#this one is also twice as annoying. ladybug wants the other one back

[rainyram]

chat blanc but instead of evil/french he’s just slightly more mischievous/italian

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Illusion

You know, It's really sad how this is a Lila episode, and she somehow isn't the most annoying character to come out of it.

Let's get into the fifth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Illusion

We start off with a news broadcast where several people are interviewed about the recent developments this season. There's an attempt made to show differing perspectives, but while half are recurring characters who are confident Ladybug and Cat Noir will beat Monarch (Xavier, Mr. Damocles, and Alec), the other half are antagonistic characters who either blame Ladybug for everything going wrong or are too stupid to care about the bigger picture (XY, Chloe, and Bob Roth).

This is one of the overarching problems with the show, its refusal to show any nuance in its arguments. We already know how easy it is for the writers to blame Marinette for things whenever there's a conflict, but whenever there's an argument where both sides make interesting points, the opposing side is almost always represented by an antagonist or jerk who frames their view in either a condescending or idiotic way so it's easy for the viewer to brush them off, and the same can be applied to their side of the argument as well. Hell, it's already happened twice this season with Lila and Chloe (Multiplication, Determination). It just comes across like the show is pretending to act like its conflict is deeper without actually showing any real nuance with it. I get that some arguments aren't morally gray, but if you're trying to discuss Ladybug's past failures, put more effort into showing how the people of Paris would see something like this without knowing the full context.

Also, this is a minor thing, but I actually like how when we see Alec on the talk show, he's wearing a wig like the one he had in “Wishmaker”, and has the same positive outlook on life he had at the end of that episode. For a show that usually plays loosey-goosey with its continuity, it's surprising to see the writers actually acknowledge the character growth of someone as insignificant as Alec.

Congratulations, Miraculous Ladybug. You managed to give a very minor side character a consistent arc. Now if only you could put the same amount of effort into writing your main cast.

We cut to Adrien's room where, shock of all shocks, he isn't exactly a fan of his image being used for a high-tech ring without his consent. He storms off to see his father, but it turns out that Gabriel is experimenting with the idea of not being such a terrible father for once. He's making breakfast, saying that Adrien can call him “Dad” now, and even admits that he's been very neglectful towards his son ever since Emilie “disappeared”. Yeah, he's cooking breakfast in his white suit and haircut that makes him look like a grandpa for some reason, but hey, at least the kitchen isn't on fire.

Of course, Gabriel still isn't really good at comforting his son, as seen with his response to Adrien's concerns about Alliance.

Adrien: Speaking of which, Dad, I'm not really comfortable with having my face on all these rings. That's actually why I didn't want to be a model anymore, to avoid that. Do you understand?

Gabriel: Of course, I understand, my son. But that's the point; it's just an image, it's not you! And since this image frees you from your obligations, we, the Agrestes, are able to spend more time together. But if you'd rather everything went back to the way it was before, just say the word.

Adrien: You're probably right.

Gabriel: You'll see, my son. Alliance will bring us closer.

“I know you're concerned about me using your image for something that I could have hired literally anyone else for, but if you would rather go back to being a model on a strict schedule, just say the word.”

Father of the year, ladies and gentlemen.

We get a decent interaction between Marinette and Alya where they discuss ways that Monarch could be giving Miraculous to his Akumas, unaware of what the Alliance rings do. Alya comes up with an interesting hypothesis that Monarch is using the Dog Miraculous to swipe them back, and honestly, that sounds like a much better plan than “develop a cutting-edge AI ring and hope whoever I akumatize had enough money to buy one”. I like this bit, as it shows the two thinking of ways to stop Monarch beyond beating whatever Akuma he sends out next. It honestly could have been a really interesting story arc to see Marinette, Cat Noir, and Alya learn more about how Monarch is using the new Miraculous he got instead of having us know what he's doing already.

After class ends, Nino talks to Adrien about an underground resistance he's forming with his friends, deciding to give each member a condiment-themed title.

Alya: What's up with the sauces?

Nino: What's up is Ladybug and Cat Noir don't have us to help them anymore.

Alya: (nervously) Um... uh... what do you mean, “us”?

Nino: Well, us, you Rena Rouge, me Carapace! (Alya kicks Nino's leg underneath the table) Ouch! What's the big deal? We can tell Marinette and Adrien we used to be superheroes. It's not like we have any Miraculous that Monarch could steal from us. The only ones who need to protect their secret identities are Ladybug and Cat Noir, not us. And anyway, I already told Adrien about Carapace.

Adrien: (chuckles nervously)

Marinette: Adrien knew?! Alya, did you know that he knew?!

Alya: What, no, I swear I didn't know at all! (kicks Nino's leg again)

Nino: Ow! Come on! He's my best bud, I can tell him stuff! You and Marinette tell each other stuff, don't you?

Alya and Marinette: No we don't!

Yeah, remember how shocking it was for Nino to reveal that he and Alya were Rena Rouge and Carapace to Adrien in “Rocketear”, and how we thought this reveal would play into something big like the Season 4 finale, possibly splintering the trust several characters had with each other? This is what it culminates in. Wasn't waiting over a year since that plotpoint was established totally worth it for that gag that once again ignores the secret identity rule?

Also, just because you don't have a Miraculous, it doesn't mean Monarch can't target you like he did last season (Optigami, Sentibubbler), you dumbass.

For the first time in God knows how long, Lila actually becomes relevant when she asks to sit with the four, only to be rebuffed by Marinette and Nino. Using some more condiments and food as props, Nino explains his plan.

Nino: We're gonna film an akumatization.

Alya: And how are you, Comrade Ketchup, gonna be in the know when and where this akumatization takes place?

Nino: Easy, Comrade Beurre Maître d'Hôtel. I'm gonna make it happen.

Yep, this is the plot of the episode, people. Nino's going to try and get someone akumatized. Now I know what you're all obviously thinking: Isn't this cruel?

Adrien: Isn't that cruel?

Alya: Totally! To make someone suffer just to discover Monarch's technique? Super cruel!

Nino: No, it's not! You forget Ladybug always fixes everything in the end with her magic ladybugs! The akumatized victims forget what happened to them.

Oh yeah, this is totally ethical, you guys. Who cares about the emotional trauma an Akuma victim would go through, much less any civilians endangered by their rampage?

To make things even better, guess who Nino wants to get akumatized?

Okay, putting aside what we, the audience, already know about Gabriel that Nino doesn't, why would he think pissing off one of the most influential fashion designers in the city of Paris is a good idea? He says he's targeting him because it's easy to do so during parent-teacher conferences, but why not target someone else who has been akumatized more often than him, like Xavier/Mr. Pigeon? I don't think the idea of a more morally gray plan to stop Monarch is a bad one, it's just that this plan is so stupid, and the writers only go over the ethical implications, and that said plan is so ludicrous, Nino is basically asking for a restraining order.

While Adrien and Marinette agree to Nino's plan, Alya only hesitantly goes along with it, but unbeknownst to any of them, Lila was overhearing their conversation, so she goes to tell Gabriel what they're doing. During the conferences, Marinette barges in and pretends to trip and drop some pizza onto Gabriel's clothes, and I'm going to assume that either the pizza was cold of Gabriel is really good at keeping a cool head because there's no way taking a hot pizza to the chest wouldn't hurt like hell. Adrien and Alya come in with more food, and we get the one funny joke of the episode with Alya half-assing her performance as the half-heartedly throws some cake onto Gabriel's suit. Pretty funny how Nino is conveniently the only one who isn't taking the risk by attacking Gabriel in front of his teacher by filming the whole thing, isn't it?

Gabriel has had enough and does a 180, planning to take Adrien out of school and somehow, Marinette blames herself for going along with the plan... even though she was the only one to not approve of it, while Adrien and Alya did, and even then, the latter two were very hesitant. It turns out this was all part of Gabriel's plan, as we see him transform into Monarch as soon as he gets to his lair and uses Trixx's power to create a Mirage of his civilian form, having a breakdown so dramatic, I'm surprised he didn't end it by saying, “YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, MARINETTE!”.

The illusion of Gabriel turns into the Collector again, and now he supposedly has the Horse Miraculous' Voyage as a power. Adrien and Marinette transform into Cat Noir and Ladybug respectively, and try to fend off the “Akuma”. Back in Monarch's lair, we learn that he somehow has the ability to unify with five different Miraculous at once, choosing to do so with the Bee, Mouse, Horse, and Rooster Miraculous. Why is he able to do this now?

Monarch uses Voyage and heads to the sewers, activating Venom before using Multiplication to create eight smaller clones of himself, finally using Sublimination to give the copies the power of invisibility. Strange, wouldn't wanting to be invisible count as a wish? While looking for “the Collector”, Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm, getting a bag of shredded cheese. The two chase after the illusion, only to fall through a Voyage portal into the sewers, where Cat Noir is almost immediately stunned by one of the clones. Hey, it took five whole episodes this season for him to be incapacitated by an Akuma to pointlessly raise the stakes this time! It's a new record! Ladybug throws the cheese to reveal the clones, who are then chased off by some nearby rats.

Monarch goes back to his normal form, and after a small pep talk, the illusion pretends to reject the Akuma entirely before falling into the water. The real Gabriel detransforms and then pretends to have gotten out. So Gabriel tricked the heroes with his foolproof plan... except for the fact that Ladybug and Cat Noir should have recognized the use of Venom, the hidden clones of the Collector when the video Nino got only said he had the Horse Miraculous' power, the akuma somehow purifying itself when Ladybug still needed to de-evilize it in “Rocketear” and “Penalteam”, the fact that Gabriel should be soaking wet from falling into the water, and the—okay, you all know where this is going.

Meanwhile, Nino sees the footage of the illusion and sees what he believes to be the way Monarch gave the Collector the Horse Miraculous' powers. Nino then apologizes to Gabriel for attacking him, Gabriel forgives him, and Nino invites him into the Resistance, with a bunch of new members. The final scene reveals that in addition to Nino, Alya, Marinette, Adrien, and Gabriel, the Resistance now has Max, Kim, Rose, Juleka, Ivan, Mylene, and to Marinette's horror, Lila. Also, there's a post-credits scene where Gabriel explains what he did to Tomoe when literally everyone watching was able to figure it out.

Okay, so let's summarize. The first mission for Nino's resistance involved assaulting a private civilian, was easily discovered before it could even be implemented, was just as easily foiled by an illusion, now Monarch and one of his allies have infiltrated the alliance as moles, and Nino isn't even aware that his plan was a colossal failure. This resistance isn't exactly going to be like the Rebel Alliance, is it?

Yeah, this episode sucked. It's easily the worst one so far in my opinion. There were a handful of decent moments and ideas here, but my God, the story was just terrible. Morally gray subject or not, it's hard to get behind the heroes when they try to intentionally piss someone off for a plan that the audience knows is going to fail, especially a plan as stupid as Nino's. This episode features Nino at his most obnoxious and unlike Alya, Marinette, and especially Adrien, he doesn't even feel bad for what he did to Gabriel when it ended up being (as far as we know) completely pointless. It feels like the writers wanted to gloss over the ethics of Nino's plan by making Gabriel the victim, because if it was anyone else, it would have made him look like a colossal prick. The fact that he learns nothing and thinks his moronic scheme was a success really doesn't help.

The other characters thankfully weren't as bad. It seemed like the writers were trying to show some self-awareness by having Alya, Marinette, and Adrien object to the plan in one way or another, but it never really went much other than them begrudgingly going along with it, much less calling him out for his actions. At the same time, they all got some decent moments, like Alya and Marinette's discussion about Monarch and Adrien struggling to convey his feelings about the Alliance rings to Gabriel.

It's also kind of weird that it took us about five episode into the season for Lila to finally be relevant again after she did absolutely nothing for the last three episodes of Season 4 and the first four episodes of this season. It was only three and a half years since “Ladybug”, the last major Lila episode premiered, right? But hey, at least the writers didn't overindulge in the dumb Lila lies like her other episodes, and was used more as an informant to kick off Gabriel's counter to Nino's plan.

Putting aside how terrible Nino's plan was, Gabriel's plan still had a lot of problems to it. Like I already mentioned, it's a little strange that Ladybug and Cat Noir never talk about the tiny clones they fought, or the fact that Cat Noir was stung by Venom. I can kind of suspend my disbelief by saying Ladybug was too focused on the battle to think, but why the hell didn't Cat Noir say anything? You would think after working alongside Queen Bee and Vesperia, he would recognize what being stung by Venom must look like. Yeah, Ladybug and Cat Noir didn't know Monarch can now use more powers for some reason, but it still really bothers me, because they should know the Collector can't multiply himself. It's also strange that he made his trick so hard to find when you would think it would be more obvious to see

But overall, this one was just a chore to get through. It feels like the writers saw how much some people didn't like Nino in “Rocketear”, and were like, “You call THAT character assassination?” And speaking of...

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... NINO

Was there ever any doubt? The dude talked about his identity in a public place, nonchalantly blew him and his girlfriend's cover when he had no reason to for his Resistance, tried to get his best friend's dad akumatized while not caring about any potential damage, showed no remorse for what he did when his plan blew up in his face, tried to tell Ladybug and Cat Noir about what he learned while they were fighting the Collector, and all that was for a plan that didn't even work because the intel was discovered with ease, to say nothing about how he unintentionally let two enemies into his own Resistance. I've seen a lot of stupid decisions in this show, but never have I seen a single episode where a character makes screw-up after screw-up and doesn't even realize how much of a colossal moron he's being. With the past five episodes I covered and awarded Biggest Idiot Awards to (Ladybug, Alya, Xuppu, Mr. Damocles, and Luka), it was more them not seeing the bigger picture. Here, Nino is honestly trying to help Ladybug and Cat Noir, yet he failed at his job in every way.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

ML Fic: Soulmate Survey Part 34

Man these parts are getting harder and harder to churn out. A lot of plot points converging and real life ramping up. Hopefully you all enjoy this. Please comment your thoughts on the chapter. And if you really liked it, Reblog it. Thats the best way to get others to see it. Also, Please let me know your thoughts. Your comments fuel me.

(Master Post)

_____________________________________________________________

Masquerade surveyed the classroom. Her former classmates now her masked servants. It was fitting how they were all silent. Before, they listened to her because she told them exactly the things they wanted to hear, now they listened because she had power over them. It was kind of poetic in a way.

She looked across the classroom, she realized that there seemed to be more people missing than she initially realized.

“We are missing someone. Aside from Marinette, who is missing?”

The controlled classmates looked amongst themselves. Trying to figure out who was the one that was not in the class.

“Is it Chloé?” Miracular inquired, trying to answer her master’s request.

The akuma looked around.

“Huh… Oh yea, she isn’t here. Well she isn’t important. I was thinking someone else.” Masquerade answered. She looked to her most recently made akuma servant.

The Bubbler, the akumatized version of Nino stood motionless. As if he was not registering what was going on.

“Bubbler? Do you know who is missing?”

The multicolored akuma said nothing. Not even looking in the direction of the mask maiden.

“Bubbler! I order you to answer me!” She commanded with fiery rage.

The akuma turned to face his master, now responding.

“Adrien is missing.” The bubbler answered, his voice robotic and as emotive as a speak and spell.

“So, Adrien isn’t in the room. What a shame. I was planning on turning him into my handsome little knight.”

Masquerade thought for a moment.

Has Adrien been akumatized? Lila wasn’t sure she had ever seen or heard about him getting akumatized. She knew that the class had pretty much gotten hit at least once or twice at some point from what she had heard and read from the ladyblog. But if that goody-goody Marinette hadn’t been akumatized, Adrien likely hadn’t been akumatized either.

“Alright my servants! We have a new mission. I want you to lock this school down! No one is allowed in or out. Anyone you find, bring them to me. If they can be akumatized, then they are joining our cause.”

“Time breaker. Guard the perimeter outside of the school. Anyone outside of Ladybug and Chat noir trying to get in. Tag them, but only if they are suspicious of what’s going on. Stay hidden otherwise.”

“Timebreaker nodded and began skating out of the room in a rush.

“Horrificator, once Timebreaker is outside, seal all the exits in the main building.”

The masked monstress nodded and sped out of the room.

“Dark Cupid, Stoneheart, Princess Fragrance, Miracular and Reflekta. I want you to split up check all of the rooms and bring me potential akumas.”

The five akuma nodded and made their way out the door.

“Gamer and Robostus. I want you to hack into the airwaves. I want access to every Electric device in Paris when I give you the signal. But make sure to be subtle. I don’t want anyone to know about us until I tell you.”

The two nod and start working to get that ready for her.

She focuses her attention to the bubble making akuma that was giving her problems earlier.

Considering how hard it was to break him down, it was understandable. She had saved him for last for a reason. Because he was the hardest one to crack.

He was a relatively calm individual, able to keep a level head. But even he had his weakness. His confidence. Once that was shaken, seeing his entire class taken, knowing his girlfriend was under her control, he couldn't resist another moment. In a way, it was the most satisfying charm on her bracelet.

“Now Bubbler, you are going to go and locate Marinette and Adrien for me. Put them in a bubble and bring them to me. Help that girlfriend of yours.”

The bubbler nodded yes despite severe shaking. Seems even now he is trying to resist the control of the mask.

“Troublesome, but it is only temporary. He will break soon enough.” Masquerade mused to herself.

She looked at the near empty room with contempt. This was hardly a place where she could exact her vengeance. It was so… lame. Though a thought occurs as she realized who she had left standing at attention without orders.

“Evillustrator, I have a special request for you.”

________________________________________________________

“What is this?” Chloé screeched. “My daddy bought me the best phone plan in the city. How can I not have service right now?!”

The nurse felt a chill run down her spine. Could the akuma block out phone signals? Is that why there is no attention being given to the school? How could they call for help? How would anyone know of the akuma attack? Would Ladybug and Chat noir be able to help them?

The nurse started to feel herself going pale, she was just supposed to be a school nurse. Worst thing she needed to deal with was a scraped knee or give a kid an ice pack. Now she has a woman that collapsed on the bed and an akuma that is somewhere in the school. She had just moved to Paris a few months ago. It was her dream to live in the city of love, get her career going, find a nice guy, and just live the good life. But no one told her that supervillain attacks would be so personally connected to her situation? She had heard about this crap in New York and in America. But Paris? It was too much. What if Ladybug and Chat noir didn’t fix everything? What if this was where her story ended. What if…

“Hey!”

The nurse turned to her attention to the voice. It was the brash blonde teen that was complaining.

“You look like you’re going to pass out. Just a heads up, I am not taking care of you.” Chloé commented.

Angela felt her face heat up with annoyance.

“Listen you brat. I don’t have time to deal with your attitude. I have a woman that is out cold from exhaustion in a building with a hostile akuma.”

“Good, at least you aren’t going to faint. I don’t need any more whinny women fainting on me”

The nurse paused, did the girl say that just to help her not succumb to the grim situation?

Chloé started making her way to the door.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“You already got your hands full with the annoying assistant. I need to make a call to daddy. So, I am going to head out the building and try there. Try not to get ripped apart by an akuma, I still need more ice when I get back.”

Angela blinked. This girl wasn’t scared of the akuma. She was actually going out to do something reasonable. If she could call for help, it would mean that this whole thing blows over.

“Okay, I’ll stay here. Be safe.”

“Yea whatever.”

Chloé headed out the door.

Angela felt a ghost of a smile grace her face.

‘Maybe that girl isn’t a complete brat after all.’

__________________________________________________

The shapeshifting sentimonster growled as it smacked the locker. It lost both primary targets. And worst of all, Ladybug appeared to make this even harder. Masquerade needed to hear about this.

“Master, Marinette and Adrien have escaped my sight.”

The sentimonster heard a sigh of disappointment from the other end.

“It is fine Simularé, They wont be able to escape the school anyway. They will be found soon enough. If anything, this is a blessing in disguise. Having them be the last targets will have them bare witness to how devasting it will all be.” Masquerade answered. “Any news on Ladybug and Chat noir?”

