#and for his arc to be topped off with him using the Cat Miraculous to sever the bond between himself and his amok

[theprinceandthewitch]

I honestly could write an essay about how Miraculous Ladybug isn't a good story... but to summarize why it doesn't work as a story: Gabriel shouldn't have been the main villain of the story, because it robs Adrien of having an arc.

I know Thomas wanted Adrien to basically be The Girl character we always see in action cartoons with male leads, so he doesn't have to think too hard about writing a decent romance. Even though good romance stories need to develop both of it's main leads, so that we - as the audience - can be invested in them and their relationship with one another.

Gabriel should have been used as the antagonist Adrien needs to overcome, while Marinette should have got a Big Bad that's relevant to HER character arc.

This story's foundation - the protagonists' [Marinette's] conflict with the main antagonistic force [Gabriel] - isn't well thought out, so everything else that's built on top of this foundation isn't going to be stable. This is where the show fails as a story and why the writing often times is completely nonsensical.

[flightfoot]

Top Ten Best Completed Miraculous Fics Of 2023

So I've made reclists for a ton of the Miraculous fics and series I recommend that finished in 2023, but as you may have noticed, those are rather expansive. So I decided to do a ranking of the ten best Miraculous fics from 2023 as well! (at least in my eyes). These naturally trend towards longer fics, though there are some that are on the shorter end. The shortest is under 30,000 words!

A lot of these you could swap around the order on, but the top fic... yeah the top fic is top for a reason.

Some of these fics were really popular, while others are virtually unknown, they run the entire gamut. I hope everyone checks these out though if they haven't already, there's both some hidden gems and some very well recognized gems in here!

All of these were part of earlier reclists that I made. All of those fics are in this collection I set up on AO3 called "Keyseeker's Choices For Best Completed Miraculous Fics of 2023". I really hope everyone checks it out, I've got commentary/reviews for every entry in the collection, and there are over 150 entries!

I'm gonna just be copying the descriptions I wrote for the fics on the earlier reclists, as I wrote those shortly after finishing reading the fics when they were fresh in my mind, and as great as these fics are, I don't have the time nor bandwidth to reread them all.

10.

Found by @trishacollins

Chat Noir and Ladybug need to tie up some loose ends. Unfortunately, one of those ends is Felix.

This is a fantastic fic! It’s part of a wider series wherein Adrien and Felix were friends with Nooroo and Duusu from a younger age, but Adrien’s memory was wiped of it by his parents, but this is the first fic you really need to read. Basically, after the events of Emotion, Chat confronts Felix about what he did, and Felix confesses to being a Sentibeing, and Duusu reveals to Chat that he is one as well, leading to Felix cooperating with the heroes. 

Of all the fics I’ve read that tackle the subject, this one does the best job of giving Felix a redemption arc for his actions in the season 4 finale, focusing not only on how he hurt the heroes, but the kwamis. I loved that he truly understood how much he fucked up with the situation he put the kwamis in, how much suffering he put them through, and that the kwamis were allowed to be angry at him for awhile afterwards, to be suspicious and untrusting towards him at first (and that Marinette was allowed to do the same). Felix screwed up and hurt people, and he had to really show that he understood what he did was wrong, why it was wrong, and try to help the people he hurt.

---

9.

The Ghost in the Machine by @jheqiawrites

As part of this function, Adrien knew about Monarch, the akuma butterflies, the victims, and, of course Ladybug and Cat Noir, the heroes of Paris. He was authorized to contact the Ladyblog as well as the citywide alert system if one of his platforms was active during an akuma manifestation, allowing his friends to get somewhere safe until Ladybug and Cat Noir could deal with the situation

While the necessity of these functions was disconcerting, it was programmed to be his routine so he gradually grew used to the inconsistencies. After all, humans tended to be selfish, highly inconsistent, and often flighty, but once you had observed them for a while an intelligence such as his could begin to see the patterns.

That is until she came online.

This is just a beautiful, though bittersweet story. I adore how Alliance!Adrien grows and changes throughout the story, how he develops as a person. He starts off not being able to figure out what he’s feeling, needing to make new modules in order to try to process the emotions he has welling up, and not totally understanding his own reactions. But as time goes on he grows and gets a better handle on himself. This isn’t an “evil AI” story, he’s just a person who’s slowly figuring out who he is and how to handle himself. 

Not that it’s entirely about Adrien Alliance figuring out his own emotions, there’s other things going on as well. He’s worried about why there seems to be weird surges in the Alliance Network right before akumas attack, for instance, and why the details about the reason for that seem to be hidden from him, making him more paranoid about the Alliance system the more he looks into it...

 It’s just... it’s really good and absolutely worth a read. 

---

8.

Kwami Magi Homura Magica by Crossoverpairinglover

After eighty-four loops in time, Homura Akemi takes a new path to Paris to save her friends.

The sixty-third loop after that, Homura arrived at the Agreste Mansion.

After clash after clash with the heroes of Paris and its greatest menace, events have reached a tipping point.

Ladybug faces someone verging on a second wish, a wish that endangers space and time to save a friend.

This was an absolutely AMAZING story that crossoverpairinglover dropped out of NOWHERE. Seriously, if you like Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Miraculous Ladybug, this is a real treat - but be prepared to sit down and binge, because it’s over 100,000 words and only has three chapters. 

Anyway, I adore the care that’s taken with going through Homura’s mindset here, she gets a lot of character focus. And the lore! There’s some good explanations here for the history behind kwamis and Incubators’ interactions, and the Order of the Guardians normally treats Magical Girls, and why the Incubators are wrong in their assessment of the universe needing more energy to stave off entropy (hint: it involves Plagg), and just... there was a lot of love put into this.

And the action! Most Miraculous fics don’t have much in the way of fight scenes, and what they do have is mostly just functional. This is one of the rare exceptions. There’s some really long, detailed fight scenes in this (roughly the entire second half of the second chapter has one between Ladybug and Homura), which are a treat to read! 

We also get some glimpses into a variety of other universes here, other timelines, alternate ways things could have gone down - I’m especially partial to the rather detailed view we get of one where Homura sent a message asking for help to the Ladyblog on her third time loop, and how things progressed from there. 

The ending I also thought was really good, a happy ending that generally made sense and dealt with the issue of the Incubators. 

If you can’t tell I’m really happy with this fic, it was incredible and unexpected. The length of the individual chapters can be daunting, but if you’re up for the task, I highly recommend giving it a shot!

---

7.

you made me a hero - reverse crush short stories series by @non-fantasy

This series is just plain fun! Like the title says, it’s a reverse crush AU, so Adrien’s head-over-heels for Marinette, while Ladybug’s smitten with Chat Noir. Which means that Adrien’s constantly trying to woo Marinette while Ladybug’s attempting to have normal conversations with Chat Noir (and failing), and both of them are oblivious to each other’s feelings. 

I love the way non-fantasy executes it, with Alya literally carrying around a spray bottle because of how eager Adrien is, and Ladybug being VERY SCARY if you ever lay a finger on Chat Noir (seriously akumas will literally beg for their akumatized object to be broken just to escape her wrath). 

Oh, also, Ladybug regularly stops by Adrien’s room so they can both lament how difficult of a time they’re having wooing their crushes, and just have fun together.

There’s a lot of entries in this series - 29 of them in fact - but most of them are pretty short, making it great if you want to devour some quick, cute, hilarious romcom action! 

Some stuff does actually change over the course of the series, it’s not just slice-of-life. Like identity reveals, dating, and even Hawkmoth’s defeat, so there’s clear progression and changes in circumstances as well.

---

6.

The Parable of the Caller by @nemaliwrites

A week after Hawk Moth’s identity has been revealed, Adrien finds himself with nowhere to go, nothing he can do, and worst of all, strange gaps in his memory he can’t explain. In a stroke of luck, he stumbles upon a burner phone filled with voicemails from one of the Saviors of Paris: Chat Noir himself, who disappeared following Hawk Moth’s arrest.

But with each new voicemail Adrien listens to, he’s forced to confront the fact that there might be some kind of connection between himself and Chat Noir — and discovering it might leave him more broken than before.

I absolutely adore this fic, it’s a fantastic character study for Adrien! Basically in this universe, Ladybug and Chat Noir talked about who should be Guardian, with Chat eventually convincing her that he should be the one to take it on, primarily due to the whole “the Guardian gets amnesia about Miraculous-related matters” situation, and wanting to protect Ladybug from that. Then he finds out Gabriel is Hawk Moth, they take him down, and he relinquishes the Miracle Box and his guardianship to Su Han - all without having a Reveal with Ladybug, since well, he’s not in the greatest shape mentally at the time.

It’s a real treat to see Adrien’s thoughts and feelings about one of the Heroes of Paris leaving him all these voicemails, treating him like this close friend for reasons he doesn’t understand, and just seeing Chat Noir as this outside person. He’s got a very different viewpoint on Chat when looking from the outside than he would from the inside, with being able to see his heroic and good qualities far more easily when he doesn’t know that he is Chat.

Also Marinette’s struggling in the background of the fic with the loss of her partner and guilt over sending Adrien’s father to prison. It gets touched on at various points, and you can tell that she’s having her own story off to the side that we’re just not entirely privy to, what with this tale being told entirely from Adrien’s perspective.

---

5.

Dreams of You by @chocoluckchipz

Dreams had long been his only escape. Dreams of Ladybug, the girl who had always been there for him.

If only in his dreams. And only while she was also sleeping.

Because with the first rays of sunshine gliding over her skin, with the first fluttering of her eyelashes, from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning, memories of Adrien would vanish from her mind.

She would go on living her life.

He would always be the only one who remembered.

At least until they meet in the real world and fall in love all over again, something that would’ve been easier to do if Adrien wasn't a prisoner in his own home.

Chocoluckchipz has some of the most beautifully executed lovesquare fics I’ve read, and this is no exception. Most of the fic is dedicated to Adrien wooing Marinette, spending time with her, with her own dream self acting as his wingman, giving her tips on how to get her to fall for him, all the while frustrated that she can’t share memories with her waking self, and that she and Adrien can’t share as much information as they’d like while asleep, due to limitations of the “curse” that allows Adrien to share dreams with his soulmate. 

It’s not all cute Adrienette fluff though. There’s a threat in the background waiting to erupt, as the weirdness of Gabriel’s ultimatum to Adrien about finding Ladybug or else being forced to marry Lila keeps on gnawing at him - and with good reason. This is a world with magic and kwamis still, and that fact makes itself very relevant in the last third of the story. 

It’s a well-written tale and very much worth a read!

---

4.

Accidents Are Also Miracles by @liiinerle

After a few turbulent days where four new people discover her secret identity, Marinette loses faith in her ability to keep the secret hidden. Wracked with doubts and insecurities, she pleads with Alya to take over as Scarabella, but she still can't let those worries go. Especially not once Monarch starts taking a particular, and personal, interest in her.

Along the way, she also starts to date Kagami, and has to deal with changing feelings about herself, Adrien, Alya, Kagami, and the idea of being Ladybug. At the same time, Alya works to uncover Monarch's secret identity, while Kagami struggles against a controlling parent, and a girlfriend who seems bent on destroying herself - with or without Monarch's involvement.

Fantastic Marigami fic here! You’ve got three major POVs in this fic: Marinette, Kagami, and to my delight, Alya. I loved getting to see Alya cope with taking over as Scarabella especially.

But of course, this fic centers more around Marinette and Kagami, with Marinette struggling with Monarch targeting her, and Kagami struggling against her abusive parent, as well as both of them trying to navigate their relationship together when they know that not everyone will approve. 

There’s also some other plots going on in here, like Sabrina breaking away from Chloe and becoming more independent (and closer to Adrien in fact), as well as a Lila takedown plot, though thankfully not one that involves demonizing other characters. While there are conversations about people believing Lila and siding with her, no one’s actually attacked for it except for Lila herself.

Oh yeah, and while this fic may not have much focus on Adrien, he’s still treated fairly and with respect, even when he messes up. He can make mistakes, but people understand where he’s coming from, and are still kind to him and want things to be okay, and to help him escape his abusive circumstances.

---

3.

Between the Heavens and the Embers by @readersmoon

Everyone in Paris remembers the fateful night of January 16, when the city was attacked by the most powerful and destructive akuma ever created. The assault, which lasted for hours, resulted in the death of 439 people.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was among the casualties.

Years later, Adrien hasn't been able to move on, haunted by the memories of her broken body. So, when the opportunity to leave Paris for a while presents itself, he doesn't hesitate. But this trip might end up giving him more than he ever dreamt of.

This is a fantastic fic, though a serious and a dark one - make sure to mind the tags, and it’s M-rated for a reason. Vee - or rather, Marinette - is going through a horror story here. Imagine finding out that your life is a lie, that everyone you thought you could trust was manipulating you, that you were just being continually gaslit for years. 

As for Adrien, Alya, and Nino... well, none of them took Marinette’s “death” all that well, especially Adrien. Finding out that she’s been alive all this time, in these horrible circumstances, and they had no clue... it’s hard on them as well.

I love how this fic goes into how much trauma everyone has even after the immediate danger’s dealt with, you don’t just walk off this kind of experience, especially with how many years this lasted.

---

2.

drowning (in plain sight) by @buggachat

Everybody had expected Monarch's defeat to be a moment of triumph. Nobody had expected Gabriel Agreste, unmasked and mind frayed from continual abuse of the miraculous, crying out to all who would listen and making Paris certain of one thing:

His son, Adrien Agreste, is one of his sentimonsters.

And now he's missing.

Nobody can find him— not even the superheroes, and not even his closest friends. But Marinette, Nino, and Alya aren't ones to give up so easily. They'll find him, no matter what it takes.

(But, geez, would it kill Chat Noir to lend a hand?)

