#miraculous writing

[bellzsad]

here are some miraculous fanfics on wattpad that i absolutely ADORE:

Dearly Despised, (I love you) by @snacc-noir

Thorns of Roses by @dkrosi (or the comic version, which is linked here)

Always, Marinette by @evertea

Back To Us by @Waffles4life00 (the original is on Ao3 by @DarkReyna16, but here's the Wattpad version!!)

if anyone wants some more reccomendations, i have a lot more!

dont forget to check out my Wattpad @belIzsad

[lara-prism-light]

Redesign(and rewrite) of Alya and Rena Rouge for my Miraculous rewrite.

The original design was too generic for me and didn't look like a girl who has a blog. I know a Ladybug themed t-shirt that she would start wearing after the heroes' popularity kicked in, She wears a plaid jacket, jeans and boots. I chose this style because I thought it suited her a lot, and yes, I made her hair curlier, and a thousand apologies if it turned out bad, I'm still trying to learn how to draw curly hair TwT

As you can see I also moved the mole a little above her eyebrow, the original position would be covered with her hair. And yes, I decided to dye her hair orange at the ends, I don't know, I thought it would look cool, let me know what you think.

Alya is still Marinette's classmate, and in the beginning she has a very empty blog with very few followers (who would be her closest friends) but before the Ladyblog she would talk about heroes about heroes from other countries, since at the moment Paris would not have heroes yet. She takes a liking to Marinette after helping and defending her from Chloe and showing off the rest of the school (in this rewrite Marinette is a new student at the school as well as Adrian).

She and Nino are very close and she likes superheroes a lot and wants to be a journalist when she grows up. As soon as Ladybug and Chat Noir arrive, she begins to document everything about them, to the point of becoming an obsession of hers that ends up consuming part of her life. Her family and friends, especially Marinette would try to bring her back to reality but she would be trapped in her obsession of discovering who her beloved heroes were.

That was the perfect motivation for Hawkmoth to send an akuma to her, turning her into lady wi-fi, which would go after the heroes looking for their dear answers. She would be defeated and Ladybug would explain how important their identities were, which Alya, after learning that her best friend Marinette was very dejected by her selfish actions, realizes how wrong she was, almost giving up on her dream but being motivated by ladybug to keep dreaming, and that one day she would be an amazing journalist.

Even more inspired by Ladybug, and even more affected by her amortization, Alya begins to change her investigation focus, she no longer wanted to know the identity of the heroes, but that of the villain. She would start balancing her normal life with her little investigations into where the villains came from and who was behind them, and seeing her family, friends and boyfriend being akumatized, She grew to hate Hawkmoth, and wanting to bring justice to those he hurt and manipulated. This attracted the attention of the curious and treacherous Trixx, who felt curious about the number of times he saw her close to danger looking for clues, but he could also feel a desire for justice coming from Her. And then one night, during an akuma attack, she got tired of being useless and tried to help, even though she knew it would be dangerous, but was told to stay out by Ladybug and Chat Noir. Trixx appeared to her and gave her the Miraculous of Illusion, so that she could help her idols and protect her beloved city as Rena Rouge!

I didn't change much in the design, out of all the designs on the show this is one of my favorites but I still added road details. She now has an orange jacket, her knees have white diamonds, and her wrists and heels have fur. The ears are now like a bow for her ponytail, and the cream colored part of the ear contains a dark tone in the middle. Other than that, everything else is the same, just with some additions of different shades of orange.

Trixx gets a tuft of hair too, I thought it would look cute :3

Her flute still has the power to create illusions, mirage is still her main and strongest power, but now she needs to focus on the illusion to keep it as realistic as possible. Her illusions are now much more realistic, when using her illusions she can almost warp reality enough to make her illusions semi-physical(like the phantom ruby ​​from Sonic forces) The more intense the illusion the more she needs to maintain focus.

She can also use camouflage, it's practically the ability to become invisible, but for that she would need to hold her breath. I based it on the fact that foxes are known to be sneaky, and with that Rena would be able to sneak past enemies without being noticed.

Like ladybug and Chat Noir, it also contains a special effect, this effect would be the hallucination effect, With that effect she would play a melody on her flute that would cause a mental confusion in the akumatized that would make them hallucinate for a few minutes until the music stopped. It's more of a distraction but depending on the akumatized it could very well be dangerous. More additions to powers can be added, like a Ktsune-based power or something like that. Tell me what other powers she could have.

As a character, Rena Rouge would be the type to play pranks on other heroes in her spare time such as on patrols and important meetings. She would be close to Ladybug and Chat Noir and would follow any of their orders, but at the same time respect their privacy when she could. She would always go out at night to investigate Hawkmoth alone, but would start to be accompanied by Chat Noir who would also go out at night to patrol alone.

She was always going to interrogate the akumatized about their conversations with Hawkmoth but didn't get much out of them. That is, until a whole group of villains appeared who seemed to be much stronger and had a greater connection to Hawkmoth, filling her with even more questions and leaving her exhausted from investigating.to the point that she couldn't even post anything on the blog, seeing it as something not very important anymore.

Much more is yet to be rewritten about Alya and Rena Rouge, stay tuned!

[wisteriasymphony]

devastated that adrien's only plans for lycée are to share classes with his girlfriend. he really can't have one single unique interest can he. like... idc that I personally headcanon that he's interested in literature and languages and stuff, he could be planning on taking classes in computer science or economics or medicine or just... ANYTHING.

honestly the "I just want to be with my girlfriend, whose name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, because I love my girlfriend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng" feels more like a copout than anything meant to be cute.

[miabrown007]

Felonies and Other Love Languages - Chapter 25

“I could serenade you under your bedroom window,” Marinette says, fussing with the stitching of a ballgown. “What?” “Or I could fight my way through security and reach you when your plane’s just about to take off.” The stubborn fabric refuses to stay put under her fingertips. “Any flights scheduled for next week?” When she finally looks up, Adrien’s staring at her from the other side of the workshop table. His mouth snaps shut. “What are you talking about?” “Brainstorming grand romantic gestures. Obviously.”

