#“chat noir just wanted to serve”

[chocostrwberry]

Sentimaggedon!!

Sentimonster designs I came up with bc I was thinking about Argos’s debut in my AU! Bc I’m dumb and I haven’t thought too deep about him as a character to the story yet-

They were originally suppose to all be based on the seven deadly sins, especially Gasumptious (gluttony) and Elvy (envy). But I also wanted to branch into maybe Felix’s other hidden emotions, like his deep love for Kagami and his fear of being replaced by Adrien (Bride and Athazagora).

Argos becomes an official enemy when Dragonbug tells him they need to be destroyed. He defends them, saying they’re just “infants” and can learn how to behave properly with time. But a frustrated and exhausted Dragonbug she tells him they aren’t like humans and are created for one purpose: to serve and destroy. This hits home with Argos, and he develops a fear and hatred for Ladybug and swears his loyalty to Madame Morphisa afterwards in order to take her down and prove just how monstrous he can be.

I’m still kinda trying to find a way to make this concept work in my au. He promised to serve her in exchange for the peacock miraculous, and she wants him to use it to take Ladybug’s miraculous. In a novice attempt, he might have just starting creating multiple sentimonsters that he thought were harmless enough (something she did NOT expect), but they quickly spiraled out of control. It’s much easier to make sentimonsters based on others emotions, because you can predict which one you will create it off of. But instead, he chose his own, which makes it more difficult to tell how the sentimonster will act. I think it would show the aspect that these creatures do have a mind of their own, compared to previous Mayura sentimonsters who were easily controlled by their akumas!!

Red Moon

Red Moon is obviously already canon, but her power is instead hypnosis. If you get caught in her light, you stop whatever you are doing to stare at her. The streets of Paris become like a statue exhibit: countless of unlucky citizens are bathing in her glow, staring at the beauty of the red moon.

Gasumptious

As he devours, Gasumptious grows bigger and bigger. He’ll eat anything, so beware! After finishing most of the city, Gasumptious sits atop the Eiffel Tower and gnaws on its metal posts.

Elvy

Elvy lives in the sewers. She can control water and uses it to drain you of happy memories, which she keeps in floating green orbs and guards for herself.

It’s so silly to me how the manifestation of Felix’s jealousy of Adrien is fought and defeated by Chat Noir, who is Adrien ehehehheeh.

She also sounds like a Pokémon!! Probably like a Lapras, or the one that trills really pretty

Athazagora

A timid creature, Athazagora took over the catacombs, and hides in the shadows. You can hear the creaking and rattling of its wooden limbs in the dark as it stalk you. If you can’t escape, it envelops you in its cloak of darkness, never to be seen again.

Bride

The supposed advisor of Argos. She never leaves his side, and is always whispering something in his ear. To protect Argos, she showcases her ability to turn her arm into a long spear/sword, incredible strength and mobility, and that her body is made of an indestructible crystal.

Plus, he can make multiple sentimonsters bc he’s a sentihuman himself (Other people can’t. You can only make one, kind of like how the Butterfly miraculous can only Akumatize one person at a time, unless they share an object. Current excuse I’m going with that makes semi-sense HEHEHE) . So Lila totally wants to use that to her own advantage!

Ofc he fails, but she’s impressed with his resolve (and the lengths he was willing to go, albeit unintentionally), especially after sharing her goal of destroying Ladybug. Lila was feeling the effects of unification and now has a willing minion to do her bidding whenever she pleases.

If I decide to go with this plot, Lila has to end up forgetting Felix because of the curse. But she doesn’t care: all she really needs is Argos. I might need to retcon her revenge against Felix because of this but idm! It wasn’t very important to the plot anyways!

I was considering having Dragonbug in this episode, since she could use Perfection to snipe Red Moon out of the sky! The lucky charm would be like a wand that creates a sticky translucent web to keep the sentimonsters secure so they can go find their amoks.

And a sentimonster I never ended up including, Ava. I just didn’t have a reason to put her in there but I liked the yin and yang style of her design!!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Why did Felix hide from LB and CN in S5?

My dear anon, I wish I could provide you with an explanation full of such profound wisdom and clarity that you would speak my name with reverence for years to come. Alas, I cannot because, when viewed as a complete whole, Felix's season five actions make absolutely no sense from any perspective other than, "Well, if he acted logically, then the season would be over in about five episode or, at the very least, Adrien would have learned the truth which would lead to an identity reveal and we can't have that!"

To explain, let's quickly go over the various assumptions one might have made as season five went on and why they all fall flat by the end of the season:

At the start of the season, Felix's hiding away made some sense if you assumed that he was hiding from his uncle. This was a logical assumption since Gabriel should have viewed Felix as a massive threat that must be eliminated. After all, Felix was clearly no fan of Gabriel's and Felix also knew everything one would need to know in order to bring about Gabriel's downfall. None of that actually panned out - Gabriel basically ignored the Felix issue for the entire season in favor of being the world's most obnoxious Adrigami shipper and Felix, well, we're about to get into that- but it was initially a valid assumption.

Continuing along the logical path from our ultimately erroneous fear-of-Gabriel assumption, one might think that a person who was terrified of Gabriel would go straight to Gabriel's enemies for protection. However there was an argument to be made that Felix feared Ladybug and Chat Noir's wrath just as much as he feared his uncle. This was also a fair assumption. Felix had just betrayed them plus, in those early episode, most of us assumed that Felix was going to refuse to make sentimonsters of his own, so he'd have no protection if Ladybug and Chat Noir immediately went on the attack. These assumptions all proved false in the end, but they were all reasonable when the season started.

Another initially valid assumption was the assumption that Felix's ego mania and self-serving world view meant that he only trusted himself to take down Gabriel. After all, past seasons had shown Felix to be clever, resourceful, and deeply devoted to his mother, so it made sense that he'd be working on some brilliant plan to bring his uncle's downfall and restore his aunt if only for love of his mother. You could even add an assumption he even wanted to keep everything quiet for sake of the family image or just a simple desire for personal privacy.

These assumptions and all of the others stopped holding water after Emotion. In that episode, Felix was shown to be fine making sentimonster, fine outing his own secret identity to the world, and fine confronting his uncle directly without a real plan for stopping him long term. The closest thing to a grand plan that we get in Emotion is Felix demanding Ladybug give him her miraculous:

Argos: Ladybug! Good. Now we just need to wait for Cat Noir and you'll both give me your Miraculous! Ladybug: (livid) So that's it then?! You're working for Monarch! You're the reason why I lost the other Miraculous in the first place! And why he took them!! You gave them to him without any regard for the consequences it might have with the people of Paris! Argos: True, except I work for no one.  I only helped Monarch cause it served my plans! I needed the Peacock Miraculous and today I need yours and Cat Noir's so I can make my wish!

But if this was his master plan, then why did he do the Red Moon thing? That took Gabriel by surprise, but it didn't knowingly do the same for Ladybug or Chat Noir. Without knowing their identities, there's no way for Felix to reliably find them during the Red Moon incident since he's snapping everyone he sees out of existence, making it somewhat likely that he'd accidentally snap the very people that he's looking for. You can't even go the snap-everyone-and-look-through-what-remains-to-find-the-miraculous route because he snaps the person and all of their accessories, too. Otherwise he could have snapped Gabriel and gotten all the miraculouses back in one go, then grabbed the Ladybug miraculous as a fun little bonus.

In other words, everything about the Red Moon plan was focused around making a big, flashy entrance for Agros and little else. It's not even focused on stopping Gabriel since Felix doesn't seem to have planned to snap everyone away long term or at least I think that's what's going on here?

Kagami: Happy? When there's no one left?? Adrien: How can I be happy without my friends, without my father, without the girl I love?! Argos: You really think I'm that evil? (goes to open the trash bin where he hid Marinette...) Ta-da! (...only to find it empty; Adrien and Kagami peek inside, too) Huh? That's weird. (snaps his fingers in hopes of bringing back Marinette) Huh?! I don't understand! (backs away from the trash bin) She should come back! (continues to snap his fingers) Something's wrong! I can usually bring back whoever I want, but it's like she's nowhere! Like she's completely gone! (apologetically) I'm sorry, Adrien! Kagami: Sorry? You're sorry?!?! Adrien: You're not even in control of your own power! Don't you realize what you've done? Bring everyone back! NOW!!! Argos: Okay, okay, alright. I never meant to hurt you two...

Well that was anticlimactic....

Note how Felix doesn't take this opportunity to explain the danger his fellow sentimonsters are in before bringing back the people holding their remote controls? And what about his mother? Did he snap away his mother, too? And did he initially plan to perma snap everyone or not? If not, then what was the goal here?

This episode is confusing and could even be argued as a single, giant plot hole because it reads like a mental breakdown episode, but it's also a meticulously planned attack that was hinted at all the way back in Multiplication. So which was it? What was the master plan here? What's going on? Did the writers seriously do all that Felix stuff back in season four without fully thinking through how to make that work in season five?

After the mess that is Emotion, Felix basically gives up on whatever he was supposedly doing in Emotion. There's no master plan to stop Gabriel or make the world-changing wish or anything interesting. Instead, Felix is just there to be Kagami's Adrien replacement. Much like Adrien, Felix has no motive beyond "date the pretty girl and do whatever she asks of me." I guess it's a family trait.

One would think that this would lead to Felix making some interesting new plan to stop Tomoe or even joining forces with Ladybug and Chat Noir since he knows that Tomoe is in on whatever Gabriel is doing (Kagami wouldn't exist otherwise), but that's not what happens. We don't even get Felix going full senti's only because Adrien is left in the dark, a fact that doesn't seem to bother Felix or Kagami. They're too busy being in love to actually do anything to back the nonsense claim that they care about Adrien, but it's hard to blame them when it is so glaringly not their fault.

Letting these two have the sort of active role that would make sense for their characters would ruin the story the writers are trying to tell. We'd probably never get that whole "girl power" Bug Noire thing the show wanted to end the season with because Gabriel would have been stopped way sooner. It would also mean that Adrien knows things and the show can't allow that to happen even if it makes everyone involved look like massive tools. Let this be a reminder to you that you have to let your characters shape the path your story takes. If a character knowing X ruins plot Y, then you can't have both.

In summary, Felix's actions initially made some sense depending on your point of view, but as soon as he became a real part of season five, his character stopped making any sense. The reason for this seems obvious to me: you cannot write Felix logically while also actively including him in the show, keeping Adrien in the dark, keeping Gabriel a threat, and keeping Felix from flat out winning because the peacock is so ridiculously over powered. They wrote themselves into a corner and dumbed Felix down to get around the fact the same way Alya got dumbed down to make the Lila stuff work and Nathalie got dumbed down to make Gabriel's plot work. These writers aren't consistent at writing things like lore or characters, but they are incredibly consistent at the type of bad writing they have to fall back on. Expect to see more of these issues in the future.

[zoe-oneesama]

Not to say either of them is right here, but what's wrong with the ice cream guy? I haven't kept up with the show proper in several seasons, so I'm probably very out of touch.

He is The Villain of ML in my heart.

His magic ice cream is wildly inconsistent. It's Soulmate Ice Cream! Except when it's Just Friend Ice Cream! Well, until he ONLY gives ice cream to lovers, NOT good friends who have fun together! But sometimes he gives ice cream to couples that DO break up! What are the rules? WHO CARES, CERTAINLY NOT ANDRE! I can't even put stock in his ability ACTUALLY being magic when it's constantly contradicting itself. I'm pretty sure he's just convinced himself that he has magic when he doesn't and his ego is easily bruised if anything pulls him out of his fantasy.

Plus he inexplicably always blames Marinette every time he's akumatized, no matter how far he has to stretch to do so. Once when she didn't even interact with him directly!

The first time because she went home without eating his "Soulmate Ice Cream(tm)" by herself as a 5th wheel. Because, what, her leaving meant his ice cream "failed"? Wasn't the point that two people are supposed to share the ice cream for the magic to work? But because she was like "no thanks", he swears revenge on her???

The second time because he was so invested in shipping two strangers that he got mad at Marinette for...being seen in public with one leg of the ship? After Ladybug had made it perfectly clear that she and Chat Noir were NOT a couple and so Chat Noir has the right to have fun with whoever he wants to???? Because "my ice cream is never wrong"?!?!

It didn't seem to work out for Lukanette or Adrigami so I don't know where you get the gall to even continue to make that bullshit claim, but OKAY.

And the third time, HE had the audacity to blame HER for making him "lose faith in ice cream and love" when he REFUSED TO SERVE HER! He flat out denied her and Chat Noir ice cream because he doesn't make "good friend" ice cream despite them BEING ON A DATE, and then has the GLUTEN FREE AUDACITY to be mad when tHEY are UPSET by it!

Oh but that wasn't a problem in "Wishmaker" when it was Marinette sharing with Luka, but sure, make up new things just so you can get mad about it, that makes sense.

I also have a personal vendetta against him for being the one to out Marinette's feelings for Adrien to Adrien. After 4 seasons of build up, this is how Adrien finds out? Horrible, vile, detention, exile, I hate him. I mean I've been done with him since "Heart Hunter"/"Miracle Queen", but they just loooooove to PILE IT ON.

Like, wouldn't it make more sense for Andre to have been the one person to see through the Love Square? Even if he didn't fully understand it, since Ladybug = Marinette and Chat Noir = Adrien, wouldn't it just make sense for Magic Ice Cream to be able to see past that because They're Soulmates(tm)? But he's only invested in ONE of the pairings, not even like two of the pairings that are seemingly unrelated. He is NEVER as passionate about Adrienette as he is about LadyNoir...but why???? Why is he so blase about Marinette going with Luka or Adrien being with whoever when he can't even handle Chat Noir LAUGHING with a girl who Isn't Ladybug?

