#also are we SURE adrien and Kagami are sentimonsters?

[the-sprog]

What the fuck did I fucking watch

whag

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Conformation and Re-Creation (The Final Day)

Well, here we are. The final two episodes of Season 5. It's been a long and complicated journey, so let me get you up to speed on what exactly happened this season, episode by episode.

Evolution: Ladybug and Cat Noir chase Monarch through time, and it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Multiplication: Adrien likes Marinette now because the plot says so.

Destruction: Cat Noir accidentally Cataclysms Monarch, and it somehow leads to the most guilt he feels using his Cataclysm on anyone.

Jubilation: Ever want to have the image of Ladybug and Cat Noir being teen parents burned into your brain? No? Too bad!

Illusion: Nino establishes himself as a leader so terrible, Zapp Brannigan would call him an idiot.

Determination: Marinette likes Cat Noir now because the plot says so.

Passion: Nathalie shows she'd rather silently judge Gabriel for his actions over actually doing anything to stop him.

Reunion: Marinette talks with the spirit of Joan of Arc, and it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Elation: Someone tries to murder Marinette over ice cream for the third time in four seasons.

Transmission: Yeah, I totally believe you're replacing Marinette and Adrien with two new main characters in the middle of your fifth season.

Deflagration: Because of Tikki and Plagg's terrible decisions, Monarch comes the closest he's ever come to winning.

Perfection: Kagami becomes a giant cloud Akuma, symbolizing her also becoming a total airhead for the rest of the season.

Migration: The writers realize they have no idea what to do with Luka, so they kick him out of the show entirely.

Derision: “How many things do you want to retcon to make this story work?” “Yes.”

Intuition: Gabriel continues to prove how pathetic of a villain he is, even when he has unlimited chances.

Protection: Even after being tricked three times by her, Kagami still thinks Lila is a trustworthy person.

Adoration: “We have Lumity at home”.

Emotion: The episode where Felix essentially commits genocide is somehow also the one where the writers want the audience to start viewing him in a sympathetic light.

Pretension: Felix likes Kagami because the plot says so, and vice versa.

Revelation: Lila only gets as far as she does thanks to Marinette becoming as dumb as the rest of the class.

Confrontation: Our heroes expose the villain's evil plans by spying on them through a bathroom peephole.

Collusion: Remember kids, violent revolutions against politicians are never the answer.

Revolution: Remember kids, violent revolutions against politicians are always the answer.

Representation: To the surprise of literally no one, Felix is revealed to be a Sentimonster, yet the writers still won't tell us that Adrien and Kagami are the same.

Now that you're all caught up, let's get into the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Conformation and Re-Creation

After a brief news report showing everyone enjoying the first day of Summer vacation, Gabriel and Tomoe finally decide to launch “Perfect Alliance”. What does this plan entail? For starters, Gabriel transforms into Monarch, detransforms to akumatize himself into Nightormentor again, gives himself the powers of the Mouse, Rooster and Horse Miraculous in order to clone himself and fly around the globe to spread his nightmare dust. Because just akumatizing Sandboy again and giving him the Mouse Miraculous' Multitude was just too complex of a plan.

Marinette is the first to be affected by the dust, we get a dream where she dresses up as a knight to save Adrien from a cheap recolor of Fang in his dragon form.

This is a weird episode of Super Why.

Marinette defeats the dragon, who reverts back to Gabriel, who is accidentally killed by the fight, causing Adrien to cry since Adrien was watching the whole thing. Marinette wakes up, thankful that it was all just a bad dream sequence. She decides she needs to find out just where Gabriel sent Adrien to make sure he's safe, something that won't make sense as I'll explain later on. As she tries to leave, she keeps experiencing sudden headaches, as do her parents and Alya.

Meanwhile, Adrien is still left reeling from the effects of the nightmare dust from last episode, to the point where he has a panic attack, demanding to be let out. Gabriel, seemingly aware of this, decides to give Adrien the “antidote”, an Alliance ring with an app called “Perfect Alliance”. So once again, despite claiming to do this for his son, Gabriel willingly chose to make his life worse as part of his evil plans. Remember this, it'll be important later on.

Plagg suggests Adrien transform into Cat Noir, but Adrien reminds him that there are cameras everywhere, so he can't risk it. Plagg disables the cameras, but Adrien still says no. Whether he was aware that the robot who was sent to give him the Alliance ring with the new app had a hidden camera is irrevelant, because Adrien gives a different reason why he can't transform.

Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry; at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm. Marinette, Ladybug...

Plagg: Surely Ladybug can help you.

Adrien: If I ask her for help, I'd have to give her information that would jeopardize my secret identity... and I can't.

Okay, let me make one thing clear. The reason that Adrien can't risk exposing his identity thanks to all the cameras is a good one, and the fact that he doesn't want to risk exposing his identity to Ladybug in particular is a good sign of character development, but the problem I have is the fact that the writers decided to bench Adrien in the first place.

Yes, you heard that right. In arguably the most boneheaded decision in the show's history since... well, a lot of things this season, Adrien, despite being the son of the main villain, isn't going to get involved in the final battle at all.

There are multiple reasons why Adrien staying put in this room is a terrible idea, and most of them involve the fact that almost none of the in-universe explanations for this hold up.

Adrien is being heavily monitored by cameras? We just saw Plagg was able to disable them with ease.

Adrien can't ask Ladybug for help without jeopardizing his secret identity? The fact that he's at risk of being akumatized as is, with or without the Cat Miraculous, will still blow his cover due to Monarch's mind reading abilities (which we saw when Monarch almost learned Luka's secret in “Migration”), so he really has nothing to lose here.

Adrien isn't in the right state of mind thanks to the nightmare dust? Literally every other character who takes part in the final battle is able to either find a way to fight off the nightmares or keeps going while still under the influence of the nightmare dust.

Adrien's ultimate plan to take off his Miraculous and let Plagg choose a new temporary holder? We saw this exact same scenario play out earlier this season in “The Kwamis' Choice”, and things went horribly, horribly wrong.

Do you see why this makes no sense? Even though the show loves to boast about how valuable of an asset Cat Noir is, the writers are bending over backwards to justify keeping Adrien as far away from the final battle as possible, because they know damn well that they'd have to address how terrible his father really is with the reveal.

And the best part? This is basically the last we'll see of Adrien in this episode. Do you want to know how many lines he gets in the next episode, AKA, the final episode of the season? Three. AND THEY'RE ALL AFTER THE FINAL BATTLE.

But we're not done talking about this stupid idea yet, because unlike the other episodes, I have something else to rant about: The writers' commentary. In November of 2023, around four months after the finale premiered, the writers of this show recorded their own audio commentary, and while I don't have the exact translation (if anyone reading this has a translation of this, I would really appreciate the effort), I have seen one post summarizing the things they said, and all I can say is DEAR. LORD. This is not just shooting yourself in the foot. This is shooting yourself in the foot multiple times with Judas Bullets.

Like, it's amazing. We've always speculated just what goes through the writers' heads that makes them come up with some of the strangest ideas to take the story, and now, we have a first-hand account of why these episodes turned out the way they did. For this one moment, they gave about three explanations as to why Adrien was benched for the finale.

Let's start with the first one, Cat Blanc. I know what you're thinking, wasn't Cat Blanc an Akuma from an alternate timeline that our Adrien shouldn't know about? Not according to Melenie Duval. While Adrien's fear of being akumatized is reasonable, Duval claims that he could become Cat Blanc... which makes no sense as A) Adrien's nightmare was of an entirely different Akuma, and B) The aforementioned nightmare dust never informed Adrien of the alternate timeline where Cat Blanc destroyed the world, it just provided him with a nightmare about a similar scenario.

And in case you weren't questioning this woman's judgment, Duval has done on the record to state that her favorite episode of the entire show is “Derision”.

Our next reasoning is especially stupid, as the rest of the writing team reveal that they had planned to keep Adrien out of the final battle as far back as 2014, nine years before the finished product premiered. Why would they do that? Because they wanted Ladybug to unify with the Cat Miraculous, of course! Sure, you could have just saved this unification for a special or something like that so you don't bench one of your main characters, or you could have at least had Adrien willingly give his Miraculous to Ladybug to unify with in person, but nope. This is seriously one of their defenses— I mean, explanations, for why Adrien isn't allowed to be in the final battle, because they thought it would be more important to give Marinette her 10th new form in three seasons than letting Adrien get some form of closure with his father.

And here's the final reason they gave in the commentary. Remember that dream sequence of Marinette dressed as a knight that was also sort of foreshadowed in “Gabriel Agreste”? Turns out, the writers wanted to, and stop me if you've heard this before, play with the tropes and symbolism of fairy tales. Wow, I've never seen any kind of pop culture do that before... except for Into the Woods, The Princess Bride, Hook, Shrek, Princess Tutu, Ella Enchanted, Hoodwinked!, Enchanted, Tangled, Once Upon a Time, Frozen, RWBY, Ever After High, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, and Nimona. But other than those, that's so original!

Even though the writers are acting like they're breaking new ground, do you want to know what they mean by this? They're just doing another damsel in distress situation but this time, Adrien, the boy, is the one who needs to be saved by Marinette, who is, GASP, a girl?! WOW! That totally changes everything!

Okay, yes, the damsel in distress trope has usually been seen as a misogynistic one due to the fact that the people who needed to be saved are usually women, but like I mentioned way back in my “Gabriel Agreste” review, just swapping the genders isn't enough to breathe new life into a trope as old as this one. It's arguably worse because Adrien isn't just someone who needs to be saved. He's a superhero, and like I mentioned, there were plenty of options to get him out of his room in London.

And I'm guessing that some of you are thinking, “But IOTA! You just want Adrien to save the day by himself because he's a guy!” Just remember that I had this exact same problem last season where the roles were reversed. Remember how I hated the way Marinette's arc about dealing with the stress of being Guardian was hijacked by Adrien complaining about Ladybug not trusting him? This time, we have an arc about Adrien trying to break free from his father's influence that's been hijacked by Marinette needing to save Adrien by herself, robbing him of any agency he had to the plot entirely. This issue isn't about gender. It's never been about gender. I would have the exact same problem if Adrien was the one who confronted Monarch by himself while Marinette was trapped in her room.

This leads to the biggest problem I have with this plot development: It ultimately goes against the core theme of teamwork the show keeps trying to convey. Remember how last season, Marinette needed to learn to let other people trust her? Now, she's going to beat up Monarch all by herself without any help. Remember how last season, Adrien needed to prove he didn't deserve to be left in the dark about everything? Now, he's going to stay all the way in London while his partner gets in the fight of her life. It's detrimental to both of them as characters, and makes everything that happened to them in Season 4 completely pointless.

Okay, now that I've spent five pages ranting about this insane decision, let's get back on track, shall we? As the Perfect Alliance app helps Adrien and Kagami calm down, Marinette sneaks into the Agreste mansion as Ladybug. Meanwhile, Nathalie has her own nightmare about Gabriel winning, AKA, the very thing she could have stopped a long time ago by ratting her evil boss out to Ladybug and Cat Noir.

