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tnc-n3cl · 7 months

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Castlevania Fic snippet

Well, it might be more like a rough draft of a chapter but...

Anywho, I finally watched the Castlevania (2017) anime series (had been sitting on the DVD's for a year now) a couple weeks ago and the Castlevania brainrot set in.

So of course the fic ideas started brewing, based on some old hypothetical game ideas I had. Don't have a title for this particular project yet, but it's spooky season and I also wanted to post this before I explode with the force of a thousand suns.

So here you go! There's some German in here, mostly from Google Translate cause I didn't learn enough with my two semesters in collage. So if anyone happens to know German and has better suggestions to the dialog I'm open to it.

Content warnings: Graphic violence, blood and gore, monster beheading/dismemberment, harsh language (in German), mentions of historical wide scale destruction, brief mention of nudity

Inside of a modern building a man and woman are hanging a large painting, both of them are of European descent. The woman has long black hair tied in a ponytail and green eyes and is wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and jeans. The man is similarly dressed, but his shirt is grey. He has on a pair of black framed glasses and has short cut brown hair.

After a moment they finish their work and the man says, “Du weisst…”

She turns to him and he continues, “…We could have just had the workers do this in the morning. The exhibition isn’t until 7 PM tomorrow.”

She nods, “Yes, however this is my big debut and I want everything to be perfect.”

Then she pulls the protective sheet off of the painting. It depicts a scene of absolute carnage, monsters rampaging the streets of Graz, Austria circa 2057 AD attacking people left and right. Buildings burning in the background, soldiers desperately holding the creatures back. Her attention focuses on one of the city’s defenders, a pale skinned man with long blond hair wearing a black trench coat of sorts with gold trim and wielding a thin bladed long sword.

She based the painting on what she saw in an old book she found when she worked at the Volkskundemuseum, supposedly it belonged to someone who lived in the city at the time. Whomever it was must have recently migrated to the country, the text was written in Arabic. Most of the text was damaged due to the age of the book, and what survived must be from a dialect that has been lost to time due to the difficulties in translating it.

What was translated, along with the sketches in the book, conjured this scene of nightmarish horror. Beasts from the depths of hell itself rampaging through the city…

“Jana,” the man says, pulling her attention away from her work, “Did you have to pick something so violent?”

She chuckles, “I didn’t know you were so squeamish Oskar.”

The man rolls his eyes in response and she smiles before continuing, “The Horrors of The Cataclysm have been an interest of mine since I was a little girl.”

He scoffs, “And you really believe a bunch of monsters rampaged through the city a thousand years ago?”

She shrugs, “Well something happened. We’ve found overwhelming evidence that nearly half the city burned. Not to mention all the ruins scattered across the rest of the world. The old maps that clearly show the world looked quite different in those days. Then there’s the horribly mangled skeletons… And it was 1,071 years ago by the way.”

He rolls his eyes again, “And yet no monster remains have been found.”

She turns to face him, “True, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there waiting to be discovered. But I suppose that it could have been natural disasters and/or wars like everyone says. Still, it makes for a captivating piece, don’t you think?”

“It does,” he turns to her and smiles, “Now then, it’s getting late and we should be going.”

She glances at her wristwatch, it’s 7:00 PM already! “Damn, she says, we’d better hurry or we’ll lose our reservations!”

The pair hurry towards the exit and grab their coats and lock up as they leave.

Outside, the light of the full moon reflects off of the snow covered ground. Text on the building reads, “Halle für Kunst Steiermark”

“It’s a beautiful night,” Jana remarks.

“That it is,” the man replies, “We should cut through the Stadtpark, it’ll be quicker.”

“Right,” she agrees and the two head southeast down the sidewalk.

This part of Graz escaped The Cataclysm a millennium ago relatively unscathed, most of the destruction was contained to the west side of the Mur River. At the crosswalk, they wait for the traffic light to change, their breath turning to steam in the cold night air. Once its safe to cross they continue on through the park.

As they approach the Wetterhäuschen, a pre-Cataclysm weather station, a heavy thud attracts their attention. The two turn to find a man sized, wolf like beast behind them. A werewolf! Before either of them can react, the creature charges and knocks Oskar down and rips his throat out.

“Oskar!” Jana screams in horror on instinct and the beast turns its attention to her!

“Oh Scheiße!” She manages as she runs away as fast as she can. She doesn’t get very far before beast jumps on her and pins her to the ground. It bites her right shoulder and she screams in agony before she passes out.

A figure lands hard on the ground and the beast turns towards it, a man wearing black clothes under a black trench coat with armored shoulder and elbow pads. He is wielding a large sword with a thick, curved blade in his right hand. The man’s skin is dark brown, his eyes are yellow, and his long, brown hair is tied in a ponytail.

The werewolf predictably charges him and he grips his blade in both hands, lifts it to shoulder height and points it towards the beast. As it leaps towards him and prepares to swipe its claws at him, he flawlessly sidesteps its attack and effortlessly swings his sword down on the beast, cleanly severing both its outstretched arm, and its head, from its body.

The werewolf’s corpse hits the ground with a series of thuds and the man shakes the sizzling blood from his blade with a dramatic swing. The thin layer of silver he coated on his blade has done its job and what’s left of the lycanthrope ignites and slowly reverts to human form as it burns to ash.

Beheading the creature would have been more than enough, but still, one can never be too careful when facing lycanthropes…

The male victim is dead, but what of the woman? He walks towards her and looks her over, and his yellow eyes lock on the blood on her shoulder. He leans down and examines it, and sure enough, there’s a bite mark.

“Damn, wasn’t fast enough,” he mutters to himself as he opens his trench coat and reaches for an inside pocket an pulls out a syringe containing a yellow liquid.

It should prevent her transformation long enough to get her to a Bureau medical center. Lycanthropy can be treated if one acts fast enough, but once the transformation occurs there’s no going back. And with the full moon, there’s not much time… He prepares to inject her with the substance–

“Hören Sie sofort auf!”

“Lass das Schwert fallen!”

He looks back to find a pair of meddlesome police officers pointing their handguns at him. Typical…

He sighs loudly before dropping his sword onto the ground with a loud clang. Exasperated, he says, “Mein Name ist Alexander Cronqvist.”

As he slowly stands with his hands above his head he continues, “I am a Senior Special Agent with the United Nations Special Investigations Bureau. This woman is injured and requires the medical attention I am about to administer.”

The two cops look at each other for a moment before the one on the right responds, “Let’s see some identification.”

“We really don’t have time for this,” Alexander replies as he slowly turns to face them, “But since you insist.”

He slowly reaches into his jacket pocket to retrieve his badge and shows it to the two cops. As they begin to lower their weapons, a sound from behind catches his attention.

“That was fast,” he quips as the woman, now fully transformed into a werewolf, rushes the officers.

Alexander quickly grabs the beast’s left wrist with his right hand and holds her back. She quickly turns to swipe her other clawed hand at him and he drops the syringe and grabs her wrist. The cops are lucky that Alexander is one quarter vampire! No human could ever hope to hold back a raging, freshly turned lycanthrope! Or any raging lycanthrope really…

She wildly snaps her jaws at his face while he holds her in place in spite of her thrashing about. Her hot breath blows through his bangs as he quips, “You’re strong for a cub.”

Predictably, the cops begin wildly firing their pistols into the beast’s back and she howls in pain and rage. Why couldn’t they just run away like last time? It would have made things so much easier…

“Right then, let’s get this over with!” Alexander shouts as he kicks the lycanthrope in the abdomen.

As she grunts in pain, he pushes her back, lets go of her wrists, rushes her, and finally lifts her up. The cops struggle to reload their weapons and Alexander smirks as he tosses the beast at them.

The lycanthrope slams into the cops and knocks them down. She quickly gets up and growls at him. He holds out his right hand and summons his enchanted sword to him. He catches it and grips its black leather wrapped handle tightly. The beast narrows her eyes at him as he grips the blade in both hands like before and points its tip towards her.

As he prepares himself to end this poor woman’s misery, he muses on the irony of slaying lycanthropes with the Crissaegrim. Its ornate hilt is happed like a wolf’s head, with the bade emerging from the wolf’s mouth. Armando Gandolfi’s cheeky little nod to Alexander’s father’s ability to transform into a wolf. Armando had made this sword nearly 900 years ago for him, but he already attached to his own sword and gifted it to Alexander. Not to mention he felt a bit put off by wielding something a version of himself in another world used…

Suddenly the beast puts her arms over her head and shakes her head back and forth as if in pain. Then she begins contorting violently.

He raises an eyebrow as the beast lets go of its head and howls in agony. His eyes widen as the howls shift into human screams followed by a thud upon the ground. He lowers his blade and mutters, “Well that’s new.”

It suddenly gets darker and Alexander looks up to see a cloud pass overhead and it begins to snow. He faces forward and cautiously approaches the woman, now transformed back into a human and unconscious on the ground. The two cops are also unconscious. Good, they can’t get in his way now. Unfortunately, though the gunshots from earlier will likely attract more…

Lycanthropes are unable to revert to human form until years after their initial transformation. Until then they’re effectively just mindless beasts. And given that it’s the full moon she should not have changed back. Even if she hadn’t reverted back before the clouds obscured the moon. And it takes decades for were-beasts to be able to control their transformations.

Unless one or both of her parents were werewolves of sufficient age to control their form… But then she should have been able to fend of the beast that attacked her, and wouldn’t have been affected by the bite...

Alexander sheathes his blade into the scabbard at his left hip before reaching into his jacket pocket and taking an ornate pocket watch with a mobius strip design on the top. He’d rather not use it but he needs more time.

He opens it and channels his magical powers into the relic. The hands of the clock spin rapidly for a moment and then stop and an energy field envelops the surrounding area and beyond it the falling snow freezes in place. The ancient stopwatch is one of several relics that can temporarily alter the flow of time. They’re extremely rare and require great amounts of power to use, but it doesn’t take as long to activate as a time altering spell. Not that Alexander has mastered any…

The watch begins counting down, he’s bought himself an extra 15 minutes. He closes the stopwatch and places it in his trouser pocket and takes a blue oval shaped object and his badge out of his jacket pockets before placing the garment over the woman’s body. He places his badge on his belt and opens the blue object, revealing several shards of magic mirror that coalesce into a transmission mirror. He traces a circle across it and it opens a portal to the armory at HQ.

Alexander unhooks his sheathed blade from his belt and sticks it the portal. The male armorer takes the weapon and places it in the appropriate slot. There will be fewer questions if he’s only armed with the two pistols holstered at the small of his back than if he’s carrying an enchanted sword almost as long as he is tall…

The portal closes and the transmission mirror returns to its case, which he places in his trouser pocket. Then he examines the woman, there’s a strange, circular birthmark on her left shoulder. Well, it’s rather unusual to have a birthmark that’s a perfect circle. In the center, there appears to be the shape of a claw raised up slightly. Then there’s the strange symbols on the circumference of the mark. They appear to be some kind of language, but he’s unfamiliar with it.

Really it looks more like a tattoo… He remembers seeing the remains of a similar circular birthmark on what remained of her right shoulder after the werewolf attack, but there were no marks like this on it. He moves her slightly and notices a larger circular birthmark on her back, also with similar patterns. And a wolf shaped section in the center…

“Hm, I’ve never seen magic like this before,” he tells himself as he stands up.

He takes his flip phone out of the case on his belt and walks over to the two cops and disarms them. Then he takes their handcuffs. He quickly selects the SIB’s Austria Branch’s number and quick dials it and turns on speaker phone as he handcuffs the officers.

As he finishes, the enchantment on the phone finally cuts through the interference of timeshift field and the call connects, “United Nations Special Investigations Bureau, Austria Branch,” the man on the line says.

“SSA Cronqvist, 7035DS, reporting in, with a code 35,” Alexander says as he takes the call off speaker phone.

“Oh, dear! Where are you?”

“I’m at the Stadtpark in Graz, by the Wetterhäuschen between Burgring and Glacis.”

“Ah, good, the Styria branch is nearby, they should be with you shortly,” the sound of the operator clacking away at his keyboard can be heard, “How many bodies?”

“One human male and some werewolf ashes. Two local law enforcement officers interrupted me and will need to get the usual debriefing and NDA.”

The operator chuckles slightly and clacks away at his keyboard. Alexander grimaces, this is the fifth time this month alone he’s had to deal with meddlers. He’s sick of Awande’s needling on his lack of stealth…

He glances at the woman and adds, “Oh, and I’ll also need transport to the local safe house and an arcane specialist. I subdued a lycanthrope.”

Perplexed, the operator responds, “Wait, so it’s a code 47 then?”

Alexander turns fully towards at the woman as the timeshift field fails and, utterly deadpan, replies, “I don’t think we have a code for this one…”

#castlevania franchise #fanfic #writing #snippet #castlevania #lords of shadow #modern setting #more or less #castlevania ocs #my writing #text post #long post #post canon

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kingcharlesofengland · 2 years

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Regulation

Reference

Refer

The English language became a tool to the criminal's primitives. Instead of improving the language we avoid using proper English to serve our purpose. Technically we adjust the language to please the criminals street goers who speak broken English, not even a dialect not even slang.

Regulation means registration to the state to the Government. When the Government is badly run by bad people which happens often turn to the correct the Government, do not correct yourself.

Media isn't a job, no one can persuade me how posing is a full time job. Probably for people without skills.

I worked in a media helped publishing companies promote authors professors artists while the tv media attracts educated viewers customers. Mutual attraction.

TVs are divided politically by party. Certain characters, you can't invite as guests because they belong to another party.

The old type people. I am neither off nor on by orientation.

The point is register your name and do not register immigrants foreigners because when you register primitives you give them the rights to citizenship to political correctness. Not by birth certificate by work regulation. I've studied in England constitutional right and citizenship.

Being on tv media is not a formal official registration.

Reference is a new era way to confirm persons' liability and regulation.

Firstly the person must provide a formal qualification where has been regulated academic, confirm the Identity regulated by the state formerly. References are extra administration to be honest. Persons' competence can be confirmed by achievements. Administrative workers are the laziest cling to teamwork and never work on their own.

Refer means recommend a person as a specialist in something. That's how it is, some people are special some people are average.

West has gone to a cataclysmic direction with patronising immigrants. Immigration is old as a Bible no question to that.

The curse is for the people to not understand each other kill and fight.

What I suggest is while please other you can't have me as a person.

I adhere to thing on my own direction.

I am not average.

The more immigrants of other sort the more brain strain and you have to prove yourself to regulated while you are not registered.

Free movement across the countries proved damaging as we can see from the social card.

You don't have to pay as much tax work extra when we have a clean social environment like in Tokyo. The more immigrants the more strains hiding avoiding each other.

Things do not happen because they not meant to happen. You might be protected by nato I am protected by God.

Nato must cut off wings they are only on call service.

Most workers employees are being paid with taxpayers' money. Self employees at least work something productive to the children to the culture.

Public Government service is not the productive side, predominantly stir the political problem to keep the citizens in need for Government.

There is no such thing as black Royals. We know the black do not pay tax. Tax is paid to clean your karma. Royals behave like criminals on their land. The Royals believe immigration of black communities can beat the cancer people which is not gonna happen it makes things worse.

I see the exit in executing a few people as a strategy rather than starting a proper war wasting money on public service workers.

I analysed all angles aspects many years Concept Organic origin. The Master edition concentrates on the social card system. The PhD edition concentrates on theories the physical world balance. Cause the world isn't balanced physically.

Black ricks own everything. Black rocks need to know what affects me it affects them.

What you see is what you get, you do not need to see with your eyes to be able to see whom you communicate by name by registration work experience qualitfication.

The profile reveals the person's interests. That's I like biographies in the first person.

When someone talks indirectly about you it is not the same specification.

Time on its own does not resolve the physical matter. Only by physical death things be easy.

Should you want to fight one enemy do not attach me to another enemy.

I can only help when you comply with my regulation.

🤺🇬🇧

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desnayy · 2 years

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Takes place in a walled city like the one from Stray, centuries after a cataclysmic event ravaged the Earth and mutated all life that was left. What is left of humanity now resides within the massive walled city, basically a country in its own right, with three rings of residency/status.

The Outer Ring is the first, as if protecting the other two rings, though some portions of the walls of the Outer Ring are weak and brittle, causing breaches by the mutated wildlife. Known colloquially as the Fringes, it is the slums of the city. Overcrowded despite the largeness of it compared to the other two rings, the populace is largely in poverty, and even has pockets of homeless encampments. Crime is unfortunately rampant as the City Security doesn’t even bother with the Outer Ring, and there is even a black market. There is no artificial sky in the Outer Ring, so it is always dark and dim, with neon lights as the only light source. The only way to leave the Outer Ring for its residents are either the workpasses or to be found to have magic and enrolled into the Mage College.

The Middle Ring is the second, set perfectly in the middle of the three rings as its name suggests. This is the first ring that includes the artificial sky and manmade weather system. The populace is largely middle class and lower upper class. Things are less crowded here, and much cleaner in comparison to the Outer Ring. Residents from the Middle Ring are allowed to go freely in and out of the Outer Ring, though there are special permissions to enter the Inner Ring, though it is infinitely easier for a Middle Ring inhabitant to get permission than it would be for an Outer Ring inhabitant.

The Inner Ring is the third, with not only an artificial sky but in the direct center there is a skylight to show the real sky. This ring is the smallest of the three, and its populace is mostly upper class. There is plenty of space for all the residents, and it is the safest due to the presence of City Security. The Mage College is located in this ring, though isolated from most other inhabitants. In the center of the Inner Ring, under the skylight, is where the farms for growing food are located. The Inner Ring has the most to do in terms of recreation, including a mini amusement park/carnival. Residents of the Inner Ring are able to freely travel to any of the lower two rings whenever they want.

Magic and the Mage Association is how the weather system exists in the Middle and Inner rings, how the farms are tended to, and even what makes up most of the City Security. Magic presents itself at the age of 17 in humans, who are then sent off to the Mage College to learn to control their magic.

While the architecture and interiors are more varied in the Inner Ring, what with them having actual houses compared to the apartments of the other two rings, both the Outer and Middle rings have distinct Asian/Japanese designs to the living quarters.

#worldbuilding #walled city story idea

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ulquichaan · 2 years

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Black Cat holders. Who are they really?

I have seen so many people using argument "Black Cats are the protectors of Ladybugs" and I am honestly sick of it. Why? Because I don't agree with that.

It is said in the show that black cat is supposed to protect ladybug but it stands for destruction and it is said that turtle stands for protection. So - who exactly are black cats?

In sense of powers

Black cat in miraculous stands for destruction and bad luck, while it is turtle thet stands for protection. Destruction isn't really something that protects, don't you think?

Destruction is a pretty offensive power. Ment to simply destroy everything. Cataclysm is confirmed that it destroys whatever the holders touch but when it comes to humans it brings them bad luck. [On twitter the last one was confirmed so maybe not actually but I'm taking whatever info i can gather] (Maybe to animals it's bad luck too and the black butterflies are just exception because they are used as literal tools for butterfly holders)

So why are black cats on the side of ladybugs?

Actually, in my opinion, it is pretty simple. They aren't just protectors or bodyguards - they are full blown warriors.

When we look at Chat Noir in the show he is constantly at the front. Yes, he is protecting ladybug but he is also the offense. If not mostly. He fights and that's his theme - battle. No one said that warriors/fighters cannot protect anyone/anything. No one said they cannot sacrifice themselves. Actually if we look at medival knights they were warriors who protected kingdoms, fought for their kings and sacrificed themselves for the country. But they weren't only the protectors - they were warriors.

A protector in the show is Nino. He has the turtle miraculous which actually stands for protection. He can create a shield that is able to keep everything outside (or inside like in the episode where meledictator could clone himself into tiny copies). That's a perfect example of protection. A shield.

Yes Chat Noir is a human shield for Ladybug but he is doing much much more than that.

He isn't also fully just a bodyguard. He can fight on his own.

The powerlevel of main duo.

There is something i want to address badly. And that's the powerlevel of main duo.

