This sub is for Miraculous Ladybug fanfictions: recs, search for an specific fic, prompts, discussions, everything.
Writing Prompts
AKA the wacky idea I had after reading Withered Wings by 11JJ11 and thinking the basic premise could work as a bonkers romantic comedy.
Point of divergence from canon: Master Fu isn’t quite as stealthy as he thought sneaking into the Agreste mansion to give Adrien the ring, and Ezra (the Gorilla) spots activity on the security camera that prompts him to check Adrien’s room and find the ring. So instead of Chat Noir, Ladybug gets a mountain of a silent cat-themed bodyguard to work with. He’s not as creative with Cataclysm as Chat in canon, and is even more prone to taking hits for Ladybug, but he’s strong and reliable. But they’re not the focus.
Meanwhile, Adrien doesn’t get to go to school, but still falls for Ladybug and follows news about her fervently until one day he stumbles on the secret that his father is Hawkmoth and what he wants the miraculous for and Gabriel pressures his son into moonlighting as a substitute villain to give him cover sometimes. Stuck at home, and not having a villainous bone in his body, Adrien still decides to give it a shot.
He finds a lonely bummed-out Nino lamenting the fact that Marinette has a brand new best friend and he’s feeling lonely and jealous and blowing bubbles to try and distract himself. He’s not expecting an Akuma to land on his bubble wand and he’s certainly not expecting some guy calling himself Papillon who sounds his age, super awkward and lonely, and claiming to be Hawkmoth’s son. Against his better judgement, Nino agrees to become ‘Bubbler’ and gets a look straight out of a sentai series. He’s not exactly a dangerous Akuma, because neither he nor Papillon actually want to hurt anyone, but there’s appearances to be kept and Nino realizes that Papillon is a decent guy with a crap father. To his surprise, he remembers being Bubbler.
This begins the tale of Papillon and his growing collection of remote friends he ‘akumatizes’ who all want to try and get him away from his emotionally manipulative father. And try to set him up with Ladybug.
I’m imagining wholesome kidnapping plots, possible theft of Miraculous from Ladybug for the furthering of wholesome kidnapping plots, and the worst kept schemes to hook up Ladybug with someone she’s sure is her mortal enemy but is really just a lonely ray of sunshine.
Plus Papillon showing off his anime preferences by giving his ‘akumas’ appearances inspired by super sentai shows, magical girl anime, some traditional superhero costumes, and more.
Also some identity shenanigans as the Gorilla puts effort into hiding his new side job from the Agrestes, unaware that his employers are too busy hiding their villainy to notice.
So, yeah, that’s what I’ve got. This idea is open for adoption and/or brainstorming.
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I’m cooking, stay tuned
Would love to see your take too, OP. Great prompt :)
I have some ideas in mind for akumas, below. It might be cool to change the colorways of the story/setting/characters from bright primaries to richer deep tones that are iridescent/pearlescent or have neat properties like that when possible. Bioluminescence, opalescence...... that kind of thing. Narrowing the look/vibe of everything would be cohesive and doesn’t have to be limiting. Plus it’s fun to think outside the box.
Beetle Army: Covers the ground entirely and forces the target(s) to dance by creating open spaces only where dance moves have to be made to not squish any members of the Beetle Army.
Seashell: Instead of hearing “the ocean” when one puts their ear to a seashell, they spy on a conversation, but not necessarily that of their choosing. Blowing into the seashell will summon those in said conversation.
Starling: Mimics someone’s exact words to the target, even themselves.
More thoughts I have for features are a CD/ DVD, a fish, steel??, dragonfly etc.
I have a few ~rough and tough~ parts forming the base of the story so far.
This is what I’m thinking for when Adrien finds out his father’s secret:
His heartbeat slowed, eyes closed, shoulders relaxed, “I’ll do it,” Adrien obliged.
