#people will toss around the words 'critical thinking' like confetti when all they do is taking things out of context

[junkydrawr]

Well, it's been a while, so here's another Snively scene for ya'll. Just a little bit of Snively's childhood.

Oh yeah, I'm learning Spanish so I just tossed some random thing in there. Lol

"How come you don't use your real name?" Tails twirled in the water.

"I don't like it."

"What was it again?"

Snively lifted one foot from the water, watching the silt slide from his toes. "Colin."

"How come you like Snively better than Colin?"

"I wouldn't say I like it better. But it's the lesser of the two evils."

"Colin isn't that bad," said Tails. "My real name is Miles...now that's just dorky!"

"No, it's fine. It has sophistication." Snively wiggled his toes back into the mud. It felt nice.

"What's sophistication?"

"Class. Polish." Snivey rolled his eyes. "I realize Sonic is your idol, but must you emulate his vocabulary incompetence...?"

"I got no idea what you just said." Tails splashed one of his namesakes into the water, sending spray Snively's way.

It honestly felt nice too. He wiped his face. It might be pleasant to simply sit down, let the water flow up to his chest. He'd probably be covered in sand afterwards. Not so pleasant.

"I think you should use Colin." Tails nodded seriously. "Snively sounds like a joke. Like...sniveling."

"...but isn't that what I do?" Snively smiled crookedly. Hazy memories surfaced like the glittering sand beneath the water.

-

He was nine and his father was the Minister of Justice. Father attended galas and parties and meetings and other boring things. Usually, Colin Jr stayed home. Tonight, his father decided to drag him along. 

Snively was not pleased. He'd have to don his suit and tie, those stupid shiny shoes that hurt his feet...and be around droning, pretentious rich people for endless hours.

At least the food was usually good.

Father stopped by the leather armchair where his son was lounging with a book.

"Hijo, tienes que hacer listo." (Son, you have to get ready.)

Snively sneered without looking up. "Yo no entiendo." (I don't understand.)

Father insisted on his enrollment in Human Multicultural Languages. It was another class to nap through. Father liked to grill him with random phrases in various languages of Earth. (Of course, random phrases was all Father knew.)

When Snively had asked to drop out, his father had gone on a tirade.

"We must preserve our heritage," he growled.

"But we're from England."

"The heritage of our species! The glory of Homo Sapiens!" Colin Sr tilted back his head arrogantly, his fire-hued hair gleaming in the chandelier lights. "Our people are meant to conquer the stars, boy!"

Oh Gods. Snively resisted an epic eye roll. It'd only earn him a slap.

Father loathed the fact that Common Mobian was prioritized over Human languages on all levels of schooling. They were both fluent, naturally. When your species was only 3% of the population, you had to assimilate or remain insular, and that was not an option when the majority controlled all of the resources as well.

"You do understand me, Snively! Now answer properly!"

He sighed and struggled for the words. "Um...Que hora hace lo empiezar?" (What time does it start?)

"It starts at seven. You have an hour to get ready and you look a mess." Colin Senior fisted a handful of his son's shirt, drawing him close. "You had best not disgrace me, Snively."

Snively cringed. "No, daddy."

-

The gala was some stupid fundraiser, something to do with raising money for the Overlander cause - the group that believed they shouldn't bow to the Mobians.

War was on the horizon, but such things were surreal to a nine year old boy who had his hands full with a critical, loveless father, schoolyard bullies, classwork and studies.

Snively managed to snag a glass of wine from a passing server.  He sipped from it, brushing his hair from his eyes. Oh, it made him feel burning and tingling. He liked it.

The air was thick with the scent of rich hors d'oeuvres, silver confetti, gold balloons, clashing perfumes. He scratched at the red tie at his neck and sat at an empty table.

Look at this silly lot. He eyed all the men in their suits, the women in their fancy dresses and overdone makeup, all the breasts pushed up and begging for attention. A server paused and offered him delicacies from her silver tray.

