Miraculous Rewrite - Blog Posts

It’s Night Light!

(She is very silly :3)

Here’s all of them (so far?) together:

So… what’s next?

Now that Adrien’s done (and my brain is ready), it’s time to do the precious bug girl:

Marinette MTS

Like Adrien, she has four categories. They are as follows:

1. General Info

2. Personality

3. Key Relationships

4. Character Growth

1. General Info

Unlike Adrien, whose appearance doesn’t really change, Marinette MTS has a different look from her OG counterpart. She’s a bit shorter and more muscular. As a civilian her eyes are grey and her hair is dark brown. As Ladybug her eyes are still blue (heroes’ eye colors change to match their Kwami) and her hair is black at the roots, blue at the tips (that’s who my profile picture is, btw).

In addition to Marinette no longer being the sole protagonist and the side characters receiving more of a focus, she also won’t become the Guardian in MTS. For those who aren’t aware, the Miraculous will get scattered around the midpoint of Season 2, making the traditional role of guardian… kinda pointless. (There’s also the issue that making LB the Guardian and CN just a holder undermines the duality and balance essential to their relationship in Miraculous: The Series.)

2. Personality

Marinette is a creative, compassionate, energetic, and cheerful young girl. She has big dreams of becoming a fashion designer, but often struggles with prioritizing her ambitions. Regardless, she rarely backs down from a problem, and is willing to go all out when people need her help on both sides of the mask.

Unfortunately, her selfless nature is equally a vice and a virtue, and she will often try to help others even when it’s exhausting her. She hates saying no to people and letting them down. She might also accidentally shut people out when she’s overloaded, missing several things being said to her.

She’s extremely expressive. Whether she’s happy (a joyful person by default, though she’ll sometimes try to seem more okay than she really is to keep people from worrying), anxious (she often stumbles over her words and is less coordinated than normal), sad (she can be a pretty sensitive person, especially when concerned about her friends), or grouchy (just because she wants to help others doesn’t always mean she has to like it—I like to call her mannerisms when like this the “bug grumble >:(”, it’s one of my favorite moods of hers), you can usually tell how she feels just by looking at her.

3. Key Relationships

Chloe: The MTS MariChloe dynamic is drastically different from the original show. Instead of being Marinette’s childhood bully, she’s actually one of her oldest friends; the two have known each other since they began attending the same school. However, Chloe and Marinette’s relationship is still full of problems. Marinette is constantly pressured to help her with various things, along with having to do damage control whenever Chloe acts out toward others. Chloe does care about Marinette, but doesn’t listen to her or support her needs when she should. Eventually, maintaining this friendship becomes too much for Marinette, and she cuts Chloe off. For a while after that, the two have various spats (usually instigated by Chloe) before coming to an uneasy truce once Chloe starts to improve herself as a person. Things are never quite the same between them, as Marinette isn’t ready to renter a friendship with her.

Adrien: She is initially introduced to Adrien by Chloe, and doesn’t really see the appeal. She’s always been more interested in the fashion designers than the models. As she gets to know him, her opinion slowly shifts. Even though Chloe and her have their friendship break up, Adrien still wants to be her friend, and will even call out Chloe when she’s trying to mess with Marinette. His desire to handle things himself, rather than wanting her to help him all the time like many others, also makes her like him more. When she finally falls in love with Adrien, he gives her his umbrella, only it isn’t a perfect picturesque moment where he gracefully extends his umbrella to her. He gives her it, then proceeds to run out in to the rain, slipping on wet pavement multiple times while loudly yelling that “he’s okay”! Even though she fell in love with the flawed human side of Adrien, she’s still worried that he’ll think she’s just another fan girl fawning over him (spoiler alert: he doesn’t), so she’s extra careful not to overstep any boundaries.

Chat Noir: As I mentioned on the Adrien MTS post, they don’t exactly start on the best terms. Due to his rebellious attitude and more abrasive nature, she assumes that he’s similar to Chloe, only worrying about enjoying himself and carelessly ignoring the needs of everyone else. After the two begin working together as a proper team, she learns small pieces of information that help her realize that there’s more going on to him than she thought. Not only does he seem to live a much more restricted life under the mask, but he is actually capable of being extremely empathetic to others (this will be most especially shown in how he helps her through a particularly difficult moment as Ladybug, along with one of the akuma they encounter). She will inevitably friendzone him when he finally confesses, but that does not change the fact that he’s her partner and easily her most trusted ally.

