#zenmastercharles

[zenmastercharles]

Marinette, Adrien, Gabriel, and the Miraculous (Miraculous: Zen Master Style)

Everyone else has tried their hand at rewriting the disappointment that is Miraculous Ladybug, each with their own ups and downs, so I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring. I’m going to rewrite this series from the ground up, episode by episode, season by season, special by special.. I don’t really have the motivation to write a full fanfiction, so I’m going to do the next best thing and do this bullet-point style. But before I hop into that, I want to talk about one of the most important parts of any rewrite or reboot: the characters. 

Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Harmonia 

The first and most obvious change is that I’ve changed Marinette’s hero name. Ladybug, while very iconic, is in my opinion, a pretty basic and uninspired name. So, I’m changing it to Harmonia, based on the species of Ladybug with the exact same name. It still gives off peaceful and inspiring vibes whilst also being creative.

As for her personality, Marinette wouldn’t change that much in my rewrite. Except for, which is to be expected in every rewrite, her stalker-ish and obsessive tendencies.

Of course I’m keeping her massive crush on Adrien, but instead of having her stalk him, I’d just have her write down any information about him that naturally came across her path. Like, if she was scrolling on Instagram and she came across an interview where he said his favorite flavor is passionfruit, she’d just jot it down somewhere.

Also, she wouldn’t try to sabotage any other woman that shows even the slightest interest in Adrien. I’ve always felt that to be so cringe. Instead, I’d have her maybe show a twinge of jealousy and envy, but she pushes it down quickly.

She’d be shown being creative much more in my version, perhaps scenes of her designing in her room before an akuma attack or solving everyday problems with her resourcefulness. 

I’d also show her progressively becoming less clumsy and confident over the course of Season 1 and 2, really focusing on her first character arc.

Now, appearance. Marinette’s main outfit would be much more stylish in my version because, well, she’s an aspiring fashion designer and her canon outfit is unfathomably bland. I’d probably go with a pink shirt under denim overalls and jorts, along with some nice pink sneakers and black ankle socks.  

Her superhero outfit is getting a MASSIVE overhaul. Like her superhero name, it’s iconic but basic. I’d give it some more solid black accents, and I’d add some padded and armored bits, especially around the torso and the lower limbs, to make it look more like an actual beetle. And her hair would be tied up into space buns, like in her Multimouse outfit, along with a pair of thin bangs that would be structured to look like antennas. 

Finally, her backstory. I’m not changing much about her backstory, however, I am changing her past with Chloe.

See, Chloe and Marinette used to be best friends when they were, like, 10. Chloe was actually pretty chill back then, but something happened one day and Chloe just changed. She became a demanding and cruel bully. She tried to drag Marinette along for her schemes, but Marinette refused and Chloe disowned her. Marinette continued to try and talk Chloe out of her phase until Chloe pulled a prank on her so heinous that Marinette began believing that Chloe could never change. Chloe perceived Marinette’s refusal to help her bully people as a betrayal, so she replaced her with Sabrina and made it her mission to make Marinette’s life a living hell. She bullied Marinette for years, which shattered Marinette’s confidence. 

In this rewrite, she’s 15 instead of 14. I’ve always found it weird that she’s currently 14. Like, why would Fu even believe that a 14 year old is the right person to carry the burden of not only saving all of Paris, but being the Guardian of the Miraculous. And technically, she only turned 14 in Befana, so she was 13 when she got her Miraculous so she probably got all this responsibility dumped on her fresh out of puberty-oh my god, I’m getting off track.

And that’s it for Marinette, now, let’s move on to Adrien.

Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir

I considered changing Chat Noir’s name for the same reason I did Ladybug’s, it’s just Black Cat in French. But I decided that Chat Noir actually flows pretty well, in fact, too well to change. 

For his personality, I decided to make him more like he was in the movie, but with some of the PV mixed in. Sheltered, a loner, kind of cold, closed off his emotions to the rest of the world, doesn’t have a lot of real friends but is still really popular because of his status and profession. He’s nice enough, but he doesn’t allow himself to get close to anyone, or for anyone to get close to him. That is until he meets Harmonia and falls head over heels for her. 

He still takes a bunch of extracurriculars and has heaps of pressure put onto him. His father’s still cold, distant, and controlling, but as Chat Noir, he feels free, his shoulders are lighter than ever, nobody can control him. It’s a nice parallel between him and Harmonia, transforming adds pressure for her while it relieves pressure for him. 

Regarding his love for Harmonia, being raised by Gabriel “Chief of Child Neglect” Agreste, Adrien doesn’t really know the best way to express complex emotions like love, more specifically, romantic love. 

You know that scene from Glaciator 2 where Kagami reveals that she was getting her relationship advice from a manga? Yeah, Adrien’s gonna do that. With guidance from the manga, Chat Noir’s gonna flirt heavily with Harmonia. He’s gonna be unloading all the rizz he can muster onto Harmonia, but it’s so bad that Harmonia thinks it’s all one big joke since Chat’s always making puns and jokes. 

Now for his design, like Marinette’s, it’s basic as hell. And it’s even more illogical for him because Marinette’s just a normal girl with a normal life but Adrien’s dad is literally one of the world’s most famous fashion designers. Almost every Adrien redesign gives him a coat so I’m gonna do that too. I’d probably give him a maroon knee-length victorian coat with the shirt he wears in canon underneath, along with some black dress pants and jodhpur boots. 

Honestly, I don’t have any problems with his superhero outfit, but I’ll still be changing it quite a bit. I want to give it more of a wild look since, in this version at least, it’ll symbolize Adrien letting go of his expectations. I'll be adding some gray accents along the suit, as well as giving him an unzipped, waist-length jacket, with some gray accents of its own. I’m gonna add some sharp points at the end of his gloves. His hair will be significantly messier and spikier. He’s still gonna have his belt tail, in fact, I’m gonna give him another one. Well to be more specific, he’ll have two belts. They’ll overlap with each other to form a sort of wide x-shape at his waist with a green belt buckle that has his insignia on it. He’ll still only have one belt tail though. 

