Miraculous Beta (project closed)

12 jan 2019

The feedback survey has closed with 31 responses! These next few weekends, we’ll be making decisions and setting up for the revamp. We hope to have it done before February, at the very latest early/mid-February.

Until then, we’d like to apologize for being slow on matches. We’re really excited to review your feedback and get the revamp up and running! We’re ready to make Miraculous Beta a better resource for fic writers and readers both :)

12 jan 2019

The feedback survey has closed with 31 responses! These next few weekends, we’ll be making decisions and setting up for the revamp. We hope to have it done before February, at the very latest early/mid-February.

Until then, we’d like to apologize for being slow on matches. We’re really excited to review your feedback and get the revamp up and running! We’re ready to make Miraculous Beta a better resource for fic writers and readers both :)

thu jan 3, 2019

It’s been two years! We started Miraculous Beta back in December 2016 during the long, dry hiatus before season 2. Since then, we’ve received dozens of submissions and learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work when pairing betas with fic writers. With the start of 2019, we think it’s a good time to make some major updates to Miraculous Beta and reintroduce ourselves to the current fandom!

Here are some ideas we’re thinking about:

a system for fanfic writers who use Miraculous Beta to send us their published stories for us to reblog

expanding to include meta writers

weekly/monthly grammar and writing tip posts

masterlists or links to masterlists of characters, locations, akuma, etc.

a system for beta readers and writers to be re-paired when needed

contacting beta readers and fic writers through email rather than Tumblr (this comes with advantages and disadvantages)

For those who have signed up with us before, here are some changes that we already know will be made:

Currently, beta readers sign up as “always ready to read” and are contacted (potentially multiple times) whenever a fic matches their skills and info. In the future, beta readers will submit a form every time they’d like to beta a fic. We think this will give readers more flexibility and let more people sign up.

If you signed up or sign up as a beta reader before changes are made, we’ll contact you through Tumblr in the next few weeks. You will no longer be on a permanent list.

The writers and readers sign-up forms will have updated options (details on this pending)

Before we make any changes, we need your feedback and ideas!

Fic writers, beta readers, casual fanfic readers who are just finding out about us now — please take THIS SURVEY to let us know your thoughts! We want to become a better resource for the writers, readers, and editors of this fandom, and to do so, we need your input <3

We plan to close the feedback survey on Thursday, January 10 and announce changes a few weeks later. In the meantime, beta and fic sign-ups will be open as usual. Just know that it’s currently more difficult to pair up fics since our beta readers list is outdated, so we’ll be slow. We especially encourage beta readers to wait until the changes are put in place to sign up.

thu jan 3, 2019

It’s been two years! We started Miraculous Beta back in December 2016 during the long, dry hiatus before season 2. Since then, we’ve received dozens of submissions and learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work when pairing betas with fic writers. With the start of 2019, we think it’s a good time to make some major updates to Miraculous Beta and reintroduce ourselves to the current fandom!

Here are some ideas we’re thinking about:

a system for fanfic writers who use Miraculous Beta to send us their published stories for us to reblog

expanding to include meta writers

weekly/monthly grammar and writing tip posts

masterlists or links to masterlists of characters, locations, akuma, etc.

a system for beta readers and writers to be re-paired when needed

contacting beta readers and fic writers through email rather than Tumblr (this comes with advantages and disadvantages)

For those who have signed up with us before, here are some changes that we already know will be made:

Currently, beta readers sign up as “always ready to read” and are contacted (potentially multiple times) whenever a fic matches their skills and info. In the future, beta readers will submit a form every time they’d like to beta a fic. We think this will give readers more flexibility and let more people sign up.

If you signed up or sign up as a beta reader before changes are made, we’ll contact you through Tumblr in the next few weeks. You will no longer be on a permanent list.

The writers and readers sign-up forms will have updated options (details on this pending)

Before we make any changes, we need your feedback and ideas!

Fic writers, beta readers, casual fanfic readers who are just finding out about us now — please take THIS SURVEY to let us know your thoughts! We want to become a better resource for the writers, readers, and editors of this fandom, and to do so, we need your input <3

We plan to close the feedback survey on Thursday, January 10 and announce changes a few weeks later. In the meantime, beta and fic sign-ups will be open as usual. Just know that it’s currently more difficult to pair up fics since our beta readers list is outdated, so we’ll be slow. We especially encourage beta readers to wait until the changes are put in place to sign up.