Oh yes. Small weiners wrapped in brioche, pinky-sized shrimp, and tiny snack cakes!

"Thank you, I will." He took the entire tray.

"Excuse me, young sir-" she huffed and he aimed a finger across the room. There was Father, shaking hands and blabbing with other stick-up-the-ass bigwigs.

"Oh, would you like to tell my daddy on me? He's right there."

She blanched, hurrying off.

He smiled in bratty enjoyment, then sampled the plate. Well, perhaps it was worth being dragged here. But after a while, he was full and bored, and this dreck of a party was still carrying on.

I wish Uncle Julian were here. He sighed, leaning back in the chair. Uncle would have so many witty and funny things to say of all this! Snively giggled. He imagined Uncle's commentary in his deep voice. Look at this group of overstuffed turkeys, my dear boy. Ah, has that woman over there smuggled melons into her brassiere?

I wish Julian was my father instead...

He tried to squash the frequent, sorrowful thought and stood, restlessly wandering the gala. He ended up passing near his father, still chatting with other pompous arses. People of wealth and influence.

"Oh my," cried an elderly woman showing too much skin. "Is this not your son, Minister?"

"Jolly right!" Another man, decked out in Overlander military garb, pulled Snively in by the shoulder. "This is the lad."

"Ah yes." Colin Senior beamed with false pride. An equally fake hand of affection patted his son's other shoulder. "My darling boy, my golden child."

"What a fine-looking young man."

Snively resisted a sneer. Think that's the first time I've heard that one.

"My pride for him knows no bounds."

"And what is your name, son? Named after your father, are you?"

Colin Senior nodded, drawing his son closer, his hand kneading on the back of his neck. You'd best not disgrace me.

I hate being named after this clod.

I hate how he's pretending to love me.

The golden child smiled sweetly, his blue eyes sweeping the group. "Oh yes, sirs and madames. My name is Colin as well...but honestly, I far prefer Father's nickname for me."

Father's hand tightened on his nape. A warning.

"Oh, and what is that?" The elderly woman leaned forward.

Colin Jr beamed radiantly. "Why, Sniveling Bastard, of course. Snively for short."

The old woman gasped, and all the assembled eyes stared at his father. Colin Senior sputtered, red creeping up his brawny neck, as he fumbled for an out.

"Um...ah...heh...ah...the boy is such a joker. Such talent for wit."

There was forced laugher, and Snively slipped away as his father desperately tried to save face.

He retreated to the bathroom, where in the stall, he bent over and laughed until tears streamed down his face.

-

He shed a different sort of tears later in the privacy of their manor home.

It had been a while since Father had thrashed him with his belt, and he struck especially hard tonight.

Snively curled painfully in bed, sniffling and wiping tears. His rear and thighs burned with swollen welts...but inside...he glowed.

I can't wait to tell Uncle about the look on Father's face. He giggled softly, gingerly rolling to his other side with a pained gasp.

Yes, he would be sore for days...but he was full of appetizers and the darkness of pleasurable spite. Welts would fade, but the memory would never lose its sweetness.

-

The recollection of Daddy's humiliated, fumbling face made him chuckle. Colin Jr had fully embraced his hateful nickname from then on, stabbing it like a needle into his bastard father.

He sloshed his hands in the cool water. "No, I shan't ever use that name." He let his hands still, seeing his pitiful reflection staring up. "Snively is who I am."

Tails twirled again. "Maybe you can make up your own name! Something you like!"

The small man grinned. "All right. Snively the Grrrrreat."

"Yuck! No way!" Tails splashed more water his way.

----

A/N: So that's my take on why Snively sticks with his nickname instead of given name. He really should make something else up though hahaha. (Also, I just realized I didn't make it clear, that Colin Sr only called his son 'Snively' (and variants of) in private.)

