ML Fanfic recs for 2023: 2K - 5K Words
So I’ve been going through and adding particularly good fics I’ve read throughout the year. Only Complete fics, of course. Enjoy!
An uncaffeinated Marinette makes for an easily misunderstood Marinette.
Luka’s a ghost. Naturally, he does some haunting. He didn’t expect to fall in love along the way.
Nathaniel keeps trying to confess his feelings to Ivan. Marc keeps trying to sabotage those attempts in order to confess his own feelings. Why does it seem like things never go right?
Cat Walker’s under orders to fight Ladybug. That doesn’t stop Adrien from helping his girlfriend.
Zoe and Kagami discuss the intricacies of relationships while being mildly inconvenienced by zombies.
Kagami awakens to find herself in a house with a zombie. This is less of a problem than you might think.
Sabine keeps having nightmares about Ladybug and Chat Noir killing Marinette. She has some basis to worry.
All this and more below the break!
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They fill you with the faults they had. And add some extra, just for you by @unecoccinellenoire
The thing is, Adrien Agreste isn’t a sentimonster. That’s the problem.
It’s left ambiguous exactly what’s happening, but... instead of the characters who’re canonically sentis being controlled, it looks like another method’s been used to keep them under their parents thumb. Basically, that what we thought were the kids amoks’ were actually used to brainwash more generally. Which leads to some complicated ethical questions for Adrien, since he now holds the rings. Especially since he can now use the rings on others the way they were used on him.
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what if we got married in the park by my house in the middle of the school year by @wooawi
Marinette comes up with an ingenious plan to take Adrien away from Gabriel's garbage parenting.
This was just fun. Of course Marinette’s immediate plan to get Adrien away from his garbage family is to make him part of her own. It’s hilarious and adorable and Adrien rocks the wedding dress!
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Slip of the Tongue (And Not Enough Caffiene) by That_WildChild
Marinette is tired. Marinette is also uncaffeinated.
This is not a good combination.
A sleepy Marinette accidentally suggests that she shares her bed with Ladybug.
At least she's protecting her identity?
Pure Crack.
Ah, sweet, sweet crack! I giggled during the story. Marinette is “fucking Ladybug” indeed. At least her classmates are supportive!
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See This Chance by @19thsentry-blog
Luka died in 2016. Yep. Crushed by the Arc de Triumph when Mayura’s Robustus slammed into it. It was kind of a big deal, but once you’re dead, you’re dead—especially when there’s no Lucky Charm to bring you back.
Luka’s been dealing with it in the typical ways.
Written for FeLuka week 2023.
Yes, this is FeLuka. Not one of the typical ships I read, but I ain’t opposed to it, and this is a nice foray into the pairing. I love ghost AUs! Luka’s just fumbling around, unsure what to do with his incorporeal existence, until he starts haunting Felix. It’s an intriguing plot and I gotta admit, I wish it was longer so it could be fleshed out more, but what’s here is good.
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Confession Plans of Questionable Sanity by yellow14
Nathanael Kurtzberg has a confession to make. He's in love with his big classmate Ivan. With the help of Marc, Marinette, Adrien and Nino, he's going to confess, using increasingly complicated schemes.
Marc meanwhile, is busy coming up with even more complicated schemes to sabotage those schemes so he can confess HIS feelings for his redheaded friend.
Nothing could POSSIBLY go wrong with this, right?
Written for the March 2023 gift exchange on the Miraculous Fanworks Discord forum for CassieTheweirdWolf.
This fic’s just really funny. These kids love to make things waaaaay harder than they need to be. But hey, everything ends up working out in the end, even if it’s not the way they planned!
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at our wedding by @anna-scribbles
“Chloé,” Adrien said slowly, “At our wedding, are we gonna have to…”
“No!” Chloé shook her head firmly. “We don’t have to kiss. We can do whatever we want. It’s our wedding.”
“Oh, good,” Adrien sighed.
“You have to kiss at a wedding,” Félix argued.
“I don’t have to do anything and you’re not the boss of me!” Chloé shouted.
“Yeah!” Adrien grinned. He grabbed Chloé’s hand again. “Yeah, it’s our wedding.”
