Creating a Rec List

 Oh, hey, guys. How's everyone doing?

Weird, right? Having a blog post up. It's... it's been a couple weeks, huh? I'm back to having a Tuesday off, hence me working on this blog again. Hooray!

Aaaand then I'm working next Tuesday so I can have the following weekend off for my wedding anniversary so.... See you guys again in October???

My coworker says her daughter's wedding was gorgeous and went wonderfully, so yay. Also, congrats to both newly wedded daughters to both of my coworkers. My other coworker's been grumbly about not getting to eat solid foods while recovering from her oral surgery, but she had a check-in yesterday, so hopefully everything healed properly and she's back to normal.

Which means, after next week, where, as I mentioned, I'm taking a few days off so Hubby and I can just have a day to snuggle for our anniversary, I should FINALLY be back to a normal schedule of having Tuesdays and a random second day off per week.

At least, until late November/early December where I may or may not be taking time off to at least see my mom and sister for Thanksgiving. If nothing else, I'll be taking time off for Hubby's birthday.

Plus, both the coworker whose daughter just got married this weekend and myself still have over 100hrs of PTO to chew through, so who knows if there will be more sprinklings of "just taking it for mental health reasons" days. We both feel guilty about ever taking the time off though, because that means the other two workers don't get days off that week. So, who knows?

I feel like I'll be sprinkling more random vacation time in next year though....

OH! And also I want to sneak in a quick congratulations to Dragnime who just got engaged this past week! So happy for you two.

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I think that's all the extra housecleaning I had to do this week. So let's get into some writing updates for this supposedly writing-centric blog, huh?

First and foremost: there is none.

I've been super tempted lately. I've had scenes and mini-plots bouncing in my head. I just haven't had the time or energy to get them OUT of my head.

But I was tempted.

Ronoxym and ChibiSunnie had their birthdays this weekend - Happy Belated to both of you - and I figured "now's the time to break out of my funk! Write stories for them so you can still gift them something without physically delivering or mailing it."

Buuut then I remembered that my story gift for Ron kept me a MONTH to figure out last year, and I had no clue what to do for this one. Try to continue the story? Start from scratch with a completely different concept? Try to find something fanfic wise that he'd appreciate? I was at a loss.

Chibi, however, I had just talked about some fun headcanons with regards to Fruits Basket. Mostly, it was images I hoped the creator Natsuki Takaya would eventually do, or fanart people would make. Things like

Kyo proudly introducing Kazuma (Shishou) to Hajime, or Kazuma getting introductary cooking lessons alongside a 5yo Hajime. Or Machi and Kakeru fighting or Yuki's attention, creating a weird sort of poly relationship. Or just Yuki living as a normal teen/young adult as he and Machi go on double dates with Kakeru and Komaki, and perhaps Machi and Komaki are "forced" to interact as yet again Kakeru vies for most of Yuki's time.

 

Anyway, as I mentioned, these were just scenes. I could do something quick though, right? Even a little drabble would be a surprise to Chibi, and I know she'd cherish it because I gifted something specifically for her, but also because it would be the first bit of narrative writing I've done since the pandemic hit. Considering how much support and encouragement she's given me over the years, but specifically through this one, and considering how much time and effort she puts into ALWAYS making me a Christmas and birthday card each year, I thought it would be a fitting honor to FINALLY get out of my writing funk by creating a story for her birthday.

Alas. It was not meant to be. The week FLEW by (but also dragged on?) and before I knew it, her birthday had arrived and I had nothing to show for it. I debated writing something anyway and still posting it during the weekend of her birthday, but I still ran dry. All of those scenes I stated in that spoiler box above? Like I said, they would be great artwork; freezeframes of these sweet moments. Pictures that didn't need words or even actions to fully capture the essence of the scene.

That, and, while I enjoy the stories, and mangas in general are a fairly quick re-read, I still haven't really read either Fruits Basket or Fruits Basket Another more than once - aside from a couple of Furuba books - so I don't feel confident that I know the characters of Komaki or Hajime well enough to properly keep in-character and get the scenes right. Not without research - i.e. rereads - and not only did I not have the time for it, but also my mangas are kind of buried in the back of a cluttered room right now. So I REALLY don't have the free time to get any of those stories done in a reasonable amount of time.

However, as I mentioned, it DID keep me a month to gift Ron his story for his 30th, so there MIIIIIGHT be hope for me to still become inspired and get something written for Chibi. Plus, there's always the original fandom that brought us together. I just haven't touched anything "Hey, Arnold!" related in so long. I KNOW I'm rusty in their characterizations....

Instead of getting ahead of the game and doing the research I needed to write gifts for my friends, I spent the week on a completely different project that I've been meaning to do for over a month now.

WAAAAAAAAAY back during the week of August 17, the Miraculous Ladybug fandom decided to host a Positivity Week: a week for the fandom to shut down all of the salt and hate and venom flowing through the fandom, and get back to the uplifting positivity it originally had. During this week, people posted what they liked and appreciated about the show. They shared posts explaining the good qualities different characters had. They supported the creators. They supported fandom creators as well by sharing fics, artwork, gif-sets, videos, etc. Most importantly, there were fanfic and fic writer recommendation lists.

I was actually on one of those lists!

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One of the big reasons I kept falling into my writing funks after joining Tumblr was because I'd CONSTANTLY see fic recommendation lists, and I was NEVER on any of them. And it wasn't like I was simply seeing the same stories over and over again. Sure, there's some stories that just about the whole fandom seems to know about and would suggest, but more often than not the lists were all different. A large variety of stories were getting love and recognition.

But I would never be included.

Until August 22.

ML Positivity Week, Favourite Fanfics Day posted by chicoriii

I was... I was dumbfounded. This time period was probably one of my deepest bouts with imposter syndrome and there it was: my name on a rec list. Not only that, on a FAVORITE STORY list! Right above one of the fandom's favorite stories: Under Lock and Key.

I feel so guilty that I haven't acknowledged this honor anywhere yet. And for the dumbest reason too, although, I also feel the most justified with this reason???

So, along with the writing funk, I have been staying off Tumblr because I just don't have the free time or mental energy to go through my active dash. Also, as already stated, Tumblr does, on occasion, hurt my mental health because it is one of my main sources of imposter syndrome. That's mostly due to the aforementioned lack of ever appearing in anyone's recommendations or lack of likes/reblogs on my story shares. Also, because my dash would be flooded with new stories, and I would feel worse about not writing anything myself.

This is why, for months on end, I would only log onto Tumblr long enough to check my notifications, see if I had any messages or asks, and then hop back off without ever really looking at my dash. When chicoriii mentioned me in her rec list, I was still at that point of avoiding Tumblr to make sure it didn't spiral me further. So it was especially surprising and emotional for me to see that I had actually made someone's recommended fic list!

But to get to my reason about not instantly acknowledging how honored and humbled I felt. See, since I was avoiding Tumblr, I only knew of Positivity Week within the fandom in vague passing - usually something stated in the top post of my dash when I first log in - and so I hadn't participated in it. I felt guilty jumping in on the last day of it simply to gush at how honored I felt to have been included.

I mean, that was the point of the fan event, right? To lift up the creators and fellow fandom members while also bringing back a positive view of the show itself? So, to gush about how happy it made me to have been on her list would have been a pretty perfect way of closing out the week. At the time, though? Nope. I NEEDED to add to Positive Week if I were to acknowledge the honor of being on chicoriii's list.

So I decided I would thank chi while also lifting up other works of fiction. Then I quickly realized how many stories I loved, and that either the list would be a bit massive or I'd leave out some gemstones. That was when I decided my new project: write up a Tumblr post of my ML fanfic recs, and then link to it when I acknowledge chi's list.

This was a mistake.

Sure, there were the big ones that I could think of right away - usually involving EdenDaphne in some shape or form - but that list was largely stories I know are already fairly big in the fandom because they have some of the highest hit/kudos/comment counts. Not that any of that means I SHOULDN'T recommend them, because I 100% am going to still. No, instead, and especially because of how I was feeling, I wanted to make sure to also promote stories I feel aren't getting nearly enough love. To make sure I didn't miss any, I started going through my bookmarked and favorited stories on AO3 and FFN. 

I... forgot how much ML fanfiction I've actually read over the years. I did not read nearly as much HA fanfiction....

I have 42 bookmarked ML fics on AO3 alone, and I was trash at actually writing anything in my bookmark notes, so I knew I enjoyed the stories enough to want to save them, but I couldn't really remember what each of them were about per se, or why I enjoyed them specifically.

Sooooo that's what I wanted to do next: re-read, or at least skim, these saved fics to remind myself why I enjoyed them so I could better recommend them to others. Buuuut, I also had work pretty much non-stop for over a month, so I just didn't have the energy.

This week I finally did. All of my main work at my job was taken care of, and all I really had left was optional busy work. On a particularly slow day I decided it was time to finally start up this project. I figured I could get it done in the one shift.

I was wrong.

It's been over a week now, and I STILL have stories to read back through. I've been updating my bookmarks as I go so that next time I know exactly why I loved that particular story and what I felt was unique about it. I've also started writing recaps of what happened in the last chapter of on-going works, because I always seem to forget by the time they're updated. Sure, it means re-reading the previous chapter first to remind myself what happened, and I'm sure the authors appreciate the extra reads, but it also means I have to calculate reading TWO chapters whenever ONE updates, which usually results in a delay before finding time to read. This way, hopefully I can read the updates a lot sooner.

Sorry, getting off topic. Point is, I've been re-reading a LOT of fics lately, and it's giving me lots of feels. It's been really uplifting and reminding me a lot about why I love this show and the friendly bits of this fandom community. Also, while I'm still not quite ready to write anything myself yet, it HAS been helping grease those mental gears so I'm good to go once I'm back to a more normal work and social schedule.

Also also... I know how I'm going to be spending my next day off on Friday:

Official promo poster

Frozen starts at 6:10
Miraculous Ladybug starts at 8:00

The creator of Miraculous Ladybug Thomas Astruc had stated in past interviews that he initially had a whole expanded world planned with more miraculous bearers and other superheroes. He teased that back in season 1 when Alya gushed about her favorite comic book hero Majestia that Majestia was a real American superhero. Then, there was a comic book run where Ladybug and Chat Noir went to the United States and met Majestia.

