the realest of homies consider emilie to be a horrible parent
"Hey Adrien... why does your door lock from the outside?"
Adrien shook his head and laughed. "So I can be locked in here, obviously," he said, as if it was the most commonplace thing in the world. "You know, funny story—"
Adrien shut his book, going up to the silver handle on his bedroom door.
"You see how this doesn't have the same finish as the other handles in this house?"
Marinette hadn't even bothered to check every doorhandle in the house, but she was willing to take Adrien's word for it. She nodded, resting her chin in her hands.
"That's because this lock right here has been changed a total of twenty-three times." He smiled like it was a punchline. "My parents would constantly switch it behind the others' backs."
"That's...." Marinette collapsed further in on herself. "...Disturbing."
"No, no, trust me, it's funny," he said. "There were nights when I would wake up scared because my mom didn't realize her key to my room didn't work anymore! So she'd rattle the handle like this—" Adrien started to shake the doorhandle violently, creating a violent clattering sound. "—And start screaming!"
Marinette didn't think she could curl up any further. Emilie always looked so happy in pictures, so the thought of her wrestling with the lock to Adrien's room in the dead of night was... terrifying. What did she even need to be in her son's room for?
"Of course, it stopped when my mom finally tried to pry my door off the hinges with a knife," he added, chuckling nervously. "So the door was also replaced."
Marinette no longer wanted to know the answer to her question. She didn't want to hear another story like this from Adrien at all.
"ALYA! ALYA! You'll never guess what just happened!"
"What— Was there another akuma alert? Do you need my help?"
"No!" Marinette giggled, clutching onto her flip phone. "My favorite author. On AgresteAdventures. Posted again!"
Alya set down her pendant, feeling like an idiot for immediately scrambling to action. She could already picture Marinette lying on her bed with her laptop—the one covered in cute strawberry stickers and photographs of Adrien. Resigning herself, Alya sat back down at her desk.
"Okay," she muttered. "What's it about?"
Marinette let out a few more mischievous giggles, pressing the phone up close to her face to whisper into Alya's ear. "It's by AdriDaddyLovesYou... so it's a little, uhm.. on the dirty side~"
"...Yeah," Alya grumbled back. "I figured."
Marinette could barely contain her glee, kicking her feet as she scrolled through the webpage, looking over the explosion of comments. "You read the Potterfic I shared with you from AdriDaddy, right? The one where Adrien's Draco Malfoy?"
Alya remembered seeing in the description of that fic that it was written back when Adrien was 16. "You know, I read it and I don't think it was for me," she lied—Alya hadn't read it at all past the posting date. "Have you ever considered..."
"Gosh, you're right, I should ask him what he thinks!" Marinette squealed. "I bet I could read all of them to him, and he'd be like 'That's so hot, Marinette', and then I'd be like 'I know, right', and then he'd be like 'We should do that, babygirl', and then I'd be like—" She let out another long high-pitched squeal, kicking her feet as she rolled across her bed. "And it'd be perfect!"
Alya considered hanging up. But that wasn't what friends did to each other, unfortunately. Nor employees to their buggy employer.
---
"Well, well, well, would you look at that," Plagg drawled, "Someone posted again on your little fic forum."
Adrien's heart sank. He went over to his computer, where Plagg was juggling using the mouse with his hands and keyboard with his feet. "Why are you even searching that up, Plagg? You know how I feel about that."
"Uh, cause it's funny?" the cat smirked. "They get so much stuff wrong about you. Did you know half of them think you're 6'3"? They get into flame wars over that shit."
"Look, I don't- I don't want to give attention to it. My dad already enables it enough." Adrien swatted his kwami off the keyboard, taking control of the computer to click off the forum. "I just need to forget it exis—"
18-01-09 18:27
AdriDaddyLovesYou Posted: My Little Morning Star
Hello birdies~ AdriDaddy here ;) I was watching old clips of Emilie interviews and this really cute nickname stuck out to me! I thought about what it'd be like if our sexy little Prince Charming ever kept that name with him... Get your pitchers and sugar, cause we got lotsa lemon!!!
That was what his mom used when... He'd... How did they find that? Why would they look for that?
Adrien turned off his computer entirely. Trembling hands went over his mouth, for fear that the growing nausea would soon leak out between his teeth and spill over his desk.
"I... I don't care if you.. I-if you look up that shit about me, Plagg," he said. "Just please... don't let me know."
hey what if instead of emilie getting like magic tuberculosis she died because gabi and emilie got in a fight and gabriel senticommanded him to kill her and like okay MAYBE i just really like adrien comitting knife murder but imagine this soulless husk standing over his mother's lifeless body as gabriel realizes for the first time that his wife created a monster and then like. frankenstein parallels????, idk
Stigmata. She stands seven feet tall—built like a statue, dressed like a gladiator. Not a single muscle or patch of skin on her body is unmarred by scars or wounds, and even some that are days old still bleed fresh. That's what her power comes from, so she says: The spilling of blood. The essence of life.