They never even have fun and explore what he'd do if he caught a Ladrien date, would he be angry at Adrien like he is with Marinette, or does he just have it out for her specifically?

At this point I'm just convinced he's only so invested in the LadyNoir pairing because he's publicly endorsed them so much and if they don't end up together he'll be outed for being a Hack Fraud. His fixation on two teenagers becoming a couple as a grown adult and falling to pieces just because Marinette has other ways to have fun instead of eating Ice Cream she doesn't even get to choose the flavor of...

Yeah, throw him in jail Chloe.

[starsfic]

Hollow Wedding

The wedding could've come from a magazine spread, it was so perfect.

Notre Dame was decorated in white, the only pops of color being red here and there and the stained glass window cast shimmering pops of color on the couple. On either side of them were the groomsmen and bridesmaids, three each, all dressed in matching outfits. It was a wedding straight out of a movie.

It was beautiful. Perfect.

Hollow.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng could practically feel the hollowness in the air. Despite what Alya claimed, that she still had deep feelings for Adrien, it wasn't that made her feel hollow. It was just too perfect. The way Adrien held his bride's hand, how he placed the ring on her finger, how they kissed. Each motion was perfectly rehearsed and bare of any real emotion.

The only thing that made it imperfect was that Alya kept glancing at her. Ever since Adrien had announced his engagement, she had pushed Marinette to do something about it. She still didn't seem to understand that Marinette no longer wanted Adrien. Since her break up with Luka, of course she would want to rebound with the guy who made her feel shame for her own emotions.

Of course.

Marinette didn't do anything and Alya finally settled with a sigh. She was almost like Chat Noir, who announced he was engaged out of the blue and kept glancing at her ever since the news, probably hoping she would react more than her congratulations.

She hoped his wedding was more real than this.

The reception carried the hollowness as well. It was all perfectly decorated and such as well, but there was nothing that could hide that feeling. And, as she sat down with Alya and Nino, she could see other guests look around, weirdly unsettled.

"Ugh, that was the creepiest ceremony I've ever sat through," Nino said in a whisper. "Like, I thought the bride was about to drop dead."

Marinette nodded. "I noticed it too." She glanced at the stage before Alya could comment any more on "her true feelings". "Aren't you gonna give a speech?"

Nino shook his head. "Nah, dudette. Gabriel made Adrien make his cousin his best man, so he's giving the speech."

"I didn't even know he had a cousin," Alya said as the cousin in question, Felix or something, started talking. "Who was the other guy?"

"I don't know, some model Adrien knows? From what I heard, the bride doesn't even know the bridesmaids, they're all related to Adrien or Emilie somehow."

"Huh? Seriously?"

Alya's eyes went wide. "Oh boy," she said. "Suddenly, I'm glad you never confessed your feelings, Mari."

"I'm glad you finally realized," she couldn't help but snark. Honestly, she would have rather died than have a wedding like this. She would've wanted to be married at the little temple her parents did, blending Chinese and French customs together and even having her parents make her wedding cake. With how Gabriel and Emilie this all felt, she wouldn't be surprised if Adrien's wedding had always been planned to be a wedding do-over. She pushed that thought aside to focus on the issue. "But, the bride didn't know any of them?"

Nino nodded. "Yeah. I asked if...uh..." He paused, trying to think. "I can't remember her name- Akane? I think that's her name, I asked if something had happened so they had to step in, but Adrien kinda just said that she didn't have any friends."

"She could've," Alya snarked, "If she actually bothered to show up to the hang-outs like you invited her to."

The wedding reception, thankfully, grew more lively after dinner was served after that comment. Marinette couldn't help but dance with Alya as Nino DJed, his music providing a spark of life to the hollowness of everything.

Soon, however, she had to pull away. "Getting some air!" she called so Alya could hear, receiving a nod. Marinette walked away from the huddle, stepping out of the reception entirely. The reception had been held in Chloe's hotel with doors leading to the roof.

And, up on the roof, was the bride.

Marinette, the moment she saw the white gown, was tempted to just turn and head back inside. But something in her paused, made her just look at the woman who married her lycee crush.

She was startlingly pretty, with short dark hair and eyes, even with the frostiness that always seemed to follow her, that had a hint of sweetness. The dress looked lovely, but it seemed washed out against her. If Marinette had designed the wedding dress, she would've chosen a more bold color, like red.

And then she realized that the bride was staring at her.

"Uh, hi, sorry-" Marinette said, stepping back. "I didn't know anyone was up here, I can just-"

"It's fine." Short and to the point.

Marinette nodded, walking up to stand next to the bride. They stood in silence together, just watching the city. No akumas had come today, despite her fears of Adrien's fan club reacting badly to him getting married. (Chloe's akuma in reaction to the news was enough.) It was another perfect moment for the movie that was this wedding.

"Akane, right?"

"Kagami, actually." The moment the correction hit her ears, Marinette wanted to shrivel up. Fuck, hadn't that been the name on the invite? She was so dumb! "Although that might as well be my name for how much Adrien cares about me."

"Huh?"

"It's Marinette, correct?" Kagami said, no explanation for her statement.

"Uh, yeah." Marinette cleared her throat. "I'm glad I could finally meet you. We tried to schedule stuff, but-"

"But you guys had to cancel. I understand."

Huh. Wait. What? "What, no? Adrien and you cancelled. He kept texting Nino that his dad suddenly changed his mind or you guys had a really important event."

"No. We would leave to meet with you and then he would get a text saying that stuff had to be cancelled so I always went home." She expected anger or maybe relief. Instead, Kagami's face seemed to crumple. "I bet he was with her," she said. A tear rolled down her cheek and she reached up, looking startled.

With the whiplash of Adrien supposedly lying to Kagami and maybe, possibly, lying to Nino and them, Marinette could only ask "Who?"

"The girl he's in love with," Kagami admitted, voice thick with tears. More tears rolled down her cheeks and it was heartbreaking. "You know, I should've taken it as a hint that, right after our first date, he admitted he wasn't over this girl. I pushed past it, I thought I could-" A sob welled up and Kagami let it out. Marinette couldn't help it. She wrapped her arms around her, hoping she could provide some comfort. The other woman froze, just for a second, before arms wrapped stiffly around her. "I thought I could change his mind. I thought we were so perfect together."

"Perfection isn't a thing," Marinette admitted. "No matter how hard Gabriel tries to think it is."

"I should've left him after we got engaged and he admitted that I was just a placeholder for this other girl," Kagami said, sending a hot wave of rage through Marinette. "I saw him while we were preparing. He kept checking his phone..."

I'll check my messages if you have any last-minute objections, my lady.

Marinette shook her head. No. Adrien wasn't like that. Except, as it turned out, he was. She pushed away those thoughts to focus on Kagami. A ridiculous thought came up, except in the face of all this, it probably wasn't that ridiculous. "...it's not too late to walk away." Sure, it would probably hurt Adrien to have his wife annul their marriage the day of their wedding, but what about Kagami?

"It is," Kagami sounded so calm about this, even with the tears rolling down her face. "Tsurugis don't back down from anything."

"Tsurugis should also be respected and be in relationships that respect them." It was snarky but true.

There was a moment of silence. Marinette almost pulled away from how still Kagami suddenly seemed.

Then the other woman pulled away, a cold glint freezing her face over, even as her eyes were puffy and pink. Marinette almost apologized when she spoke. "I'll meet you downstairs in ten minutes," she said.

"...Okay."

Kagami smiled and nodded before walking through the door. Marinette, left on the roof, blinked and then pulled out her phone. In an old group chat, she left one message.

PinkFlower: Get the car ready the marriage's getting annulled.

By the time she arrived at the parking lot, Alya and Nino, plus Juleka, Rose, Alix, Mylene and Ivan, were waiting at Nino's van. "What the heck did you do, girl?!" she said. "Adrien's already married one day and you become a homewrecker?"

"Not on that side," Marinette corrected. She turned her head at what sounded like a furious shriek and the music from the back-up DJ screeching to a stop. In the next minute, the doors opened, revealing Kagami.

Marinette's guess was right. She did look good in red, especially in the jumpsuit she had changed into.

"What did you do?" Marinette asked, just a little frightened and a lot swooning. Alya gaped, glancing from her to Kagami. Alix and Juleka, based on the noises, were stifling laughter.

"I did what I should've done a long time ago," Kagami said, holding out her arm. Marinette, still a little bit flustered, took it. "I told my mother about Adrien and his other lady. She's contacting our family lawyer now."

Damn. If her mother was anything like Gabriel...

"I also looked up some restaurants nearby. There's one with very good orange juice, if you would like?" She leaned in close, as if worried that someone would overhear and take offense. "The catering was not my choice."

...the food hadn't been great.

"Yeah," Marinette said as Nino opened the door to his van. "Yeah, I would like that."

Kagami's smile was beautiful, perfect, and full of life.

[matt0044]

The Miraculous Fandom really seems to lack imagination.

I found a video essay calling Lila aimless as a villain but like… maybe they’re going to reveal what her game in Season 6 will be.

Maybe she wants the world kissing her foot?

Maybe she wants to stop living lies and have the perfect life.

Maybe she wants all her lies to be true and have an extraordinary life?

Dunno but it’s fun to speculate.

And I refer to CinemaSins because a common facet of their “critiques” are just questioning things that either are on a need to know basis exposition wise orrrrrr didn’t need much explanation aside from, say, magic exists.

There’s also an unwillingness to look at something for what it is and analyze it appropriately but rather lambast it for something it isn’t.

So many are hung up on being blue balled by a Chloe’s would’ve been redemption arc yet and deeper look into her doubling down on being nasty as well as how she’s an example of some people choosing not to be helped or sabotaging her efforts to turn herself around.

How she demonstrates the banality of evil and, while not super riveting, is a story that feeds into the themes of the masks we wear and what persona we put on.

Adrien wasn’t there to see Gabriel off but how might that serve the story in Season 6 since Lila knows how his father truly died yet so many act like the show’s over. Frankly, they were very economical with this story and made a good call to not overload the Season 5 finale's storyline with something so loaded like Adrien learning true origins.

Imagine how Season 6 and 7 may contend with this, especially when Lila likely knows. She couldn't have asked for a better weapon against Ladybug. And Marinette will have the truth weighing on her mind in lying not just to Chat Noir but also Adrien.

So many claim that the story and plot never process but Season 4 and five have virtually no filler with at least ONE episode having something going on that affects the wider tapestry of the slowburn story.

For god’s sake, guys, can we balance what we what with what the show chooses for itself? People are still uppity about Migration despite Luka coming back under Su-Han’s tutalege. Him knowing how to ward off Akumas sure will come in handy.

[familyagrestefanblog]

All that aside for a moment, I want to list all the things I am GLAD the special did not just put on Maribug:

- Marinette asked and heard it from Tikki and Plagg what Gabriel's wish was. She didn't just made an assumption that his wish was something this small in comparison to the full potential of Gimmi's power. Whatever revelations may come out of this that they didnt say the entire truth is NOT on Marinette, this comes back to the Kwamis.

- When Nathalie said "Adrien won't be alone, he has YOU" to Marinette after she said that Nathalie can't go to jail or else Adrien will be alone, I was so FUCKING glad that Marinette pushed back on that by saying "He needs YOU. Me being his girlfriend is not the same, he needs a mother (parent)" (paraphrased of course)

Cause, yes, 100% correct. Fuck this thinking that Adrien being an orphan isn't so bad because he has a girlfriend. That doesn't fucking matter. Thank you Marinette for saying that.

- Plagg not immediately telling Adrichat about things is not caused by Maribug in a major way. I truly feared they would have her use her guardian potion to tell Plagg to not tell Chat Noir anything because she wants to be the one to do it, followed up by her never saying anything cause she's uncomfortable.

I'm glad this didn't happen.

- Marinette at least brings up towards Kagami that her mother should be brought to justice. Since Marinette gives Gabriel and Nathalie a pass for their crimes because of her love for Adrien the justice side gets sidelined hard. Especially because the reason why Tomoe isn't brought to justice yet is because it could lead to her outing Gabriel and Marinette doesn't want that. Kagami is right that Marinette is blinded by love, but I'm glad that Marinette got to at least voice in one case that justice SHOULD be served and she'd normally done it.

- Marinette not thinking about immediately getting the Butterfly is a blunder on her AND Nathalie's part. I imagine that Nathalie assumed that Marinette already pocketed the Butterfly at that point, but Nathalie in her position as Gabriel's right hand and partner should have abso-fucking-lutely asked where the Butterfly is. This was a failure on oversight on Nathalie's part too, if not more do because she was in a better emotional state than the crying Marinette in that moment.

_

To be continued later, I've got an appointment

[theerurishipper]

Coming back to one of the points I've made earlier but never really elaborated upon, what does it do for Adrien's arc to have everyone lie to him?

Adrien's arc is about finding his self-worth and his independence and learning how to be loved unconditionally. Gabriel is controlling and abusive and only gives Adrien a second's worth of attention if Adrien caters to his every whim. And so, you'd think that part of Adrien's arc is learning that people will love him for who he is without him having to bend to their desires, and that he has the right to make decisions for himself. But this new development as of the Season 5 finale is that, no, Adrien's loved ones actually don't want him to make his own choices. In fact, they would rather support and emulate his abusive father's controlling actions and deny Adrien his agency and his ability to make informed choices about his own life. They would rather dictate how he should feel and would rather decide what's best for him rather than giving him the choice to do so himself. This comes with its large set of very much unfortunate implications.

Under the cut because this is long.

