#but the adrienette bits are important for the end?

[adrinoir]

Where did LadyNoir go?

I’m definitely not the only person who has said and thought this, plus feels a bit salty about it lol. But I think it needs to be talked about more.

In the beginning of season 5, Ladybug and Cat Noir start falling into the Reverse Love Square dynamic. Ladybug starts acting real flirty around Cat Noir, and Cat Noir is slowly pushing her away. But the thing is, it’s made obvious that Cat Noir still loves Ladybug and Marinette still loves Adrien. More importantly, that Cat Noir still loves Ladybug.

Like, Cat Noir was absolutely devastated and tried to completely cataclysm an akumatized villain over tricking him with the LadyNoir dream sequence. An extremely clear sign he still loves Ladybug.

And then, even more struggles develop between them, as shown through the Marichat dynamic in Elation. Cat Noir realizes he can’t love someone being masked. Marinette starts to realize how hard it is to love Cat Noir HOWEVER she still didn’t want to give up, hell she kissed that boy.

But, as soon as Adrien and Marinette end up together after all these struggles, no awkwardness nor signs of still loving each other exist at all in the LadyNoir ship. It’s all just completely wiped away, all LadyNoir does is act like heroic partners. It’s almost like the Marichat kiss and LadyNoir dream never happened.

I know it’s important that Marinette realized it’d be too tough to be with Cat Noir and that Cat Noir notices it’d be too hard to be with Ladybug - I’m not saying it isn’t. However, I wish there were still signs - even if they’re small - of awkwardness or tension between Ladybug and Cat Noir. Or, they could even show Marinette and Adrien individually struggling with these feelings outside of duty. The love they’ve had for each other can’t just suddenly drop entirely. It’s something that’s built so much over time.

Yes, the Adrienette ship has built over time and it is important that they’re together now. BUT, I’m also saying that it’s unrealistic to portray Ladybug and Cat Noir no longer having any sort of romantic feelings for each other.

Without showing any more progression of the LadyNoir ship at all, the Love Square flops a bit, especially since LadyNoir is just as important of a ship as Adrienette.

[generalluxun]

So, at what point did you decide to ditch your initial pairings in Dog Daze?

Decide isn't quite the way it went down. It's more that it became increasingly clear Adrienette was misfiring. The post-Risk stress was getting to Ladybug, and her partner taking a more active role in heroing was both helpful and scary for her (a lack of control).

Adrienette actually had a date (Adrien:it's not a date, Sabrina:But it might be!) Alya set it up, the sneaky fox!

Marinette wanted to confess at the end of the movie. She was trying to, bit freezing up. Adrien wanted to comfort her, and used what he had recently learned from his time with Sabrina. He kissed her gently on the forehead. This has the opposite effect intended. Marinette panics and bolts. She's still got everything built up to be Very Important(TM) in her head and his intended gentle reassurance was instead seen as pushing too fast and doing things out of order.

So that didn't help.

When Adrien talks (he's confused) with Sabrina about what happened she figures out that it was probably a confession. Adrien... Doesn't know how to take this. On one hand he's floored, Marinette is amazing! On the other hand, he's worried loving him is causing her stress. *He has a very real example of love causing stress between Cat Noir and Ladybug*

Meanwhile Ladybug confesses... To Cat Noir. Marinette is building up her nerves by clearing the air. She reiterates that they can't *do* anything with their love, because of the masks, but hopes that being honest will help. It does! Ladynoir ends up in this nice place where they clearly love each other, even if it doesn't mean the usual things.

Adrien, not knowing Ladybug was going to do that, had reached out to Marinette to meet up and talk about what happened at the theater(and give her another chance to confess if that was what it really was, though he doesn't say that to her) They meet up on the way to school. She's putting on a brave face but clearly wired. He's trying to help. And finally she does confess! And it is sweet and heartfelt!

And in that moment, Adrien envisions the life Marinette wants, and it's set against everything going on. Monarch, his father, the trials of Ladynoir, all of it. He just can't subject her to that. He tells her she's wonderful, and if *he* were a different person with a different life it would be so easy to say yes. He tells her if life changes, then he'd consider himself lucky if she would date him, but also asks her not to wait. She's too special to be kept waiting in the wings.

Marinette- has a panic attack. She's put so much into this moment. not just her love life but as a sign that she's not a failure(after losing most of the miraculous) and that life is still 'in control'. It takes Adrien, Alya, and Sabrina's help to bring her back out. She ends up being shepherded by Alya while Adrien and Sabrina talk(he nearly had a panic attack in response to Marinette's) and there I think, passed the idea of adrienette working out.

There was just too much going on. It was a bad time, and they had very different needs. Adrien and Sabrina made their way slowly towards admitting they had actually already been dating for a while. It actually might not have happened but others kept poking their relationship and requiring definition.

I expected Marinette to end up with Lukanette. She contacted him soon after her failed confession. She was very open this time though about needing to blow off steam and feel lovable(despite the fact Adrien had said she was, you know how feelings are) They hung out a few times but Luka stayed resolutely in supportive friend territory by his own choice.

In the end (after Dog Daze, during a one shot) Marinette actually ends up with someone who lives life as frenetically as she does. They both spin out of control regularly, but they also both know what it is like to spin out of control and how to help each other through.

[purrincess-chat]

I think this fandom just really hates Adrienette, but I can't figure out the reason (but your theory of the fandom not taking them seriously because they're kids may be true). They write post-s5 break-up "fix it" fics, they say Adrienette should break up to restore the balance (not sure what balance they're talking about). Jeez, Adrienette is literally the cutest cartoon couple I've ever seen, and I've been rooting for them since day one. How can someone want them to break up? Why can't the fandom just be happy for them?

It's literally so baffling to me, nonny. There have been people who have been rooting against them since before they were even official in s5. And for why? For me, them getting together made sense after s4 bc, to me, s4 demonstrated why it couldn't have been LadyNoir. (Actually even as far back as s3 when we had Chat Blanc) And that's why I don't think it will be LadyNoir in the future either even if they did break up. The show has put too much emphasis on how everything goes wrong when the heroes pair up. They both get distracted and tragedy strikes. I don't forsee it being MC or Ladrien either bc MC literally agreed they can't be together, and I think that would go for Ladrien as well. And Marinette already gets enough shit from people for being a "stalker" to Adrien, and it would only get worse if they broke up, and she turned around and dated him again as Ladybug when he doesnt know it's her. I can already see the salt posts about how she's so obsessive and won't move on and how she's taking advantage of him and tricking him.

Adrinette is the side that worked, that's why they went that route. It allows the heroes to be heroes and the kids to be kids. We can still get meaningful interactions with the other sides while they are dating as civilians. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how the dynamics evolve in future seasons. I wanna see MC and Ladrien half-requited with the heroes privately swooning over their bf/gf personally. We got a little bit of it in s5 with Chat swooning over Marinette when she was being a boss bitch. I want that in Ladrien, please.

I don't know why people hate Adrinette being together so much. I don't know where people get the idea that it's boring or problematic or detrimental to their characters or whatever fucking complaint they have against it. The Adrinette we got in s5 was great and so meaningful, and I'm happy that they did what they did. They could have just stuck them together in s5 and been like okay all of their problems are solved, and they're totally perfect and in love, but that's not what happened. They weren't perfect. They had to work together to make it work. They both recognized their traumas and respected each other's boundaries until they found something that worked for both of them. They really fought so damn hard to be together last season, but people just don't fucking care. My heart broke for them when they finally shared their first kiss, and it wasn't the perfect romantic moment they imagined. It was desperate, longing, afraid. All they wanted all season was just to be together, and now they finally have that. And we got that in a kids cartoon! So often love is treated as a fantasy where everything is perfect, and the couple gets together in the end and rides off into the sunset and lives happily ever after. But that wasn't their story, and I applaud them for that. I love that this show depicted the messier but crucially important sides of love about setting boundaries, addressing trauma so you don't hurt the other person, being patient and understanding while the other person is working through something because those things are hard in a relationship. A lot of those things are make or break in relationships, but the ones that want to be together will put in the work, and I think it's so important to show that in an age appropriate way to kids.

So, yeah, fuck anyone rooting for their downfall. Fuck anyone who thinks that the 4 sides are competing with each other and that Adrinette being together is an affront to their favorite side. Fuck anyone who thinks Adrinette being together is bad. It's not, and anyone who thinks it is can feel free to block me.

Maybe instead of rooting for Adrinette to break up, people should be rooting for a reveal. That's how we get the other sides, babes. That's how we should want to get the other sides. But this fandom isn't ready for a reveal tbh. They'd just bitch about how the sides are all the same now, and it's so boring. Can't win for fucking losing in this show.

[flightfoot]

Luka being canonical therapist has the one upside that eventual Lukloé might be a thing. 😂

Between Felgami and adrienette 'fix him/her' ships seem to be on the table.

Adrien having friends who aren't Marinette's friends would be awesome. This isn't dogging Marinette, just... Carving out some space.

They could possible shorthand it by letting Adrien get mad at Marinette. Not over a big thing, a small thing, couple stuff. Maybe she makes plans and doesn't consult him (either forgets or assumes she knows he would be okay with it because she knows him so well, both very Marinette angles) and he's upset.

They have a little tiff, then separately get to talk out the issue. Adrien being told it's okay to be upset and voice his side and it doesn't mean he doesn't love her. She gets told mistakes are fine, and that Adrien being upset doesn't mean he doesn't love her or that she's a bad person, and she's allowed to be upset too, that the important part is resolving the conflict not repressing/avoiding it.

By the end of the episode they make up, no protracted angst. The key point is it needs to be a third party who tells each that conflict is okay, otherwise it becomes just 'permission from the power holder' or 'submission to the power holder'

I feel the need to repeat: Marinette can be trying to do everything right and still the problem comes up. Adrien's particular issues didn't stem from her but can rub off on her. It's not Marinette salt.

And I think a single episode is less angst than an entire season😅

Yeah I think that would be good. I do worry about Adrien's people-pleasing tendencies and need to mold himself in order to be considered lovable by people, so him feeling free to get mad, even at someone he loves, would be good. Just so long as they worked things out afterwards. But I would like that extra piece of assurance that he's with Marinette because he chooses it because that makes him happy, but that he's confident enough in himself and his situation that it IS a choice, that he's able to separate without it wrecking every bit of his world.

We saw something like that with Ladybug and Chat Noir back during season 4, and well... honestly it DID wreck his world back then (not that it was fantastic for Marinette either, losing a friend like that is rough).

[miraculouscriticismshub]

Revelation endcard analysis - Season 5 spoilers ahead.

Revelation in my opinion is the best Season 5 episode. It moves the plot forwards and foreshadows events in future episodes. This post will analyse the endcard and how one photo can contain so much character details.

Adrienette

We see on the left Adrienette standing next to each other. Adrien standing near Marinette represents how he is loyal to his Girlfriend and sticks by her when no one else supports her. The loyalty Adrien has for Marinette is a mirror for Cat Noirs loyalty for Ladybug emphasizing how Adrien and Marinette have both started to act like their alter egos in their Civillian lives. Adrien being on Marinettes side while the class is more towards Lila's side suggests how Adrien is devoted to Marinette while the rest of the class don't trust her as much.

Marinette and Lila's rivalry

Marinette's and Lila's facing each other suggests how important their rivalry would be in the future. Basically Protagonist vs Antagonist. There isn't much to analyze about this because it's pretty obvious what the endcard is implying.

Chloe and Lila's alliance

Chloe is standing next to Lila, looking small and unsure compared to her. This is different to the Chloe we're use to because she is usually very bold and confident. Here she is weaker and looks nervous despite trying to act intimidating. Chloe is presented as Lila's sidekick and is basically her minion. When Chloe is around Lila , she starts to act a lot like Sabrina. She does whatever Lila tells her to do and becomes Lila's puppet for her heinous schemes. However the difference between Chloe and Lila is that Chloe uses fear and abuses her power to control Sabrina while Lila is more subtle and manipulative. Lila enables Chloe , plants seeds into her head and praises her often. Chloe thinks she is in control when really , Lila is the one pulling the strings. That's why Chloe acts menacing in the end card when in reality , she looks worried. She thinks she is in control when Lila is the one who controls Chloe behind the scenes. Chloe being Lila's "underling" foreshadows the episodes Confrontation, Collusion and Revolution , where Lila influences Chloe to become a dictator only to use her for her schemes. Hope that makes sense

Chloe and Adrien : Friends turned enemies

Adrien seemingly looks angry at Chloe while she suprisingly looks a bit upset. Adriens anger stems from Chloe showing no remorse for harassing Marinette during the previous year. He looks towards Chloe with resentment is interesting because he was one of the few characters who saw the good in Chloe and cared about her. He always had hope for her and gave her the benefit of the doubt. However Chloe showed no remorse for hurting Marinette clearly was the final straw for him. He ended his friendship and no longer acts kind to her. Chloe picked her side while Adrien picked his. He has no reason to show her affection anymore and is loving towards Marinette only. However Chloe looks regretful. She's feel regretful because she misses Adrien , her former Friend who turned against her. Who's now her enemy and sided with her nemesis. I'm not saying Chloe is a good person but she still has valid feelings. She still is fond of Adrien and cares for his well being. Therefore , Chloe and Adrien characters in the end card represent how two former best friends become enemies due to Chloe not maturing and apologizing for her actions. However their friendship ending feels tragic because Chloe and Adrien still care about each other despite being on opposite sides of a conflict.

