Chapter Text
anonymous asked:
Look I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and what if there’s no Chat Noir? What if there’s no shadow master? What if there’s even no Felix? What if it’s all just a bunch of cats? You might not believe me, I get it, but I have some memories of when I was akumatized, and I saw them, all the cats, and they seemed to all do their own thing. I’m telling you, it’s just a bunch of magical cats that follow Ladybug around, and hide somewhere when there’s no attack.
ladyblog:
(ง'̀-'́)ง there’s no way because felix is real and he and ladybug are definitely dating ladybug wouldn’t date a bunch of cats ew
also literally no one has ever remembered their akumatization, what’s the difference with you? come off anon and gimme an interview and we’ll talk
[#askumatized, #felix, #paris lb theory, #like dont get me wrong it’s interesting but it’s a little late now]
Alya is no stranger to online discourse. More than once, she’s jumped right into the heart of the fray; if she hadn’t been a part of it from the beginning. She’s not afraid to voice her opinion, argue it, and defend it, even if it seems unimportant. The point is to not back down, and she’d like to keep up her track record.
Something that is new territory for her, she’s rapidly discovering, is getting so much attention from the debating she does. It rarely becomes large scale, and only once had it come from her own blog. It might not be terribly fast, exactly, not compared to some she’s seen, but it’s definitely more than she’s used to, asks and messages trickling in about the “cats theory.” She has a newfound respect for those people, managing to keep up with it and still not lose their minds.
Perhaps her answer to that anonymous person shouldn’t have been so aggressive, as she guesses that’s what provoked people to send her messages in capslock and full of swearing towards them. More Felady shippers who fully believe—no, they know—that he exists and that they’re together. A smaller subset of people who don’t ship Felady (which she doesn’t understand) are also coming to try and disprove this new idea.
She’s surprised to find a small few who are excited about the cats, but she supposes there’s always someone.
A few urls she recognizes slide into her messages, mostly either laughing at her predicament—she’s gonna get Kim back for making it worse, damn him—or just wanting to privately discuss their opinions with her without feeding the fire. And Rose, fandom big sister that she is, checking in to see if Alya’s okay through it all.
It was one thing when it was anons attempting to bicker with each other through her, unnecessary as it is, but having people officially yelling at her for simply posting these “problematic” asks so they can have their fun, is where she draws the line. She doesn’t have a cavalry to call in, but she knows someone who will at least lend an ear to let her complain about this nonsense she didn’t want to be a part of.
Alya pulls out her phone, batting her Ladybug phone plug out of the way before pulling up her contacts and dialing her best friend’s number.
“Hey, Alya.” Marinette sounds tired, but she’s always tired these days. Alya chalks it up to bad planning and an irregular sleeping schedule. To be fair, her own isn’t any better.
“You’re never going to guess the ask I just got. I’m going to burn my computer.” She gives it a glare for good measure.
“Wait a second,” she says, voice a little foggy. “Let me pull it up.”
“Are you reading it?” Alya asks. “You’d better be reading it.”
“I’m reading it, I’m reading it,” Marinette defends. She’s quiet for a few moments, so Alya knows she’s actually reading the ridiculous excuse for an ask. “He? Is cats though? Like, I know some people refer to him as only “Chat Noir” but it’s all still just bunch of cats running around with Ladybug.”
“Felix’s cats. Felix and his many chats noirs. I’m pretty sure this transcends theory territory and goes into fact. I mean, what’s the likelihood this many people are wrong?”
“Who knows? Ladybug doesn’t talk about it—refuses to, which I personally don’t blame her for—and, you know, cats can’t exactly tell us whether or not there is a Felix,” Marinette says. “But I guess you’d know better than me, I hardly keep up on this stuff.”
Alya can’t help but smirk a bit as she leans back. “Thank you. One day I just know I’ll finally get an answer.” She glances at her computer screen, seeing asks beginning to pile up, and regrets it. “And then maybe I’ll stop getting harassed about this.” She doesn’t even want to be near it right now, and moves to lay on her bed.