Alya: Like Chat Noir, strangely enough, Ladybug and Alya Césaire do not exactly “click” like they’re supposed to. Alya is much more skeptical of these new heroes in MTS (I’ll elaborate further in her own post, but we decided to explore a pretty different direction for her character) and wants the public to know their identities. As a result, Marinette is pretty cautious around her, so they don’t become friends right away. That being said, Alya comes to be more understanding of the heroes once she’s put in a similar position to them, while Marinette is able to see Alya’s positive qualities (that being her integrity, honesty, and determination to keep the city safe). They finally become friends at the end of season 2. From there the two are able to learn more about maintaining a healthy friendship from each other.

Lila: The other reason Alya and Marinette don’t become friends right away. After ending things with Chloe, Marinette is somewhat fragile, and doesn’t have a lot of friends (there’s Kim and Adrien, also technically Chat Noir, but he knows Ladybug better than Marinette), with most of the class being wary of her due to her previous connection to Chloe (they don’t realize just how much Marinette actually kept Chloe from being worse yet). Lila, being a master manipulator in this version, instantly takes advantage of this vulnerability to befriend her. Their new friendship seems strong, even if Lila occasionally gives strange advice on how to get closer to her goals (though she’s quick to play it off as a joke if Marinette gets concerned). Slowly, cracks in Lila’s facade become more visible, and Marinette is forced to come to the horrifying realization that her new bestie is actually the supervillain Volpina. (Needless to say that this messes her up for a while.)

Other key dynamics include her parents (important to her but doesn’t affect the plot as much), Kim (another long story), Luka, Gabriel, Hawk Moth, Zoe, and Kagami (I might make them their own post tbh).

4. Character Growth

Marinette principally has two major character arcs (though there’s also a little something else done with her confidence as Ladybug in the final season, but that kinda leads into the finale so I’ll probably discuss it at another time).

Her season one arc is (as you might have guessed) learning to set limits with other people. Much like Chat Noir’s prime ability Wildcat is slowly damaging his mind, Ladybug’s prime ability, the Miraculous Ladybug (or the Miracle Cure if you prefer), is slowly consuming her energy. The fact that people are constantly asking her for favors as Marinette and she has to save the day as Ladybug is pushing her to her limit. Eventually, she can’t take anymore, and has to renounce the Miraculous Ladybug ability (this essentially restores her energy, but undoes all of the fixed damage from fights; we probably won’t tackle the concept of people dying from akuma attacks because we want to keep this as a kid-friendly show). Marinette then to cope with the guilt from all the damage she won’t fix (the fact that this Tikki is pretty self-righteous, and is constantly berating her for not doing so doesn’t help matters). After coming to terms with this, she’s learns to let others solve the problem sometimes (as the heroes try to limit damage from battles and the city rebuilds on its own), accept support from the people who care about her (notably Chat Noir and her parents), and accept the fact that she shouldn’t be responsible for everyone else’s problems (stops being Chloe’s friend due to her tendency to unfairly rely on Marinette).

Marinette’s long term arc largely revolves around her struggles with friendship and trust. I’ve already mentioned the Chloe and Lila problems, but these two different toxic friendships have two pretty different effects on her. The Chloe friendship she manages to process, and be okay with Chloe’s attempts to improve herself even if Marinette isn’t ready to rebuild that bond. Getting to know Sabrina and watch her and Chloe become friends is also a large part of this growth, especially since Marinette unlocks her new ability, Amulets that ward off akumas, at the end of season 2 after Sabrina’s second akumatization as Miraculer. The Lila friendship however… like I said, it hurts her pretty bad. Having two consecutive “friendship screw ups” makes her doubt herself and others. Since she was friends with Kim, Adrien, and Chat Noir before the Lila mess, those friendships remain stable: as does her friendship with Alya due to her getting to know her during the whole ordeal, but she does have a rough time making new friends. Zoe, a young girl who seems to have good intentions, but is quite dishonest (much like Lila) is the first example of this issue, and the two aren’t able to become friends until Zoe proves that she’s willing to be honest with others. Marinette and Kagami also have a rough start (due to Marinette not being sure what to make of this mysterious, intense girl). Fortunately, they still become good friends and Marinette is finally able to start moving past this fear (basically, the episode where Tomoe gets akumatized is gonna be the equivalent to Sandboy for MTS Adrien in terms of MTS Marinette’s development). (There’s also her slowly befriending most of the class, but those plots are much more self contained.) Either way, Marinette ends the show with a stable group of friends who want support her just as much as she wants to support them.

