#they live with the dad and Chloe only talks about the dad now in videos

[lovelettertop21]

Not christi starting a brand new competition on her own now

[ijustliketoreadstuff]

The rooms

I never talked about this, but I LOVE it when we get a chance to see what the characters rooms look like, it really gives you a lot of insight about them and their lives. I'll do the adults rooms/homes later.

Marinette's room is of course very creative, she loves learning how to make a lot of things herself and even learning how to repurpose broken down things to turn them into something new, like that lounge chair she said she made from salvaged parts. She tries to be tidy but every now and then if she really gets into doing something, her room starts forming piles of clutter everywhere. At first glance, everything seems to be in its proper place but there are little things she keeps away from prying eyes so as to not draw attention to parts of her life she want to keep to herself, like her secret as a hero, her diary is kept in a special case only she can open and has a sewing box with a secret compartment that holds the miracle box.

Adrien's room is a full on entertainment center filled to the brim with video games and arcade games, along with a built in basketball hoop, a rock climbing wall, a place to skateboard, a bathtub with built in water jets to swim in, a full library, a high tech computer and big speakers. Makes sense since he spent a lot of his life all alone in the mansion, so of course he had to keep himself busy and well entertained whenever he was by himself. Of course, Adrien being the goof ball he is, there are little hidden details that reveal things about the part of his personality he feels forced to hide since he feels a lot of people, especially his dad, would not approve of. He hides pictures of Ladybug in his trophies, old records that belonged to his mom, meaning he likely enjoys exploring and listening to old music thanks to his mom. And since we know anime is very popular in France as well, there's bound to be a lot of manga and animes in that library, boy didn't know flip about romance so of course he would have taken advice from the manga and anime he had.

Alya has a big family so of course she has to learn to make do with a smaller bedroom and not have too many things in her room that will take up too much space. Its clear as day that the girl is a total hero nerd, most of her books are about the heroes that existed long before Ladybug, like Majestia and the Owl. She loves fictional heroes too, like Doctor Who, she even has a tardis cover to put on her door. She's also passionate about researching and uncovering things, even having a map from her research on keeping track of akuma attacks, probably from back in her days of trying to uncover Ladybug's identity. That Ladybug and Cat Noir figurines holding hands ain't fooling no one, she loves seeing the two heroes being cute.

Chloe's room fits her expensive taste, she loves gold so it's incorporated into practically all the rooms. Everything is high class and specially built to keep her comfortable, above all, she has to have plenty of places to sit so she can take her selfies and not get bored being in one place. She also has lots of closets to keep her expensive shoes, clothing and jewelry. There are also a few big mirrors placed all about, including a big wall mirror for her to see her reflection, she does, after all, love the way she looks and would want to be able to marvel at herself anywhere in her room. Roses are also heavily incorporated in the rooms design, it could mean any number of things like her admiration for her mother who typically has a rose on her head, or maybe its representative of Chloe, "Every rose has its thorns", and though she perceives herself as a perfect rose, she is by all means very riddled with flaws, flaws that can even hurt others.

Zoe's room is relatively empty, which is expected given her situation. Zoe was bound to have more things with her when she moved to Paris, hence all the luggage that is still not sorted through, but seeing as she spent years pretending to be someone her family and former friends would approve of, a lot of the things Zoe previously owned, she likely didn't actually like, she only had to keep up appearances and brought to Paris in case she needed to keep up the act with her mom and Chloe. But now that she knows she doesn't have to keep up a fake personality to please others, Zoe would have been left with the opportunity to better understand herself and learn to figure out what she wants in life, what she actually likes and doesn't. So far the only things in the room are a set of cameras, meaning she has an interest in photography, a picture of kitty section cause she likes their music, a poster of New York to show that although she left, she still gets a little homesick of the city she used to live in and where her only true friend still resides.

Luka and Juleka's room is not necessarily a room, its just a sleeping quarters and a hangout spot for them and the friends they have over. Since they get along well and respect each other's privacy when they need it, they don't mind sharing a space, and since their mother gives them all the freedom that they need, they don't really feel like they need to completely shut themselves off in separate rooms. Of course their both passionate about the musical arts, and with so many instruments to use around the boat, they are not limited to what they want to learn to play and do. Their mom likes the boat messy, so most of their stuff is scattered about. However, the small space where their beds are, is tidy with little to no buildup in possessions. As much as they like their home, I'd take it that even they would at times need to get away from the clutter around the boat so they can focus on something specific without too many distractions. The one thing they both have is flower pattern curtains, which makes me wonder if the whole family has an interest in gardening, there are a lot of plants and flowers around the boat after all.

Juleka of course likes a darker décor on her side and anything that has a creepy yet cute appeal to her. The small jars of paint are for painting whatever she likes, like the little figures on the table or maybe even her nails? She dyed Zoe's hair so she must have whatever equipment she needs on her side to act as a hair stylist for her friends. She has a gift for song writing, but seeing as not even Luka knew until "Migration", she likely kept any trace of her song writing skills in her laptop, the best place to keep them as she is too shy to tell anyone of her writing skills.

Luka only has his guitar amp, his collection of guitar pics and a poster of jagged to show he has always admired his dad and his music. He likes to meditate so of course he prefers his side to be more open and brighter, especially when he has to offer free therapy sessions for the people in low spirits who know him for being the most emotionally wise. He likes to be alone with his thoughts whenever he feels frustrated, but at his home, that's not normally something he can have since there is a lot of activity going on, and prefers going to quiet places with nice sounds, like the spot under the bridge he showed Marinette in "Truth".

[dilemmaontwolegs]

If you need ideas for the Temptation snapshots, I've got one. It's Scotty's wedding, Daniel's Kitten is a bridesmaid. She looks stunning in a curves complimenting dress. Daniel can't take his eyes off of her but she doesn't have time for him. She's running around, helping everybody with everything till Daniel decides he can't wait anymore and drags her to the bedroom for a quickie only after that they realise that they've fucked in the newlyweds bed

Temptation Snapshot || DR3 {6}

Warnings: 18+ only, nsfw, smut WC: 1.4K F1 Masterlist Story: One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven Snapshots: One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six

The Bachelor’s Party/Hen Night Vegas baby! That was the caption to the clip of Daniel arriving in Las Vegas for Scotty’s bachelor party - the two Australians 100 percent ready to unleash hell on Sin City with their close-knit group of friends. At just over 2000 kilometres away, you were boarding a private boat with Chloe in Vancouver as her hen night began far more sedately. While the next 24 hours with the bridal party was all about pampering and enjoying the beautiful views out on the water, the groomsmen were making promises to each other that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Come morning light everyone would start making their way to Venice where the big event was going down - for better or for worse. You had a feeling the boys would certainly be feeling worse.

You were utterly relaxed after a massage and a soak in the hot tub on the top deck with the girls, the stars glittering in the night sky. Chloe’s friends were an endless stream of gossip and it was hard to keep up with their exciting lives until your phone started to vibrate on your sunbed. 

“Excuse me,” you apologised as you stepped out of the warm water and saw a facetime call coming in from Danny. “Hey, I thought you would be too busy to call?”

“You should come here, kitten,” he slurred as the camera moved erratically and you heard Scotty’s laugh in the background. “Look,” he tried to pan the video around and you guessed he was somewhere on the strip from all the bright lights. “White Chapel! We could get married right now.”

You tilted your head so you could properly see what he was showing you. “You want me to come to Las Vegas and get married at a White Chapel?” you laughed with a shake of your head. “You know my dad would never forgive you if he didn’t get to give me away.”

“I just want you all to myself, as Mrs Ricciardo,” he whined as the camera turned back to his face and a chorus of whipping sounds erupted from the guys around him. “Fuck off! You’re whipped too.”

“So you admit you’re whipped,” Scotty shouted happily and the call was dropped as they started a little scuffle, more like brothers than friends.

“You have that man wrapped around your finger,” Chloe teased when you slipped back into the steaming water.

“Look who's talking,” you said with a wink and grabbed your drink, raising it up to clink it with hers. “You mastered the art first.”

“I suppose I did,” she giggled before toasting with the circle. “To our boys, and their peak golden retriever energy.”

The Wedding Day “Behave,” you warned Daniel when he tried to corner you in the hotel’s corridor. “I’m a woman on a mission so keep your hands to yourself.”

“You know I can’t help it when my kitten gets all bossy,” he chuckled as he pinned you to the wall with his body. “No one will notice if we slip away for a few minutes.”

“Chloe would, since I’m meant to be getting her shoes.”

Reaching into his breast pocket he pulled out a tiny book similar to what you would get when you bought a raffle. Licking the pad of his thumb he started to flick through the pages before humming and ripping a tab out. “Here,” he said as he tucked it into your cleavage. “That is contractually binding too, I might add.”

You fished the paper out and opened it to see it was a comical voucher for a quickie in the nearest room. “I’m sure my lawyer would agree with you,” you joked as you straightened his lapels. “Where did you even get this?”

“I may or may not have stolen it from Scotty’s presents, but I thought it would have been a waste to go to them. I know him and it would end up in the bin before they even went on their honeymoon. So?” His eyes darted to the door beside you and he wiggled his eyebrows. “You look ridiculously sexy in that dress, kitten, and it is doing all sorts of crazy things to me.”

“Well I would hate to get in trouble with the law, since this is contractually binding…”

His smile grew and he tested the door only to growl when it didn’t open, but the next one was left unlocked. “Better make it quick, baby, I have no idea who this room belongs to.”

The spike of adrenaline made you rush to lift your dress and Daniel’s belt snapped open as he shoved his trouser halfway down his tattooed thighs before pulling you onto his lap at the edge of the bed. Your bodies joined with a harmonious moan and you relished the full feeling when you hadn’t been prepared for him, something that rarely happened.

“Fuck, you feel so good, kitten,” he moaned, his hand reaching for your hair before you grabbed it.

“This took two hours, don’t mess it up.”

“Okay, okay,” he obeyed, settling his hands on your hips and using his strength to guide you up and down his cock. You didn’t have the same issue with his hair, the short curls still left untamed, so you dragged your fingers through them as you bounced on his lap.

“You look tired,” you commented before you lost all ability to think, noticing the dark bags under his brown eyes. “Did you conquer Vegas or did Vegas conquer you?”

A smirk played on his lips and he shook his head. “Sorry, kitten, the boys all made a promise. Scouts honour.”

Your head tilted to the side as you stopped riding him. “Is that how it is now?”

“Don’t stop, baby,” he begged as you started to climb off his lap. “Wait, wait, okay.”

“What happened in Vegas, Daniel?” you asked, neither pulling away nor lowering yourself back down him.

“Nothing like you’re thinking,” he muttered.

“Daniel…”

“I may have gotten a little bit shitfaced,” he admitted and you lifted an eyebrow that made him crumble. His head dropped into your cleavage as he confessed, “I was totally off my tit drunk and so was Scotty, and we may have crashed out on the same bed.”

You slipped back down his cock until you were saddled on his lap again. “That’s not bad, why were you trying to hide it?”

“Those assholes took photos of us cuddling and crying together because we missed out girls now can you please move before I start crying again.”

It was a quick jumble of words barely more than a whisper but you caught them, just, and they caught you off guard. In a split second your head was thrown back with a laugh and you cradled him to your chest.

“Fuck me, keep laughing, kitten,” Daniel moaned. “So fucking tight when you do that.”

It drove Daniel wild and he started bucking his hips as you rode him, hitting deeper with each change in the angle until your eyes screwed shut and your heart hammered. You wanted to kiss him like your life depended on it but the makeup hadn’t been set long enough and you weren’t willing to risk smearing the masterpiece.

“I’m gonna cum, daddy,” you whimpered as heat flushed your skin and you pushed through the ache in your legs from the position. Your orgasm ripped through you like a bolt of lightning.

“Fuck, oh fuck, fuuuuck,” Daniel groaned as your cunt gripped his dick like a vice and he filled you with the thick ropes of his cum. “Shit, kitten, you’re gonna kill me with that pretty pussy of yours,” he commented as you climbed off and rearranged your dress into place.

“I think you just need more self-control,” you teased as you looked around the room and froze. There on the table was the white Jimmy Choo box you had been sent to find, next to a plate of delicate handmade chocolates and a neatly written card dedicated to the newlyweds. “Oh shit.”

Daniel looked up from his belt he had rebuckled and saw you grab the shoes from the box, his eyes taking in everything as he came to the same conclusion. “Oh shit,” he laughed, biting his knuckle as the sound grew. He looked back at the bed and quickly swiped a hand across the blankets to smooth out the indents of his ass. “That bed is getting some action today.”

Taglist {1}: @moonvr @copper-boom @yunnie-f1 @ophcelia @lightsoutletsgo @alwaysclassyeagle @neiich @omgsuperstarg @starwarssavy23 @fdl305 @faeb1tch42069 @sweetestrose569 @pleasantducktimetravel @dr3lover @writerscurse @christianpulisic10 @alexisquinnlee-bc @purplephantomwolf @belennasif @ryiamarie @mickslover @tyna-19 @destourtereaux @sunf1ower16 @octaviareina @laneyspaulding19 @booknerd2004-blog @mimimarvelingmarvel @chonkybonky @jpg3 @bangtanxberm @ohthemisssery @eviethetheatrefreak @kimi240302 @andydrysdalerogers @formula1mount @storyteller-le @dakotali @daddyslittlevillain @elijahslover

[homo-rashi]

Roommates (Original Work) Ch 1.

The Start of Something (contains Omorashi)

Read it on my Ao3 here: Link

Augustine truly did not think this through. When the idea came to him a few nights after his parents sat him down and broke the news, He thought he was an geneious! It would solve everything. Having to see his mom and dad go though the whole process of selling the house and moving out. Not to mention, alternating weekends with his mom…Right now and for the foreseeable future, he would do anything to avoid that. August could only imagine it being unpleasant at the least and mildly suicide inducing at the worst, if he is feeling dramatic.

Which he was, feeling dramatic that is. Something about the cold, silent air of August’s bedroom at three in the morning, The feeling of time being liminal, like nothing else exists outside of the four poster-ridden walls, always makes his brain think he can do anything, like suddenly out of nowhere deciding to become a five-star Chef by binge watching every single episode of bon-appetit test kitchen. Or randomly gaining the motivation to transform his physic two weeks before break ends by following a single Chloe Ting workout video, but skipping all of the jumping because well, it's three in the morning and his parents are asleep downstairs. 

This time however, his three in the morning delusion led him to his current reality. He will admit, going to his mom with the cheesy powerpoint presentation he made about why boarding school would be the best thing for him after he refused to talk to her for a week, was probably teetering on the edge of being manipulative. But at the time, he found little shame in his well-devised plan.You can pretty much justify any morally-unjust action when your Mom recently admitted to her sixteen year-old son and her husband of 25 years that she had been unfaithful in their marriage with her boss of all people. 

It all went a lot faster than he had envisioned. They broke the news during summer, that way the move wouldn't have interfered with August’s school work and thanks to his somewhat good grades and rather impeccable attendance record (Just because his dad didn't know about the cheating didn't mean being at home was all that great…His mom didn't cheat for no reason, and school was always a great way to escape hell for a few hours) He was able to apply for a scholarship and get accepted to attend the one boarding school he found online that was still accepting new students this last into summer. St.Milton’s Academy for Boys.

Getting to St.Miltons was already too much for August.. The stress of getting on a plane without his Mom or Dad made him restless. Having never left the west coast before, Jumping on a plane with nothing but himself and his duffle bag from summer camp, trading coasts to live in Maine sounded fake. But here he was, duffle bag in tow, his childhood stuffed shark plush hanging out of the mesh outer pocket for everyone to see, boarding a charter bus to take him to his new life. Actually, being just stressed in an understatement, August is terrified. 

“Augustine Harrington?” The scary women with the crooked nose called his name seconds after him and twelve other boys, who were definitely younger than him, offloaded their things from the bus and lined up outside the large, intimidating brick building adorned with gold cross embellishments knockers on both of the large black front doors. 

“Yes?” August sheepishly puts up his hand, of course all eyes gravitate to him, 

“A simple ‘present’ would suffice.” The woman says with a slight twinge of annoyance in her voice that immediately steals August's ability to speak. He simply nods in response. The woman finishes taking the roll.  Everyone else gives her a firm ‘present’ in response to their names being called following August’s blunder. He has never wished someone named Aaron Anderson would have been by his side more then in this moment… 

“My name is Priscilla Constentine, But to all of you, I'm Mrs.Constentine or simply enough, Headmaster Constance.I make the rules here at St.Milton and enforce them, so see to it you follow them…” The headmaster looks down the row of students, Her beady black eyes stopping on August. “The lot of you, besides you, are all freshmen. The head of your floor and the person who you will come to with any questions you may have about your living situation is waiting for you just past those doors on the first floor, you are dismissed.”

Augusts watches as every single one of the other boys bealines for the two large black wooden doors, disappearing behind them without even looking back. The Headmasters eyes still laying rest on him. 

“Follow me. Since you're our only new sophomore, I'll just show you to your room myself, no use bothering your RA for one student.” August once again just nods and follows the women through the same black doors, but instead of going straight, She abruptly takes a left, leading to a large wooden staircase. “The sophomore dorms are on the fourth floor, don't ask me why, I make the rules not the floorplans, and yes, before you ask, there is no elevator, this building was constructed before such frivolous things were put to use.” 

The trek to the fourth floor is less than pleasant. Still carrying his duffle bag on one shoulder, combined with the lingering heat of summer and the humidity everyone back in California warmed him about, makes for his entire person to be coated in a thin layer of sweat by the time they reach a door marked 301. 

“What the fuck! Come on-no your left!---Your other fuckin left you cock-suckin piece of-” The headmaster opens the door with out announcing her presence, the loud screaming from beyond it stops abruptly. “I gotta go.” August follows in her footsteps, taking his first glance into the room, seeing a boy with start black hair taking off a gaming headset that's glowing red. 

“Mr.Wright. I do hope you atleast completed some of your summer reading and chores before you started playing…whatever that is?” She motions to the computer monitor tucked away on a dark oak corner desk. 

“Counterstrike.” The boy replied casually, rolling his desk chair away from his desk and towards one of the two lofted beds taking up most of the room. “This him?” He motions to August, before bending down and opening something under his bed, and pulling out a large green and black energy drink. 

“Augustine, meet Maxwell, Your roommate and the constant pain in my side. Be nice, and get along. He is in most of your classes besides swimming, so i'm sure you will be more than happy to help him out when classes start?” Maxwell offers a tilt of his drink to the Headmaster, who just shakes her head at the gesture before making her exist, leaving August awkwardly standing in the middle of the room. 

“You can call me-Aumax” The two boys words intersect into one jumble of words,

“August,” 

“Max,” They both say, this time being able to understand each other. “Okay look, This is my side, obviously. There should be uniforms and shit in your wardrobe, I had to clean my shit out with very little notice thanks to you so If it's a little sticky, it's just from spilled booze, confiscated now, of course. Didn't get the chance to clean it, not like I would have anyways… but yeah, If i'm not back before lights out, cover for me yeah?” August can barely move out of the way before Max is walking past him, quickly grabbing a gray and blue suit jacket off of the back of the door and throwing it over his shoulder. 

“Hold on! What time is light’s out?” August asks quickly, his voice feeling tense in his throat, 

“Whenever our lame ass RA decides he is done studying!” Max shouts, halfway down the hallway. The door slowly creaks shut, closing out any of the cold air that the breeze from the hallways opened windows was letting in. 

August lets out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. The air that left his lungs was probably what was left inside of him of california. The reality of where he is and what he is doing seems to settle into the quiet loneliness of the dorm room. 

“Maxwell Wright…Sounds like a rich-kid name but…” August says to himself, looking around the furnished side of the dorm. The computer is clearly the main focus of his roommate's side. The desk has multiple empty cans of energy drink placed randomly, not a care in the world for the faded circles the cars have clearly left all over the dark stained wood desktop. Nothing about him screams 'vaguely religious private school kid’ besides his name. 

Random posters line the walls above Max’s bed. The largest one being a spiderman:homecoming poster, with Tom Holland front and center. August takes a second to appreciate his roommate's taste in movies…or more his taste in men. At Least that's why August has seen any of the Spiderman movies from 2016-present. 

August looks closely between both of their beds, noticing they share the same bedding. Clearly, it's been provided by the school. This brings his attention to his side of the room, and he decides its best to take advantage of having his room to himself for the afternoon. He wastes no time throwing his duffle down and stripping the bed. 

