all over the place

Percy is an insanely good strategist. we don't often pick up on it, because he's placed himself right next to the smartest strategist at Camp, but he's a veritable chess master. book one, at twelve years old, we see him manipulate Procrustes to fall for his own trap in minutes. book two, he manipulates Luke into confessing his entire evil plan in front of the whole Camp, instantly clearing Chiron's name and revealing that hey there's a storm coming. we see that trend continuing all the way up until House of Hades, where Annabeth herself has to take a step back and reevaluate how she sees him.

Batman: Wayne Family Adventures #77 - “Suit Up” (2023)

Recently I've been complaining a lot on the internet how sucky the recent seasons of ML have been, and how much better the old fanfics are; I'm going to prove my point by sharing my tried-and-true rec list. Here we go.

Back To Us - Written in 2017, so some things are inaccurate. Basically Marinette, as Ladybug, kills Gabriel Agreste on accident by pushing him off the Eiffel Tower and Adrien moves to Milan. Seven years later Marinette is a rising fashion designer, her long-lost partner comes back seven years later but hot, and a new Hawkmoth shows up on the very day Adrien comes back. Suspicious. INCLUDES: Antihero!Chat. Alternate superhero names for Alya, Nino + there are only seven miraculouses which honestly I like a lot better than Ladybug just busting another one out whenever she feels like it. At one point, it was the longest fic in the fandom but now it's not even close. 446k. Requires an Ao3 account to read.

Second Chances- Again, written fairly early in the fandom. Adrien is a single dad and Alya volunteers Marinette to be his daughter's nanny - the premise sounds like it could turn out really weird but I promise it's not. Adorable adorable. INCLUDES: Past ChloexAdrien and MarinettexNathanael, and Adrien never went to school. Reverse best friends (Alya + Adrien, Mari + Nino). 105k.

Whose Woods These Are (I Think I Know) - Ladrien Cinderella AU. Super well-written in a kind of fairytale style. I honestly love this fic. 105k.

Spotty Connections - Adrienette texting fic (no miraculous AU, but does incorporate LadyNoir). Tikki & Plagg are M&A's cats. One of my favorites ever. 66k.

Film It - Adrien is a youtuber! Soon all of Twitter ships #adrienette. INCLUDES: Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting. Endgame Adrienette. Superheroes exist, but LB & CN aren't a huge part of this. Also worthy of note: #thatfoursome and a decent amount of Twitter formatting. This has pretty much everything I want in an Adrienette fic. 56k.

Chasing The C/h/atwalk - Project Runway AU. Marinette is a designer and Adrien... is her model. Shenanigans ensue. INCLUDES: Some LadyNoir, mostly after the identity reveal. #MarinetteInDenial. 100k. I love this fic.

Lucky Us - No Miraculous email AU. See Spotty Connections: LadyNoir incorporated without the actual superheroes. Fluff with a tiny bit of angst but still happy ending. 136k.

Secret Santa - fluff. Pure fluff; classic in the fandom. A bit cheesy and very outdated but very nice. Time for a reread. It has a sequel called New Year's Ball. 52k.

Être Majeur - horror, AU, fairly short, creepy and strange but really well-written. 24k. M for horror elements.

La Pucelle Et La Coccinelle - Absolute favorite. Explores Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc in this story) with the Ladybug Miraculous. INCLUDES: Actual historical references, lore for the miraculouses, and a flashforward to the future at the end with Marinette. 38k. I have it printed out, I love it so much.

Pray For the Children You Lost Along the Way - Silent Hill AU (Emilie Anderson from the arcade game is Adrien's mom). It has been on hiatus since 2019, but is still worth a read because so many things tie together in a satisfying way. 86k. Rated M b/c of Silent Hill-type things.

Under Lock and Key - Huge classic also published on Wattpad. Author/artist collab with Maerynn & EdenDaphne - Maerynn passed away while the fic was being written and ED finished it. Very nice art by ED. I view this fic as the quintessential 2017 era Adrienette fic. Very sweet and fluffy. 34k.

Tripped at Fencing - Gabriel hits Adrien. INCLUDES: Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting. Accidental identity reveal (Marinette finds out first). Only 5k but a classic.

The Butterfly and Her Brother series (Generations Past and Future) - written c. 2016. Gabriel is NOT Hawkmoth; Gabriel is not a villian in the least so technically OOC. First couple are set in the 1990s, then a couple in ~2016 and the latest in like 2044. I haven't read the last one in the series but WHATHGAWAATG (Europe gets taken over), featuring the next gen of Agrestes, is really good as well. Many things are outdated/false as this was written based off of s1, but I honestly like this interpretation of the Miraculous much better than how the show does it. Mama Agreste's name is Adele (again, s1) and I quite like her character. I freaking LOVE this series. I have it downloaded to my phone and I reread it when I'm feeling sad. 340k in total, but the longest work in the series is about 166k. SO many kudos.

a fight that you were born to lose - "Adrien finds out that Gabriel is Hawkmoth, and Gabriel gets to bring his long-waited plan into action." TW abuse, emotional manipulation, forced dieting. Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting. Fairly short for how well-rounded it is - 17k.

An Impromptu Proposal - what it says on the tin. Reverse love square kinda: Ladynoir requited love bc Adrien never went to school. Includes identity reveal and Hawkmoth!Lila takedown. 33k.

On The Prowl - Criminal CN. Also on ffn.net. Good story and TOTALLY a classic, but also uses 'ravenette' and 'sapphire orbs' unironically. The writing is okay if a little melodramatic. 53k.

Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List For Feminist Purposes - pretty much what it says on the tin. Sentimonster!Adrien. 7.8k.

i think it's time i told you (i'm a fan of your universe) - ladynoir proposal. v v nice. Just 5k. Smidge of angst.

The Ladyblog Comment Section - what it says on the tin. 27k. Hilarity and crack.

spark - Tinder AU. Lots of Marichat. Angst with a happy ending. 49k. Slow burn w/ eventual identity reveal.

all dressed up and nowhere to go - No Miraculouses modern royalty AU - human Tikki and Plagg. Mostly DJWifi but a mild amount of adrienette and a smidge of chlogami. Includes arranged marriage Adrien x Alya but they don't end up together. "Twenty-five-year-old Marinette is a wedding dress designer, business blooming in her trusty shop, Ladybug Bridal. When the engagement of Prince Adrien Agreste and Ancient Princess Alya Césaire is announced, all she expects is an influx of work. What she gets instead is... a bit different." 35k.

tangled ribbons - Ao3. ballet/dance AU (no miraculous). Adrienette with some DJWifi and human Tikki & Plagg. "Marinette is a small studio dancer who wins a scholarship to a summer long ballet intensive. Adrien is a famous ballet dancer who would rather be at home than at said intensive. The end of the summer will bring about a showcase that could make Marinette's career, if she can ignore Chloé and focus on something other than Adrien." 82k. The slowest of burns.

What about the beach scene? What about the "delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta" that Katniss felt in the morning after? What about the hunger that Katniss ONLY felt with Peeta's kisses (she never felt that with Gale)? What about the way she craved his affections and his kisses? What about the giddiness she felt when he was rescued, the romantic reunion she expected to have with him and the heartbreak she felt when she realized she had lost him? What about the times she admitted she had feelings for him? What about the fact that she told him she loved him for real and chose to spend the rest of her life with him, despite all of her fears regarding romantic relationships? What is all of this supposed to mean? That she loved him as a friend? 🤦🏻‍♀️

So, that handsqueeze at the end of Oblivio, am I right?

Matt is going through hell from the start of the Defenders to the end of the Defenders. He lost all of his friends, and the woman he thought was the love of his life. He’s a mess, living with the guilt that comes with being the surviving, more stable half of an abusive relationship. He survived, just to see this woman rebirth into a psycho Zombie version of herself that he’s going to have to put down.

And yet, while Matt is at his lowest and most alone, Jessica Jones comes along and brings out a side of Matt we’ve really only heard about. This Matt is funny, and quick witted. He’s willing to team up and trust.

We see Matt smile more along side Jessica in the Defenders- genuine smiles, not sarcastic, ironic, self-deprecating smiles- than he has in the entire series so far. Every single time Jessica gives him crap about something, he’s not frustrated and defensive like he can be with Foggy and Karen, he seems genuinely amused by her. And perhaps that’s because it’s clear very early on that Jessica respects and admires him. That she’s actually willing to forsake her loner tendencies to work with him. And while she will not fall into taking him half as seriously as he takes himself, she accepts that he is Daredevil.

Almost instantly upon meeting Jessica Jones, Matt treats her like a friend and an equal. There’s no hiding from her, no angst driven urge to protect her from himself. She would never put up with that crap. They’re a team. She can handle it. And because of that he can be both Matt and Daredevil with her.

Something he has never been able to reconcile with any of his relationships thus far.

Matt and Karen were drawn together because of their similarities- similarities which when combined knock them both off balance. They are both striving to be atone for every past sin. They are both striving to do it all themselves. They are both convinced- if they just try harder- they can save everyone. They can fix every thing. They can figure it out. While this can make them good friends, it makes them terrible at offering support and balance in a relationship. They need people who can balance them from spiraling out of control. People who can benefit from, and value their altruism. People who can let Matt and Karen’s tendency to strive towards the light inspire them to be better. People who will support them in their fight, while reminding them not to be martyrs. People who will love and respect their light, while not letting it consume them. That’s why Karen and Frank click together perfectly. And that’s why Matt needs someone like Jessica.

Jessica tempers Matt’s sense of purpose and Matt pulls Jessica into one.

Matt Murdock, who likes to think of himself as God’s soldier, who thinks the world is on his shoulders and tends to make everything his responsibility is the perfect balancing act to Jessica Jones’s refusal to play the role of super hero. To her utter shirking of the very idea that any form of special strength could suddenly make her responsible to use it.

They both have a tendency to be wallowing assholes. But they’re assholes that have very little tolerance with each other’s coping mechanisms and would drag each other out of their slumps real fast. Jessica will mock Matt for his self flagellating hero complex, and his inability to stop long enough for a rib to heal endlessly, and Matt would never stand for Jessica’s tendency to lock herself away and self destruct into a hot mess for months.

They both have pasts. And they both already know about each other’s pasts. In their brief time together they found a way to tell each other that they knew about the cards they were holding close, the ones they kept from everyone. And never once did either of them try to mock, exploit, or discredit the other person with that information.

Jessica doesn’t care about saving people. Matt cares about saving everyone. They both save each other- Jessica’s first time meeting Elektra is to slam a car into her, and the first time Matt is Daredevil around Jessica he saves her life

Jessica, while telling him his horns are stupid, still only ever supports Matt. She never tells him not to be Daredevil, even though she herself hates the idea of having to be a superhero. She understands what brought him here. And it seems to inspire her to stand up for something. To maybe be a little more than she was before.

So whether you love them as Bros or ship them romantically, I think it’s safe to say that Jessica Jones is the healthiest relationship Matt Murdock has had in a long time. And they just both deserve and need each other so much.