#<- just in case the background is kinda straining

[ozymoron]

here have a sketch thing i did of my oc with her new haircut since i, like, never post my art

[nouearth]

baby-sitting for miguel o'hara.

miguel o'hara x m!reader headcanons.

part ii.

warnings: smut, perverted!miguel, stalker!miguel, top!miguel, bottom!male reader, small!male reader, weak!male reader, sir!kink, thoughts of sex, masturbation, fingering, spying, kinda dubcon (?), heavily focused on sweat and smelly musk (hehe).

notes: say hi to my first miguel story! i couldn't stop thinking about him ever since I rewatched the movie, tbh.

—at first, miguel was rather reluctant to hire you for babysitting.

—your experience was almost non-existent, if it hadn’t been for that one time you babysat your nephew… eight years ago. of course, you left that part of information out.

—but miguel deemed you trustworthy, concluded that so even before he ran a background check on you.

—and so far, he seemed correct.

—on the first day, he was just as nervous as you were, leaving his precious and sacred gift to the world with a complete stranger—it was frightening and if he had the choice, he wouldn’t have done this.

—he would tell you about the cameras installed throughout the house—mostly for the safety of gabriella’s, but your well-being was also a considerate factor in this choice. 

—you were small, and if miguel said that you looked weak, you’d probably say a questionable thank you considering how quietly submissive you were towards him.

—later that first night, miguel knew he made the right choice in picking you (out of a measly three candidates, but still). 

—you managed to get gabriella to sleep by her bedtime, one routine that miguel still hadn’t figured out yet.

—but to be fair, babies woke up and slept according to their own terms, so did they really have a bedtime other than day, afternoon, and night?

—like the first night of many, you bid him goodbye after being paid.

—goodnight, sir! i’m pretty much free all summer until my semester starts, so if you need me on stand by or something… go crazy!

—all right, I’ll keep that in mind. 

—and… thank you.

—something ignited in him when you guys spoke. it must’ve been… what, your fourth interaction together? 

—the first few have been more formal—interviewing you, introducing you to gabriella, and checking up on you with a phone call. it was limited, a thick barrier that miguel would put up between you and him because it was work—just work.

—even though he sent you off fairly quick, the interaction was long enough for him study you like he never did before. 

—he never realized how handsome you were, optimism practically seeping from your smile to your voice. it was a stark contrast to his moodiness, strained by the constant amount of stress put on by work, and furthermore by an ongoing divorce case.

—but he liked you, more than he’d like to admit.

—miguel liked the way you would tuck your shirt into your pants. a younger version of him would’ve labelled you a nerd, church boy even.

—but he found it attractive when the fabric laid on your chest with the right amount of tightness—a slightest exposure that would have him staring for an embarrassing amount of time.

—he also found it attractive when the peak of summer closed in on you.

—one day, you would show up at his doorstep in shorts.

—you preferred walking. 

—no wonder you were so radiant to him, you practically soaked in the sun every day before you two would meet.

—sorry if i look like a mess, sir- i look gross, don’t i?

—that feeling in him returned again, churned like butter as he would watch the sweat calmly roll down your aching legs.

—i’d be lying if i told you no, wouldn’t i?

—you were a mess, miguel would go on to agree to himself. not because of the way your hair sparkled in the sun as it latched onto sweat—but because of the way you were completely oblivious to how you made him feel.

—it only grew stronger with subsequent meetings.

—you can use my shower, you know. it’s gotta be uncomfortable to be sweaty in those clothes for—what—eight hours?

—no, no! I’m fine, sir. i don’t think it would be right of me to-

—well, just throwing it out there in case you needed to. 

—next time, then!

—and the next time, you would carry an extra bag of clothes because you and miguel both knew the outcome.

—it was a proud moment when miguel could smell his body wash on you when you left that night.

—sure, he probably bought the most generic brand he could find. but he has never smelt that scent on you before, so it inflated his ego to know that you’d be walking home in his usual scent.

—sleeping in his scent.

—like every other night, a shower would mark the end of miguel’s day. it was his favorite pastime—all thoughts were left behind as soon as he stepped under the shower head, letting the warm spray of water wash him of stress.

—when he stepped out, something caught his eye in the corner of the tiled floor—something blue.

—your briefs. 

—you forgot to take your briefs with you because you were rushing when you heard gabriella suddenly cry.

—it would’ve been off-putting by anyone else, but this was you.

—this was your briefs, miguel would then hold up like a trophy. a piece of fabric that would contain and cover you—touch your most vulnerable parts.

—with the current feelings miguel had for you, it would’ve been a missed opportunity if he simply threw it in the washer.

—so, he doesn’t.

—11 am. where miguel would usually find himself sleeping by this hour—he was inhaling the scent of your musk instead, scrunching your sweat-stained briefs to his face as he jerked off in bed.

—in all honestly, he was ashamed to admit that he loved the smell of your sweat.

—but miguel would nonetheless take deep whiffs, desperate to smell you in your most vulnerable state.

—and he comes at the very last second when he can.

—it wasn’t enough for him though, so miguel doesn’t waste a single second to jerk himself off again—his cum lubing his sensitive cock up with a generous amount of stickiness and slick.

—good morning, sir!

—(m/n), i thought i said that you can call me miguel?

—oh… right! sorry, that completely slipped my mind. i must’ve forgotten.

—never stop forgetting, miguel muttered to himself, fucking his heavy cock into  the depth of your briefs.

—he loved the way you called him sir. it made him feel authoriative and only fueled his want and need to protect you—you and your weak body. 

—you’d be powerless if something were to happen to you, and the chances of that happening were well in your wits since you continued to insist on walking home.

—unbeknownst to you, every night miguel would follow you in the shadows—an undisclosed bodyguard of some sort—until you reached home.

—even then, he wasn’t fully relaxed because most crimes always took place domestically.

—he would watch you from below, through your window, for quite some time, making sure your parents’ house was a danger-free zone. 

—and it wasn’t until you took your pants off and began stroking yourself through those same blue briefs, that he was finally at peace. 

—fuck... miguel stopped fucking into your briefs to take another whiff of the fabric until his nostrils stung—a mixture of you and him together now. 

—the fabric clung around miguel’s cock as his thick precum was the only glue that pieced him and the presence of you together. 

—he would think back to how you would suck on two of your fingers as you stroked yourself to nothing but lewd thoughts—your eyes tightly closed to visualize your perverted mind into reality. 

—what are you thinking about? who are you thinking about? is it me? are you thinking about my cock?

—the air in his bedroom has gotten heavier, thick with sex as he sweated under the cloud of you fingering yourself with the clumsiest yet neediest precision.

—he spat on his cock to slick it up again—because he could go on for hours—replaying back to the night where he watched you completely juxtapose with the innocent image he had of you prior.

—your hips were lifted up, legs awkwardly bent back as you dug into yourself, working your hole open deeper with one, then two, then three fingers because—miguel was right. like a spell, you were thinking of him and his cock.

—he had to be big, you were so sure of it. the fact that you strained your neck from looking up at him was a telling sign that he was, as ignorant as that was.

—and you were practically drooling at the thought of his cock stuffing you with the most fulfilling amount of pain and pleasure.

—you’d want him to be ruthless with you and show no mercy as he couldn’t care less about the way you whimpered and cried out for him to stop.

—fucking you from behind as his strong arms held you in a headlock, applying pressure that would frighten a choke out of you.

—because you were nothing but his fuck toy.

—it was all overwhelming for miguel on that night, almost too good to be true and he had to squeeze his cock through his sweats to make sure this was reality.

—you would confirm that it was, with the image of you coming all over your chest and stomach, all to the pathetic plunging of your fingers.

—and miguel does too, coming powerfully, to the point of shudders running down his broad back, into a part of your briefs where it would hold your own dick because he wants his smell to be imprinted on you, inked deep into your flesh.

—until you smelled like his.

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. and if you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

[akanemnon]

Scary as hell what

This is why I'm waiting to fight them in Deltarune, if I ever go to a dark world I'm changing my identity just in case.

THIS IS AMAZING

THE EFFECTS AND THE BACKGROUND??? THE RED LOOKS KINDA STATIC-Y TOO??? THE SHADING!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE MESSY HAIR!!!!!!! THE EYE DUDEEEE

If I saw that I'd be backing away dude

Yep! I really wanted that panel to be intense, so I pulled a few tricks. The static in the back is mainly several layers of grain in different blending modes. It's really noticable up close, but I don't reccomend doing that because of possible eye strain. Usually my shading is very colorful, but for this panel I intentionally just used very dull, grey-ish colors to set the mood. Though I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the little titan imagry easter egg in their eye

[geeklikeagirlstudios]

Hazbin Hotel Theory

So just saw the new Hazbin Hotel trailer, and already our editor is coming up with theories. The main one is that Vaggie is NOT a sinner, but not a fallen angel either. Rather, she theorizes that Vaggie is a current angel soldier sent down undercover as a sinner by Adam so to weaken Hell/Lucifer through Charlie, only to eventually doubt her mission and "fall" for Charlie. We looked at her kinda crazy when she told us this, only for her to point out several things...

When Charlie sings confidently that she will get Heaven to back her plan to save the sinners, Vaggie is suddenly startled. She holds her head as if unsure what to say, but she also looks as if she knows something that Charlie doesn't.

She proceeds to try and get Charlie to stop for a moment, but when Charlie proceeds to continue on that there was no way she could ruin things, Vaggie looks more concerned and to remind Charlie that it was JUST A MEETING with the angels.

Vaggie continues to point out that this whole thing could be bad as if indicating that she didn't think that Charlie should go. This caused Charlie to pause and reassure Vaggie, which only seems to cause her to give Charlie what looks like a strained smile. Vaggie still seemed concerned as Charlie continued her number, and proceeded to insist that Charlie not sing to the angels. Now this could just be her knowing that not everyone likes the singing numbers, but our editor says it could also be that she knows what to expect from the angels and that Vaggie would know for a fact that singing wouldn't help if she were aware of the angels' mindset going into the meeting before hand.

2) Vaggie's apparently a "moth-demon" sinner, but when you compare her design to the other demons she really doesn't look like the usual sinners do, but:

1) Her hair shape almost resemble angel wings/robes (In Adam's case)

2) Her hair bow faintly resembles horns in some angles which the angels have

3) Her X-out eye is the same as the angel exorcists, only on the opposite side - which, conviniently, we notice the leader of the exorcists' face is completely unseen during the pilot episode. She also has a very similar build to all the exorcists.

There are other things she said makes her believe that Vaggie is a double agent from heaven, but these were the main points. And yes, she knows what Vizzipop originally planned and said about the character, but given that the show was purchased by A24, there's a possibility that some characters could have complete overhauls to their backgrounds and character plots from what was originally planned. What do you think? Could she be on to something???

[sirensplayhouse]

alpha state

welcome back, my little sirenettes 🕺🏾this is gonna be a short and quick to the point post😂. so i’ve been seeing a lot of posts about the different brainwaves hint my little reblogging spree i just went on and it inspired me to drop my success story on how i entered/tapped into alpha state so sit back and enjoy🫡.

so alpha state is a state of deep conscious relaxation, you feel relaxed and at peace and just have an overall sense of calmness when you’re in it (think of it as a light hypnotic state). you’re able to absorb more information, ideas and suggestions in alpha state because you’re more receptive and focused during this state.

ok siren we dgaf about you’re explanations just tell us how to tap into it🙄

ok so just like anything you can get into alpha state by simply telling your subconscious to put you in alpha state of, you can listen to brain wave frequencies like the one i’ve tagged below, you also enter alpha state when you meditate and daydream and you can do the counting backwards from 200 and counting to 200 method if you please.

siren ok we just want to know what YOU did to get into alpha state we’on care bout none of that other stuff

ok ok tough crowd😵‍💫anywaysssssss i put on this lovely little audio i tagged (and honestly i saw this tagged in another post on tumblr a year ago and decided to try it , so full credit goes to the person that found it first y’all the goat). i was sitting up during this process so i wouldn’t fall asleep , kept my head straight and my head still and moved my eyes to the top of the my tv (so i wouldn’t have to strain my eyes too far) and before i knew it i was in alpha state🤭.

it’s that simple nothing overcomplicated or anything i have done the counting up to and down from 100/200 and honestly i just felt like my mind wandered off wayyyyyy to much when i did that method and i like this one better. now there are a multitude of alpha state meditations on youtube that you can use that don’t have to be this specific one let’s be clear🧍🏾‍♀️.

and one last mention i did have my affirmation tapes playing in the background (y’all know i love me some affirmation tapes😂) while i was in alpha state and after i got out of it and took a nice lil nap (don’t judge✋🏾) i woke up to what i wanted (i did not know how to phrase this last part so this is as good as y’all getting😭🧍🏾‍♀️).

no i’m not telling y’all what i manifested😂but i will tap into alpha state again and manifest something different post a picture of what i chose to manifest just so y’all can see it’s that simple.

idk if i missed anything or what because like i said this was kinda rushed and in the spur of the moment but just in case i did, posts i recommend: boom and slap and y’all should also go check out @gorgeouslypink her work is always top tier and that’s all my little sirenettes until next time🤝🏾

[sashkapi]

Do you have an character design about Kendall’s unseen older sister? And do you have any headcanons about her also?

I had designed her quite a while ago and apparently forgot to post. Sowwy QmQ

Linda "Linnie" Perkins :)

She is based on a bg character from "Spelling Bee", and according to Sandro we did see Linnie as a background character so you bet my ass was onto every blonde teen girl in the show jfjxjkdnvkjdv

AW YEAH, HEADCANON TIME

1. She used to be a cheerleader. But then her team found out she cheated on her initiation and got kicked out. (She immediately told a loser she had to date that they would be fake dating. She still didn't tell him about the final step of initiation, so Linnie was being just as cruel as cheerleaders.)

2. After getting kicked out, she actually joined the girl's soccer team and still does gymnastics. Girl genuinely enjoys sports.

3. Just like Brad with Kick, Linnie bullies Kendall, although she doesn't get "physical" often. Linnie would rather get some rats into Kendall's room or pour glue in her shampoo than pulling her hair.

As a note: Linnie still absolutely would pull Kendall's hair. Pictured above.

4. She calls Brad "Car-crash". The first time they actually talked was when Linnie was getting her driver's license and Brad was redoing the test for his. Now guess how Brad's test went.

5. She and Brad are sorta friends. Yes, Brad used to hit on her, but after learning that she used to be a cheerleader he kinda backed out (Kelly trauma). Linnie, of course, wasn't interested in him at all, but their shared "interest" in bullying their younger siblings made them unlikely friends. 

Or "Girlboss adopts a Boyloser"

(Brad still hits on her from time to time. The answer is always no.)

