#btal notes

LMAO... Like, I'm already thinking of making it canon that Chloe had published her autobiography in BTaL and N2CaTs (notably Blake would have it in his bookshelf among his comics and I'm thinking she had a ballet production or dance musical adaptation of it that Natalia may or may not be involved in)... Can't believe it's borderline canon. She'd totally self-glaze her life story and I'm here for it. Let them all know what happened and let the readers psychoanalyze her for decades to come.

The funny part is she unironically didn't think anyone would pity her for it, she'd write it in a way that feels like she's bragging but people who can read between the lines are like, gurl. No. Every adult you know has failed you. You're not clever for not getting caught skipping school work for over ten years. You're not the one in power when Hawkmoth or Lila are pulling the strings. You don't have everything you could ever want when you're surrounded by expensive gifts but neither of your parents are there for you.

I am a sucker for clothes telling a story so my OCs end up changing clothes a lot across my MLB au. Most only have subtle changes like Blair's palette favoring more orange as time goes by or Natalia changes her hair style a lot after getting dumped until she settles on a ponytail... But it's Shizuke who actually has the most drastic shifts as a whole.

Punk Goth Era

Here's something I've been flipflopping over but... What if Shizuke had a punk goth era? Shizuke, the glasses guy who's always dressed like a prep and is the poster child for the Asian nerd stereotype (except not really he ain't book smart enough for that)? He used to wear matching outfits with his delinquent friend Fiona. Their friendship isn't actually that odd.

This isn't just for the fun gap moe contrast or because I really liked dressing reverse!Shizuke as this edgy looking guy in a leather jacket post-quitting the Supreme. I think it can strengthen Shizuke's character and how much he keeps changing to adapt and to be what he feels he needs to be. I happen to like it when clothes can convey something about a character.

It also highlights his dynamic with Fiona. She is his first real friend since he moved to Helios. The one who chases out the bullies, his protector, the toughest person Shizuke knew. The one who didn't turn their back on him when he needed help.

Over the years though, what used to be reassuring became kind of a point of insecurity for Shizuke. He's the wuss hiding under her wing. He doesn't want to depend on her forever. He wants to get stronger. That's why he took up Judo. That's also why he tried to dress like a punk - dress like Fiona.

Fiona was the one who supported him in his efforts, went with him through every martial arts club til he found his niche, and even helped him pick out clothes to look more intimidating. He even knows how to do makeup and paint nails. It has her written all over it.

Preppy Nerd

His main outfit and the one most people are familiar with, in and out universe. The thing that made him switch to nerd clothes is because one day, his parents could no longer afford to keep him in his school. It was one of those highly reputable ones full of scholarship kids and rich kids who bought their way in. As I've said, Shizuke isn't very book smart, so the only way in was for his parents to pay tuition. They only went for it thinking they weren't gonna stay for more than three years in Helios City, might as well get their kid into a good prestigious school that'll look great on his records even with his B-C average. Anyway stuff happened, his parents decided they're gonna have to go back home to Japan and Shizuke can continue his studies there.

Keagan wasn't having it so he pulled strings to get him into his mayor father's scholarship program - who was only willing to do so because despite his academic records not passing his requirements, Shizuke's his son's more responsible friend who at least messages him to reassure him they're safe and where they are whenever his son decides to sneak out, so Mr. Aurelio would rather Shizuke sticks around.

Shizuke is once again on the receiving end of help from his friends. Feeling like he might taint Keagan and his family's reputation for this special treatment, he changes one again. He has to at least look like he earned his way in so he replaced his punk goth clothes with something more "appropriate". The red tie and maroon pants he wears aren't just a reference to Ladybug, they were first a reference to Keagan and his family's signature color, red - which funny enough, loops back to Ladybug cause they're like, showing nationalist pride in their red hued island city made from a ginormous Lucky Charm.

This is made worse by the time Scorched Origins rolls in. He is Ladybug now. And Keagan was the first akuma who was and still is deeply affected by the event. All that red, it's no longer just about the Aurelio's scholarship, it's about his duty to Keagan and the rest of the city. He has to be at his best as he fills the large shoes Ladybug wore. He has to seem more put together, more mature, not a thread out of place and not a wrinkle to be seen. His outfit gets more uptight the worse he feels this.

Dressing for Others

The nerd outfit ties into Keagan the way his old punk clothes ties to Fiona.

There were whispers of envy that came with this though.

