#nino is best boy

[miabrown007]

the summer after finishing university in New York, Marinette gets invited to a camping trip with Alya and Nino and his best friend. which, honestly, is for the best. at least she has more time than the four years she's already had to figure out how to reach out to her one-time superhero partner, with whom she fell out of touch after the reveal.

only, it's Adrien Agreste waiting for them on the meeting point, beaming so hard at her that it's blatantly obvious they know each other well. in her panic, what is Marinette supposed to tell Alya and Nino to protect their identites, if not that they used to date?

(fake exes AU x there was only one tent)

[shayberri789]

Thinking of my "blue Sargent aglionby student" au where blue Cross dresses and attends Aglionby again

[chocolate-chip-tikki]

did viperion defeat me behind a denny's? i didn't think so

Magical Boy Tournament: Round 1

[chocostrwberry]

A new friend…?

ChocoAU relationship info below!!

This is for @comedic-slut because of your ask and I said I WOULD make a post about it so HERE U GO!! 🥹🫶 THIS ONES FOR YOU BB /p

Adrien as we all know was raised completely isolated. He didn’t know anyone else at school except Chloe, who introduced him to her friends, and one of them wasn’t Nino ahasjhdhd. So he was kind of trapped in this social bubble, despite really wanting to branch out and make more friends, like he had initially hoped. Chloe wouldn’t let him talk to anyone else either (warning him that they were “losers”).

Nino was Alya’s childhood best friend, so they hung out all the time. It was always just, him and Alya and then Marinette. He didn’t want or feel the need to even try to talk to Adrien, since he was cousins with the girl who bullied Marinette and Kim kind of bullied him as well, so The Empire was the group to stay away from. He also was friends with Ivan and Max (they played video games sometimes), so Adrien was just. Never an option for him.

The only reason why he went to even talk to Adrien was because after Chloe and Adrien had a mysterious fight that caused Adrien to be essentially “kicked out” of their friend group, Alya wanted to know why for the drama. The class talked to Kim first, but he said only Sabrina knew, and everyone was aware she would never spill. So, they sent in Nino as the sacrifice to ask Adrien and find out.

Nino invited Adrien out to eat pizza for lunch (since Adrien always went off-campus to eat after the fight), and they got to know each other. Adrien really liked Nino’s bluntness, and he felt like Nino treated him like any other person. But since he had ulterior motives, Nino felt bad for only hanging out with Adrien for information on his personal life. So after the hangout, Nino tells Alya what she wants to know, but still decides to eat out with Adrien, even though Alya points out he can’t afford to do it.

Chloe, still hurt from their fight, finds out about Adrien potentially making a new friend. So, acting in anger and selfishness, she commands her driver to over Nino’s bike. His bike was his only ride to school and to do his job as a delivery boy. (He’s attending the school on a scholarship, so his parents aren’t as wealthy as most of his friends.) Nino immediately stopped talking to Adrien after that, and Adrien got pissed that Chloe would do something like that to scare away his first friend.

Adrien stands up for Nino, he argues/talks with Chloe about her emotions, and she ends up buying him a moped as an apology!

Afterwards, they continue to hang out and develop their friendship!! :D

[cookiedough77]

i know ive talked about it before but chat noir a scarabella from the start...

adrien and alya best friends but also consider

marinette and nino best friends

usually adrien and alya are the "calm" friends that reground marinette and nino but...

imagine just how chaotic marinette and nino are coming up with insane theories and never once glancing over twice if it could actually be possible

adrien and alya still get into whatever headspace they do but they can reground themselves and the other can just knock them back into place

anyway ill like make stuff for this just because i think this could be hilarious

adrien and alyas problems consist of:

adrien: i cant ask out marinette because she doesnt like me i think

alya: boy cut that shit out and hand her some flowers

and marinette and nino are running on 3 hours of sleep at a white board like:

nino: so adrien and alya hang out alot and sneak off together...

marinette: OH GOD YOU THINK THEY'RE DATING???

nino: YOU THINK???

[flightfoot]

How Alya's mistreated by the saltdom and the writers

I've written this for the @yall-hate-kids-tourney, but figured that I'd publish it on my own tumblr as well for an easy reference point for others who want to illustrate how badly Alya's been treated - mostly by the fandom, but she's been somewhat screwed over by the writing as well. I've written it so that even people who have never heard of Miraculous before can understand my problems with the way Alya's often depicted, and I will probably use this essay for that purpose repeatedly in the future. It's over 4500 words, so buckle up!

---

The amount of hatred Alya gets in the fandom is absolutely insane. There are over 800 fics tagged with "Alya Cesaire Bashing", and that's just the ones that actually TAG it - many of them either use a a non-canonical tag or just take their demonization of her as canon. It's not just that a lot of fics bash her either, but that the fics that bash her are disproportionately popular. If you go through the "Miraculous Ladybug" tag on AO3 and sort by kudos, I'd say around a third of the top 500 most popular fics use this gross caricature of her in order to justify inflicting some sort of insane punishment on her, or at least replacing her with "better" friends and leaving her to wail in despair.

Basically, Alya is the best friend of the main character, Marinette. She's really into superheroes and aims to be a reporter someday, to the point that the first time a supervillain cropped up in the series, she immediately got out her bike and cycled after him so that she could be there when a superhero showed up to fight him (Lois Lane would be proud). She runs a blog called the "Ladyblog" which reports on what the superheroes are doing, and sometimes makes some fun videos, like about the most impressive feats of one of the superheroes. 

More relevantly though, she acts as Marinette's support a lot of the time, often being the one to push her to confess her feelings to Adrien, to help her with plans she comes up with, to talk things out with if she's having trouble processing something, and trying to act as the voice of reason if Marinette's gotten to into her own head. It can sometimes head into Black Best Friend territory of having her mostly stick around to support her bestie, but she DOES get a decent amount of screentime and focus at least.

Then the first episode of season 3 aired, and the fandom went BALLISTIC.

This character, Lila, debuted back at the end of season 1 as being this attention-seeking liar who pretended that she knew a lot more famous people than she actually did, including being best friends with Ladybug. Alya, being a naive 14-year-old, believed her and put Lila's interview on her blog. Since Marinette IS Ladybug, she knew this was not true, though she was initially more freaked out about the possibility that Adrien (the boy she has a crush on) would find her supposedly amazing life to be entrancing and that Lila would steal Adrien away from her, to the point that she actively wanted to stop Lila and Adrien from spending time together to prevent Adrien from falling for her.

Fast-forward to Chameleon, the first episode of season 3, and Lila's back and lying some more, this time about having Tinnitus (which would mean that she needs to sit at the front of class, next to Adrien). The class has a whole seating rearrangement in order to accommodate the move, and because some of them just wanted to change seats. Since Marinette was late that day, she didn't get to give input, so she wound up sitting alone at the back of the class, instead of next to Alya like she usually did. She's upset by this, but can't prove that Lila doesn't actually have the disability (she doesn't even have evidence that Lila doesn't have hearing problems, it's just that her story of how she supposedly got the disability is suspect), so she puts up with it for the class period.

Then lunch time rolls around and Marinette tells Alya and Alya's boyfriend, Nino, that Lila's a lying liar who lies. Alya asks why Marinette hates her so much, since she barely knows Lila (this isn't the first time that Marinette's nitpicked at Lila's stories, but she's never actually managed to prove that Lila's lying, Lila's good at coming up with explanations for any hole Marinette exposes in her tales). Marinette tells her how, after Lila first arrived at school, she followed her and Adrien, eavesdropped on them, and then saw Ladybug show up and tear into Lila for not knowing her. (Presumably that's what she says, the episode skipped past her actual recounting of what she saw). Alya and Nino are more concerned with the fact that she stalked Lila and Adrien, with Alya also being skeptical that what she heard might have been out-of-context, given how common out-of-context eavesdropping is in fiction for causing issues, with Alya saying, "A good reporter always verifies her sources. Can you prove she doesn't actually know Ladybug?"

Since Marinette can't actually prove anything without revealing that she's Ladybug, she decides that the sane and reasonable thing to do is to throw a wadded up napkin at Lila while she's eating lunch, and when she catches it (Lila's pretending to have a sprained wrist), to loudly declare that she obviously doesn't have a sprained wrist. Lila quickly pretends that catching it did actually hurt, the classmates Lila was sitting with scold Marinette for hurting her, and then Marinette goes off to seethe in a bathroom, where Lila finds her and threatens to turn her friends against her if she continues trying to expose her lies. 

Then at the end of the episode, Adrien goes to sit with Marinette at the back of the class to keep her company, the teacher thinks that Marinette ALSO has hearing issues so she's brought back to the front (and away from Adrien again), Lila pretends that her hearing has been fixed so she can sit at the back with Adrien, and Alya spots that Marinette looks miserable about sitting alone at the front, so she chooses to sit next to Marinette to keep her company and everyone ends up going back to their old places, except that Lila's sitting at the back of the class now.

And that's it. That is, for the most part, what kicked off the entire Alya hatred and demonization onslaught. While there ARE more things that happening in following episodes, they have a pretty small effect on the demonization Alya's put through, almost all of it is derived from Chameleon and hasn't changed much since then.

So for starters, in fanfics Alya is often made to ditch Marinette constantly to hang out with Lila instead. This never happens. She's often exasperated when Marinette starts talking about how Lila is awful and points out that she doesn't have proof of that, but she doesn't avoid Marinette, and the closest she ever comes to hanging out with Lila outside of class events is when she called Lila over to babysit hers and Nino's younger siblings when Marinette canceled at the last minute.