“That’s the other bad news. Ladybug arrived, I am assuming that’s how Marinette managed to escape, and ladybug also took Adrien away as well. No sign of chat noir. But if you know one is here, the other is likely soon to follow.”

There was a brief moment of silence, as masquerade mulled over the information she had received.

“Actually, that works out well for us. Meet up at my location, I have the other students out looking for them, I need your power for something more important.”

“Yes master.”

Simularé shifted back into its phantom form, moving quickly down the hallway to obey her master’s request.

Just as it left, Ladybug popped out of a nearby locker. Relieved it didn’t notice.

“That’s not good, Masquerade likely got everyone in the classroom.” The red heroine said aloud.

She activated her communicator and tried to contact chat noir. But there was no sound.

“Damn it. No signal. Lila likely cut the communication as soon as she realized it.?”

“No worries Buggaboo, I happen to be on site.” A voice called out.

Chat noir jumped out of another locker to reveal he was there.

Ladybug felt a bit of relief at her partner’s appearance. She could tell he felt the same. Better a situation with two heroes.

“Been here the whole time?” The spotted heroine asked her cat crimefighting comrade.

“Just arrived a few minutes ago, I figured something was up, so I decided to take a quick peek. Cat curiosity and all that.”

“And you assumed it was with Collège Françoise Dupont?”

“It seemed like a solid guess.”

“Considering the track record, that is reasonable.” Ladybug conceded.

“Ever wonder why it is always this school and never any of the other schools? Paris is a big city. You would think Hawkmoth would decide to branch out to the other schools in the city.” Chat noir inquired as they started walking down the hall.

“I assumed its just a coincidence.”

“Shot in the dark, maybe he has a kid that goes here. He is pretty old” Chat noir dissed.

“I can’t imagine anyone that would want to date Hawkmoth.” Ladybug joked.

“What about the blue lady? She seemed crazy enough.”

“And now that image is burned in my mind. Thanks kitty.” Ladybug sarcastically commented. “Despite the mental scarring, I am glad you got here. Seems a repeat offender got herself an upgrade in the akuma powers department.”

“Lila.”

“How did you know?”

“I was reading the ladyblog, Alya did great work on that article.” Chat noir praised. He mentally applauded his quick thinking.

“Right, kind of the reason I felt the need to keep an eye on this place. But sadly, I was too slow.” Ladybug responded a tad gloomy.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. We will finish this akuma before lunch.”

Ladybug heard a footstep from the end of the hallway.

“Get down!”

Ladybug tackled the cat hero down. Just narrowly avoiding a neon pause symbol, which now suck on the wall.

“Looks like Lila has been busy.” Chat noir noted as he turned his face to the direction of the attacker.

Ladybug looked at the akuma. The white mask covering her friend’s face. Lady Wifi was back.

“Alya…”

The two heroes got into a fighting stance and prepared to take down this controlled akuma.

________________________________________________

The halls were empty and lifeless as the two visiting teens made their way cautiously down the halls.

“Oddly quiet in here.” The fencer commented. “What do you think Luka?”

“Well last time we entered a place with an akuma in it, it was brimming with armored minions. Maybe this akuma has more stealth?” The Musician commented. “So, I don’t think you will be fighting as directly as you are use to Kagami.”

Kagami nodded at that, not exactly happy or sad regarding that remark. Her plan was to see if she could help her friends get out of the building, grab her textbook, and get out. She wasn’t really that interested in fighting a superpowered foe at this moment in time.

The two ceased speaking when they heard approaching footsteps.

“Someone’s coming.” Luka noted.

The two duck into the nearest room.

The two stayed close to the door as they listened to the sound of the approaching figure.

Kagami dropped to the floor silently as to check and see if she could get a visual.

She could only see what appeared to be costume boots of a larger figure. Which made the expert fencer believe it was not friendly.

The figure stopped, looking at the door. The two teens felt their neck hairs stand on edge as they did their best not to make a sound.

After what felt like an eternity, the figure passed the door without checking. Once the sound of his footsteps could no longer be heard, they let out a sigh of relief.

“That was way too close for comfort.”

“Agreed. I would prefer a direct confrontation next time, much less nerve-racking. “

The two carefully open the door and exit the room.

“Seems we found the akuma.” Luka commented. “Now we just need to avoid it and.”

“You mean akumas.” Kagami corrected.

“Akumas?”

Kagami tilted the boys head to look in the same direction she was looking, and sure enough she saw a rather large rock like creature walking the halls.

“Oh… well that is bad.”

Kagami pushed him back into the room and closed the door. Locking it before the rock giant could notice them.

“I’m surprised.”

“By the fact there is an 8-foot-tall rock beast outside?”

“No, by the fact you didn’t try to fight it.”

“I don’t have a weapon.” Kagami replied flatly.

Luka raised a brow at the comment, unsure if the fencer was serious or not about fighting that thing if she had a foil.

“Is something wrong?” A third voice came from behind them.

The two teens turned around, preparing for the worst. Though they were relieved to see it was just an old janitor… in a Hawaiian shirt. Despite his odd dress, he did give off a kind aura. One of a trusting old grandpa.

They noticed that the room seemed to be a sort of teacher’s lounge, with a small counter with a sink and cabinets. As well as a fridge to keep food cold and stored. A place in the school where teachers would come to get a quick coffee or store their lunch.

“Oh good, you aren’t an akuma.” Luka sighed with relief.

“An akuma?” The old man asked.

“Yes, it is very dangerous out there right now. There are multiple villains outside. I would recommend staying put while we go out there and help handle things.” Kagami explained.

“Quite bold of you to go out there against those monsters.” The man responded.

“Don’t worry, we will be careful. We just need to make sure we can get as many people out as we can so Ladybug and Chat noir won’t need to worry.”

“Ah, how selfless of you. You both seem quite capable for ones so young.”

“You’re very kind, but we are just doing what we can. Our friends are out there and they need our help.”

Kagami goes to the door. Checking to ensure the coast is clear again.

The old man pats the musician’s shoulder.

“I am sure you two will figure a way to help your friends.”

“There are too many outside this room.” Kagami grumbled. If only I had a way to fight them.”

The mysterious janitor smiled.

“Say… I did happen to see Ladybug earlier.”

The two teens turned their attention to the old man.

“You did?” they asked in unison.

“Yes, she happened to drop something while rushing. Would you two be so kind as to return them to her when you see her.”

The two of them glance at each other and shrug. The old janitor might be senile.

“Sure… We can give it to her.” Luka assured the old man, trying to remain polite.

The old man moves to a closet, where out of view of the two teens, an elaborate chest with the symbol of the guardian’s decorates the top. He quickly gets two smaller boxes and closes the closet.

“Ah! Here they are.”

He hands the two a small box each. Their eyes go wide.

“They seemed important, so I didn’t want to just leave them on the floor. But I have a feeling you two will take good care of them.”

The two teens were engrossed by the boxes in their hands. They recognized them immediately. These were the boxes Ladybug used when handing out miraculous.

“Where did you find…?” Kagami tried to question, but noticed the old man was no longer there.

“He’s gone…”

“Actually, I am over here.”

The teens look in the opposite direction they were looking in order to see him at the end of the room getting a snack from the fridge.

The duo decided that maybe this old guy wasn’t all there after all and figured it would be best to go somewhere and utilize the ‘gift’ they were just given.

“Stay in the lounge where it’s safe okay?” Luka asked politely.

“Of course. I am not paid if I am not working.”

The two teens checked the door again, and once the coast was clear. They both slipped out of the room.

After he knew they were out of sight, the old man chuckled.

“The senile routine works every time.”

“Master, you really cut it close with that one.” A small turtle creature exclaimed as he popped out from the closet.

“The universe works in mysterious ways Wayzz. What are the odds that there would be an attack on the school the very day I decide to hide out as a janitor?”

“Considering the frequency of akuma attacks, very likely.”

“True, but how about running into two individuals that Marinette had picked to be heroes.” Fu followed up.

“That is quite a coincidence.”

The guardian pulled out his phone and noticed he didn’t have a signal.

“It seems I can’t get a signal to notify her of the reinforcements I sent her way. Likely it would be the same on her end. So, it is a good thing I acted in advance.”

Fu moved to the closet where he kept the miraculous.

“I can’t help but shake the feeling Ladybug and Chat noir will need all of the help they can get.

“Don’t worry master, I am sure Ladybug and Chat noir will be successful.

“Let us keep an eye on things. They might need another ally to turn the tide.

________________________________________________________

“I am guessing you are also familiar with what’s inside here?” Kagami inquired as the two stealthily moved in the hall.

“I may be familiar with it.” Luka commented.

Kagami contemplated the statement. She figured out the truth.

“Seems we both have used a miraculous then?”

“It appears we have. Though I am not sure Ladybug will be thrilled that someone knows I have helped her.”

“I understand the sentiment. Though lets simply agree to keep it between us.” Kagami answered. “Friends do keep secrets like that if I’m correct.”

Luka smiled at the comment.

“Your secret is safe with me.” Luka assured.

“As is yours.”

The two found the locker room and quickly moved inside.

“Coast is clear.”

The two opened the boxes and as they did two magical creatures appeared in front of them.

A floating creature with multiple spikes appeared in front of the fencer, while another floating creature that resembled a cobra stood in front of luka.

“It is a pleasure to see you again Mistress Kagami.”

“It’s been too long, Longg.” Kagami smiled. Happy to see her kwami friend.

“Hello Luka, itssss been a while.” The snake kwami greeted.

“Happy to see you too Sass.” Luka fist bumped his kwami.

The kwamis stop and turn to see the other kwami there.

“Does Ladybug know about this?” They both ask in unison.

“We will inform her after. Right now, there is a lot of danger.” Kagami exclaimed. “Ladybug needs our help.”

The two kwami nod and prepare to fight.

“Consssider us accomplissses.” Sass answered.

The two teens put on the miraculous.

“Sass! Scales Slither.”

“Longg! Bring the storm”

The two teens transform into their heroic alter egos.

Kagami shifting into the dragon miraculous hero Ryuuko, and Luka changing into the Snake hero Viperion.

The two stop to glance at the other.

“So, what should I call you.” The snake hero asked curiously.

“Call me Ryuuko. And what about you mister snake?”

“Viperion is what I am going with.”

“Fitting.”

“As is yours.”

The two give a nod of comradery before making their way out of the locker room. They had to go help Ladybug.

__________________________________________________

Ladybug dashed across the hallway, avoiding pause symbols being flung at her by the conniving akuma.

She slid underneath one of the symbols and preformed a daring slide kick to knock Lady Wifi off balance.

While she was unstable, Chat noir charged and used his baton to make contact with her white mask. Believing it was the obvious weak point.

“Got it!” Chat noir exclaimed triumphantly. The strike of the staff knocking Ladywifi a good several meters. Before lying flat on her back.

“Wow, that is a tough mask. I thought for sure that was the weak point.” Chat noir commented.

Lady Wifi stood up robotically.

“There must be a way to snap her out of it. Unless Hawkmoth is learning from his mistakes.” Ladybug hypothesized as she got up from the ground.

“Well I got nothing.” Chat noir shrugged.

Another set of footsteps approaching caught the hero’s attention. The recognized the multicolored bubble maker the moment they saw him.

“Nino… You too?” Chat noir said under his breath.

The Bubble maker used his bubble wand to summon two large bubbles to capture the heroes. Bringing back flashbacks of their first encounter with the bubble akuma.

Chat noir and Ladybug expertly slide between the gaps of the attack, resulting in Lady Wifi getting hit with the large bubbles and being sent flying into the wall via bubble prison.

Chat noir lunged at the Bubbler, his quick pounce pinning him down before he could attack.

“Maybe I can destroy his mask with…”

“Wait Chat noir!” Ladybug called out.

Chat noir paused.

“What if your cataclysm doesn’t free him?”

“And then I am left without the power before a recharge.”

“Exactly. We need to hold off on using our powers right now.”

Chat noir wanted to save his friend. But he knew his partner was right. They needed to conserve their powers before facing Lila.

The Bubbler managed to get the cat hero off of him with a burst of strength. Knocking Chat noir to the ground.

Lady Wifi had gotten free from the bubble attack and was now blocking the other entrance.

Ladybug and Chat noir moved back to back, Ladybug facing the ladyblogger turned mindless akuma slave and Chat noir facing the akumatized DJ.

“Any ideas, Buggaboo?”

“Seems they can’t adapt. They are pretty much mindless slaves. Which makes sense since Lila wouldn’t want them to think for themselves.”

“So you’re saying their movements are simple.”

“Which means they are exploitable.”

Chat noir felt relief watch over him. He knew Ladybug had a plan.

_____________________________________________________

“EWWWW!” Chloé screeched in disgust. The front entrance to the school had been covered in a pink slime.

She wiped her hand on the cleanest section of wall she could find. This was not her day.

“What is with this nasty gross akuma? First, I can’t call Daddy to come and pick me up. I can’t even post about it! How will Ladybug know to save me? Or better yet, get me the bee miraculous so I can help her save the day?”

Chloé decided to try another exit, since she had no plans of sticking around without knowing if she was going to be given a miraculous or not. Plus, she did say she would call for help, and doing that would make her look good in potential hero points.

As she was walking, she bumps into something in the middle of the hall. Which was bizzare since the hall was clear.

“Ouch, right on my bruise. What the hell is…”

Chloé felt her anger shift to fear when she watched as the empty hall now contained a familiar akuma.

“Sabrina?”

The akuma turned to her, her face covered with a white face mask.

“Eww. Your akuma form looks even tacker than before.”

“Take potential akuma to master.” The akumatized Sabrina stated in an emotionless tone. Repeating the order, she had been given.

“Oh no you don’t! Sabrina, I order you to listen to me!”

The akuma ignored the blonde’s command and slowly walked towards her.

“Sabrina… I am warning you. I am going to yell at you over this later if you don’t stop right now.”

Chloé started slowly backing away. She wasn’t sure of what to do.

“Listen… if you stop right now… I’ll uh… let you take a pick of one of my old sweaters.” Chloé bargained, not intending to let her pick one of the ones she actually liked.

Chloé felt her hand touch the sealed door, and knew she was at the end of the hall. She was boxed in.

“This is so unacceptable.” Chloé stated, preparing to get captured. But a flash of Red and Black came out of nowhere and kicked the akuma hard to the wall.

“Ladybug! I knew you would like save me!” Chloé jumped and hugged her savior.

“Im not ladybug.” The heroine spoke.”

Chloé released the hug as she examined who her savior was.

“Who the hell are you?”

Chloé had never bothered to learn the names of any of the other miraculous heroes. She sometimes forgets chat noir’s name.

“Ryuuko.” The dragon heroine stated calmly, almost regretting saving Chloé.

“Did Ladybug send you? Cause it would have been better if she got me to help.”

Ryuuko decided to ignore Chloé’s comment.

“Now we need to leave before she… Where did she go?” Looking at the dented locker that no longer had an akuma lying on the ground.

Suddenly the akuma popped out of nowhere about to strike from above with her tonfa and steal Ryuuko’s powers, but was stopped when a small harp smacked her face.

“She appears to have invisibility.” A voice called out.

The two turn to see the snake hero as he caught his harp on the rebound.

Chloé took a moment to look over the snake hero. She had to admit, he was pretty cute. Not Adrien cute, maybe she would start learning the names of the other heroes.

“Quick thinking Viperion.” Ryuuko thanked the snake teen.

“Just following your lead.” Viperion responded. The two giving eachother a respectful smile. They both seemed to have gotten used to working together.

The akuma got up. Its white face mask making the akuma’s expression unreadable. But its body language exuded rage.

“Seems we aren’t going anywhere until she is taken care of.” Ryuuko said as she stared down the akuma.

Viperion turned to chloé.

“You need to go and get to safety.”

“Okay!” Chloé says as she runs off.

“How come she didn’t give you any sass?”

“Because I already have him.”

Kagami had to admit that was a clever response.

“Not what I meant, but Chat noir would love that joke.”

“I will be sure to tell him it later.”

“Stick to playing guitar. You’re a better musician than comedian.”

Before they could get off anymore banter. The akuma went for another attack.

________________________________________________________

Simularé entered Ms.Bustier’s classroom.

“I am here.” The ghostly sentimonster announced.

“Excellent.”

The sentimonster looked up to see that the classroom it was expeciting to see had been altered into what appeared to be a rather glamourous throne room. The windows covered by white curtains with the design of an akuma in black. The platforms and stairs had been altered to be marble. And at the top, where Lila’s desk once was was now a golden throne akin to something one would see in a castle. Though despite the impressive change in the classroom it was still being designed. The akuma known as the evillustrator was still creating more furnishings for the room.

“Simulare, I have an order for you.” Masquerade stated as she sat on the new throne. Clearly confident in her position.

The sentimonster approached her master. Stopping only a few feet away.

“I want you to create a mirage over the school. Since Ladybug is already in the school. It would be best if you made sure no one notices whats happening here. I don’t need any additional heroes popping in yet. Let’s handle her before making things public.”

Simularé nodded.

“Understood. But what should we do if she…”

“I have everything under control. Just follow my orders.”

Simularé ceased her questioning.

“As you wish master.”

The sentimonster shifted into her Volpina form and headed out of the classroom.

“She is getting arrogant in her power. If things do go south, I will need to step in.” Simularé said to herself. But for now, she knew she had a role to play.

_____________________________________________________________

And that ends part 34.

Seems things are REALLY heating up. Will Viperion and Ryuuko be able to help Ladybug and Chat noir?

Will Ladybug and Chat noir be able to get through to their brainwashed friends?

Will Masquerade's gambit be enough for her to get her vengeance?

Whats Simularé's deal?

Find out by staying tuned and sharing. Remember Reblogs help content creators and if you do enjoy my content, the support really does help

[chatonne-rousse]

Weapons of Sock Destruction

Thank you to @jennagrinsoverml for the prompt!

Gabriel has a problem on his hands. Well, in his closet. Half of his socks are disappearing - as in, half of each pair - along with some of his striped ties and other items of clothing. It's driving him crazy.

Then he realizes who's behind it.

And years later, he finds out why.

Read it on Ao3 here.

---

"Nathalie!"

She blinks at the expense report she'd been going over on her computer when Gabriel barks her name through the intercom.

"Yes, si—"

"Where are my socks?" he snaps without preamble.

Nathalie blinks again. "I didn't realize I was supposed to be looking after them, sir."

"Exactly three pairs of my red socks are missing their mate. Two grey and one striped pair are missing the same," Gabriel informs her, his rage now a seething, quiet thing. "I want to know what happened to them. Now."

"I'll discuss it with the laundry service, sir."

"Inform me at once of your findings." And with that, he's gone.

Nathalie looks back at the monitor and blinks once more before minimizing the expense report and drafting a memo to laundry.

She doesn't get paid enough for this.

****

The head of laundry has been interrogated. Cameras have been checked from every possible angle. It has been confirmed without a doubt that when Gabriel's laundry was delivered and put away in his suite that all recently-laundered socks arrived in perfect pairs.

It was like they disappeared in the night.

A mystery indeed.

Two mornings later, he finds another two pairs of socks missing their other half, as well as discovering the disappearance of one of his ascots. He went to bed knowing there were seven red-and-white striped ties rolled smartly in his drawer, and now there were six.

This time, he skips Nathalie altogether and calls laundry himself, a phone call he ends satisfied that the clearly inept staff in the laundry understand very well what will happen to their jobs if this continues.

Gabriel finally makes his way to his atelier much later than usual, annoyed at having to wear white socks, of all things, because they were the only ones in the drawer not missing their mate.

He feels marginally better by midday after dismissing an intern in tears. That always brightens his day at least a little, but even that doesn't last.

Thwarted again by Ladybug and Chat Noir, Gabriel angrily detransforms and returns to his office to eat dinner at his desk. He can't even enjoy that, however, because he picks up a feeling of desperate loneliness, close by and tantalizing, before realizing it's just Adrien.

He rubs his forehead, sends Nathalie to talk to his son, and returns to his work.

When he dresses for bed, he stares at the pair of white socks in his hand for a long moment before placing them in the laundry hamper, wondering if he'll see both socks again.

