let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2019-08-05 12:57 am
alexseanchai) wrote2019-08-05 12:57 am
Entry tags:
1 like = 1 line from a WIP
So niqaeli, by which I mean ![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
niqaeli, started another round of this meme. Sounds like fun to me! Comments on this post (from commenters who haven't commented on this post before) count as likes, but mostly I'm expecting to collect likes on Tumblr; this post is mostly where the WIP lines will all live.
Feel free to ask about context! Or if there's a fic you know I'm working on, ask about it! I'd love to talk about these, it might get me closer to writing the older ones and further on writing the newer ones!
1) Suspended at an unknown height, staring through a cascade at the red—left, crumbling! extend staff further—her legs around his waist, his belt loose in her hand, then buckled around them both—rock crumbling further; her yo-yo retracting, hurling up again: catching on a tree limb several meters up—
2) He's gotten through the day on less than ninety minutes' sleep before—he's gotten through Heroes' Day on less than ninety minutes' sleep before!—but this is still going to be an interesting day. In the alleged ancient-Chinese-curse sense of the word.
3) "You know, the tradition among my people, when a handsome tom wants to court a beautiful molly, is he hunts her down some presents. Dead birds, dead mice—" Chat Noir grins, almost feral. "How do you feel about dead chameleons?"
4) "Somebody's life clearly works like magical girl anime." Adrien flopped over the sofa arm to sprawl across the sofa, feet hanging off the end and one arm off the side. "Quod erat demonstrandum."
5) …It was probably unkind of her to be glad to see the heroes themselves facing an akuma in the park across from the bakery. But it did lower the odds August would have a playdate with Hawkmoth today.
6) Chat snorts. "My father is an abusive asshole. My father is also dead. An unduly suspicious mind might wonder if those statements are related."
7) "Ah, a-ah," says Ladybug, singsong. "Don't lie to me, now."
8) "My partner only wants you dead, Gabriel. He's the kind one, you see."
9) Of course it wasn't. Foolish of him to think for even a moment that it could be. Ladybug and Chat Noir hadn't known each other's names. They might never have met outside their masks.
10) "—Oh, you think I'm Lawful Good!" She extends her hand for [irritating OC] to shake. "Hi, I'm Ladybug. I don't think we've met."
11) "Hey, LB, check this out. My gloves improved. Weighted and reinforced, and—oh, awesome! Protractable claws now. Somebody loves me."
12) "Stormy Weather impacted the whole globe. Where were we going to import food from? Mars?"
13) Nino blinks at him. "It's coffee with our girlfriends, not—actually I am not going to jinx that," he decides, which tells Adrien the rest of the sentence was something like an akuma trap. "Or, y'know, my girlfriend, your just a good friend who coincidentally looks dreamy in black." Adrien will take that akuma now, thanks.
14) "And probably [Adrien]'s right that upsetting Lila won't help anything, but I don't know how she'll ever stop if no one ever stands up to her at all—and especially as Lila wants him to be her arm candy and she plans to trample me to get there, in order to stop her, Adrien will have to tell Lila no. Which I'm pretty sure he's wanted to do since he first laid eyes on her, but he hasn't because he can't. I know he'd believe me, Chat. I just can't count on him to back me. He's not like you."
15) "And then yesterday…" Chatonne Noire shrugs. "My hair's got a bit long, I guess. By which I mean it was scheduled for a trim three weeks ago and I misplaced myself, and he must have noticed." She reaches around Ladybug to drape her long golden braid over Ladybug's back. "He said something about my looking a little too feminine, and…I don't know, something snapped?"
16) "I might be texting you a fake engagement photo if anyone had a Ring Pop! Yes, Maman, I'll bring him to dinner. Maman, I can bench him, I promise you can skip the shovel talk. Maman, please skip the shovel talk. Maman. Maman!" Click. Very red, Marinette turns to Adrien: "Find a free evening in your schedule; my parents want to interrogate my fake boyfriend. Be warned Maman is going to ask about the fake fucking."
17) "Let me tell you something about chess, Madame Agreste. Castling is an incredible defense move. Nothing's gonna get through those walls. But the walls work both ways. If the king can't move and a knight shows up? The king is dead."
18) "This whole time we've been playing three-card monte. It's gambling, like poker, but the only cards in play are two jokers—that's us—and the Queen of Hearts. You win if you find her." He smirks. "That is, it's a confidence trick. Otherwise known as follow the Lady."
19) "And the next day. She said—she said 'you're scared', she said 'don't be'. She said she believes in me! Alya, she said she believed in me. That's why. That's why everything."
