#the target's on the move Chloe what will you do?

[zoe-oneesama]

Just get married already.

Episode 47 Part 12 First < Previous > Next Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5 Ep 41, Ep 42, Ep 43, Ep 44, Ep 45, Ep 47, Ep 48

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[woso-dreamzzz]

Travel Day II

Wonze x Child!Reader

England Lionesses x Wonze!Reader

Summary: A normal day with you is fairly stressful

You run around a lot with Ella and Lessi as soon as Mummy lets you go but you get bored of them quite easily. You wander over to Beth, whom you haven't seen in a while.

Usually, there's another little girl with her and your brow furrows when you don't find your friend.

"Erm...Beth...where's-where's..." You can't really remember her name but you know that she's got a nickname like you. "Where's liefje?"

Beth laughs slightly. "Sorry, peanut. She's gone with Viv to the Netherlands camp this time."

You huff. "Why?"

"Well, Viv wanted to show her what it's like in the Netherlands."

"But why?"

"Well, Viv's her mother too. Sometimes they like to do stuff like that together."

"Does it make you sad? My Mum might be sad if I spent all my time with Mummy."

"No." Beth shakes her head. "She's only had Viv for a little while. You've had your Mum and Mummy all your life."

You kind of get it so you nod. "Can I play with liefje next time then?"

"Next time," Beth agrees and you hurry off.

Your next targets are huddled in the corner and you barrel over, climbing up onto Hempo's lap before she realises what you're doing.

Chloe laughs at Hempo's shocked face as you wiggle your way onto her lap. Hempo's doing Lego again but it's just the beginning of it right now so you're not too sure what it is just yet.

"Hi, peanut," Chloe says in greeting," I haven't seen you in a while."

"I'm in Spain," You reply, reaching out for the little instruction booklet that you can't read but can inspect the pictures," With Mum and Mummy there."

"Yeah," Chloe says, glancing around before sliding her plate of snacks closer to you," Are you enjoying it there?"

"It's hot," You reply, biting down on a chocolate biscuit," And makes Mum sweaty so I don't like her hugging me."

Chloe laughs just as Hempo moves to help you click a piece into place and fish out a new one.

"Mummy can hug me though," You continue," She's friends with Aitana. Aitana's nice. Mum's friends with Mapi'. Mummy says it's because they're both children."

Both Chloe and Hempo laugh now and you beam at them, not really getting the joke but not wanting to be left out.

Mummy approaches you a few moments later, taking your hand gently and guiding you to the toilet before practice.

"I don' need the potty," You try to tell her.

"Well, let's just try," Mummy says," Just have a try for me."

You don't like the way she seems to know your body better than you do because you do end up going to the toilet and, when you leave your stall, she's still in her own.

You don't really like the toilets (they always smell a little strange) so you scamper outside to wait for Mummy there.

You know that after the toilet break, Mummy will take you upstairs to get changed and then maybe try to send you to sleep so you'll be out cold when she and Mum bring you to practice.

You don't want to do either and take your brief respite from being supervised to bolt.

You know your way around St George's Park like you know your way around Camp Nou and you pick through the hallways with ease. Sometimes, you and Beth's liefje run around together through these same corridors so you take a sharp left through a heavy fire door and creep into a meeting room, poking your head around the doorframe.

Sarina's there. She's Mum and Mummy's boss sometimes, like how Jonatan is their boss in Spain too.

She's looking through paperwork at her desk, looking incredibly bored so it's no wonder that she spots you easily.

"Hello." She gets up from her seat, ushering you inside and glancing around. "Where is Keira and Lucy?"

"Mummy's in the toilet. Dunno where Mum is. What are you doing?"

Sarina lets out a little huff of amusement and guides you further inside. "Just some paperwork," She says," Do you want a snack?"

She pulls open a drawer and lets you peer inside. You take a packet of chocolate, sitting down at Sarina's feet to start eating.

You sit at Mum's feet sometimes and crawl under tables at Barcelona when it gets a bit too loud so this is somewhat second nature.

You don't know how long you sit there but soon Sarina's getting you to your feet and holding your hand so you don't run off again.

There's a certain energy in the air as you head out onto the pitch. Some of the girls are milling around anxiously, calling out things as they look around the barriers.

"What has gotten into them?" Sarina mutters under her breath.

"I think they're looking for the little one," The silly social media man says as he films your and Sarina's arrival," Keira lost her."

"Did not lose!" You say, stamping your foot," Mummy was in the toilet!"

"Regardless," Mum's familiar voice says behind you," You had us all worried, peanut."

She takes you from Sarina, holding you securely on her hip as she hurriedly sprints towards the rest of the girls. As soon as she gets close, she lifts you up like you're Simba (something that she always does at home when you're watching Lion King).

"I've got her! I've got her!"

Mummy come rushing over, checking you over for injuries.

"God," Auntie Georgia says as she jogs closer," You had us all worried there, peanut. You've got to stop wandering off."

You roll your eyes. "Just having fun."

"You can have fun with Mum and Mummy, peanut," Mum says sternly," No wandering when we're here."

"What about with Auntie Georgia?"

"Yes, with Auntie Georgia," Mummy replies.

"And Lessi and Tooney?" You continue.

"Yes with them too."

You give her a suspicious look. "And Hempo? And Alex?"

"Yes, them as well."

"Then not just have fun with Mum and Mummy," You say and Mummy sighs deeply.

Mum stifles her laugh, ruffling your hair. "Alright, peanut," She says," Now's not the time to make a point. You're lucky no one took you."

You give her a patronising look. "You say to bite people if they try to take me somewhere I don't want to go."

"Lucy! Is that why she bit Paños last week?!"

[b1u3butt3rf1yanim3cart00ngirl22]

(I found it from DeviantArt! 💕)

My Miraculous Ladybug's Felinette Fanfic Recs I love

*A03*

1) The Sad and Broken by Dull_Rainbow

Summary: They broke her. Completely destroyed her. For weeks she let them bully her, throw their snide comments, and over all let them tear her down. Well no more. Because there was nothing left the broken. She was done. Done with everything her so called 'friends" did to her, done with being in love with Adrien, she was just done. She was leaving and never coming back. Will the new people in her life and perhaps a new love interest be able to fix her broken heart? Or will she forever be trapped in her broken fairytale?

2) The Burning by FandomQueenliness

Summary: The day Adrien confessed to cheating on Marinette, their lives burned down around them, and in the ashes, their friends and family must piece together the broken shards of what they once knew.

3) Felinette. Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me by bumblebeug (Madsmadsmads)

Summary: During a seeming break from Hawkmoth and after being moved to the back, Marinette becomes seat-mates with recent transfer from England Felix Culpa.

4) Kore Complex by SmittenVixen13

Summary: Marinette is done being beaten down and treated like she didn't matter! She was She was proud. She was confident. She was Marinette! No pathetic Liar, spineless crush, or idiotic classmates were going to get to her!

Transferring schools is new and terrifying, but with new friends and new found confidence, she will conquer anything! Love, blooming friendships, and mysterious new heroes await her!

5) New Friends by StarShine583

Summary: A Felinette story from Tumblr!

6) The Scorned by Snow_Leopard_777

Summary: In a world where Chameleon targeted Marinette first, where only Chloe and Nino stood in her defense, Madame Bustier's class turned against their everyday Ladybug. As the girl begins to shut down, her teacher holds her after class with a suggestion…

What do you think about transfers?

With her family on her side (as well as Papillon and Mayura), can she really leave François-DuPont behind, or will her time there haunt her as she tries to make new friends?

7) Don't Mess With Jagged Stones Favorite Niece by HoneyDewLove

Summary: Marinette is getting fed up with Lie-la and watching the people she thought were her best friends turn on her.

With the help of some new friends and the new student, she makes a plan to unravel all her lies.

Luckily, she's also got an Uncle willing to do anything to help take down his favorite little lady's bully and the daughter of the mayor on her side.

And it just so seems that a few little gods seem to want in on the plan.

8) Neglect Me No More by Gingergrowl

Summary: After months of neglect from her friends, Marinette decides to transfer schools. These so-called friends of hers have made her an emotionless shell of who she once was.

Marinette's days of neglect slowly begin to change when she meets a cold-hearted boy named Felix Graham de Vanily. Together, they begin to change each other for the better, making new friends and enemies along the way.

Little do they know, that this fateful meeting will impact Paris and the miraculous in ways big and small.

9) New School, New Friends by KittyNoir666

Summary: Marinette has reached her breaking point all thanks to Adrien. So she transfers to a new school and makes new friends. But with her old friends being who they were who will be able to pick up the slack of the previous heroes.

10) Begin Again by Kanzakura

Summary: Marinette's life had started to become miserable. Lila had managed to turn many of her friends against her, Chat had started to become clingy, and Marinette was slowly feeling herself crumble to stress. So when she finds out that she get's to transfer to a different school for Lycree, she's overjoyed. Only, there's a catch, and it wasn't one she was expecting.

11) Coffee Breath by dreamdarkdreams (orphan_account)

Summary: Felix's day started out normally. Then the prettiest girl he had ever seen entered the classroom.

12) Me, Just Me by rhub4rb

Summary: Marinette was tired.

Lila had held true to her promise, and Marinette had never felt more isolated from everyone. Finally, she decides that things need to change.

And she does this for herself, just herself.

13) Hey, Little Songbird by charlietheepic7

Summary: Really, Felix couldn't believe his cousin sometimes. Marinette was talented, beautiful, kind, and had a crush on Adrien bigger than the mansion, yet Adrien was blind to the treasure right in front of him. "Just a friend," indeed.

Well, if Adrien wasn't going to do anything, it wouldn't matter if Felix… snatched her up?

14) New Girl on the Block by StarShine583

Summary: Felix doesn't make it a habit to get involved with other people. They're too dramatic, too needy. He already has a small group of friends- at least that's what they call themselves -and his mother and father. He doesn't need anyone else meddling in his life, especially not some clumsy, new student who comes tripping through the front doors of Rosemary High.

15) Moving Forward by Dia_Moon

Summary: After losing a lot during and after the Miracle Queen battle, Marinette has decided to do things that can help her.

A new school can surely help her right? She'll be moving forward with a positive new beginning!

16) Pushing On by JG_Writes

Summary: Marinette's junior year at Collège Françoise Dupont has been absolute hell. With Lila Rossi spreading lies about her and turning everyone against her, she can hardly hang on. She finds a few surprising allies and decides to move on to a new school for the rest of her education where she meets a wild group of characters and a very silent and mysterious one.

17) Black Cats Revenge by Marcipan21

Summary: Marinette is crying, and Felix looks ready for murder.

*Wattpad*

1) Seeing Red by socksareforcavemen

2) The Price of Lying. by Kuroba_Kaito_1412

Summary: Marinette got used Lila's lies. Her feeling became numb, and her body refused to feel pain. Some nights she would still cry, but the tears stopped as fast as it came. She tried so many times to call Lila out, yet her voice was always silenced. One day, a new girl comes to the class, and helped Marinette shine some light on the truth. Although for the new girl, it's much more than just calling out a liar.