Sleep is difficult to come by.

Gabriel has barely situated his glasses properly on his nose the next morning, such is his haste to run to and open his sock drawer.

His primal scream of rage reaches Nathalie's ears just as she's taking a sip of coffee. She closes her eyes and drains the remainder in one gulp. It's going to be a long day.

****

Half a week goes by without incident after the third disappearance, which he'd discovered later had also included the laces from one of his shoes.

Every morning, he checks each drawer, each hanger in his closet, each pair of shoes arranged neatly on the rack. Gabriel knows exactly how many of each he owns, and he counts them at least twice every day to be absolutely certain none are missing.

He can't sleep properly, waking often at the smallest of noises in his bedroom, tossing and turning fretfully even in the silence.

On Thursday morning, he finds two socks missing their entire foot, only the legs and cuffs remaining, as though they'd been unraveled and the threads snipped with precision above the heel.

Friday begins with the discovery of only the collars missing from no less than six of his white oxford shirts.

The now-terrified laundry staff have proven their innocence via daily supervision by Nathalie that every item is accounted for and in its proper place.

Gabriel's desk is littered with diagrams of his suite and a catalogue of each missing or ruined item. He hasn't produced a single design since Wednesday, instead staring wild-eyed at the blueprint of his bedroom and all the possible entrances and exits, including the heating vents.

"I will get to the bottom of this!" he mutters angrily to himself, punctuating the sentence by pounding his fist on the desk.

Nathalie sets another cup of coffee on a small sliver of unoccupied space on his desk and retreats to her own workspace with a cup of hot tea. She takes a sip of tea followed by a deep breath before speaking up. "Have you considered magic, sir?"

His head whips up, wild gaze snapping to hers. "Magic?" He repeats the word as though it's foreign.

She raises her eyebrows and taps the center of her clavicle, where his brooch sits on his own body, hidden beneath one of his remaining ascots.

His eyes narrow. "Nooroo!" he barks, scowling at his kwami when the tiny being appears in front of him.

"Yes, Master?"

"What do you know about the disappearance and destruction of my personal property?"

"Nothing, Master. I would never do such a thing to you."

Gabriel closes his eyes and removes his glasses to squeeze the bridge of his nose. "I wasn't accusing you. I merely asked what you knew."

"And I was truthful. I know nothing. Destruction is not one of my powers."

Gabriel's eyes snap open and his glasses are back on in a flash. "Destruction..." he repeats, trailing off. He looks to his assistant, whose gaze meets his over her tea cup, before moving back to Nooroo's wide purple eyes.

"Plagg," he snarls, watching Nooroo's eyes widen further. Fury rises within him, bright and livid, even as his veins turn to ice. He doesn't know how Plagg could possibly know, but it all makes sense. If Plagg knows, Chat Noir knows. If Chat Noir knows, then certainly Ladybug knows.

They know. They know, and they're sending their minion to psychologically torture him by ruining his clothing and keeping him from wearing his favorite red socks. It's twisted and sick and terrifying.

"I agree, sir," Nathalie starts, and Gabriel realizes he must have been speaking aloud. "But you can still wear red socks. Don't you still have three red socks left?"

"That little cretin destroyed every mate," he explains slowly, as though Nathalie is a child who wasn't listening when she was told the first time.

A beat of silence, and then, "Which leaves you with three identical red socks."

Gabriel decides not to dignify such a ridiculous statement with a response. Clearly Nathalie doesn't understand what he's going through.

Besides, it's not about socks anymore.

They know.

****

He spends the weekend devising and beginning to carry out plans to throw the heroes off his trail. They might think they know, and they might be 100% correct, but he can and will give them every reason to doubt.

His first plan was stupid, in hindsight, born of that initial fear and anger brought on by knowing that they know.

He learned his lesson from Jackady, honestly, but it seemed like a great idea to akumatize someone to come after his civilian self. Why would Shadow Moth do that? And more importantly, how, if he was Gabriel himself? It was foolproof.

Well, the diversion from his identity may have been. The plan was not. He was never doing that again.

The second try a few days later went much better. It was easy enough to create a sentimonster version of himself to become enraged at a contrived situation and give in to Shadow Moth's promises. He didn't get Ladybug and Chat Noir's miraculouses, but he's sure he's done his level best to get them off his scent.

His third plan is currently underway and going perfectly. While an akuma rampages through the Place du Châtelet, Shadow Moth sends a new Senti Gabriel outside - outside the house, outside the gates - to be not only seen but rescued from danger by either Ladybug or Chat Noir. (He hopes it's Chat Noir, and the message is sent loud and clear to his kwami. He's had to replenish his entire stock of red socks once already.)

It's so uncommon for Gabriel Agreste to be seen outside the manor, it causes exactly the ruckus he'd hoped it would. And Chat Noir takes the bait, swooping in and rushing toward him with abject terror in his eyes as the akuma swipes his sharp claws, narrowly missing them both as they soar away.

"What were you doing out there?" Chat Noir demands breathlessly as he sets him down on the front steps after vaulting right over the outer wall of the property. "You could have been seriously hurt, or worse." The hero's voice is stern, but his eyes betray his fear.

Strange.

Senti Gabriel adjusts his striped ascot. "I didn't realize the akuma attack was so close to my home." He doesn't offer an apology.

Chat Noir fixes him with another odd look, then his expression hardens. "Well, get inside your house and stay there. I don't want to see you near the fighting again."

In his lair, Shadow Moth's anger flares at Chat Noir's commanding attitude. How dare he speak to Gabriel Agreste that way?

Senti Gabriel scoffs. "I've told you once already, I don't take orders from anyone. Not even a superhero."

Chat Noir shrugs one shoulder. "What can I say? I don't listen well."

Shadow Moth rolls his eyes, while Senti Gabriel just glares at him.

And in a blink, Chat Noir is gone, rejoining his partner in the fight.

An hour later, when Adrien rushes into the house and bursts into the atelier, Gabriel finds himself wrapped in a hug before he can even stand up fully from his desk.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Father," Adrien murmurs into his suit jacket, and Gabriel pats his son twice on the back. Adrien's voice is no more than a whisper when he says, "Please don't go near akumas anymore. Please."

It reminds him of Chat Noir's impertinence earlier. He grasps Adrien by the shoulders and pulls him away from the embrace.

"I'll go where I please, Adrien." His tone brooks no argument, and he watches his son's expression smooth out and his gaze lower.

"Of course. I was just...worried about you."

"Thank you, but I can handle myself. Head to your room, now. You've clearly had enough excitement this afternoon."

"Yes, Father."

Gabriel sits back down at his desk, satisfied with a job well done. He's definitely put them off his trail. Chat Noir's chaotic gremlin of a kwami could go terrorize someone else, some other person who may or may not be Shadow Moth.

He goes to sleep that night feeling better than he has in two weeks.

When he checks his sock drawer the next morning to discover only one of every single pair of socks - the replenished red, the grey, the striped, the white - he wrenches the drawer from the cabinet and smashes it against the doorway to the walk-in closet. Partnerless socks fly across the floor as wood splinters around him.

He takes out all of his anger on the drawer and its contents until all that remains are shards of wood and metal and single socks on the floor.

Gabriel curses Plagg's very existence, Ladybug's and Chat Noir's and everyone who's ever crossed him.

He grabs two single red socks, disgusted at having to stoop so low. A man of his stature wearing mismatched socks? Never.

He lets that anger carry him to the intercom to tell Nathalie to call the contractor.

There's a mess in here to fix.

****

Years later, Gabriel finds himself in a bind, quite literally. Stripped of his miraculouses, arms and legs tethered around his civilian clothes by Ladybug's yo-yo string, he fixes his now-victorious nemeses with a look of pure hatred. He has nothing left but his fury now, anyway, so he concentrates it all on the two of them.

Chat Noir - Adrien, his own son - walks several paces away to where his ring rests on the floor after having it wrenched from his hand during the fight moments before. He places it back on his finger, then pulls his phone out of his pocket, likely to call the police. He pointedly avoids even looking in his father's direction, which just makes Gabriel angrier.

Rage makes his vision go hazy at the edges, rage at his son's betrayal, at himself for his failure to bring his wife back, at the world for taking her away in the first place, at the sanctimonious spotted hero whose boot still pushes into his ribcage to keep him still, who stares at him with so much bitter enmity that he has to look away.

When he does, he finds himself face-to-face with a tiny floating cat god whose acid green eyes burn with an ancient, terrifying fury. His own anger cowers in the face of it, his veins flooding with ice. All Gabriel knows in this moment is fear.

Then Plagg speaks.

"If I didn't love my kitten a thousand times more than you ever could," he growls, his little voice dripping with contempt, "I would destroy you where you stand." Plagg smiles a little half-smile, showing one fang and a world of animosity. "Oh, I'm sorry, where you lay, tied up and ready to be taken out like the trash you are."

Gabriel scowls at the kwami and spits, "You little piece of—"

Plagg continues as though Gabriel hasn't spoken at all. "I can't wait to see you locked up, imprisoned and alone, living a pitiful, lonely life like you gave your son, who loves you..." He takes a deep breath and his expression hardens, his voice pitching even lower, "Like I said, if I didn't love my kitten, it would only take one word and I'd send you to meet your hideous candy cane ties again."

Gabriel's eyes widen and flash with anger. Plagg simply chuckles, his laugh devoid of humor.

"Yep. Every time you were horrible to him, poof, another sock gone. A shirt here, a few ties there. I thought you deserved some recognition for your A+ parenting." He pauses, lets it sink in, and fixes Gabriel with a thoughtful look. "You know, I don't think you can wear red socks where you're going." He shrugs one tiny shoulder. "Not like you have any left."

The yo-yo string pulls tighter around him as he struggles against it. Plagg floats closer to his face, a blur of black and vivid green.

"Plagg," Ladybug warns. Gabriel wonders if she would actually stop Chat Noir's kwami from killing him on the spot.

"Adrien deserves better," Plagg snarls. And then he's gone, off to comfort his holder as best he can.

"He's right, you know," Ladybug says, simultaneously matter-of-fact and ice-cold.

Gabriel has to concede her point.

[baka-monarch]

Dirt Crawlers

Look @darkeninganon , I beat you to writing the slug thing!!!! :)

(brain just randomly started thinking of story and I just decided to write it now before I lost motivation/inspiration)

Part 2->

TRIGGER WARNINGS: BUGS, FEAR, MENTION OF DEATH, FEELING SMALL, VERY GROSS DISCRETION

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

Tommy watched Dream as he pushed the door to their hole in the ground open The younger Dirt Crawler was practically bouncing with excitement. Today was the day, finally Dream was taking him out on his first hunting trip. It was the perfect day for hunting as well, since it hadn't rained for weeks and was so bright and sunny out (as Tommy could tell from the blinding light coming through their burrow door) that there was no way it would rain; so there was no risk of them drowning in a puddle or getting dragged down to suffocate in mud. It was also the afternoon by now, judging by where the sun was, which meant almost no birds out hunting at all. Yeah, now would be the perfect time to get some food.

"You remember all the rules I told you, right?" Tommy was startled out of his thoughts by his older brother's voice.

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know I know!" The teen rolled his eyes. The rules had been drilled into him ever since he was a kid, ever since their parents were still around.

"Okay, so remember that we're only hunting aphids- no attacking ants, ladybugs, termites-"

"Mantises,"-He cut off Dream's words-"slugs- yeah yeah, I know boss man! We don't fight anything that isn't an aphid!!" Tommy climbed out of the burrow with that in mind. He already knows what happens if a Dirt Crawler tries to fight anything other than an aphid, he's been told the horror stories thousands of times. Ants will swarm you if you hurt one, ladybugs can headbutt trample and eat you, termites can take a limb off with one bite, and mantises- of Prime Tommy really does NOT want to think about fucking mantises.

"I'm just making sure-" Dream added as he climbed out to stand next to Tommy, kicking their burrow door closed behind himself. "I know how adventurous you can get at times and I don't want to risk anything." The elder puts a hand on Tommy's shoulder and looks into his baby brother's eyes seriously. The world is a dangerous place for someone only half an inch tall, and he wants to make sure his baby brother is safe.

"Stop worrying so much- I'm not gonna leave your side big man." Tommy smirks into their serious gaze and gives his brother a comforting pay on the shoulder, making them sigh with relief.

"Good- because I don't know what I'd do without your annoying voice." Dream jokes with a slightly forced chuckle and ruffles the teen's curly blond hair. Tommy only groans in annoyance and pushes his hand away, which only makes Dream let out another fond chuckle. "C'mon, we don't have all afternoon!" The elder doesn't give Tommy any time to fix their hair as he grabs their hand and pulls them off into the towering grass blades.

It's a few hours later when the two brothers find themselves watching from being blades of grass as several aphids hop around on the dirt, having called off of the grass after the two tiny people had shaken their plant homes with the help of a light breeze. Dream pulls out a small sword and turns to Tommy to make sure he's holding his own sword correctly. Once the eldest is sure the time is perfect, he gives a signal with his hand and both split- Dream running in from the right and Tommy from the left, both catching the tiny bugs off guard and using that to their advantage to slice off the heads of several before they can jump out of reach.

"You did it!" Dream smiles up at Tommy who himself is smiling proudly. They were running low on food, and now with Tommy's help, they're both sure to have more than enough aphids to last them for a week or more at least. "This should be good- you, did good Toms." The green clad Dirt Crawler walks over to his brother and ruffles their hair, and this time Tommy does not complain. "Now help me bag them up-"

"Yes sir!" Tommy gives a small thumbs up and starts to fill his sprig woven bag with the dead aphids as Dream does the same. It's all fine until one of the aphid bodies gets up and starts to limp away- Tommy missed it's head. "I'll get it!" He calls over to his brother, who gives a nod of acknowledgement before Tommy chases after the aphid, knowing he can easily catch and kill it since it can't jump.

Tommy doesn't notice anything suspicious as he approaches the injured aphid. He doesn't look around at his surroundings as he gets out his sword. He doesn't look up as he stabs the bug and finally kills it. He does however scream after looking up to see where the droplet of slime had come from on his sword after landing the killing blow.

Dream snaps his head up to attention, his eyes wide with fear for his Tommy as he looks to where they'd run off to- and he almost screams as well. "IT'S A SLUG!!!!" He's quick to run over and grab Tommy's arm and start to drag the petrified teen away before they can be eaten.

Tommy doesn't hesitate to follow Dream once he snaps out of his state of fear. As they run Tommy tries not to think about the humongous slimey being of pure squishy muscle, with four eyes that stared at him with nothing but hunger, and a large gaping mouth that was opening and closing, ready to eat it's lunch with the rows upon rows of tiny razor sharp teeth that could allow the disgusting giant to swallow him whole. Tommy shivers, yeah that's going to be haunting his nightmares- oh well at least slugs are slow, so he and Dream have plenty of time to run away…. Or so he thought, before suddenly his running is slowed significantly by something making him stick to the ground. The teen looks down, and sees he's stepped into a trail of familiar slime that has him now stuck where he stands.

"Dre- Dream!?" He yells to his older brother, who also finds himself slowed by the slime trail. Dream looks at his brother sadly, and grabs their arms before desperately trying to pull Tommy free as the slug approaches at a slow orgilating crawl towards them.

"Tommy- Tommy, look at me!" Dream said, keeping his voice firm, trying to give his baby brother something to focus on. "Don't look back- don't- d- don't look behind you. Just focus on me, we're going to get out of this." At least Tommy is close enough for Dream to pull them into a hug. He lets Tommy bury their face into his chest, letting them cry as he glares up at the omnivore that had successfully hunted them down on Tommy's first aphid gathering…

"I- I'm scared…" Tommy admits quietly, something they usually would never do, but Dream can understand in this situation: getting stuck while running from a slug is certain death for any and all Dirt Crawlers.

"I know… I know, but it's going to be okay, I promise…." Dream whispers softly and weaves his fingers into Tommy's soft golden curls, something that's always calmed them down, no matter how old. He hugs his small brother close, closing his eyes so he can savor one last moment with them…

BOOM-SQUELCH!!!

The sound is loud and disturbing to hear for the absolutely miniscule brothers, and they both open their eyes wide in surprise and fear of what happened. All that can run through Dream's head is that the slug must've been crushed by something, but what? A deer? A wolf maybe? Possibly even a skunk even if they aren't in this area? The only way to find out is to look up- and up- and up and up and up and-

"Fuck." Dream doesn't cuss often, but for this occasion it feels necessary.

"Wh- wha-" Tommy begins to ask but cuts off his own words as he feels all his breath leave him in fear, as he looks up too.

A giant. An actual giant. A person, thousands of times their size was standing right on top of where the slug had been only seconds before- and it seemed like they didn't even notice they'd crushed anything.

"Human…" Dream mutters quietly, remembering the word from a story their mom told him once before Tommy was born. Giants- humans- weren't supposed to be here. Dirt Crawlers almost never had to deal with humans… yet here one stood, having unintentionally saved the two brothers lives, and Dream realized in a moment how close they both were to that death dealing foot, and if the human hadn't seen the slug, then if they took another unfortunate step- "R- run- we need to run! Run!!" Dream shouts and starts to pull Tommy, and his brother quickly gets the message as they both pull themselves out of the slime to start running.

Dream doesn't let go of Tommy's hand the whole time as they both run as fast as they can, but it doesn't feel fast enough as every time Dream looks back the human looks just as close as they were before and- oh gods they were looking down at them. Dream pushes forward, trying to pull Tommy even faster with a feigned hope that maybe, just maybe they can at least get to the burrow in time and be safe until the human leaves-

Dream bounces back off of something hard and smooth, he can't see it but he can feel it. Tommy rushes forward to stand beside him and starts to bang on the invisible wall; it's a fruitless effort however as both know that anything used by humans is guaranteed to be too strong for either to break through. Only a few seconds later they feel gravity change and they're sliding down the wall, Dream grabs Tommy and hugs him, wanting to make sure that wherever they land his brother is safe more than anything. They eventually hit a bottom, made of another invisible wall- and as Dream looks up he meets two massive eyes, twice as big as himself, staring directly at him and his brother.

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

Mcyt g/t list:

@trashpumped @lorie-the-little-ghost @encaos @i-am-a-weeb @wyforyu-gaming @5unfl0writ3r @colorfulsiren @moonmwah @iwasgoingtohellanyways @echoslime @wilbur-simp @trouble-off-grid @lilsyxx @smogs-0 @hello-world-im-snow

[melloian]

Miraculous Ladybug Reboot Explanation

Alright, so i thought about that a summary or short passage about my Au as whole wasn’t enough explanation. Au introduction page was just little so, i wanted to explain more.

What is Miraculous Ladybug Reboot?

Miraculous ladybug reboot is an Au where its a mixture of the original and the concepts but in my own take/version of it. 

Why you made Miraculous Ladybug Reboot?

Am late to the party but, Miraculous Ladybug has been going down hill lately. They continuously ruining characters and milking this series. They think its funny to show Marinette being a creep 24/7. And Adrien clearly have little personality and hardly show him (its really bad now in season 4, though lies show his own screentime.) Worst part, Thomas astruc can’t take criticism and blocks people (am aware some people attacks him for no reason). So i decided to make this that kinda erase the terrible things that happened in Miraculous Ladybug.

About Miraculous Ladybug Reboot

(copied and pasted from Au Introduction page)

14 years old teenage girl name Marinette Dupain-Cheng was once a normal student at Françoise Dupont Highschool. One day, Marionette was helping with parents by cleaning the attic. Marinette found a music box on the floor. She look around, decided to pick it up, and put it in her pocket. Afterwards, she decided to open the box in the her room, finding black earrings inside. She decided to try on the earrings and suddenly a creature came out of the box. The creature introduced themselves as Tikki and explained those earrings. Afterwards, Marinette decided to become a superhero known as Ladybug.

Changes 

Both of the main characters getting equal amount of screentime

if the show was really about feminisms, then they show that woman and man equal. Both strong in both ways doesn’t matter. This also includes screentime. 