I’m sure everyone saw this one coming. If there’s one thing buggachat’s good at, storywise, it’s capturing raw, tumultuous emotions, frantic breakdowns as the characters desperately try to navigate bad situations. This was a real treat to read, as I’m betting most people reading this will agree, given just how popular the fic has been. It also has a ton of fanart, both by buggachat and by random fans, if you go looking for it (there’s a drowning in plain sight tag which I’d advise perusing). 

---

1.

one does not love breathing by @wackus-bonkus-maximus

All of Paris watched as Hawkmoth murdered Chat Noir, taking the Black Cat Miraculous for himself. Ladybug swears revenge, but her enemy—and every miraculous in his possession—disappear without a trace.

Six years later, a new team of villains launches an attack for the last remaining Miraculous: Volpina, armed with new powers; Queen Bee, with questionable loyalty; Argos, the new holder of the Peacock Miraculous; and Cat Walker, who Ladybug hates the most.

Takes place after S4 - Strike Back.

This is a simply phenomenal fic. You get to explore a lot of different perspectives, like Felix, Kagami, Marinette, and Adrien’s, just to name a few, and see their different thought processes and plans and priorities, and how it can cause their plans to collide with each other, even when they all ultimately are aiming for a good outcome for everyone. The characters are pretty complex and can mess up at times, even when they’re doing things (or not doing things, looking at you Luka) with the best of intentions. It was a joy to read and a real nail-biter the whole time, I actually wrote a fic for it halfway through just to resolve some of the tension for myself, One Does Not Love Shadows.

It also features the version of Luka I’ve connected best with to date, as he feels like Luka, but also is a lot more fleshed out, and can make some major errors while simply trying to avoid missteps. It’s helped me get a better handle on a character who I’ve generally had a lot of problems with really understanding.

It is an M-rated fic, though I think Wackus is being overly cautious on that front. There’s no sexual content and I wouldn’t put the violence or gore above a T-rating, so I wouldn’t let the rating scare you off.

---

So that's my list! I'm sure many people will disagree with me (especially since most of these fics haven't even cracked 1000 kudos, so there are a lot of other fics out there that people have read more of), but these fics made the biggest impression on me this year, and I hope they make an impression on you as well!

[aha-chuu]

My thoughts on the Fontaine characters rn (pre 4.0)

I saw someone making a post about their thoughts and they were tragically wrong and I disagreed. So here I am, being opinionated.

I'm not gonna discuss leaks, I'm just talking about the character designs and what lore we know from the trailer and teaser :))

Lyney

So, Lyney is great. I love that he's kind of sussy, and his teaser that recently came out is almost... Sinister. And yet, he also checks the boxes of being really fun and extroverted! Venti vibes tbh.

Design wise? His animations are the best in the game, hands down. They suit the performance aspect of his character perfectly and are almost enough to make me pull for him.

Tragically, his character design isn't really for me. I think the simplicity works with the bombastic animations, and I'm glad to see he's wearing a reasonable outfit for the job he does (a rarity in Genshin). And yet, I'm a bit too much of a lesbian to be uber interested in the twinky direction his design leans.

Not pulling.

Lynette

So she's super cute. We have got a lot of cat girls already (I think Lyney should have also been a cat-person tbh) but I love that Lyney isn't actually doing cat things. Like, she's this subdued introvert, no meowing during her attacks or curling up in boxes like Kirara. She's just a person.... Who's also a cat.

I like her character design better than Lyney's; the blue just stands out a lot more than his red does, and the big bow is a better centerpiece to her design than Lyney's hat is to his. Plus, her animations are also nice.

We're getting her for free so I likely won't pull, but I am already preparing artifacts to build her on my account.

Freminet

Have I said how much I like sibling dynamics? These three actually seem pretty close and like they will gasp interact with each other! In comparison to the likes of the Kamisatos, this is miraculous.

I know several people who love this guy, and I do think he looks good. I saw some complaints about his hair cut (I think it's adorable), and the chunky boots & coat really serve to emphasise his awkwardness without sacrificing aesthetics.

Unfortunately, he's a physical claymore character, so it's a big skip from me.

Focalors/Furina

Well she's a brat huh. I worry after Raiden that they'll destroy Furina's character arc in order to make her more palatable, but I want her to go full Marie Antoinette. All the lore with the Oceanids disliking her and the general stuff about using the court for entertainment make me very interested in her.

As a design, I just dislike the twin tails. I love the blazer and the huge gem and the hat that's actually a crown!! Like, Furina is extravagant and over the top, obviously self obsessed - she looks perfect in that regard.

Since she's the archon and she's Hydro, she'll probably be broken meta wise. I'll likely pull, but mostly to make cool teams with her, not because she's a fave of mine specifically.

Neuvilette

... Father?

FR though, I understand why several people are crazy about this man. I do wish he looked a bit older since that's sort of where his characterisation is - he's done with Furina's shit and he's doing all the actual work of running Fontaine. With the elf ears, I expect him to be some sort of long-life species - he has no visible Vision and his hair kind of looks oceanid-like, so I figure he's not actually human. That along with the slits in his eyes. I hope he turns out to be older than Furina, and that he has a kind of reluctant dad & spoiled daughter relationship with her; we do see him tell her off in the teaser.

Neuvilette is the most feminine tall man character and the hair is a great aspect of the design. The colour palette is good and I do like the robes since he's a Judge, however I think it might get a bit boring to look at when you're playing as him - which is probably why the hair is so dramatic, in order to bring interest to the design.

He'll probably be Hydro and he'll probably be a catalyst based on that outfit (it's not exactly maneuverable enough for anything else ':))). I am interested in pulling almost a 100%.

Wriothesley

Another man???

I don't understand people talking about the lack of husbandoes in Fontaine, like look at these fine gentlemen.

We don't have much official info on Wriothesley so I'm gonna dip a little into leaks here, skip if you don't wanna know. He is some sort of prison warden which I bop with - it's an expected expansion on the justice landscape of Fontaine. He's on the rough side of the Fontaine infrastructure, in comparison to most of the other characters. That interests me since it feeds more into the duality themes of Fontaine, though currently we're unevenly biased rn to the more santized characters.

Design wise he's one of my favourites. White/black/red looks so good, as does his kind of punk esque chains. The tie puts me off somewhat, like he looks sort of smart and put together, but then the rest of the design undercuts that.

Leaks say Wriothesley is a physical standard banner five star. This fills me with fear. I also don't know what his actual personality will be, so let's say I'm undecided on pulling him.

Charlotte

I liked her personality and en VA in that one TCG event, unfortunately much like that event, Charlotte looks boring. She's cute, whatever, but she doesn't seem particularly story relevant and her design hasn't captured me.

I'm just not that interested.

Sigewinne(?)

Okay, she's cuter than Charlotte she's a sea slug person so immediately more interesting. She was also hanging out with Wriothesley, which is so adorable considering how different they seem.

We're dipping back into leaks here, but it seems like she might be another Hydro healer. I've seen people annoyed by this, but I'm perfectly fine with it - I don't have Kokomi and I like Nilou bloom as much as the next person.

If Sigewinne is a four star, I hope she's on a banner for a cool five star.

Navia

I know a lot of people like this woman. Taylor Swift etc (I am not overly into Taylor Swift), but I think Navia could be cool.

I find her design overcrowded. I do think this suits the fact that we're playing with French Revolution ideas and she's part of the bourgeoisie, so ofc she's overdecorated and elaborate in her fashion. Even though it makes sense, I still don't like the arsthetic of it.

On the other hand, I do like the yellow - it's not a colour we see in too many Genshin designs. I don't really like how it fits with the blue jewellery though.

Personality wise, I worry a bit that she's gonna be our waifu bait, but they did Dehya's characterisation really well without falling into that trap. Navia could be very fun and I think there's a lot of promise in the idea that she might be a class traitor, teaming up with us against the Fontaine government (wow Genshin loves a corrupt government huh).

Will I pull? She's a geo claymore user and my triple crowned Itto is already collecting dust. That's a no from me.

Clorinde

Everyone say hello to my wife:

(I'm waiting)

I've seen so many people mad at Clorinde when I think she looks great. Her outfit is simpler than is typical for Genshin, but that's cos she's a no-nonsense fighter type! Like how we saw with Lyney, more muted designs often mean more dramatic animations, and we already saw Clorinde doing some dynamic fight stuff in the trailer.

She really interests me in that she's a champion duellist, strong enough that even Childe wants to fight her. We see Clorinde works directly beside Neuvilette in the trailer, so she must be high up in position. A gun and a sword? She's trying to kill Navia, but the Devs describe their relationship as "complicated"??

Clorinde is an Electro woman and these are always queer fyi.

I hope she's pretty straight laced, but not quite in the Sara way. She's boring tbh, mostly because she is always answering to someone else, and she gets so little screen time. For Clorinde to work, I think she needs to have independence and apt presence in the story to be explored - not just a prop/obstacle.

Her personality makes me fearful, but rn I'm pulling 100%.

[frosted-luckycharms]

why i love the sentiadrien theory.

(NOTE: this isn't a list of reasons why i believe the theory's true, i know that's already been talked about and debated a lot. these are just reasons i think it's a good twist in the story.)

it has the potential to be so powerful for adrien's character arc. whenever he finds a way to free himself, whether that's by getting a hold of his own amok, or even figuring out how to destroy his connection to it (personally i love the foil-miraculous theory so im rooting for the concept of a cool upgraded cataclysm), it'll be so meaningful as a symbol of overcoming abuse and finding freedom. ESPECIALLY if that comes in the image of using the power of destruction he was given to cataclysm his metaphorical shackles just like how he's cataclysmed physical cages and walls so many times throughout the show. just. the SYMBOLISM. chefs kiss

whenever mari/ladybug finds out about this, hopefully we'll get to see her go all Fierce Protector Mode to defend adrien/chat and encourage him that he's still an amazing and valid person (please?? this would be so cute????)

also since marinette, who holds the miraculous of creation, is known for her bravery, agency, and creativity- traits adrien as a senti never had a chance to have growing up- it gives more reason to root for her and adrien's relationship. she can help him heal, bring out his humanity and grow into himself. if that makes sense?? i read a rlly cool meta on this once but i forget who wrote it:(

it gives a meaningful reason for emilie's death. the plot of the show literally wouldn't exist if not for emilie dying (or falling into a coma if that's what you prefer), and it would be a bit anticlimactic to find out that the reason she died was because she just wanted to create, idk, robot assistants or a pet dog or something. whoever emilie created, she DIED for them, and so imo it only makes sense that the being she created was adrien, her child.

sentimonsters are such a good metaphor for abuse. since the show's for kids, it's hard to talk blatantly about heavy topics like abuse, but this lets them deal with it in a kid-friendly way. and i know this has been discussed already, but i don't think that using a magical metaphor lessens the gravity of the issue at all. as i saw someone point out, miraculous has always been a show that uses magical metaphors (akumas, superhero disguises, you name it) to talk about real-life issues both kids and adults deal with, and personally i think that's really beautiful.

it just..... honestly makes the show so much more interesting/dark/angsty???? in a way that's chillingly unexpected, but also makes so much narrative SENSE looking back on it, which i think we can all agree is the best kind of plot twist. personally as much as i love the lighthearted funny parts of the show (i do!!!), i've always been drawn to the contrast of its more tragic, epic-scale side (especially since seeing cat blanc aka my favorite episode lol). IM NOT EVIL I JUST LIKE PAIN, OK

all the potential for angsty fanarts/fics/other fanworks. i've seen quite a few of these but i know there's also a lot more out there i haven't seen yet, and i just love all the concepts that fans are exploring because of this theory.

sentimonster jokes/memes are hilarious sorry. but not really sorry because i am 1000% sure adrien "i-cope-with-my-problems-with-humor" agreste will be TOTALLY on board the jokes too once he gets over the initial shock/existential horror/etc

ok i think that's all i have off the top of my head but if anyone else thinks of more reasons plz reblog and add on!!! let's get some more positivity for this show's writing and for our senti cat child because he sure deserves it <333

[rubykgrant]

Nonsense Miraculous stuff that keeps buzzing around in my head... like, it’s such a shame we are shown that there are multiple Miraculous items, with the potential of creating MORE HEROES, but because of the rule to return them and how little we get to see any of the other kids with them, it was such wasted opportunity. On top of that, the combination of multiple Miraculous was also so under-used! If Marinette found she could use many of them at once, why not combine the Miraculous with herself as Ladybug when she needs an additional power? Doesn’t matter, because they all get taken away before we ever get to see all possible combos, and most of the other kids only get to be heroes once or twice... like I said, wasted opportunity!

Just from a pacing perspective... I wish the plot went like this; Marinette needs more help with fighting new villains, so she gives the Miraculous to people she trusts. At first, they all get to keep them, but can’t tell anybody about it (we get at least two episodes each for every kid doing something important with their Miraculous). Eventually, Chloe breaks this rule when she finds the Bee Miraculous and shows-off as a “hero”. This incident is what makes Marinette begin to worry about leaving the Miraculous with other people... after seeing some of her friends almost get discovered as Miraculous holders, she has to ask for them back. It hurts some of their feelings, but they mostly understand that it isn’t because she doesn’t trust them, she just wants to keep them safe. Alya is the exception later, when Marinette tells her the truth and continues using the Fox Miraculous in secret. However, this is what starts Marinette down the road of relying on herself too much. Instead of sharing the burden, she now only combines other Miraculous as Ladybug when she needs a specific power to stop a villain.

