An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Me casually rising from the dead to post a new chapter to a super fuckin dead fic I haven't updated in literally 2 years.
***
Something about Adrien being close to her, again, caused Ladybug to fumble. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he loved her, with and without the mask. Or, perhaps it was the soft gasp he let out into her ear when she grabbed him. Either way, her mind fuzzed over as she flung her yo-yo towards a beam on the ceiling across the courtyard. She didn’t quite miss it, but her trajectory was off nonetheless. Pink-tinted police from below took the opportunity to shoot her down.
Ladybug landed, hard, in a tangle of limbs. Of course, the limbs were not only her limbs but also Adrien’s. Instinctively, she had wrapped her arms around his head to protect him from the fall. Once she had absorbed the impact, she scrambled to pull herself out of the incredibly embarrassing position. However, she quickly found that one of her arms did not move as freely as she would have liked.
She had managed to brace herself just above Adrien – her arms holding her up, her hands on either side of him – when she noticed it. A bright pair of pink handcuffs on her right wrist was attached to Adrien’s wrist below her. The two had landed in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by other handcuffed victims and of course, plenty of Militia clones.
Ladybug looked down at Adrien, who was clearly extremely flustered, and blushing. The blush was apparently contagious, as she could not stifle its spread onto her own cheeks.
“No!” Militia cried out from across the yard. “Adrien belongs with Marinette, and Ladybug belongs with Chat Noir! This is all wrong! Love Police, separate and capture them so they can wait for their true love to appear!”
Ladybug thought to utter an apology to Adrien, but she couldn’t quite get one out in time. Instead, she sprung to her feet, expertly maneuvering to simultaneously pull Adrien up.
“Run!” she shouted. Adrien was quick on his feet, despite having recently fallen 2 stories. Ladybug was surprised by how well they moved together. It was as if they were perfectly in sync. They weaved through the crowd of akumas, dodging attempted tackles and pink smoke trails left and right.
“Anytime now, kitty…” Ladybug mumbled under her breath as she yanked on the handcuffs to pull Adrien towards her to just barely avoid being tackled. Thankfully, they made it across the courtyard unscathed. Ladybug ducked into an empty hallway and pushed into the nearest empty classroom. With Adrien’s help, she barricaded the door with chairs and desks.
“So… what now?” Adrien asked, after the two caught their breath. Ladybug looked down at the handcuffs.
“Well,” she began, tentatively. “If Chat Noir were here, he could help get these off…” Ladybug felt an unprecedented wave of courage wash over her as her next words formed in her mouth. “But I’m not entirely convinced that that’s necessary. I mean, I don’t need to wait around for my ‘true love’ when he’s right–”
Ladybug lost her momentum as she watched Adrien’s face contort in bewilderment. A far too zealous chuckle escaped from her lips. “Aha! Just kidding!” she stammered. “What I meant to say was I don’t need Chat Noir to get us out of this! I mean, obviously I know what to do! I’ll get us out of these handcuffs and saveyourface… I mean, getyoutoasafeplaceLUCKYCHARM!”
Ladybug threw her yo-yo in the air with her right arm, consequently smacking Adrien in the face with his own arm. She screamed on the inside.
As bright light filled the room, a small object formed above her. It fell into her hands. Ladybug carefully examined it.
Lip gloss.
Her lucky charm was a tube of lip gloss.
In her time, Ladybug had come up with many convoluted plans. She had a knack for finding ways to use things in ways they were not meant to be used. But with all of her usual boundless creativity, she could not come up with a novel use for lip gloss. As she looked around the room, her eyes kept landing on Adrien’s lips.
“What is it?” Adrien asked. He was squinting and rubbing his head from where she smacked him.
“NOTHING!” Ladybug threw it across the room. It hit the wall, clattered against the floor, and slowly rolled back towards them, stopping at Adrien’s feet. He stared at it.
Usually, Ladybug’s lucky charms were solid red and black. Strangely, this one had a red and black screw top, but was otherwise clear. Also, the lip gloss literally had the words “kiss me” printed on it, which was completely uncanny and unprecedented. Any person who had seen lip gloss before would know this was lip gloss.
A silence overtook the room. Ladybug had a problem. She knew that in order to get the handcuffs off, she would have to kiss Adrien. Again. But probably on the lips this time. She needed to get the handcuffs off to get Adrien to safety. She needed to get Adrien to safety so that she could defeat the Akuma.
