the world lost its mind

Alter-Ego AU

'Scourge' is just a rockstar stage persona Sonic made up so he can live his creative dreams as a bad-boy rock star. It started with editing his pictures online as a teen, but now well in his 20s he regularly has to dye/paint his fur and exchange his surgery scars for uh... 'cooler' claw marks so he's not recognized in public. It's even a running gag that 'Scourge' is often mistaken for Sonic. Sonic even trained his voice extensively to lower it slighty and speak with a more gruff tone in public.

The only time he'd ever be at risk of being found out is if Eggman himself decides to act out during one of Sonic's shows and target him directly. Fortunately he hasn't been found out despite a few close scrapes. It helps that your manager knows Chaos Control :)

(I made this as an example piece for comms, more info below)

Ugh! I had this idea to write a fic about what-if Marinette was evil instead of Gabriel! But now with the whole Shadybug and Claw Noir special coming, I feel I have to wait, so things like 'Good Gabriel's good guy name' and what he calls who makes heroes (currently I'm calling them champion but I don't know anything) are more accurate to the show!

Plot

Essentially, it would've been in this universe, so no Shadybug. Instead, her name would've been Miss Fortune (I've been in this fandom since the beginning, I've always wanted that name to be canon). She takes the image of a shy sweet girl Marinette Dupain-Cheng but when things don't go her way, she becomes Miss Fortune.

Luckily, Paris has a hero in its corner, the amazing Chat Noir who battles the evil Miss Fortune. However, he also has an ally in the form of Papillon, a mysterious benefactor who helps him by sending him champions.

Characters

Adrien will still be our innocent sunshine child, but he has a whole lot more on his shoulders, trying to stop Miss Fortune from wrecking havoc and eventually becoming Guardian.

As Chat Noir, he and the champion have to work together to fight Miss Fortune. I have this system where Miss Fortune has a anti-charm (like Anti-bug) and if the two destroy it, the world healing begins.

Alya is still how she is in the show. Except she despises Miss Fortune. Her blog is towards Chat instead and she insults Miss Fortune anyway she can. She wants to rid the world of Miss Fortune, unaware she's her best friend.

Chloe would be a much better person (she still has some of her original flaws, so she would be not be like Zoe), liking Adrien like a brother and treating Sabrina like a real friend. Of course, Marinette doesn't see their relationship as platonic so she targets her. This version of Anti-Bug would've have Papillon give Chloe the power of the original Ladybug miraculous until Chat decides to give her the bee miraculous to use.

Lila would've been a person who always told the truth and while not all of her stories from canon were true, she does have some real amazing tales. This attracts Adrien to her (again platonically) much to Marinette's chagrin. One story is that Miss Fortune stole her bag once and Chat Noir got it back for her. Marinette thinks Lila is lying and Chat doesn't remember Lila specifically but he does remember giving someone back their bag.

So she briefly becomes Miss Fortune to embarrass her but this just inspires her to become Volpina and her and Chat briefly work together to take her down.

Gabriel is a much better father here! He's still busy and Emilie is still dead. But he's allowed Adrien to go to school and have a less stricter lifestyle. He still misses his wife but goes on a more healthier path instead and tries to move on while helping Chat Noir as Papillon.

Zoe would've been a person who acted nice when in reality, she's a massive witch. She still has feelings for Marinette but Marinette takes advantage of these feeling instead. She assist Miss Fortune also, not liking when things don't go her way. Half of Chloe becoming akumatized episodes would be Chloe either needing the bee miraculous or her helping Chat as a champion. Zoe would play dumb when confronted but some people start seeing the truth through her and Marinette's lies.

Shipping

So Marinette likes Adrien to disturbing degrees. Finding her strange since kindergarten, Adrien at best can be civil towards her. In the Animan episode of this AU, he would've weirded out by Nino's crush on her but would've still helped him, because he's a good friend and he feels he would be a good influence of her.

He and Miss Fortune jokingly flirt with each other sometimes, but they really hate each other with a fiery passion.

Adrien is bisexual in this fic. Who is Adrien's partner? Luka. Instead of liking Marinette, he takes a shining to Adrien instead. Adrien is smitten as both himself and Chat Noir. Luka would be a frequent character in season 1. Often times, Chloe and Juleka (and sometimes Nino) would try pairing them together frequently.

Marinette used to have a crush to Luka and he used to give her a chance but with all the lying and her accidently making it clear she likes Adrien, he also can now only be civil to her.

Chloe is also bisexual. Nathaniel initially has feelings for her instead of Marinette in 'Evilluastor'. Season 1 would plenty of cute moments. Not sure I should write whether they broke up but are on good terms or have them be in a poly relationship with Marc and Kagami.

Down the line, Chloe gains feelings for Kagami. Marinette in this AU, never lets go of her mean feelings for Kagami and instead Kagami enters the scavenger hunt in 'Ikati Gozen' with Chloe, causing the two to bond. Kagami never has feelings for Adrien (but I'll say it again, Marinette doesn't see it that way).

