#marinette core

[shinydreamtacoprune-blog]

[shinydreamtacoprune-blog]

real

[cakemousse]

[heartfulselkie]

Marinette: (furiously knitting)

Marinette: (furiously drawing)

Marinette: (furiously baking)

Marinette: (furiously optimizing hero squad's patrols)

Marinette: (furiously brainstorming new ways the hero squad can help Paris)

Marinette: (back to furiously drawing but not the same one as before)

Alya: you know - just because you have an idea doesn't mean you have to act on it

Marinette: what?

Alya: you don't have to do every idea you ever think of

Marinette: what are you talking about and also how dare you

[cookiedough77]

oh guess what guys i did it again-

i LOVE DRAWING AUS - credits to @chocostrwberry !!!

go check them out i literally love their au soooooooo much!!!

[passionfruitbowls]

i know it’s probably been said a thousand times before but the idea of adrienette (/lovesquare in general, if we’re talking post reveal) trying their best to navigate any obstacles or problems together is so endearing to me!!!

something i often like to think about is adrien being extremely attentive whenever marinette hyperfixates on a certain task, or whenever she freezes up. she sews for too long without stopping and then has wrist pain later? he’s immediately On It, making a mental note to stop by every so often, and of course he’ll give her hands a little massage because he simply refuses to let her get carpal tunnel on his watch. she can’t quite articulate what she’s thinking or how she feels? that’s okay, they’ve got a way of communicating nonverbally.

and of course marinette continues looking out for adrien whenever he needs someone in his corner. sometimes it’s letting him know through words that she’s always there for him (she never gets tired of saying it (neither does he during those moments where it feels like the world has come crashing down around her)), other times it might be through physical touch like a hug or hand holding (they’re both very fond of the latter; it’s hard to tell who initiates it more). even just being in the same space as one another, in a comfortable silence, can be enough.

it might not always be easy, but they’re both glad that they get to do it alongside someone they love and cherish so much.

[asukiess]

if your takeaway from the “all I was good for was cracking jokes” line is “oh, it’s ladybug’s fault that he feels that way up until the end” and not “adrien has severely unexamined identity issues that have played an important part in his whole entire character arc and he will, while in this state, always fall back on the crushing feeling that he’s not enough--not strong enough, not loveable enough for the people around him--as a regression” then we do not watch the same show

[wisteriasymphony]

Luka in that art looking like the living embodyment of that Robot Chicken quote: "Look, if you're not gonna take this seriously, I'm out."

I don't think either of them are in this for... benevolent reasons...

[theluckiestlb]

as a self-identified adrienette girlie....kinda miss them, ngl.

[literaphobe]

core four go out to eat mala stir fry and Adrien sheepishly asks if it’s ok if they get small spicy totally okay if not he will eat anything they wanna eat because he loves them so much and they are his best friends :) they were gonna order small spicy to begin with but Adrien tears up two bites in anyway and marinette FREAKS as he blows his nose ADRIEN BABY IM SO SORRY we will get NO spicy next time!! Alya and nino ask her Well then what’s the point of eating mala stir fry. but then Adrien CHOKES so nino caves too and says WHO NEEDS FLAVOR ANYWAY!!!! ARE YOU OKAY BUDDY!!!!!!!

[coffeebanana]

Today's warm-up ficlet brought to you by me wanting to experiment with writing broken ribs. And it's complete enough to share as a tumblr snippet, so...enjoy!

