#Reflektica rewrite

[miraculous-rewrite]

Miraculous Rewrite- Mirrormaker (a Reflektica rewrite)

Reflektica is another one of those episodes that was pretty alright on its own, but doesn’t quite mesh well with the story we’re trying to tell, so it had to go mostly into the burner. We’re including now a bit of foreshadowing, and something that we SHOULD be able to have in the grand year of 2019. Also it felt like a waste to the both of us to NOT have the token Goth’s Akuma be horror-themed.

We open on the school photo much like in canon, however you’ll note, of course, a few differences. Marinette, while still worrying about perhaps being in the same row as Adrien, or even worse, standing next to him, it’s played more as anxiety and Alya played as more comforting. Because god forbid Marinette’s feelings be validated in any episode ever. ( -COUGH- PUPPETEER 2 -COUGH COUGH-)

Another notable change is Juleka herself. While her ‘photo curse’ was an interesting angle to go from, it doesn’t really follow since the majority of her ‘curse proof’ is the actions of others, So we’re going a little more simple here, Juleka hates getting her picture taken because she believes herself to be the ugliest person in class and doesn’t like the idea of looking back on this horrible awkward phase with photographic evidence of how gross she is now. Rose tells her that’s she’s beautiful of course, that she’s being too hard on herself, and doesn’t her brother say that every time as well? Juleka shrugs and says neither Rose nor her brother count since they’re all too close. (Mod Aims - DON’T MAKE LUKA APPEAR OUT OF THE ETHER GOSH)

While the girls are talking, Juleka takes out her phone to show Marinette and Alya “proof” of how bad she looks in pictures. One of them includes this brother she and Rose mentioned. But the focus is on Juleka of course, and Most of the images feature her shying away from the camera itself, excepting those where she’s clearly been strongarmed into it.

The photographer is the same dude that usually photographs Adrien because that guy is too funny to not keep, and as is in canon he struggles with finding the right places for everyone. But this man photographs models, so it’s more than just making Ivan fit in frame. Everyone’s getting that micromanagerial treatment. Rose is told to straighten her blouse, Mylene to fix her bandana, Alya is told her glasses are crooked (“My ears are crooked sir”)

And of course, Juleka is told to get her bangs out of her face. Juleka pauses, checking herself in her little hand held mirror as she tries to shuffle her hair back while keeping it in her face. The photographer groans and walks up, muttering about how he’s not a hairdresser. He pushes the whole thing back from Juleka’s face, using a pin offered by Chloe to hold it back. Marinette gives Chloe a sharp look but she responds with honest confusion that she’s just helping with the picture.

Juleka, however, is not good with this. She holds a fake toothy smile for the photo and then, without warning or another word at all, runs off. The photographer asks confusedly about what the heck that was about, and Marinette says point blank that Juleka has self image issues and he just messed with her coping mechanism.

Rose gets up and follows after Juleka, and we follow her now, coming through the halls and rooms until she comes across the girl’s bathroom. Juleka curled up into a stall and hiding her face in her knees, her hands in her hair and muttering incoherently.

Rose asks her to look up and Juleka flinches, before slowly rising, she’s just as Juleka as she’s always looked, even with her hair pinned back. Tears running down her cheeks, face red in patches and eyes darted to the side so as to not Meet Rose’s eye. 

“Juleka, you’re beautiful.”

“You have to say that, you’re my girlfriend.”  (WE’RE DOING THIS! IT’S OUR REWRITE, WE CAN MAKE IT AS GAY AS WE WANT!)

Rose starts to speak further, but she’s cut off when, right before she could possibly get Juleka to feel a bit better, the Akuma hits her hairpin.

Juleka isn’t strong like Mlle Bustier, but she does look at Rose with her eyes screaming “get outta here” before the aura takes her over, and the petite girl books it, bumping into Marinette and Alya as the two were looking for them. Rose explains the situation as the friends share looks. 

