#obviously some of these questions are dumb and this is not a great qui

[suncaptor]

Self-monitoring test (not to be taken as any sort of serious assessment) for if you’re a high or low self-monitor. Is your reaction to situations often dependent on social cues you can then alter your presentation towards, or guided by your inner sense of self and not changed in a given social setting?

[marrys-dream-world]

you drank so much sunlight you’re drowning in it

Read on AO3

Summary: When Marinette agreed to pretend to be Adrien's girlfriend so he could throw his father off the scent of his actual girlfriend, Ladybug, she didn't think anything could go wrong during the span of one dinner. Turns out she was wrong, of course. Fortunately, there's always a friendly cat looking out for her.

Notes: Guess who was inspired? This is a companion piece to “lovers alone wear sunlight”, but can be read as a stand alone. 

One lesson that Marinette had to learn quickly after becoming Ladybug was that there was always a chance of even the best made plans going sideways.

So when she slept through her alarm, had to rush into getting dressed for class, dumped salt instead of sugar in her coffee and tried to eat her croissant so fast before class started that she choked and had to be escorted to the infirmary by a worried Alya, she tried to not see it as an omen of what was to come. She held her head high and soldiered on through the day with her mismatched shoes and mouth tasting like a mix of salt and bitterness, not letting any of it bother her. 

She did have one weakness, however.

“Marinette, can I talk to you?” There it was. Suddenly, her knees felt weak.

Be still, my beating heart. She scolded. 

Adrien had rushed to ask her as soon as Ms. Bustier finished the class for lunch, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room. At that, he flushed and figdted on the spot.

“Alone?” He added quietly, doing a decent job at ignoring the way their classmates leaned in.

“I- hum, yeah, I mean, yeah.” She said eloquently, feeling her neck burn. “Won’t you home at lunch? No, lunch at home? E-eat lunch at home? Today?”

“Not today, no.” He said. He casually put his hand on her shoulder and leaned in to whisper in her ear. She wondered if he could hear her heartbeat. “I need your help.”

Wasn’t that a bucket of cold water?

She straightened up. “Of course! C’mon.”

Marinette grasped his wrist in one hand and her backpack in another, pulling a stunned Adrien from the classroom. She caught a glimpse of her classmate’s knowing smile, Alya’s confused face, Chloe trying to pretend she wasn’t watching and Lila looking contemplative. She took him to a classroom that was usually empty around lunch time, something she knew from always needing a handy place to transform to fight akumas like Lunch Lady. 

“No one comes here at this hour.” She reassured him and he relaxed against a table. “No one will overhear or anything.”

My father said that he heard it from a “reliable source from school”. He had told Ladybug, the day before. I think there’s someone spying on me for him. 

“Marinette, I… Wow, this is awkward.” Adrien said, putting his hands in his pockets and kicking the air in front of him. 

“Take your time.” She said. It sure wasn’t an easy tale to tell. 

“Okay, this will sound really weird, but let me finish: father told me yesterday that he knows I’m dating someone and I told him you’re my secret girlfriend.” He started, tensing up again. When she just raised an eyebrow and nodded, he went on. “I panicked. I do have a girlfriend, but I can’t introduce her to my father due to some personal reason, but he wouldn’t accept that. And I can’t deny it because, apparently, everyone says I’m ‘obviously lovesick’ and my father wouldn’t believe otherwise.”

Well, there’s her confirmation that he read through the “Lovesick Agreste: is Paris’ biggest teenager bachelor off the market?” articles. Not that anyone in class hadn’t noticed his sighs and blushes and random daydreaming. She liked to think she was more subtle than that. 

“So I told him it was you because you’re one of my best friends and he likes you a lot!” Hearing it for a second time doesn’t make the idea that Gabriel Agreste likes her any less surreal. “But now he wants to meet you for dinner today and I know it’s a lot to ask, but will you pretend to be my girlfriend? Just for today?”