But most Alya-bashing fics don't just leave it there. Oh no. If you look through a bunch of the most popular Miraculous fics, you'll see Alya made out to be some sort of ringleader for the class in bullying Marinette, hitting her, pinching her, poisoning her, destroying her things, saying nasty, heinous things to her, the works, and inciting the rest of the class to do the same, sometimes to the point that even LILA is shocked at her cruelty. Usually in these cases, Chloe, who is canonically the class bully (and Marinette's bully in particular) is inexplicably Marinette's primary protector against the eeeeeevil Alya, becoming Marinette's best friend and support and basically taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits, despite the fact that canonically, Chloe's as susceptible to Lila's lies as anyone else, and that in season 5 Chloe actually became Lila's partner in crime in trying to hurt Marinette in particular. (I don't like how Chloe's treated in canon, but that's a different story).

I've never even seen any justification given for why Alya's so frequently made to be outright violent or cruel towards Marinette, it's just widely accepted in fiction now, even with nothing pointing to her ever being malicious like that. There ARE other things Alya canonically does that I see her taken to task over though, but that fall apart when you examine them.

One of the biggest offenders is criticism towards Alya over how she handles babysitting. In Christmaster, Alya and Nino pick up Nino's little brother after Marinette babysits him for them while they're on a date, in Timetagger, Marinette's slated to babysit for them while they're on a date but cancels at the last minute, so they call Lila over instead, and then in Simple Man, Marinette books herself to babysit Alya's and Nino's younger siblings and the daughter of one's of her mom's friends, a little girl named Manon, all at the same time.

Alya receives heavy criticism for not paying Marinette for her babysitting, for having Marinette babysit for her secretly behind her parents' back without their knowledge, and for pressuring Marinette to babysit for her even though Marinette's so busy.

A few problems with this.

1. We see babysitting happen several times, sometimes with Alya helping Marinette with babysitting Manon and sometimes with Marinette just babysitting Manon without anyone else's involvement. At no point is payment brought up, and yet the absence of such a discussion is only ever used to demonize Alya.

2. There is no evidence that the babysitting Marinette does for Alya's sake is done behind her parents' back, the only thing pointing to that is a lack of Alya ever flat-out saying that she has her parents' permission to have Marinette babysit for her, but there's no evidence of sneaking around. MARINETTE, however, DOES canonically ditch her babysitting duties by having Alya babysit for her without the parent's knowledge. In Prime Queen, Marinette accidentally double books herself to do an interview as Ladybug at the same time that she's supposed to be babysitting Manon, so she calls Alya over to watch the interview with her, lies to her that she's just gonna go downstairs for a few minutes to talk with her parents and for Alya to please watch over Manon while she does that, and then leaves to do the interview while Alya watches over Manon the whole time. Nadja definitely didn't know that this happened, because she was surprised and worried when Alya and Manon called in during the interview with Marinette nowhere to be seen. In addition to this, in Simpleman, Marinette foists off all the children she's babysitting onto her grandpa against his will so that she can run off and help with Adrien's photoshoot after he calls her. The people demonizing Alya for supposedly having Marinette babysit for her secretly are not upset about the examples of Marinette canonically doing these things.

3. Of the three times that Marinette has, to date, been scheduled to babysit for Alya's sake (Christmaster, Timetagger, and Simpleman), for Christmaster she spent the next several hours after finishing with babysitting making Adrien's 50th birthday present (he's currently 14 years old), so I wouldn't say she was pressed for time, for Timetagger, she literally called Alya at the last minute to say she was too busy to babysit and Alya said it was no biggie and made other arrangements, and for Simpleman, Alya offered to cancel her date and take care of her younger siblings herself the instant she saw that Marinette was already babysitting Manon, and Marinette told her to go ahead and go on her date and that she'd look after her siblings.

So clearly, the people clutching their pearls about how horribly irresponsibly Alya is handling babysitting and how she's wronging Marinette in the process don't actually care about babysitting ethics here, because otherwise, Marinette would be getting the brunt of the hatred, not Alya. Despite this, I've seen a fair number of posts in the past tearing into Alya's babysitting for the reasons I already gave, and a bunch of fics that make it so that Alya pressures and guilt-trips Marinette into babysitting for her when she's struggling to keep up with all her work, only to have her parents find out and be horrified by how Alya's lied to them about who's been doing the babysitting and that Alya's been getting an increased allowance because of that, so they pay Marinette out of Alya's allowance and ground her, take away privileges, just have this be used as an excuse to punish Alya for supposedly wronging Marinette.

And then there's the subcategory of Alya demonization towards her for putting up Lila's interview on her blog without verifying that Lila was telling the truth. Admittedly, this was foolish, but she's 14. Retractions exist for a reason. And yet, fics frequently have her reputation be completely destroyed because she put up one interview that had a false statement by the interviewee in it, and sometimes even to be completely blacklisted from ever being a journalist in the future, things that are completely insane and would have even the most storied and well-respected of reporters be unable to ever get a job. 

She also frequently gets demonized and bashed for "believing Lila over Marinette". My major issue with this: what she's specifically believing Lila over Marinette for is on the topic of "is Lila an awful person". I don't think it's unreasonable to have a higher standard of proof for believing that someone is an awful person than for believing that your friend might just have some biased interpretations. Alya thinks that Marinette doesn't like Lila mostly because Lila has hit on Adrien, Marinette's crush, before. This isn't unreasonable considering that Marinette's first reaction to Lila is to freak out about her stealing Adrien away, and that when this other girl, Kagami, started hanging out with Adrien, she freaked out about that too. Specifically, she called a meeting of all her female friends to try and stop Kagami and Adrien from going away together to London for the weekend in Backwarder, helped Chloe in trying to get Kagami covered in food at a fancy red carpet movie opening in order to drive her away and steal her seat next to Adrien for the movie, and when she and Kagami were paired up for a "friend-making game" where the goal was to locate where Adrien was in Paris and the prize was to spend time with him, she pretended to genuinely want to be Kagami's friend so she could sabotage both of them and prevent Kagami from spending time with Adrien. So it's not like the belief that Marinette might be unfairly biased against Lila because she's made moves on Adrien is an unfair assumption.

In addition to that, on the occasions when Lila HAS tried to frame Marinette for something, Alya hasn't believed it, or hasn't been shown to believe it at least. In Ladybug, Lila tries to frame Marinette for cheating on a test, for stealing a necklace from her, and for knocking her down the stairs. Despite the evidence Lila planted, Alya doesn't believe it and investigates to try and find out what really happened. She doesn't uncover any solid proof, but she still believes in Marinette. She doesn't believe that Marinette's assumption that Lila's behind this is necessarily correct, since Marinette's leaping to that without presenting proof, but she doesn't believe that Marinette's the culprit either. And in the two following cases when Marinette's framed, Alya never actually gets a chance to say what she believes after the accusation is made against Marinette.

Just... the amount of demonization towards Alya TO THIS DAY, often for things she NEVER EVEN FREAKING DID, is absolutely insane. Even over 5 years since Chameleon aired, fics with Alya being made into this malicious, awful bully so that Marinette can get some new friends to publicly denounce her, get her arrested, or otherwise be punished are frequently on the front page of the most recently updated fics on AO3, and are often some of the most popular ones. If you go to "Fandom-Specific plot" on Tvtropes, saltfics like these have multiple files going through all the common salt tropes. When looking through fics, I frequently search for Alya's name because she's often the first person to be unfairly demonized, so if she's safe, then everyone likely is. 

I suspect that racism plays a major factor in this. It doesn't make sense that Alya's often painted as being a violent, malicious bully and leader in getting the rest of the class to physically hurt and terrorize Marinette, I haven't even seen analysis arguing that she'd do that... but it tracks with the "Black Brute" archetype. This becomes even more obvious with Chloe, who's white and canonically DOES do some of this stuff, taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits in these sorts of stories.

Then there's the standard Alya's held to for how she handles her blog. It's way higher than anyone would hold real-world reporters to, much less 14-year-olds. But it makes sense if you factor racial bias into account, and how Alya, being Black, is going to be held to a higher standard than anyone else, and be punished more for failing to meet that standard.

For things like the babysitting double standard, it makes no sense if you're actually looking at the stated criticism, given that the same criticism isn't leveled at Marinette... but it makes perfect sense if you're going off the assumption that Alya, as Marinette's Black Best Friend, is supposed to solely function as her support and that she's simply fulfilling her duties by always being there for her when needed, including for babysitting, but that if Marinette ever attempts to repay in kind, then Alya's being unfair towards her because Alya's obligated to always support Marinette, but that relationship is supposed to be a one-way street. Alya is supposed to function as Marinette's support, never the other way around.

And as for the way Alya's demonized for asking for evidence before believing that Lila's lying, well... again, Alya's expected to act as Marinette's support, and her "failing" that in any way, even if it makes sense from her point of view, is viewed as a betrayal. She's supposed to be loyal to Marinette, and only to Marinette, not to think for herself or to have multiple other friends or values that she needs to weigh. And anything that she does to go against that "justifies" Marinette intentionally trying to hurt and punish her for failing to live up to her role.