We then learn just what the Perfect Alliance app really does. Basically, thanks to the technobabble, it helps alleviate the stress from their nightmares. Or, to put it in Layman's terms, Gabriel and Tomoe plan to get the entire population of Earth addicted to cyber crack. We see this affect several of Marinette's classmates, but because Mylene has a sudden disdain for technology that “Was made without respect for the Earth's resources”, she's the only one who sees the problem here. I'd ask why this wasn't established earlier this season, but it doesn't matter, since Mylene gives in anyway,

Because it's a day that ends with a “Y”, Gabriel goes to talk to Emilie's body yet again, and it seems like even the writers realized how tired this got, as Nathalie finally decided to ambush him with a crossbow.

Miss Sancoeur, I served with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I knew Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy the Vamprie Slayer was a friend of mine. Miss Sancoeur, you're no Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yes, it only took five seasons worth of evil plans for Nathalie to realize just how demented her boss really is.

Nathalie: I can't let you do that... if you make the wish to bring her back, someone will have to go in her place. Emilie would never have agreed to this!

Gabriel: Do you think I'd be monstrous enough to sacrifice a human being?

Uh... yes? That is literally what equivalent exchange means. You really don't know how the wish works after researching it?

Shockingly, the frail woman armed with nothing but a crossbow isn't able to stop someone with superpowers. There isn't even a fight. Monarch just knocks the crossbow out of her hands and she faints. Maybe you should have actually come up with some sort of plan before confronting Gabriel by yourself, dumbass.

Back to Ladybug, she searches through Gabriel's stuff and finally learns he's Monarch... even though she should already know thanks to Felix and Kagami's play last episode. She even looks pretty shocked to see Monarch detransform.

Back to the commentary, the writers justify this with their absurd “Every episode can be watched on its own” rule. Because simply having Marinette say she already knows was out of the equation, I guess. Seriously, earlier in the episode, Tikki (who, along with Plagg, wasn't affected by the nightmare dust for some reason) had doubts that Marinette should break into the Agreste mansion, and it came across like neither of them knew the truth, and this was a reckless decision that wasn't motivated by Gabriel being Monarch at all. Once again, the writers fail to understand the idea of using “Previously On...” segments to help new viewers catch up on what's happening. It's even more confusing when you remember that Tikki knows Adrien is Cat Noir, so his father being Monarch coupled with his sudden absence should be setting off all kinds of red flags in her book.

Ladybug tries to text Cat Noir about who Monarch really is, but chooses not to send it after Gabriel pushes a few of her buttons. Rather than jumping Gabriel while she still has the element of surprise, she only chooses to grill Nathalie for questions once Gabriel is out of the room. And of course, only when she's on death's door does Nathalie tell Ladybug to stop Monarch, but not before telling her to transform back.

We see Gabriel and Tomoe put their plan into action. They create a fake scene of Ladybug and Cat Noir kidnapping Adrien and Kagami in order to rile up the public (who aren't in the best state of mind thanks to the nightmares) in order to for them to use the Alliance rings to transform them into the “Miraculized”. In other words, it's basically “Heroes' Day” all over again. Seriously, think about it. Just like “Heroes' Day”, it looks like Adrien is being harmed by Ladybug in an attempt to push the population to the brink of despair so Gabriel can create an army in the process. Yeah, the public doesn't know the two are the same, but the audience does. Granted, this is a minor nitpick compared to the rest of my problems with this episode, but I hope you can see what I'm getting at here.

Case in point, the reason Nathalie told Ladybug to detransform was because Gabriel has found a way to track her and Cat Noir through their “quantum signatures”. With Cat Noir, it was thanks to the dust from Gabriel's Cataclysm wound, and with Ladybug, it was thanks to the Magical Charm she gave Gabriel earlier in “Gabriel Agreste”... which he shouldn't have since it was destroyed in “Dearest Family”.

Seriously, this is the season finale. How the hell are the writers still struggling to remember important events like this?

Now's as good a time as any to talk about the Miraculized's design. Yeah, they're pretty lame. They all look like they're wearing fencing gear, and don't look intimidating in the slightest. They also now have the ability to use every Miraculous power at once, which breaks the previously established rules about the Alliance rings in that only one ring can handle each Miraculous power. You could at least argue that the robots used in “Confrontation” had more advanced technology that made them capable of using multiple powers, but nothing has changed about the Alliance rings to justify this. And remember, this is something every Miraculized in the world can use, yet the system hasn't been completely fried, and as we'll later see Monarch can still freely use the other Kwamis' power even when they're being shared with the Miraculized across the world. In fact, how can the Miraculized even transform like this? Monarch doesn't akumatize anyone to spread this transformation. Gabriel just tells to say “Alliance, Miraculize Me!”, and now they can transform. Was this always a function of the Alliance rings? Is there a tiny Akuma hidden in each ring? How the hell does any this work?

Ladybug fights off some of the Miraculized who used Voyage to find her, and remembers Nathalie's advice to detransform. So just like in “Passion”, even though she's still wearing her Miraculous, the system specifically designed to track her down isn't able to find her unless she's still transformed. Marinette runs away to a safe place before running into Plagg, who tells her Cat Noir is out of commission. With no other options, Marinette decides to unify with the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous, turning into Bug Noire, revealing her identity to Monarch in the process, and ending the episode.

Bug Noire's design is admittedly pretty nice. I like the balance of red, black, and green, though the hair is a little too long for my taste. Granted, I still don't get why this is the reason why Adrien can't be here to fight Monarch alongside his partner. I'm just saying, was it really worth it, writers?

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... NATHALIE

Yep, right before the finish line, Nathalie gets her second award this season. After spending several episodes doing nothing but letting herself rot away, Nathalie only chose to finally do something about Gabriel once he was literally about to enact his final plan, thought she could stop him with nothing but a crossbow, and only begged Ladybug for help when it looked like she was about to die and had nothing left to lose.

“Re-Creation”, the final episode of the season, starts off with Lila watching some broadcasts of people succumbing to their paranoia (and she does it while smirking because the writers still don't think we understand she's evil) and transforming into Miraculized while she puts on a new disguise that makes her look like an evil Edna Mode.

How come Lila isn't even affected by the nightmare dust like the rest of the human population? As always, never explained!

Back in the Agreste mansion, Bug Noire and Monarch are duking it out, and we get some pretty creative uses of Lucky Charm, like when she summons a piano to crash down on Monarch. Meanwhile, after Marinette's friends manage to get the Alliance ring off a Miraculized Ivan, we get to see how the rest of the world is dealing with the Miraculized. In Shanghai, the Renlings help Fei through her nightmares, Su-Han has recruited Jagged Stone, Luka, Penny and Fang to the Order of the Guardians instead of actually getting backup like he said he would in “Multiplication”, Present Bunnix finally decides to do something and uses Burrow to sent the Guardians to Paris, while the United Heroez fight off the Miraculized and learn the true nature of the Alliance rings. Just remember, it was too much for the writers to let Adrien get involved in the final battle, yet all these side characters get to do something in the finale for some reason.

Meanwhile, as if things couldn't get any worse, Nino decides the Resistance needs to get involved after reassuring Mr. Damocles that they never give up. Believe me, not much would change if you guys just threw in the towel, especially now that the United Heroez are here, and have Eagle, a member whose powers work as an instant cure for everyone's nightmares. Hey, while we're on the subject, does anyone know where the United Heroez were this entire season? I can excuse Fei as she's just one teenager in Shanghai, but the Americans have a small army of heroes, including the president, yet they just let two violent coups in France happen last week.

As Bug Noire and Monarch keep fighting, Bug Noire comes up with the brilliant idea to Cataclysm the Butterfly Miraculous, only being foiled by Monarch already having Resistance active. Okay, is a side effect of using the Cat Miraculous this season a taste for blood? Why the hell are the heroes so okay with trying to use Cataclysm on their enemies now? Bug Noire then decides to use her Cataclysm for something far more reasonable, breaking the ground beneath her and Monarch. Because I guess Bug Noire is really gunning for Biggest Idiot this episode.

Back with the Resistance, they meet up with the Guardians, United Heroez, and Ladydragon, who have actually been getting shit done. Wow, it's just like that scene from that one movie where all the characters we've come to know over the years rally together for the final battle! What was it called again? Oh yeah, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.

While the other heroes are overwhelmed by the Miraculized, we cut back to Bug Noire and Monarch yet again, now inside the area where Emilie's body is. The two keep fighting as Monarch tells Bug Noire why he's doing all this, all while Lila breaks into the mansion.

Monarch: I want my wife, Adrien's mother, to come back to us! Once our family is reunited, Kagami and Adrien will become the eternal icons of this world! And we will be here to witness their absolute triumph!

Bug Noire: “Your wife”? “Come back”? “Kagami and Adrien, eternal icons”? How many lives are you going to ruin in the name of your crazy dreams?!

Monarch: As many as it takes! In order to bring Emilie back, someone else will have to disappear! In order to heal the wound that Cat Noir inflicted on me, someone else will have to be wounded!

Bug Noire: Someone else? But who?

Monarch: Anyone! No one matters except us! How about you, Marinette? Wouldn't you give your life for your sweet Adrien's happiness?

Bug Noire: Do you really think that's what he'd want? To discover that his father has turned into a supervillain, willing to make innocent people pay the price of his madness?

Monarch: Adrien would do the same thing!

Bug Noire: Never! Unlike you, Adrien has made his peace with it. He's not living in the past! He has a whole life ahead of him!

Bug Noire: You'd know this if you ever took an interest in him. But in reality, Adrien means NOTHING to you anymore! You've locked him in your house! Locked him in your Alliance rings!

Bug Noire: Locked him into a life that allows you to hide behind him in order to justify YOUR madness!

Monarch: All I want is for him to be happy!

Remember all of this, because it's going to be important soon.

Bug Noire uses her Lucky Charm, and gets a tube of glue. She uses some of it on this random boomerang she found (I'm assuming it's the remains of Nathalie's crossbow), sticks it to her yo-yo, and then throws it at Emilie's coffin. Monarch reflexively grabs the sticky boomerang, and loses all of the rings on his right hand just as Bug Noire uses Cataclysm on the elevator to get to this area of the mansion, with the intent on CRUSHING EMILIE WITH IT. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! Monarch saves his wife, but because he's distracted, he can't stop Bug Noire from throwing her staff at the Butterfly Miraculous, knocking it off and reverting Monarch back to Gabriel. Bug Noire ties up Gabriel's feet, and when Gabriel tries to sucker punch her with Venom, Bug Noire grabs the hand, threatening to Cataclysm the remaining Alliance rings and the two rings she should damn well know contain Adrien's Amok. Either she's bluffing, or we accidentally got the Paris Special universe's version of these events.

Bug Noire tries to reason with Gabriel, who then breaks down crying, showing how deep down, he just really cares about his family. And even though just six episodes ago, Marinette said that it was very easy for idealistic people to be taken advantage of by others, she buys into Gabriel's last-minute sob story, and wouldn't you know it, he stabs her in the back. Congratulations, Marinette. You just doomed the universe. Even when the Dino Charge Rangers accidentally got everyone on their planet killed, they were at least able to fix it themselves.

It's time to go back to the commentary, where we can learn the writers' true intent for this scene. They honestly believe that both Marinette and Gabriel care for Adrien in their own ways, and the whole reason that Marinette chose to trust Gabriel was to teach the lesson that it's important to talk out your feelings with others... a lesson that fails because 1) Marinette had already beaten Gabriel through violence, 2) Marinette trusting Gabriel backfired horribly, and 3) Gabriel won because he took advantage of Marinette's trust! You can't teach a lesson about trust when for all intents and purposes, Marinette once again lost BECAUSE SHE CHOSE TO TRUST SOMEONE!