6. Already mentioned in my Kendall headcanons, but Linnie also has a cat named "Gretel". While Kendall dots on Hansel and frequently calls her nice names, Linnie treats Gretel like "Oh lawd, here comes that big fat idiot! Who's a big fat idiot? You are! Who has no thoughts in that little skull of yours? You have!". She does it lovingly of course. She loves Gretel.

7. The reason Kendall was getting a soccer ball in "Tattler's tale"? It wasn't hers, it was Linnie's. Kendall and Linnie used to play soccer in their backyard when they were younger, something they don't do anymore due to their strained relationship. Kendall is quite sentimental girl deep down, she didn't want something that has such good memories connected to it getting lost.

Linnie knows that Kendall got that ball back and while she didn't say anything - she really appreciated it.

Got her pink glitter pen in secret as a thanks.

8. Linnie doesn't have a "posse". She has her soccer team. That is kinda like her posse. After cheerleading and some "practice" when she used to play with Kendall - becoming an ace on a field didn't take long for her.

She is genuinely friends with her teammates tho.

9. She is actually really strong. Physically. Even by athletic standards. She can easily pick up several people without breaking a sweat.

After thinking that she is among the strongest people in her school (and later college) - witnessing Gunther's strength made her low-key terrified of him. ("Like wdym he can pick up several BULLS?! AND FREELY RUN WITH THEM?!?!")

10. Yes, she is beefing with Kelly now. Kelly is the one who found out about her initiation cheating and is the reason Linnie got kicked out from the cheerleading squad after all.

Brad 🤝 Linnie   Fuck Kelly

11. One of her ways to bully Kendall is to ruin her clothes. The reason Kendall's pink-green sweaters are fine? "No matter what I do, I can not ruin those ugly sweaters even more"

12. Linnie knew about Kendall's crush on Kick for a while. She didn't use it in her bullying because she has standards.

And she kinda just doesn't care.

13. Linnie go-to derogatory nickname for Kendall is "sissy". Just in case Kendall tries to snitch like "she calls me names!" to their dad, Linnie can spin it as "Oh my silly sis! I was calling you sis, you silly!"

14. Once Kick and Kendall started dating, Linnie extended her bullying onto Kick too. Only when the two of them are together, tho. Linnie isn't interested in picking on Kick alone, so she just ignores him (unless she's with Brad, in which case she just passively helps older Buttowski).

Don't ask Kick and Kendall how many of their dates were ruined by their older siblings.

15. Additionally, to the previous one: Linnie calls Kick "Pipsqueak" (Perkins' "call Kick "Kick"" challenge: impossible)

[manyothermusingsofmine]

so huyandere posted this on twitter with the notion of like “did anyone write a detailed analysis of kristoph’s solitary cell already bc why is there a pink chair. Insane.” and like I don’t know if it counts as a detailed analysis but I certainly have Opinions about this. I’m a bit sick though so this is really rambly and not on track in the slightest. and if you click the read more it’s all there so uh like

Okay first of all I’m going to have to fact check this but I feel like the wiki told me Kristoph apparently talked the guards into getting him all this stuff?

-one wiki search later- “He managed to call in some favors to some of the prison guards whom he had befriended to get various items into the cell, turning it into something of an office.”

Okay yeah so that’s fucking terrifying? Kristoph already doesn’t strike me as the type to have legitimate friends because everyone is a means to an end with him, but- bro that’s not pulling favors that’s mafia boss behavior what the hell.

But like the bigger Thought I have about the whole thing that derails a little from huyandere’s original question is just. The fucking paralells between Simon and Kristoph? Like okay no hear me out actually.

They’re the same character archetype, in a way. They’re both cool, collected, kinda detached loners- arguably the flip side of each other’s coin because where their character wildly diverge is in motive. Kristoph’s whole motive in his story is greed and envy; wanting the fame and fortune others have and feeling like his rightful place in the spotlight is being usurped by people who don’t deserve it Simon on the other hand’s whole motive is undying loyalty to protecting someone he cares about. He’s on deathrow for a crime he didn’t commit, but can we not gloss over the fact that he’s doing so to protect Athena, who, at this point if the story gets spun in her direction, would befall the same faith? That’s -deskslam- why I’m so mad actually that Simon and Klavier don’t interact in Dual Destinies. Like, at all. And that’s a fucking crime because no matter how you spin that their dynamic would be so interesting! Like, would Simon’s similar demeanor freak Klavier out and does their coworkership therefor become kind of strained and uncomfortable? Or are you like me and do you think that Simon takes one look at Klavier and goes “-Markiplier voice- oh he’s traumatized” and instinctively adopts this weird rockstar prosecutor as his brother because eh what’s another adoptive sibling at this point. And in that case does Klavier look at Simon’s behavior and just go “well thats similar to what I was used to anyway so yeah you can stick around.”? Also I’m not done you clicked on this that was your choice entirely it’s even more fascinating to think about Simon and Kristoph spending even one day in the same jail establishment because first of all I feel like Simon would look around that jail cell and just go “show off” and leave it at that. And while I think the fandom has a point in that Simon probably wouldn’t like Kristoph, have we even considered how much Kristoph would fucking loathe Simon? Simon is pretty much the better version of him because Simon has honor and loyalty; things Kristoph definitely lacks. Furthermore with his background in psychology and just the general way he is Simon wouldn’t fall for any of Kristoph’s manipulation tactics, and there’s not much else Kristoph can do because there’s no way in hell that he would win in a physical fight against Simon; the man’s build like a fucking tank come on now. Do you have any idea how much it would piss Kristoph off that he has this absolute powerhouse of a man in a cell next to him and the bastard’s completely immune to his manipulation skills?! And before I forget the fucking?? paralell?? between Simon owning a trained hawk that I can only assume he trained himself which takes time and talent and trust and sfmdfmg the sprite of him petting Taka makes me feel things. Vs Kristoph having a dog where the general consensus seems to be that it’s a golden retriever, which makes me feel things as someone who has owned golden retrievers and who knows their unconditional love, because he wants to be loved unconditionally with no questions asked FDS,MFNSDFG,MNDF,GM-

[elvenbeard]

During his time working at Arasaka, Vince lives in a company-issued apartment, obviously, and so far, for VP purposes and such, I've always gone to the Corpo-Plaza apartment for that. I thought, maybe it is a little too fancy, but then again, the view isn't all that great, it's not that high up, and it doesn't even have a bathtub, so, it works xD

I feel like it would kinda fit that Arasaka has their employees close by (iirc, the Counterintel agents gotta be "on call" basically 24/7 in case of an emergency, so even Charter Hill would be pretty far away, Wellsprings might work still, but yes). Also, you have Arasaka Tower right in front of your window and only very flimsy shutters, so you can always be reminded of your work duties and loyalties basically from the comfort of your living room XD

Anyway though, I wondered, how would Vince get to work every day? I don't see him having a car at the time, cause I imagine parking in City Center to be hellish and/or expensive af. Delamain would work, but when Vince still lived in Charter Hill, he and his friends used the metro to get around most times, so I think he might go back to that. So I tried it out, since there's a station nearby, and the closest stop to Arasaka Tower is Memorial Park. The walking to and from the stations also takes up some time though, and so the fastest and most direct way is actually just walking directly xD

So I walked his way to work, and *the shortest* most direct way on foot between Corpo-Plaza apartment and entrance of Arasaka Tower is through the 2023 memorial site. And idk. I love that on multiple levels.

Obviously, it's not gonna be the shortest way for everyone, but imagining that visitors and others who are able to walk to work have to go through the memorial to get in sends a super strong message imo (one of shifting the blame away from themselves completely, as you do as a big evil corporation). Level-design-wise it's *chef's kiss*, too. And storytelling-wise that gives me a whole bunch of new ideas for Vince's and Johnny's already-strained relationship as well xD Like, for a couple of years, twice a day often, Vince has listened to how these vile terrosists killed millions of innocents with their actions, and how Arasaka will never forget about that, etc etc. And then, of all possible people it's *the* terrorist that gets stuck in his head because Arasaka took the "never forgetting" a little too far on too many unethical levels.

With that in mind I feel like all the interactions with Vince and Johnny that revolve around the "terrorist" thing in the beginning have a much stronger impact. If Vince hadn't had that daily walk to work (or if he had had a different background altogether), there really would only be the information Viktor gives on Johnny post-Konpeki-heist. While that works, too, it's not a super deeply ingrained conviction V has, just something their trusted Ripper told them and they just accept as truth (not that Vik would lie, but you get my meaning).

But with Vince, Johnny would actually have to claw his way through years of subtle brainwashing to have Vince stop calling him a terrorist without a purpose deeper than causing death and destruction. And idk... I sometimes just love how little headcanons that start out with no big thoughts behind them ("Where would he live? well, Corpo Plaza apartment maybe, cause that means I don't have to build my own scene for this lil VP idea") lead to bigger and bigger ideas and work really well with what the game provides already xD

[warriorend]

"There's something wrong with Phoenix." (alt. title: "the only reason this fucker is upright is because they're holding onto the cabin's support beam")

closeups get your closeups here

(also this is one of those cases where the lights may be on but there is very much nobody at home)

rambling & shit under the cut it's the same as usual

yknow how i said my big pieces can easily clear 80 layers. that may have been an understatement.

that one is new though. i just put it in. for effect.

anyways so uhhhh Yeah KBOOM huh. fun fact i tried to draw this three times, it was the third one that took. also here's the Blob

+ first pass of all the sections (background, cabin, phoenix. each of these were at least 4ish hours apart bc i pretty much finished each section before moving on, minus final touches at the end (a lot of the blue & purple effects were added in at the tail end))

i initially planned to put more shit in the cabin like the furniture & whatnot, but it's. really difficult to draw the back of things you can't see & also in perspective. so i didn't. pretend they shoved it all out or something idk

personal hc is that they woke up Just enough to suspend the cabin when Roxana shouted at them, to buy time. wasn't the smartest idea though bc they were already Kinda fucked up from the implant strain &. yeah they were tiptoeing a razor edge for a second there. anyway. phoenix almost breaking themself trying to survive being in this goddamn volcano.

[starsheild]

Partner: Part 8

Noise. Funny, Prowl had thought that things would be peaceful and quiet in the Well. This sounded suspiciously like his memories of being in the med bay of the Ark after being badly injured. Right down to Ratchet grumbling in the background.

"There- he's come around enough. But I swear if he messes anything up because of you you'll find yourself banished and nothing's going to get you back in."'

"My word- I won' do anythin' to get 'em worked up."

Jazz.

Prowl couldn't focus his optics fast enough as a visored face swam into view. He tried to set up only to be hindered by strong hands on his shoulders holding him down.

"I'm dead then. Good."

Jazz flinched, staring down at him. "I'm thinkin' I need ta have Ratchet check yer processor if yer thinkin' dead is good mech."

"It is good because you are here." Prowl said, reaching out. "And since you are dead but you are here then logically I am now in the Well also." He flinched, hand flying to his chest as he moved and pain shot through him. "Though I have to confess I did not think it would hurt so much."

"Pain is bad, and that kind don' exist over there. So ya better stop 'fore Ratchet makes good on 'is threat and throws me outta his med bay."

Jazz watched as the wheels turned, and he couldn't help but smile as Prowl started putting all the pieces together. He watched as Prowl looked around, registering that it wasn't just SOME old med bay he was in, but Ratchet's med bay on the Ark. His grin went full spread as those shocked optics landed back on him.

"You're alive." Prowl whispered, voice revealing that his processor was still at war with what his optics and the rest of his senses were telling him.

"Spark and all mech. Primus sent me back ta ya, for some reason." Jazz took his free hand, leaning his face into it and allowing Prowl to feel. He was still as the hand slid down his chest, feeling the warmth of the spark underneath the plating. "Sent a bunch of us back when he threw Optimus back, Ratchet included, in case you were wondering who put you back together."

Prowls hand fell back to his own half repaired protoform and armor, memories slowly rising to the top of his processor. "The call. The Decepticons. Sierra."

"The officer that was with ya?"

"Yes. She was-." Prowl flinched, the sound of energon on human skin coming back to him sharply. "She-."

"Ratchet said if she hadn' done what she did ya wouldn' made it." Jazz expression was strained. "Kinda woulda sucked for me, comin' back jus' to find out we passed each other along the way."

Prowl shuddered at the idea of arriving in the Well only to find that Jazz was not there, wherever there was. There would have been no peace waiting for him in that case. But the mech he had loved and lost was here now- he squeezed the mech's hand in his own to remind himself of that fact.

Jazz was here, but someone else was not. "Sierra?"

Jazz's visor flashed, but his tone was full of affection as he pulled up a chair.. "Stubborn mech. 'ere is what I know, and if ya promise ta be good I'll see what I can find out."

[djsadbean]

do you have any advice for making stickers? your designs are all so pretty!!

ahh thank u sm!! yessir here's some tips i keep in mind when i design/make stickers (mostly from the perspective of someone selling stickers but these can be for personal sticker making too):

design:

try to use the same brush size/type if youd like all of your stickers to look similar. i personally have two i like to alternate between whether I'd like a smooth vs sketch look

also try to use the same size canvas if youre gonna make a lot of 3 inch stickers or 4x6 in sticker sheets (for example) to keep everything looking consistent

find artists you're inspired by and that'll be very helpful to avoid art block. for me, i adore artists who have similar taste and it helps me feel so happy and inspired to make my own art.

people like stickers that are all kinda the same vibe! i like to design stickers that are cute and vibrant and either feature characters i like or aesthetics i like. you gotta like what you make! (they dont all have to have the exact same vibe of course. but ive found that people will like getting all my cute fandom stickers bc they look like they all go together for example)

printing:

if youre cutting these out yourself, rotate the paper, not the scissors for better control. take breaks too! you don't wanna strain your hand! also its worth it to have big girl scissors (i am a big girl with big girl scissors btw ahahaha)

if youre using a cricut or silhouette machine to cut, please consider making all of your stickers easy peel (basically making the sticker its own mini sticker sheet so you remove the outer border so it's easier to peel) because this helps make sure that people from many backgrounds and lives can enjoy your work! It would break my heart to find that someone who has joint pain, for example, can't use the stickers they bought from me because they're too difficult to peel. (If you're hand cutting your stickers, I have no idea how you'd do this so don't worry! Maybe in the future if you decide to invest in a machine, this is something to think about)

if you're using a cutting machine, yes it will take up a lot of time and supplies running tests to see what works with your stickers! and yes you will have to readjust how you do things with the life cycle of the machine's blades. augh........ such a hassle sdjfhksd

when printing for the first time, you may need to spend time running tests and adjusting the colors. some printers need help with the vibrancy and stuff!

when printing your stickers, please only have a few pages loaded in your printer if you're still testing (or in general! i have my paper loaded in one at a time JUST in case I forgot a setting)

if you're printing at a print shop, make sure your file is PDF and that they're printing "actual size" bc otherwise it may change. this would be bad especially if you're planning on using your machine to cut later.

i personally would not recommend ordering your first several stickers outsourced bc you may end up with stock that never sells.

i hope these helped! some may not apply bc theyre for like,,, a sticker biz but maybe someone out there wants this info too :3 ill leave my current supply list in the tags so i can change it if i find that something changes and i dont wanna recommend it anymore

basically read op tags for recommendations :3

[dragons-and-dwarves-are-nice]

To the Shadows that Cry Witch /// Chapter 20

*Rises from the dead* Good evening. So I honestly should've put this fic on hiatus because I haven't updated in a hot minute (cough3monthscough). But having to hand in a Presentation, Essay, Video AND portfolio, all within two weeks of each other kinda made me forget lol. Uni is so hard pls send help. Anyway, I've made this one longer to make up for lost time, and I decided this won't be the last chapter of Part 2, I'm now planning on doing two more to fit in everything I've planned, and the good thing is that I have no work to do for the next 2 weeks so I can just work on this non stop. Hopefully you'll be seeing me again soon lol. Enjoy! <3

Summary: Magic was real, but it came at a price. So when two girls end up in the one place they never thought they could reach, strange things began to happen. Good or bad? That's up to them to find out.

