to master rank - running into a bunch of really interesting teams and occurences during the climb of legend. (special shoutout to a dedenne who kept trying to spam nuzzle on pokemon who were completely immune to it, but who successfully spread the glory of Cheek Pouch via entrainment onto us all.) i learnt a truly crazy amount of stuff about the competitive world of pokemon and really enjoyed all of the different rental teams that we tried out.

upon arriving in the master ball tier, we had to switch gears, though, as we couldn't use rental teams anymore and, instead, had to build one from scratch so that reides could be included in it. i ended up building this portland regional finals team as per blee's recommendation, though we swapped out raging bolt for reides, himself. since it was my own team and not a rental one, we gave nicknames to each team member.

my entei is one that i got in an event years and years ago (they're shiny and in a cherish ball), so i couldn't nickname them... but just know that they are 'flamberge' in spirit. o7 reides also got an electric tera type (and tera blast as part of his moveset) for fun, as his namesake is associated with storms.

it was a lot of fun making this team!!! the very specific ev-spreads that some of the pokemon required gave me a newfound appreciation for all of the feathers that i happened to pick up while wandering the terarium... not to mention all of the mochi that i collected while oustin' ogres in kitakami.

once the team was all built, it was time to get the final W in order to secure the ribbon at long last. we could all breathe a whole lot easier, as when you rank up to another ball tier, you can't "demote" to a lower one - so falling back into the ultra ball tier wasn't a concern. victory didn't evade us for long, either!

after a REALLY fun battle against someone named alex, operation: final ribbon was finally complete.

reides - along with the rest of the team who helped clutch out the victory - got the much-coveted master rank ribbon.

upon getting this ribbon, it finally happened.

reides the kingdra officially became a ribbon master.

a journey that began back in october 2023 finally came to a close. with his 91 total ribbons (since his two golden memory ribbons have 48 ribbons in total within them), reides now has each and every single ribbon that he can possibly attain from his origin game of emerald version to the current pokemon generation.

i'm sure that all of my posts speak for themselves in terms of the sheer amount of effort that i put into this challenge. there were many times that i thought i hit a "roadblock," be it in the form of a gruelling grind or worries over not being able to access something due to hardware restrictions. in the end, however, reides was able to rise above all of the challenges. i got sooo much help and support from friends over the course of this whole challenge, so i have to give a BIG shoutout to every single one of y'all! and, of course, i have to extend thanks to all of the people who posted about their ribbon mastery experiences online, as i definitely couldn't have guided reides to this point without them. i'm hoping that the posts that i made about reides' journey can serve as a guide of sorts to anyone who wants to pick up the challenge for their pokemon, too!

at any rate, reides is my very first ribbon master and i definitely plan on keeping his ribbon collection up-to-date in future generations of pokemon. i say it time and time again, but the ribbon master challenge is amazing because it gets you interacting with aspects of the pokemon games that you may have never even thought of trying out. you form a true emotional bond with your pokemon, and it's just... so very fantastic. you make so many memories!!! so while there might not be an update to the reides saga until those generations are out and about, i'm already excited to keep on hunting for ribbons and am hoping that the horsea line is included in every single game going forward! because, quite frankly... it's what reides deserves. >:)

before i Sign Off on this post, however, i wanted to share something i bought to celebrate reides; namely, a custom shiny kingdra diorama from nerdidecor on etsy.

ISN'T IT SO CUTE!!!!! i put it right on my desk next to my pc so that i can always have a little reminder of my amazing ribbon master with me. i'm hoping to get more shiny kingdra stuff in the future, too!

either way, thank you all so much again for keeping up with me and my beloved kingdra! i'm already looking forward to being able to write up another one of these posts in the future! until then, reides is definitely going to enjoy a nice vacation from ribbon hunting. rest assured that i will be taking the very best care of him!!! :D

[desultory-novice]

Nintendo Dream #6 RtDL DX Interview Part 2

Here’s the translation-summary for the second half of the RtDL DX interview with Kumazaki and the team, continuing from last month!

...Sadly, it doesn’t come close to answering all our questions. (The True Arena remains a mystery... :sob:) And I get the feeling Kumazaki’s going to continue to be very staunch on not giving away any hot lore deets/timeline information. Ever. But I like that he continues to encourage speculation!

Anyway, read below for the whole thing!

--

Q: I'd like to ask about the sub-games

-Nishi says since they were deluxe-ifying Kirby Wii, they wanted to enhance the parts of it where everyone could have fun together. The discussion of increasing the amount of sub-games and making them more extravagant led to the idea for Merry Magoland. Due to the desire to have many different generations enjoy them, they pulled popular games from a variety of classic titles and made them four- player.

-Kumazaki says they paid attention to including a variety of play experiences when selecting sub-games, so the experience of playing each doesn't overlap with the others. Man-power wise, it wasn't possible to put everything in, but looking back on it, he says, they miraculously included all their first choices on the initial design document. Ten felt like the right number for this "deluxe" game. They were even able to include some new ones, give them all a unique feel and make them all four-player. He notes as a director on Ultra Super Deluxe (Super Star Ultra) he was in charge of every sub-game there and how difficult it was to design games that used both screens and touch capabilities.

<Short additional commentary about designing games around the Wii remote and transferring that to the Joy-con I'm skipping>

Q: I'd like to ask which of the 10 sub-games everyone has the most feelings associated with.

-Tani says his is Egg Catcher, being the first sub-game in the Kirby series. It was very difficult and so there was some debating about making it more accessible... in the end, they slowed it down some to make it easier. But as you increase in difficulty, it gets about as hard as the original game.

Q: In the original, King Dedede throws the eggs, but here he's an ally. How did you go about solving that problem?

-Tani says that after thinking about it, they gave that role to a robot. It allowed them to re-include the Dedede robot from the Wii version's sub-game, Scope Shot.

Q: Kirby catches the eggs in their mouth, but Meta Knight has a mask and Bandanna Waddle Dee doesn't have a mouth. How did you go about solving this issue?

-Tani says that after thinking about a lot of options they settled on baskets. (laughs) He mentions that Dedede is taller than the other characters so the position he would catch the eggs at would be different. So they fixed that by putting the other characters on raised platforms.

-Watanabe says his favorite is the new game Magolor's Tome Trackers. Because it's Magolor's theme park, they made a sub-game where Magolor takes a big role. The rules are fairly simple, but that gives it lots of replay ability. But there are also fun changes to the conditions and the way it plays by Magolor showing you the back of the book instead or only the color, or taking time before giving you a hint. "My bad! Looks like I showed you the wrong side of the book!" he says, in Magolor-ese, to describe how the gameplay maintains these characterful "Magolor" elements.

Q: Magolor has become a really great character capable of anything now. (laughs)

-Kumazaki says Magolor has grown into a character that can do things they can't have other characters do, something of a rarity in the Kirby series.

-Nakanishi says his favorite sub-games are Checkerboard Chase and Smash Ride. Both can be tricky to control just right, but that makes it more exciting to play with others, and he was very happy they got remade for this game.

-Ninomiya chimes in about Samurai Kirby. It was a sub-game he'd always liked, and while there was some thinking needed to decide how to make it work with four players, its even more exhilarating to win in this version. And that goes for the online version as well. It works with motion controls so you can really pretend to be a samurai.

Q: Samurai Kirby 100 is a game you can play online against others but only once per day. Pleas tell us more about that.

-Kumazaki says most online games involve hanging out in the lobby, chatting with friends, and its very fun. And while the Kirby series has been making attempts at online play with Super Kirby Clash and Dream Buffet, he wanted a game that you can play with no waiting, just a quick, casual investment you could play without any fear.

It's a simple one button game, but they decided, rather than that just being something you could play online, "Wouldn't it be awesome if you could engage in a 100-person battle royal?!" and that was how Samurai Kirby 100 came about.

-Watanabe says they aimed for a goal where you could decide who was best in all the world in a snap. And because it just requires one button press, anyone can have an easy time playing it. It ends quickly too, but they put a lot of effort into the presentation of the game because of that. And you get to see something special if you get 1st place, so he hopes people will keep trying it every day.

[The Symbol of Peace in the Kirby World]

Q: There's an orange butterfly flying near Kirby and King Dedede in the opening and ending movies. Is that the same orange butterfly that has appeared in other titles?

-Kumazaki says that in regards to the story, many times they put much more priority on the game design aspects. But in order to expand upon the world's setting (or if it will make the series as a whole more exciting) they scatter these little seeds that make you think up these deeper connections.

Q: So you're looking/focusing toward the future

-Kumazaki says that the world of Kirby, in order to stay diverse with each entry, has many parallel world elements and unconnected timelines, and he cannot clarify for us if that butterfly possesses the same role in different entries. But that there are elements left in the game that those who want to enjoy the story more can ponder on.

Q: I see.

-Kumazaki says Meta Knight has his airship, the Halberd, that sank in the end of Meta Knight's Revenge. But in a later game, Kirby Squeak Squad, they bring back the sinking Halberd as it's laying at the bottom of the sea in this game. And that there are new stories that can arise from pulling out past story beats like that. Slipping these things in softly can allow those unaware of these to experience the depth of the series' story as well, keeping these elements alive, without interfering in the enjoyment of the series' gameplay.

So if you're unfamiliar with the orange butterfly, it can be a symbol of peace, representing the calm before the adventure kicks in, or the mood of the ending. There are many different points of view you can see it from. Kumazaki wants both those unfamiliar with or not that interested with the story to be able to have their own takes on it and take in the story as they wish.

