Finally finished a piece I had been fighting with. A nice Rouge Bouge and his new partner, Multimouse! In my opinion, Marinette was perfect for the Mouse Miraculous. This was the perfect time to let her have that~ I threw in a bonus Mullo and Tiki because they're precious❤️
One part edited, note at the bottom*. Also added a bit in to describe Adrien's behavior.
Kwami Swap AU where Master Fu chose Adrien as the Ladybug holder. Whoever else he chose as Mister Bug's partner is up to the filler; doesn't have to be Marinette or the Black Cat, for that matter. You could even have multiple other heroes active right from the start, or whatever works best for you.
The core conflict here is that while Adrien has been entrusted with great power and responsibility, he acts just like his canonical counterpart: refusing to take anything seriously.
He treats the Earrings as a ticket to freedom -- from his father, from his position, from having to be a 'model son' and pretend that he gives a shit about anyone other than himself and his own selfish whims. The mask is an excuse to goof off, and since his Miraculous Cure lets him magically repair the damage dealt by akumas, he's utterly unconcerned by the damage he causes do.
His partner (or partners) are forced to pick up his slack, struggling to actually do their jobs while he flounces about cracking wise and having his fun. If they happen to be female, or someone Adrien views as female*, Adrien of course sexually harasses them, even threatening to withhold his powers unless they play along, just like he does in the show.
He is constantly harassing them for dates and kisses, constantly grabbing them without consent, lying to others about their relationship, everything he does to Marinette in canon, he now does to the new heroes if he finds them attractive. Or maybe he's not even attracted to them, maybe he just likes tormenting them regardless. He thinks Marinette's anger is hilarious. Maybe he uses his so-called "love" as just an excuse to be as vicious a bully as Chloe is.
Tikki tries in vain to rein him in, but Adrien refuses to listen; she holds no power over him. He doesn't see her as any kind of serious threat to his fun, just a killjoy who likes to complain. He's getting the job done, he insists, but his way rather than hers.
Naturally, this situation can't last long. So what gives way first? Does Master Fu admit his mistake and take matters into his own hands by recovering the Earrings? Does Tikki take them while Adrien's sleeping and go off to find somebody more suitable? Does his partner turn on him? Does Paris turn on their 'playful protector' first?
Or is this a scenario where Hawkmoth manages to get his hands on the Earrings due to Adrien's carelessness and refusal to take anything seriously until the consequences come crashing down upon his head?
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(Editor's note:
And to begin with, I'm not angry at all, it's a common misconception! :)
Okay so the original sentence was
"if they happen to be female-presenting",
And I edited this to:
"if they happen to be female, or someone Adrien views as female",
Here's why:
"female-presenting" (and similarly, feminine-presenting, masculine-presenting, male-presenting, ect) is a well-meaning but misguided attempt to be inclusive, since it actually misgenders people more than anything else.
If someone is AFAB (assigned female at birth) and hasn't transitioned in any way to change their appearance, they aren't female-presenting, they're just existing. Saying they're female-presenting makes it seem that they're purposefully presenting themselves as female, despite them not doing anything except existing.
And describing a trans woman/transfem people as "female presenting" has the same problem, where it seems like being female is just something they're playing at, instead of something they actually are.
It's best to avoid describing anyone (even fictional characters) as "female/feminine-presenting" or "male/masculine-presenting" or anything like that, since it's not actually inclusive to trans people, it just misgenders people and does the same level of assuming people's genders as just assuming that someone who appears "female-presenting" is a woman, and ect.
In this case, Adrien is not attracted to men, so when we're talking about people Adrien would be attracted to, it would either be girls, or people he sees as girls. Aka people he sees as female, so instead of saying "Adrien would harass people who are female-presenting", it'd just be better to say "Adrien would harass people he sees as female" since that conveys the same message, without misgendering anyone, if any of the characters in question were trans in some way.
Again, I'm not mad at all, I just thought I'd explain why I changed it so everyone knows in the future! :)
(I'm trying to find the post I made explaining this in more detail but tumblr said :no I'm not going to function like a proper website right now" so if I find it I'll edit a link in here)
He explains to her the rules, her responsibilities, how to transform and what powers she’ll have.
And then he tells her, once he’s fulfiled the orders Master Fu gave him, which he cannot disobey, “I hate transforming people. I don’t want to transform you. Please, don’t make me transform you.”
And Marinette...
Doesn’t.
