#so he doesnt understand why she would just get rid of it lol

[arielluva]

came down with verocky brainworms again so this time i am putting them in situations! the situation in question being camping because why not (mostly bc i thought the fish picture would be funny)

id under cut and in alt text

[ID: some digital drawings of vera misham and wocky kitaki. on the left, there is a colored painting of the two of them. vera is holding a fish in front of her with both hands, while wocky is standing to her right with his arms crossed. both have neutral expressions. wocky is wearing a green hat that says "women want me, fish fear me" and has sunglasses on while vera is wearing a green fisherman's hat and vest over her normal clothes. on the right, there is a 5 panel comic drawn in black and white. panel 1: wocky and vera are sitting by a campfire. wocky is roasting marshmallows while vera is drawing in her sketchbook. panel 2: the fire dies down suddenly, causing wocky to react by saying, "huh?" vera notices the fire has gone down. panel 3: vera rips the drawing she was working on out of her sketchbook, crumples it up, and tosses it towards the fire. panel 4: wocky, with a sad expression asks, "why would you do that?! :( one of your drawings..." while vera looks surprised as his reaction. panel 5: vera averts eye contact and, sheepishly, says, "it... wasn't turning out well..." end ID]

[rasby]

M6 and what tattoos i think they would have

Asra

• I can see them having a tramp stamp

• And it's definitely something bad and cringy like "GRL PWR" with little coulds and starts around, maybe a unicorn

• They think it's funny

• I can also see him with a full back tattoo, like really nicely done, every line has a story and a meaning type tattoo

• He's sentimental like that

• For afab Asra, i definitely see them tattooing their top surgery scars, not to hide them but to exaggerate them and bring more attention to them

• Bonus points if they did some tattoos himself

Nadia

• Ok, Nadia either has a little ankle tattoo, nothing too big or too meaningful

• OR she had a full sleeve done and plans to do more

• I don't think her tattoos would have too much meaning behind it besides the fact that they would resemble Prakra and it's culture in some way

• I think she just likes the way they would look on her

• Consider, modern AU biker Nadia, fully tatted out. Yes? Yes.

Julian

• Julian...is tricky

• Because i for sure see him having a big chunk of his body fully tatted out

• Maybe not a full sleeve like Nadia, but definitely a forearm, shoulder or a part of his leg

• And every detail has a meaning, obviously

• He has like a short poem or meaningful quote from an artist he likes on his thigh also

• But

• I also see him waking up hungover one day with hello kitty tattooed on his buttcheek for some reason

• He doesn't know how it got there. He doesn't know WHY it got there. He doesn't even know who did it

• Lowkey really likes it

Portia

• I don't see Portia wanting a lot of tattoos

• She does a few small ones at first, just so she can say she did it

• (They're all cat themed)

• And you really have to look for them yk, they're not in an obvious place

• But after some time, maybe she'll want a few more

• She gets some flowers and gives them meaning

• One for her home, her blood family, her adopted family, her partner...

• It's still nothing huge, but now she can look at it and feel warm inside

• Also, will 100% ask MC to get matching tattoos with her

Muriel

• He doesn't have any

• He doesn't see the point

• They hurt to get, they don't serve a bigger purpose, they require time and money and they bring more attention to him and his body

• Safe to say, he's out

• The only way i can see him having any tattoo is if Asra somehow got a hold of a tattoo gun and pestered him about it

• Even then i don't think it would be anything big

• Maybe like a little smiley face, somewhere unnoticeable

• He says he forgot about it and doesn't care but he looks at it every day before he takes a shower and smiles

Lucio

• Also has a cringy tramp stamp like Asra but he unironically likes it

• In general, i think most his tattoos are stupid

• He has one on his pubic area that says "blow here" with an arrow pointing down

• And a lip tattoo with MCs name

• ...you'll have to beg him to get rid of any of those

• He wants other tattoos, he really does!

• They're really cool and if he has anything it's time and money!

• But he always gets bored during appointments and some of them really hurt so he just leaves half way through, leaving his tattoo unfinished

• If anyone asks or comments on it he says something like "you wouldn't understand my artistic mind" or he would make up a story behind each one

• But in all honesty...even he forgot what he was trying to do and he doesnt wanna go finish it so he just kinda...has a half assed tattoo on his rib

• And yes, his first big tattoo was on his rib, the most painful place he could've chosen. It's Lucio, he didn't think much about it

• Will also ask MC for a matching tattoo, as long as it isn't too big

These are all just my HCs, if anyone wants to disagree and/or add on, please feel free!! (I also apologize if there are any spelling mistakes lol)

[darkbluekies]

OC’s with a reader who gets insecure/jealous a lot? Like they’re scared that Yandere will leave them for someone else, open their relationship, cheat on them, ect.

Alright, I think I’m done, for now

-🦇

Warnings: mentions of killing, Jerry being nsfw as usual lol

[I'm really testing my limits with Jerry's part, I've never written something like that before, but I'd like to be able to write all kinds of stuff and to make Jerry's character realistic i need to go out of my comfort zone! Please bare with me lol]

Silas:

To be honest, this man would he completely dumbfounded. Why would he ever want someone else when he knows he has you waiting at home for him? He barely has time to meet you, so when would he have time to hook up with others? He would think that your worries are a bit silly, but he wouldn't be too mocking about it.

"My God, baby, aren't your sweet, little head getting a little full with all of those stupid thoughts? I only want you. I'd never dream of looking at someone else. Just knowing that you're here waiting for me every night is all I ever need. Come into my arms now, I’ll show you that you're the only one i want."

Dr Kry:

You wouldn't have told him at first. Your relationship is purely professional, he's your doctor and you're his patient. You're not allowed to feel jealous. But you can't help it! Dr Kry is not a stupid man, he picks up on this quite quickly and asks you about it. When he hears how you don't like him being so close to his colleagues, he'd fight the urge to smirk so widely. He'd tilt his head and cross his arms.

"My little Y/N … haven't you understood yet? Who do you think I want? Who do you think I spend the majority of my time with, hm? Who I look forward to meeting everyday? Who I dream about when I'm asleep? Who's my favorite patient, Y/N?"

King Edmund:

You don't understand why you're afraid of him having lovers. You don't like him! You've told yourself that! But still, it stings in your heart when you see him greeting people by kissing their cheeks. One night, you can't take it anymore and tell him your fears. Edmund doesn't care about much, but you're something he really values and hearing about this breaks his greedy, little heart.

"My dear, dear Y/N. Don't tell me you've been feeling like this for a long time! Don't tell me you don't understand how much I want you. I killed for you, Y/N! I got rid of everyone that I've ever fancied to make sure you understood. You have no reason to be scared that I'd keep any people behind your back."

Jerry:

She can read you like an open book. She knows how insecure you are and how much you want her approval, attention and love. Jerry might not be the best one to show her loyalty to you, but she trusts you to understand that she'd always choose you. She tries finding other ways than affirming words and affection to reassure you that you're her one and only. Sadly, that's one part about you she can't read, she doesnt understand just how worried you are. You tell her how you don't like it when she goes out to her clubs because you’re so scared that she'll go home with someone.

"Aw, are you jealous? How cute. Haven't I fucked you enough times to know how much you mean to me? Don't I put you first in the bedroom? I don't show that kind of attention to just anyone. I fucking love you, baby! More than anything! Don't you believe me? Really? Guess I have to prove it to you again, my love. I'll stay home. This time, I'll make sure you understand ..."

Hedwig:

She secretly loves you being jealous and insecure. It reassures her that you still want her. She will go out of her way to hug her friends a bit longer than usual and smile to other classmates a bit wider just to feel you hug her arm tighter. You lean your chin on her shoulder with a small whine. She smiles, pretending not to know a single thing.

"What's wrong? Aren't you feeling well? Why the pout, darling? Come here, give me a hug, that's right ~"

[sillyunicorn]

Fanfic writer challenge (aftg edition)

1. list & explain the three lines/moments from canon that are most fundamental to how you write your fave character

2. challenge 3 more fic writers to do the same!

Tks for the idea and tag @mostlymaudlin !

I meant to sleep but couldn't stop thinking about this so here we go. ANDREW MINYARD:

1. Theres a lot under the surface (and under this break)

"How a man who viewed the world with such studied disconnect could kiss like this, Neil didn't know, but he wasn't going to complain." (TKM)

One day I'll share my essay on surface ppl versus depth ppl but just know Andrew is a depth person.

2. He knows Neil.

Neil asking Andrew how he can stand him after everything:

Neil reached for him, unwilling to let him leave without a real answer.

"No," Andrew said, and Neil's hand froze a breath from Andrew's arm. (TKM)

Maybe also indicative of his understanding of other ppl in general. Analyzes them, never forgets anything. Pretty much always knows what to expect. Neil is the only one who ever really manages to surprise him. But in this moment he knows what Neil will do, and he uses that to demonstrate his point.

Not the most important thing in this scene, which shows how Neil knows and respects Andrew's boundaries. Among other things. But still.

3. He's a self sacrificing asshole who sees things in black and white. Especially his own commitments and what it means to protect someone. Neil explaining to Aaron why Andrew killed Tilda:

"Why he—what? That isn't the same. He didn't do that for me."

"He told me he did," Neil said. "I didn't even have to ask him. He warned her to stop hitting you and she wouldn't. He had no choice but to get rid of her. ...

"Except I lied," Neil said, getting to his feet. "Unlike you, he's not angry that you interfered. I just said that because I needed you to understand." (TRK)

Andrew doesn't get angry, he gets even lol.

4. Bonus. He doesnt get angry, except when he does.... at how much he cares about Neil.

hotel scene:

"I'm sorry," Nathaniel said.

...

"Say it again and I will kill you." (TKM)

Like, is he bluffing? Is he serious? I don't think he'd hurt Neil (death threats are old hat at this pt) but I think it does make him absolutely livid that Neil would put himself in harm's way. Angry at Neil for being a martyr and making him worry, but angry at himself for worrying in the first place. Neil made him renege on his deal, which Andrew never does, but even after that Andrew still cares about him. And then Neil goes and gets himself kidnapped. How! Dare! He!!!!! And how dare Andrew for still wanting to protect this stupid little rabbit. Love him

[mekatrio]

ho hum ho hum very quick rough skeleton planning of what a proper apollo justice trilogy would look like if it were up to ME:

firstly there'd be a rfta-type case to stick at the end of ajaa, which will patch up the plot holes that 4-4 left behind (mostly gavin brothers backstory + mason system lore)

ajaa2: APOLLO JUSTICE EUROPEAN INTERNSHIP, phoenix is busy studying for the bar so to get rid of distractions i mean to enrich his employee's working experience, he ships them off to where edgeworth is fucking around in europe. edgeworth is a legal researcher there not a prosecutor so its chill for apollo to intern w him. ema is also there cuz she got relatives there, shes here for a vacation but shes still going to be our detective buddy. does she hv jurisdiction to do any of that? no. but this is ace attorney so who gaf. and of course trucy is tagging along to write an essay for her summer homework.

this game will take a closer look at the jurist/jury system, the purpose of apollo's trip here will be to study the different type of legal systems and compare them to the ones back home. phoenix's 'official' mission statement for him is to deliver the results of the jurist system to edgeworth (who obvs helped phoenix organize that whole thing), and return w a report on its viability back home.

apollo will still hv his perceive abilities but what changes up this time is that the court proceedings itself will be different. apollo will find himself needing to persuade a jury, and this is where trucy is very important, as she is a performer, and she will help apollo better understand the mind of the audience. throughout the game the two of them will grow even closer and culminate into an awesome 2-man act.

the rival prosecutor will be a bratty girl, similar to franziska but outwardly pleasant like klavier. in the last or second to last case she'll be revealed to be franziska's disciple. when apollo asks edgeworth "Why didn't you tell me this?!" he's gonna be like "hrrrmrmmm u didnt ask. 😒" edgeworth will be this game's hilariously shitty 'mentor' figure. in this trilogy apollo is just gonna be cursed with shitty 'mentors' HAHA

the game's overarching plot line will concern itself w cocoon smuggling, and will also take a look at police/interpol corruption. the final case will be when it all blows over, and will also be when we FINALLY get the sibling reveal. lamiroir will have several appearances in the game before this however, its gonna act as a bunch of stupid red herrings where we think she'll tell apollo and trucy that they're related but it'll keep being a fake out every time. itll be like

Lamiroir: Apollo, Trucy, there is something I must tell you...

Apollo and Trucy: ?

Lamiroir: .........I am touring at Berlin next week! Please do stop by if you're free, don't hesitate to call my manager to get free tickets! 😄

and this shit will happen at least 2-3 times LOL. but she'll be a witness in the last case and then we'll learn that the reason she hasnt been able to tell us is bc she was being blackmailed 😱😱😱 and klavier will be a witness too for the lulz. game will end with gramarye family FINALLYYYY reuniting itll be so touching and heartwarming sob sniffle bawl, and apollo and trucy (and klavier LOL) flying bck to japanifornia with a better understanding of legal systems and performing, with how cultural context matters greatly in both the art of performance and the employment of legal systems.

ajaa3: game starts off w phoenix as the defendant AGAIN, man finally got his badge and immediately got hit w a Murder Charge. yes he's gonna be the new maya what about it. i feel like we joke too much abt maya constantly getting arrested for murder while ignoring that phoenix has received just as many murder charges PLS..... also apollo is gonna have the funniest awkward dynamic with phoenix where phoenix doesnt want to be apollo's dad and apollo doesnt want phoenix as his dad but phoenix feels kinda obligated and apollo is like You Are My BOSS Go AWAY so yes the opening tutorial is going to be kinda silly. but thats bc the rest of the game is gonna be pretty dark..

cuz this game will concern itself greatly with the DEATH PENALTY and IMPRISONMENT, apollo's backstory will have somethinggg to do w the death penalty too idk what tho, either his former teacher / friend / foster parent / IDK was falsely accused of a crime, and apollo became an attorney in hopes of saving them before their execution. but we will only find out abt this much much later... like last 2 case later. but there'll be hints throughout.

and the fey girlies will show up!! i was thinking maybe theyll show up at the end of the first case to reprimand nick but hmmm maybe they could show up a bit later. anyways we're getting spirit channelling again FOR THE LOVE OF GOD and this time it is NOT getting fumbled. channelled spirits cant be witnesses or used as evidence bc gregory edgeworth committed perjury that one time smhhhh 😒😒😒, but we're still having them to help guide investigations cuz WHO GAF. maybe we can get a mia cameo heehee. but uh yes anyways maya and pearl will channel the spirits of executed prisoners and its gonna be extremely grim.. a large chunk, if not most, of the game will take place in a prison. at this prison are a large number of prisoners demanding retrials, or just overall officer abuse, or maybe a mix of both. either way its grim. and the fey's spirit channeling will take a closer look at evidence law, and what evidence is and isnt permissible. itll be a parallel to 4-4, which relied heavily on the not very legal mason system. something something ethics of surveillance and also solitary confinement. oh and phoenix will be fucking off setting up wright & co again + chilling with the feys, but he'll still be someone u can pop over to and ask for advice.

there'll be a lot of cameos of former male convicts (cuz this will be at a men's prison), we'll see a godot coffee machine and maybe get to talk to valant. final case will concern itself with KRISTOPH, and subsequently, klavier. bratty prosecutor from europe will also tag in cuz of course she has to, this is the fucking finale! this is also where we finally learn why apollo became a defense attorney to begin with.

ill be honest im kinda drawing at a blank here for potential ideas cuz a lot of my ideas for an ajaa trilogy ending hv been condensed into my imaginary aa4 followup. but like i cant take the ending idea from that and put it into here cuz that one is like super involved with the gavin brothers backstory. im also drawing at a blank for what big role trucy would play and also who the rival prosecutor would be. so uhhh...... 😁👍 BLANK SPACE HERE

but ESSENTIALLY i would want an ajaa trilogy to end with the death penalty + treatment of prisoners being reviewed. this is a pretty lackluster outline for a finale but thats bc most of my epic ideas are in my imaginary aa4 followup.... TOO BAD!!! ill write out the outline for that.... eventually......

WAIT LAST MINUTE ADDITION i figured out a role for trucy. now that apollo and trucy know that theyre family, the two of them will be a kinda awkward but ultimately endearing brother and sister pair. and the game will take a look at how the prison system breaks families apart. Yes. OK. ok bye

[chelleztjs18]

Hello you mrs. sandwich eater organizer lefty eyebag 😅

I am good today, doing laundry. How are you?

Yes, that's how I imagined Nat and Yelena too! I think that's why I don't read much Nat x R together because I see them more as just best friends, siblings or even roommates. But definitely like a devils advocate to R hahaha then with Yelena, same thing. Like best friends since birth, ride or die, can't get rid of.