[stardrawsrmblogs]

I'll admit, I'm not a Chloe fan but yeah the show fucked her over since season 3.

[missmahgenta]

I still have to see that new Miraculous special in its entirety, but a few things based entirely from what I have seen

(Spoilers ahead)

…

I find it funny that in that alternate universe, where the heroes are villains and the most despicable individual (Gabriel) is that world’s greatest hero, Chloe is still the hugest jerk that is and an overall irredeemable villain. Like “Sure, we can make the child abuser be a decent person, if not for being an absent father, but the 14 year old bully is just too evil to ever be anything else”. Come on Thomas, why are you beefing with a fictional child?

I really liked seeing that moment where Adrien talks with emo!Adrien about moving on from his grief and stuff, it was beautiful, and it would have been something I would have love seeing on the finale with his dad, had he not been made to be jailed in a tiny room for all of its duration (even though he’s suppose to be just as important as Marinette, srs why would you leave him out of a resolution that involved him directly?? Let the boy be his own person with agency for goodnesses sake!)

Still on the topic of Adrien, why didn’t they give him a new ‘akumatized’ form instead of just giving him wings?? Marinette gets a whole new form, but all he gets is a reskin, ugh. They could have done so much more for an ‘akumatized’ form built not from negativity, but from the desire to protect.

That also extends to emo!Adrien when he reforms. Like, emo!Marinette at least got her colours inverted and a ‘’’’’new’’’’ hairstyle (though I wish they had done more with her as well), but my boy got nothing

Seriously, justice for Adrien

[ladybugs-and-black-cats]

ML Secret Santa!

Coming down to the wire, but this story expanded into a much longer oneshot than I originally planned…

Anyway, @rice—nomnom (I apologize because it seems that the tag does not want to work for me…), I was your Secret Santa for this year’s @mlsecretsanta! I hope you enjoy this long LadyNoir enemies-to-lovers…featuring only one bed!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[ur-average-reader]

Ok so I was playing the game of life, and I realized something. Lila’s lies sound like the life tiles that you collect through the game

Like, “save an endangered species” “solution to pollution” at least in salt stories, but it’s becoming a reality in the show as well.

[miraculouslysakurasworld]

🩷🐞Master Post🐞🩷

Welcome to the main blog for the rewritten lore from the show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. We know how the show has some not so fleshed out lore and characters and world-building and all that stuff. So not only will I be putting my take on fleshing-out the lore, but also additions for different AUs and fanfics I write. I will also reblog posts from other Miraculous posts like character designs, other headcanons, etc. Just note they are not mine, they belong to the creators who created the designs and/or the headcanons.

Here, this will be the main hub of where you can find my posts of either characters, power system rewrite, or world-build expansion either in links or tags that will be added later on. This post will be frequently updated to add in new links whenever I create a new post, and of course this will be pinned so you will always see it (unless I make an announcement about something, which would only be up for a week before I put the main post back in).

When my stories are posted, they will be on Ao3 under my account Elina_Sakura.

Masterlist

Character Headcanons

Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Adrien Agreste

[secretjewel]

The mystery of Paris’ haunting cryptid

People all throughout Paris have been reporting sightings of a mysterious bug eyed figure creeping through the shadows. It has never emerged or given us a name, and citizens are starting to speculate that this person is in fact a mystical being! Is it really that farfetched? Paris has quite the history with magic, and we’ve ALL seen “A Monster in Paris.” Perhaps a copy cat? Or, another costumed vigilante perusing the streets? Maybe even a new villain to be weary of? For now, it remains a mystery! The most evidence we have of this individual is a dark gloomy photo, zoomed in and enhanced by yours truly. Take a look!

Shout out to @cassettecrisis for the art of their funky oc Terry lane / Blight Fly! Stay tuned for more, and dm if interested in interacting with this incredible character and many others!

[bellzsad]

“Um.. speaking of Chloe, what’s been going on with her these days?” Marinette asks, trying to break some tension. “She’s uh, been good. She’s working on herself now and trying to be a better person day by day in Germany.” Adrien states, looking into Marinette’s eyes. “That’s great,” Marinette said, then chuckled, “I still remember when we were shooting that short film at school and she was throwing a fit so I sent her off to the nurse’s office.” “Yeah, and we were.. about to kiss that day, too.”  “Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that..” Marinette felt uneasy, like there was this weird feeling in the room that she couldn’t make out, “Luckily that didn’t happen, right?” We know that Marinette wished it would have happened, even today. “Actually, looking back, I think I would’ve wanted it to.” Adrien said, as his face and Marinette’s were inches away. They looked at each other, both of their faces blushing, not knowing what to do. Marinette’s bluebell eyes stared into the bright green ones across from hers, looking into them intently and longing for something.  But then, they tore away. “I.. I have to go get some air real quick. I’m sorry,” She said, and her arms lowered from Adrien’s neck and followed her out the door to the garden.

excerpt from, "Never Let Go", a miraculous fanfic by @bellzsad on Wattpad

[lara-prism-light]

Redesign of Adrien and Chat Noir for the deed, Miraculous Heroes.

I changed Adrian's outfit because it was, honestly, generic. He now follows a more formal style that fits both his father's personality and his career as a model. If you look closely, the collar of the jacket has the symbol of an "A", being the brand of the clothing line Agreste.

This Adrian is more reserved and quiet at the beginning of the rewrite, he didn't know how to interact with other teenagers his age, much less how to act like one. His style would change throughout the story with the positive influence of his friends, encouraging him to choose his own style. As much as he hates being a model, he loves his father too much to ask him to stop, and he also always has an interest in free styles and different from his father's.

He is never the one who chooses what he wears, always being just Gabriel or Natalie, Chloe and Felix are the only people his age he spends time with, and for that, he prefers to keep to himself, not knowing how to act since Chloe acts as if she were superior and Felix is ​​too closed to interact with other people.