Even though he had to unify with Tikki and Plagg to try making the wish in “Deflagration” (I really shouldn't have used the “Great Continuity!” clip earlier), we get yet another retcon this season: Tikki and Plagg have to reveal their true forms. Yeah, I know Tikki's true form was briefly seen in “Dearest Family”, but that doesn't change the fact that Monarch didn't do this when he had the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous in “Deflagration”.

Tikki and Plagg's true forms just look okay. I like the otherworldly theme, but they don't really stand out much. They honestly look more like forms Ladybug and Cat Noir would have than anything else.

It's here that we get the culmination of five seasons' worth of lore. After a brief glimpse of it in “Ephemeral”, Tikki and Plagg, the Kwamis of Creation and Destruction will merge their energies to form their true true form, the Kwami of Reality itself, able to grand any wish asked. This majestic, otherworldly being's name? Gimmi. Just... Gimmi. The commentary claims they're named after an ABBA song, and I wish I was making this up.

Like with Tikki and Plagg's true forms, Gimmi has an okay design. They're just a little too pink for something meant to be a fusion of the red Tikki and the black Plagg.

As Marinette begs Gabriel not to go through with this, Gabriel doesn't think twice about it, and instead, gives Marinette the rings containing Adrien's Amok, along with a request, fully aware that his time is almost up.

Gabriel: Marinette, make sure that Adrien never knows about the villain that I was, but instead, that he remembers the times I tried to be a good father.

Alright, we've finally gotten to the most controversial part of the episode: Gabriel's “redemption”, and I put that term extremely loosely.

Put aside the fact that almost a third of this season was spent telling the audience that a certain character who shall not be named is beyond saving despite working alongside him multiple times for the past two seasons, Gabriel's last-minute redemption falls flat because he doesn't even seem to feel remorse for what he's done. Not once does he actually say he's sorry for what he's done, just how Emilie's death affected him. That's understandable, but he doesn't even seem to acknowledge the weight of his actions or how many lives have been endangered. Remember earlier, when Monarch said he was perfectly okay with sacrificing someone else if it means his family can be happy? Yeah, that never comes back, especially now that him making the wish is portrayed as a good thing when every time it's been discussed ever since it was first explained in “Robostus” just how dangerous actually using it is.

In fact, let's discuss the fact that Gabriel is getting to make the wish in the first place. The whole idea of this basically contradicts Gabriel supposedly realizing he's gone too far. Rather than just having Gabriel give up his quest and let Emilie rest in peace, we're supposed to be happy that Gabriel double-crossed Marinette even when the music is making it seem like it's a bad thing... WHICH IT IS! Once again, for a show that loves to go on and on about how powerful love is, it really loves to show people getting screwed over whenever they decide to show compassion to their enemies. Imagine if in Return of the Jedi, when Luke chose to not give into the Dark Side by sparing Vader, Vader took the chance to kick him in the crotch while he was distracted. That's basically what happened here.

Next, notice how Gabriel specifically asks Marinette to make sure Adrien never learns the truth about who he was, and “Remembers the times he tried to be a good father”. After everything he's done, Gabriel isn't even willing to let Adrien learn about what he's done, because he wants him to focus exclusively on the times he TRIED to be a good father. This isn't the matter of Gabriel missing Adrien's fencing tournament because he had an important business meeting. Gabriel was a literal supervillain who preyed on innocent people in order to obtain absolute power, and he wasn't even a good father to his only kid. He was neglectful, controlling, and in the last few months of his life, spent more time trying to ruin his relationship with his girlfriend for no reason other than because he thought his associate's kid was a better match for him. He was a terrible father, and Gabriel even seems to be aware of this, but rather than find a way to repent for everything he's done, Gabriel is basically going to take the coward's way out by forcing Marinette to sugarcoat his life instead of admitting he was, at the very least, a flawed parent, all so Adrien will feel bad when he finally drops dead.

And yeah, let's talk about how Gabriel assumes that Adrien shouldn't be allowed to know the truth... WHEN THAT'S NOT HIS DECISION TO MAKE. Adrien should be the one to judge whether he believes Gabriel was a good father or not. Of course Gabriel would assume he was a good father despite the numerous red flags, but Adrien is another story. By keeping the truth hidden from Adrien, you're depriving him of a potentially important moment in his life where he finally learns to break free from his father's influence. Instead, even though he's a fucking superhero, we're just supposed to accept the fact that Adrien is just a poor, fragile, sensitive baby boy who can't handle hearing any bad news or else I guess he'll explode. It says a lot when, of all movies, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier did a better job handling an idea like this, by saying that pain is a natural part of life.

But let's talk about the biggest problem with this turn of events: The fact that it essentially vindicates everything Gabriel has done, with or without the mask, as well as essentially convey a pro-child abuse message. In case you weren't around before I posted this review, I asked my followers who have been victims of child abuse or poor parenting to share their experiences so I could get an idea of how similar they were to what Adrien has had to go through. And a lot of them were pretty similar.

During almost all of what I read from these people, their parents or guardians shared one thing in common: An inability to admit being wrong. All of them tended to either blame their kids for whatever happened to them, or find ways to justify their poor treatment. As far as they're concerned, it's the kid's fault that they're being treated so poorly. And while I'm sure a handful of people isn't enough to survey the entire population of abuse victims on this planet, the fact that some of these people, as in actual victims of child abuse, were able to see similarities with their own upbringings and the way the main villain treats his son and don't buy the show deciding to act like all of that was perfectly okay says a lot about how much this finale dropped the ball when it came to the lesson it wanted to teach.

Yes, from what I've read from my followers and other things online, some abusive parents do believe that what they're doing to their children is out of a warped view of love, but that isn't enough to validate their actions completely, and it obviously doesn't validate Gabriel's actions during the last five seasons. During the entire run of the show, Gabriel has denied his son a normal life, treats him like an object, and despite claiming that he really loves him deep down, he almost never shows it. It seemed like the show was either going to have Gabriel realize the error of his ways due to how fruitless they ended up being, but having him get the upper hand on Marinette at the very last second ultimately makes it so all of his effort, every evil plan, every civilian endangered, was all worth it. And that's why Gabriel's final moments supposedly acting like he's repented for his actions don't work, and why it turned what was initially just a boring finale into one that was beyond infuriating.

And I'm assuming that you're thinking to yourself, what exactly is the wish Gabriel was so desperate to make that he tricked Marinette at the last second?

We never really learn what kind of wish Gabriel makes using Gimmi, even in the epilogue. I'm also going to talk about this in a later post, but of course Astruc, being Astruc had to give his usual sarcastic remarks to anyone who had the slightest question about what the hell just happened.

I love how someone will ask something like “Do you mind clearing up a few questions I have about the season finale?”, and Astruc will hear what they said as if they just asked, “Is Mylene secretly the reincarnation of the Anti-Christ?”.

So Gabriel makes his wish, somehow reunites with Emilie's soul as he ascends to Heaven... until the angels realize they made a horrible mistake, and send Gabriel to his custom-made Tenth Circle of Hell. Reality itself is rewritten and all of the characters we've come to know over the past five seasons are effectively dead. If that isn't supposed to be a happy ending, I don't know what is.

According to the transcript, it's been a month after the wish is made, we see how Paris has changed since then. Not only has Miss Bustier given birth to her baby, she's also been elected as Mayor of Paris, already passing her first law, the “Eco Rule”.

Miss Bustier: It consists of very simple principles: don't take more from the Earth than what it can give us, distribute its riches equitably and don't pollute more than it can recycle.

Remember when Mylene said that you can't solve climate change with a single law? I guess the writers forgot to recycle that moral too, because despite the vague as hell guidelines, Paris has already adapted to function without plastic wrappers or cars. Just remember, it's only been one month since the wish was made. Even Star Trek needed at least 130 years and a nuclear war before its utopian society could be established. And that's not even getting into the new school she's helped create.

Miss Bustier: In this new school, there will be no classes or struggling to get good grades. Children of all ages will be able to intermix and freely access all kinds of activities.

The fuck you mean “no grades”?! How the hell will that even work?! We're supposed to see this as her being an impressive politician, but it comes across like some grade schooler's “If I were president” essay. And remember, ONE. MONTH.

How else has the Eco Rule been implemented? All of the Alliance rings have been melted down and reforged into a statue honoring... the great hero, Gabriel Agreste.

Yep. This is the ultimate fate of the main villain after five seasons of terrorizing the city of Paris: He gets a fucking statue in his honor. Are we sure this is a victory for the good guys? And no, just surviving the villain's master plan doesn't count as a win.

Even better, according to Adrien, he somehow helped defeat Monarch... even though Gabriel is Monarch, so is Monarch a different person in this world? What about Monarch's previous identities, Hawkmoth and Shadowmoth? Did they still exist in this world? They had to, considering that Chloe and Andre are still nowhere to be seen since the revolution, implying that either she's different in this world, or she also betrayed Ladybug for the same reasons. Nathalie is also back in full health, so did she ever use the Peacock? Was the Peacock ever damaged? We see Felix has it in this new world, but Emilie is still dead, so did she die of different causes in this timeline? Speaking of time, what happened to Bunnix? Did she survive too? Is she aware of the changes to the world like she was in “Cat Blanc”?

To summarize, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?

Adrien is hesitant to wear the ring because he's not sure if he can ever be even half the man his amazing father was. Marinette tells Adrien to be himself while handing the ring to him. So... was this an order? If so, was it intentional? Does Marinette even know what she's doing, or because she's a product of Gabriel's wish, she has to do this without a hitch? In fact, when he made the wish, why didn't Gabriel make Adrien, Felix, and Kagami humans instead of forcing them to rely on rings containing their souls that can easily break?

This scene is a great way to summarize Adrienette this season: The writers trying to write a heartwarming scene while hoping the audience doesn't think too hard about all the uncomfortable things it implies.

After reforging the Miraculous she got back from Monarch, Marinette decides to hand them off. Because fuck it, let's break the temp hero rule while we're at it! Chloe who? Ladybug, Cat Noir, Rena Rouge, Carapace, Viperion, Pegasus, Ryuko, Vesperia, Polymouse, Pigella, Purple Tigress, Miss Hound, Rooster Bold, Caprikid, Minotaurox, Bunnix, and even Argos (despite being the reason the heroes lost their Miraculous in the first place) assemble, ready for whatever challenge the world throws at them. Also, there's no reveal between Ladybug and Cat Noir this season because the writers still want to drag this plotline out, even when there's no excuse as to why they can't now that Monarch is gone.

We then learn who got the Butterfly Miraculous: Lila, who plans to get revenge on Marinette. Yep, the girl who has never even touched a Miraculous in five seasons is going to be Hawkmoth's successor. Not Tomoe (who I should mention never answered for being Gabriel's accomplice), not Audrey, not even Chloe. It's Lila. How the hell did she even get it anyway? Did Gabriel intentionally recreate the world to have Lila get the Butterfly Miraculous, or did Lila somehow retain her memories through close proximity to the wish and--

Fuck it, season's over anyway. Thank God...