Don't get me started on that sexual tension stuff that you write about R and Wanda hahaha I get all giddy and then angry because they're so stubborn! And you wrote the details so good, I think one time I got mad at you because you were toying with my emotions 🤣 all is forgiven though lol

So do you bring snacks on the plane?

Also, why of all places, did you guys choose to move to Oklahoma?

Correct, that's how I am. I'm glad that the people I was with before didn't complain about it. But at the same time, I wonder if they regret not getting much sex.

Nah, you made my eye roll, so now I can't see because of how far back it rolled ahahahaha okay, if you can guess what meal wins my heart instantly, then you win.

There was this studio that had brick walls. I was going for that kind of look, but someone took the space before me. I am the same way, I have a lot of paintings on my wall. It used to be a lot of dark paintings (my ex loves Halloween or spooky season) but since she took all that, I decided to hang the artworks I've done over the summer time.

When I build or buy my own house, I want to have a dark room to be able to do photography again. It's been my dream to have a small den where half of it is where I can paint, thne the other half is where I can develop photos.

That's a good idea, have the less used item on the bottom shelf. Cause in my place, it only comes with one cabinet for the pantry, its a tall cabinet too. Then the usual shelves for plates and cups. I hate that it's a small kitchen, but I like it at the same time lol

That's cute, a little signature 🤣 please tell me you can do a British impression?

Do you have a weakness?

-CuriousGeorge

hello you certain chip eater in a flatten sandwich righty eyebag! I'm back. sorry for the late answer. i hope u r still awake.

my day got a bit busy today. i did some laundry n fold some of them. :)

Ah i see. i like reading Natasha as the love interest..but Kate and Yelena, i dont really read them as love interest. plus i havent got the chance to read more. if i read more maybe i can change my mind about it.

hahaha to be honest, i actually laughed when i read ur comments here about the Ten Days and the sexual tensions. lol. which part in it that got u "angry"? hahaha. well, be prepare for that in the next chapters of Ten Days :D

Aaww really? i'm glad u enjoy it. it reallly made u feel giddy n then angry? thats good! that was kinda what i was trying to do :P for people have that emoitonal roller coaster but in a funny way n some jokes in it. i just love to put funny part in my fluff. :D

have u read my christmas fic with wanda n the maximoffs twin boys? "the best christmas" i think. haha. there is a joke n funny scene that i am low key proud of it. lol.

nah, not really. i mostly just get some water, iced tea or iced coffee when i fly.

we moved to Oklahoma because he got a job in a biggest weed farm in Oklahoma. :D

well, past is past. If they didn't complain about it, it means that it wasnt the main problem n it doesnt bother them. n don't feel bad about it. understanding in relationship is mutual. plus u told me that u dont mind with it to make them feel good n loved. So you've done ur best and didnt do anything wrong. :) i hope i make u feel a bit better? :D

hmmm whats ur favorite food or meals that wins ur heart. how about italian? something like pasta? did i guess it right? hahaha

dark paintings? something like what? like scary pictures? ouh i love how brick walls look like. that would be nice if u can get the brick studio. sometimes i imagine how it feels if i live in a penthouse a brick and minimalist rustic vibe or theme. industrial theme is nice too.

dark room? isnt it for printing photos in an old way? photographers nowadays still do that?

if i build my own house i want one movie theater room with a very good quality surround sound with cozy couch and full bar. hahaha. so i can enjoy movies and listening to music or watch concerts videos with good quality sound. n i want a nice large kitchen complete with anything u can think of to help u cook with a nice huge walk in pantry. hahaha.

yeah, i understand what u meant with ur cabinet n pantry size. but so far right now it's only u, so it wouldnt be needed to stock bunch of stuff :)

haha yeah my signature. n no i cant do brits impression. i wish i could speak in british accent though.

weakness? i'm a little confuse with what u meant. if i answer praises n compliments, are they what u meant?my other answer probably soft touches, because it's my love language.

or did u mean weakness as in my negative traits (which is sound like a job interview) lol

next questions?

Cheerio!

[miutonium]

Omg guys I really need to talk briefly about the PPG Movie. I actually never watched it as a kid because this movie didn't get release in my country and I actually didn't know they even have a movie until recently last year. I remember when I was a kid they kinda promoted the movie on CN by showing clips of the girls being interviewed seperately on a red couch and lmao my 6 yro brain thought it was cool and I didn't understand a thing at the same time because girly doesnt understand English so I actually didn't know it was for their movie.

Anyway, holy fuck this movie is everything to me because who would've thought a cute series about 3 little girls with superpowers has the saddest backstory ever???? I'm not going to talk about the plot in details, I rarher you guys watch it and understand the grief and pain I went through.

I honestly bawled my fucking eyes out after it ends because bITTCHHHH HOW DARE THE WHOLE TOWN TREATS MY LITTLE GIRLS LIKE THAT?????? 😭😭😭😭

I like how they build the girl's character here, when they were uh...born, all three of them look like a doll, you can't really tell their personality early on until the Professor assigned them their names. And I find it funny that Buttercup won't be as grumpy and tough as she is in the show if Utonium gives more thought into naming her lol. Also i won't shut the fuck up ever about this but I just love how Utonium just made them because he wants kids, he wants to be a parent and just raise them to be good kids. And him being new to the parenting thing (like legit he just thought of wow I want to be a dad because this town fuckin sucks and hours later procured a triplets in his lab) and he being very extremely freshly new to the parenting thing was like "oh shit it's their birthday I should get gifts!" When it clicked on him that it was their birthday and just ran out of the house to get them a car load of gifts while talking to gimself about how excited he is to be a dad (and also reminding himself not to leave the kids home alone anymore so after the incident he only leaves the kids with babysitters at home if he needs to go out at night)

It's so heartbreaking to see the whole town turning their backs on these innocent girls. They totally didn't know how the world works, they're literally 1 day old and poor Professor totally didn't know how to take care of them. They don't understand why people hate them and flew out and cry on meteors trying to process why everyone hates them. Idk seeing all three of them up there had me fuckin bawling like a dumb baby I am. I think I saw people say the Professor is bad at this time too because he didn't believe them and abandoned them and like honestly, no???? I don't accept Utonium slander in this house. He didn't hate them at all, it was just too much for him to handle in one day and he looks more like he is disappointed than he hates them and wants to get rid of them. If you ever notice, at the near end of the movie he ran back to the town with Antidote X and frantically looked for the girls to tell them he has ways to defeat Mojo. He didn't give up on them at all, he immediately ran home and quickly whipped out the Antidote from his lab and drove back downtown just to save the city instead of leaving it in chaos despite how much the people terrorised him and painted him as a villain. He still loves his native town very much and even though he is human, he wanted to give a helping hand to stop the rampaging monkey from destroying the city more. I wont shut the fuck up about Utonium in this movie ever ughhh 😩😩😩💕💕

I don't hate this movie at all despite the ill treatment on them in the middle of the movie. I really appreciate how their backstory has more meaning and also I don't blame on Townsville at all, I would be freaked out by them too. They have rampaging crimes and monsters visiting them by weekly. That's already a threat to them and then suddenly 3 little girls are rampaging the city while playing tag and this time they know who made them and you can arrest that person? I would be knocking on Utonium's door with picket fence and sporks and screams angrily at him too lol.

Anyway, 10/10 will terrorize my moots to watch this and made them cry too 🤧

[actualbird]

Oh god!

I really love the poly headcanons they are so sweet.... (or don't but that's part of it and i think the tot boys+MC deserve all the love the world has to give).

But, liking it or not, our 4 beloved boys are kinda complicated (that's what makes them perfect). Plus I never thought about how people get in poly relationships. So i was thinking, how do you think they all get into a polyrelationship together?

(I really have no idea of how that would happen)

hi, two anons!! im glad you guys liked my nxx team polycule stuff!! i'll answer these in one go, my "headcanon" (in quotes because i think this kinda turned into a character analysis/minific of sorts HAHA) being what first anon asked, How They Get Together.

heads up, wc of this is 1.9k words long so buckle up for a bit of a read jfsjdfkjbf

because first anon, youre right!!! the boys are stupendously complicated which i love so so much but canon has also shown us clearly that each of the boys' quirks and habits and tendencies causes a lot of (mostly played for laughs) friction. the bickering, the backhanded insults, the "im the best one here" preening contests. theyre all SOOOO RIDICULOUS and it is hilarious but yep! the boys r complex!! and that means this beautiful ship, imo, has a lot of phases to get to the actual romantic relationship bit.

how they get together, in my opinion, starts because of mc.

not in the sense that she matchmakes them all, but like.

phase 1 of the nxx team polycule is this:

through being in love with her (which we all know the boys 100% are), each of the boys come to terms with their own flaws and weaknesses. it's very apparent to me in all the story thus far that these boys are flawed as hell, it's very compelling but even more compelling to me is how all of them also do intense mental gymnastics to Not Confront Those Flaws. like, marius is a dickbag always teasing and toeing the line of insincerity, vyn is a controlling mf who always tries to sway situations to his benefit, artem is so repressed to the point that he has genuine trouble with emotions, luke is a self sacrificial bastard and also a huge hypocrite about how no, actually, hes the only one that should be hiding his pain and being dishonest, no dishonesty from other people!! in the beginning of the story, all the boys have their flaws and seem to have just kinda...not addressed how those flaws are harming them and the people around them.

and then mc rolls around and they all fall in love with her. and she sees those flaws and she doesnt let them slide. she challenges the boys in her own ways to see another side of the situation, to acknowledge what theyre doing. she doesnt want to get rid of flaws, thats impossible and also not cool. she just has this beautiful hope for like, all of humanity, that goodness can prevail with the right work. so when she sees her beloved nxx boys, she believes that for them as well.

which leads to phase 2 of the nxx team polycule:

the boys, more aware of themselves, become more aware of each other.

they werent Unaware of the others of course. it's just that they didnt like...truly connect on a personal level just yet. they saw the other teammembers with their emotional armor and flaws and saw a wall that wasnt worth looking past.

but after mc makes them realize that hey, flaws arent the end of the world actually, it's alright and the person behind them may just be worth it, the boys like. end up understanding the others. A LOT OF THIS BIT IS UNINTENTIONAL, ON THEIR PARTS KJDSBFS. like they stumble into understanding each other by accident, they didnt plan it, but over the course of nxx investigations, it's inevitable that they end up seeing the depths of the others. i delve into this a little bit in my fanfic "filler eps of the lost gold" where the boys are just going thru their actions and then trip over another boy's fears or desires and through that, gain a deeper understanding mutually.

and with understanding, sometimes, comes trust.

phase 3 of the nxx team polycule goes like this:

everybody in this team, whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, has a heart that wants to give love so desperately.

marius lives in a world full of snakes so he cant have his heart on his sleeve for his own protection. vyn wants to be seen as perfect and the heart is inherently messy so he holds it back. artem for a very very long time was focused on work and success and achievement that he neglected his heart. and luke has been giving love all his life in a sense but in a way thats hidden.

all these tendencies that are brought upon their life circumstances results in this: they want to love honestly but they havent been able to do this

until mc. and all of them want to push back whatever fears or patterns their life has instilled in them because they see her and see somebody so unwaveringly good that all their hearts begin giving love to her to make her happy and to make themselves happy as well.

but heres the thing. the boys dont just see mc. by this point, they have connected and understood and come to trust each other as well, and the consequence of that is that They Can See Each Other Now Too, Truly.

and heres the thing. all of the boys are unwaveringly good as well.

one by one, each of the boys realize that what they feel for the other boys in the team starts to...change. yeah theyre all friends, they pick on each other a lot of the time, but the bedrock of the relationship is solid and strong now. but when marius is with luke, marius sees a light inside of luke so bright that he seems unaware that he gives off. when artem is with vyn, artem sees a goodness inside of vyn that hesitates to make itself obvious and known because vyn is scared of getting hurt thanks to it. all of them see the other and their goodness and, unbidden, their hearts want to give love to each other as well.

and because theyre all a bit stupid in their own way theyre like, huh, weird! wonder why this feeling is so familiar! and yet i cant seem to name it...and then they all independently compare these feeling with the feelings they have for mc, a feeling they do know the name of, and theyre like.

WAIT.

THESE FEELINGS ARE...VERY BASICALLY EXACTLY WHAT I FEEL FOR MC.

which only means one thing: theyve fallen in love with everybody else

marius: //goes to his studio to Think and sees that a bunch of his recent art actually had little crumbs of these feelings already, etched into the brushstrokes and scenes. has an emotional crisis about it

vyn: //records a 1 hour long entry in his audio diary to examine and gain control of his feelings but by the end of the hour all he knows is that he wants to hold these people and be held by them

artem: //quite literally just bluescreens, artem.exe has stopped working, sits at his study and slowly, slowly, thunks his head down onto his desk, valiantly trying to ignore the fast pulse of his heart

luke: //manically vents about it to peanut who, by virtue of being a bird, doesnt get it. just keeps talking at peanut to get a grasp of it all and then lies down on the floor, overwhelmed

mc, sitting in her apartment watching some netflix: ...why do i inexplicably feel as if something very, very important has just happened?

phase 4 of the nxx team polycule is basically:

pining: extreme difficulty level

because pining is already hard when ur pining for one person. what more for an additional 3 more people. and those additional 3 more people are pining back.

and all these boys are SOOOO OBVIOUS with their romantic feelings, in their own special way. the way they show their affection to mc starts to bleed into their interactions with the others and everybody can CLEARLY SEE WHAT IS GOING ON, LOL, but also all the boys are too chickenshit to confront it, because if they confront it, what will even happen??? being in love with each other, all of them, thats going to be such a complicated fucking relationship, holy shit. it's 2030, yeah, being a polyamorous group relationship isnt completely unheard of, but sue them, theyre scared.

but mc (who i forgot to mention already knows of the boys' romantic feelings for her, shes just hasnt made a move yet on any of them because SHES IN LOVE WITH ALL OF THEM AS WELL and shes been trying to figure out how the hell to make that work, she cant bear to choose just one of them, she'd be heartbroken over leaving the rest of them behind) sees that the nxx investigation team is now all pining for each other FULLY and she kinda wants to laugh when she realizes whats going on because like, what are the chances? that this would happen? that they all found each other and their feelings fell into just the right place for nobody to be left behind?

theyre all scared, she can tell. and she is as well, she wont lie.

but shes always had a belief that goodness can prevail with the right work.

and love is one of the greatest goods out there.

phase 5 of the nxx team polycule:

It's Time For Communication, Baby!!!!!

the exact scenes of how this happens is a bit vague to me. it could go two ways: mc going to each of the boys independently to talk about feelings, hers about everybodys and his about everybodys as well. OR they have a fucking meeting about it all together and artem literally schedules it in his google calendar, or something.

either way, they like, actually talk about this. starts casual, maybe over a chill date, maybe over dinner at a nice restaurant, maybe over a walk in the park as the sun is starting to set. but where ever it happens, the end result is the same: a heart is laid out bare and it is taken in gentle, grateful hands.

marius: OKAY, NOW THAT THE FEELINGS ARE OUT OF THE WAY, CAN I PLEASE KISS ONE OR ALL OF YOU, PLEASE, IVE BEEN WANTING TO KISS U GUYS FOR FOREVER

vyn, laughing fondly: has anybody ever told you patience is a virtue? we quite literally just talked it all out.

marius: //needy whining noises

artem, embarrassed: ive...never kissed anybody before

luke, embarrassed but trying to play it Cool: ....same here

mc: kissing is great, you two will love it!

marius: awesome, awesome, so is ANYBODY going to give me a go ahead or WHAT????

phase 6 of the nxx team polycule:

i dont want to say it's happily ever after, once they all get together. thats not really realistic.

they all have their quirks and tendencies and habits. and those will inevitable clash against each other. theyll have their arguments, theyll get upset, theyll sulk and be angry, sometimes. but also...

theyll see each other smile and feel like their love shining so brightly. theyll reach out for another's hand and be held in such a way that makes them think that their heart is in a safe place. theyll love each other and theyll put in the work to continue loving each other. because goodness will prevail.

and they all see each other as the most good people in the world.

so whatever happens, theyll get through it together.

