#Marinette deserved better

[familyagrestefanblog]

Ladybug's Lucky Charms in Werepapas

Let's talk about another detail that people kinda REALLY wanna ignore about Marinette's decision in the Werepapas akuma battle. It's the fact that she hand-waves away FIVE Lucky Charms until she finally goes with the sixth:

No, that is NOT irrelevant. Marinette is not supposed to disregard her Lucky Charms left and right because they're trying to tell her what she's supposed to do. That's Lucky Charm 101 in an akuma battle.

I'm not gonna pretend like I know for 100% certainty what they all tried to tell her, but

1) a couple of them can be easily interpreted in very relevant ways.

And 2) I don't NEED to know what exactly they all mean because it doesn't need to be PROVEN that Marinette isn't supposed to cherry-pick her Lucky Charms. We've known since s1 how this works and it's still done like this in s6. Thanks to not being limited anymore to 1 Lucky Charm, she gained the luxury of sometimes just getting to summon one for the purpose of whooping ass instead of solving the actual situation - which is still a lucky charm's REAL purpose - but that doesn't change the fact that you're supposed to listen to the Lucky Charm, not the Lucky Charm to you!

Under special circumstances like a final battle, sure, use additional ones to whoop ass. But you can't just switch out the problem solving Charm with a purely ass whooping one which is what Marinette did here in "Werepapas". It's fine when you do that in an extremely dire situation, but a normal akuma battle is no dire situation. Especially not when the only real stakes there are is being reckless with Adrien's amoks!

She's supposed to use whatever she gets and that'll lead her to the right solution. Not going through a whole line of Lucky Charms until she gets one where she finally likes the first thought she gets from it because of how little it challenges her self-preservation (makes you wonder if having unlimited Lucky Charms now isnt the worst thing that ever happened to her. Now she can just ignore whole Lucky Charms until she finally gets one that tells her something closer to what she wants to hear instead of listening to the CHARM)

Let's take a look at her 6 Lucky Charms:

From my recollection (so correct me if I'm wrong), while the teapot sometimes shows up here and there as filler Charms it was firmly established and used several times as a visual cue for Marinette to go to Master Fu.

Obviously, she can't do that anymore, but she has Alya as co-guardian, Luka who was trained by Su-Han, and even Su-Han himself as Celestial Guardian who now does whatever she wants.

In a situation where Adrien's amoks are the akuma object, it's a pretty logical thing to happen that her first Lucky Charm tells her to get Guaridan-related help. She has the option, all the needed support, and all the resources, but doesn't use it because it wouldn't be nice having to face the baggage that could come with it.

And even if you wanna say "She didn't get help because she didn't wanted the new Butterfly to possibly find out that Adrien is a Sentibeing!" Then that excuse still falls flat because obviously Adrien's LIFE is supposed to be more important than preventing that secret from coming out. The secret has no value if Adrien is DEAD.

Afterwards she gets a fan and this obviously could VERY likely mean that she's supposed to get Felix involved because he's the Miraculous holder of the Peacock. And by "VERY likely" I mean "I doubt there is a likely chance that it ISNT a hint to get Felix".

I won't even elaborate on this further. Her second Lucky Charm tried telling her to get Felix when Adrien's amoks were on the line and she ignored it. It is what it is.

For the third and fifth ones, I personally don't know what they could mean because I already struggle recognizing what exactly they are supposed to be. Though, they do have recognizable shapes. I bet other people could look at them and know where they've seen these objects before in the show.

Then right between these two, the fourth Charm Marinette summons is an unicycle (that for some reason isn't polkadotted, but screw it)

An unicycle like she summoned back in season 2 "Sabotis", the episode in which Alya became Rena Rouge for the first time. Meaning this one pointed to getting Rena's help.

For me, this is one of the most interesting ones regarding Marinette's feelings of not wanting to face the Lucky Charm's solution to instead protect all her secrets. But if anything, I would want to give it its own post and not half-ass it here. Cause there are a lot of layers to this one.

