#character core

I haven't really been making more moodboards based on Legacies Undone, I've been really busy. But for now I'm back! lol ^^

Ofc, these little boards are also moodboards. Just made differently, I call them 'character core' boards. I mostly add in the character's image, some song lyrics that would fit them kinda, and two different aesthetics. Hope you like them, @c-rose2081 .

This first part mentions 4 characters in the AU with swapped destinies.

Briar Thorn Core:

Apple Queen Core:

Raven White Core:

Faybelle Beauty Core:

Decided to make another version, CGI era James core

One piece of praise that I'll give Miraculous is that they did a good job with the minor side characters for the first three seasons. While none of the side characters have been super developed - which isn't a flaw, they're side characters - there's enough there for people to see genuine potential in them. That potential comes from the fact that all of the pre-season-four teens feel like unique individuals that add diversity to their world. None of them are interchangeable which is why almost every side character has at least a few fans who have latched onto that character and will defend them with their lives.

I have nothing against that. It makes perfect sense! If you've fallen in love with a minor side character and love to play with them then more power to you! However, this is a writing blog so we're going to talk about this from a writing perspective not a fan enjoyment perspective. Before we do that, I want to quickly define some rough levels of character importance. Note that there's some gray area here, but I need terms to work with for this discussion to make sense as "side character" is simply too broad a category for this discussion to make sense without some reasonably clear sub-categories.

Character "Levels" in Order of Importance

Main characters - the characters that the story revolves around. If you remove them, then the story falls apart because they're a foundational part of the narrative. Examples: Gabriel and Marinette

Main side characters - the reoccurring characters who aren't needed for the story to function, but who have a clear unique-and-narratively-important role in the story. Remove them and the story requires massive rewrites. Note that I said role, not character or even job. Examples: Alya who is Marinette's best friend and Nathalie who is Gabriel's confident, partner, and many other things

Minor side characters - reoccurring characters that have some level of character development such as having a clear personality, interest(s), and/or relationships. These characters may be given narrative importance in one-off episodes, but their important role will be episode-specific and not something key to the overall narrative. Examples: Kim, Rose, and most of the other teen characters

Background side characters - characters that show up in multiple episodes, but don't have an actual character. They're just there to fill out the world. Examples: Chloe's butler and the lollipop baby

One-off characters - characters that only appear in a single episode. Examples: characters who were only created to become akumas like Mylene's dad who became The Mime and the sculptor who became Copycat

Nathaniel's Place in the Narrative

If we look at the above list, then Nathaniel is a minor side character. He has clear personality traits, interests, and even some clear relationships, but he has no role in the overall narrative. He's not the a main character's best friend or rival. He's not a serious love interest. He's not a mentor or a villain. He's just one of Marinette's many friends which means that you could cut him from the show and the story would still work perfectly fine as the only friend who really matters to the narrative is Alya. That doesn't stop you from making a role for Nathaniel in a fanwork, but it's going to be something you made up not something you're pulling from canon even if it's based on things from canon.

That may sound odd to some since Nathaniel has a full-time miraculous so he's clearly a member of team miraculous, but that's the problem with team miraculous. Over half of the reoccurring cast is part of team miraculous! That means that being a part of team miraculous now holds the same narrative weight as a person being a part of Marinette's class. It's not a well-developed team with unique roles as you can see from the answer to a very simple question: how did Nathaniel earn his miraculous?

Answer: he was physical present when Marinette needed enough people to fill out a football team and Marinette decided to honor that one-off assignment when she handed out permanent miraculous.

That issue is not unique to Nathaniel. Most of team miraculous got their miraculous because Marinette knows them and not because they did anything to prove themselves worthy. Team miraculous is more Ladybug's pokémon than Ladybug's trusted team or even just her valued coworkers. That brings us to a good general rule that you can use to differentiate between main and minor side characters: can a person be told everything they need to know about this character in less than a minute? Let's do a quick exercise to show what I mean.

If Kagami is used in an episode, then any or all of the following may be relevant information: she's a sentimonster, she's Adrien's ex, she knows Ladybug's identity, she and Marinette used to be rivals, she's dating Felix who is Adrien's cousin, she's the holder of the dragon miraculous, she knows the truth about Gabriel, she's the daughter of Tomoe who is some sort of villain that used to work with Gabriel

If Nathaniel is used in an episode, then any or all of the following may be relevant information: he likes to draw superhero comics, he's dating Marc, he's the holder of the goat miraculous, and he used to have a crush on Marinette

As you can see from this list, there are things about Kagami that cannot be quickly communicated to the audience. You have to watch the whole show to understand her. That makes it hard to use her character in an episodic show.

