#MLB:AR WorldBuilding

[mlb-a-rewrite]

Miraculous Make No Sense

so I changed how they work.

I love me a well-thought-out and deliberate magic system. I love seeing the different rules and properties of how magic works and I love seeing how the author expands and works around those rules. Limitations are placed, followed, and then explored.

Miraculous Ladybug doesn't do this.

The powers are unbalanced and unrestrained. Miraculous can do whatever the writers want them to whenever they need it to happen. There are no limitations to the powers and the powers don't balance one another out.

This was the first issue I tackled in my rewrite.

Miraculous Overview

I decided that there are two "categories" for miraculous. They are either first or second-ring miraculous. (This is taking inspiration from the miracle box featured in the show and how the miraculous are organized into different rings).

What ring a miraculous belongs to determines how "powerful" it is. All miraculous, regardless of what ring or miracle box they belong to, have the following features:

It is a piece of jewelry

It is connected to and contain imagery of an animal

When a miraculous is worn by a person, the person will be granted, regardless of what ring or miracle box the miraculous belongs to, the following items:

They will now be able to see all Kwamis (regardless of miracle box or ring affiliation)

A unique phrase that will allow them to transform between civilian attire and hero attire

If a person is transformed, they will:

Get a magic girl costume and a magical girl transformation! The costume combines elements of the wearer's personal tastes and the animal associated with the miraculous

Have general enhancements (i.e. they are faster, stronger, have quicker reflexes, etc. but mental capabilities remain unchanged; if they’re dumb as fuck they stay dumb as fuck)

Have a magic weapon/object unique to the miraculous that serves at the housing unit of their special ability

One power unique to their miraculous

All miraculous have the attributes featured above, however, a first-ring miraculous grants the wearer 2 additional special abilities that a second-ring miraculous doesn't.

Special Abilities

In the rewrite, the special ability unique to the miraculous is how I am classifying the powers of each character. Cataclysm, Lucky Charm, Mirage, Venom, etc. are all the special abilities of each miraculous.

Second-ring miraculous have temporary special abilities. If the fox miraculous wearer casts Mirage and then detransforms, Mirage deactivates the illusion dissipates. However, first-ring special abilities are permanent (with one exception, more on that later). So when a ladybug wearer uses Restoration ("Restoration" being the new name for the "Miraculous Ladybug" power seen in the show) and then detransforms, all the damage they just repaired stays repaired.

Powers are also draining to the wearer. The bigger or more precise the use of the power is, the more physically draining it is. It takes a lot of strength, both physically and mentally, as well as a deep connection with the miraculous/kwami to use it for a wider range of uses. It is pretty easy for a black cat wearer to activate cataclysm and let it do whatever it wants, but it is more difficult to control that damage to a certain area or to destroy tougher materials. This adds more restrictions to the powers and gives the characters something to work on.

First-Ring vs. Second-Ring

For second-ring miraculous, there is only one special ability, hence why the fox miraculous only has mirage, but first-ring miraculous have multiple (why the ladybug miraculous has lucky charm and miraculous ladybug and de-evilize/deakumatization and-). This is because first-ring miraculous are more powerful.

I think of each miraculous wearer as having spell slots. For second-ring wearers, they only have 1 spell slot and 1 spell in that slot they can use. For first-ring wearers, they have 3 spell slots with 2 spells that are permanently stuck there.

To use an example from the show:

Any wearer of the ladybug miraculous, regardless of any differentiating factors, will always be able to use "Lucky Charm" and "Restoration". However, that third spell slot can be switched out to fit the situation. This third slot is there to be able to counteract and balance out other miraculous. So if a wearer of the ladybug miraculous thinks the wearer of the butterfly miraculous is using akumatization for nefarious reasons, that third "slot" would acquire a "spell" that directly combats akumatization, which is where the de-evilize ability in the show comes in.

This third ability only exists to combat other miraculous. If, for instance, a ladybug wearer is fighting in a war, the third ability won't make them bullet proof or something because guns are not a product or feature of a miraculous. The third ability only develops to counteract other miraculous.