Tags: Kili x oc/reader - Fili x oc (POV to be written soon) - Thorin's company × ocs/reader (platonic) - fluff - angst - EXTREME slow burn - crack - Bagginshield

Word Count: 8465

Warnings: Paranormal encounters, swearing, being chased by giant snakes if you aren't a fan of that.

Taglist - comment or message to be added!

PLEASE START FROM THE BEGINNING IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY OK LOVE U

Want some background music? Check out my Soundtrack Playlist!

Now available on Wattpad and AO3 (please let me know if links aren't working)

< Chapter 19 // Chapter 20 // Chapter 21 >

Part 2: Chapter 20 -

Yer a wizard. Sorry, witch.

Minatory (Definition): Having a menacing quality; Threatening. (Adjective / Origin: Late Latin /ˈmɪnət(ə)ri )

Bag End, Hobbiton, The Shire – T.A. Friday, 18th November 2939 of the Third Age (Highday, 28th Blotmath, 1339 in Shire-reckoning)

“Annnd, there we go.” Kay huffed, both of us letting out a sigh of relief as we lowered a passed out Bilbo into his armchair. Lifting the blanket that was drying by the fire, I shook it out, before draping it over the unconscious hobbit, tucking it over his shoulders.

We both took a step back, waiting for him to wake up, when a fist impacted with my shoulder.

“OW!” I cried, bringing my hand up to rub at the spot. “The hell was that for?!”

Kay shoved a finger in my face, glaring up at me. “That – was for levitating me! Upside-down of all things!”

“It’s not like I wanted to! And I didn’t expect for it to actually work!”

All she did was grumble, crossing her arms as she stared at Bilbo.

“…  You can do the same at one point in return?” I offered.

“Oh, I will be, just you wait.”

I sighed in exasperation, before focusing on the problem at hand.

“Should I make some tea? For when he wakes up.” I suggested.

“Yea, that’ll be nice. I’ll stay here in case he wakes up.” She replied.

I nodded, turning on my heel and wandering through to the kitchen. Hooking the kettle over the open fire, I prepared three mugs along with some tea leaves in a straining bag. Staring at the exposed bricks lining the fireplace, I let my mind wander as I tried to figure out what to say, my hands absentmindedly turning the mug as I listened to the kettle’s whistle grow louder.

Within 5 minutes I was done, and just in time, as I managed to walk back through just when Bilbo had begun to stir. Lowering the tray onto the small table by the fire, I knelt down in front of Bilbo’s chair, his steaming mug of chamomile in my hands.

His eyes flickered open, blinking rapidly as he tried to adjust to the low light. Spotting us, he gasped as he shot up, everything seemingly coming back to him.

I quickly shoved the mug towards him, and that managed to calm him down slightly as he settled back into his chair, bringing his hands from beneath the blanket to take the hot beverage from my hands.

Taking a small sip, he lowered the tea onto his lap, and took a deep breath.

“What,- in Yavanna’s name… where you doing!!?”

I gave him straight lined smile, clasping my hands together.

“That’s the thing.” I said, shrugging as my eyes focused on the fire. “We don’t know.”

He spluttered, his head jerking back in confusion and frustration. “Wh – d – don’t know?? What do you mean you don’t know??”

Kay shoved at my shoulder as she sat down on the floor next to me. “What Kate was meant to say,” She explained, deadpanning at me before turning to the poor hobbit. “Was that it was an accident, we were joking about something and she didn’t mean to send me floating into the ceiling.”

Bilbo frowned so hard that his eyes had scrunched shut, placing his mug on the table. “And what, pray tell, could you have possibly been joking about that made Kay levitate into the air.”

I nodded slowly as my eyes darted around in thought. “About sending her floating into the ceiling.” I stated, shrugging as if it was obvious.

Bilbo dropped his head into his hands with a loud groan of anguish, whilst Kay drew her lips between her teeth to try and hide her smile.

I fiddled with my fingers, watching as Bilbo’s head rose back up, dropping back onto the cushion of his armchair as he stared into space, his eye-bags looking more prominent than ever.

“Okay, just.. fetch one of your cakes, I need to eat something after all that.” He sighed, closing his eyes.

I quickly replied with an ‘ok’, getting to my feet and strolling over to the pantry, retrieving the cake, then to the kitchen to get three plates, forks and a knife.

Handing Bilbo his slice of cake, me and Kay sat down on the armchairs opposite, placing our own plates on our laps. Minutes passed where only the crackling of the fire and clinking of forks against plates could be heard. But it wasn’t long before Bilbo spoke up again.

“Do you really not know what’s going on?” He asked, tilting his head slightly as he looked over at us.

Kay shook her head. “This is just as new to us as it is to you. We’re trying to figure out why, but it’s been difficult.”

“I can imagine.” He replied. “If I started accidentally levitating things, I wouldn’t dare to show my face until I knew how to control it.”

“We have somewhat managed to control it, though” I added.

“Oh, I know that.” Bilbo reassured with a shake of his head. “Otherwise Kay would still be stuck to the ceiling.” He joked, much to Kay’s chagrin.

“You don’t need to worry about us, though.” I said, voice muffled by a mouthful of cake. “I know we’re ‘barely adults’ according to you, but we do have some idea of how to look after ourselves.”

Bilbo nodded. “I’m sure you can, but then again, you said yourselves that you don’t know how to navigate this world properly. I just want to make sure you’re both safe. The Shire is a very comfortable place to live, but once you step out its borders, I can guarantee you two wouldn’t last a day.” He stated, prodding his knee with his finger to emphasise each word.

Kay raised her hands in mock surrender, “You’ve got us there.” I pointed a finger at her in agreement whilst staring at the rug.

“But…” I raised my head to look at Kay as she spoke. “Could we possssibly go to the forest? To try and figure this all out??” Bilbo instantly deadpanned. “It saves us accidentally blowing a hole in your wall!”

He reeled back. “You can do that?!?!”

She nodded. “Well – I haven’t, exactly.” She straightened up, pointed a finger at me. “But Kate has!”

I whirled round, a betrayed look on my face. “Are you trying to rat me out?!”

“YOU BLEW A HOLE IN MY WALL?!?!” cried Bilbo.

“NO! I BLEW A TREE UP, NOT YOUR HOUSE!” I cried back.

“WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO BLOW UP A TREE!”

“I DIDN’T MEA – ugh, I can’t be asked with this.” I groaned, rubbing my face. “Look, I didn’t do it on purpose, it was in self de – no, right, I picked up a stick, and accidentally knocked it against something, which caused a spark to fly out the end and blow up a tree.”

The hobbit tossed his hands into the air. “And my day just keeps getting weirder and weirder.” He breathed a deep sigh. “Ok fine, you can go to the forest, BUT, I’m going with you.” Kay groaned from beside me. “No, none of that. The last time I let you both out on your own, you almost froze to death after going for a midnight swim, I’m not having that happen again.”

We both slumped in our chairs, nodding reluctantly. Satisfied, Bilbo nodded to himself, before standing from his chair and walking slowly to the door.

“Right, well – I’m off to bed. We can discuss this further over breakfast tomorrow.” He paused in the doorway, twisting around to look at us both. “And uh.. thank you,” He said, gesturing to the tea and blanket in his arms. “For taking care of me.”

We both nodded at him with a smile, Kay muttering a ‘You’re welcome’. He returned the expression, before disappearing into the hallway.

“Well, that went a lot better than I thought.” Said Kay, turning to retrieve her own tea.

My head jerked around instantly from where I was facing the fireplace, my face twisted in both confusion and offence. “Easy for you to say. I almost got kicked out because you made him think I was renovating his home!”

“Well that sounds like a you problem, doesn’t it?” She said over her shoulder as she walked towards the doorway.

I went to retort, but quickly noticed which direction she was going in. “NUH UH, don’t think I haven’t forgotten what I said earlier.”

Kay stopped, punching the air in frustration. She spun around, inching towards the doorway. “But it’s so pointless!” She whined. “And it disappears when you’re around anyway!”

I looked over my shoulder, squinting my eyes at her. “Are you saying ghost hunting’s pointless? I am both shocked and offended.” I mockingly turned my nose up at her, walking through the doorway to my room. “And about to sacrifice your Hello Kitty.”

Footsteps followed me instantly. “If you do I’m sacrificing Toothless.”

I paused, my hand on the doorknob to my room. Glaring over my shoulder, I pouted grumpily, before twisting the handle and stepping in. “Fine, I’ll smelt your jewellery down instead.”

I could practically feel Kay gape at me as she lightly punched my shoulder. She walked over and sat on my bed, watching as I rummaged through my drawers. “What are we doing in here anyway, I thought we were sleeping in my room?”

“That–” I grunted as I struggled to reach under a pile of stuff. “-is a good question – aha!” I pulled out my small wooden chest. “But I thought I would bring this to try and work out how to protect us.”

Kay sighed, crossing her arms as she looked up at me. “Okay, so, you know how to do that?”

“Of course.” I replied with a grin. “Protection spells are the first thing you should learn about as a practitioner. It’s witchcraft 101.”

I unhooked the clasps on the box, opening it up and picking something out and handing it to Kay. She took it in her hands looking at it confused. “The protection is a Christmas bauble?”

“It does look like one, but no, that’s a Rowan cross.” I explained, taking it out of her hands and lifting it up to the candlelight.

The object consisted of two dark twigs, specifically from a rowan tree, tied in a cross by some thick, woolly, red string that formed a diamond, with dried rowan berries glued to the centre of the shape. At the end of one the twigs was a red ribbon, tied so it could be hung up.

“They’re normally hung in doorways, to ward off negative energy and wrong-doers.” I gestured to my doorway, Kay turning to spot an identical cross hung on a nail on the wooden beam. “I did it the week I had the thing appear in my wardrobe, and luckily, it seems to be working.”

Kay turned back round, eyeing the cross in my hand, before quickly snatching it. “So I just hang this in my doorway and it’ll go away?”

“Maybe,” I said, uncertain. “It’s already activated, but I doubt it’ll be strong enough to get rid of it, so I want to see if it’ll upset it, so it can show itself and we can work out what it is for sure.”

Kay nodded, slinking off the bed to join me on the floor. “Okay then, show me what to do.”

I held up the cross. “We’ll start, by hanging this in your doorway.”

---

Loud knocking echoed through the hallway as I hammered the nail into the beam of wood above Kay’s doorway. Kay was deeper in the house, near Bilbo’s room, to check if he had been woken up by the noise. The final bang resounded through the still air, and she peeked one last time round the door, and saw the Hobbit remain in a deep sleep, much to her relief. Pulling the handle until she heard the door close with a soft click, she returned to watch me as I hung the cross, the almost-black branches contrasting strongly against the warm wood as it hung in the centre of the beam. Taking a step back, I nodded in satisfaction, walking over to the chest of drawers to put down the hammer we had nicked from Bilbo’s gardening tools, before turning to Kay.

“This will hopefully do something whilst we wait for the right moon phase to come round.” I said. “Or it’ll upset it and you end up being haunted for the rest of your life.”

“It better not,” Kay replied. “Otherwise you’ll be having a permanent roommate until it’s gone.”

Soon enough, the candles around the room were blown out, all except one, that currently sat on the vanity, its flickering casting the odd shadow here and there.

We both laid there under the covers in our nightgowns, Toothless and Hello Kitty in hand, glancing around diligently, looking for anything out of the ordinary. When almost an hour had passed by, we slowly settled down to the sound of the crickets outside, burrowing deeper into the covers as sleep threatened to take over. I had just closed my eyes for a minute, trying to rest them as faint colours danced behind my eyelids, when the crickets went quiet. Thinking Kay had gotten up to close the window, I pressed myself further under the covers. That was, until a hand shot out and latched onto my arm.

I jumped out of my skin, eyes shooting open, only to be met with darkness. It felt deathly cold, the candle had somehow gone out, and, what was hopefully Kay, was currently gripping onto me like a lifeline. Luckily, the curtains had drifted apart from the wind slightly, and the glow of the waning crescent in the sky shone through the cracks. Thin wisps of smoke from the extinguished candle floated in front of where I was laid on my side, facing the wall. Following it to try and spot the candle, my eyes moved across the room, when they flicked into a corner. I would’ve missed it completely, if it weren’t for the rattling breath it let out.

It just stood there, looking half solid but casting no shadows, it’s long thin arms held straight up in the air as it stared with deep hollow sockets and a gaping mouth hanging open wide enough for me to almost fit my head into. It had no teeth, no eyebrows or hair, just dark, grey, dusty skin. All it did was stand there. And stare. And I couldn’t move.

All I could do was stare back.

It felt like hours as I sat there half-laid on my elbow, feeling the ache settle into the joint but unable to move. It wasn’t moving either, not even one of its long, sharp-looking fingers twitching as it held its appendages up as if it had been stretched up with invisible chains.

Kay wasn’t moving either, but was shaking profusely, her hand imprinting into my skin as she gripped onto me like a vice. I wasn’t any better, the thing in front of me making all my paranormal experiences from my childhood seem like a joke.

It wasn’t until Kay’s nails dug in that I moved, keeping my eyes locked onto the ghostly creature as I reached behind me, and gritting my teeth, dragged the pillow from behind. As soon as I felt Kay’s hand release my arm, I shot up and launched it as hard as I could at its face. The pillow soared through the air, and within a second, the creature had vanished into thin air, the candle on the vanity flickering back to life before the pillow even hit the wall.

