#lila: killing makes you feel good so it must not be completely bad

[lostandbackagain]

"that's not magic lila that's murder"

kell is seeing the rest of his life flash before his eyes and it involves both a ring and bail money

[sunny6677]

LILA KINSONA UNWANTED GUEST RAMBLE!! Will be doing Deadly Smiles tomorrow lol

So for the opening scenes, Sunny is probably just listening to music and calmly humming to herself at the same time, but hears the noise and gets kind of anxious—but off screen she brushes it off as maybe her hearing things cuz of the noises in the kitchen. Then later on when she's alone at home and just watching TV—she'd just watching some random interesting Netflix show she just got into and seems pretty into it, only to hear the noise again and go completely quiet. She considers maybe going to check, and actually does, but she gets a bad vibe from the attic itself and decides to just leave it alone since it could have been anything. And then while writing a chapter for her book on her laptop later on—she hears the noise yet again, and is annoyed, but still a little more afraid than annoyed—and decides to look up what it might mean if you hear banging from your attic. She sees that it might just be the HVAC system, but also that there's a good chance it could be an animal in the walls. She holds off on asking for any help just to wait and see if the noise will go away—and then quickly dials an exterminator number not long afterward cuz shes too worried.

But later as she's sleeping that night, she's awoken by the sound of banging from the attic again—and hears the literal sound of growling, she gets more panicked and decides it might be an animal after all. She groans and almost just tries to force herself back to sleep, but remembers Skid, and quickly goes off in the middle of the night just to tell him not to go into the attic for a bit, which he sleepily agrees to.

The next day while Sunnys trying the first exterminator number she sees, Skid comes up to her, and she explains she's calling an exterminator because of the animal in the attic. But when Skid says it's his 'friend', Sunny gets both worried and annoyed because this means it must have been in the attic longer than she thought. She asks Skid more about it, but he's pretty vague, so she makes the vague suggestion of him maybe going to watch one of his movies for now or playing in his room. Which he agrees to, but at some point off screen gets bored of and goes to visit Pump. Sunny hears the noise again once he leaves—becomes more annoyed but is still anxious, and just groans before putting the phone down.

When Dexter finally arrives, she awkwardly greets him, kinda caught off guard by his odd appearance and asks if he's the exterminator. Which he confirms in his own eccentric way. Hearing that he kills cats, Sunnys like "..you—what?". Dexter dodges the question while Sunny just awkwardly laughs, and reluctantly let's him inside, but is kinda uncomfortable with his presence already and is internally hoping he'll be fast just so she won't have to deal with him much longer. And she just kinda leads him to the attic.

When Dexter gets attacked by Moloch, Sunny probably hears him while she's drawing something, and assumes that must have meant he found it but is kinda worried. She asks if he's alright out there. Receives a laugh from him in return, and awkwardly assumes that means he's fine—but is kinda anxious about it the whole time. She also calls Skid when she goes to check on him only to see a note left from him saying he's going outside, and Skid insists he's fine, but Sunny is kinda anxious anyway since she's not with him.

Noticing he's taking pretty long, Sunny decides to go check if he's okay just incase the animal was THAT big and is starting to overthink again (thinking it may have killed him or something). She gets the strange feeling she's being followed, and keeps glancing behind herself, but sees nothing—which she already does out of anxiety so she assumes everything must be okay at least. But then when she peeks into a room, she feels breathing from behind her, and sees the possesed Dexter. Sunny yells "Ho—HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE HELL?!" while nearly falling onto the floor, but quickly forces herself up and scrambles away from him as he screams out. Sunny starts hyperventilating quickly and runs into a nearby room. She attempts to hide behind a couch—but he knocks that out of the way, having her in his sights. Sunny slowly gets up with a look of terror on her face, and an off screen horrifying chase scene ensues between Sunny and Possesed Dexter after.

When the kids get back home, Sunny is screaming and actually kinda crying while Moloch is squeezing her to death. But she notices Skid once he calls to her, and tries to cry out to him, but is thrown across the room. Seeing his mom visibly distressed as she gasps for air and is literally lying on the ground from exhaustion—Skid gets kinda angy at this demon that 'isn't Moloch' and starts yelling at him—which only makes Sunny more distressed as she tries saying to run. At some point Pump gets confused when Skid insists he's not Moloch and tells him to turn his head around, which somehow works and gets rid of Moloch.

Sunny stares in shock, and when Skid asks if they can watch something, she doesn't even respond at first. Skid calls to her a second time, and she snaps out of it and only says 'yeah' before proceeding to ask about where he went and a bunch of other stuff and making sure he's not hurt.

And once she's fairly sure he's okay, she turns on a random channel for them and leans her back against the couch while closing her eyes. When Skid asks if it's Spooky Month, she pauses, and actually almost answers that it isn't—but decides not to and answers that it's 'Double Spooky Month', which the kids proceed to get excited over, and she just looks at them while letting out a sigh. And then proceeds to turn the channel they're watching off after cuz of the slight swearing./lh

[unoriginalmess]

Untitled Feralnette Fic Ch. 1

Hiya there anyone who happens upon this first chapter of this fic. I would like to start out by saying that this is my first fanfic ever. I've been wanting to write a fic for the miraculous fandom for a while but I haven't had any inspiration until I stumbled upon this glorious AU created by @bigfatbreak. I highly suggest checking out all of their posts about this au because they are hilarious and genius and about 100 other amazing adjectives that could be used to describe them and their posts. Anyways enough with my rant and let's get on with the fic. ⚠️Slight angst⚠️ ⚠️Swearing⚠️

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When Marinette got home after her and Luka's breakup, all she could do was cry. She wanted to be with him, but her Ladybug duties came first. If lying is a deal breaker for him, then maybe it was best that they ended it now while their relationship was still in its early stages. Still, she couldn't help but feel the loss of her first relationship. She ended up crying for a whole entire day. She just hoped that Hawkmoth(or Shadowmoth or whatever the fuck he wanted to be referred to as this week) wasn't feeling particularly akuma-y today, because she didn't know if she could bottle up all these feelings, even though the world is relying on her ability to do so.

Ugggghhh!! It has been exhausting having to be "happy and perfect Marinette" and "happy and perfect Ladybug" All. The. Time. She's also pretty sure that Hawkmoth had discovered the similarities in her personality as Marinette to Ladybug, and that's why she's been targeted by multiple akumas lately. She has had to have her emotions under control even more than usual. If only there was a way to get Hawkmoth to stop targeting her. Maybe she should just not give a fuck anymore. Haha as if! It couldn't be that easy! Could it?

The more she thinks about it the more it starts to make sense. If she just let herself go completely crazy as Marinette, she would be killing like 10 birds with one stone. She would get hawkmoth off of her trail, she wouldn't have to deal with having to hide her emotions all of the time, she wouldn't have to deal with the added stress of maintaining her perfect persona, she wouldn't have to deal with the stress of Lila's lies taking her friends away if she didn't have friends in the first place, and so much more stress would be taken off of her plate! It was perfect! It might hurt a little at first, but it's for the best in the end. She spent that night planning out her outfit for tomorrow, doing her homework, and going to sleep knowing that, in the morning, François Dupont isn't gonna know what hit them.

....

Adrien Agreste had been having a rough week. He had been abandoned on patrol by ladybug, been broken up with by his girlfriend, and was feeling completely and utterly alone. He knows that his lady has been feeling overwhelmed by her guardian duties lately, and that he 100% deserved that verbal lasting that kagami had given him but he couldn't help but feel this way. He was also feeling guilty about lying to kagami and leading her on for so long. After she broke up with him he took some time to assess his feelings for her and realized that he had more of an admiration for her than an infatuation. He definitely didn't feel the same way about her that she felt about him. She told him that she LOVED HIM, and he was so distracted (blinded) by ladybug that he didn't even process her confession. So, he was looking forward to Sunday morning. He cleared his schedule and on that beautiful Sunday morning, he did what he is only allowed to do on very rare occasions: sleep in. Or at least... thats what he had planned on doing.

When Nathalie had knocked on his door that morning Adrien was not in a good mood. He vaguely heard her say something about father wanting him downstairs in some amount of time for something involving a business partners child and some other robotic sounding words that his half asleep brain couldn't process completely.

"I have a cleared schedule this morning, Nathalie. What could father possibly want me for that is more important than my precious sleep?" He asked snappily.

"Your father wants you downstairs to welcome the new guest that will be living in the house for the rest of the school year. You have 15 minutes to make yourself look presentable and I suggest leaving the attitude upstairs," she half informed/half reprimanded him. As she walked away, Adrien reluctantly rose from his nice warm bed and went to go get ready with only one thought racing through his mind: Who could possibly be staying with them?

....

Felix Culpa was not looking forward to living at the Agreste mansion for the rest of the school year, but for their parents' sake they would do what they had to. It wasn't all for their parents either, they were also concerned about the strange "dissapearance" of Emilie (who was his aunt in all ways except blood relation) and about the treatment of Adrien since said "disappearance".

You see, Felix Culpa is the heir to the Culpa Fabric Empire. The Culpas have been the sole fabric supplier of the Agreste brand since the very beginning. Felix's mom Diana was best friends with Emilie since their college days. Diana and Emilie made the deal with the two brands because as best friends who are both involved in the same industry, it just made sense to have a business relationship with each other. Diana never really cared for Gabriel as a person, but she could tell that he loved Emilie more than anyone else in the world so she could tolerate him for the sake of her best friend.

When Emilie went missing, Diana was absolutely devastated and tried anything she could to find her. She invested in missing person ads as large as billboards, organized search teams, tried to aid the police in their search for her in any way she could, but there was no leads, no legitimate calls to the number on the billboards, and the search team came up empty handed. While she was doing all of this to try to find her, she couldn't help but be furious over the fact that Gabriel was doing nothing to help in the search. All he did was hole himself up in his oversized mansion and call it a day.

The last straw for Diana was when Gabriel tried to use the "grieving my wife" excuse to try to abuse their business arrangement. That day, she told him that the Culpa brand would no longer be associated with the Agreste brand and that after the new collection is released, he would need to find a new fabric supplier. She knew that the Agreste brand would take a huge hit from having sub-par fabric, but she never thought that Gabriel would try to make up for that fact by using Adrien as a walking mannequin and locking him up in the desolate prison that he calls a home. As soon as she realized that he was doing this she scrambled to find a solution.

That is how Felix ended up here, standing in front of the mansion they would be living in for the next 9 months in exchange for Gabriel getting back into the Culpa brand's good graces. Don't get them wrong, they were excited about being able to be in Paris, home of the most innovative fashion pieces in the world, and about being able to see their honorary cousin Adrien (who wasn't half bad to be around despite him having no backbone whatsoever when it came to anything involving his father) but dealing with Mr. Agreste was definitely one of the low points of this arrangement.

They decided to just get it over with and knocked on the door. It was opened by the man that their cousin affectionately referred to as Gorilla. They nodded a thank you to the man, remembering that he was a man of few words, and proceeded to the bottom of the staircase. Mr. Agreste stood at the top with a very tired looking Adrien a few steps down. Felix wasn't even slightly surprised that this is where he chooses to welcome his guests, looking down on people must give him some sort of power trip or something. It's almost as if he heard the phrase "It's over, Anakin, I have the high ground," and made that his own personal motto. Whatever, let him have the feeling of false power if he wanted it, Felix knows that they have all the power in this situation and they're sure that Gabriel knows it as well.

"Hello Felix," Mr. Agreste greeted them with the same amount of warmth in his voice as liquid nitrogen, "while you are staying in this house you will abide by my rules. Adrien will inform you of them and show you to your room. You will attend school with him in the morning and I'm sure that you already know that you must represent not only the Culpa brand, but also the Agreste as well. I will be in my office working, do not disturb me. Contact Nathalie with any questions that cannot be answered by Adrien." He finished his spiel and left to what Felix assumed was his office space.

"Hello Felix!" Adrien greeted him with as much enthusiasm as he could muster in his sleepy state. "Come with me and I'll show you to your room."

Adrien led Felix to their room and listed all of the rules of the household that they were expected to follow. And... wow. Felix could not believe that their cousin had to live like this. The only social interaction this kid gets is at school and fencing? Pre-approved outings only with people determined socially acceptable by Gabriel? And if he gets even one "B" he isn't even going to be allowed to go to school at all? Felix knew that the living situation was bad for Adrien but know the only question running through their head was: What did they get themselves into??

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And... thats it for chapter 1! Mostly background info at this point, but next chapter will be the class' reaction to feralnette and felinette meeting for the first time. I just want to say thanks again to @bigfatbreak for giving me the inspiration to write a fic for the first time ever. Feel free to leave constructive criticism, I'm always looking to improve, especially at writing since this is my first time posting anything I've written online, so I want to get better so that I can make better content for you guys, gals, and non-binary pals. If anyone wants to be tagged just let me know and I'll make a tag list for ya. :)

[starshine583]

New Girl on the Block (10)

(New update coming in and things are getting heated!!! I wonder how our lovely little group’s gonna handle it??)

Ch.1 / Ch.9 / Ch. 11

Chapter 10: Adrenaline Rush

Possible Schools:

Rosemary High

Skyline Academy

Angelwood Institute

Liberty High

Summerfield Academy

Clearwater Institute

A sigh passed through Adrien’s lips as he crossed out the last name on his list, matching it with the other failed attempts. He just didn’t understand. Why was it so hard to find Marinette’s school? All he needed to do was search for high schools in the area and ask the students at each school whether she attended or not. It seemed simple enough at the time, but now another week and a half has gone by, and he’s no closer to finding her than he was two weeks ago when he asked for her school name as Chat Noir. 

Adrien set his pencil down and rubbed a hand over his face. He could have sworn she said ‘Rosemary’ last time they talked, but that blonde guy insisted that there weren’t any new students there. Maybe he just hadn’t met her yet? No, that didn’t make any sense. School had already started by then. Adrien assumed the guy would notice if he suddenly had a new classmate. 

Ugh. If only he could visit her again.. Between patrol with his lady, akuma attacks, homework, and photoshoots, going out as Chat Noir to see Marinette was nearly impossible. He really needed to have a talk with Nathalie about getting more free time.

“Alya, Marinette is killing me!” 

Adrien glanced up from his paper- That’s right, he’s supposed to be working on his own school right now -just in time to see Lila wiping fake tears from her eyes as she walked into the classroom. Although they still had a good five or ten minutes before class started, she was the only who wasn’t currently seated at her desk, and judging by her greeting, Adrien was going to assume that she entered last on purpose.

“What!” Alya gasped, standing up from her desk to meet Lila halfway. “What did she do now?”

Lila sniffed and accepted the comforting hug that Alya offered. “She’s been sending me awful messages all week! Telling me she hates me and insulting me and that I should’ve just stayed in Italy where I belonged.”

Adrien shifted in his seat to hear the conversation better, a frown tugging at the corner of his lips. Another scheme to slander Marinette’s good name.. Why did Lila still feel the need to lie about her? The ravenette was gone, completely transferred to another school, too far to even breath about Lila’s fabrications. There was no reason to turn their classmates further against her. (if that was even possible at this point)

“She told you what?!” Alya blanched, pulling back to grab Lila’s shoulders. “I can’t believe her! wasn’t sabotaging the forms you needed to be class president enough? Why can’t she leave you alone!”

Adrien resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Now that lie had a reason to it. He knew first hand how thick those stacks of forms can be since he’s helped Marinette carry them a few times, and Lila was obviously too lazy or too unqualified (or both) to sift through all of that mess by herself. What Adrien didn’t understand about the lie, though, was why she had to drag Marinette into it. Again. Why not lie about feeling unwell? Or simply ask for time to adjust to the role that had practically been dumped onto her? Any of those excuses would not only have been easier to say, as they didn’t involve anyone but herself, but they probably would have been accepted just as wholly. So why? It was as though Marinette became a crutch for Lila, which he supposed made sense. Building onto a widely accepted lie would be much simpler than creating a million small lies, but it certainly came with a risk. For example, if Adrien were to, say, kick that crutch right out from under her, she would probably flounder around on the floor with no way to get back up again. 

This left Adrien with another important question: How was he going to do it? So far, his friends have been sticking to her like glue and taking in her words like they were given directly from the Bible. On top of that, Alya seems to have become Lila’s official guard dog. How was he supposed to work around that? Adrien couldn’t confront the brunette publicly, because Marinette was proof that that never ended well, and confronting Lila privately didn’t help either, because she would only blow him off again. No, he needed to focus on outing her to his classmates directly, but he also needed to be subtle about it. Which meant..

Which meant he’d have to beat her at her own game.

“That’s crazy!” Adrien piped up, plastering on a surprised and disgusted expression. “Can I see the texts?”

Lila and Alya turned to him, both equally shocked by his comment. He normally kept to himself during conversations about Marinette.

“Oh..” Lila blinked, gathering her thoughts. “I mean, of course! It’s just that.. they’re quite personal, you know.. She said some things that were close to home..”

“We completely understand.” Alya assured. 

“Completely,” Adrien agreed, “which is why I want to see how bad it is. Those texts can be considered harassment if you don’t feel safe.”

Alya frowned at him, but a spark arose in Lila’s eyes, one that was no doubt fueled by the thought of getting Marinette into trouble with the law. Adrien would never understand the hatred that Lila harbored for the ravenette, but he definitely knew how to use it to his advantage.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want her to get in trouble!” The brunette said with feigned concern. “But.. if you think it will help..”

She made a show of tentatively pulling out her phone and handing it to Adrien. He wasted no time snatching it from her hands and pulling up the texting app. If she was giving him the phone, she most likely had a series of fake texts to back up her story. (and they would be fake. Marinette was too nice to outwardly insult or bully others. Besides, she wouldn’t have the time even if she wanted to, what with her new school, homework, and fashion designs that she needed to tend to.)

Sure enough, he found messages upon messages of insults under the contact name “Marinette”. Things like “You’re only a model because of Gabriel’s pity and charity programs”, “You made our school’s reputation so pathetic that I had to leave”, and “They’ll find out soon that you’re too stupid to be a decent class rep.” were only the tip of the iceberg. Adrien noted the fact that there weren’t any comments about Lila’s looks specifically- she probably couldn’t think of any insults like that herself, since she was obviously so fashionable -but other than, the texts appeared to be authentic.

That is, except for the phone number.

Adrien slid further into his desk and pulled out his own phone to unlock it. A swift comparison between the two contacts proved not only that they had different phone numbers for Marinette, but that the phone number used for the harassing texts was actually the phone number that Adrien had for Lila. She must have texted herself, then deleted the doubles to make it look like a regular conversation between two people. Adrien had to hand it to her, it was a clever set-up. 

But not clever enough.

“Wow, this is awful.” Adrien declared, ensuring that both girls along with a few of their other classmates could hear him. “I’m going to text Marinette about this right now. Do you mind if I copy the number from your phone to text her, though? Some of my contacts got deleted a while back.”

Lila’s eyes widened, and panic briefly flickered across her features. 

“O-Oh, um- you really don’t have to do that-” She tried to say as she reached for her phone. 

Adrien pulled it back up with a smile. “Oh, but I want to! We can’t let Marinette get away with things like this.”

“Yeah, he’s right!” Alya eagerly agreed. “Let him talk to her. That should really pack a punch for Marinette.”

Although the comment was a bit odd, Adrien nodded along, because as long as Alya was on his side, this plan should work perfectly. 

“I’m typing in the number to call right now.” He announced, quickly punching in each digit. His only regret in that moment was that he couldn’t see Lila’s expression as he got closer to ‘accidentally’ outing her. However, the sheer panic in her voice was still enough to make his smile widen to a grin.

“No, you can’t!” She nearly shrieked, lunging over Adrien for her phone. If the class’ eyes weren’t on them before, they definitely were now. 

“Don’t worry, Lila.” Adrien said innocently as he pressed ‘call’ on the number. “I won’t tell her that you gave me her number.”

As expected, Lila’s phone immediately began to ring. He watched as the blood drained from her features, and she scrambled to turn off the device before it could finish the first ring. It was a decent move, in his opinion, but that didn’t stop the class from staring at her with a mix of surprise, suspicion, and curiosity.

“What was that?” Alya asked, leaning forward to help Lila get off of Adrien, “Was your phone ringing?”

“No, no! It was- uhm -” Lila let out a nervous, little laugh.  It’d been so long since she had to fight for her lies to stick that she must have forgotten how to lie on the spot. What a shame.

“That was just a small sound my phone makes when it turns off.” She blurted out. “I must have forgotten to charge it last night.”

