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reblog if you wear glasses. too many mutuals don't know they have glasses wearers in their midsts

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Reblog if, no matter the size of the role, you would agree to work with the Muppets if offered the chance to do so, no questions asked

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Hey, reblog this if you’re ok with mutuals messaging you and stuff!

Asking for my sanity :]

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Poor Grandma

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"I want," the man said to the art robot, and then described an image in some detail. "Certainly," said the art robot. A printout came out of its chest. "Thank y- Hey! What's this?" "A list of artists who make images of the kind you describe, and who are accepting commissions."

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It's a pink whale.

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my exchange gift for the maribat server and specifically for @writingsnippetsthatneverupdate! prompts were "i can't lose you" "you're safe" and adridami! thanks MGI for hosting!

#YALL LOOK AT THEM #Adrien Agreste #Damian Wayne #Adrien Agreste/Damian Wayne #AdriDami #the SHADING #the EXPRESSIONS!! #look how grumpy Damian is #LOOK AT THE STYLING OF THE EYES IT'S SO SIMPLISTIC BUT SO FUN TO LOOK AT #Chat's cat ears being down... poor baby #THE CHIN GRAB THOUGH... “Who hurt you?” / :( AUGH #love love LOVE the detail and shading #DO YALL SEE DAMI'S HAIR??? OMG #THE TEXTURE #AUGH the hand is SO GOOD #the POSITIONING OF THE TWO OF THEM IN FRAME!! #MWAH #i am ECSTATIC

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my exchange gift for the maribat server and specifically for @writingsnippetsthatneverupdate! prompts were "i can't lose you" "you're safe" and adridami! thanks MGI for hosting!

[writingsnippetsthatneverupdate]

my exchange gift for the maribat server and specifically for @writingsnippetsthatneverupdate! prompts were "i can't lose you" "you're safe" and adridami! thanks MGI for hosting!

[writingsnippetsthatneverupdate]

my exchange gift for the maribat server and specifically for @writingsnippetsthatneverupdate! prompts were "i can't lose you" "you're safe" and adridami! thanks MGI for hosting!

[writingsnippetsthatneverupdate]

Gift for: Sabs from the Maribat? Get In! server It's a... fic outline! Ta-da!

Fic Plot:

Marinette and the Miracuclass are in the USA for high school, not France, because fuck France’s schooling system

Dick transfers to Marinette’s school

Marinette sees Dick as her rival

Cue little shenanigans as Dick flirts with Mari and Mari huffs and brushes him off

Then, Mari and Dick are paired together for a group project and Chloé dunks on them

Mari decides that she and Dick are going to make the BEST PROJECT EVER

They do! And they become friends in the meantime

Dick is desperately trying to invite Mari on dates and she is just NOT picking up what he’s putting down

They’re friends, montage montage etc., end on a fluffy note! <3

Epilogue in which Mari realizes when Dick asked for a kiss that one time he WAS NOT JOKING

The end!

Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s characterization:

High school student

Around perhaps 14 - 15 years old

Thinks of herself as having 2 unique traits:

Fashion (art)

Flexibility

Prides herself most on flexibility

Otherwise thinks of herself as plain, shy, boring, not very interesting

She’s ~insecure~

Easily angered/frustrated and tends to jump to conclusions / make decisions without actually talking to anyone, just arguing with them in her mind

Origin of flexibility:

Took ballet classes as a kid

Has severe stage fright but wanted to perform

Decided to perform in a mask as Ladybug

Is very good!!

Note: ballet requires SO MUCH strength & effort & concentration; basically on-par with vigilante-ing lbr

(???) Maybe also does parkour?

Dick Grayson’s characterization:

High school student as well

Around perhaps 14 - 15 years old as well

Impish, a little shit, sunshine ball of energy with a whip-sharp tongue

Generally just takes things in stride, good at improvising

Falls in love VERY quickly, falls out of love equally quickly unless the person’s special

Pretty confident in himself!

Isn’t flustered around Marinette, just thinks of her as cute, especially when she’s flushing / looks sort of angry at him

He’s a little sad that she’s always mad at him for no reason that he can really discern, but he brushes it off

Currently is Robin, patrolling with Bruce as Batman

No Jason yet

Going to be pulling a LOT from Young Justice characterization (so not asterous, etc.)

Very kind once you get past all the layers of Absolute Little Shit

Opening scene:

It’s gym class

Everyone’s in the gym in their gym uniforms

Marinette POV

Internally monologuing

Absently notes that Dick is kinda cute

Once it’s her turn, she does her flexibility thing

Checks to see if Dick noticed

He looks mildly impressed but mostly just meh, in comparison to the class going :O WOAH

Mari is :T pouting because that’s her thing!! Cute boy didn’t notice her doing HER THING!!! >:(

Then it’s Dick’s turn and he’s 100% showing off for the cute girl and she just pouts HARDER because no!!! He STOLE her THING!! He TRICKED her with his cuteness, how dare he!! He’s outshining her in her “only” interesting aspect

Immediately Marinette decides that he’s an enemy and it’s on-sight forever after

Cut to little montage of Mari being mad at Dick:

But since she’s pretty shy, that just amounts to huffing at him, disliking the people who associate with him, glaring at him from across the room, and flushing/sputtering when he turns that ~~charming~~ annoying grin her way

Mari & Dick becoming friends

Then, in art class, they get assigned to make a jack-o-lantern together, and the really good ones will get extra credit

Chloe says she’ll just make it professionally, hire someone to do it

Mari is in KILL mode, puts aside her rivalry with Dick to fuck over Chloé

They go pumpkin picking together!!

