Maybe I Could Crack Open My Rewrite Doc Again... Make Her Sparkle...

i want this with marinette and gabriel too but it's much harder than with adrien because the show doesn't give much to work with. alas i try to build something in a rewrite bc the protagonist and antagonist should have fun dynamics or it kills me.

marinette and gabriel: a girl and her hero. what she strives to be. a man who made his own fashion house and is a household name. she loves his work, wants to be him. gabriel sees a lot of himself in this girl his son brings around-his childhood, before he was successful. with superpowers that give access to emotions, it's hard Not to feel empathy, and there's a reason gabriel stays mostly in his house. but... shes talented. when he's not hawkmoth, all he does is necessary work, but it wouldn't hurt to let her shadow him doing things he already has to do anyways.

ladybug and hawkmoth: i hate you give me your miraculous (starting out with hawkmoth seeing her as a child who simply can be manipulated into doing what he wants. and marinette, who is used to kind adults who have her best interests in mind, is vehemently betrayed by the notion of an adult so horrible - despises him. the manipulation doesn't work, it becomes more and more vitriolic. theyre so similar, and they hate that about one another. it doesn't matter she's a child anymore; she's a brat with a weapon too powerful for her to understand, etc.)

marinette and hawkmoth: marinette despises him as always, but the power imbalance makes her incapable of doing anything. marinettes less of a fawner though. less conversation, more her considering ways to escape. meanwhile hawkmoth still has a soft spot for the fashion girl his son likes - so he isn't as horrid as he Could be.

ladybug and gabriel: gabriel is marinettes hero and ladybug is gabriels fucking worst nightmare and both of them have to tamper it down. ladybug can't hero worship, she's the hero! gabriel can't openly show any disdain -- who the fuck hates ladybug! similar to chat noir and gabriel, it's a power reversal where ladybug technically has more power over gabriel, but gabriel has the potential to use her seeking adult validation and approval to try and learn more about her. especially since marinette looks up to him. becomes more sour as marinette becomes more disillusioned with his parenting style; she would ask questions as ladybug she would never dare as marinette.

okay i will say one of the least utilized parts of ml is that the lovesquare isn't the only characters that can have multiple dynamics at once. and in fact one of my things i wanna do in a rewrite is have gabriel/hawkmoth have different dynamics with the main characters depending on persona.

for example; what is an interaction between hawkmoth and adrien agreste actually like? in a scenario where potentially hawkmoth finds out about ladybug being attached to a civilian AND having the excuse of knowing it because it's a popular model so it wouldn't out his identity, would he choose to endanger his son? or maybe would he do it himself instead of trusting an akuma, knowing he won't actually follow through with a threat to adriens life while an akuma would?

what's a dynamic between chat noir and gabriel? that's a superhero gabriel wants the miraculous from, but he can't be blatant about it, and more than that, he has no power over a superhero and no reason to dislike him. it's fascinating.

one of my fav fucked up things is the concept of adrien talking more to hawkmoth than his own father because gabriel learns that adrien is one of the most effective ways to bait ladybug. hawkmoth can read emotions, and one day he reads ladybugs enough when Adrien is in the vicinity- and woah, her emotions are so strong about him it's readable through the magical cloaking, even! he even justifies it morally because it's not like adrien is ever hurt. is it kidnapping if it's your own son? is it really hurting him if all your doing is playing chess with him on top of the eiffel tower, an unspoken threat of super powered violence enough to keep him from doing anything reckless? gabriel is spending time with his son /and/ getting the miraculous. and at the end of the day... when gabriel gets the wish, he can fix it all - so it'll be okay! :)

@wavebiders sorry to screenshot your tags but i agree with all of this so much + the examples. the messaging has always irked me about ml. for a kids show with an akuma of the day it's a pretty perfect set up to have those kids show episode formulas of learning a moral every episode but the morals ml teaches is, quite frankly, insane. which would be fine if it was for a little bit of an older audience but it's NOT. i dont know for some reason ive always seen miraculous as quite honestly pretty mean spirited in its storytelling...

like there's just so much going on in miraculous ladybug like it's a baby kids show that has akumas every week and is funny and has cute romance which is what i expected and i assume most people wanted. and then it also has insane themes from things such as having a miraculous that has a power of creating designer babies forced to do whatever you want; which is not inherently bad i actually think it's a fascinating topic to explore but maybe in a horror movie. not the baby kids show that is mainly a feel good romance? i suppose the idea is to make it more similar to avatar and other family focused shows where it is both fun but has adult themes that cater to parents watching, but in this case they could handle their more adult themes with like a smidgen more care than they do. instead they introduce shit like sentimonsters and waffle on the morality of doing stuff like: killing them. GIRL‼️ this is a baby kids show we're teaching children MORALS‼️ murder is bad guys. unless the heroes do it 💖

Man, Adrien learning about the lies really IS the new Adrien learning about Chat Blanc for the fandom, isn't it? I have seen so much fan content around it... Watch canon do the same fix where no one ever tells him and yet he's unable to fight in the final right because he just magically knows.