In addition to that, this third ability only develops as a result of intense emotion. If a ladybug wearer just dislikes another wearer, the third ability isn't going to manifest, but if the ladybug wearer truly believes with every fiber of their being that another miraculous is being used for evil, then the ability will form.

So in the show, Marinette doesn't gain the ability to de-evilize right away. Only when she gets deeply and emotionally invested in the battle does that third ability form.

The final bit about the third power is that you can only use one third power at at a time. Going back to the spell slot analogy, you can have multiple spells you know how to use, but because there is only one slot available, you can only "equip" one spell at a time. When a spell is replaced with another, its effects disappear. Since two of the spell slots are permanently taken up, there is only one "customizable" spell slot.

Final Notes

Miraculous are all about balance. All miracle boxes have 2 rings, and the first ring only ever have 2 miraculous. These miraculous are always opposites and balance each other.

Which is why it makes no sense that Ladybug has so many fancy ass powers and Chat Noir only has cataclysm. Like what??????? So I ended up severely limiting Ladybug's powers and adding more restrictions and clarification. I also wrote in a new power for Chat Noir but this is already long enough so I'll save those details for a different post. :)

[mlb-a-rewrite]

A Guide to Kwamis and How to Kill Them

(okay I lied it’s not entirely about how to kill them, that part is simple. I go over that as well as expand upon Kwamis and their abilities)

Also warning, there is discussion of death and terminal illness here. It stays very factual but just putting a warning regardless.

Kwamis and their miraculous are completely indestructible… until they aren’t. Like you can’t throw a miraculous at the wall or crush it to break it and you can’t stab or strangle a kwami to kill it. The only way to kill a kwami is to break its miraculous and the only way to break a Miraculous is with another Miraculous.

First ring miraculous can destroy any other miraculous entirely on their own, whether it be a second ring or another first ring. If three second ring Miraculous are used together, they can destroy a first ring or another second ring miraculous. Using three second-ring miraculous together either means one person is wielding 3 miraculous simultaneously or three different users all combine their powers to destroy it. Honestly, I don’t really know what that means atm lol. (Just to be overly clear, it could also be that one person has one miraculous and another person has two, that will also work to destroy it but it feels a bit redundant to say that). You could have 3 second ring Miraculous from 3 different miracle boxes and use them to destroy a first ring Miraculous from a 4th miracle box. The origins of a miraculous do not matter, just their ranking.

When a miraculous is destroyed, it is gone forever and nothing can take its place (i.e. a new miraculous doesn’t form to replace it). The miraculous is destroyed and the kwami dies with it. You cannot repair a broken miraculous or revive a dead kwami. They are gone forever.

If a person is wearing a miraculous when the miraculous is destroyed, they become terminally ill. Their body functions rapidly fail, their bodies begin to decay and their mental processes slow. They could die in a few hours or a few weeks but no one lives past a month. Machines may be able to keep the body alive but they will be brain dead. There is no way to heal a holder who wore a destroyed miraculous either.

There is one unique property of first-ring miraculous that I should point out. To reiterate, each miracle box has a first-ring and this first ring is always comprise of 2 miraculous that represent opposing ideas. This way the powers are balanced. If one miraculous represents life, than the other death. If one represents innovation, the other tradition. They are opposing so they balance one another out.

If a first-ring miraculous is destroyed, than its counterpart becomes unbalanced. What this means is anyone who wears and uses the unbalanced miraculous will experience severe side effects. They may first experience cognitive issues, finding it difficult to remember things, process information, make plans, etc. or they might experience physical problems like unsteady hands, decreased coordination, muscle deterioration, etc. No one person will experience the same side effects, so people may experience severe emotional problems at first but see no real physical side effects, but the longer a person wears an unbalanced miraculous, the more the symptoms increase in both severity and number.

These side effects cannot be cured. A person might be able to work to lessen the severity of the symptoms effect on their life but they will always be there. If a person wears the miraculous too long these ailments will become lethal and result in their death.

Actively using a miraculous (i.e. transforming and using special abilities) will also speed up the rate at which the side effects progress.