This is a problem that started with Season 4, with the introduction of Ladybug's Gabriel-esque behavior towards Chat Noir, and the subsequent lack of proper resolution. In fact, the resolution was that Chat Noir was asking too much of Ladybug, and that what needed to be done to resolve this conflict of Ladybug keeping important secrets from Chat Noir and replacing him with other holders... was for Chat Noir to suck it up and continue supporting Ladybug. It was for him to put aside his legitimate concerns with her actions and to accept that he would never be treated the way he wants to be. It was for him to push down his own feelings and come to stay by her side even though she had not treated him well, and even though she never actually fixed her mistakes.

What is the importance of his relationship with Ladybug? For the first 3 seasons, at least, it was the escape from his abusive home life that Adrien needed, to someone who would accept him unconditionally. But Season 4 introduced the infamous Ladynoir conflict that permanently altered their dynamic. I've talked about how the Season 4 finale only served to reinforce the inequality between them. It begins with Ladybug keeping secrets from Chat Noir and pulling away from him, and it ends by him simply forgiving her because he is used to downplaying his own needs. And I don't feel the desire to rehash all that, but it does beg the question: What is the takeaway from the Ladynoir conflict? Is it that he should bend himself over to be what she needs, but she doesn't need to return the same support? Is it that Ladybug is the Flawless Leader™, and he should learn his place? Because that's the impression it gives.

Now, I've talked before about how Gabriel's abuse has caused Adrien to believe love is conditional and has to be earned by him pleasing the other person and doing whatever they expect of him. And the importance of his Chat Noir persona being more expressive and "imperfect" is that this is the only time he can let loose and have fun, free of the expectations of others. And Season 4 has him return to his trauma responses around Ladybug, the person who is narratively supposed to be the one person who accepts his imperfections and doesn't place any expectations on him. Now, Chat Noir being traumatized is not Ladybug's fault, of course, and if he is fawning over her, certainly it is not her fault. But the narrative frames this as beneficial to her. Ladybug likes when Chat Noir fawns over her as Catwalker. Over and over in the story, she takes advantage of his forgiveness and trust, and never examines herself or her actions, and never tries to fix her mistakes because he always ends up forgiving her due to his belief that his feelings don't matter. Ladybug meets Catwalker, which is literally just Adrien fawning and trying to be whatever he needs to be to please her, and she instantly falls for him.

And in a narrative sense... this is detrimental to the concept of the Love Square, because it reinforces the narrative that Ladybug will never fall in love with Chat Noir, because what she wants is the perfect image, the flawless partner. The rose-tinted glasses she sees Adrien with are not being removed, rather she is putting on a fresh, darker shade. And it doesn't say good things about their development that she falls for the perfect act almost immediately upon meeting him, the moment he swears that he'll take care of her. And I won't go into too much detail since I've covered it in my other posts, but the point is that Marinette only ever seems to fall for boys who don't inconvenience her with their emotions, and instead take care of her needs without expecting anything, and this makes it seem like she is benefitting from Adrien's trauma. And Marinette is never allowed to return the support she gets from Chat Noir in any meaningful way, and it is framed by the narrative as right and wonderful that Adrien is so nice as to put his feelings aside and support her over and over again despite her repeatedly making the same mistakes and hurting him. His trauma response is framed as a good thing because it benefits Marinette.

Season 4 was about Marinette deliberately keeping secrets from her partner, dictating his actions and outright lying to him and taking advantage of his trust at times. Decidedly Gabe-like behavior, even though it was way more toned down and way less malicious (I won't go too far with that comparison, but still). And Season 5 ends up adding more salt to the wound, by having Marinette straight out lie to Adrien about his father, dictating his perceptions and controlling his thoughts and feelings, just like Gabriel would have liked. And in fact, Gabriel asked her to do this to the son she knows he abused, and she sides with him. And it's not just Marinette. The list of people who have denied Adrien honesty just goes on and on. Gabriel, Emilie, Nathalie, Amelie, Felix, Kagami, Master Fu, Luka, Plagg, Tikki, Marinette, Alya, Su-Han... they are all, as those who knew truths about different situations, people who chose to lie to and hide information from Adrien that he was entitled to. And with the exception of Luka and Master Fu, all of these people are complicit in siding with Gabriel and denying Adrien the most important secret of all, the truth of his very existence.

Which raises the question: if Adrien's arc was supposedly about breaking free from a controlling life and finding those who didn't do that to him, then why is it that everyone around him appears to agree with Gabriel? Why does the person who, in the narrative, is supposed to be the opposite of Gabriel and the saving grace for Adrien, parallel him so much in both actions and backstory? Does that not cheapen Adrien's arc? What does that imply for him? That he can never escape the fate of being controlled? That being controlling over a person's agency is fine and dandy if done for the right reasons?

Let's take a look back over Adrien's arc. Adrien's first scene is him rebelling against Gabriel, and we see him come closer and closer to the realization that Gabriel is abusive and cruel. We see Adrien make friends like Nino and Ladybug. We see the trajectory that his arc is going in, one of him learning to reject his father and assert his self-worth and his own identity in the face of the man who has controlled him his whole life.

And yet, there are still some glaring problems that become more apparent as the story progresses, and they come to a head in Seasons 4 and 5. It's shown in scenes like in the episode Felix, where we see that despite everyone getting together to do something nice for Adrien, the moment he acts out of character, their first instinct is to admit that they don't know him very well at all. Almost all the interactions he has with his supposed best friend and his other friends are about setting him up with Marinette. Adrien only matters to them in his role as Marinette's future boyfriend. And this is not addressed by the narrative as something that should be fixed or resolved, or that it is even a problem in the first place.

Adrien's feelings are repeatedly denied in this show. From him having to simply forgive and forget how Ladybug hurt him, to him being repeatedly taken advantage of by Felix without the narrative letting him be upset over it, to his instant forgiveness of Gabriel, the narrative will not let Adrien feel anything negative towards the characters that the narrative actually cares about so as to not inconvenience them. His only purpose is to prop them up and bend to their needs, and anything he might realistically feel against them is invalidated and forgotten because it would go against his role of being their motivation/prop/plot device.

We also see a problem with narrative focus for him. Adrien is not the protagonist of the show, and my criticism is not that he does not get as much screentime as Marinette. The issue is that even the dedicated screentime he does get outside of being shipped with Marinette and being a part of the battle of the episode, the screentime that should be used to develop his character is often cut into by the writers' desperate need to shove Marinette into every single plot and have her be the focus of every episode. Episodes that should have focused on Adrien's loneliness like Puppeteer 2, or episodes dedicated to Adrien's friendships with others like Party Crasher, or even episodes like Gabriel Agreste which should have focused on the Agreste drama, are ultimately about Marinette trying to confess her feelings for Adrien. But this really shows itself in Chat Blanc, where the main plot of the episode is one where Gabriel's abuse of Adrien is ramped up to the max, and one where Adrien undergoes unimaginable and incomprehensible trauma, and the only thing that truly matters about it is... how it affects Marinette.

And as I said, Season 4 takes this to a new level. Ladybug, the one supposed to be Adrien's escape from his civilian life, is also someone who he fawns around. And that inherently is not a bad thing to depict, because it is not Ladybug's fault that Chat Noir is traumatized, and it is realistic that this happens. What is a problem though, is the way the narrative never paints this as a trauma response. Chat Noir pushing aside his feelings and supporting her as she repeatedly hurts him over and over is treated as good and nice of him, without her having to examine herself or realize she's treating him badly. And in the end, he accepts that he'll never be treated like he wants to and comes back to support her in her hour of need, and simply shoves his feelings away, never to complain about them again. I mentioned that Ladybug benefits from Chat Noir's civilian abuse, and this is how. Chat Noir is allowed to be traumatized, but only as long as it doesn't affect Marinette. Then, his trauma response is not only beneficial, but also the romantic and right thing to do. And, as Kuro Neko said, the answer to the issue of Ladybug keeping secrets and making mistakes is for Chat Noir to stop being so sensitive and just push his feelings away to support her. Chat Noir's trauma does not matter.

And Season 5 only doubles down on this. Adrien's rebellion against his father only matters now because the end goal is for him to date Marinette. The issue of him being a Sentimonster only matters because now it's getting in the way of him dating Marinette. But it could have been fine. Development is development, and the scene where Adrien finally confronts his abuser and asserts his right to be an individual and have autonomy over himself will still be an empowering moment that shows him breaking free of abuse-

He is not in the final battle.

Instead, Marinette is the one to face Adrien's abusive father, by merging Adrien's Miraculous with hers, by facing him off in Adrien's home. Marinette is the one who stands up to Gabriel and faces him. Marinette is the one who completes Adrien's arc for him. It was never about Adrien facing off against his father. It was all a set up for Marinette to do it.

As we all know, Thomas Astruc has gone on record on Twitter to say that Chat Blanc was the reason that Adrien could not participate in the final battle. Chat Blanc, which happened in Season 3, two seasons before Adrien rebelled to this extent against his father, before he underwent that little thing in writing called character development. In Season 4, we watched Ephemeral which more or less rehashed the same points as Chat Blanc, and in Season 5, we watched Representation, where Adrien's final interaction with his father was to be sprayed with nightmare gas and be unable to fight in the final battle (even though Bug Noire managed whilst also suffering from nightmares). We saw these ridiculous excuses be used to contrive a reason for why Adrien could not participate in his own arc, in his own story, even though they could have been easily resolved.

Throughout Season 5, we see the parallels being built up between Marinette and Gabriel, about how they both came from the same situations, and how alike they are in that regard. Previous parallels established between them that the show does not acknowledge as much as it should are their controlling streak (though Marinette is nowhere near as bad as Gabe) and them being willing to do anything for the people they love ("love" being questionable in Gabe's case). Marinette is the one who hears the truth of the Agreste family. In the Season 5 finale, Marinette and Gabriel are the ones that face off against each other. Adrienette was rushed up to come to full fruition in Season 5 despite it hampering the development of the Love Square, all in an attempt to connect Marinette to the Agreste plot. Therefore, Adrien was only ever a plot device so that Marinette could have a stake in the Agreste plot. He is there to connect Marinette and Gabriel and give them something to fight over. Their fight is about him and what is best for him, but he has no agency in it despite it being about him. He only exists as the prize for the winner.

I've talked about this before, but the jist of it is that Adrien was never meant to have an arc about breaking free of abuse. He was never meant to confront his father. Adrien's story only mattered so that Marinette could use it in her speech to talk Gabe down. Adrien's feelings only mattered as far as they affected Marinette herself. He was just meant to be there to further her development. His main contribution to the arc with his last name was to give up his agency and step aside for Marinette, and this is what his role has been throughout the show. All his character was meant to do was be the damsel in distress who she could receive as her trophy once she defeated the big bad villain.

Everything Adrien's character was meant to do was to be Ladybug's prop to offer he support when she needed it, to offer her a connection to the main plotline, and to be her prize after she won. His feelings, his emotions, his trauma... they all only mattered in the context of what they meant for Ladybug. If they inconvenienced her, they were unimportant. If they benefitted her, they were good. He took the blame for her mistakes so that she didn't have to be held accountable, he forgave her so that she didn't have to work to fix her mistakes, and he continued to support her when she didn't really return the favor. Because that is Adrien's role, to be Marinette's emotional support partner who conveniently comes pre-abused and ready to downplay his feelings and emotions to cater to hers while not asking or expecting anything of her. He only exists to take care of Marinette's needs, not as his own character.

And this writing of Adrien's trauma as secondary to Marinette's convenience is a really awful way to write an abuse victim. Not allowing him to prioritize his own feelings and portraying it as a good thing when he fawns over Ladybug is a really awful and bad way to portray his trauma stemming from his abuse. But good thing the fact that he is a victim of abuse is respected at least with regards to his relationship with his abuser, right?

Right?

It's been discussed before how Gabriel's actions are downplayed and minimized in order to afford him maximum sympathy, to portray him as just a misguided and lost soul, instead of as a terrorist and abuser (credit to @erisluna35 for their great post on the matter). The show denies Adrien an opportunity to confront the man, and instead, the good ending is that his victim forgives him. One way the show downplays Gabriel's abusiveness towards Adrien is by having Marinette want to work with him to find a solution for Adrien, implying that his only crime was to not think of Adrien's well-being, and that the only intentions he had for Adrien were correct, fatherly ones that he just lost sight of, and that if he had paid attention to Adrien, he would have been an excellent and loving father, instead of it being that he actively mistreated his son and therefore should not be trusted or allowed to make any sort of decision regarding Adrien's future. He was always "just a man who loves his family" deep down, and he always had only good intentions and a pure heart, and he simply forgot about what he had in pursuit of an ideal family for that son, instead of it being that he was an abusive, controlling person who whittled down his son's self-worth and treated him like a possession, like property, like a doll that was made to cater to his wishes, and that he only ever wanted his wife back for himself and not for his son.

And this just suggests to me that Gabriel's actions... are not meant to be read as abusive. His only crime was paying attention to the Miraculous over his son. Not the gaslighting, the manipulation, the lifelong isolation, the controlling, the physical violence in some realities, the fucking sensory deprivation chambers... those were all not abuse, I guess.

This is confirmed by the fact that Marinette and everyone else lying to Adrien about his existence because Gabriel asked them to do so is framed as a good thing and as proof of Marinette's love for Adrien or something. They are quite explicitly doing what he says, literally following his wishes on how to treat his son. And yet, their actions are not framed as toxic and controlling as they should be, but as selfless and kind towards poor Adrien who won't be able to handle the truth because he's too emotional and weak. Despite this being classic Gabe rhetoric, this is supposed to be seen as sweet and heartwarming and touching, that Marinette is oh so selfless to deny Adrien the information he is entitled to know and to make that choice for him. This tells us that the writers don't really see how Gabriel treated Adrien as... wrong. They don't see his actions are wrong, because when Marinette does it, it's fine! The issue, then, isn't that Gabriel is an abuser who denies his son his autonomy, it's that Gabriel did all these things for the wrong reasons, and Marinette is doing them for the right reasons.

