pandaofsecrets

[pandaofsecrets]

[pandaofsecrets]

By Sarah Andersen

[pandaofsecrets]

[pandaofsecrets]

scone butch... The person for all your pastry and lesbian needs

[pandaofsecrets]

Some Chloé-Nathanaël parallels:

They're both comic book nerds (though good luck getting Chloé to actually admit it), and they both idolize superheroes and dream of becoming superheroes themselves.

They both project their idea of the perfect partner on their crushes and get super huffy when said crushes don't stick to the script.

They both deal with their issues by lashing out, and both tend to go for disproportionate retribution in response to real or imagined slights.

Nathanaël is the first akuma to be punished for trying to defy Hawk Moth, and Chloé is the first character to actually succeed in defying him.

This one is speculation, but since Nathanaël has anger issues it's not a huge stretch to imagine he's been told to stop being angry like it's that simple. They therefore both know what it's like to not get any advice on how to deal with their problems other than "be nice".

[pandaofsecrets]

Yeah, Azula stans are obsessed with the idea that Azula chose Ozai because someone failed her or pushed her away first, when Azula chose Ozai because that's usually what happens when parental figures start undermining each other. The child attaches themselves to whoever puffs up their ego the most even if it's harmful for their long-term development, because they have neither the life experience to see through the parent's bullshit nor foresight or restraint.

And not understanding consequence is kind of Azula's whole thing. She talks a lot of shit, but doesn't actually grasp the gravity of what's going on around her and treats everything like a game. And yeah, that works out for her... until it doesn't, and then she has no idea what to do. Ozai basically insulated her from reality itself.

Ursa does admonish Zuko more gently and does have more patience to explain what he actually did wrong, but in all fairness, the things Azula does wrong are things Ursa can't gently and patiently explain. In both instances where Ursa is yelling at Azula, it's because Azula is insulting her grandfather and uncle and going on about their deaths. Azulon already doesn't like Ozai (which we see a lot of throughout the flashbacks), and in a totalitarian society like the ones the Fire Nation is based off of, to so casually talk like that about the reigning monarch and the crown prince runs the risk of getting you executed. How do you even begin to explain that to a child?

[pandaofsecrets]

Ouroboros Pie Crust by Danielle Baskin

[pandaofsecrets]

No, I haven't seen the London Special yet, but I have seen spoilers and I'm honestly not surprised.

A fix I thought of for the Butterfly Miraculous is that while it can copy various applications of other Miraculous' concepts, it can only do one power at a time. Like in my Volpina example, Rena would still have access to the full spectrum of powers that Illusion can provide, while Volpina only gets Mirage and she has to deal with it.

As for the Peacock, I'd honestly change its concept to something like Vision. Clairvoyance, remote viewing, the like. It fits the symbolism of Peacocks better, and it would form an equal-opposite pair with the Fox. It would also provide a better backstory for Émilie and Gabriel than the sentimonster thing by explaining two things about them in one go.

One, why they isolated Adrien all those years. It'd make sense to do that if Émilie got a vision of a bad future that involved him—maybe fragmentary, out-of-context glimpses of Cat Blanc or the S5 finale, for maximum irony. That, or since the Peacock is broken, instead of showing a clear view of the future it could spam Émilie with nightmarish visions, causing her to descend into paranoia and become overprotective of Gabriel and Adrien. I personally like the second one the most. It explains why Adrien was only allowed to go to school after Émilie was gone, and it would also make sense for Gabriel to call her "way too dramatic" if she was so fearful and took so many precautions that it bordered on the absurd. Heck, Gabriel even directly compares Adrien and Émilie's dramatics in a situation where Adrien is warning him that he's not safe, so...

Two, why Gabriel is gunning for the Ladybug and Cat specifically to "erase the past" instead of just making an akuma to heal Émilie and calling it a day. It'd make perfect sense to do that if they made a mistake that Émilie prophesied would lead to a bad future, and if bringing Émilie back is a side effect of undoing the mistake and avoiding the prophecy, rather than being the actual goal. It does raise the question of why he would want the Wish if he had the ability to time travel, but that could be explained by saying he wants to be certain that the prophecy is avoided, and time travel runs the risk of moving the wrong chair and accidentally becoming his own grandpa. Or that he tried and got his ass kicked by Team Miraculous' future Butterfly user, who is protecting the time steam.