He would not be able to attend the first day of school, but he would be present during the first appearance of an akumatized who he would try to help some people close to him, disobeying Natalie's orders and attracting the interest of Plagg who would immediately spot him and choose him as his holder.

As Chat Noir, I gave him a hood with cat ears, long, full sleeves, a vest with a green line and two holes in the sides, and a long belt that serves as a tail. Underneath the vest is a dark green skintight outfit with green triangles on the shoulders and green flourishing claw marks on the corner of the waist. His baggy pants go down to his cat paw-shaped boots (which contain green lines) the pants contain a similar division as the sleeves that go from black to dark green with details of green rays.

Chat Noir still has cataclysm, but he also has night vision, great hearing, agility, balance, and an ability called seven lives. Nine lives is one of his weaknesses, he cannot be seriously injured, that's because, even if the heroes receive a certain amount of resistance when they transform, they can still feel the pain of battles and even hurt themselves. And, while Ladybug has a lucky effect, Chat Noir has an unlucky effect, that is to say that he has much more chance of getting hurt or getting something wrong.

And Isis includes him being easily injured during battles. Therefore, the nine lives serves as a way to give him resistance, and just as Ladybug can give some of her luck to others, she can give some of her extra lives to others as well. And no, he doesn't die if he runs out of nine lives, he just becomes unconscious and he destransforms.

So that would be his version of the countdown for him to untransform (all heroes would have after a long time using their powers). He still has his staff, and the baton would serve as a communicator and shapeshifter like in canon, but he uses the staff to perform various tricks with it during battles.

Another thing I forgot to mention, the bells on his wrists are retractable, he can pull the bells off and throw them at enemies like smoke bomb grenades, but the bells are not destroyed, The smoke comes out of the little bell holes and it's kind of black smoke, it's more used as a form of distraction.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this redesign of Adrian and Chat Noir! Next one I'm between Gabriel and Alya, maybe I'll take a poll.

[wisteriasymphony]

I will forever be in love with the possible idea that everything that happens in Miraculous Ladybug is according to some grand plan the kwamis set up. Not in the sense of a world domination plot or some evil scheme--set up like a play.

Imagine if the whole gimmick of the lovesquare and of adrien secretly fighting his dad and all that identity drama was DIEGETIC. Imagine if it was all set up by the gods to be The Grandest Performance, all their time and effort behind the scenes forcing the Lovesquare to work done so that they could successfully orchestrate what they considered the Romance to End All Romances.

Imagine if everything Tikki and Plagg and every other kwami said and did was, if not outright a lie, intentional. Imagine if they knew every identity from the very beginning as if it was set in stone from the beginning of the universe, knew Hawkmoth's identity from the very start, and yet kept it secret from their holders because all of the damage that Hawkmoth would do to Ladybug and Chat and Paris as a whole was a necessary and even desired part of the "story".

They do not see their holders as people, they see them as puppets. Do not trust a single thing those demons tell you, for their deceit is what makes them gods.

Do you know just how fucking awesome that would be>??!?!?!?sdfhkgd

[miabrown007]

BREAKING NEWS: Ladybug and Chat Noir’s identities got exposed during an accident!! (not clickbait)

many thanks to @kasienda for beta reading! <3

Lowkey? Like Hell (Teen, 1,193 words)

One thing you need to understand about Marinette and Adrien Dupain-Cheng is that they are not and have never been, what the kids call, "lowkey".

It all started back in lycée. They danced around each other like a pair of birds of paradise, engrossed in a ridiculous and flashy—though admittedly rather intricate and entertaining—mating ritual. You see, in the long history of embarrassing and debilitating crushes, Marinette Dupain-Cheng had the most embarrassing and debilitating crush on her classmate, Adrien Dupain-Cheng (formerly known as Adrien Agreste. However, as I'm sure that last name gives all of you nightmares of the highest order as well, we shall not mention it on the same page with Adrien ever again.) So, Marinette's embarrassing and debilitating crush would have been all well and good and reciprocated, if Adrien hadn’t also happened to be Chat Noir—Paris' renowned darling and superhero—in his tumultuous free-time; and also hadn’t happened to fall embarrassingly, if not debilitatingly, head over heels in love with his superhero partner, the not less awesome Ladybug. 

As we all know, Ladybug is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, so you can imagine the kind of stress these very small and oblivious teenagers have been under.

read the whole fic on AO3

[k7l4d4]

After reading through all this, I’m not sure if I should be laughing, or furious at how bad this is. I think I’ll settle for exhausted. My only two points are that, from what I recall, Clout is the name of the Tiger Miraculous’ power, not the Monkey’s (Unless they changed it again). Nope, just checked, the Monkey’s power is officially known as Uproar. Also, a thing with Marinette is that, while she was technically meeker before Alya came around... she wasn’t ever as meek as she was in the Flashback. At most, she was a weird mix of annoyed at Chloe, and defeatist over standing up to her, treating Chloe more like a chore she couldn’t get away with avoiding rather than some tangible threat who’s been remorselessly stalking her and harassing her for MONTHS. Also, I think a missed opportunity with this episode was that it missed the fact that Origins established that the Dupain-Chengs, or at least Sabine, are AWARE of Marinette’s problems with Chloe, and tried to encourage her emotionally, so them just being oblivious to the clearly bizarre behavior and constant excuses by Marinette doesn’t make sense, especially as Marinette has been sharing classes with Chloe for almost FOUR YEARS by then.

Wow, way to go writers, you sure hit it out of the park. /s

IOTA Reviews: Derision

Well, here we are. This is the episode you've all been waiting for me to cover. The one people claim is the cream of the crop when it comes to badness, not just for the insane amount of retcons and cases of character assassination, but for how it retroactively makes one of the most criticized parts of the entire show worse by comparison. If you've seen the episode, you know what I'm talking about.

Let's get into the fourteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Derision

We start off with Marinette waking up for the day before getting a call from Adrien, who gives one of the clunkiest pieces of exposition I've ever heard on this show, and that's saying something.

