DC bring back jason rusch please i miss him. also yes i have an unhealthy obsession with secret six 2025 #3 every single one of these posts ive made has had something about that club scene and i still do it.
Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five | Part six | Part seven | Part eight | Part nine | Part ten | Part eleven | Part twelve | Part thirteen | Part fourteen | Part fifteen | Part sixteen | Part seventeen | Part eighteen | Part nineteen
You have a brother, right? by StarWarsMum ( @starwarsmum )
Its SOOOOO funny lmao
Inconveniences, cultists, and the warehouse of rejected toys by Apathetic_Witch ( @unsupervised-meatsuit )
Long but so so worth the time
the paris problem - newdog14 ( @newdog14 )
not usually a fan of damianxmarinette but this fic made me rethink that
Siri. How do I legally adopt my employee? by TerressaWinner ( @terressawinner )
Perfect in every way. I wish I could tell the author how much I love it
Non-Anon recommendations:
StarWarsMum recommends Even the Losers by Mochegato ( @mochegato )
This was a recent find during a Roynette binge and it is *addictive* to read! In the past month I've read it three times. It's full of family drama, action and romance and I love it!
“Bloody machine stupide,” Marinette hissed as she not quite slammed her phone down on the countertop in disgust. If she could strangle a phone, she would. She had to consciously, painfully, force her hands not to curl like she was strangling an imaginary neck. She was in public. There were quite a few people in the café with her, some, like the man next to her, were extremely sexy, and she did not need sexy people giving her those kinds of looks. She wanted them to give her a different kind of looks. The kinds of looks you don’t give insane people.
Clearly, playing Wordle while waiting for her chronically late friend to arrive for their coffee catch up was the worst mistake she'd made since... the night before… and a few hours before that… and a few hours before that. The occurrence and frequency of her mistakes was not the point. The point was this word was clearly some obscure word long forgotten in the English language. An arcane word. Arcane! See, she knew English. Despite what this pretentious game indicated.
She looked around her quickly, just in case her friend had appeared quietly and she had a completely innocent excuse to put the phone away, though the likelihood of her friend doing anything quietly was exceptionally unlikely. Unfortunately, there was no excuse to cling to. But what there was, was the sexy man, who had been there since shortly after she arrived, scrolling on some app.
She could ask him… it would be an excuse to speak with him… but the excuse would be that she’s an idiot, and that was not exactly how she wanted to start a potential relationship. She already had to fight against people thinking she was an airhead because she was a female and in fashion, she didn’t need to add this in.
She glared intently at the phone as if the power of her stare could force the letters to appear before her eyes. However, after several minutes of giving the phone her best intimidating stare, the answer had the audacity of not appearing to her. But she was not going to let this inanimate object defeat her.
She heaved a frustrated sigh and turned toward the man next to her. “Excuse me,” she started curtly, too frustrated to ask in a more flirty manner. This was about answers, not dates.
The man looked up immediately, eye wide with surprise. His eyes flashed brightly and his lips lifted in a hint of a smile for a few seconds before he shook his head and furrowed his brows in confusion remembering her previous tone. “Um, yes?”
“I swear I’m not dumb,” she promised. She softened her tone, or at least tried, it ended up coming out only slightly softer because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t restrain her frustration and shove it down.
“Okay…” he answered, brows furrowing even deeper at her statement. “I didn’t mean to imply you were?”
“No, not you, this!” She groaned and shoved her phone in his face. “I’m absolutely stuck, and I swear I’m not as stupid as this is making me feel.”
He blinked at the phone taking in the game, five guesses in, a good amount of letters eliminated, two letters confirmed, and one letter in place. He whistled lowly. “High stakes.”
“Right!” she exclaimed throwing her hands out in exasperation, nearly dropping the phone. “Almost all of the consonants have been eliminated and the ones left don’t make any sense.” She glowered at her phone, trying again to intimidate it into revealing its secrets, missing the amused smile that spread on his lips. “This is so frustrating. It’s making me feel stupid. I’m not stupid! I can think of at least 10 words off the top of my head that would work in French.”
“Maybe they have a French version?” he offered.
“They do! And I kill it in that one.” She pouted at the phone. “I look like I don’t even know English. I’m fluent, damnit!”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t worry. My brother can’t do it to save his life, and English is his native language. He won’t even try anymore.”
She looked over at him, her eyes wide and pleading. “Do you have any ideas? … please,” she tacked on quickly.
He was so lost in her eyes, it took him a few seconds to register what she said and compose himself. “Isn't that cheating?” he teased.
Marinette gasped in exaggerated horror. “NO! It's...” she took in a breath and let it out, staring at nothing as she worked to come up with a response. “It’s utilizing my environmental resources,” she finally settled on with a decisive nod.