In conclusion, the way Alya's treated by the salt side of the fandom is grossly unfair, often has little connection with anything she canonically did, and has some gross racist implications, and is likely at least partially spurred on by racism, especially with how common and popular it still is to this day.

Addendum: How Alya is screwed over by the writers.

While Alya is primarily screwed over by the fanbase, there are some aspects of the writing that exacerbate her ill treatment. In season 4, Marinette confesses her secret identity to Alya, letting her know that she is Ladybug. Despite now knowing why Marinette was so convinced that Lila wasn't friends with Ladybug, and that Lila's interview stating that she's best friends with Ladybug is a lie, the subject just... never comes up, even when Lila starts being important again. It's not that Alya's ignoring what Lila lying on those subjects means, it's more like the writers just completely forgot that Lila told those particular lies, since Marinette doesn't bring them up either. This creates an inconsistency with the fanbase, who really, really, REALLY haven't forgotten those lies. 

There ARE ways to explain this - Lila lying about being friends with Ladybug in order to try to boost her reputation, especially when she's the new girl, isn't really all that heinous. Marinette lies a lot as well, even if you don't count lies told to protect her secret identity or other "necessary" lies, sometimes out of embarrassment, sometimes to to try and prevent someone's feelings from getting hurt, and sometimes because she thinks it's the fastest, easiest, or most certain way to get the outcome she wants. And yet, even though Marinette lies a lot, she's not ostracized for that since it's usually not for malicious reasons - foolish reasons at times, but rarely malicious. It would make sense that Lila too, wouldn't be thought too badly of for merely lying in an attempt to make friends.

None of that actually comes up though. Alya later, in Confrontation, states that, "Marinette, you know we'll always believe you. But every time you've accused Lila, there's been no evidence. And at worst, it was just a misunderstanding." Marinette doesn't say anything about the previous times Lila has been proven to lie, so it seems like either it was decided offscreen that the more understandable lies she's told don't matter, or that the writers just plain forgot about them.

There were other opportunities created by Alya knowing Marinette's identity that were ignored. Alya concludes that Adrien backing up Marinette's statement that Lila's bad news was just due to him wanting to defend his girlfriend. This is also a bit of a writing flaw, while wanting to back up his girlfriend's stance IS a decent reason for Adrien to be biased against Lila, this is Adrien we're talking about here. He's nice and understanding to a fault, and is known for giving people the benefit of the doubt and second chances. It makes far less sense to believe that he'd believe the worst of Lila, even if Marinette does, than it does for Marinette to be biased against Lila. That being said, Adrien wouldn't have been present for Lila's more indisputable threats and statements directed against Marinette, so he can't actually verify for sure whether or not there could've been some misunderstanding.

There WAS, however, someone who was always with Marinette, and who could actually back up Marinette's statements more definitively. 

Tikki. She was present for every threat Lila made, for everything she ever claimed. While it's possible that both Tikki and Marinette may have misunderstood Lila in the same way, it's far less likely, especially since Tikki would have had different biases from Marinette. Tikki could be an important witness. Yet that never comes up, is never proposed, because that would end the plotline too quickly. 

Alya was also screwed over in the immediate aftermath of Lila being exposed, though not by the writers per se? There was a short scene planned after Lila's exposed where Alya apologizes for not believing Marinette about Lila being a liar and generally an awful person, we've even got leaked footage of it, but it appears that it was cut somewhere between being written and voice acted, and the episode being aired. 

All of this only really affects detailed arguments about how well (or poorly) Alya's story arc with Lila was handled, its affect on the actual fanfiction produced about Chameleon salt was minimal, I saw no change in its frequency, severity, or general handling of the characters with any season after season 3. I highly doubt that even the changes I suggested here would have done much to persuade the saltdom against Ron the Death Eatering Alya, especially since a lot of the hatred against her has so little to do with the show.

There IS some hatred thrown at Alya for non-Lila related reasons - well, reasons that aren't DIRECTLY Lila related, most of that hatred still stems from people hating her for Chameleon stuff and then retroactively justifying it by looking back at other things she did that irked them. The most common one (that actually has some sort of argument to it, not the "Alya's a horrible babysitter and is abusing her friendship with Marinette" nonsense I listed in the main essay) is that Alya's pushy about getting Marinette together with Adrien. 

This is more a product of Alya's usual role in the story than anything. I mentioned in the main essay how Alya sometimes falls into "Black Best Friend" territory, and this is one of the biggest examples. One of her most common roles throughout the series is as the person who pushes Marinette to actually confess to Adrien, to hang out with him, to pursue her romantic desires even with her anxiety holding her back, and to be honest with herself during the times when she's trying to deny her feelings for him. She's Marinette's sounding board whenever she's having an anxiety spiral about... actually, just about anything, and acts as the voice of reason when Marinette gets in her own head too much.

Thus, Alya sets Marinette and Adrien to end up somewhere alone together, or tries to push her to talk to him, or to be honest during the times when she tries to "move on" from Adrien by denying that she still has feelings for him (which is blatantly untrue). She IS okay with Marinette dating someone else though, if she honestly seems to want to do that. She had no problem with her dating Luka, for instance. She DID protest Marinette's seemingly sudden interest in Chat Noir, but that was mostly because Marinette seemed to be grabbing at her new attraction as an attempt to run away from her feelings for Adrien, something that Tikki ALSO noted.

That's another thing - Alya's the character who's most frequently thrown into this role, but she's not the only one, nor even the most extreme one. A new character that was introduced for the Miraculous New York Special, Jess, observed how Adrien and Marinette acted around each other, and decided to try to get them to confess their love by faking a supervillain attack on them, with the supervillain kidnapping anyone that no one loves in order to compel Marinette to FINALLY confess to Adrien. (Alya thought it was stupid, but agreed to help since it might actually work). When Marinette, Adrien, Luka, and Kagami went out to the wax museum together, Luka intentionally locked Adrien and Marinette in a room together so that Marinette would stop running away and would be forced to talk to Adrien. Marinette is written in such a way that other characters are compelled to meddle in her lovelife, because otherwise she'll continue making her own extreme plans and pining away, but never actually confess her feelings. 

So while Alya could be said to be "pushy" to an extent, it's mostly for Marinette's benefit. I would like if this was a less frequent role for Alya - I think it does her a disservice, since it locks her firmly into Marinette's orbit rather than emphasizing who Alya is as her own character. Most of the hatred towards Alya for this is tied up in "Die For Our Ship" being directed at Adrien though, with Adrien bashers hating that Alya's trying to set Marinette up with what they see as an inferior option. Ironically enough, while Alya's role in this situation is one of the primary examples in the show of her being treated by the writers as a "Black Best Friend" who exists to serve Marinette's character, it's actually one of the cases where I think racism is a pretty minor part of the hatred by the fanbase over it, since I think that's mostly motivated by hatred towards the Lovesquare.

In conclusion (again), there is an issue with the writers bending Alya's character in order to tell a particular story, particularly a Marinette-centered story, while ignoring how little sense that makes with what happened earlier on in the plotline, or how it centralizes Alya's role and character around Marinette in ways that exacerbate already existing writing patterns in media. 

[garbinge]

BAD MOOD

Leroy Jethro Gibbs x F!Wife!Reader // Word Count: 1.2k

Summary: Gibbs comes home in a bad mood and you try your best to chat through it with him. From the same universe as Good Mood, but can be read separate. Warnings: All my fics are 18+ regardless of content. Light angst. Reader has a teenage daughter mentioned in this. A/N: As I rewatch NCIS I can't help but to think of these short little fics for Gibbs.

As you watched Gibbs enter the kitchen, placing his wallet and keys on the table, his gun in the safe, then retreating to the fridge to grab a beer, you saw the tension in his shoulders, in his demeanor. The way the first sip of the alcohol materialized through his body, matching the sigh he let out. You placed your book down on the coffee table, still with the blanket draped over your legs and spoke out to him. 

“You’re in a bad mood.” 

“Not in a bad mood.” He said reopening the fridge looking for something to eat you assumed, although you knew it was purely a displacement behavior and he’d likely eat one or two bites before pushing the plate away. 

“It’s in the microwave, just gotta heat it up.” 

He gave a nod, moving to warm the plate up. His back was to you now, but you knew he was trying to recover from the day, leaning against the island with his eyes closed. As the seconds passed and eventually the microwaved beeped in alert it had finished it’s job, he went back to the mundane dance of tasks. Getting a fork, grabbing a paper towel, you thought he’d bring the food downstairs, work on the boat, and you’d feel the right side of the bed sink around 3AM. On the contrary though, he walked into the living room and sat down next to you. 

“Whatcha reading?” He asked the question like he wasn’t wearing his frustration on his shoulders. 

“A book.” You raised your eyebrows, moving your arm so your elbow was resting on the headrest of the couch and propping your head up. 

He looked at you with a sarcastic smile and leaned over to grab it, taking a look at the cover and realizing it was McGee’s book. 

“You enjoying Thom E Gemcity?” He placed it back down and moved to pick at his plate. 

“I’m finding myself loving the characters.” You teased, not moving from your comfortable position on the couch. “You wanna tell me what’s up with you?” “Work.” He mumbled it as he took a bite of the chicken you had made earlier. “Where’s the kid?” He was changing the subject, trying to disguise the act by using your teenage daughter as the topic switch. Now, he did care where she was, but he also was pretty well aware that there were few places she’d likely be on a school night. 

