#If he's so strong and important... why not have an akuma?

[trafalgar-law-ask]

What are you hiding from us Akagami?

[lukaslosteyelashes]

Why is it important that Luka trained with Su-Han

Luka found out Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s true identity in "Whishmaker". He might feigned ignorance for a short amount of time and also tried to play it cool, but knowing this secret surely weighting on him.

He not only has to play the therapist to basically everyone and be emotionally there for them and give them advices while he just wants to play his music; but he also have to be careful with his emotions if he is not intending to get akumatized and spitting out Paris's iconic superhero duo's civil identity.

Just look at what happened in "Migration".

He almost got akumatized because he felt that what happened between Kitty Section and Bob Ross was his fault. Not only that, but his emotions also told Monarch that he knows Ladybug's and Chat Noir's identity. And because of all that he couldn't calm down to resist the akuma, the only way he saw to escape from that dreadful situation was to break his precious guitar. At the end of the episode he had to flee Paris; he didn't trust himself, his emotions enough to stay, he was afraid that Monarch might try to akumatize him again. Furthermore, he wasn't safe from other akumatized villain's attack either, he couldn't became Viperion, and he didn't want to rely on Ladybug and Chat Noir to protect him.

That's what so frustrating in akumatization. People can't feel their negative emotions and they have to bottle it up or forcefully resist them, which is really unhealthy. Our emotions, be it positive or negative, they're essentially not our enemy we just have to find methods to deal with them.

And that's where Su-Han comes in the picture.

Do you remember what he did in "Furious Fu"?

"My anger is mine, but I'm not my anger."

This dude just got snaped back to existance into a time when everything is completely different from his time, and the first thing he did was to search for the Miracle box. A dutiful guy, indeed. Obviously, he was angry at Fu for a lot of thing, but as soon as he saw the Akuma, he didn't fall into despair or started panicking. No, instead he started chanting the line above to himself, as if he was casting a spell that chases off the butterfly.

What I think he actually did, was that, he controlled his emotions. He accepted his anger, not suppressing it and transformed it into protective barrier, instead of letting it take a hold of him. This method looks more effective than Ladybug's Magical Charms that Shadowmoth easily overpowered.

So, there's a boy who can't seem to cope with his strong emotions; what could be the best solution for him? Mastering the ancient teachings of a guy from an ancient time (I know he's actually not that old). I can't imagine how could they've met or if they know about each other (that Luka's the Holder of that Snake Miraculous and that Su-Han is a celestial guardian of the Miraculous); but Luka's time in Tibet could be very important for his character. He could've learned, not just kung-fu, but also how to repel Akumas, and knowing this technique allows him to return to Paris and become Viperion again since the chances for him to get akumatized lowered.

Last but not least, his Holder friends could take lessons from him for free (he might as well charge them tho) to further decreasing the possibility of any Holders getting akumatized. Jagged, Penny and Fang also learned kung-fu, and they might as well learned the Akuma repelling stuff too, how cool would that be! They could also open studio or something where they could teach those things.

Anyways, I really hope we'll see more Luka in season 6 and that he actually learned how to repel Akumas.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Adrien Agreste and Why Motivation Matters

One of the most important things you can gift a character is a motivation that correlates to their intended role in the story. It's a big part of how they truly come alive. And if they have a motivation that doesn't correlate to their role? That can make them come across as a total ass!

A few days ago I got an ask about Lila. I ended my response with this:

I'm totally fine with complex, master-manipulator Lila, it's just hard to figure out the best way to make her work when we don't know anything about her backstory or motivation.

This got me thinking about motivation in general and how much it plays into the show's poor writing. I talked about Lila above, but I wanted to point out how much it's responsible for Adrien's issues, too.

Motivations are one of the main ways you create strong characters. You come up with the thing they want and then keep that in mind whenever you're writing them. Motivations can be very simple and straight forward (I want to get home) or extremely complex and nuanced (a person wanting to create a new government with a very detailed idea of what that means). A character can even have multiple motivations!

Unfortunately, all motivation are not created equal. There is such a thing as a bad motivation and I'm not talking ethics or morality here. I'm talking about picking motivations that match the character's intended role. For example, Gabriel's motivation is fine! It perfectly suits a villain. On the other hand, Adrien's motivation sucks because it makes him into a terrible hero.

Adrien's motivation as given in the show seems to be this: win the heart of my Lady. Later on, that motivation changes to: date Marinette and be the best boyfriend possible. And that's it. He has no other overarching motivations. Individual episodes might give him a one-off motivation to jazz things up for a bit, but generally speaking, romance is all he cares about. It's why we get baffling moments like this one from Dark Cupid:

Cat Noir: Falling for me already, my lady? (pulls Ladybug down next to him) I need to talk to you. Ladybug: It’s gotta wait. Dark Cupi- Cat Noir: (hushes her) I swore to myself that I'd tell you as soon as I saw you. Ladybug, I-I... Look out! (Cat Noir spins around to shield Ladybug, and is struck by one of Dark Cupid's arrows.)

Or this one from Oblivio:

Nadja:(from a helicopter) Looks like Ladybug and Cat Noir are struggling today. (Ladybug is rapidly spinning her yo-yo to deflect Oblivio's blasts while Cat Noir sits down casually.) Ladybug: And stop calling us a couple!

These are just two out of many examples I can pull from, but they highlight a reoccurring issue: Adrien often doesn't take akumas seriously. He's been shown to happily prioritize flirting over fighting and, as a result, he's put himself, his Lady love, and all of Paris in danger.

It also gives us things like Kuro Neko and Kwami's Choice. Episodes where he quit without any concern for protecting his loved ones or even just protecting the freedom that comes with being Chat Noir, things that he only really cares about in the realms of fanfic. As far as the show is concerned, Adrien doesn't care about his loved ones or his freedom. His only constant driving force is his current crush.

Don't get me wrong, he's going to react if he sees Nino in danger or if his father bans him from going to a party! But in terms of what generally guides Adrien's actions? His father, Nathalie, Nino, Chloe, and Alya are out of sight, out of mind. And being able to leave the house? Well, who cares about that? He'll happily sacrifice freedom for a date. Outside of Origins, I think we only ever see him sneak out or otherwise break the rules so he can have a date.

You'll note that Marinette doesn't really have this problem*. While dating Adrien is a big motivation for her, she has a second motivation: protecting Paris. Sometimes those motivations clash, leading her to make poor choices, but that story never treats this as a good thing the way it does Chat Noir's endless flirting. Instead, Marinette's crush is treated as a character flaw or an interesting source of conflict like Volpina threatening to kill Adrien, making Ladybug having to chose between her two main motivations: love and duty.

This is why I've had several posts where I offhandedly mentioned Adrien needing a second motivation. It's also why I've mentioned that Gabriel should have been claiming that akumas were the main reason that Adrien was getting locked up because that's a really simple way to give Adrien personal stakes in the fight. Are those stakes selfish? Sure, but that's okay because it's a selfish motivation that doesn't go against being a hero. If Marinette was only being Ladybug for the sake of her parents, her motivation would be selfish, but still suited to a hero because it doesn't stop her from being heroic. It actually drives her to be heroic. As written, Adrien's motivations do the opposite. Whenever Ladybug or Marinette are seemingly safe, he will do very unheroic things because romance is his only main motivation and that's a problem. To make him work in his intended role, he needs to match Marinette and have (or discover) a motivation that suits a hero.

*To be extra clear and hopefully save myself a salty ask or two, I'm NOT saying that Marinette never does questionable things in the name of romance, she absolutely does. I'm saying that it's extremely rare for her romantic motivation to get in the way of keeping Paris safe because keeping Paris safe is her second motivation and it overrides the romantic one most of the time. Once an akuma is on the loose, she's usually all business. It's one of the reasons Passion (the episode where Nathalie becomes Safari) is so awkward. They did a full role reversal for Marinette and Adrien and it really doesn't work on Marinette's end because it feels out of character for Marinette to ignore the akuma threat in favor of flirting. She never did that for Adrien or Luka or even Catwalker. The worse we ever saw was a crush distracting her from making the right call, but even then, she was always at least trying to protect Paris. Compare Desperada (Viperion's debuted) to Passion and you'll see what I mean.

[new-kit-on-the-block]

Miraculous - The watered-down significance of akumatization

(This is an analysis, but it's also a sort of rant. So there's a lot of text underneath the cut. Just a fair warning.)

I have a problem with the way that the latter seasons of Miraculous handle akumatization.

There's a pretty basic rule of thumb when it comes to writing the bigger moments of your story:

If something is a big deal, let it be a big deal.

Seasons 4 and 5 don't always do that.

Let's take a look at what I mean.

These are screenshots of the three separate occasions that characters have broken out of akumatization in seasons 4 and 5.

Take note of who these characters are and their importance (or lack thereof) to the overall plot.

On the one hand, you have Alya and Nino, the two main characters' respective best friends. It's only natural in a show like this for these two to be strong enough to break out of akumatization, it makes the main characters look like they definitely chose their friends right.

And then you have Alix's Redditor conspiracy-theorist older brother.

Why is he one of the big three who managed such a significant feat like this?

It's not like he's been shown to be particularly strong-willed. In fact, one could argue that he's even less so than most other characters due to how much further he fell into the rabbit hole of Lila's manipulation than anyone else.

His gullibility and irrationality are the entire reason he gets akumatized in the first place.

And he doesn't ever play a significant role after this, either. The only other time that he even had so much as a speaking role was the other time he got akumatized way back in season 1 for not being allowed to sacrifice someone to the Egyptian gods.

Now, these aren't the first times that people have fought back against Hawkmoth while being akumatized. But they are the first times that they've successfully broken out.

Pixelator questioned Hawkmoth's authority over him, and in response, Hawkmoth did something with his hand that started causing physical pain to Pixelator, reinstating his control over his akuma.

The only other time an akuma victim fought back was Robustus, which was a special case because he rebelled against Hawkmoth by using the specific abilities that were granted to him.

Neither of them even tried to escape akumatization.

Akumatization has always been set up as something powerful. Something that takes the worst parts of you and amplifies them to the point of no longer being capable of rational thought.

We never end up questioning why people don't try to resist akumatization if they know that they might end up hurting people. We already know the answer. It's because they can't.

Even Ms. Bustier, possibly the character who hated akumatization the most at the time, couldn't avoid becoming akumatized despite her best efforts.

So three separate people breaking free from their akumatization should imply that Gabriel's control over his victims is getting weaker, which would be a very big deal.

But nothing is ever done with that. After Alix's brother, nobody ever broke out of akumatization again. The ability to do so is used as nothing more than a plot device in these few episodes.

Another thing is that, if anything, Gabriel's grasp over his victims' emotional state should be even stronger.

His akumas are canonically more powerful than before, to make the lucky charms that Ladybug hands out stop working against him.

If bigger and more powerful akumas don't make his hold on people even stronger than before, then the entire arc of Ladybug realizing that she can create charms to prevent people from being akumatized more than once, and Hawkmoth's counter-arc of nullifying her efforts by simply creating bigger akumas was all just a complete waste of time.

After Guiltrip, I assumed that they were building up to Rose being able to break out of akumatization through her naturally positive nature alone, and then they would have an arc of her teaching others how to do the same.

Suffice to say, neither of those things happened.

Rose's "inner voice" that she's apparently had in her head this entire time doesn't serve any actual purpose other than to make her worthy of the pig miraculous.

To be clear: I don't have any issues with Rose's invisible illness never being mentioned at any point before Guiltrip. That's the entire point of an invisible illness.

My point is that Rose's ability to break free from negative emotion-based mind control is an extremely important ability that was never even so much as hinted at before or even brought up again any time after Guiltrip.

So, once again, it's just an extremely important one-off ability that doesn't matter and doesn't affect the stakes whatsoever.

These seasons keep throwing moments at us that should be very big deals but are never treated as such.

Now let's compare all of this to an actually good akumatization-related scene.

When Chloe successfully rejected akumatization.

When this happened, it was huge, and it felt like it too.

Not just because of how impressive the feat itself was, but also because of where Chloe was in her character arc.

Chloe was under the impression that Ladybug might never let her be Queen Bee again. Full stop.

She had potentially permanently lost a privilege that really mattered to her, Lila was starting to get inside her head, and she was becoming mean to Sabrina again.

By all accounts, Chloe should've been in the stage of her arc where she started to revert back to her old self. The old Chloe would've accepted Hawkmoth's words without a second thought.

If this was the conventional Zuko-style arc that so many writers try and fail to replicate, this would've been the scene where it seems like she may not actually get redeemed, and would fall back on old patterns of hers. Which is an interesting enough arc on its own.

But we instead have a girl who doesn't have any way of truly knowing better, has no good role models, and is close only to people who enable her worst behaviors. And she chooses to be good.

Her worst fears are starting to come true, nobody seems to have any care or respect for her, and a smarter and more experienced grown man is using all of these negative emotions against her to mind control her. And she still chooses to trust the process and work to gain back Ladybug's trust. Exactly like Ladybug told her to.

The one time she was given really good advice, it stuck with her.

This is the moment that flat-out confirms that Chloe can be redeemed, and actively wants to be better.

Not only did she not get akumatized, she almost made it look easy.

But the show still makes it perfectly clear that this wasn't an easy feat by any means.

She was visibly exhausted and scared after the akuma left, breathing heavily like she almost just drowned.

But the important part is that she did it. She didn't get akumatized. And she is shown to be rightfully proud of this fact.

It's also interesting to note that no other character has ever broken out of akumatization, mid-akumatization.

In the seasons to come, several people would be breaking out of akumatization after they had already been akumatized. But Chloe is the first, and only, person to reject akumatization before it even took hold.

That's how you give a moment like this the emotional weight that it deserves, by letting it stand on its own and not bombarding your audience with the same scene played out by several other characters.

Chloe was the only one to do this, and that shows that she could bring something special to the team if she actually got the chance to be a heroine again. It makes us consider the possibility that her stubborn and argumentative nature might actually end up being a silver lining. She can still be herself while saving people. In her own way.