Adrien pressed “end” on his call- because obviously he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Lila’s phone off -and glanced around the classroom to gauge their reactions. Those closest to the conversation were warily watching the scene unfold with furrowed eyebrows, doubt clear on their expressions. The farther ones, however, nodded along with what Lila was saying. They probably hadn’t heard most of the conversation beforehand and therefore had no reason to question her. 

“Oh,” Alya said, accepting the bullcrap answer as always, “that’s not good. Do you want to use my charger in case you need your phone later?”

Lila offered a sweet smile, stray bits of her confidence floating back to her due to Alya’s reassurance. “Ah, I’m fine. I wouldn’t want to trouble you or anythi-”

A soft rumbling shook the ground, causing the Italian girl to trail off. Adrien turned to the window, his breath catching in his throat as his thumb instinctively brushed over his ring. Was now really the best time?

In the distance, a cloud of dust was rising into the air. He’d seen enough- and done enough -to know that only the mass destruction of buildings could create such a cloud, and the mayor hadn’t informed them of any pre-planned constructions.

“Yes!” Alya cheered, leaping down the classroom steps. Leave it to her to be the only one excited about another akuma attack. “Finally!  It feels like we haven’t had an akuma in weeks!”

“Alya, wait!” Nino called after her. He always hated her little escapades. 

“Don’t worry,” Adrien said as he stood up, “I’ll take care of her.”