Indeed, the parallelisms, whether intentional or not, between Marinette and Gabriel only serve to further downplay the magnitude of Gabriel's abuse of his son. The problem wasn't that these things are wrong and awful, it's that Gabriel did them because he was Evil and Marinette is doing them because she's Good, and when you're Good, it's okay to gaslight your boyfriend into loving his abuser. There's nothing inherently wrong or abusive about anything Gabriel did. The issue, in fact, is not that he did these things, but his reasonings for them. While it's okay if Marinette denies Adrien the right to be informed of his own life because she feels he is too emotional to be able to make his own choices, because she is Pure and Good and she Loves Him So Much.

And for another example, consider how Emilie Agreste is framed as a perfect and loving and wonderful mother, even though she allowed Adrien to be isolated his whole life and is also heavily implied to have been using the mind control rings on him, since there are two of them. This kinda shows that the writers don't really think mind controlling is abuse or even wrong. It's just wrong because Gabriel is Evil, but Emilie is Pure and Good and therefore allowed to abuse her child this way.

But I don't think the writers were malicious about this. Despite his questionable tweets, I don't think Thomas Astruc doesn't care about abuse. I don't think the writers were deliberately trying to infantilize the abuse victim in the story. I just feel like they don't understand that what they portrayed is abuse. And yet, it comes off as them invalidating the trauma Adrien suffered, but I don't think that would be intentional. The explanation I have for this, therefore, is that Adrien is not supposed to have trauma. Adrien is not supposed to be read as a victim of abuse.

I've mentioned the Marinette-Gabriel parallels, but let me add one more. Adrien is the plot device that furthers Marinette's character, but he also fulfills the same role for Gabriel.

Throughout Season 5, we see Adrien rebel against his father more and more, and it was expected that this would culminate in a final confrontation where Adrien would confront his abuser in his entirety. But Adrien was not a part of this final confrontation, so the arc wasn't about him, and it stands to reason that it must have been for some other character. We see that it is for Marinette, since she was the one who fulfilled what should have been his arc and got the moment that should have been Adrien's. But who was on the other side of this confrontation? Who was the one the speech was directed towards? Who did Adrien connect Marinette to?

It is Gabriel.

Adrien's callout of his father does not matter for furthering his character, but for furthering Gabriel's character. His calling out of Gabriel is less a way for him to finally realize that his father's treatment of him is cruel, and more of a way for Gabe to be seen a tragic, fallen villain. Adrien's callout of his father is not about him, it's about Gabriel and how he feels about it. The finale deals not with Adrien's feelings about being failed by his father, but how Gabriel feels about having failed him. Adrien's increasing rejection of his father is not used to finish the arc he should have had, but it is used in Gabriel's instead. And Gabriel's redemption comes from him being praised by his victim, who aspires to be like him. Adrien was only ever there to progress Gabriel's arc, not the other way around. Adrien had no real agency in the matter, and Gabriel's increasingly cruel treatment of him was only ever there to highlight how far he himself had fallen and was never really about Adrien realizing the truth about him.

And once Gabriel makes the choice to "change," he is rewarded with the forgiveness and love of his victim, who is there to conveniently express to the viewer how we should feel about him. Adrien is there to call out Gabriel when Gabriel is being Bad and Evil and is there to then inform the viewers that Gabriel is Good now by forgiving him and forgetting all his mistakes. Because Adrien forgave Gabriel and isn't Gabriel so wonderful now that he's made up for his mistakes and his victim has forgiven him and even looks up to him?

The main highlight of Gabriel's supposed redemption is the forgiveness of his victim, further highlighting the point that Adrien only existed as a character to push Gabriel's narrative, and not as a victim of abuse who is entitled to decide whether or not to forgive this man. Adrien did not forgive Gabriel because of a natural and believable development in his arc, he forgave him because he is ultimately a plot device to exposit about the current state of Gabriel's arc and to show the viewer what kind of a man Gabriel is, and Gabriel is good now, and so he must be validated through the forgiveness of his victim. Adrien is a prop in Gabriel's arc, who shows us the tragedy of Gabriel's fall and the future redemption of his "selfless sacrifice." His character that of "Gabriel's son," to take us through Gabriel's arc, and not a character of his own.

And since Adrien's ultimate end is to show that Gabriel is a good man after all, it also lends credence to the interpretation that, no, he is not traumatized after all. Nothing actually happened to Adrien himself, because he is only a plot device, not a character. He is there to let us know the tragedy of the man Gabriel. He is just there to let us know where Gabriel is in his arc. We see this in the way his development in just completely erased once Gabriel is "redeemed." His reactions don't make sense in the context of his arc, and it's OOC how he goes from calling out his father for who he is and then reverting back to worshipping him and forgetting all his flaws. But when you consider that the purpose of his character is less being his own character and more about highlighting and pushing forward Gabriel's arc, they make a lot more sense. His reactions don't make sense for the development that he has received throughout the season, but it makes sense if you consider that he is just a cog in Gabriel's story, and that his arc only matters as far as it affects Gabriel's arc. His struggles only matter as far as they affect Gabriel. Just like they only matter in the way they affect Marinette. Adrien doesn't get to learn anything, choose anything or even do anything if it is not about Marinette or Gabriel.

But to go back to the question at the beginning of the post, what purpose does it serve in Adrien's arc to have everyone he knows lie to him?

The answer is that Adrien does not have an arc.

Of course, it seems like he does. He does show some form of growth in calling out his father, so it would appear. But the arc of realizing his father is abusive, the arc of realizing that he deserves to make his own choices, that he deserves unconditional love... does not exist. He is only a plot device in the story, meant to be the motivation for the protagonist and the antagonist. Any arc or character complexity he has is largely accidental. His story about being a victim of abuse is unimportant and non-existent, and the show itself denies him agency and the ability to have any meaningful impact on the story outside of his role in the arcs of the main characters of the show. He has nothing of his own happening for him, he has nothing to do with his own life and family. All he matters for is to be the prop for Gabe's redemption and the prize for Marinette. His only role is to connect these two so that they can duke it out.

He has no autonomy, no agency, no nothing outside of being what Gabriel and Marinette need. We can scream until we're blue in the face about how Adrien feels the need to put on masks to please everyone and has been conditioned into believing his worth is based on pleasing others and that his emotions don't matter, and to be fair I will not stop making those analyses myself, but the fact remains that this is his narrative role. The narrative validates the abuser, both through the actions of the characters around Adrien and the framing of his arc. The characters around him don't treat him as a person as much as they treat him as Marinette's boyfriend, or as someone who doesn't get to make informed choices and should be kept in the dark because he is too emotional. The narrative treats him as a doll who must bend to the needs of the real characters with arcs and a story in the show, as a character who does not have agency and any value of his own beyond being what other characters need. His supposed development is only there to highlight Gabriel's fall. His own feelings and trauma are invalidated in favor of focusing on Marinette. Nothing he does is about him, it's about the main two characters in the show.

The show goes out of its way to remove him from the conflict. There are two episodes devoted to how he cannot ever find out about his father. He gets sprayed with nightmare gas. Fuck, even the only importance of him being a Sentimonster is to make sure that Adrien cannot find a way to break free of Gabriel's control and actually contribute to the plot. The Sentimonster plotline is mainly meant to make sure that there is no way that Adrien would be able to break free of Gabriel's control, hence he cannot take part in the final battle. Its very existence in the story boils down to being a convenient excuse for Adrien to not be a part of the finale. The only importance of the rings is ultimately so that Marinette can have a moment to slide it on his finger while ambiguously either giving him an order or not (I wouldn't be surprised if it was since the show doesn't seem to think mind control is wrong) to show that she's Good and Not Like Gabriel. The Sentimonster thing is textually a plot device to make characters unable to do anything because they physically can't. And it only serves to reduce Adrien into even more of an object, because he's now literally an object. The deeper ramifications of Adrien being a Sentimonster are never explored. It literally only exists to deprive Adrien of more agency so that Marinette can get into the spotlight. The only thing that matters about it is that it is now in the way of Adrienette, once more only focusing on how Adrien's issues affect Marinette.

Adrien is literally reduced to being a part of the magic slave race, because he cannot under any circumstance be a part of the finale and be the one to confront his abuser. And to a smaller extent, this is also the case for Felix and Kagami, two people who have a closer connection to the plotline beyond "fighting the guy who won't let me date my boyfriend." They are also Sentimonsters, and therefore have no choice but to rely on Marinette to save them and cannot fight alone even though Felix had no problem with that in the last season. The Sentimonster plotline is just an excuse to remove anyone with closer ties to Gabriel than his son's girlfriend from the conflict. Either they are working with Gabriel, or they are part of the slave race and cannot fight him, leaving only Marinette to do that for them. But like, at least Felix and Kagami got to make an informed choice about it without being lied to by everyone.

And this denial of abuse and the invalidating of Adrien's trauma leads to some pretty crazy abuse apologism for Gabe. And yes, reducing the impact of Gabriel's abuse, trying to pass him off as "just a man who loves his family," and denying the abuse that Adrien suffered throughout the show is in fact, abuse apologism. And the creators' insistence that Adrien was not emotionally mature enough to fight his father, being that this was the point of Chat Blanc all along apparently, also falls into this same trap of implying that abuse victims are not capable of making sound decisions and having autonomy over their own life, and isn't it so nice that Adrien is now Marinette's doll instead of being Gabriel's. It's victim blaming garbage, and it is frankly really gross. But in the narrative tells us what Gabriel has been telling us from day one about Adrien, that he is too emotional, that he must be protected, that he cannot make his own choices and his autonomy is better left in the hands of others, that his only purpose is to be a doll and a prop for the people around him. He only matters as far as he is useful to them.

And if you want to see the most damning example of Adrien being irrelevant outside his role as the motivation for the two people who actually drive what should be his story, look no further than Chat Noir.

Chat Noir is the only thing that indisputably belongs to Adrien. Chat Noir is him asserting his agency, his freedom, his choices. Chat Noir is his. And Chat Noir is not part of the finale. Not even in terms of physical presence. Chat Noir is an absolute non-entity in the finale. I'm not talking about Adrien; I mean Chat Noir. Chat Noir, who spent nine months fighting Monarch by Ladybug's side. Chat Noir, the owner of the Black Cat Miraculous. Chat Noir in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, is missing in both body and mind from this final battle against his father. The one part of his life and the one part of the story where Adrien had any agency and autonomy of his own, was removed entirely from the finale. Chat Noir was reduced into nothing, to mean nothing. Because Ladybug only went there for Adrien and not to finish her and Chat Noir's fight.

Ladybug didn't fight Monarch in order to end their months-long crusade, she didn't acknowledge that Chat Noir was at least there with her in spirit, she didn't come to Monarch to put an end to the battle that they'd fought for so long with any intentions of at least wanting to carry his fight along with her to bring their enemy to an end, she wasn't there for both of them. She came there for Adrien. She came there to look for Adrien. And the symbol of Adrien's agency, Chat Noir's ring, was on her finger throughout her fight with his father over him. Chat Noir did not matter.

I'll say it again. Adrien had nothing. He was only a tool for Marinette and Gabriel. His role was to be passed on from Gabriel's clutches to Marinette's. And it paints a very bad picture that the one reduced to the role of the plot device is the abuse victim. And for anyone who doubts that Adrien is supposed to be Marinette's plot device, Thomas Astruc has helpfully made my point for me by tweeting that Adrien is Ken and Marinette is Barbie, and that we should just deal with it because it's not going to change. And I hope that this also makes it clear that we will not be dealing with the fact that Marinette is siding with her boyfriend's abuser and doing what he wants, because Marinette is always right, and Adrien doesn't get to have feelings that inconvenience her and only exists to prop her up.

The show makes it clear that he is just an object in the story from the way he's written as a damsel in distress who needs someone else to come save him, and this is taken even further by the fact that he is literally a puppet who can be mind controlled. It takes away Adrien's story of regaining autonomy and informs us that he was never supposed to have autonomy and never can, making it clear that he was never really supposed to have any arc of his own. He was never supposed to break out from his father. His end was to become Marinette's boyfriend and to worship Gabriel. Because that is how their arcs end, and their plot device must go along with it regardless of narrative implications or established characterization.

But that is Adrien's purpose in the show. For Marinette to beat the villain, and to receive his son as her prize for doing that. His abuse and trauma are secondary to Marinette's needs, and him being a victim of Gabriel's abuse is secondary to him being the vessel for Gabriel's redemption. He is only there to be a source of motivation for these two characters and to cater to their arcs. Marinette and Gabriel are the only ones who matter, who have agency in the story. Adrien is just a simple plot device to push their arcs, instead of having one himself. There is no arc for the abuse victim. He exists solely as an object, as property, as a damsel in distress, as a doll. There is no agency and autonomy for him in this story. And that is the unfortunate truth.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I vaguely recall you toying with an idea where an Akuma somehow summons alt universe versions of Chloe but most are heroes. I'd go a step further.

Its post getting all the Miraculous barring Ladybug & Cat Gabriel who uses a combo of their powers & a nebulous ritual tied to some cosmic confluence even where enough universe drift close enough together to do it.

This way he, Ladybug & Chat Noir all get to be on hand for the result.

Gabriel: behold, my army of living weapons! (Shots Chloe with a beam summoning more than a dozen other Chloe's) Ladybug: This is like something out of a nightmare. Chat: Milady, can we peace out for the day?