And, of course, the last one: the scarf. It's alongside the fan the one for which the fandom does casually acknowledge the symbolism of it being a call back to 1x01 "The Bubbler" where Marinette now infamously made the decision to let Adrien believe that it was his father who made the scarf for him - and not her - because of how happy it made Adrien that his father finally "cared":

I don't think I need to explain why it makes sense that this is the one s6 Marinette cherry-picks to finally work with. The poor scarf has been made into the symbol of Marinette wanting to keep pretty much everything about Adrien's family a secret from him. Including him being a Sentibeing. I miss the good old days when we dreamed of the scarf being set-up to become the catalyst for Adrien to write off his father as a useless deadbeat who isnt worth his time and love.

So, unfortunately, of course this is the one she goes with now. Even if it means taking the risk to kill Adrien. Anything to keep the secrets save and lies unnoticed. How tf did we GET here?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Pick One: Magical Girl Show or Rom-com. You cannot be both.

Early in season four we get the episode Gang of Secrets. An episode that ends with Marinette outing her secret identity to Alya. A touching moment that sparked outrage across the fandom because it meant that Marinette had made the choice to reveal her identity to her best friend while keeping her hero partner in the dark.

This choice spat in the face of the exceptions that many fans had for the series. Thousands of pre-season-four fanfics feature moments where Ladybug and Chat Noir promise each other that they'll be the first to know each other's identities. After the Alya reveal, scores of fanfics were written to salt on Marinette's choice to tell the "wrong" person.

Most of these fics feature a betrayed Chat Noir quitting or otherwise punishing Ladybug for breaking their promise to be each other's first, thereby destroying his faith in their partnership. But that promise was never made on screen. It only existed in the realms of fanfic and, when Chat Noir finally found out in canon, his reaction was largely neutral. He never once blamed Ladybug for her choice or pushed for a reveal or even asked for the right to tell one of his friends.

So what happened here? Why did the fans have such wildly unrealistic expectations of canon? Were their expectations even unrealistic or did canon betray them? The answer to that is not as straight forward as you might think because it all comes back to one of Miraculous' many, many, many writing problems: Miraculous is trying to be both a Magical Girl Show and a romantic comedy, but those are not genres that mesh. You can only be one (or you can be a third thing that we'll get to at the end as it's the easiest way to fix this mess, but I want to mostly focus on where the anger is coming from and why the writing is to blame.)

To discuss this mismatch, we're going to do something that breaks my heart and talk about some of Origins flaws. While I love that episode and unironically refer to it as the best writing the show ever gave us, it's not perfect and its flaws are all focused around trying to set up both genres. Do note that I'm going to use a lot of gender binary language here as magical girl shows have a strong focus on gender segregation and rarely if ever acknowledge gender diversity.

Let's Talk Magical Girls

Magical girl shows are shows that center on young women and their friendships. While male love interests are often present in these shows, the boys tend to take a backseat and function primarily as arm candy while the girls save the day and carry the narrative.

A great example of this is the show Winx Club. This show features a large cast of teenage girls who save the magical universe from various threats with their magical powers. Each girl has a love interest, but the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship. I don't even think that we see the guys fight or, if we do, it's a rare thing. They are not there to save the day. They are there to be shipping fodder.

Like most magical girl shows, Winx Club starts with the main character making friends with one of the girls who will eventually become part of her magical girl squad. This brings us back to Miraculous.

Did you ever find it weird that Origins implies that Marinette has no friends? She doesn't even have a backbone until new girl Alya shows up to become Marinette's First Real Friend:

Marinette: I so wish I can handle Chloé the way you do. Alya: You mean the way Majestia does it. She says all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. (pointing at Chloé) Well, that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people. We can't let her get away with it.

This is a bizarre opening because Miraculous is not about Marinette making friends or learning to stand up for herself. If you skipped Origins and just watched the rest of the show, then you'd have no clue that Marinette wasn't close with her classmates before this year. You also wouldn't know that Alya was new in town and you definitely wouldn't know that Marinette had never stood up to Chloé before this year. So why is this here? Why waste screen time setting up elements that aren't actually important to canon?

