#just copy pasting from my notes app and posting so Enjoy

[castellla]

ok but fr kikuri is my fave because

1: same hat - i too, am 30something and on substances For Reasons.

the audience is basically handed a diagram that says: why does kikuri drink so much? :( -> oh right, yeah. Capital-and-Other-Isms

2: audience stand in - thank you for laughing at bocchi-chan's faces. wipes tear from eye they are funny

3: best damn mentor for a non-sober person award - look, seika can have the 'responsible person' stuff. who doesn't appreciate a distant, yet loving manager? the kind of person who secretly makes her kid sisters dumb friends 401k's and starts dumping whatever she can in there cause you think they're gonna do it? compounding interest compounds.

not this scrungly oneechan. come to kikuri's awesome boozehouse of fun and mistakes for the 'oh, you're pretty fucked up too! nice lol. like sux actually but Nice throws bocchi-chan a life-saving liferaft like it was nothing (come back here bitch i said i Owe you my Life)

and, well, she's so salazzled all the time that she's running Default Kikuri.OS which seems to be: just a happy lil guy. just here 2 have a good time and help other people have a good time also. if there's swears to be said, she might do it. if there's horny flirty things to be said, or perhaps, senpais to get handsy with...

will there be property damage: yes & it's why i'm worried she's Without a Home :sob: but it's worth noticing none of the property damage was damaged in anger - just like, drunken childlike joy/lack of impulse control. christ, you put a hole in the wall that easy? do you work out? are you on the straight dude workout regimen? ...o-or the not straight girl workout regimen? ...anyway, this does not negate the fact that shit did get broken.

will vomit be vomited: yeah, but in anime it's really funny and i can't smell it. i mean her throat probably hurts like fuck and shes gotta be nauseous tho

will thoughtless comments be commented: yes, but i feel like a villain for saying so!!!! oh well.

but i ask the Perceivers among us to consider what kind of things they last said when drunk - stupid? embarrassing? overly horny? - and remember that she's drunk basically All the fucking time. like all the time. the fact that she manages to say anything BUT the worst shit anyone's ever said out loud is a testament to her character as a human.

seems like the drunker + more rejected feeling she gets = sometimes, the harder in she leans to "keep tapping the skinner box of love until love come out"

Various Content makes her do a brock eyes opening thing to indicate shit's hitting a little different for ol kikuri-neechan

e12 -- bocchi-chan is gonna have a fucking panic attack at the worst possible moment; the dutch angle is kind enough to let us know kikuri saw that happen and gets it. i mean, wtf is she supposed to do from even the front for her, other than hope she'll be okay? thankfully, kita wanted to be a constellation so bad she watched her, saw it about to happen, and shredded to saved bocchi's hide. s-stupid femme beautiful rock princess i love her to death

consider her past; she started drinking to overcome the overwhelming anxiety of stage fright because she had no choice but to play music live for people. bocchi had nicobicobouga (assumed name) because the internet was around - but people older than her just didn't. if you wanted to play, and for people to listen, they'd have to be standing in front of you. yeah, shit sucks, actually. if you perhaps... suffer from social anxiety so badly you couldn't speak to your classmates, but wanted to play music soooo fucking bad because you couldn't imagine a life with you in it otherwise?... what other options did she have? booze is easy to get. especially in japan, and i imagine especially in a music setting. (i am a loser with sensitive ears so have no firsthand knowledge, however.) frankly i want kikuri to get a weed card slash dealer but that's just for me personally as a stoner dyke

she is lightly pushy about offering bocchi - who is of course, underage - alcohol. however, i really doubt it's her intention to do a hey bocchers. wanna WEED? at her: she is probably literally not able to cognitively remember the previous conversation(s) they had about it. she's never taken her 'no im too babey to alcalahol :(' and gone 'lol, sure. PEER PRESSURE, WOOO!' and kegstanded the poor little dweeb against her will.

given how just literally drunk she is and the level of impulse control that typically affords, i have to imagine: in the second in front of her: all she sees is - hey, look who it is! it's ol' bocchi-chan! bocchi-chan who is clearly having a Hard Time Coping. wonder if she wants a drink to chill out! better offer her some so she can have it. hey bocchers wanna Weed

...but the hardest thing about alcohol if you're underage is getting it! so, she offers, but hitori gotoh has the moral compass of a (insert competently-written metaphor - we'll definitely fix it in post!), so she truly seems content with not touching it until she's Of Age. uh, okay, "content" might not be the right word. aside from her own cynical, but not inaccurate mind palace excursions into the possible future that awaits her if she were to start drinking. plenty of people drink underage and don't become alcoholics - bocchi herself just has too much physical anxiety to cope with the thought of something that could have such enormous stakes. for her, the stakes of 'drinking' are social more than anything - she's paralyzed with worry about becoming a disappointment and burden to her loved ones. and she doesn't trust future bocchi to not do that. she sees every road as yet another slippery slope to humiliation and rejection. it is an utterly miserable way to live.

the human brain is wired to comprehend 'social rejection' with 'the threat of death.' for our evolutionary ancestors, not being able to fit in with the group meant getting ditched out in the middle of nowhere, literally left to starve and die alone. this is partly because one of our evolutionary legs-up was our ability to communicate with others, form groups, and cooperate. this is hunter-gatherer level lizard brain shit. it's important because we have to all understand: one way or another, we're all wired this way. it's more complex now, because society and technology have become more complex. but brain-wise? 'oh god, am i saying too much about LIZARDS and CAVEMEN' feels the same to bocchi as 'i was so annoying, even my own family would leave me alone to starve, because i was that permanently, irredeemably loathsome.'

a caveman bocchi-chan would be interesting. unga bunga

on a brain level, this is the fight-flight-freeze response bocchi is experiencing when she has her very funnily animated episodes. is it funny she's doing that? well, sort of... her face is pretty funny. her reaction is pretty funny. her internal experience is that of someone so absolutely petrified with the thought of being 'annoying' that she cannot proceed with her life.

no, she can't make an instagram - haven't you ever seen someone attention whoring so bad, you wanted them to die alone? no? ah, well. what if you thought they deserved to die for the sin of wanting attention? - she has an entire mind palace about it and screams like a broken speaker and all her friends are like 'shit! sorry! won't ask again. we cool?' and shes like 'oh yeah. my bad' and that WORKS, MAN, FOR SOME REASON.

it's nijika. nijika is the key. nijika's the reason kessoku exists. she's so fucking reasonable and normal and responsible and caring and kind. she goes, "excellent slapstick, chums. i shan't blame you all for being Such Big Lesbians All The Time, because i love you for it, but perhaps let's get out of the direct line of public sight, where harmful misunderstandings can occur, and wrap things up as cleanly as we can? no need for shame or angst; i don't need those apologies! ayamaru ga iranai! (would she yoko kanno/maaya sakamoto? huh. not very roccku...) she has her priorities straight.

we know who raised her, so nijika-chan is nijika-chan, but it's silly to pretend there'd be no influence. 'you're suddenly my only family and it's my responsibility to step up and Protect and Raise you right' is a hell of a drug. (seika i starts crying ALSO OWE YOU MY LIFE)

4 hot anime woman - they are free to obsess over without being a lil freak, so that's nice. okay maybe scratch the freak part ive been typing this for way too long for that qualification anymor

5 WHAT DO THOSE SHARK TEETH DO FOR REAL

6 "shinjuku, i LOVE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!" if not the point i fell in love with her, the point i definitely fell more in love with her

#bocchi the rock #just copy pasting from my notes app and posting so Enjoy

[hollowisthyname]

ok ok this is probably dumb but i gotta get it out there because i have lots of thoughts and if i don't say them my brain will bother me about it forever so :

earlier today i saw a post about how much darker ride the cyclone could've been- the kids still having their injuries from the fall , having to do the songs and choreography because karnak makes them but having it hurt them and eventually they all just collapse from pain and exaustion- and while that's an amazing concept for a much sadder version and i can tell it would be absolutely DEVASTATING to see performed it also got me thinking about how different that would be from the actual show and the reason they're all there in the first place .

karnak brought them there because , in his own words , he wanted to let them express not who they were perceived to be , but who they dreamt they were . this was his gift to them- "a eulogy" , he says , to these kids unfairly torn from the world before they got a chance to fulfill those dreams . and as he assures ocean after her "catchphrase" , their will is still entirely their own . they choose the songs they sing , not one of them is forced to . he was ready and willing to let ocean concede without singing at all (although i suppose that could've been because he knew she would never go through with it at that point) , and apart from her initial catchphrase , none of the kids object to having some of their moves choreographed . as another post points out , he even lets them do some of their own , unchoreographed , dancing during sugar cube . and all in all , they're happy to have had the chance !! they all get to know each other so much better over the course of the show , and ricky even gets his abilities to walk and speak back so he can better communicate to the others what he wants to say . and of course , penny gets her memory back and is able to live out the rest of her life . it's amazing that even one of them was able to come back like that , and everything that lead to that point helps them all realize things about each other , and life , and death , that they otherwise would never have known .

....i got kinda off topic there . i guess my point is , the "competition" for reincarnation was a gift to the kids , not a curse . it was a way to let them say the things they had always wanted to , and learn lessons they never had the chance to learn in life . to change it to something they were being forced to do , something that was hurting them- that would change the point of the entire show .

ride the cyclone can seem very dark at first- and it is , of course , that is a part of it . but at its core , it's a very optimistic show , and i think that's a big part of what defines it . and karnak , while he can be very sarcastic and mess with the kids (especially ocean , though to be fair she usually deserves it) , is ultimately just .... a lonely guy who knows more than is good for him . and instead of using his power over life and death to manipulate and control the kids for his own entertainment , he gives one of them the chance at life and all of them the chance to express themselves the way they wanted to be seen .

it's optimistic because it says that even though these kids died in a tragic accident , they still have another chance to learn and grow . that's what makes this show what it is , and i love it so damn much . it's hopeful , it what it is , and it's really impressive how they managed to make a story about kids who died in an accident have so much hope ingrained into it . it's contradictory in the most beautiful way , and i wouldn't change it for anything .

#moons monologue #ride the cyclone #ocean o'connell rosenberg #<- i think she deserves to be tagged shes a big part of this #BUT UH SORRY THIS IS SO LONG ?? I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS #i copy pasted this from my notes app it took up four and a half pages #i didnt even know there WERE pages until now #and all of this is not to say the angst ideas r bad !!!! #i love angst and i agree this show is like . prime material for it #i just feel like sometimes we lose sight of the whole point of the show #rtc is a show about hope !! how even in the shittiest possible situation good things can still happen !!!!! #im not articulating it well i think but i hope u get what i mean #i love this show and its optimism so much #jane/penny's story especially .... gives me hope for my own life yknow ? #i am gonna sleep now im so tired #night night rtc fandom i hope u enjoy my long rambling thoughts #long post

[hrts4scarr]

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨ 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 (dr3) 𝐱𝐨 ୧˚

★ requested﹕yes/no — summary﹕ in which the writer, scar, doesnt know what to summarise this 😓 — warnings﹕established relatioinship, unnamed ex mentions, pet names, really short bc that's how i write my fics, probably not proof read well, lmk if there's anything i missed💗 — pairing﹕dr3 x f!reader — w/c﹕600+ ★ start a/n﹕hii angels!! late valentines post!! like i said in my last post, ill probably be using songs to base my fics off of, so here we are. i skipped some of the parts of the lyrics bc it wouldnt make sense/didnt fit, so sorry if youre listening to the song and reading this and it doesnt make sense 😓 hope you enjoy!! [italics are past moments/memories] ౨ৎ 𝑫𝑻 (tag list) ;; none yet but open :) based off of the song . . .

〔 my last work | pinned post | f1 masterlist | taglist | rules 〕

notes, comments, reblogs, feedback and follows are greatly appriciated!

!!PLEASE DO NOT REPOST ON OTHER WEBISTES/APPS OR COPY MY ORIGINAL WORK!!

Could you tell where my head was at when you found me?

Me and you went to hell and back just to find peace

You heard a soft groan as you rubbed your eyes, wrapping yourself in the soft fabric of your bedsheets.

Eyelids heavy, your lips curl up into a smile.

Man, I thought I had everything, I was lonely

Now you're my everything, I was lonely

"Honey, would you do the honour of being my valentines?"

That sentence from the week prior replayed in your head over and over again. It was your first valentines together as boyfriend and girlfriend. You smiled to yourself as you remembered the time Daniel asked you on a date.

I mixed a lot of love with a lot of drugs, then I found you

She liked petty crimes, she had green eyes like Mountain Dew

And where she go, I'll never know

Her friends bounced too

"Oh please, don't waste your time on stupid men like him," Daniel put his arm around your waist. "I can do way better than that, buttercup. Especially for the fact, it's Valentines. His loss for leaving you. But my win for having you here with me." Daniel winks, his confidence never wavered and grin never leaving his face.

I guess it's their loss 'cause they'll never know what we'll amount to

Would you be my light, be my yellow?

"Morning, baby." You head a gruff yet muffled voice under the blanket, snapping you out of your thoughts. You giggle softly, lifting the covers from your boyfriend's face.

"Morning, love." You grin, leaning in and peppering his chin with kisses.

Your boyfriend chuckles, pulling you in. One thing about your boyfriend, for sure, is that he was never afraid to show his love and affection for you. "C'mere, honey, I'm cold." Daniel wraps his arms around you, kissing your shoulder.

You laughed softly. "Happy one year and valentines, Danny." You sigh happily, kissing the bridge of your boyfriend's nose.

"Happy one year and valentines to you too, honey bee." Daniel kisses your cheek. "I'm taking you out today."

You smile, "Oh? You didn't tell me we had plans. I would've woke up earlier."

Daniel grinned, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "I'm taking you out at night. It's a secret, love. But I promise you'll love it."

You chuckled, shaking your head. "Alright, Danny, you win this time. I'm all yours for the day."

P.Y.T walking down portobello

Put a smile on this face at the end of the day

MDMA helped us fly away

With that, you both got ready for your special Valentine's Day date night, stepping out into the cool evening air. Daniel offered you his arm, which you gladly accepted. You walked hand in hand, your heart fluttering with anticipation for the night ahead.