Right after I take care of the akuma.

~~~~~~~~

The little hands of Felix’s black wrist watch ticked away well past 12:30, reminding him of his frustrating failure to set a timer for their lunch period. How could he have forgotten? The notion had to be ingrained into his muscle memory by now. Get up, go to school, burn through the first few classes, set a timer to not waste time, and go to lunch. How did it slip his mind?

“I can’t believe I didn’t ask this sooner,” Allegra remarked as they exited the café, “but what happened to your guys’ faces? I’m pretty sure they weren’t that red before.”

Felix glanced towards Claude and Marinette, the excuse to his forgetfulness finally returning. He’d been in the middle of setting the alarm when he saw their tomato-colored faces in front of the Chemistry lab. The sight must have been enough to throw away all thoughts of setting his alarm as he asked what happened. Nevertheless, Felix still had time to copy down some notes before his next class, and that would suit him just fine for today.

“Oh, man, how have I not told you yet?” Claude snorted. “It was hilarious!”

Marinette let out a light, yet playful scoff next to him. “Define ‘hilarious’.”

The group shared a small chuckle, and Claude jumped into the story of how they- well, how he spilled their chemicals in class. It surely couldn’t have been as interesting as the brunette let on, but Claude always loved to be dramatic. He made voices for Marinette’s comments- which she jokingly took offence towards due to the unrealistically high pitch -and flailed his arms about while explaining how he poured the chemicals into a bag and mixed them. Claude even made a point to throw out his arms while mimicking the sound of an explosion when he got to the part of the story where the chemicals overflowed.

One of those arms happened to smack Felix in the shoulder, which easily brought a glare out of the blonde. If Claude was this energetic now, there was no telling how bad he was going to be during Allegra’s sleepover. In fact, the whole group was probably going to go overboard. Something about sleepovers tended to bring out the most outgoing side of a person, which was why Felix loathed them. He had to sit there and listen to everyone snort and laugh and be loud the entire evening without the comfort that he might be able to leave within an hour or two. It was torture, simply put.

And yet, he decided to go. All for the ludicrous thought that he might be able to ask Marinette more questions about her relations to Agreste and her old school once- or if -the night provided them a moment of privacy. The motivation itself was outright foolish if he were honest with himself. Even if he did acquire a “decent moment” to bring up the subject, she would most likely be uncomfortable talking about it, and dragging a person through the past that they’re deliberately trying to run from isn’t pleasant for anyone involved. That’s why he’s refrained from asking about it again so far.

Felix needed to find some other way to sedate his curiosity towards her. He did.. But how else was he going to find out why an aspiring fashion designer would run from the supposed affections of a top designer’s son? Felix guessed that it might be something like sexual harassment or another, equally disgusting treachery, but then what about the chest of gifts? Where her affections for the model had been clear? What type of fallout must one have with another person to risk their entire dream career just to escape them?

Felix shook his head slightly to push the thoughts out of his mind. He wasn’t going to barrage Marinette with question after question just to stop his mind from constantly turning when it probably wouldn’t stop anyway. Marinette was Marinette. A classmate of his that was kind, clumsy yet capable, overly-generous, determined, weirdly strong for someone of her stature, and a mystery in more ways than one when it came to the life she lived. That was going to have to be enough for him.

“You should have seen it, Allegra.” Claude said with a grin, pulling Felix back to the present. He’d somewhat forgotten that the brunette was even talking.

“It was like the whole bag of Phenol Red just went-”

A large crash erupted to the left of them, followed by a strong gust of wind that pushed them all off of their feet. Felix hit the pavement with a grunt, and Marinette landed on top of him a second later, sucking the rest of the air from his lungs. Screams pierced the air, disorienting him further- why were they screaming? What made the crash? How did it create enough wind to knock them over? -but Marinette sat up immediately. She turned to the source of the crash, tense and ready, as though she already knew what they were dealing with, and Felix couldn’t be more confused. Why did she look like she was about to fight something? (And why did he feel like she would win?)

“Do not be afraid!” A voice yelled over the crowds, drawing Felix’s gaze to a woman standing a few yards away from them. She was dressed in dark and light blues, save for her white elbow-length cloak and her white skirt that appeared to be split into several different pieces of cloth. “I’ve come to help! Not just you, but the world!”

Felix’s eyes widened, an entirely new form of terror taking hold of his body. This wasn’t.. This couldn’t be an akuma, right? She looked different than the ones he’d seen on the news, more human. If it weren’t for her white and dark blue mask and the large fan in her hands that seemed to be controlling the wind, he would have thought that she was a normal civilian merely passing by. 

“Our planets have been spoiled by the bigger companies for too long!” The woman continued, even though people ran as she spoke. “It’s time we take matters into our own hands!”

His mind screamed at him to run, to hide, to move, but he couldn’t. His entire being was cemented to the spot in fear of what might happen next. What if this akuma was dangerous? What if her powers possessed people like that Pharaoh themed villain? Or completely killed them like Stoneheart or TimeTagger? Were they going to be her first victims? What if it-

A harsh tug interrupted his reeling thoughts, and suddenly, Felix was back on his feet and running. Running behind Marinette who was pulling them to safety. 

“Hurry up, we don’t have much time!” She quietly called over her shoulder. “Let’s hide behind the wooden fence while she’s distracted.”

Felix had enough sense to look ahead of them, where a small, wooden fence that held the cafe’s menu was placed. It wasn’t hard to notice under normal circumstances, but how did Marinette think of hiding there while the akuma was right behind them? How was she not paralyzed by the very idea of being caught?

“I’m going to destroy some stores around here, but only to get the heroes’ attention!” The akuma explained as the group scrambled passed the fence and pressed their backs against the wood. “Once I have the miraculous, I will restore everything to its rightful place, I promise!”

Felix tried to slow his rapid, shallow breaths as he sank further against the fence. She was going to destroy buildings? How many? Were they going to get hit with the debris? Where were the heroes that he’d heard so much about? Shouldn’t they be doing something about all of this?

“What do we do?” Claude whispered, panic clear in his tone as well. None of them had ever seen an akuma attack before. Well, none of them except Allan, but he’d been watching through a store window a safe distance away.

“Should we call the police?” Allegra nearly squeaked, tentatively reaching for her bag to pull out her phone. “They help with stuff like this too, right?”

“No need.” Marinette said. She was on the left side of Felix now, staying close to the edge of the fence and carefully peeking around it. “The police have akuma alerts on their phones to tell them when attacks happen. They're already on their way, I’m sure.”

Felix stared down at her with furrowed eyebrows, completely baffled by the lack of panic in her demeanor. This was the same girl who stumbled and stuttered to ask him for a pencil during class! Yet here she was, taking charge and giving orders and speaking perfectly. It was like she was a completely different person! How was that even possible? 

“Alright,” The ravenette spoke, turning back to them with a deathly serious gaze, “I’m going to run out and get her attention. While I’m doing that, you guys need to run as far away from here as you can and find a good basement to hide in until this is over.”

“What?” The group practically gasped in unison. She wanted to face the akuma alone?!

“Marinette, you’re not going anywhere!” Allegra insisted. “It’s not safe out there!”

“It’s less safe if we stay here.” She replied, moving to step out into the open.

Felix grabbed her wrist to yank her back. What was happening right now? 

“Are you insane?” He hissed unintentionally. “You can’t go out there! You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“Yeah, she’s not after us.” Allan agreed. “Only the buildings. Let’s just all run out of here together.”

Marinette glanced back at the group. “But there are still people in those buildings. I need to lure her to an empty street or at least stall until the heroes get here. If I don’t, people are definitely going to get hurt or worse.”

Felix’s grip on Marinette’s wrist tightened. He hadn’t thought about the crowds of people who were running inside for cover, but even so, what would she be able to do alone? The akuma was a powerful being, and they were merely civilians in the crossfire. What’s stopping it from crushing Marinette beneath its boot at the slightest whim? Who’s to say the akuma would even listen to Marinette if she did get its attention?

“We’re not letting you sacrifice yourself for an extra second of time.” He told her. “Like you said, the police are on their way, which means the heroes will be here soon too. Let them handle it.”

A strange mix of urgency and frustration flickered across her features, and she tugged against his grip. “Felix, please, we don’t have time to argue-”

“I think I’ll start with this darling café.” The akuma crooned. “That should get some attention.”

The café walls crumbling apart was Felix’s only warning before the gust of wind made it to their little hide-out. It splintered the wood within seconds, and the group went flying, once again, into the pavement. 

Felix groaned as he pushed himself to his knees. How many times were they going to get thrown around? At least Marinette didn’t land on him this time.

Marinette.

The realization that Marinette was no longer with him washed over Felix like a bucket of ice cold water, and his gaze snapped upwards. He started to yell for her, but it was too late. Marinette was already on her feet, somehow recovering faster than all of them, and running towards the akuma head on. He could only watch in abject horror as she called out to it.

“Hey, airhead!” She yelled. “Do you really think this is the smartest plan?”

The akuma rounded on Marinette in an instant, and Felix sucked in a breath. No, no, no, no, what was she doing?

“My name is ‘Whirlwind’, thank you very much,” The woman snapped, “and I think it’s a brilliant plan. Do you think you can do something better?”

“Of course.” Marinette replied, crossing her arms. “If you’re already destroying buildings, why not go and destroy the big companies that you’re after in the first place? It’d be much more productive, don’t you think?”

Felix furrowed his eyebrows. Didn’t she say that she wanted to avoid public places?

Whirlwind hummed. “Well, yes, but with all of the major hotels and tourist spots, it’s hard to tell which buildings to destroy, and I don’t have time to look.”

“I’ll show you where they are.” Marinette offered. “Think about it, destroying a big, company building is sure to attract more attention than taking down a little café, right?”

Whirlwind narrowed her eyes as she thought it over, and a part of Felix desperately hoped that she would decline Marinette’s suggestion. A bigger part of him prayed that the police or the heroes or somebody showed up to stop this before Marinette went too far.

“Alright.” Whirlwind smiled. “I’ll take you up on that. It’s nice to see someone else interested in saving the environment.”

With a flick of her fan, Whirlwind gathered a gust of wind around Marinette, causing the ravenette to rise into the air. She then gave herself a gust of wind, which caused her white skirt to start spinning around her. If Felix wasn’t going pale with dread over what might happen to his classmate, he would have found the unique fashion choice to be humorous, as it almost reminded him of a box fan. 

Allegra let out a horrified shriek, one that rattled Felix to his bones. This was really happening. Marinette was really being carried off by some maniac in a costume. What were they going to do? What could they do? Gosh, where were the heroes?

Felix grit his teeth and forced himself to his feet. He couldn’t just stand there and watch her be kidnapped or he’d never be able to look her in the eyes afterwards.

That’s right, he told himself. The heroes were going to win, and she was going to be just fine. 

Those thoughts didn’t stop him from sprinting after the akuma, though, even as the trio called after him to stop, even as the akuma rose higher into the air, out of his reach. Marinette couldn’t do this by herself, and although Felix’s presence probably wouldn’t make much of a difference either, he’d be darned if he didn’t try to help. 

“Don’t worry,” He huffed, comforting himself more than her as he darted through alleyways to keep up with them, “I’m right behind you.”

Tag list:  @artbyknigit @athena452 @nickristus-dreamer @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @arsaem @abrx2002 @neakco @pawsitivelymiraculous @too0bsessedformyowngood @nathleigh @lusicing @officiallydarkgeek @all-mights-asscheeks @tbehartoo @woe-is-me0 @raeuberprinzessin @lazuli-11 @miss-chaos27 @trippingovermyfeet @sadpotatoondrugs @ladybug-182 @jaggedheart11 @marinahrasauce @i-need-blog-ideas @thewheezingbubbledragon @crazylittlemunchkin @unabashedbookworm @moonystars14 @sunflowers-and-mooncakes @2confused-2doanything  @magnificentcrapposts  @moonnette @nickristus-dreamer @vixen-uchiha @casual-darkness @luxmorningstarr @jjmjjktth​ @kaithehero @itsme1598 @theymakeupfairies @xjaccyx

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Lies

You guys ready for almost twenty straight minutes of Angstdrien Depreste? Neither am I.

Let's get into the third (chronologically the second) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Lies (Oh, I get what they did there).

We open with Marinette struggling to decipher the grimoire she inherited from Fu, before two of the Kwamis screw around and play a video about Adrien.

Jesus Christ... it hasn't even been an episode since she broke up with Luka, and the writers are already back to making her simp over Adrien again. And this part of the episode takes place during “Truth”, where she's still dating Luka. This is supposedly meant to show her conflicting feelings regarding both Adrien and Luka, but it just comes across as yet another joke about Marinette simping over Adrien because the writers have forgotten she has other interests outside of her hero life.

And here we go. The writers are going to go out of their way to make the audience feel bad for Adrien in this episode by showing how tough his life is. What do we see him do that is allegedly so exhausting? He models for another statue, goes to a photoshoot, and then goes to some drama class where he repeats some phrase (I think it's supposed to be a warmup, but it's never explained why he's there in the first place). That's it. This is his definition of an “endless day”? Oh yeah, his life must be soooooooo hard.

Adrien is a rich white boy who is the son of one of the biggest names in fashion across the world, has legions of fans, an honest education, and is also one of the most beloved superheroes in the city while not having to struggle with the same responsibility his partner has. But no, Adrien's life is much harder than anyone else who has suffered this past year. It's yet another trick the writers are pulling to make people feel bad for Adrien instead of criticizing his behavior. I'm sorry, but I find it a little hard to relate to someone whose biggest problems amount his diamond shoes being too tight.

Good lord, I'm not even a minute in...

So Adrien transforms into Cat Noir and heads off to patrol. Keep in mind that the first part of this episode takes place during the events of “Truth”, so we see how he reacts to Ladybug not showing up for patrol. He waits for a while before he starts, but not before leaving a message for his partner.

Now, this moment honestly could have worked. What doesn't make it work is the air quotes Cat Noir starts off with. If he had said something like that honestly and kept his feelings a secret, it could have shown he understands the burden Ladybug has to bear now that she's the Guardian, but doesn't want to worry her. The problem is that the way he phrased the first sentence coupled with the air quotes make it seem like he doesn't care about what Ladybug has to deal with now, and only wants her to spend time with him.

You think I'm being overdramatic or I'm just jumping to conclusions? In the very next scene, Cat Noir actually tries to see if Mr. Ramier is emotional enough to get akumatized into Mr. Pigeon again just so he can see Ladybug.

This is just... why? Why would any of the writers expect the audience to feel bad for Cat Noir here? It's one thing for him to miss Ladybug's company, which is natural considering how much time they spend together, but wanting to start a life-threatening situation just to see Ladybug just isn't cool. What makes this any different from Chloe causing a subway to go out of control so she can save it herself, or Lila intentionally akumatizing herself and working with Hawkmoth just because she hates Ladybug? If you can find a reason other than “because the plot says so”, I'll want to hear an explanation.

So Cat Noir goes to Le Grand Paris to drown his sorrows in alcohol with his favorite drink, a White Russian without the vodka and coffee liqueur. Also, instead of cream, it's skim milk. And speaking of Chloe, we see her get into a brief squabble with Sabrina over missing a bag she has underneath her shoulder, and Cat Noir gets excited again at the prospect of getting to fight an Akuma, but thankfully, the situation is resolved fairly quickly.

Ignoring how unheroic this makes this supposed “superhero” look, I have a quick question. SHOULDN'T CHLOE BE IN PRISON RIGHT NOW? She essentially committed treason against her country by willingly conspiring with a terrorist. I get that everyone in Paris was paralyzed at the time, but did Ladybug not tell anyone what happened? How is she not in trouble? Did her father pardon her or something? Is she not even going to do any community service? You would think given how much Astruc hates her, Chloe would be forced to face more consequences for her actions other than losing her Miraculous permanently. Hopefully, “Queen Banana” will shed some light on Chloe's situation, but I'm not exactly holding my breath on that.

But yeah, Cat Noir actually gets excited at the prospect at fighting an akumatized Sabrina, while ignoring how cruel Chloe's being to her, because I guess it's a day that ends with a “Y”. Remember when Adrien actually called out  Lila and compromised with her in order to get Marinette back into school? Good times.

Cat Noir keeps calling and leaving messages for Ladybug, but changes his mind as soon as he sees Kagami, because he has the attention span of a puppy looking for someone to play with. Adrien stares at his phone's wallpaper of Ladybug, implying he still has feelings for her, and is then informed by Nathalie that his fencing class with Kagami was moved back by an hour. In reality, it was a trick by Kagami to get the two to spend some quality time together.

They choose to hang out in the art room because, get this, Kagami has always had a passion for drawing. Of course! That explains why it's never been mentioned in any earlier episodes, not even the one where she attended the premiere of an animated movie, which is a similar form of art. It's almost like the writers wanted to have Kagami do something that doesn't involve swinging a sword around. It's a good reason, mind you, but maybe if it was foreshadowed more, I would be more open to it.

Kagami says that she loves drawing because “art never lies”. Because it's not like someone can draw something completely inaccurate to what's actually being depicted, much like a certain character who likes to make up stories of people she knows to get others to like her, right? Kagami also says that her mother doesn't let her draw because she doesn't think her art isn't good, even though she's blind. Because when it comes to parents in Miraculous Ladybug, they're either amazing people who love their children, or they're emotionally abusive pieces of garbage who make you wonder why they even had kids in the first place. There is literally no middle ground. Maybe some of the writers have daddy issues?

So Kagami decides to draw a picture of Adrien, but wants him to give her a more “natural” pose instead of the standard model poses he usually gives.

Okay, this scene is raising so many red flags, the dialogue might as well be in semaphore. Where the hell did this side of Kagami come from? Why is she so controlling and forceful all of a sudden? In fact, why is she so obsessed with Adrien being “perfect”? The two made jokes before in the past (Desperada), and even spent half of the Season 3 finale playing around with Marinette? Why is she now Little Miss Serious?

Also, Kagami is really overstepping boundaries with Adrien here. Like, to a seriously uncomfortable degree. I get she isn't good with social cues, but how can she not see how anxious Adrien looks while she forces him into a pose, all while saying how wrong he is for doing what he sees as “natural”? This is not what a healthy relationship looks like, and spoiler alert, this isn't exactly why they even break up at the end of the episode.

Before the two can kiss while they're actually at fencing practice, Adrien is forced to leave Kagami to help Ladybug fight Mr. Pigeon (which means the narrative basically gave him what he wanted for no reason), leading to the same scene where Ladybug almost kills him, while he jokes about how he likes how angry she gets, and she apologizes for something that wasn't her fault. Just remember, he flirts with Ladybug right after he left his girlfriend to join her for an Akuma battle. The same montage from “Truth” happens, only it's Adrien missing opportunities to be close with Kagami, culminating with the little Kitty Section concert that happened right before Luka got akumatized.

While the two wait for their rides, Adrien accidentally drops the charm Marinette gave him all the way back in “Gamer”, which Kagami picks up. When he sees an Akuma flying, Adrien soon heads off to fight him, saving Ladybug from blowing her cover. After the events of “Truth”, Adrien apparently heads to Prince Ali's birthday party (yet Rose isn't there for some reason), meaning the second half of this episode takes place immediately after the previous one, even though it's been established that Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth needs time to recharge.

After Cat Noir flirts a little with Ladybug again, he heads off to the party to meet up with Kagami. When he had to leave to fight Truth, Adrien claimed that he left something on the Liberty, which Adrien later claims was the charm Marinette gave him. Kagami soon realizes he's lying about something, and doesn't take it well.

There's a good performance from Kagami's voice actress here, and it's a nice parallel to Luka, who also feels a sense of betrayal when Marinette can't be honest with him. But this scene does tie into the problem with Adrien and Kagami in this episode, and I'll get into it towards the end.

Kagami storms off, and is immediately akumatized by Shadowmoth, turning her into Lies.

Like Truth, the design here is really forgettable. The design is all white and gives Kagami a haircut that looks like it belongs in The Jetsons, but that's it. The one thing I like about her is the way her powers work. Instead of going from victim to victim, Lies creates an energy dome that slowly grows and paralyzes anyone has lied before in the past, which is basically everyone who comes into contact with it. It's a pretty interesting idea, and it means that Ladybug and Cat Noir have to rely more on strategy while avoiding any contact with the dome.

Adrien transforms into Cat Noir and charges into action, with Jagged Stone offering to help out.

I don't think you can say the same for your family, can you, Jagged?

Cat Noir tells Jagged to get to a safe place, but much like his one night stand with Anarka, he refuses to pull out, so he gets paralyzed by the dome, along with everyone in the building.

Ladybug meets up with Cat Noir and immediately summons her Lucky Charm, a remote control drone. Since it hasn't lied, it can go into the dome and be used as surveillance while Cat Noir distracts Lies. While it seems like nobody inside the dome can touch Lies, Ladybug realizes that Fang, Jagged Stone's pet crocodile, hasn't lied either, so she uses the drone to lure him out of the building.

Cat Noir thinks of a way to distract Lies by doing what he always does to increase the tension.

You know, I thought of a little game we could play. Why don't we count how many times Cat Noir sacrifices himself this season? So far, the Cat Noir Self-Kill Counter is at 1, but I'm guessing it will be higher the longer this season goes on.

So while Lies is distracted by Cat Noir's unconscious body, Fang runs over and breaks her corrupted object, Marinette's charm. So after using Miraculous Ladybug, Ladybug runs over and, for good reason, I may add, scolds Cat Noir for recklessly sacrificing himself yet again.

You know if this plan failed, not only would Shadowmoth get your Miraculous, but Ladybug would be all alone, you idiot! And we're supposed to find this reckless endangerment funny!? Seriously, Ladybug smiles at Cat Noir's stupid little quip as he still flirts with her right after he got into a fight with his girlfriend.

The next day, Adrien apologizes to Kagami, but she says she can't trust him, not as a boyfriend, and not as a friend either. And here is the problem with the Adrigami breakup. Like with the Lukanette breakup, it chooses to focus on one detail instead of the other, and glaringly obvious detail. The episode is trying to say that the whole reason Kagami and Adrien can't work as a couple is because of Adrien keeping his life as Cat Noir a secret. In reality, both of them have problems that they need to work on before they consider dating. Kagami has shown herself to be a massive control freak in this episode because of her own vision of what Adrien is like, showing she doesn't respect his boundaries or beliefs.

And Adrien? Where do I begin?

Adrien clearly shows several signs that he hasn't moved on from Ladybug with how much he flirts with her, even before he and Kagami got together, and there's the fact that unlike Marinette who realizes how she can't have a love life, it doesn't feel like Adrien actually learned that lesson.

We are supposed to see Adrien focusing on his secret life as Cat Noir as the responsible thing to do, and that like Ladybug, he needs to prioritize being Cat Noir over dating. The thing is that this episode has only showed how he doesn't take any of the hero stuff seriously. Throughout the episode, he treats being Cat Noir as a fun pasttime, when it comes to craving Ladybug's attention to the point where he's just short of causing an Akuma attack out of desperation until he sees someone else to spend time with, constantly flirts with Ladybug despite how annoyed she can come across, doesn't understand any of the stuff she has to deal with now that she's Guardian, and will sacrifice himself all so Ladybug can do all the work for him. He doesn't care about anything unless he gains something in return. It doesn't matter if lives are in danger, he thinks his personal feelings are more important because his civilian life is sO hAaArRd.

