#kitty section

Hey, I made a list of 48 songs I think would fit well being in-universe Kitty Section songs.

I also wrote up a google doc with the song's possible underlying meaning/in-universe explanations for each entry (: I've also included an "Unreleased songs" tab for funsies.

(Y'all know I love a hastily thrown-together fake book cover.)

I present my four-chapter work, It Comes Without Warning, a story about Luka on the night he was akumatized as Truth. Not only did Hawkmoth prey on his emotions, but he got dumped, and he found out who his biological father was.

But so did the rest of the world.

Now he has to figure out how to pick up the pieces of his life and move forward.

This is a character study of Luka, who (in my opinion) is given short shrift, even by many Luka fans. He's not the perfect boyfriend, emotive and supportive in all the right ways. No one is perfect! In this work, I hope to show everyone his mental struggles, which are all of our mental struggles.

Thank you to @mlbigbang peeps for your support, thank you to @uptoolateart and @raspberrycatapult for beta reading this, and everyone look forward to artwork by @kittysuicoffee and @sunshinecloud-03 that will accompany this fic!

Link Herę: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77702536/chapters/203530026

Edit!!

You know, generally speaking, it's a good idea to actually include info about the story in your announcement!

Once upon a time, Truth and Lie bathed together in a pond. Lie stole Truth’s clothes and ran off. Refusing to wear Lie’s filthy rags, Truth walked back to town, exposed. Upon seeing the naked Truth, the people there screamed and turned away toward the well-dressed Lie. Perceiving herself ugly, Truth felt ashamed and hid in a well.

Rating: T

Relationships: Anarka Couffaine & Juleka Couffaine & Luka Couffaine, Luka Couffaine & Jagged Stone, Luka Couffaine & Alix Kubdel

Characters: Luka Couffaine, Anarka Couffaine, Juleka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alix Kubdel, Jagged Stone (Miraculous Ladybug)

part 1 here! just a little reminder that this is very far from canon. like egregiously far. sorry.

my dumb ass forgot when i was writing part 1 that luka can also play the violin! so uh. my bad! so, jumping off that:

luka sometimes plays violin in their songs. sometimes he just switches between violin and guitar if there's only violin for a small part of the song, but if there's violin throughout the whole song, they:

have juleka play guitar for that song and pass off bass note duty to ivan, on various bass percussion

have rose, who learns to play guitar a little (but is nowhere near luka or juleka's skill) play guitar while singing, if bass guitar is really necessary for that song

have nino come in as a guest artist and play guitar

have kagami come in as a guest artist and play violin in luka's place (like i mentioned in part 1)

record the violin part separately in studio, and have one of the above guest artists only play when they're performing live

or just don't have guitar in that song!

moving on from guitar/violin: as i said in part 1, they tend to avoid backing tracks because live music gives them more flexibility, and ivan often plays orchestral percussion in their songs, not just drumkit. because of this, they often end up lugging a lot of orchestral percussion on stage, which is a hassle because a lot of it is big and not all that portable. but it does mean that ivan is very interesting to watch during live performances, because he's constantly moving from instrument to instrument and picking up various mallets and using them in various ways, and generally just. playing instruments half the audience didn't even know existed

sometimes rose will walk around while she sings, and also play a bit of percussion. she can't play the more difficult stuff, but even if she doesn't properly "learn" each instrument, she can definitely remember to hit a certain instrument with a certain mallet at specific times, especially since she's already a musician and therefore has a decent sense of rhythm.

it would be like... "hey i can't play glockenspiel and tubular bells at the same time, rose can you do it" and then she would learn just enough to play that part of the song

that being said, she does end up with a half-decent grasp of a lot of orchestral percussion after a few years because of this, even if she didn't intend to

sometimes rose ends up being fitted with a headset mic instead of a handheld microphone so she can use both hands while moving around, whether that's for guitar or percussion

rose also derives IMMENSE joy from hitting gongs. so does ivan, but if there's a more difficult percussion part that needs to be played simoutaneously, then rose gets to smack the gong and it makes her very happy

a gif of her picking up the mallet with one hand (and holding a mic with the other, making sure to keep her face & the mic far-ish away from the gong so the already-loudass instrument doesn't get amplified by the mic) and smacking the gong, with a HUGE gremlin grin on her face, becomes a meme— at first just in the kitty section fanbase, but later across the wider internet

the meme boosts the band's popularity quite a bit. they go from "99% all their listeners are people who just heard them performing on the deck of the liberty while they were walking by the seine and decided to check them out on spotify later" to having a decent chunk of their fanbase being ppl that haven't actually seen them irl

they are still not that mainstream though, i'm thinking like... under 50k on spotify. their social media posts will have comments and likes but the average joe won't have heard of them, iykwim.

