#((but didn't anticipate Adrien's screen lock and panicked.))

[miraculouscontent]

We’ve talked before about Chat in “Copycat” lying about his relationship with Ladybug and how Ladybug’s kept in the dark about it, which is still an absolutely valid criticism and everything, but what we don’t really talk about is exactly how much the episode goes out of its way to make sure that Adrien/Chat is the one you feel sympathy for:

- Marinette’s subplot involving Adrien’s phone (rather than her simply being overwhelmed with other things) so Adrien specifically is burdened, the episode only showing his struggle with seeking out the device in order to ask for the audience’s sympathy

- Plagg is naturally a more morally-gray character than Tikki and thus is taken less seriously when he’s making a point, lowering any impact when Adrien is called out for being jealous

- Ladybug is made to be overflowing with more confidence/arrogance than usual, such as outright calling Chat “annoying” (which one might see as too harsh even if she’s right); this is also right before she adds that Chat has “never lied to her,” again lowering any impact of Chat’s actions when he’s being praised for his “honesty”

- The scene where Chat vaguely alludes to the fact that he got himself into a jam (of course not directly stating that he was the one who caused Theo’s akumatization) forces in the reminder that Ladybug wasn’t there, thus diverting a portion of the blame onto her

- The last moment with Chat Noir is him mumbling to Ladybug (going unheard by her) about how she “crushed his crush,” leaving the audience’s last impression of him in the episode to be something that - yet again - shifts blame/outrage onto Ladybug and makes him look more sympathetic

- Theo is the villain-of-the-week, also being designed to at least appear older than Ladybug and Chat Noir (see: facial hair and having some form of job/studio), meaning that he’s more likely to be portrayed as a “creep” and thus people are less likely to sympathize with him even if he makes good points; the audience is less likely to throw blame onto someone if the person said someone slights is a person that the audience personally dislikes/doesn’t care about

- As an extension of the last point, Copycat is purposefully exaggerated and unlikable, his actions being intentionally unnecessary and over-the-top to give the impression that this is unfair to Chat regardless of whether he was lying to Theo; Copycat is written to not combat what Theo’s problem was, as rather than wooing Ladybug as Copycat to show her what a “true gentleman who doesn’t treat love as a thing” is, Copycat merely becomes a criminal to slander Chat’s name in what is a wholly spiteful act

- Ladybug is ultimately the one who apologizes to Theo in the end; by apologizing, she is admitting guilt to him, herself, and the audience that she had done something wrong, and yet Chat had done no such thing despite being the actual cause of Theo’s akumatization; this compounds with Theo telling Ladybug that he “knows about her and Chat Noir” (implying that he won’t be making any attempts to get closer to her) which defaults to a supposedly good thing because of the “Theo is a creep/the bad guy here” and “less obstacles to the love square = yes“ logic

Basically, the episode is almost scientifically designed to ensure that Adrien is sympathetic and Marinette is not. Marinette’s problem/concern about an embarrassing/awkward confession is brushed off/joked about, Adrien/Chat is made to struggle/look sympathetic in both forms, and the show makes absolute sure that anything involving Adrien/Chat circles back to Marinette/Ladybug in some form so that she can be blamed for everything in the episode.