Sabrina's redemption

In the end card , we see Sabrina standing with the class instead of standing next to Chloe. This is strange because Sabrina is Chloe's henchman. She is only friends with Chloe and is basically her servant. Her being included within the group of Classmates foreshadows the next episode , Confrontation , where she stops being friends with Chloe and exposes her and Lila for their actions. She is free and no longer under Chloe's thumb. Her turning on Chloe and helping Marinette causes the class to trust her and become friends with her , hence why she stands with the class , not with Chloe.

Lila as the new villain

Lila face taking up the majority of the card overshadowing Gabriel foreshadows Recreation where she replaces Gabriel as the show's main villain by gaining possession of the butterfly miraculous. Again this is pretty Obvious.

Gabriel's story

The end card shows how Gabriel has his back turned. This foreshadows how Gabriel will not be a major character going forward because of his death in Recreation. This also foreshadows his reign as monarch ending and passing the torch to Lila , who will become the next villain. Another time where we see this in Miracle queen , where Master Fu's back is turned , implying how he lost his memory and leaves for London .

Conclusion

Revelation is one of the show's well written episodes (something which is very rare in Miraculous. ) I don't see enough people talking about the Revelation end card so I made a post. I hope i didn't go too much into detail : ) These are just opinions so don't take them as fact. Please stay respectful.

[literaphobe]

TVL CHAPTER 10!!!!!!! This chapter said “we kinda already know these people have issues, but let’s get into WHY” and it was SO GOOD!!!

Both of them avoid looking too deeply into things so they don’t get hurt and, while I can understand that, it makes me soooo insane!!! Because if they talked about it HONESTLY without FILTERING THEMSELVES then MAYYYBBEEE things could get better. But of course they won’t do that because it’s too scary and unpredictable and in both their minds it could maybe lead to the END OF THE WORLD. So if they ask themselves “what the worst that could happen?” Well. It’s that.

and yet. AND YET!! They can’t live without each other. They’ll come back to each other either in some way or another because life doesn’t feel right without them. It’s so AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHH but like in a good way. 10/10

heheheheh HIIIIII

i think it’s definitely a good and long overdue time to reply to this ask and i was so glad to post ch10 bc while a lot of the information it presented could probably be inferred through bits and pieces teased in tvl chapters it’s nice having to actually see how much pain these characters have been through before tvl canon timeline… namely, it focuses on the fallout AFTER those big scary situations. u don’t see the adrienapocalypse (apocalypse where he died as opposed to the chat blanc apocalypse where maribug died) happen or the adrienette break up but u get a sense that it happened and then u see how deeply it affects adrichat. and u get to see him watch how much it hurt maribug. even though in his perception at the time that was just ladybug hurting from her own separate relationship breakdown

the tragedy of that is of seeing chat noir observe and greatly empathize with everything ladybug is going through and telling him about. that, even though he questions and poke holes at some of her choices and logic, he ultimately AGREES with her once she explains and spells things out. he SIGNS OFF on his own dumping as a result, inadvertently tells his ex gf that leaving him was the RIGHT thing to do. and it’s upsetting to see because you know that if he knew the truth he’d completely switch up and beg her to stay. it’s sad because he agrees with their break up on a logical level, but emotionally he would’ve tried to stop it somehow, because he can’t give up on their love even if the universe is at stake

this is evident when it comes to tvl ladynoir. Tvl chat noir knows about the chat blanc incident. he’s heard every page in the book of reasons why they shouldn’t date each other, shouldn’t fall in love. LOGICALLY, he knows why ladybug would reject him, REGARDLESS of her feelings. emotionally, this pisses him off and makes him want to put an end to their Arrangement to feel SOME kind of control over the situation. because the hold she has on his heart is so strong it renders him helpless. but well. his feelings for her won in the end, at the end of ch10. The chapter shows you how much he’s been hurt and pained but how he inevitably puts it all aside because she always comes first to him. it also shows how she’s adamant about his importance, and how inevitable ladynoir is, in that it only takes a matter of weeks for them to majorly gravitate towards each other again post breakups. and then again in the final scene their inevitability in terms of how angry and messy it could all get but STILL there chat noir is, running back to her. and there she is, giving into his whims. CRYING during their reunion

[chatonnoir]

Predictably adrienette fangirls are vagueposting me and to no one’s surprise they’re being dense and illiterate about it at that so I’m going to repeat myself about what my actual problem with pre-reveal adrienette is and maybe they’ll read it this time before they go on to write another 8 paragraphs about how much they supposedly don’t care about my opinion

I love Adrienette, contrary to how the Adrienette fangirls are trying to frame this is as just being about Side Preference, because considering that people’s upset could be anything more than “they’re just salty it wasn’t their favorite side 💅” is apparently too complex a concept to grasp. You know why Adrienette could never be my favorite side of the square, though?

The problem is the show never let them be what they could be at their best because it always chose to prioritize drama. Things like their adventures in Gorizilla and them joking around together in Puppeteer 2... they never gave me more of it. They always chose cliche contrived drama and drawing out the will they won't they """tension"""" over letting them spend real time together and get close. And that just makes me mourn the fact its only this way because the majority of people think THATS the most interesting part of a ship. Why let Adrienette get to the point of being able to comfortably hang out together as close friends when that "diminishes" the """tension"""" after all??? No one wants to see FRIENDSHIP silly!

This side is always plagued with corny forced drama and manufactured "tension" more than other, which is achieved by not letting Adrienette get close as friends at all costs and throwing in waste my time bullshit like love rivals to extend the runtime of said "tension". Every seemingly promising scene with them becomes a microcosm of this phenomenon. Puppeteer 2 was nice but the comfort and joking around together didn't stick and they cut it short with more of that love triangle "the girl you're in love with?" bullshit. I was excited when it seemed like Marinette was going to join the fencing team in Riposte because their interactions in that scene were cute and I was happy to see them spend more time together and become comfortable while sharing this common interest, only for it to turn out that that was all to introduce a goddamn love rival plot that amounted to nothing besides developing the friendship between the two protagonists and said love rival more than their friendship to .... each other. Again, gotta prioritize the Tension!!1!1!!

I've said if I wanted to watch another generic school romance I'd choose to watch a much better one than pre-reveal Adrienette. One example? Anne/Gilbert. I'm going to talk about the Netflix version here: Anne/Gilbert feels a bit like what Adrienette might've been if the umbrella scene didn't happen and it took longer for Marinette to warm up to him. Anne gets awkward and babbles and puts her foot in her mouth around Gilbert.  Gilbert is all smitten smiles and soft looks when he sees her being Anne(TM) and being her weird self or standing up for what’s right. But that's not all. They're good friends. They have a rivalry. They tease each other. They argue. He tells her directly when he disagrees with something she did. They challenge each other’s perspectives. They grieve together. They hold each other and cry after they lose someone important to them. Anne’s the first person Gilbert wants to tell about things that happen to him. Gilbert comes to Anne to discuss his future when he's confused. This was all before they were even together. This is the depth and rawness and realness that I wish Adrienette gave me. Alas, it's Ladynoir that has all that depth and closeness, while I'm not even convinced Adrienette can even be considered "close" at the end of season 4. Three hundred “soft looks” scenes only go so far. They only just scratched the surface of said closeness with Risk, and even that wasn't entirely organic considering it took magic to get it to happen. I hoped that would finally be the start of letting Adrienette get closer as friends and have some real substance and--- oops! They're dating now lol.

Weird as hell that Adrienette fangirls are being like “you all think platonic relationships are less than romantic ones and it shows 💅 one lovesquare side getting together doesn’t kill the others” acting like they really did something when … the whole fucking issue here is that Adrienette needed to develop as friends. Even if we ignore the fact that this is a piece of fucking Romance media and therefore not the place to whine about the value of platonic love when the romantic development is literally the main fucking plot, Ladynoir has had all the depth and platonic development and platonic love built up already. Ladynoir is fully realized. They've struggled and been at odds and reconciled and seen each other at their best and worst and grown together. It’s Adrienette that’s lacking in platonic development, it’s Adrienette that some of us wanted to have developed into a strong platonic relationship first but apparently, for reasons unknown, they’re incapable of being friends and needed to date to have any of that long overdue development. The Adrienette stans KNOW they needed development, they even defend pre-reveal Adrienette by saying they needed the development, but bizarrely y'all think it absolutely had to happen through speed running pre-reveal dating rather than uh..... friendship. Are ladynoir stans really the ones failing to see the value of platonic love here lol

One thing I always hated that this fandom did was treat romantic love as an ulterior motive or somehow shallow. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that once again that theme comes up in the defense of this plot point with “nOw LaDyNoIr CaN bE fRiEnDs wItHoUt uLtErIoR mOtIvEs.” I’m sorry some of y’all think someone wanting to get closer to another person or having affection for them is an ulterior motive lol. Maybe this is the consequence of how hollywood and popular culture has equated romantic love to sexual tension. Maybe this is why I’m having to listen to adrienette fangirls say deranged shit like “ladynoir was meant to be the platonic side and adrienette was meant to be the lovers side uwu” because of course, a deep bond built on real trust and friendship and affection with someone who you can share things you can’t with most others, a relationship reminiscent of what actual healthy romantic relationships look like in real life, isn’t romantic at all, but forced Tension and contrived schoolgirl drama, apparently, is romantic.

In case some Adrienette fangirls are still having trouble with reading comprehension: I love adrienette and everything they could be. I hate how they’re often handled in canon. When I talk about what Ladynoir has that Adrienette does not, that’s me explaining how their writing and development was handled better and how Adrienette isn’t allowed to reach that point, not why one side is “superior” lol. Despite me saying this I know Adrienette stans are still going to take it as a personal attack when I point out the objective fact that Ladynoir has the closer and more developed relationship lol

The past four seasons but season 4 more than any other established these themes of truth vs. lies and secrets and the importance of being honest with your loved ones and how secrets are hurting them more than they’re helping. They were even in the fucking titles of the first three episodes of the season. And it seemed so obviously to be building up to a reveal, of course the culmination of all the interpersonal conflicts and anguish they’re going through would be the two of them revealing their identities right? No, actually, the solution to the question of truth/lies/secrets posed at the beginning of season 4 is ….. for Adrien and Marinette to have sex.

That’s right, folks. Not identity reveal, not for Adrien and Marinette to be honest with each other the way Alya and Nino were, the culmination of this conflict is …. For them to have sex. The picnic blanket date scene where they lay down and try to kiss only for Marinette to be “Not Ready” and for Adrien to tell her that he can Wait For Her <3, which takes place in the same spot as the implied GabrielxEmilie Adrien Conception Picnic, is an unsubtle first time sex metaphor. Fuck honesty and personal growth! Fuck Adrien and Marinette actually saying goodbye to their best friends! "I'll never abandon you" and "never do that to me again" and "I'm afraid of you disappearing for my life" all didn't mean fuck all when it comes to getting fucked on a picnic blanket! The rest of the lovesquare got thrown over because Adrien and Marinette are just so fucking horny apparently :’) This is what the pre-reveal Adrienette stans are calling peak romance and the best season of the show. My god

Though I can’t say this kind of contrived botched unnecessary conflict and nonsensical “development” on the Adrienette side is new to this season. Adrienette stans were noting the Glaciator 2 -> Risk """"development"""" like "look! Marinette stopped seeing Adrien's sadness as an Opportunity to Win him and listened to his feelings! Character/Relationship development 😌✨" Except.... no. That wasn't development that ever needed to happen. Marinette was already capable of seeing Adrien's sadness way back in season 1 (Rogercop) and of caring more to see him happy than about pushing her own feelings on him (the scarf in Bubbler + being his 3rd wheel in Frozer). Then Glaciator 2 decides to introduce this asinine "Adrien is sad now's my chance!!1!1!" moment so that y'all can later pretend Adrienette had a development moment here when it REALLY didn't. That was literally not what was holding her back for the past 4 seasons. That was a solution to a problem that never existed in the first place.