“We’re almost there,” Marinette said, gently squeezing his arm. As if Adrien didn’t recognize the staircase up to his own apartment. Then again, nothing in his life really seemed the same anymore. Even this trip upstairs was more than he could handle. Each step jostled his broken ribs, and every breath was a fiery spike in his chest. The pillow he clutched to his chest did little to help. And not even his mind offered any distraction; his father’s betrayal was a whole other kind of pain.  If it weren’t for his friends—Marinette at his side, Nino following behind, and Alya waiting for all of them at the top—Adrien was sure he wouldn’t have made it. He would have given up halfway up the first flight of stairs. Or he’d still be at the hospital, struggling to put on his shoes. “You’re doing great, mec,” Nino encouraged, like a broken record. Adrien didn’t think he’d heard his friend say anything else all day.  You’re doing great—when Adrien could barely stand up on his own. You’re doing great—when he was seconds from bursting into tears. You’re doing great—after he almost snapped at Marinette for fluffing his pillow one too many times, and was tempted to do snap at Nino for daring to repeat the same lie over and over. Now, at least he was grateful for the words—how had Nino had the patience to put up with him all day? Tears sprang to the corners of his eyes, but he couldn’t let them fall. If he started crying, he wouldn’t know how to stop, and crying was another thing that hurt too much. He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself.  He’d forgotten that breathing to deeply was the worst pain of all. Adrien gasped midway up the next step, clutching the pillow closer to his chest. It was no use; the damage was done. The pain ripped out like a stone dropping into a pond—each wave was a little weaker than the last, but there was nothing he could do to hurry it along. “Let’s rest here for a minute,” Marinette suggested. Adrien wanted to argue—they were three steps from the top. What was the point?—but he couldn’t manage to speak. Instead, he succumbed to the tears slipping down his cheeks, doing damage control by means of taking shallow, steady breaths, trying not to feel anything that would spur the tears on. That became near impossible when gentle fingers wiped away his tears and delicate lips pressed against his cheek. Marinette too had been ridiculously patient. Impossibly tender. And she was Ladybug—that truth hadn’t had a chance to sank in, but it barely needed one. It just felt right. “Come on,” Alya said. Her words weren’t impatient, but they didn’t coddle him either. And that felt right too. It felt good—to know that at least one person wasn’t treating him like he’d break. “Three more steps,” she encouraged. “Then you can rest as much as you want.” That wasn’t really true. The pain didn’t go away even when he was sitting, and he doubted he’d be able to get much sleep. Plus, there were a hundred things he knew he’d have to deal with in the coming days—cops, lawyers, and the weight of Paris’ opinion, to name a few. But when he opened his eyes, Alya met his gaze with a friendly challenge. Marinette rubbed his arm, and Nino squeezed his shoulder. Three more steps.  He’d take one for each of them.

[shinydreamtacoprune-blog]

[actually-factually-anonymous]

The unnecessary lack of personal stakes of Marinette Dupain-Cheng in the Agreste Arc

Inspired by a recent post by @starguardianniom, with half pinched again from my own reblog:

Marinette has zero personal stakes in the main conflict of her show, except that she happened to be the first girl who helped Fu across the road, and was thus chosen to wear the earrings. She doesn't even really seem to have any reason to be Ladybug aside from the basic "I can't sit back and do nothing" she stated in Origins. So a sense of responsibility conferred by being the bearer of the earrings, and an ostensible general desire to do good.

This would be fine, except that Adrien very much did have a reason to continue being Chat Noir. Plagg's Miraculous is the source of his freedom, and a new identity of his own making separate from the carefully curated child of Gabriel Agreste. Most importantly he had so much personal connection to the core plot that his narrative potential dwarfed Marinette's beyond compare.

His mere existence is the very axis of the plot, putting it in motion by the apparent desire for a designer child seeming being the very reason Gabriel and Emile sought the Miraculous all those years ago, and the consequences of his creation being the very reason that Gabriel devolves into magical terrorism. Hawkmoth being his father whom Adrien clearly cares for and whose goal of restoring his much mourned mother setup a truly impressive case for split loyalties for when Adrien (seemingly) inevitably learnt of his father's identity and true goal:

I made a comparison before between Avatar and Miraculous where Avatar won without question. Allow me to balance the scales here: the setup for Adrien potentially turning on Ladybug, or having to sacrifice his familial bonds for the sake of justice outweighed Zuko's own setup for choosing his ''honour"/loyalty to his family over his burgeoning sense of justice.

In potential at least. Rest assured that Zuko's character arc still far eclipses anything Adrien was ever allowed.

But the point I'm trying to make here is that in the very story that bears her name, Ladybug's only reason to be involved comes from the fact that she happens to have Tikki's Miraculous. She has no personal investment in the fate of Hawkmoth than other citizen of Paris, she certainly has no conflicting loyalties.

She doesn't even have a personal reason to continue being Ladybug. You can draw a parallel if you like with one of her ostensible inspirations Peter Parker, who learnt the price of personal inaction in a harsh and unforgiving manner that selflessly drives him to protect others. You can say that the Stoneheart incident fulfills a similar role.