Their jack o lantern wins!

Dick subtly trying to hint he wants to date Mari, hint going ALL the way over her head

Dick says that as a favor Mari has to go through the haunted maze with him (he’d take B, but B would make it boring, or make it into training, but a cute girl… :eyes:) and give him a kiss

Mari scoffs, brushes off kiss part (she’s too plain he’s OBVIOUSLY joking)

And then! Spooky scary skeletons startle Mari in the maze! Mari is genuinely frightened but Dick isn’t, given Gotham ™. then Dick starts singing the song and they both start laughing

Mari & Dick becoming close friends!

Whenever they see each other after that one of them inevitably ends up humming spooky scary skeletons and they both end up laughing

Cue montage again, where they’re friends now! (Teachers make them move their seats, jokes about dating that fluster them both a little bit TOO much, maybe a shout out to some other miracuclass/batfamily characters)

No, it’s OUR thing

Mari and Dick are friends now, Mari self-deprecates herself, Dick is like hey, no way!!! Mari mentions flexibility thing, and Dick says ‘no no i was a circus kid, you’re the closest i’ve gotten to competition in AGES’, cue Mari going ‘hm, i guess flexibility could be OUR thing?’ and Dick nearly dying of the cuteness

Epilogue

They’re dating, Dick’s like ‘other than stealing the flexiblity thing, why did you stammer/flush all the time? Usually when you’re mad you get all articulate’

Mari: oh it was bc you were cute

Dick: :pleading: for real??? 🥺

Mari: ugh you’re SUCH a dork (yes, for real)

Dick: i KNEW it!! but why didn’t you kiss me after the maze when i saved you? 🥺

Mari: … you were SERIOUS???

Dick: my god you’re so oblivious how tf did i forget about that (yes i was serious)

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I have... so many thoughts about Gwen Stacy in Across the Spiderverse. God, she's sixteen... she's still a child. A super capable badass teenager who could kick my ass, for sure, but a child.

I can't imagine how terrifying it must have been for her, to have her Dad, her literal father, her main support system after Peter died, point a gun at her and tell her to put her hands up. Like, fuck.

And then she went off with Miguel so she wasn't arrested by her Dad... an improvement, I guess, but... I don't know. I'm really iffy about how stable that situation was for her. Like, even at the start of the movie, Jess made it super clear that Gwen's position in Spider Society wasn't stable, and that one wrong move could send her back to her universe, where she was potentially wanted as a murder suspect and had literally no one she could rely on or trust. Isn't that? Just a bit fucked up?

Also! The fact that Gwen took Hobie's jacket made me wonder -- where exactly is she getting her non-spider gear from? She couldn't exactly pack up her shit from home, and although I'm relatively sure Miguel provided food, water, and housing to the Spider-people working with him, I'm not sure that he paid them for the work they did or was gonna like. Buy them clothes. So... ???? Holy fuck??

I'm not agreeing with her siding with Miguel and the Spider Society, but. It's entirely possible that they were her only source of shelter, food, water, purpose, and MAYBE income??? Like, goddamn.

Anyways! Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse is SO GOOD and I have SO MANY thoughts about it!!! I may even actually write something for it!!!!

#Gwen Stacy #Spider-Gwen #Across the Spiderverse #ATSV #Spiderverse

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WORD COUNT: 52; Selina & Adrien & Batgirls

“Shhhhh, kitten, shhhhhh. I’m here now. It’ll be okay.” When Selina Kyle set out to explore Paris (and perhaps steal a gem or two), she hadn’t expected to steal a child, too. Still, she wasn’t complaining. (It got the Batgirls off her back, she’d claim later. Especially the loud, annoying one in purple.)

@maribat-get-in

#m?gi civil war 3

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WORD COUNT: 610; Legacy Mark AU

SNIPPET

BATMAN

Contrary to popular belief, Bruce Wayne hadn’t been entirely oblivious to the potential effects Batman would have on people’s lives. Granted, he hadn’t quite realized the scale that Batman would one day operate on, but he’d known he was starting something.

He’d known that he was creating a Legacy. Bruce Wayne had just thought Batman would die with him, an unrealized, quiet one that lived only in his heart. (More the fool him, scoff his children, years and years into the future. Then, it seemed unfathomable that Batman had started as nothing more than a butler’s careful handiwork and one man’s quest for justice.)

As Batman stalked the streets of Gotham, tales of the caped crusader grew until he became more than a man. He became a thing of shadows and nightmares and, for some, a beacon of safety.

The day a jet-black bat materialized starkly on his pale wrist, Bruce Wayne didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry. He stared at it until the Batsignal went off, and then there was no time for either.

Would his parents be proud of him? Would Batman save another little boy’s parents, trapped in an alleyway, at the mercy of a man with a gun?

It was the start of a Legacy. (It was the end of a childhood.)

~

BATGIRL

Like her predecessor, (not a mentor, never a mentor), Barbara Gordon had never set out to create a Legacy. She had set out to do good, to tap into that ‘potential’ so many teachers raved about and set it towards something useful. She knew what Gotham was like – having the Police Commissioner for a father would do that to a girl – and she wanted, more than anything, to create change.