The city was alive with the buzz of Valentine's Day, lights twinkling overhead, and the faint scent of flowers lingering in the air. Daniel led you through the bustling streets with confidence, his presence reassuring and comforting.

Finally, you arrived at a quaint little restaurant tucked away in a charming alley. The ambiance was romantic, with soft candlelight and gentle music playing in the background. You shared intimate conversations over delicious food, savoring each moment together.

As the night drew to a close, Daniel whispered sweet nothings in your ear, expressing his love and gratitude for having you in his life. And as you looked into his eyes, you knew that you had found your peace, your happiness, your everything in him.

Who'da known, who'da known you would save my life?

Who'da known, who'da known you would fly my kite?

Could you tell, could you tell?

Could you tell?

☆ end a/n﹕school is sickening fr

〔 my last work | pinned post | f1 masterlist | taglist | rules 〕

notes, comments, reblogs, feedback and follows are greatly appriciated!

!!PLEASE DO NOT REPOST ON OTHER WEBISTES/APPS OR COPY MY ORIGINAL WORK!!

#౨ৎ﹔💌 ┄ scar's works ! 🪽 #౨ৎ﹔🏎️ ┄ scar's works ! 🪽 #formula 1 #f1 #f1 fluff #f1 grid #f1 imagine #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 drivers #f1 x reader #f1 x female reader #f1 x you #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 fluff #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 x you #formula 1 fic #formula 1 fanfic #daniel riccardo #daniel riccardo x reader #daniel riccardo imagine #daniel riccardo x you #daniel riccardo x yn #dr3 #dr3 x reader #dr3 imagine #dr3 x you #dr3 x yn #hrts4scarr

[chqolan]

Luke Sullivan boyfriend headcanons

A/N: i'm not a writer of any sort LMAO but i just had to share my hc's for this man because i REFUSE to gatekeep any content for luke. copy pasted from my notes app !

TW: gender neutral reader, luke being a goofball (what else is new?), completely sfw mhm no unholy thoughts being posted 🧘‍♀️

⛧ definitely a soft boyfriend

⛧ always in the mood for hugs, kisses and cuddles

⛧ he's more romantic than most people would think!

⛧ most dates consist of travelling around metro city

⛧ movie dates, picnics, dining out, sight seeing, shopping etc!

⛧ he brings you along to his gym sometimes if you’re free

⛧ luke will always end up trying to show off when you’re watching and his students can clearly tell

⛧ he'd make sure you have a decent relationship with his students

⛧ wether you're a fighter or not, luke probably encourages you to practice and learn with the rest of his kids

⛧ on the days that you don’t go with him to his classes, you pack him lunch!

⛧ he loves your perfectly packed lunches with cute and positive notes that always have a smiley face at the end :)

⛧ you try your best to pack him healthy food to break his bad eating habits

⛧ he can definitely notice, but he'll still eat everything you packed him

⛧ going back to the topic of his classes, luke would probably order pizza for his students on a good day

⛧ it’d be the same type of pepperoni pizza you both had while on a date last night

⛧ his students would be celebrating once he announces he’s ordering pizza for everyone, meanwhile you and bosch just face palm

⛧ bosch would be wondering how eating junk food is supposed to help while they’re trying to exercise and train

⛧ you would be wondering how he still wants more pizza after eating 7/10 slices you guys had the night before

⛧ now about those dates with the two of you

⛧ luke also enjoys cozy dates at home with you too

⛧ sometimes he'll like having you watch him play video games, or even tell you to play with him

⛧ or cuddle up in blankets on his bed or couch to watch movies

⛧ but no scary movies allowed LMAO

⛧ if y’all are ever out, he'll still treat you good

⛧ he prefers dining out to satisfy his insane appetite

⛧ you'll be full and watch luke finish your leftovers and continue ordering more food

⛧ you reassure him that it’s okay and he can eat as much as he pleases, but he was already gonna do that anyways

⛧ he'd probably have moments where he kisses your cheek or forehead and clumsily places his hat on your head <3

⛧ he'd place it backwards and say that you look even cooler than him now

⛧ after playing world tour, it’s canon that luke texts A LOT

⛧ expect lots of good morning/good night texts from him!

⛧ he'll text you throughout the day to see how you're doing, and even ask you're free to meet up with him

⛧ he sends you the stupidest memes as well and will be like “this reminded me of u”

⛧ it’s so stupid but you can’t help but laugh

#luke sullivan #luke sullivan x reader #street fighter #street fighter x reader #street fighter 6

[sencubussubs]

Let’s talk VISION BOARDS

hi lovelies <3

I am a little late to the start of the year but let’s talk VISION BOARDS!

oh my gosh i LOVE vision boards. Every. Single. Thing. i put on my vision board last year manifested - and boy i was NOT good at manifesting (i was overthinking, spiralling, constantly dipping out of believing in manifesting and myself.)

Low effort and loads of fun i absolutely recommend vision boards.

I mentioned in a previous post that part of how vision boards work is by familiarising your brain with seeing the people/places/objects etc on your vision board and partly with emotions! feeling like its all yours now.

-

So, how can we put an effective vision board together?

Well first, what do you want your year to look like?

your vision board can be for any amount of time, but i think year long ones are most common <3 (it doesn’t mean the manifestations will take a whole year!)

You can start with a pen and paper (or notes app) and write down what you want the next year to look like:

It may help to have some headings to organise sections of life. for example:

Career

Relationships

Travel

Experiences/ events

Material Goods

Then you can find specific people/places/things you want to manifest such as a specific career, car or ipad. A specific type of love language e.t.c.

-

Second lets get some useful apps:

- Pinterest (of course!)

- Picsart (or any photo collaging app or website)

(OR ALTERNATIVELY you can print out individual photos, cut, organise and glue down your photos on a piece of cardstock/paper or poster board- the world is your oyster baby!)

-

Apps in tow we can move onto the Third step

finding good pictures!

In my vision board from 2023 i didn’t think too hard about pictures - i found pictures that represented what i wanted, i whacked em where i thought they looked good, printed that baby out and slapped it next too my desk where i looked at it all the time. Not purposefully because i took the time to, but rather just because i would automatically be pulled to look at the bright colours whenever i went to sit down at my desk (and when i would die in my games and need to look away from my screen :P ).

While deciding to do a vision board for 2024 -only during this process did i check my 2023 vision board and realise everything manifested- i watched lots of youtube videos from people whose vision boards were successful. it gave me motivation and enthusiasm to make my vision board and i learned a couple handy tricks along the way:

due to my copy and paste not working on tumblr for some reason, i am going to list the youtubers at the end rather than linking them.

- Using pictures from YOUR point of view

select pictures where it looks like you are already in it - e.g. wanting to read loads in 2024? pictures of someone (with your skin tone) reading with the book in their lap (example pics at the end)

You can also take this further and cut out your own face and put it over people in pictures - sounds silly but it worked for Tam Kaur! (check her out)

- Find pictures that truly invoke the emotions you want to feel

want to be given flowers? don’t settle for any picture of someone giving flowers, find the one that makes you feel the way you feel when you imagine it happening. The one that makes it feel real and heartwarming.

- Make sure you enjoy looking at the pictures/ layout you use!

you are gonna look at this and ingest it subconsciously all the time, so make sure it looks nice! Hopefully the emotions you feel from the pictures will already help this - but we wanna make sure the underlying subconscious message is “this is all already mine” not “oh god i hate this thing”

- Putting it somewhere you often look

if you’re like me, you might not have a manifestation routine and don’t want to consciously decide to spend five minutes staring at the vision board. I placed the vision board next to my desk and schedule, i looked at it every time i sat down - especially because i liked the photos so much it always caught my eye - and whenever i looked away from my screen. This allowed me to subconsciously familiarise myself with all the people/places/things on there! I also had a wallpaper on my phone with another small vision board so i looked at it even more often :)

- lastly, your vision board is yours - you don’t have to share

Honestly i truly believe in keeping my manifestations to myself till after they materialise in the 3D, mostly because of the stress of having other people think you’re crazy - i know that this is also my fault due to everyone is you pushed out, but i feel like for a lot of baby manifesters this is a familiar feeling. Manifestation is your own journey - do not let anyone take away your belief or chip at your self concept!

I am going to make a post soon about addressing people asking about manifestations! <3

-

Final step: HAVE FUN

Enjoy the process and embody the version of yourself who is receiving all of this, It is done, this IS your 2024!

-

the list:

Here are all the youtubers whose videos i watched while creating my vision board for 2024 <3

- Tam Kaur

- Anila Sita 101

- Hailey gamba

- The Gem Goddess

I hope this helped and enjoy making your vision board!

bye lovelies!

Seeing people’s successes really motivates me so i might also make a post on the things i successfully manifested in 2023 with my vision board <3

#sencubus #loa #law of assumption #loassumption #loassblog #vision boards #successful vision boards #manifesting #manifestation #manifestation technique #manifestation techniques #manifestation methods #law of assumption techniques #law of assumption blog #mood boards #vision board #vision board 2024 #affirmations #neville goddard

[delusionalcrow]

Quick drawing of Zonai OC: Innok

First tumblr post on here uhh here's my boy :D I typically don't make OCs that are directly connected to any canon characters, but I thought what the hell... So here's Innok: younger cousin of Mineru and Rauru, courtier to the king and queen of Hyrule and the sage of earth.

I wrote some notes on him in my notes app and I'll just copy paste them here. If there are grammatical errors I'll change them later I'm too lazy rn-

One of the last known Zonai in existence, Innok is the younger cousin of Rauru and Mineru. He serves as Rauru and Sonia's courtier by attending the royal court and advising the king and queen of Hyrule on what to say and give them guidance. That position was essentially handed to him by his older cousins through...well...basically nepotism, but he proves his worth every day. Innok is also a prominent philosopher and often scribes his findings and theories. He is held in high regard by those who are know him, and often only know what Innoks professional personality is. However, he is fairly laid back apart from when he attends to his duties. Innok enjoys roaming around the royal grounds and attending to his personal garden of trees which he allows people to harvest from when they need.

Innok is a highly emotionally intelligent individual with a professional and diplomatic air to him. Despite his initial stoic attitude, Innok is a confident and charming young man who loves to take on challenges head-on with enthusiasm. He's very broad-minded and clever which allows him to easily make friends (though he's not naive). Although, Innok can come off as pompous and haughty while he acts as the courtier to his older cousin and his queen. He is also temperamental at times when things don't go as he plans and often gets snappy when no solutions are presenting to him.

#zelda totk #totk #loz totk #loz fanart #oc art #zelda oc #botw oc #zelda #legend of zelda #new blog #zelda fanart #fanart #my ocs #oc #original character #zonai #totk zonai

[love-and-greta]

Shower Power

To commemorate Greta playing Flower Power in Florida, I present to you…Shower Power. Yet another fluffy Josh fic.

And yes, I know my spacing is all funky in my posts, but I can’t figure out how to fix that after copying and pasting from my notes app. Maybe one day I’ll post from my computer, but I’m not too pressed about it. So hopefully it doesn’t annoy anyone!

Warnings: none! Just fluff :)

Enjoy!

____________________________________________

The drive home from work felt like it took an eternity. It took everything you had in you all day today to hold back the tears that threatened to fall at any given moment, and all you wanted to do was take a long, hot shower to relieve some of the tension that had made itself at home in your neck and shoulders recently. You greatly appreciated your promotion at work, but the newly added stress coupled with Josh’s impending leave for tour had you feeling all out of sorts. Admittedly, you had grown accustomed to Josh’s mere presence acting as a stress reliever for you and you weren’t sure how you were going to handle him being away this time around. These were feelings you kept solely to yourself, not wanting to add any extra stress to Josh’s plate. So, when you turned on to your street and saw Josh’s jeep missing from your driveway, you sighed in relief. You could open the flood gates and cry it out in peace.

The minute you stepped into the shower and closed the curtain shut, the tears started to fall, mixing with the water already streaming down your face. A nice, long breakdown in the shower was all you needed, right? Josh didn’t need to know just how much you depended on him. That would make you look too clingy.

As these thoughts swirled around in your head and the tears continued to flow, you heard the front door slam shut.

“Honey, I’m hoooome.” You heard Josh chuckle.

Shit. You quickly tried to compose yourself, knowing Josh was probably wandering the house to find you. Eventually he made his way into the bedroom and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Hey Birdie, you in the shower?” Josh called out to you.

“Yeah, hi babe. I-I’ll be out in a few minutes,” you barely managed to squeak out.

The door cracked open and through the sheer shower curtain you could see Josh poke his head into the room.

“Is everything okay?” Josh asked, a concerned look on his face. He wasn’t stupid. He knew when you were upset by just looking at you, or by just hearing your voice apparently.

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine.” You replied quickly, “just a long day at work.” You turned your face towards the shower head and closed your eyes, letting the spray of water mask any signs of emotion still present on your face.

You suddenly felt a draft of cold air on your back as Josh pulled the curtain open and stepped into the shower, slowly walking towards you. He tentatively wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into his chest, placing his chin on your shoulder.

“Babe…” Josh spoke quietly, placing a soft kiss on your jawline. “Talk to me.”

You leaned into his touch, immediately feeling the clasp of a belt press into your lower back. You spun around to see Josh standing fully clothed, the front of his shirt drenched, clinging onto his chest, and water beginning to stream down his face from his now limp curls.

“Josh, what the hell are you doing?” You gasped.

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Josh answered nonchalantly, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

“You seem to have forgotten to take your clothes off and the whole point of a shower is to bathe naked,” you said, rolling your eyes and gesturing to your own naked body.

“Well,” Josh replied slowly, “you needed me. There wasn’t any time to strip down.” He placed his hands back on your hips and stepped closer towards you, staring deeply into your eyes.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” He said softly.

The tears that you had managed to suppress upon Josh entering the shower, slowly began to well in your eyes again. You cast your head down to try to compose yourself, but Josh quickly grabbed your chin, tilting your face upwards to look into his eyes.

“You don’t have to be strong for me y/n. You’re allowed to feel whatever you are feeling.”

