#it was something about adrien and nino

[miraculoussly]

Before I forget-

Nvm I forgot

[a-flaming-idiot]

You think the Miracle Kids ever get annoyed that there is just merch of them? Like since they have secret identities, their hero forms are in the public domain so anyone can use and make merch for the heroes. But the kids will never see a cent of the profits made from that.

Like imagine struggling to pay for college, then you see that a company has made record profits from selling your likeness. And there is literally nothing you can do about it without putting yourself and your family at risk.

[wooawi]

Nino helps Adrien realise his father is abusive but not on purpose. It’s little things here and there.

After Adrien eats dinner with Nino’s family one time, Nino’s mother sends Nino to school from henceforth with an extra lunch. When Adrien is met with this and asks Nino why, well, Nino just shrugs and says he doesn’t think it’s healthy to eat so little.

Adrien’s locked up in his room again, nothing out of the ordinary. Then he gets a text from Nino asking where he is and explains the whole thing to the boy.

Nino replies with “Dude. That’s shitty. You should be able to hang out with your friends if you want to,” before the two spend the rest of the day texting back and forth.

Adrien drops an offhand comment about how he doesn’t really like his extra activities. They’re all too competition based and he’d much rather do them for fun, as a way to connect with others because he wants to, not because he has to. Nino asks him why he doesn’t just quit then and Adrien says because his father won’t let him.

Nino shakes his head. “My uncle loves football. He put me in this youth group for it when I was younger but I hated it. Felt like a chore to be honest. Told him about it and he let me quit and focus on what I wanted to do instead. Wish your dad was the same.”

Adrien shares that he doesn’t know what he wants to do when he grows up. That he doesn’t think he has a choice in the matter. It doesn’t matter anyway, he’s never thought about it before and he just won’t think about it now. Nino raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.

Later on, Adrien gets a list of careers and hobbies from Nino he could look at, complete with notes and comments about what each one entails. Adrien shows interest in video games and writing. Nino mentions he could set up a meeting with his mum, a developer.

When Adrien wonders why he’s not planning to be a developer too, Nino replies, “Well, maman knows I’m not much for video games. That’s more Marinette’s thing.”

Eventually, Adrien gets the idea that a parent is supposed to be more like Nino’s mother and uncle rather than his father. It’s subconscious, but it’s there, and it helps Adrien realise a lot more serious issues within his own family.

[snipstheskeleton]

i have adrino brainrot right now (do people even say brainrot anymore?? i don’t know but i can’t think of another word for it) and i want share how i view them because i haven’t read fanfic or seen anything else that’s similar enough to this

so adrien and nino are dating and they haven’t told anyone (maybe nino has told alya and adrien has told chloe (i love her and she and adrien are friends shut up) but marinette can’t know for this to work) they have multiple reasons for why they are staying silent the main ones are gabriel, nino thinks adrien doesn’t want to come out, and adrien doesn’t want nino to be bombarded with reporters, paparazzi, fangirls, homophobes/fangirls who want to date adrien (i say fangirls but i mean anyone not necessarily girls),etc if nino becomes popular he wants it to me for who nino is and what he does not because he’s dating a famous model/gabriel’s son and they like their relationship being just between them but that also means having to make sure that they are alone before they can do anything together which is a lot harder than it seems to be so nino goes up to ladybug at one point when he’s carapace(if adrino has revealed their identities to each other) to ask ladybug if it’s ok that if he and chat noir can publicly date because they’re actually dating but they have to keep their relationship secret and ladybug agrees but is a little hurt nino hasn’t told her (marinette) that he’s dating someone and that feeling comes and goes because she wants nino to be able to tell her this stuff but also doesn’t want to know chat noir’s identity and a little less publicly chat noir will flirt or tease nino when carapace is not needed (but only around ladybug/rena or when they think they can without causing a lot of attention so people don’t suspect nino is carapace) and carapace can’t really do the same with adrien (at least around rena and ladybug like chat noir does) but it’s very obvious to people close to adrien that he has the hots for carapace and has made jokes that if carapace wasn’t with chat noir maybe his celebrity status is enough to woo carapace and at times chat noir will ask for the turtle miraculous when he sees ladybug so him and nino can spend time together when they may not be able to as their civilian selves until nino gets the turtle permanently and even after adrino come out publicly they’ll still have dates as chat noir and carapace partially so people don’t think they’ve broken up but mainly because even if they could go do something together without at least one person coming up to them being able to chill with your boyfriend in places most people can’t get to is so much better than going to your typical date locations and the views are so much better (not that they usually look away from each other long enough to notice)

[theprinceandthewitch]

No, no I don't think I will "get over" this shows poorly veiled misogyny lol.

[suddenrundown]

puppeteer 2 good actually

[anna-scribbles]

THANK YOU THIS IS THE BEST THING THATS EVER HAPPENED TO ME

@anna-scribbles this one's for you. happy late birthday

[astrid-goes-for-a-spin]

Something that’s hilarious about Miraculous Ladybug is when you first watch, you’re so grounded in Marinette’s POV that Adrien feels untouchable, unattainable. Any attention or affection from him is hard-won, a miracle, he’s so busy and so important and Marinette is just Marinette

And then you rewatch and you realize Marinette’s perspective here is incredibly wrong. Adrien views her as a close friend, someone in his inner circle. He goes out of his way to connect with her and is always appreciative of the many, many hangouts. You could easily argue Marinette is a closer friend to Adrien than Nino is and always has been 😭

TLDR: Marinette’s self esteem sucks and Adrien clearly adores her even before there’s any romance

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Regarding the post about Marinette being punished for trusting people and the response to it, this is something I always have trouble explaining because it sounds callous? But fictional characters aren't people. It's not that their lives just so happen to get in the way leading to something bad happened the writers decided that should happen, and it's important that you stop and ask WHY this happens. If the camera is "on" per se, people assume it's relevant and will tie into something larger. So like if the camera is on and all we see is Alya revealing her identity and then the result is she's outed in the same way she was in Heroes Day, the audience naturally concludes it's connected and thus realizes the lesson is either "Alya learns she shouldn't share her identity" OR "Marinette learns she shouldn't trust people" or both.

