#ladybug and chat noir with healthy communication

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Perhaps it's just me being salty for the whole s4 and s5, Kuro Neko and Ephemeral in particular. But I couldn't see a possibility of Adrienette break up because, say, Adrien know she's hiding a major thing about his life and feeling betrayed by it, without Adrien realizing that Marinette was hurt by his "outburst" and then then say sorry for being so "emotional" that he hurt her, just like what happened in Kuro neko.

This show is really, really bad at letting Adrien express himself in healthy ways. I've mentioned before that I think Chat Noir is in the wrong in Kuro Neko and it's not because he's not allowed to be hurt or quit. He had legitimate feelings and concerns! It's his handling of those feelings and concerns that was deeply unhealthy and unreasonable. He kept those things bottled up inside, never talking to Ladybug about what was wrong even though the writers chose to actively have her ask if he was okay, meaning he was straight up prompted to express himself, but didn't. Since he didn't, Ladybug had no idea until he took drastic measures, which is a good example of unhealthy relationships and a real life issue that many of us have probably experienced or seen.

Someone does something that upsets another person, but the injured party says nothing because they think the offensive is obvious even though it's super not obvious. At least, it's not obvious to the person causing the offense. So they keep doing the offensive thing and the other person keeps feeling hurt until there's a massive blowup where both parties end up feeling hurt.

This is just a thing that humans do. We build up stories in our heads based on our own perceptions of events, personal wants, and personal beliefs, but those stories are often unrealistic or at least warped versions of reality.

"My friends never call me, so they don't love me," said by someone with a large social battery who would happily do things every night of the week. Meanwhile their friend is over here thinking everything is fine because, in their world, it's perfectly normal to go months without talking. The two friends' different perceptions, wants, and beliefs about what a good friendship looks like is leading to a conflict that would be easily solved if the upset person just asked the hard question.

I don't think the above really applies to the secrets Marinette is currently keeping. At least, they don't on Adrien's side. Breakups don't need a logical reason, but if they did, Adrien would more than enough logical reasoning behind dumping the girl who hid massive, life-changing secrets from him. Getting angry and yelling at her would be perfectly valid reactions. But I also agree with your worry about the show turning it into Adrien somehow being in the wrong because the show hasn't handled a single complex conflict well.

A lot of that is due to the asinine "every episode must stand alone" rule, which is a terrible rule for a show with an actual overarching plot. Sitcoms mostly stick to petty drama for a reason. There are very few serious topics that you can introduce and handle in 20 minutes. Add in the rule that every episode has to have some sort of fight, eating up even more of your run time? And it's no wonder the show is such a total disaster.

I would not be surprised if season six ends up being a sort of inverted version of season four's conflict or even a straight rehash, which is straight up obnoxious because what was the point of season four if neither of these characters learned how to communicate? Marinette is still keeping secrets and I have no doubt that Adrien will continue to fail at expressing his very valid needs if he's even allowed to have them. Add in the fact that Lila is the new villain and is it any wonder so many of us have hit a breaking point where we no longer want to watch this painful mess?

Can you tell that poor communication as a plot point is a major pet peeve of mine? About the only time it really works is in literary fiction that's supposed to be a character study. In plot driven narratives it's just obnoxious. The fact that this is a show for little kids makes me even more annoyed because this is not suited to a kids show. I've said it before and I'll say it again: they're writing teen drama complexity in a Y7 show and of course that leads to a terrible final product!

[friendfromdsmp]

Are there Marinette Salt takes that you disagree with?

So we’ve established in the last ask that I think Adrien gets a bit of a bad rap with salters at times, but that’s absolutely nothing compared to how I feel about Marinette salt takes. TL;DR at the bottom since this was much longer than I anticipated, as per usual with my constant ramblings

One angle I just really can’t wrap my head around are people who think Marinette is to blame for the LadyNoir conflict overarching season 4 because, in all honesty, I don’t know if Marinette was even made fully aware that there was an ongoing issue. I’m probably misremembering or forgetting some stuff, and I’m about to go on a long-ass ramble, so bear with me on this

The conflict begins with MariBug having constant breakdowns due to her responsibilities piling up, her alter egos bleeding into each other and having zero guidance or even vent options. Back in Truth Chat said that he doesn’t mind Ladybug being the new Guardian as long as it doesn’t impact their relationship/dynamic. But due to how overwhelmed and alone she is, Ladybug can’t always be there for all the patrols and silly little things the heroes do, which leaves Chat disappointed and feeling ignored

Is he entitled to these feelings? Absolutely. Can’t help how you feel. And for the most part he doesn’t bother Ladybug with these feelings, except for mentioning it once that he misses seeing her all the time and she explains herself and promises to try and prioritise patrols more. Healthy stuff, good communication, I’m vibing so far

But Chat continues not to voice his feelings while starting to let them dictate his behaviour, and this is where the problems arise - not just with Chat, but with Marinette salters, too. I was surprised to see how many people were mad at Ladybug for not prioritising Chat more or not being more considerate of his feelings

As far as I’ve seen, Chat hasn’t voiced his concerns to her, so you can’t expect Ladybug to fix a problem she doesn’t know exists, and even then you can see she doesn’t have the mental capacity or available free time right now, every other episode featured her having a mental breakdown. At this point Chat being disappointed that he’s not his coworker’s top priority isn’t… well, a priority

People were also getting mad that Marinette revealed her identity to Alya and not Chat was also a surprise to me. Alya is Marinette’s best friend and was chosen to be a hero for her loyalty and trustworthiness (arguable whether the show does a good job at displaying these qualities but I digress) and Chat Noir, the holder of the only other Miraculous Hawkmoth needs, is the most dangerous possible choice to share her identity with, especially considering what little Marinette remembers about Chat Blanc

Plus, Alya was there. Like, physically right there. And Marinette broke under all the pressure that was put on her. You think she’s gonna break and then sit around peacefully until Chat shows up before she actually acts on the breakage?

Anyway, speaking of Alya, her becoming more involved in the hero work makes Chat Noir feel replaced, resulting in him straight-up ignoring the plan after he was informed of his role in it multiple times by multiple people during Sentibubbler. I’ve seen takes that Marinette should have apologised for him not being better informed or for not including him more in the plan, and that absolutely baffles me

This wasn’t Marinette’s plan. Hell, Marinette herself didn’t even know half the plan, and she was the only other person aware of Alya’s trump card. Not to mention there was a whole thing about how Alya couldn’t contact Marinette, so how do they expect Marinette to have any way of knowing more than what was canonically stated to have been told to Marinette? There’s no way people aren’t just making up issues at this point

Rocketear then shows us something I think highlights one of the previous points very well; Ladybug notices that Chat looks upset after he’s learned that Ladybug broke the secret identify rule by handing Alya and Nino their Miraculous at the same time back during Heroes’ Day

She asks Chat what’s wrong and if he’s okay, and you know what he says? He fkn reassures her that he’s okay and it’s nothing

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen; Ladybug noticed there were signs of a problem and asked Chat about it, only to be told there was no problem. But as all the salters have told me, Ladybug just doesn’t care about Chat Noir or his problems. How do people expect her to fix a problem that she not only doesn’t know exists, but a problem that’s now actively being kept from her?

Now we come to Chat Noir no-showing to fights, which results in Ladybug needing to call in additional backup more often. At first Chat has valid reasons for not showing up; he had obligations as Adrien that he couldn’t escape. But the problem here isn’t that he didn’t show, it’s that he took the temp heroes showing up as a sign of Ladybug replacing him as her partner rather than filling a vacant but necessary role

And the problem only worsened when Chat stopped showing up to fights even when he had every opportunity to, opting out due to being depressed that Ladybug was relying more on the temp heroes… which in turn forced Ladybug to rely more on the temp heroes. He was creating his own problem

And it stumps me how so many Marinette salters decided that it was her fault for letting things get so bad between them that he was sitting out akuma fights due to depression. Dumber still, people agreeing with Adrien and saying that Ladybug is replacing Chat and she shouldn’t keep bringing out the temp heroes and instead rely more on Chat

Guys, I’m sure she’d love to rely more on Chat, but right now she can’t even rely on him to show up to his job. What do you realistically want her to do? Fight akumas all alone, without any backup? Not fight the akuma until Chat shows up first, thus enabling the akuma to run rampant and unchecked through Paris until then? Somehow figure out Chat Noir’s identify, show up at Adrien’s house and beg him to help her fight? What’s her realistic alternative to the temp heroes?

Kuro Neko is where this comes to a head. To start we have salters saying that Ladybug’s interview was insulting to Chat, but I don’t see it at all. Her exact words were “Of course [Chat and I aren’t at odds with each other], it's just that... umm, he's a partner like any other! The most important is to pick the best superheroes for each mission, with or without Cat Noir. No matter what, we've got a great team and we'll always be here to save Paris.”

She’s saying that Chat Noir wasn’t necessary for the fight, not that he wasn’t wanted or missed. Could she have phrased it slightly better? Yes. But she was put on the spot to answer a question she doesn’t know the answer to but probably secretly fears the worst for, all while knowing that she needs to reassure the public that they’re safe and that she and all the other heroes will transform back any minute now

She was trying to say “Chat Noir’s absence isn’t because of any fights between us, and I can assure you that with the help of the team, Paris won’t be any less safe than it is when we work as a duo”, not “Chat Noir is useless and I’m phasing him out in favour of all these other heroes”

Chat finally shows up and addresses his issues, albeit totally out of the blue for Ladybug since this is the first time she’s actually gotten some form of confirmation that something is, in fact, wrong. Chat shows up out of nowhere after missing a ton of akuma fights, wants to hang out and chat while Ladybug is already on the clock, then offers to help her out by going to all the meeting spots to collect the loaned Miraculous

The problem here is that Chat doesn’t know half of their identities, so in order to help Ladybug, he needs her to break the identity rule in a non-emergency situation and reveal secrets that aren’t hers to share

He tries to argue that he already knows some of the heroes, which is fair, but even then it’s made pretty clear that Ladybug doesn’t have time to work out which heroes Chat knows the identities of and then tell him where these specific individuals are currently located

They’ll all be turning back any moment now, Ladybug included, and if she turns back then it’s game over for them all. At very least King Monkey would have only lasted another three or four seconds if Ladybug had gotten his Miraculous back, and he was left dangling from a chimney

