#for an episode all about romantic love it sure did have a very aro positive vibe like
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round of applause for the aromantic sentai of all time
#for an episode all about romantic love it sure did have a very aro positive vibe like#none of these guys really know or understand what romantic love even is#and none of them are sad about the lack of it in their lives#even the girls are allowed to just be like 'wow cool concept :) not for me tho' do you unDERSTAND#literally all agri is doing is using it as an opportunity to tease (typical big brother behaviour)#alata loves his friends and wants to be friends with everyone and thats literally what falling in love means to him and i#thank you goseiger#is master head god?? maybe
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Three of Hearts episode 17 live blog
(this bitch has spoilers)
On sabbatical from my impromptu career in marketing, and also (sigh) life, here's another liveblog! The first one on tumblr, the platform where I am somehow even more unapologetically long winded
@threeheartscast
OOOH another flashback I love these. Getting to know spar before clovenheart is <3. Of course it's malicious compliance that's the best type of compliance.
Ooooh I gotta love a seedy literal underbelly. I'm excited to listen to that quiet year series omg.
Okayyyyy I see that moody lighting we've got going one 👀👀👀
ALL THREE AT ONCE IF YOU ARE EXTREMELY SKILLED
Invite only altered people club is so rad.
Scales and tails notes for future me writing a very particular sort of fanfic
Note to find out how to spell yaccab's name right for that fanfic LMAO
GOD I love spar. The puring for the table, the going out to have fun and going it by acting like a host. He's such a people person in a way that's like....Shepardly? OH like a herding dog! Not so much that he's forceful but so much that when he's got you marked as a friend he's gonna make sure you're ok make sure you're okay make your you're okay, your good? OKAY GREAT!!!!! :D
And it's so lovely and wholesome and warm and I'm glad it's a dude filling that sort of role. As much as I love my sexy hostess with the mostest trope, accommodating individuals come in many flavors and genders!
OMG YACCAB IS SO NICE IM SO GLAD SPAR HAS A FRIEND LIKE THAT
Okay writer brain is telling me that while I don't think vellum is TOO straight laced to go here...... hmmm these notes will NOTE be posted yet
(I would've listened to more of the episode by now and maybe gotten to 18 if my brain didn't go on a HARD left turn after that. Know that the live in liveblog means "with many, MANY pauses")
Spar is like "hmm. I moved away from my tribe of people like me. Unacceptable. I'm gonna adopt everyone in this shady ass establishment" and yk what I respect that. Queer life goals.
Let a man get drunk without interruption, oh my god!
I realized "Yaccab" might be "Jacob" and I am... a perfectly intelligent English speaking person! But monolingual.
I don't like this dude for ruining the party. He's probably fine but. Still.
The dynamic I'm imagining between Spar and Jacob is like...Not friends with benefits, but not NOT friends with benefits. Sex-positive, queer, and close enough to where they're super physically comfortable (he was literally on his lap lmao) and they may have kept eachother company once or twice! But like. I'm thinking of that dynamic that is sort of "our relationship is neither platonic nor romantic not queer platonic but between all of those things, and I want you to find somebody but I consider it my responsibility to decide if they're good with you" type beat. Yes these posts are very often me taking notes for myself later. Ah to be free of the twitter character limit.
"....that's fucked up." THE WAY I HOLLERED. Yacob (final awnser) is so confused and spar is so drunk lmao.
OH WAIT IS YACOB AN EX? idk I mean previous statements still mostly count.
I'm too aro for this shit— I don't care how much characters kiss I deadass forget traditional romantic situations are like. Possible.
Why does spar keep giving YACOB responsibility 😂😂😂😂 narrative brain is saying "Setting up to spar trusting vellum with Anya or sorrel n them/paralleling when he sort of did fighting jasper" the part of my brain that wants to put my blorbos in my mouth and chew on them like the word "intellectual" was never invented is going HAHA. SHEEPDOG!
Ah yes the classic Italian stereotype: possessing fancy hats
Jordan introducing the folks in this room as "two women and a man" is THE most gendered sentence that I think exists in this podcast and that is VERY funny to me
*fanning myself* There is something SO admirable about a man with convicti— HES GOING FOR THE DOOR LMAOOOO
"I know what I wanted to know now" my deeply embedded distrust of gms (as a runner-of-games who also loves to get up to nonsense at the first opportunity)has alarm bells going off a bit
OMG VELLUM IS HERE NOW HI HI HI!!!!!
OH MY GOD I love little cute scenes where characters met before they like met, if one or both parties forgets it I call them "meet moots" because they meet and nothing happens JFKSVSLDVSKDVKZ
I mean yeah timbleton has gotta pursue hell lose his job and probably get arrested.
I was about to be like "vellum fuck your bosses stop staying late RISE RISE RISE!!!" and then I remember vellum kinda owns the place dushdgoddb SO DO SOME SELF CARE AND SLEEP, DUMMY.
"yeah I'm fine are spars first words to vellum" oh ouch but cute
NO AGENTS HERE DKSVSODVSOSVSO OH MY GODDD this. This is. This is very cute. NOT SPAR INTRODUCING HIMSELF AS GAMBLER. vellum sounds. Confused but endeared (BECAUSE WHO WOULDNT BE) but ENDEARED!!!!
Vellum is so cool. WOULD IT BOTHER YOU IF I STAYED WITH YOU. AWH.
Bestie if he pushes the key under the door anybody who comes past can open the door.
Spar said "idgaf I can fuck I fucker up, do it all the time, try me"
VELLUM WAITING WITH HIS SWORDCANE AFTER GAMBLER HAS PASSED OUT ON THE FLOOR IS SSUUUUUUCHHHH A GOOD MENTAL IMAGE
OH THEM FLANKING THE DOOR WITH TWO SWORDS IS GO GOOD ALSO
BUT THUNBLETON MY MAN WHAT THE FUCK
YACOB IS HERE!!!! OMG FRIEND! Oh my god I love him.
OOOOOH AND VELLUM IS HERE TOO TIMBLEICBDMD IS SOOOO FUCKED.
POV: you're thinininininnton and vellum is pointing his rapier (I imagine that when he presses the button to unsheathe it an intricate collapsible golden guard springs out) at you're throat is something I wanna draw SO bad that is SOOOO cool and sexy and rand but wayyyy out of my ability right now. It will live forever in my brain (also my list for 3o♥️s stuff to draw is sooo long )
(also I shouldve guessed those people were shady they had one-word genders)
Yacob saw spar running and was like "guess this is my life now!" What a real one.
HE PULLS OUT A FLASH. KIIIIIING SHIT. Spar kisses him...but...but are they.....whatever dlegdkvdskdvd
Also I feel like grey for sure has that eye. Or diamond had the eye and grey has the gem now.
Efficiency-opsec brain getting really excited about the idea of vellum adjusting security protocols....I fucking love protocols.
Oh Vellum honey maybe don't go interrogating the single most secretive person with the most open desire to kill you.
"do you need somebody to take you there?" 🐑🐕
OH SHIT CATS. I miss destiny
I feel like Arabella is for sure in that lighthouse
YOU TURN TO LOOK AT THE WIGHTHOUSE AND YOU SEE THE PRESIDENT JXOSGSODHSODHDIDH
OH. AWH. VELLUM GETTING FLUSTERED WHEN HE'S APPRECIATED THATS CUTE BUT HE DESERVES ALL THE APPRECIATION AND TO BE USED TO THIS!!!! BUT ITS STILL CUTE!!!
BFKSGSKDVS VELLUM GIVING THIS TEEN AN EVEN SAFETY LESSON ♥️♥️♥️
Look like I Respect Meraphina's biomancy, and I respect her ability to use it for healing while also being very skeptical about the role of magic but like .... I disagree with the "don't bring magic back" thinking. If YOU have access to it it's clearly still there. Better for the world to recon with it as a whole then to have it available to some mysterious small number of folks only. Idk. Maybe my opinion on that will change but :\
OH. OH MERAPHINA LIKES HIM NOW? ....COOL!
They're still in cloven heart...hmm. in the lighthouse? This is probably related to preparing something big for bridge since they were all jacks.
"you dont just give things freely" somewhere in town Brunhilde has started frowning
OH. OH THATS A DAMN GOOD JOKER PLAY. WOW. WOW!!!! THOUGHTS. IMPLICATIONS. WOW! Now she can't kill him lmao
Anti-thaumatera is wearing Mayor Thorne as a glove puppet
"everyone in cloven heart at the time the spell was cast" diamond? Didn't diamond arrive soon after?
LOL ok so she'll still kill him
Midtro dance midtro dance
[ID: several repeats of the same very low quality image of a strange silhouette, humanoid but with a head that is too long from nose to ear, feet planted apart, arms out, and butt back, almost as if halfway through a squat. It is black on a white background. End ID]
Ooh Arabella can't do magic. Good to know.
"diamond took care of that" ALSO good to know
Okay but like...jasper...I can see where they're coming from
"he is posted up scanning the river and trees for potential assailants" the sheepdog joke will stop being funny when it stops being relevant and that is no time soon.
DESTINY WITH BRUNHILDE, THE TWO CUTEST CHARACTERS TOGETHER MY HEEEART
"that is definitely where I would be sneezing" 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
"they are both committed to this...to this Investigation"
OKAY BUT TATI AND ANYA COULD BE SOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE. I'm glad I'm not the only one that hears this. Tatianya....though I prefer Anyati
I didn't know tati was altered!
Edit: yes I did, what? Just forgot
...hmmm stowaways.....Arabella would probably be a much stronger presence probably. Xoechi and Joaquin maybe????
VELLUM NOT THINKING ABOUT THEM BEING ALONE BUT I FOR SURE WAY
JOSEPHA DID FUCKING NOT.
BEZTIE LIKE FUCK OFF
If you're trying to get money from the Harrington's for a good reason you could consider just ASKING
ABNFOEVDMD OHHHHH IT WAS TATI.