This New York special seems to have been inspired by that comic run. Or that both this special and the comic books were both inspired off of Astruc's original world builds for the Miraculous universe.

Either way, I'm excited.

Also also also, to lead up to this hour-long special, Disney Channel will be having a season 3 marathon. True, I can watch them all I want on Netflix, and the airing order on the channel isn't any better than the scrambled mess Netflix has, but still....

I'm hoping re-watching this past season after such a long hiatus, as well as getting some new content to tide the fandom over until the next season arrives in 2021, will help respark my desire to write.

Because I miss it, you guys. I HURT not being able to write for so long! Especially this year when March feels like a decade ago.

Tanuki
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by Yanare Ku

Here's to hoping I can get back into the swing of things finally. Here's to Chibi and Ron and their birthdays. Here's to my coworkers' daughters and their new marriages. Here's to chi and her ability to make me cry simply by enjoying my work and wanting to share it with others. Finally, here's to you, dear reader, for staying by me when I've had virtually nothing to say this whole year.

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(minor edits by me)

Catch everyone in October!

A Parallel with an Earlier Fandom of Mine

It feels like spring outside!

It's NOT spring outside, and it's still a touch too cold for me to sit on my front porch to write this post, but it's warm enough for me to PRETEND I could be. So that's a start....

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Hello to everyone who might have returned to this week's blog post after discovering my writing blog last week! As the previous post suggested, I don't normally have suggested reading posts, but I DO praise any reading I've enjoyed that week. Sadly, I haven't had the time to read anything THIS week, so no story recommendations, if that's what you're here for.

However, if you are still here simply because you enjoyed my blog's style and/or you are interested in MY writing, then have a seat. I don't have much to say today, but I do have some progress I want to chat about.

Before that, though, I wanted to comment on something I meant to last week. And the week before that. Namely, I wanted to go over how much my Tumblr has grown the past month! I don't know if it's because of my writing - the entries in Love Square Fluff Week working in promoting me after all - or because of my promotion of other authors, a happy combo of the two, or just random circumstances. Still, check out these stats!

I had 556 notes in the month of February!? And 25 new followers!? Roughly 9% of my overall current followers started in February! I mean, I know it's not much compared to a lot of blogs on Tumblr, but for me, that's huge!

Now, something to note is probably that Top Post. Yup. That is my promotion for last week's blog post. The one where I reviewed and recommended six stories. I of course tagged the authors, and since one story had two authors, that was seven people I had tagged in the promotional post. Most - if not all - of those authors reblogged my promotional post to their blogs, spreading my promotion for this blog.

So, again, if you're now here because of that, welcome.

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Let's see what the stats are since that blog post promotion went up....

Everything kind of died off since I hadn't shared a new story, and I wasn't really reblogging anything either. You see that spike on the 29th, though? Well, EdenDaphne saw my tag and reblogged my story rec promotional post.

Clearly she has a few more followers than my 276, and my post kind of blew up a touch from that. As of this writing, my story rec post - which does highlight why I recommended each story, in case people didn't want to read my long blog post here - has 102 notes on it. Over half of those notes were after Eden reblogged my post. Now, I'm not saying all 69 post-eden-share likes are from her blog. Some of them could have been people stumbling upon my blog normally, or my own followers - I'm sorry, I didn't bother going through all of my followers to see if that's the case - or people following the other authors who also reblogged. However, there were six reblogs that were neither the others I tagged nor me responding to their reblogs. All six of those were people reblogging Eden's reblog. So... yeah.... most of that love was because I showed Eden love, and it kind of spread from there.

So, uh, thanks, Eden!

Actually, speaking of, you see the second person in my "Biggest Fans" section in that second image? Rikareena? That's actually one of my buddies from the "Hey, Arnold!" fandom that I've lost touch with when I moved onto X-Future and Miraculous. She found me on Tumblr, and we were able to reconnect, thanks to her seeing Eden's reblog of my post. She had kind of a "wait, I know that handle" moment, reached out to me, and now we can re-bond over Miraculous and a couple other shared fandoms I didn't know we had!

So thanks again, Eden.

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Now, my stats didn't exactly bottom-out after that Eden-Surge on the 29th. In part, that could be because I am still getting likes and reblogs on that promotional post. But also, I did post another story late Saturday night.

"Making the Complicated Simple"

On FanFiction       On ArchiveOfOurOwn       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

As I mentioned last week, I'm not giving up on those Fluff Week prompts, even though the event ended about three weeks ago at this point. Honestly, I'm more determined to finish this challenge than I care about whether or not I'm getting the extra promotions through the event page. Considering the event page didn't reblog my story, the admins probably aren't even checking in on the blog anymore at this point....

Still, I said I was going to write seven stories using the prompts, and that the prompts are all going to thread together into an over-all fluffy - or, as fluffy as I can get - story resulting in a reveal. I AM going to follow through on that unofficial promise to my readers. It's just taking me far longer than I had hoped.

Regardless, I DO have the latest prompt done, and I have two more to go.

Making the Complicated Simple

Summary: The Love Square is as complicated as it's always been, with Marinette only in love with Adrien, and Adrien only in love with Ladybug. Tikki confesses that she might have a solution to the whole problem, but it ended up making things even MORE complicated. Marinette just wants a simple solution to everything.

This was a bit of an experimental story, to be frank. I won't say anything more openly, in case some of you wish to go in blind to read the story. So, if you want to know a touch more about the experimental premise of this story

The real reason this story is so experimental was because I was very loosely basing it off of the play A Midsummer Night's Dream AND I was writing it AS a dream sequence without outwardly stating that's what it was. I have certain things seem "off" such as an unlikely message on Marinette's phone, a poster coming to life and then blinking back into its original position, Marinette "teleporting" between locations because dreams rarely show you actually moving from one location to the next, an akuma being stopped even though Ladybug never actually encounters them, and - to go with the Midsummer theme - Chat Noir and Adrien are different people.

For those who didn't click, the long-and-short is that I went with a very unconventional storytelling technique, and I don't know how well I managed to pull it off. I have some nice reviews from return-readers, and it has had some love over on Tumblr, so maybe I did better than I originally feared. It is also definitely fluffier than my Ladybug stories - Music to Heal and I Have Something to Confess - so maybe that helped bring in more love?

The story went up around midnight on Saturday over on Tumblr and DA, and then I had it up on FFN and AO3 around noon on Sunday, so it's not even up for all that long yet.

Now, for FFN and AO3, I don't have stats for individual chapters, but here's a quick recap of what the stats for those two sites were when I last posted them on February 23rd.

FFN: 851 views, 6 faves, 11 followers, and 11 reviews
AO3: 176 views, 19 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 13 comments

And here are the stats now. Note: I'm just sharing the DA and Tumblr stats for this individual chapter instead of the whole body of work thus far.

FFN Total: 1213 views, 8 faves, 13 followers, and still 11 reviews
    Presumably New FFN: 362 views, 2 faves, 2 followers, and no reviews
AO3: 272 hits, 21 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 15 comments
    Presumably New AO3: 96 hits, 2 kudos, no new bookmarks, and 2 comments
DA: 23 views, but no faves or comments

Total New Results: 481 views, 4 faves, 2 followers, and 2 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 16 notes; 14 likes and 2 reblogs

New AO3 reviews:
  1. I absolutely loved this! I was upset at Tikki in the beginning, but then [Redacted Due To Spoilers]
  2. Nice! [Redacted Due To Spoilers] tied in well with the connection to "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It was pretty cool to read!

Also, one of the Tumblr reblogs was to discoveringmiraculouswriters since I had tagged them, but still, I WANT that promotion, so.... cool.

I'm still not showing up on the Ladynoir Feed blog, even though it supposedly uses an algorithm to find Love Square fics on FFN, AO3, and Wattpad. I might have to start tagging them too????

Anyway, I don't know how many of those new 362 FFN views and 96 AO3 views are people reading that latest chapter in my story, but I can hope, right? Either way, I did get 2 more faves, 2 more story followers, and 2 more kudos, right? Also, as I mentioned, 2 of my repeat-readers did leave those reviews, so.... Devil's Advocate though: except for the two new reviews, which show up on that chapter, I don't know if those faves, kudos, followers, and views are from before the story even went up. There's nearly a full week between the last time I posted the stats on the 23rd and when I put "Making the Complicated Simple" up late Saturday. So, ya know, grain of salt and all that.

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Now to figure out the next prompt: Your Voice.

I've had this whole idea for YEARS now to semi-recreate the Reveal Scene from the 90s live-action show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. I just LOVE the idea of Lois FINALLY figuring it out due to her truly seeing Clark and some of his quirks and subtle mannerisms that transfer over to his Superman persona. Another bit in the previous episode - the season finale - that stuck with me, though, is how it's not just the mannerisms. I kind of wish Lois mentioned this bit as well, but it's also Clark's VOICE that suddenly seems familiar.

A bit of a quick recap of the season 2 finale to better explain. If you haven't seen this show yet, wish to, and want to avoid spoilers, here's your warning.

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Okay, so in the canon of the show, there is a man named Tempus who lives in a distant future utopia created by Superman. H. G. Wells actually manages to build the time machine he writes about in his novel. He meets Tempus, who volunteers to return to the past with Wells. Tempus has always been bored to tears in his utopian future, and uses Wells as a means to escape and try to destroy Superman in order to instead build a chaotic future. This sets off a long chain of events within the show's canon as both Tempus and Wells are repeat characters.

Anyway, in one of the episodes, the time traveling crew of Wells, Lois, and Clark all leave Tempus behind in a 1800's "Wild West" prison. Trapped in the past, Tempus writes everything he knows about Clark, Superman, and Lois. This includes the fact that Clark is Superman, and that Lois is his main weakness, along with his parents and then his co-workers. Namely, that he can work around his physical weakness to kryptonite, but not his emotional weakness towards the ones he loves.

In present day 90's, Lois and Clark have been dating, and Clark is ready to propose. However, a millionaire villain, who is NOT Lex Luthar, discovers Tempus' diaries - once thought the ravings of a madman - and uses them to not only make his fortune, but now set up a plot to destroy Superman. He kidnaps Clark's parents, and threatens to kill them if Clark doesn't steal or otherwise work as muscle for him. Eventually, it escalates to the point where the villain wants Clark to kill Lois and bring her body to him as proof. Clark must decide between his parents and the woman he loves.