Seems to me that Ladybug is not currently in a position where she’s able to accept Chat Noir’s help, but she has made it clear that she’ll talk to him after everything is taken care of and she’s no longer racing against the clock

But because she’s turning down Chat Noir’s offer of help, regardless of circumstances, the salters blame her for it as if she and all the others wouldn’t have turned back before she even finished sharing all the heroes’ locations

There’s also an argument going around of ‘she should have told him all their identities before’, but this is ignoring that, while it’s Ladybug’s job to know this stuff as both their Guardian and not Ladybug’s place to share the secrets of others, we’ve also had several episodes detailing how dangerous it is to break the identity rule; Queen Wasp, Heroes’ Day, Miraculer, Miracle Queen, Optigami, Sentibubbler, Rocketear. Hell, three of those happened just the other week or something

And just to clarify, Ladybug still doesn’t know that this is part of an overarching issue; as far as she knows, he showed up out of nowhere after a fight, she told him multiple times that she has to rush around gathering these Miraculous and that she didn’t have time to explain where she needed to meet everyone, he was teasing and making puns while interrupting her and then she snapped that “If you want to save me time, stop wasting it in the first place!” since he was being pushy at an inappropriate time when she didn’t have the time to talk it out calmly or anything

It’s an understandable reaction when you’re trying to do something very important and someone swoops in out of nowhere and pesters you with puns and demands while you’re already on the clock, and frankly Chat did need her to snap a bit to show she was serious

And all I have to say is… that’s it? That’s all she had to do to be the bad guy in this situation, according to salters? Yes, she could’ve been more polite, sure, but Chat was the one keeping her from doing her job. Showing up with the intention of helping doesn’t absolve him of causing further disruptions. At that point he was the one disregarding social convention

And then immediately after that, Chat tells her that she should just take his Miraculous away from him as well, to which she just gives a barebones acknowledgement as she rushes away, then expresses that she doesn’t know what he meant by that. She still thinks this is just him wanting to be helpful and not taking her responsibilities seriously in favour of being playful

This is an extreme overreaction to what she perceives as just a minor bump in the road, if anything, which is probably why she didn’t catch on right away what he meant; he wouldn’t really quit being a superhero altogether just over her not having the time to talk to him right this second, right?

Plagg is the one to break it to her that there’s an overarching issue; Chat’s co-dependency issues making him struggle with the idea that he’s not necessary because job-wise he can be replaced with the temp heroes and his struggles to healthily communicate this due to his stunted social development resulting in his bottled up feelings spilling over… wait, what? He said it was because she broke Chat’s heart by not being in love with him? When the hell did that become relevant?

But some salters ate up the idea that Ladybug rejecting Chat is a moral failing on her part and all this would’ve been solved if she just dated him already. The love square isn’t even a contender in these issues, why is this the explanation? And why are people falling for it? It’s clearly just another excuse to make Marinette ‘learn a lesson’ and blame her for all this while absolving Adrien of any perceived imperfections

And to clarify once more; MariBug is now finally aware that there is some overarching conflict, but she believes it’s just Chat being butthurt that she’s still not in love with him. So nothing new. Same conflict as always

Oh, and a bit of a tangent but what the hell were the salters thinking when they blamed Marinette for going to London in Hack-San? We saw her make several attempts to get out of it, then when she couldn’t she called Alya - the second most experienced superheroine after herself and someone already familiar with Tikki and already aware of Mari’s identity - to take over for her to ensure Paris still had a Ladybug hero

Even after she was long gone, Mari was still texting Alya non-stop to provide tips for being the Ladybug hero, including special tips on how to make Chat feel valued and happy. Girl thought of everything, did all she could, and you’re still managing to complain that she should’ve just… what? Confessed to her parents that she’s Ladybug so they’d have to let her stay? Run away? Destroy all their passports?

Look, even Tom was vibing with not going, but Marinette tried every trick in the book and it all failed, so she ensured she appointed the most qualified replacement she could. That’s called being responsible

I bet those salters are the same people that got pissed off when Ladybug yelled at Chat for abandoning Paris in the New York special, despite the fact that he left completely unannounced yet pre-planned and willingly, while knowing Ladybug wouldn’t be there and without appointing anyone to fill in in his absence and as such knowingly leaving Paris undefended

Anyway, things come to a head again in the finale when Chat is yelling at Ladybug mid-battle for keeping secrets from him and being too reliant on the temp heroes rather than him and all that fun stuff. Now remember, this is once again coming out of nowhere for Ladybug, who has managed to reach the season finale without actually knowing that she’s in the middle of a season-long conflict as opposed to just same old, same old

Ladybug is trying to defend herself from both the sentimonsters and from Chat’s accusations and insults, with no idea where all this animosity has ‘suddenly’ come from

More salters argue that, once again, Ladybug should’ve caved to his whims by now, and all I can do is wonder why the middle of a huge fight is seemingly their definition of an appropriate time for that conversation, let alone any time at all being appropriate for spilling secrets that aren’t yours to share and are being kept for the purpose of child safeguarding

Salters really need to understand that while LadyNoir are equals in terms of a team unit going into battle, Ladybug is still effectively Chat’s boss due to her Guardianship role. They don’t have to be equals in absolutely every aspect, and Marinette doing her job is not a flaw in Marinette’s character or an argument towards her being a bad person who doesn’t care about Chat Noir

Then we get to the big risk of giving a Miraculous to ‘Adrien’, and salters love to claim that it’s all Ladybug’s fault because she chose Felix and not Adrien. Can you guess what I’m going to ask how, guys?

As opposed to what???

Ladybug was knowingly under the influence of an akuma that impairs judgement. She came to a very logical conclusion given the information she had that ‘Adrien’ didn’t have a mark, and thus was the only person in Paris not judgmentally impaired. She was, need I remind you, correct

The only problem is that she didn’t know - and had no way of knowing - that at that moment, Felix was pretending to be Adrien for completely unrelated reasons, just so happening to get caught up in the crossfires of whatever the hell MariBug was getting up to that day. Her logic was ‘I can’t trust myself to make a smart decision, so I’ll go to someone who I can trust to make a smart decision’. And just because Felix was already acting the part, a fact she couldn’t have possibly known, suddenly she’s to blame for the fuck-up?

Anyway, when we finally begin to conclude the LadyNoir drama, it occurs when Ladybug realised that she’s been tricked and Felix steals her yo-yo. Adrien gets in a snide comment about “If you’re gonna trust me once, please let it be this time!” which should make exactly zero sense to Ladybug

And then we get to the final scene, where Ladybug breaks down crying and apologises for lying to Chat, not listening to him, keeping him at a distance and refusing his help

And I just… what? Chat’s done all these things without context to make it understandable or called for in the moment, yet the Marinette salters are just nodding along and agreeing that she’s the one at fault. So many of them have said that Ladybug didn’t deserve his forgiveness or his loyalty or his pep talk, it baffles me

And that brings me to conclude my biggest gripe about the LadyNoir drama and the Marinette salters that go with it; MariBug was almost solely blamed by the narrative and the salters alike, but she didn’t actually know anything at all was going on until Kuro Neko (episode 23 of 26)

From there she figured it was just some of Chat’s habitual pouting on the job over his advances being rejected until the very last episode of the season but never got clarification on what exactly had been bugging him for this long, then it all magically resolved without apology or explanation

He didn’t bother with that because, by the end of the episode, Chat had gotten his way; no more temp heroes. Ladybug was now forced to rely on him and only him, so he instantly quit fighting her and carried on as though nothing had ever happened. Ladybug must’ve been reeling, no wonder she was just listing off all the bad stuff she could think of that she might’ve done; she was trying to see which one stuck. Girl lasted the entire season drama without knowing what the drama was

Marinette salters to that extent don’t take into account her perspective of many situations, and a lot of it is from Chat stans getting mad when MariBug doesn’t bend over backwards to his every whim, even when he’s actively keeping them a secret from her. She’s just supposed to telepathically know what the problem is and is expected to fix it simply because ‘they’re partners’, when even that isn’t an obligation to care for him beyond a professional capacity

Sorry I know this one is long as all hell but it really annoys me how certain Marinette salters will practically invent problems to blame her for - the show’s writers included. And to be clear, I’ve done my share of Marinette salting before, she’s far from perfect, but I do think that a lot of the salt she gets is pretty baseless

TL;DR is that my worst issue with Marinette salters is how they often blame Marinette entirely for the season 4 LadyNoir drama despite the fact that a lot of their problems with her behaviour don’t really have a reasonable alternative and she didn’t ever actually work out what the drama was truly about, having not even known there was drama until episode 23 of 26

[literaphobe]

can i convince you to elaborate on any tvl analysis point you want? ok here i go. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

HELLO AND WELCOME TO -> the fundamental misunderstanding tvl ladynoir have leading up to ch9 (if u haven’t caught up to At least ch9 THIS IS UR SIGN TO SCROLL AWAY)

this will be kind of an unpacking and detailing of why ch9 unfolded the way it did. ch9 consists of two main parts -> 1. tvl ladynoir navigating a misunderstanding in their relationship. chat noir handles the situation sort of badly, and you’d think that would cause a big fight, which it almost does, but ladybug shows a Vulnerability that causes them to start Communicating and find a Solution. it ALMOST looks healthy. it ALMOST looks right. but really, it’s a red herring. and it lowers both their guards. to the point that 2. a tiny incident allows long lost misunderstandings (chat noir not knowing ladybug used to be in love with him, ladybug not really realizing he didn’t know) to resurface, and this mixing in with their Messy Current Dynamic makes it all implode, which is how you got tvl chat noir confessing his doomed love

but why DO things explode so bad? why does tvl chat noir handle the knowledge of tvl ladybug’s past love (s5 love square flip) so destructively?

it’s largely because it recontextualized their relationship in a very painful way. all this time he only HUNG ON because he thought ladybug could never love him back, that getting to have sex with her was the Most it could go, the most he could get. he’s upset because if she DID have the ability to love him, why didn’t she? and why didn’t he know before it was too late?

it doesn’t help that she’s been so accommodating of SEVERAL of his wants and needs. BUT he sees all these needs as… emotional. romantic. in nature. whereas SHE has seen them as physical. and sexual.