(Also Humans being 3% of the population might be an overestimation. In my storyline Mobius and Earth are seperate and the Overlanders immigrated from Earth to Mobius over a period of several hundred years until they ended up blowing up their home planet. Bummer. Lol. Anyway, it's a minor detail since that shit's in the past, right?)

[enchanted-keys]

Idk, maybe people should start reading again and get to the source of things themselves, instead of canceling things left and right and cross them out because ‘someone said this’ and ‘they’ve heard that’, and that’s all they need to know to form their own opinion, as if there wasn’t a massive problem of people not knowing how to analyze things without completely taking them out of context these days.

[themonkeycabal]

WandaVision Ep 4 SPOILERS

Yes, spoilers, 

Wherein I watch and say stuff that might or might not be worth reading.

After a little bit of a lackluster start, there was good story progress last week. An escalation of weird, which I appreciated. I'll probably have to relive it, because Disney doesn't want to let me skip the previously. Ever. Why are you the way you are, Disney?

Geraldine/Monica is made of whispery voices and swirling dust and such. Weird. She's sitting in a chair, sleeping, and apparently being reconstituted. She wakes to a hospital room but outside is chaos. Lots of yelling and people running about. There's like swirling dust or human confetti everywhere, and other people are being reconstituted left and right. Seems unusual. Not the sort of thing that normally happens in hospitals. Oh, are they being un-snapped? The great un-snappening. The un-snapapalooza. The fall of the snappocalypse. I'll stop. I guess we're in a flashback of sorts.

Dudes, Monica just like full on hip checked some dude into the boards. She didn't mean it, but, damn, that guy went flying. Nobody knows what's going on, it's madness. A doctor recognizes her and asks where she went and Monica's all "uh, what? I took a nap?" Napping and then snapping and then popping back into existence. Ain't that just the way? Oh, sad, her mom died while she was missing for five years. :(

Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division — please nobody expect me to remember that. They have a Cape Canaveral looking compound with multiple launch pads and a very large hanger smack in the middle. Gee how neat for them that they get to operate out in the open, Phil Coulson says (in my head) with a whole lot of sarcasm.

Oh, right, they called it the Blip. The Great Un-Blippening. That doesn't sound as good. What on earth with the massive monitors in the main lobby. Nobody likes watching the news that much. Monica is trying to brazenly walk through the front doors with a badge that doesn't work and wow, security guy is kind of a dick. Oh, she belongs there. Captain Monica Rambeau. Captain, good for her.

And now security dick is revealed to be even more dickish, since this is just after the Blip and she's trying to go back to work. Like, SWORD couldn't put out a memo "Be on the lookout for recently unblipped personnel. Don't be massive dicks to them when their security badges don't work, because of how they got blipped and all"? Also maybe a reorientation packet, or like a desk out front "Back from the Blip? Talk to Lt. Mandy Smith in HR about your reactivation options today!" I'm just spitballing here. I get it was chaotic, but that's no reason to let the unblipped get a rude welcome. It wasn't their fault Thanos was critically dumb.

Blip no longer sounds like a word.

Anyway, the acting director is fortunately there to meet her before she could drop her gloves and punch the security dick in the dick. Aww, Maria Rambeau is on the Wall of Valor, or whatever they call it at SWORD.

Things aren't going well at SWORD. The Blip put the hurt on the division. Their remaining astronaut trainees have chickened out. Oh, what if there was like crew up in orbit that got blipped and then when they unblipped five years later … yikes. Well, I'll allow the 'lost their nerve' may have a solid basis in horribleness that probably occurred around the Blip. I retract the 'chickened out' comment.

This is a very long walk-and-talk. Maria Rambeau built SWORD "from the ground up". Bless.

The Director has grounded Monica. Well, actually, her mom grounded her, making protocols in case vanished personnel one day returned. Lol. Though, I mean, I'd guess she'd know, what with Carol and all.  "I know it's a raw deal, but there is one positive takeaway. She believed you'd come back." Awww

So, she's off to deal with some sort of missing persons case in New Jersey overseeing the loan of one of their drones for the FBI. I guess Wanda will be the missing person. Yep, she's off to Westview. Which has seen better days.

