#at least specifically Lila

[clock-06]

MLB Fandom Hot Take

Marinette Salt is often not actually salt on the character and is criticisms of the show in general, which are valid, but it’s not right to pin writing errors on a character in the show. “Contingency issues” are not Marinette’s fault ffs that’s on the writers it’s a kids show and we know the writing is bad.

If we’re gonna be doing Marinette salt, make it about her actual flaws. Because she has them. Which is part of what makes her a good main character, she has flaws and spends actual time improving from them and growing as a person, which is important to show young audiences, which again, is who this show was initially meant for.

Yes, the fandom has not grown much out of it’s original watchers and we’re mostly adults now, and there are so many clear issues with the show’s writing and their characters, especially whatever the fuck is up with Thomas’ hate for Chloe, a neglected child he made specifically to hate on.

Yes, Marinette is somewhat a Mary Sue, in terms of her power level, but she is not in any other goddamn way. She is flawed. In suit and outside of it. And also people do not like her in and out of show, and that’s part of what makes Mary Sues annoying, that everyone likes or is obsessed with them for no reason. Also, if you call her a Mary Sue because she “gets too much screen time” I need you to look up what a protagonist is and sit with yourself. Because of course she gets more screen time, she’s the fucking lead of the show.

Also calling Marinette a Mary Sue after MW:London, is an insane take.

TL;DR If you have Marinette salt, it better be valid and not just some fucking “and here’s what the show writers did wrong bullshit”

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.

[crossmyheartwonttellnoother]

i have a migraine bc i haven't stopped watching my phone screen since yesterday when i got the epub for tgr so i can't quite think right but i do believe it's a great moment to thank the heavens nora exists and writes stories with so much hope

[dreamofmourning]

[maibeenot]

Last one about TUA season 4, for now.

(I talked about this in the tags of one of my RBs before but I wanted to elaborate)

I don't like how they keep trying to make Five a badass.

I find it especially frustrating as doing this constantly, bogs down any form of character development we could've had from Five.

For whatever reason, the writers seem to be allergic to acknowledging Five's biggest character flaw, his arrogance. Five always has to be right. He always has to be capable of everything and never needs any help. Despite the fact that Diego also has a very similar flaw (and is punished for it consistently), Five's seems to go completely untouched.

(A part of me thinks that the reason why they punish Diego so much more is because he comes off as the hot-headed impulsive one. While that's true, it certainly doesn't negate Five's ability to make mistakes or be incompetent)

Instead, they keep trying to invent a new flaw for Five in that; he is obsessed with the apocalypse. In reality, he's not obsessed with the apocalypse. He's obsessed with keeping his family safe. It just so happens that their most immediate threat (in his eyes) tends to be the apocalypse. (I really don't understand what they're trying to get at with this, especially considering the fact that he already has an extremely apparent flaw)

While this isn't an issue I take with season 4 specifically, it has definitely amplified this issue like crazy. Five's arrogance is vaguely addressed by his siblings in season 1, but it never seems to get him in trouble? Or at least he doesn't seem to have learned from it (except for the time-travelling thing from when he was 13, and when he bled out also in season 1)

Season 1 (and 2) handled it the best out of the four. Five never seems to ask for or accept help unless backed into a corner (telling Viktor about the apocalypse, asking Klaus to help him get the prosthetic eye). Or if he is literally incoherent or unconscious (him passing out from blood loss, him being drunk and telling Diego and Luther about what's happening).

And outside of that, Five's arrogance still had brutal consequences within this season (him not noticing Viktor's declining mental state because he was so sure about the apocalypse (but this was partially because this man tunnel-visions like crazy)).

(there are probably more instances of this with s1 & 2, i just can't think of them off the top of my head so tag them if you'd like)

Season 4 is extra mean with this. From the 'Five getting to work for the CIA at 19' to 'Five randomly figuring out what's causing the end of the world with a bunch of other Five's' while he was off moping.

And when he does make mistakes, it's not because he's actually not capable of everything and anything.

Noooo, Ben really really sneakily stole the marigold and spiked the sake. Five couldn't have possibly noticed. (and none of the other siblings for that matter)

Noooo, it's because Luther is actually super smart in figuring out that Five's boss is a Keeper (no shade to Luther btw, I like him. They just don't treat this moment as Five being a complete dumbass).

Oh no! Five (and Lila) can't figure out a way back from the metro! Never mind, another Five managed it.

Five being a homewrecker? That's him being an asshole, not incompetent so it doesn't count (lighthearted).

Five's arrogance one of his defining flaws, yet it's not really challenged. The fact that he gets away with a lot of bullshit is simply because he can! When he doesn't face failure, he doesn't find growth. He doesn't learn to stop being self-destructive just because he thinks he can do anything. He doesn't learn to reach out.

This stunt in growth is obviously not only present in Five but also everyone else. I just find his to be particularly grating since he's my favorite.

Feel free to add your thoughts to this, not just about Five's fucked up character growth but everyone else's too!

(I'll make long a ass post/video essay going into detail about all of them one of these days)

I'd love to read them :)

[generalluxun]

Revisiting S5 E14 Derision, and Making it Work

It's *easy* to dunk on Derision. I won't rehash all the holes here. What is harder is actually doing better... or so you would think.

What follows is a back-of-the-napkin idea I threw together in about 5 minutes. So I hope it doesn't meet with universal... derision. 🐈‍⬛

Reworking this episode reaches back earlier into S5 and recasts one of the side/new characters... but bear with me it's to good purpose. When you're creating a pivotal pre-canon character moment 5 seasons in, there's going to be a little collateral.

It begins with... Socqueline.

Socqueline was NOT Marinette's savior at FDP. In truth... she was Marinette's bully. She was everyone's bully in fact. She ruled FDP with an iron fist. Teachers were afraid of her, and no not her dad, her. Socqueline is the one who terrorized Marinette and pulled the awful prank. The prank that was bad enough that she was expelled. Marinette meets her unexpectedly at the craft store, and is instantly a yr younger and in shock.

HOWEVER

Socqueline is still the one pretending to be Ladybug. She's still the one trying to help people. She's still kind and helpful and Marinette is so very confused! You see, being expelled, having to be in an entirely new environment, and even just a year of change and reflection has made Socqueline a different person. She has grown and is trying to do good to make up for being bad before. Why is she done up like Marinette? She's not! She's done up like Ladybug. She's emulating her hero and inspiration. (who is of course, Marinette).

This already gives us some really good changes.

1)We have a valid reason for Marinette to not have seen/wanted to see Socqueline until S5. you don't go seeking out your former bully.

2)We have a cover for why Marinette hasn't reacted to stimulus before now. She was 'doing good' until she crossed paths with Socqueline and after that. *bam* right in the Trauma. It doesn't matter that Socqueline has changed, trauma is trauma. Marinette hasn't processed it yet, so it gets stoked.

3)Have Kim think Socqueline's pranks were funny. He's Kim, he's thick as two boards, at least he's not gushing about how hot another girl is right next to poor Ondine. It leans into Dark Humor just fine on it's own. Skip the Adrien/Chloe scene for a Marinette/Socqueline scene where Marinette brings up the event to Socqueline and how much it impacted her. have Socquline apologize(she did back in Jubilation for everything, but have her also for this specific thing) have it end on a hug, how nice.

Already we're doing much better! But wait, there's more!

We cut Chloé out of Derision! What does this mean? If she wasn't Marinette's bully doesn't this mess everything up?

No, not really.