Marinette stared at him for a moment. She had known the full story almost as soon as it happened, Adrien spilling it and his plan for dinner to Ladybug the night before. It had given her time to prepare and she was grateful, having no idea how she would react if he had caught her blindsided. But it was still weird watching it play out, like the merging of an outsider perspective and her own.

“Can I ask a question?” She managed to croak out. There was really only one answer she wanted. 

Adrien twitched. “Y-yes, of course.”

“This girl… does she make you happy?”

Adrien looked straight into her eyes and answered solemnly. “Deliriously happy.”

Marinette couldn’t hold back the grin that took over her face.

“Let’s do this, then!” Her heart was swelling so much she thought it would burst out of her chest. “Adrien Agreste, I’ll be your fake girlfriend!”

The beaming smile she received made it worth it already. She just had to be discreet about it.

<>

“Soooo… What did Adrien want to talk about?” Alíx asked, a teasing grin on her face that was matched by Mylene, Rose and Juleka. They had crowdened her desk as soon as class let out. 

“He just wanted help with… homework.” Marinette word-vomited. Alya paused on putting her things away to facepalm.

“Marinette, it’s okay, you don’t need to pretend.” Mylene said calmly, which only confused her.

“Pretend to what?”

Rose laughed. “We know you’re dating Adrien.”

Marinette.exe has stopped working.

“You know what?”

“We understand you’re trying to keep it a secret, but you’re not exactly subtle. You both keep daydreaming in class and smiling and blushing.” Juleka pointed out. Fine, maybe she wasn’t as subtle as she thought. “It’s okay, we won’t tell anyone.”

There’s nothing to tell! She wanted to scream.

We aren’t dating at all. Are you guys crazy? She wanted to deny.

Then, something in her mind clicked.

“You guys figured me out.” Marinette said, injecting a proportionate amount of defeat into her voice. Distantly, she heard Alya choke. “Adrien and I are dating…”

The four girls cheered.

“... but we were keeping it a secret because his father is, you know. “ They all nodded, including Alya. Unfortunately, they did know Gabriel Agreste. “But he figured it out and now I’m going to have dinner at his house today.”

Rose and Alya let out high pitched screams for two very different reasons.

“Oh, Marinette, you’re formally meeting your in-laws, this is serious!” Rose chirped. Marinette decided to focus on that instead of Alya’s murderous eyes. “We have to give you a makeover!”

“Great idea!” Marinette shouted, jumping up from her seat and avoiding Alya’s hand that was trying to claw into her arm. “Everyone is invited to my house today!”

Sorry, Alya. She thought as the other girls started to talk over each other as Alya silently fumed. But I can’t have this conversation right now. 

<>

She did regret that decision, eventually. 

Between Alíx’s surprisingly accurate tips on how rich people ate dinner and which fork to absolutely not use for salad, Juleka’s makeup tips and Rose and Mylene’s debates on which outfit suited her the best, Marinette is left even more nervous. It doesn’t help that Alya spends the whole time sitting in the corner, just staring at Marinette. Even when Marinette brings out her favorite tart as a peace offering, Alya eats it, paper mold and all, while staring deeply into her eyes.

It was incredibly unsettling. 

“Ta-da!” Rose chirps, presenting a dolled up Marinette to her four-people audience. They all clapped. 

Marinette looked into the mirror. She could admit she looked amazing, make up well-done and outfit impeccable. But at what cost?

“Our baby is all grown up.” Alíx said, wiping a fake tear from her cheek. “She even knows how to use forks now.”

She swallowed back a sob. After Marinette misused the fish fork for the eleventh time, Alíx had taken to ripping an Adrien picture everytime she got it wrong. She learned pretty quickly after that. 

“Great work, girls.” Alya said, her first words in three hours. She got up from the chair and clasped her hands. “Now, Mama Alya needs to have a word alone with her daughter.”

“Of course!” Mylene said, finishing putting the rest of Marinette’s clothes away. 