Hey! It's Agent Woo! I like you Agent Woo! Did I know he was in this? I don't remember. Randall Park's great. A happy surprise.

Hmm, he has a missing witness. So, not Wanda, then. Hmm again. Agent Woo contacted known associates, family, friends — none of them have ever heard of the witness. A mystery!

Oh and there's another wrinkle.

"Pardon me Sheriff, would you mind repeating your claim about Westview to my colleague here?"

"No such place," he says, standing next to the 'Welcome to Westview" sign.

Hmmm, puzzling. Jimmy Woo can't reach anybody listed as living in town. So, wait, the town doesn't exist, except it does, but, nobody thinks it does, so where did he get the phone records for residents? The phone company was just like "here's your records for the imaginary city of Westview, all 3,000+ residents that never existed, and yet we have the numbers and we're just not going to question that". Weird.

"So you can't reach anyone inside and everyone on the outside has some sort of selective amnesia?" That does seem to be the case, Monica. Super odd. Agent Woo is very sanguine about the whole thing. He dealt with Scott Lang, I guess after that everything else is like, 'meh'.

"Why haven't' you gone inside to investigate?" A fine question, Captain.

"Because it doesn't want me to." That's just creepy, Agent Woo. "You can feel it, too, can't you? Nobody's supposed to go in." I guess this is where the drone will come in handy. Oh, it's the little helicopter that Wanda found in the bushes in the second episode. I'm going to pretend that super advanced SWORD drones would totally look like cheap RC toy helicopters. I guess that's a disguise?

Monica wants to know why she and Agent Woo are aware that Westview exists and nobody else is. Does that mean the Sheriff was standing next to the Welcome to Westview sign and just did not see it at all? He was just hanging out in the middle of nowhere with a weirdly laconic FBI agent who kept asking about the town that very clearly wasn't just right behind them? That's a little more than amnesia.  

Also, Agent Woo's hero was Elliot Ness. Of course it was.

Oh no, the drone vanished as it crossed the town line! There's an energy field around the town that looks like what happens when you push your fingers against an old monitor and get the weird pixelly rainbow. Agent Woo's all "please no touch" and Monica's all "yes, I think I'll stick my whole hand in there." And she got sucked in. Agent Woo's gotta be like "WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY EVER LISTEN TO ME?"

24 hours later. Darcy! Some sort of transport van. A trio of other suits in the back, plus Darcy. She tries to talk to one of the dudes and he's all "we're not supposed to talk to each other!" "Boy Scout leader, got it." Relax, uptight guy. Pfft, what sort of team is that? The rest give up their specialty. Aww, bless, she went into astrophysics. "We've got the full clown car." heh.

Boy Scout leader finally caving to peer pressure: "I'm a chemical engineer." Darcy: "No one cares." lol. Missed you, girlfriend!

And in 24 hours SWORD/FBI whoever have set up a little military camp. Oh a "response base". How banally euphemistic. There's like a whole bunch of agencies there, as well as Army and Air Force.

Dr. Lewis. Oh, I'm so proud. I bet Jane was over the moon. Saved from poli-sci!

Elsewhere another drone vanishes. Darcy darcys a lot at an uptight uniform who is breathing down her neck "make your assessment" and it's delightful. Darcy notices some high levels of cosmic background radiation and also something weird layered over the top of that. Hmm, she needs a tv. "An old one, like not flat." One with vacuum tubes, perhaps?

In another part of the camp, they send in a guy in a hazmat suit, down into the sewers, looking for Monica. I guess he'll be the beekeper Wanda tosses in ep 2. Jimmy Woo is not optimistic about that plan. He tells the SWORD Director all about it.

"Someone must really miss you back at Quantico." "No, sir, softball season is over." Lol.

All their high tech scanning is turning up nothing.