Because unlike Adrien, she’s a good person. She doesn’t laugh at the misery of others. She’s not going to drag Plagg literally screaming into the Ring without even giving him a chance to eat.
So.
Marinette has the Ring of the Black Cat, and Plagg as a kwami, and a much, much deeper understanding of the bond between Kwami and Miraculous and Holder than she would have if she’d been given Tikki, who puts up no protest.
With Plagg as her kwami, Marinette learns immediately and indisputably that the kwami are slaves to the Miraculous and their holders. If he could fly away and never come back, he would. But he can’t. So he won’t.
Marinette has the Ring of the Black Cat, and she has Plagg as her partner, and she refuses to transform, because she refuses to force Plagg to do something he doesn’t want to do.
Together, the two of them have to figure out how to help Ladybug, the other hero given a Miraculous, without revealing Marinette’s identity or putting her in unnecessary danger. Because, unfortunately, if she’s not transformed, she’s not invulnerable the way Ladybug is.
This AU forces Adrien to very quickly come to grips with the responsibility of having a Miraculous and being a super hero, because there’s no one coming to save him if he fails, and there’s no one there to carry him through every fight, and no one but him to fix the damage.
He learns the hard way not to disregard or brush off Tikki, when he ignores her guidance again and ends up having an Akuma smash his bedroom to pieces after he already used the Miraculous Ladybugs. And when he detransformed, and gave Tikki time to recuperate, and cast the Miraculous Ladybugs again, it didn’t fix the damage.
You get one shot to use the Lucky Charm, one shot to put everything back to rights. You don’t get a do-over, you don’t get a second chance. You have to do it right the first time, or you’ll face the consequences.
Adrien doesn’t like dealing with the consequences of his actions.
So he has no choice but to step up and shape up.
He has no choice but to take responsibility, so he does, kicking and screaming the whole way.
With no one else there to take the heat or provide covering praise for him, Adrien is left to face the scrutiny of the public on his own, and when he does something wrong, and refuses to admit it, or endangers civilians with either sheer negligence or active stupidity, the public makes their anger known, and they are not the kind to forgive and forget.
And after a few less than stellar incidents involving pissed off civilians, mace, and a disasterous live interview where he made a few casual remarks about girls that led to a dozen simultaneous Akumatizations, he starts taking responsibility for more than just being smart in the middle of battle-he starts taking responsibility for himself, and the way his actions impact those around him.
Being a super hero, it turns out, is a responsibility, not a game. He can’t put the mask on and do whatever he wants. That’s not how it works.
He learns, begrudgingly, at first, how to actually be a good person, how to be responsible, how to be a good super hero.
He’s not even aware that he’s supposed to have a superhero partner working with him. Master Fu didn’t tell Plagg or Tikki anything, so Tikki has no idea that Plagg is out there somewhere with a mystery holder.
Plagg and Marientte, meanwhile, have been working together to find an actual solution to Hawkmoth’s reign of terror. Defeating the Akuma he sends out is just a band-aid solution. It’s playing defence. And with no limit besides his patience, playing defense against Hawkmoth is going to go literally nowhere.
Armed with the double-edged sword that is the knowledge that the kwami are enslaved, Marinette seeks to uncover the location and identity of both Hawkmoth, and the mysterious ‘Guardian’, who Plagg can tell her nothing about, except for their title. And even getting that much information required a long verbal workaround to find a loophole.
Her goal is to stop Hawkmoth, and to find any way she can to safely help Ladybug in the Akuma battles, but her greater goal? Finding this so-called Guardian, and rescuing the other kwami from them.
Because Hawkmoth isn’t only evil because he’s attacking the city.
Plagg knows the kwami bound to the Moth Miraculous, and he knows that there is no way they would go along with a villain willingly. Hawkmoth is abusing the kwami bound to the Moth Miraculous.
Just the same way the Guardian is abusing the other kwami in their control, by keeping them locked up in the Miracle Box as prisoners, or passing them out to untrained children to be slaves.
Hawkmoth has to be stopped. The kwami bound to the Moth Miraculous has to be saved.
And so do the rest of them.
There are many barriers in their way, but Plagg is determined, and Marinette is clever.
If anyone could figure out the loopholes in the magic, if anyone could figure out how to destroy the Miraculouses, and how to free the kwami...
It’ll be her.