Removing Marinette's creepiness and suffering. 

(yes am using this picture, still the worst thing i ever seen in this entire show)

Her being obsessive creepy stalker is obviously not ok and teaches kids to think that doing this is ok. So am just going remove that, and keep the idea that she have a crush on him.

other thing that’s wrong if the fact they just keep making Marinette suffer and have too much stress for a teenager. She does too much work for hero, does bakery, babysits and etc. The worse of all is making her guardian. because of all this, she had to tell Alya her secret for emotional support (or something else). Am removing this because its too much stress for teen and it makes me think she have suicidal thoughts and just keeping a smile on her face around people. 

Speaking of Guardian...

Marinette will not be a Guardian

Yea, i see nothing good about her being a guardian. If anything it ruins the outcome of the entire point of love square. Even worst, she’ll just forgot Adrien anyway if she quits being guardian.

Not so much heroes

Having too many heroes takes too much time with just saying. You can’t really develop all those heroes at all. So i have shorten it out to only 5.

Chloe actually having a Development

Look idc if a creator makes a character go through Treason arc. However, the way Chloe arc was written, it definitely wasn’t a Treason arc. If anything it looked like a development but the team acting like she never had one.  So am just going to do the bully to antihero to hero arc scenario. 

Lila being a part of the main antagonist

So basically i wanted her to be the one who starts a rival but is truly a villain who secretly hiding something from everyone.

People is not going get akumantized repeatedly as different forms instead some one else get akumantized.

I rather for the person to be akumantized either once or twice. Not the 100th time. It makes hawk moth look like a joke. So i will make it where Hawk Moth would give up the person after once or twice and attempts to find some one who can be strong enough to beat Ladybug or chat noir.

When Hawk moth defeated, there be another main villain.

There be 7 main villains in total. All them deals with controlling some one emotion.  Expect for the last one, which is like the “final” boss of the series. 

Nathalie being anti-villain but still the antagonist

I wanted to see if i can write assistant betraying their boss.  At the same time, being evil just for the sake of their boss.  Sorry gabenath shippers.

Some adults being smart for once.

Can we just agree that most of the adults in this show shares the same braincell awhile all the teenagers are smart? Idk, they just easily gullible to lila’s lie and expel Marinette without any proof or something to know she did it.

There’s not just controlled villains, there’s villains just being villains.

Not every villain is going akumantized, in fact, there will be villains who just evil on their own. They pretty much attack the city and stuff like akumanzatied villains do. This is so that it will balance out the akumanzations.

The villains usually comes in a certain time. Like day, afternoon, noon, or night.

Specials are apart of the story, the heroes will learn something, and the heroes will later will come back.

If the heroes going go to different cities, i want them to at least learn something from it. 

Unifications would not exist for other kwamis, it will only for 2 kwamis only which its definitely not the ladybug or cat miraculous. 

Unifications are op not going lie. There’s no weakness between the powers or weaken the other. The weakness it have is making the user go out of control if consume too many kwamis. I might be wrong though.

 So i will only use it for 2 kwamis only (which is not going be said for right now).

Alya not being a hardcore Adrien x Marinette shipper 

It gets annoying if your bestfriend really wants you and your crush to be together so badly and forces you into uncomfortable spots where your crush is at. Even your friend becomes a hypocrite for a straight minute. I have to erase this so that Alya can be actual friend.

Gay characters that are in relationship actually treated like a relationship instead of a very good best friend thing.

I just want to them actually feel like they in actual relationship.

The guardians mentor their heroes if they have soon experienced enough.

I don’t know, wang fu doesn’t really train anyone or be a good guardian for once. Now he’s gone.

Zoe being an secret agent instead of a hero

Before you call me a zoe hater, i just want to say this. Zoe entire existence doesn’t make sense. She was never mentioned in the show until season 4. Audrey cheating also doesn’t add up either and causes more plot holes. So i made it where zoe is secret agent from new york who was tasked to go France. She lied about being chloe’s half sister (and other things) just so she get near to her mission. Which leads to another villain soon.

Felix not being a cousin nor evil

I don’t like how they made felix evil at all. It just feels like insult for the fans who asked him to be in it in the first place. So i made Felix Adrien's brother whose not evil but just gloomy.

Stormy weather being a separate entity 

I think it will be cool to see her as a separate villain instead of akumantized one.

Some characters will be either changed or deleted.

Characters will be changed since it is a reboot thing, however some may be deleted because i either don’t like them, can’t find a way how to write them, or they seem pointless character in general.

Viperion is still exist but in a different way

i think its best not to explain this one until later

Superheroes (not miraculous heroes) were created by a mage.

I think is best to not explain this one  either until later

Added things

Species

There’s going be more species instead of Superhumans, Kwamis, and Humans. It so that the universe can be expanded.

Dimensions

(lol portals)

Dimensions existed for bigger plot points in the story. It also another way to expand the universe some how. The only way to enter dimensions is by portals or keys.

Types of kwamis

There will be types of kwamis. Like animal kwami, mythical kwami, dark kwami, hoilday kwami and corrupted kwami.

There will also be guardian for each type.

More types of akumanzation/amokzations

As i said eariler, there be more villains with more controlling type powers. 

Daroness

Daroness is faraway villain that is owned by Rodrigue. Hawk moth works there as the chairman, making missions for the villains that works for him. However, he doesn’t akumantize people in this place, he does it in his lair instead. Welp, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading :)

[miraculouscontent]

*long, deep, exhausted sigh*

So, I just wanna talk real quick about this whole “Adrienette” business in the special. Humor me for a bit.

On a narrative level, the show has designed Marinette and Adrien as endgame. They’re the ones at the forefront, they’re the ones crushing on one side of each other, and they’re the superheroes who protect Paris.

And yet, here I am, having just watched the special, feeling no desire whatsoever for them to be together. This isn’t even about their chemistry for once, no, this about how the show cannot let Marinette make decisions involving their relationship in any way without screwing her over.

She tries to give Adrien gifts? Either someone steals it, a ladybug conveniently flies in to distract her from signing it, or the way she gives it almost leads to the world ending.

She tries to move on because Adrien has openly stated that he’s interested in someone else? Her friends stand up and start loudly arguing about it.

She tries to roleplay - as per Tikki’s advice - in front of an Adrien statue to work up a confession? Oops! The statue was actually Adrien and she just humiliated herself!

She tries to give him up again when Adrien reiterates that he loves another girl? Tikki gives some vague platitude about surprises and the future, which apparently convinces Marinette not to take down her Adrien photos.

She tries a scheme to talk to Adrien? She fails. She tries to just talk to him normally? She fails more.

And now, past three seasons and one special, I’m not even surprised anymore. Any expectation of things going well for Marinette can basically be thrown out the window unless it’s for the sake of shipping fuel and nothing else.

We’re here, post-”Miracle Queen,” and Marinette continues to be a mess around Adrien. She’s still stammering, still freaking out when he touches her, and still getting stuck in situations with him that force her and him together.

People wonder why Marinette still hasn’t changed? They wonder why she can’t move on? I know why.

It’s because she isn’t allowed to, not just because of the narrative/universe/whatever, but because of her surroundings.

I just wanna make it clear that, by “Miracle Queen,” Kagami and Adrien are as close to dating as they’ve ever been, with Kagami kissing Adrien just above the lips in the special, so they’re either actually dating or on such intimate terms that they might as well be.

Marinette has every reason to both want to and try to move on. At this point, her crush can only hurt her. What the special verbalizes as “denial,” I see as Marinette doing whatever she can to only be a friend to Adrien because the girl he loves is not her.

Heck, even if it’s truly a matter of her being in denial, that’s not what the special goes for, because Marinette tells Alya outright, near the beginning, that she needs help seeing Adrien as “just a friend.” Alya vents to Nino about how she wants Marinette to just “be honest with her feelings,” but Marinette is and practically told Alya as much.

Marinette relates dancing with Adrien as “friendly,” along with anything else Alya tries to tease her about. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe it’s because she’s been through it before and has seen signs where there apparently weren’t any. Adrien asked her to dance in “Despair Bear” (at Chloe’s party, which the special incorrectly calls Chloe’s birthday party) but a few episodes pass and Adrien is suddenly asking her for romantic advice to get him with another girl.

Marinette freaks out because every time she tries to be normal, someone mocks her, or Adrien makes a motion to get way too close, and at this point, she has no idea when the next “scheme” will be to force her together with him. Marinette’s anxiety and stuttering are where they are because of how much she’s been through; all the embarrassment and failure that led to no good results, which means that any success at all with Adrien gives her that emotional high (thinly disguised as “love”) for him. I don’t have to wonder why she acts the way she does because I’m seeing it.

When she tries even harder to get to Adrien in Season 3, it’s specifically because of how bad she failed before. It’s, “well, none of these other crazy things I’ve done have worked, so that must mean I have to try even harder!”

Because being in Adrien’s class and being called a “friend” by him is getting her nowhere. He doesn’t spend time with her, he doesn’t know her (at least not enough to know that startling her with a prank won’t help her like him more), and the only forces putting them together are outside ones.

Marinette wants to be friends with Adrien here - she wouldn’t be insisting that everything was friendly between them if she didn’t - but basically no one will let her. Marinette even gave a list of Adrien-related things that she stopped doing nowadays, and what happens?

Alix tries to nail her over something else that she still does, because apparently progress doesn’t matter, and the “joke” that the special keeps trying to hammer home is that Marinette is a wreck who’s still very much into Adrien even though she's trying not to be.

Then, there’s Alya, and I have not been this annoyed with her in a LONG time.

The worst thing to do to someone trying to get over something is to keep bringing it up to them, and Alya was relentless in this special. From start to finish, Alya was doing whatever she could to remind Marinette that her crush is still very much there and it’s agony. Alya is constantly groaning and making faces whenever Marinette denies that there’s anything special about what she did with Adrien, to the point where she pulls a “The Puppeteer 2″ and tries to force them together herself.

And the mocking does not end. I counted at least three instances of Alya using “friend” sarcastically to describe how Marinette felt towards Adrien, and that’s only counting the ones where she used actual airquotes.

At one point during the beginning, Marinette goes to Alya to talk about how she can’t sit next to Adrien. Alya proceeds to say that “there’s still time to get off the plane” and goes on about how “romantic” New York will be. Marinette freaks out at the mental images that enter her head and screams that she “has to get out of here” (not “I need to be moved,” but a clear indication of get me off this plane I DO NOT want this) but when Ms. Mendeleiev asks what’s wrong, Alya doesn’t ask for Marinette to be taken off the plane (which hasn’t taken off yet) and just asks her to be moved elsewhere.

It’s outright uncomfortable how much Alya keeps pressing the issue of Marinette feeling “more than friendly” feelings to Adrien. When Adrien is leaving New York to go back with his father, Alya yells at Marinette and makes it about Marinette’s crush, as if Marinette can’t want Adrien to stay unless she has a crush on him.

The special makes Marinette’s situation all about “do you have a crush on him or not” and it’s awful. It hammers away at Marinette, repeatedly, then continues the typical Treatment of Marinette “humor” by having her walk by all the couples (DJWifi, Myvan, and Julerose) in the beginning of the special while she’s on her way to the bathroom of the plane, then jostles the plane at just the right time for her to be soaked and get toilet paper in her hair.

This special never should have been about Marinette trying to confess to Adrien (and, y’know, forcing her too). That’s not important here. What was important to teach Marinette was, “You have a crush, and that’s okay even if he likes someone else as long as you’re working on it and know what you want to do about it.”

Marinette’s agency is completely stripped away for this entire special because everything is a matter of convenience or by force of the plot. Even by the matter of Chat Noir not being in Paris, it’s technically Marinette’s fault because she tried to convince Adrien’s dad to let Adrien go (the scene of her deciding to do this, by the way, also comes off as if she’s not allowed to want this for him and be just his friend). The show doesn’t acknowledge it because it can’t, but the implications are there.

When Marinette suffers, it’s most likely because of Adrien, whether it’s his fault or just the stars aligning to form a middle finger at her. No matter what she tries to do, fate will work against her.

But here’s the special, insisting that they’re “made for each other,” pointing it out more than once, verbally, by one of the characters.

Here’s the tea, honey: if Marinette and Adrien were really made for each other, then I wouldn’t have to be told that they are.

The more that I’m told, the less I actually believe it, and this special comes nowhere close to making me believe it.

Instead of showing me that they should be together, all this special does is find any contrived situation it can to force them to interact, without realizing that all it’s doing is proving that they shouldn’t be together specifically because the interaction needs to be forced. If Adrienette was a ship I wanted to consider worthy of being endgame, the special wouldn’t need to shove them together needlessly.

It wouldn’t need to have their airplane seats happen to be right next to each other.

It wouldn’t need them to happen to wake up before everyone else to watch the clouds.

It wouldn’t need the two sets of automatic doors to stop working to trap them in the area in-between, twice.

It wouldn’t need them to happen to stumble into the same room together so someone can comment on how they’re, again, “made for each other.”

It wouldn’t need the magic hot dog they eat to be the one that happens to send them up in the air so they can dance together.

And it especially wouldn’t need the contrived moments of Marinette accidentally forcing her seat back so Adrien falls on top of her, or the plane jostling at just the right time to force her against him, or her and Adrien touching hands (ala “Gamer”) before she looks away in embarrassment.

Heck, I don’t even like Adrien, but with how his and Kagami’s relationship seems to be going, I’m disgusted for him too when Nino is going full-force on trying to get Adrien to notice Marinette. Adrien has no idea that any of this is going on and is just being strung along with all of it, whereas Marinette is stuck along for the ride whether she likes it or not.

People can have whatever opinion of Lukanette they want, but one person who didn’t make things worse for her was Luka himself. He shows up briefly in the opening, giving her a ride on his bike to catch up with the bus that’s taking the class to the airport. When Marinette worries that they won’t make it, Luka insists that they will because he knows how important the trip is for her. Marinette asks if he’s referring to Adrien and nervously tries to insists that she and Adrien are just friends and that’s all she sees Adrien as.

But Luka doesn’t mock her, nor laugh at her for it, because he doesn’t have to and he gets it. Unlike people who constantly try to force Marinette’s hand, Luka lets her figure things out on her own.

And when they finally come to a stop next to the bus, he doesn’t put any emphasis on Adrien. All he tells Marinette is that the importance of the trip is for her to get some clarity.

That is the closest thing to what I wanted (and just emphasizes how much I adore Luka and how refreshing his interactions with Marinette are), but it’s the farthest thing from what she actually gets.

How am I supposed to believe that Marinette and Adrien have a genuine relationship deserving of endgame when her feelings are constantly being forced in one direction? How am I supposed to believe anything about them when it’s not natural? How am I supposed to believe that this is the couple that’s “made for each other” when the show is so desperate to make me believe it that they’ll say it outright?

Because, obviously, I don’t believe any of that, and all this special has done is make my disdain for the love square even stronger.

That’s a failing grade if I’ve ever seen one. What a waste.

[bamberry]

Let the Mayhem Begin || Chapter 1 - Revealing Truths

Adrien Agreste x Marinette Dupain Cheng Pairing

Summary: When Chat Noir reveals his secret identity to Alya, all she can do is painfully watch the two make an absolute mess of themselves. But who said she couldn’t make it worth her while.

Ao3

The Beginnings of a story are the most important.

———————————————————————

It was few weeks after Marinette, her best friend, who couldn’t even get a single word out around a certain blonde, who often fell or bumped into a number of objects and people, told her that she was Ladybug, the hero Alya very much admired.

It had taken a few days and a sleepover to adjust to the fact that Marinette was secretly a renowned super heroine who was fighting every day to protect the city of Paris from a crazy butterfly man.

So when Marinette told her that Chat Noir and Ladybug didn’t know each other’s own identities she was quite surprised.

“But you guys are like the greatest duo in history?”

Marinette then went onto explaining that of the consequences and possibilities of Chat Noir knowing who she was. Alya had to be the one to reassure her that Chat Noir would never do anything to try and hurt Ladybug or Marinette for that matter. Alya fought alongside the guy a few times, if anything it’d be the last thing he’d do.

But nonetheless, Alya too had to respect Marinette’s choice.

“I’m going to have to tell him I told someone about my identity.” She tells Alya.

“Why?” Alya asked.

“He’s deserves to know that I told someone. He’s my partner and in order to protect Paris the best we can he has to know that I told someone else not because I didn’t trust him. But because I did what I knew what best. I have to trust that he’ll understand that.”

Alya really didn’t need Marinette to tell her twice that she was Ladybug. It was clear as day.

“You’re too good for this world Mari.” Alya pulled Marinette into a hug. Of course the blue-pigtailed girl returned the hug.

When they pulled apart Alya could tell something was still on Marinette’s mind.

“What is it?”

“It’s just-does that mean Chat Noir can tell someone who he is too? I mean, it only makes sense. It’d be fair. But what if he tells his identity to the wrong person? What if everyone, including Hawk Moth finds out? I couldn’t stand the fact if Chat Noir had to give up his miraculous because of that.”

“Marinette.” Alya grabbed her shoulders to calm the girl down,”I think Chat Noir is perfectly capable of making that choice for himself. He might be silly sometimes but you know he’s capable of making the right decisions. I’m sure he wouldn’t think about telling someone like Chloe or Lila.”

Speaking of Lila, Alya was quick to apologize to Marinette and is now currently plotting Lila’s demise, however unhero like that may sound.

“What if Chat Noir told you?” The question caused Alya to lose her train of thought,”What?”

“Think about it, you’re the first person to ever resist Hawkmoths power. If anything his secret would be most safest with you. Then there’d be no worry about our identities getting out.”

Alya looked at her completely surprised. As much as Alya would love to know Chat’s identity, it was not their decision to make. Plus Alya didn’t know if she could currently handle knowing another secret identity. Or maybe she just end up exploding with excitement

“Marinette, that’s something Chat Noir has to be able to decide for himself. “

She sighed,”You’re right Alya. But it wouldn’t hurt to give him that option. Regardless, I’m telling him tonight during patrol. “

Alya patted her best friends back,”It’ll be alright. I’m sure.”

“I just hope he doesn’t hate me Alya. Chat Noir has always wanted for us to truly know each other. I won’t lie, a part of me always refuses out of what he might think of my civilian self.”

“Marinette you’re literally one of the most kind hearted souls I’ve ever even met. You’re brave, strong-headed. If anything, Chat Noir would just love you even more.” Alya said with a mischievous smirk.

“Alya!!” Marinette fumed with red.

—

And so, that’s how Chat Noir ended up at Alya’s window later that night.

“Chat Noir?”

“Hey Alya,” Chat looked around to make sure there was nobody had been watching,”This isn’t a bad time is it?”

“Not at all. So what’s one of paris’s favorite superheroes doing here at this hour?”

Chat Noir sat on the window sill as he watched Alya,”Ladybug told me she told someone her secret identity.”

Alya figured much already. She can see how it seemed a bit upset by it.

“At first I wasn’t really thrilled. I had always wanted mi’lady to be the one to tell me who she was first. I thought it was because she didn’t trusted me.” Chat Noir said still looking rather glumly. Alya didn’t say a word, instead she let him continue.

“I won’t lie and say I really hurt by it. But then she told me she told you.” He said,”Which is kind of ironic because I couldve sworn you were the one who owned the blog that was made to figure out who we were.” He chuckled.

“But I thought about it, and I realized mi’lady is under a lot of pressure for being the new guardian. I get how stressful it must of been for her. But I also understand why she still couldn’t tell me. I don’t hate her for it though.”

“You must really love Ladybug.” Alya said to him.

“I do.” He replied looking back out at the city,”So when she me told that I could tell someone I trusted if I needed to. I wasn’t really sure who I could go to. Or if I even wanted to. I mean sure, I have some friends who come to mind, and they’re great and all but ..” He stopped for a few moments before continuing,”But I don’t really know if I’ve even shown them the real me yet.”

Alya felt heartbroken for the superhero. Did he really have no one who knew about his real self besides Ladybug? Did he really not tell those annoying cat puns with to his friends? Someone he could turn to? A part of her just wanted to hug him and give the reassurance that he wasn’t alone in how he felt. But she withheld.

