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consumeconstantly · 4 years

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Small Buff Girl Sightings ch. 3

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Marinette wonders when she got used to the crushing weight of expectations that had been imposed upon her by the Powers That Be. She also wonders when she got used to being lonely. These are two separate events, she’s fairly sure, but it isn’t like she keeps a diary anymore. She has long since fallen out of that habit, because she doesn’t want another Sabrina incident. With the class the way it is now, she can’t even fathom how much damage her diary could bring to her classmates, and likely, the whole of Paris. Because for some reason, Hawkmoth has some sort of a vendetta against her class.

Which is the whole reason why she didn’t transfer out of Mademoiselle Bustier’s class in the first place. Sure, she tried for the first few months to expose Lila and get things back to the status quo, but Marinette can only try and fail so many times before getting tired of her classmate’s willful ignorance. Then, she stayed in class for Adrien. Such a sweet, misguided boy. Marinette wonders how he would have turned out if his father was less of an asshole, or if his mother were still around. No use crying over spilled milk; she still feels bad for him, but she’s no longer staying in class for him. Her crush on Adrien is a thing of the past.

As it is currently, Mlle. Bustier’s class simply provides the most excellent cover for all of her escapades and an excellent vantage point to see what the next akuma might be.

After all, their class encompasses both the people who are most often akumatized-- minus Monsieur Ramier and Augustine-- and the people who are most likely to cause somebody’s akumatization. These are the usual suspects:

Chloe, who has admittedly improved her attitude after reconciling with her mother, but still doesn’t know how to deal with people like an ordinary person would.

Lila, whose lies and half truths have ended more than one person’s dreams (as well as her own penchant to get akumatized willingly, but that hasn’t happened often after the first year, and Marinette doesn’t really want to go into that).

Adrien, who never intends to get anybody akumatized, but ends up doing so when the media catches him doing anything. Because everything he does gets covered by the media heavily. So when he goes out with friends and is mistaken for having a lover, there are a lot of angry fangirls who get akumatized.

Oh, and then there’s Marinette herself. She’s honestly not sure how or why so many people around her end up getting akumatized-- maybe she takes other people’s luck in exchange for having an abundance of her own-- but there’s certainly quite a number.

And if she’s talking about family relations, this class takes the cake too. Adrien’s father lashes out at his employees so often that Marinette is surprised that all his workers haven’t quit yet. Gabriel’s attitude has also convinced Marinette that she never wants to work at the man’s self-named brand. Mayor Bourgois and Audrey Bourgeois are both… frightening in their own ways. Both can end careers easily, but Audrey definitely goes about ending careers in a more harmful way. Juleka’s mom pisses off anybody who tries to come down the Seine; numerous akumas have appeared in response to her loud music blasting at all times of the day. And Ivan’s parents? Sweethearts, but both are so sensitive that their family is a prime target for Hawkmoth.

She wonders when the new boy, Damian, will get akumatized. She doesn’t think-- hopes-- that he won’t, but with the track rate of their classmates, it was highly unlikely that he wouldn’t. So far, Marinette and Adrien have been the only ones in the class who haven’t been, including the series of brief transfers to their classes last year. Maybe he’ll be another to add to their number. And Marinette and Adrien both moonlight as superheroes. There’s probably some Miraculous magic involved, but Marinette’s not entirely sure. Master Fu doesn’t have answers for many of the questions that Marinette asks.

Damian seems like a decent person with a good head on his shoulders. Marinette hopes that he transfers away from this class soon, because she would feel awful if he does end up getting caught up with her classmate’s delusional version of reality. Because even though Lila has calmed down a lot and no longer tells such outlandish tales as she did in her first year at Francois Dupont, everyone else still follows her so mindlessly that it isn’t a healthy relationship for anyone involved. Marinette is almost certain that there are multiple people in the class that must know Lila was lying but now perpetuate this twisted version of reality because they’re afraid. Ninth and tenth year were important; if Lila really did lie about all of her connections, that means they messed their own futures up and need to work on themselves to fix it--something that is difficult to admit and commit to matter what age a person is. To admit that they did something wrong and take steps to fix it-- Marinette doesn’t think any of her classmates have that kind of mindset. After all, if anyone else had guts, there’s no way that Chloe would have been class president for as long as she was.

Lunch comes around quickly, and Damian manages to catch her on her way out, grabbing and holding her forearm. Marinette is cautious, making sure that none of Lila’s lackeys are around. Despite her agreement with Lila, her classmates tend to make everything a much bigger deal than it should be, and they always tell Lila whenever Marinette steps so much as a foot out of line. Lila doesn’t always act on her classmates' words, but when there are too many voices that say that Marinette is doing something wrong, Lila has to act; if she doesn’t, she’s at risk of losing her position of power. Once Marinette is sure there is no one from Mlle. Bustier’s class watching, she pulls Damian with her to an alleyway a short ways away from her family’s bakery.

“I’m telling you again. You really don’t want to be seen with me.”

“If you think I care about Lila, you’re mistaken. I will be seen with who I want to be seen with.”

Marinette’s hand is warm and calloused. Her fingertips are extra soft, like she takes care to moisturize them more than the rest of her hand.

The alleyway is surprisingly nice. Much nicer than any alleyway that Damian would find in Gotham, that’s for certain. It doesn’t have any blood stains and there are no crazy psychos hiding in the shadows. Instead, sunlight is let through the shorter of the two buildings, only five stories. Sure, the place smells slightly of urine and trash and there’s broken bottles everywhere, but that is par for the course for any major city.

Marinette’s not sure why Damian seems to be going out of his way to talk to her. She’s seen him interact with the other students, and he was positively stoic with them. His words are still clipped when he’s talking to her, but at least he speaks full sentences.

“It’ll be bad for your social health if you keep trying to talk to me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t believe I ever asked for you to look after my social health, and I certainly don’t want to talk to the idiots in that class.”

“I don’t think you understand, Damian. You might not mind being alone, but being lonely is different. It feels bad, and Hawkmoth will take advantage of you.” Marinette knows what being lonely is like, because despite her loving parents and all of her friends that she’s made outside of school in the past two years, before that, her world was limited. Sometimes, she wishes that some magical being came with Miraculous. Someone that she can actually talk to about all of her problems, both hero-related and those in her everyday life. As it is, Marinette never talks about what she does as Ladybug, unless she’s referring to herself in the third person and is forced to. Marinette doesn’t need people trying to figure out she is Ladybug, and despite Master Fu’s assurances that people without a Miraculous will never, ever catch on, she prefers to err on the side of caution. And as Ladybug, she only ever talks to Chat Noir, never deigning to talk about her personal life because it will be way too easy for Adrien to make the jump between her everyday problems and Marinette, because Adrien is a Miraculous user, and the Identity Concealment magic supposedly is less effective between Miraculous users.

“I don’t believe we’ve interacted enough for you to judge my mental fortitude. Besides, you might have told me to avoid you, but I never agreed.”

The former part of Damian’s statement isn’t true, but Damian doesn’t know that. As a superhero, Marinette needs to know how to judge people quickly and effectively. She’s read plenty of books on psychology and body language, clocked endless hours of videos on the subject. There’s also the matter of her bountiful personal experience, what with figuring out the issues of the ever increasing number of akumas that pop up around the city. Still, it isn’t like Marinette can actively refute his statement.

For a while, the two of them stand in contemplative silence.

“Fine, then, I’ll tell you why you need to avoid me. We might as well get out of this alleyway, though.” Marinette eyes the dumpster that stands a few meters away from them.

“And here I thought you were fond of alleyways,” Damian says, in reference to the first time they met.

She laughs, and it feels good. Marinette hasn't laughed in quite some time. Lately, her parents are always busy. They want to expand their patissiere by opening a second branch. That means they don’t have much family time, and when they do, it’s typically spent talking shop. Manon has continued in her bratty toddler stage, and the rest of the kids that she babysits are in a similar state. Uncle Jagged and Aunt Penny are still touring, bringing Luka around for the ride, Kagami’s currently in intensive training for the World Cup, and she simply hasn’t had enough time to see any of her other friends.

“I’d like to think that I'm more fond of my parents' macarons, than I am of alleyways.” Marinette leads him through the other end of the alleyway and through a few streets to get to the back entrance that leads directly to their house instead of the bakery. At least since Maman and Papa are so busy with business, she never needs to talk about her friends in school, or lack thereof.

“Let me get this straight,” Damian says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You had four transfers last year and each of them ended up as akumas multiple times because of her lies, students who don’t believe her get expelled, suspended, or bullied, and the teacher and school refuse to do anything about it?”

“Well, Principal Damocles refuses to do anything; Mlle. Bustier believes her.” Marinette sips the cup of hot cocoa she prepared and lounges on her chaise. She doesn’t bother saying that all the transfers occurred in a six month period, after which Lila let up on her tyranny and turned into an average albeit still incredibly charismatic teen. Neither does she bother mentioning that Lila doesn’t lie anymore-- at least, not any big ones-- and has stopped getting herself willingly akumatized. She’s trying to get Damian to transfer out, after all.

“That’s even worse. They’re useless.”

“It depends on your point of view. They’re very useful if you’re Lila or the rest of the class.”

Damian swivels the chair so he’s facing Marinette in her entirety. “How have you managed three years with that orange demon? Better question, why have you not transferred?”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” It’s not like Marinette can tell him the real reason why she’s staying in the class. That’s why she hasn’t told her parents about all of this. If they knew, they would definitely make her transfer classes, if not schools.