Secret identities are a great example of this phenomenon. We're NOT shown every time a villain's plan is foiled because they didn't know the heroe's identity, we ARE shown every time a heroe's identity causes friction in their lives. As such, large parts of the audience think of secret identites as inconveniences because that's what's shown (not just in Miraculous Ladybug, in tons of other shows)

Like you are supposed to make connections in Television about what's being shown to you that no one would make in real life (or at the very least no one SHOULD make in real life) because there's a limited space to tell the story and the audience is assuming the writers aren't wasting our time.

If these were real people it would be unreasonable to say because people have their own lives Marinette can't trust them, but in a story where Marinette is the main character who is explicitly always supposed that's. An accurate way to read the story!

And I also understand that this is a very boring construction if you're making headcanons or thinking about these characters! But that's a different lens, it doesn't make the broader writing lens invalid. You're speaking different languages at that point.

Anyway I hope that helps someone, that's my two cents

You summed it up perfectly! There's a ton of valid criticism to be had of Miraculous, but you can tell from the narrative framing that almost all of it comes down to writing choices and not things that are supposed to be seen as in-universe issues even though a lot of fans treat them as such. It's really weird to see things like people complaining about everything revolving around Marinette as if it's a personal flaw of hers and not the result of her being the main character in a fictional world. "Main Character Syndrome" literally pulls its name from the fact that this is how main characters work in a lot of media. It's a flaw when a real person does it, but in terms of story telling, it's extremely normal - and often good story telling - to have everything revolve around your main character or a core cast.

The issue with Miraculous is that they chose a lot of poor conflicts if they wanted Marinette to be the one and only main character, but that's not her fault. She didn't decide to have the rules around identities make no sense. The writers did. She didn't decide to make the main villain Adrien's dad while also keeping Adrien from being involved in the story. The writers did. The list goes on and on and, because none of it reflects badly on Marinette in the writers' eyes, the show doesn't act like Marinette is in the wrong. Remember, these are the same writers who think that Derision was a great episode that added depth to Marinette instead of destroying her character and making her look unhinged. Their judgement is clearly a little skewed.

While the writers love to make bad plot choices, they are generally using proper story telling language to make those choices, which is why I can tell you how characters' actions are intended to be read. The Rena Furtive and Nino example is a great one because it allows me to show that the writers do understand how to set things up. In fact, once they've decided that they're going to do a thing, they pretty much always set it up at a basic level. It's rarely spectacular and often frustrating, but it's never shocking.

In Rocketear, Alya promises Marinette that Nino will never learn about Rena Furtive. The episode then ends with her breaking that promise via the following exchange:

Alya: (sighs) I'm still Rena Rouge. (Nino gasps.) But now I'm in hiding and that's why Ladybug asked me not to tell anyone. Nino: But why are you telling me if no one's supposed to know? Is Ladybug cool with this? Alya: I can't hide it from you, because I love you, Nino, and we share everything.

Look at how this confession is presented. Look at what the dialogue focuses on. When Marinette confessed her identity to Alya, it was all about the confession and supporting Marinette. There was no discussion of this being a problem for Chat Noir or anything like that because - in the writers' eyes - that wasn't a problem for some reason. This is why Chat Noir almost instantly absolves Ladybug of blame once he finds out about the identity reveal (see: Hack-San.) The writers didn't want it to be an issue so it wasn't:

Ladybug: I'm really sorry, Cat Noir. I should've told you. I mean, if I found out that you told someone about your secret identity, I'd... probably be upset, too. I'm really sorry I hurt your feelings. Cat Noir: You didn't hurt my feelings. You did everything right

But when Alya confesses her identity to Nino, the conversation is not just about her confession. It's about her confession and how she's not supposed to do this. That's why Nino's response is not loving support. Instead, he asks if this is a good idea and if Ladybug knows.

These things are getting focused on because the writers are telling you that this is a bad thing. It's supposed to feel ominous. When I first watched Rocketear, I assumed that the season was going to end with Gabriel getting the fox off of Alya due to Nino because that was an obvious way to raise the stakes and they'd just heavily implied that Nino knowing would be a bad thing. I was, unfortunately, right. The only on screen consequence of Nino knowing is that he outs Alya to everyone in an incredibly forced series of events (see: Strikeback):

(Ryuko successfully prevents the Roue de Paris from hitting them, yet, it flies to the direction where Rena Furtive is. This causes Carapace to panic.) Carapace: Rena! (takes out his shield) Shell-ter! (Carapace's superpower successfully prevents the Ferris wheel from hitting Rena Furtive on top of the Tour Montparnasse. But the information of Rena Furtive's active status shocks the heroes, as well as Shadow Moth.) The heroes: Rena?! Shadow Moth: (from the top of the Eiffel Tower) She's still active?

