I had originally planned to just share a little on this au before I make a YouTube video for it but with how long it's taking for me to finish my High Guardian Spice rewrite first, it's not gonna happen for a while. Meanwhile I genuinely wanna share more on this au because I'm on a miraculous fix right now.
Notice that I low-key put the couples in similar poses to each other? This was 100% unintentional 😆 (Edit: changed Mari's pigtails)
I had also wanted to finish my redesigns for our main character's civilian fits before anything else just to try and keep myself in some type of order to get this done.
And you know that fun little fact of how Marinette and Adrien's color pallets are the inverted colors of each other to kinda showcase they were made for each other? Well, I decided to have some fun and apply a color language for all of the couples in this au. They're not all inversions, but they all have some type of rule to tie their color pallets together in pairs. I also decided to challenge myself and apply it to their superhero forms as well because I hate myself 😂
So we'll get into the designs as well as some of my rewrite storyline. I ended up sharing a lot more than I expected so this isn't super organized. Especially when I got to the Adrien section I kinda just started talking about potential Nathaniel plot. But I did my best to keep some sort of order.
(Edit: I have made his hair slightly lighter – just to explain why it looks darker in reblogs)
Now, I think I'm the only person who's realized that, while Marinette and Adrien are inversions of each other, Ladybug and Chat Noir also have their own color language.
Ladybug is red and black while Chat noir is black and green. They share one color and sport an opposite color, red and green. And which color that's mainly sported is switched (red = Ladybug's main color vs green = Chat Noir's secondary color).
That being said, I decided to not only use that for Marc and Nathaniel's colors, but to have them wear each other's colors in the miraculous like in canon with Caprikid/Roosterbold. So Marc's colors are black and green while Nate's are red and black.
In my au, Marc starts the first episode in a much more boring fit of a green hoodie under a black hood jacket with black pants and boots, but then Juleka would try to help him express himself more by letting him borrow some of her clothes (they just happen to be the same size). And Juleka is much more into the vampire/witchy aesthetic, hence why he has a crop hoodie with the moon phases on it. The backpack is her's from the year before as well. The frog purse I thought would just be cute for Tikki to be sticking out of, but I like to think it's a present from his mom before the big move or maybe something he got as a kid but never used again because he was bullied for it (finally using it again now that he's gained some more confidence). Now don't get me wrong, he's not going to be more confident like Marinette was after the events of origins. He's still going to have this extreme social anxiety that he has to deal with, but with the help of his childhood friend, Luka, and now Juleka, he's finally found it in himself to at least dress the way he wants.
I don't have nearly as much to say about Nate's fit because he doesn't have the symbolic costume change that Marc gets. Just that while his colors are red and black, the splotch pattern on his shirt is kinda meant to look like the cataclysm of the cat miraculous he uses. Similar to the moon phase wheel on Marc's hoodie (a spot/circle shape), it's a peek into the actual miraculous that they use.
Now, despite his last name, I personally never saw him as Jewish for the longest time. I've never really been one to actively look for someone's ethnicity but when the topic came up, weirdly enough, if anything I got more of a Viking vibe from him. Though it wasn't until after saying that out loud to myself that I realized that might be because he reminded me of Hiccup in the first How to Train Your Dragon 💀🤣 But I am more than willing to make him both Viking and Jewish. Both on his deceased dad's side, his mom isn't very present in his life (emotionally). His cuffs are kind of the calling card for my viking headcanon, while his miraculous/ring's disguised form has the Chai symbol on it, which means life. And because he's Jewish on his dad's side, it's almost like a sign from his dad to keep living his life 🥹
Again I'm not going super deep into the family drama right now because this post is already going to be long enough as it is.
Their colors are inverted like Marinette and Adrien. I will say, when you look at Luka inverted, the gray of his shirt and the teal of his hair may be more light brown and orange. But that's why Chloe has sparkly brown eyeshadow and orange lensed glasses 😋 I make it work.
Luka is canonically the only other boy Chloe has considered attractive so how could I not pair them in the au? Luka is a very calm and collected person that can bring Chloe down to reality and because he's always been so responsible in helping others most of his life, Chloe makes the time to spoil him while trying to be more responsible around him so he can stay loose.
Yes, Luka's gonna be less of a heartthrob musician cliche in this au. He's already canonically the therapist of basically everyone in Paris while keeping Ladybug and Chat Noir's ID's secret, boi has to be stressed out.