“Take off your rose-tinted glasses and see past that ‘nice guy’ façade, Blair! I’m telling you, that guy’s nothing but a social climber who uses everyone around him then dumps them once they’ve stopped being useful!”

“Just look at the people he surrounds himself with! He’s clearly using them for his own gain!”

“Keagan got him a recommendation into the scholarship program. Perks of being the friend of the mayor’s son, didn’t have to fight tooth and nail for a spot here like the rest of us,” Natalia growled, jealousy rolling off her in waves.

“Fiona, the little monster, has gotten into a lot of fights with a lot of other delinquents over the years and has never lost. With her by his side, no one would dare bully him.”

Here's some quotes from Natalia from the Bully Hunter episode as she summarizes Shizuke's rep from the side of the school that doesn't like him or are distant from him. She even nails the thing that bothers Shizuke the most about their friendship:

“But what do they get out of him? Nothing! He’s not even there for them when they need him the most!”

Shizuke's motivation across the main story goes all the way back to his friends helping him out and wanting to pay them back. It's why when asked at point blank on his debut on what motivates him, he searched around the crowd and looked at his friends whole saying he wants everyone to be safe. He wants them to be safe.

It's for them he goes through with being Ladybug even though he feels he is unworthy of it. It's only as Ladybug he's strong enough to be the one protecting them just as they had always protected him.

And just like his nerdy getup and his former punk phase, he wears the Ladybug suit for someone else.

When Will He Dress for Himself?

It'll be the day he can fully accept himself for himself.

The final style for him should still have little elements of both styles but is over all a lot less strict with sticking to a specific style. He's finally wearing the Ladybug earrings on his ears. The main piece is a varsity jacket, a symbol of his greatest achievement in his civilian life where he finally earns his own scholarship through the Judo club by getting into their competitive team.

Childhood:

Pre-Origins (a year before main story):

Season 1/BTAL:

Season 2/N2CATS:

Trying to get back into art on my last hours of freedom. Decided maybe I should just stick with some low commitment pieces for now like portraits of OCs that I haven't drawn in a while.

Introducing, Keagan's older sister, Octavia Eleanor Aurelio-Ashworth. She first officially shows up in Episode 4: Slumber, but before that, she's been mentioned a couple of times as a fencing champion. She is definitely the golden child between herself, Keagan and Leo, having both talent and drive to be the best... Is that all there is to her?

In terms of relationship dynamic with her younger brother Keagan, they do care about each other but there's this awkward distance between them - it's a contrast between Fiona who's always squabbling with her older brother Gav but they're somehow fairly close and know each other fairly well. Part of which may be due to her boyfriend... To the point Keagan got akumatized over it... it's... it's a stupid reason and that's what made Scorch all the more tragic for Keagan... but this awkwardness is also due to Octavia catching most of the pressure as the mayor's first born, and their father being a highly accomplished guy who everyone is needling for a weakness. She opted to excel and shine bright as having her be the focus of the public would mean there's less pressure that would trickle down on Keagan. It didn't work, but Keagan could appreciate the effort (probably figured that out from reading her diary lol Keagan is definitely nosy enough to do that).

She's a lot like her father in that aspect where they're both academically and athletically smart but when it comes to expressing their love for their younger siblings, they're both drawing blanks. It's kinda lucky for her that Keagan isn't the envious sort like Leo that he's open to reconnecting with her to try to understand her better instead of resenting her for being the golden child. Time will tell if she and Keagan can ever fix that bridge but there's hope as neither of them actually want to burn that it down.

Role-wise, she's kind of like Nora to Keagan's Alya if that makes sense. Octavia is primarily reputed as an athlete though her take on it is more feminine. Fiona and Shizuke both have a lot of respect and admire her, but they both would get shy about talking to her about personal stuff and keep a polite distance - which is, again, in contrast to how they're like with Fiona's older brother who they're close enough to mess with his stuff and annoy.

I consider BTaL to be a sequel series of a timeline that branched off an alternative S4. I don't even wanna deal with Zoe, Chloe won't be treated as a hate sink and best of all, S5 and the finale that started Marinette's downward spiral does not happen. I mean what I said in another post, the whole lie arch only works if you want Marinette to become a villain, but the premise of this au is Marinette grew into one of the best heroes like the show tries to hype her up to be.