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS...MARINETTE

While I can't say for certain what she did with Adrien is her fault thanks to Gabriel making the wish, I can say a good chunk of the things Marinette did leading up to Gabriel winning are on her. She recklessly used her Cataclysm multiple times in her fight with Monarch, tried to crush Emilie's comatose body with debris, once again chose to gloat about how she was going to take Gabriel's Miraculous instead of just doing it the first chance she got, seemingly forgot Adrien was a Sentimonster, and somehow managed to lose even when she had Gabriel at her mercy.

So, yeah... this finale was terrible, if it wasn't obvious from this review.

It was just a complete trainwreck from start to finish. A good chunk of the first part was spent either ignoring the events of the last episode, or coming up with excuses as to why Adrien shouldn't get involved. And that's not even getting into Nathalie's “redemption”, which only really happened once she had nothing to lose, seeing how she was even closer to dying than Gabriel was. In fact, now that I think about it, why was more emphasis given to Nathalie's declining health over Gabriel? You know, the guy who's enacting his final plan because he's supposedly hours from death, yet effortlessly manages to clone himself, fly around the world as an Akuma, and keep up with Bug Noire when he struggled to enact a plan that required him to leave the lair without traveling around the world during “Intuition”? Given how we now know that the writers wanted the final battle to involve Bug Noire, I'm starting to think they also prioritized her opponent being in top shape while ignoring the Cataclysm wound affecting him.

The second half was mostly boring thanks to just how low the stakes felt. We know where Adrien is, and since Bug Noire was fighting Monarch, there was no danger of them taking her Miraculous, so for the most part, the Miraculized fighting the other heroes just felt like padding. Nobody even seemed to look for Ladybug or Cat Noir, not even the heroes. Of course, then we got to Gabriel's wish. I've gone over this before, but it bears repeating. Gabriel's “redemption” just doesn't work due to how little effort is spent actually making the audience feel bad for him other than saying “His wife is dead, and he's sad, so that justifies everything”. It doesn't help that we kind of had four episodes explaining why some people can't change, and it wasn't used when talking about Gabriel, but rather, Chloe and Lila. Because these writers really have their priorities straight.

The ending of the season itself practically falls apart with how many plotholes and unfortunate implications it has. And before you say that stuff like Adrien once again being left in the dark can be resolved next season, here's the thing: This was planned to be the series finale with how everything feels wrapped up. There's a sense of finality that shows all the main characters getting their happy ending, and we're just supposed to not question the new utopia Paris is now, much less the fact that even after eight years, Ladybug and Cat Noir still don't know who the other is. Even putting that aside, the show has always done a poor job of following up on plotpoints established in earlier seasons, as the lunchroom scene from “Illusion” shows.

Here's a summary of all the lessons the finale teaches: We shouldn't hold terrorists accountable for their actions if they just say they love their family, abuse victims should be constantly coddled and shouldn't be allowed to know the truth about their viewers, it's okay to keep crucial information from your significant other, genocide is okay as long as the person who commits it says it's for a good cause, love for others can easily be taken advantage of, so never trust anyone, genocide is the only way to create an eco-friendly world, environmental protection laws can be passed within a month and nobody (not even car manufacturers) will complain, teenage girls are worse than abusive parents who double as supervillains, and even if it was planned for almost a decade, don't let your main heroine be the one to save the day, but rather, the villain.

If anyone reading this is planning on becoming a writer and is worried that people won't like their work, just remember that there are people who get paid to work on this show.

But yeah, this is how the season ends, not with a bang, but with a nosedive. I was mostly pissed off with how Seasons 3 and 4 ended, but here? I'm just disappointed. This was the finale that we waited eight years for. The epic final battle against Monarch, and rather than the ultimate fight to the finish, the writers came with several excuses to not involve one of the two main characters in the final battle, the other main character fails to actually save the day, and the villain is rewarded for all of actions because he chose to turn himself into a messiah. I tuned into this season to at least see how the story would end out of curiosity, but it didn't even deliver an ending that made all the pointless filler, poor writing, and bad characterization worth it. I started this finale off bored, and I ended up furious for how lackluster this ending felt. It says a lot when this finale has been compared to Star vs. the Forces of Evil in terms of just screwing everything up.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE SEASON IS... MARINETTE

Marinette may not have been able to beat Gabriel in terms of stopping his plan, but she did manage to outdo him in terms of stupidity. Because she got the award four times this season (Evolution, Revelation, Confrontation, Re-Creation), she takes home the title of Biggest Idiot.

And for those who are curious or didn't keep up with my reviews, Gabriel gets second place with three Biggest Idiot Awards (Intuition, Protection, Revolution), we have a five-way tie for third place with Luka (Determination, Migration), Mayor Andre (Adoration, Action), Chloe (Deflagration, Collusion), Felix (Emotion, Representation), and Nathalie (Passion, Conformation), who all got the award twice, and a ten-way tie for fourth place with Alya (Multiplication), Xuppu (Destruction), Mr. Damocles (Jubiliation), Nino (Illusion), Joan of Arc (Reunion), Ice Cream Man Andre (Elation), Kagami (Perfection), Kim (Derision), and Tomoe (Pretension) each getting the award once.

And with that, we're done with Season 5. It's been a long road, but all I can say is...

At least, until the analysis and ranking posts.

[ilikekidsshows]

hey I figure that you’re probably tired of talking about the Sentimonster nonsense but I genuinely still can’t stand that it’s an actual thing. The wildest thing about it is that I JOINED the fandom because of the Sentimonster theory, actually got excited for it and looked forward to hints, not believing the skeptics or the salters bc it didn’t seem like such a big deal—that is until I saw with my own eyes how SO MANY FANS said with their whole chest that, in “Ephemeral” Adrien HAD to be a Sentimonster or there was no other “sympathetic explanation” for why he didn’t de-akumatize himself or fight off Gabriel.

Seeing the victim blaming in real time was such a punch in the gut—and then they just kept on coming!! It finally hit me how damaging the entire thing because for the show as a whole. If even regular fans that weren’t even known for salting could so willingly disregard and ignore genuine abuse coping mechanisms in favor of magical BS… it was such a dark time. Abuse Apologism and victim blaming in a whole package

Sometimes, when I write about Miraculous, I pretend I'm writing about a show that only had three seasons. That's what the "zagulous fandom" tag is for; it's for posts that are about the parts of Miraculous that had Zag's executive control keeping Astruc in check. I also kinda accepted long ago that my blog's kind of a support blog for people who are against the Sentihuman concept.

When I first heard of the expanded Sentimonster theory, the one that went "all the rich kids are Sentimonsters", I instantly went: "You do realize how making victims of child abuse nonhumans with questionable rights minimizes their victimhood and excuses their abusers, right?" people told me I was making stuff up and whoopsie doo, the writers did exactly that.

Neither Gabriel nor Tomoe faced any consequences for abusing Adrien and Kagami because, after all, since they're Sentimonsters, the real abuse was that they didn't have their Amoks so giving them their Amoks resolves all their problems. The only abusive parent who gets acknowledged as such is Félix's dad, who is dead by the time we hear about any of this, because we can't have abusive parents face consequences for their actions because that might upset people or whatever excuses Astruc's giving for Gabriel's vindication now.

This also minimises all the affects of the abuse on the kids, since they can be handwaved away with: "They were just programmed that way." Kagami's bad social skills aren't because her mother isolated her, it's because she forgot to program Kagami with those skills. Félix's villainous behavior isn't because his mother is overly permissive with him, he was just programmed that way (by the eeeeevil Colt). Adrien isn't a people pleaser because he's repeating his abuse coping mechanisms with his overly controlling girlfriend to keep her happy the same way he did to his overly controlling father, he was just programmed to be the perfect doting son and boyfriend.

You'll notice how neatly this ties into the crew denying that Chloé was abused in any way ever by her clearly abusive mother. Chloé wasn't made into a Sentimonster, so we can't have her bad coping with her abuse be excused by "Sentimonster programming", so now the writers are just gaslighting the audience and saying: "Chloé wasn't mistreated by her parents which caused her to act to out to get attention (which she literally stated to be her motive in season 3), in fact, she's the one who's been terrorizing her poor, innocent father and he needs to be protected from this naturally occuring evil hellspawn."

All child abuse in this show gets excused.

Of course, now the writers have an added reason to make sure Adrien's abuse gets excused in particular: because they made Marinette benefit from it. As I said, Adrien is repeating abuse coping mechanisms learned from dealing with his father to keep Marinette happy. He's always prioritizing her feelings and never brings up his own problems, and this is good for Marinette, because she can just enjoy having a perfect boyfriend who caters to her every need and doesn't have problems of his own or with the ways she treats him (for all she knows). She's even maintaining this status quo by lying about Gabriel to Adrien, so Adrien won't get upset (and have emotional needs that she would need to help him with). Either we have to excuse Adrien's abuse, or we have to admit Marinette is benefitting from the fact that Adrien was abused, and even taking advantage with the way she makes no effort to improve their communication on her end, preferring to spy on Adrien and lie to him instead of just talking to him like an equal.

The show writers are also allergic to following through on their creative decisions, is what I think. They put all these different victims of child abuse and neglect in the show, and then dehumanized these children in different ways so that they wouldn't actually need to say anything about that abuse they wrote in and they can instead pretend it was never there. This is why I also think that, no matter how much the show's defenders insist the story isn't over yet, we will never be getting a proper resolution to the Sentinonsense.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Semi Comedic conclusion to Miracle Queen:

Ladybug & Chat Noir (arrive dramatically)

Miracle Queen: Finally you turn up, to-

Ladybug: Great work Queen Bee!

Chloe: What?

Everyone else: What!?

Ladybug: I knew I could trust the one and only Queen Bee to figure out my plan and act on it. Now we have Hawk Moth right where we want him, surrounded by Paris's heroes. Ready to drop the act and save Paris in a most exceptional manner together, Queen Bee?

Hawk Moth: HAH, you think to take away my-

Queen Bee: (Clicks fingers, releasing the heroes before turning her swarm on Hawk Moth & Mayura)

Hawk Moth (De-powers Akuma) She's playing you Miracle Queen!

Queen Bee: Didn't ask. Didn't read. Don't care. Die. (Besides even if that is true so are you)

Ladybug: Pegasus, Rena, make sure we surround them, Monkey King hit the Sentimonster, Chat you and Viperior take Mayura while QUeen Bee & I finish of Hawk Moth. There will be no escapes this time.

Cue Hawk Moth being surrounded and collectively jumped by Paris's heroes.

Kagami & Nino also get Miraculous from Fu partway through the fight just to make things easier and more fun.

(Several hours into the "Hawk Moth is defeated & also Adrien's moving in with his nice aunt" party")

Chloe: So, I had time to think and... That whole thing about it being a plan?

Marinette: Not really but also the only reason I didn't pick you to fight Heart Hunter is cos I was being a jerk to a different friend & I was at least trusting in your will power to break through what Hawk Moth did. So like, twenty five percent of a plan?

Chloe: ....

Marinette (Starts sweating)

Chloe (Smirks) Well, I know a thing or two about being a jerk myself soooo, I guess we're good.

oh this is good and it hurts a little but YEAH

[imthepunchlord]

I feel that "Campy Villain Gabriel (CampMoth? 😉)" should be defeated in S2, then S3 would have more serious plot with Marinette being effectively "caught in pincers" between Lila "attacking" her civilian life and Mayura creating Sentimonsters to get Ladybug (and Black Cat) Miraculous.

I mean, it was set up towards before s2 that something along those lines was how it was going to be.