Kwamis are also affected by this. If a kwami is tied to an unbalanced miraculous then they will experience psychological distress. They will have similar cognitive and emotional issues to those humans experience. A kwami is also likely to experience different issues than the holder of their miraculous. These symptoms will not kill a Kwami but they cannot recover from it either so they either live slowly getting worse or they die. (That got dark quick oops)

The (Dreaded) Magic System

This is the section where I overly specific about how miraculous work and the different parts of them. I also talk about changes I make to miraculous with specific references to the show.

Kwamis and Miraculous and Holders Oh My!

I believe that the parts of a miraculous and their functions are best explained through this analogy I came up with (that’s pretty amazing if I do say so myself).

The Kwamis are like a huge tank of water. Their power is the water and this power is tied to the concept they embody.But there is so much water they (Kwamis) can’t control it. If they try to pour a little bit of water out of the tank, it is going to overflow and a lot more water will come out than intended.

This is similar to how we see it in the show. Whenever Tikki or Plagg or other kwamis tried to use their powers on their own, there were huge consequences (multiple Eiffel towers forming, portals all over the world, etc.)

The Miraculous are a tap connected to the tank.They are the means of controlling the amount of water that is let out.

Miraculous themselves don’t really do anything. They contain no power themselves and can’t use the power. They just serve as a means to let others use the power.

Users are the person operating the tap. They control how much water is let out of the tank via the tap. At first, they only have two options, no water or yes water, but as they get older, more experienced/in tune with their Miraculous, mentally and physically stronger, they are able to have more variation and more control. As users improve, they are able to let more water out. They can choose how much water is let out and how quickly. They still can’t use all the power, they are still bound to the tap, but they can access more of it. Instead of a trickle, they can use the water like a hose or pressure washer. But they have to be in tune enough with the Miraculous and physically/mentally strong enough to do so

Additionally, a user’s body is like a water balloon and to use power from the Kwami, they need to fill themselves with water from the tap. At first, it is easy to fill the balloon with little issue, but if you fill it too much, the balloon gets easier and easier to pop. Eventually, there is so much water the balloon pops if it's even breathed on.

Users have physical limitations. Because they can only access a certain amount of water at a certain rate, they might overexert themselves and start using their own energy. If, for instance, Chat Noir wants to destroy a building with Cataclysm, he may not realize that he isn’t advanced enough with his miraculous and end up using his own energy. When he detransforms he will be incredibly exhausted, mentally and physically. In extreme cases, he might experience muscle loss and in extreme cases, he could die.

This puts limitations on abilities and thus, there are consequences. Ladybug can’t always magically repair everything.

Detransforming exists as a safety mechanism. When users are still newbies, they don’t understand how much they can take physically and mentally, so they will automatically detransform. As they get older, users can turn this off, but it becomes more dangerous. If someone is mentally stronger before they are physically and they let out too much water, their bodies could literally combust because it is too much. Vise versa, someone might be physically strong enough, but too afraid or too out of touch with their Kwami to let out any more water.

Kwamis and Kwamis and Kwamis and Kwamis and—

So now, with a user having two Miraculouses, they now have two Kwamis, which means they have two tanks. This, is dangerous, as you can assume, because that’s a fuck ton of water. Now the safety mechanism is still in place, but it is not designed for the use of multiple Miraculouses. Using multiple Miraculous at the same time, especially when you use multiple fancy powers at the same time, is detrimental to you. Maybe you can handle it for a little bit, but eventually, it will become too much and you could get severely injured or even die.

Connecting back to the earlier discussion about destroy a miraculous using 3 second-ring miraculous, it is possible that a single person could wear 3 second-ring miraculous and successfully destroy another miraculous, but that person will die pretty soon after.

And the whole Multiple Mouse thing where Marinette can use all the miraculous bc she multiplies wouldn't really work bc it's still her, just spread out. Like all the duplicates are her just inhabiting more space, so she would defo die in this world if she tried that.

Specific Changes

Powerups are dumb as hell. In the eloquent words of my friend, “Get shit on and written out.”