At first he thought he could get away with it. The color difference between his special white sheet and the default white that bed was made with aren't that different, but the texture is far too obvious. If he wasn't to make his bed completely one morning, someone would be able to tell the sheet he was sleeping on is more coated, rubbery and thicker. 

He begrudgingly puts the thin cotton sheet on top of his waterproof sheet, being only slightly annoyed that that means when the invendible happens, he will have more laundry to do then he would have liked. But he quickly accepts that hiding his nighttime problem is more important than reducing his trips to the laundry room.

He finished unpacking, giving his very sticky wardrobe a wipe down before placing his runners and shower shoes in the bottom of it. The only decoration he technically brought is his stuffed ikea shark. He decides it's not as embarrassing as a teddy bear and throws it up by his pillows, making a mental note to look for a magazine or two at the store (do they even get to go off campus to the store?) to get some posters to hang up. Feeling content with his side of the room for now, and feeling like his skin is going to ment off from the lack of air-conditioning, he decides he should have a look around and find out where a few other important rooms are. 

His floor seems to be all bedrooms. He looks around every corner of the large square building but finds nothing but wooden doors with gold number plates, the occasionally one having a funny/mildy crude doormat placed in front of it. There is a small common area at the top of the stairs with a microwave oven and fridge, but other than that, nothing.

He ventures down the next three floors and finds the same thing. The only difference he spots between the two is that floor three has different flooring then the rest, possibly due to a renovation that was done at some time, not what he was looking to find. 

When he gets to the first floor he spots his first sign of life. A guy with blonde hair similar to his is sprawled out across one of the large green sectionals in the common room. Immediately when stepping into said room he sees the sign for laundry. Not ideal, but better than it being in a whole different building. He would have to be sneaky, so as to not get caught running through four flights of stairs with soiled bedding, but it wasn't the end of the world.

“Hey! I thought everyone arrived earlier? Did you need help finding your room?” August is started by the high pitched voice seemingly addressing him. He turns around and sure enough, the lounging boy is now sitting up with a bright smile on his face. 

“Oh- No! I got here earlier, I'm on the fourth floor…” He awkwardly motions upwards, as if it's not obvious that's where the fourth floor would be. 

“My bad! I thought you were one of my freshmen, but still, Can I help you with anything or are you just exploring?” The boy laughs gently, standing up from the sofa and walking over with his hand outreached, “I’m Rowan.” August reaches out and introduces himself, the one question he has lingering in his throat. 

“Floor four you said? Were in the same year then! Sophomores are always freshman R.A’s, Juniors are Sophomore R.A’s, Seniors…well they are their own R.A’s but between you and me, they don't really do much besides routine candle checks.” 

“Candle checks?” August asks, not the questions he wanted to ask, but it's what slipped out in his curiosity. 

“Banned item. You know like Hair straighteners,” Check, August thinks to the red and blue mini flat-iron he uses for his bangs every morning sitting on his desk in his dorm currently., “Candle and incense,” He brought the lavender incense his aunt gave him as a parting gift to ‘help him sleep in the dorms’ when she found out he was coming here…”and like hotplates and other cooking things that heat up, Basically if it can make a fire, you aren't allowed to have it.” 

“Oh okay, yeah don't have anything like that.” August smiles awkwardly, Rowan doesn't skip a beat in keeping the conversation going. 

“Hey, if you do it's none of my business, remember, Freshman RA, not my floor…not my problem.” Rowan winks, August immediately feels less awkward and afraid, He seems normal unlike his seemingly rouge roommate. 

“Um speaking of floors, Where is the bathroom on our floor because I couldn't find it.” August finally asks, the words no longer stuck in this throat. 

“Oh! yeah…Apparently like ten years ago there was a bad flood on floor three that caused like thousands of dollars worth of damage to the building's old ass structure, so the only restroom is on this floor, down the hallway opposite the stairwell.” August looks back to make sure he heard that right and sure enough, he sees a small arrow pointing that direction with a small stick figure of a man on it. 

“One bathroom for…how many of us?” August asks, in disbelief. 

“It's really big! Don't worry! You only run into issues in the mornings for the first like two weeks and then everyone falls into a routine. You barely even notice you sharing a shower with seventy-five guys after a while.” 

“Seventy-five guys…okay I'm gonna go check it out.” August say turning around rather abruptly, 

“I'll come with you, don't want you getting lost!” August freezes in place. Red flags going off in his head. 

“No that's okay, I was just gonna take a shower, You dont wanna have to wait for me.” August lies, again. He figured he would be doing a lot of that considering his issues, but two times within the first hour is crazy.

“Dude… You’re sharing with seventy-five teenage boys. Trust me, you don’t want to do that without shower shoes and the school doesn't provide toiletries so you have to bring your own shampoo and shit.” August sighs, he knows that, hence why he has all of that and a shower catty he bought at Target shoved in his wardrobe. He would have brought them if he was actually planning to shower… But he isn't. He was planning on finding the laundry room and then having a quick piss, a quick piss he can only take if he is alone.

“Yeah, okay I'll be back then.” August says as friendly as possible, trying to distract from his obvious annoyance. He turns the other way, up the stairs deciding he will just wait. He isn't desperate, no. He knows better than to let himself get desperate in an unfamiliar setting, but he still just got off a long bus ride from the airport and indulged in a few in-air ginger ales to calm his nervous stomach. 

“Dinner is at six, Just follow everyone and you should be good!” The callout is faint from the bottom of the stairs, but echoes up the tall empty space. August doesnt say anything back, but instantly devises a plan. When he sees everyone leaving the dorms for dinner, He will get to pee in peace, without fear of locking up because everyone will be busy eating in presumably, a whole different building. 

The problem with that plan is, it's currently three. That means roughly three hours, give or take however long it takes for everyone to get out of here and go to lunch. August isn't desperate right now, but in three hours…The problem is that he doesn't have a problem. It's not like he is sick or has some sort of condition, well not one that would normally cause issues of his kind. It's just anxiety. From his pee-shyness to the bedwetting. It's all brought on by stress and anxiety. No matter what meds doctors have given him throughout the years, starting when he was 10 and was still consistently wetting the bed, none of them really worked. 

Sure, they took away the surface level feeling of anxiousness that he lived with constantly. That was nice, but he was still worrying, constantly, deep down. The bed wetting and various other bathroom issues never got better, if anything, the meds not fixing him like the doctors swore they would, only made him stress out more, in turn making everything worse. So he was stuck like this. 

It’s manageable. He has found ways around the bed wetting. At home he would often wake up just as it would start and could manage to get to the bathroom with only having to change his boxers. He wouldn't even consider that an accident at this point in his life. 

His pee-shyness is a little more tricky, but he has found solutions…ones that aren't so practical when you have a roommate. If his dad was cleaning outside the bathroom at his house and he needed to go he would simply go to his room a whole floor away and find the nearest empty fast-food cup or coffee mug he had ‘conveniently forgotten’ to take out of his room and make use of that. Nobody would ever think he was peeing in his bedroom so he could always, without a doubt, pee in there. It's only in bathrooms he has trouble actually going.

He instinctively looks around his dorm once he closes the door. The steps having jostled his bladder far more than he would have liked, making him realize he would like to not feel like this for longer then he has to. There aren't any cups he would pee in, mostly because they aren't his, He isn't really picky. There are plenty of energy drinks cans he figures if worst comes to worst he could use, it's not easy but he has done it before.

Knowing his roommate, Max, isn't going to be back until what he insinuated was going to be well into the night, August decides he will try to wait it out. If he starts to feel desperate at all, then he will use the can and throw it out on his way to dinner, disposing of any and all evidence. The perfect plan.

* * *

The perfect plan that depended on one thing. His damn roommate. The roommate who made such a big deal about not being back till ‘lights out’ who just so happened to walk through the door the second August decided he was past the point of desperateness. 

He admittedly waited too long. The want to wait till six was in the back of his mind, along with the anxieties about someone coming into his room, Mac, or an RA for a ‘candle check’ or whatever it was Rowan mentioned. Both sort of froze him with anxiety, instead of working through it, August chose to sit on his bed and scroll on tiktok for the last two hours, becoming increasingly aware of his legs becoming crossed, and then his hand slowly slipping between his legs. The moment he felt the first bit of wet tricking into his boxers, he jumped up and grabbed the energy drink can. 

“Hey- Did you get into my stash!?” Max, because of course he would, barged through the door, immediately making eye contact with August who had the empty can in his grasps, getting ready to figure out the best place in the room to pee in it would be.

“What? N-no! I was just cleaning up!” August quickly looked around the room, spotting a small metal trash bin under Max’s desk. He bends down and chucks the empty can inside it, trying not to squirm around as he does so. 

“Okay…In case you didn't get the memo, My side” He points to where August is currently standing, “ And your side. We don't ‘clean’ each other's sides, got it?” His tone was less than savory. August just nods in response, quickly going to his side of the room and sitting down in his desk chair at his empty desk. He watched Max bend down and plug his cell phone into a charge by the side of his bed, before plopping down at his own desk. 

“I-I thought you were gonna be out all night?” August asks, seeing Max grab to slide his headphone on and power up his gaming computer. 

“Phone died, would be bored as shit without it, plus, it's almost dinner and I slept through breakfast. Now if you don't mind.” Max slipped head headphones on, tuning his back from August, who immediately shoved both his hands between his legs. 

‘Okay this is bad, very bad! Can you make it down the stairs?’ August thought, Even if lunch wasn't for another forty-five minutes, He could just go outside. Find a nice secluded tree and water it. He decided to stand up- ‘no! Nope! Bad, Bad, Bad!’ immediately his brain and body decided that was the wrong idea because not a little, but a lot of warmth coats the palm of his hand upon standing. 

Panicked, He jumps forward less than gracefully, practically throwing himself onto the lofted bed and under the covers. 

“What the fuck was that?” August rolls over to look at Max who now has one headphone off and is staring at him with an annotated look. “Your fuckin weird, Are you taking a nap? You know you have to go get dinner when they say right? You can't just go to the cafeteria whenever you want.”

“jetlag…I'm not hungry, just gonna have extra breakfast tomorrow.” August feels very, very proud of that lie. His best one of the day. He is just glad he got under the covers before Max was turned around because his hands are the only thing keeping him from squirming around like an idiot. 

“Where are you even from anyways?” Max asks, August does not want to talk right now, He wants to pee, He needs to pee. 

“San Diego, it's a town in Califor-” 

“I know where San Diego fuckin is-Wait, doesnt that make it like what, 2:00pm there? Shouldn't you be the opposite of Jetlagged?” August curses under his breath, That is true, He searches for an answer and finds it staring right at him, behind Max, 

“I stayed up late gaming the last few weeks with my friends, my sleep schedule is all messed up.” August does not in fact play any videos games, if anything they make him anxious and a little nauseous. 

“Oh, well, Fix it because I'm not gonna wait for you if you sleep in next week when classes start.” Max turns his attention back to his game, slipping his headphones back on. 

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is bad. He isn't gonna leave until dinner? What should I do? I can't hold it that long and I can't walk all the way downstairs to the bathroom like this!’ August panicked, Internally freaking out while laying completely still under his covers in his bed…

‘Piss in the bed.’ His brain leapt at the idea, causing his body to force a long spurt out of him, this time no doubt showing on his clothes. Now he really can’t get up…But he couldn't just wet the bed while awake…He doesn't do that. Sure while he is asleep it happens, more than he would like to admit but doing it on purpose, that is a whole nother level of terrible. 

He rolls over so his back is facing away from Max after making sure he looked like he was really into whatever game he was playing. 

‘If I pee I have to do it slowly and make sure it doesn't get on the comforter, only the sheets.” August reasons with himself, because realistically, it's his only option. He spends another few minutes deciding if he should actually take himself out of his jeans and piss directly into the sheets, but decides he already has to wash his pants so he might as well use them to soak up some of the accident. 

With nothing but the sound of his roommates tapping away at his keyboard, August slowly removes his hands from between his legs. At first, when nothing happens he thinks either he misjudges how desperate he actually is or his pee-shyness that only exists inside the restroom extends to peeing while in a bed with someone in the room, something he has obviously never tried to do before. Both theories are thrown out the window when a thin stream starts to leave his slit. 

August bites down on his lip, trying to get control over the speed of his release. He can feel his pee soaking into his pants and then his leg and then the thin cotton sheet. Usually when he wets the bed like this, he is asleep and only wakes up to the smell of ammonia and the uncomfortable cold wet feeling that comes after, he has never felt himself actually fully wet the bed.

It's painful. It's actually painful to release his abused bladder as slowly as he is, but the waterproof sheet does not absorb much, that's kinda the whole point. So he has to wait for his accident to spread out and be absorbed by the sheets to avoid it pooling and getting on the comforter or worse, spilling off the side of the bed. 

After a few minor lapses in control causing him to release far more than he meant to, he finally started to feel relief. It feels amazing. It shouldn't because of the circumstance, but he really left it far too long this time. He is usually better about this, or well, back home it was easier to go if he let it get this bad…here he is realizing that it's not considering he is actively purposefully using his bed as a makeshift toilet, something he doesn't ever want to do again.

He finally feels his stream beginning to taper off. When he is finally done, he feels the familiar feeling of cold, itchiness up his legs. He can almost pinpoint the exact moment he usually wakes up from the discomfort. It's slightly disheartening how soon after his accidents he must be waking up. He always thought it must have been hours ago he had wet the bed and only noticed when his body started to wake up. Its annoying to know he was waking up less than a minute after pissing himself, meaning it could be avoidable if his dumb brain would just wake him up. 

“You awake?” August stifles a jump at the quiet of the room suddenly becoming not so quiet. He doesn't respond, immediately slamming his eyes shut. He hears a few sounds followed by a faint dial tone. “G, I’m on my way— No, it still needs to be charged. I’ll have to get it after dinner.---- No! fuckin lame ass you dont have to save me a seat, what are you a fuckin fag? wanna hold my hand too?---- yeah, no.----Shut the fuck up, i'll be down in a sec.” A few seconds later and August hears the door slam shut. 

‘Shit. He is homophobic??? He has the spiderman poster because he genuinely likes Marvel movies not because Tom Holland has a great ass… He didn't think he would have to deal with Homophobia as much here, considering it's an all boys school…He mentally notes that his sexuality is now on the long list of things he has to lie to people about at this school. 

His bout of self pitying is pushed aside when he realises just how gross he feels and he starts to actually smell the fact that he is covered in his own pee. His mind switches its train of thought instantly, when he looks over and see’s Max’s phone sitting on his desk on the charger but he remains Frozen in place wondering just how the hell he is gonna do all of this laundry and remake his bed before Max gets back from dinner…

[mirchloe]

i haven't had access to wifi or data for most of the past week. so here's some camper headcanons i had written down in my phone.

-to be a better writer/storyteller, you do have to read. this advice is not for vernon when he's a kid. he always thinks he can do better, and he feels offended if any criticism is given, no matter how gentle. i think it is telling that no one gives a testimonial on his campster, as not even *crystal* comments, who is arguably the nicest kid in camp. vernon does hold himself in a pretty good regard, but i think his attitude toward reading as studying for better storytelling does change when he's a little older, and his craft does improve.

-i've already mentioned i believe the kids who appeared in the recap video show up for the next summer session, but they attend because the fees were waived. it's stated that the camps are a primary source of income for hq, so these parents must have been paying incredible amounts of money to ensure their child (especially if they have more difficult powers/less ability to control them) receives the best care possible. (of course, for some, this isn't the case, as while there may be mandatory classes, there is a lax environment for older/more experienced kids coming and going as they please, such as the kids who don't attend basic braining, or in general, kitty and franke, who end up skipping both classes seen during raz's tenure.)

-i imagine, for some of them, their parents raised quite a stink. i like to believe chloe's parents are a little older, had trouble conceiving, and are protective of her, their only child. so, chloe's mom, as soon as she learns what happened and had her cry about chloe's experience and hugged her tight (chloe is just 'um. thank you for caring. i'm glad my cygnan parents sent me to live with you.'), she's on the phone. she doesn't care if the second head is on her vacation. get her somebody in charge of the camps! now! no, not oleander! someone else! (chloe's mom, to me, is usually never this upset, but her daughter had brain stolen, and that's warranting her stress and frustration) she ends up talking directly to truman, still recovering from his own experiences. they do have a civil conversation, and while keeping the notion of their financial woes in mind, offers to waive the fees for the next session. chloe wants to attend again, and her parents relent, though her mother is, understandably, incredibly worried that this could happen again, no matter how many cat scans chloe shows her.

-this patterns happens with a few other parents, too. i imagine kitty's dad is casually threatening to sue and manages to get kitty free attendance for the remaining time she has left in camp. he has that extended for franke (up until kitty leaves, then the funds are back in play).

-eventually, truman ends up (along with other officials) giving waived fees for at least one summer session to any camper who wants to return in exchange for dropping any lawsuits. some parents, such as maloof's and chops', take some time to think it over. it's a small gouge to what their budget plans, but truman insists it's best to assuage the concerns of the parents and fend off further financial and mitigate possible legal problems, in addition to the well-being of the cadets, should they continue training.

-thinking about an older headcanon of mine, where mirtala does know some legal jargon. she listens to her mom navigate legal troubles that hit the circus. she might not understand it all, but she gets the basic gist of it. so, when she accidentally bumps into kitty and smears her very expensive shirt with some sloppy meal, and kitty screams that she'll sue mirtala's family in front of pretty much the entire camp, mirtala starts giggling! it's a mortifying experience for kitty as mirtala casually explains that the lawsuit has no merit. it would be thrown out as frivolous.

-this leads to a small uprising from the other campers. kitty had been using threats of lawsuits to keep many down. particularly, mikhail, bobby, and phoebe are *quite* intrigued by the knowledge that kitty can't actually do much other than flaunt her dad's wealth, so long as there isn't any actual damage done to her. kitty had never felt so humiliated. (bobby and kitty have a long-standing feud, phoebe and kitty do *not* like each other, and mikhail is very wary of kitty's tricks, as i headcanon him as being prone to confusion since his confusion voice lines make him sound really out of it.)

-phoebe is really excited to be an intern, and she adores hollis. hollis is one of her idols! she aspires to be her intern one day, but getting saddled with norma is...not fun. both of them are very analytical, and norma has already been through the hoops. she sees phoebe trying to psychoanalyze people, sometimes her pointers being unhelpful as they don't touch upon the greater scope of someone's problem. phoebe insists she's doing it to help people. norma has to counter if she's doing to help others, or if she's doing it to avoid analyzing herself. (it's both, but mostly the latter as phoebe likes the present herself as poised, professional, ready to take on the world - she doesn't need help when she's the helper.) (norma sees someone who could very well follow in her mistaken teenage footsteps, though her intentions are different.) it's tense between them during her first summer at the motherlobe, to say the least.

-bobby and chloe go to evo. they're popping off. they're commentating on the air dash cancels. bobby visibly pogs and cheers the loudest when chloe wins the finals in (insert game here) (as a side note, he still likes carrying her as they grow up. she's like a football.)

-lili and raz are in a little bit of a weird place as far as "girlfriend and boyfriend" go as kids. lili does like him, but i remember her comment she makes about him getting that fungus out of friendship (i think? been a bit), so her feelings for him are a bit settled around the end of pn2. raz's feelings are in more of a tizzy with everything that happened. lili is his girlfriend! ...right? he wants clarity in their relationship, but most importantly, he's happy she's his friend.

-they definitely have that tumultuous bump in their teen years. lili is being more social, making connections again (like with bobby! or hanging out with lizzie!) but still feels bogged down about the agency. does she want to be an agent? people still expect her to follow in truman's footsteps. raz is having this issue, too, but he's also missing his family and wondering what he really wants to do with the rest of his life. he has what he *wants.* but there's an uncertainty brewing within him. their communication problems are bad because they keep making assumptions, too. lili's mind tends to go to the worst solutions when she's really worried (i.e. they cut off his head a la pitror) while raz stews in dread. they're off-and-on again, and those off periods are steadily becoming longer. (i think they definitely stay together when they're older, though! they're just going through a lot as teens and have to discover what they really want, which is something that even extends into early adulthood.)

[bog-water-030]

Bogs Bullshit Save for Sim Noobs

So I've started a new save on the sims 2 and unfortunately I have like one friend who's well versed enough to really get wtf I'm talking about when I yap about it. Then it hit me it would probably be a good idea to explain from zero. THIS is zero. If you know anything about anything in the sims 2 please skip this post.