Soviet Warners

Pretty much no one has ever sympathized with Chris over being a Lonely Rich Kid caused by the absences of his parents. While he's meant to be painted as such, fans don't really buy it due to him always being shown to have a average social life while having good relationships with his friends and family such as his grandpa. And the anime didn't show just how lonely Chris' life was before he met Sonic aside from a brief clip fifty episodes in. All of which makes Chris look like an Informed Loner who doesn't really seem to have the kind of life that would make him such a needy and clingy person.

Hmm, I wonder who this reminds me of?

This might be an unpopular opinion (I’m not that familiar with Sonic X discourse), but personally, I think Chris is a worse character than Adrien.

With Adrien, you can clearly tell he has a miserable life being forced to do whatever his father needs him to do, in addition to the whole Sentimonster thing.

With Chris, he has a far better life by comparison. He has a lot of friends, and both parents, while busy, seem to care for their son and hate that they barely get to see him. Sure, it doesn’t excuse how often they’re absent from his life, but it’s clear that they still love their son. It really doesn’t do a good job showcasing how important of a friend Sonic is to Chris, especially since Sonic typically tends to prefer solitude instead of hanging out with Chris.

A relatively popular opinion I've seen regarding this is that many people would prefer Helen the wheelchair-bound girl to be the lead human character since there was a pretty sweet episode that had Sonic take Helen out to see the nature. I believe Amy Rose fans have a bone to pick with Chris since in Sonic X's take on Sonic Adventure 2 events, Chris usurped Amy's role of reminding Shadow what Maria truly wanted.

I'm going to largely agree with what you said comparing the way Chris and Adrien have their lives depicted in their respective shows. Chris is too attached to Sonic for his own good, building a transporting machine (at the very beginning of Metarex season) just to see Sonic. And despite being an adult by that time, he is de-aged back to a kid when he arrives to Sonic's world due to different time flows. The show doesn't really elaborate on that de-aging beyond first few and episodes and the final one, though it is a kids' show, so, fair enough.

Don't faint. I'm a qualified Russian, I'll explain.

First, a bold claim: the very concept of a superhero reeks of individualism. Years of socialist rule have made the concept of a homegrown Russian superhero if not impossible, then very hard to execute properly.

A Russian film called Чёрная молния (Black Thunderbolt) comes to mind. It was a very heavily marketed movie all the way back, and kid me bought into the hype — I saw it in cinemas and had it on DVD. And yet, it is a divisive film. It's a carbon copy of Raimi Spider-Man, essentially, trading spider powers for a flying black Volga. To top it off, the film's big song, performed by none other than Belarusian-born Eurovision winner for Norway Alexander Rybak, ended up way too similar to I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing by Aerosmith.

The one character that many Russians feel represents the Russian hero (not a superhero, that is a very important distinction) is Danila Bagrov from the Brother movie dilogy. And yet, calling Bagrov an action hero (which many ended up perceiving him as) misses the point in my opinion. Aleksei Balabanov (the director of Brother and Brother 2) apparently understood this and, in Brother 2, blew this aspect out to self-parodic levels, but did it in such a way that it flew past many people's heads. There's an upcoming comic book anthology about Danila Bagrov, consider that. (And Bubble Comics is responsible for it.)

Honestly I ended up skipping the Shanghai special, but the reason New York special worked at some level is because the US is where the concept of superhero came from. (Though it brings to mind the villain of The Incredibles: if everybody's a super, no one is.)

I brought up Major Grom: Plague Doctor, a film adaptation of a comic book series by Bubble Comics (yeah, the very same one I mentioned above...) in an ask submitted to IOTA. I think it's a great way to introduce a comic book plot in a Russian setting, and has the backing of an actual comic book, to boot. (Crossing over MLB and MGPD is something I've been thinking about quite a lot, as a matter of fact. Let's just hope Tommy Assbrain doesn't think about that either. I could easily imagine him saying that Kirill Grechkin — someone who ran over an orphan girl to death while drunk driving and bribed his way out of a prison sentence — is similar to how he always viewed Chloe Bourgeois.)

It would be great to compare this film to an earlier short based on Major Grom's character. The short was quite an Americanized one with Igor Grom as a reckless action hero. (The short is now non-canon, and Grom was recast, but it's implied that it's events happened in movie canon in some way). In MGPD, Grom was played by an actor who initially struck many as not having the right vibe, being not much of an action guy. Yet, it worked. Tikhon Zhiznevsky's Grom is brave, quick-witted and very human. And the film does a good job showcasing this. For someone like Grom, killing people for greater good is not an option.

Miraculous is a franchise that mixes and matches elements of superhero and magical girl plot. But Russian environment has broken a lot of idealists. I, for all I know, can't imagine a show like Miraculous going deeper into what it means to be a hero in different circumstances. Ultimately, it's an extremely status-quo led show. If Miraculous did make a Russian hero the same way it created most of its other heroes, I, as someone who grew up in Russia, would find myself unable to suspend my disbelief. And doing it in a different way is a risk Miraculous won't take. I'd be over the moon if they did, but not having many high hopes.

And of course, I'm incredibly scared of stereotypes. As if you aren't. Animaniacs reboot had an episode in Russia and features Putin to make fun of him, and almost all of it makes me cringe a bit despite the fact I love the Animaniacs reboot.

Aw thank you! I grew up with Soviet Bloc animation too, it’s very important to me.