As you said most are heroes, but even the few that aren't won't actually help Gabriel cos I imagine like:

A Miracle Queen who is Chat Blanc levels of unhinged and just wants to wipe them all out but gets stung by a bee counterpart.

A Anti-Bug who has clearly been Akumatized too long but quickly gets diverted by Lady Luck into attacking Gabriel for his Miraculous. "He has all of them & is only one target, much easier right?"

& a Peacock who only works for Gabriel cos she & Adrien are stuck under him & is very eager to get to take down at least A version of him.

The rest?

The rest are all heroes.

Granted some like the Butterfly wielder are a touch unhinged (Based on your fics Butterfly!Chloe) but they all team up easily enough.

With Guardian Lady Luck, Guardian Neos and the Turtle Guardian Chloe serving as nominal commanders/counters to Hawk Moth's spell bookery. While the rest jump him and proceed to stomp his shit into the ground in most painful and humiliating fashion. Less a fight and more a well oiled violence machine grinding him into paste.

Aside, HC name for Mouse Chloe is Mademoiselle-Millions & they do choreographed gymnastics group attacks.

Honestly the idea of like 30 Chloés kicking the shit out of Gabe is so cathartic.

[wisteriasymphony]

The LuckyBug Miracle Team Sucks - TWEOS AU Analysis

(4 individuals who don't work for their miraculous, and 1 person that does)

Just to start off, yes, I am analyzing my own work. Nobody really has the same depth of information on this other than me, after all. I want to get more into these sorts of things, because I like to organize my thinking behind the choices I make in this fic, and maybe even draw people into my work as well!

Lucky Lucky Ladybug - Viperius - CARA.PACE - Renared - Chat Noir

These are the five main holders of the LuckyBug Team before CN quits at the start of TWEOS. We're going to be talking about why most of them suck at their job (but mostly why Lucky chose terrible miraculouses for her peers), starting from worst to best synergy.

Viperius - Snake of Intuition

The ideal holder of the Snake Miraculous is someone who is level-headed, wise, and capable.

Luka Marcel Couffaine is the exact opposite of all of these things.

In TWEOS, Luka Couffaine is as far removed from empathy as humanly possible, making him a terrible superhero in general, much less one with a power as important as interrupting the flow of time. Luka never goes out of his way to explore his abilities, rarely involves himself in battle unless forced to, and put more thought into giving his superhero form a sexy haircut than into being a good teammate. He is explicitly only a superhero for the money it brings in even though he is already the son of a world-famous rockstar. Luka is not intuitive or wise, he is shallow and self-serving.

More Suitable Miraculous: None of them. Maybe the Mouse so he can multiply and go fuck himself.

CARA.PACE - Turtle of Protection

The ideal holder of the Turtle Miraculous is someone who is stable, sacrificial, and steadfast.

Nicolas Ibrahim Lahiffe, unfortunately, falls short of the mark.

While not as outwardly shitty as Luka, Nino also lacks the right qualities in an effective superhero. Nino is the type of person who, as Quinton Reviews once perfectly put it, "would rather be chill than be right". Nino is laid-back and likes to show off with his Miraculous, enjoying how cool it makes him look while still helping out at the end of the day. ...But he's not exactly protective. If anyone even stood up to Lucky being physically abusive, it should've been him. But Nino does not protect the weak, because he is the kind of person to stand on the sidelines. Nino is not a source of stability, he's too much of a laid-back (and often cowardly) jokester to protect anyone.

More Suitable Miraculous: Monkey, Pig.

Renared - Fox of Illusion

The ideal holder of the Fox Miraculous is someone who is cunning, sly, and witty.

Aaliyah Thérèse Césaire is trying so hard to make it work, but is underserved by what she's been given.

If anyone in the team has the braincells, it's Alya. Alya can draft up plans with her Holo-Illusions like second nature, strategize on the fly, and takes to her ability to make diagrams out of thin air like a fish to water. ...But that's not what the Illusions are for, is it? As natural for her determined nature, she strives to bend her miraculous to her will anyways, rarely ever using her Illusions to actually distract and more to help her with her thankless job of the actual team leader. It makes sense that she would function this way, though! Alya is a proponent of the truth through and through, and is rather blunt often to the point of being brutally honest. Alya is not cunning, she is forthright and stubborn. If only she got a miraculous to reflect that.

More Suitable Miraculous: Ox, Rooster, Bee

Lucky Lucky Ladybug - Ladybug of Creation

The ideal holder of the Ladybug Miraculous is someone who is creative, compassionate, and clever.

Marinette Anne Louise Dupain-Cheng is this in all the wrong fucking ways.

It does take a creative person to formulate a plan to woo your celebrity crush with a perfect version of you. It takes someone who knows how to be compassionate to so effectively deny a shred of it to Chat Noir. It takes a clever person to make up a fake eulogy. And yet, at the same time, Lucky Lucky Ladybug is hindered by her hot-headed entitlement and her need to be the center of attention. She lets her team do the creative work, weaponizes her compassion as something to market herself with, and is somehow so caught up in her own world that she ignores evidence of Adrien being a relationship when it is staring her in the face. Marinette is best described as an embodiment of "creation" only in the sense that she will one day orchestrate her own undoing.

More Suitable Miraculous: Anything would be better than the Ladybug. That way she isn't brainwashing people anymore.

Chat Noir/Errant - Black Cat of Destruction

The ideal— Actually, let's break from convention for this one.

If anyone is fit to embody Destruction, it is Adrien fucking Agresté.

Once you get deep enough into TWEOS, Adrien is by far the most emotionally turbulent character out of any of them. It helps that the narration is so often colored by his input, but his range is exceptional and takes up a significant focus of the story. He is the mostly openly self-destructive and suicidal, romanticizing the idea of dying with his girlfriend, but is equally willing to destroy others in pursuit of his goals.

It's also worth taking into account that TWEOS is essentially a corruption arc. The whole point of the story is to witness his circumstances tear him apart, unearth his traumas, show a version of Adrien that becomes bitter and violent and vengeful. What power would suit a vengeful, violent person better than the power to destroy things?

Conclusion

In short, it's meant to be incredibly ironic that the only holder that truly embodies their miraculous is the one that quits. The entire ordeal is a stageplay put on by higher powers, of course it's more important to them that their puppets are obedient more than anything.

Of course, this isn't to say that synergy between a person and their miraculous is a good thing, either; That's what makes the eventual magic-induced insanity even worse, after all. This is what killed Emilie, what's ruining Marinette's relationships, and what is starting to happen to Adrien as well.

[wilygryphon]

Ugh. Okay. Derision is out on Gloob. I have been exposed to the leaks already and I have been completely disgusted by this episode and everything in it. I refuse to watch it, even when it comes out on Disney Channel in the States. But I will still offer to you my commentary.

Okay, the prank. I actually don't mind the story of the prank... on its own. I can absolutely see pre-series Chloé pulling it and Kim, as he was portrayed in Season 1, participating in it. But then it quickly falls apart.

It's pretty transparent that the episode only exists to further demonize Chloé, but it doesn't really send much of a message as it doesn't tell us anything new about how she acted; it only shows us more of what she did and what we already knew she did back then. "Back then" is important, as there is no point in showing this to us now, four seasons and seven years later, except to further push the narrative of Chloé being pure evil even now. (Which she isn't, but I digress.)

It's a blatant retcon meant to say that Chloé is the reason why Marinette has trouble talking to Adrien. Not general shyness or anxiety—it's all because she was traumatized by a mean prank that Chloé pulled. Marinette's biggest personal struggle is all Chloé's fault, as are her stalker tendencies (which were previously just supposed to be kid's-show-comedy exaggeration), because she is oh so evil.

It contradicts so much characterization, or otherwise makes characters come off as worse.

It also shows that Marinette was so afraid of Chloé’s cruelty that she would fake being sick to avoid going to school.  But even in Origins, before she got the confidence boost from being Ladybug, she was never afraid of Chloé, just exasperated and resigned.  When Chloé demanded that she change seats, Marinette argued before relenting.  When Chloé put gum on her seat (and she thought she had Adrien do it), Marinette snapped at both of them before simply covering the gum up with a tissue and putting up with it.  Oh, also, if she was oh so twaumatized by the prank, why did she agree to help Chloé do something similar to Kagami in “Animaestro”?  The whole thing is disingenuous to Mari, because she wouldn’t have let Chloé cow her like that or scare her away from going to school.

This prank is supposedly the reason why she has trouble talking to Adrien and telling him how she feels, because she is afraid that she could get hurt if she doesn’t know everything about him or any boy she likes.  Except she only has that problem with Adrien.  Not with Luka, and not with Chat Noir.  Heck, she only stammered around Luka for a second, when they first met. (Not to mention the fact that her issues with “maybe I don’t really know Adrien at all” is because Félix tricked her. (Yeesh, he hasn’t even come back yet and the writers might already have been trying to give him the Easily Forgiven treatment.))

Kim probably would have done that back then.  He was kind of a jerk in Season 1.  But still being of the mindset that “it’s just a prank, bro” four seasons into his nicer, more himbo-ish characterization, does not do him any favors.  But here is where this episode really ignores characterization in pushing its narrative: In “Dark Cupid”, when she heard that Kim was planning to ask out the girl he had a crush on, Marinette encourages him to go for it, and when she realizes that it was Chloé, she says that she wouldn’t have given him the encouragement if she had known.  If he was so cruel to her, if she was so traumatized by the prank that he took part in, she shouldn’t want anything to do with him, let alone support his romantic prospects.  But instead she cared about his feelings and felt awful that he had been hurt, as opposed to recalling the incident and thinking “serves him right”.

Adrien/Chat is down to murder Kim for a mean but otherwise not-physically-harmful practical joke that he helped play a year ago when he finds out.  I can understand him going “For the Man Who Has Everything” on Darker Owl after being put through the fantasy and being forced to give it all up, but this is overkill and not at all heroic.

Chloé ironically gets off the easiest, since it’s just her Season 1/pre-series characterization that we already knew was a jerk and a bully.  But the indication in this episode and in “Transmission” that she effectively forced Marinette to not go to school still contradicts her past characterization and actions.  She was generally petty, plus she loved tormenting Marinette for whatever the reason is.  It just doesn’t seem like she would do it, and again, Marinette would not have let someone force her to avoid school.

This is another episode that bends over backward to make Chloé out to be irredeemably evil due to TA's unexplained hate boner for her character, but it brings everyone else down in its character assassination. The general gist of it might have fit in Season 1, as it would have made sense to add more depth and context to Chloé's treatment of Marinette and her peers in that stage, and it would have given legitimate character development to Kim (and "Dark Cupid" would have then shown his and Marinette's relationship improving). But at this point in the show, it only exists to further dunk on Chloé, take all of the nuance out of Marinette's flaws in favor of blaming them on her, and insist that she is pure evil.

[kasienda]

Bend the World Around It: Ch 3 - One Day a Week

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Read on Ao3

(Amazing and Stunning Artwork by @blur0se)

Chapter 3: One Day a Week

They don’t talk about their names and identities. 

He doesn’t ask and she doesn’t want to talk about it anyway. It’ll just make them both sad.

But one night a week, they share an evening together in their shared apartment - their home. 

Alya always covers for her with her parents. Alya thinks it’s for her standing “patrol” night with Chat Noir, but if Alya had noticed that no patrolling was taking place she hadn’t said anything. Marinette isn’t entirely sure why she keeps her new part-time living arrangement a secret from Alya. It all just feels too fragile, like if she breathes too hard the illusion will dissipate like smoke. 

Or an alarm will go off and she’ll wake up from the dream.

Because being transformed as Ladybug while slicing vegetables for a stir fry dinner while Chat Noir observes from over her shoulder feels positively ridiculous.

Ridiculous enough to be a dream for sure.

“So you just wait until the oil is hot,” she explains as she dumps carrots into the pan with a satisfying sizzle. “And then add the vegetables in one at a time. The order is based on what takes the longest to cook.” 

Ladybug stirs the carrots around the pan before adding onions, and then mushrooms. Then she hands the spatula to him. He replicates her work with a level of enthusiasm the task absolutely does not deserve. 

It makes her smile. 

“That’s it?” he asks. “It can’t be that simple.”

She laughs. “I mean, I’m not a professional chef or anything, but basic cooking isn’t too hard once you’ve done it a few times.”

The timer goes off, and she flinches at the sound. Her eyes squeeze closed. It’s the smell of grilled onions that ground her more than anything. Then his hand, squeezing her shoulder. She looks at him and his eyes are so warm. It’s impossible not to smile back. 

She’s already awake. This is real. She doesn’t need to wake up.

“Pasta’s done,” she says, flipping the heat off. “Do you know where I can find a colander?” 

“A what?” he asks, his eyebrows scrunched up in genuine confusion. 

“Umm… a pasta strainer,” she clarifies. 

“What’s a pasta strainer?” 

She blinks at him in shock. “Oh my god! You’ve really never stepped foot inside a kitchen, have you?” 

She yanks open a cupboard, and then another, rifling through pots and pans.

“I've been inside a kitchen.”

She snorts. 

“What?! I have!”

“Clearly very little cooking took place while you were there.”

He grins back sheepishly and shrugs as she places the colander in the stainless steel sink. 

“I can’t believe I married you.”

He pulls away from the stove to step in behind her, his hands resting at her waist as he kisses her cheek. “You don’t even regret it,” he whispers, and she can hear the grin in his voice. 

And he’s right. She doesn’t regret it. 

Not even a little bit.

…

Ladybug serves out the food on the plates. Grilled veggies and chicken pile up on top of the pasta, and she tops it off with crushed walnuts. Her presentation is as artful as any professional plate Adrien has seen in his very privileged life, and he finds himself doubting that she’s not a professional chef.