Of course the Ferris Wheel goes straight for Alya's hiding spot and of course Nino screams her name before casting his power and of course the villain overhears it. It's all so forced and unnatural, which should make it glaringly obvious how much the writers wanted this to happen. This wasn't something they were kind of forced to do because it made sense for the narrative and they wanted to tell a good story. Instead, they wrote an awkward series of events because they really, really, really wanted Nino knowing to be a bad thing that outs Alya so that Marinette loses all of the miraculous even though none of this makes much sense.

How the hell did Gabriel hear Nino's shout from so far away? Is he able to overhear everything the heroes are saying? How does Nino even know that Alya is hiding there? And since when was a Ferris Wheel a threat to these guys? Your girlfriend is a magical girl and she's in her magical girl form, dude. You could drop a building on her and she'd be fine, a thing you have to know because this scene literally goes on to have Chat Noir go flying into a building, hitting it so hard the cement literally cracks, and no one really cares. I guess it's fine if Adrien is a punching bag, but Alya must be protected at all costs...

Anyway, while the above series of events was annoying, none of it was surprising. In fact, it would have all be perfectly predictable even if Alya outing herself was that treated as a more neutral event. Her choice leading to bad things falls perfectly in line with a truly bizarre running theme in the show: outing your identity to the person you love romantically is a bad thing that leads to bad consequences. That's why Chat Blanc and Ephemeral ended the world and why Nino knowing cost Ladybug the fox and why the character they call Joan of Arc has to give up her miraculous to be with her love and why the Kwami's have this absolutely asinine dialogue in Kwamis' Choice:

Plagg: Sugarcube! Having to force them to choose between love and their mission is just awful! Maybe Master Fu was wrong to choose them. Tikki: No, they’re made for each other. Love is what gives them their strength. Plagg: But the impossible part of that love is destroying them, and I know a thing or two about destruction. Tikki: (sighs heavily) What can we do? Plagg: We must free them of that impossible choice. We must… free them of us.

This is the voice of the author telling you that outing the identities is not and never will be a good choice for the love square. Never mind that Alya is allowed to know Marinette's identity or that Gabriel finding out is what actually ended the world in the alternate timelines or that Felix outted himself in public but is still wielding or that freaking Gabriel was allowed to know half of the temp heroes' identities while they were still actively wielding. For some reason, those things don't matter to the narrative, probably because romantic love wasn't involved. The "identity reveals are a bad thing" rule only seems to apply when romantic love is a key element to the point where it's a reoccurring theme in this supposed power of love show.

[chocostrwberry]

A new friend…?

ChocoAU relationship info below!!

This is for @comedic-slut because of your ask and I said I WOULD make a post about it so HERE U GO!! 🥹🫶 THIS ONES FOR YOU BB /p

Adrien as we all know was raised completely isolated. He didn’t know anyone else at school except Chloe, who introduced him to her friends, and one of them wasn’t Nino ahasjhdhd. So he was kind of trapped in this social bubble, despite really wanting to branch out and make more friends, like he had initially hoped. Chloe wouldn’t let him talk to anyone else either (warning him that they were “losers”).

Nino was Alya’s childhood best friend, so they hung out all the time. It was always just, him and Alya and then Marinette. He didn’t want or feel the need to even try to talk to Adrien, since he was cousins with the girl who bullied Marinette and Kim kind of bullied him as well, so The Empire was the group to stay away from. He also was friends with Ivan and Max (they played video games sometimes), so Adrien was just. Never an option for him.

The only reason why he went to even talk to Adrien was because after Chloe and Adrien had a mysterious fight that caused Adrien to be essentially “kicked out” of their friend group, Alya wanted to know why for the drama. The class talked to Kim first, but he said only Sabrina knew, and everyone was aware she would never spill. So, they sent in Nino as the sacrifice to ask Adrien and find out.

Nino invited Adrien out to eat pizza for lunch (since Adrien always went off-campus to eat after the fight), and they got to know each other. Adrien really liked Nino’s bluntness, and he felt like Nino treated him like any other person. But since he had ulterior motives, Nino felt bad for only hanging out with Adrien for information on his personal life. So after the hangout, Nino tells Alya what she wants to know, but still decides to eat out with Adrien, even though Alya points out he can’t afford to do it.

Chloe, still hurt from their fight, finds out about Adrien potentially making a new friend. So, acting in anger and selfishness, she commands her driver to over Nino’s bike. His bike was his only ride to school and to do his job as a delivery boy. (He’s attending the school on a scholarship, so his parents aren’t as wealthy as most of his friends.) Nino immediately stopped talking to Adrien after that, and Adrien got pissed that Chloe would do something like that to scare away his first friend.

Adrien stands up for Nino, he argues/talks with Chloe about her emotions, and she ends up buying him a moped as an apology!

Afterwards, they continue to hang out and develop their friendship!! :D

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Representation

Oh, so NOW child abuse is bad. Could have fooled me last episode!

Let's get into the twenty-fifth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Representation

We start off with an English news report recapping the ending of “Revolution”, stating that Ms. Bustier is going to run for mayor, conveniently ignoring her attempted coup in “Collusion”. We also see that Gabriel and Tomoe are still uncomfortably focused on making Adrien and Kagami appear to be a couple in public, much to their dismay. While Kagami is visited by Argos (who once again sneaks up on her, like he usually does), Adrien realizes he can transform into his space form and see Marinette whenever he wants and transforms into Cat Noir, planning to reveal his identity to Marinette. Hey, did he even tell Ladybug about his sudden departure? Because it didn't go well the last time he left Paris without telling her (New York Special).

We then cut to Marinette right after the events of “Revolution”, going to the end of the year dance... even though when we saw Adrien and Kagami in London, the sun was still setting, and France's time zone is only about an hour later, meaning Adrien and Kagami must have flown there at ludicrous speed.

