#and although there are still two extreme reactions of which either may ([[spoiler alert]] did) happen when the weight of it all really hits

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

[the-original-b]

Burned by Olympian Fire: the Horrifying True Story of the Demon Core

In 1942, a collection of the world’s greatest minds pooled their intelligence and creativity to bring the world into a new era. They called this undertaking the Manhattan Project. The end result: three spheres of metal small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, light enough to carry, and disturbingly warm to the touch.

These scientists stole the secret of fire from the gods, and looked to use it as a weapon with which to smite their foes. But they didn’t truly understand what it was they were doing—they merely knew how it worked and what it did.

This is the true story of two scientists, human error, and a fourteen pound ball of weapons-grade Plutonium.

The First Sphere—made of Uranium and fitted into the device code named Little Boy—claimed the lives of 20,000 soldiers and over three-to-six times as many civilians when it detonated above the city of Hiroshima on the morning of August 6th, 1945.

The Second Sphere—made of Plutonium and rigged to a device they called Fat Man—took the lives of 75,000 people when it detonated over Nagasaki just after noon on August 9th that same year.

The Third and final Core—the one this story is about—was supposed to enter a third device meant to be intended for another Japanese city but never did since Emperor Hirohito announced his surrender on August 15th. The core remained at the then-secret Los Alamos Laboratory where, unlike its siblings, it would educate rather than destroy.

But like its siblings, the Third Core would claim the lives of innocents.

Allow me to backtrack a little to shed some light on how these nuclear devices worked:

The massive explosions for which Fat Man and Little Boy are infamous only occur when a nuclear core goes critical. This was achieved in these devices by using explosives to compress the core into a smaller volume and artificially simulate critical mass. This allows the fission reaction responsible for the release of vast sums of atomic energy to sustain itself and compound, ultimately resulting in archetypal mushroom cloud explosion for which the devices are known.

Since the Third Core was never installed in a nuclear device and detonated over Japan, physicists working at Los Alamos decided to see just what it took for such a device to go critical. They deduced that a sufficiently dense reflector can be positioned in such a way that the neutrons flung off by radioactive materials during natural nuclear decay would be sent back into the material to careen into more of the atoms and split them, sharply reducing the amount of fissionable material required to achieve a critical state and foregoing the need for explosives.

Even though detonation of the radioactive material itself might not occur in all cases, a radiation pulse probably would (which we can all agree isn’t great).

Physicists at Los Alamos engaged in a series of near-criticality experiments that used neutron-reflective materials placed around the weapons-grade ball of Plutonium left over from the Manhattan Project to see just how close they could get it to critical without killing themselves or everyone in the building. Again, I’m confident in saying that probably isn’t the best thing to do, and I’m not alone in saying so. It’s been reported that Physicist Richard Feynman compared the experiments to “tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon.” But the experiments continued despite the very real danger of being cooked alive by a blast of Godzilla breath.

And that’s exactly what happened to scientists Harry Daghlian Jr. and Louis Slotin.

Daghlian’s Dance with the Demon

On August 21st 1945, Haroutune “Harry” Krikor Daghlian Jr. was running a criticality experiment with the Third Core. He was placing Tungsten Carbide bricks around the Core to see how many of them and in what orientation it would take to reflect enough neutrons back into the Core to achieve criticality. With the help of a device similar to a Geiger counter, he got close enough to criticality with his stack of bricks that he decided to stop his experiments.

This should have been the end of it. He probably should have left it well enough alone and had a beer with his homies after a hard day of flirting with nuclear disaster. But Daghlian was curious.

And we all know what curiosity does to cats.

He returned to his assembly alone that night for another test. Just as before he arranged his bricks in such a way that his device told him brought the Third Core to near-criticality. As he was placing one last brick in his assembly, his device told him the Core would go critical if he continued. He listened to his device, and cautiously began removing the final brick.

But then he dropped it.

The Demon Core woke the instant the brick hit the assembly. It went super-critical and flooded the room with blue light and a wave of heat. Daghlian reacted quickly, knocking the brick to the floor with his free hand. But the damage was already done. You’re probably one google image search away from scarring your retinas with what that hand looked like, but I’ll advise against that.

Imagine wrapping your hand in a fresh cast, then placing a chunk of raw hamburger in your palm. That was his right hand.