Girl I love you so much but you are like one week from the world's best full time jobs with the world's most eccentric investor like you'll be fine.
VELLUM'S FLIRTING LMAO
to protect him...
IT WAS GREY!!!! I FUCKING KNEW IT.
Still bestie it is NOT hard to guilt your niece into going to a blood drive you're setting up and like yoinking that shit. The drama! Unnecessary!!
Unless she's doing something super secretive and vellum might suspect that the blood being related to grey at all makes his behavior weird........HMMMM. HMMMM!!!!
I just KNEW tati was about to make that joke
Maybe grey is being Ransomed by a third party who wants vellums blood for some reason and she can't ask him for it because she knows the third parties goals go against vellum's morals and that the only way for them to be happy together after the third party does whatever thing with vellums blood he disagrees with is for her to pay for other people to get the blood so vellum assumes they were involved at all?
Like protection and ransom feel like good grey motivations to be but idk
BLOOD MAGIC?
okay okay maybe not.
Yeah because if grey was REALLY their employer it means that she doesn't have working for him as an out anymore really ...
Spar it might buy you time but it might also put you in danger. And there are possibly worse forces looking for the blood of altered people for expiriments!!!!! Though....well supplying it to them isn't actually doing any harm it's it's conventual since their goal isn't harmful? Well arabellas isn't but....UGH!
This blood drawing scene feels...intimate?
I was right!!!! Just some teens having fun going on an adventure.
BDJSGSJDGDKDBim imagining spar doing full manly-frown lean-on-the-banister stern older brother, vellum starting to smile when he sees the teens (because they're NOT Arabella!) Looking at spar and then going ahem yes. Serious. I am serious now.
Okay yeah but your mom's said no because diamond is a person of interest in a fucking KIDNAPPING
Ah yes the feeling vellum will feel upon spars death is surely "disappointment"
I really hope there's some really crucial information in the couples party djdgskdbd.
THE EYE?????????????? OH DAMN.
That was a really good one. No conclusions I am very tired now. Lots of love goodnight
#edil chats#after a long hangry day an episode was just what i needed#three of hearts#three of hearts pod#edil liveblogs three of hearts
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Will never be done thinking about Margaret Houlihan
I really did think that Margaret getting to where she is now would take another two seasons, and I cannot say I’m mad to see it happening so fast. It reads in-universe as if there’s a dam just burst and she’s completely unable to stop all of those big wonderful parts of her from spilling out, even if she tried, and she’s finding to her surprise that people�� like her? When she lets them?
Now all that’s left is divorcing her husband, which I have been spoiled will happen, but was calling anyway. And does anyone else read her as aromantic? She wants emotional and physical closeness, but I keep thinking she does the romance portion of it because it’s the only version of that which is “allowed.” She overthinks propriety constantly, while also constantly being drawn to illicit relationships. She “falls in love” at a drop of kindness and connection, but she wasn’t actually in love with Frank I don’t think, nor is she in love with Donald so much as what both of those men represent/what she could potentially become through those relationships (and the baby episode just underlined how much all these disparate parts of her aren’t “allowed” at the same time in the society in which she lives -- maybe in another time she would like to be a mother, but her whole identity is built around her life in the army and the respect she’s finally getting for the very hard word she does... could she be a housewife? absolutely not), and she certainly wasn’t in love with Hawkeye for the brief second she convinced herself they were an item. She really has that [gets a morsel of positive attention] “is this love???” feeling to her, which is very common with aro people.
The other read is of course that she could be a lesbian, and now I’ve seen her interacting with One Female Peer (since she always keeps herself aloof from the nurses, because she doesn’t allow herself friendship, because she’s supposed to be a leader/example and therefore not a “real” person to them) I can absolutely see that. But I do project aro onto her for sure. Aro-lesbian?
Think mostly I just see that all as another element of her complexities that she doesn’t let herself show and none of it is set in stone, because it never would have been. I could see her as sexually attracted to men, seeing as she certainly seems to be attracted to masculine attributes, although, again, usually seems to be more about what these men represent – safety, military, hierarchy, Masculinity As Is Normative But Then She Always “Out-Masculinity’s” Them/she REALLY enjoys her own masculinity when she lets herself (often in the bedroom), generally correct-attraction – and with Hawkeye it could easily be read as simply warming to him and trusting him and having been vulnerable with him. What else is she supposed to do? Not read that as sexual and/or romantic attraction?
Complex.
And I think a part of why I enjoy hers and Hawkeye’s dynamic so much is that they both have a very easy-to-read interesting relationship to gender, sexuality, and romance. Dare I say it… queer kinship? (and when they were enemies it was of course during the time when Margaret was repressing anything like that within herself, so naturally Hawkeye would have been perceived as an enemy -- I’m thinking that being seasons 4/5 Margaret at Hawkeye, because of course early seasons Hawkeye had some sexism to unlearn and I cannot blame her at all for disliking him, but he did also always represent some dangerous thinking that she could never let herself fall for as well)
(and now I’m liking the idea of Margaret being attracted to Hawkeye’s queerness.............. queerness attracted to queerness is such an underrated underrepresented concept)
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*rubs hands together*
The first thing to talk about with this episode is the pacing, and I think this might contribute to why people think it’s the best/least bad of Season 4 (personally, I’d rather watch “Furious Fu” but that’s just me; also, this isn’t the only contributing factor as to why I think people might feel this way, but I’ll get there later).
The episode has a very serious pacing issue, particularly with its more intense scenes. There’s only one minute of time dedicated to Ladybug landing on her bed, de-transforming, and her snapping at her friends plus them leaving. More time was spent on Chat Noir and Ladybug in the movie theater and Ladybug storming out.
I particularly remember watching the episode and getting eighteen minutes in, at which point I had the realization of, “It feels like nothing’s happened?”
This episode is supposed to be a big gut punch, but the season has been going by at the speed of sound, like they’re trying desperately to play all their cards at once (Lukanette break-up, Adrimi break-up, then Alya is told Marinette’s secret identity). Instead of letting things build and play out for a while in the interest of suspense, the show just throws whatever will get a big reaction out of the fandom (whether positive or negative) and it doesn’t care how shoddily put together everything is. The first two episodes feel like hastily put together drafts, and while this one is technically more put together, it still feels like a draft.
Let’s just start with Chat Noir, who feels completely out of place in the episode. Not only does he imply that he intentionally calls Ladybug “Bugaboo” (which she has told him to stop doing) in order to get a reaction out of her, but when Ladybug insists that she doesn’t want to talk, he tricks her into thinking that he has a good location to do so (and my heart breaks a little at how readily she trusts him) only to then take her to a romantic movie, then shush her when she calls him out for it because she “said she didn’t want to talk.”
Gee, and people wonder why she didn’t tell him her secret (even outside of “Chat Blanc” existing)?
And... look, I know it’s a joke, but I do not find it funny. The “joke” is basically that Chat Noir is taking advantage of the situation to flirt with Ladybug, and though I find it at least mildly cathartic that Ladybug is unaffected by all the people staring at them while Chat Noir is embarrassed, this episode is coming right after the one where Kagami broke up with Adrien, and here Chat Noir is getting his flirt game on. I already talked about all my problems with “Lies” so I won’t do it again, but I’ll just say that it’s not a mystery why Ladybug doesn’t want to talk to him and would rather avoid her problems.
(Not to mention that Ladybug knows that Chat Noir likes her, so talking about her romantic problems with him is awkward to say the least and would come off as insensitive.)
Honestly, at this point I feel like they must be building to something with Chat, like Ladybug finally going off of him with no mercy and that forces him to give up/fall out of love for her because reverse love square, but if that’s what they intend to go for, then that means Marinette is going to fall for this guy who’s repeatedly disrespected her feelings for multiple seasons, almost abandoned her and let Paris drown because she wouldn’t tell him a secret that wasn’t hers to tell, and just generally all the other things he did????
Ugh, I don’t wanna think about it. Let’s just move on.
Talking about Ladybug and her rant next, it basically summarizes the whole show in a nutshell, but simultaneously casts a shadow of sorts over “Truth” for people who maybe missed the episode entirely (which is also sort of the show in a nutshell). I mean, Ladybug confirming to the audience that she was genuinely in love and happy with Luka (you can’t watch how depressed she was over the break-up and not think that) was great, but Ladybug’s dialog implies that Luka “hated secrets” and that’s why they broke up, when Luka was more just... hurt that she couldn’t be honest with him, and he didn’t actively hate secrets. Marinette broke up with him because she felt like she had to; because she had to keep ditching and lie to him.
In addition, what she says also hints to the audience that they’ve both held and kissed each other, which not only indicates cowardice on the part of the staff (”yeah this happened but--um--off-screen; we’d still like credit tho plz”), but may perhaps go back to the theory I had about how Adrimi and Lukanette were supposed to last longer in Season 4 but their arcs got cut (based on the Adrimi kiss having supposed to have gone off). This could mean that Ladybug’s statement was originally accurate to canon but the scenes got cut and the scriptwriters just awkwardly left it in, which is made more awkward by the cinema scene in “Truth” that felt like Luka and Marinette were kissing for the first time (again, alluding to the whole, “this entire season has been a draft” thing).
Also, if you think about what that actually means - that Luka and Marinette did have successful dates and kisses but they were off-screen - then all it adds up to is that showing Marinette happy and comfortable was something that the series didn’t deem as “interesting/fun enough” to show, because Marinette being happy isn’t something they want to see; only watching her be miserable, which is exactly what Ladybug says, along with how everything was “almost too simple, too easy,” because Marinette isn’t allowed to have nice things without being jammed through the wringer first.
And... sure, let’s say that Chat Noir thought the movie was genuinely a good idea; let’s assume that it could be a joke, him wanting to flirt, and him believing that it’d make her feel better somehow.
If that’s the case, then where’s the apology when it fails miserably? Ladybug goes from her semi-anxious state at the start of the episode (a little scatterbrained but ultimately just looking for a distraction), to outright enraged by the movie, and then to this upon leaving the cinema.
