Stephen Maroda

**Stephen Maroda** is the vice president of Oxford. He is also the husband of Nicole Maroda and the father of Ember Maroda. With the Butterfly Miraculous, when inhabited by Nooroo, Stephen transforms into **Hawk Moth**, who is the main antagonist of Miraculous. He wants Ladybuyg and Cat Noir's miraculouses for himself in order to obtain absolute power, and to bring back his sister by reshaping reality. To achieve his goal, he creates and controls akumas, who can transform normal people with negative emotions into supervillains.

## Appearance

### Physical appearance

Stephen is a very tall man, who has Caucasian skin, and slightly messy brown hair. His eyes sometimes change color, as revealed by him.

### As Hawk Moth

Hawk Moth wears a dark purple dress shirt with a black butterfly-shaped lapel, the Butterfly Miraculous brooch on the center of the collar, and black dress pants. Over the majority of his face and neck, he wears a silver mask. He also has a dark indigo cane as his tool. Whenever he is controlling someone with an akuma, a bright purple butterfly-shaped outline appears on his face and around his eyes.

## Personality

Stephen often enjoys making sarcastic jokes, often replying to people in this manner. He is very protective of those close to him, which is why he became Hawk Moth. He is very hardworking, and is not afraid to do as such.

As revealed by Nicole, ever since his sister died, he changed as a person, taking more things seriously.

### As Hawk Moth

As Hawk Moth, he is cold and very determined. He does not take into account all the damage he is causing, and is very desperate to save his sister. After a villain's defeat, he often vows revenge on Ladybug and Cat Noir. His goal is to claim the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses to obtain absolute power, and save his sister. He is aware of the consequences of making a wish with the miraculouses, every wish having a reaction to maintain because balance in the universe, but it does not seem to bother him.

He is very stubborn, not listening to Nooroo about how using the Butterfly Miraculous will corrupt his soul, which explains why he appears to be becoming power-hungry.

Hawk Moth's akumatized villains are his most powerful known weapon, explaining why he chooses his victims carefully. He often chooses victims at their weakest emotional states, making them easier to be manipulated by him. He is very skilled at lying and manipulating, often pretending to care about his victims problems when akumatizing them. He easily loses patience if things aren't going his way, threatening harm to Team Miraculous, or the akumatized victim.

He also has a habit of celebrating things too soon, thinking that whenever a villain gets close to getting their Miraculouses, it will bring Hawk Moth closer to victory. Which shows he can be blinded and hasty by the prospect of victory itself.

If a person he deeply cares about is put in harms way by himself or the akumatized villain, he will often tell them to allow the heroes to rescue them. He is not willing to give up his evil ways, showing how corrupted his soul is becoming.

## Abilities

### As a civilian

Stephen is an expert at fixing things, often doing this while at home. He is a skilled vice president, explaining his high rank in the company he works at.

### As Hawk Moth

Despite the fact that he doesn't often fight directly, Hawk Moth is a capable sword fighter. Even without being transformed, Hawk Moth's Miraculous allows him to feel emotions, whether positive or negative, like an empath, so he can precisely pinpoint the person's name and the reason why they have negative emotions. Furthermore, Hawk Moth can control many akumas to form a swarm that makes a large version of his head, which he can speak through.

Hawk Moth's main superpower is Akumatization, corrupting butterflies with dark energy which transforms them into akumas and then sending them out to possess an object of a vulnerable person. He can also keep his butterflies in his cane if he needs to use an akuma in another location other than his lair. If they agree to serve him, he transforms them into supervillains by corrupting their personalities and granting them a wide variety of superpowers or special abilities. He can also telepathically communicate with his so-called "winners". A pink butterfly-shaped outline appears in front of his and the villains' faces when he does so. However, Hawk Moth is only able to create one villain at a time over the course of an indeterminate amount of time, he needs to convince his victims to accept the powers that he grants, and the akumatized supervillains that he creates do still have a will of their own and can either disobey him or carry out his orders incompetently. However, if a supervillain doesn't go and retrieve the Miraculous like they were asked to, Hawk Moth can control their bodies for a brief amount of time in order to inflict pain onto them until they agree to do it as quickly as possible. When an akuma isn't purified by Ladybug, it will multiply and turn other people into frozen copies of the original akumatized villain. Hawk Moth can recall and trap the original akuma in the top of his cane in order to release it again when the victim gets sad or angry once more. This turns the victim into the same akumatized villain, but it also unfreezes the copies of them, which the original villain can command and control. However, once the original akuma is de-evilized, its copies vanish, reverting the duplicates of the villain back to normal. He is also capable of purifying an akuma himself.