#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.

[foxwitchaine]

Question

Which characters from other media, do you think is a better version of miraculous ladybug characters?

I'm gonna take this question with a huge pile of salt. Because there's more than one show that does this concept better than what MLB does. That also includes how they handle the cast. I'm also gonna sound like a broken record with the upcoming "buckle up", but buckle up and hold on tight, everyone. It's gonna be a rollercoaster.

1.) Mr. Freeze

I know for sure I'm cheating just by mentioning him, but Mr. Freeze is what Gabriel Agreste should have been in regards to his quest for Emilie. Mr. Freeze isn't just a sad man mourning for his wife. He is broken. Shattered. Screwed over by people higher on the corporate ladder than himself (doesn't that sound familiar). Thing is, Mr. Freeze's story resonates with people and is part of the reason why he is still talked about today. He's also shown a kinder side, like the time he made it snow during Christmas in one issue of The Batman Adventures comics. All for the simple reason his late wife would have been sad if there had been no snow that year.

His demise in Batman Beyond left many viewers heartbroken, as we're left wondering what could have been.

Gabriel Agreste, on the other hand, is utterly and thoroughly selfish and thinks of no one but himself. This is best seen in how he treats his son throughout the show. Disregarding Season 5 (I have no idea how they thought they could pull it off), Gabriel has not shown one ounce of humanity. Not towards Nathalie, not towards Adrien, not even towards his wife, who he supposedly loves. Other than the show telling us how much he loved her (this is a recurring problem with MLB's writing), we never would have known.

Gabriel's death in Season 5, as a result, is much less impactful than Mr. Freeze's death in Batman Beyond.

2.) Madoka Kaname

Now this is a more recent show that I still think holds up. For those not in the know, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a 12-episode anime series that aired in 2011 and, for lack of a better word, changed the game in magical girl anime. While one could argue that it tears down rather than celebrates women in power (as magical girl shows are supposed to do, Astruc), and it's not the most original concept (what is, nowadays), one thing most can agree on is the character writing, especially for Madoka.

Madoka, just like Marinette, is a selfless sweetheart who performs the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good. What separates her from Marinette, tellingly enough, is how her sacrifice is written. Throughout the anime, Madoka watches helplessly from the sidelines as her best friend Sayaka sacrifices herself for a boy. And then Sayaka gradually loses herself as the truth about magical girls comes to light. We aren't just told how Madoka feels about it. We see and feel it ourselves. I could write an essay on how well-written Sayaka's tragedy is, but that's beside the point. The point is, Madoka chose the sacrifice rather than having it forced on her by the writers.

Sound familiar?

It should.

Gen Urobuchi, despite his reputation, took the time to respect Madoka's agency as a character. Thomas Astruc tears down Marinette every chance he gets. You can't get more telling than this.

3.) Prince Zuko

You're all probably gonna get tired of hearing me talk about Avatar: The Last Airbender. But then again, I'm pretty sure every ATLA fan has heard that in the years since the original show ended. I've mentioned him before when talking about Chloe's botched redemption, but I feel this is the perfect place to expand and discuss more.

Prince Zuko is what Chloe Bourgeouis should have been in the show. And no, his redemption didn't come out of nowhere. It was consistently foreshadowed throughout the show all the way from the very first episode. This is an essay all in itself, so I'll refrain from diving into detail. But the fact of the matter remains that Zuko is the gold standard for writing a villain redemption. I could point out Darth Vader as another example of a villain redemption. But where he had to die to redeem himself, Zuko didn't.

Zuko also had a better-written backstory that explained (not excused, there's a difference) his behavior at the start of the show. I can't claim to know what the MLB writers had in mind when writing Chloe, but I'm pretty sure Audrey Bourgeois was supposed to be the Ozai figure in Chloe's backstory. Which leads me to my next point:

Zuko wasn't forgiven right away.

Yes. You heard that right.

Zuko had to work to be forgiven by the people he had wronged. And guess what? He failed. If anyone remembers when Azula critically injured Aang and Zuko betrayed Iroh to the Fire Nation, you'll all know what I'm talking about.

Zuko fell during his redemption arc. But he got back up again. And he apologized — genuinely apologized — to the man he betrayed.

4.) Odd Della Robbia

Code Lyoko is a relic from the early 2000s eras of cartoons. And boy, could I write essay after essay on this show. But since we're talking about characters and such, we'll be focusing on this lovable jokester from the show.

Odd Della Robbia is what Chat Noir should have been if he had been in the hands of competent writers. Odd isn't just the perpetually hungry jokester of the group who chased the first pretty girl who caught his attention. He pulled his weight in the battles against the malevolent AI X.A.N.A. Be it through helping Aelita reach the Towers, fighting Specters in the real world, heck even fending off Sissi during her worst moments. Perhaps even more damning is how Odd, despite his less pleasant actions and habits, was more of a true friend to his group than Chat Noir is to Ladybug.