“That is no good reason for me to continue to stay with her group. I hate lying manipulators.” Damian’s mother is a good example.

“You might hate them, but if you can’t beat them and you can’t leave, you have to join them, or at least make a truce. And there’s no way Lila is going to give you up.”

“I really should just transfer.”

“I agree whole-heartedly. Please do.”

“But I can’t. My father won’t arrange a transfer for me. He wants me in that class.” More accurately-- Damian knows how many akumas came out of that class, and there is no way that he’s going to transfer away from it. It’s easier to figure out a game plan if he’s able to watch the action.

“I could arrange a transfer for you, if you want.”

“No, that’s too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, and if it helps one person by preventing them from getting akumatized, that’s great.”

“Why can’t you just expose her?” Damian counters.

“Tried that two years ago. Failed. Miserably. I almost got expelled.” She tactfully leaves out the fact that Lila also got her back in school. After years of making up excuses for where she’s been when an akuma attack calls her away, she’s gotten very skillful at lies by omission. Besides, if they’re to help someone, that’s okay, right?

“If you can’t expose her then how are you going to get me transferred out?”

“Those are two separate issues. I might not be able to persuade a classroom that’s very interdependent on their relations with each other, but I was class president for two years, so I know people.”

Damian decides to revise his tactics. “I don’t back down from a challenge. Besides, I want to see her empire crumble.”

The last part isn’t true. He cares little for the Italian girl, even less for their other classmates. People like Lila are alarmingly common when you run in the circles of the rich and powerful, and there are certainly people whose charisma is infinitely more dangerous. Lex Luthor, for instance. He shakes off thoughts of the dangerous business man. Damian needs to stay in this class because it’s the best lead that he’s got right now. He’s trying to be as covert as possible, under League request. Apparently, the Justice League of America isn’t supposed to interfere with what’s going on in Europe unless they call in for help. Damian thinks that’s a stupid rule-- in the end, they’re all just trying to protect the world-- but he agreed to secrecy and keeping his head down when accepting the mission. That means he’s not suddenly going to start asking his classmates about akumas unless they’re brought up in conversation. Unnecessary suspicion is a bad thing in this instance.

He takes another bite of the pastry that Marinette brought up for him. It’s much better than a lot of the other vegan options he’s found in Paris-- not that there are many to begin with. Everything in this damn city is made with butter or cheese. There is a lull in the conversation, and then, “She has no reason to hold on to me. I’ll just stay with you, in the back of the class.”

Marinette laughs at this.

“Lila isn’t going to let you go.”

“What do you mean by that? She let you go.” Damian almost feels like he should be affronted at some of the statements that Marinette has made. He feels like she doesn’t appreciate or know how capable he is. It feels weird to have somebody not hold him to the impossibly high pedestal of a genius billionaire’s son. Now that he’s with Marinette, he’s glad that the Justice League sent him under a different last name. He can only imagine the chaos that it would have caused when he arrived.

Marinette rolls her eyes. “She didn’t willingly let me go. She only did because I was constantly undermining her, though unsuccessfully. And besides, there’s a very big difference between the two of us.”

“I’m very capable at undermining people.”

“I have no doubt about that,” Marinette snorts. Damian Grayson is quite the character. They’ve met in the oddest of situations each time. At first, she thought he might be a stalker, but after getting to know Damian a little better, Marinette believes that it’s coincidence-- there’s no way that someone with as much pride as Damian would go out of his way to follow a mere girl. If he wanted to go out with someone, he’d simply demand it. “But the key difference is our gender. Lila Rossi may be bisexual, but her desired gender of arm candy is male. I’m sure you’ve seen her with Adrien. The blonde one?”

At Damian's nod, Marinette continues. “Don’t get your ego even more inflated, but you are good looking. You’re Lila’s type. Tall, muscular, green eyed. You’re the perfect balance to Adrien’s sunshine demeanor. Besides, she can’t have a girl with self-confidence within her circle, so there was no way that we could have peacefully coexisted in the same group to begin with.”

Marinette’s comment about his appearance makes him feel an unexpected shock of pleasure. He knows he’s good looking. All of the Wayne kids are. He’s gotten enough compliments on his appearance to last him ten lifetimes. But knowing that Marinette finds him attractive feels different. She doesn't seem to be the type to exaggerate, and has a good objective eye for beauty.

“Yes, she already has Adrien. She doesn’t need me as well.”

“Greed never stops.” Marinette finishes her cup of hot cocoa and now stares at her ceiling, then at the wall opposite her, covered in fabric and design sketches. It seems like it was only yesterday when the walls of her bedroom were filled with the countless modelling endeavors of one Adrien Agreste. Now, there are very few pictures of him at all. She wishes that she got to hang out with him more, civilian to civilian.

When she figured out that Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir were the same, it was a day for the record books. She had so much emotional whiplash that day that it still gives her nausea just thinking about it. Marinette figures that it is a good thing she found out when she did, otherwise she might have continued with her crush on him and would have ended up pointlessly heartbroken. She still loves him, just not the way lovers do. Marinette also suspects that Adrien himself is not looking for a relationship of any sort besides friendship. He’s been more tense in recent months, and Chat Noir confessed that people touching him made him uncomfortable.

Marinette wants nothing more but to rip Adrien from Asshole Gabriel’s hands. But she can’t, because Marinette doesn’t have the trust of Adrien Agreste. Not in the capacity that she needs him to. Not in the capacity that will allow her to unseat Gabriel as she so desperately wishes to. If Ladybug entrusted Marinette to help Adrien out, there is no doubt that Adrien would figure out her alter ego, and that is dangerous knowledge. Especially since he is so tense with everything else going on in his life. It’s a recipe for a powerful akuma and the horrifying possibility of Hawkmoth learning her civilian identity. Ever since retiring the other heroes, Marinette knows that she can’t afford to have Chat Noir or Adrien akumatized. She’s certain that she can beat him in either form, but on the off chance that Hawkmoth decides on a mass akumatization, she can’t beat them all. She’s just not strong enough, no matter how many hours she trains and no matter how many times she takes down baddies in her civilian form.

“So what, I should just let her put her hands all over me?”

That… admittedly sounds unpleasant. Marinette isn’t sure what Adrien and Lila have going on, but Marinette knows that they’re not actually in a relationship. She’s fairly sure that Adrien and Lila have stuck some sort of deal on their own, but she’s not close enough to ask Adrien, and she’s definitely not going to ask Lila. Still, when Marinette addressed her concerns with Lila’s touchy tendencies, Adrien gave her a weak smile and said that that was just part of Lila’s nature. He implied that he dealt with worse, which made Marinette worried to hell and back, but ultimately Adrien convinced Marinette that touching him was not done with ill intent by Lila and that her touch warded off other people’s interest. He promised that he was fine, and that he would tell Marinette if he was really uncomfortable. So Marinette let sleeping dogs lie, because despite her initial animosity towards Lila, she was good at manipulating attention away from Adrien whenever he was having a particularly bad day.

“I told you, I can get you transferred out.”

“And I told you that I never back down from a challenge.”

“Then it seems like we’re at an impasse.”

“I suppose we are.”

Marinette’s phone alarm goes off, and she jumps from her chaise. “We’ve got to get back to school. Class starts in five. You go first, I’ll clean up.”

“I am not a rude houseguest.”

“Well, I don’t want to be seen with you in school, so leave.” Marinette’s sudden burst of rudeness is unlike her, but she chalks it down to her deep-rooted desire for Damian not to end up like the four transfers last year. She keeps in contact with some of them still, and not all of them are doing all too well. Marinette really doesn’t want Damian to end up like that.

Damian’s mouth sets itself into a thin line. “Fine then, have it your way. Give me your phone number.”

A shrug. “If that’s what it’ll take for you to leave me alone during school.”

And then, Damian is off.

4:50PM | Unknown number: I’m testifying next Thursday.

4:55PM | Marinette: Damian?

Damian: Yes.

Marinette: oh

Marinette: me too

Marinette: i’m going to visit renee tomorrow

4:58PM | Damian: I’ll come with you. I’ll meet you at your parent’s bakery after school.

6:42PM | Marinette: uh

Marinette: how about that alleyway instead

Damian: If I must.

Marinette doesn’t really know what to make of Damian. The first time she meets him, she almost thinks he is another stalker. Almost, but not quite; he looks far too reluctant to be following her and looks too unfamiliar with the streets that they were going down to have done this before. Still, she doesn’t want to take any chances, so she makes quick work of her first stalker and immediately gets on the phone with the police, leaving her stalker in the alley despite her normal protocol to stay with the criminal until the police get there. She makes an exception for this, because even from a distance, the second person following her looks much more dangerous than the first, and she doesn’t want to fight with someone who’s bigger than her in a place that’s hard to run away in.

When he appears near the alleyway he seems annoyed, then relieved and surprised when he sees the body in the alleyway. Like it was something he didn’t want to deal with.

When she brushes past him, there isn’t a hint of recognition in his eyes. Nothing except for surprise, and maybe a little bit of admiration. A raised eyebrow, saying, really? This short little girl just beat a man twice her size up?

She ends up in violent altercations as a civilian on an almost regular basis. According to one of her stalkers, she was just so friendly. Clearly she wanted to go out with him. It’s her fault for coming onto him. When she isn’t fending off creepy men whose profiles were nearly all the same-- five to ten years older than her, with some sort of fetish for asian women (she shudders at the thought of being called exotic)-- she does her duty as a plain-clothes hero. Because her conscience will never let her get away with walking away from an instance that might end up harming someone else. Marinette feels an overwhelming sense of responsibility. She won’t forgive herself for not protecting the weak.

