#I do not enjoy the demonisation of Marinette but like... the canon is doing it. not me.

[fernsnouveau]

I do think that Adrien forgiving all this would be "consistent" with his character, as in, his character at this point is someone who's been conditioned to put up with abuse and stay in abusive relationships and remain palatable, passive, and convenient. It would, however, be the antithesis of the character development he needs in order to stop being an abuse victim and start claiming agency.

Adrien shouldn't just be the crash test dummy for Marinette's character development (which she does NOT seem to be having!!!) to learn not to be(come) an abuser. Adrien's fate should not forever remain controlled by whether or not condescending people with power over him might finally grant him the basic human right of not getting treated as a Lesser Being anymore.

I don't wanna watch a miserable slowburn where Maribug just slowly spirals into treating Adrichat worse and worse for drama, but SOMETIMES it looks like the story acknowledges that it was wrong and she's remorseful, so MAYBE she will do better the next time (and then the situation just gets worse instead). At this point, following the show itself is starting to feel like being in an abusive relationship, where the canon will let you down, spout abuse apologia and get a big chunk of the fanbase to parrot it uncritically and judge and shun anyone who shows discomfort. But then, occasionally, the canon will show apparent remorse and imply that It Can Change For The Better, Just Stay And Watch, You'll See, (You Were The Bad One For Doubting It). That's, like, one of the main reasons why people stay in abusive relationships.

For the record, I actually really liked the emotionally difficult aspects of S4 lovesquare development. But by now it's getting clear that they weren't setup for later positive character development or improvement; the character development consequence has just been Adrien learning to further diminish himself, and start believing that he deserves to be treated badly, and that his free-willed actions would just damage and ruin everything. And now, the new special has pushed him further than ever before down that hole.

Maribug has now managed to break Adrien's spirit more thoroughly than Gabriel ever did.

Endlessly forgiving and staying with the kind of people who keep doing this to him, is the exact core thing Adrien needs to unlearn and get away from, in order to ever heal and be ok.

I really wanted Marinette to be there and learn to support him in that development, but she's made her big choice and sided with Gabriel instead.

Yeah, I am sorry, but Adrien just becoming kinda angry and then accepting Ladybug's 'apology' would be the complete character destruction of Adrien. I mean, his character has been treated pretty badly throughout the whole show but this is a whole new mess now. Normally, Adrien should go crazy at this point, but ofc the narrative wont allow that to happen.

Everyone around him has been lying to him about everything; His father has been lying to him. The person he sees as his hero and partner (Ladybuy, but who is also Marinette, so Adrien is being lied to by his partner and love interest at the same time and he doesnt even know it). His other close friend aka Kagami and kinda his cousin (Felix) have been keeping secrets from him and outright lying to him now (in Kagami's case for LB's sake). Nathalie is lying, and even Plagg has to lie. Adrien really has no one to actually rely on or trust. His entire agency is being ignored in favor of 'being protected'. It's just crazy how much Marinette/LB actually parallels Gabriel. Adrien has no say in anything, has no one to trust, has no agency, has no control, he is completely disregarded. And realistically in the narrative, this sh.t should have serious consequences and a character change moment for Adrien's development and reaction.

I do wonder how Plagg's gonna be handled here, we haven't actually seen him go back to Adrien yet. Marinette certainly didn't order him to not tell Adrien the truth, though I'm also not sure that he could outright say that Gabriel is Monarch, since Gabriel was, however briefly, his Holder. Plagg might squeak by with that excuse.

This would be a good time for Adrien to become closer with Nino I think. Nino's terrible at lying and keeping secrets, but that's exactly what Adrien needs right now.

I don't think that Adrien becoming angry but accepting Ladybug's apology would completely destroy his character, it'd be pretty consistent with it. I DO think that in order to be satisfying, we'd need to see Ladybug be tempted to fall into her old ways, her old patterns, of hiding things from him and lying to him, either to "protect" him or because she wants to control his reaction to something. And instead being truthful and letting him react in whatever way he does, knowing it's his right.

[fernsnouveau]

I actually disliked the direction where I'd recently seen a bunch of the more reasonable S5-critical ML fandom people going. Those discussions and analyses were spiraling increasingly towards demonising Marinette over time, as we were left hanging with the s5 ending for a long time, and the fandom had nothing new to talk about.

I actually liked her flaws.

But then the canon does... this...

And I do admit, it's an in-character way to push Marinette towards a villain arc. Like, if I had to construct a darkfic scenario where Marinette goes evil and try to keep it as close to her canon personality as possible, it would look something like this. Which, I guess, means that it's theoretically easier for me to accept than, for example, S5's occasional incidents of Edgy Murderboy Chat Noir (how is that the same character who had TWO guilt-based mental breakdowns about accidentally cataclysming someone completely out of his control, including the main villain??!). I'm sure there are in-character ways to turn Adrien (or anyone else) into a villain, but Murder-Noir was Not It.