Yes, writers. You can write a jokester character beyond what comes from his mouth.

No, this doesn't mean you can let them harass everyone they come across.

Perhaps, I'm gonna say this a lot, even more damning is how Odd responds to the rejections from the various pretty girls he chases. He actually takes no for an answer. Shocking, isn't it. He chases a skirt, they say no, he moves on. And no, this isn't portrayed as romantic or heroic. It's portrayed just as it is. A hormonal teenage boy being prone to doing stupid things.

What teenager hasn't done something stupid thanks to their hormones?

5.) Susan Ashworth

(Content Warning: mature themes such as suicidal depression)

I'm venturing into mature video games here, admittedly. I couldn't quite find one from my childhood that stood out, so I browsed through some game playthroughs I watched years ago. Ultimately, I settled on Susan Ashworth from the 2012 game The Cat Lady. Astruc being a man shouldn't be an excuse for him writing Marinette and other female characters so poorly. Why? Because Susan Ashworth, and by extension the game she is from, was written by a man.

Funny. I know.

What's even more amazing is how the developer Remigiusz Michalski, who publishes his games under the label Harvester Games, tackled such serious topics such as depression and suicide. No, he didn't use them for shock value, as that's very commonly done very tactlessly. He handled them with maturity and grace. Susan isn't defined by her depression even though she successfully committed suicide in the opening of the game. She has moments of humor and snark, like in the scene where Mitzi is showing her how to use social media. It also helps that Michalski... actually knows what he's talking about, as it's stated in interviews that he worked as a nurse before he created the first game Downfall in 2009.

I can't stress enough the importance of research before writing. Astruc clearly has a lot of ideas he wants to shove into Miraculous Ladybug, but they all fall flat due to a glaring lack of research and preparation. I'm not saying go do gruesome things for your craft and stick to "write what you know". I'm saying know what you're getting into before you dive in. One glaring example I think everyone can agree was poorly handled was Qilin, thanks to plot with the racist ticket inspector.

Michalski clearly knew what he was doing when he wrote Susan's story. Astruc continues to flail in his attempts to keep Miraculous Ladybug relevant.

Honorable Mentions:

Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter - This is how you write snarky hero and sidekick duos

Jerry, from Totally Spies - Come on. You all knew as soon as I mentioned Code Lyoko that this guy would come up

Mandy, also from Totally Spies - She's very entertaining despite being the high school queen bee archetype. It also helps that she consistently faced punishment for her actions

Sissi Delmas, from Code Lyoko - I was gonna use her in place of Zuko just for the fact she showed other traits, such as her protectiveness of Milly during the zombie episode

Uncle Iroh - Do I even need to say it out loud?

KOS-MOS, from the Xenosaga trilogy - She's an excellent example of how to slowly unveil a character throughout the story

Tidus and Yuna, from Final Fantasy X - A really good example of how to write a romance into the story without dragging the plot down

Fiona Belli, from Haunting Ground - A bit polarizing, I know, but Fiona's friendship with Hewie is so heartwarming and grounding. Basically what Chat Noir should have also been to Ladybug

[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.

[shysublimecoffee]

Before I begin, I want to make it clear that this discussion isn’t meant to be an attack. My words might come across as strong, but I don’t intend to criticize you personally or make you feel bad, especially to the Original Poster.

There's something to be said about how some fans, particularly those who criticize Adrien, go to great lengths to scrutinize every interaction he has, nitpicking and criticizing him for not perfectly aligning with their expectations. Adrien is genuinely one of the kindest male leads, yet people still find reasons to have issues with him. Anyone who claims that Adrien lacks empathy either hasn't watched the show closely or is twisting his character to fit a negative narrative. Take the "high road" speech regarding Lila, for instance—a stance I actually agree with. He saw right through Lila's motives, understood the situation, and yet the "Chameleon salt" was ridiculous. And don’t get me started on the fanfiction—people will write an entire saga based on one episode vilifying him that wasn’t even that bad or serious, turning other male characters into her "prince charming" like some overblown male fantasy.

It's wild because if you're pointing fingers at someone lacking empathy, it should be the main lead and heroine. If you think Adrien is the one lacking empathy, I strongly disagree. This is the same character who gave Marinette the confidence to become Ladybug, constantly supported her, and was always there for her. In contrast, Marinette, who has been a poor partner and kept secrets from Chat Noir, seems to struggle with empathy. I think Marinette relates to people in a "self-absorbed" way, meaning she can only understand a situation if she somehow makes herself part of it. This causes her to approach issues from a skewed perspective and she's very controlling, where the actual problem doesn’t get properly addressed. It’s a compelling character flaw that, in my opinion, hasn’t been fully fleshed out in the show and never will because of "protagonist-centered morality."