Risk plays out differently; instead of her taking risks by giving out Miraculous again, she pushes herself too far, trying to use ALL the Miraculous at once, even asking for the ones Chat Noir and Alya hold. She might be a very talented and unique Guardian, but she’s still a human, and a young girl. It almost destroys her, and she winds up losing the Miraculous except for her own. Rather than giving her that double-edged sword, where no matter what decision she makes ever works, thus punishing her regardless of what she tries, the solid theme is Marinette needs to stop trying to take on all the problems herself. For a short time, she is alone as a hero... but when “Monarch” makes an appearance, she gets back the Black Cat. Every time he tries to combine Miraculous, he can’t handle it, and once by one, she retrieves each Miraculous, and gives them back to her friends if they are still willing to help. They deserve to make the decision, and she trusts them.

What she doesn’t know is, Monarch has been studying the Miraculous while he held them. The magical powers he later transfers to various villains are “copies” of the Miraculous abilities. This is still coming from him, now working as part of his own transformation/transmission, and just like trying to combine Miraculous, this hurts him. Specifically, each time an Akuma is captured and the spell is broken, he is physically harmed in some way that symbolizes the power (when he gives the power of Cataclysm to a villain, and then the villain is defeated, this is what injures his arm... I know it was an emotionally relevant scene with Chat Noir almost destroying him, but honestly? I feel like a direct Cataclysm from the source really should have just vaporized Gabriel. so, softening the blow a bit here, but still giving intense repercussions). Theoretically, Monarch could grant his own wish with these copied powers, but he still hasn’t gotten Ladybug’s Miraculous!

Now we’ve got more fun with the hero kids, character development with Marinette feeling uncertain and then having more confidence in others, combos of each Miraculous with Ladybug, a story arc that involves winning back the stolen Miraculous, a story arc with Gabriel literally killing himself bit by bit through sharing copied powers with villains, AND the eventual honesty moment where Marinette decides she needs to fully trust her team, just like Alya. She tells them all everything (and personally, I’d enjoy it if she and Adrien just had a chuckle over their constant mis-matched crushes, and mutually decide that they can get to know each other better now, and date when all the evil Monarch shenanigans are over. mutual-pining, but in the same direction~).

[sweetcloverheart]

Unpopular Opinion Time (Featuring Miraculous Ladybug....again)

I wish the ML writers had kept the concept of Alix, Chloe, and Sabrina being a mean girl trio in the show. It would have made their characters (and subsequent arcs) so much more interesting that what canon gave us - especially Alix, consider canon “attempts” to make her important via Bunnix.

I mean, imagine with me for a second (and apologies to fellow weebs, cause I’m going to be borrowing some elements from a manga I read so time ago who’s name I can remember) - The three are basically the queen bees of the school, each controlling a different clique/student group through their statuses; Chloe rules the social circles with her wealth and connections to the fashion world, Sabrina keeps the nerds in check by having the best grades (only bested by Max, who back then was unsocial enough that it didn’t really effect things) and makes full use of her friendship with Chloe for clout, and Alix has all the jocks in a stranglehold because she’s the best at sports while also having the artsy kids ears since her dad works at the Louve. The three stand on top of the school, constantly looking down on everyone while ruthlessly bullying anyone trying to unseat or stand up to them (or just because) into the ground, their favorite target of recent being Marinette after she tries to call out Chloe for her awful behavior and near shows her up during a class project the year before.

The show goes as usual - Adrien transfers to Francoise Dupont, the Cat and Ladybug Miraculous are given to Marinette and Adrien, Akumas happen (some directly because of Chloe, Sabrina, Alix, or all three), Hawkmoth is a jerk and a bad dad, Ladybug and Chat save the day while civilian selves struggle with being teenagers. After becoming a superhero, Marinette slowly gains confidence in herself that she normally didn’t have, and starts standing up to the trio more and more, gaining the support of the class. Adrien (who’s getting actual character depth here), gains friends and social skills as he starts losing his childhood friend blinders and sees more and more of Chloe’s negative behavior and how the students around them seem more frightened than admiring of her.

The first one to fall is Alix when “Timebreaker” happens, but a little different - Marinette resisting the trio’s reign encourages other students to start following her lead, shaking the foundation of the three’s hold over the school. Alix, through Chloe and Sabrina’s bullying “encouragement”, accepts a challenge from Kim to a race after an argument as a way of reestablishing dominance and putting everyone (particularly Marinette) back in their place. If Alix wins, Kim must give her his medal from the Country Athletics Tournament and promise to never challenge her again, and if she loses, she’ll give up her prized skates and her title as the school’s top athlete. Alix has her birthday lunch with her dad beforehand and receives her watch, heads to the race, and asks Chloe to hold onto it for her. The race is happening, and Alix is...surprisingly starts having a good time. Maybe it’s the mood or the fact that Kim’s a more active challenger compared to the ones she’s beaten down before, but she’s having a blast racing against him. She’s also, unfortunately, clearly losing (not that she’s cares with how much fun she’s having). Chloe, not liking this, oh so “subtly” throws Alix’s watch in front of Kim when they’re nearing the finish-line and causes him to trip, allowing Alix to win but destroying the watch. Naturally, she gets upset, and Chloe blames Ayla for it, saying she “pushed” her and caused her to drop the watch. Believing her lies, Alix gets Akumatized and attacks everyone. After Ladybug and Chat save the day, Alix, feeling bad for getting akumatized and, despite her mean girl status, being fair enough to understand Kim would have won if not for tripping on her watch, gives him the victory, which upsets Chloe. The two argue over this and Chloe storms off, and Alix is going to just leave as well with her busted watch and pride until Marinette stops her. She’s prepared for mockery (it would not be out of place or undeserved), but instead is given “dumb Mari” offering to help her get the watch repaired, knowing a shop that specializes in antiques like it. When asked why Marinette just tells her that the watch seems important and despite their relationship, she’s not going to ignore Alix when she clearly looks like she needs the help. Needless to say, she’s both touched and surprised the girl she’s been tormenting the past school year is actually willing to go out on a limb for her like this, especially since she’s been nothing but catty to her. Ayla joins along to show video evidence that yes, Chloe was the one to drop the watch, and on purpose. This causes another fight at school the next day and Alix is “kicked” from the trio (though she frankly did leave on her own) since Chloe doesn’t need someone who doesn’t want to play ball for her anymore. Eventually, after some soul-searching and time alone, Alix becomes part of the gang. She and Kim develop a friendly rivalry, and discovers that Nathan likes the same comicbook artists she does. Have her and Marinette hang out and the latter notice that hey, Alix’s watch kind of looks a lot like an illustration in one of the books Master Fu showed her detailing the other miraculous, and have it be learned that one of her ancestors might have known the last user of the Bunny Miraculous and made the watch based of the item in memory, and had some other info that ties into past users. Have her talk about Chloe and Sabrina, how she became their friend (maybe they all bonded over absent parent figures, maybe they all found out they shared a hobby, maybe they all just happened to like eachother and hit it off), hint at how Chloe, mean as she can be, wasn’t that bad back then, was actually a decent friend to her but gradually got worse over time. Have “Chat Blanche” happen and Marinette gives her the Bunny Miraculous because Alix has shown to have grown out of her bullying ways and become a better person, and will eventually make a great hero too (Also, Bunny Miraculous’s powers are very much nerfed here. Adult!Alix can time travel pretty far, but kid Alix can only go back a single day)

Sabrina goes next. After Alix leaves, Chloe gets controlling and clingy with her. She starts ordering her around more, demanding she spend time with her, help her sabotage “enemies”, do her homework for her, etc. It’s exhausting and stressful for Sabrina, but Chloe is her friend - the one who protected her from bullies and treats her nicely, who invites her to fancy parties and gives her the latest clothes and accessories (well, they’re her handmedowns, but it’s the thought that counts right?), who needs her now more than ever since that traitor Alix started hanging out with that nerd Marinette. Yeah, her own grades are starting to slip thanks to the extra workload and she’s having trouble sleeping since Chloe keeps calling her constantly, but it’s all for the greater good, right? And it’s a whole lot better than when she starts ignoring her to fangirl over that stupid spotted superheroine. But as more and more time passes and Chloe constant demands her obedience and attention continuously ramp up until it all gets too much and guess who appears with an akuma ready and waiting. After her defeat, Sabrina actually takes a look at her and Chloe’s relationship and realizes just how awful Chloe’s become and what a far cry from the girl who befriended her she is, how friends don’t treat others like servants or constantly call them in the middle of the night for validation or to scream at them for not picking up after 1 minute. Have her get fed up and demand Chloe start treating her better or she’s gone. Have Chloe laugh and ask where she’s going to go, who’s exactly going to be friends with a worthless nerd like her, will take her to all the trendsetting parties and give her new clothes to show off. Sabrina can’t leave her, and won’t, because she needs her. Then have Sabrina leave anyway to find out. Maybe have her start trying to find hobbies outside the stuff Chloe had them do together, maybe have her start hanging around some of the kids from the neighboring class (i just think Aurore being included is neat), have her start making friends, be happy. Maybe give her a miraculous too, as a treat (and if it does end up the dog miraculous, please let’s not call her Miss Hound. Please.)

And the last standing is Chloe, queen bee on a lonely throne. Now in my perfect universe, Chloe would, thanks to her friends abandoning her and an akumatization gone wrong, realize the error of her ways, and start trying to be a better person enough to have earned being the Bee Miraculous holder - but I’m assuming Thomas has tenure or whatever, so if we do have to go the villain!Chloe route, we’re doing it the fun way - have Lila return and then both her and Chloe become models with Adrien (or, for the sake of Marinette rivalry, have Chloe become Adrien’s exclusive designer/tailor/whatever), and actually put some validity in their so called “mean girl friendship” by having them spend time together and being the absolute worst! I want to see them scheming together. I want to see them combine Lila’s lies and Chloe’s status to actually put Marinette through the wringer a couple of times and make the class miserable. I want to see Lila teach and then watch Chloe have someone akumatized on purpose - heck, I want to see Chloe get Akumatized on purpose. I want “Miracle Queen” to end with Chloe making off with the Bee and joining up with Hawkmoth. I want Hawkmoth giving the now repaired Peacock to Lila (or, for the extra fun and if you’re a big fan of peacock!Felix have her steal the Fox from Ayla and legitimately become Volpina) and having them become his enforcers and directly fight against Ladybug and Chat alongside the Akuma. Make the fights harder with real stakes because unlike with Hawky, our heroes know exactly who’re behind the masks in this case.

I...just want something like this

[liquid-luck-00]