The next time she meets him, she’s surprised that he actually approaches her and asks if she needs help. He clearly doesn’t actually want her to take him up on the offer, so she immediately turns him down. Marinette isn’t sure why he feels so compelled to offer his help when he clearly didn’t want to but-- oh merde. The class is going to leave her behind again if she doesn’t run and try to catch the bus now. She can take the metro, but she is short on the amount she needs to get all the way home. Marinette is also unwilling to turn into Ladybug, because Ladybug only ever shows up on night patrols and when there’s an akuma, and she doesn’t want to send Parisians into a mass panic.

Despite his obvious unwillingness, she reneges on her words and asks him to watch over the thief. He seems more at ease with it than she expected. Maybe he really had meant his offer. Weird. She is usually pretty good at reading people. Why can’t she get a good read on this guy?

His posture, too, is more at ease than she would expect of any civilian. Usually, if she ever asks somebody to watch over somebody she’s detained, they’re nervous and a little jumpy. Their hands are glued to their phone, ready to make a call if the slightest thing goes wrong. But this guy is relaxed and confident. Just the way he’s standing screams of years of training, in fighting and possibly in etiquette. Maybe he comes from some high class family.

She doesn’t have time to contemplate why and where and how. She just leaves him.

Then he comes in like a ghost, when she’s helping poor Nicolette. Somehow, Marinette knows this voice, this step pattern. She only needs a single glance up to confirm her beliefs. It’s the guy she keeps seeing around town.

Despite her initial impression that he wasn’t dangerous, she still takes the proper measures to protect herself, just in case. She can never be too sure in situations like these, and although he has been nothing but helpful, she doesn’t particularly want to be on the receiving end of one of his punches. He looks like an athlete. Long, lean muscle. Dangerous too, if his eyes are anything to go by.

They’re dark green and calculating. He’s gone through Things. Marinette can almost guarantee that the guy has encountered at least a few life-threatening situations.

She wonders how it is that he only ever seems to appear once she’s done with whatever issue she’s dealing with. Is he stalking her to see the extent of her abilities? Is he trying to make her let her guard down? Something about him makes Marinette anxious. He looks like he wants to tear her apart to see her inner workings. To figure her out. He makes Marinette feel like he’s always on the verge of finding out her biggest secret, and she hates it.

Still, he makes for a pretty reliable cleanup partner. She doesn’t think that she would trust a regular civilian to keep watch over any person she thought was dangerous. Fraser is just a little too dangerous for Marinette to consider leaving alone in the street. She certainly would not have passed his care to any regular stranger.

But Nicolette is clearly in need of comfort, and Damian looks like he can take care of himself and any trouble that comes his way. Which makes Marinette even more wary of him. Would she be able to beat him in her civilian form? She is certain that she could if he is just some common street thug-- she’s taken down people bigger than him-- but she gets the foreboding feelings that he is more than that.

It’s almost comforting to see Damian’s reaction to Ladybug and the akuma. He looks equal parts confused and awe struck. There is a touch of cynicism in there, for sure, a little bit of disbelief, but somehow, it lets Marinette breathe a temporary sigh of relief.

He doesn’t know what is going on in Paris. He doesn’t know her-- either side of her. And it is going to stay that way.

Of course it doesn’t stay that way. Marinette uses up all of her luck during her time as Ladybug, so the person who is currently at the top of her Avoid list shows up to her school as the American transfer. Of course he decides to sit next to her. She bemoans the loss of her blessedly empty desk. Damian is taller and larger than most boys their age, but he sits far enough away from her.

That’s a good sign. He’s not going out of his way to touch her or make contact with her. Maybe this whole thing is just a coincidence. Please, let this whole thing be just a coincidence

Then he starts talking to her, and of course he notices the whole thing with Lila, how can he not? She didn’t make a wrong judgement on his level of perceptiveness. Great. That is one thing she would have gladly lost a bet on. Now, she has to deal with possible ramifications of Damian, six foot Adonis, not wanting to get along with Lila. Lila will not like this. Marinette knows exactly what she wants in her little circle: attractive boys and girls that are less pretty or less confident than her. People who are easily controlled by promises and tall tales. And although Damian only fits one of those categories, he will undoubtedly be on her shopping list.

After their awful first year together, Lila proposed a truce of sorts. They could either try being friends or they could stay out of each other’s ways. Lila wouldn’t actively bully Marinette, and Marinette wouldn’t actively try to expose her.

She can feel Lila’s eyes on her. Green. It seems like everybody and anybody who brought her trouble nowadays had green eyes. Tonight, she’ll throw out all the green items that she owns. Marinette doesn’t need any more bad luck around her.

They return from lunch, and Marinette prays to every God whose name she knows that he is no longer sitting in the back seat. That Lila successfully swept him up.

Of course she hasn’t. Damian’s too smart for his own damn good. Which means that she needs to start preparing for the consequences of the inevitable fallout. She really doesn’t want Damian to turn into an akuma. She’s pretty good at telling which people will be more powerful (devastating? devastating.) in their akumatized forms than others, and she’s pretty sure that Damian would round out her top five, alongside Adrien, her Maman, her cousin, Bridgette, and herself. People who have more control over themselves are that much scarier when they fall apart.

This time, Damian shows up before things are completely settled, and she’s thankful for it.

If she wants to build a case against this woman, she does not need accusations of her own violence levelled against her. Thus, Marinette had been almost entirely ready and willing to feel the woman’s slap, maybe even her nails cutting through her skin. None of that matters, though. Not in comparison to Renee’s future.

In Renee, Marinette can see a lot of Adrien. He is blonde, is soft spoken from what little she’s seen of him, and lives firmly under a rich and manipulative parent’s thumb. Even though he’s scared of getting hit by his mom, Marinette can feel, instinctively, that if she hits the woman back, not only will she be in trouble with the case, she will also have scared Renee.

Damian steps in at exactly the right time, and leaves her free to call the police.

Though he’s quiet throughout the ride to the station, she does see him look at the little boy in concern. Other than that, he seems curious. A little child-like, even. His eyes are darting around the inside of the cruiser. It’s almost comical. Maybe he’s scared of being in the back of the police car, but she can’t find it in her to bring out a laugh. Not when Renee is on her lap. Not when she can feel his tears through her shirt and his soft little hiccups. Marinette hates that woman. Hates her so much. Hates Gabriel, too.

Marinette is focusing more on Renee and the woman more than Damian, but when she does spare him a glance, he seems unsure. Discomfited. Maybe he wants to reassure Renee that it will be alright.

She has been preparing for a situation in which she can take Gabriel to court for almost an entire year now. Despite this, Marinette still pulls out her phone and checks a few websites to make sure that all of the information she has is correct. Damian pulls out his phone too, though he’s just fiddling with it so his hands have something to do.

By the time Marinette breaks past the woman’s painfully bad facade of being a good parent, Marinette feels her blood boiling. She knows that she is not immune to being akumatized, and is very glad that it’s highly unlikely Hawkmoth sends out another akuma today.

It hurt a little when she first discovered that she could be akumatized. She was thirteen, Ladybug, and invincible. Then, she was thirteen, Marinette, and scared. Despite the situation at the time, Marinette could never bring herself to fully hate Lila. In part, because she believed--and still believes-- that Adrien is at least partially right. She sees it, periodically. How lonely Lila is behind her lies and friendships. Marinette doesn’t know what the girl is missing, and she doesn’t particularly care to know, but Lila is young and immature and has time to shift her course. And after their truce, Lila backed down a lot. Her lies are soft, now. Quiet. Most times nonexistent. She doesn’t need to do much to manipulate the class into loving her because she laid down all the groundwork during that first, horrible year.

But Marinette feels entitled to be angry at these parents who treat their children like they are nothing more than tools. Like they are subhuman. Maybe some parents can’t love their children-- she understands that to some extent-- and maybe they can’t be with them all the time. However, if love isn’t possible, they should still treat their child with the basic courtesy of human decency. And there is a point where neglect turns into abuse. Marinette knows that-- sees that with Adrien and Gabriel-- all too well.

Marinette is glad that all of her previous encounters with criminals taught her to record from the moment she interferes. She is glad that she sprung for a phone with extra amounts of storage. Her palms are hot and trembly, but her head is cold. She feels a twisted sense of accomplishment wrenched from her gut as she watches Renee’s mother flee from the room.

It is in this cold daze that she finds herself outside with Damian. Alone together, again. And he asks her about Lila, and she doesn’t want to deal with whatever dangers Damian brings with him. She’s had to fight off an akuma, deal with an absolute horror of a woman, and when she goes home, she will have to finish a commission and study for a test tomorrow. Damian is an unnecessary complication.

Somehow, her life has become a never ending cycle. At least she will sleep better at night knowing that Renee is in better hands.

#miraculous ladybug #dc #mlbxdc #daminette #sbgs #original content #adrien agreste #lila rossi #marinette dupain cheng #damian wayne

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miraculousfanworks · 4 years

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How To Analyze a Character

Have you ever been reading a fic and found the character is not recognizable that causes you to say “I don’t know who that is in that Marinette suit but that’s not Marinette.”

Or when you’re writing there’s that one character you need and you just can’t get inside their head to save your life.

This essay is going to delve into how to analyze characters and how they work in stories. It will help you both articulate why you do or don’t like a particular character or their interpretation, and help you in your own writing of that character.

