…how deep a hole did I just dig myself
Mon, Apr. 27th, 2020 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexseanchai posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
access_fandom[mods: "fandom: miraculous ladybug" tag please (ETA: thanks!)]
So I am working on a Miraculous Ladybug novel-length and the reason I have postulated for why Émilie landed in her coma (or possibly dead, this is not canonically clear) is that she overused the Peacock Miraculous (as canon implies) for the purpose of—
Okay so what the Peacock Miraculous magic does is make sentimonsters, which are sort of magical automatons created from emotion. These are controllable by the person who is holding their amok, the object the Peacock wielder has tied that magic to. As seen in "Ladybug", these sentimonsters can seem really convincingly human, and handing the object to the sentimonster means the sentimonster is self-controlling. How independently they can act and for how long, it is not clear, because the Peacock wielder is able to unmake sentimonsters too. The sentimonsters seen in "Mayura", "Reflekdoll", "Miraculer", "Feast", and "Miracle Queen" do not seem capable of faking being human, but also two of them are big purple moths, one a giant doll, one looks like a K'Nex construction made of gigantic lollipops, and one's a blue blob with an evil-Cookie-Monster attitude. Mayura put considerable effort into making Sentibug a perfect imitation of Ladybug, but how much of that was to make sure Sentibug was convincingly Ladybug and how much was to make sure Sentibug was convincingly human is not clear.
The thought I had is that Émilie was creating sentimonsters for multiple purposes, and the sentimonster she made sure no one knew about is known to all and sundry as Adrien's bodyguard, name not canonically specified, nicknamed the Gorilla. (A number of fans have speculated that Adrien himself is a sentimonster Émilie created.) Émilie, the thought goes, created Gorilla to be protective, compassionate, physically intimidating, and convincingly enough human it wouldn't seem odd to her husband to hire him as Adrien's bodyguard. Émilie then either hid Gorilla's amok or handed it to Gorilla himself, and faked up enough paperwork this hiring decision wouldn't seem odd to HR either, and neglected to mention to anyone that Gorilla's remit is to protect Émilie's son from his father as well as from threats and annoyances from outside the household. Gorilla being (in Émilie's absence) by far the kindest of the people in canonical parental roles to Adrien, this seemed to me to tie things up in a pretty thematic bow.
…Sentibug is the only sentimonster we know of in canon who speaks. (Or, well, Feast does, but has a sharply limited vocabulary. Like if the actual only word Cookie Monster uses were 'cookie'.) Sentibug is also the only sentimonster we know of in canon whose creator made a point of making her seem human. While Our Heroes expressly disagree that Sentibug is monstrous, we don't (because Sentibug's creator didn't care for her rebelliousness) know how that would play out with a sentimonster who holds their own amok, who is willing (as Feast is demonstrably not) to listen to ethical reasoning, and who exists longer than a couple hours running.
Gorilla, as seen in canon, communicates only in facial expressions and grunts. Fans have postulated that he is unable to speak for any of several reasons (some involving more violence in the backstory than others) and therefore he texts or uses French Sign Language, that he chooses not to speak much because he understands French far better than he speaks it, that he chooses not to speak much for other reasons… I don't think I've seen anyone postulating that he is a nonverbal autistic man, but that's another possibility, certainly. The route I've been taking in several fics is disability not otherwise specified meaning he is not capable of vocal speech.
Which means the sentimonster!Gorilla thought implies really loudly that Gorilla does not speak because sentimonsters as a rule do not speak. And the sum of "disabled character" and "not human character" is always nasty.
(I am embarrassed to note I didn't think of any of this till today, even though I had this thought weeks ago, and I only put this together because another ML fan asked my opinion on Gorilla's dialogue in his fic, where he's going the "Gorilla has crap for French syntax and therefore prefers not to speak" route.)
Is there any way to modify this idea to avoid the undesirable implications, do y'all think, or is it unsalvageable?
crossposting toallthemiraculous
ETA: after discussing with a friend, I think the sentimonster!Gorilla idea might work if I more pointedly humanize Gorilla, which incidentally imo wouldn't exactly hurt the "Gorilla is the embodiment of Émilie's protectiveness of her son" thematic bit, and also alter the scene with one of the most prominent original characters so that the said OC is Deaf (though that is a different disability) and therefore using French Sign Language and texting the same as Gorilla needs to. (and then tell anyone who claims implausibility—since the said OC would then be disabled as well as an older brown woman who is demonstrating her competence in a position of authority—to go sit on a cactus.) but I am not at all sure of this.
