#Gabriel and Emilie love story

[anna-scribbles]

if i finish thirteen and then start talking about writing a prequel to my prequel from the perspective of young emilie i need you guys to shake me by the shoulders and tell me i’ve lost the plot

[notannascribbles]

i truly am so baffled sometimes like. were we not all rooting for adrien & marinette’s relationship to be a good thing? a healthy and beautiful and satisfying ending for both characters?? how are so many people excited about adrinette: lies and deception edition😭

[lostuntothisworld]

If the first 5 seasons of ML is a 15 year time loop crack-prediction summary:

Universe 1

Mio Dupain Cheng is the First Ladybug. He is a walking disaster, and some of his hobbies include video games, and dumpster diving. His Black Cat counterpart is Celeste Agreste.

The pair are an unstoppable duo, but there is one problem: Mio is in love with Celeste's icy civilian identity, and Celeste is in love with the fact that Mio's kiss can sever him from the Bad Luck Curse of the Black Cat. Whose idea was it to make these stupid jewels impossible to take off???

Anyway, Mio does end up falling for Celeste's fiery hero identity, and Celeste ends up actually falling in love, too. Feelings he never was able to express properly because of the guilt he harbored from lying to Mio about his motivations for his romantic displays.

The pair's journey comes to an abrupt end when Mio, as Ladybug finally declares his feelings for Celeste's Black Cat form, just before the pair discover where the still anonymous Monarque's lair is located.

Distraught, Celeste admits to the other boy the truth that he was just using him, but then developed actual feelings along the way. Celeste explains the Curse of the Black Cat. Mio is upset, but agrees to one kiss, before they separate for good.

Celeste is conflicted, but the Curse of the Black Cat is too great for him to bear. The pair kiss, Mio sees his partner's secret identity of a famous model and heir to the Agreste Empire. Celeste removes the ring, and Mio promises to pass it on to someone worthy, along with explaining the Curse. They tearfully separate forever.

Mio decides alone that nobody should have to carry the Black Cat's curse ever again, and puts on the ring. He combines the Ladybug and Cat and confronts Monarque alone.

It more or less goes about the same as the finale fight except that Monarque threatens to snap Celeste if Mio doesn't give up his Miraculous. Because Mio is wearing both, he can freely take off both. So he does.

Mio begs Monarque to not snap Celeste, but he does anyway. What's the point of complying if he was just going to Wish a new universe?

He makes his Wish, and within the confines of such a complicated Wish, Mio loses his humanity. Celeste is split into two: Adrien and Felix (This is the first split of one person)

Universe 2 (Possibly Universe 3 instead.)

Shone Bianca is the Second Ladybug. She is an Olympic level figure skater and cross trains in ballet. She is serious and steadfast, always going in a straight line towards the most streamlined solution. Her Black Cat counterpart is Adrien Agreste.

Reverse love square: Shone is in love with her Chat Noir. Adrien is comphet "in love" with Shone...

Shone loses her humanity in Monarque's next Wish, and Monarque is split into two: Gabriel Agreste and Colt Fathom. (This universe, be it Shone's or Marina's is the second split of one person)

Universe 3 (Possibly Universe 2 instead)

Marina Verdi is the Third Ladybug. She is extremely smart, and cunning. She is passionate about computer science. She has tendency to overcomplicate things, and her plans always involve a multitude of steps. Her Black Cat counterpart is Adrien Agreste.

The Hate Square: MarinaBug hates Adrien, and AdriChat hates this Universe's Ladybug.

Marina loses her humanity in Monarque's next Wish, and Emilie is split into two: Emilie and Amelie. (This universe, be it Marina's or Shone's is the third split of one person)

Universe 4 (Must be number 4, because of the connotations, along with other reasons)

Marinette Dupain Cheng is the Fourth Ladybug. She is very much like the Original Flavor of Mio, but from trial and error via Shone and Marina, has been perfected. She will bring about the New World.

Season 1-5 happen as in the show. The only difference is stuff that happen off screen. With the Wish, Gabe trades Emilie's and his life for Nathalie and Colt. Marinette loses her Humanity for Colt's.

In season 6+ the audience unravels the fact that there were 3 previous Ladybugs and that Lilamoth has been systematically stealing the identities of and taking their places in every Universe. Who would miss sentimonster kids anyway?

Mio is now a homeless orphan, and Shone and Marina are in a group home (The same group home Luka and Juleka were in when they were young, a completely separate, but related story).

Mio, Shone, and Marina are given locking bracelets which were once part of the Native American Miraculous Box, but crafted into something new via Tomoe and Colt. Those are their amoks.

Marina: Coyote

Shone: Falcon

Mio: Raccoon

Mio is confused because he (and only he) remembers the last two Universes in flashes, and he had the Coyote, and was the leader. Tomoe insists that it is now time to let go of tradition and embrace the new. The trio become Lilamoth's lackeys.

Season 6-8 ends up with Lilamoth as the main villain with her lackeys and various akumas. We find out that Mr. Lee is a pseudonym of Colt Fathom's and Zoe is the half sister of Felix. She is not a sentimonster. Yet.

We find out later on that Lila moth knows of a secret Universe 0, and ships the male Ladybug and the female black cat there. She wants to take the place of the Black Cat and have Adrien as her Ladybug, as it should be, in her eyes. (More on Universe Zero below)

Lilamoth has been pulling the strings from the very beginning, when she was originally the first holder of the Fox Miraculous.

She has plans for 2 more lives to steal before she makes her own Wish.

Zoe Lee and Marc Anciel are in line to be the Next Ladybugs...

The audience uncovers later on that Felix remembers his past as Celeste the Black Cat and how he betrayed Mio, and him trying to make things right. This explain his motivations in previous seasons, and future ones.