Stigmata has never been all that creative or intelligent, and she will tell you this readily. She is meant to look just as smart and well-spoken as she is meant to look kind and caring... In the sense that she is the furthest from it. There has only been one area in which she considers herself knowledgeable, and that is how to hurt people. Mentally, physically. She scoffs at the idea that she could be anything further. Being the most violent holder of the Ladybug Miraculous isn't a point of pride to her, really, but it is a point of distinction, and she can stand by that.
You ask for her to demonstrate her powers, and she directs you to the largest wound on her body. Two open stab wounds on the left side of her stomach, overlapping circles almost like a bite. They opened up her first battle, and she tells you they will never close and never clot. She sticks a hand into the wound easily, digging around in her own flesh. ....She pulls out a small spear, its handle marbled with red and black like old meat. She really means it when she says her power comes from blood, from life—It takes from hers. Every weapon could carve minutes, days, even years off her lifespan, and yet she pulls anyways. Stigmata never planned on living long, never even expected herself to still be standing—That's what made her such a perfect holder, she says. The self-sacrifice. The violent martyrdom.
You ask where her earrings are—she points to her hands. Two large nails puncture though the center of her palms, the bruised discoloration around them only hidden by more blood. The dots on the nail heads—two red overlapping circles against a backdrop of black—are almost confused as rust at first. You ask if they hurt, and Stigmata laughs, loud and deep and unladylike. Nothing about it isn't painful, and that's why she does it.
Stigmata draws out another weapon, one she calls her signature: A scythe. The process takes much longer, and Stigmata grunts and heaves as she fights her own flesh to retrieve it, blood spraying out and spilling over the ground, soaking into her nails and between her fingers. You realize that one day, she might go to pull out a weapon and die on the spot. Does that run through her mind every moment she goes to draw her own blood? Perhaps it's just routine, and she no longer thinks about it. If the armament is her flesh and blood, then she is merely an extension of that... If the weapon is her, then she is the original weapon. Used by something far greater than what she knows or cares to know.
The scythe is long and metallic, in shades of dark reds and blacks. To you, it reminds you of farmers. With little else to defend themselves, humble country folk would use their farming tools to protect themselves. Scythes, pitchforks, grass hooks. A scythe is the people's weapon. To her, it reminds her of teeth. A large, bloodied fang that, much like her tusks, sticks out obscenely. Teeth are the weapons of animals, how a lesser being might defend itself just as its predator might go in for the kill. A scythe is brutality.
Stigmata. She stands seven feet tall—built like a statue, dressed like a gladiator. Her hair fans out on her neck, and her eyes are dark and cold. Through blood, she creates.
CW: Hallucinations, Loss of Sanity?, References to Suicide
The first night ███ was gone, Adrien slept in his mother’s old room. Maybe it was because ███ had spent some time in there before parting, maybe he just couldn’t bear to spend a night in his one bed now that it was missing a person in it. Regardless, with her absence, Adrien was told the nightmares would stop. Plagg even swore to stay in Adrien’s room as a show of assurance, saying that such things could only happen while in the direct presence of a Miraculous. …And, for what it was worth, Adrien would never in his life have enough knowledge to prove nor disprove this assertion.
But the nightmares… really hadn’t stopped. Something was different, yes, but his sleep was still disturbed. It felt like going over memories that he wasn’t sure were ever his own. A lot more nebulous, perhaps free-flowing, like crystal-blue water washing around in his head.
Adrien really should’ve known this the second he had entered his mother’s room. He opened the door with a lot more care this one particular night, taking into account how far along the night had been and how quietly he was meant to operate, both out of etiquette and for his own safety, though mostly the latter. Just a peek into the room before him, and he had fallen backwards, a hand suddenly clasped over his mouth tightly.
It wasn’t every day you saw your mother’s lifeless body hanging from the ceiling, after all.
—It wasn’t real, and he knew that. Or, maybe it was more accurate to say he knew he would never be believed if he told anyone he’d seen such a thing. Emilie had died of illness after all, clearly… even if Adrien had never seen any symptoms of it, and even if nobody ever told him what this illness even was. To propose that his mother was stolen from the living world through an act her own was seen as humiliating a dead woman with no means to defend herself—from the accusations, that is. Adrien’s motives for believing so, however, were that Emilie had little means to defend herself in most cases—her marriage to his father especially.