The door to the girl’s bathroom opens on its own, an eerie fog rushing out from the room, And out steps Juleka. Or rather, the Akuma that once was Juleka. Juleka’s outfit seems simple enough, a long white smock stained with water and mud, her black hair free from colored streaks, but unlike Samara Morgan her hair isn’t hanging in front of her face, it’s instead pinned back with an ornate hairpin, a black rose in the decoration. Her face is puffy and pale, like a victim of drowning, eyes milky and corpse like. 

“No one looks how they feel, no one feels how they look.” She says cryptically, before taking the rose off of her hairpin, another grows in its place, but she throws the selected rose at Alya. It wraps around her wrist, and after a flash of light, Alya changes. Her eyes and glasses taking up most of her face, her mole enormous on her forehead, and a pair of buck teeth sticking out from her lips. “I am Mirrormaker, and today, you’ll all be as ugly as I am.”

Mirrormaker begins to stalk the school, throwing her black roses at rantom passers by, turning them into cruel, cartoonish reflections of their insecurities. Marinette has been trying to find a safe place to transform, but everyone’s began clustering together in an attempt to save themselves from a bad makeover. She’s found herself caught up in a throng with Rose, Kim, Mylene, Max, and Alix. Alya couldn’t even come with, as she’s using her new form to keep an eye on Mirrormaker, following her and keeping tabs on her locations since she can’t get got twice anyway. 

Adrien on the other hand is trying to separate himself from Chloe. After seeing Alya follow the creepy Akuma through the school and coming to the conclusion that that’s what she’s doing to people, Chloe won’t leave Adrien’s side, no matter what schemes Nino tries to pull to get her away. She’s freaking out about all the effort she puts in her appearance going to waste. Pretty girls have it hard too after all!

Both of them doing their best despite the circumstances leads to some fun shenanigans from my angle on the matter. In a scene more befitting Scooby doo, Mirrormaker chases either of these groups through the halls, throwing rose after rose that just barely misses. The running through doors gag should be implemented in this scene. At some point Mirrormaker being replaced with Sabine holding a rolling pin.

But eventually Marinette and Adrien both make it to secluded areas, bonus points if it’s the bathrooms and they each come out transformed from the restrooms at the same time and just stare at each other for a hot second. 

“Well My lady, it seems as though we go to the same school!”

“For all you know kitty, I came in through the window.”

The two of them make it onto the scene, just as Mirrormaker approaches either of their groups combined into one, Chloe hiding behind Kim as they’ve been cornered. Mirrormaker can only go after one person at a time so she makes her rose count and is able to land it directly onto Chloe. Chloe Shrieks and ducks behind Kim, even as the flash of light marks her change. 

In this time Alix makes a break for it, but Mirrormaker was just a hair faster and got a rose around her ankle. Alix trips and after a flash of light, she’s shrunken to about toddler size, exempting her feet, which look almost clown-like in their size. 

But just as she reels back, a close up on Kim revealing he’s the next target, Ladybug’s Yoyo comes out and knocks the rose from her hand. Mirrormaker turns, and of course is confronted with Ladybug and Chat Noir. 

“Even superheroes can’t see themselves as perfect.” She mutters. Ladybug starts spinning her yoyo, and Chat flips his hair as he does the same with his staff. Jokingly saying that he knows he’s pretty, she can’t mess with what he’s already comfortable with. 

“We’ll see about that.” She says quietly, before tapping the rose on her hairpin. Suddenly, Chloe and Alix from behind her stand up straight, eyes turned black. And robotically, they both move between Mirrormaker and Ladybug and Chat Noir. This is when we see Chloe’s transformation, and, ironically, it’s exactly how she really looks, but with her hair down and messy, a pair of ripped up and well-worn pajamas on in place of her normal outfit, and without a trace of makeup on her face. 

“Keep them busy.” She says simply, and Chloe and Alix fall into fighting stances. They’re not zombies or minions, they just follow directions when asked.

But a fight scene is still a fight scene, and as Ladybug lifts Alix up by the scruff of her shirt she is scarily close to being kicked in the face by her giant feet. Chat struggles a bit more with Chloe, but she’s pretty easy to overwhelm all the same.

But of course just the time spent was enough for Mirrormaker to get away, the rest of the group having already been uglyfied excepting Rose, who remains herself, shivering in the corner.