20) "If I can't trust you to consider your family's safety, Césaire, how can I trust you to consider mine? How can I trust you at all?"
21)
23–26)
28) He didn't really want to find out if Marinette's opinion on the subject matched Ladybug's, anyway. Even to ask her might come too close to breaking his word on the thing Ladybug had most vehemently asked of him.
28) "You and your fancy stats strategies," grumbles Nino, laughing, and throws a fried plantain slice at him; Adrien catches it and adds it to his plate.
29) "HOW THE FUCK LONG HAVE YOU BEEN UP THERE, CHAT NOIR? I'M TELLING LADYBUG!"
30) Paris has no shortage of imitation Miraculouses for sale—hell, Gabriel Fashions has half that market share! Adrien's still pissed off that he cannot touch any of this money and, without signing her legal name, Ladybug can claim none—but, where his ring feels like sunlit breezes and the potential energy of the apex moment midair, these earrings are rooted in dark earth.
31) "When was that in style, Dupain-Cheng? The eighteen nineties?"
31) "Lila Rossi," [Chloé] repeats to [an OC who works for Style Queen magazine]. "Elle i elle a, erre o esse esse i."
32) "Those three sentences belong to three different conversations," Marinette tells [Alya, Lila, and Adrien], "two of which I don't want to have and the third Lila doesn't." She pauses. "Actually Lila doesn't want to have any of these conversations."
33) "You failed your Stealth check," Adrien tells Marinette, as Lila picks herself back up. "Briouat?"
34) "My name's Marie," she says. "Marie—Marie Cheng. Please, sir, we're lost—please, we don't even know where the nearest road is—"
35) "Hey, at least you know how to clean things. And bake things. And sew things without bleeding all over them—what are you laughing for? All my marketable skills are currently on the wrong side of Clarke's Third Law—no, seriously, what are you laughing at me for?"
36) "—I understand," says Nathalie, "but as you yourself said five minutes ago, tonight is too important."
37) Claire doesn't pay the kid much more mind than she ever does. He's a regular at this convenience store, maybe a year or two older than Noemie, never seems to have a parent with him; he's usually here for a bottle of iced coffee, some snack-size chunks of cheddar, and a hot sandwich if there are any, a cold one if not. Sometimes a bottle of ibuprofen. Rarely, something sweet. She mostly ever pays attention to him in the first place because he looks kind of like that model Noemie has proclaimed her eternal love for, and because Claire works days; kids her granddaughter's age should be in school most of the times—such as now—that she sees this boy, and with as much food as he buys, she has to wonder who's supposed to be feeding him.
38) "If that were my child in that bed with a moderate traumatic brain injury, five hours after he suffered a severe enough TBI that he almost died twice before reaching this hospital? Yes, I would be praying for some more miracle. I am a woman of prayer and a mother, and this is Ladybug's city; of course I would. But I would also be thanking God, Ladybug, and each individual person who has had care of that young man today for the miracle I got."
38) "Schneewittchen is a lot creepier than people like to admit to."
39) "Because I am Adrien's very good friend," Marinette continues, biting out each quoted word for emphasis, "and he only ever talks to you when you give him no other choice. And I don't know what art medium you actually work in, but if it's figure drawing I bet you're still on stick people. And you have never met Jagged Stone in your life."
40) "What, did she kick your kitten or something?" Chat demands. "Because I have to warn you, I am not putting up with you insulting her. I have to deal with everyone else I know insulting her because I don't know how to make them stop without risking they get worse instead of better, but I am not going to listen to it from you."
niqaeli, by which I mean Feel free to ask about context! Or if there's a fic you know I'm working on, ask about it! I'd love to talk about these, it might get me closer to writing the older ones and further on writing the newer ones!
1) Suspended at an unknown height, staring through a cascade at the red—left, crumbling! extend staff further—her legs around his waist, his belt loose in her hand, then buckled around them both—rock crumbling further; her yo-yo retracting, hurling up again: catching on a tree limb several meters up—
2) He's gotten through the day on less than ninety minutes' sleep before—he's gotten through Heroes' Day on less than ninety minutes' sleep before!—but this is still going to be an interesting day. In the alleged ancient-Chinese-curse sense of the word.
3) "You know, the tradition among my people, when a handsome tom wants to court a beautiful molly, is he hunts her down some presents. Dead birds, dead mice—" Chat Noir grins, almost feral. "How do you feel about dead chameleons?"