3) Welcome to New York miraculous team by Yuktha2004

Summary: After Marinette class trip to New York for friendship week Lila made do on her promise to turn Marinette friends against her. For three months Marinette friends bullied her and tormented her. Once hawkmoth was defeated Marinette decided to move to New York to start a new life with her real friends.

Felix has always been known as the cold hearted mean boy since his fathers death. He is known for his rude sneaky behaviour and cold ways towards people but that all changes when he meets Marinette.

Find out what will happens on the miraculous team journey to New York. Will sparks ignite and new bonds grow as old bonds strengthen or will the darkness take over consuming all the light that remains.

4) The mysteries (A Felinette Love Story) by Yuktha2004

Summary: Felix is forced to transfer to Paris for abroad studies and it just happens that he transfers to Dupount high school.

In this story Marinette mistreated by everyone even her closest friends. All because of a certain lying fox bit what everyone doesn't know is Marinette has a secret, a mystery.

Join Marinette and Felix on a journey of Mystery, camera' and studio's around Paris.

5) My Angel by Fairy4Ever

Summary: Marinette has been an outcast ever since Lila returned to their class and she's caused more havoc than ever. she kept to her promise and took away all of her friends, including Adrien who wanted her to keep silent about Lila's lies since they weren't hurting anyone.

she felt alone. she was alone. always sat in the back by herself taking the insults or mean glares that her ex-friends would send her making her feel even more upset. she felt like no one cared for her. no one would love her.

but that was all about to change when one boy would join their class and take the empty seat beside her.

6) Heal my heart (Felinette) by -Funko_Mushroom-

Summary: Ladybug and Chat noir defeat hawk moth but never reveal their identities.

Lila comes back to school and everything goes wrong, she turns all of Marinette friends against her! Marinette has gotten used to it at this point and let's what happens to her happen, that was until he came along.

Join Marinette and Felix on their adventure with each other, watch them grow their relationship and heal each other slowly in Heal my heart.

7) Her way of getting revenge by Haru_zou

Summary: Marinette Dupain Cheng. A lovely, kind, and naive girl.. has changed. ever since a pathological liar named Lila came into her life. Lying about her, stealing her friends, and threatening her. She's never been the same. She's hurt after her so called"friends"betrayed her. She's tired of her "friends" bullying her when she didn't even did anything. She's tired of being a hero protecting the ones that hurts her. That's until she met them. The ones that helped her heal. The ones that helped her uncover her dark and forgotten past. The ones that helped her recover forgotten memories. And the ones that will help her get revenge.

8) The Broken Wings of an Angel by MiraculousObsessed07

Summary: After Marinette's break up with Adrien, Marinette was heart broken. She never thought that Adrien would be that type of guy. Cheating on her, out of all people in the world he picked the dead rat. Marinette stopped talking with her friends & family, and she completely shut out the world... that was until she met him: Felix Graham de Vanily.

No Superheros but most kwamis are pets

9) Thank You by CartoonAlcaholic

Summary: Lila did it. She finally broke Marinette, their everyday Ladybug.

Marinette stopped. She stopped smiling. She stopped trying to hang out with her classmates. She stopped inviting them. She stopped playing games with them. She stopped making promises. She stopped being the happy girl everyone knew and became a doll for the fox to play with.

"I'm sorry..." was the only genuine thing she said before she became a marionette for the fox.

But, a certain transfer student had a pair of scissors behind his back and was ready to teach this broken toy how to smile again.

"I know."

[killervelveteenrabbit]

Is this the end of Chloe Bourgeois?

She’s been exiled from her city after a brief but disastrous run as its absolute ruler. Her father has disowned her. Her mother is humiliated by her and seems intent on making her burn for it, now that she has sole custody of her. Her co-conspirator in her grand scheme has dropped contact, forsaking her to run her own game. Her childhood friend, the boy she once regarded as hers and hers alone, has washed his hands of her. Her only friend, whom she treated as an underling for years, has turned against her. And her favorite bullying target has just explained to her, in no uncertain terms, that she’s lost everything and has no power over anyone anymore.

Even from a Doylist perspective, there seems to be no place for Chloe anymore. She no longer lives in Paris, and Lila/Cerise has usurped her position as designated beta-villain. Some would see this as an opportunity to write Chloe out of the series entirely, and few people within the fandom would shed tears. 

And yet, Chloe does have her fans. Some of them object to the apparent beatification of Marinette, in-universe and out, or that Mr. Astruc and the writers have flanderized Chloe into the series’ hate sink at the cost of her character arc. Others sympathize with Chloe as a victim of emotional abuse and neglect who doesn’t understand how to be a good person because no one’s shown her how (although I would argue that Armand and Miss Bustier at least tried).

Putting Chloe on a bus (or in her case, a jet) while singing “Ding Dong, the Bitch is Dead” seems too easy and neat an ending for her. I would like to see Chloe return in season 6 with the increased capacity for empathy that often comes from losing something precious. I want her to learn that “nice” isn’t just an affectation one puts on to impress people you like. I want her to understand that true heroism takes effort and even sacrifice. I want her to experience the give-and-take of equitable relationships. I want to see her tempted to fall into old habits and make a few bad decisions, but ultimately prove herself to herself. And again shifting from the Watsonian to the Doylist, I would like to see Chloe become a powerful foil and counter to the increasingly diabolical Lila/Cerise.

The problem is that I don’t see how this is possible. Audrey seems intent on controlling Chloe’s every move to prevent her daughter from causing her further shame. Even if Chloe did return to Paris, everyone there seemingly hates her. The only way I can see it happening is if Audrey got tired of Chloe and sent her back, not knowing what else to do with her... and if someone, against their better judgment, agreed to shelter her... and if she adopted a new name and changed her appearance so that no one recognized her as the recently overthrown child-dictator of Paris.

Reinventing Chloe offers far more creative potential than discarding her. Also, it would show the kids for whom this show was created what it means to be a truly good person, that sometimes it takes real effort and hard choices but that it’s ultimately worth it.

[adrinoir]

Lesbian Headcanons Pt. 1: Chloe

I seriously enjoy writing all kinds of headcanons and analyzing this show. I want to talk about Chloe. She was such a queen from the start and Thomas just hardcore assassinated her character. So, I’m gonna put a good spotlight on her.

Also there are a ridiculous (utterly ridiculous!) amount of signs that backup this headcanon.

Her crush on Adrien seems theatrical & superficial

Chloe has always been very over the top acting as like she has this big crush on Adrien and that they’d be so good together. But, it seems very superficial.

What proves this superficiality is the way she talks about him in Sole Crusher. When she’s trying to teach Zoe how to behave, she talks about Adrien like he’s arm candy.

“Rule #148: you obviously need a guy BFF to wrap around your finger, preferably gorgeous and very rich. That one over there is mine!”

That is the direct quote from Chloe. Also take note as to how she doesn’t mention him being her crush nor claim that he’s her boyfriend. She only calls him her BFF.

Does she even value him as her friend? That’s tough to say. But, he’s given her ultimatums on multiple occasions and she hasn’t really followed through with trying to better herself. It’s sad.

She only goes after him when Marinette gets in the way

Have you noticed this? Chloe doesn’t really make much of an effort to pursue Adrien unless Marinette is stepping in to make a move on him. She makes it her mission to specifically target and sabotage Marinette. There’s less of an effort to get Adrien and more of an effort to sabotage Marinette.

There are very few times that she actually goes after Adrien on her own. But god forbid Marinette takes action, things start to blow up. She’s gone great lengths just to stop Marinette. For instance, in the Gabriel Agreste episode, she takes a video of Marinette and her friends planning to break into the party at the Agreste mansion. Then, she keeps running around the party trying to make sure the video gets exposed.

I feel like she’s secretly crushing on Marinette but either doesn’t realize it or is purposely hiding the fact that she does.

Try and tell me this sounds like a stretch, but I stand by what I say lol. Let’s do a comparison as some back up: Sharpay Evans in High School Musical is a rich, blond “mean girl” type just like Chloe. She’s friends with Troy and is very over the top about the crush she has on him. However, the difference is that she pursues him on her own plenty of times, not only when Gabrielle gets in the way. She did a fantastic job of impressing him in the second movie, going as far as to give him a scholarship and a connection with people who work for the college he wanted to attend. Chloe has never gone that far to try to impress Adrien on her own, despite having the ability to do something like Sharpay did.

She fits the “Enemies to Lovers” Trope

One could also argue that she’s bullied Marinette for years, which is obviously cruel. If she cared for her, why would she treat her that way? Well, this fits the “enemies to lovers” trope and that unhealthy narrative of “if (so and so) makes fun of you, it just means they have feelings for you.”

Bullies typically have a lot of underlying insecurities which is what makes them bully others - projection. And, while yes, we see Chloe has a bad relationship with her mother, she’s pretty damn confident in herself (like, seriously, this girl thinks she’s so popular knowing damn well most people in school don’t like her) and doesn’t really show many signs of having loads of underlying insecurities. So, with that being said, if it’s not self projection, then what is it? A crush on Marinette doesn’t seem too far fetched.

Will the enemies to lovers trope come to fruition? Will she ever get with Marinette? Obviously NOT. Marinette and Adrien are end game. Chloe won’t get with either of them. But this doesn’t mean it’s completely impossible for her to have a secret crush on Marinette.

Kagami intimidates her

Kagami is very upfront and serious which can be intimidating in itself. But she somehow scared Chloe right away, Chloe - a girl who’s supposedly a big bad bully. 

In their very first interaction, Kagami is the one to dish out the very threatening line, not Chloe. In the span of this one sentence, she’s able to make Chloe back off which is very unlike Chloe.

After that, notice how Chloe now targets Kagami. She went great lengths to humiliate her in front of Adrien in Animaestro. And even fast forwarding all the way up to Perfection, she gangs up with Lila specifically to sabotage Marinette and Kagami. So, with that repeated behavior on Kagami, there’s that possibility that she’s secretly crushing on her, too. 

Her & Sabrina play as Ladybug & Cat Noir

Of course any friends can dress up as Ladybug and Cat Noir without the possibility of them liking each other romantically (like Ladybug and Cat Noir do). But, Sabrina has shown signs of being fruity, too, which makes this a bit different.

Sabrina dedicates a lot of time to Chloe and has this undeniable super strong admiration for her. Unfortunately, Chloe abuses this and constantly asks her to perform favors for her. To do another character comparison, if you’ve ever watched Dan and Riya’s YouTube series Beverly Valley High, Rhubarb mirrors Sabrina in a lot of ways. Rhubarb is the dopey friend of the popular mean girl, Cinnamon. She’s often her sidekick in her plans to wreck the two main characters, and is also asked to do favors for her. Initially, the audience is led to think that Rhubarb is sticking by Cinnamon to be popular and benefit from her wealthy lifestyle. However, in recent episodes, it was revealed that Rhubarb has had feelings for her this whole time which is why she doesn’t leave her side. With that being said, I feel like this same thing could apply to Sabrina.