Upon hearing these words, you immediately burst into tears. Josh wrapped his arms tightly around you and let you cry. And boy did you cry; big, fat, ugly tears. Josh’s embrace never faltered and you felt more at home in his arms than you had ever before. He was a safe space, full of love and understanding and you slowly felt the tension you had been carrying around start to leave your body.

“I’m just really going to miss you,” you finally whispered, your eyes now dry from the tears. “And I’m scared that I might need you more than you need me. I don’t think I’m going to handle you being gone very well.”

Your admission made you blush, but you felt ten pounds lighter getting it off your chest.

Josh pulled back slightly to look at you and smiled, a small laugh escaping his lips.

“I think you’ve clearly underestimated just how fucking important you are to me Birdie.”

You gave him a quizzical look, your heart beginning to pound in your chest.

“You think I’m not going to miss you too?” He continued. “Coming home to you is the best part of my day. I can’t even handle thinking about not being able to wake up next you every morning, or kiss you whenever I want, or-or dance with you in the kitchen to our favorite songs. Trust me when I say I need you just as much as you need me. Maybe even more. You’re my rock, my world. Everything. But the important thing is, that we do have each other and we’ll get through this. We’re in this together babe.”

As soon as Josh finished talking, you grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and pulled him flush against you, placing your lips against his, kissing him deeply. You couldn’t find the words to express just how loved you felt by him in this moment, but you knew he felt your gratitude through your actions.

“I love you Josh,” you said breathlessly between kisses.

“More baby. I love you more,” Josh replied, moving his lips down to your neck. You sighed into his touch, threading your fingers into his damp hair.

“Maybe you should take those clothes off now,” you giggled suggestively, shivers running down your spine as Josh began sucking on the skin on your collarbone. You felt his lips pull into a smile.

“Yeah you’re probably right. My clothes are fucking soaked.”

#gvf josh #josh kiszka #josh fic #greta van fleet #gvf fic #gvf fanfiction #gvf fluff

[mothwithapencil]

These stupid pics to get your attention

Rambling about Vega, his various mental issues and gay problems, featuring vegaryuken. Copied from a discord dm, edited in my notes app, pasted here to tumblr dot com for all the vegaheads and like, 2 other enjoyers of the ship to see. And hopefully tumblr won't ruin the formatting and scramble the entire post again. Enjoy

I think Vega has trouble correctly identifying his emotions. Like they get jumbled together and it's hard for him to recognize just what it is when he's feeling a bunch of things at once. And because he's Vega it all just gets translated into I Need To Fucking Kill You

Because of their 87 gay tension encounters Vega very obviously desires Ken biblically. But he also wants attention from him and when he doesn't get it he's Upset. And he gets jealous and angry at everyone Ken does give attention to (Eliza, Chun-Li, probably Ryu but we'll get to that later). So he tries to fight Ken to "win their affections" even though it's really just Ken that he wants. Intricate rituals just so another man will touch him etc etc. So there's too many emotions at play and it all gets blended into one mess. He wants Ken to give him attention and he's jealous of people close to him and hates them because he's not them and he hates Ken for not reciprocating and he's angry at himself for having feelings and caring about someone as stupid and ugly and beautiful as Ken Masters. Well. What can a Vega do with these overwhelming feelings but claw everyone to death about it. After all he does love killing and maiming and licking blood from his claw as a way to bring peace to his mind (← canon info)

Tldr he's angry and touch starved and wants to be loved and is a little bit of a whore. And he never was allowed to properly feel and regulate his emotions so he can't tell the difference.

He probably goes after Ryu too once he realizes ken is in love with him. But Ryu, big sweetheart that he is, is at one with his heart and emotions and is able to be like "Hey. Lets talk about this. What's troubling you so much. Lets sit down and breathe :)" and eventually gets him to be very very pathetic and spill everything. Its okay Vega it's not your fault

#im very normal about them #street fighter #vega street fighter #ryu street fighter #ken masters #vegaryuken

[sim-berry]

Reminders for the upcoming TS4 update!

Simmers, the new expansion pack For Rent comes out on December 7th and as we all know, big updates can mess with your game especially if you use mods. I've learned my lesson from the last few updates and I'd like to give some suggestions to help!

Note: I use the EA App for Sims 4, on a Windows computer. The methods I describe here will probably not apply to MAC users. I also don't know if these work for pirated games so just be careful!

-BACK UP YOUR SAVES. Just in case your save gets corrupted or the update somehow manages to lose your saves (this has happened to me- after the update, my saves were gone). Here's what I do:

Navigate to your "Sims 4" folder. In my case it's Documents>Electronic Arts>Sims 4.

Find your "saves" folder and right-click to copy it.

Paste your copy of your saves folder to your desktop (some people paste to their external hard drive as well, but I'm not sure how to do this)

Right click on your copy to rename it. It's a good idea to write the date on which you copied your folder. Here's my current backup:

Your saves are now backed up! If you lose your files in the game or they become corrupted, open up your backup folder, then select and copy all the files in the folder and then paste them into your actual saves folder. Your saves will then be restored! You should do this every so often just in case. I try and back up my saves once a month.

-Turn off automatic updates. This way you can choose when to update your game. I personally wait until mod creators start updating their mods and then update the game.

Open the EA App and head to your settings, then the "downloads" tab.

Turn off the "update games automatically" option.

When you're ready, update the game and enjoy!

-Follow mod creators on social media. If you use mods, it's a good idea to keep up with updates and what the creators are up to. When there's a huge Sims update, many mods (especially script mods) tend to break and need to be updated by the creators. Keeping up with them allows you to see what their plans are for updating the mods. Creators use many different platforms, but from what I've seen most tend to use Tumblr, Patreon, and Twitter/X to post updates. If I find a mod I really like, I always follow the creator. They also deserve tons of support for their amazing work!

-Know which mods are broken and updated. In addition to following mod creators, there are multiple threads that log all mods with each update. They tell us which mods are broken, which are updated, and which were unaffected by the update. If you're experiencing a glitch with a mod, you can report it on these threads. Here are examples of threads from previous updates:

Always check these before writing to an official Sims/EA forum about a glitch. If you use script mods, the bugs you're experiencing will most likely be from these mods. Also, if you use UI mods like UI Cheats, don't freak out if your UI looks like this:

Your game isn't corrupted, the mod is just outdated. UI Cheats almost always breaks after a big update. The creator of UI Cheats updates frequently, so make sure to check up on their Patreon page.

-Check in with the community if you have a bug. The Sims Forums, r/Sims4 on Reddit, and Simblr are good places to go if you have a question about a bug you're having. r/Sims4 was a lifesaver for everyone who had the dreaded tooth glitch in Growing Together. If you're having a non-mod related bug, chances are others are having it too, so don't feel afraid to ask!

I hope this helps some of my fellow simmers. Good luck with the new update and pack, I can't wait to see how my favorite Simblrs use it in their stories and gameplays!💖

#sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 info #sims 4 update #sims 4 for rent #sims 4 expansion pack #important #the sims #sims #sims 4 mods #simblr #the sims community

[moccabunie]

things I've learned after a year writing fanfiction

This is a post from a non-writer who, apparently, now writes (❓) And this is a little crazy to me, considering that a year ago writing less than 1k decent words took a lot of effort. But this year I have completed a +100k project. (It's still difficult, though.)

I found out that the more I wrote, the easier it was to get into the story. So I think that being captivated by my own story has made a lot. I am an eager fanfiction reader, but I had yet to really try to write something on my own.

That was until I got hyper-fixated on three characters and wrote a small story about them sharing a room, and it was one of the funniest and most rewarding things I've done. So I was like "oh, maybe I can try to imagine stories I would like to read?"

(1) story one - a bird told me to wait

The first thing I considered was to make it completely self-indulging. The second was to make it as evocative as possible, not only telling what was happening. I like sensations and emotions, so I really wanted to write things I would like to feel as a reader. I wrote this story, and after that, I added a second longer part because I was enjoying it a lot. I used to doodle about the characters and make small annotations about their dynamics, but there wasn't really a lot of planning here.

(2) story two - beneath the moonlight

My second attempt was a three-chapter story (not so distant from the previous one that can be read as three parts too). But for this one, I wanted to challenge myself because I wanted to explore new themes and tropes, so I made a brief list of the things that should appear here. (but honestly, I just wanted to write a soft mating bite scene lmao, because I was super into a/b/o at that time.) I used keep notes app this time.

I barely showed explicit themes here but I got to enjoy the story anyway. This one wasn't difficult to write because I felt familiar with the characters. It's a light story but these 20k words gave me the courage to take a step further. I said to myself

"stop being a coward. you have enjoyed this. keep writing."

(3) story three - lucid dreams

This one was planned for four or five chapters, quite in the same line as beneath the moonlight. But, and the keyword is planned, it became a full 13 chapters as I developed the story and the characters. If I wanted it to be coherent then I needed to explain the things, build the context, and introduce the world. But it was also an experimental work. I took my notebook and listed the new things I wanted to try, such as - write in past tense - write first and edit later

my process was something like this • imagine random scenarios with pretty imagery as I listened to music • doodling the characters doing things so I didn't forget • open the notes app to write random sentences and dialogues in the middle of the night, I'll find a place for them later • dream about the story and daydream about the story

as for the physical notebook, I have scribbled A LOT there during the writing process.

(a little bit chaotic but functional enough)

One thing I wanted to keep in mind was the evolution of the characters, or in other words, how they were gonna be at the start and the end of the story. And this made things a lot simpler because it gave me an insight that was helpful whenever I had to decide what kind of decisions the characters would make along the story.

Parallelly, I was aware of my narrative flaws, as well as there was a lot of vocabulary and grammar that would escape me in a different language. So I used the notebook to do writing research. Some of my pages were like "how to write action scenes," or "tips for flat scenes." Whenever I felt blocked I read again these pages.

I'm going to copy down here some tips that were useful during the writing block days.

• read another book or fic you like, since sometimes, getting yourself caught by another writer's style can help you to flow through your own. • scroll on pinterest and try to find pictures that capture the vibe of your story, maybe try to describe them or setting a scene in a similar environment that you can see? • changing the setting (for example, day to night, or sun to rain) can add more variants and ambiental tools to play with. • or, changing the character's pov. maybe a scene feels flat because it's narrated by the wrong character. • use objects, not just the characters.

(4) finishing a story

To have an insight into the plot, I wrote the main scenes in really short sentences. That was useful for the first chapters, but suddenly I had 70K words of the story and a lot of details to track. Frequently I had to split chapters into two parts because the "short sentence" became a very long scene. See this comparison: the scenes' guide in the last chapters usually are fragmented into shorter scenes. That's how I avoided losing my mind as I wrote (?)

These are a few tips that were useful to me during this last part.

• write the important plot points as they are mentioned so you can come back to them later and don't forget about them. • keep a scrip to annotate significant things about the characters to make the story consistent. • notion pages is a great place to make inspo boards (usually I added 4 pictures for each scene). During the last chapter, I used the to-do list tool to keep track of the closed story points and the things that were yet to happen • list some of your favourite past scenes, those that have been nice to write, so you can pursue the same vibe again.

The last two months writing the fic I joined the nanowrimo to keep myself motivated but also to have an impulse. My only goal was getting the habit of writing everyday, not minding how many words (usually it was around 400-600 daily). I ended that month with 16k added on my wordcount (to me, that was a lot!). Since I enjoyed that little challenge, I did the same on the next month, resulting in finishing the fic :)

The most important thing during this time was remembering myself from time to time why I am doing this. Let me say I am an utter perfectionist, so I would easily get trapped in making-the-story-perfect, which would end in a writing block. So each time this happened I repeated to myself that I didn't want to write a good story. I just wanted to enjoy and have fun while writing a story, so I should write only things I enjoy. And this simple thing was incredibly helpful whenever I wasn't able to continue a scene.

I think that this is what most writers say, but now I have come to understand that it's true: just have fun. Write what you wanna read.

(5) the next story - requiem of the sleepless

This would be the third part of my first fic. I miss these unhinged boys and I have a little draft of (unholy) things I want to happen to them! Now I want to unlearn everything I know. I want this story to be zero planned, I just want to ~feel~ the characters and make a lot of random things happen. This is about not forgetting why I started, so here I am again.

Being a non-writer writing.

thank you for reading ♡ 

#writing #writing tips #non writer #writing fics tips #fanfiction writer #fic wip #my post #bsd #writer tips #writer experience #ao3 writer #god help me #it all started because I read a fic so good I became obsessed #and because of fyodor my forever babygirl

[xarrixii]

to those of inquiry,

my introduction

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hello, fellow traveler of the hellscape that is this website (or app, if you happen to be on your phone using such)

my name is @xarrixii, and i am better known as "arri"

i have a separate blog from this one designed for reblogging other peoples' work. if that's something you're more interested in (my taste in writing), then i suggest you visit @the-arrikive

masterlists a long way under the divider

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i have come from a land not so far away (planet earth) to share the nonsensical nonsense of my brain (my writing).

i write both longer, novel-like stories and responses to writing prompts when i'm feeling it (feel free to send me one, if you'd like). my brain is random, though, so i can't guarantee i'll get something out right away.

i am irregular. do not expect something like weekly uploads. you get a story when i remember to post one and have one available. i shall not rush the accidentally filled plotholes genius i breed.

sometimes i make edits. i've made a lot of edits recently, like layout/ease of access and also wording on some of the earlier chapters. (already read chapter one of cinder? i changed the beginning because i hated it and i personally would put down the book immediately if i'd found it in the library)

i still hate the first sentence but honestly, the noggin can't think of anything better so we'll cry about it later

also, grammarly hates me because i don't like its grammar rules and i don't capitalize my "i"s when i'm casually speaking. i hate grammarly because some of its suggestions are stupid. i just don't want to turn it back on every time i eventually end up needing it.

less important: i am cisgender. i identify with she/her, but i could really care less (not quite sure that counts as any). i am pansexual. (frying pans don't have enough personality, don't ask about them)

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what i like reading:

i love, love love love love love love love it when a book focuses on its characters. there's nothing wrong with taking in the fantasy world they built for the people to live in, i'm all for that as well. it's just a trend i see that the more a book focuses on following its plot, the less it focuses on the people riding out that plot.

i'm a firm believer in characters "building a plot" based around their actions, even if that means an author built a plot and then designed the perfect character for enacting it.

also, i grew up a gacha kid (gacha studio/life/club). that means i'm familiar with cliches and love it when people throw them on their heel. it's also (unfortunately) made me enjoy love stories less (which makes things difficult since books that focus on characters almost always have some love plot that works out).

i'll read a hero x villain, sure. but sometimes i might think up the ending where they don't love each other (platonic and rival)

ask me any time about what i enjoy reading if i've confused you (it happens a lot).