“Bethany’s house. They’re studying.” You obliged in his redirection. 

“She’s not studying.” His eyes squinted as his lips straightened out as he called out the bluff. 

“Of course she’s not, she and Bethany are probably out at Nino’s Pizza with friends.” You smirked, knowing your daughter very well. “She didn’t lie to me, she said she was going to Bethany’s to study and that they might head out for a bit to grab a bite. I know how to read between the lines on that one.” 

“She’s probably with that boy.” He had taken one more bite, this one was followed by the push and pull fidgeting of his fork. 

“That boy, isn’t all that bad. Changed the water bottle for me yesterday.” You knew that’d get Gibbs going. 

“I change the water bottle.” His head snapped towards you, annoyance all over his tone and face. 

“Yes, last week, it needed to be changed again, your daughter had him over for dinner and when he poured the last glass from the cooler, he offered to change it.” 

Gibbs said nothing, just took one more bite from his plate before pushing it away on the coffee table. You could read him like a book, and it helped that you kind of were currently. 

“You wanna tell me why you’re in a bad mood?” Now your hand was dropping down on the couch, extending out to him in sort of an olive branch but with how he looked at you, you could tell he wasn’t ready to take it, yet. “Sorry, not bad mood–Want to tell me what’s going on?” 

No. That’s what he wanted to say but instead he just stayed quiet. You took that as a win because when Jethro got like this, he’d tend to storm off and sit alone for long periods of time. 

“It’s the team.” He mumbled it, his eyes closed and you saw a slight bit of tension raise from his shoulders. As much as he’d hate to, or never admit it, talking about it helped. 

“Or lack there of.” You moved your head in acknowledgement. 

That set him off. “I got a former FBI guy who doesn’t listen, a boy genius who doesn’t drive, and a lawyer who doesn’t shoot. I’m lucky I still got Ducky and Abby because with the minimal effort the new team puts in they end up piecing it together enough to make the cases stick but I don’t know how much more of this I can handle.” 

“You think Vance had a reason for splitting you guys up?” You spoke in reference to Tony, Ziva, and McGee.

“If he did, he ain't telling me.” The tone alone was enough to rub you the wrong way but you knew how to handle it best. Give it right back.

“You aren’t asking either.” 

It was a simple statement but you knew it’d hold weight with Gibbs. It wasn’t lost on you that he probably thought about talking to the new director but he was still working through all the motions of losing Director Shephard still. 

“I can ask if you want.” You leaned forward and grabbed the book back, knowing this conversation only had a little bit more life in it. You also knew that comment would earn you a smile from your husband. 

He turned to look at you now, eyes softening as his lips curved slightly. “I’d like to keep my job and bring my team back, not be forced to resign.” 

“Hm.” You opened the book and started to dive back in like you never put the book down to begin with. 

He was standing up now, plate in hand that he’d bring downstairs to the boat with him where he’d get lost for hours. You now knew you’d be lucky if he ended up in bed with you at 3AM, he’d probably spend the rest of the night down there. As he leaned down to place a kiss on the top of your head, he whispered against it. “Next time, I’ll change the water bottle.” 

You hummed again and he stepped back to look down at you waiting for what you really wanted to say. “Care to elaborate a little more?” 

You laughed at that comment, it was funny coming from Jethro who never cared to elaborate on anything. “Read something interesting.” You waved the book at him, and he rolled his eyes and moved his head away from you as he let out a sarcastic laugh and sigh. 

“Humor me.” He nodded, still with his eyes blinking through an eye roll. 

Knowing he’d walk away after you said what you planned, you quickly pointed to the water bottle on the coffee table that was just out of your settled in reach. As he bent down to pick it up and hand it to you, you smirked, preparing to say the sentence you knew would annoy the living hell out of him, but also get him thinking as he sanded down the hull of the boat. 

“Just wonder what LJ Tibbs would do in a situation like this.” 

Dividers by: @realitycanbewhateveridesire 🕵️ NCIS Taglist: @drabbles-mc @justreblogginfics @kmc1989 @ilovemark1951 @shamelessturtlebeliever (let me know if you’d like to be added!)

Previous fic: Good Mood

[jasmine-the-fox]

Uncle Jagged get's justice

IceWolf92 on AO3 made this request so here we go!!

Jagged Stone was a hard worker in the music industry. While he focuses on his music… he also works hard to take down rumors and fake claims about him as they can affect his music career greatly and possibly his public image too.

He and Penny were taking Fang on a walk when he overheard a conversation “I hate this. Lila and Father are forcing me to obey to make Lila happy… even though her lies are hurting Marinette badly” they turned as they heard Adrien’s voice “I know dude. To be honest I hate the fact that she’s lying not only about Marinette… but about her connections to Jagged Stone and others” Nino said making Penny and Jagged’s eyes go wide “Penny love… I need you to look into this… Lila for me” he said making Penny nod as they walked away.

It didn’t take Penny very long to discover who Lila Rossi was at all. She wrote Lila and found the Ladyblog where it only spoke about Lila now and barely spoke about Ladybug and Cat Noir anymore. She uncovered multiple lies she’s claimed to be true and as a result discovered stories she’s made about knowing famous people.

She shows Jagged who becomes angry “Contact them and let them know about this liar” he said making Penny nod and get to work quickly enough. She contacted everyone Lila lied about knowing and they were all enraged by the whole thing, as a result… they quickly began to lawyer up to sue Lila for her lies and Alya for posting the lies without doing a little research.

It was a huge disappointment to them…

Penny did as much research as she could about Lila, she worked hard to collect evidence against her. Meanwhile… Jagged decided to go visit Marinette, he remembered her talking about her best friend Alya and wondered what she knew about this whole thing. When he got there with Fang, Sabine welcomed them in and called Marinette down before heading back downstairs to the bakery to work the register.

Mari came down a moment later and quickly went to give Fang some well deserved attention and love from her, she then sat down with Jagged on the couch “So… I found about some girl named Lila Rossi saying lies about herself like how she saved my cat and how I dedicated a song to her. Since your friend Alya posts about her lies I was wondering if you knew more?” he asked and was shocked at how sad Mari looked all of a sudden.

 She then told him about Lila’s threats and how the class bullied her since Lila claims she’s bullying her “She paints herself as a saint who only wants to be my friend… while all I do is hurt her in the end” she explained making Jagged look at her with guilt for not knowing about Lila sooner.

He swore to himself to make Lila pay for all of this… so when lawyers lead by his stormed into Mari’s classroom and served Lila and Alya with lawsuits for the lies Lila spoke and that Alya posted… chaos soon erupted in the classroom. Some were pissed that Lila lied while others like Alya denied that Lila lied to them… but with no proof to back them up… it was clear to those who opened their eyes that Lila was a liar in the end.

The judge was a no joke kind of guy. Each time Lila tried to spin a lie, the judge would slam his gavel down and tell her to be silent until spoken to. The lawyers presented the stories Alya posted that Lila spun as evidence that she was a liar, Adrien went to the stand and provided photographic and video evidence of who she truly was.

Mari recounted everything Lila did to her and Jagged went further with paying for plane tickets for Lila’s past victims to come from Italy to reveal what Lila did to them “She made me bawled by putting hair remover in my shampoo! She claimed the product was bad and that my hair was proof! My mom made the product and we got it tested to confirm she messed with it!” a girl said, she had shoulder length hair that had grown with time.

Another was a boy who is rich like Adrien “I’m gay so I didn’t like her already. But she claimed I tried to rape her! At a fake party that never happened! My classmates beated me up and sent my boyfriend to the hospital because of her! He’s traumatized!” he explained in fury. In the end Mari’s classmate who believed Lila were barely listened to as they tried to defend Lila… Lila was declared guilty and so was Alya.

Lila was deported to Italy where her past victims were waiting for her to take her to court to sentence her while Alya was fined, her blog was taken down and she had to do community service for a whole year because of what she did. The rest of the class was warned “Learn from this and research what your told before believing it… maybe next time you do it… you’ll get conned” the judge said after giving his ruling.

In the end… justice was served at long last. Mari felt light and free without Lila ruining her day, she was able to smile and be happy. Alya was yelled at by her parents and grounded in the end. Lila was gone the very day court was adjured, the ones who now knew the truth were working hard to fix what they did to Mari while the others glared at Mari as they believed she did all of this.

They tried spreading a rumor that she falsified the evidence but they were shut down quickly since Jagged threatened to get Damocles and Bustier fired if they didn’t do there jobs correctly from now on. Adrien watched with a smile as Mari entered a grand event with Jagged who brought her since she did design his outfit.

He was happy to have started this whole thing… he just wished he had done it sooner…

[starsfic]

Hollow Wedding

The wedding could've come from a magazine spread, it was so perfect.

Notre Dame was decorated in white, the only pops of color being red here and there and the stained glass window cast shimmering pops of color on the couple. On either side of them were the groomsmen and bridesmaids, three each, all dressed in matching outfits. It was a wedding straight out of a movie.

It was beautiful. Perfect.

Hollow.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng could practically feel the hollowness in the air. Despite what Alya claimed, that she still had deep feelings for Adrien, it wasn't that made her feel hollow. It was just too perfect. The way Adrien held his bride's hand, how he placed the ring on her finger, how they kissed. Each motion was perfectly rehearsed and bare of any real emotion.