Her own half-sister is canonically queer

It can no longer be denied: Zoe isn’t straight. Not only were there pretty obvious signs in previous episodes, in Deflagration, she openly flirted with Scarabella.

It isn’t said how Zoe identifies, but what’s interesting is that her color scheme is all the colors in the pansexual pride flag. Obviously there’s many different sexualities that involve attraction to the same gender that Zoe could potentially be, but the colors are just a little sign I noticed.

Anyhow, considering she is canonically queer, that means Chloe could be too. It’s definitely not impossible. There obviously doesn’t have to be “one straight sibling and one gay sibling.”

She has really high standards

Chloe makes it very clear many, many times that she wants a guy who’s gorgeous and rich. She won’t consider or talk to any guy who she doesn’t think is attractive and isn’t rich. This can be seen as comphet behavior.

In case you don’t know what comphet is, here’s the definition: compulsory heterosexuality (comphet for short) - When somebody experiences "attraction" to the opposite gender because that expectation has been pushed on them by the patriarchal society, this is quite often experienced by lesbians.

Unnecessarily high - or completely unrealistic - standards can be considered as comphet behavior because it gives the closeted lesbian a reason to deny men and validate the fact that they don’t want to date a man. Chloe has only shown desire for Adrien and Prince ? (I forgot his name, oops) who are both rich, good looking guys. But, again, both of those “crushes” are very superficial.

Conclusion

Chloe seems like the stereotypical mean girl chasing after he popular boy in school. But, taking a second look, she doesn’t seem to really be all that attracted to Adrien nor any of the guys in the show like she tries to claim.

I think Chloe shows a lot of comphet behavior and there seems to be far too many reasons to back up the headcanon that she isn’t into guys. I like this headcanon that she’s a lez. It makes sense and seeing her in this way makes me like her more! She has so much potential to be a more well-rounded, in depth character.

This is going to be a multi part headcanon because Chloe is definitely not the only girl in Miraculous who seems fruity. I plan on writing about any who have shown a lot of signs.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I had a thought about Derision while at work, and I was wondering if I'm just overthinking things bc of how bored I was

I don't think that the Chloe stuff in Derision actually counts as a retcon if you really think about it?

Like, a retcon is a retroactive continuity change, something that blatantly goes against something established previously.

Derision does have a few actual retcons, like Kim being head over heels for Chloe in the present, which directly contradicts what we see in both Dark Cupid and Syren.

But Chloe being a massive bully who went out of her way to target Marinette doesn't go against established continuity, it's something we learned all the way back in Origins.

And like, the Derision flashback is the only time in the whole series where we actually get to see what pre-Origins Francois DuPont was like, so we can't even say that the stuff we see in the Derision flashback wasnt in line with what Chloe used to do before Mari actually started fighting back

I wanna make it clear I'm not trying to defend any of the dogshit writing and character assassinations and everything that happened in Derision, it sucks (and it's absolutely infuriating that the only flashback we get to pre-cannon is used to beat the dead 'Chloe is Satan' horse again instead of, oh I don't know, showing us what Gabriel was like before Emilie's coma? Or something even remotely related to the shows main plot?), but I'm not sure the Chloe stuff counts as retcons, just shit writing

So here's the thing:

It's not a retcon in the fact that Chloé was a bully. That was established Day 1. She's always been a jerk. I might like my girl, but I am fully aware that she was an absolute bitch.

But it /is/ a retcon in how much damage she caused, how afraid everyone was of her, how this is an 'origin' for Marinette's stalker tendencies, etc.

Let's look at the differences between the flashback in Derision, and the beginning of Origins:

In Derision, Marinette is having a panic attack at breakfast and trying to fake being sick to get out of school and too scared to tell her parents why. When she does get to school, she's terrified and looking around and trying to sneak past, paranoid of what trick Chloé may pull. Running to hide the first chance she gets.

In Origins, Marinette just rolls her eyes and makes a comment about how she'll probably be unlucky enough to be in Chloé's class again before excitedly heading in for the new school year. That's it. She walks into class perfectly normally and sits at her desk. When Chloé walks up to her and tells her to switch seats, Marinette stands her ground and says that no, actually, this was her seat first. Marinette only moves because Alya dragged her out of the situation.

Remember: These scenes are only a single summer break apart, and in Derision Marinette could at least rely on Socqueline while in Origins she would've had no one. Marinette hadn't even gotten the Ladybut Miraculous yet in the Origins scene.

And that stands for other scenes as a whole as well. Season 1-3, Chloé being mean was treated as an annoyance. Not horrifically traumatizing. Though she was a bully in the fact that she was often the instigator, she was a rival in the sense that Marinette was on equal ground with her the whole time. Even the other classmates, no one's really scared of her in Season 1-3. Some even call her out on her shit. Some are even mean as fuck when she wasn't doing anything of consequence(*gestures to Zombizou where they call her a heartless bitch for not getting a teacher a birthday present*). And they are perfectly willing to be civil with her when she's offering nice things(they show up when her class president campaign includes a meet and greet with Jagged. When she invites them to a party in Despair Bear, they all shrug like 'eh she's a bitch but the event will be fun!')

Compare that to Origins where they're too scared to even talk to Marinette when Chloé's around out of fear that she'll target them too.

/This/ is what we mean when we call it a retcon.

[otomelavenderhaze]

I can't stop thinking about the cave dialogue in which Rayan talks about Chloé, his ex wife, therefore I went back to read whole scene back from University Life episode 8, because what Rayan describes in episode 17 of LL is too diferent from that UL episode and from everything I could remember about it.

It's not to say that I caught some sort of insane discrepancy and AHÁ!

It's more because I find it interesting and I thought maybe others would find it interesting as well. So first I wanna show you what Rayan says in episode 8 of UL (which I never translated before until this post):

In my playthrough of it, back in the day, I asked him directly if he have a wife, which he answers yes first and then the proceeds to talk about it...

"And she will forever be my wife. But the last time we saw each other was seven years ago. Already… seven years… My wife, Chloé, died seven years ago. In a terrorist attack. Some savages came in shooting. No fixed target. In shop windows, in people and even in children."

"There were many wounded, and fortunately few dead. But Chloé is one of those who didn't survive… All that happened seven long years ago. It took me time. At first I didn't want to move. I wanted to keep everything, the smallest memory."

Now why I am showing this 4 panells?

This is important to understand how she died, how sad Rayan showed us to be about her death and his attachment towards Chloé.

He even goes as far to say:

"We met in high school and we got married at 23, in a hurry. We didn't tell anyone. But I'm not going to lie to you and say that everything was all roses."

Candy asks him, how so?

"We often quarreled. We stayed together for a long time, we didn't get to know anyone but each other and, sometimes, we even doubted. But when she left… I was torn apart."

Now we will never know why they used to fight, what made them marry so young and so quickly to the point where he implies they didn't even had a wedding ceremony.

Which makes this difficult to understand what compelled both of them to take such actions - maybe they they were just impulsive, but without a reason behind such impulsivity it's hard to tell if it was warrant or not.

But then, the actual panel that made me do this post in the first place eventually comes up in that same conversation with Candy:

"I loved her with all my soul. Before anything else, she was my best friend. But, sorry… I opened up too much…"

And I believe he did, regardless of anything else, because it makes sense for Rayan's character to marry someone for love.

That's the kind of "person" he is, that's why when he falls for Candy, he's ready to assume so many risks and even later talks about leaving his job for her just so they could have a less tense relationship.

This sets up him to be someone that would intensily love another person and do everything for them - they being Chloé or Candy.

I could say this is actually the point of that whole conversation: to show that he isn't someone that takes love lightly or shallowly, which helps us readers to trust his intentions and to believe that, yes, for love he would indeed be honorable, truth and passionate, instead of a player or a man that just wants to have fun with one of his students.

Not mentioning that he presents himself as a tortured soul that lost a wife tragically and never fell in love ever since, but falls in love for you, the reader, because you're special and irreplaceable, is something very flattering and, even, I dare say, romantic.

Meow meow is sad and you're the only one who can fix that for him.

Personally, I don't like how mcl writes grief, I don't think they know how to dose it without losing their hand, so it comes off as shallow for me, but I guess it serves as another thing: Chloe was loved by Rayan, but Candy needs to be special. The player needs to feel special.

Which brings us to this part of the conversation:

"Every women had something of her own. I saw her everywhere. And yet, it's been seven years. Since then, I have been unable to get involved with another woman, in a new relationship. Even in a simple friendship."

"Until… I met you. I don't know… For the first time, I met someone who has none of her. For the first time, I felt entitled not to think about her."

I understand why in an otome game is important to get the romance right and make the player feel compelled to play the character's route, after all, who wouldn't want to feel special, even if it's only on a game - that's why we have so many MCs or main characters in videogames that are heroes, that cares of others or the place they belong to.

However, I will say, maybe they should've worded it differently, maybe it's not so much about feeling entitled to not think about her, but when I realized, I wasn't searching for her traits on you, I wasn't thinking about her anymore, I was ready to move on. But this is just how I would've done it, just so it would come from Rayan the agency of the "healing" - in another words, he had healed himself before he met Candy and falling in love with her was just another evidence of that.

Which brings us back to episode 17 of Love Life, our Honeymoon episode (and pay attention to the parts that I will mark in blue):

"Y'know, I honestly didn't think I would get over losing her. And then after you got in my classroom and into my life. So, yes, I should have a star up there shining for me. Because, with you, I understood the meaning of true love. And it wasn't the same of what I had with Chloé."

"Sometimes, I think, if the story/timeline was another, if I had met you first before I met her... She and I would've been simply friends, without anything else between us. If fate hadn't been so cruel with her, it would've ended like that anyway, actually. I think she would have been happy to see me so happy these days."

"Just like I would have been in seeing her meeting someone else just as important as you're for me. And when I think of her today, is in this way: as a friend that left too soon. And that, of course, I still get a little with my heart tight. She was someone wonderful/beautiful. There's still some of her in me. But, when I met you, I was like a ghost."

Only Rayan to friendzone the dead.

"Thanks to you and our love, she just became a beautiful star, just like my father..."

At first I thought he was saying that he never really loved Chloé and that Candy made him realize that (How? Don't ask me, he doesn't say how), but thinking about this post and re-reading everything made me rethink my first impression of it.

It's not so much that he didn't loved Chloé, but admittedly, and for reasons that Rayan didn't say, he thought love was something else and he thought he loved her because of that notion, and then his notion of love changed because he met Candy and now he thinks that love is truly what he feels for Candy.

I, as someone that played all of his route, can't really say or even figure out how he would've come up with that reasoning.

Was it because for the first time ever, he had put someone else on his top priority, or at least in a more important position than his reputation and career (which he deeply cares for)? But wasn't he a passionate person to begin with? So isn't it natural for him, once he was sure he fell in love for Candy, to put her as his top priority?