Connections 9

Chapter 9

this is based on @thepeacetea daminette soulmate au

Masterlist *** First *** Previous *** Next

Warning ⚠️ Character death

~~~~~~~~~~

Mari always thought her soul bond was curious. She never heard or activated the bond on purpose. She doubted her soulmate did either, because of what Bruce had told her about the league of Assassins. But everything seemed just off. Apart from that one switch she never had contact again. The only thing she has to gleam of her soulmate are the abilities she learned through him. She settled into bed after biding her papa goodnight.

That might not be a bad thing. As soon as that thought crossed her mind was she pulled again, but this was different.

---

Time seemed frozen for Damian.

His mother came for him again. She brought an army and him, an older version a clone of himself. She brought his clone Heretic, who was pulling the sword from Damian's chest.

I lost, he thought as the sword fell from his hand.

Father, Batman, rushed towards him when two orbs of light circled above him, one red and one green.

The red light morphed into a girl with a high ponytail and a red mask covered her eyes, her eyes emanated a red light. She was dressed in a basic suit that resembled a cross of Nightwing and Red Robin's uniforms, just all red with black spots, gloves, and boots.

The green orb turned into a boy a short cloak covered his torso, the hood covered his head and face, two cat ears were part of the hood, his eyes were glowing green. A tail flicked around under the armor set around his waist.

The girl looked at him now in his father's arms.

"No!" she yelled everything fell silent to him as he watched about a dozen more orbs appeared each forming a figure in either red or green. All except the first two moved and quickly dispatched the clone, the army of assassins, and pushed mother back.

His vision faded to black.

He could no longer feel his father's arms under him.

---

Nightwing, Red Hood, and Red Robin were now around Batman and the fallen Robin. The past holders of the miraculous formed a ring around them, linking hands. They moved them all to the Bat-cave.

"Come back little one." Hippolyta, if she remembers what Tikki told her, cupped her face as she faded away.

"Tikki," she whispered out.

"What's wrong?" the little goddess rubbed her eyes.

"I... We... Cave... Now." She managed. She transformed and swung through Gotham unnoticed until she reached the cave under the manor.

The past holders and her cat were still there. She dropped her transformation and ran to her extended family.

"Pixie how?" Jason had taken off his helmet and hugged her.

"You were there weren't you." Tim stated, so she nodded confirming his theory.

“He is neither alive nor dead he is in a plane between the two." A cat, Hei Mao, dressed in a long sleeved black gi, armor plates on his right upper arm and a cat mask on top of his head, eyes like the other cat apparitions were glowing green a black domino mask covered his eyes.

"How is that possible?" Bruce coaxed himself to whisper, cowl down and holding back tears.

"He is your bonded. You are tethering and maintaining his soul whole." A ladybug in knightly armor, red glowing eyes like all the other ladybugs spoke, Joan of Arc.

"My bonded," Marinette breathed under her breath.

"The magic which flows through your veins flows through him. He is your..." the only male ladybug, a red feathered headdress and red cape, red warrior paint covered his eyes and stained his hands, Micazoyolin, added only to be interrupted by Dick.

"Soul mate." Dick gasped from next to her.

"It is possible to revive him." a woman in a loose black dress and a Jaguar patterned cape with green under the cape. A black Jaguar headdress with long green feathers sat on her head green warrior paint on her face and hands, Ocelome, drawled looking between Damian's lifeless body and the green soul of her cat. "By using the waters of the Lazarus."

A gasp was heard from the bats and birds in the cave, Mari flinched further into her big brother Jay. Mari began to sag from exhaustion and the visages of the past holders began to flicker.

"Perhaps this conversation is best held elsewhere," Hippolyta broke the silence. "I, Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, invite all of you to Themiscyra. Until we meet in the flesh my child."

Two by two each pair of ladybugs and their cats disappeared, all but the solitary cat, her cat, remained. Everything was still and silent within the cave. No one knowing how to proceed, so they stayed as they were.

None of them could tell you how long they stayed like that, but a new voice started.

"Bruce care to explain why my mother told me to bring all of you to Themiscyra." Wonder Woman appeared on the Bat-computer. "By Zeus. The apparition of the cat. Do you know what this means?" Bruce’s back was to the computer, Damian’s body still in his arms protected by his cape from Wonder Woman’s sight.

"Yes we do. Come by around noon everything should be sorted by then." Bruce brought himself to say, Tim ending the call after a nod from Wonder Woman.

"Come on pixie let's get you home before the sun rises." Jason put on his helmet. She nodded, transformed , and let Jason pick her up as they left the cave.

Jay-Jay stopped a few blocks away, she moved and clung on his back like a baby koala. As Red Hood swung and ran across the roof tops. He tucked in his little sister and left.

---

One moment he was dying in his father's arms. No he did die in his father's arms. But what was odd was the tug after a moment in the darkness.

The next he was standing in the Bat-cave next to his father and his body. The first girl in red was gone, but the others were here still. About 10 minutes later a red figure of a girl swings into the cave. If he could move or speak he would have. Or maybe not. The figure was engulfed in pink light and there stood Marinette Stone. She ran into a hug from Todd.

"Pixie how?"

"You were there weren't you." Drake stated, Marinette must have understood the statement as she nodded her head. It was silent until one of the green and black figures spoke.

"He is neither alive nor dead he is in a plane between the two." Hei Mao, the other voice in his mind supplied.

How am I not dead?!

He could still not move or speak so he stood and listened.

"How is that possible?" he heard his Father.

"He is your bonded. You are tethering and maintaining his soul whole." Joan of Arc, the voice again supplied.

"My bonded," Marinette, the voice supplied but now he placed it, the voice is Marinette.

"The magic which flows through your veins flows through him. He is your..." the only man in red, Micazoyolin, Marinette corrected his thought.

"Soul mate." Grayson shrieked.

"It is possible to revive him." Ocelome, she supplied and he took the intonation, without our analyzing now. "By using the waters of the Lazarus."

He heard his family suck in a breath and seem to become stone still, Marinette flinched further into Todd who was hugging and seemingly guarding her.

"Perhaps this conversation is best held elsewhere," Hippolyta broke the silence. "I, Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, invite all of you to Themiscyra. Until we meet in the flesh my child."

Two by two each pair of ladybugs and their cats disappeared, all abut him. He still could not move, he could not speak either, but his mind raced.

I am dead.

Actually I am apparently not alive or dead.

My best friend is my soulmate.

My soulmate does not hate me.

She knows. She knows me. She knows my aggravating family.

She is stuck with us, with me.

Marinette is my best friend who happens to be my soulmate.

His thoughts would have continued had it not been for the voice coming from the Bat-computer.

"Bruce care to explain why my mother told me to bring all of you to Themyscira." Wonder Woman, "By Zeus. The apparition of the cat. Do you know what this means?"

"Yes we do. Come by around noon everything should be sorted by then."Father spoke his back to the screen shielding his body from vein.

"Come on pixie let's get you home before the sun rises." Todd finally spoke taking Marinette home.

Father finally stood, for a moment he looked at him and then his body before moving to place his body in a portable cyro-chamber in the Bat-plane.

Then the darkness returned.

---

The next morning she woke up with a resolve that everything would turn out fine.

Okay sure I just found out my best friend is my soulmate. the was killed by his clone, but he is in a state of limbo. Okay this was a lot but this is not the end of the story.

So as she, her papa, and Penny were having breakfast a knock sounded at the door.

"I'll get it." Penny excused herself. "Tim what a surprise come in." Tim was promptly sat at the table a mug of coffee and pancakes were placed in front of him.

"What brings you here so early mate?" Papa chuckled after watching Tim chug the coffee.

"Well, we were planning on a family trip for the week but..." he started. "B locked himself in his office and Damian won't budge, so" he looked at Jagged. "We were hoping that we could steal little bean for the week since both of them can't say no to her." he rushed barely stopping to breathe.

"Whatcha say little rock star," Papa turned to her smiling, "want to spend the week with your brothers?"

"Yes." She jumped up and hugged her dad and ran to her room to pack. Tim-Tam joined her a minute later as he asked Diana about the climate of the island.

"Why can't we go too, Lucky Penny?" Mari heard her papa ask.

'Sigh' "You've got a full schedule, why don't we plan something for the following week, your clear then." they heard Penny compromise.

"Rock 'n hear that little star," Papa poked his head in as they finished packing. "Maybe we'll steal one of Bruce's birds next week for our trip." He semi whispered the end.

Tim seemed surprised at the comment but schooled his features quickly, he picked up the suitcase and Mari pulled her papa out of the penthouse suite, gave him a hug as she went with Tim.

Less than an hour later she was sitting in the Bat-cave having loaded the bags in the Bat-plane, with the three eldest Wayne children and Bruce, waiting for Wonder Woman.

"Hey Mari can I ask something?" Tim sat down next to her.

"What is it Tim Tam?"

"What did Jagged mean when he said one of Bruce's birds?" Everyone was now watching the two and listening to the response that was to follow.

"Oh, um papa might have figured out that Uncle Bruce is Batman." She was now fiddling with her fingers in her lap. When no one answered she continued. "Remember a couple of months ago when the Sirens crashed Papa's concert. Well when Uncle Bruce and Jay Jay moved me and Papa away and into his dressing room, B didn't make his voice gruff and gravelly as Batman's usual voice. So papa thought maybe his voice isn't usually as gruff and the new voice is actually his real voice, and once papa hears a voice, he never forgets it. I promise I never told him and I never told him he was right but he is pretty sure and I don’t think he’ll even believe you if you tell him he’s wrong." Mari scrambled to say, ending it with a small sad smile looking up through her lashes at everyone.

"Father like Daughter," Bruce was the first to speak. "Everyone is getting a permanent voice modifier installed in their suits." This resulted in every one laughing. Effectively breaking the tension previously in the room.

"Smart idea B." Jason answered making Mari smile wider.

That was when Wonder Woman decided to arrive. Ending the conversation as they boarded the Bat-plane leaving for Themyscira.

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

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[ilikekidsshows]

Hi, could you maybe go a bit more in depth on Marinette and Gabriel as foils? You've mentioned it here and there and I'm so used to thinking of Gabriel only in terms of Adrien that it was kind of a shocking revelation to me. I think you also compared Adrien and Nathalie? She's an other character I only really saw one way before (Gabe's assistant).

I actually have a full analysis of the Cat Noir vs Mayura foiling here. I also briefly touch on the Gabriel vs Marinette foiling in the chess metaphor and relationship dynamics bits.

But, let's cover the rest of it. First off, Gabriel and Marinette are both fashion designers and, judging by Audrey's comments, talented enough that they were both basically unknown in the industry when Audrey spotted them. She rants about how Gabriel wouldn't have made it if she hadn't noticed his talent. Basically, they both just needed a shot to prove themselves.

I commented during my liveblog of 'Frightningale' that fashion seems to be the one aspect in Gabriel's life not taken over by Hawk Moth, even as he uses the butterfly as his signature. Gabriel genuinely wants to help out Clara Nightingale because of their industry connection; he didn't do it to set her up to be Akumatized, although he did take advantage of the chance when it presented itself. Marinette's fashion creations are also lacking in ulterior motive; she creates out of the joy to create.

Marinette and Gabriel are also strategic people in their alter egos. Gabriel hatches very long term plans, where he gathers intel and sets his pieces just so, but can also grasp a good opportunity when it's presented to him. Marinette, as Ladybug, is more of a quick planner, plotting out counter strikes in the middle of the fight. But in her civilian life, Marinette's planned so far ahead she has birthday presents for Adrien for years.

The season two finale 'Heroes' Day' is possibly the best showing of just how similar Gabriel and Marinette are in planning. There are dozens of Akumas prowling around Paris, and they both remeber what powers they have at their disposal and react accordingly. Gabriel ordering Vanisher to track Ladybug, who guessed Hawk Moth would try to pull something like that and created an ambush, is just a top-notch example of planner vs planner combat.

There are, of course, differences as well. Both of them are in leadership positions, Gabriel with his company and Marinette with her Ladybug and class president duties. But the difference here is that, while Gabriel uses his authority position to intimidate people and force them to obey, Marinette only leads people who want to be led by her. This is visible in how Adrien reacts to them trying to command him. With Gabriel, he very much wants to disagree and often goes behind his father's back to disobey him and Gabriel often forces him to do as he wants. With Ladybug, he might gripe about having to do something unpleasant, but he always follows Ladybug's orders without question.

Their respective relationships with Adrien also create another parallel. With Gabriel, Adrien intellectually know his father loves him, but he doesn't feel loved with him. With Ladybug and Marinette both, Adrien is absolutely convinced neither one of them loves him romantically, but he does feel cared for and safe with them.

Speaking of love, a lot of people criticize the show for this, but a lot of Marinette's actions are motivated by her romantic love for Adrien. Gabriel is also motivated largely by his romantic love for Emilie. This is another parallel between the hero and the villain of the show. However, there's a difference in how they exhibit this love and want to express it. Gabriel purposefully hurts people in his single-minded focus on bending reality to give him back Emilie. He's trying to force her to be with him. Meanwhile, while Marinette has also hurt people while pursuing Adrien (like in 'Gamer'), with Marinette hurting others is an unintended consequence of her laser-focusing; she actually cares about people other than her love interest. Also, as I brought up in my "control freak" analysis, Marinette has no intention of forcing Adrien into anything. She wouldn't even consider it.

Also, they both gave bug-themed Miraculouses, and they function as Chloé's shoulder devil and shoulder angel during Chloé's character arc, with Hawk Moth tempting Chloé with power and Ladybug trying to encourage Chloé to do good and be better. Their powers also work as bookends. Every encounter between the heroes and villains begins with Gabriel creating an Akuma and every encounter ends with Marinette casting Miraculous Ladybug.

[jjmjjktth]

Chapter 3: Firsts Lead to Seconds

Lady Papilion sent a butterfly to the Eiffel Tower at the arranged time. She could sense the apprihensiveness and destruction of the Black Cat hero. Guiding her butterly to land on Chat’s baton, she felt the weak mindlink for between the two of them. “Hello, Chat Noir, I am Lady Papillion, your partner.” Chat started at the sudden voice in his head.

“Lady Papilion? What miraculous do you hold, how did you get it, and why are you able to be in my head?” Chat questioned.

“I am the weilder of the Butterfly Miraculous of Metamorphosis and Encouragement; the miraculous was put in my bag; and, the miraculous makes a mindlink for me to speak to you directly and give you power if we both agree.” She responded,”What miraculous do you hold and how did you receive it? I assume it has something to do with cats.” She decided to keep the fact that she knew so much about the miraculous a secret for now, she didnt trust him…. Yet.