We also find out that Adrien is his own twin sister. Adrienne didn't "snap out of existence" as much as her sentimonster embryo merged with Adrien's in the next Universe. Felix does not have her DNA, only Adrien does, and thus why Adrien has the twin rings as his amoks. This will give narrative weight to Adrien wielding both Cat and Ladybug Miraculous in the final battle of the Supreme (the Final Big Bad of seasons 9-12).

Marinette still has her arc of confessing to her Princess and saving her from the Evil Queen: it's Dragon Princess Kagami and the Evil Queen Tomoe.

We also find out that Kagami’s creation was what broke the Peacock Miraculous (She was the first “perfect” sentimonster created in Universe 4). She along with Mio were grown in womb-like versions of Emilie’s coffin instead of gestating like regular babies. This is how Mio can be Marinette’s twin brother without most people knowing… until the big reveal of course.

(Marigami, Lukadrien, and Felix/Mio are endgame)

Secret Universe 0

Celeste Agreste is Ladybug (his name I'm still workshopping), His twin sister Adrienne is the Black Cat Peursephone. (French for Fear + Persephone which means Destruction)

The Alliance rings are a thing, but instead they are called Horizon rings and marketed as the Perfect Horizon, a play on Celeste and Adrienne, the two avatars' names.

Adrienne was too impulsive and ended up getting Celeste snapped before they could confront Monarque together. Luka saw his beloved Celeste snapped out of existence and is too distraught to fight off akumitization, and succumbs. With the new villain name of Hades, Luka hand delivers the Ladybug earrings to Monarque.

Monarque tells Adrienne that she is his favorite child and much too valuable to snap out of existence. Monarque makes his extremely complicated wish and Adrienne is sacrificed for it. This sets off a course of events in the next Universes that cause a multitude of other Wishes.

Adrienne vows that her father cannot kill her in a way that matters.

[[[[Will edit more later for clarity but PLEASE for the love of god does any of this make sense????]]]]]]

[margarita-life]

Emily & Gabriel | PARIS FANTASY (Their Story) | Emily in Paris S4

link: https://youtu.be/_dPfvQrxsdU

"...Everyone likes watching a story about two people trying to fight off their natural attraction to each other..."

#EmilyinParis #EmilyandGabriel #theirstory

[macrolit]

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

NYT Article.

*************

Q: How many of the 100 have you read? Q: Which ones did you love/hate? Q: What's missing?

Here's the full list.

100. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson 99. How to Be Both, Ali Smith 98. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett 97. Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward 96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman 95. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel 94. On Beauty, Zadie Smith 93. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel 92. The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante 91. The Human Stain, Philip Roth 90. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen 89. The Return, Hisham Matar 88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis 87. Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters 86. Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight 85. Pastoralia, George Saunders 84. The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee 83. When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labutat 82. Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor 81. Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan 80. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante 79. A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin 78. Septology, Jon Fosse 77. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones 76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin 75. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid 74. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout 73. The Passage of Power, Robert Caro 72. Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich 71. The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen 70. All Aunt Hagar's Children, Edward P. Jones 69. The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander 68. The Friend, Sigrid Nunez 67. Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon 66. We the Animals, Justin Torres 65. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth 64. The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai 63. Veronica, Mary Gaitskill 62. 10:04, Ben Lerner 61. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver 60. Heavy, Kiese Laymon 59. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 58. Stay True, Hua Hsu 57. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich 56. The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner 55. The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright 54. Tenth of December, George Saunders 53. Runaway, Alice Munro 52. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson 51. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson 50. Trust, Hernan Diaz 49. The Vegetarian, Han Kang 48. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi 47. A Mercy, Toni Morrison 46. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt 45. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson 44. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin 43. Postwar, Tony Judt 42. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James 41. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan 40. H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald 39. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan 38. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano 37. The Years, Annie Ernaux 36. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates 35. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel 34. Citizen, Claudia Rankine 33. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward 32. The Lines of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst 31. White Teeth, Zadie Smith 30. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward 29. The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt 28. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell 27. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 26. Atonement, Ian McEwan 25. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 24. The Overstory, Richard Powers 23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro 22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo 21. Evicted, Matthew Desmond 20. Erasure, Percival Everett 19. Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe 18. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders 17. The Sellout, Paul Beatty 16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon 15. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee 14. Outline, Rachel Cusk 13. The Road, Cormac McCarthy 12. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion 11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz 10. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson 9. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro 8. Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald 7. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 6. 2666, Roberto Bolano 5. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen 4. The Known World, Edward P. Jones 3. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel 2. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson 1. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

This is probably small in the grand scheme of things, but how did Emilie being noble play any impact in the story at all?

I mean, I'd get it if it was just a small detail to help deepen Emilie's character, but why nobility of all things? I don't know, from what I'm seeing so far, the whole "Emilie renounced her noble title" shtick just feels worthless if it's not going to impact the story or add depth to Emilie's character (like maybe upbringing or personal values?).

I don't know. Like everything else, the noble part just feels shallow and means nothing to the story, especially for a character like Emilie, who is the plot device for the whole show. Any detail about her, like her personality and life story, is supposed to influence the story and characters one way or another, namely Hawkmoth since she's his driving force.

So what was the point?

For context, this ask is about Félix's play which says that Emilie gave up her title to be with Gabriel. I'm gonna give a slightly larger section of the transcript of the play for full context, but the relevant but is at the end of the last paragraph:

Félix: The king and queen's twins grew up, each day as different in heart as they were similar in body. The firstborn, curious and brazen, despised life at court and escaped at every opportunity. The younger daughter, well-behaved and respectful, did everything she could to please her parents, and stayed quietly in the castle. Félix: (as Mr. Graham de Vanily) Oh, my queen. Did we entrust our legacy to the right princess? Kagami: (as Mrs. Graham de Vanily) She will fall in line, eventually. Félix: Confident that she would settle down as she matured, the king and queen allowed the curious princess to leave to study beyond the sea in another kingdom. There, she immediately found true love in a humble tailor. Félix: The tailor was making clothes so magnificent that they revealed the beauty of the soul of anyone who wore them. Although it made her parents furious, the curious princess gave up her rank, her wealth and her kingdom to live a bohemian life with the tailor.