The drawn-out “not being ready to kiss Adrien” conflict this season is a completely new invention too because guess what: We had Chat Blanc! We SAW Marinette was already happily ready to kiss Adrien in full view of her friends back in season 3!!! Pre-reveal Adrienette is repeatedly negating past characterization and past development and past established themes for its forced drama and Adrienette stans are shutting their eyes to that fact because uuwwwu cute Adrienette scenes!!!11!!!1

(And y’all know people can enjoy the scenes/think they’re cute while still disliking the plotpoint/writing surrounding it, right? Or is that still too complex a thought for this fandom)

The fear of rejection has been there for the past 7 years, ready to be tackled at any moment. Those of us that actually paid attention to Marinette’s character, and weren’t just projecting ourselves and our high school fantasies on to her like a lot of these pre-reveal Adrienette stans, were all waiting for it to naturally payoff with a Marinette confession scene, regardless of the outcome. Let her overcome that rejection sensitive dysphoria!!!! Oh, wait, nevermind, now that problem has been gleefully skipped over and apparently the REAL issue is that Marinette can’t kiss Adrien. Fucking Phenomenal. Marinette already knows Adrien loves her and was able to completely skip over the "overcoming her fear of rejection" part but she's still scared for some reason and everyone is going to pretend this is so compelling and soft uwu and not completely lackluster compared to the powerful character moment that could've been if she'd been allowed to confront this fear pre-relationship. The past 4 seasons of her trying and failing to tell Adrien how she feels were actually just more dilly dallying contrived runtime expansion because that issue was never going to be something she needed to overcome through Facing Said Fear, apparently. Adrien had adequate development in realizing he needed to drop the Cat-sanova schtick with Ladybug if he wanted to be seen for who he is. On Marinette's side of the personal growth and development? Crickets. She’s just a scared little animal who needs Adrien to handle it all for her uwu. She never needed to do any growing, it was always Adrien! Adrien’s Feelings were always the obstacle actually! It’s Adrien’s job to make this all happen! Fuck seeing our protagonist taking initiative and overcoming that seasons-long fear in a satisfying confession payoff I guess!

There were conditions under which I actually would’ve accepted pre-reveal Adrienette, like for example actually getting that confession scene, but the way it played out in canon flopped. I thought ML was following the Raimi Spider-Man plot, which it has been in many ways, but even those movies had Peter Reject Mary Jane after she finally realized she loved him, and only let them get together after his identity was revealed and Mary Jane was able to accept that Spider-Man and Peter Parker are a package deal. Here’s another example of an actual good school romance I’d choose over pre-reveal Adrienette every time: Sawako and Kazehaya. The pinnacle of sweet slowburn slice of life school romance. Kurumi, an actually effective romantic rival character, tells Sawako that she’s not worthy of being called her rival if she simply gives up and wallows without ever actually mustering up the courage to confess her feelings to Kazehaya. The love rival got rejected and got her heart broken, only to be the one who pushed the protagonist to confess, and then we got a beautiful, emotional confession scene where Sawako, despite all her shyness and anxiety, puts herself out there and pours her heart out and tells Kazehaya that she loves him, all Without Knowing Her Feelings Are Returned. It was powerful and satisfying and tear-jerking and earned and it put the reigns in our protagonists’ hands. Pre-reveal Adrienette flopped with this. Now I’m going to have to endure the fans acting like this half-season-long contrived drama/first time sex metaphor was the REAL issue all along and that it’s actually a well-written and compelling conflict. Now they’re going to pretend Marinette continuing to be afraid to confess and having to overcome that while already knowing Adrien loves her is in any way logical or satisfying. Who cares about seeing our protagonist take initiative and grow and be rewarded for it!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the same people who are rallying for this shit are some of the same people who’ve put Adrien salt on my dash and whine about Chameleon on a monthly basis because it was already clear from those salt takes that they clearly do not understand these characters. It was never about character growth for Marinette. Narrative themes never really mattered. It’s all about the self-projection. The people who are happiest about this are the Marinette kinnies who think Adrien needed to learn a lesson and Finally Notice and Appreciate NormalGirl Marinette and/or stop being “pushy” with Ladybug and learn his Lesson to blindly follow Marinette through all Chameleon-esque drama in the future. They love the idea of having that celebrity boycrush romance fall in to their laps with no personal reflection or growth on their own parts and they love their self-insert Marinette having an echo chamber entourage of friends that follow her blindly and never disagree with her if she has personal beef with someone. The inequality and double standard -- that Adrien's original crush was treated as the Obstacle that he had to Grow from and Get Over while Marinette's isn't -- isn't a problem to the Marinette kinnies because to them it's always everyone else's fault for not Appreciating or being Loyal Enough to Marinette of course. It was never about her growing. The real problem was always Adrien ~~~being too blinded by red and black to notice the cute girl behind him in class uwuwuww~~~ or however that cornyass cliche shitty fanfic line always goes.

Pre-reveal Adrienette has framed the rest of the lovesquare, and especially Adrien's feelings for Ladybug, as a simple obstacle that always stood in the way of the end goal of Adrienette, not a completed/fully realized square. Pre-reveal Adrienette decided that the entire point of the season 4 conflict was actually about making Adrien finally ~get over~ Ladybug so he'd ~notice~ Marinette. Pre-reveal Adrienette made it so Alya's entire role in Season 4 was actually just to get in-between Ladynoir to reach this end. Pre-reveal Adrienette started with the two of them bizarrely forgetting about the existence of their superhero best friends and ghosting them to get laid, which, seeing the later eps, was clearly just a summary of how this entire phase of their relationship is going to play out. Pre-reveal Adrienette bizarrely snubs the years-long plotline of Marinette's romantic feelings for Chat Noir after just 3 episodes of exploring them (even the Adrienette stans are relying on pure speculation of future episodes to justify this shit, you know, when they're not relying on their asspull argument that ladynoir stans just "think platonic relationships are less than romantic ones and it shows 💅🤪").

It’s hilarious to hear pre-reveal Adrienette fangirls vaguepost like “you’re just mad it wasn’t your favorite side 💅” when I’ve said multiple times that I would not have been satisfied with pre-reveal Ladynoir either because I Wanted to see that climactic Marinette confession moment and see Marinette’s fear of rejection handled in a satisfying way (and my dream for season 5 was to see all 4 sides openly simping), meanwhile it’s exceedingly clear these Adrienette stans are making a lot of excuses and hinging their defenses of pre-reveal Adrienette on pure speculation (lmao when their justification depends on future, yet-to-be-seen episodes being Better) and retroactively rewriting the past four seasons to ignore the abandoned themes and to tell anyone who doesn’t like it that they're just salty about their own side and were actually hallucinating all the blatant themes in the past seasons and to pretend this writing isn’t completely disjointed and nonsensical because they’re actually the ones who only care about seeing their favorite side be canon 🤷‍♀️

[verfound]

WIP Wednesday: 7/8/20

I was hoping to have this one done today, but...guys it was only Tuesday and had already been a WEEK.  The fic itself is fighting me, and life has been fighting me.  So here’s a preview of what I’m playing fighting with...

There was a nervous sort of energy thrumming beneath her skin.  An anxious buzzing.  Her sketchbook lay open and untouched on her lap.  Her pencil tapped an agitated staccato against the page, eager to move, to create, but…there was nothing.

There hadn’t been anything for a while now.

Marinette pushed out a breath in a heavy sigh and looked up, her eyes staring listlessly out across the lawn of the Trocadéro.  This place used to make her happy.  Before.

The Trocadéro breathed life.  It had always been an endless source of inspiration for her. She had lost track of how many hours, how many days she had spent on these very steps, filling sketchbook after sketchbook with countless designs inspired by the things she saw here

There, by the fountains, were the tourists taking a selfie.  Before, she would see their bright smiles and the play of water behind them and see swirling, dazzling skirts the palest shade of blue. André’s cart was parked at the top of the steps on the other side of the lawn, a line of couples already queueing for their Sweetheart Ice Creams. Before, she would see the lovesick expressions and think of sweetheart necklines, pale pink dresses that would burn orange in the sunset and glow white with the moonlight.  M. Ramier tossed breadcrumbs to his beloved pigeons a few benches away, a gaggle of kids giggling as they reached tiny hands into the bag to help.  Before, she would see a little hood with kitty ears, or maybe even a frog with wide, innocent eyes staring from the top of unruly curls.

But that was before.

This place used to make her happy.

Now, it just made her sad.

She had filled entire sketchbooks on these very same steps.  Before.

Now, she was struggling to fill a single page.

Before, she had hidden behind that column, waiting for the perfect opportunity to tell Adrien how she really felt.  And when he had actually offered her a ride home, she had blundered something about couscous and waved him on.  Before, she had sat in her room with the girls and plotted and schemed time after time how they would hunt down André and invite Adrien – a group outing with Nino and Alya, their best friends, so it wouldn’t be weird.  And when she had finally managed to get a Sweetheart Ice Cream with Adrien, André had given her one scrutinizing look, glanced at Adrien beside her, and dipped his scoop in the pistachio flavor before dropping it on the scoop of blackberry.  (She should have known then.  André always knew, and he had already told her her love would come with peach for his lips and mint for his eyes.   Adrien had never been a mint, anyway, and pistachio didn’t taste as good with blackberry.)  Before, she had dreamt and hoped of first dates and hamsters and three kids in a future that seemed so certain, if only she could speak.  And once she had finally spoken…

Loving Adrien Agreste had always been exhausting.  She didn’t know why she had expected that to change once they had actually started dating.

Her fingers tightened around her pencil, stopping the incessant tapping.  Her eyes burned, and she narrowed them in an attempt to keep from crying.  She wasn’t going to cry today.  She had promised herself that.

She looked back at the blank page, her pencil still hovering.  This was stupid. She had a job to do.  A commission…well, a favor to complete. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Adrien, not anymore.  She had wasted enough time thinking about Adrien the past few years.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.  She hesitated only a moment before pulling it out.

JC: Hey.

JC: How goes it?

Marinette bit her lip.  Her thumbs hovered as uncertainly as her pencil.  There was nothing for Juleka, either.

JC: Band practice 2day. U coming?

No.  She didn’t think she was.

…she hadn’t been to band practice in a while.

JC: It’s just Ivan wants 2 c the new costumes.

JC: …we all do.

Her page was still blank.

The showcase they needed the costumes for was only a few weeks away.

She had nothing.

Her phone buzzed again.

LC: ignore her. take your time.

Her gut twisted.

LC: we’ll still be here when you’re ready.

LC: our current costumes are FINE.

LC: no rush.

She was still staring blankly at the screen, blinking against the burn of tears in her eyes, when another message came through.

LC: …i don’t want to ask if you’re ok.  you don’t have to say.  you know that.

LC: …but are you ok?

She almost threw her phone down the steps.  Instead, she muted it and shoved it deep inside her bag.

…she was a terrible person.

She had been avoiding all of them: Juleka, Rose, Ivan, Luka…especially Luka.  It was easier to avoid Ivan, who didn’t go to the same school as them anymore.  It was harder to avoid Juleka and Rose when they shared most of their seconde classes together.  Luka was…harder, in a way, to avoid.  She went to his school now.  They didn’t have any classes together, but they almost always had lunch with him. She always felt his eyes on her in the hall between classes.  He hovered on the periphery, like her pencil over the blank page.  Close enough that she knew he was there and concerned, but always respectful of her wishes.

He knew she needed time.

He knew how guilty she felt about…

Just like she knew he didn’t care.

That’s probably what made it all worse.

She was the one who had chosen Adrien, even as she had been getting closer and closer with Luka.  She was the one who had kept Luka in the background, a constant presence in her life, between time spent at the Liberty, time spent with the band, and time spent just because they were friends.  She was the one who always went to Luka with her problems, simply because he let her and he cared.  She was the one who had taken advantage of that, in the end.

…she was the one who had broken his heart, even as she was breaking her own.  Even if he would never tell her that, she knew that to be the case.

She had never stopped Adrien from his open affections around the older boy, after all. She had never tried to keep Luka away from the disaster that was quickly becoming the Adrienette ship.  She was friends with Luka, and so was Adrien, so even if Luka was in love with her he would be happy for his friends, right?  That’s what she had told herself, at least.  That’s what she’d tried to believe, even as time drug on and she realized more and more that Adrien had never really been in love with her, anyway.  Not the part of her she needed him to be.

Things were supposed to be easier when they revealed their identities.  Instead, it just ended up being one more thing Master Fu had been right about.

Her hand fisted around the spine of her sketchbook again, and with a frustrated cry she threw her pencil down the steps.  She curled in on herself, hugging her knees and taking deep, steadying breaths.

Adrien didn’t love her.  He never had.

And she was starting to think she had never really loved him, either.

So why did it still hurt so bad?

“Marinette?”