“I am the wielder of the Black Cat Miraculous of Bad Luck and Destruction; the miraculous appeared on my coffeetable; and I can destroy anything with a touch.” Chat stated with the same amount of formality.

“We must discuss a plan for dealing with Paeon; maybe patrols of something like that. We will also need to speek with athoraties abou setting up an alert or something.”

“I agree, they need a way to contact us as well. For all we know it won’t always be obvious when there’s a…. what did you call it…. an amok?” at her nod, he continued. “Maybe we could talk to our kwamiis about communication devices and give the local government our numbers?”

“I could talk to Nooroo about that. What’s your kwamii’s name?”

“Plagg”

“Give me a few minutes I’ll detransform since I’m not in a public place.” Lady Papillion transformed without recalling her butterfly. She immediately gave Nooroo a flower petal.

“Thank You Miss Marinette.” Nooroo tiredly said.

“Nooroo is it possible for you to notify me of messages while detransformed?”

“Yes, I’ll know if a message is left while you’re not LP!” Nooroo chirped.

“Thank you Nooroo, let’s rest a bit. I told Chat we’ll be a few minutes.”

After a minute or two Marinette transformed to reconnect with her butterfly in Chat’s weapon.

“It is possible for us to communicate with the miraculous, our kwamii are able to notify us of any messages and relay responses even when we aren’t transformed.”

“Well, its settled then. Will you usually be contacting me from off-site?” The cat questioned.

“Yes, my miraculous is made to be used from outside the battles; therefore, I am not as wellprotected as you while transformed. I do have a place I can use as a base, though.”

“Ok. Can you recall your power so we can test our communicators effectively?” As soon as she heard his request, She called out her butterfly and released it from her service.

A few seconds later, her staff buzzed and beeped. Opening the top, she requested the message be read to her.

“One message from Chat Noir…. ‘How can I be of surrrvice, Lady Papillon.’”

“Respond to Chat Noir with, ‘Since this seems to be working, could you bring the contact information to the law enforcement?’”

“Responce sent…. New message from Chat Noir.”

“Read it please”

“‘On my way’” Smiling, she detransformed and retrieved a flower petal for Nooroo.

“Thank you!”

“No problem, lets make our way back to school though.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful compared to the morning; and people were flocking to Ivan to hear about how he beceme a superhero.

“I don’t have any power, guys, there was this lady in my head who gave me power and guided me through the battle!” He explained for the hundredth time. He sounded exasperated.

“This so-called ‘lady’ must be rediculous if she chose you. I would have ended it the moment it began. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.” Chloé, it’s always Chloé. I could hear Ivan shaking in his seat.

“HOW DARE YOU!” Ivan roared, “MY LADY IS A WISE AND RESPONSABLE WOMAN AND YOU CALL HER ‘RIDICULOUS!’”

“Ivan.” I state, drawing on my calming aura. “Can you calm down? Paeon is still out there and, from what I observed, he gives strong emotions physical form.” I was too late.

Rose shreeked, “The feather! It’s back!” The blood drains from my face and I get up to leave the room. As I enter the hallway, I hear a faint “Yes, Paeon” followed by a stampede.

I ended up using a fire escape to get out of the building since no one semed to think of that. From there it was a simple affair to arrive at my greenhouse as it was somewhat out of the danger zone.

“Nooroo, did the amok take the same form?”

“Yes, it has also taken Chloé Borgeois and Mylené Harple captive.”

“Ok, Nooroo, wings rise!” The familiar warmth washed over her, leaving Lady Papillion in its wake. Feeling the rush of emotions, LP sought out Ivan once again. Bonding with a photo he had on him, she spoke, “Ivan, we meet again.”

“I am so sorry! I was just so angry at Chloé, she insulted you!”

“While I am honored you decided to defend me, Paris has changed. As much as I hate to admit it, it is no longer safe to feel negative emotions. That’s what makes Paeon so cruel.”

“I understand, My Lady.”

“Ivan, are you willing to become Ironheart once again to defeat the amok?”

“Yes, My Lady.” She smiled at his agreement and allowed her power to enter Ivan fully. Transforming him into Ironheart in a wake of lavender bubbles, she began to guide him towards the battle.

Chat Noir was already on the scene, arguing with the police.

“This isn’t a failure on our part! This is an entirely separate situation!”

“Then why is the same monster as earlier climbing the Eiffel Tower with the mayor’s daughter!”

“I don’t have all the information yet!”

“Ironheart, can you please open your palm?” I asked. When Ivan opened his palm, an image was projected into the air. Lady Papillion was siting on her throne of metal vines, her sceptre resting on her lap. One of her hands remained on the handle of the sceptre while the other was draped casually over the vines of the armrest. Around her thousands of butterflies, many different kinds, flew around her.  Giving her the image of a Lady in her keep.

“What seems to be the issue, officer….”

“Raincomprix, Leutenant Raincomprix.” the leutenant seemed to be a bit intimidated by the aura of power she gave off. At a nod of her head, he continued, “As a police department, we were concerned about the resurfacing of this morning’s villain despite you two supposedly defeating him.”

“I assure you, the resurfacing of the amok has nothing to do with Chat Noir and I. The man behind the attack, Paeon, posesses an ability to physically manifest any strong emotions into beings for him to control. The victim of this morning mearly got upset enough for Paeon to exploit them again. This will most likely become a common occurrence untill we track down Paeon and strip him of his power.” The leutenant’s face fell at her words.

“We have already left our contact information with the police department,” Chat chimed in.

“We must hurry, the amok has already caused enough damage as is.”

There is a sudden rustling of feathers as the amok put it’s chest towards the sky releasing millions of feathers from inside. The feathers, moving against the wind, rose into the air taking ther form of a man in a mask.

“I am Paeon, the man who controls this sentinel.” Paeon gestures toward the amok. “I have come to rescue you from the villains Chat Noir and the Butterfly. I must retrieve their miraculous to strip them of their power. Look around you, look at all the destruction they caused.”

“Ironheart, put your palms into the air please.” When Ironheart follower her instruction, a much larger projection than earlier filled the space above him.

“Paeon, how lovely to meet you.” Lady Papillion greeted with a sickly sweet tone. “I was wondering when I would have the pleasure of your acquaintance.” She relaxed onto her throne as Paeon scowled. “I am Lady Papillion, weilder of the Butterly Miraculous of Metamorphisis and Encouragement. Chat Noir and I have not caused the damage to uor beloved city, but Paeon tore through the city using a creature formed with the hurt and rage of an innocent teen. Doesn’t that sound more like the actions of a villain?” With that Ironheart lowers his hands and lept up the tower catching the feathers in his shield. A blinding light shone from the shield and the feathers were gone.

Sensing it was time to act, Chat Noir bounded after Ironheart. The battle was short after that. A well times cataclysm and two graceful catches ended the majority of the afternoons excitement.

As soon as the heroes reached the ground, they were surrounded by the press with their questions and flashing lights. It was definitely a new experience for the three.

“Lady Papillion! Ironheart, do you plan on working together for the time being?”

“Chat Noir! What do you think of Paeon painting a picture of you as a villain?”

“Chat Noir! How long do you plan on being a superhero, and how will it effect your daily life?”

“Lady Papillion! Why dont you show your face in person?” There were so many questions and so little space that Ironheart had to send out a little shockwave to get them to back off so the small image of Lady Papillion could speak.

“Ironheart and I will each take one question.” She stated with no room for argument. “I will not appear in person as, like Paeon, my miraculous is meant for distance and leaves me more vulnerable than the average miraculous weilder.”

“I dont know if I will be selected by my Lady again, but if I am, I will gladly accept it.” Ironheart stated and then left.

“Well done, Ironheart. Remember, your protectiveness is both your strength and your weakness. Be careful.” And with that she withdrew her butterfly and released it from her service. Before she could detransform, her septre buzzed.

“One new message from Chat Noir.”

“Read it.”

“‘Purrhaps you could send one of your butterflies to Arc de Triomphe, I would like to speak with mew, winky face.’” She sighed and sent out another butterfly with a kiss.

The butterfly made its journey to the Arc de Triomphe rather quickly and promptly joined with Chat’s golden bell. “You wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes, I would like to see this base of yours so we can work together purrroperly.” Chat demanded.

“No, It would give away my identity or at least narrow it down for you. That is against what my kwamii told me.”

“Would knowing our identities not improve our teamwork, My Lady?”

“It also may hinder it Chat; so, I must say no.” she could feel his disappointment and anger rising.

“How can I trust you if I don’t know who you are?!”

“You will have to. I am goind to send a champion to heal the city. Good bye, Chat.” and she recalled the butterfly; but not before she felt his anger spike.

Feeling around, Lady Papillion searched for someone with the desire to fix everything. She sent her butterfly into a foreman’s clipboard.

“Hello, sir. I am Lady Papillion, what is your name?”

“Lady Papillion! Um…. I’m Rich Bordétte. It’s an honor to meet you My Lady.”

“Thank you Rich. I would like to offer you the ability to fix all the damage from today’s battles, even death.”

“Ok, call me….  The Worker!”

“Rich Bordétte, do you accept my offer to become The Worker”

“Yes, Lady Papillion.”  The lavender bubbles covered Rich; in the same way as Ivan, the bubbles gave him a sunflower-colored hardhat, a safety vest, and a toolbelt with only a drill on it.

The Worker rose into the air and raised his dril and without ceremony pressed the button. From the tip of the drill, various butterflies and moths streamed out to the city covering everything that was damaged and anyone who was hurt or worse. As soon as the last moth landed, The Worker cried out and all the bugs rose at once flying to the sky. Below, the city looked just as it did the day before. The rubble was gone, the people were healed and all evidence of Paeon was gone.

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Hello, Jjmjjktth here. welcome to my extremely irregular upload schedule filed by a mix of procrastination and The FeelsTM.

 WARNING!!! It may be one day to two or three months when i upload next!

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[trustmeifyoudare]

The Things We Do (Chapter 7: Plans are Made to Fall Apart)

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Ladybug and Rena Rouge rushed to the scene that was folding out on the streets of Paris. Ladybug breathed a sigh of relief as she saw it wasn’t Adrien, and then mentally scolded herself for being glad that someone else had to go through being Hawkmoth’s pawn.

The akuma looked almost like a human-sized stone heart. His limbs were all blocked and grey like a slab of concrete.

Ladybug and Rena Rouge jumped to the ground in front of the villain.

“I am Cementanium!” he bellowed. “Give me your miraculous, Ladybug!”

The ground shook under Ladybug’s feet. She backflipped onto a street lamp right before the ground collapsed. She looked over at Rena Rouge who was safe on the roof of a car.

Ladybug jumped as a wave of concrete was shot at her. She swung on top of a roof, dragging Rena Rouge with her.

“We need a plan,” she told Rena.

Ladybug looked down at the ground. The street was unrecognizable now. The cement was being reshaped over and over again, even though neither Ladybug nor Rena Rouge were down there.

“He is using the cement on the ground,” Rena said. We need to get him somewhere where there is no concrete.”

“But we don’t know yet if he can control all rocks or just cement.”

“Then we find out.”

They both jumped down to the ground. Ladybug made sure that Cementanium had seen them before jumping off to the city park. There the ground shouldn’t be ripped out from under their feet.

Ladybug stopped on a car to make sure the akuma was still following her.

“I don’t think we got to finish our introduction the last time we met.”

Ladybug held her breath. She looked in front of her, away from the akuma. Cat Noir was there, leaning against a lamppost like it was an ordinary day.

She couldn’t show him she was scared. “Sorry, but Mom always says not to talk to strangers,” she squeaked out.

It made no sense, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Cat Noir grabbed his tail and started to spin it around in circles. “Listen, you are surrounded. This will just be easier on everyone if you just give me your miraculous. You don’t know what you are fighting.”

Ladybug tried to appear casual. “Why don’t you tell us then?”

Cat Noir laughed. There was something unsettling about it, like an animal trapped in a cage. “See, I would, but then you would automatically give me your miraculous and that would just be too easy. A cat has to have his fun.”

Ladybug grabbed her yo-yo. In the distance she heard Rena Rouge calling out to her but she ignored it. “I doubt that I would help you.”

Before she realized it, Ladybug was flying in the air. Concrete arced over her in a graceful wave before it touched down to the ground, leaving her in darkness.

Ladybug cried out as she fell down. Something banged against her leg. She cried out in pain.

A bright light filled her eyes.. She blinked as her eyes adjusted.

She gritted her teeth when she saw Cat Noir standing behind her, using his staff as a flashlight.

Ladybug tried to stand up, but her leg was trapped. It screamed out in pain when she tried to move it. She reached out for her yo-yo but it was nowhere to be found.

She looked back at Cat Noir, who was walking toward her. She was trapped and had no way to defend herself.

Hope flowed out of her like a dying balloon.

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[bunnyinthestars]

Adrien is definitely gonna take Emilie’s place in a coma (A Theory)

Yeah so I mean the title of this is exactly what I’m pretty sure is gonna happen. This is because there has been a huge load of foreshadowing and some other subtler reasons I will be going over in this post. Of course, there’s always a chance it won’t happen, but if it didn’t I think I’d be pretty surprised considering just the amount of evidence thats going into this.

(Also sorry ahead of time for the structure of this, I tried to structure this based on my specific reasons for this theory but I kind of went off on tangents in some places and in others I use ideas that I assume come with the theory and don’t necessarily fit into any specific reason (like Emilie coming back to life and what would happen there, why Adrien and not Nathalie, and loosely how theyd get Adrien out of the coma), although I mosty stick to the structure I still want to add this disclaimer just so you’re aware that I wrote this in one go at midnight (also wait right now its 12:10am it is now ten minutes into my birthday??? ok ignoring that))

I dont know man. Just consider what I have to say. Or dont. I will be listing my reasons starting now.

1. Imagery of Adrien being in comatose state/ in a coffin-like thing.

This is surprisingly common??? Off the top of my head I can think of Style Queen and Riposte (I believe) which involve this. In Style Queen, Audrey in the form of her akumatized self had essentially kidnapped Adrien and put him in this gold/glass coffin thing that disintegrated the longer it remained untouched. The other one is Riposte, where Ladybug hides Adrien in that big sarcophogus in the Louvre (he didn’t stay in it but still the imagery is there.)

I also just remembered in Chameleon when Lila took Adrien’s form he was asleep/in a comatose state in that locker and Plagg was like “aw man am I gonna have to kiss him.....” but then Adrien wakes up because Lila stole someone else’s form

EDIT: another instance of Adrien/Chat Noir being shoved into a sarcophagus (besides Riposte) is in Pharaoh in season 1

So yes there is definitely a good number of foreshadowing for this. I might take this further and say if Adrien were to go comatose and be in the coffin Emilie was in then Felix might replace him for some amount of time?? Like impersonate him amd stuff?? Just because there’s lots of stuff in the show with impersonation I feel like it could work aNYWAY BACK TO THE EVIDENCE I KNOW ITS A TANGENT