Conclusion:

That pretty much wraps up my notes on Marinette’s character. If there’s anything about her you’d like to know more about, feel free to send me an ask! (Also @dumblr-account, if there’s something you think I should have included, let me know.)

After this I’ll probably post a poll asking people about what (of three ideas I’m planning on talking about first) they’d like to see next, so stay tuned (if you want to, at least)!

Alright, you all voted (in spite of my prediction) and so I am more than happy to deliver!

Adrien MTS

His character notes are organized into four categories:

1. General info

2. Personality

3. Key relationships

4. Planned character growth

(This post may be a bit long, so the rest is under the cut)

1. General Info

I‘ll start with the biggest overall changes:

Adrien now has an equal importance to the story as Marinette (they are both the main protags of the show). This is because MTS has certain relevant plot lines that wouldn’t work with Marinette as the POV character. For example, the Agreste family backstory heavily impacts him and his life, so making Marinette the focus doesn’t work. This change was also made because duality and balance are major thematic motifs in the show, and having two MCs was one of the best ways we could implement this idea. (Also he’s just a fun character to write plots around!) On average he and Marinette would get equal screen time, but it fluctuates depending on the particular story (ex: he has a slightly smaller role in season 2 since he has less of a connection to Lila, a major antagonist in that season).

We are also not using the SentiAdrien plotline. This is due to it not being confirmed as canon at the time we began conceptualizing MTS, so we didn’t include it. And now the story doesn’t have room for it and all all the other aspects of the series that are more integral.

2. Personality

Adrien, while still trying to be nice to most of the people he meets, is a lot less mild mannered than his OG counterpart. A bit like the OG show’s S1 Adrien, only slightly more chaotic. He’s generally cheerful, enjoys making jokes (mainly as CN) and trying new things, and affectionate with his loved ones. Freedom is very important to Adrien, and he’ll often go to great lengths to try to hold on to it. Sometimes Chat Noir tries to put on a bit of a “tough guy persona”, but often melts at the first compliment or gesture from his partner.

Adrien does have the tendency to be very assertive and a tad brash (especially in the first season) because he worries that any sign of weakness will cause others to want to make decisions for him to “protect him”. Similarly, he hates being put on a pedestal, especially when it causes others to dismiss any part of him that doesn’t fit the image they have in their head (basically him being a famous model has greatly impacted how he wants to be perceived with others). He also can’t stand it when people close to him (mainly his father and initially his brother) hide things from him and try to control his actions and behavior.

3. Key Relationships

This is actually only a couple of his relevant relationships, seeing as there are a lot of them in MTS. If you want to know about a specific relationship I didn’t mention (or want more detail on a one I did mention, feel free to send me an ask!)

Marinette: The two start off with a casual friendship, as Marinette doesn’t really care that he’s a model. This actually makes Adrien more interested in hanging out with her, as she’s someone who sees Adrien as a person rather than a celebrity. He doesn’t really see her in a romantic light (or at least realize he does) until toward the end of the show, but still values her a lot. He also won’t be as oblivious as the OG Adrien about Mari’s feelings, and even though he doesn’t reciprocate them (consciously anyway), he appreciates that she actually likes him for who he is.

Ladybug: These two sort of get off on the wrong foot. Partially because of their Kwami’s influence (we may have given them some issues for the plot) and partially because Chat initially thinks Ladybug is a lot like his brother, the two don’t really work together, and often quarrel. He gets very paranoid about her wanting him to go along with her plans (due to his fear of being controlled) and thinks she’s bossy. After the midpoint of the S1 though, they get to know each other better. He learns that she is very different from who he thought she was. Realizing that she’s actually a vulnerable girl trying her best to be a hero and do right by others, causes him to become more concerned about her wellbeing. The two will also start to confide in each other about their insecurities, and near the end of S1, he finally falls in love with her. (He’ll be a lot less outspoken about it than the OG though, due to an incident that happened prior to this.) He wants to be the hero partner she deserves first and foremost.