It dropped to the floor with a muffled thump as light enveloped the room once again, and we both sat there, staring at the corner with wide, terrified eyes. A creak sounded from within the house’s structure, snapping us out of the trance as warmth swept back in.

“I don’t think the cross worked.” Kay whispered shakily.

“… Let’s go sleep in my room.”

--

The Next Day

Silence was all that could be heard, except for the clinking and scraping of utensils against plates and bowls. Kay and I sat slumped at the kitchen table, deep bags under our bloodshot eyes as we squinted at our half-eaten breakfasts.

Bilbo was quite the opposite, looking as chipper as ever after a full nights-sleep as he finished the last few mouthfuls of his meal with a satisfied huff. Untucking the napkin from the collar of his night-shirt, he placed it on the table, looking between us with a smile.

I tried my best to hide a wide yawn behind my hand whilst placing my fork down, unable to finish the meal, when he piped up.

“So, who fancies going down to the market today? I heard there’s a new flower stall being set up.”

All I could do was push my plate away, dropping my head down onto the table with a loud ‘thunk’. Kay wasn’t any better, her head tilted back as she slowly fell asleep in her chair.

The hobbit let out a sigh. “Couldn’t sleep?”

All he got was a groan in response.

----------------------

Bag End, Hobbiton, The Shire – T.A. Friday, 23rd November 2939 of the Third Age (Hevensday, 3rd Foreyule, 1339 in Shire-reckoning)

“Bilbo, are you sure you want to go with us?”

Kay and I sat on the rug by the front door, wrapped up in several layers of winter-wear – gloves, shawls, knitted scarves and all. We were preparing to leave for the forest, determined to figure out our wands in a safe environment, said objects hidden in our deep skirt pockets. Earlier, as we were sat lacing up our boots, a shivering Bilbo had walked through the door, ingredients for dinner in his bag. Within a second he had demanded to go with us, refusing to budge and reminding us of the agreement from five days ago. Which led to now.

“Yes, I’m perfectly sure!” he grunted from where his head resided in the large chest down the hallway, looking for his scarf. “We made an agreement, and even if we didn’t, I’m certainly not leaving you two to wander into the fog when the clouds have been threatening to snow all week!” He stormed past us, flinging the scarf around his neck, simultaneously hitting me in the face with it from where I was sat, sending Kay into a fit of laughter as I spluttered about. Swinging the door open to reveal the foggy evening scene outside, he gestured expectantly. “Hurry now, it’ll be getting dark in a couple hours.”

Grabbing the leather messenger bag containing my Grimoire and a few other materials, we were ushered out. The freezing chill hit us almost immediately, like Jack Frost had decided to practice acupuncture with a thousand ice needles. Twisting my scarf, I pulled part of it over my head whilst bunching the rest around my chin until it reached my nose.

Walking down, the two of us stood by Bilbo’s front gate, waiting as he struck a match, lighting the same lantern he had used when he found us in his bushes, bringing forth a flurry of those not-so-great memories. Stuffing the matchbox in his pocket, he pulled the door closed, before following the short path down to us.

Reaching us, he held an arm out, gesturing down the path. “Alright,” he said, his voice muffled by the scarf. “I don’t know where you guys want to go, so lead the way.”

Kay looked at me expectantly, and so, I begun to retrace the steps I had taken that eventful night.

---

The sun had already begun to set when we arrived, and I noted that the forest looked at lot less intimidating during the daylight hours. Rounding a relatively dense pack of bushes, I came across a very familiar sight.

Rotting splinters of bark and branches littered the ground, along with the fallen half of the tree, now slowly being covered with moss and rotting leaves that had fallen in the last few weeks of Autumn. Memories from what happened a month ago came flowing back, and I grimaced when my eyes finally landed on the jagged stump, sticking out the ground like a giant clawed hand with a hundred sharp fingers.

I turned to face the others, gesturing with my hands in a half shrug. “Well this is where it happened.”

Kay stared at the stump with wide eyes. “Ok, I’ll admit I was exaggerating when I said you blew it up. I didn’t think you actually did.”

Bilbo was silent. His eyes were practically bulging out of his head as he gawked at the scene in front of him. “How?” Was all he could utter, the whisper barely heard over the chatter of the forest.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been asking myself this whole time.” I said equally confused, wandering over to another familiar tree. “I found my wand, and was making my way back, when I turned around, knocking it against this tree.” I acted it out, pretending to hit something against the tree, my hand lining up with a very obvious burn mark embedded onto the bark, like someone had set off a firework in close proximity next to it. “Then - ” My hand pointed from the burn, over to the broken stump. “Voila, tree bomb.”

“Bomb?” Bilbo said perplexed.

“Think firework, but with a bigger explosion, and use it as a weapon.” Explained Kay from beside him.

All the poor hobbit could do was look up at her in horror, before looking between us both warily. “And – And that thing, can create something like that?”

I nodded. “But only if you choose to. This was a complete accident.”

Bilbo nodded silently, looking as if he was going to faint again. But he suddenly seemed to calm down, fiddling with his fingers whilst peering up at me apprehensively.

“Do you… think you could do it again? But smaller?”

Both of our mouths fell open in shock, before I let out a guffaw.

“Bilbo Baggins! Are you secretly rebellious?!” I gasped out.

His ears flushed a deep red. “No! I – I just-” He dropped his head bashfully. “This all just reminds me of when I was younger, and of Gandalf and his fireworks.”

“Mhm sure.” Said Kay, putting her hands on her hips as she looked down at the pouting hobbit. “Well we’re not going to blow up another poor tree, but we could show you something else? I’ve been meaning to try out my wand for ages now.” She reached into her skirt pocket, pulling it out.

I pulled out mine, weighing it in my hand as I thought of what to do next. “Can you think of any spells for wands?” I asked Kay as I walked over.

She shrugged. “Only the ones we wrote down from you-know-what. It worked the other day.”

I tilted my head in confusion. “You-know-what?”

“You know, the story about magic from our place that we can’t talk about because we get strangled by air?” She replied.

I nodded in realisation, then my eyes moved about in thought, before I slowly turned my head to a small pile of dead leaves nearby. Kay darted her eyes at me, following my line of sight before they landed on where I was looking.

“What are you thinking – ?”

I lifted my arm up and pointed my wand. “Incendio.”

“Absolutely not.” The pile of leaves burst into flame. “KATE FOR FUCKS SAKE.”

She stormed over to the pile, stamping on it until all that was left was a pile of blackened smouldering leaves. “Being a borderline pyromaniac does not give you an excuse to set everything on fire!”

All I did was smile impishly in response, hiding my wand behind my back. “Now you try.”

Kay huffed, pointing her own wand whilst thinking about her next move. I skipped over to Bilbo, who seemed like he was struggling to keep himself upright.

“You okay? We sorta forgot about you for a second there.” I said softly, crouching down to be more eye-level with him.

He blinked, seemingly snapping himself out of something. “O-oh, yes! It’s just not every day you gets involved in something as interesting as this.”

He gestured to my wand with a far-away look, and at that moment, he looked almost smaller, burying the lower half of his face into the thick scarf wrapped around his neck as he stared. Though in a flash he was shaking his head. “But you two have something you need to do, right?”

I blinked at his sudden mood-swing, but quickly let it go. “Oh, yes, we do.”

I reached to my hip, swivelling the messenger bag to the front of my body and flipping it open. Grabbing my Grimoire out of one of the pockets, I flipped through the pages as Bilbo tilted his head to try and read the words from his angle. Finally landing on a page, I came across an old envelope I had stuck in. Lifting the flap, I pulled out a piece of lined paper, torn from Kay’s notebook days earlier containing the list of spells we had tried to recall. It seemed silly, that spells from a book series would work, but they did, and we weren’t complaining.

Unfolding and smoothing the thin sheet out, I scoured the list, noting down the ‘safe’ spells we had circled. Whilst Bilbo looked over my shoulder at the paper, I called out to Kay. “Alright! I guess we’ll start you out with the easiest first spell.” Scouring the area, my eyes landed on a small log and I pointed at it. “Try levitating that log.”

Kay took a stance, before taking a deep breath, setting her stern eyes on the log. Reaching her wand out, she waved it with a swish and a flick, muttering the charm under her breath. Soon enough, the log began to rise, fallen leaves sliding off and floating to the ground as it hovered in the air.

Kay screamed in excitement, throwing her hands in the air as she beamed at her accomplishment. She whirled around to face us, the log dropping to the ground with a thud as she did. “Did you see that?!?!” she squealed, jumping on the spot as her hands cupped her face in shock.

I nodded enthusiastically, whilst Bilbo simply gawked at the now unmoving log.

“Tha – how? How did yo – That was incredible!” he gasped.

Kay nodded dramatically, her copper hair flopping over her face as she did. She quickly beckoned me over, and I handed the list to Bilbo.

“I don’t suppose you could read out the circled ones?” I said, pointing at the words. He looked up, nodding with a nervous smile.

Thanking him, I brought him with me to stand between me and Kay. Raising my wand, I tried out the levitating spell, watching in excitement as the log rose once again, before slowly lowering down. Then me and Kay both raised our wands, waiting for Bilbo to read out the first spell.

“Okay, so Ag – oh Yavanna what in Middle Earth does that say?? Ag – Aguam – A-goo-ah… men..tee??”

“Aguamenti?” Kay suggested.

“Yes, that!” He replied.

“Ok,” I said. “let’s do that one.”

Pointing our wands ahead, we both said the charm. It didn’t work at first, which was expected, but Kay managed hers on the second try, water shooting out like a jet and giving the bush several metres away a shower. I managed on my third try, but we both found it difficult to get it to stop, but after pulling our wands away while visualising the intention of stopping, it worked.

Turning to Bilbo, we both waited patiently for the next challenge. Drawing his attention away from the large puddle we had created in front of him, he scoured the list.

“Right, well erm…”

---

The spell trial went almost perfectly, the log now lost amongst the bushes after I’d flung my wand about too hard and sent it flying. Some spells had been easy to do, the two of us managing them after the second or third try, but, as expected, the more complex ones took longer, taking up to twenty tries at certain points, and some were straight up impossible to do.

After realising that not all of them could be done, we tried our best to improve the basic ones as much as we could. I exceeded with the fire spell, pointing my wand around and setting random leaves and dead bushes on fire, whilst Kay was more skilled with water, following me around as she shot at each fire I set, putting them out before they grew, and also threatening to shoot me in the face if I carried on.

--

Darkness was already setting in as we decided to head back, the couple hours if spellcasting draining us more than we expected. Bilbo held out his lantern, watching as I excitedly lit it with a spell, and we began our trek back.

We had travelled back about a quarter of the way, when Kay caught up with me.

“Hey, I don’t suppose we could go to the lake?” She asked, and I faced her with a curious look. “ I want to visit where I found my wand, and see if I can figure out what happened to me.”

I nodded, and looked to Bilbo who was ahead lighting the way. “Hey Bilbo?” I called out, receiving a humin response. “Could we quickly pop to the lake? We just wanna check something out real quick.”

He let out a sigh, but reluctantly gave in. “Fine, but we must be no longer than ten minutes. I want to make it back to make dinner on time.”

Thanking him, we sped up, speed-walking until we hit the main path, taking a few detours that would take us the long way to Bilbo’s house, that would also pass the lake.

By the time we got there, it was already dark, the sun setting earlier in the deep winter months. Approaching the black water, it had already began to re-freeze, new ice expanding from the half melted sheets from last night, one that was so cold, the three of us took shifts waking up to add wood and stoke the fires around the house all night.

Frosty reeds swayed in the icy wind, the breeze biting at our exposed skin more than ever as we peered into the rippling depths of the lake.

“Girl I am glad I didn’t have to drag you out in this weather.” I mumbled to Kay, keeping out of earshot of the hobbit who was currently stood on the path part-ways up a bank, about ten metres away.

“I am too. Neither of us would’ve survived that night if it was like this.” She replied with a shiver.

“Do you remember anything that happened between you leaving and waking up?” I questioned.

Kay was quiet for a moment. “…Not really, I remember what I had already told you, but everything after that had gone black, like I was back in that void we ended up in, on the bridge back in our world.” She paused. “Actually, it’s not much, but there were a couple times when I could feel myself try to wake up, once when I was stood at the edge, and the other when I was at the bottom of the lake. But it was all blurry, like someone was holding up a TV covered in frosted glass on the other side of a room I couldn’t reach.”

“Are you two going to take long?” Bilbo called over the wind, holding his lantern up higher for us to see better. “We do really need to get back.”

I gave him a thumbs up, turning back to the water as I stepped onto the familiar small pebble beach, standing just where the miniscule waves lapped at the tips of my boots. Kay soon joined me, trying to look beneath the surface with the limited light.

“I don’t think we’re going to find anything tonight.” She sighed, dejectedly. “Actually, I don’t think we’ll be finding anything for a while, because I’d rather eat a mouthful of raw chicken covered in dog sick than swim outside in December. Or January. Or February, for that matter.”

“I agree.” I mumbled back, side-eying the frozen death-trap in front of us. “Let’s just go back and stick our hands and feet into the nearest fire. We can figure this out another time.”

I went to turn back, when Kay shot out her hand to latch onto my arm for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Do you have a personal vendetta against this arm or something?” I poked, facing her. “At this point we don’t need matching tattoos cuz your handprint will do just that.”

All she did was slap at my shoulder, silencing me whilst refusing to look my way as she reached out to point across the water.

“What? – ” Another slap. I quickly quietened down and squinted at the darkness in front of me. Though I didn’t have to look for long.

Looking across, the bank at the opposite end of the lake would’ve been lost in darkness, if it weren’t for the large blue shape glowing from where it sat in the grass.

I instantly felt fear pierce down my spine as recognition hit me in the chest, but confusion wormed its way in as I took a closer look at the shape. No wings, or legs, just one long body, and amongst the coil of scales, a head covered in a multitude of bony and sharp-looking spines.

A snake.

And – excuse my language – a real fucking big one at that.

Like, thirty, fourty feet long?? And body thick enough for me to not even wrap my arms around it! And from beside me, I heard Kay whisper out one word.

“Basilisk.”

I slowly began to back away. “Yea, Basilet’s get the fuck out of here.” I hissed, tugging at her arm.

Luckily, it hadn’t seen us, the light of Bilbo’s lantern blending in with the street lanterns that flickered up in the hills, and said hobbit was not noticing a thing, too busy staring up at the stars as he waited.

The pebble beach rose slightly at the end where it met the grass, so I tried my best to take a huge step up it as silently as I could. Kay went to do the same, but was still staring behind her at the snake, and her foot didn’t go as high, scraping against the small bank, causing some pebbles to dislodge, their noise carrying across the water as they fell.

