#Ladynoir conflict salt

[familyagrestefanblog]

The existence of the Ox miraculous is such an unnecessary ugly detail when you think about Ladynoir and how Chat Noir served as the punching bag and scapegoat for Ladybug, Alya as Marinette's actual partner in season 4, and the whole team in every single way pre-s5

The Ox gives the power of immunity even against any other Miraculous power. One would think with Adrichat's self-harming tendencies that canon had Marinette make entirely about herself because "they're haunting her so much", and her still narratively entirely unchallenged tendency of leaving Chat Noir behind on the battle field as sacrifice or bait to possibly have whatever the hell done to him so she can be save and sound while she and everyone else can look and be cool on his expense

With all that, one would have thought that if Canon Marinette truly loved Chat Noir "sooooooo much" and is oh so haunted by his self-harming behavior and him always getting hurt so she sidelined him "for his own good"

Then how come at no point did Marinette do the actually caring thing by giving Chat Noir the Ox miraculous since he's ALWAYS left behind BY HER so she can leave the battle field and execute her plans with the others save and soundly? If her Chaton's well-being was oh so important to her and it always "pained her so much" to see him getting hurt then why was the Ox only used 2 insignificant times by Ivan at the end of season 4 when it could have saved Chat Noir ALOT of suffering all the way through?

Or the turtle. Or ANY OTHER Miraculous for that matter?

Why was Alya getting two miraculous in Hack-San perfectly fine with Marinette but heaven forbid Marinette is actually expected to ACT like she gives a damn about Chat Noir's well-being as his leader, guardian, partner, and friend and not just the show having her claim superficial words that hardly have anything to back them up once they actually have to mean something?

Its almost as if Canon inherently doubled down on having Marinette be the kind of leader who will only do things in a way that primarily benefit HER while everything else gets swept under the rug because she isn't maliciously intentioned and then never brought up again. And unfortunately it was her who was written to prioritize making an unnecessary team of 18 miraculous holders no one ever asked of her to form (Su-Han even told her NOT to give out the miraculous like candy),

so Marinette was just made to not consider Chat Noir either at all or simply not as worthy enough of any kind of consideration in her entire leadership/ guardianship or actual safety, support, or ANY KIND of resource since that wouldn't be narratively about her, now would it?

She can't have Chat have the Ox because she might need Ivan as Ox in 4 months and she doesn't want to have to ask Chat to get it back or end up NOT getting to use this ONE other Miraculous out of a whole ass box, because that would involve a basic ass conversation Marinette can't have apparently or her not getting to use all of the miraculous however she pleases at any given point

The horror. Now she would have only 14 miraculous to work with!

As per usual, count me fucking unimpressed by Marinette's writing. The negligence towards Chat Noir on even the most basic level is insane and she was declared the epitome of leadership and kindness for this.

Cool that Marinette already decided in her head that Ivan is suitable for the Ox miraculous and he should get it in future, but Chat Noir needing help and protection wasn't some theoretical case, it constantly happened right in front of her eyes and even by her own freaking orders too because she never thinks of him in ANYTHING and the show glorified the hell out of her as leader for doing all that

Why is looking into ANY detail only making Marinette's side of Ladynoir so much worse ever since season 4? There is no escaping this! Just don't add the Ox with this power or actually have Marinette be a good leader towards Chat Noir. But noooooooooo.

[familyagrestefanblog]

Would you believe me when I tell you that this line is 1000x worse in the French original?

Cause it is:

Marinette is apparently so unwilling and desperate to have been nothing else but the flawless and benevolent leader she decided that she is, that in the French original she was written to be borderline delusional about Chat's position in her team.

Her saying that "her not always calling on him not meaning that she doesnt need him at all" is straight up out here having Marinette settle the Ladynoir conflict in nothing but her favor by looking into Chat Noir's eyes and expecting gratitude for pretending like he's for real a temp hero she just unintentionally didnt call upon for a while.

And she's doing that when she at the beginning of the episode literally didnt react for a longer period of time in any responsible way to Chat Noir not showing up anymore. It's a consistent thing in "Kuro Neko" that Marinette makes herself out to be such a kind leader and soul for basically "allowing" Chat Noir to take a break, when literally nothing of the sort happened.

She wasnt asked for permission by Chat Noir to get a break. He didnt let her know that he's extremely busy currently and therefore might not be able to come to the battles like in "Ephemeral" (where Marinette gave 0 fucks about WHY Chat Noir couldnt make it, anyway. She just cut him off when he wanted to explain on the phone because it's irrelevant to her), she wasnt asked for permission by the universe if she authorizes something having happened to Chat Noir as civilian, and Hawkmoth doesnt have to ask for her permission either to have caught Chat Noir behind her back (which is literally what happened in "Ephemeral" too)

Non of the things that Marinette canonically tells herself she did or she's owed by Chat Noir and the universe were in anyway true or even rational to expect to be treated as true.

And yet the show decided to have her settle the Ladynoir conflict in nothing but her favor by Chat Noir having to take all the blame, thank her, and accept being treated like her favorite pile of dirt because she declared herself above any kind of effort or basic moral standards as his leader, guardian, partner, and friend.

She is literally LYING in his face with a smile by claiming that her not always CALLING upon him doesnt mean she doesnt mean she doesnt want him around at all. When in reality she doesnt fucking call upon him AT ALL since he has been a full time miraculous holder since day 1 and she as the flawless and divine leader she demands to be treated as at that point should be aware of that!

The vagueness of these words are so disgusting because they are just flexible enough that Adrichat can be written to not call her out for her blatantly twisting reality to declare herself flawless on his expense, because you can stretch their meaning into demanding that she meant by "calling upon him" that she doesnt always need him to do something when he's around.

Only that that is so obviously NOT what these words mean, and especially not in the given context. She went above and beyond throughout the episode to justify in every way possible why she's flawless and KIND for not reacting in any responsible way to Chat Noir not showing up anymore

and ended the episode by basically audaciously looking into Chat Noir's eyes and treating his prior absence (and therefore her massive failure to give a rat's ass about his safety and life) as if the most she did wrong was not giving him his miraculous every time like the "other" temp heros because she was so stressed™ and busy™ that she forgot™ to give him the "special treatment" "that she doent owe™ him in the first place anyway".

May I also remind you all that this is the same episode where Marinette lets a random Cat Charming she met 10 minutes ago - and who should have no fucking opinion on ANY of this from her perspective - tell her that she has been the most amazing and flawless person ever, that she did nothing wrong, Chat's just a too sensitive and ungrateful of a bitch, while she "treats everyone equally" (something Marinette KNOWS isnt true. Alya was treated LEAGUES better than everyone else, including Chat Noir bc Marinette doesnt think he's worth any effort apparently, which is still true in s5 in every way that actually MATTERS) so the fair thing is HERSELF being pampered and worshiped by him now. All while he insulted and disregarded Chat Noir who Cat Charming never once met, but Marinette didnt care about that whatsoever.

'Princess Justice' my ASS.

Apparently, any random DIPSHIT can walk up to her and tell her whatever she wants to hear and she'll just go with it as long as she's validated in her feelings, lies and excuses (wow, would you look at that, the narrative made Marinette Lila 2.0)

This is also the same episode where Marinette initially says that she's unfortunately so BLAMELESS in Chat Noir's pain that she couldnt BARE give him back his miraculous because there would be nothing blameless little her could do to prevent him from being in the same position again that hurt him so much :'(

Only for her to throw that entirely out of the window at the end and just abused her guardian position to order Chat Noir to return without any indicator that he regrets having left in the first place. Only to blame EVERYTHING on him, make him settle for deserving NOTHING and that she doesnt owe him any consideration, support, help, resources, nothing. Considering she literally ignored his existence when they met up until he took all the blame upon himself so she had to take non.

But HE should be grateful that she even has the heart to want him back since she makes it very clear that HE should blame himself for EVERYTHING. Since anything but that would have required a fraction of actual accountability, and she couldn't have that apparently.

Not to mention the fact that Marinette genuinely thought for a while that Kuro Neko was Chat Noir akumatized as a civilian and not at any point in the whole episode - scratch that, the whole rest of the SHOW - put together that this would have meant that Hawkmoth fucking FOUND CHAT NOIR.

Instead, Marinette was canonically too busy throwing a pitty party for herself because she for real was written to think that she herself and her poor guardianship are the biggest victims in this whole scenario.

She was UPSET that it wasnt him! There was no relief that Chat Noir was spared that fate because he was never even relevant enough in her head to possibly having noticed by then that Chat being akumatized as civilian is BAD for more reasons than her having made a fucking mistake!

But nah, we NEVER get that. All Marinette is ever written to do in this episode was making clear to herself, Cat Walker, and the audience to understand that SHE is the biggest victim in the scenario of Chat Noir having been akumatized as civilian AND him having left out of hurt.

Or else she wouldn't have put her desire to have him back over his hurt feelings, his basic right to leave a situation he himself deems to hurtful to stay in because he can make his own DECISIONS and wasn't supposed to be her SLAVE (which Marinette canonically sure acts like HE OWES HER because she can't be asked to self-reflect), and then literally made him take the blame for everything and accept that he OWES her to put up with every pain that's inflicted upon him because Ladybug refused to settle for anything less than EVERYTHING she does to him being the kindest and most justified things anyone has ever done.

By the end of "Kuro Neko" there sure was nothing left of Marinette oh so loving intention of not wanting to put Chat Noir in the same painful position. It's almost like she pulled that out of her ass because she needed an excuse towards Plagg for why she's BLAMELESS, but the moment it actually mattered all she cared about was her getting her PET back

(because that's all she treated him as. A HUMAN has the right to leave, but a PET can be forced back which Marinette does in both Kuro Neko AND Kwamis Choice without a single shit being given if he WANTS to return, if he CAN and what happened. She doesn't even ask PLAGG in the later whatsoever, she just forces the ring back on Chat Noir without caring what made him do it. For all she knew, it had something to do with his guilt for cataclysming Monarque, which she btw as leader, guardian, and partner just completely refused to do her JOB towards him in any capacity. Literally, no shits GIVEN)

And, well, that didn't get any better in the rest of season 5 either. In season 5 she still sees no problem with not caring about Chat as a real person whatsoever beyond proofing Alya wrong in how "pure" her love for him is (while she herself is being emotionally taken care of by Alya who she still treats as her real partner she just can't be with as hero, while Marinette leaves Chat Noir all isolated and with no help or resources whatsoever. Remember, this is her being "kind" apparently. Since anything else would require acknowledging that Marinette is still scapegoating Chat Noir for her personal benefit and comfort. Take your pick.), and then in "Elation" she still considered his identity as so non-existent or simply irrelevant that she was willing to get akumatized, become his enemy and give Hawkmoth his identity herself because she was

*checks notes*

being romantically rejected by him ONCE.

An akumatization ADRICHAT had to prevent by completely disregarding the only boundaries he ever got to set with her in over 4 seasons - cause OF COURSE she didn't care about those because Maribug never accepted that SHE has to respect Chat and his boundaries too and not just make everything about herself by "deciding" what his boundaries and basic rights are however she pleases at any given moment to her personal benefit, which she's written to thinks she's owed as "morally sound feminism and leadership".