He doesn't go to Collège Françoise Dupont because of a delinquent rep he indirectly built while protecting Marc from bullies growing up. So he'd meet Chloe for the first time, outside of the school bully context and be able to see through her spoiled brat persona.
I'll note here that in my au, Chloe doesn't see Adrien romantically. She's gonna be more like the protective sibling and see Adrien as family. But she's willing to make people see them in a romantic light if it means protecting Adrien from fangirls who'd take advantage of him.
Which would make it kinda funny when Adrien and Marinette start liking each other. Like, by the time they do, Chloe's redemption arc has already happened (she's still the sassy queen we know and love but she's much less insulting and more mature now. I see her being pretty similar to Stella from Winx (s1-3 Stella, we don't talk about Stella passed the first movie)(I my god I just realized Luka x Chloe is totally super Stella x Brandon coded 🤣🤣🤣)) so she no longer holds any antagonistic will towards Marinette but because of their past, she knows that she has no room to go against the adrienette ship. So she's kinda just watching their feelings grow and is like, "... This is so weird."
Now, is it kinda gaudy to wear pearls, diamonds and gold all in one outfit? Yes. Is Chloe also a teenager trying to show off how rich she is, partially in the hope that she'll make more friends using her money? Very much so. I doubt her shorts pass the school dress code but she most likely paid off the school board to let her dress however she wants.
(It wasn't until after I finished writing this post that I realized I never said what their super names would be ☠️ I was just expecting to share some art in my first post before my video. So before we go any further:)
Marc/ladybug = Beetle Bug
Nathaniel/black cat = Catico (like calico but cat pun)(I'm gonna make it a thing that Nathaniel's dad loved puns and dad jokes)
Luka/fox = Lycalopex (I changed it)
Chloe/dragon/bunny = Ladoness/Belle Bunny
Alix/ox = Onyx
Juleka/turtle = Calipee
Rose/bee = Zinnia
Adrien/butterfly/snake = Papillon/Aspik
And I'll also say this here; that I did draw these fits with what miraculous they'd end up with in the end (though I also kept in the butterfly on Adrien just so you could see what it'd look like for him (he's wearing the brooch on a chain necklace)). I've shown Chloe having the dragon and she'd be getting it the same way she got the bee in canon. But before she ever gets the chance to crash out and reveal her identity to the public, the moment Audrey says Chloe wasn't exceptional, Nathaniel (who had been invited to the show by Marinette as her +1 because they're pretty close friends by this point) goes off on Audrey about how much of a horrible mother and person she has to be for saying something like that. He wouldn't care that she's famous because she has no effect on his life and let's just say, he could kind of relate to Chloe in that moment 🫢. So my plan is that she finds the dragon miraculous but no one finds out, and then a few days later a new dragon hero called Ladoness starts joining in on the fights. Not even Beetle Bug or Catico know who she is and at first they do try to get the dragon miraculous back but after a while of her evading that, they realize that she's genuinely trying to help and be a good hero, so they decide to give her the chance.
And because Loong is kinda meant to be like, the typical wise one of the kwamis (edit: for some reason my brain mixed Loong and Sass as one, Sass is more the mentor-ish kwami but I can still see them having similar personalities as close friends), he kinda becomes like Chloe's "Uncle Iroh." It would be a lot of fun banter because of Chloe's selfishness but because he is a cosmic entity, he's the only one she felt like she couldn't exactly say no to without repercussions. Yeah, he never told her that the holder could control kwamis. 1) To be safe, and 2) If she's gonna keep evading giving the miraculous back to its rightful guardian then he's gonna take charge to at least try and make her a better person while he's here.
Now I'm explaining this because she's not exactly wearing the dragon miraculous here. And I'm sure you're not blind, noticing that she has the rabbit miraculous on her design sheet. Because my plan is for her identity to eventually be revealed unwillingly, to which she would have to give up the dragon. Symbolizing how she no longer needs one to feel more important now that she's finally made new friends in the art club. Though it is still sad because despite their troubles, she and Loong did grow to care for one another.
Luka would originally only have the silver diamond shaped necklace before getting the fox, who's disguised form is the boat anchor necklace.
Their couple color scheme? Similar clothing colors and opposite hair. Hair: purple vs yellow, easy. Clothing: purple & pink being next to each other on the color wheel. Sharing some light pink while that pink on Juleka is also near white to be compared to the white on Rose's top. Sharing dark/black leggings & shoes. Also giving their tops the opposite design for who you'd expect to be wearing them. To showcase their connection but I also think it better showcases themselves as characters. Because while Juleka is very goth and into the dark and spooky, she also very kind and shy. Meanwhile we know that Rose is sickeningly sweet but she's also into hard rock and heavy metal. I totally see her as being the type of person who you'd never expect to like horror films, but it turns out that she actually loves them. Because they can be a source of releasing pent up stress and anger.
