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.
🖤❤️🖤💚🖤❤️🖤💚🖤❤️🖤💚🖤❤️🖤💚🖤
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!😉
I don't know whether to make Nathaniel a model, or make his father Hawkmoth (We don't even know what his father looks like).
The love square would be more or less like this.
Marcaniel:
Marc denies being in love with Nathaniel, because he doesn't feel that he corresponds to him. Nathaniel just sees him as a friend 😅, but dont worry, he will fall in love with Marc eventually.
KatsBeetle (It would be the Ladynoir of this AU)
Red Beetle, despite being a little shy when facing akumas, he is willing to overcome his insecurities to save the day. One of the reasons Black Kats is deeply in love with him, He flirts with compliments, to encourage him in battles. He even calls him bugaboy.
Although Red Beetle is flattered by this, the reason he rejects him is not because of love, but because he knows that being superheroes they can't take many liberties like having a relationship, especially since Hawkmoth would take advantage of this against them and take away their miraculous.
And to avoid the redundancy of the love square, I decided that I will remove some episodes from the canon, or I'll probably rewrite them to make more sense of them.
From season 1, I don't think I'll remove any for now, this was where we got to know the characters the most before everything that started in the following seasons with new holders.
From season 2,
-Gigantitan
-Glaciator (Forgive me 😢)
-Rossignoble/Frightningale
From season 3,
-Papa Garou/Weredad
-Boulangerix/Bakerix
-Stormy Weather 2
-Oni-Chan
-Puppeteer 2
-Ladybug
-Chris Master
From season 4,
Psycomedian (Yeah, we won't see Angry Red Beetle 😔)
SIMPLEMAN PLEASE
Glaciator 2 (That too)
Kuro Neko
FOR OBVIOUS REASONS, in this AU will not happen Evillustrator or Reverser.
But as you saw, Chat Blanc and Ephemeral yes, so you can already imagine what would happen.
And that would be all the info I can give you for now, if you want to ask me more about the AU or if you have any idea/suggestion you can give it to me 💖