Chloé wasn't Marinette's bully pre-canon in any meaningful way. She didn't rule the roost. She only stepped up once Socqueline was expelled, trying to fill the power vacuum/rule the roost/be the new Queen. She's just really bad at it. This explains why the class and even Marinette react to Chloé even in S1 with a sort of exasperated resignation and Marinette isn't even remotely afraid to snap back at her. It's not 'Oh no she is such a bully' it's 'oh God, Chloé's on her shit again.' She's still a brat, mean, and entitled. We're not rewriting any of that. She'll even be an antagonist in S5, but we're going to lean more heavily into Lila/Gabe/Tomoé actively manipulating her, much like in S3. She's not evil, but she's very easily persuaded to be bad.

you see- What we've done with Socquline is foreshadowing. We've shown someone who WAS a bully, who changed when their environment changed and they found the right motivation/inspiration. So when Chloé is going down in flames in S5 we're going to build organically on the parental abuse into the manipulation by villains. We seek to inspire frustration with her, revulsion with those manipulating her, agony that the manipulation all goes unseen, and of course sympathy for everyone who has to deal with it. However, we've also set up the seeds for a future where her environment changes, where a new motivation/inspiration comes in, and where we get convert her from brat to ... okay maybe not GOOD person but at least a decent little porcupine. 🤣

We've even given Marinette a firsthand experience that change CAN happen. Which is something she didn't have the first time around with Chloé during S2/3.

So, what do y'all think?

[locke-esque-monster]

I got real nervous they were doing Lila x Five really early in the season. It wasn't even explicitly stated, it was just a feeling from how they were setting up and framing things. Lila disagreeing with Diego and going to talk to Five. Lila keeping secrets from Diego that Five knew about. The tension of Five covering for Lila to Diego. Lila's dissatisfaction with her relationship with Diego and asking for a break. Without actively being romantically into Five, it kept setting up the narrative for Lila to leave Diego and Five was all tied in with what she was going to as an alternative to Diego. Add that to the promo pics with them together - even having watched it later and avoided spoilers I had a real bad feeling where this was going long before 4x5. (Or at least avoided until I already had my theory - my phone helpfully suggested an article days before I got to 4x5. I was not pleased to say the least.)

But there's a lot of reasons I take issue with this pairing and how it was done, so Christ, I guess let's get started:

Five explicitly stated in season 3 that Lila is not his type.

Five murdered Lila's parents. Sure, on the Handler's orders. But you think it's easy to have a romantic relationship when you know those hands killed your parents (aka my biggest critique of Tony/Bucky shippers in the MCU).

Five is indirectly responsible for the Handler's death. He saved everyone but her when he time traveled back. Sure, Lila was upset with her, but this woman raised her. She's got to have some complicated feelings about that and Five is all wrapped up in them now.

Five also had a weird relationship with the Handler, where she was a little flirty with him, which was all kinds of uncomfortable. Lila briefly mimicked this in season 3, which was even more uncomfortable. It's unclear if this was deliberately copying her "mother" or not. But adding Five and the Handler's complicated relationship on top of the other issues means there's a whole carousel of baggage to unpack here.

Five has always seemed kind of annoyed or tolerant of Lila, which extended into early this season. It's maybe a hair kinder at the start of season 4, but definitely not where it should be if there's potential here. It'd be one thing if they were friends after 6 years, but their relationship hasn't substantially changed at the start of this season to suggest otherwise.

If you have to do an all musical montage to show 2 characters falling in love, I'm sorry, you're not doing this right. That's telling, not showing. These characters have had tons of interactions to build off of. If you can't do that, then you're effectively saying that you have no foundation for this relationship.

Also, if it takes 6 1/2 years of being each others sole companions under adverse conditions for you to get together - maybe you shouldn't be together. It's one thing if it's treated like "Finally" or "Oh I didn't think you also felt this way". It's another if it's like it's a new idea entirely - that suggests loneliness and a desire for companionship and they're you're only option.

Five's history includes him having a pseudo-romantic relationship with a mannequin when he's left alone in the apocalypse at 13. The next time he's separated from his family for years he's with Lila. I'll allow that it makes sense he developed feelings for her specifically because of his history. That said, that makes this a wholly unhealthy relationship when he has a history like that. Lila is filling a gap Five's psyche has clung to before in similar harrowing times.

Frankly, the fact Lila was first looking for excitement out of her home life and is now upset she can't get back to her family isn't a good headspace either. (I'm also deeply frustrated that Lila feels trapped at home. Lila is so capable and she has a buttload of family members who apparently can take their children on a whim during all this chaos. You're telling me she couldn't have found a better outlet to work on their marriage or get some freedom before it got to this point of lying to Diego?)

Five is volatile and Lila is unpredictable. They're nothing but a menace to practically every other character they meet, including each other. But once they're a couple, they're perfectly pleasant the whole time. I don't buy it. The only fight they have is when Five lied to her. I'm not saying they can't be sweet. But this is all sweetness. For me to buy this couple they need to lovingly bicker. Instead, they've both had personality transplants.

So they decide to go back to the greenhouse after 6 years 5 months and 2 days. Five admits to having the book 5 or 6 months on their 7th anniversary of being lost. Let's be generous and assume they kissed within a couple days of getting to the greenhouse, because they look reasonably settled. That means that best case, Five decided that after being in a relationship for less than 2 months, he was going to throw his whole family away and run away with Lila. That is a hell of a lot of commitment for a short relationship.

And keep in mind, it's not like their family is safe. Last they heard, they hadn't solved the Cleanse. So they're either actively in danger or dead. Five - The man who spent 45 years trying to save his family. Who survived decades in the apocalypse alone (minus Delores the mannequin) and murdered his way through time for the chance to get back and save them - is going to let his family die for a 2 month relationship. I call bullshit.

Also, I will give Five credit that he tried to stay on task during the fight with the Cleanse. He only seemed to fight in retaliation for Diego - he actively looked towards the fight at least once before Diego pulled his attention. But you're telling me he's ready to keep fighting Diego and is threatening to kill him over Lila? That his powers only work correctly after 7 years of having them back because Lila begged him? I once again call bullshit.

And Five was going off to mope alone and never come back and potentially let his family die from an active threat, all because Lila didn't pick him? That is not the Five I know.

I also feel like we maybe did all this arc to get Lila to the point where Five has to convince her to stay because no one else could even if she hates him for it, but still get her family on the train to get the planned ending. And that feels very clunky and I hate it.

Outside of plot lines - it is a bit disturbing to me that we're pairing up an actor whose barely an adult with a woman 15 years his senior - practically old enough to be his mother. This is a aside from the fact he's a what, 71 year old man internally at this point and Lila (if we assume even living at the commission she's a similar age to Diego) is in her early 40s by the time she kisses a physically mid-20s Five. There's so much about that I am not okay with I don't even know where to start.

I also hear the writers wanted a romance for Five. First, okay, then have a longer season. Develop a character for Five earlier on in the season or the show you can pair him with. God knows with that history and age issues it'll be tricky. But also frankly - why? Why does Five need a romantic love interest? He's been fueled by the love of his family and that's done so many impressive things out of love for them. Not everyone needs a romantic love of their life to find happiness and it feels very heteronormative (is that the word I want?) that we need to have that for Five. Give Five an apocalypse-free world and his family alive and then we can see what happiness he can find.

[maddascanbe-blog]

Nice to see you again Ma'am. This is the only redesign I'm going to both posting new for and not just update the original picture. Some of this was simple changes in style, and due to resizing issues Chloé's line art got really grainy. But more importantly I want to change Chloé in terms of my re-write, and I want to acknowledge my improvment.

Before we get to that lets talk small design changes. I likes my Anti-bug design originally but it waned on me over time. Recently I did a doodle of Chloé with the actual Ladybug miraculous (a hypothetical heroic) if you would. And translating that to Anti-bug made me much more satisfied with her.

I gave Queen Bee rounded stripes on her OG-redesign, but after looking at cannon again, she just is better suited for sharper shapes. So I changed her legs to something closer to her cannon design, the thigh-high boots feel much more Chloé.

