Marinette Dupain-Cheng

"Let me make this promise to you. No matter who wants to harm you, Ladybug and Cat Noir will do everything in our power to keep you safe!"

- Ladybug

 is one of the main protagonists of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. She is a student in Miss Bustier's class at Collège Françoise Dupont in Paris, France and a budding fashion designer who wants to be a fashion designer and have her own brand one day. With the Ladybug Miraculous, when inhabited by Tikki, Marinette transforms into the superheroine Ladybug, gaining the power of creation to stop Hawk Moth and his akumatized villains. She is also the leader of the French Miraculous superhero team.

Physical appearance
Marinette is a half French (by her father's side) and half Chinese (by her mother's side) teenage girl who stands at an average height. She has light freckles on both sides and the bridge of her nose, bluebell eyes, and medium-length black hair with blue reflections. Her hair is usually seen tied back in two pigtails.

Civilian attire
Marinette wears a dark gray blazer with rolled-up sleeves; the inside of the blazer is lined in white with pink polka dots and it has black trimming. Underneath, she wears a white t-shirt with black stitching and a flower design below the collar. The design itself has pink flowers and black leaves. She wears pink rolled up jeans and pink ballet flats with dark red soles. She wears eyeliner around her eyes and sports black earrings that also serve as her Miraculous when Tikki inhabits them. She often wears a light pink purse with a thin black strap over her right shoulder.

As Ladybug
As Ladybug, her hair becomes a slightly darker shade of blue. She wears a red skintight bodysuit covered in black spots and with a black collar/turtleneck. According to herself, her suit is made out of indestructible fabric. On her face is a red mask with five black spots that are in a symmetrical design and the waterlines of her eyes are colored black. The bands which holded her hair back become red ribbons, resembling a ladybug's wings when it is flying. When not in use, she keeps her yo-yo around her hips with a red string. Her earrings are red with five black spots in a quincunx pattern.

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As Lady Noir
The costume of Lady Black is very similar to that of Cat Noir; she wears a black catsuit with fluorescent green accents on her knees, forearms, waist and neck. She has black gloves on her forearms with claws and a fluorescent green band that goes down a bit and a black ball, her black collar is a little open at the neck and has a fluorescent green band that goes down to the poiterine and a black ball in the lower part of the neck. Around the waist, a black belt with a fluorescent green band in the middle at the right leg a black button with a fluo green cat and fluorescent green son with a black ball hanging. Her black fluoe-green boots go all the way up to the knee, have a small flowing green band in the heel and end with small black wedges. Her hair is jet black and braided and long enough to touch the ground, which makes them look like a tail, which are supported by a black two-wire ball fluo green at the end of each a black feather. She also has cat ears on her head, like Cat Noir, with fluorescent green accents. Her eyes become green and feline with green sclerotia, lighter green irises and oblong pupils. She is wearing a black mask.}}

Personality
Marinette is a sweet, outgoing, and joyful girl who loves fashion, her friends, family, and her crush Adrien. Adrien describes her as honest, kind, fair, and the type not to cheat. She is very helpful and willing to help those who have insecurities such as Juleka Couffaine, who thought she had a "class photo curse" and Marc Anciel, who was too afraid to share his creative writing with Nathaniel. According to Clara Nightingale, Marinette has a pure heart. She cares deeply for other people, usually putting their feelings and interests even before her own, in some cases at a personal cost. Despite being genuinely kind, she has her limits, such as when she gets irritated with Chloé to the point that she refuses to continue guarding her from the Evillustrator as Ladybug.

Despite her outgoing and empathetic personality, Marinette struggles with self-confidence and self-esteem. In a situation she deems urgent, she becomes very nervous, clumsy, a bit awkward, and quick to panic. These situations include approaching her crush, trouble choosing between her love interests, when in contact with a really big celebrity, if she thinks others do greater success compared to herself, or losing something that will expose her secret identity. Thanks to her confidence as Ladybug though, Marinette has gotten more calm and comfortable around Adrien as herself.