I really really really love the idea of the Miraculous being based on broad abstract concepts. It makes them super versatile in what powers they can provide, which helps keep the plot from going off the rails while still being fresh and interesting. The problem is that the concept (heh) wasn't utilized well at all. So, indulge me in a long-winded breakdown of ML's power system.

The cracks started showing almost immediately. The Cat and Butterfly Miraculous are okay, but the Ladybug for some reason can purify akuma and has restoration abilities, which. First of all, purification should be the Cat's ability, because it represents the destruction of impurities. Second of all, how does the power of creation allow you to restore things? I know someone will say Marinette is recreating what was destroyed, but if that's the case then Adrien is long dead and the character we're seeing right now is just a replica. Fun! Miraculous Ladybug also does more than just recreate, since we've also seen it destroy byproducts of the akuma attack, like Horrificator's slime. So if anything, it should be a combined ability of the Ladybug and the Cat. I'll talk about unifications later, let's just stick with the Miraculous for now.

The Fox and the Turtle started out great, but ended up being disappointing. Here's the thing, both Protection and Illusion have a lot of potential applications, like for example someone who uses the Fox could convince someone that anything they're saying is true, stick them in an illusionary dreamscape or even induce pain in them without actually wounding them. Someone who uses the Turtle could deplete moving objects of their momentum, make themselves immune to the opponent's magic, or imbue objects with durability. This would have made the fact that Volpina can do multiple illusions while Rena can only do one a lot less infuriating, because Rena would have had a bigger power set to draw on. Volpina on the other hand would be limited to just illusions, so she'd be able to get more mileage out of them, like a breadth vs. depth thing. Instead it's just. Rena can only do one illusion. Carapace can only do one shield. Boring!

Things got really shaky with the introduction of the Bee Miraculous, because that one isn't even related to its stated concept! "Subjection" means "bringing someone or something under one's control or influence". I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like mind control and telekinesis, not paralysis—paralyzing people sounds more like the Turtle. The writers sort of tried to fix this by changing the Bee's concept to Action, but that's almost worse because it's power is to prevent someone from taking action.

The Dragon and Rooster have a similar problem of power not really matching concept. "Perfection" means "the act of improving or making better", which sounds like the Dragon should've been a healing or restoration type Miraculous. In fact, the Rooster should've had the same power, since "sublimation" means "making nobler or purer", so the Dragon and Rooster should've really been one Miraculous instead of two. Speaking of which...

Where things really went off the rails was the Peacock Miraculous. The Peacock honestly warrants an entire separate post, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First of all, what does the concept of emotion have to do with the ability to summon a kaiju? Second of all, if the power to create a kaiju should've gone to any Miraculous, shouldn't it be, you know, the Ladybug? But no, I guess the power of Creation loses to a turkey with delusions of grandeur.

And this got even worse once the Zodiacs were introduced. Just about all of them have powers that could've easily gone to the main 7 we already had. The Ox's concept was already covered by the Turtle, the Tiger, Monkey, and Eagle do basically the same thing as the Cat, and the Mouse and Goat are basically just the Ladybug again. The Butterfly might be the worst afflicted by this. Not only is the Rooster's power of giving any power already covered under it, but one of the meanings of "to transmit" is "to send from one place to another", so the Horse's teleportation ability should've gone to the Butterfly. We could throw the Dog's power in as well, since all Fetch does is teleport an object instead of a person. Heck, since space and time are the same thing, the Rabbit's time travel should've also gone to the Butterfly. I mean, I'm glad it wasn't because that would've made the Butterfly extremely OP and would make it very hard to explain why Gabriel hasn't won by now, but you get the idea.

The only Zodiac Miraculous that are somewhat unique are the Dragon, Pig, and Snake, and even then the Snake Second Chance ability could be expressed as Butterfly (time travel) + Turtle (stasis) and the Pig's Gift could be expressed as Butterfly (empathy) + Ladybug (object) or Fox (illusion). Even the Peacock can be basically be broken down into Butterfly (empathy) + Ladybug (creation) + Bee (control) + Cat (destruction).