She just got her heart broken from being forced to break up with a boy she genuinely wanted to be with and there’s not a single, “Okay, maybe coming here was a bad idea, I’m sorry,” (which could’ve been seen as another joke with the audience like “lol no duh Chat Noir” so there’s no excuse not to have it) or, “My bad, that was insensitive of me. I really thought this would’ve helped but I wasn’t thinking about what you would’ve wanted.”
No. The only people Chat apologizes to are the other people at the theater because he’s embarrassed by Ladybug’s reactions, yet he himself feels no remorse for taking her there and has the gall to go on now about how he’s “there for her if she wants to talk.”
Again, it’s no wonder Ladybug doesn’t want to open up to him.
And I’m sorry, I just don’t buy that Marinette suddenly has all this free time. It’s one thing for her to have a little more time now that she’s broken up with her boyfriend (likely avoiding spending time with him altogether now), but “Truth” went out of its way to talk about all of the emergencies she had to deal with and how she doesn’t have any spare time. which is causing her to become forgetful and lose track of certain events (patrols with Chat, dates with Luka, etcetera), yet Marinette spends most of “Gang of Secrets” simply sulking on her bed. It’s so jarring to go from “Truth” where she was doing “too much” (which I called them out on for not describing what the “too much” she was doing was) and now “Gang of Secrets” where she’s not doing anything.
It’s almost like they invented that plot point to break Lukanette up and it served no purpose outside of it.
Furthermore, the scenes of her finally talking to Tikki and then deciding to live as Ladybug does nothing outside of making the plot more predictable, the latter because of the “Alya almost sees Ladybug” moment (an obvious indicator that Marinette is losing control and is struggling to maintain her secret identity due to her emotionally breaking down) and the former because of Tikki herself and what she doesn’t say.
Because, really, think about what actually goes on in the scene. Marinette (eyes rimmed red and filled with unshed tears, as she is for a good chunk of the episode) is venting to Tikki about - yes - her love life, but also that she has to lie to everyone in order to keep her identity a secret. The fact that Tikki focuses solely on the note of Marinette’s love life and not say a word about the identity/lying issue or even consider telling Marinette, “hey, this is clearly too much for you, you should tell someone, I think the benefits outweigh the risks right now,” really proves that the episode tried to avoid the topic altogether to try and make the ending more shocking (which ironically made it more predictable).
So yeah, not only does Tikki’s dialog with Marinette provide nothing except for a line about how she can’t help Marinette with love issues due to kwami not falling in love (alright, I guess aros can’t give good love advice then or have any input whatsoever), but Marinette’s line about lying to everyone being why she can’t pursue Adrien nor Luka is repeated in the very last scene of the episode. The only reason that scene and the scene after exist is because the writers needed Marinette to be emotionally devastated enough to leave for her balcony as Ladybug for the almost-reveal to Alya and so Rose would get close enough to the dollhouse to have an almost-reveal with the Miracle Box, making the scene feel further contrived because the emotional punch of Marinette wanting to live as Ladybug lasts for barely any time at all.
And it could’ve served a purpose, like if Ladybug had genuinely left and Alya finds her goggles and towel, recognizing them from a news story about how Ladybug had gone to the swimming pool after losing her temper at the cinema, which could’ve led to Shadow Moth making the girls believe that Ladybug was no longer heroic and had kidnapped Marinette, or... heck, Ladybug coming back inside would’ve been so much less jarring if she came back because she heard the girls’ voices talking about the dollhouse and had to hurry (but of course, then they’d have to point out the ridiculousness of Ladybug not hearing Alya calling her and the girls not hearing Ladybug literally shouting for Shadow Moth to come fight her, even though the kwami heard the girls calling for Marinette from the balcony).
But instead, the entire scene feels off and unnatural, forcing every part of it in order to get to where Marinette has to snap at the girls to make them leave.
(Oh, by the way, just a little detail to add to the annoyance: they bothered putting Tom and Sabine in the episode when the girls are leaving, clearly saddened by something that happened, and neither parent even bothers to go and check on Marinette to see if she’s upset or just to see what might’ve happened. They’re such a “blink-and-you’ll-miss it” moment in the episode and it’s not like I’m surprised because they’ve done this multiple times by now but really?)
As for the girls themselves... oof, where do I even begin?
Alright, first off is the annoyance that they assume Marinette’s problems relate only to lovesickness. Marinette has been an anxiety-prone mess throughout the entire series, and suddenly now the girls care about Marinette’s love problems on an emotional level rather than “we’ll meddle sometimes unless we don’t feel like it and be wholly inconsistent on how much we push for it.”? It’s not that I don’t see how they came to the conclusion (hearing that Luka and Marinette broke up and now seeing Marinette is depressed, it checks out), but considering they bothered noting that Marinette hadn’t told them anything, one would think they’d come to the conclusion of, “okay, we haven’t talked to her, we have no idea of what’s going on, maybe we don’t know her as well as we thought then and shouldn’t make guesses.”
Secondly is the “eternal friendship bracelet,” which comes off as a copy of the “Secrets” game from “Syren” extremely manipulative. Mylene goes on to explain that one is supposed to give a secret to the pearl “mentally,” yet when the girls actually show up to see Marinette, they expect to be told the secret directly. I’ve already talked at length about peer pressure and the mental stress Marinette goes through when they mock her and/or meddle for her, but this idea of, “well we all used this friendship bracelet after we mutually agreed to it so now it’s your turn because we said so!” just comes off really bad. I know the episode is going for this idea that their hearts are in the right place, but they’re really not. It feels like they’re the ones in denial and are trying to compensate by forcing Marinette to prove that they’re friends, unable to handle the idea that they might not be as close to her as they thought.
Thirdly, the show acts as if the girl squad are her only friends when we know that’s not true because we’ve seen episodes like “Befana” (the guys in the class), “Reverser” (Marc), “Ikari Gozen” (Kagami), and “Silencer” (Ivan) that all established Marinette having more friends than just them, but for the sake of “drama” and the depressing line of, “at least I don’t have any more friends to lie to,” the episode just pretends like Marinette’s friends are limited to Luka (who she had to break up with) and the girl squad (who she forced to leave and refuse the friendship of).
Fourthly is the actual set-up and the sheer grossness of it all. The girls call Marinette and leave a message about how they much they love her and how she can talk to them “where and when” she wants, and then - immediately afterwards - decide that they’re going to go straight to Marinette’s house completely unannounced, go into her room completely unannounced (not even knocking, by the way), and when Marinette begs them to leave, Alya basically tells her that she’s overreacting. When Marinette demands that they leave, Alya refuses and makes demands right back that they won’t leave until she tells them what’s wrong.
So much for “where and when” she wanted, right? It’s already one thing for the girls to invade Marinette’s privacy and demand/guilt-trip answers out of her, but it’s another thing to give the illusion of respecting her feelings and personal space only to actively plan to go back on it. I can’t tell if it’s a bad draft that they didn’t catch in quality check (you know, the quality check that they definitely don’t have) or just an intentional way to make them seem more sympathetic so Marinette looks worse for driving them out, but either way, it’s awful and I hate it. I would’ve rather had them be all in on invading Marinette’s privacy and learn a lesson in the end than outright contradict themselves.
There are also little nitpicks I could make (like Juleka’s constant mumbling despite Luka’s crush on Marinette playing a role in the episode, Horrificator getting sidelined due to being mute, and the girls’ akumatization ultimately being for spectacle and nothing else, serving no purpose to the plot and being furthered by the fact that Timebreaker goes after Marinette despite it being a bad idea and Reflekta’s power clearly not lining up with any sort of plan), but the real issue issue here comes down to the fact that these are Marinette’s so-called “friends” and the episode refuses to address their actual issues.
Alix, who is known for making rude comments at Marinette (”Gigantitan,” “Chat Blanc,” “Miraculous New York”) and then gives mixed messages by going along with meddling anyway.
Mylene, who is the closest thing to a background character in the girl squad but nevertheless finds her way into being definite voice against Marinette in “Chameleon.”
Juleka, who blamed Marinette for things she didn’t do in “Reflekdoll” and got huffy with her until Marinette apologized for said things.
Rose, who outright screamed at Marinette in “Chat Blanc” over a freaking stuffed animal, which pressured Marinette enough that she snuck into Adrien’s room to deliver her gift which nearly led to the end of the world.
And, of course, Alya; freaking Alya. I don’t even have to go into every single thing she’s ever done because I have a history of giving her absolutely no mercy.
...But let’s go through some anyway because I want to.
“Copycat” - Alya gives Marinette a script and tells her to memorize it, then immediately pushes the “call” button when Marinette hesitates after Marinette had just told Alya that she’s awful at improv.
“Darkblade” - Alya takes a jab at Marinette when Marinette says that she’s too busy to be class representative, implying that Alya thinks that Marinette does absolutely nothing with her time.
“Gamer” - Alya is busy recording the gaming competition when she and Marinette were supposed to be researching for a term paper. Alya then scolds Marinette for wanting to use the competition to get close to Adrien only to do a 180 and put up a fight about it when Marinette decides to quit.
“Animan” and how “The Puppeteer 2″ follows up on it - oh, I’m not going to touch that particular point right now, but keep those in the back of your mind, because I am going to absolutely go off later
“Simon Says” - Similarly to Marinette’s parents, Alya gives zero damns about whatever might be going on in Marinette’s life that's causing her to miss classes.
"Despair Bear” - Alya laughs at Marinette being forced to kiss Chloe’s cheek and then outright compares Marinette to Chloe after knocking Chloe multiple times during the episode (sure, just compare your “best friend” to her multi-year bully, how "hilarious” of you).
“Gigantitan” - Alya has no qualms about mocking Marinette’s over her failures, even if it embarrasses her and she’s been through enough already.
“Frozer” - Alya tries to find ways for Marinette to prevent herself from third-wheeling for Adrien, but when Marinette tries to show character growth by wanting to go, Alya gets into a shouting match with the other girls over how Marinette has “liked Adrien forever and isn’t going to give up now”.