Uhoh, screaming. Oh, nevermind, it's the laughtrack. While everybody else was dicking around with the LIDAR, Darcy has tracked down the last tube tv in New Jersey and has tuned into the Wanda Dimension. Episode one is playing.  

Darcy is understandably particularly baffled by Vision. "Look, I know it's been a crazy few years on this planet, but he's dead right? Not blipped. Dead." Poor Vision. Alas.

Director wants to know if the broadcast is realtime or a recording. Or what? Darcy's like "how tf should I know?"

Jimmy asks the good question "So you're saying the universe created a sitcom staring two Avengers?" "It's a working theory."

Now SWORD fans out! And collects every ye olde TV on the eastern seaboard. Who doesn't love a good sitcom, amiright? (Me. Me do not love sitcoms). The Director storms off to wherever for whatever reason. I don't know, don't care. Jimmy and Darcy are on the case.

Darcy is IDing the other "characters" in the sitcom, who appear to be real people with NJ driver's liscenses, while Jimmy is wondering why the force field is hexagonal. You've got me there. And now we're montaging.

Jimmy ponders the big board of 'characters' and Darcy drops her cup o' noodles when she spots Monica in the second episode. He and Darcy discuss and he's like "is it an alternate reality, time travel, some cockamamie social experiment?" Darcy's all "it's a sitcom." A pure mystery.

Darcy comes up with the idea to reach out to Wanda via the radio in her kitchen. "Next time she's washing dishes — which by my count happens about once an episode, barf." heh. She tech babbles some and I'm very proud.

A minion agent runs up with the latest intel from the most recent episode, it's a picture of the SWORD drone that looks more retro (frankly it looks better than the 'real world' one.) Hmmm, such a puzzler. Why did it change, they wonder.  

Darcy Lewis and Jimmy Woo are a partnership I can totally get behind. Jimmy was the voice trying to reach Wanda. Darcy's watching the show while Jimmy's trying the radio thing. It's the second episode where Wanda's talking to Emma Caulfield and things go weird. Good. I'm glad they jumped us to the outside world by ep four. While I thought the first two eps were slow, I think maybe they'll work better once we can watch the whole thing at a go.

Dude is still crawling through the sewers. I completely forgot he was down there. And the field extends below ground and he just crawled through it and became a beekeeper, and his safety rope snapped and … became a jumprope?

And then Wanda wishes him to the cornfield. (I guess? We don't see what happens to him.)

SWORD is watching episode three.

"1950s, 1960s, and now 70s. Why does it keep switching time periods. It can't be purely for my enjoyment can it?" Guys, it's so good to see Darcy.   "I can't believe Wanda and Vision are having a baby." No really, Jimmy and Darcy, BFFS 4EVAH! They're eating chips and watching the episode. Delightful. Just delightful.

"Twins. What a twist." Jimmy gives Darcy a look. "I'm invested!"

Monica mentions Ultron and Jimmy and Darcy are like "Whoa!".

They notice the screen sort of glitches and then Monica is gone and it's the end credits. Like when Bee guy vanished. Darcy and Jimmy are confused. "Someone is censoring the broadcast." Yeah, Wanda. She's gone to the scary place, friends.

Alarms go off and they run off. But, we go into Wanda World the aspect ratio changes from 4:3 to 16:9 and it's a new angle on when Wanda went all scary at Monica, demanding to know who she is. And then, of course, she gets kicked out of Wanda World.

"Wanda, I'm just your neighbor." "Then how could you know about Ultron?"

Wanda brings up the glowy hands of scary. "You are a stranger and an outsider and right now you are trespassing here. And I want you to leave." And then she zooms Monica out through the walls and fences and fields and that looked like it probably hurt.

Oh gross. Wanda turns around and sees Dead Vision. The big hole in his head and his face all, you know, dead looking. She looks away and then he's normal when she looks back. Well, now this has turned all sad, you guys. "We can go wherever we want." "No, we can't." Sad. Poor Wanda. The aspect ratio goes back to 4:3. I’m sure Editorial was like “oh god, again?” 