Marinette can act impulsively and irrationally at times, as shown when she tried to deflect the false accusation of "stealing” Chloé’s bracelet onto others who are also innocent. She is willing to do several risky tasks in order to protect her image, like stealing Adrien's phone to erase an embarrassing message she accidentally left on it. She also expresses jealousy whenever other girls such as Chloé or Lila flirt with Adrien, sometimes causing her to act irrationally, even abusing her powers as Ladybug to keep them away. However, Marinette tends to learn from her mistakes and become a more open-minded, understanding person. She also takes advice from others very well, whether it is family or friends as seen throughout the series.

As Ladybug, Marinette retains many of her alter ego's characteristics, but she is much stronger. Her confidence and bravery come out more prominently. According to Cat Noir, she can be stubborn at times, especially when she isn't easily convinced. While almost all of Ladybug's plans are effective, they tend to be complex and rather bizarre. She is more cautious and careful than Cat Noir, sometimes needing to restrain or stop him from doing hasty acts as seen in several episodes. Only during rare occasions, she can act hasty, especially if she is in a rush to do something or multiple things at one time. She usually follows her head, saying that a great superhero always listens to her head, meaning that she isn't easily fooled or swayed by deception and lies.

As Ladybug, Marinette strives to rescue everyone, including those akumatized by Hawk Moth. She is aware that there is a line between justice and revenge. She thinks that honesty and justice don't mean anything if you're pressured into doing it as she didn't pressure Bob to tell the truth about him stealing ideas from Kitty Section but waited until he admitted everything himself across TV. Furthermore, Marinette acknowledges that good things come by doing good actions and that not all problems can be solved by wishing them away like Hawk Moth hopes, especially at the expense of hurting the innocent. She also values the lives of others more than material possessions.

Marinette takes her image and Miraculous powers as Ladybug very seriously. She has a more serious side when fighting against Hawk Moth's villains, as opposed to Cat Noir's laid back and goofy personality. She gets angry at Chloé as Ladybug for using her powers to create a fake accident which could have led to a serious one. Given these traits, Adrien claims that her civilian form is funnier than Ladybug. Marinette can be sensitive about her image, getting annoyed at Chloé playing her alter ego in Clara Nightingale’s music video, becoming a little angered when Nora doubted her abilities, or even attacking Miraculer after the latter tauntingly mimicked her. Although she can get exasperated to Cat Noir if he jokes too much, she handles joking calmly at times and enjoys teasing him or others. Like Cat Noir, she is clever with her words and occasionally enjoys making puns.

While working with other Miraculous holders as team leader, Ladybug doesn't see them as sidekicks but as friends and extremely values their support and help. She is also great at giving advice to others when they need it. Thus, Ladybug is saddened that she has to suspend those who do a great job but at the cost of having their identities revealed to Hawk Moth like Chloé and Kagami, but she does it in a caring and considerate way, letting them know she does it to protect them and their loved ones.

As her alter ego, Marinette strives to keep her personal and superhero lives separate to protect herself, the people she knows, or is close to. Still, she aims to be honest with others in other ways, like her honesty with Cat Noir about not having romantic feelings for him and seeking advice from others. No matter the difficulty of her tasks, Marinette does everything in her power to set things right while keeping up with her everyday responsibilities, like designing something or working in the bakery. Despite this, she has occasional problems at inventing excuses about her absences to her friends, teachers, and parents.

As a civilian
For a list of things made by Marinette, see the List of Marinette's creations.

Marinette has an exceptional talent in fashion design, able to sketch ideas in a notebook after getting inspired by her surroundings, and sewing by hand or with a machine. She usually wears her own creations and makes clothing for others. She also can create graphic designs using computer, such as albums covers. Her skills in this field are exceptional for an amateur, such as when her pigeon-styled derby hat was good enough to be recognized by the famous professional designer, Gabriel Agreste, despite the fact that she had never made one before.

