Lemurian Cutie

I’m a few days ahead of where I need to be, which is nice because 2020 keeps 2020-ing at me and I don’t appreciate it. I had potential exposure to covid recently and so had to go get tested, and I’m waiting to hear the results back. It’s looking like myself and others in my household are probably safe, but I do live with someone who’s elderly and at risk and we don’t want to take any chances. On top of that I recently lost my job, not through any fault of my own, but rather do to a combination of less work available during quarantine and my boss being a TERF. But I won’t get into that here. You’re here for the writing!

One thing that I love about the AU I’m doing is the chance to explore how characters have developed and changed through the years since we see them in canon, especially since things developed differently with no akuma attacks until the start of my story. In particular I’m fond of Chloé. I think she has a lot of potential as a character. Some people may think that as of the end of season 3 she crossed beyond the point where she’s redeemable, and I would argue against that, but in my story season 3 never happened. Chloé never went through the things related to the miraculous and akumas and all that which lead her to that point. (I’m being intentionally vague so as to not spoil the show for anyone.)

So in my story, by the time it starts the main characters have been out of lycée (think French high school) for three years. You can imagine that almost everything in my story was the same as the canon at the start of Stoneheart. This means that six years have passed. Chloé was a bully, especially to Marinette, at that time, but they learned to get along and by the time my story begins they’ve been dating for 3 years already. This means I get to have the fun of exploring what kind of backstory would lead from where they were at the start of Stoneheart, with Chloé leaving gum on Marinette’s seat and being basically Marinette’s most hated person, to the established relationship where they’re all cute and gay together! It’s seriously tons of fun!

I haven’t had any kind of full on flashback, but characters do think about how they got to where they are, and in Chloe’s case it comes down to two people. Marinette Dupain-Chang and Audrey Bourgeois. These two more than any other have shaped her (at least as I tell it in my story). Of course large sections of the story focus on her relationship with Marinette, and how it’s changed her and how it got to where it’s at now. But only recently have I been able to get into the meat of things with Chloé’s mom.

I’m not going to give anything away of course, since I want it to be a surprise for when people read my story, but it’s not much of a spoiler to say that you can’t fully explore Chloé’s character without dealing with her mother. These scenes were some of the toughest to write for me, emotionally, but I feel like these have both turned out really well and given some exploration and development to an area that Chloé fans will hopefully go nuts for, and even others will hopefully have fun reading.

That being said, I might have to amend one thing I said in an earlier post. I said that my story doesn’t contain character bashing, as even villains have sympathetic backstories and aren’t just pure evil or anything like that. And I do really hate when I run across stories that needlessly bash characters that I really like, so I said I wouldn’t character bash.

But I make an exception for Audrey Bourgeois.

I don’t think I’m needlessly bashing her, and I think I have her pretty true to her canon personality in the show. Or at least my interpretation of her. But, I guess for whatever Audrey stans might be out there I should warn that she is not presented in a good light here. It all still serves the story, and no one should be out of character, but if you interpret her as a misunderstood woman who really has a heart of gold you won’t find that here.

So, while I have just hit 25k words, and could therefore be halfway through my story, if I had to guess I’d say I’m actually closer to being almost a fourth of the way through. Maybe. If I’m lucky.

I have covered most of the important plot points that I wanted to put in to establish the ways that this AU is different from the Canon storyline. So while that sounds like all stuff I’d have put in at the very start (and to some degree it is) keep in mind that it’s enough initially to establish the concept, and trickle out such backstory throughout the story rather than begin with the info dump from hell. So I’ve actually been doing that, so I’m maybe farther than that would imply. Maybe I’m even farther than I think?

I am trying to use the canon characters as much as possible, as I believe I said in one of my pre-November posts, and that’s been working out so far. However, I was kind of hoping to have introduced more of the characters from canon by now and shown where they are. For example, I do have plans for Juleka and Rose. I said before November even started that they were one ship I could promise you to be in the story and not be undone by the end of it. However, I’ve yet to really introduce either of them.

But, just for a bit of a preview so that if some of you are hoping a favorite character makes it into my story, I’ll go ahead and let you all know some of the characters that have gotten into the story already.

Chloé and Marinette are obvious, and while Chloé is not (at least at present) in possession of a miraculous, really the two of them are my undisputed main characters. I’ve also introduced Tikki of course, since Marinette is still Ladybug. But, as far as more secondary characters go, I’ve at least briefly introduced Alya, Mylène, Alix, Adrien, Gabriel, Nathalie, Jagged Stone, and Penny. There are more, but I need to keep some secrets.