No SHIT she almost turned into his enemy the moment he didn't let her have her way with him however she wanted, that's all their dynamics have ever lead up to.

No SHIT she was already ready to give up her Miraculous before Plagg initiated his plan and never once cared if it was at least Scarabella again - after HACK-SAN - who Chat Noir will be meeting out of the blue, and who has to tell him that him having rejected her once lead to her immediately leaving and making his worst fear come true he literally told her about! She should be GLAD that he left, too, because her side is WORSE.

And definitely more points I just dont remember right now from on top of my head.

---

Conclusion: Anon, you are 100% valid for feeling stressed out by how that episode ended, how it was never fixed, and how Adrichat therefore then ended in the s5 finale in the only way such an awfully one-sided "partnership" could leave him ending up.

There's part of me that wishes you still in ml fandom because there's something that bothered me to no end about Kuro Neko episode in s4, about the whole episode in general but especially so about what Ladybug said at the end of it.

Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir.

I couldn't picked out why it's bothering me so much like it should be assuring because she means well, right? but it just make my anxiety skyrocketed?? Maybe it just my weird brain I don't know.

I suppose I'm in the Miraculous saltdom now. Almost everything I say qualifies as salt, but it's also peer support for the people who were let down by this show's retooling.

I think I might have said something about Kuro Neko at some point, because I was, like, still checking out what scenes the fandom posted about the most whenever a new episode dropped during season four. It's what made me realize that Miraculous is a subtanceless show that puts singular moments above having actually consistent themes or story arcs.

I think it was a shitpost about me getting New York Special flashbacks from that line from Marinette, because one of the several things about the New York Special that I have criticized was the fact that it places Cat Noir's usefulness to Ladybug over her care for him.

The thing that brings Cat Noir back to Ladybug in the New York Special wasn't her saying she cares about him, that she wants him around because he's important to her, it was her saying she needed him, that she couldn't be Ladybug without him. Rather than giving Cat Noir words of affirmation, Ladybug unintentionally pressures him with the fate of the world.

It made their reunion hug ring extremely hollow to me.

From what I've heard, Kuro Neko is basically just more of the same. Like, the only improvement is that she lessened the pressure, but it's still about her needing him and not her wanting him. Ladybug's words basically translate to: "you're not as essential as you used to be, but you quitting would still make this job needlessly hard for me," which still aren't words of affirmation.

This guy is her partner and she can't manage the bare minimum of emotional connection and vulnerability to tell him she likes him and wants him around.

No, I don't think you getting anxious about Ladybug pressuring her partner into sticking around over telling him how she feels about him is weird. It's a red flag.

[theerurishipper]

Ladynoir and (In)Equality

For me personally, the most important thing in any relationship is that both partners are equals in that dynamic. I think that's a reasonable expectation to have. And Ladynoir did fulfill that requirement for me in the first 3 seasons. Even though Ladybug did most of the leadership stuff by making the plans and directing Chat Noir on what to do, it was understood that this was a mutual agreement. They both understood what they were good at, and their dynamic evolved accordingly. Chat Noir was content to follow her lead and Ladybug was content to make the plans and direct Chat Noir.

Season 2 saw the introduction of the inequality that shattered this balanced dynamic between the two, and quite frankly the later seasons only made it worse. It started in Syren, as we all know, where Chat Noir first expressed his displeasure at being left out of the loop when Ladybug was privy to important information that was being kept from him. Of course, Master Fu arrived to barely smooth things over before the issue was dropped for the season and never brought up again. Their dynamic remained as it was, but the cracks began to form here.

The introduction of Ladybug being the Guardian in Season 4 changed this established dynamic, obviously, and Ladybug began to give the Miraculous out to other holders. Keeping Chat Noir out of the loop began to become her MO, and she effectively replaced him with Rena Furtive in all but name. The central conflict of the season was the cracks forming in their relationship because of her new responsibilities and her secret keeping. And the resolution to this, as stated in Kuro Neko and Risk, is that even if he's no longer her partner, she still likes him best.

Now, the previous Ladynoir dynamic was one of equality, where they knew their roles and acted upon them. They were equals, and Ladybug's leadership in their pair was an informal one, one that was mutually agreed upon by them. The introduction of the Guardian role for Ladybug changes this from a mutually agreed upon dynamic to one where Ladybug is, for all intents and purposes, his boss. She is officially his leader, in the sense that if she so wished, he would be obliged to hand his Miraculous over to her. In the sense that she would be well within her rights to replace him if she so desired (which she does do). She is his superior, and he is no more important than the other temporary holders, with the sole exception that he holds his Miraculous permanently (which has now been exacerbated by the fact that all of them are permanent holders now).

Chat Noir received a demotion for no fault of his own, which he did not want, and someone else was promoted to replace him in the position he once occupied. Rena Furtive is Ladybug's special partner. Chat Noir is not Rena Furtive's equal, and he is definitely not Ladybug's equal.

This is not about a woman making more money than a man. She isn't just more successful than him, and this isn't about him being insecure about her being better than him. The problem is that Ladybug is Chat Noir's direct superior, and she has power over him. She has the power to call him when she needs him, and if not him, she'll get someone else. She has the resources to figure out his identity without him being none the wiser. She has the power to replace him if she wishes. Far be it from him to allow her to lead of his own accord, now he is obliged to follow her orders. She has the power to control what he knows and how he acts, and she has the power to keep vital information from him.

None of this is inherently "bad." But when you look at it from the context of them being on a path to a romantic relationship with each other, that's where the problems begin. Two people in a relationship should not have a dynamic where one has so much power over the other. Ladybug has so much power that she is able to slide a third teammate into their partnership and slowly push him away from his role at her side. She, quite unfortunately, can and has abused his trust because she had the resources to do so. The only opportunity he had in Season 4 to make his own choices that were not dictated by Ladybug's rules was when he quit. The final takeaway from this Ladynoir conflict is that Chat Noir is her favorite subordinate now (because Rena Furtive has replaced him), and just because they aren't equals anymore doesn't mean she doesn't want him around.

And, no, this was not corrected in Season 5. Season 5 was a return to their original dynamic, not because Ladybug and Chat Noir worked around this new shift in their relationship to find a way to overcome this new power imbalance. It's because Ladybug's power was forcibly taken away from her by a third party, and the only reason Chat Noir is her special partner again is because there is no one else left. But the end of Season 5 sees everyone come back, as permanent holders no less, and Chat Noir is once again demoted to his role as "just another holder like any other."

With the establishment of the Ladybug and the Black Cat Miraculous as two halves of a duo, equals in power, you'd expect them to be, well, equals. Me being upset about the inequality of these characters isn't with regards to screentime, or my wish for Adrien to be the main character or anything. My wish is for Adrien to be a character of his own. My wish is for the show to stop promoting such unhealthy dynamics as cute and fine. If they had simply made Adrien's role out to be the love interest, if they had just literally made him Ken who is content with just being Barbie's trophy boyfriend from the very beginning, if that was all his role has ever been and was meant to be from the start, I wouldn't be complaining so much. But the one they reduced into the role of Marinette's prize, the one over whom she has so much power, is the abuse victim whose arc is about self-actualization. And it paints a very disturbing picture. That far be it from Chat Noir to expect any kind of equal treatment from Ladybug, he's going to have put aside any discomforts or issues he has with their relationship to settle for being her favorite by virtue of nostalgia.

And it's just... bad, on a narrative level. Despite its ambitious introduction of so many plot points, the focus of this show has always been its romance. The main narrative goal of the series is for Ladybug and Chat Noir to get together. So, when your narrative hinges on these two characters getting together, and you decide to introduce such a power dynamic into the mix, saying "I still like you," isn't the fix that it's cracked up to be. If they are supposed to be the relationship around which the show is built, Chat Noir should be Ladybug's special partner, he should be her equal and not just another holder whom she likes better than everyone else. Ladynoir's relationship is directly tied to their partnership, and their dynamic as partners is the basis for any future romantic relationship between them. Introducing such an inequality between them in their partnership does affect their ability to be able to get together, and not in a good way.

This isn't a bad plot point. I like Ladybug being the Guardian, I like that they didn't just brush off the fact that there would be some changes in their dynamic. What I dislike is the way it was resolved, with Ladybug essentially saying that they would never be equals but she still likes him. A power imbalance does not a healthy relationship make. Ladynoir do not have a relationship where they are both completely aware of everything they should know. Chat Noir really cannot do anything in their dynamic, because Ladybug has all the control over everything. It's Ladybug controlling this information and Chat Noir accepting that he'll never be treated the way he wants to be treated, because he's been conditioned to believe his feelings don't matter. And she never did end up correcting this, and the conflict as it is ended with him forgiving her for everything even though she never apologized, and accepting that this is how it's going to be.

And it's not good. This isn't the Ladynoir I signed up for, honestly. I signed up for the Ladybug who accepted Chat Noir unconditionally and the Chat Noir who supported Ladybug through everything. I did not sign up for Ladybug trying to pull a Gabe and Chat Noir only being her emotional support who suppresses his own needs for her. The Ladynoir conflict and its less than satisfying resolution caused irreparable damage to the Ladynoir dynamic (it's irreparable because the writers don't see a problem with it and so they'll never fix it), and this has only continued into Season 5, which said "why fix it when I can make it worse."

[reclamosmiraculersenspanish]

Zull memes: La página de Facebook obsesionada con Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Me sigue sorprendiendo lo mucho que la odian. Sobre todo en grupos de Facebook en español. yo entendería que ya, les cayera mal, está bien. Pero literalmente hay una página de Facebook llamada Zull memes, que se dedica a tiempo completo a tirar hate.

Antes me molestaba, pero a veces decían cosas ciertas. Sin embrago, de un momento a otro, empezaron a exagerar cosas, cambiando guiones solo para "Menospreciar" al personaje.

Llegando al punto de compararla con Amber Heard, cuando estaba el tema del juicio de Jonny Depp, la misma Amber que se cagó en la cama de su novio. ¿Sí se dan cuenta que no es normal?

Y la gente puede decir, bueno, son solo memes. Pero no, tienen detrás a una bola de fans tóxicos, que menosprecian y encasillan a cualquier fan de Marinette.

Además, desinforman, por culpa de la influencia que tiene en la gente los memes, muchos hasta creen los guiones cambiados que a veces ponen.

Recientemente otra página publicó cosas similares a lo que se burlaba Zull memes, desde las cosas más normales, hasta las más exagerada. Pero en contra de Chloe, la adorada y justificada de la página. Y se ardieron sus seguidores.

Eso demuestra que son iguales de inmaduros que a los fans que tanto critican. Realmente Miraculous no debió volver tan conocida. Atrajeron a un montón de fans tóxicas e inmaduras.

[friendfromdsmp]

Are there Marinette Salt takes that you disagree with?

