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rosalyn51 · 8 months
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ADoW Book 5 News (SPOILERS)
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While #1 New York Times bestselling author Deborah Harkness is still editing THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE, she has said that more information will be coming. And the book is COMING SOON!
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Bear in mind that things may change, nevertheless I got you a preliminary sneak peek of the synopsis [below the cut], which is a “thrilling and triumphant return to the All Souls Universe”. According to Deb’s book and media agent, the book will come out summer of 2024! 
Recently, Deb has said, 
Really excited for you to know more about it. It has been really a labor of love. I think you're going to really enjoy catching up with Diana and Matthew, and the twins.
THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE (Book 5) takes place 4 years after the events of TIME’S CONVERT (Book 4) of the All Souls Series (A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, SHADOW OF NIGHT, THE BOOK OF LIFE). Exciting!!! 🤩🥳🥰
***SPOILERS ALERT***
THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE [Fiction, Summer 2024] by Deborah Harkness
A thrilling and triumphant return to the All Souls Universe about facing the darkness inside yourself—and embracing it.
Four years after the events of TIME’S CONVERT, Diana and Matthew are living in Connecticut with their seven-year-old twins preparing for a summer holiday in England. Their plans are thrown into disarray, however, when the Congregation notifies Diana that her children are scheduled to have their magic tested this autumn, bringing back painful memories of her own assessment and the chain of events it set in motion. The mail also brings a letter telling her it’s time to come home to Ravenswood—the family farm— and fulfill the prophecy the Proctors call The Blackbird Oracle. The letter is signed by Gwyneth Proctor—a great-aunt Diana didn’t know existed from a side of her family she thought dead.
Concerned for their children and curious to meet any family that remains, Diana and Matthew travel to the marshes of Ipswich, Massachusetts to meet Gwyneth. She shows Diana the higher magic that runs through her veins— and through her children’s, too—and Diana finds herself conflicted between her lifelong fear of darker magic and the tantalizing powers she could have.
Diana also discovers a collection of dusty old bottles filled with family memories captured through higher magic, including those of her mother’s. But her family’s memories aren’t just stored in Ravenswood; the Congregation holds some of the Proctor and Bishop memories along with those of other powerful witches as a means of control. As Diana learns how higher magic operates and how the Congregation withholds it for their own purposes, she’ll have to decide whether or not to embrace the darkness within her to protect her family. And whether to give her own children the chance to learn higher magic—a chance she never had—even if it means exposing them to the Congregation and their own dark sides.
SHADOW OF NIGHT and THE BOOK OF LIFE each debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list
The trilogy was adapted into a hit TV show, entitled A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, starring Teresa Palmer and Matthew GoodE.
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📸 Park & Fine Literary and Media (April 2023)
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rebelsafoot · 4 months
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do you guys ever think about how lee was originally conceptualized as a woman haha because i do
bonus:
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konigsblog · 6 days
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there's one way to könig's heart, and that's food. 🍰
bake him a batch of cookies and he'll fuck you on the kitchen countertop, your tight ass sore from his balls smacking against your skin. he's growling out, thanking you with sloppy kisses. könig's cock aches inside the tightness of your wet pussy, coating him in your creamy, pearly arousal.
könig wants you to ride him. pinning you against the wall and holding you up with his calloused hands cupping your rear, rutting into your glossy, drooling hole relentlessly while the cake bakes in the oven. the taste of strawberry frosting lingers on his tongue from teasing each other with it, the sweetness, his favourite taste (aside from the taste of your aroused cunny).
mix his love for delicious treats with your body and könig is on cloud nine. he loves when you drip and smear raspberry and chocolate syrup along your stiff, perky nipples so he can wrap his soft lips around them, sucking them while tasting the sugary goodness of the chocolate and the fruitiness of the raspberry.
könig will crush you by laying atop of you. he's curled up against you, your breathing heavy and laborious when könig humps and grinds his swollen, big cock against your slit. chubby!könig will spray whipped cream into your little mouth, tasting the sweet goodness on your lips, the cake cooling in the kitchen, waiting to be decorated.