We both froze, tensing at the sound, stock still as we waited for the last pebble to finish its journey down. When it was silent again, we both slowly turned to see if it had heard us. It hadn’t, and it carried on hunting for something in the tall grass.

We both let out a sigh of relief, most of the tension leaving our body as we silently began making our way over to Bilbo.

The hobbit was still staring at the night sky, his hand raised as his finger absentmindedly pointed up and moved about slightly, most likely trying to make out the constellations. He slowly turned on the spot, not seeing the wooden fence post next to him, and the lantern collided against it, letting out a loud ‘clank’ that echoed through the crisp air.

The snake’s head shot up, detecting the soundwaves. Flicking it’s tongue out, it scoured the area for only a moment, before its slitted eyes were on us. Bearing its glowing orbs into ours, the three of us had a staring match for the next few seconds. I blinked, and in a flash, it lowered its head. I blinked again, and it was already sliding into the water. Directly towards us.

“Ok, we’ve got to go.” I stated shakily, and shot my hand out to grab Kay, hauling her forward, and the both of us began sprinting.

Clambering up the hill, my hands dug into the mud and gripped onto slippery grass blades until we reached the path, where I reached my arm around the waist of an unsuspecting Bilbo. He let out a yelp as I snatched him up, almost dropping the lantern in his hands.

“What. Are. You. Doing????” He strained out as his arms and legs jumped up and down with each step.

“Just uhhh – ” I heaved between breaths. “Me and Kay decided to race back?? Didn’t want to leave you behind.”

“Well at least give me a warning next time??” He scolded, and I gave him a nod in reply, before speeding up as much as I could with the extra weight.

Up and up the winding paths we ran, skipping some as we jumped and scrambled up the banks between to try and make short-cuts. At this point the snake had crossed the lake, breaking the water without a ripple as it slithered up the banks, gaining speed with every second.

I slipped on the icy ground over and over as we sped up the path, my panic causing my clumsiness to increase tenfold, and only having my non-dominant arm free didn’t help. To our luck, we rounded the corner, losing sight of the creature, but not losing sound as a guttural hiss pierced the air.

“What was that?” Bilbo demanded, his own nerves starting to settle in as he tried to twist in my arms to look behind.

“No clue.” Kay quickly replied from just behind me, the noise motivating her to speed up even more, her hand pressing against the back of my shoulder blades as she helped usher me along.

“Uhh, I think you do?” he jabbed back.

“We don’t have time for this, cmon!” Kay pushed, exasperated at Bilbo, who only replied with an arched brow.

The warm light from Bilbo’s windows soon appeared, and we pushed the last bits of adrenaline to get us up the garden path and slam against the circular door, swinging it open and crashing onto the floor in the doorway.

The moment didn’t last though, as I was up in a flash and hauling the door shut, pressing my back against it. Flailing my hand out, I beckoned for Kay to come over.

She did, joining me by the small circle window next to the door, the two of us trying to peer through the pieces of paned glass into the darkness outside.

We both stilled as our sights set on the blue glow that grew brighter and brighter on the left, and it wasn’t long before a large head came into view, the snake’s entire body lowered to the ground as it slowly slid silently along the path in front of Bilbo’s fence.

It slowed as it neared the gate, and the two of us lowered ourselves until our eyes were just peeking over the top, thankful that the entrance hall wasn’t lit as we hid in the darkness of the house.

I caught movement in the corner of my eye, and peered to the left, only to see Bilbo stood at the opposite window, frozen with wide eyes as he stared out at the creature. Panic shot through me, as I realised his face was on full view in the window. And it seemed Kay had realised the same thing.

“Bilbo!!” she hissed as quietly as she could. The hobbit darted his head towards her, face full of fright. She waved her hand up and down, gesturing for him to lower himself from the window. “Get down!”

He did so, taking one last look at the creature before he darted down out of sight. I kept an eye on the window, watching the snake as it took one last look around, apparently deciding to call it a day, and turned, just like the winged creature had done with me, returning back down the hill, twisting and slithering until it disappeared over the edge and out of sight.

I let out a sigh of relief, slumping against the wall as I slid to the floor.

“Whuh – What??” Poor Bilbo was now hyperventilating, his mouth gaping open and shut as he tried to stammer out the words that caught in his throat.

Kay stood up, walking over and offering a hand, only to be met with Bilbo raising his hand to stop her. She did so, and we both watched as he quickly calmed his breathing, easing himself onto his feet. Bending over slightly with his hands on his hips, he took a few calming breaths, furrowing his brows as he blinked rapidly.

Kay went to open her mouth, only getting a sound out when Bilbo’s hand shot out again.

“No, no. I’ve seen quite enough.” He stated, looking up at the both of us sternly. I felt dread settle in my stomach as I watched a flurry of emotions cross the hobbits face. “I was quite happy with the magic, but this – this.” He gestured at the door with a flop of his arm. “I just – I’m going to bed.” He rubbed his hand across his face tiredly as he made his way down the hallway. “Goodnight.” He rounded the corner, leaving us in the entrance hall.

All we did was stare frozen at the door he left through, and I could feel my hands start to twist in my lap. A hand tapped my shoulder, and I looked up to Kay stood over me.

“C’mon,” she mumbled. “We need to go to bed too. We can worry about him in the morning.”

I nodded silently, feeling more unease settle in about the possibilities of tomorrow, praying to whatever Deity I had ever given offerings to that the worst wouldn’t happen. Getting to my feet, I slipped off my shoes and outer layer of winter wear, and trailed after Kay.

--

I didn’t get out of bed the next morning, too anxious to face the hobbit, fearing the worst outcome, which was us becoming homeless.

Kay wasn’t any better, having got up before the sun even rose to make us tea, disappearing back to my room before Bilbo could even stir. We were now both sat on the wide window ledge, cushions behind our backs, as we stared over the bushes of Bilbo’s garden and out across the rolling hills in the distance, listening to the morning birdsongs that floated through the blanket of mist that coated the ground, and drifted between the open windows along with the chill. We remained like that until lunchtime, wrapped in blankets and talking quietly, until there was a knock at my door.

The two of us turned our heads to face Bilbo as he stuck his head around the door, his eyes darting around slightly as he barely made eye-contact. We both waited silently, too nervous to speak.

Seeing that we weren’t going to talk first, Bilbo took a deep sigh, and stepped into the room, one hand still on the door.

“Look, I –” he began, rubbing his forehead. “I know last night I was… frustrated, but I know what I saw wasn’t your fault. It’s just that – it’s just, I feel like there’s always something going on with you two, and don’t get me wrong! What happens is harmless most of the time! But there have been points where my mind just…” he took a deep breath. “All of this overwhelms me, and I just want to know that you’re safe, I’m safe, along with everyone else. Because if this home ends up becoming dangerous, I don’t know if I can keep on pretending it’s all fine. Do you two understand what I’m saying?”

We both gave silent nods in reply, solemn looks on all of our faces as we absorbed his words.

“Now don’t you two go thinking that I’m blaming you for any of this.” He said, giving us a pointed look. “And it’s not like I haven’t enjoyed getting to know you both, and the trail of crazy things you’ve left behind since the moment you got here.” He gave a smile, walking over to where we were at the window. “Just tell me next time something like this happens, because I know you’re as clueless as I am about all this, if your research in those books you brought say anything.”

We both faced him fully, confusion on our faces.

“Wait, you’ve read my books??” I questioned.

He rocked back and forth on his heels, raising his eyebrows and nodding. “I’m very good at cleaning, I’ll have you know.” He lectured, waving a finger at me. “And you’re not very good at tidying your books away.”

I sighed at myself, a sheepish look on my face.

“The two of you are dealing with things completely unheard of in Middle Earth, from my knowledge anyway, Yavanna knows what someone like Gandalf has seen in his lifetime.” He mumbled to himself. “So this won’t be your eviction notice, for now.” He paused as he gave us a look, until a smile slowly rose onto his face. “Now up! You’ve missed breakfast, second breakfast, and elevensies, and at this point, you’ll be missing luncheon! How you two haven’t turned to skeletons yet is beyond me.” He nagged as he pattered away to the kitchen. A pause went by. “I know you two haven’t moved yet!” he called out, sending us into a frenzy as we chucked our blankets off and sped-walked after him.

--

Bilbo made sure to make a hearty luncheon, filled with pork pie, scotch eggs, tomato soup and vegetables to snack on. Most of it was spent chattering on about local events, and the latest gossip. At one point it was even interrupted by Erard ringing the bell, which caused me to shoot out of my seat to check if Bilbo hadn’t accidentally eaten the batch of cupcakes I had made for the doctor, much to the disgruntled mumbling that he ‘would never do such a thing’.

The meal was finished off with a slice of poppy seed cake, and as we were washing up, Bilbo turned to me, asking if he could discuss last night’s events with us.

“I thought we had already done that?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, but..” Bilbo trailed off in thought as he swept up the last of the crumbs on the table. “during my.. ‘accidental snooping’, I came across some methods for um.. spiritual protection, was it?”

I nodded slowly, choosing to forget that he had sneaked a look at my stuff. “Mhm, what did you want to know?”

We all sat down at the now clean table as he continued speaking. “I couldn’t help but wonder about how you’re going to.. deal with that-” he jabbed a finger at the window. “-thing. Considering you both ran from it, I’m taking a guess that it isn’t friendly.”

“Things.” Kay said quickly.

He blinked in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Things.” She repeated nervously. “There’s two of them.”

The poor hobbit’s frown lines deepened on the spot, his eyebags seemingly darkening as he slowly dragged a hand across his face.

“Remind me to never take what I see as the whole thing with you two.” He groaned from behind his hand. “Or I’ll be in an early grave by the time I’m sixty at this point.”

“C’mon Bilbo.” I jived as I leaned back in my chair. “We wouldn’t let that happen to you.”

“I starting to find that hard to believe.” He sighed in response, staring at the window with tired eyes.

“Anyway,” Kay started, quickly moving the conversation on. “I’m guessing you want to know if were able to stop it.”

He nodded. “Get rid of them, even. I’m relatively okay with what’s going on, considering I’ve been expecting crazy things the moment I dragged you both in, but if anyone around us got any idea that two humans from… elsewhere, were causing a noticeable disturbance, they wouldn’t be so lenient. I mean, you saw how everyone was in the first few months, including myself!”

I grimaced. “Yea, getting twice as many stares and whispers as we did is definitely not on the agenda.”

“Don’t even get me started on my reputation in town!” he blurted. “I’d be the source of rumours until the day I die, I tell you!” he quickly realised his words. “U-Uh not that it matters more! Anyway! Anyway, what I was saying before.” He flapped his hands around as if the brush away his last comment. “I saw something hanging above Kay’s doorway, and uh..” he pointed his finger in the direction of Kay’s room slightly, eyes flitting hesitantly between us and the doorway. “I was wondering what that was?”

“Oh! That’s a.. rowan cross?” Kay answered, eyeing me for confirmation, to which I nodded.

Bilbo nodded, almost sighing in relief.

“What?” I prodded playfully. “Did you think it was a Satan symbol or something?”

He scrunched his face in confusion. “What’s a Satan?”

“Uh… nevermind.” I said, dropping the subject before we instilled more fear into him. “The Rowan Cross just works as a ward for nasty spirits and people, but it won’t work against those things forever, until we figure out what they are, and I don’t think we ever will, unless we can find someone who can help us or give us some ideas.”

Kay perked up slightly. “Like Gandalf?”

I nodded, rubbing my lip in thought. “He could probably help, but it’s not like we know where he is.”

Kay slumped in her chair with a huff at the reality, until a thought came to her mind. “We could… wait to see if he shows up?” she suggested, with a hardly detectable tone of ‘You know what I’m talking about, right?’. I gave her a subtle look of realisation.

“I guess.” I said as ideas came to mind. “And we could improve our skills in the meantime? See if the use of magic can draw him to us somehow?”

Kay nodded in excitement, whilst Bilbo sat trying to decipher the conversation.

“Wait what?” he said in confusion. “You want to wait until Gandalf comes here? How do you know he will?”

“No idea.” Said Kay with a shrug. “But it’s our best shot without wandering into the wilderness and straight up dying.”

“In the meantime..” I piped up as the two turned to me. “I don’t suppose at some point during the next few months, we could take a trip to Bree?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[liliallowed]

you'd think in hindsight it's obvious.

I assure you. it's not obvious. I am not consciously aware of my mental strain until in either breaking down crying or just emotionally shut down.

so putting these "warning signs" is extremely important. paying attention to yourselves is important when you literally don't have a break function in the hyperactive locomotive brain of yours.

DO NOT let it derail.

I'm teaching myself to be more self aware. just putting this here for myself.

yeah.

in any case I feel fine but my subconscious obviously doesn't so it means I've either forgotten something that bothers me and it's processing and bothering me in the background of my mind where I'm not fully aware of...

or that I'm in denial?

it's the problem with escapism and derealization and disassociating.

you don't... you kinda forget what's wrong?

but the feeling will STILL be there.

I'm going to be kind to my brain. it's just trying to do it's job protecting me. I get it.

so I'll listen to it's pained cry for help even if I can't hear it's shrieks of misery well.

I'll LISTEN. I'll try to listen and actively look for signs. because I know unlike everyone else, I can't hear it without paying attention.

I can't hear the gears of my clock grinding against each other and I continue to push it until something internally snaps..

not this time.

I got my back. I hear you.

I might not be the bast at taking care of your needs brain but I'll tech myself and learn.

we got this.

[destinygoldenstar]

Just A Little Rewrite Of The Character Of Marinette Dupen-Chang/Ladybug (Part 1; Origins)

Hey y’all. So I never expected to come here.

I’m doing rewrites of characters as exercise cause why not? I always need to be writing otherwise my skill goes rusty.

I don’t have a wonderful history with this show. I remember watching season one as a kid, but I didn’t go beyond that because I got bored. I thought it was just a me thing and I was more attracted to serialized kids shows like Ninjago and the books of Sailor Moon. (Yes, that’s serialized.) As a kid I liked the books more than the 90s show and I think that’s a completely personal thing.

I think that’s just my personal preference, I tended to gravitate towards serialized shows a lot more and just have episodic shows as background noise.

But I posted before what drove me back in to this show. My GF’s sisters were a fan of the show, and the movie was coming out at the time. So I was forced to watch it with them and thought it was decent.

They hated Ninjago without even seeing it besides clips, and I liked that. We both saw these respective shows as childish junk without much intrigue and value. So I made a deal with them that I’d watch Miraculous if they watched Ninjago. They actually started to like Ninjago after seeing its compelling story unfold. They didn’t think it was serialized. As for me on the Miraculous show after seeing it Seasons 1-5, I expected that to be the case for me too…

What a surprise, I didn’t see the appeal and even got uncomfortable and upset at some points.