She froze, her fingers digging painfully hard into her sides.  Probably hard enough to bruise.  She knew that voice.

…she had been avoiding that voice, too.

“Are ye all right, lass?” Anarka Couffaine asked, kneeling onto the step beside her and laying a heavy hand on her shoulder.  She was sure it was supposed to be comforting.

[icripod]

MLB SEASON 5 BIBLE SPOILERS/LEAKS!!

dont read if u don’t want to be spoiled!! im letting everything out after the cut!

okay so. curiosity got the best of me and i decided to read the bible. it was really easy to get my hands on so for those who want to avoid it, be extra cautious.

but boy am i glad that i read it now instead of having everything be a surprise at the end because i know i would have been disappointed. to start off, the most important and interesting aspects of the show such as chat blanc, the sentimonster theory, and the emilie/agreste backstory were not mentioned at all. the bible was a little vague, but not so much as to completely gloss over these parts!! makes me think they’re not going to touch on any of it at all.

the big deal about the agreste backstory and agreste “kitchen” were literally no where to be found, too. i know bibles are just outlines of what’s to come, but the bibles for the previous seasons included basically everything that had happened! i guess im a little hopeful, this means not EVERYTHING has been spoiled for season 5. either that or…they’re just dropping the idea entirely.

also can we talk about adrien never finding out his father is hawkmoth???? that’s INSANE. like absolutely disappointing and terrible writing. i hate to be harsh but honestly, who pitched this idea?? and who AGREED?? 99% of the fanfic i (and probably the rest of the fandom) consume is adrien finding out about hawkmoth being his father, and the emotional turmoil that comes after. AND maribug being by his side for it all!! the show is really pushing the idea of “you and me against the world” in the 5th and, what feels like, the final season. but how do they think they can execute this idea if maribug is going to keep such a big secret from him?? and yes— if your reading this out of context, mari will know gabriels identity and never tell adrien (adrien was not at the scene when it happened.)

and it seems the writers are taking the adrienette route in the romance department, but i was really hoping ladynoir would get together first :( they’ve definitely been through more together as superheroes, and i feel like it would really tie the idea of them against the world. & chat noir constantly saying he’d wait as long as it takes for ladybug to love him back, but then moving on to marinette, just makes his love for her cheesy and empty. that’s just me though, maybe im too much of a ladynoir lover. i feel like adrienette doesn’t really have much to offer. it’s too boring, if im being blunt.

another thing. im not a fan of zoe wielding the cat miraculous. alya with the ladybug miraculous— yes, i understand. zoe with the cat?? to give a secondary character who just joined the show in the fourth season the most powerful miraculous really waters down its importance to me. to wield a miraculous, it was established that u had to prove yourself, that u had to earn it (as alya had proven.) unless zoe does something insane before the mid season episode, i don’t like the idea very much.

i don’t want to rant too much about this because i have a lot to talk about. but I will say that im a little bit disappointed. the only thing that shocked me was marinette combining the cat and ladybug miraculous, and adrien never finding out his father is hawkmoth :( everything else, even the cliffhanger and all the lila drama, i didn’t really care for. in hindsight it all sounds pretty solid but i already KNOW the execution is going to be bad so for that, im bummed.

[inner-sakura]

Hypothetically Ever After

[childhood friends AU, adrienette, slowburn, fake/pretend relationship]

With only two weeks of summer vacation to spare, Marinette enlists Adrien’s help with a task of utmost importance.

“I need you to help me seduce your brother.”

Quite predictably, nothing goes according to plan.

a fic inspired by jennifer echols’s the boys next door, and starrycove​’s Brothers AU (where PV Félix is Adrien’s older brother) because both of them have lived in my head and my heart for many years. 

read the rest: AO3 | ff.net

chapter thirty-four

At some point over the course of the evening, Marinette managed to acquire a drink—a can of some kind of beverage she hadn’t bothered to read the label of. All she had cared about at the time was that it was unopened and blissfully cold. It served as a welcome relief from the heat, and had the added bonus of occupying her hands.

The can was sweating in her palm, condensation dripping down between the cracks of her fingers; a wet and unpleasant reminder of how sticky the air was, even though the air-conditioning was blasting in the house.

There were so many people crammed into every room that the A/C wasn’t doing much, helpless to combat the heat produced by that many bodies pressed together, drinking and laughing and generally having a good time.

Although Marinette was admittedly doing very little of any of those things at the moment.

Apart from the former... She contemplated the soda in her hand, standing alone in the far corner of the dining room. She didn’t particularly have the stomach for anything stronger, what with the heavy weight that had been sitting in her abdomen since her run-in with Adrien.

Marinette knew she should be doing something—checking on Félix, perhaps. Or maybe attempting to reconcile with Adrien, if that was still a possibility. Hell, even the idea of giving up and heading home with her tail between her legs sounded better than several more hours of standing in plain view, waiting for someone to take pity and talk to her.

A droplet of water rolled down her pinky, landing on her foot with a cold plop.

God, I have never felt like more of a loser.

Yet, instead of cutting her losses and running, Marinette remained rooted in place; just another decorative fixture against the wall, observing the party as it continued on without her.

She was in the middle of feeling particularly invisible and sorry for herself when she began to pick up snippets of the conversation happening to her right.

There was a group of about five or six teens seated around the dining room table, most of whom had been there since she’d wandered in. She hadn’t really paid them any mind at the time—too caught up in her brooding to register what they were talking about. They were loud, she’d noticed, and a bit obnoxious, but then again the ear-splitting volume of the music certainly wasn’t conducive to intimate, toned-down conversation.

Although she’d be willing to wager that the assorted bottles of liquor scattered around them weren’t helping matters either.

It was then, as she was surveying their makeshift graveyard of recyclable materials, that one of the teens leaned back, propping his feet up on the smooth, polished surface of the stately dining table. Marinette felt her soul leave her body.

What is this guy, some kind of barn animal? She recoiled, filled with horror at the sight. She had half a mind to march over and tell him to put his nasty feet back on the floor where they belonged, regardless of whether she lived there or not.

She stepped forward, only to freeze at the last second when the topic of their conversation finally registered.

“So anyway, I said to him, I was like ‘there’s no way you can do it, bro,' cause he’s such a wimp when it comes to heights. Then he tried to argue with me, getting all pissy about it. But in the end, he still wouldn’t go unless I did it first!” The guy with his feet up on the table threw his head back and laughed loudly, his perfectly straight pearly white teeth flashing against the deep golden colour of his skin. Marinette supposed that by most definitions he might be considered handsome, at least for those that were into that sort of Ken doll, Country Club aesthetic. In fact, everything about their crowd kept with the sort of meticulously groomed, manufactured attractiveness she had come to expect from the people in Adrien and Chloe’s social circles. Human flaws and physical imperfections were weaknesses that people with money simply did not possess.

“Was it scary?” The girl beside him asked breathlessly, blinking her wide doe-eyes at him. He preened under her attention, puffing out his chest as he tried to play it cool.  

“It was no big deal. I’ve done it plenty of times,” he sat up, leaning towards her as his tone of voice dipped into something more provocative. “We could do it together sometime... I’ll even let you hold my hand the entire time, if you want.”

The girl tittered, twirling a strand of blonde hair around her finger and shrugging her shoulders in a way that drew attention to certain of her… god-given attributes. His gaze fell, abandoning her face entirely in favour of her not inconsiderable bosom.

Marinette looked away, staring hard at the wall across from her, trying desperately to prevent her nose from wrinkling with disgust.

Please lord, end my suffering.

“I don’t know… It seems kind of dangerous, don’t you think?” Marinette couldn’t tell if this coquettish routine was actually part of some elaborate courtship display, or whether the blonde had genuine compunctions about whatever activity they were discussing. Either way, the dark-haired guy she was talking to clearly had hopes for the former, judging by the way he was looming almost aggressively into her space now.

“It’s a total adrenaline rush, unlike anything else. Better than getting high. Almost better than sex,” here he threw the girl a wink that in his mind was probably the epitome of seduction. Marinette wanted to gag.  

What a sleazeball.

Eyeing the doorway nearest to her, Marinette debated whether it might be better to retreat before tongues and hands started wandering to dangerous places. The couple closest to her and the rest of their friends clearly hadn’t noticed her lurking in the corner, but if she were to leave now, they might think she’d been deliberately standing there, eavesdropping on their conversation. Which… technically she had been. But that was more a result of necessity, rather than any genuine desire on her part. She hadn’t actually wanted to sit in on their swaggering and posturing and horny teenage mating rituals—she’d been backed into a corner.

Both figuratively and literally speaking.

Although truth be told, it wasn't like she really had anything better to do or anyone else to hang out with. She grimaced, the image of Adrien’s back disappearing in the crowd flashing through her mind unbidden, accompanied by a sharp pain.

“Make sure you put on a good show.”

Marinette shook her head, a vain attempt at dislodging the grip those words still had on her. That was not a path she could afford to wander down at the moment.

Desperate for a distraction, she tuned back into the conversation just in time to catch the tail end of whatever His Royal Sliminess had been saying.

“—it’s just bridge jumping, love. You’ll be totally fine.”

Oh my god, of course they were talking about bridge jumping, Marinette fought the urge to roll her eyes. Or burst out laughing. They fit the exact demographic of people she had come to associate with the activity. Young, dumb, and full of more hormones than common sense.

It made perfect sense, actually. In an idiotic, brain-dead sort of way.

How fucking dumb do you have to be? She wondered silently.

It was only when heads began to turn towards her that Marinette realized, with a rising sort of dread, that she might not have been so silent after all.

-x-

Surprisingly enough, the blonde was the first to find her voice.

“Excuse me?” She asked, her brows arching in disbelief. The wide-eyed ditzy look she’d been wearing moments earlier had vanished, melting into something harsher and meaner. Less doe-like, Marinette noted from a distant corner of her brain—one that wasn’t busy screaming bloody murder—and perhaps something with more teeth. And sharp claws.

“What did you just say?”

Marinette’s mouth went dry.  

Both the blonde and her dark-haired companion were turned fully to face her, their expressions flat and unfriendly. With her chances of escape reduced to little more than a pipe-dream, Marinette cursed her big, fat mouth and its tendency to land her in hot water.

She swallowed thickly. There was no way back now, which meant the only way out of this hell was to go through it.

“I said that it’s dumb. Do you have any idea how dangerous bridge jumping is?” When her voice came out steadily and without the slightest hint of a waver, Marinette sent up a silent prayer of thanks to every named and unnamed god in the known universe.

She went on, gaining confidence. “Not only is it impossible to predict what might be in the water below, but you have to factor in passing boats and other watercraft—”  

“Oh please,” the other girl scoffed derisively, rolling her eyes. The guy beside her glowered, his arms crossed over his chest as he tried to stare Marinette down.

“Have you ever even tried it?” The blonde asked pointedly, as though she already knew the answer. The people at the other end of the table were starting to look over now, clearly scenting the blood in the water.

“No.” Marinette gritted out reluctantly. I also don’t need to stick a fork in a light socket to know it’s a terrible idea. Some things just go without saying.

One of the other girls at the table leaned over, whispering in the blonde’s ear. Her eyes lit up.  

“Of course, you haven’t!” She giggled. It was not a friendly sound. “The Agrestes have their lapdog so well-trained she probably doesn’t do anything without being told to first.”

They were all laughing now, a herd of jeering hyenas taunting their prey. Marinette felt her face flood with colour, a wave of humiliated anger crashing over her.

Tossing her blonde hair with what appeared to be long-practiced skill, the other girl looked around mockingly. “It seems like they’ve gotten tired of you, though. They upgrade to a newer, less dumpy pet already?”

Marinette stiffened, her mouth moving before her brain could catch up with what she was saying.

“I could jump off the bridge if I wanted to.”

The instant the words left her lips, she wanted to take them and shove them back down her throat. Especially when she saw the gleeful looks being exchanged around the table.

Oh, this is not good.

“Is that a bet?” The first guy asked, smirking at her as he took a swig of beer. Everything about his posture oozed condescension; his belief that she would back out and flee with her tail between her legs apparent.

This—this buttheaded little shit! Marinette clenched her jaw, irritated that she was even entertaining their nonsense in the first place. Anyone in their right mind would have laughed in their insufferably smug, made-to-order faces and told them exactly where they could shove their challenge. Or they would have kept their wits about them and just walked away like a sensible, rational human being.

In the end, there were several reasonable courses of action available to her, none of which involved standing before a den of wolves, frozen in deliberation.

Because as much as she might want to deny it, Marinette couldn’t help but wonder whether a part of her had walked into this conversation itching for a fight—rubbed raw and confrontational after the last few hours of turmoil.

She was desperate for anything that might distract her from the fact that everything was falling apart, Adrien wasn’t speaking to her, and all of her best-laid plans and good intentions hadn’t done a particularly good job of paving the way to hell.