Story wise, I have no idea why any of this was added since it adds nothing to canon. It's not like this finally explains why Gabriel and Emilie are poor while Amelie is wealthy. Along similar lines, it's not like Amelie's title has ever mattered. Prior to this play, I don't think that we even knew that she had a title or that she was the younger sister. The play is all about explaining things that we never had reasons to question in the first place.

My best guess as to why the writers wrote this pointless backstory is that they wanted to make Emilie seem even more pure and perfect so they went with the tired old trope of a rich girl giving up material things for the sake of love and art because good pure women don't care about material things! Only nasty, shallow women care about money. (Way to play into sexist tropes, guys.)

There may also be cultural elements at play here given that France doesn't have the greatest history with nobility, so giving up a noble title may be seen as good and pure to a French writer, but I don't know enough about French culture to say that with any certainty. If anyone who reads this blog is French and would like to chime in, then feel free!

While we're on the topic of the play, I wanted to point out that the above quoted passage is why I say that the Graham de Vanily parents can be as kind or as abusive as you'd like to make them. It's incredibly vague and you can read into it whatever you want to read into it. Were they good loving parents who were just upset about their daughter living in poverty or were they miserable controlling classist who Emilie fled England to get away from? It's up to you because you can get both reads from this. The play commits to almost nothing of value. Politicians could take lessons from this impressive level of noncommittal writing.

A better version of the play would have focused on things that actually matter to canon like the details of finding the miraculous and/or Emilie learning she's sick, but you could only have those details if they were coming from Nathalie or Gabriel. Félix is a terrible choice for a character to tell us the show's backstory because he knows so little of it, thus the play focusing on his largely pointless backstory.

[buggachat]

Honestly I think my take on the "Chat Noir was not there in the final battle" comes down to the fact that I kind of just don't think a satisfying final battle between Chat Noir and Monarch was actually possible.

I read a lot of fic, for example, and I've read the scenario play out a lot of times in a ton of ways and I've never been fully convinced of it tbh (and not because they weren't great fic!!). It seems just completely traumatic for Adrien in a way that the scenario inherently cannot properly focus on, because it's all happening in the middle of an action scene and Adrien is too busy being Mid-Battle to properly have a cathartic breakdown about it all. I mean, Chat Blanc already showed us what would happen if he did have a breakdown mid-battle (and why wouldn't he?). And though it'd be fun to have a big triumphant moment of him defeating his abusive father, Adrien simply isn't a character who would find that scenario triumphant, or cathartic, or anything other than viscerally traumatic.

Also, I agree that it's unfair that Chat Noir was not present— like it was unfairly tilted in Ladybug's favor— but I don't think it'd be fair if he was present, either. Because Marinette is, in fact, the main character. The main character whose character arc is primarily focused on her finding her footing as a hero and discovering all the responsibilities that come with that power (as opposed to Adrien, whose character arc is moreso about freedom and identity). And let's face it, in a fight between Ladybug and Chat Noir and Monarch, nobody would be focused on Ladybug at all. It's not about her. It's not her fight. She'd just be there as moral support and an extra set of hands, which really doesn't work for her character arc at all and is completely unfair to her!

Basically, it would just be Chat Noir temporarily acting as the main character and having the worst time of his life in the most un-cathartic battle for him possible left completely traumatized with Ladybug in the background awkwardly trying to comfort him after the fact? And then the season ends? And then the next season presumably goes back to Ladybug being the main character? After a time-skip to the new school year? It's just an ending that I feel like is a lot better in theory than actually on paper. And you can probably make an argument for ways that it could be made to work, where it would enhance Ladybug's story in a meaningful way where she still feels like the main character, and would somehow be triumphant for Chat Noir despite it probably being the worst moment of his life, and somehow not make the rest of the series following feel like bonus content as opposed to a continuation of the story...... but, I dunno. I think it's a lot easier said than done.

The fact of the matter is, I've always been waaayyyy more interested in how the aftermath of Gabriel's defeat affects Adrien than the battle itself. Post-Hawkmoth defeat is one of my favorite types of fic for a reason, and it's because the aftermath can be so juicy, especially for Adrien as a character. I think whether or not Adrien is actually there in the battle itself has always been kind of irrelevant to me, because no matter how Gabriel is defeated, his defeat will have immense repercussions on Adrien's life going forward. And the way they did it, Marinette is now a part of it in a more active way, too. Which is good for her character!

( Also, if he was there to triumphantly defeat Gabriel, would that mean he would just.... watch his father die? of cataclysm? a-and.... nathalie would just.... die, too? so he'd have three dead parents after all that? who he watched all die (or, in emilie's case, saw her corpse)? or is this a scenario where MONARCH BEATS CHAT NOIR and still makes the wish? is that cathartic? for Adrien to lose to Gabriel? Frankly, I loved seeing Gimmi and The Wish, it's been teased for so long that I was expecting it, and I loved the fact that Nathalie got to live as her narrative reward for coming to her senses and trying to murder Gabriel with a crossbow. I like that we got to watch a full season of Gabriel painfully dying to a cataclysm— poetically inflicted on him by Adrien, but of Gabriel's own doing. I like that Nathalie has presumably adopted Adrien after having an arc of her trying to be a parent to him once she realized nobody else would, that's so much more interesting than any other alternative. I just don't see how all of these things, some of my favorite things that season 5 gave, can still all exist at once with Chat Noir present in the final battle in any way that's satisfying. )

[soracities]

whats your all time favorite book? you may give me other recs too if you'd likee! 💗

I don't have an all time favourite because different books have made me lose my mind in different ways <3 but I CAN give you a breakdown based on some of my own personal categories:

Books I Would Take Into a Bunker For 9 Months (aka Absolutely No One Talk to Me)

The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky

Ich und Du, Martin Buber

The Waves, Virginia Woolf

The Snake, Stig Dagerman

The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Albert Camus

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

An Inventory of Losses, Judith Schalansky

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

We, Yevgeny Zamyatin

Books That Did That™️

Secondhand-Time, Svetlana Alexievich

We Love Glenda So Much & Other Tales, Julio Cortázar

The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa

At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien

Deaf Republic, Ilya Kaminsky

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Mattawa

The Chaos Walking Trilogy, Patrick Ness

Ways of Seeing, John Berger

German Autumn, Stig Dagerman

A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, Roland Barthes

A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, Eimear McBride

Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence

Bluets, Maggie Nelson

Antigone, Jean Anouilh

They: A Sequence of Unease, Kay Dick

A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen

The Condemned, Stig Dagerman

Books That If I Could Erase My Memory and Read Again for the First Time I Would 100% Erase My Memory and Read Again for the First Time

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

Água Viva, Clarice Lispector

The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories, Angela Carter

A Moth to a Flame, Stig Dagerman

Paris, When It's Naked, Etel Adnan

Without an Alphabet, Without a Face, Saadi Youssef

A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquez

View with a Grain of Sand, Wislawa Szymborska

Possession, A.S. Byatt

Four Bare Legs in a Bed: Stories, Helen Simpson

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

Not to Read: Essays, Alejandro Zambra

The Princess Bride, William Goldman

[copdog1234]

Man, I was watching the movie and the entire time I was thinking "Wow. This would've been so much more satisfying in the show" because the show has earned it. The show's writing is far from perfect, it has many, many flaws, but my god is it far better than Miraculous Awakening will ever be. And I'll tell you why.

I will preface by saying, yes, an hour and a half movie has way less time than a TV show with several episodes to build up characters and relationships, so time constraints will make it so we may not get as much depth in the on-screen relationships.

You know what, though? The time they spent playing mediocre songs could've been used better to show us all the things the songs had to outright tell us. Cause that was the problem.

The movie sure liked telling us how the characters were feeling. It rarely showed it. Like could you tell me why movie Marinette liked Adrien? Because I couldn't. What did he do to earn her affection beside look pretty? Why did we only get a montage of them getting closer instead of actually seeing it? Or how we never really see much of Gabriel and Adrien's struggles with the loss of Emilie, we simply get glimpses. How am I supposed to feel anything when Gabriel stops being Hawk Moth when this movie showed us literally nothing of their strained relationship? And then there's Gabriel's claim that he did absolutely everything to get Emilie back. No he didn't. He did actually nothing. He freed a couple of criminals and then akumatized himself. That's it. That's all he did.

Could you tell me why Alya decided to befriend Marinette? Could you tell me why Adrien "who decided not to get close to anyone" was friends with Nino? Could you tell me why Chloe was so confident Adrien had any interest in her when they never actually interacted?

And then there wasnt enough explanation on how anything that we should've been told worked. Could anyone really tell me how these versions of the miraculous work? Or why Master Fu was in possession of them? Or why they really chose their holders? Could you tell me if the kwami had much personality and were necessary?

Like, I will say, there were funny moments, the animation was nice, and there were cool set pieces, but where was the substance?? It was nonexistent. If you don't watch the show, would you know or feel anything for what was going on in this movie?

Cause even for me, who does watch the show, I didn't.

Think about this. The show has even faked out multiple reveals to me and every time I was hyped and screaming, I have read fanfiction of these same to characters falling in love and confessing every which way and I've swooned, but we get reveals and love confessions that are real and permanent in this movie and I felt. Nothing.

It's okay if yall disagree with me, but I just needed to get this off my chest. I'm hard on this movie because I wanted it to be good because I love the characters and story from the show.

[uptoolateart]

Okay, so what I was saying in my long Gabriel analysis rings true. (Ha ha...rings....) He changed to be accepted by Emilie's parents.

Deep down, Gabriel probably relates to Marinette. In the story Feligami tell...Marinette could easily be the poor tailor, while Adrien is the heir to the empire, ready to throw it all away for her.

At some point, Gabriel got twisted and sold out his values. It was probably a gradual process, which explains why Emilie initially fell in love with him and then stuck with him despite her unhappiness with him later.

In one of her videos for Nathalie, she said Gabriel got stuck on things. He was good enough for her but not for himself.

When he looks at Marinette, he sees a little of what he used to be. When he gives her that speech about being naive in the fashion world...he's talking about himself, once upon a time. I think he once had a dream like hers, and he let it go, focusing instead on the wealth and status he needed to be good enough for his in-laws.

Now, he envies Marinette, even if he's unaware of it. That's the only reason a grown man would be fixated on her in that way. He's treating her the way Emilie's parents treated him. He has to break her and get her out of his son's life because if he doesn't - if she achieves her dreams of marrying Adrien and becoming a designer without selling out her principles - it means he could have done this too. It will force him to reflect and take accountability for his bad decisions...and he just can't cope with that.

Similarly, when he hurls abuse at Cat Noir about what an ill-mannered child he is, and when he goes to such lengths to control Adrien...I really think he's seeing a reflection of his younger self there too.

Underneath the pancakes and bad dancing and total insanity, the man is nothing but a writhing heap of regrets and won't see that he had so many chances to do things another way.