This brings me to my last point: unification. The way we were told combining the Ladybug and Cat works in Origins, you'd expect that unifying the Miraculous would create a new power that is the combination of the already existing ones. This means that the writers wouldn't have had to invent a new Miraculous every time they wanted to use a power, which would have saved money on character models and lead to a lot of interesting teammate match-ups. Instead, all the heroes get is the ability to use the two powers at the same time.

[pandaofsecrets]

My cat is a sweet angel who realized I was sick as I lay sweltering on the couch last night and decided the only way to heal me was if she purred ON my face.

I gently and weakly tried to remove her several times. Tried hissing and growling softly in her language, which usually dissuades her. I was literally treated like a newborn kitten screaming complaints as their mom stomps all around them. My cat’s whole energy was “oh well, human, I know you are ignorant, but I promise this is what’s best for you.”

Second cat was on my legs but was less sympathetic — scratched my feet if I tried to shift position at all during the night.

[pandaofsecrets]

Roasted chicken, ginger, daikon, shiitake mushroom soup with lime, cilantro, broccoli sprouts, and rice noodles

[pandaofsecrets]

I don't find it cringy so much as I think it's redundant in contexts where the characters are already supposed to be speaking Japanese, like anime fanfic. The dialogue is basically an English rendition of the "original" Japanese, so why are you adding Japanese words back in anyway?

Fandom Problem #6985:

When a fanfiction adds Japanese words to the English dialogue (sugoi, meshi, niku, senchou, baka, ect). It just seems very cringy to me.

[pandaofsecrets]

I really really really love the idea of the Miraculous being based on broad abstract concepts. It makes them super versatile in what powers they can provide, which helps keep the plot from going off the rails while still being fresh and interesting. The problem is that the concept (heh) wasn't utilized well at all. So, indulge me in a long-winded breakdown of ML's power system.

The cracks started showing almost immediately. The Cat and Butterfly Miraculous are okay, but the Ladybug for some reason can purify akuma and has restoration abilities, which. First of all, purification should be the Cat's ability, because it represents the destruction of impurities. Second of all, how does the power of creation allow you to restore things? I know someone will say Marinette is recreating what was destroyed, but if that's the case then Adrien is long dead and the character we're seeing right now is just a replica. Fun! Miraculous Ladybug also does more than just recreate, since we've also seen it destroy byproducts of the akuma attack, like Horrificator's slime. So if anything, it should be a combined ability of the Ladybug and the Cat. I'll talk about unifications later, let's just stick with the Miraculous for now.

The Fox and the Turtle started out great, but ended up being disappointing. Here's the thing, both Protection and Illusion have a lot of potential applications, like for example someone who uses the Fox could convince someone that anything they're saying is true, stick them in an illusionary dreamscape or even induce pain in them without actually wounding them. Someone who uses the Turtle could deplete moving objects of their momentum, make themselves immune to the opponent's magic, or imbue objects with durability. This would have made the fact that Volpina can do multiple illusions while Rena can only do one a lot less infuriating, because Rena would have had a bigger power set to draw on. Volpina on the other hand would be limited to just illusions, so she'd be able to get more mileage out of them, like a breadth vs. depth thing. Instead it's just. Rena can only do one illusion. Carapace can only do one shield. Boring!

Things got really shaky with the introduction of the Bee Miraculous, because that one isn't even related to its stated concept! "Subjection" means "bringing someone or something under one's control or influence". I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like mind control and telekinesis, not paralysis—paralyzing people sounds more like the Turtle. The writers sort of tried to fix this by changing the Bee's concept to Action, but that's almost worse because it's power is to prevent someone from taking action.

The Dragon and Rooster have a similar problem of power not really matching concept. "Perfection" means "the act of improving or making better", which sounds like the Dragon should've been a healing or restoration type Miraculous. In fact, the Rooster should've had the same power, since "sublimation" means "making nobler or purer", so the Dragon and Rooster should've really been one Miraculous instead of two. Speaking of which...

