#miraculous strike back

[bvgxboo]

this SCREAMS post reveal ladynoir. argue with the wall.

[tricieslune]

Strike Back. Season 4.

The emotional turmoil this ep left me in omg. Can't believe this episode aired 2 years ago. I remember waking up early just to watch this.

Also let's ignore the small Eiffel Tower, im not really good at backgrounds, ty 🌷

EDIT : I FORGOT TO COLOR THOSE WINDOWS OMG. nvm.

[nixthelapin]

Félix as Flairmidable

This name is hilarious and you’re about to find out why.

It really bugged me at first because I couldn’t figure out how it related to dogs or canines at all. But I knew the second part of the name comes from the word “formidable.” In English, it means powerful/capable/intense in a way that commands respect or fear (I.e. formidable opponent). In French, it can be the same, but also translates to “tremendous,” “amazing,” “terrible” (if you’re wanting a negative connotation).

Those definitions definitely go with how Felix sees himself (and he is definitely a formidable opponent).

But I was drawing a blank on “flair” or how else the name could refer to anything canine at all. So I just googled “flairmidable meaning” and see if someone else in the miraculous wiki figured it out lol. And they did!

Someone in a miraculous discussion post said “flair” means a dog’s sense of smell. I did some more googling to fact check it just in case, and found that it’s almost right: “flairer” (a French verb) means “sniff,” and “flaireur” means “scent.” Since Fetch is a tracking power, it’s a good connection to how dogs track.

Okay, now here’s the funny part.

“Flair,” by itself, also means “instinctive aptitude or ability for doing something well. Add that with “formidable,” and, well…

Felix literally went “hi I’m Talented and Powerful” to an entire team of superheroes and no one bat an eye (well, except Chat, but he was on jealousy brain).

(Then he proceeded to prove that he was exactly that. What a legend.)

[dumbass-brunette]

Adrien: I can’t believe Chole is Shadowmoth 🤯

Adrien: No, but Félix can't have known who Shadowmoth is. The only people in Paris he knows are me, Chloé, and my dad.

Adrien: f*ck.

[belowthesurface]

more of this au (miraculous transformations make a trans holder their preferred gender even if they dont know yet, adrien and felix are transfem)

Bonus

[monpetitchattriste]

For personal reasons

[art-michine]

Now that @buggachat has finished drowning (in plain sight) I decided to scribble up a quick doodle that I’d half expected to happen in chapter 10

[monarch-maelstrom]

I think all my favorite ships are like this.

Sometimes a relationship is just

A person with emotional baggage having many self doubts as they navigate over who they are and what they want to be

And a person with emotional baggage who have died and become possessed (not in that order)

[bellzsad]

i like to associate this miraculous movie scene..

with this one.

[hamsternamedmarinette]

Hey remember when Mayor Bourgeois wanted to send all of Paris' trash to space but people protested saying that space is no dump

And remember two seasons later when Ladybug used the horse miraculous to send the Strike Back sentimonsters to the sun to immediately burn up

Why don.t. why don't they use the horse mira ulous to send the trash to the sun this way the trash won't just be floating in space,. And it can just immediately burn in the sun. And they won't even have to spend all the money on rockets. Mayor Bustier are you writing this down

[flightfoot]

All the rankings are in, and now it's time for the great conclusion: best Miraculous Ladybug episode to date!

I will be pulling the top 2 choices from these five polls I previously conducted, looking for the best Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, and the first part of Season 5 episodes.

Without further ado, here are the choices!

[pythagoras180]

Why the season 4 "arc" between Ladybug and Cat Noir is terrible

The Setup

So, what was the conflict in this arc about exactly? It's been years, and I'm still not totally sure. It probably has something to do with trust, or if "Kuro Neko" is to be believed, it's just about Cat Noir's unrequited feelings. Sometimes Cat Noir is complaining about her utilizing other superheroes, sometimes it's about them not knowing each other's identities (even though this season explained why that rule is in place), and sometimes he's just complaining about being in the dark.

I think the reason some people think there was actual substance here is because of how the the show frames it like Cat Noir is actually being mistreated by Ladybug. But the problem is that there's no real moment where he actually is mistreated. One of the cliches I hate most is when writers want there to be conflict between good guy characters, but they don't want one of them to actually do anything wrong, so then the other character just comes across as completely unreasonable and whiney. Honestly, as the season was airing, the argument could have been made that the problem was entirely with Cat Noir being insecure and selfish. But that argument goes out the window in the season finale, which we'll get to later. But the fact is that the only thing Ladybug is "guilty" of is utilizing the resources at her disposal and following a rule of secret identities that protects everyone.

The only exception to this is in the episode "Ephemeral". Ladybug actually does something wrong here, where she decieves Cat Noir into revealing his identity to Luka and Su-Han without his knowledge or consent. And honestly? This comes completely out of nowhere. The Ladybug throughout most of this season does not seem like the kind of person who would do that. It honestly feels shoved in to try to make Cat Noir's actions more justified. The problem with that is that Cat Noir doesn't actually know what Ladybug did, so this is no excuse.

So the fact that the arc doesn't define what the issue actually is or put the blame where it lies means that there's really nothing for the characters to learn here. I mean, the episode "Penalteam" tries to frame it like Ladybug's flaw is she wants to handle everything herself, which completely contradicts the narrative framing her use of other heroes as wrong. It's honestly just pure nonsense.

The Payoff

So the big payoff for this arc is the ending of the season finale, "Strike Back". Ladybug suffers a massive loss, apologizes to Cat Noir for everything, and he chooses to stick with her despite everything. On paper, this looks like an amazing payoff. And plenty of people did find it emotional, even me at first. But once you actually peel back the layers, you'll see that it's completely hollow.