Q: There's lots of theories/questions though. (laughs)

-Kumazaki says if you play lots of Kirby games then play RtDL DX, you may definitely be thinking "Wait, is that?!" And the fact that the butterfly avoids touching Dedede's head directly but stopping on the flower instead... we make little considerations like that.

[Magolor Epilogue where Magolor is the star]

-Kumazaki says the original had The Arena and Extra Mode, which is generally the right amount of volume for a good Kirby game, but since so many people have already played RtDL, they wanted something unknown, like there'd be if this was a new game - something new to enjoy. They also were thinking up something that included a different style of play than that of the main mode.

Four plays is the crux of the game, so you can play as four Magolors in the Magolor Epilogue too, but this is also an adventure to raise up a weakened Magolor and make him strong again. He focused on adding that growth/development part to the "fun, four player action."

-Watanabe says, regarding the gameplay systems, they included mechanics where you could develop the player character as you pleased, something that they haven't done much of in Kirby. It linked up nicely with the story of Magolor picking himself up from losing his powers, easing you into the story nicely.

Q: It's fun to raise characters up like in an RPG

-Watanabe says that outside of connecting the gameplay to the story, another reason they chose this style of gameplay was to make a wide-audience game that anyone could play. This mode unlocks after you've cleared the main mode, so there is a bit of a difficulty curve, but its also balanced so that players who don't like action games can proceed via powering Magolor up enough. We aimed for something playable for action game veterans and newcomers.

Q: By the way, is it possible to complete this mode if you don't power up Magolor at all?

-Watanabe says yes. The challenge stages require specific power ups, but you can play to the end of the game ignoring those. He's done it himself, he says. It's very difficult though, so if you're confident in your skills, please, make the attempt!

-Nananishi says its the kind of challenge they can include because its post-game content. Kirby and the Forgotten Land's copy ability upgrade system was well-received. This game's system is a bit different, but Kirby hasn't really been a series with elements where your abilities change as you grow, so they look forward to how these different elements will be received.

Q: Why did Magolor's outfit turn gray?

-Kumazaki says they made it white to show how he'd lost his powers after "a certain fight." It visualizes how he's lost all his energy. He's not going to elaborate on the series timeline, but there are things in RtDL DX that lean toward connecting the various stories.

Q: So, he's out of energy?

-Kumazaki says the other reason he's dressed in white is that in RtDL, there are these dimensional rifts that allow you to travel through a variety of worlds, and so Magolor's clothes are white to make you think "Oh wait, does it mean this?!" There's a bit that hints at this, so I'm happy if you complete the epilogue and are able to feel "Aha! So that's why he's dressed in white!"

-

<LATE EDIT: Sooo, I was in a rush when I wrote this and didn’t double check even though it pinged something in my brain (Bad Dess. Always double check!) but there is some implication, notably in the fact that Kumazaki corrects the interviewer gray > white and some obscure/older meaning behind the word “white clothes” that they’re also meant to be funerary garb.>

-

Q: By the way, you can play as four Magolors in multiplayer mode, but is this magic or some other established ability to split oneself?

-Kumazaki says that in Star Allies's post-game content, Heroes in Another Dimension, Kirby can transform into the Dream Friends themselves. Because it's otherwise very hard for Player 1 to play as the Dream Friends in Star Allies, so he wanted a special kind of game experience where you could control them all at the end. Lots of unusual things occur in the space known as Another Dimension, but... they realized it would cause less unease if you could just be four Magolors rather than Magolor somehow being able to summon Kirby, King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandanna Waddle Dee to journey with him. It also makes it more of a Magolor Epilogue because its only Magolor.

Q: It's sure something to play with four people as four Magolors. (laughs)

Unlike with Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, where Kirby is divided into four by Dark Meta Knight at the start of the adventure, nothing happens to cause this. We just wanted to emphasize the fun of playing together as four Magolors gathering power and growing. This is just something conceived of to be unique and fun to this game.

Q: On the note of the four Magolors, tell me about being able to play as four Kirbys of differing colors.

-Kumazaki says the point of the multi-color Kirbys is so that everyone can be the main character. We had something similar in Star Allies with the helpers, but outside of Kirby, those are generally controlled by the CPU to help out and add elemental abilities.

Q: The helpers give off a strong impression of being support to Kirby during Kirby's own adventure.

-Kumazaki says that in contrast to that, the multi-colored Kirbys are distinct for letting everyone be the main character, and everyone play as Kirby. It's a difference of theme. To match up with the theme of the game, everyone can play as a Kirby of a different color. Because the helpers are identified as helpers, they're really support roles that exist to fulfill a need in the series.

[Kumazaki looks back at 30 years of Kirby]

Q: It's been a packed 30th anniversary.

-Kumazaki says with the goal of making the 30th a big celebration, they worked together with teams and departments outside of just Japan, all toward this one goal, and that he was glad they did. It was very difficult of course, but everyone put their all into "Let's make the consumers happy!" and "Let's make this 30th huge!" It was thanks to this clear goal that Kumazaki and everyone else was able to keep moving in the same direction and that everything was done with excitement and that you can feel the team's energy.

Q: You released three vastly different games this year.

-Kumazaki says for him, the biggest challenge was making those three games. It wasn't just because it was the 30th or to release a new Kirby title, but because they wanted to make the very best title they could that they were able to release three titles exactly on time for the 30th. But the Music Fest, that was definitely prepared especially as a 30th anniversary celebration.

Q: It was really impressive that you made that happen.

-Kumazaki says that he feels as if Kirby has grown much larger thanks to all the events packed into the 30th anniversary celebration. Kirby was 9 years old when he entered HAL Laboratory (2002) so it was just before the 10th anniversary. Now it's been 20 years and you see Kirby in all kinds of places. Kirby dolls hanging on students bags, Kirby merchandise for sale in storefronts, and Kirby prizes at gaming arcades. He says that back during the 20th anniversary, it was still somewhat rare to see Kirby merchandise around. There are many more opportunities to see Kirby in games and elsewhere in just these 10 years. From the first entry to Kirby and the Forgotten Land, not just in Japan but all over this wide world, support for Kirby really has grown. He felt that with the scale of the Music Fest, compared to the orchestra concert celebrating the 25th anniversary just five years ago. The deep feeling that Kirby is loved by so many all over.

Q: You worked person-to-person with the sound staff on the Music Fest while making those three new games, right?

-Kumazaki says it was incredibly difficult. (laughs) The peak of difficulty was Dream Buffet's development falling right when the end of production for the Music Fest was happening. I was listening to songs from the Music Fest in one ear and BGM tracks from the games with the other. We'd made the plan to announce Dream Buffet on stage during the Music Fest, so I made those announcement preparations with the feel of "We're working on it RIGHT now!"

Q: You did the voice of King Dedede for the HAL Laboratory Dream Band King Dedede Fest" didn't you?

-Kumazaki says about that, they didn't rehearse his part in the song before the event. (laughs) After hours at Kirby Cafe Tokyo, they did rehearsal and recording all in the short space between then and opening the next day. "I'll do it!" he thought to himself as he joined in, thinking it would please the fans.

Q: With the release of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the scope of what a Kirby game is has increased, and many people are looking forward to what's going to come out next.

-Kumazaki says as new ways of play are discovered, evolutions and enhancements on types of play increase as well, with things like additional growth parameters but they generally want to see player's growth and proficiency at the controls of the action games they play. The scope of the games has increased, but push it past a certain line and it really would become an RPG, and that action (the genre) and learned proficiency are very important to Kirby, so he's going to continue thinking about that balance going forward. Which is quite challenging.

Q: That brought us the "Magolor Epilogue" right? Magolor did no talking on his own, the whole story till the end was communicated in that fashion. Very well done.

<They're talking about the fact that he doesn't talk to anyone else to explain the story or his feelings while you're playing the game, yet you still understand the narrative. Obviously, he still has some dialogue when you power him up.>

-Kumazaki thanks the interviewer, saying that with an action game, its good to have a story you can read between the lines. And, he adds, the reveal that Magolor('s ears) was dark brown/black underneath his hood was always there from the beginning of his creation.

<They make specific mention of his ears, but I think the point is to emphasize that his looks aren't because he's in "shadow">

Q: Lastly, please share let us hear your enthusiasm as we move into the 31st year of the Kirby series.

-Kumazaki says that the 30th anniversary came about because of the hard work of staff and most of all, the cheers of so many fans. The games, the music fest, the events and merchandise. FL is the series first main line 3D action game, Dream Buffet lets you compete against others online, and now this game, a deluxe remake of an 11 year old 2D action game, so there's a great variety of Kirby for the fans to enjoy.

That the team had been feeling this after the 20th anniversary, but with the growth of the staff, while they were able to deliver almost non-stop Kirby titles, presenting nothing but traditional 2D sidescrolling action titles alone might put the series in a rut. That's why with much work, they try to change up the world, the graphics, and the style of play, but the series needs even more variety going forward. Now, at the 30th anniversary, the team has gained so much more experience and are ready to challenge new types of play. It's a big thing to deliver a diverse lineup of titles. But there are still things left undone and new challenges ahead. They don't want to be limited to just mainline titles and specific staple genres and are making preparations to deliver an even more diverse Kirby series to the world. Please look forward to what the new Kirby series will continue to have in store!

[iturbide]

*reads tags on the last post*

...ok but now I'm actually curious about your issues with TOTK👀

okay so to be per, fectly clear: Tears of the Kingdom is a really fun game. I've been playing a lot of it, aimlessly wandering around, exploring the Depths, finding shrines, doing side quests, and so on. At this point I've cleared the four regional quests, a bonus mainline quest I wasn't supposed to know about yet I found the shrine early and had enough hearts to open the door, what can I say, I'm curious, I have the Master Sword, and I think most of what's left is armor upgrades and wrapping up the main story.

