#Especially when it comes to the villain characters like Chloe Gabriel and Nathalie

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

So, controversial topic. taking in count that in a month, the webcomic "scarlet lady" is gonna end ¿what are your feelings about it?

I know that there's people out there that don't like it for the chloe salt, but i have to admit that the damnation that chloe went through, at least for me, gave her more agency than canon, for the fact that it wasn't manipulated by outside forces like canon did, it gave her the right to choose to be better or worse.

Another great element is that it does what canon refused to do: five back Adrian his agency by letting him vent his frustrations AND let him realize that his father is a bastard.

If you don't agree, that's more than excellent, i want to know your take in this topic, that being positive or negative 😄👍

My friend, you are talking to a big Scarlet Lady fan, so I'm happy to give my thoughts! Get ready for some gushing and in-depth discussion of the adaptation process. That's really what all fanfiction is, but Scarlet Lady is more of an adaptation than most since it's a true canon rewrite that often requires you to know canon to fully appreciate its jokes and meta commentary.

Before we get into it, I want to give a link to the comic for those who haven't read it. The artist/writer is @zoe-oneesama and this is page one of the comic. I'd follow the comic link if you haven't read it as the comic is nearing its end, so going straight to Zoe's page will spoil you on elements of ending.

General Thoughts on Adaptation

Adaptation is an art, not a science. There are things that are objective elements of a story. Things you really cannot change if you want people to feel like you're telling an adaptation of a given tale. But there are also plenty of elements that are more subjective. Things some people might consider vital, but that aren't truly necessary to stay true to the story's core. (Yes, the character core thing applies to stories too!)

For example, to be a Cinderella adaptation, you need to have some sort of big reveal moment where "the prince" finds Cinderella, but that moment doesn't need to involve a slipper and the prince doesn't need to be an actual prince. My favorite modern Cinderella adaptation is A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song and it twists both of those elements while keeping the major story beats in place, making it fully deserving of the Cinderella label while also being its own unique story that isn't a straight retelling, it's an adaptation.

I bring all this up because, as readers of this blog may have already guessed, Scarlet Lady does a lot of things that I personally would not do when adapting Miraculous. A big one being that I prefer a more complex take on Gabriel, but that's simply a matter of preference. A complex Gabriel is not a requirement for adapting Miraculous. Complex Gabriel vs comedic villain Gabriel is just a choice you have to make when it comes to adapting canon because canon is such a mess that both options have straight up backing in the source text. Even if they didn't, Gabriel's core role - villain - is one that leaves you a lot of room for interpretation based on other factors that we'll talk about in a second.

I'll close off this section with this: having read all of Scarlet Lady, I'll be so bold as to say that Zoe and I almost perfectly align when it comes to identifying the flaws in Miraculous because I've agreed with pretty much every change she's made. She did a fantastic job staying true to the core of canon while also telling the story she wanted to tell. It's not the way I'd redo canon, but it doesn't need to be for me to call it a fantastic story. Plus a lot of the different choices I'd make come down to narrative style and tone.

Narrative Style and Tone

I'm a novelist at heart, which means that I favor serialized storytelling. For those who don't know that word, it means stories that are one coherent whole just broken into chunks. Stories where the order matters. You can't start watching at a random episode, you have to start at the beginning. And skipping an episode usually means that you'll have no idea what's going on.

Miraculous is not a serialized show. It's primarily an episodic show, a word that means that episode order doesn't matter. Every installment stands alone.

Obviously Miraculous isn't completely episodic, but that's fine. Purely episodic narratives are rare these days. Most stories have at least minor serialized elements even if those elements are often ignored for multiple episodes at a time. This is where both Miraculous and Scarlet Lady fall. They're mostly episodic stories with serialized elements popping up every now and then.

Miraculous does this element poorly because it acts like it's a purely episodic show and then takes that to an absurd extreme. Rules, characters, and lore can never be counted on to stay the same from episode to episode even though that's not actually how episodic stories work. Scarlet Lady doesn't make this mistake. It understands that episodic narratives should have STORIES that stand alone, but that the WORLD the stories take place in must stay consistent.

Now that we've gone over the basic format stuff, let's talk about tone.

Generally speaking, tone is the vibe of your story. It can be serious, silly, dramatic, and so on. One of Miraculous' biggest flaws is that its tone is all over the place. It's a silly romcom that brings in serious topics in serious ways and then handles them with all the grace of a hippo performing ballet in a china shop because of course it does! Those topics are horribly suited to the show's overall tone so it has no way to properly address them.

This is one of the many things I love about Scarlet Lady. It takes the show's absurdist tone and honors it. That's why Zoe's version of Gabriel works so well! He's a silly cartoony villain in a silly cartoony comic as he should be. It's also why my versions of Gabriel tend to be more complex. More serious serialized narratives are where more serious complex villains thrive. Neither option is better than the other, it all comes down to how you're adapting the original work. Zoe's choices are perfect for her version's style and tone. If mine are even close to that good for my preferred style and tone, then I'll be a happy author.

Narrative Weight & The Chloe Thing

This is getting long, so I'll end with a note on Chloe since you brought her up as it's another great example of the fact that there are very few choices that are inherently right or wrong when it comes to adaptation.

I don't know if I'd say that I'm a Chloe fan, but I certainly don't hate her. I also love what Zoe did with the character! It's a prime example of a thing that I've talked about before: the issue with Chloe is not a lack of redemption. The issue is that Chloe was given too much narrative weight to be what canon made her.

Quick definition: narrative weight is the importance a narrative places on a person, event, thing, etc. The more time you dedicate to an element of your narrative, the more weight that element has in the eyes of your audience. The more they expect the element to matter. The way that you develop the element will also shape audience expectations.

In the context of canon, Chloe has more development than almost any other side character. We know more about her family, her childhood, her personality, and so on. This was an absurd choice for canon to make because Chloe is not actually important to the story they told. You could pull her out of canon and almost nothing would change. Gabriel can make akumas do whatever he wants so, lore wise, he didn't need Miracle Queen. In fact, he arguably shouldn't have made Miracle Queen. He could have just taken the miracle box and jumped right into the plot of season five. Similarly, Chloe being mayor was an absurd one-note moment that's easily replaced with something more logical.

Because of this, there are a lot of things you can do when adapting Chloe. Everything from turning her back into a one-dimensional mean girl to redeeming her to what Zoe did: take Chloe's narrative weight and petty brat behavior and lean into both to make Chloe a main antagonist while also acknowledging the fact that Chloe is a messed up teenage girl who needs some serious help. I'm super excited to see the end of Chloe's arc in Scarlet Lady as I think it's going to be one of my favorites in the fandom. That is admittedly not a high bar as I'm very picky when it comes to Chloe content. I think most of it falls flat because most of it fails to let Chloe hit some sort of rock bottom when she absolutely needs to if you want to do anything interesting with her. She's not the kind of person who will easily change or see the error of her ways.

Conclusion

Scarlet Lady is a fantastic adaption of Miraculous and Zoe is a fantastic and funny adapter. The comic might not be to your tastes - and that's fine, nothing has universal appeal - but it's still a great example of how to honor source material while doing your own thing with it, which is a true skill. One of the problems with many modern retellings and reboots is that the people running the show don't understand how to adapt a narrative. They take far too much creative freedom and end up with something that doesn't feel anything like the source.

If I found out that Zoe somehow got hired to adapt something I love, then I wouldn't have any concerns. I'd have no idea what she'd do with it, but I'd be confident that it wouldn't spit in the face of the thing I love. I'd personally read a hundred Miraculous re-imaginings with her at the helm.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Bee Villain Audrey would be fun, especially given her previous interest in the temple. I agree she'd not be second fiddle, anytime Audrey lets others make decisions its cos of one of two reasons:

1: Its so unimportant that a plebian is tending to it. IE, she told them to. 2: She's indifferent enough to the situation that she doesn't care to handle it herself, IE most stuff she tells Andre to do.

Basically, yeah she's not gonna be second stringer, co conspirator at minimum.

Also, having a super powerful magical artifact, right after Gabriel and Ladybug humiliated her and Hawk Moth Akumatized her and- Wait a second! Gabriel was using Miraculous BS before, oh it is on! XD

Low key I have actually toyed with AUs built on similar premises and I think she'd be a very self motivated villain. Like maybe she wants a wish (If she knows about it) but she may just want other Miraculous, or to fuck over her rivals, or go on rampages. The line between Audrey & Style Queen is rather thin after all.

Also given the "Order & Subjugation" angle and how many write Miraculous powers as evolving or shifting based on the user. I could see Audrey's power being less Venom and more like, the power to command and control others perhaps?

Ultimately I'd say it comes down to how much one wants to do with her character. How much does she know, how much can she figure out, what does she even want out of life, ETC.

I know Audrey tends to get written off as just cruel and otherwise brainless. But I confess I always find that disappointing; there's nothing making Gabriel more inherently suited for supervillainy or competence than Audrey if you get my meaning?

As an amusing aside, her going out with a Miraculous power could lead to a very similar situation to Queen Wasp. Not identical, but in the sense that some Gabriel related event is disrupted by a Bee User. The heroes show up, Gabriel slinks away to try and Akumatize her, ETC.

Though in this case, maybe cos Audrey can re-use her powers, its instead him trying to AKumatize Ladybug or Chat as the fight turns against them?

(Oooh it could be Nathalie actually, like Gabriel is literally Veom-ed?)

But this gives a sense of how powerful a Akumatized Miraculous Holder would be (Even if it fails to take over Audrey or one of the heroes, the effort gives a sense of power), along with Ladybug losing the Bee, a signal to Gabriel not to quit. Or allow Nathalie to step up and take the role maybe?

Also, if/when Audrey is beaten (If she's a one episode wonder over a recurring problem) One could have Chloe snag Pollen up in the chaos (She was helping perhaps even jumped on her mothers back and grabbed the comb during the fight?) So now she's Queen Been, but no one knows she has it?

Sorry, rambling.

Honestly the only reason I haven't written Audrey as a villain is because she often has no genuine power over the rest of the cast.

Like.

The worst she could do herself is tank Marinette's career, but even then in a universe where Gabriel favors Marinette and her talents he could counteract Audrey's influence

Her influence over Chloé is limited and dependent on other factors. Is Chloé still vying for her attention? Is Chloé still a child or a legal adult? Does Chloé have a support network or not?

A lot of Audrey's other power would be dependent on Andre and what he's doing. Is he still willing to do things for her or has he kicked her to the curb yet? Even if he /is/ still under her spell, is this an AU where he'd break any rules for her? Or, though he is a man who wishes to grant his wife's every whim, does he put his foot down on things that would cause major problems?

But yeah in most of my AUs, Audrey has no genuine power over any of the rest of the cast. So she often is more of an annoyance or a short-term problem rather than a major player.

If I give her some kind of power though.....

[xhanisai]

a list of my unpopular ml opinions because I feel like hitting a hornet's nest :)

Alya and Nino are very good best friends to Marinette and Adrien. Some of you just don't know what flaws are.

I genuinely feel bad for Fu and think he's a good example of a terrible master who tried his best. A good unreliable adult who had good intentions. I like characters like this.

Marinette should not have given Chloe another chance to use the Bee miraculous, especially when the latter refused to give it back when she picked it up at first.

Lila is an excellent villain and I can't wait to see what she's up to next.

Adrien should have been able to give Felix a punch for all the shit the little shit pulled.

I don't like Luka. I think he's just there and a bit of a blank state. I also don't like his design and I'm a very vain person LMAO

I don't like Kagami. I believe she was a shitty friend in s5 and the end of s4. The fact that some people believe she's a better friend than Alya even now disgusts me.

I think it's okay for Adrien to be saved and not have to fight every battle because irl, not all abused people have the power or courage to fight for themselves.

I like Marinette's and Adrien's flaws. It makes them interesting as people and makes the story interesting when it comes to their decisions (or lack of making one).

Gabriel's decision at the end of s5 is NOT a redemption to me.

I don't like that everyone that's not the core 4 has their miraculous permanently now. Too many heroes and it feels too saturated and scattered.

I would prefer it if Felix stuck to being an antihero and doing what benefits his goals.

I wish the guardians were against ladynoir at one point so I can see them fighting.

I need Kim to redeem himself please why the fuck did you do what you did in derision KIMMMMM!?!?!?!

I am open to a Chloe redemption but I also don't want her to be friends with Marinette.

Nathalie should be the one to come clean to Adrien about the truth of his birth, his father and all the Agreste secrets. Not Marinette. Leave Marinette alone.

The fandom is very biphobic, racist and sexist. Both aggressively and passively.

AND NOTHING ANYONE CAN SAY CAN CHANGE MY MIND.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Gabriel Agreste: Interesting Villain, Horrible Character (400 Follower Special)

I'm honestly surprised more people didn't want me to talk about Gabriel, especially with how often I rag on how horrible of a person he is. But, three character analysis posts later, and we're going to talk about why the main villain of Miraculous Ladybug is a real letdown.

Gabriel Needs to give the Whining a Rest

The interesting thing is one of the few things I actually liked in Season 3 was Hawkmoth. His plans actually made sense (for the most part), and by playing the long game, he managed to turn Chloe against Ladybug and deprived her of several key allies. Granted, Season 4 immediately undid the latter, but I was still impressed by his strategy.

Generally, one of the better aspects of Gabriel as a character was just how over the top he was as Hawkmoth. Keith Silverstein is clearly giving it his all with his performance, and he is just so enjoyable to watch as a cartoonish supervillain.

And therein lies the first major problem with Gabriel as a character. While he is fun to watch as a simple supervillain, the show tries to give him more depth and unintentionally makes him worse.

In Season 2, when it was revealed that Gabriel was Hawkmoth, many fans speculated on what he needed the Miraculous for, until the Queen Bee Trilogy showed it was to save his possibly dead wife, Emilie. The idea of that is so the show can give more depth to its main villain, and I think it's an interesting idea in concept. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The problem is just how radically different Gabriel is normally compared to how he is as Hawkmoth. He always goes on about how he's “doing this for Emilie”, but it's hard to really sympathize with him when you consider he constantly gives evil monologues and evil laughs, really getting into the supervillain role. And let's not forget all of the “I'm going to wear Ladybug's skin as a suit” faces he loves to make.

Clearly this man is the picture of mental stability.

Gabriel's motivation for being Hawkmoth when compared to what he actually does as Hawkmoth is shady enough, but the thing is that the writers clearly want the audience to at least feel a little bad for him. They want to make the audience sympathize with him despite the way he acts with or without the mask. Without Miraculous Ladybug, he is routinely putting innocent lives in danger and never once shows regret for his actions. All he talks about is how “he's doing this for Emilie”, or that “he'll get their Miraculous soon”. There's no real reason to feel bad for him other than “because the script says so”.

Let's compare Gabriel to Malcolm Merlyn from Arrow. His big plan in the first season of the show is to create a machine that will cause an earthquake to destroy a crime-infested portion of Starling City, claiming to be trying to help everyone, but it's clear he is only doing it out of revenge for his wife getting killed by a criminal from that part of the city. In addition, throughout that season and future seasons, he always makes sure his plans lead to him benefiting in some way, showing he isn't just some noble man trying to achieve his goals with a less than noble method.

If we got some moments that showed that what Gabriel was doing was selfish, it would make him a more complex villain. But we don't get anything like that. What do we get instead? Well...

I Could Really Care Less About Emilie Agreste

We have known Gabriel's motivation has been to save his wife for a little over two years at this point, but at the same time, it's hard to believe that motivation because of how underdeveloped Emilie is as a character.

There have been a total of two lines in the entirety of the show that explain what happened to Emilie, and they're both vague as hell. One of them was from “Feast” that implied Emilie used the broken Peacock Miraculous.

Adrien: My mom used to have dizzy spells… just like Nathalie.

And the other that outright tells the audience what's happening to her in a clip show that most people will skip.

Nathalie: As I've watched Emilie falling deeper into an endless sleep, my sadness for her has deepened, too

That is literally all we get for an explanation, and nothing else. We have no idea of what she's like as a person or what her relationship with her family was like other than Gabriel and Adrien saying they miss her. Other than the way the narrative says she's important to Gabriel and Adrien, we don't really have a reason to care about her as a character. There have also been some lines that imply she went along with Gabriel's questionable parenting techniques, like how he was apparently only homeschooled as a kid (Origins) and never had a birthday party growing up (The Bubbler), so how do we even know if she's a good person? In fact, why not set up this question as a mystery to make the audience wonder if Gabriel has another reason to bring Emilie back?

It ultimately turns Emilie into a plot device and not a character that Gabriel and Adrien only bring up to make the audience feel bad for them, and meant to justify Gabriel's actions by saying that he's “doing this for his family”.

But hey, if he's doing this all for his family, surely Gabriel's redeeming traits come from his relationship with Adrien, right? Right?

As a Parent, Gabriel is Far From the Best

I've talked about this briefly before, but parenting in Miraculous Ladybug is written in such a black and white way, even by the standards of this show. Parents are portrayed in one of two ways. They're either amazing people who love and support their children unconditionally, or they're awful people who treat their own children like trash. And much like a lot of things in this show, there are times where the latter is treated like the former.

There are so many times where the narrative insists on making you see Gabriel as a troubled, but wellmeaning person who tries his best to be a good parent to Adrien, but it is far from the truth.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. Gabriel is a terrible parent. Like, he is awful at being a parent in so many ways, even before you find out he's Hawkmoth. In his first appearance, “The Bubbler”, he delegates getting Adrien a birthday present to Nathalie, his assistant. He literally can't be bothered to take time out of his schedule to get his own son a present for his birthday. And as the show goes on, he becomes more controlling and forbids Adrien from going out with his friends in other episodes (Captain Hardrock, Silencer). While this could be used to show Gabriel getting worse, it's never acknowledged in-universe, with Adrien continually defending his father essentially keeping him on house arrest.

“But IOTA!” You might say. “Gabriel has made efforts to bond with his son in some episodes.” While that might be true, most of those come right after his Akumas have almost gotten Adrien killed. He only hugged Adrien and made an attempt to learn more about him after Simon Says invaded their home, he only decided to watch that movie Emilie was in with Adrien after Gorizilla nearly dropped him off a building, and he only hugged Adrien again in public after he was turned into a gold statue by Style Queen.