He burst out laughing and adjusted in his seat so he could lean closer to her. “That sounds like military speak for cheating.”
“Well, I'm not military,” she scoffed with a smile, “so it's just an accurate description the situation.”
“Right,” he nodded, his lips split in a massive smile. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” she agreed. She met his gaze for a few breaths then redirected her eyes to her phone. “But what isn’t obvious, is the answer to this.”
He watched her for another moment then looked at her phone. “Right. Okay. There’s an e and a u…the n is in the middle. No t, no s, no l, no r…”
She suddenly perked up. “How about ‘hinge’?” Her eyes searched the letters at the bottom to confirm it would work.
He searched the letters as well, nodding more rapidly the longer he looked. “That could work,” he agreed.
“Okay,” she nodded with determination. “Let’s do this. Wish us luck.” He nodded back and edged closer to her so he could watch her phone over her shoulder. She entered it and grasped her phone so tightly, her knuckles turned white before tapping Enter. The letters shook for a second but did not turn green. Instead, the word ‘ENNUI’ flashed at the top of the screen.
“What. The. Hell?” she growled, enunciating each word harshly. “That’s not English! That’s French! That’s a French word!” She had been staring at the letters for a few seconds before she was brought out of it by chuckling over her shoulder.
"Don't laugh!" she exclaimed before twisting just enough to smack his chest. "It isn't funny," she groused dramatically.
“It's a little funny,” he countered.
She huffed and glared back at her screen. “I cannot believe… THAT WAS ONE OF THE WORDS I WAS THINKING ABOUT!” she whisper screeched. “That was one of the French words I thought would work. You can’t… English can’t just steal other languages’ words.”
He took a drink of his coffee with a grimace. “That’s… that’s kind of what English is. It’s really just a bunch of words stolen from just about every other language in existence, all standing on each other under an anorak masquerading as a real language.” He nudged her with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry you didn’t get it.”
The genuineness in his voice instantly brought her out of her funk. She shrugged and gave him a small smile. “It’s just a game. I really appreciate your help, though. Even if it didn’t work out so well.”
They continued to stare into each other’s eyes for a few seconds before he finally looked away with a quiet clearing of his throat. He glanced back, eyes settling on her phone. “They have other games you know. Have you played some of their other games? They can be fun too… unless you have other plans.”
“Oh no,” she assured him quickly. “I’m just meeting my friend here, but she’s running late, so I have time. Which games do you recommend?” She held her phone out for him to see.
“I’m Tim, by the way,” he held his hand out for her.
She beamed in response, leaning closer as she shook his hand. “Hi, Tim. It’s really nice to meet you. I’m…”
“Marinette!” Stephanie called from the doorway as she rushed into the café. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! I got caught up in… Okay, I overslept and then I couldn’t just leave with my hair looking like that. But I am sor…” she froze and blinked at Marinette and Tim. “Oh! You met already! Awesome. Job done. I can go back to bed. Enjoy the date!” she called over her shoulder, already pulling the ponytail holder out of her hair. “I expect details later!”
“You said you wanted to meet up!” Marinette exclaimed after her.
Stephanie turned in the doorway with a cocky smirk. “I said I wanted to hook you up,” she corrected. Her eyes darted over to Tim. “Didn’t even have to be here to do it either.” She turned to Tim. “See I told you I did my best work asleep. And you doubted me,” she tutted and with a wink, she disappeared through the door.
Marinette huffed a laugh and turned toward Tim. She looked at him for a few seconds before she perked up in her seat, eyes brightening. “Oh! You’re Tim! That Tim! She has been talking you up for weeks.”
He quirked his head to the side and studied her for a second then sighed with a smile. “You must be the woman she wanted to set me up with. She didn’t tell me anything about you. Just told me I’d thank her. I was honestly rather terrified to meet you.” He watched her as she barked out a laugh, his eyes softening as she shook her head, eyes shining with mirth.
“That sounds like Steph,” she agreed.
She turned her smile on him and he felt his own smile widening. “I think she’s right,” he finally stated, without any uncertainty. “I should thank her.”
Marinette nodded in agreement. “Oui, me too.” She looked down then up shyly through her lashes. “Did you want to move to a table?”
“I absolutely would,” he agreed then his eyes caught on the clock. “Or, we can go somewhere else and get lunch… continue your games… or no games just talking.”
Marinette grinned at his offer. “I love that idea. Maybe we can talk now and play games later, but as a team.”
“I would love that,” he grinned back. “But we absolutely have to plan how to get back at Steph for this. We can’t let her win.”
“Oh absolutely,” she agreed with an adorable giggle as she passed through the door. “I play to win.”
Tim watched her pass by him, his eyes fixed on her brilliant smile, mentally planning ways to win her heart. “Me too,” he agreed quietly.