[thestarryeyedsapphic]

critiques i have of tlc ranging from very stupid nitpicking to very valid criticisms

*i tried to do them in order of when they came up but some criticisms extend to the whole series

**i am (obv) a huge fan of these books but i am also a huge critic bc let’s face it they are far from perfect

one of the most egregious problems of the books is the way they treat Asian cultures. this post and this post do a better job than i ever could of explaining how problematic it is, so i highly HIGHLY recommend reading them if you haven’t seen them already (the second post also links even more articles about it)

so i guess i can understand most people not taking precautions about letumosis bc people are stupid (and also mm didn’t take pandemic precautions into account) but why is kai’s dumbass, (affectionate) whose father literally HAS letumosis, going out to a crowded space without any protection??

why wasn’t fixing nainsi cinder’s main priority i feel like she could have finished it a lot sooner??

the outta pocket transphobic joke,,,why

ok so i get why the commonwealth is a monarchy bc fairy tale reasons but kai could easily get rid of the threat of levana trying to marry him by de-establishing the monarchy so she can’t have that power

i know cinder is immune to letumosis (at this point) but she is BALLSY when going to and from the quarantines she could have easily given it to kai when she goes to see him right after (AND KAI LITERALLY KISSES THE GLOVE THAT SHE JUST TOUCHED SICK PEOPLE WITH I KNOW IT DOESNT SURVIVE ON FABRIC BUT THERE COULD BE TRACE AMOUNTS??)

the second the earthen leaders saw the wolf army they should have immobilized. ik they were in their era of peace or whatever so they didn’t have weapons but they should have started producing artillery the moment levana threatened them (very american of me to be like ‘let’s nuke them!!’ but it would have made for a good threat since Luna lacked the resources to stand against them in an arms race)

now idk if mm didn’t do enough research or if she just made up her own things about the behavior of wolves to fit her narrative, but like the alpha-beta-omega shit is based on an inaccurate study (although you could make the argument that bc it only occurs in wolves in captivity and technically the wolf soldiers were in captivity, the concept kind of holds up?? but the info scarlet read is just wrong so like,,,and i get that it’s a sci-fi book but this wolf stuff is presented as fact and most people think it IS fact which really irks me for some reason lol)

love you scarlet but why were you so pissed at wolf he literally tried to convince you not to go to the pack base and that it would be a trap but you did anyway and now you’re mad??

i kind of talked about this in one of my recent posts but it is kinda frustrating how scarlet went from having a whole book about her to being completely gone for the entirety of the next book,,,maybe im just a scarlet and a wolflet stan but this just felt weird to me

wolf’s character from this moment on was just reduced down to being obsessed with scarlet, and as much as i love wolflet and how much he loves her, he had a lot more going for him than just scarlet and that should have been explored (also he never apologized to cinder for STRANGLING her during one of his breakdowns and i feel like an apology is in order??)

a lot of other people have talked about this but the way winter’s mental illness was handled was #not good and the fact that she gets COMPLETELY cured at the end of the book kinda takes away from the representation like obv im glad she is okay but it is kinda frustrating when she is supposed to represent people with mental illnesses bc that shit don’t just go away

also i love scarlet and winter but sometimes scarlet was kind of mean to her especially about her mental illness which doesn’t really sit well with me (i still love you scarlet tho)

it’s time to talk about cresswell,,,obv no hate to cresswell stans bc aside from the problematic age gap, their relationship was well written and i really loved it when i first read the books and it’s really frustrating that cress is so young (along with the other female characters) when she didn’t have to be. now i know people might make the argument of age of consent and how we don’t know it in this universe, but in fairest when levana first comes on to evret, he makes a point of mentioning her age and how she’s too young for him at 16. pearl’s seamstress also tells adri that pearl is too young for marriage at 17, so clearly attitudes about these ages are at least somewhat similar to how we think about them in real life. even if we take cress’ age out of the equation, she is heavily infantilized (she literally SQUEAKS??) and has spent remotely zero time out in the real world. thorne in comparison has a lot of experience, both in the real world and in relationships, so he is significantly more mature than cress. her crush on thorne is fine and dandy but him reciprocating is where the problem is at because there is a definite power imbalance. i still love thorne <3 and obv know he wouldn’t take advantage of cress, but the fact that seventh grade me read this and was obsessed with their relationship and didn’t see anything wrong with it is kinda a big issue and kinda dangerous when you think about it

i also talked about this recently but like idc if they could revive cinder from the brink of death TWICE, cure thorne’s blindness, and cure winter’s mental illness, how cAN THEY NOT REVERSE THE SURGERIES??? like honestly alpha steele had a point of being pissed in wires and nerve!! if they could do the surgeries, they could def reverse them to some extent!!! i will never not be over this hghkskxj

bruh if i were kai i would have brought a whole horde of androids to put a cap in levana’s ass the second he got to luna that was such a missed opportunity

i might have more of these after i get through the rest of winter, but yeah i just had to go off

[littlesniggy]

Daughter telling them they'll become grandparents (Admirals)

Anon: Ive been reading through your posts here and to ne honest, I realy like them.

Also, can you make a headcanon were sakazuki, kizaru, fujitora and kuzan daughter telling them that there going to be a grandpas without knowing the father? How will they react? Apologies if this too much or doesnt make sense.

Hey Anon, as promised is here the Admiral headcanons. Maybe Sakazuki's reaction is a little harsh but I think he's not really understanding when it comes to his daughter. I hope you enjoy them!

Sakazuki

He is silent. He doesn’t say a single word for a long period of time. He thinks it’s a bad joke and his daughter is just trying to mess with him. “Cut the crap, Y/n.” he says once she repeats herself.

When he realizes she’s not joking he will get furious. He will lecture her on safe sex (being mad at her that she had sex in the first place) and ask her how she can be so irresponsible as to just fuck the next best boy and let him impregnate her on top of it ( and yes, he will say the f-word).

When his daughter admits that she doesn’t even know who the father is he will become livid. He thinks it’s a disaster. He won’t straight out tell her to get rid of it but he will make it clear that she shouldn’t expect him (or his wife) to take care of the kid or help her with it if she can’t even name the father. She brought it upon herself.

Needless to say, his daughter will cry eventually just because of the lack of compassion from his side. Sakazuki won’t apologize and just either make her leave or leave himself to clear his head. He’s not as mad about the effect it might have on his reputation rather than him thinking how she can be so stupid.

Secretly, he will hunt that bastard down and the likelihood he’ll find him is pretty high. He will force him to take care of the baby with his daughter and the guy has no say in it whatsoever. He doesn’t want his daughter being a single mom and this bastard better be a good father (and husband lol). He’s going to make them get married, if they want to or not.

He’s pretty conservative when it comes to children born out of wedlock and to him it’s just a sign of lack of character if you get pregnant beforehand (he’s not as conservative when it comes to sex though). His opinion on his daughter will drop, not gonna lie but he still loves her though from that point on he will be harsher towards her.

Kuzan

He’s disappointed and not amused either. He’s pretty sure he taught his daughter everything about safe sex and that protection is key. Accidents can happen, he knows but he won’t say that he’s thrilled about becoming a grandfather.

He tells her he’d support her with the kid (if she wants to keep it) but she shouldn’t expect him to be there at all time. His job as an admiral is very time consuming and he won’t tune it down just because she wants to be a single mother.

There won’t be any yelling but she can see the disappointment in his eyes when she tells him. “Are you sure? Who is the father?” Upon admitting that she isn’t quite sure he will raise his eyebrow and think she’s joking. “I didn’t think you were someone who would just sleep around, Y/n. I’m disappointed.” These words will hit her hard.

“Did you use protection?” when she agrees he just sighs and will tell her that it’s not that bad but that she should think about the long-term ‘consequences’ of having a child. If she’s really ready for it and talk everything through. If she says that they didn’t use any protection he will be even more disappointed but will still help her regardless.

The more time passes the more time he gets used to his daughter getting a child soon and he is a little bit excited to get to meet his grandchild, even though he wished for it to be under different circumstances (his grandchild’s father should really be in the picture in his opinion).

That’s why he will also try and track that man down and make him be there for his daughter and his grandchild and I’m pretty sure the man won’t refuse given that he’s talking to an admiral who could easily kill him at that. He doesn’t think twice.

Borsalino

“Huh? You’re pregnant? How did that happen?” she can’t really tell if he’s amused, disappointed, angry, or happy by his words and he is not giving his emotions away that easily. Honestly, he doesn’t know how he should feel about this revelation and he needs some time to think about everything.

Given that she’s his daughter and has the same sense of humor she will give him “the talk” on how babies are made just to lighten the mood. Being caught off guard by her reply, he will chuckle a little but then get serious.

“Who’s the father?” she just hoped that he wouldn’t bring this question up and once she admitted that she doesn’t know his lighthearted aura will drop and he looks rather concerned. He won’t shame her for not knowing but he’s still very disappointed at her irresponsibility.

“Are you keeping it?” is his next question and when she says yes he leans back in his chair and blow some air out of his mouth, needing to think about the whole situation. “Have you planned everything out yet?” and he will hit her with so many questions about her future, how’s she wants to take care of the child, how she wants to finance everything, etc.

He doesn’t want to force her to get an abortion by scaring her but he wants to make sure that she knows what a baby entails. If she is still adamant about keeping the baby he will shrug in slight defeat. “It’s your choice and I’m not gonna tell you what to do.”

Like his previous colleagues, he will find the baby’s father and tell him to “better take care of the baby he made or else.” Borsalino won’t force him to also take care of his daughter, especially if there are no feelings involved whatsoever but there are always two involved when it comes to a baby so that man better take responsibility.

Issho

First, he is over the moon when he learns that he’s becoming a grandfather. He will congratulate his daughter and ask her various questions, already picturing himself playing with his grandchild.

Once she tells him that she doesn’t know the father, his mood will drop and the look of sheer disappointment written all over his face makes her want to run away. It just always breaks her heart when her father looks at her this way. It just means that she messed up in a way.

Like Kuzan, he will tell her that he’s still happy for her but he wonders how she intends to take care of herself AND a baby without someone to help her. He is on missions almost constantly and won’t be there to help with his grandchild. He would love to take some time off but he knows Sakazuki won’t let him and resigning is not an option, especially if he wants to change the world.

He’s the only one who won’t look for the father but he will tell his daughter that she should better look for him herself just to let him know that he will become a father. It’s just fair in his opinion. If the man doesn’t want to have anything to do with his child the Issho will interfere and make it clear to him (guilt trip him) that he should take care of his child.

Throughout the pregnancy, he will be as supportive as possible every time he’s at home and bring things for the baby from his missions. He’s just so excited and the feeling just grows over time even more.

[detective-gum-chew]

okay okay okay

i know this isnt an orginal idea by any means but roleswap!narumitsu is just so good

so youll have to indulge me because this lives in my head rent free and i want to write it down concretely somewhere (also this gets LONG so ill pop a cut in here)

alright so:

1. at least in my writing of it, this is also a no-dl6/gregory lives au. but as well at that, miles and phoenix didnt go to school together

2. this means that there was nobody to defend phoenix at the class trial (yes i know the money stolen was edgeworths but shhh lets pretend it was someone elses, kay?) this lead to phoenix becoming not only bitter, but somewhat obsessive over the idea of punishing people that do wrong

(if someone can find that quote where phoenix talks about how he could have become a prosecutor because of the trial i will give u a gentle kiss on the forehead) 

3. Edgeworth was raised by Gregory and ends up becoming a defense attorney

4. in this, Von Karma goes down and Franzy is adopted by Gregory, and she assists Miles in his cases. (she can still have a whip, as a treat.)

5. anyway with that set up, lets get into some cases

6. Larry gets accused of Cindys murder, Miles defends with Franzy

7. Lets say Mia was in the crowd of that trial and decided to contact miles, seeing as he appears to be another uncorrupt lawyer and asks him for his help in taking down Redd White

8. He agrees, and she sets a time for him to meet at her office so they can talk. Mia then calls her sister and updates her on how shes going to recruit another person (Redd White hears this)

9. Much like the original case, Mia gets murdered, but this time, Maya isnt here to be blamed. Instead, its Miles himself, as the name that White heard over the phone (so basically we’re speed running to the “defend yourself in court” part)

10. the prosecutor today is Phoenix Wright.

11. but before that lets go into some backstory actually. Phoenix had encountered Mia previously during the Terry Fawles case. He had respected her as a peer, if not for just her determination and deductive skills. (After all, he was young at the time and solely focused on punishing the wicked) After Diego’s poisoning, he had briefly reached out for condolences

12. but anyway, Phoenix had distantly respected Mia, and now that she was dead, he was going to be tough on whoever he thought murdered her.

13. Miles proves his innocence, although it takes some baiting to get Redd White out of his building and actually into court. 

14. Wright is... not pleased about this, but theres not much he can do. His displeasure for Mias murder has shifted, but theres a new displeasure for Miles, the man who could beat him in court. (”well well well, you managed to save your own skin. But you should hope you get as lucky as you did in your next case”)

15. Next case! We know Miles is a steel samurai fan, so even without Maya it takes very little convincing for him to take the case. (Fran is not as amused but trusts her brother... enough.. to follow his lead)

16. Case proceeds mostly as normal, with Phoenix requiring Dee to re-do her testimony (maybe something deep within him still itches to put the true bad guy away, even if its harder than the accused)

17. I dont think Phonix would deliver the unnecessary feelings line, although there definetely is that moment in the lobby where hes like “hm. maybe you arent a bad person, but that doesnt mean i have to like you.”

18. and now, now now now, we finally get to the part where i somehow managed to put the most thought into. (for context it is nearly 2 am when i am writing this)

19. sleep schedule aside, you couldnt have thought i would made this WITHOUT some good angst, so here we go. case four is similarly structured to the original, but with an extra side of Phoenix angst.

20. Miles wakes up to Franzy shaking him. She points to the television. the news is on, but the voices are drowned out by a distant ringing as he stares at the image on the screen.

Famed Prosecutor Phoenix Wright Arrested For Murder

21. it just doesnt make sense. So he gets out of bed and into the closest clothes he can find and out the door with his sister in tow. He sits in the cold detention room, thinking about the other side of the glass.

22. Phoenix Wright looks dull. He asks what they want. Miles says he wants an explanation. Wright sneers and asks why. For some reason, that pisses Miles off. He slams his badge to the glass and Wright looks surprised.

“Do you know what this is? It’s my attorneys badge.”

“the badge doesnt mean youre a good lawyer.”

“Well Mr Wright, its 2-0, so i dont think you have any right to say that.” Miles glares at him and Wright sits back in his seat. He watches Miles for a long time.

“If im going to defend you, you need to tell me what happened.“ Wrights eyebrows shoot up and Franziska squawks at his side

“What do you mean defend him!”

“What she said.”

Miles narrows his eyes at Wright as he ponders to himself the answer. Why is he doing it? the answer comes to him. 

“Because i dont believe you did it.”

For all his snark, Miles cant bring himself to believe that the man in front of him would kill someone. Theres something about him, either in his eyes or the way he carries himself that makes the idea itself preposterous. Wright looks at him for a long time after he says it.

“Very well.”

21. Miles doesnt seem him until court, but at least he testifies. The next person up, a red head by the name of Melissa Foster, gives a testimony that seems airtight.

22. that is, until he looks over at Phoenix, who is pale as he looks at the woman on the witness stand. Phoenix catches his eye, and very carefully, very slowly, mouths one name.

Dahlia Hawthorne

23. (I really wish i could continue with the more narrative parts of this but im honestly running out of steam and ill get to the point lol. Maybe ill finish it later.)

24. Terry Fawles dies on the stand. Diego Armando falls into a coma. Dahlia Hawthorne walks free. Even after what happened to Diego, Phoenix is convinced he can do better. He sets up a meeting with Dahlia.

25. Doug shows up, trying to persuade him away from it, saying he overheard Dahlia’s plan to kill Phoenix when she arrives. Phoenix is cocky, and the pair fight. Doug gets shoved into the powerline. Phoenix, thinking him dead, panics and runs.

26. Dahlia, having overheard, goes back and finishes him off, drops some poison into his mouth perhaps. With an accidental death with a cause so obvious, nobody bothers to run blood tests (until Miles)

27. Its years later, and Phoenix gets a note that tells him they know what really happened to Doug. Phoenix arrives to a meeting place to find a dead body. He picks up the vial of poison almost absently. 

28. After all, Dahlia had gotten rid of Diego and Mia was dead. Now all she had to do was get rid of Phoenix

29. It plays out similarly to case four, with Phoenix being absolved of the first murder, then confessing to the old one. Miles has gone through the work to save his life once, that he cant not do it again.

30. but happy endings (ish) for all, with Phoenix being freed, Dahlia imprisoned and Miles having a better understanding of both him and Phoenix.

31. maybe more happens but we’re at bullet point 31 so its time to stop for now lmao. uh but yeah! roleswap au..... brainrot really.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Another One?!, Part 4

First > Previous > Next

At first, Adrien didn’t really know whether or not they were being followed.

There are a lot of kids with black hair and blue eyes, and he had a tendency to patrol certain areas. It was entirely plausible that he could just be paranoid or imagining things.

But there was a point where you had to step back and say ‘no, that’s definitely not normal’.

And Adrien hit that point when he had started counting the times he spotted the kid and ended up with eleven times by the end of the week.

He stopped in the middle of patrol and sat down on his favorite gargoyle for a short break to text the family about his findings. They deserved to know what was going on...

ChatoNoir: I think there's a person following us.

HelmetRights: Lol

ChatoNoir: This is serious!