In fact, let's talk about how Gabriel acts in the Queen Bee Trilogy. He actually decides to quit being Hawkmoth, but it's not because he realizes all the damage he's caused. Instead, he gave up because his “magnum opus”, a stronger than usual Akuma that only got the advantage on Ladybug ironically because of dumb luck, failed. Sure, he says he can't keep putting his son in danger, but he rarely ever acknowledges that he does so in the first place. When Riposte wanted to fight Adrien, Hawkmoth did nothing to stop her other than giving her a stern warning earlier on and nothing else. Where was this attitude earlier?

Hell, even then, he immediately goes back to being Hawkmoth as soon as he sees an opportunity, not even a day after his “mAgNuM oPuS” blew up in his face (because I guess Scarletmoth was just Plan B). If he made such a big deal about caring for his son, why didn't he try harder to spend time with him? Has he ever had doubts about what he's doing before? If Chloe didn't show up as Queen Bee, was he going to follow through on his promise and try to be a better father to Adrien instead of trying to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous?

And yeah, the whole irony is that Gabriel is doing this for his family when he is unknowingly fighting his own son, which could lead to some interesting drama if done right. The idea of how Gabriel would react to his son being Cat Noir could really lead to some internal struggles for him to go through. But then we got “Cat Blanc”, which shows just how terrible of a character Gabriel is.

In an alternate timeline where he found out his son was Cat Noir, what does Gabriel do? Does he try to steal Adrien's Miraculous while he's sleeping? Does he reconsider his actions or realize he was endangering Adrien's life?

NOPE! He just decides to akumatize him all while emotionally tormenting him, before causing the end of the world.

This is honestly one of the most appalling things I've ever seen in any TV show, because it's basically an abusive father ordering his son to listen to him all while referencing his (kind of) dead mother to back up his point. And rather than use this to show how despicable Gabriel is, the episode decides to blame Marinette for this happening. Yes, according to the show, her present to Adrien caused several events to happen which caused Cat Blanc, but this logic makes no sense. It's like blaming the JFK assassination on the man who sold a gun to Lee Harvey Oswald, instead of, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Not only was this episode yet another excuse to blame Marinette for something that wasn't her fault, it leads into the biggest problem I have with Gabriel as a character.

Sympathize with Gabriel? Surely, You Jest

After everything I've gone over regarding Gabriel as a character, after all the awful things I've talked about, are you really surprised that I don't feel bad for him at all?

Gabriel is just an awful character and a despicable human being, but the show just keeps wanting me to feel bad for him. It's just so hard to when you consider everything he's done has made him anything but sympathetic. I'm just saying, it's kind of hard to feel bad for someone who tries to start World War III with the only justification being “i'M dOiNg It FoR mY fAmIlY”, especially when he treats his family like crap.

The writers go out of their way to show how horrible Gabriel is as Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth, but they think because they throw in a few moments where he looks conflicted, we'll immediately feel bad for him. What makes so many people interested in seeing Chloe become a better person is that they can tell she's the victim of a troubled upbringing, and know that because she's only a teenager, she still has room to grow as a person, represented by having more honest moments of vulnerability. Gabriel is a grown man who once caused the apocalypse because of how terrible of a parent he is, and has even fewer sympathetic moments than Chloe does. Which one of these two is supposedly irredeemable? The answer may surprise you.

But the frustrating thing is that this kind of villain could have worked. Instead of making him this mustache-twirling psychopath, show how much Gabriel regrets what he has to do, but keeps pushing onward despite all the lives he's risking if it means that he can save his wife. Instead of making Gabriel like Lex Luthor, make him like Mr. Freeze, who is basic a better written version of him.

But as it stands, there's a good reason why Gabriel gets little to no respect as a character in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, as a villain, or as a father.

[arlakos]

Miraculous Rant

Actually, you know what, while im still mad from the previous post I made, lets go off on a rant. No punches pulled. Lets do this.

The lovesquare is the most terrible ship in this fandom. One girl is a hyper obsessed stalker who tracks her crush with her planner for 3 whole seasons, while the boy couldn’t learn to take a hint and stop flirting for 3 whole seasons until he decided to move on with another girl. Ironically that makes them perfect for eachother, but its in a creepy kind of way, not a loving kind of way.

Adrigami and Lukanette in the S3 Finale were wasted events and never should have occured because they were immediately axed in the first few episodes of the next season. I feel sorry for those that were hoping their ships could be real for at least a short actual while, and it makes me want to curse the writers for their story-boner for the status quo of teases

Despite what I said earlier, none of the girls are good for Adrien. Marinette’s stalkery and a borderline yandere, Kagami’s somewhat controlling and too similar to Adrien help him grow as a person, Chloe is a queen bee beyotch and honestly too much like a sibling to Adrien, and Lila is garbage. Fuck it, have Luka date Adrien and they can play some sweet music together (not like that you pervs, I meant they both play instruments).

Nino needs more love. Not only that, but there needs to be more Adrien/Nino bro moments. If Marinette and Alya can have moments together, why not the bros?

Chloe’s character is a mess, and is neither redeemable, nor notably evil. Her role as a villain in season 1 is very hamfisted, such as in the episodes Mr Pigeon and Kung Food. Not only that, Chloe also lacks any of the qualities that makes a good “bully villain” or rival to Marinette, and her sympathetic moments (which are Written by Sebastien) are mostly overshadowed by the fact that Astruc wants her to be a bully, so it just makes her bipolar and confusing when her character is tugged between two writers.

Chloe should not have joined Hawkmoth in Miracle Queen, see my other post as to why I think so. TLDR, its kinda ooc  for her to go full on 2d villain like Hawkmoth especially after Miraculer, plus Lila was being build up to be the main antagonist of S3

Chloe got kicked from the Team in Miraculer because people know her identity? Fine. Kagami gets to be Ryuko again despite being known to Hawkmoth in Ikari Gozen? Not cool. Ladybug shouldn’t be a hypocrite and be willing to break her own rules just because “Kagami is my friend and Chloe’s not”. Same goes for her breaking the rule with secrect identities with Alya, only for her to go on and on about the rules to Chat when he pries.

Zoe is a bland character who’s only notable trait that she likes Marinette, which automatically makes her worthy of a miraculous after two episodes and no actual development.

Astruc is a petty frick who makes episodes that give the finger to fans of the show that have a different opinion than him. Queen Banana, Miracle Queen, and Reverser are good examples of this (Reverser did Nathaniel dirty).

Master Fu is a shit guardian. Read my post for more.

FRICK THE FEAST EPISODE. Not only did is ruin Fu as character, it ruined all the good theories as to why the order fell, and wasted the idea of a new villain being introduced or even taking over as the main antagonist! Speaking of Feast, despite the sentimonster destroying an order when he wasn’t even big, he still go beat by 2 kids even when he was supersized!

Marinette is not a good Guardian. Her ability to choose heroes does not make her capable, and just because “tradition is stupid” doesnt mean that Marinette shouldn’t be tested like others before her!

Despite the Kwami’s being ancient magical buildings, they seem to act like kids a lot, and that annoys me when in S1 they are supposed to apparently be mentors to their wielders, like how Tikki was before she was mentally de-aged.

Lila is trash and should be removed from the show. The only reasons her lies work is because the writers dumb down every other character in the show and ignore the fact the people have smartphones with google.

The “Miraculous” Ladybug spell should require both Ladybug and Chat Noir to cast, because not only does the power have nothing to do with creation, but it also “destroys” anything created by the akuma, which thematically makes no sense. Also it would place more emphasis on the two heroes being equals and “two halfs of the same coin”

On that note, Ladybug has too many powers. Not only is she the only one who can purify akumas, and can cast a spell that can fix Paris time and time again like its no one’s buisness, but she also now gets a new suit and the ability to nullify Hawkmoth’s akumas. Like COME ON! Give Chat some powers too.

Mayura’s feather’s shouldnt be able to be purified by Ladybug since they have no dark energy, and (thematically speaking) Chat should be given an ability that allows him to “vanquish” the energy in Mayura[’s feathers similar to how Ladybug can purify Hawkmoth’s akumas. At least it would develop a rivalry between Chat and Mayura, and would make Chat necassary against Shadowmoth rather than being replacable with any other hero.

The are too many temporary heroes. They should have just stuck with the 3 heroes from s2 and leave it at that. Sure, new heroes were cool, but the overuse has made the whole hero thing feel less special. It made sense for the first 3 to have them, but now it’s just like Oprah where everyone gets a miraculous. Except Gabe.

Chat Blanc was a stupid reason as to why secret identities cant be revealed, also Chat could have told LB who Hawkmoth once he returned back to normal was and the show would be over.

Hawkmoth should not be Gabriel. Frick the lore about Gabriel’s wife dying and him going evil to get her back, it makes the story feel too much like a star wars/Darth vader reference and leaves Gabriel acting bipolar, flipping from wanting to save his wife and doing this out of necessity to being a power hungry madman wanting to take over the world ( which is said in his canon music video). Having Hawkmoth be his own character means he can be an actual maniac who wants world domination and not just have villanous plot that rely on obtaining magical jewellery (perhaps doing other evil things/taking a more active role), while Gabriel being his own character means he can be a father that has become estranged from his son due to the lose of his S,O, and thus can have a plot about him reuniting with his son (I liked the end seen in Simon says, ok?)

On that same note, I think Mayura shouldn’t have been Nathalie. Considering Hawkmoth’s plans were repetitive as heck for most of the show, when I heard about the Mayura leaks back in Season 2 (when she was called “le Paon”) I was theorising that Mayura would actually being Hawkmoth’s boss, the villain the was responsible for giving him his Miraculous and the one who destroyed the Order of the Miraculous, and would take over as the main villain in season 3 due to Hawkmoth’s failures. However, that turned out not to be the case.

Not only that, but Mayuras power is a copy paste power with some modifications to make it complement Hawkmoth’s power, by basically giving his akuma’s magic pokemon.

Speaking of Hawkmoth’s power, for a miraculous that is supposed to be used for good, how can his power mind control people and make them become evil? More importantly, for a miraculous that is supposedly weaker than the main heroes of the show, having it be able to multiply and posses people to create an army is kinda strong.

Fuck the Maribat ship that the salt fandom came up with. Its trash, it was made to bash most of the Miraculous cast sans Marinette, and anyone thinks it is good are either those same salters or are the same people who think that Rey-lo and the Twilight Saga are masterpieces of romance.

Whew! I needed that vent. Hope you enjoyed it as as much as I did, and Tune in next time on the next episode of:  Arlakos loses his Mind and Rants for 2 pages of writing!

[prompts-adrien-sugar]

OK I'm gonna talk about a subject that's kinda touchy but really sincerely needs to be said.

Some people in this fandom i genuinely admire and like, but here's the thing. Some of y'all in this fandom can be a bit insensitive to allot of issues (racism, sexism, abuse, etc) and some still try real hard to act like you don't and it's honestly really f*cking trifling/concerning, cause like y'all act like y'all don't do that, and it really aggravates me.

First onto the problem with racism this fandom has. Y'all have no qualms going on and on about the evident whitewashing the show does to it's characters of colour at times like what they did to rena's model, etc(trust me i feel the same way at times but saying that mari is white bc she doesn't wear chinese garb etc is really concerning and feels really weird when white fans try to say this bc not allot of ppl who come from different cultures outward go and dress in their ethnic garb at home in all places (and honestly, whenever iusuallysee art of this it's fine but at times it comesoff a bit fetishizy(especially whenever someonetries to draw mari in diferent clothes and all they do is a "certain" style. and it's concerning that y'all have the opposite argument about sabine (even though i also i have qualms about that too.) but then getting angry when poc try to tell y'all to stop drawing characters a certain way (whitewashing (how funny how y'all go on about this and then do it in art or other media by lightening skin colour or changing features) or darkening the skin on a villain alligned character instead of trying to learn from those criticisms is in and of itself, a whole hypocritical mess bc y'all try to make some valid crits of the show but it all goes down the drain when y'all turn around and do this witchhunting/whitewashing bs. Then there's the fact that y'all salters almost always make alya the villain and chloe a support in a huge amount of saltfics without even seeing what kinds of connotations could arise from that. Like do you not see the problem in twisting the main character's best friend who actually has a personality of her own into the villain when she's black and making the lighter skinned bully the hero. At all.

Next onto the sexism (funny thing is its funny how both sides play into this). First we have how the fandom treats Marinette and Adrien. When mishaps happen to Mari, the salty part of the fandom tends to jump up and say that either her classmates are always laughing at her and more complaints that don't make any sense because if y'all have actually watched some parts of the show even, any scene when marinette has a mishap happen to her in front of classmates you'd see they're not laughing at her, but with her. (and you'd think that the nyc special would show y'all that the wouldn't laugh at her accidents or problems if she's in genuine distress.) Then we have the minor villains Felix and Lila with how the fandom still holds onto this merit that canon felix is a good person underneath a cold persona (now this could've been truefor pv!felix or fanon felix and i don't hate him, it actually the opposite, i kinda want to see what other moties the character has in store for us.) what i don't like is how some parts of the fandom put him on a better merit than lila when we don't even know his full character just as yet while we've already gotten to know how shady of a person lila is.

now finally onto the abuse aspect. i saved this one for last bc this is a touchy subject for me at times, in any aspects i can name bc here's the thing, this fandom loves to either: make claims that a certain character (adrien) is not facing any sort of abuse bc he's a guy or that he shouldn't be taking it or he should stand up for it (or worse saying he deserves it and saying that gabriel/lila should continue with it?! looking at 4 or more certain salters who have been getting on my last f-ing nerve with that) and i'm just like please stop and think about it for a second. And i don't want to hear the "it's a tv show" angle which i've heard way too many damn times bc If you were in a situation like that and it starts to escalate, how would you feel if someone online was making fun of your plight online over an over like a damn broken record player hmm? Cause i relate to adrien on a few aspects of his life and seeing y'all repeat the same cold takes about how he could just leave, or how chat blanc can't happen bc gabriel isn't like that is frankly, all too worrying bc i have been in that place and so have many others and seeing y'all say that gabe/lila/nathalie are all morally better bc of certain struggles they face is another hypocritical thing that some of y'all salters need to address bc y'all would rather say these people behave better than an abused kid.

[critical-thinking-is-mandatory]

miraculous ladybug and smart characters. 

there’s actually quite a few smart characters in miraculous ladybug, but the only one we’re really made to believe is smart is max.

this got very long so i’m putting it under a cut.

max kante. there’s no denying that he’s smart, but if you’re writing a smart character and you decide to make them like max well....you’ve misunderstood what makes a person smart.

what does max do to ‘prove’ that he’s smart?

well he:

lists percentages of probability

recalls obscure facts

made an AI robot friend

uses big words

i’ve probably missed something but this is how we’re shown that max is smart. and well it’s not wrong, you do need to be smart to make such a sophisticated AI as markov but...

spouting exact probabilities and facts doesn’t actually make you smart.

for starters, recalling facts is an aspect of memory not understanding, and understanding concepts is a better indicator of intelligence than memorising concepts.

my senior physics teacher really liked to make a point of this by letting us take our own formula sheets into exams. the kicker was that we only had to apply our understanding of the formulas, not whether or not we could remember them in the first place.

as for percentage probability, well, i’ve only touched on probability in my university career but modelling the probability of real life situations includes a lot more complexity and accounting for error than is really possible from just whacking a few numbers into a calculator.

and the big words, well. most often people who use big words during casual conversation are usually people pretending that they’re smarter than they actually are. 

basically, max is your stereotypical Smart Character TM, and like most stereotypes, there’s a lot of wrong information floating around about said character type. 

(just an FYI this is not to say that stereotypes about smart people are in anyway as harmful as stereotypes based on race, gender, sexuality, or neurodivergent people. this is just an examination of what people get wrong with smart characters.)

so, if that’s wrong, and smart people don’t all list facts and percentage probability, and use big words and make robot friends, how can we know a character is smart then?

well, ‘smart’ is a lot more complicated than media, especially kids media, likes to present it as. we’re always led to believe that a character (and thus real life people) are only smart if they excel in STEM subject areas. so smart characters speak in technobabble, are really good at programming and robotics and physics and chemistry, always get the best grades in school, and so on and so forth.

and that’s just not true.

there’s so much more to being smart than maths and ‘hard sciences’ and good grades.

for starters, the grading system used by schools and tertiary education systems is biased towards students who can recall facts aka people with good memories and people who have dozens of spare hours to spend studying.

now, there are tons of reasons for people to have difficulties recalling facts. the first is that memorising things is hard. this goes doubly so for people with memory problems associated with mental illness or neurodivergence or certain disabilities.

on the second point, you might notice that students at private schools (upper-middle to upper class students) tend to have better grades. going off of the ‘better grades = smarter people’ logic that means rich people are smarter than poor people. i shouldn’t have to explain how that’s bad.

(newsflash: it’s also not true. kids from wealthier families don’t have to spend their spare time at work and their parents can afford private tutors and teachers at private schools tend to be held to higher standards.)

as for being good at STEM subjects, i’m going to let you guys in on a little secret. it comes from practice. you don’t have to be naturally gifted in maths to excel at it. being as i call it, STEM brained versus humanities brained, may make some of the concepts easier to understand initially but it’s really not a make-or-break situation.