At one point when we were all kids, we all wanted to be superheroes because we all thought the idea of having superpowers and the freedom to do whatever we wanted sounded awesome. But that's not what being a hero is. We never thought about the responsibility that comes with being a superhero. One of the main themes of superhero media that we all watched growing up was that they would help us to learn right from wrong, and that sometimes, personal sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and our feelings just aren't that important in the grand scheme of things. Whether we learned this lesson from Superman, Spider-Man, Sailor Moon, the Power Rangers, or even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, what matters is that by the time we reached the age of these heroes, we would have a similar moral compass so we would understand why these heroes would make some of the choices they did, and we would be able to make similar choices if we encountered situations like the ones they went through.

Part of growing up is realizing that being a superhero isn't all fun and games. Sometimes, you need to put your own personal desires aside to make sure nobody gets hurt because of something you did or didn't do. We are currently in the fourth season of this show, and after 82 episodes, Cat Noir has still failed to learn that lesson. He doesn't understand that even if his “true self” is clowning around, that's not how a hero acts. You don't see Batman or Captain America acting this way, and you don't see real life soldiers or emergency workers acting this way either.

And that's not even getting into the fact that this is the same problem the Lukanette breakup had. Even though Marinette had a valid reason to break things off with Luka because she realized being Guardian was more important, the narrative framed it like she was still into Adrien, no matter if she was making an effort to get over him. Likewise, even though both Adrien and Kagami have issues the narrative refuses to actually acknowledge, they frame it as Adrien's hero life was ruining their relationship, when in reality, the reasons for both the Adrigami breakup and the Lukanette breakup should have been flipped. “Truth” should have been about Marinette coming to terms with her new responsibilities as the Guardian, and “Lies” should have been about Adrien realizing he needs to work on his own personal issues before he considers his feelings for Kagami or Ladybug.

So the episode just ends with Ladybug and Cat Noir saying that even if they have to keep secrets about their identities, they can still trust each other. Also, before Kagami dumped him, Adrien reaffirmed his feelings for Ladybug (the only time they were actually referenced outside of flirting and his phone's wallpaper), which implies that Adrien is going to continue to pursue Ladybug, having learned nothing from this whole episode.

You know, after watching both this episode and “Truth”,  and seeing how it undid two of the major changes from the Season 3 finale, does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all? Does it almost feel like you've been here before? How am I gonna be a optimist about this? Hell if I know, this episode's honestly worse than “Truth” was.

Put aside your feelings on the Adrigami breakup, the pacing here was awful. Because the writers thought it would be interesting to have some continuity for once by having it take place right after “Truth”, the timeline is incredibly confusing. Can Shadowmoth just create more Akumas at once without having to recharge? And shouldn't Ladybug and Cat Noir be exhausted from having to fight two Akumas and a Sentimonster in one day?

Even then, about half of the episode was spent following Adrien as he whined about how hard he supposedly has it, proving despite what Astruc continues to state, he is far from perfect, and like what he loves to say about Chloe, refuses to change. Wow, that's so interesting. And we're supposed to feel bad for Cat Noir and be mad at Ladybug for missing their patrol, forgetting everything she's been going through in the last week, considering how Gabriel just fixed the Peacock Miraculous, suggesting that the events of “Truth” and “Lies” happened not too long after “Miracle Queen”. Even the Akuma fight wasn't that interesting because it was crammed into about five minutes thanks to everything else going on in this episode.

In an attempt to make the audience sympathize with him, this episode only made me loathe the way Adrien is portrayed even more. Seriously, he reaches “Frozer” levels of unlikability in this episode. Maybe he'll get some much needed character development, but given how much Astruc will put him on a pedestal and ignore his flaws, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.

But I still don't see the point of spending so much time building up this relationship for two seasons just to end it as soon as they hook up. At the end of the day, all Lukanette and Adrigami amounted to was filler. It was a way to get in some romantic scenes for the fans while the writers continue to drag out the Love Square drama like a taffy puller. And now that Luka and Kagami have served their purpose, watch as Astruc and the other writers start to slowly remove them from the narrative until they appear about as often as Nino does now.

After all, why care about anything in this show that isn’t related to the Love Square? It’s clear none of the writers do.

[frederickthegreat]

my thoughts on TUA season 2

(spoilers, obviously)

- opened with Klaus and Ben, my kings. Klaus’s hair looks so weird straightened while short 

- AWESOME opening soundtrack 

- seeing all their powers so controlled makes me wonder how they leveled up to that skill in the alternate timeline. like the only time we saw Klaus use the powers of other ghosts in the correct timeline was when two of them caught him falling out of the sky. however Diego did end up controlling bullets and Allison used her voice to technically kill one of the Swedes

- the homeless man screaming Allison’s name alongside Luther... funny shit

- big teddy bear Hazel

- Elliot was fucking awesome i think he was a great addition as a side character. rip tho :(

- honestly i don’t understand why Diego would WANT to save JFK. like it’s not that big of a deal. does he not understand what messing with the timeline can do??

- Lila... impeccable

- Sissy and Vanya... impeccable <3

- yeah and fuck u Carl

- ugh, Klaus’s beard. disgusting <3

- Ben and Klaus definitely act like they should be, given that they’ve been stuck with each other for over a decade. i’ve seen some people calling Klaus an asshole for not telling his siblings about Ben, which is completely understandable (cause he was an asshole), but I’m guessing it was because he was afraid? that sharing Ben with his siblings would mean that he would lose him to them, or his siblings would find him selfish, or they would ask something of him that he couldn’t give. if that makes sense

- that ghost bitch comment was funny tho 

- to the guy who called Klaus pretty boy at the bar: sir you don’t know what you’re getting into

- Raymond!! he’s such a sweetheart, i really liked him in the show. i’m really happy that Allison has found a bit of normalcy (as normal as the 1960s Civil Rights movement could be). it shows how passionate she is about what she believes in: even though she knows the movement is far from over, even back in 2019, she’s not gonna abandon it

- Allison staring at the moon every night: either thinking about Luther or how the moon blows them all up. maybe both

- of course Luther would be working for Jack Ruby

- awesome cinematography during the mental asylum escape 

- yeah it makes sense that the Handler would still be alive. she was a cool villain. although it would’ve been awesome to see how evil a fish could be

- Diego’s plan was pretty stupid. that’s my boy

- honestly they revealed how Klaus started a cult really well by having one of his followers find him at jail. Klaus, ever the musical aficionado, of course writes his scripture based off of pop songs

- Raymond and Klaus meeting!! that was cool to see how their paths connected

- Lila painting Elliot’s toenails green. ugh i love that crazy bitch

- i LOVE how they incorporated the umbrella man!! tbh i’ve always believed he was the one behind the assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald was framed 

- honestly a bit understandable that Luther was planning on killing Vanya? cause he had no idea who she is now, but them reuniting was actually really sweet. he’s grown up so much

- the Swedes and their cats.

- the Umbrella company building with the nuclear family mannequins... creepy, awesome shit

- baby pogo baby pogo baby pogo baby pogo

- shanked diego shanked diego shanked diego shanked diego

- did anyone else get vibes from Klaus’s episode opening that he was an escort to the old woman? like how he was being shown off at her arm or something and getting out of jail from a call from the governor. idk maybe the lady was just very taken with him, as anyone would be

- Elliot, our helpful king

- Allison and Klaus’s reunion was so sweet!! i’m so glad they got to interact so much more in this season 

- Ben getting Raymond out through a haunting... hilarious

- sweet intimate moment between Lila and Diego

- Ray meeting Luther was hilarious, but i do feel for the poor guy. i mean i’m not in love with my adoptive sister but still

- the sit-in was really well done and beautiful while terrible. the ‘riot’ that ensued was very appropriate for today’s setting 

- D-Dave

- honestly i was scared that Klaus was gonna be overly attracted to him or whatever, which would be weird cause he’s years younger than Klaus, but honestly, at the core he just wanted to save Dave’s life. even if it means never meeting him in a different timeline. he truly loved Dave. and that ptsd flashback was done so well

- i knew Lila wasn’t trustworthy but i didn’t REALLY expect that! 

- Vanya and Luther talking with each other, Luther admitting the apocalypse wasn’t all her fault. beautiful

- the Majestic 12 reminds me of the conspiracy theory that only a few families control basically everything in the world. the Majestic 12 may be based off of that, idk

- idk about everyone else but Klaus’s scorpion and the frog story made total sense to me! frogs ARE bitches

- the diner scene.... ugh. it really shows that the two of them did fall in love and they did stupid in love things, like talking about their family, about why Dave wanted to join, favorite colors, favorite foods, etc. however that’s seen later on when Dave visits the compound

- yes it’s very disheartening when Klaus is attacked, but honestly i think it had to happen, just like the riot had to happen. the 60s weren’t a fun time for lgbt people and poc. it was only going to be a matter of time before the show HAD to acknowledge the consequences of Klaus’s ‘flamboyancy’ in 1963 Texas. it doesn’t make it right or easy to see, but it’s realistic. 

- it also makes sense that Klaus fell off the wagon after experiencing something like that. yes we all would’ve liked him to stay sober, but sobriety and recovery aren’t linear. 

- Allison is so happy with Ray can we please drop this pseudo-incest plotline let’s MOVE ON 

- Texas Grace ! who is not actually Grace rip (i think? i was a bit confused lol)

- the scene with Harlan running off was really upsetting but we got to see those weird light particles that we saw in the first season

- Pogo Pogo Pogo Pogo

- Klaus being a dick to Ben again, as brothers do. i do feel bad for Ben though it must be sooo frustrating. that scene with him and Allison was really sweet and funny tho

- i just have to say that Luther and Diego are so fucking funny this season it’s awesome. like there are a LOT of good lines overall by everyone but they’re hilarious. “At least he didn’t shank my ass” “no bro, he shanked your heart”“Dads part of a sinister CABAL that’s plotting on killing the president.” “a caBAL?”“You two still a thing? *leans in* do we need to talk?” “No, she’s married.” “Woah dude... that’s rough.” and countless others

- the sibling reunion!! 

- Klaus really does get left out of everything tbh

- Ben :(

- sisters and Klaus!! that was so awesome to see. and Klaus’s hairpins, Vanya saying she’s gonna tell Sissy she loves her, their dance sequence, Klaus calling Allison out on that incest. beautiful

- the fucking Swedish cover of Hello was PERFECT i mean i was sad for the Swedes but it was hilarious. there were a couple beautiful shots of the boat on fire though

- god it must’ve been so traumatizing for Allison to be thrust into such a hostile place with no voice and no way to contact her family

-  idk about you guys but long live Team Zero

- calling Ben that he was becoming their father was a bit uncalled for 

- the fact that Klaus didn’t help Dave’s chances, and in fact escalated Dave’s own timeline.. his trembling hands... robert sheehan is an amazing actor

- the Black president bit lmaoo loved it

- the way Reginald spoke to Diego.. i’m gonna throw hands with an old man

- Klaus LITERALLY looked like he was having a seizure and they all just... played it off?? 

- poor, poor Carl. nah fuck him lol

- that bloody opening scene was awesome! and thank god Five got to say fuck. the fact that it was about a candy bar makes too much sense

- Robert Sheehan acting as Ben: amazing showstopping spectacular he’s so talented

- the whole multiple Fives and Luther bit was honestly really funny, and i immensely respect smaller Five over bigger Five. 

- yes Klaus, you survived a family of seven. you got this

- not sad about Carl dying one bit!

- Ben... that was such a beautiful scene. not just the content of the scene, but the cinematography. Ben fading away... Vanya hugging him... ugh. the main takeaway i had from that scene is that at the core of it all, Ben and Klaus love each other immensely. they have a weird, dysfunctional, fucked up relationship, where Klaus is an asshole and Ben definitely shouldn’t of possessed him without his consent, but they’re still brothers, and Ben forgives him. 

- oof Ben’s funeral was hard. also was it just me or did Klaus’s kid actor sound weird? like it sounded like Robert was dubbing his lines 

- all the siblings back together again!!!! Klaus going with Vanya to save Harlan!! Vanya telling him Ben forgives him and that it wasn’t Klaus’s fault Ben got stuck with him!! everyone in the car!!! be still my beating heart

- yeah didn’t see Lila having powers coming tbh. i really feel bad for her she’s had such a rough and traumatic life, especially with the Handler as her only parental figure

- the Swede brother and Five putting down their weapons: “enough.” the Swede wanted revenge for his brothers - an eye for an eye, but there was a mutual understanding between the two of them: they would do anything for their family. if the Swede hurts one of the Hargreeves, Five would never stop coming after him. i thought it was very beautiful 

- mmm Reggie’s foreshadowing coming into play. proud of u Five

- the ending was so beautiful. everyone got closure in some type of way. except now Klaus is alone with nothing but his dog tags :(

- EMO BEN HAHAHA WTFFF?? is Lila in the sparrow academy? why was Ben’s portrait over the mantle piece? did Five disappear?? is the sparrow academy just older versions of the siblings who stuck around?? so many questions

FINAL THOUGHTS

- Ellen Page’s acting consistently blows me away. she is amazing 

- beautiful cinematography, funny writing, pretty good acting. i didn’t like the soundtrack as much as i did the first season’s, but some of it wasn’t bad.

- i’m glad ben got peace, but i’m also glad justin min isn’t gone for good. his social media presence is too vital for us

- i swear to god if they keep treating klaus as a joke and don’t let him get any actual development like everyone else had (he barely got closure with Dave, he reconciled with Ben through a second party) next season, i’m gonna riot. PLEASE i want to learn more about his powers now that Ben is gone. what happened to seeing tons of ghosts when he’s sober??

- Luther and Diego were probably my favorite duo of the season, I’m so happy that they’ve reconciled and are bonding more. 

- just seeing Vanya grow and be happy was amazing 

all in all, really wonderful season. i probably liked it better than the first one. now it’s time to consume fanfiction and maybe finish my own (check out “god doesn’t want him and neither does the devil” on ao3!)

[giuliafc]

Betrayal Chapter 15: Caught Dead to Rights

<< 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6 -- 7 -- 8 -- 9 -- 10 -- 11 -- 12 -- 13 -- 14 -- 15: Ao3 || FFN -- 16 >>

Written by: JuliaFC

Beta: Agrestebug

Summary: Everyone has a massive surprise when Lila's plan unfolds even more. Now the question is… how is Chat Noir going to disappear without raising suspicions? (993 words)

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Written for the "Snippet July" challenge of the Miraculous Fanworks Discord server @miraculousfanworks AND for LadyNoir July @ladynoirjuly Day 26 — Immaculate/reveal. Let me know what you think!

oOoOoOoOoOo

"I'm sorry, sir," whispered Nathalie as grey eyes met cerulean blue. Her frown showed concern as she kneeled, resting her bottom on her heels.

"You've been reckless. What were you thinking, unifying Miraculouses in your condition." Gabriel's tone was curt despite his softer gaze.

Nathalie flashed him a small smile. "I'm okay. I feel better than I have in a long time."

Gabriel gave a good look to his assistant: her cheeks were much rosier than usual, her hair shinier, her eyes energetic and lively. "The Miraculous Cure… it healed you completely!"

Nathalie nodded. "Yes. I feel like a new per—" But her eyes (and Chat Noir's) widened in shock when Gabriel, very uncharacteristically, rested his head on her shoulder in a rare display of affection.

"I'm glad," he said before looking into her eyes again. "I never wanted you to pay for my foolishness."

Before Nathalie could respond, a voice resounded in the silence of the cave:

"Everyone, hands up!" Gabriel’s face fell into immense shock when Lieutenant Raincomprix and a small team of officers he'd never seen came out of hiding. "I said HANDS UP!" As six different guns were pointed at them, Nathalie raised her hands, and so did the heroes and Su-Han. Gabriel jerked his arms from behind his back to make them understand that he couldn't move.

"What's the meaning of this, Lieutenant? It's an invasion of private property and totally uncalled for," said Gabriel harshly, but Lieutenant Raincomprix smirked, moving closer to him.

"Leave that bullshit for someone else, Papillombre." He glanced at Emilie's coffin and shuddered. "Mlle. Rossi was right. You're a monster! What have you done to your son?"

Gabriel eyed Chat Noir and noticed how perplexed he too was. "My son? What has Adrien got to do with this?"

"Mlle. Rossi told us everything. How you kidnapped her after hearing the news that she may be Ladybug and how Adrien let her escape. I don't see Adrien anywhere. Where is he?"

If looks could kill, Roger Raincomprix would be a dead man. Gabriel dagger-eyed the lieutenant as he realised what must have happened. Lila Rossi had told the police to avoid being involved in his arrest after the truth came out. She must've shown the officers the back entrance to the cave. He should never have shared that information with her.

"Leave my son out of this, Lieutenant. He's safe in his room. He's got nothing to do with this."

"We know he had no knowledge of your actions." Raincomprix smirked as he moved behind Gabriel's back and forced him to stand up. "You're under arrest, M. Agreste, for acts of terrorism, necromancy and child abuse. And you too, Mlle. Sancoeur. We know you supported M. Agreste's criminal activities as Mayura."

Another officer approached Nathalie, but before they got close, Ladybug and Chat Noir put themselves in between them.

"Kids, move away. Leave it to the experts!"

Ladybug's gaze hardened. "With all due respect, Lieutenant, you're making a mistake. Mlle. Sancoeur had a vital role in our investigation," said Ladybug. "If it weren't for her double agent skills, we wouldn't have been able to catch M. Agreste. Unfortunately when we arrived he had been robbed already of the Miraculous of the Butterfly, but we have recovered the Peacock, which means that Paris is now free of the plague of Sentimonsters."

"What?" muttered the officer.

"When we arrived someone, we don't know who, took the source of power from M. Agreste. He's now a harmless civilian," said Carapace. Ladybug didn't fail to notice the sad smile that popped on Chat Noir's lips when the hero called his father harmless, and she rested a hand on his shoulder for comfort.

"Unfortunately today isn't as happy a day as we wanted it to be for Paris, Lieutenant. I'm Rena Rouge by the way," added Pégase Marron when the officer furrowed his eyebrows, probably trying to recognise her. "We've worked hard with Mlle. Sancoeur to frame Papillombre, but we've lost his Miraculous again, and... my Miraculous too." She lowered her gaze and clenched her fists. "We fear that a new villain will soon be on the rise. The citizens of Paris should know about it and be prepared."

Roger Raincomprix paled. "That's bad news." He darted his gaze between Pégase Marron and Ladybug, evidently unsure on what to do.

"You're right to arrest M. Agreste," intervened Ladybug. "The crimes he's committed against the city of Paris and against his own son won't disappear only because he lost his source of power. You should drop all charges against Mlle. Sancoeur on the other hand."

The Lieutenant's expression hardened again. "That's not what we have been told. We've interrogated a few of Adrien Agreste's classmates and teachers. Both M. Agreste and Mlle. Sancoeur abused Adrien blatantly."

"Your information is far from correct, Lieutenant," intervened Chat Noir. "Mlle. Sancoeur was only obeying orders, and she had to comply to not raise suspicions. She doesn't deserve a criminal record because of this ordeal. I'm sure that when we find Adrien Agreste, he'll confirm."

Raincomprix's hold on Gabriel's arms didn't falter as he looked the hero in black straight in the eye. "Let's look for him then. You're all coming with us."

"Don't you dare touch me, woman!" shouted Su-Han when one of the officers tried to grab hold of his arms. He looked between the Lieutenant and Ladybug, probably unsure of what to do.

"That's Master Su-Han, a celestial guardian of the Miraculous and my mentor. He's not a criminal," said the heroine, and the officer moved away, but kept a vigilant eye on the bald monk.

"I think Ladybug is enough to deal with the situation, I'll have to s-cat!" tried Chat Noir, but Raincomprix glared at him.

"You'll follow us, Chat Noir. Hero or not, you're involved. We'll all go look for Adrien Agreste."

Chat Noir gulped dryly as Ladybug firmly took his hand. "Okay then. Lead the way, Lieutenant."

To be continued… Day 27

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

Author's Note

Whoop whoop, day 26 out of the way. I know, people would expect 'reveal' to be something different but… identities were all out of the bag by now so… I had to get original :D Please let me know what you thought of the chapter in the comments! We're close to the end now :)

Until tomorrow, bug out!

[e-vasong]

Feelings on Five and killing????👀

thanks for the validation yall im weeping

me, who directly begged to be asked this in the tags: 

so. i’m not sure how popular/unpopular this take on five’s relationship with killing is; though I’ll say that it’s not one that I’ve seen a lot in the circles that I run in.  

obligatory disclaimer, i guess? art is inherently interpretive.  I have feelings about this topic, and I have a strong personal interpretation of the scenes that we were shown in canon, but the opposite interpretation is just as valid.

(me, looking at art, in tears: its about..... the personal experience)

Anyways, with that out of the way, here is how I interpret Five’s relationship with violence:

I think Five likes killing.  I think Five really likes killing. 

Which does, I admit, fly completely in the face of Luther’s dialogue with Five in season one.  After an entire episode of Luther being discomfited and concerned by Five’s attitude towards killing, Five says: “You know, I never enjoyed it...the killing.  I mean, I was good at my work.  And I...took pride in it.  But it never gave me pleasure.”

That said, I think there are a couple reasons why we shouldn’t take Five’s explanation there at face-value.  First and foremost, I think that Five is an unreliable narrator, especially in regards to himself.  He’s not quite...insecure, but I think he’s very conscious of how his siblings perceive him and how their reactions could benefit him/get in the way, and on top of that I think that Five’s enjoyment of bloodshed is somewhat of a subconscious thing for him, especially in season one.  (This post has an interesting take on that latter point; their feelings about Five’s relationship with murder aren’t a perfect match with my own, but it has some really interesting interpretations).

Two, for all Five’s talk about there being no such thing as “good people and bad people,” I think Five does distinguish between civilians and threats.  His work for the Commission involved killing a lot of people who were...otherwise unrelated to the deaths of his siblings and the end of the world.  And even then, he doesn’t express guilt.  I believe him when he says that he didn’t take pleasure in it...but the choice to be honest about the fact that he felt professional pride is interesting.  And to that claim’s credit, in the flashbacks we see of him doing work for the Commission across both seasons, he seems pretty flat?  He’s clearly just getting the job done, with little emotional expression one way or the other.

In contrast, so long as Five isn’t actively getting his ass kicked in seasons one and two (Hazel and Chacha as well as the Swedes all do get one over on Five occasionally, and Five clearly does not enjoy that), he...is grinning.  At Griddy’s, when he blows up the Commission HQ, during his initial spar with Lila when he wins and is strangling her, during his slaughter of the Board (where, again, he makes an exception for a civilian and goes out of his way to avoid hurting her, though notably seems willing to do so if he needs to).  He smiles a lot during his assassination of the Board.  He stops to enjoy a glass of water.  He definitely enjoys capturing Carmichael.  And the Handler knows.  He’s pensive when they go to meet up, and she’s mocking when she says: “I thought you’d be buzzing from the slaughter.”

And he deflects, of course: everything I did today, I did for my family.  But he pauses.  And like I said, I don’t think Five is a reliable narrator of his own behavior.

Which...brings me to my last point, which is that I think Five enjoys killing because he does in the comics.  I think the stuff I said above stands on its own, and I’m pretty intent, personally, on separating comics!canon from show!canon, because they’re very different.  But the show does import some key characterization elements, even if they’re re-envisioned, and I would be lying if I said that my entire interpretation of these events wasn’t influenced by my favorite panel from the comics.  Plus, there’s one extra element that it adds to this meta that’s very important to me.

(transcription: “You cut out my humanity with a scalpel--like a malignancy.  I wake up in the morning with the finest impulses known to man--and thanks to you--I slaughter them.  Every.  Single.  Day.  Except today.”)

Now whether Five feels the way he does about killing because of experiments from the Commission, or whether it was just the way he responded to forty years of complete isolation and then several more being forced to work as an assassin, I have no idea.  But what I love this panel is also something that canon hints at in the scene with Five and the Handler.  Which is that Five enjoys the violence, especially against his enemies, and he knows that it’s wrong.  And he hates that part of himself, especially as he comes to realize that it exists, and would actively choose to resist it if he could.  Yet needs must as the devil drives, and Five keeps ending up in situations where its an asset.

So when it comes to Five and killing, the angst is less a matter of Five feeling sad about all the people he’s killed, and more a matter of the fact that...he doesn’t.  At best, he feels distant professionalism and detachment towards the people he’s assassinated, and in certain situations he outright enjoys it.  But Five is smart enough, and good enough, to know that that is wrong, and to be disgusted by it.  And that’s where the guilt comes in for him. 

[broadwaycutie16]

Earlier today, I watched a video by TheTake on YouTube, exploring and deconstructing the “Nice Guy” trope in popular media.

