miraculous-elcie

[miraculous-elcie]

My contribution to the @loveybugzine! Please got check out the full zine, there are so many amazing pieces included, I am but a small part.

Apologies this is my first art post in a WHILE - the drought may continue still (‘: This was the last thing I finished and it’s been done a while so honestly things have felt pretty strange not drawing XD

I wanted to really push myself with this piece, drawing buildings WITHOUT REFERENCE *shock horror* and I spent ages trying different compositions. The idea was clear in my mind but it took a while to execute. A city without its heroes, yet twisted versions of them remain, caught up in their own emotional turmoil. Fun. XD

[miraculous-elcie]

The Loveybug Zine is finally here!

In the linked folder, you'll be able to find all the wonderful pieces we've prepared for your enjoyment: art, fic, an assortment of free digital merchandise, and of course, the fully compiled digital zine!

We'd like to give a huge thank you to all of the contributors and moderators who worked tirelessly to bring this project to life, and of course, to all of you for supporting us and spreading the love ❤️

[miraculous-elcie]

Yo, here's my piece for the @loveybugzine! You can check out all the great artwork and fics by tons of great contributors FOR FREE!

Thanks for checking us out!

[miraculous-elcie]

In Defense of Marinette

I like Marinette. While there are many valid criticisms of her writing, the same can be said for literally every other character and she's actually doing pretty well given that she's the main character. After all, in a show where consistent characterization is an ongoing issue, the one with the most screen time will probably be the one who's the biggest victim of the issue.

This is heavily exacerbated by the rule that supposedly governs Miraculous. Namely that, in each story, Marinette must make a mistake. Or, at least, so says the head writer:

I really do not care what this guy says on Twitter or anywhere else. I only care about what's in the show because, if you have to go outside the text to understand the text, then you have no idea how to tell a good story.

However, unlike many of the tweets that I've seen, this one isn't some BS bit of lore. It's a writing rule and it has substantial backing in the text. It's extremely rare to have an episode where Marinette comes out smelling like roses and that's a problem because Miraculous has over 100 episodes. In other words, to follow this rule, the writers have to come up with over 100 ways for Marinette to be wrong so of course she's going to come across poorly. Why would you do this to your main character?

It's extremely common for kids shows to have a "lesson of the day" element to them. Someone always needs to learn something, but I've never seen a show misunderstand the assignment so badly. Learning a lesson is not the same as doing something wrong.

It's been a while since I watched the 2010 version of My Little Pony, but it really leaned into that whole "lesson of the day" thing and it actually knew what it was doing, so I'm going to talk about it briefly to discuss things that Miraculous should have done.

The first thing to note is that MLP had an unambiguous main character - Twilight Sparkle - but Twilight was not the one who learned all of the lessons. She had a pet dragon and a crew of five friends who would, occasionally, be the ones to learn the lesson because there were lots of lessons that simply didn't fit Twilight's character. Instead of warping Twilight to make the idea work (cough cough Ikari Gozen cough), the writers just let someone else have the spotlight for a bit.

This is an excellent way to build out your cast and Miraculous had plenty of opportunities to do it. For example, Lila should not have been Marinette's issue. The fact that Lila hates Marinette could have certainly stuck around, but the one who takes her down and learns to investigate her sources? That should have been Alya. A liar is the perfect enemy for an investigative journalist, but a poor enemy for someone who shines as a battlefield commander and overthinks when she's given too much time.

Another way that MLP would teach lessons was to have someone other than Twilight or the main crew cause the issue that they then had to deal with. This leads to one of the best moments in children's television:

And, frankly? Marinette deserves a moment like this. That poor girl has been through hell and is never allowed to make the right call when it really matters. The show will even completely rewrite its lore to make her fail (see: Strike Back). That is such an awful thing to do to your lead! Shows about female empowerment should include women feeling powerful and, no, Lila and Chloe don't count!

Also, the show is literally about Gabriel taking advantage of people who are upset. You don't need to have Marinette make a mistake to shoehorn in a life lesson. Akumas are life lesson fodder and season 1 actually seemed to get this. I'm not sure why they switched gears to "Marinette is the star and, therefore, must always be wrong."

The final way that MLP taught lessons was to have Twilight do something wrong because having your main character do something wrong is a totally valid way to teach lessons. It just shouldn't be your only way because you know who is always wrong in children's media?

Villains.

They wrote Marinette like a villain.

And a large part of the fandom hates her for it because of course they do.

You're not supposed to like villains.

[miraculous-elcie]

I kind of think that this would make for a good zine, to do a rewrite of "Miraculous Ladybug and Chat Noir" with a lot more reasonable reactions and actions taken by these fictional characters.