2. Possible evidence foreshadowing Emilie *inadvertantly* killing (not killing but making comatose you get it) Adrien

This one is not as strong as the first but its worth considering. I was googling the word “mayura” just out of curiosity a while back and basically its a peacock in Hindu stories (like peacocks are a kinda revered animal) and I just initially found a couple websites that said that the mayura has been depicted eating a snake as a symbol of the cycle of time (you dont have to read this part in parenthesis, its just kind of a tangent: the cycle of time as known in Hinduism is another aspect of Hinduism directly referenced in the show: the horse/space miraculous kwami Kaalki’s name is a reference to the prophecied tenth avatar/reincarnation of the god Vishnu, and he is referenced in the Kalachakra tantra which is basically a Hindu book about the cycle of time. Keep in mind I got all this from wikipedia and other internet websites, I do not practice Hinduism and I dont directly know anybody who does, so if any of this is wrong pls lmk because there is surprisingly not a lot of information on the internet about it from what I could tell)

So anyways yes peacock (mayura) eating snake representing the cycle of time. Both Luka and Adrien are represented in the show as the snake, but ultimately I think the snake here represents Adrien just because it makes more sense (Snake Noir, future Alix’s tattoo depicts a snake to be Adrien and is meant to represent Adrinette, Adrien just has some shifty stuff going on with the snake in general etc) and thus, if Gabriel manages to actually get the ladybug and black cat miraculouses and make the wish to bring Emilie to life, then this “mayura” analogy (assuming Emilie as the mayura in this scenario) would make sense if her life brought upon Adrien losing his.

The reason I dont think it would refer to Nathalie even though her official name is Mayura is for pretty much two sub-reasons. The first is that I think she is going to die before this wish happens. I know, its a kids show, whatever, but consider it. The Agreste/Graham de Vanily family has a trend of having opposite names [I am so sorry I literally first heard this from a tumblr user but I cannot remember who I just remember they had made a string of theories on why Emilie Agreste will not be who she seems to be so credit to them I did not discover that] for example the name Gabriel means hero/angel, Felix means happy/fortunate, Adrien means dark, etc, and Nathalie Sancoeur means “birthday (of Christ)” and “heartless” respectively. We already know she is not heartless but rather full of heart because she has fallen in love with Gabriel. So then,,,,,,,,,, the opposite of birth is death. She’s already shown to be pretty sick too despite the peacock miraculous having been “fixed” (as of the New York special being the most recent piece of content). I’m sorry guys I do not make the rules

stop why his face look like that though

The second part of why I think this is a little stupid but. The original art released by Jeremy Zag for Mayura does not look like Nathalie. Plus this art was only released under the name of “the Peacock” (originally Le Paon in French) so it might not actually be the Mayura we know as of now. Now, theoretically, it could be that they had made this art before they knew they wanted Nathalie to be Mayura or just as art depicting what Emilie would have been like as the peacock miraculous holder, and it could literally just be Nathalie. When you compare the images, though, the original Mayura art looks far more like Emilie and a lot less like Nathalie. Yes I am aware this is stupid just know this is only a minor point

I dont know man those faces do not look the same to me and the original Mayura definitely had Emilie’s eye shape and face shape in mind. They might’ve changed it after making the concept art but my point still stands

Ok next reasoning

Again not a very strong point but sometimes dialogue just implies things in Miraculous and I can think of a very specific quote that would fit this happening, and there are probably more that I just dont know to look for since I dont have this whole show memorized

So the quote is from Startrain after Gabriel loses control of the akuma then learns about the Startrain having been akumatized with Adrien on board, and he says “hoping that my enemies will save my son..... how ironic.” When I first heard this quote I really, really felt like it was foreshadowing something just based on his tone and the way this new idea was being introduced of him having to be on the same side as Ladynug and Chat Noir for once, even if it was just temporary. This quote absolutely is indicative to me of a future event in which he’ll have to work with his “enemies” to save his son. A situation in which Adrien is in comatose would perfectly align with this. At least for how I would predict the show would make it, Gabriel would have to turn away from Emilie (who represents the past for him, and this action would therefore represent moving on) and join forces with Ladybug/Marinette, his “enemy”, to save Adrien.

Onto the last reason!

Emilie is probably definitely coming back. Which means someone’s going into a coma in her place.

I mean come on it would be so anticlimactic if they just caught Gabe before he fulfilled his wish. Plus with the way they are outlining Emilie to be this perfect golden being is definitely because its going to far contrast with how she will actually turn out. This doesnt really support the Adrien thing in particular but honestly it would also be anticlimactic of the coma was for anyone else. If it was Nathalie, then yeah itd suck for Adrien I guess but like???? Doesn’t really connect the plots as much. Whereas if its Adrien, that brings Marinette into it, that gives her a powerful as heck conflict. Im guessing they would also somehow resolve his coma with “the power of love” mentioned in the theme song, just because of the foreshadowing with like waking someone up with a true love’s kiss (think Plagg in Chameleon, I guess the rose in Style Queen, maybe Alya’s story to Manom in Stormy Weather if we’re strecthing it....)

TL;DR: Adrien is probably gonna go comatose (like Emilie did) at some point because its been pretty foreshadowed (think Style Queen, Riposte, and even Chameleon), because of the legend surrounding the Hindu “mayura” peacock eating a snake representing time (wow that was not a sentence ok then), because Gabriel has previously foreshadowed having to work with his enemies to save his son, and also just because it would be super awesome and allow each character involved to have a pretty fulfilling conflict and arc.

(all images from the miraculous ladybug wiki excluding the piece of art depicting the mayura which is from murugan.org)

I hope however took the time to read this post enjoyed this theory, sometimes I have really random yet detailed theories regarding this show and I wanted to share this one because if I’m right then this will be proof I had predicted it, also you guys could possibly elaborate on it. I’m all for friendly discussions folks fr

If this doesn’t end up happening the theory is still awesome and they should have done it, and if it does my ego will probably expand and hopefully they will make it as awesome as it seems like it would be. Sorry if the structure of this post is not great, but thank you for reading. I appreciate you, have a wonderful week :)

[dessarious]

Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt86

Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU

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Ladybug sat motionless on top of the Arc de Triomphe. She thought it was somewhere around one in the morning, but she couldn’t be certain. She just hoped Chloe didn’t wake up while she was gone. The last thing she wanted to do was cause more worry but she’d needed some fresh air. Needed time alone to think.

“Bit past your bedtime isn’t it?” As soon as she heard the voice Ladybug was in motion. She dove off the Arc using her Yoyo to swing around and flank the intruder. They were looking over the side where she’d dropped and she had them wrapped up before registering what exactly she was seeing.

“What the hell?” For a moment she thought it was a cosplayer dressed as Chat Noir, then her brain woke up. Getting on top of the Arc itself was no easy feat but they’d also been able to sneak up on her and that wasn’t something just anyone could do. No, the woman in front of her had to be Catwoman. When had this become her life? “Whatever you’re here to steal I suggest you rethink it.”

“I’m not here to steal anything. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Everyone’s talking about the tiny Parisian that brought the Justice Clowns to their knees. I must say I didn’t expect you to be so cute.” The woman had a smirk on her face and her tone was teasing.

“Thank you?” She didn’t even know how to respond to that. “Wait, what do you mean everyone’s talking about me? Who’s everyone?” She could hear a note of panic in her own voice but was pretty sure anyone else would take it for frustration. At least she hoped so.

“Everyone. Hero’s, Villains, those of us who are in more of a limbo territory. It’s not everyday someone hands the man of steel his ass and walks away completely unscathed. It’s impressive.” She absolutely did not need this. Ladybug just let out a heartfelt groan as she freed Catwoman from her Yoyo. The last thing Paris needed was random villains showing up to gawk at her or test her abilities. She was going to have to talk to the others about this.

“Wonderful. Just when I was thinking things might calm down enough to breathe for once. So what do you want then?” Her tone was flat and it took everything in her not to just walk away from this. Just once she wanted to let someone else handle things. But she was Ladybug right now so no matter how much she wanted to scream in frustration or find a hole to crawl into she had to do the right thing. Whatever that was. Catwoman just looked confused.

“Wait… did Robin not tell you? I thought for sure he would as soon as he found out I was coming.” Ladybug could only blink at the woman as her brain refused to process the words or their implication.

“He knew you were coming?” This didn’t make any sense. Surely Damian would have told her about something like this if he actually knew. Before Catwoman could respond she was tackled by another figure in black. So much for getting back before Chloe woke up. In seconds Discorde had Catwoman pinned to the roof by her neck as a growl emitted from her throat.

“You’ve got one minute to explain why I shouldn’t tie you up and toss you off this roof.” Well that was a bit of an overreaction. Ladybug felt guilt swell as she stepped forward to put a calming hand on her partner's shoulder.

“It’s okay, we were just talking.” She kept her tone calm and soothing but it didn’t seem to help at all. “Discorde, please just let go, I’m too tired to explain or fight about this right now.” That got her attention and she let go of Catwoman as if burned.

“I’m sorry-” Ladybug shook her head and motioned to Catwoman to cut off her girlfriend’s apology. It wasn’t necessary for one, but it really wasn’t a conversation to have in front of one of Gotham’s rogues.

“I thought the Bats were just screwing with me when they said that one of Paris’s heroes was cat themed.” Discorde actually hissed at her but she just grinned back. “Oh I definitely like you.” Ladybug could only share a confused look with Discorde before letting out a sigh.

“Can you please explain what you meant about Robin?” The woman hesitated before shrugging to herself.

“Just that I thought he’d start bitching and moaning as soon as he heard I’d be joining his father in Paris. He’s not exactly my biggest fan and I figured he’d warn you about me as quickly as possible.” She really needed sleep. None of this made sense. Luckily Discorde seemed to be able to put together the clues her brain was too overwhelmed to process.

“You’re Selina?” Oh… Oh! That made sense, well sort of. Catwoman nodded and Discorde began cursing in a number of languages before slipping into planning a very detailed torture for Damian.

“I really like you.” Discorde just frowned at the woman but Ladybug could see a hit of pleasure at the praise. Maybe this wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“Suddenly I understand why Robin has such an issue with you.” She really hadn’t meant to say that out loud and cringed as Catwoman shot a glare at her.

“Because I’m a villain?” She spat the last word with contempt but Ladybug didn’t have the energy to process what that meant.

“No. Because he prefers to see the world around him in terms of black and white but you’re nothing but a gray area. Both in this persona with the way you bounce back and forth between what most people think of as good and bad, and your less than stable relationship with his father. You’re unpredictable, neither one thing nor the other, and he doesn’t like the uncertainty of it all.” Both Catwoman and Discorde were staring at her like she’d grown another head and she really didn’t know why.

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[mar1garden]

going batty part 17

masterpost

y’all mind if i *makes an uncreative akuma bc i wasted all my braincells remembering what my gi looked like with my sparring armor over it*

The moment he heard the crash, Damian was already in motion. Turning to Marinette swiftly, he blurted out a hasty excuse to allow her to transform: “I’m going to the balcony to see if I can spot Ladybug, if she’s still nearby. You check at ground level, she might be in helping civilians or something.”

He turned his back as soon as she nodded, climbing up to her balcony with practiced speed. He didn’t make a show of looking around; instead, he focused on what he could tell of the akuma from this distance. It didn’t appear to be inhumanly large, which was good. Fighting an opponent your size is almost always easier.

As he began to look more closely, maybe see if he could determine a fighting style or weaknesses from this distance, Ladybug popped up behind him. She nodded grimly to Damian, holding out a small box.

“Damian. You have proven yourself trustworthy and brave. I need your help. This is the Miraculous of the Black Cat. It has the power of Destruction. Will you use this power to assist me in this battle and return the Miraculous afterwards?”

“Of course.” Damian opens the box and a bright, glowing orb flies out and arcs in a lazy circle around him.

“Geez, Bug, not giving me any time to rest here, huh? Suit up, kid. I have a feeling my old kitten’s not going down without a fight,” Plagg drawled, coming to rest on Damian’s shoulder. “Claws out to transform, claws in to transform back, and Cataclysm to use you power. Five minute timer after you use it, then you’ll transform back automatically.”

Damian nodded resolutely, slipping the ring onto his finger. “Plagg, claws out!” A green light flashed over him, and suddenly, where before he had worn business casual clothing suitable for someone fifteen years his senior, Damian now wore a loose cotton getup with flexible armor over the top. His suit was breathable, noticeably not skin-tight, and sensibly armored. His ears weren’t the leather of his predecessor; rather, they were soft cotton with lime green stitching visible around the edges. His tail, loose and waving behind him, looked rather like a black belt.

He plucked a staff off his back, looking it over. An idea flared in his eyes, and he gripped the staff on either end as if to break it in half. He snapped it in two, and a chain formed between the two halves. He grinned, the nunchucks glowing a faint green around the top and bottom of either half. He put it back together into a staff before turning back to Ladybug.

“Alright. I think I can get the hang of it as we fight. From what I saw, he looks regular sized, but he might be deceptively powerful.” Ladybug nodded at him.

“Let’s find a closer vantage point and observe before we go in, see if we can figure out his powers or weaknesses.” The two hopped off the roof of the bakery, approaching the akuma as best they could without garnering attention.

Watching from a rooftop, Ladybug and Damian saw the akuma. He was an ashen gray, cracks showing up and down his body. He drifted along the street, not quite walking but not quite floating either. His feet bumped listlessly against the uneven road, and he flared red, growling at the ground. Molten, glowing red seeped from the cracks in his body, seething towards the stone that he had hit. It quickly melted, the spot where he had been focused clearing to reveal a singed hole.

Gasps went up from the couple civilians on the street. He looked up, gray once more, to see a woman with her arm around a taller woman, pulling her back from the akuma.