So we’ve established in the last ask that I think Adrien gets a bit of a bad rap with salters at times, but that’s absolutely nothing compared to how I feel about Marinette salt takes. TL;DR at the bottom since this was much longer than I anticipated, as per usual with my constant ramblings

One angle I just really can’t wrap my head around are people who think Marinette is to blame for the LadyNoir conflict overarching season 4 because, in all honesty, I don’t know if Marinette was even made fully aware that there was an ongoing issue. I’m probably misremembering or forgetting some stuff, and I’m about to go on a long-ass ramble, so bear with me on this

The conflict begins with MariBug having constant breakdowns due to her responsibilities piling up, her alter egos bleeding into each other and having zero guidance or even vent options. Back in Truth Chat said that he doesn’t mind Ladybug being the new Guardian as long as it doesn’t impact their relationship/dynamic. But due to how overwhelmed and alone she is, Ladybug can’t always be there for all the patrols and silly little things the heroes do, which leaves Chat disappointed and feeling ignored

Is he entitled to these feelings? Absolutely. Can’t help how you feel. And for the most part he doesn’t bother Ladybug with these feelings, except for mentioning it once that he misses seeing her all the time and she explains herself and promises to try and prioritise patrols more. Healthy stuff, good communication, I’m vibing so far

But Chat continues not to voice his feelings while starting to let them dictate his behaviour, and this is where the problems arise - not just with Chat, but with Marinette salters, too. I was surprised to see how many people were mad at Ladybug for not prioritising Chat more or not being more considerate of his feelings

As far as I’ve seen, Chat hasn’t voiced his concerns to her, so you can’t expect Ladybug to fix a problem she doesn’t know exists, and even then you can see she doesn’t have the mental capacity or available free time right now, every other episode featured her having a mental breakdown. At this point Chat being disappointed that he’s not his coworker’s top priority isn’t… well, a priority

People were also getting mad that Marinette revealed her identity to Alya and not Chat was also a surprise to me. Alya is Marinette’s best friend and was chosen to be a hero for her loyalty and trustworthiness (arguable whether the show does a good job at displaying these qualities but I digress) and Chat Noir, the holder of the only other Miraculous Hawkmoth needs, is the most dangerous possible choice to share her identity with, especially considering what little Marinette remembers about Chat Blanc

Plus, Alya was there. Like, physically right there. And Marinette broke under all the pressure that was put on her. You think she’s gonna break and then sit around peacefully until Chat shows up before she actually acts on the breakage?

Anyway, speaking of Alya, her becoming more involved in the hero work makes Chat Noir feel replaced, resulting in him straight-up ignoring the plan after he was informed of his role in it multiple times by multiple people during Sentibubbler. I’ve seen takes that Marinette should have apologised for him not being better informed or for not including him more in the plan, and that absolutely baffles me

This wasn’t Marinette’s plan. Hell, Marinette herself didn’t even know half the plan, and she was the only other person aware of Alya’s trump card. Not to mention there was a whole thing about how Alya couldn’t contact Marinette, so how do they expect Marinette to have any way of knowing more than what was canonically stated to have been told to Marinette? There’s no way people aren’t just making up issues at this point

Rocketear then shows us something I think highlights one of the previous points very well; Ladybug notices that Chat looks upset after he’s learned that Ladybug broke the secret identify rule by handing Alya and Nino their Miraculous at the same time back during Heroes’ Day

She asks Chat what’s wrong and if he’s okay, and you know what he says? He fkn reassures her that he’s okay and it’s nothing

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen; Ladybug noticed there were signs of a problem and asked Chat about it, only to be told there was no problem. But as all the salters have told me, Ladybug just doesn’t care about Chat Noir or his problems. How do people expect her to fix a problem that she not only doesn’t know exists, but a problem that’s now actively being kept from her?

Now we come to Chat Noir no-showing to fights, which results in Ladybug needing to call in additional backup more often. At first Chat has valid reasons for not showing up; he had obligations as Adrien that he couldn’t escape. But the problem here isn’t that he didn’t show, it’s that he took the temp heroes showing up as a sign of Ladybug replacing him as her partner rather than filling a vacant but necessary role

And the problem only worsened when Chat stopped showing up to fights even when he had every opportunity to, opting out due to being depressed that Ladybug was relying more on the temp heroes… which in turn forced Ladybug to rely more on the temp heroes. He was creating his own problem

And it stumps me how so many Marinette salters decided that it was her fault for letting things get so bad between them that he was sitting out akuma fights due to depression. Dumber still, people agreeing with Adrien and saying that Ladybug is replacing Chat and she shouldn’t keep bringing out the temp heroes and instead rely more on Chat

Guys, I’m sure she’d love to rely more on Chat, but right now she can’t even rely on him to show up to his job. What do you realistically want her to do? Fight akumas all alone, without any backup? Not fight the akuma until Chat shows up first, thus enabling the akuma to run rampant and unchecked through Paris until then? Somehow figure out Chat Noir’s identify, show up at Adrien’s house and beg him to help her fight? What’s her realistic alternative to the temp heroes?

Kuro Neko is where this comes to a head. To start we have salters saying that Ladybug’s interview was insulting to Chat, but I don’t see it at all. Her exact words were “Of course [Chat and I aren’t at odds with each other], it's just that... umm, he's a partner like any other! The most important is to pick the best superheroes for each mission, with or without Cat Noir. No matter what, we've got a great team and we'll always be here to save Paris.”

She’s saying that Chat Noir wasn’t necessary for the fight, not that he wasn’t wanted or missed. Could she have phrased it slightly better? Yes. But she was put on the spot to answer a question she doesn’t know the answer to but probably secretly fears the worst for, all while knowing that she needs to reassure the public that they’re safe and that she and all the other heroes will transform back any minute now

She was trying to say “Chat Noir’s absence isn’t because of any fights between us, and I can assure you that with the help of the team, Paris won’t be any less safe than it is when we work as a duo”, not “Chat Noir is useless and I’m phasing him out in favour of all these other heroes”

Chat finally shows up and addresses his issues, albeit totally out of the blue for Ladybug since this is the first time she’s actually gotten some form of confirmation that something is, in fact, wrong. Chat shows up out of nowhere after missing a ton of akuma fights, wants to hang out and chat while Ladybug is already on the clock, then offers to help her out by going to all the meeting spots to collect the loaned Miraculous

The problem here is that Chat doesn’t know half of their identities, so in order to help Ladybug, he needs her to break the identity rule in a non-emergency situation and reveal secrets that aren’t hers to share

He tries to argue that he already knows some of the heroes, which is fair, but even then it’s made pretty clear that Ladybug doesn’t have time to work out which heroes Chat knows the identities of and then tell him where these specific individuals are currently located

They’ll all be turning back any moment now, Ladybug included, and if she turns back then it’s game over for them all. At very least King Monkey would have only lasted another three or four seconds if Ladybug had gotten his Miraculous back, and he was left dangling from a chimney

Seems to me that Ladybug is not currently in a position where she’s able to accept Chat Noir’s help, but she has made it clear that she’ll talk to him after everything is taken care of and she’s no longer racing against the clock

But because she’s turning down Chat Noir’s offer of help, regardless of circumstances, the salters blame her for it as if she and all the others wouldn’t have turned back before she even finished sharing all the heroes’ locations

There’s also an argument going around of ‘she should have told him all their identities before’, but this is ignoring that, while it’s Ladybug’s job to know this stuff as both their Guardian and not Ladybug’s place to share the secrets of others, we’ve also had several episodes detailing how dangerous it is to break the identity rule; Queen Wasp, Heroes’ Day, Miraculer, Miracle Queen, Optigami, Sentibubbler, Rocketear. Hell, three of those happened just the other week or something

And just to clarify, Ladybug still doesn’t know that this is part of an overarching issue; as far as she knows, he showed up out of nowhere after a fight, she told him multiple times that she has to rush around gathering these Miraculous and that she didn’t have time to explain where she needed to meet everyone, he was teasing and making puns while interrupting her and then she snapped that “If you want to save me time, stop wasting it in the first place!” since he was being pushy at an inappropriate time when she didn’t have the time to talk it out calmly or anything

It’s an understandable reaction when you’re trying to do something very important and someone swoops in out of nowhere and pesters you with puns and demands while you’re already on the clock, and frankly Chat did need her to snap a bit to show she was serious

And all I have to say is… that’s it? That’s all she had to do to be the bad guy in this situation, according to salters? Yes, she could’ve been more polite, sure, but Chat was the one keeping her from doing her job. Showing up with the intention of helping doesn’t absolve him of causing further disruptions. At that point he was the one disregarding social convention

And then immediately after that, Chat tells her that she should just take his Miraculous away from him as well, to which she just gives a barebones acknowledgement as she rushes away, then expresses that she doesn’t know what he meant by that. She still thinks this is just him wanting to be helpful and not taking her responsibilities seriously in favour of being playful

This is an extreme overreaction to what she perceives as just a minor bump in the road, if anything, which is probably why she didn’t catch on right away what he meant; he wouldn’t really quit being a superhero altogether just over her not having the time to talk to him right this second, right?

Plagg is the one to break it to her that there’s an overarching issue; Chat’s co-dependency issues making him struggle with the idea that he’s not necessary because job-wise he can be replaced with the temp heroes and his struggles to healthily communicate this due to his stunted social development resulting in his bottled up feelings spilling over… wait, what? He said it was because she broke Chat’s heart by not being in love with him? When the hell did that become relevant?

But some salters ate up the idea that Ladybug rejecting Chat is a moral failing on her part and all this would’ve been solved if she just dated him already. The love square isn’t even a contender in these issues, why is this the explanation? And why are people falling for it? It’s clearly just another excuse to make Marinette ‘learn a lesson’ and blame her for all this while absolving Adrien of any perceived imperfections

And to clarify once more; MariBug is now finally aware that there is some overarching conflict, but she believes it’s just Chat being butthurt that she’s still not in love with him. So nothing new. Same conflict as always

Oh, and a bit of a tangent but what the hell were the salters thinking when they blamed Marinette for going to London in Hack-San? We saw her make several attempts to get out of it, then when she couldn’t she called Alya - the second most experienced superheroine after herself and someone already familiar with Tikki and already aware of Mari’s identity - to take over for her to ensure Paris still had a Ladybug hero

Even after she was long gone, Mari was still texting Alya non-stop to provide tips for being the Ladybug hero, including special tips on how to make Chat feel valued and happy. Girl thought of everything, did all she could, and you’re still managing to complain that she should’ve just… what? Confessed to her parents that she’s Ladybug so they’d have to let her stay? Run away? Destroy all their passports?