The commands on Chloe and Alix break, and the two return to their normal selves (well… as normal as they can be in the situation) and Chloe begins to freak out, running toward the bathrooms and shouting for no one to look at her. Rose takes then to approach Ladybug and Chat Noir. Claiming that she saw Juleka at moment of impact. Her Akuma’s in the hairpin, and she’s always had body issues. She doesn’t quite know what’s going on, or why Juleka spared her, but she’s willing to use that to offer some help. 

Cut back to Mirrormaker, she’s been stalking paris with a now black eyed Alya trailing behind her. Alya only comes to when Juleka un-taps her rose to throw it at people, usually those posing for a photograph, but anyone looking at themselves in a reflective surface is also a target. Mirrormaker isn’t much of a physical threat, so she’s keeping at least one minion on her at all times. This also explains how Alya is able to keep tabs on her. Snapping photos and posting them to the Ladyblog whenever she comes out of the stupor. For awhile we follow the two of them, Alya trying to draw information out of Mirrormaker, asking her (through a lisp provided by her new teeth) about her goals as an akuma besides getting the miraculous’, if there’s anyone in specific she’s looking for, and whatever else she can get out while she’s still conscious. 

Then, after a buzz of electronics fills the air, television screens that were once at commercial breaks light up to see Nadja Chamak, wrinkles on her face and grey in her hair making her look well into her 90’s, talking in an old woman’s voice to Ladybug. Ladybug states very calmly that Mirrormaker works on a person’s insecurities regarding their body image at point of impact. And that it’s kind of a really rude power for Hawkmoth to give someone. Then going on to insult Hawkmoth himself, citing certain Akuma designs (bubbler likely) and wondering what sort of fashion disaster Hawkmoth would be. And it’d be really fun to see Mirrormaker show us how gross he is, wouldn’t it?

The butterfly halo lights up Mirrormaker’s face and Hawkmoth--sounding disproportionately angry--demands she goes to the TV station and make Ladybug pay for her slander. Mirrormaker herself wonders for a moment just what he WOULD look like under her abilities, but after twitches violently shrugs and says a quiet “just asking… geez.” before tapping her flower and putting Alya under again.

We then cut back to Ladybug and Chat Noir, Nadja’s eyes have also gone black, going into stasis until Mirrormaker can come in and command her into action. Chat asks if she thinks her bait will work, and Ladybug shrugs, saying that nobody likes getting mocked for their appearance. He offhandedly mutters that he knows what that’s like, before chuckling nervously and wondering out loud what’s stuck in his brain without him knowing it.

“Let’s hope we don’t find out kitty, I don’t want to have to fight you again.”

“Ah! My Lady you always know what to say!” She playfully shoves him a bit. Their antics cut off abruptly by a rose tossing through the air and hitting some hapless camera guy, his face swelling and legs turning to chicken legs. 

Mirrormaker then comes on the scene, Alya, Nadja, and the new camera guy all shuffling behind her. She comments idly about how Hawkmoth didn’t appreciate the insinuation that he was some sort of ‘creepy suited cretin’ before wrinkling her nose and looking off to the side “his words not mine.”

But then she points to the two heroes and says “get them” quietly. 

Nadja and Alya go for Chat Noir, while Ladybug is contending with the camera man. The fight scene is relatively short, neither are particularly overwhelmed, but that’s not what Mirrormaker was going for anyway. As the two of them are distracted she moves quickly, dropping her control on the three, drawing her rose, and shooting it at Ladybug. Chat shoves the Dazed Alya and Nadja aside, but the fight has drawn them too far away from each other for him to make it in time.

Chat Shouts for her, and Ladybug reacts just a moment too late to get her yoyo into ‘shield’ form. But just a fraction of a second before it hit her, Rose appears. The background showing that she’d been hiding in a supply closet, brooms and buckets lining her path from there to where she is now. 

The back rose wraps around her throat, but even as Rose braces for impact, no flash of light. Nothing happens. There’s a moment of silence as Rose carefully pulls the flower off of her. “She can’t control people and launch her flowers at the same time.” she states simply before running for Mirrormaker herself. Every kid needs at least one moment of awesome after all, and Rose is far overdue. 