Also, Ladybug had used her Lucky Charm. So she only had 5 minutes to work up the courage to kiss Adrien on the lips. And she simply could not imagine a universe where that was possible, even under the mask.
But, it was then that Marinette had a brilliant idea.
“Um…” Adrien started.
“I guess we have to wait for Chat Noir after all,” Ladybug chuckled.
“But, won’t you detransform?” he asked.
“I’m not worried, I know you can keep a secret.” she replied with a wink. “Besides, I have a plan. Once I detransform, we can go out there and give Militia exactly what she wants.”
Adrien regarded her with a blank expression.
“What?” he stammered.
“By then, I’m sure Chat Noir will show up and free us!” Ladybug beamed.
“What if he doesn’t?” Adrien murmured. “Are you really sure that’s the only way?” Ladybug glanced down at the Lucky Charm.
“Um–”
BUD-UM.
Before Ladybug had a chance to answer, the door to the classroom shook.
“I know you’re in there, Ladybug!” Militia yelled from outside.
“Ladybug–!” Adrien shouted.
BUD-UM.
Ladybug looked to the window, but found that the building was surrounded by Love Police.
BUD-UM.
As the stacked desks and chairs began to clatter away from the blocked door from the force of the pounding, Adrien and Ladybug backed away. Ladybug reached for her yo-yo. Her earring ticked down another notch.
CRASH.
It happened in a flash.
The door came crashing down, revealing Militia and her pink army.
“Seize them, in the name of love!” she said.
Just as Ladybug was preparing to toss her yo-yo into the courtyard, she felt a strong grip pulling her by the arm. Suddenly, she was in Adrien’s embrace – and he kissed her. On the lips. The pink handcuffs disappeared in a puff of glitter.
Ladybug didn’t have time to process what had just happened, but neither did Militia. While the Akuma and her army were stunned, Adrien took Ladybug by the hand and led her through the confusion back into the courtyard.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, pressing her Lucky Charm into her hand, “I’ll hide.” With that, he dashed away.
As Ladybug turned to watch him leave, she noticed Alya sitting among the handcuffed victims. She sat with her mouth wide open, her phone pointed directly at the classroom where Ladybug had come from. And, its back camera light was flashing red.
Working on a LONG analysis of this movie and holy shit it’s all coming together. My love for the movie was based on vibes before but it’s actually? So good.
It's wild to me to see people acting like the anger over Adrien's treatment in S4 and S5 comes from people wanting him to be equal to Marinette in terms of, like, screentime or something. While I'm sure that some people do think that, my impression has always been that most people fell in my camp: Marinette is fine as the lead, but the show framed Adrien as the deuteragonist for the first three seasons. It was their show, not just Marinette's. Changing that setup by making Adrien nothing but the helpless boyfriend and Chat Noir... Idk, random teammate #13? Is going against what the show promised through its actual content. I don't want Adrien to be the lead, I just want him to be part of his own story and treated as the equal he's supposed to be in terms of miraculous powers.
It doesn't matter if the creative team was forced to add a guy character (something I've seen claimed, but heavily question since a lot of the old concept art has 2 girls and 3 guys. The girls only concept clearly never passed the earliest stages of development. It was always supposed to be a mix of genders). You write the setup you're given to the best of your abilities. You make it work. You don't get to justify bad writing by "well, I didn't want to stick to the prompt that I agreed to write."
Adrien having agency and a role beyond "boyfriend" doesn't make Marinette somehow lesser. If that's the only way you know how to make a girl look powerful, then you don't know how to write a powerful girl. We're perfectly capable of shining even when the men in our lives have power, too.
why is explaining a villains sad backstory always taken as an effort toward excusing their actions. why does the conversation need to involve the question of excusing anything rather than just making their present behavior way more interesting by complicating their feelings or their motivations. why is acknowledging complicated feelings or motivations taken as apologism in and of itself. why is everyone so incredibly boring
Another thing the miraculous movie does better than the show? It treats the viewers like we’re actually smart. It lets things go unsaid- it lets us infer and imply things. It uses visual storytelling.
The show frequently treats its audience like we are dumb and no, it has nothing to do with it being a kid show. There are plenty of shows and cartoons that remain kid-friendly without being condescending to the viewer. Not to bring everything back to that guy, but from his Twitter escapades alone it is easy to see he thinks everyone who watches the show is dumb and he is just a storytelling genius. But this is ultimately super detrimental to the story he’s trying to tell, which of course makes his arrogance all the funnier.
stormborns
dededos
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
snowghoul