She can be a hero. She can become a better person. And she doesn't have to change a thing about herself.

It would be a really nice message to send.

Which just makes it all the more disappointing when it doesn't amount to anything.

If the point of her character was that she could've been better, but became worse instead, that would've made for an interesting sort of tragedy.

But that's not what it is. I know that's not what the writers intended because if that were the case, then Ladybug would've probably had some lines about how much potential Chloe had, and how well she was doing before she went back to her old self.

We don't get any of that. What we get instead is the show and characters acting like Chloe was always as bad as she is in seasons 4 and 5.

She never actually liked Adrien. She was never kind to her father or Sabrina. She never wanted to get better.

And that's just not true.

Sorry, the main point of this post was to showcase the difference between important moments that were given the appropriate emotional weight, and those that weren't. But I just went off on a bit of a tangent there.

God. Even when this show gets something right, it gets like ten other things wrong.

Anyway, TDLR: If you want a moment to be significant, let it be significant. Let it make big changes that actually matter. Don't be a coward who's too afraid to change the hierarchy of your story in any kind of way that matters.

If you want a moment to have an impact on your audience, give it time to breathe on its own, and don't repeat it for at least a little while after.

And for God's sake, if an ability is a big deal, then don't let some unimportant side character that no one cares about also have that ability. It just makes it seem like it's not.

[ninadove]

Hello, all respectfully, may I ask, why do you want emilie to be dead? I mean adrien deserves to have his mom back, don’t you think? You can answer it thru private chat if it makes you more comfortable.

No that’s perfectly fine! I love getting a chance to overanalyse and write down my own thoughts! 📝

So, I have a complicated relationship with Emilie as a character, but I don’t hate her by any means. I do believe she is a lot less pure and innocent than we were first led to believe, but that makes her much more compelling, so as far as I’m concerned it’s a great writing choice.

The reason I think she should be dead, or more accurately, stay dead (the nuance is crucial), is simply storytelling.

As fun as the show is, it is also pretty serious when it wants to be, and these 5 seasons were written with a couple of core messages in mind:

Part of the experience of being human is to accept that there is no magical solution to our problems. Sometimes things don’t work out, sometimes we lose the people we care about; and actions bring consequences, always. This is why using the Peacock carries such a heavy toll, even after it is fixed, and why the Lucky Charm primarily relies on Marinette’s intelligence and creativity (characteristically human qualities) rather than being an automatic problem solver.

Whenever these losses occur — you have to move on. Staying stuck in the past means depriving yourself of a chance to enjoy the present and plan for the future. All of the events of these 5 seasons were triggered by Gabriel’s inability to accept the concept of death, and by his attempts to drag all of Paris down the pits of grief (symbolised by the akuma attacks) with him — starting with his own son.

Of course, Adrien deserves to be happy and loved! And Emilie herself explains how it can happen:

By letting her go.

Adrien is an extremely strong and loving kid who, unlike his father, is able to shoulder the pain while still opening himself up to the world. Gabriel trying to bring Emilie back did nothing to fix the sorrow his son had to deal with; in fact, it cost him his other parent and a normal childhood in the process.

But the thing is — Adrien does not need Emilie anymore.

He has a girlfriend who loves him so much she gave his dad one last chance to make the right choice, despite all the pain he caused (and will likely continue to cause from the grave). He has a cousin who loves him so much he was willing to burn the world down, then help fix it to protect him. He has amazing friends who supported him through this entire ordeal (special shout-out to Nino, who has been on Gabriel’s case since S1 E9), even when he did not feel comfortable enough to share the full extent of the abuse he was going through. He has Amelie and Nathalie, who will provide him with the motherly love he needs in his life, and Tom and Sabine, who are already packing him his breakfast every morning because they’ve carved him a place in their family and hearts. Also, he has a cheese-eating demon who lives in his pocket.

No one is entitled to raising the dead, and Adrien would never even consider it. But he does deserve love and care and happiness, things his father deprived him of in his senseless quest to defy the laws of nature — things he was able to build for himself because he chose to be kind and vulnerable despite his grief.

Season 6 will be terrible on him, but he will come back stronger on the other side. And in doing so, he will send an important message to the core audience of the show: young children who will sooner or later have to mourn a loved one themselves, but will know they can be OK thanks to his example.

And you know, sometimes us adults need a little reminder too. 💚

[rukakaru-u]

DGM 252 thoughts/questions

Finally, we met briefly Past Lavi and Allen. I suspected that the Jr was named Lavi since Hoshino said that Lavi will be back just not in a way that we might expect lol So, yay, I'm happy~

So abaut P!Lavi/past Jr:

We still don't know much about him, but P!Lavi has a casual demeanor (and appearance) that is reminiscent of current Lavi. Since "Lavi" is a role and the name of a record, they might act similarly because that's what the persona calls for. "Lavi" has to be a certain way when recording the holy war. But it also seems like that P!Lavi is the way he is, because it is closer to his true nature, or being/playing Lavi is the easiest for him out of all aliases.

Staying on the topic of Bookmen clan customs: If a Jr is chosen/destined to have this role, why choose people who have the potential to get attached? Is this part of their journey? Their final challenge? It is funny that both Lavis got attached to specifically "Allen" (even if for P!Lavi it was Nea first). What is the connection between the two Lavis and how much Bookman knew about the truth/manipulated the outcome?

About Pasta:

So he used to be a soldier... While dying, it looks like he is wearing a typical 19th-century military uniform. Was he fighting against other people? How long was he in the military? (Was it his choice?) Did he kill people? Did he regret it? Allen is against killing, but Red isn't necessary if he is cornered (tormented enough). Pasta is closer to (a healthier) Red personality-wise, but it is hard to tell right now.

Nea's deal:

So Pasta was dying and a supernatural entity appeared out of nowhere, and he made a deal with him. This means that it doesn't matter which body or timeline he is in, if, in a desperate situation, Allen will make a promise or a contract with any version of the Earl (devil). Maybe it is important that it happened 3 times, and it birthed 3 different Allens. (The twist may be that Allen even knew the OG Earl in one of his past lives lol). Why Allen though? Nea doesn't trust easy, he can't allow himself. Did one of their other versions *actually* meet even before that? Did he sense something else in Pasta? Did he want to make a deal with him for a long time and wait until he could corner Pasta? Did Pasta's pain signal him somehow, like the Earl knows who is grieving? Did Nea approach many other people until he found the one? It might be that Pasta's wish was the dealmaker. Probably it was a selfless one, that would be very on-brand for Allen.

Nea considers Pasta his dear friend, despite their (so far) brief history... I like the idea that Nea just gets attached easily to people that he finds sympathetic, or Allen going along impacted him greatly. But I might love it more if it was only a onesided friendship this whole time and he is that delusional about what it meant to Pasta lmao It was a love at first sight for him, but for Pasta it was more transactional. (Probably not though)

Anyway, is Nea making Pasta his host similar to the way the Earl creates Akuma? Souls have names, and something is alive after you name it. It is possible that Pasta's name wasn't Allen, and it is something Nea gave him after the contract.

About Apo

Apo is at it again. Hoshino just uses him to be blamed for every misfortune in Allen's life. It is fun that CC meant to eat Pasta, but now Allen is such a peculiar accomodator. What makes Allen so special, that Apo had a change of heart? Is it because he has 2 entities inside him that are trying to kill him, and he is still standing? It is him having strong emotions that the innocence can feed on?

As usual more questions than answers ❤️

[pearl484-blog]

My main issue with senti-monsters

Alright, so first of all, this is not an essay about the senti-Adrien, senti-Felix, senti-Kagami, senti-Chloe or any other senti-person theories. There are a lot of complex theories and debates and discussions about the ethics and moral implications around it. 

No. This is an essay about missed potential surrounding senti-monsters, which is probably one of the least relevant things you’ll need to hear about it. This isn’t about poor execution or predicting where the show will go. It’s not about someone who did something right (well, not completely), or anything like that. In fact, I am veering far away from most of the usual senti-monster topics. So, if you’re hear to discuss humans born of senti-monsters or anything like that, this is not for you. Sorry.  

Now, first of all, I have opinions about the name senti-monster. Now, it’s not what you think. I’m not one of those people about to advocate for using senti-being here. No. I’m here because I want to ask: “Where are all the monsters?”

My introduction to the Peacock was a black eyed woman ripping a monstrous butterfly made of grief painfully out of Hawk Moth against his will. This thing was huge, massive, and scary. It’s design was creative and clearly reflected that this thing belonged to Hawk Moth, and he didn’t have any say in its creation whatsoever. 

My next few introductions were promising. A lolipop monster made out of a need for processed sugar from a baby, and I read that very well, and a simple monster made from hunger which was nearly impossible to defeat, which yeah, giant frog that’s basically a moving mouth. I can get behind that. 

But unfortunately, we also had Senti-bug, and that kinda derailed things. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Senti-bug, and the moral implications behind her and her destruction are beautiful, and it raised the sentiment of “Good God, the Peacock’s ability to create life and take it away in the snap of their fingers is horrifying”, but alas, it set us down the path of human monsters, which is most decidely not monster-like. 

See, what I thought was going to happen was that the senti-monsters would be representative of deeply buried emotions, the dark, forbidden secrets that you shamefully keep locked up and hidden away for no one to find, and that their creations would be a very unpleasant experience for their hosts. 

The design team has proven with it’s design ideas to be more than capable of being up to the task. The akumas especially are amazing design wise. Most of them have a unique silhouette, are recognizable at a glance, and you can tell important character traits with them. (Except Vanisher who does not have a distinct character design and doesn’t even have their own episode). There are some pretty obvious flops, yes, but even those often have a reason. Some of these akumas do not look good at all, but usually there’s a reason behind it. Ie, Aspik’s hood is concealing his hair, reflecting his need to hide himself and a visual reference to Hawk Moth, Reflekta’s design is almost painful, but memorable, and the Bubbler reflects his childnessness of both his worldview and his influence, blowing bubbles. 

However, it was clear that akumas were begining to stagnate. It was obviously getting harder and harder to come up with realistic reasons why a character might lose their cool, and the loads and loads of characters was starting to become worrisome if the series wanted to keep up the momentum and focus on the characters they already had. 

The obvious solution, I believed, was making the Peacock target deeply buried emotions, setting up a one-two punch. Either you could become an akuma, losing yourself to your flaws in a moment that you lose control, or you could bury your feelings until they became strong enough to become a senti-monster, a living embodiment of a feeling you never wanted revealed. This would start a catch-22, either you deal with your emotions in a healthy way and resolve them, hopefully in a way where neither of you lose your cool, or you avoid it and it turns on you. 

This would begin to force people to move things very quickly or suffer the consequences. Long simmering grudges you know are stupid and pointless get brought to the surface. Deep fears come alive. Secrets you keep hidden from everyone come alive. It could also affect the heroes too, without completely incapicatating them. For example, Adrien’s hidden resentments could come to life, or Marinette’s crush may decide to confess regardless of her say so. Even better, you could take inspiration from Fu’s montster and make the host have a strong emotional reaction to them. From panic to anger to fear to hopelessness. It’s rife with drama.

Now, originally, the Peacock was meant to be used for good, so how would it work if they were heroic? Well, the same way Shadows work in the Persona series. Yes, each character rejects their shadows, but when they accept their Shadows, they become allies. Yet, when rejected Shadows are a problem. It’d be a case of Bad Powers, Good People, where the Peacock’s abilities are dark and creepy, but could be used for good, not just for combat, but for self-growth, and it’d absolutely deserve the moniker senti-monster.  

This would let us see the heroes deal with talking people down in their own ways, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Queen Bee could cut straight to the heart of the matter and tell you what’s going on, no frills, but that might also hurt people and she might have to learn how to stop being callous but still use her skill at dissecting people and seeing their flaws. Ladybug may be kind and compassionate, with a lot of people looking up to her, but she might have a tendency to miss the point. Rena Rouge may be confident and have an internal strength that allows for no bullsh*t, but she can also be pushy. Carapace may be calm and non-judgemental, but might need to work on pushing people out of their comfort zone. Chat Noir would be great at this, being that he is very naturally empathetic, and tends to understand what people are dealing with quickly, but he’s also conflict avoidant, and would be screwed if it happened to him. 

Plus, I’d be able to see monstrous representations of problems and each character needing to accept terrible parts of themselves or be afraid of others learning about it. And I’d get to see fan material that leans into monsters and that creative side a bit more. Like debates over what Alix’s monster would be or represent, or fan art of Rose’s sick looking unicorn design. 

[sang8262]

i said i'd rant later but waiting for akuma release amd patch notes is destroying me so:

WT's boss fight and why i dont like how they wrote it:

------

First let me be clear, I love World Tour. And that is why I see how it could have been better and wanted so much more from it. But alas, they tried to make a whole stand alone, single player rpg game ... but it's only got the resources of side content to a fighting game.

To start, the story as a whole is paced ehhh, not so ideally. It feels both rushed *and* tedious at times, because of certain quests or maps.

Overall, we don't get to know Bosch too well to develop as STRONG of a bond the game wants the players to imagine: because we never get to spend much time getting to know him at the start of the game. So this "friendship bond" is ham-fisted through cheesy cutscenes, which feel fake and hollow because we ate pizza and bought a silly hat like, Once. This is to say: Bosch's sacrifice also feels hollow, because while we understand the weight of his actions, it isn't very personal. If they rather MADE Bosch the main character, the story would have been much much stronger. And also a completely different game.

WT needed to have custom player avatars, for Battle Hub, and because their vision was "players learning martial arts from the characters in the roster! interacting with them as student and master!". That's the fantasy they wanted to make, and so WT is pulled in two different directions. One that wants to sell the fantasy of meeting the game's characters, training under them, and becoming the champion yourself.

Then another about the world of SF6: Nayshall and Metro City; Bosch and the Resistance versus Shadaloo; the new generation of fighters who have their own ideals, clashing with the old. But now NEITHER has enough room to be the best version of itself, because they must compromise each other to exist in the same story/game mode space as the other.