I would say why, but honestly, there’s so many YouTube videos online that pretty much say the same things as to why it didn’t work for me.

It’s too long, the villain suffers from the length and is a joke, the main character is a stalker, the secondary is a sidelined joke, they hate a teenage bully but give a middle aged terrorist a pass, messy lore, promotion of toxic behavior-etc. I’d just be repeating.

So instead of doing that, I got a cool idea that I got from one of the sisters. She asked “Well if you’re so much better than professional writers, how would you do it?”

I am NOT better. Keep that in mind. I’m just a scatterbrained person who likes to write and has personal preferences.

I do see the appeal with this show. Again, I was a Sailor Moon Stan as a kid, I liked Pretty Cure, magical girl properties are my special interest. So this show should’ve been a slam dunk for me. It has a very compelling IDEA of the secret identities putting a strain on a relationship between two leads, and the main villain being the father of one of them.

So… how would I bring forth the potential of this story? Well, there’s a lot more factors than you think. That’s why I’m going to only going to be focusing on one factor for now. (I’ll do Adrien/Cat Noir in another post)

I’ll see how this does, and depending on if people like it or hate it, I’ll continue and flesh out this rewrite idea.

So… love it or hate it, here you go.

The show’s theme introduces you to the idea of Marinette as a character:

“In the daytime, I’m Marinette. Just a normal girl with a normal life. But there’s something about me that no one knows yet, cause I’ve got a secret.”

Except, a more accurate description is ‘perfect girl with a perfect life’ because that’s how the story presents her a lot of the time. I can get behind being above average in privilege, but I can’t get behind none of her very blatant flaws being called out. This girl actually kinda scares me.

I wouldn’t mind it if her stalking-possessive nature was called out and a focal point for character development, but it’s not. I wouldn’t mind it if it was just placed in one bad episode, but it’s nearly EVERY episode.

I honestly don’t know if she’s better or worse than Total Drama’s Sierra…. Honestly I’d say Sierra’s worse cause she’s in a more sexual show, but I can definitely see arguments otherwise. (Y’all who know my blog, know I DESPISE Sierra as a character)

That, and Marinette’s essentially a ‘perfect person’ in the narrative and can do no wrong, to the point where she’s instantly a great Miraculous holder episode 1. It’s hard to relate to her, which I’m supposed to.

So I’m going to be rewriting her character to have a legit arc, and a likeable character.

Keep in mind that I am not here to ‘replace’ the original version. If you love the canon Marinette and the canon show, then by all means, love it. This is just an exercise and it’s not meant to be personal.

And uh, EDIT: This was originally gonna be one post, but… the essay got way too meaty and long, so I’m splitting it up into parts, parts being the significant points of growth Marinette has in this rewrite version. So… you guys like what I have so far, I’ll definitely continue this.

So, here’s my version of Marinette Dupen-Chang, AKA Ladybug.

Before I begin with Marinette, I have to address her status as Ladybug, and in order to do that I have to address the Miraculous, and in order to do that I have to address the power system, and in order to do that I have to change said rules.

In short, the original show is 130 Episodes long, not counting any specials. I feel like those can just be supplemental and I won’t be addressing them here. So many episodes are filler and this is ridiculous. It also hurts the threat of the villain when one story arc is THIS long.

So in this version, it’s NOT 5 Seasons of the Hawk Moth story arc.

Instead, it’s 2 Seasons.

How many episodes per season? I wrote all the episodes of seasons 1-3 on notes, cut out the episodes that were either filler or contained content I cut, or were just flat out offensive, and I STILL got a big number, so… I definitely plan it to change.

Yes there’d still be filler episodes with this logic, but it’s also not fast enough that the story feels like it’s going too fast, and personally, I don’t hate there being filler. So I can keep SOME.

But which episodes I’d keep in and which ones I’d cut out is a discussion for another day. If I mention an episode that means it’s not cut. That’s a given.

Basically, the Season 3 finale is now the season 1 finale. And the Season 5 finale is now the season 2 finale and the end of the story arc.

Cool?

Next, the lore regarding the Miraculous.

In the original show, there’s multiple Miraculous with different powers, and the Ladybug and the Cat Noir Miraculous are deemed the most powerful due to their abilities of creation and destruction respectively. And these Miraculous have been carried down from user to user since earth existed.

ALL of that is being carried over here. I have no problem with those rules.

But I am changing how the Miraculous work.

You can NOT swap users Willy Nilly. Whoever is linked to the Kwamii of a Miraculous is the ONLY one who can activate those powers. The only way to break that link is by using certain abilities that permanently cut that link. More on this later. (So NO Scarabella, no other ALT user, it’s just Marinette who can access it)

How does Hawk Moth plan to use the Ladybug and Cat Noir Miraculous to grant wishes with that logic? Miraculous’s powers can be released if they are broken, relieving their Kwamiis and ending the cycle of that Miraculous Hero forever. But if the powers are released, anyone can get their hands on it when they’re released, so you know, someone could use that to grant a wish of theirs.

I’m hesitant on this one, but regarding the ‘After you use a certain ability you only have five minutes left before you de-transform and have to replenish your Kwamii’. The rule itself is fine, it’s just broken constantly, especially in later seasons. Yeah in episode length it’s realistic but in universe some of these are definitely taking more than five minutes. So I WILL keep that rule but increase the time limit to TEN minutes. Not five.

In regards to the Ladybug Miraculous specifically. This one is important. The specific abilities themselves.

She has Lucky Charm, where she can summon a random item to aid her. Okay. Simple.

She has the ability to capture the Akumas. Okay. That’s pretty vital story-wise. Fine.

Then the titular Miraculous Ladybug…

Yeah fixing literally everything I removes consequences like property damage, people getting hurt or killed, etc.

So you’re probably thinking “Okay, this is where she cuts this power entirely so there’d be actual consequences”

Well… you’re actually wrong.

Yes, I didn’t remove this ability. But I DID change the rule for it.

Remember when I said the only way to break a Miraculous link is by using a certain ability that cuts the link permanently?

This is that for the Ladybug Miraculous.

You CAN use Miraculous Ladybug. And it DOES restore everything to its proper fixed state. (Physically.) EVERYTHING. All at once.

BUT, by doing this, the user resigns. Unable to use any power from the Ladybug Miraculous ever again. Any strength or power they got from the Miraculous is gone.

Once it’s explained to Marinette, and essentially the audience, it’s a stake of whether or not she should use that ability. Especially when there’s multiple consequences in battles that could be fixed. She could fix it. She could fix the world and resign and go back to her normal life. But when Hawk Moth would still be around, that’s not the right thing to do.

Why do I bring this up?

Well one it’s to keep in mind for some character choices. And two, it’s so I can reveal another big change on Master Fu. One that impacts Marinette’s character.

Master Fu is still the guardian of the Miraculous box. But he’s NOT the user of the Turtle Miraculous. He’s not a current Miraculous user at all.

Before Marinette, Master Fu was the previous user of the Ladybug Miraculous.

Yep.

First off, it’s my firm belief that all Miraculous are bound by no gender.

Second, the Ladybug Miraculous are basically one of the two most important, and considering the Cat Noir Miraculous Users hold the power of DESTRUCTION, why would the guardian of the box NOT be the Ladybugs?

Third, this establishes a connection between Marinette and Master Fu. But what exactly is that connection aside from “He used to have this power that he is now carrying down to her”?

That’s where we get into the Origins, where we’re starting discussions about certain key episodes.

Origins

The Origins episode begins not with an info dump narration, but with a little narration from our main character.

“In the daytime, I’m Marinette. Normal girl. Normal life. But there’s something about me no one knows yet, cause everything’s about to change for me.”

This is a younger version of Marinette. About 6-7 years old. She’s playing with her mom’s hat on the window seat of a bus.

She and her mom are on this bus moving to Paris France as Chinese Immigrants, as her mom is now engaged to a local baker that lives here.

Yes Marinette’s parents in the show weren’t married until just a few months after this flashback’s event. And this dad is adoptive and not biological. It’s not very huge on the story, maybe it could be discussed in a filler episode, but all it does is make Marinette not half Chinese, just Chinese.

If you’re gonna have your MC be non-white, have your MC be non-white. Especially if there’s the opportunity.

Anyway, the mom and daughter get off the bus and enter the city, and after some establishing shots on how grand Paris is (in fantasy land, anyway), the bus leaves, but Marinette’s mom realizes she misplaced their passports on the bus and runs after it to go get it back, telling Marinette to wait on the bench and play with the hat.

She does, wondering if she should put something in it as a pleasant surprise for mommy, and then…

Paris gets attacked.

In an almost dream-like state, black butterflies swarm the place, with people screaming and running. Some people not being fast enough and turning to stone once the butterflies make contact with them.

Think Chat Blanc, that’s kinda what it looks like.

Marinette watches it all stuck in place, unsure what to say or do.

That is until a voice demands the surviving citizens to go a certain direction.

That’s when the Ladybug appears in view, leaping in vision heroically and using their magic yo-yo to capture the dark butterflies. It re-directs them, but there’s too much for them to handle. They try, though.

We’ll learn, not here, but in a later episode, that this is Master Fu.

Marinette watches in awe of the ideal perfect looking hero handling the threat the best they can. All while they’re pleading to some ‘cat’ to stop this.

I’m gonna leave it at that here, but TLDR, this is to indicate that the previous Cat Noir (Not Adrien) is one of the villains causing this. Or at least working with the previous Hawk Moth. (Not Gabriel)

Anyway, this allows the Ladybug to take their guard down, and it results in him to direct the butterfly swarm the wrong way, leaving them to hit Marinette.

From there, her vision goes dark. But we know what happened to her.

We stay in her POV as we can’t see anything, but just hear the voice of the Ladybug.

“I’m sorry… it’s all my fault… but I’ll fix everything the only way I know how.”

We see a flash of red, and him decreeing,

“MIRACULOUS LADYBUG”

And just like that, red floods Marinette’s vision, and then starts to open up again to reveal Paris again.

Only, it’s perfectly normal, and back to the pretty state we originally saw it.

The Ladybug is nowhere to be found.

Marinette’s mom comes running to her daughter, grabbing her hand to take her away, terrified about what just happened.

Still, Marinette looks around for the hero that saved her. Confused. Curious. As an actual ladybug flies away in the sky.

*Queue Opening*

Keeping a shot of the sky, we follow the ladybug down to the bakery home that the Dupen-Changs love in.

Their house is the same as in the original. (Anyone else want that bedroom?)

The ladybug flies to the window of Marinette’s room and we see a few shots of fashion concept art, almost all of them with red and black colors. There’s also a few kid drawings on the wall of Ladybug and different variations of what her hero looked like. (None of them are accurate)

This is a show don’t tell way of giving the audience a good indication of Marinette’s character and how this prologue impacted her. She’s not only looked up to this heroic figure, but was also inspiration to apply to her fashion designing profession.

(Yeah anyone remember she was a fashion designer? That’s actually one of the aspects of her original character I unironically liked. I miss the old days when girls can be girly. So yeah, that’s definitely being kept here.)

It’s early in the morning. But we see Marinette, now a fourteen year old student, getting ready for school in a quick (like ten second) easy to digest establishment.

You may notice my concept art for Marinette on this post and that I added an ALT outfit to her original civilian design. Well this is why, and this is where we see that.

She does everything to make the look PERFECT in this scene. Re-tying the shoe laces to be perfectly even, adjusting the jacket collar to be perfectly firm, and trying to put gel in her hair to hide the cowlicks from her OG and Ladybug design.

The point is clear, again show don’t tell, that Marinette is a perfectionist who values her appearance. Though not in the diva way like Chloe, more so she cares about how other people see her.

This is gonna be a constant for this version of her character. She cares a lot about finding what she deems as the best version of herself, and beats herself up when she fumbles at that or makes mistakes, mistakes that she makes A LOT. Because she’s only human. However, with her idealism of Ladybug, she’s non self aware that she’s deeming ‘the best Marinette’ as a completely different person.

(I’m going for a theme of self love here.)

She even went as far as having made a ladybug patterned hat to display for school today. Which she sheds nervousness about.

She gets called by her mom to breakfast, and in the frantic pursuit, Marinette says she’ll be right there, fixes her hair again, and runs down the stairs-

-Only to trip over them.

Yeah she’s still clumsy. I didn’t write that out.

Her mom asks if she’s okay, to which she gives the thumbs up, and from there we get a similarly framed breakfast scene from the original.

There’s some changes to context though: It’s NOT the first day back at school. It’s not the first day of school at all. No, it’s only the first day for Adrian, who is transferring this day.

But Marinette doesn’t know that, nor does she know who Adrian is right now. (Because Gabriel keeps his son locked away until the agreement to let Adrian go to school.) So in a post about rewriting Marinette, I’m not gonna touch on Adrian centric scenes.

No, instead in this scene Marinette is concerned about a student council meeting. Saying “I bet Chloe will shut down my ideas again.”

Yes. Marinette is a part of the student council. An addition here.

She’s not the president though. She’s the fundraising officer.

The student body president is Chloe Bourgeois. Other student council members include but not limited to: Sabrina, Kim, and Zoe Lee. (Yes Zoe Lee is here from the start. She’s not a half sister, she’s a full sister. A twin.)

So not only is Marinette a part of this council, but in said council she is surrounded by Chloe followers. To get an idea of how… unfortunately treated she is there, as well as everyone supporting Chloe and her calls over Marinette’s, or anyone else’s. Not because they like Chloe, but because she’s the daughter of the mayor and therefore intimidating. So nobody wants to get on her bad side.

It also paints Marinette in the light of ‘I can’t speak up for myself or say my opinion if I know what’s good for me.’

Anyway blah blah her mom tells her that the hat fundraiser for a local insect zoo is a good idea, Marinette knocks over the breakfast stuff and is ashamed, her dad making his first appearance gives her the macaroons as a bonus, and she happily leaves for school saying she loves them.

The parents are loving and supportive in the original and I have no problem with that.

We get her running to school, finding an old Master Fu nearly getting hit, and her saving him at the expense of the macaroons.

Here’s the only change to that scene: (Aside from the Fu scene before not being here in favor of that prologue) Fu is NOT trying to test anyone here. He’s just an old guy now, and without any Miraculous powers, age caught up to him. Instead during the save and the crashing of Macaroons, Marinette scuffles to save a few whole ones, and accidentally includes the Miraculous Box in that mix.

Yes I know the box in the original is bigger than a macaroon, in this version let’s pretend it’s much smaller to fit an accident like this realistically happening.