it’s why they have ‘worked’ so surprisingly well up till the blow up in ch9! it’s why tvl ladybug has been so ‘comfortable’! unfortunately, she THINKS he’s been viewing it through the same sexual lens she has been using

starting w their first conflict that gets explicitly laid out in ch6 -> tvl chat noir being unwilling to sleep with tvl ladybug UNLESS she agrees that it will happen MORE THAN ONCE

tvl chat noir: wants this because he cannot handle the coldness of a One Night Stand. he’s well aware that he WILL get emotionally attached if he sleeps with ladybug and he WILL get very frustrated if it all stops there. he wants it to be indefinite. because INDEFINITE screams commitment. and affection. and some mimicry of love. which is why he was so afraid to bring it up for so long -> he thought she would be against something that would connect them so deeply

tvl ladybug: was MOREEEE than okay to accommodate such an arrangement because she viewed his request as one borne of sexual desire! greed for more pleasure of a lustful nature! mutually beneficial exchange!

this brings us to our next Accommodation. tvl chat noir gets bolder, more presumptuous, and asks to be ROOMMATES bc his previous request was accommodated so easily

which throws her off, obviously, but he manages to make good excuses, scale down his request. realizes that’s too much, that he’s taken an inch and asked for a mile

and this instills The Fear in him again. but while he gets scared off, she decides to recompartmentalize his request as a simple matter of Loneliness. which she relates to! a Specific form of loneliness that only she can really understand as well. so she accepts to a degree! <- have more sleepovers. helping him meet a PHYSICAL need of requiring human companionship. a SOCIAL need to be around someone who’s experienced their very specific double life

this brings them to their next dilemma. tvl chat noir having difficulty sleeping without her. in ch7, he now becomes once more afraid to ask if they can share a bed at night, since he jumped the gun with his previous request, and she also made them two different custom bedrooms for their sleepover… reiterating to him that sharing a bed (like a couple would) is NOT something she would want. he is WELL AWARE that his problem is deeply emotional in nature. he has fallen for her again in debilitating ways. he wants to respect her wishes, and yet a part of his sleep deprived, desperate self cannot help trying to scheme his way into spending more time with her -> this causes him to act strangely during their sexual activities (terrified to come early and get sent back to his room, failing to exhaust her sexually enough to not care whether he sleeps in her bed or not)

however, she surprises him again by SORT OF figuring him out. but AGAIN, she categorizes his problem as a PHYSICAL need. to just sleep next to ANYONE. and that she’s only helping him bc she’s available and willing to. not… because she’s the only one who can

…which he very sadly realizes. but he also realizes that it’s better that she keeps Slightly misunderstanding everything. bc it’s how he’s getting So Much of… everything he’s ever wished. everything he desperately wants from her, that he wouldn’t get if she knew the truth -> he doesn’t just want to have sex. he’s in love with her (again) (electric boogaloo)

and in his eyes. she’s NEVER loved him Like That. so how could she understand? in a selfish way he wants to keep this a secret from her because he’d rather love her in halves than not at all. it’s also selfLESS. bc she gets to have sex without worrying about complicated feelings. and really. it’s a blameless thing. he can’t be blamed for falling in love with the easiest person to fall in love with ever, and he can’t blame her for not falling in love with him. she just isn’t capable of it, right?

yet the way she’s been acting SCREAMS of someone deeply in love. tvl alya very clearly recognizes this, despite not being present for any of their trysts. if anything, she’s only witnessed them interacting in chapter FIVE, which is literally all the way before they even HOOKED UP and started what tvl chat FEARED would get him so attached

we even find out that tvl marinette is TOTALLYYYY ok and chill w tvl chat noir occasionally getting a crush on her. or having feelings. because it’s the perfect way for her to excuse HER ‘occasional’ crush and feelings. as long as he doesn’t tell her! as long as he remembers he needs to squash it down every once in a while! just like she does (tries to)

in ch8, tvl alya accuses marinette of acting like she’s on honeymoon with chat noir. in ch9? she starts acting like his wife

-> chasing him for not being home, nagging him when he stays out late. welcoming him home with a tasty dessert when he arrives. fussing over his health, his rest, his sleep, wanting constant access to him, even when he’s busy or ‘with friends’

-> very obvious constant flirting, aka kissing him outside of a sexual context, like in the beginning of ch9’s last scene, when he alludes to the fact that she’s been kissing him non-sexually Very Often. obviously this has started even before ch9 but it’s clearly gotten worse (‘This is the eighth time you’ve done something like that this week!’)

…and… that’s how tvl ladybug managed to get SO comfortable that she doesn’t realize how STUPID it is to bring up that she used to be in love with him

even though she assumed he knew somewhat, and had let her down easy (I love you, but as a friend.), all those years ago. as time passed her memory shifted slightly. became -> he DEFINITELY knows! he DEFINITELY doesn’t want to be with me anymore! he DEFINITELY understands that us being together is a bad idea! he DEFINITELY doesn’t care that we have sex because that’s all he could want from me now!

and they’re terrifyingly WRONG assumptions to make. cue dramatic breakup in the pouring rain even tho they didn’t date. but at the same time, they were practically married

[elina-sakura]

Honestly, the character arcs Marinette and Adrien accomplish in the show are those that they didn’t actually need to grow as characters. Marinette didn’t need to be the one to defeat and confront Monarch because she’s already been able to stand up and defeat those like Chloé and Lila, and Adrien didn’t need to have an arc in confessing to Marinette because he’s already been shown to be able to show his feelings (but more so through as Cat Noir). Actually, if anything, these arcs aren’t exactly good for the characters when you think about it. Marinette has been coddled a lot and had others do the things she struggles on (like Cat Noir forgiving Ladybug even though some of her actions have hurt him, which was an overarching arc in season 4), while Adrien has to always coddle and make sacrifices for the people he loves to the point it comes to a fault. And considering the show is targeted for children who would be learning these lessons and in a storytelling perspective, these are not necessarily great lessons the characters should be learning (especially since it’s not really learning at all).

Marinette needed to learn to be more confident and confess on her own, not just because it was a character arc she had for so long, but it was an internal arc she needed to become more emotionally honest. As we have seen throughout the show, she has a flaw in keeping secrets (sometimes for good, but also unnecessary and to a fault). Such as avoiding talking about Chat Blanc to Chat Noir, not communicating Chat Noir about Rena Furtive, avoiding talking to Luka about their break-up, etc. She always had a flaw in being emotionally honest and makes things complicated to make it easy for what she believes is for everyone. But she needs to learn to take risks, even if there will be failures, and she needs to be emotionally honest about these kind of stuff.

Same for Adrien where he needs to learn to have more agency and break out of his father’s control and confront Gabriel as Monarch on his actions. Adrien has been passive and always followed along with what his father wanted, even when it’s not what he wanted and against his feelings and happiness. And his father has hurt him from not being emotionally available for him to even emotionally manipulating him to feel bad for wanting basic human needs (wanting to spend time together, communicating, etc). And while Adrien would need a healthy support network to be by his side to support him, he should also have a say and be honest and confront his father about what he has done and how it has affected him.

But nooo, let’s have Adrien be the one to confess to Marinette after realizing his feelings for her a few episodes ago and undo all the multiple upon multiple of stunted growth of Marinette confessing to Adrien storyline, while Marinette confront the father of her love interest and try to persuade him to stop for Adrien’s sake even though she had no emotional connection with the man. In the end, the arcs they did in the show, especially season 5, was not needed and definitely should have been given to the others like you guys said. It may be cliche and we’ve seen it before in other medias, but it’s more narratively satisfying to the story and characters than just subverting expectations to the audience.

I agree so much with your Adrinette post. Unlike a lot of the fandom, I've always been a fan of both Adrien and Marinette so it hurts twice as much to see what the writing has done to them. How did their huge moments get switched up?! She was supposed to be the confesser. I cheered her on for 4 seasons that she would finally confess. Then when the time comes, Adrien does all the cute and risky confession stuff that she was supposed to do. Like what? It might have made her life easier if she were a real person, but as a character? The writers just took away a HUGE character moment from her. A huge triumph everyone wanted. Just gone. After 5 seasons. It makes her less compelling as a character to not have that.

They gave the responsibility for that to Adrien and gave the responsibility of facing Gabriel Agreste and talking to him about Emilie to Ladybug?! Maybe someone wrote the character growth fulfillments on a sticky note and it smudged and they got them mixed up? I think Ladybug should have been there to face MONARCH, but the Gabriel Agreste moments and discovery should have went to Adrien. It theoretically makes his life "easier", I mean in the sense the show is going to position it as. I'd love if they tackled the reprecussions of this, but my money is on them letting that whole senti thing fade into the background never to come up again and he will just live happily in his bubble thinking his dad is a hero forever. But as a character, that just like flatlined him. He is 80 percent less compelling now. His moment. Gone. After 5 seasons. Possibly never to be spoken of again or revealed. Sad.

I don't understand Season 5's thing with not challenging the characters where it counts the most. Neither of them grew. They both did a lot... for each other's plot points. Adrien worked and adjusted his approach to woo Marinette, but that wasn't a character growth moment for HIM because he's always been that way. There was no big anxiety hill to get over there or big change for him. He's always worn his feelings on his sleeve and been kind as Adrien. No internal conflict besides "I want to be with my girlfriend." Marinette stood up to Gabriel FOR Adrien and faced him in the end, but again. Not a strong character growth moment for her considering she has no emotional tie to Gabriel Agreste. There's no internal conflict there besides "He's keeping me from my boyfriend." There's not even the triumph of her beating Monarch because he kind of... wins?

Because neither of them actually confront their assumed assigned character challenges, they both come off extremely uninteresting to me by the end of the season. I can't even agree that Ladybug's character is benefiting here. I am not happy as a fan of either. They didn't allow her any true character building triumphs that she should have as the protagonist. While robbing Adrien of his character arc and keeping him unchanged and blissfully ignorant in his bubble.

I honestly have nothing more to add, because you nailed it anon. Your observation about them completing each other's character arcs is so spot on. You're also completely right about the fact that they are going to breeze over the implications of Adrien being a Sentimonster. The one thing I will clarify is that when I say Marinette benefits from the writing, I mean that at least she gets to do something and has some kind of agency and choices outside of being someone else's prop, whereas Adrien gets none of that. But you've honestly said everything so perfectly and I couldn't agree more.

Thank you for your ask!

[gale-gentlepenguin]

ML Ficlet: A New bond

(Post wishmaker and post Ladynoir fall out)

Ladybug and Chat noir sat on the edge of the rooftop.