Was it Candy presence alone in his life, simply being there, what made him create that notion? How she taught him that?

I don't know, because the way they fell in love was pretty quick and pretty normal I would dare say - normal not in the sense of, he was her teacher, normal in the sense there was nothing remarkable about their dates, the way they sneak around or in their conversations.

I think if he had realize that falling in love with someone new meant that he had "healed" from his past trauma, that he only had feelings for her because he was ready to have feelings for someone again and the sense of normalcy and easiness he felt in being with her was all he ever wanted after going through so much sadness and heartbreak, then, it would make more sense and sound more realistic, maybe?

But again, they wanted to spin that Candy was special, she needed to be the one that changed him, that was like gravity to him and he could not resist the pull of her.

“... It's just that, with you, I never got under the impression of playing any kind of game. Because I had a lot to lose. Before I met you, I had accepted to never love again. I didn’t want to ever risk lose someone ever again... And, above all, you came to enroll in my course. I looked up and knew that my certainties were worthless...” (episode 14 LL)

That's why I talked about his career before.

They set up Rayan to be someone that loves his work, that cares about his reputation and his career, if not, as he only thing he had since he moved away from his family and was living alone.

Risk it all for Candy was to show that he wasn't playing, he wasn't just trying to get a kick out of it.

And knowing how he got after when Marina actually got him fired, how much of a mess it made him, this put things even more in context, it shows that truly, risk it all for her was no joke, even thou, they used to be pretty reckless about it (never gonna forget their first kiss, crazy, both of them).

Which brings me to one of my favorite parts of dialogue in Rayan's route, episode 15 LL, the marriage proposal dialogue:

"It’s funny... for a long time I thought that love was like a burning fire. And I even thought that, in my case, all that was left was ashes of it. Until I met you and I understood that I didn’t know anything. That I have got it wrong in my whole life. With you, I understood that love is like a stream/flow. A wave that breaks again and again without stopping. And that drags everything wherever it goes. You imposed yourself on me like an evidence. In the calm. I knew it right away. But I only understood it this well later on."

Think that love was like a burning fire: it lights up, it shines bright, it consumes itself, then it becomes ashes and there's nothing left of it.

Ouch, Rayan. 😢

Not to mention the destructive nature of fire, but I don't think Rayan or the person who wrote this scene thought it like that necessarily, I think it had more to do with how fragile and how it consume itself, which feels more how like I would expect from how Rayan described his relationship with Chloé before: intense, too quick to think everything through, the fighting, the feeling that it wouldn't last anyway.

Meanwhile Candy is like a strong wave or a strong stream, his love for her dragged everything with it: all his reasoning, his principles and scruples, the risk of losing his reputation, his career, AND breaking again and again, because it didn't matter if he had build any walls to keep her out in the begining, she somehow brought it all down.

Two kinds of love, one feeling less truth and lasting than the other.

While it would've better, in his head, to have remain just a friendship with Chloé, with Candy, there was no way for it to have ended just in friendship, it would always be more.

You can see the contrast between his feelings for Chloé and his feelings for Candy, how it was different and the key word should always be different.

It surprised me to see him talking about their wedding too, Rayan and Chloé married young and in a hurry (we will never know why), meanwhile, Rayan found Candy in a stage of his life when love wasn't even in the table and when it finally came back to the table, Rayan wanted everything, he wanted celebrate it having a proper wedding ceremony and all.

But those are little subtle things that they left out in the air, instead of saying it so clearly like they did so many times before.

Personally, I don't think would've make any sense for Rayan's character to haven't love Chloé, considering they built a life together before he even met Candy, the same way, I don't think we could've ever thought that Rayan loved Chloé more or even the same way he loved Candy.

Cuz, Chloé and Candy not only met him in different moments of his life BUT ALSO, they totally two different women, it would go without saying it.

But I guess, they wanted to make it even more screaming that it was the case, which I can understand why.

I mean, people thought that Rayan had really tried something with Marina, outside of his route: which for those people I always told it would be impossible.

It would go against what they presented to us about him during that first dialogue in episode 8 of UL and it would represent a contradiction in the writing itself. It would bend the rules that they set themselves to follow too grotesquely. Not to mention, MCL never gave other love interests to the Lis that stayed on the side lines.

Unless, of course, they had set things up that we would understand that Marina was such a special existence is moving like Candy - which, okay, I could've accepted it, but they didn't so. That's why I was so sure of it.

Y'know, have to read so much back in his route to make this post made saying goodbye to his route so hurtful but also so fulfilling, I always loved how they wrote him, despite having my criticisms, I am happy that I got to experience Rayan's route from the start to end.

If you haven't played his route like ever, I totally I encourage you to do it now that we got it all. xD

[pearl484-blog]

My main issue with senti-monsters

Alright, so first of all, this is not an essay about the senti-Adrien, senti-Felix, senti-Kagami, senti-Chloe or any other senti-person theories. There are a lot of complex theories and debates and discussions about the ethics and moral implications around it. 

No. This is an essay about missed potential surrounding senti-monsters, which is probably one of the least relevant things you’ll need to hear about it. This isn’t about poor execution or predicting where the show will go. It’s not about someone who did something right (well, not completely), or anything like that. In fact, I am veering far away from most of the usual senti-monster topics. So, if you’re hear to discuss humans born of senti-monsters or anything like that, this is not for you. Sorry.  

Now, first of all, I have opinions about the name senti-monster. Now, it’s not what you think. I’m not one of those people about to advocate for using senti-being here. No. I’m here because I want to ask: “Where are all the monsters?”

My introduction to the Peacock was a black eyed woman ripping a monstrous butterfly made of grief painfully out of Hawk Moth against his will. This thing was huge, massive, and scary. It’s design was creative and clearly reflected that this thing belonged to Hawk Moth, and he didn’t have any say in its creation whatsoever. 

My next few introductions were promising. A lolipop monster made out of a need for processed sugar from a baby, and I read that very well, and a simple monster made from hunger which was nearly impossible to defeat, which yeah, giant frog that’s basically a moving mouth. I can get behind that. 

But unfortunately, we also had Senti-bug, and that kinda derailed things. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Senti-bug, and the moral implications behind her and her destruction are beautiful, and it raised the sentiment of “Good God, the Peacock’s ability to create life and take it away in the snap of their fingers is horrifying”, but alas, it set us down the path of human monsters, which is most decidely not monster-like. 

See, what I thought was going to happen was that the senti-monsters would be representative of deeply buried emotions, the dark, forbidden secrets that you shamefully keep locked up and hidden away for no one to find, and that their creations would be a very unpleasant experience for their hosts. 

The design team has proven with it’s design ideas to be more than capable of being up to the task. The akumas especially are amazing design wise. Most of them have a unique silhouette, are recognizable at a glance, and you can tell important character traits with them. (Except Vanisher who does not have a distinct character design and doesn’t even have their own episode). There are some pretty obvious flops, yes, but even those often have a reason. Some of these akumas do not look good at all, but usually there’s a reason behind it. Ie, Aspik’s hood is concealing his hair, reflecting his need to hide himself and a visual reference to Hawk Moth, Reflekta’s design is almost painful, but memorable, and the Bubbler reflects his childnessness of both his worldview and his influence, blowing bubbles. 

However, it was clear that akumas were begining to stagnate. It was obviously getting harder and harder to come up with realistic reasons why a character might lose their cool, and the loads and loads of characters was starting to become worrisome if the series wanted to keep up the momentum and focus on the characters they already had. 

The obvious solution, I believed, was making the Peacock target deeply buried emotions, setting up a one-two punch. Either you could become an akuma, losing yourself to your flaws in a moment that you lose control, or you could bury your feelings until they became strong enough to become a senti-monster, a living embodiment of a feeling you never wanted revealed. This would start a catch-22, either you deal with your emotions in a healthy way and resolve them, hopefully in a way where neither of you lose your cool, or you avoid it and it turns on you. 

This would begin to force people to move things very quickly or suffer the consequences. Long simmering grudges you know are stupid and pointless get brought to the surface. Deep fears come alive. Secrets you keep hidden from everyone come alive. It could also affect the heroes too, without completely incapicatating them. For example, Adrien’s hidden resentments could come to life, or Marinette’s crush may decide to confess regardless of her say so. Even better, you could take inspiration from Fu’s montster and make the host have a strong emotional reaction to them. From panic to anger to fear to hopelessness. It’s rife with drama.

Now, originally, the Peacock was meant to be used for good, so how would it work if they were heroic? Well, the same way Shadows work in the Persona series. Yes, each character rejects their shadows, but when they accept their Shadows, they become allies. Yet, when rejected Shadows are a problem. It’d be a case of Bad Powers, Good People, where the Peacock’s abilities are dark and creepy, but could be used for good, not just for combat, but for self-growth, and it’d absolutely deserve the moniker senti-monster.  

This would let us see the heroes deal with talking people down in their own ways, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Queen Bee could cut straight to the heart of the matter and tell you what’s going on, no frills, but that might also hurt people and she might have to learn how to stop being callous but still use her skill at dissecting people and seeing their flaws. Ladybug may be kind and compassionate, with a lot of people looking up to her, but she might have a tendency to miss the point. Rena Rouge may be confident and have an internal strength that allows for no bullsh*t, but she can also be pushy. Carapace may be calm and non-judgemental, but might need to work on pushing people out of their comfort zone. Chat Noir would be great at this, being that he is very naturally empathetic, and tends to understand what people are dealing with quickly, but he’s also conflict avoidant, and would be screwed if it happened to him. 

Plus, I’d be able to see monstrous representations of problems and each character needing to accept terrible parts of themselves or be afraid of others learning about it. And I’d get to see fan material that leans into monsters and that creative side a bit more. Like debates over what Alix’s monster would be or represent, or fan art of Rose’s sick looking unicorn design. 

[floraracoon]

Gems of Dupont - Rewrite

Since it's been bothering me these past few days, this is a list of how I would rewrite a fic I wrote last year, called The Gems of Dupont on Ao3 if I were to do so.

Spoiler Warning if you want to read the fic then read this

Premise: There is a group of students who while anonymous, are known to have a lot of power. Namely, they have a history of getting rid of unsavory figures in the school or associated with it. Their current targets are Marinette (stalking, minor abuse of power, and her actions towards her 'rivals'), Adrien (bystander, actions as Chat Noir towards Ladybug, etc.), Lila (obvious), Alya (misinformation, slander, and something else), Mme. Bustier (bystander, emotional manipulation, poor teaching methods), Mr. Damocles (fraud, neglect, etc.), and Fu (facing the consequences of his own actions)

Problems: A scene that I did not flesh out enough to show the reasoning behind it, too many characters involved in the takedown, illogical plot points, involving characters that make no sense, and moving too fast due to me losing interest but not wanting to go on hiatus or abandoning the work.