"Don't worry darling, I have everything under control."

I don't think so, Wanda.

Good ep! My only real takeaway is that none of this is going to end particularly happily. 

So … Darcy and Jimmy, BFFS 4EVAH!

[freedom-shamrock]

I’m Ladybug

Also on AO3 Chronologically follows “Not Teasing” but can stand on its own. Sorry to be late with this one.

Chat rolled the die and moved his piece around the board, groaning dramatically when he landed on the purple square with a fuschia butterfly on it.  "Give me a card."  He held out his hand, waiting while Tom laughed at this particular predicament, which somehow hadn't gotten old.

"What's it say?" Marinette asked, both eager and anxious.

They were playing a new Ladybug and Chat Noir board game her parents had found, and the irony wasn't wasted on him.  He was also a bit unsure how he felt about people making light of Hawkmoth and akumatization.  But he wasn't going to let any of that get in the way of game night with the people who wanted him to marry their daughter (or at least joked about it with appalling regularity).

Chat pouted across the board at his girlfriend.  "I'm having a bad day.  My darling just broke up with me."  He pretended to swoon, careful not to knock over the snacks.  "Mariiiiii!" he whined.  "I'm soooo heartbroken."

Marinette scowled.  "I vote we burn that card."

"Now, now, Sweetie," her mother tempered, patting her shoulder.  "We all know that's not happening anytime soon, if ever.  And it's just a game.  We're not going to destroy it."  She rolled the die and moved around the board, landing on a Good Fortune square.  "Oooh."  She drew a card from the rainbow confetti deck.  "I won a contest."  She took the negativity card in front of her and discarded it, making herself immune to Hawkmoth, for the moment.

The game involved collecting positivity cards to cancel out any negativity cards.  Landing on a Hawkmoth square forced the player to draw a negativity card.  If they had a positivity card of equal or greater value, they got to discard both.  If they couldn't discard the negativity card, they had to keep it.  Landing on one of the Akuma! squares with a negativity card in your hand meant you were the akuma for the game.  So far Marinette was the only one who had an excess of positivity cards.  Everyone else had been walking the line between safe and at risk for the first few rounds.

"So what happens when someone gets akumatized?" Marinette asked, rolling the die and moving her piece.  She landed on a square that allowed her to give someone else one of her cards.  "Ah, ah, ah."  She pointed to Chat's negativity card.  "What's the value on that?"

"Ten."  This was a dynamic he liked.  Now it was true she could have shared a negativity card.  If she'd had one.  But she didn't, and she was saving him with one of her positivity cards.

"Here, this one's perfect for you."  She thrust a card at him.  "You've been chosen to model for Gabriel Agreste's new line.  It's a dream come true."  She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

Laughter barreled past his defenses.  Had he missed her getting that card?  The absurdity was too perfect.  "I knew I belonged on the Chatwalk," he said, tossing his hair.  Then he met her eyes, his smile more serious.  "We should modify that card though.  I'd rather model Marinette Dupain-Cheng's new line."

Sabine giggled.  "Oh goodness.  You two are too darling."

"You're giving me a toothache, my boy," Tom teased, smiling broadly enough to make it clear he meant the opposite.

Unfortunately on the next round Chat picked up another negativity card (you failed the exam) and landed on the Akuma! square when someone's random draw moved everyone backward two spaces.

"Well," Tom said, pulling out some more pieces from the box.  "You wanted to know what happened when someone gets akumatized."  He fanned out a small pile of violent lavender cards.  "Pick one, Chat.  This will tell us your powers."  He set an equally obnoxious die in front of him.  "You get to go on each of our turns now, as you try to hunt us down, immobilize us, or turn us into your minions."

"Where's Ladybug?" Chat mock-wailed.

"One of us will turn into ladybug, hopefully in time to win the game," Tom said, setting some other cards and dice on the board.