this blog is both me complaining and me talking about the 500 concepts miraculous ladybug proposes that makes me go insane and think about even though i think they were mistakes to include in a kids show. like there's two different shows in my head - miraculous ladybug a fun kids romp that teaches children morals, and there's a miraculous ladybug that is actually aimed towards an older (teenage) audience that is more serialized with more serious topics. right now ml is trying to do both and they suck dogshit at it.

someone's had to write a fic where adrien is told to wear his dead parents wedding rings and no one tells him of their importance so in an act of grief he does something like punch a mirror or flush them down the toilet and everyone has to deal with the fact that not informing adrien of his remote control autonomy has resulted in disastrous consequences right

i have so many problems this blog was actually a mistake because im actually letting it out for once it's like a fountain. it's like a geyser. im like yellowstone national park. rock lee letting go of his weights. i love this show it could have been good it has so many good parts about it. like truly all the lego pieces are here.

im coming back to her she'll never steer me wrong. my document will be opened again

my miraculous "enemies" au

i wanted to post something to give context to art i post so here it is! i think you can consider this my "miraculous rewrite" if you want to call it that...? but its just me wanting everyone trying to steal each others miraculous. that's literally it. i love drama. details under the cut:

The Premise:

When Fu was a child training with the Order, they left him to guard a Miracle Box for as long as possible without food or water. Eventually, Fu got curious - he opened the box and a beautiful array of animals spilled out. Tikki and Plagg act like the angel and devil on Fu's shoulder: Plagg, along with many of the other kwamis, urge Fu to use his Miraculous to transform in order to get food from the kitchens. Tikki warns him otherwise, but Fu transforms with the Peacock and the Black Cat, and the destructive power of his emotions go on a rampage, destroying the Order.

In the destruction, Fu loses most of the miraculous and the grimoire. They're scattered all across the world, falling into different people's hands. Tikki vows to help Fu rectify his mistake of trusting Plagg and help recover the lost miraculous.

What Does This Change?

Miraculouses and grimoire pages are spread around the world, so magic is pretty commonplace. Superheroes and supervillains have existed in Paris before "canon."

Adrien finds the Black Cat independently from the Guardian. He makes a deal with Plagg - freedom for freedom. Plagg gives Adrien powers that allow Adrien to get out of the house, and Adrien lets Plagg do whatever otherwise - no commands, unlike his past holders.

Hints of the Black Cat hit the news and Fu sees it. Fu is out of shape, and the Black Cat holder looks young. Tikki goes out to choose a new holder - Marinette. Marinette is mostly the same in this; she uses the Ladybug for stopping supervillains, but this time she doesn't have a partner.

The Black Cat has a terrible reputation... After all, Plagg was locked up in the Miracle Box and never used for a reason. Ever since its been out, people have used it for horrific purposes. Fu and TIkki are sure that Chat Noir must be up to something. If he's not, then it'd still be safer to keep Plagg in the box. Marinette, with no experience, takes their advice to heart.

Instead, she and CN are 'frenemies.' They end up working together to defeat supervillains, but before Ladybug gets the chance to take his Miraculous, something always goes wrong!

Chat Noir is unaware that Ladybug is working for the Guardian. He assumes she also gained her miraculous independently and he wants to be friends! He's never made friends before, though... why do his attempts keep going so poorly!?

When Chat Noir does figure out what Ladybug is trying to do, it turns into a competition on who can steal one another's Miraculous first. Plagg is adamant to never be put back in the box again.

When Chat Noir is first spotted in Paris, Hawkmoth doesn't reveal himself at all. Instead, he akumatizes people to try and lure CN (+LB) out and assess them. LB + CN are both unaware that the supervillains they put behind bars are actually akumatized. He tries to pit them against each other until the two accidentally break an object and discover an akuma. Oops :/

Eventually, after discovering Hawkmoth's existence, Ladybug and Chat Noir make a "truce" to work together to defeat him before getting back to their business (trying to take each other's miraculous lmao).

i have so many little things in this au and a bunch of doodles that i'll finish one day, but that's the general gist. later on, other characters get miraculous (also independently) which you know... it adds to it. writing isn't my personal forte and this is too much for more than the occasional comic from me. so i might write an outline for how i'd write the full thing at some point. (shrug)

TLDR: Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Hawkmoth all want each other's miraculous and team up and break up in different combos until eventually Ladybug and Chat Noir team up like in canon.

edit:

i think miraculous ladybug should be legend of korra season 1. in the sense there's like a romance plotline that drives a lot of character drama but the main driver of conflict is the setting itself of a nitty gritty under city with a lot of problems with a heroine slowly discovering it outside of its sparkly exterior - mostly set at night, noir type aesthetics and undercover missions, an intimidating faceless villain that manipulates crowds. the thing is that legend of korra also sucks to me but more in the political messaging it does (it doesn't let korra make any substantial changes to her world) but it's a shit ton better than miraculous ladybug. but generally i think lok season 1 is the Vibe and Tone that the miraculous with the current themes would most fit? like aiming for an older audience but not an ADULT show.

is miraculous s6 actually fleshing out the side cast? everyone say it's a joke rn