In short, they wanted to do so much with WT that it ended up feeling half-baked across the board.

------

JP too, doesn't feel like the main villain until waaaay too late in the story. That is, unless you read the comics. But even then, he's introduced into the story so late that you aren't even thinking about him as a character until that point. There's nothing to establish that JP is "pretending" to be nice, and therefore, no satisfying -reveal- that JP was evil all along when we finally do get to fight him. I think his whole character fantasy is the deceiver, the schemer, and we REALLY don't see evidence of this through WT at all.

In fact, what we do have of JP in WT is honestly not great!! And now I'm just going to be complaining:

After Bosch gets blown up by the belt, why would JP gloat to the avatar about everything?? A bomb just blew up and not only is he someone important, he was standing right there: logically, he should've acted panicked and afraid for his safety, and have fled immediately. Instead, he casually saunters over TO Bosch and the avatar, then villain monologues. He even takes a jab at how Bosch's sacrifice was 'a small bit of entertainment', which is NOT what someone trying to act innocent would say ever??

Also, this was during the award ceremony. Y'know, the event that's being streamed and filmed and seen by thousands of people. Even if the explosion caused that huge fire and damaged equipment, there's no guarantee that people aren't filming this. And knowing how up to date with technology this game is (Footube influencers, crypto, AI deepfakes.. JP's whole philosophy is that people value entertainment over the truth even), there MUST be people risking their safety to film everything. Which is to say, JP should've known better than to RISK being caught FIGHING one of the contestants immediately after an "alleged" terrorist bombing.

He even uses Psycho Power?!? Like he's okay with just putting all that and his face out there for a whole audience to see and record??? I don't think he'd have done that had he NOT been forced to be a boss fight.

Even after we fight him, there's no good explanation for what happens afterwards. He just, concedes and collapses on the arena floor...?? And then what? We just let him go? We also pass out??? He teleports away? What did he just fight us for anyway when he could have teleported to escape then???

He's entirely right about the fight and our victory meaning nothing because the fight was very meaningless, and so of course defeating him has no meaningful satisfaction either. The whole fight only happened because the game demands we have boss fight, but they did a poor job of making that fight actually good at all.

------

Do I have any fixes for the issues I have with WT? Somewhat. Definitely shorten the quest fluff in the mid-game to give more time with Bosch, BEFORE he gets kidnapped and given Psycho Power off screen. We spend more time chasing after him and fighting him after he's been experimented on. Make us care about him as a character more so we care about his motivations. Hell, have us meet Yua and learn more about her. We get barely anything about her as a character beyond "Bosch's sister who worries about him" so, the stakes are superficial and implied ("it's his sister! you should care!").

The fact that she's one of the dancers for the tournament feels also significant: she's relative to one of the Resistance members (Bosch), and clearly knows about what they're fighting for. Even if you suggest she's part of the tournament to relay information, as informant or spy, that doesn't make sense as she would be risking her safety, something she doesn't believe in and something the other members would not have allowed. What if you instead have it so JP intentionally made Yua one of the tournament's dancers, as a bargaining chip against Bosch? On the surface, it might look like JP (or his association) is supporting their sponsored fighter, giving his sister the chance to perform for everyone on such an honored tradition! But in reality, it's to keep Yua close under Shadaloo's watch. Idk, just something to explain why Bosch's sister just so HAPPENS to be a dancer in the very tournament he's fighting to end.

---

Have more scenes showing JP lying to everyone. Show us him being interviewed on TV about his support for the upcoming tournament, have him express his sympathies for the Resistance movement. Like in the comics, show us how JP actually knows a lot about Nayshall's history and culture, and how he uses that to feign admiration and care-- but importantly, show how those around him are charmed by his act.

THEN, follow up by showing us Luke conflicted and uncomfortable about seeing JP on TV. How he doesn't want to talk about his past association with him, or what happened with Ken. Show us Bosch being angered by JP's lies, being frustrated that he can't do anything the way he is right now, and how he doesn't want to get the avatar involved in what he feels is 'his' duty.

---

If I wanted to even go a step further, in respect to my own bias and wants, I'd have thrown in some sort of dinner or conference scene with all the fighters and tournament staff, before the big event day. Show us the contestants talking about why they want to win, why they fight, as part of the game's narrative focus on "the reason we want to become stronger". Show us how JP puts on his public 'CEO of the NGO' persona in front of others, and how likeable he is, as Rashid notices. Show how JP lies about why Bosch isn't at the event (he's too much of a risk to have at the event being interviewed. And probably not stable enough from the Psycho Power destroying him anyway).

But JP might say how much he respects the sponsored fighter, for training even now to prepare for the tournament! How he sincerely hopes Bosch succeeds, and that we too, may find what we're fighting for. All the while us KNOWING he's exactly the reason why Bosch is suffering. Does he suspect us after what happened in the trophy room? Is Bosch really okay? Make it so that the avatar and player are also confused by his words.

And of course, this is a public event with bystanders. We can't fight him now, and we can't just start calling him out in front of everyone, less we ruin the plan. So what else can we do but grit our teeth and play along.

This kind of struggle would have made for greater tension, and thus, greater pay off when we DO get to throw down with him and beat him into the ground later. It would have shown how manipulative JP is in the game, just as he was in the comics, in a more direct manner.

---

What about the actual boss fight itself? I think JP running away and the avatar chasing after him would've made more sense. I get the arena on fire is a hype stage, and it was really cool true. But it just doesn't fit JP as a character. He's not someone to choose violence or direct confrontation unless absolutely necessary, and much less so in such an open space, that was being STREAMED to the internet. And the boss fight as is just... doesn't feel so 'necessary' that he had 'no choice' but to fight then and there.

So instead, I'd have him run underground. The underground hallway with all the locker rooms and the trophy room, is mirrored on the opposite end of the arena: but this part of the map isn't currently used at all. So, have him run there, with the avatar chasing, through the panicked crowd, trying not to lose track of him. And because the whole arena is built into the mountain ruins, it's easy to add some sort of hidden cavern or unfinished construction space as the 'stage'. Hell, the Resistance headquarters is exactly this. They also have a hidden cavern that's connected to the arena's main stage, so this isn't even farfetched of an idea.

The setting of 'secret cave away from everyone's eyes' is also much better of a circumstance that JP would CHOOSE to fight in, if he HAD to as a boss fight. This doesn't redeem his spiel at the end, of how the victory is meaningless, or how he escapes at all. The next bet suggestion is having the room (still in construction) about to cave in, cause you broke some support beams during the fight or whatever. He can still give you the spiel, but have him teleport away as the room is caving in, and the avatar has to let him go to get out to save themselves too.

Could imagine that the avatar is shocked to see JP still alive after that, post game, and demands more answers about his abilities that helped him in the fight, but also to escape. It's more of an incentive for the avatar to want to learn under him, despite him LOSING and also being the enemy. It never made sense to me why the avatar would try to learn from him, when last we see him, he just... collapses on the floor of the arena and laughs about how he lost?? Having to cut the fight short, even evading death using Psycho Power, that's a much better look for the 'villain' and someone the avatar would begrudgingly agree to train under.

------

Anyway, this got way longer than I intended, and it's all over the place;; But I don't have time to edit it through so, it shall have to be. Thanks for being interested enough to read it, if you did, and as always I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this if anyone wants to share!!

Now back to waiting for Akuma..........

[airi-p4]

The choice

Summary: After sharing her secret with Luka and getting back to dating again, Marinette's boyfriend informs her he has decided to leave Paris because it's dangerous.

Now she has to choose: stay with her family, friends and superhero duties or leave Paris with Luka? The choice is easier than expected.

Warning: salt 🧂🧂🧂

AO3

___________________________________

The choice

Marinette gulped when she saw the new message her boyfriend Luka had sent to her a few minutes ago.

'Marinette. I have to talk to you. It's important'

She couldn't deny she was worried, anxious, and a little scared.

She knew that she didn't need to be. That now that he knew about her being Ladybug and that they had started dating again, that she had nothing to worry about. She knew she could fully trust him, and that he gave her all the love and comfort she could ever ask for.

She was happy with him, even with those akumas messing with their dates.

But since when have good things lasted for her?

There was a glimpse of worry she couldn't ignore.

"Luka! Sorry for the wait!"

"It's fine, Marinette, I saw the akuma on the news. Good job" he praised, kissing her check rewardingly. She felt her cheeks warm up at the contact.

"I didn't want to keep you waiting, so I handled it as fast as I could" she bragged and he smiled fondly at her.

"Thank you. You're amazing"

She blushed at the compliment. She was so glad she found the courage to tell him about her secret, even if he already knew. They had just started dating again and she couldn't be more thankful to have him in her life.

"And what did you want to talk about? You said it was important…"

"It is." Luka held her hand gently. "Listen Marinette: I want to leave Paris"

"Eh?" She jolted in shock. "Why?"

"Because-" he looked down as he talked. "I was almost akumatized the other day and I realized I was putting you in danger. I can't stand the thought of me betraying you under Miss Butterfly's influence, so I decided it was best to leave"

"But Luka-! I'll protect you!"

"I know you would, Marinette. I have no doubts about that" he reassured her, caressing her hands in his. "But there are things that go beyond our control and I don't want to risk your safety"

"But…" she shrugged sadly.

"But-" he interrupted. "There's something I want to ask you"

"What is it?" she looked up at him again.

"Would you come with me, Marinette?"

"Eh?" Her eyes glowed in awe.

"We're adults now, and we can freely decide what to do with our lives- and I know I want you in mine" he spoke softly and honestly. "But, for me, your safety will always come first" She listened, fascinated and moved by his concern and care. "I'd really love it for you to come with me, Marinette. But I know it's a difficult choice to make and-"

"Yes"

"Huh?" He blinked, surprised by how quickly she answered.

"Yes, I want to go with you, Luka! Wherever you go," she grinned lovingly.

"Are you sure?" He blinked twice. "We are talking about choosing between me or your city! With your family, friends and superhero duties, Marinette! If you need time to-"

"Gosh- It makes it even easier when you say it like that!" She laughed at his seriousness and confusion.

The question sounded ridiculous to her, choosing between…

On one hand: her family, friends, and Ladybug duties…

Her family? They hadn't been very supportive of her. Sure, they cared and loved her, but they never really checked on her despite knowing what was going on at school with Chloe and even sided with Lila when she was almost expelled! Their bond wasn't as strong anymore, not since then…

Her friends? She wished she could still call them that, but they had turned their backs on her in favor of Lila. It hurt her deeply, especially Alya. She had very few people left who she could call 'friend'.

As for her duties as Ladybug… She had been doing it for years! The thought of getting rid of Chat Noir's uncomfortable advances for once sounded like a dream come true. Of course she wanted to quit!

And on the other hand, there was Luka.

Her loving, caring and reliable boyfriend who she loved deeply. Her best friend, cool and talented, who always checked on her to make sure she was doing well. The one who welcomed her with open arms to comfort her anytime she needed someone. The person she trusted the most, even with her life, who was always so protective and always put her first (which was apparently the reason he decided to leave and ask her the question)

So yes- choosing between Luka or the rest, seemed like a joke.

"Marinette?" Luka called, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"It's not a difficult choice at all, Luka. It's easy, in fact" She smiled happily at him. "I love you and I want you in my life. I want to be with you and I'd rather take you than a bunch of people who don't fill me with joy anymore. Or anything else, really"

She loved when he stared at her with those glowing eyes of his, filled with love, fascination and adoration. Even when his mouth was absurdly open, lips curved upright.

She loved it when Luka was happy. But she loved it even more knowing that it was her that made him happy.

"So you're really coming with me? Even though I haven't told you where we're going?" Luka asked with joy and a bit of disbelief.

"Yes, I am! I want to be with you. Anywhere. Always"

"Always" he smiled like the lovefool he was. "What about your earrings?"

"I think Socqueline could be a great Ladybug. She was my inspiration when we were at school together. I learned a lot from her and I know I can trust her" she pressed their hands together.

"Sounds like a plan" he leaned in to kiss her forehead and she giggled, content with the contact. "We can leave tomorrow. Or next week, if you need more time"

"Tomorrow sounds perfect" She grinned. "Thank you for taking me with you"

"Thank you for choosing to come with me" he smiled, caressing her hands softly. "I love you, Marinette"

"I love you too, Luka"

They melted in a tender kiss, needy but steady, losing themselves in their mutual love.

It was the best feeling in the world, they agreed.

____________

Years later, and away from Paris, they cuddled happily together on the sofa of their living room. Wedding bands on their ring fingers and toddlers running around the garden. They thought fondly over how thankful they were for all the choices that lead them to that precise moment.

The choices to their happiness.

The end

[mae-dwrites]

Taking Flight - Chapter 10 - Ikari Gozen

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Kagami Tsurgi for the majority of her life was alone. Her mother for some reason insisted that she does not need anyone, and that friends would be who would hold her down the most. Kagami wasn’t fully isolated of course, her mother would bring her to important events and meetings, she would spend her time with tutors or at tournaments.

Much like at the beginning of the week, her mother had her date with Adrien canceled so Kagami could join her in a sudden meeting. Unlike Adrien, Kagami was more emersed in her mother’s company and the workings of it. She had been raised in her mother’s technology industry, across the Americas and Japan. At the beginning of the year, her mother had decided they would head to Europe as they weren’t as expanded in that area of the world.

For some reason her mother had decided that they would start in Paris, France of all places. She had said it was to ensure her connection in the country, to remind her business partners she was not someone to underestimate. At least that’s what her mother relaid to her.

Kagami knew she couldn’t underestimate her mother either. Underestimating is far worse than overestimating, you mustn’t think lower of yourself but you also mustn’t treat any obstacle any less than yourself. Fighting head-on, being tactical, without anyone to hold you down. At least that’s what she had been taught, that no matter what others would hold her down. She held that teaching close, she hadn’t been trained and taught for no reason.

But she couldn’t help but disagree with her mother and her tutor's teachings.