(the girl in my grade in high school who got the highest marks for advanced maths did so out of hard work alone. she’s very smart, but humanities oriented. my little sister got a state prize for her scores in physics, and let me tell you, maths does not come easy to her.)

so, if it’s not good grades, or being good at STEM, or having robot sidekicks, or speaking technobabble, what does make a character/person smart?

well it’s about the thought process.

questioning, weighing options, using logic to get the most reward with the least risk.

this site here (springhole.net) is an excellent resource for writing and roleplaying and also has a more in-depth walk-through of how smart people and characters work.

smart people and smart characters tend to, you guessed it, use their heads. they pay attention, and often notice details that other people miss. 

all of these things are actually pretty subtle (and we all know the miraculous creators can’t do subtlety) so we’re actually seeing a lot more smart characters in miraculous than we’re being led to believe.

like i said before, most obvious is max. max’s intelligence is frequently shown to us with all the grace of a frying pan to the ear. less obvious but still obvious enough that every corner of the fandom has noticed are marinette and adrien.

i’ll get to marinette in a minute, but for now we’ll talk about adrien.

adrien is, as far as i can recall seeing in canon, stated to get good grades. correct me if i’m wrong of course, but that’s the only thing i can think of to prove adrien as smart. getting good grades is one of the main stereotypes about smart people so check one for adrien.

adrien is also obscenely wealthy and has a controlling father with high expectations so, as far as his grades go, i doubt it’s down to any natural gifts of superior intellect.

like i said before, people with money have access to all the best resources, the best teachers, the best tutors, and of course time. adrien’s days are scheduled by nathalie, and with gabriel’s expectations of perfection i very much doubt she’d be skimping on adrien’s study time.

so, adrien’s good grades: probably not actually an indicator of intelligence, but of practice.

marinette is also stated to get good grades but that alone isn’t the only proof we get of her being smart. marinette is constantly coming up with plans, making things, is clever enough to leave herself a clue in oblivio to get help, as well as figure out that she and adrien were actually superheroes, and she’s proven to have a high level of emotional intelligence (not necessarily an indicator of overall intelligence and more linked to empathy but the point still stands).

marinette’s good grades we’ve seen clearly come from practice, but there are so many other ways she proves herself to be smart.

alya is one character that certainly gets written off as being dumb by the fandom, when actually, i doubt she is.

canon hasn’t done alya or the rest of the characters any favours by doing things like having lila be a pretty average liar, and making alya think chloe was ladybug in lady wifi, but when she and other characters aren’t being dumbed down because that’s the only way the creators know how to make the plot work, she’s actually pretty clever.

alya knows how clumsy marinette can be so she made a copy of the important video of ladybug before showing it to marinette, the ladyblog is really popular so alya’s clearly got an understanding of how to make her writing appealing to an audience, and we see in the ladybug episode that alya takes a methodical approach to try and clear marinette’s name.

so it’s not obvious, and whoever is writing the show needs some serious help to not make everyone look stupid because their villain isn’t competent enough, but alya is smart. we’re just not being led along by the nose and having the fact shoved in our faces.

there are other characters too, nino, nathalie, nathaniel, i’d say juleka and luka too probably but i’m not going to go into them right now.

what i’m trying to say is: smart characters aren’t always obvious and smart people don’t usually look like the smart people in cartoons. there are a lot more smart characters in ml than you probably realise, just like in real life. good at STEM doesn’t equal smart! and if you have to make your usual characters dumb to make your villain/plot point work you’re not as good a writer as you think you are.

[metawohoo]

About my abandoned fic “The truth of you”

@eu-nao-sou-um-chapeu​ I’m so sorry for dropping the ball. Thanks for the compliments ♥

Since I am a terrible, terrible person who failed her readers:

Oh my. It’s been a while. But here we go, from what I remember:

Over weeks

Marinette exchanges more emails with crimson.8, trying to set up a meeting with them

Adrien spends more time with Marinette, since she is in a bit of a crisis with the soulmate situation. He realizes he likes her very much.

Chloé and Sabrina's friendship seems to collapse

Adrien notices that Chloé is acting weird, and wears enough bling on her wrist to hide half her palm, AND makeup underneath. So he suspects she got her mark at roughly the same time as Marinette

Marinette investigates Nathanaël, who is acting weird around her.

Adrien catches his father and Nathalie acting like VERY GOOD FRIENDS, standing close to each other to talk, with Nathalie's hand brushing Gabriel's cheek and things like that. I am gabenath filth.

Eventually, the plot thickens.

Marinette sets up a meeting with Crimson 8 at the park, which Chat decides to spy on just to make sure she is safe. Crimson 8 does not show up, but Nathalie does, telling Marinette she is looking for Adrien. Gabriel arrives a bit later to fetch Nathalie. Crimson 8 sends an email to Marinette saying he had an emergency and could not come.

Nathanaël admits to Marinette that he saw her mark and figured out who she was, and that he won't tell anyone. But he is not Crimson 8.

Chloé admits to Adrien that her soul mark is a diamond, and that her soulmate is Sabrina (because diamonds are a girl's best friend). Sabrina noped out because she realized that living the rest of her life with Chloé and her behaviour was not acceptable.

Newspapers imply that Nathalie and Gabriel are soulmates after a paparazzi with a drone takes a picture of them kissing, and it ends up in tabloids.

Then we get to the end:

Marinette sets up another appointment with Crimson 8, who promises he will be there. She tells her friends, and Alya and the girls wait nearby the place to see if it all goes well, while Chat spies from a rooftop.

It turns out they were very right to watch, because it's Volpina who shows up, and kidnaps Marinette, using an illusion to make the others believe Marinette is talking to some teenage boy.

Alya spots Volpina dashing away with the true Marinette, and raises the alarm. Chat gives chases.

Meawhile, Volpina has taken Marinette to a secluded location and tied her up, and is taunting her about how Ladybug will HAVE to come rescue her "soulmate" and surrender her Miraculous. Chat comes to beat her up.

While Chat is busy fighting Volpina outside and much to Marinette's horror, Hawk Moth joins her in the hideout. And instead of talking about "Ladybug, your soulmate", his first words are "Checkmate, Ladybug," as he goes straight for her earrings.

Marinette is not an idiot, so she is NOT wearing the Miraculous, but plain plastic earrings. So Hawk Moth is about to have a fit of rage and great villain soliloquy, but Chat is done with Volpina and kicks him in the face. He frees Marinette, who runs away and gets her Miraculous out of her shoe so she can transform and go kick some supervillain ass.

Once Volpina is deakumatized and Hawk Moth forced to retreat, Ladybug hurries to go detransform and cower behind shrubbery as Marinette. Then she waits for Chat to retrieve her.

As she exits the bushes, she bumps into Nathalie, who was, for some totally non suspicious reason, cowering behind a tree, in the middle of a workday, streets away from her workplace. Nathalie leaves in a hurry.

Marinette thanks Chat for the rescue. And he answers "Thanks for lending me a paw" so she can figure out he knows her secret by now.

When she checks her phone, she discovers messages from Crimson 8 asking her, in order:

where she is

if she knows that Chat Noir is in a fight with an Akuma

If she is okay

She doesn't answer, pretty suspicious about Crimson8 by that point.

She ask a little chat with Tikki about the soul marks and how they work.

Now.

I must remind you that the Kwami (especially Nooroo) are NOT fans of the 'soul marks' and think it's the work of an idiotic god with too much pride.

Nobody is entirely sure how it works. Nobody knows which god started the damn thing.

So Tikki admits that there is no way to be certain that it is triggered by "love", because *of course* if someone believes someone else is their soulmate, they will make every effort possible to have a good relationship.

Which leaves Marinette wondering if she is bound to Hawk Moth. Marinette is a smart cookie.

Meawhile, Adrien goes home and hears Nathalie and Gabriel argue loudly in Gabriel's office, something like "You took things too far" from Nathalie and Gabriel arguing back louder. So he runs off to his bedroom and waits for the storm to pass.

When he comes back downstairs after things have calmed down, he finds Nathalie with her arms wrapped around Gabriel. Both of the idiotics grownup jump away, make lame excuses and run away in separate directions. Adrien is like "I SHIP IT".

Two days go by.

Crimson8 emails Marinette again, telling her that "Obviously, this whole soul mark business is not going to work out," and that he is getting a dark tatoo sleeve to hide the mark so it cannot cause problems anymore. He wishes her "a lot of happiness with much more suited partner Chat Noir". She goes scarlet at that comment, but is quickly distrated by the feeling of tattoo needles stabbing her hand.

Chloe and Sabrina somewhat make up.

Gabriel admits to Adrien that he is considering dating Nathalie.

Chat Noir visits Marinette's balcony and asks her on a date be cause he really, really likes her in all shapes and forms by that point.

Adrien never gets a soulmark. He doesn't care. He found his soulmate just fine on his own.

The end.

Notes:

The fic is a subversion of the soulmates trope, based on the fact that everyone assumes that the mark means people are bound by “true love”, and conform to that because of societal pressure. 

What it actually does is mark people who are bound by fate. So, of course, Ladybug ended up bound to her supervillain nemesis, who is kind of an important character in her personal story.

[sairenharia]

Sentimonster Theory

My own thoughts on this theory brought up by the episode Ladybug. Spoilers ahead.

1. Validity Of The Idea.

First off, Ladybug introduces this idea of a sentient Sentimonster. Not something brought up before, albeit we’ve only seen a few Sentimonsters so far. We know very little about the Peacock Miraculous ourselves, but just what we’ve been shown and told. Such as we know it’s broken, though not necessarily how.

But Ladybug said her Sentimonster was her own being. Since the series is from her perspective and the Sentimonster agreed to act with her, we can take this as a truth to a certain extent. Which is honestly all sorts of messed up. In particular because we are introduced to this concept only a minute or two before this sentient girl is then erased from existence.

If this was a generally dark show with dark concepts in the vein of Rick and Morty, then maybe this could be a one off. But it’s NOT. This is a generally light hearted show that glossed over a girl just got grant freedom and then died and barely played with that idea. Really Ladybug should have been a two parter and that Amok should have been a hot potato so we could explore Sentibug’s mental state and ability to choose.

But wasted potential aside, a light hearted show does NOT bring up something that grim dark and NOT have a payoff. Which means one of two things.

There will be a sentient Amok arriving and they will be a thing for a while, possibly Felix, possibly someone else, and there will be some kind of witch hunt or stab in the heart.

Or there is already a Sentimonster present within the show and the pay off will be finding that out. No one makes a Chekov’s gun like that and not use it.

2. The Candidates.

Who could be a Sentimonster? Obviously only those close to the Agrestes. The Agrestes themselves, Nathalie, Gorilla being the obvious ones.

I’m disinclined to believe it’s Emilie because they say she disappeared. Not ‘gone’ which is what’s usually said when shows don’t want to say ‘dead,’ but disappear. Gone implies they know what happened. Disappear means they don’t. So I really think it’s her body in the basement. And the reason she’s in a coma is because she’s  the one who made the Sentimonster.

Gorilla is the next one I find hard to believe if only because the Agreste’s are rich enough to just buy a man like that. He’s dedicated to his job, he’s a beast of a man, but he hasn’t done anything to warrant his worth in being put into a magic coma when money would do. And while a likeable guy on his own, we haven’t had enough focus on him to warrant the emotional payoff a sentient Sentimonster warrants. And personally, it puts a bad taste in my mouth making the mute person the secret inhuman being.

Gabriel certainly has the crazed focus that would be assumed of a Sentimonster. They are made with a purpose in mind, and if something unfortunate happened to the real Gabriel, then it makes sense Emilie would make him even at the cost of herself. But Gabriel would also be made by Emilie, and if she’s even half the saint Adrien paints her as, then it seems far more likely Emilie would be focused on him being back for her AND Adrien. Even if he struggled with the emotional, I doubt something like Riposte or Gorizilla would have happened with a Sentimonster Gabriel. Plus that would just be needlessly painful for Adrien because not only does he learn the man he thought was his father was the villain he’s been fighting for months, his dad is also probably dead. It’s like kicking a dog when he’s down.

Nathalie seems pretty likely if Emilie knew something was going to happen to her. Her job is to take care of Gabriel and Adrien and Nathalie does genuinely show care for both. She’s helped Adrien get what he wants, she will do anything Gabriel asks of her. For someone who seems to a not particularly passionate person, she loves two extremely socially inept people fiercely. If there was a guardian to be left behind by Emilie, Nathalie fits that criteria. The biggest question for this idea is the idea of an Amok being able to use the Peacock Miraculous itself. That seems like it shouldn’t work, but there’s nothing that says it can’t either. But even the Butterfly Miraculous has to be removed before it’s user can be Akumatized.

Then there’s Adrien. And oh boy, does a lot of things start lining up when looked at it like this.

3. The Narrative.

The thing about stories is things don’t have to be strictly in universe to reveal a truth of the story. That’s the fun of being an audience. We know Gabriel is Papillon because we’re the audience, so we see things the people in the story can’t. And the thing about Miraculous Ladybug as a narrative is there’s supposed to be a happy ending.

This is a show meant for kids. And while kids can handle dark things, Miraculous Ladybug is again, not that kind of show. The longer things go on, the less chance it seems like Adrien can have a happy ending, especially with the way they handle things between him and his father.

Adrien is getting closer to his father, but Gabriel is just diving further and further into his villainy. He keeps hurting people, he’s caused Adrien in particular some horrifying things from the times he’s died, to his three months as Aspik, to having him attack the love of his life. That sort of thing wears on a person and from Adrien actions in Gamer 2.0 and Partycrasher, both of which are after Viperion, Chat is certainly suffering from those three months. Finding out Gabriel did that to him is going to hit and it’s going to hit hard.

In particular for a point everyone has been talking about since we figured out it was Gabriel: he’s terrorized Paris to save his wife, while he treated his son like dirt. Gabriel is a man who seems intent to do anything and everything he can for love, much like Adrien does, but he also treats Adrien terribly. Their home situation is toxic at best, and abusive at worst.

Finding out the truth is going to break Adrien. More than that, with all Gabriel has done, and has treated his son, its hard to see how any end of this could allow enough room for Adrien to forgive Gabriel enough to be happy himself.

Unless, of course, the circumstances aren’t what they seem.

4. The Evidence.

Most evidence comes from what we, the audience, see, as well as some presumed things of Sentimonsters.

A. Cataclysm.

In Miraculer, Adrien gets hit with Cataclysm. Much to everyone’s surprised, he doesn’t turn to dust from something that’s turned harder things then flesh and blood to dust. We’ve seen it destroy indestructible items like the Bee Miraculous. We know Plagg killed the dinosaurs.

The first assumption is Adrien survived because he’s the Black Cat User, so he’s got some resistance to his own attack, or perhaps it’s because Miraculer was using the ability and thus it was a weaker version of it.

But here’s the thing. There’s that narrative thing again. Adrien got hurt. He got hurt real bad. We rarely see these kids hurt thanks to their supersuits, and here Adrien is, getting hit with his own death touch. This is something that, one it’s own, should have been an episode. This could have been great character development, they could have talked about the dangers of their job, or show a lot of Ladynoir, or how stubbornly stupid Chat is to fight like that.

But this wasn’t an episode about it. This was an episode about Chloe being Queen Bee, and meeting Mayura, and a five superhero team up, and a power stealer. All those things are episode worthy, so having Chat injured is odd. Especially since it wasn’t necessary where it was.

Miraculer had already established her threat levels, Ladybug had left to give the other Miraculous. She only finds out Chat is hurt when she’s handing off the Bee to him. If it was a matter of getting Chat to disengage, there’s many ways where Miraculer could have tossed him away as many Akuma have done. There is no reason to go that extreme. He certainly doesn’t need to be hurt for Mayura to have still grabbed the Bee like that, and struggling against two opponents is reasonable. There is no real narrative reason for him to be that hurt. The only point it MIGHT make sense is it meant Chloe really did have to go after Mayura herself.

But then it’d have made more sense to have him hurt on the rooftop. It would make the fight seem more high stakes because we don’t know how long it’d take, it makes everyone afraid, it’s dramatic! So why have him suffer half an episode like that?

Because the episode was overly full. It was to distract from what happened. There would be questions of why Chat is lasting this long, is this how it always is with people, or just him? Instead there’s the distraction of the new villainess, Ladybug needs to get the MIraculous, she needs to tell Chloe she can’t be Queen Bee. She has no time to wonder about Catacalysm, and Adrien doesn’t like dwelling on the unpleasant.

But we the audience see it. Adrien can take a Catacalysm and he can last a long time under the effects. And only one other thing has.

Reflekdoll, the Sentimonster Lady Noire used the power on. A thing made of pure magic. It was messed up, but it still functioned. It freaked out because it had no controller, but what if it could control itself? It may have done better, instead been dealing with it’s slowly breaking down body instead of wildly attacking everything.

Much like Adrien.

B. Adrien And Taking Charge.

Here’s the thing about Adrien taking charge: He’s terrible at it. We see it in Mister Bug, we see it in Viperion, we it in in Evillustrator. Adrien does not do well in that position. He gets too easily flustered and gets stuck in a tunnel vision or too emotional.

He’s great at second in charge! When he knows generally what he’s supposed to be doing, he’s great. He knows to protect, to teach, to comfort. He’s shown to be clever, a point actually made in Reflekta when he helps despite not having powers. Which makes it stand out even more when he struggles to do so in Reflekdoll. The difference being he’s no longer support, he’s the one whose supposed to be ‘in charge.’

He struggles as Mister Bug.

He uses Second Chance for Three Months because he can’t calm down, step back, and calmly watch things go down so he can gather information.

And all the way back in Season One, he has Marinette take away the stylus because he can focus on protecting her, but he couldn’t think of a good way to get the pen away, and he misses an obvious way out of the box.

We know Adrien is smart. We know he’s clever enough to keep up with Ladybug’s plans when she needs him to do something. But the moment he’s in charge, it’s like something in his brain just shorts out.

C. Adrien And Memories.

So something that has bugged me for ages is the fact he was not allowed out of the house until he got to go to school. He’s been locked up his whole life. Which made sense when I thought his mother disappeared years ago and his father became overprotective as a result. Then we learn his mother hasn’t even been gone a year by the time Christmas rolls around.

That changed a lot in regards to Emilie.

In Jackady, Chat’s outburst reminded Gabriel of Emilie. Which implies she was a woman who was at least somewhat of a spitfire. Someone Adrien saw as kind and who wanted him to be good. The person Adrien thinks about right before he almost destroyed the Christmas Tree and he stopped. Kind and willing to fight.

And still agreed to isolate Adrien.

And before she disappeared, Gabriel was supposedly less severe as he is now. Now this could be evidence that Gabriel is the Sentimonster, but with both Gabriel being at least a little more caring and a woman Adrien sees so highly, it’s weird they both agreed to raise him in basic isolation.

Not that I’m saying Emilie is anywhere near Gabriel’s level in canon, but Adrien is definitely looking at things with rose colored glasses. It’s not okay to raise a kid isolated from their peers like that. Especially a ray of sunshine like Adrien whose desperate for friends.

But at the Agreste parents very best, they were overprotective as hell.

We know Adrien is starting to realize his father is being unfair and overly harsh, we’ve seen him run away because of it, and he’s terrified of being locked up. He still sees Emilie as this saintly way though.

It may be because she made him. Of course he’d see her this way because she wouldn’t think there was anything wrong in wanting to protect him or she wouldn’t have gone to that extreme.