But also I have been spoiled since the game came out about what's in store and boy do I see a lot of similar narrative issues to my gripes with Fire Emblem.

So we might as well start off small with how TotK actively rewrites its history in ways that are even more extreme than Skyward Sword. Skyward Sword introduced Hylia and Demise as concepts, with Hylia inheriting the Triforce from the Golden Goddesses of Din, Nayru, and Farore and tasked with protecting it, while Demise appeared as a demonic entity intent on taking that power for himself. As of Skyward Sword, Zelda was written as the mortal reincarnation of Hylia, thereby retroactively contextualizing her powers. The Triforce has been a power source sought after and fought over through every prior entry in the series, and even though BotW didn't make outright reference to it, the Triforce was clearly present on Zelda's hand when her powers awakened and appeared in full when she sealed Calamity Ganon at the end of the game.

And Tears of the Kingdom does away with it completely.

Hylia is mentioned as the only goddess. The Golden Goddesses aren't referred to at all. There is no Triforce at all, it's instead been replaced by the Zonai 'Secret Stones' even in the ancient past, despite the fact that we saw the Triforce at the end of the last game. It was right there. Zelda is also no longer the reincarnation of the goddess: instead her powers are re-explained as being the product of the historic marriage between the Zonai Sage of Light and the Hylian Sage of Time, giving her command over both (but she's considered only the Sage of Time for some reason?).

Also, BotW pretty heavily implied that Hyrule was a matriarchy: it's the queens and princesses who have the sacred power, so it stands to reason that Zelda's mother was actually the one in charge of Hyrule before her death, and the king only stepped into the leadership role on a temporary basis until Zelda came into her powers (hence that pointed "heir to a throne of nothing but failure" remark in one of the memories). But despite there being a Hylian queen right there in the ancient past, the game firmly establishes that Rauru is the one with the power, and Sonia is just his consort, a priestess who he chose to marry.

And then there's the Shiekah. Throughout all of BotW we were surrounded by these amazing machines, ancient technology crafted by the Shiekah and unearthed in working condition after a myriad in the ground which are still running and wreaking havoc a hundred years after the Calamity. We start the game in a Shiekah Shrine that literally saved Link's life and allowed him to recover from what should have been fatal wounds, though it did take a hundred years to do so.

And all of that is gone in TotK. Not a trace of it remains: the shrines have all been wiped from the face of the earth, the Divine Beasts are nowhere to be found, the Shiekah Towers have evaporated into thin air -- and the shrine that saved our lives is completely gone, replaced by a hot spring. It still bears the name of the Shrine of Awakening, but none of the miraculous technology remains.

Personally, the idea that either Purah or Zelda would consider the Skyview Towers worthy of dismantling that Shrine completely shatters my suspension of disbelief. They're both scientists: they should want to study all of that in detail to understand how it works, not destroy it for glitchy impersonations of the old towers I hate the Skyview Tower miniquests so much.

(Let me tell you, it was absolutely chilling for me to get to Rito Village and see an empty place where I clearly remembered there being a shrine. The Shiekah presence in history has basically been wiped out in TotK outside of Kakariko Village, and I don't like what that says considering that the Shiekah were also victims of a genocide by the ancient king of Hyrule.)

And then there's the imperialism. I have my issues with Three Houses and every ending needing Fodlan to be united under a single banner, though it's most egregious in CF where Edelgard's stated purpose is returning Fodlan to its proper state unified under the Imperial Standard. TotK is worse. There have been some excellent breakdowns of the narrative implications, touching on everything from the loaded imagery and black-and-white narrative purpose of Ganondorf and the Gerudo (dark-skinned evil desert dwellers who oppose the good and glorious worshipers of the goddess...where have I heard that before...) to the game showing outright that the other races of Hyrule were treated as lesser vassals in the ancient past (the Sages being masked and therefore erasing their individual identities, receiving the Secret Stones that Rauru had been hoarding only when Rauru needed help to fight Ganondorf and thereupon swearing their very lives and the lives of their people to him and his empire???). They're great analyses, they've been living in my brain for weeks.

But I think the thing that I'm most mad about is that the narrative bends over backwards to keep anything from changing. At the start of the game, Link's arm is so badly damaged by the Gloom that he nearly dies and he spends the rest of the game with Rauru's arm in place of his own...but then, in the end, he magically gets his original arm back no worse for the wear. Zelda, in an attempt to empower and restore the Master Sword, turns herself into a dragon, a process that we are told outright in the narrative will cause her to lose herself and is therefore irreversible...but then, in the end, she magically returns to her human form thanks to her ghost ancestors somehow reversing this supposedly irreversible process. And on top of all that, Hyrule itself is exactly the same when all is said and done: there's no change to the power structures, no independence for the other races who choose to come together in the spirit of cooperation like we saw at Tarrey Town -- instead, the four Sages once again swear their support and fealty to the Princess of Hyrule.

Personally? I like a narrative where the characters and the world change over the course of it. That's one of the things that I thought was so meaningful about BotW: while most of the gameplay takes place in the present, the true start of the game is 100 years in the past, allowing us to see how the Calamity affected Hyrule, the devastation it wrought and the continued struggles of those who survived through the century that followed. We end the game with Zelda once more free, where she had been locked in combat with the Calamity; with the spirits of the Champions at peace, where they had been trapped by the Blight within the Divine Beasts; and with Hyrule finally at peace and beginning to recover now that the Calamity has been sealed away. I still think it's ridiculous that they don't actually show any of Link's scars in the game (especially since we are at one point forced to strip to prove that we are who we say we are, and they say point blank I would recognize those scars anywhere when there are no fucking scars), but at least things have changed over the course of the narrative!

But nothing changes in TotK. The status quo remains untouched and unquestioned. And it just feels...bad to me. Insincere, maybe. Unrealistic, sterilized, manufactured. It's a narrative that says there's nothing to question, that everything going back to the way it always was is the right and proper way of things, because clearly the Hyrule Empire is the right and proper rule. And I just don't like that.

[flightfoot]

Hey, do you have any recommendations for Lukanette, Adrigami, and/or Julerose fics?

I don't generally read Lukanette. The pairing's fine in and of itself, I think that Luka and Marinette would have a happy marriage and a good time together, but I've had so many bad experiences with Lukanette shippers vilifying Adrien, Alya, and the class, that I can't really derive any enjoyment from the ship, I just have too many negative associations with it. Lukadrienette and Lukadrigaminette are fine since I've never had bad experiences with other characters being bashed to promote the poly, but Lukanette... no.

I had about a year where saltfics NEVER LEFT MY HEAD and I kept on having flashbacks to my favorite characters being demonized and vilified and punished for it, with those flashbacks running through my head for hours on end while my throat choked up like I was about to cry, for hours at a time, on a daily basis. I REALLY can't stand anything I associate with that. I still can't stand saltfics, but my throat doesn't close up and I don't get a ton of flashbacks anymore when I see them at least, I just get angry.

There IS still one Lukanette fic series I've liked and recommended, but it's less because of the Lukanette and more because of the exploration of Luka's and Felix's characters (and it turns into FeLuka later on).

As for Adrigami... it's a nice ship, but there's very little content for it, especially in more recent years. It mostly vanished once season 4 got going, and it wasn't exactly common before that. I've got some Adrigaminette and Lukadrigaminette recs if you're interested in those though?

---

Boomer!Luka: FeLuka Ending series by @19thsentry-blog

In the Shadows (the first fic in the series) summary:

On one side is Luka, 140-year-old Snake Miraculous holder and keeper of the Guardian's secrets, on the other is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, a relatively newly minted hero of Paris and Guardian of the Miracle Box. Each is looking to fulfill their promises to their now gone mentors to reunite the Kwamis and keep them safe. Sounds simple--until you throw in a rocky start, the Atlantic Ocean, Félix Graham de Vanily, and a whole host of secrets…and suddenly simple becomes complicated (story of Marinette's life, right?).

So this is obviously way outside my normal wheelhouse. I don’t typically read Lukanette fics, even ones that turn into FeLuka later on in the series (though boy it becomes apparent quickly that the author’s fascinated with FeLuka’s dynamic.) But this one is really good, with the best Luka-centric fics I’ve ever read, and some of the best Felix-centric content as well. I love how Luka has his own baggage here, with all the pressure of wandering around for over a century, looking after the few Miraculous he found, trying to keep what’s left of the Order alive, unaware of Fu’s survival or of the Miraculous user’s re-emergence in Paris. There’s a lot of focus on Luka’s own feelings and thoughts and problems, not just on helping other people with them. 

The plot works even without the romantic aspect, so even if Lukanette isn’t a pairing that draws you in, I still recommend this fic, so long as you don’t actively dislike the pairing itself. And even though it’s a Lukanette fic, Adrien and Alya are treated fairly and with respect. Adrien may not end up with Marinette and is bummed about it, but the narrative is still kind to him overall, there’s clearly no ill well towards him, or Alya for that matter. (There are later fics in the series that focus more on Adrien just healing and coping and living after finding out that his father’s a villain and his mom’s been in the basement this whole time, and in the multiversal travel fic, Alya gets some standout appearances as Scarabella which are fun).

And FELIX - it’s clear that 19thsentry has this whole conception about Felix’s psychology. He’s wrapped in a ton of self-loathing until it started to consume him, made him lash out. Him being a sentimonster, wanting to get the Peacock Miraculous, actually gave him some direction for that at least. And he’s just in this pit of his own making, until he meets Luka, who can see through him when no one else can, who cares for him even though he doesn’t understand why, who’d been through so much over the years and yet kept himself kind. He’s attracted like a moth to a flame, infuriated that he cares, yet not able to stop himself from caring about this mysterious, infuriating musician. 