Lois confronts Clark on the shady way he's been acting, and he confesses his parents' kidnapping and the latest demand for Lois' life. Lois then sets up a meeting with Superman. She tells him to quickly freeze her with his ice breath to kill her similar to cryogenic preserving. She'd be dead, but none of her cells would break down, so they could revive her once Clark and his parents are safe. Superman of course argues with her before caving in and does as she asks.

This is when Lois discovers Superman is Clark, but realizes it too late to say anything. Clark has this tendency to brush back her hair and rub the temple by her right eye with his thumb. It's a tender gesture that Superman also used just before freezing her. He had done so before as Superman, but the fact that she was afraid of staying dead heightened Lois' senses so that she truly noted how identical the interaction was with her earlier one with Clark.

Fast forward to post-climax of the episode/season finale. Superman stops the villain, and burns the diary so the man has no proof of who Superman truly is. With everyone else - and his secret - safe, Superman finds the still-frozen Lois, and revives her. It's, of course, a tense moment where Superman and his parents are wondering if she'll be able to come back. Superman is calling for her to return to him, and to not leave him alone.

Lois finally chokes out her first breath, then calls out "I'm here." She then nearly calls out Clark's name, since that's whose voice she was hearing, but quickly switches over to Superman. It's a bit weird, given the next episode - the season premiere - reveals that she already knew who Superman was at that point, and the only ones around at the time already knew as well, but maybe she felt "just coming back from the dead" wasn't the time to let HIM know she knew???

Either that, or she had temporarily forgot the revelation since there was so much more clearly on her mind at the time, and she was just focused on following her boyfriend's voice, only to be surprised to not see "Clark" standing over her???

That's kind of what I'm going for.
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OKAY! SPOILERS OVER NOW! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST PART!

So, for those who scrolled past, here's a recap with as few spoilers as possible in order for you to get the gist of what I'm aiming for.

Lois is unconscious, and Superman is there to try to revive her. He's calling her name, nervous that she isn't going to be able to wake up. He's practically begging her to come back to him. When Lois does wake up, she nearly calls Superman by Clark's name, simply because that's whose voice she heard: Clark's. It's a sweet moment where she doesn't want to leave Clark behind and alone. She's struggling to return to him, and is following his voice in order to do so. Only, when she opens her eyes, she's instead greeted by Superman, to her temporary confusion.

One day I WILL write this scene as a Miraculous Ladybug reveal, because it is one of my favorite superhero reveals in TV history.

This prompt was going to be my "in." I mean, it's RIGHT. THERE. The whole draw to the voice!? Yes!

Buuuuuuuuuuut, how do I do this without throwing a bunch of angst at the wall and seeing which sticks? It's FLUFF WEEK, even if it IS about a month later.... The stories are supposed to be fluffy! Light-hearted! Sunshine and rainbows and lollipops and cuddles and warm-fuzzy feelings.

Not "one of them nearly died" stories....

Even if I don't go with the "nearly died." If I just go with "is unconscious" or "got brainwashed by an akuma" or even "was akumatized themselves" as the story.... well... all of those options were already shown canonically, and in no way has Marinette/Ladybug been so distraught that she sat there PLEADING for Chat Noir to come back to her.

I COULD go the opposite direction, and have it truly parallel L&C by having Chat Noir trying to revive Ladybug/Marinette, and have her hearing Adrien's voice. But I purposefully held on to this story for the penultimate one specifically as a way for a pseudo-reveal. One of them realizes that the voices match perfectly, so they HAVE to be the same person, right!? It's all but confirmed. I already had Marinette's "could they be the same guy?" in that latest chapter: "Making the Complicated Simple." I don't need another one. Besides, it's more meaningful if she's looking for Chat Noir and it's Adrien who is there calling for her to come back to him.

In L&C, everyone knows Lois' love for Superman, so the fact that she hears his voice as Clark's and wants to return to him means SO MUCH for her relationship with Clark. If it was Clark calling for her, and she heard Superman, it could be interpreted as "she prefers Superman still." But to prefer the Civilian form!? To have the superhero calling for you, but wishing it were the civilian? That's an extra layer.

Even though Adrien IS the civilian, the way Marinette/Ladybug interacts with him vs Chat Noir actually reverses the roles: it's so much more significant for her to want the superhero over the civilian. So, as I said, for it to have the same impact as the L&C scene, Marinette/Ladybug would have to be calling for Chat Noir, and then be a bit disappointed/surprised to find Adrien instead. Why would Adrien be trying to revive Marinette/Ladybug though?

Doesn't matter, really. 1) it's angsty to think about, and I'm trying to go for fluff, and 2) as I mentioned, Marinette already had her "ah-ha moment" and it's now Adrien's turn. So that means it's definitely Adrien mishearing Ladybug's voice as Marinette's. Which brings us back to a perfect parallel to L&C, but with a gender swap.

Adrien (Lois) was instantly smitten by the superhero Ladybug (Superman). It was such an extreme crush that he (she) doesn't even notice the romantic interest from his (her) close friend Marinette (Clark). Adrien (Lois) doesn't even notice the fairly obvious visual similarities between Marinette (Clark) and Ladybug (Superman). Eventually, Adrien (Lois) begins seeing Marinette (Clark) in a more romantic light, slowly giving up his (her) crush on Ladybug (Superman). Then, when in great peril, Adrien (Lois) hears a voice calling his (her) name; calling for him (her) to come back to them. Adrien (Lois) regains consciousness, fully expecting for his (her) new love Marinette (Clark) to be the one calling, but is surprised, and a bit disappointed, to find the superhero Ladybug (Superman) instead. This confuses Adrien (Lois), who could have sworn he (she) had heard Marinette (Clark). This not only solidifies that Adrien (Lois) truly does love Marinette (Clark) over Ladybug (Superman), but also has Adrien (Lois) realize that Marinette (Clark) and Ladybug (Superman) have the same EXACT voice! Could they be the same person!?

HOW DO I DO THIS WITHOUT BEING ANGSTY THOUGH!?

First of all, back to my original question of getting Adrien/Chat Noir in enough peril that he has to follow Ladybug's voice back to her, thinking it was Marinette's voice the whole time. She's so panicked about him that she's PLEADING for him to not leave her, and THAT is what he follows. HOW IS THAT NOT JUST DRIPPING WITH ANGST!?

Regardless, we've seen Chat Noir in trouble before, and Ladybug distressed about it, but she hikes up her boots, defeats the villain, and trusts that her restoration powers will return Chat Noir to her, safe and sound. Even making it Adrien in trouble won't change that. In one episode he's turned into a golden glitter statue. It broke Ladybug for a couple of seconds, but she just became determined to save the day and then use her ultimate power to return Adrien to her.

Besides, I need it to be Chat Noir in trouble anyway, that way I can have him nearly call her "Marinette" before switching to "M'lady?" without causing any suspicion. Adrien doesn't call anyone "m'lady" sooooooooo......

I need to come up with another reason for Chat Noir to follow Ladybug's voice, and for it to be significant that he thought it was Marinette's the whole time. That he was trying desperately to return to his classmate and friend.

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

These Fluff Week prompts will be the death of me. Any ideas are welcome! Meanwhile, I'm going to keep trying to figure this out on my own.

Until next week.

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Come Check Out These Fics!

I ran out of time last week - in ALL THREE POSTS - to talk about the fanfics I really enjoyed reading this month. Since most of last week was also spent working on all of those blog posts, I didn't really do much else.

So, welcome to a special Story Recommendations blog post this week!

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As I mentioned in my previous posts last week, I tried to avoid reading other Fluff Week stories at first, afraid they would influence my own story. Plus, I felt like the time I was spending reading could have been better spent writing. I did, however, go back after posting my 'Concert' prompt story, and read what others came up with for the same prompt.

If you read those posts from last week, you already know that a majority of the stories I came across had very similar premises to mine: sad Adrien plays at his piano, Marinette/Ladybug stumbles upon his performance, he plays for her, they end up snuggling on the piano bench.

There was one story in particular though, that really got to me when I read their version of that premise. For their 'Concert' prompt, LittleLottieWrites added a great opening spark to potential Adrienette. The story is told through Marinette's point of view, but switches slightly in the closing line, and it is beautiful! It enticed me enough that I subscribed to their story, and I'm so glad I did.

LoveSquare Week 2020 by LittleLottieWrites
a 10,788 word story

The story is put together very much like mine: a series of one-shots that tell an over-arcing story of these two idiots finally figuring out their love for each other as the Love Square collapses into a happy couple. The progression Lottie has is fantastic. Like I said, right from the get-go, there's a hint that maybe Adrien IS seeing Marinette as more than just a simple friend, and the other chapters say the same about Marinette and Chat Noir.

The second story prompt 'Trust' uses an akuma attack as an awesome way of bringing in some glorious Ladrien content. Then Lottie has the 'Flowers' prompt showcase some sweet and playful MariChat along with a little Adrienette. The best part for me though is how it wonderfully shows off how Extra Adrien likes to be, both in and out of his superhero persona. The 'Your Voice' prompt went in the direction of Ladrien again, but with hints of Adrienette. Also, I'm a sucker for the trope "the characters unknowingly say praising things about each other's secret identity to them" so that was a nice added bonus.

As one would expect with the prompt 'Comfort', that chapter/story got a touch angsty. Ladybug is lamenting that it's been a year since getting their Miraculous, and they're no closer to stopping Hawkmoth. It's a really sweet LadyNoir bonding chapter/story. The last line is a bit of a gut-punch for Chat Noir, but that just makes the chapter all the better.

The AU chapter was fantastic! Lottie tried out the Enemies AU concept as a sort of pilot for a potential full-story. There was something about this concept/chapter/story that really spoke to me. The only word I could think to use in my chapter review as 'visceral'. You could just FEEL the excitement and anxiety the characters had. You could see Chat Noir slinking around like a cat on the prowl. My own heart began to race as Chat Noir's crush on Ladybug came into play. It was just so well done, and I'm excited to see where Lottie is going to take this favored AU trope in the fandom.