D. Adrien’s Demeanor.

Adrien is obedient. He’s a good boy who listens, and does as he’s told. Again, Adrien does not like to take charge. He rarely starts confrontation for his own sake, but he’s willing to step in for others. More so as Chat than Adrien, and Adrien is certainly more sneaky and subdue about it.

A Sentimonster is a being made to obey someone else. It’s not a giant leap to assume a sentient would still be highly inclined to obey, and more likely to stand up for others than themselves.

Then there’s Adrien’s more obsessive nature. Because let’s be fair. He’s obsessed with Ladybug. Most of the time it’s charming flirts of the safe nature, but he’s had times he’s let it distract him from the job, or made him sulk and pout. He can usually snap out of it to focus on the job, but it’s weird how he can go from one day handling his rejection with grace to the next handling it absolutely terribly. Like maybe he wants to accept it, but it’s hard to do so for a being whose usually focused on one person.

After all, Sentimonsters are protectors. Getting a little obsessed with who they’re made for makes sense.

E. Adrien’s rebellion.

It’s an interesting to note how Adrien rebels. He does things his father wouldn’t approve of, but usually goes the route of ‘what he doesn’t know won’t hurt me.’ If Adrien is told he can’t, he’ll go ‘but Chat wasn’t told he can’t.’ It’s rare we see Adrien disobey an actual direct order from Gabriel.

The only time that comes to mind as direct disobedience instead of just never asked or a technical loop hole was when he ran to school. You know. Right after he got Plagg and experienced chaos energy for the first time.

And yet, for the things Adrien deems truly important, he does try to bargain with his father. Like seeing his mother’s movie, or going to Marinette’s party, because these are important things to Adrien, and he wants his father to approve.

Oddly, when Adrien actually pleads and breaks the rules and shows how important a thing is to him, his father seems inclined to give it to him. Which I’ll get more into later.

F. Plagg, The Peacock Miraculous Was Right There, How Did You Miss It????

Listen, Plagg is a little gremlin who cares a lot more for people than he likes to show and it still seems weird he wouldn’t recognize a piece of jewelry he’s been in contact with for centuries when he could recognize the BOOK.

But that��s the thing, Plagg is a little gremlin who cares a lot. Who cares a lot about Adrien. Who, you know, he regularly fuses with and gives superpowers. There’s a good chance if Adrien is a Sentimonster, Plagg knows, and now he’s like ‘SHIT’ about the whole thing.

It’s likely Fu getting the Peacock Miraculous would spell the end of Adrien, so Plagg is hoping for an Alternate Solution to come up before he outs where the Peacock Miraculous is. He’s like millions of years old, he can be patient for a few years until he sees something, and the humans can take a little chaos in their life. Adrien’s HIS.

G. SYMBOLIC FORESHADOWING.

Gosh, copycat sure was a sculptor ‘in love’ with someone he couldn’t reach.

There sure is a lot of False Adriens and False Chats in the season where Mayura is a player between the wax statue of Adrien, Chat, and Adrien playing Chat’s Voice in the Ladybug Movie, and Lila pretended to be Chat and Adrien for a while in Chameleon.

Chat keeps being turned into a meat puppet by Gabriel an awful lot.

Reflekdoll got Catacalsymed by another Chat.

Miraculer sure was about Chloe’s friend trying to become another person for her love, while her other friend was living through something we never thought should be livable by a human.

Chat did think the Sentibug was a real person and choose her first.

Ladybug said Sentibug was too perfect to be human. While Gabriel and Marinette both call Adrien perfect. And Lila, and I think Chloe. Basically a lot of people call the boy perfect.

Thomas has a tendency to make tweets about ‘in universe’ views on the characters, thus when he said Chloe was a terrible person who would never have a MIraculous. And he sure calls Adrien perfect a lot himself.

H. Allergies.

Allergies are the immune system’s hypersensitive reaction to something. Worried about something being a threat even if it isn’t. And Adrien is allergic to feathers. A thing he may be made out of.

Maybe Sentimonsters don’t play well with feathers, maybe another feather can mess with theirs, I don’t know, but I find it very interesting one of his parents had a feather based superpower and he’s allergic to them and it feels like that should mean SOMETHING.

I. The Promise.

Gabriel talks to Emilie about a promise. A wish. A way to reverse a mistake. He never says he’ll bring her back or fix her, which is the obvious thing. He’s cryptic which means whatever he WANTS, it’s not as simple as saving her. He says it the way he does because we the audience aren’t meant to know yet.

5. The Wild Mass Guessing.

Because the rest was super coherent.

Two other points: A pure theory on Party Crashers. Gabriel is shocked at joy in his house, which could just be him realizing how many people were there, or an even more disturbing thought that he never expects joy from Adrien. OR it could be Gabriel can’t sense Adrien at all because he’s a Sentimonster, and neither Nathalie nor the Gorila are big on the joy spectrum;.

As for Chat Blanc, it could be Chat Blanc will be a seperate Sentimonster (and MORE foreshadowing????), or it’s because Plagg is also involved. Plagg is definitely a full entity, after all, and that may be enough to allow for an Akumatization.

BUT here is how I see things going down.

Adrien Agreste died, somehow or someway, probably preventable, and it was with his parents so it didn’t become news.

Emilie, unwilling to lose her son, decides to use the peacock. She may have sculpted something like Mayura did Ladybug and he’s got an Amok hidden around somewhere. Maybe Emilie used his body which is grim and also necromancy. It could be a lot of things.

But the Peacock is NOT the Miraculous of Creation. A Sentimonster is a temporary creation, a guardian, it’s not meant to be a longterm sentient being. Having a Sentimonster capable of some intelligent thought is understandable, because better guardian then, but it’s NOT meant to be a person.

Emilie pushes and this is what breaks the Peacock Miraculous. And this puts her into a coma because now she has to support Adrien’s existence with her own emotions and it’s too much of a burden for her to bear and remain conscious.

And Adrien the Sentimonster is born.

At first, he doesn’t have a lot in the way of emotions. This works out because now he’s supposed to be mourning his now disappeared mother and being blank is pretty understandable. He has the memories from his mother, maybe his father, he knows generally how he’s supposed to be, but he’s still figuring it out. Meanwhile he thinks it’s the depression because he doesn’t know he’s not real.

And Gabriel?

Gabriel lost his son, then his wife, and now he has This Thing in his home. Who thinks he’s his son and his wife almost lost her life for it and he has to. Deal with that. So he goes complete hardass because if he has to deal with it, then it would represent the Gabriel brand well. He models, he learns, he becomes the poster boy of a perfect son.

Adrien doesn’t understand why he’s being treated so coldly and he chalks it up to his father also being in pain at losing his mother. It makes sense.

Then Chloe demands to see Adrien and, well, telling Chloe no doesn’t work for long. And when Gabriel is ignoring Adrien, and Nathalie knows and is just being a professional, and the Gorilla is going about business as normal, Chloe just sees her depressed friend, and at some point there’s discussion of his wanting to go to school, to make friends, because Adrien is REAL. He’s a Sentimonster, but he’s REAL because that’s what Emilie wanted.

And real people crave love and affection eventually.

So Chloe gets him into school. And Adrien goes and passes his test with Fu. Because Adrien was always a kind and caring boy and a Sentimonster helps.

He’d forbidden.

And he meets Plagg and he’s magic and that feels right in the world.

And suddenly he’s not just Adrien. He’s Chat Noir. He has a purpose. He has people he can PROTECT and he is so eager to do so. He has powers he expects no hard limit to. He has a partner he has to work with.

He comes alive. There’s just been a pit of loss and need and yearning and suddenly he has that and more and moreover, he has a little bit of chaos on his side. Chaos that takes this order he’s been given.

And says no.

And Nathalie knows she has to tell Gabriel.

And he’s so, so very surprised. Because Adrien should not have been able to say no. And he thinks maybe, just maybe, Emilie did leave him a son after all.

So Gabriel let’s Adrien go to school.

Adrien’s birthday comes. Gabriel would always buy his son a gift. He can’t bear the thought of getting him a new fountain pen, a useful tool, a professional tool, because he’s still not sure he’s invested, so he puts the responsibility on Nathalie for the first time.

Jackady happens, Gabriel almost died, and all he could think about as he stepped away from the ledge was he almost left Adrien alone. And for the first time he hugs this boy who might be his son.

He destroys his office because it’s easy to pretend to be mad about this boy he might love and he hates he may make him lose his wife and perhaps his firstreal son. And yet the concern once he’s purified isn’t near the act he wishes it was.

Riposte becomes a test. Could he put the boy in danger. And he finds he hates himself more by the end of it then any other time.

Christmas, he decides to show a little care, maybe embrace this, and he’s terrified when he’s gone. Not enough to forget his wife and other child when an opportunity arises, but he finds himself wanting to make him happy when his friends show up.

Adrien starts asking for things. He pleads to hang out with his friends. He make arguments. He WANTS. He wants because he wants to be there for his friends, he makes a hand made gift because someone is important to him. These are not the actions of an obedient beast. Because that’s the thing, when Adrien begs, Gabriel gives in. And when Adrien wants to know more about Emilie, see her in other things, it shows someone whose view of her isn’t only her own self view.

He’s terrified when he thinks he might be Chat Noir. He has to be sure, he has to know NOW because he seems so very real and whether or not he is, he finds himself loving this Adrien and he doesn’t want him to be Chat Noir, and yet he does when he fall because the thought of him dying-

He even ponders giving up his wife for this boy. After he put him in danger. After he almost fell apart into glitter. He can’t bear to lose him too, he’s sure of it.

Adrien is growing. He’s learning to love others. He’s learning friendships. As Chat Noir, with chaos and purpose in his hands, he acts with abandon. He has love, he can protect, everything is clear.

But when Ladybug suffers and he’s unable to help, he just because more desperate and determined to save her next time. Even if it takes well over twenty thousand times and three months because that is his PURPOSE, so next time, he throws himself off the stage, and he won’t listen to Fu.

As Adrien, things are still confusing. Adrien wants to defend, but he also wants to be good for Gabriel, and making a scene is bad. Still, he sees Lila hurt people he loves, he cares about, so he decides to that being underhanded. If sincere earnestness doesn’t work like it does with Chloe, then he’ll make sure Lila knows if she won’t be his friend, then he’ll find a way to make her regret being his enemy. It’s not as direct as he likes, but he must be good for Gabriel to.

Gabriel is becoming more desperate by the day. He must save Emilie. He must save their son. And maybe this boy is their son? Maybe Adrien’s soul was there because they were so similar. He doesn’t know, all he knows is he needs the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous and once he has though, he can make everything RIGHT.

And there is the thing about happy endings.

As canon stands, Adrien is unlikely to get a happy ending. Because as the series progresses, he BONDS with his father. They seem to be getting closer, healing this rift that had been between them. If Adrien is to get out of this, he should be recognizing his unfair treatment, pulling away, getting farther to see how bad the situation is. Not getting closer. The closer he gets to Gabriel, the more it’ll hurt because how does he make peace with that? This man terrorized the city of Paris for his wife, while he barely gave his son the time of day.

And that’s if Gabriel doesn’t die using the Miraculous to save Emilie. Then Adrien will lose his father to get back his mother after his father didn’t even give him good memories to leave off of.

But the story changes if Adrien is a Sentimonster.

Because Adrien’s existence is draining Emilie. She can’t wake up while he exists. And Gabriel is a man who loves so fiercely and doesn’t want to love this boy, but DOES because how can he not? So like his son, so like his mother. So it becomes even more important to win, so Adrien will never know what his existence has cost Emilie, to make sure Adrien’s existence is never threatened by the loss of the Peacock.

Everything will hurt, but it’s not a man who choose a nearly lost wife while completely forsaking his son.

It’s a man whose nearly lost both and trying to save both.

And maybe, just maybe, the cost of stabilizing Adrien’s existence will be a cost he can bear instead of asking someone else to die.

[princeasimdiya12]

My Problem with the Miraculous Season Finales

Heyo ML community. So I often make and reblog my fair share of ML salt memes every now and then. But today I wanted to post something a little more different and more elaborate on a particular subject. And the subject in mind?

The finales feel completely one-sided against Ladybug and the heroes in general. By that I mean that the season finales for Miraculous Ladybug are created in ways that give huge advantages to Hawk Moth while barely compensating Ladybug for her efforts. 

The general idea of a season finale is that the characters often face a great obstacle that’s accumulated from past points throughout a season. Most finales end with the hero triumphing said obstacle and getting stronger or obtaining a personal reward for their merits. And there are often cases where the season finale ends on a downer ending where the villain wins or the heroes end up losing; it’s not a problem since it sets up potential conflicts for the next season. But with Miraculous, the finales often end with HM getting a better advantage against the heroes while the heroes get barely anything. 

Allow me to go through each finale and how it impacts both Ladybug and Hawk Moth.

Season 1: Vulpina

I’m counting Vulpina over Origins since the latter was the official pilot for the series and Vulpina continues the story onto season 2. Marinette’s reward is that she gets her hands on the Book of the Miraculous and gets to meet Master Fu for the first time. She gets to meet the person who gave her her powers and will become a useful ally to her during her battles. Hawk Moth’s reward is that he gets an ally in Lila Rossi who strongly hates Ladybug. He manages to use her in later seasons for any of his complicated plans. So far it’s balanced as the two parties gain something that helps them with their overall goals.

Season 2: Heroes’ Day

This is where things get unbalanced. At the end of the episode, Hawk Moth gets two advantages that become of use to him in the series. The first is Operation Catalyst where he can now create armies of Akumas which can overwhelm the heroes. Ladybug and Chat Noir can’t predict when and how he can create this plan meaning that Hawk Moth is able to pull off this scheme whenever he wants provided that he generates a large amount of sadness/negative emotion within a group of Parisians. Which he does in the Ladybug-Sentimonster episode. The second advantage is Nathalie becoming Mayura who is now a proactive ally in the fight against the heroes and her powers are frequently used to support HM’s plans.

What’s Ladybug’s advantages at the end of the season? Not much. This finale doesn’t really give Ladybug anything in particular that will be helpful in the future. The only thing that can come close would be summoning Rena Rouge, Carapace and Queen Bee to fight alongside her and Chat Noir. But even that doesn’t last long as the new heroes are quickly captured and brainwashed leaving it up to LB and CN to save the day on their own. And the other semi-thing was Marinette kissing Adrien on the cheeks. While it didn’t boost Ladybug’s hero career, it does mark a significant set up between Marinette and Adrien’s relationship where Marinette becomes more confident enough to showcase her feelings for the boy rather than just cower and act awkward. It was a step towards positive character development. But then season 3 came and chucked that out like a football. So Ladybug/Marinette don’t really get anything this finale.

And then there’s…

Season 3: Miracle Queen

I’m sure many are aware of how messed up and poorly directed this episode was as it derailed Chloe’s character and kicked Master Fu out of the narrative. But looking at it again, there’s so many rewards Hawk Moth ended up gaining compared to Ladybug.

For starters, he has a new ally in Chloe who officially hates Ladybug and wants nothing to do with her. Especially considering that she’s back to her prime personality but slightly worse. She’s perfect Akuma bait and HM can use her whenever he wants.

Next is that he knows the secret identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s allies. Meaning that neither of them can ever become heroes in fear that HM will use their identities against them in some way. And that’s not even thinking about what Gabriel ‘Garbage Bag’ Agreste can do when he notices that most of those heroes are his son’s friends and classmates as he can use his connections to hurt them. Either by alienating him from his son or for petty revenge.

Then there’s how Nathalie managed to steal Fu’s tablet which contained the translated text of the Grimmoire meaning that HM has access to the secrets of the Miraculous and can use them to his advantage. You know how Fu discovered the secret powerups thanks to the book? Well now Hawk Moth can do the same for him and Mayura and surprise the heroes with their new powers.

And speaking of Mayura, the final reward is that Hawk Moth was able to fix the Peacock Miraculous. This means that Mayura is able to properly fight against the heroes without fear of succumbing to illnesses. And while Nathalie may be too sick to fight, he can always rely on either Lila or Chloe to take on the Mayura mantle.

So overall, that’s at least 4 huge advantages that Hawk Moth has against the heroes. And what does Ladybug receive?

The Miraculous box and the new title of Guardian of the Miraculous. On one hand, this isn’t as bad because now she has the Miraculous at hand and doesn’t have to worry about traveling to Fu’s place to get a new one to pick an ally. Although it will be a challenge considering it’s a giant Easter egg. But on the other hand, this is a huge disadvantage for her.

While she is the new Guardian, we haven’t really been shown how she’s ready to take on such a huge role. She doesn’t know all the secrets pertaining to the Miraculous Order or how to activate all of her powers. Her losing Master Fu puts her at a disadvantage because she lost the one person who could explain and guide her through her mission as a Miraculous holder. And while she does have Chat Noir on her side, she still considers it too dangerous to confide in many of the Guardian secrets. That and how easily he gets captured, decommissioned or brainwashed when fighting Akumas. Although the possibility of LB becoming closer to CN so he can shoulder some of the burden is possible, it comes off as less than likely given how the show treats CN as inferior and unnecessary compared to LB. Not to mention how she lost a good chunk of allies she can turn to for help now that Hawk Moth knows their true identities. Technically speaking, she’s on her own when it comes to being a Guardian.

Also, one unfortunate piece of Fridge Horror comes to mind. Just like how Master Fu lost his memories as a Guardian, that means Ladybug in the far future will have to lose her own memories when she gives up the title. That’s pretty dark considering all she’s done for Paris as Ladybug. All the lives she’s saved and changed, her experiences growing up, her relations with friends and loved ones. Most of them will end up being erased or blurred once she gives up the title. And it gives a sense of somber over the inevitable fate of Marinette. How everything she’s worked for and experienced will be forgotten by her.

So for me, this honestly feels that the season finales have been more in favor of Hawk Moth while making the battle harder for Ladybug. And I know that heroes need to have challenges and hardships to make their victories more enjoyable. Yet it feels frustrating that the narrative is constantly making things harder for Ladybug while barely giving her any meaningful rewards or advantages that will allow LB to overcome those hardships. Can you really say that it’s fair that Hawk Moth’s villain role gets more and more easier while Ladybug faces more adversity and losses during her hero career? As a fan/viewer rooting for Ladybug to succeed, it feels disappointing having to see her lose so much and barely survive Hawk Moth’s schemes. I wouldn’t be as upset if there were more advantages in favor of Ladybug and the other heroes giving it a better balance for the heroes and villains. But as it stands, it feels really unbalanced for the most part and I’m not very optimistic for the season 4 finale and what’ll happen then.