Basically, the trope explained the Nice Guy trope and how toxic it really is, devaluing the girl’s feelings in a relationship and promoting male entitlement. Now, I’ve heard many people in this fandom complain that Adrien Agreste is the embodiment of this trope. The underdog sweet boy, pining after a girl who has rejected his feelings multiple times, persisting in his romantic advances towards her despite her making her disinterest clear.

While I must admit that Adrien does check many of the boxes for the standard Nice Guy, I quickly remembered who else in the show, besides him, checks out many of the same boxes, and perhaps a few more than him. Someone who exhibits many of the same behaviors of the Nice Guy, but whose less-than-healthy attitude of love is often overlooked and/or pardoned by most of the fandom, while they bash Adrien for similar behaviors.

Can you guess who it is?

It’s Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

I know what you’re thinking. How dare I accuse Marinette of such a toxic mindset! She’s the hero of our story! She fights off the bitches that are bad for Adrien and yet he doesn’t even give her the love she deserves! Adrien is the one who should consider himself lucky that she adores him! Hashtag Marinette Deserves Better!

But you see that right there? That, my friends, is what makes Marinette Dupain-Cheng, in my opinion, more of a Nice Guy than Adrien Agreste.

The whole purpose of the Nice Guy trope is to make us root for the underdog. Because who doesn’t love a good story where the loser that everyone expected to fail spectacularly ends up winning it all in magnificent fashion? Almost every movie has it’s underdog. With sports movies, it’s the unathletic wimp with a skinny, small, and/or weak body. In high school movies, it’s the outcast weird kid who’s been ostracized by the popular crowd for their unusual interests and/or attitude. In romantic comedies, the underdog is the hopelessly romantic Nice Guy who adores the girl and worships her like a goddess, as opposed to the cooler, more aloof, more sociotially successful man who takes her for granted. And since the cardinal rule of feel-good films is that underdog must end up getting what he’s been wanting throughout the whole movie, the movie then directs the story narrative to favor the Nice Guy’s desires, manipulating the audience to cheer him on and, in the process, blatantly dismiss all his unhealthy behaviors and obsessive traits, like stalking the object of his affections or trying to edge out any competition he has.

Sound familiar? That’s because that’s exactly what many Marinette stans who are also Adrien haters do.

I’m not saying Marinette is a bad person, but as far as Nice Guys go, she has shown us many red flags. She often stalks Adrien, trying to sneak into parties she has not been invited to just to see him, or following him to his house when he goes to study with one of her enemies. She often tries to keep away any girls she sees as competition for Adrien. With Chloé and Lila, it’s semi-justifies, because they can be total bitches. But not Kagami.

Is Kagami kind of cold? Yes. Can she be competitive? Absolutely. But she is not evil. Many Adrienette shippers often hate on Kagami, saying she is a stone cold bitch who will stop at nothing to “steal” Adrien away from Marinette. They misinterpret what she whispered in Marinette’s ear during Frozer. Kagami said, “The reason you cannot stand on your feet is your hesitation. I never hesistate.” Adrienette shippers translate this to, “He’s mine, bitch. Back off, or I’ll kill you.” But what she’s ACTUALLY saying is, “I know you like Adrien, but I like him, too, and I’m not gonna just back off out of curtesy while you fumble the ball. So if you want Adrien, you’re going to have to win him from me fair and square. That means you have to suck up whatever insecurities you have and really work to win him over.” She knows Marinette loves Adrien, but Kagami loves him, too. And she’s not just gonna wait around for Marinette to get over her nervousness and ask Adrien out of curtesy. She’s telling Marinette that if she wants Adrien, she needs to get herself together and go after him while he’s still available.

Kagami is not a bad person. She is simply lacking in social experience to properly express her emotions and desires without coming off as an ice queen. And yet, many Adrienette shippers view her through the same toxic lens as many fans of romantic comedies view love rivals of the Nice Guy. If the rival is even the tiniest bit self-serving or emotionally detached, they are automatically dismissed as bad people and therefore, less worthy of the main love interest than the Nice Guy. Thus, viewers are quick to pardon any attempts made by the Nice Guy to sabotage or undermine his rival as a necessary evil, something that must be done so that “true love” can prevail. Like say, I dunno, setting the rival up to be humiliated at a fancy party, despite all that they did to supposedly deserve such treatment was show up to said event, which they were invited to, and act friendly towards the main love interest, because they ARE friends?

If the scenario seems familiar, that’s because that’s exactly what Marinette tried to do to Kagami in Animeastro.

One thing I’ve noticed about this fandom, is that people seem to have a double standard when it comes to Marinette’s negative behaviors vs. Adrien’s. In Glaciator, Adrien seems to accept Ladybug’s rejection, claiming that her friendship was what mattered most, then takes back everything he said in Frozer, acting salty towards Ladybug for her earlier second rejection. After that, the whole fandom was on his case, calling him a jerk and a liar.

Am I happy Adrien went back on his word like that? Of course not. But in that same episode of Frozer, Marinette accepts that she may not be more than Adrien’s friend, and even helps him on his date with Kagami, despite her heartache and despite how everyone thought she was crazy for doing so. Super sweet, right? Except when Animeastro happens, she goes back on her mature acceptance and teams up with her worst enemy, all for the purpose of embarrassing the same girl who she supposedly accepted Adrien might like instead of her. Funnily enough, no one in the fandom seemed to give her any flack for that, despite the fact that it was an exhibitation of the same possessive, hypocrital and selfish behavior that Adrien displayed earlier on, which everyone hated on him for.

Many Marinette fans are projecting the same toxic, biased mindset onto her that fans of romantic comedies project onto the Nice Guy. They excuse any negative behaviors done by the protagonist, insisting that it’s for the greater good, all while hating on the love interest for not immediately falling into their arms. They prioritize the needs and feelings of the Nice Guy/Marinette while completely disregarding those of their love interests.

Marinette stans insist that she deserves Adrien’s love more than anyone else, bashing Adrien for overlooking her in favor of other girls. After all, Marinette has done so much for Adrien, while all Ladybug does is reject him in favor of some other guy, despite how he’s put his heart and life on the line for her. That means he should just cast aside his feelings for Ladybug and settle for Marinette, right? Well, by those standards, shouldn’t Ladybug do the same? After all, Chat Noir has risked his life for her several times and made it clear he adores her, while all Adrien has done is ignore her feelings in favor of other girls, even though she’s been right there the whole time. If Adrien should ignore some of Marinette’s stalker tendacies and easily-jealous nature, shouldn’t Ladybug be able to overlook some of Chat Noir’s less-than-acceptable behaviors?

Marinette fans often share the mindset of Nice Guy stans of romance as a moral issue, harboring the idea that goodness and unwavering affection should automatically earn romantic feelings. They believe that being nice to someone automatically means they owe it to you to love you back. Sadly, life isn’t that clear cut. Love is often given to someone, whether they deserve it or not. It’s both the best and worst part of it. This close-minded, morally black-and-white mindset is given to fans by the Nice Guy, as it’s his expectation that his being kind to the girl and showering her with romance should mean that she should know he is the one for her.

Sadly, this thinking by the Nice Guy is often hypocrital in the movies, because the same Nice Guy is attracted in his crush at least in part to some sort of superficiality (ex. she’s beautiful, popular, dresses well, is the Cool Girl who drinks beer and watches sports while looking hot in a tank top and short shorts). He says she’s superficial for not wanting a dork like him, but it’s not like he’s looking around for some socially-awkward, plain-faced girl on his own level or lower and falling for HER because of HER kind treatment of him and the intensity of HER feelings. Fans get upset when Adrien the teen heartthrob doesn’t give Marinette her due attention, but it’s not like they’re clamoring for her to settle for Nathanael in “Evillistrator” or Nino in “Animan”, even though they had intense feelings for her and were kind to her.

Because of the partial superficiality of the Nice Guy’s attraction to his crush, he has this fantasy built up in his head. He puts her up on this pedestal, much like the pedestal Marinette puts Adrien on. It gets to the point that he’s in love with the IDEA of her, this image of a perfect angel that he’s made her out to be, and not the real her. He refuses to admit that she is flawed, much like how Marinette overlooks Adrien’s doormat attitude and overwillingness to forgive, seeing him instead as the perfect boy who can do no wrong. This is a set up for disappointment later on, as when the love interest does not do what the Nice Guy expects from her, like instantly return his love, the illusion that he has so carefully crafted for his pleasure is shattered, and everything goes downhill.

Many people blame the love interests for not instantly favoring the Nice Guy once he’s shown his romantic dorky side, thinking they should pick up on the feelings right away, like it’s their job to know who they should be with immediately upon meeting them, that it’s their fault they miss the signs. But this misconception shifts blame away from the Nice Guy for not properly acting on his feelings. This is where the Nice Guy becomes his own worst enemy. He automatically convinces himself that he’s below the girl’s standards and gives up before he even tries. He hesitates to act on his feelings, much like Marinette is so certain that Adrien is out of her league that she lets her insecurities get the better of her and avoids confessing to Adrien or even talking to him because she’s sure she’ll mess up before she even tries. Then when the girl doesn’t immediately realize that she is loved, despite getting no clear signs or even the words “I love you”, she is blamed for leading the Guy on, much like how Adrien is blamed for not recognizing the mixed signals from Marinette as affection.

Even after Adrien has told her that he loves another girl, Marinette still decides to keep pursuing him, much like Chat Noir kept pursuing Ladybug even after she told him she loved someone. Yet, while Adrien is bashed for not immediately accepting her choice and working to move on, Marinette is pardoned from not accepting Adrien’s feelings in the matter. Viewers excusing all her Nice Guy traits while prosecuting Adrien for displaying all the same traits is what makes Marinette, in my opinion, more of a Nice Guy than him. Because the Nice Guy is usually the one that shippers root for, despite the warning signs of their behavior and the fact that the love interest has said flat out that they are not into them that way.

Do I think that Marinette is a bad person? No. Do I condone Adrien’s behavior over hers? Absolutely not. But these are fictional characters. We can’t control their flaws or talk some sense into them anymore than we can change the past or rewrite the movies that have sold us this one-sided mindset. I don’t hold their flaws against them and act like their imperfections define their whole character. I focus on the good they do, and if the characters forgive them, I forgive them, because they’re the ones who choose who to forgive, who to love, who to be friends with. So kiss off, Adrien salters. Y’all are a bunch of hypocrites. Peace out.

[sayuricorner]

ML x Batman: Arkham’s princess AU headcanons part 1

Next part

Here’s the first part details about my “Arkham’s princess AU”!

This part focus more on when Marinette just got to Gotham, the next part will focus on her daily life in Gotham and how she handle her duties as Ladybug at the same time.

Some of thoses ideas have been suggested by @itskarmalone (thank you by the way! ^^)

Warning: This AU content salt don’t like don’t read and English is not my first language so sorry if it’s confusing.

-After all the event of Marinette’s birth, all the villans that protected Sabine became unofficial (thought some official) godparents of Marinette.

-Thank to the changes and new therapies Bridgette introduced in Arkham, the Rogues showed good progress, yes they are still criminals but they are way less rutless and psychotic than before, heck, even the Joker become saner.

-Bridgette has been able to make Joker’s and Harley’s relationship way more healthier thank to many therapy sessions, they’re not “lovers” anymore and are now more like “friends” or at least “acquaintances on friendly therms”.

-Marinette knew the story of her birth, her parents told her about it when she was 5 years old when after a day at school on which some of her classmates talked about their godparents, she asked Tom and Sabine if she got Godparents too.

-Once the “godparents” found out that the “Arkham Princess” was back in Gotham they warned Bridgette (Harleen and Pamela in a lunch meeting) and Batfam (letter by Riddler in a Jack-in-the-box made by Joker) that they will sometimes “kidnap” Marinette for a few hours and tutor her the basics to help their godchild to grow. Batman was skeptical at first but Joker insisted that he or one of his birds could hang out with them to supervise the tutoring and to join in the lecture if they wanted.

-The classes goes by the following: 

Harley Quinn: Psychology and street smarts.

Poison Ivy: Botanic.

The Riddler: Calligraphy and Linguistics

Mad Hatter: Literature

Two-Face: Law and Criminal Justice

Joker: Workshop (mainly engineering)

Mr. Freeze: Science (focus on cryo-chemestry)

Bane: Languages

Scarecrow: Science

Kite Man: Aerodynamics

Killer croc: aquatic/combat sports

Catwoman: gymnastic

The Penguin: Economic and business studies

-Catwoman  didn’t meet Marinette when she was a baby, she hear of her from the other Rogues who often were rambling about an “Arkham’s princess”.

-She officially meet her as Selina Kyle through the Waynes since she and Bruce are dating. After chatting with Marinette Selina was charmed and she decided to made her her honorary “kitten”.

- Marinette knew they’re criminals, but they were the ones that protected her mother and helping her giving birth to her so she has complete trust on them.

-The Rogues, with her parents conscent, give Marinette ways to be stronger:

Pamela give her a potion that make her imune to all kind of toxines

Joker inject her a serum which make her imune to his laughing gaz and joker venum

Mr.Freeze enhancing her body to endure conditions more extreme for the comon human (takes her longer than average to suffer from heat stroke and hypothermia)

-Marinette is naturally imune to the fear gaz, the Rogues find out when she has been exposed to the gaz by accident and when a panicked Scarecrow was about to give her the cure he will notice that between the time Marinette was exposed to the fear gaz and the time she got the cure she didn’t react at all as if the gaz didn’t work which confuse everyone. She explain to them that she faced worst so don’t had to worry about the gaz, in hope to reassure her godparents, in particulary poor Scarecrow who feared he traumatised her because of his gaz.

- But it didn’t reassured the rogues, on the contrary, this made them freak out.

-<<- It’s okay uncle Jonathan it was an accident! And beside I endured worst so don’t worry about your ga...>> <<- WHAT?! WHO HURT YOU? WHO’S CORPSE WE WILL HAD TO BURY?!>>

-At the same times in Paris Lila and Hawkmoth got a sinister chill in their spine having, for some reason, a bad feeling about the future.

-The Rogues never, and I say NEVER, harmed Marinette it’s a golden rule among them: no harm of any kind must happen to their little princess

-The only “thing” they did to her is “branded” her with a symbol she wear on her clothes.

- It’s a symbol mixing the letters J for Joker, I fr Ivy, H for Harley/Hatter, K for Killer, P for Penguin and F for Freeze/Face. The letters were under a halo as well as wings on the begining of the J and at the end of the F (the shape of the right wing makes the F look like an R for Riddler and on the left wing is lettered an S for Scarecrow).

-The Rogues thought that it was the only way to warn rival gangs and enemies (as well as the Justice League) that if they mess with their god child, her godparents and Batman will hunt them down and depending which one gets them first will be the reason why they’re left alive or killed in sight.

[abraxos-is-toothless]

Undercover- Throne of Glass AU (8)

Um, this one is a shortened update, not even 2k words. Thats because I took some off an moved it into 9:) Ren and Connall’s ship name is now Renall. I might write content on these two in other AUs as well?

A/N: If you read Surprises, the chap will come but I messed it up and I’ve had to redo things. And I’ve also had a few issues at home but I’m promise to get it to you as soon as I can<3

Undercover Masterlist.

Full Masterlist.

----------

Gavriel, Vaughan and Rowan were walking through Hyde Park, coffees in hand. It was early morning, grass still covered in dew and their breath could be seen on the air. A few days ago, Aelin had told them that Arobynn had a few men who stayed in the area a lot and she needed people to come down to see if they could spot anyone, taking all of their findings back to her. Rowan had offered himself up for the job, along with Vaughan and Gavriel. The two of them had agreed but Gavriel knew it was just to get them alone, could see it in the way his Boss was very adamant that the three of them could do it. So here they were, silently walking, seeing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

Rowan nodded towards an empty bench, gesturing that they should sit about twenty minutes into their walk. Rowan and Vaughan sat, but he chose to remain standing, facing them so they were covering all angles. The former was fiddling with the lid of his coffee cup, sighing when the latter turned and raised a brow at him. “Come on Ro, spit it out. You know something.” Vaughan just stared, waiting, and he felt himself go still when Rowan finally opened his fucking mouth.

“She’s Rhoe’s daughter.” Oh, for the ever loving fuck. Oh gods.

“Tell me you’re joking.” He whispered it, knowing what the answer would be, but he was terrified anyway.

“I’m not joking, Gav.” Rowan was looking at him, worry etched all over his face, but he didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do. This was all so unbelievably fucked up. Vaughan’s only sign of being shocked was the way his eyes widened just a fraction. Despite that, he was probably running over everything in his head, trying to figure out how he missed something so important. “Rhoe Galathynius, the man who led this gang before her, had a daughter. There is no information on her anywhere, absolutely nothing. But she was around what, nine or ten when he was killed, so her parents must have set something up in case the worst happened, making it look like she never even existed.” He felt sick. If he hadn’t left, if he hadn’t listened to Eliana, then maybe he could have done something, could have kept Aelin from Arobynn. Could have kept her safe.

But Eliana, his beloved Eliana had made him go, to keep him safe and their son, their Aedion. She had known who Gavriel was, why he was with them all of those years ago. It was his task back then to take down Rhoe and the whole organization, but she had shown him that they weren’t bad, not really. They were the ones trying to keep the city safe. Gavriel hadn’t meant to fall in love with her, but she was just so good, so pure and so fucking beautiful. He had left before it all went to shit, telling his bosses he was compromised, though Eliana would have never hurt him. He had walked away from the love of his love, his son. And now he was finding out he’d walked away from his niece. Which she was really, although Eliana and Aelin’s mother were cousins, they were sisters in all the ways that mattered. The realisation knocked the breath out of his lungs, his knees going weak, almost dropping to the ground before Vaughan was by his side, holding him steady. “Fuck Gav, what the hell is wrong?”

“She’s my niece.”

Rowan was confused; his tell was the way he scrunched his nose a little. “You fell in love with Eliana on that assignment we know, and she fell pregnant, but that doesn’t make Aelin your niece Gav.”

“It does because I married her.”

The sudden silence between them was deafening. He’d never told either of them this. Suddenly Rowan was glaring at him, slowly standing so that they were level with one another, face to face.

“I’m sorry; I thought you just said that you married her. This by the way would make you related to them, which would mean in the end, you’d go down with them.”

No going back now, the damage was already done. “I married her, Rowan. I took her last name and she had the marriage certificate. I didn’t think at the time and then everything happened...I didn’t think I’d ever be back here.”

“Fuck! Why have you never mentioned this before?!”

“I’ll always protect her, I’ll always protect them. Lia knew who I was, what I was there for. I told her once, that I’d leave it all behind, but she made me go, so that maybe one day I’d get to know my son. That they’d find me when the dust settled.” But it didn’t end that way. Rhoe, Evalin and his beloved were all gone and his son lost. It took him years to find Aedion and when he did, he was a coward, never approaching the boy, the man now, that he’d kept tucked close to his heart. Vaughan was now swearing, in multiple languages and Rowan was just staring at him, pine green eyes burning holes into his skull.

“One of them is going to piece together who you are eventually, Gav. Aelin asked how I hadn’t noticed how similar she and Aedion were. We need to start moving faster but I don’t know how to do that. They’re just so...” Rowan trailed off but he didn’t need to explain more. Gavriel understood perfectly, having been through this already. It was hard getting so close and going so deep undercover because the lines always blur one way or another.

You just have to figure out which side you’ll be on when it disappears completely, before it’s too late.

oOoOo

Aelin sat on the sofa in the living room, her legs tucked underneath her as she watched Lorcan, Elide, Manon, and Dorian play twister. She laughed as Lorcan, giant brute that he was, collapsed and began grumbling about how stupid the game was. “Oh come on, Lorcan. No need to be a sore loser.” Fenrys goaded him from his spot on the chair, bag of peanuts in hand. Lorcan simply flipped him off and Fenrys chuckled, throwing a peanut at his forehead. Manon had an unfair advantage, Aelin thought, considering how fucking flexible the woman was. She was somehow weaved in between Elide and Dorian and didn’t look bothered by the way she bent. Chaol flicked the spinner again, calling out a ‘right hand, blue’ just as Rowan, Gavriel and Vaughan walked in. All three men looked amused by the sight before settling themselves around the room. Vaughan moved towards Lorcan, still looking like a kicked puppy and Gavriel towards Fenrys, who frowned when the older man began stealing his snacks. Rowan however, he moved to sit beside her, a strong thigh pressed against her feet.

Aelin ignored the urge to press against him more and asked, “See anything interesting out there?”

Rowan shook his head, watching as the three idiots on the floor collapsed into a pile of limbs when Dorian moved wrong. “Nothing. It seemed oddly quiet though, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“We’ll just have to keep an eye out then.” All he did was nod. He seemed quite sullen and part of her desperately wanted to ask if he was alright but thought better of it. She still didn’t know what she felt about him and wanted to keep it between the two of them for now.

“Where’s Aedion?”

“Lys wanted to go shopping, again, and she took Asterin too. I made Aedion go so that he could keep an eye out.” Lysandra thought it would help Asterin feel better to get out of the house, to go and do something for herself. Manon had wanted to go with them but decided to let them be, to not overcrowd her friend. There was a rustling of plastic as the Twister mat was flattened again and Connall, Ren, Fenrys and Chaol started playing. Aelin didn’t miss the way when Gavriel called out ‘left foot, yellow’, Ren slipped just a little and brushed against Con, making the other man’s face flush. They stared at each other for a minute, abruptly looking away when the next move was called. Aelin let a little knowing smirk slip, just in time for Ren to catch her eyes. He had the balls to look at her dumbly, as if he hadn't a clue what he’d just been doing. They all forgot how attentive she was to things and thought they were being sneaky when they weren’t. She would be happy if they made a go of things, once they both stopped being idiots about it. Ren and Connall suited each other.

Yrene walked in from the kitchen with a small tray of food, murmuring gently to Rowan, Gav and Vaughan. It was now noon after all and they boys had been gone all morning. Vaughan walked to where she placed it on the coffee table, giving his thanks as he reached for one of the sandwiches. Yrene only smiled back at him and was just pulling herself back up to normal height when she let out a shocked, “Oh gods fuck.” Aelin stood instantly and Chaol abandoned the game, rushing to his wife’s side.

“Love, are you alright?” She nodded, one hand on her back and the other on her swollen belly. Everyone had stopped what they were doing now, all on alert as they watched.

“Yeah, yes, just fine. Uh, no need to panic.” Very reassuring. Aelin moved to stand in front of her, placing a hand on top of Yrene’s. The woman leaned back a little to look at her, wide eyes blinking a couple of times.

“My waters just broke.”

Oh gods fuck, indeed.

------

Again, I’m sorry it’s short but this is how I wanted the chap to end soooo:) Give me a shout if you want to be added to the tags!!!

Tags: @bryaxisthefaceofnightmares @lila-baard @empress-sei @acourtofterrasenandvelaris @tswaney17 @queen-of-glass @thesirenwashere @awkward-avocado-s @b00kworm @http-itsrebecca @eatmysandwiches @poisonous00 @flowersinvegas @julemmaes @mu-si-ca-l @spyofthenightcourt  @sis-it-dont-add-up  @mad-madeline-ace​ @df3ndyr  @jesstargaryenqueen  @notyournymphetish @carbconnoisseur @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln  @superspiritfestival @alyx801 @silentquartz @tillyrubes10  @dayanna-hatter

[silvia7272]

ML Salt Songfic ~ 1 Good For You

I actually forgot about this, but I think I can put it out now considering you’ve all read about/seen my OC Rosina, if you haven’t it’s on my page. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and like the song.

Also, this is an AU of my AU? I guess that’s what I’m calling it yeah. So, it’s not canon and it never was going to be canon, when I heard this song it just inspired me to write this and I could’ve done it without my OC, but I wanted to include her. Well anyway, I hope you like it.

Word Count: 2553

Tags: @queenmj10, @fangirl39, @animegirlweeb, @northernbluetongue, @daminett4life, @raisuke06, @indecisive-mess-named-me, @luleck​, @themamaravenclaw, @emmathedestroyer, (I know you wanted it) if you wish to be tagged all you have to do is say. Sorry, it’s different but this was the reason I started posting in the first place.

***

Akuma Alert! Akuma Alert!

The alarms were blaring in the park, and yet no one could move from their place.

Because the Akuma was right in front of them.

It was Marinette, she had been Akumatized. But it seemed somewhat unusual, she didn’t look any different, but they had seen the purple mist cover her, maybe she was like Chameleon?

So then why did it feel like it had changed?