And she did. 

For eight years, Batgirl flew about the city with her red hair streaming behind her, a shining light of hope and optimism. Despite it all, despite the corrupt cops and the Arkham break-outs and the pressing, draining misery of Gotham City, Batgirl remained.

REMAINING OUTLINE

The legacy becomes cemented when the mark appears on the wrist of another person -- the legacy-starter's successor. The mark only disappears when there's a possibility of retirement in the legacy-starter's future.

When Bruce first adopted Dick, the mark appeared on his wrist for the first few days, until Dick chose to become Robin. Then, Dick got a legacy mark of his own.

Applying this to Batgirls, for the event -- this can create a very interesting situation where Babs's mark disappears right before Joker paralyzes her, and it reappears on Stephanie's wrist. This may lead to Stephanie being more stand-offish with the Bats, since she's afraid that she's "cursed" the other Batgirl, or "stolen" her identity, since in the wake of tragedy she gained something.

Also, Steph and Cass can share the Batgirl mark once Babs passes on the mantle to Cass and then Cass gives it to Steph -- she isn't necessarily retiring as Batgirl, so they can share the mark. As a treat! <3

Also also, once Marinette or Adrien appears in Gotham, we could have the mark on Cass's and Steph's wrist flicker/fade/disappear, and reappear on Marinette's wrist. Unsure if this will be permanent or not -- depends on how Marinette reacts to the idea of being Batgirl! :P I just think that legacy marks are really interesting, since they're more created than destined, and there is an aspect of choice in things! Legacy marks aren't set in stone, and people's decisions can absolutely change whether or not they get a legacy mark. I think there's also power in being able to create a mark, and to create change.

@maribat-get-in

#m?gi civil war 3

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WORD COUNT: 2377; PROMPT: SECRETS

Okay, so the premise is a Greek God AU but with some MAJOR relationship and timeline shifts! For example, in this AU, Hades and Persephone are NOT ever going to be romantically entwined, Zeus is overworked and overwhelmed and not married, Olympus is more like a gathering for rich people more than a council of gods, and mortals don't really worship the gods. This is not really a Greek mythology-based AU so much as one that steals certain premises and major players.

ANYWAYS. I DIGRESS. THE OUTLINE!

This story actually centers around Nino Lahiffe, a mortal who was sentenced to an eternity trapped in this universe's equivalent of Tartarus for a crime he didn't do. However, he was trapped in a prison that... essentially magically sensed the moral 'purity' or 'impurity' of a person and imprisoned them based on the severity of the crimes they committed.

The prison takes one look at Nino Lahiffe, overwhelmed guy who loves his friends and just gets dragged into wild shit, and gives him free reign around the Underworld. Nino goes oh, shit? I'm out? And it's essentially like he's a horse, LOOSE in a HOSPITAL, except he is a PRISONER, LOOSE in the UNDERWORLD!

He's really not here to cause any trouble, he just wants to fly under the radar. (They tossed him in a jail cell and literally never checked on him, not HIS fault he escaped!! The doors just opened!!!)

He spends his first few months out curled up in a corner, freaking out about getting caught and sent to a Real Prison, but he soon realized... no one was really checking in on him? They just assumed their prison worked, and if he kept a low profile, he was probably good!!

(And maybe Nino ended up exploring every nook and cranny of the Underworld and maybe Nino befriended Cerberus but you know what? Hades should hide his dog treats better if he wants people to NOT use them!! And Cerberus is such a good boy!!)

Meanwhile, while Nino is exploring the Underworld for half a century, there is some Upheaval going on up top. Arthur (he's in Demeter's role because he's a shitty parent) and Stephanie (she is playing Persephone's role because I love her) are having a falling-out. They never got along, but this was beyond anything they'd had before. Stephanie, still a juvenile by god standards, ended up running away and falling through a Crack Between Worlds. She falls through, and ends up in this universe's equivalent of Asphodel, for lost souls. It's... not a great place for a child, even a godly one. Steph's lower lip wobbles, and she ends up sobbing in the whistling, dry grasses of Asphodel while the damned wander around her.

Nino, seeing Steph curled up in a ball crying, shrieks, "OH NO A CHILD" and guides her around the Underworld. He ends up rambling in an attempt to get the Itty Bitty Child to stop crying. Steph takes an immediate liking to him.

Somehow, mysteriously, she ends up falling into the Underworld again. And again. And again. After the seventh time Steph goes, "Oh, Nino! I got a little stuck in the Underworld! :( Can you help me out!" he finally catches on to the fact that this is on purpose.

"Kid," Nino sighs, "You can like. Contact me some other way. You don't have to come down here."

Steph wrinkles her nose. "But I like it here! It's cool and my Dad isn't here and you're here!! What more do I need?"

Nino may or may not have to hold back tears. (Steph definitely teases him mercilessly about it.) (She also brings up that she's probably older than him. They both ignore that.)

Arthur catches wind of what Steph's doing, and he bars her from the Underworld, trapping her on the mortal plane. After a few decades of scheming, she manages to slip away to the Underworld again.

She has vague recollections of someone important to her in the Underworld, but their memory is distant and faded. All she remembers is that she felt safe there.

When the Lord of the Underworld, also known as Marinette, asks the little god what she's doing in her domain, she says so.