That’s all I have to say on the matter. If you agree or disagree with anything I’ve written, you’re more than welcome to reblog this with your commentary.

[lycorogue]

Miraculous World: New York - United HeroeZ live-blogging (sorta)

Okay, it’s hard for me to live-blog everything I want to squee about, especially with the first watch. But I’m still wide awake and watching the re-air so let’s see how I do. (Turns out, I’m a slower typer than I thought and most of this was done post-watch again :P )

I absolutely love this special’s opening credits. It has a very Marvel feel. Nice.

Um... Uh... Did... Did Cristina Vee forget her Ladybug/Marinette voice over the break? I’m not liking this voice. I’m not liking it at all. STOP WITH THE VOICE! NOOOOOOO! (Also... Mr. Pigeon... Again? -_- )

Love that Adrien has started looking up the meaning of roses so he can find one Ladybug will actually accept. XD The boy tries so hard. <3

Hubby thought that Cristina might have decided to change up Ladybug’s voice so it’s not so obvious she’s Marinette (a la Batman) but the deeper voice is still here for Marinette. WHYYYYY!? The hiatus was clearly too long. She’s completely forgotten Marinette’s voice. OTL

Awww, Miss Bustier is pregnant!? She’ll be a great mom! eeeee

Also, smoooooooooth Marinette. Adrien is TOTALLY just a friend now... >_> Poor Luka. -_-

Also... ALYA’S VOICE IS WRONG TOO! WHAT THE HECK! WHYYYYYYYY. THIS IS SO AWESOME BUT I JUST CAN’T WITH THESE NEW VOICES! Everyone sounds deeper and gruffer... is that because the VAs are out of practice? Is it because they had to record at home with different equipment? What’s going on!?

Of COURSE Gabriel suspects a Miraculous in America. Good way to bring him to the States. At least Keith Silverstein remembered his Gabriel/Hawk Moth voice. I don’t know if I could have handled either Hawky or Adrien having the wrong tone of voice in this.

Oh. Oh no! Oh dear! Nathalie’s voice is the worst! At least hers can be explained away that she’s still recovering from the Battle for the Miracle Box but... *cringe*

KAGAMI’S OFF TOO! I think it’s 100% the actors not remembering the voices they used for these characters. -_- Such a shame. This movie is amazing, but the voices are so hard for me to get past. 

OMG, THE LITTLE CAT TO ALERT LADYBUG IS FLIPPIN’ ADORABLE! I’d hit the button a million times myself, so I feel ya, Chat Noir. Also, BRILLIANT play, Ladybug. :D

Equally brilliant plan on Plagg’s part. At least, it would have been if they were able to actually exercise it. Also.... WHERE DID THIS POWER OF FLIGHT COME FROM AND WHY DIDN’T THEY USE IT BEFORE!? >_> Me thinks the recipe for this power is magically going to be forgotten again once we get into the show proper.

Also, I know there will be salt thrown by the handful at Adrien after this special BUT THE BOY DIDN’T WANT TO ABANDON PARIS! He was going to stay and give up his class trip, but Plagg was right, when does Gabriel ever give him the freedom to do something like this? As someone who never got to go on any out-of-state (let alone out-of-country) class trips, I know how hard FOMO hits. If I had the chance, I would have jumped at it, ESPECIALLY after Plagg came up with a solid plan. EVEN SO, HE WAS GOING TO STAY! PLAGG CONVINCED HIM! And Plagg meant well. He wanted his kid to have a taste of freedom. Just... JUST LEAVE THESE TWO PRECIOUS BEANS ALONE, SALTERS!

UPDATE: The salters did NOT leave Adrien alone for this -_-

-_- And of course Luka’s voice is ALSO off. Still, my boy RACING A FRIGGEN BUS so Marinette can make the trip to NYC! SUCH A FRIGGEN GOOD BOI AND HOW CAN FANS HATE HIM HE’S JUST AMAZING AND *chef kiss* My heart just BREAKS for him though, because he’s sending his would-be girlfriend off on a weeklong class trip with her “former” crush and he KNOWS she’s still in love, but he’s not asking her to stay or pushing her to give up on Adrien and omg this kid is too pure my poor son!

UPDATE: So, apparently the hate mostly comes from Luka being - excuse the pun but - “one note” where as Kagami is more fleshed out and well rounded? Really? We know just as much about her as we do Luka. Just because we’ve seen Kagami flawed and we haven’t particularly seen Luka stumble that makes her more well-rounded? What if we just haven’t seen what Luka’s bad at? It IS possible to write someone whose flaws don’t necessarily come up often without them being some 2D Mary Sue. Give the writers (and Luka) a chance....

Awww. Adrien feeling guilty about leaving Paris and Ladybug. :’( But look at how cheered up he was just by SEEING Marinette! LOOK AT HOW HE RACED TO HER TO SEE WHERE SHE WAS SITTING!

Aaaaand then she panics. -_- This could have been Startrain all over again, but NOOOOO she’s now so focused on “he’s just a friend and I have to get over him” that she just has 0 chill around him anymore. -_- Go back to admitting you have a crush and just stumbling over yourself around him, huh?

(The Adrienette is STRONG in this scene though and I’m eating it up)

LOOK AT HOW DISAPPOINTED ADRIEN LOOKS SINCE SHE RAN OFF FROM HIM! WHYYYYYYY? And he has to be stuck sitting between his bodyguard and Mendeleiev. Poor kid doesn’t even have a friend to chat with on the long flight. TT3TT 

(So kind of serves Marinette right that she ALSO feels guilty about leaving Paris and now she has Mr. Damocles falling asleep on her instead of Adrien!)

I do appreciate that Cristina seems to be remembering Marinette’s voice more-or-less finally. Yay.

EEEEEE The sunset on the plane scene!!!!! <3 He speaks so softly to her and <3 <3 <3 (Also... Bryce Papenbrook seemed to have lost his Adrien voice in this recording... -_- )

UUUgh... was that still Ben Diskin doing Nino’s voice during the whole Operation New York dialogue with Alya? That didn’t sound anything like Nino! *sigh* Again, the main problem I have with this is the actors didn’t seem to get back into character before recording. Such a shame.

UPDATE: It was in fact NOT Ben Diskin anymore. :’( The new voice actor did well enough, but it just wasn’t Nino. I’m sure it will feel more like him the more I hear it, but I already miss the Southern Cali 90s Surfer Dude accent, even if it made no sense for a Gen Z Parisian to have it in the first place.

Awww, Mr. Damocles changing into his Knight Owl costume. <3 And then had to change back out of it. XD

They... actually named a superhero Uncanny Valley......

Knight Owl and Sparrow, AKA Batman and Robin.

“That’s just Captain Redlight directing traffic.” XD I mean, yeah, we have a lot of superhero characters but I think this is a bit much.

Alya oh so discretely pointing to Marinette as Nino directs Adrien to look out the window to see how beautiful NYC is. XD

AAAAAAND sliding doors vs Adrienette part 1. LOL I love how Aeon instantly figured out that Adrienette belong together.

Ooooooo Sabrina is gonna get herself an American boyfriend (And look at how jealous Chloe gets XD)

Adrien’s Soft Smile as Marinette realizes she was resting her hand on his stomach as she was hiding from Ms. Mendeleiev. So cute!

“Is it a bird?” “A plane” “No, it’s Hotdog Dan!” Oh. Em. Gee. Seriously? Ketchup Boy and Mustard Justice? Why!? Who came up with these code names!? XDDD

HOW DID NINO AND ALYA JUST RIP A HOTDOG IN HALF!?

eeeeeeeeeeeee THE FLOATING SCENE!!!!

Also, helium-voiced Nino commenting about his chick having wings <3

“Do you know this song?” I KNEW INSTANTLY WHERE ALYA WAS GOING WITH THIS AND I’M 100% HERE FOR IT. I AM SCREAMING!

Adrien’s soft asking Marinette to dance with him? He was practically PLEADING for her to say yes! And then she just scurries away from him!? And he grabs her hand to stop her from floating away. And then they just... nuzzle into each other as they dance and... yup. I’m screaming. <3 <3 <3 <3 (Also, the dance was at a party Chloe threw to prove to Adrien that she can be nice; it wasn’t her birthday, but I guess canonically it now was????)

Superheroes in America don’t have to hide their identities... perhaps someone should look into the comic book run of Avengers Civil War and decide if that’s a good thing... >_>

“I don’t mind being stuck with a friend like you” My heart is just flatlining. Like. ADRIEN, JUST SAY YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH HER ALREADY, OKAY!?

Jess and Aeon’s plan is as convoluted as one of Marinette’s XD I just love these two and I hope we see more of them.

Ah, Alya and Nino are good at manipulating their friends. 

Paris is under attack! Oh no! 0_0 

Ah, bargain-bin Doctor Octopus

After fully watching the special I know the answer, but when first hearing Sparrow I wondered if maybe Jess was genderfluid. Kind of a reverse of the Sailor Stars.

The transformation for the American heroes is both awesome and ridiculous and I love them.

“Marinette’s in danger” Adrien then INSTANTLY becomes Chat Noir to save her! <3 <3 <3 <3 I FREAKED when I first watched this part because I was afraid he might have spotted (excuse the pun) Marinette transforming. I was also curious how they were going to explain why they were in NYC. “I’ll explain later” is a good excuse. They are preoccupied by the villain and that gives him time to come up with a lie. Smart?

Aaaaand Cristina Vee forgot her Ladybug voice again. I hope this isn’t a new thing; switching up her voice for Ladybug. I’m not much of a fan, especially since she hasn’t always done it. :/

It kills me that Sparrow constantly comments about not calling for backup and gets in trouble for not calling when Sparrow DID try and the communicator was destroyed.

*flinch* The Chat Noir Cataclysm scene. My heart. It hurts. Poor Adrien. </3 All the guilt he has to hold for the majority of the second half of this thing.

EDIT: Totally forgot about the “American superhero gets understandably emotional over a loved one and smashes the villain through about half-a-dozen buildings with complete disregard for the collateral damage” trope.

Dollar Store Batman couldn’t figure out the manhole cover wasn’t in place. Whoops.

The breakdown scene where Ladybug lets Chat Noir know about how her powers work and how she can’t repair Paris. And Adrien giving up his powers. </3 And even though she’s so upset, and she felt betrayed by Chat Noir, the fact that she INSTANTLY yelled when she heard him renouncing his Miraculous and relinquishing it to Ladybug! And her TEARS as she realizes she lost him and won’t be able to return his Miraculous to him since she can’t even ask Fu to return it anymore!? Aaaaaaaaa! My heart!

“Gilbert?” XD I’m sorry but just hearing the poor little Eagle calling out the name is just too adorable.

ADRIEN WANDERING ALONE IN THE RAIN!? MARINETTE LOOKING ONTO THE CAT MIRACULOUS ALSO IN THE RAIN!? MY HEART IS BREAAAAAAAKINGGGGGG

The press conference requesting the NYC residents to stay inside until further notice. >_> Yeah... that... that might not work out so well if real life is any indication.....

“I wouldn’t have minded being stuck here a little longer with a friend like you.” >______< OH MY GOD, ADRIEN! (Also, Bryce lost his Adrien voice again... *sigh*)

Oh, and Marinette trying to chase him down to finally confess!? TT3TT

Oh man. Releasing a superhero from her fear of her powers. That can’t be.... yup. There goes like a dozen buildings in Manhattan.... -_-

Of course the POTUS is a superhero as well.... with access to weapons. Greaaaat. This isn’t a terrifying thought right about now.

I adore Sparrow. I ADORE SPARROW. I ABSOLUTELY FRIGGEN ADORE SPARROW!

About a million missile launchers hidden throughout the streets of NYC... >_< This isn’t hitting close to home or anything.

Eeeeeee. Marinette isn’t just unsure she can be Ladybug without A Chat Noir. She needs HER Chat Noir. She needs ADRIEN specifically. (Also, there goes Bryce once more forgetting his Adrien voice. Maybe he forgot what Adrien sounds like when he’s sad???)

UPDATE: Can we just talk for a minute the significance that Uncanny Valley - the superhero (accidentally) KILLED by Chat Noir (even if she was revived shortly after) - is the one happily returning Adrien’s superhero powers to him? How she has NO malice towards whatsoever towards Chat Noir? How SHE is the one to tell him that “to err is human”!? Beautiful! Love it! 

Nice. I liked that Uncanny can’t see the kwamis. Nice continuity.

THE LADYNOIR GLOMP! She was so afraid to never see him again. I LOVE how much this solidifies how important he is to HER, if not the team itself. 

The Americans being coerced by a foreign power to start a world war. -_- This truly is hitting too close to home right now....

Uh...How did Ladybug come up with the plan to trick Doorman to go to the Statue of Liberty? Both her and Adrien were already out of the room when he talked about the mystery of Eiffel’s safe inside the statue, and Marinette didn’t have any time to talk to Alya, so the two of them couldn’t have discussed how Doorman resisted figuring out this mystery because you don’t use your superhero powers for personal gain. Did she just luck into there being a mystery there that Doorman wanted to solve? Slight continuity issue there with the writing.... Whoops.

Awww, poor Doorman. He just wants to know the answer to the mystery!

Eagle’s transformation is so awesome! I love it. I love her. I want more of these American superheroes and wielders.

I love that Knight Owl and Sparrow are hand-me-down superhero titles! 

Oh my god, Hawk Moth slowly walking backwards dramatically from the window. XD WHY IS THIS MAN SO EXTRA AS WELL!? At least we know where Adrien gets it from. :P

I FORGOT ABOUT THE GORILLA! OMG! THAT IS AN AMAZING CALL BACK TO HIM! XDDD

So the American Miracle Box looks like it’s filled with Native American styled jewelry. So... are they based off the spirit totems!? I NEED TO KNOW MOOOOOOOORE!

UPDATE: Upon really paying attention to the opening credits, yes, the American Miraculous do indeed seem to be based off spirit totems.

I’m sure there’s more that I reacted to in real-time, but, as I mentioned at the top, I wasn’t writing fast enough to keep up with the pace of the show itself, so this is also largely by memory. :P Oh well. Always wanted to do a sort of reaction post about this series. One thing off the fandom bucket list, I guess.

[my-miraculous-headcanons]

Half a Miraculous

In which Marinette loses one earring during an akuma battle. 

     • Ladybug and Chat Noir were fighting an akuma atop the Eiffel Tower once again, only this time the akuma managed to steal one of Ladybug’s earrings and shove her off the top of the tower. Ladybug no longer has her super strength, and her suit is slowly vanishing. She quickly calls for a Lucky Charm, and it’s a blanket.

     • Chat Noir realises that with only half of the miraculous, it’s a very real possibility that Ladybug won’t survive that fall. He’s forced to ignore the akuma and jump off the tower as well, grabbing the blanket midair and diving for his partner. He manages to catch up to her, wraps her body up in the blanket, tucks her head against his chest, and uses his baton to make a safe landing.

     • The akuma is gone, and Chat Noir rushes for an empty alley, somewhere, to leave Ladybug. When they make it, Chat Noir tries to leave her without looking. Ladybug stops him and tells him that he needs to know, at this point. 

     • “You might... The akuma might have delivered their half of my miraculous to Hawkmoth already, kitty. You need to know who I am, or you won’t be able to find me again later. I’ll still be able to purify but... I can’t cover up my identity anymore, Chat. I can’t help in public.”

     • That’s how Chat Noir learns that Ladybug is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the girl he quite literally called an everyday Ladybug. Honestly, he’s not surprised at all. He feels like he should be, maybe, but the moment he sees her face, all the pieces just click together in his mind, and all he feels is warmth. Of course it’s Marinette. Who else could it possibly be?

     • It turns out that the akuma DID deliver their half of the Miraculous to Hawkmoth. Fortunately, without Tikki, Hawkmoth can’t do shit with it. Unfortunately, Marinette can only summon her yoyo now, and nothing else. She no longer has the ability to even swing around with it— if she tried, her arms would literally get torn off her body. She doesn’t have the super durability or strength to do that. That’s not even touching how she’d be able to land...

     • Ladybug is officially out of commission. Well, not really, but as far as the public knows, she’s gone. For all they know, Chat Noir himself is putting on the other earring and casting the Miraculous Cure after every battle now. 

     • Marinette becomes something of a leader, at this point. She can’t leave Chat Noir to fight alone, but she also can’t help him without pretty much publicly outing herself as the former superheroine. So, a couple akuma fights later, after Paris realises that Ladybug is no longer around, Marinette gathers up classmates and tells them her plan. If Ladybug can’t be around to help fight, then they will. 

     • The class, under Marinette’s leadership, are actually pretty fucking good at carrying out her complicated battle plans. They’re all collectively a genuine help to Chat Noir. On the side, Marinette is also visiting Master Fu and distributing temporary heroes with notes on where to leave their Miraculous after they’re done. These temporary heroes aren’t just Nino, Alya, and Chloe— the rest of her classmates also get a chance at being a superhero as well. And none of them disobey the notes from Ladybug on where to leave their Miraculous. 

     • Marinette actually begins to gain more members to her class army as time goes on, making it less of a “class” army and more of a general Parisian collective. Monsieur Ramier joins, so does Nadja Chamack, and Monsieur D’argencourt— hell, even Jagged Stone joins in! 

     • With so many people joining in, there has to be a few ground rules:

          1. No talking about the collective or any missions in public. Ever. It does not matter if the person you want to talk to is apart of the collective, and it especially does not matter if you think you’re alone. 

          2. Never tell another member of the collective about any personal missions assigned to you personally by either Marinette or Chat Noir.

          3. Don’t text about any missions, either. Only use the app specially created by Max Kanté to update your progress on the assignments. Marinette and Chat Noir will sometimes send you an assignment through the app.

          4. New members from this point on need to be approved by Marinette and/or Chat Noir beforehand.

     • Obviously, Mayor Bourgeois, Gabriel Agreste, Nathalie Sancoeur, Lila Rossi, and a few other characters are immediately shot down. The Gorilla is approved, though, surprisingly. 