Look, even Tom was vibing with not going, but Marinette tried every trick in the book and it all failed, so she ensured she appointed the most qualified replacement she could. That’s called being responsible

I bet those salters are the same people that got pissed off when Ladybug yelled at Chat for abandoning Paris in the New York special, despite the fact that he left completely unannounced yet pre-planned and willingly, while knowing Ladybug wouldn’t be there and without appointing anyone to fill in in his absence and as such knowingly leaving Paris undefended

Anyway, things come to a head again in the finale when Chat is yelling at Ladybug mid-battle for keeping secrets from him and being too reliant on the temp heroes rather than him and all that fun stuff. Now remember, this is once again coming out of nowhere for Ladybug, who has managed to reach the season finale without actually knowing that she’s in the middle of a season-long conflict as opposed to just same old, same old

Ladybug is trying to defend herself from both the sentimonsters and from Chat’s accusations and insults, with no idea where all this animosity has ‘suddenly’ come from

More salters argue that, once again, Ladybug should’ve caved to his whims by now, and all I can do is wonder why the middle of a huge fight is seemingly their definition of an appropriate time for that conversation, let alone any time at all being appropriate for spilling secrets that aren’t yours to share and are being kept for the purpose of child safeguarding

Salters really need to understand that while LadyNoir are equals in terms of a team unit going into battle, Ladybug is still effectively Chat’s boss due to her Guardianship role. They don’t have to be equals in absolutely every aspect, and Marinette doing her job is not a flaw in Marinette’s character or an argument towards her being a bad person who doesn’t care about Chat Noir

Then we get to the big risk of giving a Miraculous to ‘Adrien’, and salters love to claim that it’s all Ladybug’s fault because she chose Felix and not Adrien. Can you guess what I’m going to ask how, guys?

As opposed to what???

Ladybug was knowingly under the influence of an akuma that impairs judgement. She came to a very logical conclusion given the information she had that ‘Adrien’ didn’t have a mark, and thus was the only person in Paris not judgmentally impaired. She was, need I remind you, correct

The only problem is that she didn’t know - and had no way of knowing - that at that moment, Felix was pretending to be Adrien for completely unrelated reasons, just so happening to get caught up in the crossfires of whatever the hell MariBug was getting up to that day. Her logic was ‘I can’t trust myself to make a smart decision, so I’ll go to someone who I can trust to make a smart decision’. And just because Felix was already acting the part, a fact she couldn’t have possibly known, suddenly she’s to blame for the fuck-up?

Anyway, when we finally begin to conclude the LadyNoir drama, it occurs when Ladybug realised that she’s been tricked and Felix steals her yo-yo. Adrien gets in a snide comment about “If you’re gonna trust me once, please let it be this time!” which should make exactly zero sense to Ladybug

And then we get to the final scene, where Ladybug breaks down crying and apologises for lying to Chat, not listening to him, keeping him at a distance and refusing his help

And I just… what? Chat’s done all these things without context to make it understandable or called for in the moment, yet the Marinette salters are just nodding along and agreeing that she’s the one at fault. So many of them have said that Ladybug didn’t deserve his forgiveness or his loyalty or his pep talk, it baffles me

And that brings me to conclude my biggest gripe about the LadyNoir drama and the Marinette salters that go with it; MariBug was almost solely blamed by the narrative and the salters alike, but she didn’t actually know anything at all was going on until Kuro Neko (episode 23 of 26)

From there she figured it was just some of Chat’s habitual pouting on the job over his advances being rejected until the very last episode of the season but never got clarification on what exactly had been bugging him for this long, then it all magically resolved without apology or explanation

He didn’t bother with that because, by the end of the episode, Chat had gotten his way; no more temp heroes. Ladybug was now forced to rely on him and only him, so he instantly quit fighting her and carried on as though nothing had ever happened. Ladybug must’ve been reeling, no wonder she was just listing off all the bad stuff she could think of that she might’ve done; she was trying to see which one stuck. Girl lasted the entire season drama without knowing what the drama was

Marinette salters to that extent don’t take into account her perspective of many situations, and a lot of it is from Chat stans getting mad when MariBug doesn’t bend over backwards to his every whim, even when he’s actively keeping them a secret from her. She’s just supposed to telepathically know what the problem is and is expected to fix it simply because ‘they’re partners’, when even that isn’t an obligation to care for him beyond a professional capacity

Sorry I know this one is long as all hell but it really annoys me how certain Marinette salters will practically invent problems to blame her for - the show’s writers included. And to be clear, I’ve done my share of Marinette salting before, she’s far from perfect, but I do think that a lot of the salt she gets is pretty baseless

TL;DR is that my worst issue with Marinette salters is how they often blame Marinette entirely for the season 4 LadyNoir drama despite the fact that a lot of their problems with her behaviour don’t really have a reasonable alternative and she didn’t ever actually work out what the drama was truly about, having not even known there was drama until episode 23 of 26

[familyagrestefanblog]

It's posts like this that actually leave me really saddened now Ladynoir wise because this should be a perfectly fine explanation if s4 and s5 hadn't ruined it with that one-sided morality.

Cause, yes, Adrien's timing is and always was indeed a factor in this. But it completely glosses over the fact that Marinette has NEVER held back one bit on taking all her emotions out on Chat Noir however aggressive and strongly as she pleases in any given moment

(at least she got better in season 5, but it's not like that's hard. The bar for Maribug's scapegoating treatment of Chat Noir is literally in hell thanks to s4 and in s5 Adrichat already behaves like a perfect care taker for her, not challenging her in any way anymore since ANYTHING can cause her to revert back to her old treatment of him as we see in "Elation", "Revelation" and "Derision" and there she never takes accountability for her actions either because, no shit, she never learned anything)

After these two past seasons just saying "she doesn't hate him and his jokes, she just hates his TIMING" feels like a conveniently vague excuse for why she can't and should never EVER be held accountable for her own unnecessary aggressive behavior. Because this way you can just adjust that excuse to any given canon scenarios where Maribug reacted unnecessarily badly (which, spoiler alert, happened ALOT) and put the blame ONLY on Chat Noir for his "bad timing"

Despite it not rarely having been Marinette who reacted inconsistently to Chat's jokes instead of only Adrien having inconsistent timing for when he jokes.

It is difficult and In my opinion even NOT manageable for Adrien to have only joked around when the timing 'was right' pre-s5, because the show was making it very clear that Marinette will decide what is and isn't bad timing deserving of violence and insults entirely subjectively and on a whim in her head each and every time.

Pre-s4, the two factors of Adrien's bad timing and Marinette's bad reactions not only as good as balanced each other out, there was also still the hope that Maribug's part in this would also be addressed accordingly. It's not just Adrien's timing, it was also Marinette unnecessarily going off on Chat Noir for something that happened in her private life and is therefore emotionally affecting here negatively to be more on edge, or literally anything that puts her off on the battle field that isn't even him but he's the next best and easiest thing to take it out on because she ironically doesn't want to treat her real friends the way she does Chat Noir.

This was always a TWO-sided problem which now received a 100% ONE-sides "solution", while completely sweeping under the rug how alarmingly comfortable Marinette got with reducing Chat Noir to be her suffer puppet the moment anything happened that she doesn't like, or even just for fun and entertainment sometimes.

Frankly, one should rather ask why the show had her entirely STOP treating him that way in season 5 since she was always portrayed as justified and blameless and even KIND for making him her rag doll in every previous season, no matter what context.

It's almost as if she WAS an asshole for how badly she dehumanized Chat Noir and took her every little whim out on him to completely unnecessary dehumanizing degrees, but the show is chickening out on teaching girls that they have to take accountability for their aggressive actions and behavior too, by just having her "coincidentally" stop entirely too after Chat was being forced into being her perfect half-human care taker (since it's not like she is written to actually acknowledge that Chat's a FULL HUMAN BEING underneath the mask).

Cause if she were to have continued now in season 5, the show couldn't have kept on pretending like Marinette herself and her unnecessarily escalating violent tendencies towards Chat were never part of the problem in this, since Adrichat HAS to be perfect now or else the love square can't function to Marinette's benefit.

So "coincidentally" Marinette is suddenly capable of treating Chat and his body as if she for once believed there are actual human rights attached to him even if he still displays alot of the same behavior now as before in season 4. It's just that Marinette is now suddenly depicted too in alot of these cases with changed behavior to not immediately go off on him or turn him 'lovingly' into a rag doll anymore, which Marinette stans and fans are writing this off as Adrien "finally" having learned his lesson because that's the only way they wanna acknowledge Marinette's changed treatment of him.

This had no business becoming a moral dilemma but it became one when the show had Maribug make it VERY clear all through the entirety of season 4 that SHE as a leader must be treated with 100% respect, care, and basically blind obedience and unconditional submission no matter what she does, but can do to Chat Noir almost whatever she pleases in any intensity she feels like at any point for whatever reason she likes.

No matter how violent, neglective and humiliating and dehumanizing, shes ALWAYS more justified than not and never actually in the wrong because any emotional whim is excuse enough for doing so. On top of having her make it clear that HE is for 90% of the episodes 100% responsible for ANYTHING bad she does to him and what happens to him.

So if he doesn't want her to scream, insulting, humiliate or hurt him, then HE has to make sure HE doesn't exist near here in any way that might provoke such reactions from her. And what exactly that means Marinette ALSO got to decide entirely subjectively and on a whim in her head each and every time.

Because Adrichat was made 100% responsible for Maribug's treatment of him and season 5 doubled down on that ridiculously hard (regarding the ENTIRE love square), even though in pre-s5 Ladynoir one literally had to sometimes start hoping and preying taht Maribug won't use Chat Noir as her emotional and physical punching bag again, even completely unrelated to anything he did, because that was honestly to a solid degree simply the norm of her treatment of him.

So, her actions and behavior were basically declared NOT her own (which is a running theme in all of season 4 and 5), she has hardly any accountability to take (and therefore hardly does in a non-vague way), cause the show decided that she is always "MADE" to do the bad stuff by everyone else (but ESPECIALLY Chat Noir) while simultaneously you're not allowed to truly acknowledge that anything she ever did was actually bad in the first place which leaves us in an incredibly paradoxical position.

But yeah, sure, it's only "Adrien's bad timing"

How about Marinette had plain obvious anger issues she took out on Chat Noir however she pleased because the show declared her ever whim as the new righteous foundation of reality, and then had her suddenly stop in season 5 because at that point they couldn't blame it on Adrien anymore and therefore it would have required actual accountability from her which the show wants to avoid like the fucking plague.

_

Not to mention the hypocrisy of Kagami getting to rightfully break up with Adrien for lying to her and making excuses to sideline her despite it having an understandable enough reason since he has a double life as Chat Noir, and Maribug having done all of that on a much worse scale to Chat Noir in season 4 by involving Alya on his expense the way she did

Not only was she basically declared above almost any moral standards regarding scapegoating and neglecting him in favor of making Alya her new main partner who gets everything on his expense and entirely behind his back while he's stuck with nothing and remains all isolated in the dirt so Ladybug and the rest of the team can look cool

The show then also demanded taht she gets rewarded with gratefulness for it in "Kuro Neko" because she's allowing him to exist near her and that's all he's worth in Ladynoir apparently whne it comes to actual honesty and consideration. Even in season 5 Maribug barely improved on this after "Evolution" when she wasn't straight up forced to.

Because unfortunately in Canon, Marinette is to 90% dishonest and secretive on Chat's expense in Ladynoir and it's just declared fine because its her and she benefits from it.