Marinette is stunned for a total of 30 seconds before deciding that she'd die for this kid. They bond, chat, Steph meets the Underworld Team. (Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Kate Kane, Renee Montoya, Vic Sage, Max Kante, Markov, and a few others assist her in running the place. They are a terrifying force to behold and Steph wants to be just like them when she grows up.)

After chatting for a while, Persephone's memories of Nino start coming back. She describes Nino to Marinette, who goes, "Hm. Sounds like that Morality Prison guy. But it's impossible for him to escape if he did what they say he did."

The following snippet is an approximation of what occurs in the minutes following that statement:

"What if," Steph said, "And I know this is hard to believe, but what if... you were wrong?"

"You're not going to stop bothering me until I check the prison, huh." Marinette said.

"You betcha!" she chirps.

Marinette lets out a deep, heavy exhale and heads down to the Morality Prison. (It used to have another name, but everyone just called it the Morality Prison. It was what the place was, after all.)

"Look, see," Marinette said, gesturing to the cell, "He's right --"

She looked back. The cell was empty.

The curses she spoke that day cannot, regrettably, be translated for mortal ears. They're liable to melt brain matter out of ears if read, never mind heard. The mortal equivalent sounds something like, "Motherfucking son of a --" ... You can probably guess how the rest goes.

Anyways, suffice to say, Stephanie was very smug as she gestured to the empty cell. "And there's no way for him to have, like, circumvented the Morality Prison, right?"

"There is not," Marinette confirmed, "In fact, we've had trouble releasing people from the prison when they're done serving their sentences. When they are judged as guilty, the prison is... reluctant to relinquish them."

"So," Steph declares triumphantly, "He's innocent!"

"Yes," Marinette said, in an entirely different tone, "We attempted to imprison an innocent man for nearly a century."

Steph's face fell. "Oh."

Marinette sighed defeatedly. "I'll start on the paperwork, I guess."

ANYWAYS. End snippet. ANYWAYS!! Marinette is left to freak the hell out about an innocent guy left to rot in the Underworld for an entire CENTURY. She, obviously, sends out a wanted poster for Nino Lahiffe, confident that she can sort out this misunderstanding properly and apologize to the poor guy.

Nino Lahiffe, contentedly eating Tantalus's fruit and taunting the jerk, sees the wanted poster with his face emblazoned on it and promptly books it. He is convinced that the Lord of the Underworld has finally seen fit to hunt him down and imprison him forever.

Shenanigans ensue! Nino almost knows the Underworld better than Marinette, since he's been wandering around it for so long while Marinette's been drowning in paperwork. Eventually, Steph finds him having a panic attack in the place she first met him.

Poor girl is hit with the double whammy of, "Oh, wow, an innocent guy has feared for the rest of his soul's life for decades and that leaves a mark," and the realization that her childhood friend, who always seemed so put-together, was honestly, truly, simply a man. It was... a lot to process. They, perhaps, broke down on each other. And then Steph explains the entire situation to him! Resolution! Yay!

Nino finally gets to meet Marinette OUTSIDE of her Underworld regalia and she's... actually really nice? And super apologetic about the wrongful imprisonment thing?

He can also relate way too hard to her Loner Who No One Understands, given, you know, his whole situation. They bond... surprisingly quickly? And then Nino makes a joke about, "Wow, what a hell of a few decades, huh?" And Hades realizes... Nino has been here for nearly a century.

That's not good.

Every century, there's a retrial for each person trapped in the Underworld, even those in the morality prison. It's less about determining guilt versus innocence, and more for the Olympian gods to establish their superiority and to have scapegoats for any anger or frustration they may have.

Stephanie pounces on the opportunity to potentially fix Nino's life! They can prove he's innocent!

Nino thinks this is... a little excessive. Like, no one even hurt him? He was just kind of lonely! And now he has friends!

Marinette, in the background, has a fun little crisis because he's so nice and we LEFT HIM HERE.

Anyways. Steph is trying not to lose her mind with rage at the situation, Marinette is desperate to make things up to Nino, and Nino wants to maybe take a nap.

Long story short, his opinion on the situation is overruled. They're breaking into the ritzy, gaudy, obnoxiously rich and opulent retrial party together and proving Nino's innocence.

So! Nino has to hide somewhere, so he has to pretend to be a statue, sweating and panicking as people squint at him and move on because they are entirely and thoroughly drunk.

Poor guy is really just trying not to shake apart from nerves and he runs into an old hero friend?! OH GOD HE'S GONNA DIE --

Duke Thomas, seeing his old friend Nino Lahiffe who he's pretty sure is a criminal: dude, what the hell did you get dragged into this time?!

Nino: DUKE HIDE ME.

Duke: ... alright, sure. I figured you were innocent anyways. You're always caught up in the weird shit.

anyways so Stephanie is working behind the scenes to get a freakin',,, artifact or something that can display a person's memories with absolute Truth™️ No Tampering Guaranteed

she ends up being almost late for the Big Retrial Presentation, which is basically Zeus (who is Sabrina in this AU, RIP) enthusiastically reviewing a slideshow of How This Guy Fucked Up This Time while Marinette drinks herself into unconsciousness so she doesn't have to think about how these Literal War Criminals are HER responsibility! Fun times!

so cut to Stephanie desperately pushing through throngs of people, a bunch of people going "omg Stephanie?! hey girl hey!!! we missed you while you were in the mortal world <3" and Stephanie realizing "OH WOW I'M POPULAR AND ACTUALLY MADE A NAME FOR MYSELF NOT JUST THRU MY DAD" but she Doesn't Have Time For That!!

so she sprints to the behind the scenes, Nino is sitting with his head in his hands because "MARINETTE I RAN INTO AN OLD FRIEND WHAT IF HE OUTS ME" and Marinette going "dude your friend is the chillest hero ever you're fINE --- thank fuck STEPH HELP US"

Stephanie comes in clutch with the artifact!