The only thing that made it imperfect was that Alya kept glancing at her. Ever since Adrien had announced his engagement, she had pushed Marinette to do something about it. She still didn't seem to understand that Marinette no longer wanted Adrien. Since her break up with Luka, of course she would want to rebound with the guy who made her feel shame for her own emotions.

Of course.

Marinette didn't do anything and Alya finally settled with a sigh. She was almost like Chat Noir, who announced he was engaged out of the blue and kept glancing at her ever since the news, probably hoping she would react more than her congratulations.

She hoped his wedding was more real than this.

The reception carried the hollowness as well. It was all perfectly decorated and such as well, but there was nothing that could hide that feeling. And, as she sat down with Alya and Nino, she could see other guests look around, weirdly unsettled.

"Ugh, that was the creepiest ceremony I've ever sat through," Nino said in a whisper. "Like, I thought the bride was about to drop dead."

Marinette nodded. "I noticed it too." She glanced at the stage before Alya could comment any more on "her true feelings". "Aren't you gonna give a speech?"

Nino shook his head. "Nah, dudette. Gabriel made Adrien make his cousin his best man, so he's giving the speech."

"I didn't even know he had a cousin," Alya said as the cousin in question, Felix or something, started talking. "Who was the other guy?"

"I don't know, some model Adrien knows? From what I heard, the bride doesn't even know the bridesmaids, they're all related to Adrien or Emilie somehow."

"Huh? Seriously?"

Alya's eyes went wide. "Oh boy," she said. "Suddenly, I'm glad you never confessed your feelings, Mari."

"I'm glad you finally realized," she couldn't help but snark. Honestly, she would have rather died than have a wedding like this. She would've wanted to be married at the little temple her parents did, blending Chinese and French customs together and even having her parents make her wedding cake. With how Gabriel and Emilie this all felt, she wouldn't be surprised if Adrien's wedding had always been planned to be a wedding do-over. She pushed that thought aside to focus on the issue. "But, the bride didn't know any of them?"

Nino nodded. "Yeah. I asked if...uh..." He paused, trying to think. "I can't remember her name- Akane? I think that's her name, I asked if something had happened so they had to step in, but Adrien kinda just said that she didn't have any friends."

"She could've," Alya snarked, "If she actually bothered to show up to the hang-outs like you invited her to."

The wedding reception, thankfully, grew more lively after dinner was served after that comment. Marinette couldn't help but dance with Alya as Nino DJed, his music providing a spark of life to the hollowness of everything.

Soon, however, she had to pull away. "Getting some air!" she called so Alya could hear, receiving a nod. Marinette walked away from the huddle, stepping out of the reception entirely. The reception had been held in Chloe's hotel with doors leading to the roof.

And, up on the roof, was the bride.

Marinette, the moment she saw the white gown, was tempted to just turn and head back inside. But something in her paused, made her just look at the woman who married her lycee crush.

She was startlingly pretty, with short dark hair and eyes, even with the frostiness that always seemed to follow her, that had a hint of sweetness. The dress looked lovely, but it seemed washed out against her. If Marinette had designed the wedding dress, she would've chosen a more bold color, like red.

And then she realized that the bride was staring at her.

"Uh, hi, sorry-" Marinette said, stepping back. "I didn't know anyone was up here, I can just-"

"It's fine." Short and to the point.

Marinette nodded, walking up to stand next to the bride. They stood in silence together, just watching the city. No akumas had come today, despite her fears of Adrien's fan club reacting badly to him getting married. (Chloe's akuma in reaction to the news was enough.) It was another perfect moment for the movie that was this wedding.

"Akane, right?"

"Kagami, actually." The moment the correction hit her ears, Marinette wanted to shrivel up. Fuck, hadn't that been the name on the invite? She was so dumb! "Although that might as well be my name for how much Adrien cares about me."

"Huh?"

"It's Marinette, correct?" Kagami said, no explanation for her statement.

"Uh, yeah." Marinette cleared her throat. "I'm glad I could finally meet you. We tried to schedule stuff, but-"

"But you guys had to cancel. I understand."

Huh. Wait. What? "What, no? Adrien and you cancelled. He kept texting Nino that his dad suddenly changed his mind or you guys had a really important event."

"No. We would leave to meet with you and then he would get a text saying that stuff had to be cancelled so I always went home." She expected anger or maybe relief. Instead, Kagami's face seemed to crumple. "I bet he was with her," she said. A tear rolled down her cheek and she reached up, looking startled.

With the whiplash of Adrien supposedly lying to Kagami and maybe, possibly, lying to Nino and them, Marinette could only ask "Who?"

"The girl he's in love with," Kagami admitted, voice thick with tears. More tears rolled down her cheeks and it was heartbreaking. "You know, I should've taken it as a hint that, right after our first date, he admitted he wasn't over this girl. I pushed past it, I thought I could-" A sob welled up and Kagami let it out. Marinette couldn't help it. She wrapped her arms around her, hoping she could provide some comfort. The other woman froze, just for a second, before arms wrapped stiffly around her. "I thought I could change his mind. I thought we were so perfect together."

"Perfection isn't a thing," Marinette admitted. "No matter how hard Gabriel tries to think it is."

"I should've left him after we got engaged and he admitted that I was just a placeholder for this other girl," Kagami said, sending a hot wave of rage through Marinette. "I saw him while we were preparing. He kept checking his phone..."

I'll check my messages if you have any last-minute objections, my lady.

Marinette shook her head. No. Adrien wasn't like that. Except, as it turned out, he was. She pushed away those thoughts to focus on Kagami. A ridiculous thought came up, except in the face of all this, it probably wasn't that ridiculous. "...it's not too late to walk away." Sure, it would probably hurt Adrien to have his wife annul their marriage the day of their wedding, but what about Kagami?

"It is," Kagami sounded so calm about this, even with the tears rolling down her face. "Tsurugis don't back down from anything."

"Tsurugis should also be respected and be in relationships that respect them." It was snarky but true.

There was a moment of silence. Marinette almost pulled away from how still Kagami suddenly seemed.

Then the other woman pulled away, a cold glint freezing her face over, even as her eyes were puffy and pink. Marinette almost apologized when she spoke. "I'll meet you downstairs in ten minutes," she said.

"...Okay."

Kagami smiled and nodded before walking through the door. Marinette, left on the roof, blinked and then pulled out her phone. In an old group chat, she left one message.

PinkFlower: Get the car ready the marriage's getting annulled.

By the time she arrived at the parking lot, Alya and Nino, plus Juleka, Rose, Alix, Mylene and Ivan, were waiting at Nino's van. "What the heck did you do, girl?!" she said. "Adrien's already married one day and you become a homewrecker?"

"Not on that side," Marinette corrected. She turned her head at what sounded like a furious shriek and the music from the back-up DJ screeching to a stop. In the next minute, the doors opened, revealing Kagami.

Marinette's guess was right. She did look good in red, especially in the jumpsuit she had changed into.

"What did you do?" Marinette asked, just a little frightened and a lot swooning. Alya gaped, glancing from her to Kagami. Alix and Juleka, based on the noises, were stifling laughter.

"I did what I should've done a long time ago," Kagami said, holding out her arm. Marinette, still a little bit flustered, took it. "I told my mother about Adrien and his other lady. She's contacting our family lawyer now."

Damn. If her mother was anything like Gabriel...

"I also looked up some restaurants nearby. There's one with very good orange juice, if you would like?" She leaned in close, as if worried that someone would overhear and take offense. "The catering was not my choice."

...the food hadn't been great.

"Yeah," Marinette said as Nino opened the door to his van. "Yeah, I would like that."

Kagami's smile was beautiful, perfect, and full of life.

[fabseg-creator]

Miraculous rewriting: Chloenette AU (Christmas Special)

This is the rewritten version of the Miraculous Christmas Special

Prologue

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Time for the rewriting !

Santa Claws (Christmas Special):

The story happens before the Volpina episode (like in canon).

Marinette and her parents give Christmas log cakes for their customers: Alya, her Césaire family (Otis, Ella, Etta and Marlene (Nora wasn't in Paris), Alix and her father, Rose and Juleka, Nadja and her daughter Manon, Nino and Sabrina.

Later, it's Chloé's and Daddy's turn to enter to the bakery.

Marinette is a bit of surprised to see her former "girl-" friend(?) (but still problematic friend) Chloé in there.

In this AU, when the two girls wish Merry Christmas each other (oddly but embarrassing), Chloé whispers to the bakery girl:

"But I tell you, Dupain-Cheng: It's just a mutual feeling for one exceptional day."

In same time, Sabine briefly glares at Chloé (Marinette's mother still considers Chloé as a bad influence). 😡 The rich blondie girl is worried about that. 😰

After Chloé and her Daddy For this story, Socqueline comes to the bakery. For this scene, Marinette feels unpleased to see Socqueline again. She remembers the day when Socqueline has intervened at the Grand Paris and inadvertly disturbed the private moment between her and Chloé (read the Prologue).

Socqueline says "Hello." and "Merry Christmas !" to the Dupain-Cheng family. And Tom and Sabine happily answer idem to the old teenage girl. Marinette says the same thing but with a bored tone.

Socqueline asks to her ex-friend while the latter gives the log cake to the former.