“Catalyst” - Alya claims that Marinette is only salty over Lila out of jealousy when “Frozer” exists and literally is the prime evidence of Adrien liking another girl and Marinette telling Alya outright and very genuinely that she’s not jealous.
“Chameleon” - Alya doesn’t care about her best friend sitting in the back by herself while Alya herself get to sit next to her boyfriend and everyone else in general gets to sit where they want (Alya even acting confused at the mere suggestion that she’d tried to engineer things to let Marinette sit next to Adrien), then not only believes Lila over Marinette but contradicts herself twice (asking Marinette for proof when she has none herself, then claiming that she wouldn’t let her best friend sit by herself).
“Christmaster” - Alya leaves Marinette to babysit so she and Nino can go out on a date.
“Desperada” - Alya suddenly is for Lukanette for literally one episode and doesn���t know how/doesn’t even try to cover for Marinette’s Adrien blindness despite mocking her for multiple seasons over it.
“Reflekdoll” - Alya invites Adrien to something that’s crucial for Marinette to focus on after Marinette has already told her not to and continues meddling to the point where it gets Juleka akumatized (she also doesn’t get punished for it and the blame gets thrown onto Marinette).
“The Puppeteer 2″ - Alya pushes her luck with Nathalie to try and get Marinette to come with her, Nino, Adrien, and Manon to the museum, then traps Marinette in a room with Adrien to force her to spent alone time with him, even abandoning and forgetting about the child that she offered to watch for Marinette so she and her boyfriend can go off alone.
“Miraculous New York” - Alya is told directly by Marinette that she needs help seeing Adrien as a friend, which leads Alya to do the exact opposite throughout the entire special, at one point shouting at Marinette and pressuring her to chase after a car, in the rain, while there’s a supervillain rampaging through Paris, and all of this right after the scheme that Alya had set up caused both Marinette and Adrien to go missing.
And just saying, as Marinette’s supposed “best friend,” Alya sure doesn’t know how to handle her. It was acceptable back in “The Bubbler” when she asked Marinette about signing the gift too late and the same goes for “Dark Cupid,” but by the time we get to late Season 2/3 and Alya refuses to learn Marinette’s weak spots (unless it’s to mock her) and adjust accordingly (like if she’d already made sure the gift was signed in “Chat Blanc,” which would’ve prevented Adrien seeing Ladybug at all due to the time difference), it starts getting infuriating.
A best friend is supposed to cover for their friend’s weaknesses. Alya doesn’t do that; she meddles and often drives Marinette’s anxiety even further up a wall with absolutely no consideration for Marinette’s feelings (”Dark Cupid,” “The Puppeteer 2,” “Reflekdoll,” “Miraculous New York”).
And here, she and the other girls are rewarded for it. Luka actively resisted his akumatization whereas the girls gave in immediately, yet Marinette still opens up to them in the end, likely because they had pressured her and made her feel bad for the secrets she was keeping while Luka was willing to actually wait for her to be ready to talk to him. I can’t put into words how frustrating it is watching these girls trample all over Marinette’s feelings, not have their worst actions called out, and then jump cut post-deakumatization to Marinette telling them exactly what they wanted to know about her love life.
You know what this entire episode is really missing, outside of a coherent plot, properly-paced development, and a basic understanding of rewarding a character for things they’ve held firmly to?
It’s missing the apology. Chat Noir apologizes to a bunch of moviegoers and Rose apologizes for the broken dollhouse, but no one apologizes to Marinette for how they treated her, especially not the “friends” who got rewarded in the end.
“Sorry, we shouldn’t have told you that we’d respect your feelings and then showed up unannounced to make you talk about them.”
“We’re sorry we came into your room and invaded your privacy. You were right to be mad at us.”
“Oh my gosh, Marinette, we got akumatized and we’re so sorry for literally all five of us going after you and probably scaring the living daylights out of you.”
And as if that wasn’t enough, guess what else this is missing? It’s kind of important and brought up directly in the episode, yet the episode simultaneously goes out of its way not to bring it up again.
It’s the reason why Marinette didn’t tell the girls about her relationship with Luka. It’s not there - it’s missing - and the girls never try to pursue the subject. They talk about how Marinette didn’t tell them but don’t think for a second that maybe it’s them who have failed as friends. Instead, they don’t guess anything about why Marinette wouldn’t tell them (which is already strange considering how much they already assume about her) and jump straight to, “well clearly we just need to push for her to talk to us.”
Gonna just go out on a limb here and say that maybe - just maybe - Marinette didn’t tell them because they are habitually pushy in everything they do.
Because they would’ve teased her relentlessly about, “ohhhh you’ve got eyes for Luka? what about Aaaaaadrien~? aren’t you sooo tooorn between both of these cute guys?”
Because they would’ve meddled to force her and Luka together and gotten on her case when/if she ever had to bail on him.
Because their intrusion on her feelings for Adrien had caused her nothing but problems and she just wanted to be with Luka in peace without them forcing their way into things.
Because--hey, wild thought--maybe they’re not really friends???
But the episode completely avoids it, because that would’ve meant addressing it; it would’ve meant acknowledging that they messed up, which - fun fact - they actually don’t do in the episode.
They invaded Marinette’s privacy, insisted that she tell them how she feels (not about them of course because that would imply that they felt like they screwed up), and in the end it’s Marinette who gives them exactly what they asked of her, and the closest thing we get to acknowledging anything is Alix telling her/joking with her that they’ll help her confess to whoever she likes as soon as she tells them she’s ready.
That’s not an apology. That’s not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Even when the five of them are about to get akumatized, it’s not a circle of them saying, “here’s how I screwed up, I could’ve done better but I didn’t and I lost Marinette because of it.”
No. It’s just them talking about how sad the situation is. Mylene has the closest thing to remorse in saying, “I hoped it would work,” but where does it go? A grand total of nowhere, especially because Marinette still takes the bracelet in the end instead of the girls mutually deciding, “okay, maybe the bracelet was a bad idea; how about we all agree on making something together instead, no requirements attached?”
And then the episode has the gall to act as if Alya has gone through character growth when all they did was put Alya through the same thing that Chloe did. I’ll explain that last bit momentarily, but first let’s talk about the whole “growth” thing.
Because there’s no apology or acknowledgement of wrongdoing, all Alya does when she’s finally alone with Marinette is do a 180 from where she was at the start of the episode, going from, “friends have to tell each other everything,” to, “hey, if you don’t want to tell me, then that’s your right.”
The crucial part that’s supposed to go in the middle is missing. Instead of acknowledging her failures, Alya just cuts straight to “””being a better friend,”““ but storytelling doesn’t work that way.
It literally would have taken zero effort to fit an acknowledgement into that scene. “You don’t have to tell me everything, I get that now. All my meddling’s done is hurt you and I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t trust me.”
In a world where Marinette has to apologize for everything, has to learn lessons and suffer because the narrative says so, I will not accept anything less from other characters who are trying to develop and improve. That’s not fair to Marinette, nor has it ever been.
Instead of properly developing Alya, the show does whatever it can to get its audience to root for her as Marinette’s “best friend” (ugh) without having to put in the effort of admitting that Alya hasn’t been Marinette’s “best” friend.
Remember when I brought up Chloe? Yeah, “Malediktator” did a similar thing, showing Chloe doing something awful, then being sad (while not actually acknowledging the thing she did wrong), and in the end she was rewarded with a miraculous prematurely.
One show of character from Chloe and Marinette gave her a miraculous. One show of character from Alya and Marinette told her that she was Ladybug.
(Also, for the record, I think Chloe is far worse than Alya character-wise and I’m not comparing their characters; this is just the simplest comparison I can draw here from a narrative standpoint.)
“Miraculer” is another apt comparison, perhaps even more so. Chloe got Hawk Moth in her head after an akuma landed in her photo of her and Ladybug, but Chloe resisted and fought back, ultimately forcing the akuma out of her and freeing herself from Hawk Moth’s control.
But it wasn’t to develop her character; no, it was to convince the audience of Chloe and Sabrina’s friendship so they’d feel something during Sabrina’s happy flashbacks, then lay the foundation of tricking viewers into believing that Chloe might not go to Hawk Moth’s side.
At the end of the day, it was doing something that’s “never been done before” in order for the character to earn brownie points for something that the writers can just have them do because willpower is an easy thing to just write in. “Gang of Secrets” does the exact same thing when Lady Wifi breaks free from Shadow Moth, with Ladybug even hammering it home by talking about how no one’s ever done it before.
And the pacing is - again - awful. Not only is Ladybug banking on this working when she herself says that it’s never been done, but the conversation between her and Lady Wifi where Ladybug tries to convince her doesn’t even take a minute.
It also has nothing to do with Marinette herself; Ladybug relies on Alya’s adoration/friendship with her as Ladybug (you know, after Alya took a photo of LadyNoir kissing and posted it online without Ladybug’s consent, betrayed her by putting information on the LadyBlog that Hawk Moth was able to take advantage of, and is the only hero outside of Chloe to resist returning a miraculous) in order to break from Hawk Moth’s control, because talking about Marinette with Lady Wifi didn’t even work.
(Ladybug also uses her yoyo as a portal to the Miracle Box when this has never been pre-established to be a thing despite Ladybug acting as if she knew it was; further proof that this episode was rushed.)
And of course talking about Marinette didn’t work, because that would’ve meant convincing Alya that her reason for getting akumatized was “wrong” and the episode didn’t want to do that. It didn’t want someone else actually learning something and feeling bad; surely, this is just Alya being manipulated by Shadow Moth and having the power to break free because Ladybug “needs Rena Rouge” and not because Lady Wifi and her friends are chasing after their supposed best friend and that’s--you know--wrong???