——

The Emilie & Gabe Boulangerie Patisserie. They’ve owned this place for almost twenty years.

Growing up, Emilie loved watching as her aunt made her favorite desserts. Something as simple as a madeleine had always made her so happy because it was made with so much love. Emilie dreamed of the day she could give other people that feeling.

And she has. After months of planning and disagreeing and “Why can’t it at least be ‘Gabriel’ instead of ‘Gabe’?” Emilie got what she’s always wanted: a bakery. They’re pretty popular, too. She was proud of their progress.

Though it took a lot of convincing, Gabriel eventually grew to tolerate their shop and their house. At first, it seemed too small. He was used to so much…more. But after settling down and having their son, he realized they didn’t need more than the four floors they had.

Compromise was the key.

——

Read the rest on AO3 and let me know what you think:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361432/chapters/38287229

My secret santa gift to @slowdragon25​ as part of @mlsecretsanta 2017! They say to write what you know, and I was sick the week I wrote this.. you can imagine what happened. I hope this friendship fic with a dash ladrien brightens your holidays. 

Beta’d by the spectacular @dragonspen​, without whom I would be a mess

(btw @miraculousbeta is sent from heaven to all the stressed ml writers out there!)

Adrien’s been kidnapped.

Logically, Nino knows that’s highly unlikely. Adrien has the Gorilla and his house has more security than a fort, but Nino’s gone through the options. His best friend hadn’t shown up to school in two days now. He could be sick, but that wouldn’t explain why he wasn’t answering his phone. He could be grounded, but Adrien had seemed pleased with the results of his English exam last week. So if his grades were as perfect as always and he wasn’t answering his phone, then that only left one option. He was kidnapped by a highly trained squadron of ninjas, being held for ransom.

Hi! I’m looking for a Beta Reader for my Miraculous Ladybug fics!

I’m looking for someone with writing experience, even if it’s just writing fics.

One moment there’d been a wall of tinted glass, the next there was only blue sky, sparkling debris, an akuma leaping off into the distance, and her own falling form, reflected in the mirrored siding of the skyscraper she’d been safely standing in a moment before.

Alya squeezed her eyes close.

——–

Marinette didn’t have time to think. She’d shoved people out of her way and swan dived out the gaping hole before she could finish saying “spots.” The wind ripped past her ears. Her ungloved hands struggled to stay straight against the force of it. Just one meter below her was Alya, spread eagle, resistant; all Marinette had to do was fall faster. She made herself narrower, sharper, a stiletto slicing through the atmosphere, and willed the magic down – up – her body until it manifested as her trusty yoyo.

She was almost there-her fingers brushed Alya’s shirt-she got a fistful of the fabric-Alya’s eyes snapped open. Marinette was already twisting, sending up her yoyo with one arm and grabbing hold of her best friend with the remaining limbs. They slowed a scant few meters from the ground, and then they rebounded, hurtling back up the side of the skyscraper and into its chasm.

———

People were pointing and screaming, but all Adrien could do was latch onto Nino and stare at the empty space where his friends had been. Alya was gone, knocked back into the void by an akuma on its way out. And Marinette… sweet Marinette had jumped after her. He’d always thought her friendship with Alya was something beautiful, they were so loyally devoted to each other, but- but this was senseless, she can’t have thought she’d be able to save Alya, and now they were both gone. He should’ve been the one to go after her, if only he’d-

A red blur suddenly seized his attention. It went unnoticed by most of the class, but he knew her yoyo when he saw it, and he latched onto it like a lifeline. If anyone could pull off a miracle, it’d be Ladybug.

A heartbeat passed.

Two heartbeats.

Then a clump of classmates and heroine flew into the room, and Adrien’s heart soared. He shook Nino’s arm, making sure he was seeing this, seeing that they were all right, they’d been saved—

But when he looked again, there were only two figures. Two.

Adrien stilled as the grief stabbed him through the chest again, somehow deeper than before.

Alya had collapsed onto the floor, and the other girl-–Lady-, no Mari-, no–- was kneeling in front of her, frantically checking her over for injuries, asking over and over, Are you alright? Alya, are you alright?

Alya looked too disoriented to do anything more than stare at the girl in front of her and occasionally feel that the floor was still beneath her.