Although she is absent-minded, Marinette is clever and quick-thinking, as shown when she hid her signature in her hat when Chloé stole her design, which exposed her. Many of her friends describe "she is always able to come up with the right plan at the right time". Despite being amnesiac from effects of Oblivio's powers, she outsmarted the villain while they were looking for her and Adrien. Her resourcefulness is more obvious when she is figuring out how to utilize her Lucky Charm, most of her plans being outside the box, yet risky and complicated.

Even in her civilian form, Marinette has high stamina, endurance, and agility, running long distances without stopping in several episodes. She is naturally flexible, being even more flexible as Ladybug because of her enhanced physical abilities. She is also quite stealthy, frequently sneaking up on Adrien and other people without being noticed. Marinette is very good at sports, being quite good at ice-skating and dancing. She has good reflexes, being on par with Adrien despite fencing for the first time.

Marinette is very skilled at video games, easily beating Max at Ultimate Mecha Strike III and getting the highest score in the entire school. As complemented by Adrien, Marinette is an excellent baker. She knows both approaches, modern and traditional, on baking, as well as how to handle cooking facilities. She makes "magicroons" for Tikki, containing all the power ups from Miraculous spellbook. In "The Puppeteer", it is revealed that Marinette can whistle.

As Ladybug
Ladybug has much more enhanced physical skills, such as speed and agility. These abilities allow her to run on walls and react to and evade light based attacks, as well as jump and leap several times her height and length. Similar to a real ladybug, she can climb up surfaces without her yo-yo. Her increased strength allows her to do things such as use her yo-yo to pull a large robot onto the ground, as well as break Cat Noir's nearly unbreakable staff and an oyster's pearl using only her fingers. Her near-invulnerability and great durability to physical damage allows her to jump off of 2 story buildings and land without issue and survive falling off of one, as well as seemingly survive falling at a height of at least several stories.

Ladybug is skilled in hand-to-hand combat when fighting villains or Cat Noir when he ends up being controlled by one. Even out of "Aqua Mode", she is a good swimmer. Ladybug has remarkable talent with wielding her yo-yo, like using it as a grappling hook, a rope to restrain others, a projectile, and even a shield if she spins it fast enough. Her yo-yo can work as a breathing apparatus for those who can't breathe underwater like herself. After an akuma or amok is released from its corrupted object, Ladybug can open her yo-yo, to catch it, and remove the energy-charged it with, releasing it as its original form.

Her special power, Lucky Charm, creates an object that helps her to achieve her goal, it often being to stop a villain. Though usually confused at first, her creativity and cleverness help enable her to perceive where the object can be used to help her achieve her goal. However, Lucky Charm drains her power and reverts her back to Marinette shortly afterward, so she has to use it wisely. Once the villain is dealt with, Ladybug can throw her Lucky Charm object into the air and use the Miraculous Ladybug, which will make it revert to an enormous swarm of ladybugs and fix all of the damage done since the villain appeared.

Aqua Form
When accessing her aqua powers, Ladybug has the ability to breathe underwater and has enhanced swimming capabilities due to the fins on her feet.

Ice Form
When accessing her ice powers, Ladybug has the ability to handle extremely low temperatures, as well as move freely and quickly on the ice with her ice skates.

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As Lady Noir
Lady Noir has the same abilities as her partner, such as more enhanced skills; like speed, agility, and strength that she is almost invulnerable to physical damage. She has enhanced senses such as hearing, smell, night vision, and super stealth like a cat.

Like Cat Noir, Lady Noir can use her staff efficiently, wielding it as a sword, being able to spin it at high speeds to form a shield, and taking advantage of its length-changing features. To travel long distances, she uses her staff and its variety in length to vault over obstacles.

