#MLS picks

[clownelry]

undercover superheroes!!!!!! (chat is going to die in 1 minute.)

[zoe-oneesama]

I remember you posted an old comic to your patreon which featured Chloe as Queen Bee ignoring Marinette when she was trapped and Ladybug laying into her for it. Will you be reposting it to your tumblr since your patreon is no longer up?

Eh sure I can post it

Disclaimer: I made this during the Great Hiatus when we had no idea how the leaked heroes were getting their Miraculouses, so I went with the theory that Chat Noir would choose Chloe for Queen "B" without Ladybug/Marinette knowing her identity (it was at the time the only way I could think of Chloe getting a Miraculous, plus only Rena and Queen had been spoiled so Nino wasn't an option). Also all we had were blurry photos, thus QB's suit not matching canon and everyone calling her "Queen B" instead of the full Bee.

Additionally, this was the first chapter to a redemption comic I had planned, so this is kinda the Hit Rock Bottom portion of the story (thus why there's no upward swing). AND I will never finish this as obviously it is BEYOND Non-Canon-Compliant lol

Obviously the plan is for this to be a wake up call (even had a whole "do you know why I picked you" speech from Chat to swing back to a more upbeat point for Chloe to start her Self Reflection on), but I stalled too long and then canon came and made all of this moot lol.

[dostoyevsky-official]

the undercurrent behind that post is a form of genocide denial for one reason or another—ukrainians are too annoying online, they're too "reddit," they (for lack of any other option) had to hitch themselves to the american imperial wagon, ukrainians are nazis, russia wouldn't do this, russia opposes the US, it's a class war, it's an inter-imperialist war, i don't trust the media, i don't know how to fucking read—that boils down to ignorance. complete unawareness. i can't count the number of times i've had to tell someone actually, a swathe of cities in the donbass have been reduced to the past tense, it's not just bakhmut, they're all rubble like gaza now, to be met with surprise and disbelief. they keep running filtration camps and raping people in the occupied territories

[monpetitchattriste]

For personal reasons

[pens-ml-polls]

Before anyone asks, no you cannot generalize to include the ship in it’s entirety, it has to be ONLY in the stated scene, the ship as a whole is irrelevant

[pandaofsecrets]

Okay, who names their kid Sublime? It sounds like something you'd name a horse.

[stackslip]

in these troubling times the most sacred duty of certain marxists to screenshot an anarchist's out of context posts and waterdunk them and then discourse about said posts during three days, all the while congratulating themselves for being enlightened by the immortal science of marxism-leninism and then immediately posting a news story that proves that china has totally abolished racism and is destroying capitalism because look, they got a middle class that can afford iphones now

[halfahelix]

Hi @generalluxun, I'm your @mlsecretsanta this year! I know you're a big fan of Felix, Chloe, Adrien, and Sabrina, so I wrote a little fic about them. This illustration is Felix and Chloe from the opening scene. Happy holidays, and Happy New Year! 🎄 Hope you enjoy :)

Background image source, cropped and slightly edited

Bonus background-free version:

[samsimisauser]

They are exactly as cringe fail as two 14 year old Emos should be, everyone who hates them is clearly just a prep and wrong

[zoe-oneesama]

First of all, I love your art style and the route that you took with your AU, but may I ask you: Why you dislike power ups? (I just really want to understand, you don't have to explain if you don't feel comfortable) Thanks for this amazing AU and I look forward for the angelic Layer AU.

I mean I've talked about it before but it mostly comes down to too much and too little all at once. They introduced more Miraculouses AND power ups in the same season, so too much, but now we're 4 Seasons since their reveal and we've only seen 3 of them? If the show can't even pretend to care about them, why should I?

Plus the title "power up" is misleading. They don't get a power boost, they don't get stronger - they're just environmental suits. A Costume Change. Which is fine, especially against akumas which can have literally any power. But maybe showcase those powers then????

And the longer they sit on these, the worse hindsight is going to look if when they finally debut them. Like, think: how many akumas would've been easier with the Space Power Up? Why do you think I made this joke in SLs Crocoduel:

How much easier would Stormy Weather have been the second time around if they had the Space Power Up? Or Weredad? Queen Wasp? Star Train, the akuma LITERALLY IN SPACE?! They hadn't debuted the power yet, but Adrien and Marinette have had the full set of powers since "Syren", it just makes THEM look dumb for not using it! And it'll be the same thing when the other 4 powers finally show themselves. IF they show themselves.

Just add a throw away line about the ingredients being difficult to acquire to explain the scarcity, at LEAST!

[howhow326]

So I was rummage through the Miraculous Ladybug subreddit for research purposes when I encountered this very... darksided comment section

And it actually scares me that people not only think of Feminism this why (which I already knew unfortunately) but that they are fans of Miraculous Ladybug somehow?!