Where things really went off the rails was the Peacock Miraculous. The Peacock honestly warrants an entire separate post, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First of all, what does the concept of emotion have to do with the ability to summon a kaiju? Second of all, if the power to create a kaiju should've gone to any Miraculous, shouldn't it be, you know, the Ladybug? But no, I guess the power of Creation loses to a turkey with delusions of grandeur.

And this got even worse once the Zodiacs were introduced. Just about all of them have powers that could've easily gone to the main 7 we already had. The Ox's concept was already covered by the Turtle, the Tiger, Monkey, and Eagle do basically the same thing as the Cat, and the Mouse and Goat are basically just the Ladybug again. The Butterfly might be the worst afflicted by this. Not only is the Rooster's power of giving any power already covered under it, but one of the meanings of "to transmit" is "to send from one place to another", so the Horse's teleportation ability should've gone to the Butterfly. We could throw the Dog's power in as well, since all Fetch does is teleport an object instead of a person. Heck, since space and time are the same thing, the Rabbit's time travel should've also gone to the Butterfly. I mean, I'm glad it wasn't because that would've made the Butterfly extremely OP and would make it very hard to explain why Gabriel hasn't won by now, but you get the idea.

The only Zodiac Miraculous that are somewhat unique are the Dragon, Pig, and Snake, and even then the Snake Second Chance ability could be expressed as Butterfly (time travel) + Turtle (stasis) and the Pig's Gift could be expressed as Butterfly (empathy) + Ladybug (object) or Fox (illusion). Even the Peacock can be basically be broken down into Butterfly (empathy) + Ladybug (creation) + Bee (control) + Cat (destruction).

This brings me to my last point: unification. The way we were told combining the Ladybug and Cat works in Origins, you'd expect that unifying the Miraculous would create a new power that is the combination of the already existing ones. This means that the writers wouldn't have had to invent a new Miraculous every time they wanted to use a power, which would have saved money on character models and lead to a lot of interesting teammate match-ups. Instead, all the heroes get is the ability to use the two powers at the same time.

[pandaofsecrets]

Anon ignores that if Chloé didn't randomly forget she has superpowers that would've made Marinette's Lucky Charm completely redundant. Miraculer was a case of Chloé catching the idiot ball because she's not the main character.

I mean Zoe at least does use Venom successfully unlike Chloe. Chloe didn't even use it on Miraculer when she was being held down by both Rena Rouge and Carapace for some reason. The only time I think she used her powers as Queen Bee for non-evil reasons was in Malediktator.

.....

I'm not sure what to bring up with the Miraculer example. The fact that the Akuma of the Day stole everyone's powers, or the fact that Chloé shouldn't have used Venom on Rena and Carapace because those are her allies????

Also yeah Chloé didn't get to use Venom as much but if anything that shows her actual combat skill as she was able to hold her own in fight, even against multiple opponents. As Venom's not exactly the hardest power to use, something where she just has to make contact with the target, we can infer that she'd be good with it if given more of a chance to do so.

Zoé, on the other hand, mostly used Venom on large targets that were otherwise distracted by the rest of Heroes.

[pandaofsecrets]

can i just talk for a minute? I dunno how salty this is gonna come across tbh, but it just hit me that a lot of the "weird" writing choices done with adrien would make significantly more sense if he were still felix from the ml pv and wasn't actually supposed to be all that kind to ladybug with his own self serving motivations for getting the miraculous separate from the main bad guy be it hawkie boy or not, and from ladybug herself.

Like. why didn't ladybug tell him about [insert thing she definitely should be telling him]? because in that version of the show he either might just already know (in the case of hawkie boy being his dad) or they aren't making shit up and it actually would be dangerous for him to have that information since he and ladybug aren't partners and aren't actually on the same side in all this (anything regard the miraculous, how they work, secret identities, etc).

Why would everything that went on with him at the end of season five happen? because in that version of the show instead of him just not being in the right headspace for it (which is fine by the way), it'd be a sign of him actually giving up his self serving motives for the greater good. stopping his dad is more important than whatever he would be using the wish for, and again he and ladybug aren't close in this version so him returning the ring would be a show of growth.