“It can’t really be that bad,” her best friend asks, “right?”
“No, Marinette,” Alya starts, rolling on her back to stare at her ceiling. “You don’t get it. I’m getting literal anon hate for this. For the first time in my life. I didn’t ask for this! I’m just trying to run a blog, not start hypothetical fandom wars!”
“Er…” Marinette sounds like she’s having trouble following. “Fandom wars?”
“Look, I get it. Your lives are boring. You all need a little excitement every now and then. Sometimes it’s fun to imagine things that don’t exist. But I can’t deal with this anymore. It’s not just a bunch of cats.” Alya’s voice reaches an octave she didn’t know was possible as she throws her hand over her forehead.
“How do you know?” Marinette asks, playing the angel’s advocate, as always. “I mean, what exactly about him screams “real” to you?”
Alya sits up suddenly, remembering the one thing that pulled her (usually rational) brain over to the dark side. That perfect little slice of a video that tugged at her heartstrings in all the right ways.
Marinette needs to see it.
“Oh, I know for sure he is,” she assures her. “I have proof.”
She rushes back over to her computer, clicking through her files until she pulls up the video she’d downloaded from the Ladyblog the other week. Black and white grainy footage that seals the deal. It has to, because Alya’s too deep in the fanfics for it all to be a lie.
“I sent it to you,” she tells Marinette, spinning around in her desk chair and taking her phone out from between her ear and her shoulder. “Are you watching it?”
Her best friend makes a noise. Some sort of cross between a scream and a squeak. Like, if they’d had a child it would sound like whatever just came out of Marinette’s mouth.
“I know, right. That moment when the blond hair just pops up,” she sighs. “He’s pretty dreamy, right?”
“Mph. What are you?” Marinette says, which Alya immediately translates into What about Adrien?
“Calm down, Princess. Adrien’s not yours yet. Besides, what’s the fun in life if you can’t dream about handsome strangers in leather, am I right?”
“Wait, leather?” she questions a moment too late.
Marinette can sometimes be absent minded, but Alya doesn’t care. Sure, sometimes it means letting her best friend copy the last few answers of the homework or having to explain what an OTP is about five times, but hey, that’s what best friends are for.
“Yeah! Felix has to have some sort of protection in case he gets found, it’d be a nightmare otherwise.” Alya’s used to the questions, and fends them off easily. After all, what kind of professional fandom blogger would she be if she couldn’t?
“Why leather though? Aren’t the cats supposed to be enough? Isn’t that the whole point of him staying back, supposedly?”
She needs to try a different angle, but she’s sure she can get Marinette to agree with her on this. “It’s like… Ladybug’s lucky charm. Even he needs a backup plan.” “Right… Okay, Alya.” She can hear the eyeroll from kilometers away.
“Don’t you “That sounds fake, but okay” me, missy, I’m serious.”
“In my defense, it does. What normal guy wears leather willingly?” Marinette sounds skeptical.
Which is fair, she supposes, except Alya can name at least five people off the top of her head, but she chooses the one person she knows will make Marinette change her mind about Felix’s good looks.
“Adrien Agreste. Winter collection last year. You screamed for like five hours over it.”
Marinette starts screaming again. Alya sighs; just like old times. Except then it goes on. And on. And on. Adrien freakouts are nothing new, but really, this is a little concerning. “You okay there, Mari?”
And then, the screaming stops.
“What? Oh. Um? I’m fine.” She hears Marinette rustling around with something that’s probably papers. “Don’t we have physics homework to do? You should go work on that. I gotta go. Bye!” Marinette rushes out, hanging up without giving her a chance to reply.
Alya smiles. Typical Marinette; always needing to go the long way around to get to her homework. Adrien would probably be glad to know he’s been the source of many of her physics homework assignments actually getting finished.
She swings her chair back around and looks at the Ladyblog, hoping maybe the night’s discourse will have moved onto something else. It hasn’t. 17 new messages in her askbox. This is going to be a long night.