“So when Ladybug suggested I could tell you. I was conflicted? Not because I don’t like you or anything like that , because you’re a great person. But if I’m being honest, I don’t know how’d you feel about that.”

Was Chat Noir really asking how Alya would feel if she knew his identity too. Would it be too much for her to handle and cause her to meltdown? Would she feel suddenly more burdened with another secret and possibly run away? Was he seriously asking her after all he just shared how she would feel?

“How I felt?” Alya asked dumbfounded.

“Ladybug trusted you with her secret for a reason. I don’t want to be the reason you might feel overwhelmed. You’re currently the reason why Ladybug is doing better and I don’t want to take that from her because I shared my identity with you.” 

For the first time in a while, Alya didn’t know what to say and for a while she remained silent. Even after it all, it was still all for Ladybug.

Alya mentally cursed in her head and made a note to subtlety open Mari’s eyes to the possibility of Chat Noir.

“Alya?” Chat asked. Apparently Alya had been silent for a little too long.

“Sorry. It’s a lot to think about.” Alya said,”But you know what, I’m strong too. I know I can handle whatever you guys throw at me.”

“So you’re saying I can trust you?” Chat Noir’s tail seemed to move excitedly for a moment. It’s almost like he expected to be rejected.

“Of course you can, and to prove that. I’ll let you in on a secret of mine.” Alya said as she put her hands on her hips,”I’m Rena Rogue.”

Chat Noir’s eyes widened as he slowly forms a bright smiles on his face,”I should’ve known Ladybug would’ve chosen you for the fox miraculous. But I’m glad it was you.”

They both laughed and talked about the various battles they fought together in for a while until a comfortable silence fell between them.

“Alya.” Chat said,”I want to tell you who I am. But I want you to know something before I do.” He said,”I know you. In real life I mean. Like I know you in person. As in we’re already mutual friends.”

Alya eyebrows arched a bit, to say that enough to make Alya start thinking of the potential candidates. Ever since LadyBlog took off, Alya did have some fame to her name so she wouldn’t have been surprised if she had met his civilian form during an interview or something of the sort. But to say that they were already friends?

Chat Noir took a deep breath,”Okay I won’t lie I’m a bit nervous.” He laughed hugging his baton protectively.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to do this today if you don’t want to. “

“No I do. It’ll be fine I think.” He said as Alya stared at him intensely.

“Uh alya.. you’re making me a bit more nervous.” He said embarrassingly. Alya shook her head,”Right sorry sorry just continue.” She said letting her unintentional threatening gaze ease.

“Okay.” The air thickened around as the tension increased.

“Okay but if you like hate me after th-“

“Oh my god CHAT NOIR.” Alya said almost laughing at his sudden nervousness.

“Can you? Turn around?” He asked fiddling with his fingers.

Alya did just that. He reminded her of Marinette around Adrien. Except Chat Noir could at least get a few words out instead of none.

She heard a deep breath

“Plagg, claws in.” He said. It was silent before she heard another voice,”You got any cheese on you?”

“Oh Plagg, you and your stinky cheese can wait.” The voice said.

Alya turned around and when she tells you nothing couldve prepared her for this. She means absolutely nothing.

“You-“ Alya choked out. Her mind racing literally everywhere. “But-“

Adrien scratched his neck and chuckled nervously,”Guess the cats out of the bag.”

“Oh my god.” Alya was in complete disbelief. Or was she? It slowly started to come together. He constant sneaking away. The way he had never been akumatized and was never seen together in the same room. The way he looked like Chat Noir when she for fun drew a mask on him that day she showed Marinette.

She froze. Marinette is Ladybug. Chat Noir is Adrien. Chat Noir loves Ladybug. Ladybug is Marinette. Marinette loves Adrien. Adrien is Chat Noir.

These idiots were in fucking love with each other and they didn’t even know. Alya wanted to just scream.

“Alya?”Adrien asked worriedly,”You havent said anything in a while? Are you disappointed?”

Alya’s spiritual form slapped her in the back of the head,”No!” She almost shouted. Adrien stared at her like she had gone mad.

“No! Not at all! Just surprised but not really? Does that make sense?”

“You’re not surprised ?” Adrien asked her curiously.

“It’s complicated.” Alya admits,”But I appreciate you sharing your secret with me Adrien. You can trust me.”

“Thanks Alya, it feels nice to have another friend.”

“Of course.”

And with that, the two spend the next hour or so just talking. About being Adrien and about being Chat Noir. It was clear Adrien was still pretty closed off about his Adrien life but Alya didn’t want to push him to say something he wasn’t ready to say.

When Chat Noir left Alya practically let out small a small screech ,”THEYRE literally GOING TO END UP KILLING ME WHEN THEY FIND OUT.”

“WHY ARE THEY MAKING IT SO DAMN COMPLICATED.” Alya banged her head against wall.

But then a thought occurred. A very dangerous but fun one.

She chuckled evilly to herself in her room as her forehead turned a bright red.

Alya knew these two would never get anywhere and she of course has sworn to secrecy. But no one said that she couldn’t help out the oblivious lovebirds. Of course she’d be discreet.

Her laughing became ridiculous, one full with mischievous intent. She plopped herself at her desk and began typing away at her computer.

Operation Cat-Bug| . . .

Alya saw the sun rise by the time she stepped back from her computer. A sight to behold. Sure, in need of a little proof reading but nonetheless she had it all planned down in her computer. She nodded in approval as she hit save. School was going to start in about an hour.

She proudly stood up from her chair, legs aching and sore but she did not feel an ounce of tiredness. It was the opposite actually. Excitement jittered through her.

Let the Mayhem Begin

—

omg hi! I’m starting this series. I don’t know exactly how many chapters it will be but I don’t blame on having it be more than 10. Or maybe who knows, I’ll just go where the wind takes me.

ao3 link

I promise they’ll get longer this is the introduction *wink face*

Next Chapter: School Days

[fruitycasket]

Droppin like Flies

Summary: The following text is a transcript from a journal found in a deserted house.

Word Count: 2,856

Notes: As I post this I am suffering from what I like to call “oh god this fic looked okay two days ago and now I hate it,” syndrome. This is kind of why I didn’t edit it twice and also why I didn’t post it for two days even though I finished it. Hope you find it decently spooky anyway. (Link to Ao3 version here!)

[The following text is a transcript from a journal found in a deserted house. It was found with one smashed window, a broken door, and several boards and nails lying around the house. Small holes in the wall indicate that the house’s windows and doors were boarded up at some point. There are also blood trails and footprints throughout the house indicating human-sized creatures entered the residence, and possibly dragged something into the forest surrounding the property. The house in question is about a mile away from two houses on either side of it. When the neighbors were questioned, they recalled not hearing from the inhabitants of the empty house for “a while.” They decided to call us when the household did not show up to a party they planned on attending. After calling and texting, a man went to check on them, saw the state of their house, and called the police. Shortly after, it was discovered that an individual named Stacy Brody and her two children were also missing.]

[All journal entries have been transcripted starting with the first page.]

Estimated Date, December 25th

[In cursive handwriting] Merry Christmas, JJ! [A small heart is drawn next to the text]

Unknown Date

[A pencil sketch of a bird sitting on a branch.]

Unknown Date

[A colored-pencil drawing of a ladybug sitting on what appears to be a white windowsill.]

Unknown Date

[An unfinished picture of someone flexing both arms.]

January 7th

I keep forgetting to use this book. It’s such a shame because it's nice and handmade and everything. I’m going to use it as a journal so it gets some good use. I hope I don’t forget to do this either.

January 8th

We all got invited to a big party! I know Henrik isn’t really big about parties but I hope I can convince him to come with us. Hopefully a few weeks is enough time. Next to Henrik, Chase looks like a social butterfly. (Sometimes.)

January 10th

I don’t think Henrik will listen to reason, so I’m going to use the tried and true method of annoying him for a day until he says yes or locks himself in his room. I know that second part seems counterproductive but Jackie knows how to pick locks so he can’t hide!

January 11th

It worked! I think. Henrik said he would consider it, but who knows what that means. I think he just wanted to make me go away. At least it wasn’t an outright “no”. I can work with it.

January 13th

Had a weird dream last night. Someone was talking to me, whispering in my ear, almost. Something along the lines of "I'm coming back," I think? I don't know what to make of it, but it’s been on my mind all day. Maybe I’m overreacting but I'm worried it could be [something beginning with the letter A has been erased here, then written over] him. But that would make no sense.

I think I'll ask Marvin about it later, he probably knows a lot about dreams

January 14th

I asked Marvin about the dream. He said he couldn't detect anything particularly malevolent. He told me to talk to him again if the dream (or another like it) came back again anyway. Other than that, today went okay.

January 15th

I haven’t had another dream, was the first one a regular dream?

January 16th

I went to bed and had a nightmare like the dream I had a little while ago.

This one was creepy. I was stuck in the dark, and I could feel something staring at me. It has to be him, but he's been dead for months now! Maybe it's another demon?

I went to talk to Marvin again. He seemed concerned, said I wasn't the only one having funny dreams. Everyone has had one at least once in the past week, apparently, Marvin thought they were just weird dreams since he couldn’t feel anything evil causing them. They were all kind of the same as mine.

I was right. It has to be him, I can’t think of anything else that could be undetectable by Marvin of all people. [Another “A” word has been erased and written over.] He's back! I don't know how but it has to be the truth, unless we're so unlucky that we attracted an entirely new one?

January 17th

Everyone had a nightmare tonight. Mine was the same as last night, but I swore I could see something looking at me. It looked sort of like a person. All in all, it was more unnerving than anything. I was actually really lucky. Chase seemed really shaken up by whatever he dreamed about, and so did Jackie. I kept asking what they saw in their dreams, but they wouldn’t say.

Marvin said he didn’t have any dreams at all. Henrik was kind of in the middle, I think? It’s hard to tell, because he wasn’t acting all that different today. I asked him what he dreamt about and he was really vague about it. I want to say it was something bad, but I figured he would be more afraid if that were the case?

January 18th

Nothing’s gotten better for me, but nothing’s gotten worse. Chase has started to sleep less, I think. His eyes are all red and he keeps nodding off when he tries to sit down. I’m afraid Jackie isn’t even sleeping at all. He’s gone a day or two without sleeping before, so if he is staying up all night he’s handling it better than Chase. Marvin is still doing fine. Henrik is still Henrik.

January 19th

Jackie and Marvin started arguing today. It's probably because Jackie hasn't been sleeping lately. 

Anyway, Jackie accused Marvin of being a traitor because he was the only one not suffering from the weird dreams. I guess it is weird that he's the only one getting a good night's rest around here, but I don't think it's solid evidence or anything. Henrik separated them both to keep them from fighting, I haven't seen either of them leave their rooms since. I think he’s the last level-headed one in this house, or at least really good at pretending to be.

Speaking of which, my dreams have more or less been the same. Sometimes I hear a voice whispering but I can’t make out any words.

Chase is looking worse for wear. He’s started trying to get some rest, but I think he’s afraid to. Sometimes he keeps me up at night because his walls are thin enough that I can hear him tossing and turning in bed, or crying, sometimes. When he’s awake he acts weird, too. He’s twitchy and nervous, and he spends a lot of time on his phone, texting someone. He never lets us see who it is. I think Jackie is getting suspicious of him.

[Chase’s phone was never recovered from the house, nor was Stacy’s or her childrens’.]

January 20th

[This page has two small water stains on it.]

We can't find Marvin, and Henrik and Jackie won't talk to each other. We thought it was weird that he hadn't come out of his room for a while, and he wasn't responding when we knocked on the door so Jackie picked the lock and he was gone. His mask was on the floor, but other than that his room was normal. The window wasn't even open or unlocked. I think Henrik thinks Jackie did something to Marvin while we were asleep, but I was up almost all night last night. I would have heard if something happened. [Something was written here, then thoroughly erased.]

Henrik says he's going to try and feed the mask some blood to wake it up. Marvin taught all of us how to do it in case something happened to him and we needed to use its magic for something. I can't believe I thought we'd never need to know how a while ago.

I thought maybe I could talk to Chase so I could keep myself calm, but he's been getting worse. Chase keeps staring out the windows like he sees something out there. I tried to ask him what he’s looking at, but it makes no sense. “They’re getting closer” was all he said. I told him it was probably just some animals and he told me the animals left a long time ago. He wouldn’t say who “them” was, either, but he did say something about the vultures not wanting to eat. It's getting late now and I'm trying to get him to bed like Henrik asked me to, but he's refusing. He told me he doesn’t need sleep anymore. I tried to give him some sleep medicine but it's not working! I think I'm going to sit him by the window and go to bed, I’m too tired to bother.

January 21st

I had a dream last night. The voice I heard from my first dream is back, but now Marvin's is there, too. Marvin was telling me not to fight. He was saying the pain wasn't worth it. I wish I could've asked him what he meant.

January 22nd

Chase ran into the woods this morning. Jackie followed him, somehow, even though he was long gone by the time he woke up. When they came back Chase was cradling this gross bloody thing in his arms. He seemed really upset. He gave it to Henrik, and he told us it definitely belonged to a human, but he couldn’t tell what part it was. There wasn't enough evidence to say who it belonged to but I think we all had a good idea anyway.

When we tried to call the police, there was no reception. When we tried to leave, we couldn’t. Something was on the path to the road, waiting for us. [Another “A” word has been erased and written over. The page has been torn as if someone applied too much pressure to the eraser] I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe it was him. None of us do.

Jackie couldn’t make him leave and when we tried to sneak around him… None of us really saw what it was, but it almost looked like [a few things were written here, then erased] Chase didn’t seem as scared as the rest of us. Speaking of him, I’m really worried about him. Has he even slept at all? His eyes are so red. It looks like his tears would be bloody.

[At the bottom of the page, in different handwriting, this was written.]

I have to protect my family. I'm sorry, I hope you can understand. I hope you make the right choice. It’s not as scary as it looks. You know where to find me.

January 23rd

[Note for this page: During shows, Marvin’s mask has been known to have grown spider-ish legs and a whip-like, barbed tail in order to move. This page also has three small water stains.]

Marvin's mask woke up, but it was really agitated. I don’t think it’ll be any help right now, but maybe more blood will help. Henrik’s offering up his own, so it’ll be nice and fresh.

After we let the mask rest, Henrik and I went to check on Chase and he was gone. I went to get my journal to write about it and I found his note. At least, I assume it’s his.

I showed it to Jackie and he freaked out. He spent all morning trying to call Chase, or Stacy, or any of his kids but, well, you can guess how that went.

I had a sneaking suspicion Chase would be gone before I woke up, though. I had the dream (nightmare?) again, and I could hear his voice. He sounded happy. 

I hope his voice isn’t lying to me. I hope wherever they are, they aren't hurt.

[At this point, the author’s handwriting begins to deteriorate somewhat.]

January 24th

The voices aren't restricted to my dreams anymore. I can hear them all the time. Anti’s voice, Marvin's voice, Chase's voice... I've been trying to ignore them, but I'm getting so desperate for someone to talk to I might start answering them.

The mask ran away today. It didn’t want the blood, it just wanted to leave. It smashed through a window and disappeared into the forest. It only scuttles like that when Marvin is close, since it likes him so much (that or it was really, really afraid). Jackie hoped that meant Marvin was close by, so he went out to follow the mask. He said he wouldn’t go far but [this sentence has no ending or punctuation]

He’s been gone for a while now.

As for Henrik? Henrik is just. I don't know. He’s really quiet, but he’s sort of going through his daily routine? Did he give up? I know he’s been through this kind of thing on his own before, so maybe this is just his defense mechanism kicking in. I don’t want to talk to him despite my situation. He’s a realist, he’ll tell me something I don’t want to hear, and it’ll terrify me.

I'm afraid to go to sleep. I don't want to start hearing his voice in my head, too.

[At the bottom of the page, written in cursive with dark brown ink is this message.]

You know what to do, if you want this to stop.

January 25th

Jackie never came back.

Henrik isn't really trying to fight anymore, I can tell now. I don't feel inclined to either. Did Jackie abandon us? Anti didn't get him because I didn't hear his voice in my dream. Maybe Anti just didn’t want him. Maybe he was just… torn apart. If that was the case I hope it was quick.

I'm not sure anything is going to stop what's about to happen, but we tried our best anyway. We boarded up the doors, the windows, locked everything up.

[At the bottom of the page, written in large letters, sloppy with an unknown, brown-ish red substance is this message.]

If it's pointless, why bother?

January 26th

Nothing happened today. Henrik is still going through the motions.

He made us a huge breakfast. It was nice. We sat by the window until the sun went down. By the time it started to get dark and we saw them moving through the treeline. I think I understand what Chase was talking about now. If I were a fox or a bear or something I wouldn’t want to be in the same forest as those things, either.

I wonder if it hurts? [In the margins, written in pen with neat handwriting are the words “It doesn’t.”]

I tried to look for Jackie in the group but he wasn’t there.

Henrik wants me to get some sleep now. We’re sleeping in the same bed tonight. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go to bed, but at the same time I’m hoping I don’t have to look at those things up close.

[From this point onwards, the author’s handwriting begins to get difficult to read. It is very scratchy, and the spaces between the letters and words are inconsistent.]

January 27th

Henrik is gone. Anti must have showed up while I was asleep and gotten him. How did I not notice? Why didn't he take me? If Anti wants me to surrender, I'm surrendering. I'll pull every board off those damn windows.

In other news, I've started talking to the voices. They're friendly. They’ve told me they’re coming tomorrow night. I think it’s best I stay here and wait like they want me to, I don’t know what they’ll do to me if they find out I tried to run away.

I went to sit by the window and saw something moving in the treeline all by itself. Was it Jackie?

Estimated Date, January 28th

They’re here, I can hear them getting closer. I know I shouldn’t have, but I left the door locked. I hope that doesn’t make them mad. I don’t even want to think about what it would look like if they were mad at me.

I’ve been looking over the notes the others wrote in my book while I slept, I know they say it's nothing to be afraid of but

[The entry stops here, and there are no further entries in the journal.]

[All individuals mentioned in the entries above remain missing. All residents of this stretch of woods have been moved temporarily, and the forest sectioned off with heavily armed guards stationed around the entire perimeter. Brief sightings of “mutants” have become semi-common. Most are not aggressive until approached, however two have been reported to actively seek out and kill or abduct trespassers. No individuals abducted have ever been retrieved, alive or dead. All attempts to capture the mutants as of February 2nd have failed. Observation of the mutants has proven mostly unsuccessful. There has been no sign of regular wildlife in the forest as of February 3rd.]

[Report End]

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

A Miraculous TikTok Account

Part 9

First

Previous

Next

Chat laid back in his bed but, for once, he wasn’t tired.

He was set to go on patrols that night, so he’d pretty much done everything he’d wanted for the day earlier. He’d gotten all his sleep, watched every video, finished his skin and hair care routines…

Only to find out that, hey, he didn't actually need to do that because Hawkmoth had chosen today to akumatize someone.

So patrols were out of the question. Hawkmoth had a recharge time of a few hours it seemed, but he usually didn’t do multiple akumas on the same day. They were always less powerful when he did too many in quick succession.

Well, at least he could go fight the akuma, right?

Wrong.

Because it was quickly brought to his attention that he actually couldn’t go, because the akuma was Mr. Pigeon and he quite famously had a bird allergy.

So the three women had all headed out (Carapace had stayed behind to finish an essay) and Chat had been left behind.

He scrolled through TikTok for a while. The app was definitely watching him, because almost all the content on his For You Page was animal videos…

Not that he minded.

But he could only handle so much cuteness at once, so that only worked for a few minutes.

Next, he went on Twitter to see what everyone was currently arguing about. That was bound to be entertaining…

Unfortunately, it seemed everyone in Paris was more concerned with the akuma than anything else at the moment. He didn’t need action shots of his housemates or to know more about Mr. Pigeon’s new plan to take the birds to space or whatever so he can… feed them? What?