Rena Rouge’s reappearance is also yet another thing the episode refuses to address because it avoids the topic of “but my identity--”. At least “Heart Hunter” had the tact to have Kagami question why Ladybug was giving her the dragon again, but “Gang of Secrets” treads as lightly as possible on any discussion of identities outside of Marinette saying that she can’t, as if it were Marinette who made the choice of concealing her identity and not the basic idea of heroing that has been stressed over and over for the whole show.
Even Plagg of all kwami stated back in “Origins” that no one is supposed to know about secret identities, a rule that continues becoming flaky and muddled with each passing season, almost like they kept attempting to retcon and make the audience dulled to the idea so that the reveal in “Gang of Secrets” would be more acceptable.
But now, with the way they did it and how they don’t even have Tikki comment on the matter, it once again has it look like they’re making it - say it with me, everyone - Marinette’s fault.
Alya says that Marinette has a choice in telling her secret, Marinette insists that she doesn’t and goes on and on about how it’ll change everything, and then just... tells Alya her secret in the end.
And remember all the way back in Season 2? “Sapotis”?
Alya: What were you saying about her secret identity?
Marinette: Ladybug needs it to protect her family and friends. Otherwise the villains could use them to get to her.
Alya: Well, if I knew who Ladybug really was, I'd keep it a secret. I would even help her! Like say, if you were Ladybug, I'd cover for you — when you needed to transform in school, go fight the "baddies", you know?
Marinette: Oh yeah? Well, if I was Ladybug I wouldn't even tell you, to protect you from the "baddies", you know?
Alya: You serious? If I was Ladybug, I'd totally tell you! Because I tell my best friend everything.
And now here we are in “Gang of Secrets,” as if the narrative is saying, “See, Marinette? Alya was right all along, you were just being ridiculous and making yourself suffer for no reason!”
Yet Marinette had a right to keep her secrets. When Alya and Nino learned each other’s identities, Alya took a hit for Nino in “Catalyst” and both of them fell to Scarlet Moth’s akumas. Chloe was a mess and a half because of Hawk Moth knowing her identity. Fu had told Marinette that her miraculous would get taken if she and Chat Noir learned each other’s identities.
The only ones who received no consequences due to someone knowing their identity were Pegase (who Chat Noir and Markov knew), Ryuko (who Chat Noir, Ikari Gozen, and Hawk Moth knew), and Viperion (who Adrien knew). “Chat Blanc” also exists where Marinette got the impression that people discovering her identity would be a disaster, and even all the way back in “Lady Wifi” insisted that not telling anyone her identity was “listening to her head and not her heart,” and the narrative has relentlessly humiliated her for going with her heart, so yeah, probably for the best.
I hate that the episode avoids talking about anything identity-related outside of what comes out of Marinette’s mouth to make it appear like it was her choice all along. I hate that they had Tikki fixate on Marinette’s love problems instead of having her actually support Marinette and admit that Marinette should tell someone before she has a mental breakdown. I hate that the episode inserts Rena Rouge into the plot as if to brush all identity issues away so as to make Marinette’s identity reveal seem less jarring.
Now, of course I’m glad Marinette told someone. Of course I want her to get love and support from someone. Of course I think the benefits outweigh the risks, or I wouldn’t have written multiple fix-its where her identity gets revealed in some way or someone already knows.
But I didn’t want it to be Alya, because I knew how they’d do it. I knew they’d do it wrong and I knew that they wouldn’t have the courage to address Alya’s issues properly.
Those familiar with my blog will know that I’d been taking negative predictions for future seasons for a while and adding them to cards whenever they were proven right. Does anyone remember the Season 4 predictions that were proven correct for “Gang of Secrets,” specifically these ones?
- “Alya will suddenly be portrayed as a good/worthy friend to Marinette in/if there's an episode where Marinette tells her that she's Ladybug”
- “Alya resisting Shadow Moth/fighting back against him will be used to excuse telling Alya Marinette's secret identity“
- “Alya will know that Marinette is Ladybug first because "BFFs" despite being one of the worst candidates for it“
- “The secret that broke Lukanette up will be resolved in episode 3 when Marinette tells Alya“
Each and every one of those were mine, because I knew that whether Season 4 had a proper chronological order or not, the writers would not have the guts to develop Alya first and then have Marinette tell her in a future episode after Alya has properly earned it.
I knew that they wouldn’t take time to develop Alya. I knew that they would have Alya resist Shadow Moth to make Alya look “worthy” of the secret. I knew that Alya would swoop in during the last minute and a half of an episode, insisting that Marinette “didn’t have to tell her anything” when Alya had been pushy and insistent for the entire rest of the episode and the whole series in general, and would ultimately be rewarded with the big secret simply because she’s “the best friend” and that’s it.
The Alya at the end of the episode isn’t the Alya I’ve known for the entire rest of the series before this, or at the very least they turned her into an Alya I don’t recognize.
Alya claims during the ending scene that she knows that Marinette is hiding something beyond her love problems because she - as a reporter and “her best friend” - can sense such things, and all I’m left wondering is
w h e r e ?
Where and when has Alya been suspicious or worried about Marinette keeping a secret from her? What, back in “The Pharoah” where she didn’t immediately disregard Marinette for the role of Ladybug, or “Simon Says” where she vaguely teased Marinette about having a double life, both Season 1 episodes?
Where was Alya in “Truth” saying that she didn’t know Marinette’s secret but knew that she was keeping one? Where was Alya anywhere in Season 3 being concerned that Marinette hasn’t told her something? Where was this “supposedly very observant” Alya when Marinette needed her to out Lila because Lila got her expelled--oh wait, Alya “observed” that Lila did nothing and Marinette was just jealous.
What, is it only now that Alya suddenly “knows” that Marinette is hiding something else? Now, after Alya has already not known that Marinette was literally dating someone, even when Alya had multiples pictures of Marinette and said someone giving each other heart eyes and saw Marinette leaving school with said someone riding on the same bike together, you know, like normal, typical, average friends would?
Where’s the line where Alya acknowledges the problem? Where’s Alya sitting down with Marinette and admitting, “hey, I’m sorry I haven’t noticed this stuff, but I promise I’ll do better starting right now, and that’s how I know now that you’re hiding something else, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that it’s been hurting you”?
I can’t tell you where it is, but I can say that it’s certainly not in this episode. 60% of the episode features the Alya we knew from the rest of the series and then switches her out the second she’s de-akumatized for another Alya who hasn’t done anything that the old one has because she pretends like it didn’t happen.
You know how I know? Because of this absolute gut punch of a line that showed that the series wanted to handwave everything away.
“I know how to keep a secret.”
...Really? Does she now? Well, I hope everyone remembered my point about “Animan” and “The Puppeteer 2,” because I’m bringing it right back.
Considering that “Truth” has been burned into all of our memories, we all definitely remember when Truth shoots Alya and questions her on Marinette’s secret, to which Alya states that Marinette’s secret is, “She’s in love with Adrien Agreste.” Now, at the time of Season 4′s airing, this is very much not a secret, as most characters already knew about Marinette’s crush, to the point where it’d been broadcast on television during Season 2.
But do you know when it was actually a secret? Back in Season 1, specifically in the episode “Animan” where Alya told Nino.
And not only did she tell Nino, but she lied to Marinette by claiming that she didn’t, acting as if Nino knew that Marinette had a crush but didn’t know who she was crushing on, which is then directly proven false as Nino accidentally implies that he does know who it is. This is also after Alya had gotten on Marinette’s case for trying to set her up with Nino, and then she had the gall to say that she wouldn’t spill Marinette’s secret because she, and I quote, “doesn't go around making decisions for other people,“ a statement that is directly contradicted by this little thing known as everything Alya has ever said and done in the entire series.
And while Marinette meddling in Alya’s love life actually ended up working out for Alya, Alya meddling in Marinette’s by telling Nino who Marinette is crushing on comes back to bite Marinette - not Alya (because of course) - in the infamous episode of “The Puppeteer 2,” where Marinette realizes that Alya really did tell Nino that she was crushing on Adrien.
Marinette: You told me you wouldn't tell Nino!
Alya: I haven't told him. Right, Nino? I didn't tell you anything. (elbows him)
Nino: She didn't tell me. And besides, I told her I wouldn't tell.
Then, when she’s called out on it, Alya lies again, and shamelessly so.
Marinette: Why did you tell Nino everything? You promised you wouldn't!
Alya: I didn't, I swear! Besides, even if I had told him everything, he would still be clueless. Ugh, who cares anyway? I've set everything up with Nino, who doesn't know a thing, so you can finally pour your heart out to Adrien, girl!
And now, here we are one season later - and not even half of a season if you go by production code order - and Alya claims that she knows how to keep a secret.
No. No, she does not. In fact, she does even worse because she won’t even admit when she’s spilled said secret. I absolutely refuse to accept that Alya is “worthy” or “deserving” of learning that Marinette is Ladybug when she couldn’t even keep a basic secret like who her friend was crushing on.
And no, it didn’t matter that Nino was her boyfriend, or that maybe she thought it would work out because Nino was friends with Adrien. By that logic, Alya would tell Adrien that Marinette is Ladybug if she heard that Ladybug is who Adrien was crushing on and we all know how that would’ve gone.
Marinette has a right to tell her secret to whoever she wants and I’m glad that a burden has been lifted from her, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy that it’s Alya. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy that, after so many moments of Alya disrespecting Marinette’s feelings, she is the one who gets to hear the big secret that the fandom has been waiting for someone to find out about since the very start of the series.
Luka said it best in “Truth” that the truth is meant to be shared, not taken by force, but Marinette was forced to tell Alya by the narrative because Alya is her supposed “best friend.” It pushed Marinette to her breaking point, forced her to break up with the guy who has respected her agency and feelings since the day they met, and gave her a version of her “best friend” with the same name and face but with none of the responsibility from previous events so that said version was there at the right time and the right place to hear what had to be heard.
