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(What are you talking about? I'm totally not focusing on getting this post up to avoid working more on my Fluff Week stories....)
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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.
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| Yeah, I know, I know. I love you too, Irony. NOW, GET OFF! |
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...
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| That's Salt Not Sugar meme (or whatever it's called) |
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.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.
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™️ ðŸ˜ðŸ‘Œ
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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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"
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.Summary: Ladybug ends up stumbling upon an intimate scene as she stalks by Adrien’s home.
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"
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.Summary: Chat Noir struggles to help Marinette out with a major last-minute project. If only his darn claws weren’t in the way.
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"
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.Summary: Now that she’s the Guardian of the Miraculous, Ladybug has a lot to confess.
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"
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.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….
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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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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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:
- 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.
- 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?
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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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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