I'mma make a canonical reason for Juleka having red eyes being that she has ocular albinism, which from what I know, can have a side effect of being sensitive to light. Hence how she got into the dark and creepy. Just wanting to be inside or in the dark because of her eye sensitivity. Vampires + other supernatural creatures often being depicted with red eyes in movies/stories, which made her feel a little more seen as a child who had no one else that shared this unique trait of her's. So despite being made fun of for her red eyes as a kid, she's always emulated the aesthetic of vampires as a way to kinda embrace it. Encouraged by her mother. Who taught her that bullies aim to make you feel bad about what makes you special and if you take pride in it, then those bullies can't win.
Juleka still has some sense of self diffidence about her eyes because of the bullying and no one else in her real life not having it, but she never lets it show.
As for Rose's story, she was still sick at some point like in canon. But I'm specifying it so that it was a massive tumor she had in her head. One so big that when it was finally removed, it left a massive empty space in her head and that is what causes her headaches. Her head muscles pulsating because there's not supposed to be a pocket space there. She is perfectly fine but because Juleka looked up on tumors to be safe (if you still have pains after a tumor removal, it might mean that it's grown back) she now has a constant fear about it. And yes, having an empty space in your head and still being perfectly functional is possible. I've seen situations where the brain was even worse but the person was fine and I even went over this idea with my mom who works at a hospital. The human body is fucking insane.
Though this is how Juleka and Rose actually met. The year prior, Juleka was repeating she was assigned next to Rose in class to help her with class work (because she was having memory/learning troubles during treatments and after the surgery) for extra grade points. And befriending Juleka is how she was introduced to the horror genre as well. It's... weirdly what helped manage to emotionally get her through the stress of having surgery. The logic would probably be something along the lines of, "nothing like what that slasher or werewolf did would ever happen in the operating room." To us that's very weird logic but to a child/preteen, that makes sense, ya know? When Rose is older and looks back on it, even she's confused about that logic.
And just to leave off to the next couple, with their pair coloring rule on their superhero forms: While the deep green of Juleka's turtle suit is kind of a stretch to match with Rose's bright yellow, they still share black, and Juleka's suit also sports plenty of light green, light yellow and orange accents. And the opposing hair? Rose's is yellow with black bits and Juleka's is black with yellow bits.
I'll be deadass that I basically just straight up yoinked this outfit for Marinette from Zoe-oneesama's Scarlet Lady au Bubbler ep. That being said, I did change it up a little, like the dots on her dress top being messy splotches rather than a polkadot pattern. Adding a little pink stitching to the vest, and including the flower pattern that Marinette has on her canon shirt onto her new shirt AND on her shoes. I also changed the necklace to make the heart pendant smaller, but then the fit felt too bottom heavy so I tried to even it out a little by putting pearls on the chain that got bigger the further back they went on her neck.
Now you already know their colors are inverted and where so I don't need to explain that. Though I will say that instead of Mari's hair being canonically black, just looking blue to the audience because it's easier to animate, in my au Marinette straight up just dies her hair blue. Everyone else that had the blue hair effect like Marc, Sabine, Kagami, etc, their hair will be just straight up black (with a blue sheen for Marc just bc). Marinette dying her hair will be similar to Marc's clothing switch; she's her scaredy cat self in the origins episodes, but then she sees how scared Beetle Bug also is on TV before he fights through the fear and it inspires her to do the same. The next day her hair is dyed and she finally takes her first stand against Chloe. Though you may have noticed her eyes are brown. Straight up, I just think she looks cuter with the dark eyes.
And as you can see above, she'll be getting the pig miraculous. 1) Because the colors I'll use are the perfect inverted colors of my Aspik design for Adrien (ironically I had picked the pig before I realized this) and 2) Part of Marinette's character in this au is that she helps brighten up Marc's school life, doing everything she can to try and help him make friends in spite of his anxiety. Her super name is Porcelette.
And you know what? I'll put this here just for clarification that the whole Kim at the Pool incident does not exist in this au. It was a spiteful attempt to further assassinate Chloe's arc, make you feel bad for Marinette, justify her stalking, and it ruined Kim in the process. Meanwhile I had been planning out this au for a long time – back just before season 4 ended – I had already planned for a scenario similar to the Kim/Pool incident to be something that happened to Marc in the past. So no, this is not me taking Marinette's development and giving it to Marc or anything. This was me deleting it from Marinette bc it makes no sense for her and then my own idea I made before certain episodes had been released happened to match up in show later. It happens all the time within fanworks.