Buginette: is it the scrawny kid with black hair and blue eyes

ChatoNoir: You’ve seen him, too?

RockinRobin: we all have????

HelmetRights: Lol

Buginette: their fine if you wanna get rid of them just wave they get all blushy and hide

HelmetRights: *They’re

Buginette: bitch lets see you type in french

HelmetRights: Qu'est-ce que je devrais dire

RockinRobin: alkdjfskdjfksdl

There was a few seconds while Marinette typed, and then apparently deleted her message because it never came through.

Adrien almost smiled but then he remembered what they were supposed to be talking about.

ChatoNoir: Can we get back on subject?

HelmetRights: Lame

Buginette: whats the point its just a fan

HelmetRights: I just wish he’d go back to not taking pictures I’ve missed so many shots because of his stupid flash going off

RockinRobin: i think it’s flattering

HelmetRights: Lol

Buginette: relax its whatever as long as he doesnt get hurt watching us

He sighed and closed his eyes. Fair enough. It’s a kid, those aren’t exactly a threat.

Still, he was a bit concerned. Not for them, they’d be fine, but for the kid. Adrien and Dick were the only ones with some kind of schedule for patrolling because of his job and Dick’s schooling, but Marinette and Jason apparently saw him pretty consistently, too. Just where were this kid’s parents? Were they okay with him being out all the time?

But he figured he must have been overreacting. Maybe they were a street kid like Jason…

No, they had decent clothes.

Adrien frowned to himself. Weird.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. After all, he only had another hour for patrols before he would need to go home to get ready for work. The kid would still be a problem in a few days, anyways...

~

It turned out Adrien was right to worry, because Marinette spotted the kid a few days later… while she was a civilian.

She had been in her favorite cafe, sipping at a cup of coffee as she read through the newspaper. It was an article about the vigilantes, debating things like ‘What the fuck were they thinking letting kids join them?’ and ‘Why can’t the kids name themselves?’

She found it amusing, even if it was calling her and her family out.

But then she’d felt someone’s eyes on her.

She slowly looked up, expecting a person who wanted to sit or a guy who wanted to flirt…

Only to see the kid.

They locked eyes for a few seconds.

Did he know? Surely, he couldn’t. They did everything from applying makeup to using codenames to hide their identities…

But that was the same starstruck look he wore whenever he looked at their vigilante identities…

She gave him a tiny wave and watched him blush and slump a little in his chair to hide.

Huh.

~

“Hey, so heads up, I think stalker kid might know who we are.”

Adrien dropped the textbook he was scanning for a refresher on algebra. Dick fell from the ceiling. Jason just looked up in surprise.

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, I don’t know for sure, though. He could just have a thing for people who look like us. Somehow, I doubt it, though. We can’t all be his type.”

“We don’t know how desperate he is,” Jason pointed out.

Marinette hesitated, then gave a tiny shrug as if to say ‘you’re right, I guess…’

“Hello?” Adrien waved his hands to get their attention. “Could you guys please take this seriously? A kid knows our identities!”

“We don’t even know that for sure, though,” said Dick as he started climbing onto the nearest ceiling light. “And, if he does, so what? It’s a kid. People hardly listen to kids.”

He sighed. “Yes, but if he found out then other people might be able to, too. Shouldn’t we ask?”

The family considered this for a minute…

And then Marinette shrugged. “We need to know for sure if he knows our civilian identities, first, though. Everyone keep a lookout?”

Everyone nodded, bored and reluctant.

Adrien frowned. He loved his family, he just wished they’d take things more seriously sometimes… or, at least, not brush past things so quickly...

His watch beeped and he sighed. He pushed the thought aside. He needed to get ready for work.

~

After everyone had spotted them in their civilian forms several times, they decided to call it: the kid knew who they were.

(At least he wasn’t taking pictures of them as civilians, they thought, because that would be uncomfortable.)

So, for the first time in ages, the four of them were spotted doing a casual patrol together. It was kind of fun, actually. Dick and Marinette practiced some old circus acts that they remembered, Jason and Adrien raced. Maybe they should do it more often…

Marinette and Dick were walking along some power lines when Dick suddenly stopped to point down.

Her eyes followed to find the kid and she whistled for Adrien and Jason’s attention.

The kid was alone on a rooftop. He didn’t seem concerned that they were all pointing at him, though maybe a little flustered…

But then he did freak out.

Because the vigilantes jumped down in a loose circle around him.

Their stalker spun around anxiously as if he wasn’t sure who to look at.

Dick cleared his throat. “Right, do you know why we’re here?”

“I…” The kid finally stopped spinning to look at Marinette and Adrien. “Because I know your identities?”

“Yes. How exactly did you do that?” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

The kid cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, I’m a big Haly’s circus fan --.”

“Ah, shoot,” Dick muttered.

“And… I was looking through some old footage of you guys on Youtube… and I realized that Robin did a move that only Dick Grayson would know. And, if Dick Grayson was Robin, then you guys all had to be vigilantes.”

The entire family was glaring at Dick.

The man in question just awkwardly looked to the side.

Marinette clicked her tongue and then looked back at the kid. “Okay, what was the url of the footage you got? I’ll see if we can give them a copyright strike. Youtube’s system is broken so it’d probably work.”

The kid in question shook his head. “You don’t have to. I got rid of it myself.”

“Oh… thanks. Is it anywhere else that you know of?”

“No, I got rid of everything on the internet that could trace back to you guys.”

The family looked at each other, confusion on all of their faces. How…? This kid was fifteen, max, there was no way…

Well, maybe he was bluffing so he could keep the footage. They’d check later.

Jason was apparently done with caring about what was going on, because he had sat down and started checking his guns to make sure they were all okay.

Marinette was feeling much the same, leaning on her cane. “Great, well, thanks for that, I guess… could you maybe stop stalking us as civilians, though?”

“Don’t worry, I’m just doing that to get enough proof to clear your names and then I’ll go back to just watching you as vigilantes.”

“Oh, ok -- wait, what?” Said Dick, frowning a little bit.

The kid frowned as well. “I’m clearing your name… do you not know?”

The four looked at each other before shaking their heads in unison.

He sighed and brought out his phone to pull up an article. He passed it to Jason because he was closest and he cursed quietly.

“The gist of it is people are starting to wonder if you’ve gone bad,” explained the kid as Jason scrolled through the article. “It’s just a gossip column thing right now but I figured I should get proof you guys are still good in case it gained traction.”

Marinette frowned. “I’d understand if they thought we were just bad, not everyone understands that we kill people for the greater good, but saying we’ve gone bad implies that we’ve somehow gotten worse…?”

The phone was passed to her and her first instinct, much like Jason’s, had been to curse.

“Well, there’s been rumors of you and Riddler being friends for years now --.”

“WE’RE NOT,” Marinette hissed, and it took a lot of mental power to not crush the phone in her hands. She passed it on to Dick just in case. “He’s just helpful on some cases is all.”

Adrien rolled his eyes.

The kid sighed lightly. “And, on top of that, all of your most recent high-level takeouts have helped a particular mob boss, Antony Agoura, gain power.”

Her first instinct was ‘cool, thanks for the name, let’s kill him’, but then she forced herself to reconsider.

It seemed that taking down people just helped someone else take their place, which didn’t really surprise her. The moment anything was freed from someone’s hold, there would always be people who would do their best to grab it…

But then what was the solution? The situation with Agoura itself was proof that just murdering the head and saying ‘alright, next thing’ wasn’t working. Someone would just pop up to take his place --.

Adrien met her eyes and they shared anxious frowns.

Fuck, they were actually going to have to think about this one, huh?

~

He fell back on the couch and closed his eyes.

He listened to his family mull about. He could hear the quiet creaking of Dick getting on a light, could hear Marinette pulling out baking pans, could hear the clinking of Jason’s rings.

He sighed.

What could they do?

They had had a rule that they would never kill henchmen because they often weren’t working just for fun, they had a family to feed or hadn’t been able to get a job elsewhere.

Besides, with the mobster gone, there would be little reason for the police to let them go. They’d serve hard time and then, hopefully, come out a better person.

(Probably not. The prison system needed work.)

But…

He had remembered the name Agoura. He had been under Zucco at some point. He wasn’t sure whether he’d been a mob boss or a henchman at the time, though it didn’t really matter. There were a lot of people who had started out as henchmen that had somehow gotten power.

He sighed. He hated systemic issues.

The main problem, he thought, was that mobsters didn’t fear death as much as they should. Sure, everyone fears death on some level, but the people of Gotham knew what they were doing when they decided to get to that point. They would die if they got caught, and they were willing to take the risk in order to get the money and power that came along with being mobsters.

What did they fear? What weren’t they prepared to face?

He opened his eyes and looked over at Dick, who was currently reviewing for final exams from the ceiling.

The law, maybe? Serving actual hard time?

Well, it was worth a shot.

Dick was about to be a lawyer, so they had someone who would be able to try them in court…

But they needed a police officer to arrest them…

Marinette walked into the room and started looking for her shoes, cursing out brownies.

“Chocolate sauce. How did I forget that? Kwami!” She clicked her tongue. “Son of a -- where are my shoes?”

“Shoes are under the couch,” said Dick calmly.

Marinette gave the world’s angriest “Thank you!” as she ducked down and grabbed them.

“M’lady,” said Adrien.

She paused, looking over at him. “Yes, Chaton?”

“I have an idea for what to do about our newest problem, if you’d like to hear it.”

She tipped her head to the side a little, smiling.

“Sure, but make it quick, I can only keep Dick and Jason away from the batter for so long.”

~

Hey, New Jersey, what the fuck?

It had literally been easier to get into the circus than it had been to become a police officer.

She’d already gotten a degree in criminal justice a few years back. Why? Because she was really bored.

(Also, she’d wanted to mess with Officer Ross and she had decided that it would be funny to memorize as many laws as possible to point out when his buddies weren’t abiding by them.)

The test had been almost painfully easy. She spoke English as a second language and she’d thought that she was reading almost every question wrong. Some of these people would be detectives one day, you’d think they’d ask for more than basic reading comprehension. The most difficult question she’d gotten was one about license plates, and even then it was multiple choice so she’d had a 20% chance of guessing right.

And then getting a job in the GCPD was somehow easier.

Though she figured out why that last part had happened the first day she walked into work.

Can someone say ‘diversity hire’?

She hugged herself awkwardly. Really? Was she the only person of color in this place?

Wait, there was a singular black guy. She was wrong. She was just the only woman of color. Yay.

But, it seemed, her day was about to get worse.

“Marinette Agreste?”

Her nails dug into her arms and she turned to look at Officer Ross. “That’s me.”

“I’m here to give you a tour of the place. Ready?”

Asshole. Chienne. Motherfucker. Other swear words she couldn’t think of she was so mad.

She forced a smile to her face. “Sure!”

~

Yay. Galas. He always loved those.

He reached out and helped Jason with his tie and then ruffled his red curls. “What’s the rule?”

Jason grinned. “If you absolutely have to ruin someone’s life, do it discreetly.”

“Good.” He met Dick’s eyes in the mirror. “And what’s your rule?”

“... no hanging and/or swinging from chandeliers.”

“Thank you.” He looked at Tikki. “Please, just let us have one easy gala. No press, no kids getting their hands on wine, no people talking to Mari so we don’t have to leave early.”

Tikki shrugged.

He sighed. Yeah, he’d expected that. Worth a shot, though.

So, the four of them all head off. They told themselves that, hey, even if Tikki couldn’t promise that things will go okay, they could make it happen.

The peace lasted about ten seconds.

Because then Marinette hissed a curse and nodded her head to point out the kid.

He sighed. They hadn’t seen the kid in a while as civilians, so they’d thought that he had actually ended up agreeing that stalking them while they were civilians was taking it too far, but apparently not.

Wait a minute, galas were private events. How did he get in?

They started looking around for the kid’s parents, because obviously they had to be around, but they were nowhere near him.

Marinette and Adrien exchanged frowns.

And then their frowns deepened. Because they glanced behind themselves to look at their kids and found that they weren’t there anymore.

She clicked her tongue and looked around. “You deal with the stalker, I’ll go find the kids. I’m sure that one of them has found a loophole to their rule by now --.” Her eyes widened and she rushed away. “RICHARD JUST BECAUSE THAT’S NOT A CHANDELIER DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN CLIMB IT --.”

Adrien sighed.

He grabbed a glass of wine and then headed over to the kid. “Hey, kiddo, where are your parents?”

He shrugged and pointed over to the small crowd of people watching Marinette attempt to pry a glass of wine from Jason’s hands while they cursed each other out in French.

“Probably over there.”

Adrien winced. “Fun.”

“Your family is a disaster,” said the kid.

“Thanks,” Adrien muttered.

“I think it’s nice. When you’re vigilantes you’re basically gods, it’s nice to know you’re just people.”

He considered this for a second.

“Also, it’s really funny to watch,” added the kid.

He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

After a few minutes of watching the Agreste family crash and burn, the kid looked back over at him.

“Why are you still here?”

“Here with you, here at the gala, or here on Earth?” Adrien half-joked.

They shrugged. “Here with me. Your family needs you right now.”

“Marinette is the better problem solver of the both of us. Besides, you’re a kid, you shouldn’t be left alone.”

“I’m alone all the time, I’ll live.”

Adrien frowned. “What do you --?”

He was cut off when he spotted Marinette dragging Jason over by the back of his suit.

“Hold onto him, will you? I need to catch Dick before he breaks --.” There was a crashing sound nearby. She clicked her tongue. “... before he breaks that hedge. I’ll be back.”

Adrien absently held a hand out and Jason put his arm in it so he could keep a hold on him. His wife gave a tired smile before turning on her heel and stalking off to the hedge maze.

He sighed and looked back at the stalker. “Right, where were we…? Oh, what do you mean by you’re alone all the time?”

Jason’s eyes narrowed a little bit.

“My parents… go on a lot of trips.”

“Without you?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“What…? Why…?”

“You wouldn’t understand, you guys never go anywhere.”

Adrien opened his mouth and then closed it again. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but…

“Okay, point, but how often are you alone? Is that why you’re always following us? Do you go to school? Do --?”

He frowned and held up a hand. “That’s a lot of questions at once.” He started to count off on his fingers. “They’re never gone for longer than a month at a time but they only come back for a few days at most. Yes, it’s why I’m always able to follow you. And I’m homeschooled.”

Adrien’s frown was deepening more and more by the second. “Who are your parents, exactly? Or, I guess, who are you?”

“I’m Tim Drake.”

Drake. His eyes flicked to Jack and Janet Drake. He had talked to them a few times because they had a tendency to ask Marinette for commissions (or, at least, they did until Dick and Jason came along and kept their parents distracted for the entire time they were there). Still, he hadn’t even known that they had a kid…

Jason suddenly tugged on his arm, pulling Adrien’s attention back to him.

“Dad, it looks like Dickwad and Mom are wanting to go.”

He frowned and looked up to find that, yes, Marinette had managed to catch Dick and was now waving for their attention from the door.

He winced and looked back over at the kid. “Tim…”

Jason tugged harder on his arm. “Dad, let’s go.”

Adrien gave an apologetic look but allowed Jason to pull him out the door.

The silence in the car was deafening that night, everyone lost in their thoughts.

~

Marinette was now constantly fighting the urge to punch someone.

Why are all cops just… the absolute worst? Sure, some of them aren’t directly beating up the teenagers that are brought in for information or planting evidence, but they weren’t exactly saying anything about it.

And then there was the fact that she’d been paired with Officer Ross.

Really, she should have expected it. She’d known that his partner had recently passed away in the field, and that he would need another.

If she’d known that she’d have ended up the lucky officer, she would have said fuck it to the whole trying something new thing and just gone after Agoura’s head like normal.

Now she’d gotten too far to just give up...

Didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be bitter about it.

As a way to vent her anger, she’d wanted to ask what happened to his old partner but then this stupid thing called ‘morals’ got in the way. Really unfortunate, because now all she could really do was glare at the stack of paperwork that she was being forced to make a digital copy for over her cup of coffee.

She felt an arm rest on her shoulder and cursed internally. She forced a smile to her face as she looked up to see…

Dick. Oh, thank the kwamis.

Marinette grinned. “Hey, sweetie, how did finals go?”

“I don’t want to jinx it.”

She hummed her understanding and moved on. “No problems?”

Dick gave a tiny shrug. “There was a few problems, there was a really annoying kid next to me that apparently still hasn’t learned how to breathe through his nose, but… they actually listened to the doctors and gave me extra time, so that’s good.”

She got up and wrapped him in a hug. “So, out of college officially. How’s it feel?”

He hugged her back, absolutely beaming. “If I passed.”

She clicked her tongue. “Right. But, let’s say you did. Then you’re out.”

“Then I’m out!” He said, pulling back and resting his hands on his hips. “Now all I have to do is find a job.”