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braisedhoney · 4 months
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fighting back? against who? they're so happy—they've been waiting for you.
you are wonderful. don't you know that?
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bonus: they play sims together :)
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ew-selfish-art · 8 months
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DPx DC AU: Danny learns that he can change his summoning ritual and decides to go chaos mode with it i.e. A viral tiktok trend.
Danny ascends the throne and it's honestly pretty alright as far as new jobs go. He states a few opinions, makes sure no one goes to war and is slowly integrating a community service sentence to Walker's prison. It's not a bad gig, and considering the troves of gold he's now owner of, it doesn't pay too shabby either.
His main problem with the job isn't even his constituents (he likes to think they would vote for him over pariah), it's all these loony death cults! They keep summoning him with Pariah's old cold sign and it's driving him insane- After a very unhelpful smirk by CW, a long study session in GW's library and some help from Ember (she knows drama like no one else) Danny finally has a new summoning ritual.
Of course he swapped out the blood and bone for like, sour gummies and random shit he had in his backpack at the time. A TI-84. And yes, the Latin chant is that one super-fast bit of Rap God preformed to a BTS dance at speed.
But rather than keep this to himself, he gets Sam (who has a thriving plant and protest community following) to record her completing this ritual and Danny being summoned. Why? Cause it was a very specific to Sam skill that they didn't know if people could replicate and it gives Danny some plausible deniability that he tried to make it difficult when CW asks.
Posting it makes it very quickly go viral as people attempt to call it fraudulent but sure enough, Danny is now traveling the world at a moments notice.
Which is great cause it's summer and he's bored in Amity anyway (He's going to change it before he starts university in September, duh), and its even better because the second a lame ass death cult brings him forward to, like, destroy the planet, a slumber party or influencer has already summoned him away. Shit, he even met a few celebrities this way! Plus, turns out that most death cultists aren't able to rap!
Reality hit him pretty hard when he got summoned to an office space that is clearly a base of operations and the summoning spell locked him in. Literally, he has no idea how to get out of this binding spell- Danny definitely hadn't realized that was an option. Taking in the Justice League members in front of him, plus one trench coated menace, Danny groaned for a moment before thinking to ask:
"Wait- Which one of you was able to do Rap God? And the dance? Please tell me someone thought to film that!!"
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mobius-m-mobius · 4 months
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Tom on more of Owen's s2 improv (x)
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taxiderby · 2 months
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cacturnia · 3 months
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my hand slipped
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signanothername · 10 months
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He’s not impressed with your self destructive behavior
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amberultramarine · 2 months
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the dunmeshi gang heading down to get falin while zagreus is on his way out
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shimmershy · 11 months
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Chara Week Day 5: Ghost
Every time I see that machine in the True Lab, I wonder if it could possibly be Chara's soul in there? Probably unlikely, but not impossible... It's interesting to think about what the implications of that would be.
A version with no text and then a version with just the machine, because I think it looks pretty cool and ominous alone as well.....
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rosalyn51 · 10 months
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ADoW Fans: Update from Deb...
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From Deborah Harkness Facebook
Update from Deb…. Lots going on in my writing shed: preventive bilateral mastectomy recovery, editing THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE, cat naps, welcoming the summer sun, celebrating being a 🐝-cup, anniversaries, and more! 🎥@/debharkness on Instagram Have a great day. Cat
Rosalyn51 Note: Deb has been working on Book 5 of the All Souls Series. (See below). She printed the complete first draft before her surgery earlier. She has just finished editing Chapter 1 with her editors. Exciting news! They have also talked about the book cover. 
Really excited for you to know more about it. It has been really a labor of love. I think you're going to really enjoy catching up with Diana and Matthew, and the twins.
Stay tuned!!!
From Deborah Harkness Website
Yes! I am working on Book #5 which now has a working title: THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE.
It is set within the All Souls world (and, before you ask, it is not focused on Gallowglass’s story).  I am still writing so we don’t have any information about publication dates yet but rest assured that I will share that information here and on Twitter and Facebook and in my newsletter as soon as it’s available.
x Deb
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So happy Deb is doing well! ❤️❤️❤️
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GIF: mine
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cryxdraws · 1 year
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Judging by my feed, it’s the DP anniversary. Good time to post this commission then, huh?