The only other notable app on his phone was Instagram, but he wasn’t about to go on that. He was supposed to be in Tibet at some fancy private school, if people saw he was active he’d have to come up with answers to the millions of questions he’d inevitably get.

Now what…?

He pushed himself up to a sitting position with minimal groaning and attempted to run a hand down his face despite his mask.

Screw it. He was bored. He’d go bother Carapace.

He shuffled two doors down. He knocked twice…

There was a scrambling sound before he got a yell to come in.

When Chat actually did so, he found Carapace fastening his mask to his face. He was sitting at his desk, the area around him littered with crumpled pieces of paper.

“Salut?”

Chat batted away some with his feet as he made his way towards Carapace. “Salut. Chloe would kill you if she saw how much paper you’re wasting.”

“Paper is biodegradable, isn’t it?” Said Carapace with a slight grin.

“True.”

“... is there a reason you’re here?”

Chat didn’t answer, instead he slung himself over Carapace’s lap and laid there like a giant housecat. Which he pretty much was.

Carapace wasn’t even all that surprised.

All of the miraculous holders were well aware that the miraculous had side effects for them. They seemed to have attributed his constant need to be in contact with others as one of the side effects.

Chat knew that wasn’t the case, he was just Like That, but who was he to tell them they were wrong?

Carapace reached down and gave his hair a tiny ruffle and then went back to work.

Chat pulled out his phone again and started scrolling idly through Twitter for something to do (also he was kind of curious about the space pigeons now). The sound of Carapace’s pencil on the paper and his tiny sighs and curses were the only noises in the room for a while…

His eyes slid over the room. The bed looked untouched, there were a few empty energy drink cans strewn about, but other than that...

“So, wait, is homework literally all you do when you’re in here?”

“It’s all I have energy for outside of working out and patrols most days. Why?”

Chat rolled over to look up at him. “It’s just… you’re so…” He tried to think of a way to phrase it nicely, but when he couldn’t he settled for: “boring…?”

Carapace frowned a little. “And you’re so annoying!”

Chat flinched. As most people do when someone insults them.

His face softened and he groaned a little. “... sorry. That wasn’t… I’m just a little stressed out about school. This paper is due at midnight and I don’t know what to write.” He cracked a half smile and motioned to all the wads of paper. “As you might have been able to tell.”

He relaxed as well. “Yeah. I hear school is stressful.”

“You hear…?”

He hesitated. They were supposed to keep most things about their lives as civilians a secret, but… there was no way he could figure out who he was from this piece of information, so: “I was homeschooled.”

Carapace raised his eyebrows, thought about it, then nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Huh?”

“You have sheltered rich kid vibes.”

“... thanks?”

“No problem,” he responded easily. He set his pencil down and stretched as much as he could with someone still laying across his lap. “So. You had to have had a good education. Have any tips for my essay?”

Chat yawned and closed his eyes. “Depends. What’s the subject?”

“Film history.”

“... I don’t know anything about that, I don’t think, sorry. Ladybug or Rena might, ask them when they get back.”

Carapace laughed a little. “I don’t need information, if I did at least then I could just look it up, I just don’t know how to… write?”

He blinked his eyes open and then looked at him. “I can help if you just need to get your thoughts in order.”

“Really?” Said Carapace, his face lighting up.

Chat groaned a little as he stretched out. “Sure. Let me get a whiteboard.”

“We have paper…?” He said, watching his housemate get up and start walking out of the room.

“Shhhh, it’s for the aesthetic.”

Chat walked to the fridge and grabbed the whiteboard and markers from it.

He took a quick picture of the board so he could put everything back on it when he was done. Rena had apparently been doing some calculations on it. He remembered, vaguely, that she had mentioned calculating Hawkmoth’s height…

Holy crap. That’s tall. Sure, Hawkmoth was tall, but was he really THAT tall?

He shook his head slightly and erased, then returned to Carapace’s room. He smiled as he held them up for him to see.

“Tada.”

“So… what are we doing?”

“You --” Chat pointed a marker at him. “-- are going to talk about everything you know on the subject. I --” He pointed at himself. “-- am going to put everything in categories and we can go from there.”

Chat very quickly discovered why he was having so much trouble getting anything down. Carapace was… let’s call it ‘passionate’. The moment he started speaking his words tumbled out so quickly that Chat had had to scramble to pull the cap off of the marker so he could start sorting.

But, really, it always is nice to hear someone ramble about something they’re passionate about. Chat had to fight an urge to just watch and listen to Carapace as he talked about how ‘absolutely insane the textbook is for not going that much into eastern theater when there’s so much to talk about about kabuki theater alone --.’

Two hours and many struggles to fit so much information into such a compact space later, Carapace had run out of things to talk about.

“... is there a page limit?” Said Chat as he tossed over a water.

Carapace caught it without even really looking and took a few sips before speaking again: “Uh… yeah. Five pages max. That’s… my main problem.”

Chat looked at the board. What was on there alone was probably two pages in itself and that was just the general names of the topics…

He tipped his head from side to side and then circled a part of it. “Behold. That’s probably around four, and then you can do a bit of extra plus an introduction and conclusion.”

Carapace looked like he was going to cry.

“Are you… okay?”

He sniffled and wiped his eyes. “Where have you been all my life?”

“Uh… being homeschooled?”

“Oh. Right.”

Chat slung himself over Carapace’s lap again as he got to work. He scrolled through his phone for a while.

He jumped a little when he got a text. Still not used to that.

He opened the message.

Ladybug: We’ve washed off and changed clothes so your allergies won’t be irritated. Heading home now.

Kittychat: Thanks :D

He got left on read by three people, but that’s fine.

“They’re on their way back.”

Carapace grinned. “Wow, they beat Mr. Pigeon? Shocker!”

When Chat laughed a little, Carapace’s grin got a little more mischievous.

“Seriously, though, imagine losing to Mr. Pigeon. Couldn’t be me.”

“I am allERGIC --!”

He was cut off by Carapace’s laughter and, after a moment, he joined in.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence…

Then Chat got an idea. A small smirk made its way onto his face.

“You said that your account was going to be showing the world that we’re all normal people under the masks, right?”

“Among other things…?”

“Want to mess with the others and get some footage?”

“You complete me. C’mon.”