As the girls left, Marinette looked longingly at her window and only stopped thinking of escaping, halfway through a plan, when she saw the look on Alya’s face. 

“So, peach really brings out my complexion, huh? Or maybe Juleka is just that good with makeup.” She tried.

Tikki, coming out of her hiding place, sighed.

“Marinette, that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”

“What? I think I had worse makeup looks before.”

“Marinette.”

She winced. “In my defense, I don’t think this makes it into the top 10 dumbest things I’ve ever done.”

“Why did you tell the girls you’re dating Adrien?”

“Because I am dating Adrien.”

“Ladybug is dating Adrien.” And by Alya’s tone, her opinion hasn’t improved on that either. 

“And Marinette is helping Adrien throw off his father from that by pretending to be his girlfriend.” Marinette said, then, at Alya dumbfounded look, made jazz hands and added a weak: “Ta-da.”

“Tikki.” Alya said, voice restraining a mix of frustration and desperation. “Why do you let Marinette do dumb stuff like this?”

Tikki swallowed a whole cookie. “I don’t control the speed in which Marinette does dumb stuff.”

“Hey!”

“Why not?”

“I’m still here, you know?”

Tikki and Alya’s combo stare shut her up. 

“How do you get yourself in these situations?” Alya asked, helplessly.

“Welcome to my life.” Tikki said, offering Alya a cookie. They toasted before biting into their perspective treats. 

“It’s not that bad.” Marinette said. Neither gave her a response. 

<>

The Agrestes sent her a car to take her to dinner.

Alya and her parents sent her off. Her, on her tenth fruit tart and judging-and-supportive-at-the-same-time stare, and them, her mother comforting her crying father that wailed that “his little girl had grown up”. The three of them demanded at least fifty pictures before they let her go. She loved her family, but the quiet ride there was a respite to gather her thoughts and calm down enough to not make a fool of herself.

So, of course, when she got to the house and saw Adrien in a carefully styled outfit and his father waiting for her on the top of the stairs, she tripped on her heels and was only saved by falling into the hard concrete by the Gorilla’s grip on the back of her dress.

“Marinette.” Adrien said adoringly as she reached the top of the stairs, cheeks flushed and eyes shining.

He could be an actor if he wanted. She thought, dazed, as she took the hand he offered her.

“Good evening, Ms. Dupain-Cheng.” Gabriel Agreste said, nodding at her.

“Good evening, Mr. Agreste.” She responded, managing to keep her voice from trembling. 

The dining room was excessive, much bigger than she thought it would be needed for a three-people dinner. Adrien, like a gentleman, held her hand till she was seated and sent her a fond look. She barely managed an awkward smile back. It was weird, trying to pretend to be in love with Adrien when she was in love with. Hell, they were dating, he just didn’t know that. Would he recognize her lovesick look as the same he got from Ladybug? That the way their hands fit together was familiar? These questions wouldn’t leave her mind.

“Ms. Dupain-Cheng, that’s an interesting dress you’re wearing.” Mr. Agreste said as the first course was served. Marinette’s hands immediately went for the right fork as the sound of paper ripping ringed in her ears. “Care to say where you got it?”

“I, uh, designed it myself.” She said, gesturing vaguely. “It’s a new piece.”

“Marinette is a very talented designer.” Adrien said and she puffed up a little, chest full of pride.

“I was not speaking to you, Adrien.” His father said curtly and the light in her boyfriend’s eyes dimmed.

Ah, another reason she wasn’t looking forward to dinner. All of Adrien's friends know him as a very strict and overprotective man, but Ladybug, as Adrien’s girlfriend and constant secret visitor to the Agreste Mansion, knew better. She saw how he constantly put Adrien down, berating him for the slightest mistake and made him cancel plans last minute because of missed notes on a piano performance. Adrien was genuinely scared of his father and if Marinette wasn’t doing this whole thing to help him, she would dump the bowl of hot soup she was now sipping on his father’s lap. 