You don’t want to do this, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Adrien’s whispered.  

Her resolve hardened.

You don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t want anymore.

“It’s a bet,” Marinette said, reaching out to shake hands with the devil.

-x-

Naturally, it didn’t take long for everything to catch up with her.

“Of all the stupid no-good decisions I have ever made, this one might take the cake,” Marinette slapped at a tree branch, cursing when it rebounded and whipped her across the side of the head.

Screw stupid teenagers and their stupid challenges. She could be at home right now, curled up in front of the TV in her pyjamas, drowning her sorrows in a pint of ice cream. Or whatever it was that people were supposed to do when they’d had their heart broken for the first time.

Instead, she was traipsing through the woods at sunset, wondering how in the hell things had managed to go tits up quite so spectacularly.  

Continuing along the forest path, Marinette focused on putting one foot in front of the other, her thoughts rapidly cycling between stewing over what had just happened and berating herself for rising to the bait in the first place.

If she had any modicum of intelligence, she would turn around on the spot and head straight home. To hell with bridge jumping, and her pride, and every single extenuating circumstance that had led her up to this moment.  

And yet, a small, unwelcome voice pointed out, it will probably make for a good show...

Before the thought had even finished forming, Marinette was shaking her head in disgust. She ruthlessly tamped down on the voice, annoyed with her brain for having considered the notion in the first place.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted Félix’s attention anymore, let alone badly enough to risk life and limb for it.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!” She growled, clomping through the underbrush, angrily swatting branches away and fuming all the while.

If anything, her ire served as a welcome distraction from the dread that was dragging at her heels, each step that drew her closer to her destination falling heavier than the last. She was beginning to catch glimpses of the bridge now, brief flashes of metal and water peeking through the leaves.

Her stomach clenched.

If she wasn’t so busy seething, Marinette probably would have had the common sense to be terrified of what she was about to do. Realistically, she knew that people had been bridge jumping all summer, and no reports of injuries or accidental maiming had reached her ears.

Still, that didn’t make the sight of the old metal rail bridge looming above her any less daunting.

She gulped, her throat going dry as she came to a break in the trees.

It was too late to turn back now. Her pride was on the line.

Besides, even if she didn’t care about getting with Félix anymore, doing this might be the only way to get Adrien’s attention long enough for him to actually speak to her again.

It was stupid, and foolhardy, and unbelievably reckless.

And yet, as she toed her sandals off on the shore, Marinette understood with a startling sort of clarity—the kind that only came in the wake of a sudden rush of adrenaline—that it was absolutely, one hundred percent going to happen.

The distance doesn’t look that far from here anyway. I’m sure it’ll be fine...

A trickle of sweat traced the curve of her spine, settling at the small of her back.

Probably.

She shivered at the unpleasant sensation, stripping out of her clothes and down to her bathing suit as quickly as possible, not wanting to linger any longer than she had to.

It was obvious that people had been in the area recently. The path up to the top of the bridge was clear and surprisingly easy to navigate, even in her bare feet.

It’ll be fine, I can do this. Marinette repeated the words like a mantra as she climbed, willing her racing heart to slow.

Her determination had all but crumbled to ash by the time she made it onto the body of the bridge, however.

The old steel was warm under her feet. Luckily the platform wasn’t facing the direction of the setting sun, otherwise it would have been burning hot to the touch. Although even the thought of scalding the soles off of her feet seemed like a more appealing alternative to her current reality.

She risked a glance down, taking in the seemingly never-ending drop to the water.

Marinette wavered, nearly paralyzed by fear as she stood on the small platform, suspended on an ancient rail bridge some ungodly distance in the air.

Thankfully there was no one around to hear the sound of the great, heaving breaths she was taking.

“Okay—this—isn’t—so bad.” She managed to choke out, cursing her feeble lungs and the gods that had burdened her with them. “It’ll be f-fine. I can—I can DO THIS.”

Clenching her hands into fists, she tried to imagine balling up all of her fear and anxiety into one solid mass the size of a baseball. Then, she pictured herself biffing it across the lake, far into the mountains beyond. It didn’t really help.

The wind pulled at her hair, its inquisitive hands coiling around her ankles and stirring up the water below.

The shakiness in her knees began to travel up her legs, jangling all the way to the bone.

Marinette let out a strangled gasp, quickly turning her gaze to the shoreline, desperate to find some kind of anchor point.

From her position, she had a perfect view of the Agrestes’ backyard, and the party that appeared to be gaining, rather than losing steam. In fact, there were far more people outside than she’d expect to see; droves of them floating across the lawn and patio like brightly coloured bugs.

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Word had obviously gotten around about what she intended to do, judging by the turnout.

“Great,” she muttered. “One order of public humiliation, coming right up.”

Marinette scanned the groups dotting the backyard, searching for any familiar silhouettes. It proved to be somewhat of an exercise in futility though; the distance too great for her to pick out people’s features with any accuracy.

Even still, she couldn’t help but keep an eye out for any flashes of blonde among the crowd.

After several moments, she shifted her focus from any tall blonde-haired figures that may or may not appear, choosing instead to gaze off in the direction of the sleepy blue mountains bracketing the lake.

“How the hell did I end up here?” She asked them, letting out a somewhat hysterical laugh when the reality of her situation began to sink in. Her current physical predicament was the stuff of her literal nightmares, and yet it might actually be the least of her worries at the moment. Because the stretch of air below her feet was infinitely less terrifying than the possibility that she might very well be on the verge of losing Adrien for good.

Marinette choked back a sob, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth as she blinked the sudden onslaught of tears from her eyes.

I just want things to make sense again.

She wanted to go back to when things were more straightforward; back when she’d had feelings for Félix and not Adrien, and her mind had been consumed by thoughts of how handsome Félix was, instead of thinking about how much she wanted to hold Adrien’s hand, and how good it felt to kiss him, and how desperately she hoped she’d be able to find a way to fix things between them.

“What am I doing?” Her eyes fell to the lake below, as though it held all the answers she sought.

But it remained murky and vague; its waters entirely uninviting.

This whole situation was so stupid. She needed to return to the party, find Adrien, and tell him exactly how she felt. Even if he didn’t feel the same way about her, she needed to get it off her chest. She’d deal with the potential awkwardness and the heartbreak and all the other side-effects that came with an unrequited love later.

Because Marinette now knew, with absolute certainty, that the thought of losing Adrien Agreste was worse than confronting even her worst of worst fears. She would rather face down a thousand-metre freefall than the possibility of an entire lifetime without him in it.

Not having Adrien in her life in some way was simply not an option, she decided.

Emboldened by her newfound clarity, Marinette turned, intent on making her way back down to solid ground.

Only to be met by the wall of black clouds that was rapidly descending over the lake, hazy with rain and flickering with lightning.

Her eyes widened.

“Oh fuck.”

-x-

[adrinoir]

Lukagami is still a good ship (Determination is proof)

Wow finally thought of something to write lol

DISCLAIMER: I have NOT watched any episodes beyond Kwami’s Choice: Pt 1.

***

So, I have been rooting for Luka and Kagami to get together for quite some time now. I did not see enough chemistry between the Adrigami and Lukanette ships, and I think Lukagami getting together would be so interesting, even more so after watching Determination!

Why? Hear me out.

Handling Marinette & Adrien

So, it’s been made pretty obvious these two are stuck in the middle of the whole Adrien likes Marinette and Marinette is now denying her feelings for him situation. But the funny thing is, BOTH of them CHOSE to be a part of it. They didn’t have to be but they are.

Luka encouraged Marinette to meet up with Adrien one-on-one and then went with her for extra support. Kagami did the same thing with Adrien. They both want them to get together and keep egging them on and getting involved in the process.

So, they have similar ideas and ways of handling the mess that is Adrienette lol. I appreciate that they did the same thing but in their own ways. It makes them work well together. This all brings me to my next point.

Being able to read Marinette & Adrien

Okay so their first conversation in Determination was *chef’s kiss.*

These two have this common trait of being able to read people - or at least people they care about - really well. The first conversation Luka and Kagami had one-on-one is pure proof of this.

Let me reiterate what was said:

Kagami: Adrien’s problem is that he doesn’t realize his feelings for Marinette are love.

Luka: I think it’s because he’s a kind and generous person. He loves everyone and everyone loves him back. He’s lost in a jungle of love - he can’t read the signals Marinette sends him.

Kagami: That’s true. Learning to read Marinette’s signals is a complex endeavor. It took me a lot of time.

I love how well they explained Adrien and Marinette in the matter of just a few sentences. Imagine if Luka and Kagami spent more time together. I feel like they’d have no issue figuring each other out and would be able to have deep conversations with one another.

Opposites Attract

Other than the couple of similarities I mentioned, Luka and Kagami are very different from one another. But that’s perfectly okay! As the title for this section says: Opposites attract!

In reference to Determination, just look at the difference in how they carry themselves and the different ways they encouraged Marinette and Adrien.

In this episode, Luka is his usual soft-spoken self. He has that tiny bit of a push when he talks to Marinette about going out with Adrien, but it’s not much. He mainly uses his comparisons to music to get her to understand why talking to Adrien one-on-one is so important. He didn’t make it sound like it was going to be a date, but just a meet up so she can get to know Adrien better. Plus, he didn’t push to go with her, he decided to once Marinette asked.

With Kagami, she was extremely pushy. Kagami is very direct in everything she says. So, her way of going about it had the same intentions but was approached very differently. She made Adrien ask Marinette out. Adrien was the one who switched it around to make it seem as if it wasn’t a date. He explained to Marinette over the phone that his feelings of have changed but doesn’t know in what way, and then simply asked her to simply go with him to the Grevin Museum. Kagami didn’t like that and kept directly saying throughout the episode that he loves her and is experiencing jealousy (when he saw Marinette and Luka together). Also, she immediately insisted on accompanying Adrien because she didn’t trust that he’d know what he was doing.

All that being said, this would create a good balance between Kagami and Luka if they were to date. Kagami would be the one who’s direct, Luka would be the one to soften the blow. They’d give each other different perspectives on things and have interesting conversations.

I’m just imaging if they ended up together how the confession would go. Kagami would say something like, “Luka, I’m in love with you. We should go on a date.” And Luka would be like, “That’d be great. I feel we have such different melodies, yet they sound beautiful together.” Or something even more romantic, like how he confessed his feelings to Marinette in Silencer. 

Determination aside, in other episodes involving Luka and Kagami, the differences are pretty obvious, too. In reference to my first post about Lukagami, Luka is very laidback and dismissive, his mom lets him do what he wants. Vs Kagami can be very uptight and deals with a strict mother that keeps her from doing a lot of things she enjoys. If you wanna read more of my reasons, click this to read my other post.

Anyhow, I like the possibility of this ship. I think it’d be interesting to have the two other love interests end up with each other instead of the main characters. HOWEVER, I do still love the headcanon idea of Kagami being a closeted lesbian who loves Marinette. Both ideas are great.

[generalluxun]

Fanfic Author 20 Questions

Thanks to @erisluna35 for sending this along! 1. How many works do you have on AO3?

On AO3? Right now 63, soon to be 64(tomorrow probably) and a couple on FF.net

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

1,020,860 on AO3 plus another ~86K fic I never ported over to AO3, as my 'recent' stuff, starting back in 2021

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Miraculous Ladybug, I did others a long time ago before joining AO3, but that was a long time ago. I've considered a couple others recently too, but nothing yet.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

At The Gala- A Chlonette fic inspired by fanart, and actually the sequel to my #2 by Kudos. This is just a cute series of strange interactions with Chloe from Marinette's PoV, culminating in understanding and discovery on a fated evening.

Slippery slope- Little Chlonette ficlet inspired by a fanart. Very short, it's about how a single unexpected moment can change someone's entire world.

Ever After- A long chapter fic set more than a decade post-canon that looks into the idea that 'Ever After' can be a long time, and that expecting life to be solved at 14 is a recipe for eventual disaster. Yet at the same time life continues to offer new experiences, new possibilities, and new ways to grow. Ships include Adrienette, Chloadrien, and Felinette.

Showing Love- An alternate ending to Queen Wasp, where instead of reuniting Chloé with her horrible mother by highlighting everything horrible about her (seriously, what?) Marinette comes face to face with the reality that a mother really *can* not love a child. Being Marinette she can't let such a thing stand, even if it is Chloé. Marinette&Dupain-Cheng family goodness.

What Do you See?- Adrigami fic that kicks off right in the middle of Kuro Neko. While Adrien is struggling with the pain of giving up Cat Noir, one thing crosses his mind. He can finally give one important person the truth she deserves. After all, he *Was* Cat Noir, not *is*. The two both struggle to navigate the ramifications of this revelation, especially when Plagg shows up once more with the ring. (there's a little bit of eventual Lukanette)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to respond to most, especially any questions or curiosities. I love engagement.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh heck this is so not fair. I am in love with bittersweet ending, and have a couple of doozies.