Meanwile, Argos and Kagami somehow got from London to Paris offscreen, and watch Marinette from afar, with Kagami revealing she knows she's Ladybug. They decide to tell Marinette that Felix knows who Monarch is in order to ensure his downfall. Nah, I'm just kidding. Here's the real reason they're coming to Marinette for help.

Kagami: My mother and Gabriel Agreste will never allow us to love each other freely. Only Ladybug can help us.

Yep, rather than prioritize the fact that Gabriel is endangering the citizens of Paris on a daily basis, Kagami is seriously more concerned about her relationship with her boyfriend being tampered with. This is like saying Lex Luthor is evil because he cheats on his taxes. Argos transforms back into Felix, and... oh, for the love of God... he disguises himself as Adrien in order to get closer to Marinette. You can't keep portraying Felix as this master of disguise if he only has ONE disguise!

Marinette sees “Adrien” and assumes he came back from London from her, assuming her boyfriend is much more active that the writers actually believe he is, so she tries to follow him while avoiding the guests at the party. Meanwhile, Gabriel and Tomoe learn their children are gone, so he goes to talk with Nathalie and—why the hell is she like that?

Seriously, this has never been established as something that happens when someone uses the broken Peacock Miraculous. Why didn't this happen to Emilie? She looks pretty healthy in her little coffin, and I doubt Gabriel is an embalmer.

Anyway, after Nathalie once again reminds us that she hates Gabriel, but not enough to call the cops on him, Gabriel transforms into Monarch and immediately detransforms back in order to akumatize himself into Nightormentor.

Nightormentor is a pretty average recolor of the Collector's design, which kind of makes sense, considering that Gabriel himself intended the Akuma for himself. The star pattern is okay, but there's not much I can really say. As for his powers, he's just another Sandboy, being able to force people to hallucinate their worse nightmares, only instead of a pillow, his weapon is a staff created from a pen containing the Akuma, with the Horse Miraculous' Voyage to boot. Why he didn't just give himself the same powers he gave Truth when he's trying to find Adrien is anyone's guess.

Cat Noir arrives at the Eiffel Tower to talk with Marinette, just as Nightormentor appears. The two fight, and after a few civilians get caught in the crossfire, Nightormentor escapes through Voyage. As Cat Noir heads to the Dupain-Cheng bakery at the advising of Max, Alya and Nino decide that the totally not useless Resistance should get involved.

While Marinette gives chase, Felix leads her into the school's art classroom, where he transforms into Argos and creates a Sentimonster using Kagami's ring. Felix and Kagami use the Sentimonster's power to do... uh... whatever the hell this is.

Yeah, this is basically a flashback, but the animators probably blew their budget needed for the new models on Ms. Bustier's baby bump, so we're getting this instead, thanks to the Sentimonster Argos created. There are several scenes of Cat Noir and Nightormentor interspersed, but like what I did with Marinette's flashback in “Derision”, I'll give you the summary before I talk about my problems with this.

When Adrien's mother and aunt, Emilie and Amelie, were born, Emilie (who was born seven seconds early) was trusted with the family heirlooms, the two rings we first saw all the way back in “Felix”. Even though this meant she would inherit the family name, Emilie didn't really like doing... whatever the Graham de Vanily family wanted her to do, but Amelie did. Eventually, while studying abroad, Emilie met Gabriel, and the two fell in love. Before marrying Gabriel, Emilie gave up her role as the sole inheritor of the Graham de Vanily family's vague legacy, while Amelie married a man named Colt to please her parents. Both couples wanted children, but it's heavily implied that Emilie and Amelie were infertile, so their wishes weren't able to come true. Emilie finally managed to get a bun in the oven thanks to the Peacock Miraculous, but this made Colt jealous that he couldn't have a child. Out of the goodness of her heart, Emilie asked Gabriel to give the Peacock Miraculous to Colt, in exchange for letting the Gorilla guard Adrien in the future. Using his own jealousy as a source of power, Colt got Amelie pregnant, though at the cost of his health. Colt figured this was the price he had to pay for using “sorcery”, and used this as an excuse to treat Felix like a monster and ordered him around using the ring containing his Amok. Felix himself was unaware that he wasn't human until Colt accidentally broke the ring (which wasn't one of the two wedding rings used to control Adrien and was an entirely different ring containing Felix's Amok), which he stole as soon as Colt died. This is meant to explain why Felix decided to steal back the Peacock Miraculous, in order to save his life. Felix later met Kagami, and the two explain that they need “Someone like Ladybug” to help them.

Now if your only information about this episode is through my summary, it seems simple enough. For everyone else who actually saw this sequence in the episode itself, I'm guessing your thoughts were about the same as mine.

Let's go over every problem I have with this scene, starting with...

#1: The Way Kagami and Felix Explain This

Let me just ask something: Why can't Felix just talk to Marinette about what he knows since he now knows she's Ladybug instead of telling her everything through this weird play? You can still tell Marinette all of this without your two-man show. In fact, why did Felix have to wait until he knew Marinette was Ladybug instead of just talking to her the next time he saw her? Yeah, you could argue it's easier this way, but like I've been saying since Season 4, Felix has had no excuse to wait this long to tell Ladybug about the fact that he knows who her greatest enemy is.

