Concept art for what I’m calling the Double Bug AU! In essence, in this AU Marinette has a twin sister named Brigitte and the pair trade off Ladybug duties based on availability. Misc notes under cut
I’m working on how to distinct Marinette and Brigitte in terms of design and personality. For the moment, Marinette gets to keep her canon blue-black hair and bright blue eyes, while Brigitte’s hair is a brown-black of otherwise about the same hue and her eyes are a darker blue. Might wind up giving them both brown eyes though since they deserve it 😊
Since the extended universe of ML makes it clear that superheroes are a known quantity in canon, I figured that some of the kids would have the silhouettes of their superhero outfits in mind, although likely with different color schemes/powers in mind lol. Most notably, Marinette and Brigitte designed each other’s outfits, since they figured that if one of them became a superhero, having the other’s design sense would help obfuscate that to their associates.
Despite this, Brigitte is not generally a fashion designer. She’s still an artist, but she doesn’t set out to draw outfits like Marinette does. She also focuses more on comfort than how she looks at school most days, although she’ll dress up when she feels like it.
When not wearing the Ladybug Miraculous, Marinette or Brigitte will usually wear another pair of earrings that looks pretty similar to the Miraculous’ disguise form on them, to keep people from noticing anything fishy about their jewelry choices.
I like this outfit as a concept for the Cat Miraculous, but I don’t know if I want to keep it for this AU (or for Adrien in general, as it seems a bit more prim than his general fair). I’ll keep thinking on it.
Adrien is not a love interest for either Cheng in this AU, so his story arc (should I write it instead of just vibing about it) would be learning to see things a slightly more realistic light-- he has a tendency to view the world through anime tinted glasses and at the start it causes him to simply expect that one of the girls will eventually fall in love with him as they work together. This mindset isn’t healthy for anyone involved but he gets better
Felix Sphinx (PV!Felix) exists in this AU and is Marinette’s endgame romance because I say so. It’s my AU and I do what I want and what I want is for Felix to be a guy from one of the other classes who Marinette likes and thinks is cool. He’s a little snippy and incredibly blunt and at several points he wields the Bee Miraculous when applicable.
(Alya and Nino still exist and wield their canon Miraculouses but I didn’t feel the need to overhaul them in any way here)
Sabrina and Nathaniel are Brigitte’s endgame romances. She has two hands and a type lmao. Nathaniel’s already her friend at the start of the year (art buddies) but Sabrina probably has an arc about having an identity outside of Chloe first.
Sabrina getting the Mouse for the first time would probably be the midpoint of her arc-- she’s independant enough that she won’t go running to Chloe to spill the beans/hand over the Miraculous, but she doesn’t have the internal feeling of power to stand on her own without her. Spending some time as a hero on the occasion... doesn’t fix that on it’s own, but it helps.
Mouse keeps its canon powers but Tiger gets invisibility instead of wimpy cataclysm.
I don’t know what anyone’s hero names are yet. I’ll work on it.