4) "Somebody's life clearly works like magical girl anime." Adrien flopped over the sofa arm to sprawl across the sofa, feet hanging off the end and one arm off the side. "Quod erat demonstrandum."
5) …It was probably unkind of her to be glad to see the heroes themselves facing an akuma in the park across from the bakery. But it did lower the odds August would have a playdate with Hawkmoth today.
6) Chat snorts. "My father is an abusive asshole. My father is also dead. An unduly suspicious mind might wonder if those statements are related."
7) "Ah, a-ah," says Ladybug, singsong. "Don't lie to me, now."
8) "My partner only wants you dead, Gabriel. He's the kind one, you see."
9) Of course it wasn't. Foolish of him to think for even a moment that it could be. Ladybug and Chat Noir hadn't known each other's names. They might never have met outside their masks.
10) "—Oh, you think I'm Lawful Good!" She extends her hand for [irritating OC] to shake. "Hi, I'm Ladybug. I don't think we've met."
11) "Hey, LB, check this out. My gloves improved. Weighted and reinforced, and—oh, awesome! Protractable claws now. Somebody loves me."
12) "Stormy Weather impacted the whole globe. Where were we going to import food from? Mars?"
13) Nino blinks at him. "It's coffee with our girlfriends, not—actually I am not going to jinx that," he decides, which tells Adrien the rest of the sentence was something like an akuma trap. "Or, y'know, my girlfriend, your just a good friend who coincidentally looks dreamy in black." Adrien will take that akuma now, thanks.
14) "And probably [Adrien]'s right that upsetting Lila won't help anything, but I don't know how she'll ever stop if no one ever stands up to her at all—and especially as Lila wants him to be her arm candy and she plans to trample me to get there, in order to stop her, Adrien will have to tell Lila no. Which I'm pretty sure he's wanted to do since he first laid eyes on her, but he hasn't because he can't. I know he'd believe me, Chat. I just can't count on him to back me. He's not like you."
15) "And then yesterday…" Chatonne Noire shrugs. "My hair's got a bit long, I guess. By which I mean it was scheduled for a trim three weeks ago and I misplaced myself, and he must have noticed." She reaches around Ladybug to drape her long golden braid over Ladybug's back. "He said something about my looking a little too feminine, and…I don't know, something snapped?"
16) "I might be texting you a fake engagement photo if anyone had a Ring Pop! Yes, Maman, I'll bring him to dinner. Maman, I can bench him, I promise you can skip the shovel talk. Maman, please skip the shovel talk. Maman. Maman!" Click. Very red, Marinette turns to Adrien: "Find a free evening in your schedule; my parents want to interrogate my fake boyfriend. Be warned Maman is going to ask about the fake fucking."
17) "Let me tell you something about chess, Madame Agreste. Castling is an incredible defense move. Nothing's gonna get through those walls. But the walls work both ways. If the king can't move and a knight shows up? The king is dead."
18) "This whole time we've been playing three-card monte. It's gambling, like poker, but the only cards in play are two jokers—that's us—and the Queen of Hearts. You win if you find her." He smirks. "That is, it's a confidence trick. Otherwise known as follow the Lady."
19) "And the next day. She said—she said 'you're scared', she said 'don't be'. She said she believes in me! Alya, she said she believed in me. That's why. That's why everything."
20) "If I can't trust you to consider your family's safety, Césaire, how can I trust you to consider mine? How can I trust you at all?"
21)
K—22) But it still feels like poison-laced secrets. Like distrust.
cookies in vanity
Tikki, spots on
CN—
sorry
—LB
23–26)
"I heard this is where to get the best mille-feuille in Paris," says the customer: he might be about as old as Marinette would be, Sabine thinks. "Good thing they don't come in purple." The black hoodie he's wearing helps obscure his face, but he's holding himself like he's scared, and she can see his hopeful smile turn hesitant. "Zǐsè húdiésū?" he prompts; when Sabine continues to not react, his face falls. "Should've known," he mutters, and hands over cash in exchange for his layered pastry. "Keep the change," he says, and is gone before Sabine can protest.27) Ladybug hates puns. She'll indulge him every now and again—she made a point of it when they were nearing the red lava carpet where Death walked, wearing a volcano designed by Stormy Weather; he still doesn't know whether he wants to believe Ladybug couldn't bear the thought of dying without seeing her partner's smile—but she hates every joke Chat Noir makes. Unfocused. Unprofessional. In the less complimentary sense, laughable.