Adrien: I was just going to tell you how excited I am that we're meeting at the swimming pool later, and to wake you up just in case you were still sleeping.

Just as she hangs up, Marinette's hands start to tremble, having visions of a locker, hinting at some old memories resurfacing. Just to get this out of the way, but one thing I want to give this episode props for is the way these panic attacks are portrayed. The colors change, the environments warp around, and it gives off a very uneasy feeling. It kind of reminds me of this one episode of The Twilight Zone, “Little Girl Lost”, which used similar visuals to depict the otherworldly atmosphere of another dimension.

Marinette meets up with Adrien at the local pool, and has another panic attack. Kim and Ondine seem to notice this.

Kim: Woah, Adrien. That must've been some prank you pulled to make Marinette freak out like that. What did you do to her?

Ondine: It's not funny, Kim! Can't you see Marinette's not okay?

Kim: Oh, come on. She always reacts like that when someone pranks her.

Kim then proceeds to tell Adrien and Ondine (and by extension, the audience) about what he means. I'm going to talk a lot about this, so to make things easier for all of us, I'll give you the short version so you have an idea of what happened.

About a year before the events of “Origins”, we see Chloe was bullying Marinette even more than she did before then, constantly pulling sadistic pranks Megan from Drake & Josh would find to be overkill, while making her late to class. To make things worse, none of her teachers believed her and took Chloe's side all the time, giving her detention on the weekends. Mylene, Rose, and Juleka try to help Marinette, but apparently, Chloe orders them to not talk with her before saying that “she'll be there to make Marinette's life a nightmare”.

The only person with the common sense to help out Marinette is Socqueline, that girl from “Jubiliation”. Socqueline learns that Marinette has a crush on Kim, who is even more of a jerk than he was during the first half of Season 1, and when Marinette thinks about asking him out to the swimming pool after school, Socqueline advises Marinette to be careful. Sabrina tips off Chloe to Marinette's plan, so Chloe goes to give Kim advice to pull a prank on Marinette. At the pool, just as Marinette confesses her feelings to Kim, Kim gives her a box full of spiders, causing her to panic and fall backwards into the pool. Chloe films the thing with the intent to make it go viral, but Socqueline stops her plan before she can upload it. Kim doesn't seem to see what he did was wrong, seeing it as a harmless joke as Socqueline tells him to piss off.

It's here that Marinette determines that if she ever has feelings for a boy ever again, she'll need to be super prepared, explaining how much she knows about Adrien and his schedule in later episodes. Chloe then gets Socqueline expelled from school just a few weeks before the end of the school year. Marinette blames herself for what happened, but Socqueline tells her that sometimes, no matter how dire the odds seem, she needs to muster up the courage to fight the good fight.

Oh, and Marinette was almost akumatized by Monarch again, but it's really just an excuse to keep her away while Kim tells the story.

So... let's talk about this flashback. Clocking in at about ten minutes, almost half of the episode's runtime, this is easily the part everyone (myself included) seems to have problems with, for all kinds of reasons. Let's break down each and everything wrong with this flashback.

#1: The Portrayal of Chloe

Surprisingly, this is the least of my problems. Compared to Kim (who I'll get to later), Chloe is mostly in character with how she's usually portrayed by this point in the series. She's egotistical, she orders Sabrina around, she hates Marinette, and throws her father's name around over and over again like it's a boomerang. My feelings on the wasted opportunities with her character aside, this does make sense seeing how this takes place before Season 1.

But there's the problem. This takes place before Season 1, and Chloe does things she never did in Season 1, or any of the other seasons for that matter. She clearly has the teachers and principal doing what she wants, she can boss the other students around (which I'll also get to later), she pulls sadistic practical jokes on Marinette, and even uses her dad's name to get Socqueline expelled. In the show, she doesn't really do any of this. Sure, she can occasionally use her dad's influence to get what she wants (Lady Wifi, Rogercop, Frightningale, Determination), but it was never to this extent. While she also tried to act like she was better than the rest of her peers, barring Sabrina, nobody ever listened to her or took her seriously. Chloe also tended to focus on bullying Marinette, but she didn't do these kinds of practical jokes. Usually, it was either sabotage (Mr. Pigeon, Despair Bear, Gabriel Agreste) or just general name calling, and she picked on other students too (Dark Cupid, Reflekta, Antibug, Sole Crusher, Penalteam, Deflagration).

The point I'm trying to make is why the hell did Chloe stop acting this way? What caused her to stop being as bad as she is here? I get the whole point of this episode is to show how terrible Chloe is, but you're showing off all her bad moments in a flashback and never considering the other things she's done that would be just as effective. Wasn't the main idea behind Chloe's “damnation arc” that she started to change, but went back on her ways and became worse than before? If that's the case, I have to reiterate, why was she even worse in this flashback?

I also have an issue with making the cause of all of Marinette's trauma because of this prank by Chloe. Yes, the prank was terrible, and trust me this isn't me once again going “GRR! CHLOE STAN ANGRY BECAUSE RICH GIRL IS EVIL IN FLASHBACK!”. It's more along the lines of “Really? We're really doing this?”. While I'm glad that after Chloe's betrayal at the end of Season 3, the show is finally considering the idea of making her more than just comic relief as a villain, it feels like a case of too little, too late.

After so many years of making Chloe out to be harmless unless she screams her daddy's name, now you're treating her like a serious threat who traumatized Marinette for life? Chloe is the cause of Marinette's trauma? This is like if the person who killed Bruce Wayne's parents turned out to be a joke character like Egghead or Crazy Quilt. Just because a serious villain does something important to the story, it doesn't automatically make their prior unfunny antics go away.