     • The Parisian collective start to speculate about Marinette’s connection to Chat Noir. In an attempt to cover her identity, Marinette admits to Alya who she is, and gives her the fox miraculous for a moment to make an illusion of Ladybug. Ladybug appears in front of the collective and tells them that she no longer is fighting the akuma because, although she has her super suit (a lie), she no longer has most of the powers that allowed her to be Ladybug (not a lie). Marinette stands next to the illusion and makes sure no one gets too close. She opens the door for Ladybug and lets the illusion walk away after the announcement. Now, everyone simply believes that Chat Noir is in contact with Marinette solely due to her leadership over the collective. No more, no less.

     • (There’s still rumors, though. Is Marinette dating Chat Noir? Are they secretly related? Are they in a love triangle with Ladybug?! ARE THEY ALL POLYAMOROUS AND JUST DATING EACH OTHER?! WHAT ABOUT ADRIEN?!)

     • Marinette starts to realise that losing half of her Miraculous might have been a good thing for her, because she never would have been able to organise this when she had the one-track mind being a superheroine. With so many of the people of Paris working together, they can start making plans not only to defeat the akuma, but to find out who Hawkmoth is.

     • The strategy is simple. Hawkmoth is still under the belief that Marinette’s Parisian collective are only used to help Chat Noir fight the akuma. He won't know that the Parisian collective is also making an effort to figure out where the akuma is coming from. All they need to do is keep a vigilant eye out and report when they see an akuma, as well as the direction it’s heading. They’re working under the assumption that when an akuma is let out, it flies in a straight direction towards its target, with some possible outliers. 

     • The theory was correct. They realise the direction the akuma are coming from, start to cluster around the general area where they believe the akuma are coming from, and at some point, someone finally witnesses exactly where an akuma was coming from. 

     • Alya, Nino, and Chloe are once again brought into the fray as the temporary heroes. This time, however, Marinette joins the team as well, using the Miraculous of the Rat, becoming Multimouse. 

     • They bring Gabriel Agreste down. The man tries to put on some desperate spiel at the end about doing this all for Adrien. Chat Noir and Carapace both need to be restrained, as they both very nearly murdered the man for that particular speech. 

     • Chat Noir goes by himself to reclaim the Peacock Miraculous and the missing half of the Ladybug Miraculous as well, while both Gabriel and Nathalie are restrained by the temporary heroes. Marinette comes along with him, noticing he’s strangely distraught.

     • After everything is done, Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur are behind bars. The Peacock Miraculous and the Butterfly Miraculous are returned to Master Fu, and Marinette is chosen to be the next Guardian of the Miraculous. Adrien finally reveals himself as Chat Noir to Marinette, the Parisian collective disperses (not entirely, after all they never know what might happen in the future, so the app stays up), and Paris is finally at peace. 

     • ... Relatively at peace. Just because there’s no longer a super villain terrorist wrecking havoc amongst the city doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be other drama, or magical events. There’s still ship wars revolving around Marinette, Adrien, Chat Noir, and Ladybug. There’s still unexplainable things that demand the investigation of the Parisian heroes. Despite all that, though, everything’s mostly at peace. 

Anyone is allowed to add their own hcs or takes to this! Or use this idea for any fic or art or anything of the like!! My blog is meant for you guys to draw inspiration from! :)

[butterfly--empress]

Crazy MLB Thoughts...

Or shit I would sort of want to see but after watching Seasons 2 and 3 doubt highly will happen nor do I trust the writers to be substantially confident in making a cohesive story that doesn’t fall at the rails.

The fact that they seem to like making Miraculous Ladybug Episodic when it really should be a Serialize show, tells me all I need to know to NOT but much faith in what they do. 

But I’ve been surprised before but...GREAT DOUBT (I’m trying really hard not to tl:dfr the essay about my...gripes with MLB on a whole because writing that...we’ll be here all day. ALL DAY)

anyways moving on;

1. Adrien and Felix are either step siblings or identical twins and someone lying about who’s the real baby daddy/baby momma and both sisters are in on it. 

2. Both sisters are in on EVERYTHING...and prob share everything and Gabe is none the wiser. Don’t make that face at me fam, Ya’ll come up with very interesting poly ships...DON’T @ ME! XD

Look at their fucking Maiden Name; without some translation; Vanily? If that shit don’t sound too damn close to Villain IDKWTF does! XD

But seriously, the name has various meanings which all boil down to, deceit and moral ambiguity. I don’t put nothing passed nobody.

I seen what the animators were doing; trying to paint Amelie in Black while Emilie is dressed in White. See, that symbolism of trying to make me think Amelie is a bad twin to Emilie’s good twin because of how Gabe sees her. But I like to think the reality is more of the opposite if...IF Emilie’s really a big bad. 

3a. Emilie is more antagonistic than Gabriel but actually loves her son and husband.

3b. Emilie could also just be full calculating evil and all of Adrien’s ‘memories’ of his loving mother could be of his Aunt Amelie instead...

4. The whole ass episode of Felix had me like: I watched one too many damn K-Dramas to know that anytime rich families act like this around each other; it usually involves birth secrets and the fact that someone was getting it on with the ‘wrong’ somebody...or the right somebody. 

Look, all I’m saying is, Gabe is def the father and most likely the father of Felix but Adrien could...maybe...actually...be...Amelie’s kid for some unfounded reason and no one’s saying anything about it. (no way in the 7 HELLS do cousins look identical like that unless the creators just felt spiteful for some reason and rehashed a scraped character design...)

Don’t look at me like that Fam! I cannot be the only one who thought there were a lot of secrets not being shared/said in this episode! If ya’ll can theorized about Sentimonsters, I can theorized about  Agreste/Graham de Vanily family drama. 

5. Audrey and Tomoe might have a bitter rivalry/partnership/something with Emilie and Gabriel. I feel like something happened for Tomoe to be all; ‘I don’t need friends, they’re a disappointment’. 

6. Fam! Ya’ll have got to chill with the ‘Character X is a Sentimonster theories’, come on that’s weak writing fam. FAM we’re better than this!

7. Marinette will finally get to tone down on her crush/obsession for Adrien WITHOUT having to be with *coughusecough* Luka.

8. Adrien as Chat Noir will finally get to tone down on his crush/obsession for Ladybug WITHOUT having to with *coughusecough* Kagami because she vaguely makes him think about Ladybug....Yea I said it. 

I believe Adrien only tries to move on with Kagami because she’s the closest thing that reminds him of his Idealistic view of Ladybug and not really for Kagami herself. which isn’t fair to Kagami...jfc I said I was NOT going to tl:dfr this post....ahh too fucking late now!

Sure, Adrien admires her but I don’t think he really truly likes the girl in that way. Out of Order Episodes or not, that boy can’t go 5 mins without going nuts over his precious M’Lady. XD

9. I just rather there NOT be this extra baggage of a love triangle and I just would like for ONCE to get through a season without feeling 2nd hand embarrassment over the cringy shit Marinette does to get Adrien’s attention.

Before you try to go ham on me LadyNoir/Adrinette/Marichat/Ladrien (GODDAMN THIS FUCKING OTP) shippers hear me out: I am not saying I don’t want the love square..THE ORIGINAL LOVE SQUARE OF really two loves in like/lust/future love unknowingly with each other to end.

I WILL FUCKING GO DOWN TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL FOR THIS SHIP!

But I do want less cringe, there’s so much I can take of Marinette learns not to be petty and seems to grow up a bit for the NEXT damn episode to reset like that shit didn’t happen....boi..i’m about to rant about the writing...

10. EPISODES WILL NOT BE SHOWN OUT OF ORDER!!

11. EPISODES WILL NOT BE SHOWN OUT OF ORDER!!

12. Season 4 will be consistent with it’s plot driven story and continuity...we can only pray.

13. When old Gabby Moth gets redeemed (not if but when...hey i’m trying to be marginally realistic here) the story for it, isn’t weak asf and doesn’t feel forced. Even though its going to feel forced...unless Emilie really does turn out to be that bad bitch and shows she cares more for power over her family and dismisses Gabriel...only for him to wisen up that his wife really isn’t a saint and realize too late that Nathalie was always there for him...FUCK I just made myself sad..I’m sad....

14. Astruc is really being a troll and Chloe actually gets a redemption...maybe too much to ask for?

15. Meanwhile Lila FUCKING Rossi can eat ass I don’t like that hoe. 

16a. Marinette will not try to carry the huge/sudden burden of being the guardian...(yea..THANKS FU FOR THAT BTW...*coughshitguardianmentormotherfuc...coughs*) ah Mari will not try to carry this heavy ass burden on her lonesome and actually lets those she chooses to give Miraculous too, KEEP THEM THIS TIME...ya know..so it’s more convenient for them to help her and Chat Noir when they need assistance.  While she maybe the Guardian, she will allow Chat Noir to share her burden with her. 

16b. Chat Noir will play more of an equal role alongside Ladybug and not be kept in the dark. ISTG RN; if Mari, after telling Fu she doesn’t want to keep anything from the guy that is supposed to be her number 1 partner...in the fucking dark...this whole ass website is going to feel my wrath for days on in. 

no more of this ‘pushing Chat Noir to the sidelines and keeping him in the dark’ more than Hawkmoth trying to use their trust for each other against them, distrust and lies is the fastest way for him or some other big bad to win.

Also I just REALLY want the gang to keep their miraculous. 

17. Probably going to get flack for this but I really want to see Chloe/Luka happen or at least some form of interaction between them. 

I don’t mind the Lukagami Ship but it rly feels like a forced pair the spares to sideline them away from Adrienette and I rly can’t see it. I mean I can but I think Chloe/Luka would make for something more interesting. 

18. Felix NOT becoming a big bad, because wow do we really need ALL of Adrien’s fam being coo-coo for coca puffs?? especially if Emilie is as worse than her husband 

19 the other side characters get to actually develop.

20...Was there something else??? Probably but I’m tired and can’t think outside of really wanting a kind and just Emilie Fucking Agreste and also wanting the Bitch Mother of all mothers from hell Emilie FUCKING Agreste, while also wanting a lil of both.

And now unable to decide WHICH Emilie Fucking Agreste to write about in my two AUs because where at first i wanted sweet innocent Emilie fucking Agreste, now I want cunning, ambitious gets what she wants behind a sweet demeanor, you’ll never see her striking, Emilie Fucking Agreste!

While good!Emilie Agreste would be simple and easy to write for...my mind is going; palace politics is just so much better when everyone is backstabbing everyone! Just like historical dramas! only not everyone dies! XD

[kisilinramblings]

If I'ma be real, I think most of the investing side characters are female with their involvement in the plot, or analyzing their logic/motivation in situations. Alya, Chloe, Kagami, Lila, and Nathalie! Like I mean I love the guy characters too but most of them are kinda just soft/dorky (which isn't a bad thing to say), with the most interesting being Gabriel and Felix to me in looking more closely at them.

I must first apologize to you, Anon, I’m taking an awful lot of time to reply to you. Because overall I do agree most of the active characters are indeed girls and women. Especially when I first read your opinion, yet there was something bothering me and the more I re-read your ask, the harder it was for me to write a proper answer. 

I mean, let’s quickly look at the characters. We have Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Chat Noir are the main characters – the main heroes. The main villain is Gabriel/Hawkmoth. As for the secondary cast, we have Tikki, Plagg, Alya, Chloé, Nino, Lila, Kagami, Luka, Nathalie and Master Fu (up until end of s3). As for the rest of the classmates, from my perspective, they fall more into the supportive cast category. 

So, 7 females, 6 males. We could say the main and secondary cast is overall balanced during S3. But the more I think about it, the more I can’t help but think this is a matter of perception when we talk about character being active or passive. I don’t know exactly why, but it might have to do with what we expect out of their gender and what it the character do during their screentime. 

Let’s take for example Master Fu who had the role of the mentor. He gave informations related to the Miraculous. He worked on translating the grimoire, worked to decode the secret formulas to give new powers to Ladybug and Chat Noir. He guarded the Miraculous box and was there for Ladybug when she needed more allies. But he stay behind, hidden and never pushed training to either Marinette and Adrien. Instead, as it was shown to us during Syren, he waits for them to be ready. Just like Marinette had to find and meet him by herself, guided by Tikki.

Kagami, although competitive, confident and determined, was mostly shown through Marinette’s eyes. In Animaestro, she was the reason why Chloé and Marinette team up, but Kagami wasn’t doing anything wrong. She simply wanted to be in Adrien’s company. In Backwarder, Kagami observed Marinette but she didn’t badmouthed her or took actions against her either. Kagami’s “crime” was to be allowed to spend an entire weekend in London with Adrien, even though it was their family’s decision they travel together as her mother and Adrien’s father are business partners and both families were invited to the event. She is a skilled fencer and when there is an Akuma attacks, Kagami doesn’t hesitate to charge and defend even as a civilian (Desperada, Miracle Queen). We also know she can take the initiative or the lead (by disobeying her mother and solving all the riddles during Ikari Gozen even though Marinette was not cooperating) as well as being forward to Adrien when they are alone. 

Nino hangs with Adrien a lot… when Adrien is allow out. So we end up seeing them the most together when they are at school. Now, Nino is in couple with Alya and hangs with her as well. And since we follow more Marinette, we often see him with Alya instead that with Adrien outside of school in S2. Thus we can sometimes get the impression he is more of Alya’s boyfriend than Adrien’s or Marinette’s friend. And the Miraculous power given to him is a defensive one. However, Nino is shown capable of taking the lead, though he might tend to boss other a bit (Horrificator). In Party Crasher, he is the one who rallied the boys of his class to throw a party for Adrien while Gabriel is believed absent of the house and encourage them to lie to the girls so they can go on with the plan and spend the afternoon with Adrien. He is shown to cheer up his friends and wants to be there for them. Especially Adrien and Alya, two people he holds dear. For example, his speech to Alya in Puppeteer 2 when the Akumatized are people LB and CN helped and then proceed to tickle her. Or when during Bubbler, he went and begged Gabriel so Adrien could have a birthday party. He knows he can be powerless, yet that doesn’t stop him to try (Anansi was such a good episode for him). 

As for Nathalie, though she does help convince or reason with Gabriel, siding with Adrien from time to time, she still obey most of his orders as he is her employer and she is his assistant. From S2 finale, she takes initiatives more and steps in more to help him as Mayura. So her role gradually took in importance. She isn’t just assisting Gabriel. She is becoming his most precious ally and partner in crime as they scheme together some plans (like in Miraculer). In Ladybug, she bypassed Gabriel’s edict to no use the Peacock Miraculous and although scolded by Gabriel was also praised for her plan. So back in S1, I’m not sure people would have guess Gabriel’s assistant, become such an important secondary character as the show progressed. 

I’ll stop it here, but I think there might be some internalization when it comes of seeing male characters as supportive and kind. I ultimately don’t like when we say a mean character is more interesting than the kinder ones. Though I realize it might be hypocrite for me to say so as I love villains characters and likes to figure out what they are plotting and what makes them act like they do (it’s no secret I love writing analysis centered around Gabriel and Lila the most), but maybe it’s not much how mean or kind a character, how active or passive they are, that make them interesting, but the conflicts that challenge either them or the characters around them. And aside of Félix (but that is only because it will take me a few more episodeinvolving him to be consider him really) all of the characters you name fit the conflict criteria. Thus why you find them more active, more involve to the plot even though each character contribute to advance one or more character’s development.

[purrincess-chat]

In your opinion, what are all the things that ML writers could do to fix the show and make it better?

Oh, Lord, how much time do you have?

I don’t even know how to begin gathering my thoughts for this, so if this ends up being a big incoherent brain dump then, uh, I’m sorry. XD

So, first and foremost I guess, they need to balance their main characters better. Why is all of the plot tied to Adrien? Why does Adrien have a more fleshed out backstory than Marinette? This is supposed to be a girl power show, and yet it revolves more around the boy’s life from the girl’s perspective basically. Marinette really doesn’t have a dog in that fight outside of the fact that she was asked. 

Marinette needs some kind of tie into the plot that doesn’t revolve around her love interest which is basically all they are willing to give her in this show. Everything about her has to relate back to the boy somehow, and if girl power is their message, then they are kind of defeating the purpose. Sure, they have episodes that are supposed to depict that the girl doesn’t need the boy, but then when you pile on top of that dozens of other instances where she gets pushed aside in favor of the boy, including words coming out of the creator’s own mouth (or off of his two thumbs onto a screen) then it doesn’t exactly hold the same weight. 

If your protagonist doesn’t have a tie into the plot, then why are they the protagonist? Take other shows, for instance: Avatar: the Last Airbender, Aang is the avatar and it’s his destiny to keep the balance in the world, She-ra, Adora was destined to become She-ra, it’s in her blood. But you have Marinette who is Ladybug because….the greater good? Some fairy sprite bug thing asked her to be? 

The villain isn’t personal for her, there is no mark of destiny that deems that she must be a hero, she’s just kind of there. Even her family barely gets fleshed out in comparison to Adrien’s. I mean, her parents are just blindly supportive of her meanwhile Adrien’s mom is in a magical coma, his father is cold, distant, and neglectful, which for some reason turns his assistant on and makes her want to sacrifice her fucking health even though Gabriel looks like a dried up soft pretzel. They canceled the special where we were supposed to learn about Marinette’s family, and I think that about sums up my point.

Secondly, I think they need to abandon the idea that Adrien is perfect because it’s not doing his character any favors. Thomas is so far up his ass about Adrien being a perfect example to boys that he has actually looped back around and made Adrien a poor example to boys. He gets away with all of his bad behavior because Thomas just covers his eyes if you call it bad behavior, he refuses to take no for an answer from the girl he likes, he thinks standing up for yourself is being unkind to the other person regardless of how unkind they are being to you, he conveniently turns a blind eye to the abuse of his friends, but god help you if you try to assert yourself against your aggressor because “you should just be nice to them and eventually they’ll change” like um, and maybe they won’t, in the mean time, I don’t want to put up with their bullshit! 

By insisting on this perfect image, they prevent Adrien from growing because you can’t improve perfect. I have said it before numerous times, but Adrien reeks of amateur fanfiction author’s self-insert OC. He’s described as being perfect, he’s good at a lot of activities just because, he’s wildly attractive, charming, smooth, can generally do no wrong, everything revolves around him, the narrative is constructed in a way that usually puts him above the everyone else. The fact that more people don’t realize that, especially the creator himself, is laughable. 

