Stuck In A Bakery (With You): Author's Notes and Extended Ramble!

Greetings to all who've stuck it out this far!

When I started this story, I figured that I could get a good dozen chapters out of it... a few cute scenes here and there... but as so often seems to happen, it took on a life of its own. I got into the groove knocking out one chapter after another, one per day for a long while during the early parts of the quarantine, and it became a very entertaining writing challenge for myself.

Those familiar with my other work know that I have many established habits. I rarely restrain myself with chapter length; my all-time record was a chapter in Someone To Watch Over Me that broke 16,000 words. (I did, at least, have the decency to label that one as 'double-sized!' comic book-style.) I do not start a story without having a clear conception of where it's going to end, and how. I leave myself breadcrumbs at the end of each chapter to guide me to where the next chapter's going to go.

But this time around... with my readers (my regulars and newcomers alike) all shaken up and trying to get their bearings in the early days of the stay-at-home orders... that didn't feel right. I wanted to put something out quickly and regularly for people to enjoy, with a little piece of the real world around us embedded in it, but NOT dwelling on the most uncomfortable parts of that reality. A virus is out there, but none of my characters were going to suffer unduly, let alone worse; this is, after all, the Miracuverse, a place that deserves to be more brightly-colored and always have some happy ending at the end of it.

So, here we are. Sixty-one chapters (well over DOUBLE my previous high!), each of them under 3,000 words. I would've put money down against that before I got on a roll. Balcony confessions, staggered reveals, surrogate father-future son-in-law talks, teenage hormones and the perils that they carry, flirtations and jitters, artistic license on a Miraculous's limitations, conference calls, nighties and shower shuffles, The Talk, the Kagami Problem, and the joys of an extended Ladybug story _without_ any actual fight scenes. What more do you want?

(Well, we know what SOME of you wanted. But sweatier snugglebunnies are in Delicate, one of my other ongoing stories, and my only one that's aged-up and ready for more mature behaviors. These two kids are 14-15, and at that age, I like to phrase it as "they know that sex exists, they realize that it's getting closer to them every day, there is a real and attractive person right there in front of them who seems to be just as into them... but, deep down, they still view it as SLIGHTLY scarier than Hawkmoth.")

"Why is it ENDING now?" Well... it may have started without a clear end in mind, but it was at heart a story about a concept - Adrien quarantined in the Dupain-Chengs' house - and he is no longer there. Real-life Paris is slowly regaining a semblance of normality... and so shall the Miracuverse. I do not want to simply wave a wand and turn this into some kind of Ladybug Cures Coronavirus fairy tale; it is still a reality there, as it is here. But neither do I want to turn this into something fully open-ended, because that lends itself to simply making up things for them to do instead of leading the plot somewhere. That "And then they did this, and then they did that, and then they did this" feeling can be very disappointing in the long run, because the wheels are spinning but the car's stuck in Neutral and it's not going anywhere good. And if it never ends, when would I have time to start something new, and maybe even better?

On Kagami... This is, of course, the new reality that we find ourselves in, here in the hiatus between Seasons 3 and 4. Season 3 had MANY ups and downs, a few episodes that were head-scratchingly twisted (my pile of reaction fics/chapters to Puppeteer 2 alone demonstrates that), and the usual if-only-episodic-continuity-existed grumbling. But one thing that it did do is to establish Kagami as the right kind of rival for Adrien's affections. Someone who isn't a scheming liar like Lila or a self-absorbed diva like Chloe, not the ice queen that a gripped-by-infatuation Marinette first viewed her as, but someone also worthy of Adrien's time and attention. A good person, a friend to both of them, and a strong leg of a trio of friends, not an interloper.

How does Marinette deal with a rival that she not only likes... but can plainly see that Adrien cares for, too, and could be very, very good to and for the boy that she loves?

THAT is the reality for Season 4; working from that starting point and seeing where it leads. I've tried to address it in different ways in different stories; playing off Adrigami not having quite started yet (A Little Promise I Made Myself, It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time), having two I'm-taken-now teens discover what was hidden (After The Storm Breaks), or a state closer to canon in which it's partially started between Kagami and Adrien but there are still doubts in the air (this story, Throw Me Around Like One Of Your French Girls). There are lots more angles left to explore, and there's also Luka to consider, who was basically Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Story. Sorry, Lukanette fans, but I had enough worries and pining in the Adrigaminette triangle to consider expanding that here. And, after all, this was _supposed_ to be just a series of short snippets...

I hope that no one feels like I have trivialized COVID-19 or its real-world impact; that was never my intent. The feedback has been consistently and delightfully positive, but still... there is always that little worry in the back of my mind that this will have seemed like pandering. This was a Miraculous story set in a COVID-present world, not a COVID story with Miraculous characters pasted into it, if that makes sense to you.

If you're young enough or otherwise confused by all the references in our one and only set of Akumas... yes, that was an ABBA tribute band. Google 'em if you must. You have no idea how much their music pains me, and that is a running gag in one of my writers' groups, so some sort of commemoration of that seemed... appropriate.

I will be continuing with Delicate (my NSFW work-in-progress) and doubling back to Throw Me Around Like One Of Your French Girls (which IS still a work-in-progress, I assure you; it merely got shelved while this ongoing project seized control of my old brain.) After those are complete... who knows?

As always... I thank each and every one of my readers, named and anonymous, happy and concerned, those who 'got it' and those who didn't seem to, everyone who stuck it out through all of this madness and is reading this now. Your feedback, warts and all, is what keeps me typing, and often helps drive the story forward. As Nick Frost said in Shaun of the Dead, after a particularly brutal-but-silent bout of flatulence... "I'll stop doing 'em when you stop laughin'."

So keep laughin', keep enjoying these, keep letting me know when you do and when you don't, stay safe, play it smart in this worldwide crisis, take care of your loved ones... and stay strong. As long as you and I and the other readers find each other in places such as this... none of us are going through this alone.

- DFC

7/21/20