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starry-bi-sky · 21 days
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Stuck in the middle of a forest made of
Flesh and bones and they're all scared of
A lost little boy who has lost his heart
Fear's not enough, they have to
Tear him apart —-------
There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well: 
He’s adopted.
He can’t remember anything else before that.  
‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents. 
What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill. 
When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.
(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.) 
The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.
It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one. 
The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself. 
His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.
(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.) 
(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.) 
They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.  
(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)
Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe. 
He turned back around and went inside.
—-------
Where do we go
When the river's running slow
Where do we run
When the cats kill one by one
—------
One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.  
He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal. 
It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking. 
He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter. 
Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind. 
(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)
After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous. 
He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.
—------
Hazel beneath our claws
While we wait for cerulean to cry
Unsettled ticks run through time
Enough for the hunt to go awry
—-----
There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own. 
He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t. 
Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward. 
(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”) 
(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)  
He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell. 
A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his. 
He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it. 
His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.
Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.   
—-------
Harpy hare
Where have you buried all your children?
Tell me so I say
—-------
When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now. 
Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.
He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.
Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own. 
(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)
(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)
(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)  
—--------------
It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders
And they will never
Hear me here listen to croons and a calling
I'll tell them all the
Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow
Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare
—-------
More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother. 
Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten. 
His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands. 
They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely. 
It is a fast dream. 
His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.
His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods. 
The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him. 
The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal. 
His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train. 
(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.) 
—---  
She can't keep them all safe
They will die and be afraid
Mother, tell me so I say
(Mother, tell me so I say)
—-------
When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again. 
The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person. 
(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.) 
(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)   
Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird. 
(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)
—------
Seeker, do you ever come to wonder
If what you're looking for is within where you hold
Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path
You'll soon forget
Home
—---------
When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is. 
When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.
‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off. 
He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.
He ends up calling himself Phantom. 
(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.) 
----------
Home is where we are
Home is where you are
Home is where I am
-----------------
Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.
#dpxdc#dp x dc#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dp x dc crossover#dpxdc crossover#dpdc#danyal al ghul au#amnesiac danyal al ghul au#songs in order of the album: the hartebeest / harpy hare / and the hound / neath the grove is a heart#musician danny has my heart and soul#yes this danyal IS an alternative danny from the other au. an au where things were a little better :) but still sucks#implied good mom talia al ghul#danyal is a momma's boy send tweet#dpxdc ficlet#dpxdc prompts#dp x dc au#dp x dc fanfic#danyal is sTILL five years older than damian in this au#no beta no edits we die like danny fenton#poc danny fentons#i didnt know where to end this :(( i was gonna go on but i blanked. i thought about going into his relationships with his rogues and so on.#but that felt too much like trying to just increase the word count rather than actually writing?? if that makes sense#ugh im gonna have forgotten to include things and im gonna be kicking myself later#morally ambiguous danny whoo! we love to see it#since this was just for fun it doesnt really go into it all that much other than like. it happens. and that danny realizes he's dangerous#phantom in a hazmat suit? nah phantom looking like an assassin >:].#danyal al ghul with damian and his mom: 🥰🌸✨#danyal al ghul with everyone else: 👹🔪#am i heavily implying that clockwork had smth to do with Danyal’s amnesia and appearance by the cabin? 👀 maybe#not enough danyal al ghul aus where him being an assassin actually. has some kind of affect on him
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nobodyfamousposts · 4 months
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Coffeenette
For the record, they blame Alya. All of them do. No question. They will never NOT blame Alya for this.
Even Nino, who is her boyfriend and supposed to support her. He’s agreed with her about almost everything. But not about this.
Even Rose, who is the sweetest girl in their class. She’ll apologize and be really nice about it, but she still blames Alya.
Heck, even Chloe did, which was a surprise. She was a bully sure, but as such, anyone would have thought this sort of thing would be beneath her. Though it could simply be that she just liked having any excuse to make fun of someone.