Sabrina is queueing up his slideshow and Marinette says, "Sister, I want to try something different this time around. Why don't we ask him about this?" and BAM screen shows Nino's memories!

Everyone starts shrieking, things dissolve into chaos, and Persephone is really at the end of her rope. She snaps.

She just summons all her power and yells, "QUIET! AN INNOCENT MAN COULD HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED FOR A CENTURY AND ALL YOU CAN DO IS TITTER AND GOSSIP!"

Vines creep up the walls and EVERYTHING it's all dramatic and that!! Cut to Nino taking a deep breath and guiding the artifact through his memories. he… I don't know, witnesses a crime or something that Sabrina committed and Sabrina IMMEDIATELY blames it on him. She wants to sentence the guy to Not Morality Prison but Marinette goes "shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? morality prison" and she can't say shit. She just goes, "Well, Nino literally stood there as I accused him of stuff he Didn't Do and didn't even say shit, he's not gonna do anything."

So everyone's in an uproar about Wait Zeus Did WHAT -- but Nino keeps going through the memories

and everyone sees him being sentenced into the Underworld, the way Marinette is strangely gentle with him despite it all, and the way he stays in the morality prison and ends up… accidentally escaping??? and then they get to see Just Some Guy exploring the Underworld, and it's actually beautiful. Marinette runs a tight ship and it actually works really, really well.

Nino wanted to give Hades a better rep, hence why he kept the memory artifact going! At the end of the memories, everyone is just in a quiet, awed hush (because there can be a little emotional projecting that goes with the memory artifact, as a treat to me). 

And then Persephone steps tf up and goes "so we sentenced an innocent man to a century in a prison for crimes he did not commit on the worlds of a liar and traitor". she turns to Nino and says, "shouldn't the punishment fit the crime?" like Marinette did to Sabrina years and years ago. and like Marinette, Nino y is actually really kind and says, "well let's ask Sabrina why she did what she did" and she breaks down and says "I THOUGHT RULING WOULD BE FUN BUT IT SUCKS I WAS WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO SAY SOMETHING BUT Y'ALL HAVE KEPT PUTTING RESPONSIBILITY ON ME MAKE IT STOP!"

Marinette kind of sighs and goes "alright lemme fix this". end of story bc i don't want to deal with the political and social ramifications of this

rip Marinette but she's got a hypercompetent Underworld team gnawing at the bit to prove to people that their boss is Good Actually and they are DELIGHTED to restructure Olympian politics because HOLY FUCK THEY ALL SUCK AND ARE SO INEFFICIENT

Nino is basically promoted into a hero position against his will he's like "Y'ALL I DIDN'T DO SHIT" and Marinette goes "you literally saved my reputation and took care of Stephanie and maintained sanity in the Underworld while escaping prison" and Nino goes "yo have you SEEN my friends?? they're all crazy this is just part for the course" 

also Nino is reunited with his friends bc He Deserves It <3

Hades & Persephone but make it Marinette & Stephanie and also sprinkle in some mortal!Nino for fun

Okay, so the premise is a Greek God AU but with some MAJOR relationship and timeline shifts! For example, in this AU, Hades and Persephone are NOT ever going to be romantically entwined, Zeus is overworked and overwhelmed and not married, Olympus is more like a gathering for rich people more than a council of gods, and mortals don't really worship the gods. This is not really a Greek mythology-based AU so much as one that steals certain premises and major players.

ANYWAYS. I DIGRESS. THE OUTLINE!

This story actually centers around Nino Lahiffe, a mortal who was sentenced to an eternity trapped in this universe's equivalent of Tartarus for a crime he didn't do. However, he was trapped in a prison that... essentially magically sensed the moral 'purity' or 'impurity' of a person and imprisoned them based on the severity of the crimes they committed.

The prison takes one look at Nino Lahiffe, overwhelmed guy who loves his friends and just gets dragged into wild shit, and gives him free reign around the Underworld. Nino goes oh, shit? I'm out? And it's essentially like he's a horse, LOOSE in a HOSPITAL, except he is a PRISONER, LOOSE in the UNDERWORLD!

He's really not here to cause any trouble, he just wants to fly under the radar. (They tossed him in a jail cell and literally never checked on him, not HIS fault he escaped!! The doors just opened!!!)

He spends his first few months out curled up in a corner, freaking out about getting caught and sent to a Real Prison, but he soon realized... no one was really checking in on him? They just assumed their prison worked, and if he kept a low profile, he was probably good!!

(And maybe Nino ended up exploring every nook and cranny of the Underworld and maybe Nino befriended Cerberus but you know what? Hades should hide his dog treats better if he wants people to NOT use them!! And Cerberus is such a good boy!!)