[lilrios-world]

*HUGE SPOILERS FOR S4 AHEAD*

Also, Im sleep deprived and angry

They will just ruin Emily/Marcelo to shove Emily/Gabriel down our throats once again, wont they? Its going to be just like Emily/Alfie. They were PERFECT together, they challenged e each other as much as they completed each other. And they ruined for fucking GABRIEL, the same man who couldnt even pick her. And then when they were finally together, proceded to leave her all alone in that mountain, seriously, she could've fucking died. And he wouldnt even look for her or go back to see where she was. Then when she rightfully left him, he had the nerve to get upset? Get FUCKED

Season 5 is probably going to be the last one. And if the writers have an ounce of respect for Emily's story and personal growth, theyll keep her in rome with Marcelo. Seriously, Paris wasnt for her. It made her personal life interfere with her work life, a man showed up, then her work somehow screwed up her personal life. Then the opposite. And the whole time Gabriel couldnt decide anything to save his life, making her fucking miserable at the end. Then, another man showed up, rinse and repeat.

Now she finally got everything she wanted and needed: a promotion, a man who loves her, a beautiful city, novelty, no mess and balance.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Emotion

Hey, remember Felix? You know, that minor character who is the entire reason Gabriel has all of Ladybug's other Miraculous? The writers remembered he existed more than halfway through the season.

Let's get into the eighteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Emotion

We start off with Marinette and Adrien getting ice cream, and just like last episode, right when they're about to kiss, Adrien stops at the last second. While we don't see it, it's heavily implied that Gabriel is behind this. It turns out that Adrien has to get ready for some dance for rich people. While it has a name and I think it was mentioned in a few earlier episodes this season, it's really just some dance for rich people, so I don't care enough to remember it. Of course, all of the rich characters we know are invited, like Kagami, Chloe, Zoe, and Prince Ali. Lila, on the other hand, wasn't invited. This might sound important, but nothing happens with her until the end.

Zoe isn't going because of the “character development” she's gotten, so she offers to let Marinette wear her dress to the dance, which just so happens to be a masquerade ball. Tikki asks why Marinette even wants to go to this party she wasn't invited to, but all Marinette says is that it's so she can tell Adrien that she didn't have to keep the dance a secret from her. Why didn't Marinette just call Adrien? Because then we wouldn't have a story.

At the ball, Adrien and Kagami are the king and queen or whatever because their parents are really determined to make their ship sail even though the two show no real interest in each other (insert your own joke about the writers here), but they're interrupted by Amelie, Emilie's twin sister and Felix's mom. She's worried because her son has been missing for weeks, but Gabriel couldn't care less about the little twerp.

At the party, we get a somewhat amusing joke where Chloe fails to recognize Marinette under her mask, where Marinette not only says her name is Zoe, but her “underling” is named Chloe too. But speaking of...

Chloe: How rich are your parents? Rich? Very rich? Immensely rich? Of course, otherwise you wouldn't be here! It's too bad we can't bring out underlings with us. I'm sure these tin cans can serve properly but we can't make fun of them! (grabs a drink from a butler robot before kicking it) So lame!

Okay, did the writers just stop caring about writing convincing dialogue for Chloe? This is a problem I've noticed a lot this season. Yeah, Chloe was bad in the last four seasons, but here, she constantly talks about how Sabrina is her “underling” (Passion), or how she finds Marinete's suffering to be amusing (Derision). It's not really out of character, but it's weird how she's so much more blunt when it comes to boasting about how full of herself she is. It feels like a lot of her lines this season were meant to be placeholders for stuff the writers thought they'd change later, but then they decided to keep it in anyway. And of course to show how stuck up the other rich kids saying the same kind of stuff Chloe normally says, which is somehow less subtle social commentary than Hop Pop shouting “EAT THE RICH!”.

Adrien and Kagami talk about how they're expected to follow orders, while pretty much saying that Kagami is a Sentimonster since the camera really wants to show off her ring.

Oh wow. what does this mean? Wow, this is such a compelling mystery with so many twists and turns. I am so very invested right now.

However, as the two talk, it's clear that Adrien isn't himself, literally.

“Adrien”: Let's leave, I dare you.

Kagami: Are you insane? We can't do that.

“Adrien”: Of course, we can. I can.

Kagami: (gasps) You'd do that?

“Adrien”: Wanna bet?

Kagami: No, we can't.

“Adrien”: See? You're not as free as you claim. Don't you think we should be able to decide our future?

I'll get back to this later.

Marinette tells “Adrien” that she loves her, but Chloe figures out that Marinette crashed a party she wasn't invited to. Of course, because this is Chloe, we're supposed to ignore how unnecessary this plan was for Marinette. Seriously, Marinette crashing the party in “Gabriel Agreste”, as illogical as it was, made sense, because they needed to stop Chloe from showing Gabriel incriminating footage of Marinette. Here, Marinette had no real reason to crash this party when all she had to do was call Adrien, and Chloe, like her or hate her, makes a good point in that she wasn't invited. But again, since this is Season 5 Chloe, she could say she opposes human trafficking, and the writers would still find a way to make her look like the bad guy.

Chloe tells the other rich kids to help her expose Marinette, but because they're so stuck up and entitled, they refuse to touch her. I'll give you all a moment to groan from that unfunny joke. Then we get this conversation between Marinette and “Adrien”.

“Adrien”: All eyes are on you.

Marinette: They're looking at me like I'm a monster.

“Adrien”: Look closer, Marinette. (whispers into her ear) They're the monsters.

I officially take back everything bad I ever said about the Canto Bight scenes from The Last Jedi.

While I get what the episode's going for, we really haven't seen a lot of the 1% doing things that would actually warrant this level of scorn from the audience. Yeah, most of them were egotistical snobs, especially Chloe, but you can't really see this as a shot at the elite when it's aimed at their children instead of their parents. All we've seen in this episode is the rich kids being jerks (and even then, it's played for laughs), Chloe rightfully trying to get Marinette thrown out of a party she had no reason to crash, and Gabriel and Tomoe trying to pair their children together. If you want to show the audience how bad rich people are, you need to show them actually abusing their power and mistreating others. As bad as the aforementioned Canto Bight scenes were, they still worked because it managed to back up the point it was trying to make.