Her special power, Cataclysm, allows her to negatively affect anything that she touches with her ring hand. However, using Cataclysm drains her Miraculous' power, causing her to revert back to Marinette five minutes afterwards, so she has to use it wisely.}}

Trivia

 * Marinette is French for "little Mary" (formed from the modified Marion + the French diminutive suffix -ette). This is likely a reference to the ladybug's common name, as well as its name across many cultures, originating from the Biblical character Mary, also known as "Our Lady."
 * In the English version, the pronunciation of the name Marinette with "mar" as in "marinade" is used, and in French, and other countries, the pronunciation with "mar" as in "marred" is used.
 * Marinette's surnames Dupain & Cheng each have meanings to it.
 * The French surname Dupain means "of the bread" or "bread" (a reference to her father's job as a baker).
 * The Chinese surname Cheng means 成 "completed, finished, succeeded" (成 ) or "sincere, honest, true" (诚).
 * However, 'Cheng' in Chinese when used as a surname is usually written as 陈.
 * In "Dark Cupid", Alya mentions that Ladybugs are known to be symbols of good luck, especially in regards to love.
 * Thomas Astruc created Ladybug around 2005 when he was exchanging drawings on post-it notes with another worker and made one with the superheroine.
 * In the fake comic book covers of The Mini Menace Ladybug, Marinette's name was Marietta.PV HQ (1).png
 * In Befana, Gina Dupain (Marinette's paternal grandma) calls Marinette Marinetta, a possible nod to the fake comic book covers.
 * Marinette's design has changed over time from the original Ladybug PV version.
 * Her anime design included jean shorts,
 * As Ladybug, she had a red-orange face mask without black spots and two long red-orange ribbons attached to each pigtail. She also had longer hair and lacked freckles.
 * In the PV, Marinette's earrings were always red with five spots, no matter if she was Ladybug or Marinette. She only wore them as a civilian when needing to transform, not having them in public.
 * PV Ladybug's costume differs from the CGI Ladybug as well, with PV Ladybug's spots being found only on her torso (her legs and feet were completely red) and wearing a ladybug-themed bag instead of having the yo-yo. PV Ladybug's hair and hair ribbons are also significantly longer than the current version of Ladybug, and she has an ahoge, which means "foolish hair" in Japanese.
 * The yo-yo didn't exist; PV Ladybug fought using hand-to-hand combat.
 * PV Ladybug was less shy around her crush, as she's able to be very close to Félix Agreste without panicking or being nervous. She even asks him out while slightly blushing and looking right at him, although Félix coldly refuses. Marinette render model.png
 * Marinette's CGI design seems to have gone through a change as well. Earlier footage and images of Marinette included dark blueish-black hair, red tips of hair at the end of her pigtails, and gray eyes.
 * In a placeholder animation, Ladybug was seen wielding a sword. Whether or not this was to be used as a new weapon or a Lucky Charm object is unknown.
 * During the earlier stages of development, Ladybug wasn't allowed to abuse her powers of good luck, or else something bad would happen to her. As of now, it is unknown if Ladybug still has this issue, since, as seen in "The Bubbler", all that happens when she selfishly uses Lucky Charm is that she runs out of power and loses her transformation.
 * Both prototype versions of Marinette have her mask be the last piece of her costume to materialize during her transformation. In the final cartoon, her mask is instead the first piece to materialize.
 * Marinette's hair color is a homage to old comic books that would use blue highlights on black hair.
 * A fan asked Thomas why he gave Marinette ballet shoes, to which he jokingly responded with: "Because with ski boots, you end up with stinking feet, and in addition it scratches the floor."
 * Marinette sleeps with her pigtails on as seen in the opening of "The Bubbler" and the ending of "The Pharaoh".
 * The way she throws her yo-yo in some episodes is similar to a baseball pitcher.
 * Marinette is right-handed, but this changes depending on animation errors.
 * In "Guitar Villain", it could be possible that Marinette is ambidextrous:
 * She is seen designing Jagged Stone's new album with her right hand.
 * Near the end of the episode, when Adrien asks Marinette to sign Jagged Stone's new album, she is seen writing with her left hand.
 * In the Korean and French dubs of "The Pharaoh", Alya says that Marinette as Ladybug might be a 9th grader, while in the English dub of the episode she says she might be a 10th grader.
 * In "Mr. Pigeon", Marinette's secret place of inspiration is the Trocadéro.
 * In the webisode "Marinette in Paris", Marinette says that her favorite monument is the Eiffel Tower.
 * In "Reverser", Marinette attends art club along with Rose Lavillant, Alix Kubdel, Juleka Couffaine, Nathaniel Kurtzberg and Marc Anciel.
 * Marinette has stolen both Adrien's and Alya's phones during the series. Ironically, however, both thefts were unintentional and involved her trying to hide a fact from the respective owners.
 * She has also stolen and returned Chloé's phone.
 * In "Sandboy", Marinette's greatest fears is Adrien being in love with Chloé and losing her powers as Ladybug, rendering her as a useless superhero, thus, being unable to save the day.
 * In "Stormy Weather", Marinette's infatuation with Adrien is revealed to even include plans for a family. The names of their supposed children are Hugo, Emma, and Louis—all traditional French names. Aside from these, she also appears fond of dogs and especially hamsters.
 * She briefly considers a black cat as well, but she rejects the idea.
 * Following Plagg and Kagami, Marinette is the only other person that knows that Adrien has a crush on another girl, but like Kagami she is unaware that Adrien is in love with Ladybug, who is her alter ego.