Black Cat and Ladybug are Yang and Yin. Two sides of a whole, which means, their powerlevel should be equal. They are the balance of the universe as destruction cannot exist without creation and creation cannot exist without destruction.

(To clarify: Yes creation cannot exist without destruction, because if there was only creation then things would constantly got created more and more and more, in never ending cycle and that wouldn't be good. Destruction is necessary, so one thing can end and other get created)

So while Ladybug has the advantage of fixing stuff, Chat isn't any less capable of taking down akuma than the Bug.

He is powerful in his own way, yes he destroys and cannot fix it but he still can fight the villain down and destroy the akuma. The chaos would be taken-care of but not the mess afterward like what we see in NY special. Sentimonster left destruction around but it isn't something people cannot fix. And if Chat was actually in Paris, he could have taken down that sentimonster alone, by himself, cataclysm the akuma and leave the rest to the authorities.

So while he cannot fix the mess, he is still able to stop it from happening further. :)

(Chat Blanc - Chat Noir cataclysms akuma. Couldn't find any gif about that tho. This is the closest I've got)

Plagg. His relationship with Adrien, the guardians and his past.

Plagg is the best character in the show in my opinion. PLEASE GIVE US MORE OF HIM.

Akhem. Let's get back to the topic.

We know oh so very little about Plaggs previous holders, his past and everything. But what do we know?

He is the one who destroyed dinosaurs. (Probable one of his cataclysms made that whole meteor fall on earth)

He stands behind disapirance of Atlantis

Why leaning tower of pisa isn't straight

This is what is confirmed to us directly, but there are also few simple things that are mentioned in show that people usually don't think about too much.

First - Sandboy.

Plagg is used to lying, rebelling. He is that little devil on Adriens shoulder who tells him to do something bad. He lies to Adrien that he is going to sleep and puts a sock in his place. The after the battle we have this little dialogue:

Plagg: *flies to Adrien*

Plagg: Thanks for letting me do whatever I want, at least most of the time...

Adrien: Sure! I know how it is to have your freedom restricted. You don't have to pretend to be a sock!

Plagg: *gets emotional and hugs him*

Plagg: You're the best Cat Noir I've ever had, Adrien!

What does that give us?

Plagg probably was also restricted with former holders if not with the guardians too. (And I'm pretty than sure that guardians did restrict him) He adores Adrien because the boy is giving him freedom. Maybe he had ruthless holders before that didn't care about him and his opinion much. Maybe he had some that considered his opinion but still restricted him because they feared he could bring another destruction like with what happened to dinosaurs?

It is possible. He was so happy when Adrien told him this sentence. What has he gone through, I still wonder.

The relationship between Plagg and Adrien is something special. Plagg got attached to him, and a lot. He pretends like he doesn't care and maybe in the beginning he didn't. Not only that, but Plagg also develops. Remember how he barely destroyed anything while saving Adrien during Hero's Day?

Plagg probably grew fond of Adrien. The blond boy is giving him everything, freedom, cheese and actual respect. Adrien never forced Plagg into anything. He always lokked for him and at least mention that there is trouble in Paris. So plagg knew he will be sucked into ring at short while. Adrien always gives him a say in things (aside when he gave up his miraculous in NY special and Kuro Neko but then Adrien was so warped in his mind and hurt that he didn't thought clearly). Hell! He even gets his whole bag full of cheese so Plagg won't be bored during his photoshoot/adshoot! LIKE WHO DOES THAT?! (I'm talking about Mr. Pigeon 72)

Adrien never got a kwagatama from Plagg. There could be two reasons for that:

Plagg was never fond enough of his orevious holders to take their hair and do something like that, or even call them friends of some sort

Plagg wasn't this close with Adrien yet

And my guess is: both of the above.

Kwagatama is a symbol of friendship between a kwami and holder. If Plagg was restricted by previous holders and not necessarily treated right - why would he make something like kwagatama at all?

But I'm talking how Plagg was possibly treated badly and i still didn't tell why i think so. Why? I'm just a chaotic shit that can't take track of how I'm explaining things so lets get to that for a bit.

Guardians in relation to Plagg and Black Cats

In the show we can see how Plagg is seen as for guardians and how Black Cats are seen and treated.

Why am I generalising this? Because I honestly don't thing people have ever stopped of fearing things that are more powerful than them or unknown to them.

Fearing?

Yes - fearing.

In Style Queen we see how Fu reacts to Plagg wanting to help Mari. Fu panicks. Says how dangerous he is without a holder.

Then we have Chat Noir being left out of everything by Fu and now in s4 by Marinette. Why am I connecting this?

Black Cats are destruction, Fu knows that and he knows what that power is capable of. He fears it so he wants Chat to know as little as possible so he won't use it against them.

Marinette has a trauma from Chat Blanc. Chat destroyed whole world by simoly knowing her identity. She still believes it's that what brought the world to an end. So she keeps Chat Noir in the dark. She fears that future, she fears him deep down inside her.

Su-Han did say that they are trained to fight miraculous holders who went rouge - Black Cats could have gone rouge several times, maybe? They are bad luck after all and we see how much of bad luck had Adrien by being simply born into Agreste family!

And there is that popular belief that destruction is a bad thing. It is very often associated with villains. So I wouldn't be surprised if some of the black cats were villains in the past.

Also let's not forget how insisting was Su-Han during Ephemeral to know Chat Noirs identity. So I wouldn't be surprised if actually guardians were afraid of Black Cats and Plagg.

To conclude:

Chat Noir is not just a protector. He is a warrior. Plagg didn't had that colourful of eternal life and guardians of miraculous are actually afraid of destruction welders. Marinette is no exception here unfortunately thanks to Bunnyx.

I really hope that at least some people will stop comparing Adrien to just a bodyguard because he is so much more. But thats all i have to say today.

What are your thoughts about this topic? I love reading what people have to say and I love discussing things I'm interested about.

Also i need to thank you guys for around 300 notes under my Chat Noir post! That's the first time I had a post blown so much that had more than 5 notes lmao! Thank you so much for that alone! <3

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kyogre-blue · 3 years

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Dragonspine lore

Just gathering all this in one place, for my reference.

Information about the Frostbearing Tree, from the Frostbearer catalyst:

When the daughter of the priestess of Vindagnyr was born beneath this white tree, the king in the verdant mountain was filled with joy when she received her blessings. Surely, the blessing of Sal Vindagnyr would be everlasting, just as the undying silver-white tree whose roots pierced the earth.

When the nail that froze the world descended suddenly, and that tree, too, would be shattered by it, that girl took the most complete branch, thinking to breathe new life into the tree that once overshadowed a nation.

But in the end, the grafted life could not flourish. The cutting snowstorm eventually covered the moonlight like a curtain of countless blades...

A long, long time later, yet still long ago - when the deathmatch between the dragons of darkness and wind was decided at last, when corrosive blood stained the ashen valley red, the tree, at last, remembered that it had not died with that entombed city,

And it extended its greedy roots towards the warm ichor that irrigated the land. And as a certain someone poured a crimson essence upon it, the tree that should have long died remembered its past, and bore a single fruit from the gathering of all its might...

Here for those who dwelt in my safe shadow, for the priests who eulogized me, for that lovely maiden who oft painted upon my form, for all the happiness they could not possess - I enjoin them all into this crimson, icy fruit.

To the ones who can render recompense upon this poisonous world shall it go, and may they carry my innocent, bitter fruit as they enact justice.

To summarize: Long before Durin, the Dragonspine was called Sal Vindagnyr. It was a prosperous, verdant kingdom that worshipped a Leyline tree. However, one day the Skyfrost Nail fell from the sky, breaking the tree and engulfing the mountain in perpetual ice. The last princess of the kingdom had preserved a single branch from the tree, which lay dormant until the mountain was tainted by Durin's blood. Absorbing the tainted blood, the former silver Leyline branch sprouted into a crimson Frostbearing Tree...

The Ancient Writings on the tablets:

"...far from snow and strife, and came upon this verdant paradise. A monument was laid down in this place, and it was named Sal Vind[agnyr]..."

"...guided to where the pale white tree stood. That month, the underground waterway..."

"...dreamed of the black dragon that blotted down the sun, and knew it to be an omen of doom. That same month, the outlander..."

"...its soul, and Starsilver its bones. But the one who could wield it, the ice-breaking outlander, Imunlau[kr]..."

"...attempted to heal the Leylines, but the tree had already withered. After burying the princess..."

"...without result or reply, Varuch proceeded on to the summit..."

"...snow whipped across the skies. The pillar that fell from the heavens was riven in three..."

"...ended. There is no more need for records. Yet I regret nothing more than having been unable to watch her finish the fresco within that great hall..."

To summarize: The people of Sal Vindagnyr tried to stop the perpetual snowstorm, including the king (named Varuch) heading to the summit himself. However, only an outlander named Imunlaukr was able to wield the Starsilver weapon they forged for this. He was too late, and the princess had already died. Somewhere along the way, the Skyfrost Nail was split into three pieces, which is how we find it.

From Snow-Tombed Starsilver, the claymore in question:

Tainted black blood dripped from the blade of his greatsword, as he trudged through now-foreign snowy paths.

But when he returned to the great hall of that mountain country, naught but ringing deathly echoes welcomed him.

"So even here, there is nothing left for me to protect... You who dwell in the heavens, you must wish for naught but to watch our ashen suffering here below. In that case, then let me help you pass the time with a song of iron and blood."

The outlander left the Starsilver originally meant to shatter snow and wind alike between the frescoes. Then, he descended the mountain to search for a land full of war and strife - a place he might paint red with blood.

Note that the Imunlaukr clan is also mentioned in the Sacrificial Greatsword description. They were a clan that sought battle in the belief that it would amuse the gods and joined the new Mondstadt that Venti created after Andrius melted the ice across the region. Interesting point: This is also the description that says, "On the cliff facing the eastern sea, the ancestors worshiped the masters of Time and Anemo together." It also again brings up "brave warriors stained black with blood."

Purely speculating, Sal Vindagnyr was probably BEFORE the rebellion in Old Mondstadt (they are mentioned fleeing "snow and strife" to settle in Vindagnyr, which sounds like Mondstadt pre-Andrius unfreezing it and the Archon Wars, respectively). So the founding clan perhaps picked up these traditions of "fight for Celestia's amusement" from this specific dude after he left Dragonspine.

There's also this image of the inner chamber and the frescoes that the princess had been painting, which I saved from a tweet that doesn't seem to exist anymore (not mine):

Completely irrelevant small point: The eight letters outside the great hall which you have to make light up spell "veremini," which wiktionary tells me is second-person plural present active indicative or imperative of "vereor," which means "to revere" or "to dread."

Aside from this, there is a series of Ruin Guard remains which spell out, "For the nation, we can't forgo this skyborne power, but we failed." We know the Ruin Guards were created by Khaenri’ah, so they were probably sent to retrieve the Skyfrost Nail after Sal Vindagnyr had fallen but were unable to make it through the ice and snow.

Most of this isn't particularly relevant to the main storyline, but there are two points that link back to the ongoing themes:

Even though this was before the Cataclysm, Gold, and Durin, Imunlaukr fought something with "tainted black blood," so the whole business with tainting is OLD. Gold wasn't the origin as such, they just used it. Imunlaukr particularly seems to have thought that going the Abyss (assumed) might have some answers re: the Skyfrost Nail.

Both the Frostbearing Tree and Imunlaukr consider what happened to Sal Vindagnyr to be unjust, and Celestia's fault. Now, this might be just their bitterness at what feels like meaningless suffering, but it could also be that the Skyfrost Nail didn't fall on them accidentally. (AKA Khaenri'ah was not the first or only case of human nations getting slapped down by the divine.)

#genshin impact #genshin lore

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reginrokkr · 1 year

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→ Study 𝐗𝐈𝐗: Timeline of befallen events in Sumeru —Schwanenritter and Knight Marshal Anfortas—.

It is known through non-collectable documents left in the interior of Ruin Golems scattered across various areas of Sumeru that in this country existed a group of Khaenri'ahn knights by the name of Schwanenritter led by Knight Marshal Anfortas who fought during the Cataclysm against the tide of the abyssal monsters to protect Sumeru using these Mechanical Wardens. However, this protection didn't come without its own struggles within the Schwanenritter such as the contraction of an unknown illness of one of its members (possibly Eleazar, the Curse of Immortality or both at the same time), the disappearance of Ynghildr amidst the combat and return to her post in the Ruin Golem as a transcendent one in the form of an abyssal Black Serpent Knight and Hadura's "betrayal" and death at the hand of Knight Marshal Anfortas.

Nevertheless, new information sheds light onto two matters: 1) the Schwanenritter were in Sumeru for more than just to fight abyssal monsters [Dev] and 2) they have fought another wave of Dev before the coming of the Cataclysm called Onslaught of Dark Beasts.

In Girdle of the Sands, there exists a Forge of the Abandoned Foundry that was used to manufacture Azosite energy blocks and Mechanical Wardens, and to also use as a battleground to test their efficacy before using them in the wilderness of Sumeru. However, while there is knowledge that Khaenri'ah used the abyssal energy to operate them, this forge in specific was using the power of elements crystallized in Azosite. The change from using pure elements to the Void thereafter suggests that Khaenri'ah didn't use always the latter and that its usage is a relatively recent thing in the story of Khaenri'ah [there is an event that took place in Tsurumi Island in which an "Anomalous" Model Ruin Grader kept sustaining itself with nearby Ley Lines. Furthermore, it is not so strange that the Khaenri'ahns would resort to change one energy for another, as it is known that they were looking after a perpetual energy which they achieved in the Abyss (if we're to recall the Caribert AQ, this would also give them a higher sense of power over the Abyss, as they believed that if they managed to control the Abyss, the gods would be no threat to them).

...Based on our projections, the Azosite concentration will exceed 60% after this round of smelting... ...Though it still fares poorly when compared with that newly-discovered so-called "perpetual" energy source, after these energy alloys form a matrix, they should suffice to break through the technical bottleneck in energy efficiency requirements imposed by the large-scale "Mechanical Wardens"... ...Not relying on some dogma from beyond the heavens, but only upon the wondrous achievements brought about by human intelligence. If we continue to explore this path, perhaps we shall one day be able to create a true perpetual machine...

—Ancient Engineering Notes.

Something important to note is that Nasejuna —a man in the know of these things partly because of a man who became a transcendent one in the past, Klingsor— also mentions that Khaenri'ahns were able to use the power of impurity to master monsters, said monsters being none others than rifthounds created by Gold, alluded to having been created as if by mistake like one who makes absentminded sketches to be thrown away. Given the presence of rifthounds in this facility it's presumed that they might've been used in the proving grounds:

...We were attacked... The sudden rampage of the defense mechanisms from the previous set of ruins had already caused massive losses to our investigative team... Abyssal monsters that never should have been here appeared for some unknown reason... So many members of the team have vanished while trying to evacuate... Ever since the monsters appeared, we have lost track of Klingsor's whereabouts. [...]

—Akademiya Investigation Team's Logs (IV).

Now, where does the discrepancy of whether the Schwanenritter fall in all of this? This falls in one place, arguably two:

The first one is that it is said that the Order of Skeptics have as per ancestors Khaenri'ahn knights that fought in Sumeru, said to be in the Cataclysm. But we know as per the Caribert AQ that children between pure Khaenri'ahn and any other of different nations are to become Hilichurls, yet this is not the case. This may be due to the fact that the progeny came before these Khaenri'ahn were cursed.

As for the second one, it's the fact that Knight Marshal Anfortas proclaimed that he will become a temporary Regent:

...In view of King Irmin's present indisposed state and the current unknown threats facing the Kingdom... ...Knight Marshal Anfortas has proclaimed that he will temporarily take up the post of Regent and lead the Regnum Concilium Ultimum until the Kingdom returns to a state of normalcy... All citizens... wait... will...

—Barely-Legible Bulletin.

The discrepancy that occurs here is that there was once when the Schwanenritter fought Dev in Sumeru and they succeeded in defeating them to the last one as Knight Marshal Anfortas himself proclaims in an encrypted message that can only be accessed to its content by interacting with multiple Ruin Guards scattered in Sumeru. In view that timeline-wise this happened even before an Alberich member stepped in to become the Regent and it seems that King Irmin was still alive at the time, this paints the story as happening before the Cataclysm. But what happened in order for the Onslaught of Dark Beasts to take place in Sumeru? It seems like what the Khaenri'ahns were doing in this forge wasn't without its problems and detractors as a few documents suggest:

...Eminent Marshal... Of course, I am keenly aware that the four pillars of our kingdom have achieved the prosperity they have today precisely thanks to us spying upon secrets from beyond the skies, and thus have our mechanisms been able to throw off the shackles imposed by this world's laws... But that technology... It cannot be said to be perfect... The gods are untrustworthy and the demons, ineffable. If there is one thing that can pry open the corners of this hollow world, then it can only be human will... To this end, if you can petition the King to allow some machinery manufactured according to the old standards to be preserved under your ministry's purview, perhaps it may light a spark under the latent wills of countless future generations to devote themselves to exploring technology...

—Someone's Abandoned Letter.

…It's beyond doubt that the elders of the Order of Skeptics are hiding something… Only while accompanying the investigation team from the rainforest was I finally able to resolve the doubts I have held for many years… the realm does not just belong to those of the blood of Khaenri'ah, but it is the homeland of all human beings… Holding fast to this maxim, my ancestor Hadura couldn't bear to see our people meet such a tragic end, and yet their dedication was rewarded with an unjust punishment, their reputation impugned and legacy stigmatized. I now understand the meaning of all this…

—Records of Unknown Attribution (I).

...As the workshops and related areas are unsuited for large-scale combat operations as carried out by the Mechanical Wardens, I order you to activate the self-defense systems and then quickly evacuate the survivors to the surface before continuing to resist.. Schwanenritter Garrison Commander Hadura…

—Soiled Orders.

These documents let on to the fact that 1) the Schwanenritter presence in Sumeru had an ulterior motive besides the aforementioned which is that of spying and in turn benefitting Khaenri'ah with what they learned and 2) Hadura couldn't agree with what was being done and against Knight Marshal Anfortas' will, they ordered the evacuation of the knights and to close the Mechanical Wardens (one of which broke as a result of this) and Anfortas, who didn't seem someone who cared about the negatives of what they were doing even at the cost of his knights' safety claimed this to be a "betrayal" and killed Hadura, losing his left eye in the strife.

What can be deduced by all this compiled information and deeds that the Schwanenritter committed in Sumeru is that there was an initial wave of Dev (Onslaught of Dark Beasts) that must've been inconsequential enough to not draw too much attention and that these knights took care of to completion (more like they were cleaning their own mess) and later on the Cataclysm happened, where the Schwanenritter also partook in to defeat these abyssal monsters and are treated as heroes whose history was erased for reasons unknown (although it calls for speculation that there was a valid reason behind this that I might address in another post if I remember). While in a way they were stationed in Sumeru for nefarious reasons to benefit Khaenri'ah, there were some of them with a noble heart that took the short end of the stick for going against what was being done or merely were collateral damage to what has befallen.

#◟༺✦༻◞ analysis within the ley lines ichor ┊study.┊#ngl I'm proud of this #because it made me confused as hecky #as I remembered clearly that it was stated #time and time again #that the Schwanenritter fought in the /Cataclysm/#which they did #but it felt like they fought in the Cataclysm exclusively #when some documents of 3.6 alongside past ones #fought in different Ruin Golems #suggested otherwise #so it's a really good feeling #to make some sense of this

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oc4everything · 4 years

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So I saw the Miraculous New York Special last week and there has been one thing that has been bothering me and a few people mentioned it already, so let’s go over it.

Let’s talk about Aeon/Uncanny Valley

Uncanny Valley is an American Superhero. She’s an Android built by the superhero Majestia, who considers her and treats her like a daughter. Now when I heard that her hero name was uncanny valley my initial thoughts were “huh that’s kind of a mean name for a robot”. For those of you who don’t know, the uncanny valley is a concept that states robots are more appealing the more human they appear, but lately the term is used to describe how unsettling robots and dolls are the more human they look. That is because your brain can tell something is off about it. It looks very human, but off enough that it can be unsettling. Like the motion capture Polar Express movie.