All this is one of the reasons that I actually loved @zoe-oneesama's "Scarlet Lady" AU, because responses and reactions were much more reasonable and realistic. Like, most adults actually acted like adults, the police force didn't just attack the heroes because an akumatized person said to when they weren't under the akuma's control, etc.

I mean I've been kind out of the fandom for a bit, I haven't had a chance to watch Season 5 yet, and I'm just recently getting more active (because I started thinking about Scarlet Lady again and wanted to know what was going on there. BEAU is next, @buggachat). This is one of the first posts by @miraculouslbcnreactions I've fully read, and I haven't seen their pinned post on their blog, but just from reading, even before checking the tags, it's clear that the original posts were about writing salt.

You know what would make the Lucky Charm more balanced? Make it so that there are times where other characters figure it out, not just Ladybug. That way, it doesn't make Ladybug hypercompent and makes it possible for other people to save the day.

I don't mind Ladybug being the one best suited to Lucky Charm. I don't think it makes her hyper competent because you don't need a Lucky Charm to save the day. It's just the way that she saves the day. The other characters should have their own unique talents that let them win fights. Generally speaking, that's how strong teams work.

For a random example, let's talk about the teenage mutant ninja turtles simply because I think most people know something about that franchise. The character Donatello (aka Donnie) is the team's tech guy. He makes all kinds of inventions that help them save the day. The show would not be improved if all four of the turtles were able to take on this inventor role. I'd argue that it would actually be lessened because the characters would become interchangeable. This is something that the franchise seems to agree with as each version of the show gives each turtle unique skills and personality traits that makes each of them indispensable in their own way, which is what I think Miraculous should have done with the temp heroes.

That being said, I do think that there's a way to make your idea work. I'd just go a slightly different, more lore balancing route since Lucky Charm is technically bad lore and you all know how I feel about bad lore. So let's talk about giving it a minor tweak and how I think that would actually improve things.

Tikki is supposed to be Creation, not Luck, so the Lucky Charm shouldn't have anything to do with Luck. It should just be pure Creation where the holder comes up with a thing they want and that thing then pops up. It could also have a give and take element where the holder gets what they asked for if they want something specific, but they could also just call the power as a hail Mary and Tikki would come up with something on the fly, leading to the occasional puzzle.

This leads me to my proposed changed.

I personally think it would be hilarious and honestly more fun for Marinette's character if she could summon anything she wanted, but the Lucky Charms stay exactly the same because that's just how her mind works. Even when Tikki is helping, it's still all wacky items because Tikki knows how Marinette is and just goes with it.

For example, in Copy Cat, Ladybug turns a spoon into a hook for a cobbled together fishing pole. Wouldn't it be even funnier if Marinette summoned a spoon on purpose because she was thinking of the makeshift thing she cobbled together in order to fish up something she dropped from her balcony? Then, post fight, Chat Noir praises her like always, only to then ask, "So why a spoon and not a fishing hook?" And Ladybug just stares at him because oh, right, those are things they make. She could have done that. Ooops.

And in Malediktator where she summons a sniper rifle to get a laser pointer? Well, she was thinking about this silly comic about a cat assassin! She totally spaced on the fact that you could just get a laser pointer by itself.

Eventually, her team learns to just go with it and not ask questions. Meanwhile, the general public thinks that the Lucky Charm is some random item that Ladybug has to figure out and no one bothers to correct this misunderstanding. You can even have a running gag of new team members learning the truth and going through the acceptance process of, "Hey, you try thinking up how to set a trap while a 5 meter tall lollipop is trying to crush you! Your mind goes to what it knows, not to the ideal solution, okay???"

If we go with this setup, then other people can wield the Ladybug and use Lucky Charm effectively, they'll just use it in a very different way from the way Marinette uses it. There will also be people who are just not suited to the Ladybug since that was initially how the powers were supposed to work and it made perfect sense. Kwamis should have ideal holders along with okay backups and terrible backups. I personally think Alya would be an okay backup since she's creative, but not creative in the same way Marinette is, leading her to be a lesser Ladybug. Adrien, on the other hand, should generally suck at the Ladybug as he simply doesn't have that style of creative thinking. Which is fine. Better than fine, even! You don't want your characters to be interchangeable! They should all have strengths and weaknesses!

This is one of the show's big flaws. Since everything is on Marinette's shoulders, the other characters rarely get a chance to shine and so they feel interchangeable. For example, if gift always shows the target what THEY want, then why does Rose need to be the one to wield it? Juleka could wield it just as easily. And if Ladybug is generally the one telling Marc and Nathaniel what to summon with their powers, then their creativity is not needed. Anyone could wield the rooster and the goat! The show has completely failed to understand what makes teams memorable and so we have a bloated, boring team whose presence I'm dreading because they had five seasons to set these guys up and yet here we are.