 * Although not having any romantic feelings towards Cat Noir, in the webisode "Cat Noir as seen by Marinette", Marinette reveals that she is aware he may have a crush on her and she admits she might have given him a chance if Adrien hadn't been around.
 * In "The Pharaoh", it is revealed that Ladybug's legacy is over 5,000 years old.
 * Marinette is the third known person of French origins to wield the Ladybug Miraculous, succeeding her predecessors, Jeanne d'Arc and La Coccinelle.
 * Also, Marinette is the second person of Chinese origins to wield the Ladybug Miraculous, succeeding her predecessor Piáo Chóng.
 * Her responsibilities as a superhero not only include fighting akumatized villains but also patrolling and many other things.
 * According to Santa Claus in "Christmaster", as her alter ego Ladybug, Marinette is the most well-behaved kid in the world.
 * In "Troublemaker", her identity was nearly revealed in front of Cat Noir by the titular character.
 * Thomas noted that Marinette would be hard to akumatize, as she is an optimistic person.
 * She was almost akumatized in "Zombizou", but her negative emotions faded away before the akuma could infect an object of hers.
 * This is seen again in "Chameleon".


 * Marinette has her own official Instagram account. You can find her under the username, @marinettedesigned.
 * In one of her Instagram pictures according to Marinette, she drew her first fashion design ever when she was 5 or 6 years old.
 * In another one she mentions that she use to have a fear of getting lost in the Metro when she was younger.
 * She used to do dance lessons with her father.
 * In another picture Marinette mentions that she occasional takes part in taste testing her father's recipes.
 * She also created her signature flower design years ago.
 * She also the Eiffel Tower as her source of inspiration when drawing new designs.
 * More of Marinette's Chinese heritage will be seen in the future.
 * Thomas confirmed that at some point in the future, Marinette will be seen with her hair down.
 * During a Q & A on January 15, 2019, Jeremy Zag confirmed Ladybug and Cat Noir will reveal their identities and that it is already written.
 * This is done in "Oblivio", however, they were under the case of amnesia from the villain and had forgotten about the reveal once Ladybug restored everything with Miraculous Ladybug.
 * Thomas revealed on Twitter that Marinette and Adrien will be seen as a "real couple" at some point in the show.
 * In "Gorizilla", she was referred to as Adrien's girlfriend, though in that case, it was due to public misperception.
 * During "Oblivio", through their amnesic state Marinette and Adrien briefly become a couple until their memories were restored.

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