Since I'm talking Miraculous anyway, I have to talk about "Peeping Tomcat." It's..... a slow process. Last week was the official first week of Writers’ Huddle's Winter Writing Challenge. By the end of the first week I wanted to have chapters 6 and 7 edited, revamped, rewritten, whatever I needed to do to have it set for my beta readers in March.
I'm STILL not done with chapter 5 though. I wanted that done before even starting the challenge.
It's the darn Lucky Charm! I just cannot figure out what I want to do for it! I mean, granted, it also kept me a while to figure out my akumatized supervillain, but once I figured that out last Monday I was on a roll. The rest of the chapter worked out fairly well. I was able to salvage some descriptions from the first go at this story I did over NaNo. I'm just stuck on what to do for a Lucky Charm.
For those unfamiliar with the show, Ladybug's main power that she uses to stop every akuma is called Lucky Charm. She's gifted an item that is used to stop the villain long enough for her and Cat Noir to retrieve and break the akumatized item; releasing the person from Hawk Moth's hold and returning them to their civilian form.
These Lucky Charms always force Ladybug to think outside the box. For example, she used a towel Lucky Charm as a makeshift hang-glider; a large packing box to trick a Santa Claus themed villain into thinking he was getting a present, which allowed LB to be close enough to snatch the akumatized item; a spoon as a makeshift fishing hook to tangle the villain and lift him off the ground; an oven mitt as homemade handcuffs; a shoe box as a projector promoting a show the akumatized villain wanted to stop; a power strip as a second yo-yo as she fought five attackers at once; and the foil inner lining of an ice cream bar wrapper as a reflective surface to see through illusions.
More often than not, she has to MacGyver her Lucky Charm into something useful, such as the aforementioned spoon being duct taped to her yo-yo which in turn was attached to Cat Noir's baton in order to make a fishing pole. The shoe box was combined with someone's glasses, a promotional poster for the show the akuma was trying to stop, and the headlights from a nearby bus. The oven mitt was combined with an already existing oven mitt, a belt, and a bracelet.
That's part of the power. Once Ladybug has her charm, she scans the area for clues, which flash in red with black polka dots. Once her vision gives her clues on what other objects she'll need to combine with her charm, she has to mentally put it all together herself.
The combinations she has to come up with in the second season are even more involved. She has to combine a unicycle, multiple rake heads, and Cat Noir's baton for the most recent episode. The one before that she simply gets a motorcycle helmet, and, thanks to her Ladybug Vision, is able to figure out that Cat's baton, three directional street signs, a bus, a bench, a tipped over motorcycle, and two light posts are all needed to stop the villain.
So, in order to stay true to canon, I need to think of something presumably useless for her to get as a Lucky Charm, and then figure out how it's obviously the only way to stop the akuma.
I CAN'T THINK THAT FAR OUT OF THE BOX!
So I've been stalled for two days now. I have a lot of the post-Lucky Charm Use chapter done, but I can only do so much. The way the akuma is stopped could affect small bits of the back end of the chapter. Plus, I'm missing a huge chunk if I don't have her using the Lucky Charm.
And this is just the first akuma attack. I have a second one planned in a few weeks, and at least two more for the sequel. How am I going to do this!? How can my brain not be this creative?
HOW DOES ASTRUC AND HIS TEAM FIGURE THIS OUT 26 TIMES PER SEASON!?
It's no wonder that just about every other Miraculous Ladybug fanfic I've come across has avoided akuma attacks. If they do have them in, they're fought "off screen" with the characters just reflecting back on them. Or, they do fight the akuma, but the fight "fades out" with a simple "Ladybug got her Lucky Charm, figured out how to use it, and saved the day" sort of thing. OOOOOR the even rarer, Ladybug doesn't even use the Lucky Charm to defeat the akuma.... which isn't really accurate at all, because without the charm she can't use her ultimate power of Miraculous Ladybug, where she restores everything to how it was prior to the akuma attack.
I have yet to come across a fanfic or fancomic writer who has attempted to actually think of a Lucky Charm and how Ladybug uses it. Am I the only one brave enough to try? Or have others tried, but failed so miserably that their stories aren't all that well known?
If you are in the fandom and have either read - fic or comic - a story where a Lucky Charm is shown and used, or if you yourself have written one, could you link me in the comments section? I won't steal the idea, but it might help to see how others accomplished this herculean task.