———-

The person shaking her was very familiar. Alya blinked, not entirely sure who the girl was, how they’d gotten there, or whether the ground would disappear again. She wasn’t entirely sure what was happening at all. A tiny voice in the back of her head noted with annoyance that she usually handled stress better than this; she’d handled Pharaoh, hadn’t she? That was when years of reporting finally kicked back in, and her brain began to string the known facts into some sort of narrative.

It started with a field trip to the Tour Montparnasse.

The Montparnasse was the second tallest tower in Paris and the one with the best view, because it was the only place you couldn’t see the Montparnasse from. They weren’t there for the observation deck today though – they were visiting one of the companies that worked there, the architectural firm Nathaniel’s mom worked for, on the 52nd floor.

They’d been there maybe five minutes before a stressed-out intern akumatized into a giant gorilla monster with a vendetta against architecture. The gorilla had roared, smashed several desks, and burst out the glass wall…

And unwittingly pushed Alya out the window as well.

Alya flinched as the terrible plummet began again, sky, and mirrors, and wind, and falling- but a warm touch brought her back. Nino was at her side. An impossible girl was in front of her. And somehow, she was here.

———–

Marinette had never seen Alya so freaked out before. She’d been nonresponsive for a few long and terrible moments, but Marinette could see that she was starting to recover. She’d finally noticed Nino’s gentle attempts to unclench her fingers from their death grip on the carpet, and she was making eye contact. Actually, she was staring. At Marinette.

Marinette suddenly remembered that, oh yeah, she’d just revealed her super-secret magical crime-fighting alter ego to her best friend and biggest fan, and to Nino, and to-

Aww, fudge.

————–

 Adrien couldn’t tell who it was in front of Alya, and the suspense was killing him. The girl had on a red suit and mask, but she was also wearing pink pants, grey sleeves, and strange jewelry that shined like the sun in his eyes.

Adrien didn’t understand why his brain had stopped functioning. Who had survived? He needed to know if that was Marinette or Ladybug.

Wait.

Oh.

Oh.

Ladybug finally registered the staring faces of her classmates. Her gaze skittered from Alya, to her peers, to the hole, and back again, and Adrien heard a new sound come from her throat. A frantic, high-pitched thrumming, like the sound of a hundred tiny beating wings, just barely audible to his cat-like hearing.

He wanted to say something reassuring, to tell her it was alright, but the secret of Cat Noir stilled his tongue and made it difficult to decide what to say.

An explosion across the street interrupted him before he could even begin.

Lady-nette gave a little start, and whipped around to watch the akuma across the street. When she faced the class again, the anxiety was still there, but it was second to the familiar determination in the set of her brow.

“Alya, no akuma chasing today, just – sit this one out okay? Madame Bustier, get everyone to the ground floor now, and not a word about this to anyone from any of you!”

The sounds of screaming and glass shattering were coming from across the street.

“I have to go deal with this,” she said unnecessarily, already heading towards the opening. She paused, remembering she was only partially transformed. Then she lifted her arms, flinging the transformation outwards. Waves of sparkling light ran across her form, leaving polka dots in their wake. She was radiant.

Adrien squinted but refused to close his eyes. Seeing Ladybug transform was something he’d daydreamed about for eons. He had imagined something more private, without the near-death experiences, but Ladybug and Marinette and Alya were all alive and that was what really mattered.

With two graceful lopes and a toss of her yoyo, Ladybug was gone, swinging off into an urban canyon.

It didn’t take long for Madame Bustier to regain her bearing. “Everyone to the stairs, please! Stay together!”

Most of the class started moving where directed, some of them nudging their peers forward when it became clear that not everyone was present enough to notice instructions. Adrien tried to hang back, but Rose noticed him and grabbed his hand.

“C’mon, Adrien.”

Adrien tried to pull away, “But-”

“We have to stick together!” She insisted, moving towards Juleka and the stairs. Rose really was too sweet – there was no way she’d miss him or any other classmate if they disappeared without any explanation.

“Aw, screw it,” Adrien grumbled. He might as well at this point. “Plagg, claws out!”

Rose dropped his hand and fell over in shock when the same light that’d covered Marinette before now encircled Adrien. A moment later, it was no longer Adrien who stood before her.

Chat Noir stopped to help Rose to her feet before he too left the building.

“Milady, wait!”

——————

 “Oh my god, it’s a square,” Alya said abruptly.

A few of her classmates turned to look at her in concern, but most of them were still trying to process the hole, the bug, and the cat in the room. Madame Bustier put her hands firmly on her traumatized student’s shoulders and steered her towards the stairwell with Nino in tow.