Powerups, like when they go to space or go underwater or ice skate or whatever are so ridiculously stupid and I'm getting rid of it entirely. 99% of the modifications that result from powerups are literally just costume changes, like that's it bro. We already know that the costumes change depending on the user and their “vision” for it, and so like, they could just manifest the costumes with ice skates for shoes or space helmets, they don’t need fancy food for that.

In the show the only actual “power up” I remember happening is during Syren when they can breathe underwater. That’s it. Everything else is a costume change and they are shown being able to use their weapons (the yo-yo and baton) as oxygen tanks which I think is a much more creative choice than powerups. 

So I’m changing it so that if they really want their costume to have swimming fins or jetpacks or whatever they can manifest it before they transform. But, like the third power, it is difficult to do and requires a lot of focus and emotional investment, this way they aren’t willy-nilly changing their costumes all the time. 

Once they transform and the modification is there, it will last without problems until the detransform. If they detransform and then transform, the costume will revert back to normal

I also like the idea of their weapons serving as a snorkel/oxygen tank. I think that’s a really fun use of their weapons and also provides another layer of restraint to battles. Idk I think it’s fun

Unification is whatever. I kinda talk about it earlier with the multiple kwamis stuff. Basically when someone wears multiple miraculous and undergoes unification, it becomes monumentally harder to use your powers and is more draining on your body. To go back to the analogies:

A user’s body is a balloon and to splash others with water (power) they must fill the balloon. With one tank of water, it’s easier to fill the water balloon, but with multiple tanks, it is hard to keep track of which is which. Which tank fills water fast and which slow? The user may accidentally turn on multiple taps at once, filling the balloon too fast and causing the balloon to burst.

The more tanks (miraculous), the more difficult it is to use any of the power without hurting yourself

So unification or whatever. I'm chill with it you know, like, it’s fine, I just think there needs to be more consequences associated with it.

Final tidbits

This is just more bits of clarification on Kwami/Miraculous nuances.

Miraculous concepts/powers can and do repeat across miracle boxes. The concept of creation and luck are not specific to one group of people, so there will be multiple Kwamis that encompass that idea, they just present that idea differently. 

Concepts repeat but the presentation of those ideas differs (like, the genes are the same but they present differently depending on the kwami/origin)

So one box might have a kwami/miraculous that represents death and it’s all about fear and destruction but another box might have a kwami/miraculous that represents death and it’s about remembrance, change, and progress. They are the same concepts, but are thought about differently and thus, will have different powers and what not.

Kwami visibility is also consistent. For some reason this being inconsistent in the show really bothered be so we changing that. 

Sometimes in the show, people without miraculous can see Kwamis no problem (kwamibuster, shang hai special, probably many more) and sometimes they cant (the origins episodes), so like, decide and make it consistent.

I think I’ve settled on all kwamis being visible to people wearing miraculous, so if Marinette is walking around with Tikki on her shoulder and then Adrien sees Tikki that’s an identity reveal right there. Since only people with miraculous can see kwamis, kwamis would have to hide all the time in public in order to protect Adrien and Marinette’s identities from one another. Like,  that's fun but whatever ends up happening KEEP IT CONSISTENT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE

Also I just headcanon that the outfits are different. Like Marinette likes fashion and she’s her wearing a polka dot morph suit is dumb because girl, I hate to break to you but you will never be a fashion designer wearing something that ugly. So instead I imagine her as like, one of those TikTok activewear influencers with the fancy skorts and like, a fun half-jacket poncho situation or something. The outfit still covers her fully because combat situations + exposed skin = nothing good. Also, please, why is Adrien in a skin-tight leather suit that's so sus considering they are CHILDREN.

In my head marinette has a tiny little circle cape that goes to her mid back that looks like ladybug wings and it could be part of a jacket or smth idk. I just think the cape would be a fun little touch. NO CAPES.

And Adrien is rocking like basic body armor. Kinda like Captain American kind of padding. He’s still emo and decked out in all black but it’s not all leather and it’s practical for fighting.

[mlb-a-rewrite]

The Guardians

They are cool in concept but don’t make, like, any sense in the actual show. Fu starts off as just some dude with miraculous and then we see the Celestial Guardian and the Miracle Eating senti-monster thing and it just gets confusing and contradictory.