Let's start with Ladybug's defeat. Honestly, the writers completely rigged the situation to make her lose. Ladybug didn't fail because of a character flaw, there wasn't really a way she could have avoided what happened. Supposedly, her flaw was not trusting or depending on Cat Noir. But how exactly would her doing so here have changed the outcome? It's not like Cat Noir offered an alternative solution and she didn't listen. In fact, he disobeyed her orders and made the situation worse. So Ladybug's "flaw" played no part in this defeat.

Next, there's Ladybug's apology. Let's break down everything she says and see why it's nonsense. "I wanted to control everything" When exactly did Ladybug overstep? She never put overbearing limitations on Cat Noir. She acted like a perfectly reasonable leader. "I didn't listen to you" Listen about what exactly? When did Cat Noir tell her anything that she disregarded. "I lied to you" She did, in "Ephemeral". Too bad Cat Noir didn't know about that. And considering her lying ended up interrupted, it's honestly just the intent of lying. "I kept you at a distance" At the beginning of the season, they're actually much closer than they've ever been, as they hang out outside of battle. What exactly is Ladybug referring to here? The only thing I can think of is the Rena Furtive stuff, but there weren't any consequences to this and Cat Noir had no meaningful reaction when he found out the truth. "Every time you offered me a helping hand, I never took it" Like I just mentioned, Cat Noir never offered alternate solutions that she ignored. The only thing this might be referring to is the opening of "Kuro Neko", but it was clearly explained why he couldn't actually be helpful in collecting the Miraculouses, and he was obviously in the wrong there. So, since Ladybug never did anything actually wrong that Cat Noir knew about, this apology doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Cat Noir only ever complained about stuff that wasn't actually bad or her fault.

As for Cat Noir sticking with her, well again, that falls flat because she didn't do anything wrong to him. He'd have no reason to do anything else. And considering how much he complained about the other heroes, he's probably quite happy that they're gone now. Cat Noir is not making a sacrifice, he got exactly what he wanted.

So this payoff means absolutely nothing. Honestly, the framing is very good which is why it tricked so many people into liking it. But ultimately, the lack of any decent setup leads to a payoff that falls completely flat, even if the payoff itself is well written.

The Aftermath

If what I've talked about already wasn't bad enough, this arc also ultimately has no impact on the overall story.

If you're going to make an arc where Ladybug learns to trust and depend on Cat Noir (which she always did, but whatever), then the obvious effect that should have moving forward is that Ladybug should choose to trust him in a situation she previously wouldn't have, and she would benefit because of this. Except, there is nothing like this. Throughout all of season 5, there is not a single moment where Ladybug puts more trust in Cat Noir than before. I know that the moment that most would point towards is the season 5 premier, "Evolution", where she trusts Cat Noir with the Rabbit Miraculous. Hmmm, Ladybug trusting Cat Noir with a time Miraculous. I guess that is a new thing. Wait, no it's not, that literally already happened in "Miracle Queen". So Ladybug is just doing something she already did 2 seasons ago. And there's also no real benefit to this. Cat Noir didn't do anything with it that Ladybug wouldn't have done if she chose to use it herself. So this moment is completely substanceless. This is not a new level of trust, and Ladybug doesn't actually benefit from her "growth". And it doesn't help that this is the only moment that might qualify as the aftermath of the arc. Throughout the rest of the season, Ladybug displays absolutely no amount of exceptional trust in Cat Noir. And ultimately, it probably would have been better if Ladybug instead learned not to depend on Cat Noir, as he ends up playing no role in the final battle, and she has to handle everything alone.

So in the end, the so called arc in season 4 had a poor setup that didn't have Ladybug display actual flaws, a poor payoff that has Ladybug lose because of factors beyond her control, and an aftermath where the "lesson" she learned plays absolutely no part in the events that follow. I genuinely think that the reason this arc exists is just as filler, and to create meaningless drama for fans to talk about.

[purplecatghostposts]

Ladybug/Pegabug in Strike Back 🤝 Pegasus in Miracle Queen

Teleporting Sentis into the sun

[nixthelapin]

Y’all I missed this detail for so long: the split-second Félix realizes who’s in front of him, he throws his bag back into the bathroom!

I guess it’s not really anything major, but it’s kinda cool and funny to me that was able to think “Quick! Must hide the evidence!” and act on it so fast and make it barely noticeable. Cool character moment!

[familyagrestefanblog]

I think I'm soon gonna upload an explanation for why I say that in my opinion Marinette in the original french version of the season 4 finale obviously referred to ALYA having "abandoned her" when she said this:

Cause in my opinion the season 4 finale makes that more than obvious and it's wild to me that people claim she's referring to Fu as if that isn't some wildly out of pocket victim-blaming that has barely anything to do with what happened on-screen.

And no, this is not me salting on Alya. I'm mostly on Alya's side here. And I still wouldn't even call this Marinette salt either because all I'm doing is not blatantly ignoring what's on-screen in their conversation where Alya renounces the Fox miraculous:

Like, it's THERE. Marinette feels betrayed by Alya leaving 'despite' Marinette having voiced her forgiveness. It's on-screen, I don't have to ignore that just because yall rather wanna put it on Fu so you don't have to acknowledge that Marinette has actual flaws that are ugly and shouldn't be swept under the rug.

So yeah, I'll upload an analysis post on that soon. I brought it up here and there and I want to give the proper explanation for why.

[alenachelk]

I love love love this difference so much. I love how he looks like such a harmless and cute puppy, and then becomes such a bitch in the same second.

I love him….