Miraculous did it for the same reason that Winx Club did it: magical girl shows traditionally start with the main character making friends with at least one of her eventual female teammates because Magical Girl shows are all about the girls and their relationships. The boys are just arm candy.

But Miraculous isn't a magical girl show. The writers have explicitly stated that it's a rom-com and romantic comedies aren't about female friendship. They might have female friendships in them, but that's not where the focus is. The focus of a rom-com is on the romance and Origins is very clearly all about the romance.

Origins as a Rom-com

Origins has a lot on its plate. It has to establish the villain's motivation for the first time, show us how the heroes got their miraculous, show us how the heroes first met on both sides of the mask, show us how they met their respective best friends, and show us how the heroes dealt with their first akuma. It would be perfectly understandable if this 40 minute two-parter didn't do anything with the romance. They have a full show to give us that!

In spite of this, Origins has some incredibly touching moments for both Ladynoir and Adrienette because romance is the heart of Miraculous. It is the main focus of the show. The driving motivation for both of our leads and the majority of the show's episodes. To tell the story of how their journey started without at least one of them falling in love would feel wrong. That's why we see both of them fall in love!

First we get Chat Noir giving his heart to his bold and brilliant lady, then we get Marinette's heart being stolen by the shy sweet boy who never once thought to blame her for her snap judgement of his character. We even get a touching moment where Chat Noir inspires his lady to accept her role and be Ladybug, leading her to boldly face their enemy and call him out:

Roger: I have a new plan, unlike you! Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You've already failed once! Ladybug: …He's right, you know. If I'd captured Stoneheart's akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn't the right one for this job… Cat Noir: No. He's wrong, because without you, she'd no longer be here. (they look at Chloe) And because without us, they won't make it, and we'll prove that to 'em. Trust me on this. Okay? Ladybug: Okay.

I love this moment, but it does lose a little of its power when you remember that we had an Alya-driven variation of this exact same thing five minutes prior:

Alya: HELP!! (Marinette suddenly gets filled with courage. She gets the case out of Alya's bag and puts on the Miraculous. Then, Tikki appears, happy to see Marinette again.) Tikki:(raising her arms) Mmmm! Marinette: I think I need Ladybug! Tikki: I knew you'd come around! Marinette: Well, I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but Alya's in danger. I can't sit back and do nothing.

This scene initially confused me because - if Miraculous is a rom-com - then why would you make Alya the reason that Marinette became Ladybug? Why wouldn't you have Chat Noir be the one in danger so that Marinette chose to fight because of her love interest and then encourage that bond with the later scene of him encouraging her? Why split the focus like this? Why give Alya so much attention?

In case you haven't figured it out, it's because Origins is trying to establish two different genres of show. Two genres that will continue to fight for the rest of the series (or at least the first five seasons).

Magical Girls Vs Rom-com

Why is Alya the one to shake off the nightmare dust and inspire the others during the season five finale? Why is Alya the one that Marinette trusts with all of her plans while Chat Noir is kept in the dark? Why does Alya and Marinette's friendship get so much more focus than Adrien and Nino's? Why was Alya the only temp hero who got upgraded to full time hero?

It's because Alya is Marinette's second in command in a magical girl show and magical girl shows focus on female friendships while the boys are just there to be cute and support the girls.

Why do most of Marinette's talks with Alya focus on Adrien? Why is Chat Noir the only other full time holder of a Miraculous for the first three seasons and then again for the final season? Why do Marinette's friends become more and more obsessed with Adrienentte as the show goes on? Why is the love square's identity reveal given so much more narrative weight than any other identity reveal?

It's because Miraculous is a rom-com and the love square is our end game couple, so of course the story focuses on their relationship above all else!

Are you starting to see the problem?

Circling back to our original question: no, it was not unreasonable for the fans to expect that the Alya reveal would have massive negative consequences for Ladynoir. That is what should happen in a rom-com and Miraculous is mainly written like a rom-com. But the writers are also trying to write a magical girl show and, in a magical girl show, Alya and Marinette's friendship should be the most important relationship in the show, so it makes perfect sense that the show treats the Alya reveal as perfectly fine because the Alya reveal was written from the magical girl show perspective.