But my main gripe with the portrayal of Chloe here is that this flashback fails to do something that still hasn't been done in almost five seasons and eight years: Explain just why Chloe hates Marinette so much. Chloe is unusually cruel here, and doesn't even have a reason to torture Marinette like this. Usually, Marinette gets in the way of what she wants, but here? Marinette doesn't do anything to warrant this level of dedication. You would think for a flashback sequence focusing on her and Marinette's history, they would actually explain why Chloe likes to single out Marinette, but they don't. The writers would rather take time out of the episode to remind the audience of why Chloe is the way she is, and why it isn't acceptable, than clarify what Chloe's deal with Marinette is.

Rose: She’s this way because her mother left her when she was young.

Mylene: So did mine, and you don't see me having fun bullying Marinette.

Gee, I wonder if Astruc himself had a part in writing that exchange or not.

If you're willing to acknowledge previous episodes while also discussing how poorly Chloe treats Marinette, it would help if you finally did something to inform the audience about why Chloe likes to torture Marinette in the first place. Did Marinette show Chloe up at a fashion show? Did Marinette impress Chloe's dad one time? Did Marinette just spill coffee on Chloe's shoes? I will take literally anything, no matter how stupid the explanation is, over getting nothing after eight years.

It's also pretty rich that that scene was trying to say that what happened to Chloe doesn't justify her actions when not only do we never get a scene like that pointing out how creepy Marinette obsesing over Adrien was, but later in the episode, Marinette specifically pins all the blame on Chloe in one line.

Marinette: Adrien! I know what's wrong with me! It's not my fault, and it's not your fault, either! It's all Chloe's fault!

So remember kids, just because bad things happen to you, it doesn't excuse your unflattering actions... except when it does, and in that case, it's all the fault of the person who wronged you in the first place.

#2: The Portrayal of Kim

I'll admit, I'm not really the biggest fan of Kim as a character. I don't hate him, but it feels like after Season 2, he just became that guy who really loves to swim, where even characters like Max, Marc, and Nathaniel had more depth to them. This episode however? Yeah, I couldn't stand Kim here.

Just like with Chloe, Kim is sort of in character as the same eccentric dude who has a habit of being insensitive and accidentally upsetting people (Animan, Syren), and I need to emphasize the “sort of”. Just like Chloe, this goes against his characterization in Season 1, where he was shown to be a bully like Chloe was (Lady Wifi, Timetagger, Origins) before later episodes made him a nicer person. However, unlike Chloe, the show sort of tries to retcon Kim's rude behavior to be more in line with his Season 5 self by portraying him as more of a bully who simply isn't aware of how harmful his jokes are, but it doesn't work because of how cruel he seems, and he doesn't have the excuse of knowing how terrible he is like Chloe does.

There's also how easily he goes along with Chloe's prank when she literally insults him and Marinette to his face.

Chloe: I heard Marinette asked you to go with her to the swimming pool.

Kim: Yeah, we’re going swimming together. Cool! 'Cause I love to swim!

Chloe: That’s not why she asked you, dummy!

Kim: It's not? Then, what are we going to do? Chloe: She wants to declare her feelings for you! Kim: For me? But why?

Chloe: Probably because she's utterly ridiculous, and so are you, which makes you two perfect for each other!

Kim: Oh? You think so?

There's not being aware of how insensitive of how you are to others, and then there's not being able to comprehend basic insults. Chloe doesn't even try to give Kim a backhanded compliment or secretly insult him (“You really like swimming, don't you? Good thing you can swim better than you do in class.”). She just calls him a dummy, and Kim still falls for her trick. If you want to have Kim fall for Chloe's plan, don't make her so obviously cruel. For God's sake, you're making the class in the Lila episodes look smart by comparison.

And even after retelling the story, Kim still thinks Chloe highly, not only saying how pretty she is right in front of his girlfriend, but he still thinks the joke was the funniest thing ever. After five seasons, Kim of all people should know about how mean Chloe is, given he was literally kidnapped and brainwashed into serving her while she sided with Hawkmoth (Miracle Queen).

The worst part is that Kim has nothing to do with this story at all. You could literally replace him with any other guy, even a nameless background character with no lines, and nothing would change. Hell, I'd argue it'd be even better as having Marinette be embarrassed in front of some rando would highlight the impact it had on her self-esteem when she tries to go after someone of a higher social class. It would also better justify the spider prank if someone else pulled it because “Darkblade” established that Kim was afraid of spiders.

And if you think I'm talking about Kim after this part, believe me, there's more to this schmuck than meets the eye.

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

Look, I get what the episode is trying to go for, narratively, and realistically. Sometimes, teachers and other authority figures just don't do their jobs when someone gets bullied. Hell, I was bullied for years by someone who liked to take advantage of my anger issues, and it wasn't until my last year of middle school that the faculty finally decided to do something about it. I also get that this entire flashback wouldn't happen if the teachers realized how cruel Chloe was and got her expelled. What I don't get is how the flashback portrays anyone who was there as unwilling to do anything to help.

First off, Marinette claims that the reason none of the teachers believed her was because they're all too afraid to stand up to Chloe, since she can call her dad and cost them their jobs, but that's far from the truth. The only time we see anyone actually being afraid of Chloe was when Mr. Damocles went back on refusing to expel Socqueline before Chloe threatened to call her dad and get him fired. Other than that, while we only see Ms. Mendeleiev and Mr. Damocles in this flashback, neither of them really show any signs of being afraid of Chloe. They just go along with what she says, and they don't even try to take Marinette's side. Just like Kim, this would be more understandable if these were different characters who were never shown to be this cruel to Marinette in earlier episodes.

Second, while I can sort of buy the teachers not caring about Marinette, the fact that her classmates don't do anything is another story. We saw Mylene, Rose, and Juleka trying to help Marinette, but right after they talk to her, Chloe just orders them to go away, and it's never explained why. Marinette said the teachers were afraid of Chloe, but does that mean the students are too? Again, later episodes would establish nobody takes Chloe seriously as a bully, so this part of the flashback makes no sense. What changed to make them stop being afraid of Chloe anyway? Once again, if these were a bunch of nameless characters who were more apathetic to Marinette's situation, that would make sense, retroactively showing how much Marinette's friends care for her. Instead, it's like that scene in RWBY where the main characters watch a student being bullied by a racist classmate, and all they do is say “Wow, racism really sucks, huh? Anyway, not our problem.”