But here's the thing: Peter Parker is Spiderman thanks to his radioactive blood. Ladybug is whoever wears Tikki's Miraculous. If Peter retires, he takes his powers away from the protection of New York. If Marinette gives up her Miraculous, a new Ladybug will arise in her place within a day. There's no need for her to be Ladybug, to take on that responsibility, and until the season three finale there's no personal stake for her to be the girl under the mask any more than any other Parisian citizen.

And that means that Marinette isn't the heart of her own story. In Avatar, it's Aang's quest to defeat the Fire Lord because it has to be him that restores balance. In Star Wars, it's Luke whose connection with Vader that has to restore Anakin's better nature. In just about any series there is a pressing need and personal stakes for the protagonist to be that The Protagonist of that story, that make that story their story.

But the setup here has all the pathos and personal stakes placed upon Adrien. Marinette is the centerpiece of the show, but Adrien's handed all of the narrative potential even as the writers let it go to waste.

It's like preparing a finely seasoned meal, then leaving it to rot as you serve plain vegetables. There's just no reason to have the vegetables when the fine meal is ready for consumption: and if that's a problem? If the plain vegetables were always meant to be the centrepiece? Then you should have seasoned the vegetables and made something delectable with them.

Because the saddest apart about Marinette having or actual ties or pathos to the Agreste Arc is that once upon a time that was not the case.

In previous Miraculous proposals, before the PV, Marinette Cheng was at least as part of the main story as Felix/Adrien was. There were various versions of how the story would go, with one echoing Cardcaptor's plot, and the later proposals looking more like what we got in the final product.

But all had Marinette having a personal stake in the story. In the Cardcaptor-esque plot, Marinette was Fu's granddaughter (or granddaughter figure), and Fu was the caretaker of the The Orb. A crystal that contained all the "fairies" (beings that served both the roles Kwamis and Akumas would later take). The story kicked off because Marinette brought her crush Felix into her Grandfather's store and accidentally broke The Orb, shattering it and allowing the Fairies to escape across Paris and empower countless people- heroes and villains both.

It was her mission to retrieve the Fairies, because she was the one who had released them. She was Fu's granddaughter and it was her responsibility to clean up her mess. It was her story, and Felix/Adrien was the one with less direct connection.

Later proposals ditched The Orb as the Kwamis were developed, but up until the most recent and final versions of the story Marinette retained Fu as either her blood Grandfather outright or at least a mentor so close from her childhood that she thought of him as a Grandfather. She also was usually being trained to be a Guardian or something like it herself from childhood.

She wasn't just a girl Fu found on the side of the road. She had as much connection to the Guardians and their world as Felix/Adrien did to Papillion. It even added a certain Montague-Capulet tragic element to the romance, since if Felix/Adrien and Marinette ever got together it would mean one having to choose between their partner and their family.

But for some reason, in the final product Marinette was stripped of all pre-series personal connections to the Miraculous.

The question is why? Was there really so great a need for Martinette to be "a girl like any other" that all of the plot relevance needed to be stripped out of her and added to Adrien, only to then completely ignore all that potential pathos by sidelining Adrien at every turn?

Because if you weren't going to do anything with Adrien, then all you've done is needlessly undermine Marinette's potential as a character.

Seriously, if you had given me the backstory of these two characters and asked which one was the main character: there would have been no chance I would have selected Marinette. Because all the writers have given her backstory is side-character material, whereas Adrien's very existence, as well as his relationship to his family and the Miraculous is at the heart of the story.

And I doubt there would be many others who would think otherwise.

[miabrown007]

Felonies and Other Love Languages (Heist AU)

art by @art-the-f-up

I have Shay's permission to post his art. as you do not, you should not.

[mcls899]

the way some people act like marinette has become a full blown dictator in the london special is sending me likebdjdnd y’all want complex female characters but can’t even handle a slightly morally ambiguous one

[xhanisai]

Do you guys ever just suddenly stop what you’re doing and think about how illegally adorable and cute Marinette Dupain-Cheng is or am I constantly getting possessed by Adrien Agreste???

Like look at her!

WHY SHE SO FUCKING CUTE.