Socqueline: If it's about the last time, I'm sorry for disturbing you. I don't want to make lose your time. So be happy. Marinette (sighing): Forget it. I prefer to not think about that again, Socqueline. And today, it's Christmas. Take our gift and have a nice Christmas with your family. Socqueline: (sighing) I'm made aware you make your time good at school: School representative. New friends. I understand you don't need of me now Marinette. But I promise to you I made my best for you. (taking a cold sight, briefly impassive) What ever you think. 😒 (seemly becoming normal again and acting enlightened) And Merry Christmas everyone. 👋😊

While Socqueline is leaving the place with the log cake, Marinette feels culprit, remorseful about the cold sight Socqueline had previously held: "And what if ending any friendship with Socqueline had hurt her so much ? 😔"

Nextafter, Placide I.T., Adrien's bodyguard, comes to the bakery. So Marinette brings a gift she wants to give to Adrien. She asks to the Gorilla for give it to the blond boy and for wish to the latter a merry christmas too.

At the Agreste mansion, Adrien and Nathalie decorate the Christmas tree. But, like in canon, Adrien is in a bad mood: His father is not here for help him to decorate. And more, it's the first Christmas for the boy without her mom.

When Placide comes back to the mansion, he gives the Marinette's gift to Adrien who walks up to his bedroom.

At his room, an upset Adrien, in front of Plagg, expresses his angry toward his father because of his distant/neglectful behavior toward his family and his role as fashion designer. So the blond boy transforms into Cat Noir and flees from the mansion.

Like in canon, there is his song moment. During his run across Paris, under a snowy weather ❄, by expressing his hatred against Christmas, Cat Noir cataclysms a Gabriel advertisement. Later, he recomforts Plagg with the Marinette's gift (which is a red and white snow-decorated hat Mari had created).

At the Agreste mansion, Gabriel has accepted to join Adrien for spend Christmas with him (after being convicted by Nathalie). Unfortunately, while Gabriel came to Adrien's room for give a gift to him, he finds out his son is missing. And the police, the Parisians, Socqueline and Marinette (who transforms into Ladybug) work together for search and find the missing teenage boy.

In same moment, Adrien is wandering around Paris under a snowy weather. He meets a red-white clothed old man 🎅 who is bullied by two naughty children with insults and snowballs. Adrien defends the poor man and the two children's father tells to the two brats to apologize.

Later, like in canon, Adrien offers the Marinette's hat to the red-clothed old man. The latter is wondered by the blond boy's gesture. Normally, The old man is the one who gives gifts for other people but nobody gives any present to himself. (Yeah. He is "a" Santa. 🎅)

The Santa guy gives to the boy a drink of hot chocolate (and a cheese to allow the boy to feed Plagg). Adrien talks about his family issues with the man. And the old man convinces the blond boy to return back at home for making his family Christmas. So he brings the boy back to the mansion by a sleigh driving.

But, like in the original story, once the two characters are arrived at destination, Gabriel is angry toward the Santa man and shouts to him to stay away from his son. Ladybug intervenes and eventually assaults the old man by thinking he is an akumatized supervillain.

While Ladybug is chasing the old man, the latter becomes furious against the superheroin. In same moment, Gabriel transforms into Hawk Moth, feels the Santa's negative emotions and sends an akuma to the concerned one.

At outside, a ashamed Ladybug realizes the Santa man isn't akumatized and tries to apologizes. But the old man declines the red-black girl's ask and leaves the place by sleigh drive. Marinette/Ladybug now begins to understand how Socqueline could felt after she rejected the latter girl. (read the Prologue)

The man is even upset about the fact "there isn't anyone for respect Christmas. The old is in fact THE real Santa Claus. 🎅

Hawk Moth akumatizes Santa into Santa Claws. And the akumatized Santa causes chaos in entire Paris.

Like in canon, Santa Claws tells to Adrien he wants to avenge Christmas spiritual concept (for him and the boy's sake).

Even later, the dark Santa throws a present containing cockroaches on Chloé at the Grand Paris.

Because of the akumatized Santa's trouble across Paris, Ladybug and Cat Noir stand up against him. They eventually defeat him in same way as in canon. By offering a big fake present to the evilized Santa and trapping him for destroy the akumatized object: The Marinette's hat (which is used to be given to Adrien and later given to Santa Claus by the previous). The two heroes save Christmas.

After the battle, Gabriel is relieved to find Adrien. Father and son are going to reconcile each other. And at the same moment, Nathalie calls them about a group of visitors ahead the portal: They are the group of Parisians who participated to search the now found blond boy.

Marinette, Alya, Chloé, Sabrina, Alix, their five formers' families, Nino, Juleka, Rose, Kim, Max and Santa Claus are here. Even better, Socqueline is here too.

In this AU, Marinette has called Socqueline on phone between the Santa Claws incident and the reunion to the Agreste mansion. The bluenette told to her former "senpai" she is sorry about ending any friendship with her.

The conversation be like:

Marinette: Breaking our friendship you was a mistake, Socqueline. In this period, I am just pissed off about being overprotected. I felt like treated like a toddler. In fact, I wanted to be able to make my life by my own. Your gestures are based on good intentions and I misunderstood your actions. I feel so ashamed about hurt you at the mind. 😔 Tonight, I ask this request as a sincere friend: Do you want to come to join me at the Adrien's home ? Mom, Dad, my friends and a famous Santa Claus come to place for expressing our support to Adrien and his family after having found him safe at home. You helped us to find him like Ladybug and Cat Noir and even an unexpected guest. And it's christmas. Socqueline: Uh... Of course. I will go to join you. My mom too. I am surprised about how mature you acted and how well you changed since the previous school year. But I understood your feelings, Marinette. I've made my mistake of not trusting you enough in the past but I don't feel hostile toward you. I am proud of you. 🥰👍 Marinette: Thanks. So, can I say we are friends again ? 😌🥺 Socqueline: Of course, Marinette. And I still consider you as a good friend. 😊 Oh. I want to know who is this mysterious guest you are talking about. 😏 Marinette: The Santa Claus. 🎅 Socqueline (giggling): Do you still believe in the Santa ? Marinette: Just a Santa. But he is the one who brought Adrien back to home. Oh. I forgot another guest. You will be surprised this time. Socqueline: Who is it ? Ladybug ? Marinette: Chloé. But don't worry, she is okay for this Christmas. She even gave her contribution for the searches even if she did it for a few minutes under the snow. Socqueline: I see... Okay, I will come. 😎

Back to present. Like in canon, Gabriel invites them to enter to the mansion for the Christmas dinner. The people enjoy the moment on place.

Marinette, Adrien, Alya and Chloé and the other teens share their Christmas wishes. When Marinette and Chloé expressed their Christmas wishes (normal but joyfully this time), Socqueline comes to them and says to them: "Merry Christmas, Marinette. Merry Christmas Chloé."

The rich brat gasps to see her former enemy inside the mansion. And she is wondered that the latter politely talked to her. So, Chloé (with a minor disturbed tone, feigning a smile and holding thimbs up) answers to Socqueline: "Nice. Thank you. Uh... Merry Christmas to you. 😳🥴"

Next to Chloé, Marinette, Alya and Sabrina are smiling (like funnied). But the blond brat doesn't notice it.

During the dinner, a happy Adrien wishes a Merry Christmas to his "defunct" mother by watching the family portrait.

End of the Christmas story. And Merry Christmas to everyone. ✨🎄

[frickingnerd]

adrien with a younger sister

pairing: adrien agreste x fem!reader

tags: wholesome fluff, platonic, protective brother!adrien (from chloe & lila), gabriel is a bad father, best friends & siblings

gabriel wanted a boy and a girl as children, so each of them had their own purpose and could model different clothes for him

meanwhile, emelie wanted a boy and a girl, to have a complete family – a mother, a father, a daughter and a son! 

adrien was born first, while you were born around two years later, making adrien your older brother

adrien and you were best friends as children, though that also had to do with the fact that you only had each other as friends

occasionally, you spent time with chloe, felix and other kids of rich parents, but you always got along best with each other! 

adrien was always a protective older brother, making sure nobody made fun of you and made sure you were included in all activities! 

when you two grew older, you got to see chloe, felix and co. less and less, making you two grow even closer

you two trusted each other with all of your secrets and were always there to support each other

some days, adrien had to model for gabriel, while you got to sneak out of the house to go shopping

other days, you had to model for your father, while adrien snuck out of the house and watched movies in the nearby cinema! 

adrien would always tell you about the movies afterwards, while you always brought him snacks and such along from your shopping trips! 

when the two of you were finally allowed to go to school, adrien grew more protective of you

he always made sure you were invited too, when marinette, alya and nino asked him to hang out after school

and if someone like chloe or lila invited him – and only him – he always declined, since he didn't want to befriend people who didn't like his little sister! 

[marinettesaltprompts]

Reality Check

Prompt By @ironicreality

Yet another “Adrien loses the ring” deconstruction. This time I’m tackling about a certain criticism about how Chat’s supposedly so incompetent that he could be easily replaced.

But the thing is whenever the plot doesn’t need to nerf him, Chat Noir’s actually the most solid fighter on the team. And that’s discounting how casually Ladybug uses him to stall Akumas as her most reliable and expendable tool.

Trying to replace someone like that might just be harder than handing over the ring to the boy she likes.

—

It starts at a Saltfic cliché so common it might as well be Lila being a bitch:

Ladybug decides she’s had enough of Chat Noir and demands the ring. Since it’s season four and Adrien’s too depressed to even bother resisting, so he just hands it over and walks away.

