Miraculous: Tales of Littlebug and Chaton Noir is a 2020 Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction series by ChaoticNeutral.
When sewing a Chat Noir doll, Marinette gets the idea to use magic to add a bit of shine to its eyes, and accidentally brings it to life. The living doll, dubbed Chaton Noir, turns out to be fully sentient, curious about the world, and thinks of Marinette as his creator. The series follows their fluffy slice-of-life adventures as they adjust to life with each other, and with Adrien and his living Ladybug doll, Littlebug.
It can be read here
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For another, slightly less light-hearted Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction series by the same author, see The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral).
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Littlebug notices how cold and unloving Adrien's father Gabriel is to him. Because of that, she initially considers "father" to be an insulting word, and dislikes the idea of using it for Adrien himself, because he cares about Littlebug and Chaton so much.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: In "Dolls At Play" and the stories by ShivaVixen, Nezumi is replaced by Minimouse, who remained with Marinette, while Kagami's doll is called Ryuuko.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: How Littlebug greets Adrien when they first meet.
- An Odd Place to Sleep: Chaton likes to sleep in many spots, but of particular note is in Swap Day when he falls asleep in Adrien’s sock drawer.
- Artificial Family Member: For all the initial shock at the discovery that the Dolls are alive, their respective humans adopt them rather quickly.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: What Littlebug does after Gabriel and Nathalie try to throw her in the trash one too many times.
- Big Sister Instinct: When the donkey scene in Pinocchio scares Chaton so much he runs to hide under the bed, Littlebug tries destroying the DVD with a hammer, acetone, a blowtorch, a sander, and the microwave.
- Bilingual Bonus:
- Marinette names her living Chat Noir doll "Chaton Noir." Chaton is French for "kitten."
- Later, she makes a Multimouse doll for Kagami, which is given the name Nezumi. Nezumi is Japanese for "mouse" or "rat."
- When introducing the living Nezumi to Marinette, Kagami refers to her as her imouto, Japanese for "little sister."
- Born of Magic: The Dolls were born of Marinette's magic.
- Cats Hate Water: Chaton does not like getting baths. He similarly doesn’t like rainy days.
- Creating Life Is Unforeseen:
- While sewing a Chat Noir doll and trying to use magic to make its eyes shiny, Marinette accidentally brings it to life.
- When she later makes Ladybug and Multimouse dolls for Adrien and Kagami respectively, they end up coming to life without her input or knowledge, apparently as a subconscious effect of her magic.
- Curious as a Monkey: After being brought to life, Chaton is naturally curious about everything in Marinette's room, just as a human child would be. Since she is a seamstress, she has to prevent him from getting into dangerous things like pins, needles, and scissors. The same is true for Littlebug, the Ladybug doll she makes for Adrien.
- Cuteness Overload: In the AU where the dolls become real children, Marinette suffers this twice - first when Chaton gives a cute thank you to Adrien after the latter wraps the former in a blanket, and next when Littlebug asks for a hug.
- Daddy's Girl: Littlebug to Adrien. Even if she tries to deny it at first.
- Deceptively Silly Title: Inverted with "Chaton Blanc." Since it references Chat Blanc, a terrifying akumatized version of Adrien capable of galaxy-wide destruction, one might expect the story itself to be dark or deal with the prospect of Chaton getting akumatized. It is actually a cute story about Chaton getting covered in flour and having to have a bath.
- Didn't Think This Through: Marinette gives Adrien a thorough scolding for showing Pinocchio to the dolls because he forgot that it has an extremely scary scene where the boys are transformed into donkeys.
- Eating Optional: The dolls don't appear to require food to survive, but they can still eat, and especially enjoy sweet treats like cookies.
- Forced Bath: In "Chaton Blanc," Chaton has to have a bath after accidentally dousing himself in flour. He runs away and Marinette has to catch him, but he still gets a bath in the end.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: Swap Day ends with Adrien and Chaton taking a nap.
- Golem: The Dolls are very much dolls. They're just dolls specially made by Marinette and imbued with her magic that come to life because of it.
- In-Series Nickname: Plagg starts calling Littlebug "Spots," while in her head she calls him "The Dark One" or "The Black One." Similarly, Chaton calls Tikki “Pinkling”.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: After Chaton gets scared by the scene in Pinocchio where the naughty boys are transformed into donkeys, Adrien has to reassure him that people don't really turn into donkeys just for being bad in real life. About two seconds later, screams are heard from outside the window, and Adrien looks out to see that a new akuma is turning people into donkeys.
- Internal Reveal:
- In "Mama's Day," Marinette finds out about the Ladybug doll she made for Adrien having come to life.
- In "Papa's Day," Marinette and Adrien reveal to each other that they are Ladybug and Chat Noir.
- Literal-Minded: When Hawk Moth sends out an akuma butterfly to try and evilize him, Chaton swallows it, and is disappointed that it doesn't taste like butter.
- Living Lie Detector: Chaton Noir and Littlebug do not like Gabriel, Nathalie or Lila, with Littlebug dumping the former two into a dumpster and both of them executing a fox plush given to them by Lila after dressing it effectively as Volpina.
- Living Toys: Chaton Noir, Littlebug, and Nezumi are three dolls that Marinette creates and brings to life using the magic of the Ladybug Miraculous. ShivaVixen's stories imply she will make more in the future for all the Miraculous holders, claiming they were given life by Ladybug.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: A couple of incidents imply that Marinette made them possibly too well...
