Naota and Fletcher were two teenagers who thought they were living ordinary lives, until one day they receive the Miraculous of the Ladybug and Black Cat. Together they must defend the city from an army of supervillains. Are they up to the challenge?
Maris Stella
is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by KiraHeartilly, focusing on an Alternate Universe with a different set of characters, starting with Kira's Universal-Adaptor Cast of Original Characters, adding several OCs from other authors. And also including Kris from Deltarune and Pico from Newgrounds entirely because one of aforementioned OCs is their kid.
In this timeline, Naota Yamaguchi becomes the Ladybug hero Maris Stella, while Fletcher Aldaine becomes the Black Cat hero Tenechat.
This work contains examples of:
- Alternate Timeline: Chapters 27 and 28 detail a timeline in which Riodinidae overpowers the heroes to steal the Miraculous. Yuu manages to travel back in time to change events, creating the main timeline.
- Anti-Villain: Riodinidae turns out to be Yukari Akimoto, and Paravani is Aron Vector, and the two of them seek the Wish to cure the Akimoto family's Hereditary Curse for everyone's first love to die, which is currently killing Yukari's girlfriend. A hero actually knows this, and despite opposing their villainy, is choosing not to out them as villains — while he opposes their methods and does want them to stop, he doesn't want them to suffer public backlash for what is ultimately trying to save a life.
- Because Destiny Says So: Naota and Fletcher were chosen to bear the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous because a prophecy unambiguously identifies them as being necessary to Riodinidae's defeat. A fake prophecy planted by Yuu with time-travel; in the original timeline, Illina and Fallafal were the first Ladybug and Black Cat, but were forced to retire after their identities were exposed, and they picked Naota and Fletcher — but knowing who picked the new heroes allowed Riodinidae to identify them easily, figure out how they were picking further Miraculous holders, and plant Carmen in the team as The Mole. So Yuu decides to remove the element of human decision-making from Naota and Fletcher's selection, leaving Riodinidae with no clues this time around.
- Creepily Long Arms: Forgiven Neglect has super long arms that can stretch halfway across the city.
- A Dick in Name: Richard Skinner is abrasive, selfish, and generally an all-around bully. He even full-on joins the villains — first willingly being akumatized for their plans in exchange for a second akumatization which he can use to steal things he wants, then later taking up the stolen Bee Miraculous as King Sting.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Riodinidae won't Akumatize someone she considers too young. This means the elementary-age Dorian is off limits, though middle schoolers like Owen and Inari are fair game.
- Foul Cafeteria Food: A Running Gag is that, despite Akimoto Academy's strides in overcoming all the other problems that plague the rest of the school system, even they seem entirely incapable of making school lunch taste good. A few characters cite self-contradictory nutritional requirements as the culprit.
- The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Maris Stella, Tenechat, and the Order of the Guardians are the unambiguously good side, fighting to stop Riodinidae and Paravani, and later Madame Butterfly. Riodinidae and Paravani turn out to be the grey side, Anti Villains who seek the Wish for noble purposes, but are a danger to the public in how they do it and are willing to inflict the price on innocents. And the unambiguously evil side ends up being Madame Butterfly, after Alexton manages to take the Butterfly Miraculous for herself, who wants to Take Over the World solely to feed her own ego.
- Groin Attack:
- When Revelator tries to trap Owen in a prison using his magic baseball, the baseball instead strikes Ham in the groin.
- When Fletcher tries to patch things up with Sonya, she gets mad at him and decides to kick him the crotch.
- While attempting to demonstrate his fighting moves, Inari accidentally hits Justin in the crotch.
- When trying to reason with two supervillains, one of them kicks Daichi in the testicles.
- When playing football together, Chikori accidentally hits Arc in the nuts.
- Mánagarmr kicks Czar Wyvern in the balls during their fight.
- When King Sting steals Tenechat's Miraculous and is about to Unify with the Bee Miraculous, Maris Stella kicks him in the crotch out of desperation.
- When Discord tries to capture Rantasia, she knees him in the balls to escape.
- Hereditary Curse: Due to an incident with the Miraculous, every Akimoto's first love — the first person who confesses to them, or that they confess to — is doomed to die tragically. Yukari's girlfriend Lita is currently dying of this curse, which is why she stole the Butterfly Miraculous to become Riodinidae.
- If Only You Knew: When discussing how the villains seem to have standards, Maris says that Paravani could destroy Inari, who is a sentibeing "with the snap of his fingers". She just means this as a metaphor for how easily he could do it, but snapping the fingers is also literally how a Peacock wielder dismisses a sentibeing.
- Meaningful Name: Yukari means purple, hinting at her identity as Riodinidae, as the Butterfly Miraculous is often associated with the color purple.
- Mythology Gag:
- When Naota finally confesses to Fletcher, an eavesdropping Plagg mentions that, according to the shows he watches on Netflix, developments like that are supposed to take "at least five seasons". Canon Miraculous Ladybug was in its fifth season when that chapter went up.
- Vivi Elakha, originally a Final Fantasy XIV OC, is akumatized into Forgiven Neglect, a form based on the sin eaters from that game's Shadowbringers expansion.