The Rewrite:

Establishing the Gems -

The sign of the Gems (a wreath of gems on Mme. Mendelieve's door) is shown, causing rumors to spread through the school

Adrien, Alya, and Lila ask what they are, giving them the full explanation

The Gems are a group of six that every year go through and gather evidence of people's wrongdoings, before giving them to those that would cause the most change. This most of the time results in someone leaving the school. When they are done, gems are left where the person sits. Each gem represents something, and while there are six Gems, there are more gems.

Chloe scoffs out loud while Lila internally scoffs. Chloe thinks she is immune, as she has never been hit before. Lila scoffs because she thinks she hasn't been caught, to begin with.

Cut to a group chat, where two people are arguing over the nicknames they have in the chat. "Eye candy" seems particularly frustrated and claims they bring something more to the team than their good looks.

Safety Measures -

We see a week pass, with people becoming more and more anxious waiting for something to happen. Some sign that this wasn't a fluke. The first week is always when it is that they send out the warnings, where are the warnings?

But one day, as Nino walks in, having not arrived with Alya due to her running off to record an akuma fight, he finds a note sitting on his desk. The note contains a list of numbers and timestamps. A small doodle of a gem sitting in the corner.

On another day, Rose finds a small slip of paper that has Prince Ali's phone number on it, also with a small doodle of a gem in the corner

Luka opens a note left on his bed. He finds the chords for a song, with no lyrics. Each page has small annotations of cherry blossoms in places where lyrics would be, and a doodle of a gem in the bottom corner.

Kagami is surprised when a note falls out of her locker, with a message in brail saying "He hesitates, where is his backbone?". A gem is engraved on the page

The first -

Alya is the first to go down. After a fight between her and Nino that results in their break up, she learns that her parents got a similar note to the one that started the fight.

The numbers and timestamps were coded for different videos on the Ladyblog. The one for Nino was instances where Alya endangered him and those around him. The fight was about her recklessness, and her want to get up close to akuma fights with little regard for her safety.

The one her parents got, however, was every single time she had endangered herself.

The two of them were busy with work often, so they only really watched the videos Alya sent them. Often those were the ones where she stayed safe for the most part or had a lot of views.

So they opened her blog, to investigate what these timestamps were, only to find their daughter once again throwing herself into situations she shouldn't have. Along with countless posts trying to figure out the identities of people who were trying to protect the city and a single post that had them questioning her integrity.

The next day, Alya was pulled into distanced learning. She was also grounded until further notice, with no blog posting for one day per timestamp listed.

Will continue this post tomorrow, as this is getting really long

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

How would you rewrite Chloé without redeeming her? Just curious.

Well, for one thing, it would involve taking Lila and just...

Doing that to her.

One of the biggest problems with Chloe being an full-time antagonist from Season 4 and onwards is how often she and Lila fight for screentime when they're basically the same character, a high school mean girl with an irrational hatred of Marinette. Cutting her would make it much easier to give Chloe more screentime and focus as an antagonist.

With that being said, I wouldn't really change much about Chloe's appearances for the first season. She's still snobby, egotistical, and throws around her father's name like it's a boomerang. The first half of Season 2 would also be the same until "Queen Wasp". The attempted train-heculiar manslaughter still happens, only Chloe doesn't transform in public, and she faces a lot more backlash for what she did from the heroes, with Ladybug being especially furious because her parents were on board.

If you want, you could have Ladybug and Cat Noir argue about how to treat Chloe after this, with both sides making points about how she's capable of becoming better or worse, each side citing their experiences with her in their civilian lives. That way, it places more ambiguity over Chloe's arc, establishing that nobody knows how her development could go.

Queen Wasp happens the same way, only you can throw in something about the Miraculous making it hard for Hawkmoth to determine who's underneath the mask. For now, Ladybug isn't sure how to really punish Chloe other than taking away the Bee Miraculous, because as much as she hates her, she doesn't want to use her influence to make anyone's life miserable.

It wouldn't matter anyway, as in "Malediktator", the public now has a low opinion of Queen Bee, which helps drive Chloe to want to move out of Paris with her mother, attempting to make up with her the best she can. It's not perfect, but Chloe is so upset, she wants to get out any way she can. Malediktator still attacks, but Ladybug only chooses Chloe because of how desperate the situation is and she doesn't have time to find a new candidate and give them the basic rundown with Cat Noir being captured. Queen Bee of course saves the day, which helps public perception of her, they still have the party, and she helps out in "Heroes Day" too, becoming almost as beloved as the other heroes.

This leads into Season 3, which shows Chloe starting to act more like a hero in public, partially because she likes the attention, but also because she is opening up to the whole "helping people" thing. This shows her starting to get better, with fragments of her older self motivating it. We see her helping out a few times like the other temp heroes, only her cover is blown by Gabriel or Nathalie, who choose to target her during "Miraculer". Once again, that episode is basically the same, with Chloe rejecting an Akuma, Mayura attempting to get Queen Bee to join the dark side, and Ladybug benching Queen Bee for now.

This seems to have a negative effect on Chloe, as rather than see it as being for her own safety, she sees it as Ladybug taking away her chance to be liked. Chloe seems to be aware that people hate her, and as far as she sees it, compared to her civilian life, people seem to care more about her as Queen Bee than Chloe Bourgeois. The ironic thing is that Chloe believes that she needs the Bee Miraculous to be a hero, not seeing how simply doing good things in her civilian life counts too.

The second half of Season 3 is also the same, with Ladybug recruiting new temp heroes, only with Chloe slowly growing more jealous at other people getting to be heroes and not her. It's clear that while she initially means well, Chloe is starting to lean more into the idea that the best part of being a hero is the attention, not helping people.

The context behind "Miracle Queen" changes a bit, as instead of whatever the hell Heart Hunter was supposed to be, it's just Malediktator, the first Akuma Queen Bee ever fought. Chloe gets excited, as this means Ladybug has to help her, right? Nope. In an echo of the last time, Ladybug only recruited Ryuko because she was easily available, not just to ruin Kagami's date with Adrien.

This sends Chloe over the edge, as she now believes that Ladybug never valued her as a hero, making it easy for Hawkmoth to temp her with the Bee Miraculous. Chloe then becomes Miracle Queen, essentially saying "If Ladybug thinks I can't be a hero because of that ridiculous identity rule, then nobody else gets to be a hero either!"

When things are all resolved in a similar manner to canon, Ladybug and Cat Noir are disappointed with Chloe, as they actually thought she was getting better, only for her own impulsive actions to endanger her own allies' identities and forcing Ladybug to become the Guardian. Ladybug tells Chloe's parents what happens, and Andre grounds Chloe, meaning she can't use her Daddy to get out of trouble next season. Not even Adrien and Sabrina are willing to stand by her side after what she did.

From then on, Season 4 shows Chloe needing to become more resourceful, coming up with convincing lies and plans to get her revenge on Ladybug for supposedly ruining her life (when she doesn't get that it was her own fault this happened to her), and to generally go back to bullying her classmates. Eventually, she becomes a confidant of Gabriel because he recognizes how smart she can be when she puts her mind to things. The whole idea is that after being one of her greatest supporters, Chloe becomes one of Ladybug's greatest enemies.

There. With that, I put more focus into Chloe becoming better, showing her slipping into a darker mindset, and setting up how she would act after facing consequences for her actions in addition to providing a different form of character development by showing her becoming smarter as a result of her setbacks and embracing her new role as a villain. It's not perfect, but I think I put more thought into the betrayal than the writers did.

What did you all think? If you have any ideas for how an irredeemable Chloe could work, I'd be open to hearing it.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

What would happen if there was arrival swap between Lila and Alya?

OOOOO! I dont think Ive done that before.

(What if Lila and Alya's arrival was swapped) (part 1)

-Of course Lila is someone that goes great lengths to get attention, so rumors about her are spreading even before the first day, but since it is the first day, its not as much of a big deal since a student showing up in the middle of the school year is more of news than at the beginning.

-Marinette's first day is the exact same until Marinette showed up for class. (So the macrons, running into Fu, etc)

-Lila clashes with Chloé. Yes, for Lila realized that at this moment people saw Chloé as this mean threat and no one to mess with. How do you become popular with others? Call her out. Lila was the one that defended Marinette from chloé and what luck, Marinette was grateful. Plus with Lila's over the top actions with it, most of the class cheered her on.

-Chloé decides to dismiss marinette, because her new target was Lila. How dare this upstart try and act like she's the queen on campus.

-Marinette gives Lila the macron and they become friends. (No splits) Lila smiles as her plan to win over the class worked

-Everything with Adrien is pretty much the same, with him getting caught and running into fu.

-Ivan becomes stoneheart and the introductions of the kwami are the same.

-The difference, Lila wasn’t going to see the akuma. She already was popular and was at home plotting.

-So ladybug and chat noir dealt with the akuma like in canon but messed up meaning the akuma was still out there.

-There is no Ladyblog since Alya wasn’t there to inspire it, and Lila has no interest in starting one. Since the heroes are too new to have a consensus on Lila decides not to make any lies about knowing the heroes.

-Adrien arriving at school in part two. Chloe is all over him, but this time Lila is also in pursuit. She knows Adrien’s a model and that’s her ticket to bigger things. Trying to bond with him about being a new student too.

-Chloe still pulls the gum prank but Adrien tries to fix it. Resulting to the annoyed Marinette.

-Side note, seeing how focused Lila was on other things, Marinette doesn’t slide her miraculous into Lila’s bag. Especially when Lila is telling her to move past the gum thing. Something which Marinette takes issue with.

-stoneheart happens the same way. And since Marinette didn’t get rid of her miraculous she still has it, but doesn’t transform right away. It’s only after seeing the danger and realizing she just can’t leave it alone. She transforms

-Ladybug and chat noir face stoneheart and the Hawkmoth appearance. In which Ladybug gets encouraged and she has her speech. Though not as confident as in canon. She still gets the job done.

-Mylène and Ivan get together in canon.

-The next day Lila asks Marinette what she knows about Ladybug, since she is new to Paris and suddenly heard of the hero. Marinette says that ladybug is new and doesn’t have much information. Lila makes a note to find out more, maybe use for later.

-Marinette doesn’t do the chair thing, mainly because even with her newfound heroic confidence. It’s not as grand as it is if Alya was there.

-Adrien does feel bad about the gum thing. And thus the umbrella scene happens. Because Nino is still there to help him realize things.

-Marinette realizes she got a crush on the boy. But with her friend Lila, who also has interest in him, that’s not good at all.

[geewintg]

okay despite me hating on mlb for how they butchered the series' plot bad, I'm still kickin and gigglin over the halloween special LIKE

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

man, the alternate universe's characters slap in every bum. The role reversal with adrien and gabrielle, with how gabrielle was more accepting of his wife's lose while adrien was stuck on his mother's death and he hated his father for moving on. This dynamic made more sense in my opinion because adrien, a teenager, a boy who lost a mother-figure when he was young, would be bitter about the loss, not knowing how to cope yet with certain emotions and seeing his father who looked moved on already amplified it further because in this sense, it made him lonelier. Gabrielle would have prob tried to talk to him but knowing how the usual mentality of people in this age goes, they would stubbornly believe and cling onto their own wishes and wants, seeing his father's act of acceptance as betrayal and already forgetting about his mom. He doesn't have the mental and emotional maturity yet to cope with the loss hence he walked down the path which was clawnoir. Unlike in the orig series where gabrielle was the one hell-bent trying to get his wife back while adrien just wanted his father to spend time with him.