When it comes to Miraculous, if you ever feel like a writing choice makes no sense for genre A, re-frame it as a thing from genre B and it suddenly makes perfect sense which is fascinatingly terrible writing! It's no wonder there are people who hate the Alya reveal and people who will defend it with their life. It all depends on which genre elements you've picked up on and clung to. Neither side is right, they've both been set up to have perfectly valid expectations. Whether those expectations are valid for a given episode is entirely up to the mercurial whims of the writers!

How Do We Fix This Mess

At this point, I don't think that we can, the show is too far gone, but if someone gave me the power to change one element of Miraculous, that element would be this: scrap both the magical girl stuff and the rom-com stuff and turn Miraculous into a team show where the friendships transcend gender.

At this point, I've written over a quarter of a million words of fanfic focused on these characters (the brain rot is real) and one thing I've discovered is that it is damn near impossible to keep Adrien and Alya from becoming friends. They're both new to their school while Marinette and Nino have gone to the same school for at least a few years. Alya and Adrien are both obsessed with Ladybug plus Adrien is a natural hype man who loves to support his friends and Alya loves to talk about her blog. Alya is dating Adrien's best friend. On top of that, Alya, Adrien, Nino, and Marinette are all in the same class, meaning that they pretty much have to be spending time together five days a week unless French school don't give kids a chance to socialize or do group projects. If so, then judging them for the first issue, but super jealous of the latter.

Given all of that, why in the world is does it feel like Alya is Marinette's close friend while Adrien is just some guy who goes to Alya's school? Along similar lines, while canon Marinette barely talks to Nino, I've found that Marinette and Nino tend to get along smashingly, especially if you embrace the fact that they have to have known each other for at least a few years.

If you embrace this wider friendship dynamic and scrap the girl squad, replacing it with Alya, Adrien, Marinette, and Nino, then the fight for narrative importance quickly goes away. It's no longer a question of is this episode trying to be a magical girl show or a rom-com? Instead, the question is: which element of the friend group is getting focused on today? The romance or the friendship?

A lot of hero shows do this and do it well. I think that one of the most well known examples is Teen Titans. That show has five main characters and the focus is usually on their friendships, but there is a very clear running romantic tension between the characters Robin and Starfire with several episodes giving a good deal of focus to their romance. I'd say that this element really starts in the show's the 19th episode - Date with Destiny - and it all culminates in the movie that capstones the series: Trouble in Tokyo. The character Beast Boy also gets a romance arc and, while it's more short lived, it's further evidence that you can have strong romances and strong friendships in the same show and even the same episode. You just have to own the fact that boys and girls can be friends with each other, a very logical thing to embrace when your show has decided to have a diverse cast of heroes instead of imposing arbitrary gender limitations on its magical powers.

I couldn't figure out a way to work this into the main essay, but it's relevant so I wanted to quickly point it out and give you more to think about re Origins. Have you ever found it weird how Origins gives both Adrien AND Marinette the "I've never had friends before" backstory and yet wider canon acts like Marinette has this strong amazing friend group while Adrien doesn't seem to care about making friends and instead focuses all his energy on romance? Why give both the protagonist and the supposed deuteragonist this kind of origin if it's not going to be a major element of the show? It makes so much more sense to only give one of them this backstory and then focus that person's character arc on learning about friendship.

[blackcatsandlockets]

Gabriel: You're not good enough for my son.

Marinette: You're not good enough for your son.

Gabriel: Excuse me?

Marinette: You're excused.

[generalluxun]

The girl who has been fighting Monarch for most of a year. Who has battled him around the globe, who saw him nearly start a nuclear war, who saw him torment and target her classmates, who saw him target a pregnant woman, who has the analytical mind to add up how he has been involved from the very beginning, who knows he akumatized his own son(Cat Blanc), who has already challenged his authority and saw him clamp down even harder, who was alone without her partner in the belly of the beast, the girl who has protected Paris at every turn... She let down her guard and gave Gabriel the opening to win...