The second phase of the game was very different, and much faster paced than the first.  Chat used his extra turns to chase them around the board, flinging sticky webs at them  He managed to trap Tom pretty quickly.  He was closing in on Sabine when Marinette drew the Ladybug card.

"Oh, I'm Ladybug…"  Her cheeks turned adorably pink, and she faltered as if she'd said something wrong.

"Rawr," Chat said, leaning on the table.  "Give me your miraculous."

"Not today, silly kitty," she replied, absently reaching out to boop his nose while she rolled to distract him from his attack.  

It struck him as a very Ladybug reaction, not to an akuma, but to his teasing.  Apparently his girlfriend could role play and had been more attentive of Alya's videos than he'd thought.  Then it occurred to him that she might be cribbing Ladybug's moves because she thought it would make him happier.  He probably needed to make sure she knew that wasn't remotely necessary.

"You get to draw one of these every other round," her father said, handing her a black spotted red deck.  "Oooh!  Lucky charm!"  She pulled out a card.  "A toothpick?  What am I supposed to do with a toothpick?" she demanded, snatching the directions from her father.

With a couple of lucky roles Marinette managed to defeat him, with the toothpick no less.  She mimed snatching something away from him and crushing it in her hands.  God she was adorable.

"No more evil doing for you."  She took his negativity card and tucked it back into the stack.  "Bye, bye, little butterfly."  She picked up her lucky charm card and tossed it into the air.  "Miraculous Ladybug!"  It was quieter than he usually heard that triumphant cry, but the tone was spot on.  She reached out and wiggled her fingers over the board and its pieces.

"What's that?" Tom asked.

She froze, looking up at her father.  "It's my army of healing ladybugs, spreading over the city to fix all the damage."

"Oh my god, you're so cute," Chat said, the words escaping before he got to approve them.  But his filter as Chat wasn't nearly as good as his filter as Adrien, so he really needed to get used to blurting things out like that around her.

She grinned at him, then looked back at the game.  "There is a Chat Noir option, right?" she asked, picking up the cards they used in response to the akuma and rifling through them.  "Where is he?"  She looked extremely irritated that she couldn't find his card.

Tom reached into the box and pulled out the Chat Noir card.  "Looking for this one, Cupcake?"

She snatched it out of her hand, critically assessing his image.  "Why wasn't he in the deck?"

"With five or fewer players, Chat Noir is removed from play," Tom explained, his voice soothing.  "It's not a slight."  He shrugged.  "You can't win the game without Ladybug, and they need to make the odds such that Ladybug can show up."

"Well Ladybug doesn't succeed without Chat, so that's a stupid rule."  She pouted.

"I think you're just a little extra sensitive about this topic," Sabine suggested.  "And you're right, Ladybug does need her black cat."  Her smile looked secretive.

His girlfriend's beautiful eyes were wide as she stared at her mother.  She abruptly stood up.  "I need to walk Chat out."

Tom chuckled.  "It's much earlier than he usually has to leave," he pointed out.

"You don't need to lie for our sakes," Sabine assured her daughter, then turned her smile on Chat to include him.  "You're allowed to want some private time.  Just be safe."

Marinette let out a squawk.  "Yes.  Safe.  Thank you.  Good night."  She grabbed Chat's hand and dragged him toward her steps.

Holding back his chuckles, Chat followed her, turning to wave to her parents.  "Thanks for the lovely evening.  Dinner was wonderful.  It's always a pleasure."

Next in series > Our Cake

Marichat May, Day 25, Akumatized Chat Noir This is also a continuation of my Miraculous Acts of Kindness series proposed by @squirrellygirlart on Tumblr. Dire (aka @portentous-offerings ) is one of my favorite artists. Her ML art is amazing, but she's not limited to just that fandom or focus. Her comics/graphic stories are beautiful. And she's a staunch and inspiring warrior against art theft. You can also find her on Patreon (if it’s not showing up as a link, that url is https://www.patreon.com/Dire_Hard)