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- The story begins when a pair of young, strange kwamiis crash into Marinette and Adrien’s rooms, excited to see their parents. Marinette and Adrien are freaking out a little bit because what?
- Tikki and Plagg don’t care, they’re just thrilled to see their kids again. Adrien is slightly bewildered, Marinette is slowly losing her mind.
- “I’m Chaanse, and this is my stick-in-the-mud twin brother Maat!” “I am not a stick-in-the-mud!”
- So, Introductions:
- Chaanse, the kwamii of chaos. She takes the form of an octopus with little tentacles sprouting out of her back and is bright orangy-pink with blue rings on her forehead, hands, and tentacles. Both an absolute sweetheart and a massive troublemaker, with no impulse control to speak of whatsoever. In fact she might even have negative impulse control. Frankly a hyperactive menace. Her miraculous takes the form of an upper arm bracelet.
- Power is “Hullabaloo”, for five minutes after calling it anything they touch goes completely haywire. Weapon is a gigantic warhammer.
- Took for freaking ever to decide on an animal, to the point where Tikki and Plagg were half convinced she never would.
- Maat, the kwamii of order. He is an albatross, mostly medium gray with a little white tail feathers and a matching crest on top of his head. Very calm and controlled with a penchant for convoluted plans, has a manipulative streak a mile wide and a sappy streak three times that. His miraculous takes the form of a brooch.
- Power is “Goldberg” where a couple dozen things come together just right to make something improbable but useful happen. His weapon is a conductor’s baton that can expand out into a rapier.
- He was originally planning to be an ant, but decided he wanted to match his sister. He claims it’s because matched pairs are more “orderly” but really he just wanted to be close to her. He is also the reason both their names have two a’s.
- Chaanse and Maat are young by Kwamii standards and have never had chosen before, and both of them adore their parents. When they realize just how nuts Paris is, they decide to stick around.
- Once the shock wears off, Marinette and Adrien actually rather like their kwamiis’ kids. All else aside Chaanse and Maat are very charming, if a bit of a headache to deal with sometimes.
- Paris is where Chaanse and Maat get their first Chosens, which is a very big milestone in kwamii culture. Tikki and Plagg are about bursting with pride.
- They pick Manon and Markov. Most people in the know would expect Chaanse to pick Manon and Maat to pick Markov, and they would be wrong.
- Chaanse is an absolute neophile, she adores anything and everything new for the chaos that always comes with change. She glommed onto the robot boy hard, like the octopus she is.
- Maat would like you to think that he chose Manon because of her somewhat ironic natural inclination for order magic. This is not entirely incorrect, however, he was also around while Marinette was trying to babysit once and decided that he could make his mother’s life easier by making his mother’s Chosen’s life easier by making this wild child calm down a little bit. Jury’s out on how effective that will be.
- Yes, Manon is naturally inclined to order magic. General consensus is that this must be genetic, because it’s sure not because of her temperament.
- Their superhero names are Blue Ring and Albie. No one ever accused them of being creative. I honestly have no idea what Blue Ring’s costume would look like, but his hammer is larger than his partner. Albie has a white cape and a tiara made of feathers.
- The first time that Albie and Blue Ring interfere in an akuma battle Ladybug and Chat Noir very nearly have aneurysms.
- Of course, they can’t exactly confiscate the miraculouses, not when it’s Maat and Chaanse’s first chosen, but if the two of them keep running out on the battlefield someone is going to die. Possibly Ladybug of a heart attack.
- This issue resolves itself when Blue Ring and Albie pick up a nemesis of their own. This nemesis is, drum roll please…
- Lila.
- There are two ways this could have come about. Option one is that Lila got power hungry and decides that Blue Ring and Albie are easy targets to steal a miraculous. She has just enough magic of her own, either inborn or rubbed off on her from working willingly with Hawkmoth, that she can make herself a fairly serious threat to them, or so she tells herself, and she can cast a glamor and acquire a costume. Lila hits the town as a supervillain. Hawkmoth is either allowing it because it suits him or has already kicked Lila to the curb and that’s why she’s decided that acquiring more power is a must.
- Option two is that Hawkmoth decides he wants the kids out of the way, either because he’s massively bleepish and wants the wildcards out of the way but doesn’t want to deal with them himself or because he’s less bleepish and wants the small children off of the battlefield. Akumatizing little kids is one thing, but if his wife found out about him sending akumas to attack little kids he’d be out on his ear so fast his head would spin. Whatever the reason, he chooses to deputize Lila to handle the kid supers, either with the peacock or with a dedicated akuma that follows her around or with another miraculous that he managed to get/keep ahold of after Miracle Queen.
- Either way, now the tiny baby trainee superheroes have a tiny baby trainee supervillain! They also may or may not pick up Mr. Damocles as a bumbling superhero mentor, because I find it funny.
- Blue Ring and Albie are kind of clumsy with their powers at first, but make up for it with enthusiasm. They probably would cause a lot more issues, but they discovered fairly early on that if they work together they can manage a bargain bin version of Miraculous Ladybug, so they make sure to clean up after themselves.
- Not long after the inaugural battle of Albie and Blue Ring against SuperLila, Ella Cesaire founds the Al-Blog-Tross with help from her big sister. Etta Cesaire starts taking lessons from Nino on how to keep your idiot reporter from getting herself killed. Alya is about bursting at the seams with pride.
- So now that we have the entire conflict of the show replicated in miniature, the fun can start! If Ladybug and Chat Noir versus Hawkmoth is action/adventure, Albie and Blue Ring versus SuperLila is if the roadrunner cartoon was about superheros. Lila is trying literally everything she can think of to steal the octopus and albatross miraculi and failing miserably at every turn, often in humorous manners. She is routinely getting her butt beat by a little girl and a know-it-all camera drone, who sometimes don’t even know she’s there.