And in the end, I end up feeling nothing. Marinette doesn’t even have a “Marinette” reaction to saying it as one would expect; for her to blurt it out and then immediately start panicking until Alya hugs her to calm her down. Instead, Marinette just says it and stares silently at Alya - after blabbing this huge, very big deal of a secret - until Alya goes in for a hug (the “happy/hopeful” ending of which is why I feel like this episode also gets less flak, as the previous two ended off rather depressing/upsetting).
It’s off. Everything is off. The pacing, the delivery, and the logic that the episode uses. The emotion in Marinette’s voice when she’s rambling about how hard it is to keep her secret is so powerful, but then the ending hits and she just says it, breaking the momentum they had going. They pulled the card of Alya walking away too soon when they could’ve saved it, having Marinette go quiet and letting Alya take a few steps away in order to let the moment build before Marinette finally blurts out the secret she’s been painfully holding in.
But they didn’t, and I’m so many levels of dissatisfied. I wasn’t against the idea of Alya learning Marinette’s secret at some point (though honestly, Alix would’ve been a better pick considering that Bunnyx will know eventually anyway, and I say that not even liking Alix!), but not now; not when Alya had so much to work towards.
And now what? What happens now? Now Alya will turn against Lila, not because she learned to have faith and believe in Marinette, but because Marinette is Ladybug, which disproves Lila’s ultimate lie that got Alya’s attention in the first place? Now Alya will be supportive and less teasing/mocking whenever Marinette will be late, not because she understands that Marinette isn’t perfect and has so many other things on her mind, but because she’s Ladybug and has “hero stuff” to take care of? Now Alya will be careful about what she puts on the LadyBlog, not because she respected Ladybug and what Ladybug would want, but because Ladybug is now her best friend and that changes everything?
Because now, Alya has a free pass to all of that, the show making her spontaneously “developed” now so they won’t have to develop her later, and disappointing doesn’t even begin to describe it.
#category: salt#episode: Gang of Secrets#other: ml spoilers#category: long post#word count: over 7000#other: ask and answer#((I know this is long so I did what I did in ''The Puppeteer 2'' where I had pictures to break it up.))
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What Entrapdak Means to Me
On the eve of Entrapdak Positivity Month, I thought it was as good a time as any to share my rambling thoughts on a ship that’s affected me in a way I didn’t think was possible.
Entrapdak is the first ship I have ever been invested in. It’s such a new experience for me that it’s taken me the last few months to wrap my head around the whole thing. I may relate to the characters in a show, but when they form romantic attachments I view it with a degree of passive distance. I don’t understand what it’s like to have those sorts of feelings for someone (I am aromantic and ace as a brick), and, well, I’m honestly not curious enough to give the subject a thorough study. My mind tends to fixate on other things.
What does this have to do with Entrapdak, you ask? Long story short for people who don’t want to read my meandering essay -- I relate a lot to these characters, and the way they bonded together struck a deep chord in me that I can’t ignore.
Let’s start with the characters. I knew going in that Entrapta was neurodivergent-coded, but I took it with a grain of salt. When I actually watched the show, however, I found myself relating to her so deeply it shocked me. Never have I felt such a kinship with a fictional character! We don’t share every trait, but it was still like seeing my brain put to life on screen. I related to her enthusiasm over her special interests, her struggles to fit in, her desire to make friends who accept and understand her for who she is.
The fact Entrapta is completely herself is something I love about her. Over the years of growing up undiagnosed, I developed a lot of masking strategies. Human psychology is one of my special interests, and even with all that accumulated knowledge, masking isn’t easy. It’s extremely mentally taxing. Masking can certainly look easy -- I can, when I have the drive and energy, “pass” as neurotypical, and only people who know me extremely well can tell I’m dying inside. All that effort is taken for granted by a lot of NTs because that’s how people are “supposed to” act, and surely I can “do the bare minimum.” The accumulated stress of near constant masking has led me to the darkest moments I’ve had in my life.
Entrapta’s struggle with leaving Beast Island hit me hard. It threw me back to a time when my feelings of isolation and worthlessness got so bad that I lost the energy to do anything, even the creative pursuits that were the obsession of my life. I retreated so deeply into my inner world that I hardly interacted with anyone. That total apathy shocked my family into getting me professional help, which gave me my autism diagnosis, the coping skills to move forward, and a good start on the road to self-acceptance. It also opened a channel between my family and I, allowing me to feel heard and understood. (An important side note on mental health: if you or someone you love needs professional help, please seek it! Sometimes you have to try out several therapists -- it took me three to find a good fit -- but you are worth it!)
It took me longer to realize, but I also relate to Hordak in some ways. Mercifully I was not raised in an extremist cult environment. However, I know what it’s like to feel defective next to a sibling that seems perfect. I was constantly being compared to my younger brother, and in all areas but art, he was superior. He was smart, athletic, and above all, he fit in with everyone. I didn’t hate him for this -- I hated myself. Trying to measure up to his standard is what caused me to develop such strong masking strategies. Underneath it all, I felt the despair of knowing my peers would reject me as soon as the mask cracked. I also live with chronic joint pain, starting at around age seven. The jury is still out on what’s causing that (the worst of it was due to a previously unknown food allergy, but the pain still comes and goes, even though it’s a lot more manageable than it used to be). This cocktail of pain, stress, and sensory issues I had to deal with gave me a very short fuse at times.
As an aside, just because I sympathize with Hordak does not mean I am excusing his actions. He is still going to have to face the consequences of his choices, and work to adjust to life post-Prime. The series end gave him a new beginning, the opportunity to be redeemed, and I prefer this to a rushed redemption arc.
What I love most about Hordak and Entrapta’s relationship is how they accept each other as they are. Hordak gives Entrapta near free reign of his sanctum, he listens to her when she talks, and he respects her opinions. Even when he pushes her away, he still considers the logic of what she tells him, and sometimes ends up doing things her way despite his initial instincts. This is something I do in my own life; I am easily overwhelmed by new information, so my initial response to an idea/activity is almost always a firm (and sometimes rude) “no,” until I have time to properly process and think about it. Hordak is the first person in Entrapta’s life that truly listens to her. He still has things he needs to work on, but it’s a lot better than how most of the princesses are with Entrapta. The Alliance treats her as someone to be managed -- she is useful, but unreliable. Hordak, in contrast, trusts her to get things done in her own way.
On the other side, Entrapta is the first person in Hordak’s life to accept him without judgment. Hordak spends so much of his energy putting up a front of strength and intimidation, and Entrapta cuts right through that. She’s not frightened by his appearance, and even his outbursts have little effect on her until the two of them start to bond. Entrapta doesn’t come into their interactions with any preconceived ideas of what Hordak is like, or more importantly, what he should be like. This lack of expectation leaves her completely open to accepting whatever Hordak does and says, and it also relieves Hordak of the burden of needing to put on a front around her. When Entrapta sees him at his most vulnerable, she reaches out to him with compassion, something he has never felt before. Entrapta also does this in a way that doesn’t belittle Hordak. His imperfections are not something to pity, they are a valuable part of who he is.
I loved watching their friendship develop. Entrapta and Hordak’s shared time together evolved slowly into a bond that gave each of them a sense of belonging they had never experienced before with anyone else. It gave me the hope that, despite what an oddball mess I am, perhaps I could find someone who understands me too.
When a romance subplot inserts itself into a story, I tend to gloss over and ignore it (if I pick up on it at all). I’m even less interested in sex. Way back when I was first getting into fandom I was so excited to go online and meet fellow fans of the books and shows I liked, only to discover the spaces being dominated by arguments over character pairings. I was baffled. This is what people are most interested in? Oh well… back to the hermit cave I go!
I was late to the party with SPoP. I’d watched a few episodes, but the show didn’t really hook me. This was partially because all I ever heard people talk about online was Catradora, and if that was the main appeal of the show, I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it (sorry Catradora shippers, romance is not going to entice me to watch a show, even if it’s rep). Quarantine was the ultimate cause for me embracing my curiosity and diving headfirst into SPoP, binging the entire thing a few months before the release of season 5.
I vaguely knew about Entrapdak as a ship going into the show, and I admit, had I not been primed for it, I probably would have missed the romantic potential entirely. In no way did I expect to become invested. I was immediately intrigued by their dynamic, and as they got closer, I found myself thinking “oh, I see why people ship these two.” I didn’t understand this realization until months later. I was relating to the characters, and for the first time in my life, I was relating to their relationship.
I headcanon Entrapta and Hordak as an asexual couple. I’ll elaborate on this at a later time (asexuality is a spectrum with a lot of nuance, and this post is plenty long already), but at the core of it, I find joy in imagining these characters in a loving platonic relationship, something I hope to find myself one day. I hope this love comes across in my artwork and in my fanfictions <3
To those of you that read this far, wow, you must be patient! Have an imaginary cookie! I hope this ramble has provided a decent picture for why I, as an aro ace on the autism spectrum, have come to cherish Hordak and Entrapta’s relationship. It’s my first and only OTP… I’m still in shock thinking about that… I guess we’ll see where things go from here!
Take care of yourselves out there!
#entrapdak#entrapta/hordak#entrapta#hordak#autistic entrapta#autistic experiences#relatable characters#fandom ramblings#spop#spop headcanons#asexual headcanon
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I cannot stop thinking about aro!Mytho it’s SUCH good concept.
The thing is, while I did come to appreciate his character more upon rewatch, I do think there was a huge missed opportunity in Princess Tutu by not really having him challenge the fate set out for him. There were elements and allusions to it (in him choosing Rue, the Raven’s daughter, as his princess, the hint that he might never be unaffected by the raven’s blood, and of course him stating he wants to ‘love Rue more than anyone else’, which. we’ll get to), but overall, he was what was expected of him and did what was expected of him when it was expected of him. And that makes sense, he’s the only character who actually did get created for the sake of Drosselmeyer’s story, but I still think the anime could’ve been more powerful if he, too, had chosen to defy the story.