Meanwhile, while Nino is exploring the Underworld for half a century, there is some Upheaval going on up top. Arthur (he's in Demeter's role because he's a shitty parent) and Stephanie (she is playing Persephone's role because I love her) are having a falling-out. They never got along, but this was beyond anything they'd had before. Stephanie, still a juvenile by god standards, ended up running away and falling through a Crack Between Worlds. She falls through, and ends up in this universe's equivalent of Asphodel, for lost souls. It's... not a great place for a child, even a godly one. Steph's lower lip wobbles, and she ends up sobbing in the whistling, dry grasses of Asphodel while the damned wander around her.

Nino, seeing Steph curled up in a ball crying, shrieks, "OH NO A CHILD" and guides her around the Underworld. He ends up rambling in an attempt to get the Itty Bitty Child to stop crying. Steph takes an immediate liking to him.

Somehow, mysteriously, she ends up falling into the Underworld again. And again. And again. After the seventh time Steph goes, "Oh, Nino! I got a little stuck in the Underworld! :( Can you help me out!" he finally catches on to the fact that this is on purpose.

"Kid," Nino sighs, "You can like. Contact me some other way. You don't have to come down here."

Steph wrinkles her nose. "But I like it here! It's cool and my Dad isn't here and you're here!! What more do I need?"

Nino may or may not have to hold back tears. (Steph definitely teases him mercilessly about it.) (She also brings up that she's probably older than him. They both ignore that.)

Arthur catches wind of what Steph's doing, and he bars her from the Underworld, trapping her on the mortal plane. After a few decades of scheming, she manages to slip away to the Underworld again.

She has vague recollections of someone important to her in the Underworld, but their memory is distant and faded. All she remembers is that she felt safe there.

When the Lord of the Underworld, also known as Marinette, asks the little god what she's doing in her domain, she says so.

Marinette is stunned for a total of 30 seconds before deciding that she'd die for this kid. They bond, chat, Steph meets the Underworld Team. (Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Kate Kane, Renee Montoya, Vic Sage, Max Kante, Markov, and a few others assist her in running the place. They are a terrifying force to behold and Steph wants to be just like them when she grows up.)

After chatting for a while, Persephone's memories of Nino start coming back. She describes Nino to Marinette, who goes, "Hm. Sounds like that Morality Prison guy. But it's impossible for him to escape if he did what they say he did."

The following snippet is an approximation of what occurs in the minutes following that statement:

"What if," Steph said, "And I know this is hard to believe, but what if... you were wrong?"

"You're not going to stop bothering me until I check the prison, huh." Marinette said.

"You betcha!" she chirps.

Marinette lets out a deep, heavy exhale and heads down to the Morality Prison. (It used to have another name, but everyone just called it the Morality Prison. It was what the place was, after all.)

"Look, see," Marinette said, gesturing to the cell, "He's right --"

She looked back. The cell was empty.

The curses she spoke that day cannot, regrettably, be translated for mortal ears. They're liable to melt brain matter out of ears if read, never mind heard. The mortal equivalent sounds something like, "Motherfucking son of a --" ... You can probably guess how the rest goes.

Anyways, suffice to say, Stephanie was very smug as she gestured to the empty cell. "And there's no way for him to have, like, circumvented the Morality Prison, right?"

"There is not," Marinette confirmed, "In fact, we've had trouble releasing people from the prison when they're done serving their sentences. When they are judged as guilty, the prison is... reluctant to relinquish them."

"So," Steph declares triumphantly, "He's innocent!"

"Yes," Marinette said, in an entirely different tone, "We attempted to imprison an innocent man for nearly a century."

Steph's face fell. "Oh."

Marinette sighed defeatedly. "I'll start on the paperwork, I guess."

ANYWAYS. End snippet. ANYWAYS!! Marinette is left to freak the hell out about an innocent guy left to rot in the Underworld for an entire CENTURY. She, obviously, sends out a wanted poster for Nino Lahiffe, confident that she can sort out this misunderstanding properly and apologize to the poor guy.

Nino Lahiffe, contentedly eating Tantalus's fruit and taunting the jerk, sees the wanted poster with his face emblazoned on it and promptly books it. He is convinced that the Lord of the Underworld has finally seen fit to hunt him down and imprison him forever.

Shenanigans ensue! Nino almost knows the Underworld better than Marinette, since he's been wandering around it for so long while Marinette's been drowning in paperwork. Eventually, Steph finds him having a panic attack in the place she first met him.

Poor girl is hit with the double whammy of, "Oh, wow, an innocent guy has feared for the rest of his soul's life for decades and that leaves a mark," and the realization that her childhood friend, who always seemed so put-together, was honestly, truly, simply a man. It was... a lot to process. They, perhaps, broke down on each other. And then Steph explains the entire situation to him! Resolution! Yay!

Nino finally gets to meet Marinette OUTSIDE of her Underworld regalia and she's... actually really nice? And super apologetic about the wrongful imprisonment thing?

He can also relate way too hard to her Loner Who No One Understands, given, you know, his whole situation. They bond... surprisingly quickly? And then Nino makes a joke about, "Wow, what a hell of a few decades, huh?" And Hades realizes... Nino has been here for nearly a century.

That's not good.

Every century, there's a retrial for each person trapped in the Underworld, even those in the morality prison. It's less about determining guilt versus innocence, and more for the Olympian gods to establish their superiority and to have scapegoats for any anger or frustration they may have.

Stephanie pounces on the opportunity to potentially fix Nino's life! They can prove he's innocent!

Nino thinks this is... a little excessive. Like, no one even hurt him? He was just kind of lonely! And now he has friends!