…Or so they thought until they saw Chloe scramble away to hide as soon as she saw it happen.
But none of them blamed Alya more for this situation than Marinette, who could only swear all unholy vengeance and glare daggers at her soon to be ex-best friend as she took her sole reason for living in this cold and terrible world and threw it in the garbage!
“Marinette, come on. It’s not that big of a deal!”
“It was innocent…”
“It was a cup of coffee!”
“The perfect cup of coffee. The coffee to end all coffees. Brewed to perfection and at just the right temperature. I could have died happily with that coffee. No other cup of coffee will ever compare. Ambrosia was in that cup and you threw it away!”
“Are you serious?!”
“Shh. Shh…I must mourn.”
“Get off the floor!”
“Mourn, I say!”
Oh sure, some had shrugged it off at the time. Alya had just rolled her eyes and dragged Marinette to class—coffeeless. Others had simply laughed a little at the dramatic display before moving on.
But those who knew better were panicking.
Some were already looking up therapists. Two were immediately calling their parents to ask about a school transfer. A few had given up on life and were writing up their wills.
It should be made clear: Marinette Dupain-Cheng was a kind girl. Sweet. Dedicated. Dependable. If you needed help, she was there. She was the one to look to for a solution to any problem. She was the first to put forth an effort and offer an olive branch, even if you hurt her. And of course the last thing she ever wanted to do was upset anyone. And if she did, she would be the first to apologize and try to make up for it.
…the problem was that this was all when Marinette was in a good space. And while her good days exceeded her bad days, that was not to say that there were not bad days. And when she had her bad days, they were…bad.
The thing that few knew about Marinette Dupain-Cheng was that there were…times, you could say, when she was not her normal friendly self. Times when she was…
…Grumpy.
Kind of mean.
Downright brutal, actually.
It only happened when she was either very angry or very stressed.
Which, unfortunately for everyone, has been increasing quite a bit since Hawk Moth made his grand entrance into the world of supervillainy.
Marinette had been stressed for a while and it showed. She’d been losing sleep. And they could tell she’s been more groggy given how frequently she’s been walking into walls and doors. They had thought this was cute at first. They had even laughed about it.
They hadn’t realized that this was actually only the first stage. Not until she started coming in with coffee—something she hadn’t done in years.
Marinette struggled when she was tired.
Thanks to Hawk Moth, she had lately been very tired.
And with her consistent lack of sleep, coffee had been her best friend. Or at least her best consumable friend. The sort of friend that brought her relief and made living bearable.
…until Alya took it away.
It turned out that Marinette’s parents had become…”concerned” about Marinette’s caffeine intake and had forbidden her from the beverage. Normally, they could only keep it away from her at home by either keeping her from the coffee pot or when necessary, switching to decaf. But Marinette had found ways around that by getting her bitter bitter life-saving paint stripper juice outside, usually on the way to school.
Or at least, she used to. But this was a new year and THIS time, Marinette had a new friend—and a BEST FRIEND at that in the form of Alya Cesaire, whom Tom and Sabine had chosen to enlist in their plot to protect their daughter from things that weren’t good for her.
Like coffee. Her precious life-preserving coffee.
And next to the Ladyblog and her secondary role as Rena Rouge, Alya had never jumped on anything faster.
Marinette’s morning coffee run? Done. A thing of the past as Alya would walk her to school and ensure they made no other stops along the way.
Marinette’s stash of coffee and energy drinks? Ransacked. Alya searched her locker, her desk, her bags. And being Marinette’s best friend, she knew ALL of her potential hiding spots.
Marinette’s emergency chocolate-covered espresso beans? Taken. Alya practically treated it like it was radioactive given the gloves and goggles she wore as she removed them. And in her defense, they very well may have been. Marinette was very tight-lipped over just where she had gotten them. She had tried to hide the fact that they WERE espresso beans, but Alya still wasn’t fooled.
Alya was on the hunt and there was NOTHING that could stop her. For her best friend’s “greater good”.
…as far as Marinette was concerned, the “greater good” could shove it.
She saved Paris on a daily basis! This was the LEAST it could give her in return!