If Marinette were as empathetic as some claim, what about her decisions in "Ephemeral" and teaming up with Luka behind Chat Noir’s back? Or how she tries to reconcile Chloe and her toxic mother? If Marinette had true empathy, she'd understand these situations better, but it seems like she’s avoiding confronting the possibilities when it comes to do for anything with Chat Noir even simple communication or that the world is more shades of gray than in black and white that not everyone has good parents. She’s almost become a second but kinder Gabriel. Whenever CN dares to show emotions , she can’t handle it. But when he’s a doctile people-pleaser, suppressing his own submission for hers, he becomes the ideal partner she wants to keep.

Adrien, a manipulator or gas-lighter? Why on earth are you attaching such heavy, damaging labels to someone who is clearly a victim? It’s disgraceful, honestly, that anyone would even have the audacity to do so. If you’ve watched the show or even Season 5, you’d know those terms apply to Gabriel Agreste, not Adrien. And let’s not pretend Marinette, Felix, Kagami, or Nathalie are completely innocent either. Adrien’s autonomy has been ripped from him, his life controlled and manipulated, and yet people have the nerve to paint/cast him as the villain?

It’s strange, too, because Chat Noir is the heart of this operation while Ladybug is more of the brain. And if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that Adrien has increasingly taken on the role of the heroine in later seasons. Remember It's Adrien wearing the dress in this relationship and being saved by Knight Marinette. The dynamic has shifted , and this whole "lack of empathy" argument falls flat when you realize it's a role reversal of what we usually get from other shows happening here. Yes, Adrien has flaws, but what’s truly infuriating is how those flaws are constantly suppressed, twisted, or outright ignored to cater to Marinette. It’s as if the entire fandom—and even Astruc and the writers—have collectively agreed that Adrien exists solely to serve her narrative, with his own struggles and complexities swept under the rug.

I’m going out on a limb here, but maybe some of you are projecting way too much onto Marinette—like she’s your self-insert. It’s insane how, just like in the show, Adrien’s tiny faults are blown out of proportion, scrutinized to hell and back by the audience, while Ladybug’s flaws are conveniently overlooked. Why? It’s almost as if you’re Gabriel, demanding Adrien be the perfect male lead, without a single flaw. He may be the designated love interest, but he’s a character in his own right, with his own struggles—struggles that are arguably far worse. I hate playing the suffering Olympics, but it’s true—he’s literally become her therapist in Season 5. What more do you want from him? He has no one to lean on besides Plagg, while Ladybug is surrounded by an entourage of yes-men and women. He’s isolated, forced to bear the weight of his world alone, while she’s propped up at every turn.

If anything, Marinette/Ladybug doesn’t deserve him.

People are absurdly sensitive to any mistake Chat Noir or Adrien makes in the show, to the point of claiming, “He has no empathy,” or labeling him a manipulator—labels that completely contradict his character. It’s insane how they demonize him for things that simply aren’t there, driven by an unreasonable need to find fault where none exists. The sheer lack of media literacy in this fandom is staggering, especially when it comes to distorting the narrative to fit their own fantasies. If this were AO3 or Fanfiction, sure, you’d have free rein to craft your version of Adrien. But newsflash: your fanon Adrien and canon Adrien aren’t even remotely alike or similar.

The entire Love Square started because, from the very beginning, it was Adrien's kindness that touched Marinette's heart. In "Origins," it wasn’t his looks that drew her in, although they were mentioned often throughout the show she's thirsty lol —it was the moment when he offered her the umbrella as a sincere gesture of apology. That simple act of kindness was what truly made her see him for the first time. Adrien recognized Marinette’s discomfort and took action to ease it, offering her the umbrella not just as an apology, but as a way to connect with her on a human level. It's his ability to understand and respond to others' emotions that defines his character, showing that empathy is at the very core of who he is despite what anyone in the audience says otherwise. He's had a rough and terrible home life but that never stopped him from being a good boy and trying to reach out to others we have to commend him for that!! And I'm tired of being the only one to see it. He's a strong kid.

What’s next? Adrien was cruel for laughing at her? How dare he! 😂 (sarcasm, obviously). This fandom honestly.. is something.

I’ve been thinking about how Adrien is generally not an empathetic person. He’s well mannered and generally nice but I’ve yet to see him share a moment of vulnerability with someone that wasn’t about himself. There were the times he’s given Ladybug pep talks but he never seems legitimately concerned for her emotional well-being, simply smiling after she hugs him instead of showing any interest in why she was feeling the way she was and how he could help her. He literally felt the pressure she’s under every day and didn’t feel any need to change himself to help alleviate it. Of course, a large portion of empathy is learned and he hasn’t had great examples and sometimes people just don’t have the energy to genuinely care and all that but the point remains: Adrien rarely thinks about other people’s feelings. Despite how it sounds, this isn’t a criticism of him, just an observation.

[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.