Fortunately for Ladybug, she’s already part way through a Salt-fic like “realization” about Adrien and her class, so she doesn’t really care about her former crush anymore. Instead she goes to Luka and gives him the ring instead since she’s sure that Luka will be a great fit for the ring! And so Chat Noir retires from the team, and Adrien leaves the miraculous behind permanently.

With his friendship with Ladybug long eroded, there was nothing else really keeping him going as a hero besides Plagg and a sense of duty. And both of those have been relieved from him.

But things don’t go as expected. Adrien for whatever faults he might have had was an excellent fighter, being *impossibly* athletic in his civilian form and having trained in fencing and martial arts at his parents command for years. A prodigy trained by the best tutors that money could buy. And that base of skills was something that he’d brought to the table as the Black Cat, something that Marinette having only seen Chat Noir (and very briefly herself, and not against a foe where she was actually tested) wield the ring failed to appreciate. So while things go fine at first with the Glaciators and Giant Babies Shadowmoth loves to reuse, the first time Shadowmoth stops fucking around and brings his Akuma A-game…

Luka gets more or less instantly destroyed in his first fight as a front line figher against a genuinely dangerous Akuma.

Marinette gets very confused. The same happens again and again. Every time Shadowmoth brings out an actually capable threat, the novice Black Cat can’t keep up. Forget leaving him to hold the line against the Akuma, he can barely *survive* with her help. It’s not really Luka’s fault even. He’s inexperienced with Plagg’s powers and doesn’t have a near-decade of martial arts training and athletics to draw upon, but Ladybug doesn’t realize that’s a factor yet. So she concludes that it “it’s just a compatibility thing” and swaps Luka back to the snake.

She goes hunting for her next Cat.

Adrien meanwhile has moped, mourned and accepted his situation. And now? Now he’s moved on cold turkey, everything about Ladybug and the Miraculous have been cleaned from his room and computer. It took a good bit of introspection, but he’s accepted that his feelings for Ladybug were an infatuation with someone that doesn’t exist anymore and probably didn’t in the first place. But his situation isn’t the same as before he wore the ring. He’s allowed out of the house now, he can have social contact and friends as Adrien. He’s still restricted in ways that no normal boy would be, but he has freedom that he’s left by the wayside to be Chat Noir instead of fully using and enjoying it as Adrien.

Well. Chat Noir’s dead now.

So Adrien finally gets to explore and live up to his potential in his personal life. His already impressive grades improve, he resumes some of his extra-circulars that he’s actually liked (Kagami won’t be beating *him* in fencing any more) and he gets to spend time with his school friends again.

At least as much as they can, ironically enough it seems like Nino and a lot of the others have other commitments now…

Meanwhile on Ladybug’s side, things aren’t going well. She’s tried replacement after replacement, but so far there’s no one who even comes close to matching Chat Noir’s old skill and strength. Sure, Chat had problems, but it’s become obvious that he wasn’t just an ordinary holder. But finally, Marinette realises where she might have gone wrong. And she has a holder in mind, someone with an uncannily similar background to Adrien…

She chooses Kagami.

Sure, Kagami isn’t always available thanks to her commitments and Loong won’t be happy about loosing his holder, but at this point Ladybug has to run around with a full team more or less constantly to make up for the lack of a capable Black Cat so only having to do that half the time is an improvement, and she can work without a Dragon if she has to a lot easier than without a Black Cat.

And finally, *finally* it works.

Kagami is just as fierce and formidable as Adrien had been, if less spontaneous, experienced and far less affectionate. There’s still a skill gap too, but that can be taken care of with time…

But there’s still just a few *minor* problems.

Firstly, Kagami and Plagg *do not* get along. The Kwami was already sour from getting passed around, but his and Kagami’s personalities mesh like oil and water.

And then there’s the way that Kagami just… *didn’t* respect her authority like Chat or any of her previous cats did. Or at least that’s how Marinette perceives it, in reality Kagami is simply far more likely to push back against Marinette’s plans, to oppose unnecessary sacrifices and *insists* on being treated with respect. It might not have been much of a problem when Kagami was rarely-used temp hero, but with her on call as much as possible and having to serve in the multi role bodyguard/tool/lone solider role the Black Cat was used for…

Well, things are different now. And Kagami *does not* take being needlessly sacrificed and disrespected like Adrien who had already been trained for compliance by his parents before he’d even touched the ring.

Ladybug is having to learn very quickly that there was *plenty* she took for granted with Chat Noir, and that really she was far from a great partner herself.

As for Adrien? Well it would be a lie to say that there weren’t things that he missed from being Chat Noir. But the price of those things was too high in the end, and things were better all round now weren’t they?

Everyone in Paris seemed to think that Ladybug was right to dispose of Chat Noir, even if it took a while for her to get a decent replacement. So it’s not like he’d had the city’s appreciation to lose. His personal life as Adrien had finally improved by leaps and bounds now that he could fully devote himself to it for the first time. Sure, the loss of (what had once been) his friendships with Ladybug and Plagg still stung, but he was working on getting new friends. He’d even started expanding his friend groups to more people than just Dupont. and with the new Black Cat finally picking up the slack there were no problems to really fear with Shadowmoth.

But while he’d made his peace with being a normal civilian, it seemed like there was one parting gift left from his time as superhero.

For one day he just happened to be hiding from the paparazzi, and by pure chance he came to an alley where Ladybug and the New Black Cat were arguing. He hides away quickly to avoid having to confront his former friend and his replacement, but he’s still close enough to overhear the argument.

Ladybug had apparently tried to leave the New Cat in the middle of a battle to go get another hero from somewhere else. The New Cat however had *refused* to just be left on her own against a team of Akuma, and had instead retreated because- as the New Cat bluntly tells Ladybug- even if *she could be brought back*, the Akuma team could take the ring from her corpse. A corpse that would be there because Ladybug’s orders would *get the New Cat killed for nothing*.

And Ladybug… has no counter for that. She instead sighs and admits that she made a mistake- and to Adrien’s surprise the New Cat doesn’t just accept the apology; she instead calls out Ladybug for having done this before, especially with her predecessors. And again, to Adrien’s utter shock Ladybug has to admit fault, this time with how she treated the past cats. And as the two continue talking, as Ladybug has to verbalize that she was wrong in how she *used* her past cats: something tight and painful in his chest that Adrien had accepted as normal finally releases.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I had too much fun with the life swap and extended it to other characters XD Ignore Miraculous and Amoks for the moment, this is about dynamics!

Nino swaps with Sabrina, IE, glasses childhood best friend who is haplessly crushing on their other half.

For Sabrina his is actually pretty straight forward as its both a crush but also admiration. Chloe is bold, aggressive, passionate, not at all like her who is a shrinking violet. But the thing is if they started dating, she'd be so stressed out all the time because "What do you mean you got in a fist fight with Kim? Why are you skateboarding with Alix down a cliff, did you seriously spit in that Akuma's face!?"

Basically they are friends, but also the embodiment of "This is fun!" - "Stressful is what it is!"

Nino meanwhile has had his interest in film backed and sponsored by Dupain-Cheng money since forever. And he's also been making Marinette the star of said films since forever. To the point where all the films and ideas he comes up with are built around her interests rather than his. This can be fine but can lead to tension if someone encourages him to finally make that horror film he always wanted.

They are friends, but the toxic, transactional nature of it all is an ever-growing undercurrent.

Now for the transfer student swap!

Alya's mother is a famous TV chef, her father is a famous TV personality for his animal program, (Basically Steve Erwin but more aloof) While her sister is a world champion kick boxer and MMA fighter. Alya meanwhile is a social media personality, it wasn't planned, it just kind of happened but once she got some attention for a "Day in my life" video, suddenly her parents are throwing money and resources and pressure behind it in the extreme.

Rather than pure childhood friends, Alya & Marinette are more social media friends meeting for the first time. Marinette's Velvet glove is harder to notice than canon Chloe's iron fist but it will cause tension.

Meanwhile Adrien is returning to Paris after nearly a decade away. His parents both work in television, his mother is basically a C list celebrity in long running daytime dramas and is father work in costuming, they were also meant to help Andre with his new "Perfect families in Paris" campaign but then a super villain showed up.

Adrien and Chloe are very much childhood friends reconnecting, but thanks to Adrien being "Down for anything" after a decade with over protective parents, they click!

-

As an aside, I imagine Chloe & Marinette's dynamic is also different, but definitely tense. I basically imagine Marinette might still be into fashion and she wants to be a "Self made millionaire" type. So she doesn't just want her parents advocating for her, or buying her stuff. So she instead uses money, resources and clot provided by being their daughter to try and crow-bar her way into the industry.

See its different because she's using their influence, rather than them using their influence ;)

Anyway, because of this, she wanted Audrey to review one of her pieces, waiting till Chloe desperately needed something and struck. Then one of the following happened:

1: Audrey refused to review it because she's a grown up with contractual obligations who can't just run some random teenagers designs on a whim when she has people scheduled.

2: Marinette found someone "better" and so carelessly withdrew her support for Chloe before realizing the implications.

3: Audrey reviewed it but was not breathless with her praise, basically: You clearly have talent, but could improve on X Y, and you should ask yourself who you are designing for, or else you may struggle to find an audience, good luck." & oh boy was that not good enough!

Whatever the case, Marinette withdrew her support from Chloe right when she needed it most and it led to a huge row and basically demonstrated how Fairweather Marinette's friendship was.