Believe it or not, BTaL was NOT made as a result of salt or critique but out of what I genuinely thought the series was supposed to be about. It's piecing together what I liked about the show and putting it into a collage to make something new while aging them up a bit to better match the oc protags. They parallel in areas, make a lot of shout outs or homages to the OG, especially in the BTaL S1 era (even having that season end with Volpino the fake hero with a twist), but they ultimately go their own paths cause this is still a new cast of characters with their own dynamics - I even took special care to make the two heroes social circles NOT neatly slide into Marinette and Adrien's molds, like Blair having a twin brother she mostly hangs out with or Shizuke having two best friends instead of giving them one of each. Believe me, their interwoven dynamics play a huge role for setting this apart from canon as big arcs are centered around them like Volpino or Fuyubug storylines. Things start diverging from the og big time once S1 ends.

N2CaTs is probably the biggest branching off point for canon MLB lore cause at the time I thought this was as bad as it would get: Marinette scheming against Chat Noir so he can unknowingly reveal himself to Luka without his consent, luring him with a mutual reveal. This one ends in consequences with Blair and Adrien switching timelines, so Marinette has to carry on knowing Chat Noir is lost in time because of her trickery.

Marinette may have started off harsh and wary, but she'll gradually warm up to Blair, seeing the older girl as sympathetic the more she gets to know her, seeing her greatest fears experienced by the older girl... And then Blair finds out why she's stuck in the past, and what Marinette was trying to do. She does not take it well, at this point Blair has walked several miles in Adrien's shoes and was slowly exposed to how bad he has it (starting from learning how little Adrien is supposed to know to that scheme in Ephemeral). Just like that, their bond shattered and there's no clever solution that could fix it.

The worst part for Marinette is Blair remained professional, still helping her protect Paris and her miraculous from akumas albeit with less fangirling and more cold aloofness... There's nothing to fix cause Blair wasn't doing anything wrong. She's never getting back that older girl who believed in her as some great hero. Blair flat out says it to her face, something like, "You know, you're lucky your partner is so much nicer than me. He'd totally forgive you... Even if you don't deserve it."

Because I think Marinette deserves to have someone who kinda dislikes her and is justified for it unlike with Chloe. She deserves to have a relationship that remains irreparable cause canon kept going easy on her with Kagami or Sublime. She deserves to understand she can't just keep treating people the way she does and expect them to remain at her side.

I was treating this flaw as something like teenaged short sightedness, where they need to see a little further beyond themselves and understand how their actions can affect others. That she can be wrong about people. That all Marinette needed was to gain awareness.

Nowadays this Marinette in N2CaTs reads as ooc to me. Lmao she actually worried about Chat Noir stuck in the future with nothing to help him except for the allies she couldn't personally vet beyond the words of Blair, who resembled a certain liar. She is capable of showing defensiveness over Alya when she thought Blair was bullying her. This Marinette seems like she gives a damn about the people around her. It feels like a joke when I remember how S6 Marinette is like.

And this is why BTaL is completely divorced from canon. N2CATS exists and it just won't work with canon Marinette from S5+. She needs to be flawed but show a potential of actually listening to others so the consequences of her actions won't grow too dire. It needs to remain proportionate to reasonably achieve the kind of lore BTaL is built on with her growing up into a good hero.

I can't imagine canon Marinette would be affected by Blair's words and change for the better when the one I gleen on from canon S5+ would more likely double down instead of admitting she's wrong. Blair would be no different from a Chloe or a Lila in her eyes, someone who doesn't deserve her help. She'd escalate shit and keep giving Blair reason dislike her until Blair would just flat out despise her and feel Marinette's legacy was a complete scam rather than just growing coldly angry and being disappointed while accepting Marinette can grow into a better person.

Nothing too major so I don't have to bother with the previous arts I've already made. Just making his hair more blue and his skin tone lose that warm undertone for a more pinkish white that Marinette has, maybe even give him blue eyes but that's gonna take some back tracking.

Kinda like how the dog got passed along to different wielders (and Marinette even considered giving it to Adrien permanently but she just gave up on that smhw idk) even after Sabrina transformed with it once.

So the possibilities here is that extras like Aurore or Ondine get to try it once or twice. Or some wielders get to unify with it, most likely either Marinette or Alya or Adrien.

The reason it never settles on a wielder is because Marinette kept giving it to someone who's too cooperative. Too obedient. Too content staying in the sidelines. It's what she'd prefer for team mates after all... But that's exactly why bee wielders of this era tend to stagnate and eventually lose confidence.

"Look at all the other heroes! You've picked some of them after me, yet they can now do more than one kind of attack. While I'm stuck with only Venom. I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not cut out for this, Ladybug. I hope you find a person that can bring out the Bee's full potential. Until then, maybe it's better if you unify with the bee."