She had seen people work together and make it work, and she had seen some shows and movies. While they may be fictional they must hold some truth, some truth of their world, of how humans work. Which is why it’s 100% okay that she just recorded her mother’s voice, because she is young. Young people make mistakes all the time, her mother had said so herself!

With her two-hour timer set, she murmured to herself, “Let’s play.”

With one turn of a handle, I can raise the level. Read the message, Kagami scoffed as the riddle wasn’t even hard, “Child’s play. Tatsu, take me to Canal Saint-Martin.”

“Voice recognition failed,” Tatsu recited. Kagami frowned, it was worth a shot, good thing she is smarter than Mother thinks.

“Tatsu-”

“Take me to Canal Saint-Martin,” Kagami finished the command.

“Hai, Tsurugisan,” Tatsu said before changing course.

-•-

“Oh no,” Marinette’s voice on the verge of a whimper as she looked up at the bridge.

"What is it Marinette?" Tikki's voice squeaked. "An Akuma?"

"No," Marinette swallows. "Worse, so much worse." Marinette's voice became strangled, she sits down on the bench behind her for a moment. Taking deep breaths.

"Well, what is it then Marinette?" Tikki asks fighting the urge to fly out of Marinette's bag.

"It's Kagami, she can't be my new friend. Nope," Marinette suddenly gets up, pacing in front of the bench. "Just no. There's no way she can be my new friend. She's brilliant, strong, cute! Oh my gosh, this can't be happening."

"And what does that have to do with the game?"

"She's Adrien's girlfriend! They know each other very well from what Adrien has said, he talks about all of us to her! I'll embarrass myself in front of her and then she'll tell Adrien how weird I am and their parents how unsuitable I am as a friend for Adrien. Then M. Agreste will ban me from being his friend and blacklist me so I never work in fashion ever," Marinette was left breathless and she dropped down to the ground and held her head in her hands.

"This can't happen. We can't be partners!" Marinette whined.

•

Kagami stood on the bridge, watching from afar. She recognized the girl, from fencing practice and pictures Adrien had shown her of the panicky girl and talked about her. She was quite...strange in person. She paced back and forth in front of a bench she had previously sat on.

"She's so weird," Kagami spoke out with a confused frown. The girl squat down and put her head in her hands, "Well fate has put her in my path. I wanted to make friends, she just so happened to be Adrien's most cherished friend."

Kagami took a deep breath before her lips formed a thin line, "If I don't succeed with Adrien's quirky friend our relationship with become strained or worse end." Kagami looked at the girl again before performing a sure nod, "He did say she becomes very nervous around people. So I shall wait here until she is ready for interaction."

•

Tikki frowned at her bug, she carefully floated out of Marinette's bag. She put herself above her legs but right under her face.

"Marinette that isn't fair to Kagami. You barely know her, you should give her a chance. Not to mention she can't complete the game without you!"

"She could probably complete it on her own somehow. She's so smart, I'd just slow her down I bet," Marinette mopped with her hands on her forehead. Then her eyes widened at an idea before she cringed, "Oh Kwami no. That's terrible, we know better than that Marinette."

Tikki frowned in confusion as the girl spoke to herself, "What is Marinette?"

"I just," Marinette worried on her lip. "I had a thought, that if I went with her I could slow her down, and then Adrien wouldn't fall more in love with her than he probably already is. But it's terrible, I'm dating Luka!"

Marinette groaned with tightly shut eyes and faced the sky, "I'm a terrible friend and girlfriend."

"You know it's wrong, right?" Tikki asked.

Marinette looked back down at Tikki, "Well of course I do."

"Are you planning on acting on it?" Tikki pressed.

"No-no! It's a terrible idea, especially to do. Even if I wanted to," Marinette looked down at her Kwami in horror.

"Then you're not a bad person Marinette. You recognize it's a bad idea, and you don't plan on acting on it. Also, it's just that, an idea, a thought. It doesn't necessarily mean you're terrible," Tikki explained. Marinette looked away before a smile came on her face and she nodded.

"You're right, it's just a thought, not a plan. It doesn't mean I have to do it," Marinette stood up with determination and Tikki zipped into her purse again. She nodded to Tikki before running up the bridge to finally see Kagami.

“Hey um, hi uh, sorry for making you wait!” Marinette smiled at Kagami. “Sorry for keeping you waiting. This is amazing that we were paired for this, has to be fate.” Marinette let out a nervous laugh at the end.

“You didn’t look very pleased to see me, but I’m assuming it was your anxieties. Adrien has mentioned that you’re usually nervous a majority of the time and that you have anxiety.” Kagami stated as she looked Marinette over with an analytical eye.

Marinette shifted under the Japanese girl’s gaze, “I, um…uh, sorry, I mean I-” Kagami’s eyes widened panic coming upon her, she must be making the girl uncomfortable. Their phones dinged but that wasn’t important right now. She must secure their further mutualness, otherwise, this would have all been for nothing.

“Do not worry I forgive you. I know that not all feelings or actions can be completely controlled, so I do not hold it against you. I do not wish to make you uncomfortable, if I do please tell me.” Kagami expressed with a bow.

Marinette blinked before her face became warm, “Oh. Oh-oh, thank you. I will let you know if you make me uncomfortable. I really appreciate that.” Marinette gave a small smile, it made Kagami hold herself taller. Wasn’t a perfect start, but a success nonetheless. “And! And I mean, uh, the same goes for you.” Marinette’s smile never faltered, Kagami nodded to her in affirmation.

“Now onto the game,” Kagami redirected them. “To get closer to your goal-”

“You must explore further and deeper,” Marinette finished out loud. Marinette gasped and at the same time they spoke, “The banks of the Seine.” Marinette more with excitement and Kagami softly as if speaking to herself. They made eye contact, Marinette giggled while Kagami gave a small smile.

“That must be where our next clue is,” Marinette said.

“We'll probably have to fish for our new clue. Let’s hurry if we want to win.” Kagami nodded at Marinette.

•

Marinette didn’t want to be rude and just message her best friend in front of Kagami. This was supposed to be about the two of them becoming friends, that was one of the whole points of this activity.

Marinette opened the video message Alya had sent to her.

“Hey girl! I sure hope your partner's as cool as mine; meet Wayhem! You'd better hurry up if you wanna get to Adrien before we do, 'cause we've already solved our first riddle!” Alya bragged white showing Wayhem in the frame the entire time. He grinned behind Alya with a peace sign.

Marinette sighed before pressing record, “Hey Alya! My partner is Kagami, I can’t believe it. I’m super nervous about this, because you know, she’s Adrien’s girlfriend. I’m scared I’ll do something wrong and she’ll tell Adrien and I won’t be his friend anymore. Anyway, go for it! From what I can tell Kagami wouldn’t like it if she was just handed the win, also I really don’t want to third wheel them if we win, so give it your all.”

Marinette replayed it, she frowned. Maybe I should send something else.

“That seems fine Marinette,” Tikki said from her bag. Marinette looked down at her little friend, Tikki gave a comforting squeeze. Marinette smiled and pressed send, she didn’t like lairs or lying. She tried to avoid it so why lie about how she felt? Well she did it a lot but this was different, this was Alya.

“Marinette?” Kagami called for her from Pont des Arts.

“I’m here! Sorry, just needed a moment.” Marinette rubbed the back of her neck with a nervous laugh.

Kagami studied her for a moment, she frowned as she watched her rub her neck. Perhaps she was too intimidating to Marinette, how can she make this better? She wants her to be comfortable, relaxed with her. Maybe there was nothing she could do, but she could try. No, there was no try, only dos. She will do everything she can to get Marinette to be comfortable with her. A Tsurugi is always sure, and always does perfect.

“Well I am glad you’re better now,” Kagami internally winced at the structure of her sentence. That sounds insensitive. “We were right, there is a fishing rod with a magnet attached to it. Do you know how to fish effectively?”

Marinette seemed to perk up, “Yes! I’ve gone fishing with extended family before. Might not be perfect, I certainly wasn’t the best but I should be good enough!”

“Okay then you fish,” Kagami put the fishing rod in Marinette’s face. Marinette blinked before taking the rod from her. Too close, Kagami scolded herself.

Some seconds went by as Marinette reeled in items and Kagami inspected them. This won’t do, she wants to make friends so she needs to practice. According to Adrien, Marinette was great at becoming friends with people. She’s the perfect person to practice on even if she would already become her friend despite her errors.

Kagami opened her phone discreetly and opened her extra app. Kagami tensed as it made an opening the app sound. Marinette glanced at her as she reeled in another item, a whistle.

“Probably not the clue,” Kagami took it in her free hand and tossed it in the cardboard box. Marinette returned to fishing, if they weren’t right next to each other Kagami would have sighed in relief. She tapped the “Interesting Get To Know Questions” folder.

Question 1: Do you prefer to be called by your whole name, or a nickname?

Simple enough, she thought to herself.

“Do you prefer to be called by your whole name, or a nickname?” Kagami asked Marinette. When Marinette gave her a weird look she showed her a quick and, if Kagami was honest, an uncomfortable smile.

“Uh– by… my… whole name…?” Marinette didn’t look or sound sure whatsoever, she pulled in a rusty pan. Kagami tried not to frown at Marinette, but she did frown at the pan. She took it and tossed it in the box.

“Thank you, Marinette.” Kagami almost bows but stops herself, she doesn’t need to do this continuously. It’s for gratitude, but outside of Japan, it might be weird to the Parisian native. But she could compliment her! Compliments are great for “breaking the ice” as they refer to awkward tension. “Uh– Your hair is… very shiny.”

“Ehm… thank you…? Your hair is not… too bad, either…” They both smile awkwardly at each other. Kagami holds in a sigh, this isn’t going as smoothly as she wanted it to. She looks down at her phone and goes to the “Topic Suggestion” folder. She skims through them as fast as she can and spots two.

Topic 23: Something culturally or modernly significant to your homes.

Topic 28: What are your blood types?

“What is your blood type?” Kagami tries to smile again. It still feels weird, perhaps she needs to widen her smile? Like when she’s going against a lightweight opponent. Of which Marinette could be categorized as if she were in fencing.

“My blood type? I don't… know… Are you messing with me?” Marinette’s voice sounded so anxious and confused. No, this is not good. We need calm, we need smooth conversing with each other.

“No, not at all. Everyone in Japan knows their blood type. It tells you who you are. Mine is O, which means I'm independent, optimistic, strong-willed, and intuitive.” Kagami didn’t feel like all of that was actually true, she didn’t feel like an optimistic person. She truly was more of a realist. Kagami looked at her phone again, this wasn’t going well.

Topic 32: Seasons

Of course!

“What’s your favorite season?” Kagami smiled at Marinette. This smile still felt off. Was she doing it right?

“Summer, 'cause it's nice and hot. Or spring,” Marinette gasped, “'cause that's when nature awakens. Or maybe the fall; the colors are so gorgeous that time of the year. But then again; winter inspires me so much.” Marinette smiled with pure joy.

Kagami frowned, “You're indecisive, scatterbrained, irresponsible. You have a split personality: typical AB.” Her eyes widened, that must have been rude. Kagami quickly smiled before looking at her phone again, she switched to “Their Character” folder.

“Let's say you found out about some special chocolate ice cream; you really want to try it, but someone else gets there first. Do you, A, steal it from them? B, get another type of chocolate ice cream, even if it's not as good? Or, C, never eat chocolate ice cream ever again?” Kagami gave a strained smile after she finished stating the question. This didn’t feel like a good conversation if she was being honest.

“Uh– I guess I'd try another flavor?” Marinette said. That was actually a great answer, not any she had listed though, not really at least. Kagami hummed as she thought about the answer, it certainly solved the problem without any lasting negative impacts. Kagami looked down at her phone- No. She doesn’t need to rely on this app she can do this herself, and she’s read enough and knows enough of these questions to continue on.

Kagami faced Marinette as she reeled in something else, “Would you like to get some orange juice with me?”

Marinette’s eyes widened in excitement, “Yeah! Sure, it'd be a lot more fun than this boring treasure hunt.” Marinette admitted with her face becoming a little red with embarrassment. She brought the item over the railing to Kagami.

“It’s the clue! You’ve done a great job Marinette,” Kagami said with a light smile and gave Marinette an (awkward) pat on the back. “Congratulations. First, we win, then we get orange juice to celebrate.”

Marinette's smile widened with excitement as they got to figuring out their clue.

-•-

Marinette was exhausted from running with Kagami, despite being Ladybug. Speaking of which she was surprised no one had been Akumatized today, someone might after they don’t win, there was no doubt about it. But they were so close to finishing, Marinette just knew it. Alya hadn’t messaged her since she sent her video. She could have been preparing what to say, but Alya was just as impulsive as Marinette. And if she wasn’t writing it down, Alya’s filter went out the window.

Kagami pulled up her phone and read aloud their next instructions, “Trust challenge: Exchange unlocked phones. Separate and take a selfie in front of different monuments using each other's phones. Then regroup and take a selfie together like the true friends you've become. Once we've received the selfies, we'll send you a final text revealing where Adrien Agreste is hiding.”

Kagami extended her phone out to Marinette in full confidence her other hand laid outstretched for Marinette’s, but Alya hadn’t responded to her yet. To her message or updated her on her progress. Marinette looked between her phone and Kagami’s hand.

Oh what the heck, it’ll only take a few minutes.

Marinette finally hands over her open phone to Kagami.

“You really are an indecisive girl,” Kagami states. “We'll meet back here; we're going to win!” Kagami declared before running off.

Marinette honestly didn’t care about winning or losing now, she really did enjoy hanging out with the girl even with their weird and awkward moments. They made it work even with the struggles.

Marinette sighed and looked down at Kagami’s phone. That was strange, her home screen didn’t have any app and she had a plain background. Marinette swiped down, her lock screen was also blank and she had a timer going. 45:38. Marinette swiped side to side, finding a folder of utilities, default apps. The bottom had the calling and messaging app. Marinette swiped to the right again to find one app, MakeFriendzEazy.