So the pig's powers will stay the same, as it represents Mari's role in Marc's life now and because it does essentially trap opponents in a trance. So it's perfect for distractions.
And I already gave a summed up rundown of Adrien's plot in the pt. 2 post. But what I will say while I'm on the topic, is that the canon plot that is going on about keeping the truth about Gabriel a secret from Adrien; I'm just gonna kinda slide that over to Nathaniel's mom...
...
...
Don't look at me like that.
Yes, unlike the bully/pool plot thread going to Marc because of coincidence, this is literally me just recycling Adrien's plot for Nathaniel. Because in this au Adrien starts off having already found out that he's a sentibeing and having his villain era, so there was really nothing else to take from the canon show for Adrien's plot here. He's still very present mind you, he'll have his own redemption as well, but it's nothing from the canon.
Listen, the plot going on in canon season 6 right now can genuinely be super interesting. It's just with the way this show built up to it, I can't bring myself to be invested. Not to mention I had already written my au to make it so that Gabriel never uses the butterfly miraculous, therefore he never goes batshit crazy and genuinely tries to be a better father for Adrien after he sees what Adrien was willing to do because he emotionally neglected him. I had done this because in early seasons, we had seen hints to the idea of Gabriel actually caring for Adrien only for that to be retconned until the very end when he died and finally seemed to care... I think. (This man's definition of love makes no fucking sense y'all).
However in my rewrite, I was already making Nate's mom a piece of shit with no redeeming qualities (you have no idea how baffled but vindicated I felt when that made her a piece of shit in canon as well, oh my god what are the chances) and I was just gonna leave it at that honestly. Because sometimes abusive-parent situations just aren't solved and people can do nothing but try to move on afterwards. But recently I was thinking over the au and what I may need to edit/change and I suddenly just had the thought of like... Maybe I could make it work. Because I like to challenge myself in my rewrites by trying to recycle everything. Nate's mom wouldn't manage to make the wish, fuck that noise 'cause she'd trade Nate for her husband without hesitation. But the idea of Nathaniel's mom being a villain and defeated (she had to be killed to be stopped) but then Marc – who has already been also dealing with a ton of other stresses I won't bring up here – doesn't know how to break it to Nate that he killed his mom and doesn't know how horrible of a parent she was. So he lies that she sacrificed herself to stop the big bad. Which would do nothing but shatter Nate's brain because "wtf do you mean? Since WHEN would she care?!!"
Just that tension you'd feel. The weight of the lie hovering while Nathaniel starts reimagining his mom in a better light for her sacrifice, only to eventually find out he had been bamboozled? It would be like losing another parent all over again for him as well as another betrayal. This time from his mother as well as his partner. Bro would full on. Crash. Out. Deservedly so. Low-key that would straight up break Nate's psyche, 'cause he already heavily blames himself for his dad's death. This plot just makes more sense here than what canon has offered this far imo.
That situation really is juicy as hell and as a writer/artist, I know that you need to make the most compelling story beats connected to your main character(s). Which in this au, is Marc and Nathaniel.
But idk, let me know what you think on this idea, I could just completely drop it for what I was doing before if y'all feel like it's too much recycling between characters. I would genuinely love the feedback, I'm always second questioning myself with these things.
Exhale 💨
Well on to our last design I GUESS 😅🤣
And Alix being the easiest to make color-wise because she's not being paired with anyone. Go my Aro Queen 😚 Her look might just be my favorite out of the bunch, she just looks badass. I did get the fit design from THIS Pinterest pic but the colors are all my choosing. I usually use a mix of Pinterest and Gacha life 2 for the character designing process. Which, funnily enough, when making the fit on gacha I had used a few different things to make the shoes sport all the colors in a way to connect the color pallet across the board. Only to realize like a week ago that I basically just straight up gave her her canon shoes 🥲 I mean if it works, it works and it helped me in designing the front of her hat to match. I like to think her shoes and hat are merch of a popular roller derby team or place and then she just switched out the black laces for pink. I can then imagine her recycling one of the black laces to use as her hair tie as well, she would totally do that.
And yes the backpack is just an Arcane/Jinx backpack recolored and drawn over, I just did not have the energy to trace and re-color in the backpack myself like I did for the others. Maybe later, I'll edit this post. But I do see Alix as being one to draw/color/spray paint all over backpack for fun.