Because plot required her to so Gabriel could get the wish and be shown to be 'good at heart', or something.

No offence, but no, Marinette did not spare Gabriel because of the nightmare. She spared him because she's fundamentally a nice, kind person at heart, someone who genuinely wants to give people second chances, who thrives on love and friendship and thinks that seeing the best in everyone is a good quality to have. She did it because she's a superhero.

Also note that even in the nightmare, she kills Gabriel by accident, not on purpose as a punishment, because that's just not who she is, even in her wildest dreams. Completely different scenario.

[spicysummer22]

so proud of this one. misternette is invading my brain fr

ALSO!! if anyone had links to fanart/fanfics of these two i’d LOVE to see them!!

[pythagoras180]

I think the fan reaction to "Werepapas", specifically that scene with the broken rings, proves that Adrien's fans don't actually see him as a person, just an object or Marinette's accessory.

I don't like Adrien at all. I've made that very clear. But when I saw that scene, I was still overcome with sympathy for him. I found it so utterly disgusting that his romantic partner was willing to kill him to defeat an enemy. She didn't call for backup, she didn't try every other option first, and she wasn't even sure she could bring him back (see "Ladybug"), but she gambled with his life anyway. This scene made me feel so bad for Adrien that I temporarily forgot how much I dislike him, and I just wanted to see him get as far away from Marinette as possible.

Yet it seems like all the actual fans of the show, even of Adrien specifically, didn't feel that same way. They didn't think there was anything wrong with what Ladybug did. And maybe this is because some of them blindly accept whatever the show feeds them, and since the show doesn't portray what she did as wrong, they don't see it as wrong. But I also think the fact that they weren't disgusted on Adrien's behalf proves that they simply don't care about Adrien as a person, just as an accessory to Marinette.

[nobodyfamousposts]

The irony when people are coming at you with reasons for why Marinette deserves the hate for failing to be a perfect hero when everyone else is just A-OK after abandoning their positions or attacking the city instead of reasons why Fu was an idiot for choosing children as the heroes in the first place. Without training. Or explanation. Or PLAN.

[gameguy20100]

Situation: Adrien is a sentimonster and the son of the worst threat Paris has ever seen.

Marinette's reason for not telling him: It'd destroy him! He'd never forgive himself if he knew, who knows how the new butterfly holder could twist guilt like that? No, better to tell him later. God, I hope I'm not making a terrible mistake!

Nathalie: I think not telling Adrien is a mistake, but I'm in no place to judge. I was Gabriel's right hand woman and was blinded by my love for him and Adrien. I'll trust Marinette for now.

Kagami: I think Adrien should know. But considering that my mother is connected to the situation in unknown ways, I haven't got the slightest idea of how to tackle this. I'll just trust Marinette for now, she's always been there for us.

Felix: Yeah, I could tell Adrien the truth, and it probably would have made my goal a lot easier in hindsight, but why should I care about him? Fuck you, got mine. It's Marinette's problem now.

Fandom: This is all Marinette's fault. Burn her!

[familyagrestefanblog]

Marinette not trying to do anything else but breaking Adrien's amoks hurts even more after I remembered how Adrien in season 3 "Desperada" tried 25,913 times to save Ladybug by trapping himself in an agonizing time loop for MONTHS

It's the way she didn't even try that's leaving me so disheartened. She didn't. even. try.

[lovysmtalks]

A throwback from when this was a thing;

this shit was my jam when I discovered this side of the internet man, I kinda miss the "going to Gotham trope"

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The Best Friend Showdown

Season four had many, many flaws. One of the big ones was the Rena Rouge vs Chat Noir conflict where Ladybug starts relying on Alya more and more, basically using her to replace Master Fu. We get a sense that Chat Noir feels inferior to Rena Rouge because of this change, but it’s never directly addressed. The most we get is this conversation from Hack-San:

Ladybug: I'm really sorry, Cat Noir. I should've told you. I mean, if I found out that you told someone about your secret identity, I'd... probably be upset, too. I'm really sorry I hurt your feelings. Cat Noir: You didn't hurt my feelings. You did everything right. 