Like I deadass thought this was maybe made in 2015 or something but no it's from 2020 (!!!) and with everything happening right now and with the antifeminism/"anti sjw" machine on youtube during the 2014-2016 era, this is really giving me twilight zone vibes...

[mystic-myrtille]

Didn‘t want to make a salt post about the finale bc I just want to be done with canon but also I have thoughts especially now that I‘ve went through some fan discourse

So Adrien wasn‘t involved in the finale and an argument for this are that the what-if episodes show that Adrien would not be able to handle the truth, be akumatized as a result and end up destroying the world. And I understand because the messed up things Gabriel did are a lot to take in so Adrien being overwhelmed and anything but okay does make sense. However that makes me wonder

Why is Adrien even a permanent hero who wields one of the two most important miraculouses if him fighting Monarch is not only completely unhelpful but ultimately a guarantee for the heroes to loose?

If literally anyone else who didn‘t have this connection to Gabriel was the cat, this wouldn‘t be a problem at all! All of Marinette‘s friends are either indifferent towards Gabe or hate him. Of course they would have a moment of shock but most likely not to an extent where they‘d be akumatized into world destroyer, so Adrien being replaced as the cat would actually be beneficial.

Or the writers could‘ve given Adrien actual relevant character developement outside of his relationship with Mari and have him realize his dad isn‘t really a great person and have him find out before the finale what Gabe has been up to so that he has a little time to deal with everything before he tells Lb and they plan their final attack. Like there are ways to write him as a compelling and interesting character who overcomes the control his dad has over him, metaphorically and literally, which would actually be an inspiring character arc for him to get his autonomy he severely lacks.

But no, the writers think of Adrien as a little weakling who will never be able to handle anything that doesn‘t fit his world view bc god forbid he ever feels overwhelmed about anything so he needs to be coddled by Marinette and the narrative and everyone.

The way they‘ve set this up, Adrien is literally the worst choice for the black cat.

[bugoutreviewgirlie]

Marinette definitely has some type of background in mixed martial arts, unless all Ladybugs innately know how to wrestle

[blueberry-cheese-pizza]

I don't know if anyone else feels the same as me... but when Duke Su interacts with other characters, his enemies, or his grandfather, the scenes become more compelling? In the later episodes (I'm at ep 36 now), his scenes with the FL seem almost lackluster. Or maybe it's like what another user has mentioned before... (sorry, I can't remember who, my brain is a bit dead from work) the leads don't really have much at stake, their relationship is pretty much stable at this point, nothing will shake them, so I keep missing that "chemistry".

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Okay I cracked the code:

Bullying or abuse towards Marinette = Evil, vile, irredeemable in any way.

Bullying or abuse towards Adrien: Misunderstood, not evil, Adrien can handle it. Clearly redeemable and deserve to win.

[imthepunchlord]

Honestly? At this point Miraculous seems like a pick and choose kind of fandom??? Like when the storyline and author of something become too much of a mess for the fans to care much for canon anymore so they just choose what the want to write fanfics about. It happens in stuff like DC where they can't have all the different characterizations of the characters together without contradiction. Death of the author situation I think???

It was already happening with fan artists so very intrigued by the PV. And then as new characters and powers were introduced people started omitting some characters n episodes.

Now, with the absolute nothing having done for the character arcs for most of the characters (Adrian, Chole, even Alya) people are just tired.

Understandably so. We have almost a decade of bad writing, inconsistency on characters, clashing set up and characters, upsetting/huge choices that don't have any real consequences to them or not the right response, and honestly at the core, nothing changing all that much. S6 is going to have LB and Chat still not know each other's identities, and are still going to face a villainous Butterfly user.

Only difference is that there's now a total of 17 heroes in Paris, but given that LB and Chat are the center piece, I don't know how much we'll really see them. Oh, and Adrien and Marinette are dating, though I wouldn't be surprised if s6 just had them broken up or immediately broke them up. They did it before. And this pair is supposed to chase each other eternally... maybe they'll stay dating s6 and onwards but idk, it seems like no one likes writing couples together, which is a shame as that can be a whole other can of worms and not always happy, as you're taking that partnership further, you're going to learn more of who your SO is, and there's going to be fights, there's going to be learning communication, there's going to be learning compromise. There's a lot to explore with couples together that's not always sunshine and rainbows, and hardly any show wants to really explore it. Maybe they will s6 but I'm not really anticipating the possibility.

Either way, yeah, ML is that medium where, because of the inconsistency, you can pick and choose what you think fits the character. Given the lack of consistency, it can be up for debate of what's even in character for this character.

Like, I remember when Collector first came out, and Chloe is sobbing about Adrien being pulled from school and I was so surprised by the choice. The Chloe that was presented in s1 would not be sobbing. She was be mad. She would go demand and threaten Gabriel to give Adrien back. Probably one of the few people she genuinely cared for, and this is a girl who knows that she has a lot of political power and can get her way easily. She would not be crying over this, she'd be marching her way to the Agreste manor, ready to give Gabriel a bad day for the audacity of pulling her friend out of school when she waited so long for him to join her in school.