Getting back on track with their main story, Lottie finishes Fluff Week with a reveal inspired by the anime Sailor Moon. The second I saw the words 'reveal' and 'Sailor Moon' I instantly started bouncing around in my chair squeeing "Elevator scene! Elevator scene!" because I'm THAT dork. If you know Sailor Moon, you more-or-less know exactly where Lottie went with this story/chapter. If you don't, I won't ruin it for you. Go check it out.

My only qualm with this final chapter is I feel like Lottie leaned a touch TOO far into the Sailor Moon inspiration, so the characters seem a bit.... off. Otherwise, it's a very lovely piece, and I greatly enjoyed the full story. It was quite the ride!


The next story I first read while going through the other 'Concert' prompt pieces. I didn't truly start paying attention to it after seeing their take on the prompt 'Trust,' however. That second chapter really grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

Chasing Feelings by CoffeeComicsGalore
a 13,693 word story

I want to clarify that I have nothing against their 'Concert' prompt chapter. It was a lovely bit of MariChat where they go to a Jagged Stone concert together. It is sweet, and I enjoyed it. I was planning on keeping an eye out for Coffee via the Love Square Fluff Week Tumblr event page. However, after reading their 'Trust' prompt chapter, and realizing how easy it was going to be for me to lose track of them on the event page, I knew I needed to just subscribe to the story.

At first, Coffee didn't do anything terribly different compared to a lot of other writers for the 'Trust' prompt: they wrote about a trust fall. However, the energy poured into the chapter caught me, and what made me hit that subscribe button was what happened after the trust fall. Ladybug and Chat Noir were having fun. They were screwing around. They got to be TEENS, instead of just superheroes. Sure, they could do that in their civilian forms as well, but they have more FREEDOM in their superhero personas, and no matter how responsible Marinette is, she's still a 14yo kid, and it's just too tempting to just be FREE for her to not succumb to that feeling every once in a while. So it was fantastic to see them just innocently play.

Chapter 3 and the prompt 'Flowers' is when the romance truly kicked off. Chat Noir had started up a tradition to help destress and cheer up Ladybug, but Ladybug nearly catches Adrien prepping for the tradition. He recovers, and there's glorious mutual-blushing Ladrien content, before he gifts something to Ladybug. There's also underlying hints towards Adrienette that are lovely. This chapter starts the Love Square slowly caving in on itself.

For 'Your Voice', Coffee does a sort of reverse of what a lot of people did for 'Concert'. Adrien is the one who stumbles upon Marinette creating music: she's singing. He's entranced by the sound of her voice and you can tell that this chapter is when Adrien finally realizes his feelings for Marinette. It's so sweet, and watching ADRIEN be the one flustered around MARINETTE is fantastic.

Of course there's confusion and miscommunication between these two idiots, so the 'Comfort' chapter get's a touch angsty. Adrien freaks out about potentially loving Marinette, and what that could mean for his "love" for Ladybug. Meanwhile, Marinette cries on Chat Noir's shoulder about how she'll never get to be with the boy she loves.

For 'AU Day', an akuma attacks and transforms Paris into various Disney fairy tale stories and characters. It's basically Kingdom Hearts in akuma form. Adrien is Disney's version of Rapunzel, and Marinette/Ladybug is Mulan. There's some Ladrien, some Jealous-Ladybug LadyNoir action, and official Adrienette.

The story concludes with Adrien and Marinette being the PERFECT dorks as they prank their classmates, but this leads to one of the most randomly great reveals I've read. It's so stupid that it's pretty much perfect!

It's a fun ride.


As much as I enjoyed those other two stories, I have to admit my absolute favorite Fluff Week story had to be the Aged Up story told by a pair of fantastic writers.

Two Hundred Seventeen Days by mostlovedgirl and zenmisery
a 42,164 word novella

Plagg is so done. He has been watching his and Tikki’s chosens drift apart ever since they graduated from that lycée place last summer. Maybe all they need is a nudge in the right direction. Purr-haps he might even convince his Sugarcube to help him.

Marinette is eagerly anticipating the start of Jagged Stone’s concert. She isn’t expecting to run into an old friend who she hasn’t seen for two hundred seventeen days (not that she’s been counting).

Adrien is enjoying his freedom now that he is nineteen and living on his own, but it is a little lonely. He unexpectedly runs into an old friend… and keeps running into her. Why can’t he stop thinking about her?

This story actually has 8 chapters because the duo included a prologue that sets up the whole premise: Plagg convincing Tikki to help him set their holders up so the Love Square shenanigans can end already! Each chapter also ends with Plagg and Tikki recapping the chapter with some new perspective of the events, as well as hints to what they're plotting next for our love birds.

I have to give these two ladies mad props because I think this is indeed the fluffiest Fluff story I've read, while still having plenty of drama to drive the story forward. I spent so much time just squeeing throughout their chapters that I ended up - unintentionally - writing running commentaries for each of my chapter reviews.

But, we're now Tumblr mutuals, so it all worked out. Given how many of MY readers have become friends after going back and forth talking about my stories and theirs, I, of all people, should have known that gushing uncontrollably about someone's work is the easiest way to their heart.

Anyway, as the summary suggests, they started off the official story with the prompt 'Concert' seeing Adrien and Marinette "coincidentally" going alone to the same Jagged Stone concert. That's where they first rekindle their friendship, but there's also WONDERFUL Adrienette moments that felt natural and casual, but were just SOOOOO deliciously fluffy!

Then, for 'Trust', the gang all gathers for a Mylene and Ivan wedding! My original side-ship! I love DJWifi and all, but MyVan was my original jam! That alone hooked me, but the sweet - and slightly jealous - Adrienette moments continued, and suckered me in further.

'Flowers' brought in some OCs that zenmisery created for another of her ML stories, and I have to say this OC crew is fantastic! I loved them all, and they were hilarious in the best way. Also, Adrien's obliviousness knows no bounds, and it's amazing! It's also the true start of Adrien's Chat Noir starting to show up more and more around Marinette, which adds such a great flavor to the mix.

We have a pseudo-official Adrienette in the chapter 'Your Voice' and seeing those two stumble around each other - as well as Alya jumping to wild conclusions - is fantastic. We also FINALLY get to see the LadyNoir dynamic for this aged-up story, and it's really sweet and caring.

The 'Comfort' chapter made me think so much of my husband and how amazing just quiet nights at home could be. Adrien is a prince and the world doesn't deserve him. Marinette is strong and self-reliant, but it was lovely to see her drop her walls enough to allow someone else to care for her. The whole thing was sweet and healed my soul a little.

The take on 'AU Day' for this story was FANTASTIC. I mentioned this in Sunday's post, but mlg and Zen masterfully thought out of the box for their use of that prompt without it disrupting the story they were telling. As a way to avoid unwanted advancements on both Adrien and Marinette, the pair spend the day claiming to be a couple, escalating from long-term dating to engaged to secretly married, depending on the extreme the situation called for. We get a couple more OCs in this chapter. One is supposed to be a sleaze, and was written so well that I actually shuddered whenever he was in the story. The other OC was magnificent and basically the voice of the Fandom. I loved her so much! Also, seeing how easily Adrien and Marinette could convince everyone around them that they were madly in love newlyweds was perfection.

After their rouse, life got a touch more complicated for the duo, especially when the daily prompt of 'Reveal' took effect. Seeing them sort through that, sort through their own feelings, and grow closer was gloriously satisfying. Having them battle with themselves as to what the reveal would - and should - mean for their relationship was JUUUUUUUUST the right sprinkle of angst. Tikki even added an extra level of complication into the mix that was borderline hilarious as Marinette slowly put two-and-two together. Zen even used inspiration from her own love life for the conclusion of the story, and it just works so well. My only qualm is that the actual reveal was a touch handwaved since their relationship was the priority of the story, and the chapter was already running long.

I don't want to spoil anything, but there's also a lot of sexual undertones throughout the story, especially the last two chapters of it. Seeing how much Adrien respects Marinette, and how much she trusts him was beautiful. The decision making on whether or not they were ready for anything, and how that translated to their other physical interactions was just so THEM, and it showcased a side of attraction that is rarely explored anymore.

All-in-all, I just ADORED this story. I'm glad to see that it's starting to pick up steam and recommendations, because it was far too undervalued when I first started reading it. I'm also amazed at the fact that it's two writers tag-teaming chapters, and yet it feels like a cohesive, solitary story, without many writing-voice changes that might throw readers off. If I didn't know better, I could be convinced the whole thing was written by just one author, which is a feat in and of itself. They were so in sync with each other. A great duo. Just, super well done. This was also the only story out of the three that actually included Valentine's Day within the story, having Plagg and Tikki race to try to get Adrienette as an official couple before Valentine's Day ended.

Also-also... Seeing Plagg soft and protective of Adrien makes my heart soar. He's my favorite character for a reason, and both mlg and Zen treated him right.


I still have to go back through the Fluff Week event page to find other stories to consume, and I have to go through the other Lovebugs and Snake Charmers event stories as well. For now, though? Those are the three that really stuck with me for Fluff Week.

How about OUTSIDE of Valentine's Day stories, though?

Well, I have two more treats for you fine folks! I haven't had time to comment about them here yet this month, but earlier both Immortal Bonds and Discordant Sonata updated.

Immortal Bonds by Taurus Pixie
a 5,233 word on-going story

Accidentally selling her soul to the demon prince Chat Noir wasn't the smartest thing Marinette could have done. But it's not long before Marinette begins to realize there's more to Chat Noir, and the demonic world she's now found herself in, than meets the eye.

AU. *New Version*

In Pixie's newer version of Immortal Bonds, the second chapter she recently posted sets up the truly eerie feeling of the overall story. The new prologue had Marinette trapped in some sort of ethereal plain; a limbo somewhere; a waiting room for spirits, or something to that affect. Already creepy, right? Well, the new first chapter doesn't just start with Marinette at a slumber party messing with a Ouiji board. Now we get to see a bit of her normal day-to-day before things really hit the fan with that whole "selling her soul to the demon prince" thing.

We also meet Master Fu, who is just as mysterious as he was in the show, but this time he has an added level of creepy. Is he potentially scouting out for Chat Noir? Is he planning on sacrificing Marinette to the Demon Prince? Is he a demon in disguise? Will he be her savoir with taming Chat Noir once Marinette is tied to him? Whatever is going on, it's clear that Fu is certainly more than a frail old man Marinette simply saved one day. He'll be part of her life again, for sure.