Third, you're telling me that Marinette came up with multiple excuses not to go to school even with a few weeks left in the year, and Marinette's parents didn't see anything weird about it? They didn't think that something must be making Marinette want to do anything but go to school? I don't think they were even informed about the situation at school, unless you want to be generous and say they knew Marinette got detention. You can't even make the excuse that it would work if these were different characters, but these are Marinette's parents. You know, the same characters the show portrays as loving and affectionate to their daughter? You're telling me they didn't even think to look into the situation, much less talk to Marinette about school?

The problem with all the other characters in this flashback is in order to make what happens possible, they have to be as apathetic as possible. There's being unaware of a situation or being too afraid to stand up (which is unfortunately something that happens when people bullied sometimes), and then there's just not caring about the bully victim at all. It's ironic how even though a big part of the flashback was to show how awful Chloe was, it unintentionally make everyone else in Marinette's life seem just as cruel to let her suffer like that.

But I know what you're thinking. “What about Socqueline? She was there to help Marinette, so why didn't you mention her?” Well...

#4: Where the Hell Has Socqueline Been All This Time?

Like I mentioned in my “Jubilation” review, Socqueline is yet another unnecessary addition to the already overcrowded cast of characters in this show, and it seemed like this episode was meant to justify her inclusion, but it only raised more questions.

Just to remind you, this flashback establishes that Marinette was constantly bullied by Chloe until a nice girl in glasses stood up for her, and inspired Marinette to be more confident.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Yeah, this flashback is pretty much the same as Marinette's arc in “Origins” was, only with Socqueline in Alya's place. We get it, writers, Season 1 was good. Constantly repeating stuff like what happened in “Mr. Pigeon 72” isn't going to win you any favors.

This really highlights how pointless of a character Socqueline is, as despite supposedly being a really important person in Marinette's life, Marinette herself never thought to tell anyone about her, and judging from how Marinette described her to Tikki in “Jubilation”, I don't think she even stayed in contact with Socqueline after she was expelled. It's not like left Paris afterwards. All we know is that she went to another school and got a job at a local arts and crafts store, so why did Marinette just stop talking with her? Even with Felix and Zoe, they had the excuse of being in different countries, but you can't say that with Socqueline.

Also, this was something I just realized, but if Mr. Damocles got her expelled, why the hell did Socqueline treat him like he was any other customer at her job, much less compliment him as a principal?

#5: The Handling of Trauma in General, and How This Impacts Marinette as a Character

Like pretty much every other serious issue it tries to tackle, Miraculous Ladybug has always had a poor understanding of mental health. When it comes to portraying characters who struggle with some form of grief of trauma, like Adrien, Felix, Chloe, Zoe, and even Marinette, the responses usually amount to some variation of “Grow a pair and get over it, you big baby!”.

With Felix, Chloe, and Marinette, even if their actions are partially motivated as a response to either losing a loved one, trying to emulate their neglectful parent, or as a defense mechanism to avoid repeating an already traumatic experience, they're all proven to be in the wrong, and it's not to teach a lesson about alternative coping mechanisms or support systems. The show just says that they're automatically wrong for what they do, what causes them to act the way they do is never acknowledged, and instead, we're supposed to just act like they're being jerks for no reason. Compare this to Adrien and Zoe, who both had rough lives losing their mother at a young age or living with an abusive mother respectively, and rather than go into detail how it affected them or how they managed to become decent human beings in spite of it, the show just says that they're nice people, so people like Felix, Chloe, and Marinette have no reason to be mean to others.

This is honestly why I feel like this episode's depiction of mental health and dealing with trauma falls flat. In case you didn't know, I asked my followers who had to deal with some form of trauma to share their experiences and how it compared to what Marinette went through in the episode. For the most part, the common consensus seems to be that while the symptoms of Marinette's trauma and her reactions to it are very believable, a lot of it is contradicted by previous episodes, and it seems like it was only there to do a story about dealing with trauma.

So many episodes across Seasons 1 through 4 show Marinette dealing with Kim and Chloe without really any issue, and she showed no problem with starting relationships with Luka and Cat Noir, to say nothing about Nathaniel's brief crush on her in “The Evillustrator”. If Marinette was so traumatized by this prank, why did she want to go swimming in episodes like “Gorizilla” and “Mr. Pigeon 72”? Why did she bother to help Kim confess to Chloe in “Dark Cupid”? Why did she team up with Chloe to sabotage Kagami in “Animaestro”? Why did she suggest Chloe could change for the better throughout Seasons 2 and 3? Why did she continue to let Chloe and Kim use the Bee and Monkey Miraculous respectively, even after they got them from outside sources? This flashback is desperately trying to tie previous events of the series together together, but it only works if you ignore all the times Marinette has interacted with Kim and Chloe without having a panic attack.

Then there's how the flashback tries to connect this to Marinette memorizing all of Adrien's schedule to make sure he won't hurt her, an obvious attempt to rebuff one of the biggest criticisms of her as a character. Here's why it doesn't work.

First off, the setup doesn't work because while Marinette vows to do a better job getting to know the next person she falls in love with and how, in her words mind you, “He isn't friends with Chloe”. Putting aside the kindness he's shown her in “Origins”, she kind of failed to really consider her choice to pursue him if he stayed friends with Chloe if we're going to believe Chloe traumatized Marinette so much.

It also doesn't really explain the more predatory actions Marinette has taken whenever another girl tries to get close to Adrien (The Bubbler, Volpina, Animaestro, Oni-Chan, Heart Hunter), or how she tries to rig up situations to get closer to him (The Gamer, Gigantitan, Backwarder, Party Crasher, Felix, Psycomedian, Glaciator 2, Simpleman). And that's not even getting into how obsessive she is with him in other areas, like repeatedly playing a commercial he was in (Gorizilla), making a bunch of presents for him in advance (Christmaster), trying to kiss a wax statue of him (The Puppeteer 2), sniffing his pillow (Cat Blanc), or all the other times she's creepily obsessed over him.