And that's just one of many moments where something can feel out of character, at least for me. Depending on how you view Chloe, that could very much be in character. And that's the nice and frustrating thing with Miraculous, no consistency, anything is up for your interpretation.

Even more so when you have characters that have a clear route of progress to follow.

Like, take Felix, who got cut because he didn't work with what Astruc wanted to do, which yeah, he doesn't. Which he wanted to do a status quo story, which means little to no progressing forward, no major changes to that initial set up. Felix though is a character that needs progress. He starts out selfish, not wanting to be a hero, and his set up arc is learning to care. Learning to truly become a hero, learning to make friends and working with others, coming to genuinely fall for his partner and being genuine with her.

Felix would've been fine with a story progressing forward.

He had a clear path to take.

Chloe, given all the build up to be Queen Bee, had two clear paths to take, be it redemption and rising to becoming a hero, or embracing a role of full villainy.

Alya had a clear path to take, with her eagerness to expose the heroes publicly, she needs to learn the value and security of secrecy, and the reality that her trying to expose them put them at risk; that she needs to reevaluate her priorities and how she should go about things.

There's also the issue of lore, which ML has really bad lore. Which can leave us to be more creative with it, make changes so it makes sense. And this can extend to powers too, as I don't think a majority genuinely like all powers presented, I don't know anyone who really likes time traveling Rabbit or really knows how Rooster works. So it is really nice that people are pretty open to seeing Miraculous power changed or expanded upon.

And of course, there's the lack of consistency in what they set up.

Ladybug and Cat are supposed to be THE most powerful, the big two! But they don't feel like. Butterfly feels like the most OP given it can give any power and can make superior versions of preexisting Miraculous. Peafowl can do the same, and make actual life apparently, that you can fully control and terminate whenever you want. Rabbit can freaking time travel. Rooster it seems can give you any power you want, I know they tried to explain that Rooster can't do what other Miraculous do, but that's a clashing statement as Ladybug and Goat both generate items, and the Paris Special reveals that a Ladybug CAN control what items they gets, and you got Butterfly and Peafowl able to function the same, and in the Paris Special, Butterfly can make a champion that can go to different realities, and Rooster can give the ability to go to different realities, so I guess we'll just go with Rooster can give you any power you want?

Yeah, Miraculous over all is a huge frustrating mess. Even more so that it's still going on despite how sloppy it is.

And for me at least, I create content for it as I can SEE the potential it has for the concept. It's such a brilliant idea for a superhero/magical girl show.

Doing animal themed heroes, with their powers working off the animal symbolism, themes, folklore, and mythology? Yeah, that is great. That can give you SO MUCH to work with and do. Even more so, most animals have the same themes across different cultures, like everyone agrees that foxes are tricky, horses are about heroism and traversal, bees are the peak example of community, ect..

And then there's these little beings that are based on those animals, that have lived through a long history alongside humanity? Easily could've been the most fascinating part of the show, especially if they work off animal archetypes. That gives you a preset personality to build upon, and can shape each kwami's view, moral, and guidance.

Like Pollen as a Bee should have values of having a role to play in the great hive of the world, you might need help finding your purpose, and to believe that humans should communicate, work with others, work hard, be kind but take no bull. Live a life of integrity and responsibility.

Trixx as a Fox though should be a trickster. One that's ultimately for the greater good, but she's going to be chaotic about it. Maybe a little selfish, maybe a little mischievous, and maybe a little risky. She's going to urge a value of cleverness and perception in her humans, but she's also going to let them act for themselves as she wants to see how things play out for curiosity and fun. And in the grand scheme of things, everything will work out as Trixx intends, with her having various predictions on how things will probably go, but my goodness, anyone caught up in her gambling game is going to be in for a wild ride.

And with these two very drastic animal archetypes, it sets up Pollen and Trixx to clash on how they handle things, expanding upon kwamis having unique dynamics, some as friendships while others are rivalries.

Then of course, there's the intrigue of what humans they could get paired with, especially if you go a route of foils that could open the way for growth.

Like Bee was set up as Chloe's ultimate foil, being the opposite of who she was: being mean and petty, lashing out, being lazy, egotistical, selfish, doesn't work with others unless she values them. All of that is the opposite of what bees represent. And all of that is what Chloe needed to grow and improve, but no, we can't make progress, she has to stay who she is, so the Bee is catered to her lashing out.

So yeah, it's a big shame as I freaking love this concept, especially as I like animals, I like reading up on their mythology and symbolism and such. But it's so horrendously done. And that's the biggest shame as I think it could've been one of the great cartoons to recommend. But not how it is now.