#ml discussion

[fan-tales]

seeing the discussions about the new episode of Miraculous, I can only think that this plot of "Marinette lying and hiding things" could be avoided if they simply did it like the movie and ADRIEN PARTICIPATED in the final fight.

extra: I liked the fact that CN had a new power but wow, did it need to take 6 seasons?

[bklily]

I haven't seen the special yet I'll only be able to in a few hours. But why am I seeing so many people mad that Marinette "kept the secret from Adrien"? I thought we knew this? Why would they take away one of the biggest sources of conflict for S6 in a special?? That's just common sense I fear. I get that the misunderstanding and keeping secrets trope isn't everyone's cup of tea but that's literally what Miraculous has always been about so I don't get what's so different

[gameguy20100]

Watching the Finale again gave me this thought.

Isn't it a massive red flag Felix keeps the peacock rather than destroying it? He got what he wanted, Gabriel is gone. He doesn't need the miraculous anymore.

What gives him the right to have the power to kill Adrien or Kagami anytime he wants? His whole thing was that nobody should have power over others, yet him having it is fine?

Felix you are a bastard and I hate you.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

I was re-watching the season, two ending of miraculous ladybug, and I think it was far better than season five ending

Season 2 does have the most hopeful Finale, and it’s the only Finale where you could argue it was a win for the heroes.

Season 3 finale could be argued as a stalemate, but Team Hawkmoth got more information and fixed the Peacock thus becoming more of a threat, while team Ladybug lost an ally.

Season 4 Finale was a win for Hawkmoth/monarch since he got a ton of miraculous. But it was at least more hopeful as it showed Paris fighting With Ladybug. It is my personal fave finale.

And Season 5 finale… the less said the better. I’d rather not go into it

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Speaking of how the heroes are chosen, the temp system might be one of the worst writing choices the writers ever made. I mean I get it, permanent heroes would require the show to have continuity and it makes for yet another parallel with Gabriel, but it just ends up being another one of those instances of the show trying to have its cake and eat it too, like. The new heroes eat up screen time that could've gone to the OG duo, but they also don't get to be heroes in their own right and are essentially Ladybug's Pokemon. It makes both people who liked the duo and people who like team-based shows unhappy for no real benefit.

It's also just a massive security risk. Fu says that it's dangerous for the Miraculous to be out in the open, but it's actually way less risky to put the Miraculous in circulation, because then Hawk Moth has to retrieve them by defeating every hero individually, which is a lot more effort. Keeping them all in one place and distributing them one at a time like this means Hawk Moth only has to figure out who's in charge of the distributing and follow that person right to the Miracle Box. Ferrying the Miraculous for every battle also creates more opportunities to lose them, which is how Queen Bee ended up happening.

Looking back, the problems of just about every season finale past S1 can be traced back to this system. It's almost like the writers are trying to set Marinette up to fail.

Ladybug's Pokemon

I love that phrasing! I've just called them her powerups, but this paints a much clearer picture of what I mean. They're not her autonomous teammates who feel vital to the story. They're her cute little friends who do whatever she says. All she has to do is pick which ones she wants for today's battle.

Fu says that it's dangerous for the Miraculous to be out in the open, but it's actually way less risky to put the Miraculous in circulation, because then Hawk Moth has to retrieve them by defeating every hero individually, which is a lot more effort.

Ferrying the Miraculous for every battle... creates more opportunities to lose them, which is how Queen Bee ended up happening.

These are two of my biggest issue with the temp heroes as a general concept. Fetching them every battle gives Gabriel endless chances to find out the temp heroes identities and/or where the guardian is hiding. I don't know why the show acts like the problem was Ladybug forgetting to detransform in Heart Hunter:

Ladybug: Master Fu, I need your help! Master Fu: (sees Ladybug, gasps) This costume is very cute, miss, but is it really fitting in this place? Ladybug: (gasps) I forgot to transform back. (Looks arounds enters the center of the merry-go-round trying to remain unseen) I haven't been followed Master, I'm sure of it.

Nathalie would have been able to track Ladybug either way. At least this way Marinette's identity stayed a secret!