When Mayura was revealed, she was so to be "worse" than Hawk Moth and would "make him look like a baby". And there was also a claim that she was Hawk Moth's boss. And there was a detail in Origins that HM was double checking with Nooroo on how the Butterfly worked, as if he was fed info and needed to confirm that info.

And it could be that Mayura originally was the one who gave Butterfly to Gabriel, which would've set her up as a counter to Fu in handing out Miraculous and semi having a "Guardian" role. And by extension, was going to set her up to be more tied to Marinette, as Marinette is the one who meets Fu, and is the one that was going to carry on as Guardian.

Which prompted a thought of maybe dark mentor Mayura, trying to pull Marinette to the dark side.

And man, I remember all the theories on who was going to be Mayura, post pre s2 and during s2 as she didn't appear yet.

But it was thought maybe she was Adrien's mom back from the dead and be a trope of the wife being worse than the husband.

That maybe she's related to Marinette and is her cousin or aunt on the Cheng side as she had an oriental look.

That maybe Kagami's mom was Mayura (which could've been interesting given that peafowl are tied to vision but she's a blind character), which out of them, potentially could've made the most sense given the apparent relations that the Tsuragis and Agrestes have.

And I think there were some that guessed Nathalie and they turned out right.

Anyway.

Yeah, Hawk Moth wasn't meant to be our big serious villain. He was the starting villain, someone they can be campy with, and be a decent threat, but not enough to take seriously. Things were supposed to get more serious with Mayura. But I guess that idea changed up the status quo too much so we got Nathalie in love with Gabriel and eagerly working under him even at the risk of her own health.

Man that status quo sure was worth keeping, huh?

As for Lila, she was also built up to be more prominent in s2. It was said that Volpina was implied to return and that we'd see a Fox pretty often in s2.

And then we had Alya confirmed for the Fox (and Chloe for the Bee; I also remember the lack of Chat Noir in the two new heroes reveal with LB had people wondering if something happened with Adrien or if he turned to the dark side), which helped plant this idea of Alya v Lila and Fox v Fox, and a claim that Alya, Chloe, and Marinette were all going to team up to face off against Lila.

And uh, yeah, none of this every came true.

Maybe it was planned to be but it just changed up their formula too much. It's a bit hard to say.

Either way, what we got was not good.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

So I know Representation came out today. And any good fan would wait a week before reviewing it as we still have episode 23 to watch.

GOOD THING IM A DEGENERATE

Gale Reviews: ML Season 5 episode 24 Representation

spoilers below

-So as expected, Chloé didnt stay mayor long. But Apparently Ms.Bustier is running for Mayor and might win

-Oh its the Fencing teacher/ guy who was Darkblade. Well clearly Ms.Bustier is going to win

-And Adrien and Kagami are a power couple? But Adrien is watching the news report while they are in London. Something seems VERY off

-Ah, Gabriel is behind it. And Adrien HATES it.

-"By letting your father decide your life and selling your story through a fake narrative as usual." DAMN Plagg holds no punches

-Plagg appologized though.

-Kagami is also pissed about it

-HEY ITS FELIX/ARGOS

-Wait ... is that really my chaotic son? HEARTS ON WINDOWS.

-Thats adorable, WTF

-Okay so THEY got some development.

-Adrien deciding to just say f*** it. He is heading to paris and Telling Marinette he's chat noir!

-Marinette back in paris looks miserable. Poor baby girl. Also its a lovely dress.

-Marinette has been crying. I am going to kill Gabriel

-Marinette being strong for her friends to enjoy this dance. Thats really big of her.

-Unfortunately, Spotlight.

-Wait, how did Argos and Kagami get to Paris BEFORE Astrochat? Unless they left much earlier but even then. My bet is Argos made a sentimonster that would warp them places... but that seems like BS.

-KAGAMI KNOWS MARINETTE IS LADYBUG?! Since perfection. Damn.

-KAGAMI TOLD FELIX!?!?!?! FELIX?!?!?! Okay I am a bit salty about that

-OH S***! THEY KISSED. The Feligami stans are Eating today.

-Felix is dressed like Adrien? Oh I do not like where this seems to be going.

-And Marinette thought she saw Adrien and wants to go after him while her friends are thanking her for everything she's done. Way to ruin a good moment FELIX you ass!

-Side note, WHY is Marinette the only one in a dress? Like its a dance? Why couldnt everyone Have dressed up? Seriously, I know outfit renders are expensive. DID THE KITCHEN COST THAT MUCH?

-Marinette avoiding the Lesbian bee and accidentally interrupting the Bi artist and writer. Sure is Pride month in Paris.

-Okay this is just cruel. Marinette thinks she is having a break down over this. Side note. WHY ISNT ADRIEN ACTUALLY HERE YET? HE IS ASTROCHAT!

-Alya and Nino trying to comfort her. But she aint listening.

-Adrien and Kagami escaped and the parents are pissed

-Oh no Nathalie looks really bad right now. Poor thing. All she can do is watch videos of her true love Emilie

-He took the ring back, guess now that Nathalie is too weak to fight him. Which really brings up the question, WHAT HAPPENED in the last episode that Nathalie took such a turn.

-Gabriel is being a d*** as usual

-Nightormentor sounds like a cool name. And while I thought the color scheme is weird... its probably the best akumatized form Gabriel has taken. Sad but true

-AND OF COURSE RIGHT AS SHE LEAVES ASTROCAT ARRIVES. I know its plot convenience but thats bull s***

-"His father CANT have that much control of him" Oh if only you knew Nino

-And BOOM! Gabriel the bitch agreste arrives

-I am liking Rose so much recently. She is calling out EVERYONE

-So he basically has the powers of Sandboy mixed with Darkerowl

-the guy has the power to make you experience VERY intrusive thoughts. That is evil

-Chat noir is like "Hey ladybug gonna go beat up my father text me later"

-Dude Felix must be an Olympic speed walker

-Marinette is basically being nightormented without that bastard even being here. Felix, Kagami this is just a jerk move.

Duusu: "This is so sad" Felix: "Dont worry its for Our happy ending" Duusu: F*** yea lets keep it up

-Oh he made a sentimonster... wait. I know its not human but like a sentimonster MAKING sentimonsters. Feels even more f***ed up

-THEY ARE DOING A F***ING PLAY FOR HER!?

-OH MY GOSH! ITS THE STORY OF EMILIE AND AMELIE!

-Meanwhile, Chat noir is working through his daddy issues.

-Back to the play

-Oh this is interesting.

-Oh and we find out Felix's dad was a rich Cowboy. But also an asshole. (Oh right, this is a French Cartoon, thats why American's suck in this)

-Back to Adrien fighting his father

-This is Cathartic watching Chat noir beat Gabriel's ASS

-HE WAS GOING TO CATACLYSM HIS DAD! Adrien, my boy. Patricide adrien? Well Monarch is still alive, so I guess you think it wouldnt kill him. BTW, Monarch should have had ptsd from that.

-And Chat noir got hit, so his worst fear is... and cuts back to the play

-Oh the twins were infertile. Emilie returned to try and get medical help but still nothing.

-The peacock, that was the sentimonster reference

-Oh so THATS how Gabriel got Gorilla to guard adrien.

-Also yea, any doubt that they arent sentimonsters is dead now.

-ITS CHAT BLANC WITH BLUE HAIR!?

-Oh s*** that is f***ed up.

-"It will end if you give me your miraculous"

-"Take it." ADRIEN NO!

-Oh so thats why Felix's dad was an a**hole. Okay I will give this credit. That is something.

-Welp this explains why Felix might be a sociopath

-Felix revealing why he did what he did

-THE RESISTANCE! COMING IN CLUTCH

-THE TRAY!

-ALYA JUMPED ON HIS BACK.

-They got the akuma in a jar.

-Wait, Chat noir defeated an akuma without Ladybug. (sure he had outside help, but Ladybug has done that too). Good on him

-WELL S*** THAT WAS TRIPPY.

-Felix and Kagami asked for Marinette's help. so was that all the sentimonster doing so? I am lost

-Okay so, I may not LIKE exactly how they went about it. But I cant really hate them for what they did. They are just kids that want to pick someone they trust.

-Oh s***, Ladybug never cast miraculous cure. So Adrien has some perminant trauma from the fight with Nightormentor. He still sees the antichat visions (its not chat blanc, and its just reverse color pallet)

-Chat noir left. before he could tell her. Cause the nightmare messed with him

-WAIT DID TOMOE AND GABRIEL JUST LOCK THEIR CHILDREN IN STERILE ROOMS? WTF!

_________________________________________________________

Okay! This episode was A LOT.

Well there is no denying Sentimonster theory. Its confirmed. Its done. 100% GUARANTEE NO MONEY BACK.

It did explain a LOT about Felix and Adrien.

So I am still iffy on how it was handled.

Now this DOES NOT justify Felix's Actions. He was still an a**hole. And Kagami shouldnt have told Felix. Marinette is Ladybug. That was NOT her secret to tell.

BUT the play that explained what happened was very well done. It explained a LOT about the Graham de Vanily family and Felix's a**hole father.

I will say that I hated how tortured Marinette was during this. Felix and Kagami could have done something less cruel to lure her there.

I also greatly enjoyed Chat noir vs Nightormentor. very good catharsis and we have Adrien going through some additional mental trauma, inflicted by his father (I wouldnt call it Ironic, more of EXPECTED)

I give it 7.5/10

I will say its the most I have enjoyed the second half of this season since Emotion.

[shiftingtomydrs]

MLB DR

Alright so same as with some other drs my personal stuff like name and everything is the same soo wont go into that a lot tbh

then backstory, i originally wanted to be like an exchange student in france but then like i cant very well be ladybug if im only there for a year so i switched it to i move to france for some reason i dont know yet and i live there with my aunt or smth bcs she lives near paris yk? then basically i just kinda take marinettes place but not completely, like shes still there and stuff but im there too yk? my love interest is adrien and marinette will get together (and stay together) with luca cos theyre cute and im not sure yet if i should script her crush on adrien out or just say it disappears at some point

changes in plot: i dont like anything after season 2, dont ask me why, i just dont like it idk why either, so im gonna script seasons 3-5 out with some exceptions (e.g. i kinda really like cat blanc so i might leave that in with some other stuff but the whole shadow moth and all that shit no) also lila isnt the next supervillain shes just a regular mean girl cos it doesnt make any frickin sense that a 15 year old is able to manipulate every single person she meets. like shell still be able to lie and manipulate people her age but not adults cos thats just stupid imo. Also i havent even watched season 5 yet so im going off spoilers i saw for the next part: none of the miraculous will have permanent holders except ladybug and chat noir (aka me and adrien) cos i like to be special :) also i wont be guardian of the miraculous until much later like college or smth cos thats a ton of pressure and it went sideways for marinette so i dont want it going sideways for me. oh and a big one: ill be taking the whole sentimonster plot out cos i hate it and i think ive never hated a plot as much as that one. like sentimonsters can exist okay but felix and adrien and kagami etc arent one. cos just no. oh and ofc i wont know adrien is chat noir haha

now a bit more about myself: idk yet if i just wanna kinda steal marinettes interests and do the whole design thing cos i am a sucker for parallels and the parallel of adriens parents and adrinette is there but then again why would i wanna be like gabriel? so i might just do what i do in 90% of my drs and be a songwriter (well ill be that anyway question is do i add the designing part on top or not?), otherwise i like baking, ill do figure skating or gymnastics or ballet prolly like all the things i wanna do here but cant for this or that reason. my nationality will be german prolly cos i like having the german passport and also i dont think i need a visa for france cos its in the eu. i wont really script much more about like me and adrien except that we end up together but in my head its kinda similar to the adrien and marinette situation cos im a sucker for slowburn and idk it just fits i think also with my issues with trusting people have good intentions and not just spend time with me bcs of a bet or shit like that.