Adrien couldn’t tell, and he needed to transform into Chat Noir, but he couldn’t just leave his friends to deal with the Akuma alone? Right?

Lila didn’t think that, she tried to make her escape, but a musical note blocked her way. She really was Akumatized!

Her face was contorted with pain as the pink mask covered her face, she was trying to break free!

“C’mon Marinette, you can do it,” He shouted, He tried to reach out, but someone pulled him back.

“Are you crazy, she’s been Akumatized she’ll hurt you, it’s what she’s always done to us. She’s already gotten her other friends hurt because of that transformation!?” Lila spoke, gripping his arm like a lifeline. But it was true, Rosina, Kagami, Chloé and Luka all tried to reach out to her mid-transformation, but they all fell to the ground and no one was brave enough to check on them.

“Shut up!” It was the first time Marinette had spoken since she had been Akumatized, tears were raining down her face, but the blond couldn’t tell if she was talking to the class or Hawkmoth.

“Just shut up, stop lying already, just stop hurting me” She had to be talking about Hawkmoth, she must still be fighting it.

But not everyone thought that.

“Come on Marinette, for once just admit you were wrong already. It’s getting really tiring.” Alya rolled her eyes while reciting how that was the only reason, she got Akumatized in the first place, the piece of paper she was holding had been a music draft of Lila’s that she was going to throw away in the first place.

Everyone knew Marinette didn’t write songs, she only made clothes and baked treats, that the class wasn’t provided with the past few days, and Adrien did think it was strange that she had a music draft, she probably found it and would’ve returned it to its rightful owner.

Why was she so upset about it anyway?

But she stopped, she lifted her head up, her face full of shock.

“You… Really still think I’m lying?” She sounded so disheartened, and Adrien would’ve sent her a ‘don’t rock the boat anymore’ look but she didn’t even spare him a glance.

Weren’t they friends?

“Of course, Lila’s so talented at making song lyrics so she had someone write them down for her. And now you’re holding onto a draft claiming it to be your own, that’s pathetic, even for someone like Chloé never mind you. Just stop being so pathetic and admit it. You’re jealous of Lila and everything she could do for us while you did nothing but whine like a child!” Adrien thought that the last line was a bit overkill, but he wasn’t about to say anything.

But all of that struggling, all of that resistance had completely vanished from Marinette. Why had she given up? Why hadn’t she continued fighting?

“I’ll show you my Melody” It was a whisper that only Adrien was able to pick up. Melody? What did she mean by that?

But he didn’t have time to think of that before everything in his vision turned white. He couldn’t feel his body. He couldn’t move… He couldn’t…

***

“Adrien? Yo Adrien, wake up man” He groaned as he opened his eyes.

“Nino? Is everyone alright? Where are we? What happened? Where’s Marinette?” Nino put his hands up startled.

“Whoa easy there one at a time dude. Anyway, yeah, we’re fine, we don’t know it looks like a white void, Marinette happened and we don’t know”

He couldn’t believe it. When he took in the view, it was devoid of life, it was devoid of colour.

It was just white all around him, he didn’t understand it. It reminded him of Pixelator.

“Oh Adrien I’m so scared, what are we going to do?” He couldn’t shake her arm off so had to relent, everyone around him tried to console the girl.

“Stick together, there should be an exit around here, but I’ll post it on the Ladyblog, that way Ladybug and Chat Noir will come.” He sighed, knowing that his Lady would be all alone for this one.

“Hey, my phones not working!” The others then tried to get their phones. No result.

“Oh no we’re trapped in here and no one is going to save us! What do we do!?” Everyone was panicking, but what could he do, if Chat Noir were to show up now, they would all get suspicious.

Nathaniel wasn’t doing great either. But he stepped back and heard a crunch.

“Huh?” He looked down and found a note.

“What’s that?” Max noticed the discovery and went over to Nath to see what it was.

“It says [The Song Of Truth Is Your Only Escape In This Labyrinth] What does that mean?”

“And why is it on a music sheet?” A simple question they all couldn’t process.

♫I’ll never know why I ever wanted to restore my friendship with you!?♫ The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. But he knew who it was.

“Marinette stop this please, we can get through this together” He shouted, he had to get her to stop being so angry.

♫Silence. I am Marilody, Marinette is no more. And you will all be punished for your lies and harassment towards your students! My friends!♫ It was there that she revealed herself.

If it wasn’t for her hair and dress, she would’ve been camouflaged with the background. But she didn’t look like a regular Akuma, no.

Her skin was pure white, along with the white flowing dress she wore. It was embroidered with musical notes, similar doodles he had seen previously on her sketchbook. It was shoulderless with the same pattern, and her hair was the same colour but in a small ponytail to the side. Her eyes were hidden by a giant accessory in the shape of a musical note resembling a hat.

If Ladybug didn’t already occupy his heart, Adrien might be thinking Marinette was more than a friend.

“Marinette please, you’re stronger than this! Don’t let Hawkmoth-”

♫Hawkmoth isn’t controlling me! The one who made me become Marilody is myself. And I will show you the truth of what I can and have done for you selfish people, my Melody will be performed before you and you will see the truth!♫

They heard the sound of a guitar being played. And notes in the air with a red dot flowing through it.

“What’s going on?” Rose and Juleka huddled together along with Ivan, Mylène, Nino and Alya scared. He was scared. He had the power to protect them but couldn’t use it. You could sense the irony looming over the boy’s head.

♫So you found a place where the grass is greener And you jumped the fence to the other side♫

The class was treated to a front-row seat of a scene that had just happened mere moments ago. When they were at the park.

Just what was Marinette’s power?

♫Is it good? Are they giving you a world I could never provide?♫

The scene cut to Lila being crowded around by everyone while Marinette was alone.

But she was still smiling. Even if it seemed fake.

♫Well I hope you’re proud of your big decision Yeah, I hope it’s all that you want and more♫

They saw the past of when Marinette was always handing out free pastries to them, wearing that happy and bright smile on her face, they had forgotten what it had looked like.

Because it was never directed towards them anymore.

They had forgotten.

Everything she had done for them.

♫Now you’re free, from the agonizing life you were living before~♫

Then it changed to everyone leaving her for Lila, she was telling a tale of her time in Achu, Rose couldn’t stop gushing about Prince Ali. He thought the lies wouldn’t hurt anyone.

♫And you say what you need to say So that you get to walk away It would kill you to have to stay trapped when you’ve got something new♫

They couldn’t move.

♫Well I’m sorry you had it rough And I’m sorry I’m not enough♫

Everything single thing Marinette had done for them had flashed in front of them.

♫Thank God ‘they rescued’ you♫

But then Lila appeared, and everything she said was almost out of a fairy-tale, it was amazing, they wanted to hear more. They needed to hear more of her adventures.

♫So you got what you always wanted? So you got your dream come true? Good for you Good for you, you, you!♫

They were addictive. They couldn’t get enough.

♫Got a taste of a life so perfect So you did what you had to do Good for you Good for you!♫

Marinette had vanished from view but the scenes were still playing. The blond needed to find a way to free himself. He needed to get Plagg to cause a mini-explosion, to cause a distraction maybe. Anything! But he couldn’t get to him in time. Because he saw someone who he hadn’t seen since at the park.

“Rosina?” They all turned their heads to their new red-haired friend. But Adrien was able to notice, the Cat Miraculous had certain side effects he was giddy to have but that’s not the point. Instead of a black pupil, it was a musical note.

“She’s under Marinette’s control” They all gasped, horrified at what had happened to their friend. They believed her being near Marinette was bad, never mind this!

♪Does it cross your mind to be slightly sorry?♪ 

She really was under her spell! Adrien desperately wanted to shake her awake and free her, but now his arms couldn’t move.

♬Do you even care that you might be wrong?♬ 

Kagami!? Oh god, his two friends were under Marinette’s friends. He watched as they circled each and every one of his friends.

♬Was it fun?♬ 

They flinched.

♪Well, I hope you had a blast while you dragged me along~♪ 

They started to walk away when there was a whine from Lila, they were still able to turn their heads and saw Chloé, she kept prodding Lila as she cried, he wasn’t able to tell if they were even fake tears anymore.

♩And you say what you need to say! And you play who you need to play! And if somebody’s in your way! Crush them and leave them behind!♩

Even if they wanted to help Lila they couldn’t. Their legs wouldn’t let them. It was like they were in quicksand, only they weren’t sinking into the ground, they were sinking into their sorrow and sadness they were feeling. If Marinette wasn’t already Akumatized Hawkmoth would be having a field day.

♮Well I guess if I’m not of use Go ahead, you can cut me loose♮

And then they saw it.

A scene that shocked them.

♮Go ahead now, I won’t mind♮

If her power was to sing the truth.

And all of the scenes had been of the truth.

They felt sick to their stomach.

Then the scene of Lila cornering Marinette in the bathroom must’ve been true as well.

If Lila had been so kind to everyone why were the words [Soon you won’t have any friends left at all. Trust me. You will lose your friends and wind up all alone] written underneath, they couldn’t think anymore, just look.

♫I’ll shut my mouth and I’ll let you go Is that good for you? Would that be good for you, you, you?♫

Some couldn’t believe, they kept screaming how it had to be wrong, how it might just be Marinette’s doing. But the more it came on, the more they started to believe.

♭I’ll just sit back while you run the show Is that good for you? Would that be good for you, you, you?♭

Just like how they should’ve believed Marinette, and they had only just realised their mistake.

♯All I need is some time to think♯ Max. He never needed time to think, he was the smartest one in the class.

♭(I’ll shut my mouth and I’ll let you go)♭

♯But the boat is about to sink♯ Rose. Wasn’t she meant to be the kindest one out of everyone? Why didn’t she give Marinette a chance?

♭(Is that good for you?)♭

♯Can’t erase what I wrote in ink♯ Alix. She had written some things on her desk once… Twice… She had lost count.

♭(Would that be good for you, you, you?)♭

♯Tell me how could I change the story?♯ Lila. She had been caught, and she needed to spin her story. Fast!

♯All the words that I can’t take back♯ Alya. All those mean comments claiming Marinette was a bully. She was the bully. Weren’t they friends? Besties? She didn’t deserve to be called anything like that.

♭(I’ll just sit back while you run the show)♭

♯Like a train coming off the track♯ Kim. He wanted this pain to end, he should’ve trusted her, she had been the one to console everyone before an Akuma had gotten to them. And they treat her like this?

♭(Is that good for you?)♭

♯‘Cause the rails and my bones all crack♯ Nino. They had been childhood friends! How could he think she was lying!?

♭(For You!)♭

♯I’ve got to find a way to♯

♯Stop it, stop it! Just let me out!♯ Adrien. If only she had told him Lila had threatened her, if only he had done more, taking more of the brunt, if only- no he had to stop, he had to accept it was all his fault. He could’ve stopped it, but he was afraid he’d never get to see his friends again. He had to accept that he had hurt Marinette so much she had been Akumatized. He had to accept that- maybe he couldn’t save her, after all, you could never really trust someone who had betrayed you… Right?

♭So you got what you always wanted So you got your dream come true Good for you Good for you, you, you♭

They were sorry.

But images of Marinette gone from their life terrified them.

♭Got a taste of a life so perfect Now you say that you’re someone new Good for you Good for you Good for you Good! For! You!♭

But what would it matter? She probably would never want to speak to them ever again.

♭So you got what you always wanted!♭

What had they done?

They had seen the truth.

All of it.

But they didn’t have time to dwell on that, because as they continued to watch the scenes in front of them, they couldn’t help but feel slightly tired. Only a bit… Maybe if they had a small nap it would… Help.

♫The truth will come out… There will be no more lies for anyone… Anymore♫

***

End. I changed a word for Lila because I thought it would fit better. They, in the song, are Lila and a bit of Adrien. Originally, I wasn’t going to make a two-parter, however, if anyone has an idea I could use, and then a song as well, I will consider continuing this to become a two-shot. Or even if someone wants to continue this? Feel free to do so, just tag me, please.

Well, I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you have a nice day.

Edit 1: This is how Marilody looks like, I thought she’d look a bit more fashionable since you know, Marinette. and since she has more control hawkmoth didn't design her.

[dawnwave16]

Gamer Girl pt 2!

part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4

AO3 link

Part 2 and 3 were meant to be one chapter and it wasn’t supposed to get this long but here we are! 

Story:

When Marinette walked into the Bakery so soon after having left for school, Sabine knew something was wrong. For one thing, Marinette tried not to miss school if she didn't have to, the last time she had gone to school only to come back home was a particularly bad day when Marinette was nine. For another, Marinette didn't even bother to greet her simply walking past her and up the stairs without a word.

“Marinette?” Sabine called tentatively after her daughter. “Maman, with all due respect I need to calm down right now before I speak to anyone.” Came the terse reply from her daughter's retreating form. “I'm going to see if I can go into full dive and join Kirito and the others for a while. When I'm calm I'll tell you what happened.” Sabine exchanged a look with Nadja, who had just walked in and shrugged. If Marinette asked for time to calm down first, it had to be something bad but both women knew there was nothing they could do until Marinette was ready to talk. * * * * * * * Marinette waited for Tikki to climb out of her bag before she tossed it onto the chaise with her backpack joining it shortly after. She had just taken her jacket off when a voice echoed in her mind. “Lady Morning, I am-” “Yeah, I know who you are Hawkmoth and the answer is no. I am in no mood to deal with you or anyone else except those who truly would understand how I'm feeling right now. If you try to akumatize anyone else since I'm saying no, then I will track you down and I will make you feel all the pain I'm feeling right now.” Marinette growled at the villain. “Just for future reference, Ladybug will be told who you are because I've recognised your voice Gabriel Agreste! So leave me alone or it won't be Ladybug you have to worry about!” Tikki watched from her vantage point as Marinette fought off the Akuma that had flown into her jacket and listened in growing horrified pride as Marinette stood up not to Hawkmoth but to the person she had once looked up to. She hadn't known about the connection between Hawkmoth and Gabriel and under normal circumstances, Marinette wouldn't have been recognised his voice either. It seemed her anger was so potent at that moment that it burned away the magic that normally hid that sort of detail. Tikki watched as the dark purple butterfly escaped from the jacket Marinette was holding and quickly swooped down and purified it. She looked at Marinette's face but seeing the tears making their way down Marinette's cheeks, she decided to simply eat the offered cookie and return to her nest to watch over her chosen. Marinette, now free to feel, let herself cry for a bit before checking with Yui to see if her group was online and quickly joining them. * * * * * * * * * * * * When Marinette had stormed out of the classroom, the class had taken a moment to process what had just happened before turning to Max and Markov for clarification about what Marinette had said. It took him a moment to find the information but when he did his face paled and he ran for the rubbish bin and threw up. “Max?” Mlle Bustier asked softly. Max was quiet as he processed what he had just read further then he turned and faced the class. “We messed up. Big time. When Marinette said that people died from the game, she wasn't lying. That 'game' was called Sword Art Online or SAO to most people. Anyway, on the day it launched 10 000 people logged on only to find they couldn't log out. To people not logged on it looked like the people who were, were simply in a coma. It wasn't until after everyone had logged on that a message was released saying that if the people that had logged on wanted to survive, they had to clear the game. If they died in-game, they died for real because the headset, or NerveGear as it was called, they used would fry their brains.” Max closed his eyes and fought the urge to vomit again, his face was still ashen when he opened his eyes and looked at the class. “If the family members of someone who had logged in tried to remove the NerveGear, it would kill the person in full dive anyway. 3,853. That's how many people died in the game or through people trying to remove the players NerveGear. Over half of that was in the first month!” Max sank to the floor as his legs gave out from shock. “I can't believe Marinette was one of the ones that survived. From the video, we can guess that she was really strong but the other players we saw must have been strong too...” His voice trailed off as he thought about what his classmate must have gone through. Several members of the class nodded in agreement with his words. Suddenly Chloe spoke up. “Wait how long were they stuck in the game?” “I don't see how that's relevant Chloe but to answer your question two years two days one hour and fifty-five minutes. The extra day comes from the fact that 2024 was a leap year.” Max said softly. Chloe closed her eyes as though she was in pain. “Fuck! How did she not lose her temper with me?! I've bullied her for how long now about being clumsy but after that long in a coma, of course, she is going to be clumsy!” The class stared at Chloe in shock and even Mlle Bustier didn't say anything. Alya had her eyes on her phone and her hand was flying over a page she had next to her as she went over all the information she could find about SAO, presumably for a new story for her blog so she missed Chloe's statement completely. “She's stronger than the rest of us that's for sure,” Adrien's voice was soft but seemed to echo around the silent room. “What do you mean Adrian?” Chloe asked for once using his name instead of one of her twisted nicknames for him. “Think about it. Not only did she survive SAO but she is one of the few people who has never been Akumatised. Even with everything Lila and this class has done to her she has avoided Hawkmoth's notice. As we are yet to get an alarm saying there is an Akuma on the loose now, I think it's safe to say that she hasn't been Akumatised today either. Any of us would have been a prime target in Marinette's state but there's nothing so far.” Adrien's voice was still soft as he explained his logic and he was surprised when he saw a number of his classmates' nod in agreement with what he was saying. He was about to say more when there was a knock on the door and a smartly dressed man walked into the room. “Pardon the intrusion so early in the morning, I am Jean-François Thévenet. I'm one of the members of the school board. We were in the principal's office for our annual meeting when we all received a rather interesting email. Due to the nature of the contents of this email, we have decided that a formal investigation has to be launched.” The man paused as he took in the various looks of surprise and disbelief on each of the class members faces. His brown eyes cataloguing everything he was seeing with an impassive expression. “The results of this investigation will be determined by the findings. Now, each of your parents have been call and as such we have obtained permission to interview you all. Some parents have requested that an adult other than ourselves be in the room and we have agreed so long as they don't interfere with the investigation. To be clear, we have a very good record of what has been happening in this class for the past six months, all we want is the clarification of why it has happened and why it wasn't brought to our attention before now. Interviews will be done in a random order, so will Rose Lavillant follow me.” He didn't give anyone a chance to react, turning on his heel and walking out of the room with Rose scrambling to catch up to him. Whispers broke out as soon as the two were out of the classes eyesight as Caline Bustier stood in shock. An investigation? Six months? What was going on? As far as she knew, that morning was the first time anything untoward had happened in her classroom. Eventually, she managed to shake her thought clear and start the much-delayed lesson on the french revolution. * * * * * * * * * * * * When Yui had sent him a message to let him know that Suiren (Waterlily aka Marinette) would be joining him online shortly, Kirito had been confused. She was in Paris which meant that if he had the time conversion correct, she should be in school at that moment. His confusion Vanished the moment he saw her. “Suiren! Are you alright? Silly question, never mind.” Without giving her a chance to reply he pulled her into his arms. “I'm here, let it out,” he murmured to which the only reaction was her burying her face into his avatars chest and bursting into tears. They stayed like that even as the rest of the group arrived thanks to Yui calling them. Kirito slowly ran his hand up and down her back in comfort even as he looked at his friends in confusion. It was at the moment that Suiren murmured something that had Yui nodding. “Sui-chan said I could show you what has her so upset and why she isn't at school. I'm just glad that I copied myself to her phone!” Without further ado, a large screen appeared hovering in mid-air that showed Suiren as he everyday self walking into her class. It showed her teachers actions and Marinette's reactions. It skipped over playing the video of that fateful battle though, for which Suiren was grateful. She didn't think any of the people present needed to see that video. Instead, it skipped to Marinette telling her teacher off and carried on from there giving those present a view of what was carrying on in her class at that moment. Suiren turned to Yui. “How are you doing that?” “I tapped into the camera's you had the school install in every classroom after that Lila girl almost got you expelled.” Yui chirped happily. Suiren was quiet for a moment. “What are you thinking, Suiren?” Kirito asked her quietly. “That I'm honestly sick of Paris. I understand that it is where my parents are but I am the only person

at my school that went through SAO and I'm beginning to feel completely alone. I was never one to enjoy being the centre of attention and I feel like if the people I thought were my friends were truly my friends, they wouldn't have been swayed by Lila.” Suiren's voice was soft as she spoke, almost as though she was trying to work through an idea as she spoke. “I think I'm going to talk to my parents about the possibility of me moving to Japan and joining the school they set up for SAO survivors in order to make sure I'm at the right level educationally. I can always attend the Tokyo branch of ESMOD and most of the people I design for live in Japan anyway. Those that don't live in Japan, travel to it now and then for work much as they do to Paris so it's not like that's an issue.” “Want me to talk to Kikuoka to see if he can pull some strings? He owes me a couple of favours anyway...” Kirito offered, and after a pause, Suiren nodded. “I think that might be best. This is the last week of the current school term so I'll stay in Paris for another month and get everything sorted out that needs to be sorted out. I'll also need to talk to my parents. Yui if you could send what you've found to my home computer that would be a great help in convincing them to let me go!” With that plan settled the group moved to an area where they could do some mat collection for both Liz and Suiren as they had been talking about upgrading their gear for them. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The investigation that was going on at Collège Françoise Dupont had been slightly brutal in Marinette's opinion, even if it had had to be that way in order to get the full truth to be revealed. M. Damocles had tried to protest against the investigation and the board had eventually had to threaten to suspend him before he had reluctantly stepped aside and let them have access to everything that they needed. The interviews with her class as well as some of the other classes had gone about as well as the board had expected though and they hadn't been impressed by their findings. They were, even more, displeased when they had finally managed to contact Lila's mother. When the board had first tried to contact Mrs Signora Rossi they had been puzzled as to why her phone kept going to voice mail. As Alya was Lila's friend they asked if she had Signora Rossi's number on the off chance. She didn't but she willing handed Lila's number over to the board and when they compared it to the number they had for Signora Rossi they found that the two numbers were the same. So the board did the next best thing since Lila had said her mother was a diplomat for the Italian Embassy, they phoned them and asked to speak to her. Once again that failed to bring the desired result as there was no Signora Rossi registered as working for the Italian Embassy as a diplomat or otherwise. It took them two days but they eventually found her working long hours as a waitress in an out of the way restaurant. She had been shocked when she had been asked about everything that Lila had said or done as well as Lila's frequent 'trips' and 'illnesses'. It was only through sheer luck that Mr Pigeon had struck at that moment instead of her being akumatised. She had been absolutely devastated to find out that while she was working two jobs to give her daughter a better life than her own, that same daughter was lying through her teeth as though she was ashamed of her. Once that had been discovered, the board had taken a closer look at all the documents that Lila had given the school. These ranged from various doctors notes to letters that had supposedly come from her mother regarding her trips abroad. Once they had been check thoroughly they had set to work on trying to get hold of Lila who had proved to be most slippery. In the end, the board had simply handed her file over to the truancy office and made sure that she would be held back a grade due to all her absences and the sheer amount of work that Lila had had her classmates do for her. In the end, Lila's mother opted to move Lila to a different school where she gave the teacher very strict instructions on what to look out for with her daughter. As for the rest of Marinette's class? Well, they had found that life wasn't as easy as they remembered it being before Marinette had finally decided she had had enough. It seemed like all the little things were missing and for the first time, they started to realise how much her smile had brightened the day for many of them.

[missmalice202]

Designing Your Melody: Chapter 15 - Satisfied

Chapter 01 - Chapter 14

If Marinette had been a nervous wreck before her Fashion Week show, that was nothing compared to her instability at that moment. As a matter of fact, anyone watching the poor girl would have assumed that she’d become unhinged.