The chapter is a lovely mix of Classic Miraculous Ladybug but with hints of something darker laying underneath in this AU.

The story is fairly short still as of right now, so it's the perfect time to jump on board. Just be warned, Pixie's year has NOT gone smoothly thus far, so please be patient with her updating schedule. She has a LOT going on. You can keep up with her and her updating via her blog: Taurus Pixie: Pixie's Chronicle.


The other story I follow is also an AU where Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't necessarily on the same side; at least, not at first.

Discordant Sonata by EdenDaphne
a 75,153 word on-going story

“Ladybug… I… What choice do I have? Hawkmoth, he’s ruthless and determined. And he’s… he’s not just my boss. He’s family. If I defied him, what would I do? Where would I go? He’d take my miraculous away if I even tried. I don’t have a choice.”

Enemies AU where Chat has always worked with Hawkmoth from the very beginning.

This Enemies AU is unique because it's clear from the onset that Chat Noir doesn't want to fight Ladybug. He'd gladly fight as her partner if he had the freedom to do so. It has it's fluffy moments, sure, but it's mostly a heartbreaking, angsty story with underlying hope that pushes both the characters and the reader forward.

I won't really talk much about the chapters updated this past month, because it will spoil it for anyone new to the story. However, I will comment on the fact that Eden did update earlier this month, left us hanging on quite the cliffhanger, and then mercifully concluded that tension in another chapter a week later. It was an exciting akuma battle, and Eden included a Chat Noir power that was thought of during the concept phases, but never translated into the show. I hope eventually Chat Noir powers up enough to use it, though, because it's an awesome power, especially the way Eden described its use. The power was dubbed "Black Hole" in the concept art.

ML PV Concept Art of Chat Noir's power Black Hole

Along with Eden's lovely writing, Discordant Sonata is unique in that each chapter is named after a different musical concept; each one setting up the theme of that chapter. Eden also includes mood music for the various scenes within every chapter. The music is not needed for the reader to enjoy the story she's telling, but, much like her illustrations in past fanfic collabs, Eden's mood music choices certainly elevate the emotions of the scene(s) the music is picked out for.

Eden is still relatively new to the fanfiction writing game, and yet this story is just so fantastically crafted to just YANK at those heartstrings. Also, the characters are aged up, so there's a bit more at stake. Chat Noir has been an enemy of Paris for YEARS in this Enemy AU. Ladybug has been battling solo for YEARS in an epic 1-v-2 battle... 1-v-3 if you count Hawkmoth and the akumatized supervillain as separate. Trying to turn Chat Noir against Hawkmoth in order to fight alongside Ladybug is MUCH more complicated than in a lot of Enemy AU fics. Plus, with the characters being older, there's always that hint of more sexual tension than there would be if they were still only 14. They're still innocent little beans though, so nothing ever really goes farther than that hot-hot tension.

I know that Discordant Sonata is a bit of a read by now, but I promise you it is worth it.

Also, added bonus for a lot of the stories I shared today: Immortal Bonds and Discordant Sonata are AU stories, and Two Hundred Seventeen Days is an aged up story. In all three cases, you only really need to know the vaguest information about the show to understand the story. Things that you probably learned just from me rambling about the show here. So, if you aren't in the fandom, you're in luck! You can still check out these glorious bits of work! I'm sure the authors would get a kick out of someone outside the fandom leaving them a like/kudos and comment.

Speaking of not being in the fandom but still enjoying something, there is also a non-ML story I've been reading.

Displaced by Time by Cyhyr
a 14,713 word on-going story

Vesper Scienta wanted nothing more out of life than to make sure her charge and best friend, Prince Aster Amicitia, was happy. She would follow him, always, and keep him safe, as her appointment as Shield dictates she must. She was happy. They were happy.

Then they found the Messengers.

Now she's flitting through time itself, racing against the weakening pulse of the Crystal. It's been almost nineteen years since the Dawn Returned, and the world needs saving again. Vesper just doesn't understand why it has to be her, or why the Messengers separated her and Aster, or why they paired her with the daughter of the Marshal and the son of the King of Light - both from different times.

Time's running out. The star will burn. Raise the dawn, become the night, restore the Crystal.

Vesper just wants to be with Aster again.

A lot of people seem to be avoiding or otherwise ignoring this story because the main characters are all OCs created by Cy, which is totally unfair! As unfair as Peeping Tomcat being avoided because it's written in first person. I get that 90% of fic writers get OCs and 1st person horribly wrong, but what about those of us that actually do it quite well?

Cy is one of those people that does OCs well. I'm invested in them. They are each unique in their personalities, and they're all flawed. They're diverse enough that I can usually tell who is speaking even before I get to the tag or action. I'm rooting for Vesper, and I'm greatly enjoying Eleos. Voti I'm still warming up to, but he has potential. Aster we didn't know for too long, but I liked him - and his relationship with Vesper - enough that I'm hoping the two are reunited.

The use of OCs allows Cy to really tell HER story within the world of Final Fantasy XV. A parallel story that takes place alongside the game, and silently influences it; much like the Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars episode. That kind of leeway also means she can slowly bring people into that world who never played the games. Each of the characters are from different times and from different realities. As Cy introduces the world that each character came from and how they differ from each other, she's simultaneously introducing the reader to the world and to canon character dynamics in a way that doesn't require prior knowledge. I mean, sure, prior knowledge would help, and would allow you to catch Easter Eggs within her story, just as it would for all fanfiction, but that knowledge isn't REQUIRED.

My only caveat is that the story, since it's dealing with a knotted up time stream and visions from and of divine beings, does get a little confusing to keep track of. That's done intentionally so that you can become as disoriented as Vesper, and so you can try to sort things out alongside her. The mystery of what is going on and how to fix it, as well as the concern of what parts of history should the characters mess with, and which ones will only make things worse in the future, really pulls you in.

I am not remotely in the Final Fantasy fandom. I've only ever played the first two on my Nintendo DS, and I gave up about half-way through the second one. I own FF VII: Advent Children and more-or-less know the story of Cloud and Crew from the 7th game, but that maxes out my knowledge of the franchise.

I'm still adoring this story, and it's truly getting criminally small amounts of attention, so please give Cy some love as well.

Hacker Boy and Hacker Girl
Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

Okay, time to tag out my story recommendations, and tag in some more info about my own writing.

After a solid week of working on blog posts trying to recap my weeks, talking about the research I put into my Lukanette story, and how I was inspired for my various Fluff Week stories, I FINALLY stopped using this blog as a means to procrastinate.

I started working on my 'AU Day' prompt story yesterday. I got myself a bit worn out throughout the day - still not feeling 100%, I'm actually feeling a bit sleepy right now - so I didn't get as far as I would have liked in the story. It IS getting written though. I don't know if I'll be able to complete it and my other two prompt stories before the end of the month, though.

I have my normal "day off; time to run errands" day today, and I have writing group, so I'm not sure how much more free time I have to work on my writing tonight. Tomorrow I work, then zumba, then the lone night I actually watch TV. I watch The Masked Singer, followed by Lego Masters; just the second half of LM if I didn't get a chance to shower before TMS. I then close out the evening with The Magicians.

Thursday would normally be D&D night, so I wouldn't really have any outside-of-work writing time regardless, but we're actually cancelling D&D AGAIN so that a group of us can go see the My Hero Academia movie. That will probably be a late night.

I DO have Friday off, so maybe I'll crank out the last of my stories then. My apartment DOES need a freshening up as well though, so trying to split my time will be tricky, especially if Hubby wants to hang out too. We'll see how I end up prioritizing.

As of right now, though, I'm about 1600 words into my 'AU Day' prompt story, and I pretty much JUST got to the inciting incident after setting up the world of the story/chapter. I'm not sure I want to know how massive this project is going to be.

I should probably get back to it though, huh?

Well, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday within the Christian community, which means today is Donut Day! Or 'Fat Tuesday' or 'Paczki Day' or 'Fasnacht Day'... depending on where on the East Coast you are, I guess. It's also Marti Gras! So break out that vibrant purple, gold, and green!

Me? I'm sticking with Donut Day. Take the day to indulge. With the way the winter and 2020 has been shaping up, you've probably earned a "cheat day".

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I went back to my spring-like Bitmoji clothes there because it's been gorgeous this week! Anyway, I guess I'll catch you all next Tuesday. Have fun, everyone, and let me know if you also enjoyed any of those stories, or if there's others I NEED to read.

The Battle With Fluff Week

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Edited by LycoRogue

Welcome back to this super special THIRD blog post this week! (Does this count as "this week" when it's Sunday and is closer to "next week"?) I meant to have this up on Thursday but... well... I've been sick this week (with my sleep schedule this month!? Who would have thunk!?) and I've been a bit too drained to finish this post on time despite my continuous working on it the past few days.

(What are you talking about? I'm totally not focusing on getting this post up to avoid working more on my Fluff Week stories....)

Koko Facebook sticker
by Hanasake Pictures Inc

Buuuuuut, speaking of Fluff Week, that's the main aim of this post. Wednesday I talked about everything that went into writing Marinette's Song, and today I'm going to discuss my battle with the Love Square Fluff Week at the beginning of the month.

In truth, part of the problem was probably my participation in the Lukanette Secret Admirer story exchange. I thought I had my schedule properly planned out so I could manage both, but with my lack of really writing anything in January, and then the EXCESSIVE amounts of research for Marinette's Song, I just shot myself in the foot. I didn't have time to properly plan out Fluff Week, which, at first blush, didn't seem that terrible of a deterrent. I didn't really plan Kyoru Week either, and yet I managed to do fairly well. I could totally do the same with Love Square, right?

Weeeeell... the thing is that I was focused on Marinette and Luka for close to a month. Even though I'm a die hard Love Square shipper, it was still a bit of a mental shift for me, and I guess I wasn't able to manage it as acrobatically as I thought. Another issue was that, as my husband put it, I depleted my Fluff Reserves while working on Marinette's Song, leaving me with almost only angst for my Fluff Week posts.

Ironically.

Yeah, I know, I know. I love you too, Irony.
NOW, GET OFF!

I mean, fluff got into the stories EVENTUALLY, but they weren't all good feelings and happy times, as one would expect to find during something called Fluff Week.