//
Adrien and Chloé, wedding planning through the years.
Despite what the summary sounds like, this is NOT a Chloe/Adrien fic - this concentrates on their platonic relationship (and a bit with Felix, he shows up a few times) throughout the years. I especially liked seeing Chloe’s reaction to Adrien coming to school and making friends besides her, being jealous and feeling abandoned, and how she finally had a breakdown over Adrien somehow staying nice despite everything, while she... hasn’t. It’s a great character study!
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Showing Love by @generalluxun
After the fiasco of Queen Wasp is over, Marinette knows what she had to do. If she just brings Chloé and her mother together, all will be fixed. A mother's love is just the thing to turn Chloé around, and it all must really just be a misunderstanding right?
Nothing else makes sense.
Marinette's mistake was forgetting that life never has to make sense, but she's Ladybug, and when one path closes she finds another.
I love Marinette really comprehending how little Audrey cares about Chloe here, and taking Chloe home with her to show her what a family should be like, reaching out to her even after everything. It’s just really nice.
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the legend of the firefly by @agnes-writes
“She’s… beautiful.
If he were to describe her, he’d say that they bottled summer in her eyes, and painted the night sky in her hair. Her lips are curved into a wistful smile, eyes trailing the thicket of trees where Adrien stands.
Her gaze sets his heart stuttering in his chest as it softens, and Adrien almost believes that look is meant for him.”
OR: A pair of lovers create a romance that transcends time, and leaves a mark like no other.
This is an incredibly well-written folk tale, one that I highly recommend anyone who loves mythological, folktale, fantasy, etc AUs for Adrienette to read! It’s on the shorter side, but woven so perfectly that it packs an outsized punch, and feels like it belongs in one of those collections of folk tales and myths I read as a kid!
Adrien’s a god, gifting prosperity to those under his protection, but never interacting with them... until a farm girl catches his eye.
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The Cat’s Out of the Purse by The_Rabbit42
Adrien just took the ring off to be safe.
Plagg just got bored and wanted to annoy Tikki.
Rose just opened her purse and SURPRISE!
Ladybug just wants to get the ring back to her partner.
This was a fun fic, never seen Rose and Plagg interact like this before! It’s a treat getting more Rose and Plagg focus in general of course, but I really like their relationship here. Plagg’s really good with his wielders in general, and I love how he emphasizes that while he needs to get back to Chat Noir, while Rose is transformed with him, she’s as much her own wielder as he is. It reminds me of how he acted with Zoe, Plagg’s just a treasure XD
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home is where the fight is by @rosie-b
Nadja Chamack’s voice greeted Adrien as he sat up straight, wiping his clammy hands on his pants and ignoring the black kwami floating by his shoulder.
“—shocked to see our heroine fall in battle today, taking a direct hit from the akuma just as she detransformed. Parisians are torn between blaming Hawk Moth and Cat Walker for their roles in this tragedy, which ultimately revealed the civilian identity of Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”
Adrien turned off the TV and lowered his head as his vision blurred.
Written for Ladrien June Day 7: Injured
I adore this fic! Which shouldn’t be a a surprise, it’s no secret that I love Sentiadrien Enemies AU. Adrien’s so worried about Marinette getting hurt, and wishes that he could help keep her safer, could tell her what’s really going on or get rid of the ring or something, but he can’t. Still, he IS able to find clever ways around some of his father’s more problematic orders. Loopholes for the win!
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Attack of the Crystal Zombies by @trainsinanime
Kagami had spent more and more time hanging out with Zoé, talking about things like families, expectations and crushes on Marinette. It was only natural, probably, that she would help Zoé practice flirting. That was definitely a great idea.
Granted, the deadly Akuma battle around them was a bit of an issue…
Quality Zoegami fic here! I loved how Kagami kept thinking she was bad at flirting, but it was sure working on Zoe XD. The akuma attack going on around them, interweaving with their conversation, added a bit of spice to the whole affair!
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Closure by @bisexually-finger-guns
After the events of “Trust”, Alya tries to find closure.