If i sent this to you, congrats, find a screenreader, you're gonna be here a while.

"Strangetown is a small desert town with few inhabitants. There are two main streets, known as the Road to Nowhere, placed parallel with each other, around which the majority of the town is built. There are also three smaller roads, two of which are dead ends. Strangetown's landscape is barren, with only scattered cacti as flora... Considering the desert setting and references to Area 51 aliens, Strangetown may be located in the state of Nevada." (Sims Wiki)

THE SPECTERS

The Specters live on this god awful graveyard built up of the lovers and neighbours of Olive Specter.

Olive (pictured far left) is painfully in love with the grim reaper and has one child, a son, who was swiftly whisked away by the government, for obvious reasons. She's also raising her sisters only child, Ophelia Nigmos (pictured to the right), and god bless this poor child's soul she is STRUGGLING. Olives late husbands are just as unfortunate as their names suggest. Earl E Demise, Hugh Thanasia, Rigger Mortis. Its. Its really bad. Ichabod Specter is the only one she stuck with long enough to get her name changed.

Ophelia, bless her heart, is living on the community graveyard and these god damn ghosts REFUSE to leave her alone. She has pissed herself several times and it's genuinely effecting her terribly. Ophelia has two secret boyfriends (they both know about each other. I did not choose to make them polyamorous). Johnny Smith (pictured in the thought bubble), a half alien. And Ripp Grunt, the son of a space racist. She's still a teen so she has very little lore beyond being an orphan at first.

THE SMITHS

The smiths are genetically the worst family. Pollination Technician (pictured far right) Smith (yes that is his full legal name) is kind of a slut. He has four kids. Jill (pictured far left) and Johnny (pictured to the right of jill), with his wife Jenny (pictured to the left of Pollination tech). And Chloe and Lola with what would now be considered his own fucking father in law. This asshole who I will now call Paulie, spent his days as a space man impregnating random men all over the globe. And decided, after it all, to settle down with the DAUGHTER OF HIS FIRST LOVE QUEST. hate. Hate him. He also has a lawn in the DESERT. hate Paulie.

Jenny, bless her heart, does not know of her half-sister-half-daughters, she just really likes the colour green. Their two kids are your standard suburban kids aside from the space racist military man next door. Johnny is so sweet and just finished high-school. He didn't go to college but that's okay. He did his best and he's moving out very soon. And Jill despite being a little shite who doesn't do homework, has my heart and I can't wait to see how she turns out. She's just started ballet and she loves video games. Sweet summer child.

The Grunts

The grunts are my least favourite. They suck balls. They refuse to do the dishes. The dad, Buzz, lost his ex-wife to god knows what I think she was electrocuted. His hate for the world is leeching into his poor poor kids and it infuriates me. Realistically Buzz and his eldest son Tank are the only awful ones. Tank is a clone of his father. All he wants to do is join the military. He refuses to shower and keeps bothering the Smith kids. Ripp is the second and he's a dork I love him. I unfortunately cannot stand his father so I haven't played his household much,

The Curious'

The Curious' are a mess. From oldest to youngest it's Pascal Vidcund and Lazlo. Immediately when you enter the lot pascal goes into labour and has one alien child named Octavius. Lazlo cannot get bitches. He's very handsome and a good chef but good heavens he's too forward. Vidcund pissed himself in front of his first love Circe as a teen, and so struggles with women nowadays. Vidcund is obsessed with his telescope. So obsessed that he uses it during the day for people watching. He has gotten beat up by various neighbours. Mostly Olive. He speaks to one woman consistently and its Bella Goth. Despite also being pussywhipped for the woman he cant stop insulting her. She's exactly his type. He's genuinely very interested but he has negative rizz and everything he says is wrong and bad. He's lucky he's hot because if he wasn't I'd kill him.

Pascal is the only Curious brother capable of speaking to women and he is painfully gay. I love him he's the most tolerable Curious

The Beakers

The Beakers are awful. Circe is this money hungry bitch who enjoys the suffering of children, she is pregnant, I worry. Loki is a general asshole incapable of doing anything for himself. He has a maid, a butler, a gardener. I expect he'll want a nanny for his kid. He has a gun capable of sucking the skills out of people and he uses it on his pet human Nervous Subject (Olive Specters kid). Nervous had an AWFUL upbringing. He's a shy, grouchy, slob who's only capable of working out. He constantly smells. He's constantly offending people. His only friend is Pascal Curious and Erin Beaker, and those two are incapable of having enemies. I say pascal is his friend but he's like 2 minutes away from marrying the man. The issue is he's basically nocturnal, he cant stay awake long enough to call Pascal let alone get ready for a real date.

The Singles

So the singles are this 4 person disaster household consisting of the aforementioned sister daughters Chloe and Lola Curious. Alongside Erin Beaker (Loki's sister), and Kristen Loste who has zero lore beyond being gay as shit and in denial. They're a bin family which basically means the sims team couldn't find a way to make them not fuck their siblings so they've been banished to the shadow zone.

Chloe is a mega bitch. She's actively mean to everyone and generally is only nice to get in everyone's pants. She takes after her whore father I guess.

Lola does nothing but work. She has no other hobbies or interests which is to her favour.

Erin is also gay, she's loved by many (except Chloe who ceaselessly harasses her).

Kristen is doing her best but she spends all her time working, eating and sleeping.

The Goths

Bella Goth is a cross neighbourhood sim so while her lore doesn't actually effect her in this save it matters to me. She's a wife and mother of two but has no memory of this thanks to the power of alien abduction. All she recalls is the name on her drivers license. She was originally from Pleasantview, married to Mortimer Goth and raising Cassandra and Alexander, but after her affair partner's affair partners decided they weren't into sharing she was abducted by aliens and dropped in the middle of strange town. Bella has only just paid to put a roof on her shack house. Since she has no memory of her children she's a okay slutting around with no remorse. Unfortunately, I allowed her sluttery without prescribing birth control. She's gotten with (as of winter) ajax, Lazlo, and 3 miscellaneous townies.

[afro-elf]

fine, i’ll elaborate on my thoughts about tylor sift but they will be disorganized

disclaimer: i know a few people will read this and be like “op is a hozier fan can she really talk about the cultural obsession with mediocre white art?” and the answer is yes because a) i’m black and i have an english degree so can do whatever i fucking want, b) hozier is a better artist than taylor objectively, like his mediocre tracks would be considered her great ones, and c) the comparison of taylor to hozier is part of the problem Genuinely because i don’t even think white people like half the music they listen to, they just don’t wanna be left behind, we’ll get into this later. i’m sorry to everyone who is tired of hearing about him but hozier will be returning later in this post jsfglsjlgldsjlfd

second note: read this

i don’t just dislike taylor because she’s white. i don’t dislike taylor because she’s a woman. i don’t dislike her because she writes mean and petty lyrics about past relationships and people who wronged her. i don’t dislike taylor because her public circle of friends is almost exclusively blonde white celebrities with their own laundry lists of issues that includes ryan reynolds and blake lively who are poster children for white privilege and pseudo-excellence if i’ve ever seen them. i dislike taylor because the amalgamation of all of those things is so exemplary of a huge problem i have with the music industry in general but also like american society

fuck it, numbered list!

1. taylor swift consistently releases the same mediocre album but in different colors. every album is the same lyrically and tonally. her body of work rarely goes very far above “good for taylor swift”. folklore as both title and musical aesthetic is irrelevant to the actual content of the album, which is just every taylor swift album except set to folk pop and with a bit more cussing, congrats for baby’s first swear. i’ve seen folklore compared to much better bodies of work and even propped up by stans as album of the year, a distinction that rina sawayama and chloe x halle will be battling it out for if there is any justice in the world at all. the fact that she is allowed to do this and still be considered great when this is something that even white male artists are butchered critically for... astounds me. like we all know how well received all of coldplay’s similar sounding albums are.... Come on. 

2. i don’t think taylor or her work is particularly feminist and yet for some reason every time she frowns an army of white women brings her kleenex. i’m not saying taylor’s anger has always been unjustified, but her feminism to me has always felt like “i can do whatever a man can do” feminism, which is utterly fucking useless to me as a black woman. it’s only useful to her because as a wealthy, white, straight, cis white woman her ONLY obstacle in life is her gender. and if she just didn’t have that tricky little bitch then maybe people would take her seriously. like, just think about her music video for the man... what was the thesis of that? what was the point of that? with all of her privileges she’d just be gaining a single extra privilege. she’s a blonde blue eyed thin white girl, the world kisses her feet. i have no interest in proving myself any better or any worse than white men, they are not the standard for how a person should be treated, they’re cautionary tales, and white women are too. i think taylor capitalizes off of white woman victimhood, and it’s all over her writing style. even when she’s trying to be empowered, like in mad woman for example, there is this tone to it of victimization, poking the bear, unleashing the beast if you will. she invokes the imagery of salem witches and even more boldly chooses a noose to write about in the song which is..... surely going to be a white tumblr staple for many gifsets to come but holy shit is it hollow. she also tends to come back to teenage memories in her music and she’s thirty. i don’t think about being seventeen unless i’m being held at gunpoint but she seems to think about it All The Time. and part of this is to keep herself young, at least in her music, which only further ingrains this image of fragile teeny bopper taylor into the mind of the listener, fueling her victim image. this imagery and language means nothing because the world always rallies around taylor. even when she was the butt of jokes for not being beyonce (which she is not and never can be) and writing about her exes (which she does), she was largely supported by the industry and by critics. look at how many fucking awards she has!

3. folk and indie and alternative music is in a moment of transition, where musicians of color are getting the chance to really speak about how they’ve been treated in these overwhelmingly white circles and create their own standards and their own voices. and for taylor swift to swoop in with aaron dessner and jack antonoff fantano and almost reassert that mid-2010s indie sound as The Sound of folk pop in the popular consciousness.... it makes me violent! it! makes! me! violent! 

4. back to hozier! finally, i wanna talk about white standom, fandom, bandom, and womandom. i often see these very superficial comparisons between hozier and taylor (and hozier and florence and hozier and stevie nicks and hozier and whatever other white woman in fashion) and they frustrate me for more than one reason. i know that hozier has met taylor and said she’s cool, which is nice of him and he’s a nice man, but i’m not a nice man so i’m going to just say it: none of the people who have made those posts have listened to more than four hozier songs and it shows. the reason why this matters is because these posts catch on and create an image and preconception of hozier’s music that is divorced from reality and divorced from his influences and most importantly divorced from the deliberate and reverent blackness of his musical style. hozier has his white male privilege in the industry for sure but he’s not as towering of a giant as taylor and taylor’s music is an unsalted chicken, plain oatmeal, white paint drying on a white wall, a stick of unflavored gum. her music is so white it told me that its dad is a cop. i am, as a black hozier fan, exhausted with having to share space with white women who don’t know why hozier’s music kicks me in my lungs sometimes and think that taylor mentioning a tree ONCE in her 3 minute acoustic guitar slog about whatever suburb is the same when it simply is not. i swear some of you are pretending to love taylor because your friends love her and you don’t wanna be left out of the hot new musical discourse but she’s only the hot new musical discourse CONSTANTLY because she’s a white woman, she’s almost the Perfect white woman. like if someone asked me to describe a white woman, it would be taylor swift. her position at the top of the musical pyramid among people who eclipse her musically, vocally, and lyrically is only allowed because she’s The Perfect White Woman. she’s an ideal. white girls relate to her immediately because of it and now we have this unshakable mob of unbearable white women who think that the world has wronged someone who literally wrote fanfiction about the rich oil heiress white woman who owned her rhode island mansion before her aklghlghdhlgs it drives me fucking NUTS 

anyway that’s all. if you made it this far, listen to adia victoria, kaia kater, samantha crain, valerie june, kelsey lu, corinne bailey rae, brittany howard, kimya dawson, japanese breakfast, cold specks, left at london, rhiannon giddens, aisha badru, shea diamond, nadine shah, xenia rubinos, karen o, mirel wagner.... Anyone

[mochegato]

Even the Losers

Chapter 8

Chapter 1     Chapter 7

“Your father is Bruce Wayne and now he wants to reconnect,” Nino recapped as though anyone involved in the call was unaware. From the look Chloe gave him, he was particularly happy she was in New York not Paris and couldn’t actually smack him upside the head.

“Thank you for that waste of time and breath,” Chloe grumbled.

“I just… don’t see the problem.”  Nino did actually move away from Alya before she could swat him.  “What?  Your dad is Bruce freaking Wayne!  Even if you don’t connect with him, you can totally draw on that Wayne money.”

He wasn’t fast enough to move away from her smack that time.  “Ow!” he pouted at Alya.

“It’s not about the money!” Alya groaned, already exasperated by him.  “It’s about him not wanting to have a relationship until the press found out.  It’s about him cutting her out but taking in a gaggle of other kids.”  Nino lightly shoved Alya’s shoulder and motioned toward Marinette’s expression on the screen.  Alya grimaced and gave him a nod of understanding.

Marinette looked down and pursed her lips to keep from frowning.  It was bad enough thinking it in her own head constantly, but hearing it out loud, repeated back to her?  That made it so much worse.  That made her feelings real.  That legitimized her feelings.  She couldn’t pretend like she was just overreacting.  They were justified.  Which meant she couldn’t just freeze them out.  Or rather she shouldn’t.  She had to face them.

She focused her energy on not changing her body language so she didn’t worry Adrien any more than he was already.  Keeping her body relaxed instead of tensing up.  Adrien had gone into a frenzied panic when he and Max had returned from their apartment search to find her collapsed on the floor, blocking the door. She’d missed the worst of it according to what Tikki said, but she still remembered the terrified look in his eyes when she woke up.  He hadn’t left her side since, keeping constant physical contact.  

Max seemed to inherently understand the situation and was jumping up to get anything either of them might need so they didn’t have to abandon each other for even a few moments.  She was eternally grateful to him for it because she wasn’t sure who the physical proximity was having more of a calming effect on, her or Adrien, but regardless, they both needed it.  

Her attempt to not react didn’t seem to have been as effective as she thought it had been judging by the way Adrien hugged her closer to him.  Marinette lightly bonked her head into his chest and returned her attention to the laptop screen.  “It’s okay, Nino,” Marinette assured him weakly.

“No it isn’t,” Chloe said over her.  “Both of you need to stop talking.”  She flipped a page in her magazine and looked up at the screen.  “I mean, that’s true in general, but especially during this call.” Her eyes were sharp when she looked up but Marinette could see the concern she was trying to hide by focusing on her magazine.  She wasn’t sure what Adrien had told them about how he found her but she could tell it was enough to scare them too.

Marinette rolled her eyes at Chloe.  “Yes, it is.”

Chloe groaned.  “This is the way we work Dupain Cheng.  You and Adrien let people walk all over you, Nino keeps the peace, Alya starts trouble, and I tell people the truth and to back the fuck off when it’s warranted.”

“Which never starts trouble,” Alya snarked.

“I do not let people walk all over me!” Adrien objected, looking around for support. Marinette gave a curt nod of agreement, but Max was avoiding his eyes and Chloe was staring at him flatly.

“No, you don’t let people walk all over us,” she motioned toward the screen, trying to indicate the rest of them.  “But you let everyone walk all over you.”  Her eyes moved slightly and her eyes narrowed slightly.  “You both do.”

Marinette wrinkled her nose at the screen with a pout.  “I stood up to you,” she groused.

Chloe scoffed.  “And it only took you like ten years to do it.  So proud of you.”  She rolled her eyes so strongly, her entire head moved as she did it.

Marinette’s mouth dropped in offense.  “I’m better now.”

“Are you, though?  Really?” Chloe deadpanned.

Marinette pouted.  “Yes!”

“Statistically, she is accurate,” Max added.  “She does stand up for herself more now than when we were younger.”  Marinette pursed her lips at Max, unsure how to respond to his comment.  On one hand, it defended her.  On the other hand, she did not at all appreciate how he stressed the word ‘statistically’ and she was certain everyone else caught that as well.

Chloe opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by Nino. Marinette sighed in relief until she started processing his words.  “I get that it’s hard and it hurts, I guess I just thought you wouldn’t take it this hard. After Jagged with Luka and Juleka and your grandfather… you forgave all of them.  You helped Jagged with Luka and Juleka, making sure their relationship didn’t go bad.”  He motioned vaguely at nothing.  “You seemed to brush it off and take it as a challenge.  So why isn’t this?”

Alya dropped her head in her hands.  “Tact, Nino.  God.”

“No, he’s not wrong.”  Marinette frowned as she thought about his words.  “I went after Grand-père and convinced him to reconnect.  Papa never held it against him so I guess I didn’t either. Luka never held it against Jagged, just moved forward.  Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe…”

“No!” Adrien interrupted before she could follow that train of thought any further. He gently turned her toward him to focus her attention on him.  “There’s nothing wrong with you or how you’re reacting.  There’s no wrong way to react to news like this.  If you feel sad, that’s fine.  If you feel annoyed, that’s fine.  If you feel frustrated, that’s okay.  If you want to just move past it, there’s nothing wrong with that.  If you feel angry, that’s okay.  And if you feel like you need space, that’s okay too. There’s no wrong way to react to this,” he repeated.

“Except however Chloe would respond,” Alya added with a smirk.

“Hey!” Chloe objected loudly, glaring at the screen, but with no real heat behind it. “For the record, how I would respond to news like this is to spend all my new found father’s money, pressing my boundaries until he finally said something.  And if he didn’t say anything, I’d use those billions to do whatever the fuck I wanted and never see him in person.”

Marinette blinked at Chloe, as did the rest of the group.  That was certainly… an option.  Not one Marinette would ever choose, but it was…  Marinette started giggling at the idea.  Adrien joined her quickly while Max, Alya, and Nino watched them worriedly.  Chloe rolled her eyes and flipped the page in her magazine, but the corners of her lips quirked up.

“He is correct,” Max added, bringing them back to the original point.  “There are a variety of ways people will react to finding out they have a parent they didn’t know about.  Markov found hundreds of studies on psychological responses to similar news and responses are extremely varied.”

“Juleka had a harder time with accepting it and connecting to Jagged than Luka did, remember?” Adrien pointed out.  “And there’s nothing wrong with her.  She wasn’t wrong to react that way, right?”  Marinette shook her head reluctantly.  It wasn’t that she thought there was anything wrong with the way Juleka reacted, but in agreeing with Adrien’s observation, she would have to agree with his point that she was allowed to freak out about this instead of ignoring it like she wanted to.

“Marinette,” Alya raised her voice to bring attention back to her.  “You can do anything you want here and we’ll support you. You know that.  No matter how this ends we all love you.  No matter how you react, we’ll love you.  Nobody is going to judge you for any decision.”

Chloe scoffed.  She waited until everyone was looking, or in Alya and Adrien’s cases, glaring at her. “What?  You want me to lie to her?”  She looked incredulously at the other faces on the video call.  “We won’t judge.  Hell, I’m willing to scratch his eyes out in public for you.  But, your name was already getting out there and his name, now yours, is on the largest corporation in the world.  Every news and gossip organization is going to be talking about it forever if you guys don’t make a good show of it.”

“So?” Alya demanded incredulously.  “She should just do whatever is best for publicity?”

“Did I say that?” Chloe scoffed.  She finally put her magazine down to show how serious she was taking the conversation. “When have I ever let the threat of bad publicity stop me from doing something?  I just said it would be out there, not that she should care.  It’s a factor, a big one when she’s figuring out what she wants.”

“What do you want?” Adrien asked gently, turning his attention back to Marinette.

Marinette looked at Adrien for a few seconds while her brain whirred at high speed thinking through all the options.  What did she want?  None of this. That’s what she wanted.  After a few seconds she took a breath and let it out. “What I want is to not have to deal with any of this.  What I want is to not be his daughter.  What I want is to figure out where we want to live and work and start a company there like we planned.  What I want is to live a normal life now.”  She ignored Chloe’s scoff.  “What I want…” she sighed and looked away.  “What I want doesn’t matter.”

Chloe huffed almost loudly enough for it to echo.  “Of course it matters, it just doesn’t change the past or the current situation.  But, you control your next steps.  So Ladybug this bitch.  Some egomaniacal, rich, pampered megalomaniac has created an utterly ridiculous problem that you now have to fix.  This is your specialty.  Show this bastard who he walked out on.  Make him regret not dying with his parents.”

