After All These Years (not Even Two Full Years Since I Made The Og Design)… I Finally Caved…

how much wood could a wood chipper chip, if a wood chipper could chip wood? (This is very relevant to the content of your blog and your miraculous character reboot, trust trust)

@aeonianlunartine get your slipshod poppycock outta here

I don’t usually draw larger drawings, but since someone I know irl suggested it, here’s these two!

Individual drawings (and a bit of extra text) under the cut:

Basically these are actually remasters, as I had originally drawn close ups on Night Light and Greyhound two years ago. Hopefully my art development is evident through the compare and contrast!

Was practicing drawing with a larger scale and also wanted to try a few ideas I had to refine the Calamity design. Hopefully his details are more noticeable now!

Uh think I'm late to the party but I just saw @star-stages DTIYS and wanted to do it with my own sonic!

Character Dynamics

Okay so let's begin this post we'll talk about the more important characters of the rewrite but I probably will need to split into two posts.

Adrien Agreste

Chloe is Adrien's closest friend from his childhood. He's constantly trying to get her to hang out with his new friends but the issue is he wasn't prepared for how she acts. As a child he knew that his mom and Audrey didn't get along but it wasn't until style queen and queen wasp that he understood what kind of person Audrey was. He sees how Audrey's behavior has shaped and changed Chloe which is why he stops Chloe from leaving with her mom. Episodes like Despair Bear is Adrien trying to convince Chloe that she might have more in common with his friends than she thinks. Adrien isn't a total pushover with Chloe when Adrien sees Chloe being mean to Ivan he calls her behavior out. We will see them growing closer again as Adrien starts fixing their fractured friendship.

Juliet is Adrien's second friend he made at school. Adrien and her have a lot in common since both of them were homeschooled and currently live with one parent. They also share a love for superheros. They often feel like siblings with the way they act and joke around. Juliet is able to understand what Adrien's going through better than some of the others. That's not to say she can completely understand what Adrien's going through because she doesn't know what it's like to lose a parent both of her parents are alive and just divorced. Their similarities make her easy to approach when Adrien is having issues with his dad.

Marinette well we have the love square but Mari isn't as obsessed yes she has a crush on him but not stalking level like in the show. Mari has a crush on him and does some awkward things for example the voicemail thing still happens most of the other stuff like breaking into his house doesn't happen. Her and Adrien are friends with her crush on him sometimes getting the better of like Volpina. She does try to get over Adrien when she thinks he's not into her but failed. Adrien for his part actually started developing feelings for her in season 3 but pushed them aside since he already was dating someone and so was she. As Chat Noir and Ladybug their dynamic is mostly the same though they're on more equal footing.

Allegra is Adrien's other childhood friend she's a bit older than him already being in Lycées when we meet her. She is a student teacher in fencing. Adrien and Allegra are super happy to see each other again as Allegra had to move after her parents found out her grandmother was sick. The two reconnect as if it hadn't been years since they'd seen each other. She often acts like an older sister to Adrien. He normally brings out her more jokey side which her friend group is shocked by.

Nino is the first friend Adrien made at school. Nino quite fittingly since he has the turtle miraculous acts as a protective figure to Adrien especially considering Adrien is so new to public School. And honestly, I don't have too much to say just because it's much easier to watch it play out.

Valérie is an interesting one because she's the granddaughter of Wang Fu who's not only Adrien's mentor but his Mandarin tutor as well. Val is one of the few people who knows the identity of the original 3 early on. She can be a bit critical of all of them Chat Noir especially considering how destructive his miraculous is. She does relate to Adrien a bit with having an overprotective parental figure aka her Grandpa.

Gabriel is much different than his Canon counterpart. He doesn't threaten to pull Adrien out of school and actually does care about him. He just has a hard time expressing himself especially after his wife Emilie died. Again, he's another one that's difficult to explain without showing it.

Felix is Adrien's cousin the two of them used to be really close when they were kids but Gabriel and Colt had a falling out. Which led to Felix not seeing Adrien anymore. When we meet Felix in season 2, he is rather distant. He does love his cousin but he has a lot of trust issues thanks to Colt. And he is jealous of all the friends Adrien has how people seem to love him so much. As the series goes on, we see their relationship gradually improve and Felix make friends with some of Adrien's friends.