Honestly, I'm surprised I got any kind of love at all for those stories. The two with Ladybug were largely angsty, with comforting bonding at the end making everything better. The stories with Marinette are definitely fluffier, but there's no real romance in them. I mean, I have a HINT of romance towards the end of both, but still....

So, uh, yeah. No clue why Fluff Week is so much harder for me than other times I go to write. This month I was basically this meme...

That's Salt Not Sugar meme (or whatever it's called)

I guess I was just in a Mood the past month or so, and it spilled out onto my stories. In the end, though, I DID get some love.

FFN: 851 views, 6 faves, 11 followers, and 11 reviews
AO3: 176 views, 19 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 13 comments
DA: 141 views, 2 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1168 views, 27 faves, 13 followers, and 24 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 150 notes; 115 likes, 30 reblogs, and 5 comments

This post will be long enough as it is. Feel free to go to the respective sites to read the comments and reviews.

Not too shabby for someone who didn't really write fluff or fully participate in the event week. At least, not yet. I DID post a 4th prompt-story after the event was officially done, and I AM planning on finishing the other 3 prompts. I even have the AU Day prompt plotted out finally. More on that later.

Now, while I, of course, prefer sites like FFN and AO3 for my multi-chapter stories because everything is linked together as one large file, as opposed to my readers having to either go back to my profile or follow embedded links to get to the next chapter, there's also something that can be said about DeviantArt and Tumblr.

Namely, that I can see how specific chapters rate compared to the others.

Over on DeviantArt, my most popular chapter thus far is my MariChat story Let Me Help You. It has the most views at 51, and it's the only chapter with any faves. My second-best chapter is my first one: the Ladrien story Music to Heal, which has 47 views. My LadyNoir story/chapter I Have Something To Confess comes in third with 37 views. Trailing in the back of the pack is my Adrienette piece Playing House with only 6 views. To be fair for those later stories/chapters, though, they weren't up as long as the first two, so those numbers could still catch up in a day or so. It's unlikely after nearly a week, but it IS possible. Also, I published my first 3 stories/chapters while Fluff Week was still going, so maybe people just aren't in the mood anymore now that I've continued past the event - and Valentine's Day - with Playing House.

I'm inclined to believe perhaps the timing is indeed the main issue with the Adrienette story over on DA, because on Tumblr it's the biggest hit out of the four Fluff Week stories I have up. It has 47 likes, 12 reblogs - although, 1 reblog is by DiscoveringMiraculousWriters and another is the event page for Fluff Week. That being said, I did also get one more reblog from each of those two sites, so that's at least one more reader each that I might not have had without those reblogs.

I have to say, for a story I published at about 2am on Monday morning - and therefore the story hasn't even been live for a week - I'm impressed it's had so much love! I'm also glad Love Square Fluff Week is still reblogging stories tagged for the event, even if the event is over. Bodes well for my last 3 stories/chapters.

Much like over on DeviantArt, my MariChat story received a bunch of love as well. Over on Tumblr, it was a close second to Playing House. I currently have 34 likes and 10 reblogs. Granted, one of those reblogs was again by the LSFW event blog, and, sadly, no one else reblogged from the event page. I did get two more reblogs off of other people's reblogs though... so again I have at least 2 more readers than what I might have had otherwise.

I honestly don't know what it is about these two stories that got them so much love compared to the other two. Although, I do have to admit that there is a small handful of factors that I can think of.

• Playing House and Let Me Help You have Marinette instead of Ladybug, and maybe people prefer that?
• I know I prefer it. It's easier to have Marinette in a romantic situation than the super serious "must focus on Superheroing" Ladybug, as adorable as Soft Eyes Ladybug tends to be.
• PH and LMHY are arguably the fluffier of my stories, whereas the two with Ladybug instead of Marinette are more hurt/comfort stories.
• As I said above, it's easier to have Marinette be all fluffy and romantic as opposed to Ladybug. Because of the serious nature of Ladybug's character, it lends itself better to those hurt/comfort stories that start off a touch angsty, but becomes fluffy towards the end.
• Because I prefer writing Marinette over Ladybug, perhaps that bled through into the stories, and so, along with being fluffier, the Marinette stories are also just more fun to read.
• I've had time to distance myself from Lukanette when I wrote each of those Marinette-centric stories, so maybe my Fluff Meter refilled slightly?

I'm sure there are other potential factors, but those are the main ones I could think of. 

Anyway, my first-ever attempt at writing the Ladrien side of the Love Square came in third for Tumblr love. It could be because it was the first one posted, and therefore had the most time for people to have found it. It could be because I tagged EdenDaphne - something I'll touch upon again in a moment - and therefore had more visibility. It could also be because my LadyNoir story is probably the least fluffy out of my four posts, but I'll touch on that shortly as well.

My Ladrien story Music to Heal currently sits at 25 likes, and 7 reblogs. Since this story focuses heavily on music, I stole a fantastic idea from EdenDaphne's story Discordant Sonata, and included mood music links for people to listen to while reading. Since I got the idea from Eden, I made sure to tag her in my story in order to credit her. It kept her a couple of days to see the tag, but when she did she left me a lovely comment and reblogged it to her side tumblr account - the one she specifically has for reblogs so her main can focus on her original content. What's even better is that at least one person reblogged from Eden's side account. So, thank you, Eden, for spreading my story to at least one more person who might not have seen it otherwise. I'm actually going to say two people, because I don't know if Yunyin - another artist I admire - would have seen it otherwise either.... so... yay!

Anyway, while it will be a bit much to post all 24 reviews I've received between FFN and AO3, I AM going to share Eden's. Mostly because I admire her artwork and storytelling so much that I'm still dumbfounded that she read something I wrote AND commented on it AND reblogged it. Although, I must admit, that final bit might just be because I tagged her and she might have a thing for reblogging all mentions... but still! A reblog! Of my stuff! On Eden's sideblog! Whoo!

EdenDaphne: AHHHH I can’t believe I didn’t see the mention! What a sweet chapter, the music added that extra oomph to the Feels™️ 😭👌

The LSFW event blog also reblogged my story, and one person reblogged from that, so again, I managed to be seen by at least one more person who might not have found my work otherwise. So, that's super cool! It was expanded visibility like this that convinced me to try out the event in the first place, after all.

As for that LadyNoir story? Well, as I mentioned, I got kinda angsty in I Have Something To Confess, which mostly focuses on Ladybug letting Chat Noir know she knew where Master Fu lived, and that she allowed Adrien Agreste - simply a civilian, as far as she knows - the honor of suggesting a Miraculous Holder - something that Chat Noir hasn't been able to do - AND Adrien knows who Viperion is when NO ONE is supposed to know who the other holders are, aside from Master Fu and Marinette since she's handing them out.

I mean. I like the story well enough, but it probably isn't "worthy" of Fluff Week when it gets so heavy with its content. That MIIIIIIGHT be the reason it only has 9 likes on Tumblr, and the only reblog is by the Fluff Week event blog.

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Regardless of any other love I received, however, I have consistently gotten the same comment from the user daminett4life. Namely, they have left me triple heart emojis on all four story/chapter posts: ❤️💛❤️

Thank you so much for all the love, daminett4life!

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This is all well and good, but how did I come up with these stories in the first place? Why are they mostly angsty? Where am I planning on going with the final 3 prompts.... assuming I stop procrastinating enough to actually WRITE them?

All very good questions.

Let's obviously start with the first prompt: Concert.

"Music to Heal"

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Summary: Ladybug ends up stumbling upon an intimate scene as she stalks by Adrien’s home.

I meant to have my Lukanette story done by the 5th so I could start working on the Love Square stories on the 6th when Fluff Week started. However, the 6th was a busy work day, and I did NOT feel well; mostly just tired, but still. We ended up cancelling D&D that week, but I also didn't get much writing done, let alone starting my Love Square story. To be fair, though, my lack of writing anything that first day of the event was also largely due to the fact that I wasn't sure what to do for the prompt.

Friday the 7th, I spent most of the day at work trying to figure out SOMETHING. I purposefully avoided reading any fics because I didn't want to have them potentially influence my writing, but I still scrolled through the fanart to see if I could find something to spark a story. I then searched just generic Love Square fanart to see if that would inspire me. Trying to come up with a plot for a quick one-shot was trying, at best. I kept bouncing back and forth between ideas, mostly leaning towards the duo at a Jagged Stone or Kitty Section or Clara Nightingale concert, but that felt like the direction everyone would go??? I mean, it was a given, right? Prompt is 'Concert' so you take one of the three established bands/singers canonically in the show, and have Adrien and Marinette - in some form - go to the concert together.

Naturally, I wanted to see if I could bring an original take to the party, and eventually landed on Adrien playing piano for Ladybug. I had never written Ladrien before. It is just TOUGH to come up with a plausible excuse for Ladybug to spend time with Adrien, and not simply save him and then dash off again to stop the akuma. I mean, I've seen some nice concepts before, such as Ladybug being asked to be his personal bodyguard when the threat is a bit too high for Adrien's normal bodyguard to handle. There's also the classic "Ladybug checking in on Adrien post-akuma." No matter what I came up with though, it either didn't feel original enough or didn't make sense due to the fact that Adrien - as Chat Noir - would have been with Ladybug for the most part, or wouldn't have gotten home before Ladybug with enough time for him to be in the middle of something, like playing piano.

I needed Marinette to be Ladybug without an akuma threatening Paris, that way there was a reason for Adrien to be home; clueless of the need for Chat Noir. MariChat is easier because we have canon evidence of Adrien becoming Chat Noir just to get out of his father's home for a bit. For Marinette though? The only real canonical evidence of her being Ladybug outside of akuma attacks is when she's late for something, and needs to be Ladybug in order to cross the city quickly. She's also been Ladybug for petty reasons, such as finding a way to stop Adrien from slow dancing with Chloe, or to yell at Lila for lying about personally knowing Ladybug. None of them felt right for a Ladrien story, especially that prominent one of her being late for something: why would she then stop at Adrien's house and make herself later? The fandom loves to have the heroes go on patrol for those "just out as superheroes without anything terribly pressing" moments. I think the idea came from a YouTube exclusive video - one of the Miraculous Secrets videos - but patrols are never mentioned in the canon show, so I tend to ignore they happen.