But of course, you've probably noticed that I've forgotten to mention one key thing about what this flashback means: You know how Marinette tends to act nervously and stumbles a lot around Adrien when she isn't meticulously documenting his schedule? Yeah, they were essentially panic attacks brought on by her PTSD, and the episode tries to act like Kim did to her wasn't funny afterwards. Here's the problem with this.

YOU MADE MARINETTE'S TRAUMA YOUR PRIMARY SOURCE OF COMEDY FOR THE PAST FIVE FUCKING SEASONS!

You do NOT have the right to act like what happened to Marinette was bad when you were constantly playing her anxiety up for laughs for almost EIGHT YEARS at this point!

In addition to all the other examples I mentioned, we had episodes like “Psycomedian”, which confirmed that the same behavior that this episode is trying to say is connected to her trauma was hilarious to Adrien, as well as “Backwarder”, which thrived on playing up Marinette's anxiety towards Adrien and was said to be one of the funniest episodes of the show to work on by Astruc himself.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES

#6: Why This Flashback Is Ultimately Pointless

But above all, the biggest problem I have with this flashback is because of how pointless it is. It's trying to better go into detail about why Marinette acts the way she does around Adrien, but did we really need to do that?

This flashback doesn't really reveal anything that we didn't know already. We know Marinette was bullied by Chloe, we know she was a lot more meek and needed others to stand up for her, and we definitely know that we're not supposed to like Chloe. Adding to my earlier point, if we actually got more insight into the origin of Chloe's obsession with Marinette, that would have at least made this flashback important to watch, but once again, despite being a flashback episode, we learn nothing about the characters that we don't already know.

But this flashback is also meant to explain why Marinette is so hesitant to embrace her new relationship with Adrien when we already got a reason for that last season. The first half of the season has made a big deal about how much her feelings for Adrien cost her the Miraculous, so why not focus on that? This flashback just feels like it's here to give more Marinette angst instead of focusing on the things they've already established. And that's not even getting into what she saw during “Cat Blanc”.

Why couldn't we just have a story about Marinette's own insecurities causing her to doubt she can make her relationship with Adrien work, seeing how poorly things ended with Luka? Have her worry that something could go wrong as a result of her need to overcompensate, or worry that Adrien could betray her. That way, you could have Adrien supporting Marinette in a way that reflects their partnership as Cat Noir and Ladybug respectively.

But no. Instead we have this flashback that's taken me about ten pages to fully dissect. And the worst part is that I still have the rest of the episode to talk about. God help me...

So after Adrien and Ondine explain how this prank could have done a lot of damage to Marinette's psyche, Kim decides to find Marinette, and apologize for being so—Ah, I'm just messing with you guys. After all, that would actually make Kim likable. So what does he say instead?

Kim: Come on! Loosen up, you guys! It's like you can't even speak your mind these days.

Ondine: That doesn't give you permission to hurt other people!

Kim: Whatever! I'm the way I am and I'm fine that way! It's not my fault you guys have no sense of humor!

Yep, rather than having Kim realize the error of his ways and maybe be akumatized out of guilt, Kim just whines about how everyone else is just a humorless pansy these days. The writers pretty much made Kim's motivation boil down to “It's just a prank, bro!”. Even Monarch seems to go along with this, as he refers to Kim as “A free spirit feeling unjustly rejected”, when this was right after he called Chloe the prettiest girl in front of his own girlfriend's face. So Monarch sends his Akuma to Kim's goggles, akumatizing him into Dark Humor. Yes, that's really the name they're going with.

Dark Humor is a pretty forgettable recolor of Dark Cupid. Other than inverting the red and black color scheme and giving him a targeting scope on his right eye, there's not much else to say other than the incredibly on the nose name they gave him. His powers are sort of like Dark Cupid's, only now, instead of turning people heartless, they now share his soulless brand of “humor”. At least, I think it is. His Alliance power is the Monkey Miraculous's Uproar, but it's not really clarified if he's only using Uproar arrows or not, judging from the use of the rubber ducky that we've seen King Monkey use before.

Marinette and Adrien transform into Ladybug and Cat Noir respectively, but once they meet up, we get the most controversial part of the episode that isn't connected to the flashback scene: Cat Noir gives Dark Humor the beatdown of his life and is about to Cataclysm him, for pulling a bad prank on Marinette a year ago. Yeah, a lot of people have pointed out that Adrien felt a lot of remorse for Cataclysming Monarch earlier in this season, yet here, Cat Noir looks like someone told him that Kim just shot the Pope. For God's sake, writers, you're five seasons in! How hard is it to determine whether or not you want your hero to be okay with killing people or not?

And of course, this bites him in the ass, as Dark Humor stabs Cat Noir with an arrow, not only changing his Cataclysm into something that creates a bunch of balls from his hand, but also making him just as insane as the rest of Dark Humor's victims. You know, I'm this close to starting a “Remember Season 1” counter, because this is just glorified fanservice.

Ladybug tries to summon her Lucky Charm, but is stopped by Dark Humor, so Ladybug transforms back into Marinette, transforms into Ladybug again, and summons her Lucky Charm for real this time, getting... a toilet. Of course, the only way to combat Dark Humor's bad jokes is by using even worse jokes! Genius! Ladybug places the toilet over Dark Humor's head and breaks it along with the goggles, freeing the Akuma.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage, gives Kim a useless Magical Charm, and Cat Noir apologizes for murdering Kim by saying his emotions got the better of him, which is like saying OJ Simpson and his wife had a minor disagreement.

Kim apologizes to Marinette for traumatizing her, and I guess that's enough for Ondine to forgive him for saying another girl is prettier than her.

After Marinette sort of explains what happened to Adrien, he goes over to tell Chloe to apologize, and we get... this scene.