Marinette, in the background, has a fun little crisis because he's so nice and we LEFT HIM HERE.

Anyways. Steph is trying not to lose her mind with rage at the situation, Marinette is desperate to make things up to Nino, and Nino wants to maybe take a nap.

Long story short, his opinion on the situation is overruled. They're breaking into the ritzy, gaudy, obnoxiously rich and opulent retrial party together and proving Nino's innocence.

So! Nino has to hide somewhere, so he has to pretend to be a statue, sweating and panicking as people squint at him and move on because they are entirely and thoroughly drunk.

Poor guy is really just trying not to shake apart from nerves and he runs into an old hero friend?! OH GOD HE'S GONNA DIE --

Duke Thomas, seeing his old friend Nino Lahiffe who he's pretty sure is a criminal: dude, what the hell did you get dragged into this time?!

Nino: DUKE HIDE ME.

Duke: ... alright, sure. I figured you were innocent anyways. You're always caught up in the weird shit.

anyways so Stephanie is working behind the scenes to get a freakin',,, artifact or something that can display a person's memories with absolute Truth™️ No Tampering Guaranteed

she ends up being almost late for the Big Retrial Presentation, which is basically Zeus (who is Sabrina in this AU, RIP) enthusiastically reviewing a slideshow of How This Guy Fucked Up This Time while Marinette drinks herself into unconsciousness so she doesn't have to think about how these Literal War Criminals are HER responsibility! Fun times!

so cut to Stephanie desperately pushing through throngs of people, a bunch of people going "omg Stephanie?! hey girl hey!!! we missed you while you were in the mortal world <3" and Stephanie realizing "OH WOW I'M POPULAR AND ACTUALLY MADE A NAME FOR MYSELF NOT JUST THRU MY DAD" but she Doesn't Have Time For That!!

so she sprints to the behind the scenes, Nino is sitting with his head in his hands because "MARINETTE I RAN INTO AN OLD FRIEND WHAT IF HE OUTS ME" and Marinette going "dude your friend is the chillest hero ever you're fINE --- thank fuck STEPH HELP US"

Stephanie comes in clutch with the artifact!

Sabrina is queueing up his slideshow and Marinette says, "Sister, I want to try something different this time around. Why don't we ask him about this?" and BAM screen shows Nino's memories!

Everyone starts shrieking, things dissolve into chaos, and Persephone is really at the end of her rope. She snaps.

She just summons all her power and yells, "QUIET! AN INNOCENT MAN COULD HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED FOR A CENTURY AND ALL YOU CAN DO IS TITTER AND GOSSIP!"

Vines creep up the walls and EVERYTHING it's all dramatic and that!! Cut to Nino taking a deep breath and guiding the artifact through his memories. he… I don't know, witnesses a crime or something that Sabrina committed and Sabrina IMMEDIATELY blames it on him. She wants to sentence the guy to Not Morality Prison but Marinette goes "shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? morality prison" and she can't say shit. She just goes, "Well, Nino literally stood there as I accused him of stuff he Didn't Do and didn't even say shit, he's not gonna do anything."

So everyone's in an uproar about Wait Zeus Did WHAT -- but Nino keeps going through the memories

and everyone sees him being sentenced into the Underworld, the way Marinette is strangely gentle with him despite it all, and the way he stays in the morality prison and ends up… accidentally escaping??? and then they get to see Just Some Guy exploring the Underworld, and it's actually beautiful. Marinette runs a tight ship and it actually works really, really well.

Nino wanted to give Hades a better rep, hence why he kept the memory artifact going! At the end of the memories, everyone is just in a quiet, awed hush (because there can be a little emotional projecting that goes with the memory artifact, as a treat to me).

And then Persephone steps tf up and goes "so we sentenced an innocent man to a century in a prison for crimes he did not commit on the worlds of a liar and traitor". she turns to Nino and says, "shouldn't the punishment fit the crime?" like Marinette did to Sabrina years and years ago. and like Marinette, Nino y is actually really kind and says, "well let's ask Sabrina why she did what she did" and she breaks down and says "I THOUGHT RULING WOULD BE FUN BUT IT SUCKS I WAS WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO SAY SOMETHING BUT Y'ALL HAVE KEPT PUTTING RESPONSIBILITY ON ME MAKE IT STOP!"

Marinette kind of sighs and goes "alright lemme fix this". end of story bc i don't want to deal with the political and social ramifications of this

rip Marinette but she's got a hypercompetent Underworld team gnawing at the bit to prove to people that their boss is Good Actually and they are DELIGHTED to restructure Olympian politics because HOLY FUCK THEY ALL SUCK AND ARE SO INEFFICIENT

Nino is basically promoted into a hero position against his will he's like "Y'ALL I DIDN'T DO SHIT" and Marinette goes "you literally saved my reputation and took care of Stephanie and maintained sanity in the Underworld while escaping prison" and Nino goes "yo have you SEEN my friends?? they're all crazy this is just part for the course"

also Nino is reunited with his friends bc He Deserves It <3

ALRIGHT WE'RE DONE THANK FUCK!!!

@maribat-get-in

#m?gi civil war 3

[writingsnippetsthatneverupdate]

PROMPT: Werewolf; 358 Words

Steph's face was screwed up in a rictus of pain. Marinette didn't know what to do.