Like. all this to just reiterate, i think when they changed pv felix to adrien, they just ripped whatever character writing they had planned for him and then sloppily pasted it over a character that doesn't match what they were writing anymore instead of writing something different. I think that might just be what they mean when they say they were "planning this from the beginning." Just them refusing to rewrite a character despite literally changing the character into someone else.

[pandaofsecrets]

Adrien reconnecting in the future.

Hey anon- I can't answer your ask because of <spoilers> But yeah I noticed the connection too.

Even in S4 I had noticed how there was no one in the circle who wasn't primarily friends with Marinette, and Adrien was the 'also friend' Even Nino counts, because of how close Alya is with Mari and how close Nino and Alya are. Canon just didn't do enough to make Nino *Adrien's* friend after the first season or two. He just became 'Alya's boyfriend'.

So yeah- It is *healthy* for couples to each have a few of 'Their' friends. It's not that these friends can't know their SO, just that the connection is first on one side or the other.

When You have a situation where all of the friends come primarily through one side, it can unintentionally create a group bias, or simply stifle points of view. It's just a breeding ground for bad dynamics even with good intentions.

That's why I end up having adult Adrien reconnect with Chloé in more than one story. She might not be a *good* friend, but she was *his* friend, and in those stories he needed that perspective in his life.

[pandaofsecrets]

I have no words

Hope you like it

[pandaofsecrets]

Reasons why I don’t believe Chloe was never meant to be redeemed:

1) the intro, from season one, included queen bee

And she’s the only hero who has since been replaced. If nothing else, it shows that they didn’t plan on vesperia until way later.

2) She was given a sympathetic backstory(which they used to enact short-term change)

and i am specifically talking about despair bear, which makes me all sorts of frustrated because her butler using her self-soothing method to manipulate and shame her into acting better for her classmates makes me feel so sad for her.

but the fact still stands that they gave Chloe a sympathetic backstory that not only tied her to adrien, potentially giving her an ally to help her change, but to explain(not excuse) her behavior.

there is ZERO reason for that screenshot to exist of a character that was never considered for redemption. you don’t paint your villains that way.

3) lila, like her entire existence

Okay so like, as a superhero show that has clear time both in and out of the suits, it makes sense to have clear civilian AND supervillain antagonists to keep it interesting on both sides. In season one, Ladybug and Chat Noir had hawkmoth. Adrien had Gabriel, and Marinette had Chloe. At the end of the season, they introduced lila as marinette’s civilian antagonist. THERE WAS NO REASON TO INTRODUCE A NEW ANTAGONIST FOR MARINETTE UNLESS THEY KNEW THERE WOULD BE A VOID SOON. The fact that Lila and Chloe essentially serve the same purpose after season 3, so much so that lila is almost completely sidelined until much later, shows that they didn’t know what to do with them *because chloe wasn’t supposed to be a villain*.

4) zoe & vesperia

Here’s the thing: If Chloe was meant to be irredeemable from the start, there should have been a clear plan for the bee miraculous. I can think of two ways it could’ve gone: either develop another bee holder from season 2 onwards, or have chloe steal the bee. Because what we got instead was Chloe’s half sister who was introduced in season FOUR. Not only was she introduced to the show, she was introduced to marinette. And she received her miraculous in the very next episode. There was no development, and it reflects very poorly on marinette that she chose to give a miraculous to a girl she had just met(and a girl related to Chloe at that, even if Zoe was nice, it’s very irresponsible). Had Zoe been introduced in season 2, or even the beginning of 3, it would’ve made way more sense for her to be given a miraculous by season 4. But that’s not what happened. Instead we get a character that’s shoehorned into a role because it needs filled.

5) RESISTING AN AKUMA

Chloe was the first person to resist an akuma. enough said. Because why would you give that accomplishment to a character that you planned to stay an antagonist from the start????

And listen, i’m not the first person to say these things. And it’s not the first time i’ve said it. and i’ll say it again and again because it’s frustrating. Because not only did we get this potential, but we’re being told to our faces that it was never there. That we’re crazy for thinking she could change. I don’t know what was going on in the writers room, but honestly even if they DID plan to keep her an antagonist from the start, maybe they should start lying and say they changed their minds. because all of the clues point to her being redeemed. It leaves the writers looking incompetent, utterly incompetent.