Seriously, the way Adrigami was handled makes Ladynoir even worse. And good fucking GOSH, the hypocrisy thsi will cause for Adrinette from season 6 onwards! What even is Marinette's writing anymore??

"Adrian and Kagami broke up bc Kagami didn't like silly Adrian, his real personality!"

Litterally Kagami with Adrian:

They really had to turn Kagami into ooc and destroy all her development only to make Adrinette canon, while ladybug/marinette was litterally the one who hated Chat Noire being silly and unserious

[kari-go]

What potential did you think canon Adrien had that was squandered when you quit watching in early season 3? What could canon have done better to make you care about him? Is there any overlap with your original salt au?

They could've done so much but did nothing. There was the conflict with Lila, with Marinette and Adrien teaming up together to do something. It would've made the love square stronger, with them becoming friends and trusting each other. There could've been so many Adrinette moments!

Also, Gabriel, his dad, is Hawkmoth AKA THE MAIN VILLAIN. And there's nothing for basically the entire series.

They could've had Adrien bond with Master Fu, it's kinda unfair that Marinette knew so much more and Adrien basically didn't know about his existence (I think he already knew about him in season 3 but there was no content of them, I think?). This would've been a good way to put in some lore, something about Emilie, Adrien noticing the weirdness about her death, or something about past holders and the miraculous in general. This also could've helped Ladynoir, with them bonding over their miraculous and their kwamis.

Just making Lila a bigger threat (and smarter, because she is so so dumb) would've made the show better or at least interesting.

I'm honestly not sure? I think he was always uninteresting to me,,, I used to read a lot of LS fanfictions because it was clearly endgame and the main ship and I think that's just where my interest in him ended. I cared about him because he was associated with Marinette.. I remember being kinda confused as to why everyone was obsessed with him xd So I honestly don't know, but I guess just having a bigger role in the story would've helped.

No, in basically everything. And I'm really happy about that.

[ilikekidsshows]

What infuriates me the most about Season 4 is how utterly pointless it was. What was the point of making Marinette the Guardian in Season 3 if she was just going to lose all the Miraculous in Season 4? Say what you want about Miracle Queen as a finale; at least it felt like Hawk Moth earned that moment of triumph because he actually used his brain for a change. The writers could have had him gain all the Miraculous at the end of Season 3, then skip straight to Season 5 and nothing would change.

---

I wasn’t yet a salt blog when season four concluded, but I made my lack of enthusiasm for the new season clear. Someone who was still optimistic about the show told me that we’d just have to “wait and see” if season four would contribute anything meaningful to Miraculous’ larger narrative, because everyone agreed, even people who liked it, that season four’s point was to set up season five, due to it itself not having much meat to it.

I said even back then that 25 episodes of setup is wasteful. In a season format show, you should have a theme or an arc or two that you set up, build up and conclude so that the audience will have something to chew on while they wait for the bigger plot movements. Of course, that was when a lot of people thought that the Ladynoir conflict arc was still ongoing because of how poorly ‘Kuro Neko’ served as a conclusion, that the season four finale of removing the tertiary heroes was going to lead to a new focus on Cat Noir’s role as Ladybug’s partner. Of course, season five then made it abundantly clear that the “arc” was well and done with, that season four wasn't the uninteresting half of season five, it was an uninteresting season by itself.

The Miraculous writers are wasting time to justify the show’s episode count. Even after the show’s viewing order started mattering due to small details (that still weren’t consistent even if you watched the episodes in the right order), most of the show’s runtime is spent on the characters faffing about with nothing being accomplished, because the characters don’t even attempt to accomplish anything. And this is true for the writing as well. The writers aren’t actually attempting much of anything, they’re randomly throwing ideas out, maybe revisiting them in about ten episodes if you're lucky or a season or two later and it’s so incredibly lacking in dedication. If you want to create ambitious storylines, you gotta dedicate some effort into making it work.

I just can’t see all that much effort in anything the show is doing anymore. The writing is lazy and the characters are lazy. Although, considering a new tweet from Astruc reveals that he thinks reworking a script is wasting money because editing a show is too expensive, it could be it's not that the writers are lazy, but cheap.

[fernsnouveau]

Tags by @erisluna35 :

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

Tags by @generalluxun :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[trainsinanime]

Representation and Recreation

Usual disclaimers: I like the show, I liked season 5, I had a lot of fun with the finale and I think it had a lot of great elements, like Bug Noir and Kung Fu Jagged Stone. I don't intend to be salty (though whether it is salt is, of course, up to you), I'm generally watching the show and in the fandom to have fun, not to complain, and season 5 as a whole delivered on fun.

With that out of the way:

Goddammit, this fucking season 5 finale! I want to write analysis posts, but I can't make heads or tails of it. I've seen analysis posts by others, and I've reblogged some, but I think all of them are lacking, both the ones that like the finale and the ones that don't.

For example, part of me wants to make a post explaining how the finale really only makes sense if you see it as three parts, taking Representation into account, and what it tells us about Adrien, Marinette, Felix, Kagami and Sentimonsters. I would really like that to be true. But then I start thinking about this, and it turns out I don't actually have a thesis here, it's just that Representation is a way better episode that sets up a completely different finale.

Think about it. Representation's "A" plot is that Marinette learns about the history of Felix and Adrien through an avant-garde theatre show. I think this is the best visual storytelling the show has ever had, and it's the prettiest too. Here, we learn about the Sentichildren, about Gabriel's role in creating them, and how Gabriel is a threat to them. And the Sentichildren need help, from Ladybug. As the presentation ends and morning dawns, it seems like Marinette has understood all that, and resolved to help the sentis.

This has no bearing on the finale whatsoever. Marinette learns that Gabriel is evil, again, and is surprised, again. In retrospect it almost seems like she thought there was a third Adrien-Felix cousin or something. The sentibeings don't appear, it's all about the wish.

Meanwhile, Adrien's plot is all about him beating the crap out of his father, and finally telling him off. This toxic relationship is finally severed. Adrien is still under his father's control, but he's managed to see him for who he really is, and articulate that, and finally symbolically defeat him, with the help of his friend. That's really great thematically, and it's arguably the culmination of the character growth we've seen all season.

This has no bearing on the finale whatsoever. Adrien just doesn't appear in the final battle whatsoever, and when he does appear (actually, who unlocked his cell?), he's just happy and seems to have made peace with the memory of his father again.

That's weird, right? If it weren't for Adrien and Kagami being imprisoned, Representation would have no impact on the finale at all, even though it's written as if it were the big lead in to the final big fight, where all the big thematic questions are brought out in the open.

Representation clearly sets up something, I think, but not the big season and arc finale that comes after it. Does it set up season 6? Does it set up anything at all? I certainly hope so!

Several people in the fandom have said that they trust the writers to pay this off. I'll be honest, I do not. This isn't meant as an insult to the writers, I enjoy the episodes they write, but the show just has a long history of doing things that look like setup that don't pay off. Marinette doesn't have trauma from Chat Blanc, she's got it from Kim. The Ladynoir conflict in season 4 ended up not that big a deal. Su-Han never mattered, and neither did the sisterly relationship between Zoé and Chloé.

(Aside: I have read all the posts explaining why it makes sense that Adrien isn't at the final battle, and none of them were convincing to me. Yes, it's Marinette's show, and I like that. They're not equals, no matter what the subtitle pretends. But to not have him around at all? His relationship with Marinette is the crucial engine of the show, and the whole thing with Gabriel also concerns him.

I particularly disagree with arguments that say Chat Blanc and Ephemeral proved it was a good idea to keep him out. He could have totally overcome whatever Gabriel put on him if the writers had chosen to write it that way.

The whole argument is flawed. It's a fictional tactical argument to explain away a real story issue. You can do that when discussing why the crew of the USS Enterprise didn't turn the Tricorder into a Transporter again or whatever, but this is a fun explanation, not an actual argument for why the story had to go this way.)

Anyway. This finale. I have no idea what it's about. I'm not even entirely certain I know what happened. I'm not sure the writers knew, and even if they do, they're certainly not saying. That is so, so weird. I love Bug Noir, though.

[theerurishipper]

Coming back to one of the points I've made earlier but never really elaborated upon, what does it do for Adrien's arc to have everyone lie to him?

Adrien's arc is about finding his self-worth and his independence and learning how to be loved unconditionally. Gabriel is controlling and abusive and only gives Adrien a second's worth of attention if Adrien caters to his every whim. And so, you'd think that part of Adrien's arc is learning that people will love him for who he is without him having to bend to their desires, and that he has the right to make decisions for himself. But this new development as of the Season 5 finale is that, no, Adrien's loved ones actually don't want him to make his own choices. In fact, they would rather support and emulate his abusive father's controlling actions and deny Adrien his agency and his ability to make informed choices about his own life. They would rather dictate how he should feel and would rather decide what's best for him rather than giving him the choice to do so himself. This comes with its large set of very much unfortunate implications.

Under the cut because this is long.

This is a problem that started with Season 4, with the introduction of Ladybug's Gabriel-esque behavior towards Chat Noir, and the subsequent lack of proper resolution. In fact, the resolution was that Chat Noir was asking too much of Ladybug, and that what needed to be done to resolve this conflict of Ladybug keeping important secrets from Chat Noir and replacing him with other holders... was for Chat Noir to suck it up and continue supporting Ladybug. It was for him to put aside his legitimate concerns with her actions and to accept that he would never be treated the way he wants to be. It was for him to push down his own feelings and come to stay by her side even though she had not treated him well, and even though she never actually fixed her mistakes.

What is the importance of his relationship with Ladybug? For the first 3 seasons, at least, it was the escape from his abusive home life that Adrien needed, to someone who would accept him unconditionally. But Season 4 introduced the infamous Ladynoir conflict that permanently altered their dynamic. I've talked about how the Season 4 finale only served to reinforce the inequality between them. It begins with Ladybug keeping secrets from Chat Noir and pulling away from him, and it ends by him simply forgiving her because he is used to downplaying his own needs. And I don't feel the desire to rehash all that, but it does beg the question: What is the takeaway from the Ladynoir conflict? Is it that he should bend himself over to be what she needs, but she doesn't need to return the same support? Is it that Ladybug is the Flawless Leader™, and he should learn his place? Because that's the impression it gives.

Now, I've talked before about how Gabriel's abuse has caused Adrien to believe love is conditional and has to be earned by him pleasing the other person and doing whatever they expect of him. And the importance of his Chat Noir persona being more expressive and "imperfect" is that this is the only time he can let loose and have fun, free of the expectations of others. And Season 4 has him return to his trauma responses around Ladybug, the person who is narratively supposed to be the one person who accepts his imperfections and doesn't place any expectations on him. Now, Chat Noir being traumatized is not Ladybug's fault, of course, and if he is fawning over her, certainly it is not her fault. But the narrative frames this as beneficial to her. Ladybug likes when Chat Noir fawns over her as Catwalker. Over and over in the story, she takes advantage of his forgiveness and trust, and never examines herself or her actions, and never tries to fix her mistakes because he always ends up forgiving her due to his belief that his feelings don't matter. Ladybug meets Catwalker, which is literally just Adrien fawning and trying to be whatever he needs to be to please her, and she instantly falls for him.