I mean, it's not like this dynamic did not make sense. It's just that I saw the appeal more with the role reversed as this is how things with the lost of a family member goes. AND CAN I JUST SAY,

IT HAS THE TROPE OF MR POPULAR HAVING A CRUSH ON A NORMAL BAKER GIRL AUGHHHGHHGH it's tickling my brain in all of its weak spots I CAN'T this is just so cute honestly

that act of "admiring you in a distance" is so 😩😩 PLEASE WE COULD HAVE SEEN MORE but then in their masked forms, it's "I'll punch your face the moment I get an opportunity" they fight so badly it's not even what you can say a banter, they fight with raw emotions that scrapes your ears like chalk scratching on a board exactly just like teens who are going through a lot and the moment they revealed their identities, there was a hint of comfort that clawnoir awkwardly tried to portray because in the end, he realized, they were just two people underneath the mask who have rough things they're going through, added the fact that emo!marinette said she'd wish to replace marinette of this universe just so she could experience the good things here (of course it's also the fact that she's his crush which was another major factor to consider but I wanna pretend that the former is the explanation for angst factor xd)

they literally had this enemies to lovers trope going on, partners who are only forced to cooperate by a higher rank but could care less about the other. Can I just say that the emo!duo had more character arc than our mains for so many seasons? In this little flashbacks and small trinkets of what happened in their world, we are able to see more depth to their characters and progression to their plot. If only we could have focused more on the emo au, I would have jumped right into that ship to sail me away! Instead, we got an ending that focused on the actual au that we have. LIKE I DO NOT GIVE AF! Would give anything to see about the father-son angst of the emo au instead, like imagine, having to see that you've been fighting your son all along and because gabrielle, being the way that he is, would be crushed knowing that his actions are partly responsible for his son's path to darkness

also, I wanna tackle about emo!marinette's, when she said

that means that these two never have been formally introduced but she showed her frustration about adrien agreste being a menace and arrogant. Meanwhile, adrien only talked about specifically being mean to nino. But it's prob a chloe-marinette dynamic with adrien being stuck up to everyone but only targeting nino specifically. That's why shadybug groaned when hearing adrien agreste despite having no one-on-one interaction with him because as we saw, he became timid when he saw her identity. There would be no way he'd harm her theoretically. He may have struck a conversation with her sure, but considering his already-bad reputation, emo!marinette would have thought of him as a bully much like chloe, knowing they're childhood friends and would want as much to avoid him (this is literally what happened in s1e1 with adrien trying to remove the gum off marinette's seat that chloe did) emo!marinette is basing it off on two-peas-in-a-pod friendship, plus with what he did to emo!nino, no doubt marinette would see it that way.

also! I just wanna add that what if, what if the emo!adrien is dressed like we see him as is because of marinette who took on the emo aesthetic (if we did not include the halloween special vibe lmao), he did that style in order to get close to her and to have some ground topic to start a conversation. People tend to stick with people of the same interests after all.

man, there's more I wanna say about this halloween special but let's leave it at that for today. I also wanna hear what you guys think about this special episode? Because honestly, there's so much potential for this au and the fics AUGHHH THE FICS JUST IMAGINE

[intercoursefluids]

BMFBMLBME Chapter 26

It had taken an unfortunate amount of time for Lila’s crimes to be discovered but, they had been revealed.

And now they were left with the fallout.

M. Damocles had decided to give the class the rest of the day in the room. He’d pardoned them from any work for the rest of the day and let the rest of the teachers know not to disturb them.

They were all victims of Lila and he had felt it best that they have as much time as possible to sort through what happened to them together.

There had been many tears.

Tears, shouts, curses, promises for revenge.

When Lila had been taken away with the power inhibitors her abilities had been cut off entirely, even the lingering magic.

Everyone’s minds were clearing, the lies becoming more obvious, the torment they had subjected Marinette to more painful.

No one was okay.

It wasn’t their faults. They had been under the control of Lila’s powers.

That didn’t make them feel better though.

It had been their words that attacked Marinette, their hands that stole and hid her belongings, their feet they turned and walked away when she needed them most.

At the base of everything, it had still been them.

They had betrayed Marinette.

Nothing Chloe said could convince them otherwise.

Her swears that Marinette would forgive them had only made the class cry harder.

It had been a very long day.

And now, they were still together. Walking out of the school and marching towards the Dupain-Cheng bakery.

They were going to tell them everything and beg for forgiveness for what they did to their daughter.

Chloe was the first to walk inside, noting how hard Sabine tried to smile at her.

Noticing just how much concealer she had used in an attempt to hide the dark circles from under her eyes.

“Hello, dear. It’s nice to see you.” Sabine said softly, eyes focused on Chloe.

“Hello, Madam Cheng.” Chloe replied softly, walking further into the bakery and letting the rest of her classmates follow her inside.

Sabine’s eyes widened as everyone pilled in, Sabrina flipping the closed sign on the door so no one would walk in during the conversation.

“What is this?” Sabine asked, curiously, but not suspiciously.

That only made everything harder.

“Madam Cheng. We- We really need to talk to you and Monsieur Tom.” Adrien said, rubbing his arm.

Sabine looked at them all cautiously, sensing the somber mood.

“Tom!” She called out, never taking her eyes off the kids. “Come here, please.”

It hadn’t been an easy conversation; more tears had been shed during the explanation.

How Marinette had been targeted by a serial killer, how she had been a meta and used her abilities to hypnotize the class into betraying Marinette.

How sorry they were and how they knew it didn’t change anything, but they really were sorry.

The tears only got worse when Sabine and Tom took to hugging everyone, reassuring them that they were victims too, just as much as their daughter had been.

How they forgave them for what they did and how they knew Marinette would too, if she knew what happened.

No one left dry-eyed. No one left alone.

Parents came all the way to the bakery to pick up their children, taking their own and a few others with them to drop them off on their ways home.

No one wanted to be alone in the light of what happened.

There was comfort, in having the others nearby.

To know they weren’t alone in what happened.

They felt horrible, for what they did.

But, worse than that; they felt dirty.

Their minds had been taken control of, manipulated to do Lila’s bidding.

Their bodies had been stolen from them, used to hurt their friend, to make them do things they would never do otherwise.

They had been violated in a way they hadn’t known was possible.

And they didn’t know how to move past it, how to heal.

The reveal of what Lila had been doing had opened up several other investigations in order to determine just how many people she had manipulated.

Everyone who had ever interacted with her was spoken to, classmates, relatives, co-workers. Everyone was alerted to what she had done.

It didn’t take long for word to spread outside of the school.

Outside of Paris, France.

It took three days for the news to reach the internet.

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[celestiall0tus]

Lady and the Scoundrel - Chapter 2 - Archery

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            Chloe puttered about her dorm room while Barkk ran around like an excited puppy.

            “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! It’s time! Oh, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time! Archery!” Barkk exclaimed.

            “Are you finally going to explain why you pushed me to sign up for this awful sport?” Chloe asked.

            “Soon. Oh, so very soon. Hurry. Archery!”

            Barkk zoomed around before she ran out the door. Chloe sighed, grabbed her beginner gear, and headed after Barkk. She slowly followed behind Barkk, who did everything short of bouncing off the walls themselves. She watched Barkk summon her own bow and arrows before they stepped out into the commons room. She tilted her head as she attempted to examine the high-tech bow that Barkk danced around with.

            Chloe focused on Barkk until she heard whispers around her. She gulped and ducked her face down. She walked slower while Barkk bounced ahead. She shielded her face while she listened to the whispers about Barkk and her eccentric nature. A small breath of relief came from her that none of the whispers were about her.

            “Hey, Chloe, right?” a girl asked.

            Chloe stiffened. She slowly turned to see Erika behind her. “Oh! Hey! Uh, Erika, right?”

            “Hey, you remembered! I was worried you forgot. We did meet just that once.”

            “Oh, you know, it’s… nothing. Uh, what are… what are you up to?”

            “Heading to archery. You?”

            “Oh, uh, the same.”

            “Really? You don’t seem the athletic type.”

            Chloe snorted. “Oh, I’m not. I honestly think it’s stupid. I mean! Not that archery itself is stupid, just… forget it.”

            “Right. So, where’s your sister? You’re usually glued to her.”

            Chloe sighed and pointed ahead where Barkk continued to dance around.

            “Ah. You’re only doing this because of your sister, aren’t you?”

            Chloe crossed her arms and looked away.

            “I get it. I’m much like yourself.”

            “Wait, you are?”

            “Yeah. I’ve got a pair of little siblings. Our mother is the same, but we have different fathers.”

            “You do?”

            “Yeah. I also have a few older siblings. I was actually the baby until my mom remarried and had two more. Now I’m the middle one.”

            “And… and how’re things in your family? Do you… do you all get along? Do you all love each other?”

            The questions escaped Chloe before she realized what she said. She grimaced and ran ahead to join Barkk. She managed to keep a fast pace to keep up with Barkk until they arrived at the makeshift archery range. She stayed close to Barkk as the other students arrived, including Erika. She kept her head low as the instructor began. She half-heartedly listened until Barkk jostled.

            “Me! Me, me, me! Me!” Barkk cheered.

            Barkk didn’t give the instructor a chance to respond as she ran up to the targets. She notched an arrow, took a deep breath, and fired it. The arrow landed in the center of the bullseye. The instructor congratulated and asked her to move back, but Barkk fired off more arrows, each striking their target dead center. She grinned and fired off a volley that decorated the targets and sundered her previous arrows.

            Barkk bounced and bowed before she stood before Chloe again. Everyone stared at her for a moment longer before the instructor took back over. Chloe zoned in and out of the lesson as she processed Barkk’s display. Chloe moved on autopilot once they began shooting practice until the end of the lesson. Chloe grabbed Barkk and headed back to their dorm room.

            “So, Chloe, what’d you think? Wasn’t that awesome?” Barkk asked.

            “How did you do all that?”

            Barkk squealed. “Oh, it’s rather simple. See, once Velze cast off our shackles we got everything back. Everything!”

            “So, what? That means you’re a master level archer?”

            “That and more. See, the little toys that your human ancestors forced on us are gone. Now we have our proper tools back. And by tools, I mean weapons.”

            “Wait, does that mean that’s my tool now? I don’t have that little ball, but a freaking bow?”

            “Yes! Isn’t it amazing? Oh, Chloe, you’re going to love it. There is nothing like taking aim and hitting your mark from meters, if not kilometers away. Nothing can escape Cupid’s arrow after all.”