“But you’re right. The dress is craftily-made.” Mr. Agreste said. “You’re looking for a future in the fashion scene, right, Ms. Dupain-Cheng?”

“Yes, that’s actually why Adrien and I are dating in secret.” She said, noticing the glint in his eyes. “We don't want anyone to think I’m using him to climb up the scene or anything like that.”

“An admirable effort.” He said and Adrien beamed at her. He really had the prettiest smile in the world, it never failed to raise butterflies in her stomach. “Tell me more about your dress. How did you choose the material?”

The main course continued like that, Marinette and Mr. Agreste talking about fashion and Adrien’s interjections now being welcomed. She got enough pointers and constructive criticisms that her hands itched for a notebook to write it all down. Adrien looked incredibly happy, throwing her sunshine-filled gazes and grasping at her hands every time he wanted to punctuate a sentence. 

I love him. She thought. 

Of course, that’s why it went south before dessert. 

“Ms. Dupain-Cheng, I must admit that you’re an admirable young woman.” Mr. Agreste said and she allowed her feeling of pride to swell, before he popped it like a balloon at his next words: “And completely unfit for the Agreste Brand image.”

“What?” Adrien and Marinette shouted at the same time, shocked.

“No matter your intentions, the media will see this as a young designer trying to get an advantage in the industry by dating the heir to a fashion empire.” He said simply.

“But it’s not true!” Marinette blurted out.

“It doesn’t matter.” He dismissed, before continuing, voice cruel: “There’s also the problem of your background.”

It felt like someone scooped out Marinette’s stomach and filled the empty space with ice.

“M-my background?”

“Father…” Adrien started, surprisingly firm.

“You’re a baker’s daughter, Ms. Dupain-Cheng, hardly worthy of the Agreste name.” Mr Agreste said, like it wasn’t breaking her heart. “You two have to break up before this… fling tarnishes the family image.”

“Father!” Adrien said, sounding more serious than she ever heard him. “How can you even say something like that?”

Marinette felt like she was underwater, everything felt muffled and Adrien and his father sounded like they were both far away. This couldn’t be happening to her. 

“I… have to go.” She said, getting up from her chair. “I’m sorry, Adrien.”

She left, ignoring Adrien’s calls of her name and running into the streets. Her feet hurt from her shoes, so she stepped into an alley and opened her bag, deaf to Tikki’s reassurances and transformed quickly. She swung through the city before detransforming near her house and coming in the front door, her parents excited inquiries quickly giving away to fretting that left her wrapped in blankets in her room with a tub of ice cream on her lap and a worried Tikki on her hair. 

Thank god Alya already left. Marinette thought. If one more person looked at her with a pitying gaze, she would scream. 

“I’m fine, Tikki. I’m not sad.” It was true, her whole body just felt numb. There wasn’t room for anything else. “I just want to be alone for a moment.”

With that, she climbed up to her balcony, leaving Tikki alone with a phone that was buzzing with dozens of unseen messages.

The cold air nipped at her skin, but she refused to go down and get more blankets. She stared unseeing at the blinking lights of the city. She wanted to stay there and watch them. She wanted to fly through them. Neither felt like enough, so she closed her eyes.

“What’s upsetting such a pretty lady on a pretty night like this?”

She snapped her head to the side at the sound of that voice. A voice she hadn’t heard directed at her since…

“You could at least pretend that you actually think I’m your partner and trust me , how about that?!”

“Chat Noir…” She gasped, hungrily driking in his messy blond hair and grinning mouth that didn’t hide worried his cat-like eyes were. 

Eyes that wouldn’t look into hers since the fight where he found out she told someone her identity and the issues that spiraled from that.

“Hey, Marinette.” He said, sitting down beside her. “So?”

She tilted her head. “So what?”

“What got you so upset?”

“I-I’m not upset.” She said, a tremble escaping into her voice. 

He raised a hand to her cheek, touching gently. She watched, entranced.

“You’re crying.” Chat Noir said, soflty.

“Oh.” Marinette said and it was like a dam broke.