Similar with Queen Wasp, just small changes, this time with her leg stripes just getting wider. I also decided to change her wings back to blue albeit a much darker color than Queen Bee's

Civilian Chloé and Zoé are the same, I already updated kid Zoé a bit for her page so I was able to just keep that asset and move it here.

Re-write. I've changed my opinion on Chloé a bit since I initially planned her re-write. Put simply, the only way I could think to redeem Chloé before was to make her an entirely different person.

Well not anymore. We're gonna rebuild her story from the ground up. First and foremost, Chloé is still a bully. She wants what she wants and doesn't care who gets hurt to help her get it. Now, she's not a full blown villain, because she doesn't need to be. But she does need to be selfish.

Chloé has a very short list of people she cares about. At the moment that includes Adrien, her Father, and Sabrina. Specifically she needs to care about Sabrina for the sake of her downfall and turn around, and later this list would include Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Zoé. She cares about them, and shows it, but everyone else isn't worth her time. This Chloé wouldn't insult Sabrina for not wanting to go through with a plot but she would still go and steal Marinette's diary.

But she also isn't oblivious, Chloé knows the class doesn't like her, he just doesn't care. She can still get what she wants, Marinette's seat, the Class Rep position, Ms. Bustier's favoritism, without the class liking her. Oh uh- small change her though, Chloé was bad at the student complaints and suggestions on day to day school stuff but I head cannon she was good at event organizing. As much of a pain as she was to work with, the school dances 'til now were spectacular. Mostly because I think Chloé needs to be good at something, and event planning is probable.

The first time she realizes her actions may have consequences (at least ones she cares about) is when she gets akumatized. She likes Ladybug, and Chat Noir if not as much. Her actions, her tantrum, not only didn't get her what she wanted but actively hurt two people she actually likes. This doesn't super change her behavior, but it does trigger the realization that she can't get everything she wants, and will in fact do things she doesnt want and cant fix in her wake.

The next is Lila showing up. Because she's spent her whole life around businessmen and politicians. She knows a liar when she sees one. But hey, if her class are idiots its not her business to educate them, its a little frustrating that Sabrina doesn't believe her. She just makes sure Adrien knows, and is surprised to know Marinette also already figured it out.

Then Zombizou happens, and everyone in the class are refusing to leave her alone and are protecting her. On one hand, no she doesn't want to be a zombie. But two, she thinks their idiots for sacrificing themselves over and over. They aren't friends, so why would they care? Then in a split second decision, Chloé gets between the zombies and the heroes. At this point she's acknowledged she's more a burden than a help, and that the heroes will be able to work better if she's out of their way. It's fine, they'll save her anyway. And they do.

This is where her character arc is actually going to start. Not with just with Bustier, but with her just gradually getting less antagonistic. She has her low moments of course. Since she hasn't exactly gotten better, just quieter the incident with the fire department causes Adrien to break off their friendship. And Lila successfully pulls Sabrina away from her. Now Chloé has no one.

And this is when she meets Pollen. Unintentional, but Chloé still loves Ladybug, so of course she wants to help. She doesn't give Pollen back at first, but she wasn't stupid enough to reveal her identity. Chloé is specifically not an idiot. She's actually one of the few who seems to regard Hawkmoth with as much fear as the heroes. She isn't expecting Marinette to turn down the opportunity and for the first time, Chloé see's her mother the way everyone else does. Flighty and Vicious, and uncapable of loving anyone but herself. And at the same moment she realizes that's the direction she's going.

Chloé realizes she's got to change. And she'd going to have to do it alone. Ladybug can support her, but not carry her. Marinette still doesn't trust her has far as she can throw her, and Adrien has his own stuff to worry about.

Then Zoé happens.

[whxre4hange]

overly specific modern day au headcanons for the umbrella academy

luther: cat lady. wears at least 4 layers of clothing at all time. makes funny faces at crying children in a bus but it only makes them cry harder. gives himself pep talks in the morning while listening to billy joel. has never felt the touch of a woman and yes his mom counts too. 

diego: goes to sleep with his shoes on because ‘you never know when you need to wake up running’. gets 3 hours of sleep on a good day. threw a university toilet off a balcony once. got banned from the local macdonalds for physically maiming a cashier because they ‘looked at him funny’. has a poster of jfk on his bedroom ceiling. doesn’t give a fuck about anything unless it involves his mom. 

klaus: gets hit by a car/bus/truck at least once a week. doxxes people on x if they piss him off. sleeps in the bathtub at every party he goes to without fail. surprisingly gets invited to  every single one because it’s impossible to dislike him.

allison: drinks espresso martinis instead of coffee but never appears drunk. has a surprisingly famous shitpost account on tumblr. favourite place to be is ikea. 

ben: worked for the mafia and only realised one year after he got fired. threw a fire hydrant at a neo-nazi once. possibly did it again. and also possibly did so near a cop and had to run tf away.

five: voted most unhinged in college because diego already dibbsed the most likely to go to jail for life title. unable to grow facial hair so once he superglued a mink moustache to his face (he was allergic to the glue and was in hospital for a week). cartoonishly bad luck. designated driver even though he failed his license test 5 times. 

viktor: once he had to read his poetry out in class and he thinksabout it at least once a day. the kid with the knee brace at school. could probably kill the prime minister of australia and also take a nap after in 2 hours if he wanted to. was almost kidnapped as a child. 

lila: tried to set an orphange on fire once. eats toothpaste instead of brushing her teeth. the only thing that keeps her going is pure spite. did the cinnamon challenge when she was 12 and was in the hospital for months.

[imthepunchlord]

How would you rewrite Chloe’s arc in Season 2?

So, personally, I would've just gone ahead and redeemed her. There are various reasons to do so.

She's strongly color coded for Bee, suggesting she would get it. It would be weird if she didn't (shame they didn't do the same to Nino, especially learning that Peafowl wasn't even lost originally, it was added to Volpina last minute).

There were promos and building up confirming she was going to be a hero, and implications that she was going to be part of a team and working with the heroes.

And with the introduction of Lila, and the implication that she was going to be a new antagonist, you didn't need two mean girls to be against Marinette. Much less sorta 3 with Kagami who dabbles in the mean girl trope. Only exception is to have multiple mean girls is to have them face off against other characters than just Marinette, but they're set on that so there should be some sort of change.

Chloe getting a redemption and being a hero is a natural go to.

So Chloe's redemption, I believe, should start off with a loss of power. Something that will humble her for she cannot continue as she is.

And as I've talked about using Lila to push the agenda of Chloe's redemption before, let's talk about another option: using Audrey herself.

Audrey easily could've been another means of pushing the Chloe redemption agenda. She could've been a solid foil to Chloe, by being mean and ruthless, but she's actually hard working, dedicated, and lives with integrity for her career. Things Chloe is not.

And excited to have her mom here, as this is love not freely given, making Chloe want it, it's dashed when Audrey is unimpressed and unhappy with Chloe and how she is.

For not only does Chloe not do her own work and lives live in leisure laziness, living off her parents hard earned money (at least in Audrey's case), but having the audacity to steal another inspiring designer's design and hire an designer to copy it at a competition that Gabriel Agreste hosted (Audrey's never been so embarrassed), Audrey is here to give her entitled daughter a reality check.

She cuts Chloe off on all of her enjoyments.

Sabrina is banned from the hotel. The butler is expected to go over Chloe's work to make sure it is hers and not Sabrina's.

Chloe is expected to get a part time job. She wants to spend money, she needs to spend her own. She'll get the rest of her saved funds at 18.

And, Chloe is to get involved in the fashion industry. If she's going to tarnish it with her laziness and arrogance, she's going to work to make up for it. Specifically, she is going to approach the girl she stole from and make up for her actions.

And at first, it's all terrible for Chloe.