Compare this to characters like the Ferengi from Star Trek or the World Nobles from One Piece. These are allegories for the 1% that work because they do a better job at exaggerating aspects of them that can translate to how we see the elite in our world. With the Ferengi, they represent everything wrong with cutthroat businessmen who base their entire society over financial gains, and with the World Nobles, they represent the disconnect with the common people by being so arrogant, they wear helmets that prevent them from breathing the same air as the commoners. If you wanted to show how bad the rich were, especially considering what's going to happen in a few minutes, you needed to do more to make the audience not like them so we'd be more happy to see them get their comeuppance.

Marinette figures out that Felix impersonated Adrien once again (it honestly stops being impressive when he's done it during literally every episode he appears in), and he decides to transform using the Peacock Miraculous in public for some reason, calling himself Argos.

Argos' design is okay. The suit and coattails look pretty nice, and the coloring on his face works a lot better than Gabriel's. The only problem I have is the way the hood looks. It looks too goofy to go with the rest of the suit. It kind of reminds me of that salmon suit Squidward wore in that one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Before anyone else at the party can do anything, Argos reveals a Sentimonster he created, Red Moon.

Red Moon is... a red moon. It's just a red moon that floats above the city, and it gives Argos the ability to make anyone bathed in its light disappear with a snap of his fingers. If anything, this shows how overpowered the Peacock Miraculous is, and that Gabriel was a real idiot for not trying anything like this while he was Shadowmoth.

Anyway, after making everyone think his cousin is a supervillain as part of his brilliant plan, Argos decides to tell everyone in the room about what his Sentimonster can do. He demonstrates this by, of course, choosing to snap away Chloe before targeting Gabriel and Tomoe. You really have your priorities straight, buddy. Argos then carries Marinette outside before throwing her in a dumpster, because if he snapped her away, than Ladybug couldn't fight him.

But then Argos decides to go to the streets, and decides to snap away a bunch of innocent civilians... while singing a jazz song. To anyone curious as to what it sounds like, I must warn you, it isn't for the feint of heart.

I take back everything bad I ever said about the Hawkmoth rap.

First off, I'm just going to say it, Bryce Papenbrook cannot sing. Argos is clearly trying to sound like a suave and confident villain like Doctor Facilier from The Princess and the Frog, but his delivery is terrible. It either ranges from flat monotone to trying to shout while dealing with a sore throat. The point I'm trying to make is that there was a good reason someone else did the singing voice for Adrien in the recent movie.

Second, this doesn't do anything to make us root for Argos as a character, because there's no reason for him to be doing this. I can understand why he'd use his power to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe (even Chloe, given we know how much she's done), but why is he suddenly going nuts snapping a bunch of random people who haven't even met him before? The episode tries to make him a character who only does bad things because he has no choice to, so him doing this to a bunch of innocent civilians makes no sense.

Finally, WHY THE HELL IS THIS SCENE A MUSICAL NUMBER?! It's hard enough to see Argos callously wipe out a bunch of bystanders, essentially committing genocide, but the tone of the song is all upbeat and cheery, while the lyrics are about how Argos should get whatever he wants. What is the purpose of adding a song here? Are we supposed to find this funny? Is it meant to establish Felix as a wild card? Is the song supposed to make us like him more because of how catchy it is? What was the writers' endgame here? Like I mentioned earlier, this flies in the face of the characterization the episode is trying to establish for him.

Marinette transforms into Ladybug and arrives on the scene, confronting Argos over what he did last season.

Ladybug: You're the reason why I lost the other Miraculous in the first place! And why he took them! You gave them to him without any regard for the consequences it might have with the people of Paris!

Argos: True, except I work for no one. I only helped Monarch cause it served my plans! I needed the Peacock Miraculous and today I need yours and Cat Noir's so I can make my wish!

Ladybug: Your wish?! What do you want?! What are you trying to do?! You're destroying the world and we don't even know why!

Argos: When I merge your Miraculous together, I'll make a wish to create a better world! A free world, where no one will be under anyone's control anymore, where no one will be excluded like I was! A world without people like you to decide what's right or wrong! Who gets powers and who doesn't!

Dude, you're literally playing God right now by snapping away people who did nothing wrong, while singing a song at that. You have no right to lecture Ladybug on how to use power responsibly. And once again, even though we just saw him happily snapping people out of existence like the kid from that one Twilight Zone episode, the episode is going back to portraying him as someone who's only doing this because he has nothing to lose.

Ladybug tries to use her Lucky Charm, but gets nothing in response. This is because her plan is to get Argos to give up, but even in episodes where her plan was to get Akumas to give up, she still got her Lucky Charm (Rocketear, Qilin, Penalteam, Reunion, Perfection, Intuition), so this doesn't really make any sense. Ladybug calls Argos' bluff, so he wipes out everyone from existence. After running into Kagami and snapping Adrien back into existence, Argos is surprised that they aren't thanking him for wiping out all of humanity, and in fact, see him as a complete psychopath.

We then learn Felix's true plan. Earlier that day, Argos capitalized on a opening he had been hoping he would get for weeks, and then created Red Moon. Right after Adrien's date with Marinette, Argos ambushed Adrien, and snapped him out of existence with Red Moon's power. He then decided to impersonate Adrien so he could infiltrate the dance and snap Gabriel, Tomoe, and everyone else out of existence.

I think my feelings on this plan can be perfectly summarized by Tony Stark.

First off, why did he need to sneak into the dance? All Felix had to do was transform into Argos, and nobody would know who he really was.

Second, why did he need to impersonate Adrien? Felix claims he's doing this for him, yet all he did was steal his girlfriend and ruin his public reputation. As a matter of fact, why did he even snap Adrien away? You're already wiping out all of humanity, so I don't think temporarily doing the same to Adrien will earn you any goodwill.