Pacing around her room, she pointedly avoided looking in the mirror for the thousandth time that evening.

After much agony, she’d finally decided on a relatively casual appearance for her and Luka’s first date. Surely he wouldn’t choose to do something too extravagant for their first official date. Was this their first date, or did their meeting at the café last week count as their first date? Was that even a date? She didn’t know…

Spiraling ever further into a tizzy, she let out a shrill scream when her mother popped her head into her room and announced that Luka had arrived to pick her up.

Sparing a cursory glance at her phone, she realized that he was early. She needed the extra five minutes to settle her nerves. It just wouldn’t do to have him see how much this simple date was affecting her.

Releasing a sigh in resignation, she allowed herself one final glance in the mirror, just to check and make sure that nothing had fallen to disarray in her nervous breakdown.

Her hair was still elegantly pulled away from her face and gently curled to fall in waves to just below her shoulders. None of her lightly applied make up had smeared from screaming into a pillow earlier. Thankfully, the tunic length red sweater was knitted in a soft, fluffy cashmere and didn’t indicate that she had been mercilessly bunching up the hem in her fists for the batter part of an hour. Vertical striped leggings completed her outfit and when she finally reclaimed what little composure she had left, she stepped into a pair of black velvet ankle boots.

With that, she decided that she was ready as she ever would be. Snagging her purse on the way, she made her way down her stairs – and missed one of the last steps, resulting in her clumsily sliding down the stairs the rest of the way down.

Stunned from the fall, she could only sit at the bottom of the staircase with her legs sprawled out around her. Her head swiveled to the side when she heard a faint snickering. She looked on in horror as her parents both were attempting to suppress their laughter, but their failure was audible.

To make matters worse, Luka was standing with them, a look of horror on his face.

“Oh my god, Marinette, are you alright?” He rushed over to help her, grasping her arm firmly and pulling her to her feet.

She brushed herself off and adjusted her sweater where it had bunched up around her waist. Thank goodness she’d decided against wearing a dress. She would have had to change her name and move out of the country if she would have fallen down the stairs in front of Luka in a dress!

She shook her head to get rid of that line of thinking right away. She still had to salvage this situation, not get hung up on something that hadn’t even happened.

“Yeah, I’m fine” she assured him.

He held out his arm for her to take, which she did so gladly. They turned toward her parents and bid them goodnight, Luka promising her safe return later that evening.

From the looks on their faces, Luka’s concern for her safety was the right course of action to gain their approval.

Upon exiting the bakery, Luka turned to Marinette and asked, “Would it be okay with you if we took the metro? There’s a place I’d like to take you to and it’s a kind of far to walk or for me to ride my bike to.”

She looked at him with her eyebrow raised. “Oh? And where is this place?”

“There’s a crêperie a few blocks away from where the Liberty is moored that I think you might enjoy.”

And with her approval, they headed toward the nearest metro station.

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“Luka,” Marinette said enthusiastically around a mouthful of the crêpe complète - a savory buckwheat crêpe stuffed with ham, egg and cheese, “you were right.”

He leaned back in his seat with a smile and waited for her to continue. “This place is amazing! I can’t believe I’ve lived in this city for my entire life and I’ve never been here before.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. Not only was the food delicious, but the crêperie Luka had chosen also boasted an extensive cider list, which they both had chosen from and enjoyed.

In addition, they had chosen to dine outside under the navy-blue awnings so they could enjoy the mild October night. Each of those factors resulted in an atmosphere of quiet comfort and did much to relax Marinette.

She and Luka had been thoroughly enjoying themselves, laughing and teasing each other, sharing bites of each other’s food (and Marinette had to admit that his duck breast crêpe was better than her ham), and generally reveling in each other’s company.

As for her companion, he had done everything he could to put her at ease. When their date began, he made a conscious effort not to invade her personal space and toned down the flirting. At least, he did at first.

Now that she was more comfortable in his presence, the metaphorical gloves had come off. He was back to his outrageously charming self and Marinette was in a much better mind frame to handle him. Their playful banter resulted in one of the best times she’d had in a very, very long time.

“Oh my! Is that you, Marinette?”

Upon hearing the sickeningly sweet voice coming from behind her, she snapped up in her chair, her previous feeling of ease instantly evaporated. She turned her head to look at the young woman approaching the table.

All in all, she hadn’t changed much in the two years that had passed since Marinette had last seen her. Her dark auburn hair was pulled up in a ponytail instead of cascading down her back, but she still sported the blunt bangs that ended just above her almond-shaped green eyes.

Knowing that she was trapped and wouldn’t be able to avoid the upcoming confrontation, Marinette greeted the other girl with a barely restrained grimace.

“Hello, Lila.”

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At Marinette’s terse greeting, Luka realized that there was more to this meeting than he was aware of. It appeared these two ladies had history, and if Marinette’s reaction to the other girl’s interruption of their dinner was any indication, it was a bad history.

“I thought that was you,” the green-eyed girl – Lila was what Marinette had called her – exclaimed. “How are you? It’s been so long since I last saw you.”

“Not nearly long enough,” came Marinette’s reply through clenched teeth.

There was something about the way that Lila talked that struck Luka as fake. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but her whole demeanor toward Marinette just screamed hostility and set him on edge.

However, he didn’t want to jump to conclusions and sat back and observed their conversation.

“The other day, I saw pictures from your little fashion show online,” Lila said, her voice dripping with condescension. “I would have come to your show myself, but I was in Achu visiting Prince Ali again.” She flicked a finger through her bangs and rolled her eyes. “I swear, the prince is always after me to spend more time with him. It’s like we’re practically engaged already!”

“Sure, Lila,” came Marinette’s impatient response.

Apparently, that hadn’t been the response the other girl had been aiming for because her eyes narrowed in annoyance. “But enough about me! It’s just so wonderful that you’ve finally gotten over your little crush on Adrien and were able to somehow convince a model of his caliber to agree to appear in your show.” She smirked as Marinette’s jaw clenched at the backhanded compliment. “The media coverage of his appearance must sure have gotten you a ton of attention. I guess that’s how the business is, using every connection you’ve got to make sure you end up on top. Good for you.”

Luka was stunned. Surely this vicious girl wasn’t trying to say that Marinette was using her apparent friendship with Adrien Agreste to get her foot in the door of the fashion world. Anyone with eyes could see how talented she was.

He hazarded a glance at his date and sure enough, rage was radiating off her in almost visible waves. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that she had unconsciously gripped her table knife in her fist.

He reached over and place his hand over hers and gently pried to potential weapon out of her shaking hand. It wouldn’t do to have his date get arrested for assaulting someone with a deadly weapon.

Apparently, his intervention had been enough to snap her out of her murderous rage and she took a breath to calm herself.

“For the record, Lila, I didn’t use any of my so-called ‘connections’. When Alya mentioned my upcoming show to Adrien, he volunteered to model for me. I didn’t have to ask him for any favors and to be honest, I’m offended that you’d try to say that I’d use my friendship with Adrien to further my own career. We’ve been friends for years, a fact that just kills you inside, and we always do whatever we can to help each other out.”

Feeling proud for some reason at Marinette standing up for herself to this vile girl, Luka watched as the other girl drew herself back with a gasp and pressed her hand to her chest as if to ease an ache there.

“How could you think that?” she gasped. “I wasn’t trying to say that at all! I was just complimenting you on how clever it was of you to use an already internationally well-known model in your show, knowing that it would guarantee you’d get more attention.”

From the corner of his eyes, he could see Marinette shake her head, obviously out of patience with the girl.

“Lila, I know you well enough to know that your ‘compliments’ are never what they seem. You haven’t changed since school and I feel sorry for you.” She watched as Lila’s eyes widened in surprise and she took a step back. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my date.”

At the reminder that the two girls were not alone, Lila’s sharp eyes focused on Luka, where he was sitting across from Marinette with his hand still casually resting on her own. He could see the gears in her mind start to turn as she tried to figure out a way to come out of this altercation the victor.

“You’re date?” she crooned, gazing roving appreciatively from the tips of Luka’s carefully (for once) styled hair, over the black blazer he wore with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, to the tight blue jeans the did nothing to hide his muscular legs, to rest on the black boots he had chosen to wear that night. It was obvious she liked what she saw and Luka didn’t appreciate being assessed like he was something for sale.

“Yes,” Marinette said, getting her attention once more. “You’re interrupting our date and we would appreciate it if you left.”

Lila sneered at her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were on a date. I thought he was just a friend or something. I didn’t think that someone that looks like him would go on a date with someone like you.” Her gaze flickered to Luka’s once more, checking to see if he had picked up on her compliment toward him.

“To be frank,” she continued, “I just can’t believe that you’d go out with anyone other than Adrien, considering how absolutely in love with him you were for years.” She gave Marinette a quick nod of approval and went on to say, “Good for you. Finally getting over your creepy obsession with him must have been hard, but don’t you think it’s a little unfair to your ‘date’ here to use him for a rebound?”

Okay, enough was enough. Luka had heard enough and intervened on Marinette’s behalf.

“I don’t mind if she’s using me,” he said calmly, ignoring the way Marinette’s head whipped around to stare at him in horror. “I’m just happy that a girl like Marinette agreed to go out with me tonight. With as beautiful and talented as she is, if Adrien couldn’t see that, then his loss is definitely my gain.”

Growing visibly frustrated that the seeds of doubt she’d tried to plant hadn’t taken root, Lila hastily made an excuse and stormed off, leaving behind an amused Luka and a surprised Marinette.

Glancing back at his companion, Luka grew concerned when she continued to stare at the table, refusing to look at him.

“Are you ok?”

She took a shuddering breath before looking up at him, eyes swimming with unshed tears. “I am so sorry about that.”

“What do you have to apologize for?” he asked, wiping at a stray tear that had finally spilled over. “She’s the one who interrupted us. If anyone should be sorry, it’s her.”

She shook her head at him. “I’m sorry about the things you had to hear, about me, and about you.”

“Marinette,” he started, squeezing her hand again to reassure her, “it’s easy for anyone with eyes to see that she’s just jealous of you and was trying to stir up trouble.”

Her shoulders sagged in relief that he didn’t believe anything he had heard that night. But it made him wonder. “Has she always been like that?”

He laughed at Marinette’s heartfelt groan. “Ugh, it was even worse when we were in school together. She’s a compulsive liar and I was one of the few people who could see how fake she was. The fact that I couldn’t be manipulated by her lies made me her enemy in her mind. She wasn’t satisfied until she tried to completely ruin my life.”

At Luka’s shocked expression, she explained. “She’d plant stuff in my bag or locker and accuse me of stealing. She made up the most horrible rumors about my friends and then would tell them that she’d heard it from me. And once, she went so far as to pretend to fall down a flight of stairs at school and then timed it just right that when she called for help, it looked like I had pushed her down the stairs.” She scrubbed her face with her hands, still upset at that particular injustice. “I almost got kicked out of school because of her lies.”

Luka couldn’t believe it. Of course, he believed every word that Marinette said, but he couldn’t believe that anyone could dislike the kind-hearted girl to such an extreme.

When he told her as much, she laughed. “Well, you said it yourself. She was jealous of me. I was friends with Adrien in school and she wanted to be where I was so she could weasel her way into his life.” She smiled smugly. “But he didn’t fall for it either and he called her out on her bullshit.

“I don’t know how he did it, but he said something to her that scared her enough to make up some ridiculous story about how she has some mysterious medical condition that makes it impossible for her to control what she says, or something like that. God,” she said in disgust, “she reduced the principal to tears with her ridiculous lie. But after that day, she pretty much left me alone.”

“That’s a relief. You don’t need someone so toxic in your life,” Luka said comfortingly.

“I know,” she agreed. “I appreciate whatever it was that Adrien did to get her to leave me alone, but it wasn’t enough to stop her lying and most of my friends still thought she was the greatest thing in the world.”

With a final shrug of her shoulders, she declared, “That’s it, I’ve wasted enough of our time together on her.”

So they returned to their meals and changed the subject, continuing to enjoy what time they had left together.

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If she were to be completely honest with herself, Marinette was shocked at how easy it was for her to talk to Luka. After she’d gotten over her initial bundle of nerves, she found it was completely natural for her to interact with him, Granted, he’d made it a point to make her comfortable, so that definitely helped. In fact, if he hadn’t gone out of his way to casually touch her throughout the night, she would have thought that they’d just been hanging out together, grabbing a bite to eat between friends.

But it was in those small, imperceptible touches that he’d declared his intent. Whether it was lightly stroking the back of her hand with a calloused fingertip, or gently grasping her shoulders to steer her around a puddle on the sidewalk, or firmly placing his hand on the small of her back to steady her when the metro had jerked, it was those small intimacies that indicated to her that he was interested in more than a friendship or a professional relationship with her.

Even now, walking the few blocks from the metro station to her house, he had subtly place himself between her and the street, ever mindful of their surroundings and how they could affect her.

She shivered when a sudden gust of wind cut through what little protection her sweater gave her from the chill October night. Without hesitation, Luka slid off his blazer and draped it over her shoulders, letting his hands linger before caressing down her back to return to his side. She shivered again, but this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

She snuggled into his jacket, enveloped by his warmth and the gentle scent that was all Luka: warm, sweet, and carrying the faint snap of an ocean breeze.

She hummed her appreciation as she snuggled the jacket more firmly around her, relishing in the feeling of being surrounded by Luka’s essence while ignore the traitorous whisper in the back of her head that being held in his arms would be a much better alternative to some flimsy jacket.

Far too quickly for both of their liking, they arrived back at the bakery. Marinette glanced up at Luka, his face in shadows from the streetlight. She smiled at him and took off his jacket, returning it with a mumbled “Thanks”.

Seconds pass in silence as neither wanted to say goodbye, but they both knew that the evening had to end sometime. Finally, Marinette crumbled under the awkward silence and says goodbye.

“I had a great time. Thank you for taking me out tonight, Luka.” She tilted her head back to get a better look at his face through the shadows.

With a playful chuckle, he lifted his hand and ran it down her hair, fingers threading through some of her curls to rest on the back of her neck. Her breath seized in her chest as he leaned closer to her face.

Her stomach exploded with butterflies as his breath fanned over her face.

Her eyes shoot wide when she feels his soft lips press against her forehead. Her skin tickled when she felt his lips curl into a smile against her as she continued to just stand there like a deer caught in headlights.

She was still frozen in shock when he leaned back and looked at her. Since it was obvious that all brain activity had ceased, Luka gently turned her toward the door and opened it for her, gently pushing her inside.

He waited patiently until he finally heard the telltale click of the lock that ensure that she was home safely before he turned and headed home, eager to pick up his guitar and put the feelings he was feeling into song.

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Chapter 16

*Woohoo! Longest chapter to date. I liked using Lila as a semi-villain here because I feel like Luka would be able to see right through her nonsense.

Thanks to everyone who reblogged, liked, and commented on this. It makes me feel so good to see my phone blow up with notifications from everyone lol.

Until next time, My Lovelies XOXO*

@write-for-your-life2

[stareyedmoonchild]

Marinette wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and chuckled bittersweetly. As she looked into the toilet's continents she wondered how she let her feelings for Tim to get this far. It was never this bad when it came to Adrien.

Inside it, was a mix of blood stained daffodil and pink camellia petals. The first meaning unrequited love and the latter meaning longing for you. It was funny how the disease gave her flowers with these meanings.

"Marinette, you can't keep doing this. You know the longer you suppress your coughs, the worse they get. You need to see someone about this, or tell Time how you feel," Tikki said, worriedly from within her purse.

"You know I can't do that. Besides I'm sure these feelings will fade in no time," Marinette said, with a smile painted on her face.

"You've been saying that for three months now," Tikki countered.

If it were any other day, Tikki would have let it go but now it was serious. Her holder had been spending days and nights hacking up petals and for the past two weeks did the blood start appearing. It wasn't looking very good, because they both knew that if Marinette's feelings didn't disappear or reciprocated then it would would lead to her death. Sure, surgery was an option for its removal, but with it the feelings for that person would disappear. After being with Marinette for years now, Tikki knew she would never with the surgery. That means, her only options were to get over her feelings for the boy or tell him how she feels and hope he feels the same way.

Tikki watched as her holder coughed a few more times, and nearly panicked when a whole daffodils landed innocently into the bowl.

"Marinette plea-"

Tikki, never got to finish her sentence, when the door to the girls bathroom open.

"Marinette, I was sent to check in on you. Are you okay," Stephanie asked.

Her only response was a flush and the sound of one of the stalls unlocking. She watched at Marinette straightened her uniform, and moved toward the sinks to wash her hands. Stephanie gave her a quick once over, and took note of the stain on the collar of her white shirt.

"What happened," Stephanie demanded to know, rather than asked.

"Just a bad nosebleed is all."

Stephanie didn't by her lie, but decided not to pry and just let it be. She figured when Marinette was ready she would tell her. However, if she bothered to look into the stall Marinette came out of, she would have seen the lone blood stained, yellow petal that lay on the tiled white floor.

After that day, Marinette's condition continued to get worse. 

The first to find out about was her and Tim's best friend, Conner. Funny how he was always the first to find out things when it came to her.

"When did it start," he asked, worry dancing in his pretty blue eyes. 

It was an emotion that shouldn't have been there, and it made Marinette feel bad for being the one to give him it. She figured, the least she could do was be honest with him.

"Three months now. Going on four," she weazed, as she held a handkerchief to her mother as she coughed. When she removed it, the saw both a whole bloody camellia and Daffodil. 

He grabbed her by the shoulders and asked, "Why haven't you told anyone?!"

Shoving off his hands, she said, "It's not that big of a deal. Besides it's just a crush, and just like any other crush my feelings will disappear."

"I bet you've telling yourself that from the very beginning. It's been practically four months and nothing's changed! If anything they've gotten worse. Tell me, what are we going to do if one of us finds you dead in a heep of bloody flowers? How will your parents back in Paris react to the news that their only child died of suffocation," Conner said, by the end of his lecture he was full on balling.

Marinette did her best to hold in the petals, that were now consuming her lungs and airways, and she comforted her friend. Never once had she felt so hopeless. Not even when she decided to leave Paris after Hawkmoth's defeat, or when Lila completely turned her classmates against. No, this was a completely different scenario. Her best friend, and the strongest person she ever knew to walk the earth was crying and worried for her life. 

That day, Conner spent the night at her place. He held her hair as she coughs into the toilet, gave her clean handkerchiefs when the one she was using got too bloody, and even cooked for her. This boy was always too good for the world he was brought into, in her opinion.

The next person, well, persons, to find out was Tim's family. 

She went over to the Wayne Manor, to drop off some case reports for Tim. However, when she arrived Dick was the one who opened the door and told her that Tim had an "appointment" he had to go to. Suddenly, he was pushed out of the way and instead, Jason stood before her. Next thing she knew, was one minute she was outside on the doorstep and the next she was seated on the couch with Damian next to her as Jason was about to insert a movie into the DVD player.

"Look, I really should get going," she said, as she felt a wave of coughs coming up.

"Forget it Pixie Pop. We haven't seen you in forever and it's movie night. Damian got to pick, so I hope your good with scary, gory movies," Jason said.

Just as he was going to give a rundown of the movie, Marinette couldn't hold it in anymore. The two in the room quickly surrounded her not knowing what to do. Then Dick came in with a bowl of popcorn, that ended up on the floor. He ran to her side and began to rub comforting circles on her back. 

"Alfred," Dick yelled.

Surely he would know what to do.

"Who the hell, is it," Jason asked, with an edge to his tone.

Dick just looked at him, this wasn't the time for such questions. 

"Don't look at him like that Grayson. Don't deny that you want to know too," Damian said, monotonously.

"Damian."

Damian attention was drawn to his father who stood next to Alfred who already had the tools he needed to remove the disease. It turns out it wasn't his first time operating with someone in this condition.

"Father, I-," Damian began, but was silent when his father shook his head and made his way toward Marinette. 

Bruce crouched down to height, and noted the tail of blood from the corner of lips, and amount of bloodied petals and flowers that now decorated his carpet. He wonders just how long this has been going on, and how much pain she must be in. He considered it a miracle that she was even alive at this point.

"You don't have to go through with it. I want you to know that, however, I advise that you do. From the looks of it, it won't be long until you," Bruce said, tailing off towards the end.

It takes a genius to know what he was implying. 

"Thank you Bruce, but no thank you," she said.

This earned her a loud, "what," from the three young males in the room. They couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that she wouldn't accept the surgery. They could see she was in pain, and now looking at her, when was the last time see got a good night's sleep or a proper meal?! The boys were even more confused when Bruce simply nodded his head, and looked to Alfred.

After nodding his head, Alfred said, "If you follow me miss Marinette, I'll give you some remedies that will help with the pain."

"Thank you Alfred."

Just as she was about to leave with Alfred, she paused and said, "It's Tim."

"I'll kill that little fucker."

"Damian!"

"You can't stop me this time, Father!"

"Don't worry, I'll help this time Demon Spawn."

"Jason!"

"Fuck off Brucie!"

When Tim got home, he was on cloud nine. He and Seph had been going out for a while now, and it was all thanks to Marinette. If she hadn't been there to encourage him and help him plan the first date, who knows what might have been.

His was on such a high that l, he didn't feel the disappoint stare from Dick as he held back Damian, or Bruce practically drag Jason's out cold body to the Batcave. Hell, he didn't even notice that Alfred didn't even greet him at the door.

"Let go of me Grayson!"

Tim's attention was now drawn toward his oldest and youngest brother. 

Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "what's his problem?"

Now that seemed to set off Damian even more. 

"What's my problem?! You funcking bastard! Honestly, she could've done so much better than to choose your sorry ass to give her heart to! Now... Now she's suffering and you haven't even taken the time to notice it. She's put aside her feelings for you and helped you so many times. Not just with your love life but with cases, homework, team ups, and even making sure you eat. You don't... You don't deserve her," Damian said, no longer squirming to be released from Dick's hold.

"Wait. What," Tim asked, not really processing what what happened.

Dicked just sighed, and said, "Just go to your room Tim."

"But-"

"I SAID GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

That caught Tim off guard. It was rare to see Dick angry, but he knew it was best to stand clear.

Realizing what he just did, Dick apologized saying that it's been a long day. Tim nodded, but had a bad feeling. A feeling that this day was a warning of something that was to come.

Two weeks later, the news spread that Marinette was in the hospital. When Tim heard this, he felt his heart shatter into thousands of little pieces.  

"What's this about Marinette being in the Hospital," Tim asked Conner.

To say he was worried was an understatement. However, when Conner couldn't even look him in the eyes, he quickly ran out of the school's doors and got onto his car. Once he was able to find out what hospital she was checked into, he threw all traffic laws out the window. He needed to get to his best friend, and fast. 

In that one day, nearly caused six different accidents. When he got to the hospital, he didn't even bother with properly parking the car. He just left in front of the entrance, engine running, and dashed inside. Screw it if his car gets stolen.