So I am working on a Miraculous Ladybug novel-length and the reason I have postulated for why Émilie landed in her coma (or possibly dead, this is not canonically clear) is that she overused the Peacock Miraculous (as canon implies) for the purpose of—
Okay so what the Peacock Miraculous magic does is make sentimonsters, which are sort of magical automatons created from emotion. These are controllable by the person who is holding their amok, the object the Peacock wielder has tied that magic to. As seen in "Ladybug", these sentimonsters can seem really convincingly human, and handing the object to the sentimonster means the sentimonster is self-controlling. How independently they can act and for how long, it is not clear, because the Peacock wielder is able to unmake sentimonsters too. The sentimonsters seen in "Mayura", "Reflekdoll", "Miraculer", "Feast", and "Miracle Queen" do not seem capable of faking being human, but also two of them are big purple moths, one a giant doll, one looks like a K'Nex construction made of gigantic lollipops, and one's a blue blob with an evil-Cookie-Monster attitude. Mayura put considerable effort into making Sentibug a perfect imitation of Ladybug, but how much of that was to make sure Sentibug was convincingly Ladybug and how much was to make sure Sentibug was convincingly human is not clear.
The thought I had is that Émilie was creating sentimonsters for multiple purposes, and the sentimonster she made sure no one knew about is known to all and sundry as Adrien's bodyguard, name not canonically specified, nicknamed the Gorilla. (A number of fans have speculated that Adrien himself is a sentimonster Émilie created.) Émilie, the thought goes, created Gorilla to be protective, compassionate, physically intimidating, and convincingly enough human it wouldn't seem odd to her husband to hire him as Adrien's bodyguard. Émilie then either hid Gorilla's amok or handed it to Gorilla himself, and faked up enough paperwork this hiring decision wouldn't seem odd to HR either, and neglected to mention to anyone that Gorilla's remit is to protect Émilie's son from his father as well as from threats and annoyances from outside the household. Gorilla being (in Émilie's absence) by far the kindest of the people in canonical parental roles to Adrien, this seemed to me to tie things up in a pretty thematic bow.
…Sentibug is the only sentimonster we know of in canon who speaks. (Or, well, Feast does, but has a sharply limited vocabulary. Like if the actual only word Cookie Monster uses were 'cookie'.) Sentibug is also the only sentimonster we know of in canon whose creator made a point of making her seem human. While Our Heroes expressly disagree that Sentibug is monstrous, we don't (because Sentibug's creator didn't care for her rebelliousness) know how that would play out with a sentimonster who holds their own amok, who is willing (as Feast is demonstrably not) to listen to ethical reasoning, and who exists longer than a couple hours running.
Gorilla, as seen in canon, communicates only in facial expressions and grunts. Fans have postulated that he is unable to speak for any of several reasons (some involving more violence in the backstory than others) and therefore he texts or uses French Sign Language, that he chooses not to speak much because he understands French far better than he speaks it, that he chooses not to speak much for other reasons… I don't think I've seen anyone postulating that he is a nonverbal autistic man, but that's another possibility, certainly. The route I've been taking in several fics is disability not otherwise specified meaning he is not capable of vocal speech.
Which means the sentimonster!Gorilla thought implies really loudly that Gorilla does not speak because sentimonsters as a rule do not speak. And the sum of "disabled character" and "not human character" is always nasty.
(I am embarrassed to note I didn't think of any of this till today, even though I had this thought weeks ago, and I only put this together because another ML fan asked my opinion on Gorilla's dialogue in his fic, where he's going the "Gorilla has crap for French syntax and therefore prefers not to speak" route.)
Is there any way to modify this idea to avoid the undesirable implications, do y'all think, or is it unsalvageable?
crossposting to
allthemiraculousETA: after discussing with a friend, I think the sentimonster!Gorilla idea might work if I more pointedly humanize Gorilla, which incidentally imo wouldn't exactly hurt the "Gorilla is the embodiment of Émilie's protectiveness of her son" thematic bit, and also alter the scene with one of the most prominent original characters so that the said OC is Deaf (though that is a different disability) and therefore using French Sign Language and texting the same as Gorilla needs to. (and then tell anyone who claims implausibility—since the said OC would then be disabled as well as an older brown woman who is demonstrating her competence in a position of authority—to go sit on a cactus.) but I am not at all sure of this.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-04 08:28 am (UTC)Also, she could have already been a competent person in authority and then have acquired hearing loss. And while lip-reading classes exist, they may have been unhelpful in communicating with her sentimonsters which have very non-human shapes.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-04 07:00 pm (UTC)*nodnod* 🙂