“Woah! What the Hell?” Nino exclaimed. “Too far.”

Chloe scoffed and looked back at her nails.  “If you think that was too far, you should have heard what I wanted to say.  I toned it way down for your sensitive ears,” she added condescendingly.  She just barely looked up when Marinette started giggling.  Chloe’s lips quirked up the more Marinette tried to stifle the slightly unhinged sounding giggles.

“Dude, that’s her grandparents…” Nino whisper shouted.  Marinette suddenly sobered and paled in realization.

“Or!” Adrien interjected with false excitement positioning himself between Marinette and the screen.  “Or, you could, you know, try to build a relationship with him.”  He looked decidedly away from the incredulous looks from Alya and Chloe and the doubtful look from Nino on screen, trying to pretend like they weren’t judging him.  He moved closer to Marinette and took her hands in his giving her a sincere, serious look.  “You have someone, your father, who wants to connect to you.”  

He ignored the loud scoff from the computer and continued as though Alya or Chloe, or both, hadn’t verbalized their opinion.  They clearly weren’t that opposed or they would have said it instead of making a noise.  He “accidentally” closed the video chat and gave Max a pointed look.  

Max nodded slowly.  “I’m just going to go to my room for a few minutes.  Let me know if you want to talk.”

Marinette and Adrien both shot him thankful smiles.  Adrien waited until his door was closed before looking back at Marinette with a concerned look.  “You got screwed in this deal.  Nobody can deny that, and however you feel, that’s real and valid.  It’s okay to be hurt.  It’s okay to be scared.  It’s okay to say this is too much for you right now, or ever.  But, do you really want to walk away?  Not connect to him?  Not try?”

“He didn’t want…” Marinette started weakly.

“Maybe he wasn’t ready,” he cut her off before she could spiral again.  “Maybe this is the universe’s way to saying it’s time. You got the embodiment of luck in your pocket.  Is it really so farfetched to think luck played a role?”

“Bad luck,” Marinette scoffed to the floor.  Adrien gently rapped her on the top of her head with his knuckle.  She looked back up and caught his unimpressed look. Marinette sighed and looked away before looking back up at him uncertainly.  “I don’t know…”

“Do you think you want to try?” Tikki asked floating out of her resting spot. “It’s your choice.  But I don’t think this is going away, so whichever decision you go with you’ll have to face the consequences.”

“Or I could just cataclysm him,” Plagg offered rubbing his paws together.  He darted away from Tikki before she could shut him up.

“No!” Marinette and Adrien chorused at the same time.

Adrien glared at Plagg but made sure to soften his eyes before looking back at Marinette.  “Okay, maybe things don’t work out with him.  But it sounds like you have siblings.  You already like Jason.  Maybe you’ll like them too.”  He gave her a small smile and rubbed her arms soothingly.  “You always wanted siblings.”

Marinette gave him a weak smile back.  “I don’t need siblings anymore.  I have you.  That’s more than enough.  I don’t think I could handle more of yous.”

Adrien scoffed good naturedly at her.  “If anything I’ve made having siblings more appealing.”

Marinette scoffed playfully.  “Keep telling yourself that,” she muttered.

He pulled her into a hug.  “You always wanted more.  And it sounds like you might have sisters.”

“More people he adopted after walking away,” Marinette groused into his shirt.

Adrien hugged her tighter.  “Maybe he had a reason?  Or maybe he just royally messed up.  Maybe he hates himself for the decision.  It’s something you won’t find out unless you stay.  And you can just talk once and see how you feel about it. If it doesn’t go well, you can walk away and we can find that bar Roy mentioned.  If it goes well, you can decide to stay or we can decide to move to New York or Metropolis, like we were thinking and you can still see him every so often.”

“Even if it doesn’t go perfectly,” Tikki added softly, “it’ll give you closure.  You deserve to have that.”

“And you’ll wonder what could have happened if you don’t,” Adrien nudged her gently.  “You know you’re going to regret not trying.”

“So is that an absolute no on the cataclysm idea,” Plagg popped up between them.  “Because I’m still willing.”

Marinette rolled her eyes at him but shot him a grateful smile.  It was as close as Plagg got to admitting he cared.  She scratched him on the forehead and looked back to Adrien with a frown.  “I don’t think I can handle this.”

“I’ll stay with you.  And Max will be here.  Tikki will be here for you.  Plagg will be here, but don’t let that deter you…”

“Hey!” Plagg pouted.

Adrien continued without acknowledging him.  “Chloe could be here in a few hours if we needed and she’d drop everything to get here, no matter what she says.  Alya and Nino will only be a phone call away.  We will support you no matter what you want to do. But we can’t make this decision for you, so, the question is what do you want to do?”

Marinette groaned and pouted at him.  “You sure you can’t do this for me?”

Adrien gave her a sympathetic look and shook his head. “Not this time, Bug.”  He waited a few minutes for her to think through her options.  When she looked just as lost after another few minutes after that, he spoke up gently. “Do you want to talk to Sabine and Tom first?  They might have some answers you need to make your decision.”

Marinette looked back up at him with a pathetic looking pout.  “Can’t I just sleep through this instead?”

Adrien chuckled and shook his head, relieved she was now in a light enough mood to make jokes.  “You could,” he nodded and put on a mock serious face, “but your problems will still be there when you woke up.”

“What bullshit,” she scoffed in a weak voice.

Adrien nodded.  “Yep, utter bullshit.”

Marinette kept eye contact with him for a few moments waiting for him to impart some kind of insightful wisdom upon her.  When he held silent and let her make her own decision, she whimpered and looked away.  “What if it isn’t him I cataclysm,” Plagg asked, flying between them.  “I could do it to his house instead… a few of his cars?  Rich people always have too many cars.”

Adrien grabbed him out of the air and shoved him in his pocket with an exasperated groan.  But Marinette giggled again.  When her laughter had settled, she took a deep breath and motioned toward her phone. Adrien smiled at her as he placed it in her hand.  She took a deep breath and pulled out the paper M. Wayne had given her.  She dialed one of the numbers before she could talk herself out of it, which knowing herself could happen if she was given more than a few seconds to think, and looked up to Adrien, letting his soft smile ground her.  “M. Wayne? It’s Marinette.  Would you be free for dinner tonight?”

Chapter 9

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[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

A Miraculous TikTok Account

Part 1/57, 97.7k words

Next

I was like “hey brain I’d love to do a shitpost social media au” and then it was like r e w r i t e m i r a c u l o u s

I don’t even know if it really even counts as miraculous anymore so much has changed god damn it --

Rena Rouge had never been so excited for anything in her life.

Of course, at first glance people would find that insane. She was going to a meeting, after all.

But it was the people that were also attending that had her practically vibrating she was so excited.

All the heroes of Paris were to be gathered under Master Fu’s orders. They hardly ever worked together, so having all four (five, including her, she reminded herself) together was pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime event. She wished she was still a reporter, this was the kind of thing she would have killed to report on back in the day…

Still, a part of her had to wonder why exactly they were all there. Master Fu had been vague when he’d called. She had some theories, of course, but all this waiting was starting to shift her excitement into nerves. She attempted to smooth out her tail, but ended up just tucking it under herself to hide her anxiety. Maybe she shouldn’t have come so early.

The first person to show up after her was Carapace. He’d poked his head through the door, the hood of his sleeveless hoodie pulled so low over his face that it partially hid his face. Then he broke into a wide smile and pushed the hood up a little to show the green glint of his mask. He made his way inside and took a seat next to her.

“Salu -- Bonjour!” His confident smile melted into an uncomfortable one. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Salut,” she said, not wanting him to feel awkward.

Besides, that was kind of his whole shtick. Carapace was the relatable hero, the one you could vent about your problems to.

(Well, technically you could vent to all of Paris’s heroes, they didn’t mind… but Carapace was the only one that felt close enough to actually try it with.)

Silence lapsed between them as they sat there. She tried to remember whether she had met him as Rena Rouge or not and he seemed unsure whether she wanted to talk, but they were distracted from their thoughts when Chloe walked into the room.

Chloe just kind of… does that. If Carapace was the personable one, Chloe was the one who felt the most unreachable. She was open about her persona, had to be after everyone found out about it, and exactly how relatable can a mayor’s daughter be? She’d leaned into it, though, opting for golden jewelry and wings that glinted in the light.

Neither of the present heroes said anything to Chloe, and Chloe didn’t acknowledge them.

Was it rude? Technically. But what else were they supposed to do? Chloe had made it clear a week ago that she didn’t like them. There’s no good conversation that can come after you get shit-talked on live tv.

The last person to be on time was Chat Noir. The original hero. He gave them a smile worthy of a model as he slipped inside. “Bonjour.”

“Bonjour,” said Rena and Carapace, and even Chloe gave a quiet hum of acknowledgement.

The leather of his black suit made a high-pitched squeaking sound against the chair when he sat down that made both him and Rena’s hair stand on end (literally).

Master Fu walked in to find Carapace trying to soothe two very frazzled miraculous holders and Chloe ignoring them on her phone.

He sighed and gently rapped his cane on the ground.

Instantly, the room quieted. Chat and Rena snapped out of their shock.

“Bonjour,” chorused everyone.

He smiled tensely. “Bonjour. Where’s Ladybug?”

“Not here yet,” said Chloe. She set her phone down on the table and crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s nothing in the papers, either.”

Master Fu nodded a little bit and took a seat at the head of the table. “We can wait for her. There’s no rush.”

Carapace hesitated before raising his hand. “There’s… a bit of a rush. I was procrastinating a college app and it’s due tonight…”

“It shouldn’t be long,” said Master Fu.

This was true. About five minutes later Ladybug burst into the room, panting softly. “Bon… jour...”

“Thanks for finally showing up,” said Chloe.

No one knew for sure, because Ladybug’s eyes were completely white, but they got the feeling that she was rolling her eyes.

“There was an akuma.”

“Really? There was nothing on the news…” said Rena, genuinely confused, but she trailed off when she realized that maybe getting one of your childhood heroes in trouble was a bad idea if you wanted to have a good relationship with said childhood hero.

Thankfully, Ladybug didn’t seem all that annoyed. “That’s because the news anchor and her crew got swallowed by it before they could get any information out. Anyways, it’s dealt with.”

With that, Ladybug took a seat in the last open chair. There was a beat as she smoothed out the red and black folds of her dress and then she crossed her legs and smiled at everyone.

Master Fu sighed and shook his head, slowly placing his cane in his lap.

“Now that everyone is here, would anyone like to guess why?”

The heroes of Paris stiffened a little bit. That sounded a lot like they were in trouble. They didn’t want to be in trouble.

Rena slowly raised her hand. “Is it… because of what Queen Bee said last week?”

The heroes’ expressions soured a bit at the memory. The video of Chloe trash talking all of them to an interviewer had blown up, and now they could hardly do anything without having at least one reporter hounding them for a response.

None of them could give any, though Rena was sure at least some of them were tempted. The public was supposed to think them all friends, or at worst friendly coworkers. It gave them hope, seeing them all working together for team ups, and analyzing their friendship dynamics kept them relatively distracted from the fact that it had been six years since the first hero had first arrived on the scene and they still had virtually nothing on Hawkmoth.

But now that illusion had been shattered (and trust her, she knew a lot about illusions). Akumas had been more active this week.

“That’s precisely it. Thank you, Rena.” Master Fu regarded them all carefully. “What do you think we should do about it?”

Really, they’d had no clue what to do about their image.

Chloe hadn’t been joking, she’d made that plainly obvious, so saying she didn’t mean it or that was just the type of friendship they had wasn’t going to work…

“Act more like friends…?” Said Ladybug when no one spoke up.

Master Fu nodded.

“Oh, so more team ups or something?” Said Chat.

Carapace shrugged. “Don’t know how much of that I can do, since I’m the only one that can consistently get in the water, but…” He shrugged again. “... sure, I can do that.”

The old man drummed his fingers on the table lightly to bring their attention back to him.

“Yes, that, too, but I was thinking something more… convincing.”

Rena decided that she definitely didn’t like the way his eyes gleamed.

“So, until you manage to defeat Hawkmoth, you will all be living together.”

Everyone opened their mouths to argue but he held up a hand to silence them.

“And you’ll be doing it publicly, posting regular content about it to a social media platform of your choosing…”  He put his hand down. “Now you can complain.”

The teens all immediately started attempting to talk over each other, their voices steadily increasing in volume as they tried to be the one to get their complaints heard.

Rena was silent. Part of her thought that she should be complaining. She had siblings, after all, she had a life outside of heroism… but she couldn’t help but smile. She would be living with her childhood heroes (for a long time, probably, because the Hawkmoth situation was not getting better)! And, really, her sisters could get annoying at times. She’d love an excuse to get away.

So instead of arguing she leaned back in her chair and watched everyone else.

Chloe was the most passionate about it, her jewelry flashing with every wild swing of her hand. Her voice was the loudest, but with the other voices in the room and the fact that she was literally buzzing in her anger it was hard to make out what she was saying.

Chat seemed distressed and Rena could see his mouth saying “I don’t think I’d be allowed to” repeatedly even if she couldn’t hear him over Chloe’s screeching.

Carapace’s face was set in an uncharacteristic frown as he complained. Sure, of those voicing their complaints, he definitely seemed the most relaxed, but the fact that he was frowning was in itself proof of just how upset he really was.

Ladybug was quiet, though she didn’t look particularly happy about it. Her lips were pressed into a thin line as if she was holding herself back from yelling as well and her fingers worried at the hem of her dress.

After a minute of this, Master Fu raised his hands for silence and instantly got it once again.

“Are you done?”

The general consensus was ‘no’, if the looks on their faces meant anything, but they nodded anyways.

“Good. Chat Noir, I’ve already worked everything out with your dad, we’ll discuss it more after the meeting is over.”

Chat relaxed a bit.

“Carapace, your schooling will not be affected. In fact, you’ll likely have a better college experience since all your food and toiletries will be paid for by me.”

Carapace’s expression shifted to a thoughtful one as he considered this.

“Queen Bee, must I remind you of the fact that you’re on thin ice as it is?”

Everyone’s eyes shot to Chloe, who had paled considerably. Her angry buzzing quickly lowered to a dull hum and she settled back into her seat.

Master Fu seemed sated by this, and he looked at Ladybug and Rena.

“And I’m assuming I don’t need to convince either of you?”

Rena shook her head instantly. Ladybug took her time to consider, but eventually shook her head as well.