Yeah if you can’t tell this is the series that really sold me on FeLuka as a couple.

Oh yeah, one of the fics in here is M-rated, and it does earn the M rating for sexual content, though it’s nothing too major.

---

Three’s company by @torvalvt

Kagami has been doing her best for years to ignore her feelings for her friends. It doesn’t help that Adrien and Marinette insist on spending as much time as possible with her, even going so far as inviting her along on their dates together. If only the affection she felt for them wouldn’t get in the way of their relationship. Because it is growing harder and harder to tamp down her feelings with how close they are getting to her.

This is adorable. Adrien and Marinette really want Kagami to join their relationship and she just doesn’t dare hope for it. If you want some adorable Adrigaminette from Kagami’s perspective, I recommend checking this fic out!

---

Hold Me By Both Hands by @angelofthequeers

“I know he said never to take you back,” Plagg mutters. “But he’d change his tune if he knew.” He looks Adrien straight in the eye and, more serious than Adrien’s ever seen him before, says, “There’s someone you gotta meet. He’s been looking for that book for ages.” How differently might the events of season 2 have gone if Adrien had also known of Master Fu from the start?

Look I've literally written a series of essays going over the various aspects of the plot threads in this fic, it's one of the best ML fics I've ever read if you've wanted a fix-it for seasons 2 and 3. Especially with the way Chloe's redemption arc was handled, it's STILL the best Chloedemption arc I've ever read in a Miraculous fic, and I've read a LOT of Miraculous fics.

---

You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess by @mexicancat-girl

With Team Miraculous now full-time holders, Ladybug has them patrolling in pairs like her and Chat Noir. New partners Pigella and Purple Tigress get along phenomenally, their easy banter and similar wavelengths making working with each other a joy in and out of combat. But sometimes Tigress is surprised just how close she is with her partner. Sometimes she tries not to feel too guilty thinking about it.

There’s some nice Julerose here! I love them kinda getting into a lovesquare with each other, though it’s not as much of a problem as it is in canon since it’s reciprocal in every relationship and they’re both down for a poly. It’s fun, and I love the “Luka attempting to woo some of his love interests” plot going on in the background XD.

---

How Could I Not? by SorryJustAnotherPerson

In fairy tale books, Princesses were saved by nights from ferocious dragons. Those books were not their story, but Rose was happy to flip over a new page with her Juleka every single day. Many years ago, she was put to this tower by her parents and her kingdom, along with a fire breathing dragon, so she could find her prince charming one day. How foolish for them to not calculate her falling in love with the dragon. I mean seriously. How could she not?

I love fairy tale type stories, especially fractured fairy tales. And Juleka being a dragon is awesome. This is just a fun and adorable story.

---

The echoes there of me and you (The voices that are carrying this tune) by @tiredfloridianbutverygay

Juleka finds herself gifted an old castle in Scotland by an auntie she never even knew she had. At first, she's thinking she'll use it as a vacation home. Then she meets Rose, a ghostly blonde woman from another time who's been alone for decades and who's achingly in need of a friend. Juleka's never believed in the paranormal, the supernatural but it's hard to deny the blonde's existence. It's also hard to deny her growing affection for the specter. The specter, who Juleka knows should be moving on and the specter who Juleka knows might just need a bit of help doing so...

[spookymystery67]

I Wish I Could Walk In Heels

AN: I did not re-read this chapter recently as I was busy, so I hope it's alright. Enjoy everyone!

TW: Same old same old. Violence, language, ect. Typical Resident Evil stuff.

-September 29, 1998-

Chapter 10:

Being back at the NEST was not a great feeling for you.

Last time when you were here, you started off blissfully unaware of all that was going to happen in the next week after you left. You thought that you were just going to collect some information on a hard drive, meet with Ben, then miraculously come up with a way to expose Umbrella once and for all. You didn't realize that plan was doomed from the start.

And now, you are back with Leon. Wondering the zombie infested halls looking for wristband pieces to get to the higher leveled parts of the NEST. Easier said than done with all the puzzles and obstacles in your way.

"Why were you so mad at Ada earlier?" Leon asked as you both explored, completely catching you off guard.

"What do you mean? I wasn't mad at her." You said.

"Your face said otherwise." 

"I'm not mad at her. I'm mad at the stupid situations that I keep finding myself in. Especially in the last week. Everywhere I turn I can not catch a break."

"So you're not mad at her? Or me?" 

"Only thing I'm mad about involving you is the cell block incident. But I guess there wasn't much you could do there. So no, I'm not mad at you."

At Ada, on the other hand, you kind of were. She started off rough, cold-hearted, and business-like. Then it seems like she slowly got to learn some of your personalities and changed parts of herself to manipulate the situations to fit her needs. Was she planning from the very beginning to send you and Leon into the NEST to fight off dangerous unknowns and find the G while she stayed behind? Probably not. But she was planning something. That much you know.

It's not that you hate Ada. You really don't know enough about her to form an opinion. What you hate is being lied to. And you just know you're being lied to. Both you and Leon. 

Not to mention Annette did warn you. Granted, you didn't trust her either. But there was some truth to her words.

But you truly don't have the energy to care enough to argue about it. You just want to give Ada the damn G-virus and get the fuck out of the city. Maybe find some motel to shower and fall asleep in forever. You honestly think you could sleep forever at this point.

"I really am sorry about that. I wish there was something I could have done." Leon said.

You shrugged. "Well it's not like I did much curling up into a ball and sobbing like a baby. I was right there. I could have done something. But I didn't. And now Ben's dead. And Katherine too." 

"You know it's not your fault, right? None of this is." Leon said, gesturing to the world around him.

"Logically. Yes, I know that. Emotionally, well, I'm a fucking wreck. And the longer I stay here the more difficult it gets to keep it all back."

"You don't have to hold in your emotions. You can feel sad. You can feel pain."

"Yes, maybe later. But right now I don't think we can afford another one of my mental breakdowns." 

"You know, we may not really know each other. But just know that I am here for you. You can trust me." Leon said. 

You looked at him, debating. You could tell he has a good heart. But you didn't know if you could trust him, yet.

"So you trust me?" You questioned.

"Yes. Yes I do." He said immediately, catching you off guard. You didn't expect that. After everything that happened, you didn't expect him to trust you at all.

"And you trust Ada?" You asked. He hesitated, and you nodded. "You can tell something is off?"

"Yes. But I don't want to jump to conclusions." Leon said.

"You can still be skeptical. I am."

"So you think she's lying?" He asked.

"I don't think she's telling the full truth, at the very least. I don't really know what I think." You sighed.

"Do you think we can trust her with the G-virus?"

"I don't know. But I guess we'll find out soon." You said as you opened the door to where the G-virus was stored.

"Huh, that was easy." Leon said as he walked up and picked up a G-virus sample.

"If you say so." You snorted.

"Now, back to Ada."

You nodded. "After you, Leon."

Suddenly, a siren began to go off throughout the facility, making you and Leon pause and glance at each other.

"Attention. Unauthorized removal of a level four virus detected. Facility lockdown initiated. Self-destruct sequence will begin when lockdown is complete." The computer voice said.

"Fan-fucking-tastic." You sighed.

"Let's go." Leon said, running off with you following right behind him.

You almost make it to the end of the catwalk to the door when something crashes through the ceiling. You quickly turned around and realized it was a mutated William. He looked far worse than when you saw him last. His right arm was far bigger than his left and had a huge eye on it. It was like a whole other being was growing out of him.

"You again." Leon said as you both raised your guns, ready to shoot.

"Move." A voice said from behind you. You turned and saw Annette. "He's mine. This has to end." She raised a weird looking gun at her once husband. Ready to finish this once and for all.

She shoots the gun, causing some weird reaction that makes the mutated Birkin fall to his knees. She reloads the gun.

"What the hell's going on?" Leon asked.

Annette limps forward. "Sorry, William. You left me no choice." She shoots the gun again.

She shoots again and Birkin falls to the ground. Seemingly dead.

Leon walks closer, gun raised in case of any sudden movements. "You called this thing William. Why?"

"Did she not tell you?" Annette asked.

"I didn't even know he had encountered Birkin. I didn't think it was important to tell him."

"It shouldn't have been like this. It's Umbrella's fault, this whole mess." Annette said.

"You're Umbrella too. You're telling me you weren't involved in this?" Leon asked.

"Yes…But we never meant for this to happen." Annette shouted.

"Then tell me everything. Right from the start." Leon said as he walked toward her.

Annette sighed and explained how William had injected himself with the G-virus. All because Umbrella sent in people to retrieve it from him. He didn't want that to happen. 

"So you made this monster?" Leon asked, gesturing to the mutated Birkin on the floor.

"We made the G-virus, but we never intended-"

"You can spin it any way you want," you notice the eyeball on Birkins arm open and move. "you're still responsible."

"Watch out!" You shouted as the mutated Birkin quickly shot up and grabbed Annette in his giant hand. Annette screams in pain at the crushing grip and is tossed into a wall.

You watch as Birkin mutates more. Any human resemblance gone. He grew bigger and had more limbs and orange eyeballs on them.

He started to whack and hit at you and Leon. You ducked and tried your best to stay out of range of the four arms trying to grab at you.

The sirens rang louder and the platform you and Leon were on began to sink lower. You turned to see an injured Annette at the control panel.

"What are you doing?" You asked.

"We can't let him get away!" She shouted.

Leon dragged you to the edge of the slowly lowering platform and urged you to jump off. You reluctantly did and he followed. You land on your knees. Not the best place to land with your still healing scrapes and bruises you've developed over the week.