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what i like writing:

this one's a lot simpler, i like writing what i like reading. because if i wouldn't read it later, why would anyone else?

due to me being cringe once upon a time, i spent several years writing out roleplays (yes, i was the edgy roblox kid too) with some friends, so anything super long i write for a very long time from now will be my personal adaptation of something that's already existed before

writing prompts are the truest test of my creative abilities, though. making up new characters, a new environment, and a new plot based on the whims of a few sentences from time to time is what keeps my rewrites from being copy-pastes.

that also just keeps it fun for the friends who wrote it with me once and will read it from my fingers typing it again

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also to note, i'm not afraid of writing about blood, gore, violence, and the like, and i'm also insensitive to what all needs to be tagged, so any help with that goes a long way

most of my writing prompts will be written with non-binary characters

if you find me fucking up pronouns please notify me where i diddled it up thank you!!

so about being a gacha kid

i suck at drawing. the physical descriptions of my characters are laid out in gacha apps, and yes i am mildly embarrassed about it. but putting their designs down somewhere means i have something reliable to refer to while writing.

thou shalt not judge me for it.

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hobbies

writing. i guess a bit obviously. i also still enjoy playing video games and listening to music. i like watching horror games, but can't bring myself to play them. i also make a lot of jokes about violence. i mean a lot. but i know when to take something seriously.

favorite roblox games including: entry point, scp: site roleplay, funky friday, robeats, 3008

i also play genshin impact occasionally, and no i'm not elaborating.

if you couldn't tell by now, i talk too much. moving on:

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masterlists

hey, me! i know you're reading this, because i know you're the most likely suspect for looking for these links all the time.

"Cinder" Masterlist writing prompts

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looking for more? ask me! send me prompts! FILL MY INBOX!!!

#writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writeblr #introduction #intro post #introductory post #writers #original characters #original stories #original fiction #novel writing #author #this was longer than intended #i'm gonna miss my cinder masterlist being pinned #i should probably think up a tag for that #ill probably do that later #why am i talking to myself in the tag list

[aprillikesthings]

I lead part of EfM thing today (see earlier posts) and it went well ahhhhh thank God

and I've made my lunches for the next week!

and I'm munching on a salad

and all day I was looking forward to this, the moment I can (re)watch MORE SHE-RA

I've barely worked on my longer fic this weekend (other than copy/pasting a bunch of things Nate said after the show ended into the notes section of the doc) and tbh rewatching the ACTUAL SHOW is hella distracting bc with twenty eps left we're going to start getting into more of the really high-stakes stuff

Also, true story: I originally watched, like, the second half of season 4 and all of season 5 in two days of marathoning with Daci. So quite frankly? The last, like, third of the show is just kind of a blur to me now.

SO LET'S GO

s4 ep7 Mer-Mysteries

A mission in Dryl went badly, they've figured out someone's telling the Horde what they're doing, they're not tracking Adora because she wasn't even there--

YES

plz enjoy Sea Hawk's faces

Bow's sudden nervousness reminds me of when I was in line at the TSA in Dulles airport and was weirdly nervous. I had no reason to be nervous. AND YET. I'm usually totally fine at TSA? But the people at Dulles were scary!!!

(I was way less nervous coming back from Iceland, despite knowing I had Kinder Surprise Eggs in my suitcase. Which are actually illegal to bring into the USA. You can buy "Kinder Joy Eggs" in the USA, which do not have the toy, but the ones with the toys are against the law! Anyway I bought them for Daci. I was only nervous for a split second at customs in the USA bc they asked me what I'd brought home from Iceland and I was like...wool yarn. books. sweets (I'd also bought licorice and chocolate). But he just waved me through. WHEW.)

she's still big mad about this lolol

BUT she's right a spy IS the only thing that makes sense (but also the audience knows shit they don't)

Pearl?? A Pearl who knows too much?????

c'mon I had to

lolol they lampshaded the way lightning keeps striking when Mermista says something

to be fair she IS the most recent addition and the one they know the least

oh hey I also write everything in purple (or lavender) ink

lol

oh, shut up

well not this episode, specifically

LOLLLLL

honestly this is a lot like the DnD episode

so on the one hand, I know Flutterina is doing this to make them fight, but on the other hand Glimmer is right; on the other OTHER hand, I also would prefer a warning before being forced to see my abusive parent having free range of the castle I live in

BAHAHAHA I read Nate saying these two were interrupted on a date night, but also plz notice the colors of the flowers, it's literally most of the lesbian pride flag, they were SO unsubtle

The Ken from Plumeria is talking to the pastry chef from Dryl with the super cute outfit, and she looks bashful for a second after this screenshot; I am now shipping this and no one can stop me

speaking of ships (yes I know this isn't meant to be shippy lol)

a youtube video titled "it's raining on your window and you live in Bright Moon Castle ASMR for sleep 4 hours"

(....I'd listen to that)

(On a related note, mynoise dot net has a bunch of rain sounds on the website, and it also has an app--it's seriously the BEST website/app for ambient sounds because they're so adjustable and never repeat, and I just want everyone to know about them. The rain and ocean sounds are great on earbuds to cover up snoring so you can sleep!!! Worked better than my fancy earplugs while I was on the Camino and sleeping in all those hostels)

And back to the cartoon, where there's obviously suspicious shit happening because people seem to be in two places at once and their communications thing got shattered

oh so her name IS just The General

Flutterina (aka Double Trouble) has got to be like "oh my god wtf is up with this dude I cannot handle this bullshit"

Once again Glimmer proves that her and Catra are actually very, very alike

BUSTED

OOHHHHH they set up a trap I forgot, this is amazing

Adora: "we created a diversion :)" Glimmer: "You were a really good actress. For once."

pfft

Anyway Double Trouble is confessing the whole plan

:(

poor Mermista :(

there's a creepy-ass moment of seeing part of Horde Prime's face as he smiles, roll credits

#april rewatches spop #mer-mysteries

[ao3-helper]

I’ve got a question regarding ao3 and I’m not sure who to ask so I figured I’d start with you.

Do you know of anyway to sort bookmarks by word count? An extension maybe?

I bookmark any fic i even kinda enjoyed just so I don’t lose them and have everything in one place but I can’t figure out how to sort them by word count if that’s even possible. Any ideas?

The saddest news ever is that AO3 doesn't allow you to search the bookmarks by wordcount because the search system for those is different that the overall search system and would require to change it and well... This is AO3, it's a team of volunteers and things to change have a degree of importance. So yeah, maybe one day, but not today.

So! I looked for other options... And started to make a whole ass post before finding the best one right under my nose...

Best option: right in AO3, script required, ordered from bigger to smaller

The best option I could find is a modified version of the "AO3 Review + Last Chapter Shortcut + Kudos-sortable Bookmarks" script, which was a comment from 2019 and added a sort by word count option. To run the script you will need an extension like Tampermonkey, click on the pastebin link, copy the code, create a new script and paste it.

The original script add two clickable links right beside the title box allowing you to get to the last chapter right away and to download but also, if you go to the filter box, "Kudos" will be added in the dropdown list for "Sort by". The modified script, however, do not have that download button, but, it does add the option "Word Count" after "Kudos" in the "sort by" dropdown menu.

Once you've selected it and sorted by, it will display the work from bigger to smaller only. I unfortunately am not familiar with javascript so I can't modify anything, but I guess it's better than nothing.

I also do have to drop this post that links to a video which explains how to add plugins to firefox nightly on android because like that you can also have that option when you don't have your PC.

Hope this is what you were looking for!

If anyone wants, the other (lesser) options are under the cut.

Option 1: right in AO3, nothing else required, no order

When you bookmark works, you can add tags and notes. When on your bookmarks tab, you can search for those. Which means that you can add tags for a number corresponding to the word count of the fic. (say, 1000-2000, 2000-3000, etc) which means that you can look for the right tag for the word count you want.

This also means that you cannot sort them from bigger to smaller (or the contrary) but will still have an estimated length to help your search.

Option 2: right in AO3, needs a script, no order

Another option would be to use tampermonkey (or other similar extension) and add the "AO3: Estimated reading time" script. This script displays directly on the fic's box the reading time and you can let it display a colour depending on the level (colour that you can change to you wishes).

If you want to dig through the code, you can very easily change your wpm (I think it's set to 250 by default) and how many minutes changes the colour (for me, under 30 minutes will be green, between 30 and 90 will be yellow, above 90 will be red), but less easily add new levels. (but I guess you could modify and test things around to your wish, do remember to create a copy of the script so you can go back to original).

This means that you can browse through your bookmarks and have a visual help to know how long they are. But again, no order.

Option 3: out of AO3, needs an app, ordered

This option is nice if you read fanfictions on other site than just AO3, but it doesn require some works.

I found this tutorial on how to add work on Calibre (a free ebook reader) and add plugins so you can add fanworks and display a word count, that will therefore be ordered.

This is the second best solution, in my opinion, because it also downloads the works you want and like that you can always have them on hand, but I'm pretty sure it's only for pc.

#who-needs-words #ask #how to ao3 #bookmarks #sorting #ao3 scripts #word count #AO3

[aidanchaser]

Thank you @mlsecretsanta​ for organizing such a fun exchange and all the hard work you put into making sure the event went off without a hitch. It’s always the work we don’t see that makes the work more fun for everyone, so thank you so much!

I got @lynnimaybe​ as my giftee! Your prompts were so overwhelming in the best way. I had to do everything in my power not to let this fic snowball into a 50k+ series. Instead it’s only 12k and 3 chapters. Much more manageable. Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you to @aliblujay​ for a wonderful beta read. Excellent help with tense and pluralization.

Rating: T Word Count: 12k Giftee Tags: Ladybug/Chat Noir, Felix/Lila, Chloe/Kagami (intended but never explicitly stated oops but it’s real I promise), Hurt/Comfort, Fluff/Angst, Home from University Internships, minor s5 spoilers (I haven’t seen s5, but I reference a couple of things I’ve picked up on just from being on tumblr) Additional Tags: Alya/Nino, Identity Reveal, Christmas Presents, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, New Villains, College-Aged

Read on Ao3: The Distance Between

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Chapter 1

Marinette rereads the message three times to make sure it’s appropriate before she copies it out of her notes app and pastes it into her messages.

I’m almost home from New York and wondered if you wanted to meet up while I’m here.

After her third read, she decides that it’s too personal, too much pressure on him. She tries again.

Did you decide on your plans for Christmas?

But she reads this one twice before realizing it offers nothing. It’s too casual.

My parents would love to have you over on Christmas if you’re not doing anything else.

That’s better. It’s not about her, so it can’t be too forward. And it’s not too much pressure, she hopes. She may not have asked her parents if Adrien can join them for Christmas just yet, but she knows they would be appalled if she hadn’t said anything, rather than surprised that she had.

She searches the crowded Metro car around her for something to distract her, but even making silly smiles at a toddler peering at her over his mother’s shoulder isn’t enough to keep her anxiety from spiraling. Because she can’t stop wondering, what if Adrien says no?

And, perhaps even worse, what if he says yes?

And his reply, which is neither, is somehow the worst:

Thank you.

And nothing else.

Marinette quickly exits the message to type a response in her notes before she dares put it in the messages. She has regretted too many texts to take the risk of actually sending what she’s thinking.

I just thought My parents like you were concerned that you’d be alone. I’d like to see you too, even if you’re not available on Christmas. Even if you’re not available on Christmas, it’d be great to see you before I go back to New York. I miss you. We should catch up.

Marinette rereads it one more time. It’s casual, comfortable, and a little condescending. She edits out the “alone” part of the message to My parents and I would like to see you. That’s better, short, simple, to the point. No pressure. Not too intimate. Not too much of anything.

She copies, pastes, and sends.

The Metro comes to a stop and Marinette slides her phone into her purse. Though it isn’t quite as bad as rush hour in New York, Marinette directs her full attention on getting in and out of the Metro safely. The crowds are thinner, but everyone is burdened with holiday packages, and Marinette has taken too many spills across stone and tile alike to risk losing focus.

But as she climbs the stairs, her phone buzzes in her pocket and she very nearly goes sprawling. The handrail saves her. She waits until she is safely on flat ground again before desperately digging her phone out of her pocket.

I’d like to see you, too. Glad you had a safe trip home.

Marinette’s heart thumps loudly. He wants to see her.

She types It was a safe trip, but a long one! I haven’t had to spend the night in an airport before, but I wasn’t going to risk missing my spot on any waiting lists after they canceled my first flight out of New York. They really wanted me to check my bag, but I was not going to risk your present getting lost in transit. into her notes app, but she doesn’t dare send it all. It sounds like a conversation, and Adrien’s been so hard to draw into a conversation ever since his father’s arrest.

Instead she sends, Hope you made it home safe from Venice? She doesn’t want to overwhelm him with herself and her own problems, but she wants to know he’s okay.

When she arrives at her parents’ bakery, her phone buzzes and she pauses, hand halfway to the door handle, to read his text.

Got in last night.

She doesn’t have time to open her notes app to draft a reply before she is swarmed by a bone-crushing hug and lifted off her feet with such force she assumes its her father. But the high-pitched squeal that accompanies the hug means it can only be one person: Alya.

Marinette squeals back and hugs her best friend as tightly as she can. As Alya sets her down, she sees Nino standing just behind her, arms spread wide. Marinette hugs him, too.

“What, no scream for me?” he grins.

“You know I missed you,” she says and kisses his cheek.