Luka is in all honestly probably going to be the last one I explain because in all honesty this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Luka is good friends with Adrien they first became friends through having a couple mutuals then Luka was looking for a keyboardist for the Kitty section. Luka often is the person Adrien will vent to because he doesn't want to bother the others. Luka tries to always be there when Adrien needs him. He also listens to Chat Noir vent when they're on patrol.

Now that Adrien’s done (and my brain is ready), it’s time to do the precious bug girl:

Marinette MTS

Like Adrien, she has four categories. They are as follows:

1. General Info

2. Personality

3. Key Relationships

4. Character Growth

1. General Info

Unlike Adrien, whose appearance doesn’t really change, Marinette MTS has a different look from her OG counterpart. She’s a bit shorter and more muscular. As a civilian her eyes are grey and her hair is dark brown. As Ladybug her eyes are still blue (heroes’ eye colors change to match their Kwami) and her hair is black at the roots, blue at the tips (that’s who my profile picture is, btw).

In addition to Marinette no longer being the sole protagonist and the side characters receiving more of a focus, she also won’t become the Guardian in MTS. For those who aren’t aware, the Miraculous will get scattered around the midpoint of Season 2, making the traditional role of guardian… kinda pointless. (There’s also the issue that making LB the Guardian and CN just a holder undermines the duality and balance essential to their relationship in Miraculous: The Series.)

2. Personality

Marinette is a creative, compassionate, energetic, and cheerful young girl. She has big dreams of becoming a fashion designer, but often struggles with prioritizing her ambitions. Regardless, she rarely backs down from a problem, and is willing to go all out when people need her help on both sides of the mask.

Unfortunately, her selfless nature is equally a vice and a virtue, and she will often try to help others even when it’s exhausting her. She hates saying no to people and letting them down. She might also accidentally shut people out when she’s overloaded, missing several things being said to her.

She’s extremely expressive. Whether she’s happy (a joyful person by default, though she’ll sometimes try to seem more okay than she really is to keep people from worrying), anxious (she often stumbles over her words and is less coordinated than normal), sad (she can be a pretty sensitive person, especially when concerned about her friends), or grouchy (just because she wants to help others doesn’t always mean she has to like it—I like to call her mannerisms when like this the “bug grumble >:(”, it’s one of my favorite moods of hers), you can usually tell how she feels just by looking at her.

3. Key Relationships

Chloe: The MTS MariChloe dynamic is drastically different from the original show. Instead of being Marinette’s childhood bully, she’s actually one of her oldest friends; the two have known each other since they began attending the same school. However, Chloe and Marinette’s relationship is still full of problems. Marinette is constantly pressured to help her with various things, along with having to do damage control whenever Chloe acts out toward others. Chloe does care about Marinette, but doesn’t listen to her or support her needs when she should. Eventually, maintaining this friendship becomes too much for Marinette, and she cuts Chloe off. For a while after that, the two have various spats (usually instigated by Chloe) before coming to an uneasy truce once Chloe starts to improve herself as a person. Things are never quite the same between them, as Marinette isn’t ready to renter a friendship with her.

Adrien: She is initially introduced to Adrien by Chloe, and doesn’t really see the appeal. She’s always been more interested in the fashion designers than the models. As she gets to know him, her opinion slowly shifts. Even though Chloe and her have their friendship break up, Adrien still wants to be her friend, and will even call out Chloe when she’s trying to mess with Marinette. His desire to handle things himself, rather than wanting her to help him all the time like many others, also makes her like him more. When she finally falls in love with Adrien, he gives her his umbrella, only it isn’t a perfect picturesque moment where he gracefully extends his umbrella to her. He gives her it, then proceeds to run out in to the rain, slipping on wet pavement multiple times while loudly yelling that “he’s okay”! Even though she fell in love with the flawed human side of Adrien, she’s still worried that he’ll think she’s just another fan girl fawning over him (spoiler alert: he doesn’t), so she’s extra careful not to overstep any boundaries.

Chat Noir: As I mentioned on the Adrien MTS post, they don’t exactly start on the best terms. Due to his rebellious attitude and more abrasive nature, she assumes that he’s similar to Chloe, only worrying about enjoying himself and carelessly ignoring the needs of everyone else. After the two begin working together as a proper team, she learns small pieces of information that help her realize that there’s more going on to him than she thought. Not only does he seem to live a much more restricted life under the mask, but he is actually capable of being extremely empathetic to others (this will be most especially shown in how he helps her through a particularly difficult moment as Ladybug, along with one of the akuma they encounter). She will inevitably friendzone him when he finally confesses, but that does not change the fact that he’s her partner and easily her most trusted ally.