Which is actually a really weird bit of dialogue because - as far as I can tell - nothing in the episode revealed that Scarabella knew Ladybug's identity. She hands out miraculous all the time and no one knows who she really is. Why would this time be different? Ladybug could just show up in costume, explain what's up, and then hand off the earrings while using yet another miraculous.

Anyway, the Rena Rouge vs Chat Noir conflict is “resolved” by Rena Rouge being outed again (and I guess that matters this time), leading her to give up her miraculous so that Gabriel can’t steal it away, which of course leads Gabriel to steal it away and fully disempower Ladybug’s larger team, leaving Chat Noir her only teammate.

How satisfying! This is such good, character-driven story telling!

It’s not. This is plot contrivances to the max with no meaningful character beats, but we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to do one of my favorite things: gush about a relevant Kim Possible episode! Today’s topic is episode 12 of season one: Pain King vs. Cleopatra, the episode that introduces Kim’s female BFF, Monique!

This was a bit of a shocker for me because I didn’t realize that Kim and Monique weren’t pre-series friends. Turns out that, much like Alya, Monique is a new girl, which isn’t a bad call. This was a nice way to delay Monique’s introduction for a few episodes so that the writers could focus on establishing Kim’s relationship with other key members of the cast like her partner, Ron. Spacing out your intros is the way to go whenever you can pull it off as it’s a kindness to your audience that keeps them from feeling overwhelmed, making it more likely that they’ll remember your cast.

The other, more important similarity between Alya and Monique is that, when Kim’s hero partner and life-long friend finds out about Monique, he is less than thrilled:

Kim: I barely got to see them. Right after I hooked up with Monique, the museum was robbed by some glowing-headed animal guy. Ron: Oh, that's nice. Ron: Wait a minute, who's Monique? Kim New friend, really great. Anyway, the thief stole an enchanted ancient talisman. Ron: Whoa, whoa, back up! How can I not know about a new friend? Kim: I met her at Club Banana, then again at the museum before I chased the glowing robber. Ron: So what's she like? Kim: The robber? Ron: The friend, Kim, the "new friend".

Throughout the episode, Kim and Monique continue to bond without Ron, leaving Ron feeling left out:

Ron: Seein' a pattern here, Rufus: Kim does her thing, I do my thing, and pretty soon - we're doing different things.

Which leads him to get a little territorial:

Kim Ron! What are you doing here? Ron: Can I dine with my best friend and her new friend? Kim: Uuh, Ron, Monique, and vice versa. Ron: Bearclaw? Monique: No, thanks, I'm vegetarian. Ron: Uhm, I'm pretty sure it's imitation bear? Kim: She's joking, Ron. Ron: Good one, hahaha, ha, good one. So, did Kim tell you that I'm her sidekick? Cause that role is definitely taken by me. Monique: Riiiight. Well, in... you know I better get to class. Later, Kim. Um, n-nice meeting you, Ron. Ron: Likewise, I'm sure! Kim: What is your problem? You're acting really weird. Ron: Well, let's see. You went to the museum with Monique, not me. Monique was with you this morning, not me. Hmm, pattern? Kim: Yeah. You. Weird. Ron: No, we're drifting apart because you're excluding me. Kim: I am not excluding you. It's just that you and Monique are... different.

Noticing some similarities to Miraculous here?

So how does Kim Possible resolve this conflict?

Well, the plot of this episode resolves around Kim Possible’s version of professional wrestling, the GWA. There’s a competition going on that Kim has no interest in watching (mood), but when Kim mentions the GWA to Monique:

Monique: Why didn't you bring [Ron] along? Kim: Unless someone put a waiter in a headlock, this is definitely not Ron's scene. Besides, he had a date with "Steel Toe". Monique: He scored tickets to Mayhem in Middleton? The GWA rocks! Kim: What?

It turns out that Monique and Ron have a shared interest! Multiple shared interests, in fact! Interests that Kim does not share:

Monique: You know, I still can't believe you met Pain King and Steel Toe. Ron: I can't believe you're into wrestling. Kim: I can't believe I know either one of you.