“Huh,” Marinette looked at it and bit her lip. This was not helping her phone holding track record. She felt Tikki push against her leg but ignored her. She opened the app, and it had folders, icebreakers, topics, advice, and much more.

“Oh,” the word came out of her mouth quietly. Marinette exited the app and tapped the messages app to find only messages from the contest. She left that one as Tikki flew out and glared at her.

“Marinette she put her trust in you giving you her phone. And you’re snooping,” the Kwami scolded her.

“She kept looking at her phone while we were playing, and her phone is so empty. Tikki look, she has a tip app for making friends,” Marinette said showing her. Marinette looked at the phone again, she frowned at it and tapped the calling app. She gasped, “She only has her mom. Not even Adrien, and that’s her boyfriend.”

Tikki looked at the screen with a matching frown, “She just wants friends. She was trying to be your friend Marinette.”

“And I snuck through her phone,” Marinette whined. “I’m a terrible friend, we’re probably not even going to be friends after this. Oh no,” Marinette straightened up.

“What?”

“Alya could reply at any moment! And if she does while Kagami has my phone then she might see her reply or my message. I need to hurry.” Marinette takes off running.

•

Kagami frowns at the photo she took, she doesn’t like her smile. It looks too forced, her last smiles at Marinette didn’t hurt her face like this one or her ones from earlier. Maybe she should just pretend Marinette is with her, yeah that might work.

As Kagami tries to retake the photo but a message pops up, and for some reason takes up a lot of the screen. She tries to swipe it away but it won’t go, she huffs in frustration. She tries to swipe it away again only for her to accidentally press it, and the message starts to play. A deeply tanned-skinned girl with auburn hair takes up the screen.

"Hey girl! Sorry, I've been running around with Wayhem. Also, I'm sorry you're stuck with Kagami, we're almost done so you might not have the third wheel her and Adrien. Just hang in there and I'll catch you later!"

Kagami’s heart drops to her stomach. She clenches her fist before taking a deep breath, she wouldn’t be the Akuma of the day. She was better than this, and maybe her mother was right. She didn’t need friends, she blinks back tears. Instead of trying to perfect her smile, she took a selfie with a blank expression, it’s no use if she was only seen as a nuisance.

•

Marinette sprints to where they had last been together at and waves at Kagami. Marinette opens her mouth to speak but Kagami speaks first.

“ I guess I'm not worthy of our friendship; our blood types must be too incompatible,” Kagami avoids looking Marinette in the eyes.

Marinette opened her mouth again but Kagami’s phone started to ring, Kagami reached out for it but Marinette answered it instead of handing it over to her.

“Hello?”

“Kagami, where are you? You were supposed to wait for me at home,” Tomoe Tsurgi’s commanding voice came through. Kagami could even hear her mother, she was very upset. Kagami shook her head at Marinette but Marinette wasn’t looking at her but more over her as she decided to respond, “Hello ma'am, I'm not Kagami, actually.”

“Who are you?! Where's my daughter?!” Kagami’s eyes widened at her mother's voice, she tried to gestured for Marinette to hand her phone but Marinette put a hand up to Kagami and straightened her back.

“Kagami? I'm a friend of Kagami's, I'm right here with her. I'll put her on the phone if you would like,” though Marinette didn’t have any intent to. As she was more curious as about this woman, Kagami was obviously restricted, just on different levels than Adrien.

“Kagami doesn't have any friends. Why do you have her phone?” Marinette frowned at this, is this really how she treats her daughter? Just like Gabriel, how many other kids were stuck like this? This wasn’t fair to isolate your child in any form, all it does is leave them stunted in so many areas. Why hasn’t someone done anything about this!

“Oh, I can assure you, I am Kagami's friend. I am also Adrien's friend, and we are all participating in a game about friendship. Where making new friends is the main goal but I digress.” Marinette stated with a scowl on her face.

Kagami stopped trying to get her phone and looked at Marinette. Maybe she had misunderstood, it was only one half of the conversation, simply Marinette’s friend responding to her. Marinette’s friend in the video may have different views of Kagami than Marinette does.

“A game?! But I forbade her to!” Tomoe shouted.

Marinette’s eyes widened, she didn’t want Kagami to be in so much trouble. But… lies. Marinette internally sighed, lies, lies, and more lies. When does she get to stop lying?

“Did I say game? Oh no, I meant a grab… to grab– to grab some orange juice. I invited Kagami over to grab some orange juice with me. She'll be back home soon, I promise,” Marinette stated covering over her mistake. Kagami smiled at Marinette. Marinette smiled back at Kagami as she continued, “I'll even walk her home myself, as I am her friend.”

“Stop fooling around, young lady, and put my daughter through. As I stated before she does not have friends and I can assure you she will not be enjoying any glasses of–”

Marinette frowned, what kind of mother was she? She was just as bad as Gabriel had to be.

“Ma'am, please don't punish your daughter. Ma'am? Hello?” Marinette’s frows came down.

“With pleasure, Hawk Moth.”

Marinette felt a chill go through her, No. She looked at Kagami as the call ended and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“I’m so sorry Kagami, I shouldn’t have done that! I tried to smooth things over with her but now she’s Akumatized! You need to go hide!” Marinette said in a rush. Behind them a thud went off and the ground shook, they lost their footing. Each shake worse than the last, Marinette fell down. Kagami tried to help her up but the source of the earthquakes came next to them.

“Kagami! You disobeyed me! You will never go out again!” The Akumatized Tomoe Tsurgi grabbed Kagami and dropped her down her mouth. Kagami’s screams could be heard until she closed her giant mouth.

Marinette’s eyes welled with tears, “This is all my fault. Oh no, Kagami, Kagami is stuck in her mom. I caused this.”

Tikki cut her off, “It's never too late to make things right, Marinette.”

“Yea-yeah,” Marinette’s voice cracked, she sniffed. Now wasn’t the time to cry, she couldn’t be Marinette. Kagami needed Ladybug, the city needs its’ hero, “Spots on.”

Soon Chat Noir showed up when Tomoe makes her big declaration, “You'll never catch me! I'm lkari Gozen. As elusive as the wind, as powerful as the flood, as swift as lightning! Try as you might, but your jewels will be mine!”

Ladybug got thrown into a tree before falling out of it. She put her hand on her back and she stretched, because surely that wasn't gonna be a pain later. She groaned as Chat made his way to her.

“I see you've already made a new buddy for friendship day, m'lady.” Chat Noir teased leaning against his staff.

“Yeah, no, I don't think she likes me all that much.” the red and black heroine frowned at her partner. She straightened up and faced Ikari Gozen, “We're coming, Kagami.”

Chat’s blood ran cold, he looked over at the Akuma, “Kagami?”

“Our new friend here has imprisoned her own daughter as a punishment,” bitterness dripped from her voice. She clenched her yo-yo, she was really getting sick of all these rich parents and locking their kids away. “Lucky Charm.”

Came down was a plastic-looking sword, but the cross guard looked of that as a dragon head breathing fire molded into a blade. It reminded Ladybug of that one show Chris loved to watch when she babysat him. The pommel had symbols, that of a lightning bolt, water, and what she could assume was air. Ladybug’s eyes widened, Of course, thank you Tikki!

“I don't think that thing will do us any good, she doesn't seem the type to play,” Chat said with a perplexed look at the item.

“Oh trust me Chaton this toy isn't for anyone, but I do have an idea for a new playmate,” Ladybug smirked at him. Chat looked at her, her eyes didn't hold the same confidence as her stance. She was unsure, she wanted him to tell her it was okay, they had a mission and they do need help.

Chat Noir nodded, “I’ve always wanted someone to properly spar my staff with.”

Oh the way her whole being seemed to light up made Chat Noir feel warm before she swung off to get help. Chat shook his head before looking at Ikari Gozen, “Time to keep you in one place.”

Chat extended himself onto a rooftop yelling at Ikari Gozen, while a few buildings off from where they had been together Ladybug hid in an alleyway and destransformed. The Lucky Charm disappeared along with her transformation, it was so weird that the hinting for help Lucky Charms went away, well they usually did.

Marinette gave Tikki a cookie, “I guess it’s time for a new trick.” Marinette gave Tikki a nervous smile.

“I’m sure it’ll work just fine, like when you were giving the papers out. Except focus on which specific thing you want to come through.” Tikki said finishing her cookie. Marinette nodded, “Focus.”

She called the transformation back on and grabbed her yo-yo and opened it. “Focus,” she murmured to herself before reaching in. She pulled out a choker necklace, and she gasped before letting out a squeal and dancing in a circle. “I did it, I did it, I did it!”

Ladybug stopped dancing and took a deep breath, now time to get themselves a dragon. She swung herself back over to the scene, Chat fighting Ikari Gozen.

“I know what’s like to be put in a cat kennel, it’s not pleasant!” Chat Noir yelled just before Ikari Gozen flung him down the street.

Ladybug winced as Chat landed in the street, his suit making it so there was a sizable and fairly noticeable strip of blacktop missing. That was gonna hurt later, Ladybug vaguely thought as she ran across rooftops before swinging down to Chat.

“I guess cats really don’t land on their feet,” Ladybug raised an eyebrow at her partner. Chat Noir rolled his eyes before noticing Ladybug’s neck.

“Where’s our friend?”

“Oh she’s here, we just need to get her present. After all, friends give each other presents. So, Luck Charm!”

Came down was a box of bath bombs, both the heroes gave it a look of confusion.

“A box of bath bombs,” it was Chat’s turn to raise an eyebrow at his partner. Ladybug ignored him and looked around, Ikari Gozen was headed for them, taking her time it seemed as if neither hero was moving. Ladybug caught saught of a scooter's storage compartment, Chat Noir, and the bath bombs.

“Oh you’ve got a plan don’t you?” Chat Noir asked looking at her, “You’ve got that glint in your eye.”

“Yes I do,” Ladybug grabbed the scooter storage compartment. “Longg come out.”

Longg floated from hiding behind Ladybug. “Yes Guardian,” the dragon Kwami bowed.

Ladybug explained the plan quickly, before taking off the choker and handing the compartment to Chat Noir. They nodded to each other. Chat successfully got the thing down Ikari Gozen’s mouth.

“Great job chaton, now we wait for Longg to explain the plan to her and we defeat the Akuma. I hope it works.”

“I’m sure it will, you’ve never failed Buggaboo,” Chat Noir winked at her. But right after he said that Ikari Gozen took steps back almost falling, and went into a coughing fit, what looked to be steam coming out. A dragon-themed hero, who of which could be Kagami, materialized in front of them.

“See, Mother? I can be as elusive as the wind!” Kagami held herself high, she glared at Ikari Gozen. Kagami turned to face the duo behind her, “Thank you for the Miraculous, Ladybug. Nice to meet you, Cat Noir. I am Ryuko.”

Both heroes eyes widened at Kag- Ryuko.

“What are you doing? This wasn't the plan!” Ladybug cried. She only had four minutes left now, Kagami had used Wind. Kagami is very independent, her mother had raised her as such, and that was very clear. Ladybug swallowed and took control of her breathing, she needs to remain calm they can still do this.

“What plan?” Was all Ryuko said.

This can’t be happening. It just can’t be.

“Kagami! You've disobeyed me yet again! First for that stupid game for friends, and then this time with the complicity of these so-called heroes.” Ikari Gozen growled, “You will learn your lesson!”

She brought her bokken up and brought it down on the heroes. All of the heroes jumped out of the way, the bokken crushed through the concrete. Ikari Gozen cried out in frustration.

“Ryuko, the plan! Surely Longg must have told you about the plan?!” Ladybug yelled from across the street.

Ryuko ignored Ladybug instead taking to confronting her mother, “What’s so wrong with having friends!”

“They ask but don’t return,” Ikari Gozen swiped her bokken at Chat Noir clasping the top of a building. “The moment you don’t benefit them they leave!” She yelled as she brought her weapon down the building Ryuko stood on. Chat Noir jumped on top of her as she yelled, “Friends abandon you! They all leave, they will leave you, just like they left me after the crash.”

She reached back and grabbed Chat Noir and held him up, “They left me when I needed them, left me to raise an infant blind!”

“What,” Ryuko’s stance faltered, her voice barely audible.

Ikari Gozen shoved Chat Noir down her throat, both of the heroines cried, “No!”

Chat fell into a seat, and a seat belt clicked in place, “No siree, Cataclysm!” He eroded the seat belt only for many more seat belts to grab and hold him down, “No, no, no. Not again.”

Outside Ryuko and Ladybug hid from Ikari Gozen.

Ryuko bowed her head in shame, “My apologies Ladybug, I acted hastily and failed you. I am not worthy to fight beside you.”

Ladybug lifted Ryuko’s face so she was looking at her, “You made a mistake, or act before we think. I do that every day in and out of the mask, it has cost me a lot on both sides, but that isn’t a reason to stop fighting.” Ryuko stared at Ladybug in awe, she was far more astonishing in person.

“You’re the only one who can help me right now, you have the skill. It’s the reason I choose you, and why I have given you the tools to help me. But we need to work together, as a team and we don’t have much time so here's the plan.”

•

Chat Noir fought against his restraints but it was no use, his chest went in and out heavily. He looked up, “Hurry up before I transform back.”

The Universe must have taken pity on him because no sooner than a second later did Ryuko dropdown.

“Thank Kwami!”

“Hold your breath, and aim for bokken,” Ryuko reached down for the box of bath bombs.

“You're a fast learner,” Chat Noir grinned, trying his best to hide his nervousness.

“I’ve had many great teachers,” she admitted with a small smile before calling for water. Chat did as he was told, holding his breath and when they made it out, reached for the bokken. Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo around it and yanked, breaking the item, an Akuma floating out.

“No more evil-doing for you!” Ladybug captured it before turning to Ryuko who handed her what was left of her Lucky Charm, the box. She tossed it up, calling for her cure.

“What's happened to me? Where is Kagami?” Tomoe asked moving her bokken around in front of her.