In terms of her backstory, she is raised in a family of historians/egyptologists but she never gained the same love for it that her parents and brother did. Instead she was always more active and wanted to watch the sports channel more than cartoons or the history channel. So because her family doesn't know how to further connect with her, they just kinda leave her to her own devices. They're not neglectful by any means, in fact her dad feels awful about how he can't really connect with her interests. But they all, Alix included, decided that they're fine just kind of doing their own things during most days and then just having dinner to talk about how each other's day went before bed. Staying connected in their own way while not annoying each other by trying to force a closer connection. Though Alix does go out of her way to stick to the louvre when she has nothing else to do or is doing homework, so she can read over the paintings and scriptures while skating around, so she can at least keep up with what her family talks about during dinner. (She and fam live right next to the louvre bc her dad is also curator.) Though even with them all understanding, that doesn't stop her teenage emotions from feeling just a little resentful about being stuck in a family where none of them understand her.
That being said, Alix is Nathaniel's childhood friend. Having met at the louvre when Nate went with his dad to see the pretty art. Always having his back and trying to get him to socialize again after his father's death. Making sure to cover for him whenever he "disappears."
To which I'll finally say this here to leave this post off with; that I do plan on changing up the whole "secret identity rules." Because Beetle Bug and Catico have no idea where their miraculous came from or anything, they had just decided to keep their ID's a secret from each other as well just to be safe until they learn more. (Note: my Master Fu is gonna be more competent but would've expected them to share their ID's. When he finds out, he decides that as long as they still have total trust in each other, it probably is the safer option for now.) Within the first or second season, the pressure of being a superhero on top of meeting new people would definitely get to Marc eventually and he would break the secret to Luka. Some time after (1-3 eps later) he talks to Catico about how he's revealed his ID but it was to his closest friend during a low moment. Talking it out, they decide to still keep it a secret from each other, but they're both allowed to intrust their identity to 1 in their civilian life. To make things fair and for better support outside the mask.
Hence Luka would know Beetle Bug's ID and Alix would know Catico's.
Now knowing Nate is a super hero, she ain't gonna lighten up into terms of athletic training. She used to go easy on him when they'd play wrestle and such growing up, because he was never as strong or active... Not anymore. He needs to stay vigilant for any scenario, she's going all in from now on because he needs it and it's funny when he fumbles. She'd be a lot like Toph with Aang in ATLA, Alix be a real G out here 😂
And that's pretty much it for now. Let me know what y'all think, I love comments 🥳 @634783
Much like the other Pigs, the Fire Pig is equally famous for their generosity, love, and trust. They dread unpleasantness and like things to be fair and for everyone to be happy. All pigs are known to be too trusting and naive and are easily taking advantage of. The Fire Pig, unlike the others, has a strong sense of adventure, willing to take risks, and has tendencies to lose touch with reality. They are energetic, positive, and sociable; easy to get along with others.
Being of the Water Element, the sensitive Peacock matches her best. Governed by Fire, the energetic Fox is her second best. Set between Peacock and Fox, the Butterfly has the strongest potential for Rose to use, with weaker potential in Bee and Turtle.
Core Five: Marinette, Adrien, Nino
Significant Characters: Felix
Classmates: Juleka, Mylene, Alix, Ivan, Sabrina, Kim
Once again, I decided to sign up for the @mlsecretsanta and had a great time throughout the entire process. Though, unfortuently my partner for this year had to drop out at the last minute and no backup giftees were available. SO I thought I would take this as a marvelous opportunity to make a shoutout to one of my favorite blogs of the fandom, @yaushie !! I am a huge fan of both her art and her AUs, which have been such an inspiration to me in my own work.
Yaushie, I hope you have a lovely holiday season and enjoy your secret secret santa gift!!
Instead of talking about more characters and story (because I'm still fine-tuning things despite working on this for almost 3 years) I've decided that I wanna share how I'm rewriting the world and magic system.
This isn't going to be the Marvel or DC comics universes where different superheros can come to have powers from a ton of different sources. Everything given to us about US supers in the New York special is essentially gonna be Thanos Snapped here. All superheros and super villains are miraculous users or affected by the miraculous like akumas.