He scoops each plate from the counter and brings it to adjacent corners of the small dining table. When they sit, she’s so close their knees bump. He relishes in the contact. 

He taps the side of her knee with his own on purpose. 

Her smile is positively indulgent. 

“You’re like a child, poking and poking for attention.”

“I’m just excited!”

Her cheeks bloom with the color of pink rose buds. “About?” 

“That you’re here! That I can touch you!” He offers his hand, and she takes it instantly. “That we can have this.” 

Her eyes turn glassy. “Me too,” she admits.

Adrien has never had family dinners like these. Not even when his mother was alive. 

He’s never ever going to let them get old. 

…

Marinette laughs into her cereal the next morning, remembering Chat’s cheeky expression as shared good byes not an hour earlier. She can’t believe it took her so long to let herself love him. 

“You’re in a good mood.”

Marinette startles and looks up into the amused eyes of both her parents, sitting across from her at the breakfast table.

“I am!” she agrees. “I had a really good day yesterday.”

“Anything in particular happen that made it a good day?” her mother asks.

Marinette’s smile wilts just a bit at the edges.

“Nothing in particular,” she says. 

“So you’re going to make me guess,” her papa teases.  

“Go ahead.” There’s no way they could possibly guess that she literally dreamed up a boyfriend for herself and was now living with him one day a week. 

More than anything though, she wishes she could tell them. They would love him. 

…

Adrien sits across from his father at the long formal dining table in the Agreste mansion. 

Every clink of his silverware echoes throughout the cavernous room. 

They don’t speak. 

Adrien doesn’t bother trying to make conversation the way he used to. He knows from previous experience that initiating conversation often is either pulling teeth or navigating a minefield and he doesn’t have the energy for either.

But it’s hard to sit still, and the hour-long meal feels like an eternity.

There’s no teasing or banter as they eat. His father would never tolerate a game of footside under the table even if they sat close enough to each other for that to be a possibility. He misses Ladybug’s voice and her laughter. Meals are meant to be shared, and Adrien didn’t know what that was like before Jubilation. 

He doesn’t know how to go back to this. 

Being dismissed afterwards to his room offers no reprieve. For all that his room is filled with books, games, a basketball hoop, and a zipline, there’s nothing in it. Not for him. It’s all soulless. 

He doesn’t even want to sit down. 

“Plagg, do you think anyone would notice if I stopped sleeping here?” 

Plagg shrugs.

Adrien takes that as permission and transforms.

He lands on the balcony and slips inside into the living room. She’s not there, but it almost doesn’t matter because the silence here is peaceful instead of oppressive.

And it’s already filled with memories of her. Real memories of her. 

He stares at the blank wall opposite the dining table that used to hold all his mother’s pictures. 

He has an idea. 

…

Ladybug does a double take as she walks through the dining area. The wall is covered in framed pictures of her and Chat Noir. Some, she recognizes from the Ladyblog. Others are selfies that she knows he captured on his baton. She pulls the Oblivio kiss from the wall, and touches the glass where their hands are joined. 

It’s a kiss that actually happened for all that she can’t remember it. But now, she can remember so many kisses that never actually happened. The first time she saw this picture she wanted to deny its existence. Now, with the way he’s holding her with such care, the way their fingers are interlaced, she doesn’t understand how she ever saw anything in it other than love.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he asks. 

“Why this kiss and not the Dark Cupid One? It was first.”

He shrugs. “I think this one was more special? It looks like it was something we both wanted.” 

“Do you remember it?“

He shakes his head. “Just looks like our amnesiac selves saw something in each other that maybe took us longer to realize.”

“Not you,” she counters. 

He rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know if that’s true. The way I felt in the beginning and the way I feel now… I don’t know. It’s different.” 

She frowns, glancing up from the picture to him. “In a good way?” 

“Yes!”

She takes in the picture for another several seconds. He’s right. 

She places it back on the wall so she can look at it every time she walks past, every time they sit down for a meal together. 

Then she catches sight of the one next to it. 

“No! Absolutely not!” she exclaims, ripping it from the wall. 

“What? Why not?”

“Why not?! It’s a terrible picture!” Her eyes are half closed and she’s making a creepy grin, and his mouth is twisted in some weird way as he’s clearly in the middle of speaking. It flatters neither of them. Its only redeeming quality is that she remembers the patrol the picture came from and they had spent the whole thing laughing so hard they could barely breathe. 

“Why do you want to look at it every day?”

“It’s a real picture,” he says, taking it from her and placing it reverently back on the wall.  

And there’s something in the way he says real that has her eyes narrowing. She wants to ask, but he shakes his head. 

“Please?” he asks. He’s begging. 

It’s a terrible picture. She hates it. There has to be better ones. 

She knows he’ll let her take it down. 

But he has a reason. The picture means something to him that he can’t explain. She can’t take that away without understanding why. 

She huffs. “Fine.” 

He grins in pure delight. “It’ll be your favorite by Christmas.” 

She groans, knowing he’s likely right. 

He laughs, and pulls her into an embrace, kissing the side of her face.

Because she's going to laugh every time she sees it. And like he said, it’s real . 

Unlike the rest of her life.

…

“Hey cupcake! You okay?” her father asks, poking his head up through the trap door. 

“I’m fine,” she lies. “Why do you ask?” 

It’s a stupid question. She’s wilted over her desk doing absolutely nothing. She doesn’t even have a project laid out or a video playing. Of course he’s worried that she’s not okay. 

She really needs to get better at pretending.

“You’ve just been pining away all day. And it’s the weekend.” 

“I promise I’m not pining.” She can’t be pining over Chat if she and Chat are together.

Sure, she misses him every moment they’re apart. Even his stupid jokes and his total lack of cooking experience–though she’s being unfair. He’s proven himself a fast learner. 

She wishes she could call him or send him stupid texts, wishes that she could bring him over to meet her parents. 

Who is she kidding? She’s totally pining. 

“We’ve just been worried about you. You’ve been really quiet lately, and sleeping maybe too much.” 

She wasn’t sleeping. It was just hard to get up in the morning when everything felt pointless.

“I’m okay. Just… trapped in the routine, I think.” 

“Well, come downstairs and break it up!” her father invites. 

She forces herself to smile, but she doesn’t feel it. 

…

The bell rings signaling the end of class, and Nino starts to pack up, but Adrien is much slower to move. Was class really already over? Adrien feels like he just got there.

Nino bumps his shoulder. “You okay, mec?” 

Adrien’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I’m fine.” 

He’s better than fine! He had low-key moved out of his house, and Ladybug was living with him part time! And sure, he can’t tell Nino any of that. And he can’t share anything about his day with his girlfriend either. He can’t introduce his best friend to his girlfriend or his girlfriend to his best friend. He knows they already know each other, so it seems like it shouldn’t matter. 

And yet, it’s not the same. 

“Do I not seem fine?” he asks. 

“You didn’t take any notes,” Nino points out. 

Adrien blinks down at the empty document on the screen of his tablet. “I just couldn’t focus.” That much is true at least. 

“Anything you want to talk about?” Nino offers. 

There’s so much he wants to talk about. He wants to tell Nino all of it.

But his life is all cut up into pieces, more than it ever had been before, and every way Adrien turns he’s bumping into walls that he never wanted to be there. He feels cut off, like he’s looking at the world through the glass of his bedroom window. He should be used to it. He’s no stranger to loneliness. He’s been lonely his whole life. 

But now, he’s had a taste of something more.

He’s had a literal taste of home cooked meals, been blessed with evenings full of lively conversation and joyous laughter, felt the warmth of Ladybug wrapped up in his arms as they fall asleep. 

It feels so good, he almost can’t believe it’s real.

But there’s no flying alarm clocks here threatening to shatter his dream. 

Just six neverending excruciating days between each glorious evening in paradise.

But even if one day a week is all he can have, it’s still the best his life has ever been. 

“No,” he tells Nino with a smile. “I really am okay.” 

He wills himself to believe it.

…

She wakes up in his arms. And it’s both the best and worst part of her day. Because she loves being in his arms, loves waking up with their heads pressed and their legs tangled together, loves how warm and treasured she feels in his hold. 

And it’s also the moment when she has to tear herself away to go back to her normal life. 

The life she doesn’t get to share with him.

One day a week is not enough. Not even close to enough. 

She steals his pillow to take home. It’s not quite the same, but at least it smells like him. 

But it doesn’t change the fact that the clock has reset and she’s six long never ending days away from seeing him again.

She trudges to school the next morning. She’s not excited about any of it, but she also has nothing better to fill her time with. 

After class, Rose is talking. Marinette tries to listen. She tries more than once, but she can barely hear a world of it. Something about trying to see a new specialist. And Marinette feels guilty. Rose deserves her attention. Marinette wants to be a part of her life, wants to be a part of all of her friends’ lives. 

But she can’t let them be a part of hers in the most fundamental way. 

And it’s becoming harder and harder each day with all her friends, with the classes she sits through counting down every minute - not until the bell rings, but until her night with Chat Noir arrives. 

For the one night a week where she gets to live . 

“Marinette? Are you okay?” The fact that it’s Juleka asking showcases how distant she must be acting. 

She summons a smile. It might even pass muster. “Of course! Just tired.” 

Four skeptical pairs of eyes peer at her. 

An akuma alert saves her from having to answer. 

But more than that, that alert doesn’t fill her with unease or panic. That alarm sends her heart skyrocketing and her stomach fluttering in the most pleasant of ways. 

That sound means she gets to see him more than once that week. 

…

“This is not the time for flirting!” 

Chat grins. If there’s one thing he’s learned in the last few years it’s that it’s always time for flirting.

She likes it when he flirts. And the more stressed she is, the more important it is because it keeps her out of her own head. 

And more importantly than any of that, he thinks she’s amazing and brilliant, and he wants her to know it every minute of every day. 

“M’lady! I’m just trying to ensure that if we should fall in battle, the last thing you’ll ever hear is my undying affection for you,” he says while swinging his baton like a bat to reflect the akuma’s powers. 

“Gah! I really can't believe I ever agreed to marry you.” 

He laughs in delight, twisting around her to shield her from another strike. 

Once they’re in the clear, he leans towards her. “You know it was the best decision in your life.” 

Something flashes in her eyes, and she softens. 

“Why is it impossible to stay mad at you?”

“Love you, too, M’lady,” he says cheekily, knowing full well that she wasn’t ever actually mad. 

…

Despite the one akuma, the rest of the week drags on like one of Ms Mendeleiev’s Chemistry lectures. When school is out, Marinette races home, makes a show of packing a bag “for Alya’s” and is out the door with barely a wave. Ladybug swings through the window an hour early, and somehow he’s beaten her there. Her joy at seeing him overwhelms the slight disappointment that she won’t be able to surprise him with a homemade dessert. 

“Hello m’la–” 

She cuts him off with a desperate kiss. He diligently drops whatever he was holding with a thud, and his arms wrap around her. Her hands tangle into his hair, caressing his cat ears to send him into a purr. She presses every centimeter of herself into every centimeter of him as if she can push hard enough to melt into him so they’ll never be separated again. She breathes in his breath, savors it, wishing she could breathe him in and take a little piece of him with her. 

When he tries to pull away, she kisses him again and again until he’s all she can see, all she can feel. 

“I love you,” he breathes against her mouth. 

“I love you, and I’ve missed you so much. There weren’t enough akumas this week.” 

He laughs. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.” 

“A week is too long.”

“A week is waaay too long,” he agrees. He takes her hand and leads her to the sofa. “I got something for you. Wait right here.” 

She sits as he darts into the other room and comes back with a box wrapped in red paper, decorated with a tiny little ladybug plush and a big black bow. 

“Aww! This is adorable,” she coos at the little ladybug.

“Open it!” he urges, his excitement bubbling over. She tears through the paper rapidly and finds herself face to face with a baby doll.

It’s meant to be a joke. She knows that it is, but she’s stroking the plastic baby’s face and hair, and she’s crying.

“It’s Emma,” she chokes out. And his arms are around her instantly. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just — We’ll have an Emma someday. A real baby.” 

And it’s so beautiful. She wants it now.

But it feels impossible. She can’t even tell him her name. 

She clings to him as the tears come. And he holds her, his hands rub her back and he coos soothing sounds and words into her ear. 

He’s so strong. He seems to accept their situation so easily, it’s almost not fair.

“How do you do it?” she whispers. 

“Do what?” he asks softly, leaning his head against hers. 

“Go back and forth?” she says over his shoulder. “Keep this life and your regular life separate?” 

He turns her head to look at his, his eyes swirling in concern.  

“I just— I hate going back,” she continues, desperate to keep talking before the tears overwhelm her completely. “I can’t talk about you, and I can’t introduce you to my parents, I can’t tell you about any of it! And I can’t— None of it feels real!”

Her sobs break past her defense like a dam braking, and he yanks her to his chest once again. 

“I just want this all the time.”

He kisses her head, her hands, her cheeks, and then her mouth, never letting go of her. 

“How do you do it?” she asks again. 

His catlike eyes search her face. 

“I thought keeping everything separate was what you wanted,” he finally says, his thumbs stroking each of her hands. “I can do it because if this is all you’re able to give me, I will take it. But I don’t want to go back either. You broke out of the dream, M’lady. I would have stayed there forever. I survive losing the dream every week because I know it will come back.”

She blinks rapidly, trying to fend off the burn of threatened tears. He thinks she’s stronger than him, but she knows that he’s wrong. He’s always been the stronger of the two of them. He carries so much that always felt She loves him so much. 