Hours later, counting out the cash register, Sabine finds a sticky note on one of the euro notes. It's a plain square lavender post-it, with a simple stylized butterfly outline sketched sideways in black ink to fill the space—a papillon drawn on a papillon—and handwritten text. The upper wing contains the exact Mandarin phrase the boy in the black hoodie said earlier: 紫色蝴蝶酥, the first four characters in black and the fifth in red—'purple mille-feuille', it says, but the red character taken alone reads 'flaky pastry', and the four in black, 'purple butterfly'. The English words filling the lower wing are written in red as well: loose lips sink ships (I hear this rhymes this way). Along the butterfly's body—
The center of the note reads 誠敏嵐 in black ink. Black ink to write Marinette's name, not red. Not red, and pointedly so! To write a name in red is to say that they are dead: if it isn't true in the present moment, there are always agents of misfortune who will try to correct that error. Sabine has been writing and burning letters addressed in red to her daughter for years.
Purple butterflies, and a boy her daughter's age: someone who is afraid to show his face and to deliver his message in plain French, and who wants Sabine and Tom to believe, however secretly, Marinette is alive?
28) "You and your fancy stats strategies," grumbles Nino, laughing, and throws a fried plantain slice at him; Adrien catches it and adds it to his plate.
29) "HOW THE FUCK LONG HAVE YOU BEEN UP THERE, CHAT NOIR? I'M TELLING LADYBUG!"
30) Paris has no shortage of imitation Miraculouses for sale—hell, Gabriel Fashions has half that market share! Adrien's still pissed off that he cannot touch any of this money and, without signing her legal name, Ladybug can claim none—but, where his ring feels like sunlit breezes and the potential energy of the apex moment midair, these earrings are rooted in dark earth.
31) "Lila Rossi," [Chloé] repeats to [an OC who works for Style Queen magazine]. "Elle i elle a, erre o esse esse i."
32) "Those three sentences belong to three different conversations," Marinette tells [Alya, Lila, and Adrien], "two of which I don't want to have and the third Lila doesn't." She pauses. "Actually Lila doesn't want to have any of these conversations."
33) "You failed your Stealth check," Adrien tells Marinette, as Lila picks herself back up. "Briouat?"
34) "My name's Marie," she says. "Marie—Marie Cheng. Please, sir, we're lost—please, we don't even know where the nearest road is—"
35) "Hey, at least you know how to clean things. And bake things. And sew things without bleeding all over them—what are you laughing for? All my marketable skills are currently on the wrong side of Clarke's Third Law—no, seriously, what are you laughing at me for?"
36) "—I understand," says Nathalie, "but as you yourself said five minutes ago, tonight is too important."
37) Claire doesn't pay the kid much more mind than she ever does. He's a regular at this convenience store, maybe a year or two older than Noemie, never seems to have a parent with him; he's usually here for a bottle of iced coffee, some snack-size chunks of cheddar, and a hot sandwich if there are any, a cold one if not. Sometimes a bottle of ibuprofen. Rarely, something sweet. She mostly ever pays attention to him in the first place because he looks kind of like that model Noemie has proclaimed her eternal love for, and because Claire works days; kids her granddaughter's age should be in school most of the times—such as now—that she sees this boy, and with as much food as he buys, she has to wonder who's supposed to be feeding him.
38) "Schneewittchen is a lot creepier than people like to admit to."
39) "Because I am Adrien's very good friend," Marinette continues, biting out each quoted word for emphasis, "and he only ever talks to you when you give him no other choice. And I don't know what art medium you actually work in, but if it's figure drawing I bet you're still on stick people. And you have never met Jagged Stone in your life."
40) "What, did she kick your kitten or something?" Chat demands. "Because I have to warn you, I am not putting up with you insulting her. I have to deal with everyone else I know insulting her because I don't know how to make them stop without risking they get worse instead of better, but I am not going to listen to it from you."
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2 tells me that Adrien needs more blood in his coffee stream, 5 and 13 made me laugh, 6 and 8 and 10 made me grin, and 14 hurts. In a great way but it hurts.
no subject
(He's saying 6 to Hawkmoth's face)
no subject
no subject
16 is Marinette has had it with Lila
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Sabine did not get a word in edgewise after agreeing to play along with Marinette, and when Marinette hung up, Sabine stared at the phone for a bit and then died laughing and then went to tell Tom how clever their daughter is.
no subject
at some point I'm gonna get one of the trans girl Adrien stories done with proper explanation of how her design differs from canon
there is a super long braid involved
—actually I already put that description out there, it's 15 at [this post]
Alex, #3 on that list is great!