Carapace snatched his phone off his desk and they headed down to the living room to prepare.

~~~

Taglist

@nathleigh @mialuvscats @sassakitty @th1s-1s-my-aesthet1c @blueslushgueen @woe-is-me0

[chronicallylatetotheparty]

Rewriting Timebreaker

Oh, wow. The entire class is ridiculous and I love them. Also: Nathaniel seemed more excited about the prospect of Kim being barred from making dares than he did about meeting Ladybug. Just saying.

. . . After skimming the episode I realized that I didn't have anything I wanted to change really. A Miraculous breaking is a plot hole but I don't really have a fix for it? The Idiot Ball the class is inflicted with allows for some character interactions you wouldn't get otherwise.

And unlike 80% of all the other times Chat Noir gets hit this one is actually significant to the plot.

Congratulations! @infinitysgrace You have won an indeterminate amount of ". . . And Then Chat Noir Kicked Their Ass!" rewrites!

(I will save my more serious rewrites for... special episodes.)

So I'm ignoring everything until the fight actually happens

Ladybug uses her yo-yo to pull Timebreaker off balance like in Canon

Rose gets duped

When Chat Noir taps Timebreaker on the shoulder with his extended baton to get her attention he bats her into the wall

Timebreaker still manages to get Mylene and Alya

Ladybug saves Ivan by wrapping her yo-yo around Timebreaker's wrist

But Timebreaker pulls Ladybug forward and doesn't hesitate to touch her

Chat Noir is furious at Ladybug being hit and places himself in front of her to keep Timebreaker away from her earrings

Timebreaker charges, Chat Noir flips her overhead and away from Ladybug's fading form

Annoyed, Timebreaker starts building up her time jump

Launching himself forward with his baton Chat Noir lands on her shoulders at the last second

Chat Noir leaps off once they're in the past, is confused for a second

He calls out a warning to the class when Timebreaker jumps down to them

Watch breaks again and now there's 2 Timebreakers that blame Chat Noir

Past Adrien and Future Chat give each other compliments after Plagg confirms it's him (self love, baby)

Ladybug makes a quip about how he's twice as annoying now

Past Chat shoots back something about being too much for her to handle

Future Chat just smiles and says he's glad she's safe

The 2 Timebreakers are outmatched by the three heroes so they try to go back farther

Unfortunately for them the 2 Chat Noirs are very good at keeping them busy while Ladybug figures out her Lucky Charm.

One of them destroys that big stone thing in the middle of the park

While the other uses his belt to tie the Timebreakers together. Throwing off their balance

They run into the ramp Ladybug set up

The other Chat Noir uses his Cataclysm on both skates

Purify akuma, blah blah blah, Miraculous Ladybug, blah blah blah, the end!

You know... I don't see the appeal of these. Rewatching the episode just reminded me that Oh, wait! I actually like this show!

"What about Copycat?"

Shut up, I do what I want!

Idk which one is next but I'll try to put more badass Chat Noir actually beating the akuma. Turns out I like this one too much to feel like changing it.

[saemi-the-writer]

MT EPISODE REWRITING: DARK BLADE

Okay, this one is longer than the previous because I introduce some of my OCs and because the setting is different/takes longer than in canon. For continuity and character’s depvelopment’s sake, there will be more episodes like that, I hope you will enjoy them too. Btw, it’s one of my fav episode of the first season (mainly the akuma, I still find it very fun!)

Dark Blade, Miraculous team version!

(Takes place after Reflekta, early/mid-September)

Ms. Bustier announce to her class that the class rep election will be held in a week; she quickly reminds her students what the class rep role is, and their duties, before asking who would be interested in the job and/or the deputy. Chloé, Rose and Kim raise their hands for the class rep while Sabrina precises she goes for the deputy position. Ms. Bustier writes everything down and tell them they still have a whole week before the election and the bell rings. As the students get out, Alya notices that Marinette looks a bit down -jaded even- and asks her what’s wrong.

“Chloé is going to be class rep no matter what. She’s always been since 6th (first year of middle school) and it won’t change anytime soon.”

“Wait, you really think others want that blonde bully as a class rep?! She certainly doesn’t get my vote; Kim seems a better option even if he’s a bit dumb!”

“Yeah, if Kim maintains his candidacy. But the past two years, each time, all Chloé’s opponents gave up before the election, leaving her the only option. We didn’t have a choice.”

Alya is both shocked and annoyed to learn that, and the two discuss about it more before they split up to go home. They didn’t notice their teacher heard some of it. Once Marinette is home, she rushes to do her homework and finish her secret box, in case an akuma would appear in the evening or night. Tikki is a bit anxious that she writes all her secrets in her diary until she gets trapped in the box (like in canon). Marinette also assured her she wrote the part about her life as Ladybug in Chinese, so only her mom (or family on her mother side) could read it but they were little chance they’d get their hand on the diary or even want to read it. Before going dinnertime, Marinette confides in Tikki that she would have liked running for class rep, but she’s afraid she won’t have the time to do properly. Tikki tells her it will not hurt to try and that it would be a shame to leave the position to Chloé of all people, especially because she thinks that Marinette would be a great CP. Marinette feels a bit flattered but doesn’t change her mind (yet).

At dinnertime, she hears her parents talking about the incoming elections. They’re not really happy with either candidate, but they’d rather have Mr Bourgeois again as the mayor than Mr D’Argencourt. She listens with a distracted ear, choosing not to talk about the class rep elections.

Meanwhile, at the Agreste mansion, Gabriel and Nathalie have a similar conversation. Adrien listens carefully, curious about it since D’Argencourt is his fencing teacher. When Nathalie points out that D’Argencourt is too backward-looking (among other things) for her taste, it amuses Adrien who tells them that, indeed, his teacher has an old-fashioned way of speech and is sometimes too pompous. He imitates D’Argencourt shortly, making the two laugh a bit, then Gabriel reveals him that he had been seriously considering Adrien to change fencing lessons for a while because D’Argencourt tends to speak of politics too much in front of the children, imposing his point of view on them. “I am not paying him to spread his own propaganda.” While Adrien respects his teacher for his skills and enjoys fencing, he admits that he wouldn’t mind having a new -friendlier and more open-minded- teacher. Nathalie takes her tablet so they can show him the options they found.

As the week goes by, both Rose and Kim go to Ms. Bustier to tell her they withdraw their candidacy in turn. The teacher tries to change their mind, but when she realizes the two are really scared and were threatened/blackmailed, she stops. Ms Bustier is very upset, she speaks about it to some of her colleagues and the vice-principal (Damocles) only to hear that they can’t do much about it. The principal eats out of the mayor’s palm hand and so, he lets Chloé do whatever she wants. She goes to some of her students, asking them if they would be interested but they are either not interested at all or don’t want to confront Chloé. Only Adrien, Alya and Marinette answered “I am too busy, I won’t have the time to do it”. Marinette feels kinda sorry for her teacher who seems quite glum because of that, she starts having second thoughts. Tikki gives her a pep talk, then Marinette remembers that compared to Miss Tigri and the two giant snakes, Chloé seems ridiculous, which is why she manages to hold her ground and keep her seat, so she decides to go for it. Ms Bustier and her classmates are thrilled by her decision, whereas Chloé fumes and is already on the war path.

The following events are quite the same as canon then, all Marinette’s classmate congratulates her for her courage and have some requests for her. All of them are already planning to vote for her, Adrien too: he sees that Marinette will take her duty seriously. Then Chloé tries bribing them with albums and autographs of Jagged Stones. While Marinette rushes to the hotel, Sabrina goes to the bakery and uses the geometry book excuse; Sabine hesitates a bit because she doesn’t recognize Sabrina and cannot go and look for the book herself. Then, a young woman Sabrina doesn’t know speaks up:

“I can go and look for it with her, auntie!”

Sabrina is confused and wonders who that girl is, but Sabine, relieved at the sight of her niece, allows them to go. The girl introduce herself as Ryma -Marinette’s cousin- and the two climb to Marinette’s room. Sabrina is bothered by Ryma’s presence; she cannot search the room as she wishes nor talk to Chloé (who is hopping mad since Sabrina hung up on her in panic). However, she notices the diary in the box, and the moment Ryma turns her back on her, she rushes to take it. The two girls jump at the loud snap.

D’Argencourt is still bitter because he lost the elections and takes it out on his students, being harder and more demanding than usual. After showing off his move to Adrien, he makes his speech about his ancestor during his class (like canon). Adrien only listens out of politeness, eager for him to stop so he can go – plus, he (deep down) thinks D’Argencourt is a jerk, just like his ancestor. Gabriel comes to pick him up with his bodyguard, and while Adrien goes to change, Gabriel argues with D’Argencourt. The latter doesn’t take well that Gabriel wants his son to leave his “school”, nor how he cannot counter any argument Gabriel throws at him.

The fencer leaves only to be approached by Nadja Chamack and the sight of André Bourgeois’ picture is too much, he gets akumatized. Nadja and her cameraman are changed into knights, Gabriel and Adrien’s bodyguard see it and they both try to get Adrien to safety. They are changed as Adrien transforms and rushes out as Chat Noir.

Back at the hotel, Marinette feels a bit offended that her classmates (seem to) accept to be bribed; but when she asks them, most of them put it bluntly that they don’t intend on voting for Chloé.

“She will never keep her promises if she becomes class rep, so why should we keep ours?”

Marinette is left speechless, but she cannot blame them for making a false promise to her bully. Her phone rings, and she’s surprised to see it’s her cousin Ryma calling her. She gets more and more confused until Ryma arrives, pulling Sabrina behind her by her wrist.

“That girl was literally caught left-handed!” she tells Marinette, holding out Sabrina’s trapped hand for her to see.

Chloé runs to pull them all asides and is shocked as Ryma grabs her too then terrified by the older girl’s expression. Marinette tries to calm her cousin down, but they are interrupted by the akuma’s arrival. Like in canon, Marinette takes the lead, and they barricade the doors while Chat Noir and Pandora fight the knights outside, then she sneaks away when she can. Pandora is quite irritated as she fights off the knights and takes jabs at Dark Blade whenever she can, to both LB and CN’s surprise and amusement.

When the knights catapult themselves up, Chat Noir is the one who cries out “The flag! They are aiming for the flag!” and the three quickly climb up to prevent them from taking it. Pandora stations herself near the flag, fending them off (some Les Misérables references? Maybe!) while Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm. She gets a little bag full of itching powder and she throws it at Dark Blade after he tries to pull his move on Chat Noir (“Not twice!” yes, a Saint Seiya reference too sorry not sorry), CN uses his cataclysm on the sword and LB can capture the akuma and uses her miraculous healing.

The younger heroes have only a few minutes left, so after a group “pound it”, they leave. Pandora turns to D’Argencourt and offers to help him down the roof, but he is so rude and condescending to her that turns away. “Suit yourself, Messire. Good luck!” D’Argencourt stays stunned and huffs, trying clumsily to go down. A shadow appears behind him and reaches out:

“I think you would have been an amazing ruler, sir.” A smile. “We can help you restore your family’s former greatness, let us help you and together, we will lead the people of Paris to glory.”

D’Argencourt remains silent a moment, then takes the hand in his.

“Welcome among us, Armand D’Argencourt.”

The hands shake firmly.

Marinette sneaks back among her classmates, claiming she had been changed into a knight. Adrien does the same (and no one questions how and when he arrived at the hotel) before Chloé tries to make a scene, calling Marinette a quitter. It doesn’t last as Ryma butts in, still dragging a tearful Sabrina behind her; Marinette frees Sabrina’s hand and expose Chloé (well, she betrays herself but still). When Chloé tries to shift the blame on Sabrina, everyone rolls their eyes “yeah right, we know Sabrina is more your minion than friend.”. Although her victory is obvious, Marinette still makes a nice speech, showing them all that she does deserve to be class rep and gets a round of applause.

The following day, Marinette is officially the class president and Alya her deputy. She sees Ryma at the bakery later, who congratulates her. They both hug and Marinette thanks her again for defending her.

Adrien then joins his new fencing class and meets his new teacher, Laura Fleuret.

AN: Adrien’s new teacher is inspired by a real fencer Laura Flessel ; and if you wonder what Ryma looks like, here’s a reference)

[a-solitary-marshmallow]

Do No Harm Take No Shit Chapter 6 - Smile, the World is Watching

The video started with a blur of concrete bricks – it shook for a moment before swinging up to catch Adrien’s face, flushed with exertion and eyes sparkling.

“Hey, Bugheads.” He said quickly as he appeared to be walking across the school gym. “This is for the Ladyblog, which a good friend of mine runs. I just saw Ladybug come overhead, I’m gonna ask her for an interview. Hang on a sec!”

The video blurred again, showing the wall this time as Adrien dashed towards the gym exit and rushed down the stairs. He slowed, though, lifting the camera to catch a glimpse of red and black dropping from the ceiling, down to where a single student was walking.

“Is that Lila?” Adrien’s muffled voice came over the sound of Lila’s surprised yelp, as Ladybug landed directly in front of her in the deserted schoolyard. “I don’t wanna interrupt bestie time so maybe next time, Bugheads-”

“You need to stop.” Ladybug’s voice rang cool and clear across the silent schoolyard. Adrien stepped awkwardly sideways to duck mostly behind the fence and keep out of sight.

“Stop what?” Lila responded sweetly, but Ladybug wasn’t having a bar of it. She folded her arms.

“Your lying. This has gone too far.”

And now Lila leaned back and folded her arms too, mirroring Ladybug’s stance. Her voice came light and sarcastic. “I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Another lie.” Ladybug said in a low voice. Behind the camera, Adrien made a small squeaking sound. Luckily neither girl noticed. Lila tipped her head.

“Oh, so you know about the Marinette girl?”

“You lied about knowing me.” Ladybug said witheringly. “That was understandable. But a source at the school tells me it runs deeper than that. That you committed truancy, that you put your mother’s job as an ambassador at risk by claiming to have gone on extravagant trips that could have her arrested for embezzlement, or fired at the least. That you don’t run any of the charities that you say you do, and the money your classmates give you goes into your own pocket. That you fake injuries to get out of crucial schoolwork.” Lila stepped forward to speak but Ladybug cut her off. “And now tripping a classmate down the stairs. Do you know you could have killed her?”

Lila laughed nastily. “It would have served her right.”

Adrien made another sound low in his threat. Even Ladybug seemed to flinch, and Lila stepped forward.

“It’s almost too easy, you know. The people at this school are so idiotic, they didn’t even fact check me when I started with my unbelievable claims. So why should I ‘stop’ anything? It’s their fault for believing me. They could have stopped me on day one by listening to that annoying do-gooder Marinette. If you want to blame anyone, blame them.”

Ladybug clenched her fists. “Miss Rossi, you have been manipulating your classmates and caused a girl to be injured, and this will not stand. I want you to go to the Ladyblogger and record a formal apology video, delete your previous videos claiming to be my friend, set the record straight with your classmates and any other family members you have deceived, and repay any money they have given you under the impression it was going to a charity. You will also apologize to the girl you injured and pay compensation. Do you understand me?”

Lila laughed again. “What are you going to do about it, Ladybug? Hurt me? Remember, you’re a hero. It wouldn’t do your reputation much good to have injured a poor, innocent girl!” Lila struck a damsel in distress pose. “A rift in friendship that turned to violence. I’m sure Alya would close down her Ladyblog. Oh – or!” She perked up with another idea. “Maybe Chat Noir attacked me. He’s always looked a bit shifty to me, don’t you think?”

Ladybug stepped forward, vibrating with barely concealed rage. “Do not spread lies about my partner, Miss Rossi, or you will find yourself in deep trouble, do you understand me?” The ferocity in her tone made Adrien step back with a faint rustling sound. Lila only tipped her head.

“You may be a superhero, but you don’t get to tell me what to do. Not when I have Hawkmoth on my side. Remember, next time I get an acouma, I can destroy you just like I destroyed Marinette. So don’t get in my way.” She gave a saccharine giggle. “Okay? Good talk.”

Lila went to walk past Ladybug, only to have an arm shoot out and block her path. Lila recoiled slightly and quickly tried to pass it off as brushing invisible lint off her clothes. Ladybug met her eyes coolly.

“You should watch yourself, Miss Rossi. Hawkmoth uses people. Whatever arrangement you think you have with him, he will use you to get what he wants and then he will stab you in the back.”

“Thanks for the concern.” Lila’s voice dripped with sarcasm. She started walking again, and this time Ladybug did nothing to stop her. As Lila disappeared around the block Ladybug let out a sigh and flung her yo-yo up, disappearing in a red and black blur as quickly as she’d arrived.

The camera rustled as Adrien stood there silently from a few seconds. Then he lifted the camera up to his white face and cleared his throat. His eyes were huge and he swallowed twice before he could speak.

“Uhhhhh. So, that happened. I think – um – I should probably tell someone about this?” He glanced away quickly as a voice called out his name. “I gotta go, see you later Bugheads.”

  As the video cut off, the class dissolved into shouts.

Adrien stared, trying not to grin at the sheer and utter chaos he had inflicted upon his classmates. Nino sat stunned. Nathaniel cringed away from Lila, his desk partner, who was frozen in her seat. Rose jumped up and clung to Juleka, who glared at the offending liar. Max tapped frantically on his calculator. Alya stood up and yelled over the shocked murmuring.

“YOU HURT MARINETTE?”             

Surprisingly, Chloe had the strongest reaction of all. She spun in her seat and started shrieking like a banshee, nearly toppling over her chair and instead grabbing Sabrina for support as she leaned over the desk behind her. Her high-pitched screams drowned out the cacophony of voices and chairs scraping back.

“I fucking knew it! Ladybug would never be friends with a little shit like you! Come here and I’ll wring your scrawny neck for dirtying her name you no-good bitch!”

Sabrina yelped and grabbed Chloe around the waist to prevent the incensed girl from charging up the stairs and throttling Lila herself. Marinette met Adrien’s eyes with a shocked look. He raised his eyebrows in agreement.

Ms. Bustier lifted her hands, calling out uselessly for silence. No one was having a bar of it. Adrien calmly retrieved his USB and started moving to take his seat next to Nino, pausing only as Marinette stood and darted forward to wrap him in a hug. Adrien squeezed her tight. When she pulled away her eyes gleamed, bright and hard like steel. It was a look he usually saw accompanied by a red and black mask. It suited her here, too.

And then Kim screeched, “Akuma!”

[mlwritingprompts]

Submitted prompt:

(AU where Adrien is actually a good person, unlike the horrible person he is in the show)

One day, Adrien overhears Alya lamenting over the fact that her little sisters accidentally broke her brand new PS6, and that the warranty doesn’t cover the damage; she’ll have to see if she can get a used one now.

Confused about why that was even a problem, Adrien asks “why don’t you just get a new one?”

Alya looks at him askance, and says “…because they’re $600 dollars?”

Adrien says, slowly, “………so?”

Alya and the entire class (excluding Chloe) turn to stare at him, incredulous.

“so… It would take me over a year to have enough saved up to buy another new one….?!?” Alya slowly explains.

Adrien blinked. “Oh, really? Why? My father bought me both models, just because I told him I wasn’t sure which one I wanted.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Adrien becomes aware of all of the stares.

It is very, very awkward.

“If you want, i can give you one of my extra ones, I mostly use the digital function, so if you have mostly discs, you can have the standard model!” He rushes out, not quite able to grasp why it’s such a big deal.

But Alya shakes her head, eyes wide as she stares at him, “no way! I’d never be able to pay you back! It’d take me forever to save up again!”

Confused and about to argue his point further, Adrien is interuppted by Ms. Bustier’s arrival, and class starts before he can continue the “argument”.

An akuma interrupts class, and by the time Ladybug uses her Miraculous Cure, school is long over, and Adrien makes his way home, mulling over Alya’s console problem.

….why, exactly, was it a problem?

“Natalie, how much does the company make in a week?” He finally asks, and gets a thoughtful expression, before Natalie’s eyes narrow and she pulls up an app on her tablet. “Looks like this week’s earnings are down 20%, so we’re only pulling in… In ah, looks like this week, the company made around $800,000,000, rounded up of course.” Natalie said.

Blinking, Adrien said, “okay, thanks Natalie! I was just curious.” Then walked to his room.

Where he promptly looked up the average annual salary of a head chef in Paris.

Around $55k.

Okay, average annual salary for a zookeeper?

$20k.

So, assuming it was just Alya’s parents contributing to the households finances, Alya’s family of 6 was living on $75k a year, minus the cost of living in Paris– which Adrien also had to look up– and the results were staggering. $3k-$12k a month depending on the size of the apartment.

And…. His father just made 800 million in… In a single week.

And… If Alya’s parents were spending at minimum $3k a month just to have a home… That was $36k. That was almost half their income. And that was just on RENT, not the other possible utilities, or food, or medical, or clothing, or fun things.

Adrien spun around in his state of the art Gaming Chair, casting his gaze over the hundreds of thousands of brand-new video games, movies and TV shows that lined his shelves, 99% of them still in their original packing; he looked at the three flat screens situated around the room, and the 10 different gaming consoles set up near each one. He looked at his bed and the crisp clean sheets that were changed by the staff everyday, and realized he’d never seen the same color twice on it. He continued to spin, and saw his brand new Promotional PSC sitting in it’s cradle, not even released to the public yet, and yet here he was with ten different brand new titles for it, ready to be played whenever he felt like it.

… Adrien felt slightly sick.

Then he felt annoyed.

Then he felt… Gleeful.

A Cheshire grin worked across his face as Adrien stood up from his ergonomic $2k chair and moved across the polished floors to his walk-in closet. He ignored Plagg’s snoring as he started pulling out all of the $200 designer backpacks that had been tucked into storage.

Moving around the room, Adrien started disconnecting consoles, bundling them up in their $300 carrying cases, and splitting them up into different backpacks.

Climbing the $50k Rockwall to the second floor, Adrien started going through his DVD and bluray collection, picking out the ones he knew his friends would like.

Then, he went to bed.

In the morning, he wore one of the $200 backpacks instead of his usual $150 shoulder bag, and carried another backpack but the memory foam straps. No one really questioned it, other than to make sure he had all of his work done and in the correct bag.

“yep!” Adrien says cheerfully. Crap, Adrien thinks to himself, I totally forgot my homework at home. Woops.

Walking through the doors to the classroom, Adrien sticks one of the $200 backpacks onto Alya’s desk, and the sits the other one in his spot, pulls open the main compartment, and started sorting through all of the movies and games within. He’s there first, as usual, so by the time Chloe and the other early students start to roll in, there are already neat stacks of DVDs on every student’s desk with stickinotes with their names on it and a smiley face.

Adrien knows the reactions he’ll probably receive when people realize how much money these things are worth, but he’s going to refuse to take them back.

After all, by the time he gets home, the staff will have noticed the missing consoles and DVDs, and brand new ones will be waiting in their place.

That’s what life was like, when your father was a billionaire.

And as Adrien fingered his allowance money in his pocket, he wondered how he could use his father’s ridiculous wealth to make the world a little bit brighter; it’s not like his father would notice.

$10,000 wasn’t even a blip on the radar to a man as rich as Gabriel Agreste.

————————————————

Original tags: 

#Adrien sugar#i guess #gabriel is a billionaire #and om sick of fics where Adrien runs away and is poor uwu #how aboit no #how about je use the fucking money at his disposal to actually help people #hes gojng to actially start like #donating to the school and shit #and make it so they’re not dependimg on the mayors good graces for funding

Rules for the blog - send a short prompt - send a long prompt

[nobodyfamousposts]

Miraculous Death Note

Now before I begin, the only real thing carrying over from Death Note is the Death Note itself.

Oh. And it’s going to be kind of dark. Which is a given, considering it DOES involve a Death Note.

DARKNESS LIES BEYOND THIS POINT!

It turns out that at some point shortly before the whole “Hawk Moth” conflict, Plagg got a little petty at one point. Maybe he was jealous of all the attention Tikki was getting. Maybe he was annoyed with her attitude? Maybe they got into an argument and someone threw out an off-handed comment that Plagg can’t actually create anything except chaos and destruction?

To which Plagg replies: “WATCH ME!”

And thus Plagg, the kwami of destruction and bad luck managed to actually create something.

His creation just happened to be a Death Note. Which is naturally a source of chaos and destruction.

“Oops.”

He would never hear the end of it from Tikki or the others if they found out, so Plagg took it upon himself to quietly get rid of the cursed item.

But it’s Plagg, so he just sort of looks around briefly for anything that stands out before seeing a nearby river. He figures that’s about as good a place as any to ditch it. After all, the book is useless if it gets wet, right?

Now to be fair, it was a good idea. In theory. There were just a few minor details Plagg failed to take into account.

For one, they are already in Paris by this point, so the “river” in question happens to be the Seine. Which is a fairly popular and thus populated area.

For another, Plagg just dropped the Death Note from a height and flew off without checking to see where exactly the book landed.

In any other universe, the Death Note WOULD have landed in the Seine so this would all be a non-issue and thus much less interesting. But in THIS particular universe, a rather unlucky burst of wind hit at the right time and from the right direction just enough to send the Death Note landing on concrete instead of water.

“What’s this?”

And in front of an as of yet unaware soon to be owner of what might very well be the most dangerous artifact the world may never know.

Luka Couffaine was a normal teen. And an all around good guy. Certainly not someone with a god complex like another certain someone we could mention. Or two. Or three, if you count Kira.

As such, given that he is most certainly NOT a complete monster, when Luka found the Death Note and read through the rules, he did the relatively smart thing and promptly decided he was NOT messing with that. Nope. Not even going to test it “just to be sure”.

Of course, the word “relatively” is used because he doesn’t outright throw it in the Seine. To be fair, he wasn’t sure it could be destroyed and he was rather worried about what might happen if he should try. All the same, he wasn’t about to see it be used and possibly cause harm, even if by accident.

So instead, he put the thing in a box and hid it in his room, fully intent on ignoring its existence until he could find a more permanent place to hide it where it would never be used.

...that wasn’t to say he wasn’t tempted at times, though.

Like say, finding out his sister had been locked in a bathroom and cheated out of her place in her class picture because of a certain bully.

Or learning that said bully stole a Miraculous and almost crashed a train in order to show off.

Or dealing with his father in a more permanent fashion in case he ever tries to show his sorry face again.

Then there was this new girl who appeared. Lila Rossi.

He knew she was lying. Manipulating and enthralling everyone around her, including his own sister.

But every time, he held back. Always reminding himself of what was right or wrong. And in each instance, he always felt he made the right choice not to act, regardless of whether or not the Death Note would actually work.

The closest he had ever come to fully WANTING to use it was during the whole scandal with Bob Roth. Seeing XY taking credit for his music was bad enough. Seeing them also steal Marinette’s designs was somehow worse. But it was threatening her that made him see red and changed the melodies in his life into a discordant screech.

It was fortunate, perhaps, that he had been akumatized at that time. And it had all worked out, with everyone safe and the truth made known. He had even been able to confess his feelings to Marinette, something he had been wanting to do.

And he told himself that this was proof that things could work out. It was a sign that no Death Note was necessary. And furthermore that it should never be used.

...Then Miracle Queen happened.

That brat of a mayor’s daughter betrayed everyone. She agreed to help the madman terrorizing their city and willingly took on an akuma. She took control of everyone in the city, including himself. He only hoped Marinette had been spared, as what Miracle Queen had inflicted on him was not something he ever wanted her to have to experience.