The news had sparked conflicting emotion deep in his heart. On one hand, his father was Hawk Moth. The greatest threat known to his city. He was the very reason Adrien had been sentenced to a life of isolation. On the other hand, Adrien’s empathy blanketed his disgust. Through his newfound knowledge, Adrien gained understanding. The reason for his father’s rage was legitimate, but perhaps misdirected. Regardless, whatever had been stirred up within Adrien was not something he could have suppressed. He was proud to join something so powerful it would bring his mother back. Besides, it would benefit Adrien to gain purpose greater than himself. Something to live for.
For if he resisted, he would be punished. His choice was his only option.
“I knew I could count on you, son.”
Three days had passed since his initiation into villainry, and Papillon was still adjusting to his new reality. His moral compass had been spinning in circles, and he had no idea how to navigate on his own.
Skipping to when Nino transforms...
Nino began to strike a recital of poses while a gust broke the puddle surrounding him. Waves of slashing water turned to suds turned to bubbles, must have been a thousand or more. A twisting spout of iridescent spheres danced in a spiral, framing his performance. The bubbles settled and dissipated, revealing his new form. Papillion’s jaw dropped to the sidewalk. Nino was no longer, and in his place was Bubbles, wearing his superhero costume.
Bubbles was adorned head-to-toe in a perfectly form-fitting latex catsuit. Hugging all the right places, its color was difficult to describe, but similar to the rainbow sheen reflected off oil when the sun hits it right. His hair perfectly framed his sharp features, slicked back with a few sprigs intentionally out of place. His knee-high boots matched the rest of the ensemble, but their material was hardier, a top-of-the-line pleather. Bubbles looked down to survey his outfit, grazing his hands on the material.
This is not my first time wearing this costume, Bubbles admitted to himself.
feedback welcome
This is glorious
My Brainstorming thread (contributions and critiques welcome):
Papillon looks like a purple Tuxedo Mask, because Adrien is a dork.
Adrien gets bummed on his birthday, because Gabriel is being Gabriel, and sends a butterfly out just to have someone to talk to. He then learns that his good buddy Nino/Bubbler is down because he heard Chloe lament that her friend ‘Adrikins’ has never had a real birthday party. This somehow leads to Bubbler and Lady Wi-Fi kidnapping Adrien and throwing a massive birthday party for him at the Eiffel Tower, no adults allowed but everyone in Paris around Adrien’s age is invited.
The above ends up with Adrien meeting the Akuma class proper after the fight and becoming friends with Nino and Alya outside the mask. They decide he needs to get out more and start planning more wholesome kidnappings which is how they end up going out in this universe.
The entire Horrificator episode is just Papillon trying to help his bro Nino out with the film contest, but it turns into one long pep-talk-for Mylene.
Adrien is present for Princess Fragrance and manages to talk her down a bit (justifying it to Gabriel later as maintaining secret identities) and encourages her to pursue a healthy interest in Prince Ali. Seeing this happen causes Marinette to fall for Adrien, creating the love square again. (Also, Rose ends up in a poly relationship with Prince Ali and Juleka because that is adorable).
Reflekta is also caused by Papillon and thus her design is heavily Gothic Lolita, and also a clearly glown-up Juleka. Her power is now to give others fashion makeovers reflecting their ‘inner self’ instead of making them copies of her.
Evillustrator becomes L’illustrator and is Papillon trying to wingman for Nathaniel (a guy he barely knows) using relationship gleaned from anime and manga.
Adrien realizes that Ladybug telling off Hawkmoth meant that she stood up to his father and called him out in front of all of Paris… and just falls more in love.
While Adrien is on board with the goal of waking his mother from her magic coma, he’s much warier about the unknown price tag that Gabriel seems to be deliberately ignoring. He’s seen Fullmetal Alchemist and Puella Magi Madoka Magica (among others) and knows that there are many ways that he and his father winning could go horribly wrong.
Papillon joins the online Ladybug fan club, learns that Ladybug has called Adrien ‘pretty’, and this manages to somehow end up in challenging himself (Adrien) to a duel.
After being chosen as temp miraculous holders Rena Rouge and Carapace, Alya and Nino (being sympathetic to Papillon’s plight and wanting to get him away from his magic terrorist father) concoct a plan to steal the Fox and Turtle miraculous and swap with each other to create a ‘rogue’ faction that is on Papillon’s side but against Hawkmoth.