And though Marinette has a million questions for Alya and Nino, she has to say hello to her parents first.

The bakery is swarmed with customers, as it always is on Christmas Eve. Marinette had planned to get into Paris yesterday afternoon so she could help with the sales, but holiday travel plans are a terrible thing, especially internationally.

Despite the booming business of the day, her parents hold her long enough to ask her about her internship; she gives them all the positive updates. She asks them about news at home; they tell her about all the local gossip that filtered through the bakery doors: André is finally retiring his ice cream stand, Chloé Bourgeois has a girlfriend, and Kitty Section is going on tour again next year.

And finally, just as she’s reaching for an apron to help, her mother shoos her upstairs. “You must be exhausted; you’re not working after all that travel.”

“Twenty-four hours in an airport?” her father adds. “Absolutely not. Straight to bed with you.”

Marinette protests that she slept on the plane, but her parents are uninterested. She is sent away to rest.

Marinette, however, is not going to bed. She’ll get there, eventually, but first she has to talk with Alya and Nino away from where her parents can hear.

Her friends follow her upstairs, and as soon as Nino closes the trapdoor to Marinette’s childhood bedroom, Marinette is swarmed by the kwamis of the miracle box. Their squeal of excitement rivals Marinette and Alya’s.

“I missed you guys, too,” she assures them with a laugh, and takes a minute to nuzzle Tikki’s cheek in particular. Once the excitement from the reunion has settled down, Marinette turns back to Nino and Alya. “You really don’t have any news?”

Alya shakes her head. “Six months and no signs.”

“Nothing about the peacock or the butterfly miraculouses,” Nino frowns. He doesn’t mention the miraculous of destruction, but surely that’s been as fruitless a search, too. She stalks the Ladyblog for updates about their radio silent friend or the missing kwamis, though she knows Alya would text her anything before it made it to the blog.

“We’re sorry, Marinette,” Alya says. “We really thought we’d have something for you by now.”

“It’s all right. You’ve done your best.” She falls back onto her bed, suddenly bereft of any desire to unpack her things. The kwamis jump down beside her, a tumble of soft fur and static electricity.

“How’s the city treating Scarabella and Carapace?” she asks.

“It’s fine,” Nino says. “Everyone misses Ladybug and Chat Noir, but they like us well enough.”

“Not that there’s much for us to do,” Alya sighs. “Saving kittens from trees and helping people cross the road—you know, normal hero things. No villains to fight.”

“Which is a good thing,” Nino points out.

Alya shrugs.

Marinette runs her finger along the stitches in her pink comforter. She doesn’t know which is harder to bear: that the peacock and butterfly miraculouses are still lost after all the work she and Chat went through to save them or that Chat has really quit being a hero.

Six months ago, they faced Monarch, formerly Shadow Moth, formerly Hawk Moth. Six months ago, they learned that Monarch was Gabriel Agreste. Six months ago, Gabriel Agreste was arrested and Ladybug and Chat Noir were lauded as heroes.

The butterfly miraculous, however, had vanished, and the peacock along with it.

Once it was over, Ladybug and Chat Noir sat in their favorite spot atop the Eiffel Tower and watched the sun rise over the city. For Ladybug, it was a wonderful new beginning. Yes, things were unfinished, but Monarch had stalked them for so long. This still felt like a victory.

But Chat Noir was quiet, somber.

“Do you think…” Ladybug paused to evaluate her question, then plunged ahead despite her misgivings. “Do you think with Monarch gone, it might be safe to tell each other our identities?”

She expected it would cheer him up. She thought that, after four years of working together and him begging to know the truth, he would be thrilled to hear her offer it. And she was desperate to know him truly, even against her better judgment.

But instead he drew his knees tighter against his chest. “I don’t think I’m ready,” he said.

“O-oh, okay.”

“I… might need a break from this.”

“Oh.”

And that was the last time they spoke.

With no villain in Paris and an internship offer in New York waiting for her response, Marinette finally gave into Alya’s plan and handed over the earrings. Alya promised to be the best pinch hitter for Ladybug there would ever be, and swore that she’d recover the missing miraculouses by the time Marinette returned.

Alya pulls her earrings out and hands them to Marinette. “Sorry I couldn’t fix it all for you.”

Marinette hesitates. “No, Alya, they’re yours now—”

“Oh, you’re giving them back,” Alya grins and forces the earrings into her hands, “but I thought you might want a turn before you go back to New York.”

She does miss being Ladybug, and she has missed having Tikki nearby, but it won’t be the same without Chat Noir. “I could take Mullo instead. The three of us could still go out together.”

Alya snaps the Fox Pendant around her neck. “I had better take Trixx out before he gets himself into trouble.”

Trixx flies in an excited circle around Alya’s head. “Yes! Let’s go!”

“Not right now,” Alya laughs. “But we will get in a few runs as Rena Furtive before Marinette leaves. I promise.”

Maybe it’s the warm snuggles from Tikki. Maybe it’s the company of good friends. Maybe it’s having her familiar miraculous returned to her ears. Whatever the reason, Marinette manages to pull herself to her feet to unpack. She will be home for a few weeks, which is plenty of time to settle in. Or, perhaps more accurately, just enough time to settle in before she has to pack up again.

❖❖❖

It’s late that night, long after a warm Christmas Eve dinner with her parents and grandparents, before Marinette finally has a few moments to herself—well, as to herself as she can with the Miracle Box in her room. Alya insisted she keep it for the night, and Marinette guesses Alya was eager for a break. She’s happy to oblige. There was something lonely about living in New York with a roommate who came and went at all hours of the night. She’s missed having a flurry of friends to come home to.

Marinette pulls on her coat and slips upstairs to her rooftop balcony. She’s also missed this view. Paris’ lights aren’t all that different from New York but it feels different. The rooftops here are more intimate, older, and worn with familiar paths.

Tikki follows her. “Are we going out?” she asks, and Marinette hears the hope in her voice.

“It’s Christmas Eve. We shouldn’t.”

“Rest is important, Marinette, but you've been away a long time. It's okay to say you missed us.”

Marinette laughs. “Of course I missed you, Tikki. I missed everyone.”

For the most part, there has not been much time to miss her loved ones. She is used to being overworked and overwhelmed and New York is no different, even without her additional responsibilities as a hero.

But the day her father called to help her schedule a flight home for Christmas, Marinette’s heart began to ache with a longing to be home, and it has not stopped, even now that she is here.

Because she isn’t quite home. Not quite yet.

“Tikki, spots on.”

And Tikki goes with a smile, as if she knew this was exactly what Marinette came up here to do before Marinette knew it herself.

But even as the familiar magic settles into her bones, the ache in her heart does not quite fade. She leaps aimlessly across the rooftops, wishing it could all feel like it once did. She hears the jingle of a bell not far off and her heart lurches, but when she seeks out the sound, it’s only a decorative reindeer harnessed to a child-sized sled, left out in the soft dusting of snow that has begun to fall.

Otherwise, the city is quiet.

Though she has never been one for notoriety, she makes sure to call down greetings and well wishes to the people who are strolling the streets and enjoying the city’s holiday lights. She waves and smiles as they excitedly shout that Ladybug is back, that their hero is home. It isn’t the praise or recognition that she wants; she just hopes that word will reach him, wherever he is.

She stops at the Eiffel Tower.

When she is Ladybug, heights mean nothing to her. Falling and flying are as natural as inhaling and exhaling. She holds onto the iron rod above her head and leans out, looking at the city below. Its lamps glisten like starlight on the surface of water, much like the ocean she has stared across longingly from the other side, wondering if he stops to think of her as much as she stops to think of him.

If he is going to come find her, he will start here.

“Well isn’t this fortuitous,” a voice behind her murmurs.

Her heart thrums excitedly. It’s him, it’s his voice—but when she turns, Chat Noir is not behind her.

He has golden hair, like her Chat, but his eyes are hard and icy blue. Her heart stutters into an old nightmare, but no, this boy is not dressed in white. He wears a suit of pale blue with a deep violet button up visible beneath it. The tie knotted at his collar is bloodred and in place of a tie pin, he wears a brooch in the shape of a peacock’s tail.

The mask over his black-rimmed eyes is violet with feathers coming off the ends, their red, unblinking eyes as intimidating as his own cold blue ones. They’re a perfect match to the feather-shaped panel of the folded fan in his hand.

Ladybug takes a step backwards and her foot reaches the edge of the tower.

“I do love that we’re going to get a shot at the original instead of some knock off,” another voice says, high and feminine. A young woman drops down from the iron network of beams above them and lands in a graceful flourish. Her soft pink and orange skirts flutter like wings softening a landing before settling neatly around her feet. The bodice of her dress is a pale lavender, and her mask, like the young man’s, extends far beyond her face. But instead of ending in marks like a peacock’s feathers, her mask curves into the shape of a butterfly’s wings. She wears a purple brooch in the shape of a butterfly at the hollow of her throat and carries a cane tipped in amethyst.

Ladybug unclips her yo-yo from her waist. “Unless you two are going to politely hand over your miraculouses so I can return them to where they belong, I’m not sure that we have much to say to each other.”

“There’s no need for a fight,” the young man says.

“But I would love a fight,” the woman protests, lifting her cane as if it were a rapier. “How about it, Ladybug? Woman to woman?”

She plunges her cane at Ladybug’s chest and Ladybug knows she could move out of the way, but she doesn’t. She lets the attack knock her off the edge of the Eiffel Tower. Falling truly is no different from breathing for her, but her assailant, surprised to find the attack has landed, stumbles. Ladybug sees the young woman just barely catch herself on the iron beams and is disappointed. She uses her yo-yo to snag a beam of the tower, swing through and up, and lands behind the boy dressed in the peacock’s glamor.

She wastes no time. She launches her yo-yo with an intent to tie up the young man and drag him towards her. He sidesteps her attack and catches her yo-yo on the end of his fan. She pulls with the hope of disarming him, but his grip is strong.

“You could hand over your miraculous,” he suggests, “and tell us where to find Chat Noir.”

“Or don’t,” the woman says, only a small tremor in her voice after her near-fall. “I’d much rather see if you bleed first.”

She rushes Ladybug, full of an anger familiar after hundreds of fights with Monarch’s akumas and sentimonsters. It’s blind rage, formless and reckless. This woman hates her, and Ladybug hasn’t a clue why.

She’s forced to release the peacock’s fan to defend herself. She does think, a bit sadly, that perhaps it was a good thing Chat Noir declined her offer of sharing their secret identities. It means that even if she is to lose this fight, she has nothing to give these people to help them find her partner. Her former partner.

But she’s not going to lose this fight. She may not have been Ladybug for a few months, but she knows her strength and she knows her magic. The woman with the cane does not seem to know what to do with her weapon. She swings wildly, alternating between using her cane like a club or a sword. Ladybug ducks and side-steps her attacks easily. If the young man would bother to intervene, it might be a more challenging fight, but he seems content to stand to the side and watch his partner embarrass herself in her anger.

Ladybug’s yo-yo string finally snags on the woman’s cane. She yanks it towards her and tears the staff from the woman’s grip.

“That’s mine!” The young woman snarls and grasps desperately for her weapon, but the boy clicks his tongue against his teeth with the sort of sound one might reserve for a toddler throwing a tantrum.

He plucks a feather from his fan. “If you’re done throwing your fit, perhaps we could move onto the main event.”

The woman takes a step away from Ladybug with a furious frown scrawled across her face. “Fine.” And she certainly sounds like a petulant child who has just been told she can’t leave the table until she finishes her dinner.

She taps the brooch at her throat and a pale lavender butterfly flits out from her chest. The boy blows on his feather and the two magical creations swoop off the edge of the Eiffel Tower. Ladybug does her best to snare them in her yo-yo, but the boy throws his fan in an expert arc, striking her yo-yo from its path. His fan falls from the tower and the feather and the butterfly disappear into the night.

“What do you even want? Who are you?” Ladybug asks.

“I did ask politely for your miraculous,” he says, “and Chat Noir’s, but you’re right. It was quite rude of us not to introduce ourselves. This is Bella Moth, and you can call me Flourish.”

There’s a crash from the street below and Ladybug knows she needs to investigate, but if her years facing Hawk Moth and his subsequent forms taught her anything, it’s that an opportunity to meet her enemies in person is rare and she should not waste it.

“Go on, Ladybug,” Flourish says. “We’ll see you again—after our creations defeat you, and we take your miraculous.”

She thinks he ought to take a lesson from his predecessor as she is trying to do, and recognize that this strategy has ended in nothing but stalemates for the heroes and villains alike, but there’s a scream from below and Ladybug cannot ignore people in danger. She leaps from the ledge and plunges to the street below. She takes Bella Moth’s cane with her.

As she lands, she finds where Flourish’s fan has fallen. She grabs that, too and turns it over, examining it even as she runs towards the sounds of a monster tearing apart the streets of Paris. The fan looks identical to the one Mayura once wielded, but it’s clear that neither of these miraculous users are her.

She and Chat Noir never found proof that Mayura was Nathalie Sancouer, but it was not hard to put together once Gabriel Agreste’s identity was revealed. Nathalie was tight-lipped about Gabriel’s secrets, but Ladybug wonders if it might be time for another chat with the woman.

She finds the battle easily. A boy astride a senti-reindeer, whose red nose is glowing so brightly, is using his new powers and the help of his creature to fire deadly lasers at shop windows. Ladybug tries, first, to talk the boy down from his anger. She learns that he has decided to call himself Reign-deer, and he plans to destroy Christmas because his mother had to work, so he’ll be alone for the night. If he can’t enjoy the day, no one can.

It’s been a long time since she’s had to fight an akuma, and longer still since she’s had to fight one alone, but she still remembers how to use her Lucky Charm. Though it takes her a while to figure out what the red, black-spotted banana peel is for.

She notices the teddy bear dressed like a nurse that the akumatized boy clings to like a life preserver. In his other hand is a jingle bell, which he shakes each time the reindeer fires a laser. It’s not hard to guess that the powers of the miraculouses are stored in these objects, but it is hard for her to get close to the boy without getting hit by the reindeer’s shiny red nose.