“Great. Now, shall we talk logistics?”

~~~

Taglist:

@nathleigh @mialuvscats

[jasmine-the-fox]

I did the work... You guys were lazy

For this salt fic, I want you all to see what happens to the class for believing Lila and her lies and leaving behind Marinette... Also Damienette ship!!

For years Marinette didn’t think about her old class... Caline Bustier’s class was gone like the wind to her when she left Paris to go to Gotham for college, there were times when Alya and some of them will text her old number about demands of baked goods, dresses or new date Adrien plans... She would ignore them and at one point got rid of her phone as she was done with them, the only people she spoke to was Chloe who never believed Lila and even worked hard to be forgiven by Mari, Sabrina did so much research on Lila with Max that they too were forgiven with time, then was Alix who was visited by a furious Bunnix who showed Alix her future if she follows Lila.

Nathaniel was also someone who believe Mari, from the start he thought Lila was strange and one day with Marc spoke to Mari and has been loyal to her... Lastly was Kitty section, Luka was furious with them for listening to Lila about music and warned them about him quitting if they keep this up, after a while they heard Mari crying to Luka about what Lila did to her and they ended up leaving Lila, outside the class was of course Luka and Marc, Kagami, Aurore, Mireille, Ondine and Felix who is Adrien’s cousin, he was furious when Chloe told him about Adrien’s take the higher road line he told Mari.

Each of her friends did sadly go to different places and she only had Chloe with her in Gotham but that was fine with her, she still texted and did video calls with them so that was fine to her... And then she met Damian Wayne, the boy was cold and rarely spoke to anyone unless for a project he had to do in a team, slowly she began talking to him outside of class and that made him at some point want to speak with her about anything at all that wasn’t even related to school, with time Chloe helped her with there friends to change Marinette’s style, she went from pigtails to her hair down or in a braid, from white pink and gray to black and other kinds of colors.

She also began to wear make-up and she opened up a website for her designs, a blog so people can see tips and tricks on how to do things with clothes or how to fix something, she also took down all her previous accounts she had with the class following her and opened new accounts for her real friends to be seen with her, Damian would glare when his brother’s would talk about a new post on her social media or on her blog while his father often commissions her for clothes, this caused for her to become famous in Gotham and Clark interview her... Making her also famous in Metropolis.

And while she was becoming famous while still in school... Her class was losing there dreams, Alya was the first one to go through this, Nadja Chamack got to interview Lois Lane who ripped into the Ladyblog by pointing out posts she made that were lies and the consequences that would have happened if certain people saw them... Leading to her blog being taken down, she with Lila got sued and Lila was exposed as the liar she was including the bonus of Lila being deported back to Italy to live with her grand-parents who were sending her to a private school.

Slowly everyone including Adrien were targeted, Adrien being found out as Lila revealed that he and Marinette were the only ones who knew she was lying from the start... He was homeschooled once again but was able to go to college, he picked one his friends were going to with the grades they had but they all glared at him... But none of them thought to apologize to Mari for bullying her and claiming her to be a liar... Not until there bank accounts were frozen because there parents received from Tom and Sabine bills for each of there kids for baked goods, clothes, babysitting that Alya and Nino put on her at the last minute for a date and anything else that they never paid back.

That’s when they remembered Marinette, they all began trying to call and text her... But her number wasn’t available anymore as it wasn’t use so they couldn’t talk to her, Alya thought she was being petty while Adrien thought Mari was being selfish, with time they got back to work on what they wanted... And then they saw Mari on the news in Metropolis as an up coming designer, Gabriel Agreste saw a solution to the problem Lila brought to his work and told Adrien to try and talk to her and see if she would date him... Except Adrien didn’t have her current number.

It took some time but Gabriel ended up being invited to a Wayne Gala, he took his son and instructed him to try and get Marinette’s new number to try and then date her, Adrien was certain it would all go well and he would get her new number... Then everyone will be able to contact her and things will go back to normal for them, when they got there, Adrien began looking for Mari but saw Chloe with Damian Wayne and some girl with short hair, he decided to ignore them for now and focus on searching for Mari but couldn’t find her at all.

“Adrien? I’m surprised that your here since your father always comes alone” he turned to find Chloe and the girl from earlier, Damian wasn’t with them now and was instead talking to some guests “Hey there Chlo, my dad heard about Mari on the news and wanted to meet her and so I was just trying to find her for him” he explained as the girl looked annoyed at him while Chloe looked disappointed “Mari has been next to me from the start... You should have come over the moment you got here” she said as Adrien looked shocked at Marinette, her hair was now chin length, her dress was a beautiful red dress with a beautiful dragon design.

Chloe had to then walk away to speak with a guest, leaving the two alone, Adrien began trying to start a conversation but Mari simply went with short and simple answers... No going into detail of things, this was not the Marinette Dupain-Cheng he knew so he had to do something, he then began asking her if she could show him around Gotham while he was here, if she would like to have lunch with him at some point and even if she would like to dance with him... She said straight up no and didn’t give him a reason as to why, still wanting her number to begin contacting her, he decided to wait until she was drinking wine before snatching her phone from her purse and adding her number to his phone and sending it to the class before putting it back into her purse.

He just had to tell her she gave it to him while she was a little drunk, it would be just fine in the end and nothing would go wrong... He was wrong, the next day, police came to arrest him for stealing her phone and sending her number to others who contacted her the whole night... He tried to defend himself but security camera’s caught him stealing her phone and slipping it back, he was being sued and a restraining order was on him to stay away from her while she once again changed her number and ended up telling her clients about it... Gabriel was disappointed in his son for he had to go meet with her to try and fix everything... While trying to get her to agree to going on a date with his son.

She was already dating Damian though.

He found out when he saw them together, Damian had called her Angel and they kissed before he left, she refused to go on a date with his son or to remove the restraining order on his son... But Gabriel won’t give up “Make one of them hate the other, anything will do but make one of them dump the other!” he ordered his son who nodded to the demand, since Adrien couldn’t get close to Mari... He had to aim for Damian, he decided to us a few pictures he took of her in the past to make Damian think she has been dragging around a bunch of guys and girls, he didn’t care that Nino and Kim knew from childhood, he also didn’t care that Chloe and Kagami were in a relationship with one another, he didn’t care about Luka and Felix’ pride.

He was going to win this no matter what... He will make his father proud of him.

He was sent back to Paris to be put in jail there three days later, he really didn’t know what went wrong, all he did was show Damian the pictures and told him a few lies about her... And next thing he knew police was at his hotel room door and took him away to get to the airport to get to Paris, what he didn’t know was that Damian had seen those very pictures on Mari’s old friends and current friends social medias, so he knew he was lying from the start and called the police about it, Gabriel tried to stop them but he too was sent back to Paris for Nathalie had given the police a recording of Gabriel telling Adrien to try and get Mari’s number and have her date him.

Because of this both of there miraculous were taken, since Ladybug was now part of Batman’s team and had warned the police about the Agreste father and son having one each, Nathalie of course gave up her’s with the info and then returned early to Paris to take care of things there... And get Lila into even more trouble as she did work with Hawkmoth all this time, even so it wasn’t over, after a while in prison Adrien was released but not his father, after that Adrien saw his friends and fixed everything with them since he did get Mari’s number for them... If only for a while, so they forgave him, Adrien ended up getting the whole Agreste fortune and he then sold the mansion and the fashion company to live in an apartment.

His friends all worked hard to save up money to have a class reunion, with time everything was planned out and they got the whole class notified about it so they know when it happens and where to go at what time, they were so happy to have it happen as they couldn’t wait to see everyone, when the day came they were shocked at the friends they thought were evil...

Max and Sabrina ended up getting married, it was big and hard to get into a news reporter was able to find out from Sabrina that her dress was made by Marinette herself, Kitty section ended up breaking up, Juleka was now a model for Mari while Rose became a writer, Mylène was now a famous actress and happily married to Ivan who was now a famous song writer, Chloe and Kagami also got married, Chloe was Marinette’s assistant while Kagami opened up a Tsurugi fencing school in Gotham, Luka was now following Jagged Stone and becoming a famous singer and guitar player, Nathaniel become her website artist, helping her redesign her site page depending on new themes and seasons while Felix was Marinette’s image manager.

They were all there, even Lila... But Marinette was nowhere in sight, they all tried getting answers but the gang had ignored them, Aurore, Ondine, Mireille and Marc found it funny that they would try to get answers on Mari after all this time they had bullied her, Marinette then walked in arm in arm with Damian Wayne, they looked amazing in there outfits, just like all of her friends as they too were wearing her designs, the two walked around to greet her friends and see how they were doing since the last time they had spoken together, Alya and the gang tried to talk to her but all she did was ignore them... Lila on the other hand glared at Mari.

Everything Marinette was doing and getting... Should have been her, Lila should have been the one to meet Damian Wayne, she should be the one dating him, SHE should be the one becoming famous! But no! She was found out as being dangerous, working with a villain like Hawkmoth destroyed everything she could hope for... Now she worked part-time at some little restaurant in Italy being barely paid much with the hopes of meeting some rich guy to sweep her off her feet, she looked at times towards Adrien, he may no longer be a model for his father’s designs but he was now modeling for an agency who knew of what he liked, disliked and wanted to work in.

Even so she was disappointed when she saw how Adrien was focused on Mari, he still wanted to be with her,  he began walking towards “Agreste! You know that the restraining order is still on you! Take one more step towards Mari and I will call the cops!” Chloe shouted making the other’s of the class look at her in shock, Restraining order? On Adrien? To not get close of sweet innocent Marinette? Chloe must be lying, so of course Alya snapped back with Nino on her side on how Adrien has a right to greet Mari, they claim he’s allowed to go see her and insist he does, Kim pushes him forward towards Mari while Sabrina calls her dad to inform him about Adrien breaking the restraining order.

He got there in just a few minutes...

“Mister Agreste due to the fact that you broke the restraining order miss Marinette Dupain-Cheng placed on you after you stole her phone during a Wayne gala and then sent her number to an unknown number of people you will be coming with me to the station” Roger said as he cuffed Adrien and forced him to follow to his police car, Alya, Nino, Kim and Lila were in a massive shock at this... So Chloe was right, Marinette did put a restraining order on Adrien... Because they wanted her number to talk to her again since she changed it after all this time, and now here she was, changed and not allowing them to talk to her and to apologize for what they did.

The whole event ended and by morning everyone was on a plane to get back to where they live or are to be staying for work, about a week later Alya found out in the paper that Marinette was going to become a Wayne soon, she so badly wanted to report about in order to help her make it big so she with Nino got to the airport and paid for plane tickets to Gotham to speak with her, they found where she worked and begged to see her “Alya? Nino? Can I ask why your here in Gotham?” they turned to find Mari with Damian, they were just about to leave for lunch when she saw them “Mari! Gurl you NEED to let me report about your wedding! This could give me a huge break and get to become a reporter again!” Alya claimed as Mari glared at her.

“What do you mean by again? Alya all this time, you were not a reporter... You were the owner of a tabloid that posted every single lie Lila spoke to you, and as for this big break of yours it was destroyed the second Lois spoke about the Ladyblog, try anywhere and they will reject you because Lois is the one who reveals who is a good reporter... And those who are like you... Trash under our feet” Mari hissed and began walking with her fiancé too the door until she turned to the front desk “Alissa, please get these two on the blacklist and kick them out, I don’t want to see this trash by the street when I get back” she said and walked out like this wasn’t anything new for her to say.

Marinette worked hard to get to where she was... With the help of her friends and Damian... But her three remaining classmates all believed that Lila would help them skip up to the lifestyle she has now... But everyone knows you need to put the effort into things to get there.

[thealexchen]

One Year On: Life is Strange 2 Critique

December 3rd, 2020 marks a year since Life is Strange 2 ended. I was inspired by @smitethepatriarchy‘s text posts (here, but there are several other answered asks worth reading) and @suhaplays’s text post (here) criticizing Life is Strange 2 to write a critique about how Life is Strange 2 handled certain themes and social issues.

(tw: gun violence, police brutality, animal death, incarceration, racism. In this essay, I use the word “queer” in a reclaimed sense, as a queer person myself. Of course, spoiler warning for all five episodes of Life is Strange 1 and 2).

A year on, my feelings about this game have soured... a lot. When the game was first announced, I was overjoyed that our new protagonists would be two Latino boys. Finally, we would have a culturally meaningful, groundbreaking video game with people of color and their experiences at the forefront! 

Then the game was met with immediate backlash and I utterly exhausted myself defending it for weeks on Reddit and Tumblr. Throughout 2019, as the episodes came out I became increasingly disillusioned, frustrated, and disappointed with where the story was going. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so damn miserable while playing this game.

Then in the summer of 2020, when Tell Me Why began rolling out pre-release material, I noticed that they posted a Q&A about transphobia, gave content warnings, and discussed at length about their collaboration with GLAAD, Checkpoint, and the Huna Heritage Foundation to make the game with sensitivity and proper research. I cannot speak for trans and gender non-conforming people on whether Dontnod succeeded at doing so with Tell Me Why. But Life is Strange 2 did… none of that.

Essentially, I realized that the reason why I was so frustrated with LiS2 is because it focuses way too heavily on a trauma narrative. This comes off as insensitive to players of color without any content warnings or extensive research.

Sean didn’t have to get kidnapped, kicked in the face, and called a racial slur by a gas station owner. Daniel did not need to watch his puppy get mauled by a mountain lion for the sake of a “difficult choice.” Sean didn’t have to lose his eye for the sake of heightened drama. Sean didn’t need to get called a racial slur and humiliated by his native language/beaten in the desert for refusing to sing. Daniel didn’t need to get shot— twice. Hell, all of “Faith” probably could’ve been cut— how is a church cult that brainwashes Daniel and beats Sean half to death relevant at all to the story?

Even if not all of the game’s violence was racially motivated, the consistent trauma that Sean and Daniel endure does not make for positive representation— or even good characterization. There is a difference between sympathetic characters and well-written characters, and trauma does not make Sean and Daniel any more complex or likable-- just more fucking traumatized.

LiS2 is more grounded in reality, but that also makes plot holes that much harder to excuse (Daniel’s powers being spotted, most of the Parting Ways ending, Sean’s prison sentence). But most of all, it grounds all of Sean and Daniel’s pain and trauma in reality. 

There is no magicking away a town-destroying storm with time travel. Sean can’t keep his dad alive by ripping up a Polaroid. After Max unlocked her powers, she was still a Blackwell student, reconnecting with Chloe, taking photos, saving lives, and uncovering a murder mystery. After Daniel unlocked his powers, the Diaz brothers lost everything. 

The game never lets you forget that Sean and Daniel are homeless, wanted, constantly in danger, and that they are never getting their old lives back. It permeates the entire game, and for players of color, just reinforces a sad, miserable, grim reality about living in the United States. It is, as @smitethepatriarchy said, potentially triggering for players of color, and it is certainly not something I needed to be reminded of.

And the representation of POC? It feels shallow and ill-researched. It would only take a Google search to find out that Dia de Muertos (a holiday to honor the dead, no less) was from October 31 to November 2 in 2016, the year the game takes place, but Daniel only talks about Halloween in episode 1. Sean and Daniel never discuss any Mexican customs, foods, or holidays. Sean doesn’t speak Spanish with his immigrant father, only during a scene when he’s traumatized (again!) by two racists, and again when talking to Mexican immigrants— in jail. Daniel doesn’t speak Spanish at all. Most of their allies throughout the game are white, including Finn and Cassidy, who appropriate Black culture with their dreadlocks.

So what’s left? Sean and Daniel’s existence as people of color is, at worst, just a narrative prop to justify everything that happens to them. They are people of color on the surface only. In a meta-sense, the game only considers the color of their skin and their last names as what is narratively important… yikes.

I don’t have anything against people who genuinely loved the game and were moved by its messages and story. But I can’t help but feel bitter that white players have the luxury of only thinking of this game as a work of fiction and not feeling any personal reliability to Sean and Daniel’s racialized trauma.

I don’t regret playing LiS2, but I do regret all the time and energy I spent defending it in the beginning. I understand now that I shouldn’t let people’s opinions get to me, nor should I feel obligated to like or defend a game for its attempts at representation. But now, I think I understand how queer fans must have felt in late 2015 when Polarized released. After following the game for 10 months, to see that Chloe’s ultimate destiny was to die and Pricefield is another ship plagued by the Bury Your Gays trope (in the ending that the devs clearly put more work into) must have been just as disillusioning and infuriating. I understand why some fans were so quick to unfollow LiS or develop mixed feelings about the series, because that’s how I feel too after following LiS2’s development from September 2018 to December 2019.

Before I end, I will admit that Life is Strange 2 arrived at a time when I needed it. I still stand by my belief that DN did a great job characterizing Sean, Daniel, and Chris without toxic masculinity, which is the best thing they could’ve done for a male-focused follow-up to a game about queer women. I love that Sean is still a canonically bisexual man of color in a major video game and that DN didn’t forget their queer audience. I love the world and characters that DN built, but I still prefer AU fanfictions of their normal lives, without all that trauma. 

So, I will continue to treasure Lyla and her 10 minutes of screentime (aka the only shred of Asian American representation I can get from this series). I still reblog LiS2 fanart to support the artists. I still support Dontnod, because as Tell Me Why has shown, they are capable of researching and writing stories with more sensitivity. And let’s be honest-- I’m still gonna be hella excited if Life is Strange 3 is announced.

But so many aspects of Life is Strange 2 were bungled that it came off as a remarkably average and forgettable experience. A year on, I don’t hate Life is Strange 2, but I am writing this to move on from it.

Thank you for reading.

[ssa-daddyhotchner]

The Struggle of Loving You - Chapter 23

Chapter Selection

"Are you passing all your classes", I grinned and groaned.

"Yes they're fine, all A's" I pulled the blanket up and tucked the sheets under the bed. Aaron walked over to me from the other side of the bed and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm just making sure you're okay... it's in a week you know."

I looked at him in his eyes, "Aaron, I know when my graduation is..."

"Who else is going?", I glanced at him in confusion and started walking out of the room. "What do you mean?" I went into the kitchen and started digging through the fridge. 

"Y/n I know I'm not the only one going to your graduation, your friends are going to be there with you. Did you not invite anyone else?"

I stood up and shut the fridge, I shook my head. "No other friends?, family? At least your parents." My head snapped to his, "Definitely not my parents." I took a step back, putting some distance between us. 

"Ok... ok, can I ask why?" 

"Not right now, can we stop taking about this. I just wanna get Jack and leave... please." We had to pick Jack up from Hayleys. I wasn't really on good terms with my parents, my siblings they lived everywhere and had their own things to worry about. 

I hadn't talked to them in a few years. It would just be awkward to have them there, probably silently judging me the whole time. That's only if they actually showed up. 

"Come on", he grabbed my hand and interlaced our fingers. I wasn't in the mood to talk anymore. 

The question just brought up too many old feeling that I'd rather not feel again. Aaron respected that and didn't try and force a conversation. He started the car and drove over the Hayleys. 

Pulling into the driveway we saw the familiar car parking out front. "He's still dating her." I mumbled. Jack ran out of the house and I helped him into the car, Hayley always avoided wanting to see us. We left right after not wanting to cause any problems. 

"Hi", he looked at Jack through the mirror. "Hey bud, how you doing?" He shrugged his shoulders, moving his bag to the empty seat next to him. "Okay I guess, they were fighting again this morning."

"Again?", Aaron glanced backwards. "Yeah, he was blaming her... I don't know I wasn't really listening." Jacks voice got lower and he rested his head on the window, looking at the passing cars. 

How did she think this was going to affect Jack... his parents got divorced cause of her mistake. A mistake that she was still with, even at Jacks age he's not dumb.

He knows what happened, at least I know I did. Aaron continued driving, he didn't want to go back home. Being the good dad he was, he tried to cheer Jack up. Taking him some place he's been wanting to go for a while now. 

He parked the car and we got out, Jack clung onto my hands. His face going from upset to happy in a matter of seconds. "Come on", Aaron led us inside the skating rink and we got our skates. "Do you need any help?", I asked Jack going over to the floor. "No I got it." 

Aaron and I hung back watching him try on his own. As soon as his foot hit the floor he fell. We were going to help but he insisted he was fine. We stayed, watching him try and get the hang of it. 

"Let's go", I grabbed Aarons hand and he didn't move. I snapped my head to look at him, he shook his head. "Not happening." 

I chuckled, "Is this why you didn't put on the skates, cause you don't know how to." 

"I know how", I let go of his hand and went onto the rink without him. "Oh yeah Hotchner— prove it." I joined Jack and we went around in circles, constantly passing Aaron. Leaning against the wall I went by him and pecked his lips. 

A smile formed on his face and he dipped his head down.

Groaning to himself muttering, "This is so stupid." He sat down and threw on the skates. 

Going in another circle I went to look at Aaron but he wasn't there. I felt someone grab my hand and my first instinct was to punch.