Of course another reason why the writing of Murder-Noir gives me extra heebie jeebies, was how it felt like an abuse apologia excuse, validating Gabriel's accusations for Adrien to not "deserve" autonomy, nor to experience or express any negative, inconvenient emotions. Murder-Noir feels like it's a writing choice directed at child abuse victims in the audience, who related to Adrien. "See, your abuser was right, you're horrible and overly emotional and out of control, so you NEED to be rigidly controlled for your own and everyone else's good!

Anyway.

While I admit that Marinette taking up Gabriel's mantle this way is technically in character, I cannot claim to enjoy the writing choice at all. I liked Marinette's flaws. I wanted to explore them. I did not want her demonised to this extent. She could have been meaningfully flawed without becoming better at being Gabriel, than Gabriel himself was!

After this, the only justification for the lovesquare to stay together, would be as a wish-fulfillment or "reward" for Marinette, and that's not enough for me. When I think about, if there was a real-life abuse victim in Adrien's position (minus the supernatural elements), and then they were friends with, and/orstarted dating someone who repeatedly treated them the way Maribug has been doing (and "repeatedly" is important here, it demonstrates unwillingness to learn from mistakes and be sincere about apologies – S4 was brushed under a rug as soon as Chat Noir superficially forgave!), ESPECIALLY but not only siding with the abusive parent and lying to the victim that the abuse they experienced was "not really abuse" and For Their Own Good, and demonstrated this complete infantilisation and lack of respect for the abuse victim, wanting to see them only as a palatable, innocent fairytale being who's not allowed to be inconvenient, express negative emotions, make informed choices mor generally be a complete person...

Obviously the right thing to do, for the abuse victim, would be to get the hell away from that person.

It does NOT mean that the person is irredeemable. They're just... not owed the abuse victim's forgiveness and continued presence in their life.

And I can't ignore that anymore.

We failed to get an arc about Adrien surviving and escaping Gabriel and healing. He has now been put into a position where, in order to ever be okay, he would have to survive and escape Marinette in order to heal.

I don't like this. It feels very hopeless and bleak and unenjoyable. I don't even think the story is gonna go there and free/heal Adrien (Astruc made it clear that Adrien isn't supposed to be his own character or have agency, he's supposed to be Marinette's accessory and that's never gonna change).

But as far as I'm concerned, any excuse for the lovesquare relationship to get back together after this, would have the unpalatable aftertaste of propaganda to make victims return to their abusers.

I don't like this trajectory!!!

[angelofthequeers]

I feel you on the Luka thing. At first I thought he was nice and I was mostly ambivalent about him when he was introduced (adored Kagami though even then) and I was mostly eh about Lukanette (not my thing) but how his terrible stans are acting and their Adrien bashing basically made Lukanette a NOTP for me unless it’s past Lukanette. Your fic and guardiankarenterrier’s have been the only actual Luka content I truly enjoy (excluding more crack ish content like Lukatar and Luka x XY)

Honestly, that’s exactly how I feel about Luka right now, and I’m gonna make a longer post now that I know that I’ve got some agreement and support. So here are my full 12 am rambling feelings about Luka Couffaine and Lukanette, where I essentially hijack your ask and finally make my post. And I’ve only been sitting on this for this long because I didn’t see any point in annoying the salters and rabid Luka stans for the sake of an opinion but…fuck it, y’know? Fair warning that if you like Luka and/or you’re a salter, you might not want to read this.

Luka’s nice. That’s it. He doesn’t have any substance beyond that. He exists purely to serve Marinette, because every other character dares to not fall to Marinette’s feet and cater to her every whim so they are therefore evil.

And no, that’s not Marinette salt. That’s salter salt. Reflecting back on my salt days, the thing that sticks out to me most is the level of protagonist-centred morality and the sheer inability to see from anyone else’s POV. Take Chameleon, for example. Adrien doesn’t know that Lila threatened Marinette. The classmates have seen Marinette act jealous before and their perception of Lila is that of a nice girl who’s being targeted by Marinette. And if you fail to take yourself out of Marinette’s head and see how others might perceive a situation, that’s where most of the salt is born, because all that comes to matter is that Marinette Is Wronged and anyone who dared to not support her 100% is immediately Evil. Never mind that Adrien fought back against years of conditioning to lie down and take it in order to stand up for Marinette and even bargain himself to Lila to protect his friend. Never mind that Alya went to great lengths to prove Marinette’s innocence and even if she didn’t believe Lila was the culprit, she wholeheartedly believed that Marinette was innocent.