But when she sees the senti-reindeer stumble on a frozen patch of road, she knows exactly how to put her Lucky Charm to use. She does have a single moment where she considers how much easier this would be if she had the help of Cataclysm, but the self-pity is brief. She can’t afford it for very long.

She uses Bella Moth’s cane—specifically the crystal on top—to deflect the reindeer’s laser. The redirected beam strikes the teddy bear right through its scrubs, and a lavender butterfly flits out of the stuffing. The reindeer rears back and its rider tumbles into the snow. The reindeer’s hoof comes down on the banana peel, slick with fresh snow, and it splays out in the street like a newborn fawn. The jingle bell goes flying into the air and Ladybug uses Flourish’s fan to catch it. It lands on the edges of the feathers and rolls into her hand where she snaps it in two and frees the blue feather.

She catches the feather and butterfly in her yo-yo and bleeds the color from them until they are pure white. Once they’re no longer a danger, she releases them, and uses her Lucky Charm to repair the damage done by the red-nosed reindeer and his rider.

The crowd has questions and concerns and she does her best to assure them that she has it under control, that she and Scarabella and Carapace are all working together to keep them safe. She promises that she and her friends will catch Bella Moth and Flourish just as they stopped Monarch.

She doesn’t answer their questions about Chat Noir. Instead, she escapes as quickly as she can. They do not complain, used to Ladybug and her hasty exits, but they don’t seem to notice that her earrings are not counting down the minutes of her transformation, not yet.

Ladybug can feel the loss where she has spent some of her magic, but she does not feel any warning signs that her power is fading. She’d waited so long for this strength, to be old enough and strong enough to no longer be bound by a single use of her miraculous’ power, but she had given it up by the time she was strong enough to hold it. At least this means she still has time to face Bella Moth and Flourish.

But when she finally reaches the Eiffel Tower, the new villains are gone. Then the cane and the fan she carries vanish suddenly and she knows there’s no hope of finding the villains now.

Something lands behind her with a thud, and Ladybug turns, fists closed in anticipation of a fight—but it is not the return of Bella Moth and Flourish. It’s only Carapace.

Rena Furtive melts out of the shadows just behind him and, without warning, pulls Ladybug into her arms.

“We got here as quickly as we could,” Carapace says.

“We’re sorry it wasn’t quickly enough,” Rena Furtive apologizes. “Are you okay?”

“It’s just my luck that two new villains decide to announce themselves the day I get back,” Ladybug says, and tries to make it funny, but her laugh sounds a bit more like a sob. She doesn’t even realize how overwhelming tonight has been until she hears it in her own voice.

Rena Furtive squeezes her shoulders tightly. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s got to be a coincidence,” Carapace says confidently. “Maybe they’re also in town for the holiday.”

“But who are they?” Rena Furtive asks. “And what do they want?”

Ladybug tells them what she knows. It isn’t much, but it’s enough to make Rena Furtive’s brows furrow beneath her fox-like mask.

“Blonde?” Rena asks.

Carapace frowns. “No.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve talked about it before, and the answer is no.”

“That’s not a why.”

“I’ve told you why.”

Ladybug listens to this back and forth, feeling a bit like a ball at a tennis match. She has no idea what this argument is about, and she can’t manage to get a word in to interrupt.

“He got home yesterday,” Rena Furtive says, “and a new villain shows up today? Is that a coincidence?”

“Yes,” Carapace snaps. “It’s completely a coincidence.”

“Is what a coincidence?” Ladybug finally manages to ask.

“Adrien Agreste,” Rena Furtive says. “Who else would have ended up with Gabriel’s missing miraculous?”

Chapter 2

Adrien ignores the first alert on his phone. He has his tongue between his lips and his hands tangled up in a golden, sparkly ribbon. He has been fighting with this bow for fifteen minutes, and he is not going to give in now.

But when his phone beeps a third time, he picks it up.

At first, he’s disappointed it isn’t Marinette texting him back. Then his heart leaps into his throat as he realizes it’s a Ladyblog alert.

Ladybug is home.

Adrien very nearly bolts for his dresser to dig out the small black jewelry box he has abandoned in his sock drawer. He’s stopped by the news alert that appears at the top of his screen—not from the Ladyblog, but because he has his phone set up to alert him of any news articles that use the word “akuma” or “sentimonster.”

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reign-deer Rampage Reined in by Red-Spotted Hero blips at the top of his phone screen and he has hardly clicked on the notification before a new one appears: Ladybug Warns Citizens of Paris About New Villains in Town. Adrien quickly opens that one instead.

His stomach turns as he reads what little details Ladybug was able to give. It isn’t much for anyone else to chew on—Bella Moth and Flourish, the new wielders of the butterfly and peacock miraculouses—but for Adrien, it's nauseating.

His desire to see Ladybug is lost in that nausea, in that toxic pool of guilt that boils over in his stomach. He can’t face her, not after how dramatically he failed her. And now, to know that the lost miraculouses have ended up in the hands of two new villains?

There’s a reason he gave Plagg up and disappeared to Venice for two months.

He’s so caught up in his own agony, he doesn’t hear the click of heels on tile harmonized with the creak of mechanical joints announcing Nathalie’s arrival. He’s startled by the sharp staccato knocks on his bedroom door and hastily shoves the collection of half-wrapped presents under his couch as she opens his bedroom door.

The bottle of wine he bought for Nathalie rolls right on through his couch and stops at her feet. She glances down at it briefly, nudges it aside, and crosses the room to him.

Nathalie has known him too long to be put off by messes, and too long to be surprised that he’s bought her a bottle of wine for Christmas. He hopes she’ll at least be surprised by the dinner reservation in Shanghai.

“Good. You’re here,” she says by way of greeting, and sits down on his couch. She hands him a leather-bound folder, the sort she keeps memos in, but it’s Christmas, and there shouldn’t be any reason for memos.

“Where else would I be?” he asks. He takes the folder from her but he does not open it. He was very clear with her that he was not going to do any work during Christmas. He also remembers telling her to take the time off.

Since he is being stubborn, she opens the folder up for him. “I’ve prepared a statement for the press about Paris’s new villains. It only needs your signature.”

Adrien stares at her in surprise. Nathalie has managed to get a statement together before he’s hardly begun to process the idea of new villains in Paris. Prepared for everything is sort of Nathalie’s job, but he can’t help but wonder if she knew about these new villains before they had made their appearance.

Though it feels like putting his hand in a tiger’s mouth, or dropping his heart into a vat of acid, he has dared, a few times, to ask Nathalie if she knew the truth about Hawk Moth, or if she had ever helped Gabriel with any of his villainy as she had helped him with everything else.

“I only ever helped your father manage his business,” is as much as she has ever said. Except once, she added, “Do you really think if I had known what he was doing to himself, I would have said nothing?”

Adrien doesn’t really believe her, but he has no one else to turn to, not really.

Shortly after Gabriel’s arrest and formal charges were filed, his father lapsed into a coma. The doctors have no explanation, but Adrien managed to find a second opinion in a friend with a bit more knowledge of what happens when someone uses too many miraculouses.

Plagg could not say he had ever seen someone collapse from using too many miraculouses at once, but he was aware that there are side effects from overuse of a miraculous or combining too many powers of the miraculouses at once. He also mentioned that using a damaged miraculous could put the user in a similar comatose state, though Adrien still doesn't understand why Plagg included that detail in his diagnosis.

It’s hard to know which would be the worse way to spend the holiday: his father languishing in a hospital, all but brain dead, or having to face his father in a cell somewhere with the unasked “why” as impenetrable as the iron bars and glass barrier between them.

So Adrien lets Nathalie stay—after all, who else has the knowledge to keep the Agreste brand running after such a scandal—but he has kept his eyes and ears open for signs that she might be hiding the lost butterfly and peacock miraculouses.

The saying is “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” though Adrien wishes he’d minded the first part a bit more closely.

His gaze lingers on Ladybug’s name in Nathalie’s press statement. I am glad to know that Paris’ hero is home again, and I wish Ladybug the best of luck in hunting out these new villains, though I know that she does not need it. Guilt bubbles up from his stomach to his throat, burning him from the inside out.

He’s always known that it’s his fault that Ladybug left Paris last fall. He had pushed her so far away that she’d passed her legacy onto Scarabella, and he’d let Carapace step into his place without protest. They’ve done a lot of good for the city, even without a villain to face. He’s dreamed of joining them a few times. He watches them work to save a kid or a cat and he twists the space around his finger that used to hold a silver ring.

He’s accepted his fate as a sort of penance for missing all the signs of his father’s villainous secrets. He was a hero; he should have seen it sooner. Instead he and Ladybug took years to realize that Gabriel and Hawk Moth were one and the same.

Adrien signs the statement, and though he knows it's a grievous sin to work on Christmas, he says, “Maybe change it to Ladybug and Scarabella instead of just Ladybug. And we ought to use a picture of the Ladybug statue for the socials.”

“Noted. I’ve already picked one out.” She takes the folder back from him, but she does not leave. She hesitates in the middle of his room.

Adrien can’t imagine what she’s waiting for. If she dares to say anything related to work or managing his father’s company—his company—he considers what it would cost him to fire her then and there.

“Do you have anything you want to tell me, Adrien?” she finally says.

He thinks of the black and red jewelry box tucked away in his sock drawer and the silver ring inside. “No.”

She still waits. When he does not offer anything more, she asks, “Is there anything you want to ask me?”

He has a dozen questions, a hundred, a million things to ask. He keeps his voice as even as he can as he says, “Nothing I haven’t asked you before.”

She still waits. He still says nothing.

“I was many things for your father,” she finally says, “but for you, all I have done is to look out for you.”

It is hard to forget that Nathalie is the one who enabled his escape to school all those years ago, an action that changed the course of his life irrevocably, and brought him some of the greatest joy he has ever known.

“If you need a confidant,” she adds, “I am an expert at non-disclosures.”

“No, thank you.”

She waits another moment before, in a turn that Adrien finds uncharacteristically blunt, she says, “If you are Flourish, you do not have to tell me, but I cannot cover for you if I do not know what you are doing.”

Adrien considers the possibility that Nathalie could be Bella Moth. Who else would have ended up with his father’s miraculouses? But if that’s the case, wouldn’t she know who Flourish is? Or is it possible that Bella Moth and Flourish as unaware of the other outside of their personas as he and Ladybug are?

Instead of denying her accusation, Adrien asks, “Like you covered for my father?”

She does not respond to this. She only waits, and Adrien wonders if this is what she did with his father. If she waited and waited for Gabriel to tell her the truth. If she suspected—she must have suspected; no one spent as much time with Gabriel as she did—and if he is wrong for leaping at the chance to blame her.

It is not as if she did anything less to stop Gabriel than Adrien did.

Adrien’s shoulders drop in defeat and the cool exterior he’s been trying to hold onto melts. “I’m not Flourish,” he says. “If you’re asking me, though, does this mean you’re not Bella Moth?”

“I cannot imagine how I would have the time,” she says, which isn’t a “no” exactly, but Adrien considers how close he and Nathalie have become in these last six months. She knows his schedule down to the minutes written in for bathroom breaks. It would be hard for her to slip away to be a villain just as it had always been hard for him to slip away to be a hero. Hard, but not quite impossible.

Adrien searches for a pin at Nathalie’s throat and wonders if it is hidden under the cuff of her turtle neck or tucked beneath the lapel of her blazer. He sees no sign of it.

“I’m leaving, then,” she moves on breezily, as if interrogating him was just one of the many tasks on her todo list, squeezed in between the press release and her Christmas vacation. “I’d encourage you not to leave the house without a guard. There’s no telling what people will think of you after tonight.”

Adrien knows there will be people who put together the timing of his return home and Flourish’s arrival in Paris, but he won’t ask the Gorilla to work on Christmas, and Nathalie is right to tell him that he shouldn’t go alone. He could send his friends their presents via courier, instead of delivering them in person like he planned, but that defeats the purpose of his gifts. He wants to see his friends. He owes them after how he has treated them over the last six months.

Because after Gabriel’s arrest, he didn’t just push away Chat Noir’s friends; he pushed Adrien’s friends away too.

It was just so easy to be busy. The press wanted him. The lawyers wanted him. The doctors wanted him. And he didn’t want to think.

His friends were kind and comforting, even when he smiled and promised them that he was okay. He saw them when he had to and avoided them when he had an excuse. His text history is full of broken engagements and broken promises.

He didn’t even go to Marinette’s going away party last August. Nino showed up to drag him away from a dining room of thick fountain pens, thicker stacks of paper, and an even thicker crowd of lawyers, but Adrien simply couldn’t get away. He promised to catch Marinette before she left, but he didn’t manage that either. He didn’t even tell Nino he was going to Venice for a photography project until he was already across the border.

He does want to be with his friends. His texts aren’t a lie—he wants to see them. He wants to know how they’re doing, what changes are going on in their lives, but he’s afraid of the questions being returned back to him. He’s afraid they might ask him all those questions he can’t answer, all those questions he’s afraid to know the answers to.

Questions he thinks he might be able to answer if he thinks long enough and hard enough, but he’s not ready to do that.

And maybe if he can prove that Nathalie is Bella Moth, he won’t have to.

He doesn’t know why she’s waited six months to reveal herself, and he hasn’t the faintest idea who Flourish is, but he doesn’t need to know the details. He just needs to get the butterfly back and beg for Ladybug’s forgiveness.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Adrien says. He, too, has become an expert at P.R.-level vagueness after working so closely with Nathalie. “Do you have plans for your time off?”

“I thought I might take a trip to Shanghai.”

Adrien manages a straight face for a moment, but he can’t even bring himself to feign an interested, nonchalant question. He fumbles under the couch for the card he’d put together for Nathalie, complete with all the information about the restaurant and her accommodations for her trip. “Someday I’ll surprise you.” He hands the card over.

“Someday you’ll remember that I’m the one who approves every dollar you spend.”

“Next time I’ll remember to ask Nino to put it on his credit card.”

There’s a hint of a smile on the edge of Nathalie’s mouth. “If Nino Lahiffe has a credit card maximum high enough for how much you like to lavish me, his career as a film director must have really taken off.”