There will not be hundreds of miraculous's like we're essentially shown in Master Fu's flashback. While that idea is super cool & intriguing, there's only so many powers I can come up with. (There could be more miraculous outside of this but any of their special powers would just be to turn into whatever animal they embody.) Each continent has a box and each box is based on a zodiac chart that is prevalent on said continent (mostly). I parenthesize "mostly" because the South American box is based on the Aztec zodiac which is technically North America/Middle America but I couldn't find anything on any other zodiacs from anywhere further south, so that's what we're going with. There's a second reason for the "mostly" but we'll talk about that when we get to Australia's miracle box.
Building on no.2 — To make my life easier and not try to come up with a whole 'nother box of miraculous to try and assign powers to (because as it is, there are 70 in total), I just made it so the box that we follow is the Eurasian box. Europe and Asia. Not only to make it easier but also to explain why the miracle box based on the Chinese zodiac also has 7 random ones on top of that. Those five + two most powerful, being for Europe while the rest usually resigned in Asia.
Each continent usually had a temple and hidden village that honed these boxes and kept them a secret. Like hidden societies (literally) that low-key worshipped the miraculous because they see the kwamis as, like, gods. That sacrificed their freedom to protect the world since they can't fully control their powers. Given that IS essentially what they are.
Given that each temple is on completely different continents, I feel it's safe to say that they never had much contact with each other outside of a select few times in history. Like the African Miracle Guardians lending Heracles from Greece the lion miraculous. After the world started communicating however, they all decided to stay on each other's turfs as to not draw attention to & risk revealing themselves to the general public.
Touching on Master Fu: just to give basics, because he was raised in this hidden village and grew up with the miraculous, he had actually always dreamed of being chosen to be a Guardian. Until a few months into training when he learned just how strict and brutal it is. Which is what would lead to him letting his future chosen users have a lot more freedom in their choices. But I also want him to at least be a little competent, so he actually took the time to do research on potential holders.
The reason miraculous users need to start as teenagers is because of the adult age settings. As teens, they have the capacity to think more rationally than kids, but all of the miraculous powers are unlocked for adults and for adults untrained, it can lead to the miraculous sucking their life force. Similar to Shadybug and Claw Noir in the Paris special. When teens first start they can only use the special power once and detransform after 5 minutes. But the more they focus, train and practice, the longer it will take to detransform until they perfect staying transformed. And once they perfect that, along with controlling their special power – ie; ladybug being able to choose what they make & cat choosing whether to just break or completely disintegrate things or just use the cataclysm differently (like Chat Blanc's different moves or destroying memories ala season 6) – they'll evolve into their adult forms (this can happen before they become adults, aka; turn 18) and be able to use their special power more than once without detransforming. They then have to train further so their bodies can take doing their special power more and more. Like when they first gain the adult suits, they can use the power twice and because they've trained their bodies thus far, they've become fairly immune to the soul sucking effect as long as they don't go overboard. Kinda like building an immunity to poison by intaking very little portions over long periods of time. You can still get sick and even close to death if you're not careful. Whenever a miraculous holder goes over their usual number limit, they'll get tired (which makes it hard to fight in combat) and once they get used to it, they can add another point to their shot limit. But if they go over their safety limit, it can make them sick.
Building on no.7 — The miraculous will still count down from 5 minutes, but over time they build immunity, it won't start counting down until the last 5 minutes they have left. After they get their adult forms, they'll just beep whenever they reach the last time they can use their special power without hurting themselves.
Because their weapons should be considered a part of their costumes, I'm making it so all miraculous users can summon their weapons back to themselves like in the miraculous movie. In the same vein that they can't take their masks off.
That being said, let's finally get into the individual Miracle Boxes.
Eurasian box
Overall it looks mostly the same. I did change some of the powers and/or weapons or I changed what abstract concept the miraculous represents to make more sense to the power. Like the dog represented admiration but its power is to steal things? That doesn't make any sense unless you consider stalkery as a sign of admiration. Which by the way the show wrote Marinette, I wouldn't be surprised if they did.
You can read the chart above for yourself but I will specify the weapon I gave the monkey; I wanted to give each miraculous its own unique weapons and the black cat already owned the staff. I know they based the monkey miraculous after the monkey king from Chinese myth – I am very aware of Sun Wukong – but in trying to change it up some, I gave it a weapon that still works as a staff and could also pass as looking like a building pillar (as is the origin of Wukong's staff being a shrunken pillar from the dragon king's palace). You guys will see it's design once I post about more characters and their designs. Spoiler for funzy's, Ivan is getting the monkey and his super name is the Primape [prime-ape].