And why the hell is it presented this way? Why does Felix have to recontextualize the story of his family's history in the form of a play? Why turn it into a stereotypical fairy tale that leaves out the names of all the important people, like Emilie, Amelie, Colt (whose name I only learned through the transcript of this episode), and Gabriel? If it was like a hidden message Felix and Kagami wanted to convey to Marinette, that would make sense, but why do they have to be so cryptic when they're only putting this show on for one person? You could easily avoid a good chunk of the questions this raises if this was a show Felix and Kagami put on for the public that Marinette was able to learn the information from. Yeah, it still wouldn't explain why Felix can't just tell Marinette about who Gabriel really is, but at least it's something.

The way it all happens kind of reminds me of this scene from this old Halloween special I saw a lot as a kid, Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktacular. In that scene, some of the kids act out a scene of this little girl's parents entrusting her with a flashlight to explain why she carries it around, in order to scare off any monsters she runs into, using the graveyard they were in as a makeshift set. This scene works a lot more because it's done in more of a tongue-in-cheek way, with some of the kids breaking character to boost their own egos (for example, the kid playing the mom comments about how responsible she is), and how one kid in particular gradually gets fed up with the whole thing. The scene does its job at delivering exposition in a way that isn't meant to be taken too seriously, and it's clear this is being done by some kids goofing around in-universe.

With this episode, it's clear that the writers want the audience to take this whole backstory seriously in spite of how absurd it all is. Seriously look at this.

We are seriously expected to take this backstory seriously when it looks like some theater major's midterm project. The animators want it to look artsy and unique for the sake of making it look artsy and unique. Why does it look like a play these two put together themselves if they're supposedly using a Sentimonster's power to do it? If the unnamed Sentimonster's powers is how Marinette is seeing all this, why can't it actually be seen as a flashback? Was it always intended to be a handmade play that was changed to the product of a Sentimonster at the last minute?

I get that the animators probably wanted kids to pick up on the visuals of the play, but even then, it makes it hard to really stomach the serious themes this backstory brings up, like infertility and child abuse, with the way they're presented. Not only do Felix and Kagami all play the characters using these white jumpsuits and masks, they also do all the voices, meaning that the only “dialogue” we hear from Colt is delivered by Kagami putting on a deeper voice. Let me repeat that: the only times we hear Colt, the abusive parent and all around garbage human being, talk, it's done by a teenage girl trying to make her voice sound deeper.

But hey, maybe the goofy voice will be overshadowed by the nuanced depiction of child abuse, right? Right?

#2: The Portrayal of Colt and the Double Standards Regarding His Treatment of Felix

I have never seen a single show struggle this much to convey a lesson as simple as “Child abuse is bad”.

When it comes to the parents in this show, terrible parents like Gabriel, Audrey, and Tomoe are almost never held accountable for the way they treated their children. If the writers aren't claiming they really love their children deep down, they're either downplaying how cruel they are at best or playing their behavior for laughs at worst. But here we are, the penultimate episode of the fifth season, and we finally have a parent who is unambiguously treated as a terrible human being with no redeeming qualities... and I still have problems with this.

This flashback really goes out of its way to let the audience that Colt was a real piece of scum in life. He only wanted a child out of jealousy, used his Amok to force Felix to do whatever he wanted, was heavily implied to have physically beat him at times, and blamed him for his poor health on his deathbed when he was the one who wanted to use the Peacock in the first place. Now that I think about it, why did Colt even use the Peacock to create Felix instead of Emelie? Was the episode so determined to paint Colt as a bastard that he wanted to be the one to create Felix himself?

The point I'm trying to make is that the show doesn't really explain why Colt was like this. Why was he such an angry man who treated his only child like crap? I don't know, because all the show's telling me is that he was just a dick. He honestly feels more like a caricature than anything else. He's only as terrible of a person he is in order to make the audience sympathize with Felix. I'm not saying that what Felix went through was okay, but it has the same energy as scenes of Gabriel talking to Emilie's body. It's mostly there to make the audience sympathize with an antagonistic character in spite of all the things they've done.

What's really weird is that even though the whole point of this play is so Felix can tell Marinette Gabriel is Monarch, so what does Colt have to do with this? I'm not saying he's not worth mentioning, but it makes no sense for Felix to tell Marinette about his abusive father before he tells her about Gabriel. It feels more like Felix wants to find a way to excuse his actions before telling Marinette about Gabriel being Monarch. And remember when “Derision” made a big deal about Chloe's terrible parents not excusing her actions? Funny how that conveniently doesn't apply to Felix in this episode.

In fact, let's talk about the elephant in the room: The fact that this episode aired right after “Revolution”, an episode that literally said a character living under an abusive and controlling parent was a fitting punishment for her. HOW THE HELL IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT FROM THAT? If anything, this episode really shows the double standards this show has about child abuse, how the only way your situation can be taken seriously is if you're a “good victim”. Chloe's a “bad victim”, so she doesn't get any sympathy when her mother outright says she's going to take control of her life, yet when Colt actually takes control of Felix's life, we're supposed to sympathize with him now. Why am I supposed to feel bad for Felix now when you just told me I shouldn't feel bad for someone in a similar situation last episode?

In fact, one theory I have about this backstory is that it was intended to kill two birds with one stone, no pun intended. I believe that this episode wasn't just written to give us more insight into who Felix is as a character, but also to show the audience what “real” child abuse is like. As far as the show is concerned with Gabriel, Audrey, and Tomoe? They're not actually abusive parents, Colt is, so you should condemn his actions, and not those three. It's blatant double standards, which is nothing new for this show.

#3: The Way Amelie Just... Lets This All Happen

In my “Derision” review, I discussed how strange it was that so many people in Marinette's life did nothing to help her against Chloe, and the same thing applies here with Amelie.