Leon helps you up and you both quickly back away from the platform and take in your surroundings. Metal canisters were placed sporadically all over the floor. You weren't sure what they were filled with.

"Alright. We end this here." Leon said. You took out your shotgun. You weren't sure how helpful it would be in this fight. But it's this or your handgun.

"Class A breach detected. Lab quarantined until the target is neutralized." The computer voice said.

"Aim for the eyeballs and the canisters when he's near it!" Leon yelled over the sirens.

"Okay!" You nodded. Hopefully your aim is on point right now.

So that's what you did. You aimed for the orange eyeballs and canisters that exploded when shot at. Avoiding huge and heavy metal objects that the mutated Birkin kept trying to throw at you and Leon to crush you. At one point, even part of the metal wall was thrown at you.

Eventually, you and Leon finally managed to pop all the orange eyes, puss and goo shooting everywhere. You managed to avoid the goo and the mutated Birkin finally fell to the ground. Hopefully dead for good.

"That was- kind of gross." You grimaces.

"Yeah. Good work Y/n." Leon said.

"What do you mean? You did most of the work." 

"Well, mainly because I have all the cool guns. You just have two?"  He asked incredulously.

"Hey, I didn't know how to shoot a gun before all of this. I think I have made quite an improvement since then." 

"Well you definitely helped. So thank you."

"You're welcome. Now let's get the hell out of here." You said, turning to find the exit to get out of here.

You make your way up the elevator back to where you left Annette.

Once the elevator stopped, you and Leon saw her sitting on the ground leaned up against the wall, gasping in pain from her injuries.

"Jesus. That looks bad." Leon said as you walked to her, leaning down to check on her injuries.

"Feels worse. Believe me." Annette grunted.

"I have a first aid kit, but I don't think it will help much." You said.

"It's fine. I know there is nothing you can do." Annette told you.

"Look, about what you said. I don't know how much I believe it, but I'm willing to-" Leon started.

"Just tell me you'll destroy that G sample." Annette interrupted.

"No, it's evidence. It's going to the FBI." Leon said. 

Annette coughed and looked at you in disbelief. "You trust that bitch?"

You shook your head. "Of course not." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Leon asked.

"She's not FBI, she's a mercenary. She's gonna sell it. The G-virus is gonna go to the highest bidder." Annette explained.

That… actually makes sense. It also hurts you slightly. You didn't trust her to begin with, but in a weird way you still felt betrayed. You wanted to think she was actually telling you the truth. That she wasn't going to let the G get into the wrong hands. But of course that wasn't the case.

Leon stood and scoffed. "That's bullshit."

Annette pants in pain and goes to lay on her side. "I hope you're right." She grabs her bleeding side in pain. "But if the G-virus gets into the wrong hands…" Annette collapses. Dead.

"Attention. Self-destructive sequence initiated. Use the Central Elevator to evacuate immediately to the bottom level train platform." The computer voice said.

"Well shit. I guess we're heading to the Central Elevator." You said.

"What about Ada?" Leon asked.

"She's probably already there." You said as you turned to leave the room and find the Central Elevator.

You ran to the elevator and saw that Ada was already there. Just as you had expected. You stopped behind Leon as he slowed his pace. Clearly not in a hurry even with the building about to explode.

Ada limped from the elevator toward where you were stood. Leon slowly walked forward and you stood behind him, slightly irritated by the slow pace.

"I was just thinking about you." Leon tells her from across the bridge.

"That makes two of us." The building rumbles and shakes. "I was getting worried about you two." Ada said as she nervously glanced around.

"Y'know, we make a good team. But I gotta ask you something." As he strolls closer. You decided to walk forward and to stand to the left of him as Ada limped down the stairs.

"The way's clear. Please, tell me you both got it." Ada asked, changing the subject. The building rumbles more, making you grow nervous. Ada is now standing just across from the two of you.

"He has it." You said.

"Oh, I got it." Leon confirmed.

"Let me verify the G sample and we'll get the hell out of here." Ada said, holding her hand out.

"Before we do that… We ran into Annette. She claims you're not FBI." Leon started.

"Can we maybe do this when we aren't in a building that's about to blow up?" You asked loudly as you moved to walk closer to the elevator, ready to get the hell out of there. Leon grabbed your arm to prevent you from moving further. You glared and shook his hand off, now standing slightly in between them.

Ada's hand slowly lowered. She shook her head, seemingly saddened. "Oh Leon…" She took her gun out and pointed it at him. "Why couldn't you just hand over the sample?" 

You backed away from the pointed gun, stopping when you realized you're standing just near the edge of the rail-less bridge. That's a safety hazard if you've ever seen one.

"Because I realized, as much as I wanted to trust you…" Leon raised his own gun. "I didn't."

The building rumbled more, making you nearly fumble off the edge. "Guy's, this really isn't the time!" You wanted to move, but you didn't want to risk getting shot at by one of the two.

"I really hoped it wouldn't end up like this…" Ada said. She glanced at you. You weren't sure why though.

"So that's all this was? We were just some pawns to you?" Leon asked, hurt.

"Look, I'm just doing my job." Ada said.

"And I'm doing mine, so drop that damn gun! I'm taking you in."

In where? Raccoon city is destroyed.

"Hand over the sample, Leon. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt any of you." Ada said.

The bridge behind you and Leon suddenly gave out, making you all stumble. You quickly try walking away from the edge toward the elevator, but Ada points her gun at you. You raised your hands.

"Stop it, Ada! I don't have the G-virus and I don't want anything to do with this argument. Just let me go." You said. 

You didn't want the G to end up in the wrong hands. But you figured Leon playing hero would make everything turn out alright in the end. As opposed to you, who will just make everything worse.

"Hand over the G and I will." Ada said, glancing at Leon to see if he would react. You looked at her in irritation. And, again, somehow hurt. Of course she would threaten you to get what she wants. She's done it before. Why are you surprised?

Leon regained his footing and maintained his raised gun, before lowering it.

"Then you shoot her, but I don't think you can." Leon said. You widen your eyes at him. What the actual hell, Leon? You looked back at Ada, slowly lowering your arms. You really hoped he was right about that.

Ada held the gun steady for a moment, looking conflicted, and almost pained, as she watched you. The longer you studied her features, the more you realized that Leon was right. She really didn't want to shoot either of you. She looked you in the eyes for what seemed like hours before finally lowering her gun. Defeated.

A gunshot suddenly hit her right shoulder. You jumped in surprise as Ada grabbed her arm in pain and you turned to see Annette standing there, gun in hand.

The bridge gave out more, making you scream as you stumbled and fell over the bridge. Ada slid off too but grabbed your arm as Leon grabbed her, trying to keep both you and her from falling to your death. This reminded you a lot of when you were with Jill. 

Ada shouts in pain as your weight tugs on her injured shoulder, but she somehow managed to hold you up. Her blood from the wound dripped onto the exposed skin of your right hand and down your arm, making it very difficult to keep a firm grip.

As Leon grabbed her, the G sample fell out of Leon's pocket, past you and down below into the seemingly endless dark abyss that you were hanging above.

"No one gets that sample now." Annette said, before collapsing once more. 

"Leon." Ada huffed, out of breath from the pain and struggling to keep both you and her hanging there.

"Hold on. I think I can-" Leon tries to lift you both, but the building shakes and the catwalk collapses a little more.

"Shit!" Leon grumbled. Struggling with the weight of both you and Ada. 

You just hang there helplessly, trying to figure out a way to get out of this, to get you all out of this, but you can't.

"Forget it." Ada said.

"Shut up. I've got you both." Leon desperately stated. You all knew that wasn't true.

"It's not worth it."

"Don't do this."

Ada looks down at you before glancing back up. "Take care of yourself, Leon. Get ready, Y/n."

You looked at her in confusion before widening your eyes in realization. "Don't you dare, Ada."

Before Ada slipped from Leon's grasp, she somehow used her strength, despite her injured shoulder, and swung you up to grasp the side of the bridge, falling into the abyss from the motion.

"No!" Leon and you yelled. You are barely hanging on to the side of the bridge, slipping from Ada's blood and the scrapes on your hands. Leon quickly grabbed your arms and tugged you onto what remains of the bridge. He didn't want to lose someone else.

Once you were on the bridge, you looked down in the darkness, seeing nothing. Ada just saved you. You felt like you were going to cry. You may not have trusted Ada or known her well, but you didn't want her dead. Just another person's death that will haunt you for the rest of your life. That is, if you survive.

The building shook more intensely and the bridge shifted. Leon stood to his feet, still looking down. 

"Leon. Leon! We have to go." You shook him back to reality and dragged him to the elevator.

You both made it to the elevator and pushed the button, taking you further down the NEST. Hopefully this train will get you out of here in time.

The elevator finally stopped and you and Leon ran out. The computer voice tells you that there is nine minutes until detonation. 

You are stopped in your tracks when Leon looks to one of the surveillance screens.

"Who's that?" He asked.

"Claire!" You said once the frizzy screen clears a bit.

You had forgotten that Claire and Sherry were down here with you, having been distracted by so many other things and trying not to die. It's good to see they were alright.

"Leon? You guys made it down here too!" Claire said.

"Yeah. But the whole place is coming down. Listen to me, do you have Sherry?"

"Yes. I found her." Claire confirmed.

"You need to take her and get out of here. Fast!" Leon said.

"Yeah. There's a way out. We can make it. Where are you now?" The computer started fizzing out.

"Claire. You still there?"

"Leon? Hey Leon, you're breaking up."

"Forget about us. Just get out of here!" The signal was lost. "Damn it!" 