Like Marinette, he’ll be 15 in this one, but he’ll turn 16 in Bubbler (or the episode that’s replacing it).

And now, let’s move on to our main antagonist, Gabriel Agreste.

Gabriel Agreste | Atlas

Okay, so I changed Hawk Moth’s name too, but only because while I was searching up other types of butterflies for reasons I can’t tell you because spoilers, I came across one literally called Atlas and that sounds so much cooler than Hawk Moth. 

Personality-wise, I’m just gonna do what the movie did because the movie did Gabriel so much better than the series did.

Before the identity reveal in Season 2, I’m going to have some scenes with Atlas that make it clear that his goal isn’t World Domination, but to make sure that the viewers know that he’s doing this to bring someone back to life.

And his costume, just Callimara’s redesign of him. She did it better than I could even dream of doing it. Her version is simply peak.

His backstory is where things change a bunch.

So basically, he and Emilie met when they were around Adrien and Marinette’s age, only a year or two younger. Emelie fell first but Gabriel fell harder, and eventually, they started dating. Things were all nice and stuff for a few years until Paris was overtaken by crime, gang bosses and stuff. Gabriel and Emilie didn’t know what to do until they met an old man. Somehow, they proved to this old man that they were pure of heart, so the old man gave them two magic jewels, the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous, and trained them to become heroes. It only took them half a year to bring the crime rate down significantly. After crime was rarer than you getting some bitches, the old man let them keep the Miraculouses, even after they retired from the hero positions. However, unbeknownst to them, in their last scuffle, the Peacock Miraculous was hit head-on with some kind of magic bullet and was damaged. Emelie got increasingly sick as she continued to wear the Miraculous, unaware that it was the source of the sickness until it was too late. So, only seven years after their son, Adrien, was born, Emilie tragically passed. The effect this had on Gabriel was tremendous. He blamed the old man and the Miraculouses for Emilie’s death, so he renounced Nooroo. He was so grief-stricken that he slipped into a depressive state, inadvertently becoming neglectful and emotionally abusive towards Adrien. He felt like he lost his other half. It all came to a head after years, he couldn’t take it anymore. He needed Emelie back. Then, he remembered something the old man had told him all those years, that the power of the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous when unified could warp reality and grant any wish. He knew the old man still had it, so he spent months trying to track him down to no avail. However, one night, he was struck with a genius idea. He came to the conclusion that the old man must’ve either given them to someone else or is planning to. So he decided that there was no better way to draw out superheroes than creating supervillains. He reclaimed the Butterfly Miraculous and started his crusade as Atlas.

I was so damn dramatic with that one lmao. 

Anyway, onto the Miraculous themself. 

The Miraculous

For the base concept of the Miraculouses, they’re pretty much the same. Mystical jewelry inhabited by deities that each embody a unique concept. What changes for the most part, is the power system linked to these Miraculous.

One of the bigger changes is that a Kwami can choose their holder. When someone becomes a Miraculous holder, it’s kind of like signing a contract. If the Kwami chooses you, you have a choice between accepting or denying them. The Kwami bonds with your soul and mind, making it so that taking someone’s Miraculous isn’t as easy as just taking off the jewel. If a holder doesn’t want the Miraculous anymore, they can renounce it, but it only works once. If you reclaim it after that, it’s bonded to you until death. However, the guardians do know a technique that can forcefully sever the bond between a Kwami and Holder.

Instead of one power, each Miraculous has a variety of powers. A wielder can unlock a new power by overcoming a treacherous mental burden or limit, strengthening the metaphorical bond (relationship) between them and their Kwami, or both. This power system does have its limit. There are two types of powers, Primary Power and Auxiliary Powers. The Primary Power is the main power of the Miraculous, for example, Lucky Charm, Cataclysm, Mirage, Shellter, etc. The Auxiliary Powers are smaller powers that aren’t as energy-consuming as the Primary Powers. 

When the user is young like Marinette and Adrien, you can think of their energy as an MP bar in an RPG. It’s full when they transform but very slowly goes down the longer they’re transformed. Auxiliary Powers chip off small percents off of the MP bar, and the Primary Power immediately brings it down to like, 20%.  

Most Primary Powers are toned down versions of the Kwami’s true power, as the Miraculouses were made to contain, sustain, and repress them so that a user can’t access the true power and wreak fucking havoc. 

There are two types of Auxiliary Powers a MIraculous can give you, Primal Powers, powers based on the animal the Kwami presents as, and Conceptual Powers, powers based on the concept the Kwami represents. Primal Powers are much easier to unlock than Conceptual Powers. 

Unification in this version merges the Primary Powers and Weapons of both Miraculouses being unified. However, because of the physical strain of having your soul and mind bonded to two other beings, Unification isn’t preferred and is pretty much banned for the good of anyone involved. But it is going to be in my version, but it’s going to be super rare. Maybe 1 or 2 every season.  

Weapons are the same in this version, except, like the suits, they can have slightly altered appearances based on who’s using the MIraculous. 

Quantum Masking is real in this version as well. It’s an invisible magical aura that coats the user and blocks any familiarity of the holder from the mind of any non-Miraculous holder. Basically, it allows them to know the holder when they’re transformed but keeps them from coming to the conclusion of “Ayo, is that Marinette!?”.

And that’s it for now. If you’re interested in hearing more of this hypothetical rewrite/reboot, stay tuned for Season 1 and pray that I don’t lose motivation in between this post and the next. I know I am. Alright, Zen Master, out.