“How horrible,” she said sarcastically.

“Yeah. Speaking of horrible jobs, wanna leave?”

“I do, but I have to finish this.” She sat back down and pulled up the daunting task in front of her. She had to type up another few pages and she was not eager to do so. Still, the commissioner had asked to get her email by the end of her shift and, if Dick was here, she was already behind. “I’ll need around an hour, I think.”

He groaned and pulled out his phone.

She smiled faintly and went back to working.

Or, at least, she tried to.

Officer Ross was talking to Dick.

“So, you’re her kid?”

“One of two!”

Ross laughed. “Tell me, is she always so angry at home?”

“Not really. Our family doesn’t really get angry in general, at least not at home. I think we all vent our anger at work, though.”

“Hm. Weird.”

Dick gave a tiny shrug.

“So, just graduated, then?”

“Mhmm! I just finished law school! I’m gonna be a lawyer!”

Ross’s eyes narrowed a little bit. “A lawyer, huh? Are you going to be the one doing the persecuting or defending?”

“Um…” said Dick, who seemed to be just now remembering that cops and lawyers didn’t exactly get along if the way his smile was dropping was any indication. He looked to the side and brought a smile to his face again. “Persecuting. I’m on your side. It would be kind of embarrassing to go against my mom in court, don’t you think?”

He relaxed, nodding. “Good.”

They lapsed into an awkward silence after that and Marinette was finally able to concentrate…

For the two seconds of silence she got before Commissioner Gordon walked over to ask her when she’d be done.

She fought the urge to bang her head on the desk.

She turned around, about to throw Officer Ross under the bus, but it turned out she didn’t need to.

Because then his daughter showed up with some dinner for him.

Gordon turned around to greet her. Thank kwami, finally something was going right. Hopefully he’d forget about what he was doing (he was old, after all) and she’d have until he was back at his desk before he remembered. She’d have around half an hour.

Not enough time to do well but she could probably get away with it because she was still a relatively new hire...

She managed to hit send the second the commissioner turned away from his daughter and slumped in her chair. It wasn’t on time but at least she’d done it.

She looked at her empty coffee cup and clicked her tongue. She glanced at Dick. “I’ll be right back, I’m getting some of the free coffee before I go.”

“Didn’t you say it was awful?”

“Yeah but it’s free.”

“... we’re rich.”

“And?”

Dick grinned. “Whatever. Go ahead. I’ve waited this long.”

She sent him a wave and then disappeared to the break room, clocking out on the way.

When she came back out she found Dick flirting with the commissioner's daughter. She would have been proud if that wasn’t, y’know, her boss’s daughter oh my god she was screwed she was going to lose her job and then the mission would be compromised and --.

She practically ran over to sling her arm around her kid.

(She didn’t actually run, she had a mug of coffee in her hand and she thought that was much more important than any mission, but she was close to it.)

“Sweetie! Hi! We should be getting home, it’s your celebration-dinner-thingy-can’t-remember-the-English-word -- PARTY tonight! I can’t keep you any longer or there won’t be time to bake the cake.”

Dick gave her a bit of side-eye and she gave him a smile in return.

“But…”

Barbara laughed a little. “Go ahead. It’s cake, you can’t just pass up on cake.” She smiled. “Congrats on whatever it is, Dick.”

He looked to the side, smiling. “Thanks. I’d invite you because my mom’s a great baker… but it’s kind of a family thing.”

Barbara shrugged. “It’s fine. I doubt that my dad would be too thrilled about me getting lured into a house with cake, anyways. It’s not that far off from getting lured into the car with candy.” She broke into a grin. “Promise to bring some of her cake by sometime?”

“Sure. I’ll be by tomorrow with as much as I can save.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Dick finally allowed Marinette to pull him out of the police station, sending Barbara a wave over his shoulder long after she was out of view.

She clicked her tongue as they climbed into the car. “If I lose my job it’s on you.”

“Who knows, the commissioner might be mad at you because you got between us. Depends on what kind of dad he is.” His face split into a fox-like grin. “Besides, you should be thanking me. I just got us a backup plan. If you get fired, knowing the commissioner’s daughter would be useful.”

Marinette hummed thoughtfully. “Smart.”

“Thanks, I have my moments.”

“Yeah, ‘moments’ is definitely the word for it.”

He gasped and took a hand off the wheel to give her shoulder a tiny shove. “Rude!”

She just laughed.

~

It was inevitable that it would happen at some point, but that doesn’t mean that they were happy about it.

Adrien had made a stupid mistake.

He had been alone on patrol. It had been a standard street fight, after all.

He’d seen the flash of Tim’s camera out of the corner of his eyes and looked up at the wrong time. Now he had a bullet in his shoulder, his staff was rolling across the floor, and he’d had to duck for cover behind a car to ensure that the one bullet didn’t turn to twenty.

So the night was already going great.

But then he realized that some of the people had also noticed the flash going off and were now going to investigate.

His day just kept getting better.

He pulled out his phone.

ChatoNoir: H! E8th, Eads. LW, 1?C-K.

HelmetRights: I’m close I’ll help

He breathed out a sigh of relief. His miraculous was the most useful for situations like this.

He brought a hand to his shoulder and flinched a little bit. He had a few minutes before he bled out.

Adrien slowly poked his head around the car. They were all distracted fighting each other...

Good?

He slowly reached out and pulled a nearby body over to him and peeled their shirt off. He needed it more than them right now, anyways. He bandaged his wound and then looked around again, this time searching the ground for his staff.

Ah. It was pretty much in the exact center of all the fighting. Fun.

How about no?

He looked around wildly for inspiration. What to do, what to do, what to do…

He ran out from behind the car and made his way over to the building where he had last seen Tim’s flash. The gang members would likely be there for a while, probably until Jason could come over, and Tim’s situation would get worse by the second. Hopefully the kid had enough sense to hide…

He stepped inside the old office building. Abandoned, probably, there was a thin coating of dust on everything and the only light in the place was a result of the sunlight streaming in through open windows.

He listened in for anyone and winced when he heard a metallic clang above him. He ran up the stairs and looked around.

A kid… was trying to fight… five fully grown gang members…

It was going about as well as you’d expect.

Would it kill people to have even a scrap of common sense?

He flinched when he heard a bone crunch.

Adrien grabbed the nearest desk lamp and looked around. He hooked it around a light and tested the strength…

Not great.

Whatever, he was already injured.

He heard a gunshot outside and breathed a sigh of relief. Jason, probably.

Hopefully...

The gang members looked up at the sound and Adrien took his chance, pressing his hand to the floor and mumbling a Cataclysm.

Black webbed along the floor and it crumbled beneath everyone.

He swung over and grabbed Tim from thin air. Much like he’d expected, the cord snapped under their combined weight and they were in free fall. Adrien pulled the kid to his stomach and flipped them around in the air to make sure he was the only one to actually hit the ground.

Adrien hit the floor and tried not to think about the piece of rubble now lodged in his back and the way the bullet in his shoulder was definitely displaced now and he was bleeding faster and OW.

He released his grip on Tim so his claws wouldn’t dig into him and rested his head back on the cold floor.

“You alright, Tim?”

“Not really.”

He wheezed out a laugh. “Same here.”

He felt Tim shift his weight on top of him and winced mentally at the rubble digging into him, and looked over. It was dark, the sunlight had been clouded by the dust drawn up by the collapse of the second floor. He didn’t know if Tim could see but that was fine. Adrien could.

He slowly pushed himself up and looked for any sign of movement.

He could see a couple of the gang members stirring. He shook his head a little bit and rested a hand on top of Tim’s head. “Stay. I’ll be back.”

���I’m not a dog.”

“Don’t care. Stay. Here.”

Tim looked annoyed but he sat himself down and rested his head on his hand. Adrien glanced him over. One of his legs was definitely broken and he was littered with thin cuts and bruises but he seemed otherwise fine.

Maybe his definition of ‘fine’ needed some work…

He pulled his attention back to the people that were getting up and he grabbed a nearby blunt object: a rock!

Well, a piece of the floor, but it was pretty much a rock.

Adrien made his way around with his rock and made sure that everyone would stay down. He didn’t exactly aim to kill but he wasn’t exactly concerned if he ended up doing so.

After a few minutes he walked back over to Tim and he slowly helped him to his feet, letting him sling an arm over him for support as he helped him walk out.

Jason was outside, checking bodies for extra bullets.

He looked up and frowned. “You look awful.”

“Thanks. I have a photoshoot tomorrow and I was really hoping that I would like ‘awful’ for it.”

“No problem.” His eyes found their way to Tim and he rolled his eyes. “So, what, are you adopting him, now?”

Tim frowned. “I… have parents.”

“Barely,” muttered Adrien.

“Mom will kill you if you adopt another kid.”

“I’m not scared of Mari.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Yes, I am.”

He sighed and closed his eyes.

He didn’t just want to leave a kid in a bad situation, but Marinette had been annoyed by him adopting Jason…

He peeked an eye open and looked at the kid next to him.

“I have a plan.”

“Oh no,” mumbled Jason.

Adrien looked at Tim. “Would you like to live with us?”

Tim thought for a minute, then shrugged. “It would be cool to actually have someone in the house with me.”

“Oh no,” Jason mumbled again, starting to mess with his rings.

Adrien broke into a grin.

“Awesome. Let’s get you home.”

~

Marinette noticed Tim the moment she walked into the kitchen.

She gave her husband a tired look. “Please tell me you didn’t adopt another one.”

“I didn’t. He has parents, I can’t adopt him.”

Her eyes found Dick’s for confirmation. He gave a small shrug.

She relaxed a little bit. “Good. Why’s he here?”

“He got hurt stalking me, his leg’s all busted up.”

Tim showed her his leg and she winced. They’d set it back into place but all the bandages said that it couldn’t have been a nice experience.

“Sorry about that, sweetie, do you want a cake or something? I can make one.”

Tim smiled. “No, thank you.”

Marinette, who had already been pulling out pans, gave him a confused look. She slowly put the pans back. “Oh… okay.”

“I have a dietician. She’d kill me if I went too far off,” he explained. “But I’ve heard good things about your baking.”

She nodded slowly. “Right.”

Adrien met her eyes hesitantly and she knew that whatever he was going to say she wasn’t going to like it.

“I’m going to train him in self-defense.”

She clicked her tongue. She knew what that meant by now. “You are not making this random child a vigilante. It’s bad enough when we let our own kids do it, he isn’t ours.”

Adrien held up his hands. “He got hurt stalking us. I just don’t want a repeat. I won’t give him a miraculous, okay?”

She frowned suspiciously but nodded that he could do that.

Adrien visibly relaxed.

Marinette took in the bandaging on her husband and she frowned. “How bad is it?”

“Uh… one bullet to the shoulder and some shrapnel got me in the back. Not that bad.”

She nodded and leaned over, pressing a kiss to his lips. “No patrol for a month.”

“But --.”

“No.”

He pouted a little bit but nodded. “Fine. I can still help this kid learn self-defense, though, right?”

She considered this for a minute and then nodded. “Since you’re teaching basics you’re not going to be doing much physically… so, yes. But get help from someone if you want to do anything strenuous.”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah.”

Marinette hummed lightly. She glanced at the time. She had a few hours to patrol before Dick confirmed she hadn’t slept in a few days and came to physically knock her out…

She started up the coffee machine.

(Dick narrowed his eyes in the background and started trying to remember when the last time she’d gone to sleep was.)

“Ew, you drink coffee?” Said Tim.

Marinette slowly turned on him, her eyes narrowing. “It keeps you awake.”

Adrien and Dick looked hopeful, probably thinking that Tim would make her realize her caffeine addiction and tendency not to sleep was unhealthy.

And then he spoke: “Sure, but have you tried energy drinks? They taste better and have sugar.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not enough caffeine.”

“You haven’t found Bam, then. Once you get past their political donations they’re GREAT. A 16 ounce can has almost three times as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.”

The other guys went pale.

She broke into a wide grin. “I like you.”

“This was a mistake,” mumbled Adrien.

“Yep! C’mon, Tim, we’re going to the store. I'll help you walk.”

~

Listen, opening a portal to a pocket dimension wasn’t easy… but he was perfectly willing to do it for his kid.

No. His soon-to-be kid. His wife still hadn’t said yes.

No. His soon-to-be younger housemate. Tim still had legal parents.

Whatever.

It was good, too, the portal was hidden to the naked eye for everyone but him, so there was no worries of Marinette finding out too early.

(Unless she just decided to randomly lean against the wall in the hallway.)

And, as far as pocket dimensions go, it was decent. Empty outside of a few things that Tim had brought over from his house and a lot smaller than any other room in the house... but decent. It didn’t have a single monster living in it, that’s pretty good by pocket dimension standards.

Jason and Dick had both complained when they realized that Tim got a room of his own, even though they knew the circumstances. Adrien was forced to make another.

Was Adrien a little worried that the dimension that they were currently in would become unstable if he opened two portals in close proximity to each other? Yes. But it didn’t collapse on them when he did it, so it’s all good.

There had been a monster in that one.

Adrien was going to be feeling that bite on his arm for the next few years, he thought.

But, hey, at least now everyone had their own rooms. And all the boys seemed happier for it.

Well, Jason still seemed a little annoyed that there was now another kid in the house and Dick was clearly anxious that Marinette would find out and get mad at them and Tim was clearly struggling to understand the whole ‘no longer an only child that lives mostly alone and therefore needs to at least wear pants around the house’ thing, but shhhhhhh avoiding problems is the Agreste forte.

Yes, even Tim Drake was in the practice of avoiding problems.

Adrien figured that if he adopted enough kids eventually one of them would have a good coping mechanism and they could steal that.

But, until then, avoiding problems would have to work.

~

A routine was forming, and she hated it.

She’d go to work for a large part of the day, and then get picked up by Dick. She’d spend about two hours in the break room drinking the free coffee and scrolling through her phone so her son could chat up the commissioner’s daughter. She’d grab him by the arm with some vague excuse about how they needed to get home. She’d get dropped off at random places in Gotham and start on patrols. She’d get home early in the morning and chug another few cans of Bam with Tim.

Then she’d start it all over again.

But she’d hated it more when the routine was suddenly broken.

She felt a hand rest on her shoulder and nearly tore the file she was looking through in half in her surprise. It surely couldn’t be time for Dick to pick her up yet…

She looked over at her computer for the time and her eyes caught the reflection of Barbara on the black screen.

Marinette slowly turned around. “Hey.”

“Can I talk with you in private?”

She tried not to tense up. Most of the time when people say that you’re in trouble. She didn’t want to get in trouble with the boss’s daughter.

“Mhmm!” She handed the file over to Ross to hold onto and then followed Barbara down a few halls and up to the roof. She sent Tikki out to check for people and relaxed a little bit when the kwami shook their head no. Maybe this could just be about Dick --.

“Do you not like me?”

She blanked. “Huh? I… what? No. Do you think I’d stay after to let my son flirt with you every day if I didn’t?”

“No, but then I have to question why you always cut us short.”

“We have stuff to do at home.”

She shrugged. “But you hardly ever go home.”

Marinette took a cautious step back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you and Dick never seem to go the same way twice when you leave.”

“You watch that?”

She shrugged again. “Of course. At first I thought it had something to do with traffic or errands, but then why would you always list a home activity?”

“Because what we do at our house is none of your concern,” said Marinette.

Barbara smiled. “You know, I work at the library.”

She tried not to frown at the change of subject. It was weird, but at least it had moved away from where she went at night.

“Alright.”

“I know your other son, Jason. He comes by pretty frequently with his dad.”

“Alright.”

“Want to tell me why he and I have had long conversations about how we hate cops?”

Marinette wanted to punch something. Still, she forced a smile. “It’s perfectly normal for kids to take opposite stances about things than their parents. Just like you and your dad.”

“Sure, but then why do you act like you hate cops?”

Wow. Even the commissioner's daughter knew she hated being a cop. She really needed to brush up on her acting skills… or get new ones. She didn’t know if she’d ever been good at acting.

“Listen, I know you’re planning to take this place down, I’m not stupid. I won’t rat you out, I want in.”

Well, that was a development.

Marinette narrowed her eyes slightly. “Really? Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m dating your son, maybe?”

“YOU’RE DATING?!”

“YOU DIDN’T KNOW?!”

Both women immediately pulled out their phones and started texting Dick. Nothing bonds people better than anger and they were both ready to kill.

MA: come to the precinct please

#1Sweetie: kjsklfjdskfjdks does this have anything to do with barbara texting me at the same time

MA: yes

#1Sweetie: i’ll be right there

MA: were on the roof

Dick deleted and then retyped his message four times before sending:

#1Sweetie: fun can’t wait

For someone who ‘can’t wait’ he sure took his sweet time, though.

Now, if it was only Marinette that was mad, it probably would have just blown over. However, Barbara wasn’t an Agreste. She actually knew how to deal with problems.