“But Cat, Chat Noir gets mind-controlled and thrown around and is goofy and-” Okay, but when Chat throws a tantrum about Ladybug not returning his feelings, who apologizes sincerely? Who is painted as being wrong in that situation? When Chloe puts a train full of people in danger just to play hero for a day, who does he scold? And of the two, who does the fandom adore more? Bonus: who do the Chibi specials revolve around and pity? 

Thirdly, they need to actually delve into shit more. It’s season 3, they’ve only been greenlit for 2 more seasons, and what plot do we have? Gabriel wants to bring his wife back from her magical coma, Master Fu messed up something in the past that led to two Miraculouses being lost as well as their temple to be destroyed where presumably everyone else but him died making him the last member of that magical society. That’s it. We don’t know how Emilie got to be the way she is. We have suspicions, but nothing explicit in canon yet. Same with Fu. We don’t know what his mistake was, only that he made one. We barely know any lore about the Miraculouses, the origins, how they were made, when they started working with humans, why they were created. 

If you want my honest opinion, with how slowly they’re dragging out this Agreste plot, they could have accomplished it in two seasons if they actually made every episode count and mean something. We get like maybe 1-2 minutes of actual plot relevant information once every few episodes, if that, and sometimes that “plot relevant information” is just the villain learning that there’s a guardian. Hang onto your asses, guys, they’re really laying it on thick for us. 

Seriously, they give us breadcrumbs of plot, and they don’t even go into any of the cool shit (like fucking Master Fu and his ancient magical fight club perhaps??) because obviously the villain’s assistant being in love with him despite the fact that he’s married, has a kid, and is doing all of this to resurrect his comatose wife whom he loves and devotes everything to is WAY more interesting and important than all that froufrou magical ass Chinese bullshit, right? Like, this show has all of this Chinese lore and a biracial lead, and they still somehow manage to make it all about white people. but ya know, the French are proud of themselves I guess

Fourth, chunk the status quoyo out the fucking window. I get that this decision may not have been the writing team’s, but in fact a higher up decision, but it’s still a stupid ass decision. For a show that is trying to introduce deeper plot, you cannot progress anything if you constantly have to set everything back to the way it was at the end of the episode, and that much is evident. The relationships are getting stale, characters aren’t developing, plot is moving at a snail’s pace, all because they are so bound by this idea that everything needs to be right in the end to maintain an episodic format. If they wanted to keep the series episodic, they shouldn’t have gone in for all of this lore and backstory that they say exists, but never tell us what it is because that just leaves a lot of people unsatisfied. 

Fifth, for the love of god learn how to write dynamic characters. Not everyone needs to be dynamic, but your main cast should probably be. Adrien, I love him to bits, but he is static as all fuck. Which, again, see point number 2. One of the biggest complaints floating around about Stormy Weather 2 is that the characters haven’t changed. With the exception of Marinette, none of the other characters have really learned anything. Adrien hasn’t, Nathalie doesn’t have enough focus to learn shit, Nino and Alya really haven’t, Chloe sure as hell hasn’t, and Gabriel can’t decide if he’s an abusive piece of shit or a sympathetic, heart broken sad man, so I barely count him. 

In fact, 3 of those characters’ “development” just revolves around being in love. Nathalie’s “change” is that she for some reason wants to fuck Gabriel (I guess the whole gray-ass pompadour, candy cane aesthetic really does it for her), and then Alya and Nino’s “change” is that they fuck love each other now which them being a couple has basically just become their entire character. They’re barely separate anymore, particularly in Nino’s case more than Alya’s. I’m sure that Chloe’s bit about having changed juxtaposed with flashbacks of her not being nice coupled with how she wasn’t nice in this episode was just for humor because they like to make the point that mean people will never change, but for some reason they still feel the need to teach the protagonist a lesson about being nice to mean people so that they can change, but they don’t do that, they just think that you should keep hoping. :) :) :)

I honestly think that the writers don’t know what “character development” means, and Stormy Weather 2 was just proof of that. All they did was show that the characters have been in a number of different situations, but none of them have really learned anything or grown from those situations, so it’s kind of a weak argument to say that they’ve changed when they’re all intrinsically the same. Except for Marinette because she is constantly the writing teams’ punching bag in all of these morals of the day cause can’t teach shit to perfect boy cause he’s perfect, but of course they don’t reflect on all of the lessons they forced her to learn, what are we, stupid? No, her only importance to the plot is the fact that she loves the boy that the plot really focuses on, so of course her only significant development of character is that she can talk to him sometimes without foaming at the mouth. Not a peep on how she has learned to overcome her jealousy and hotheaded nature, gained confidence in herself, and learned to maturely accept when someone doesn’t return her feelings, a lesson that a lot of us wish good old perfect boy would fucking learn, but he can’t because he’s perfect. :) :) :)

Another part of the problem with characterization in this show, is that often times characters behave in such a way to push the moral of the day rather than giving them established characters. It’s why Alya only questions Marinette’s sources in Chameleon while she just lets Lila claim a bunch of wild shit without batting an eye because she only cares about journalistic integrity when she can use it to beat down her friend so she can learn a lesson about turning the other cheek. :) :) :)

Sixth, pick up a fucking romance novel every once in a while cause hot damn is their relationship progression a heaping pile of hot garbage. Their love drama is so forced and there’s no real development because of the #status quoyo because they must drag this shit on until we’ve all basically lost interest. I’ve seen more people dropping off the love square in the last half season than I’ve ever seen in any other show. Part of that has to do with Adrien becoming a real “nice guy™” but a good chunk of it also has to do with the fact that they don’t really know how to write love drama or romantic tension in a way that makes you care. We all pretty much know that Adrien is never going to figure it out, even if someone grabs him by the shoulders and screams it in his face that Marinette is in love with him, so why should we care? We know that Chat Noir is never going to stop loving Ladybug, but Ladybug is never going to stop loving Adrien so why should we care? We know the show is never going to break the square because they’re endgame so why should we care about the love rivals? 

Seriously, Captain Hardrock didn’t give me a reason to care about Luka or ship him with Marinette. I still stand by my opinion that their chemistry was incredibly forced and inorganic, and it still is, and as much as I love Kagami, I wasn’t convinced that she was interested in Adrien at the end of Riposte either. The only reason we know Luka likes Marinette is because Winny said he “fell in love with her at first sight” on Twitter (which the whole love at first sight trope is bullshit, but that’s a post for another day). Somehow in Frozer Kagami was randomly into Adrien all of a sudden, and no one likes to bat an eye about the fact that she told him to change targets because the girl he likes doesn’t like him back and then at the end of the episode when Adrien admits that he still likes the other girl over Kagami, Kagami is all “well, it’s fine. I’ll wait.” like bitch, again on characterization. A strong and confident character like her would know her worth and would show that boy the door. But of course she would contradict herself because they need her for #love drama later even though we all know it doesn’t matter. 

I love the love square, and I live for soft moments between them, but I’m ready for them to turn up the heat and give me some actual drama and tension that doesn’t revolve around Chat being a pouty pissbaby or Marinette fucking up another love confession. Cause when you do that too many times, it stops being interesting. You have to throw us a bone somewhere or else we’re gonna stop caring, and lots of people already have.

Seventh, can we please stop pitting all of the girls against each other while the boys just get to be cool with each other? For a show that promotes itself as being a “girl power” show, there are a metric fuckton of misogynistic undertones to this show. See: why does the plot revolve around the boy even though the girl is the slated protagonist. See: why does the girl learn all the lessons while the boy gets to be right all the time. See: why two teenage girls are “the worst things I can think of” while an actual neglectful father gets to be sympathetic and “do anything for his family” uwu

Seriously, I think making Kagami and Marinette rivals while Luka and Adrien are just chill dudebros is so tired. Girls fighting over boys is tired, especially because we have it not once, not twice, but three fucking times in this show. Chloe and Marinette don’t often fight over Adrien, but in Despair Bear Chloe sure as hell didn’t want them dancing together. Marinette initially follows Lila because she’s hanging off of Adrien, and even at the end of Chameleon, Lila makes it known that she is still gonna try to steal Adrien. Kagami basically tells Marinette that she better stop hesitating or she is gonna steal Adrien away, and we have Backwarder where Marinette is basically plotting to cockblock them even though we had Frozer where she decided she wasn’t going to be jealous of them because Adrien liked her. Again, see: characters behaving in a way that is convenient for the plot of the episode. All of the drama is between girls. All of the women in this show are described as being terrible, the worst things they could think of, never going to stop being mean. Seriously. Chloe and Lila? Worst things Thomas can think of. Audrey is constantly shown intimidating her husband who is extremely corrupt himself, not that anyone bats an eye at that. Nathalie/Mayura was described by Jeremy as “making Hawkmoth look like a baby.” Any time they show a man being problematic, they have to bring in a female to be ten times worse, and the worst part is: they don’t even know they’re doing it. #girl power, am I right?

Eighth, speaking of making people bad, can we stop half-assing redemptions? Honestly, they’re so back and forth on whether or not they’re going to redeem Chloe. First it’s “mean people will never get a miraculous” then dingdong, who’s that? Queen Bee, motherfuckers. Then it’s talk about how they’re not going to redeem Chloe then bam bitch, “why don’t you love me?” But even after that they reset the status quoyo and have her go back to being mean. Even after they give her a second chance to be a hero and do good, she still goes right back to being her nasty self. I think they really highlighted in Stormy Weather 2 how much they haven’t changed her at all, and yet somehow she still gets to play the hero. 

Additionally, now we have them trying to make Gabriel sympathetic? Boo fucking hoo my wife is in a coma so I terrorize the fucking city on a daily basis, pity me! Also I neglect my son, verbally abuse him from time to time, and I don’t even let him see his friends or feel any happiness, and even though my superpower revolves around feeling people’s negative emotions, I never seem to care about my own son’s unhappiness, but hey, I’m doing it for his mommy, so that makes me better than the 14 year old girl. :D

Shit or get off the pot, Zag. Either you’re going to redeem these characters, or you’re going to leave them the way they are. Make up your damn mind.

Ninth, be diverse in more than name only. For a show that prides itself on its biracial female lead and its ties to Chinese culture, uhh, they spend a lot of time focusing on not those things. I said it before, but they focus all of their plot attention on rich ass white people drama more than the vastly more interesting Chinese lore they have going on. Their black characters were paired together just cause, and their only real important quality now is that they love each other. Their ship is basically their character now, and we barely have a reason to root for them outside of the fact that they’re canon. They have such shallow relationship development that my feet wouldn’t get wet if I stood in a puddle of it. Can we have more on them, please? 

This show is diverse only on the surface. They use diversity as decoration then fill everything else with less interesting shit, and even then they get a lot of shit wrong. It drives one of my Asian friends nuts that Sabine’s neckline is facing the wrong direction. (for those unaware of what I mean, it should look like a y. hers is backwards) They use diversity to pat themselves on the back and say they are diverse, but they have no intention of doing anything meaningful with it. It’s just a gold sticker they wanted to give themselves to draw in an eastern market. It’s cheap, and several of us see through that shit. 

And last, but certainly not least: Shut the absolute fuck up on Twitter. Just shut the fuck up. Every time Thomas opens his mouth, he just pisses off more people or makes everything more convoluted. Shut the fuck up. Please. 

Now, I know a host of you are going to be like “buhhh, it’s a kid’s show, go outside, hur dur, I’m so smart and mature,” but like, honestly that’s a weak argument. Yes, Thomas’s audience is young now and they may not be able to see all of this shit, but when they get older and decide to go back and watch one of their favorite childhood cartoons, all of that shit is gonna come out. They’re not gonna be so naive forever, especially if our generation is raising them, and just because they can’t see all of this shit now, doesn’t mean that it’s not still there just because they don’t notice? That doesn’t make it any less problematic. One thing I love about several shows I used to watch as a kid is that they aged well. When I go back and watch them now as an adult, I find things that I missed as a kid that I appreciate now as an adult. I can’t say that the same is going to happen with Miraculous, especially in this day and age. 

Additionally, kids learn a lot through media. I never believed that I was any less than the boys growing up because I consumed a lot of media that taught me that, and going back and watching it over now, I still get that from those shows. Clearly, if you apply two ounces of logic to this show, it falls apart, and that’s not because it’s a kid’s show, it’s because it’s bad writing. I can always see what they are going for, but they always miss just a little bit. sometimes a lot

A lot of us complain because we are concerned with the message being spread to the next generation because those kids are going to grow up one day and be influenced by what they are consuming now. If we teach our girls that the perfect boy is going to chase after us no matter what we say to them and if we teach our boys that in order to be the perfect boy we have to continually chase after the girl until she says yes, how are those kids going to approach relationships? That mentality is actually something that we are trying to combat in the world. That mentality is why rape is so prevalent because we teach boys that they are entitled to a woman’s affection if they’re “nice” to them, and if she doesn’t give it to them, then she is wrong. 

Media has an impact on kids, whether we like to admit it or not. Yes, parents can still teach them, but sometimes things get into your subconscious and it can determine how you see yourself and the world. Lots of kids engage in make-believe play where they put themselves in that character’s shoes and play pretend. I just think it’s important to give them the right things to look up to. 

[zoe-oneesama]

Do you help new miraculous content creators if they ask you for tips? Also, do you have any Fix with stormy weather 2? #I really think that I didn’t do the question properly #I apologize if I am rude

I try to help when I can, if I don’t respond to a question it’s because 1) I’m in a bad place to answer (at break at work/on the road/just about to go to sleep etc) 2) I’ve already answered a similar question, or 3) I’m thinking out my answer.

Or like THIS ask I had it ¾ typed out and then switched tabs and accidentally closed this one and lost all that I had typed alkdsjflajsdflka

Now for fixing Stormy Weather 2. Well first I have to rip it a new asshole (and maybe a third asshole to go above the second one) and then I’ll try to salvage it. Whooo this is gonna be a long one, so strap in:

1. Resolve your damn Akuma. This means two things. First, you can’t bring back a fan favorite akuma, ramp up the drama to Earth Leaves Orbit levels of intensity, and then defeat her off screen somewhere with a reporter (a reporter with a repeat name which is one of my pet peeves akdsjfalkd) giving us a vague play by play! Or you can, but it’s incredibly unsatisfying especially in an already unsatisfying episode. Second, resolve Aurore. Aurore was shafted on having a complete arc in her debut episode (she never apologizes to Mireille or has a moment of guilt for reacting to losing so poorly) so when I heard they were bringing her back, I hoped for some closure for her. It wasn’t such a big deal in Stormy Weather because she wasn’t a reoccurring character and we were establishing formula, but now she literally has a second episode named after her, so we’ll get some resolution, right? Nope. What was Aurore’s problem in this episode? If you asked Aurore, it’s struggling to balance Work and School. Yet it wasn’t the stress from this that brought on her akuma. It was Chloe insulting her akumasona and insisting that she hasn’t changed and of course Once a Villain, Always a Villain. It’s Chloe’s voice in her head saying things that have nothing to do with Aurore’s root problem that turn her. And we don’t even see Aurore at the end of the episode, so for all we know, she still harbors those insecurities. Bonus: Why was so much of Aurore’s set up confusing? Is Aurore the weather girl now? When did that happen? She works at the station?? Are we missing an episode??? Is this like Guitar Villain where they fucked up an episode order??? 

How to fix this? Well first of all, make Aurore’s problems actually relevant to what Chloe is driving at. Start with Aurore becoming the new Weather Girl. Mireille has stepped down, she either didn’t like it or her contract ran out. So Aurore is stepping up to the plate. She’s happy but super nervous. She admits Mireille was really good and won her spot fair and square, she’s going to be a tough act to follow. But Aurore thinks she’s got what it takes. Chloe disagrees. She lays into Aurore about how she’s the runner up, the loser and that hasn’t changed. People will be disappointed to see her instead of Mireille, shes’s just as unpopular and just as unwanted as before. She Hasn’t Changed.

So Stormy Weather is born. And no volcanoes dammit, something weather related, thanks! Tornadoes, Cyclones, Hurricanes, hell yes! And she’s defeated. On screen please. At least the part where they release the akuma. 

When Aurore wakes up, she’s afraid. She’s scared that everything Chloe said was right. She even became the same villain she was before. But she’s reassured “You’re not the same. You’ve come so far. Didn’t you praise Mireille for working hard? Didn’t you acknowledge your flaws but worked to overcome them? You’re so different from who you were before. You’ve made so much effort to be better than before.”

And when Chloe tries to rip into Aurore again, have someone remind them she’s been akumatized too, Antibug. “Oh, I’m sorry, I meant Queen Wasp. Wait, which name are you going by this time?”

2. Keep on theme. One wouldn’t think this should be hard but OOOOH BOY. The theme of the episode is People Can Change. (And obviously that their character have changed, but we’ll get there) We know this because the Bad characters (Chloe and Hawkmoth) both state that “People don’t change” and “Once a Villain, Always a Villain” which is a pretty basic way of setting up the theme. Have the Bad characters state the antithesis of the theme, have the Good characters struggle with whether or not the Bad characters are right. Then come to the conclusion that, no, the Bad characters are wrong, or they’re right, but not in the way they think they are.

Yet they have flashbacks that contradict each other (Sabrina remembering Chloe using the Miraculous for Good, but Ladybug remembering Chloe using the Miraculous for Bad), we have flashbacks that show no change at all (literally when has Ladybug and Chat Noir had difficulty fighting together when an akuma’s power wasn’t involved?) and most egregious, Adrien unknowingly aligns himself with the Bad characters by complimenting Ladybug by saying “She never changes”. So unless this is setting him up to join Hawkmoth (in which case this might be the most clever the writing has ever been and I will eat my words) they fucked up. The theme is all over the place. Is change good? Bad? Unobtainable? Can people change or do they not? What is it they’re trying to say with this episode???

