So Carlotta was formerly known as María, but she’s changed a bit since I first created her and I love her dearly and want to show her off to all of you. Self-made blorbo. This is basically an edited post of the one I did a year or so ago. This post got realllly long hence the readmore.
Description:
As Carlotta:
Carlotta Estrella Suero-Dupain got the Dupain height; she’s 5′11 with waist-length dark brown wavy hair with shorter curls around her face that is always very well-kept. She has very naturally tanned brown skin and is covered in freckles from head to toe. She’s curvy and has toned calves and biceps; she’s an excellent swimmer and got her scuba-diving certificate as soon as she could. Her eyes are dark brown with blue flecks, giving them a violet appearance in certain lighting.
She’s covered in scars from various old injuries and treats them like a badge of honour. Everyone always focusses on the massive scar-tissue patches on her forearms, shins, and stomach (road rash from a skateboarding accident), but she insists they’re the least cool ones. Her favourites are a massive scar on her chest running from her left collarbone to the top of her ribcage and a similar one on the back of her right thigh (both from fishing accidents), one on her left cheek (from being hit in the face with a broken jellyfish tentacle), and one stretching from her right shoulder down to her ribcage (from a much much worse skateboarding accident). Carlotta is visually disabled - the same accident that caused the scar on her shoulder and ribs also caused her to lose chunks of her visual field due to head trauma. She occasionally uses a sight cane on bad days, but she’s stupid levels of stoic and won’t admit how bad it sometimes gets.
She dresses almost exclusively in crop tops, knee-length cargo shorts, and red converse. Her favourite top is a purple off-the-shoulder top with fishnet sleeves and a fishnet underlayer, and a whale-shaped appliqué on the front. She always wears stripy knee socks. She has piercings in her right eyebrow, the left side of her nose, her tongue, and her belly button, and often wears sparkly earrings. Her Miraculous is a hairslide that is slightly S-shaped and decorated with five black gems.
As Cachalotte:
Her hair is up in a high ponytail with a white ribbon that sticks up like a whale spout. She has a single purple highlight, and her ponytail is tied near the bottom so the end splits like a whale tail. Her mask extends down over her cheeks to hide her scar; it’s grey with a black stripe across the top and black eyelids.
She wears a black leotard with attached gloves, silver fishnet tights, and black thigh-high boots with purple soles. On top she wears a grey sleeveless zippered vest with a long coattail that ends in a whale tail; it has purple lining and the bodice is decorated with two thin white stripes and a purple double-looped belt. She also has small purple shoulder pads styled to look like Sperm Whale fins and doubling as extra armour.
Cachalotte’s Miraculous is pretty much the same as when she’s detransformed, except the gems turn purple. It’s S-shaped to resemble a sperm-whale’s blowhole. The irises of her eyes also turn fully purple to help disguise her. The Whale Miraculous weapon is a grappling gun that can be attached to her belt - but Cachalotta rarely uses it in a fight besides to move around the battlefield, preferring to use her size and strength in a fight as opposed to any weaponry. It matches her costume, with a fin-styled purple handle, a grey gun with white stripes, and a silver grappling hook that, like Ladybug’s yoyo and Vesperia’s spinning top, has an infinitely long and unbreakable string.
Personality:
Carlotta is deeply caring about those important to her; she would throw herself in harm’s way to protect her loved ones without a second thought. She doesn’t tend towards thinking things through; she is wild and impulsive and stubborn, and only thinks about the immediate future rather than any consequences. In spite of her caring nature she can be extremely selfish on occasion.
She gets along well with most people; she’s good at making stories funnier than they actually were (even if they’re disgusting) and has a very infectious laugh. Despite coming from a fairly wealthy family (they have a yacht) she’s grown to dislike ostentatious shows of wealth, largely from interacting with Chloé Bourgeois, and her only real personal splurges are a nice skateboard (she loves skating) and her beloved purple electric violin.
Carlotta is Marinette’s paternal cousin - the daughter of Tom’s younger sister, Vivienne Dupain, who left home when Roland refused to accept her choosing a scientific major (cetology and anatomy) over working in the bakery, and the final nail in the coffin was her relationship with fellow cetologist Juan-Miguel Suero (Carlotta’s father). They’ve started to get back in touch following Marinette reaching out to Roland, but the relationship is still rocky. Carlotta is the oldest of four; she has two younger sisters and a younger brother. Geneviéve and Juan-Miguel Jr. (“Juanito”) are fraternal twins four years younger than Carlotta, while Victoire is thirteen years younger than Carlotta. All four are as whale-mad as their parents are.
Carlotta’s fatal flaw is her single-mindedness; when she’s set her mind to something she’ll go through hell to get it with no regard to her personal safety or often the feelings of others. As Cachalotte, she started out as a bit of a Dark Knight: a protector in shadow, who tries to work behind the scenes to reach justice - unfortunately, she was oblivious to City Justice and Law Justice, and more concerned with settling personal scores. Then after a few incidents involving some classmates, Marinette clocked onto her identity and told her to cut out her bullshit or she would personally hand the Whale Miraculous back to the Guardians. Since then, Cachalotte has aided Ladybug and Chat Noir when she thinks they need it, and approaches battles with her normal singlemindedness that becomes utter focus on the situation at hand.
The Guardians have yet to try and retrieve the Whale Miraculous; they believe it to be lost forever at sea. The truth is, a thousand years ago the previous wielder drowned, and the Miraculous became lodged in a living Sperm Whale’s tooth. The Miraculous unintentionally caused the whale wild longevity until it became dislodged a few months ago, and the whale beached in England. Carlotta’s father, as one of the leading cetologists involved in the unbelievable discovery of the thousand-year-old whale, sent it to Carlotta as a gift, not realising what it was.