So I am running with the concept but editing it heavily and I’ve decided that I’m going to explain who The Guardians are by explaining Fu’s backstory.

The Story

Fu was born to a rural, Chinese farming family in the mid 1900’s. He had many older siblings and a few younger ones and was prone to getting lost in the crowd. The family struggled to survive, having to sell of their products to keep their land leaving them with virtually no crop for themselves. As a result, the older, more able-bodied members of the family got most of the food.

So Fu starved and he suffered.

He tried to help around the farm, to earn his keep, but he was too weak, too malnourished to lend any real aid. Even if he did manage to help to any substantial degree, he was ignored and forgotten.

So one day he left. It wasn’t a big deal, those who noticed his departure from the family didn’t care, and neither did he. He was determined to find a better life for himself.

In his free time, Fu often wandered through the countryside, occasionally visiting the village, and during his visits, he had heard about a distant and reclusive vihara of monks who took in starving children. Fu himself wasn’t particularly religious, having never meditated or prayed, but he wasn’t going to pass up the chance of a full stomach.

Fu hiked through mountains and forests, scrounging for any food he could find and sleeping in trees. Eventually, he stumbled upon a path, strong and sturdy that ran through the forest. It was out of place in the lush surroundings, tan and solid and level, but it was a sign of civilization so Fu took it.

Eventually, Fu met other travelers, all children like himself. They journeyed up this path together, slowly growing in numbers, until they stumbled across it.

The vihara was large and made primarily of stone, with smooth and imposing pillars laid in a large clearing. In the vihara, Fu and the other children were clothed and fed and housed. The clothes were coarse and itchy, the food only coming once a day and tough and tasteless, he slept on hard, wooden floors, but wood was better than dirt and any food was better than none so he stayed. The monks gave him and the other children free shelter and sustenance for a few days, but that soon changed.

One day Fu and the other children who had arrived at similar times to him were gathered and told they were now required to earn their keep. This was the moment that Fu and the other children realized these were not monks.

The first thing they made the children do was work; hard, laborious, back-breaking work. Fu had watched his family perform this kind of work his whole life but had never been healthy enough to fully appreciate how exhausting it was. Still, Fu remained determined, knowing this was his only real option. Other children left in search of another place to take temporary refuge in, but some remained.

With time, the strenuous labor morphed into learning to fight. They still labored, but it was no longer purposeless. They worked to build strength so they could fight better. If the children failed to perform to the expected standards, they were sent away with a pack of food and water.

Fu did not leave. He was not sent off. No, he remained, determined to see this through.

By this point, Fu was a teenager and his education began. Him and the other teens still worked and trained, but this was interspersed with history lessons on the vihara, which the children learned was actually the central base of a group of people known as The Guardians.

They learned how The Guardians formed, how they had slowly spread out across the world, and formed satellite facilities. They learned that this temple remained the base of operations. They learned what The Guardians were guarding.

They were magic jewelry pieces called “miraculous”. They learned the basic functions of the miraculous and were told that further details would only be rewarded by those who proved themselves. They learned that miraculous were scattered about the world. They learned that the miraculous had been used for evil throughout history. They learned that people were not to be trusted with such power.

They learned that The Guardians collected miraculous and stored them in a secure facility. They learned that only Guardians who completed the trials were allowed to know this location. They learned that only Guardians who were worthy were allowed any access to the location.

The children trained until they became teenagers and the teens trained until they became adults and the adults set out into the world on their trials.

The trial was how a follower became a Guardian. Followers were tasked with finding any artifacts relating to a miraculous or a miraculous itself and bringing it back to the vihara. If they succeeded, they were granted status as a Guardian and given new, more important responsibilities.

When he was old enough, Fu was sent out with a group of 5 other monks, many of them far older than him who had been searching for Miraculouses the majority of their lives. He spent a long time on the road, traveling in search of these mystical pieces. They tracked down every rumor of unnatural occurrences, but still, nothing. It was years since he had been back to the temple, he had grown older, harder, more calloused, but still, he was determined to only return when he had found a Miraculous. His compatriots who started the journey with him slowly dwindled in numbers, all returning back to the temple to rest and recollect their thoughts, but Fu refused. He would not fail.