Characters, as well as other elements of a narrative, can be broken down into collections of recognizable elements often called “tropes.” (For the comprehensive taxonomy see tvtropes.org.) These commonly recurring literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés can be combined in unique ways. They exist as recognizable and namable concepts because the same patterns are used over and over again in the creation of stories. We can use named tropes to describe what we are seeing in one story and relate it to other instances of the same phenomenon.

The advantage of recognizing the tropes that describe a character means that we can import into our understanding of them all of the other instances of that trope we have come across, and then compare and contrast these characters.

For example, both Chloé and Adrien exhibit the “Well Done, Daughter/Son!” Girl/Guy trope, desperately seeking the approval of a distant and withholding parent. (Faramir in the Lord of The Rings and Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion are also prime examples.) Knowing that they are both participants in this kind of relationship we can see how it plays out differently.

Gabriel seems like a deliberate ass, but occasionally manifests approval as when he played the duet with Adrien before sending him off to the Kitty Section concert in Capitan Hardrock. Audrey is entirely un-reflexive in her horribleness, dismissive rather than demanding and only ever recognizes Chloé’s worst feature as admirable. Kagami is also a “well done daughter!” girl and it informs how she relates to Adrein, Chloé, Marinette and Ladybug, providing both for character connection and thematic contrast.

On the production side, tropes can be used deliberately to construct a character to achieve a particular purpose. Adrien was created using the standard tropes of the fairy tale princesses beauty, musical talent, kindness to all creatures (even Chloe), kept looked up by an unloving parental figure. By creating a stereotypical Disney princess but swapping the gender it causes us to think harder about the assumptions we make about Princesses.

Symbols work the same way. We use symbolic images and language in media because it allows us to reference all the other ways and places that symbol is used. It becomes a shorthand for much bigger units of meaning. Pure originality would be completely unintelligible.

For example, Marinette displays two flower motifs on a regular basis. One is the cherry blossom spray across her shirt. Commonly this is associated with both love and passion, as well as purity and transitory beauty. In China, the last three are more closely associated with the Plum blossoms that decorate her purse, chair, and diary. Along with the additional significance of perseverance and hope, we can see that her dreams for the future, however heard she works for them, may not turn out as she plans.

The cherry blossom, in China, is a symbol of passion, strength, and feminine power and sexuality. As Marinette has this symbol peeking out from behind her jaket on the left side of her shirt, it represents how her civilian persona hasn’t fully come into the power she displays as Ladybug. Adrien’s kwami was chosen to be a Black Cat specifically to call up all our associations with them and bad luck as a counterpoint to Ladybug and her Lucky Charm.

Pikachu, I Choose You!: Artistic Decisions

You would think this wouldn’t need to be said but remember, remember, remember: these fictional characters are not real people. Why does that matter? Because everything you see on the screen or on the page is the result of a choice made by the writer or artist.

Images and dialogue may be selected deliberately, thoughtfully, thematically, instinctually, carelessly, haphazardly, or stupidly, but they are there because the authors and illustrators and creators selected them to be there.

Remember that the characters only exist to serve the story and everything about them ideally should serve to move the story toward its conclusion.

This is especially pertinent in an animated–and especially a computer animated–show because everything has to be made specifically for the show and they are expensive to make(MLB costs ~$460,000 an episode). That’s why you get only one outfit for most of the characters, except when absolutely necessary.

Saving their production budget for other things is why Theo Barbot has all of the odd jobs in Paris, there seems to be only one cop, Sabrina’s dad, and Alec and Nadja are the only people on TV. If you take a look in Bubbler, the first episode aired in the US, you can see that the school, the bakery, the hotel, and the Agreste Manor are all within one block of each other.

CallMeDale posted this to the Miraculous Fanworks Discord. Source unknown. Image originally from Bubbler.

What this production cost means for analyzing a character (or anything else) is that everything we see in a visual medium is important. Everything about a character has been picked for some reason. How they look, how they move–even how they stand says something about who they are as a person, who they are in their relationships, and who they are as an element of the story.

I did a fairly comprehensive essay on Chloé as a character so I want to walk through some of the things I looked at in order to write it.

Character at First Sight:

First impressions are vital. Because Marinette is picked to be our eyes as the OP starts (“In the daytime I’m Marinette,”) we know she is supposed to be our heroine and point of view. Everything that happens after that is to be judged in relation to her. The first time we see Chloé in the show is a whole 5 seconds into the opening, when she and Sabrina walk past a face-planted Marinette. Immediately afterwards, Chloé runs back in to glomp Adrien and push Marinette out of the way.

From these few brief seconds we know that she is both rich and domineering, Sabrina is walking just behind her with a huge designer purse and bookbag, obviously in a subservient role. Chloé laughs at Marinette, which establishes her as an antagonist to the Heroine. Chloé pushing Marinette out of fram when she comes back shows that she exists in part to block our Heroine from Adrien, our Hero, whose expression shows he really doesn’t appreciate the attention.

Not even three seconds of screen time and we already know who Chloé is in relation to three people: Marinette, Adrien, and Sabrina.

How much time a character gets in the beginning of a story also sets up how much brainspace we allocate them and our expectation of their importance. This is one reason I prefer Bubbler as the “first episode’’ (US viewing order) over Stormy Weather (South Korean/International Viewing order). Stormy Weather spends the first few minutes on Aurore, Mirielle, and Alex before getting to Mari, Tikki, Manon, Alya, and Adrien. Bubbler in the same first minute sets up Marinette, her parents, Adrien, Alya, Chloé, and Nino and all their relationships.

By choosing your descriptions carefully you can get the reader to think of other things without directly mentioning them. Ladybug’s costume, mode of travel and name all callback to Spiderman (she even does the upside down hang in Dark Cupid), and even though the iconic phrase “with great power comes great responsibility,” is never stated its influence is felt in the persistent characterization of Ladybug as ‘all business’ in fic, even though she is more playful in canon. Master Fu is modeled after classic inscrutable mentor Mr. Miyagi from the original Karate Kid movies, it gives him an air of perhaps more wisdom and knowledge than he actually possesses.

Come on Let’s Vogue: How the Look of a Character Informs Us

Now let’s look at what we get from the elements selected for Chloe’s character design. Slender, pale, almost-white blonde hair, sunglasses on the top of her head, lots of blue eyeshadow, yellow jacket over a black and white striped shirt, white capris and black and white flats. All of this says she is the top of the social heap at her school. Combined with her glomping and trying to kiss Adrien and we can guess she is–or at least wants to be seen as–romantically “experienced”. Yellow is a happy color, it’s what makes a printed picture look bright. Often, though not always, it is associated with success and general goodness (i.e. a heart of gold) so she is initially portrayed as a person who doesn’t have any cares. White jeans and shoes point to both her status as someone who doesn’t have to work and a certain level of naivete.

But she also has this very gothy studded belt around her hips. It is very obviously not holding up her pants. This hints at the darker emotions and experiences at her core. The black and white stripes of her undershirt hint at the way she is held prisoner by her past.

Because we have been set up to see Chloé as the spoiled,rich bitch with everything she could want, when the facade cracks and we see just how awful her mother is it hits all the harder for us. Chloé’s invulnerable image is destroyed.

“What’s in a Name?”: Tagging as Character creation

Names are also a good starting place for getting into a character.

Bourgeois comes layered with the connotations of wealth, but not too much, and shallow conformity. Chloé is derived from the Greek Khlóe, or ‘young green shoot’ (of a plant), which can also be interpreted as meaning 'blooming.’ Khlóe is an epithet, or nickname, for Demeter in her aspect of the Lady of Summer. We know the writers know and are thinking of these meanings because of these lines in Sandboy.

Nightmare Adrien: Marinette, for your birthday, I’m going to buy you flowers—

…

Nightmare Adrien: —hortensias, roses and Chloés. (Marinette shrieks)

Not only does her name sound like that of a Homecoming Queen/Cheerleader/trust fund baby, but it also indicates she is immature but with potential to become something more.

Queen Bee is also laden with meaning as it is a term used to describe girls in their teens who are at the top of their social pecking order (see Queen Bees & WannaBes). It perfectly describes bothe how Chloé acts but also how she perceives herself.

The Things You Do to Me: Character Action

Characters in a story are what they do and more importantly why they do what they do. If Marinette becomes Ladybug for the first time because someone needs saving (first Ivan, then Alya), and Adrien becomes Chat Noir in order to escape the gilded cage that is his house, Chloé dons the Bee miraculous in a desperate (and unsuccessful) bid to catch her mother’s attention.

Attention seeking is part of every subsequent time that her hero persona appears in the story. Consider the implications of the fact that the signal on her roof is a Bee signal, not a Ladybug signal. The gestursal tic she has of always examining her nails, often with the other arm folded over her chest, is a visual shorthand for both her self-absorption and that her unpleasant personality is a defence mechanism.

Dialogue clues are also important, especially things that come up more than once. Chloé’s persistent lack of remembrance of the Concierge’s name (Jean-whatever) shows her to be dismissive of the people she believes to be “beneath her” which becomes horribly ironic when we find out her mother doesn’t seem to remember her name. That Marinette is always Dunain-Cheng, emphasizing her parents status as tradesman and that Marinette is not pure French operates as a persistent put down.

Chloé is a Hero with an F in Good, primed by the writers for the Face–Heel Turn which happens in Miracle Queen. They telegraph this event by the choice to echo her “once a monster always a monster,” line from Stoneheart, in the S3 midseason Stormy Weather 2. There she mocks Aurore with “once a villain always a villain.” Highly ironic given the number of times Chloé has been akumatized and prompted it in others. Her bad heroing serves to show that actions and motives are not always aligned and to highlight the selflessness of the other heroes.