Powers and Abilities:
As Carlotta:
Carlotta is fairly powerfully built for a girl; while she’s no professional weightlifter she can hold her own in a fight against even a faster or more agile opponent. Being a sibling has taught her to wait for the moment to strike to deliver the most powerful blow. She’s also sharp-minded and good with noticing and remembering details in stories, personalities, and habits (actual visual details, not so much) (it’s the Dupain ADHD) (her special interest is cetology, the study of whales).
She’s deeply informed on cetology, top of the class at general biology, and pretty good at motion physics. In fact, there are few school subjects besides chemistry that Carlotta doesn’t excel at. When it comes to sports, she’s an amazing swimmer and diver, beyond average at strength sports, above average at gymnastics, and a fast runner. (But she falls apart at sports that require good aim or precision such as basketball or fencing.) She’s also a very good skateboarder, and regularly terrifies people with stunts she’s practised so often they’re practically second nature. Since the skateboarding accident that caused her partial loss of vision, Carlotta has started learning to read Braille.
Carlotta, as mentioned above, plays the violin - she’s extremely accomplished, helped by being lucky enough to have natural perfect pitch. Lizzy Starling (Miracuverse!Lindsey Stirling) is her musical idol. She can play entirely by finger-memory, and will jam along with anyone playing any other instrument nearby.
As Cachalotte:
Carlotta’s strength, flexibility, agility and speed are upgraded, like all Miraculous wielders. Her style of fighting is similar to her civilian style - fists, kicks, and waiting for the right moment to strike. She prefers to dodge an attack rather than deflect it.
Special Ability: “CODA!”
The Whale Miraculous grants the power of Echolocation. To use it, the user must think of what they wish to find in the fight - the weak point, the area their opponent will be next, their opponent’s power source - even the best path for the user to use themselves. In use, the user’s eyes glow bright purple and they see the thing they want to find highlighted in purple light, invisible to anyone else. The glow only appears for ten seconds maximum, and at its weakest (if the user is badly injured or as an adult after multiple uses) only three seconds.
Whale Add-Ons:
Qualities unique to the Whale Miraculous include mega-upgraded pain tolerance and resistance to air/water/magic pressure. Carlotta wondered if it would fix her damaged eyesight, but it gave her something even better: the ability to view her surroundings through sound, the way whales do. That’s not to say her damaged vision doesn’t make it hard to Hero sometimes - but she’s happy enough with things the way they are, because Klikk the Whale Kwami gave her the one thing she never thought she’d get - the ability to see the world from a whale’s perspective.
Klikk
Carlotta’s beloved sperm-whale Kwami companion. Klikk is rather mischievous, and can tend to encourage some of Carlotta’s more reckless behaviour (like, um, the time Cachalotte ran headfirst at a brick wall to see if she could leave a human-shaped hole like in a cartoon) (spoiler alert: she couldn’t and broke her nose) (which made Carlotta very glad she did it as Cachalotte and not as Carlotta like originally planned) but ultimately gives pretty good advice when Carlotta needs it. Transforms at the words “Klikk, Flukes Up!” and detransforms with “Klikk, Flukes Down!”. Klikk likes to hide in Carlotta’s hair, and despite loving physical contact, Carlotta refuses to let people touch her hair for Klikk’s safety. Klikk enjoys Blue Planet, cuddles, and deep-fried calamari.
I love those posts about the Miraculous holders gaining animalistic habits out of costume (Adrien purring, Alya shrieking like a fox, Marinette eating aphids) so I’m going to make one about my OC, María Sugrue-Dupain, who holds the whale Miraculous.
her appetite goes way up. all the holders have an increased appetite but María is especially affected due to how much whales have to eat to sustain themselves.
interestingly, her appetite goes way down in the winter (when whales live off their fat reserves).
she makes clicking noises all the time. when she’s hungry. when she’s eating. when she’s excited. especially when she’s angry, and it becomes more of a creak. every time Lila opens her mouth María just stands there unconsciously making a very loud creaking noise. has the bonus side effect of drowning Lila out if her bullshit is particularly annoying.
she’s got a bit of a crush on Luka and has occasionally clicked loudly and excitedly upon seeing him. María shares the hopeless romantic trait with Marinette.
gets very excited when she sees a baby. doesn’t matter if it’s a human baby. babies are suddenly more adorable than they used to be and she would gladly adopt/die for all of them.
increased fondness for calamari
she’s accidentally tried to eat a plastic bag before. so has Klikk (her Kwami).
undisputed breath-holding-contest champion
her bone structure and organs actually becomes a little affected. she’ll take really bad hits in gym class and just walk them off. she also discovers completely by accident that she can collapse her ribcage while holding her breath. she has managed to fit through gaps that no normal-sized teenager should be able to fit through.
once during a school fair she came across an apple-bobbing game and impulsively stuck her head in and tried to hoover up as many apples as possible in one go. they were small apples and she actually managed to fit two in her mouth. the disturbing part was when she resurfaced and just let the water drain out of her mouth. people are still talking about it.
one time Lila made up a lie about knowing a famous marine biologist who is actually María’s father. María impulsively head-butted her in the ribs. María cannot explain why she chose to head-butt Lila. Lila cannot explain how María head-butted her hard enough to leave a bruise but straightened up without even a headache. Klikk won’t explain anything but finds it hilarious.
AU where instead of being the Whale Kwami Klikk is specifically the Sperm Whale Kwami and there’s an Orca Kwami whose power is just being a fucking nightmare