When Dick finally managed to get up to the roof, he found the two women glaring at him.

“So, care to explain why you didn’t tell me you were dating Barbara?” Marinette said with a bright smile.

Dick looked to the side and then brought a smile to his face. “I was just waiting for the right time to announce it.”

They both shared skeptical looks and then looked back at him.

“Okay, fine. It’s because I didn’t want to be the one to bring another person into the house, Mari would’ve killed me.”

Marinette accepted that answer. Fair enough. She would have. If Marinette and Adrien not had jobs they might have been able to keep up with three (and a half including Tim, who was around enough because of his stalking and self-defense lessons for her to somewhat count him) other people in their house, but she doubted that they could fully parent three kids with both their civilian and vigilante jobs.

Dick relaxed a little and walked over to the women, taking a seat in front of them. “Are we alright?”

They both gave him nods, then gave each other wary looks.

Marinette glanced at the time. “I’ll be back to talk more about this after work. Meet us at the car?”

A few hours later, they all filed into the car. Dick and Barbara took the back seat and Marinette angled her mirror to watch them just in case.

“Right, where are you on your investigation?” Asked Barbara.

“She knows --?”

“Yep, you’re behind, sweetie.” Marinette glanced at the mirror and found Dick messing with a rubix cube and Barbara listening intently. “Right now we’re searching for proof of corruption in the police force. The higher up I can get the easier it will be to actually have people prosecuted.”

“... are you having any trouble with getting proof?”

She shrugged. “Unfortunately. It’s not like they document when they let someone go and it’s way too easy to claim that people were all bloody before they got there.”

Barbara frowned. “Take pictures.”

“Cops are stupid, but they’re not that stupid. If I take out a camera they’re going to notice.”

“Write it down yourself, then.”

“It’s my word against theirs.”

Barbara groaned. Marinette could relate. She’d been struggling to find any kind of proof that wouldn’t immediately be traced back to her for over a month now.

And all she needed was proof, really. She knew that Barbara’s dad, at least, wasn’t a bad cop. He was just, somehow, painfully unaware of the corruption in his precinct. If given proof of a person’s corruption he would, at the very least, fire them.

“Doesn’t help that the kind of people that the police let go are usually killed by one of the vigilantes before they get to the police,” added Dick.

“And, even if we were the kind of people that vigilantes talked to, it’s not like they could stop killing those people without everyone getting suspicious.”

“... I’m beginning to think this might be impossible.”

She gave a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Probably.” She pulled up in her driveway and blinked a few times. “Um… sorry for kidnapping you.”

“It’s cool, I wanted to ask Jason about some of his books.”

“Are they overdue?”

Barbara smiled. “Yep. I need to know if he lost it or if I should just recheck it out for him.”

Marinette nodded absently. “Cool. Dick, drive her home when she’s done? I need to go grocery shopping.”

She waved at them and then got out of the car, tossing the keys to Dick without either of them glancing over. With that, she head off for patrols.

~

Adrien blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing this.

Dick had a girlfriend. Who was the commissioner's daughter. Who was also a librarian at the library that he and Jason frequented.

And she knew about the whole ‘trying to take down random people in the police force so Marinette can advance and prosecute people properly’ thing.

But not the vigilante thing. The vigilante thing was too far, apparently.

He needed to sit down for a minute.

Adrien pulled a knee to his chest from his spot on the counter.

Jason had been the most blunt: “Did dad adopt you, too?”

“I have parents.”

“That didn’t stop him from adopting Tim.”

“I’m also dating your brother, that would mess things up.”

Jason relaxed a little bit when he realized that Adrien wouldn’t adopt her… and then he laughed. “Wait, you’re dating Dickwad?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you had taste.”

Barbara and Jason grinned at each other, much to Dick’s annoyance.

“Adrien! They’re being rude!” He complained.

He shrugged absently. “I don’t control them.”

“You can control Jason! He’s your kid! Take away his trust fund or something!”

“WAIT WHAT NO --.”

Adrien cut him off by laughing. “That would be funny but I doubt Mari would be alright with that.”

Tim walked in with a can of Bam and some instant coffee mix. Everyone watched in horror as he started pouring the Bam into the water part of the coffee maker.

“Hey, Timmy, whatcha doing?” Asked Adrien, despite being very sure he did not want to hear the answer.

Tim looked up. “Experiment.”

“I thought you didn’t like the taste of coffee, though…”

“It’ll be worth it for the extra caffeine.”

Jason laughed a little bit. “You’re going to die. Go ahead, though, I want to see it happen.”

Dick and Adrien met eyes. They needed to destroy that thing and also maybe find a way to block Marinette and Tim from getting to the store.

They nodded at each other before getting to work pulling Tim away from his creation.

~

Marinette hummed as she finished off the fourth cake she’d baked and decorated with a flourish.

She started washing the dishes she’d just used because she had run out of free pans to bake with and she couldn’t restart until they were washed.

Dick groaned from the doorway, holding his head as he slowly made his way inside.

“Good morning, sweetie.”

He groaned again and then apparently caught sight of the cakes on the table. He frowned a little bit. “Um…”

“I made a vanilla cake for you. It’s the one with the buttercream flowers.”

Dick hesitated for a minute before shrugging and sitting down with the cake. “Thanks, mom, but are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“... mom… as much as I love your cakes, you only bake this much when you’re stressed.”

She clicked her tongue. “Sweetie… I doubt you’ll be able to think of a solution if Adrien, Barbara, and I couldn’t think of something.”

“You went to Barbara and not me? Come on! At least let me try.”

She doubted that he could be of any help but whatever. If she told him and he couldn’t come up with something then he’d leave the subject alone, and if he came up with something then they’d have a solution. Win-win. Kinda.

“I have no clue how we’re going to get proof that people are corrupt.”

Dick thought for a minute, then shrugged. “Have someone join the mob. Any mob. There has to be at least a few moles. Take a few pictures or collect names and then take them to the commissioner.”

Marinette shook her head slowly. “Can’t, no one has enough time.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but you’re a kid and we’re not letting a kid join the mob.”

Dick huffed. “I’m twenty-three.”

“You don’t have any skills that the mob is looking for.”

“I’m a lawyer, they’d love to have me.”

“No.”

“But --!”

“NO, RICHARD!”

Dick flinched a little bit and looked down. He gave a quiet groan of irritation and pushed himself out of his chair. He took his cake to his room.

She closed her eyes. The problem would be gone by morning, but that didn’t mean that she liked that they’d fought.

She opened her eyes again and started pulling down ingredients.

~

Adrien knew that Marinette would catch on soon. It had been months since the incident, Tim was more than capable of taking care of himself. He was pretty sure the only reason that she hadn’t noticed anything was because her schedule was so messed up that she wasn’t registering time right.

He knew he should tell her but he couldn’t bring himself to. What if she kicked Tim out? What if she made him stop seeing the kid entirely? He couldn’t let that happen, the kid had gone through enough. No, he would have to wait for the perfect moment.

If she didn’t find out first.

Marinette walked into the kitchen in the morning and everyone tensed and glanced at Tim, who was casually playing a video game and definitely not learning self-defense.

Adrien sighed. Could he say he was just making sure Tim ate so he wouldn’t pass out? Would she believe that?

She walked over to the fridge and grabbed a can of Bam and then glanced back at the boys, her eyes glazed with exhaustion.

Then she gave every boy in the room a kiss on the cheek.

Yes, even Tim.

“I’ll be back after work. Are you picking me up like usual, sweetie?”

Dick blinked a few times and then stifled laughter with his hand. Once he’d managed to get his voice under control, he spoke: “Yep! I can’t wait to see Babs.”

“Gross. Right, I’m heading out.”

Everyone watched in stunned silence as she walked out.

Jason’s face soured.

And then he snapped his fingers. “I got it… HEY, MOM! YOU FORGOT THAT ROSS BROKE THE COFFEE MACHINE AT WORK!”

There was a beat.

“Jay, what the heck?” Hissed Adrien.

Marinette walked back in. “Guess who has been promoted to favorite.”

Dick gasped. “Wait, I was favorite beforehand?”

“No, Adrien was. I’m not telling you which kid was winning.”

“Hold up, I’ve been replaced as favorite over caffeine?”

Marinette nodded. She stole Tim’s laptop bag from him and then set three cans of the energy drink inside.

“Great, I’m off for real now.”

Jason slammed his head on the table, partially pulling his mother out of her stupor. “OH MY KWAMI. Mom. Tim has been living with us --.”

Adrien had clamped his hand over the kid’s mouth, but it was too late.

Marinette’s eyes slowly found their way to Tim and her face shifted from bored to angry in half a second.

He swallowed thickly. “M’lady, I can explain.”

“Please do.”

He hesitated. He hadn’t thought he’d get this far.

Her grip tightened on the strap of her bag when her phone went off in her pocket. She bit her lip and shook her head. She told her boss that she would be late because of a family matter, her eyes never leaving his.

He gave his most award-winning smile.

The kids filed out, though they both knew that they were going to just stand outside the door to listen in.

“Adrien, Tim has parents. You realize you essentially kidnapped that kid.”

“He went willingly!”

“Tell that to the cops!” She gave a bitter laugh. “Wait, you already are!”

He winced. “I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t just leave him with his parents, though, they suck.”

Marinette clicked her tongue. “We can’t keep him. He isn’t ours and, even if he was, we hardly have the time to take care of three kids!”

“Dick can take care of himself, he’s an adult. So we’re back down to two! Actually, he can help take care of Tim, too, so less than two!”

“Remember when we said we wouldn’t have any?!”

“But we did fine!”

She groaned. “You’re not getting my point!”

“And you’re not getting mine! We can’t just leave that kid to suffer!”

“He’d suffer if he was with us, too!”

“He deserves people that love him to take care of him!”

“So does every kid on Earth! Are you going to adopt them all?!”

He rolled his eyes. “I want to but we have a limit... but this isn’t it! We’ve been doing just fine so far! He’s attached to us, we can’t just throw him out now!”

“I can’t let this one slide because I keep letting kids come in. It has to stop.”

“This is the last one,” he promised.

“I’ve heard that one before.”

“But I mean it this time.”

She scrutinized him for a long time, her lips pressed tightly together.

And then she clicked her tongue.

“Last one,” she muttered, pulling a new can from her bag and then turning. “I’ll see you after work.”

He watched her leave. He should say something, he should call her back and apologize, he should at least admit that what he was doing was wrong…

The front door slammed.

He slowly fell back into a chair and rested his face in his hands… only to realize it was wet. How long had he been crying? He breathed out a sigh.

He could feel eyes on him. He peeked between his fingers and saw the kids standing in the doorway, mouths slightly agape. He wiped his face on his sleeve and brought a smile back to his face.

Jason messed with his rings as he turned around and walked to his room.

“You didn’t want kids?” Asked Dick quietly.

His smile slid from his face.

“Not exactly. We wanted kids, but we figured we’d never be able to have them. I’m sorry it came out that way.”

Dick relaxed a little bit.

Adrien pushed himself up and walked over to Tim, resting a hand on top of his head.

“Right, welcome to the family, officially.”

~

Marinette rested her head on her desk.

“Um…?” Began Ross.

“Don’t. I’m not in the mood.”

“Okay.”

She heard his fingers get back to work on his keyboard and closed her eyes.

She’d officially hit a wall. What she needed was to get her hands on the security camera’s footage but she knew that they simply turned off the cameras when they let someone go.

Her mind wandered to Tim.

She bit her lip and sat up, pulling up a new tab and searching up “Haly’s Circus Dick Grayson” but, to her surprise, she found that any footage of her son during his time there had been scrubbed clean.

So, the kid had been telling the truth?

Well, he might be able to fix her current problem…

And, honestly, she was pretty much desensitized to the idea of a kid vigilante at this point. Partially because their family was up to four people who started being vigilantes as kids and partially because Dick and Jason had saved Marinette and Adrien quite a few times.

Besides, like it or not Tim was in the family now. That’s pretty much the main requirement, it seems.

That night she approached Tim about hacking.

“Right, what exactly would you need to hack into the police station security cameras?”

He frowned. “Probably a new computer that isn’t linked to me as a person. And I’d probably need to be inside the security room for a while, or at least the building.”

She thought about this for a minute and nodded. “Okay. I can get you that. Anything else?”

“Can I have a miraculous?”

She waved her hand vaguely. “Yeah, I was going to give you one anyways so we don’t have to do as much to delete footage… I was thinking the horse miraculous. Then you could get in and out of rooms pretty easily.”

“Cool. What are we trying to do, anyways?”

“Keep them from turning off the cameras when they need to do…” She trailed off, pursing her lips tightly. She knew this kid was around thirteen or fourteen, surely he knew all the kinds of things that went down at the GCPD, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. “... stuff.”

Tim nodded slightly. “I can do that, but I’d need to hide some kind of generator in the room. They might be unplugging the cameras to turn them off, I’d need to change some plugs around.”

“Great.”

They clinked their cans of energy drink together in a sort of toast.

~

Adrien should have expected something to go wrong.

Barbara and Dick had convinced the commissioner to go out to eat with them. Dick was now stressed for two reasons: the mission and the fact that he was officially meeting the parents.

Marinette had cleared a good amount of the precinct by offering to buy drinks. Even if her relationship with the precinct was… less than friendly, few people said no to free drinks paid for by the richest person there. This was mostly just to make sure people weren’t going to do overtime.

And Jason had drawn away the people currently on shift by ‘accidentally’ bowling over an abandoned building while on patrols.

Now it was just up to Adrien and Tim.

There was obviously a few people still there, it would have been too much to hope that the entire place would be empty. It didn’t matter, though, no one was suspicious of them. After all, Marinette would need a ride home and it wasn’t as if he could take Tim to a bar to wait.

And no one was suspicious of the fact that Tim had quickly pulled out his computer to ‘play some games’. Adrien had pulled out his phone as well, mostly to monitor the chats and make sure everyone was doing alright but also because he was bored.

A half hour later he got a tiny tug on his sleeve and looked down to see Tim shaking his head.

Great. On to plan B.

“Does anyone know where the bathroom is?”

They transformed in the bathroom and looked at each other nervously. They’d wanted plan A to work because it wouldn’t draw any attention to the security room…

Tim opened a portal inside and they stepped through. It was only two guys, and Adrien made quick work of them. He tied them up in some spare cables he found and pushed himself back to his feet.

Tim just waved him off and opened a portal for him.

He grinned as he dropped onto the floor of the main room. He looked around casually at the ten people that were still there. One of them was in just charge of guarding the prison, but the other nine were cops.

He tipped his head from side to side, weighing his chances as the cops began pulling out their guns.

Hm. This was much scarier when they could actually see him.

“Don’t move from that spot!”

Adrien raised his eyebrows, glancing at the officer who’d said it. Officer Ross. Of course.

He gave a tiny shrug. “If you say so.”

He extended his staff and smiled when it hit the cop nearest him in the face.

Then Adrien hooked it under a desk and tossed it at Ross.

Great. Now that he had spited that guy, he swung his weapon in a wide arc and took out the lights.

He smiled brightly at the now dark room and looked around as the cops scrambled. Some had already done this before and others had heard the story, but no one was looking for a repeat except for Adrien. He extended his staff to get to the ceiling and considered the people below...

A few of them shot blindly at where he had just been, which was a terrible idea but whatever.

He made his way through the room. He wasn’t killing anyone, though it was tempting after hearing some of Marinette’s stories, just opting to their weapons and moving onto the next person.

He also maybe broke some bones in the process. It happens.

A few minutes later he started making his way back to the security room and he grinned when he saw Tim coming out. He had his laptop under his arm. They’d succeeded.

Adrien took a quick look around and spotted a security camera. “Got it?”

“No, they deleted everything,” he lied.

He forced himself to frown (it was surprisingly hard to do after years of smiling for every camera he saw). “Dang. Guess we’ll need a new plan then. Let’s get home.”

Tim opened a portal back to the bathroom and they detransformed. They waited a few minutes before Adrien slowly peeked his head out the door. He held Tim behind him protectively as they walked through the precinct.

They got to the main room and found everyone groaning. A few of them had found flashlights or had turned on computers for lights.

“Is everyone okay? I heard gunshots!” Said Adrien, frowning.

Officer Ross, whose arm was bent at an odd angle, gave the kindest smile he could. “It’s fine, we just had a vigilante come by. It seems like everything is done, now, though.”

Adrien nodded a little bit.

“Good. Everything’s done.”

~

Marinette was one of ten people who didn’t get a jail sentence.

Now, she eyed the two-weeks notice on her desk. No one would be suspicious if she decided to leave. Fifty people had gone to jail, no one wants to stick around to see if they’re next.

Commissioner Gordon had resigned, too. Something about how he was disgusted about being so blind.