Homework is hard. It's bad enough that Chloe has to stay after school to get a mentorship by the teachers (as no student wants to mentor her, except for Sabrina, who isn't allowed near her, and Adrien but he's busy). At first, Chloe did discover that she could trick Bustier into doing her own homework for her, but Audrey caught on quick and mean Mendeleiev took over.

The part time job was impossible. Chloe kept getting fired. But it wasn't her fault!

Most customers were beneath her service!

They couldn't expect her to touch out of season clothes!

She had to leave work early because she got dirt under her nails. A clear emergency.

There was no way she was going to wear a hairnet, that was going to ruin her hair.

Chloe was just starting to think her mother would let it go when Audrey put her foot down and had Chloe work for her own company, and Chloe was not allowed to quit or be fired, and was to do the work or else she wouldn't be allowed in her own suite. She would have to sleep on the second floor suites.

The threat was scary enough for Chloe to suck it up.

And the worse one... Chloe needed to go and make it up to Marinette. Chloe dragged her feet on this so much that Audrey dragged Chloe there, apologized to Marinette first, then pressured Chloe to apologize. She told Marinette that Chloe here was to work for her and make up for her dishonesty. When Marinette tried to back out and say it's fine, Audrey insisted.

And so Chloe become Marinette's assistant. She would model for her. She would go fetch materials Marinette needed or help carry things when Marinette went out shopping.

It was weird for both girls and neither of them liked it.

But under Audrey's critical eye, Chloe kept up with all these awful changes to her life, but at some point, there was a shift.

Chloe was able to solve a problem without Mendeleiev's guidance. She did it on her own. She... actually felt proud of that. She wondered what else she could solve without the teacher... Oh! And she'll have to show this off to Adrien and Sabrina tomorrow!

At her part time job, Chloe got her first paycheck. And that felt really good. Money she earned herself. This was hers. Not her father's. Not her mother's. This was Chloe's own money. She was so happy that she, weirdly, didn't feel like spending it. She wanted to hold onto it.

And, extra weirdly, she and Marinette are... talking. They're discussing the big name fashion designers and their thoughts on them. They share their criticisms, or the ideas of what they would like to see. Chloe is even sharing her own thoughts on what Marinette creates and Marinette listens and considers it. And Marinette has actually crafted attire and accessories with Chloe in mind, something that is just gifted away, no strings attached, given from someone that doesn't love her unconditionally like her father does. It kinda... felt like it mattered more. Daddy gifts her items so freely that many of those items she just throws away, but anything Marinette gives doesn't feel like that.

Gosh, who knew Marinette had actual tastes? And she didn't quite mind being around her.

Chloe had to wonder what was the world coming to?

Chloe though did still keep her mean streak. Anyone that irritated her or when she bored, she would pick on. Though when Marinette said soemthing, she backed off a lot more than before. She reasoned it's because technically her 2nd boss. But it did make her annoyed. And Cesaire's smug face added to it.

But one day, Lila starts to mess with Marinette and without thinking, Chloe intervened, roasting Lila while she had the chance. It ended poorly as Lila became an akuma and came after her, but Ladybug offered Chloe a lot of praise, much to her glee. And then, Ladybug presented Chloe with a little box.

A box that evidently held the Bee Miraculous.

"Honestly, you're more wasp than a bee," Ladybug said, the box still in hand.

"Excuse me!?" Chloe gasped in full offense.

Ladybug continued, "But I think you're on the way of becoming one. And maybe Pollen will help you get there."

The box was set in her hand, opening on it's own, and in a flash of light and a warming greeting from a little bee thing, dawned the day Queen Bee arose to work with the heroes, bringing her own mean sting to the team.

[coffeebanana]

Here's a list of my random thoughts and observations from the special that I don't see anyone else talking about:

WHAT DID MARINETTE WRITE IN HER DIARY? WAS IT THE WHOLE TRUTH? WHAT HAPPENS IF SOMEONE FINDS THAT? WILL SOMEONE FIND THAT? (my god there had better at least be fics about this...)

akumamatized villains don't remember what happened when they were akumatized even if they were willingly akumatized and/or they akumatized themself -- i guess the alternative was never really confirmed in canon but i always thought it was sort of implied that gabe and nathalie remembered afterwards? but maybe that was just fanon the whole time?

okay i do see people talking about this one a bit but. not enough imo: ALYA DOESN'T KNOW THE TRUTH EITHER. i imagine...she would not be okay with marinette telling this lie, given how insistent she is about honesty in relationships

HELLO THE THREE BUNNYXs WERE SO FREAKING CUTE

i have never really thought about alix/marinette as a ship before but. hm. HMMM. something about sharing the burden of the world... about growing up before they should have to... (i don't think i'll write it but if anyone has fic recs?)

on the non-ship side of things, it was just really cute to see bunnyx and chronobug interact. and it made me think a lot about... the esteem they must have for each other? like, marinette obviously respects bunnyx. and mini-bunnyx must now have seen enough now of marinette's future (and past!) to understand her more. to have a new respect for her too? they were just classmates and now the fate of the world rests in their hands... IDK I JUST THINK IT'S NEAT

THE MUSIC IN THE SPECIAL. IT WAS SO HAUNTING AND SO WELL DONE. AND ALSO THAT SILENCE WHEN LADYNOIR FIRST MEET UP AT THE END. THE WEIGHT OF IT. I WANT TO EAT THAT AAAAAAAAH

lila definitely wants to make a wish (i mean, that's not a huge deal. it's the logical consequence of her being the next villain. but she COULD have just wanted to fuck things up for fun. now we know she wants something specific. something that might destroy the world...)

I MIGHT THINK OF MORE THINGS LATER BUT. THIS IS WHAT I'VE GOT FOR NOW

[seshathawk]

I’d like to address something from season four that I haven’t seen anyone else address yet, though some people have spoken critically of the plots surrounding it.

A quick caveat: this is based off of my own experiences, and is not by any means an attempt to excuse, forgive, or erase any of the many mistakes that season four made. (This is going to be about parenting, for anyone who would like to avoid said topic.)

Hi. I’m the mother to a 4.5 year old child. When I met my husband, we were both working jobs, although he made more than me. I quit my job eventually for reasons that don’t need to be detailed here, and three years later had a baby and ended up being a stay-at-home mom to our child. At the height of the pandemic, I felt this was lucky; we wouldn’t have to scramble to find child care or anything like that.

Two years later, I was absolutely miserable and a completely different person.

Parenthood changes a person. A lot. Like, a lot. You have to sacrifice things, things that used to be important to you, again and again, in order to support your children, and you do it because you love them so much and you want them to succeed.

But something else happens, specifically to women who become parents. Some women intend to go back to work and never do. In some families, it’s cheaper for mom to provide childcare than it is to pay for daycare. Somehow, women end up being the managers of the household and primary caregiver for any/all children, all day, every day. This isn’t to say that these women don’t love their children. But, rather, that women end up carrying the burden of the invisible load for their entire household, including their husbands.

And this also isn’t to say that those husbands aren’t loving, or that they don’t take care of their kids too, or that these women don’t love their husbands. But it’s a huge burden.

Some examples of the invisible load: meal planning, grocery shopping, packing bags for outings or school, managing the family (kids) schedule, arranging for childcare, managing communication with childcare or school, making all appointments for kids or entire family, planning parties, making holiday (Christmas/Easter/4th of July/take your pick) magic, finding activities for kids to do, packing lunches, restocking things like toiletries or pantry staples, cleaning up clutter or getting family/kids to do same, putting away laundry, doing laundry, and…the list goes on. The list is eternal. There is no end to the invisible load.

And when you’re managing all of this and your husband does things like not know if you have a pantry staple at home, isn’t sure where your child’s clean underwear is, or forgets to do something very simple such as grab extra milk, it’s really easy to feel frustrated and resentful.

