Reader survey concerning a potential upcoming Miraculous Ladybug project · 6:39pm Mar 9th, 2017
EDIT: This issue has already been satisfactorily resolved, largely due in part to Tatsurou (thanks for the awesome suggestion!). Stay Miraculous!
So if you've been reading Ladybug fanfics for any length of time, you're probably familiar with the subgenre called "watching the show" fics. If not, they're fics where some external force traps all 14 kids in Marinette and Adrien's class in a room and forces them to watch the show, which outs the secret identities, the love square, and everything. These stories often take forever for a writer to even get halfway through a season (if they even manage that), and can be a little redundant, yet oddly enough, they're strangely fun to read.
I'm giving serious consideration to writing one, purely as a downtime exercise between working on other things. Mind, I won't publish a single word of it until I've written a chapter for every existing episode. I want this to be different from the others in at least one way, even if that one way is only "it's actually going to get through a whole season".
Now, here's the part where things get sticky: the framing device.
I want to frame this differently from most fics of this type. I also want to introduce an MLP crossover element just for the hell of it as the framing device. So, right now, my choices are:
1. The soft option: Princess Luna is responsible for the whole thing, through dreams and hoofwaving away how she even knows about these characters. I'm not as fond of this idea.
2. The harder sell, but the one I personally would rather do: The girls at CHS are all wild about Miraculous Ladybug. When Sci-Twi invents a pan-dimensional portal thingie and discovers that there's a dimension where Ladybug and Chat Noir are real, the girls decide to drag Marinette's entire class into their dimension and then the whole forced-to-watch-the-show thing. You know, for funsies!
I'm open to other suggestions that don't involve self-inserts, past Ladybugs, or an Akuma attack. Or Discord.
And again, this is something that won't be surfacing anytime soon, because I'd only be working on this when I'm too fleh-fleh to do any REAL writing or do anything else, and won't publish anything on this until I've got a whole season in the can.
How about combining the two?
Princess Luna was under stress, so Celestia asked Twilight if she could take her through the portal for a vacation. While there, Pinkie Pie introduces Luna to Miraculous Ladybug...and she becomes hooked. However, certain things that are obvious from the outside perspective - like said Love Square, or how Chloe gets away with everything - she finds incredibly frustrating, and wants to help. So when she gets back to Equestria, she creates the linked dream between Marinette's class to show them the show, bringing the EqG Mane 7 into it so she has someone looking over her shoulder so she doesn't mess anything up.
Edit: Oh! And the vacation 'excuse' could be to show her what Nightmare Night looks like on the other side of the portal (because preparations for it start far earlier than it does in Equestria), and the reason she gets introduced to ML through Pinkie is because she's chosen Ladybug for her costume...and Luna tries to 'correct' her 'Spidermane' costume.
4449372 Hmm...interesting...I'll give that some thought, it could absolutely work...
4449380
Well, however you decide to do it, I'm looking forward to when it's ready. Should be a fun read.
4449372 Actually, something that would work fairly well is that it's an accidental dream link (because she has been known to screw up dreams, as the Tantabus proves.) So she accidentally networks a dream sequence, and the whole class finds out.
Now, they're still asleep, and the whole thing could be retconned as a wonky dream by Luna if she moves fast enough. But she's got another problem. She's so frustrated by what happened that it's attracted Papillon/Hawk Moth's attention, and he's akumatized her. Luna's a little vulnerable to this due to leftover guilt, so Nightmare Moon once more becomes a thing. This time, in another world, over the Paris nighttime sky.
Ladybug and Cat Noir now have a double whammy to deal with. First, they have to rescue Princess Luna. Then they have to get her to undo the damage to everyone's mind, or the paradox of remembering the truth of the love square as revealed through a transfictionality tv show is probably going to drive some (or most) of them insane. So it has to be all handled before they wake up. Plus, of course, there's the fact that Ladybug and Cat Noir now know, and have to decide by night's end if they also want their memories to be retconned by Luna before she goes back home. Nice dramatic tension all around, that way.
4449416
Ooh, now that is an interesting idea.
Not sure how well I believe Luna being Akumatized - having been in a similar state before, she seems too strong willed to allow it to happen normally - but story fiat can allow for that.
4449427 Well, there's been too many cases of akumatization now for a victim to not understand what's happening. Yet they choose to accept it anyway. I suspect there's a strong element of mind-control in effect the moment the butterfly makes contact. Basically, the victim has no say in what happens to them. Technically, their agreeing is meaningless, since they never had the real ability to consent in the first place.
4449445
I've seen too many comics/fics involving someone fighting off an Akumatization to accept that as completely given. I prefer to believe it's more like a Jedi Mind Trick, and that a strong enough will would allow one to resist.
4449416 Umm....that's like a whole lot more than this kind of thing is actually supposed to be...
I'd go with the Luna one
I say you should go with Tatsrou's premise. It's the most believable, sounds like so much fun to write and read, and will really connect with fans of the show.
Hmm...yeah, it might be difficult, but I'd go with option two.
4450630 Actually this matter's already been resolved and the prologue written, I just forgot to edit the post.
4450641
.....so, what? I choose right?
4450895 No, because I did something else.
4450923 Nuts