They spend the majority of their time working drafting as accurate a “transcript” of Plagg’s orders as they can, writing it all down so that Marinette can pick through the details and find the loopholes. Every order he’s ever been given gets written down, and one by one, starting with the simplest, Marinette frees him from them.
If only it were as easy as it sounds.
But she is determined, and Plagg, for the first time since he can remember, has hope.
Adrien is learning how to be a good person and a good superhero, and even though he’s fighting alone, he’s getting better all the time. He chose to return to his home-schooling after a month at public school, realizing that the added stress of being in class with Chloe all day wasn’t worth the novelty. And because of his father’s negligence, he has plenty of time and opportunity to get out of the house as Ladybug, something that Tikki actively encourages him to do, because it’s good for him, and she gets to have fun too.
Because when a kwami transforms you, you don’t know they’re there, because it only goes one way, but they see, hear, and feel everything you do while transformed. So when Adrien has fun running around on the rooftops as Ladybug just because he can, Tikki’s having fun too.
It also means that when something goes wrong in battle, she can advise him afterwards with her own observations. Together, they can brainstorm on how to prevent similar situations from happening in the future, and what other options he had at the time that he just hadn’t thought about.
Marinette makes very few excursions as a super hero, because it’s dangerous both to her physical safety, and because she has no magic hiding her identity. If someone catches her, she’s in trouble.
But research and brainstorming can only get you so far, and some sneaking around (and a few incidents involving breaking) is required. She has an outfit she designed herself, meant to aid her in sneaking, while keeping her safe, and making it as hard to tell who she is beneath it all as possible. If she ever does get caught, she’ll tell them her name is Revenant.
She does her best to keep a low profile, and mostly succeeds. There are a few rumors circulating around Paris about a cat burglar, but no one really believes them.
Master Fu never makes an appearance to confront Marinette or Plagg on their going AWOL, which is unfortunately good news for him (not that he’s aware of that), but bad news for Marinette and Plagg.
Still.
Akuma battles are starting to become so short that most people don’t even bother to stop what they’re doing when a fight happens if they aren’t in the immediate vicinity. Adrien is shaping up to be quite the fighter and tactician, and Gabriel grows more desperate and frustrated by the day, and that just makes him sloppy. Especially because he knows that even if he manages to defeat Ladybug, his job is only half done. He still needs to find the Ring of the Black Cat, and as far as he knows, it’s not even on the same continent.
All in all, things are looking good for the good guys. Adrien has gotten good enough that Marinette is keeping more and more tabs on him, and she and Plagg are planning to send him as an ambassador, to see how he reacts to the idea of teaming up.
Tikki, Plagg has told her, wouldn’t willingly reveal that she’s a slave. She likes to pretend she’s happy, so that she doesn’t have to deal with the fact that she’s not. So it’s very unlikely that Ladybug is aware of what the Miraculous really are, especially not if he and Tikki have a good relationship, which they seem to.
Plagg can find them, and report back, without endangering Marinette’s identity, or having to give up any information he doesn’t need to. Marinette intends to keep her identity a secret, and she doesn’t want Plagg to reveal Ladybug’s identity to her, either, unless it’s an absolute emergency.
Another ladybug chibi!! This time, Chat Noir :3!! I’ve drawn the rest of the super team too, I'll upload them as soon as possible, and you can see Ladybug in the gallery!!
I have merchandising with this design and many other Miraculous ladybug characters among many other designs from various fandoms in my online store, link in the box in my blog and in the description ^v^!!
If you like my art, remember to follow me in I nstagram and T witter ^w^!! You can find me @ aerlyse in T witter and @ aerlyse_art in I nstagram !!
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Otro chibi de Ladybug!! En esta ocasión, Chat Noir :3!! He dibujado también al resto del equipo de Ladybug, los cuales iré subiendo en cuanto pueda, y en la galería podéis ver a Ladybug!! Tengo merchandising con este diseño y muchos otros personajes de Ladybug junto a diseños de otros fandoms variados en mi tienda online, enlace en la caja de mi blog y en la descripción ^v^!!
Si os gusta mi arte, recordad seguirme en I nstagram y T witter ^w^!! Podéis encontrarme en @ aerlyse en T witter y @ aerlyse_art en I nstagram :D!!
Same AU as my black cat Marinette. Adrien started as the ladybug, and gets to be someone other that his father’s son and model. This Adrien is not so carefree, but thriving with both the responsibility and freedom in more of a leadership role. Haven’t really settled on a name yet.