Chat Noir held her as she sobbed, huge tears rolling down her red face as her body trembled. It should feel weird, they only met as Marinette and Chat Noir a handful of times, but her heart knew her partner and could never feel anything but safe in his arms. 

“It’s okay, princess.” He said, the nickname falling easily from his tongue. “Cry all you need.”

And she did, until it seemed like she had, finally, run out. 

“S-sorry.” She mumbled against his shoulder.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He reassured, stroking her hair. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

She sat up, detangling herself from his arms. His eyes flashed with something that she couldn’t quite place.

“I went out to help a friend and it ended up pretty badly.” Marinette said, wiping her cheeks with her blanket. 

“Did you two have a fight?” He asked, oddly subdued.

“Not exactly, it’s not really his fault but… I don’t want to talk to my friend right now.”

Because how could she even begin to explain that it wasn’t Adrien’s fault, but she couldn’t bear to see his face right now? That it was a fake date, but the fact that his father wouldn’t approve of her even if it was real broke her heart? That it wasn’t because of anything she could change and didn’t want to change, anyway, but her essence itself? To look at the guilty face of her friend, her secret boyfriend, wouldn’t help her at all.

“I understand.”

“Because of you and Ladybug?” The words left her mouth before she could think them through. 

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean me and Ladybug?”

“I-I, erm.” She swallowed heavily. “I mean, Alya said you two are probably fighting, since you are going on all-solo patrols and have been kinda stiff during akuma fights.”

He deflated. “I didn’t see anything on the Ladyblog.”

“She wouldn’t put ammunition for Shadow Moth on the Ladyblog.” She defended. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I… don’t know?” He looked genuinely confused. “I haven’t really talked about this with anyone but my kwami.”

She was surprised he said that, before realizing he thought she knew what a kwami was because of Mullo and her time as Multimouse. 

“You can vent if you want. You already saw me being all, you know.” She gestured vaguely at herself. “Just say as much as you want.”

“Ladybug and I did have a fight. We don’t let it interfere with our job or anything, but our friendship is kinda on the rocks right.” He said quietly, cat ears dropping. “I can’t tell you why, but sometimes it just feels like I’m not important to her.”

“Of course you are!” She exclaimed, protests falling automatically from her mouth like on hero discussion day at school.

(She was officially banned from debates after she made a student that said Chat Noir sucked cry.)

“Am I really?” He chuckled, self-deprecating. “Everyone thinks Ladybug is the best. I don’t blame them, they’re right. But when they call me a sidekick, they might just be right. She doesn’t see me as her partner, she doesn’t trust me.”

His voice cracked at the end and she wrapped him in her arms. 

“You won’t let me help you, Ladybug.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She said, holding back tears as it was his turn to cry.

He laughed wetly. “Why? It’s not your fault.”

But it is. “I’m still sorry.”

“It's just… I love her.” He said and it ached. “I love her so much but I don’t think she cares about me half as much as I care about her.”

“Of course she does.” Marinette said, but her words sounded weak even to her own ears.

“She doesn’t.” He answered, simply.

“I wish… I wish I could make her love you.” She said, surprising him and herself so much it startled a laugh out of him.

“There’s no need for that, I’m not mad she doesn’t love me like this or anything.” Chat Noir said, honestly. “I just want to know she cares.”

“She cares.” Marinette defended fiercely. “I care.”

His eyes softened. “That means a lot to me, princess.”

Then he took her hand, mindful of his claws, and squeezed. Together, they watched the lights until she fell asleep.

Her heart felt full.

[theliterarywolf]

The Devil All The Time

A.K.A. - ‘Damn, damn, damn, DAMN, Robert Pattinson! Why’d you have to go and insult that poor old lady’s chicken, huh?!’

A.K.A. - ‘This is Christianity on sheer Misanthrophy and Southern moonshine!’ 

A.K.A. - ‘Oh, that escalated qui -- OH! That escalated q -- OH! THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY!!’