I know I could have made an exception this one time, but I also thought of two other times Marinette was Ladybug without an akuma attacking: the episode "Prime Queen" where she and Chat Noir had a live interview with Nadja, and the episode "The Mime" when Ladybug granted Alya a private interview. So that was my in: she had done another interview with Alya - because she doesn't quite trust Nadja's reporting - and it just felt easier for her to go home as Ladybug as well. She's not in a hurry, and could cave in to her urge to stop by the Agreste mansion.

Originally it was supposed to be a very fluffy story of her getting a "private concert" from Adrien on his piano, but it somehow just got grim. He was grieving and missing his mom, and he played sorrowful music to reflect that. He was feeling alone and tearful, and Ladybug was there to comfort him, but I still had to break the poor kid first.

I'm mean like that.

At least I got a touch fluffier for the next story.

"Let Me Help You"

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Summary: Chat Noir struggles to help Marinette out with a major last-minute project. If only his darn claws weren’t in the way.

Like I said in my Tuesday blog, I couldn't think of anything for the prompt 'Flowers' until I thought back to Kyoru Week's prompt 'Paper Flower' and the significance of that prop for Kyo and Tohru. I could use that. I could have Adrien give Marinette a paper flower... or, more appropriately, Marinette give Adrien one. Somehow that turned into Chat Noir giving Marinette one. Regardless, I had to figure out why there were paper flowers in the first place.

My first thought was "Marinette is a class rep. So maybe she needs to make all of these flowers like they did in Fruits Basket." But I couldn't think of WHY. I didn't know if France had School Festivals like Japan did, and I wasn't sure if graduating from collège (basically middle school) in France is a huge deal? I did some research about two years ago and found out that you could basically test out of school at that point, if you wanted to go straight into a trade school or a career or whatever instead of going to high school. So... maybe it is a big deal? I didn't really have time to do the research though, so creating flowers for school was out. Of course I JUST NOW thought of "school dance, of course", but then again, I don't know if that's an American school tradition that doesn't exist in France...

I also thought about them making the flowers as a crafting project in art, but I couldn't think of a reason for Marinette to openly give Adrien one of the flowers, or vice versa, when the rest of the class is right there. I also thought of the students that go to the art room during their free period, but Adrien doesn't seem to be one of them, so I was again struggling to figure out how to get the flower from the room to Adrien.

I then thought of Kitty Section, and needing the flowers for set design for a music video. Okay. That was set. Next obstacle: the premise of Kyo having to redo all of his flowers because his admirers stole his initial batch, and Tohru helping him so he wasn't there all night. This would be perfect for Adrien and Marinette, except I couldn't figure out a scenario where Adrien was the one making flowers, Gabriel letting him out of the house to bring the flowers anywhere, or the flowers being left somewhere that Adrien's fans could swipe them. (Of course, yet again, I just now thought of him making the flowers during a free period in school and dropping them off at Juleka's and Luka's after school, but his fans swipe them in the interim...)

Point is, I couldn't figure it out THEN - I really need to find someone to bounce ideas off of like I just did here... - so I switched back to Marinette making the flowers, but why did she need to re-do them? I thought that they SOMEHOW went missing, and she was up late struggling to remake them all when Chat Noir pops in to check on her. He had seen her flinging things all around her room to look for the flowers, and he became concerned. I even started writing up the story with that premise, only to realize "would she have enough left-over supplies to start from scratch at about 10 o'clock at night? If so, why the surplus?" Soooo I instead went with a premise similar to the "Gamer 2.0" episode: Marinette overbooked herself and didn't have the time to work on the flowers before 10pm the night before they needed to be done. She's in a panic, and sore from making them as fast as she can, and freaking out that she won't get them done in time, and Chat Noir spots her pacing her room and stretching out, clearly tense about something. He checks in, and offers to help. The story developed from there.

The true struggle, though, was figuring out that second prompt of 'Trust'. As I mentioned on Tuesday, the trick was coming up with a display of trust that wasn't already showcased on the show or in other fanfics. I'm happy with what I came up with, but it certainly wouldn't really qualify as "fluff" under normal circumstances....

"I Have Something to Confess"

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Summary: Now that she’s the Guardian of the Miraculous, Ladybug has a lot to confess.

I was stuck for so long that I caved and began reading other stories with this prompt to see what others were doing. A lot of people had trust falls as their take on the prompt: be it Marinette and Adrien, or Ladybug and Adrien, or Ladybug and Chat Noir. The thing that really got me, though, was most of them showed Chat Noir/Adrien's complete trust in Ladybug/Marinette, not so much the other way around.

Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the Trust Fall stories. I actually really enjoyed CoffeeComicsGalore's take in their story Chasing Feelings. The story just really got to me for whatever reason. It's LadyNoir being playful and enjoying each other's company. I think I especially enjoyed Ladybug and Chat Noir acting as teens instead of superheroes. It's super sweet. In fact, all of Chasing Feelings is sweet, so might as well check out the whole thing!

Especially their last chapter for the prompt 'Reveal'? It's amazing, and has Adrienette being stupid dorks to prank their class and it's amazing and I need it to be canon!

Anyway, back to MY story.

I tried to think of different ways of displaying trust in someone without it being a trust in one's physical well being. I ran through dozens of different scenarios, none of which I remember now, and eventually I thought back to the episode "Syren" where Adrien/Chat Noir felt undervalued and untrustworthy to the point where he threatened giving up being Chat Noir because he wasn't being trusted or viewed as an equal partner.

Bingo! There's the trust! It was again SUPPOSED to be fluffier; closer to LMHY than Music to Heal. However, as I wrote it, it was a bit more even keel. It wasn't super angsty, but it wasn't terribly fluffy either. Chat Noir felt hurt that he was left out, but was feeling better that Ladybug now is trying to rectify that and make him a more equal partner again. Ladybug also was a bit saddened by the situation - losing Master Fu as a mentor and allowing her and Chat Noir to drift in equality for so long - and she was scared to find out Chat Noir's reaction to what she had to confess to him. She was surprised by how well he took everything, and amazed that he comforted her and reassured her that he wasn't mad.

It's a sweet story that I enjoy. It just isn't "fluffy".... like every story I published during the actual Fluff Week.

I think the trick was my last minute audible into wanting the stories to tie together. I was originally going to just do a series of one-shots like I did with Kyoru Week, but I saw so many other writers were making a cohesive story with the prompts. So I stupidly attempted to follow suit.

I Have Something To Confess was the first time I fully tried to integrate the Fluff Week stories by having Chat Noir remember how it felt for Ladybug to have comforted him, and how happy Marinette was when he gave her the paper flower. I also knew I needed to build up their relationship from friends to lovers in this story. Clearly the current Love Square dynamic was already in play: Ladybug and Adrien being in love with each other, but not sure how to express that, meanwhile Chat Noir and Marinette are just friends goofing around with each other and bonding. I couldn't instantly make them lovers. I had to work my way to it. I took the first step towards that in this chapter.

I then took a slightly larger one in the next story, the one I posted after the event was technically done.

"Playing House"

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Summary: Adrien finally has a day to spend with his friends, but Marinette can’t join in on the fun because she has to babysit Manon. Alya thinks they can do better than that….

The prompt for this story was 'Comfort' and I was again stuck, hence posting after the event concluded. I already had enough angsty stories where one part of the Love Square comforted another. Although, to be fair, in IHSTC, I had the comforting mostly be Chat Noir towards Ladybug, so that's twice Chat Noir comforted his lady - once as Marinette, and once as Ladybug - but I have yet to have Chat Noir be comforted. Likewise, I had, in this order, Adrien upset and comforted, Marinette upset and comforted, then Ladybug upset and comforted. So it WAS Chat Noir's turn to be upset and comforted somehow. At the same time, though, I had but one side of the Love Square left to showcase, and it didn't include Chat Noir.

Adrien and Marinette were both already upset about something, and already comforted by the other's superhero persona. I didn't really want to repeat that. Plus, I really TRULY wanted to try to be fluffy this time. I then noticed that the prompt was 'Comfort' and not 'Comforting' or 'Comforted'.

I could just focus on them BEING comfortable. Cozy clothes or non-awkward interactions or snuggling, etc. The possibilities erupted out of me when I realized that distinction.

There were almost too many, and I couldn't really lock down any in particular. One thought was to just have Marinette be relatively chill around Adrien for once; COMFORTABLE with him, like she was in "Oblivio" or the chapter "Normal" in my story Peeping Tomcat. Maybe the two have another dance since Marinette and Adrien both seemed quite comfortable together. Or she could teach him how to bake. There was also the aforementioned thought of them snuggling together under a blanket or something, but I couldn't quite figure out the reason why they were like that.

I also tried looking at one of my original fandoms, "Hey, Arnold!", in order to figure out "true fluff." What were some of the best Shortaki moments in the show, and what made them great? I instantly thought of the episode "Dinner for Four" where Helga wins a gift certificate for a dinner at a local French restaurant. In her attempt to prove to Arnold that she's as sophisticated as his crush Lila, Helga invites Arnold, Gerald, and Phoebe out to dine; on her. Or rather, on the gift certificate. Problem is, she got the restaurants mixed up and takes them to another French restaurant, racking up a high bill she can't pay for. She tries to get out of the bill, but in the end she admits her wrongdoings and the quartet washes dishes to make up for the cost of the meal. While Helga is understandably upset, Arnold playfully sprays her with the sink hose, and tells her how proud of her he is, as a way to try to cheer her up.

It's adorable, but I just couldn't figure out how to work that into an Adrienette story. So back to the drawing board I went. Maybe Marinette designed "comfy" clothes and Adrien was modeling them? Hubby ran with that idea and suggested a slumber party so they're all in comfy PJs. It felt weird for me, though, to have a co-ed slumber party with teenagers. Sure, OUR quartet of Marinette, Adrien, Nino, and Alya are just innocent beans who would probably have a wholesome slumber party, but I grew up with co-ed sleep overs past the age of 12 being a "no-no" until you were in college and Mommy and Daddy couldn't stop you. I couldn't get through that mental block. At least, not that day.