            “Cupid’s arrow?”

            “Oh, yes. Remember? I’m love. Granted my arrows don’t make people fall in love. Well, they can when I shoot them, but when you do, they are very much a weapon. Like, you could kill with them.”

            Chloe winced. “I can?”

            “Oh, but you’ll be fine. Just don’t aim for anything important. You know, like the heart, brain, stomach, lungs, any major and vital organ really.”

            “That’s just normal people, right? Not holders.”

            Barkk laughed. “Oh, no. No, no, no. No. See, you can very much hurt other holders with my arrows. It’s much like Longg’s blades, Orikko’s sickles, and Memoria’s trident, just to name a few.”

            Chloe snorted and crossed her arms. “That doesn’t sound very love-like if you can kill.”

            Barkk snorted and laughed. “Oh, pup, love is the most dangerous thing on this mortal plane. Sure, there’s hatred, but even hatred pales in comparison to pure, unconditional love and passion. I mean, all the best crimes are often committed in the heat of a passionate moment… or, you know, a person warped by the mental and societal constraints of a society at large that makes them believe they’re a monster.”

            Chloe raised a brow. “I… how do you know that?”

            “Oh, I know everything regarding love, love gone wrong, and love gone right. Those cases start with an often kind, loving kid warped by society at large, but are ultimately blamed for their faults when its society’s doing. You know, much like how you were treated. But no more! I’m here. Back, better than ever. Don’t you agree?”

            “You certainly are… different.”

            Barkk squealed. “Good. I love different. Different is good. Different is unique. Different is, well, different!”

            Chloe grimaced and looked away. “I don’t know about that.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I mean… how do you handle the whispers? How do you handle people talking crap about you? They were doing that earlier today while you were out there dancing and acting a fool.”

            Barkk considered. “I honestly didn’t notice.”

            “How? I noticed. How did you not?”

            “Well, I don’t care. Their opinion ultimately means nothing to me.”

            “How can you say that? What people say and think about you mean everything!”

            Barkk shook her head. “What people say about me will never carry any weight when I know who I am.”

            Chloe tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

            “Chloe, I am Barkk, kwami of love and extension of Velze. I was the lastborn that resulted in Velze’s ‘death.’ I am the very personification of all things love, from the sweet, tender first love, to the deadly, obsessive love. That is all I am and all I’ll ever be. Because of that, I don’t care what mortals think. But at the same time, that’s really all I’ll ever be. Unlike you.”

            “What… do you mean?”

            “Chloe, you’re mortal. You aren’t the same person from your past, present, and future. You’re meant to live your life ever changing, ever learning, like Velze. You’re meant and allowed to grow. To become your own people and all that encompasses.”

            “I mean, can’t you too?”

            Barkk shook her head. “No matter what, we’re our concept. We’re not allowed to be more than that. At least, now we are allowed to be that thanks to Velze. Honestly, it makes me a little jealous at times.”

            “What? How?”

            “Because I’ll never know what it’s like to feel true despair, anger, or even happiness that isn’t because of love. Every decision I make is because of love, not for any other selfish reason. Even with archery. I know you aren’t the sporty type, but I wanted to share a piece of myself with you. Even if you didn’t love it, I wanted to give you that chance because I love you and want to share who I am with you.”

            Chloe’s eyes widened as her face softened. “And you do all this because at the end of the day, you don’t care what people say or think, right?”

            “Well, I care what you think.”

            “But you said you don’t care what everyone thinks or says.”

            “I said I don’t care what people think, but you are not part of the people. You are Chloe. You are my holder and my friend. I’ll always care what you say because your opinion is important to me. If I’m going to listen to anyone, it’d be you. As it should be.”

            “As it should be?” Chloe echoed.

            “Yes. Love listens. Love is patient, and kind, and warm. Never forget that.”

            “I’ll try not to.”

            Barkk smiled and nuzzled Chloe. “I love you, Chloe.”

            “I love you too, Barkk.”

            Barkk smiled and took Chloe’s hand. “Come. We have much to study and prepare for because I have a surprise for you next weekend.”

            “What are you planning?”

            “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you. C’mon, time to roll up our sleeves and work!”

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[jpitha]

Dreams of Hyacinth 27

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In a flash of pure white light, Tinker Toy linked into the system.

As soon as she appeared, she was immediately pinged.

"Contact! Active Ping! Someone is out there and sees us!" Tink, Eastern, Nick, Hat and Chloe are connected into Tink's mindspace. Tink glances over her shoulder at something nobody else can see. The nuance of ship sensors in the mindspace can look odd.

Chloe looks over at Tink, surprised. "Who is it?"

"Scanning... The ships have Xenni signatures. Eastern, take the data and run it against my database of known ships."

"What? Um, okay, sure." Eastern started scrolling through the settings in her seat, trying to figure out where the data was. In Tink's mindspace, it looked like a console had appeared in front of her, and she was sitting at it. "Got it!" Eastern sounded triumphant. "The three ships match Xenni Warfinders! They're not exactly like how you have them Tink, but they're close enough that it says they are probably new versions of Warfinders." Eastern looked up from her console. "Chloe, you said the wouldn't be a problem!"

Chloe crossed her arms and sounded testy. "It's not a problem... yet. They just pinged us. Tink can you open a channel?"

Outside of the mindspace, Nick and Eastern look at each other while strapped into their acceleration couches. Nick moves his hand to sit up and start loosening the seat. Nick can hear Chloe tip her head up, creaking in the tight seat. "Keep your seat tight Nick, we might have to start maneuvering to avoid missiles."

"I'm sending them a standard greeting and request to transit their space right now. Hold please." Tink bustles with activity.

Much sooner than Nick or Eastern expected, She calls out again, oddly calm. "Missiles inbound, we're getting painted with targeting lasers. I need everyone to assist with defense, we're going to try and duck them."

As Tink called this out, Nick felt his stomach sink past his toes. He heard the characteristic double boom of the juke charges firing to slide out of the immediate path of travel. At the same, time, over the speakers all over the ship he started hearing...

"Music?" Nick looked around, confused.

"Yeah, it helps me when I'm trying to time the shots and to duck out of the way." Tink sounded distracted, but since she still had the ability to answer Nick's question, he assumed things weren't that bad."

The song had a driving beat and felt very classic, almost antique. It sounded fun, but Nick had no idea which one it was. Tink had the volume up very loud. "I don't know this one."

Even with all that was going on and all the effort that Tink was putting into work, she managed to sputter, "You don't know Adam Ant?!? He's a New Wave classic. This song is called Goody Two Shoes, you should listen while we try not to die."

Nick could hear Chloe scoff over the loud music. "Tink you still do this? It's not funny."

"I never meant it to be funny Chloe. It really helps."

"Unless any of you all have an opinion, I'm going weapons free and going to defend myself. Nick, Eastern, get on sensors, I need your help choosing targets."

Eastern's voice over the comm sounds calm. "Wait. Tink, before you go weapons free, how many missiles did they fire?"

"I see two missiles inbound, Eastern. You're already on sensors, check and see if anymore are coming."

Eastern runs another local scan, trying to build an accurate picture of the area around them as Tink ducks and dodges and runs her engines at random intervals to try and defeat the already incoming missiles. The sweep finally complete, Eastern shakes her head. "Tink, there are only two missiles incoming. Nobody else has fired anything else, and the Warfinders turned off active targeting. Their weapons look free but..." Eastern looks up at everyone in the mindspace. "Tink, I don't think this is an attack. I think it's more... a warning. Can two missiles actually hurt you?"

"Hmm, it depends on where they hit, but no, two missiles isn't really a threat." Tink sounds thoughtful as he replies to Eastern.

Eastern disconnects from the sensor suite and looks at everyone in the mindspace. "Uh, Tink, Chloe, Nick? Are we just going to... shoot back at the Xenni? We are kind of in their space, and we didn't actually ask permission to be here. Dodging their missiles is one thing, but they haven't broken out their exawatt laser batteries or slug throwers yet either. I feel like if we shoot back, we're going to cross a line."

"I mean, they did shoot first..." Tink trails off. Nick notices that Tink's movements are slowing down and leveling off too. Once the missiles went past and no new ones appeared, there was no point in dodging things that didn't exist.

Eastern nods to herself and connects back to the communications suite. "I'm going to contact them again."

After a few minutes, the radio crackled to life with a reply. "Unknown Human starship, name yourself and state your business, you are trespassing!"

Eastern keys the mic. "Uh, this is Tinker Toy, and we were attempting to reach a Gate."

There was a pause, longer than could be accounted for with their distance.

"...Why?"

Eastern looked over at Nick and Chloe in the mindspace. Chloe shook her head no very slowly, while Nick shrugged. Hat held up his hands in a 'don't ask me' kind of expression. "Uh... it's complicated. Can we stop shooting and talk for a bit? We noticed you stopped firing missiles, and we haven't returned fire, just dodged."

Again, a very long pause. This time it was nearly an hour. While they waited, Nick, Eastern and Chloe unstrapped from their acceleration couches and configured them back into seats. Tink's support frames were bustling around cleaning up the books that fell, though most of them did stay strapped into her bookshelves. Eastern felt a small measure of pride that they stayed where she and Tink put them.

Finally, the Xenni replied. "You have permission to dock at our station attached to the Gate. A delegation will meet you and we can discuss why you trespassed into our territory in a calm and civilized manner. We do not wish to bring humanity down upon us... again."

"That's not likely." Hat muttered darkly.

"Shh" Chloe glared. Hat raised an eyebrow and met her stare.

Eastern rolled her eyes and keyed the mic to the Xenni. "Thank you. We will dock, and meet with you." She closed the connection and looked at Nick and Eastern. "So... Has anyone here ever met a Xenni? I haven't."

"Me neither. I remember reading about the War in school, but that was it."

"I met one before." Chloe stands and stretches. Nick thought to himself about how odd it was that someone with an artificial body was always stretching and trying to move their muscles. "They're just... people mostly. They're a bit odd looking to us, and there are nice ones and assholes. Their culture is more... hierarchical than what we tend to do? They place a lot of weight on ceremony. But, they're reasonable and we should be able to talk them into letting us visit the Gate, especially since we're alone and aren't part of any particular polity."

Nick leaned forward and disconnected his cybernetics. Tink's support frames had printed and installed a clip and holder to the acceleration couches so that Eastern and Nick could be connected while also secured. It still made his neck itch to be connected to them all the time though, so Nick had a tendency to disconnect as soon as he could. "Are we going to tell them that we want to touch the Gate?"

Eastern shrugged. "At this point, we should probably be as truthful as we can. I don't see why we wouldn't tell them. They'll probably chalk it up to 'some strange human thing'."

Chloe practically blew up. "You don't see why? Maybe because we're not sure that if another human touches the gate we won't wind up with another Empress who can also give orders that can't be obeyed?"