Adrien: I know about everything that you did to Marinette last year, Chloe. You're going to go and apologize to her and prove to everyone that you can change. I'm sure she'll forgive you.

Chloe: (laughs) Forgive me? What do I care about her forgiveness? I couldn't care less about Dupain-Cheng's feelings! She and the likes of her only exist to suffer for my entertainment. Why bother having power if you can’t use it against those who don’t have any? You’re the one who’s getting things wrong, with your baker girl! You’re a prince! You belong with me, the princess! You’re in this world to shine! To make fun of all the losers who are only good enough to be used as doormats!

Adrien: You're nothing like a princess, Chloe. I supported you. I gave you multiple chances to become a better person. Everyone reached out to you, including Ladybug and Cat Noir when they gave you the Miraculous of the Bee again. But all you ever think about is yourself.

Chloe: And what else IS there to think about? Losers and nobodies? The little bees? The planet?

Adrien: We will never be friends again, Chloe. You and I are done.

Chloe: Traitor.

Okay, first off, “She and the likes of her only exist to suffer for my entertainment.”? That's the line you're going with? She sounds like a dark lord in an RPG game. How is this the closest thing we ever get to an explanation to why Chloe hates Marinette so much?

Second, ignoring the fact that we already had Chloe end her friendship with Adrien last season (Queen Banana), it's pretty weird that this is the breaking point in their friendship. Adrien doesn't mention all the other times she's bullied people or when she sided with Hawkmoth even when he brought up her time as Queen Bee. He saw her being mean to so many people over five seasons, yet only when he learns Chloe did something to his girlfriend that he decides to finally confront her. If we at least got a line where Adrien acknowledged that he essentially enabled Chloe for so long by thinking she could change, that would have at least sort of worked. Instead, he makes it about how she refused to change herself. Dude, you had the chance to stand up to her for years, and you even did so in one episode before you went back on it (Despair Bear). You have nobody to blame but yourself.

Finally, Chloe is pretty out of character here. She's way too calm about ending her friendship with Adrien compared to what happened in “Despair Bear” and “Queen Banana”. You'd think if the writers wanted this to be a big moment of catharsis for the audience, Chloe would at least beg Adrien to stay a little. But no, Chloe brushes it off when it could easily justify her getting worse in later episodes, and even Adrien doesn't even consider how much he thought Chloe's friendship meant to him. Because these writers are dedicated to making sure that any identifiable trait Chloe once had is removed so you have no choice but to hate her.

But hey, at least the episode's over. What did I think of it?

Yeah, it wasn't very good.

I just... what else do you even want me to say here? I spent about ten pages going over why the flashback sequence doesn't work, I've already ranted about Cat Noir trying to kill someone with his Cataclysm in previous episodes (Hack-San, Jubilation), and I think you all know what my feelings on the portrayal of Chloe and Kim are.

I guess I can answer one question you may have: Is this episode worse than either “Penalteam” or “Queen Banana”? Eh, not really. Let me explain.

The problems with “Queen Banana” and “Penalteam” went beyond the treatment of Chloe with the way the stories were handled, with “Queen Banana” being a cheap jab at critics and TV executives while propping up their new character Zoe, and “Penalteam” being an excuse to have a soccer episode while making Cat Noir look like a buffoon right before the finale. Most of the problems with this episode have more to do with how they affect the way we see previous episodes, and why some scenes that were already unfunny are even less funny now.

With this episode, you can at least tell there was some effort being made to tell a more serious story here that went into what made Marinette tick. Yeah, it and the themes of mental health and trauma were handled about as gracefully as a ballet dancer trying to get a bear trap off their leg, but there's at least an attempt here.

Of course, this episode is still awful. The conflict with Kim not getting how much of a jerk he was after a year was dumb (as was him being even more of a jerk as Dark Humor), the fact that Marinette's trauma seemed to come and go when the plot needed it to really showed off how forced it is, and it only ends with you having more questions about Marinette and Chloe's rivalry rather than answering them.

While I'm still not a fan of this episode, and would still place it in my top five least favorites, I don't think it's the absolute worst. Although it's still the worst one so far this season from a technical standpoint.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS...KIM

It says a lot when Cat Noir actually tried to murder someone in this episode, yet not only is he not even considered for the award this episode, the person he tried to kill ends up being the bigger idiot. Not only did he easily fall for Chloe's plan when she insulted him to his face, he failed to understand how it affected Marinette for a year, and when he was told about how bad it was, he refused to take responsibility for his actions, blamed it on other people not being able to take a joke, and only gave the smallest apology after he was almost killed for his attitude. It's honestly funny how he somehow comes across as more unlikable than Chloe, the character this episode was made to make you hate even more.

[wiitchkins]

hi I went a little nuts about the new marinette design and came up with like 15 alternatives.

my initial goal was to come up with a. “””better”””” design, while still adhering to what seem to be the show’s limitations.

*Core Idea* Try to keep her design recognizably “Marinette” as depicted in the show. Anyway lemme know what your favs are thanks

some vague guidelines I made for myself below.

1. Black outerwear, white shirt, pink shorts/pants. (Color palette revolves around the black/pink/white palette, the new design shows her with tights of some kind so we can play with that a bit more. Shoes we can be a bit creative with.)

2. Keep it “age appropriate” per the G rating / 8-13 intended audience. This is vague but mostly just avoiding things that are too trendy or showing “too much” skin- to be clear I don’t have a personal problem with that but we’re playing by the shows rules for teens. Pretending I have an exec to pitch these to.

3. It seems like the show has pretty limited fabric sim - keeping the silhouette close to the model, can’t really have loose fabric, boxy/oversized fits or super unique/specific textures (knit vs leather can probably be implied but don’t expect too much accurate detail)

Please ignore that I drew 3 purse designs. I don't have strong feelings about them.

Some of these designs I think are pretty basic and mid, a couple I really like, and some I think are a bit unrealistic. fun exercise nonetheless.