This wouldn’t be so bad if not for one other thing, that being that Uncanny Valley’s human form is a dark-skinned black girl named Aeon.

There is also the chance that having her robotic form look like this could be considered white washing?

Now I want to say right now that I think the creators had good intentions with this. Their logic was probably something like “Well, America is a country with a large black population, and we already want our new miraculous holder to be Native American (see Aeon’s sister, Jess), so let’s have our other new character represent that. At the very worst if this action could be considered carelessness or a failure to see if this is a bad choice.

There is a scene in the middle of the special where Cat Noir accidentally uses Cataclysm on her, breaking her, but Ladybug is able to use Miraculous Ladybug to reverse it. They talk about how relieved they are that they were able to fix it because Aeon is a machine. I think that’s in there just to point out that they don’t now if they could reverse it if it were a human he used it on instead of a machine. Aside from that everyone is very disturbed by the incident itself, especially Majestia, who is establish as being a protective mother towards Aeon.

As a character Aeon is actually very sweet. You can tell that her Moms and sister really care about her like she is a human and that she cares about other people. She seems to be a pretty standard example of the robot trope. She takes her programming literally and as a result is always trying to help people, like by setting up Andrien and Marinette. Sort of like “always a little too-well intention” type deal. They seems to be trying make her an innocent and good hearted type of character.

She is also a technological foil to the magical elements of the Miraculous universe, like not being able to see kwamis and being able to see through Ladybug and Chat Noir’s transformations. If we actually do get a spin off series like the Miraculous World logo and after credits scene implies, she may end up getting the standard character arc about learning how being a robot does not make her any less human than other people. Where she made any other race, I don’t think she would have been written any differently. I believe the decision to make her design black was done for representation. Which begs the question: is it good representation?

I have not seen many people say anything about Aeon which leads me to believe that she is actually very likeable character and I would like to see more of her myself. But I wanted to discuss some of these concerns I had and I noticed a few other people bring up.

It makes us ask what are the rules when writing humanoid or fantasy characters that are POC or coded as such? It’s nice to include them in fantasy or sci fi scenarios and the same roles have been done by white characters before, but because of the different contexts or implications that come with writing these types of characters, should we be more aware when writing them?

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ny special #miraculous nyc #miraculous aeon #miraclous uncanny valley #miraculous jess

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tseneipgam · 3 years

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"But why, you may ask, do we need system change? For many of us, the reasons are blindingly obvious. The Bernie Sanders presidential campaign presented the economic case clearly. The ever-widening gap between rich and poor has reached Dada-ist proportions. Less than 50 individuals control more wealth than half the Earth’s population – 3.6 billion people. In the US, one-tenth of one percent of the population is worth more than the bottom 90%. While a tiny elite has more power than ever before, vast multitudes look ahead fearfully. They see a future of shrinking hopes and increasing instability. As debt increases faster than GDP around the world, the financial system tightens its grip, like a giant anaconda suffocating the poor and the middle class. Waves of protests and rebellions – the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, Occupy, the rise of Donald Trump – reveal the ire of the masses."

"We live in a post-colonial Empire which uses violence - drone strikes, bombing raids, assassination, military invasion, extraordinary rendition - to impose its will on the world, as well as employing sneakier techniques, like the ballooning debts that countries across Africa, South America, and Asia must pay their European and American overlords, while their resources are strip-mined away. This is already terrible. The even worse problem is that our industrial civilization has unleashed an ecological mega-crisis. We are threatened with imminent planetary cataclysm that could drive us to extinction. “Across the world today, our actions testify to our belief that we can go on like this forever, burning oil, poisoning the seas, killing off other species, pumping carbon into the air, ignoring the ominous silence of our coal mine canaries in favor of the unending robotic tweets of our new digital imaginarium,” Roy Scranton writes in Learning to Die in the Anthropocene. “Yet the reality of global climate change is going to keep intruding on our fantasies of perpetual growth, permanent innovation and endless energy, just as the reality of mortality shocks our casual faith in permanence.”

"When it comes to the future, we appear to suffer from a severe lack of direction. Collectively, we are lost, fumbling in the dark. How can it be that we have so little idea of where we are going - or want to go - as a species? Perhaps people believe there are experts taking care of the problem - but what if the experts turn out to be self-deluded in various intricate ways? What if there are no experts, as of now, in what the future can bring?

And yet, we can say a few things about the future with a fair degree of certainty: By 2050, without some drastic, as of yet unimaginable intervention - without a radical, globally orchestrated program to reduce CO2 levels through conservation and sequestration - the Earth will be considerably hotter than it is today. With climate change quickening now, by then the planet could be 3, 4, or more degrees warmer. Accelerated warming might cause three meters, at least, of sea level rise, according to climate scientists. This would have disastrous impacts."

"The Arctic is melting rapidly now; month by month, gigatons of ice arereleased into the seas. Many of the world’s lowlying coastal cities – includingNew York City, my home – could be deluged, made uninhabitable within ahandful of decades. If that happens, hundreds of millions, if not billions, ofpeople will start migrating inland in either a somewhat controlled or chaoticfashion.Let’s assume the current political system finds a way to stay in place despitepanics and paroxysms. In that case, a tiny elite will still maintain control over thevast preponderance of the world’s wealth and property. They will employ private armies, killer drones and government surveillance to guard and protect theirprivileged status in a disintegrating world – if they haven’t found a moreinsidious method, like hacking the brainstems of their serfs or developing thenext tier of mood-and mind-altering drugs to control the nervous systems of thesheeple directly.It is inevitable that the melting of the mountaintop glaciers that provide freshwater to several billion people, and other drastic changes in climate and weatherpatterns, will induce unending droughts. Famines could be endemic across muchof the world. With these cataclysms, along with spreading diseases, we mightundergo significant, if not severe, population die-offs. These conditions, in alllikelihood, will lead to regional wars over resources, the scapegoating andpersecuting of minorities, as well as the collapse of many nation-states.Industrial disasters like Fukushima and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill willbecome regular occurrences in the wake of tsunamis and superstorms. All thebig cats and great apes will go extinct, and mosquitoes and insect pests willmigrate north. Seeking escape from physical hell, the masses may zone out onimmersive games and virtual reality spectacles. As the world turns into a giantrefugee camp, engineers will experiment with massive geo-engineering schemes.They will pour sulphur particles into the atmosphere and iron filings into theoceans with unpredictable, perhaps even more disastrous consequences.This scenario is, of course, only an outline, with many X factors. Perhapsadvances in medicine and nanotechnology will bring life extension andsuperhuman capacities to the privileged few, creating a deeper biological dividebetween the Haves and Have Nots. Populist fury may erupt against the FirstWorld – the primary source of economic injustice and ecological decimation – asthe Earth becomes hotter, more crowded and more barren of life. This could leadto the detonation of ‘suitcase nukes’ in major cities and bioterrorism or false flagevents involving weaponized or genetically engineered viruses.Mass panic would force a descent into martial law. People may beelectronically tagged, their every move under the surveillance of sophisticatedartificial intelligence agents. This would be a hotter, drearier, more despicableworld – but one that seems quite likely, from where we are now.Another scenario is plausible and far more extreme. Soon – any time now –we may face runaway climate change – rapid warming, beyond the worstpredictions. Over the last decade, scientists found that positive feedback loopsaccelerate warming. For instance, the disappearance of Arctic ice means thatmore sunlight is absorbed and less is reflected, turning up the thermostat.One way this can happen is through an eruption of methane. Methane is roughly 30 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas than CO2. While methaneonly stays in the atmosphere for ten years, whereas CO2 circulates for over acentury, there are huge quantities of it frozen in the oceans and the Siberian peatbogs. Scientists believe a sudden eruption of methane caused the Permian MassExtinction 250 million years ago, when 95 per cent of all life on Earth went extinct within a few decades."

"These small-scale, traditional societies developed methods of longterm continuity based on their spiritual ethos of interdependence and connection to nature. As Native American sociologist Jack Forbes puts it, ‘The life of NativeAmerican peoples revolves around the concept of the sacredness, beauty, powerand relatedness of all forms of existence. In short, the ethics or moral values ofnative people are part and parcel of their cosmology or total worldview.’ Wecan, I think, merge crucial aspects of the indigenous worldview – as well as theecological and social practices that stem from it – with our advanced technicalcapacities. If we manage this, we can learn to respect the limits of the Earth andbring our global civilization back into balance.In the modern world, time is linear and spatial – you can waste it, run out of itor equate it with money. We are supposed to be making ‘progress’ towards someineffable, technological goal. But this is just one way of conceiving time, ofexploring its many dimensions. There is also the dreamtime, the ever-presentorigin, known to aboriginals.Aboriginals don’t conceive of history, of progress and redemption, or declineand fall. For them, the universe is a sacred continuum, an ongoing ceremony.There is only one holy moment, infinitely extended. This way of understandingtime is at least as sensible as ours.In the modern world, people tend to think of humanity as separate from nature– somehow above or outside of it. We forget that all of our abilities areextensions of what we have received from the natural world. I think this gives usreason to hope. The development of modern industrial civilization may also bepart of a natural cycle. Most probably, the evolution of society – thedevelopment of consciousness – is as exquisitely timed and purposeful as otherprocesses we observe in evolutionary biology. We may be following aprogramme or sequence – much like foetal development, where the mothertransmits chemical signals to her infant, at precise intervals, up to the moment ofbirth. How we understand and articulate it is part of the programme, executed by the code as it writes itself"

"I don’t think everyone needs to drink ayahuasca, go to Burning Man, or explore the prophetic or esoteric aspects of reality. There are many differentpathways to self-knowledge and happiness. I also believe that it makes no senseto separate out the ‘spiritual’ and the ‘material’ – or the spiritual and the political– as if they are opposites. That is a flaw in our thinking that we inherited fromoutmoded religions. The separation between spirituality and matter was absorbedinto New Age spirituality, which has often been self-centred. Now we must growbeyond it to make a spiritual commitment to our human family, as a whole, aswell as to the greater community of life on Earth.It is hard to imagine how we can make a rapid systemic transition without amass awakening or a consciousness revolution. As unlikely and implausible as itseems, we need to transform the basis of our post-industrial, ecologicallysuicidal, hyper-individualist, deeply unjust society. We can establish, in itsplace, a system that supports the collective health of humanity as it restores andreplenishes the biosphere. Considering the severity of our biospheric emergency,we must find technical as well as social solutions that can replicate quickly andscale exponentially. If it helps to focus our minds on the alternative, we can call it a regenerative society"

"Sustainability, the ability to maintain life in its current form over a longduration, needs to be eclipsed by a new paradigm. As a call to action, whatsustainability seeks to sustain, above all, is some version of our current way oflife, even though the evidence is quite overwhelming that it cannot continue.Living processes, generally, don’t just endure or persevere. Life either flourishesand blooms, evolves and transforms, or it stagnates and dies. The rhetoric of sustainability tends to support the belief that our current form of post-industrial capitalism can be reformed – that it can persist, in something close to its present order.The emergent paradigm defines its ideal as a regenerative culture. We canlook at our current institutions and ideologies as a substrate, a foundation,providing the conditions for another level of transformation, just as modernbourgeois society, based on market relations and competition, emerged frommonarchy, based on feudalism and obligation. According to chaos theory, thenonlinear dynamics of living organisms allow for the emergence of new ordersof complexity, when a system reaches a high level of instability. As the mono-cultural, technocratic approach of post-industrial capitalism crumbles, a new worldview – a new way of being – is crystallizing."

"Spirituality has become trendy; shamanism is a fad. For the post-Marxist criticSlavoj Žižek, Westernized Buddhism, as well as yoga and urban shamanism,‘enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game, whilesustaining the perception that you are not really in it, that you are well awarehow worthless this spectacle really is – what really matters to you is the peace ofthe inner self to which you know you can always withdraw . . .’ Žižek proposesthat ‘New Age “Asiatic” thought’ – reflected in bestsellers like The Power ofNow, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and The Secret – has become ‘thehegemonic ideology of global capitalism’. I find this a helpful insight.The elite of our society – mainly Baby Boomers now – tend to indulge in afeel-good, Diet Coke version of spirituality, without sacrifice or commitment.They nibble at the edges of mysticism, toying with The Four Agreements,mastering The Seven Laws of Spiritual Success, flying to Hawaii for weekendTantra workshops designed to enhance their orgasms. They scrupulously avoidthe surrendering of ego meant to accompany enlightenment, as well as itspolitical, social and ecological dimensions.But right now we need to wake up for real. We must wake up – not becausespirituality makes us feel good, or chanting a mantra gets us a new car, orbecause avowing Advaita Vedanta non-duality assuages our guilt at not doingenough for the world. We need to wake up because the Arctic was 30 degreesCelsius warmer than usual in the winter of 2015. We are polluting everyecosystem on the planet. Somehow, we have to overcome distractions toconfront the destruction we have unleashed on the world – and hopefully reverseit. At this point, our planet’s future – the lives of our children and all children –depends on us, on our passion, commitment and critical discernment; on how we make use of our limited time and resources"

"The yearning we feel as adolescents, when all of our senses strain for somedeeper intensity of being, is the desire for initiation and transcendence. We seekaccess to something sacred – something greater than ourselves. Because ourculture denies us the fulfilment of this yearning, we become alienated and jaded.Over time, we learn to accept our disappointment, to forget our hopes. We areforced to accept degraded substitutes – to find a limited form of transcendence inmedia spectacles, sporting contests and artworks.I believe modern civilization is founded on this original betrayal. Alltraditional societies around the world – all premodern cultures – had some formof rites of passage, of initiations, which marked the transition from childhood tomaturity. At some long-ago point in our history, Judaeo-Christian civilization abandoned the techniques of initiation, which allowed each person to reach self-knowledge or gnosis, in favour of indoctrination. Spiritual knowledge was nolonger available to everyone. It was controlled, held in secrecy, by the priests and the rulers."

"Today, we see our innate human yearning for transcendence displaced ontotechnology. In Silicon Valley, the Singularity has become a quasi-religious faithsupporting the ideology of corporate progress. The idea of the Singularity is thathumanity’s destiny is to merge with our machines or be replaced by thementirely. As I will discuss in more depth later, I think this is a wrong direction. Idon’t believe we should reject technology. I believe our evolution of technologyis part of the evolution of consciousness. But we should seek to master ourmechanical and virtual tools for humane, regenerative purposes. The world wars that defined the twentieth century could be seen as expressions of the suppressed, primitive parts of our collective psychology –what Carl Jung called the shadow – projected on a massive scale. They reflectedthe level of unconsciousness existing at that time. In the same way, I believe wehave unconsciously unleashed the ecological mega-crisis in order to force acollective awakening and to bring about the next level of our unfolding as aspecies.Our governing elites and educated classes have known for over a half-centurythat we are charging towards ecological collapse. Abundant data, the Club ofRome reports, books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring made this clear decadesago. But we have been unable to change our direction and, in fact, we havecontinued to accelerate towards disaster. Underlying the momentum of post-industrial civilization is a deep well of suppressed grief over our assault on thebiosphere. This also must be brought into our awareness, and acknowledged.We see the same pattern occurring in ourselves and in the lives of the peoplearound us. People will persist in addictive and self-destructive patterns until theyfind themselves forced to choose between a path of self-knowledge ordisintegration and death. On a neurological level, they seek to push themselvesto the limit, pursuing different states of consciousness – seeking some intensityof communion that the normal world has denied them.Collectively, the human species is revealing the same pattern of self-destructive impulsion – suppressed yearning leading to heedless abandon – thatwe see on the individual level. We are pushing against the boundaries of ego-based individualism, seeking to reach the next expression of our human being-ness. In order to evolve, we have to recognize the pattern."

"We seem to be subconsciously impelling ourselves towards planetarycatastrophe to break our alienation and ego-centrism, to reach a new intensity ofcommunion. We are making this happen through collective catastrophe becausewe no longer have rites of passage which create the same effect throughintentionally guided ritual. But the chaos and catastrophe we are unleashing mayhave an unforeseen result. Collectively, humanity can realize love – universal,unconditional love – as the root of our solidarity, the basis for healing our world.Through a shared experience of catastrophe as well as the witnessing of masssuffering, we may be forcing ourselves to open our hearts individually andcollectively.In A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit visited communities in the wakeof major disasters, such as New Orleans after Katrina. We are conditioned by themass media to believe that people will behave like monsters or criminals whensociety breaks down, but Solnit found the opposite. For the most part, people goout of their way to help each other when catastrophe strikes. ‘In the wake of anearthquake, a bombing, or a major storm, most people are altruistic, urgentlyengaged in caring for themselves and those around them, strangers andneighbours as well as friends and loved ones,’ she writes. Years after a disaster,many people recall their experiences as the best time of their lives, when theybriefly felt a sense of belonging and togetherness. Ironically, before moderncivilization, this was our natural state, going back tens of thousands of years."

"According to quantum physics, the existence of a material world depends onan observing consciousness, which collapses the incessant quavering of energywaves into a definitive, perceivable state. We have also discovered thatelectrons, once connected, maintain their link no matter how far they travel awayfrom each other. Time, it would seem, does not exist for these subatomicparticles. This fact subverts our conventional understanding of time."

"From the 1960s until today, many people have taken personal journeys ofinitiation, rediscovering mysticism and shamanism, and embracing an expandedawareness of psyche and cosmos. This collective voyage of initiation can’t be completed, however, until those who have taken their personal vision quests are able to bring their new knowledge back into our society – to have it fully absorbed, welcomed and integrated. The best option is that we undertake a peaceful, deliberately designed and non-destructive system change. We can think of our current civilization – its technical and sociopoliticalinfrastructure, its ideology and beliefs – as an operating system, much like thesoftware that runs our computers. Now we need to reboot and install a newsystem software. A new social design could, eventually, give every human beingthe opportunity to flourish and thrive, to live creatively, without fear for theirfuture. Accomplishing this is a great mission that will require a truly rational,empathic application of our technical and creative powers"

"Postmodern civilization is already a pseudo-utopia. Over the last fewcenturies, we have constructed an artificial paradise of consumer goods – thesociety of the spectacle – for those with the resources to enjoy it. Unfortunately,this artificial paradise is built on excessive waste and ecological destruction. Ithas created misery for those on the margins, the victims of famines, wars andgenocides. By addressing its flaws, we can realize the next manifestation of our genius as a species – and achieve, in comparison, a true utopia"

"The study of biological evolution – the history of life on Earth – reveals aninveterate tendency towards greater levels of cooperation, coordination andsymbiosis. This idea may seem surprising at first. As part of the paradigm weinherited – the one we are now leaving behind – many thinkers and scientistsplaced their focus, instead, on the competitive, aggressive and destructiveaspects of nature. This view of biology as a constant struggle for life meshedperfectly with the predatory economic mode of capitalism. This idea has nowbeen superseded by a new view of life as an intricately networked phenomenon,where organisms support each other far more than they compete.According to biologist Lynn Margulis, the author of Microcosmos, whodeveloped the Gaia hypothesis with scientist James Lovelock, ‘The trip fromgreedy gluttony, from instant satisfaction to long-term mutualism, has beenmade many times in the microcosm. While destructive species may come andgo, cooperation itself increases through time.’We can find the most accessible example of cooperation and symbiosis as thepattern of evolution in our own bodies. Our bodies are made out of a hundredtrillion cells and vast colonies of microorganisms that work together seamlessly.In a previous stage of the Earth’s evolution, these organisms were fightingagainst each other for scarce resources. During a period of crisis, they figuredout ways to collaborate to construct more complex structures – organs, like skin,eyes and lungs. In a way, all human technologies are just recapitulations oftechnological feats we already find in the microcosm. Long before the Internet,viruses exchanged information – genetic code – around the world at high speed"

"Just as a plant flowers or a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly, we areinexorably, whether we like it or not, undergoing a metamorphosis into aharmonized collective – a superorganism. As we attain that state, we may findthat our interests and capacities change profoundly, just as a butterfly, no longercrawling or devouring leaves, gains an added dimension of flight and starts topollinate. Rather than fearing what is coming, we can welcome it and rejoice in an opportunity to create a new world."