I do have, so far, exactly one named OC, but you don’t need to worry about that character being some kind of replacement main character or anything like that. She’s currently only 3 years old, so barring some kind of time-travel shenanigans or magical aging or a huge time skip (none of which do I have any intent of doing) she’s not likely to have much of a role beyond maybe being akumatized once or something.

Another thing of note is that I just finished my first explicit scene. When I put the story on AO3 it will certainly have at least an M rating, but I might go E. If the scene I just wrote gets included it will be E, without doubt. However, scenes that push it over the edge might get cut, edited to be less explicit, or put aside and released as an E rated aside, with authors notes in the main story telling you ‘if you want to read the scene in it’s entirety go to chapter x of the side stories’ and a similar note in the side stories saying when in the main story that scene takes place. Anyway, I’m not entirely decided yet. But the scene in question is a Chloenette scene, so if you like that then look forward to it probably being included entirely either in the main story or side story.

I have a very distinct idea about Chloé as she exists in this AU versus in the canon. She’s had a lot of character growth and changed a lot. But I still want it to seem like Chloé, not like an OC that I slapped her name onto. And I was worried that if I couldn’t get across her “Chloé-ness” right away that people might not give it a chance to see why she’s changed to be the way she is now.

Fortunately, I don’t think that’ll be a problem. As soon as I started writing her she really just seemed to come alive to me. Not only that, but she was a sassy bitch! I think it felt very natural for her, and I was able to portray that this is Chloé and she’s certainly that same character that she’s always been, she’s just been allowed to grow in a different direction. Her sass, while it can certainly come off as rude, is really used to look out for the people she cares for now. She’s not mean without reason, but if she has reason to think you’re going to be bad news for one of her friends she will unleash her mean side.

I have also finished a few key scenes that I was very much looking forward to reading. I’ve now written out Marinette’s first time meeting Tikki and becoming Ladybug, and the first akuma fight of the story, as well as a very significant scene for Adrien. I also got a scene between Marinette and Chloé that I hadn’t thought about beforehand, but it turned out to be a very important scene for establishing Chloé, and especially the relationship between her and Marinette. Some good feels happening there! (At least I think so)

Now, if anyone reading this post is looking forward to reading this story when I eventually release it on AO3 there are a few things to keep in mind. One, this is a nano story. I’m going for quantity over quality right now. I want to hit 50k words in 30 days, and I’ll worry about whether or not those words are any good later. Two, that means that I’m going to be editing this significantly before it sees AO3. So if it comes to AO3 and you don’t find this “significant Chloenette” scene in the first 10k words then don’t cry false advertising. Maybe I moved it somewhere else, maybe it ended up getting cut despite how important it feels right now. Just about anything could happen!

Finally, I just want to note my plans for putting this out on AO3 (or re-note them if I already mentioned? I don’t recall if I have yet). So I hope to complete this story in November. However, it could turn out that this story is longer than 50k, and longer than what I write in November. In that case I hope to keep my momentum going into December and finish the story before it’s too far into December. Then I’m putting it down for at least a month. I’m not going to look at it at all during that time. I believe that February is officially National Novel Editing Month (to help those who wrote in November). I may start editing before that, or I might not. February though I will definitely be working on my editing.

Once I’ve started editing I have two options, and I’m not sure which I’ll go with. One is that as I edit I release edited chapter throughout the month. This has the advantage of getting the story out sooner and getting encouraging feedback. Or feedback that might help with the editing, like if readers feel that a specific character doesn’t really sound natural or like themselves then I can focus on that as I continue editing. The other option is to wait until I’ve edited it entirely, and then parcel it out, releasing a new chapter every couple days. That has the advantage that if something comes up and I end up not finishing the editing in February I’m not leaving everyone waiting forever for the next chapter. I’m not promising anything until it’s all ready to go. But that would mean that there’s a minimum of changes I’d be making even if reviewers think there’s something that could be improved. That way does also allow me to better look at the story as a whole to decide if scenes should maybe to moved, cut, or added to, rather than “well, that scene was in the part I’ve edited so it definitely goes in that chapter that’s coming out next.” Both have their pros and cons. Maybe if you are reading this and have a preference you can let me know in the comments to this note?

As it is I’m leaning towards having the entire thing edited before I start posting, but my mind could be changed.

So pretty much since Day 1 of watching Miraculous I’ve been Chloenette trash. I can’t help it! The enemies to lovers trope is a weakness of mine, and the more I sympathized with Chloé as we saw glimpses of her backstory and why she became who she is in the show the more I wanted to see her end up happy! Plus, I’m all about that femslash. I admit that, especially as of the end of Season 3 things don’t look great, but I’m still holding out hope. But, while a would enjoy writing a good canon compliant redemption story for Chloé, I had an idea for an AU a while back that I’m going to be exploring.