The night of Paris eerily quiet yet still as bright. The air around them was tense.

It was understandable, after what had transpired. Neither teen wanted to be the one to speak. Guilt had them both by their throats.

"...Im sorry..." Ladybug spoke first.

Chat noir turned to look at her with his eyes wide with confusion.

"Excuse me?"

Ladybug turned to him.

"All of this wouldnt have happened if I had just been more upfront with you." Ladybug continued.

"No." Chat noir spoke up.

"No?"

"I mean yes. I wish I knew what was going on but I was being childish. I knew you had all these responsibilities now. I wanted things to be like they were before. You knew that and didnt want me to feel awful about it. You were looking out for me and I was being a brat."

"But that wasnt the only reason! I could have told you so much more. i could have told you about Alya. I could have told you about the secret plan with Rena Furtive... Its no wonder you..." Ladybug drifted off.

"It doesnt mean it was the right thing for me to do! I should have been upfront with you about how I was feeling. If I did you could have talked with me. We could have maybe been more open. It wasnt right for me to quit."

Chat noir and ladybug looked down. The two couldnt face eachother. Ever since miracle queen things havent been the same. Their trust has been shredded, diced, bashed and beaten with each battle.

"So we both think the other is not to blame for this." Ladybug stated.

"It appears so."

They took a breath and looked at eachother.

"I am not angry at you for quitting. I am angry at myself for making you feel like you had no other option." Ladybug answered.

"Well I am not angry at you for not telling me things. I am angry at myself for not trusting you enough to talk about my insecurities."

They both took in the others words.

"So... what can we do from here?" Chat noir asked. "Can we even salvage our partnership?"

Ladybug felt like those words punched her in the throat. He was saying the truth. Where could their dynamic go from here if they arent on the same page.

"Our partnership was already broken..."

Chat noir looked at ladybug with eyes wide.

"We both had such misconceptions of each other. I assumed you were all smiles and joy that liked to do good. And you had the assumption that I was..."

"The perfect woman"

Ladybug paused to look at chat noir with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay exaggeration, but I did feel that at times"

"The point being we basically had so many false notions of eachother that our dynamic not hitting this point earlier is actually pretty surprising. It wasnt healthy."

"So your saying that there is no saving it." Chat noir's expression shifted to one more sorrow filled.

"No, we dont save it. We replace it with a new one." Ladybug answered with confidence.

Chat noir blinked.

"Replace it."

"Thats right. We are going to start from square one. We will rebuild our dynamic from the ground up. No more misconceptions, miscommunications, or emotional suppression. We are going to talk things out, we are going to communicate, and we will be honest with eachother, even if its hurtful."

Ladybug put her hand out to chat noir.

"If you are willing to try."

Chat noir looked at Ladybug. A smile appeared on his face. He did like the sound of that.

"Alright Ladybug. Lets give it a go."

[colonel-insomniac]

I maintain my opinion that in the sentibubbler episode, chat was not being childish. This is a child that has been neglected almost all his life, and has literally no knowledge as to how to work out his frustrations.

Second, being from a home somewhat like that, I know that it is hard to not let yourself just get angry over something that might seem small. But to him, it isn’t small. He’s spent his whole life out of the loop and in the past year (mlb time ofc) hes finally been able to get out and have a chance at being in said loop. The promis of freedom to those who don’t have it will always be enticing. It will always be something that’s craved. And so when he becomes chat noir he prob thinks this is the thing that’s gonna fix him.

And maybe it does help. But then he realizes he’s being kept out of so much (I.e siren). He doesn’t know what’s happening and it’s like being thrown out of what he’s worked so hard to build, that in his eyes he’s ready to give up bc hes not thinking rationally. He’s thinking that no ones ever gonna tell him anything and that he’s always gonna be out of the loop so why bother with secret identities and alter egos?

Then lb talks to him and convinces fu to talk to chat, and thankfully Fu listens. And so Adrien moves on.

And then, season 4. Adrien realizes he can’t have a relationship w kagami bc he can’t give her what she needs. And obvs he’s not happy w that, but when gang of secrets comes out, he realizes that lb isn’t happy either. So he pushes his own issues aside to help her with hers. Maybe he thinks they’ll revisit his issues, maybe not. But lb lying that she’s ok?? He’s starting to suspect that maybe he’s being kept out again.

And sure enough as the season progresses, we see him literally being sidelined, either unable to make it to the battle for some reason, or being trapped somewhere or to something.

So in sentibubbler when he realizes he is being kept out of the know, he gets frustrated. And takes us out on a chimney, saying that the miraculous ladybug will fix everything. He’s not in a good state of mind mentally, and he doesn’t know how to a) communicate that and b) take it out in a healthy way (I.e art, music, writing). He feels trapped.

So no, he is not being childish. I vehemently oppose this statement in light of the most recent episode bc he really is not being childish. (Yes, maybe it seems like it’s over smth childish but think abt his life as a whole, and think abt the psychology behind his at-home/public/social life)

Also my boy adrien literally wanted to cataclysm himself bc he heard nino being upset that he couldn’t help adrien?? My guy is not ok mentally rn and calling him childish is the wrong thing to do. He’s literally only doing what he thinks will have zero long term damage and not harm anyone bc the “miraculous ladybug” will fix it

[mystic-myrtille]

So I've seen someone say how Adrien salters accuse Adrien of being a nice guy "while Luka is right there" and I wanna put my two cents into that.

Nice guys are guys who act like they are better than every other man out there and they are entitled to a girl's affection when doing the bare minimum of being nice to them.

Luka has never done any of that. He comforted Marinette without asking for anything in return, he told her to follow her heart and shoot her shot with Adrien pre- and post-relationship. He never forced his feelings onto her. He simply told her that she's amazing and then left to play with his band. Post-relationship, he left her alone. It was their friends who forced Marinette to come to the party. None of the things Luka did are nice guy things. None.

But talking specifically about truth and Luka's mental breakdown, the problem here is that people don't judge Luka for his actions but for his FEELINGS.

They say it's so unreasonable for Luka to be so upset with Marinette. That he isn't entitled to know her secret. And I agree, Marinette doesn't have to tell him if she doesn't want to, but you can't say that Luka is being mean/a bad boyfriend/a nice guy for having a reaction that isn't "okay babe whatever you say let's just forget about this". Luka has a right to be unhappy and communicate his unhappiness to Marinette.

What people also don't consider is that before he gets akumatized, Luka doesn't even ATTEMPT to force Marinette to tell him her secret. Heck, he tries to resist an akuma because he KNOWS Marinette doesn't have to tell him anything (he said the same thing in the s3 finale). He tells Shadowmoth how "truth should be shared, not forced", which again prooves the point. Luka might have a negative reaction to Marinette's answer, but he doesn't act on these feelings on his own and oversteppes boundaries, you know, like a nice guy would do.

In the end Luka gives in to SM because he convinces him Marinette doesn't trust him. And that's a thing where especially Adrien stans act very hypocritical. Apparently Luka is in the wrong for feeling like Marinette doesn't trust him, and then turn around and claim that Chat noir having an issue with Ladybug "not trusting him" is completely justified. Adrien is totally allowed to feel upset. Doesn't matter that he broke a chimney or attempted to cataclysm Scarabella or didn't talk to Ladybug after she directly asked him or, idk, STILL CAN'T ACCEPT THE FACT THAT LADYBUG DOESN'T WANT TO BE ROMANTIC WITH HIM (because he didn't learn shit in Glaciator 2.0).

This right here is the reason I don't like Adrien: while his abuse, feelings and reastion to certain events are valid, they lead him to do actions that are not. Breaking a chimney is not a healthy way to let out your anger. But the show still validates him. The show tells us that no matter what Chat does, it's justified because he's sad. His emotions justify everything he does. While Luka isn't even allowed to have any negative emotions towards Marinette, ever.

Tl;dr Luka gets demonized for having feelings and it makes him a "nice guy" while Adrien can get away with anything he wants and Love square stans will still find a way to excuse his actions.

[starryknightwrites]

I see what you’re saying about anger being a necessary consequence. I just don’t think the examples you used were ideal in expressing why Marinette deserves anger. They were mostly impersonal and the consequences she received in those cases- seeing the result of her mistakes- were sufficient. It doesn’t feel imbalanced to me because Marinette is mostly forgiving with her friends as well. Even in the example of her “dropping Ladybug” on Alya at the last minute, it doesn’t seem like Alya to get angry at her for that, especially considering she is already a hero, knows how volatile that life is and has asked Marinette to do things at the last minute as well. Alya seems like she’d be excited for it. I would have been surprised if she were angry.

Alya could have argued that keeping identities a secret is a problem, but this doesn’t feel like avoiding anger to me because Alya is a sensible person. She also realizes the importance of keeping identities a secret. Because of that understanding that Ladybug has a point, she opts to do it and not tell Ladybug. And Ladybug was quite forgiving about Alya telling Nino about Rena furtive- a greater offense- too. She gave her a look but didn’t even chastise her when it came down to it and tried to give her her miraculous. Alya was the one who had to punish herself by giving it up - something a lot of salters were irritated about.

Comparatively, Chat Noir has actually argued Ladybug on the identities thing several times, most notably in Strikeback, and she’s stuck to her guns. With good reason.

So I have to standby saying that this isn’t just a Marinette thing. Characters that aren’t Chloe, Lila (and even she got some wiggle room) and Gabriel are easily forgiven without much anger shown by other characters all the time. Which I don’t think is a bad thing because anger isn’t always the best response. My friends have dropped things on me at the last minute when I’m in a pinch and I didn’t scold them for it because it happens. I don’t think the compassion of the miraculous characters is a bad thing nor do I think Marinette needs more anger directed at her. I DO think communication is important. Alya, though she becomes visibly frustrated at times, communicates when Marinette is overreacting or being unreasonable and that’s what’s important. Outright anger often just prompts more misunderstandings I.E Glaciator 2.

And characters do get frustrated and/or point Marinette’s flawed logic out from time to time. Ladynoir and Mister Bug had a nice moment in Passion when she questions his plan and he exasperatedly retorts that he has trusted her in some very doubtful times and now she needs to trust him. It’s not as if this never happens in universe.

Anger is good. But not the level of anger shown in salt. Anger is most useful when it informs healthy communication. The characters don’t always communicate healthily but that’s part of conflict- a piece of any good story. It usually comes back around to bite them. If they hashed everything out all healthy and right away, we wouldn’t have conflict.