This episode never really explains where Amelie was when Colt was abusing Felix, much less if she was even aware of it. At least with Marinette's parents, they didn't know because most of Marinette's suffering was at school. Amelie lives with Felix and Colt, so what's her excuse? She seriously didn't overhear Colt yelling at Felix or notice the orders Colt gave Felix? Was she just that ignorant to her child's suffering? Remember, this is supposed to be Felix's good parent.

In fact, does Amelie even know Felix is a Sentimonster? Yeah, “Emotion” established that Amelie knows Felix is Argos, but this episode doesn't really make it clear if she knows Felix is a Sentimonster or not. If it was clear Amelie knew nothing about what Felix really was, it would arguably make things easier to stomach, as she wouldn't know the power Colt had over him.

Instead, even though she's Felix's mother, the show doesn't really explain what she actually did when Colt was making Felix's life a living hell, especially since the flashback says that Amelie was forced to marry Colt, so you can't even say she was blinded by love here. Hell, I'm not even sure if Amelie knew the cause of Colt's untimely passing.

#4:This Doesn’t Really Do Much to Explain Felix’s Actions

Now before you say I'm being insensitive, let me make one thing clear: My issue isn't with the fact that this was done to get the audience to sympathize with Felix. The problem I have is that the backstory doesn't do enough to explain why Felix did the things he did.

Okay, Felix wants the Peacock Miraculous. Understandable, he doesn't want to die, so he has to do morally questionable things to preserve his life like betraying the only person capable of stopping the man who can kill him. What's less understandable is his plan to get the Peacock Miraculous from Gabriel. You'll notice that the backstory didn't mention Felix's first appearance, where he only stole the rings belonging to Amelie's family, and he didn't even think to look for the Peacock. Instead, it cuts from Felix realizing he's a Sentimonster to him striking a deal with Gabriel, not even mentioning that he gave Gabriel back one of the rings as part of the deal, which still makes no sense.

If Felix's goal from the start was to get the Peacock Miraculous, why did he bother stealing all of Marinette's Miraculous as a bargaining chip for the deal instead of the family ring? In fact, why did Felix even steal the ring and wait an entire season to trade it back to Gabriel for the Peacock a season later? And for someone who claims to care about Adrien, he really didn't see anything wrong with giving Gabriel one of the two rings capable of overriding his free will.

As a matter of fact, why the hell is Felix even so hostile towards Adrien? Why did he go out of his way to smear his reputation in his debut episode if all he wanted to do was make a bargain with Hawkmoth? In “Risk”, he mocked Adrien for how he talked, while Adrien himself was aware of how he made him look bad in front of his friends, and that's not even getting into how he made himself look like Adrien as part of his plan to betray Ladybug, which would have screwed him even more if Adrien wasn't already Cat Noir. For someone who claims he wants to protect him from Gabriel, Felix really doesn't care about his cousin all that much.

In fact, why does Felix even hate Gabriel at all? The show hinted that the two had a history, yet during the backstory, which I need to remind you, was told from Felix's perspective on the events, has a surprisingly generous portrayal of Gabriel. Did Felix know Gabriel was Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Monarch during his first appearance? Does Felix blame Gabriel for how Colt treated him growing up? Does Felix hate Gabriel for how he treats Adrien? Did Gabriel intend to get Colt sick in the first place? Seriously, what is Felix's deal with Gabriel?!

How does a flashback organized by Felix himself do nothing to really explain why he did the things he did?

#5: The Fact That There Are STILL Several Unanswered Questions Here

For something meant to fill the audience in on several important topics, there are still so many questions about the history of the Agreste and Graham de Vanily families.

Other than the vague backstory about them being rich, we still know nothing about Emilie and Amelie other than them being rich and possibly infertile. We don't know if Amelie ever loved Colt, if she knew he was abusing Felix, or if she even knew if he used the Peacock to play god.

On a related note, why did Emilie and Gabriel decide to use the Peacock Miraculous to create a son instead of adopting? Scratch that, why did she specifically create a Sentimonster to give birth to like a normal baby? Was there some kind of Macbeth-esque guideline that Emilie had to give birth to a child in order for said child to get the inheritance? Did she use the ring to control Adrien like Gabriel does now? Seriously, this is the character the show's conflict is all based around, and we still know nothing about her other than the fact that she was nice.

This flashback just makes no sense, and is such a stupid and confusing way to deliver exposition.

Anyway, during all this, Cat Noir and Nightormentor are fighting, and for the third time this season, Cat Noir attempts to Cataclysm him someone, even when he had Nightormentor pinned down. Nightormentor breaks free and hits Cat Noir with his magic dust, causing him to hallucinate... Cat Blanc?

Yeah, the script calls this form “Anticat”, but given how it looks like a reused Cat Blanc model coupled with the petrified people of Paris, this is clearly meant to bring Cat Blanc to mind. The problem is that NEITHER CAT NOIR OR NIGHTORMENTOR KNOW ABOUT THAT. Why would you remind audiences about an Akuma that technically never existed?

Better yet, is this what Cat Noir trying to his Cataclysm on people this past season (Destruction, Jubilation, Derision) has been building up to? The fear that he'll lose control? You could have fooled me, as he never really showed that much remorse for almost hurting people other than Monarch. Yeah, you could argue that because Nightormentor based his hallucinations off his victims' worst fears, but again, this fear had little to no buildup this season because Cat Noir never felt any guilt for Cataclysming Monarch after “Destruction”, and whenever tried to use his Cataclysm on other people, Cat Noir never really realized the weight of his actions. If you want to make a character arc about Cat Noir worrying about hurting people with his powers, go more into the guilt he feels for hurting Monarch and using that guilt to affect his actions. Don't just use some “Cat Blanc” nostalgia bait to convince the audience that there's been a character arc.