[miraculous-elcie]

Pigeon Man on his Pigeon Roof with his Pigeon Friends gets a Pigeon Happy End!

Episode 7 Part 14

First < Previous > Next Episode

Ep 1,  Ep 2,  Ep 3,  Ep 4,  Ep 5,  Ep 6,  Ep 8,  Ep 9,  Ep 10

Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5

Bonus:

Marianne Not-Totally-Altruistic Lenoir.

Ko-fi | Patreon

[miraculous-elcie]

Heyo, just wanted to say that i really enjoy your artworks and comics!

Thank you!! I'm glad you like them! ^^

[miraculous-elcie]

Heyo, just wanted to say that i really enjoy your artworks and comics!

Thank you!! I'm glad you like them! ^^

[miraculous-elcie]

The sheer number of kids who are straight up putting their real names and ages and location in their bios like "Natasha | 14 | Minor | New York, NY!" and occasionally putting their actual school or city in their tags just terrifies me like no stop stop stop remove that right now I cannot emphasize how unsafe that is for you I am begging you for your sake remove thst shit right now

[miraculous-elcie]

it was always kind of a weird, fun fact that Kim was like the only miraculous holder that was never chosen by Ladybug (Fu chose him, not her). and... now.... well........... yeah............

[miraculous-elcie]

season 1 ladynoir hits different after derision

[miraculous-elcie]

okay something I was thinking about yesterday was how Tomoe clearly wants Kagami and Adrien to be together because of status, right? Adrien is an adequate match for Kagami in terms of wealth and upraising?

I simply think it would be really funny if Kagami chose to date Felix instead and Tomoe couldn't even be mad because Felix is, if anything, more adequate than Adrien - more money, more status, he's even lined up for lordship in Britain. And he's a gentleman, too - he only does what is expected of him socially.

And she hates him so much but there's nothing she can do, no argument she can make, because he's - on every tangible level - perfect, just really really fucking annoying.

[miraculous-elcie]

reminder to:

straighten your back

go pee goddAMN IT STOP HOLDING IT

go take your meds if you need to

drink some water

go get a snack if you havent eaten in a while

maybe wander around the house/stretch a little if you’ve been sat at the computer a while (artists especially: sTRETCH THOSE WRISTS)

reply to that text/message from earlier you’d forgotten about

maybe send a nice lil message to someone having a bad day?

[miraculous-elcie]

After the (Catgirl) Battle...

Ladybug, cuddling up to her partner and murmuring: Hello, Kitty.

Chat Noir, pouting and cuddling even closer: Please never say those two words together again.

[miraculous-elcie]

Fanfiction Prompt

Ladybug: "I know who Hawk Moth is!"

Chat Noir: "Oh, how?"

Ladybug: "Well, I was looking at patterns between Akumas, seeing if anything came up, and..."

*pulls down map with pins it where people were Akumatized*

Chat Noir: "Okay, so... how did this help?"

Ladybug: "Watch this."

*draws lines between the pins, slowly spelling out "Hawk Moth Is Gabriel Agreste" across the entire city*

Chat Noir: "...Nooroo?"

Ladybug: "Either that, or Hawk Moth is really arrogant, and thought no one would notice."

Prompt by BlueStarOfTheSouth

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After Gabriel has been defeated and all the Miraculouses have been recovered... there are some unfortunate repercussions to having such a public conflict in the information age. The existence of the Miraculous and the kwamis themselves have been exposed to an extent the old Guardians never could have imagined possible.

So Marinette leans into it.

The Miraculous must be hidden and protected, but the kwamis themselves are for the most part not vulnerable. With the public endorsement of Ladybug and Chat Noir, the equivalent of a cat cafe is opened in Paris where people can come and interact with the kwamis, run by several trusted civilians and funded by the son of Hawkmoth himself, an act to help the community heal. And the kwamis get what they have always wanted most - the chance to interact with humans and explore their world on an individual level.

Prompt by techRomancer

[miraculous-elcie]

On a field trip to england, the class visits one of the largest cheese factories. One of the things that caught Adrien's interest is how the brand uses a black cat as the motif. When he decides to stock up on some camembert at Plagg's insistance, the clerk playfully asked if it was for his cat.

Adrien was caught off guard at the question and replied that it is, only to be whisked away by the staff afterwards. The town that they visited used to be the territory owned by the Dark Grimalkin and his decendants have been awaiting the return of the tiny god of destruction to their lands.

Prompt by divineballad