A great example of showing character through dialogue is Nino’s conversation with Gabriel in Bubbler. Nino was given a very distinctive, persistent, and casual speech pattern (“dude” in English), It’s so distinctive that Alya immediately recognizes that he is Carapace. The fact that he makes an effort to suppress it when he is trying to persuade Gabriel to let Adrien have a birthday party shows how much he cares about giving Adrien this gift. It’s part of what establishes him in our minds as such a great friend for Adrien (King of Bros!). Giving characters individualized vocabularies and speech patterns is one of the best ways to help distinguish them in both your, and the reader’s mind.

All Together Now!

As you read and experience more stories, you will recognize more and more common elements across the characters, places, events and ideas that make up the stories you read. As you recognize these building blocks, and how they can be combined and manipulated, they will help you understand better why certain characters do what they do in the story. You can then deliberately select them as you create your own stories to highlight desired themes, set up conflicts or call cultural resonances to your readers’ minds. Remember what you write is a conversation between you, your reader, and the world around you. The more of the world you can bring into your writing the deeper it will impact your readers.

#tag: guide #tag: submit #submission

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aokane-eldarya · 4 years

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Thomas ASTRUC : “In season 4, it will be a bomb by episode. This is the equivalent of the impact of a Cat Blanc episode in each episode.” Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : “All your certainties will be upset. And it will also be the season of the episode 100, it will be necessary to watch it.” - Translation of a French interview -

Interview made by Damien Mercereau for "Le Figaro"

INTERVIEW - Meeting with the creator, the executive producer and the writers of the tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir on the sidelines of the broadcast, this Sunday morning on TF1, of the finale of season 3.

After a first introductory season of the Miraculous universe and a second season in which Ladybug and Cat Noir were able to deepen their learning of budding superheroes, the third season was the testing of the heroine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. In the heart of Paris, this shy and clumsy junior high school student has become in spite of herself Ladybug, an assertive superheroine. At her side, handsome Adrien Agreste, humble and sensitive, turns into a very confident and enterprising Cat Noir. Both don't know who is behind their costume.

Together, they fight Hawkmoth and Mayura and their army of super-villains. New miraculous and new powers have appeared in season 3 broadcast since last April on TF1, strengthening the potential of heroes. In parallel with this struggle between good and evil, the series also relates the tormented life of a small group of Parisian junior high school students, their friendships, their passions, their first love stories, their joys, their sorrows... In the middle of all this, there is Marinette's unconfessed love for Adrien and the fact that each of them becomes closer, respectively, from Luka and Kagami.

A few days ago, we met Miraculous's masterminds in a Paris office during their writing workshop... of the season 5 : Thomas Astruc, the creator of the series, Sebastien Thibaudeau, writing director and executive producer and screenwriters Mélanie Duval and Frédéric Lenoir.

LE FIGARO : What was the general idea of this season 3 of Miraculous?

Mélanie DUVAL : Very familiarly, we wrote the episodes telling us that Marinette was going to have hard times. She begins her school year by losing her place in the class. She already had Chloe as an enemy, she ended up with a second one, Lila. The love of her life is coveted by another ... She is overwhelmed!

Thomas ASTRUC : It was a season focused on Master Fu (the guardian of the miraculous, ed) and at the same time a test of Marinette. To pull our characters up, we have to agree to make them fall very low. Many things happen, shaken up and end in the final. The series could have stopped there with this bittersweet end. Nothing is predictable in Miraculous.

Is there a real chronology to respect following the episodes?

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : Each story is an entry point, we give back all the necessary information for a non-initiate to the universe of Miraculous to understand.

Thomas ASTRUC : There are seasonal chronologies. The stories of the first season must precede those of the second one, which themselves must be before the third one. But each season has a particular taste with, in its first episode, an overview. In the middle, a set that can be viewed in almost any order where each episode will bring new information. And in the end, a last episode where all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. This is a serie that you can watch many times, you will always discover something new.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : In the first season, we had tested things like showing Chloe who plays to dress up as Ladybug. This started the development of her character. Gradually, we began to sow elements that made sense later.

How came the idea of the episode called "Cat Blanc" that shows what would happen in the future if the two heroes fell in love with each other?

Thomas ASTRUC : This is an episode that required a year of writing work and we finally see only small bits of what we had originally imagined. The TV channels had validated the first version (TF1 in France, Disney Channel in the United States and Gloob in Brazil, ed) but we had decided to review our copy. It is extremely rare for authors to make such a decision, but for us it was not good enough. We still did not have enough control over the world of our characters to be able to write it correctly, we had to take our time.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : We wrote flashbacks that I did not believe. They did not fit the mentality of our characters. We stopped everything to start from scratch with the initial idea : what would happen if Marinette and Adrien were together and if Adrien knew that Marinette was hiding from him that she was Ladybug ? It took us an extra week. Once this work was done, we were able to focus on the present of the heroes and disseminate plots of our flashbacks. We still have scenes that we loved but were not used for lack of space. Initially, Cat Blanc was a season 2 episode but it finally took place at the end of season 3.

Does the story of Cat Blanc annihilate the possibility of a love relationship between Marinette and Adrien?

Thomas ASTRUC : The episode Cat Blanc does not close the possibility of a relationship between them but it shows how delicate it would be. They are both heroes, the villain wants to steal their miraculous so a romantic relationship would be like dynamite. It is to be treated carefully, it could not happen anyhow or anytime. A priori, as long as a villain is looking for their miraculous, it will be complicated... Since the beginning, we know that if they know their respective secret identity, it would be enough for one or the other to have a negative emotion for to be akumatized and give Hawkmoth what he wants. With the episode Cat Blanc, you now know what would happen if they were in a relationship.

In the episode "Timetagger", you gave us another projection of the future of Ladybug and Cat Noir...

Thomas ASTRUC : The future is not fixed - that's what the episode Cat Blanc could demonstrate. But we can afford to assert certain things because we have a very long-term vision of the series and we know where we want to bring it. Time travel is often double-edged. A child will consider this phenomenon for the first time while a teenager or an adult will have other references like Terminator, Back to the Future, Doctor Who and be more critical. Paradoxically, a child will understand things more naturally.

Frédéric LENOIR : We master the universe of the series so it's easy to play with our characters and to confront them to different situations. We seek above all to build stories that are interesting and understandable.

Thomas ASTRUC : We think that what children do not know, they learn. When they are confronted with new things in Miraculous, we become their first explanation. It does not matter if they do not immediately understand some winks, they can understand them later. The names of the protagonists, the costumes of the superheroes, the places ... There are a multitude of small clues to dig which are full of cultural information. For example, the story of Master Fu's girlfriend in "Backwarder" is a tribute to the grandmother of our screenwriter Frédéric Lenoir who is a former resistance fighter. We called her Marianne Lenoir.

What values do you wish to convey through the episodes of Miraculous?

Mélanie DUVAL : We are sensitive to the impact of pop culture on young people. We are very careful not to show in the series some things that could have a bad influence on their imagination. I remember having hated this figure given here or there to the class-nerd abused by his comrades. In Miraculous, we have the sportsman, the nerd, the good friend, the nuisance... But nobody is abused. We show a kind of ideal where the big sporty can be the best friend of the intellectual. And facing a negative character like Chloe, the question is not going to be how to make her nice, but rather how to react to her. Her friend Sabrina is abused but she did not say her last word.

Thomas ASTRUC : This degree of submission to the bad person is something that we have to deal with. But to achieve this, we must first establish the basics, show the facts and behaviors. Sabrina's problem requires time to be effectively settled.

Frédéric LENOIR : If you approach and solve a problem too quickly, you may treat it too mechanically and theoretically. Our principle is to approach each theme in a constructive and rewarding way. We go over what should not be done because we strongly believe in what has to be done. Our characters also believe in it. We always try to go to the light.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : We are careful to show things that are right, to convey good values and this leads us to have long philosophical debates during our writing workshops. You can spend a whole day thinking about the meaning of an episode. When we meet parents who tell us that what we tell their child is good, we are really flattered.

What is waiting for us in season 4?

Mélanie DUVAL : This is the season when the characters really take control of the series.

Thomas ASTRUC : In season 3, Marinette suffered and in season 4, it will be a bomb by episode. This is the equivalent of the impact of a Cat Blanc episode in each episode. Everyone will be flabbergasted. She has new responsibilities and she is maturing. At the site level, after the Grévin museum and the Saint-Martin canal, we will visit the Swan Island.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : Season 4 is the one that surprised us the most. All your certainties will be upset. And it will also be the season of the episode 100, it will be necessary to watch it. And a special episode will wait before the release of season 4. Many events will mark the year 2020.

#miraculous ladybug

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redrikki · 4 years

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Miraculous Ladybug Re-Watch: Origins Part 1

I’ll be kicking off the new year by watching one episode of Miraculous Ladybug each day until I run out. Thanks to @alexseanchai for helping me figure out the timeline. I will, of course, be starting with Origins as the show should have done.

Hawkmoth kicks off his dastardly plan. School starts and we are introduced to Our Heroes. Ivan is akumatised. Our Heroes save the day and also completely fuck it up. I have some thoughts.

That was quite the exposition dump, Nooru. Thanks for that. Wouldn’t it have been awesome if the actual show runners started things off like that instead of just dumping people into an incomprehensible plot?

