Different life, same kwami
I am here today because I am in the mood for some fluffy AU headcanons, and, while I have seen many good kwami swap and life swap AUs, I have not yet seen a life swap AU where all the canon kwamis are kept with the same wielders and without the reverse crush AU. Ergo, I had to come up with something, lol.
So… Sabine Cheng is a world famous fashion designer who always makes some time to spend with her loving husband Tom, and their daughter Marinette. Tom is still a chef, but, because of how famous his wife is, he can’t really run his own bakery, so he just bakes a lot at home for his family and donates SO MUCH food to food pantries and the like.
Marinette grew up in the world of high fashion and fame, but, thanks to her parents, she never let it go to her head. She was captivated by designing pretty much from the time she could walk, and has lived and breathed that life growing up. She gets a lot of praise from critics, but is pretty insecure, worrying that they’re only saying that they like her work because of who her mother is. She also models for Cheng fashions as Adrien does for Agreste fashions in canon.
Sabine and Audrey met in university where they were roommates. They ended up growing up to be pretty different, but still honor their past friendship with a good working relationship and by encouraging the friendship of their daughters. Audrey might be a bit more mellow in this AU to be friends with Sabine, but she still leaves to go to New York. She’s not malicious, she’s just a woman who had a child because she felt obligated to, and then chose to keep following her dream. She’s a more complex character. (I’m reminded of the German musical Elisabeth, which none of yall have probably seen, but it’s SO GOOD FAM)
Aaaaaanyway, Chloe and Marinette have known each other since they were in diapers. While Chloe gets about as much parental love from her actual parents as in canon, in this AU she spends most of her time with Marinette and is practically adopted as the second daughter of the Dupain-Cheng’s. Truthfully, Marinette’s parents always felt more like her real parents than her actual parents. She looks up to Sabine so much, and, being essentially raised by the Dupain-Cheng’s is pretty different from her canon self. She’s much more like Marinette, but she’s less naive. She knows that people are going to want to befriend them because they have famous parents, and she will THROW THE FUCK DOWN to protect her sister in all but blood.
As for Adrien, I can’t really see Gabriel and Emilie as bakers, so let’s say that they were globetrotters in their youth, and they settled down to open a rare book shop when they got older. This still gives them a plausible reason to have gone to Tibet and to have found the peacock and the butterfly miraculouses. I also things it makes their obsession with the miraculouses make a bit more sense, tbh. They value knowledge above all else and need the answers. Things go as they do in canon – the peacock miraculous is damaged, and Emilie falls into whatever the frell sort of magical coma she’s in. Gabriel knows enough about the miraculouses to become Hawkmoth in an attempt to get her back.
Adrien was always homeschooled as a kid, traveling around with his parents in search of rare books for the shop. They’re really, REALLY strict about learning, and make him do really all the same extracurriculars he does in canon. They found the miraculous book in Asia, so they make him learn Mandarin. They might need him to use a miraculous someday, so he learns how to fence. Playing the piano is becoming of an intelligent and cultured person, so he’ll do that too.
We’ve seen in canon that Adrien likes to learn, but the popular headcanon is that he really likes science, and I think Gabe would push classics and languages. Their relationship is pretty similar to canon where Gabe has unreasonable expectations that Adrien tries his best to meet. When Emilie disappears, they can’t keep doing the one person runs the shop and one person goes to look for books/homeschools Adrien routine, so Adrien gets sent to public school as in canon.
Hawkmoth is stirring, and Master Fu administers his tests, finding a creative girl and a compassionate boy and trusting them with the miraculouses that suit them best, the Ladybug and the Black Cat respectively.
Origins plays out similarly to canon. Adrien is still just as excited to be a superhero, he’s definitely still a huge comic book nerd. Marinette is still unsure of herself and he still supports her.
In the classroom on the first day, Chloe and Marinette are sitting together visiting as they always do, including the new girl (Alya) who now sits behind them in their conversation, when a shy new kid with glasses and a sweater vest walks in, running a hand through his messy blonde hair. He sits next to Nino and introduces himself.
Alya joins Chloe and Mari’s squad (after passing Chloe’s tests that she doesn’t mean harm to her sweet and innocent bean of a sister) and Adrino friendship develops as in canon.
It’s still raining after school that day and Marinette forgot her umbrella. Before Chloe can do anything about it, Adrien walks over, gives her his, smiles, says something dorky, gives her his umbrella and runs out into the rain. (He totally has like a twenty-minute walk home and he’s soaked, but worth it, he made a friend!!!)
Marinette falls about as fast as Eliza Hamilton in Helpless, lol.
So yeah, that’s the start of a take on a life swap with no kwami swaps! (I wanted to have one not-salty, AU, lol)
Let me know if you’d like to see more headcanons/drabbles/scenes/art!
or if I’m just being dumb, lol
I love love love this 🤩