“Aww, young love. How sweet,” he crooned, his eyes beginning to darken. A faint glow grew within him. “Tell me, are you aware that you’ll inevitably break each others hearts? That you’re going to hurt each other in the worst way imaginable?” He threw his hand towards the couple and his lava began to shoot in their direction. “Love is a lie. Better to die by my hand than by hers!” he offered cheerily.

Before the lava could reach the couple, Ladybug was gone from Damian’s side. He couldn’t stop her. She dropped down in the line of fire, twirling her yoyo and stopping the lava from progressing any further. She dispelled it almost as quickly as he’d drawn it back.

“My Lady!” he chirruped with clearly false enthusiasm. “Are you here to return what is mine? Or do I need to show you how much betrayal hurts?” She growled, showing an immense amount of restraint by not having cut him in half yet- in Damian’s humble opinion, of course.

“You wanna talk betrayal, cat?” she spat at him, venom dripping from her words. “You were supposed to be my partner! You were supposed to support me and fight alongside me! Instead, you ignored battles to goof off or flirt! Do you know how many civilians died because of you, you stupid cat? Even though they came back, that pain sticks with you! Even though you didn’t directly cause their pain, you are the reason it was as bad as it was! Not to mention the sexual harassment. Do you even know the meaning of the word ‘no’, you dimwit? You put me in therapy. Not Hawkmoth, not my bullies, you. You were supposed to be the person I could trust above all else, but instead you just turned out to be another bully.”

With her every word, he had been glowing a brighter and brighter red. Damian realized too late that he had been goading her into making him angry. Just as he began to call out to her, buckets of lava spewed forth from the ex-hero’s hands.

taglist (closed): @bi-bi-papillon @fiendsangelical @copicmarkersniffers @kittycatwowmeow @fristi37 @mylife-demonstrates-murphys-law@myblacknightworld @magica-est-in-aerem @sassy-spocko @noirdots @captainmac6 @meep-by-boredom @shaismall @ladybug-182 @rikku052 @wisegirlrose @corabeth11 @dramatic-squirrel @mlbchaosqueen @kristycocopop @zalladane @fertileleaf @echpr @pr-y-sha @bigpicklebananatree @simplysslytherin @nixadmos @mandy984 @bluerosette23 @jardimazul @ladylucina28 @elmokingkong @emjrabbitwolf @lozzybowe @erick-rose99-stuff @finallyaniguana @renscorpio @littleacecutie

[charliejrogers]

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) - Review & Analysis

Here’s a non-controversial statement: 2017’s Wonder Woman is a legitimately great film (if you discount the last act’s boring battle). A fun, yet emotional anti-war tale with a great period aesthetic. What elevated it from greatness was its starkly bleak reveal that Ares does not start man’s wars, but he merely gives humans ideas for how to instigate them. Ultimately, it is Man who holds responsibility for our own destruction, and despite this Wonder Woman still chooses to help us poor creatures. Cool themes, cool hero, cool movie.

Wonder Woman 1984 shares the main character from its 2017 forerunner, as well as its dedication to recreating a particular period aesthetic (here the 1980s), but the brilliant writing from the first film is gone. The main themes are essentially… “be careful what you wish for” and “winners never cheat; cheaters never win.” Not the most grand and interesting follow-up to the prior film’s genuine insight into human nature.

But that’s OK. I’m really not sure why this movie is getting so much flak online. If DC’s recent prior history with filmmaking should have taught us anything, it’s that 2017’s Wonder Woman was a fluke. Remember that this is the same studio that brought us the outstanding climax to Batman vs. Superman where one grown man learns that another grown man’s mother is also named Martha. Oh, and did we all just forget that Justice League is one of the worst movies we have all collectively ever seen?

So let’s not be too hard on WW84 for not meeting the quality of 2017’s Wonder Woman. Few comic book movies can. In the more fair comparison to other movies in the DCEU, it sits below Shazam! and Aquaman, and just a smidge below Birds of Prey, but certainly above Suicide Squad, and then literally leaps and bounds over every other movie they’ve made.

Let’s start with the good. Honestly, despite my gripes about the themes of the movie not being very profound, I found the story to be interesting. The movie centers around Diana Prince (Gal Gadot in her role as an archaeologist for the Smithsonian and not as Wonder Woman) stumbling upon an ancient stone whose inscription invites people who hold the stone to make a wish. No one takes it really seriously at first, so two people make wishes without thinking they could come true. The first person is Diana herself who wishes to bring her boyfriend (whom she only knew for about a week, mind you) from the dead. As a reminder from the first film, her boyfriend Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) had died nearly 70 years prior to the start of this film in a dramatic, sacrificial, world-saving act. Apparently, Diana hasn’t moved on at all from the 1910s and still considers her short-time lover to be her forever lover. She’s not really a human and did not grow up a human, so I think we can forgive her for not moving on… but it is weird to imagine that Diana somehow works at the Smithsonian (without going to college? Or did she?) without developing any friends or interest in life. Wouldn’t she have moved on... like a little bit?

Anyways, she wants her boyfriend back, and that’s wish #1. Wish #2 comes from new character Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig… who I am shocked to find is 47 years old! She looks fantastic and far younger in this film). Were Barbara a man, the way she is treated by her colleagues would put them in the stereotypical role of a future school shooter. Barbara is a brilliant gemologist for the Smithsonian, but goes completely unrecognized for her brilliance. She is shy and unconfident, and subsequently people frequently forget that they have even met her. Add on to that the fact that she has to work in the same office as Wonder Woman, and her loneliness and subjective feelings of unattractiveness increase as male employees drool over Diana while they ignore and mock Barbara. Therefore, we would forgive her for having a chip on her shoulder. Yet, for all this, Wiig avoids playing her as an angry, emo goth. Barbara kinda has this air about her of “Well, this is just how life is, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.” Given the character’s lack of self-confidence and lack of social grace, it at times seemed like Wiig was just reprising her old SNL character, Penelope, the socially awkward one-upper. But that’s not fair to her character. Wiig portrays Barbara with an earnest goodness to her. She’s one of those people who when allowed to talk one-on-one proves to be more eloquent and interesting than you could have imagine. Far from being angrily envious of Diana’s confidence and beauty, she’s more sadly jealous. Naturally, then, she wishes on the stone to be more like Diana… unaware that this wish might have some unintended benefits.

But then, there’s a third key character to the film (and a third wishmaker), the main villain Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal). I cannot tell you if this was a good character or not… and I cannot tell you whether the imperfections of the character are more due to the film’s writing or Pascal’s performance. Lord is another loser, and like Barbara, his “loser” status is the result of being a victim of America’s prejudicial attitudes. But whereas Barbara fell victim to sexism, Lord falls victim to racism. Hispanic in origin, Lord grew up in America with an abusive father at home and racist classmates at school. Beaten down from an early age, all he wants in life is to make a name for himself, to prove he’s not a loser. In a clever twist, Lord (the person who originally ordered the wish stone to come to America before it was confiscated by the FBI and sent to the Smithsonian for analysis) does not simply use the stone to wish for riches and power… he wishes to BECOME the stone. That way, he can get nearly infinite wishes so long as he can con the people around him to wish things for him.

The scenes of Max Lord as a flawed human who just wants to not be a loser show Pascal giving a great performance as a human being at the ends of desperation. The scenes of Max Lord the supervillain are… not good. In a long string of over-the-top, eccentric, hyperconfident supervillains in countless superhero movies, Pascal’s Lord is just not interesting. In fact, he is literally a weak character. He cannot fight for himself as his body is crumbling (a side effect of wishing to become a stone). Furthermore, his initially grounded motivations to finally be respected and successful seem to be just utterly lost by the end of the film when he just wishes for world chaos… only then to turn around and declare undying love for his son. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Failure to understand a character’s motivations casts a shadow over Barbara’s character arc as well. It is explained that the wish stone takes something in return for granting someone their wish. So as payment for bringing Steve Trevor back to life, Diana loses some of her strength. Still… this strains to fully explain why Barbara, after gaining Wonder Woman-like strength, turns into a walking humanoid cheetah (complete with bad CGI like she walked straight out of the cast of 2019’s Cats.) Like I get that she lost some of her humanity and morality in exchange for strength… but Cheetah girl seems like a little much. And though initially it is fun to see Wiig get to play Barbara as a confident and sexy woman who fights back against the patriarchy, the movie (I think) unfairly pushes her into the villain role. In my opinion, she should be treated as a tragic character, something akin to a Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, as her villainous tendencies are not really her fault. She literally had the part of her that cares about other humans taken away from her when she naively and innocently wished to be like Diana. Instead, the movie has Diana lecture her that she shouldn’t be so evil. She literally can’t, lady! Stop being so hard on her! In any case, it seems like a failed opportunity to generate sympathy for a genuinely likable character who tragically becomes a villain not through her own accord.

That failure to create genuine emotions extends to Diana’s story as well. As soon as Steve is resurrected, you know by the movie’s end he will be dead again. There’s no other way this movie ends. Yet, the fact that Diana is so stubborn in refusing to give up Steve makes it hard to sympathize with her. She is simply being selfish, making her eventual decision to say goodbye to Steve feel more like her finally doing the right (and obvious) thing, and not some heartbreaking decision. Also the fact that seemingly Diana hasn’t even tried to move on in the last seventy years doesn’t help matters for me: it more just feels like a lazy way to write in Chris Pine’s popular character into the second movie. The move certainly weakens the idea of Diana as a strong, independent woman by making her emotionally stunted and crippled for the last 70 years. It would have been a much more satisfying (and daring) choice if Diana had moved on from Steve emotionally and had to deal with the guilt of having brought him back by accident, particularly if he didn’t want to go back to being dead. Instead... Steve knows he has to go back and Diana feels no guilt keeping him around. It’s weak character writing.

These poor choices I contrast with two of my favorite TV shows that demonstrate perfectly how former lovers who miraculously reunite eventually have to say goodbye for good: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Jane the Virgin. For risk of spoilers to those still watching Jane, I’ll stick to the Buffy example. There’s an episode of Buffy (though technically an episode of the spin-off show Angel) where Buffy and her vampire lover Angel are fresh off their recent and tumultuous break-up, but through some dark magic that neither seeks out, they are given the opportunity to live a life where Angel isn’t actually a vampire and their love can be fully expressed. Yet, in the end, Angel opts to give up his life as a human and return to being a vampire. The choice is so moving precisely because (due to circumstances I cannot begin to explain) in choosing to give up his life with Buffy, he saves her life as well. Whereas in this movie, Diana choosing to let Steve go is really just her choosing to undo her choice to essentially cheat death. Angel, however, is actively choosing to give up a life of happiness he never wished for but was just given on a silver platter, and will now live in a world where his lover will never know his selfless act and will go on hating him. It’s heartbreaking in a way Wonder Woman dreams it could be.

And not to get too Buffy-heavy… but that show also deals with the emotional consequences of being ripped out of the afterlife much better than this movie. Steve just kinda unrealistically adapts to being alive again in all of five minutes. If, perhaps, from the start he questioned why he was there and hinted to Diana that something was wrong, the emotional aspect of this story, the doomed nature, the feeling of “this is the last chance we’ll have together” could have made this a stronger movie. I wanted to find myself crying when Diana finally says bye to Steve, and I was no where close to that. Gal Gadot shares at least part of the blame. She’s a pretty wooden actress. It’s something I noticed in 2017’s Wonder Woman, but in that movie she was supposed to be a fish out of water so her stilted presence seemed appropriate. Here, where she’s supposedly become an assimilated American for 70 years… it is just bad acting.

Anyways, another aspect of this film that was lacking were the visuals. The bad CGI of Barbara as Cheetah is just scratching the surface here. The opening flashback to Diana as a girl performing in the Amazonian Olympics just… looks fake. I don’t know. The reliance on CGI over practical effects is clear and distracting. It’s only worse in the subsequent scene where Wonder Woman stops a theft from occurring in a mall. The effects are just bad. Like passable for a film in the 1990s or early 2000s. But for a 2020 blockbuster, it’s noticeably bad. And already the scene where Wonder Woman is running towards the camera with a weird green screen behind her seems to have become a meme given just how weird it looks.

And yet, for all the negatives I’ve listed, this is a decent action flick. There’s even some nice set pieces like the one in the White House. As little as I liked Max Lord as a supervillain, I found figuring out the other half of each of his various Monkey Paw wishes (i.e. the downside of each wish) to be clever. unfortunately, each of the main three characters fails to have a story line that takes full advantage of their emotional potential, or they are just poorly acted. With few exceptions, the film eschews “fun” in favor of “seriousness.” Really the only exception is, as in the first film, the chemistry between Pine and Gadot. Their chemistry makes for some of the movie’s best moments, like when Wonder Woman makes the plane they’re flying in invisible and the pair flies over fireworks on the fourth of July. But that sense of whimsy in their scenes is largely absent from the rest of the film. This is particularly true of the action sequences, especially those at the climax. The seriousness makes them rather boring. Really, I’m comparing these action scenes with the last half hour or so of Birds of Prey which really set the bar for superhero movie fight choreography. So in the end, it’s overall an OK movie. It certainly isn’t as bad as others make it out to be, but I cannot believe I’m saying this… in 2020 if you’re in the mood for a fun superhero movie, you’re better off with the Suicide Squad sequel than the Wonder Woman sequel.

**/ (Two and a half stars out of 4)

[nerdpiggy]

Tell us about your ocs!! I'm genuinely curios bc of the tags

[ID: Meme of Hatsune Miku smiling. Top text reads "Thanks for sending me a message". Bottom text reads "You're very cute and I will be replying to you".]

Robin "Robbie" Fuller: The character i play in a DND campaign.

they/them pronouns. they're nonbinary and asexual and don't care to label their romantic attraction.

They're 22 years old and 5'9" (175cm)

Their birthday is November 12th. they're a scorpio

They started off as a Mundane MOTW character and they're now a level 7 warlock in DND. They're a human

They live in a small coastal town in massachusetts called Holyoak and they go to the local college to learn culinary. They live in a single dorm and they have a cute widdle black cat named Chickadee

One day (for various reasons) their life was flip-turned upside down with discovering the existence of monsters, portals, different dimensions, and rifts in spacetime

One of the reasons for them discovering all of this was them meeting a man named Thomas who's a human from a different dimension called the Palisades. He's a well-known Judge over there. (Thomas is @bevtastic 's character)