Felix: The twins were very close growing up, especially the death of their mother and their father becoming more distant, but over the years, Felix began to change. He started to treat Adrien more like their father does, which caused Adrien to feel betrayed by his brother. Initially their relationship is cordial, with a bit of resentment on Adrien’s side, which grows until it reaches a breaking point. The two end up getting into a (somewhat one-sided) fight, that Adrien comes to regret. Fortunately the two end up getting a bit closer after this, before finally resolving their issues in the season finale (Felix learns Chat Noir’s identity, which changes how he perceives his brother, and Adrien realized that there’s been more going on with Felix than he thought after he gets akumatized into Calamity). From there the two regain their lost relationship, and do anything for each other.

Gabriel: Adrien’s feelings about his father are… complicated. On the one hand, he understands how hard things have been for his dad after losing the love of his life. In the other hand, Adrien can’t stand the way he’s acted for the past several years: isolating himself from everyone else, constantly trying to keep Adrien locked away and micromanaged, never just being there for his son, which is all Adrien really wants. On the other other hand, Adrien has a much harder time speaking up to him than he did with Felix (because well, it’s much easier to rebel against your twin sibling than your controlling father), and still wants to see the best in his dad (both because he cares about him and because Felix showed Adrien that change is possible). Throughout the third season, Adrien is able to learn a bit more about Gabriel and even confront him for how he’s treated Adrien (and Felix, but that’s another post). His father even seems like he’s starting to change after this, but… let’s just say something goes wrong.

Nino: Adrien is instantly charmed by his new “best bro”, who tries to teach him a bit more about normal kids work. Adrien tries to inspire Nino to apply himself a little more, at least when it comes to things that are clearly important to him. The fact that Nino likes his jokes definitely boosts his spirits. Adrien does start to worry about Nino after the Bubbler, as Nino’s extreme reaction (seeing as people usually can’t be akumatized unless it relates to a core issue that’s been festering for years) suggests that there may be more to his “cool dude” best friend than he thought.

Other notable Adrien/Chat Noir dynamics (for better or worse) include Plagg, Alya, Kagami, Luka, Chloe, Mylene (it’s a long story), Emilie, and Hawk Moth (he is their nemesis after all).

4. Character Growth

Ah yes, the bread and butter of storytelling. Adrien receives two major character arcs in the series. One principally taking place during season one, while the other is much longer. (He also gets minor, non-arc related growth, but I’m highlighting the most important details)

Arc #1: Adrien undergoes some pretty major changes in the first season. He starts off as the usual sweet, sophisticated, “perfect” Adrien who tries to smile through the loneliness and suffocating rules. When he meets Plagg, he gets a change to show how capable he can truly be, while getting the power to free himself from these confines. He especially loves using his Prime Ability, Wildcat (his equivalent to the Miraculous Ladybugs) to do so. It essentially turns him into an unbeatable fighting machine! Unfortunately, this power is more than a mortal being can handle, and slowly chips away at his sanity, amplifying his feelings of anger and determination to be free. Plagg also eggs him on, warning him that giving up on using Wildcats will make him “weak again”, which will cause him to go back to being helpless and submissive (MTS Plagg and Tikki are kinda jerks at first). He realizes that it’s too much for him to handle in the first midseason finale, and renounces the power. This causes his body to fall into a state of withdrawal and fatigue that takes multiple episodes to recover from. During this time, he learns the value of stability, responsibility, and that he can be empathetic while also not letting others control him. His arc culminates at the end of season 1, where he unlocks the power to purify akuma, understanding that destruction can be used for good when maintaining an inner balance.

Arc 2: The seeds of this arc are planted from the beginning, as using Wildcat caused him to unintentionally become destructive and dangerous, but the episode Copycat is what launches the arc. Facing someone who looks exactly like you, has all of your powers, who you (unintentionally) lead to get akumatized does a lot to a person’s self esteem. Even though he hasn’t fallen in love with Ladybug yet, he cares about their friendship, so fighting an imposter who completely obsessed with her causes him to fear becoming the same way. Naturally this causes him to panic when he does fall in love with her, making him take longer to even admit how he feels about her. (He also struggles after she rejects him, but is more worried about her potentially being afraid of him than the rejection itself.) The New York Special also deals with his insecurities, as he almost quits being a hero due to not wanting to hurt anyone else. Fortunately Felix (who he tried to give the ring to instead) talks him out of it. Finally he manages to overcome his fears in the final season, after he faces his nightmare in Sandboy (that being a Ladybug who believes he’s a monster), and acknowledges that he’ll never be that kind of person.