Meanwhile, thanks to Adrien letting Nooroo slip away to talk to his kwami friends (under orders to return and give no clues to secret identities, of course) Trixx convinces Wayzz to go rogue and find holders outside the Guardian’s control as part of a plot to seduce Papillon to the light side and rescue Nooroo that way.
Nino becomes Foxtrot, Alya becomes Koki Marina (reference to Scarlet Lady comic), Trixx is laughing at the absurdity, and Wayzz is wondering why he let himself get talked into this.
I would totally join this faction
Weird idea:
The Akuma class creates a variety YouTube channel and uses their ‘akumasonas’ when posting.
For some reason, it’s a huge hit in Paris.
Marinette is very much not sure how to feel about this, especially after she gets dragged in as ‘Princess Justice’ despite never fully being akumatized.
Adrien keeps being kidnapped to guest star.
Are you picturing the YouTube to be more documentary-style, daily vlog, or something different?
I keep checking back, I feel like I’m emotionally invested in this fic. And I love the direction it’s going XD
I love these ideas and I want to hear more about Adrien’s duel with himself
I’m imagining that he low key panics about what he just got himself into because neither side of him can back down (in his mind), and this leads to Nooroo (who is sympathetic to Adrien’s situation) suggesting that he could akumatize himself with the power to split into ‘Adrien’ and ‘Papillon’ for the duel.
End result: ‘Adrien’ and ‘Papillon’ have a public fencing duel that gets interrupted by Ladybug partway through, and Adrien only escapes being exposed by the skin of his teeth. However, Gabriel thinks the idea was brilliant and praises Adrien’s creativity in throwing off suspicion. Being praised for being a good villain gives Adrien massive mixed feelings.
Now I’m imagining Adrien trying to spin other actions to his father as part of his ‘villainous plans’. Being a little lax with Nooroo and even letting him visit other kwami? He’s got Nooroo under orders not to reveal clue to their identities and to return in a timely fashion, and the freedom helps build trust to let him gain more secrets from Nooroo and maybe even about the Guardian if other kwami slip up. (Adrien really just feels bad for Nooroo and wants to do nice things for him.)
Stealing the Grimoire and losing it to Ladybug? All part of a plot to get the text translated so they can then steal the translated version to fix the Peacock miraculous and maybe heal his mother. (100% the truth, actually. Especially the last part, because then there would be no motivation for Gabriel to be Hawkmoth.)
Every time Adrien has to make up an explanation to his father about why this is actually a villainous scheme, he’s an internal mess. The fact that it keeps working and leaves Gabriel prouder of him than the rest of his life combined is not helping his mental state.
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I am amazed that this idea was not done before. Withered Wings is my favorite but it did have its moments of angst. I had this idea a while back that Adrien was Papillion And Marinette was Ladybug, it was an angst filled idea, that Lila manages to turn everyone against Marinette and with no one on her side (As She never met Adrien nor did he go to her school), Adrien akumatizes her but she was an unstable Akuma that after exposing Lila, wanted to torture and kill everyone that hurt her and Adrien did not want her to destroy herself and realized with no Ladybug, he had to stop her while his attempt at talking failed and he could not recall the Akuma, he fought her and tricked her into killing him for her to reject the Akuma and as he was dying, he told Marientte not to blame herself and live freely, he thought it was over until in his blurry vision he saw Ladybug's cure and was a bit angry that Ladybug choose then to show up.
Adrien was surprised that Ladybug did not take his miraculous and later on Marinette tracked him down and choose to live with him as she was too broken to face everyone that doubted her. Ladybug and Papillion would still be enemies as well as living together but Adrien would be focused more on getting Marinette to heal and in turn slowly give up being Papillion. This AU would be pretty tricky as I would have to explain, why Ladybug was solo, where plagg is, Adrien's goals, what happened to his family and how he got his hands on the miraculous and so on. The hard part of any fiction is that many people can come up with great ideas, it would be difficult to build up the scenes.