"As its science and technologies advanced, the modern West constructed a newsocial model based on conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence. Weexported this experimental way of life across the world. In a short span of time, because of our capacity to exploit energy from fossil fuels – one barrel of oil holds the equivalent of 23,200 hours of manpower – humans went from biospheric nonentity to the catalysts of a geological event. The crisis confrontingus is the result of what might prove to be our very short-lived success as aspecies.As modern society became increasingly severed from nature, our science-based culture propagated an ideology of materialism, dismissing any mystical orreligious belief system as antiquated and false. We rejected the natural, thefeminine and the intuitive, replacing them with the masculine ideals of order,logic and rationality. Faith in science and technology replaced religion for many people."

"People make the argument that it doesn’t matter if we in the West now changeour path, because China – or India, or other stilldeveloping countries – willnever change theirs. This is an assumption that supports continued passivity andabdicates responsibility. The fact is that Western society has not only spread ourindustrialized, hyperindividual, consumerist model around the world, but hasrelentlessly marketed it as the best way for everyone to live. On the one hand,we’ve used financial pressure and biased trade agreements to force developingregions to adopt our values and conform to our agenda. On the other, we havebombarded these cultures with shallow, seductive, hypnotizing media – Dallas,Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Sex and the City, the Kardashians – whichhave made it seem that everyone should aspire to the same standards of materialwealth and glamour.As our postmodern society undergoes a transformation of values andpractices, we will apply the same genius we use to sell innumerable gaudy,useless, breakable things to promote and distribute a different way of living andbeing across the world. We now know from many studies that our commercial,self-centred lifestyle does not produce real contentment. Many commentatorsnote that people in traditional societies, living within ecological limits, seem farhappier than those who have adopted the Western consumer mindset. Intraditional societies, we find far less crime, a deeper connection to nature, andvital spiritual traditions. In these cultures, most people live in villages or small communities. They trust and care about each other."

"One big problem is that our brains evolved to deal with short-term dangers,like being stalked by a lion. We are not used to responding to threats that unfoldslowly, over a matter of decades. Doing so requires an act of will, intellectual apprehension and courage.We have been told there are experts in every field, with specialized, technical knowledge far beyond what we can fathom. We count on these experts to handlethose problems that seem beyond the scope of our abilities. Immersed in theirdaily lives, most people don’t entertain the prospect that these experts andspecialists may themselves be mistaken. They may be operating with such fragmentary knowledge that they lack the ability to comprehend the whole picture, or to envision, let alone institute, the level of systemic transformation that will be needed"

"Because we are afraid of what’s coming, because we feel it is not our responsibility, and because the mass media doesn’t focus our attention properly, most people lack even the most rudimentary knowledge about what we are doing to the Earth. I have spoken to graduate students studying sustainability anddesign at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and even they didn’t know themost basic information about species extinction, ocean acidification, climatechange and so on. In America, the typical adult can name over a thousandcorporate logos but fewer than ten species of native plants.People find themselves disconnected, detached from what is taking place,watching it like a movie. Conditioned and indoctrinated by a system designed todisempower them, many feel cynical about any possibility of changing the statusquo. This needs to change. We can educate ourselves about our situation andthen share that information in a productive way. We can’t galvanize people intoaction by making them scared or miserable. The only thing that will inspire people to act, I believe, is a compelling and beautiful vision of the future – a future they want to see for their children and grandchildren."

"We are currently in the Sixth Great Extinction in Earth’s history. Each day, anestimated 150 to 200 species disappear forever out of a total number of roughly8.7 million. Doing the maths, this means we are losing something like 10 percent of the remaining biodiversity every 10 to 15 years. The number is so highbecause we are currently polluting, over-settling, burning down and clear-cuttingmany of the most biodiverse places on Earth.It can be difficult to explain to people why maintaining biodiversity is crucialfor our own near-term survival. We have learned that ecosystems function as complex networks in which the different forms and varieties of life support each other – when any tier is taken away, the entire system may change dramatically.It may rearrange itself or become radically simplified, with only one or a handful of species proliferating"

"It has been estimated that the entire human population could be settled in an area the size of Texas, and each family would still have room for a backyard garden. Similarly, the entire humanpopulation could stand, shoulder to shoulder, on an area the size of New YorkCity. This shows it is not the size of the human population that is the problem. It is our massively wasteful use of resources."

"Take the country of Bangladesh where 157 million people live at zero to fivemetres above sea level. While many of us in the US and Europe have enjoyedlifestyles of luxury that require huge carbon emissions, the average Bangladeshiearns less than a thousand dollars a year and has a minuscule ecologicalfootprint. As sea levels rise in the next decades, much of Bangladesh willbecome uninhabitable as fresh-water sources are infiltrated by the sea. India is already building a massive fence to keep out Bangladeshi refugees."

"To deal with the methane threat – probably the greatest danger now facinghumanity, outside of nuclear war – we must severely curtail emissions, reducethe levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and get to carbon neutral ornegative as quickly as we possibly can. At the same time, we must removeexcess carbon from the air, and apply other non-invasive techniques to cool ourplanet. Some of these are so simple, it is absurd that we are not already puttingthem into practice.For instance, we can paint all of our urban rooftops white to mimic the albedoeffect. As Mark Hertsgaard writes in Hot, it is estimated that the averageAmerican household ‘could counteract the ten tons of CO2 it annually emits by retrofitting one thousand square feet of roof or sidewalk with reflective surfaces.Retrofitting all urban roofs and pavements in the world would yield emissions reductions equivalent to taking all the world’s cars off the road for eighteen years."

"Admittedly, we face what seems a socially impossible task. Although there isnothing stopping us, physically, from making the sudden changes in species-wide patterns of behaviour necessary to avert cataclysm, it seems inconceivable– culturally, politically and financially – that we will do so. Yet we must."

"The inconvenient truth is that overpopulation is not our major problem. Infact, across the developing world, at least until recently, most people livedwithin sustainable limits, with a tiny ecological footprint. They farmed locallyand ate their own produce. They didn’t drive cars, waste polystyrene, wearclothes produced in Cambodian sweatshops, fly somewhere warm to relax for aspring break, or buy new computers and smart phones every few years. Thereason we are rapidly approaching total ecological collapse is the consumeristlifestyle of America and Europe, which we have spread across the planet.I cannot deny that it would be a good idea to taper off the rising population – Ithink this can and should be done in a humane and empathic way. Birth ratesactually decline naturally as women attain a higher status, approaching equalitywith men, having more access to education and work opportunities. In otherwords, if we elevate the status of women everywhere, the global population will,gently and naturally, decline.While 80 per cent of emissions are produced by just 20 per cent of the world’spopulation, probably 50 per cent of emissions come from as little as 1 per cent ofthe population – the wealthy people of the developed world. But the prospectthat this 1 per cent will voluntarily reduce their consumption – or be forced to doso – is never proposed or considered. It runs counter to our intrinsic sense ofprivilege and the cult of wealth that underlies the capitalist game. Or, in otherwords, it goes against everything our globalized society – our technophiliac NewWorld Order – believes or stands for.‘We don’t require the whole world to do something’, notes Kevin Anderson, aUK climate scientist from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research, ‘we requirea small proportion of the world to change what they do today for the next ten ortwenty years while we put low carbon supply in place. Then we can go back toour old profligate lifestyles.’ Unfortunately, the longer we wait, the amount of rapid reductions of emissions that we need to accomplish will increase, until the goal is out of reach."

"Young people still feverishly pursue careers in the art world, fashion, rockmusic, celebrity journalism, marketing; they get their degrees in old masterpaintings and French critical theory and so on – I look over their shoulders inEast Village cafes to see what they are typing away on – but, honestly, if peopleunderstood what was coming, we would be applying our intelligence differently.Young people would pursue careers in ecosystem management, permaculture,wetland restoration, carbon sequestration. The best and brightest would belearning how to share and conserve resources, how to organize localcommunities to maximize resilience, practices of active nonviolence and so on.Our system doesn’t reward all of the work that desperately needs to be donenow, and it over-rewards everything that shouldn’t be done – such as usingfinancial tools to extract money from the poor and middle class and funnel it tothe wealthy, or marketing new trends that seduce people into buying moreclothes, cars and gadgets. Financial world predators, unleashing global chaosfrom their computer terminals, make exponentially more than primary schoolteachers or nurses who take care of the old and sick. And we are all caught inthis system.A major problem is our culture’s entrenched ideal of individualism. This issomething we must supersede, even though it is hard to imagine how to do so. Inreality, our independence as individuals depends on our interdependence – witheach other and all of life. Our current social and economic system obscures thisbasic truth. We should, instead, devise systems, in alignment with nature’sprinciples, that help us realize it"

"We are falling prey to the blind hubris of scientists and profit-seekingcorporations.In its fixation on linear growth, our industrial techno-culture – thetechnological society – makes the mistake of separating the world into separate,atomized parts, rather than seeking to understand, and enhance, the hiddenconnections between them. By altering the basic material of life, biotechnologyhas the potential to damage the complex ecosystems upon which we rely.Ecosystems developed over millions of years. Profit-seeking corporations thinkin terms of decades at the most."

"Until very recently, the modern belief was that only human beings possessconsciousness. Increasingly, we find an alternative viewpoint emerging, whichsuggests that consciousness is an immanent property in all living and even non-living things. According to the emergent discipline of epigenetics, consciousness– awareness – is present at the boundary of the cell, which chooses what molecules it will incorporate into its metabolism, and which will pass through it.As its chemical sensors make this decision, the cell can produce one of many thousands of variants of genetic material."

"‘Nature is a book that we learn to read by understanding its signs,’ DonLeonardo, the Kogi Mama told us. By interpreting the signs, the Kogicommunicate directly with the cosmos. He gave us an example of how a Kogimight walk past a dog with a butterfly in its mouth, on a path. From that encounter, he might know that his uncle, in a distant town, had passed away"

"Deep in their hearts, many people feel permanently disappointed, sad,frustrated and angry because they have been unable to satisfy their erotic desires.Men and women lead lives of quiet desperation and compromise. An ambience of disappointment and frustration permeates our society, in overt and subtle ways. People seek false substitutes for true satisfaction. The insatiable lust forconsumer goods is – I believe – a result of our failure to satisfy our deeper needs for love, erotic fulfilment, authentic communion. We are at war with our eroticism’, write Christopher Ryan and Calcida Jetháin Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. After scouring evidence from anthropology and evolutionary biology, they point out that,Human beings evolved in intimate groups where almost everything was shared – food, shelter, protection, child care, even sexual pleasure . . . contemporary culture misrepresents the link between love and sex. With and without love, a casual sexualitywas the norm for our prehistoric ancestors . . . human beings andour hominid ancestors have spent almost all of the past millionyears or so in small, intimate bands in which most adults hadseveral sexual relationships at any given time.Civilization constructed the institution of marriage, and enforced monogamy, toprotect property rights, under a patriarchal regime which demonized femalesexuality. The force of our repressed sexual instinct was channelled – or sublimated, in Sigmund Freud’s term – into building civilization, creating culture and making war"

"The planetary mega-crisis is directly related to the problems we confront as aspecies in this area of love and sexuality. One primary urge driving many men toseek success – wealth or fame – is sexual access. Men – Alpha males, inparticular – will do almost anything to attract women. The economic systemtends to reward sociopathic behaviour. To succeed, people must climb corporateladders, sell wasteful products, manage investment funds that transfer resourcesfrom the poor to the wealthy, promote vacuous fashion trends and so on. Thesystem forces people to compromise their ethics and principles, or renouncethem altogether, to get what they want.My anthropological observation is that people – young people above all –waste an unbelievable amount of their life energy in the quest for sexualsatiation. This energy that people expend in the incessant pursuit of sexual fulfilment is exactly the energy that we, the human community, need to redirect, channelling it towards our awakening, using it to enact social change and regenerate our planet’s ecosystems"

"We must understand thatthe Eros that gets expressed through sexuality is not just an individual problem,but has a very large-scale social and political dimension. Men and women mustbe willing to cooperate for each other’s happiness if humanity is going to have alongterm future on Earth.Hollywood and the media idealize the nuclear family, which is the basiceconomic unit of our society. When individuals merge into couples, andparticularly when these couples have children, they tend to direct all their energyand resources towards themselves. They lose interest – if they ever had any – inhelping the collective. Instead, they seek to amass resources, playing thecompetitive capitalist game.The problem in our culture is the atomization which forces individuals, aswell as nuclear families, to fight for their own success and personal survival. Wecan now see that this system, enforcing selfinterest as a survival mechanism, isnot sustainable for the planet as a whole. It needs to change – since it won’t change on its own, we need to change it"

"There is a direct relationship between our corrupt politics and our failure, as asociety, to handle love authentically. When people find themselves forced to lieto or deceive the person closest to them – their partner – about their desires, theyare conditioned to accept corruption and hypocrisy in society at large. They canaccept the half-truths of politicians and pundits because they are compromisedthemselves. We fail to care for the world as a consequence of our inauthenticity.After all, why would we want to protect and safeguard a world that has betrayed us at its core?"

"By the time I came of age in the late 1980s, my Generation X had surrendered without a fight. Overwhelmed by Reagan, Iran-Contras, the global success of theneoliberal agenda, we believed we were powerless to change our society. We turned away from politics or economics. We identified as bohemians, marginal outsiders. We focused on art, film,literature and the avant-garde. Taking our cues from the culture, we greeted anyattempt to discuss the ecological crisis or America’s procession of endless warswith derision and cynicism. The suicides of Kurt Cobain and David FosterWallace seemed to sum up Gen X’s ambience of hopelessness.I now feel that contemporary art and culture are a bit problematic. Even whenart, films or music seems to have a dissident viewpoint, they often serve tolegitimize the prevailing system. Anything seditious, rebellious or seeminglydisruptive actually feeds energy to the postindustrial capitalist mega-machine,which thrives on disruption.Contemporary society has the ability to absorb, assimilate and neutralizealmost anything that seems to threaten it. Media critic Thomas de Zengotita calls the method through which any potential alternative or threatening idea gets ‘covered’, swallowed up, by the mass media, the Blob: ‘What must be covered isany event or person or deed that might challenge the Blob with something like alimit, something the Blob cannot absorb, something that could, in resistance orescape, become the one thing the omni-tolerant Blob cannot allow, something outside it, something unmediated – something real,’ he writes in Mediated"

"Instead of initiating people into adulthood through an act of visionary courage,our civilization indoctrinates and programmes us in many subtle and brutalways. This is the residue of our Judaeo-Christian heritage, which denigratesdirect experience, or gnosis, promoting received ideas and obedience to distantauthorities. In my generation, we got the impression that whoever was hiding behind the curtain – the priest, the rabbi, the expert, the technocrat bureaucrat –possessed power over our world, and that we were exiled from it"

"The commonly held belief is that we need government and the state to preventterror and chaos. Do we really know this to be the case any more? Historyreveals the state to be guilty of endless dark deeds and scorched-earth policies.The US government has laid waste to whole nations, causing the death anddislocation of large populations in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Iraq,using napalm, Agent Orange and shells of depleted uranium to further itsgeopolitical aims. Could no government do any worse?"

"I don’t think we can simply dissolve the governments we have now, as thatwould create chaos. But is it possible that we might engineer a peaceful step-by-step transition from governments controlled by wealthy elites whereparticipation is limited, to a peer-to-peer system where local communities haveautonomy, where power is decentralized, where we peacefully dissolve nation-state borders, where the people are free to be? I know this seems impossible. Butso did a smart phone, 3D printer or neutron bomb until somebody built the thing.Why don’t we at least make this thought experiment? Until now, our focus hasbeen technological progress, not social innovation. Our society has been focusedon making things that make profit, not on reinventing our social system tosupport the greatest level of happiness, self-knowledge and freedom for all.What would happen if we changed our focus?Our networks of communication could be used to orchestrate a worldwidecampaign of education. As we teach the people of the world about what’s happening ecologically, we will also train them in participatory democracy, as well as ecological restoration. "

"Evolution does not happen incrementally. Crises induce sudden mutations andrapid leaps. These leaps represent ‘an evolution of increasing levels ofcommunal complexity and interrelationships’. Theoretically, humans are on theverge of making a jump to collective harmony, modelled on the coordinatedactivity that happens within our bodies, which work together to support thesuccess of the whole without wasting or hoarding energy. That is what the pattern of evolution suggests."

"Pronoia is a concept developed by the astrologer Rob Brezsny. He thinks theuniverse is actually conspiring, at every step, to give us the most amazingexperience we can handle at that moment.I tend to agree with Brezsny, but I also think pronoia only makes sense – theworld seems more pronoiac to a California dreamer than a Somalian refugee – ifwe also integrate Eastern ideas of karma and reincarnation. According to thesewisdom traditions, our souls pass through many lifetimes; our actions in onelifetime determine our opportunities in future lives. Physics has demonstrated‘quantum nonlocality’, where particles remain connected, even across vastdistances, indicating that time itself is an illusion. Perhaps as we extend our knowledge of the quantum world, we will gain deeper ways of conceiving phenomena that are now considered mystical, such as reincarnation, or the chakra system"

"All who are really dedicated to the earliest possible attainment of economicand physical success for all humanity – and thereby realistically to eliminatework – will have to shift their focus from the political arena to participation inthe design revolution,’ he wrote.Fuller believed that the current model of work would be abolished in a trulyrational society. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Deep down, nobody wants ajob to occupy so much of their time. People want a mission that inspires them –that compels them to dig deep to apply their reserves of creativity, cunning,compassion and courage. Fuller noted that most of the work people do is a drainon the Earth’s resources. All around the world, people are driving in cars tooffices, using computers, toner cartridges and polystyrene packages. All of thisis costly from the perspective of the planet’s ecology (apparently the words‘ecology’ and ‘economy’ have the same root).It would be much more economical and efficient, Fuller reasoned, to subsidizepeople so they could live in self-sufficient communities where they producedtheir own food and energy. He proposed giving everyone on Earth who didn’talready have a mission, a ‘research grant for life’, in whatever subject interestedthem. I love this idea."

"We reject any alternative viewof the world that doesn’t seem possible, given the existing structures. We forgetthat these structures are, in the end, mental constructs. They can, in fact, change.If we are going to transition from our current predicament to a post-capitalistworld, we will need to make new agreements.It was 1985, a long-distant autumn day, when, as a sophomore at WesleyanUniversity in Middletown, Connecticut, I chewed a bunch of dried mushroomstems for the first time. During that first trip, I saw the entire concrete, steel andglass edifice of postmodern civilization as an artifice, a pompous fraud. We hadimposed an abstract order over nature. By comparison, every tree, shrub androck radiated patience, humility and good-humoured wisdom.By briefly detaching my awareness from my ego, the mushrooms showed methat we live in a society based on layers of collective delusion. I saw how oursystem constantly tries to convince us of its importance and permanence – tointimidate us – while it suppresses those subjects that are most worthy of ourinterest, such as the nature of our own consciousness. The people around meseemed absent, hypnotized, watching baseball on television or reading reports onthe stock market. I still recall going into a local deli and feeling embarrassed –ashamed – that the crumpled dollars I pulled from my wallet were what ourculture valued highly. I felt that a joke had been played on humanity"

"Rousseau believed the origin of civilization was private property. ‘The firstman who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying “Thisis mine”, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founderof civil society.’ Inequality didn’t exist for man in what Rousseau called ‘thestate of nature’ – in nomadic, aboriginal societies.Rousseau believed this innovation led, eventually, to a state of collectivesuffering. In a society based on property rights, people find their positionsinsecure. They are forced to compete against each other – undermine and attackeach other – to gain or protect their wealth. ‘It has indeed cost us not a littletrouble to make ourselves as wretched as we are,’ he wrote. While those who hold wealth become vain and self-important, those without it often feel depressed and marginalized."