After she leaves, Fu realizes the earrings are gone, and he starts to panic a bit. He didn’t intend that to happen and is ready to go after her to get them back before she interacts with the power item. Only problem? He’s old and can’t get to her fast enough.

Just like in the original, Marinette goes to school and Chloe and Sabrina, in their introduction, kick Marinette out of her original desk to make way for Adrien. With of course the tweak that no one mentions first days, and another change that Alya is NOT in the same class as Marinette.

There’s a reason for this.

So instead of anyone defending Marinette, Marinette just takes it and moves on, sitting in the corner quietly. She doesn’t object, she doesn’t fight back, she just takes it.

From there we get Adrien transferring into their class for the first time. (Yes he actually shows up here.) And Marinette, at first, is more interested in fixing her hat, UNTIL the last name gets brought up by Chloe. To which she recognizes the name ‘Agreste’ as a famous fashion critic in Paris.

That knowledge makes her unwilling to approach the new guy, thinking he’s the same way and will critique her at every turn. After getting chastised for sitting at the wrong spot, she wants at least one period of a break from it.

After class, and after Ivan gets sent to the office for… I guess calling someone out for bullying you too loudly?? That’s gotta be the most brutally realistic this show will ever get. Marinette spends lunch focusing on fixing up her plans, and trips over again, ruining the macaroons left. At that point she decides to screw it and silently shun herself for failure.

But this is where Alya, from another class, comes up to help her out, recognizing her as the Fundraising Officer. Marinette is surprised that someone recognizes her and apologizes all over.

Alya was trying to find a student council member to help her pitch a campaign idea for a local insect zoo that she knows so she can send off her pet spider there for safety from her little sisters. (Yes Alya has a pet spider. My headcanon.)

Marinette, who already had plans, decides to add that to her paper to sell her point, and Alya gets to see her work. She loves the work, and also recognizes the Ladybug inspiration on her hat. She expresses that if Ladybug was still here, they’d be thrilled to see her looking out for the little ones.

Marinette says there’s no point as she’ll never be like that, but Alya uses her hero fanatic nature to pump her up and to stand up to Chloe to get her plan heard. Thus the start of their friendship as they introduce and hope to see each other more.

Two things: One, Marinette isn’t really friends with anybody in school up till this point. She’s not this overly popular figure that everyone worships. She’s just a regular girl who trips over her own feet, and is seen as the quiet girl in the corner in a crowd of cool kids.

Two, everyone knows Ladybug as the local superhero that whisked away years ago. Ladybug is famous in that sense, and kids especially talk about Ladybug like a perfect hero. All the more significant when a new person takes on the Miraculous.

Moving on with Marinette stuff, we have the student council meeting she attends. She’s in the back keeping to herself as, again, the rest of the council is Chloe and her followers. Yes Kim and Zoe Lee are her followers too, AT FIRST. It’s not just Sabrina.

As Chloe discusses the fundraiser plan for her mommy’s magazine plans, or whatever you want to say, (point here is that Chloe is someone who focuses on results SHE thinks will be beneficial. Not considering what those results do to others) she gets votes, well, she silently threatens them with a stare to vote on that idea, but remembering Alya’s words, Marinette decides to speak up.

She shares her idea that since she and Chloe are both fashionistas, especially Chloe, they can sell hats to fundraise not for magazines, but for the aid of an insect zoo in need of the support, to be a safe haven for those critters.

Only Zoey is fond of the idea, but she doesn’t get to say anything cause Chloe shoots down the others voices. Chloe shuts that idea down, saying it’s a terrible idea and “Who would EVER want to waste money on creepy crawling BEASTS?!” That fundraiser would fail.

Marinette tries to speak up that she knows how-

But Chloe shuts down all of it rather harshly, even going as far to ask if Marinette has the mayor’s support?

“No-“

“Then stay in your corner. Not every Ladybug wannabe has the essence.”

She flicks the hat off Marinette’s head, says that her stitching is rookie’s work, and proceeds to campaign HER idea. While everyone goes along.

While Marinette, again, takes it and moves on, hugging the hat tight the rest of the meeting.

I want to bring up that this is a show don’t tell explanation on why Marinette isn’t often targeted for Akumas, other than MC plot armor. She’s naturally a quiet pushover person at the start. She’s a perfectionist and that goes for unprofessional emotions. She doesn’t wear her emotions on her sleeve or allow herself to break when it’s not fit, so instead if she doesn’t get the results she wants, she keeps the fit and disappointment to herself as much as possible and moves on with her day. Not because she’s emotionless, not at all, she just can keep a level head better.

She’s not Jiang Kai Smith, she’s not an impulsive hot head. She CAN control her temper.

The next time we see Marinette is when Stonehart begins to attack, to which he goes rampaging around the school to look for Kim.

Because it’s implied the class we see in the original episode is the first period. There’s no way in hell Ivan would be dormant and just sit in the office the entire day till Kim left school. So instead he’s just attacking the school.

When the attack happens, all students are demanded to evacuate. You know, treating this like an actual serious emergency, until authorities arrive.

Marinette and Alya are in the same room when this happens, and Alya being Alya, decides to go after the monster and ignore orders. Marinette tries to go after her saying it’s too dangerous, but loses her when she breaks a corner. Stonehart’s damage on a wall cuts her off, and the girl is forced to hide in an alleyway alone. And rubble traps her there. (Not on her. Blocking the way out is what I mean.)

So you know that after this, Cat Noir is trying and failing to deal with it as we get Adrien getting his Miraculous, accepting the hero position right away, and going to have some fun.

Marinette has the last scene of the first part though, as she, in fear, is trying to calm herself down. Again that ‘she has a level head’ thing I talked about earlier. She decides to find a way out of her situation and rummages around her bag, to which she goes for the macaroon box…

And that’s where she finds the Miraculous Box.

Wondering what that’s doing here, she opens it up, it glows, and Tikki is revealed, waking up for the first time in years.

Marinette’s reaction is basically the same, freaking out and throwing whatever she has at the little bug mouse thing.

Tikki chastises the rude awakening. She’s been dormant for how long and THIS is the welcome back party she gets-

Only to realize it’s a scared girl that’s doing this, so she changes the attitude to calm her down.

In the original, Tikki is… super boring. Basically she’s just an exposition and lesson of the day dump, and the only personality she has outside of that is being nice. At least Plaag has personality.

Not this Tikki though. As this Tikki is… kind of arrogant.

She’s deemed one of the most powerful Kwamiis of one of the most powerful Miraculous ever. She’s had her fair share of users. And thus she has high expectations for all her users to be these perfect idealized heroes… and Marinette ain’t it. So naturally she’s nice, but she’s also strict with her ideals and prideful in her power and status and expects the best out of Marinette. (In short, she would NEVER deem Marinette ‘the best Ladybug ever’)

She has a bit of a character arc, so don’t think she’d be that unlikeable for very long. I just gave her a blatant flaw to make her more interesting.

Anyway, Tikki like in the original tries to calm Marinette down and pleads for her to help her. She doesn’t know why her previous master chose this girl as the new Ladybug, but fact of the matter is Marinette is the only one who can stop Stonehart.

Marinette starts listening at the mention of Ladybug. She could be Ladybug? She could be her hero?

Tikki, now that attention is granted, explains to Marinette her powers and how to capture the Akuma, and how to transform.

Marinette, without being ready, does, and transforms into Ladybug the first time.

To which her reaction is panicked screaming like in the movie.

Again, you seen my drawing on this post you see that I redid her Ladybug design.

The reason for this is simple: I just hate her design in the original show. Why is this minor wearing a body suit?!?!? On top of that it’s just a red body suit with black spots on it. I think you can do a lot more creative things with a superhero ladybug costume.

I will admit my redesign isn’t perfect. You can see a lot of my ‘magical girl stan go brrrr’. But I tried to keep the Ladybug motif as much as possible while also alluding to her Chinese heritage a bit. The gold around her black belt space is actually the yo yo string.

All I wanted to do with it was “NO minors are wearing body suits in this kids show! You can’t make me!”

Anyway, Part 2.

Marinette content is… at the same place we left her last episode.

Other than the setting of her being in an alleyway instead of her room, or an abandoned shop, this is literally just how the movie did it.

She finds the yo yo, gets yeeted outta there, gets swung to Notre Dame where the fight with Cat Noir and Stonehart was lured to.

And she crashes into Cat Noir. And they meet for the first time.

And their introduction to each other is… literally just the movie again. Seriously the movie did real good with this part. And, you know, the show could’ve used some more France landmarks than just the tower.

The only differences here that it’s Stonehart instead of the gargoyle. Which you can easily rewrite that design to be a stone gargoyle, it’s stone, it’s in the name. And Cat Noir had a plan to lure it here as a trap, that he was really confident about, but it fails. (He did become a superhero today after all)

Same chase from the movie just with that logic. Honestly this movie sequence did a really good job with setting up the two personalities of the heroes and keeping the lighthearted humorous tone of the show, while also being tense enough to keep interest.

But there really aren’t any citizens making watermelon jokes, cause most of them know Ladybug as a concept already. I can see Adrien, being shut out from the outside and all of that, making watermelon jokes and not knowing, but everyone else? Nah.

Not even the spot vision needs to be changed, as that’s just how Marinette thinks. It’s not part of her power, it’s just her. And I love seeing that thought process.

Same results too; They lure Stonehart in gargoyle form to a train station, Cat Noir gets his foot stuck, Ladybug saves him, and the train proceeds to run over the creature and destroy it.

Yes I know that’s not how Stonehart works in the show. I don’t care. This is beginner’s boss, let it be beginners boss. Regular rock monster. Not too complicated.

I know the magical girl formula well enough.

Anyway, there’s only one change here: This is NOT the end of Stonehart. As like in the show, the Akuma gets away to Ladybug’s neglect. Because she’s more worried if Cat Noir is okay.

The reason I use this sequence instead of the one in the show is because the origins episodes are supposed to be a two parter. As in two episodes tell one complete story. In the original though you have two instances of Marinette not being confident in her ability to be Ladybug, getting confidence to take on the role, fighting the villain, and winning. And then they just repeat the same thing again the next episode! Like what?!?! You don’t need her to have TWO instances of her learning the lesson!

So it’s just one of those instances here.

After they THINK the fight is said and done, Ladybug helps out Cat Noir as they both realize they’re surrounded by reporters and cops asking them questions.

Alya is one of them, asking if they’re the new Ladybug and Cat Noir.

To which Ladybug answers no. She’s not. In fact, she was thinking about handing that role to someone else, so… bye.

And she throws the yo yo and chickens out.

She goes to a… balcony? Bathroom? Closet? Somewhere that’s private. And de-transforms. Tikki congratulates the first fight, but Marinette isn’t too pleased with how that turned out. Tikki however assured her that it’s going to work out. They’ll get her in shape.

Marinette is about to leave, but then she sees in her view the multiple stone gargoyles around the city. All frozen.

Tikki asks if she captured the Akuma, to which Marinette realizes the mistake, and immediately starts beating herself up about it, saying over and over again that she can’t do this, she creates disasters for everyone, nobody like that could be Ladybug. Ever.

And Tikki doesn’t try to object, and simply states that if Ivan gets Akumatized again, this army comes to life.

To that, and realizing that the boy could be in danger, Marinette decides to go find him and help him. She may not be cut out for Ladybug, but she can’t just do nothing towards someone hurting.

She goes to a small hospital to find Ivan, and she asks a doctor how he’s doing. She says he’s not injured or sick at all, just distraught. He’s going to be okay.

Ivan is in a chair looking exactly that way. After a soft knock to let him know she’s here, Marinette tries to ask him personally what happened. He tries to be tense and say it’s of no business of some acquaintance like her, but she kindly insists, promising to not tell anyone any of it.

Not that she had anyone she was close to she could tell-but-whatever. You get it.

Still, Ivan refuses to speak. So instead Marinette goes to the crumbled paper, revealing that he was crushing on another girl in their class. Once she reads it aloud, Ivan says that Kim is always picking on him and taking advantage of his own feelings and he’s just sick of it.

Marinette, from her own experience, though without context here, says that she understands. “I get what you mean.”

This is vague enough to be taken into either context. Either she’s talking about Chloe, or Kim and her backstory with him from the original show, that… didn’t get cut entirely to your surprise.

Marinette says she’s no Cupid, but her advice is to at least try to get to know Mylene better. Maybe this could turn into a real thing one day.

Ivan is hesitant, saying he’s still mad at Kim, to which Marinette says “Then by all means, be mad at Kim. Just don’t let that possess your every waking thought is all.”

See I personally don’t like the message that ‘it’s better if everyone just stays happy’. You know me and my character, that’s not how I roll. So instead the message is ‘Control your negative emotions best you can. But when you have to feel them it’s okay to feel them, and the ones that take advantage of those feelings are the real bad guys.’

Ivan decides to call the school to see if she’s around, and Marinette decides to leave to give him privacy. What’s next on her mind is how to break the link between her and Tikki so she can hand off the Miraculous to someone else.

And as she wonders this, she bumps into Adrien, who also came to check on the Akuma victim. She tells him that Ivan’s fine and just needs privacy for now, then asks a little coldly what he’s doing here anyway.

Adrien says he was just… curious how he was doing. That’s all.

It’s awkward after that, as Marinette asks if he’s friends with Chloe. To which Adrien gets his line “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Marinette tells him she doesn’t need another mental beating today and tries to brush him off, thinking he’s all on board for Chloe’s plans. Adrien tries to say something but is interrupted by Nathalie showing up and needing to talk to him.

Alya finds Marinette outside to gush about the footage she got of the ‘new ladybug’ that’s showed up, and this is basically the “What if Ladybug isn’t cut out to be a hero even though everyone thinks she is?” talk. It’s important because the way Alya describes Ladybug in this scene is what Marinette wants to be seen as, so it’s something she can take to heart.

That’s when Ivan gets Akumatized again and the Stonehart comes back. Though MyLene didn’t even show up or answer, that’s why he’s upset. So instead he goes after and captures Kim… and Chloe. Cause she’s a jerk.

It’s the same as in the show with Cat Noir taking action and failing, as he can’t capture Akumas, and Alya gets caught in the crossfire for Marinette to witness.

And well, because the last talk Marinette had before the fight was Alya’s impression of her, and in this version not too long ago, it’s more fresh in hers, and the viewers mind, and hits harder.

(They’re well done shots. I will give the producers that.)

During Marinette witnessing the peril, we also get some flashes of the incident in the prologue. As this is the same spot that happened, and is now replaying in her head.

She’s familiar with peril like this. She knows the fear that comes with it. But Ladybug was there to save her and everything else when it first happened.

And now it’s her turn.

She has to be that Ladybug to protect these people that need it.

So she puts on the earrings again and confirms to Tikki that she is, indeed, the new Ladybug.