I wracked my brain so much that I actually had quite the interesting dream last night. Sadly, I've been up for a few hours now, so it's not as vivid as when I first woke up, but I was still too groggy to write it down then.
It started off as a Miraculous dream, with Adrien/Cat Noir and Marinette/Ladybug as the main characters, but as the dream went on they morphed into mutants. I think "Glitches" is feeling a bit left out that I haven't worked on anything original since July.
I just have patches now, but the dream started with the heroine being abandoned on a small and remote island. I'm talking super small, like only a couple miles long. Like if Manhattan was still uninhabited. It's a bit blurry now, but either she was abandoned there in an attempt to find an important artifact, or she was left there as bait for the hero who had the artifact, or she was left there in order to ransom the artifact from the hero. One of those three.... Somehow she gets off the island and back home, which looked a lot like Main Street of my home town. I'm sure my mother will have a field day knowing that..... Anyway, apparently before being left on an island, the heroine had roomed with someone else. Again, it's vague since the heroine started as Marinette, but she's living on her own with a roommate, so she's somewhere between 14 and 20.... Really narrowed things down, huh?
Either she made it home and was captured again, or she was "rescued" from the island by the villain, who, along with the hero, resembled Adrien? Either my mind couldn't decide what it wanted, or I'm dealing with an evil twin.... The villain is the same rich boy that Adrien is, but instead of being humbled and isolated by it, the villain uses it to give himself power and entitlement. So.... Chloe.... The villain is "gifted" the heroine by his mother, who is the true villain of the dream. The boy is also given a short sword, which I guess was the artifact the heroine was abandoned on the island for. The son used the sword to mildly sexually assault the heroine. Doing things like threatening to cut her clothes off - he doesn't - and sliding the blade across her exposed skin, which is quite a bit since the mother first forced the heroine to dress in a bare-back dress with long slits up the sides to help expose her legs. At some point, the villain falls asleep, but does so without attempting to first restrain the heroine. This is the part of the dream where I, as the dreamer, thought that maybe the kid was only doing idle threats to seem tough in front of his mom, but in truth, he's not bad. Perhaps he purposely "fell asleep" with the heroine free so she could escape without his mother realizing he let her go.
She steals the sword and races home, but the front door is sealed shut by the police. Yes, I know the police don't actually do this, but I dreampt that they bolted her front door closed along with posting a police notice. Anyway, she breaks in and sees that her house has been ransacked, and her roommate is missing, as is the stray dog they had taken in just before the heroine was brought to the island. Distraught, she wanders her house to try to find any way to contact help and figure out why the police think she's some dangerous criminal on the lam - as indicated by the police notice on the front door.
She finds her cellphone - don't know why it was left behind; dream logic - and tries to call her roommate to see where she disappeared to, is she safe? Before her roommate could answer, there is a whimper at the front door. It's the stray lab they had taken in prior to the start of the dream. Except, he has a couple of people with him. One is the heroine's roommate. Despite the rain, they look dry and pristine. The roommate, who greatly resembles Scarlet Witch from the X-Men comics, admits that she's a mutant and a telepath. They talk about how the heroine - who doesn't really resemble Marinette anymore at this point - is actually a mutant as well, and the roommate was originally there to try to watch over her like a secret guardian. She apologized for failing at her job of protector..... and that's about where I woke up.
I'm not sure what I can grab from this, but it was interesting enough that I might have to tap back into this dream in the future for story ideas.
Now, if my mind could help me figure out a Lucky Charm, that would be great. Either that, or it did, and now I have to figure out how Ladybug uses a short sword to stop a clone army and get visors off the villain..... and she has less than four minutes to MacGyver it all together before Cat Noir transforms back.
On the reading front, I'm nine chapters in my "Lycopolis" re-read, and I'm happy to be reading about Brandon again. I don't know why, but he's my favorite. He's just so quirky, and such an oddball. Maybe he vaguely reminds me of my husband in college? Hubby doesn't have the number thing that Brandon has, though.... Either way, I still say "more Brandon" and hope there is plenty more in the other two books.
I've figured out that if I read at least two chapters each day - an easy task since they seem to average at about five pages; quick read - I can finish the book with a week to spare in the month. Might be able to get a jump start on "Oblivion."
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