Part of why the communication breakdown happened with Chat Noir was that he wasn’t communicating ANY of his negative emotions to her- not just anger. She can’t see his pain if he’s always smiling to hide it.

Saw some post that said CN should leave LB in s4 because she's not treating him like a partner he should be but there's people that said CN leaving her is way too harsh of a punishment for LB. But why they call it punishment when it's not? LB already pushing him away anyway despite the whole "you're my favorite partner" thing and anyone with more self worth and self respect for themselves would leave such environment where they're not acknowledged or respected.

Yeah no. I don't like this attitude towards the whole conflict in season 4. While Ladybug wasn't the best at showing how much she cared for Chat Noir in that season, it was a case of her being a kid who was under a lot of stress who just didn't realize the effect she was having on Chat - she wasn't trying to hurt him. And when he DID leave in Kuro Neko, she felt awful about it, and blamed herself for pushing him away.

I actually like how the show's handled the times Adrien's left or almost left, in Syren, the New York Special, and Kuro Neko. While frustration over being left in the dark and being underappreciated plays a part, a lot of it comes back to a deeper fear of not being needed or wanted anymore, and not wanting to hurt or inconvenience his partner, that what she really wanted was to have a partner besides him - we can see that sort of fear play out in Sandboy, in fact, with Nightmarebug yelling about how she never liked him and was just looking for an excuse to get rid of him. In every case, Adrien believes that him leaving wouldn't make the situation any worse than it already was.

I feel like the takes calling on CN to leave Ladybug because he's not being respected enough tend to come from more of a place of hostility towards Ladybug, and often a desire to punish her for her behavior, while the show itself actually treated the situation with a lot more kindness, understanding, and nuance.

There are cases where I'd like Chat to feel more like he can state his own needs and desires, and for Ladybug to really think of him more as an equal partner, but I don't want there to be malice towards Ladybug, even if she messes up. She's not actively malicious towards Chat, and I wouldn't want him to have that kind of hostility towards her, either.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

From what I understand, Adrien and Marinette both get punished but for all the wrong or unimportant reasons?

Like Adrien gets punished for stealing the book for example which I think is pretty fair but the fact that he's constantly trying to push Ladybug even though she's already told him no isn't punished at all is wrong. It's even portrayed at all even though its clear he makes her uncomfortable. He's also supposedly 'perfect' even though he very obviously has flaws: he's immature and childish, stubborn in a not endearing way and his automatic reaction to anything not going his way is threatening to quit. He also has an unhealthy martyr complex. They should address his flaws and give him actual character development to make him more interesting. Also use him less as a convenient plot device

Meanwhile Marinette does get punished by the narrative for mistakes, but her stalkerish and obsessive behaviour isn't addressed at all and the way she treats Chat Noir isn't nice, yet none of these are really shown to be bad things. She's creepy and concerning and the fact that most episodes end with her getting her way regardless of whether she deserves it or not is really dumb. She never walks into the ditch and never gets humbled by her mistakes: she learns her lessons through telling Tikki she has learnt them and then never improves beyond that. We need to see her actually getting over these problems and pursuing an actual healthy friendship with Adrien as well as communicating with Chat Noir properly

So any kind of lesson learning or development happens where its unnecessary or doesn't ultimately matter at all

In conclusion: they're both bad. Imo Adrien is better than Marinette but better doesn't mean good, and he's probably only really better because he has less screen time so there's less time for them to make him bad

I did not intend to write so much I'm sorry

No, you make a lot of sense there.

The show typically runs on the rule of “He’s a little confused, but he’s got the spirit” with the way it handles certain characters.

Like you said, both Marinette and Adrien have flaws related to their own feelings of entitlement towards their respective crushes, but rather than acknowledge how uncomfortable it is, the writers make it seem like their main flaws are entirely unrelated to their behavior around their crushes. Well, either that, or act like it’s perfectly normal.

They seriously show the characters acting in flawed ways, but choose to ignore those flaws in favor of punishing them for completely unrelated things, because God forbid the Love Square be seen in a negative light.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What do you think about the love square as toxic codependent relationship?

Toxic? Yes.

Codependent? No, though it is starting to go that way.

Canon has quite effectively poisoned the love square and put them in a position where they really shouldn't be dating. At the very least, they should be working full time with personal and couples counselors to fix their myriad of communication issues because Ladybug is still keeping things from Chat Noir and now Marinette is keeping things from Adrien. Yay! Plus Adrien desperately needs to work on being open and honest about his struggles. It should not take an act of magic for him to be able to admit that he doesn't want to do a thing (Risk). And quitting out of the blue instead of talking to his partner? Doesn't instill confidence that he'll suddenly magically be good at telling Marinette if she's making him feel similarly on the civilian side of things.

This leads into the other issue: balancing how they support each other. Right now, Marinette is getting all of Adrien's support, but he's getting nothing in return, which is super depressing because canon has the perfect setup to make that aspect of the relationship balanced. Chat Noir supports Ladybug through defeating whatever Gabriel is calling his villain side, Marinette supports Adrien through the fallout of the reveal of his father's web of lies and deception. Simple! Sweet! Easy! But because Adrien can't communicate his needs and because canon decided that Marinette needed romance trauma, their relationship is horribly unbalanced.

Adrien supporting Marinette through her relationship trauma is the one thing that is arguably codependent about their relationship because holy shit was that a terrible choice! As I've discussed before, he should not be her only support in that struggle for many reasons, one of them being that it makes her mental health dependent on him. The way the show is writing him now that they're together is horrible. Apparently perfect boyfriends have no needs of their own and no hopes, ambitions, or dreams outside of making their girlfriends happy!

The ending of season five does not give me any confidence that the above issues are going to go away. I expect them to get worse because holy shit how do you end the season with Adrien newly orphaned and yet spend no time showing Marinette comforting him? I have a sinking feeling that Adrien will mourn his dad about as much as he mourned his dead-for-less-than-a-year mom because I guess healthy people don't mourn. Or maybe this is just a sentimonster thing? Like maybe Emilie ordered him to not mourn her before she died or something like that. Or maybe Adrien is programmed to only care about living people who he loves/who love him? Idk. What I do know is that I'm very over the canon square. Just terrible, terrible writing. I'm especially judgmental of it because of the target age group.

While parents/guardians can model healthy romantic relationships for their children (assuming that the parents/guardians have a romantic partner), the concept of falling in love and starting to date is something that parents/guardians can't model even if they're actively dating because you're not going to take your kids on dates! Kids will mostly learn about falling in love and dating through media and discussions of the concept, which is why I think that it's extremely important to show healthy relationships in media aimed at young kids. And even if kids are being raised in a home/homes that model healthy relationships, that's just one or two data points. We want to give them lots of data points to draw from! We should not be giving them crap like whatever the hell season five of miraculous was.

[friendfromdsmp]

My thoughts on the LadyNoir drama in Season 4 because I keep seeing lots of hate directed towards Ladybug for it and I disagree with that

Just to be clear before we start this, I’m not saying Ladybug did nothing wrong. I’m DEFINITELY not saying she’s perfect. But I keep seeing people claiming that Ladybug caused all the problems by abandoning Chat Noir and replacing him and I just… can’t see it from that perspective at all? So I figured, what the hell, if I’m gonna be infodumping to myself on this, I might as well share it with people who might also be interested. Buckle up, this’ll be a veryyyyyy long post

So we start with the obvious catalyst for the issues this season; Marinette’s new Guardianship. There’s already a bit of a power imbalance noted by Chat Noir in that Ladybug is the main hero necessary for fighting Hawkmoth while Chat Noir serves a support role in the sense that he’s there as the heavy hitter. Any offensive Miraculous will do and thus many people can be worthy of his place, whereas using the Lucky Charm effectively requires a certain level of creativity and the ability to think like that under extreme pressure. This is worsened when Ladybug meets Master Fu, begins her Guardian training and introduces temp heroes that Chat isn’t allowed to know the identities of. While I don’t support Chat’s ultimatums due to being left in the dark, I can understand why he’d feel like there’s less of a partnership going on now and why that would hurt him; there *is* a power imbalance, even if it’s for inherently good purposes

With Ladybug becoming the Guardian, this power imbalance is furthered even more as Ladybug is now Chat Noir’s superior in the professional sense. And while Marinette has an understandably hard time balancing the pressures of being Ladybug, being a budding fashion designer, maintaining her school life, maintaining her social life, attending to Guardian duties, dealing with bullies, helping her parents in the bakery, etc etc and is struggling to keep up to the point where she’s physically unable to make it to most of her obligations, Chat Noir is left to his own devices, and this upsets him because he wants to hang out with Ladybug

Chat is well within his right to feel disappointed here, and I’m pleased to say that he does communicate this to Ladybug in a healthy manner, to which she apologises and explains that she’s struggling to keep up with all her responsibilities. She then makes the promise to never miss another patrol, which is where things head mildly south in that that’s not exactly a realistic promise, but I don’t think either of them expected that to be a completely true statement anyway. All in all, that’s the kind of healthy communication I want to see from them

But then Marinette breaks down under all the pressure she’s under and confesses to Alya that she’s Ladybug, thus gaining a support in both civilian and hero life. I’ve seen a lot of people saying she should’ve confessed to Chat Noir instead, but the reason they don’t confess to each other is explicitly stated in the show; if one of them is captured or akumatised, they won’t be able to give away the information of the other. Not to mention that what little Marinette knows about Chat Blanc is that she revealed her identity to Chat and then it destroyed the world. Alya is the closest person to her who knows what being a superhero is like. It makes sense that she’d reveal to her. And for Marinette’s sake, she did need support. She was at a breaking point

There’s also the question of should Ladybug have told Chat Noir that her identity had been shared. And to that, I have to agree that it might have been in their best interest, though I understand why she’d be hesitant. I wouldn’t say she’s *necessarily* in the wrong for not saying, but she probably should have done it

And now, the biggest Alya complaint; is Rena replacing Chat Noir? I say not at all, because she serves an inherently different purpose to Chat Noir. Chat’s purpose is to be Ladybug’s prime partner in crime-fighting, even if he technically falls into a support role as her heavy-hitter and cover while she’s the strategist. Classic case of brains and brawn. Rena, on the other hand, is almost exclusively behind the scenes and is a support hero only. She’s effectively a guy in the chair most of the time. Yes, both are in elevated positions compared to the rest of the team, but since they serve different roles I can’t imagine how one could replace the other without any overlap in their roles, save for that one extreme scenario in Sentibubbler where all the roles were reversed