No they hadn't been super close, but Chloe had thought they were friends to one degree or another and getting closer, this was a blow.

Marinette meanwhile, well, she dislikes that Chloe saw that side of her with such clarity because its a side of her she doesn't like, but doesn't want to face. So instead it has to be Chloe's fault somehow.

Thus the two have tension.

Ohohoho I love it!

Okay but what are we doing with the Heroes and Villains angle? Would it still be Gabe as Hawkmoth trying to resurrect Emilie? Or do the Cesaires get to be Villains? Would Mari and Adrien still be LB and CN, or are different people getting the Miraculous? Should we limit it to the full swap for Chloé and Alya, or is it open to anyone?

[chocostrwberry]

NINO AND ALYA!! 🐢🦊

I don’t know whether to make them twins or platonic best friends in my au,, but I just never really shipped them in the show. They’re just both massive nerds, Alya has a passion for art and journalism while Nino is a huge reptile fan and a gamer boy. Adrien and him used to talk about their favorite games, but that was before his mom became comatose and they drifted apart.

[nattinatalia]

Jack Harlow x Reader Instagram AU

- (M��a is 18 and EZ is 15 here)

•

Liked by jackharlow, yourusername, urbanwyatt, ezharlow, cassiewyatt, and 5,887,345 others

alizemiaharlow We’re B🅰️ck 🩸

View all 2,00 comments

yourusername Yayyy, can’t wait to watch.

alizemiaharlow 🤝🏻 ❤️

jackharlow Proud of you 💜

alizemiaharlow 🥺 thanks dad 💜

urbanwyatt My niece is all grown up 😢 proud of you princess.

alizemiaharlow 🥺🫶🏼 thank you Nino

•

Liked by cassiewyatt, yourusername, jackharlow, alizemiaharlow, and 6,877,345 others

ezharlow Gazebo Festival ready 🤘🏼 let’s go!!!

View all 1,200 comments

yourusername 😍 That’s my baby boy!!!

ezharlow 🥰 love you ama’

alizemiaharlow 🤮 🙄

cassiewyatt Okkkkk basic fit goes crazy 🔥

ezharlow I hate you! Why are you always coming for my fits?

cassiewyatt Because you dress like every other white boy, step it up.

druski HAHAHAHAHAHA 😂😂😂

ezharlow Shut up with your fungus looking feet

jackharlow Angel Ezequiel

ezharlow Sorry uncle Dru

druski Nahh own that shit up 😂

•

Liked by jackharlow, yourusername, urbanwyatt, ezharlow, and 6,234,986 others

alizemiaharlow A time was had 💥 Day 1 was a success.

View all 2,300 comments

yourusername Yesssss today was fun.

jackharlow Thanks for showing up bug 🐞

alizemiaharlow Always 🤝🏻❤️

cozane It was soo good to see you kid. Don’t forget about us.

alizemiaharlow Uncle Avatar 🥺 never everrrr could I forget about you. Even though I’m upset that I didn’t get a care package but don’t worry, I made sure to cop on my own 🤘🏼🥰

cozane What the? I did send you a package, you were literally the only one who got everything.

alizemiaharlow 🤷🏻‍♀️

ezharlow About that 🫣

cozane Punk ass you got your own

ezharlow I needed more?

alizemiaharlow 🙄

•

Liked by jackharlow, alizemiaharlow, ezharlow, cassiewyatt, urbanwyatt, and 6,877,345 others

yourusername Proud of you baby! Always. I’m always team you and your art. I know things didn’t go as planned for day 2, but seeing how happy you were last night, made me emotional and beyond happy. You put in so much dedication, sweat and tears into this, you should feel very proud because I’m very proud of you. Thank you for allowing me to be part of night 1, it was so special to me. I love you for ever and always. I can’t wait what you have planned next.

View all 1,200 comments

alizemiaharlow Superstars ⭐️ ✨

ezharlow My parents are the shit 😎

jackharlow I love you 🥺 thank you for accepting to perform, I know you were a little thrown off by the idea. It’s us against the world, this is a new era and I can’t wait to takeover with you.

cassiewyatt ❤️❤️

claybornharlow 🔥

user of course she was going to perform 🙄 she was the bathroom break 😂

user no way was she going to perform after Queen SZA that would’ve been dead asf 😂

alizemiaharlow People like you is the reason why my mom was iffyyy about the idea to perform. But I’m glad she did, she did amazing, per usual. You’re just mad my dad is her number one fan and includes her in everything, sorry your dad can’t do that for your mom.

ezharlow 💀 Send me your addyyy, I’ll send some autographed pictures of my dad so you’re not so bitter!

allabouttheharlows One thing about Mia and EZ, they’re gonna defend Jack and Y/N

ezharlow They regret ever giving us permission to be on social media 🤣

jackharlow 🫣 We do.

•

- SURPRISE!!!!!!

I know it’s a surprise for me as well.

Life has bee, interesting, it’s been testing me daily, but I’ve seen some growth within myself and it did me good being away. I see all the messages you guys continue to send me, I feel guilty not replying but I didn’t want to give false hope of me being back 100%! I don’t want to commit just yet, but I do want to come with a schedule for me being here and posting. So let me know which days work for you guys best.

•

TAG LIST

@heavyhitterheaux @harlowsbby @arination99 @cmalass @jackharloww @minkookie95 @deannaard @jacksmoviestar @harlowcomehome @fdl305 @httpkoylinnn @xoxokiaraaxoxo @hoodharlow @automaticpeachsong @amethyst09 @aliciacat20 @allyson15 @gabbylovesreading @stefansalvatoresgf @violetdreamsworld @carma-fanficaddict @jasminxts @itsaaliyah2 @itsyagirljaz @harrycanyonmoonn @neon-lights-and-glitter @awhore4moree @toocriticalharlow @thefemalestorywriter @lightsoutstyles @violetslays818 @fantasywritersstuff @vanwritesfan-fiction

[flightfoot]

do you have any chloe redemption fanfiction recommendations ? preferably with the group of her alya nino mari and adrien - its so hard to find any 😭

Hm. There's a lot of fics where she's a good guy, but ones where she actually has to go through a redemption instead of getting a personality replacement... those are far rarer.

There are a few I recommend above all others.

---

In Direct Opposition by @generalluxun

Alya Cesaire is a brand new student to Francis Dupont, to Paris even. The first student she meets is one Chloé Bourgeois, and Alya is determined to make a friend. Things advance Chaotically. Her new 'friend' is definitely a handful, and suddenly Paris has a supervillain and two brand new superheroes! Alya finds herself balancing a lot of things, trying to live up to her ideals and those of her icons. And then reality seems to contradict itself. As time progresses it seems to happen more often. Becoming a hero, battling villains, staying alive, working through friendships. Something is lurking, tweaking events at times, changing them, and no one seems aware. Alya will need all her wits to get to the bottom of this. Her investigative mind can only get her so far though, and then she needs to rely on her friends. This is not a foe you can beat head on.

I betaed this entire fic, it’s really good! I adore the focus on Alya’s philosophy here, her determination to be a hero, to help people and defeat evil - and that defeating evil means trying to reform the people doing bad things when possible, to try to save EVERYONE, even the “villain”. I thought it was really clever the ways Alya would redirect Chloe and subtly encourage her to be a better person, while also trying to get the people around her to give her a second chance and keep an open mind.

Also Alya and Chloe are an adorable sapphic couple XD.

---

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?

This is one of my top Miraculous fics of all time, it's a fix-it for all of seasons 2 and 3 basically, and has several interweaving plot threads from many of the characters, including one of the best Chloedemptions I've ever seen. It has a very The Good Place kind of feel to it, with Chloe initially being motivated to try and become a better person for selfish reasons, but then slowly discovering internal reasons to strive for improvement, to be a bit kinder.

---

The Queen's Requiem by TinyTulip

Fleeing Paris in disgrace, Chloe Bourgeois sought a fresh start in New York against her own will, but the city that never sleeps has other plans. Thrust into a whirlwind of ghostly attacks and her mother’s relentless demands to rebuild their family’s tarnished reputation, Chloe soon uncovers two stolen Miraculous, the Raven and the Bear. Dark and dangerously alluring. Surrounded by unlikely allies and haunted by her past, the Queen’s hardest battle lies ahead. --- Chloe’s heart skipped a beat, a mix of dread and confusion washing over her. That voice—it was unmistakable. “Chloe! Hi, it’s me. Aeon!” Time seemed to slow as the familiar girl approached the table, her friendly wave and wide smile at complete odds with the tension now gripping Chloe’s chest. Aeon didn’t just say her name—she’d announced it, loud and clear, with no regard for the consequences. Chloe’s face flushed, her mind scrambling. Her friends exchanged confused glances. “Uh, Claudine, who is this?" But things only got worse when that blasted girl with those braids came bounding in after Aeon with a familiar boy with blue hair and a guitar strapped to his back not too far behind her. Chloe stifled the urge to scream.

So this one is currently ongoing, but has the potential to become the best Chloedemption fic to date. I love how Chloe re-evaluates herself and her values after hitting rock-bottom, and manages to find a friend group for herself who knows nothing about her past. And the whole plot thread of her being tugged around by others machinations, knowing that Zoe's father is a bad person but keeping on telling herself otherwise because he actually listens to her and helps her, even if it's for a price... it's just very in-depth.