The hand grabbed my fist and brought it down to my side, "That's a little violent." I face palmed and laughed with relief, "Sorry about that, and look at you. Couldn't pass it up huh." 

"Yeah you know it just looked like too much fun to hang back." I started showing off going backwards and watching Jack come up behind Aaron. ___________________

"Ready?", I looked at myself in the mirror. I let out a shaky breath, "Hell no, what if I trip on stage cause this gown is too long." 

Putting his head on top of mine, he kissed the top of my head. "Then I better get a video of it, show it to every—." 

I turned around and smacked his shoulder, "Don't you dare." I said playfully. "Since when did you start to think you can tell me what to do?" My mouth turned upwards, "When I clearly became the better one in this relationship."

We walked out of the bedroom and into the living room, "Now I'm not going to be up there with you, try not embarrass yourself." My face when still with a very small smirk, "Yes sir." 

I went through the door and into my car. I left Aaron's going to my apartment. 

I was going to try and get ready with Chloe, it started in less than three hours. Driving I walked up the stairs and unlocked the door. Anthony and Andrew were sitting in the kitchen, enjoying the food that was in the fridge. "Look who's here, where have you been?" 

I raised my eyebrows at them both, them started laughing, "Never mind." 

I hummed and headed to my room, getting the gown from the back of my door. "Chloe!", I called out waiting for a response. She came with the clothes she was going to wear. 

"What?"

"Where's the pair of heels you gave me?", she rested on the doorframe. "The black ones?" 

"Yeah can I get those", she left and gave me the shoes. I went through my closet and grabbed the black skin tight dress I had and threw on the heels. 

Applying some light makeup I walked back out to the guys, "Oh shit, look who's actually trying." 

"Oh fuck off, how do I look?", I spun around, facing them again. "Like if I didn't know you I'd be trying to hook up with you." I chuckled and placed a hand on my chest, "Aww that's so sweet." The guys were already finished getting ready.

Wearing a white button up and a pair of khakis.

We had a little more than an hour to get to the ceremony. "Chloe come on." I heard the clicking of her heels and she came out to us. Her appearance matched mine and we all walked out together and drove over. 

Getting out of the car, we saw the crowd of people outside and the amount of cars. Inside was worse, there were people everywhere, Chloe and I went into the bathroom and put on our cap and gown. "You ready?"

I let out a deep sigh, "Nope... but we kind of have to so, let's go." We took our time walking to the chairs we were assigned to. I turned my head trying to look for Hotch, when he texted.

Aaron - More to the left

Cocking my head to the side, there he was. Smiling at me, I could see how proud he was in his eyes. We waved and both of us turned our attention back to the stage. The principle stepped on and started talking. I had zoned out for the majority of the graduation.

Just wanting to get it over with, my body was filled with anxiety. Even through we practiced a hell of a lot I still never felt prepared. The valedictorian started and I really didn't pay any attention to that. I always hated her, her name was Allison and she just always. went. on and on about— well everything.

I found her voice grating. "Now we will go on and start with the class of 2011." I whispered to myself, "Oh shit." One by one the students walked across the stage.

And the closer they got to me the more my heart raced. The more my face got red, thankfully the makeup was hiding most of it.

"Chloe Prescott", he called her up. As she got up she shook my hand and mumbled, "Good luck." Chloe walked away and shook the hands of everyone on stage. She got off and they took her picture. I saw her go over to Aaron and say something into his ear.

What the hell. "Y/n L/n", whatever it was I didn't have the time to think about it when they called my name. I got up, trying not to collapse where I stood.

Grabbing my degree from the principle I thanked all of them and walked off. That was it, I was out of it never realizing I was already standing next to Aaron.

"Congratulations", I huffed and smiled looking at him. Still being in front of everyone I couldn't do what I really wanted. Staying until it was over I was joined by my friends in the lobby.

"You're coming out with us tonight no exceptions", Anthony pointed at me. Aaron looked down as he started walking away. "Hold on", I went over to him, leaving the group. 

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I don't want to keep you from them", I put a reassuring hand on his. "Aaron... you're not keeping me. I want my boyfriend there to celebrate with me, you're going."

___________________

Permeant taglist : @errorcosplay67 @wanniiieeee @oreogutz @aberrant-annie @filthyq-tip-blog @hotch-meeeeeuppppp 

[whocalledhimannux]

@peregrer the What. 👀👀👀 *insert John Mulaney gif of "say more right now"*

ok so when I say "the extent to which I've fleshed out the QT GBBO AU in my head is getting to be embarrassing," I truly and deeply mean it, please enjoy 1,900 words of utter ridiculousness.

first, our competitors:

Legarus - performs so poorly that viewers are a bit confused how he got on the show in the first place, a la Jamie (series 10) or that one guy who made a lime and chocolate cake in the first week.

Chloe - nice flavors and good ideas for decorations, but pretty sloppy. was up for elimination in the first week but came back with a great showstopper.

Melheret - good but not as good as he thinks he is (hence his bread week elimination because of sloppy technique), heavy-handed with the alcohol flavoring

Agape - solid competitor, not flashy but tasty + pretty results. I haven't worked out exact week-by-week themes (that would indeed be Too Much) but I imagine this is something like "Dairy" or "Caramel" or "Vegan," some particular element she just happens to not be strong on. viewers are disappointed by her early elimination

Teleus - Dad contestant. brings in a bunch of weird pans and gadgets he made up himself, does pretty well until it comes to Fiddly Foreign Foods he doesn't know (probably eliminated in French or Patisserie week)

Laela - typically has good flavors and pretty designs but technical knowledge is a bit lacking, so there are usually some flaws in the execution and she's often in the bottom half of technicals

Phresine - Grandma contestant. nails the classics but ultimately isn't creative enough to make it further.

Magus - the "Ian (series 6)" flavor of Dad contestant, often brings in foraged ingredients or eggs from his own chickens or whatnot and revives old recipes/flavor combinations no one else knows about. one week, some of those turn out to just be too weird, leading to his elimination.

Sophos - pretty elaborate decorations and good flavors (on the border of classic and new), but he tends to try a million different embellishments on everything and struggles with timing, occasionally to the detriment of technique.

Kamet - always has really interesting and different flavors and tends to do well in technicals especially, assuming he doesn't get overwhelmed. which is... an assumption (Finalist)

Costis - leans towards classic and indulgent flavors, although sometimes a bit sloppy--the kind of contestant where the judges look at his dishes and say "it's a bit of a mess" and then Paul Hollywood starts laughing because it still tastes delicious (Finalist)

Irene - absolutely stunning visually, queen of the technicals, occasionally gets the "style over substance" warning (Winner)

more details below the cut

I've gone back and forth on whether Eugenides should be in it but ultimately I decided no because I wanted to maintain a pre-show relationship between Laela + Kamet (I thought otherwise at first but then I realized I hadn't left Kamet any longterm friends or family for his finalist video and that's depressing af) and Irene and Sophos which to my knowledge hasn't happened once on the show so far? so having a married couple on top of that seems like it would be a stretch, and also then I think I'd need to make Eugenides the winner on principle and you know what? he can stand to be second fiddle to his wife for a little bit. My alternate backstory for him is that he was actually the winner of MasterChef one year (good with knives), so in the first episode Irene's first little chat to camera is something like "my husband's been bugging me for years to try out and I keep telling him he's got a skewed perspective on cooking competitions, finally I applied just to shut him up... and here we are." Her little video introduction is about how baking is a stress relief from her bigshot job. Her decorations tend to be abstract and gorgeous rather than cutesy.

Kamet, likewise, was nagged into applying by Laela, but she very cleverly framed it as she wanted to apply and wanted him to do it to for moral support. both were confident the other would get in and surprised that they did themselves. This is one of those series where everyone's friendships are immediate and obvious and super adorable (cast of series 10 my beloved...), and in particular these two are holding hands in episode 1. Laela's deep blue robe from TaT sticks in my head for whatever reason so I imagine her making an elaborate blue peacock cake or something one week that wins her star baker. somebody always does a peacock something and it's always impressiev.

Phresine is cool as a cucumber under pressure, always has lovely things to say about everyone else's bakes, and is the go-to last-minute helper because she usually comes in under the time. Irene starts out similar but as the weeks go by she starts to feel the pressure a bit more and cuts it a bit close. Sophos is the worst on timings, and mentions his wife at least once an episode. (I also played with him being single on the show and meeting Helen later through Irene and Eugenides, but this idea is too cute to pass up tbh.) Teleus lives with Relius, a fact that isn't mentioned until a few weeks in when he comments that Relius likes a recipe or gave him an idea for a flavor or something (Relius does not bake himself but will happily sample practice bakes), to the surprised delight of every viewer whose favorite contestant is the oldest gay in any given series (me, me, that person is me).

Costis tends to use a lot of chocolate and, as I said, pretty "classic" flavors--one of those people who makes a full English savory bake at some point. He's usually in the top half of the competition but doesn't get the top until one of the later weeks in the competition, which is a Honey themed week, and he absolutely nails it. The delicate decorations of his honey nut cakes and his use of honeycomb are particularly praised and that's the week he gets star baker. One of those bakers who flirts with elimination the first few weeks but noticeably improves over the course of the show.

My most, like, plot-y ideas are about Kamet (SHOCKER). I imagine he was born in Setra (I usually make Setra a non-autonomous region in my AUs) but arrived in Britain as a child due to [Unspecified Crisis] and ended up with foster dad Jeffa, who was roughly from the same region but not Setra itself; whenever Kamet wanted Setran food as a kid, Jeffa would take him to the library to find recipes and that was what sparked his love of baking. He's well-read on the subject and knows about foods from a lot of different cultures, so he's usually heard of the technical challenges even if he hasn't made or eaten them. He does a lot of fusion flavors, and is ALL ABOUT bread week.

I don't usually make the his-relationship-with-Nahuseresh-is-romantic leap in modern AUs but I think it works for this one because of the nature of the format--Nahuseresh doesn't actually appear on camera but is alluded to once or twice, ends up being Very Displeased that Kamet is doing something for himself, and during the week following Laela's elimination they have the fight that makes Kamet realizes this is actually a terrible relationship and he needs to leave now. He calls Laela to let her know what's up and mentions that, since he'll need to stay in a motel and has presumbly lost his job as a secretary (yeah working for your boyfriend is Bad, he's realized that now), he's going to have to drop out of the show. Laela, despite living in a studio flat without room to host him, immediately thinks "um fuck that" and calls Costis, and within an hour Costis and Aris and a few rugby buddies have moved all of Kamet's things into Costis and Aris's flat, where Costis insists that he'll squeeze into Aris's room (they've shared before, it's fine) and that Kamet gets first dibs on the kitchen for all bake off practices.

None of them actually reveal any of this to the show's producers. Kamet gets a little overwhelmed the following week and nearly walks away from the tent, but Costis jumps in to keep his bake from being ruined, and some soothing words from Irene + the hosts calm him down and he returns to finish. The only mention of the Drama comes in the finale, during the longer video clips they do on each of the contestants. Kamet is deliberately vague about the details of the situation, but Aris shows up in both Costis's and Kamet's videos and references the fact that having TWO flatmates in the bake off is a bit difficult because they only have a standard size kitchen, so he hasn't cooked for himself in a month and has been living off cake and savory breads. one of the hosts talks to Kamet in the tent after that clip is shown and he still won't talk about it in more detail, but says that he wanted to tell people so they could appreciate why Costis hasn't practiced as much the last few weeks (the judges scolded him for winging it a couple of times), and admits that he totally copied some of Costis's techniques for honey week based on watching him at home.

I imagine the finale task is something like an illusion cake--probably with a bunch of additional required elements because the show has been going bonkers with the finale showstoppers in the newer seasons--and Irene wins with a jewelry box containing, among other things, ruby earrings made out of candy. Kamet does a stepwell, and Costis does something architectural (I was thinking castle but something visibly Greek-ish so maybe a temple or a megaron? idk). Irene wins but they're all BFFs and that's obvious, so everyone's delighted for her. The little montage at the end reveals that Irene + Gen are expecting twins, that everybody hangs out all the time, and that Costis + co recently helped Kamet move into his own flat where he's now working on a novel (Immakuk and Ennikar inspired, obvi, leaning heavily on the honey-shared-on-the-road thing and including some recipes that actually work in the narration, albeit still written in an ancient-novel-like-way).

[Obviously not part of the show, but when Kamet mentions that it's time for him to look for his own place, Costis tries to v awkwardly invite him to stay forever and Kamet is like "nope I've got to try this on my own but yes we will go on a date once I've moved out and see how it goes from there."]

[This is so far beyond the scope of the show but also several of them go on to have more baking-related careers and have active social media presences and at one point they're all hanging out and Eugenides pulls out a camera and demands they all produce baking pick-up lines. Teleus refuses and also doesn't believe anyone knows baking pick-up lines off the top of their head or could make them up on the spot. Sophos sort of proves him right by coming up with "you're the apple of my pie," which Eugenides instantly mocks because Sophos's three greatest loves are baking, Helen, and poetry, and that's the best he can do? Helen comes up with "I like my cake the way I like my men--rich, sweet, and bright red," to which Sophos blushes on cue. Irene's is "when I'm with you, I feel like chocolate heated to 50 degrees--I struggle to maintain my temper." Eugenides protests this is more like an anti-pickup line. Irene insists this is the most accurate marriage-related baking pun anyone could ever come up with.

[Laela's is "You and I are like custard--I hope we never split." Kamet's is "You remind me of bread, because I knead you." Costis freezes for a minute and finally comes up with "Fancy a cream horn?" which produces a lot of giggling and makes Kamet slap his arm in such a way that, hen Eugenides posts this video to instagram, fans of the show all go WAIT ARE THEY DATING NOW] [by this point, yes they are] [I didn't even have to google baking pickup lines for this, guys, I legit came up with them on my own, please clap.]

am I obsessed? I might be obsessed

[suituuup]

pieces - chapter 4

summary: Five years ago, Chloe dropped off the face of the Earth. Beca didn't expect to see her again dancing in a strip club, out of all places.

rating: E (drug use, emotional abuse)

ao3 link

*

six years ago

Chloe glanced up at the Girls neon sign and adjusted her purse over her shoulder, sucking in a sharp breath. She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous; it was just dancing, right? Chloe loved dancing. Granted, it would be in a bikini and heels with mostly middle-aged men watching, a far cry from her performances as Bella, but she could do this. 

She didn’t have much of a choice, anyway. 

Money had been really tight lately, as it turned out living in NYC was really expensive, and her parents couldn’t help her much, given that they had already financed her seven years in Barden and her dad had health issues. 

It was one of her colleagues at the coffee shop Chloe worked at who told her about stripping. The money was a lot better and the hours were flexible, so Chloe could go to class during the day, study for a bit at night then head to work. Sleep would be scarce but… it was either that or she wouldn’t be able to pay rent this month. 

Sucking in a deep breath, Chloe pushed the door open and found it locked. It was only seven pm, but she didn’t want to bother the manager later in the night when it got busy. She knocked on the surface several times, the door eventually opening after a minute or two. 

“Yes?”  A slightly older woman popped her head out. “What can I do for you, honey? We don’t open ‘til nine.” 

“I know, um, I was hoping to see the manager? I was told there was an opening for a stripper position.” 

Her gaze swept over Chloe’s figure, and she smiled before opening the door wider. “Have a seat, I’ll call him.”

present time

“Marco, turn off your fucking phone,” Chloe groaned, patting the space next to her to wake him up.

The blaring alarm was jamming into her skull like a goddamn sledgehammer. When her hand only met soft sheets, Chloe’s eyes opened, instantly squinting against the blinding light. Marco wasn’t there. Not that it was much of a surprise, as he often slept around.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             “Fuck,” she muttered as she sat up, eventually locating the offending object and swiping across the screen until it turned silent. Chloe flopped back against the mattress, legs twisting into the sheets as she angled her face into the pillow. Her head was pulsing from a raging hangover and her mouth felt as dry as the freaking Sahara, but Chloe didn’t feel like moving. 

She didn’t feel like living. 

Each morning felt like having to claw herself a way out from underneath the rubble. Each morning felt like she had fallen a little bit deeper during the night. 

All of that because of one wrong step, and a tumble. 

five and a half years ago

Multiple Sclerosis. 

Chloe remembered the day her parents told her about it. She was eighteen, it was a warm evening in the summer. She had been stargazing, like she often did during those peaceful nights, making the most of Oregon’s gorgeous skies before she moved to Atlanta for college. 

Her mom called her inside, sitting her down at the table. Chloe could immediately tell something was wrong. 

Her dad was sick. Multiple Sclerosis, the doctor said. Chloe had heard of it, but she wasn’t sure what it meant. Her dad explained it was something to do with the brain and the nerves. He was starting to lose feeling in his right arm, and it would only get worse with age.

The news crushed Chloe; her dad was her best friend, her adventure buddy. He took her on camping trips before she could walk. They went fishing together, played ball on the nearby court, or went for runs on the beach on Sundays. He often talked about how excited he was to do all these things with his grandchildren in the future. 

Since his disease was late-onset, it progressed quickly. Her dad could no longer walk, and she could tell her parents were struggling with affording treatment, homecare, and equipment to make their lives easier. 

“More shifts, huh?” Greg, the club’s manager, asked her as he reclined back in his leather chair behind his desk, folding his hands over his stomach. 

“Yeah, I’m a little tight on money and would like to work two more nights a week.” 

She would figure out how to juggle stripping with school. She just would. 

“I don’t have any more shifts available, unfortunately. However…” he pushed to his feet and rounded his desk, leaning against it as he faced Chloe. “Clients like you. I’ve stopped counting the number of times they requested you for something private. So there’s always that option to make extra cash.” 

“Something private?” Chloe cleared her throat. “What um-- what does that entail exactly?” 

Greg smirked. “Anything goes for the right amount of money.” 

Chloe knew the more she thought about it, the most likely she was to chicken out. So she agreed. 

“You look like you’re going to be sick, hun,” Martha, the oldest stripper of the bunch, said as she approached Chloe. She sat in front of her vanity, mentally preparing herself to go into one of the VIP rooms with a client. “You need to pull yourself together, babe. The client won’t enjoy it if you’re nervous.” 

She reached inside her purse and produced a tiny zip-lock bag with a bit of white powder in it. 

“Helps to take the edge off, especially on your first time,” she added when Chloe glanced at her in shock. 

“I don’t-- I don’t do that stuff.” 

She knew drugs got around the club. Most of the girls used. Crack, ecstasy, heroin, meth… you name it, Chloe had seen it go around. But she promised herself she’d never go down that route. 

Martha shrugged. “Suit yourself.” 

Chloe lasted three weeks before snorting her first line. 

present time

“Fuck, where is it?” Chloe muttered to herself as she rummaged through her bag, eventually tipping it back so its contents spread over the mattress. 

She spotted the tiny bag and snatched it, smearing some of its content onto the small mirror laying on her bedside table. Her hand shook as she used an expired credit card to make a line, then grabbed the straw. 

You know that first cup of coffee of the day you can hardly function without? Well, that is what cocaine had become to Chloe. She used to justify her actions by convincing herself she could stop anytime she wanted to. But it was already too late. She was hooked, and it was too fucking hard to stop. 

As she plopped back on her bed and attempted to relax while the coke worked on her nervous system, Chloe thought of Beca. 

five years ago

Bree 💕

Chloe groaned at the name flashing on her vibrating phone and flipped it over, curling up in a ball on her bed. She had been ignoring most of the girls for the past few weeks. Every glance at the group chat reminded her of how much of a failure she was. 

Aubrey had just passed the bar. Beca had been nominated for a Grammy. Cynthia-Rose was a music producer. Stacie, a space engineer. And so on. 

They were all successful in life, while Chloe? 

Well, Chloe had dropped out of vet school. She was a stripper who pleasured men for a living. She lived in a tiny box apartment and spent her grocery money on crack. She got drunk pretty much every night and had absolutely no prospect in life. 

Their yearly Bellas reunion was just around the corner, and Chloe hadn’t replied yet, which was no doubt the reason behind her best friend calling this morning. And yesterday. And the day before that. 

Chloe couldn’t go. For the same reason, she couldn’t go home to her parents. 

The thought of it only fed that shame eating away at her soul. 

present day

Chloe hadn’t allowed herself to think about the Bellas in a long time, as it only brought heartbreak, regrets, and even more shame over how she had left things.

But then Beca showed up out of the blue, and Chloe’s shield instantly materialized. She saw it right there in Beca’s eyes; the pity over what Chloe had become. That unspoken reminder that she was a failure made Chloe want to crawl out of her own skin.                                                                               

Chloe wasn’t planning on using that business card. Even though Beca was on her mind near constantly, she couldn’t bring herself to call her. And then they bumped into one another last week, and despite the snark, what was left of the Chloe from six years ago within her thought it might mean something. 

A coffee. Coffee was fine, to start with. 

Sarah was unexpected, yet another proof of how together Beca’s life was. But Chloe pushed through the discomfort swirling around her insides, up until the money comment. Up until it further dawned on her that they now belonged to two very different worlds. 

Beca was probably a multi-millionaire. Aubrey was a lawyer. And Chloe? Well, Chloe was still just as worthless as she was five years ago. That shame she had somehow managed to bury all that time came right back around to slap her in the face. 

So she bolted, figuring this was the last she would see of Beca Mitchell. 

Except Chloe couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Grabbing her computer, she sat up against the headboard and balanced the device on her thighs, allowing herself to look Beca up for the first time in five years. 

Various photos of Beca on the red carpet and a Wikipedia page popped up, and Chloe clicked on the page, swallowing the lump forming in her throat as she scrolled down. Fifteen minutes later, she somehow found herself on YouTube, typing in the same name and clicking on the most popular video. 