Third, why did he waste so much time screwing around with Marinette and Kagami? I sort of get why he would try to get in Kagami's good graces (keyword being “try”) by trying to convince her to rebel against her mother more, but why did he dance around with Marinette while pretending to be Adrien? Felix later says he wanted to spare Marinette for Adrien's sake, but he barely knows her, and whether she finds out Felix impersonated her boyfriend or not, she's going to be pissed at either you or Adrien because of your galavanting. In fact, I don't think he ever told Adrien that he danced with Marinette while at the dance in the first place.

Finally, he really needed to wait for this for weeks? If your goal was to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe, why didn't you just ambush them yourself instead of waiting for a public function? This isn't like has last few appearances where he needed to rely on his intellect. He has superpowers now. All he has to do is create another Sentibug or some kind of assassin Sentimonster and he can be rid of them easily. Instead, he waited weeks for a chance to steal his cousin's identity, dance with his girlfriend, talk trash about Kagami for listening to her mother when he's supposed to be helping her and Adrien, blow his cover in a crowded area by transforming, and use his killer moon to erase all of humanity from existence while singing. Remember, this is the show that usually makes jokes about Marinette's obsession with unnecessarily complicated plans.

Anyway, Argos tries to use his powers to bring Marinette back, but for some reason, they won't work. My best guess is that it's because Marinette transformed into Ladybug, but that shouldn't chance the fact that Argos snapped her with Red Moon's power. After trying to justify his genocide by saying he never wanted to hurt Adrien and Kagami, Argos remembers how his powers work and brings everyone back. After Ladybug lets him go scot-free, Argos goes to a private place realizes that he may have made a few mistakes for almost wiping out all of humanity, tearfully snapping Red Moon out of existence, calling it “his sister”. Because I guess we were supposed to emotionally connect to the giant moon that showed little to no signs of sentience this entire episode? Argos transforms back to Felix, and we learn that Amelie knew where he was the whole time, and she was apparently testing Gabriel for some reason.

After Adrien explains to Marinette that his father ordered him to not tell her about the dance, Adrien goes to talk to Gabriel about it. Gabriel, being Gabriel uses his control over Adrien to force him to never talk about Marinette again. Gabriel then gets a call from Lila, and even though she's been nothing but helpful to him since Season 3, he's apparently tired with her. Why is he suddenly rejecting the help of his most competent (by comparison) ally?

Also, the episode ends with the revelation that Lila somehow knows Gabriel is Monarch. Why? How? I DON'T CARE, BECAUSE THIS EPISODE SUCKS!

Oh my God, this episode was just terrible! “Derision” and “Adoration” definitely got to me with the way their stories were handled, but this was the first episode in a while to really piss me off. The plot was contrived as hell, basically being a repeat of “Gabriel Agreste”, and you all know how I wasn't exactly a fan of that episode. Think about it: Marinette sneaks into a party, Felix tries to scheme against Gabriel, and Marinette and Adrien end up getting caught in one of his schemes.

The social commentary about how bad the rich were just felt more pretensions than anything else. I get that it's meant to teach children a lesson about the real world, but the episode feels so confident in what its trying to say when it's not that deep, even by kids' show standards. Rich people are bad? Yeah, I think someone like me who lives in the same country as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg knows that. Will you actually teach kids about the financial conditions that allow the wealthy to abuse their power or the cutthroat methods they'll resort to in order to turn a profit? No? You're just going to tell kids that rich people are jerks without giving any actual evidence in the same episode you're using to try and to teach them? Man, these writers just keep hitting it out of the park here!

This whole “Rich people suck” message also falls flat because Felix is the one pushing it. You know, someone who already comes from a rich family? It's not like Bruce Wayne where he uses his money to help the people of Gotham, as Batman or not. Felix just whines about how “tHeY'rE tHe MoNsTeRs.” when he's just as well-off as they are. The episode tries to do a subtle discrimination message as evidenced by his rant as Argos earlier, but it doesn't work because we have never seen anyone discriminate against Felix for who he is. Yeah, the episode once again tries to hint at him being a Sentimonster, but because the show hasn't just pulled the trigger and confirmed it, it's hard to really sympathize with him being “excluded” when we've never seen him being treated differently by others in earlier episodes, and even if he was a Sentimonster, nobody would know or be able to discriminate against him in the first place.

I don't know why the show keeps trying to excuse Felix's actions when once again, he pretty much committed fucking genocide yet the episode still wanted us to feel bad for him realizing his actions had consequences. If he actually wanted to own up to his mistakes, he'd either hand over the Peacock Miraculous to Ladybug or help Ladybug stop Monarch. For someone who claims he hates when people abuse power to make others suffer, he's no better, judging from how both times he's gotten to use a Miraculous, he's either screwed over Ladybug (Strikeback) or endangered a lot of innocent people. And if you're wondering why I didn't point out any double standards between the treatment of Felix compared to Chloe, that doesn't really matter. No matter how you feel about Chloe, whether you feel like she got screwed over or not, it doesn't really make how the writers are glorifying Felix any better or worse, as his potential “redemption arc” isn't off to a good start.

The plot was stupid, Felix was an idiot, and it felt like more effort was put into the musical number than the writing. In my opinion, this is easily the worst episode of the season so far.

Although at the very least, now that we have even more evidence that Adrien, Felix, and even Kagami are all Sentimonsters, I think I know what clip I can start using to describe my feelings on this plotline.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... FELIX

For someone who managed to outsmart Gabriel on multiple occasions with no superpowers, Felix's intelligence really took a nosedive the second he got the Peacock Miraculous. He came up with a completely unnecessary plan that involved impersonating his cousin's identity and mocking his friend when he's supposed to try and win their favor, he danced with his cousin's girlfriend without his consent, transformed in public, smearing his reputation even further, and proceeded to gleefully wipe out humanity through a musical number, and needed other people to point out how immoral his actions were. Of course, Marinette gets second place thanks to her plan to break into the party and later letting Argos get away.