Daghlian had absorbed—in that split second—a fatal dose of radiation. Twenty-five days after the incident, Harry Daghlian fell into a coma and died at the age of twenty-four, resulting from severe radiation poisoning. But Daghlian wasn’t the only one in the building that night. A security guard, Private Robert J. Hemmerly, was seated at his desk reading the newspaper. He died 33 years later of what was determined to be radiation-induced leukemia. At the time of exposure, Hemmerly was 29 and the father of two.

Why radiation poisoning is the most f#@ked up way to die

Ionizing radiation like that emitted from the Demon Core that day destroys cellular structures. At extreme levels: bone marrow dies, the immune system fails, organs and soft tissue begin to decompose. And then the subject dies in a matter of days to weeks.

At more moderate levels, the cellular damage might not make itself known for years or even decades, but may show itself in the form of cancers or other maladies.

Either way, it’s safe to say it’s not a good time.

During the 25 days following Daghlian’s costly mistake, his colleague Louis Slotin reportedly spent several hours a day at his bedside, comforting Daghlian as acute radiation poisoning slowly and painfully killed him. If only he knew he would be there not even a year later, in the exact same hospital, suffering the exact same fate.

Slotin’s Screwdriver Slipup

By 1946, Physicist Louis Slottin had taken over the criticality experiment group. Although the experiment was moved to another site, the nature and danger of the experiments remained unchanged. Despite the still-present threat of being microwaved by a ball of radioactive metal, and warnings from more seasoned colleagues, Slotin continued along Daghlian’s path.

On May 24th that year, Slotin was conducting another near-criticality experiment with the now-infamous Demon Core, replacing the tungsten carbide bricks with a pair of beryllium hemispheres and lowering those halves until there was only a sliver of space separating them. If the hemispheres connected, the neutron reflection would be total, and a self-sustaining reaction would rouse the Demon again.

Slotin was reportedly brash in his experimentation, performing this experiment without any fail-safes designed to prevent the beryllium hemispheres from connecting. Instead, the local expert-among-experts would simply hold onto the top hemisphere bare-handed and lower it onto the core with the blade of a flathead screwdriver to get that much closer to criticality. Slotin had reportedly done it this way dozens of times before without incident.

On the afternoon of the accident (spoiler alert), Slotin was running the Screwdriver experiment just as he had so many times before as seven other colleagues observed.

The screwdriver slipped.

The instant the hemispheres connected the Demon Core went super-critical, flooding the room with its deathly blue glow and other-worldly wave of heat before Slotin could remove the top hemisphere from the assembly and silence the Core again.

According to physicist Raemer Edgar Schreiber who was in the room that afternoon, Slotin’s first words after the incident were, quote:

“Well…

that does it.”  

Louis Slotin reportedly absorbed an absolute lethal dose of ionizing radiation. He died nine days later of acute radiation syndrome at the age of 35, at the same hospital as Harry Daghlian, of the same cause, from the same Plutonium ball.

The demonstration that killed Slotin was supposed to be the Demon Core’s last, and it was. Instead of being destroyed in a test detonation over Bikini Atoll as originally intended, the Demon Core was melted down and redistributed among the rest of the United States nuclear stockpile, where its ultimate fate likely involves one of two outcomes:

It may be safely decommissioned in accordance with such initiatives as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (START I and START II), or

It may be loosed on some other unsuspecting city and, like its siblings in 1945, carve its mark into history forever.

Further reading:

Youtube The Demon Core The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing Levels of Radiation

[louiseslibrary]

This month I celebrated my 8th year living in England.  It’s crazy, I know.  Sometimes I feel like its gone so quick and sometimes it makes me sad that I’ve been away from home for that long.  I suppose, I always saw myself maybe travelling outside of my local town growing up but I didn’t think about living and working in England, ever. This year when my anniversary was approaching I felt a sense of pride that I have been living here successfully for so long.  I’m not saying I have achieved everything just yet or that I am the most successful person I know, but none the less I’m still proud of myself.  It got me thinking of how fresh faced, immature and naïve I was all those years ago when I moved.  I definitely believed I was mature and was convinced this move would be a breeze!  Spoiler alert….  It has been more hurricane than breeze at times! lol!  I mean it was possibly the most unorganised move in history. I decided one day I was going to accept my Uni course and within weeks I was on the boat.  I wrote a quick post after 6 years here, but here’s a little look back at how it was 8 years ago and how I felt.  Grab yourself a big cup of tea and get ready for a good read (and laugh).