"Like Marx, Oscar Wilde saw that private property damaged humanpsychology by substituting a removed, abstract relationship to the world forimmersion in the present: ‘By confusing a man with what he possesses, it has ledIndividualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that manthought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that theimportant thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has,but in what man is.’"

"Wilde did not see a contradiction between art and individuality – which heprized as the highest ideal – and a socialist or post-capitalist civilization. Hethought socialism would allow the people’s individuality to flourish for the firsttime. He noted that ownership of property ‘has so many duties that its possessionto any large extent is a bore. It involves endless claims upon one, endlessattention to business, endless bother. If property had simply pleasures, we couldstand it; but its duties make it unbearable. In the interest of the rich we must getrid of it.’I think we need at least to consider the possibility that we can never have atruly regenerative society as long as the basis of it is private property andhoarded capital. I find obvious reasons this is the case. First of all, property (and

the rents or interest collected from it) divides the world into two classes ofpeople: Haves and Have Nots.When somebody becomes wealthy, a Have, a huge amount of their intellectand energy gets channelled into protecting the wealth they have gained, ratherthan working for the comprehensive good of all. Perhaps they originally wantedto create things that helped and improved the human condition. With personalsuccess, however, their focus inexorably shifts to protecting their own assets andtheir family’s interests against everyone else.Those without property, the Have Nots, feel little incentive to fight for thefuture of the Earth, because the world is already cut off from them. It is owned –lock, stock and barrel – by the wealthy. They don’t feel the state of the Earth istheir problem or responsibility. It is significant that indigenous people around the world have been courageously leading the battle against the extractive industries.Of course, this is partially because their homelands are directly threatened, but itis also because they come from cultures where private property either didn’texist or had limited value as a construct"

"Wilde proposed a transition to a system in which humanity was liberated fromdrudgery through automation and freed from the burden of property bysocialism. He admitted he was offering an idealistic, utopian programme – buthe did not think it was unattainable, even so.It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why itis worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that isalready in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out underexisting conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions thatone objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditionsis wrong and foolish. The conditions will be done away with, and human nature will change"

"Buckminster Fuller noted that ‘under lethal emergencies vast new magnitudes ofwealth come mysteriously into effective operation’. During the Second WorldWar, for instance, the United States engineered a rapid shift of its industries towards military production within a few short months."

"We possess working models for non-hierarchical, non-commercial societies inthe blueprint of many indigenous and traditional cultures. The design of tribalsocieties reflects the wisdom of tens of thousands of years of social innovation,and trial and error. We can rediscover these basic principles. We can look at how various tribal societies handled power dynamics, for instance, while maintaining egalitarian communities."

"The Occupy Manifesto of October 2011 states:As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power"

"We need a virtual infrastructure to disseminate a shared understanding andcoordinate mass collective actions. Ideally, this infrastructure will be open-source and peer to peer. We need to scale it rapidly, much like Facebook orGoogle grew exponentially. Alternatively, Facebook or Google could bedecommercialized – made into public trusts – and transformed into thisinfrastructure.Individually, people are highly susceptible to peer pressure; collectively, themultitude has a powerful herd instinct. If we are going to disseminate asuccessful alternative to self-destructive overconsumption, we need to leverage what we know of human psychology. We must create a tipping point phenomenon in the opposite direction, away from unconscious consumerism,where making personal sacrifices to help ‘save the planet’ will become trendy,cool – the next thing everybody has to do, like the Ice Bucket Challenge, if they don’t want to lose the respect of their peers."

Wilde: "At present machinery competes against man. Under properconditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all thatthis is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while thecountry gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing

itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure – which, and not labour, is the aim of man – or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work."

#book

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banshee-in-velvet · 3 years

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As human-caused climate change becomes an increasingly tangible and impactful part of our lives, climate change deniers are being forced into obscurity. The same political groups, mostly right-wing, who historically discredited the veracity of climate science, are now faced with overwhelming evidence that climate change is real and serious. But these groups are still here, as are their ideologies; they have simply adjusted their messaging. Climate denialism is a dangerous ideology, but the way these groups have appropriated climate change and environmental concerns in the modern age is subtler and even more insidious, shedding light on a resurgent dark legacy of environmentalism that must be confronted and eradicated, called eco-fascism. How do we tackle it?

—

In terms of its political and economic implications, the challenge of climate change is incompatible with the precepts of traditionally right-wing political groups, who are traditionally married to the ideologies of expanded individual liberties, free markets and small government. Climate change inevitably requires governments to spend and regulate more, and for political parties more dogmatically opposed to such action, like the Republican Party in the US, denying that climate change is a problem worth intervening for becomes a convenient and attractive weapon of choice.

Today, the irrefutable evidence of climate change has made climate denialism redundant in most of the world. Climate deniers have very little to stand on anymore, and most major political parties in the world have abandoned denial rhetoric.

But the political precepts of these groups have not changed, and as climate change becomes a larger part of our lives, far-right politicians and groups have started to appropriate environmental narratives to further their goals in other areas. There is growing interest among political scientists in the emergence of what is being termed eco-fascism, an ideology that marries environmentalism with more extreme right-wing social and political trends.

Eco-fascism is not a new phenomenon, but as lawmakers from across the political spectrum begin to internalise the reality of climate change, environmental policy considerations will take on much more prominent roles in legislation. There is a real threat that far-right political parties and extremist groups and individuals could weaponise climate change and environmental concerns to fuel and justify their own social and political vision of the world. This could be in the form of bolder anti-immigration laws, more stringent population control measures or even outright violence and oppression.

Twisting environmental narratives to validate far-right ideologies and violence sounds dystopian, but it is already happening. Often, these justifications are based on inaccurate or nonexistent science, and only serve to satisfy the grievances of unscrupulous leaders or unstable individuals. As climate change begins to take hold of our lives in ever-more intricate ways, a new type of environmentalism could emerge, one that is marked by hatred or distrust of outsiders, tribalism and violence. This brand of environmentalism is dangerous, and it needs to be stamped out early by politicians and public institutions.

Eco-Fascism: The Far-Right & The Environment

In April 2021, the Attorney General of the US state of Arizona sued the Biden administration for failing in its duty to protect the environment. The lawsuit was based on one grievance in particular that the Attorney General’s office had with federal policy: immigration laws.

Biden has made efforts to overturn his predecessor Donald Trump’s regressive immigration policies, including suspending a controversial ruling that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their US immigration hearings. These policies have increased the number of migrants being legally allowed into the US through the southern border, creating some concern amongst Republican politicians traditionally opposed to expanding legal immigration.

As part of his office’s lawsuit, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich insisted that Biden’s new policies neglected an environmental review on how more immigration could increase pollution and emissions, saying: “Migrants need housing, infrastructure, hospitals and schools. They drive cars, purchase goods and use public parks and other facilities. Their actions also directly result in the release of pollutants, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which directly affects air quality.”

Brnovich, who has in the past publicly misrepresented established climate science, is tapping into a common grievance that populist and right-wing leaders commonly rely on: anti-immigration sentiments among the public. By expressing worries over pollution and overpopulation however, the lawsuit essentially weaponises environmental narratives as tools for political gain.

Environmental concerns have been appropriated by far-right political groups for a long time. The Nazi party famously considered conservation a policy priority, and was among the first political parties in history to champion renewable energy. But the environmentalism that Hitler and his political adherents exhibited was not born out of genuine concern for the Earth and its inhabitants, rather it was employed as a justification behind the party’s racially-motivated Holocaust campaign, citing concerns over the dangers of overpopulation and resource depletion.

The Nazi party used environmentalism as a propaganda tool to recruit more members and improve their public standing, but quickly abandoned any ambition concerning environmental legislation as soon as the war started. Since the days of Nazi Germany, this faux environmentalism has been continuously recycled by far-right and extremist groups as a justification for unjustifiable beliefs.

In more modern times, far-right neo-Nazi groups and radicalised individuals have cloaked themselves in environmental and ecological rhetoric to validate their stances. These groups cite concerns over overpopulation, immigration and multiculturalism as certifiable reasons behind their supremacist views.

In the manifesto of a white supremacist who fatally shot 51 people in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, the killer identified himself as an eco-fascist and an ethno-nationalist in the same breath. He also equated immigration to ‘environmental warfare.’ That same year, another lone gunman shot and killed 23 people in a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. The gunman claimed to have been inspired by the Christchurch shooter, and he had posted his own manifesto before the attack. The manifesto (named ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ after Al Gore’s environmental documentary) exhibited strong concerns over unabated population growth, resource depletion and environmental degradation, stating that he was attempting to stop a ‘Hispanic invasion of Texas.’

Members of the alt-right are not the only ones who have co-opted environmental concerns to justify their beliefs and actions. Extremist terrorist groups have utilised environmentalism for years as a recruitment and propaganda tool, with some jihadist groups in Eastern Africa and the Middle East banning single-use plastics, providing rations and stipends to farmers suffering from water scarcity and organising reforestation and public cleanup initiatives for local youth.

This, of course, happens against the backdrop of other, less altruistic activities of terrorist groups. In addition to the environmental impact and loss of livelihoods wrought by driving the global arms trade and initiating conflict, a substantial part of global terror groups’ funding comes from the illicit wildlife and charcoal black market, which in 2014 accounted for over USD$200 billion a year.

A Malthusian Trap?

Right-wing political concerns over immigration and further straining of resources are rooted in the more apolitical fear of what overpopulation could entail. These concerns have been around since 18th century British scholar and economist Thomas Malthus proposed his Malthusian mathematical theory of population growth. In Malthus’ view, populations grow exponentially, while sustenance, including food and other basic resources, grow linearly. This would mean that, in the absence of a cataclysmic event that forcefully stops growth or more draconian population control policy, overpopulation will eventually outpace the availability of basic resources needed to survive.

Malthus’ predictions have been proven wrong several times, and his views have been criticised from across the political spectrum as overly pessimistic and even inhumane. Malthusianism becomes dangerous when its questionable science is taken seriously by lawmakers. In the mid-19th century, the British government scrapped many welfare programmes designed to provide food to the poor, basing this decision on a Malthusian argument that helping the poor only leads to these groups having more children and thereby increasing poverty.

Human populations have almost never behaved in the way theorised by Malthus. As a country’s wealth increases and total fertility rates decrease, societies have an overwhelming tendency to reach a new replacement level; it might take some time for fertility rates to readjust, but they are regardless overwhelmingly inclined to do so. This is evident in the world today, where the wealthiest nations with more food security have the lowest fertility rates, and poorer countries with higher food insecurity possess the highest fertility rates. For countries that have implemented forceful population control measures, such as the one-child policy in China, the result has been a looming demographic crisis.

You might also like: Opinion: Getting Real About Net Zero by Jonathon Porritt

Figure 1: World population growth 1700-2100; Our World In Data. Data by United Nations; 2019.

The UN expects the world’s population to grow until around 2100 where it will peak and stabilise at around 11.2 billion. While this is certainly high, it does not spell our inevitable doom. A world with a population of around 11 billion would put very little extra strain on the Earth’s capacity to provide, as long as we humans are able to change our patterns of high consumption and waste, without necessarily having to sacrifice quality of life. For instance, the Earth would be able to carry a much larger population if all of its inhabitants received their electricity from renewable sources, but would not be able to handle nearly as many if that population was entirely reliant on fossil fuels. The effects of climate change will play a much larger role in determining whether the Earth is able to provide for its inhabitants, but population control measures have very little to do with countering climate change. The only way we can really do that is by ending our relationship with fossil fuels.

When Malthusianism intersects with political ideologies rooted in racial or social biases, ideas are proposed that may appear sensible on the surface, but the actual policy that accompanies them is nearly always based on a racialised approach to population control. These efforts generally seek to decrease population numbers of oppressed and poor groups in order to maintain the living standards and safety of wealthier groups.

These views were surprisingly common as recently as the 1960s and 70s, when the world was swept by a wave of overpopulation scares. American ecologist Garrett Hardin, who popularised the concept of the tragedy of the commons in 1968, also introduced the highly controversial idea of lifeboat ethics, which laid out a belief that it was morally excusable to “let struggling nations drown.”

Cloaking themselves in a perceived environmentalism and pragmatism, the policies that these ideas have historically led to have validated twisted and racially-motivated population control campaigns, not far removed from eugenics movements. In the wake of the 1960s overpopulation scare, forced sterilisation campaigns were waged against women of colour in the US and Puerto Rico. In the 1970s, the Indian government forced millions of men from lower castes to participate in compulsory sterilisation programmes. If they did not comply, all social safety nets and government-assured rights were essentially gutted.

While these dark legacies are not all tied to far-right political groups, they are tied to eco-fascism, and the twisted brand of eco-fascism that is resurging today is most definitely aligned with the alt-right. In the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter, Malthusian fears of overpopulation were directly addressed: “There is no green future with never-ending population growth, the ideal green world cannot exist in a world of 100 billion, 50 billion or even 10 billion people.” The El Paso shooter stated in his own manifesto that: “Everything I have seen and heard in my short life has led me to believe that the average American isn’t willing to change their lifestyle, even if the changes only cause a slight inconvenience. […] So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources,” explicitly referring to non-white immigrants.

While it might seem harmless for political figures and other leaders to sound the alarm about overpopulation’s impact on the environment, these concerns can not only be wildly overblown, but can excuse and validate racist policies and unjustifiable acts of violence.

Eco-Fascism: What Next?

How do we minimise the voices of these resurgent fascist ideologies, while also combating climate change? The answer to this challenge is as complex as the reasons that caused it to emerge in the first place. Countless factors of our modern world- social media and the ubiquity of alternative facts chief among them- have led to the formation of echo chambers online and in real life that only reinforce and embolden these dangerous ideologies, a trend that may have been exacerbated by the induced lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eradicating these ideologies will take time and effort.

But climate change does not care about your political leanings. Or your class, race, gender, nationality or religion. You could not believe in climate change at all, but it would still affect you. To counter these divisive and dangerous ideologies, we must first separate the truths from the untruths, especially online where misinformation can spread like wildfire. We must then ensure that our institutions are bound to facts and are trusted by the public to act as educators. Extreme ideological positioning has no place in the fight against climate change, and the energies and passions of people who fall victim to alt-right messaging need to be redirected towards real environmentalism.

To counter the dangerous rhetoric of these groups, we need to respond with action that proves them wrong. When right-leaning politicians lament increased rates of poverty and joblessness, they often blame overpopulation and immigration. People need to know that it is market failures and runaway capitalism that creates inequality, not too few resources for too many people. It is a mismanagement of natural capital that leads to environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, not immigration. And it is empowering women and supporting democratic governance in poor countries that stabilises population growth, not forceful population control measures.

As climate change creates increased scarcity over the coming decades, it is unknown whether wealthy countries will choose to hoard their resources or share them with the developing world. Will nations with high resilience lock out everybody else, or will they recognise that doing so would only reinforce these abhorrent and extreme ideologies that never really went away? Accepting climate migrants and investing more in improving resilience in developing countries will be important acts of solidarity that not only acknowledge the past responsibilities of wealthy nations, but also work towards building a future more equipped to counter climate change.

What eco-fascism and other extreme environmentalist ideologies fail to understand is that there is no rational argument for isolationism in the face of climate change. Even if a wealthy country is able to reduce its own emissions, climate change will still affect it if it does not assist countries with fewer resources in doing the same.

There is some good news. People, especially young people, are increasingly inclined to band together in the understanding that climate change transcends boundaries. Today’s youth, and all the potential that it represents, cares deeply about climate change and the environment, more than anything else in fact. Youth climate activism is global, and possesses one of the loudest voices. If people, especially the youth, can be swayed from extremism and find a sense of purpose in burgeoning activist movements that are helping to save the world, these dangerous ideologies can be stripped of their fuel: susceptible young minds.

Mobilising public and popular support to counter climate change is crucial to motivating legislators to do what has to be done, but they can also save imperiled youth from dangerous ideological positioning. This is only possible if governments ensure climate change messaging is clear and transparent. Shifting to a low-carbon economy is what will allow population growth to continue and eventually stabilise at a point where a much lower percentage of the world is living in poverty. Giving credence to unfounded overpopulation concerns and magnifying the grievances of extreme political ideologies gets us nowhere closer to solving our problems.

Featured image by: Flickr

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lycorogue · 4 years

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Latest Story: “Forever In Darkness”

Happy Plagg Appreciation Day! (I’m calling for the fandom to officially make all Friday 13ths Plagg Appreciation Day)

You can find my latest story for our favorite cat kwami on my normal three sites: on AO3, on FFN, and on DA

You can also check it out below the cut.

(Man, I was NOT expecting this project to take me ALL DAY to write. Whoops!)

Forever in Darkness

Summary: Plagg has always been in darkness. It had become all he knew. Then he got a ray of sunshine, and it helped save him. There was a reason he believes Adrien is the best Chat Noir ever.

Rating: T for war and torture mentions, child death mentions, and mild descriptions of abuse

Word Count: 4765

Status: Completed one-shot

Trigger Warnings: Emotional torture and abuse, execution mention, child death mention, and war mention

It's dark. It was always dark. He wasn't allowed the light. They were all afraid of him in the light. The last time he could fully bask in the sunlight was after rescuing a lazy young man from a booby-trapped cave, but even that boy kept him on a tight leash. The man had chosen the genie over him, and yet he was trapped; unable to roam.

At least he had the sunlight back then.

“Plagg, what are you doing?” The purple butterfly kwami whispered in his friend's ear, his eyes darting around in concern.

“I can't stay here, Nooroo,” Plagg whispered back. Delicately, he started sliding the Cat Ring off his owner's finger, careful to not wake her up.

“But you can't leave! We all make up the Box together. You are the other half of the Ladybug Miraculous. Are you truly going to abandon Tikki?”

“Tikki hasn't been out of the Miracle Box in decades. Besides, I'm sure she'll figure it out without me. I just can't be trapped anymore. I need the sun. I need to be my own owner. I'm done living through these human's full lives, being forgotten when my powers aren't needed, or when they find something that suits them better. Like you.”

Nooroo startled at the accusation. Plagg simply shook his head. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'll miss all of you.” Plagg put a flipper on Nooroo's shoulder. “I'll miss you so much, little brother, but I can't stay.”

Wiping a tear away, the little black cat kwami scooped up his ring, and zipped away as far and as fast as he could. His eyes still clouded with a film of tears, he could barely make out the buildings around him. It wouldn't matter, though, soon he'd be out in the country, and he could find a place to hide the ring, and he'd be free. He wouldn't be a slave to those humans anymore; abandoned by them, and forced to stay hidden or trapped inside the world of the Miracle Box.

As his anger over the last millennium built up, his destructive powers manifested as an aura around him.

“Oh! No! No no no.” Plagg tried to skid to a halt until he was calmed again, but he couldn't build up enough friction in the air. He neared a freestanding clock tower by the cathedral in Pisa, and instantly dove for the ground to avoid ruining the building. Instead, his cataclysm softened the soil, causing the heavy building to start to sink.

“No! I didn't mean to! Stop!” Phasing back through the dirt, Plagg – power now subdued – dropped his ring, and pushed hard against the tower, trying to hold it in place. He managed to keep it from falling completely, but at the cost of his freedom.

“There you are!” An angry Italian woman - with Nooroo sorrowfully in tow – stormed up to the tower. She scooped Plagg's ring off the ground, and snarled at him. “You've gone too far this time, Cat,” she spat at him, “Plagg, I renounce you.”

Plagg just managed to catch Nooroo mouthing 'I'm sorry' to him before the magic binding him to the Cat Ring flashed; forcing Plagg to become trapped within his ring until a new owner for him was found. Back into the darkness.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

He wasn't sure how long it was before his ring was placed back in the Miracle Box; returning him to his friends, at least. Still, he had all but forgotten what the sun felt like; what light looked like. Even in their world within the Miracle Box, all was magical twilight.