Conclusion:

Alright, that finishes a (general) overview of Adrien’s character in Miraculous: The Series. To anyone who actually had the patience to read all of this, thank you for listening to my ramble (believe it or not but there’s even more details I could have mentioned!)

Marinette is gonna be the next character I talk about (idk when I’ll actually write her notes out, but she is next) as a planned post. After that… I’ll probably either discuss the MTS love square, Tikki and Plagg’s changes, or one of the fabled Season One trio characters (Alya, Chloe, or Felix). As for now… stay miraculous!

I will start composing my plans for Adrien MTS, but here’s a little something I’ve been working on first:

If you don’t recognize who this is I honestly don’t blame you lol. Anyway #HawkMothStopMagicalGirlingYourAkumaChallenge (impossible?!?)

Poll time!

How do the miraculous get scattered during season 2?

Alright, sorry for the late response. This is a question I have to answer carefully because…

While I do know how this plot thread goes down (in fair detail too), we also have plans to eventually write out the MTS story as proper episodes some time in the (likely distant) future. For this reason, I should probably avoid completely spoiling the super major plot threads like this one. Here’s a vague (relatively) nonspoilery description of what happens:

Two Miraculous holders are fighting because one of them wants to steal the Miracle Box while it is the job of the other one to protect it. The thief gets the upper hand in the fight, so the protector is forced to use a fail safe mechanism that scatters the Miraculous all around the city so that the villain can’t get their hands on any of them.

Thanks for the ask! It means a lot to me that someone would be curious about MTS’s story.

How much of a role do the temp heroes have in the story?

Ah yeah, another issue I’ve been eager to explain!

Due to an event that scatters the Miraculous in the mid-season 2 finale (won’t elaborate too much for spoilers’ sake) there technically aren’t any temp heroes. It takes some of them a while to find/obtain their miraculous, but once they do, they keep it permanently (with the exceptions of… certain characters, who end up losing their miraculous because of… special circumstances).

In terms of importance, that largely depends on the character, when they got their Miraculous, and their connection to the greater plot.

Some of the more important non-LB & CN heroes (in general order of appearance) include: Bunnyx (adult form), Turquoise (one of the special characters who stops using their miraculous… 😈), Carapace, Queen Bee, Night Light, Rena Rouge, Greyhound, Ryuko, Bunnyx (teen form), and Viperion.

Caprikid, Tigress Violette, Polymouse, Pigment, Rooster Bold, Minotaurox, Sir Steed (Pegasus got a name change), and Roi Singe aren’t nearly as relevant, but will get their own debut episodes and the occasional focus as well.

Thank you for the ask!

So what has changed for your European Miracle box?

Here’s what’s been established:

The prime Kwami (a duo of Kwami who are the most powerful in their given box) are Nooroo and Duusu (they got moved to this box so that they can be primes when Tikki and Plagg are the Celestial Box’s prine Kwami and because it doesn’t make sense for Emilie and Gabriel to get them otherwise, since the Feast incident never occurred in MTS).

For similar reasons, Trixx is one of the European Miracle Box’s Elder Kwami, and was stolen many centuries ago… There will be 2 or 3 other Elder Kwami for the EMB, but like the minor Kwami, we haven’t created them yet.

As I’ve said previously, Miracle Box and general Kwami lore mostly gets explored in Miraculous: Unlimited, which would be a sequel to Miraculous: The Series. Because it’s a sequel, it (and the lore found within it) is a lot hazier and more incomplete than the story of MTS. Basically, be prepared to be a little bit disappointed when asking about Miracle Boxes and Kwami, because other than the canon Kwami and Flicc, we haven’t fully developed these elements yet. If you have questions about the show’s characters, I will probably be able to answer those since character work is a huge part of MTS, which we’ve more or less figured out.

Thanks for the ask!