I can't decide between three.

What Happened- The 'real reason' Chloé Bourgeois's redemption arc failed. What do you di when you do everything right, only to find out your happiness causes the end of the world, in every timeline?

A Modest Proposal- Marinette is happily impatient for Adrien to finally propose to her. Little does she know, a secret long kept is going to come back to haunt her. It's worse than you think.

The Risk Outweighs- A look into someone else's life during the episode 'Risk'. The courage to do anything finally gives Chloé the strength to break from the cycle. But the Ladybugs must set things right, and a few moments of clarity weigh nothing against a lifetime.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, lots with happy endings, though I prefer 'open' endings, so...hmmm

Cafe Noir- has an unambiguously happy ending, but I specifically set out to write a romcom so that feels like cheating.

Dog Daze- probably has the most comprehensively happy ending, Adrien's dad even managed to try to parent. They do go through a lot on the way to the happy ending though.

In Direct Opposition- My latest work, seems to end on a solidly happy note for all involved.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Ever After drew some upset people that expected their OTP to be the main ship. I never tried to deceive anyone, but a few people were just really upset.

I also had this weird thing where someone thought I was someone else, and stalked my comments for a while. That's why I use moderation now.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've done M rated fics. I'm not sure 'smut' works for them, even if there's lots of sex narratively, it's usually mentioned rather than being detailed. I did one single 'this will be a smut fic' fic. And even that ended up with like, 5K words mostly plot, and about 2 paragraphs of (I think emotional and important) sex.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nah, I've never had the crossover itch. I generally find each world intriguing enough on their own.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of...

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep! I had someone ask if they could translate one of my fics to Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope. Talked about it before, but never went through with it. Not against the idea. I do a lot of rubber ducking for my friends though, so some of my ideas can end up in their finished fics.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I'm going ot have to go with adribrina, my goobers. I like exploring all kinds of ships, and these two I threw together on a whim but Oh, they're so comfy! I wrote Puppy Love to see how they would work, and then that evolved into Dog Daze, my Largest work to date. I had *intended* for them to amicably break up and Sabrina to be a wing-woman to Adrien in the canon ship of Adrienette.... but they just did not want to break up. Even if they wouldn't admit they were dating, they were just too *comfy* together. These two make me happy. (Marinette ended up okay though, she's happy!)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

A third fic in my Senti-Sentai AU. 'Worlds Collide'. It was set in 'vague eastern Europe country in the middle of violent conflict' and then that suddenly got too real, too quickly.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voice. I write third person limited, and I've been told many times that I do a very good job of writing characters as their canonical selves, just in different situations that bring about different outcomes or changes in them. I consider that a high compliment, because the characters are what I am here for.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Brevity. Even simplistic plots 'enemies to friends road trip' become detailed 'Marinette manipulates Chloé into chasing Adien and Lila across the globe to prevent Lila from wheedling an arranged Marriage out of Gabriel' and then that blossoms into a 98K fic.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I feel like my last of understanding grammar and colloquialisms for another language would have me sounding like bad google translate. Singular words used? Viable.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

SWATKats. My first ever fanfic was a 30K fic about that show.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

They are all my babies! This is so not fair. I've spoken about some of my favorites earlier though, so I'll use this spot to mention some other ones :)

He's Perfect- Gothic Horror Adrienette! It even has a sequel and an entire AU in my head if I can circle back.

The Orphan and the Marionette- Written to feel like one of Grimm's fairy tales. Chlonette(kind of) with a heavy dose of magic and a surprise appearance from Marianne.

There are so many more but I'll plug Dog Daze again, because I to like how it flows and the alternate S5 we get from it. It also inspired a raft of 'post story' one shots, and I have another chapter fic waiting in the wings to continue the AU. There's plenty of stories to tell here.

@taketwoinink Tag, if you would like to play.

[carpisuns]

listen. as a marichat stan, i know—i KNOW—that there will not be any kind of actual plotline revolving around marichat. i know that. it is a side ship of the love square so we will get a moment here and there and that's it. i get it. i accept it. that makes sense. as much as i dramatically complain about it lol, i really am fine with it

but also as a marichat stan, i can't help but be a little sad that we will never see what that dynamic would really be like if developed. i totally get that the writers have a certain direction they're going in that does not include marichat, but i truly feel that if they did go in a a more marichat-heavy direction, it would be SO SO GOOD. and that friendship would really strengthen the other sides of the square and kind of bridge some of the gaps there. allowing marinette to get to know her partner and adrien to get to know his good friend a little more intimately, from a different angle.

btw this has nothing to do with "true selves" (me no likey) and everything to do with opportunity. plopping two characters into a set of circumstances that makes them both comfortable and careful at the same time. where they are already friends but have to be restrained about it to not give themselves away. a context where adrien can see marinette without her getting nervous and flustered, and where marinette can see chat noir without the pressure/distraction of akumas and the emotional weight of past rejections.

i get the sense that some people just don't see the point of the IDEA of marichat because why does it matter, since we have ladynoir and adrienette and they are getting to know each other in those dynamics? and I feel like some people think that marichat being friends would somehow take something away from ladynoir and adrienette(?) but it wouldn't be a replacement—it would be an addition. it would add to their understanding of each other. make their walls come down just a little bit more. and sure, love square development can and will happen without marichat, but i feel that if marichat had a part in the conversation, the development would only be deeper and richer.

I think it’s very telling that even in the very few marichat interactions we’ve had (literally like 7 total, I’ve counted haha), we’ve had some of the deepest emotional connections of the show. I know people are sick of hearing about the glaciator balcony scene and think it’s way overhyped lol and you have a point there but also there is a reason that scene was so important, not just to marichat but to the square as a whole. That was the first time Marinette ever saw chat be vulnerable in front of her. And what was it that made her fall for adrien? His vulnerability. His softness. His kindness. and then she saw how her over-the-top, flirty, wise-cracking partner was actually lonely, how he was heartbroken, how his love and his desire to be accepted was genuine, how despite his own heartbreak, he reached out and offered her a gift—a token of friendship—exactly the way he did when he gave her the umbrella. she saw his softness and his sweetness and his gentleness and we saw how she reacted to it. how it made her realize that she’d read him wrong and that he had sides to him she didn’t know about before. And that only made her see him and appreciate him more as a partner since then.

for adrien, the balcony scene allowed him to be honest in a way he didn’t feel he could be with ladybug yet and that he definitely couldn’t as adrien. who knows how that ladynoir scene at the end of glaciator would’ve gone if he hadn’t seen marinette first. would it have even happened at all? chances are that she wouldn’t forgotten about their little date or figured that he was joking about it anyway and wouldn’t show up. That scene where she so gently and honestly turned him down was so important for ladynoir, and it probably wouldn’t have happened without marichat to set it up.

Really, that’s the point of marichat to me. We all know that adrienette and ladynoir are the flagships of the square so I wouldn’t expect or even want marichat to overtake them in canon. but it can be used to bring them closer together. although I’m always grateful for crumbs like puppeteer and befana and bakerix, the best canon marichat is the marichat that actually has an impact on their relationship as a whole. Like in weredad, where chat’s love for ladybug was kind of tested, and she was both surprised and relieved when he was honest about his feelings. and his relationship with marinette was also tested, but he never stopped fighting for her and proving what she means to him, even as a friend. at the end of the episode he openly gave her praise and affection and she received it with the same soft, secret look we sometimes see ladybug giving chat noir when he’s not looking. And in the end she is the one that opened the door for future friendship by saying, “Just because you and I aren't in love with each other doesn't mean that we can't be friends.”

weredad set it up. the groundwork for a more established marichat friendship is right there, ready to be used, if the need ever arose. if it was a little random/unexpected for him to drop by that first night in glaciator, it would certainly be a lot less strange if he did it again, after everything they went through together, after she told him they were friends. ofc balcony hangouts and video game tournaments are an overused marichat fanon trope now but what if that friendship actually did develop in a similar way? I’m convinced that if they actually spent time together, their friendship would level up so easily that it would surprise them, the way you can somehow become like best friends with someone you just met if the vibes are aligned just right. and wouldn’t that just make adrienette and ladynoir stronger? wouldn’t it be a bridge? reverse crush is imo already in motion and has been for a while but marichat would only accelerate it and once it’s strong enough that they have to acknowledge it to themselves, in combination with OG crush….oh man. that’s the good stuff lol

of course, marinette’s new guardianship complicated things a lot more now and it seems pretty clear from the direction season 4 is going so far that any marichat that happens (if at all) will probably be a small crumb that is pretty meaningless in the overall arc and that marichat will not be used in that way to develop the other sides. and like I said, that’s totally fine. I get it and I’m not actually salty lol. I genuinely enjoy the writing of ML and I’m excited for how it will develop, even if there is no more marichat at all.

I just like thinking about the what ifs and how maybe in one of the other timelines bunnyx can see, marichat does play a role, and it is glorious 😌

[miraculouscontent]

Kagami and Marinette deserve so much better.

Anyway, let’s just start literally where this episode starts, because it makes no sense. Remember back in my “Truth” critique where I basically said that the episode seemed like it’d been shoved through multiple drafts and no one checked the final one?

Same applies here.

Like--okay, ”Truth” and “Lies” take place at roughly the same time, which means that the same filler akuma/sentimonsters appear to interrupt Adrimi’s moments just as they did with Lukanette’s, giving its audience a clear timeline of how the episodes line up. The reason this is important is because the writers can’t even keep consistency within singular episodes and then honestly thought that they could do it within two.

“Lies” begins with Marinette talking to Tikki about the grimoire, because apparently she has the non-translated version and there’s a secret to figuring out the code that Tikki believes Marinette will discover eventually.

...Alright, I’m derailing here but I have to add how absolutely stupid Fu was when dealing with translating the grimoire. He was supposed to teach Marinette how to be guardian, yet he didn’t teach her how to read the grimoire (if there’s supposedly a “secret” to it, is he really going to bank on Marinette figuring it out herself eventually instead of just giving it to her and avoid the risk altogether??), kept the translated pages on his tablet without sending them to Marinette as he deciphered them, and took time to write a letter to her in “Miracle Queen” but left no guardian-centric advice for her to work off of, meaning that Tikki had to explain how the Miracle Box worked to Marinette back in “Truth.”

The show goes out of its way constantly to turn everything against Marinette even if it makes all the characters around her look either incompetent or cruel. It’s not that I’m not used to this by now but it’s just infuriating that it keeps trying to raise the stakes and tension when Marinette made such a tiny mistake to cause the issue in the first place, and now we find out that Fu had no back-up plan or strategy, apparently expecting this 14-year-old girl to act perfectly and cover for him.

And of course, instead of leaving the scene off on Marinette being encouraged by Tikki and Marinette showing confidence in herself (i.e: what would’ve been a nice scene), the kwami accidentally fumble with the keyboard in such a way to have Marinette’s computer bring up  a news story about Adrien, which leads to Marinette leaning towards her computer and sighing over Adrien and his “amazing life.”

Can I just point out how annoying it is that all the Adrienette moments so far on Marinette’s end have been forced, not just in general (because we’re used to that), but literally forced by the plot so Marinette would talk about him or other characters would bring Adrien up?

“Truth” had Alya insult Marinette to her face over her Adrien crush because Marinette was freaking over something non-Adrien related that they couldn’t have known about, Luka was sent a no-context picture of Marinette’s Adrien wall which led to him lowkey teasing her about it, and then Truth was forced to listen to Marinette’s friends and Tom babble about Marinette’s supposed crush on Adrien even when Truth points out that it’s not a secret, making the “joke” fall absolutely flat.

And now “Lies” comes along and has the kwami drop things and step on the keyboard in the exact way to pull up Adrien stuff for Marinette to fawn over. It’s at this point I’m realizing that - had the kwami stayed inside the box or just not been around in general - Marinette literally wouldn’t have brought up Adrien at all in either “Truth” or “Lies” and now I’m sad. I really don’t want to have a counter for “episodes where Marinette wouldn’t have so much as breathed Adrien’s name if the kwami/someone else wasn’t there to force it.”

So yeah, the episode had to force Adrienette into its Adrimi episode because the show can’t go five minutes without reminding the audience that Adrien exists even though this episode is primarily from his point of view, made worse by this scene’s lack of ability to exist.

See, from the timeline in “Lies” lining up with “Truth,” there is no possible way for this opening scene with Marinette talking about guardian stuff and then fawning over Adrien to happen. There’s an akuma scene in “Lies” that literally is just copy-pasted from “Truth” (it actually does this again with another scene later but that’s not important right now), so that means anything that takes place before said scene in both “Truth” and “Lies” have to line up.