The nature of ‘love’ in Princess Tutu is really interesting to me, in no large part because I’m aromantic. Personally, I felt like Princess Tutu, for the most part, didn’t separate romantic and platonic love. There were some exceptions, such as the fact that Rue and Mytho’s feelings for each other were obviously coded as romantic, but even then, it could get blurry. Rue was manipulated to believe only the Raven and Mytho could love her, but at no point is there a distinction drawn between the type of love they’d have for her.
You can also see this with how the show handles Ahiru’s crush on Mytho; while it starts off as romantic, it gradually changes to platonic. I’ve seen some people say that Ahiru stops loving Mytho, and I strongly disagree with that assessment. Until the very end, Ahiru is willing to go to the ends of the earth for Mytho, in what is pretty clearly framed as an act of love.
But while it’s implied the nature of her love has shifted, at no point does the show imply the intensity of her love has diminished. If anything, it has grown. In a similar way, Fakir and Ahiru’s love for each other is never explicitly framed or implied to be either romantic or platonic; you could make arguments for it, sure, but ultimately, it’s never made ‘canon’.
This is because, at the end of the day, it isn’t important. It doesn’t really matter whether the love you feel for someone else is platonic or romantic, and the show makes little effort to distinguish the two. The only time the show implies one is stronger than the other is when Mytho says he wishes to love Rue more than anyone else, which is something that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but even then, you could argue it’s less about romance, and more about giving Rue what she always wanted, and having Mytho defy his ‘loves everyone’ designation.
The amorphous nature of love in Princess Tutu is a large part of why I think the idea of an aromantic Mytho is so interesting. Prince Siegfried’s whole deal was being the ideal fairytale prince, who is loved by everyone and who loves everyone in return. In canon, he defied this expectation by loving Rue more than anyone else.
But to me, at least, this feels like less of a defiance, and more of an extension. Loving Rue in no way prohibits loving anyone else; this is a lesson Rue herself had to learn during the course of the show. I admit to being biased here because I really don’t like the implication that loving someone romantically is stronger than loving someone platonically, but I also simply don’t think this was that much of a subversion. If anything, it feels like a natural consequence of Mytho regaining his heart; it’s near impossible for someone to love everyone equally, after all.
None of this is bad, for the record. It works just fine within the context of the story, framing Mytho as a person rather than a flawless fairytale prince. But I think the idea of Mytho being aromantic would reinforce that personhood in a different way, and in addition, add some interesting questions about love to the show’s canon.
Recently within the aromantic community, there has been a bit of backlash to an idea that was - and still is - very prominent within the aro community: the importance of platonic love. Society, as a whole, positions love as an almost supernatural good, and claims it is what makes us human. As a result, aromantic people, who either cannot fall in love romantically or have unusual ways of doing so, felt the need to reinforce their humanity by pointing out that we can still feel platonic love. This has become a cornerstone of the community.
The backlash has come primarily from neurodivergent and traumatized aros, who can (for various reasons) feel disconnected from or uncomfortable with the concept of love in general. This is where the concept of ‘loveless aros’ stems from. The identity doesn’t necessarily mean that one doesn’t experience love (though many people do define it as such), but is primarily meant as a way to challenge the idea that love is what makes us human, and that platonic love is what gives aromantics their worth despite not being able to love romantically (or doing so in ways that aren’t ‘societally approved’). If love is what makes us human, why is it that there are humans who don’t feel it, or don’t want to feel it?
Princess Tutu is, in no large part, a show about love. Personally, as an aro with a complicated relationship to love, I think it does better than most shows about the subject. While I really do like and enjoy shows about the strength of love (specifically platonic love), I can’t help but feel alienated by them as they praise this idea of an all-important, universal, almost divine emotion that is the cause of all good on the planet. Because that is absolutely not my experience with the concept of love.
Princess Tutu does better than most shows not just because it puts platonic love and romantic love on equal footing, and in fact largely doesn’t sepearte the two, but also because it’s willing to show the negative effects that love can have. Toxic love is a huge part of the show, and while I don’t think all aspects of it were handled 100% brilliantly (Fakir should’ve at least apologized to Mytho for his behaviour in the first few episodes, for starters), I am impressed by how well it manages to examine the concept nonetheless. It’s part of the reason why Princess Tutu alienates me less than a lot of other shows with similar themes.
But it still frames love as something more important than all other emotions, in a way, the pinnacle of emotion. And I think it would be interesting to challenge that notion by making Mytho an aro, specifically, a loveless aro.
I do not necessarily mean that in the sense that he should not feel love (though I wouldn’t mind that either). I mean it in the sense of the fairytale prince, said to love everyone, rejecting that notion. Love has brought Mytho great things, sure, but also terrible things; it’s what lifted the Raven’s enchantment, but also what put the enchantment on him in the first place. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say it’s very possible that this left him with rather complicated emotions towards the concept of love.
What if he found himself incapable of loving Rue more than anyone, no matter how much he wanted to, because he does care deeply about her and feels like she deserves someone who gives her that kind of love? What if the prince who loves everyone grew resentful of the hurts he’d suffered in the name of love? What if it made him fearful of it, even? Who does that leave him as? If he’s not Prince Siegfried, the prince who loves everyone, who is he? Who is Mytho?
Of course, he’s still infinitely kind, and his first instinct is to help everyone in trouble, and he has no problem following that instinct through. But I think the notion of Prince Siegfried rejecting the idea of love, and instead valuing kindness above all else to be a fascinating one. I think it lends a lot of depth to both his character and the show’s themes of love.
So yeah loveless aro!Mytho is a GREAT concept actually.
#[rubs my extremely aro hands all over princess tutu] mine now#princess tutu#mytho#my posts#long post
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Lockwood and co, eponine, and not a ship but aro Ezekiel
Thank you so much!!
Lockwood and co
Favorite character
I love pretty much every single one of these characters (Holly and George hold special places in my heart) but the Skull is just so fun. I love his snark and the way he grows to care about Lucy over the course of the series
Least favorite character
this is really hard. Of the people who show up in more than one book and aren’t an antagonist, I’ll have to say Flo Bones. I don’t dislike her, but i just sort of feel meh about her
5 favorite ships
Including platonic ones, in no particular order, Lucy/Lockwood, Lucy/Holly (I also ship this platonically a lot), Lucy & Skull, George & Lucy & Lockwood, Kipps & everyone
Character I find most attractive
I’m pretty sure it’s canon that Holly is the most attractive person on the team
Character I would marry
Honestly none of them. I love all the characters, but I really would not want to spend my life or share my home with any of them. If I had to choose, probably Holly
Character I would be best friends with
Absolutely George. Let’s go science ghosts
a random thought:
I bet after the ghosts stop becoming as much of a problem (like in a couple decades), and especially with technology that lets adults see ghosts, the role of children in this society changes a lot. They go to school, they aren’t expected to be in life-endangering situations. Instead of being the ones to protect people, they start becoming the ones to be protected. But even though this shift gradually comes about, it never really goes all the way to how our society views kids, at least not for several generations
An unpopular opinion:
I have no idea what the popular opinions are. I think that despite (and actually because of) their similarities in personality, Bartimaeus and Skull would hate each other if they ever met. They would clash personality-wise, but also see the mistakes, weaknesses, and annoying parts of the other one and make them feel more insecure about their own self. Like “if that guy who is so similar to me can be like this, what would it take for me to be like that?” And also, “if he’s like that, people who know me less will think I’m like that, WHICH I”M NOT”
My Canon OTP:
I mean the only canon pairing is Lucy and Lockwood. Can I say Holly and her roommate?
My Non-canon OTP:
I don’t really have one, but Holly gives off big lesbian vibes, so her with Lucy maybe?
Most Badass Character:
All of them?? Honestly, Lockwood is pretty impressive though. His whole family died, and he regularly goes up against stuff that could kill him, and on top of that he just runs his own business as a teenager. And it’s honestly the last one that sells him as most badass for me
Most Epic Villain:
It’s been a while since I’ve read these books, and I don’t remember it too well, but the whole Creeping Shadow thing was so creepy, especially because it was the first I learned of forays into the Other Side
Pairing I am not a fan of:
Anything involving George. I relate to him too much as an aro, and he just doesn’t seem the type to have romantic relationships
Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):
Holly or maybe Lucy? I just really don’t like how big their rivalry was in the first book Holly was in it, especially because it was so motivated by jealousy on Lucy’s side
Favourite Friendship:
That said, I do really like how Lucy and Holly’s friendship develops throughout the series. I also love Skull and Lucy
Character I most identify with:
George. I mean, bad vision, poor aim, wants to understand how ghosts work, loves donuts, etc. I think I made a post about this once
Character I wish I could be:
I don’t want the life of any of the characters, but I do wish I was more like Holly
Eponine
How I feel about this character:
She’s great!! I love her and even though she is very far from perfect, she wants better for herself and to be better, and she deserves a lot better
Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character:
I ship her with Cosette, though not particularly hard. I’ve seen some good Marius/Eponine/Cosette fic too
My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character:
I really like her interacting with Gavroche because they’re both in shitty situations because of their parents, but in different ways. In some ways, Gavroche is more free, and definitely more full of joy, and I like the idea of her looking out for him while he brings a bright spot to Eponine’s pretty depressing life. But also I love her having strong platonic relationships with anyone, just let her have friends
My unpopular opinion about this character:
It’s not so unpopular in the fandom on tumblr, but I don’t think she’s actually in love with Marius, and either way, reducing her story to being just about unrequited teenage love does a disservice to her as a character
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:
I wish she lived and could have her life improve, and just for her to have friends and support
Favorite friendship for this character:
Other than Gavroche? Maybe Marius? I once saw a post that was text over screenshots of the 2012 movie, with Eponine saying “I have feelings for you!” and Marius saying “I also have feelings for you!” Then it said, “Narrator: the feeling was friendship but neither of them had experienced it before.”