“Your daughter is nearby, ma'am. She'll be here soon.” Ryuko said after she put a hand on the woman's shoulder, “Your car is to your right.”

“Thank you,” Tomoe said stiffly before turning to her car and stepping in.

Ryuko turned to see Chat Noir and Ladybug with their fists facing each other but also her way, leaving a space for her. Her stomach welled and twirled with warmth, Ryuko smiled and added her fist and in unison, “Pound it!”

•

“Thank you for waiting a moment Kagami,” Ladybug started upon landing, “I hope you understand I can not give you this Miraculous again.”

“I understand, I was an inadequate team member.” Kagami hung her head.

“Actually you were quite the opposite,” Ladybug said, Kagami looked at her with confusion. “You fought well and hard, but the reason I can't give you this Miraculous again is because Hawkmoth knows your identity. He can see and hear through the person he has Akumatized, and with that it means not only are you but your friends and family are put in danger.”

Kagami thought about that, it makes sense, complete sense, no wonder Ladybug was in so much distress. Kagami frowned, “I don't have many friends.”

“Well it's not important to have lots of friends, what matters are the ones you do have are true friends. Thank you for your help, bug out,” and with that Ladybug left Kagami.

Kagami finally left the alley and made her way to her mother’s car, oh was she gonna get an earful. The right back passenger door was open, with her mother waiting. Kagami took a deep breath.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I'm sorry I wasn't truthful with you, Mother. But, I really wanted to try and make a friend.” Kagami admitted truthfully.

“You already have Adrien,” Tomoe said after a pause.

“It's not the same,” Kagami looked away, disputing her mother being blind, not even having her. But those words held true, Adrien had been her friend and now they were dating.

“I understand that you want to make friends, but friendships can prove disappointing sometimes. If not, a distraction can be a reliability, and you may be stretched by them.” Tomoe at the beginning sounding firm but slowly trailed to a person mourning. Tomoe sighed after a moment, “Be home in time for dinner. Tatsu, take me home.”

“Hai, Tsurugisan,” Tatsu said closing the door and rolling off.

•

Kagami walked up the bridge, her stomach tight.

“The game is over. We lost.'' She couldn't look Marinette in the eyes as she showed her a photo of Alya and Wayhem with the weather girls, Adrien, and Adrien’s bodyguard.

“No,” Marinette started firmly. “We won the right to get orange juice together,” she said with confidence before closing in on herself again. “If you still want to, that is. Nothing can stop us now.” Marinette gave Kagami a timid smile. Kagami looked at the girl in awe, her lips slightly parted.

“I'm correct, I misjudged you Marinette. I'm glad we somehow got paired, I see now why Adrien regards you as one of his dearest friends,” Kagami gave a light smile at Marinette. “And yes, I would still like to join you for orange juice. I just have to be home in time for dinner.”

Marinette lit up, her already big eyes widening with a dazzling smile to go with. Marinette hooked her arm around Kagami’s and started talking with an animated face.

Yes, Kagami had made the right choice, even if she didn't win. She got herself her first real friend.

-

September 28, 2019

[mariharem-trash-heap]

The fact that every single time Marinette gets to be happy, that happiness is ripped away because the writers get to say “oh well she can’t possibly date anyone right now! She’s Ladybug and HawkMoth is still out there” is so gross to me. Notice how nobody ever says the same about Cat, despite the fact that he needs to be pulling his own weight and shouldn’t bother with romance right now? The double-standard - and the misogyny - is sickening from a show aimed mostly at young girls.

Alya and Nino get to be happy and in love, and they’re a part of Team Miraculous. Adrien got to pretend to be happy with Kagami, and she had been part of Team Miraculous. But Marinette’s relationship with Luka, the most wholesome one she’s ever had, mind you, has to suffer because of her role as guardian and the insistence for her not to involve others in her task - and because the writers don’t let her forget that damned crush on Adrien. And it’s true that focusing on romance is not important when it comes to defeating Hawkmoth - hell, I’d be horrified if Marinette actually did get back into a relationship considering Hawkmoth is looking for her now. But where is that stance when it comes to other members of the team? Just because they aren’t Ladybug, suddenly they don’t have to worry about their loved ones being targeted and used against them?

Like listen, on one hand I wholeheartedly get it. Marinette’s role is incredibly important - without her, Team Miraculous would fail and Hawkmoth would be free to rewrite the universe as he pleases. That, at least, is a strong point towards Marinette needing to sacrifice her feelings. But nobody else ever says the same about Cat, and his role is just about as important. He is the miraculous of destruction. We’ve seen him kill before. Yet his feelings take precedence over Ladybug’s, and for what? Because as Cat, he needs to be more wild and untamed? Because he never gets to be a selfish brat at home? Because cats are mischievous? People’s lives are at stake yet we’ve seen him do nothing but screw around with his powers and leave Ladybug to fend for herself when she needs help the most. At the very least Plagg, as his kwami, needs to step up and straighten him out, because whatever he is doing is not effective at all.

Part of Cat’s behavior is definitely on Plagg, but to his credit he does have his moments to try and rein in his chosen. I have a bigger issue with Tikki. She fails as a guide. She fails Marinette. She constantly acts more as a voice of the writers than her own character, and her consistently reprimanding Marinette and urging her to sacrifice herself for the greater good is a problematic message to the children and teens watching this. Actually, there are too many problematic messages in this show to count, starting with heaving the weight of saving France on the shoulders of thirteen-year-olds. So many characters just expect Marinette to shut up and accept that her emotions and feelings don’t matter, and I’m honestly so sick of it. We all remember how guilty she was when Miss Bustier was akumatized because she took the akuma for her, right? And how panicked she gets whenever Hawkmoth sends one after her? This child is traumatized and scared of being used as a weapon and nobody ever really bothers to acknowledge that, least of all Tikki. True, she does comfort her at times, but that’s overshadowed by her insistence that Marinette shut out her feelings and wants. Being Ladybug is not supposed to be a shackle. Why do the writers always feel the need to make it one?

If Cat gets to feel, and pout when he doesn’t get his way, and let Parisians suffer because his feelings aren’t front and center for once, then I want Marinette to get a catharsis. If she gets akumatized for real I want her to not have to feel guilty and depressed afterwards, and I want other characters - AND FANS - not to treat her like a failed Ladybug because she let herself feel negative emotions. Let her get upset without worrying that some middle-aged dipshit with a butterfly brooch is gonna use her and humiliate her because she dared to speak her damned mind. Or better yet - make Cat realize that his duty is more important than a childhood infatuation, or get him to give up the ring. He is not the Cat Noir I hoped he’d grow to be back in Season 1. He’s still selfish and uncaring.

Having your female lead be constantly gaslit, manipulated from both good and evil sides, and treated so carelessly by who’s supposed to be her primary love interest is not a show I’d ever want my kids watching. Not unless the writers decide to make it up to her by letting her have her happiness without ripping it away for once.

What the hell happened to “girl power”? Because right now all I see is Twilight. And not in the good way.

The thing about Marinette is that's afraid about repeating the past. Having another Chat Blanc, having another breakup over lies, having another Felix trick. Her fears are based on the experiences she's suffered, her trauma, breakdowns, and panic attacks. And yet nothing has been about it. These events happen and she's just told to get over these "excuses." To just date Adrien because that's what he wants.

godddddd it's painful. Like you said, Marinette is scared. She's got absolutely every reason under the sun to be not just hesitant, but absolutely averse to pursuing a romantic relationship.

Objectively, Marinette has more important things to worry about but still she's forced back into this endless cycle of "romance". Like Puppeteer 2.0?? When she was positively humiliated and had confirmation that Adrien was interested in someone else? Marinette was fully prepared to give up and cut her losses but Tikki *cough* the narrative *cough cough* insisted Marinette stick with it.

like bloody hell. Marinette is loaded with reasons not to date anyone, let alone Adrien, but like you said, it's never addressed. Marinette being scared is never touched upon. It's always about poor ickle Adrien and "oh but Marinette he's in luv why won't you just love him back?"

Marinette's feelings are trivialised and ignored and then the story has the nerve to claim Marinette isn't respecting Adrien's feelings. it's downright insulting.

[familyagrestefanblog]

Honestly I think Adrien is much more likely going to find ShadowMoths empty lair in "Strike back" than his mother in the basement (bruh what a sentence).

Adrien and Félix are two narrative halves leading together to get through this. Félix may be spoiled by the narrative with all the inside knowledge and proof of their family's situation but at the end of the day how much does it actually MATTER that Félix knows all of this when he has hardly any significance in the important Agreste family bonds and has even less presence in Paris all together.

Because Félix can know as much as he wants but he simply isn't the emotional core of this family and its mystery that Adrien is. There is a reason why Adrien is shielded from knowing all of this but Félix gets it served on a silver plate. Because even if Félix has all of this information what can Félix actually affectively DO with it? He himself hardly matters in this. The narrative literally had to spoil him THIS hard with all the inside knowledge and proof any character in this show could possibly wish for regarding the bad guys to even HAVE Adriens cousin from England gain enough significant importance to the Agreste family to legitimately MATTER.

Adrien is the complete opposite of him. Adrien is and has always been right in the middle of this horror shows mess with no way out to escape because he is THIS important as the emotional core. The extent of Félixs knowledge equals Adriens importance in the Agreste family and its mystery, "Risk" showed this absolutely BEAUTIFULLY.

This is why I think Adrien will find ShadowMoths lair in "Strike back" (since Gabriel is conveniently out as well) rather than finding his mother in the basement. It comes right back to "The Collector" where Adrien was given the weakest amount of proofs by Ladybug to explain to him why she thinks Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth (since she couldn't tell him about the ACTUAL reasons why she thinks so, Master Fu and the freaking Grimoire Adrien himself stole)

but Adrien in his heart knew his father so well that he knew 100% that Gabriel being Hawkmoth is definitely likely and he took it VERY serious, it even baffled Ladybug.

He only ended up being convinced of his fathers innocence because the weak proofs Ladybug gave him that triggered his strong gut feeling simply didn't hold up against the "evidences" going against them in the akuma fight against his father.

Doesn't change the fact though that Adrien only needs very little evidence to unleash the strong gut feeling towards his father that leads him to the right direction (Im actually writing an analysis post about this but now will wait to see how "Strike back" plays out) to figure his father out. And this would beautifully come to a climax with Adrien finding ShadowMoths empty butterfly lair through the same lift via Emilie portrait as Félix found Emilie in the basement in "Risk".

Both boys have a different but now equal narrative significance regarding our main villain (Adrien and Félix are now equals like Ladybug and Rena Furtive I just noticed), and I want to see this come together by Adrien finding the butterfly lair and figuring his father out by sheer emotional GUT FEELING the way father and son always end up relying primarily on regarding each other, as a parallel and complimenting narrative piece to Félix in "Risk"

[bigfatbreak]

Since Your feralnette au is cannon now (because I said so) how do the teachers react to her? Like I know they're all fairly incompetent but when you're too student does a complete 180 and then starts showing up with lots of minor injuries someone's gotta start asking questions at some point.

tbh, there ARE questions! and it takes a while for the student body to try finding the answers. it takes a bit, since... you know, Akuma and paris being attacked every frickin weekend, everyone is BUSY, and by then, things get a little... screwy, miscommunication wise.

see, by this point, Hawkmoth has noticed Marinette, and definitely wants to akumatize her. she's way too clever and strong and interesting to pass up. he's gotta get that girl on team papillion!

the school body contacts marinette's parents eventually, asking about her weird personality shift. adrien was nice enough to provide that marinette joined the fencing club with kagami and a lot of her bruises and scuffs are just from her clumsiness, and alya complains about marinette talking to anansi for boxing classes but won't talk to her, so that explains her knuckle-bandages and her stiffness... but that doesnt explain why she isn't talking to alya in the first place, and stuff like that.

however, the question is very important to get the right answer, and they don't ask "hey, how is marinette? did something happen? is she okay at home?"

what bustier asks marinette's parents is, "does hawkmoth's akuma have anything to do with marinette's mood change?" to which her parents say "explain???" and bustier gets to elaborate ohhh well hawkmoth has been targeting your daughter! in class. visibly! several times.

so sabine and tom reply 'well obviously that's the cause of her mood change.'

and bustier thinks, drawing her own conclusions, oh! so hawkmoth focusing on her started outside of class! that's why her mood dropped so badly! im sure once ladybug and chat noir defeat him, marinette will go back to acting normal :)

essentially... the school thinks hawkmoth's harassment started at home, and the dupain-cheng's think it started at school, and they both think that's the reason her mood has shifted, and they're not exactly wrong but they're not right, either.

marinette's grades are perfect though, since she's trying to build a strong personality against hawkmoth's sus ideas about her identity, so the teachers cant complain. they just sort of... give her some space. and ask her privately if she needs like... a nurse's note for her latest clumsy injuries.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Risk (Shadowmoth's Final Attack – Part 1)

Well, here we are. After a year of reviews, we've made it to the season finale. As such, I feel like I should reflect on this occasion. Now, was it a bold idea to start writing detailed reviews of the fourth season of Miraculous Ladybug? Yes. Have I regretted spending some of my free time sitting through some awful episodes of the same TV show? Yes. If I could, would I do it all over again? I'll... get back to you on that last one.

For now, let's get into the twenty-fifth (chronologically the twenty-fifth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season, and the first part of the season finale: Risk

We start off after an Akuma attack, with Ladybug, Cat Noir, Carapace, Ryuko, Viperion, King Monkey, Pigella, and Purple Tigress meeting up to celebrate. Now, stop me if you've heard this before. The temp heroes' Miraculous all start to go off, Ladybug tells them to find a safe place to detransform so she can collect them, Cat Noir asks to come along, Ladybug says no, and Cat Noir whines about how he's important too.

(Because the universe hates me, yet again, I have to rely on/suffer through the English dub for these last two episodes, so sorry for the lack of screenshots)

Cat Noir: I know, I know. Only the Guardian knows the identities of the Miraculous holders, and Cat Noir, despite being the first and most amazing team member of all is now just a holder like any other.