:grinning:
I wanna see the dead chameleons one
um at some point? and not in this [post-reveal pre-relationship, salt-free, Miraculous Ladybug Discord] server probably
I'm also interested in numbers 6 and 8
I'm guessing that those are likewise not for this server
And 13
LB (or Marinette) just murdered Chat in 14
6 and 8, that may be an accurate assessment, dammit
14 is Marinette speaking, yes, and yes, he is rethinking a lot of life choices now
13 is fun and I do not know why it stalled out on me
YOUR COMMENT BELOW SAYS HE'S SAYING 6 TO HAWKMOTH'S FACE
I LOVE IT
SIGN ME UP
:grinning:
I’m real curious about 20
:grinning:
May I ask who is saying 20?
Ladybug, to Alya
that is also salt though
no subject
23-26) I have theories. Most of them involve Ladybug faking her death or just plain disappearing to fight Hawkmoth. I…doubt Hawkmoth would abduct Marinette and keep her for years? I'm not sure what purpose that would serve. Of course, a boy that is Marinette's age in a black hoodie brings to mind a specific person, even though it seems unlikely or potentially dangerous (for him).
27) While I wouldn't be surprised for Chat Noir to think this, I also think Chat Noir is wrong. I think Ladybug's problem with his jokes is his timing.
28) I really want to know what the subject is.
27) correct
28) you will find out if I can get the next damn scene written
23-26) :smirk_cat:
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29) That sounds a lot like Marinette threatening Chat Noir. Which is kind of hilarious, Marinette threatening to tell on him to her other identity, like one sibling threatening to tell mom.
Along that line of thought, it could be one of the other heroes.
30) While it seems like a good source of income, I’m not convinced how good an idea it is for Gabriel to make hundreds of Miraculous copies if his goal is to acquire the jewelry for himself. First thing I’d do as a superhero would be to buy one or two to use as decoys.
31) Did the 31 you crossed out make it into your recent time travel oneshot?
That looks like Chloé getting into some mischief >:D
32) Oooh, I want to know what those three sentences are! Knowing me, though, that will just make me want the rest of the fic :D
33) I love d&d/gaming references in casual conversation, and Adrien is just the type to make them.
34) um. uh-oh
35) I feel like this is Adrien to Marinette, but I’m also questioning Marinette’s ability to sew things without bleeding all over them.
36) I almost said ‘potentially bad implications if this is to Adrien’, but honestly, same if to Gabriel
37) I’m deeply concerned for Adrien.
38) I love it when Sabine puts Gabriel in his place :heart:
Are any of the 38 from the same WIP?
29) you have correctly identified the speaker yes
30) that bit's kinda canon? see Volpina.
31) yep!32)
"you finally told him?" asks Alya, delighted.
"told him what?" asks Lila, eyeing the extra-pointy knitting needles and considering the progress of her 'isolate Marinette' plan.
"told me what?" asks Adrien, because Marinette certainly told him something but why would Alya know about it?
35) correct on both counts
36) :smiling_imp:
37) :grinning:
38) that's an OC, actually, one of Adrien's doctors, but yeah
and there are fewer than 38 WsIP represented yes
no subject
Oh, right, Lila got the necklace from somewhere. I'm going to rewatch that bit, I wonder if there's more information.
31) I noticed you said nothing about Chloé and mischief
32) oh yeah, I super want it
Chloe's not getting into mischief so much as being done with Lila
and :grinning:
38) My sentiment still stands. I love seeing other parents putting Gabriel in his place :heart:
:grinning:
okay, I'm definitely guessing that 37 is in butterfly dreams
nope
though as badly as "Run(a)way Model" stalled, I might think about folding that premise into butterfly dreams and seeing what happens
Hm..well that was the main reason why I asked. 34 does seem like it could be in butterfly dreams as well
no, "certain as the sun" (so's 35, also 1)
...though the odds that it will actually be a one-shot instead of a multi-chapter are kinda low now I think of it
I could theory a lot of these others, but too many could be mixed and matched together
hee
also I haven't talked about all of them
nod
I'm re-reading through the list, and 7 is striking me as from where the firelight fades....
\whistles idly\
ooh, 20's got something to do with Ladybug's identity, and Alya wanting to know it?
'how can I trust you to consider mine (family)'
indeed!
So I'm trying to come up with the five that I want to see most (for my curiosity? for yours? for your inspiration? I don't know how I got stuck on this)
I got it down to seven
:grinning:
I've noticed that most of the ones I picked are saltier. Which, I'm usually not a salty person, but your salt is good salt, and all of these just have something that makes me really want to see the rest of the story.
3, 6, 13, 14, 20, 32, 38