Physical looks, i might change my hair color cos idk i think itll fit and yeah but ill still have my eye color and height and stuff just be a bit fitter cos with my endurance theres no way ill be able to be a superhero (ik theres magic and shit but still)

im not sure yet if i should leave the dr as a cartoon or do it like this reality (leaning towards this reality bcs i think cartoon would freak me out a bit for my first shift and id overcomplicate it) or maybe ill just do two drs, one cartoon and one not.

anyway, if you have any questions, id love to talk more about this dr so pls ask them <3

@ningsols here it is :)

[ijustliketoreadstuff]

Who used it?!

The sentimonster topic has always been very interesting to talk about, but recently, as I was conversing with a fellow Miraculer, whom has asked to be referred to as “Sunny D”, something new came to light. As a quick refresher, just as any miraculous, if the peacock miraculous is used when in a broken state, the holder will receive a terrible backlash that will not only make them ill, but inevitably lead to their death. No human medical knowledge can heal the effects from a broken miraculous, because no such human cure or treatment exists to treat such magical side effects. 

Now, throughout the series, we have already been subtly hinted of there potentially being numerous sentimonsters in the series, most notably by all the references to feathers, such as the ones we saw in the “Adrien the Fragrance” ad back in ”Gorizilla”, being a clear sign of the various amoks/sentimonsters in the series who were always close to Adrien.

Felix and Adrien were always prime sentimonster suspects for years, but we knew there had to be more, and sure enough, one of the people on that list of potential sentimonsters was narrowed down to Kagami, who not only had a very strict and controlled way of life, but was also among the few with a mom that was close to Gabriel, meaning she to could share in the secret of the peacock miraculous. Confirmation of Kagami being a sentimonster along with Adrien and Felix, was quickly obtained near the end of “Perfection”, when Tomoe revealed that Kagami had an amok in the family ring. 

(Tomoe lashed out at Gabriel, after learning he sent a megakuma to Kagami’s ring, if the amok is released, Kagami will disapear. In “Emotion”, Felix further confirmed things, the moment we saw him sense Kagami's amok in her ring.)

But even with knowing now that there were three official sentimonsters in “Emotion” alone, the three being of course, Felix, Adrien and Kagami, we forgot that we don’t actually know the full backstory on how Kagami was created, at least not yet anyway. There is a grim fate to anyone who uses the broken peacock miraculous, so who used it to create Kagami? Tomoe is still alive and healthy, so did someone else create Kagami for Tomoe?

 Back in "Riposte", we learn through Adrien’s online search that the Tsurugi's were mainly comprised of a grandfather, Kagami, and Tomoe, but no spouse is talked of. We don’t know much about Tomoe and the rest of the Tsurugi family line just yet, but it wouldn’t be to shocking to know that Tomoe was the last of her families lineage and wanted to have a kid on her own without a spouse. But regardless of what she could have told the public and Kagami to cover up the truth about the peacock miraculous, it feels like there is some darker truth Tomoe has not yet revealed to the audience.

With no one else but a grandfather in her life, Tomoe could have sought the help of her only remaining family to help her by asking him to use the peacock miraculous for her, but considering the circumstances of Kagami’s way of life, Tomoe could have also brought it upon herself to create the “perfect” child she envisioned, a child who would uphold the Tsurugi family name exactly as she wanted. Of course, if Tomoe used the peacock miraculous and is still alive, then there is a possibility she used the peacock miraculous before it was broken.

No matter how far back we trace the peacock miraculous, we know that it was broken when Emelie used it, but we don’t know how it was broken or exactly when. For all we know, the peacock miraculous would have still been completely in tact when it was found along with the butterfly miraculous all those years ago, but was placed into a situation, not long after it was found, which gave it its first crack, and then later forced that small crack to spread, honestly who knows. We know that whoever uses it in its broken state would face the same fate as Emelie, Colt(Felix’s dad), and Nathalie, worst of all, nothing humanly possible could save them once they used its power. 

So, if the Tsurugi Grandfather used it to bring Kagami into the world and passed away a few years after that, no one would be suspicious of an elderly man passing on. But if Tomoe was potentially the last person to use the peacock miraculous before it was officially broken, then she must have received some sort of side effect that was not necessarily life threatening, but still very sudden and impactful onto her life none the less, such as loosing her vision. But again, lets just wait and see what the show has to say.

[carpisuns]

Now that you are no longer avoiding miraculous ladybug spoilers, can I say that it is absolutely bonkers the way the sentimonster theory started out with just Adrien, but then spread to Felix, and now apparently kagami??? And I've heard there might be another person who is one as well?? Like at this point I think we might as well say that every rich kid in paris (or vaguely related to paris) is probably a sentimonster. I bet it was a top secret Agreste collection back in the day, and all of Paris' wealthiest got a slice of it

OHOOEHEHEHE YES AND IM LIVING FOR IT!! honestly I never thought we would get confirmation of the senti theory that is this clear—like I thought it would be hinted but left open enough for the average child viewer to totally miss and for deniers to be able to deny if they want to. And I guess they could still deny? But man I didn’t expect it to become so central!! the felix eps were insane i was yelling !!

A while back I saw this theory that was basically what you said—that all the rich kids in Paris were sentis. Because of that fancy weird cult party from the episode Gabriel Agreste. Which was so fascinating to me back then and now it feels not unlikely?

It’s so interesting bc we know sentis are created from a specific emotion. It would seem appropriate that Emily created adrien out of love, and that’s why he’s such a kind boy who gives undeserving people second chances and who loves people with all his heart. Im not sure what emotion felix would be?? he’s a pretty complex character but his sense of personal justice is strong, wanting to free himself first and then the other sentikids, and using morally questionable means to reach his mission. So maybe something along those lines. And for kagami, idk, is perfection an emotion? Desire for perfection? That idea is brought up more and more surrounding her and her mother is very concerned with kagami’s perfection.

This gets even more interesting to me when you consider Chloe. Admittedly, she makes less sense as a senti bc the other sentikids have a missing parent (presumably the one who wielded the broken peacock and then eventually died from it??). But im just considering the concept of Audrey making Chloe from her own emotions….which seem to consist solely of selfishness and superiority. So if Chloe was made with such ugly emotions, no wonder she is the way she is. And no wonder that every time she seemed to make a little progress, she backslid into her old behavior. Bc any display of self-awareness and kindness and genuine care for someone else goes against her emotional core—her very essence. Is it even possible for a senti to change their emotional core? that would be an insane display of self-control and sheer force of will that would challenge the very concept of sentis as creatures who are made to be commanded. if it’s possible for a senti to break the bounds of their emotional core, is it also possible to break the bond between them and their amok holder and disobey a direct order? Could they even break their link to their amok entirely? This is all crazy talk bc it doesn’t even make sense in context and I doubt Chloe would end up having that big of a role anyway lol but the implications are interesting to think about! It’s even interesting to think about XY and the possibility of him being a senti—emotional core of greed, maybe? or, like, shallowness? lol. his dad definitely controls him and his image pretty carefully so. Hmm!

anyway insane musings aside I am really enjoying this arc with the senti focus!! felix’s Argo fit is so cool. his villain song. Girl help!!! when he had to kill his sentimoon and cried…oh that got me. That was his SISTER !! and FELIGAMI HELLO???? FELIGAMI PRACTICALLY CANON AFTER 2 EPISODES??? i did NOT have that on my bingo card lol but you know what?? Hell yeah!!!!!! Kagami said if Adrien doesn’t love me I’ll simply fall for his more intense and moody twin who rapidly and rightfully became obsessed with me

[miraculousaddicts14]

Random thought on mlb theories (Part-1)

(Not all of them are mine, some of them I included cause I wanted to share my thoughts. Credits to original creator for their brilliance)

1. So we all know how Lila took the miraculous of butterfly when it fell . What if she knows that Marinette is ladybug!!? Why I think that is cause Marinette detransformed while talking to Gabriel. There are chances that she might have seen that

2. We also know that Felix and kagami know Marinette's true identity. Will Marinette get to know about it?

3. This one is connected with number 2, so I saw some people saying that we all know how Felix transformed from villian-antihero-hero. There are chances that he might team up with Lila (who is now Hawk moth) .

4. I wonder why Lila wants the miraculous of butterfly? Is she going to have the same motive as Gabriel? Just taking ladybug and cat noir's miraculous? If it is , why does she need it? And if it isn't what's the other motive then?

5. I also wonder if kagami's mom is really blind or is she just pretending? There have been moments when I thought she isn't blind.

6. (continuing number 1) If Lila knows/gets to know that Marinette is ladybug, she is going to everything to destroy her reputation. She can manipulate Parisians and everyone at the school. It would be the hardest time of all and if during that time Adrien gets to know that she was hiding Gabriel's secret from him, it will not end well. Just the thought of it makes my body shiver.

7. I have also seen people saying that the miraculous of peacock broke bcz Emilie tried to make 2 sentimosters at the same time. He was supposed to get a twin sister but that failed somehow and Adrien was the second. His name was also not supposed to Adrien ,his name was taken out of his dead twin sister who was named Adrienne and once Gabriel and Emilie got to know that he was connected to both amoks. Some people partially think that his named was being Celeste, which is a unisex name in France .

8. Some people also say that Anne-Jeanne Theoxanne du Bocquale is a time traveling adopted daughter of Adrienette. What I think is that could be true cause apparently Adrien is a sentimonster (that's what we think even though it's not confirmed) and sentimoster's can't reproduce. So maybe they decided to adopt a child but I am not so sure about the time travelling thing .

9. Adrien is going to intern at the Dupain-Cheng bakery. It will not end well. Ok well, I got nothing much to say about it but my question is why would he?

10. Some of you guys think that Kagami is meant for Adrien. Like why guys? Tbh when they started dating I didn't really like it . From the very start I always thought Marinette was the one who is made for Adrien. Why? Bcz no one can understand him better than her and not to mention no one can know his schedule for next several years and no one can stalk him better .

11. I have also read this theory where people say that Felix was created out of jealousy over Gabe and Emilie's conception of Adrien, which means it's possible he doesn't love Kagami for herself or the fact they "are the same," . I mean this could be true and credits to the original person who thought of this amazing theory like idk where u guys get these from , hats off!

12. Next theory is , The ring Felix gave Kagami isn't actually her amok, but an identical copy. I agree bcz we have seen Felix talking about how he felt when he was being controlled so it’s most likely to be true cause he wouldn’t want kagami to feel the same way (if he really loves and her cares about her)

13. I also wonder when and how Felix will tell Adrien about how both of them are sentimonsters and were created using a miraculous and if he tells it before he gets to know Gabriel’s truth it is most likely to be that Adrien will suspect that his own father was the villain .

14. This one is not really a theory but like I wonder Has/Will ladybug told cat noir about the true identity of monarch? If we look at the last scene from Re-creation they both seem pretty normal like always . So that could mean that she still hasn’t revealed it yet . Do you guys think she will?