Ladybug: Yeah, but you'll always be my favorite!

Believe me, I'll get to this later.

We see Rena Furtive keeping lookout on a building so all the temp heroes are alone, an interesting idea for her new support role. You know, it would have been nice to get more scenes like this instead of not showing her at all after her debut in “Rocketear”. After retrieving the Miraculous, Marinette and Alya meet up and decide to go to a movie, United Heroez: The Final End Fight. I'm guessing Majestia dies using the Endless Mitten to wipe out Tanhoss and his army.

We cut to Gabriel talking to Emilie's body yet again, saying how after four seasons, he's still failed to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous, claiming that “He's not worthy of their love!”, because I'm guessing he assumes Emilie would be perfectly fine with all the lives he's endangered in her name. In his anger, Gabriel accidentally cracks the stasis pod containing Emilie, but it doesn't go anywhere. Nathalie (who is back in bed even though she was shown to be recovering in Kuro Neko) then talks with him about the stalemate they and Ladybug's team are currently in, and after mentioning that using the broken Peacock Miraculous was a risk she was willing to take, Gabriel gets an idea.

Gabriel transforms into Shadowmoth and searches for a new victim, showing that the process is kind of like an evil sonar that picks up on emotions across the city.

It's a pretty cool visual, and it makes a lot of sense. Shadowmoth doesn't choose the first person to get upset every day. He searches for candidates whose emotions he thinks would make strong Akumas with. Shadowmoth finds a kid named Froggy who wants to ride his bike without a helmet or training wheels, and akumatizes him into Risk.

Risk has a pretty cute design. I like the frog theme, and the bike looks nice. I like how Shadowmoth finally thought of creating an Akuma that isn't meant to attract attention. Like his name implies, his powers relate to forcing people to take risks, thanks to these little green orbs he creates while riding his bike across the city and giving them markings that compel them to do things they wouldn't normally do, and ask the serious questions like “Why ARE there so many songs about rainbows, and what's on the other side?”. Though admittedly, it's basically just Simpleman's powers all over again, so there's not much I can really say there, other than that it makes more sense here than it did in “Simpleman”.

Overnight, almost everyone in Paris is marked by Risk's song, including Marinette and Adrien. The next morning, Adrien wakes up, and is told by Nathalie to meet his father in his study to discuss a new ad campaign, where we see just how dangerous Risk is, because his powers actually made Adrien grow a pair.

Adrien: I've had it, Plagg! I'm tired of photos and ads! I don't wanna be a model for my father's brand anymore! I just wanna be a son, and be able to have breakfast with him just once! I'm gonna go talk to him.

Plagg: You do realize that your father will take this very badly, right?

Adrien: I'm willing to take that risk!

Because only an Akuma specifically designed to make people act more reckless is what gives Adrien the courage to stand up to his father. It's not like this could have been the pinnacle of a character arc where he starts to become more of his own person, right? And even then, just one order from Gabriel is enough to make him go back to cowering. It's not made clear if this is the result of Gabriel ordering him through the ring or not, but either way, I'm not sure how this affects Risk's influence on Adrien.

Much like with “Heroes' Day” and the New York Special, Gabriel comes up with a plan to keep Adrien safe by making sure he isn't anywhere near Paris. His cover is that Adrien and Lila will star in a new perfume commercial about a boy and girl who travel around the world searching for each other before meeting up on the Eiffel tower and melting together and becoming the perfume bottle, which is surprisingly tame for a French perfume ad. Gabriel wants this to be filmed in different locations as opposed to simply using green screens and special effects, meaning that Adrien will be forced to go around the world with Lila for at least several months. Bob's protests about how much of a financial nightmare this would be are ignored, and despite being under the influence of an Akuma that makes him take more risks, Adrien still doesn't stand up to his father.

The weirdest part is that Adrien and Lila are going to leave that afternoon. Gabriel literally just came up with his latest plan last night, yet he managed to plan an entire perfume ad, contacted people around the world, got the permission of Lila's mom, and booked plane tickets in just one night? I know this is an incredibly minor nitpick, but why did the writers have to do all this just to get Adrien out of Paris, and remind the audience Lila exists?

Marinette is naturally horrified that Adrien is going to spend time with Lila, and while everyone else is happy to see him go around the world, Tikki claims that the reason Marinette notices how miserable he looks is “Because she loves him”. Marinette goes to talk to Adrien, where he vents his true feelings to her thanks to Risk.

Adrien: If only you knew how sick I am of all of it, the photos, the film shoots, all these people fawning over me who don't even know me! These ads that don't make any sense? And now I'm expected to just leave my friends and travel to the end of the world for I don't know how long, with Lila?

Marinette: Why don't you tell them all that you don't wanna do this?

Adrien: No one would understand my complaining. They all think it's amazing what's happening to me.

Marinette: I understand you.

Adrien: Well, you're the only one.

Marinette: You've gotta talk to your father, Adrien.

Adrien: I've tried but I can't. I don't know why. He's my father, though, I love him! I know he loves me! It's all so... frustrating! Has there ever been something you wanted to tell someone but you just couldn't do it, as if some kind of invisible force was holding you back?

“See? SEE? Look at how made for each other these two are now that they’re actually having a conversation!”

And I think now's as good of a time as any to talk about my problem with this conflict, and the way Adrien has been written for the entire series.

Since day one, Adrien has always been portrayed as this timid rich guy who isn't able to stand up to his controlling father, so someone always has to fight his battles for him. Adrien can't have a birthday party? Nino has to be the one to try and convince Gabriel to let him have one (The Bubbler). Adrien is pulled out from school after being accused of taking an important book? Marinette has to risk her future in fashion by taking blame for stealing the book so Adrien can go back to school (The Collector). Adrien is visibly uncomfortable around people like Lila? Marinette has to try to stop Lila from violating Adrien's personal space on her own (Oni-Chan). Adrien feels he isn't getting enough credit as a superhero and decides to ditch his Miraculous? Plagg has to explain to Marinette why this is all her fault (Kuro Neko).

For one of the two characters the show is named after, Adrien barely has any agency in the plot. When he isn't complaining about how much his life sucks, other people need to help him stand up for himself or do things for him. Yes, you could argue that this is a more realistic depiction of a victim of emotional abuse, but other than the occasional line about how controlling Gabriel is, nobody ever acknowledges how much this could affect Adrien mentally and why it's so hard for him to stand up to his father. Instead, whenever Adrien talks about how so many parts of his life have been predetermined, he keeps trying to convince the audience that Gabriel loves him, as if we're just supposed to ignore what he did to his son in “Cat Blanc” and “Ephemeral”. Adrien never even thinks about standing up for himself in his civilian life, and after four seasons, what gives him the drive to try and be more vocal about how unhappy he is with his life? The support of all his friends? The extra confidence he's gained from his time as Cat Noir? An event like Gabriel's commercial pushing him too far? Nope! Instead, an Akuma with the power to magically force people to take risks is the sole reason why Adrien is only now starting to protest his father's demands.

And even then, despite Risk's powers literally forcing people to take more risks in their lives, Adrien still can't stand up to Gabriel, much less tell the friends he supposedly cares so much about how he feels, so Marinette has to convince everyone else how unhappy Adrien really is, because the plot wants to make it seem like Marinette is the only one who really gets Adrien.

And putting aside the problem this plotline represents, the idea to try and give both sides (in this case, Marinette and Nino/Alya in the next scene) a point in whether Adrien going around the world is a good thing or not doesn't work because A) We know Adrien isn't happy, and he's already tried protesting this arrangement, and B) Adrien can't leave Paris because he's Cat Noir, and earlier episodes (Ephemeral, Kuro Neko) have reminded the audience that Cat Noir, and by extension, the power of the Cat Miraculous, is very important, and can be crucial to defeating Akumas.

At least, that second point should be important, but even though a big part of the New York Special was how screwed Paris was because of Cat Noir's absence, Adrien's only gripe with this trip is just being forced to go around the world without his friends and only Lila to keep him company. And yes, that does suck, but Adrien doesn't stop to consider how this could affect Paris, and doesn't even try to explain this to Ladybug when Ladybug explained she was going away in the New York Special. Hell, for some reason, Tikki keeps protesting Marinette wanting to keep Adrien in Paris when she knows he's Cat Noir (The Dark Owl), and therefore, should make sure he should stay there to help Ladybug.

Before he leaves school to head on his trip, Marinette tries to talk to Adrien again, but thanks to  Chloe getting in the way as part of a plan she and Lila came up with, she can't do anything. I hoped you enjoyed those two lines of dialogue Chloe gets, because outside of a brief cameo towards the end of the next part, this is literally all she does in the finale. So once again, despite alluding to something in the penultimate episode of the season, a plotline that could have been interesting goes nowhere. Then again, at least they did something with Chloe unlike forgetting about Lila entirely at the end of Season 3.

Marinette tries to convince her friends that Adrien isn't happy, but Nino and Alya refuse to believe her, the former because he thinks it's good for Adrien, and the latter because she thinks Marinette is just jealous of Lila. You know, one of the things a lot of people were looking forward to when Alya found out Marinette's secret identity was how this would affect episodes with Lila, seeing how in her very first appearance, she lied about being best friends with Ladybug. Turns out the writers didn't care about that because how else could Alya blame Marinette for something? Sure, Marinette tried to reach out to Chloe and is now good friends with Kagami to the point where she tried to get her and Adrien back together, but to Alya, all she thinks is that Marinette is jealous of Lila. Good lord, this is going to inspire to many salt fics...

While Adrien starts packing for the trip, Felix suddenly arrives, wanting to help Adrien. Once again, Felix offers to take Adrien's place by dressing up as him so he can convince Gabriel to cancel the commercial. Oh my God, we get it, writers! Felix was the first draft for Adrien! You don't keep having to remind us whenever he's on screen! But, shock of all shocks, Felix's real plan was to investigate Gabriel again, finding out that he's Shadowmoth (he was previously thrown off in his last episode) before discovering Emilie's body.

Okay, why do the writers only use Felix for things that Adrien himself should be doing? In his first appearance, he confronted Gabriel and tried to get Adrien to stand up to him, in his next appearance, he suspects Gabriel of being a supervillain, and now, he's the one to find out about Emilie in an episode that doesn't get undone. It makes Felix feel less like a character, and more a way to progress the plot in ways that don't force Adrien to do anything, like learn Shadowmoth's identity, because that way, they can keep the status quo for the two leads the same as it's been since Season 1.

Gabriel, worrying his plan might go wrong, decides to give Nathalie his wedding ring before he goes into battle. Felix, still disguised as Adrien, tries to tell Gabriel he doesn't want to go on the trip, but while Gabriel orders him to listen to him, he remembers he doesn't have the ring... but then Nathalie gives an order, and Felix obeys, giving us even more evidence that both Felix and Adrien are Sentimonsters.

I've already gone over my problems with this idea in my “Ephemeral” review, but recently, I've realized that there are even more plotholes regarding this revelation and how this contradicts previous episodes.

First, when Gabriel suspected Adrien of being Cat Noir in “Gorizilla”, why couldn't he just order him to give him the ring or transform to prove his theory instead of the plan he went with instead?

Second, if Adrien is a Sentimonster, why wasn't he driven out of control when he was hit by a Cataclysm in “Miraculer”? The other Sentimonsters hit by Cataclysm were driven berserk (Reflekdoll, Truth, Queen Banana, Kuro Neko), so why not him?

Third, if Gabriel wanted Adrien to join his side in “Cat Blanc”, why did he struggle to control him while akumatizing him? When he akumatized Adrien into Ephemeral, a single order using the ring was enough to break his will, so why did Cat Blanc fight back and destroy the world when all Gabriel had to do was order him to obey him?

And fourth, if Felix is a Sentimonster, why couldn't Gabriel use the other ring to order Felix to give him Emilie's ring back? All he had to do was call Felix, give him the order, and Felix would have no choice but to comply.

Do you see why this single plot twist contradicts so much and raises so many problems with the show?

Back in Marinette's room, she follows up on that crap about Adrien being a helpless prince that was started in “Gabriel Agreste”, and despite Tikki's protests against using her powers for personal gain, Marinette transforms into Ladybug to save him. Pretty rich that the show wants to act like Ladybug can't do anything selfish when for the past four seasons, Adrien has viewed being Cat Noir as a way to get out of his responsibilities, when the most Marinette has really used her own powers for her own personal benefit was to get to a social gathering in “Timebreaker”, and to deliver Adrien's hat in “Cat Blanc”, and she was blamed for causing the apocalypse in the latter.

Meanwhile, Adrien, dressed as Felix, is waiting to get a phone call from his cousin about his progress, when he gets a call from Kagami.

Kagami: Adrien, I saw you on TV this morning, and I know that you don't want to leave. Once again, you let your father decide for you! How long are you going to remain his puppet, Adrien?

Adrien: But... my cousin is gonna talk to him, and...

Kagami: This just keeps getting better. You're letting your cousin do things for you now? Who's pulling the strings of your life? Your cousin? Your father? Me, when we were together? It's never YOU! You're only good at doing what people tell you to do! Dare to cut your strings, Adrien!*pauses for a moment and frowns* Forgive me if I hurt you.

I can't begin to describe the huge grin I had on my face watching this scene. After so many episodes where all Adrien does is complain about how hard his life is while needing other people to do the hard work for him as a civilian and as a superhero, hearing Kagami chew Adrien out for his indecisiveness is unironically the most satisfying thing I've seen all season.

Admittedly, once the ecstasy wore off, I did have some problems with the placement of this scene. Like Chloe, this is the only scene Kagami gets in either part of the finale, not counting her time as Ryuko, and it has no real foreshadowing. Maybe if there was an earlier scene where Kagami saw the news report, I'd find it to be more understandable, but here, it feels like it was only there because Kagami is the only character besides Plagg to tell Adrien to actually do stuff he wants to do. I think this would have worked more if this was the end result of a subplot where Kagami slowly started to rebuild her trust in Adrien, and her rant is meant to be a parallel to when Adrien couldn't be honest with Kagami in “Lies” to show Adrien has grown beyond his hesitance to express how he really feels about the situation with his father. In addition, it's not made clear if it's the result of Risk's powers or not, so we don't know how genuine Kagami's anger towards Adrien is here. But hey, either way, we finally have someone yelling at Adrien to stop being a pushover for once in his life, so I'll take it.