"Come on. We have to go." You said as you set off toward the train.

You and Leon did your best to avoid and fight off and plant zombies and whatever else came at you as you went.

"Eight minutes until detonation." The computer voice said. Thanks for the reminder.

You made it to a room that was on fire, quickly trying to get to the door. Flames shot out from the walls, blocking the doorway.

You both turned and you shouted when you saw the Tyrant. Right behind you. How long was it following you?

Your scream was cut off as the Tyrant grabbed your throat and lifted you. This night has been full of déjà vu moments.

"Y/n!"

Something explodes near the Tyrant, making it drop you to the ground. Leon helps you stand and something else explodes again, making the catwalk below you collapse and take you with it.

You both grunt from the impact and roll out of the way as the heavy metal falls way too close to comfort.

"Ouch." You gasped.

"We have to keep going…" Leon grunted.

You both make it to some kind of platform that will take us to where the train is. You find the joint plug to get it started and put it in place, pulling the lever and getting the platform to move.

Something explodes once more and the building shakes, debris falling everywhere. A pillar falls and lands near the platform. You looked up and saw the Tyrant walking on a bridge above you and Leon, trench coat burned off. Its right arm was still on fire and mutated. 

"Oh shit..." Leon said.

Yup. This is very familiar.

A piece of structure lands heavily behind you, making you stumble and  try to avoid more falling chunks of rocks and the building.

The Tyrant is knocked off the bridge and landed right on the platform that was moving down the hill. Right in front of you and Leon.

With nowhere to run, you had no choice but to try and fight the Tyrant.

"Alright, come on!" Leon said, taking out his gun. You took out your shotgun and loaded it. You didn't have much ammo left for the shotgun. You'll have to resort to your handgun soon.

The battle was mostly you and Leon running around in circles, trying to find the Tyrant's weakness and avoid being hit with a flaming arm. 

"Five minutes until detonation." The computer voice warned.

You fumbled and fell to the groin as the Tyrant leaped and hit the floor beside you, making you lose balance and fall. You quickly rolled to a stand and ran to Leon.

"I don't think these guns are doing anything." You said as you swapped out your shotgun for the handgun.

"We have to keep going!" Leon yelled.

The building shook and more beams collapsed. You paused when you saw a weapon case with a rocket launcher land on the platform. Where the hell did that come from?

"Where did this thing come from?" Leon asked, just as confused.

"I don't know! Just use it." You yelled.

Leon quickly grabbed the rocket launcher and shut the Tyrant, making the entire top half of the creature get shot off and killing it once and for all.

You watched in disbelief as the bottom half of the Tyrant fell to the floor. "Holy shit! Can I have that?" You asked, reaching for the rocket launcher.

"Hell no." Leon said, pulling it out of your reach.

"You have arrived at the bottom level." The computer voice said as the platform reached its destination.

You ran off the platform and toward the exit. Zombies started flowing out of the door and you backed up as Leon used the rocket launcher to blow them to bits.

You reached the railroad and saw the train had already departed. More explosions and debris fell behind you and you both gasped.

"Shit. We gotta get out of here." Leon said.

You sighed and you and Leon ran as fast as you could to jump into the train before it was gone for good.

You quickly pulled yourself onto the moving train and dragged Leon on as more explosions went off and heat grazed your skin.

The train makes it to the safety of the tunnel, taking you away from NEST. You and Leon sat on the train's edge and took a moment to catch your breath.

Leon grunted in pain and grabbed the wristband Ada gave him from his pocket.

"I can't believe I actually miss her…" Leon said.

You glanced at him. "Well, she made quite an impression, Leon. I'm not surprised."

"Do you miss her too?" Leon asked.

You paused. Did you miss her? You didn't really know her well. At all, really. But part of you did feel guilty about what happened to Ada. Maybe Leon would have been able to save her if she hadn't been holding onto you. She wouldn't have fallen to her death.

"I wish I could have gotten to know her more." You simply said.

Leon hummed and nodded, tossing the wristband off the train.

You stand up and hold out a hand for Leon. He took it and you both tiredly made your way to the door of the train.

"Claire!" Leon said when he saw Claire and Sherry standing in the room.

"Leon!" Claire said, surprised and happy to see him. She looked at you. "And you! I don't think I ever got your name." 

"Y/n. Good to see you and Sherry are alright." You said.

"It's so good to see you both!" Claire grinned.

"I told you I'd make it out, didn't I?" Leon smiled.

"You did."

The train suddenly shook violently. It came from the train car behind ours.

"What was that?" Claire asked.

"I don't know." Leon said.

"Nothing good, I assume." You muttered.

"You two stay here with Sherry. I'm gonna go check it out." Claire declared.

You both nodded in agreement. You watched as she left and stood there for a few minutes, waiting.

You heard gunshots and you and Leon looked at each other with concern. You open the door and see Claire trying to kill some mutated monster that had taken over the entire train car.

"Claire!" Leon yelled as Claire fell over. "We gotta lose that car!" 

Leon got to work trying to disconnect the cars as you tried to help Claire by shooting the monster with any bullets you had left.

Claire stumbles up, and with a large metal pole in hand, stabs the giant eyeball of the mutated monster.

"You like that?" Claire yelled. "Goodbye fucker!" She pulled the pole out and goo shot out of the eye. The monster screeched in pain.

"Grab my hand!" Leon yelled.

Claire was quickly pulled to the train car you were standing in. The other train car with the monster disconnected and fell behind, falling into the flames chasing the train from the explosion. 

You all continued watching the flames in silence. The train quickly sped away from the NEST and away from Raccoon City. 

You sighed and closed your eyes. Resting for however long this train will go.

-September 30, 1998-

When the train had made it out of the tunnels and to its final destination, you realized it was now daytime. You had made it another day. You had made it of Raccoon City.

"So, are you guys like boyfriend and girlfriend?" Sherry asked Leon and Claire. You all were walking along a road in seemingly the middle of nowhere. No specific destination in mind yet.

"No, we're just uh… well we actually just met…last night?" Leon said.

Claire huffed a laugh. "Yeah... That would have been a helluva first date, though." 

"Yeah. You have no idea." Leon said.

"What about you two?" Sherry asked, pointing to you and Leon.

"Nope. Same thing. We just met last night." You told her. Not wanting to get in depth about your preferences.

Sherry nodded, before pointing forward. "Look! He might be able to give us a ride."

We all looked forward and saw a semi truck heading our direction down the road.

"What if it's not just the city?" Claire asked.

"Get Sherry out of here." He told you both.

"Come on." Claire told Sherry. You three made some distance, just to be safe. From what? Zombie drivers?

The truck just drove by you four with a middle finger pointed at you all. You snorted. What an ass.

"Well he was friendly." Leon shrugged with a laugh, making you chuckle. 

"So… is it over?" Claire asked as she and Sherry ran up.

"I don't know. But if it's not, we'll stop it. Whatever it takes." Leon replied.

"Yeah, you're damn right we will!" Claire agreed.

"As long as we stick together, we'll be fine. Come on." Leon said.

You weren't sure how long you planned to stick around with them. But for the foreseeable future, you had nowhere else to go.

Claire and Leon each grab one of Sherry's hands as you walk behind them.

"Hey! you guys could adopt me." Sherry said.

"Uh." Leon started.

"Adopt you?" Claire laughed.

Oh, sweet Sherry, we're all in our early 20's. I don't really think we're ready for children. You didn't want to be the one to tell her and crush her spirit, though.

"We can get a puppy!" Sherry continued.

"A puppy?"

"And a parrot."

"A parrot? Great…"

"I always wanted pets, but my mom said they were too messy."

"Eh…yeah." Claire agreed.

You smirked and shook your head, sighing in exhaustion. You desperately wanted a bed. But from the looks of it, you all had a long way to go. You desperately needed a break from everything soon.

You just hoped everything from here on out will go smoothly.

[justanotherpersonsuniverse]

SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 70 PN BELOW Lets fucking go cap! ok it’s the weekend, I have my own writing block and I finally finished my fucking assignments and handed them in, I’m practically free forever!! (exams loom in the distance, i willfully ignore their shadow)

I’ve started by reading from chapter 67 just to bring myself back into the mindset (and because they are hype as all hell chapters), this is faster than starting my like 7th re-read.

I even made myself a cuppa to really settle in, the vibes are immaculate, I played Bizet Carmen while reading this time

The dichotomy of Juleka:

I don't want to hurt anyone!

Extreme violence is efficient. 

The fact that we didn’t get ladybug trying to kiss rena when she was shot by dark cupid is tragic

This time i listened to shoot to thrill by ACDC, and Burn it down by awolnation for the badass parts

Anyway finally onto Fei, that only took me two hours (i briefly wrote shit so yknow, a good time!)

Fei’s tragic backstory be upsetting frfr, Like damn brother you watched your dad die in front of you? Do you need a blanket and a hug?

The tone change from “My life ended when my dad died.” to “summer was awesome!!” made me snort horrible it’s not funny- but it kind of is-

Oh my god Juleka got a break for weeks AND WE DIDN’T GET TO SEE IT??? Tragedy. (i’m kidding, so happy that she got a break <33)

Rose thirsting over Panthera in a crop top is too funny- you just know if it was anyone else Juleka would be pouting like “damn what do they have that I don’t?” 