I will never forget the night before I was going and I was packing my life into the car. I was so excited but extremely nervous and of course, emotional.  My best friend came over to say goodbye and when she was leaving the house I was so upset. I cried so much!  Don’t get me wrong I’m not the first and won’t be the last to leave home and yes, I am fully aware England is not the other side of the world, but these were and are just my feelings.  (FULL DISCLAMER NOW: I am a big crier.)  I don’t think I really thought about the fact I was moving to someplace I couldn’t just get on a bus or train and pop home when I wanted.  A tiny part of me wondered if I was making a mistake.  That night I had a few goodbyes to say and not one did I enjoy, or not get upset over.  Each one was difficult.

I was lucky that both my parents were able to come with me and drop me off in England! So, off we set on that Thursday morning with hardly any space for me to sit in the car and I was starting my new adventure across the pond.  I think on that day I was so excited about the thoughts of starting in a new place, but forgetting mam and dad wouldn’t be staying with me if that makes sense.  After hours of travelling we got to our destination.  We checked into a hotel for the night as I hadn’t secured a place to live yet. I had a place booked to view the following day and little naïve Louise believed it would be perfect and that was that.  It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t like that at all I’m afraid.  We pulled up outside the block of flats and I don’t think I will ever forget the reaction from my parents, or me.  My jaw is probably still back on the floor of the place 8 years on.  It was tiny, two people couldn’t fit in the kitchen at once. The guy who would have been my housemate was showing me around in his dressing gown and he couldn’t show me the room I would have been in as it was locked and he didn’t know where the key was.  Needless to say I didn’t have high hopes for the room anyway.  I don’t think this will shock anyone, but I didn’t take that room.

So now I was officially homeless and my parents were due to leave over the weekend…  There were tears, I had a lot of tears! Thank god mam and dad are very level headed people because I have my moments! All hope was not lost as we continued to look for a place.  My sisters friend, Hannah lived in the area and she offered me a bed until I found somewhere and being the amazing people they are, my parents were able to extend the trip for a week.  All I needed to do now was find a house to live in.  Easy, yeah? NO! I may come across as fussy saying  I found this difficult, but I viewed a place that would have been be me living with 6 to 8 other people, with no living room area only a kitchen to share, most of them didn’t speak English and there would be maybe 4 of us sharing a bathroom.  Bare in mind this place was not cheap either. For a single room excluding bills it was over £500 a month.  I didn’t think I would ever find just somewhere I could feel comfortable.  The search continued over the weekend and when Monday morning rolled around, I was off to start university.  That Monday morning I was sick with nerves yet again.  Now I was starting a course in a different country, had no home to call my own and had ZERO friends.  I will never fully be able to explain the feeling in my stomach that day.

For me, it was one of the first times I realised that making friends as an adult is unbelievably frightening.  When you start primary school you are in and about 4 years of age, you have no fear.  You would talk to everyone and simply ask a person to be your friend. At 4 years of age, everyone and anyone is your friend whether they know it or not.  When you begin secondary school, you have your primary friends so you aren’t overly nervous.  You have your people and don’t over think making new people, you know.  Then comes college.  I studied for two years in Ireland before moving and although I was nervous, I lived with girls I was friends with so again I wasn’t worried about friendship making. In England, I felt like a complete outsider.  I was worried nobody would like me. What if I didn’t fit in?  It’s a horrible insecurity to have.

Things did pick up for me, I wasn’t homeless and friendless for too long.  When I went off to college my parents went to view a room on my behalf and took it! I completely trusted their decision even if I hadn’t seen the room and had no clue of where it was.  The only issue after this was getting all the credit checks through.  I wasn’t allowed to move in until I got all them.  I can imagine now, what a weight must have been lifted from my parents shoulders knowing I did have a place to live before they went home though. The apartment they found me was a single room in a 3 bed flat sharing with two other girls.

I made friends quickly on my course.  Everyone seemed friendly but looking back I am sure I took the 4 year old Louise approach by just talking to everyone and be-friending them, no choice given! haha!! The first week I had my parents to go to every evening so I suppose the real sense of loneliness only kicked in the day I had to say goodbye to them.  That of course was the hardest day and still makes me sad thinking of it now.  I hated it,  I wanted to get in the car with them and just go with them.  Once again, I cried.  I cried with fear, I cried with loneliness. I was just so sad.

Although I had made friends on my course, I couldn’t well explain my situation to them.  I didn’t even know them a full week.  I couldn’t be crying to them about missing my family! The flat I moved into was nice.  My room was small but cosy. I made it homely.  Little did I know when I moved in that I would spend so much time in that room!  The girls I lived with were okay too.  We just weren’t BFF’s or anything.  They did their thing, I did mine.  I wasn’t used to that way of living either so I struggled at lot at the start.  I found it weird eating dinner in your bedroom each evening. Doors closed.  That’s just how it was. You do you, I do me kind of situation.  I had been in college in Ireland before moving and lived with girls who I would eat dinner with every night, we would go shopping together, go out together, we were always having a laugh.  It was so different.  I missed living with Grace and Linda (my Galway roomies) so much for that whole year.