He was back with the Guardians, and trusted even less now that he attempted to escape. He was rarely used, and the few times he was called upon were curt; strict.

“Plagg, where do you think you're going?”

The kwami flinched. He was destruction incarnate, but these humans still held so much power over him after they created the Miraculous to help give him form.

“I was just going outside, Master. I wanted to feel the sun. I promise I won't be seen by anyone, and I won't touch anything.”

“You can't be trusted.” The monk didn't say it with malice, but his voice was still stern and authoritative.

“But-”

“No! You have fulfilled your task. It is now back to the Miracle Box.”

“Master, please-”

“Plagg, I renounce you.”

Before the kwami could beg further, he was in his ring, and then returned to the Box.

I'm with my brothers and sisters, he reminded himself. At least I'm not alone.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

It had been dark for so long, Plagg didn't realize light could be terrifying. Not until a squire bore his ring. The young man was a trusted ally to Jeanne d'Arc, who bore Tikki's Ladybug Earrings, and accompanied her on her quest to push back English forces and get Prince Charles crowned at Reims. When Tikki and Plagg weren't powering up their owners, the two bearers allowed their kwamis some time to bond, so long as they promised to stay hidden from all others. It was a great arrangement – usually taken advantage of by the light of a campfire – but for such a terrible price. They were in a mighty war, and Plagg's destructive powers were constantly used against people: English forces and their allies. The Miraculous was only meant for the pursuit of good and the betterment of mankind, but in war, who truly knows if actions are for those purposes?

Plagg feared that his powers were being used for ill as he watched the newly appointed knight descend into madness. He became power-hungry, and only Jeanne's words could truly keep him in check.

Then Jeanne was captured.

During her trial, she had renounced her possession of her earrings before Tikki was found out, and a Guardian of the Miraculous was able to retrieve them before Plagg's owner could. It drove the man wild with rage. He blamed Tikki for letting Jeanne get captured; blamed her for the saint's death. He wanted to use the dual-Miraculouses to return Jeanne to France; to let her live out her victory over England. He missed his partner dearly, and the grief overwhelmed him.

He grew cruel with Plagg. He feared his Miraculous would be taken away, or that Plagg would betray him, just as he had believed Tikki to have done to Jeanne. So Plagg was never allowed out of his owner's sight. He was used to destroy entire villages and towns that housed the English and their allies; the knight not caring for innocents lost in the devastation. Acres upon acres of farmland, forever ruined by the knight's cataclysmic touch. People starved as Plagg was forced to send a plague through their crops and animals. All the while, King Charles VII praised the knight's efforts, and rewarded him with a title of nobility.

Plagg sank into his own despair. He had no other kwami to talk to, he was isolated with only his owner to socialize with, and the now middle-aged man cared nothing for his kwami's wellbeing. Plagg couldn't even attempt to run away, as he did with the Italian woman, because this owner slept with a glove over his ringed hand. It was near-impossible to take both the glove and the ring off his owner's hand without waking him. The few times Plagg tried, he was thoroughly punished: stripped of his mouth for days, forced to power up his owner even when drained, renounced so he would be banished into the darkness of his ring for nearly a week, and even had his Cataclysm used to execute children who were accused of theft; unmoved by the fact that it was to avoid starvation. The only time Plagg seemed to have any sort of peace was while his owner slept through the nights. The dawn brought awakening, and torture. The sun now brought pain.

It kept far too long – nearly sixteen years after Jeanne d'Arc's capture and execution – before other Miraculous holders finally made it to Plagg, and took his ring back to the Guardians. They had to rotate through a small handful of Ladybugs to accomplish the task, each one trying to use the knight's connection to Jeanne and Tikki to persuade him to relinquish the ring; each one only managing to increase the man's grief and anger. With so much destruction in Plagg's wake, his ring and Tikki's earrings were carefully protected in the Miracle Box, and while Tikki was utilized to create other Ladybugs throughout the centuries, Plagg was never again called upon.

He was now safe with his friends. He wouldn't see the sun again, but the eternal twilight reminded him of asylum. He began to heal, but he also began to break ties with humanity. They had been little more than cruel to him; hungry for the destruction he could create, or fearful of it.

After all, it was always dark for Plagg. He wasn't allowed the light.

Tikki was the embodiment of good luck; so it was only natural that Plagg was therefore the embodiment of bad luck, of curses, of jinxes. It was in his nature to be condemned to a life of cruelty, it seemed. So he didn't need humans or their intense emotions that controlled them. He was becoming content in the micro-world his brothers and sisters shared with him.

He would be as amused as the rest when a different kwami brought a gift from the outside world to theirs, but he would not care about the humans that created the objects. Plagg just wished he never sampled that creamy and gooey cheese Nooroo had brought back some time around the start of the 19th century. Plagg had gotten over never seeing the sun again, but to give up ever sampling another bite of that cheese was going to be the end of him.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

The years ticked along, and one evening Plagg was again brought out of the Miracle Box. A young boy of about twelve or thirteen looked at him in awe. Plagg remembered the other kwamis telling him about this new Guardian apprentice. Wang Fu had been pulling each kwami out every night, starting with the pig kwami Daizzi, and working his way backwards through the Zodiac kwamis before meeting the Main Seven: Pollen the Bee, Trixx the Fox, Nooroo the Butterfly, Duusu the Peafowl, Wayzz the Turtle, and finally Plagg and Tikki.

“Hello,” the boy meekly started, “it is very nice to meet you. I am a Guardian in training here. My name is-”

“I know, I know. Fu, right? You've been trying to slowly meet us all?”

The boy nodded his head.

“Don't get attached, alright, kid?”

“I do not understand. Why should I not-?”

“Apprentice!” A monk slammed open the door to the closet the boy was hiding in. “Why are you in here with a Miracle Box?” The monk gasped as he noticed the child talking to Plagg. “And why have you released that dangerous kwami?” The monk snatched the ring from the boy's hand and slammed it back into the Miracle Box. The moment the box lid closed, Plagg was back inside the kwami's pocket-world.

“Plagg?” Tikki ventured, “What happened?”

“Another washed up apprentice. I knew it would be stupid to try to get attached. Sorry you won't be able to get a chance to meet him, Sugarcube.”

She growled at Plagg, but he didn't care. He didn't care that she didn't like the nickname. It was his way of having fun in an otherwise monotonous existence. He didn't mind getting cut off from meeting Wang Fu. The kid looked sweet and innocent, and Plagg couldn't chance being tricked and getting attached to another slave-driving human. He didn't worry about the monk fearing Plagg's release from the Miracle Box. If the humans were scared then they wouldn't try to use him, and he could lead a perfectly lazy life within his pocket-world. He didn't care.

Truly.

A few months later Duusu was called upon, and it would be the last time any of them saw her. Mere minutes later, their whole world shook as if they were experiencing an earthquake. The kwamis were terrified; their world never rattled like that before. Nooroo seemed the most afraid, and was worried for Duusu. Plagg held the butterfly kwami close, trying to sooth him. Then Nooroo vanished from Plagg's arms; probably called upon by a new owner. Within an hour, Wayzz also vanished.

Once things had settled down, Wayzz returned to let the rest of the kwamis know of the Apprentice-made-Guardian; the last Guardian of the Miraculous. The Peacock and Butterfly Miraculouses were lost, as were the kwamis and other Miraculouses in the other boxes. Those that remained grieved, and Plagg once more distanced his heart from humans. It was their silly emotions that had caused such tragedy; such darkness.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Over the next two centuries or so, the abruptly appointed Master Fu watched over the last of the Miraculous, making his way throughout Europe as he fled from his guilt. Whenever he saw a great wrongdoing that he felt he could secretly fix, he would either transform via Wayzz – whom he had as a constant companion and improvised mentor – he would call upon another Miraculous to get the job done, or he would pass out Miraculouses to the small few he grew to trust. In those two hundred years, Plagg was never called upon.

He had heard from the other kwamis how the world had changed, and of the wars Master Fu tried to help sway. He had reached too far with his naive confidence, and drew the attention of a man named Adolf Hitler, who was searching for any and all supernatural means to win his war and conquer the whole world. Master Fu had to abandon the love of his life in order to go into deep hiding, and no kwami outside of Wayzz left the Miracle Box again.

This is what you get when humans wish to control us kwamis, Plagg bitterly noted. He then got comfortable with his eternal twilight. For him, it was always dark; he wasn't allowed to see the light anyway.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

“Plagg, black cat kwami of destruction.” Master Fu was much older than the child that Plagg had first met. He seemed kind, and had taken good care of the remaining kwamis. Wayzz seemed happy as he zipped over to his friend, although a sad smile was across his face. “We have felt the presence of the Butterfly Miraculous,” Fu continued, “but it has been corrupted. I have found you a new owner. His name is Adrien Agreste. You shall teach him how to become the next Cat Miraculous wielder, and you shall partner with the Ladybug Miraculous in order to bring the Butterfly Miraculous-”

“And Nooroo,” Wayzz interrupted.

“And Nooroo,” Master Fu agreed, “back to us. Understood?”

A mission. Plagg was finally tasked for a mission again. He peeked towards the large window. There was sun. He had forgotten how much he missed the glow of sunlight.

“Yeah, alright, let's get this over with.” Plagg lazily shrugged, focusing on the sunlight instead of Master Fu. It was all taken away too soon as his ring was closed within the jewelry box; locking Plagg within his Miraculous once more. Darkness. Always darkness. At least he could take a cat nap while he waited for the transfer.

The flash of light that registered him to his new owner woke him up. Plagg stretched and idly took in the blonde boy staring at him with wide eyes. He looked like he had just entered adolescence, so maybe thirteen or fourteen. Plagg didn't care anymore. He just wanted more sleep.

“No way!” The boy gleefully called out. “Like the genie in the lamp!”

That got Plagg's attention; reminding him of those days long since passed.

“I met him once,” Plagg retorted dismissively, “So he grants wishes; big deal. I'm way more personable. Plagg. Nice to meet you.” There. He had introduced himself to his new owner. Now to see what he could experience before his freedoms were revoked again.

He zipped around the kid's room, biting all that he could (he hadn't had a thing to eat in nearly two-hundred years; and nothing to eat regularly since the mid-1400s). The kid kept trying to catch him and get Plagg to focus, but if the kwami did that then he'd have to explain what it meant to be a wielder. That would be when Plagg would be put to work, and he would lose all hope of fun or sunlight again. But Adrien was persistent, and crafty, and did manage to capture Plagg. So the kwami did his duty, and haphazardly explained Adrien's.

Adrien seemed way too enthused by the idea of becoming a superhero, and Plagg worried about Master Fu's choosing process. The kid knew exactly what he wanted as a costume, as if he had pictured it his entire life. He also wasn't afraid of the power to destroy whatever he touched; he almost seemed excited by the prospect. Never a good sign, in Plagg's opinion.

Adrien's Chat Noir was over-eager, and that tended to cause mischief, but in the end, he did have a good heart. He got a bit too attached to Ladybug though, and Plagg feared another situation like with Jeanne d'Arc. Plagg knew he had to nip that in the bud, but no matter how much he tried to deter Adrien, the kid held firmly to his torch.

Plagg remained cautious and watchful of his new owner at first. He pretended to take cat naps so he could observe how Adrien was when not monitored. Despite himself, the more Plagg observed Adrien, the more his defenses weakened. Adrien truly was a kind soul, and usually left Plagg be, or would reflectively reach out to pet or scratch the kwami; like any owner of an actual cat. Plagg had plenty of time to bask in sunlight, and Adrien fed him as much of that gooey cheese Nooroo once introduced him to as Plagg wanted. Even when Adrien didn't seem particularly thrilled with Plagg's demands, the kid submitted to most of them. Plagg could sleep as much as he'd want, and Adrien even set up games for him to play as the teen did other things, such as homework or stalk the Ladyblog, that way Plagg wouldn't get bored. Adrien was also lonely; a pain that Plagg knew well. The two would talk like old friends, and it did Plagg's heart good to socialize with someone new.

Adrien wasn't a slave-driver like the others. He seemed to honestly care about Plagg's feelings, and spoke to him as a friend would. He also never used his Cataclysm to harm others. Instead, Adrien typically used it to break down barriers keeping people apart or keeping them tied down. Plagg forgot what it was like to have his powers used for good. He also had fun watching Adrien flirt with Ladybug. He still feared what the kid would become if the same fate befell Ladybug as it did Jeanne d'Arc, but that fear was waning a little bit more each day. Before he knew it, Plagg was actually enjoying the telenovela that had become those crazy kids' romance, and he rooted for Adrien to finally get his girl.

He was even grateful for Master Fu. The man did know exactly what he was doing when he chose Adrien and Marinette; they were the perfect Chat Noir and Ladybug. A partnership Plagg and Tikki hadn't experienced in eons, if ever.

Also, there was poor Nooroo. The butterfly kwami had always been one of Plagg's closest brothers. He was the one most there for Plagg when he was in need, and now it was Nooroo's turn for help. Plagg had known how painful it was to have an owner force him to do evil, and it pained him that gentle Nooroo was in the same predicament. Sure, Tikki was also concerned, but it didn't affect her the same way it did Plagg. He needed to rescue Nooroo, and Adrien understood that. He let Plagg worry aloud about Nooroo, and Adrien comforted his anxious friend.

There was no judgment from Adrien. No scolding. Even when the kid found out about Plagg's ability to use Cataclysm himself – unchecked – Adrien didn't fear the kwami as others had. He was just glad that everyone was safe, and that Ladybug was able to repair the damage.

After months of bonding, and his walls slowly coming down, Plagg didn't truly realize how much Adrien had grown to mean to him until Nooroo's cycle. Until he, Tikki, and Wayzz entered the Miracle Box to try to find their lost brother. Until Sandboy attacked Paris.

“Hey, isn't that your owner?” Tikki pointed to a nightmarish rendition of Adrien, crawling on Master Fu's floor and taunting Tikki's owner Marinette. It was not a pleasant sight to stumble onto after leaving the Miracle Box in a panic.

“Of course not,” Plagg protested, “Flowers? Pwah. No way! The real one talks nonsense, but is never this bad.” That was when Plagg discovered how much he had grown to truly know Adrien; his partner and friend. He could pick that kid out of a line-up no problem. He also knew that if Marinette was being tortured by a nightmarish Adrien, and Master Fu was being literally haunted by his past, then Adrien must be suffering just as much, and with no ally to help him through it. He had abandoned someone to a fate he had to suffer through already.

“I better go find him! I just hope he's not living a nightmare without me around! Oh, no.” He zipped off to try to get back to Adrien as fast as he could. It was a bit tricky when Sandboy discovered him, but Plagg was able to quickly figure out how to ditch the supervillain.

“Adrien!” The kid was literally locked away in his room, bars upon prison bars encircled him layer by layer until he was in a cage little more than a meter wide in either direction. Plagg was devastated that he had left the poor kid to suffer through his worst fear like that. “Are you okay?” Plagg silently pleaded that Adrien wouldn't hate him now. He hadn't lost a friend over this, did he? He didn't really care, as long as Adrien was fine. That was what mattered.

“Plagg! I'm so relieved you're not a sock!” Adrien had the largest grin on his face, and Plagg let out a shaky sigh. “You better have a good excuse.”

“Good to see you've managed to survive your nightmare,” Plagg sheepishly replied.

Adrien transformed into Chat Noir, and quickly broke his way through the bars. He found Ladybug, and helped her defeat the supervillain, as the duo always did. Once Chat Noir was back home, and back to being Adrien, he simply stared at Plagg, waiting for him to finish his offered cheese to recover.

“Well?” There wasn't anger or judgment in Adrien's voice. If anything, there was concern. “What was up with the fake sock version of you? You really had me scared that I had lost you.”

“I'm sorry, Adrien. I had something I really needed to do tonight to try to find Nooroo. I know I wasn't supposed to leave your side, but I just had to.”

“For Nooroo, huh?” Adrien softened, and sat them both down on his bed. “I guess that is a good excuse. Just- don't do it again, okay? If you need to go somewhere without me, just tell me about it. That way I don't get worried, and I'll know where to find you if I need you.”

“It's a deal. Speaking of which, I'm going to need to visit Master Fu tomorrow, after you're done with school. You can't know where he lives, however.”

“Okay. You know my schedule, and I know Master Fu will have you come straight to me if there's trouble. Thank you for telling me. Now, I need to get those nightmares out of my head. You up for a game of Ultimate Mecha Strike III?”

The next day, Wayzz, Marinette, and even Tikki took blame for a plan Plagg had concocted. He had more friends than he realized. He was no longer shunned. He was no longer scapegoated, even if it was his fault. The room seemed a little brighter in that moment.

“You trusted me and I failed,” Tikki told Marinette; causing Plagg's ears to perk up. “I'm sorry I disappointed you.”

Plagg felt the same way. He had deceived Adrien, put him in danger, left him to his worst fear, and it was all for nothing; not only didn't they find Nooroo, but Hawk Moth nearly found the rest of the kwamis. He must have disappointed Adrien as well.

“Of course not, Tikki,” Marinette soothed, scooping her kwami up in her hands. I know you only meant well. I will always trust you, you know.” Then she gave Tikki a sweet kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you, Marinette!” Tikki hugged her holder's cheek with a tight squeeze, causing the girl to giggle at the affection.

Adrien was the same way, wasn't he? He didn't care about being abandoned, only that Plagg came back and was safe. He wasn't disappointed in Plagg, he was simply worried about him. He knew Plagg meant well, and how much rescuing Nooroo meant to him, and he supported it. He didn't respond as Plagg's other holders did: with restrictions and revoking of freedoms and hiding him back inside the darkness. Instead, Adrien allowed him to fly freely through Paris in order to be at this meeting. Adrien still trusted Plagg.

Someone trusted Plagg.

He hid behind one of Fu's plants so no one could see him wipe a tear away. Then he flew back to Adrien, his heart swelling with every second he got closer to his holder. Without stopping for even a moment, Plagg zipped through the walls of Adrien's room in order to wrap the kid's arm in a tight hug.

“Thank you, Adrien.”

“Plagg! Something wrong?”

Plagg should have known that such an overt show of affection would have worried Adrien. It even startled the kwami a bit. It had been so long since he let himself experience human emotions. He forgot how they could be powerful and overwhelming in a good sense as well.

“No,” Plagg awkwardly replied. “Just- thanks for letting me do whatever I want. Almost all the time.”

“I know what it's like to have your freedom restricted, Plagg. You don't need to pretend to be a sock.”

He understood. This kid truly understood. Adrien fully understood, and he didn't care, and he wanted Plagg to feel like an equal. Plagg was so overwhelmed by his relief, and his joy, and his sense of safety that he couldn't help it. He dashed towards Adrien's chest and wrapped him in as tight of a hug his little flipper-arms and legs could manage.

“You're the best Chat Noir I've ever had, Adrien!” He meant it. Plagg was always a slave. Always a weapon. Always a tool. His only partner had always been Tikki, or some other kwami. Adrien, however? Adrien was a true partner and confidant. Adrien was home.

And Adrien quickly hugged him back, filling Plagg with a warmth he forgot he could have. He was getting overwhelmed again.

He zipped out of Adrien's grip and hovered a little bit away from the kid. “But, uh, let's not get too cheesy about it now, huh?”

Adrien laughed, and shouldered his gym bag, leaving the top un-zippered so Plagg could tuck himself in but still get some light.

The world was no longer darkness for Plagg. He had found someone who allowed him to bask in the sun, to have freedoms, to be surrounded with light. Adrien was his light, and Plagg was grateful to have him. For once, Plagg had a wielder who was more than his master. Adrien was his friend; his family. And together, they would rescue Nooroo so the butterfly kwami could feel that same light.

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kittinoir · 4 years

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Echoes of You ch. 18

Read on Ao3

Chat Noir couldn’t get the taste of Marinette off his lips.