Nathaniel doesn't have those issues. Someone can catch a random episode about his character and have no trouble following along as you can see if you look at these four episodes where Nathaniel gets focused attention: The Evillustrator, Reverser, Gabriel Agreste, and Penalteam. You can watch those in any order and get what's going on. Watch Kagami's episodes out of order and you'll be lost.

This means that Nathaniel is arguably a better addition to the cast because Miraculous is an episodic show. I'm not surprised that he already got a one-off episode in season six because that's why shows like Miraculous have large casts of narratively unimportant minor side characters. They're filler fodder that's there to allow the writers to tell lots of stories without making the show feel too serialized.

My Thoughts on Nathaniel

I'm not the kind of person who delights in developing stories around minor side characters. It feels too much like writing original fiction and I have plenty of original fiction to work on if I want to do that. When it comes to fanfiction, I want to focus on canon's big story elements, the main characters, and/or the main side characters. I'll happily elevate a minor side character to a bigger role if I feel like I need them for the story to work, but I don't force it even if I love the character. For example, my favorite minor side characters are Juleka and Rose, but I rarely ever use them because they're like Nathaniel. They have no clear narrative role that only they can fill so I'm not going to force them into a story when I don't need them. Kill your darlings is a golden rule for a reason!

Nathaniel doesn't make my favorites list, but I don't have any strong negative feelings for him either. I see why people like him, but nothing I've written or even just thought up has him acting as core member of the cast. In my opinion, the core cast is bloated as hell if you're trying to tell a serialized story so I look for people to cut not for ways to add in all of the larger cast. I cut basically every teen but Luka, Kagami, Chloe, Alya, Nino, Adrien, and Marinette. Even then, that list is often shortened to the main four or even the main two depending on the story. I only use all seven in a full rewrite scenario. All of the other teens are limited to minor cameos because they just aren't needed to tell a good canon-focused story and I'm only interested in stuff that focuses on the main elements of canon.

All that being said, I do have one minor way that I might use Nathaniel in the context of a canon rewrite. I like the idea of expanding his crush on Marinette to give Marinette a common teenage experience that feeds her anxiety and explains her crush issues. For this to make sense please note that I usually age the cast up to their first year of lycée. That way they're just a little bit older and it makes a little more sense for all these new kids to be showing up. Also note that this isn't meant to make Nathaniel look bad. No one looks bad in this setup. That's why I like it!

I like the idea that Nathaniel and Marinette were somewhat close in collège. Not best friends, but long-term classmates and mutual members of the art club who got along and spent a decent amount of time together. This led Nathaniel to develop a crush on Marinette. He kept quite about the crush for a long time, but when the end of collège loomed close, he bolstered his courage and asked her out. Marinette anxiety babbled an incredibly awkward, but not unkind rejection.

After that, Nathaniel started avoiding Marinette. Marinette freaked out and tried to fix things. After a few over-the-top fixing attempts that ended poorly, Nathaniel told her that there wasn't an easy fix to this. That it's okay that she rejected him, but it hurt and he needs some space to get over her. She asked how long and he said that he didn't know. The answer ended up being longer than the remaining school year. Collège ended and they went to different lycée so their relationship just kind of ended. No reconciliation but also no animosity. Life just moved on.

This experience fed Marinette's anxiety, leading her anxiety-brain to draw the conclusion that confessions are a bad thing. After all, Nathaniel had a crush on her for ages and everything was fine. The problems only came post-confession. This means that confessions should only happen when you're certain that both parties want to date. Because of this, Marinette will do everything in her power to avoid a romantic confession from a friend. She also refuses to confess her own feelings until she's certain that the feelings are mutual. She's not losing another friend to a crush!

As you can hopefully see, nothing about that paints Nathaniel as a bad guy. It just takes his one-sided crush and uses it to give Marinette issues around dating without those issues being serious trauma that needs professional intervention. Instead, it's just a normal and relatable teenage experience that she needs to work though. I use Nathaniel for this because he's the best fit for it. He canonically had a one-sided crush on Marinette, they're canonically in the art club together, and he's a minor character meaning that I don't need to give him and Marinette a reconciliation arc like I would if I used Nino instead. Plus I like pairing Nino and Alya and Nino is Adrien's best friend so giving Nino and Marinette a past just feels needlessly complex.

To leave a hemorrhage of violets wherever I walked?

No.

A lost son is a prodigal.

A lost daughter is only called lost.”

《English》

Here is an oc inspiration and a core of Jester, I hope you like it!

《 Español》

Aquí tienen un oc inspiration y un core de Jester, ¡espero que les guste!