#wang fu

MINI MENACE ERA: COLLEGE KIDS

I have a part two that I’ll add to a reblog of this sometime, but here’s the first part for their college days! I couldn’t draw everything I wanted to, so more blabbering and elaboration under the cut!

mlp au! miraculous ladybug side and not-so-side characters

Instead of having a "designated responsible hero", Scarabella and Chat Noir would just be a pair of gremlins high on life because THEY'RE SUPERHEROES OMGOSH they would spend half their time geeking out and basically exuding chaotic sibling energy the entire time. 

They would reveal their identities to each other right off the bat because neither was paying attention when they were told not to, and Tikki just groans. Alya and Adrien quickly bond over being new kids at school who have superpowers, and everyone else is baffled.

Alya decides to try Clark Kenting and run the Scarablog, and Adrien is like "that's an amazing idea I'll help!" and shenanigans ensue. Marinette (who knows Alya is Scarabella since she snuck the earrings to Alya before any of this started) has befriended Alya as in canon but HASN'T told her that she knows her identity, so she gets dragged into the Scarablog staff and ends up doing most of the fieldwork and vlogging, desperately trying to do anything to cover up Scarabella's and Chat's identities (she knows Scarabella's, but doesn't know Chat's) while trying to avoid getting distracted by Adrien, who she's crushing on big time like in canon. 

For his part, Adrien gets totally enamored with Marinette because Ladybug isn't there to distract him and because Scarabella is already more sibling material than lover material, but he thinks Marinette dislikes him and his brand so instead tries to woo her as Chat Noir and more shenanigans happen. 

Nino, however, is low key crushing on Scarabella, and joins the Scarablog staff to try and learn more about her. Alya finds this amusing and kind of adorable, but doesn't really reciprocate for a while because she and Nino don't get locked in the zoo. She does let him investigate on his own, because she thinks pursuing the truth is a noble endeavor and in the meantime the blog can use his skills. Marinette starts silently screaming because GOSH DARNIT the identities are supposed to stay secret! 

Chloe is a huge fan of Scarabella and Chat Noir. She keeps trying to force herself onto the Scarablog team… But Alya is having none of it and throws her out. Chloe engages in spying shenanigans and tries to force Sabrina onto the team in her stead, but that just results in Sabrina getting character development. 

Lila shows up. Nino, desperately trying to learn more about Scarabella, falls for her lies hook line and sinker (sorry Nino, someone has to) but since Alya and Adrien both know each other's identities they see through her lies and (with Marinette) burst her bubble almost immediately. However, since Marinette actually has free time she can do her job as Class Pres and calm Lila down (a la zoe-oneesama's Scarlet Lady AU), and soon Lila shows up on the Scarablog's door offering to investigate Hawkmoth. Her main goal is fame and fortune, but eh Alya knows a good tool when she sees one. Chloe is fuming, and soon Lila gleefully engages in Spy vs Spy shenanigans with her. 

Fu is like "WHOMST IS SCARABELLA" and tells Adrien that Scarabella isn't supposed to be the Ladybug wielder and Adrien briefly angsts about it but is like "who cares have you met her she's literally a great hero and that's what matters" 

I like to imagine Fu jumping with joy when there's a really tough akuma, because it would mean Chloe would have to choose more than one supporting hero and pick more people besides the redhead herself...

How does Master Fu react to them revealing their Identities to eachother? Is he disappointed? Mad? Resigned? He did give the Cat Miraculous, which is often the Protector of the Ladybug, to a Girl with obsessive protective tendencies. Did he think she WOULDN'T find out everything there is to know about him to make sure he is kept safe?

Speaking of Master Fu, how on board is he with making Chloe and Sabrina Permenant Holders? I'm sure he originally intended to have them be temporary, but once again he should have expected this.

Chloe is obsessive about protecting Adrien, just as much as Marinette. There's no way she would give up the power she uses to keep him safe when he is acting as Mr Bug.

And Sabrina is the same, but for Chloe. Once Chloe became a Hero, there was no way Sabrina would ever give up the chance to protect her as a Hero.

Woo! A quick question, but something of a doozy of an answer! Ah well, it's a fun answer, too! Let's get into it.

I think the best place to start here is that Fu didn't actually pick the miraculous holders in this world, which I don't think I've mentioned before, as it's something of a newer idea I've become fond of.

He is still the guardian, and the keepers of the miraculous, but it was actually Tikki and Plagg that chose Adrien and Marinette.

See, in this world, Fu doesn't initially WANT to hand out the miraculous.

We know from Fu's backstory that he was a reluctant recruit to the guardians at a really young age, he was never the most gungho about being a guardian to begin with. And we look at his life and basically see that it's dominated by the burden of carrying the miraculous. Arguably, this job has been nothing but hard and long for Fu, a burden that he's the only person left to carry.

Knowing that, I honestly have never believed it made sense for Fu to hand the miraculous out to children(or teenagers in this case), because he knows exactly what pushing that burden onto unprepared youths can do.

So in this story, when Stoneheart shows up and starts wreaking havoc, he doesn't hand out the miraculous. Instead, Fu dons the Ladybug and Black Cat himself in their fused form, and fights the Akuma himself rather than endanger others.

This effort nearly kills him though, and soon after he detransforms in the safety of his massage shop, he collapses from Exhaustion.

The Kwami of the mother box then hold council together, and decide that they can't let their guardian continue like this. He will die if he does, and they both don't want Fu to die, and can't risk the box falling into the wrong hands.

So, Plagg and Tikki steal their own miraculous, and both journey out into Paris, searching for wielders that resonate with their concepts and domains, and, secondarily, who need their respective domains in their lives the most.

So, this is how Plagg ends up with a much more natural protector in need of someone to protect, and Tikki with a repressed creative in need of self expression and confidence.

So, Fu didn't actually choose Marinette as the Cat. Plagg did. Fu is obviously furious when he wakes up and finds the miraculous gone, but he doesn't actually know where the Kwami took them too. He himself is unaware of who the new wielders are.

As such, it's actually Tikki who tells Mister Bug about the identity rules, while Plagg actively doesn't tell Marinette about them, because he thinks they're more trouble than they are worth. And with half of the Kwami pushing against them, it's not long before the rule crumbles.

As for how Fu reacts? Well, by the time the kids actually come to him he's made his peace with them being holders, and in fact has decided that the Kwami were right, and that they chose well. Approving Mister Bug and Lady Noir. Now, when they both show up to meet him out of costume for the first time, he freaks out a bit. But Plagg and Tikki come to the kids defense, and when both Adrien and Marinette point out that there have been times where the only reason they navigated some situations that could have exposed their identities, or even killed them, was because they knew each others identities, Fu relents and doesn't try to revoke their miraculous. He's still cautious about it, and worried, but the kids have done ok so far and he's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this.

By the time they want to give others miraculous, not just temporarily, but on a more permanent basis, Fu is again not comfortable with it, but he was already mistrustful of old school guardian doctrine even before the kids started changing things. And so far, the stuff they've done different has been good. He can't deny that having multiple Holders now who can rapidly respond to threats feels like a good idea.

Especially with how much hawkmoth ramps up in severity and creative and intelligent use of Akuma's and Sentimonsters as the story goes on.