It’s the same fight as in the show, not anything to change there, up until the Hawk Moth speech thing, as in this rewrites context this is actually the first time we get introduced to Hawk Moth.

And Ladybug swearing to stop him is a little more impactful here, as she recognizes the dark butterflies.

She captures the butterflies, leaving all that’s left to save Ivan… and hesitantly, Kim. Ladybug, predicting the Akuma is in the other clenched… claw? Thing? Idk. From an observation in the previous match, makes the plan to figure out how to open the fist.

Details of that plan is… not in my script, cause you can creative no matter what. But just know it doesn’t involve anyone ‘growing closer’ in this scenario.

They get it, both boys fall, Ladybug and Cat Noir save them, she captures the Akuma, the day is saved. Only change is that Ladybug doesn’t use Miraculous Ladybug, for obvious reasons, as the other stone beasts disintegrate with the Akuma, and just become rock rubble around people.

We can do a character centric episode on why MyLene wouldn’t show up to stuff like this. Maybe something regarding her family.

After the fight, Ladybug assures Ivan she personally will not blame him for this. That was Hawk Moth. Not him. Ivan is still disappointed he won’t get the chance to tell MyLene, but she tells him “Well, you see her in school, right? There’s multiple chances to speak up. Just… do it. Even if she says no, it’s worth it.”

Keeping that message in mind for herself, she’s already on her original desk the next day, watching a broadcast that the news reporter is explaining about the heroic return of a new Ladybug and Cat Noir. She also mentions the footage is from a minor that goes by the name Alya, who in an interview says she’s starting a blog to post footage of the presence of Ladybug and maybe play the detective and figure out her secret identity.

Chloe sees Marinette back in her original seat and demands that she gets lost. Only this time, Marinette stands up for herself, and tells Chloe to get lost. After a snarl, the blonde gives up.

Ms Bustier tells the class that they’re doing Chloe’s fundraising idea by majority vote, and Marinette sheds disappointment. Adrien notices.

Then we get the rain scene.

Adrien says hi, but Marinette isn’t in a mood to talk. So he decides to bring up a fact that he voted for her idea.

That gets her interest.

Adrien explains how he knows they don’t know each other very well, and knows that people have their opinions about him… but he’ll be the first to say his, that he respects people with a good heart. Hopefully that convinces someone that he really is trying.

And he’s rich, so… he can help her help that shelter anyway. And he offers her his umbrella. It’s the same scene from there, with Marinette developing her crush, making him laugh, and being all awkward while she watches Adrien leave.

The last scene of the origins episodes is of Marinette (and Adrien) having a letter appear behind them out of nowhere. Unsure how and what to expect, they read the letter. Which tells them both:

“Meet me at *the massage spa’s address* at Dawn tomorrow. Come transformed. We have a lot to talk about.”

“- Ladybug from 2000”

I think you know who that letter is from.

So you know what I’m going for with Marinette throughout the rest of the show, is giving her an actual character arc. An arc involving a theme of ‘self love’. You love someone, but if you’re gonna love someone, you gotta love yourself. And Marinette clearly doesn’t seem to think too highly of herself unless she’s Ladybug. That’s because she’s basically pretending to be someone else, someone she saw in her youth as a perfect figure, and what the public views her as. With all the responsibilities that come with her new role, she clings to the image of Ladybug, rather than Marinette herself.

With the nature of Akumatized victims being a focal point, and Marinette being one of the two main characters, there can be some cases where Marinette interacts with or even befriends some of her classmates or other townies that we’re just acquaintances with her before. All while she uses the Ladybug idea in her head as the reason why she succeeds. Not realizing that in the best cases, it’s all just her. Just Marinette.

Her crush on Adrien is also important, as unlike in the original, I want her to actually talk to him, maybe awkwardly cause she’s still a kid, but still talk to him and get to know him. If Adrien loves her, then that must mean she’s worth it. But they can’t click and become a couple because Marinette cannot love herself. For one reason or another that becomes apparent and her pretending to be another drives the boy away from a love angle.

Marinette is also a little more flawed, and are flaws that actually get called out in some episodes. This is apparent with the new Tikki dynamic, clashing with Marinette’s more humble nature. She’s a pushover in her normal Marinette self and unable to say no to anything. When she tries to go do what she wants it leads to recklessness you expect from any teenager. She also has trouble trusting some people, due to her backstory with Kim, which yes is kept, but one, there’s some edits to it, and two, this episode is gonna be moved to a Season 1 episode so it’s blatant it’s not an excuse but rather used as a base for lessons Marinette has to learn. And you know, explaining her actions not justifying them.

The idea that something like that can be viewed as PTSD and excuse for bad behavior in the writers eyes is honestly disgusting.

What was that Terrible Writing Advice quote?

“Why use trauma to explain behavior when you can use trauma to excuse behavior?”

Not this Marinette though. Maybe through her inability to speak up or confront a crush, there can be a few episodes, not every episode, where she does certain tactics. But here’s the thing: Unlike in the show, these will be viewed as BAD things to do. Ones she gets CAUGHT doing and is disciplined as such. One she needs to apologize for and learn a lesson that there’s much better ways to interact than being an obsessive psycho.

And definitely by season two, this stalker behavior is non existent. Because she would’ve learned the lesson already.

And you know, she isn’t gonna be the focal point of every single episodes, as I definitely want some to be Adrien centric, and even centric on other side characters.

Don’t think Adrien is neglected, he’s an entirely different topic as I didn’t mention his bits in these origins. Because his issues are different from hers.

Anyway I’ll try to get the next post of some other episodes that are Marinette centric in my eyes, if you guys like this version. Or not, you know, best be honest. That’s cool too.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Hi there! I was wondering, if you're interested, if you could talk a bit about your process/inspiration for Majexatli's backstory? I feel like I never struggle with my actual dnd characters but something about it being a video game has felt really overwhelming & thrown me off so my seldarine drow paladin has remained anonymous 😓 But I love love love learning more abt your character!

Coming up with a character backstory can be tricky! I totally feel you, it generally takes me a while before I can get any idea. With video games I also feel it’s hard because there’s not as much room in the game to fit character backstory or lore. I also apologize if this is a little scattered, my brain is not always my own, nor does it always exist in linear space.

In general, the process I have has a couple parts. One is just a general vibes, kinda, for example, with Majexatli, they’re a Druid with the Outlander background. So I just pick some random bits that come to mind—with that background I imagine they don’t live in Baldurs Gate or maybe they were born in the city and left later, Druid (Circle of the Moon) in PHB is described as often going days to weeks without seeing another person and spending a lot of time in wildshape so that also sets a bit of scenery for their character. (Players Handbook or even in game lore isn’t góspel though, the main idea is just look at your character race/class/background and try and flesh out a little something there. Doesn’t have to be big, for example with Majexatli what I got is basically just “spends most of their time in nature and alone”. Metaphorically this isn’t like painting fine details or even shapes, it’s more like picking colors). Here you can also do some very basic character things—do they have family ties? Cultural ties? What are the big picture basic things about them?

The second part, is mainly, come up with a defining moment of their life (in the case of a bg3 tav, something prior to being abducted by mindflayers). This doesn’t have to be something tragic, it can be anything. Did they meet someone? Lose someone? Get taken under the wing of a mentor? Change career/life path? Get into their first battle? Run away from home? Have a major injury or illness? Witness some event? Stumble across some dark magic? Make a pact with a devil? Join some sort of group? It doesn’t even have to be the biggest or most important thing in their life, just something that can give an anchor point of their character/story. And you don’t have to have something detailed, just an idea. (Going back to the painting metaphor, this is like blocking in shapes)

For Majexatli, their defining moment was shortly after becoming a full Druid (so they were 18/19), they had a near death experience when venturing out on their own for the first time. In part I came up with this because I wanted them to have some cool scars.

Now from there I start to fill in the gaps, it doesn’t even have to be all at once, I just slowly build on what I establish and connect things.

So I look at Majexatli’s outlander background and that near death experience as they first started as a Druid and make a connection there. Rather than having them be an outlander because they’re a Druid, Majexatli is an outlander because after that event, they have had a strained relationship with their Druid Circle and rarely interact with them. Then I go okay what could be the reasoning behind that. How did they join their Druid group in the first place. Are there specific people in their Circle who they are particularly close with or particularly estranged with? I look at these questions and I slowly answer them and ask myself more, and interconnect things. (Metaphorically this is adding details and layers to the painting)

I ALSO just take a bunch of my own experiences and traumas and process them using ocs as a proxy, so I tend to consciously or unconsciously pepper in struggles or details that reflect what I’ve been through. That’s not a requirement, it is just how my character backstory process ends up.

Write things down to keep track of things, whether it be making text posts and dropping oc lore or just having a notebook or google doc with various snippets of story and details you come up with. I have a document on my google drive that’s basically just me adding random snapshots of backstory or interactions with companions or their handling/reaction with in-game events.

Another small thing that always helps me, is I imagine my character as a companion. What sort of dialogue would they have—in bg3, you might never have all the complete details of a companions backstory, but you get pieces and hints that come together to form an image. So sometimes especially when still trying to figure out a characters backstory, rather than write out some elaborate history, I pick what little hints or snippets there would be, how would my character talk about their past? What would they say about their past to a stranger? A friend? A partner? Are there things they would lie about? Things they would omit? Etc etc

I hope that gives some help? Like I said I’m a little scatterbrained 😅 my final advice would be, don’t be afraid of tropes! Sometimes the easiest way to build a character is using tropes/archetypes which you can then build on or subvert.

[keire-ke]

Why is Way of Water

Avatar Way of Water was terrible, but in very interesting ways. It's better than the first one in that it's less paint by numbers, less white-saviory, and less boring (also less voice-over, thank god), but also worse in that it's a hot mess of everything under the fucking sun. It should either be one hour shorter or five hours longer, and it's not a good thing.

IDK maybe someone should go and check in on James Cameron, because this movie felt like he wasn't sure if he'd be able to make all seven sequels, so he tried to cram all of them here. As a result I'm not even sure what the movie wanted to be about, because we had, in no particular order, protecting family, rich are evil, difficulty of dealing with change, family: nature or nurture, humans are bad, but also humanity is in a crisis, also some humans can be good, is it better to run from conflict or to face it, the curse of being the middle child, Jesus was a lil' weirdo when you think about it, killing can be good, actually, societal consequences can be unfair, marines just gotta punch something.

None of it was done with any depth or well.

There were things I found absolutely enraging:

You have two parents: the father, who is thy commanding officer, and also the sapient planet that encompasses all

Neytiri was underutilised to the point of pain. I don't recall if she was even allowed to have a relationship with her own children beyond screaming for them occasionally. The movie starts with a voice over by Jake Sully, which eh, if you must. However, most of the events of the movie affect Neytiri much more profoundly than they affect him, so centering on weakens the overall impact. Most of the attempted themes are about family, but throughout Jake treats his family like a precious resource he needs to protect for himself, so it's pretty shallow, giving me serious John Winchester vibes. Every time one of the kids said "sir" to their father I was expecting something to come out of it, like "I'm the chief, so it's appropriate in battle, but now I am no longer that, we need to re-examine our relations". Spoiler: nothing did.

Meanwhile, Neytiri, a member of a species whose community ties are reinforced by their very real deity, is there upending her whole life and severing ties to her community, she's dealing with the inclusion of aliens in her family, as the (prospective) shaman it should have been her role to be the spiritual leader, alas.

Colonel Evil Marine

Are you fucking kidding me, what the fuck. That was some bullshit, start to finish.

The technology to upload memories into avatars kinda... invalidates the whole program from the first movie? If that's possible (and there was no indication this was something only just invented), shouldn't this be done for all potential avatar operators? In case they die from, IDK, extreme mental strain and/or random bar fight.

Why would he want to be cloned as an alien in the first place?

It's not entirely unbelievable he went from a commander guy who was willing to do everything to get his job done, to a single-minded revenge machine (although... yikes), but the fact that somehow he was able to commandeer all the resources for his personal revenge?

The subplot with the son... I mean. What a weird, heavy and meaty plotline to shove onto a background character and a two-bit villain.

Unobtainium 2.0

Yeah... what. What was the point. That ties into nothing, does nothing. I swear it's like James Cameron heard about whaling for the first time during brainstorming phase, and just needed to add it.

The unobtainium from the first movie is mocked as a MacGuffin, but for however clumsily it's explained there, it's a synecdoche for the source of conflict: humanity needs resources, Pandora has resources. Even without the background information that it's apparently for space travel and magnetic properties we can understand the idea.

Here it's a magic anti-aging serum worth millions for a small vial, ergo it's for rich individuals, but that's not the conflict we get introduced to earlier, which is, to wit, "Earth is dying, humanity needs to move".

The space Jesus and the rape jokes

So run this by me again: Sigourney Weaver was not uploaded into her avatar because she died during the transfer, avatars are not transferable, so instead of burying both bodies they... put the avatar... in storage...? Also she got mysteriously impregnated? And the kids joke about their (presumably) friends and mentors... raping the corpse?

The resulting child is able to straight up control the planets biosphere with her mind. Cool.

The kids

I rather liked them, which is impressive! Child characters are hard to pull off. Aside from the smallest one, that one was entirely pointless. Certain aspects were unclear, like at some point we're expected to believe that the middle child feels like he's a disappointment to his family because... why exactly? He gets the others in trouble, sure, but it's not like he actively fails at something, other than following (somewhat arbitrary) rules. He's already a warrior by the tribe's standard (I presume, by the fact he is involved in the attack early on), but he gets grounded like a child? His subplot with the whale suggests he's uncomfortable with societal rules, doesn't understand them and wants to do his own thing, except he very clearly isn't and doesn't, he gets in trouble for disobeying the letter not the spirit of the rules. He doesn't even get a proper "well done son guy", and his "reconciliation" with Jake is teaching him the water tribe skills, which would matter more if a) Jake was at any point having trouble with adjusting to living in the water, b) the skills were what was the problem.

Spider was fascinating. First, who did his manscaping? I demand to know! But jokes aside, if not about Neytiri the movie should have been about him.

The whale

Go whale! I'm team whale.

The way of water

Sure would be nice if we got to see more of the practices of the water tribes, instead of montage skipping to action scenes.

Aesthetics

Very beautiful. My only complaint was the Sigourney Weaver character, her face was too uncanny valley for me.

Music

Present.

Overall

I was really mad when I walked out of the cinema, and I had a hard time enjoying the visuals because there were just too many concepts to be absorbed and then disappointed by. There's so much in here that could have been a great movie! Or three! But like so many current blockbusters it feels like this movie was written by an AI, words slapped on a page, superficially connected and making sense, but the number of fingers does not add up to a hand.