- When Kris uses the Peacock Miraculous to transform, their skin turns blue, just like when they visit the Dark World in Deltarune canon. They also jokingly give themselves the secret identity Delta Plume.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: There's a noted pattern of whatever Moment of Weakness Riodinidae akumatizes people over getting proper help afterwards, often directly because of the akumatization. It gets to the point that Natasha outright suggests "hope someone gets akumatized" to deal with a problem that seems to be otherwise insurmountable.
- Nom de Mom: After his father cheats on his mom and they both get a divorce, Owen asks to have his last name legally changed to his mother's maiden name.
- One-Hit Kill: Like in canon, several supervillains have powers that would defeat the heroes in one hit.
- Thorn Reaper can turn people into flower petals with her scythe.
- Knockout can knock people unconscious with a single punch.
- Phantom💔Kamen's powers allow him to knock people unconscious with his playing cards.
- Queen Guillotine can turn people into dust with her flying guillotine.
- Shadow Glaive has the power to drain enough energy to knock a target unconscious with just a single hit.
- Sharkbite can destroy anything or anyone it bites and erase them from existence.
- The power of Liberation is a functional one-hit-kill against akumatized villains, as it can free them from the negative emotions being used to manipulate them.
- Power Copying:
- The Rooster Miraculous is able to copy the powers of other Miraculous, something ostensibly not possible in the canon series.
- Windnil can copy the powers of anything it touches.
- Glare Gazer can copy the powers of anyone it looks at.
- Power Parasite: Prince of Darkness can steal certain powers from people or objects by touching their shadow with his own.
- The Prophecy: An ancient prophecy guides the Order of the Guardians. It says that to save the Butterfly and the Peacock Miraculous, two children will have to wield the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous.
- Rhyme Theme Naming: Two sisters on the cheerleading squad are named Melissa and Clarissa.
- Second Super-Identity:
- When Sonya is Akumatized into Princess Nemo, she locks herself in a tower. Maris speculates that Princess Nemo will allow her crush Fletcher into the tower, so she asks Tenechat to lend Fletcher his Miraculous. Unbeknownst to Maris, Fletcher is Tenechat, leading to him creating a brand new identity, though admittedly less secret, in an effort to get Princess Nemo to allow him into the tower.
- The second time Sonya is Akumatized, instead of becoming Princess Nemo again, she becomes Bubblegum Witch.
- When Naota's brother Daichi is Akumatized and attempts to lock him up for his own protection, Naota uses time travel so he can be in two places at once, both as his normal identity Maris Stella and as the Goat Hero, Heiðrún.
- After the Ladybug Miraculous is stolen, Naota temporarily wields the Dog Miraculous and becomes Corgiranian.
- When they need to fight Quartz Chameleon in order to save Maris Stella and Tenechat, Erica, Sonya, and Arc are all given new super forms. Erica becomes Freesia Mage instead of Thorn Reaper, Sonya becomes Chaos Angel instead of either of her older forms, and Arc becomes Terrapin instead of Sharkbite.
- After losing the Butterfly Miraculous, Yukari ends up borrowing the Ladybug Miraculous to become Akaribug when the new Butterfly villain akumatizes Lita.
- Naota later begins using Second Chance daily as a precautionary measure, so that Sass can reset time if it ever becomes necessary. While transformed like this, Naota adopts the name *H₂n̥gʷʰis.
- Shout-Out:
- When attempting to hit Avalon's energy attacks back at her, Maris refers to the technique as the Dead Man's Volley.
- A sleeping supervillain is named Princess Nemo.
- When wielding the Horse Miraculous, Owen adopts the name Artax, after the horse from The Never Ending Story.
- Hallie as the Tiger Hero goes by the name Tigris Cantus after a character from The World Ends with You
- Mouse themed supervillain Mouseacre makes a reference to Population Bomb, signature move of Mouse themed Pokémon Maushold.
- When Naota's Aunt Rinoa is Akumatized, she's given a dog to fight beside her. The character she is named after, Rinoa Heartilly from Final Fantasy VIII, fights with a dog for a partner.
- Momster is a supervillain who fights with various children's toys and playthings. While wielding a kendama, she threatens to tear the heroes apart with her indignant judgment. Indignation Judgment is a special attack in Tales of Symphonia, used by the kendama wielding character Genis.
- One of Vivi's many cats is named Nepeta.
- Significant Name Overlap: There are two separate characters named "Dorian". One is a high school student in Naota's math class, and the other is a young child. This leads to an incident in which the younger Dorian receives mail meant for the older Dorian, and gets upset when his mother explains that the mail needs to be returned.
- Smart People Play Chess: When discussing Yuu Akimoto's various accomplishments, it's mentioned that he once beat a Grandmaster while blindfolded and not being told his opponent's moves. He claimed he could tell which pieces were being moved and where based on sound alone.
- Spoiling Shout-Out: Subverted; when Hikaru and Loaño get Montana to watch The Good Place, the narration notes that she somehow managed to avoid learning the big twist at the end of season 1, and it looks like it's going to segue from there into a discussion of the twist itself... but instead of actually describing the twist there's just a bunch of black boxes.
- Stellar Name: Maris Stella comes from Stella Maris, an old name for the North Star.
- Tennis Boss: When fighting Avalon, Maris Stella's Lucky Charm gives her a hand mirror, so she decides to try hitting Avalon's energy attacks back at her. Avalon then casts a reflect spell on her spell book to hit the attacks straight back.