By the end of the episode, the conflict is resolved not with Kim having to pick a BFF or with Monique somehow being demoted, but by showing that this didn’t need to be a conflict at all. Kim can have multiple close friends that she shares different interests with without any of those friends being lesser. Those friends can, in turn, have their own friendships that don’t always involve her.

It’s a genuinely lovely resolution that makes me love this little friend group because it now has added complexity. Monique and Ron are friends in their own right! Kim is not the center of the universe in spite of her main character status!

I also love that Kim isn’t vilified for having other friends or portrayed as constantly leaving Ron out of things that he'd want to do in favor of Monique. Ron genuinely would not enjoy most of the things that the girls love to do together. At the same time, Ron’s feeling aren’t treated as totally irrational either and Kim even admits to ditching him. It’s a genuine, complex conflict that is super common when someone enters a new relationship be it platonic or romantic.

Obviously Kim Possible’s version of this conflict feels far less complex than Miraculous’ because Kim Possible understood that Ron should be Kim’s one-and-only partner, so his position was really never threatened. Monique does not want to be an action hero and is never given the sort narrative weight that elevates her to Ron’s level or higher, but that doesn't matter. The basic lesson here is still relevant and super important for the intended audience of both of these shows.

There did not need to be a Rena Rouge vs Chat Noir conflict that never got properly resolved. Miraculous could have made these two friends and no, Scarabella doesn't count because Chat Noir has no idea that Scarabella is Rena Rouge/Furtive. Their relationship ended at the end of Hack-San. He didn't even know that Rena Furtive was a thing until she was in the process of being benched and that's the problem.

Kim Possible is not a team show, Miraculous is, and yet Kim Possible has better team dynamics than Miraculous. Monique could have joined Kim's team at the end of Pain King vs. Cleopatra and it would have felt natural because both Kim and Ron had welcomed Monique and formed a genuine bond with her. This is a true friend group that Miraculous can only dream of even though they've been adding new superheroes since season two.

We're going into a season with a full, massive team and yet that team has no established dynamics on the hero side. It's not a functional team! None of these characters have meaningful relationships with each other as heroes save for Alya and Nino since they know each other’s secret identities. The only relationships Miraculous cares about are the various romances and everyone's relationship to Marinette and everyone suffers for it.

The show would not have been harmed by Rena Rouge, Chat Noir, and Ladybug being a team. It was the thing I kept think after watching the Kim Possible episode. Since the team is the end game, why aren't we seeing them? It would have been so nice to have Hack-San end with Ladybug introducing Chat Noir to Rena Furtive instead of a nonsense discussion about an issue the episode didn't even address.

[akqrus]

Just saying if u think Adrien 'deserves better than Marinette', ur IMMEDIATELY a fuckin misogynistic loser to me.

If the roles were reversed YALL would NOT be saying THAT. Smh. Fucking WEIRDOS.

#L+ratio #Dumbass #in 2024?? #womeninmale fields #Letwomenbreatheufuckingshithead

[richter10]

[alwaysawkwardd]

After more than two years, Broken Melody is finally finished!!!

[donut-doodles-doodles]

I’m back!

Introducing Adrien 2! A thingie I’m working on

[shima-draws]

Watched the MLB movie and I just. I WANT to gush about it but the fact that Marinette’s regular voice actor and her singing voice actor sound SO different just took me out of it every time and left me feeling very disengaged;; At least Adrien’s singing voice kind of sounds like his speaking voice (and Gabriel’s is 👌 bc my king Keith Silverstein can actually sing and he can sing REALLY fucking well) but Marinette’s. The voices are COMPLETELY different and it threw me off every single time. Like obviously her singing voice is really good and I understand why they picked that person to do her songs but bro you could have at least TRIED to get someone that sounds similar to Cristina Vee. It drove me nuts every time she sang bc I was like “That is CLEARLY a different person entirely!!”

I’m realizing this might have been a dubbing issue but still 😭 I feel like I would have enjoyed the movie way more if it didn’t look like Marinette was lip syncing the entire time bc there was such a huge disconnect between her speaking and singing voice