I got used to that living situation and just made myself busy when I could.  The next hurdle thrown my way happen to fall one Sunday afternoon.  Now, anyone who knows me well, knows where I’m going with this.  I obviously had to feed myself and all that jazz so I made a decision to have a sleep in one Sunday morning, spend some time sorting my room out and decided I would go to Asda in the evening and spent a couple of hours in the supermarket.  Cool kid over here, I KNOW, but that was the plan. To wander around the supermarket!  I did have a sleep in and sort my room but by the time I walked to the other side of the town to go to Asda and get my shopping, IT WAS CLOSED! I mean, I was really confused as to why at 4pm or just after on a Sunday afternoon the supermarket would be shut?  This however is normal, because England only have 6 hours of trading on a Sunday and all supermarkets close at 4pm.  This is something I will never think is okay, even to this day! As you can guess, that evening I was pretty damn bored having no place to wander around so back to my room I went. It did give me something to do the Monday evening though. lol! I did also live in the town for months before I realised there was a short cut to the Asda too.  I would be walking a route which took me about 20 mins longer until one day I got brave and explored other routes… oh well, the walking did me no harm, eh? 🙈

Without going on for days about everything that happened, I want to mention is my first trip to London… alone!! Before I moved to England, I think I had been 3 times before in my life.  I had been to London twice but I had stayed in the city so never have to navigate my way around really.  Please bear in mind I just about had a phone that worked and rarely had money to buy credit so the day I decided to go alone, I had to have a plan. I had no google maps and no internet at all. I knew how to get to the train station where I lived and from there, well it was all new territory.  Before I went I decided I would start on Oxford St because I wanted to explore all the shops. I had a pocket tube map so I knew If I got to Kings Cross, from there I just needed to get the light blue (Victoria) line straight to Oxford St. Simple! That was my plan and when I got there if I needed the tube to somewhere else, I would go to a toilet and check my map on how to get there.  I wasn’t sure how friendly or helpful staff would be so I wanted to know for myself but I didn’t want to whip the map out and people know I was lost and then get robbed.  I have such an overactive imagination, I sometimes (a lot of time) fear the worst.  I will admit though, because of my secret tube studying to navigate my way, I am a dab hand at tubes these days! I should also mention the tube staff are infuse extremely helpful and will always tell you what tube you need etc if you do get lost.  You don’t need to secret tube study like me!!

After being here a few months, I obviously settled in and found my feet (stopped crying!!).  A few hurdles along the way of course, but I learnt so much.  I struggled at times with homesickness definitely.  I come from a family which are very close and if I did live near home now I think I would see them most days.  I speak to my mam every single day on the phone even 8 years on and I don’t think that will ever change.  It was such a new experience for me. I felt nerves I had never felt before but what’s life if you don’t push yourself outside your comfort zone.

I am always asked would I do it again given the chance?

I would like to hope I would.  I have met some of the best people over the years and learnt so much about life, people and myself. Maybe I would do more house searching before I made the move but that was a little speed bump along the way I suppose.

Things I learnt in my first year:

Get your shopping done before a Sunday afternoon!!!

When you do go shopping and can’t afford a taxi and have to walk, don’t buy all your heavy goods in that shop. I learnt that the hard way.

You can eat cheaply if you don’t mind pasta most nights!

You can ask for directions, people will help but always have your wits about you.

When making friends, just go for it.  If someone doesn’t want to be your friend thats their loss.  You won’t know until you try.

I should have saved more money before moving.

I missed my family a hell of a lot more than I expected.

I love walking!!

Exploring new places is actually far more exciting than frightening.

I really hope you enjoyed the snippet into my first year in England.  I could have honestly wrote for days on this subject.  One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t start this blog from day 1 telling you all about my journey.  Don’t worry though, its all still in my head so I can do more catch up posts anytime! If you did enjoy it, please let me know.  I love getting your feedback.

Have a great Thursday!

Louise. x

  From England, with love. x A recap on how I felt when I first moved over from Ireland! This month I celebrated my 8th year living in England.  It's crazy, I know.  Sometimes I feel like its gone so quick and sometimes it makes me sad that I've been away from home for that long.