(maybe slightly brainrotted bc of how much i'm projecting my own music taste onto them & how far they are from canon kitty section. they will not be rock artists in these hcs i'm sorry i just don't like rock. but you can't say i didn't warn you about the brainrot!)

(also some things i mention are technically canon, not headcanons, but i thought i'd mention them anyway just because)

their music is like a a lovechild between melanie martinez and sofia isella— deceptively childish, saccharine, nursery-rhyme-esque, creepy, and high-pitched like melanie martinez, and with the most artistic, gorgeous, rhythmically & texturally beautiful, haunting lyrics i've ever heard, like sofia isella

think of it like… lacey games, or any of that hello kitty analogue horror but in song form. it starts off fine, then gradually gets creepier, and by the end it's barely recognisable as the same genre, but there isn't a pinpointable moment the tone switched

also, related to the lacey games thing: almost all their songs are on one lacey games fan playlist or another. the vibe just fits super well

also ofc the background music is kickass because luka, juleka and ivan (and adrien! i love fics where he pulls a mdc and joins as a secret member) need to shine as well!

as just mentioned, adrien occasionally performs with them (with a mask on, and only his first name on credits. idk if that would work legally but y'know what this is a world of magic jewellery and tiny gods fuelled by cookies, i can bend french law)

(i don't care about anything beyond season 3 btw. myléne is not the tambourist either, season 6 is just… no.)

ivan also plays orchestral percussion as well as drumkit bc you can make some really sick sound effects with them and i think they could utilise that super well

specifically thinking about the lovely bass sound a timpani gives— it's still a pitched instrument, unlike the bass drum on a drumkit, so it can be matched nicely to harmonise or be discordant with the other parts, which would be a wicked way to make a song subtly sound more wrong as it plays. would also work with bass guitar or other bass instruments, but percussion def sounds different from strings, and i'm pretty sure it's a lot louder too, so they can have a really loud bass note without having to electronically boost the guitar. also i just think timpanis are cool

or, in slightly more layman's terms: the timpani is a set of really low drums, and they all at different pitches, unlike the big drum in the centre of a drum kit, so you have more variety. this variety can be used to start off the song playing at pitches that match well with the rest of the instruments, then end off playing at pitches that do not match well with the rest of the instruments, making the song sound off. because the timpani goes super low, it's often quite difficult to tell the difference between the individual pitches. therefore, playing it at a pitch that doesn't match the rest of the song will not be very obvious, but the listener will (unless they're completely tone deaf) still subconsciously be able to tell that something is a bit off, making it a good tool to subtly change the song's tone. this will also work with other instruments, such as the bass guitar (which they already have), but the timpani is a lot louder and has a different texture from the bass guitar, so it would still be useful. also (as stated above) i just think timpanis are cool

i also think a glockenspiel (metal xylophone, sounds like bells) could sound both sweet like a nursey rhyme and creepy like gothic church bells or something (idfk i'm not christian) and that would be sick

rose can do a really cool thing with her voice where she can make herself sound like a broken record— like with the little breaks in her voice, repeating the same sound over and over. it sounds mechanical as hell and not like someone actually singing like that. it's one of her trademark techniques, and they use it in almost every song

they avoid using backing tracks when possible. they just think it's cooler to have everything played on live instruments— it allows them to take more creative liberty with the tempo, and generally be more flexible. they don't never use backing tracks, just a lot less than most other contemporary bands.

marinette is an honorary member bc she's their designer!

marinette, nath, and alix also all make an album cover or something at some point. idk i just like art club solidarity

idk what marc could do… i feel like song lyrics are a little bit out of his wheelhouse. maybe he's just moral support or smth

alya would definitely promote their stuff on the ladyblog

their first song is still "i love unicorns!" and it starts super sweet (rose is not a heavy metal singer here i'm sorry) and nursey-rhyme-y and then it gradually morphs into a minor key and discordant notes and creepy sound effects and becomes like… the singer is begging unicorns to not gore her with their horns kinda deal

honestly that may not be a very good song concept, but whatever. i'm trying my best ok

their other songs don't have the same names as in canon though, except for maybe adrien's love song

max set up their website, with alya's help, and marinette and nath are in charge of the visual aspects of it

myléne runs said website though, she just didn't code it. if she wants something adjusted, she asks max or alya for help, but she's the one who figures out what needs to be changed and how to get more engagement and what fans want from the website, etc

alix is in charge of stage design for their performances

kagami plays violin, and sometimes she pops in with some nice violin solos; you'd be surprised how well violin can blend into contemporary music— once again, look at sofia isella!

marinette also designs merch