Something unraveled within her as she heard that voice for the first time in half a decade. An array of emotions released, but one stood out over the others as it was a feeling Chloe hadn’t experienced in a long time: peace. 

Music hadn’t felt like music for a long while; Chloe had lost her connection to it somewhere down the road. She had grown numb to it, just like with most things that used to make her happy. 

But this… Chloe had forgotten what it felt like to be moved by lyrics. To feel comforted by a melody that felt like a warm blanket over her soul. Soon tears were slipping out of her eyes and Chloe didn’t do anything to stop them. She curled up in a ball and played Beca’s albums on shuffle for the next three hours, basking in that temporary moment of serenity.                                                 

When it eventually stopped, Chloe plucked Beca’s business card from her bedside table and grabbed her phone, blinking several times to clear her vision so she could punch in the right numbers. Her heart echoed in her ears as she waited for someone to pick it up. 

“BMLJ, Tara speaking, how may I help?” 

“H-hi, this is Chloe Beale. I was wondering if I could speak to Beca? Beca Mitchell.” 

“Hold please.”  

Chloe started picking on her nails, battling with the little voice inside her head encouraging her to hang up. 

“Chlo?” 

Chloe’s chest tightened at the nickname, and her voice stuck to her throat. “Hi.” 

“What’s wrong? Are you crying?” 

“No, I… I mean yes, I am crying but I-- I just listened to your music and-- it’s amazing, Beca.” 

“Oh.” Beca sounded surprised. A few beats of silence follow. “It means a lot that you liked it, Chlo.” 

It took Chloe a handful of seconds to realize she was the one supposed to say something. “I um, is this a bad time?” 

“No, no. What’s up?” 

Chloe sucked in a sharp breath as she picked at a loose thread on her sleeping shorts. “I um, well I was wondering if we could see each other sometime next week? I’m sorry about the other day, I wasn’t-- I wasn’t feeling great.” 

“You don’t need to apologize. And yeah, that sounds great. How about Thursday for lunch? Or a walk in the park, if you prefer.” 

“A walk in the park sounds good.” 

“We can meet next to the Roosevelt statue in front of the Natural History Museum at 12:30?”

“Okay.” 

“Chloe?”

“Yeah?” 

“I’m really happy you called. See you on Thursday.”  

Chloe’s smile felt like the first genuine one in too long. “See you on Thursday.” 

“What’s going on on Thursday?” 

Chloe jolted, looking over her shoulder to find Marco standing in the doorway. “Jesus, Marco. You scared the crap out of me.” 

two years ago

“I’m Marco, the club’s new manager,” the dark-haired man introduced himself, extending a hand towards Chloe. 

Chloe shook his hand. “I’m Ariel.” 

“You really are as beautiful as they say.” 

She glanced through the mirror and met his eyes; unimpressed. “Is it a habit of yours to hit on your employees?” 

He chuckled. “No. I guess you’re the exception.” 

Chloe wasn’t interested. At first, anyway. But Marco had apparently set his sights on her, and well, Chloe felt lonely. They played around each other for a few months, eventually giving in to their attraction towards each other. One night’s shenanigans blossomed into more, and Chloe found herself falling for her boss. 

And she believed him when he told her he loved her. He was the buoy in her storm, the hand that was pulling her from underneath the rubble. Chloe was so blinded by that that she didn’t pick up on his toxic behavior right away. 

“Here’s a thought,” he murmured one morning as they lay in bed in his luxurious condo. 

Chloe raised an eyebrow. She was definitely still drunk from last night, her recent hit of crack causing her mind to float blissfully. 

He set his chin on her hipbone as he lay on his stomach, looking up at her. “I don’t want you to work in the VIP room anymore.” 

“Are you jealous or something?” Chloe slurred, smirking to mask how desperate she was to stop working in the VIP room. It had crushed her spirit. “You know I can’t afford to only live on lapdances and the stage. I have rent and bills to pay.” 

He licked his lips, a soft smile spreading across her features. “I know. Which is why you should move in with me.” 

Chloe rolled her eyes. “We’ve been together only four months.” 

“But I love you,” he said, almost desperately. “And you love me too, right? We’re good together, baby.” 

A sigh flitted past Chloe’s lips. “Even if I do move in, I still have to take care of my dad.” 

“I know that too. And I want you to get a cut from the nightly profit, too.” 

Chloe should have known it was too good to be true, yet she agreed. 

It was another year before the veil lifted and Marco showed his true character. 

present

Marco ignored her. As he usually did. “What’s going on on Thursday?” He repeated his tone calm and collected as always. 

“I’m meeting up with Beca.” Not waiting for an answer, Chloe stood and padded out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. It was nearly five, and she hadn’t eaten anything yet. 

“The chick from the 20 grand lapdance?” Marco followed, crossing his arms as he leaned against the counter while Chloe rummaged through the cupboards for a snack. “What’s her deal?” 

“What do you mean, what’s her deal? We’re just gonna catch up. I told you, we used to be friends in college.”

Marco’s features hardened. “I don’t want you to see her.” 

Chloe grabbed a box of crackers and rolled her eyes. “I don’t remember asking you for your opinion.” 

Marco approached, pinning her between his body and the counter. “Don’t talk to me like that, Chloe.” 

Chloe gritted her teeth and glared at him, standing her ground. “I never complain about you sleeping around with other women and you lose your mind over me meeting a friend? You don’t control me. I’ll meet her if I want to.”

She moved to get past him, yelping when he yanked her back by the arm. The anger swirling in his eyes made her choke on her saliva. 

“I don’t think you realize how much I’ve done for you, Chloe. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be giving blowjobs for a living.” He didn’t need to raise his voice; the truth behind his words was powerful enough as they wormed their way into Chloe’s brain. “Does she even know you’re a crack addict? That you can’t go more than five hours without a hit?” He continued, seemingly finding it satisfying to break through Chloe’s armor. “Maybe she’s just looking for a charity case.”

Chloe warred with her mind not to believe him, shaking her head as her insecurities muffled her anger towards Marco. “That’s not-- that’s not true. You’re wrong.” 

“Am I?” 

Chloe remained silent, doubt seizing her. 

“That’s what I thought.” Marco’s hold loosened. “Think about your dad, sweetheart. It would be a shame if you suddenly found yourself without a job and no money to provide for him. You know no other strip club will want you if I fire you. And that’s all you can do, isn’t it? Using your body to charm men into giving you money.” He squeezed her hip, leaning in closer so he was whispering the next bit directly against her ear. “So I would listen if I were you.” 

He walked away then, but his words remained, trapping Chloe’s mind in an invisible prison. 

[bard-of-worlds]

Ladybug AU/ The Law is The Law CH1

Adrien scowled as he reached the location of the photoshoot, the way the battle with Mayura and Hawkmoth, what had been done to Sentibug was still causing him some problems, he didn’t know if after everything that had happened today he didn’t know how he would be able to handle the shoot.  When he saw Lila sitting on a chair and having her makeup done he stopped and grabbed Vincent as he walked by.  Vincent turned to Adrien and paled as he saw the look in Adrien’s eyes.

 “Vincent, hey……quick question, why in the name of everything good and pure is Lila here?” Adrien asked flatly as Vincent swallowed.

 “I don’t know Adrien, all I know was that I was told there would be a new model at the shoot, nothing about who or why only that Nathalie would introduce her…..Love to talk kid but I have to go and get my camera ready, sooooo.   Bye.”  Vincient said as he dashed off, throwing a look at Adrien as he walked away.  You know, I wondered how he was Gabe’s kid but that there, it’s gone now.  He thought as he looked around and saw the looks on the other crew’s faces and hoped Adrien wouldn’t explode.

 Adrien looked at Lila and scowled, not needing this now.  I don’t know what Father’s thinking, anyone in class could have been a better pick, Sabrina, Juleka or Chloe if he wanted someone my age to model with that’s not in the bussniess.  But maybe I can use this, if I can talk to her she might clean up what she did to Marinette, and if not then I might get the pressure to make her do it.  Adrien thought as he reached for his phone and moved it to his pocket, praying that he wouldn’t have to use this.

 “I don’t know how but you will fix this Lila.  How could you get Marinette expelled?!” Adrien demanded as he discreetly pointing his phone’s camera at her, part of him hoping this wouldn’t be necessary.

 “Why should I do that? I tried to get her play ball and she wouldn’t, I warned her and we both made our choices, I made mine and here we are.” Lila said as she looked at Adrien as he stared at her.   “I told her I would ruin her and I did, I said I would get you and here I am.”

 “So just so we’re clear, you lied, you threatened Marinette and got her expelled because she called you out on your lies?  How did you even do it anyway?” Adrien asked as he fought to keep his temper down    ‘Get me’, so I was right about her.  Just another person who objectified me or sees what they want to think. Adrien thought as he looked at her.  

  “It was so easy, all I had to do was go to the bathroom after the test, pull the alarm and get the answer sheet that was left on that idiot teacher’s desk and put it in Marinette’s bag. They never even noticed it but it was after the last class and well.” Lila said with a giggle as Adrien fumed and glared at her.

 “And you would do it again, wouldn’t you?”  Adrien asked as he kept his face plain, but inside he was shocked that this was so essay to get what he needed from her.

“I would even without the bonus your father gave me.”  Lila said as Adrien looked at her in confusion.  

 “Bonus, my father? What does he have to do with this?!” Adrien demanded as he looked at Lila, on the inside he wasn’t scared but angry, and he felt the last vestige of his control was starting to burn away.

 “Don’t act so surprised, he had to have talked to you about it and told you to act the way you did before the Akuma attacked everyone, the Gabriel brand over all, and its spokesperson speaking up for someone accused of a crime would be a perfect publicity stunt.” Lila said she looked at him.  

 Adrien stared at Lila as his vision went red as she sat there grinning back at him as he went over what she had said before whipping his head around and he saw Nathalie in the limo looking towards the shoot, his eyes widening as he realize that for once Lila was telling the truth, turning off his phone he turned to look at the river and tried to calm down. I can’t believe this!  I knew something was wrong when I learned that Lila was going to model with me but I can’t believe……Wait….if she’s here because of that then this means! Adrien thought as his thoughts crystalized

 “You did that for this!? You were completely willing to ruin her life for this?!” Adrien exploded as he shot up from his chair looking at her.  As the crew looked on Adrien grabbed her, pulled her behind him despite what she was saying and with surprising strength threw her into the river! Nathalie got out of the car and rushed over towards the water as the crew stared in total shock before they moved to help Lila out.

 “Adiren what were you thinking!  Your father will not be happy about this at all.  I don’t even know what….!” Nathalie would have kept talking but Adiren turned around and looked at her with such a look of rage, anger and disgust in his eyes that she stopped talking.

 “I don’t care.” Adrien said flatly as Nathalie tried to recover.. “Nathalie, tell my father that for the first time ever I’m glad that mom is gone.  This way I have memories of a beautiful person instead of someone who could love the monster that he’s become!” Adrien said as he looked at her and gripped his phone.  “An Agreste is held to high standards; well this has shown me that mine are very different from his and no amount of effort will ever be good enough for him!”

 As Nathalie looked at him, really looked at him for the first time ever she could comprehend what she was seeing.   Adrien had always been an accommodating to Gabriel’s wishes that she never thought that he would ever act this way.  Adrien turned, manipulating his phone as he did so and walked away, not even paying her any piece of mind.  Nathalie looked around and saw the photo crew trying to get Lila out of the river and stormed over to them, pulling them back and staring down at her. ”What did you say?”

 “What?” Lila asked as she tried to climb out of the river.

 “What did you say Lila!?” Nathalie demanded as Lila looked up at her.  “Adrien has never, ever acted even remotely like that or said anything about his father, so WHAT. DID. YOU. SAY?”

 “I told him about the job that got me here.  Why the hell he’d react that way, Gabriel told me to do it!” Lila said as Nathalie looked down at her and paled.

  “Louis, hey.  Sorry to call out of the blue but can we talk?” Adrien said into his phone as walked off, ignoring the camera crew as they stared at him, he just kept walking.  

 “Yeah Adrien, what’s up?” Louis’s voice came through the phone as Adrien could hear the squeak of his chair as he leaned back in it.  “Need some wisdom from somebody who’s been around the block a few times?”

 “No, not wisdom do it, that thing we talked about.  He’s finally crossed my final line, I don’t have a choice anymore.”  Adrien said as he looked behind him, not seeing the Gorilla anywhere so there was that.

 “You sure kid?  Once this goes out there’s no turning back, this is a big choice to make?” Louise asked causing Adrien to nod before he realized that Louise couldn’t see him and blushed before he spoke again.

 “Yeah I am, what he is, what he’s willing to do for his brand, I just can’t live with myself if we don’t do this.”  Adrien said as he walked.

  “And…….. done!  In a few hours there’s going to be such an investigation that gonna cause old Gabe to pass out!  I’m sorry you were pushed to this point kid, but I’ve got a spare coach if you want to use it.” Louise said.

 “Don’t be, I should have done this months ago.  Looking back my relationship with him died when mom disappeared.” Adrien said as he felt Plagg press against him and he reached into the pocket Plagg was in and felt Plagg hug his hand.  At least I still have him and Ladybug, and her kwami too.  He thought as he released a breath and let the last of his relationship with his father die as it should have when he started to treat him as only an employee. “And about that second thing I just sent you a video I just shot, and I think I have some pro bono work you’ll love, do you know the bakery near my school?”

 “Yeah, I love their cookies, but what do Tom and Sabine have to do with this?  And you know I only do that stuff when I have a good target of injustice so what happened?”  Louis asked. Wait a minute, don’t those two have a daughter who should be around the kid’s age?  Louise thought as he waited for Adrien’s reply.

 “First off, is it legal for a student to be expelled on the same day as the crime?” Adrien asked as he walked through Paris, hopping that

 “No, all students need a hearing for expulsion, did he use that world?  Hold on I’ve got the file you sent me………holy!  And this bitch framed a friend of yours at Gabe’s direction?!” Louise said as he “Kid you should have called me soon, now I can probably get the expulsion off her records and I think I can get a nice settlement for her and then there’s your dad but….”

 “That’s it Louise it happened today!” Adrien interrupted him and Louise stopped talking.  “There wasn’t a hearing, she wasn’t suspended, the principle just expelled her in front of everybody!”

 “Adrien, buddy.  You bring me the best presents!  A perfect way to strike against the school that let the person that abused my goddaughter into trying to commit suicide walk free, I love it!”  Louis said with a laugh.

 “Wait, what!  My school is the one where that happened?” Adrien asked as he stopped moving for a moment as his eyes went wide.

 “Yeah, this bitch always believed the whore and punished my goddaughter, she almost killed herself. In the end the teacher was fired, the bully had left and moved to a different county and what a teacher could do to a student was changed.  I think they were talking about changing the rules for how they punish someone.  One of the most idiotic ideas was to for it to only apply if the teacher saw them do it or they got it on camera, the most insane idea I have ever heard.”  Louise said as Adrien gasped.  “Kid, what is it?”

 “I think they did make that rule Louise. Chloe hasn’t changed much and besides words and actions taken where no one besides the victim could see it she’s gotten away with a lot.  And this time Mari….the victim was expelled based on only on the accusers word, they even made it a public spectator. ” Adrien said flatly.  Is this why Chloe gets away with everything she does? But wait the cameras! He thought as he heard Louise’s chair pushed backwards as he got up.

 “WHAT!  I know they’ve got cameras in that place; it was part of the settlement!  Don’t tell me that they aren’t being used!” Louise exclaimed with a hint of anger in his voice.

 “They’re practically ornamental at this point!  They never even looked at the ones in the courtyard, all Lila said was that Marinette pushed her down the stairs and the principle believed her!”  Adrien said as he heard Louise grit his teeth.  “And I admit finding the necklace in her locker was damming but there are no locks on any of them and it could have fit through the grill!”

 “This necklace, it was tested for fingerprints at least right?”  Louis asked as Adrien stayed silent and Louis felt a headache coming on. “Adrien tell me they at least did that and listened to more than just one student right, please?”

 “I can’t Louise, I just can’t.” Adrien said softly as he heard Louis trying to keep his temper down and count backwards from twenty.

 “Kid, I’ll meet you at the bakery, if I hear anything more now I’m going to scream.  I’ll have my people send out the papers for the first thing you called me about before I leave, see you there.” As Adrien heard the call end he sighed.

 “Plagg, I should have done this when this began.”  He said softly as he walked towards Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie.

 “The throwing Lila into the river or calling in Louise when pigtails got expelled, causing I’m all for transforming and going to cataclysming her.”  Plagg said as Adiren laughed.  I guess I can’t expect any different from Plagg, he’s been saying to get rid of her for weeks!  I had to hope she was acting that way like my mask have when I’m in public or around fat….Gabriel.  I guess this finally proved once and for all where I stand with him, and somehow I feel lighter. Adrien thought as he walked.

 “The calling Louise, I mean I had hoped she was just telling stories thing because she was nervuis and scared, I mean moving around so much I can understand that, it took me weeks to lighten up and start to be more then my mask at school.”  Adrien said with a sigh.  “And most of Chloe’s act is because she wants her mom to love her.”

 “I’ll say once and I’ll say it again, that woman is a piece of work!  I’ve seen a lot of people over the centuries but like her, always the worst of the worst.”  Plagg said as he looked up at Adrien.

 “Adrien there you are!” Chloe’s voice caused Adrien to turn and see her pounding towards him with Sabrina following behind her.  “How the hell are we going to get Marinette un-expelled?  This is ridicules, completely ridicules!”

 Adrien looked at Chloe as she started a terade and frowned as what she was saying got through to him. “Wait, you want to help Marinette?”

 “Of course!  Nobody but nobody messes with Dunpain-Chang but me! And even I wouldn’t threaten her how Lila did!” Chloe said a huff as she looked up at the sky.

 “What do you mean, threatened Marinette?!  When did that happen?!”  Adrien demanded as Chloe looked at him and Sabrina’s mouth dropped open.

 “It was when she came back, she cornered Marinette and she felt so scared an Akuma was summoned but she fought it off!”  Sabrina said causing Adrien to gasp at her.

 “That’s where that Akuma came from, that’s how Lila was Akumatized, not because I talked to her?!” Adrien said with shock, stepping backwards as he paled in horror. “God, I am the most idiotic person on the planet!”

 “Sabrina saw her reach for it Adrien what are you…..What did you do?!” Chloe demanded as she saw him react to what she and Sabrina told him and started to grow worried, he had only acted like this when he had made what he thought was a mistake, like when he had given his mom flowers and she turned out to be allergic to them.

 “I thought Lila’s emotions spiked because I talked to her about how she didn’t have to lie to get people to like her, not that she chased one down!  I told Marinette to take the highroad about her lies, I never knew…….” Adrien said as Chloe gasped and started to get mad and was about to exploded when Sabrina spoke up.

 “You thought she was so emotional that talking to her about her lies caused her to get on Hawkmoth’s radar?” Sabrina asked as Chloe looked at her then at Adrien with her mouth open.

 “God, and you were worried that she’d attack anyone who called her out, did you at least explain that to Marinette?” Chloe asked only to sigh when Adrien hung his head. “Adrien!”

 “I……. I knew she’d probably react like you guys are and I didn’t want to give Lila any ammunition to use, I’ve been trying to get alone to talk to her about it but I haven’t been able to yet.” Adrien said miserably.

 “Then go and talk to her now!  And wait……. Don’t you have a photoshoot about now?” Chloe asked as she looked around, confused beyond words.

 Adrien’s phone seemed to burn a hole into his leg and he looked at Chloe steadily. “I’m handling Marinette’s problems.  And about the shoot I walked off after I threw the other model there, Lila into the river!”

 “What the hell was Lie-la doing there?  And how are you handing what happened?” Chloe demanded as she looked at Adrien, fuming. Why the heck did Gabriel get Lila to model, if he wanted a new teen girl anyone would have been better, heck even Alya could do it!  She thought as Adrien seemed to be struggling with something.

 “I called Louise about it, he said that what the principle did wasn’t right…..and I told him to send off the notice to the Department of Child Services.” Adrien said as Chloe and Sabrina gasped and looked at him.

 “Why, I mean you should have done it months ago but why now?” Sabrina said, having been Chloe’s friend for years she knew Adrien at least superficially and this wasn’t like him.

 “Lila did what she did because he told her to.” Adrien as they looked at him, not understanding what he was saying.  “She said that the modeling thing is a bonus and that she thought how I tried to help Marinette was a publicity stunt for the brand.”

 Chloe gasped a hand shooting to her mouth as she looked at him with shock, wondering what had driven Gabriel to do that.  “I’m sorry Adrien, you know that there’s always a room at the hotel if you need it.”

 “I’ve got a couch dad will be happy to lend you.” Sabrina said with a small smile.

 “Yeah thanks girls…..I’m meeting Louise at Marinette’s, do you want to come along as support?” Adrien asked and Chloe laughed.

 “I can guess what’s going on, so I’ll do a little research and get back to you and Marinette later, good luck groveling to her.” Chloe said as she and Sabrina walked off. Adrien looked at her and shook his head, wondering if Marinette would forgive him for his mistake.

 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

  Sabine sighed as she tried not to think what had happened earlier today at school but she couldn’t. “Nothing about it makes sense, I mean I know my daughter, she’d never do this!  And how Lila was still walking around after she was pushed, it doesn’t make sense!”

 “Your right Sabine and the necklace looked like it could have fit through the grill on the locker and did any of them have locks on them at all?  I thought Marinette said she only used hers for holding her coat during winter and projects?” Tom’s voice caused Sabine to turn and look at her husband as he brought a tray of bread out from the kitchen, the workers looking out as they all knew something was wrong with what happened.

 “Yeah, boss I guess you can bring them up when the hearing right?”  One of the cooks asked as he poked his head out of the back.

 Sabine and Tom looked at each other, confusion in their eyes.  Did that idiot owl do something wrong when he expelled Marinette?  Tom thought as he frowned. “What hearing?”

 “The expulsion hearing, the one she has to have after her suspension is up.  The one that by law all students are required to have before their expelled?”  The cook said in

 “The principle said Marinette was expelled, that’s it, are you saying he did something wrong?” Sabine asked as she looked at him.

 “That’s something I think I can help with!���  A voice caused all of them to see Adrien standing behind a man in a brown business suit holding a briefcase in his right hand.  “My name is Louis Artoga, attorney at law and I’d like to have a long talk with you about that if you don’t mind.”

 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 Marinette lay down on her bed and hugged one of her pillows as she tried to forget the look in Sentibug’s eyes when Mayura destroyed it….her. That was something that will only haunt her for weeks if she’s lucky.

 “How could she do it Tikki, I just can’t believe that she was even able to do it.”  Marinette said as she hugged her pillow.

