MIRACULOUS CHAT NOIR⁉️⁉️⁉️

the thing is that i actually love moral grayness. and i actually don't personally believe lying is always wrong. sometimes lying is necessary in the society we live in. sometimes people that want to hurt us want to use information we have against us, and there's no reason to tell the truth to those people. it's just self defense. so mls secret identity rules have never been a problem to me ever. in fact i think the superhero genre is a perfect avenue for exploring the topic of what is and isn't okay to lie about. but there are some things that are just so fucking crazy to me to keep secret and ml has reached the point where it's like Jesus fucking Christ.

the ONE advantage the sentimonster adrien thing has, storytelling-wise, the one thing it has going for itself, is that it makes emilie tremendously interesting, even more than we expected. not only are both her husband and son obsessed with her, not only do they have goddamn STATUES of her in their home, but she also created her son in her image. with the same exact looks, the same delicate beauty and cat-like green eyes, the same sensitive and turbulent and emotional personality... it's deranged and narcissistic and plain weird. there is SO much that could be done here if the show plays its cards right. alas, since it's the agrestes, we'll get nothing as usual. ✌️

i do think the sentimonsters thing is absolutely intriguing but it doesn't seem planned at all and the fact that so many characters are sentimonsters makes it feel more contrived to me. also the fact there's no difference between people and sentimonsters. it would have been way more interesting if it had been hinted at since the beginning and became more of a hint over time to gabriels identity. like for example how fascinating would it be if chat noir had the typical "symptoms" of a sentimonster - whatever that may be - that he doesn't notice because he's lived with it forever but ladybug does through pattern recognition - and she has to figure out if this chat noir is HERS and always been a sentimonster or been replaced. and if he's always been a sentimonster, his identity itself is the clue to who hawkmoth is. it would also be a fascinating way to do a "chat noir villain arc" where gabriel finds out adrien is chat noir and instead of being a fucking dumbass and akumatizing him, he uses the ring to make chat noir a double agent and get the earrings from ladybug. ANYTHING but what they're doing. ANYTHING AT ALL!

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 💖

im gonna finish my ml google doc rewrite because now that adrien is confirmed a senti i finally have closure on what to do with it. its gonna be all the changes + the outline and im gonna pin it to this blog like martin luther and that damn church door. so far i have 5 seasons planned and i have no intention of 14 so we're automatically winning.

okay so i also haven't totally caught up with season 6. i really did think maybe they were saving marinette telling adrien for later but the crazy thing is that felix knows. kagami knows. nathalie knows. and you're telling me NO ONE has snitched. everyone is totally fine with not telling adrien anything. i hope everyone goes to hell im so serious

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:

if i wrote ml fanfic it'd be so self indulgentlike lila and adrien trying to appear friendly to everyone around them but the passive aggressiveness ramps up until there are looney tunes level shenanigans happening when no one is looking until they somehow become friends. But well the thing is that s5 I don't know what they're doing anymore so lila would be my OC. but that's fine i live in s3 forever i suppose...

gabriel is fascinating in that he is a deeply fucked up guy. can't believe they let him win they should've shot him like old yeller. he needed to be put down