Alya: Like Chat Noir, strangely enough, Ladybug and Alya Césaire do not exactly “click” like they’re supposed to. Alya is much more skeptical of these new heroes in MTS (I’ll elaborate further in her own post, but we decided to explore a pretty different direction for her character) and wants the public to know their identities. As a result, Marinette is pretty cautious around her, so they don’t become friends right away. That being said, Alya comes to be more understanding of the heroes once she’s put in a similar position to them, while Marinette is able to see Alya’s positive qualities (that being her integrity, honesty, and determination to keep the city safe). They finally become friends at the end of season 2. From there the two are able to learn more about maintaining a healthy friendship from each other.

Lila: The other reason Alya and Marinette don’t become friends right away. After ending things with Chloe, Marinette is somewhat fragile, and doesn’t have a lot of friends (there’s Kim and Adrien, also technically Chat Noir, but he knows Ladybug better than Marinette), with most of the class being wary of her due to her previous connection to Chloe (they don’t realize just how much Marinette actually kept Chloe from being worse yet). Lila, being a master manipulator in this version, instantly takes advantage of this vulnerability to befriend her. Their new friendship seems strong, even if Lila occasionally gives strange advice on how to get closer to her goals (though she’s quick to play it off as a joke if Marinette gets concerned). Slowly, cracks in Lila’s facade become more visible, and Marinette is forced to come to the horrifying realization that her new bestie is actually the supervillain Volpina. (Needless to say that this messes her up for a while.)

Other key dynamics include her parents (important to her but doesn’t affect the plot as much), Kim (another long story), Luka, Gabriel, Hawk Moth, Zoe, and Kagami (I might make them their own post tbh).

4. Character Growth

Marinette principally has two major character arcs (though there’s also a little something else done with her confidence as Ladybug in the final season, but that kinda leads into the finale so I’ll probably discuss it at another time).

Her season one arc is (as you might have guessed) learning to set limits with other people. Much like Chat Noir’s prime ability Wildcat is slowly damaging his mind, Ladybug’s prime ability, the Miraculous Ladybug (or the Miracle Cure if you prefer), is slowly consuming her energy. The fact that people are constantly asking her for favors as Marinette and she has to save the day as Ladybug is pushing her to her limit. Eventually, she can’t take anymore, and has to renounce the Miraculous Ladybug ability (this essentially restores her energy, but undoes all of the fixed damage from fights; we probably won’t tackle the concept of people dying from akuma attacks because we want to keep this as a kid-friendly show). Marinette then to cope with the guilt from all the damage she won’t fix (the fact that this Tikki is pretty self-righteous, and is constantly berating her for not doing so doesn’t help matters). After coming to terms with this, she’s learns to let others solve the problem sometimes (as the heroes try to limit damage from battles and the city rebuilds on its own), accept support from the people who care about her (notably Chat Noir and her parents), and accept the fact that she shouldn’t be responsible for everyone else’s problems (stops being Chloe’s friend due to her tendency to unfairly rely on Marinette).

Marinette’s long term arc largely revolves around her struggles with friendship and trust. I’ve already mentioned the Chloe and Lila problems, but these two different toxic friendships have two pretty different effects on her. The Chloe friendship she manages to process, and be okay with Chloe’s attempts to improve herself even if Marinette isn’t ready to rebuild that bond. Getting to know Sabrina and watch her and Chloe become friends is also a large part of this growth, especially since Marinette unlocks her new ability, Amulets that ward off akumas, at the end of season 2 after Sabrina’s second akumatization as Miraculer. The Lila friendship however… like I said, it hurts her pretty bad. Having two consecutive “friendship screw ups” makes her doubt herself and others. Since she was friends with Kim, Adrien, and Chat Noir before the Lila mess, those friendships remain stable: as does her friendship with Alya due to her getting to know her during the whole ordeal, but she does have a rough time making new friends. Zoe, a young girl who seems to have good intentions, but is quite dishonest (much like Lila) is the first example of this issue, and the two aren’t able to become friends until Zoe proves that she’s willing to be honest with others. Marinette and Kagami also have a rough start (due to Marinette not being sure what to make of this mysterious, intense girl). Fortunately, they still become good friends and Marinette is finally able to start moving past this fear (basically, the episode where Tomoe gets akumatized is gonna be the equivalent to Sandboy for MTS Adrien in terms of MTS Marinette’s development). (There’s also her slowly befriending most of the class, but those plots are much more self contained.) Either way, Marinette ends the show with a stable group of friends who want support her just as much as she wants to support them.