But that’s not enough nuance for salters and Perfect Marinette can’t dare to have flaws beyond being clumsy and Too Giving For Her Own Good, so meh. I swear this relates to Luka and I have a point

And that’s where Luka comes in. It’s because he’s a blank slate that he appeals to salters. They can project whatever they want onto him; turn him into the Perfect Boyfriend for Perfect Queen Marinette. He’s not a character. He’s a device. And that’s part of why my interest in him just…waned. There’s nothing to keep my attention hooked. Sure, ‘Silencer’ made me squeal because of the love confession, but only by forcing myself to go back and rewatch it for that rush. Once the episode was over, I just kind of…shrugged. Whatever. He said a few words and then walked off, and Marinette can’t be that in love with him if the confession’s never again brought up in his later appearances; where Adrien’s actively pursued Kagami, Marinette’s just kind of let Luka woo her and gone along with it whenever he’s around. And there’s nothing wrong with letting someone woo you, but when she’s been shown to actively pursue Adrien, it kind of doesn’t give the impression that she’s all that into Luka.

Honestly, it’s pretty much just this shitty meme that I made for a laugh

And why does he love Marinette? He “fell for her at first sight”. Marinette and Adrien didn’t fall for each other as soon as their eyes met, but rather after they worked past their initial impressions and revealed a different side to their partner; one that made their partner fall in love with them. Chat’s first impression of Ladybug was of a clumsy, nervous girl who was nice and who he liked but was reluctant to be a superhero in the first place. Marinette’s first impression of Adrien was of a spoiled brat. It wasn’t until Ladybug gave her speech to Hawkmoth and showed her fiery and determined side, until Adrien revealed to Marinette that he was a sweet and socially awkward boy, that they fell for each other. Even Adrien and Kagami had a heckuva lotta chemistry during their first meeting, with Kagami thoroughly impressing Adrien, and Marinette and Kagami’s friendship was established by working past their misunderstood first impressions, just like with Marinette and Adrien. Each of these relationships have a solid foundation based on working past incorrect first impressions and developing a mutual respect. There’s effort that’s been put into these relationships.

And people wonder why I ship Kagaminette so hard.

But Luka? He just took one look at Marinette and was like “mmm pretty girl”. He didn’t fall for her based on anything that he knew about her other than that she stuttered (which he made fun of, and you just…don’t do that with someone you’ve literally only just met). It made me question the legitimacy of her being “the melody inside his head since they first met” because like…their first meeting was talking for two seconds and then her convincing him that she could lockpick a little later on. Every other interaction after that? Still not enough to warrant Luka giving that whole speech to her. And their few interactions since then have been ’Frozer’, ‘Silencer’, and ‘Desperada’. Plus, he doesn’t talk to Marinette. He talks at her. Every interaction is him saying “You feel like this” and strumming his guitar, which…boy, it’s not healthy to speak for the person you’re romantically into, because that’s just gonna lead to a whole lot of miscommunication later down the line.

It could be a flaw that Luka falls hard and fast and he needs to learn to step back and get to know someone before going in. It’d just be nice to have enough substance to him to actually be able to make this conclusion. Maybe I’m just too aro to understand love at first sight.

And how old is he? 16? 17? Thirsting after a 14/15 year old? I didn’t even realise the age gap until now but Jesus, maybe he should find someone his age instead of going after a younger teenager.

And all the diehard Luka stans are also why I’ve grown to just not care about Luka. The way they demonise every other character and push Lukanette as Perfect and Pure - not through being flawless but basically through being Right and not doing any wrong except for a few teensy mistakes that are laughable - was enough to begin to turn me way off, and then from there I just slipped further and further from salt. That’s why, after I finished writing Défenseure, I just threw my hands up and wondered what the hell I was doing with my life. Every Lukanette salt fic is exactly the same. Same plot, same characters demonised with maybe a little variation if the writer’s feeling daring. There’s a reason so many of us are getting sick of salt, especially Chameleon salt. It’s all been done before. So many times. And that also contributes to Luka’s blandness, purely because fandom Luka is just as one-dimensional as canon Luka. I don’t care about canon Luka. But fandom Luka? I cannot stand, and it’s thanks to these diehard stans.

You know, for all the salters claim to loathe Adrien for being so Perfect, they sure seem to turn Marinette into a real bright figure of perfection. That irony is part of what made me turn away from salt in the first place.

There’s a saying that’s stuck with me since my early days of fandom, back when I was into HP and bashing was rampant: if you have to utterly destroy one character to make another look better, you’re only proving how bad the second character is. If you have to make Alya into a horrific demonic bully to justify promoting Chloé to Marinette’s new bestie and essentially switch their personalities, that says a lot more about Chloé than it does Alya. If you have to turn Adrien - who does not know boundaries because he was only ever taught to let people treat him like a piece of meat but who’s learning, to the point of standing up to Lila for Marinette and never once forcing himself on Ladybug whether physically or emotionally - into a horrific Nice Guy caricature just to justify Lukanette, that says a hell of a lot more about you than it does Adrien.

And that’s all I’m gonna say because it’s like 12.30 am and this is way more energy than I wanted to expend on Luka Couffaine. Tl;dr - he’s nice but that’s literally all there is to him. And nice isn’t a personality. It’s one trait.