Upon seeing the spectre, Adrien immediately began clawing at his eyes, trying to forget it. With a blink… it was gone, and he was simply just.. well, crazy.
But now he was in bed, thinking about that and more, and as such, sleep evaded him. He’d close his eyes, and feel as though with every flicker open his vision would grow blurrier, but he never got the feeling it was because he was truly falling asleep. Seeing through the eyes of another rather than the visions of Hypnos, as it were. And when his eyes were closed, he’d remember conversations he had with Nathalie, with Gabriel, about trivial matters such as the weather, of work, remember asking Nathalie about anthropology, talk to therapists about the state of the marriage, mention stress and seeing things in the halls that weren’t there and of peacock feathers and…
This wasn’t working, and it hadn’t for years. She needed to get up, precisely because she didn’t know what was wrong.
And so, she sat up in her own bed, tucking a golden lock of curled hair behind her ear. Those darned visions of feathers just couldn’t rest, now could they? She’d never go back to herself at this rate, go back to her career, back to her son. Back to that terrible, terrible arrangement of hers that Gabriel called a ‘partnership’. It was truly, truly terrible that Nathalie had to witness it all, and she regretted ever taking that girl in. Especially now that Nathalie had gone from a consultant to a secretary to a personal nanny….
So, Emilie, now in her bathroom, just stood in front of her vanity mirror and wondered just what she would do to make the visions stop.
…Emilie?
He touched his face—Her face? His mother’s. But it couldn’t’ve been his mother’s face, for then it would be his mother’s hand. He couldn’t, shouldn’t scream, that wasn’t the answer— But what else was there to do? He looked over herself—No, the hands weren’t his own and the shoulders weren’t his own and neither were his legs or his feet or even the clothes upon her body. Fingers not the right size clawed at a face not the right shape— But the eyes were the same. The eyes were the same.
No, it was those damn feathers again! Get a hold of yourself, Emilie. For once in your life keep yourself sane, for your family, for your image, whatever that damn bird hasn’t ripped from you yet. You don’t feel the feathers on your skin, the doctors said they’re not real. Trust the doctors, please.
Adrien couldn’t control what he was thinking anymore— The voices in his head belonged to another mind, another entity. He trashed about, only for every glance at his reflection to show a version of him he’d rather die than be.
They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead.
Emilie tore through every cabinet, looking for something that she’d already used four years ago.
They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead.
Every bottle, every salve and tincture was left to spill on the floor—bleach and ethyl, ammonias and perfumes. What had she been looking for? What was she looking for now?
They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead.
There was no rope, no blade, no razor. The doctors had taken everything from her—Called her a hysteric, a schizophrenic, a liar.
They’ll only stop when I’m dead. They’ll only stop when I’m dead.
Emilie turned to the mirror, her face pale from weeks of starvation. Gaunt, hollow-cheeked and wild-haired like a banshee, making her eyes all the more terrifying to stare at.
They’ll only stop when I’m dead.
With all her dying might, she struck the center of the mirror, causing it to shatter.
…And then, it was gone. Adrien would have to pick up the pieces.
aarrrghh! ok ok ok. getting my ideas out for this whole Emilie&Adrien psuedo-dynamic mindfuckery. as well as the JUICY idea of miraculouses making their holders go insane, often to death in some way or another. Claudia isn't totally important to this so I censored her name out so my Adrinette buddies can imagine it was Mari instead :3
the second i can get semi-realism down as an art style, literally all I'm going to fucking draw hundreds of times over is adrien literally ripping himself apart. i genuinely can't get myself to understand a take on adrien's own perception of self being positive.
imagine seeing your face--your body--EVERYWHERE, being bought and sold and traded and consumed by hundreds, thousands of people you've never met nor ever wanted to. you never asked to be photographed, to be immortalized in these poses, in these ways, and yet the fact that you were forced to is inescapable, this behemoth that you are not and you will never live up to always around you. to mock you.
you wouldn't be able to live with yourself. this body is not yours, it is your mother's eyes and your father's property, and the ways you have been abused in person are simply the start of what your image has been subjected to. people you will never know will think about you in horrible, horrible ways, want to do horrible things to you, all because of something that you did not ask to be a part of. and can you ask them to stop? can you plead mercy to those who do not care for your voice?
you would never be free of these things unless you did terrible things to yourself. you'd have to be rendered unsightly, unloveable, unphotographable, just to be free. you would rip at your arms until nobody wishes to bruise them. you would pull out your teeth so that nobody ever takes from you another smile. you would tear off your face so it could never again be used against you.
I know body horror would be a hard sell on the MLB community, especially with the fandom's darling. ...but the imagery would be gripping. I can only hope to put it to picture eventually