I love this. A lot of the time, only the effects of Lila’s lies and manipulation on Marinette is explored, with the feelings of the people she tried to trick and use, with the Miracuclass and Alya in particular, ignored, downplayed, or even used to just rail at the kids for being gullible.
Not so here. Alya gets to go to a school counselor and talk about her feelings about Lila manipulating her, using her. Ladybug even gives her the Fox Miraculous to try a Burn-letter therapy technique on, telling an illusion of Lila everything she wants to say to her in order to get some closure.
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Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! by 55Anon
In which Hawkmoth is defeated by a strike.
So basically, Parisians get pissed at Hawkmoth and decide that hey, maybe they can’t stop him themselves, and they can’t just stay entirely positive at all times, but they sure as hell can direct every bit of their hatred and anger at him so that if he akumatizes one of them, they make a beeline for his lair. Hawkmoth didn’t stand a chance against the contempt of Paris!
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All Of Them? Every Single One? by @liiinerle
It turns out that Marinette loves a lot more people than she'd initially thought.
This is hilarious and adorable. Tikki lays out how Marinette has a crush on basically every girl she’s met - and even girls she doesn’t know are girls yet XD.
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Anchor by @liiinerle
“Marinette. Please take that sabre out of your neck.”
“Right. Thanks. I forgot it was there.” She grabbed hold of the guard and pulled; the blade slid out like it had only been run through butter. After dropping it on the floor, she picked up one of the teacups and picked up a biscuit from a tin she’d brought in; she placed the biscuit on the saucer plate and handed the whole thing to Kagami, who could only really resign herself to accepting it.
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Marinette has raised Kagami from the dead, and also happens to be dead herself. It turns out some bad choices were made in the past. But that doesn't mean they'll lead to bad outcomes for them now.
I love this, Marinette’s incredibly blase about being a zombie - which makes sense, given how long she’s had to get used to the idea. And she’s waited so long, tried so hard to bring Kagami back as well, though if she didn’t WANT to be back, she’d accede to that request. Luckily, Kagami doesn’t seem to mind as long as she’s with Marinette XD.
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safe and sound by Lady_Bryght
A crazed fan is stalking Adrien with violent intentions, and Ladybug is determined to protect him. When the school goes on lockdown and Marinette can't transform, she does her best to keep him safe without the use of a miraculous.
So this is a bit of a suspenseful thriller with a twist ending - well, sort of an ending, it’s a oneshot so far with an ambiguous ending that reveals what’s going on, but not how things actually resolve. It’s the sort of story where, after you see the ending, you look back through the story for foreshadowing. Can’t really go much more in detail, without spoiling the twist.
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Worth Your Time by @pearl484-blog
After the events of the Season 4 finale, Adrien leaves a series of voicemails for Felix after learning he is missing. Just because Felix is out of sight, doesn't mean he's out of mind for his cousin.
Entry for Adrien AUGreste prompt: Rings
I’d honestly forgotten about Adrien being told by Amelie that Felix was missing, and how that might have affected him. He doesn’t know that Felix is okay - he just knows that Felix disappeared after giving the Miraculous to Monarch, and that not even his mom (supposedly) knows where he is. So naturally, he fears the worst, and after awhile of leaving voicemails and not getting replies, he almost starts using the voicemails as a diary of sorts about the various events of season 5 - up until Emotion that is, for obvious reasons.
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the less I seek my source for some definitive by katrinette
When the akuma manages to smash a hole in the hull of the colony ship that's supposed to be unbreakable, Ladybug has to take drastic action to keep everyone safe.
This is an interesting sci-fi AU! Ladybug and Chat Noir pilot the last few fighter ships of their colony ship, the only defense against the akumas that keep on appearing and attacking the ship. But when one of the akumas smashes a hole in the ship, well Ladybug is willing to go to extreme measures to make sure everyone doesn’t die from the depressurization - measures that do not include any regard for her own safety, much to Chat’s displeasure.
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Guilty by Association by @rosie-b
Marinette respected Adrien’s strength and courage more and more every day. No matter how many times people threw nasty words or literal tomatoes at him; no matter how many companies refused to work with him anymore; no matter how clear it was becoming that he would never be forgiven for his father’s crimes, he chose to greet new people with a smile and hope that this time, someone would recognize the kind heart hidden behind his hated name.