You ever notice just how many anime and rom-com heroines are painfully clumsy? Do writers think that’s #relatable or is it their way of giving the heroine ‘flaws’ that are still endearing before the potentially off-putting personality flaws are revealed?

Master Fu’s tests of character feel very fairy tale like in the younger-brother-who-is-kind-to-the-old-woman-gets-the-throne sort of way. They also tell us a lot about Marinette and Adrien as people. It’s not just that they’re willing to help people, it’s about how they do it. Fu isn’t in active peril yet when Marinette pulls him out of the crosswalk, but her anxiety over what might happen if he’s still in the way compiles her to act with quick thinking. Adrien, meanwhile, spots someone in active need of assistance and sacrifices his opportunity to go to school to help him. Is it bad, though, that I genuinely hope Fu was stalking those kids for a while beforehand because, honestly, there is nothing about either of those interactions which would make it clear that they were qualified to be superheroes.

I’m not handicapped, but, as I understand from my friends who are, grabbing someone and physically moving them without their permission is generally considered a no-no. Adrien asks before he helps Fu up. Marinette just grabs. Whatever.

I love Alya’s introduction. She’s so bad ass. Also, her quote about all evil needing to succeed is that good people do nothing is so on-brand for her and the show. It also puts Mademoiselle Bustier in a pretty bad light considering she just stands there as Chloé bullies Marinette and does fuck-all about it.

Is Kim bullying Ivan a case of early installment weirdness or it supposed to be a case of him being the kind of tactless kid who would challenge a panther to a race?

Alya is too excited about one of her classmates turning into a super villain. Also, people in this world seem more accepting of real life super villains and heroes in general, even before they become a daily occurrence. Are they already a daily occurrence? Is Majestica a real person? Is she one of those other miraculous users?

Did Fu break into their houses to put the jewelry there or did he have a kwami deliver the boxes? Now I’m picturing Fu stealth breaking into the Agreste mansion to the mission impossible theme.

The kids’ reaction to their kwamis is just adorable. Marinette freaks out. Adrien is simultaneously annoyed about Plagg’s plagg-ness and completely jazzed about being in a magical girl anime.

Fu only made a mistake about miraculous users once. Is he referring to himself messing with the peacock, or is there another fuck-up we have yet to learn about? Was it Emilee? Quick, someone write me that fic!

The first time I watched the show, I thought Marinette’s Ladybug vision was part of her powers, not her piecing together a plan. Her just being that observant and creative is infinitely cooler.

Adrien used his power on the wrong thing and Marinette forgot to catch the akuma. You know what might have helped avoid all that? If Fu had actually took the time to explain to the kids WTF was going on instead of leaving it to the kwamis who did, let’s face it, a really bad job. I get he’s operating from a place of fear and trauma, but come on. He couldn’t have even attempted to mentor?

Wow, Paris is super chill about Ivan turning into a rock monster and terrorizing/ injuring people. How is he not in jail? Like, I could buy people being more forgiving after it becomes a regular occurrence and people understand how it works, but everyone just forgives him and no one seems triggered by his presence at school the next day. For a show where one of the main characters has anxiety and the ‘mentor’ has PTSD, they do a really shitty job showing the effects of trauma on the city as a whole. Whatever. Cartoons!

#miraculous ladybug #ml rewatch #ml season 1 #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #master fu

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purrincess-chat · 5 years

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Alright @felorteguimiguez since you wanted me to “reply” to your “constructive criticism” here we go. Buckle your seat belt, children, we’re going for a ride.

+ Honestly, this is ... not very good. the story turns Lila into a deceitful person for no reason, ingorando that his parents are probably negligent and that they are divorced (just look for the name of the mother of lilay and you will notice something in his last name), makes Marinette even more in a Mary Sue of what she already is and everything is summed up "to lie is bad, Marinette was right, Lila was wrong, all of Solciana and only Lila learns something in a *part 2 becuse i did not know the* limit bad way". There is no development in Marittene THAT STILL DOES NOT LEARN FROM THE VOLPINE EPISODE and everything that is solved magically. I like how Rose begins to suspect clear Remember, this is just a constructive criticism

In response to this post for those wondering

Alright, let’s get started because we have a lot to unpack here.

So, you’ve told me that you’ve seen Catalyst, so my first question is did you watch it with your eyes open? It’s pretty bold of you to claim that I turned Lila into a “deceitful person for no reason” when in fact, canon did that from the moment she was introduced. Now, you argue that her parents are “probably negligent” or divorced because “look at her mom’s last name” or some shit, but let’s analyze this situation with our eyes open, mmkay?

Man, that mom sure gives no fucks about her daughter. Saying that she’s worried about all of these akumatizations and that she’s gonna try to do something about it so her daughter can feel safe and go back to school. I mean it’s really top notch parental negligence if you ask me.

Look how much apathy there is in the way she lovingly kisses her hair.

God, what selfish mom puts lunch in the fridge for their child so that they have something to eat while their parent has to be away? I mean, my loving mother just made me fix something myself when she had to work. What does she think Lila is so stupid she can’t fix herself a sandwich so she has to do it for her? The gall of that woman.

In case you haven’t caught on, I’m being sarcastic.

Cause I don’t buy into your idea that Lila is neglected because nothing in this scene supports that. Sure, her mom might be busy with work, but she clearly pays attention to Lila and does her best to take care of her, Lila is just really good at lying hence why she has gotten away with her shit for so long. Which truthfully, her whole situation doesn’t make sense because how in the hell has she gotten away with not going to school for several months? Especially if the principal has been trying to contact them and been unsuccessful? I’ll tell you why:

You bring up her mother’s last name, but I invite you do to your research before spouting ignorance.

Her mother doesn’t have a name. The animators just got lazy and reused a character model. So, no, you can’t prove that her parents are divorced just because we don’t see her dad and her mom has a “different last name.” We don’t see a lot of people’s parents in this show. Does that mean that Rose doesn’t have parents? Or Nino? Nathaniel? Kim? Max? Marc? Is everyone just an orphan just because their parents don’t appear on screen? Do people only exist when you can see them?

Also I invite you to read this analysis on why the term Mary Sue is bullshit, and then I encourage you to remove it from your vocabulary. And if we’re going to complain about Marinette “not getting development” since Volpina umm

I can’t say I know what you mean?

Let’s take a look at what Marinette says in this scene in Frozer, shall we?

“Actually, girls I don’t think I want to cancel. Adrien really needs me, and if he wants my advice then why not? Afterall, it’s not an issue, and I’m definitely not jealous because there’s nothing between us.”

What lesson are you referring here to that Marinette hasn’t learned since Volpina? Jealousy certainly isn’t an issue anymore. So are you referring to her not being fond of liars? As if that’s somehow a lesson that she should learn? What lesson has she not learned since Volpina? She tried to apologize to Lila for yelling at her, but Lila refused to forgive her. Marinette is constantly apologizing for things that aren’t even her fault and taking the blame for things and learning lessons for other people. ALWAYS.

And she is the furthest thing from perfect. She gets hot-headed, she lashes out, she says things on impulse, time and time again she makes mistakes and then tries to fix them. God forbid someone else have to learn a lesson for once. Because, yes, Lila should learn to stop lying. She should have to tell the truth because her lies have reached an unhealthy level. She has literally locked herself in her house for months, lying to her mother about the school being closed, lying to her classmates and saying that she’s traveling, and for what? Canon never expresses a logical reason other than “she hates Ladybug.”

So does that make Marinette a “Mary Sue” just because she’s good at some stuff? And by some stuff I mean, video games and sewing? Because that’s kind of the only things that she’s been canonically shown to be good at? Oh no, god forbid that a character have hobbies. Honestly, if you’re going to criticize Marinette for being good a two whole things, maybe we should take some shots at Adrien for being good at l i t e r a l l y everything. Fencing, Chinese, basketball, lacrosse, piano, physics, poetry, being an oblivious fucking idiot. (I say that with love, Adrien) I guess I’m just a little confused as to what classifies Marinette as a “Mary Sue.”

I also find it bold of you to point out that “everything gets fixed magically” when that is literally the e n t i r e f u c k i n g p r e m i s e of this show. You know how much shit gets glossed over in this show for the sake of time? The post you are “constructively critiquing” was literally a thought that I had this morning that I decided to type up and post. It isn’t 100% fleshed out. It lacks a lot of details that would get added in later if I decided to write it, which since you like it so much, I might just fucking write it. It wasn’t meant to be some holy grail of writing meant to solve all of the world’s problems, it was literally just a casual idea that came to me. God forbid I post my fanfic ideas on my fanfic blog.

Just a bit of life advice, but generally speaking, unless someone asks you for criticism then keep it to yourself. If someone is just out here trying to have a good time then let them have a good time. You know how much shit I see on tumblr every day that I disagree with or people’s fics or ideas or concepts that I’m kinda meh about? A fuck ton. But do I go in and say “hey, this idea is bullshit and here’s why?” No! Because sometimes you just have to let people live their life. I never asked for people’s thoughts on my idea, I just said, hey here’s some shit I thought of this morning. Sure, not all of my ideas are good. In fact, I think most of them are garbage which is why I refer to most of them as diarrhea from my brain because that’s what they are, but ya know, sometimes I just want to put those ideas out into the world on my own blog because maybe someone will get a kick out of them. and no one fucking roasts me better than me because I’m a piece of shit and I know it

I have no fucking idea what show you’re watching, but if you’re going to comment on my posts again, I highly recommend you check out the show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. A decent chunk of it is on Netflix, and you can probably find the rest on Youtube. Be sure to keep your eyes open when you watch.