Robbie gets an offer to join the Interdimensional Defence Agency (IDA), says fuck it and accepts, and Robbie and Thomas stay friends by virtue of their similar jobs.

Robbie is tasked to go to a different dimension (A half-medieval half-wild west desert town called Argyle) to stop a threat that was growing there. Threat turned out to be a massive mind-controlling dragon who wanted revenge for the rest of her dragon species that were killed off by medieval "heroes". Robbie was not cut out for this as their first job. They (with help) subdue the dragon eventually but not before she burned down multiple towns including Argyle to a crisp. Robbie feels very bad about this.

Robbie, Thomas, and the rest of the party receive a mysterious letter leading them to an old abandoned mansion in Holyoak and get roped into a rescue mission to save Thomas's old friend Percy who has apparently been bodysnatched by a bad guy and trapped somewhere for what felt like thousands of years. This is the arc where we switched from Monster of the Week to DND, and Robbie gets connected to a nature deity Adelaide through a purple necklace. They also get a familiar, who is an owl with pitch-black feathers and glowing yellow pupilless eyes that Robbie named Mr. Muffins.

Robbie and Thomas become very good friends :)

Thomas dies.

Robbie goes to the Palisades to find out what happened to him. Turns out he wanted to reveal the secret of interdimensional travel to the public and work to make it open, free, and safe. The people in charge did not allow him to do this by legal means so he aimed to do it illegally, which was when he was murdered by a group of bandits.

On top of that, one of the main reasons why he wanted to reveal the different dimensions is because there is a HUGE interdimensional threat coming our way, and we need to act on it if we want to live.

Percy finds Robbie and asks them to help with this threat, who apparently is a singular person named Siris that has been locked in a prison for thousands of years and somehow got out. Robbie doesn't have much of a choice and accepts.

In the Palisades, there are monsters called Behemoths. they emerge from people who get bitten by a behemoth or who touch the black tar-like substance that runs like rivers in certain areas of the Palisades. During a battle, Robbie gets bitten by a Behemoth, and now they're a candidate for Behemism (aka turning into big giant monster syndrome).

Because Robbie has Behemism and Siris is part of the reason for Behemism existing, they're mind roommates now. Robbie and Siris do not get along very well.

There's more to Robbie but this is their main backstory!!!

[ID: a drawing of Robbie holding a chrysanthemum. They have short pink curly hair, and they're wearing a yellow floral button-up and a purple necklace. They have bandages on their freckled face and they're looking down at the chrysanthemum with a neutral expression.]

Emile Azarel: A character i play in a different campaign that does MOTW.

He/him pronouns, he's trans, demisexual, and demiromantic.

He's 19 and he's 5'3

He doesn't know his actual birthday but the day he celebrates is January 23rd

His MOTW class is The Expert. He's a fire genasi

He was born in central Russia but he doesn't know his parents well because when he was ~8 months old there was a big monster attack that unfortunately killed his parents. A monster hunter named Avery Azarel found Emile, took him in and raised him.

Emile learned to hunt monsters with Avery and the two traveled around together as monster hunters.

Eventually Emile wished to have a solid place to live rather than constantly traveling, because he wanted friends. He found a town in the pacific northwest called Salmon Peak that had everything he wanted: Russian culture, a fairly small easy-to-get-around layout, and some very weird mysteries going on. (Just because Emile wanted to settle didnt mean he wanted to stop monster hunting!)

He moved to Salmon Peak and has met a bunch of new friends! He's also learning more and more about the town, which is turning out to be somehow even weirder than he expected.

Emile is a very sweet, polite boy, but considering the fact that he's only ever been around one person mainly for his entire life, he has a bit of a ways to go when it comes to interacting with people. The monster hunting life means that when there's a monster, you kill it and that usually solves all your problems. Emile has transferred this logic to people as well (if they're a monster, kill em!) and he's learning through friend influence that maybe human lives are a bit more sacred than that.

His favorite color is blue because he loves the sky!

A lot of people underestimate his skills because he's little and looks very young, but he is a very good monster hunter. Because of Avery (the best monster hunter in the biz), his last name has a bit of a reputation.

Emile is blind, autistic, and has vitiligo!

I have much more planned for Emile but I can't say it here because it is MAJOR spoilers!

[ID: a drawing of Emile walking forward. He is wearing a blue shirt with stars on it, blue jeans, a fluffy white jacket, a belt with a star on it, star earrings, a moon necklace, and black shoes. His blue hair is swaying behind him and he's holding a white cane with a red tip. He's smiling slightly.]

Avery Azarel: Emile's parent! I've not played them as a character yet but I've made a character sheet for them.

they/them pronouns. They're agender, aromantic, and pansexual

their age is (???) and their height is 5'7

they have a birthday but nobody knows when it is

Their MOTW class is The Chosen. they appear human

They're widely considered the best monster hunter in the biz. Their name is well-known and they're requested for help all around the world

Because of this, they're constantly traveling and having a house would not make sense. They just pack their things, stay at motels/hotels/etc., camp in the woods and move around to wherever people need them.

Since they've been pretty much everywhere, they always seem to know at least one person from each town. They never seem to get too close to anyone, though

They are fluent in many different languages!

In the past they were paired up with another monster hunter and they made a great duo. That was a couple decades ago; they go solo now.

Years ago, an unexpected and incredibly destructive monster rampaged a small town in Central Russia. Avery came as fast as they could (they were nearby in the area) but they still couldn't finish off the beast before it tore the whole town to shreds. Dozens of homes were crushed, but surprisingly most people survived, with the exception of a couple of people who died under the rubble. Avery felt awful (this was their biggest failure in a while), and as they were searching through the rubble for any more casualties they found little baby Emile, miraculously unscathed. They took him in and raised him from then on.

Nobody, not even Emile, knows very many details about Avery's childhood, their family, their age, or really any information about them. (Emile has been trying to figure out Avery's birthday for AGES so they can celebrate, but Avery has refused to budge)

Their main weapon is 2 pairs of bolas! those are those chains with 2 balls on either end, usually made to be thrown at people's legs to restrain and trip them. they use the bolas both as restraining tools and as their main weapon, because i think weapons where you spin them really fast in front of you are cool

There's a scar over their left eye; whenever someone asks how they got it they always spin a different elaborate tale of an epic monster battle. Nobody knows which (if any) is the true story

there is a WHOLE LOT that I am leaving out if you couldn't tell. There's a huge chunk of their past that I'm leaving out because it's all a big bundle of spoilers. Someday I will be able to elaborate more on Avery!

[ID: a picrew made by djarn of Avery. They're smiling, their head is tilted slightly, and there's a scar over their left eye. Their hair is tied half-up half-down. They're wearing a black shirt with "òwó" on it and a blue jacket with an aromantic flag pin and a pansexual flag pin. the background is an agender flag.]

These are my main OC's! I have more (Orion, Nottwyrm, "Noodlearms", etc.) but these 3 are the main ones that I post about. :3 thank u for asking!!!

If you have any questions about any of my characters I always welcome asks!!! 💖

[chronicallylatetotheparty]

Two Gods, One Braincell Ch.6 Blessed Blade

Summary: Quest Complete!

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Kagami glared at the intricate lattice of glowing green symbols that hovered over the entire city. Web-like strands reaching down, connecting to every resident. The curse circle was directly over the hall of judgement slightly off the city center. For kilometers around tilled farmland lay barren.

Adrien was trying very hard not to be smug. "So, what do you think?"

"I think we have our work cut out for us." She scanned over the phrasing of the curse, noting subtle variations as the wording repeated itself in multiple languages. "Couldn't make it easy, could you."

"Where's the fun in that?" Adrien grinned, pleased with Kagami's difficulty in breaking his curse despite that being the goal of this quest.

Glancing at Nino, Kagami saw him indecisively switching from being proud of his best friend's work one moment. To bordering on terrified of the lingering rage emanating from it the next.

Nino pointed at the third seal drawn around the curse circle, which prevented it from being broken on any day of the year save one. Today. "Was that really neccessary?"

Adrien shrugged, almost achieving the air of nonchalance he sought. "I was angry."

Kagami's absent scales prickled as Nino shuddered. She still wasn't sure what was more impressive. That Adrien could cast such a complex curse in the heat of the moment. Or that the mortals down there did something that made Adrien angry. Adrien didn't get angry.

It was quite frustrating if Kagami was being honest.

"Alright," Kagami rolled her neck and stretched her arms. "Here's the plan."

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The priests' offerings smelled of hypocrisy and corruption. Nino wrinkled his nose, covering half his face with a sash to keep most of the smell out. That done, he made himself visible above the desecrated altar.

"Mortals!" Nino boomed. "Your penance has been found... wanting."

He knew Adrien would've made a more dramatic entrance but this was just as effective. Judging by the way most of the priests scrambled back, dropping their tools to the ground. All except one who lifted incense that burned with narcissism in Nino's direction.

With a flick of his wrist Nino's hexagon knocked the offensive stench out of the priest's hands.

"However... through no virtue of your own the Great Dragon Kagami has decided to show you mercy!" Lifting his arms heavenward Nino directed their attention to the sky. "Witness her clemency!"

Finishing his speech Nino vanished from their sight and rose above the smells that burned his nose.

Adrien grinned. "You make a good herald."

"No thanks." Nino sniffed his armor. "Ugh, I need a bath."

"Well you're in luck!" Adrien dumped shoulders with his best friend before the smell hit him. He sprang back, pinching his nose shut. "You weren't kidding!"

"I feel so loved right now," Nino deadpanned.

"Just..." Adrien waved him closer to the gathering stormclouds. "Stand over there. By destruction, that's worse than I remember it! Kagami's doing her thing."

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Far above the curse circle Kagami adjusted her grip on her tsurugi. Focusing all her power on her mother's blade. Picturing it as the eye of the storm.

She moved into the first stance. The smell of rain filled her nostrils, unreleased lightning charged the air and ran across her skin.

Slashing the wind she moved into the second stance. Her clouds rose higher than mountains, covering the sun. Lightning arced from cloud to cloud. Her heartbeat accelerating with the coming storm.

Again Kagami changed stances. Thunder roared with the voice of a dragon. With the tip of her blade Kagami wrote her name on the sky itself. Wind and rain and lightning burst from the kanji.

Raising her sword Kagami turned to face the city below her feet. Then she raced earth-ward. Her storm following in her wake.

The curse roared like a lion. Three consecutive circles bursting to life above its main body. Raindrops hung suspended in midair and lightning froze in its tracks. The wind raged above it but did not come down.

Only Kagami's blade sank into the first seal.

"I am the Great Dragon Kagami!" She announced, voice booming.

The first circle broke and her sword found the second. Wind howling as it battered the second circle.

"Only daughter of Tomoe the Unyielding Storm!"

Cracks spread across the second seal and it too broke. Lightning joined the wind in its assault. Kagami forced her blade into the third seal.

"Greatest sword master of Heaven!"

The final seal screeched in protest as it shattered. Rain fell past her, washing away part of the curse as it went. Wind shaking apart the glowing words. Lightning burning away its lines as it flashed. Still the curse roared in defiance.

"In my Name I break Destruction's curse!"

Kagami's blade sliced its core in half.

Far below the mortals rejoiced as rain quenched their empty fields after a yearlong drought. Some danced in relief, others brought out empty jars, children and adult alike opened their mouths and drank from the sky. Afterward some would say they saw Kagami through the clouds, scarlet scales shining in the flash of lightning.

Nino opened his arms and let Kagami's storm wash the stench from his armor.

Adrien sent a marble sized orb of darkness toward the hall of judgement. The great doors burst open, letting in the wind and rain. Letting the elements cleanse what the priests had tainted.

Kagami shifted out of her dragon form, a grin spread wide across her face. Kimono soaked through with her own rain.

"Tackling it head on, huh." Adrien smirked.

"It worked didn't it."

He nodded. "Impressive as always." Wiping his wet hair out of his eyes Adrien returned the grin. "The greatest sword master in Heaven, huh?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you deny it?"

"Nope! It's been millennia since our first duel and you've only gotten better." Adrien's eyes gazed at her with admiration.

Despite the chill of wind and rain Kagami felt heat creep up her cheeks. Strangely she didn't mind it.

"Gods, look!" Nino pointed down toward the temple complex.

A squad of guards were escorting the priests out of the temple to the cheers of the other mortals. Apparently, they'd also had enough of the hall of judgement being profaned.

"Oh, now they decide to act!" Thunder rumbled with Kagami's annoyance.

Adrien just smiled. "I dunno, Ryuko. Sometimes," he took a deep breath. "You need something to look forward to."

Kagami eyed him skeptically but she inhaled through her nose. There, buried under her own magic and the lingering stench of their transgressions, was the tentative scent of hope. "Hmm, I guess so."

"Either way the prophets and oracles will notice heaven is answering their calls again," Nino pointed out. "They'll need the guidance." He slumped as realization dawned. "That means I'll have to do it."

"Think of it this way," Adrien wrapped an arm around Nino's shoulders. "We all played an important role! I cursed the city. Kagami lifted it. And you get to make sure the mortals don't backslide!"

"Well..." Nino gazed down at the city. Going through the best ways to encourage these particular mortals. "Alya will relish the challenge, at least."

"That's the spirit!"

Kagami smiled, letting her storm calm down to a drizzle. (Didn't want to wash loose soil away after all that, now did she.) Storm gods, particularly dragons, usually had very little direct interaction with mortals. She preferred it that way. Dealing with most other deities was already exhausting. Having to interact with thousands of mortals that hadn't even hit their first century yet on top of that? No, thank you. "I don't envy you."

"Ha!" Nino held out his fist.

Beaming, Adrien did the same.

Raising an eyebrow in amusement Kagami met them with her own.

Light sparked from their three magics.

Letting go of Nino, Adrien pulled Kagami into a kiss. No less passionate for its short length. "Home?"

"Of course," Kagami intertwined their fingers. "We have to tell Mother the news."

She was thrilled to see Adrien turn red at her words. He buried his face into her shoulder. Which must've been awkward considering how tall he was. Adrien mumbled something against her kimono.

"What was that?"

Lifting his still red face, Adrien gave her a shy smile. "I'd like that."

Shifting in unison Kagami and Adrien raced across the sky. Scarlet dragon with black cat. Nino waving after them.

Once they were specks in the distance Nino lowered his arm. "Good luck with the council. Celestial paperwork is a devil."

@kagamiappreciationweek2020