Except they can’t. The akuma scene in question interrupts Marinette’s movie date with Luka in “Truth,” and before that, she had just opened the Miracle Box, wrangled up the kwami, talked to the girl squad over video call, talked to Luka, and then immediately had to leave. There are no cuts or wiggle room anywhere in there.

Therefore, the scene in “Lies” is impossible. Either the scene is supposed to go elsewhere in the episode (we don’t actually know how many days it takes up so it’s hard to say on that front) which just makes the episode even more convoluted, or this means that one would have to pick between the scene in “Truth” and the scene in “Lies” because they literally cannot co-exist.

“Lies” was supposed to coincide with “Truth” and they messed it up in the first scene of the episode.

Then comes Adrien himself, who really shows the series’ clunkiness in focusing on other characters. It’s not that I’m against the show moving away from Marinette to show other people’s point-of-view (I definitely didn’t complain during the Couffaine sibling scene in “Reflekdoll”), but Adrien cannot carry his own episode.

In Marinette’s opening scene, we immediately got details on the grimoire and lore about how reading it actually worked. I didn’t like it and it wasn’t good, but it was new information.

Adrien, meanwhile, spends a large portion of the episode being sad (a very grand and unique plot, my dudes) and giving us information we already know. “Truth” has to come first because “Lies” is half of a follow-up on it, meaning that the audience is already aware that Ladybug has been forgetful and has had to miss out on patrols. It’s just that now we get to see Chat Noir sulking about it and--okay, I am just going to go off, alright?

Firstly, Chat Noir tells Ladybug later on that he “understands” her guardian duties, but he previously mocked her behind her back by using air quotes when he was talking to her answering machine (since she obviously wouldn’t see that). We saw in “Truth” where he admitted that he doesn’t mind her being guardian “as long as it doesn’t change their relationship,” and that’s on display right here with his comments.

Not only is it extremely disrespectful, but for someone who claims to be so loyal and understanding to Ladybug, he sure doesn’t show it.

Secondly, he leaves her a message about how he’ll take care of patrol, then proceeds to slack off because she’s not there to keep him in check. He sulks around Paris, mumbling about how Ladybug isn’t around and constantly checking his messages to see if she’s replied to him. Chat Noir has shown his “priorities” in terms of heroism before, but patrol isn’t supposed to be about getting time with “““his lady”““ yet that is clearly all he cares about. He even ends the patrol unprompted, either giving up or just generally having not finished, because I don’t believe that the “end” of patrol just happened to be at the place Kagami was.

Patrol is about protecting Paris and scoping things out. Ladybug is trusting him to pick up the slack when she’s not around and he should be picking up slack, yet he has completely failed on that front. This is made worse when considering that the Season 3 finale had Ladybug breaking down to him from guilt and we know that Marinette had a breakdown before that to Luka, yet Chat is doing nothing to lighten Ladybug’s burden, putting up a falsehood on Ladybug’s answering machine to make him look better than he actually is.

Then, thirdly and most importantly/infuriatingly, Chat Noir knows that Ladybug is busy and he knows that she’s taking on a new responsibility, yet he not only jabs at her for “how hurtful it is when she leaves him to patrol alone” (one, cry me a river, and two, I don’t care if it’s a joke, it’s insensitive), but before that scene, he was actively hoping for people to get akumatized so Ladybug would be forced to show up and he could spend time with her. He egged Xavier Ramier on, even asking him if he “missed being Mister Pigeon,” and then looked on with glee as Chloe bullied Sabrina because he thought that an akumatization might happen.

And this is on top of so many other issues with this whole scene. Adrien complains all the time about his schedule and how restrictive his father is, but suddenly - in the episode right after Marinette had to break up with her boyfriend due to her cramped schedule - is lounging around and wasting time. It hurts to see Marinette suffering from all of her responsibilities while Chat’s biggest problem is how little time he gets with Ladybug.

Also, another point on Mister Pigeon is that that’s the akuma that had interrupted Marinette’s movie date and kiss with Luka. I’m not suggesting that Chat egging Xavier on led to him getting akumatized, but I am saying that Chat wanting akuma to happen with no regard for Ladybug’s happiness is yet another point on the list of why I hate the love square. Marinette genuinely forgot about patrol with him - genuinely was forgetting about everything, really - and as a “punishment,” her own partner whined, didn’t patrol properly, and egged on an akumatization that eventually ended up happening which then broke up the little bit of happiness that the universe was allowing her to have.

Oh, and did I mention that he’s also dating Kagami at the time as well because here we freaking go.

Now, I did not get on Marinette’s case for her Adrien wall and stammering because Luka is largely aware of where she stands in the relationship and she only brought Adrien up when someone else did, even when Luka wasn’t around or being mentioned. Adrien, however, I have multiple bones to pick with, starting with how utterly needy he is for Ladybug’s attention.

This guy has tons of friends, all these fans, and could get people to flock to him whether in or out of the mask, but he wants Ladybug, and anyone not Ladybug isn’t good enough. There’s a scene later in the episode where Kagami - his girlfriend, mind you - is pouring her heart out to him, and he gets distracted by Ladybug instead of listening to her. Even when he excuses the distraction, he then gets distracted again even though Ladybug is no longer in the background.

Lying to protect his identity is one thing, but what Adrien does to Kagami goes beyond that. He’s pining after and flirting with another girl and Kagami has no idea. She’s speculated before that Adrien likes Marinette, but she’s mostly left in the dark because Adrien hasn’t told her anything, nor has he confirmed with her whether it’s okay or not for him to flirt with other girls so long as he’s not pursuing them. He could’ve admitted that he was in love with Ladybug but that he wants to try things with Kagami, but he refuses to open up to her or put himself out there.

Except, he technically does, once, when Kagami tells him to pose for her and he strikes his transformation stance, but he caught her completely off-guard and it’s no wonder why she was put off by it or thought it was unnatural. Not only that, but when Kagami tells him that he’s acting like a clown in that scene, we can see by jumping back to “Truth” that Chat Noir fished for Ladybug’s compliments which then led to a line about him talking about how Ladybug enjoyed him acting like a clown; a direct connection.

Kagami didn’t validate him, so he fished for Ladybug to do so because Ladybug was both forced to answer the question and wasn’t able to lie to him. The show has Ladybug state that her most preferred trait of his is his humor but I am certainly not laughing.

Chat Noir even goes further after the fight with Truth (so another copy-pasted scene) by saying that he has the most fun with Ladybug specifically, and this is all while he’s still dating.

Then this guy has the gall to talk during his break-up about how his fun times with Kagami weren’t lies after apologizing to her for his constant lying, as if he’s trying to earn her sympathy when we know that he’s been pining after Ladybug and flirting with her like she were his number one when he already had a girlfriend waiting for him (and who, by the way, had covered for him earlier and was sitting sadly on a staircase outside, feeling abandoned). The episode presents the break-up as if Adrien’s problem was the fact that he had to constantly lie to Kagami due to being busy with hero work (which is already dumb when we also saw him lounging around and complaining about how nothing was happening, meaning he was inadvertently supportive of the idea of having less time with Kagami and more time with Ladybug even if that means Paris is in danger), but the real problem ends up being that Adrien neglected Kagami emotionally and wasn’t able to give her the attention she wanted.

It’s both sad and annoying that Adrien has always sulked about his dad not paying attention to him and then we get Adrien not paying attention to Kagami, looking for Ladybug when Ladybug had already left and Kagami is trying to tell him something very important.

This is what I mean when I say that Adrien can’t carry an episode on his own. He’s incredibly selfish and most of his dialog just involves him complaining about Ladybug or making excuses. Kagami carried the episode more than he did because more details were revealed about her - specifically the fact that she likes drawing - and she’s active in making things happen (being the one to make the excuse to set up their fencing lessons, deciding what they’ll do with their hour of free time, etcetera).

And regardless of what girl he’s interacting with, Adrien can’t respect either of them. I just talked about Kagami and I’ve already talked about how he treats Ladybug when she’s not even around, but now we get to how he treats Ladybug when she is around.

During the climax of the fight with Lies, where Ladybug requires a distraction to safely pull off her lucky charm, Chat Noir decides - without Ladybug’s input - to sacrifice himself yet again.

I have to stress that Ladybug is stressed and Chat has always talked about her plans and listening to her, yet he has a horrible habit of making decisions all on his own and letting Ladybug deal with the fallout. Whenever he has the chance, he’ll throw himself in front of her and take the big hit, presumably with the mindset that Miraculous Ladybug will fix everything so it’s not like it matters.

Ladybug even shouts at him when he hints at what he’s about to do and there was absolutely time for them to talk about it, but Chat Noir just lets himself fall and be bait, even throwing out what is a clear confession (again, while he’s still dating someone else) before he’s knocked unconscious by Lies’ power.

And when Ladybug yells at him for it when everything’s said and done, pounding at his chest and looking absolutely upset over the whole thing? He not only brushes her off, but he boops her nose and talks about how “irresistable” her “angry little pout” is.

He might as well have just said, “you’re cute when you’re angry,” because that’s exactly what he’s implying; that Ladybug’s anger is something “amusing” to him and not something he takes seriously. We’ve already seen it before in “Reflekdoll” and “Oblivio” as well, so this is just a continuation of already-annoying behavior.

Then, instead of Ladybug getting even angrier for it, the episode has her smile at him, which not only isn’t a normal reaction compared to how she’s reacted before, but now gives the impression that she’s being conditioned by the narrative to accept Chat Noir’s behavior in whatever shape or form it takes.

Because think about it: regardless of how upset Ladybug gets over Chat Noir, it never works out for her and she’s forced to either make up with him quickly or just get over it because she can’t be fighting with her partner (meanwhile, like in “Glaciator,” Chat Noir can be as upset as he wants and she’ll apologize first). She presumably would now have the authority to take away his ring by virtue of being guardian, but he’s also been her partner from the beginning and he’s had so much time to get used to the cat. Most likely, she would sooner blame herself for failing to reign him in than blame him for failing as an adequate partner.

There’s nothing she can do. She has to deal with the hand that she’s been dealt and getting angry at him has done nothing; rejecting him has done nothing.

And of course the episode throws everything under the rug in the ending with an insulting LadyNoir scene where Ladybug and Chat Noir talk about the secrets their forced to keep but also how they can trust each other.

Meanwhile, Ladybug has no idea of all the things Chat Noir has done behind her back. She still has no clue about “Copycat,” nor “Syren,” nor any of the stuff he did in this episode that she’ll probably never know about. Factor it in with “Miraculous New York” (whether one considers it canon or not) where she rightfully shouted at him because he betrayed her trust, and here we are one and a half episodes later (since “Truth” and “Lies” take place at similar times) where suddenly they’re all buddy-buddy and Chat Noir doesn’t have to deal with any consequences to his selfishness.

I’m glad that Kagami didn’t forgive Adrien in the end (even if I’m upset that she doesn’t know how bad it really was) because she had every right to walk away and not want to be friends with him. I only wish that Ladybug could do the same thing and never look back, but due to the love square’s status as endgame, we know that can’t happen, and Ladybug will eventually be forced to fall in love with a guy who mocked her responsibilities behind her back, disrespected her authority by opting to tease/flirt with her, continued pursuing her despite her rejections, and hoped for Paris to be in danger just so he could see her.

And... yeah, that hurts. It really does.

[toujoursmiraculous]

Thoughts and Reaction to Guiltrip!

Alright, so this one is a bit more of a serious one for me. But I'll be going in order of the episode so the more serious talk will be a bit further down! First thing we get is this lovely moment:

I've already addressed it in a post, but I'll say it again here. Guiltrip is episode 11, several episodes take place before Guiltrip that we haven't seen yet, so this is awhile after Marinette and Luka broke up. We also know that Marinette has always had feelings for Adrien, even when she was with Luka. Luka always knew that fact too. None of this is new and is to be expected, obviously, when Love Square is endgame. But! I also want to point out here that this is just a soft look. Very gentle, very common. I see people looking at each other both in real life and in other shows all the time. A look that says "I adore you". And I think it's sweet! Very subtle, but enough. Something's wrong with Rose. We never get told (in this episode anyway) what it is, but it's a chronic illness that's a worry in Rose's life, ever since she was young. I feel really bad for Juleka, knowing that her friend's been struggling with an illness, and whenever something happens she has to worry about it alone. Also that really sucks when you try to cheer somebody up and make a joke, that because you were mislead about a situation you end up making things worse. Poor Marinette. :c Adrien when he realizes he's bumped into someone (and the pink bubbles to remind us of Marinette's feelings for him):

Adrien when he realizes just who it was he bumped into!:

Scroll up now and look at how Marinette was looking at Adrien earlier that day. It's the exact same look. Yet, something feels different from usual to me, idk. But continuing on. Marinette gets slightly jumbled with her words, but manages to give herself a kick and says nope not now! Good for her! You can't expect to change overnight, but she's working on it.