Sadly, it appeared that Alya—and by extension Paris, cared not for Marinette’s sacrifice. Thus she was left to stew in her growing rage…stew like the precious brew she was being deprived of.
Up until that point it was clear that Marinette had been surviving on coffee and sheer spite. And now she only had one of those two things left.
But it would be fine! Really!
…so long as no one earned her ire.
Chloe had been one such unfortunate recipient of that ire some time ago in her younger days. Though Marinette had profusely apologized to her afterwards, Chloe never forgot and has held it against her ever since.
...well, after her several month sabbatical from school, at any rate.
So the fact that Chloe was suddenly trying to convince her father to let her take a vacation in the middle of the school year should have been a major red flag.
…or the way Marinette slammed her bag on her desk to get the class’s attention when they started getting off task and too loud in class.
……or the death glare she gave Kim the instant he tried to poke fun at her state with a literal poke to her cheek to try to wake her…and the injured finger he received for his trouble when she grabbed the offending object and bent it back.
…………or how most of the teachers were conveniently refraining from giving them any homework assignments they knew they should have been getting. Or not acknowledging Marinette’s grumpy behavior and sleeping in class. Or avoiding even looking in Marinette’s general direction.
The point was that it was evident that not all was right in the classroom and especially with their normally kind and happy Everyday Ladybug.
To their credit, the classmates had tried to bring Marinette coffee in order to help restore her to her usual state...or at least avoid her wrath.
But all their attempts were for naught, as Alya herself had become something of a bloodhound for caffeine. And having appointed herself as enforcer of the coffee ban, she would confiscate any form of the substance they tried to bring in and dispose of it in short order—much to the classmates’ horror and Marinette’s growing displeasure.
As far as the class could figure, it seemed that coffee was either simply useful in keeping Marinette awake and aware, or it was a comfort to her when she was feeling stressed.
Probably both.
And Alya, in all her misguided concern for the girl’s health, had taken it upon herself to remove the one thing keeping Marinette stable. Stable and happy and not inclined to traumatize anyone unfortunate enough to get in her way.
So yes, everyone in the class did blame her. They didn’t do anything about that resentment, of course, but they did still blame her.
Not that Alya seemed to care.
“Alya.” Nino knelt—literally knelt before her, his hands clasped as if in prayer. “Please. I’m begging you! Just let the girl have her coffee!”
She only rolled her eyes before throwing away yet another cup Marinette had managed to procure from the teacher’s lounge—somehow completely ignoring the daggers the other girl was glaring at them all with from the window of the classroom.
Alya was unmoved.
And seemingly oblivious to the scratch marks on the window left in the wake of Marinette’s pawing.
“It’s for her own good.” Alya insisted, much to the growing horror and frustration of those around her.
“What about our good?“
“You’ll be fine.“ She said dismissively.
“She made Kim cry!” Nino exclaimed, gripping his hat. 
“You’re exaggerating.“
“She brought out the Vial. Do I need to tell you about the Vial?“
“The what now?“
“Marinette has a special Vial she carries during…these times.” Max explained as he helped the despondent Nino to his feet.
Alya blinked.
“Okay?”
“She uses that Vial to collect the tears of anyone who so much as annoys her while she’s in this state!”
“That’s a little weird, but—”
Nino cut her off.
“She uses those tears to flavor her coffee.”
Alya stared.
“What?”
“She flavors her coffee with tears, Alya!” He continued, gripping her shoulders. “Not cream! Not sugar! Not cinnamon or chocolate or pumpkin spice like normal people and Americans! TEARS! OUR TEARS! What does that tell you?!”
“That tells me you’re exaggerating.“ She replied, looking decidedly unimpressed. And thus cruelly ignored his whimpering as she tossed the rest of the coffee into the trash bin.
She shot them a look as she slammed the bin lid closed, as if daring them to challenge her.
Nino looked on the verge of a breakdown.
Max sighed and texted the others.
To everyone else, the slamming of that bin lid was akin to a signal…one that indicated the sealing of their fates.
Some cried. Some prayed.
Most chose to stay out of the way.
…that was likely all they could do.
Other than blame Alya, of course. Which they did.