Basically it’s the same world as the one we know from the show, and everything was the same up until shortly before the start of the show. On Marinette’s first day of school that year she did not meet Master Fu. Ivan did not become Stoneheart. No one was akumatized. Things went on without superheroes and supervillains for a number of years.

Now, where my story actually starts, Marinette is attending university, and she and Chloé have been dating for a while. She comes into her apartment one day and Chloé is there, having let herself in with her copy of the key. This is normal for them. But then Chloé asks what’s in the fancy box. Marinette is confused until she sees a fancy wooden box on her table. She opens it and out comes Tikki, who’s somewhat mortified that the newly chosen Ladybug wasn’t alone when she opened the box, but at this point it’s too late to be concerned about that because she can sense the miraculous of the butterfly being misused for evil and someone is about to be akumatized!

This AU sees Marinette and Chloé in an established relationship (how they started dating and how Chloé developed in the intervening years will be revealed in the story), and Marinette becoming Ladybug when a fair bit older, with Chloé knowing her secret identity from day 1 (so none of that “hiding my identity from my significant other” drama). Furthermore, it’s not just that things waited a few extra years before kicking off. There are reasons why Gabriel Agreste didn’t become Hawkmoth in this version while Marinette was still in collège, and reasons why things have finally started to happen.

There are, of course, plenty of other changes too. After all, everyone is at least four years older than they are when the show starts (still not 100% decided how long after this takes place, but at least four years). Characters from the class are now working on higher education or starting careers. They’re all different from the versions of them that we know, but still hopefully close enough that it feels true to their characters and not like I’m just sticking canon names on OCs. I am also going to try to stick as much as possible to characters who do already exist in canon. Definitely all of my most important characters are already from canon, but may not be filling the kind of role you would expect them to.

This story will largely be a fluffy and self-indulgent work to show Marinette and Chloé being adorable girlfriends, but I do hope it will have enough plot, drama, intrigue, and action to keep others invested in it. The only ships I know for sure at this point I’m going to include (and can mention without giving anything away) are Chloé/Marinette and Juleka/Rose. I may decide during my prep this month on other ships that will be there at the start, and either now or as I write it I may decide on other ships to develop throughout the story. Some ships that you see may or may not be end game, but I promise that the Chloenette and Julerose are. That’s not to say those couples won’t face problems, but if you want to read it because of either of those ships you don’t need to worry about me pulling the rug out from under you and ruining those.

I also will not engage in character bashing. Yes, Marinette is with Chloé rather than Adrian, but that’s not because he was secretly a jerk, or evil, or anything like that. He’s a very nice, talented, young man and he will be playing an important role in my story. Chloé has been thoroughly redeemed from her bullying ways (though she’s still sassy and sarcastic). Even Lila, while I won’t be ignoring the kind of character she was and I’m not (currently) intending to give her a redemption arc, that’s more just because I don’t have plans with her rather than any intent to bash. If she does become important in the story she will be dealt with as a very flawed, but still very human character, and redemption or not I won’t be bashing her character. (I’m just not a fan of character bashing, especially since whoever you bash is probably someone’s favorite character.)

You may discover one or more characters serving as villains who weren’t villains before, but trust me when I say they all have their motives and reasons and even if they never get redeemed no one has been made a villain just because I don’t like that character.

Going into last year (my ninth) I had four wins (hitting 50k words) and four losses. I was looking forward to tipping the scale towards the win side, but then I unexpectedly needed to have my gallbladder removed and a pet hedgehog passed away during that November, so I decided not to stress about it too much. But that means I’m now at 5 losses and only 4 wins.

This year I’m going fluffy and self indulgent. I figure after what the past year has done it’s a nice way to try to stay sane. It will still be a single story, and I’m aiming for at least 50k words, so I’m not a rebel (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This will be fanfiction, rather than entirely original work, but that’s not even rebel status. Plus, this being a fandom kind of blog it means that I can get more in depth about my story and my progress during the month here.

I will talk about my actual story idea in a separate post. So if you’re into nano and want to cheer me on but don’t care about my particular story you can ignore those and just comment here. Or if you’re interested in fanfiction for Miraculous and want to hear more about that, but don’t care about the fact that I’m writing it for nano you can ignore this. Later posts will at least touch on both aspects, but these first two longer posts I’m keeping separate.