She wished she’d had the chance to meet him before she’d accidentally ruined his life.
Written for the Ml Writers Guild September event 'back to school'
I love how Marinette keeps reaching out to Adrien, trying to protect him, even if it doesn’t always work. To let him know that she’s in his corner at least. Hawk Moth had to be taken down, but the consequences for Adrien... she never wanted anyone to get hurt in the process.
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The Supreme Movers by PearlO_O
Continuation of Tales of Shadybug and Claw Noir.
Adrien and Marinette battle with the emotional aftermath of meeting their alternate selves.
This was an excellent follow-up to the Paris Special! To be clear, the Adrien and Marinette here are Claw Noir and Shady Bug, not the ones from the show we’ve been following all this time. I really liked Adrien and Marinette reflecting and recontextualizing how their parents have been acting in more positive ways, and getting more positive responses in turn, along with them reassessing how they’ve been acting and reaching out to Alya and Nino. There’s this theme of “it doesn’t matter who we were or what mistakes we made, but who we want to be and that we keep moving forward”.
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Keep Me Safe Inside by RoFair
Adrien Agreste, formally known as Claw Noir attempts to get to know the girl he admires behind the mask of the reformed Shadybug. He has a plan, but it is derailed by a blonde bully.
I love how smitten Adrien is with Marinette! He might have a lot of bravado as Claw Noir, but he’s kinda shy as a civilian. Of course, that all goes out the window when Marinette needs help - like when she’s being bullied and is nearing a breakdown.
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delicate in every way but one by katrinette
When Marinette finds a wanted ad that provokes just enough questions in her mind that she can't help answering it, the reward is sweeter than she could have imagined.
I love the little bit of worldbuilding we get here about vampire society, and Adrien’s usual awkward adorableness in asking Marinette for a certain necessary favor. It’s always neat to see such familiar characterization in a supernatural setting like this.
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Lost Feather by @a-flaming-idiot
Sabine has always liked and respected Ladybug and Chat Noir. They've always been wonderful heroes and inspirations to all of Paris and she wouldn't trade them for the world. But that isn't to say she didn't begin to get worried when the heroes of Paris made it their mission to destroy all sentimonsters in their path. Though she knew they never would, it was hard to not worry for the safety of her daughter.
I liked this glimpse of what might happen if Marinette was a sentimonster as well! Poor Sabine, of course she’d have nightmares about the Heroes of Paris killing her daughter. While she likes and respects the Heroes and understands why they’ve been killing sentimonsters, given that the ones Shadow Moth spawns often don’t even seem sentient and are wreaking havoc, she’s still afraid for Marinette, that Ladybug might purify her Amok without ever considering that Marinette might be an actual person.
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Partners in [Chaos] by @aidanchaser
Griffe Noire's needs no excuse to crash a fashion show competition, but when he sees the baker from his favorite bakery is involved, he decides to shift from spreading destruction to a different sort of chaos. He's not ready for her to see through him better than he knows himself.
Remixed from Partners in Clown by MiaBrown
I love Adrien’s portrayal here, how he lies to himself about how bad the cracks are getting, while also relishing them in a way, feeling like he’s living because of the self-harm he’s inflicting every time he unleashes a Cataclysm, it fits with his portrayal in the special. I like Marinette here too, you can see a bit of her vulnerabilities in this piece, though it’s not in her POV so she’s out of focus.
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Perfect by @deinde_prandium
It’s Adrien and Marinette’s wedding day! On site to ensure the event goes perfectly is their friend and famed wedding planner Kagami Tsuguri, and so far all has been going according to plan. There's just one problem: no one ever told her about Adrien, Marinette, and their struggles with automatic doors. Add to this the fact that Marinette’s determination to play matchmaker between her and a certain wedding singer…
Needless to say, Kagami is not pleased.
This is mostly a Kagami-centric fic, with a touch of Lukagami at the end. I loved the callback to Adrienette’s automatic door troubles, and Kagami and Luka being sneaky XD.