Eastern stands up and crosses her arms. "Chloe. You said that nobody was going to be here, and if they were they weren't going to mind that we showed up. We get here and they fire missiles at us. We talk them out of shooting more and now you want to keep things from them. I'm beginning to wonder if you're not worried enough about things that you should really be more concerned about."

Chloe raised her eyebrow and looked at Eastern. "It will be fine Eastern, trust me. I've done this lots of times before."

It was at that point, that the door to the command deck opened. Medicine Hat... walked in. He was wearing a body, and it looked just like the body he wore in the mindspace, dungarees and flannel and all. Nick and Eastern looked on in surprise, but Chloe rolled her eyes. "Tell me Chloe, how many times have you gone with two humans to a Gate and came across the Xenni who fired upon you, then agreed to meet on their station? Three? Four?"

Chloe glared, and said nothing. Eastern grinned broadly. "Hat! You had a body onboard? You're going to come with us?"

Hat nodded and smiled warmly at Eastern. "Yeah, I keep this old thing around for special occasions. I don't want to miss the excitement and I don't have any support frames like Tink does, so I decided to get small for a bit." He stretched and twisted his shoulder. "It's still as cramped as I remember though. I won't be in here long." He looks over at Chloe. "I still don't know how you can do it. I've been decanted for only a few minutes and I'm itching to get back."

Chloe sat back down in the chair and looked away from Hat. "I feel the other way when I'm a ship. I'm too big. Everything feels wrong. I can't control myself enough."

Hat tipped his head and raised both eyebrows very slightly. "It takes all kinds, I suppose." One of Tink's support frames walked in, and looked at everyone. "I'll go in this frame. I can split my attention and keep everything running in case."

"In case what?" Nick looks at everyone. It feels like they all know something he doesn't."

"Just... in case." Tink's support frame clicks their heels and they salute dramatically.

The trip down to the station attached to the Gate takes a couple of hours. Chloe and Hat spend the time arguing about what the Xenni want while Tink practices splitting her attention among the frame while also being the ship. Nick and Eastern head back to their room to rest.

"This whole thing feels off to me, you know?" Eastern hands Nick a mug of tea and joins him on the bed. They're both sitting up. Nick has a pad on a fold out table on his side of the bed. Eastern sees that he's reading up on the Xenni.

Nick sips his tea. "How does it feel off, hon? I think that's just how Chloe and the AIs are. They're not people, so maybe we're wrong in expecting them to act like people."

Eastern shakes her head. "No, it's not like that. Chloe just isn't worried. About anything I think. But mostly about this. Twice now she's told us that everything was going to be fine, and it wasn't. If I hadn't spoke up, she and Tink might have started firing back. Tink is an old Starjumper and sold weapons, so I'm sure she has a trick up her sleeve or two, but going three to one against Xenni Warfinders? Nick, I looked them up after we figured they weren't going to fire any more missiles. They have a crew of five thousand, each! They're equipped for boarding action. They can drill into a ship and attack the crew. They were used to devastating effect during the K'laxi war." She looked at Nick, and he felt her eyes boring into him. "If they wanted us destroyed, it would have happened, there would have been nothing we could do about it. No, they let us survive."

Nick sighs. "Well, then what's up? Are they going to lure us onto their station and splat us there?"

"No, I don't think so. I think at this point they're more curious about what our deal is, just what we're doing." Eastern looked off into the distance. "I wish I knew what they knew about Melody. Did they ever learn about her? What she could do?"

"I suppose we'll just have to... ask them"

"Ugh, I don't think I want to do that either." Eastern downs her tea, finishing it. "I can't come up with a way to explain what we're doing that doesn't sound wild."

Nick also finishes his tea. He puts the mug down and leans against Eastern. "I think we're just going to have to tell them the truth. It sounds wild, but what we're trying to do is wild. If it works... then we'll have a dose of Nanites and you might be an Empress."

Eastern leans back onto Nick. She can feel his breathing slow as he relaxes. "You're touching that stone too, Nicholas North. I'm not going to be an Empress alone."

He chuckled and Eastern felt the rumble in her chest. "Does that make me an Emperor? The reports said that Melody said it was only ever women in charge. Maybe I'll be an Empress too!"

Eastern scoffed. "It's just a title, Nick. An Empress or an Emperor needs an Empire to rule. Otherwise they're just a megalomaniacal idiot."

Nick and Eastern sat together in their room, just being around each other until Tink pinged them over the room's comm. "Nick? Eastern? We're going to dock in about 10 minutes. Come on down and join Chloe, Hat and my support frame outside the airlock, okay?"

Nick sat up and yawned. He had almost fallen asleep on the comfortable bed. "Sure thing Tink. We'll be right down." He stood and dramatically held out his hand. "Come my dear. Let us go accept our destiny, and rule the galaxy together."

Eastern giggled and took Nick's hand. "Of course. But, we shall do it, together, okay?"

Nick nodded. "Together."

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[lovysmtalks]

Bottoms up!

Back from the dead with a new story

TW: death

Men.

Marinette hated them.

Rich, poor, entitled, spoiled, all of them were brats in the girl's eyes. All they were good for was to brag and show off. All talk no action. 

They can't take "no" as an answer and are just so irritating.

Ever since she was a child, the opposite sex did nothing but make her regret living and did everything to make her despise them more.

Her father was a loving man, he gave her everything she needed. Until she was 6, she saw his true colours in an argument with her mother.

*flashback*

"SEE SHU? SHE'S NOTHING LIKE ME, SHE'S A CLONE OF YOU! I DONT WANT TWO OF YOU ANYMORE! I WANT A CHILD THAT'S MINE, NOT YOURS." Her father yelled at the smaller woman who couldn't even speak, she was just covering poor Marinette's ears and his screaming got louder and louder.

You could tell he wasn't sober, he smelled horribly and had lipstick marks all over his shirt and neck

"You two faced liar. I did everything for you and all you could say is that this daughter isn't yours? You were there when I gave birth to her, when we found out I was pregnant. How could you say such things you." Her mother spoke calmly, not trying to fight fire with fire

"Ooh, now I'm the bad guy? Listen you ungreatful bitch, I took you in when you had nothing! I took care of this failure of a child because I'm sure as hell she's not mine! You're such a fool to ever have belived I was in love with you! All I ever felt was pity" he started to lose his balance, he raises the bottle of alcohol that he had in his hand and hit- not sure what, 

Little Marinette closed her eyes in horror and heard the impact.

She felt drops of something wet hit her head

The girl opened her eyes and she could believe her eyes... 

Shu's face was bloody, the bottle being stuck in her head. She fell backwards hitting the table 

All Marinette could do is stare, stare in horror, stare in disbelief.

The man screamed in horror of his own actions, he backed away slowly, then rushed out the door

"Mommy...? Mommy are you ok? Does it hurt" Marinette got closer to her not moving mother

She touched the glass, cutting her small hand in the process 

"Ouch..." She yelped, realization hit her hard and tears started going down her face

**hours later**

The police has arrested the man and the medics announced her mother's death

Little Marinette was taken into custody then send to a foster home until she was able to be send to an adoption center.

Years passed and she was adopted by Sabine Cheng, an amazing woman, who owned a small bakery in the city so called Paris.

Marinette was supposed to start a new life, with a new family, new people and a new city. 

But

The past couldn't be just erased. The little girl had nightmares for years on end. 

She was send to therapy, her adoptive mother tried everything to help the little girl, to make her happy.

A couple of smiles per month brighten up the small woman, it meant the world for her to make Mari happy again.

But Marinette's hatred for men grew as when she started school, she was the target of bullying. 

She was called bad names, made fun of for not having a father. Her (adoptive) mother's name was something common for the kids to say. Insulting them both.

Mari didn't see the point in standing up for herself. She didn't feel anything, so why bother get in more trouble. 

She let all those things slide, not like if the other kids knew anything about her past would make things better.

So she just sat silently in a corner of the class, until 8th grade, when a new girl has joined her class

The new girl's hair was blonde, and her eyes were a beautiful baby blue colour. It complimented her face quite well as the ponytail flung from side to side as she walked.

Marinette thought she was beautiful. 

From what she knows, the girl was the mayor's daughter, Chloe Bourgeois.

The blonde seemed to be really talkative, made friends with everyone in the class, besides Mari, as she just nodded when Chloe introduced herself.

Everything was ok, until the second lesson. When the clock rang, two boys jumped on Marinette's desk and started talking

"Yo fatherless, stay out of the new girl's ring, you aren't worth her time nor friendship, got it? Don't get your hopes up, no one would wanna be friends with a freak like you." One of the boys spoke as the other one laughed

"Hey! How dare you say she's not worth my friendship! Who do you think you are to say YOU are worth it?!" the class gasped as Chloe snapped at the two boys.

"why would someone like you wanna be friends with someone like Marinette-no-father-Cheng? You haven't met her yet! She's a freak, she never shows any emotions either!" One of the boys in the class jumped in the other twos defense

"Well from what I see she's better than all of you! You all seem like selfish brats who know nothing about minding their own damn business." Chloe walked up to Marinette who has her headphones in her year and grabbed the girl, dragging her away from the class.

The two of them arrived in the bathroom, Chloe was breathing heavily in anger, as she pinned Marinette to a wall and then backed away.

"Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous! How dumb are you, why aren't you defending yourself against those assholes?!" Yelled the blonde at the a bit taller girl.

Marinette took a deep breath

"Why would I defend myself when I don't feel hurt by what they're saying, they are nobodies who know nothing about me. So why bother, may I ask?" She finally looked at Chloe

Chloe's jaw dropped a little at Mari's words.

"Well it's really annoying. If you keep being their punching bag, they will see you as weak. Ignorance isn't always the best tactic when it comes to this stuff y'know?" She felt sympathy for Marinette, Chloe herself knew how it was to be more with one parent while the other one was close to never there.

"I guess you're right" Mari chuckled.

Chloe's face felt hot all of a sudden, she was in awe seeing Mari (kinda) smile 

"Be my friend. I'll protect you." the blonde raised her hand to shake Marinette's

Mari's face could be read as shock, but she shook it.

*Fast forward*

The two girls became best friends, inseparable and feared. 

Once they moved to Françoise Dupont, they remained the same, but weren't as close (publicly) as Chloe wanted Marinette to make more friends, and people saw Chloe as a spoiled brat, since she was the mayor's daughter.

Mari felt upset that her only friend had to be distant to her only for her to make friends, but she fell back into her old habits of not talking to any guy- or anyone at all.

*Flashback end*

Mari was 17 now, tall and gorgeous girl. Still in class with Chloe, still best friends and going strong.

The classroom bell rang, gathering all the her classmates in the room.

A girl named Lila's tales could be heard in all of the room. 

Marinette tried exposing her some years back, but no one cared about what she had to say. The class saw her as a jealous person, who was envious of Lila being friends with "everyone".

So she sat down at her desk, looking through her phone, bored, texting Chloe about their plans for later today.

Miss Bustier walked through the door. Late as always. But it finally shut the teens up. Everyone going back to their seats.

"Goood moooorning class! I have announcement to make."