15. There’s also this thing that Felix might team up with Lila cause of his character arc . You see , he was seen first as a villain then as an anti hero and then a hero . This will be a direct parallel to Adrien's character arc.

16. Ladybug giving up the guardian role to Luka and Cat Noir will help her recover her memories. Umm…. I mean we all know that Marinette will do/have to do this but I don’t think it will be Luka or maybe it can be , I just don’t know .

17. Lila will tell Adrien the truth about Gabriel and get mad at Ladybug then get akumatized . Well she is lie-la so for sure but wasn’t she going to be changing her look?

18. Marinette will slowly have suspiciousness about “cerise” as she sees her. Well cerise is new look of lie-la but she is still the same from inside and marinette’s also clever enough to point her lies out .

19. Kagami’s mom (I forgot her name) is gonna help Lila . Bcz the thing she wanted (which was probably Adrien and kagami being eternal couples or whatever) is still a dream .

20. Felix will find out cat noir is Adrien by sensing the amok on cat noir . I don’t think so bcz Felix has came over cat noir a couple times but he didn’t sense that .

[iindigoeyed]

A detail I noticed about Feast

Feast (S3E15) is a very important episode for many reasons: it gives us Fu's backstory and origins of the miracle box, it hammers home the element of emotions when creating sentibeings, it restores the Tibetan temple and causes a chain reaction that is relevant later in the series (namely with Su Han), Mayura is there... but I rewatched it recently and I noticed a detail near the end that I believe to be foreshadowing.

At the end of Feast, our heroes defeat the sentimonster by entering it and cataclysm-ing Fu's staff with the amuk in it. Once Ladybug casts her Miraculous Ladybug and returns the world to normal, the Guardian Temple reappears and we can see the news reporting on it:

As the news is reporting on the temple, a few people can be seen watching (or listening). Those would be Gabriel and Nathalie, Tomoe, Alya, and Audrey Bourgeois.

Gabriel and Nathalie makes sense. They are Hawkmoth and Mayura, after all-- and Gabriel used the peacock with Emilie to create Adrien. Tomoe again is understandable, as she is a close ally to Hawkmoth and possibly used the peacock miraculous to create Kagami (which is all but confirmed in canon at this point.) And Alya herself is the catalyst for this episode's events: she brings Marinette to the Louvre where the dormant sentimonster is, shows Marinette her findings about the guardian symbol, and publishes those findings on her Ladyblog which HM & Mayura then discover. She's also a Miraculous holder too.

Now, why is Audrey watching the news? From a meta standpoint there's no need to show her in this scene since she isn't of the same importance that the others are. Hell, Audrey wasn't even in this episode before then. Even if her daughter is a Miraculous holder, Audrey has no reason to be interested in the Temple...

...unless, of course, she has some connection to the Miraculous.

As an aside... I'm not sure exactly what this means. If Audrey used the peacock to create Chloe like many believe, surely Audrey or Andre would've fallen ill like predecessors Emilie and Colt did. You could argue that she used the peacock miraculous to create Zoe as we've never seen Zoe's dad and aren't sure he's even alive, but considering this was in season 3 before Zoe was even introduced to us I have my doubts to believe this was the intent. Or maybe there's some unseen third option that I don't know about.

Regardless, this seems like pretty obvious foreshadowing to me. Even if this ends up going nowhere it's interesting to recontextualize it knowing everything that we know now. I don't think we've seen the last of Chloe or of her family quite yet (even if the writers want us to think we have.)

[rainbow18]

Marinette’s past trauma vs Felix’s past trauma

Felix’s trauma is Foreshadowed but not shown.

Colt often called Félix “MONSTER!” since Felix was a child. Colt was a terrible person in general. Colt and Amelie had no love for each other. We don’t see it happening other than during Félix’s and Kagami’s play but it is easy to believe and accept that it happened.

Felix also claimed that he was excluded during Emotion. (although I’m not sure what exactly he meant by excluded.)

In Emotion, Felix was seemingly happily dancing with Marinette but then she said the word Monster and Felix’s expression completely changed. He became angry and stated that the people who were disgusted with her were the monsters.

In Pretension, Kagami asked Félix why he didn’t just create a sentimonster to help them and He angrily said to not call them that.

Felix was taken completely out of his thoughts when Nathalie attempted to comfort him, believing that he was Adrien. (Probably because he’s not used to comfort from anyone other than Amelie)

Amelie’s hypocrisy during her debut. She stated that Gabriel should hand the rings over because his and Adrien’s surname isn’t Graham De Vanily even though She and Félix didn’t have that surname either.

Amelie is literally the happiest Widow ever shown.

Ever since his debut, Felix really seems to dislike Chloe. (Perhaps She was mean to him or at least refused to be his friend previously.)

Felix was shown appearing sad when Chat Noir scolded him about how he probably didn’t have many friends because of his behavior. (Although it can be argued that Felix’s sadness might’ve been fake.)

Marinette’s Trauma is shown but not Foreshadowed.

Marinette and Adrien headed to a pool to go swimming. Marinette sees a image of Kim at a pool and freaked out. Marinette freaked out other times and A Flashback was shown to explain why She would freak out. However despite the flashback, it’s hard to believe that it happened considering what’s in the past episodes and seasons.

In Dark Cupid, Chloe humiliated Kim. Marinette pitied him instead of going “Karma’s a Witch” or “Serves you right Jerk”.

Following on that, Marinette never really showed any signs that Kim traumatized her. She mostly only had a problem with Chloe.

Marinette never freaked out at pools and/or going under water previously.

She did not treat Luka like how she treated Adrien.

It was never mentioned despite having opportunities.

Kim was stated to be afraid of spiders in Season 1. Why would He prank Marinette with spiders if he’s afraid of them?

Why is it that Felix’s and by extension, Amelie’s trauma has much more and better foreshadowing than Marinette’s even though they only appear in a few episodes?

Answer = Their trauma was probably planned for a long time whereas Marinette’s Trauma seems to have only been written because sometimes Real Life writes the Plot.

Marinette had received criticism for how she treated Adrien during the first couple seasons. So maybe Thomas Astruc decided to quickly make this backstory, hoping that the criticism would fade. (Also because he hates Chloe)

[trainsinanime]

The season 5 finale

Spoilers for everything up to and including Recreation. I'm trying to get this out quick to sort out my own thoughts before I've read too many other takes that influence mine. That said, I reserve the right to do a 180° on anything I'm about to say almost immediately depending on hot takes by other, smarter people.

Let's start with the most crucial part: I had fun! This was really a lot of fun. I had a Ladybug day today, with the movie first (thoughts about that later) and then these two episodes, and I really enjoyed every bit of it.

I generally really liked what this finale was doing, everything I didn't like were just things it left out… but wow, it sure left out a lot. Like Adrien!

Now, I am on record as saying that it's great that Ladybug is the main hero, and that it's perfectly okay that Chat Noir isn't constantly at her side and not quite equally important. I stand by that. But… he's kind of important, isn't he? Like, the relationship between him and Ladybug, and the one between Marinette and Adrien, that's one of the core elements of the show, but it didn't appear here at all, and that's weird. I miss him. He's my little guy. And my guess is that this is the main complaint everyone will have with the finale.

The other main question is, of course: Is that it? I'm okay with Marinette talking Gabriel around until he uses his wish for something good, sacrificing himself in the process, but it also seemed way too easy in a lot of ways. And the lighting in the final scenes was just off enough to be noticeable, so I'm guessing that this isn't actually the end of all that story yet. I hope Chat Noir gets involved a little bit. Oh, and a Ladynoir kiss would be great.

Also missing: Kagami and Felix. They kept acting like she was important, and Felix was important, and sentimonsters were important, and that this was all part of the plot back in Representation, so it's a bit odd that it isn't addressed here at all. I guess that's a plot hook for season 6?

With regards to the akuma, I think it's okay that it's a faceless one in huge numbers, but I think you could have done way more with the idea that "the way we overcome our nightmares is together".

But, again, I had fun! Lots of moments that were WTF in a really good way. Is this a good conclusion to the storyline we've been watching for the past five season? I think not. But I do think it's a really fun AU, well told, and in that regard it really worked for me.

I am not looking forward to scrolling through my dash and figuring out what everyone thought, because I'm sure there will be a lot of people who really hated it for reasons I can't entirely disagree with. But I didn't! I had fun with this, I'm looking forward to season 6, and I do hope we'll get some more normal episodes.

Oh wait, one more thing: Alya came this close to getting a cool black cat fursona, but then she didn't. J'accuse! We were robbed, I say, robbed!

[ilikekidsshows]

Feligami for otp ask

Rate Your OTP Game

Crème de la crème | Excellent Taste | A Worthy Sailing Vessal | A fine ship it is | The Finest Crack in the Den | Unorthodox yet not Unwelcome | It is a good | Overrated | It is acceptable | Forgive me but I am not familiar with the source material | I would not consider myself a fan | Just because you are contrarian doesnt make it good | What dump did you find this? | In the lowest pits of the Abyss is where your taste was forged.

Considering I'm 75% sure you sent this pairing in just to have me tear it to shreds, I feel comfortable being nasty about it.

Feligami as a ship emphasizes and underlines the artificiality of these characters both in universe and out of universe. It's the token ship where a couple is brought together by the writers specifically because they fill out the same niche. The ethnicity couple, the nerd couple, the artificial slave species couple.

Look, Miraculous has a really, really, REALLY bad track record with making its Sentimonsters seem like actual people worthy of sympathy and human rights. The creation and controlling of these creatures is totally okay most of the time, no one considers how horrifying it is that their lives are so fleeting, fragile and easily controlled by others and they're called Sentimonsters. The only character who cared about Sentibug dying was Adrien, apparently another Sentimonster so, with Félix's season 5 characterization of him caring about Kagami and Adrien because they're Sentis, we have a 3/3 track record of only another Sentimonster choosing to care about someone they know for a fact is a Sentimonster from the get-go.

Félix only started caring about Kagami because she was part of the same slave species he is. Kagami's previous love interest was also a part of this slave species and Kagami was explicitly attracted to him because they were "so alike". With Kagami exclusively falling for guys who are part of the same species as her, who also easily fall for her right back, the show is implying Sentimonsters can subconsciously recognize each other, and this instict presents itself as them being drawn to each other.

Outside of all this Sentimonster nonsense, the pairing also emphasizes how artificial these characters are from a narrative perspective. Kagami is headstrong, and wants to pave her own way. Her previous love interest and first friend were both people who were kind to a fault. Now she falls for an asshole who's also a perfect clone of her previous boyfriend, a breakup she had such a difficult time getting over that she couldn't even see him for a time. It's obvious Kagami likes Félix only because the writers want her to like him. She also shields the writers' pet Félix from the consequences of his own actions, something I've pointed out the writers loooooove to do with Félix. All of this makes it obvious that she's not a real person but a made up character who will do and feel what the writers want regardless of her previous characterization, which just takes a more savvy viewer completely out of the story.

Félix's personality also keeps changing with his every appearance, and him falling for Kagami is just more of the same. The Félix in season three might as well have been another identical Sentimonster and the only connection he still has to his season 4 behavior is him still having the Peacock Miraculous. I actually saw a screenshot of him doing an Adrien expression sincerely because he just wubs Kagami so much, and I gagged. It's just gross when he does the doe-eyed look.