I did also change the ladybug and black cat's powers a little. I wanted to even them out since they are meant to be equals and what would be the point of sending them both out into the open if the ladybug miraculous alone can purify akumas AND fix everything afterwards? No, instead, because purification is the act of destroying the bad and keeping the good, I always felt like it would've made more sense for that to be the sub-power for destruction. Not just to justify why you'd put both miraculous the villain is after out in public, but because Yin & Yang are not just opposites, they also share a little of each other within them, that's what they have those center dots. They're not complete opposites. So it would only make sense, embodying the abstract concepts they do, that destruction would have an aspect to its power that you would think would belong to creation (purifying), while creation can also create things that cause destruction.
And then as the 2 most powerful miraculous, they have 2 sub-powers:
Ladybug – Creation √ recreation and healing (two different powers; fixing objects vs fixing people)
Black Cat – Destruction √ purification and cat senses (night vision, enhanced hearing, enhanced smelling, purring, etc.)
It's just a lot more balanced this way.
I'm going to make it that the butterfly miraculous does have some limitations to the powers it can grant. Like the powers need to abide to laws of physics at least. So no full on creation or destruction replication and no being able to just traverse time or travel between dimensions. Like, Timebreaker can make sense because she's actively powering herself up with people's LIFE FORCE, but Timetagger just being able to make time portals wouldn't happen. (Anyone else feel their names should be switched? XD)
And just to note before we move on; the reason the goat is labeled as "goat/ram" is because the actual word they use for it in the zodiac chart is a general term that means either a goat, sheep, or ram, and which specific animal it's believed to be seems to vary across China itself. I would prefer it to be a ram because the horns are just inherently more unique and recognizable for the design aspect but I'm just gonna kinda keep the ambiguity since I don't have any other goats or rams in the other boxes to compare it with. Plus when rams are still growing, their horns can tend to look like goat horns so I think that'd be a cute little design aspect between teen & adult forms.
North American box
There are a few slightly different native American zodiacs depending on the tribes but I feel I've made a pretty good middle ground between them, or at least the ones I could find. I did also take into account the fact that the North American box in the New York special looked like the native American medicine wheel.
From here onwards (and even when rewriting the goat/ram's power above), I didn't just base the powers I chose on the animal they are but also what they represent in the cultures these boxes are based in.
I did change the eagle's weapon because the weapon they give it in canon is considered a sacred instrument in a few cultures, including certain ones where people weren't even allowed to see it outside of certain ceremonies. And as far as I can tell (I'm not super great at researching, especially since I don't fully trust Google for this stuff) it was then turned into a toy by Europeans. So unless someone with better knowledge on this can tell me the bullroarer is okay to use as a weapon here (especially on the indigenous American side of things), the eagle's weapon will be 3 old native fishing plummets on a string that splits into 3 midway for each plummet to be tied to.
And just to specify the thunderbird's weapon; what I mean by "wings backpack." The weapon is basically exactly the same as Scarlet Scarab's from Marvel's MoonKnight. Two blades connect to physical prosthetic wings, that can compress into a pack on the miraculous holder's back. Super flashy for the thunderbird.
South American box
Now the Aztec zodiac does not have the Quetzalcoatl in it, but I like the Quetzalcoatl and I feel each miracle box should have some sort of centerpiece.
It was definitely interesting to try and find connections as to what powers should go to which signs. Along with animals, because almost none of these signs are of animals but rather things that made up life to the Aztecs. From looking up certain animals from the region that I just felt matched those objects/signs to looking up certain gods that those signs are considered to be representative off. This progressively got harder and harder to do going forward because the Egyptian zodiac is full on based on their gods as well so I had to go back and switch things a lot. I still might be editing / changing as I keep working on this.
Australian box
I was originally just going to give Australia the modern zodiac chart (Cancer, Leo, Gemini, etc.) and I had even finished it, but then I found a new little tidbit that a lot of the aboriginal people's cultures had close connections to the stars. So I did as much digging as I could to see if I could find anything on what they would or could consider a zodiac chart. As far as I can tell they don't but a few of them have made their own charts based on the modern zodiac, just basically replacing them with animals that are native to Australia but still matching them to fit the descriptions of the individual zodiac signs.
So I wanted to be respectful and honestly it also kinda helped because at this point, it felt like a lot of animals were being repeated. I already had 3 snake miraculous's up to this point and this chart in particular originally gave me another ram, goat, bull, and lion. And I was already trying to stretch out so many other animals as well. So the only ones I kept here were the rainbow serpent (as I had came to learn about while looking for snake/dragon superhero names) scorpion, and the longhorn cowfish that I had picked to represent Capricorn.
...