My crossover ship:
I don’t particularly have one because I’m bad at just thinking of stuff like this off the top of my head, but honestly anyone who would respect her and make her happy and allow her to be soft
Aro Ezekiel Jones (which I’m answering the relationship questions for)
When I started
shipping them
headcanoning them as aro:
I think either before I started watching the show or soon afterwards you mentioned seeing Ezekiel as aro, so I just took that. The thing that cemented it was probably the Cindy episode
My thoughts:
He just kind of doesn’t care about romance or being aro. I don’t think he’s super open about it, but he also doesn’t try to hide anything and he’s probably dropped it in conversation with acquaintances before if the topic comes up. Until he joined the librarians, he hasn’t really had anyone he was close enough to that he would bother actually coming out to, but now that he’s faced with it, he’s sort of like ‘aw shit i actually care what these people think about me. and i know it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but do they know that?’ During the video game loop, he probably did come out to them to see how they would react, and it was all positive. It takes him a bit to actually get around to doing it, but he does end up telling them he’s aro
What makes me happy about them:
He’s so full of love, even if he tends to cover it up. Like he probably thought he would live his life more or less alone, and he was fine with it, but now he has people who he sees regularly and who care about him and enjoy being around, and it’s just great
What makes me sad about them:
I don’t think I headcanon any other of the characters, so he doesn’t have any aro buddies
Things done in fanfic that annoys me:
I mean there isn’t a lot of aro!Ezekiel fic, and him having romantic relationships in fic doesn’t bother me (or at least when it does, I don’t read fic about it). I’m not sure I’ve seen this in fic, but he’s a complex character who is actually a really great person who cares about the other librarians, and I wouldn’t want to see him reduced to ‘jokes and steals things’
Things I look for in fanfic:
Since there aren’t a lot of aro Ezekiel fics, in theory, I want him to be confident in his identity and also like “romance?? what is even up with that???”
My wishlist:
I have no idea how this would work, but aro Ezekiel in a leverage crossover where he has his librarian found family and a thief found family would be great
Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:
It’s not something I particularly ship but there’s some good content with Ezekiel/Jake/Cassandra
My happily ever after for them
I can’t imagine a traditional ‘happily ever after’ for him. He’s just always doing new things, never fully in retirement, even if he’s a hundred years old and no longer going on missions for the Library. He grows to be more confident in his relationships with the other librarians. I can’t imagine him being a super open person, but he feels comfortable sharing stuff with the others, and they’re always there for each other, and they also get to do fun things with magic without the world being in danger
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Bloom Into You Series Personal Thoughts (Whoops It’s Way Too Personal)
When I discover a new series that I really like, I tend to become obsessive. I have an obsessive personality, or something almost bordering on ADD where I can find it extremely difficult to even pay attention to people talking to me or to focus on or care about just about anything, but when the one thing comes along, it’s all I think about for like 72 hours straight. So that happened with Bloom Into You, and I want to wait a while until the initial honeymoon phase wears off, maybe even until post-series, before I really sit down and write a detailed analysis of it. I only sat down to watch the first episode of the anime like two weeks ago.
But the stories that I obsess over rarely have nothing to do with what’s going on in my real life at the time, and Bloom Into You is no exception.
I sat down and started watching it because I had heard it was one of the standout anime of the season, because I wanted a cute innocent romance, and because it was notable as one of the only positively represented queer anime I had seen in a while. As a huge advocate for LGBTQ characters and stories in media, I was highly intrigued. And it’s true that the love story at the core of it all is incredibly precious and adorable and it turns my heart to mush.
But what I got out of it was much deeper and more personally affecting than I signed up for. And to be honest I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Most people are freaking out about Bloom into You because lesbians, and I don’t blame them. Lesbians in anime, positively represented, with wholesome and non-fetishized relationships. That’s huge and it more than deserves to be celebrated. Loudly. But for me, it wasn’t really that, persay. I’ve never identified as a lesbian or even as someone who likes girls. I’ve always said I was straight, because it’s easy, but I’m not convinced that’s the whole truth either. For me, Bloom Into You hits close to home because of the aromanticism of its main character and the inner torment that she faces because of it.
Speaking with complete transparency, I don’t think I’ve ever had romantic feelings for anyone. And any sexual feelings I’ve ever had towards anyone were limited at best. I just really don’t know. On top of that, I took an SSRI for over four years while I was in college, which managed to mute both my emotions and my sex drive even more than they already were. And having recently finally gone off them, I still can’t tell what’s the meds and what’s me.
At some points in the last four years, and even now, I finally got to a place of inner peace about it. I was like Maki. I accepted that I didn’t experience those feelings and I was totally fine with that—I mean, sure, it sucked a little, but think of all the bullshit I would never have to deal with. I wasn’t interested in anyone like that or in relationships like that and that suited me just fine.
At other points, I wasn’t like Maki at all. I distinctly remember one point early on in my college experience where I realized that I just wasn’t feeling it in general, any of it, and found myself curled up on the floor of my dorm, alone, sobbing over the fact that I would never experience romantic or sexual attraction. I did all sorts of research on asexuality and aromanticism. Is this normal? I would ask myself. Is it normal to be ace and aro and for it to still hurt this much?
In chapter 39, Bloom Into You posits that, perhaps, the distinction between truly ace people like Maki and people like Yuu is that, unlike Maki, Yuu wants to participate. Maybe that is true. It’s just an idea the manga suggests, not a statement. But since I want to participate, does that automatically mean I’m not aro? Am I like Yuu? I’m still not convinced that reality is so clear cut.
Bloom Into You is an incredibly emotional journey for me because it sees Yuu, someone who is either on the ace spectrum or emotionally repressed or a late bloomer or what have you, gradually fall in love in spite of it all. And getting to watch that process play out for her is so incredibly satisfying. Everyone experiences love differently and at a different pace—in many ways that is the inspiring message of Bloom. On the one hand, for Sayaka, love hits her like lightning. We see this at multiple points, whether it’s getting sucked in by that she-demon of a senpai or when she sees Touko for the first time at her opening ceremony and Sayaka reaffirms that she’s gay as shit. Then there’s Touko, who has never experienced attraction before, and again it may be due to lying somewhere on the ace spectrum or perhaps (I find this more likely) due to her crippling fear of getting emotionally involved with others or accepting affection from anyone. But when she meets Yuu, who she instantly recognizes she can open up to and has no reason to fear, it hits her quick. She has all the symptoms of infatuation.
Yuu’s love is different, though no less lovely. In chapter 40, Yuu explains to us and to Touko that she was always waiting for a love that wasn’t her own to just drop in on her, but that her own personal experience of falling in love was much different. She reached out and Touko was there. She chose her, because she was the one that she wanted to love. And that’s how love blossomed between them. It wasn’t instantaneous. It was slow, gradual, touch by touch, moment by moment, oftentimes painfully so. But Yuu’s love for Touko is just as real as Touko’s love for Yuu. It is so moving. It presents a concept of love that is active rather than passive, as something that the heart chooses rather than something that chooses the heart. (Touko even says this to Sayaka while sobbing in chapter 38.) It shows that love can come from anywhere, even from nothing. It makes me wonder, could I do the same? Could I, too, choose love?
Yuu goes on a journey from feeling nothing to feeling something, from apathy to heightened emotion, and watching that lately has forced me to confront the emptiness in my own life. Not just in terms of romance, but on all fronts. My reading of Yuu is that she is depressed…my reading of Touko is that she (is also very much depressed) has severe anxiety, among other things. Both of them struggle with crippling loneliness. But in this touching love story slash coming of age classic, they find and support each other.
I wish that for me the issue was something like, I’ve actually been gay this whole time, and I just didn’t want to admit it, so I convinced myself that I felt no emotions. And once I liberate myself I can go be freely gay and experience love at last. Problem solved. I wish I could just meet someone like Yuu meets Touko, be it a guy or a girl or whomever, and finally feel something. I wish sexuality was all it was.
But what terrifies me is that the reality is much more complicated.
That my issues run much deeper. Maybe all of the shit that’s happened to me over the course of my life has stunted my emotional and sexual development to the point that now it would be a miracle if I ever felt anything again. Maybe it was always there, it just needs to be unearthed from all of my crippling trust issues and emotional repression. Or maybe I really am bisexual and I just need to open myself up to the possibility of romance with women (though I’m not convinced that would be any more successful at making me feel something than my forays into romance with men). Or maybe it just plain isn’t there. Maybe I am truly asexual and aromantic and I have to learn how to live with how much it hurts, how lonely it feels.
At the end of the day, Yuu may lament that she’s never experienced love before, but she really is only like sixteen years old. And as the story goes, she does end up experiencing it.
But me, I’m already twenty-two, and it’s starting to look like it’ll never happen.
Alas, for all of these deep ass themes as well as in spite of them, Bloom into You is an utterly adorable love story that I deeply enjoy and that has touched my heart. Stolen my heart, rather. It is a feat of storytelling and character writing pulled off in a succinct 8-volume, 23 episode (I assume) run. It’s already notable for how well and how normalized it pulls off a wlw romance for an anime of its genre, and it could have stopped there and just given us typical cuteness and fluff and still been great.
Instead, it goes a step (or a mile) farther. Everything about it packs an emotional punch. It grips you and doesn’t let go. It presents a much more complicated view of romantic love between two people than one you expected or probably asked for. What even is love? What is love for you and what is love for me? What is love for Yuu and what is love for Touko? What is the concept of the self, anyway? How do you even begin to process and move beyond the painful past? How do you become you? It begs all of these questions but never quite provides solid answers, because there really aren’t any. All we know is that Yuu and Touko love each other, and it doesn’t matter how or why, and it’s beautiful.
#bloom into you#in which i accidentally come out as ace in a tumblr text post rant about anime lesbians#whoops#meh#this is kinda embarrassing#but i wanted to post this not because of my personal issues but because i wanted to talk about bloom into you specifically#and how fucking good it is#and why i think it's so fucking good#well one of the reasons why#yagate kimi ni naru#this isn't the end either#there's way too much to delve into with this series#i'll probably talk about some OTHER aspect of the series later#btw i hate labels
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