[princess-of-the-corner]

So, I've got a friend who shan't be named, who I've accidentally, through osmosis, infected with a hyperfixation on MLB.

But he also knows How shit the writing in Canon is, so he sent me to ask you which episodes to watch that ARE important to know to have a baseline idea on the characters since he does want to pay some respect to the og show and not accidentally Salt the characters.

[TL;DR. Friend wants to watch MLB but is afraid of the shit writing, which episodes would you reccomend? Also, he watched the movie If that helps.]

OH BOY

Hm. I think the main problem with this is that some of the best writing and worst writing is at the same time lmao. Doubly so when it comes to later seasons and Plot.

Okay let's take a moment to go through the episodes. Might break this into seasons.

Since you said they've absorbed by osmosis, I'm not going to make my reasonings spoiler-free.

Season 1:

You know what? I'm actually going to say 'watch all of Season 1'. It has its flaws for sure, but Season 1 is still legitimately good to me. All the episodes are kind of important because they set up the various characters.

Season 2:

The Collector - Establishes Gabriel = Hawkmoth. Interactions with Fu and getting more Lore.

Despair Bear - Sets up the beginnings of Chloé's redemption and why she's Like That™

Riposte - Kagami's introduction!

Dark Owl - This is 87% for the scene of them in the box. The absolute TENSION of of that scene is fucking BEAUTIFUL I love it so much you have no idea. Also brings in Damocles as 'The Owl'.

Glaciator - I'd put this one as a 'maybe' because mostly it's just for the introduction of the Ice Cream Man so you know what's happening later when he shows up.

Sapotis - First dual-Akuma, and also the first debut of Rena Rouge!

Gorizilla - Gabriel suspecting Adrien of being Chat plot! Also more lore tidbits regarding Emilie, as we see her in the movie 'Solitude'.

Captain Hardrock - Introduces Luka and Anarka! Also I just love this Akuma.

Zombizou - partly because zombie apocalypse can be fun and it hits all the tropes. But this establishes stuff for Chloé's redemption arc. Both in a 'why she's Like That™', showing the idea that someone can change, and also her actually being helpful to Ladybug and apologizing for the trouble she caused afterward.

Anansi - I love Nora, and this is the debut for Carapace!

Sandboy - Some good nightmare fuel, and lore on the Kwami

Reverser - Intro for Marc! Technically not important in the long run but I love them.

The Queen's Battle Trilogy(Style Queen, Queen Wasp, Malediktator) - CHLOE MY GIRL. Okay! Introduction of Audrey. Seeing Emilie in the basement for the first time. Gabriel temporarily giving up on being Hawkmoth because he actually gives a shit about Adrien. Chloé finding the Bee. 'The only thing exceptional about you, is your mother'. (unfortunately the 'encouraged to make up with your abuser' part). Chloé getting the Bee for real! YES.

Heroes' Day(Catalyst and Mayura) - Season finale! Scarlet Moth! The Team of Five! Mayura's first appearance and the reveal of Sentimonsters existing!

Season 3:

Backwarder - though it does have some heavy cringe with Marinette mixing up the deliveries, I love Marianne. So more lore with Fu, the introduction of Marianne who canonically was down to throw hands with Nazis.

Chameleon - Lila returns! Mari looks insane trying to prove she's a liar. Lila makes her threat and is willingly Akumatized. Adrien thinks things are just minor and gives unfortunate but understandable advice.

Silencer - Though the band was kinda mentioned in Captain Hardrock, this is where Kitty Section is really 'A Thing'. Bonus for really establishing Bob as a dick. Also the Akuma's power is cool and there's the sort-of-confession

Oblivio - neat Akuma. beautiful shenanigans with Marinette and Adrien not knowing who they are, but falling in love anyway and trying to figure out how to function. Bonus points for all the 'Super Penguino' metaphors.

Oni-Chan - Lila being a manipulator on many levels and Adrien quickly getting to 'you're on thin fucking ice' with her. Establishes Lila making her deal with Gabriel.

Miraculer - More of Chloé's redemption and Queen Bee! The first time the Heroes see Mayura out in the field I think? Queen Bee v Mayura! Ladybug officially tells Chloé she has to be benched because her identity is known, using this event as a basis of example.

Desperada - The chaos of Adrien trying to be Aspik, plus the debut of Viperion.

Startrain - crumbs for 'why Sabrina is Like That', Kaalki is great. Chloé doing great as a Hero even without her Miraculous and taking control in a crisis to save people! Debut of Pegasus. Also the comedy of not only the class being launched into space but Gabriel being so ???? about that happening, and so dramatic of 'oh no Adrien's on that train in space I must rely on my enemies succeeding for him to be safe!'

Kwamibuster - Little bit of lore, but mostly just the badass moments of Mari using all of the fucking Miraculous and how this was supposed to be something special lmao

Feast - SO MUCH FUCKING LORE. Like a bunch of Lore on the past users, the Guardians, what happened when Fu was a kid, etc. Plus the Guardian Temple coming back!

Ikari Gozen - Marinette and Kagami actually become friends. Debut of Ryuko!

Time Tagger - Bunnyx and all the nonsense she brings!

Party Crasher - this one is a maybe. It's chaotic as fuck, and has the debut of Roi Singe.

Chat Blanc - YEAH THIS. THIS IS A THING. LASER PISS ON THE MOON.

Felix - oh hey the boy! Mostly just establishing that he exists. The first time Gabriel and Emilie's wedding rings are established as important.

Ladybug - Lila's whole 'get Mari expelled' plan. Sentibug. Adrien making his own deal with Lila for Mari's safety.

Battle of the Miraculous (Heart Hunter and Miracle Queen) - YEAH THIS IS UNFORTUNATELY RELEVANT

Season 4:

Truth - Jagged is Luka's dad, comedy of "Truth: "what is Mari's secret?"/everyone: "She loves Adrien"." Lukanette breakup.

Lies - Mostly just for fairness, but you can gather 'adrigami break up for the same reasons lukanette did' if you only watched Lies.

Gang of Secrets - Mari is struggling. The Girlsquad wants to help. Mari gives in and tells Alya that she's Ladybug

Mr. Pigeon 72 - lore-wise this is the intro of the Charms. But tbh I just think everyone needs to see how fucking fantastic Alya was this episode

Furious Fu - Introduction of Su-Han. Tbh he so rarely shows up you can kinda skip this but if you /want/ to see him show up....

Sole Crusher - Zoé's first episode!

Guilttrip - Rose having some vague illness, fluff as everyone tries to love her so much. 'Girl that's a bootyhole' Sentimonster. Debut of Pigella!

Optigami - One of Gabriel's most fantastic plans, and it's something Nathalie thought of lmao. Genuinely good plan though. Tension is high. Unnerved by Sentinino

Sentibubbler - Gabriel going direct approach! Alya wrecking house while being held hostage!

Wishmaker - the chaos of everyone's wishes, and Viperion learning LB and CN's identities.

Hack-San -Scarabella my beloved!!!

Dearest Family - Kind of a 'maybe', but first glimpse of God Mode Tikki.

Gabriel Agreste - this was a trip, but mostly here for Felix finding out Gabriel is Shadowmoth(which.... he. He really didn't need to /confirm/ that. He should know. But I digress).

Shadowmoth's Final Attack(Risk and Strikeback) - Season finale! Felix being a FUCK and handing over all the Miraculous to Gabriel!

Season 5:

Honestly I could say to watch all of Season 5 for the exact opposite reason I said to watch all of Season 1 lmao. But if I have to condense the shitshow:

Evolution - Genuinely so fucking good! Alix darling!

Multiplication - not the best, but does really first establish both the tech to transfer the Miraculous Powers, and that Tomoe is working with Gabriel

Destruction - mostly not important, but kinda cool for LB's complicated af plan. But established Monarch getting hit with Cataclysm.

Jubilation - Into to Socqueline. The Alliance Rings are debuted to the public! Shows that the programs on said rings are designed to help Gabriel track down Ladybug, so if Mari ever wears one there's a risk. (downside is you gotta look at the cabbage patch babies and Chat attempting murder)

Passion - the Lovesquare has reversed and we are SUFFERING. Gabriel is a moron who Akumatized Nathalie knowing she wants to kill his ass. Nathalie as Safari is GREAT though

Illusion - establishes Nino's 'Resistance' idea of Civilians fighting back.

The Kwami's Choice(Transmission and Deflagration) - Tikki and Plagg try to let Mari and Adrien be happy with each other. Scarabella and Kitty Noire are on the scene! The Alliance tracker comes into play as Gabriel finds their identities! Near-victory as he takes them out, but luckily Plagg can think fast. Mari and Adrien return to their jobs as LB and CN.

Migration - Luka knowing the identites finally comes into play!

Derision - HEAR ME OUT. This episode fucking sucks, but in terms of fandom things you might want to see what this nonsense was. And how to divert it.

Adoration - Zoé confesses to Marinette, and Mari FINALLY confesses to Adrien. But Gabriel is a big old bag of DICK.

Emotion - Adrienette! The dance! Felix is finally here as Argos! Red Moon! Really establishing the Sentimonster stuff!

Confrontation - PISS WINDOW. Anger aside, Lila is finally caught!

Collusion - GOD fuck this but it's important to the plot for LB and CN to team up with the Akuma and run the mayor out of office.

Representation - Partly for the closest thing to Adrichat fighting Gabriel we'll get, mostly for Felix's play though.

The Final Day (Conformation and Recreation) - Our Season finale! Adrichat is left out of the fight entirely. Gabriel wins but also dies but still wins because he's remembered as a Hero. But hey at least we got cool fight scenes and Eldritch Kwami out of it!

Bonus:

Watch both the NY and Shanghai specials! They're fun and bring in various characters!

[theerurishipper]

you said that Amelie is bad because she want to give Adrien amok to her son to slave etc etc but do we have evidence that she knows it's Adrien's amok or the fact that he's a sentimonster? I know many people also said Felix /know/ Adrien is a sentimonster but does he have a proof? Or do we have evidence of such claim? I can see Felix know Kagami is a sentimonster because he feel her amok in her ring, but Adrien never wear the amok until the season final. So how does he know? Peacock user can only feel the amok, not a sentimonster after all.

At the very least, Felix knew that the rings were Adrien's Amoks by Risk/Strikeback. There's a scene where he's pretending to be Adrien to stand up to Gabriel, but seems to know to give in when Nathalie comes in and flashes the ring, so I'm pretty sure he knows. And I don't think it should have been possible for him to realize somehow that the ring was an Amok while he was in London without the Peacock Miraculous between Felix and Risk/Strikeback, so I just assumed he always knew. He probably didn't figure it out through the Miraculous, but he must have known. Maybe he just put two and two together after he realized he was a Sentimonster who was somehow identical to his cousin, or Amelie probably knew and told him about it.

And I think Amelie would at the very least be aware of how she got pregnant, and the show doesn't seem to portray Felix as someone who keeps secrets from his mother. There's no evidence that Felix is lying to Amelie or that Amelie doesn't know something, but he's quite comfortable transforming into Argos in front of her, so it's reasonable to assume that even if she didn't know he was a Sentimonster for some obscure and bizarre reason, he probably would have told her. There's no indication that she's also in the dark or is being lied to. Whatever Felix knows, Amelie probably knows.

Thank you for your ask!