Nightormentor takes advantage of Cat Noir's emotional state to get his Miraculous, only for the Resistance to save Cat Noir by... throwing stuff at him. And this is how they defeat him. While Nino, Alya, Ivan, and Zoe distract Nightormentor, Kim and Max help Cat Noir focus, Cat Noir Cataclysms Nightormentor's baton.

Zoe traps the Akuma in a jar, Cat Noir doesn't take it, he heads off to detransform and confess to Marinette, only for the hallucination to still affect him since Ladybug didn't use Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage, and even though he knows it's just a hallucination, he still uses it as a reason to not reveal his identity to Marinette, even after Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma herself.

The episode ends with Gabriel and Tomoe locking Adrien and Kagami in these white rooms while under heavy surveillance to ensure they won't escape, vowing to start “Operation: Perfect Alliance”. Because these two like using the word “perfect” more than they like subjecting their children to what one of my anons referred to as “white torture”.

Because that's a good way to keep your children under control: psychological torment.

Other than the stuff with Felix and Kagami, this episode was pretty dull.

There's just not much I can really say here. The plot was barebones, all Marinette did was listen to Felix and Kagami's story so the writers didn't have to involve any of them in the main conflict, and even Cat Noir confronting his akumatized father doesn't have a lot of weight to it because towards the end, it focuses more on Adrien's nightmare instead of his relationship with his father.

This episode is nothing more than a prologue for the final battle. It's only here to establish Adrien and Kagami's presence in London, Marinette learning Gabriel is Monarch, and even more setup for Gabriel and Tomoe's final plan. And trust me, the buildup will be far from worth it.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... FELIX

It's amazing. The only time this season Felix goes out of his way to actually help Ladybug, and he still screws it up. He abducted Kagami from her hotel in London without thinking of Tomoe hunting him down again when that was the entire plot of “Pretension”, only decided to tell Marinette he knows who Monarch is because he's getting in the way of his relationship with his girlfriend, did so in an unnecessarily convoluted way, and even though he made a big deal about not wanting to use Sentimonsters in his last appearance, he still used one to tell Marinette his life story instead of just saying “My uncle is Monarch”.

And if you think Felix will get a chance to truly redeem himself in the finale, think again, bucko. Other than a brief cameo, this is the last thing he'll do this season. Aren't you glad the writers made this character prominent for seven episodes over three seasons and did nothing else with him?

[frostedpuffs]

some thoughts about furry au:

while Adrien is still a model, he also participates in "cat shows", which are like the real world counterpart we have, except its more to show off agility and a well-groomed coat...but this often results in Adrien batting a cat toy around on stage and the audience going "his FORM! it's immaculate!" i don't think he'd like participating in these shows very much. he finds them fake (and boring. Because he always wins)

marinette, like a hamster, uses her cheek pouches as a place to store things. she will bring her friends snacks this way. they are polite and accept the treats...even if they're like "umm...this was in your mouth?" sometimes she forgets she put something in there until someone points it out

Adrien's fur is softer than soft. supremely soft and conditioned. he takes very good care of his coat and brushes it daily. this may or may not be because his mom scared him as a kid telling him if he doesn't take good care of his fur, it'll fall off and he'll look like his father (a sphinx cat)

nino's tail is almost always wagging. especially when he is with alya. that is one happy dog

you know how baby hamsters start as "pinkies" with no fur? yeah that was Marinette. have fun with that visual

lila tried to say she was a rare breed of fox for the longest time. people bought it

gorilla is a silverback gorilla. you can't change my mind. it's practically canon

chloe is extremely conceited about the fact that she is a mink

Felix still tries to impersonate Adrien. when people question where all Adrien's perfectly groomed fluff went, felix tells them he had a bad trip to the groomers. that becomes a headline in all the magazines

when Adrien first develops a crush on Marinette he physically cannot stop himself from purring at the sight of her and Nino has to discreetly be like "bro, your motor started up again"

whenever luka is getting into a really good jam it's hard to stop himself from howling to the music

[flightfoot]

How Alya's mistreated by the saltdom and the writers

I've written this for the @yall-hate-kids-tourney, but figured that I'd publish it on my own tumblr as well for an easy reference point for others who want to illustrate how badly Alya's been treated - mostly by the fandom, but she's been somewhat screwed over by the writing as well. I've written it so that even people who have never heard of Miraculous before can understand my problems with the way Alya's often depicted, and I will probably use this essay for that purpose repeatedly in the future. It's over 4500 words, so buckle up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few problems with this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Addendum: How Alya is screwed over by the writers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[trainsinanime]

Miraculous Ladybug jokes in fanfics that will never not be funny

Not complete, not ordered. You can combine them for even more fun!

Identity shenanigans

Marinette steals someone's phone

Adrichat

Marinette does something weird; Adrien looks at her with soft eyes and earnestly goes "she's great"

Monsieur Pigeon is at it again

Pre-reveal, pre-relationship: Adrien is in love with Marinette but at most 50% aware of it

Pre-reveal, pre-relationship: Ladybug is in love with Chat Noir but at most 25% aware of it

Random side character (within the context of the story) has a crush on Marinette that they may or may not know about

Several random side characters (within the context of the story) have a crush on Marinette that they may or may not know about

Marinette has a bit of a crush on a random side character (Kagami is a great choice for this, although/because Marigami is also a great ship in its own right)

Gabriel has opinions on child-rearing

Plagg compares things to cheese

Alya and Nino are up to something

Luka responds only by strumming his guitar

Any mention of T-Rexes or space trash

Kagami tries to solve an issue by using a sword

Characters have opinions about what Marinette's hair color actually is

Detective Nino

Cat puns

Fanfic writer tries extremely hard to avoid writing a Lucky Charm plan

[ckneal]

I can’t stop thinking about how EmoAdrien’s efforts to befriend Nino in his world must have gone.