Like, they'd decline being permanent on the grounds of how outclassed they are. They'd feel like dead weight to the team, having only one move and the range is limited.

In this au, to truly grow and develop new powers for their respective miraculous is to develop an understanding with their miraculous' concept. And for the wielder of the Miraculous of Subjugation, it's pretty much required for them to be headstrong and willful to reach its full potential.

Unfortunately for Marinette, Chloe unlocks a wide array of powers for the bee as soon as she got to wield it again as an adult. She's gonna thrive out of spite. And time and time again, Chloe was too much of a powerhouse to not call in ever since Lila formed a cult.

What's the point of world building lore for a future gen if there aren't any hints of what the original canon cast was up to as they built the stage? Cause let's face it, people came for them and not my custom blorbo's *sobs*. From time to time there will be references to them but for the most part, I'm gonna focus more on what they left behind for the future gen to make use of or interact with rather than their personal lives. Pairs are mostly left open ended with only adrienette and djwifi being confirmed, so anyone who has a canon ancestor, it's mostly gonna only list one rather than two.

Keagan literally bought the Ladyblog's domain. The rules are for him to not alter anything from the original site (not that they could stop him or catch him if he does), but to simply use the domain to make his own for Helios City. His contributions will be preserved as a record for this generation of heroes. Most definitely impersonated his father to do this. Legally, the Ladyblog belongs to the mayor but Keagan has everything locked so only he has access to it. Hacker skills.

Blake's comic book collection contains works authored by Marc Anciel and illustrated by Nathanael Kurtzburg. Damien can be reading art books by Nathanael.

Blake's bookshelf is actually filled with MLB references. Every comicbook he's caught reading should be a canon reference.

Chloe notably left an autobiography. Haven't finalized the title yet, just that Blair totally read it and recommended it to Princess Honey. It's been adapted to a ballet.

Blair and/or Shizuke may mention some obscure reference to canon from time to time. It's mainly Blair's thing and she's just influencing Shizuke like she's converting him to the hero nerd life.

The Aurelio's consider the Tsurugi's to be their greatest rival in the fencing scene. Leo in particular goes out of his way to challenge the current Tsurugi Heiress, Ai.

Tsurugi tech pops up from time to time. A lot of tech products are made by them.

If it's not them it's Max Kante's tech company that gets mentioned. Their main competitor, at least in Europe. It's mainly for tech that references a Miraculous, like the Iron Shell-ter or the Mirage Projector.

Alicia Couffaine mentions her family has generations of models and other jobs that involve the fashion industry and showbiz, a reference to Juleka wanting to be model.

If laws get mentioned, they get nicknames that reference someone from canon. Like an environmental based law would be named something like the Harpelle Law. Or laws that involve children working in showbiz might either be named in reference to Adrien, maybe one of his five first names cause no way in hell anyone's gonna want it to be named after Agreste.

Statues in honor of the heroes. Each of them actually had one scattered around the city. Notably, Ladybug is at city square, Chat Noir's is the first thing anyone sees upon entering the city at the terminal, Rena Rouge is in front of a news station, etc.

Marinette's Fashion House is a boutique with a handful of branches. Her business never became a megacorp, but it did became a household name for handmade gifts and keepsakes, customized with care and can be brought back for either a repair or reuse some parts of it to make something new. The fashion house also runs a free summer program teaching kids and teens how to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, etc. it's a very charitable little business. Talia mentions she and Blair used to take lessons but only Talia was able to take all the courses offered. Hey, they were for free.

Tom and Sabine's family bakery is still in business. Keagan can recognize how similarly Shizuke's cookies tastes like the ones sold there but Hisui is quick to cover it by saying she used to work there (true) and taught Shizuke (not true, Shizuke asked Tikki how to bake. Though Hisui did taught Shizuke how to cook).

Blair got to star as Lila/Chrysalis in a cameo role for a movie. She's just there for a sequel hook. The producers do want Blair to star as Lila for the sequel proper, but acting for a full length movie is a huge leap from being a model and minor acting gigs in commercials.

Plagg and Tikki and the other kwamis may reminisce about canon from time to time. Especially when they encounter someone that reminds them of a canon character regardless of bloodline. Like how Mrs Liung reminded Plagg of Nathalie Sancour.

Xyril Tech's foundation may have been inspired by Caline Bustier. Markov secretly works there with an Android shell to attach himself to move around like a human.

There's... A Senti living in Helios City who may have opinions on Adrien and Felix. May or may not be at the school disguised as a teacher.