This is never explicitly stated in The Umbrella Academy, that this is how Lila feels. But it was pretty obvious to me. Her random statements like, “Why are you doing the cake now?” and “I told you to do the pinata two hours ago!” and “This isn’t about you!” felt true to me. Like, OH MY GOD, I do this every day, HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS SO WRONG. And, also, Diego casually says, “Hey, let’s just up and leave just like the old days, the kids will be fine with your family,” without appearing to have ANY IDEA about what goes into planning for kids to stay with relatives for what has to have been at least two days. (Sidebar: I’m not sure if the writers thought that bit through but I definitely read into it that Diego thinks it’ll be easy to slip away while Lila understands the intense logistics of this suggestion.)

So, when Lila said, regarding book club/undercover operations that she just needed something just for herself, I felt that, SO hard. Because you know what happens when you’re a mom? You’re doing the invisible labor and the emotional labor for (in Lila’s case) a family of five. When you finally have some time to yourself, it’s maybe an hour, and your choices are to try to do something relaxing by yourself, spend time with your husband (who you might resent a little), or do something for the house/family. Getting to escape and do something fun, just for you? That’s SO magical.

I do wish we’d seen more of their domestic life together, because I think that could have said a lot about their relationship. But I didn’t think for one second that Lila was unhappy because Diego is never present and never stops complaining, although I’m sure that’s part of it. I saw instantly that she was unhappy because her personhood has been crushed under the weight of motherhood and wifehood and that she was struggling. And that all she wanted—all any of us in similar situations want—is for her husband to understand that and step up, in a way that husbands really don’t understand, because patriarchy.

Does it mean she’d cheat on Diego? Does it mean she’d cheat on him with his brother? Not necessarily. Does it mean she might look for companionship or friendship elsewhere, outside of her family life? Does it mean she might be happy, for a while, living a more adventurous or quiet life, away from the demands of her family? Maybe! Would have been great if the show had explored that a little instead of turning her into part of a love triangle.

But I thought that Lila, burdened with motherhood in a way that Diego cannot ever truly know (because patriarchy), felt true to me and was one of the highlights of season four to me.

[ghysry]

In the last scenes of TUA S4, specifically the one where everyone is grabbing onto eachother as they disappear or whatever, I wish the directors had at least the decency to put Five between Klaus and Viktor so he could hold on to the people he cherished (not to say he didn't like the others but the guy definitely had favorites) in his life,,, or maybe even next to Diego?? So he could hold hands with his brother?? That he loves very much?? And not his wife?? (there is no five x Lila in ba sing se.)

[secondaccounts-stuff]

It’s almost been a week since TUA ended and I can’t help but feel utterly cheated out of a proper ending, regardless of that weird five/Lila part.

So many people have come up with such good ends, far superior than the original so here’s my take, similar to others :

1. Luther finds Sloane and in a The Vow kinda way, has to make her fall in love all over again. They end with him doing the full Monty strip tease on stage and Sloane screaming with delight as he whips those silver space pants off.

2.Diego and Lila, *my personal favourite.* It’s them bundling their 3 kids into the back of the van, Wanda. To which Diego quips to Lila “i mean, all these extra seats… don’t you think we should fill them up”

To which Lila replies “you’re kidding right?” But smiles, as they drive home. Alluding to her already being pregnant. As seen in a previous scene (In the finale we never got!) Where they rekindle and make baby no.4. This or it’s them putting the kids to bed before turning into a Mr and Mrs Smith duo at night. Either way, no one cheated. Diego realises you can have both. The end.

3.Victor: anything with Sissy. The bar and sissy. Good music, he’s chilling with a bar towel over his shoulder, they’re happy. It’s the most mundane of lives but it’s what he wants.

4. Allison, runs as Madame present, using her powers or not. She’s with Claire, she’s doing it all and her daughter is there every step of the way, as is Ray

5. Five. My least favourite by far but I’ll give him his Kim Catrall moment in Mannequin and give him his very own Delores. She runs a coffee shop and he works for the CIA.

6. Klaus, my baby boy. Be with your love Dave. I see them in San Francisco. They run a successful rehab centre. They have a daughter called Mary Jane 👀

7. Ben, Jennifer. Bennifer?? I’m not sure for these. One wants to go for irony and have them work in aquarium conservation. Specifically squid but that might be too on the nose

Anything, literally anything would be better than what we got. If any creators see this and are good with a fake edit: PLEASE, please hit me with a serotonin boost and make this somewhat real I beg

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Carl Grimes (The Walking Dead) vs. Alya Cesaire (Miraculous Ladybug)

Y'all Hate Kids: Screwed By The Writers

Propaganda below the cut

-

Carl Grimes (The Walking Dead)

He’s literally blamed for doing stuff that any kid raised in the apocalypse would realistically do. He literally had to shoot his own mother and watch two of his friends get killed with a baseball bat. Fans call him “stupid” for killing specific people, but when he doesn’t kill other specific people, he’s blamed for that too. Fans also seem to hate his actor’s acting, even though Carl is meant to be emotionally-stunted due to the severe trauma he’s faced. It doesn’t help that the show runner himself seemed to hate Carl enough to [spoiler alert], and it derailed the entire show as a result. Carl literally is just trying to survive in a world he’s forced to grow up in. He’s lost so many adults in his life and can’t let himself just be a kid because it’ll prevent him from staying prepared.

Alya Cesaire (Miraculous Ladybug)

Cw: racism

"The amount of hatred Alya gets in the fandom is absolutely insane. There are over 800 fics tagged with ""Alya Cesaire Bashing"", and that's just the ones that actually TAG it - many of them either use a a non-canonical tag or just take their demonization of her as canon. It's not just that a lot of fics bash her either, but that the fics that bash her are disproportionately popular. If you go through the ""Miraculous Ladybug"" tag on AO3 and sort by kudos, I'd say around a third of the top 500 most popular fics use this gross caricature of her in order to justify inflicting some sort of insane punishment on her, or at least replacing her with ""better"" friends and leaving her to wail in despair.

Basically, Alya is the best friend of the main character, Marinette. She's really into superheroes and aims to be a reporter someday, to the point that the first time a supervillain cropped up in the series, she immediately got out her bike and cycled after him so that she could be there when a superhero showed up to fight him (Lois Lane would be proud). She runs a blog called the ""Ladyblog"" which reports on what the superheroes are doing, and sometimes makes some fun videos, like about the most impressive feats of one of the superheroes. 

More relevantly though, she acts as Marinette's support a lot of the time, often being the one to push her to confess her feelings to Adrien, to help her with plans she comes up with, to talk things out with if she's having trouble processing something, and trying to act as the voice of reason if Marinette's gotten to into her own head. It can sometimes head into Black Best Friend territory of having her mostly stick around to support her bestie, but she DOES get a decent amount of screentime and focus at least.

Then the first episode of season 3 aired, and the fandom went BALLISTIC.

This character, Lila, debuted back at the end of season 1 as being this attention-seeking liar who pretended that she knew a lot more famous people than she actually did, including being best friends with Ladybug. Alya, being a naive 14-year-old, believed her and put Lila's interview on her blog. Since Marinette IS Ladybug, she knew this was not true, though she was initially more freaked out about the possibility that Adrien (the boy she has a crush on) would find her supposedly amazing life to be entrancing and that Lila would steal Adrien away from her, to the point that she actively wanted to stop Lila and Adrien from spending time together to prevent Adrien from falling for her.

Fast-forward to Chameleon, the first episode of season 3, and Lila's back and lying some more, this time about having Tinnitus (which would mean that she needs to sit at the front of class, next to Adrien). The class has a whole seating rearrangement in order to accommodate the move, and because some of them just wanted to change seats. Since Marinette was late that day, she didn't get to give input, so she wound up sitting alone at the back of the class, instead of next to Alya like she usually did. She's upset by this, but can't prove that Lila doesn't actually have the disability (she doesn't even have evidence that Lila doesn't have hearing problems, it's just that her story of how she supposedly got the disability is suspect), so she puts up with it for the class period.