And in a narrative sense... this is detrimental to the concept of the Love Square, because it reinforces the narrative that Ladybug will never fall in love with Chat Noir, because what she wants is the perfect image, the flawless partner. The rose-tinted glasses she sees Adrien with are not being removed, rather she is putting on a fresh, darker shade. And it doesn't say good things about their development that she falls for the perfect act almost immediately upon meeting him, the moment he swears that he'll take care of her. And I won't go into too much detail since I've covered it in my other posts, but the point is that Marinette only ever seems to fall for boys who don't inconvenience her with their emotions, and instead take care of her needs without expecting anything, and this makes it seem like she is benefitting from Adrien's trauma. And Marinette is never allowed to return the support she gets from Chat Noir in any meaningful way, and it is framed by the narrative as right and wonderful that Adrien is so nice as to put his feelings aside and support her over and over again despite her repeatedly making the same mistakes and hurting him. His trauma response is framed as a good thing because it benefits Marinette.

Season 4 was about Marinette deliberately keeping secrets from her partner, dictating his actions and outright lying to him and taking advantage of his trust at times. Decidedly Gabe-like behavior, even though it was way more toned down and way less malicious (I won't go too far with that comparison, but still). And Season 5 ends up adding more salt to the wound, by having Marinette straight out lie to Adrien about his father, dictating his perceptions and controlling his thoughts and feelings, just like Gabriel would have liked. And in fact, Gabriel asked her to do this to the son she knows he abused, and she sides with him. And it's not just Marinette. The list of people who have denied Adrien honesty just goes on and on. Gabriel, Emilie, Nathalie, Amelie, Felix, Kagami, Master Fu, Luka, Plagg, Tikki, Marinette, Alya, Su-Han... they are all, as those who knew truths about different situations, people who chose to lie to and hide information from Adrien that he was entitled to. And with the exception of Luka and Master Fu, all of these people are complicit in siding with Gabriel and denying Adrien the most important secret of all, the truth of his very existence.

Which raises the question: if Adrien's arc was supposedly about breaking free from a controlling life and finding those who didn't do that to him, then why is it that everyone around him appears to agree with Gabriel? Why does the person who, in the narrative, is supposed to be the opposite of Gabriel and the saving grace for Adrien, parallel him so much in both actions and backstory? Does that not cheapen Adrien's arc? What does that imply for him? That he can never escape the fate of being controlled? That being controlling over a person's agency is fine and dandy if done for the right reasons?

Let's take a look back over Adrien's arc. Adrien's first scene is him rebelling against Gabriel, and we see him come closer and closer to the realization that Gabriel is abusive and cruel. We see Adrien make friends like Nino and Ladybug. We see the trajectory that his arc is going in, one of him learning to reject his father and assert his self-worth and his own identity in the face of the man who has controlled him his whole life.

And yet, there are still some glaring problems that become more apparent as the story progresses, and they come to a head in Seasons 4 and 5. It's shown in scenes like in the episode Felix, where we see that despite everyone getting together to do something nice for Adrien, the moment he acts out of character, their first instinct is to admit that they don't know him very well at all. Almost all the interactions he has with his supposed best friend and his other friends are about setting him up with Marinette. Adrien only matters to them in his role as Marinette's future boyfriend. And this is not addressed by the narrative as something that should be fixed or resolved, or that it is even a problem in the first place.

Adrien's feelings are repeatedly denied in this show. From him having to simply forgive and forget how Ladybug hurt him, to him being repeatedly taken advantage of by Felix without the narrative letting him be upset over it, to his instant forgiveness of Gabriel, the narrative will not let Adrien feel anything negative towards the characters that the narrative actually cares about so as to not inconvenience them. His only purpose is to prop them up and bend to their needs, and anything he might realistically feel against them is invalidated and forgotten because it would go against his role of being their motivation/prop/plot device.

We also see a problem with narrative focus for him. Adrien is not the protagonist of the show, and my criticism is not that he does not get as much screentime as Marinette. The issue is that even the dedicated screentime he does get outside of being shipped with Marinette and being a part of the battle of the episode, the screentime that should be used to develop his character is often cut into by the writers' desperate need to shove Marinette into every single plot and have her be the focus of every episode. Episodes that should have focused on Adrien's loneliness like Puppeteer 2, or episodes dedicated to Adrien's friendships with others like Party Crasher, or even episodes like Gabriel Agreste which should have focused on the Agreste drama, are ultimately about Marinette trying to confess her feelings for Adrien. But this really shows itself in Chat Blanc, where the main plot of the episode is one where Gabriel's abuse of Adrien is ramped up to the max, and one where Adrien undergoes unimaginable and incomprehensible trauma, and the only thing that truly matters about it is... how it affects Marinette.

And as I said, Season 4 takes this to a new level. Ladybug, the one supposed to be Adrien's escape from his civilian life, is also someone who he fawns around. And that inherently is not a bad thing to depict, because it is not Ladybug's fault that Chat Noir is traumatized, and it is realistic that this happens. What is a problem though, is the way the narrative never paints this as a trauma response. Chat Noir pushing aside his feelings and supporting her as she repeatedly hurts him over and over is treated as good and nice of him, without her having to examine herself or realize she's treating him badly. And in the end, he accepts that he'll never be treated like he wants to and comes back to support her in her hour of need, and simply shoves his feelings away, never to complain about them again. I mentioned that Ladybug benefits from Chat Noir's civilian abuse, and this is how. Chat Noir is allowed to be traumatized, but only as long as it doesn't affect Marinette. Then, his trauma response is not only beneficial, but also the romantic and right thing to do. And, as Kuro Neko said, the answer to the issue of Ladybug keeping secrets and making mistakes is for Chat Noir to stop being so sensitive and just push his feelings away to support her. Chat Noir's trauma does not matter.

And Season 5 only doubles down on this. Adrien's rebellion against his father only matters now because the end goal is for him to date Marinette. The issue of him being a Sentimonster only matters because now it's getting in the way of him dating Marinette. But it could have been fine. Development is development, and the scene where Adrien finally confronts his abuser and asserts his right to be an individual and have autonomy over himself will still be an empowering moment that shows him breaking free of abuse-

He is not in the final battle.

Instead, Marinette is the one to face Adrien's abusive father, by merging Adrien's Miraculous with hers, by facing him off in Adrien's home. Marinette is the one who stands up to Gabriel and faces him. Marinette is the one who completes Adrien's arc for him. It was never about Adrien facing off against his father. It was all a set up for Marinette to do it.

As we all know, Thomas Astruc has gone on record on Twitter to say that Chat Blanc was the reason that Adrien could not participate in the final battle. Chat Blanc, which happened in Season 3, two seasons before Adrien rebelled to this extent against his father, before he underwent that little thing in writing called character development. In Season 4, we watched Ephemeral which more or less rehashed the same points as Chat Blanc, and in Season 5, we watched Representation, where Adrien's final interaction with his father was to be sprayed with nightmare gas and be unable to fight in the final battle (even though Bug Noire managed whilst also suffering from nightmares). We saw these ridiculous excuses be used to contrive a reason for why Adrien could not participate in his own arc, in his own story, even though they could have been easily resolved.

Throughout Season 5, we see the parallels being built up between Marinette and Gabriel, about how they both came from the same situations, and how alike they are in that regard. Previous parallels established between them that the show does not acknowledge as much as it should are their controlling streak (though Marinette is nowhere near as bad as Gabe) and them being willing to do anything for the people they love ("love" being questionable in Gabe's case). Marinette is the one who hears the truth of the Agreste family. In the Season 5 finale, Marinette and Gabriel are the ones that face off against each other. Adrienette was rushed up to come to full fruition in Season 5 despite it hampering the development of the Love Square, all in an attempt to connect Marinette to the Agreste plot. Therefore, Adrien was only ever a plot device so that Marinette could have a stake in the Agreste plot. He is there to connect Marinette and Gabriel and give them something to fight over. Their fight is about him and what is best for him, but he has no agency in it despite it being about him. He only exists as the prize for the winner.

I've talked about this before, but the jist of it is that Adrien was never meant to have an arc about breaking free of abuse. He was never meant to confront his father. Adrien's story only mattered so that Marinette could use it in her speech to talk Gabe down. Adrien's feelings only mattered as far as they affected Marinette herself. He was just meant to be there to further her development. His main contribution to the arc with his last name was to give up his agency and step aside for Marinette, and this is what his role has been throughout the show. All his character was meant to do was be the damsel in distress who she could receive as her trophy once she defeated the big bad villain.

Everything Adrien's character was meant to do was to be Ladybug's prop to offer he support when she needed it, to offer her a connection to the main plotline, and to be her prize after she won. His feelings, his emotions, his trauma... they all only mattered in the context of what they meant for Ladybug. If they inconvenienced her, they were unimportant. If they benefitted her, they were good. He took the blame for her mistakes so that she didn't have to be held accountable, he forgave her so that she didn't have to work to fix her mistakes, and he continued to support her when she didn't really return the favor. Because that is Adrien's role, to be Marinette's emotional support partner who conveniently comes pre-abused and ready to downplay his feelings and emotions to cater to hers while not asking or expecting anything of her. He only exists to take care of Marinette's needs, not as his own character.

And this writing of Adrien's trauma as secondary to Marinette's convenience is a really awful way to write an abuse victim. Not allowing him to prioritize his own feelings and portraying it as a good thing when he fawns over Ladybug is a really awful and bad way to portray his trauma stemming from his abuse. But good thing the fact that he is a victim of abuse is respected at least with regards to his relationship with his abuser, right?

Right?

It's been discussed before how Gabriel's actions are downplayed and minimized in order to afford him maximum sympathy, to portray him as just a misguided and lost soul, instead of as a terrorist and abuser (credit to @erisluna35 for their great post on the matter). The show denies Adrien an opportunity to confront the man, and instead, the good ending is that his victim forgives him. One way the show downplays Gabriel's abusiveness towards Adrien is by having Marinette want to work with him to find a solution for Adrien, implying that his only crime was to not think of Adrien's well-being, and that the only intentions he had for Adrien were correct, fatherly ones that he just lost sight of, and that if he had paid attention to Adrien, he would have been an excellent and loving father, instead of it being that he actively mistreated his son and therefore should not be trusted or allowed to make any sort of decision regarding Adrien's future. He was always "just a man who loves his family" deep down, and he always had only good intentions and a pure heart, and he simply forgot about what he had in pursuit of an ideal family for that son, instead of it being that he was an abusive, controlling person who whittled down his son's self-worth and treated him like a possession, like property, like a doll that was made to cater to his wishes, and that he only ever wanted his wife back for himself and not for his son.

And this just suggests to me that Gabriel's actions... are not meant to be read as abusive. His only crime was paying attention to the Miraculous over his son. Not the gaslighting, the manipulation, the lifelong isolation, the controlling, the physical violence in some realities, the fucking sensory deprivation chambers... those were all not abuse, I guess.