[fernsnouveau]

Tags by @erisluna35 :

#yeah the ship cracked not cause we dont believe in teen love #but because s5 messed up their dynamic #this whole thing messed up adriens arc not because of adrienette #but because he kept getting locked out of his own narrative #which is not satisfying regardless of adrienette #reducing all these complaints to just the salters belittling teen love #the sugar side really dont get it

Tags by @generalluxun :

#as a writer I feel this #writing the LS is hard now I need to ensure there is a clear break from canon to even contemplate it #why did they turn it so toxic?

“You don’t ship the love square because you’re an adult who doesn’t believe teenage love is legitimate”

I’m going to stop you there. Yes, I am an adult person who is aware teenage romance doesn’t have a great track record of being lasting in real life. But Miraculous Ladybug: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is FICTIONAL.

If the writers decide on a convincing arc for Maribug and Adricat being “made for each other”, then yes, I will ship them. I considered them an OTP for years, actually.

UNFORTUNATELY there was a multi-season storyline of Ladybug keeping important secrets from Chat Noir that was not fully addressed and pushed aside.

UNFORTUNATELY as of the season 5 finale, we have Maribug lying to Adricat about his very existence as a son of Monarque and his status of being a Sentimonster.

So no. I don’t ship it anymore. And I’m actually kind of bummed this fictional relationship I invested in for years is dead to me.

[margarita-life]

Emily & Alfie | THEIR STORY (Emily in Paris S4)

link: https://youtu.be/bHJJZKJq2e4

"...The last thing I ever wanted was for you to get hurt..."

[bbutterflies]

and what about an adrino soulmates au where everywhere your soulmate touches you a mark appears. adrien has spent his whole entire life dodging fans because they all desperately want to prove they're his soulmate. he's spent his whole life hearing how important his soulmate is from his parents. before emilie died she talked about how magical it was to find her soulmate, and she loves all her marks and tells adrien stories about every single one. he is constantly avoiding random strangers so they don't touch him but he is desperate for touch from the people he loves - who don't give it to him. he hears almost daily from his father that his soulmate is important for the brand and the family and adrien is forced into handshakes and hugs from gabriel's associate's daughters, only to be met with bitter disappointment when nothing happens.

and then it turns out his soulmate is a boy.

[asukiess]

grr hello i am still thinking about your sentiemilie au

emmy pov...imagine! you have no life before, and no life after. all you know is the House.

the House and those who live in it. the Man who stares too much. the Woman who averts her eyes. and the Boy who pities you, when it should be the other way around.

an intern, they call you - and you may not know much, but you do know that this is not what an intern should be doing.

the Man has you pose for him often. he designs clothes, he tells you, and more than that, he designs clothes for you. you stand in his office, eyes drawn to the large frame behind his desk. the empty frame.

perhaps he'll put a portrait of you up there some day, he says. you don't ask whose portrait used to be up there.

the Woman barely glances up from her tablet when you approach. you're here to help, you tell her. isn't that what an intern should be doing? her lips purse, as though you have said something wrong. but you don't know what wrong is - all you know is what you were told.

you're a hard worker, you insist. please, if there's anything you can do--

no, she says, harsh. but then, she softens. you can go spend some time with the Boy, she tells you. he'll be glad to see you.

then why aren't you glad to see me? you want to say. you never do.

the Boy is often in his room, a fact you don't quite understand. his door is not locked - not like yours so often is - but he acts like it is. like it would be the hardest thing in the world to wrap his hand around the doorknob and step outside.

with that, you sympathize. your world is the House. what could possibly lie beyond?

the Boy is so, so kind to you. he treats you like something fragile, something delicate - like if he closes his eyes and opens them again, you'll vanish. gone, back to wherever you were before the House.

he stutters over your name, the syllables unfamiliar in his mouth.

is there something else you'd rather call me? you ask him.

...no, he says, not yet.

then when?

when it is your portrait on the wall? when the Woman sees you as an equal? when the Man finally tires of dressing you?

the Boy looks sad. because of you, perhaps. but when you rise to leave, his hand reaches out to catch yours.

you can stay, he says quietly. if you want.

you do want, so you stay.

i'm sorry, you say after a moment. if me being here... if it's making things hard for you.

it's all right, says the Boy, and he squeezes your hand. he is so very kind. but then he says: it's only temporary, after all.

what is?

you, he says. sooner or later, they'll get tired of you. sooner or later, they'll make a new one.

a new one. a new intern, a new model. a new family.

you think your heart would be pounding in your chest - if you had one.

HI NEMALI!!! my love!!! my insp!!

my god..... genuinely I adore your 2nd person pov writing, it just arrests me and I know it'll gut me sooner or later in the story and UGH!!

ALL YOU KNOW IS THE HOUSE!!! what an absolutely confusing situation. I just know Gabriel sanded her down just enough to not ask questions, but the right questions so she isn't boring to him.

"the Man has you pose for him often." SICKENING. and hello!!! emilie always haunting the narrative!!!

and Nathalie hating to face her--in some way, a cowards way out--but offering her a solace, a friend, someone who will genuinely and wholesomely be happy to see her. !!

"his door is not locked - not like yours so often is -" O H OH OH HELLO!! who locked it!!! does she understand on some level or is it Nathalie, protecting her, or Gabriel keeping her from leaving!!

him stuttering over her name and her asking if he'd rather something else GUTS me. the layers. "...no, he says, not yet." UGH!!! nemali please!!!

"you think your heart would be pounding in your chest - if you had one." EMMY ESCAPE THE HOUSE ESCAPE THE NARRATIVE I AM OUTSIDE THE GATE!!

thank you thank you thank you aaaaaa I genuinely LOVED this and I'm literally so over the moon at everyone who has sent in ideas and art and I love!!! this idea and how people are using it and yours, as always, are outstanding <3

oh emmy..... alexa play what was I made for.....!!!