Then lunch time rolls around and Marinette tells Alya and Alya's boyfriend, Nino, that Lila's a lying liar who lies. Alya asks why Marinette hates her so much, since she barely knows Lila (this isn't the first time that Marinette's nitpicked at Lila's stories, but she's never actually managed to prove that Lila's lying, Lila's good at coming up with explanations for any hole Marinette exposes in her tales). Marinette tells her how, after Lila first arrived at school, she followed her and Adrien, eavesdropped on them, and then saw Ladybug show up and tear into Lila for not knowing her. (Presumably that's what she says, the episode skipped past her actual recounting of what she saw). Alya and Nino are more concerned with the fact that she stalked Lila and Adrien, with Alya also being skeptical that what she heard might have been out-of-context, given how common out-of-context eavesdropping is in fiction for causing issues, with Alya saying, ""A good reporter always verifies her sources. Can you prove she doesn't actually know Ladybug?""

Since Marinette can't actually prove anything without revealing that she's Ladybug, she decides that the sane and reasonable thing to do is to throw a wadded up napkin at Lila while she's eating lunch, and when she catches it (Lila's pretending to have a sprained wrist), to loudly declare that she obviously doesn't have a sprained wrist. Lila quickly pretends that catching it did actually hurt, the classmates Lila was sitting with scold Marinette for hurting her, and then Marinette goes off to seethe in a bathroom, where Lila finds her and threatens to turn her friends against her if she continues trying to expose her lies. 

Then at the end of the episode, Adrien goes to sit with Marinette at the back of the class to keep her company, the teacher thinks that Marinette ALSO has hearing issues so she's brought back to the front (and away from Adrien again), Lila pretends that her hearing has been fixed so she can sit at the back with Adrien, and Alya spots that Marinette looks miserable about sitting alone at the front, so she chooses to sit next to Marinette to keep her company and everyone ends up going back to their old places, except that Lila's sitting at the back of the class now.

And that's it. That is, for the most part, what kicked off the entire Alya hatred and demonization onslaught. While there ARE more things that happening in following episodes, they have a pretty small effect on the demonization Alya's put through, almost all of it is derived from Chameleon and hasn't changed much since then.

So for starters, in fanfics Alya is often made to ditch Marinette constantly to hang out with Lila instead. This never happens. She's often exasperated when Marinette starts talking about how Lila is awful and points out that she doesn't have proof of that, but she doesn't avoid Marinette, and the closest she ever comes to hanging out with Lila outside of class events is when she called Lila over to babysit hers and Nino's younger siblings when Marinette canceled at the last minute.

But most Alya-bashing fics don't just leave it there. Oh no. If you look through a bunch of the most popular Miraculous fics, you'll see Alya made out to be some sort of ringleader for the class in bullying Marinette, hitting her, pinching her, poisoning her, destroying her things, saying nasty, heinous things to her, the works, and inciting the rest of the class to do the same, sometimes to the point that even LILA is shocked at her cruelty. Usually in these cases, Chloe, who is canonically the class bully (and Marinette's bully in particular) is inexplicably Marinette's primary protector against the eeeeeevil Alya, becoming Marinette's best friend and support and basically taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits, despite the fact that canonically, Chloe's as susceptible to Lila's lies as anyone else, and that in season 5 Chloe actually became Lila's partner in crime in trying to hurt Marinette in particular. (I don't like how Chloe's treated in canon, but that's a different story).

I've never even seen any justification given for why Alya's so frequently made to be outright violent or cruel towards Marinette, it's just widely accepted in fiction now, even with nothing pointing to her ever being malicious like that. There ARE other things Alya canonically does that I see her taken to task over though, but that fall apart when you examine them.

One of the biggest offenders is criticism towards Alya over how she handles babysitting. In Christmaster, Alya and Nino pick up Nino's little brother after Marinette babysits him for them while they're on a date, in Timetagger, Marinette's slated to babysit for them while they're on a date but cancels at the last minute, so they call Lila over instead, and then in Simple Man, Marinette books herself to babysit Alya's and Nino's younger siblings and the daughter of one's of her mom's friends, a little girl named Manon, all at the same time.

Alya receives heavy criticism for not paying Marinette for her babysitting, for having Marinette babysit for her secretly behind her parents' back without their knowledge, and for pressuring Marinette to babysit for her even though Marinette's so busy.

A few problems with this.

1. We see babysitting happen several times, sometimes with Alya helping Marinette with babysitting Manon and sometimes with Marinette just babysitting Manon without anyone else's involvement. At no point is payment brought up, and yet the absence of such a discussion is only ever used to demonize Alya.

2. There is no evidence that the babysitting Marinette does for Alya's sake is done behind her parents' back, the only thing pointing to that is a lack of Alya ever flat-out saying that she has her parents' permission to have Marinette babysit for her, but there's no evidence of sneaking around. MARINETTE, however, DOES canonically ditch her babysitting duties by having Alya babysit for her without the parent's knowledge. In Prime Queen, Marinette accidentally double books herself to do an interview as Ladybug at the same time that she's supposed to be babysitting Manon, so she calls Alya over to watch the interview with her, lies to her that she's just gonna go downstairs for a few minutes to talk with her parents and for Alya to please watch over Manon while she does that, and then leaves to do the interview while Alya watches over Manon the whole time. Nadja definitely didn't know that this happened, because she was surprised and worried when Alya and Manon called in during the interview with Marinette nowhere to be seen. In addition to this, in Simpleman, Marinette foists off all the children she's babysitting onto her grandpa against his will so that she can run off and help with Adrien's photoshoot after he calls her. The people demonizing Alya for supposedly having Marinette babysit for her secretly are not upset about the examples of Marinette canonically doing these things.

3. Of the three times that Marinette has, to date, been scheduled to babysit for Alya's sake (Christmaster, Timetagger, and Simpleman), for Christmaster she spent the next several hours after finishing with babysitting making Adrien's 50th birthday present (he's currently 14 years old), so I wouldn't say she was pressed for time, for Timetagger, she literally called Alya at the last minute to say she was too busy to babysit and Alya said it was no biggie and made other arrangements, and for Simpleman, Alya offered to cancel her date and take care of her younger siblings herself the instant she saw that Marinette was already babysitting Manon, and Marinette told her to go ahead and go on her date and that she'd look after her siblings.

So clearly, the people clutching their pearls about how horribly irresponsibly Alya is handling babysitting and how she's wronging Marinette in the process don't actually care about babysitting ethics here, because otherwise, Marinette would be getting the brunt of the hatred, not Alya. Despite this, I've seen a fair number of posts in the past tearing into Alya's babysitting for the reasons I already gave, and a bunch of fics that make it so that Alya pressures and guilt-trips Marinette into babysitting for her when she's struggling to keep up with all her work, only to have her parents find out and be horrified by how Alya's lied to them about who's been doing the babysitting and that Alya's been getting an increased allowance because of that, so they pay Marinette out of Alya's allowance and ground her, take away privileges, just have this be used as an excuse to punish Alya for supposedly wronging Marinette.

And then there's the subcategory of Alya demonization towards her for putting up Lila's interview on her blog without verifying that Lila was telling the truth. Admittedly, this was foolish, but she's 14. Retractions exist for a reason. And yet, fics frequently have her reputation be completely destroyed because she put up one interview that had a false statement by the interviewee in it, and sometimes even to be completely blacklisted from ever being a journalist in the future, things that are completely insane and would have even the most storied and well-respected of reporters be unable to ever get a job. 