Mirrormaker freaks out a little and taps her rose, calling Nadja over to intercept her. Taking the moment, Chat glances over at Ladybug and asks if she knows what the Lucky charm is for yet or not. Ladybug pulls out her lucky charm--summoned offscreen, it’s a rubber band--and glances around the room. A restrained Rose, Chat’s staff, the lights above them, and Alya, come to mind. 

“Chat Noir, kill the lights!”

Though Mirrormaker sends the cameraman after him, he makes it to the lightswitch and turns the lights off. Pitch darkness covers the room, blinding all within. 

Ladybug undoes the purifying part of her yoyo to act as a beacon. Mirrormaker sending Alya after her, but Ladybug uses one hand to keep Alya at bay, using the other to launch her yoyo to free Rose from Nadja. “Go after Juleka!” Rose, only illuminated faintly, nods and runs back into the pitch.

“Chat Noir, stay behind Rose!” Chat, who still has night vision, has no problems with this and starts to charge, mere steps behind Rose. Mirrormaker, just barely visible to Ladybug’s beacon, gets rid of her minions and starts throwing roses in every direction possible, Ladybug shielding herself with a still Dazed Alya, and flower after flower slipping off of Rose harmlessly. Chat then, instinctively, extends his staff to hit Mirrormaker to knock the pin out of her hair. It fails, but it knocks her into the light just enough for Ladybug to properly see the pin itself and launch her rubberband at her. 

When the pin clatters to the ground Rose is in fact the closest to it and crushes it beneath her heel.

Ladybug purifies the Akuma and Chat Noir hits the lights. Miraculous Ladybug sweeps the city, but Rose crouches down to Juleka, whom still hasn’t quite changed back yet. She gently takes the horrible bloated Akuma’s shoulders and hugs her. Dark sticky hair falling over the both of them and water and mud stained dress soaking into Rose’s skirt. But this vanishes after the cloud of darkness leaves and Juleka is left in Mirrormaker’s place. She looks around, confused, but reflexively her arms go up to hug Rose back. 

The next scene is the school at lunch, the photographer shuffling through his photos. Grumbling to himself irritably. After a long moment he cries out that someone tampered with his camera. M. Damocles asks what’s wrong and he shows him, somehow the photo for Mlle Bustier’s class was deleted. M. Damocles is just as perplexed as he is, but overhearing this around her sandwich, Marinette walks up and asks--mouth full and a bit mumbly if you want that joke angle-- if they have to take the photo again. 

Neither of them look at her, so Tikki takes the opportunity to open her bag and shoot her a suspicious look. But the photographer sighs and says that it must be done. Marinette offers to tell the class, and as she walks to the lunch room she finally noticies Tikki’s glare. “What? It wasn’t me! You were with me this whole time!”

As Marinette approaches her classmates to inform them of the reshoot, Chloe turns her head to look over. 

“Oh good, he saw.” 

The entire class now turns to look at Chloe when she says this, but she only shrugs. 

“The dumb photographer didn’t put me next to Adrien last time.” Everyone groans, but she glances at Juleka and Rose from the corner of her eye before darting her gaze downward. 

The photo is instead now taken on the front steps of the school, The photographer rearranging people as he sees fit once again. But now with the sitting medium, it’s a less organized affair, and somehow Adrien ends up sandwiched between Chloe and Marinette. But in the center of the picture, of course, is Juleka with her hair still in her face, but Rose happily clinging to her arm. 

Nino then raises his hand “Hey dude, since our picture was the only one that got messed with, can we do a silly one too?”

The photographer sighs and gives the okay. And immediately Nino pounces on Adrien from behind, Alya kicking her legs out and throwing them right into Chloe’s face. Chloe looks distressed, but does acquiesce to sticking her tongue out for the picture. Marinette lays down on her side and puts her legs in Adrien’s lap. Rose’s eyes are crossed and is making fish lips, and Juleka, for once, is laughing as the camera shutters. 

[miraculous-rewrite]

And here we are! Mirrormaker, the horror inspired Akuma herself!