As Marinette’s antics changed from funny “walking into walls isn’t she cute” to less funny “eviscerate your soul with words”.
As whispers from the rest of the school followed the classmates, offering them sympathy and prayers.
As the very atmosphere changed from a sense of melancholy to ever growing unease and outright paranoia. As if her presence itself brought with it something seemingly eldritch in nature.
And through it all, Alya ignored the warnings and insisted this was for the best.
To be fair, it was perhaps her friendship with Marinette that offered her some protection from the worst of it.
…others were not spared.
Timothy—everyone remember Timothy? Prominent student and good friend to the rest of the class. Top of his class. Fellow swimmer and athlete to Kim and Odine. Was one of the few people Chloe would listen to. Tried to help Nino throw the party during Bubbler and the only one to notice Sabrina hadn’t appeared in a while in Antibug. Remember? That Timothy. Had totally been there all along and was well liked by everyone. Possibly as much as Adrien.
…until he admonished Marinette for bumping into him and not looking where she was going.
And.
Marinette.
Snapped.
It was the moment Marinette finally had enough. Both of the lack of coffee and of holding back her frustration about the situation.
It was also the last time Timothy was seen at school. Or anywhere for that matter. Given how abrupt it was and how people actively avoid mentioning him again, some question if he had ever really existed…
Eh, probably not. It was likely just a rumor.
What wasn’t a rumor was how Chloe (after being denied being allowed to ditch school) presumed that a new year and being Queen Bee meant she was stronger than she had been before and thus strong enough to put the caffeine-deprived version of Marinette in her place. She would prove to Marinette, to herself, and to everyone that SHE was the head bitch in charge.
Marinette was abruptly woken out of a nice daydream that either involved Adrien or coffee or Adrien AND coffee to find herself being yelled at. And find herself face to face with Chloe.
Oh wait, Chloe was the one yelling at her.
She had a hard time making out what Chloe was saying, but the fact remained that it WAS Chloe. Which was never a pleasant place to begin any realization.
It would help if she had coffee.
Was there coffee?
Marinette looked at her depressingly empty hands.
No.
"Well?! Do you hear me?!" Chloe shouted.
Marinette looked up at the blonde and took a slow breath before opening her mouth to speak.
...
…thirty minutes later, Sabrina found Chloe catatonic under her desk and took her home early.
To be fair, she had brought it on herself. After all, she really should have learned her lesson from the last time. But still, it was hard to forget the scene as Sabrina gently guide her out of the building as Chloe mumbled to herself, her face pale, her mascara running, and her eyes wide and haunted.
She was out for the rest of the week.
Bustier was...no help. In her ever rose-tinted fashion, she attempted to speak with Marinette early on what had been a particularly bad morning.
“Marinette, I heard you’ve been having some trouble with your classmates.”
It took a minute for Marinette to realize Bustier was there, much less that she was trying to have a conversation.
“—argument with Chloe the other day. It seems like whatever you had said really hurt Chloe’s feelings.”
Marinette blinked, trying to comprehend what was being said to her.
“—was uncalled for. Chloe didn’t deserve that.”
Bustier. Something about Chloe? She hadn’t seen her in a while. She thought things had been quieter lately…
“—you know how Chloe is and that she needs help. Surely whatever she said couldn’t have been that bad, and—”
These were clearly words, but they weren’t making sense.
“—remember what I said before about the Marinette’s of the world? It’s important to show love to people, even if they aren’t nice. So they can learn from your good example and—”
Marinette.exe needed coffee to continue this conversation.
“I think the two of you can talk this out. You can apologize to Chloe and model the right behaviors.”
Was there coffee to continue?
“—and who knows? Maybe the two of you will even become the best of friends!”
No.
“—what do you think?”
Marinette frowned at Bustier and opened her mouth to speak.
...
...it would be the first and only time Bustier would make such an attempt to speak to coffee-deprived Marinette. Nobody knows exactly what happened, as the students had come in when class started only to find Bustier in the aftermath, sobbing over her desk and completely inconsolable.
No class was had that day.
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hexadonis · 5 days
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idk i just know they were a nightmare as academy students
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