This is confirmed by the fact that Marinette and everyone else lying to Adrien about his existence because Gabriel asked them to do so is framed as a good thing and as proof of Marinette's love for Adrien or something. They are quite explicitly doing what he says, literally following his wishes on how to treat his son. And yet, their actions are not framed as toxic and controlling as they should be, but as selfless and kind towards poor Adrien who won't be able to handle the truth because he's too emotional and weak. Despite this being classic Gabe rhetoric, this is supposed to be seen as sweet and heartwarming and touching, that Marinette is oh so selfless to deny Adrien the information he is entitled to know and to make that choice for him. This tells us that the writers don't really see how Gabriel treated Adrien as... wrong. They don't see his actions are wrong, because when Marinette does it, it's fine! The issue, then, isn't that Gabriel is an abuser who denies his son his autonomy, it's that Gabriel did all these things for the wrong reasons, and Marinette is doing them for the right reasons.

Indeed, the parallelisms, whether intentional or not, between Marinette and Gabriel only serve to further downplay the magnitude of Gabriel's abuse of his son. The problem wasn't that these things are wrong and awful, it's that Gabriel did them because he was Evil and Marinette is doing them because she's Good, and when you're Good, it's okay to gaslight your boyfriend into loving his abuser. There's nothing inherently wrong or abusive about anything Gabriel did. The issue, in fact, is not that he did these things, but his reasonings for them. While it's okay if Marinette denies Adrien the right to be informed of his own life because she feels he is too emotional to be able to make his own choices, because she is Pure and Good and she Loves Him So Much.

And for another example, consider how Emilie Agreste is framed as a perfect and loving and wonderful mother, even though she allowed Adrien to be isolated his whole life and is also heavily implied to have been using the mind control rings on him, since there are two of them. This kinda shows that the writers don't really think mind controlling is abuse or even wrong. It's just wrong because Gabriel is Evil, but Emilie is Pure and Good and therefore allowed to abuse her child this way.

But I don't think the writers were malicious about this. Despite his questionable tweets, I don't think Thomas Astruc doesn't care about abuse. I don't think the writers were deliberately trying to infantilize the abuse victim in the story. I just feel like they don't understand that what they portrayed is abuse. And yet, it comes off as them invalidating the trauma Adrien suffered, but I don't think that would be intentional. The explanation I have for this, therefore, is that Adrien is not supposed to have trauma. Adrien is not supposed to be read as a victim of abuse.

I've mentioned the Marinette-Gabriel parallels, but let me add one more. Adrien is the plot device that furthers Marinette's character, but he also fulfills the same role for Gabriel.

Throughout Season 5, we see Adrien rebel against his father more and more, and it was expected that this would culminate in a final confrontation where Adrien would confront his abuser in his entirety. But Adrien was not a part of this final confrontation, so the arc wasn't about him, and it stands to reason that it must have been for some other character. We see that it is for Marinette, since she was the one who fulfilled what should have been his arc and got the moment that should have been Adrien's. But who was on the other side of this confrontation? Who was the one the speech was directed towards? Who did Adrien connect Marinette to?

It is Gabriel.

Adrien's callout of his father does not matter for furthering his character, but for furthering Gabriel's character. His calling out of Gabriel is less a way for him to finally realize that his father's treatment of him is cruel, and more of a way for Gabe to be seen a tragic, fallen villain. Adrien's callout of his father is not about him, it's about Gabriel and how he feels about it. The finale deals not with Adrien's feelings about being failed by his father, but how Gabriel feels about having failed him. Adrien's increasing rejection of his father is not used to finish the arc he should have had, but it is used in Gabriel's instead. And Gabriel's redemption comes from him being praised by his victim, who aspires to be like him. Adrien was only ever there to progress Gabriel's arc, not the other way around. Adrien had no real agency in the matter, and Gabriel's increasingly cruel treatment of him was only ever there to highlight how far he himself had fallen and was never really about Adrien realizing the truth about him.

And once Gabriel makes the choice to "change," he is rewarded with the forgiveness and love of his victim, who is there to conveniently express to the viewer how we should feel about him. Adrien is there to call out Gabriel when Gabriel is being Bad and Evil and is there to then inform the viewers that Gabriel is Good now by forgiving him and forgetting all his mistakes. Because Adrien forgave Gabriel and isn't Gabriel so wonderful now that he's made up for his mistakes and his victim has forgiven him and even looks up to him?

The main highlight of Gabriel's supposed redemption is the forgiveness of his victim, further highlighting the point that Adrien only existed as a character to push Gabriel's narrative, and not as a victim of abuse who is entitled to decide whether or not to forgive this man. Adrien did not forgive Gabriel because of a natural and believable development in his arc, he forgave him because he is ultimately a plot device to exposit about the current state of Gabriel's arc and to show the viewer what kind of a man Gabriel is, and Gabriel is good now, and so he must be validated through the forgiveness of his victim. Adrien is a prop in Gabriel's arc, who shows us the tragedy of Gabriel's fall and the future redemption of his "selfless sacrifice." His character that of "Gabriel's son," to take us through Gabriel's arc, and not a character of his own.

And since Adrien's ultimate end is to show that Gabriel is a good man after all, it also lends credence to the interpretation that, no, he is not traumatized after all. Nothing actually happened to Adrien himself, because he is only a plot device, not a character. He is there to let us know the tragedy of the man Gabriel. He is just there to let us know where Gabriel is in his arc. We see this in the way his development in just completely erased once Gabriel is "redeemed." His reactions don't make sense in the context of his arc, and it's OOC how he goes from calling out his father for who he is and then reverting back to worshipping him and forgetting all his flaws. But when you consider that the purpose of his character is less being his own character and more about highlighting and pushing forward Gabriel's arc, they make a lot more sense. His reactions don't make sense for the development that he has received throughout the season, but it makes sense if you consider that he is just a cog in Gabriel's story, and that his arc only matters as far as it affects Gabriel's arc. His struggles only matter as far as they affect Gabriel. Just like they only matter in the way they affect Marinette. Adrien doesn't get to learn anything, choose anything or even do anything if it is not about Marinette or Gabriel.

But to go back to the question at the beginning of the post, what purpose does it serve in Adrien's arc to have everyone he knows lie to him?

The answer is that Adrien does not have an arc.

Of course, it seems like he does. He does show some form of growth in calling out his father, so it would appear. But the arc of realizing his father is abusive, the arc of realizing that he deserves to make his own choices, that he deserves unconditional love... does not exist. He is only a plot device in the story, meant to be the motivation for the protagonist and the antagonist. Any arc or character complexity he has is largely accidental. His story about being a victim of abuse is unimportant and non-existent, and the show itself denies him agency and the ability to have any meaningful impact on the story outside of his role in the arcs of the main characters of the show. He has nothing of his own happening for him, he has nothing to do with his own life and family. All he matters for is to be the prop for Gabe's redemption and the prize for Marinette. His only role is to connect these two so that they can duke it out.

He has no autonomy, no agency, no nothing outside of being what Gabriel and Marinette need. We can scream until we're blue in the face about how Adrien feels the need to put on masks to please everyone and has been conditioned into believing his worth is based on pleasing others and that his emotions don't matter, and to be fair I will not stop making those analyses myself, but the fact remains that this is his narrative role. The narrative validates the abuser, both through the actions of the characters around Adrien and the framing of his arc. The characters around him don't treat him as a person as much as they treat him as Marinette's boyfriend, or as someone who doesn't get to make informed choices and should be kept in the dark because he is too emotional. The narrative treats him as a doll who must bend to the needs of the real characters with arcs and a story in the show, as a character who does not have agency and any value of his own beyond being what other characters need. His supposed development is only there to highlight Gabriel's fall. His own feelings and trauma are invalidated in favor of focusing on Marinette. Nothing he does is about him, it's about the main two characters in the show.

The show goes out of its way to remove him from the conflict. There are two episodes devoted to how he cannot ever find out about his father. He gets sprayed with nightmare gas. Fuck, even the only importance of him being a Sentimonster is to make sure that Adrien cannot find a way to break free of Gabriel's control and actually contribute to the plot. The Sentimonster plotline is mainly meant to make sure that there is no way that Adrien would be able to break free of Gabriel's control, hence he cannot take part in the final battle. Its very existence in the story boils down to being a convenient excuse for Adrien to not be a part of the finale. The only importance of the rings is ultimately so that Marinette can have a moment to slide it on his finger while ambiguously either giving him an order or not (I wouldn't be surprised if it was since the show doesn't seem to think mind control is wrong) to show that she's Good and Not Like Gabriel. The Sentimonster thing is textually a plot device to make characters unable to do anything because they physically can't. And it only serves to reduce Adrien into even more of an object, because he's now literally an object. The deeper ramifications of Adrien being a Sentimonster are never explored. It literally only exists to deprive Adrien of more agency so that Marinette can get into the spotlight. The only thing that matters about it is that it is now in the way of Adrienette, once more only focusing on how Adrien's issues affect Marinette.

Adrien is literally reduced to being a part of the magic slave race, because he cannot under any circumstance be a part of the finale and be the one to confront his abuser. And to a smaller extent, this is also the case for Felix and Kagami, two people who have a closer connection to the plotline beyond "fighting the guy who won't let me date my boyfriend." They are also Sentimonsters, and therefore have no choice but to rely on Marinette to save them and cannot fight alone even though Felix had no problem with that in the last season. The Sentimonster plotline is just an excuse to remove anyone with closer ties to Gabriel than his son's girlfriend from the conflict. Either they are working with Gabriel, or they are part of the slave race and cannot fight him, leaving only Marinette to do that for them. But like, at least Felix and Kagami got to make an informed choice about it without being lied to by everyone.

And this denial of abuse and the invalidating of Adrien's trauma leads to some pretty crazy abuse apologism for Gabe. And yes, reducing the impact of Gabriel's abuse, trying to pass him off as "just a man who loves his family," and denying the abuse that Adrien suffered throughout the show is in fact, abuse apologism. And the creators' insistence that Adrien was not emotionally mature enough to fight his father, being that this was the point of Chat Blanc all along apparently, also falls into this same trap of implying that abuse victims are not capable of making sound decisions and having autonomy over their own life, and isn't it so nice that Adrien is now Marinette's doll instead of being Gabriel's. It's victim blaming garbage, and it is frankly really gross. But in the narrative tells us what Gabriel has been telling us from day one about Adrien, that he is too emotional, that he must be protected, that he cannot make his own choices and his autonomy is better left in the hands of others, that his only purpose is to be a doll and a prop for the people around him. He only matters as far as he is useful to them.

And if you want to see the most damning example of Adrien being irrelevant outside his role as the motivation for the two people who actually drive what should be his story, look no further than Chat Noir.