Oop her hands still kinda fucked, curiouser and curiouser. I wonder if she has tried to practice her secondary power. Which rq, it was SUCH bullshit that LB gets two and the cat miraculous gets one in canon, so happy you retconned it

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY GOD OK CAP I AM SO HYPE HYPE SHE GOT A MODELING INTERNSHIP?????? Like sure cause nepotism but i’ve been wanting to see Juleka try out modeling in a real environment for ages cause like thats something she is interested in yknow and i just- 

Augh, hype as hell. And an excellent reason for her to be going to Shanghai, I applaud your problem solving to fit Juleka into the show's narrative! I applaud it always, but this one was more difficult than usual methinks

I have pizza now it is 8pm

Anyways; NOO GABEY BABY DON’T BE EVIL VIBES TO JULEKA SHE’S JUST A LITTLE THING

Oh my poor awkward Juleka… Gabriel wasn’t helping but this is so funny, dude you vowed to kill this girl like a month ago open your eyes

I NEED juleka’s modeling arc to be a thing. Idk how into detail you went but i’m hoping for some i’m rabid i’ve been waiting for this for like 3 years

Oh airports SUCK i feel her anxiety so much, poor thing… i forced my friend to share her location with me one time so we could stalk each other, we never turned it off its kinda funny

… why is Anarka banned from airports?? Being “a living weapon” is so vague.

Killing myself rose and juleka are so cute- and obsessed with each other- every hour is insane

I love Juleka instantly becoming a disaster on baby’s first flight

Juleka instantly being on high alert around gabriel is so real.

“Right,” Mr Agreste’s face didn’t twitch nor soften much in response, just nodded in understanding and turned back to stare forward. “The opening of this store is essential to the future of the Agreste Brand, you two. Opening it much sooner is very good news. There will be other fun times with your friends.”

Hardass, fuck off!!

Poker with literal chips made me laugh- adrien would be terrible at poker

Spiderman far from home? Nah, Panthera Noir far from home. 

“Oh that building looked fun to climb.” please Juleka unhinged parkour arc when?? Like people turn away from her and then look back and she’s up a tree. 

HELP “bye bye bag” is so real-

She’s so scary, but I wanna ask what her hair dye is. Do it. Please. I think you would factory reset Nathalie and she would answer on autopilot

Awkwardly playing chess is so real, also; yippee!! Adrien and Juleka bonding even more after the acting debacle!!

“Knights were cute. Little pony’s. Rose always wanted to move her knights cause they reminded her of unicorns.” please this is literally my strategy in chess, i just move them around and sometimes i win because i confuse people so badly

LB overthinking chess is hilarious. 

Adrien POV???

YOU CAN LEARN MANY THINGS FROM JULEKA SUCH; HOW TO BE A CAT. sorry i just had the mad idea that Adrien might find out this chapter… i would go insane if that turned out to be right

“Knowing info about me is pretty easy when your Wikipedia is super detailed” that’s fucking depressing. Adrien baby that’s a terrible way to get to know someone and not the same experience at all- 

Gaelic is a real language!! And a bitch to learn- I briefly tried with my dad and we both gave up, we’ll just stick with scots english

“Where do you disappear during akumas?” hard hitting question Adrien, ten points!

And is also making me high key suspicious about him finding out, the vibes are there

Nah, nah evil. Gabriel spend time with your son goddamnit 

GET HIS ASS JULEKA YES GIRL I LOVE YOU

The fact that she thinks she isn’t brave sometimes infuriates me, like babe i get your insecure but your brave as hell. 

QUEEN SHIT JUST WENT DOWN THERE

Juleka ripped him to shreds hell fucking yeah.

Wait. why did she give him the king? Hawkmoth called himself a king… cue the x-files music

Who the fuck is this asshole? Fei. Kick his ass, i command thee. 

Oh curious, she has burn scars from the fire, i like this detail. 

I feel like Fei and Juleka will get along, based on the ever present rage against one guy

She is being used augh

“Your father deserves to be avanged.”

“He does.” UMM GIRL YOUR DAD WOULD HATE THAT WEREN’T YOU THERE FOR THE FLASHBACK??

I want Cash to gtbnrvice this asshole is just using her desperation for information- 

I want Juleka to scare him into telling them, as Panthera, i think she would be quite good at that. 

Juleka is a feral beast who needs her outside time (i like how she wants to run on rooftops a lot its cute)

LORE LORE LORE LORE 

Excited. The prodigious?? Tell me more silly cheese guy

Ummm. i need the prodigious to show up, i can’t remember if thats what Fei has or if this is future future foreshadowing, this is exciting

New arc unlocked: freeing the Kwami from their jewelery or the curse. 

Also; yes sadistic plagg in the face of the guardians temple being destroyed, you go girl

Guardian temple? Swallowed whole? Sounds frightening. What a feast.  HA

Model Juleka yippee!

Help- adrien your advice is trash-

Ok existential conversation, yes girl let me spiral-

No sick girl Nathalie let adrien speak i want to know what he thinks of the best girlies-

Plagg wanting to take him under his wing- Juleka saying he wants to replace her with Adrien- ITS ALL COMING TOGETHER. 

Nah if you actually do have a reveal to Adrien i am going to go buckwild- cause either the vibes of the chapter got me but i think I guessed before any of the concrete foreshadowing

Ok sick girl nathalie actually has some sound advice and is being lovely to Juleka 

Yes Juleka use your strength

FEI STEALING CAMERAS??

Get her ass Juleka, or- politely bite her arm juleka?!?

Juleka is just brawling in an alleyway- like damn sister- watch out for bruises you might not be allowed to model-

Oh god what if she took plagg during some of their scrapping- actually, that would be fine. Juleka would just go insane and fight her

Juleka; desperately grasping for something familiar and bantering with Fei

Fei: what the fuck is wrong with her?

Nicest mugger I’ve ever met real and true

Wait

NOO JULEKA THEY WON’T LET YOU MODEL LIKE THIS

YEAH KICK. HER. ASS. 

Plagg stays with Juleka yippeee!!

Help their dynamic is so funny- exactly what i was wanting. 

Juleka would want to learn how to disappear even better than she already does wouldn’t she

Nah not Fei thinking “well that was fucking weird” while juleka is like “Oh that was cool” Juleka is so weirdgirl core i love her

Oh shit she stole marinettes stuff Tiki is there- 

Kick the asshole in the balls Fei, i command thee.

I am so happy Nathalie and Juleka have some sort of alliance, in my as to be written huge tragedy based on Nathalie Gabriel and Emily (which is extensively planned), I think Nathalie is more similar to Juleka as a teenager. 

Adrien and Nathalie interaction- “yes we- we did it” agyuhtvrinjfeok love her. 

Marinette blinked vacantly, standing in the back alley streets of Shanghai with a paling expression on her face and her entire inventory ghosted from her person.

WHERE THE HELL AM I!?

HELP SHE’S SO FUNNY- i love disaster marinette please-

and thats a wrap for Fei! i started this before five and it is now ten pm- i did other things though.

this was awesome cap, I look forward to the next chapters and I shall review them tomorrow!!!!!!

I hope you enjoyed <3

GLAD YOU ENJOYED!!!!!!

[terraliensvent]

The fact that the doxxer hasn’t gotten anyone else PERSONALLY proves to me it’s someone either in or from that circle. If they have proof of their innocence can’t they dm it to you and you can confirm it in a post??? I feel Like we all trust blog mod enough to believe them on something like that??

But also I don’t think there IS a way to clear anyone. Like how would they even prove their innocence? No one besides reup staff has seen the ip used to hack veal. How would they even know for sure that it’s not them? It doesn’t make any sense especially if the anon blog was the deleted Rhys impersonator. There just isn’t a way to prove without a doubt people aren’t involved.

I think they’re lying through their teeth. They probably just asked each other “was it you?” And then got told no and that was enough. Otherwise they would send blog mod screens of the proof and we could put it to rest

The doxx anon is quiet now though, lining up awfully coincidentally with Gin’s sudden departure. You people are honestly fucking jokes. Please for the love of god get a fucking job and stop whiteknighting for some rando you’ve never even met irl. Chances are Gin doesn’t even like half of you because all of you are so fake and two faced. And hell y’all probably do the same thing to gin.

At least it’s all over. The silence is pretty comforting. It sucks that they had to basically run veal and Zaga out of any safe spaces they were in.

Edit/Disclaimer: this post is out of date. please read this post for more information. the doxxer has now been revealed to be Veal themself, however per my rules of keeping everything in place, these posts will remain up for archival purposes, despite the ongoing speculation of the time.

Original Post below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

post related

i’ve posted truthful things here without screenshots before, such as when richie and noxie came to my dms about tycho being incredibly sloppy and irresponsible as a leader. i dont see any reason why censored screenshots cant be given (censored as in, coloring out names and blocking personal info, not chopping it up). if you dont want to give screenshots at all either way, then why even bring it up? if i say i have a million dollars but i dont want to show you, how are you supposed to believe me? and not to mention that the anon said “we’ve confirmed that none of us have anything to do with it,” how can i expect any of you to be impartial when you could just as easily lie to protect your buddies? i wouldnt be surprised if they actually did just say “was it you?” to each other.

youre also right in saying there isnt a way to totally clear anyone right now, but there also isnt any way to totally indict anyone. rhys is the one there’s the most evidence against, but according to things said in re-up (a group notorious for not being big fans of rhys) after speaking to rhys and ravvytaffy directly, rhys (apparently) has some good points toward someone impersonating them

in my opinion theres like. a 0.000001% chance that its miraculously someone entirely unrelated to civ and their group. but theres just way way too many details, such as the canadian VPN, the details of veal’s trauma being used against them, and the timing of it all. theres a motive here that’s so obvious it’s practically slapping you in the face

im not entirely certain its all over at this point, i have a nagging feeling something is on the horizon, but i guess we’ll have to see

also obligatory:

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Tell me, what did you think of ML when you first discovered it? I thought Chloe's arc in season 2 was decent for this type of show, even if it could have been better. I also never took Marinette's obsessive behavior over Adrien that seriously until it started getting really grating.