But before we get to Sentibubbler, let’s look at Mr Pigeon 72 and Optigami; in both scenarios Adrien was in some way compromised and then Rena Rouge showed up to get him out of that position. Adrien hasn’t got any reason to be upset about this since there was no possible way for Ladybug to call on him instead, but then when Sentibubbler occurs suddenly Rena’s not only back, but calling the shots and removing him from the plan without any direct word from Ladybug. You can understand his feelings of being replaced here

However, the way he attempted to handle these feelings was not healthy or even safe. By actively sabotaging a plan when there’s a hostage situation, he endangered the entire Césaire family, Nino and Marinette by playing with their lives. Rena could have phrased it better in a way that sounded less dismissive of Chat, absolutely, but I can’t blame her for being a bit blunt and vague in such a scenario. Just because Chat’s feelings are valid and understandable doesn’t make how he acted on them acceptable

This is the point where the conflict truly begins since Chat Noir *was* excluded this time due to circumstances he wasn’t able to understand due to the lack of information he has compared to Rena and Ladybug. And he starts to internalise these feelings instead of communicating them to Ladybug, which isn’t a healthy response

I see a lot of people arguing that Ladybug is at fault for not noticing sooner that Chat Noir was hurt and for not doing something about it, but I’d like to point this out again; Chat Noir did not communicate his feelings. Ladybug is his partner and friend, yes, but she is also not in any sort of position of care for Chat Noir beyond keeping him physically safe and healthy. It’s not like if she were a parent or caretaker and thus had the responsibility to look after his mental well-being to a degree that a friend or work partner usually wouldn’t be necessarily obligated to provide. And I’d like to remind you that she even reached out and *asked* Chat Noir if he was okay in Rocketear, only for Chat Noir to tell her he was fine. At that point he is actively keeping it from her, and as such it’s not fair to Ladybug to try to take responsibility for what’s upsetting him. Just because her behaviour has upset him doesn’t mean she should automatically fix it; she doesn’t realise she’s done anything wrong since he isn’t communicating that there’s an issue and is instead reassuring her of the opposite. And while Adrien isn’t obligated to tell Ladybug if he doesn’t feel comfortable doing that, it’s unfair for him to expect her to change if he won’t communicate that it’s a problem

(I’d also like to quickly point out that, after Sentibubbler when the issue arose, Rena was supposedly retired, so to Chat’s knowledge this scenario won’t happen again. His feelings are still valid, it’s just interesting to note)

At this point, we now have Nino revealing both his and Rena’s identities, as well as revealing that Ladybug made an exception to the identity rule he’s been wanting to break for months. He feels once again left out of the loop, but also that his feelings are valued less than the temp heroes since Ladybug is willing to break the rules for them and not for him. Granted, Chat Noir doesn’t have the context as to why the rule was broken, but that doesn’t matter; the rule was broken and he never knew. He feels excluded again, which is perfectly valid with the information he has. I’d feel the same way. Still, he doesn’t communicate this with Ladybug and chooses to actively keep it from her even when asked about how he’s feeling, so Ladybug isn’t responsible for demanding he talk about problems she’s been told don’t exist. She has no reason to press him. And as such, it currently isn’t on her to fix whatever problems Chat Noir is having; she’s being left out of the loop too, just emotionally and not professionally

We see Adrien unable to make it to akuma fights due to civilian obligations in Ephemeral and Ladybug brings on a whole bunch of temp heroes to compensate for that, furthering Adrien’s belief that he’s being replaced. He feels expendable because of this, which, again, is a valid feeling. He even grows depressed over it, as seen in Kuro Neko, and we get an accurate glimpse of depression; being unable to do even the things you’d usually enjoy doing and then feeling bad about not doing it, which only makes your depression worse and keeps the cycle going. The problem is that Adrien has externalised this depressive episode by projecting his insecurities on Ladybug and the temp heroes a little, turning the cycle of depression into something involving Ladybug’s leadership and her views on him as a partner

Chat Noir feels replaced by Ladybug because Ladybug keeps calling in a team of temp heroes. Ladybug keeps calling in a team of temp heroes because Chat Noir isn’t showing up to akuma fights. Chat Noir isn’t showing up to akuma fights because Chat Noir feels replaced by Ladybug. Do you see how the cycle repeats itself? Do you see how Chat Noir externalised the depressive cycle? And since it’s unrealistic for Ladybug to go into battle with no support at all, the only way to escape this cycle is for Chat Noir to show up to an akuma fight

Except when he does so, Chat Noir catches Ladybug at a bad time; she’s just sending off everybody to hide before they detransform, she herself doesn’t have long to gather at least six miraculous from various locations before she transforms back. Chat Noir offers to help, which of course is a good thing, but Ladybug points out that he doesn’t know the locations of the temp heroes and for some of them he doesn’t know their identities, so it would take too long for her to explain everything right now. He tries to convince her to let him help and feel useful, but again he doesn’t acknowledge that, while Ladybug appreciates his intentions, it’s just not a practical time. Had he requested that she return after doing her rounds and recharging to explain how to do this in future, it would have been fine, because then Ladybug would have had the time to fill him in and work everything out. But instead Chat Noir got pushy out of his desperation to feel useful and included, which isn’t a good move on his part

In return, Ladybug is starting to grow panicked and frustrated; judging by how quickly King Monkey’s timer ran out I doubt Ladybug had more than a couple of minutes to gather several Miraculous from various locations around the neighbourhood before she reveals her identity to everyone and would have to give up her Miraculous, and now Chat shows up out of nowhere after being awol for several akuma fights to the point where the public are worriedly asking if he’s okay and starts demanding that she spend time she doesn’t have chatting with him about her plans. And while snapping and yelling at Chat wasn’t her nicest solution and it wouldn’t hurt to apologise, you can easily see why she did it. She also explicitly states that she didn’t realise Chat was going to give up his Miraculous when she left him, and when she worked it out she immediately abandoned King Monkey to stop him, so you can’t argue that she allowed him to quit due to spite and/or a lack of care

I won’t sugar-coat this one or try and see it from both perspectives; Adrien renouncing Plagg and abandoning the ring on a rooftop was an inexcusable act on his part. The timing was fine since there was no big villain to defeat at that point or any consequence he was escaping by abandoning responsibility, unlike with Syren or the NY special, but the fact that he was so irresponsible as to abandon the ring in a public area where so much could have gone wrong is just dangerous and neglectful. It could have rolled off the roof. It could have been snatched up by a bird. Ladybug could have just plain not spotted it. Anyone with access to the roof or lucky enough to find it after it fell off could have had one of the most powerful artifacts in existence. If the job is too emotionally draining for you and you don’t feel respected or valued, that’s a completely fair reason to quit. I don’t blame him for that. But he still has a responsibility to return the ring to Ladybug or find a new and worthy holder himself. I can support Adrien’s choice but not how he went about it

And then Plagg goes off on Marinette for not being considerate enough of Chat’s feelings and I can understand why he’d have a skewed perspective since he’s seen all of Adrien’s depressive episodes and emotional reactions, but he isn’t taking into account that Marinette *doesn’t* have that information. Plagg blames her for not trying harder, but what did he want her to do? Keep demanding Chat tell her what’s wrong even when he reassures her there isn’t anything wrong? Read his mind? Maybe Plagg isn’t aware that Ladybug asked about how Chat’s feeling and was kept in the dark. I don’t know, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he’s acting as if Chat tried to communicate and Ladybug rejected him when that wasn’t the case, and even when Marinette expresses to Plagg that she wasn’t aware there was a problem he still claims she should have fixed said problem. She can’t be held responsible for a problem she was actively kept from knowing about. And even if he doesn’t realise she made an attempt to find out, Plagg doesn’t accept communication about this to find this out in favour of guilting Marinette

After this Plagg points out how Ladybug is breaking Chat Noir’s heart by rejecting him because he loves her. Is Plagg trying to imply here that Marinette is obligated to return Chat Noir’s feelings? He’s certainly making Chat’s feelings into Marinette’s responsibility. Honestly I’m really disappointed with Plagg in this scene, he was great for the rest of the episode but in his efforts to support Adrien he ended up just berating Marinette for not taking on things that weren’t her responsibility, but Adrien’s

No comment on the plan to weaponise Adrien’s knowledge of Ladybug’s preferences in order to manipulate and seduce her. I’ve gone on long enough about this episode and I believe that rather speaks for itself. It is rather interesting how Ladybug acknowledged her feelings for Cat Walker were getting in the way, communicated this without blaming or setting expectations on Cat Walker in any way and the pair coming to a mutual agreement on how to move forward, though

Moving on, we have Hack-San, in which Chat Noir learns that Ladybug revealed her identity to someone who isn’t him and gave her Miraculous to them. I can perfectly understand his suspicion towards Scarabella at first, but immediately attempting to Cataclysm her? If his theory was right, she was either an akuma - aka an innocent person victimised by Hawkmoth - or a sentimonster - aka a being he considers to be alive a la the episode Ladybug and which he knows would go violently out of control if he Cataclysmed it - which would mean Cataclysm would be a horrible move at best and murder at worst, even by his own logic. I don’t think I can really justify that one

I can also understand his frustrations with her still, especially since she bested him in combat so quickly when to his knowledge she’s never been a hero before. There’s also the resentment towards someone else being let into the loop and yet *another* example of Ladybug breaking the identity rule for people that aren’t him, the only person who’s been there for her from the very beginning. Once again his anger is very valid. I like that they give him genuine reasons to be upset and angry with Ladybug instead of pulling it out of their ass

But again, Chat Noir having valid emotions doesn’t mean the way he acts on them are necessarily valid. He takes it out on Scarabella even in the middle of battle, and yeah he gets over it and starts supporting her after he sees how insecure she is, but that doesn’t mean he had the right to do it. I think he did apologise iirc though so I’m glad he did acknowledge that he was in the wrong and tried to make it up to her. Good communication and self-awareness there. And I loved their dynamic so much

We continue the good communication by the end of the episode where Ladybug does her best to explain everything without revealing her own identity and apologises for all the trouble, including the ‘I shared my identity’ thing. And let’s be real, she did her freaking best to get out of leaving AND she was responsible enough to find a temporary replacement while keeping them updated with important tips for the job. The only thing she could’ve done better was giving Chat a heads up, but given that she had literally no opportunity to do so that’s brushed aside. She did her best and her best was good

And continuing our open communication, Chat admits he was scared to lose her forever, and we have Ladybug reassure him that that will never happen. Really cute and wholesome moment. Healthy chat going on. Wonder if the whole Cataclysm thing will ever be brought up

Now we get to the clusterfuck of messages in the final episodes of the season; immediately after Kuro Neko’s message of ‘rely on Chat Noir, fuck the temp heroes’, we have Penalteam’s ‘Ladybug needs to be a team player’. You see the issue there? Also it’s kinda weird that right after the ‘I need to put more trust in Chat Noir’ episode we have an episode where Ladybug puts her trust in him and he has to admit that he can’t do the one thing she trusted him to do, aka be an amazing football player. Obviously this is a very specific scenario and not once I’m expecting him to be prepared for but the order of the episodes is still weird right?

