The Thing Is That I Actually Love Moral Grayness. And I Actually Don't Personally Believe Lying Is Always

gabriel and Adrien: obvious. don't need to say this. cold and distant, gabriels thrown himself entirely into his grief. when he's not working he's trying to find the miraculous, thinking to himself anything he fucks up he can fix with the wish. adrien might be neglected now but he won't remember anything but happiness when gabriel succeeds. if gabriel spends more time with adrien, it just prolongs their suffering

chat noir and hawkmoth: i hate this bitch give me your miraculous

the potential of a hawkmoth and adrien dynamic:

adriens POV "that's the villain I need to defeat by any cost but right now i have no powers and he could akumatize me, hurt me, hurt my friends - my best option is to fawn or flee --> this is an advantage to learn more about who im fighting without him trying to steal my miraculous"

gabriels "this is my son who is very well behaved usually and who I do care for yet I have forgotten entirely about in my grief. its strange, viewing him with this miraculous, seeing his emotions - im learning more about him now than in my own house. am i making a mistake? i can't be (sunken cost fallacy)"

potential chat noir and gabriel dynamic:

chat noir: adrien gets the freedom to ask his father questions that would seem disrespectful and get him in trouble in his own house. after all, chat noir has all the power and gabriel is the civilian. gabriel cannot harm him in any way--the power dynamic has been reversed, and it allows adrien to ask his father questions and interact with him in a more expressive way without consequence. of course, this is his father; adrien loves him, and he doesn't want to hurt him, plus it would seem out of character or even villainous for chat noir to hate a civilian randomly. but it gives adrien more of an outlet to express negative emotions with his father.

gabriel: "i need this boys miraculous but i can't transform right now, he has no reason to suspect me. this is a child--one that shouldn't be capable of bossing me around, yet holds the power of destruction so he can. --> this is an opportunity to learn more about chat noir, anything about his identity. if i seem nice enough, perhaps he'll let something slip. for some reason the hero seems to eat up any compliment i give him."

okay i will say one of the least utilized parts of ml is that the lovesquare isn't the only characters that can have multiple dynamics at once. and in fact one of my things i wanna do in a rewrite is have gabriel/hawkmoth have different dynamics with the main characters depending on persona.

for example; what is an interaction between hawkmoth and adrien agreste actually like? in a scenario where potentially hawkmoth finds out about ladybug being attached to a civilian AND having the excuse of knowing it because it's a popular model so it wouldn't out his identity, would he choose to endanger his son? or maybe would he do it himself instead of trusting an akuma, knowing he won't actually follow through with a threat to adriens life while an akuma would?

what's a dynamic between chat noir and gabriel? that's a superhero gabriel wants the miraculous from, but he can't be blatant about it, and more than that, he has no power over a superhero and no reason to dislike him. it's fascinating.

one of my fav fucked up things is the concept of adrien talking more to hawkmoth than his own father because gabriel learns that adrien is one of the most effective ways to bait ladybug. hawkmoth can read emotions, and one day he reads ladybugs enough when Adrien is in the vicinity- and woah, her emotions are so strong about him it's readable through the magical cloaking, even! he even justifies it morally because it's not like adrien is ever hurt. is it kidnapping if it's your own son? is it really hurting him if all your doing is playing chess with him on top of the eiffel tower, an unspoken threat of super powered violence enough to keep him from doing anything reckless? gabriel is spending time with his son /and/ getting the miraculous. and at the end of the day... when gabriel gets the wish, he can fix it all - so it'll be okay! :)

if i wrote ml fanfic it'd be so self indulgentlike lila and adrien trying to appear friendly to everyone around them but the passive aggressiveness ramps up until there are looney tunes level shenanigans happening when no one is looking until they somehow become friends. But well the thing is that s5 I don't know what they're doing anymore so lila would be my OC. but that's fine i live in s3 forever i suppose...

i need to join a ml discord server because right now i force my friends to listen to me rant and they dont even like miraculous ladybug at all. but also i know im such a hater that i cant join any in fear of me being a total grinch and ruining peoples fun. but i also cant join hater servers because if i see any character bashing ill be the one with a bunch of grinches ruining MY fun. you see my dilemma.

ik its a kids show so theyd probably never delve into this. but in the universe where chat noir and hawkmoths identity were revealed to the public, i cannot fucking imagine the media circus that would go on. the court case alone would be so bad… “hawkmoth vs chat noir: domestic terrorism or domestic abuse?” itd be soooo awful they should make it happen. paris’ most fucked up family. the youtube videos. someone would request to make a documentary. and after all gabriels shit is revealed publicly he still only goes to jail for tax evasion à la al capone.