Conclusion:

That pretty much wraps up my notes on Marinette’s character. If there’s anything about her you’d like to know more about, feel free to send me an ask! (Also @dumblr-account, if there’s something you think I should have included, let me know.)

After this I’ll probably post a poll asking people about what (of three ideas I’m planning on talking about first) they’d like to see next, so stay tuned (if you want to, at least)!

(NOT MTS CONTENT) Alright, as a Miraculous fan (with a particularly vested interest in Chat Noir) I’m making my thoughts on the new Chat Noir look clear.

I’m not super upset that he doesn’t have a new outfit, since, let’s be honest, Ladybug and Carapace needed it WAY more than he did.

I’m also not that concerned about his new proportions. Yeah, they’re a little funny looking, it that might just be the camera angle. Either way, he’s getting older so it makes sense that his facial structure is changing (plus I give my own CN a slightly more angular face to indicate that he’s a sweet kid, sure, but there’s a lot more to him than just “good perfect bean”.

So then, what’s got me emotionally invested enough to make a Tumblr post? (By now it’s probably pretty obvious…)

The hair.

HERE’S THE THING THOUGH- it’s not that I think the hairstyle is bad or ugly. It’s very stylish, and the smooth swishy look would be more than welcomed on a different character. But that’s the problem, this is the wild and chaotic Chat Noir, the catboy of destruction who tells terrible puns. His hair should not be that neat, and it should not be that perfect (yeah it’s a little messy, but only enough to have that “effortless, natural look” you’d see in a shampoo ad)

Maybe I’m overreacting; after all, it’s just a hairstyle, and I’m treating it like it’s the end all be all for his character in Season Six. However… it’s not just the hair. While watching Season Five, I noticed that Chat Noir doesn’t really joke around as much as he did in previous seasons (especially in the second half of S5), and isn’t really allowed to get mad or be rebellious outside of when his role as the love interest needs him to (trying to cataclysm Dark Owl because of the Married LadyNoir vision, trying to cataclysm Dark Cupid because he’s being a protective boyfriend to Marinette, telling off Nighttormentor because Gabriel forced him to go to London, sure, but the show makes it clear that the REAL problem is him trying to keep Adrien and Marinette apart). Other than that, he’s the perfect well-behaved supportive partner.

In general, it feels like Chat Noir and Adrien are becoming more similar personalities, which is good: I think a lot of us have anticipated this happening for his character arc… but the problem is, Chat Noir is becoming more like Adrien rather than Adrien becoming Chat Noir, because isn’t his arc supposed to be breaking free of the perfect controlled persona his father has forced him into, learning to express himself and become his own person? (There’s also the fact that I think he’s a little more interesting to watch as Chat Noir or the more expressive early seasons Adrien, but his development is the more important issue here.)

This kinda thing has me worried that everyone who believes that the finale was bad on purpose (the secret dystopia route) and that the writer’s genuinely do want us to believe that Gabriel’s actions have been valid and ethical (THEY ARE NOT: BRO IS A TERRORIST 💀.) Either that, or they just want us to watch the cute shipping scenes and not really care about Adrien’s character outside of that. Kinda a bleak view, I know, but that’s how things have been looking lately. (Maybe they’re making him look neater as a part of the dystopia route though? I guess we’ll see but it seems unlikely…)

(I probably should reemphasize that I’m not actually getting this “doom and gloom conspiracy board” over JUST a haircut. It’s more like I saw a bunch of other (personal) warning signs over the last two seasons, and this is just one other thing making me more worried.)

I know this isn’t my usual stuff but I felt like I needed to air my grievances (especially since while I have seen other people not like the new hair, it doesn’t seem to be for the same reasons as me, seeing as I don’t even dislike the hairstyle itself; just the fact that Chat Noir’s the one who has it). Hopefully this was at least interesting or even validating, but if not… Well, I’ll get back to my normal content after this anyway.

Sometimes you gotta draw some random side characters (they would have been so iconic as a friendship trio trust trust)

Page 58 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which Felix is reawakened by his own Miraculous, and the final strings of the Butterfly's power are cut... 💍🐈

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It’s the big bad himself…