“Not yet, but it will.”

“Then I await the day,” she says, but with all her usual enthusiasm, which is to say, hardly any at all. She picks up the bottle of wine that had rolled to her feet. “This is mine, too, isn’t it?”

“Enjoy,” Adrien says, and leans back on his hands.

She tucks it and the press release under her arm. “Thank you. Merry Christmas, Adrien.”

His heart lurches at her tone. It’s as close to affectionate as Nathalie ever comes. He wonders if she really meant it when she said that all she had ever done was look out for him.

“Merry Christmas, Nathalie,” he says.

As soon as she is gone, he pulls his presents out from under the couch. There’s a new pair of designer shoes for Chloe, an original Degas sketch for Kagami, a new hi-def camera for Nino with specs Adrien has tested himself, and a new tablet for Alya. Nino has always told him that he does too much when it comes to gifts, but Adrien doesn’t have an appropriate frame of reference. Even after six years of gift exchanges with Nino, Adrien still can only think about how much he wants to give to his friends and never considers how much it costs.

Comparatively, Marinette’s gift is nothing. It cost Adrien very little, particularly when held against the other gifts, and yet this gift is more than he has ever given to anyone. He decides to finish wrapping the others before he gets back into a fight with the glittery bow that he has picked out especially for her.

There’s a soft creak behind him as he’s taping the wrapping paper around the frame he’d purchased for Kagami’s gift, and he shivers as a chill slips into his room.

Adrien turns to see that one of the panels of his large bedroom window has slipped open. He knows the catch is weak from years of sneaking out as Chat Noir, but he can’t remember it ever opening on its own. He gets up to close it and has to pull over a table and stretch to reach the fastener. He’s used to having a bit more height in his jump when he is Chat Noir.

It closes easily, and though the latch is certainly not as snug as it once was, it seems secure enough. If the wind is pushing it open, though, the latch will need to be replaced. He makes a note to himself to fix it before Nathalie notices.

Once Adrien has finished wrapping Alya’s gift, he returns to the bow on Marinette’s present. The glitter has already transferred to each of the other gifts, and he’s fairly certain its embedded beneath the skin of his hands by now, but he refuses to be defeated.

He tries until he gets desperate enough to pull up a video online of how to tie a nice bow. The video is helpful, but there’s an odd squeaking noise in the background. It doesn’t bother him, exactly; it’s just a little distracting.

He manages to get the bow as neat as he can, and he thinks that while it isn’t up to Marinette’s standards, it’s really not bad. She’ll be nice about it, anyway. She always is. And as he sets it aside he hears a squeak again.

He can’t blame his phone for it this time. He surveys his room, wondering if it's possible that he has mice. It had been a concern when he had first started keeping cheese in his room, but Plagg was quite good at keeping them away. He hasn’t had cheese in his room for months, so why would they be here now?

Adrien follows a squeak to his desk, but he does not see anything. He does notice that the cabinet next to it is cracked open. Is it possible Plagg woke up without him, found out he was gone, and rebuilt his horde?

Adrien peers inside the cabinet, but he sees nothing unusual. The cabinet still smells, though, and Adrien thinks he’ll never be free of Plagg’s Camembert curse.

He hears a squeak again, this time from his dresser. He turns and trips over his desk chair that was definitely not right behind him a moment ago. He would swear it’s moved specifically to be in his way.

He pushes himself up, but not before he catches sight of something small and gray disappearing behind his wastebasket. It’s not a mouse, though. Mice don’t move on two legs.

“Ma—” he stops himself before he reveals anything that Adrien Agreste is not supposed to know. “Multimouse?” he asks.

The small gray figure peeks her head out from behind the wastebasket. Her dark hair is streaked pink and pulled back in a bun, and Adrien is positive that this is Multimouse, and he knows that Multimouse is Marinette, but why is she here and small and—

There are more of her suddenly, gathering back together, and before Adrien quite understands what is happening, Multimouse is sitting at his desk chair and he is still on the ground at her feet.

She presses her hand to her head, as if her mind is still gathering itself together, then her eyes flick directly to his dresser. Adrien follows her gaze and sees his sock drawer cracked open just enough for a small version of Multimouse to slip through.

Adrien glances guiltily at the pale white line across his ring finger, a scar of happier time, before he knew just how badly he had screwed up.

Multimouse says nothing to him. She stands and crosses to his dresser.

“Wait,” he tries, but she reaches into his sock drawer and pulls out the familiar black and red hexagonal box he had tucked away months ago.

Adrien kept Plagg around for a while before pushing him away, too, just like he’d done to all of his friends; having someone around at the end of the day, someone he didn't have to explain anything to, had been nice at first. He and Plagg didn't speak much then, but they were together, at least. Then Scarabella came on the scene and Adrien, with no preamble nor apology, formally returned his ring to its box. What was the point in being Chat Noir without Ladybug?

He bites his lip as Multimouse turns to face him.

“I defended you,” she says, and there’s something in her voice that’s utterly devastated.

Adrien uses his desk chair to help himself to his feet. “Mar—Multimouse, I’m sorry…”

She doesn’t look at him. Her eyes are solely on the box. “Why?” she asks.

“I thought…” He swallows down his guilt but it pushes its way back up regardless. “I didn’t know.”

Her gray-gloved hands grip the box as if she’s got her hands around his throat squeezing the life out of him. “I told Rena she had you all wrong. I told her it wasn’t like you to do this. I told her I’d look just to make her feel better, and now…”

Adrien thinks of the gift he’s just finished wrapping, and how it was intended to be all the vulnerable parts of him laid bare for Marinette in a way he hadn’t trusted with anyone else just yet. He trusted her because he knew that she would understand him. But he doesn’t see how she’ll be able to understand this.

“Does Ladybug know you’re here?” he asks. “Or did Scarabella send you?”

Multimouse hesitates. She chews on her lower lip with an indecision that is just so full of Marinette that Adrien’s heart finally manages to surface above his guilt and pain and he steps closer.

She misinterprets his approach and steps away, lifting the jewelry box out of his reach, or at least, as high as she can. She’s small; he is not. He could try to grab the box from her, but he doesn’t.

“I am sorry,” he says. “I just… can you tell Ladybug that?”

She doesn’t acknowledge his apology. She still won’t even look at him. “Where’s the other one?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know how. “The other what?”

“Your partner’s.” And now she looks at him, but there’s so much anger in her glare that he steps away from her.

He can only stare back at her, utterly bewildered by both her question and her anger. His only partner is Ladybug, and doesn’t she know that?

“Who are you talking about?” he asks.

“Bella Moth.”

And all of the guilt, all of the heartache, and even all of Adrien’s love for Marinette turns as cold as the ice in her voice. His shoulders tighten and his jaw clenches. His tone shifts to match hers.

“You think I’m Flourish?”

“Why else did I find a miraculous jewelry box in your room?”

He’s never felt so utterly betrayed. Not even when he discovered the truth about his father. It’s one thing for Nathalie to suspect him, Nathalie who knew his father and went through it all before.

But this is Marinette, and she mentioned Rena and surely Carapace was a part of this—and Adrien knows Rena Rouge and Carapace are Alya and Nino. He doesn’t know who Scarabella and Ladybug are, sure, but how could his best friends have ever suspected him of being a villain? He’s guilty of not catching his father sooner. He’s guilty of letting Ladybug down, but not of betraying her trust in this way, and he can’t believe Marinette and his friends think he would have.

Multimouse looks at him and he glimpses, just beyond her anger, the same heartbreak he feels.

He considers, briefly, asking her to flip the catch on the box, to look inside before she leaves. It’s a simple enough request, but his heartbreak is too great.

And, anyway, isn’t this his fault too? He pushed his friends away. Why wouldn’t they turn on him?

He sees movement in the corner of his eye as a violet butterfly squeezes through his loose window pane. He doesn’t know which of them its coming for, but he’s not going to let it take Marinette, certainly.

He lunges for the box in her hand, and they both tumble to the ground. The catch on the jewelry box unlatches as it hits the ground and Adrien yanks the ring from it.

“Plagg,” he says, even though his kwami has hardly begun to form, “claws out!”

He has not even fully adjusted to Plagg’s magic as the violence of chaos settles into his bones before he calls on that power.

“Cataclysm!” he shouts as his hand closes over the butterfly. It crumbles to dust in his hand.

Multimouse covers her mouth in horror as she looks up at Chat Noir, but he does not know which part of this revelation is the most horrifying for her. Is it knowing that Chat Noir is Hawk Moth’s son? Is it knowing that her best friend, who she’s just accused of being a villain, is one of Paris’s heroes? Is it knowing that he knows who she is under that mask?

He looks out the window for Flourish’s feather to follow Bella’s butterfly, but he sees no blue feather flitting near his bedroom window. He flexes his hand, surprised by the strength of the magic left in him. He does not feel his power draining, and wonders if he could call on another Cataclysm, should the villains show themselves.

“Chat…” Multimouse says, but he’s not ready for her apology.

He is careful to keep his voice even, because it so desperately wants to break—everything in him wants to break. “Ladybug can find me if she wants.”

Chat Noir leaves through the loose window, wishing he felt better about his return to this freedom he had denied himself for so long. He uses a search for Bella Moth to distract from his heartbreak, but it’s hard to say how close she was when she sent off her akuma. His father managed to curse half of Paris without leaving the house. Bella Moth might be miles away, sensing the pulse of heartbreak and anger throughout the city with the power of her miraculous.

Whoever she is, he thinks she’s very rude to try for two akuma attacks on Christmas Eve. It’s just poor sportsmanship on her part. Maybe there’s no feather to go with it this time because Flourish has better manners.

His search is, as he expected, fruitless, but he doesn’t take himself home rightaway. As much as he wants to curl up in his bed, apologize to Plagg, and sleep his way through Christmas, he knows that it is past the time to explain himself to Ladybug. He’s been avoiding her since she offered the truth of her identity.

He’s been avoiding the truth about everything for so long.

He climbs his way up the Eiffel Tower and stares out at the city, glittering with its holiday lights.

The truth is, he knows why his father did what he did. It’s not hard to guess what his father wanted the miraculouses for, what his father’s wish would be. He also knows that his father must have suspected that he was Chat Noir at least once. But Gabriel never trusted Adrien enough to even ask, to even hint that maybe Hawk Moth’s wish would be good for them both. He knows that if he could ask his father why, Gabriel would say that he had been doing it for the both of them.

But Adrien doesn’t think he would believe him.

He sinks down onto the tower’s highest platform and draws his knees up to his chest. Ladybug will find him. And if she doesn’t… Well, then he supposes that will be answer enough for how she feels about who he is.

Chapter 3

He’s waiting on the very ledge she waited on when she first arrived in Paris, entirely unchanged from the last time she saw him. He’s seated with his knees drawn up to his chest, green eyes glittering in the evening light.

For a moment, Ladybug thinks this could be the very night they saw Gabriel arrested. The last six months could have been a terrible dream and she is about to step back and start over, as cleanly as if Fluff or Sass reset time to take her back to their last meeting.

But she knows that’s untrue. She knows that the last six months happened, just as much as the last six minutes happened, and she has to face the consequences for that, too.

She steps lightly, but loud enough that he knows she’s coming. She doesn’t want to startle him.

He doesn’t even turn around.

She sits down beside him. She sets the two Christmas presents she’s brought with her on the edge of the platform, careful not to knock them over the edge. She’s not certain that she’ll use them, but she wants them just in case this all goes well. She’s still unsure where to start.

He’s the one who breaks the silence. “Did Marinette tell you everything?”

She doesn’t answer, because anything she could say to that would be untrue. Instead, she says, “I understand a lot more now than I did before.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Ladybug bites her lip. “Multimouse wasn’t lying when she said she defended you. She and Carapace were adamant that you couldn’t be Flourish. But you know Rena, she always wants to be thorough.”

“I thought I knew Rena.”

Ladybug tips her head at that, unsure what to make of the tone in his voice. He knows who Multimouse is, but she can’t think how he would know Rena and Carapace’s identities. He offers no further explanation, so she decides she might as well begin with her apology.

“A long time ago,” she says, “like, a few years ago long, not miraculous long, I faced an akumatized version of you.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“It was… another timeline. Bunnyx helped me. I don’t want to talk about the details—” She chews on her lower lip again, wading through the trauma of facing Chat Blanc to pick out the parts she wants to make sure Adrien understands. “—but the akuma attack was so bad that we had to reset time itself. The thing we had to change was that Adrien Agreste figured out who I was. I used to think it was just that Adrien—” she hesitates before amending, “—you told someone by accident and the secret got out. And then, after we caught Hawk Moth I wondered if that accident was telling your father. But I never, for even a moment, considered that you might have known that your father was Hawk Moth, that you might have intentionally told your father to help him. I’ve always trusted you, Adrien. And I’m sorry I doubted you tonight.”

She keeps her eyes on Chat Noir, wondering if he is going to accept her apology. She won’t blame him if he refuses.

He doesn’t look at her. Instead, he watches the city below.

“You said Rena insisted on being thorough,” he finally says, as if she had not just shared one of her most traumatic, vulnerable memories with him. “What was your opinion?”

She takes in a long, slow breath. She knew that she would have to do this. It’s not how she has imagined it after all these years, but there is no other way to be honest with him, and she is never going to repair the break between them without honesty.

For an answer, she tugs on one of the two wrapped Christmas presents she’s brought with her for this apology.

“This is for you,” she says.

He has to let his knees go to take the gift from her, and part of him seems to uncoil. Curiosity glints in his eyes alongside the heartbreak. She resists the urge to reach for his ears and see if she can elicit a purr from him. She’s going to have to let him be vulnerable on his terms, not on hers.

His claw-like gloves cut through the velvety green ribbon and tear the red wrapping paper. The box inside is about as big as his lap, flat, and plain white. He lifts the lid and pulls back the tissue inside to reveal a white silk blazer, and embroidered down the lapel on one side is a pattern of green and pink geometric shapes and flowers.

He stares at it for a long moment. She can tell by the way he runs his hands over the stitching he recognizes what it represents, but she had expected a stronger reaction from him.