My first interaction with ML consisted of me looking for kids shows to watch in Spanish, finding Miraculous on Netflix, watching maybe three minutes of The Bubbler, and then turning the show off because it didn't seem very good. That's the episode that starts with Marinette freaking out about giving Adrien a birthday present and it gave me the impression that Miraculous was doing the classic female-protagonist-pines-for-the-male-protagonist-who-barely-even-knows-her-name trope, which is not a trope that I'm into. I'm way too ace for that shit. This is the scene in question as I looked it up to make sure I was remembering it correctly:

Marinette: Ah! (she stops right in front of Adrien.) Um, he-- Hey! (she gets nervous as she holds her gift behind her back.) Adrien:(surprised, shyly) Hey. Chloé:(as she watches what's happening outside) Wait! Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing? Don't tell me it's Adrien's birthday?! Sabrina:(checks her tablet, gets surprised, and makes excusing noises while smiling sheepishly.) Chloé:(facepalms) Ugh, do I have to do everything myself? Seriously, what are you good for? (walks toward Adrien.) Marinette:(nervously) I, uh, I wanted to, umm, gift you a make-– I mean, gift you a give I made-- I mean... Chloé:(yawns while Marinette is talking and then shoves her away) Out of the way. (she acts sweet.) Happy birthday, Adrien! (throws herself onto him and gives him a kiss on the cheek.) Mwah! Adrien:(surprised) Yeah, thanks Chlo.

This backs up my vague memory that my initial assumption was that Adrien and Chloé were friends while Adrien didn't know who Marinette was because he was clearly much more comfortable with Chloé. Same goes for Nino who was talking to Adrien earlier in this scene.

I'm not sure when this first watch occurred, but I know it was at least a year before I revisited the show. I made a friend in another fandom and that friend was transitioning out of Miraculous, but they had a lot of really good Miraculous fanart and even some fanfic which got me curious as I couldn't understand why anyone would be into the show given my dismal initial impression.

On this friend's recommendation, my SO and I started watching Miraculous an episode or two at a time. I was pretty unimpressed with the actual show, but I started reading early fandom fanfic between our watching sessions and that kept me interested enough to keep watching. My initial impression of the show didn't really change until we watched Origins. That's the episode that really made me fall in love with the canon characters as it took everything about the show and elevated it. The crushes had depth! The Chloé/Adrien thing wasn't just the bitchy rich girl going after the popular boy! Gabriel was confirmed to be the big bad! Things were suddenly going places and that honestly wasn't surprising.

It's incredibly common for kids shows to have lackluster first seasons where they don't really commit to anything major re plot because they're just testing the waters to see if they'll be green lit for more seasons. Because of this, I was under the impression that Origins must have been when they got green lit and season two was going to do the standard kids show thing where they really get to dive into the plot and characters in a big way now that they're making money. This assumption was backed up by the addition of the new heroes to the show's intro.

For the first half of season two, I was invested as it seemed like we were finally getting seasonal arcs. Chloé seemed to be getting set up for some sort of character arc, which I was all for as I enjoy a good mean girl arc. We also had some tension brewing between our heroes with Fu favoring Marinette, a dynamic that felt more accidental than planned since it only happened because Marinette found the grimoire at the end of season one. I thought all of that was going to come to a head with Chloé's Queen Bee debut as things had seemingly been set up for Chloé to be Adrien's pick for a Miraculous.

Then Queen Bee actually happened and my excitement quickly faded. I still cannot think of a less interesting way for Chloé to get and use the bee. No one gives it to her and she outs herself on national television right away? Talk about wasting an idea. Clearly this had just been a one-off thing done so that the show could drive up hype for season two based on promo images of Chloé as a hero.

But it wasn't a one off thing. For some reason, they kept bringing Queen Bee back and that's when I knew we were in for a bad time because that should have never happened. It especially shouldn't have happened when Marinette was giving out the miraculous. I could maybe see a setup where Adrien gives Chloé a second chance, but Marinette trusting Chloé made no sense:

Marinette: I must choose someone who's not impressed by people in power. Who can help me trap Malediktator. Huh?! Of course! That's it. (reaches for the Miraculous of the Bee) Wait, what am I thinking? (facepalms)

Yeah, what are you thinking? Alya was your first choice for the bee, she isn't impressed by people in power, and she wasn't hit by Malediktator, so go grab her! Why would you pick Chloé?

Long story short, I kept watching because the show wasn't terrible, my SO enjoyed hearing me dunk on it as we watched it, and I was really enjoying the fan content, but I didn't have much faith in canon after the midpoint of season two and I continually lost faith as the seasons progressed. I never pictured it getting as bad as seasons five, but I only had hopes for Miraculous to be truly good for about 2 weeks as that's how long it took us to get from Origins to the Queen Bee mess. I was also disappointed by Alya and Nino's hero journeys. I expected them to be chosen for grander reasons. As is, it felt like they only got recruited because their loved ones were in danger.

Since you brought up Marinette's crush, I'll end by saying that I have never been a fan of that style of crush-based humor (once again, way too ace for that shit), but it didn't bother me in a serious way because it was very obviously meant to be humorous. I just suffered through the jokes when they happened and then moved on as there was no reason to dwell on them. It probably helped that I was reading a lot of fanfic and even the people who love the show generally agree that Marinette's crush should be played down in more serious stories.

The only time Marinette's crush bothered me was Derision as that episode straight up destroyed her character. It also made the writers look awful because they made Kim the bad guy for laughing at Marinette's behavior, but we'd just spent over four seasons being told Marinette's behavior was a joke, so what is the lesson here? Are we all supposed to feel guilty for laughing at a trauma response we didn't know was a trauma response? Are the writers saying that trauma is funny? How can you be so tone deaf?

[wind-up-thancred]

i was thinking last night abt katsu getting his first actual apartment in mist during post SHB and the reasoning behind that, but also mostly thancred's reaction to it, seeing as how he has All That with limsa and i kinda wanna. yap a bit about it. long, mild shadowbringers spoilers

i don't really think katsu thought about it too hard at the time but ultimately his subconscious reasoning for settling on limsa was:

a.) comfortable climate, the guy fucking hates cold and enjoys the coast, seeing as how he grew up in a coastal area

b.) being on an island makes him feel isolated and safe (he was still dealing with the threat of zenos at the time), and

c.) that island has one of the best naval militaries on the star and katsu was still associated with the maelstrom at the time. plus they have a second police force in the form of the yellowjackets

so basically it made him feel safe during a time where he had become increasingly aware of his own mortality and fragility. SHB tends to do that to wols, i think.

he also fully intended to have thancred live with him once he got back to the source, so he definitely asked for thancred's thoughts on the matter re: where he wanted to live. and i don't think thancred openly voiced any objections at the time (typical of thancred "i can't be a burden to anybody or else i'll fucking die" waters) but, like, there was definitely a bit of hidden apprehensiveness there?

you'd think katsu might clock it as something that might make thancred feel weird, being somewhere he'd lived miserably as a street urchin before being miraculously taken to Super Fantasy College, but i think the possibility completely flew past him bc his personal experience just a few months prior was similar, but fairly different to thancred's.

katsu was paranoid when he'd first returned to kugane in stormblood, seeing as how his previous departure was extremely abrupt and unannounced and he had no idea how that would be perceived. he was part of a well-known family, so he figured word of his disappearance would spread pretty quickly. so in his case, he was just nervous to see people who still remembered him

but who was going to remember a singular street rat after 30-odd years? so katsu never even realized there might be an issue.

but i think, in reality, it definitely did make thancred feel Strange (bad), because he was back in the place he'd grown up, probably having to scrounge for food and clothing and shelter, except now he is looking at it while sitting in a cushy apartment worth more gil than his smaller self even thought was possible, with a doting partner on his arm, and by the gods he does Not think he deserves it.

what made him deserve it more than any of the other orphans he'd lived alongside? how many of them faced fates much, much worse than his, for no good reason? and no, anything he'd done along the scions probably didn't count to him— from what i can tell he doesn't see any of his countless good deeds to even have made up for the "mistakes" he "made" along the way (read: shit he was marginally involved in and couldn't have done much more about but that he still blames himself for anyways).

it probably makes him feel hypocritical to walk through that city after everything, to see that there are still countless homeless children and adults, and the only thing that allowed him to escape that was the pure dumb luck of robbing a sharlayan man.

i think he initially shoves the feeling way down bc that's probably A Lot, too much for him to deal with right away, but perhaps eventually he's able to reconcile with it by helping out the orphans, buying them meals, keeping them safe from danger where he can, etc.

i do think he also brings it up to katsu *eventually,* but knowing how hard 5.4 and later was on katsu's mental health, he probably waited until well after endwalker when katsu was more mentally stable and he didn't feel like he was adding unnecessary burden to katsu's head.

and katsu actually understands right away— he is very very aware of the strange, upsetting feeling that can come with just being in the same physical location that some rancid shit happened to you at, so he totally gets it despite not initially clocking it as a possibility.

but also, by around that time, i think it's less of an issue for thancred because the scions had disbanded, he didn't have much else to do being unable to teleport and still wanting to be available to be home for katsu, and that prompted him to start spending most of his days assisting the limsan caravan patrols. he is definitely not the kinda guy to stay unproductive for a long period of time even if he absolutely has the financial means to do so.

and i think that also helped him reconcile the initial feeling of "abandoning" this city and its people. or something. this man consists of like 85% guilt so it makes sense to me to give him a little sprinkle of impostor syndrome regarding his home city.