Still we see a healthier LadyNoir dynamic now that Ladybug knows that Chat Noir wants to be trusted with more responsibilities and Chat Noir is communicating any issues he has. I think the ‘team player’ message would have worked better if Ladybug started excluding the team but still passing to Chat and then *Chat* had to be the one to say ‘hey, I appreciate you trying to value me over the team, but I think I have learned that sometimes you need to rely on more than just me, and that doesn’t mean you value me any less’ and then Chat can be the one to learn the lesson. It’s a shame that they backtracked on the season-long argument to teach Ladybug a lesson she clearly already learned. I think this was probably one of the most obviously forced lessons in the show’s history, and that’s saying a lot tbh

And now we reach the finale, and dear god the argument was just a gold mine. Remember, first off, that both parties are under the effect of the akuma Risk at this point in time, and as such will be making decisions that they normally wouldn’t. It starts off with Ladybug scolding Chat Noir for being too risky, so he starts saying how she never takes risks, specifically the risk of Chat Noir revealing his identity to her. Chat Noir finally asks the question of why other holders are allowed to break the identity rule and he’s the only one still bound to it - which is a completely fair question, albeit a horrible time for it, though since he’s under Risk’s influence I can’t say this is him choosing the time in sound mind

Ladybug’s response is that she needs to protect him in case she got akumatised and ratted Chat out, leading to the line “We’ll never get akumatised!” that gives Ladybug Chat Blanc flashbacks. Now Ladybug is speaking both out of Risk’s impact and also the impact of her trauma, which Chat Noir doesn’t know about. Let’s also consider how all Ladybug remembers from Ephemeral is the time-based destruction of the world as she knows it after she attempted to learn Chat Noir’s identity, which sounds a lot like what she remembers of Chat Blanc. She claims Chat doesn’t know what he’s talking about and he counters that it’s because she never tells him anything, which is, again, a fair point to be raising

This isn’t helped when Rena over comms warns Ladybug of an incoming attack and Ladybug praises her, specifically calling her Rena. Chat Noir now realises she’s still around and Ladybug poorly attempts to play it off, but knows she failed. She tells him she can’t inform him of any other details, which only furthers Chat’s argument

The argument is cut short for now, but upon learning of Risk’s power, Ladybug tells Chat Noir it’s too risky to have him active since his Cataclysm power would be absorbed by the Strikebacks. While this is a logical and reasonable move, it also plays back into Chat Noir’s feelings of being sidelined and expendable, and he’s reasonably angry with this. The Risk mark is activated and he disobeys Ladybug’s order to help fight, which I can’t really judge him for at this point due to the akuma’s influence

The next notable moment is when Chat Noir is freed from the effects of Risk and eavesdrops on Ladybug praising a new hero he hasn’t seen before. Ladybug calls him “Adri-“ but doesn’t quite finish the name, though it isn’t a stretch to say that Chat Noir could have easily worked out from there that she meant to say Adrien. The thing is, Chat Noir obviously knows that Flairmidable can’t possibly be Adrien, but he does know Felix was pretending to be him. They don’t make it clear whether Chat pieces this together or not, but by the way he looks so angry and he hasn’t had an issue with any of the temp heroes being present until this moment, I think it’s safe to assume he’s either still hurt from Ladybug attempting to bench him before or he’s worked out that it’s Felix, possibly both

Though if he knew it was Felix he had to realise Ladybug intended to trust him with a Miraculous, so was he jealous of himself? And really he should have warned Ladybug, even if he can’t say ‘I know this isn’t Adrien because I’m Adrien’ he can still at least *try* and warn Ladybug and ask her to trust him on this. To give him the benefit of the doubt I’ll assume that he didn’t piece it together, though that’s a bit of an insult to his intellect at that point

Chat Noir’s brief interaction with Flairmidable is rather disappointing in terms of his attitude since he’s taking out his anger on a hero he’s never met before. His problem is with Ladybug, and even then it wouldn’t be right to take that out on her since she was correct in saying Chat Noir fighting was too big of a risk and she never meant to hurt him or imply that he shouldn’t be part of the team. To take it out on an innocent bystander is just unfair, though at least it was just being a bit grumpy and despondent rather than malicious jabs and potentially lethal attacks like with Scarabella

And then we get to the scene where Ladybug comes to Adrien and realises she gave the Miraculous to Felix instead, and just as this is registering, the dog ball appears and steals her yo-yo, causing Ladybug to spiral into a panic attack. Adrien’s way of helping her is to say “If you’re gonna trust me once, please let it be this time”, which is clearly motivated from the LadyNoir drama and how he feels like Ladybug doesn’t trust him. This then continues as Ladybug is in despair at the realisation that Felix gave Hawkmoth all the Miraculous, only for Chat Noir to show up. Ladybug asks him why he didn’t give up on her, citing that she’s a bad Guardian and effectively blaming herself for the entirety of the LadyNoir drama since she didn’t listen to him (At what point didn’t she listen to him? Genuinely asking I can’t quite think) and lied to him and kept him at a distance even when he offered to help. The lying is a fair one, though I also feel it’s fair to assess *why* she lied; most of her lies have been to protect secret identities, as far as I can remember, and those aren’t her secrets to tell and she’s scared of the dangers that will come from exposed identities, a fear backed up by several different episodes. She’s also disregarding the ways in which Chat Noir ‘offered a helping hand’, which was often reliant on her revealing these identities

With everything that Ladybug blames herself for, the one thing she doesn’t say is the one thing that does need to be addressed; the power imbalance. I wholly believe Ladybug still views Chat as an equal partner, but her actions aren’t reflecting that due to her being the Guardian and the strategist of the team. With the strategist, there’s always a sense of leadership and command, and the Guardianship amplified this tenfold. She’s effectively his boss now, with the power to hire or fire at will. Ladybug and Chat Noir can’t be on equal footing at this point. With the kwamis captured, however, the playing field was levelled pretty much back to Season 1, especially since Rena is also gone and only gives Ladybug advice as Alya now

I’d like to keep all this in mind as we assess Chat Noir’s reassuring words to Ladybug because Chat has effectively gotten everything he wanted all season; the playing field is more level and Ladybug can’t call in help and so has no choice but to rely solely on Chat. We’ve also had a good few examples of Ladybug apologising for a good few things (though we are still owed the healthy communication of Chat Blanc, but that was a genuinely traumatic experience for her so I understand that may take a lot of time) and I don’t know if we’ve seen too much of Chat apologising for his own reactions to his emotions

He tells Ladybug that they’ll get the Miraculous back and that he’s her “loyal partner”

So not exactly the best answer, though I’ll admit it works for her. No ‘hey, you had no way of knowing’ or ‘don’t be too hard on yourself’ or really any attempt at soothing her feelings. No taking responsibility for anything that’s happened in the last season. No trying to sympathise with her. And to be fair, Adrien was never the most empathetic character of all, but he almost seems a bit distant from the severity of the situation. It’s more of an ‘it’ll be okay because we’re together’, which is sweet and well-meant but kind of comes off like he’s… not *happy* about the situation, but certainly like he recognises the benefits it brings him

I won’t lie, this behaviour with the quick switch-up from angry and depressed to perfectly fine and happy reminds me of when men act aggressive to get their way when a woman sets a boundary and when the woman caves they’re instantly fine and you know they never lost control of their emotions, they just utilised them. And I hate to say this because I like Adrien and I know this was never the intention for how he was supposed to come off in this scene but I just can’t shake it. I don’t think this season showing him destroying things in anger at times when he’s rejected (Sentibubbler, Glaciator 2) really helped with my perception of him that way, either. Again I know this is way off the mark but my brain can’t help making that comparison

So yeah, that’s my super long interpretation of the LadyNoir drama in Season 4. If you read this far, I hope you enjoyed

[ao3feed-ladynoir]

Not Part of the Plan

Not Part of the Plan by Kasienda

“What's wrong, Marinette?”

Marinette wiped her tears with her sleeve, and pulled away just enough to reach into her pocket. She gripped the pregnancy test and held it out to her mother.

Sabine's eyes widened as she took in the results of the test in her hand. Her gaze flashed back up to Marinette's.

“You're pregnant.” And it wasn't a question, but it was enough to send Marinette into devastated tears once again.

Her mother pulled her back into the hug and just held her. “It's going to be okay.”

Words: 2033, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Miraculous Ladybug

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Underage

Categories: F/M

Characters: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Sabine Cheng, Tom Dupain, Alya Césaire, Nino Lahiffe, Gabriel Agreste, Nathalie Sancoeur

Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

Additional Tags: Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Implied Sexual Content, Nothing explicit, Sex Positive, discussion of teen parentage, Discussion of Abortion, teens who get to make their own decisions about their bodies and their life, supportive friends, supportive parents, well - except for Gabriel, he's a jerk as you might expect, overcoming adversity together, Established Relationship, Established LadyNoir, pre reveal, but not for long, Healthy Relationships, Communication, Hurt/Comfort, Speed Write, only write the fun parts

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44124492

[iwasbored777]

It's hard to explain to some people in this fandom that fixing communication issues and no more secrets is what will save Ladynoir, not revealing their identities. Ladybug and Chat Noir revealing their identities, even if it doesn't lead to the end of the world, isn't a proper way to fix their problems cuz it won't fix their current problems. They need to learn so much more and develop more and that's why I hope the plot won't separate them for the said cliffhanger cuz that would only make people hate Love Square even more and let's face it - it would ruin their relationship way too much. It needs to get better not worse. Writers push Marinette and Adrien further and further away every season and then wonder why some people stopped shipping them. I bet Ladynoir problems will end up like Lukanette and Adrigami - irrelevant to the following story once it's over but it will be a good excuse for salters to salt on Love Square. That's why conversations would be better than a big fight. Sure, it's ok if they need time but I can't imagine them hating each other for something that can be resolved if both put more effort into it. Chat needs to tell Ladybug what's wrong, she will try to fix it, she won't do it again, she will feel sorry. Just let Marinette and Adrien have a strong healthy bond without breaking it on every given occasion. It's tiring.