“Marinette made this?” he says, and she waits for him to correct himself to ”You made this,” but he does not.

“Designed after the good luck charm.” Ladybug pulls the second gift into her lap. The gold glitter of the ribbon dusts her thighs. “Can I open your gift?” she asks.

He looks at the box in her lap, at the tag attached to the glittery ribbon that reads To: Marinette and From: Adrien. He glances down at the box in his lap. He looks back at her as she bites down on her lip, afraid she is being too subtle.

“Oh,” he says.

She waits for him to properly process it. It took her long enough to understand and she had watched him transform in front of her.

“But—wait, no,” he shakes his head, “I’ve seen Multimouse and Ladybug together. You can’t be both.”

“Trixx helped cover for me,” she said.

He sets her gift aside and stares at her, frowning like he’s trying to see through her mask. “You’ve been Marinette the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“So you… you quit because you went to New York? You didn’t quit being Ladybug because of me?”

She fidgets with the ribbon in her lap, ignoring the way the glitter coats her gloved fingers. “It was… lonely without you. It made the decision to pass my miraculous onto Scarabella easier. But no, I didn’t quit because of you.”

Chat Noir purses his lips in his own bit of indecision. Finally, he says, “You should open your gift.”

She tugs on the ribbon. It takes her a moment to figure out how to undo the complex knot, but she’s always enjoyed puzzles.

Once the package is free of its glittery trappings, she peels back the paper to reveal a photography book. The cover is a photo of a row of colorful houses on the waterfront. She opens the book and flips through photographs of Venice’s architecture and artwork.

“I liked the color there,” he says. “I thought you would, too. And…” He reaches over to her lap and flips towards the back of the book. The pictures in this end of the book are no longer of artwork and architecture. They’re of people—or rather, they’re of people’s clothing.

The photographs must have been of people posing in front of the water or a marble statue, and some still are that—full-body shots of models in motion—but some of them have been cropped down to just a sleeve or the lines on a bodice or the cut of a neckline. She knows Adrien must have an eye for fashion photography after all of his experience in the industry, but she can’t help but marvel at the way he’s captured the weight of fabric, the contrast of color, the structure of the ensemble, the complements of the patterns—it's the kind of things she would look for.

“I left because of you,” he says.

She tears her eyes away from the book to meet his and she has never wanted more desperately than she has in this moment to actually see him beneath his mask.

“You went to New York and I couldn’t help but feel like you were leaving me behind. Not like you abandoned me or anything, but that you were growing. You were pursuing your dream. And Nino got into film school and Alya sold her first article and I… I was still doing all the same things I was doing before. I wanted to do something new. I wanted to grow with all of you. So I left. I wanted to keep up with you.”

“And?” she asks. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

He shrugs. “It was… lonely.”

“I was lonely, too,” she admits. “I kept busy to forget how lonely I was.”

“That sounds familiar,” he says. He kicks his legs against the iron beams holding them up. “I’m sorry,” he says.

She shakes her head. “No, you have nothing to apologize for—”

“I doubted you. I thought… I thought you would blame me for not catching Monarch sooner. Or that you’d think I was responsible somehow, and that wasn’t fair of me. I should have trusted you. I should have trusted us.”

She leans her head against his shoulder. “No more doubting each other. No more doubting ourselves.”

He stiffens at first, then he leans back against her, until they are exchanging each other’s weight as easily as they had exchanged gifts. Somewhere in the distance, a clock strikes midnight.

“Merry Christmas, chaton,” she murmurs.

“Merry Christmas, my Lady,” he replies.

He looks down and she looks up and then before she quite realizes what she’s doing, she presses her lips against his.

It isn’t her first kiss with Chat Noir by any stretch, but it is her first kiss with someone who knows she is both Marinette and Ladybug, and she knows that he is as fond of all of her as she is of all of him. He’s not just her partner, not just a boy she used to have a crush on, not just a dear friend she has been trying to keep afloat with casual, emotion-free text messages. She finally realizes the weight of all of those things put together and it leaves her a little dizzy.

He pulls away and there’s something mischievous in his grin. “You’re bright red.”

She’s warm, despite the cold night, and doesn’t even have the sense to be embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Adrien.”

He presses his lips against her cheek and keeps his face close against hers as he murmurs, “We finished the apology bit.”

“I was a bad friend,” she says.

“Marinette—”

“I was trying to be careful to give you space, but I should’ve trusted our friendship. You didn’t have to go to Venice alone. You could’ve come to New York with me. Or gone to school with Nino, or —”

He drops his head against her shoulder like her apology is wearing him out. “We were both distant. You did it because you wanted to look out for me. I pushed my friends away because I didn’t know how you could stay friends with someone who was so close to a villain. You had to think me an idiot for not noticing, or in on it because I had noticed—”

“We would never think that of you—”

“I know.” He presses his lips against her neck and a shiver runs up her spine.

She recalls her restraint when it came to scratching his ears, her withholding a desire to touch him so he could process his feelings. He wishes he would show her that same restraint, but his hand slides up the curve of her back, pressing her against him. He breathes in deep and lets it out slowly. His breath is hot and wet against her ear and it’s not just her face that’s warm. She’s warm all over. She decides she doesn’t need to talk through anything anymore, she just wants more of this.

She tightens her hand in his hair and his throat rumbles with something so close to a purr she cannot help but laugh. She feels his smile against her neck.

“I know I said we finished the apology bit,” he sighs, “but I’ve got one more to do.”

“What for?”

“Plagg. He’s going to be insufferable. I left him in a sock drawer for months.”

“You might deserve whatever he does to you for that.” She stifles a yawn and he pulls away.

“Sorry,” he says, despite their promise to be done apologizing. “You’ve had a long day—travel and an akuma fight—I should let you get some sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” She knows once she drops Tikki’s magic, all the exhaustion of being human will settle in again, but right now she feels like she could stay awake all night. She wants to stay awake all night. She’s afraid to let him go and find out that this was all a dream.

He takes her hand in his, running the pads of his fingers against her palm like he’s committing the shape of her hand to memory. Though she just had the thought that she didn’t want to be human again, she is desperate for them to drop their magic and touch properly.

“I’ll come over tomorrow,” he promises.

“But there’s so much time between now and tomorrow,” she protests.

After six months apart, she can’t stand to face another six hours without him.

“You need to spend Christmas with your family.”

“And where am I going to spend the night?” she asks.

Now his face turns red beneath his mask and she grins mischievously at him. After years of him being the forward one, she’s happy to flip the script on him.

“Are you asking?” he says, like he can’t quite believe her.

“Are you inviting?” She bats her eyelashes in an attempt at flirtation, but it feels silly. She bites down on her lip to hold in a laugh.

“Well… I could. Nathalie is gone for a few days. We’d have the whole house to ourselves.”

She thinks of him going back to the house alone and her desire to go with him doubles. “So… are you?”

He stands and pulls her up with him. She drapes her arms over his shoulders and leans in until their noses are touching. She takes a deep breath in then pulls him into a kiss and pulls him off of the tower.

They’re falling. They’re kissing. They’re breathing.

❖❖❖

Christmas morning arrives faster than either of them would like. There are a few evening apologies dashed off once the masks drop. Adrien has to apologize to Plagg, who demands reparations in pounds of Camembert. There are also apologies made to Alya and Nino through the screen of Adrien’s phone. Adrien apologizes for pushing them away just as he had Marinette; Alya apologizes for ever suspecting him of being Flourish. Nino apologizes for failing to mention that he had once told Adrien about Carapace and Rena Rouge’s identities. Marinette and Alya forgive him, but it’s one of the more shocking reveals of the night.

And finally, Tikki and Plagg are asleep and Marinette and Adrien are truly alone and there is not much more to say to each other. They press themselves together, hands touching hands properly, her calloused fingertips brushing up his bare arm, his soft hands tugging her chin closer, lips crushed together in such a seamless union that they can’t help but wonder if they’ve been doing this forever, if this moment is the only moment of time that matters, like infinity stretched out into the past and future.

The sunrise doesn’t break it, but the sunrise is closely followed by Adrien’s phone buzzing on his nightstand.

He ignores it, but they call a second time.

Adrien, hands reluctantly daring to brave the cold beyond the blankets, fumbles for his phone long enough to catch the side button and dismiss the call. Marinette presses herself closer to him.

The phone buzzes again and they both groan loudly.

“It’s probably Alya checking on my honor,” Marinette grumbles.

“Or Nino trying to be a nuisance,” Adrien sighs and grabs the phone.

It’s neither Alya nor Nino. It’s his cousin.

Marinette dives under the covers as Adrien accepts the insistent call.

“Good morning, Félix,” Adrien says, in his best attempt at wakefulness. “Merry Christmas.”

Félix sounds plenty awake, voice crisp and cool as the winter outside, and he looks plenty awake in the video, sitting outside, wrapped in a scarf and coat with the lazy sun coming up over the park behind him. “Sorry to wake you,” he says without a hint of apology. “But I got into Paris last night and thought I ought to see you. Mother has a gift for you.”

Adrien stares up at his phone screen. “You’re in Paris?” but even as he says it, he knows it has to be true. If it’s only just sunrise here, Félix can’t be in dark, gloomy London at the moment.

“I came to visit my girlfriend, but I thought I ought to make time for you, too.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

Félix turns the camera and a young woman leans up against him. Her long, reddish-brown hair is tied in two loose tails on either side of her face. She’s wearing a pale pink scarf, pinned to an orange blouse, and Adrien stifles a gasp.

Lila Rossi slides her arm around Félix’s and smiles into the phone screen. “It’s been far too long, Adrien. How are you? We’d love to spend Christmas with you! Just tell us when you’re ready for us to come over.”

“I didn’t even know you were in the country,” Adrien finally stammers out. “I was going to spend Christmas with Marinette’s family.”

Félix and Lila’s polite smiles flicker in matching scowls, but Félix quickly smooths it over. “That’s alright. I’ll be in Paris for a while. I’ve got some business to take care of. We’ll see you another time, Adrien.”

“Merry Christmas!” Lila says effusively as Félix ends the call.

Adrien drops his phone on the nightstand and stares up at the ceiling.

“Lila?” he asks weakly.

Marinette crawls out from under the covers to join him. “Lila,” she confirms with a fair amount of acid in her voice.

“I suppose it makes sense in a Merteuil and Valmont sort of way.”

Marinette doesn’t get the reference, but Adrien’s head has always been full of an absurd amount of niche information, so she trusts it's an accurate comparison.

And suddenly Bella Moth and Flourish makes sense. Félix, who had stolen the miraculouses from Ladybug, surely could have squirreled the peacock away from Gabriel. And Lila, who had weasled her way into Gabriel’s company, must have slipped the butterfly away for herself. But how did they manage to find each other and what did they want with Chat Noir and Ladybug’s miraculouses?

Marinette slides her hand into Adrien’s. It doesn’t matter, not really. They’re stronger today than they were yesterday. They’ve become Chat Noir and Ladybug again, and they’re even more than that now.

“I think we’ll manage them easily, between the four of us,” she says. “We know who they are, but they haven’t any idea about us.”

“It’s a nice change,” he says, and smiles at her.

She kisses him again and even though they need to tell Alya and Nino about what they’ve learned, even though they need to freshen up before going to visit Marinette’s parents, even though there’s a new battlefield awaiting them in the fight against Bella Moth and Flourish, they let their kiss unwind into another moment of infinity.

All the worries will still be there on either end of this kiss, but at this moment they can set those worries aside. They’ve got time. And even when the kiss does reach its end—though they both feel as if it could not possibly come to an end—they’ll still have each other. And they’ll still have more moments like this.

#ml secret santa exchange #ml secret santa exchange 2022 #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fic #christmas fic #lynnimaybe #mlsecretsanta

[holylulusworld]

okay but i have a question about stolen fics. I sometimes copy paste stories to my notes app, changing up the names if i see a story that would fit another fandom and that particular fandom has none/very less stories of its own. I am not a fanfic writer, and i never ever post these edited stories anywhere. But would it still be wrong? or do writers object to this. i swear it's just cause im always in such niche fandoms and im desperate for fics lmao

Hmm...good question, hun.🤔

It's hard to tell, to be honest. I used to (when I was a teen) download stories from ff.net/livejournal etc. and changed Y/N or reader to my name...😅 I never reposted them, of course.

People can download stories from AO3 too. You never know what they do with the stories.

If you only do it for yourself and don't repost the story, to me, it would be alright if you change the name of the main character.

I want my stories to make people happy. If it makes you happy to change Dean/Steve/Bucky/and so on, to whatever character you like - it doesn't harm me. You still enjoyed the story.

Some artists don't want you to download their stories, though.

To me, stealing is about taking my fic to repost it /post it, pretending you wrote it. That's unfair and wrong. Sometimes they even got a ko-fi account etc. and want to make money with stories/artwork they stole from other people.

I don't know what other writers think about this. I can't speak for them.

#lulu answers #talk about fics #feel free to ask

[thedreamgemini]

IMPORTANT MESSAGE!!!!

This is my third account on this app I stopped posting on the others due to technical difficulties. My other accounts were “thebestgemini” and “thebestgemini27”. So all the posts on my page from “thebestgemini27” is still my original content. And if you don’t believe me then go to “thebestgemini27” account and look at the last two posts where I talk about my second account “thebestgemini” and my third account “thegloriousgemini” and how I’m now only going to be posting on this account which is my third account now due to technical difficulties with my last two accounts. BUT, if you enjoy what’s on this page and wanna see more of my astrology content. Then I HIGHLY suggest going to my first account “thebestgemini27” and looking at my astrology content on their and I bet you won’t be disappointed. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ And btw I’m aware the link doesn’t really work well so you might just have to copy and paste the link and put it in to google and go to my page from there. Because for some reason when you put the link onto the tumbler search bar it doesn’t work. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Here’s a link to the account 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

https://at.tumblr.com/thebestgemini27/astrology-observations-notes-part-1/frtonxxwm4db

#important message #astro community #astroblr #astrology #astrology news #astro observations #astro notes #zodiac astrology #zodiac signs #thebestgemini