I know my school had "sleep over" trips to places like museums where the class went to the museum after-hours to have a private look at all of the exhibits, and have special ones set up for us specifically because we were spending the night. We then crashed in sleeping bags right in the main halls of the museum, have another fun private tour of some other exhibits in the morning, a pancake or scrambled eggs breakfast, a stop at the gift shop, and then homeward bound. There is the Louvre right there in Paris, among other historical sites. I could do something like that to allow the co-ed slumber party. However, my museum sleep overs were largely when I was about 10, so.... not sure if it's a thing 14-year-olds would be participating in????

Dear lord, I overthink my stories, don't I?

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by Yanare Ku

Anyway, I felt like maybe Hubby was on the right track with the PJs thing, even if I couldn't quite figure it out. I remembered the episode "Startrain" and the two of them snuggling while napping on the train to London. I could do something like that! You have to be super comfortable with someone to fall asleep around them, let alone ON them.

Perhaps they have a video game night - they seemed kind of comfortable together in "Gamer" - and it gets kind of late, so Marinette passes out on Adrien's shoulder again, or even on his lap. Or Adrien passes out on HER lap. I couldn't figure out how Adrien was able to stay out that late, however.

What if it was some sort of screening of one of Nino and Alya's movies, which would ALSO have them snuggling under a blanket, and it was just too calm and Adrien passes out!? It was good, but Alya and Nino were still there.

Finally, I don't even really remember how I landed on it, but I thought of the quartet having fun at the wax museum while playing with little Manon. I had already established in LMHY that Marinette is overbooking herself and exhausting herself, AND in IHSTC I added on the stress that Ladybug is under. Marinette was always overwhelmed with babysitting duties before, but now that the poor girl is exhausted!?

That's when I came up with the broad premise: Adrien gets a rare free day to hang with his friends, but Marinette is already getting overwhelmed while babysitting Manon. Alya volunteers to help her bestie out since Manon listens to Alya a lot more. Adrien and Nino chat before deciding to help the girls out. They help babysit, but Alya notices how tired Marinette is, and orchestrates her and Nino leaving with Manon to give Marinette and Adrien "alone time," and Alya tells Adrien to stay put to let Mrs. Chamack know where her daughter is, if she gets there before Alya and Nino return.

I was even able to work in that playful dish washing scene from HA! by having Marinette's family kitchen be a disaster after trying to bake with Manon, and Adrien helps clean it up while Marinette's napping.

In the end, it was definitely the fluffiest story out of the four I posted, and I kinda adore where it went.

Where are the next three going to go, though?

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I'm going to talk a bit about my intended plots for the last 3 stories/chapters, so if you want to go in blind, just scroll past.

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You good? You want to stick around to read this? Okay, cool. So the prompt that's tripped me up for most of this week is 'AU Day'. Now, a reminder that AU is short for "Alternate Universe" and is a type of story where you throw the characters into a situation that wouldn't be able to logically happen in the universe presented in the source material. For instance, my Lukanette story Marinette's Song where Marinette is a witch and Luka and Juleka are descended from sirens. A VERY popular AU trope is "Coffee Shop AU" where the characters run or otherwise meet at a simple coffee shop. There's also the "non-magic AU" trope where Ladybug and Chat Noir are either spies or superheroes without powers a la Batman or Ironman. Another one that showed up during Fluff Week was "Fairytale/Disney AU." I wanted to go a bit "off script" again and come up with a different take on AU. Because, ya know, I like to make my own life harder for whatever reason....

There was also the added challenge of "how can I be in an AU and still have it logically connect to the overall story?" A lot of the other continuous stories had an akuma create the AU universe, or they just allowed the AU be a "What If..." chapter. One story in particular, Two Hundred Seventeen Days by the duo mostlovedgirl and zenmisery - a story I will definitely gush over in my next blog post - went super creative and had Adrien and Marinette fake a relationship to avoid unwanted romantic/sexual advances, so their 'AU' is them being in a long-time relationship.

Hubby joked that I could take 'AU Day' literally by making it a chapter centered around gold - because AU is the chemical symbol for gold - or I could purposefully misinterpret what AU meant and have it stand for Aged-Up. Although, the Aged-Up story idea would have a similar issue to Alternate Universe, unless I time jump to Future Ladybug and Future Chat Noir via Bunnyx or something....

Anyway, waving off Hubby's suggestions, I thought of going a bit unique by having the AU being the characters playing a role play game, and telling the story through the perspective of their characters. It was a fun concept to think of the gang creating alternate personas for a World of Warcaft-like MMORPG, or characters for a LARP in one of Paris' many parks, or even a D&D-parody game. I might still develop these plot bunnies at some point, but there were two main issues with this route:

1. I wanted these last 3 prompts to FINALLY have the Love Square kind of collapse on itself: Marinette all but figures out who Chat Noir is, or at least realizes her feelings being torn between him and Adrien, and the same for Adrien with regards to Ladybug and Marinette.
2. Adrien feeling comfortable enough with his character persona to act more "Chat Noir Like" and Marinette not tripping over herself while role playing with Adrien. Plus, this would have to be an ongoing thing for them; could I afford Adrien enough time in his schedule to regularly - at least weekly - dedicate HOURS of his day playing a role play?

Again, it's a fun concept, but I think it might be a bit much for a single chapter within a story instead of a story in and of itself.

Finally, I went to yet another of my fandoms for inspiration: Ouran High School Host Club. In the episode "Haruhi in Wonderland" the main character becomes "Alice" as she follows Honey's stuffed pink bunny around Ouran, and meets each of the Host Club members - and other main supporting cast - as the various Alice in Wonderland characters. The Host Club members joke that Haruhi makes a "poor Alice" due to her logical analyzing of everything she comes across in the Ouran Wonderland. This crossover/AU episode ends with Haruhi waking up to Tamaki telling her to get ready for their Wonderland event, and she quips that she can't tell anymore when she's awake vs dreaming due to the eccentric nature of the Host Club members.

Normally, I'm not a fan of "It was all just a dream" stories, but that's usually focused on dramas, where the drama doesn't matter because everything goes back to Status Quo by the end. For AU episodes or stories, however, the "It was all just a dream" can be fun as it tends to also bring the story in a more whimsical direction. Also, if the audience already knows it's AU they are already expecting the events to not affect canon anyway, so the rug feels less pulled out from beneath you when the dream is "revealed".

The Miraculous Ladybug episode "Oblivio" kind of bridges that gap. It had drama, so the amnesia premise was annoying because none of it actually mattered in the end, however, due to how extreme the episode was, it was hard to believe it WOULDN'T somehow go back to the Status Quo, so you just enjoyed the ride and canonical proof of how well Adrien and Marinette would be together if they could just get past their own hang-ups. The season 3 episode "Chat Blanc" was also very much the same way - I can't believe they did that to us twice within the same season, BTW....

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My point is, I want to do a sort of semi-crossover/dream sequence for my 'AU Day' chapter/story. It was tricky to sort it out since it's not a direct parallel, but with the Love Square I wanted to go with an "A Midsummer Night's Dream" inspired story. Since it's a dream, Adrien and Chat Noir are two different people, and Kwami Shenanigans - that I don't have to properly explain because it's a dream, and when are things explicitly explained in dreams? - causes both boys to fall for Marinette; abandoning their love for Ladybug. Marinette gets a bit overwhelmed by the attention, and by the end of the dream she yells that it would be easier if they were just the same guy. Chat Noir and Adrien - in unison - comply and merge together, which is when Marinette wakes up with a start as her phone alarm blasts away.

If I can just stop procrastinating and get to writing the thing, it might be the fluffiest of my stories. I get to really just indulge in it, and I don't have to worry if it's not fully explained or a bit jumbled, as long as I skillfully do so in a way that seems obvious that it's a dream prior to Marinette waking up.

The next story/chapter would use the Day 4 prompt of 'Your Voice'. I was instantly inspired by this prompt. I've thought about this for YEARS now. Adrien does shift the tone of his voice slightly whenever he's talking as Chat Noir. Between that and his personality shift, it's easy to see how Marinette MIGHT not see the two as similar, let alone the same person. HOWEVER, the same can't really be said about Marinette. Sure, she's more confident as Ladybug, and that would affect her vocal tone, but if you heard confident Marinette vs Ladybug, it would be hard to tell the two apart.

I'm just waiting for the day when Adrien realizes that. He hears Marinette, and thinks it's Ladybug, or vice versa. I was half-expecting that sort of "ah-ha moment" in the episode "Reverser" when Ladybug becomes very clumsy and much more "Marinette-like" due to the villain's powers.

Add in my love for the 90s live action show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. The very next sentence is going to be a spoiler for the show, but you're already in the Spoiler Alert section, soooooooo...... Anyway, the season 2 finale of L&C reveals that Lois figured out that Clark was also Superman. She figured it out due to 2 very important factors. The first was that she noticed both Clark and Superman lovingly cradled her face and massaged her temple with his thumb in EXACTLY the same way. The second was when Superman was reviving Lois and calling out to her, she regained consciousness thinking it was Clark calling to her, and even nearly called him Clark when she awoke.

That one. That second factor of confusing Superman's voice for Clark's is what I want to do. I'm not sure how I'm going to bang up Adrien/Chat Noir so badly without going down the Angst Hole again, but I want him to recover to Ladybug calling out for him, and he defaulting to "Marinette's Voice!"

I'm still unsure what I'm going to do for an official reveal for that final story/chapter/prompt. I have the dominoes lined up with Marinette wanting Chat Noir and Adrien to be the same person, and Adrien thinking he heard Marinette when it was actually Ladybug, AND PREFERRING MARINETTE TO HAVE BEEN THERE. So I just have to sort that out.

First though, is writing that AU story and going from there.
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OKAY! SPOILERS OVER NOW! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST PART!

The long and short for those who scrolled passed the spoilers, I have the AU story more-or-less mapped out. I was inspired by the 'Your Voice' prompt because it's something I've thought about for years with regards to a potential reveal lead-in. I don't know exactly what I want to do, but I have the overall FEEL for what I want to go for. That final prompt of 'Reveal' is still eluding me, but I hope to have it sorted out by the time I'm done with the other two stories/chapters.

AAAAAAAAAND there we go! All done with letting you know what went into my Fluff Week stories, and I'm all caught up on all of my "bonus content". This Tuesday I'll be focusing on all of those amazing stories I've read this month. I wanted to fit them in with the rest of Fluff Week, but this post is already so insanely epic.

Stay tuned for that Story Recommendations post on Tuesday!

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