Chat Noir is the only thing that indisputably belongs to Adrien. Chat Noir is him asserting his agency, his freedom, his choices. Chat Noir is his. And Chat Noir is not part of the finale. Not even in terms of physical presence. Chat Noir is an absolute non-entity in the finale. I'm not talking about Adrien; I mean Chat Noir. Chat Noir, who spent nine months fighting Monarch by Ladybug's side. Chat Noir, the owner of the Black Cat Miraculous. Chat Noir in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, is missing in both body and mind from this final battle against his father. The one part of his life and the one part of the story where Adrien had any agency and autonomy of his own, was removed entirely from the finale. Chat Noir was reduced into nothing, to mean nothing. Because Ladybug only went there for Adrien and not to finish her and Chat Noir's fight.

Ladybug didn't fight Monarch in order to end their months-long crusade, she didn't acknowledge that Chat Noir was at least there with her in spirit, she didn't come to Monarch to put an end to the battle that they'd fought for so long with any intentions of at least wanting to carry his fight along with her to bring their enemy to an end, she wasn't there for both of them. She came there for Adrien. She came there to look for Adrien. And the symbol of Adrien's agency, Chat Noir's ring, was on her finger throughout her fight with his father over him. Chat Noir did not matter.

I'll say it again. Adrien had nothing. He was only a tool for Marinette and Gabriel. His role was to be passed on from Gabriel's clutches to Marinette's. And it paints a very bad picture that the one reduced to the role of the plot device is the abuse victim. And for anyone who doubts that Adrien is supposed to be Marinette's plot device, Thomas Astruc has helpfully made my point for me by tweeting that Adrien is Ken and Marinette is Barbie, and that we should just deal with it because it's not going to change. And I hope that this also makes it clear that we will not be dealing with the fact that Marinette is siding with her boyfriend's abuser and doing what he wants, because Marinette is always right, and Adrien doesn't get to have feelings that inconvenience her and only exists to prop her up.

The show makes it clear that he is just an object in the story from the way he's written as a damsel in distress who needs someone else to come save him, and this is taken even further by the fact that he is literally a puppet who can be mind controlled. It takes away Adrien's story of regaining autonomy and informs us that he was never supposed to have autonomy and never can, making it clear that he was never really supposed to have any arc of his own. He was never supposed to break out from his father. His end was to become Marinette's boyfriend and to worship Gabriel. Because that is how their arcs end, and their plot device must go along with it regardless of narrative implications or established characterization.

But that is Adrien's purpose in the show. For Marinette to beat the villain, and to receive his son as her prize for doing that. His abuse and trauma are secondary to Marinette's needs, and him being a victim of Gabriel's abuse is secondary to him being the vessel for Gabriel's redemption. He is only there to be a source of motivation for these two characters and to cater to their arcs. Marinette and Gabriel are the only ones who matter, who have agency in the story. Adrien is just a simple plot device to push their arcs, instead of having one himself. There is no arc for the abuse victim. He exists solely as an object, as property, as a damsel in distress, as a doll. There is no agency and autonomy for him in this story. And that is the unfortunate truth.

[reclamosmiraculersenspanish]

Solo se quejan del "Guionazo" cuando afecta a otros personajes que no son Marinette, peri si se trata de ella, mágicamente ella tiene control de sus acciones. OMG.

[quarterdollar]

HI I'm assuming this is the main for gabrielagresteofficial, I can't remember the exact wording of the question I asked you, but generally what were your thoughts on movie Gabriel and the movie in general :3

HII YES YAY

so going in i was certainly expecting a PRETTY movie but not expecting anything much from the story……pokemon did an “alternative take on the main characters’ origins” movie too that was fun to watch once but nothing super memorable. PLUS you gotta take everything in ML with massive grains of salt to begin with. BUT!!! I WAS BEYOND PLEASANTLY SURPRISED!!!! WOW !!!!!!! i was NOT expecting them to actually wrap up the love square or the hawk moth conflict in a single film, let alone in a way that actually felt satisfying for every character involved. it felt like a huge callback to season 1 in the best way……everyone’s early-show characterizations are back, the ladynoir dynamic is super tastefully written and fun to watch, and overall it’s just a super sweet unapologetically earnest cornball of a movie. did you know that they are in love? they’re in loveee 😭😭

AND GABRIEL. OH MY GOD. HOLY SHIT. FUUUCCCK!!!!!! HIS EVERYTHING. because like. i love him forever and ever to the end of time in all forms Always. season 5 is insanely funny to me. but this man did NOT start as a heartless megalomaniacal asshole who turns his son into a vtuber and attacks random passerby on the street and buys twitter. he was just an extremely emotionally neglectful weirdguy once. we used to be able to go to his house and beg him to let adrien go to a birthday party and he’d break just a little and say yes. he was SO sad. and blonde. the filmmakers understood this. they brought us back to what we used to have. and then they gave us more by making him SO unbelievably mentally ill. saying he’s busy because he needs to go stand in a corner and brood. having meltdowns on the daily. passing out on the floor. CANONICALLY suicidal. jesus christ. but he’s ALSO still Hawk Moth bitch!!! he’s goofy and campy and a ham without the weight of Being Gabriel on him. being evil is awesome and fun actually. torment and hatred forever <3 and then they do a good job of showing how he falls further into it over time until he’s doing actually outrageous evil shit and attempting murder and going crazy and he’s SCARYY and gets the upper hand super easily and you’re like Good lord he is going to KILL these children. but then the power of love saves him because we do remember that he still has a soul. he takes the L and goes to jail while keeping his Shady Tendencies. that’s what i thought was gonna happen in the show too, once,

also i didn’t know it was a musical going in!! that was a magical surprise!! and then i was like Oh thank god they’re not making Bryce Papenbrook sing. and i was hoping and praying and begging that gabriel would get a song for obvious reasons, and also because i KNEW that if any VA was going to get to stay for that it was going to be Keith Silverstein. and sure enough he completely bodies the villain number and they even gave him a high note to hit!!! ohhh my god. INSANE moments in victor quarterdollar history. it Was weird that they dubbed cristina vee though. she does have a nice voice, i listen to her music. but other than that very good decisions across the board. exploded. died. will be watching again

[purrincess-chat]

The whole fandom is speculating that Adrinette will break up next season and / or there will be Ladynoir angst bc of Maribug keeping secrets. Do you think it's possible?

I feel like in general those ideas come from two different places and neither one are good in my opinion 🙄

People have been wanting Adrinette to break up or cheat on each other since they got together. That's not unique to this finale, it's just butthurt stans pouting and throwing a tantrum because it wasn't what they wanted so rather than getting over it and being happy the kids are together at all they'd rather see it crash and burn. For whatever reason. It's the weirdest take I've seen since they got together in canon. Like yeah we spent 5 seasons rooting for them and hoping they'd get together but now that they are together we totally want to see them break up and get together again but in different clothes because that totally won't fuck them up if they find out their identities later. Yeah, this person I totally moved on from and didn't want to date anymore is actually still my boyfriend/girlfriend. It's a different story if they are exes than if they are just friends. This fandom is so butthurt and wild that they don't even care about if it makes sense anymore 🤦‍♀️

The other side of this with people calling for angst bc Marinette is keeping secrets, to me, stems from people just wanting to salt Marinette. Which, what the hell else is new in this fandom? People have been gross about her since the beginning, but truthfully, I saw this coming when I learned what happens in the finale. I'm unsurprised. Because this fandom likes to blame young girls when, in reality, it's the fault of creepy grown ass men who could have just gone to therapy but chose domestic terrorism instead. 🤷‍♀️

Do I think either of these things will happen? Eh, maybe, maybe not. I think there will obviously be conflict in future seasons, and likely conflict within each of those dynamics because that's realistic and how stories work. I wouldn't mind there being Adrinette conflict that they resolve, that's good for their relationship growth. To break them up at this point would just be a middle finger to the audience and a way to drag us along. Because we know they're endgame so what would be the point other than prolonging the inevitable?

I definitely think there will be consequences to Gabriel's actions and his wish in future seasons. The show has always stated that there is a price to pay when someone makes a wish, and I think it's more than just Gabriel losing his life because he was going to lose that anyway, it wasn't much of a sacrifice. (And let's be real Gabriel's soul ain't worth much)

And for those that are genuinely curious if these things will happen and not coming from a salty place of just wanting to watch the world burn bc you're mad, time will tell. 🤷‍♀️ We will just have to wait and see.

Like I said, I plan to give this show until mid s6 at least before I decide whether I'll continue it or not. I'll give the new season a chance to show what it has to offer as far as continuing the story and where they're taking it next.

[miraculouslywhatsgoingon]

Love how the S5 finale proofed that Adriens life rlly is just handwoven away in the terms LadyNoir was set by Marinette thru season 4. If Chats life threateningly endangered as civilian o in th hands of villains & in desperate need of help physically an emotionally hes not allowed to ask for Ladybugs help n shouldnt expect bein worth gettin help from any1 else of the 70 billion heros on their side either. bc him gettin help equals "leaving LB high and dry and selfishly asking too much of her". His worth in this partnership depends on how little he inconveniences Ladybug. How lovely.

Chats job on LBs side s rlly just to be the 1 team member Marinette has no obligations towards n flawlessly takin care of her while hardly askin anything in return but owing her to remain all isolated n endurin whatever civilian problems he has by himself if something happens. Which it did. Adrien was locked up ina diffrent country under constant monitoring of Monarch an Tomoe who stands above Gabriel & was put thru agonizing nightmares on purpose so Adrien gives in, puts on the alliance ring n stayed completly @ Tomoes mercy while bein kept unconscious by the ring. That woman could have done anythin she wanted to Adrien once Gabriel failed his mission. Adriens purpose in her eyes IS her deal with Gabriel.

But hey it's fine. Marinette made sure Adrien understands that HE needs no help bc thats HER privilege & if he ever needs it it betta be solvable for her with a band-aid slapped on a open wound or a quick save. If its more or even *gasp* inconvenient for her then Adrien owes LB to die quietly n alone. & that Adrien did so nicely didnt he? Complete refusal to ask for any help cuz poor Ladybug can only be ina partnership with her isolated anonymous partner if she gets all the benefits, a second partner behind his back & Chats acceptance that his suicidal tendencies are not her problem. Cuz thats what Adrien did in the finale. He gave up fightin & gave away his only way of escapin or reaching help on the outside thru Plagg.

Cuz well, Unlike Ladybug Adrien actlly has to follow all the rules forced on them bc LB said she gets to be the exception to evrything but hes selfish if he steps one foot out of the line she sets o reinforces.

Thx S5 finale for makin clear what the priorities r in this partnership. This is so fucking awful but I guess it does validate why I lost all respect for Ladybug an her leadership in this "partnership" in season 4.

The LadyNoir terms Marinette "lovingly" beat in Adriens head r nothin short of glorified abandonment. And when evry danger in Adriens civilian life did eventually end up gettin him its good to know that LadyNoir was settled for good in the Ladybug biased way that Chat thinks it's his responsibility to give up on himself an rather wither away in the prison that is Adriens life before asking a single thing from his partner.

Fucking amazing. & of course Marinette gets to teach it to children for almost a decade as a GOOD thing! Guess theres rlly not much else to expect from Marinette an her stories morality.