But the worst part? Despite the chances Ladybug had given her, she had turned her back on the hero for her own selfish gain. And furthermore, she revealed every single Miraculous user Ladybug had ever called on for aid, forced them to fight for her, and had nearly gotten people killed. All for the sake of her own ego.

And not once had she shown any remorse.

He was angry, certainly.

He was tempted, yes.

And given how things turned out all right with Ladybug and Chat Noir winning in the end, he could very well have let it go just as he had with every other instance.

Except...

There was Marinette, breaking down in front of him. Looking lost and oh so pained by burdens she couldn’t share.

Except...

There was Marinette, sad and grieving after the events of that day, but unable to talk to him or anyone else about it.

Except...

There was Marinette, who right before his eyes disappeared in a burst of pink light only to be replaced with none other than Ladybug.

The hero of Paris who had put herself on the line for them all.

Who was so burdened by her role and responsibilities.

Who had lost what little support she’d had and now felt truly alone.

Marinette. Who was Ladybug. Who was Marinette. Who he loved.

Who was suffering because of that damn brat!

It was enough to break even the greatest of patience.

She betrayed everyone, he thought as he went to his room.

She stole the Miraculous twice, he thought as he reached his bed.

She’d created more akumas than any other person, he thought as he pulled out a simple-looking shoebox.

She willingly let herself be akumatized and tried to do it again, he thought as he opened the box.

She agreed to work with the one terrorizing the city, he thought as he took out the precious artifact inside.

She revealed the other Miraculous users and forced them to do her bidding, he thought as he took the book to his desk.

She had been tormenting everyone for years, he thought as he opened the book.

She hurt his sister, he thought as he grabbed a pen.

She hurt Marinette, he thought as he placed the pen to paper, marring the once clear and pristine page.

Honestly, he would be doing the world a favor.

She deserved this. If there was any justice...if ever he needed justification, surely this was more than enough.

And it would be for the best...it would be better for everyone...

...wouldn’t it?

He paused.

Could he really do this?

Real or not...could he live with himself if he actually tried this?

...

A single thought formed.

She made him hurt Marinette.

Within seconds, the first name was written in the book.

CHLOE BOURGEOIS

Little bumble bee, little bumble bee

Buzzing around, causing such a buzz

Let's see you be crushed by your dreams

He releases a breath, feeling a strange sense of relief.

Of course nothing happens.

Of course it was just a normal book.

Of course it doesn’t actually kill people.

Of course...

But at the very least, Luka no longer felt the rage.

He was still upset with Chloe, certainly. She was a vile person who had done horrible things. Hurt the city. Hurt Marinette. Time and time again. And despite all the second chances she had been offered and all the people who truly tried to help her, even defend her...even as she only hurt them in return.

It was such a waste.

At the very least, he’d gotten the feelings out and avoided being made into an akuma himself. It was too dangerous, especially with Hawk Moth being aware of his identity and even moreso with what he now knew about Ladybug.

About Marinette...

It was just a normal book. Nothing more. His writing a name and method of death hadn’t done anything. It just allowed him to vent and work out the stress. That was all, and that was even enough. But perhaps he should stick to music from here on out though.

Because a book couldn’t kill people. That was just silly.

And when Luka learned a few days later that Chloe Bourgeois suddenly died when that stupid bee signal of hers was to be replaced with a fancier version by her demand, and that new one accidentally fell on her?

Surely it was just coincidence.

[quicksilversquared]

The Wavering Peahen: Chapter 3

When Nathalie started feeling oddly ill again, both she and Gabriel were worried that the Peacock Miraculous might somehow (impossibly) be to blame again.

So naturally, they pick someone else to be the Peacock for a bit. You know, as a test subject. Except the new Peacock… doesn’t exactly know that.

links in the reblog

When news of an akuma attack reached Lila, she barely bit back a cheer. In the couple days since she got the Peacock, she had been waiting for this moment.

Ladybug would be going down today.

A glance at the clock told Lila that she had plenty of time before her mom came home- honestly, Hawkmoth had timed the attack perfectly because she didn't have to make excuses to get out of class or get away from her mom- and then she transformed. The magic rushed over her- it wasn't a completely new sensation, she had tried doing it before- and then Pavona rushed out the window, heading towards the battle. It was a loud one, and unsurprisingly, the superheroes were already there. Hawkmoth wasn't, not yet- he tended to show up later in the fight when he did go out, so that didn't mean anything- so it was going to be two on two, at least until she pulled out her amok.

Lila didn't want to do that too early. She apparently was going to have that ridiculous five-minute timer like Ladybug and Chat Noir, so getting her sentimonster out too soon would mean that she wouldn't be able to stay on the battlefield and kick superhero butt. Apparently Mayura hadn't had that particular drawback, which was both annoying and unfair, but there was nothing that Lila could do about that.

It was absolutely child's play to sneak up behind the superheroes, dodging over the rooftops and not flinging herself up into the sky like the superheroes always seemed to. Pavona smirked as she slid into position, right above Ladybug.

This was just too easy. The superheroes hadn't spotted her at all. Really, all she needed to do was pounce and fall directly on top of Ladybug and then grab her earrings. Just like that, it would be bye-bye, little bug.

Sure, there would still be Chat Noir to deal with, but it was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that he always took direction from Ladybug. With her out of the picture, it should be pretty easy to lure Chat Noir into a trap and take him down with the sheer force of numbers. Four against one- her, Hawkmoth, his akuma and her amok- would be overwhelming, and then they would have the Cat Miraculous in their hands.

With visions of victory in her head, Pavona took a couple steps back before taking a running start and launching herself into the air, dropping through the sky straight at Ladybug's head.

Impact in eight- seven- six- five- four- three-

"Ladybug, watch out!"

Ladybug jerked in response to Chat Noir's shout, not even hesitating to figure out which way the threat was coming from before bolting, going from a standstill to a speeding train in half a second. All of a sudden, Pavona's target was gone, leaving nothing between her and the very solid street and no time for her to catch herself.

Crunch.

So much for an awe-inspiring (or fear-inspiring) entrance.

Cursing, Pavona shoved herself to her feet before the superheroes could turn on her, raising her hands into what she hoped was a battle stance. Across from her, Ladybug had already spun around to face Pavona, her yo-yo whistling as it spun. The superhero's eyes flashed over Pavona once, twice, and then her eyebrows went up and she exchanged a fast look with Chat Noir.

Pavona scowled. What kind of look was that? It seemed super judgy, which- uh, what was Ladybug judging her for? She had seen the superheroes do undignified wipeouts loads of times.

(She also had a compilation of those clips on her computer, just for amusement's sake. She had intended on stringing them together in a video, but she didn't know how to do that and it really wouldn't be possible to ask any of her classmates, since it would just look suspicious.)

"So Hawkmoth has a new little sidekick," Ladybug taunted, her eyes narrowing at Pavona and- ugh, she was smirking! Clearly she wasn't going to take Pavona seriously as a threat. "What happened to Mayura?"

"Like I'm gonna tell you," Pavona snarked back, plastering on her own smirk. Ladybug didn't know what was about to hit her. Lila had been plenty powerful as an akuma, so it only made sense that she would be even more powerful when she had the full strength of a Miraculous on her side instead of just whatever portion she got as an akuma. "You're gonna be wishing that she was still here soon, though, just wait!"

Chat Noir snorted. "Yeah, we'll see about that." He glanced over to Ladybug. "D'you wanna take the akuma while I take Princess Wannabe here?"

"You got it!"

"Wait, no-" Pavona started before catching herself. She should have guessed that Chat Noir would take on the more intimidating threat and leave the weaker opponent to Ladybug. Fine. She would just take him down first, then. That, or at least keep him occupied enough that he wouldn't be able to come to Ladybug's aid when the akuma overpowered her-

Pavona couldn't hold back the yelp as she was suddenly forced to defend herself from a too-sudden attack from Chat Noir. He had lunged before she was ready, and now she was forced to be on the defense instead of being the one to push the attacks.

One blow, then two, three, four-and-five too fast to count. Pavona couldn't help but yelp again as the butt end of Chat Noir's baton swung around and jabbed her in the stomach, too fast of a movement to follow. She barely ducked the swing at her head- she hadn't asked Hawkmoth how much the suit protected her against other users, and clearly that was a major oversight- and found herself scrambling backwards on sheer instinct, everything in her screaming that she was outmatched.

Which- which was ridiculous, if she thought about it logically! She was smart! She was crafty! The superheroes had struggled to win against her akuma forms! It was just that she was having to rely on hand-to-hand combat instead of having powers, which was an adjustment, and-

-and there was no time for thinking about it too much, because Chat Noir wasn't letting up in his attack at all. Pavona was sent flying with one blow, then had to roll out of the way of another full-force blow. The next hit so close under her ear that her hair gave her scalp a sharp tug as it went flying.

Pavona dashed out of the way, getting in a couple unaimed swings and buying herself a little space. Chat Noir was relentless, though, and she was getting outfought.

Just because she kept reflexively trying to use powers that she didn't have anymore, that was why! It wasn't because he was better or anything stupid like that.

Still, she hadn't been expecting that, and staying out like this wouldn't go very well. Pavona flicked out her fan, pulling out a feather like Duusu had told her to do. Then she would have to- to pull in negative energy from the air? That part hadn't been very clear-

And then that thought, too, got interrupted when she had to dodge out of the way of another of Chat Noir's blows and then he promptly grabbed her by the bottom of her skirt as she fled and flung her into the sky, tumbling head over heels down the street. Pavona landed with another oomph, rolling over to see Chat Noir dashing down to road towards her, ready to hit her again.

It was now or never. Only half-focused on what she was doing, Pavona tried to pull in negative energy- and clearly something was happening, the feather was changing colors- and then slapped it into the closest thing she could reach.

Unfortunately, that thing was a bit of broken asphalt, but it would have to do. A monster erupted out of nowhere, pushing Chat Noir back. Pavona smirked in triumph- now the fight could go her way!- before a sharp beep from her brooch wiped the smirk off of her face.

Right. Now she just had five minutes to defeat Chat Noir and get out. That wasn't exactly the best position to be in.

"Get back, ugly!" Chat Noir yelled at the sentimonster, whacking the whatever-it-was in the face with his baton. He spun it, hitting it again. And again, and again, and again.

He was actually pushing it back, Pavona realized with a bit of horror. Even though her sentimonster looked intimidating, it was shying away from the hits, continuously losing ground. Pavona moved back as well, trying to keep her creation between her and the superhero while she figured out a new plan of attack.

Her brooch beeped. Four minutes.

Pavona scowled, readying her weapon again as Chat Noir advanced another couple of steps. Maybe if she jumped over her sentimonster and dropped down on him? Or she could try to circle to the side without being noticed, or- no!

While she had been distracted, Chat Noir had pushed far enough forward to grab the bit of pavement that she had possessed with the amok- and had dropped right after, that hadn't been the best plan- and crushed it, letting the feather loose. Barely a moment later, Ladybug's yo-yo zipped out of nowhere, snagging the feather and purifying it. Pavona glanced in her direction, utterly baffled- Ladybug was supposed to be busy with the akuma, right?- to see the formerly akumatized person sitting on a rooftop, just recently defeated. Somehow, without Pavona realizing it, Ladybug had won. Now, it was two against one, and not in her favor.

As her sentimonster dissolved, Pavona bolted, scrambling for somewhere to hide and detransform. She might have to walk home, but that was better than getting ganged up on and possibly even defeated.

Ladybug and Chat Noir might have won this battle, but it had only been Pavona's first time out. Next time, she would know what to expect. She would be ready.

And Ladybug would be going down.

  Things really weren't going as Lila had planned. Not even remotely close.

"I can't believe we haven't won yet," Lila muttered as she slumped to the floor in her room after coming back following a fight. It had been almost a week- and seven akuma attacks, Hawkmoth had decided to pick up the pace- since she took over as the Peacock holder, and they hadn't made any progress towards defeating the superheroes, even though she had definitely (in her eyes, at least) already made a lot of progress with getting used to her powers and fighting. "That's so annoying!"

"Well, Hawkmoth has been trying to win for over a year now without any success," Duusu piped up, ever-helpful and ever-missing-the-point. "So a week is hardly any time at all!"

Lila scowled. That was entirely unhelpful.

She was used to getting results right away, darn it. Lila's lies had always brought her instant (or near-instant) gratification. She did something or said something, she got a positive result within minutes, or at least within a day. Having to work at it for any significant amount of time without seeing results wasn't something that she was really used to doing.

But she wasn't going to give up. She still had some ideas that she wanted to try out but hadn't yet, since she was still getting used to her powers. All she had needed was a little practice, and then she could truly be Ladybug's worst nightmare.

It was just annoying that it wasn't happening faster.

Still scowling, Lila headed over to her computer. The news feed on it was still going, left on after she had used it to figure out where the akuma was and what its powers were. Madam Chamack was still talking onscreen, so Lila popped her headphones back on. She immediately regretted it.

"-so glad that we have our fantastic superheroes to always save the day," Madam Chamack was saying, beaming at the camera. "A big thanks to them! And now, for those of you who missed it, our lovely editors have put together a highlight reel of our most recent akuma attack!"

Onscreen, Madam Chamack's face was replaced by a scene from the akuma attack. Pavona stood tall and proud on a rooftop, her (very fashionable) outfit fluttering a little with the breeze. Then the superheroes landed and she charged... only for her face to be met by a very solid roundhouse kick from Ladybug. Pavona went flying back, landing on her back in an undignified heap.

Lila's teeth ground together. Ladybug looked positively smug as she dashed towards the fallen Pavona, clearly ready to deal another blow to her opponent. The scene was cut short, though, swapping to a shot of Chat Noir tripping the akuma with his baton, and Lila smirked when she realized why.

Yes, Ladybug getting tossed off of a rooftop by Hawkmoth probably wasn't considered a highlight to most of Paris, was it? Unfortunate. Lila certainly considered those parts to be the best sections of the fight.

Disappointingly, the rest of the highlight reel went the same way. It showed the akuma getting beat up, Pavona getting beat up, Pavona getting cornered and panic-creating what was probably her weakest sentimonster yet to get herself out. The cameras had also caught Pavona's childish frustrated stomp after Hawkmoth had ordered her to retreat, which...

Well, it wasn't a shining moment of hers. But in her defense, she had just been making some progress with fighting Ladybug when Chat Noir totally cheated and attacked her from behind. It hadn't been like she had just been sitting on the ground and flailing helplessly or something.

If it was just her and her sentimonster against Ladybug, she would definitely win. But did anyone ever acknowledge that? No.

With a huff, Lila closed the window. Madam Chamack's voice cut off, and Lila breathed a sigh of relief that she no longer had to hear the absolutely maddening gushing over Ladybug. That relief was short-lived when her phone dinged with a message from Alya. Lila opened it, eager for something to distract her from her latest failure, only to see a message squealing about the latest fight and hadn't Ladybug looked so amazing as she took down Hawkmoth's newest sidekick?

Ugh. It was unfortunate that Alya was such a Ladybug fan, but it was an unavoidable annoyance. Alya had visibility thanks to her little blog, and that visibility was something that Lila needed access to. So she had to play the part of Ladybug's best friend (ha) to keep Alya firmly by her side and hanging off of Lila's every word.

Which meant, unfortunately, that Lila had to grit her teeth and type back an all-too-cheery response, praising Ladybug and her fighting prowess. She couldn't resist a dig, though, by pointing out how nice Pavona's outfit looked next to Ladybug's. She had offered to redesign Ladybug's suit for her before, of course, but the superhero was just too attached to her basic look. Maybe now she would reconsider, since the supervillains looked so well-dressed next to her!

Smirking, Lila set her phone aside. Maybe the Ladyblog would run an article soon calling out the plainness of Ladybug's costume. It wouldn't be framed like that, of course, but- well, maybe Alya would do a comparison of the superheroes' costumes and the supervillain's outfits? Anyone with eyes would be able to tell that the supervillains had far more fashion sense. They didn't look like they had slapped on a onesie and called it a day.

"Next time, I'll do better," Lila told the room at large, pulling up a secret file on her computer buried several folders deep. It was where she stored all of her notes to herself about her secret identity, the few suggestions that Hawkmoth had given her and ideas she had come up with for sentimonster powers. "I'll do better, and I'll show the superheroes. They'll regret crossing me!"

Next time, she would pull out one of her best sentimonster ideas. It would be too slippery for Ladybug and Chat Noir to catch, and then while they were scratching their heads, she could sneak in behind them and get their Miraculous. Maybe today's weak sentimonster could actually work in her favor by making the superheroes underestimate her for the next fight. She just had to take advantage of that and hit hard, and hope that Hawkmoth would match her with a really strong akuma. Maybe she could talk to him and coordinate the powers for maximum effect- except no, he had seemed rather peeved at her after the fight. It wouldn't be smart for her to push her luck-

The thought was cut off by a sudden tickle in Lila's throat and suddenly she found herself coughing so hard that her eyes watered. Her breath caught painfully in her throat, and it took her a minute to stop coughing. When she did, she frowned.

That was strange and completely out of nowhere. She hadn't been eating or drinking anything, so she hadn't swallowed water or something wrong. She hadn't been sick, and- despite what she said at school- she didn't have allergies. There hadn't been any dust stirred up in her room, so it couldn't be that, either.

Maybe it was just a weird one-off thing and she shouldn't worry about it.

Her phone dinged again, and Lila reached out to grab it, opening up the message right away.

Alya: Superheroes: function over fashion. Supervillains: fashion over function. That could be a really cool Ladyblog article! It really shows how much smarter our superheroes are compared to the supervillains!

Lila could only bury her face in her pillows and scream. That was not the way she had wanted Alya to go with that idea!

Seriously, why was nothing going her way today?

  Another week later, and Lila's partnership with Hawkmoth had gone from bad to worse.

All of her best sentimonster ideas had been completely wasted after their powers completely clashed with the akuma of the day's powers. She had abandoned pre-brainstormed ideas after a particularly disastrous one, going back to looking at what Hawkmoth's akuma could do and then basing her sentimonster off of that. Still, even with that, they weren't doing as well as Hawkmoth had been doing with Mayura, which- well, it was infuriating.

Hawkmoth had even chewed Lila out several times during the week for needing to be rescued during the battles- by her sentimonster, by his akuma, even, on one occasion, by Hawkmoth himself- for taking "unnecessary risks" (really, calculated gambles that just hadn't gone quite right, usually because he and his akuma hadn't cooperated with her or because she had been up late plotting and was super-tired during the battle) and getting overpowered by the more experienced fighters, aka the pain-in-the-butt superheroes. He hadn't been pleased about that, and after their most recent battle, he had ordered her to stay on the back lines now or else and just let her sentimonster do the fighting for her.

That- that was so unfair, really! It had made her so mad that she had stomped around her room for two hours, mad enough to be akumatized... but Hawkmoth hadn't sent a butterfly her way. Which was probably wise, because more than a little of her ire at the time had been directed straight at him.

Really, she couldn't figure out why things weren't working out right! Lila had held her own as an akuma every time she got akumatized. Sure, maybe she had always lost in the end, but she hadn't had the advantage of getting to work with a sentimonster. The battles with her had always dragged out, because she was smart and clever and capable and a good fighter! It made absolutely no sense that she was getting her butt handed to her by Ladybug now that she held her own Miraculous. She had said as much to Hawkmoth when he last scolded her, and he had just chewed her out more for expecting that she would get the same boost in fighting instincts from a Miraculous as she had from an akumatization.

Needless to say, it wasn't looking good for her chances of getting a Miraculous as a thanks once the superheroes got defeated. Even if she got to play a role in that defeat, Lila was getting the feeling that Hawkmoth was starting to get tired of her and her disappointing performances out on the battlefield.

Really, though, was it truly Lila's fault that she struggled with fighting? Shouldn't Hawkmoth have given her some training or something first instead of just handing her a bit of magical jewelry- magical jewelry that apparently didn't boost her fighting ability, that would have been useful information from the start!- and sending her out against superheroes that had had over a year's experience with battling akumas and supervillains alike? He was practically setting her up to fail when she looked at it like that! And when she asked about training- like a responsible person, like a motivated person- he had just blown her off.

Seriously. Setting her up to fail. And Lila was positive that with a little training, she would be able to take on the superheroes and win, no problem. It would totally even out the battlefield! The problem was that she didn't have any training, and apparently wasn't about to get any, either.

Honestly, was Hawkmoth serious about wanting to win or not? Because he really wasn't acting like it, what with not wanting to train her at all.

And then, because apparently things were determined not to go her way, Lila was coming down with something. She had been feeling a little woozy sometimes for the last couple of days, and had been coughing, too, with the coughing fits becoming more and more frequent.

Lila refused to let Hawkmoth know. She couldn't let him think that she was weak and take the Miraculous away or something, just because she wasn't at 100%.

Maybe it was for the better that Hawkmoth had banned her from the battlefield for the time being. If her stupid cold distracted her mid-fight and made her lose, then Hawkmoth would be furious. It wouldn't matter that it wasn't her fault that she was sick, or that she had been willing to power through whatever bug was attacking her system to help him. No, all Hawkmoth would care about was how she had inconvenienced him.

Really, he was a super sucky person to be on a team with, but Lila wasn't about to quit. She had joined him with a goal in mind, darn it, and she wouldn't waste her opportunity.

Maybe Hawkmoth sucked, but he wasn't call-out-her-civilian-self-for-lying-when-it-wasn't-hurting-anyone levels of suck. Not yet, at least. He was kind of trending in that direction, though.

"Stupid Ladybug, stupid Chat Noir, stupid cold," Lila grumbled to herself as she downed half of her travel cup of tea in one go, hoping to ease her sore throat. She had taken the opportunity to leave the school campus at lunch to get tea in a nearby cafe in the hopes that it would help, but- well, she was pretty sure that the overly-hot tea had just burned her tongue. Which was exactly the opposite of helping. "And stupid-" She bit back the stupid Hawkmoth before it could slip. She didn't know how much Duusu would report to Hawkmoth when Mayura took him back, but she didn't want to accidentally sabotage her chances of working with him again after this, whether that was just as a frequently akumatized person or with a different Miraculous, if they managed to steal one of the temporary heroes' Miraculous. Sure, he had seen her curse Hawkmoth out before, right after he banned her from coming out in person, but she had managed to wave that away as a temporary surge of annoyance, a feeling that would be gone soon enough. Besides, there was no obvious connection between her anger at him now and what had actually happened. Hawkmoth hadn't given her the cold, after all. "Ugh. This is no fun."

"At least your friends seem eager to help!" Duusu chirped from her shirt collar. "Three have offered to help you study, and then another offered to let you copy her homework if you aren't feeling well enough to finish! They're very supportive."

Lila resisted the urge to curl her lip at the kwami. Seriously, wasn't Duusu supposed to be some wise, ancient being? Shouldn't it be obvious to him by now that her classmates weren't really her friends? Sure, they probably thought that they were, but all they were to her was a means to an end. And of course they were tripping over themselves to help her.

Poor, unfortunate Lila. She spent so much time helping charities and doing good things for others and what did she get in return? Hearing loss and tinnitus and weak joints and illnesses affecting her more than most people. She was already struggling to keep up, what with all of the other things that she was trying to juggle, so of course it made sense for her classmates to step up and help her so that Lila could continue to be a force for good in the world.

Not, of course, that she was actually out helping people. Volunteering and organizing charities and donating and all of that- well, that was work. Work that wouldn't benefit her in any way and would just unnecessarily fill up her time. Why should other people's suffering be her problem?

It worked just as well to just claim that she was volunteering and helping other people out. She got all of the glory with none of the work, which was a rather good arrangement in her opinion.

(What wasn't a good arrangement, at least in Lila's eyes, was having to deal with an annoying flying sidekick to get her magical powers. Duusu was super annoying and always wanted to know what she was doing and always asked about the stories she told and seemed quite puzzled when Lila told him that no, that one wasn't true either.

She didn't need a small anthropomorphic being questioning why she was making up stories. It wasn't like it was any of Duusu's business anyway.)

Lila left the cafe partway through her lunch hour after she had started coughing and everyone around her started giving her a major side-eye. She resisted the urge to glare at them- seriously, couldn't they mind their own business? It wasn't like she was coughing at them- and packed up instead, heading out to a quiet park to finish nursing her cup of tea, hoping that it would make a difference. On the way back to school, she picked up a cup of coffee.

Hawkmoth had decided to wake the whole city up with a crazy early attack, after all. Maybe she needed the tea for her throat- it had felt absolutely terrible after the fight, even though she hadn't done any fighting in person- but she needed coffee so that she wouldn't fall asleep in her afternoon classes. If she did, her mom would probably be called and then that would be the end of- well, her reign at school, probably.

She didn't want her mom anywhere near her teachers, thank-you-very-much.

"Oh, you already picked up a drink," Rose said when Lila got back to school, already regretting drinking so much. She was going to be running to the bathroom all afternoon. Rose looked a bit disappointed as she rolled up onto her toes to look into Lila's cup, clutching a thermos in her hand. "I made some tea for you! It's probably better for your throat than coffee."

Lila opened her mouth, very ready to make up something about not being able to have tea, when she suddenly became very aware about how very much her throat still hurt.

...maybe she could get away with frequent bathroom trips without the teachers calling her mom.

"Thank you, Rose, you're so kind!" Lila exclaimed, pressing her free hand to her heart. "So kind and thoughtful! That thermos looks really well insulated, so hopefully it'll stay warm longer. Then I can have warm drinks all afternoon! That will be really nice. And hopefully it will help my throat get better before my conference call with the royal family in England this weekend. I want to persuade them to help with my efforts to end global pollution, and I won't be able to cover all of my points if I lose my voice!"

"Oh, that would be terrible," Rose agreed, passing the thermos over to her. "I hope you feel better soon!"

Lila smiled, accepting the tea. "Thank you!"

Thankfully, Rose took off back to her desk after that and Lila could largely drop her act. She couldn't drop it completely- acting anywhere near as sullen as she felt would damage her public image, and that was the one thing she couldn't risk- but she didn't have to pretend to be all perky and thankful and selfless.

It wasn't that hard to keep up the act on a normal day, but when Lila was already frustrated and angry and feeling sick, it was just that much more energy that she didn't have.

Ugh. How unlucky did she have to be to get sick right in the middle of her big opportunity with Hawkmoth?

That was so unfair.