She also frequently gets demonized and bashed for ""believing Lila over Marinette"". My major issue with this: what she's specifically believing Lila over Marinette for is on the topic of ""is Lila an awful person"". I don't think it's unreasonable to have a higher standard of proof for believing that someone is an awful person than for believing that your friend might just have some biased interpretations. Alya thinks that Marinette doesn't like Lila mostly because Lila has hit on Adrien, Marinette's crush, before. This isn't unreasonable considering that Marinette's first reaction to Lila is to freak out about her stealing Adrien away, and that when this other girl, Kagami, started hanging out with Adrien, she freaked out about that too. Specifically, she called a meeting of all her female friends to try and stop Kagami and Adrien from going away together to London for the weekend in Backwarder, helped Chloe in trying to get Kagami covered in food at a fancy red carpet movie opening in order to drive her away and steal her seat next to Adrien for the movie, and when she and Kagami were paired up for a ""friend-making game"" where the goal was to locate where Adrien was in Paris and the prize was to spend time with him, she pretended to genuinely want to be Kagami's friend so she could sabotage both of them and prevent Kagami from spending time with Adrien. So it's not like the belief that Marinette might be unfairly biased against Lila because she's made moves on Adrien is an unfair assumption.

In addition to that, on the occasions when Lila HAS tried to frame Marinette for something, Alya hasn't believed it, or hasn't been shown to believe it at least. In Ladybug Lila tries to frame Marinette for cheating on a test, for stealing a necklace from her, and for knocking her down the stairs. Despite the evidence Lila planted, Alya doesn't believe it and investigates to try and find out what really happened. She doesn't uncover any solid proof, but she still believes in Marinette. She doesn't believe that Marinette's assumption that Lila's behind this is necessarily correct, since Marinette's leaping to that without presenting proof, but she doesn't believe that Marinette's the culprit either. And in the two following cases when Marinette's framed, Alya never actually gets a chance to say what she believes after the accusation is made against Marinette.

Just... the amount of demonization towards Alya TO THIS DAY, often for things she NEVER EVEN FREAKING DID, is absolutely insane. Even over 5 years since Chameleon aired, fics with Alya being made into this malicious, awful bully so that Marinette can get some new friends to publicly denounce her, get her arrested, or otherwise be punished are frequently on the front page of the most recently updated fics on AO3, and are often some of the most popular ones. If you go to ""Fandom-Specific plot"" on Tvtropes, saltfics like these have multiple files going through all the common salt tropes. When looking through fics, I frequently search for Alya's name because she's often the first person to be unfairly demonized, so if she's safe, then everyone likely is. 

I suspect that racism plays a major factor in this. It doesn't make sense that Alya's often painted as being a violent, malicious bully and leader in getting the rest of the class to physically hurt and terrorize Marinette, I haven't even seen analysis arguing that she'd do that... but it tracks with the ""Black Brute"" archetype. This becomes even more obvious with Chloe, who's white and canonically DOES do some of this stuff, taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits in these sorts of stories.

Then there's the standard Alya's held to for how she handles her blog. It's way higher than anyone would hold real-world reporters to, much less 14-year-olds. But it makes sense if you factor racial bias into account, and how Alya, being Black, is going to be held to a higher standard than anyone else, and be punished more for failing to meet that standard.

For things like the babysitting double standard, it makes no sense if you're actually looking at the stated criticism, given that the same criticism isn't leveled at Marinette... but it makes perfect sense if you're going off the assumption that Alya, as Marinette's Black Best Friend, is supposed to solely function as her support and that she's simply fulfilling her duties by always being there for her when needed, including for babysitting, but that if Marinette ever attempts to repay in kind, then Alya's being unfair towards her because Alya's obligated to always support Marinette, but that relationship is supposed to be a one-way street. Alya is supposed to function as Marinette's support, never the other way around.

And as for the way Alya's demonized for asking for evidence before believing that Lila's lying, well... again, Alya's expected to act as Marinette's support, and her ""failing"" that in any way, even if it makes sense from her point of view, is viewed as a betrayal. She's supposed to be loyal to Marinette, and only to Marinette, not to think for herself or to have multiple other friends or values that she needs to weigh. And anything that she does to go against that ""justifies"" Marinette intentionally trying to hurt and punish her for failing to live up to her role.

In conclusion, the way Alya's treated by the salt side of the fandom is grossly unfair, often has little connection with anything she canonically did, and has some gross racist implications, and is likely at least partially spurred on by racism, especially with how common and popular it still is to this day."

"(Note: This is an addendum to my earlier essay about the fandom's mistreatment of Alya. Here, I'm focusing more on how the writers' treatment of her helped to exacerbate that, since I saw that this version of the tournament had more of a focus on that. Please add this on at the end of my previous essay).

While Alya is primarily screwed over by the fanbase, there are some aspects of the writing that exacerbate her ill treatment. In season 4, Marinette confesses her secret identity to Alya, letting her know that she is Ladybug. Despite now knowing why Marinette was so convinced that Lila wasn't friends with Ladybug, and that Lila's interview stating that she's best friends with Ladybug is a lie, the subject just... never comes up, even when Lila starts being important again. It's not that Alya's ignoring what Lila lying on those subjects means, it's more like the writers just completely forgot that Lila told those particular lies, since Marinette doesn't bring them up either. This creates an inconsistency with the fanbase, who really, really, REALLY haven't forgotten those lies. 

There ARE ways to explain this - Lila lying about being friends with Ladybug in order to try to boost her reputation, especially when she's the new girl, isn't really all that heinous. Marinette lies a lot as well, even if you don't count lies told to protect her secret identity or other ""necessary"" lies, sometimes out of embarrassment, sometimes to to try and prevent someone's feelings from getting hurt, and sometimes because she thinks it's the fastest, easiest, or most certain way to get the outcome she wants. And yet, even though Marinette lies a lot, she's not ostracized for that since it's usually not for malicious reasons - foolish reasons at times, but rarely malicious. It would make sense that Lila too, wouldn't be thought too badly of for merely lying in an attempt to make friends.

None of that actually comes up though. Alya later, in Confrontation, states that, ""Marinette, you know we'll always believe you. But every time you've accused Lila, there's been no evidence. And at worst, it was just a misunderstanding."" Marinette doesn't say anything about the previous times Lila has been proven to lie, so it seems like either it was decided offscreen that the more understandable lies she's told don't matter, or that the writers just plain forgot about them.

There were other opportunities created by Alya knowing Marinette's identity that were ignored. Alya concludes that Adrien backing up Marinette's statement that Lila's bad news was just due to him wanting to defend his girlfriend. This is also a bit of a writing flaw, while wanting to back up his girlfriend's stance IS a decent reason for Adrien to be biased against Lila, this is Adrien we're talking about here. He's nice and understanding to a fault, and is known for giving people the benefit of the doubt and second chances. It makes far less sense to believe that he'd believe the worst of Lila, even if Marinette does, than it does for Marinette to be biased against Lila. That being said, Adrien wouldn't have been present for Lila's more indisputable threats and statements directed against Marinette, so he can't actually verify for sure whether or not there could've been some misunderstanding.

There WAS, however, someone who was always with Marinette, and who could actually back up Marinette's statements more definitively. 

Tikki. She was present for every threat Lila made, for everything she ever claimed. While it's possible that both Tikki and Marinette may have misunderstood Lila in the same way, it's far less likely, especially since Tikki would have had different biases from Marinette. Tikki could be an important witness. Yet that never comes up, is never proposed, because that would end the plotline too quickly. 

Alya was also screwed over in the immediate aftermath of Lila being exposed, though not by the writers per se? There was a short scene planned after Lila's exposed where Alya apologizes for not believing Marinette about Lila being a liar and generally an awful person, we've even got leaked footage of it, but it appears that it was cut somewhere between being written and voice acted, and the episode being aired. 

All of this only really affects detailed arguments about how well (or poorly) Alya's story arc with Lila was handled, its affect on the actual fanfiction produced about Chameleon salt was minimal, I saw no change in its frequency, severity, or general handling of the characters with any season after season 3. I highly doubt that even the changes I suggested here would have done much to persuade the saltdom against Ron the Death Eatering Alya, especially since a lot of the hatred against her has so little to do with the show.