He didn't bother with reception, he went straight to her room. He ignored the yells from the nurses, and the smell of chemicals as he ran. His mind was focused simply on Marinette.

Finally finding her room, he all but threw the door open. Inside her room was his family, all with solemn faces. In the middle was Marinette, surrounded with bloody flowers and petals, meanwhile in her hand was a whole bloody pink camellia.

"Marinette," he said.

Bruce stood up, and placed a hand on Damian's shoulder to stop him from lashing out at Tim. Meeting Tim's gaze, Bruce said, "We'll give you two some space."

"Hey," she said, tiredly.

"Hey," he responded, as he pulled up a chair next to her bed.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said, and another wave of vicious coughs took control of her.

Tim could only watch helplessly as blood, petals and flowers brush out from within her. 

"Have you talked to Ivy yet," he asked, when she was done.

"Yeah, turns out when it comes to these kinds of things her powers have affect. Kind of sucks to be honest," she said, in between some light coughs.

"Tim."

"Yeah, Mari," he asked. 

Was it just him or was she gasping for air?

"I don't have a lot of time left," she said, in between gasps.

"Mari..."

Tears were beginning to for in his eyes. He could stop them from staining his cheeks as the ran down his face.

"Please listen. None of this is your fault. It's not your fault."

"Mari, please..."

'Why is her breathing becoming more spaced out? God, no. Please, dont. Please, don't take her. Not today. Not any day soon,' Tim thought.

"I love you. You need to know that," Marinette said taking in a few more breaths before fell limp.

"Mari? Come on Mari this isn't funny. Wake up, please. Mari? Marinette? Marinette," Tim called out to her but received no reply, much less a reaction.

He then fell out of his chair, and his knees. Both his hands clasped tightly round the hand that held one big, bloody pink camellia. 

On that day, Tim cried like he never cried before. Meanwhile, outside the halls his family weren't holding up any better.

Over the course of a week, a small memorial was held at the school. Her parents and close friends and family attended the funeral. Upon all the guest that arrived, Tim was the last to leave.

As he stared at the stone, he suddenly felt a cough scratch at the back of his throat. Removing his hand from his mouth, he found the petals of purple hyacinth and forget-me-not.

'I'm sorry, and true love,' he thought, bittersweetly.

Looking up to the gray sky of Gotham City, she whispered, "So this is heartache. I miss you Mari."

Send me a number!

Flowers and their meanings here!

[managedmischiefs]

north commentary//chapter one

it’s finally here!! I apologize for the time it took for me to actually get this posted but it’s finally here. I didn’t edit any of the actually commentary so if there’s mistakes then I’m very sorry. also, I’m not going to tag anyone on the tag list for north, but if I do more of these in the future then maybe I will.

I’m going to begin editing chapter two immediately after posting this and it will be up probably sometime tomorrow night, so look out for that! enjoy my commentary. hopefully you find it insightful in some way and you get a deeper understanding for my oc and for my interpretation of spencer.

SPENCER

Being late to work is not something that I tend to enjoy. I hate it, in fact. I feel like I'm letting my team down if I'm ever late to round table meetings or if I miss a briefing. But these days, sleep is rare. And if I do sleep, it's not uncommon for me to sleep over the array of alarms I have.

Hello lovely followers and readers!! Thank you for spending your time reading this commentary and for getting involved and being interested in the way that my brain works while writing this fic. If you like commentary like this then I’ll definitely do more in the future!! There’s future chapters that I would absolutely kill to do commentary on and would love to explain my thought process on. This commentary is mainly about why I choose to make Spencer and my OC act certain ways because this is only the first chapter and there aren’t plot points to dissect, but if I do more in the future then I’ll definitely talk about plot points and such. Enjoy!!

Coffee is a must have for me at all points of the day. No sleep means exhaustion and exhaustion means my brain doesn't work as quickly as it could and that means we don't solve cases and not solving cases means more people die. I can't have more people die on my watch so I drink as much coffee as I can. But the coffee in the bullpen isn't always the best so if I ever have time, I stop at a cafe on my way to work. I take the extra five minutes to walk there before hopping on the metro.

I mumble off my coffee order to the tired looking barista and she scribbles down my name. I hand over a few stray bills to pay and get some change in return, tucking it in my pants pocket. I give a tight lipped smile to the barista before moving to a table in the corner of the cafe, pulling a book out of my messenger bag and starting to read, crossing one of my legs over the other. I don't look up while I wait for the barista to call out my name, not even when two people bump into each other in front of the door or a tourist asks someone else for directions. I just read my book and chew my lip, tapping my fingers against the hardcover.

We all know that Spencer lives his life on coffee and would probably fall asleep standing up if he didn’t have coffee every morning and at multiple points throughout the day. There’s quite a lot of mentions throughout the show that coffee in police stations is really bad, so I wouldn’t imagine the coffee in the BAU is much better. So in my mind, Spencer would search for a coffee shop that he liked and one that he thought was cozy and peaceful. He doesn’t strike me as a fast paced person in his personal life. What I mean by that is I don’t think he would be the person to only allot himself just five minutes to get his coffee, catch his train, and get to work. He strikes me as someone who wants to take his time and be able to sit down and read his book. Thus, this scene was born. 

"Spencer," I hear my name being called and finally allow myself attention to be lifted.

I stand quickly, tucking my book in my bag and closing the flap before heading back to the main counter. But the buckle of my bag gets caught on the button of my sleeve when I try to close my bag all the way. I pull at my sleeve, trying to get the buckle unlooped. But in this tussle with myself, I don't even realize that I'm still walking until I bump right into someone. I move my attention from my bag and catch the person's shoulders so I don't completely knock them over and make not only a fool of myself, but of them too. 

Spencer is clumsy, we all know this. He’s not just clumsy when he meets girls and is flustered by their attention/affection but he’s clumsy in these types of social situations where he has to rush to stand and grab his cup of coffee. There’s a lot of times in the show where you can see him struggling to put his messenger bag on because it gets stuck in his hair. He’s just not too swift. But we all love him unconditionally. 

"Oh my gosh," I say immediately, my eyes widening, "I'm so sorry,"

"It's okay, it's okay," the girl laughs, her hands squeezing my arms as she regains her balance, “didn’t even fall. You caught me. I didn’t even break a sweat!”

My eyes finally find the girl's face and I'm rendered absolutely speechless. I somehow notice everything about her right away and I memorize her beauty. Her eyes are a bright, beautiful shade of ocean blue and her eyelashes cast shadows over her perfectly pink cheeks. Her hair is wavy and blonde with brown roots, but there's a yellow and blue patterned scarf tied around the front of her head like a folded bandana with pieces pulled out to frame her face. Her nose is small and I can only liken it to a button. Her lips are full and plump and a pretty light pink color and her Cupid's Bow is one that Cupid himself should be jealous of. Both of her ears are full of different types of piercings, and her nose even has a hoop in her right nostril.

She's wearing a light blue knit sweater tucked into a tight denim skirt, along with a pair of short black boots with small heels on them. Her nails are painted white and her fingers are full of rings, each of them different styles and various shades of silver with yellow gems. I notice a tattoo on one of her fingers but she moves and I can't make out what it is. I wonder if she has more tattoos. I find two straps around her shoulders and realize she's wearing a leather backpack, one probably very similar to my own bag. The last thing I notice is the old fashioned camera hanging around her neck, resting just above the waistband of her skirt.

Spencer doesn’t feel like the kind of guy who would judge a book by its cover. He doesn’t seem like he would take one look at a person and decide the type of person they would be. I don’t even think he would necessarily abuse his profiling skills in his everyday life and with the strangers he meets. But if he managed to stumble upon a girl that he really liked and had an instant attraction to, like what happens right here with Amelia, I really think that he would want to know everything about her. He would scramble to collect information about her, based on her appearance and just the sound of her voice and off of what she ordered. So not only do these last two paragraphs serve as me being able to be outright about who Amelia is and what my OC looks like (because I always have a really specific look for my OC’s) but it also serves as Spencer collecting as much information this girl he just met and that he finds much more than intriguing. 

I've seen my fair share of pretty girls. I've seen girls that I wouldn't mind getting to know better. I've met girls that have caught my attention. I've even been in what I believed to be love. But what is this? If I thought I'd seen a beautiful girl before, I clearly hadn't met this girl before. She looks like an angel sent directly from heaven. She looks like she was crafted by God himself and put on this earth to grace mankind with her beauty. Is it fair for one woman to be this beautiful? Is it even possible? I didn’t think that one woman could possess such beauty. 

What the hell is wrong with me? I can barely even breathe. I’m just staring at this gorgeous specimen, admiring her smile and trying to memorize the way her fingertips feel on my forearms. I quickly try to think of something to say, another apology for running into her, but I can barely even breathe when I stare at her, much less speak. 

Spencer doesn’t get a lot of girls, and when he does, he doesn’t generally have good luck with them (Lila, Maeve- lol). But I truly believe that when he catches feelings, he falls so hard. He doesn’t fall too fast, and this is explored in upcoming chapters, but he falls really hard and he treats his girlfriend/crush like an absolute queen. He worships to ground she walks on and thinks she put the moon and the sun and the stars in the sky. This is just how I imagine how Spencer would see and treat his SO in a relationship. He would really love them with all of his heart and dote on them endlessly and give them his whole heart. 

"Spencer," the barista calls out my name again, setting my cup down on the counter before walking away. Saved by the barista. 

The girl smiles at me and her face lights up, only further illuminating her features. She's got two dimples on her cheeks, bringing out a childlike spirit in her that I pick up right away. "Um," she says with a laugh, "is that yours? You should probably grab it before someone else steals it,"

I wish I could say more about Amelia’s character right now because she is so beautifully complex and so confusingly real, if that makes sense. She appears to be so put together, as Spencer so aptly observes, but as time goes on, she really starts to fall apart at the seams. But every person is like this. Nobody is truly ‘put together’ no matter how hard they try. That’s what makes us human. We all fall apart eventually. There’s a little glimpse into the future for you. 

Okay, Spencer, breathe. You can do this. You’ve spoken to pretty girls before. Sure, it’s hard and it’s scary, but you can do it. Just say words. Preferably, coherent words. Preferably, maybe, a full sentence.

More of Spencer being adorably confused when it comes to girls. How can you not love him??

"Right," I finally force out, dropping my hands from her arms. I hadn't realized until now that I was still holding onto her and she was still holding onto me. I reach over and grab my steaming coffee, almost wincing at the heat under my fingertips.

The girl still hasn't moved when I turn back to her, but now she's fiddling with her camera. "Are you," I start to say before hesitating. Her head pops up and she smiles again, letting her camera fall against her stomach. I gulp, shuffling my feet against the floor as I attempt to speak a full sentence. "I didn't mean to bump into you like that,"

"Oh, it's totally fine," she waves her hand at me casually. "I wasn't paying attention either. No harm, no foul. Like I said, I didn’t even break a sweat,” The girl pushes her hair behind her ears and places her hands on her hips. With the confident way she speaks, I almost expect her to keep speaking, but she doesn’t. She just looks at me with the cutest smile, even baring her teeth, waiting for me to say something else. 

Amelia is very much so an extrovert and it’s obvious in the way that she has no problem participating in this conversation (and how she has no problems remembering how to breathe like Spencer does), but she’s not bouncing off the walls and screaming and grabbing at Spencer. He wouldn’t gel with someone like that, in my opinion, because they would overwhelm him. I wanted Amelia to be like a breath of fresh air for Spencer, or the feeling of the sun on your skin, or how the relief you get when you lay in bed after a long day (I don’t like that last comparison but just bear with me). I wanted her to, right off the bat, being a calming presence to him. If you notice, Spencer points out that he expects her to speak but she doesn’t. She waits until he speaks and in my mind, I envisioned that as Amelia reading the situation and recognizing Spencer’s slight anxiety and waiting until he was comfortable speaking. She didn’t want to push him and cause more anxiety. Do with that information what you will. Let us continue reading. 

So I clutch my cup of coffee and swallow thickly. “I-" I hesitate yet again, but when the girl's eyes scream for me to continue, I do. "What's your name?"

She opens her mouth to speak but before she can, another cup of coffee is placed on the counter. "Amelia," the barista announces before walking away.

Amelia laughs, taking a step over to grab her cup, which I immediately notice is tea and not coffee. "Took the words right out of my mouth,"

Remember when I said he was trying to collect as much information on Amelia as possible?? He notices she’s drinking tea instead of coffee.

"Amelia," I repeat as if testing the way the word rolls off my tongue. It tastes sweet. "You heard already, but, um, I'm Spencer,"

"It's nice to meet you," Amelia holds her hand to shake mine, and the panic starts to set in. For a moment, I debate on actually just shaking her hand so I don’t seem like a total freak to this girl that I seem to have a massive crush on. But the prospect of shaking a total strangers hand is repulsive and when I find myself looking at her hand for more than two seconds, I’m starting to count up the amount of germs that would be present there and I have to force myself not to make a face.

The show is very inconsistent with Spencer’s hand shaking because sometimes he’s giving out handshakes like it’s candy but other times he’s waving. So fuck the cm writers. In my head, Spencer rarely shakes hands with people other than those on the team and those he really trusts. So the sheer fact that he’s even considering shaking Amelia’s hand is a huge deal. He wants to make a good impression on her and he’s just hoping that he doesn’t look stupid in front of her. He’s even willing to shake her hand to make a good impression. He’s willing to do something that he absolutely hates, and to me, that’s a huge deal. 

So of course, while my hands get clammy and my heart rate speeds up, I do what I do best. I spit out a fact that Amelia didn't ask for. "On average we carry 3,200 bacteria from 150 different species on our hands,"

Amelia's fingers curl into her palm and she retracts her hand, looking down at her palm and smiling just a tiny bit. "You know, I don't blame you for not wanting to shake hands. It is kinda gross anyway,"

"Sorry," I blurt out immediately, still shuffling on my feet. "That was rude of me,"

"It's not rude," Amelia counters, sipping her tea without so much as grimacing at the inevitable heat. "Are you in a rush?" I glance down at my watch and see that I still have ten minutes until I should be getting on the train. I relay this information to her and watch as she smiles again. "Would you like to sit with me then?"

Guys, I love Amelia so much. I know that my .2 brain cells created her, but I really love her. She doesn’t cut of Spencer when he gives her a fact about germs and she goes along with his aversion to handshaking without a second thought. There’s no interruption or eye-rolling or sass. She listens to him and accepts him and then offers to sit down with him. I think that Amelia found Spencer attractive at first, and now that they have been conversing for just a few moments, she finds him much more intriguing, and that’s why she asks him to sit. She wants to know what this guy’s deal is. 

"Oh," my eyes widen slightly and I squeeze my coffee cup so hard that I think I might poke holes in the sides, "y-yeah, sure,"

"Cool," she breathes out, waving me on and leading me to a booth on the other side of the cafe. I'm far too anxious with this situation and by Amelia's beauty and her comfortability around me to even think about relaxing, or drinking my coffee, or taking my bag off from around my shoulder. I definitely can’t remember any of Morgan’s advice on how to chat up girls or any of the conversation starters I’ve memorized for social situations like this. My mind is completely empty, just when I need it to be full and plentiful. How lovely.

I’m trying to imagine Spencer trying to implement Morgan’s advice on picking up girls and it’s. Wow.

Amelia sits across from me and grins, and every time she does, I swear my heart skips a beat and another butterfly breaks through its cocoon in my stomach. "So where are you off to this morning, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Work," I answer, and then realize that's an incredibly vague answer. Amelia raises her eyebrows as she lounges back against the booth, clearly waiting for me to elaborate. "Uh, I work for the FBI, actually. More specifically, the BAU- the Behavioral Analysis Unit,"

"You're a profiler!" Amelia perks up again, sitting up straighter with a huge grin on her face. "That's super cool! My dad is a police officer, sheriff actually, back home in Texas and I'm pretty sure he's worked with the BAU before and he says you guys are awesome. You catch serial killers, right?"

I'm almost stunned by her reaction. Most people don't believe behavioral profiling works, and most people resist the practice, especially local police. But her acceptance of it is incredibly refreshing, and it's welcomed. Honestly, any type of excitement from this Amelia girl is welcomed. It’s a beautiful sight. 

I can feel my cheeks turn bright red as I nod, still clutching my coffee cup. "Yeah, we do. And um, what about you?" I hate talking about myself so I change the subject. "Where are you off to?"

"I'm actually meeting a friend of mine to go shopping a few blocks over," Amelia gestures out the window. "But since we're talking about your job, I'll tell you about my way less cool job, which is an artist. I went to Carnegie Mellon and then moved here and I’ve been here ever since. My preference is canvas painting but I bring my camera around a lot, hence," she holds up the camera around her neck, "the camera now. I try to capture spontaneous moments for when I do exhibits and galleries and such,”

I’m not sure why but I feel like Spencer would really meld well with someone very artsy. He’s not necessarily an artistically driven person, so I think he would need someone who could open his eyes to a new world. I think that’s why I didn’t like Maeve. She was basically the female version of Spencer and it just wasn’t really an interesting thing to see two identical people get together. But if Spencer could have his eyes opened to the world of art, it would be a magnificent thing. 

"I've always loved art. Never been talented at it, but I like it." I shrug nonchalantly and sip my coffee, trying to divert my eyeline down to the table, but when Amelia smiles at me, I can’t find it in me to break our eye contact.

Something about Amelia's smile brings me in. Every time she flashes her teeth, I feel myself sink further into my seat and I feel my head get fuzzier. I almost forget that I have to get to work in just a few minutes. But I don't want to go anymore. I want to stay here and keep talking to Amelia. I want her to keep going on and on about canvas paintings and her education at Carnegie Mellon, or even just tell me why she likes tea over coffee, if that’s even true. I don’t know anything about this girl but I want to.

"Nobody is technically good at art," Amelia responds. "Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses in the arts, everyone sees art differently, and that's okay. I'm sure you're not horrible, I'm sure you just haven't found your strength yet, Spencer," She enunciates my name with such beauty and grace that I almost ask her to say it again. I'd do anything to hear her say my name again.

I like adding in these little moments, like having Spencer getting lost in the way Amelia says his name. I think it takes a scene or an encounter from just being superficial and takes it a little further. Instead of them sitting at a table, he’s sinking further into the reality that the two of them are creating through their conversation, even if it’s just because Amelia is saying his name in a way that sounds like liquid gold.

"If-" I'm cut off when my phone rings in my pocket, so I lean over and fish it out. I read a text from Garcia that tells me we have a case, meaning we'll be briefing for a new case this morning. I sigh defeatedly, wishing I hadn't just gotten a text that usually piques my interest. Today, it makes my heart drop. 

Guys!!!! Spencer loves his job!! As much trauma as it’s caused him, I really think he loves helping people immensely and he loves going to his job every day (apart from the times he’s being kidnapped and tortured haahahahaha moving on). How often does he not want to go because he would rather socialize? Amelia must mean a lot. Wink, wink. 

"You have to get to work?" I look back up at work to see yet another smile on Amelia's perfect face. "Go ahead, it's okay," I’m so used to seeing disappointed faces when this text comes in, not a smiling face. It’s odd, somewhat confusing.

I grab my coffee cup and stand as Amelia does the same. She holds her cup to her chest, looking down at her feet. "Will," I chew on the inside of my cheek when she looks up at me, ocean eyes wide with anticipation as I struggle with my words for the umpteenth time, "can I see you again? We barely got to talk and you-"

"Yeah," Amelia nods before I can even finish my sentence. "Can I give you my number?"

I have to hold myself back from jumping up and down in excitement. "Y-Yeah, sure, of course," I pull my phone out yet again as she does the same. She tells me her phone number slowly so I can get it down, but of course, it sticks in my brain immediately.

"Just text me," Amelia murmurs, looking over my shoulder at my phone where my shaky thumbs press against the buttons on my phone to type out- hi, it's Spencer. She waits until her phone rings and then she smiles at me. "Great, I've got it. Now, um, go. Don't let me be the reason you're late in helping people. You don't have to text me if you don't want to," she pauses for a moment, and I wonder what she's waiting for. Is she waiting for me to confirm or deny that statement? Is she waiting for anything at all? Is it an open-ended statement? Where have all my profiling skills gone? Forget profiling- where is my common sense? "But if you do wanna text me," I'm thankful when she starts talking again, "don't until after you've solved your case. Don't worry about me until you've saved lives. But like I said, if you don't wanna text me, you don't have to,"

My phone buzzes again and I can only imagine it's someone from the team asking me where I am, hurrying me along so we can get started on our briefing. I ignore it for now. "Well," I have to clear my throat to be able to speak again. I give Amelia a bashful smile holding up my phone for her to see, "I'll text you when I'm back home,"

Amelia blushes, her bottom lip being pulled between her teeth. She breathes out a tiny laugh, nodding. "I look forward to it, Spencer,"

I take a step towards the door and feel my body grow cold at the distance starting to increase between us. "I'll talk to you soon, Amelia,"

I also really love the idea of Spencer immediately feeling the loss of Amelia around him. Like I said, she’s meant to be like the sun shining on his face. Spencer doesn’t get to experience warmth, love, and comfort much and I really wanted to douse him in that. 

And with that, before I have it in me to take one more look at the angel standing in the corner cafe, I hurry out the front door. There's a dumb smile on my face as I rush down the stairs to the train platform, struggling to swipe my card and respond to Penelope's text at the same time, all while running to catch the train at the platform. I'm somehow successful at all of this and only manage to breathe once I'm inside the stuffy car. Amelia's face is stuck inside my head and I can't get it out, and I'm positive that I never want to.

///

"Reid? Reid!" My head pops up as Morgan forcefully says my name, catching my attention and bringing me out of my daydream.

When I look up at him, he's already staring up at me with his eyebrows raised, clearly expecting an answer out of me about something. I have no idea what that something is, but he’s wanting an answer about it. I clear my throat, placing my cup of terrible police station coffee on the table and running a hand over my face. "Sorry," I apologize half heartedly, "I was thinking,"

Morgan sits across from me at the table and folds his hands. "Case related?" I glance up at him before deciding to completely ignore him, standing and walking up to the board, returning to examining the geographical profile. "Reid, come on, we've been on the case three days. You've been distracted ever since you walked in for the briefing. You can talk to me," I keep ignoring him. I stare at the map in front of me. "Is something going on? Is it your mom?"

"My mom is fine," I spin around and cross my arms over my chest, ignoring the way my heart starts to speed up when Amelia’s face resurfaces in my brain. "Can we just solve this case so we can go home?”

I had another paragraph written after this sentence that I wound up deleting because I thought that this was just a better ending than whatever it was that I originally wrote (I literally don’t even remember). I don’t imagine Spencer was too distracted that his work was impacted but I imagine that when he has just a few moments to let his mind wander off, he would allow himself to think of Amelia and how happy she made him feel. I really believe he’s a daydreamer and when he’s given the opportunity to let his mind rest (as in not exert himself as much as he does when he’s working cases) he would let his mind cling to something that brings him comfort and something that would almost lull him into a sense of security and safety, and I think that thing quickly becomes Amelia. At this moment, right after their first meeting, I don’t think Amelia is Spencer’s main daydream just yet, but this will be quick to change.

Here’s the writers commentary for chapter one!! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Chapter two will be out very soon so keep your eyes open. If you want to be on the tag list for this or for North, let me know and I’ll add you on. Thank you so much for reading <3