Fix: Simple. Consider the message your flashbacks are ACTUALLY saying. And cut the ones that don’t support your theme. Don’t put contradicting flashbacks next to each other (better yet don’t have contradicting flashbacks at all). Eliminate flashbacks that don’t show change at all (the LadyNoir fights. If you still want fights, how about FIGHTING THE AKUMA IN FRONT OF YOU.) And have Adrien compliment Ladybug because she’s constantly improving. “She just gets better and better. Everyday she surprises me by being even more innovative and even more incredible.” Something sappy like that. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. If the Bad Guys insist that People Don’t Change, you gotta prove to the Good Guys and US that People Do. Unless this is a bleak, Oh Shit the Bad Guys are Right kind of Episode. …but Thomas’ twitter seems to suggest it was the former they were going for.

3. The Flashbacks. OoooooOOoh the Flashbacks. In this section I’m just going to discuss how they’re used as a literary device. There’s too many of them, they contribute nothing, and they run out air time. They don’t even flow naturally. The point of a flashback is to add to a characters backstory or unveil a hidden truth to the audience. But none of the flashbacks used do this except for Nathalie’s and possibly the first DJWifi one, which was so blissfully short it’s almost in a different category of narrative device. With her exception (which is only an exception because of her narration, other wise it would be just as bad as the rest of them), the flashbacks come in with shaky prompting, they don’t give a new insight to an event from a new POV or even new animation, they don’t help any of the characters come to a sudden realization, they don’t add new information, they Do. Nothing. Let’s look at them one by one:

Marinette remembers the time she dug Adrien’s Valentine out of the trash. Prompted by: Her talking to Tikki about not being able to talk to Adrien.

Nathalie remembers times she interacted with the Agreste’s with narration about her growing feelings. Prompted by: Taking notes for Gabriel.

Two Clips of Gabriel being a Douche. Prompted by: Nooroo wondering if maybe Gabriel should stop being a Douche.

One Clip of Adrien jumping out of an akumas hand. Prompted by: Hawkmoth wondering if he’s going to far…and then immediately dismissing the idea.

A few Clips of Plagg guzzling cheese. Prompted by: Plagg insisting he hasn’t changed because he still loves cheese. That checks out.

Adrien remembering going to school and gaining friends. Prompted by: Plagg insisting Adrien has changed his own life.

Adrien remembering the two times Gabriel did the barest minimum to not suck. And also the birthday gift he didn’t actually give Adrien. Prompted by: Plagg of ALL people insisting that Gabriel has changed too.

Nino and Alya remembering the time they were locked in a cage and given Miraculous. Also how Nino sucks at hiding his identity. Prompted by: The two of them discussing how they even got together. 

Clips of just a few of the many many times Chloe has been a Douche. Prompted by: Chloe insisting no one is nicer than her…

Clips of one time Chloe followed a direct order from Ladybug and from when Chloe was Queen Bee. But like on purpose that time. Prompted by: Sabrina trying to hype up how great Chloe is.

Clips of Chat Noir and Ladybug fighting akumas (including Queen Wasp) and getting new powers and trusting each other more. Prompted by: Ladybug thinking Stormy Weather is stronger, but so are they.

Remembering Chat Noir setting up a date for Ladybug and Ladybug having to reject him. Prompted by: Plagg OF ALL people insisting Ladybug’s not so great because she has feelings for someone else ajlskdfjalsdfja

Adrien remembering when he first got that heart shaped card and thinking it was from ladybug. Prompted by: You know…looking at that card? And also looking at Marinette’s handwritting.

Adrien remembering Marinette deflecting the idea that she was into him. Prompted by: Thinking maybe the card could be from Marinette.

Adrien remembering Luka and Marinette on their ice rink date. Prompted by: More deflecting the idea that Marinette could be into Adrien because one time she went on a date with a boy.

This is also the flashback they chose to end on.

So ….that’s a lot of flashbacks. Some of them are barely there, some drag out way past their welcome. Some are actually well utilized, but some are just terribly implemented. Example: Nino narrating over the clip of Ladybug throwing them into the panther’s cage that that was the moment he and Alya “got together”? Good! It’s short, and even though we kind of knew that was the moment, now we have Nino confirming that that was the beginning of canon DJWifi. Not world shattering revelation, but it is something. Alya remembering them becoming heroes? Bad. It’s way too long, including both of their transformation sequences, and plays exactly as it did in Heroes Day. And why show us this? Did they think we? Forgot? That Nino and Alya are sometimes heroes??

The reason the flashbacks are particularly irritating, is because we don’t need them. Why couldn’t Plagg just remind Adrien about Gabriel playing piano with him with dialogue? Why’d we need to be shown it? Why did Marinette go from lamenting her inability to talk to Adrien to reading the Valentine? When thinking about “going too far” why can Hawkmoth only think of one time Adrien was in danger, when there were several times that he could’ve summed up with “Am I risking the family I have for the family I could have?” It’s excessive and wasteful. And it feels like they don’t think we’re smart enough to remember things. There are ways to get their point across that doesn’t kill air time and pacing but they went this incredibly lazy route. And maybe this would be forgivable if there wasn’t an agenda behind the flashbacks.

4. The Agenda Behind the Flashbacks. We all see what your doing, Thomas. You’re not sneaky. Soooo many people were criticizing you for having unmoving characters that you threw up your hands and said “You wanna see character growth?! I’ll show you some Goddamn Character Growth!” But you didn’t. You did the opposite. You isolated a few tiny examples for your argument but forgot the other 40+ episodes of evidence pointing to the contrary. But we didn’t forget. Noooo we did not. So let’s go character by character to see how they “changed” and how they MOST CERTAINLY have not.

Well, okay, so the first example is a bad example of what I just said, because they did the opposite with her. They started the “struggle” of whether or not characters change with Marinette of all people. Marinette, who’s become more confident, more clever, more sympathetic, more sacrificing. Marinette, who not just from Origins but from within the show itself has had to overcome her jealousy issues and her insecurities, learn to stand up to scarier and scarier adversaries. Marinette, the one character who actually HAS changed. And they focused on the fact she can’t talk to her crush about her feelings.

You know, that crush that repeatedly refers to her as “JUST” a friend, who wrote a Valentine to some mystery girl she doesn’t know, who asked for advice on how to ask out another girl. Yeah, it’s really wild that Marinette hasn’t made strides in this department. But it’s okay, because Marinette has made HUGE steps in this very episode! She signed her note this time! She’s practically a WhOlE nEw PeRsOn! 

You had it. You had the perfect character to show how much “change” you’ve had. And you didn’t. Use it. O_O

I won’t harp on Nathalie too much. They seem determined to insist she’s fully devoted to the Agreste family and it’s hard to argue that point thanks to this episode and her personal narration. Though every episode until this I had a pretty good This is Bullshit Argument going. So instead I’ll just say it came from nowhere, but go off I guess.

They use Plagg, PLAGG OF ALL CHARACTERS (I’m still not over that, what the fuck) to insist that Gabriel is changing for the better. Gabriel. GABRIEL. The guy who’s actually gotten WORSE over the series! The guy who USED to let Adrien go to races and game tournaments and Mime shows in season 1, but NOW won’t let Adrien go and get ice cream or see fireworks or his friend’s band practice in season 2! THAT GUY is getting better because he eventually let Adrien go meet with his friends?! Because he LET his son watch a movie with his own mother in it?! THAT GUY is changing for the better?!?!?! I see what you’re trying to set up and your WRONG!!!!!

Every example they used for how much Adrien’s life has changed, every two things they brought up, happened in the first episode. That’s not growth, that’s a fucking starting point. Adrien began the series going to school, he began the series getting new friends. But we all know why they had to go with those options. Because Adrien hasn’t grown at all and all this episode did was put a huuuuuge spot light on that fact. Thank you for just proving that point by only thinking of two things that have changed for him that literally happened in the First. Episode. I could think of a few things that have changed, but they’re definitely not flattering. *cough* Nice Guy™ *cough*

Apparently the only things that have changed for Nino and Alya is that they’re a couple and they’re superheroes. Well, I guess thanks for pointing out that they’ve been stagnant from the beginning. How boring. Maybe if a character hasn’t changed for good or bad, don’t waste screen time on it in an episode about how characters change???

And Chloe. Holy HELL Chloe. The only way Chloe even remotely works is if this episode is a set up for the fact that Chloe failed. If she’s not redeemed and they’re acknowledging it. If she’s not going to be added to the hero roster in the future and she’s getting more and more furious about it. She’s back in top form in this episode. She bullies Aurore with no prompting and with the intention of continuing her onslaught had Aurore not escaped, is a total hypocrite, is entitled about the bee Miraculous, and unrepentant the whole time. She’s back to her Season 1 self, but every fear I had with her getting everything she wanted came true. And if this was the episode they wanted to own it? I’d be fine.

I mean, I know like a huge part of the fandom wouldn’t be fine, but at least it would make a modicum of sense. Here Lies Chloe’s Development, 2k18-2k19.

Yet….they kind of tried to say different? Like, what was Chloe’s screen time devoted to? First, Bullying Aurore, then Marinette, then Alya even though she didn’t say anything to her. Then, she’s on her roof, shining her Bee Light in the sky and stomping her foot demanding her Miraculous, insisting she’s the Nicest, Best person for the job. We are then treated to clips of Chloe threatening the Principal to get out of cleanup for pulling the fire alarm, something Chloe did, and Chloe ignoring Sabrina’s very existence. Then they try to backtrack on that with clips of Chloe helping Ladybug in Despair Bear and being Queen Bee, as if to say “well, she got better.” Then Stormy Weather arrives and Chloe digs in her heels and says for the second time “Once a Villain, Always a Villain.” Then we’re shown a clip of Ladybug and Char Noir fighting Queen Wasp, Chloe’s second VILLAIN form! Eventually Chloe is released from her ice prison but with zero gratitude, saying “Queen Bee would’ve been faster and better.” Chloe’s time was devoted to giving us tonal whiplash and ping ponging between “Chloe’s Terrible!” to “Chloe’s a Hero!” Except they keep lingering on the Terrible part.

I’m just confused, because this could work. I swear it can. If the whole point of this is that Chloe’s redemption failed? This all makes sense. Chloe’s “good” points are brought up by Sabrina, a biased untrustworthy narrator. And it can actually be a good set up for future episodes where Chloe is not given the bee and is getting more and more angry about it, especially because she was foolish enough to share her identity so her peers are ribbing her about it. The only problem with this is the let down for all the people rooting for Chloe. Lot’s of people were hoping Chloe would become worthy of the Bee, and while lots and lots and LOTs were let down by the Battles of the Queens, some were still holding out hope. So this would definitely kill the vibe for those people. Personally, while I’m confused at least this route would make some sense. So I’ll…hold my judgement on this bit. I will tell you when it first came out I was really pissed at it though.

Plagg isn’t being screwed over by the flashbacks themselves, he’s just screwed over by the dialogue. Plagg who’s always tried to get Adrien to be a little selfish with his time is now defending Gabriel-No-Fun-Allowed Agreste? Plagg who was the first to point out Ladybug never said she’d show up for the picnic is now using this as a reason why Ladybug isn’t all that great? Yeah, miss me with that OOC bullshit, bring me back my son.

I think that’s all the characters they went for, so okay. How do we fix this. How do we fix anything with these flashbacks.

Fix this by using flashbacks as they are intended. Each flashback needs to include a new piece of information, either for the audience or for the characters speaking. For Marinette’s first flashback, instead of playing the whole thing, show Marinette reading the Valentine with narration how at the time she thought it was for her, but she now realizes it was meant for someone else. That’s new information for the audience. For Adrien, maybe the fact that he can’t think of how he’s changed is a good thing. It can be a spark for him deciding to be better, to train harder and become more serious about his job. Nothing will change until he puts in the effort. That can help a moral of the episode: That People Can Change, but Only Through Honest Effort.

Dig in with Gabriel = Bad. I know they’re trying to make Gabriel more sympathetic by making it out like he’s improving, but they’re just wrong. He’s not. Not unless he does a near 180 in this season. So instead of making him think of that one time Adrien was in danger, give him flashes, quick, rapid flashes of innocent people in danger. Nathaniel screaming when Horrificator grabs him, cars crashing because Backwarder sent that woman into the crosswalk, Kim and Max running from Animan as a panther. Show all the people he doesn’t know, how far he ACTUALLY has gone for his goals. And then have him shake it off. We already know he doesn’t care about Adrien’s safety or else Gorizilla wouldn’t have happened at all. This shows us that he doesn’t care about people in general. Like the DJWifi flashback, we could infer this, but this makes the audience have to think about it and makes it about Gabriel’s character. 

Have Chloe argue her worthiness with someone else. Maybe Stormy Weather. 

“Ooh Chloe, what’s wrong? No one came to give you a Miraculous? Maybe they realized that you didn’t deserve it.”

“Excuse you?! I am the nicest person ever! Of COURSE I deserve it!”

“Wasn’t so nice of you to pull the fire alarm and try to frame Marinette. Wasn’t so nice of you to pretend your best friend didn’t exist!”

“How dare you?! I’ll have you know Ladybug never could’ve defeated Despair Bear without me! And she’s constantly relied on me as Queen Bee!”

“Was that before or after you crashed that train? Or maybe it was after you turned your own father into an akuma! What was it you told me earlier? Once a Villain, Always a Villain? Well, you would know Queen Wasp!”

You don’t need a flashback to recall a scene from earlier in the series. If you did, every series would be filled with them. Typically a series has enough faith in their audience that they’ll remember a line or moment or object without having to devote screen time to showing it to us the exact same way they did the first time. So replace some with verbal call backs or with a quick flash of the previous moment. Instead of showing the full flashback of Adrien reading the Valentine out loud to Plagg, just show a flash of it drifting next to him and his eyes landing on it. Instead of showing the entire time Luka and Marinette were together at the rink, flash between their faces and him holding her hand and their lift in rapid succession. It helps the pacing and doesn’t steal focus from the fact that it’s Adrien remembering this. And of course, get rid of flashbacks that don’t add anything. We didn’t need to see every characters transformation to remember they’re heroes or villains. We don’t need to see CN and LB kick several akumas asses to remember they fight well together. We don’t need to see Adrien sneaking into school or being surrounded by his peers to remember he goes to school now and has friends.

TLDR: Start with Aurore becoming the new weather girl, nervous to follow what she admit’s is Mireille’s very impressive lead. Chloe antagonizes Aurore over being the runner up and that her lack of popularity hasn’t changed. Aurore worries that Chloe’s right and that she’ll be unwanted even though she’s worked hard to compete with Mireille. She becomes Stormy Weather.

Marinette notes maybe Chloe’s right about Adrien (mentions that she thought his Valentine was for her but realizes now it was meant for someone else). But then she and Tikki talk about how she’s improved - confidence, controls her jealousy, is more assertive towards adults. Switch to Agreste Mansion, everything plays same as episode up to Gabriel turning into Hawkmoth (maybe skip transformation. Might leave it because it’s only the second time we’ve seen it).

Hawkmoth wonders if Nooroo’s right about going too far, has a series of quick flashes to all the people he’s terrorized, but comes to the conclusion there’s no going back now. In Adrien’s room, Plagg is saying he likes when people don’t change and talks about his cheese fetish. Adrien insists that change is the only way for things to improve. Plagg tries to insist that Adrien’s life has changed, but Adrien admits that was just the first step and he hasn’t done much to challenge his life since then. Plagg tries to bring up some changes with Gabriel, but every positive is challenged with a negative from Adrien. He played piano with me? He didn’t let me see the fireworks with my friends. He let me see my mom’s movie? Only after I was nearly squashed by an akuma which would’ve been avoided if he let me go to the movies in the first place. etc.

Stormy Weather makes herself known. She’s blowing the city away with tornadoes. Alya and Nino are huddled talking about how Hawkmoth seems to be getting worse. But they admit their lives are different thanks to him or rather thanks to Ladybug inadvertently bringing them together. They also talk about the other time they’ve been together (sitting together, getting ice cream, when he tried to protect her in Anansi). Then Nora and the girls crowd them into the living room away from the windows where it’s dangerous and they huddle together, Nora making sure to include Nino who’s earned her trust.

Chloe’s shining her light in the sky and getting frustrated. As she starts to whine about where Ladybug is with her miraculous, Stormy Weather appears and teases Chloe for being left out, which Chloe counters with how great she is. Stormy list the “nice things” Chloe’s done (pulling the alarm and ignoring Sabrina) and Chloe fires back she’s worked with Ladybug. Stormy continues to taunt Chloe for the awful things she did with the Miraculous and calls her Queen Wasp before freezing her. Then the battle with Ladybug and Chat Noir begins.

Clara (who is not Clara btw they used the wrong model look it up in the wiki) can still give the play by play, but this is because the fight is happening in the distance. We still see Ladybug and Chat Noir fighting against Stormy Weather, but it’s so far away we can’t hear the banter or see the details. We’re getting the Parisian Civilian Experience of an Akuma fight, which is unclear but still in plain view. The fight ends with a similar but slightly altered version of what took down Stormy Weather down the first time and Ladybug cleanses the akuma.

Ladybug takes Aurore down to the ground level (convienitently in front of the TV Station). Aurore feels upset about becoming an akuma, the same akuma as before, and thinks it’s proof that Chloe was right - that she hasn’t changed. But Ladybug reassures her that she knows Aurore has worked really hard and she knows she’s become a better person since the first time they met. Aurore is confused how Ladybug could possibly know that but luckily her timer is running low so she and Chat Noir bounce.

Marinette leaves the notes for Adrien, this goes the same as in canon. When Tikki praises Marinette, she says “I’ve changed in so many ways, I can change here too.”

In his room, Adrien sighs over how Ladybug only ever seems to improve, only gets more and more clever and amazing. Plagg reminds him that she may be great but she’s got her sights set on someone else and maybe it’s time he does the same, bringing out the fancards. Adrien tells Plagg “It’s not that simple. Even if I wanted to change my mind, the heart wants what it wants. I can’t stop loving someone as simple as that. But I can become better. Ladybug’s always improving herself so maybe it’s time I do the same. I need to keep up with her example.” 

Nathalie drops off Marinette’s notes. Adrien has a quick flash of when he first lays eyes on the “Ladybug” Valentine before comparing the handwritting on both, remarking that they’re very similar. He thinks back to the moment Marinette stuttered through that she’s into fashion and doesn’t think of him that way (and JUST that part, we don’t need the whole thing jesus) and says “She already said she doesn’t love me. There’s no way this is from her…right? Besides, there’s…(quick flashes of Luka and Marinette having fun at the ice rink) Luka.”

Resigned, he says “There’s no way it’s from Marinette.”