#ml salt #cat replies #don't come into a blog titled marinette defense squad and call her a sue #cause i know a lot of people who will willingly fight you for it #delete later #you interrupted my sims playing #so if you don't mind #i'm gonna go back to that

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just-watch-me-hachiko · 6 years

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Without Anesthesia: Chapter 13 - “Wie Schön sie sind, Herr Göring!”

Read it on AO3, DeviantArt, or FanFiction.net Author: Pawpels

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir English, Rated: PG (ish) Slice of Life/Romance/WWII AU Characters: Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug, Adrien/ Chat Noir Chapters: 13/?, Words: 26,770, Status: In-Progress __________________________________________________________ Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng works as a field nurse for the French army during World War II, and Adrien Agreste winds up her patient after a battle. Notes: First, because this is Tumblr I want to be clear that the title is a sarcastic quote from the fic and not an actual statement about Nazi Official, Hermann Göring. Next, although you're probably used to the graphic descriptions of wounds at this point, this chapter also contains references to a physical altercation that could be considered extremely similar to abuse.Brief mention of injury to a child. There's also mild profanity in this chapter. __________________________________________________________

Before the child had woken from her mid-day slumber, a decision had been reached as to the fate of her arm, and it was not one about which Marinette felt comfortable.

The doctors had very quickly deemed amputation to be the most reasonable pathway, and had sent the girl to the proper team almost immediately upon arriving at the conclusion.

Marinette did not think the decision itself was necessarily the wrong one given the present circumstances—after all, the child couldn't feel the arm, couldn't move the arm, and already had a sickly yellow pooling at the end of her fingertips which could only mean that blood wasn't circulating either—but she was perturbed by the fact that she would not be allowed to assist.

Although most of the doctors at the base were more than willing to take her on as an aide for her skills alone, there were those who refused to work with a nurse whose linguistic abilities were not up to par. In the case of an amputation—and one involving a child no less—Marinette had been instructed to stay away.

She tried her best to bide her time. She knew, of course, that such a surgery would not be completed quickly, but an infinite number of possible complications meant that the wait was agonizing. She roamed from room to room, theatre to theatre, hoping to find something to take her mind off of her worries. She even opted out of her breaks and lunches after discovering that her idle mind contained flashes of only the absolute worst outcomes that could possibly befall such an undeserving recipient.

When, shortly before dinnertime, she heard her named being called frantically from the next room, her heart jumped into her throat and threatened to escape out her mouth. She dashed over, fearing the absolute worst, only to be met with a trio of truly frazzled nurses, who seemed to be too exasperated to be bringing news of the child's surgery.

"She won't stop speaking French!" the nurse cried, "We can't understand a word she's saying!"

"Won't you please talk to her?" asked another.

"Get her to calm down!" griped a third.

It took Marinette only a second to assess the situation. Inside of the room was a small, ill-mannered woman—or perhaps only a girl—no older than she, with mousey-brown hair that was more a mess than even the most overworked nurses and factory women would have thought proper to keep. She lay on a cot in the middle of the room, covered head to toe in all manner of injuries—some still only half-bandaged—and screamed and beat her mattress in a self-flagellating fury. The other patients cowered in fear of her, although it was obvious from her flailing that she was unable to rise up and attack them.

"Please calm down!" Marinette cried out as she entered the room.

Perhaps it was the sudden loud noise, or perhaps it was the fact that she had found another body speaking her native tongue, but the thrashing stopped suddenly, and the girl blinked at her in wide-eyed confusion, as though she had only just realized what a racket she was making.

"Now," Marinette continued calmly, as though she were hoping to impress upon the other that she was quite certain she was speaking to a sane individual, when in reality she had no idea if that was the case, "can you tell me what's wrong?"

"We're at war, dimwit," the girl spat.

Marinette was taken aback by this response, but she pressed on: "I… was hoping you could tell me about your injuries."

"Gee, sure, ma'am. I'd love to!" the girl smiled sarcastically, "This one here is from where they beat me. And this one is where I got slapped across the face. Like the blood? It's from the officer's stupid wedding ring—the cheating bastard. Oh! And this one here's from his boots when he was trying to crush my lungs. You ever had a punctured lung?"

Marinette couldn't say that she had. The girl kept going.

"I've got scratches from the forest, blisters from my shoes, bruises from being dumped in a trash-bin, a black eye and bleeding lip, and this lovely little lady right here."

The girl lifted up the tattered edge of her shirt to reveal a bullet wound that covered more than half her abdomen, nearly a week old and completely untreated.

"We need to take a look at that," Marinette tried to say calmly, but the panic of seeing such a large and grotesque wound on such a tiny person—especially one who seemed to care so little—threatened to creep into her voice with every syllable.

"What's the point?" the girl asked, her angry sarcasm melting into a defeated tone. "I'm no good to anybody now. Never was."

"I'm certain that's not—" Marinette began.

"Look around!" the girl cried, "I could have prevented this! I could have prevented all of this!"

"There's no way you could have—"

Although it had been many months since she'd had the opportunity to practice her skills, it seemed that Marinette's presence alone was enough to induce candor in even the most guarded individuals.

"I could've and I should've," the girl said with an air of finality, but she continued anyways. "See, I was a spy for the—"

"Should you really be saying that so loudly?" Marinette asked in a whisper, as though the walls had ears.

"They don't understand a word we're saying," the girl almost laughed, "Dumb Brits. Only speak English. Est-ce que tu me comprends?" she shouted at a terrified looking woman who showed absolutely no sign of understanding.

"At least let me examine your cuts," Marinette muttered as the girl continued with her story.

"I was a spy, see. For the French first, and then the British when we damn near lost it all, but pretending I was working for the Germans. I spent near eight months working for the bloody Nazis. Bringin' em tea. Pretendin' I respect 'em. 'Ah, Herr Goebbels, möchten Sie etwas Tee?' "Wie schön Sie sind, Herr Göring!" Bastards."

As the girl engaged more and more passionately in her narrative, Marinette had the opportunity to examine more of her wounds. She motioned to one of the other nurses, who was still hovering in the doorway to bring some antiseptic and bandages and got to work on the tiny, stinging cuts on her legs and arms.

"I heard everything. Every meeting, every conversation, every plan. They thought I was a regular German citizen. Sometimes I'm glad my father was so insistent we learn to speak it right, because I wouldn'ta lasted a day if they knew I was the 'enemy.'"

She paused and chuckled… "Well… they sure found out alright. Stupid."

The other nurse had returned with the requested supplies, plus a small pair of tweezers, and Marinette had begun the arduous effort of cleaning every individual wound on the girl's body.

"I heard about the errant bombers back in August. I knew they were errant, but by the time I'd managed to phone base, they'd already sent retaliation to Berlin. I knew I could have called earlier, but I was scared of bein' caught. Scared in September too, but I had to risk it. I knew where the planes were headed. I knew WHEN the planes were headed."

Marinette tried not to look it, but she was absolutely enthralled by the girl's story. She almost hoped it was true, although it was just as likely that her patient was absolutely loony and she was audience to little more than a delusion. Still, her effortless German and knowledge of specific occurrences gave credence to her tale.

"I thought maybe I could sneak into the marshal's office late past midnight and use his private radio insteada meeting up with my usual contact. Only… he wasn't sleepin' too well that night, and he caught me speakin' French into the microphone."

"So he did this to you?" Marinette asked.

"All 'cept what the branches added," she shrugged, "Say, you done pretty good on those scratches. Why didn't I notice you doin' that?"

"A nurse's touch, I suppose," Marinette replied nonchalantly. In truth, recounting her tale seemed to be acting as its own sort of anesthetic for the girl, who hadn't once noticed the stinging antiseptic solution which had touched her open wounds no less than a dozen times already.

"Right," she continued, "and I got a high paint tolerance. Always have. If I didn't, we probably wouldn't be talking. You ever have a broken rib? No, I asked that already…. You ever play dead after someone shoots you?"

Marinette couldn't say she'd done this either.

"Could I take a look at that?" she asked instead.

"What do you care what I give you permission to do?" she griped, but in-genuinely enough that Marinette took it as consent. "You already patched up the little stuff I told you not to. Why don't we just fix everything? Gimme a new set of organs while you're at it. I'm sure you got plenty layin' around these days."

Obviously, she was used to the dark sarcasm and gallows humor that the girl seemed to be using to cope, but it was true that the hospital had lost its fair share of patients this morning, and there were undoubtedly many more innocent bodies in the streets and morgues that had not made it to their doors.

"Anyways… The Marshall—after he's pretty sure I'm dead—has his officer thugs toss me in the dumpster, like I'm human garbage. Probably didn't want his fellow assholes to know he'd personally hired a spy to be his damn maid. I wait until it's quiet and then work my way outa the bag and try to meet up with my contact, but he's nowhere to be found. Maybe he split. Maybe his passport went through and he moved outa this hell hole of a continent. Maybe the Nazis found him first. I don't know. Either way, I'd lost my damn contact, and I couldn't just use any ol' radio."

"So what did you do?" Marinette asked, genuinely curious. She'd now fully accepted the story as being true.

"I walked, of course."

"But… the channel-"

"I walked and hitched rides, and then I took a boat. Stowed away on a cargo ship, thank goodness, and ended up arriving while the bombs were falling. I walked all the way from Berlin, and the sky was already on fire."

"You did everything you could."