She looks to the side, gathering her surroundings for a split second and she misses the top step. I'd like to say that this is just a joke for the show but well, this kind of thing has happened to me a lot because I'm that much of a klutz so I feel for her here. (On Halloween I forgot that there was another step as I was walking down as I wasn't paying attention. I couldn't walk on my foot for 2 weeks. It's a serious problem, guys. Really. xDD) Marinette had told Adrien she's concerned it was something she said that upset Juleka and Adrien tells her while sometimes she doesn't make sense, what she says is never mean. This scene reminds me of when Ladybug's worried about something and Chat Noir's there to keep her grounded and remind her of how things really are. I very much appreciate seeing such a scene with Adrienette! Makes the Love Square much more rounded. Also the way he stops her and says let him go talk to her to try to help the situation and any possible misunderstandings from taking place. ;-;

Can I just say... oh my gosh. He went from determined, to hearing Marinette trying to comfort her, to looking with confidence "This girl is amazing." and the whole Ladynoir vibe I'm getting from this scene makes me happy. The thing that's unrealistic about this scene though is you expect to tell me that 8 kids went down those stairs and came up behind them and Marinette, Adrien, and Juleka didn't hear? XD Now here's where the serious comes in. Rose is hospitalized with an illness we don't know about, but has been a long-term thing that has Juleka really worried a lot. That must be so stressful :c I'm going to be honest and say I never really saw Julerose romantically. Like I can see how people do, but to me, I could see that their bond was really unique. It didn't really fit completely in the "BFF" category either. But if felt like there was more to them that I didn't really understand. I think the best example off the top of my head was during Zombizou, when Rose was going to help Chloe after she slid down Chat's stick and she went too fast for him to catch her. Juleka seemed especially worried and concerned for her. Rose never seemed to get concerned about Juleka in the same way Juleka was about Rose. Juleka's always been more protective and worried and it was always one of those things that made me go "hmm, interesting". Now this episode finally explains why and I'm honestly super glad for it. Because this kind of a relationship is not a common one in media, especially kids media. Partially because having such serious illnesses in young people is not particularly common, and having someone who's so caring and protective of that person is even less common. And most people probably don't realize how amazing it is to have health problems and then have someone in their life who acts like Juleka does for Rose. I had a life-threatening illness as a kid, one that still affects me greatly today. When in school, my friends knew about it without me having to say anything unfortunately, and while they didn't usually treat me differently, sometimes they were pretty ignorant and didn't understand why I wasn't "normal" like them. They asked questions that were harder ones to answer, and tended to forget my answers. I got a lot of "I know you have X problem but I still don't see why you can't..." as well as thinking I was lying if I said I wasn't well and couldn't go to a party, and that was hard to deal with, being limited in what you can do which makes you different and being judged for things out of your control. So seeing these kids who only know something's wrong with her, but are willing to do so much to make her life better and happier, not judging her at all, wanting to take care of her no questions asked was really heart-warming for me. I only had one friend during that time that was anything close to this. I never had to explain anything to him if I didn't want to. He never asked me personal questions I didn't want to answer. And he seemed to know what he could do to make things for me easier if I was having a hard time without me ever saying so. And this is another reminder to me that this show is aimed at kids. To show kids that they'll likely encounter someone around their age that's going through something serious like a health problem, and what that kid needs most is kindness and not to be made to feel like they're even more different from the other kids than they already feel. The way they handled that aspect of it for such a short, limited intro to it, I think they did good. I discussed this next bit with a friend. She mentioned it first, the trope where those with chronic or serious illnesses are usually an "inspiration". With this episode, you kind of get the feeling that because Rose's been through so much, she's therefore a really positive and bubbly person and it kind of gives off the vibe that if you don't view things the way she does, then you're not doing it right. "What matters isn't the problem, but how you handle it." While I agree with this, and that when you come out of or regularly deal with

such hard times, automatically trying to see the world better and brighter can easily happen, but it's not exactly realistic either, at least not to the extent Rose and other people the media has portrayed. For one, I think you have to have always been more of that kind of person from the start to realistically be so positive. As my friend said and I agree, positivity is just who Rose is, she's not who she is just for the sake of a trope. But honestly, when you've gone through something so difficult, and if life continues to throw you more difficulties on top of it, being positive so much can sometimes turn into a negative and be harmful too. When you've been through a lot, it's important to allow yourself to feel the negative too because it's part of dealing with such problems. And if you've been through a lot in life and you haven't come out of it being all sunshine and rainbows, always looking on the brighter side of things, that's perfectly okay. Life's hard and tends not to work out how we'd like, or even for the better sometimes. If being positive and hopeful after struggling is hard to do, you're not bad or wrong for feeling that way, everybody handles things differently. c: ANYWAY, moving on to the rest of the episode! Juleka being all irritated and worried that the class was going to expose her spilling Rose's secret xD While the situation isn't ideal, it's nice that this is the most involved she's seemed with everyone in the entire duration of the show. But Rose knows something's up, and I love that she talks to her about it and realizes that she should've told everyone herself instead of Juleka being the only one who knew. Which has been such a burden on her. (Oh no, what if this is a reflection of Alya knowing Marinette's Ladybug later on? I'm hoping not.) Ugh these children and how much they care about Rose! These kids are the absolute best. But then they kind of ruin it a little with going overboard. Which, frankly, I think is just ignorance of her situation really. I mean, we don't know what exactly is wrong with Rose. Just that she ends up in the hospital. If they knew about her condition, what causes her to get sick, what to look out for, etc, they'd be much more informed and much less likely to be frantic whenever something's not perfectly "normal" with her. All of these kids are going to be overprotective parents someday, aren't they?

Okay so like... are Adrien and Marinette going to question at all how Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up immediately after Juleka was akumatized, and no damage had happened outside of the school for it to be known to the public? Literally the only ones that could've possibly known were the class to have shown up that fast. ??? I am confusion. "I can't help my best friend face his father." "No, Nino..." Two things: The fact that THIS is what he's feeling guilty about? My poor Nino! Dx I just love him, he really doesn't get enough love and appreciation imo. Also, um, isn't Ladybug like right by Chat? Didn't she hear that? What? Idk but I feel like we're really missing something here. Usually we get things that are kind of hints, that make us wonder if they know right, but this? This is a bit too blaring-in-your-face, and there's two major things so close together. Really strange. Chat about to use Cataclysm on himself. Good grief that was not expected. Chat Blanc threatened to destroy himself along with everything else. Now Chat Noir while affected with negative emotions from an akuma almost Cataclysmed himself. This show really is getting deep and dark isn't it. o.o Also is there something Adrien needs to work out with someone...? Daizzi and Rose saying the other's so cute, ugh they're both so cute! And Pigella's costume and transformation is so adorable omg. Okay so Pigella's power allows people to see their biggest wish, the thing that'd make them the most happy and feel positive emotions. I know some people probably think "That's it?" Considering that Shadow Moth preys on people's negative emotions, such a power is actually extremely useful facing Shadow Moth. (And let's not forget, that while that's her power, she has the ability to fight and make a difference just from being transformed too) BUT AWWW Juleka's wish! And her face when Pigella said it aloud. ;-; Am I the only one wondering if Pigella may someday use her power on Shadow Moth and that's how they learn his motive? I'm so impressed with how Rose knew how to handle everything. She knew she can't slip up with Juleka. She knew to sneak away to detransform and come back as Rose. She knew to subtly give the Miraculous back so nobody would ever know she had it. Even Chat Noir had no idea! I don't know why, I'm just so very proud of that. "She doesn't need a Miraculous to be a superhero." She really has the characteristics of one, and I can't wait to see more of Pigella. Also I'm really wondering. This scene here:

All the kids that are part of that friend group are there...except Marinette and Adrien, of course. Alya knows why Marinette isn't there. But is she wondering about why Adrien isn't there too? LOL Marinette being like "I'm taking your pillow back, sorry! Gotta wait for it like everyone else." and the boys being like LE GASP. Marinette's right, she's not fragile! The fact Rose jokes with her and makes everyone laugh, and Chloe saying "Hey, why doesn't everyone laugh when I say something like that?!" Adrien: Because in your case, it's never a joke. Chloe: Hm, that's true. Which is super funny, especially how he just so casually says it. But also it really shows again how Chloe wants to be liked. She wishes the kids would laugh when she makes comments, but it's because they're said in a serious/obnoxious way, instead of making light of something like in Rose's case here, that they don't. I know she talked about it with Ladybug in an episode, but it again shows that that's what she'd like. All that needs to happen is someone helping her get there. Maybe Zoe and Luka will somehow help with that later on. Anyway, this was a really great episode! I feel like some things might not make quite as much sense as they should if we got it in order, but what can you do when Gloob has to air them? Even a friend of mine who's been doing what she can to avoid spoilers, still got spoiled. She's having to delete tumblr to avoid future spoilers because people can't help themselves and tag things properly. So thanks Gloob. :P All we wanted was the episodes in order. We've waited this long for S4, we can wait a bit longer. But they gotta make money I guess. I'm glad other countries are trying their best to keep it in order anyway. c: Guiltrip also has some really great Adrienette moments, and covered a more serious topic which was really interesting and shows how much the show's changing. Especially with some of the choice of camera angles and movements! Like the zoom-in on the door with Adrien and Marinette, the boys LE GASP scene. Very cool artistic choices! Looking forward to the episodes that come before this one to try to help fill in some of the gaps! And apologies to those that frequently read these posts from me, I started writing it up late and couldn't finish so you get it the day after instead. xD

[imthepunchlord]

My vote goes towards Scarabella and Boombay as well as Ninette and Kagalya. For the hero setup, I like the idea of Alya being the one on the receiving end of canon’s “lessons” and Tikki’s means of calling her out since, as you said, she’s the one who needs it the most out of the two, and I’d really just like to see her get a building reality check on what being a forefront hero really means and how to truly value what others’ opinions are from the get-go, since it would definitely take longer with Plagg and the Cat Miraculous. And her plans in battle not always working perfectly would show her that she’s not always right quicker with public consequences, while her already-present aggressiveness is still needed for battle in a situation where taking your time building it up isn’t really desirable given the current magical terrorist situation. On Nino’s end, having the Cat gives him the space to actually grow in aggressive combat since he’s not at the forefront, and I’d argue that having a more careful and protective use of Cataclysm at first would actually be a good thing, especially seeing how callously it gets used in canon in various degrees. And I like the idea of him and Plagg butting heads sometimes, especially since the relationship would still be amicable in the end and bring out more of Nino’s responsible and active tendencies to push back against Plagg’s antics. Concerning Kagalya and Ninette, I would love to see these rare pairs being written cohesively in a drawn out story, the former for multiple missed opportunities of those two interacting in any meaningful way in canon and the multiple ways their strong personalities can play off of each other, and the latter because we never actually got to see Nino’s crush explored in favor of the LS or DjWifi, and it would be interesting to see how their canon personalities would play off of each other in an official relationship. And speaking of DjWifi, while I definitely trust that you would be able to make it work without making either of them OOC, the canon tendency of Alya driving the whole relationship, for better or worse, Nino’s moments of going off and doing his own thing or jumping to conclusions behind her back/without consulting her, and the whole premise that whoever holds the Ladybug and the Cat Miraculous always end up together romantically have really just created an admittedly bitter taste in my mouth for them being a couple, ESPECIALLY in a universe where they have the Ladybug and Cat, and I’d rather see a genuine friendship and partnership form between them on both sides of the mask.

Thank you for the input!

For the last bit with DJWifi, I can totally relate. In terms of characterization they seem to get worse. Nino sadly became even less of a character and Alya's whole world seemed to be Nino and getting Adrienette to happen. She was barely even pursuing LB anymore (which made Anansi feel late as she wasn't doing this as often).

I will say, I have slight bias against them, but even s1 days, I wasn't relaly for them and Animan didn't help in that manor as they felt just shoved together with no proper development or growth. I think I could've been won over but not with how canon went about it. I'll admit I've always leaned more for Alya with another girl than a guy in truth.

And yeah, these days, the idea of LB and Cat always being a romantic soulmate pair, given the situation these days, it can easily leave a sour taste in one's mouth. I'm also joining the idea of soulmates being made not something that's set upon birth.

Soulmates can become official with work and dedication, and I like the idea that there's potential for soulmates in others than just one specific person. And I'd love to explore platonic soulmates as nonromantic relationships are just as important. Sadly they don't get as much attention as they should.

Either way! Thank you for your input!