[flightfoot]

I've seen many post critiquing adrien decision to renounce the miraculous in kuro neko and even some salt of it but I haven't seen any post that talk into great leght about how renouncing his miraculous is the healthiest decision he made in s4. Getting away from unhealthy environment is hard especially if your mind telling you that this is the safest and comfiest place possible and in s4 his dynamic with ladybug is hardly healthy considering she's constantly lie, tried to manipulate him and pushing him away all the way telling him he's her favorite partner in s4.

Don't get me wrong I understand her reasoning and I also know she care for him and she's a good kid but also it's a fact that her action in s4 is damaging and create an unhealthy dynamic for ladynoir and for adrien to decided that he has enough means he's in healthy mindset and worth a huge praise but I haven't see people talk about it in detail. If you happen to know a post that talk about it would you please share the link if you don't mind?

Kuro Neko is... complicated. I don't think either Adrien or Marinette made the best decisions, or the worst decisions in that episode. Both were kind of questionable, but mostly stemming off of neither of them being in the best mental place, and trying to muddle along despite that.

I do like that with Adrien feeling hurt in Kuro Neko, and believing that Ladybug didn't need him so it wouldn't make much of a difference in the fight against Shadow Moth, that he was willing to renounce his Miraculous because he thought that not being around Ladybug would stop him from feeling as hurt. I do think that part of the core of that decision - that him leaving a situation that he thought was unhealthy for him - is going to be an important sort of philosophy later, when it comes to getting away from Gabriel.

That being said, some details about his decision to renounce the Miraculous were decidedly less healthy. It was stemming off the idea that Ladybug was rejecting not only his love (even if Plagg viewed it that way) but his friendship, and their partnership as a whole. Between Adrien's experience with relationships being transactional, what with his abusive father, and Marinette tending to give up and accept other people's assessments of relationships being broken and not being reparable, the two of them run into a communication issue, since both of them think their relationship is in a far worse state than it actually is. Adrien's mostly depressed because he thinks Ladybug doesn't need him, and if she doesn't need him and isn't explicitly showing that she wants him, if there's some indication that she's only putting up with him being around out of a sense of duty or something... it's easy for him to latch onto that and go into depression. He's used to only receiving love and care when he's "earned" it, so the idea that he might not be crucial for the fight against Shadow Moth, but Ladybug might still want him around regardless, even if she's not always great about showing it... that's hard for him to truly believe.

Adrien going along with Plagg's plan to still be the Black Cat Holder shows more of the same mindset. While there is some deception involved, I don't think him being Cat Walker was manipulative. Adrien quit being Chat Noir under the assumption that it was the only way to stop getting hurt by Ladybug pushing him away, and Ladybug rejected letting Plagg take the Miraculous back to him under the same sort of assumption - that even if Plagg got him to retake the ring, it'd just mean that she'd end up continuing to hurt him (since Plagg didn't really convey it well and so she thought that he just felt hurt because of his unrequited love for her, when that wasn't really the case). She didn't give the ring back to Plagg not because she was upset at Chat Noir, but because she didn't want to hurt him, and she didn't know how to NOT do that, with circumstances being what they were.

Plagg's plan with Adrien becoming Cat Walker was to try to address both Marinette and Adrien's problems, as best as Plagg could figure out what they were, anyway. His plan was to solve the problem of Adrien being depressed due to believing that Ladybug didn't need or want him, by looking at the qualities Ladybug said she needed in a Black Cat, and trying to have Adrien change to match those, so that she'd want to rely on him more. Basically thinking that the problem came down to Ladybug not liking Chat Noir enough, when that wasn't really the source of the issue. While with Adrien, who Plagg has a better handle on, he figures that if Ladybug likes him more, then he'll be relied on more, will be more needed, so he won't be as worried that Ladybug is only putting up with him out of necessity.

Honestly even if Kuro Neko hadn't gone wrong, the Cat Walker plan wouldn't have worked. The core of the issue had nothing to do with Ladybug not liking Chat Noir, it was more about Ladybug being really secretive and pushing Chat away in general, and not realizing the impact that could have on others. Adrien being Cat Walker instead only would have changed that because Ladybug's worried about pushing Cat Walker away too, not due to his actual behavior. Which is what ultimately ended up resulting in her asking Cat Walker to give his Miraculous to Chat Noir, because she felt guilty about driving Chat Noir away, and between seeing that working with the new Black Cat wasn't working and Cat Walker making her think that maybe this whole situation could be repaired, she and Chat Noir actually got to talking a bit more, with her assuring him that she wants him around, even when she doesn't necessarily need him.

On Adrien's end, talking with Ladybug as Cat Walker showed him that she did in fact want Chat Noir around, that she wasn't just putting up with him, that she missed him when he was gone and didn't want to be without him. So he came back. He only left because he didn't think she needed or wanted him and he was feeling hurt by how she'd pushed him away, but she clearly did genuinely want him around.

[parismystere]

When Kagami and Alya had a little more screen time they insulted their characters, however when they give Luka's character more screen time they don't even say a half word. I don't know how you think but I'm tired of this fandom and above all I'm tired of the lukanette stan of their insults towards Adrien and Alya. Sorry for the outburst.

no need to apologize, i'm of the same opinion. i think i'm over it, for the most part, and i happen to care very little about what other people think re: ml, but the adoration for luka baffled me because i couldn't understand it, and i hate it when i can't understand something.

here is a summary of my findings:

- as marinette is the main character and her pov is prioritized, people tend to project themselves onto her A LOT. you get people salting on chat noir not because of the context of chat noir's actions, but because they personally don't feel attracted to chat noir, and assume that marinette doesn't either. you get people resenting adrien because he doesn't return marinette's affections, which makes her 'suffer'. the show itself sometimes props up marinette's pain while neglecting adrien's, for example the episode the puppeteer 2, in which the fact that adrien's friends were hanging out with him because each of them wanted something out of him was glossed over, while marinette's heartbreak took central focus. just notice how people tend to make chat blanc about her and her only;

- a big part of the audience struggles to imagine how certain situations look in the eyes of other characters;

- predominantly female audience identifies more easily with marinette;

- all of this leads to double standards. people salt on adrien for continuing to pursue ladybug, nobody salts on marinette for continuing to pursue adrien after finding out that he's in love with someone else. i talked about it a bit more here;

- glaciator, syren, frozer, malediktator, all happening within one season, and then chameleon airing a month after the season 2 finale. some people had a problem with all of these episodes, some with a few, some with one, but it generated the adrien salt community, and s3 brought the alya salters forth;

- i do think that adrien in particular is too mysterious and confusing for the audience;

- luka is a great character for projection. he didn't even have a backstory until s4. his personality is agreeing with whatever marinette says, while seemingly having no desires of his own besides 'make marinette happy'. in some twisted version of the world, this turns into an example of how ~healthy lukanette is, even though in healthy relationships both people have their own unique personalities and motivations, and that can lead to conflicts sometimes. luka never has conflicts with marinette, therefore he's better;

- the guitar boi thing? the cringy love confessions? he seems chill, mild-mannered and nice, without much complications or contradictions, and that works for some people;

- an overall very weird obession with ~~justice, seriousness, hard work, which just turns into revenge in the fandom's hands; i've described this point of view as very american in nature;

- some people love to turn marinette into a victim and act like all she does is suffer. i've even seen salt towards her parents. if you know a thing about tom and sabine, you'd know how insane that is. nobody is allowed to criticize marinette in-universe. everyone must bow to her for some reason, and when characters don't do that and instead act like normal human beings, they get salted on for 'mistreating' marinette;

- a lot of second-hand embarrassment over how marinette acts when adrien is around leads many to prefer lukanette and assume that luka is the better match, when the point is that if she was in love with luka, she'd be a mess around him too. if you are a hardcore marinette stan/adrien salter, you probably think that the show ~~~humiliates and punishes marinette for her crush on adrien, because you're so into your own goddang self-projection that you don't see that she's the main focus of the show and as such, the writers don't hate her;

- an interesting point (credit to @flightfoot because i read it from her first) is that a lot of the people who dislike marinette have lost interest in ml and no longer keep up with the show, so marinette gets the least amount of salt. can you imagine adrien or alya pulling what she did in ephemeral and getting away with it?

- a lot of victim-blaming of adrien from people who have never experienced parental abuse and demand that he 'grows a backbone'; annoyance about his lack of agency in the show (as if marinette is investigating who hawk moth is, mhm); a lot of anger that the writers want people to empathize with his situation;

- kagami is the least feminine female character and is interested in adrien, adrien is only allowed to be interested in and have a relationship with marinette. fandom logic;

- alya gets interpreted as pushy and a bad friend even when she isn't hurting marinette, because alya knows that her best friend has troubles with being in her head too much, but would regret it for life if she never acts on her crush. however, that would require a bit of a nuance on the situation, so alya gets salted on;

- the show repeatedly painting luka in a positive light only, while alya and kagami have had plenty of unsympathetic moments, and alya's trustworthiness is even questioned, while luka's isn't even up for debate, yes, in the show, not just in the fandom.

so... yeah. it's a combination of a lot of factors. i'm pretty sure that i've missed some things. like you, i'm very tired of it, but for me, personally, understanding how this happened helped me deal with it, and now it doesn't bother me as much, perhaps because i try to avoid it or at least ignore if it i stumble upon it. it doesn't hurt to have a bit of an aggrandized self-belief in your own views. you can't change people's minds on the internet if they're hellbent on a version of reality they prefer and exist in an echo chamber that only supports their views. and you shouldn't bother either, anon. just cultivate who you want to follow from the fandom and make your weird posts, if that's what you're into - that's how i deal with it. :)