“But if you’re telling me this is what you want full time all the time? I will tell you my name right now. Just say the word!” 

Hope bubbles up in her chest, and she nods rapidly. 

“No.” 

They both bolt to their feet at the unexpected voice. 

Bunnyx is standing there in the center of the living room. 

It’s so strange to see anyone there who isn’t them, Marinette feels dizzy. She blinks a few times, and Chat squeezes her hand. She knows he will follow her lead.

Marinette clears her throat. “Why are you here?”

“Ladybug, I’ve told you — you can’t know each other’s identities.”

A rock lodges in her throat, and she blinks back tears. 

Why can’t they know?

“We wouldn’t tell anyone!” Chat Noir insists. 

Bunnyx smiles softly, but it’s tinged with sadness. “I know, but you’ll get caught.”

“Monarch already knows we love each other,” Chat Noir argues back. “He’s seen us together. We haven’t been subtle during the last batch of akumas.”

“He’s seen Ladybug and Chat Noir together,” Bunnyx concedes. “It’s your civilian sides that allow him to figure it out. And then one of you always gets akumatized. And it’s a Chat Blanc situation every time!” 

“Chat Blanc?” Chat echoes.

“Do you want to explain it to him, or shall I?” Bunnyx asks. There’s no bite or malice to her tone.

Marinette turns to him, let’s her finger caress the side of his face. “I told you,” she chokes out, “our love destroys the world.”

He yanks her into his arms, and rocks her fiercely back and forth, shaking his head. “There’s no way, m’lady.”

“I saw—“ 

“He’s right,” Bunnyx tells her with a smile. “It’s not your love. It’s your identities and it’s not anything the two of you do. It’s not your fault. Not ever. Not a single time. It’s Monarch.”

Marinette sobs harder. It isn’t fair. The only thing she and Chat had ever done was try and protect Paris over and over again. She wants to love him with all of herself, she wants to love him openly. 

Why can’t they have that? 

“I think you’ve made your point,” Chat says coldly over her shoulder. “You can leave now.”

“No, wait!” Marinette objects, twisting in his arms to face their uninvited guest. “You said, it’s our civilian side that messes things up?” 

Bunnyx’s answering smile stretches across her whole face. She taps her own cheek. “I did say that, didn’t I?” 

A portal opens up behind her and she backs into it. “Don’t have too much fun, kids!” 

The portal shrinks into a dot and they are alone once again. Marinette turns to Chat, grinning. 

His eyebrows are scrunched up in that adorable way when he’s confused. “I don’t understand.” 

“Ladybug and Chat Noir can date! Outside and in the open! We just have to do it as our hero selves!” 

“We can have more than this,” she says, “if you want.” 

He answers her with another kiss that steals all of Marinette’s breath. 

“I want everything we can have, M’lady.”

...

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

So you've talked a few times about how Plagg and Tikki failed on a fundamental level as mentors, and how Fu wasn't even really a mentor at all, but I don't think I've seen you bring up Su-Han as of yet, and I'm curious to know where you fall on that particular character.

I personally feel he could've been useful for expository purposes, and/or served as a catalyst for Marinette's growth into the role of guardian/team leader (you know, if the show were interested in character growth, or suggesting it's protagonist isn't omni-capable), but instead he showed up in four episodes, caused several problems, raised more questions than he ultimately answered, and honestly makes me question why he was included in the first place.

The order of the guardians is back after 170+ years and the most lasting impact this has on the story is... they teach Jagged Stone Kung Fu? Were you on the writing team, how would you make effective use of this plot point (Or was it a bad idea to begin with?)

Su-Han is an incredibly weird character. I'm honestly not totally sure why he exists, but I'll give you my best guess and then we'll talk about how he could have been used because I do think that he had potential.

It feels like they only introduced the guardian temple back in season three because they wanted to explain how the peacock and butterfly got lost - even though their explanation just raises even more questions if you know anything about archology - then they realized, "Oh shit, we probably need to address the guardian's return somehow, don't we?"

But if they let a whole mystic order descend on Paris, then we don't really need our two heroes, so instead we get one rando who walked (or I guess jumped?) from Tibet to Paris in order to be the writer's whipping boy because that's really how Su-Han is used. He's not here to help or to be a mentor. He's here to voice audience complaints so that the writers can shut those complaints down with nonsense logic.

For example, this exchange from Ephemeral is what kicks off Marinette's awkward and concerning plan to lie to her partner about an identity reveal:

Su-Han: This really takes the cake! Ladybug: Grand Master Su-Han? Su-Han: Nine! You used nine Miraculous to defeat a single villain, when Cat Noir could have just used his Cataclysm! Ladybug: I had to. Cat Noir was missing! Su-Han: What do you mean "missing"? You can't just let the holder of the one of the most powerful Miraculous go about as he pleases! What if he started making his own decisions, or act it out? Like Shadow Moth?! Ladybug: Cat Noir? Act like Shadow Moth? Wow. Are you blowing this out of proportion just a little? Su-Han: Not at all. In fact, you should find out who Cat Noir really is, so you can have better control over him. Ladybug: What?? No way! We can't know our true identities! It would be too dangerous if Shadow Moth got a hold of one of us! Su-Han: I. Don't. Care!! Deal with this problem quickly, otherwise I will take back his Miraculous as soon as he shows a whisker! And I'll choose the new Cat Noir myself! Ladybug: Okay, okay, alright. What if you knew who he was, would that work? Su-Han: I... I suppose so. But I'm warning you, if you don't succeed— Ladybug: I get it. Cat Noir will be replaced.

Does Su-Han read like an Adrien salter to you? Because he does to me! He's presenting a valid argument in the most obnoxious and inflammatory way possible by making it about controlling Chat Noir instead of having the argument focus on the issue of, "Hey, maybe more than one person should know who has this extremely powerful miraculous just in case something bad happens to that one person?" An argument that holds more weight than he could possibly know because of the whole senti issue making Chat Noir a potential perfect sleeper agent.

And at the end of the episode, we get this exchange even though none of Su-Han's concerns have actually been addressed:

Su-Han: So, do you know who Cat Noir is yet? Ladybug: No. Su-Han: What? I thought I had warned you— Ladybug: I don't want to know. I've proven to you a hundred times that I'm a good guardian, and Cat Noir and I have proven to you a hundred times that we were exceptional superheroes, and you! How many times have you told us that we were messing up, when that was totally untrue? You're judging us based on your own fears, and not on our actions! Su-Han: (groans) You're right, little Ladybug. Perhaps I'm worrying over nothing. What's for sure is that one doesn't come across a guardian like you every century. (reaches out his fist) How do you say again? Ladybug and Su-Han: Pound it.

You can tell that the writers wanted Su-Han to be the bad guy here. That his pushing for an identity reveal was at fault and you - the audience - should feel bad if you ever agreed with him, but his base argument is never actually addressed. Marinette just says he needs to trust her and so he does for some reason? Remind me, which of these two is supposed to have years of experience and which of them has been a hero for less than a year and in that time has totally failed to even try to retrieve the miraculous that she's supposed to be recovering? Writers, please stop saying that Marinette is the best guardian ever when you don't let her do anything that feels all that special. I'm not saying that she's terrible, she's doing what was asked if her, I'm just concerned that this is considered way above average quality.

On top of that nonsense, there's also the problem that Marinette's counter argument would have worked right from the start, so her rushed deception plan doesn't feel like a true act of desperation like it was clearly supposed to be. Instead, it just makes her look like a horrible person even though that obviously wasn't the writer's intent. This is what always happens when they speed run these complex what-if or backstory episodes. It never works out like they clearly want it to.

Chat Blanc did it by making Adrien look bad for hiding his identity so that he could date Ladybug. Derision did it by making multiple characters look unhinged and/or evil. Ephemeral does it with the frankly baffling lie plan which is only there so we can have a proper identity reveal moment between the leads. That's literally why the episode is written like that, btw. They wanted to let Adrien confess his identity in a big romantic moment, so they forced a scenario where that would happen even though it makes Ladybug look terrible.

Anyway, back to Su-Han.

If Miraculous was allowed to have serious plot lines that spanned multiple episodes, then Su-Han could have been a great edition to the cast. Season four is a pretty big tonal shift for the show. Things start to feel a lot more serious in this season with the Ladynoir conflict and Marinette struggling to be the guardian. It also comes right after the season where we learned that Master Fu wasn't a true guardian. All of this is the perfect setup for a true mentor character who shows up to fix things and maybe even give out some new powers!

Imagine how much better this season would have been if it was about Su-Han helping Ladynoir! If he saw the conflict and stepped in to guide them through it. You could even have him be closer to Adrien than Marinette to balance Marinette and Fu's relationship.

For example, what if the guardians didn't have the wacky staff that tracks down miracle boxes but not miraculous because then Gabriel would be defeated too easily? What if Su-Han just shows up and Marinette doesn't trust him, but Adrien does? And so Su-Han helps Adrien the most while Marinette keeps Su-Han at arms length just like she does Adrien because that's what Fu taught her to do and Fu was wrong about everything! This could still lead to the season four ending, but instead of it being a nothing burger where season five continues all of the same problems, instead season five is where Marinette embraces Su-Han and really starts to understand what it means to be a guardian and a partner? Things Fu never taught her because he kind of sucked at his job.

That's just one way to make Su-Han work. A way that keeps canon intact up to the start of season five because, while I hate season four's writing and "conflict" resolution, I can admit that there was potential in the base idea. You could also scrap all of season four and rewrite everything to keep things more light hearted while still letting Su-Han be a total upgrade.

You could even go the exact opposite direction and set Su-Han up to be the next big bad! Why have sentimonster freedom be a conflict (even though it really wasn't) when you could make everything about Kwami freedom? It's a really natural progression to go from defeating Gabriel to fighting for... institutional changes(?) in how the miraculous work. Let Kwamis pick their holders and remove their bonds so that Gabriel never happen again!

I really do mean it when I say that this show is bursting with potential. I wouldn't be so enthralled by how bad it is if it didn't have potential to be amazing.

[yolowritter]

In Defense of Gabriel Agreste

Oh dear Kwami, I can't believe I'm actually doing this... I can't believe that it feels necessary. Before we begin, I want to make a huge clarification. I am NOT supporting any of Gabriel's actions AT ALL, especially anything done in Season 5. That's abuse, that's child neglect, that's grounds for calling CPS. I will never excuse that kind of thing, and frankly this isn't what I'm here to talk about. I simply want to state my opinion on how canon has absolutely ruined Gabriel as a character, and give my own perspective on our local supervillain, including an understanding of his reasons and how Gabriel devolves the way he does in the actual show. This is a mixture of headcannons I've had that are somewhat supported by canon, and I hope you all enjoy my little analysis piece.

First off, let's kick things into high gear by discussing Gabriel's themes. From the get-go of Bubbler, it's blindingly obvious that he serves as the "strict parent" antagonist to Adrien's quest for freedom and self-expression. As an archetype, this works quite well in a lot of stories and media, so I was fine with it when I watched the episode. Through the rest of Season 1, we quickly come to realize that Adrien's mother (and Gabriel's wife) is "missing", due to some reason or the other. At this point some may suspect his relation to Hawkmoth, but there's no legitimate evidence to go off of so we put a pin on that. During Simon Says, specifically Chat Noir and Gabriel's little interaction, we get to see that Adrien does hold some repressed anger against Gabriel because of how overprotective the man is, and then comes the fond remark of Emilie's flair for dramatics. It's a line so many of us have discussed or used in fanworks, but rarely do I see people talk about how Gabriel delivers it. The usually stoic personification of dissapointment seems to finally have some emotion in his voice, for the first really important moment of his character. Combine this with the earlier talk between him and Ladybug, where he praises Adrien and seems genuinely proud of his son for keeping up with all the activities/modeling/etc. Therefore, we get a good general idea of who Gabriel Agreste actually is. A grieving father who has lost his partner to "mysterious circumstances", and is trying to protect his son from any kind of harm. Sure, he's going about it the wrong way and is definately overdoing it, but the act itself doesn't come from a place of malice. Keep this in mind as we move forward.

In Season 2, we start off with the episode Collector. And learn that Gabriel is Hawkmoth. Because of course he is, Adrien is one of the titular characters in the show, naturally the writers want to pull a Luke Skywalker at some point. "I am your father" and all that, we've seen it a million times before. Still, this brings up the question of why? Sure, Gabriel is an asshole. That's very obvious by this point, even though we don't have enough information to truly cast judgement on his reasoning for such behavior. But there's a significant gap between "overprotective single parent who stifles their child" and "local butterfly man who has beef with teenage superheroes". Therefore, this reveal immediately has alarm bells ringing as to what Gabriel's motive is. In a later episode, we have the Gorizilla Incident. And this is where he finally becomes a much more complex, much better character! Because Hawkmoth has captured Ladybug. She's right there, helpless, and all he has to do is either show up and steal her Miraculous, or just wait until she loses her transformation and then take the earrings. His arch nemesis, the person who has been preventing him from accomplishing whatever his goals are...is at his mercy. But...there's a problem. His son is also on the field of battle, and just jumped off a building. Wonderful! Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Gabriel releases Ladybug, therefore saving Adrien's life at the cost of the Miraculous. And much later, during Queen Wasp, Hawkmoth genuinely ponders if he's done more harm than good by trying to defeat the Heroes of Paris. (Side Note: I don't actually remember if we'd seen Emilie in the pod by this point, but whatever.) He would have quit, hung up the suit, and lived out his days as Gabriel Agreste. Miserably maybe, but he would have stuck to that choice. No more Hawkmoth. Until...he gets the chance to Akumatize a Miraculous Holder. And if you want to rewatch this scene, notice the mania in Gabriel's eyes. This extreme emotional reaction is the complete opposite of what we've seen from the man so far (dramatic monologues aside), and the chance at victory rips Gabriel's sanity away from him. Cue Queen Wasp, and later Scarlet Moth.