Because the Marinette from his world was bewildered at the thought of him recognizing her civilian identity when she detransformed in front of him, implying that they do not know each other from school in their world, and that this version of Adrien is probably still getting home schooled around his modeling career. He has probably not received the already miniscule amount of socialization that our main universe Adrien received, and while he knows who Nino is, he only knows him as his masked persona. Not as a civilian.

There are only so many options open to him! He could start showing up in places he knows Nino frequents in a similar fashion to how Chat Noir tends to just show up at Marinette’s house, hoping that whatever good word Betterfly put in for him is enough to keep Nino from running away on sight. Or, alternatively, EmoAdrien is going to have to just cruise around Paris in the backseat of his limo until he happens to spot Nino on the street somewhere. At which point, the most awkward conversation is bound to happen, because again, this Adrien has no friends! He’s just a wanna-be-edgy supermodel who only talks to people when they’re going about their paid jobs that just so happen to put them in his vicinity. His great opener to the conversation after jumping out of his limo and running up to Nino is probably going to be “HI! Uh. . .how are you?”

While Nino is just gawkily looking between Adrien and a ten foot version of Adrien’s face pictured next to a bottle of perfume on some nearby billboard.

Then, with a dozen different alarm bells in his head letting him know that he is getting more cringe by the second, this poor little guy is going to panic and say something about how they should see a movie some time, hastily looking around for a piece of paper that isn’t there, before scrawling his number on Nino’s arm and shouting “Call me!”

And as Adrien’s limo drives off, Alya, who we know is still dating Nino in this universe, is going to walk out of a nearby shop and ask Nino why he looks so startled.

And Nino’s going to say, “Babe. . .I think Adrien Agreste just asked me out.”

[fivesslut8]

I just got to the episode in miraculous s5 where alya is just not believing marinette and omg it just makes my blood boil anyway heres a revised version of how i think it should have gone down

Marinette felt her pulse racing as she stared at Alya, her best friend, the person she thought would always have her back. But the look on Alya's face—the disbelief, the way she was brushing her off like she was being paranoid—was too much to take. Marinette's fists clenched around the edge of her lunch tray, knuckles white.

Lila had been lying again, and everyone was falling for it. Again. Marinette could feel her stomach twisting in knots as she tried to keep calm, but the fury bubbling inside her was impossible to ignore this time. Adrien had been by her side, trying to back her up, but Alya and Nino just wouldn't listen.

"You don't need to defend her, Adrien," Alya said, her voice dismissive as she rolled her eyes. "I mean, come on. It's not that big of a deal. Marinette always has a problem with Lila, and it's getting old. Just... let it go."

Marinette's breath caught in her throat. She felt something snap.

"Let it go?" she repeated, her voice low, trembling with restrained rage. She set her tray down on the table with a loud *clatter*, startling everyone. "You think I should just *let it go*?"

Alya blinked, clearly taken aback. "Mari, I didn’t mean—"

"No! You listen to me for once!" Marinette shouted, stepping closer, her face flushed with anger. "I’m sick of this! Lila’s been lying to all of you from the very beginning, and no one—*no one*—will listen to me! I’ve tried to be calm, I’ve tried to be patient, but I’m done! I’m done pretending like I’m the one with the problem here!"

Adrien stood frozen, unsure what to do, while Nino looked uncomfortable, fidgeting nervously. Alya opened her mouth to say something, but Marinette cut her off, her eyes burning.

"You’re supposed to be my best friend, Alya," Marinette spat, her voice cracking. "But you’d rather believe some lying, manipulative snake than the person who's always had your back! You'd rather trust her over me? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Alya’s eyes widened, but Marinette wasn’t finished.

"You know what’s worse?" Marinette continued, her voice growing sharper. "It's the fact that every time Lila pulls her little tricks, you act like *I'm* the one overreacting, like *I’m* the one causing the problem. But she’s been lying to your face, and you just eat it up like it's nothing!"

"Marinette, I—"

"Shut up!" Marinette snapped, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, not from the betrayal, not from the sheer frustration that had been choking her for months. "I'm done being the nice one! I'm done trying to protect you from her lies when you don’t even give a damn about me! Do you know how much it hurts to watch you believe her over me, time and time again?"

Alya stood there, speechless, guilt flickering in her eyes, but Marinette was too far gone to stop now.

"You can keep letting her manipulate you, but I'm done being your doormat. If you want to trust someone like Lila instead of me, then fine. But don’t you *dare* expect me to stay quiet and smile like everything’s okay. Because it’s not." Her voice dropped to a bitter whisper. "And I don’t think it ever will be."

The tension in the room was suffocating. Marinette's chest was heaving, her hands trembling with the weight of all the emotions she had kept buried for too long.

Alya opened her mouth to respond, but for the first time, she had no words.

Without another glance, Marinette grabbed her tray and stormed off, her heart still pounding, anger and pain swirling together like a storm she couldn’t contain. Maybe she had gone too far, maybe she hadn’t. But for the first time in a long time, she didn’t care.