He’d practically begged her not to join the fight again, nearly paralyzed by the fear of something happening to her and not being able to do anything but watch. It had never bothered him before, but then, blind trust in his Lady had given him false confidence. The Miracle Cure could fix anything, and together they could beat anything Hawkmoth threw at them. Now Red’s inexperience made them vulnerable. She was growing in leaps and bounds, but she just didn’t have the skill that came with over a year’s worth of practice.

He’d been afraid Marinette would distract him on the field, but he’d never imagined she could do it from over five kilometres away. As if to prove his point, Red’s yo-yo came flying out of the twilight and nailed him in temple.

“You’re not focused tonight,” Red accused as she appeared from around one of the many trees in Trocadero. “That’s, like, the fifth hit I’ve landed.”

“Maybe you’re just getting better,” Chat Noir lied, rubbing his head. Thank god the Miraculous absorbed most of the damage or there’d be a lot of questions about the crown of bruises he’d be sporting the next day.

“Don’t insult me,” Red scoffed, rolling her eyes. As she did he had to wonder how he’d never noticed how Chloe-like she was. It must have been the black hair throwing him off. “You’re just getting sloppy. What is it this time? Finally found your mystery Bug?”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” he snapped. She raised her palms in a gesture of peace as he glared at her, but the truth was it was his own guilt that was eating away at him.

He’d known - he’d known - he was confused about Marinette, and he’d convinced himself to see her anyway. ‘For her own good’. To protect her, because he couldn’t lose someone else. And then kissing her, not once, but twice, because no matter how hard he tried to keep her at arms length, he couldn’t stop himself from crossing the line, again, and again, and again.

And the past four days had been agonizing - not just because he’d laid awake every night convincing himself not to pass by her place until he fell into a restless sleep, but because he had to face her every day at school. And that, it turned out, was every bit as challenging. He’d catch the scent of lavender and vanilla, or their hands would brush in the hall, and he’d find himself swaying towards her like a star caught in her orbit.

He’d known he could fall in love with her. He just hadn’t known she’d be so addictive.

And in the meantime, his Lady was still out there, counting on him. He’d tried to fix things and all he’d done was make them more complicated. He still loved his Lady. A part of him thought he always would. But Marinette… that could be real, he realized for the first time. Attainable, and good, and steady. Different, but just as good as what he felt for his Lady, if he let himself pursue it.

And he was surprised to find he wanted to.

“Just a rough couple of days,” Chat Noir said, rolling his shoulders back. “Running extra patrols, that kind of thing. Let’s go again.”

Red raised a brow. “You sure?”

“This is all the time we have to prepare,” he said, squaring up. “We should make the most of it.”

“Well you two look much friendlier than the last time I saw you.”

Red scowled over Chat Noir’s shoulder, and he turned to see Salem leaning against a tree-trunk, half in shadow. At least they could agree on how they felt about their guardian.

“I was beginning to think you took off with the Miracle Box,” Chat Noir said, sheathing his baton.

“Thought about it,” Salem admitted breezily. Chat Noir believed he probably had. “Decided I wouldn’t get too far, especially considering the…limitations on it.”

“I thought you couldn’t open the tablet,” Chat Noir said cautiously.

Salem shrugged. “Couldn’t. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened, if they’re paying attention.”

“Uh, anyone feel like cluing me in here?” Red asked, crossing her arms.

“Not really,” Salem said. For once, Chat Noir agreed with him. The fewer witnesses to this discussion, the better - especially since that witness was Chloe. His Lady may have trusted her, but he was still reserving judgement. “You can go, Lady-brat.”

Red’s scowl grew more ferocious, but she swallowed any retort that might have been on her lips. “What-ever. I’m out.”

Chat Noir crossed his arms as he listened to Red leave and subtly repositioned himself in front of Salem. He wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t go far, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Salem anticipated that as well.

“So you still haven’t found her,” Salem finally said. “I must admit, I’m surprised. I didn’t realize she was the entire brains of your little operation.”

Chat Noir stifled a wince, glad for the mask on his face. “My Lady knows I like a challenge,” he retorted.

“No, I guess she wouldn’t have made it easy.” Salem began to casually stroll around the hero.

“Don’t tell me you’ve figured it out?” Chat Noir said, hope creeping into his voice. “Care to share?”

Salem snorted. “No, unfortunately your Lady is as elusive to me as she is to you, Adrien.”

Chat Noir’s ears rang with the sound of his name, so nonchalantly dropped he almost missed it. His heart began to pound in his chest. He’d been so hell-bent on finding his Lady and shocked at discovering Chloe that he’d never imagined a scenario where he’d be caught out, and certainly not by someone he wasn’t sure he could count among his allies.

“It isn’t like her to make mistakes,” he said smoothly. He didn’t allow any of the storm he was feeling to show on his face. For all he knew it was a bluff anyway.

“It was never supposed to be me; it was supposed to be you,” Salem continued as though he hadn’t expected him to make it easy. “In the end, it was no different from any other thing in my life..”

Salem ripped his hood back as his mask dissolved into smoke, revealing a familiar face.

“Felix?”

His cousin glared back at him, producing the same delicate Miracle Box he’d first seen months ago. “It was never meant for me,” he said, holding it out. “Getting Trixx to come out and play was a challenge, but in the end he did it for the same reason any of them have even deigned to speak to me - for her. Your Lady.”

“You’re supposed to be in London,” Chat Noir said stupidly. The mundane detail was the only thing he could seize on. The rest of it couldn’t make sense until that did. “How…?”

Felix sneered. “Seriously, Adrien? How hard is it? I was there, ok!? I was there that night. I was outside because I was trying to figure out how to steal the other Grande de Vanily ring. My mom didn’t know, no one knew. It was a mistake. Ladybug saw me and thought I was you, and she gave me the box. She was scared, and it all happened so fast. I think she was afraid you’d try to stop her, and then she disappeared just as quickly.”

“It’s been you the whole time…”

“More or less,” Felix said. “Like I said, Trixx was…generous enough to help out from time to time.”

“That night on the Eiffel Tower?”

Felix nodded. “Sneaking out of the house after nine is one thing, but travelling to a different country is quite another. Needless to say Kaalki wasn’t nearly as co-operative.”

Chat Noir pounced on his cousin, pinning him to the ground. Miraculous-born strength made it easy, and he had to remind himself not to hurt his cousin. “I asked you a thousand times,” he ground out, “For the details of what happened. And you told me there were no messages, no more answers.”

“Forgive me for not wanting to get mixed up in all this,” Felix snarled. “What was I supposed to do, leave a trail of rose petals to my front door for him to follow? Not all of us have a side-kick to throw under the bus when the bad guy comes knocking!”

Chat Noir hit him. He felt cartilage tear under his knuckles. Blood gushed down the front of his cousins’ jacket. Too late, he realized Felix had let him pin him - he was still using Trixx. He remembered, though, when Felix punched him right back. The two rolled across the grass tearing at each other until they stopped as suddenly as they had started, flat on their backs on the grass, out of breath, and staring up at the night sky.

“Feel better?” Felix panted, swiping blood of his face.

“Not as much as I thought I would,” Chat Noir admitted. “Sorry about the nose.”

But Felix shrugged. “Maybe now people will stop comparing me to the great Adrien Agreste. Besides, I know you were holding back.”

Chat Noir frowned and winced when he pulled his split lip. “What makes you think I was holding back?”

“You didn’t cataclysm my face,” Felix said, groaning as he sat up. “I guess I should thank you for that.”

“You didn’t deserve it,” Chat Noir said, sitting up as well. “Hawkmoth on the other hand…”

“I have to agree with you there,” Felix said. “That man has made my life a living hell ever since this happened. I have no idea how you’ve put up with it for almost two years. And Adrien…I never would have tried to sell you out to him if I’d known you were the one behind the mask.”

“I know,” Chat Noir said. He wasn’t sure how he felt knowing Felix would have been fine selling out a stranger, but supposed it was the best he was going to get. “Is that why you decided to tell me it was you? You want out?”

“Out?” Felix repeated. “Are you kidding? I want to take that man down.”

Chat Noir frowned. “Because you felt threatened for seven weeks any time you showed up here as the guardian?”

“Do I need another reason?” Felix demanded, but his shoulders sagged. “Whether it was an accident or not, Ladybug chose me to be the guardian. It started out with me trying to prove to myself I could be just as good a choice as you. I didn’t realize she’d picked you because you were her partner, and I thought I didn’t care, but…”

“Are you trying to say you got invested?” Chat Noir asked.

Felix rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say I want to see how it ends. Besides, you guys need some more morally grey heroes to do the dirty work.”

“I don’t know that withholding information, manipulating people, and theft makes you a hero, Felix,” Chat Noir said. “But…and I’ll deny this if you ever bring it up, especially to Ladybug, you might have a point.”

“All true,” Felix admitted. “Maybe this will make up for it; Trixx, let’s rest.”

Chat Noir squinted as bright orange light lit the empty park. The little fox kwami spiralled forth and dove into Felix’s waist coat pocket, rummaging around for god only knew what snack he preferred.

“You wanted information,” Felix said as Trixx reappeared with some snap peas. “They won’t talk to me, but they’ve been dying to talk to you.”

“Chat Noir!” Trixx sailed over, nuzzling his cheek bone. “So many things to tell you!”

“And you kept them to yourself because…?” Chat Noir asked as he held out his hand for the kwami.

“First of all, you’re tough to track down,” Felix said. “And second of all, I wasn’t sure I could trust you. I didn’t put together you were Chat Noir until like three nights ago. I thought there was a reason Ladybug didn’t trust her partner with the Miracle box. I didn’t realize ‘Adrien’ was her partner.”

It made sense, in the worst way. The events of the past two months were beginning to remind him a little too much of one of Shakespeare’s tragedies for comfort. Missed messages. Mistaken identities. He had to make sure their story didn’t end the same way as those ones.

“Hey, Trixx,” he said, turning to the kwami. “Thanks for helping Felix out the past couple of weeks. What’ve you got for me?”

Trixx floated slowly into the air, spreading his arms. “The fox is the Miraculous of illusion,” he declared. “When I’m in play not everything is as it seems.”

“I know,” Chat Noir said, confused. “You and Alya have helped me and Ladybug out a bunch of times.”

“Not just her,” Trixx said, leaning in. “And not just me. I’m not the only one who makes people see things that aren’t there when someone needs to be in two places at once.”

“Two places at…are you saying Ladybug used you to appear in two places at once as her civilian self?”

Trixx smiled. “It’s easier to use me than a disguise, although a lie will do in a pinch.”

Wayem. He’d used Wayem as a distraction, and a lie…when he’d called Francios Dupont an elementary school. That had been his lie.

“You can’t give me a name, can you?” Chat Noir asked. He knew the answer and wasn’t surprised when Trixx shook his head, but he’d had to ask, just in case. “Did she use you before or after she became the guardian?”

“Before,” Trixx said, somersaulting through the air.

“Finally asking the right questions,” Felix muttered.

“There were too many times,” Chat Noir said, frustrated. “It could have been anytime in the past seven months. For all I know it could be Alya herself, or any one of the civilians Ladybug and I rescued. I don’t know how long Ladybug had access to the Miraculous. I never thought to ask later. It didn’t seem important.”

“Sleep on it,” Trixx suggested. “It’s not so complicated. Follow your heart. Sometimes instead of looking for what’s wrong, we should look for what’s missing.”

“Do you ever speak in anything other than riddles?” Chat Noir muttered.

“When the occasion calls for it,” Trixx said succinctly before drifting back to Felix.

“You should take this,” his cousin said, picking up the Miracle box from where it had fallen when they’d fought. Chat Noir hadn’t even noticed it, and he wondered if that meant maybe Felix should keep it.

“She named you,” Felix said, as though reading his mind. “More importantly, she chose you. It belongs with you. It’s safer with with you.”

“Not if anyone else figures out my identity,” Chat Noir mumbled, but he took the box.

“That secret’s safe with me,” Felix promised.

“It was safe with Ladybug, too.” In the end, she’d been right. They were only as safe as Hawkmoth’s latest akuma, and the best kept secrets were the ones you never shared.

“What’s done is done,” Felix said, not unkindly. “It’s time to look to the future. The way I see it, there’s only one way to fix everything so it’s safe to find your Bug.”

“Oh?” Chat Noir flexed his claws. He had the Miracle box, he had the tablet; he was ready to get his Lady back. “What’s that?”

“We have to take out Hawkmoth.”

#echoes #echoes of you #reveal time

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supernova1us · 4 years

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Makuta Nova Bio

this is the full life biography of makuta nova, one of my OCs. decided to write it like one of the online serials from G1. points to anyone who can find the reference to g2 in here(and its not the one you might think it is)

Since her creation, Makuta Nova was highly proud of her race and dedicated to the brotherhood as a whole. She was always a fierce warrior but mostly analytical, preferring command and tactics to combat.

Physically, makuta nova was tall and elegant but intimidating in appearance. Her size was average, not towering, among her own kind but most beings of the matoran universe would be looking up to meet her gaze. She wore bulky armor on her upper body to belie her slender frame and present a more intimidating visage. She wore the sleek mask of probability, its curves and points sweeping backwards. It was black save for a pointed red crest at its tip. Its power enhanced her already cold decision making. From behind her mask she had long, triangular antlers protruding straight outward on each side of her head. Her armor was black with white and red highlights; a battle skirt, open in the front, hung from her waist. When forced to partake in battle, she typically wielded a double bladed sword in combat, her signature weapon, as well as a long bladed whip on occasion.

In the brotherhoods years of their assigned role of creating rahi, she is credited as the designer and progenitor of the Manas and Kikanalo, for which she was very proud. Early in the makutas history she had a decent, though like all makuta, distant, relationship with the toa and matoran. She was made the "guardian" of Iron-Forge, a small island set in the silver sea between the northern and southern continents. It was the home of a large settlement of Fe-matoran. Proud of her rahi creations, she saw many of them brought to the island. She also developed a fondness for collecting rare or powerful Kanohi masks, often hiring dark hunters, lone toa or other rogue beings to seek them out for her. The jewel her collection was the powerful, Cephalopod-like mask of control.

Eventually, the fateful day came which changed the destiny of the makuta forever more. Teridax, the makuta of metru nui and closest confident to both their leader miserix and the great spirit himself, inproduced "the plan". Said plan was the overthrowing of mata nui himself and for the makuta to take control of the matoran universe. This was also a clear attempt by teridax to wrest control of the brotherhood for himself. She was one who intended to side with Miserix against the plan, sensing it a folly to attempt. It was clear where such thought had crept in from, with the failed attempt at the same by the barraki warlords, teridax regardless apparently found himself inspired. The two battled, and teridax stood triumphant. Miserix was intelligent and cautious, but lacked the ferocious drive teridax could achieve when pushed. Afterwards, she did wish to stand with miserix against Teridaxs coup' but passed due to using her mask to sense the result that it would produce. Teridax was ambitious and brutal but also intelligent, charismatic and seductive. For whatever their many reasons for doing so, the majority of the brotherhood rallied behind him.

Of the 100 makuta that existed, only 5 foolishly chose to stand with miserix in his defeat. They paid for that decision with their lives, as she would have if she were not as wise as she was. Teridax took command of the makuta, and preporations for "the plan" were set in motion. Miserix of course needed to be dealt with, and Krika was made responsible for his termination. A short time later she did learn of krika's sparing of miserix and, holding both makuta in high regard, and believing it to be a wise decision, concealed the truth. Miserix might very well prove to be an important factor someday.

She was one of the only makuta who voiced against their transformation into pure energy forms. Despite that their bodies were evolving to this state on its own, she hypothesized the possible future risks it presented but was overruled by teridax. Now an energy form, she had the Nynrah Ghosts reinforce her armor but ensure her appearance remained unchanged. She joined in the collective deceicion by the makuta to shun their inner light, making them pure being of shadow. This would make them stronger and ensure greater success to their ultimate goals in her mind. She rather enjoyed the power over shadow that this change gave her.

Over the many years of preparation of the plan, she filled her role, ruking her designated island. As the fe-matoran, as toa, were soon considered a threat to the makuta, she kept a strong authoritative hold on them. She eventually grew to resent teridax and vindictively fostered advancement in the matoran on her island as a form of defiance. It was her belief that the toa of iron, which the brotherhood had begun to closely monitor and even kill, could be properly used by the makuta rather than seen as threats. However, upon hearing that there was a surviving toa of iron, zaria, who had slain another makuta, she personally dispatched dozens of rahkshi to hunt him down. She feared that the toas existence would somehow be blamed on her and all that she had worked towards on her island would be torn down. The rahkshi always returned empty handed, for which she terminated them herself.

She remained on her now fortified island, overseeing the safety of her matoran on the day of the great cataclysm. The result of its effects left her island in perpetual night from that day on. She forbade contact with other islands in attempt to keep the matoran of her island unaware of the makutas treachery against mata nui. She wisely protected herself during the brotherhoods war with the order of mata nui by misleading and militarizing the fe-matoran to be hostile to the order.

She survived to see the completion of "the plan"; teridax taking control of mata nuis body and the entire matoran universe. This however led to the loss of the matoran of her island, who fled to metru nui, no doubt learning finally of the deeds of the makuta there. With the deaths of many of the brotherhoods high ranking members on Karda nui, and mourning krikas death, nova was promoted to chief of the remaining makuta under teridax. Many had been killed also in the war with the order of mata nui, and their numbers were now only at 42 makuta, including teridax. She reluctantly but dutifully abandoned her island and followed his commands, advising the inexperienced new turaga ahkmou and leading the other makuta in producing more kraata to bolster the rahkshi army. Sensing the inevitable treachery of teridax, she gathered a small group of like-minded makuta members to escape into hiding when their task was complete.

They did, and none too soon as teridax indeed moved ahead with terminating the other makuta very soon after his takeover. Though they escaped, they were not free of his gaze or his omnipotent power. With destral no longer safe, they fled to Iron Forge, only to find it in ruin and overrun by hordes of the now corrupted rahi, a cruel jest by teridax. He personally slew the other makuta, maliciously leaving nova for last to perish at the claws of her rabid creations. She fought fiercely and without mercy, slaying many but was overcome by the wild horde. Though her body was destroyed in the gruesome onslaught, her antidermis survived and possessed the body of a kikanalo she had disabled. She was only spared complete obliteration by teridax as unseen goings on drew his attention. She did sense the survival of another makuta; miserix. Perhaps that he is what had drawn the new gods attention, or he could proave a valuable ally against teridax. Regardless, alive for the time being, she chose to remain in this form, hidden and in exile, allowing the matoran universe to believe the remainder of the makuta were now extinct. With her original mask destroyed, from her ruined palace she retrieved the mask of control, anticipated its possible future use.

Sometime later, with the long awaited death of teridax having come, and sensing the survival of miserix, she migrated to spherus magna in her rahi form. Her goal was finding The Nynrah Ghosts to rebuild her a proper body. After some months, amid the chaos of the exodus and merging of the peoples, she did locate them. They were of course less than reluctant to help a makuta, but the mask of control as a bartering chip proved impressive enough to convince them. A new form, modelled on her original body, even with a new mask, was built and her antidermis transferred to it. She then used her shadow powers to render all the ghosts temporarily comatose, only so she could take back the mask and leave. This was the first of many dangerous, calculated risks she would need to take to survive.

She covertly managed to locate the matoran of her former domain, and through pretty words and manipulative truths, won back their loyalty. She then appeared before the new government of spherus magna; the toa mata, turaga, agori chieftains and glatorian leaders. She made her intentions clear; she wished to have place in the new world, free of past misdeeds of the makuta. There was not full truth to that but it was enough. There was still mistrust, hate and a mind for vengeance in these who she was beseeching to. She had brought her loyal matoran with her as a show of her "better nature" and as her trump card, presented the mask of control. Tempting that she was handing over a means for them to control her if they chose, and giving in to that as an act of good faith.

These events managed to gain her what she desired; amnesty, a small kingdom of her own in which her matoran can live and a voice in the new government. She was no fool or lover of peace time; there were always plans and always threats. She had recruited a horde of the nomadic skrall, both male and female, to act as her countries military and enforcers. The glatorian strakk, an outcast of his kind, she also took in, making him her bodyguard, finding his greed and battle lust easy to manipulate.