But I want to stick to this moment for a second. Queen Wasp takes place directly after Style Queen, in which Adrien gets turned into a gold statue. And sure, the show can tell us all it wants about how "he's been turned to dust" or some bs, but we all know Adrien is dead right now. And Gabriel knows it too. This is literally the reason why he tries to convince himself that he shouldn't be Hawkmoth anymore. Because he finally understands what kind of harm he's been doing. By this point it's like the 3rd time that Adrien is in immediate proximity to an Akuma and promptly gets bodied by said Villain, specifically because of Hawkmoth. I do not care what Season 5 says, Gabriel Agreste loved his son with every last shred in that broken, shattered fragment of a heart that was left after Emilie's death, and he shows it very clearly on multiple occassions. He even tries to connect with Adrien again, and has a genuine moment when they watch Emilie's movie together. Gabriel, for all his supervillainy and prancing about in a butterfly costume, seems to be healing throughout Season 2. So why does it only get worse from here?

Well...this is where my headcanons come in to fill the void. Obviously I could go on a tangent about the writers here, but I don't care enough to waste my breath on that again. Swiftly moving past that, I honestly think Gabriel suffers from Tunnel Vision during this show. And yeah that's not a "condition", but think about this for a second. Nooroo warns that there are terrible consequences for misusing a Miraculous in Origins, and the show...never follows up on this? Well, that's weird. Unless the consequences are mental. A deterioration of the self, in a way. Consider: a good portion of the fandom already talks about Gabriel and Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Monarch as different people sometimes. What if that's literal? What if that's the consequence? Gabriel was depressed, desperate and heartbroken after Emilie's demise, but according to a cutscene from Miraculous Rise of the Sphynx (and I swear to God why didn't they put this in the actual show???) Gabriel and Nathalie actually spent around a year looking for the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous before deciding to use the Butterfly. It was Gabriel's last resort. And look at how Hawkmoth acts in Season 1. He's...well, he's acting. Playing the role of a villain to lure them out and defeat them, knowing full-well (at least after Stoneheart) that Ladybug can fix pretty much anything he destroys if she wins, and he can just do the same if she's defeated. Gabriel has a safety net, he's acting the part of an evil villain, complete with dramatic monologues and "curse you Perry the Platypus" moments after ever defeat. Then in Season 2, he knows the jig is up. The stakes are too high and this Hawkmoth bs is hurting the one piece of Emilie that he has left...so Gabriel decides to quit.

And this is where the corruption comes in. During "Feast" in Season 3, Hawkmoth re-states his goal of "taking all the Miraculous!" Uh...hold on just a second. Didn't Gabriel only need the Ladybug and Cat? Yes, exactly. That's why the events of the show even happen to begin with. So why has it now changed to all the Miraculous, if the rest are useless in terms of bringing Emilie back? Well, Gabriel's thirst for power is slowly corrupting his mind. Hawkmoth is officially in control by this point, and it gets much, much worse from here. With Mayura at his side, Hawkmoth has a real person to care about, and take care of. Nathalie supports him, keeps Gabriel afloat in this ocean of despair that they're both slowly drowning in.

But what happens when Mayura can't be there anymore? What happens when Gabriel (now as Shadowmoth) spends hours upon hours inside that dark lair, deliberating his victory? It becomes his sole focus. What tiny specks of humanity were still left inside of this hollow shell called Gabriel Agreste have been devoured by a beast that hungers for only one thing. Power. Emilie is no longer loved by him, barely even remembered to begin with. Now instead of genuine heartbreak over his wife's loss, Shadowmoth is using her as an excuse to keep going. He rationilizes it all to himself, saying "this is for my family" and "they will understand" to hide from the very obvious fact that neither Emilie or Adrien would ever stand for this. His ambitions have stripped Gabriel of all sense and sanity, leaving behind a madman simply wearing his skin. The last time we ever see even a flicker of clarity in his head is during Glaciator 2.0, when Adrien is about to be Akumatized. But this is also the biggest indication that it's almost too late for Gabriel, because has to think about it. Sure, he doesn't actually Akumatize Adrien, but even since Chat Blanc it's become perfectly clear that he can and will go through with that to get an advantage over Ladybug. Here, Shadowmoth considered Akumatizing him anyway, even with just the usual chances of winning.

And in Ephemeral (I'm pretty sure, could be just before or after), Nooroo's worst fears have finally come to pass. Gabriel affirms that he wants to destroy the entire world using the Wish. And then re-shape it into one where he's the top dog, by extension making the Agrestes like the Supreme. Gabriel has gone completely off the rails by this point. I'd even argue that the person he was only a few months ago (don't get me started on that timeline btw) is dead. Gone, burried six feet under along with his wife, because Gabriel Agreste would never do something like this. Monarch just makes everything even worse, especially with Evolution. Just like Nathalie said, he had the perfect chance to warn his past self about the Peacock being broken. Step in the portal, detransform, explain that he's Gabriel, then tell them "hey so the recipe to fix it is on this page of the Grimoire, you need to do this before Emilie makes Adrien" and that's it. But he just ignores it completely because of his obsession, hence proving the point I'm trying to make.

To circle back to the beginning of this post, I am perfectly fine with how Gabriel's character devolves and spirals into madness across the show. It's a cool plotline, could have been really interesting if the writers bothered to explore it but even with only what we have, I'd say it adds a ton of depth to his character! Or...would, if they bothered to explain this! Like seriously, you can pretty easily infer than something of the sort is happening, especially in later seasons. Just give Nathalie or Nooroo one or two scenes where they are worried about Gabriel going insane! Especially Nooroo, give the poor guy a few lines trying to warn Shadowmoth like "Master, please! You need to think about what you're doing! Can't you see this isn't you anymore?" or something of the sort. Sure, it doesn't have to be so on the nose, but you get my point! Instead they did nothing with this amazing idea that's already there because they wrote it by accident! And guess what? Gabriel goes from a sympathetic villain in Season 2 to an utter maniac who locks his "beloved" son in an insane asylum during Season 5!

Like are you kidding me??? What alternate universe did I get dropped into where this is the "logical" followup to Hawkmoth's storyline? One of the only things Gabriel even had going for him in terms of complexity was his genuine love towards Adrien! And like I said, I'd be fine if this how they wanted to make things and play the "tragic villain consumed by a lust for power" card! For Nooroo's sake, it's dangling right in front of them like a carrot on a stick! But instead of making the slightest bit of effort and explain that this is happening, or that it's an intentional plotpoint for Gabriel's character, their innaction just reduces him to a one-dimensional "evil because he's the villain" cardboard cutout! Believe me, I love unapologetically evil characters, who do the worst things for funsies! But Gabriel Agreste can never be that type of bad guy because you set up an entire storyline about his poor wife who died because adoption is apparently illegal in this universe! Don't get me started on Emilie Agreste, she's getting a rant of her own soon enough! But come on, would it kill you to at least try and give your villains some depth???

Thomas, do you want me to have a stroke? An aneurysm? To keel over dead like Gabriel's character development? Should I maybe put a fridge in my basement for good measure? And do not talk to me about the "tell Adrien how good a father I was" bs the finale had in it! Just- just don't touch that with a ten foot pole! But...I will admit, there is a very interesting direction they can take Gabriel's character now that he's dead. Because sure, he's now a one-dimensional asshole that screamed in his basement a lot before beating up a cat(bug)girl and dropping dead, but hey! Gabriel Agreste can haunt the narrative now! Have Lila use reunion to talk to him! Have Marinette be tormented by the stupid promise she made! Have Adrien be conflicted over how Gabriel treated him! Give us an existential crisis because "the hero who defeted Monarch" doesn't match up with the abusive asshole Adrien has known for the past year! Gabriel Agreste's character has been utterly trainwrecked by the writers' refusal to explain anything about him beyond a superficial "boo hoo my wife keeled over". Yeah buddy, so what? You can at least be interesting about it!

Anyway, I'm going to go cool off and make another draft for how to fix this idiot's character development. Or you know, give him some in the first place because he's lost it all. I'll see you all soon with an "In offense to Emilie Agreste" post, but until then, Stay Miraculous everyone!

[r8cs]

Chat Noir the Police intern

I would love to see Chat Noir in a side quest while Ladybug Is busy being guardián, helping Roger Raincomprix, The Cops, to solve a case. Like being an intern for a day.

Bc they both have "Serving the City" as a career, and Roger just wants Chat to think how important their job is and Chat Noir only wants to help and learn from his elders as much as he can.

So one day, they are both alone ready to start a raid without backup nor enough equipment in a small apartment.

He uses cataclysm to break in and grabs his hand as a gun while searching the place, following his partner's example.

While in a moment, Bang! A shot blew by Chat's side, and when he realizes where the criminal' hiding he catches where he's pointing at next, and rushes to guard Roger.

They make it, and take custody of the evidence, the convict, the stuff, and Chat let the backup take care of it.

Later, Plagg points out the bullet marks in his back that now has to hide and heal, and sleep face down for at least 2 weeks (but he doesnt want them to heal, it looks so cool)

And Marinette sees the news of it proudly.

[generalluxun]

The pre-canon bibles are all ideas that were pitched by TA and rejected by the networks- they all have to sign off on the bible for it to actually go into production. One of their complaints WAS that Chat Noir had too big a role and it would take away from Maribug. He was in TA's original comic concepts, too, but he doesn't appear to have been Ladybug's ally. They wanted to rework it into a romance, so he was made Ladybug's partner instead. Then they were worried that if he started out as distant and disagreeable then people wouldn't like him. So Adrien was created specifically to be likeable, and to be a character that wouldn't steal Maribug's spotlight. But he's ultimately just there to serve as a love interest.

But how are they supposed to Reveal The Story if Adrien's family is super secretive and nobody is allowed into his house? How do you spy on Gabriel if he never leaves the house? The investigator had to be someone already on the inside, and already knew at least part of it.

Do you have links to your history comments? I'd be curious to read.

As for how you do it- YOU WRITE A STORY. That's literally their job. Reality has never been welcome in ML. Marinette's in fashion. Gabriel already liked her work. Have her squirrel herself in for an internship, drive Lila NUTS with that fact(great opportunity there) have her sniff around and ALSO get to spend more time around Adrien with an excuse so she gets used to him.

There you go, I haven't even had a full cup of coffee yet.

[familyagrestefanblog]

The existence of the Ox miraculous is such an unnecessary ugly detail when you think about Ladynoir and how Chat Noir served as the punching bag and scapegoat for Ladybug, Alya as Marinette's actual partner in season 4, and the whole team in every single way pre-s5

The Ox gives the power of immunity even against any other Miraculous power. One would think with Adrichat's self-harming tendencies that canon had Marinette make entirely about herself because "they're haunting her so much", and her still narratively entirely unchallenged tendency of leaving Chat Noir behind on the battle field as sacrifice or bait to possibly have whatever the hell done to him so she can be save and sound while she and everyone else can look and be cool on his expense

With all that, one would have thought that if Canon Marinette truly loved Chat Noir "sooooooo much" and is oh so haunted by his self-harming behavior and him always getting hurt so she sidelined him "for his own good"

Then how come at no point did Marinette do the actually caring thing by giving Chat Noir the Ox miraculous since he's ALWAYS left behind BY HER so she can leave the battle field and execute her plans with the others save and soundly? If her Chaton's well-being was oh so important to her and it always "pained her so much" to see him getting hurt then why was the Ox only used 2 insignificant times by Ivan at the end of season 4 when it could have saved Chat Noir ALOT of suffering all the way through?

Or the turtle. Or ANY OTHER Miraculous for that matter?

Why was Alya getting two miraculous in Hack-San perfectly fine with Marinette but heaven forbid Marinette is actually expected to ACT like she gives a damn about Chat Noir's well-being as his leader, guardian, partner, and friend and not just the show having her claim superficial words that hardly have anything to back them up once they actually have to mean something?

Its almost as if Canon inherently doubled down on having Marinette be the kind of leader who will only do things in a way that primarily benefit HER while everything else gets swept under the rug because she isn't maliciously intentioned and then never brought up again. And unfortunately it was her who was written to prioritize making an unnecessary team of 18 miraculous holders no one ever asked of her to form (Su-Han even told her NOT to give out the miraculous like candy),

so Marinette was just made to not consider Chat Noir either at all or simply not as worthy enough of any kind of consideration in her entire leadership/ guardianship or actual safety, support, or ANY KIND of resource since that wouldn't be narratively about her, now would it?

She can't have Chat have the Ox because she might need Ivan as Ox in 4 months and she doesn't want to have to ask Chat to get it back or end up NOT getting to use this ONE other Miraculous out of a whole ass box, because that would involve a basic ass conversation Marinette can't have apparently or her not getting to use all of the miraculous however she pleases at any given point

The horror. Now she would have only 14 miraculous to work with!

As per usual, count me fucking unimpressed by Marinette's writing. The negligence towards Chat Noir on even the most basic level is insane and she was declared the epitome of leadership and kindness for this.

Cool that Marinette already decided in her head that Ivan is suitable for the Ox miraculous and he should get it in future, but Chat Noir needing help and protection wasn't some theoretical case, it constantly happened right in front of her eyes and even by her own freaking orders too because she never thinks of him in ANYTHING and the show glorified the hell out of her as leader for doing all that

Why is looking into ANY detail only making Marinette's side of Ladynoir so much worse ever since season 4? There is no escaping this! Just don't add the Ox with this power or actually have Marinette be a good leader towards Chat Noir. But noooooooooo.