- Let us all now take a moment to laugh at Lila’s misery.
- Most of Paris thinks the mini super conflict is adorable, participants in the full sized super conflict included. Even Hawkmoth, although he would rather die than admit it.
- Side note, let’s just assume that the miraculous having glamors is a thing, otherwise Max would know immediately who Blue Ring was. He is losing his mind trying to figure out who the other sapient robot is and who made him. Markov is conspicuously silent on the matter.
- Chat Noir teaches Albie how to use her rapier. He is so proud the first time that she manages to poke SuperLila in the butt.
- On the topic of Lila, her misery does not end when the costume comes off. Max brings Markov to school, and where Markov goes, so does Chaanse.
- Chaanse does not know that Lila is her Chosen’s nemesis. What she does know is that her mom and dad’s Chosens, who were so nice to her while she was visiting her parents and work so hard against Hawkmoth, both fear and dislike this one girl over there, so Chaanse is going to vent her need for chaos on her.
- You would be stunned by the kind of trouble someone who can pass through solid objects and likes to cause problems on purpose can cause for the subject of their ire.
- Markov theoretically disapproves, but he’s not exactly trying very hard to stop her.
- Maat thinks his quest to teach Manon to be calm and quiet is going very well. Oh sure, she’s still a wild child, but he has successfully instilled the concept of the appropriate time, and more importantly, the appropriate target. No one else thinks this is going well.
- Except Plagg. Plagg is laughing his head off and scheming to somehow get Adrien to babysit, so they can make a fun father-son bonding activity out of watching Manon drive everyone in the Agreste household right up the wall. Maybe they can invite Tikki and Chaanse too, make watching the frustration a family activity.
- At some point Max is going to catch Chaanse, because Chaanse thinks caution is something you eat, and while a glamor will cover a lot, he knows exactly what a kwamii is and can put the pieces together.
- The mess this causes is enormous. Chaanse is too busy getting chewed out by her parents, brother, and Chosen to enjoy it.
- Going back to the mini super conflict, when I made that comparison to the roadrunner cartoons, I meant it.
- And by that I can neither confirm nor deny that one of Lila’s plans may or may not have involved an anvil, a grand piano, and a metric ton of tnt, and said plan may or may not have left her with the wind knocked out of her and covered in soot at the bottom of a crater shaped like her. The bargain bin miraculous ladybug (which I’m thinking of calling “Harmony”) sure got a workout after that fight.
- Ella is just like her big sister in all the worst ways. Etta is despairing.
- Blue Ring and Albie tend to go out “patrolling” a lot more than their older counterparts, because everyone thinks the mini heroes are adorable and Manon can mooch so much free ice cream in costume.
- Ella gets many interviews with Albie snacking on an ice cream cone and Blue Ring trying desperately to ignore his superhero partner dripping all over the place while still not letting her get any on him.
- Speaking of Ella and her blog, the Al-Blog-Tross is pretty good for having been made by a preteen, but was still very obviously made by a preteen. Half its popularity among adults is because Alya likes to advertise it on the Ladyblog, and the other half is because a lot of people think the mini-reporter is just as cute as the mini superheroes.
- However, where the Al-Blog-Tross really shines is in the kid audience. The website was made by a kid, about other kids, set up in a way that might as well have been designed for kids. It is the single most popular website for kids twelve and under in Paris. The forums Alya helped set up (and gave herself a moderator position so that she could discreetly deal with all of the non-child-appropriate/mean-spirited/rude comments before Ella had to deal with them) are a thing of terror and beauty.
- Now, when I mentioned that Alya was bursting at the seams proud of her little sister, I mean she is bursting at the seams. You thought she talked a lot about the Ladyblog, that is nothing compared to how she’ll carry on about the Al-Blog-Tross if you get her started.
- This drives Lila completely up the wall. Oh sure, she plays along for a while to keep on Alya’s good side, but the more frustrated she gets at somehow not managing to steal Albie and Blue Ring’s miraculous, the snappier she gets when Alya brings it up.
- As a result, Alya drifts back to Marinette, who is more than happy to listen to Alya gush (and is secretly thrilled that Alya has been removed from Lila’s sphere of influence without any assistance from her, especially when the “friendship” between Lila and Alya was starting to tip over from just being dishonest and manipulative to full on toxic.)
- I mentioned that Chat Noir was the one who taught Albie to use her rapier? Yeah, it was really cute. There is much footage of the lessons taking place on rooftops or in parks on both the Ladyblog and the Al-Blog-Tross. It is very popular footage.
- Albie has totally decided that Chat Noir is her cool big brother now. No take-backs. The relationship is absolutely adorable and actually good for both of them. Albie/Manon gets teaching, protection, affection, and Chat Noir gets the unconditional love of a kid who thinks he hung the stars in the sky and doesn’t expect anything from him but what he’s 100% willing to give her anyway.
- Ladybug and Blue Ring also are decently close, but it’s less a big sibling/little sibling or teaching relationship and more “You would not believe what my partner did this time”.
- Etta Cesaire has started taking karate lessons. If Ella is going to be emulating their big sister in doing the stupid things, Etta is going to be right there to pull her back out.
- One time Albie and Blue Ring tried to get a cat out of a tree. Ignoring entirely that her partner can, you know, fly, Albie insists on climbing the tree as well to get the cat down then realizes she’s stuck too. Blue Ring ends up calling Ladybug for backup.
- Blue Ring’s giant hammer is very useful for slapstick humor, because it is variably squeaky depending on how much damage he’s aiming to do and/or how funny Chaanse finds things.
- The time Albie and Blue Ring had to handle Mr. Pigeon is strictly a noodle incident. They have agreed to never speak of it again.