Eventually, Fu’s determination paid off in England. He had found a girl, no older than he was when he first set out to the temple, with hair so blonde it was white radiating around her. She came from a family with a long history of importance and she adorned a piece of jewelry Fu knew had to be a miraculous. 

So he stole it. Swiftly and deftly he removed it from her person and with the piece first pressed in his palm, he returned to the vihara he hadn’t seen in a decade.

When he returned to the temple with the miraculous and was immediately granted the title of Master Guardian, a title only rewarded to those who discovered an actual miraculous. No other Miraculous had been found for decades, he was the first in so long to find one. 

As such he was informed of immense knowledge. He was told that those who found miraculous related objects became Guardians, those who found second-ring miraculous were Master Guardians, and those who found first-ring miraculous were Celestial Guardians. He was told that The Guardians were in possession of 19 miraculous from around the world and that they were in possession of the only complete miracle box that remained. This miracle box was born here, in this temple, when human civilization in modern-day East Asia was first forming. The vihara was built here in honor of that and protected the box. It was now Fu’s turn to play a role in that protection.

Fu was allowed to train with the turtle miraculous, a powerful miraculous from the original miracle box. He trained diligently, quickly befriending the kwami Wayze and picking up on the properties of the miraculous swiftly. He trained with it during the day, practicing so he would be familiar with it should the need to use it arise, and returned it to the First Miracle Box stored in the vault at night.

It was a simple yet rewarding routine. Fu had never felt a greater purpose or sense of fulfillment. 

But then the vihara was attacked.

An army of miraculous wearers swarmed the temple at night. The followers and Guardians held off the attackers while the Celestial and Master Guardians rushed to the vault, but when they arrived they realized they had been followed.

The attackers spoke in accented Mandarin about how The Guardians had failed in their duties. They thought they were protecting the world of the dangers of miraculous when in actuality they had been stripping people of their ability to protect themselves. They were erasing history cultures never knew existed. They were playing God.

Every Guardian of every rank fought. It was bloody and primal, a fight where anything went. Fu had managed to get ahold of the First Miracle Box and as he looked over the carnage, he realized The Guardians would not emerge from this fight as victors. His best course of action was to flee, to keep the First Miracle Box, the most important item The Guardians had in possession safe.

So he ran. He ran far, never stopping until he couldn’t run anymore. His body gave out in Riquewihr, a small rural town in Eastern France. He took some time to recover, to eat and rest uneasily as he devised a plan.

Fu would need to hide. He didn’t know if other Guardian temples had been attacked and couldn’t risk reaching out for fear of revealing his location. For now, he needed to lay low and keep the First Box safe.

He thought that hiding in plain sight would be his best opportunity. An old Chinese man with no knowledge of the French language would be conspicuous in rural settings. He had a better shot at blending in if he was in an urban setting.

So Fu left for Paris.

Notes

Okay that was long and there were a lot of words so I’m going to do an overview of all that here as well as add a few more details/clarification. I’m getting tired so this will be bullet-pointed sorry not sorry.

The Guardians are a centuries-old cult organization that trains members to collect Miraculous and protect them

They collect miraculous objects that relate to them or insinuate their existence

So this could be a dormant senti-monster or a text that mentions a miraculous holder

They are trying to wipe all knowledge of miraculous existing from the public’s minds so that they remain a secret since people cannot be trusted with this kind of power

The Guardians take in young children under the age of 10 to start preparing and testing them

Those who are being prepared for or are trying to become Guardians are simply called followers

Guardians refer to followers who return an object referencing a miraculous

Master Guardians refer to followers who return with a first-ring miraculous

Celestial Guardians refer to followers who return with second-ring miraculous

Guardians/followers collect miraculous and Master/Celestial Guardians train with miraculous so they know how to use them in case of an emergency. They do not permanently hold onto a miraculous, rather only wearing it for a few hours at a time and exclusively for training purposes.