A.K.A. - ‘I have never been happier to see someone get shot.’

Netflix is going through a bit of an identity crisis right now. I’m sure that no one would argue that. It seems on one hand they want to be everything wrong with Hollywood: wanting more to be able to say they’re diverse than promoting good content in some cases, enabling pedophilia in some awful, awful regards, and just making questionable decisions overall. On the other hand, they’re one of the few windows for animation to shine in the wake of Network television aiming more towards randomized, comedy-based cartoons. And on a foot, they’re one of the largest fugitives of the crime ‘Snatching Up Streaming Rights to Properties and Either Mismanaging Them or Locking Them Up in Jail for Several Months After They’ve Premiered Elsewhere’. 

However, even with all of that in mind, they do still try to make quality films.

... And then, after they torture people with shit like Tall Girl or The Kissing Booth, they release something like The Devil All The Time. 

I know that it’s based on a novel of the same name, the movie is even narrated by the novel’s author. However I have yet to read said novel so I can’t vouch for which is better. 

What I can say, however, is that this is probably not a film for the light of heart. Personally, I was fine. Yes, even with my ‘oh, that escalated quickly’ quoting, it wasn’t anything that sent me reaching for the remote but I know that my tolerance for the dark and visceral tends to be higher than most.

Let’s take a closer look, though, shall we?

The movie centers around several clusters of characters in 1960s rural Ohio. Well, actually, the film starts near the end of WWII but that’s of short consequence... Aside from, you know, giving us our first focus character. 

I don’t want to go too much into spoilers, even with the ‘Read More’ because I do feel as though the movie is best gone into raw. Though I will focus on several aspects I see discussed by critics and film junkies online. 

‘I can’t take the movie seriously because I see these actors and just see their superhero/Marvel roles~!’ 

Well, sucks to suck for you. Me, personally, I’m not a fan of superhero movies so even though I know that Tom Holland is the baby-face of Peter Parker or that Robert Pattinson is due to play Batman soon, it didn’t detract from me focusing on their roles in this movie. 

‘The accents are just... So bad.’ 

In the case of Tom Holland, there are sometimes where he slips up. But I didn’t notice them enough to pull me out of the film. The real case of off accents comes with Robert Pattinson’s performance. However, even that can be justified with the character he’s playing and the metanarrative of him being a charlatan using religion to dupe the vulnerable and naive pieces of the flock. 

‘I just couldn’t stand all that narration!’

I’m probably the odd one out on this because the narration didn’t bother me as much as it did others. Were there times where it felt like it was just there to hold people’s hands as to what character’s may be thinking? A few, but even then I felt that the narrator added to the overall piece rather than detracted. Especially during the end.

‘It’s gory for no reason~’ 

No it’s not. Sit down. 

Although, I will say that there were a good amount of teenagers who wanted to watch the movie because they see Tom Holland and Sebastian Stan and their brains switch into ‘Oh, accessible MCU superhero’ mode. Don’t... do that. That’s the type of stuff that makes it hard for actors to break away from being typecasted for the rest of their careers (hell, how many people are still clowning on Robert Pattinson for playing Edward despite him doing nothing but showing his range over the years?)

The film has really good cinematography as well. It’s not in the same vein as artistic films that I like but it goes miles in regards of conveying the sweltering, humid, grungy atmosphere of rural living. 

The performances and writing do a great job of making you determined to see the whole thing through, even when the gore effects make themselves known. 

And, as I said in the beginning, the people who do end up meeting their end via a bullet in this film? You feel elated at them doing so. 

Would I recommend this movie? Yes, but with some hesitations. Obviously not to people who are sensitive to blood or violence. Maybe not to people who get up in arms about any unsavory depiction of religion in media. And probably not to people who would spend every ten minutes going ‘this some of that crazy, dumb white people shit’. 

But to those who can appreciate character-driven set-pieces that use dark themes to their benefit?

All in all, I’d give The Devil All The Time an 8.5/10.