She bit her lip as she sat there at her desk, her computer on a How To video on quitting if you technically had no boss. Unfortunately, it seemed that she had phrased the question wrong because now it was telling her how to shut down a sole proprietorship.

“Agreste?”

She paused the video and looked up, her head tipping to the side as she took the man in. She knew that she knew him from somewhere, but her brain couldn’t seem to place a name to the face. “That’s me.”

“Could I speak to you alone for a minute?”

“Uh… sure. I’d love to.”

“I was thinking the roof? That’s a pretty private place, don’t you think?”

She pursed her lips tightly. She did not like where this was going in the slightest. “Well, sometimes people take their smoke break up there --.”

“Don’t worry, I know there’s no one up there.”

“Oh. Great.”

“Isn’t it?”

She nodded, letting him lead the way to the roof.

Her hand dipped into her back pocket and she cursed herself out mentally when she realized it was still on her desk. She wondered if she could get away with asking to go back for it. Somehow, she doubted it.

Marinette closed the door behind them.

She smiled at the man. “You wanted to talk?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Agreste.” He turned and flashed her a blinding smile. “Why don’t you guess what’s going on?”

“Well… I assume I’m in trouble,” she said carefully. Her eyes searched nearby rooftops and windows. “And that you have at least one person around that could kill me, probably a sniper since you chose a rooftop and not an alley.”

“Correct!” He said. He turned away from her and started pacing around. “What do you think you’re in trouble for?”

She hummed as if in thought. “You seem to be the one asking all the questions. Mind if I at least know who you are?”

“I asked you a question first.”

She forced a tiny laugh. “Sure, but no one likes admitting when they do things wrong. Besides, what if I fess up to the wrong thing? Then I have two reasons for you to want to kill me.”

“Just. Guess.”

Hm…

He couldn’t know about her being Ladybug, they’d done too much to make sure no one knew her identity. No one outside of Dick had ever done anything that could be traced back to them, and all that footage was gone from the internet forever.

Then what could he have found out about?

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

He scrutinized her face for a minute before frowning and shaking his head. “Agoura.”

“Huh?”

“My name. It’s Antony Agoura.”

Oh. Oh fuck.

Well, at least now she knew where she’d seen him before?

He folded his hands in front of him, smiling at her. “I see you know me.”

“Of course I do.”

He nodded. “Good. Now, I want to ask you a question.”

“Another one?” She said quietly.

“Mhmm. I’d like to know if you think I’m stupid.”

“Of course not.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You know, the day that Chat Noir bust into the police station was odd.”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“Yep! Odd, don’t you think? Someone who previously didn’t get along with her coworkers suddenly decides to take them all out for free drinks. That same night, her son takes the commissioner out to dinner. The precinct was almost completely empty thanks to your family.”

Great. That was why that was plan B. She was screwed.

She nodded slightly, her throat tightening. “You don’t say…”

“And, on top of that, the vigilantes were acting weird! I mean, they were all set on distracting people and keeping them as far away as possible!”

“That’s… odd.”

“Mhmm!” He smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder. “An interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”

She nodded again, fighting the urge to shrug him off. “Yeah.”

He steered her to the door. “I’d like to congratulate you on your promotion, by the way.”

“The…?”

“Being commissioner is such an honor!”

She scoffed. “You couldn’t get away with that. I’m the newest person here, it’s too suspicious.”

“You think?”

“Yeah --.”

He opened the door and she fought the urge to flinch at all the cameras suddenly flashing in her face.

“Congratulations!”

“How do you feel about being the first commissioner of asian descent?”

Her eyes widened. Oh. So, it turns out Agoura definitely could get away with that.

She glanced to the side to see the cops who had been there longer clapping with sarcastic smiles on their faces. “Congrats!” Said one in a tone that definitely said that she was dead.

The mob boss moved his grip to hug her to his side, smiling brightly and waving at the press.