"I could have waited, like a goddamn intelligent person, until I'd got a hold of a secure line. I coulda found a radio instead of tryin' to get to headquarters myself. I coulda called in back in August. Maybe I'da died then, but if Churchill hadn'ta sent those stupid planes to Berlin, maybe we coulda avoided this whole mess."

Marinette gulped. She wasn't sure, but she would bet her salary that those were the very planes she'd discussed with Private Lahiffe—one of which, she was quite certain, contained the soldier who continued to consume her thoughts even to this day, Private Agreste.

Still, Private Agreste was not at fault for this. This girl was not at fault for this. Even the politicians and generals who had ordered the attack couldn't have expected this level of retaliation for what she assumed had been a fairly small number of bombers. Destruction aside, the whole thing just felt so inevitable. So childish. So… stupid, as the girl had said.

"Sometimes things just… happen," Marinette said in a way that was meant to be comforting, but felt more foreboding than anything else.

"It's just wretched. All over a steaming pile of crap... And now I've blown my cover at the Reichstag, so I can't even work there again. If Kim gets a punch in on ol' Adolph, I won't be around to see it."

Marinette let the comment pass. It was common to hear talk of personally assaulting the Füher, but something about the way the girl said it felt familiar. Perhaps Kim was a fellow spy. She wasn't sure.

"Let's talk about your wound."

"What's to talk about?" the girl asked.

"First of all, the bad news. The bullet's still in there, and I don't think it makes sense to take it out at this point. You said you got shot several days ago, right?"

"Yeah. I'm only here today because someone shoved me too hard in the panic. Made me black out, and next thing I know I'm in a damn hospital bed."

Marinette continued: "The good news, though, is that it's healing cleanly. You'll always have a scar, but you can cover it easily with clothes and it shouldn't cause you any pain. Everything on your arms and legs should heal too."

"Gee, thanks ma'am. I lost my job, but at least I'll always have my looks," she replied mockingly.

"Perhaps you could enlist, or work as a nurse?"

"Like you? No thank you," the girl snorted, "Not that I don't appreciate what you're doing, but I don't take orders so good. Thought about joinin' the army once I realized I could, but I wouldn'ta made it through training. Too spirited, my dad says. Too independent, I say. I think Kim liked to call me a brat for it, but he's dumb as a box of rocks anyways."

"Can I ask what your name is?" Marinette asked, suddenly realizing she'd never asked.

"It's Alix, ma'am. Alix Kubdell."

"You're joking," Marinette gawked.

"Yeah, that's the kinda thing I'd joke about," Alix said, wrinkling up her nose.

"I served with your brother back in France. Jalil, right?"

"No kidding?" This time it was Alix's turn to be shocked. "It's the smallest world, I swear. How's the idiot doing?"

"I'm not sure…" Marinette confessed, "I know his unit is in Narvik. My friend Alya sends me letters, and she says things are going well. I can give you the address if you want to write to him."

"Damn, maybe I'll go to Narvik. I bet they don't know me in… Sweden?"

"Norway."

"Nah, can't do Norway. Too cold. I'll find somethin' south-side to do once I'm all healed up. Italy, maybe. I really screwed this one up, but we still have a war to win. I've got money on it."

She gave a sudden start, as though she'd remembered something important.

"Actually, I've got money against it… but some bets you just gotta lose."

#miraculous ladybug #ml #miraculous ladybug fan fic #ml fanfic #marinette dupain-cheng #Hey Hachiko #Red Writing #Without Anesthesia #Okay to reblog

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danixia · 6 years

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Shananigans of being an aupair and Miraculous

(Ok so I cant share the kid's names so its gonna be girl or little girl, boy or little dude)

So for those who dont know what an aupair is, it's like a babysitter but you live with the kids and the parents, you take care of the kids , and sometimes you do some extra jobs (cleaning, taking care of pets ...) so the first time I kinda came in contact with miraculous was when I was at a pastors house, and some relatives went there and there was this girl, a pre-teen maybe that was watching what seemed to me like anime (it was those comics about ladybug) and since I am a big fan of anime, and I wanted to ACTUALY talk to someone about it(becouse I didnt have anyone that would talk to me about it altough they watched it...), I decided to put conversation with her. “So, you like anime?” She smiles”Yeah” “whats the name of this one your watching?” “Miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir” “I think I´ve heard about it before, is it good? “ “IT´S SO GOOD” “ So what is it about?” she says “hmm” and I go “what´s the plot about?” “ I really don't know” (I think she said this because the love square is really hard to explain hahaha)

Months passed and now I´m in Ireland with, what I like to call them, My two kids, and I could not, I repeat, I could NOT watch the same movie again, as funny as it was I couldn't also, I wasn't sleeping that well and I didn't had the energy to play with them, as much as I loved them, so I started zapping in hopes to find something that would amuse the three of us. And then I see “Miraculous tales of ladybug and Cat noir” It wasn't the first time I noticed it, but I was always like, “meh it's just a kid show” but that day I decided to give it a try.

And the three of us were GLUED to the couch

What appealed to me was how light it was, it was fun, it made me remember when I was a teen and had those huge crushes on guys.

The girl loved LB and CN because Lb was strong, and Chat was in her words “he is really like a kitty!” because of the way he moves, the bell and she was the first to notice that his ears moved. She would always sing to the intro and one time she started repeating what Marinette says in the beginning but like really dramatized, and so serious like it was a matter of life and death I just stared at her and started to laugh my ass off.

The boy tough loved CN! And I mean it, it was like he was seeing his “idol” or something. He would always laugh when he felt, when he tries to make some advances on LB and she pushes him away with his finger, or just when he was making advances on her, but the laugh he would give when she pushed him away, it would give anyone life. XD

They both loved when LB would ring Chats bell, for some reason that was really funny.

They both liked Alya, but especially the girl, once she even said she liked her better than Ladybug.

And everyone hated Chloe.

And then....was the puns they were too young to understand them, but they are so recurrent that when we were together I would do the puns and they would lost it.

The fight scenes .... for some reason they were really intense for us, we would be like: "dock that, hit him in the head! Ooooh, noo they had to use their superpowers!" (Time for both of them, and me too who am I kidding scream Cataclysm and Lucky charm) And then the lucky charm would come, and sometimes the 2 of them sometimes the 3 of us would be like, what the hell is she going to do with that »?

Then the theories came.

In one episode, origins, I saw Gabriel's face and the light bulb went on and I was like to the kids “kids! kids! I know who hawkmoth is!” both of them turn to me “who?!” “Adrien's father!” they were so shocked. Somedays after that, after one episode I see my little dude sitting very quietly on the sofa thinking-he seemed sad. I got worried and I ask if everything is ok, since he was so quiet and he goes like “Why is it that Adrien's father is Hawkmoth (as in why is Adrien father a bad guy, Adrien is a good guy so his father should be too right?) And then I had to explain to him that he could have been doing bad things,becouse he wanted someone back, and this was the only way he knew how then I explained that Mrs. Agreste disapeared and she might be the one that hes trying to get back so that Adrien could have a family again and he was like “ SHE DISAPEARD?! WHY!? “I don't know they don't tell us that” “But why?!” “I don't know” “Does he miss her?” He was looking really sad so I hugged him “ Yeah, but he's fine, he has friends, he has Nino, Marinette cares a lot about him...” It was really cool because he was really putting himself in the character shoes.

It was a really good way to teach him that not everything is black and white as well people can sometimes do bad things and have good intentions. Because until now he saw Good guys x Bad guys.

Then it was the who is who... I got really surprised by these. So everyone knew Marinette was ladybug, but the girl didnt know Chat was Adrien, I had to explain to her (Keep in mind they are really young) that they were the same person, and then we started to discuss the similarities between the alter egos.

Then I would ask who was their favorite: The boy would be CN and then eventually Adrien (He was very devoted to his cat )

The girl was obviously "Ladybug and.....Alya, she's a great friend” (aaaw)

But then they would sometimes pile up some more characters and the little dude would be like “I like them ALL”

And then the parents came.

Dad reaction:

“What are you guys watching?”

The three of us at the same time:”miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir”

he sits with us and Adrien transforms, me and the girl fangirling because of Chat and the little dude was like “This is my favorite part!”

Dad: “OH NO....this is so wrong....THIS IS LIKE SAILOR MOON BUT WITH A GUY!....Why does he have cat ears? And a bell?”

Me: “Its cute”

Kids make the face to his dad.

Mom Reaction:

“What are you guys watching? Is This Pijama Masks?”

“no this is ladybug and cat noir..” Says the girl.

The girl starts to explain every little bit of the plot to her mom with me occasionally helping ( I was focusing on the episode).

Then the mom starts to point somethings out.

“Oh, Cat Noir, It means black cat. From French” (For some reason I had translated to cat of the night because my French is that good)

Litle girl thinks its cute

And mom proceeds to watch the show with us.

(WE GOT HER ON OUR SIDE!!)

Then we start to play as LB and CN.

Then the amazing happens. They always wanted to play. Allways, but now they wake up from the nap, go to the couch and I ask, do you want to play.

“No. We cant. We are waiting for LB to appear.”

This was really good cuz I bonded really well with them I had to leave them, but when I saw them again sometimes, they would still get the LB references and the little girl said that the little dude would hug her and call her my lady (and he would hug mops and do that too hahaha) but it is cool cuz she wasn't really ok with hugs and now they hug!

I miss them a lot. But when I see LB I can kinda miss them less.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug kids #thomas astruc #Adrien agreste #chat noit #marinette dupain-chang #Ladybug #Alya #Nino

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