The group that attacked The Guardians vihara attacked all the other ones

I’ve been referring to this group in my head and notes as the “Anti-Guardian League” which is a dumb as hell name I have been workshopping for 2 months so please if you have a better idea lemme know

The placeholder name is pretty spot on in explaining them though. Basically the Anti-Guardian League wants to destroy/abolish The Guardians because they think people should have access to miraculous. Miraculous formed all over the world as a representation of cultural beliefs and The Guardians have no right to take that away

Basically basically The Guardians are the British Museum and The Anti-Guardian League is all the countries that want their shit back

Fu became a follower under the age of ten (idfk his exact age man its irrelevant)

Fu was questing to become a Guardian and returned with the miraculous in the very late 1990’s, like 1999 or smth

The vihara (temple) is attacked a few years later, so like 2002ish

Fu flees to Paris immediately and is in Paris for the rest of his life

He is old but not unrealistically old when he meets Marinette/Adrien and all that

He doesn’t reach out to The Guardians on his own because he doesn’t know if it is safe to so he diligently protects the miracle box himself

Fu was basically raised in a cult highly religious sect and was brainwashed raised into believing that The Guardians are infallible people

He trust(ed/s) everything they say to a fault and accepts their knowledge as fact without questioning it ever

That was how he survived, that was how he was accepted into their ranks, was through his unwavering and unquestioning loyalty

[mlb-a-rewrite]

The Ladybug Miraculous

The Ladybug Miraculous is a first-ring miraculous that originated in the Egyptian/Middle Eastern miracle box. It represents the ideas of luck, creation, and healing. Its counterpart in the black cat miraculous.

Lucky Charm: Allows the user to create a random object to aid in a combat situation. This object is always random (but not too random because, like, really, some of these objects in the show are so dumb) and it’s primary purpose is never to hurt someone (so lucky charm will never give the user a gun, a sword, etc.)

With improvements, the user is able to manifest more complex objects that are more durable and overtly useful (i.e. if the situation calls for someone to be apprehended, an amateur might use lucky charm and get a rope while a more experienced user might get handcuffs). The user is never able to control what object is made, but can influence the object towards their goal (like they know they want to apprehend someone so the lucky charm will be something vaguely related to that and not something geared for a different goal).

Also none of that bug vision stuff that’s so dumb. We are getting rid of all this Rube Goldberg nonsense.

Restoration: This one is a bit goofier to work with and has a lot of restrictions placed on it that differ from the original show. When activated, the user can revert any inanimate/non-living object back to its prior state (48 hours max).

Now the details of this are goofy. This explanation heavily leans on my water and tap analogy so look at that if you haven’t. Basically, the user can, theoretically use restoration as much as they want, but they need magical energy to do so. Since they can only take energy from the miraculous at a certain rate, they are limited in how much they can actually restore. They could over-exert themselves and tap into energy they naturally make as a human, but this threatens their own health and safety.

With experience, users can be more precise in what they restore, restore more things and restore more destroyed things.

De-Akumatizing/Charm (the physical lucky charms she gives to ppl in the later seasons of the original show): So the properties of this final one are very similar to the show. Like I don’t see a need to change anything abt it (shocking omg). But like, there are details about the 3rd power slot in general terms that are a bit fuzzy lmfao yeah nothing is simple with me.

 Again, see my post for more information on 3rd power slots if you are confused. Essentially, the ladybug holder can only have one power activated at a time. So if she wants to de-akumatize and akuma, she has to deactivate her her charm ability which means all the charms she gave out disappear and become ineffective. If she makes charms then all of the de-akumatizing she has done previously goes away (but in this instance the holder of the butterfly miraculous can only send one akuma at a time so it doesn’t cause a bunch of akumas to revert and go flying around)

These powers, unlike the previous 2, can’t be honed in on but rather, the functions of the powers themselves evolve. How the powers fundamentally work changes depending on the situation, but in order for this to happen, the holder must be experiencing extreme emotions as a result of another miraculous holder. (See my post Miraculous Make No Sense for more information)

[mlb-a-rewrite]

The miraculous magic system is fucked and so I've been reworking it. In the previous installment of "Ele Rages About Children's Show Logic" I talked about how miraculous work and how they affect wearers. Today, we are zooming out and looking at Miracle Boxes as a whole.