“Smile for the cameras, Agreste.”

~~~

Taglist

@i-am-ironic @nathleigh @mialuvscats @golden-promises @sassakitty @deathwishy @toodaloo-kangaroo @ladythugs @moonlightstar64 @dahjokester @jjmjjktth

[lavenderek]

Why were you disappointed by the Howl's Moving Castle movie? I think I read the book years ago, but I don't remember much about it

i'm gonna critique the gibbly movie and it's my understanding that it's a special movie for a lot of people so if that's you feel free to skip this one

so i was delighted and enchanted by the book, which has only twice to date not made the movie a devastating letdown, so my dear friend sending me this book was pretty much signing a contract in her own blood accepting that i would be cranky about the movie. i'm not really a ghibli person either, like i can appreciate the artistry and value in them, and i'll watch it if the people i'm with really need to watch princess mononoke or whatever, but i just don't go out of my way to watch them. (i like reading meta about spirited away, though.)

i did go out of my way to watch this one because i loved the book so much.

it's important to remember the culture in which the movie was made as opposed to the culture in which the book was made. howl is welsh, if that says anything to you. (his name is howell, and he adopted the name howl to run from himself and seem more magical. i love him and movie howl had none of those elements except for when he told us he was a coward and i was like. ok lol, i'll jot that down because i didn't see it in the text)

so i'm not necessarily surprised by the creative changes they made, but i am confused, because those changes drastically affect the characterization, the character motivations, and the pacing of the story.

(i also was only able to get my hands on the dub and i loathe and detest christian bale as howl lmfao but that's subjective)

so first of all, does movie sophie, like, want anything? she's flawless as a character. even though she has a completely different personality as an old lady than she does as a young lady, there's nothing wrong with her. everybody is fond of her, she's shy, she's gentle, she's beautiful, and she's kind, and her only motivation in the whole movie is this vague desire to cure the curse, but even then she doesn't work on it much at all. her life before howl is about being buffeted around like a leaf in the wind, and her life after howl is about being buffeted around like a cow in a twister. sophie in the movie is a blank slate. she is insecure about her looks (seriously, they couldn't even give her like a crooked nose or something, only doll-faced, thin, pale women over here), and her confessing this and crying about it for about four seconds was the first truly deep emotional response i had seen of her. i cried when she cried, who doesn't grapple with feelings of inadequacy? then the kid came out and she was like, okay, i'm done being upset now :)

second of all, howl is a little eccentric, but mostly he's just a glorious gentleman who has a messy room and one (1) overly dramatic depressive episode. it was disturbing to me as a viewer because it was violent and came out of nowhere, and it never comes back again lmao. it was so bizarre, he's introduced as this suave, debonair man in a cape, and he stays that way the entire movie, except for a weird moment in the middle where he screams at sophie naked and then lists the character flaws that we the viewers have never witnessed. why does he like sophie? why does sophie like him?

why did they turn michael into a child? i just don't see what that added to the story lmao. i get them taking out the complexity of secrets involving sophie's decidedly interchangeable sisters and their mystery beaus, it's a lot to fit into a little movie; but like, why did they turn him into a child though lmao

there's a lot of fatphobia in the movie too.

the change that upset me the most, though, was that the element of sophie having the ability to influence things without her knowledge was totally abandoned. like i said, things just sort of happen to her. in the book, her hats are the most lovely because she's inadvertently cast spells on them to make whoever wears them seem alluring or mysterious to people. the witch curses her because she recognizes these little spells and believes sophie's trying and failing to trick her (and also because sophie snaps at her lmao, why is movie sophie only an asshole when she's old? leave my daughter alone).

book sophie unknowingly protects howl by worrying over his cape (which she previously shredded because she got mad at him, i love her), she unknowingly enchants the scarecrow by helping it stand and complimenting it. she does that the entire book. she also starts the book already feeling sort of dull and trapped, and spends the story trying desperately to solve mysteries and protect loved ones. movie sophie doesn't like, sit around and knit demurely, don't get me wrong; but all the major plot points are things that howl makes happen to her lol.

i think the scarecrow is an excellent representation of book sophie's inner struggles. it's something she inadvertently enchanted, and she doesn't understand it, so she runs from it. she's terrified of the thing. in that way it kind of stands in for her own agency: only when she was forcibly in disguise did she feel free to find out what she wants her life to look like, and that kind of power is foreign and frightening to her. i loved that for her.

and very late in the book, howl reveals that he knew all along she was under a spell, that he tried to get rid of it out of curiosity (book howl doesn't seem to notice that he's just as imperious and nosy as sophie is), but she resisted it. he couldn't get the spell off. so he assumed she wanted to stay that way and let her be about it. so basically it's very huck finn on the raft, she realizes that in running to get away, she was already away. she had that agency all along.

all of that was missing from movie sophie. the idea of her inadvertently hanging on to the curse is still there, we see that she sort of fades back to her young self while she's asleep (not the case in the book, we know this because howl doesn't know what she looks like until she turns back in the end); but she doesn't seem to gain any knowledge about herself because of this. the only time she seems to have any personal drive, it's to learn about and help howl. her inner struggles are about howl. and i hated movie howl lmao, i hated his design and i hated his voice and i hated how like, patronizing he was to everyone around him. book howl was a condescending dick at times and just weird and distant at others, but he never came across like he was absolutely positive he was seducing sophie at any given moment. it was clear that he was the star of the movie and sophie was just the audience stand in to be like 🤩🥸🧐

the scarecrow who is a prince was the most hilariously egregious moment in the entire movie. in the book, the missing prince is introduced as a plot in the beginning and is referenced repeatedly throughout. and he's a major player in the climax. in the movie, it's the last like five minutes of the film and the scarecrow turns into a dapper boy with bread for hair and is like, "you've cured me! i'm a prince who went missing from a nearby kingdom and i was cursed but now i'm free." and i was like NICE, so we just found out there's a nearby kingdom that has a prince who's been missing. love that for us

the book had a lot of themes that i don't often encounter in fantasy novels - themes of female agency, of disguise, and of chaos. the chaos is my favorite part, every chapter is equally chaotic at various levels. you'll have michael fretting over some spell, sophie fretting over her own spell, howl trying to get someone in disguise to fall in love with him, THAT someone pining over michael, and all the while sophie and howl are bickering because she is cleaning (it seems like she cleans to clean up her mind) and he doesnt want her to (he is afraid of change and of reality), and he needs a huge favor of her, and she needs to wheedle out of it, and she promised calcifer she would free him, and calcifer is repeatedly promising to die of not being appreciated enough, and everybody is having three arguments at once. it's like that in every chapter, culminating in the moment howl and sophie realize they're in love, and they stand clasping hands and sort of smiling at each other in the middle of a room full of panicking and perplexed people just yelling over each other lmfao. surrounded by chaos and no longer thrown by it, rooted there in the middle of it, stabilizing each other in a way. i loved that. i actually flipped back a few pages so i could read that moment again.

and it seemed to me that the movie tried to imply that with visual chaos, but everything else was really quite linear and simple. everything was very airy. and since the conflama and the general atmosphere and character dynamics of the book is what made me fall in love with it, the movie didn't work for me.

tumblr user door pointed out that the book and the movie are extremely different and she appreciates them both as separate entities, and she's wise and correct; i knew this and i tried so hard to engage with the movie on its own terms. but i couldn't divorce them in my mind. i felt the same way about ella enchanted and practical magic. i cant stop thinking like, i wish they hadn't gotten rid of x, i wish they hadn't added this weird element of y.

also it was boring. i checked to see how much more was left three times. sorry. i can't express enough how little i cared about the plot with the witch and somebody's secretly evil boss and time traveling to yell at howl or something, because i didn't connect with the characters. and the feathers growing out of howl triggered my weird phobia about things being embedded in skin. i'm skeeved just remembering it.

anyway, yeah. the movie was beautifully animated and whatever atmosphere they were going for was pretty consistent throughout. oh and i LOVED calcifer. he was my favorite in both the book and the movie. in fact, he was the only character in the movie who they didn't really change, he was petty and bitchy in both versions. i loved him. he's like, "SHE FED ME SOMETHING YUCKY" my perfect, horrible boy.

oh and. book sophie was a redhead. that's all.

after i finished the book i tried to draw how imagined them:

couldn't finish it though, i wasn't super jazzed about how it was coming out.

she's sitting in like, a window well altering a coat of his without permission. and he's like, i guess i'll have to wear this one instead, and she's like, i guess you will

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom, season 3 episodes 3-6 thoughts!

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-johnny was actually pretty civil with danny and left when he asked! thats nice. also, SKULKER?? HAD A FRAMED PICTURE OF EMBER?? oooo fuck wait had they established they were a Thing Before?? I dont think so. thats weird. its like that country boy/goth girl meme lmfao. I think i am going to choose to ignore this new info and pretend I didnt hear it. 100% unrelated to the jazz/ember fanart I already drew and posted....😳

-LADIES NIGHT EPISODE THIS IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. wish it didnt really center around the guys or them being pissed at them, but. willing to bet this was written by men lol

-THEY ERASED ALL THE MEN??? meanwhile, jack and danny are fishing at. silent hill or something. im glad jack is trying to read a parenting book and making an Attempt. (theyre at lake erie, but, they made it actually eerie...thats fun)

-the girls alt outfits...cute. EMBER MADE A NEW SONG TOO!!! kinda. jazz being one of the backup singers and being AWFUL. NOOOO

-'how are we going to get kitty to blow a kiss?' 'she'll have to think there are still some males in town!' ...i dont know how to break it to you, but I dont know that a 100% het girl would wish for all men to Begone. I think. I mean im not a het or a girl so I dont really know for sure. she Is probably Bi tho. esp having the other ladies in town chanting NO MEN!!! excitedly............(then again, the kiss is to get Rid of men, so, she probably would have blown it at the ladies only if they were actively trying to attack/stop them, so...I MEAN. THE DRESSING LIKE DANNY BIT WAS SO EXTRA)

-I feel like an all female cast ep couldve been way way way way cooler than that was. like. why was it still somehow all about Men. ...anyway. (where was valerie...)

-next ep opens with the observants, and, way way more of them than I expected...existed? I mean I guess them being a council/jury of some kind is what I expected from their first appearance (bc at that time they were basically TELLING clockwork to kill danny, not asking,, so I figured they had SOME kind of authority) but. there were so many. anyway, here goes vlad! letting his own hubris go brrrr. releasing a weather ghost for political gain! #justvladthings

-okay say what you will about him (he IS an asshole) but having an umbrella with his own face on it and more prepared to share is SUPER FUNNY. and him being fanned by huge wads of money by his bodyguards. SO ineffective but so Dramatic. He UNDERSTANDS that if youre rich you need to be. you know. obnoxious and kinda eccentric about it! fuckign hate when rich people are boring about it. I would trust vlad with nothing except to not be a boring rich asshole who wears...fucking khaki or some shit. man knows his Presentation Skills. and that 'V' chair in his mayoral office. is that fucking embroidered?

-maddie get your MAN PLEEEEASSSE. IM SO EMBARRASSED FOR HER. the way jack stays simping for this man. in FRONT OF HIS WIFE!!!! ...my god its like a love triangle. jack clearly loves vlad, who loves maddie, who loves jack. jack fenton is at the very least bi, right................. this is an OBSESSION . 'THE V MAN COMETH'???? i...my god. (also, on a serious note, to have a friend THIS SUPPORTIVE...and still be SUCH A DICK TO HIM (TRYING TO KILL HIM AND STEAL HIS WIFE??) NOT COOL VLAD. JACK IS YOUR 1 AND /ONLY/ HYPE MAN. if someone loved and supported me THIS HARD...LIKE. CMON DUDE.

-STOMP the fucking GAS, JACK

-this would make a great shirt design, looks like a metal band design! we love The Maelstrom

-oh, so vlad did in fact get a mansion in amity park. and its purple! good color choice! not as flashy as a CASTLE or MURDER CABIN, but still pretty eccentric, which I appreciate.

-...vlad knows the difference between picasso and da vinci? in the ep last post where we were watching him fail at conquering every historical time ever he didnt seem to know history well enough to like. be effective...was vlad taking art history at college?? (was he an art MAJOR??? we never DID KNOW WHAT HE WENT TO SCHOOL FOR. I kinda assumed business because in the masters of time ep he was still rich without ghost powers so he had to have..known something about business or something, right...but also, art and or theater FITS HIS PERSONALITY. possibly also something science-y, I guess, but I always felt like he got roped into that, esp how pessimistic he was about the ghost portal in the flashbacks to college, like, i felt like he was just there for maddie and was uninterested/un-invested at the time...)

-THIS GHOST JUST ELECTROCUTED MADDIE (THE CAT) BITCH!! THATS MY FAVORITE MADDIE!!! vlad going after vortex and being ~shocked~ .....WHEN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. THAT YOUR ACTIONS. HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!

-the way this random man with a camera sees the mayor laying in an alley covered in TRASH AND DECIDES TO TAKE A PICTURE HAHAH

*snap* this ones going in my cringe compilation!

-vlad 'if we're going to defeat vortex, we're going to have to do it together!' *immediately dips after dropping danny off in front of vortex* JKASDFHKJHJKN

-DANNY CAN DUPLICATE!!! ...he couldnt even attack with it, but he DID IT!!! INTO (4) OF HIMSELF!!! SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!

-'THE ROLLER COASTER EMOTIONS OF A TEENAGER THREATEN MY PLANS!' ...0 self awareness of his own dramatic moodiness. incredible, how dumb this man is. its very close to circling around to endearing, if he was less of an asshole. at least its very very funny to see danny shooting him with tiny lightning bolts anytime he's even slightly irritated! vlad you should be nice to danny anyway. this is what you GET

-...making sandwiches and ice cream and playing video games with your nephew is a totally normal thing. WHY is vlad acting like this is the end of the world. if you were a GOOD UNCLE YOU WOULD ALREADY BE DOING THESE THINGS!!! bitch I make my nephew food all the time and dont forget what he does and doesnt like. if u didnt know danny didnt want tomatoes, thats on u. if u, a grown adult, are gonna piss of the 14 yr old by not letting him win, u deserve to have to pay for the arcade machines he ruins because he now has uncontrollable storm powers because YOU THREW HIM INTO A FIGHT WITH THE STORM GHOST. fuck u vlad. paypal me $400,000 while ur at it tho. (also, gamer vlad confirmed)

-VLAD CAN COOK THOUGH???! I assumed he had...people working for him that did that. I mean. billionaires usually dont do that. then again, we've only seen those vultures working for him (and I guess the dairy king was AT his old mansion, but it was never really clarified if he worked there...I think he probably just Hung Out and they Enjoyed Cheeses Together. thats what I think, I dont think a KING would be working for anyone and also the dairy king was nice <3) but then again he would be a private person and we cant have anyone accidentally finding Ghostly Things, so...still, that's hilarious. pour one out for that really cute banana split that got ruined 2 seconds later

-vlad just fucking picking danny up and THROWING HIM AT VORTEX TWICE WITHIN LIKE A MINUTE. JUST ABSOLUTELY LAUNCHING HIM. BITCH THATS MY SON BE CAREFUL!!! HES GOT ORGANS AND THINGS!!!!

-danny seeing those animal commercials and feeling sad is the biggest 2000s throwback so far. i legitimately had to change the channel or walk out of the room when those came on bc id CRY AND BE SAD ABOUT THEM FOR DAYS AFTER. fuck those commercials and fuck that IN THE ARMMMS OF AN ANGELLLL song 😭

-'vlads ego almost got the town destroyed!' yes danny thats the entire episode. the entire series anytime vlad shows up honestly. this episode was just him being really embarrassing the entire time, and, me laughing about it. 10/10 would laugh at him again

-NEXT EP WE HAVE A SHAPESHIFTING GHOST?? I've said it before but shapeshifting is the power I would want when asked those 'what superpower do you want' questions...its the Best power! this guy looks like a homestuck character. ive never read homestuck but thats the vibe

-I love every time we see tuckers family, they are by far the most functional family. and dash has a lil chihuahua!!! named pookie!!! i am crying (I've had 3 chihuahuas, so I am very biased, but...) AND HE WATCHES THE ROMANCE CHANNEL WITH POOKIE. POOKIE I WILL DIE FOR YOU YOU SWEET LITTLE BABY.

-danny can lift a bus! I shouldn't be surprised, but i am proud of my son. hes got lil kid fans. i am going to cry about this

-JAZZ KEEPS A SCRAPBOOK WITH DANNY'S LIL HEROICS AND NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS!!! we've actually seen it on her floor before, but I didnt realize it was a scrapbook!! thats sooo cute.

-...and danny has to stand there listening to his parents saying danny phantom sucks and is a 'filthy ghost' and calling him egotistical...i am once again stealing their kids!

-THIS GHOST RIPPING JAZZ'S SCRAPBOOK!!! ILL KILL YOU. SHE WORKED HARD ON THAT!!! BITCH

-yes, maddie, the one with red eyes is For Sure Actually Your Son. ignore the, red eyes... (CLEARLY she hasnt watched the other 2 eps where danny has been evil, she doesnt know red eyes= evil!!!)

-'billy fenton'.......................

-danny being stuck as phantom in his own house, no way out is a fucking NIGHTMARE. his parents pointing giant weapons against him and SHOOTING AT HIM. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE.

-NINE INCH NAILS POSTER.

-this is the most screenshot of all time

-amorpho turning into mr. lancer because hes 'someone no one will want to be around' BUT HES WRONG, I WOULD BEFRIEND AND HANG OUT WITH MR LANCER SO FAST.

-tucker dressing as danny, now I have the full Tucker set of him being sam and also being danny. also saying 'the ghost...uh...RIPPED MY FACE OFF.' and then running. SMOOTH. NOT AT ALL CONCERNING TO ANY PARENTS.

-sam accepts the toast from jack. and then 2 seconds later is like 'why am i eating this.' THIS SHOWS HUMOR IS SO UNEXPECTED SOMETIMES ITS REALLY GOOD. and then the scene after, mr lancer running into his ghost doppelganger and being like 'YOURE GORGOUS' THEN FAINTING. I AM CRYING. AND DASH FAINTING TOO.

-sam disguising herself as danny again to help tucker run from the fentons. but leaving him shirtless in the streets. incredible. 'plEASE DOnt NOTice MY FACELessNESS I MUST LIVE IN EXILE' this episode is destroying me the humor in this show is exactly my brand of corny and cheesy

-the impromtu story made up by danny and amorpho to explain stuff to the fentons. my god they are both such bad liars. but amorpho is a good egg. wish danny wouldnt have said he didnt wanna see him in town again!! I want him to be reoccurring. not that thats gonna matter since I'm almost done with the series, but the idea of this being the Only Time We See him is :(

-NEXT EP SAYS STARRING MARK HAMILL??????!!! hello ! mr . joker....mr. star wars.... I feel like I should be. idk. taking off a hat im not wearing in respect. I shouldnt be surprised tho bc hes in a lot of cartoons as a very good voice actor, and dp has already had a lot of talented ones so I've been looking out for ones I might know, but....mr. hamill....

-sam has her own greenhouse, names all the plants, and says thank you to them (in the languages from where the plants are from) whenever she harvests from them. thats SO cute. and her lil gothy lunch box...

-and danny's lil red fuzzy lined jacket!!! ive said it before but every time the characters get alt outfits im like :D

-danny has ice powers now!!! THATS WHAT FROSTBITE MEANT. HE KNEW SOMEHOW WAY BACK THEN

-THIS SHOW NEVER LETS YOU FORGET VLAD IS A BILLIONAIRE, HUH.

-danny's lil 'holy hibiscus!' first off the 50s batman swearing is hilarious. 2nd. my username is from the flower sanchoyo hibiscus, so, shoutout to ME this ep. hi :)

-EURGH UNDERGROWTH MAKING EVERYONE PLANT ZOMBIES. HIVEMIND PLOTS SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME. and this dude made the city SO overtaken so quickly like how long was danny asleep?? oh god

-evil fucked up sam! now the whole trio has gone evil at some point! the voice actress did a really, really good job with making her sound like a zombie...

-frostbite's paws are so so so big compared to danny. oh my god. i want to hug the snow dog...

-the far frozen has an advanced medical stuff!!! very cool. very smart snow dogs

-im so glad danny has a friendly ghost snow dad to explain this new power and teach him!!! this is so sweet. DANNY'S GHOST SENSE WAS A PART OF HIS ICE POWER?? OOOH. COOL. we love a training montage!!!

-danny saying if he cant defeat overgrowth, that he'd want to stay with frostbite...oh my god...do you think this is the first real supportive adult figure in his life (I am NOT counting his parents because they threaten him on the daily even if they dont realize it.) I mean mr lancer is a Teacher, but he was also nice but this is different, but this is a GHOST WHO IS WILLING TO HELP HIM with his powers and also will help him when hes injured and is so so nice and comparatively so much more mature than 90% of the adults in this show!!!! god. dad frostbite is my everything.

-the framing and lighting this episode, and all the angles...they went all OUT and it looks really really good. this is my nightmare scenario, tho. like, FUCK zombies and dead city zones and hivemind shit. and using the humans as 'nutrients for the children' i am going to THROW UP.

-MALEFICENT VIBES WITH THE HORNS AND GREEN EYES! this costume kicks so much ass. sam is now mark hamills daughter, I guess.

-danny's ice powers making his eyes blue!!! thats neat. and him going for the roots underground was SO SMART. i will not stand for danny ever thinking hes stupid, hes SO smart.

almost done with the show... :"( thats a sad thought!!!

[lux-has-too-many-fos]

💜 for.. *all* of your Brawl Stars F/Os!! Or at least, as many of them as you want to talk about here!! You have a lot of really cool-sounding tags for your F/Os and it'd be super cool to hear more about them - I hope this is okay!

*Cracks nuckles*

Lets get started (:

Tara: I dont understand this but I love you🃏

Well, in game, Tara's "Voicelines" arent actually words (Or at least not comprensible ones) She makes a weird "Mmmmmmmphhhhh" sound instead. So while there are a few voicelines where you can get what shes says (Like when shes laughing, makes fun of the enemy, or says "Oh no!") Most of the time I do not know what the Hell shes saying

That and I love her a lot :D

Nita: Little bear paws🐾

Easy, Nita is pretty much confirmed to be around 10-12 in game, so shes still a lil kid, and her whole design is based around bears

So, yeah

And also, in the skin where she has a schoolgirl outfit and her bear turns into a Shiba, when you summon her bear it leaves a paw mark!

Bibi: Bubblegum bitch🍬

Bibi is always chewing bubblegum, and her super is literally her throwing a bubble at the enemy. That + Bubblegum bitch being one of my favourite songs = Her tag :D

Bo: Whats another kid going to do?🦅

At this point its almost canon that Bo is Nita's and León's (Nita's lil bro in game) dad, and both of his actual kids are really chaotic, so at the time that he kind of adopted Martin thats what he thought

He regreted it like 10 mins later but oh well

Emz: Hashtag best friends🧠

Emz is supposed to be a Vsco girl mixed with a zombie, and she has a lot of voicelines where she says "#*Insert thing here*, and I just feel like she would say something along those lines :D

Jacky: Drilled in my head🦺

She has a drill

And im always thinking about her

Yeah

Thats kinda it :P

Bull: BULLetproof friendship🐂

Bull has some voicelines where he makes puns with his name, so I though "Why not?" and made the tag a pun too

Crow: Never getting rid of me🗡️

My headcanon for Crow's relationship with Martin (And Bull and Bibi) its pretty much: "I act like I dont care about them at all but if anything where to actually happen to them I would go ballistic"

So a tsundere the aro version basically

And Martin never really lets him act like he doesnt care. In fact hes super affectionate with him even when Crow tells him to fuck off.

Also "I love you means youre never ever ever getting rid of me" its one of my favourite lyrics is "Waitress: The musical" and it fits perfectly

Tick: The tick tock of my heart🕛:

He's a bomb

And bombs go "Tick tock"

And his name is Tick

Im super original guys

8bit: Be my player 2🕹️

He's an arcade machine, and some games have a player 2 option, so being someones player 2 would symbolise friendship in this case.

Im super cheesy

Brock: Turning up the boombox!🎚️

Thats just my favourite voiceline of his lol

Rosa: Y esta rosa?🌹

Strap in, this is a looooong one

So, in Latinoamerica, theres this Mexican telenovela called "La rosa de Guadalupe". And im every episode, La Virgen de Guadalupe (A religious figure in México) sends a rose to earth to anounce shes going to bring a miracle. And each time one of the characters sees the rose for the first time they say "¿Y está rosa? (Wich roughly translates que to" "And this Rose?")

That phrase soon became (And still is) a meme in the Latinoamerican side of the Internet. And most people know the series beacause of all the memes they make with it

And Rosa's name is... Well... Rosa

Wich means Rose...

Yeah :D

Belle: Partners in crime🔕

Well, Belle is an outlaw from the wild west, and I made an entire Au based on that. Plus I love that trope so why not

Byron: I wont call you dad🐍

Yknow tsunderes? That, but instead of refusing to admit their love for their crush, I refuse to let him adopt me :D

[freebooter4ever]

Ref anon: I hope you can get help for that pain. Maybe a nerve is pinched? I'm really not sure about my future. I have a lot of hobbies but just work a shit customer service job. Getting motivation to do drawing at all is difficult let alone animate. Which is a great mental state to be in when my only plan for my whole life since childhood was animation. 🤷‍♀️

its tendonitis and im pretty sure the only way to get rid of it is to take a break from working which is obviously not possible so just gonna ignore it till i die i guess \o/

so yeah you struck a cord with me, this got long...

i cant help with motivation, i have too much of it. i lived with my grandparents for a year while grandpa was sick, and it was the first time they'd ever really seen me /work/ and even they were shocked. it really is constant - if i have twenty minutes and im not using it to draw its wasted time, you know? my first roommate here in LA was concerned too - she kept trying to get me to stop working and go out and back then my excuse was i didnt have a job and no money for going out, but really im just like that all the time. i try to balance it with seeing friends and social media and everyday shit like eating food, but its hard, my favorite people are the ones who will just sit and work with me lol! (or going out and working in places im not alone and quiet). i guess what im saying is...if its really your passion, is it not there all the time? i only ask because it took me a long time to realize that although i loved to analyze animation and watch it - the way i process art doesnt quite have what it takes to do that. we all love the end product, but just because the animation part is the most front facing part...doesn't mean that's necessarily where your actual passion might lie...if that makes sense? there's SO MUCH to do in the animation industry, its crazy. for me, i finally realized that all my obsessive energy revolved around character and especially faces, and i just started focusing on that. i would much rather be concepting a wide variety of characters than spending a whole year animating about one minute of a two hour movie.

that said there's also the sad reality that some people have had doors open more easily than others. i feel you about being stuck in a retail job you feel wasted in :( im sorry you are in that position. i hope you are able to make a change, but i understand just how fucking /trapped/ that can be. watching life slip by into nothingness while the tiny snatches of meaning only happen during off hours and scraped together seconds of free time. one of the biggest ironies though is that this is how a lot of original animators felt about dsn*y. i mentioned that on my road trip i stayed with the son of an animator who worked on snow wh*te - he wasnt one of the 9 old men but he was their contemporary and friend, and the animator took the job just to make money off his art. animation just wasnt his full passion and he eventually quit, moved up north, and started experimenting with helicopters and boe*ng lol. 

and in reverse of that, as i grew up with a father and a grandfather who worked for boe*ng and the US space program, ALL my open doors were flight and space related - my cousin currently works for N A S A and my other cousin for boe*ng - they took the doors but i didnt want anything to do with it. it took years for my grandpa to finally come to terms with the fact that my passion for art was as strong as his passion for airplanes. he grew up a farm boy daydreaming about flying, and had to take a circuitous route to finally get there - army, college, mechanical engineering, finally rockets. he gave my dad and me all the chances grandpa would have wanted as a kid - my dad took them - i didnt want any of it. i would much rather have had those chances that the animator got.

and then of course there are the institutionalized gates - barriers against entry for women, minorities, LGBQT, people without money...its a LOT to fight against. which is of course why we celebrate the exceptional people who DO break through those barriers and succeed despite it all. but it can be demoralizing to be on the other side of those barriers. demoralizing is too soft a word. i dont think there is a word for how much it can hurt.

some wisdom that might help: randy pa*usch's last lecture - he is a white male who definitely does not understand the race/sex 'walls', but he makes good points, and also he came at the animation industry sideways for very similar reasons - through education and research rather than the traditional job promotion route. and then someone closer to my own age/time: justin scar*ed - i dont mean his road trip videos, i mean the old vlogs from 3-6 years ago when he was 31 divorced and depressed and realizing he had to release himself from his own pressure of his music career. his quest for positivity is an interesting concept, and i sympathized with that feeling of your life taking a direction you didnt chase after but somehow ends up being the thing you were actually looking for the entire time. if you want a success story there’s always my favorite: steve aok*. he went against everything that was set up for him in life and still made it work ^_^ (of course of these three, guess who also grew up the rich kid lol). or norman re*dus who quite literally accidentally became a model and successful actor. im paraphrasing this horribly, but my impression was that as a teenager he was selling shitty cat paintings on the streets of paris - which sounds romantic but miserable at the same time - and then followed a girl to california, got a crappy job in a motorcycle shop, went to a party and yelled at some people from a balcony, landed his first stage role...and eventually created the character of daryl and finally got the chance to have his genius really shine. (sometimes i wonder though, if it was frustrating to end up being famous for acting rather than art which was arguably his true passion?)

i hope any of this helps, i am pretty exhausted lately so apologies if my sentences are incomprehensible in some parts. and you know, my DMs on here are open if you want to talk more specifically off anon <3