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Patrolling with a friend for Christmas by @seasofsilver
Adrien just wanted to gift his Lady some time off and hang out more with Marinette during the festive season - it didn't exactly go to plan, but somehow ended up... better?
This was adorable! Chat Noir tries to give Ladybug a break by recruiting Multimouse to replace her on patrols for a bit, and Ladybug returns the favor by recruiting Aspik to replace Chat. Yep, it’s Snekmouse!
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Far-Fetched Plans by @cravingcraze
“While that’s true, and I was going to bring that up, I wanted to talk about… when Wishmaker hit you,” he sat up and looked at Felix with… concern? Why was he concerned for him?
“You only care about my secret identity,” Felix deflected. No, there was no way fucking Viperion, Luka Couffaine of all people was worried about him.
(It was hard to imagine anyone working with Ladybug worried about him.)
So this is an intriguing prospect. Gabriel’s forcing Felix to work with him to try and get Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s Miraculous, something Felix isn’t thrilled about. But Luka finds out Felix’s secret identity, and decides to try and help him to break free.
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Life with a Stolen Slime by RustyAce
Sharp, dagger-like stabs from his stomach made the small creature whimper as they curled into himself. Hunger. A frequent state he should be used to by now, but a painful one nonetheless. His gelatinous form was nearly a ball as he tried to self soothe himself, with just portions of slime forming ears and a tail that stuck out of his main body. Usually this worked, but the slime made a distressed moan as they pressed their forehead against his glass prison.
Oh, how he wished he could escape this jar he was in. The humans never came often enough to give him enough food, or even to let him out to stretch his legs. No, instead they carefully opened the jar’s lid just enough to slip some disgusting trash into it with some forceps. They, it seemed, did not appreciate his surprisingly sharp bites or scratches when they first brought him here. A shame.
The slime let out a small sigh, their eyes closing in an attempt to fall asleep to ignore his hunger. Perhaps if he fell asleep, he would wake up to them bringing him food.
So this fic is based off the Reverse world presented in the Paris special. Claw Noir’s a small cat-slime that’s being held captive in a jar, until Marinette eventually rescues him and puts him in a bigger container and feeds him better food at least. It’s cute, and it makes me curious about the setting of this story (like where he came from and why humans were keeping him captive, along with how Marinette stumbled across him), and where the story might go from here (this is a oneshot, but I’d love to see this explored more, if you can’t tell).
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Changeling by @unecoccinellenoire
Gabriel makes the Wish believing that he regretted everything with Adrien. The results suggest that he in fact regrets Adrien
So this is interesting. It’s giving a glimpse into a universe where Gabriel and Emilie never found the Peacock Miraculous, and they (along with Amelie and Colt) just adopted. Which unfortunately meant that Adrien and Felix as we know them never existed, and Gabriel finds that he misses his original son, which is especially acute when interacting with his new adopted son and knowing how much he’s NOT Adrien.
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Here for now, but I can see the better days by @nirby-wirby
Now, laying on his bed with only the soft light of a bedside lamp illuminating the room, he felt guilt eating at him from inside his chest. His miraculous burned on his finger, a reminder of what he’d given up. Of what had somehow led to his father helping Ladybug and dying in the process. The guilt was suffocating, building more and more until he felt like all that was left of him was guilt.
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Or: Adrien deals with the grief and guilt of losing his father with some help. Set post-s5 finale and written for the ML Secret Santa Exchange of 2023
I love the support Adrien gets here, both from Nathalie in a more motherly role, and from his friends. He even tells Nathalie his secret identity, which gets her thinking about how badly Adrien got screwed over. Especially with him feeling guilty over Gabriel’s fate, when she knows he has no reason to.
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Under the Umbrella by @fruitdragon1a
Almost everyone has a soulmate. What are Adrien and Marinette supposed to do when they meet theirs?
ML Secret Santa gift for Mei! Merry Christmas!
Thank you to Now Loading and Rewan Demontay for beta reading this fic!
So this is a version of soulmarks I haven’t seen before. Around age six, soulmates get a soulmark that shows what their soulmate is thinking when they first meet them. Though I guess it doesn’t register while transformed, since it only counts for this one when Adrien and Marinette meet as civilians, and not when they first meet as superheroes.
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