It's a fish with horns and I also already had a goat/ram on my hands in the Eurasian box and another ram here with Aries at the time. Plus it'd be really hard to portray a miraculous suit of a goat-fish that doesn't pass as just a goat without, like, straight up giving it a tail fin in the back. I'd also like to say that I had those colors and pattern for it (because that's genuinely the colors & patterns of the fish) at least 2 months before Chronobug in the London special was released. Damn you Zag!
African box
Like I said before, I wanted to give each box their own center piece(s), plus I felt this box was a little too small. Even though the Australian box had 13, it's also the smallest continent. So for both of these reasons I decided to make the African box, based on the Egyptian zodiac, have its center miraculous's based on the 3 great pyramids of Giza. Which also basically lets me choose whatever animals I wanted to add, including the mythical Sphinx. And it's honestly fitting; considering the first sign in this zodiac is the Nile River rather than another god like the rest, so why not the pyramids.
The animal I chose for Amun-Ra; the Akhekh, is like a griffin-type creature, where it's a mix of different animals, but it's categorized as a dragon for most often being depicted with a long reptilian body. Similar to a Chinese dragon actually. It is considered to be connected to the god Set/Seth instead, but the only other alternatives for Amun-Ra where ram or eagle and, again, the Australian box had 2 rams and goats at the time I made this so... I figured I'd at least pick something really cool in replacement.
That and, before I started on these, I had made up to 4 different dragon miraculous's because I thought it'd be cool to touch on some of the dragons in the Chinese mythos. I obviously didn't go too far on that but I decided to recycle one for Amun-Ra here, and then I recycled the other two into the Quetzalcoatl and Rainbow Serpent.
The reason its power was assigned the elements it got is because I originally wrote it for this dragon and Loong to be, like, brothers who are at odds (because I also originally rewrote Loong to represent imperfection.) So I had given this one the rest of the Chinese elements +diamond because ✨PERFECTION✨
Then for Seth, he's known for having the head of — and being represented as — an animal they call the set or sha animal. It's not known whether or not it's a mythical animal, something that's now extinct, or just an artistic depiction of another animal. Taking that last option into account, I decided to just pick something that I thought fit the silhouette, and the nose clearly weighs downward so I settled on an aardvark. And double checking on this info, I'm not the only one who sees it as an aardvark.
And last but not least; Bastet's weapon. I did take into account which gods are often depicted holding as potential options for weapons but for Bastet, it's a sistrum and an ankh. Much like the bullroarer, the sistrum is only used in religious ceremonies and the ankh is a symbol of life, and while I would prefer to assign the Bastet her sistrum for a weapon, I didn't want to risk being disrespectful by having a superhero using it or an ankh to wack people. Again, if anyone is more knowledgeable on that and whether or not it'd be okay, let me know. But until then, I gave the Bastet miraculous a lute because it's also an instrument and I thought the sistrum kinda looked like the upside-down skeleton of a lute.
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You guys will never be able to understand how badly I was struggling to come up with so many unique powers and weapons by the time I got the African miracle box. Not only coming up with the things but then switching them around because I realized certain powers or weapons fit better with a different animal in a different box, losing track of certain changes and accidentally duplicating, making me go back to try and remember what I erased.
I legitimately worked on these forever and I might STILL go back and edit them later on😫 In fact I only delayed posting this post BECAUSE I was updating and editing these.
Now to end things off, I'mma share a chart I made of all the characters that will or could use a miraculous at any point in time, and what names they'd have if they used each of the miraculous.
Can you tell that I burnt brain cells 🫠
Some of these are stretches for sure, but there really are only so many names you can come up with for 34+ characters paired with 19 miraculous, that's 646 super names 💀 Why do I do this to myself? (Edit it has since become 50+ characters at over 1000 names. I have a problem).
I'll just clarify and note here; Yes, I changed Juleka's turtle name (When I said I'm constantly editing this shit, I'm not exaggerating). And yes, I did also change Luka's fox name to Lycalopex. I keep finding more names for background characters I'm not showing on the chart here, so I keep finding different/better names for our main characters. I've edited the chart on this post like 20 times since posting this. I just hate myself ig. Screw me. Rani and Zac are Marc's mom and older brother. Reminder that Shirel is Nathaniel's mom. And I've rewritten Soqueline to be Marinette's aunt, Sabine's sister, and currently dating Rani. So Marc and Marinette are cousins in law. But it's still kind of a fresh relationship so Marc actively meets Marinette in this first season.
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So that's pretty much it for this installment! Let me know what ya'll think, I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions!😉