If we lived in the good timeline Nino would have canon parents and Adrien would have become an honorary lahiffe but instead he’s gonna keep on being marinette’s pet boyfriend

im coming back to her she'll never steer me wrong. my document will be opened again

my miraculous "enemies" au

i wanted to post something to give context to art i post so here it is! i think you can consider this my "miraculous rewrite" if you want to call it that...? but its just me wanting everyone trying to steal each others miraculous. that's literally it. i love drama. details under the cut:

The Premise:

When Fu was a child training with the Order, they left him to guard a Miracle Box for as long as possible without food or water. Eventually, Fu got curious - he opened the box and a beautiful array of animals spilled out. Tikki and Plagg act like the angel and devil on Fu's shoulder: Plagg, along with many of the other kwamis, urge Fu to use his Miraculous to transform in order to get food from the kitchens. Tikki warns him otherwise, but Fu transforms with the Peacock and the Black Cat, and the destructive power of his emotions go on a rampage, destroying the Order.

In the destruction, Fu loses most of the miraculous and the grimoire. They're scattered all across the world, falling into different people's hands. Tikki vows to help Fu rectify his mistake of trusting Plagg and help recover the lost miraculous.

What Does This Change?

Miraculouses and grimoire pages are spread around the world, so magic is pretty commonplace. Superheroes and supervillains have existed in Paris before "canon."

Adrien finds the Black Cat independently from the Guardian. He makes a deal with Plagg - freedom for freedom. Plagg gives Adrien powers that allow Adrien to get out of the house, and Adrien lets Plagg do whatever otherwise - no commands, unlike his past holders.

Hints of the Black Cat hit the news and Fu sees it. Fu is out of shape, and the Black Cat holder looks young. Tikki goes out to choose a new holder - Marinette. Marinette is mostly the same in this; she uses the Ladybug for stopping supervillains, but this time she doesn't have a partner.

The Black Cat has a terrible reputation... After all, Plagg was locked up in the Miracle Box and never used for a reason. Ever since its been out, people have used it for horrific purposes. Fu and TIkki are sure that Chat Noir must be up to something. If he's not, then it'd still be safer to keep Plagg in the box. Marinette, with no experience, takes their advice to heart.

Instead, she and CN are 'frenemies.' They end up working together to defeat supervillains, but before Ladybug gets the chance to take his Miraculous, something always goes wrong!

Chat Noir is unaware that Ladybug is working for the Guardian. He assumes she also gained her miraculous independently and he wants to be friends! He's never made friends before, though... why do his attempts keep going so poorly!?

When Chat Noir does figure out what Ladybug is trying to do, it turns into a competition on who can steal one another's Miraculous first. Plagg is adamant to never be put back in the box again.

When Chat Noir is first spotted in Paris, Hawkmoth doesn't reveal himself at all. Instead, he akumatizes people to try and lure CN (+LB) out and assess them. LB + CN are both unaware that the supervillains they put behind bars are actually akumatized. He tries to pit them against each other until the two accidentally break an object and discover an akuma. Oops :/

Eventually, after discovering Hawkmoth's existence, Ladybug and Chat Noir make a "truce" to work together to defeat him before getting back to their business (trying to take each other's miraculous lmao).

i have so many little things in this au and a bunch of doodles that i'll finish one day, but that's the general gist. later on, other characters get miraculous (also independently) which you know... it adds to it. writing isn't my personal forte and this is too much for more than the occasional comic from me. so i might write an outline for how i'd write the full thing at some point. (shrug)

TLDR: Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Hawkmoth all want each other's miraculous and team up and break up in different combos until eventually Ladybug and Chat Noir team up like in canon.

edit:

explaining s5 finale to my friends is so. everything i say is crazy. "adrien gets yellow wallpapered and is put in a white sensory deprivation chamber in london. there's a foosball table." i sound crazy. but it's real!

okay i will say one of the least utilized parts of ml is that the lovesquare isn't the only characters that can have multiple dynamics at once. and in fact one of my things i wanna do in a rewrite is have gabriel/hawkmoth have different dynamics with the main characters depending on persona.

for example; what is an interaction between hawkmoth and adrien agreste actually like? in a scenario where potentially hawkmoth finds out about ladybug being attached to a civilian AND having the excuse of knowing it because it's a popular model so it wouldn't out his identity, would he choose to endanger his son? or maybe would he do it himself instead of trusting an akuma, knowing he won't actually follow through with a threat to adriens life while an akuma would?

what's a dynamic between chat noir and gabriel? that's a superhero gabriel wants the miraculous from, but he can't be blatant about it, and more than that, he has no power over a superhero and no reason to dislike him. it's fascinating.

one of my fav fucked up things is the concept of adrien talking more to hawkmoth than his own father because gabriel learns that adrien is one of the most effective ways to bait ladybug. hawkmoth can read emotions, and one day he reads ladybugs enough when Adrien is in the vicinity- and woah, her emotions are so strong about him it's readable through the magical cloaking, even! he even justifies it morally because it's not like adrien is ever hurt. is it kidnapping if it's your own son? is it really hurting him if all your doing is playing chess with him on top of the eiffel tower, an unspoken threat of super powered violence enough to keep him from doing anything reckless? gabriel is spending time with his son /and/ getting the miraculous. and at the end of the day... when gabriel gets the wish, he can fix it all - so it'll be okay! :)

felt the urge to watch ml s6 while doing HW in a similar way i felt the urge to watch ml during ceramics. I will resist. I will resist. I will resi

don't ever remind me of miraculous ladybug it's that serious to me. I treat the writing of ml like being in the damn navy.