While she relished her new lordship, always her mind was on what troubles may come her way. Toa, the order, miserix; so many with a mind for vengeance may come looking for her. Precautions were set in place for quickly summoning the toa for aid, but for now, the "mistress of shadow" as she came to be known, intended to relish her days under the sun.

#bionicle #Makuta #OC

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p-artsypants · 5 years

Text

Longest Night (6)

The day started out sucky to begin with. Her crush ousted to the class and Adrien. Lila taking pride in exacting her revenge.

But by the time patrol was over, a young man was dead, and Ladybug’s identity was at risk. Lila was the least of her concerns.

Good thing Adrien was taking it all like a champ.

Ao3 | FF.net

Warning: This chapter contains public humiliation. I will continue to mark the chapters that contain torture if you wish to skip them. Adrien gets his arm dislocated, but that’s the worst of the violence. I would recommend reading this one for plot at least.

—

Ladybug woke up, thankfully still transformed, in a dark room. Her hands were bound behind her back and a gag was in her mouth. Her vision was blurry in the low light, and she couldn’t quite parse two thoughts together. Did she have a concussion? She had hit her head, right? That’s why it hurt so bad?

She tried to make some noise, but it just came out as a muffled moan.

A similar sound came from behind her, and she felt something move against her hand. Chat Noir, she supposed. She hoped. She was with him last…probably. At least, last she remembered.

A harsh light flicked on in her eyes, and she winced against it.

“Well well well, looks like you two finally decided to wake up. Good thing too, or you would have missed all the fun.” It was a woman speaking, an Akuma? But they had just been fighting one! A huge, wrecking ball Akuma. Did Hawkmoth change tactics mid fight? Why couldn’t she remember what happened?

“Don’t worry, you take all the time you need to catch up. After all, GHB tends to wipe some memories.”

GHB? Wasn’t that a date rape drug? Had they been ambushed?

Another voice spoke. “We’re all set ma’am.”

“Wonderful, everyone in positions.”

Ladybug’s chair was turned around to face her partner. He looked just like her, bound and gagged. Confusion clouded his eyes, along with concern.

“Good evening Paris.” The woman was speaking, her back to them. “Please excuse me for interrupting whatever pointless drivel you were consumed with. My name is Salo. I’m not an akuma, but you’ll soon wish I was. I have succeeded where all the others have failed.” She stepped back to show Ladybug and Chat Noir, bound and gagged.

Now Ladybug could get a good look at her. Red hair tied up in a bun, black leather suit, and reflective sunglasses. She looked physically fit, but there was no notable expression on her face. Slight wrinkles around her lips, so she was older. Maybe in her forties?

There was a hand gun at her hip.

“I have captured the so called heroes of Paris. In ten minutes, I will be revealing their identities on ‘make ladybug suffer dot com.’ Be sure to tune in, you won’t want to miss it.”

“Transmission ended.” Called the man’s voice again.

The light dimmed, and Ladybug could see a little better. The room was small and bare, save for several cameras, screens, lights and wires. The only furniture were the chairs they were currently occupying, a table behind the mysterious woman, and a table in the corner with computer monitors. There were no windows, and the only door was heavy iron. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all cement. In short, no escape.

“Starting to remember things yet?” This ‘Salo’ woman asked.

Ladybug just stared her down, anger in her eyes.

Salo and another man ripped off the duct tape over their mouths, and pulled out the gags.

“Who are you?” Was Ladybug’s curt reply.

Salo smiled and prepared to answer, but she was interrupted by Chat’s shout of, “Catacly—!” But the woman stuck her fingers down his throat, gagging him mid-word. He heaved, coughing up some fluid.

“Oh shush kitty kitty, we can’t have you leaving now, can we? Now that we have so much planned.” She nodded her head to the man standing nearby.

He was huge, just about the same size as the Gorilla, and he took hold of Chat’s arm. With a yank and a sickening crack, Chat cried out in pain as his was arm was ripped out of socket.

“Chat!”

Salo smiled, “to answer your question, my name is not important, but you can call me Salo.”

“What do you want?”

The woman grabbed her face, squeezing her cheeks hard. “What do I want? I want to destroy you, Ladybug.” She said her name with venom. “You’ve had it too good for too long. You’re the hero of Paris, the idol! You can do no wrong! But you’ve gotten cocky. Started working outside your job. Superheroes take down super villains. You should have stuck to those silly akumas.” She let her face go, smiling with untapped anger. “But you didn’t.”

“Our job is to keep Paris safe, whether it’s from akumas or petty thieves.”

Salo slapped her cheek, right over her bullet wound, making white flash under her eyelids, and her ears ring.

“You’re cute, Ladybug. Real cute. I thought you were fun. A Parisian idol, our very own Mickey Mouse. So did my Ed. You were bright and flashy, a wonderful distraction for the media. But you crossed a line, little insect. And now all of Paris, all of France, is going to watch you pay.”

Ladybug swallowed, obviously nervous. There had to be a way out, but in the dark room and Chat’s Cataclysm out of commission, things were beginning to look bleak.

“What did I do?”

The corner of Salo’s mouth twitched. “Let me jog your memory.”

The screen behind her lit up, and Nadja Chamack appeared with a news ticker underneath. “Don’t be bemused, it’s just the News. Ladybug and Chat Noir have done it again, with the capture of an elusive criminal. Top of the ‘Most Wanted’ lists in six countries, a Monsieur Edward Savauge. Ladybug and Chat Noir had an altercation with Savauge at the docks last night around 12am, resulting in the death of a young man identified as 25 year old Charles Exavier. Police arrived at the scene to find Savauge bound in Ladybug’s yo-yo, several bodyguards unconscious, surrounded by illegal firearms, and the body of Exavier on the ground. Savauge was taken and charged with murder and illegal firearm possession. He has also been wanted for drug trafficking, illegal gambling, human trafficking, and 19 counts of murder. Edward Savauge was the boss of a Camorra crime syndicate. Ladybug and Chat Noir were unavailable for comment.” The recording ended there, and the woman shut off the TV.

“He was my lover. A wonderfully powerful man...but because of you, he’s in hot water. If he goes to prison, I’ll never see him again...so you will never see your family, friends, or your beloved fans again.”

Ladybug’s eyes were blown wide, horrified. This was why she hadn’t wanted anyone to find out their identities, in case someone went out for revenge.

“500,000 users are streaming the site, including three users at the TVi News Station.” Another man stated from a computer in the corner.

“Excellent.” Salo smiled. “Time?”

“T minus one minute.”

“You hear that? One minute until I reveal your name to the whole world. I’ll let you have that minute to escape. Go ahead, go.”

Frantic, Ladybug wriggled against her bindings. Come on! She was supposed to be stronger in the suit. But pull as she did, she was only making her wrists hurt, and the ropes to tighten.

She glanced over to Chat to see what he was doing. His shoulder looked lumpy and unnatural. He was biting back tears as he tried to wriggle too, though one arm was not moving. She realized it was the arm with his ring.

“Time’s up! Aw, you two do want to have fun! You stayed!”

Furious, Ladybug spit at the woman. “You won’t get away with this!”

“Oh, but I already have.” Salo tapped her on the nose. “You see, the Ladyblog really is an amazing resource! Every video of you two ever shot was on there. Theories and facts, all the information we needed was on there. I studied it carefully. All you had to do was show up for an akuma, and we took care of the rest. Though, I should probably thank that hulk, since he did the hard part for us. Seems like you’re not so lucky after all.”

Ladybug’s lip trembled.

“We have over a million users online,” spoke the man from the computer again.

“Then let’s begin.” Her voice was cold and merciless. “Let’s start with Mr. Noir, shall we? Your ring, sir!” She reached for it.

“Cataclysm!” He shouted, finally activating his power. He couldn’t move his arm, but it would give him a few minutes of protection.

“Oh you think you’re so smug.” Salo smirked. “But you see, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” She snapped her fingers, and the large man standing by touched Chat’s hand with a metal pole. The metal rusted and turned to dust. Chat’s hand was useless once again.

She took hold of the ring between her fingers.

“Please,” whispered Chat. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Of course I don’t, pussy cat. But it’s my great joy that I get too.” Slowly, deliberately, she pulled his ring off his finger, watching as his transformation fell away in a flurry of green light.

Ladybug looked in horror as her long time crush and good friend Adrien Agreste sat in front of her, still bound and in immense pain without his suit.

Salo leaned on his bad shoulder, making him cry out in pain. “Well well well. A famous model and a superhero! How intriguing! Adrien Agreste…I bet your father would pay a pretty penny to have you home safe and sound, don’t you think?” She dragged her fingers over his cheek.

Adrien was in tears. Not outright sobbing, but a few drops rolling off his chin. Whether it was the pain from his shoulder, or facing the reality that his freedom had just literally been stripped away, he wasn’t sure himself.

Salo scoffed. “What a baby.” She smacked his face just hard enough to sting. Then she stood and walked over to Ladybug. “Your turn, missy.”

Ladybug struggled, not willing to go without a fight. She thrashed in her chair, kicked her legs, and frantically shook her head, so Salo had put her into a choke hold. She fought for breath and cried out with a choking gasp.

The earrings were plucked from her ears and sad little Marinette Dupain-Cheng remained. Adrien stared at her, a gasp bursting from his lips.

She didn’t dare look at him.

“And who the heck are you?” Salo snorted. “We lucked out with Mr. Whiskers, but who knew Ladybug was just a nobody?” She leaned in closer. “Oh wait, I recognize you…yeah, you’re a friend of the Ladyblogger, in some of her videos. Mmmm….Marinette, right? Yeah. How sad! You’d think the person most dedicated to finding out Ladybug’s identity would have seen her sitting in front of her! You must either be too pathetic in your real life, or totally unimportant to the Ladyblogger.”

Marinette sat still and quiet, not willing to let the words of this vile woman get to her. She just stared at Adrien, apologizing with her eyes, and begging him not to hate her. He stared back with fear and desperation.

Marinette pushed her fear aside, and summoned Ladybug’s courage. “Alright, you’ve taken our Miraculous, and now everyone knows who we are. Can we go now?”

Salo slapped her cheek and sent her sprawling on the floor, the chair pressing awkwardly on her arm. “Didn’t you hear me? You’re never getting out of here. You’ll never see daylight again. I intend to keep you here and torture you over and over. One day, you won’t even know your own name anymore, but you’ll beg me for death!”

This couldn’t be happening. There was just no way.

She was roughly yanked off the ground, the chair settling back on the floor.

“Let’s see, first thing first is to get you into uniform.”

Uniform? Thought Marinette, with fear.

Her bindings were cut, and she was forced to her feet. She rubbed her wrists carefully. There were several men standing around, watching, plus Salo had a gun. She didn’t know if it was loaded, but she wouldn’t take that chance.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.” Said Salo. “Now strip.”

Marinette was keenly aware of the camera pointed at her, and the spot light on her, forbidding any hiding. With trembling hands, she took off her jacket, purse, and shoes.

Salo crouched and picked up her purse. “Let’s see, just as I thought.” She took out her phone, looking at the screen. “18 missed calls? My my someone is worried about their baby.” Then she dropped the phone and smashed it under her heel. “Not to worry. We’ll let mommy know how much fun your having.”

She then went over to Adrien and frisked him, finding his phone. “2 missed calls. Hmm, I wonder who’s more loved?” She smashed his phone as well. The remnants of both were collected and tossed in a bucket of water, just to make sure all the circuitry was fried.

Salo gestured Marinette onward.

She then took off her shirt and pants, standing alone, trembling in her underwear.

“Well?” Said Salo. “The rest of it too.”

So Marinette unhooked her bra and shimmied out of her panties, standing completely naked in front of all of Paris. And her crush.

Adrien wasn’t looking at her, keeping his eyes politely on her toes.

“Oh what a gentleman!” Salo laughed, noticing. She grabbed his chin and forced him to look up. “But I know where you really want to look. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Adrien couldn’t help it, he glanced her up and down, and then met her eyes. “…I’m sorry.”

“Did I say you could talk, pussy cat?”

He shook his head, immediately snapping to obedience.

“Aw, he already knows how to behave so well. This will be so fun!”

Marinette continued to stand there, trying in vain to cross her legs or wrap her arms around her chest. It was doing little good.

Salo gestured to someone in the room, and without warning, a bucket of cold water dropped over her head, soaking her through. “Ugh!” She yelped, in shock.

Next, Adrien was forced to his feet too, and also freed of his bindings, but his arm just hung limply at his side.

“He might need some help, Ladybug. So why don’t you help him.” Salo shoved her forward, as she tripped into his chest.

Any other day, she’d be blushing madly and apologizing. But right now, she just wanted to hug him and hide in his embrace.

“Tick tock, you two.”

It became apparent that any movement caused Adrien pain, as she helped ease his arm out of his over shirt. His t-shirt followed, but with a lot more fumbling and wincing.

She had to undo his belt and unbutton his jeans, which was painfully awkward and uncomfortable for both of them. Especially with the snickers and wolf whistles from the shadows.

Then they were both naked, in front of Paris.

“Wow, the suit really holds everything in, doesn’t it, Adrien?” Salo laughed, looking between his legs.

He was in too much pain to be embarrassed.

But just like with Marinette, a bucket of cold water drenched him. He tensed up, wincing all the while.

“Here,” Salo spoke, dropping a folded cloth into Marinette’s hands. “Your uniform.”

Holding it up, she found it was just a hospital gown. And a short one at that.

She quickly put it on, tying it as tightly as she could in the back. As long as she didn’t have to raise her hands, she would be covered.

“Now Mr. Whiskers.” Salo gave her another gown, to help Adrien into.

She bunched up the sleeve to make it easier, and eased his hand into the sleeve, his other going in just fine. She pulled it up to drape over his shoulders and then stepped to go behind him.

“Uh uh uh…” Salo stopped her, “you can tie him from in front.”

Marinette obeyed, reaching her arms around him and tying the strings tightly. She pressed against his chest, though she tried not too.

“My lady,” he whispered oh so quietly. “It’ll be alright.”

She felt awful. She should be the one reassuring him. Wordlessly, she cupped his cheek and wiped his tears away.

The gown was short on him too, just barely keeping him covered.

Salo grabbed Marinette’s arm and yanked her back. “Alright, that’s enough. I’ve got some new jewelry for you, since I took your old ones.”

Marinette’s eyes widened. “Where did you put our miraculous? What did you do with them?”

Salo smiled, “Oh, you didn’t notice? Why, they’re right here.”

There was a small safe on a table behind her. The lid was open, and Salo held it up to show the ring and earrings sitting dormant inside. Then she closed the lid and flipped the combination. “I don’t worry showing you this. Because there’s no way you’ll be able get them. But I’d love to see you try.”

Marinette clenched her fist, looking at the safe, the door, and the gun.

She had never felt so absolutely hopeless.

Salo picked something up from the table next to the safe, and came towards Marinette. “Alright bug, I’d stay still unless you want to get pinched.”

She clamped on two wrist restraints, and then one to her neck, all connected with chains.

Then she did the same with Adrien, even clamping his bad arm.

“Now aren’t you two just precious? All gussied up for your first day of camp! Smile for the camera! Let your parents know how much fun you’re having!”

The camera swung in close to them, capturing their expressions of absolute humiliation and horror.

“I said, smile!” She pinched the underside of their arms, causing them both to wince, which they both tried to turn into a smile.

“Alright, now let’s take you to your bunks. We have a really nice set up for our new campers. You’ll just love it!”

They were both led from the room, chains rattling with each step.

Marinette paid attention to the direction of the hallways. Although, the walls were bare and grimy. It was unbelievably dark too.

Finally, they came to their ‘cabin’. A room without a door, but two large metal ducts. The kind used in buildings for Air Conditioning, but they looked old and rusty. Crude doors had been sawed out of them, and chains welded to them.

“Take your pick.” Salo giggled. “There’s just enough room in there to sit.”

Marinette took the one on the right, but Adrien just stood at the door.

“Well, go on.” Salo pushed him forward.

Marinette watched with growing concern as each step he took was slow and shaky. He looked absolutely terrified. Finally, he took his place on the left, and turned to face the door.

The doors closed, but little slots opened in the middle, big enough to fit their wrists through.

“Arms up.” Salo demanded.

Through the slot, their chains were removed, though the shackles remained. Then, the slot closed and several padlocks clicked into place outside.

“Get some sleep you two. Tomorrow we have a day chocked full of activities.”

Several footsteps led away and then, silence.

Marinette grit her teeth. “Tikki can you—“

Tikki wasn’t there. For the first time in three years, Tikki wasn’t there. She was all alone.

Well, almost.

“Kitty?” She asked softly.

“I’m here.” He answered, his voice broken.

“I...I’m going to figure a way out of this. I promise.”

He didn’t respond.

“Chat?”

“I’m...I’m sorry...” He was crying, and hyperventilating. “I…I don’t like being locked up.”

“Oh Kitty…”

“If only I had cataclysmed the wrecking ball, or—or arrived at the docks earlier—“

“Chat.”

“I could have—Maybe we—“

“Adrien.” She rested a hand on the cold metal of the cage. “This isn’t your fault.”

“But...I promised to protect you. And I failed.”

“Don’t do this to yourself. I need you right now, okay?”

He was quiet, and then finally agreed. “Okay.”

“How’s your arm?”

“I’m...getting used to it.”

“Can you pop it back in?”

“I don’t know how. I’ve never dislocated anything before.”

“Me neither.” She sighed. Slowly, and ever so carefully she sat on the ground, leaning against the metal walls. It was pitch black, she couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face. She reached forward, finding the door to the cage. The metal felt pretty thin, and if she was lucky, it would have some give. The door was several inches from the floor, leaving a gap large enough to reach her arm out. She grabbed hold of the edge, and trying to force it out, but she wasn’t prepared for the sharp edge and cut herself.

She hissed in pain.

“Marinette?”

It was at that moment that she was struck with the realization that this was Adrien talking to her, and that he was Chat Noir, and that he knew who she was. Perhaps it was shock or adrenaline, but it didn’t click until just this moment.

“Are you okay?” He asked, still sniffling.

“I just…yeah…be careful with the edges of the door, it’s sharp.”

“Yeah, I cut myself just sitting down. There’s an edge along the wall.”

“Oh…” She settled down then, not really knowing what to do.

Ladybug was out of ideas.

“My lady?”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Would...would you still think I was super cool even if I said I was scared?”

She managed a single laugh. “I’m…I’m terrified.” She admitted. “Chat, we…we failed. Everyone knows who we are.”

“Yeah…”

“My family…your dad…Alya and Nino…they all know. And they’re all in danger…and th-there’s nothing—“ She choked out a sob. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Adrien didn’t respond but she could hear him sniffling.

“I don’t know…what are we going to do?” The last part was barely a whisper.

“Salo said she thought my dad might pay a hefty price to get me out. Money hasn’t ever been an object to my father, so...I’m sure he’d pay your ransom too.” There was a piece of doubt deep in his soul that wondered if he would. Gabriel Agreste was a good man. Sometimes.

“No.” Marinette shook her head. “I can’t allow that to happen. These people are dangerous. If your father gives them money, how many more people will die? What other crimes will they commit? We can’t…no matter how scary it is…we can’t let them win…”

It was a beat before Adrien agreed. “…yeah. I guess all our hard work goes away then.”

She leaned her head back, the metal groaning as she did so.

“You know…” He spoke, taking a massive sigh. “We’ve spent the last three years saving Paris. I think…I think Paris can protect our loved ones for us.” She could hear him moving, the metal groaning as he pushed against it. “Can you reach under the door, towards me?”

She scooted down too, laying on the ground on her side, and as she reached under the door, she found a warm hand, with strong fingers that quickly wrapped around her own.

“My lady….my beautiful lady…”

“Kitty cat…”

“We’ll find a way out. Together.”

“Partners?”

“Partners.”

#miraculous ladybug #ml #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #adrienette #ladynoir #fanfiction #longest night

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