- Littlebug somehow dumped two grown adults (Gabriel and Nathalie) into a dumpster after they threw her out one too many times, and they have no memory of how.
- Minimouse, ShivaVixen's version of Nezumi, is mentioned to have picked up Multimouse's ability to copy herself.
- Momma's Boy: A lighthearted take on the trope. Chaton loves Marinette as a mother. Justified in that he is a child made of magic and Marinette his creator who also cares for him. Her treatment of him afterwards is what leads him to determine she is his Mama.
- Noodle Incident: How Littlebug managed to trap Gabriel and Nathalie in the dumpster without them catching her or even noticing it happening. Gabriel and Nathalie don’t know what happened and Littlebug avoided explaining when Adrien tried to ask her.
- No-Sell:
- When Chaton is sad about being left behind in Marinette's room, Hawk Moth detects his feelings of sadness and sends out an akuma in an attempt to evilize him. He just swallows it, and the worst that happens is that he doesn't like the taste because it's a butterfly but doesn't taste like butter.
- Hawk Moth's attempt to do the same to Littlebug doesn't work, either, when she traps it in a plasma sphere and starts experimenting on it.
- Off with His Head!: When Lila gives Marinette a really ugly fox plushie for the "children" she's "babysitting," the dolls dress it up in a wig and jacket that makes it look like Lila herself, and then behead it with a homemade guillotine.
- Only Sane Man: Marinette is usually the one that keeps their little family in check, because even Tikki gets sometimes swept by the madness caused by the dolls.
- Papa Wolf: When Gabriel attempts to take/kidnap Hugo (Chaton Noir in the AU where the dolls are turned into real children), Adrien shows up and thoroughly kicks his father's ass.
- Parental Neglect:
- Littlebug refuses to use the word "Father" to describe Adrien because the only time she's even heard anyone referred to as Father... it's Gabriel Agreste. Although she's resistant at first because of this, she is eventually perfectly fine with calling Adrien "Papa" instead.
- In "Papa's Day," despite all of Adrien's careful planning, his father Gabriel blows off spending time with him on Father's Day because he has an unavoidable last-minute meeting at work. Thankfully, the day is saved when Marinette and the dolls show up with gifts for him.
- Plot Parallel: In “Dolls At Play”, Littlebug and Chaton put on a sort of puppet show for their parents and the kwamis. While the performance itself was really just part of their own plot to sneak cookies, the story of the play matches up to the general setup of the events of their world, so much to the point that Adrien outright questions his Dad about the possibility of him being Hawk Moth.
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: Chaton uses these as a last resort when he really, really wants to come to school with Marinette. She proves unable to resist them the first time, but the second time she doesn't cave because the class is going on a trip and she can't risk him getting hurt or lost or found by one of her enemies like Chloé or Lila.
- Recursive Fiction: The Mominette AU by ShivaVixen, featuring several additional dolls, implying Marinette made them for all her friends, using the excuse that Ladybug gave them life when the inevitable happens.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: The Gorilla knows that Adrien is Chat Noir and about the Dolls.
- Shout-Out:
- When Adrien is showing Littlebug the things around his apartment, she finds a fork and tries to use it to curl her hair. He even comments on the similarity.
- In "Take Out The Trash", Gabriel and Nathalie repeatedly try to throw Littlebug in the trash bin, similar to the The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "Living Doll".
- A couple of direct ones in the Banned Movie List to Pinocchio, Home Alone, and Encanto. With each chapter showing just why the respective movie is banned from being watched by the Dolls.
- Spit Take: At the end of "Dolls At Play," Gabriel spits out his coffee when Adrien asks him, “If you were Hawk Moth, you would tell me, right?”
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: In the AU where an Akuma turns the dolls into real kids, Marinette attempts to pass the kids by her parents without being asked questions - only for Adrien to ruin it:Adrien: Hi Mr. and Mrs. Dupain-Cheng! I'm just helping Marinette! I have done nothing untoward towards your daughter and these are in no way technically sort of our magical children that used to be living dolls.
- Swallowed Whole: What Chaton does with the butterfly he discovers when it attempts to akumatize him.
- Sweet Tooth: The dolls absolutely adore cookies and macaroons, especially ones from their "mother" Marinette's bakery.
- Tears of Blood: The Dolls can cry, but their tears are magic. And being that magic is what they themselves are made of, it’s notably enough of a point of concern to try and keep them from crying.
- Tears of Joy: When Marinette makes a bed for him out of a basket with pillows and soft fabric, Chaton Noir is so happy that he starts to cry.
- Telepathy: The dolls gain the ability to communicate with each other and with their owners using a form of telepathy.
- Tempting Fate: When Marinette realizes the dolls built a guillotine in their fort, Adrien tries to reassure her that it probably doesn't work. The dolls promptly prove that it does by beheading the fox plushie Lila gave to Marinette.
- The Unmasking: In "Papa's Day," Marinette and Adrien reveal to each other that they are Ladybug and Chat Noir.
- Through Her Stomach: Chaton wins Littlebug over in their initial meeting by presenting her with a gift of a cookie as a token of friendship.
- Similarly, The Gorilla gains the affection of the Dolls by offering them each a cookie when he encounters them.