"St - stay back, please, I don't -- I don't wanna hurt you. Marinette -" Her voice cut off, deepening into a strange fusion of a whine and a growl. Marinette had no idea what was going on, but she did know one thing.

She wasn't leaving Steph alone. No way in hell.

"Steph," she said softly. "You've been there for me through Batgirl, through Ladybug, through akumas... through everything. I'm not leaving you."

Tears streamed down the other's face. "I can't hurt you --" There was a sickening crack. Marinette wrapped Steph in her arms. Her voice was almost entirely gone. Only whimpers and growls came from her mouth. There was another crack, and Steph's body... changed.

She managed to wriggle out of Marinette's arms long enough to put her hands on the ground, and her nails gleamed silvery-white in the moonlight. What... ?

Another crunch. Marinette would never get used to that sound. And somehow, someway, a wolf sat in front of her, curled up into a ball.

"Steph... ?" The wolf whined and hid its head under its paws. Marinette couldn't help the way her brows pulled together. "Steph, darling, is that you?"

The wolf wound itself around her legs, head still down, and didn't respond. "Ouch!" It had started kneading her legs, and a thin line of blood glistened on its claws.

The wolf's ears went up, its eyes widened, and it bolted.

... Only to run face-first into the door. Marinette had to suppress a laugh.

The wolf growled at her, and promptly looked horrified at itself.

"Aw, Steph, sweetheart," Marinette said, honey-sweet and oozing with sympathy. "I'm pawsitive we can fix this." The wolf released a plaintive howl at the ceiling, and Marinette let herself laugh.

"You have to realize," she said, "You are never going to hear the end of this." The wolf put its paws over its ears. Marinette grinned widely enough to hurt her cheeks. Yeah, they'd be fine. Marinette was going to get some answers when Steph shifted back, though. Who didn't tell their girlfriend they were a werewolf?!

@maribat-get-in

#m?gi civil war 3

[writingsnippetsthatneverupdate]

In Which Marinette Is NOT Amused; 632 Words

Or, a Marinette & Adrien time travel AU! (In which I fuck with the timeline so much that it snaps!)

Okay so! Marinette time-travels to the day JUST before Fu gives her the Miraculous, and in THIS universe there's a month-long buffer between the first akumatization and Marinette and Adrien getting tossed into battle! Also Marinette and Adrien got their Miraculous during the beginning of summer break! (Is that how French schools work? Probably not! Suffer!)

As soon as Marinette realizes she's in the past, and happens to see an all-expenses paid trip to Gotham, she's set on heading there!

future!Marinette made friends in Gotham, and so she's planning to recruit Batman to prove that Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth. She has no idea what any of the Bats' identities are, and the first time she met Batman as Ladybug, he nearly caught her and sent her to Arkham. The only reason he didn't send Marinette there (DESPITE her magic) is because Marinette had Kaalki. (Her Lucky Charm during that encounter was a hospital pager. Marinette cried when she saw it.)

Right now she does NOT have Kaalki, and she's not in the mood to see if Batman is still in Rage Mode, so she's planning to lurk in Gotham, assess Batman's mental and emotional state, and go from there.

So! She explains the situation to Tikki and heads off to Gotham! She also realizes on the flight that Master Fu probably only gave her the Miraculous because of one (1) encounter where she dropped her macarons to save him OR he's been stalking her.

So, she arrives in Gotham absolutely furious! Stephanie sees a furious, attractive lady and promptly asks her out for waffles, because of course she does. (Is Cass there? Who knows!)

Meanwhile, Ladybug discreetly goes around Gotham trying to figure out what Batman's up to! (She is NOT wandering around Gotham as a civilian, with her stab-able civilian clothes! No thank you!) Oracle catches on to her presence, and they start this game of cat-and-mouse where Marinette realizes the cameras are Watching Her and tries to avoid them and Oracle tries very hard to catch Marinette!

Also to torment Marinette further, Bruce is dead and Dick hasn't put on the cowl yet, so Batman seems to be on a hiatus.

Meanwhile, in Paris...

Adrien is trying SO hard not to murder his Dad. Like, yes, it's his Dad, but also, HIS DAD TRIED TO KILL LADYBUG. And also akumatize all his friends. And also tried to end the world. (Adrien has his priorities in a perfectly fine order, what are you talking about? Denial, thy name is Adrien Agreste.)

Timothy Drake is in Paris, trying to figure out where the HELL Batman is, and he runs into Adrien! The two of them see each other and go "oh shit that guy is NOT normal" and they also have crushes on each other, probably. Tim has to run around the world to save Bruce, but while in Paris he and Adrien become close, Adrien drops hints about his Dad that Tim FULLY plan to investigate post-resurrection, and Adrien is crushing hard and would also help Tim commit murder if he needed it.

At some point, I feel like I HAVE to include Marinette calling Adrien 'Kitty <3' in her phone, and Steph seeing it and going, "ARE YOU FUCKING CATWOMAN?! BATMAN IS DEAD OH MY GOD HOW DID YOU EVEN DO THAT --" and Marinette shrieking, "NO, I FUCKED CHAT NOIR AND WE BOTH REALIZED WE'RE GAY!"

Something something time travel reveal, something something resolution?

I don't know how that'll happen, but I'd like it to happen! End goal: at some point we get Stephcassinette, Adritim, and a Gabriel Agreste who dies under mysterious circumstances! (The best kind of Gabriel Agreste!)

@maribat-get-in

#m?gi civil war 3