 “There have been people who have been bad holders, but I’ve never seen Duusu’s powers used that way.” Tikki said as she floated and looked at her chosen.  “You gave the Amok the talisman that created her; Mayura shouldn’t have been able to do it.”

 “Why does that have to do with anything?” Marinette asked as she tried to understand Tikki.

“That should have broken the link to Mayura, she should have been fully independent….. I can’t explain it.” Tikki said as she floated there, not letting Marinette detect any of her thoughts.  The only way that could have been possible was if the Miracolous itself was damaged, but Duusu wouldn’t have transformed then, it would have hurt her chosen.  Tikki thought as she watched Marinette try and deal with what she had seen happen earlier, some part of her glad she wasn’t thinking about how she had been expelled.

 “Something to talk to Master Fu about then, I just want to forget everything happened today and deal with it tomorrow.” Marinette said before a knocking caused her to look at the door down and frown as Tikki hid.  “It’s unlocked!”  

 She didn’t know what she was expecting but when Adrien came into her room she stared in shock. “Adrien! Are what doing you here?”

 Adrien looked at her and sighed.  “I…..Marinette…. I called a friend of mine about what happened, he’s downstairs with your parents and I volunteered to come and get you.  I told them I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes, I want to apologize first.”

 “Apologize, Adrien what happened today wasn’t your fault at all, you tried to help but he wouldn’t listen.” Marinette said but stopped when Adrien shook his head.

 “No, not that.  The advice I gave you when Lila came back.” Adrien said as he hung his head.  “Sabrina was in the bathroom too, she heard Lila threaten you and then the Akuma came at you…… while that was happening I was talking to Lila about her lies and she tried to ruin my life at school and my friendships after sooo.”

 “You told me not to act against Lila because you thought she summoned and Akuma from you talking to her about her lies?” Marinette said in shock.

 “I thought she had summoned the Akuma while I was talking to her about how she didn’t have to lie to get people to like her and she acted normal so……I’m sorry.” Adrien said as he looked away from Marinette and she just looked at him as she tried to understand just what Adrien had thought

 “You gave me advice based on what you knew.”  Marinette said after a few moments. “If I thought that way about someone I might have said the same to you.”

 “Then?”  Adrien asked as he felt a bit of hope.

 “Apology accepted.  So who’s downstairs?” Marinette said as she got up and walked towards Adrien who smiled at her.

 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 “So she’s always been making clothing?” Louise asked as he drank a cup of tea and looked at Tom and Sabine as they sat in the living room.

 “Clothing, blankets, odds and ends, it’s been her passion for years.  She really blossomed when she started to look at fashion and started to design her own cloths really and make gifts for her friends.” Sabine said as she looked at Louise with a smile as she remembered her daughter’s antics.  “Why I remember how she went and got a roll of blue wool to make a scarf for a present last year.  But enough about that, you think you’ll be able to get the expulsion off her record?”

 “If she really was expelled and not suspended, of course, it will barely be a problem.  I’ll talk to the board of education and once I see the paperwork I’ll go from there, but there’s another subject that I need to talk to you about that I think I should wait until the kids are back to really start…..and here they are.” Louise said as he smiled as Marinnete and Adrien walked into the room, Louise standing up and offering Marinette his hand.  “Nice to meet you mam, I’m Louise, Louis Artoga, attorney at law and I want to help you.”

 “Help how?” Marinette asked as she and Adrien sat down after she shook his hand.  Louise beamed at her and before he continued.

 “I’d like to help you out, now fair warning.  I’ve have a goddaughter, a few years back she was bullied, badly enough that she tried to commit suicide.  She didn’t succeed and she got the help she needed, she’s studding to be a social worker last I heard.”  Louse began. “The people I blame are the teachers and the school, the same school that you go…..went to.”

 “Mr. Damocles had something to do with it?!” Marinette asked with shock, going silent as Louise’s face started to go red.

 “‘Damocles’?!  An old man with a beard, bald, has a fixation with owls?!  He’s the new principal” Louise screamed as he lunged to his feet.

 “Louise?”  Adrien’s voice caused Louise to look around the room and saw the looks on the others face and he released a breath and sat down slowly.

 “Sorry kid, he was the vice principle who let that bitch get away with everything back then.  I thought he was blacklisted.” Louise said as he sat back down, and got out a cell phone that he put in in a holder he got out of his briefcase so the camera was pointed at her. “Start recording, this is Louise Artoga, recording a questioning of Marinette Dupain-Chang about her ‘expulsion’ from earlier today.  As of right now I ask her parents, Tom and Sabine Dupain-Chang their permission to do so.  Also of note is that Adrien Agreste is here, as he was the person who told me about this incident.”

 “I, Sabine Dupain-Chang give my permission that my child; Marinette Dupain-Chang may decide if she wishes to be questioned and recorded.” Sabine said formally.

 “I, Tom Dupain-Chang give my permission that my child; Marinette Dupain-Chang may decide if she wishes to be questioned and recorded.” Tom said as he turned and looked at Marinette who smiled back.

 “I, Marinette Dupain-Chang agree to be question and recorded about the events earlier today.” Marinette said as she looked at the camera.

 “Thank you all, with that done the questioning shall begin.  So, walk me through what happened.” Louise said as he looked at Marinette.

 “Miss Bustier called me to the front of the room at the start of class and searched my backpack, the answer key was in it.”  Marinette said and stopped as Louise held up a finger.

 “Point of clarity what class was it in relation to the order of classes on a normal day in number format and has your backpack been out of your sight for any length of time before that.” Louise said as he looked at Marinette.

 “It was the first class of the day, as we had a test yesterday so I hadn’t looked at my backpack since then……..and my backpack was out of my sight because someone pulled the fire alarm yesterday and everyone evacuated, most taking their backpacks as it was the end of class and they were getting ready to leave.  As the class Representative I had collected the tests and had just put them on Miss Bustier’s desk with the alarm went off and we all evacuated.”  Marinette said as she thought about yesterday.

 “Why were you called to the front?” Louise asked, a frown forming on his face as he went over what he knew about proper class room behavior for teachers.

 “Miss Bustier said that someone had given an anomalous note that someone had seen me steal the answer sheet and my bag.”  Marinette said as and stopped as Louise held up a hand.

 “She didn’t call you outside the classroom?” Louise asked in shock.

 “No, after that I accused Lila of taking and putting it in my backpack to frame me and Madame B took both of us to the principal’s office.” Marinette answered as she looked at

 “Point of clarity, why did you believe that Lila is a liar?” Louise asked and Marinette went silent. “If it’s just what you believe about her its fine, sometimes we get feelings we can’t explain but please clarify your belief.”

 Marinette looked at Adrien before she hardened her eyes. “I know Lila is a liar and a thief.  A few months ago when she first came back I saw her take a book from Adrien, buy something at a store and throw it in the trash so he wouldn’t see her with it.” Marinette said causing Adrien to stare at her.

 “A book, my father’s book, the one that he took me out of school for losing, Lila was the one who lost it?!  You were the person who brought it back?!” Adrien exclaimed as he looked at her before blushing and turning away as everyone looked at him.

 “Yes and I was in passing by the park when Ladybug confronted her about her lies.  I was going to give it back to you the next day and tell you that you dropped it in the Library but then, well your father pulled your from school.”  Marinette said as she hung her head. “So after I saw that I had enough skepticism not to trust everything she said at face value.”

 “We’ll talk about that later, what happened next with Lila today?”  Louise asked as Marinette looked at him.

 “I told Lila that she wouldn’t win, that I wouldn’t fall for any of her traps and she said I did and then she walked down the stairs, sat down and made a commotion about how I had pushed her down the stairs.” Marinette replied as Louise tried to keep his temper down.

 “Point of interest, at no time were any of the camera’s that the school is required to have had checked at all?  And what about this Lila’s mother, was she contacted and was she sent to the nurse at least?” Louise inquired, his eyes twitching a little as Marinette shook her head.

 “They never checked and she wasn’t sent, they all just followed after Lila to my locker, a locker I only use to hold my coats and projects since none of all have a lock on them.” Marinette said as Louise nodded at her.  “And they contact my parents but Lila’s was unable to be reached, they left five messages as far as I know.”

 “Thank you Miss Marinette; that’s all I’ll need for this case, I will bring around paperwork that basicly says the sequence of events that you explained and have yourself and you’re parents sign them and that should be it.  This has been Louise Artoga, recording Madame Marinette Dupain-Chang.”  Louise said as he turned off the phone’s camera and picked it up and started to look over the file, they could hear the sounds of Louise or Marinette’s voice and he nodded.  “Thank you that should be all I need.  With this and the Adrien’s matter I think I’ll have a good few days of work to do. Now on your case, once I get to the board of education I think everything should be straightened out, but it might be best to wait a day, just so it’s not been filed as a suspension and it was the heat of the moment and all, if nothing comes tomorrow then I’ll move in.  And now let’s talk about Lila, with the video a Miss Sabrina has I think we could sue her for slander and making that threat.”

 Marinette gulped and looked at her father and mother who both went still and turned towards her as what Louise said penetrated their brains.  Louise winced as he realized that she hadn’t told her parents the same time as Adrien did and they both winced at what.

 “What threat?” Tom asked quietly as Marinette just looked at the table and stayed silent.

 “Who threatened my daughter!?” Sabine asked as Adrien looked up and motioned to Louise to let him talk.

 “It’s a long story, but may I can explain if Marinette lets me.”  Adiren said prompting Marinette to nod at him.  “From what I found out Lila corned Marinette in a bathroom the day she came back and threatened to take away all her friends and after that I gave her advice to take the high road, not confront Lila about her lying.”

 “Why did you tell Marinette not to confront her after she threatened my daughter.” Sabine asked coldly as Adrien looked down ashamed.

 “Because I thought Lila summoned the Akuma that got her from my talk with her.  And her first actions as a shape-shifter was to try and ruin my social life!  I didn’t want to think what would happen if she summed one when she wanted to hurt Marinette as the trigger!”  Adrien explained as he held his hands up.  “Of course idiot that I was I didn’t explain it, I didn’t want to take a chance that Marinette would get hurt, I never knew about the threat!”

 “Oh, so you were trying to protect her but didn’t know about she had been threatened.” Sabine said as Tom’s rage died down and he understood why Adrien had done what he did.  

 “Kid was raised to ignore lies the tablods said, do it and they die, like Tinkerbell, don’t act out and they die.” Louise said with a sigh.   Tom looked at Marinette as his wife hugged her and frowned.  

 “Wait, you thought Lila had summoned the Akuma? But wait if she didn’t summon it ….then who did?” Tom asked and Adrien went wide eyes and looked around, trying to find anything to say when Marinette spoke up.

 “Me.” Marinette said softly from within her mother’s arms causing Sabine to look down at her daughter as she closed her eyes.  “I was so scared she could do it.   She had them eating out of her hands, she even convicted Max that a thrown napkin could have taken out his eye and he wears glasses.”

 “I can’t even, I don’t even know where to…..just I can’t…. is she serious?” Louise asked as looked at Adrien in shock and when Adrien nodded as Marinette’s parents comforted her Louis sat there stunned.  Okay, getting that bitch sued is gonna be a public service and probably improve the intelligence of all those kids! Louise thought as he hung his head in disgust.

 “Ohhhh Marinette, I’m sorry that we never noticed how you were feeling!  I should have, I don’t know!” Sabine said as she hugged Marinette and before suddenly she went still.  “And those idiots at that school never even noticed, no they didn’t want to see!”

 “Kid, I don’t know but after the paperwork’s filed maybe you should look for a different school.” Louise said into the table as he put his head on it.

 “Wait, why would Adrien look for a different school?  After all that he did to make it into school in the first place…..and what paperwork?” Marinette asked as Louise looked up at her before paling as he realized what he had let slip.  Adrien spoke up and caused all of them to look at him.

 “I’m suing my father for not paying me for my work, the contracts I never signed and emotional abuse while going for emancipation or having myself removed from his control.” Adrien said flatly.  “The fact that he might have told Lila to do that, that he gave her a modeling contract and might have even hinted that I might be a prize to her, it’s too much, he crossed a line I didn’t even know I had.”

 “Oh Adrien, I’m sorry you were pushed to do this.” Marinette said as she looked at him as her parents looked on with concern, knowing from their interactions with him that he probably hadn’t want to do this but felt he had to.

 “I thought he was going around, that we had started to heal our relationship, especially after my birthday when I got that scarf from him.” Adrien said as closed his eyes.

 Louse went still when he saw Marinette wince, things connecting in his mind that didn’t paint a good picture.  Please, please don’t tell me.  He thought with a sinking feeling as he asked what he didn’t want to.  “Scarf, what scarf?”

 “A blue scarf that dad made with his own hands, I thought that maybe he was trying and……… what is it?” Adrien asked as he saw Sabine and Tom exchange a look and turn to Marinette who looked down as Louise held his head.

 “Adrien, do you have any picture of it?”  Tom asked as he turned to look at Adrien as he started to get a sinking feeling.  

 “Yeah, I did a selfie with Nino a few days after I got it and here it is.”  Adrien said as he pulled up the photo and turned it around and Tom sighed and Sabine closed her eyes.  “What’s wrong?”

 “Ask your friend kid, ask her.” Louise said around his hands and he turned to Marinette, who looked up,

 “I made it.” Marinette said softly.  “When you came to school so happy that you thought that he had put the effort into making it by hand, I couldn’t take that from you...”

 Adrien stared at her and he saw red, the sheer gull of what his father….what Gabriel had done causing him to lose focus and he felt so dizzy.

 “Adrien, Adrien are you okay?”  Sabine asked as she got up and Adrien shot to his feet as he held his hands to his mouth. “Oh hell.  Tom!  Open the door!”

 “Got it, Marinette help you mother!”  Tom said as he shot up and opened a door as Marinette and Sabine guided Adrien to the room which was revealed to be a bathroom.  

 Louise just sat there and shook his head and winced as he heard Adrien throw up in the bathroom and he knew he would have to mention this to the social worker.  Maybe it would be better to do it here, Nathalie wouldn’t look for him here and whoever they send could be in plain clothing and get around his eyes.  Louise thought as he looked at Tom and Sabine watch the door as Marinette rushed to the kitchen to get a glass of water.   “Tom, Sabine would you two mind if I called the social worker I sent the email to and have them come here, it might be helpful for Adiren.”

 “Please, the boy needs to know that not everyone is against him and what Gabriel did, I can’t even imagine.” Tom said as Louise smiled and sent off a text.

 “It’s taking all I have not to get my staff and go beat him up!” Sabine bit out as she glared towards the Agreste mansion.  “To have that little bitch hurt my daughter, but to have sold his son?!”

 “I’m tempted to get a sledgehammer and join you.”  Louise said with a sigh as he shook his head.  His phone buzzed and he looked down and up at Tom and Sabine.  “The Agent is nearby, and would like to get an initial statement from him, there are already a few red flags based on the paperwork and well, she wants to meet soon.”

 Tom and Sabine shared a look at each other and looked at the bathroom and after a few minutes looking at each other Sabine knocked on the door.

 “Adrien, are you okay? The agent from child Services texted Louise, they want to meet soon.  If you’re not up for it there’s nothing wrong with waiting.” Sabine said before they heard a toilet flush and the door open to reveal Adrien whipping his mouth with the back of his hand.

 “No, I want to get this done with and close off any chance of that monster from getting around this.” Adrien said as he clenched his hands. I thought you were just hard to understand and had a hard time with emotions but this, dad this is the last freaking straw!  Adrien thought as he tried to get his emotions back under control. He felt Plagg press against him and hide a smile.  If I didn’t have Plagg, Chloe and my lady to help me, I don’t know what I would be.  Probably broken beyond all points by now, if I didn’t have Plagg and my lady to inspire me I wouldn’t have snuck out on that second day to school. Adrien thought as he accepted a cup of water from Marinette and smiled at her before he drank it, not seeing her blush or her parents grin as Louise chuckled at the byplay.

[cara-terra-pace]

RICH NEIGHBORS PART 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Part 1 THE GABRIELING

-wow does Lila get absolutely C R E A M E D in this au.

-almost makes you feel bad.

-almost

-since we got Mr Felix “I don’t need friends. They disappoint me” Agreste here, you better believe this girl gets exposed faster than you can say “Watermelon Kids”.

-(I mean Felix quotes that vine all the time to his FRIENDS so it sorta doesn’t apply but whatever you get what I mean.)

-Lila lies immediately about Marinette. But she obviously doesn’t know it’s Marinette, because Marinette goes by Marie Mêler, and not Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

-it’s actually kind of funny because Noel Bulles (I’m going with Nino’s brother’s name being Chris, not Noel because I needed a name and Noel was the best one so) or Nino Lahiffe also overhears her bragging about being best friends with him, just as he had said about Marinette.

-“oh Marinette Dupain Cheng and I are besties! Us and Nino Lahiffe, we’re like this!” She grins, crossing her fingers to signify how close they are.

-Oh heck to the no!

-Marinette is now becoming angry and that’s not good, so Felix decides “hey, I’ve met Dupain Cheng and Lahiffe before, and they are almost never in the public eye. It’s basically impossible for that to be true. But if you want to continue trying to make this class your sheeple, be my guest. You’ll see what happens when you do.”

-silence

-And the entire class kind of explodes

-everyone realizes that, hmm, yeah that’s a bit suspicious.

-there was no reason for Felix to lie about that, because they know that this 17 year old that acts like some 30 something businessman literally could care less about the class liking him.

-They immediately are more cautious of Lila’s words, and when she starts talking about Jagged and his cat, that really brings it home.

-they ignore her.

-they aren’t mean to her, since that’s just not anyone’s style. Chloe went to homeschool a few years ago, and that’s the only real “bully” they had.

-but they don’t take anything she says seriously. Lila eventually realizes that the lying is not working. So she just stops talking as much, moves to the back of the classroom without prompting, and plans her next move.

-“that wasn’t too bad!” You say, forgetting that there is more.

-Watermelon kids and their reveal!

-Marie is Marinette Dupain Cheng?!

-Noel is Nino Lahiffe?!

-Lila, who hadn’t really talked in weeks except to attempt to gain some sort of sympathy, paled immediately when she was confronted with it on Monday morning.

-“this is proof that you were definitely lying. You should be glad Felix stopped me before I put that video of you on my blog.”

-Alya Cesaire everyone!

-she has a blog where just writes about different attractions and news in Paris. She figured getting such a scoop from the best friend of two never seen in public rich kids would really jump start her blog.

-Felix and Adrien stopped her, Adrien being nice and calm about it and Felix telling her it would be idiotic to post the interview without sources.

-and she listens, bc even though she’s still hopeful that Lila is telling the truth, it does sound a bit too good to be true.

-Alya is still best friends with our baby Mari.

-it’s different than in canon but they hang out at Alya’s a lot, sometimes when Mari stays at the bakery she’ll invite Alya over, and basically they are inseparable

-Alya isn’t really into romance, at least not for herself since she’s trying to kickstart a career, but when she sees the budding romances between Mari and Felix and Adrien and Nino

-Madamoiselle Matchmaker at your service.

-but enough of my girl Alya

-lets get back to the WATERMELON KIDS

-they are both so awkward after the reveal.

-people in class are all starry eyed and it’s weird because okay, they were both nice and well known in the class and throughout the school

-BUT THIS IS NEXT LEVEL

-Mari basically sticks close to her friends because when she gets overwhelmed, they help her out a ton.

-Nino tries to be chill and it’s not working.

-but the thing is, now people either try to become best friends with them for the benefits, or they insult them because they’re rich kids

-and, yeah it doesn’t really bother them.

-sticks and stones, you know?

-but then someone insulted Alya, saying she’s a suck up and she’s just hanging around the group so she can get a scoop and expose their secrets and stuff.

-and Mari and Nino actually go off.

-that is their little baby reporter friend who can definitely take care of herself and doesn’t need to play dirty to get good news and be a great reporter thank you very much

-they can handle being insulted themselves, but touch their friends and family and it’s game over.

-Alya finds it very sweet

-she does remind them that she can take care of herself, but thanks them for backing her up

-Emile Agreste

-woah where did she come from???

-there’s a movie premiere in Paris and she’s attending and Adrien is like !!!

-Felix is just kind of... standoffish when she’s in town??

-he’s just bitter that both his mother and father are distant and his dad’s assistant is more of a mother figure to him at this point.

-btw, Nathalie is so done. She sometimes cries in her office, which sounds really sad until you learn she is just leaning her head on the wall and crying as she bangs her head.

-ma’am please take a month off and take a vacation

-but she can’t because she loves the boys too much

-she’s emile’s best friend, and so when she gets kind of mad at em for being gone so much, everyone’s really surprised.

-she’s walking into the premiere with a tablet in her hands and Emile is like “wow I missed you and Gabe so much!!!”

-and Felix and Adrien are RIGHT THERE LIKE-

-and Nathalie just snaps

-“obviously not enough to actually take a break. Felix, Adrien, it’s time to go into the theatre. Your father won’t be joining us, he didn’t deem this important enough to attend in person.”

-mari and Nino are nearby and OH DO YOU NEED SOME ICE FOR THAT BURN MADAME AGRESTE

-what was I talking about?

-oh yeah, back to fashion.

-that’s Marinette right there, making new designs.

-she does special celebrity commissions and gifts herself, but they have tons of other designers and seamstresses helping with the actual mass production of lines.

-Mari’s first fashion show is a collaboration between DC and LE. They provide the runway music and have live up and comers, and Mari does the same, with smaller designers presenting their lines before Mari’s and her’s being the final and the crown jewel.

-she jump started a lot of careers that way, both in the music and fashion industries.

-the watermelon kids are on every teen magazine

-they are huge in America

-both of them traveled there to just get a better feel of American culture, fashion, and music and wow

-paparazzi

-EVERYWHERE

-Nino meets some American singers and convinces his mother that an American location would be good for the company

-Marinette does the same, insisting that it would be full of profit

-it works and the summer following the reveal, Marinette, Nino, Alya, and the Agreste Twins all go to America.

-which will be elaborated on in Part 3!

This whole thing was sort of a mess lol

I jumped around a lot but most of these were the first ideas that popped into my head and it was a lot of fun to create.

(Note: if you guys want to be tagged, just let me know and you’ll be added to the taglist!)

Taglist: @animegirlweeb