May I present:

A Guide to Kwamis and Where To Find Them

(Disclaimer I am a very white American. I don't know a lot about world history or cultures. I will be speaking in very vague terms as a result. The times I do get specific are either because a) I know a little bit about the topic and b) it relates to the original source material. If I'm wrong about something regarding the culture(s) discussed please let me know, I want to make this as accurate as possible).

Alright with that out of the way.

Miracle boxes are the housing unit for a group of miraculous. Miracle boxes encompass the foremost morals, ideas, and beliefs of a group of people. They form with the formation of culture and while culture fluctuates and changes over time, the miracle boxes do not. Once they are made, that is it, and each group only gets one miracle box. As a result, there aren’t many miracle boxes in the world and most of them have existed since the dawn of human civilization, leading to very little information actually existing about miracle box formations.

It is important to note that miracle boxes encompass the ideas and beliefs of a wide region of people. There isn’t a Chinese miracle box or a British miracle box, but rather an East Asian miracle box and a Western European miracle box. Because these regions are so large, miracle boxes encompass fairly vague ideas that are shared across their region. This also means there could be miraculous from different boxes that embody similar ideas since certain ideas/beliefs/morals are not unique to one group of people.

Each miracle box has a theme that each miraculous vaguely relates to. Each miraculous in a box represents a different idea but all of these ideas are unified under the overall theme.

Connecting to the previous post about miraculous and animal associations, usually, cultures will associate animals with different traits (like how many cultures view foxes as sly and crafty or owls as wise). If there is a certain animal that is widely associated with a trait is represented in a forming miracle box, then it is likely that the animal will be connected to the miraculous, but not guaranteed. If an animal is generally important to a culture it also has a higher chance of being featured in a box, but again, is not guaranteed.

Also, an important note is that although it is extremely rare, certain regions of the world have seen multiple miracle boxes created. For instance, there are two North American miracle boxes, one that formed when Native American tribes first began to establish themselves and one that formed during the Second American Industrial Revolution as a result of intense immigration forming an entirely new society and culture. Moral and culture beliefs changed completely, resulting in a secondary box to form.

Miracle boxes are the physical manifestations of a culture and thus, physically reflect this. For instance, a miracle box that forms from a region with lots of trees and woodwork would result in the miracle box being made of wood while a miracle box from an area that uses a lot of pottery and sculpting might have a miracle box made of clay. The design, shape, and function of the miracle box is all dependant on the culture and does not change over time.

While miracle boxes may have different forms from one another and encompass different ideas, each miracle box has the same basic structure of a First ring and a Second ring. If there are a lot of miraculous for one box there could, in theory, be a Third ring, although I see that becoming very complicated so third rings are not common, if they exist at all.

The first ring of a miracle box always has 2 miraculous that represent opposing ideas (Luck vs Unlucky, Creation vs Destruction, Tradition vs Innovation, etc.). The second ring is more broad and no miraculous has a direct opposite. The second ring will usually have somewhere between 5 and 7 miraculous, but there could be more or less.

[mlb-a-rewrite]

Navigation

I’m figuring out how to use Tumblr solely to post about my Miraculous Ladybug rewrite/au which is aptly named “Miraculous Ladybug: A Rewrite”. This is a quick way to navigate to my rewrite and you can get quite specific with it since this is also serving as my notes that I’m going to go back and reference lol.

To find All Posts referencing the rewrite 

#MLB:AR

To find Posts About World Building (this includes the magic system)

#MLB:AR WorldBuilding

To find Episode Outlines

#MLB:AR Episodes

To find Art about scenes in the rewrite

#MLB:AR Art

To find Random Blurbs And Random Thoughts about the rewrite

#MLB:AR Misc Character Studies: #MLB:AR Misc-CS Fully Written Scenes: #MLB:AR Misc-S Polls/Questions/Advice: #MLB:AR Misc-PQ Random Ideas: #MLB:AR Misc-I

(Random ideas are basically notes and small ideas I have while writing. They are not organized or fleshed out.)

My personal account is @ele0nline where I post personal art/writing and talk about other fandoms besides this children's tv show from 2015.