There IS some hatred thrown at Alya for non-Lila related reasons - well, reasons that aren't DIRECTLY Lila related, most of that hatred still stems from people hating her for Chameleon stuff and then retroactively justifying it by looking back at other things she did that irked them. The most common one (that actually has some sort of argument to it, not the ""Alya's a horrible babysitter and is abusing her friendship with Marinette"" nonsense I listed in the main essay) is that Alya's pushy about getting Marinette together with Adrien. 

This is more a product of Alya's usual role in the story than anything. I mentioned in the main essay how Alya sometimes falls into ""Black Best Friend"" territory, and this is one of the biggest examples. One of her most common roles throughout the series is as the person who pushes Marinette to actually confess to Adrien, to hang out with him, to pursue her romantic desires even with her anxiety holding her back, and to be honest with herself during the times when she's trying to deny her feelings for him. She's Marinette's sounding board whenever she's having an anxiety spiral about... actually, just about anything, and acts as the voice of reason when Marinette gets in her own head too much.

Thus, Alya sets Marinette and Adrien to end up somewhere alone together, or tries to push her to talk to him, or to be honest during the times when she tries to ""move on"" from Adrien by denying that she still has feelings for him (which is blatantly untrue). She IS okay with Marinette dating someone else though, if she honestly seems to want to do that. She had no problem with her dating Luka, for instance. She DID protest Marinette's seemingly sudden interest in Chat Noir, but that was mostly because Marinette seemed to be grabbing at her new attraction as an attempt to run away from her feelings for Adrien, something that Tikki ALSO noted.

That's another thing - Alya's the character who's most frequently thrown into this role, but she's not the only one, nor even the most extreme one. A new character that was introduced for the Miraculous New York Special, Jess, observed how Adrien and Marinette acted around each other, and decided to try to get them to confess their love by faking a supervillain attack on them, with the supervillain kidnapping anyone that no one loves in order to compel Marinette to FINALLY confess to Adrien. (Alya thought it was stupid, but agreed to help since it might actually work). When Marinette, Adrien, Luka, and Kagami went out to the wax museum together, Luka intentionally locked Adrien and Marinette in a room together so that Marinette would stop running away and would be forced to talk to Adrien. Marinette is written in such a way that other characters are compelled to meddle in her lovelife, because otherwise she'll continue making her own extreme plans and pining away, but never actually confess her feelings. 

So while Alya could be said to be ""pushy"" to an extent, it's mostly for Marinette's benefit. I would like if this was a less frequent role for Alya - I think it does her a disservice, since it locks her firmly into Marinette's orbit rather than emphasizing who Alya is as her own character. Most of the hatred towards Alya for this is tied up in ""Die For Our Ship"" being directed at Adrien though, with Adrien bashers hating that Alya's trying to set Marinette up with what they see as an inferior option. Ironically enough, while Alya's role in this situation is one of the primary examples in the show of her being treated by the writers as a ""Black Best Friend"" who exists to serve Marinette's character, it's actually one of the cases where I think racism is a pretty minor part of the hatred by the fanbase over it, since I think that's mostly motivated by hatred towards the Lovesquare.

In conclusion (again), there is an issue with the writers bending Alya's character in order to tell a particular story, particularly a Marinette-centered story, while ignoring how little sense that makes with what happened earlier on in the plotline, or how it centralizes Alya's role and character around Marinette in ways that exacerbate already existing writing patterns in media.

[fivewantscoffee]

So, Five x Lila. I need to get this out of my system so I can maybe finally move on:

I don't like the ship.

I don't like the characters together. I find the pairing a baffling one, and I don't like what it does to the show (and characters) either.

First of all, that wasn't Lila. I don't know who it was, but it wasn't the woman we saw off at the end of S3, or even the one we started off S4 with.

It just wasn't her.

You can blame trauma, or six years of being on the move. That's going to change a person, for sure, but this wasn't about giving Lila any character development.

It was about giving Five a love interest.

Because that life? Yeah. I could see it for Five. I could see him deciding to settle down and take life slow, I could see him being sweet and domestic with a partner should he have one. After he's had some time to heal, now that he's finally free of the apocalypse, I could see that for Five.

But Lila? She was unhappy in her marriage, at least partly because the domestic, stay-at-home-mum life has proven to be something that doesn't fulfil her. She wants more out of life, which is why "bookclub" happened, which is why she ended up in the subway with Five in the first place.

And okay. For the sake of argument, let's go with this. Let's say Five x Lila happened so they could cope with their situation. It was survival, like Lila said. If we were going to have to endure this bad, messy plot point anyway, (which we didn't, we really, really didn't), it should at least have been treated with the seriousness it deserves.

Because, Five? The complete, callous lack of remorse on his part? What the fuck was that?

Even if you pick through the crumbs and try to make it make sense, this wasn't a romance. At best it was survival, and coping, and kind of a tragedy all at once. Five shouldn't be picking fights with Diego. He shouldn't be acting like a spurned twenty-something-year-old.

And yeah, characters can be flawed and in the wrong, but why like this? This didn't feel like Five to me. He is brusque and, when looked at it from a certain angle, I can see why some would call him selfish (which I don't necessarily agree with, but that's a different conversation), but under all his layers, he does love his family. To me, that's the core of his character and has been since S1. Everything he's done, he's done to ensure their survival, then when he agreed to give up in S3, he was content to simply die by their sides.

So, you're telling that this Five, the one we've known and followed for three seasons, had a fling with Lila and didn't even feel guilty or conflicted about it? You're telling me loved this woman, yet was willing to keep her from her family, her children?

"Five is selfish" "Five is tired" "Five is finally moving on"

No. Not like that. To me, the Five from previous seasons (S2 specifically, because that's where a lot of it goes wrong) is only "selfish" in that he wants his family to survive and is willing to go to any lengths to achieve that. He's not exactly compassionate about Allison and Viktor having to leave Ray and Sissy behind. And yeah, he leaves Diego in the asylum because he doesn't want him messing with the timeline.

Is he in the wrong for that? Answer this any way you want, but I don't think it matters to Five. Does he want his siblings to be happy? In my opinion, of course he does, but they're not going to be happy if they're dead.

That's not the same as what S4 does. Not by a long shot. Five cares deeply about those he loves, and granted, he is pretty bad at showing it, but he does care.

He nearly worked himself into the grave trying to solve the first two apocalypses, with little regard for his own well-being. When he realised a third apocalypse was happening, he didn't say fuck it and continue his Pennsylvania retirement road trip... he immediately dropped everything to try and fix it.

So how did we get to S4 Five, who got with his brother's wife, found a way home, didn't tell Lila, AND THEN, after he finally gave her the notebook and they went back, he acts like that?

Yeah, no. That's not my Five.

Also, five x lila happening isn't Five moving on. If anything, it's how he copes with the situation they're in. That's just his Delores 2.0.

Anyway, all of this is moot because the fact of the matter is, they chose to make this happen. Five and Lila getting stuck in the subway together for seven years didn't have to happen.

I don't know.

This used to be a show about family. It also used to be a show about the effects of child abuse on this group of siblings. This started to fall to the wayside after S1, but the family aspect of it still remained.

At its core, tua has always been about family, so what was the point of making S4 at all if this is what they were going to give us?

It's not just Five x Lila. They messed this up across the board, with how flippantly the absence of Sloane and Ray was treated, how shallow and surface-level all of the rest was. They gave us some crumbs with Klaus and Allison, but they couldn't even do that without retconning their entire relationship. That's not even mentioning the ending. The Hargreeves all sacrificing themselves in the end could have worked, but this was not the way to do it.

Anyway, this rant is over. S1 Five, you'll always be famous to me.