Adrien texts Felix to let him know he's on the way, but he deletes the message, presumably because he's still forced to follow Nathalie's orders. At the train station, Ladybug tries to convince “Adrien” not to leave, but he can't go through with it. Once the train leaves, Gabriel heads to the Eiffel Tower and transforms into Shadowmoth, sending out an Amok and through his cane, creates the Sentimonster, Strikeback.

Strikeback just looks plain awesome, what else can I say? The giant imposing look, the spikes and armor that make him look ready for combat, and the expressionless face that just highlight how inhuman it looks, and lacks the bright and colorful designs of the previous Sentimonsters. I also love how Shadowmoth finally decided to be smart and create a Sentimonster that he isn't controlling through a coffee cup. I'll talk more about Strikeback's powers next time, as he doesn't do much for now.

Marinette initially gives up trying to stop “Adrien” from going, but then plans to use the Horse Miraculous to teleport to the train. Meanwhile, Adrien, motivated to not do what others tell him to do after Kagami told him to stand up to Gabriel, goes to confront Gabriel, but after his Risk mark acts up, he finds the same high-tech monocle Felix used to figure out Shadowmoth's lair that he dropped earlier. Just as he picks it up and wonders what it can do, he feels a tremor in the earth and turns around, ending the first part.

I'll skip the analysis for now, and save it for the end of the next part, “Strikeback”.

LINK TO PART 2

[pearl484-blog]

We really like the idea of Butterfly!Adrien and have 3 private stories about it because it allows one thing.

It takes advantage of Adrien's empathy and lets us use it to rip him apart.

One is Greyling, a vampiric Butterfly!Adrien who feeds off the akumas he and his father create. As such, he must feed off an akuma at least once a week or suffer a nasty withdrawal. He knows what he's doing is awful and tries to be the voice of reason with akumas, limiting their collateral damage whenever possible and attempting to "train" the Black Cat and Ladybug, knowing his defeat will likely mean his slow death. He cannot stop himself, but he hopes they can.

Examples of limiting the akuma include: Bubbler: holding a party using the entire class for Adrien and merely THREATENING to send the adilts sky high. Making a deal that if you see Gabriel, sure, go nuts. Calling the media on the party. (Problem: It's Adrien's party. How is he going to keep the Bubbler in check AND attend? Unsolved issue)

Mr. Pigeon: Using the pigeons to provide bird musicals, raising pigeon awareness. He'll stay indoors for this one, thanks.

Copycat: How about, instead of robbing the museum, we do interviews on the Ladyblog about you acting like a jerk and trash talking Ladybug? Once its on the internet, it's forever! (Problem: Chat is not Adrien. Why is there Copycat?)

Rogercop: Introduce maximum punishment sentances. Oh, this guys à handful.

Etc

As you can tell, there were main problems secret identity wise. I also struggled with a replacement Chat Noir and setting up a straightforward arc covering the vampirism and Adrien's decision to risk death or a life worse than death to get away from Gabriel and Nathalie, despite being complicit in their crimes and benefitting from them by feeding off akumas. I especially wanted to explore Adrien as an abuse victim while he was dependent on Gabriel's crimes as he could not satiate his magical hunger completely by himself. He's not strong enough to keep up that rate.

~*~

Agreste/Ephemeral: Post season 3: Adrien discovers his father's secret identity and is locked away from the rest of the world and slowly psychically taken apart using sentimonsters to try to get him on their side. After Gabriel realizes that Adrien is Chat Noir, he steals his memories to try to sift for them and find clues about Ladybug and where Chat Noir's missing Miraculous is (he flushed it down the toilet) After being stripped of his memories, morality, love for Ladybug, etc.

Nooroo manipulates him to start sneaking away from Gabriel and try to slowly piece himself back together using excess energy drawn from akumas.

While he's away, he meets Nino, whom he's drawn to despite not recognizing him. He decides that Nino will be one of his next akumas, only to be disappointed when Nino rejects his gifts and tries to convince him that it's a bad thing, and he needs to betray Hawk Moth.

Nino, meanwhile has been grieving Adrien and is shocked when he finds a Butterfly named Agreste is stalking him. And it's completely obvious it's Adrien. Adrien is so badly broken he doesn't really understand secret identities very well and sucks at hiding it.

Agreste is under the belief that helping akumas is good. He's giving them magic so they can fix their problems. Ladybug and her group of heroes just keep attacking them and trying to take axay their power before they can fix things.

Hawkmoth, under this system, is forced to reduce casualties and collateral damage and Agreste frequently targets people with more "sympathic" motives.

For example, he wants to help Nino find his missing friend because that makes Nino very sad. But Nino has annoyingly great emotional control because he stubbornly gets it under control everytime Agreste appears to offer it to him.

Agreste creates the Gang of Secrets (new name pending) because he understands that their friend is sad and parties make people happy. Yet he frequently misses important information and flips when Lady Wifi recognizes him as Adrien while the two are picking up pizzas together and she tries to unmask him and reveal the truth. He mistakes her as a rabid fangirl trying to kidnap him and tries to kick her out.

At first, Nino and Agreste keep their relationship secret. Agreste trying to tempt Nino to accept his akuma and find his friend, looking after his newest pet project as he's clearly determined to sabotage himself.

Nino is determined to gain Adrien's trust again and get him to betray Hawk Moth and Mayura, who Adrien will do anything to protect as they're all he has.

Alya starts getting secretive because she remembers enough from her akumatization to know she found Adrien, but something went wrong, but its hazy and the investigation into Adrien's disappearance keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Nino, not knowing anything since Alya doesn't want him to do anything rash for his best bro and Gabriel may have possibly killed Émilie, gets suspicious of Alya’s withdrawal and mentions it to Agreste.

Agreste follows her and discovers "she's cheating on Nino" and tells Nino after he "took care of it". Nino doesn't want to know what Agreste did, but in all actuality, he just stole her Miraculous so she couldn't see her side piece anymore, some hero Turtle or whatever.

Nino tries to confront Alya, and gets akumatized. Afterwards, Agreste is jealous and upset, going to confront Nino that night and discovering he's back with Alya.

Nino tries to introduce Agreste, but Adrien cuts him off, saying his name is Ephemeral. He worls for Hawk Moth and Alya needs to go, home wrecker. Revealing that on some level he knew what he was doing when he introduced himself as Agreste.

Ephemeral rushes off and akumatizes Max to help him with a project so Agreste can take his mind off things and focus on the feeling of satisfaction through their connection.

Max, taking advantage of Markov being there recording, gets Ephemeral to admit that he's having trouble with one of his friends. The only person he felt he could be himself around. He admits that Ephemeral is the name his father gave him, but it doesn't really feel right. Something feels off, like it's missing, like it was taken from him.

He's scared and angry and hurt because no one's listening to him. No one wants to. He's afraid if he keeps pushing, he'll lose something else.

Ephemeral remembers that he didn't used to be like this. But sometimes, he's afraid those memories are just some stupid fantasy he's creating to escape from reality.

Max tries to comfort him.

Something something something

The team breaks into Gabriel’s quarters and find the missing pieces of Adrien handing them back to him.

Problems include what happened to Plagg and the Black Cat Ring and why does no one immediately suspect Gabriel is Hawk Moth, especially once Agreste/Ephemeral really starts moving around?

~*~

Luna Moth: Adrien Agreste is desperate to please his father, Hawk Moth. Unbeknownst to him, he's not an accomplice. He's a hostage.

This is a work in progress which will be posted eventually.

Feel free to take these ideas and use them as inspiration for your own fics, but do not use them for AI. Ephemeral/Agreste and Greyling are all but abandoned.

Luna Moth is proving to be a fight, but seriously, the initial description is cool enough and vague enough that you'll never get what I'm doing.

Edit: 9/29 adding a read more line. Whoops.

Scenario- Ladybug and Chat Noir defeat the current Butterfly villain and take the Butterfly Miraculous, but then a new contender attacks them and manages to steal the Black Cat Miraculous. So then Adrien takes the Butterfly Miraculous so he can use it to still help in the fight even without his usual Miraculous. Then we have the whole next season with Adrien use the Butterfly to help people solve their problems and aid Ladybug in fighting the Black Cat villain (or possibly their accomplices) who wants to steal all of the other Miraculouses.

Could work!

[sasuhinasno1fan]

A wish for a different life - Adrien AUGreste Day 7

Shorter and in Luka’s POV. For the most part the story’s been in Adrien’s and I don’t really write a whole lot in Luka’s POV so it felt good to practise. I wanted to get into a whole discussion of when Chat Noir - or Catseye in this case - was really important when it came to winning, but I felt like a lot of the main point came down to how Chat felt when he was considered not important enough and I feel like that always affected Adrien even if he wouldn’t say much about it, which is why he’ll say it now. I’m sure people can give whole discussions on how Chat is important in fights. Please do.

Partners

“It’s so stupid! Like really, how can she think that’s correct? She’s not a sidekick!”

Luka bit down a smile as Adrien ranted away. He’d bumped into him on his way home after school as Adrien needed to pick up an order of fabric. Said package was sitting in the basket on his bike as he listened to Adrien. Turns out that Alya had posted her video from the Captain Hardrock fight and Adrien had learned how people classify their heroes. He wasn’t very happy to learn they thought Catseye as Scarlet Bug’s sidekick.

“I did some research. Not counting Alya’s Scarlet Bug heavy blog – Scarletblog really? – I’ve found that there are a number of Akumas that would have ended differently if Catseye wasn’t there. In fact, some that took longer without her there.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.” Luka mentioned.

“Of course, I have. Maybe it’s because of all the magical girl animes I watch, but none of them have sidekicks, that aren’t fully animals. The people they fight with though, those are their partners. Just like Catseye is to Scarlet Bug. In fact, I’m sure if I track this guy down, he’ll agree with me.”

Luka couldn’t help but laugh at how confident Adrien sounded.

“Ok, first off, isn’t it true that without her Cataclysm it’s almost impossible to break the akumatized item?”

“Yes, so I’ve heard.”

“Ok, Timebreaker? Only way Scarlet Bug managed to win that was by tricking Timebreaker into going back in time. Still needed Catseye to keep them busy and break the skates. Marinette said when Nathaniel was turned into Evillustrator, it was Catseye who mainly saved her. When she was missing when Juleka got akumatized, didn’t it take so much longer to get the item?”

“That it did.”

He listened as Adrien continued giving a full rundown on times where Catseye had been more the hero or when Scarlet Bug was at a loss without her. Luka had heard a fair few people turn their nose up at both heroes but more so Catseye, thinking her useless when Scarlet Bug fixed everything. But most didn’t seem to realise that the two needed each other to work. Adrien hadn’t been in Paris that long, it was 2 months already, but here he was giving example after example as to why Catseye was important.

“Adrien, I didn’t want to interrupt, but did you want to get ice cream while you explain more?”

The annoyed expression that had been on the Italian teen’s face since he bumped into him dropped and brightened up into that sunshine smile. “Sure!”

They found Andre’s cart and Luka held the cone as Adrien would sweep a scoop every now and then during his explanations.

“It’s not just the fights and her skills, though her focusing on the victims while Scarlet bug deals with the media is probably a massive plus. Her ears are like Inuyasha ears, you wanna touch them.”

“I hear she purrs too.” Luka said, taking the spoon to have his own bite.

“Ok, yes. She just genuinely approachable. No offense to Scarlet Bug, yes, he saved my life, but I feel like time spend with Catseye would be calming.”

“For someone who doesn’t know a whole lot about them, you’ve got some pretty strong opinions.”

Adrien licked his lips from his recent mouthful. “In New York, you know pretty much every hero’s identity. Some still keep quite because of privacy issues but that’s mostly to the public. We don’t know much about them. they keep a distance from the people they risk their lives to save to keep them safe. Hawkmoth seems to take advantage of anyone with dark feelings. Both Scarlet Bug and Catseye fight like hell to help them. why does the ability to fix everything make one better than the other? And ok, this might be the anime nerd talking, but all those magical hero stuff have something in common, a mentor who has more knowledge of what they can do. I read Alya’s post about Scarlet Bug being part of a line of themed heroes. People seem to forget black cats used to mean good luck, that they still do. What if their mentor focuses more on what everyone else thinks and not what it was supposed to be? I mean, why a ladybug and a cat? Why those two? Clearly, it’s for a reason and if people start ignoring why they’re partners, a team, not a hero and his sidekick, I think it’ll mess up everything. If people feel like they aren’t wanted, they’ll pull away and things can get worse. What if Hawkmoth manages to akumatize Catseye if she starts to feel that way?”

Luka stared at Adrien, who truly looked concerned and scared about what could happen to Catseye. Someone who didn’t know them very well but worried so much about how something as small as being called a sidekick as opposed to a partner could affect someone. Not for his own safety but for the safety of someone else.

“Adrien? If they do have a mentor or a guardian, I think you’d be way better suited. For you to not know a lot but still be worried and care, that says a lot about you. you should probably explain this to Alya, see if you can’t get her on your side. I’m sure once people hear what you have to say, they’ll start to see different.”

“You think so?”

“I really do. You’re right, Paris should remember that the two are partners. When missing the other, they don’t work as efficiently and just like they take care of them, they should try and extend the same to the heroes, even if it’s just the little things.”

“Good. Ok, halfway through I was wondering if I was sounding like one of those ‘it’s not accurate’ antis at conventions.”

Luka didn’t really know what that meant but he laughed anyway. “I think you made valid points if that’s what your asking. want the last bite?” he asked, holding the cone. He let Adrien eat it out of his hand, taking note of his red ears as he tried acting cool. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”