It would make infinitely more sense for Fu to be the one to hand out the miraculous to the temp heroes for two reasons. The first one was laid out above. Having him or some other support character do it is the best way to keep his identity a secret. You should not have Ladybug leaving battles to do it. That's too easy to track because the villains know where she's going to be when she goes running off for help.

The other reason is because it's asinine to have Ladybug run off every time they face a major threat. Think about that logic for a second.

Ladybug: This akuma is too hard for us to fight as a duo! Chat Noir, you stay here and fight this super hard akuma alone while I go get reinforcements. I'll be back in half an hour or so. Chat Noir: Wait, what? How am I supposed to- Ladybug: Have fun! Don't die! Bye!

How did that never backfire on them? I get temp heroes being temp for a few fights, but they should have all been given their miraculous full time ages ago.

[sillysiluriforme]

this may be weird but IMAGINE what would happen if gabriel accidentally got sentiemilie pregnant…like what would they do?? maybe she was made in a way where that wouldn’t happen but nathalie created her so was she even thinking abt that??

Generally, the idea regarding LT-based sentimonsters is that they're super infertile (it's slightly less of an issue if the senti is carried in a womb as opposed to popped out of thin air, but the chances of reproducing are still pretty small and with a ton of genetic issues since there's not a lot of DNA to work with for sentimonsters to begin with), but yeah, let's say for a moment that it happens!

This could very easily be the turning point where Gabriel is forced to acknowledge the consequences of his actions. Since Emmy has no outside family and isn't her own person in his eyes, he's been operating with a very laissez-faire mindset so far as he doesn't need to deal with a lot of comeuppance. But a pregnancy? That'd be harder to deal with—harder to hide. Especially from Adrien.

He's going to either have to destroy the evidence (i.e. poof her/force her to abort it) or double down.

Luckily, Gégé technically has the same genetic makeup as him so what Gabriel will do if he doubles down is blame it all on Gégé. It's safe to assume they've been fooling around together anyways, and they're both so sheltered that even if they haven't gone that far yet they won't know Gégé is being framed.

Afterwards, if Emilie does come back like he plans and Gabriel has no use for Gégé and Emmy anymore, he'll just poof the both of them and present the child to Emilie as their own.

[monpetitchattriste]

Put your clothes back on. We are going to talk about why it makes perfect sense for Marinette to lie about who Monarch was. And even with the consequences that she might face it was a good decision in that moment. How it was very in character for her. How they definitely hinted at the truth getting out. How the whole special was about the lie she told and how she will one day have to deal with those consequences. How it set up the next season so well.......ect....

[familyagrestefanblog]

Fuck it, I'll say it. Marinette taking the risk to kill Adrien in Werepapas by ignoring 5 lucky charms, just to avoid there being a slither of a chance that she has to have an uncomfortable conversations or face consequences for HER actions by Adrien having NORMAL emotions, is not as big of a leap as people make it out to be.

Cause Ephemeral exist. And yes, that episode COUNTS. You don't get to decide that canon episodes aren't canon. And, no, what happened there isn't irrelevant because of the time loop. Most of the episode takes place outside of it and the Marinette we saw in it is literally the same Marinette as ours, the second time around she was just forced to turn back around instead of keep walking down the awful road she chose herself to take advantages of Chat Noir that set his doom in motion.

And that's the thing that makes Werepapas now just the next worse step to take for her instead of a whole leap. In Ephemeral, Marinette initially went on about how blameless and gorgeous she is for abusing Chat Noir's trust because that'll "keep him save" from Suhan taking his Miraculous (which is so stupidly nonsensical because now Suhan had all the power and information on Chat Noir behind Adrien's back that he could take Adrien's Miraculous without Marinette's being told of it first. Not that she ever thinks about Chat enough to notice that) and it'll keep THEM save from Shadowmoth getting both of them if either of them gets akumatized.

Marinette justified her whole awful and downright toxic and power-and-trust-abusing plan with the explanation of "it's for safety reasons"

Only to immediately throw all of that out of the window the second she sees that Adrien is Chat Noir and, to put it bluntly, she has a chance to get in his pants and have him be her perfect care taker and Prince Charming.

Marinette in Ephemeral disregarded ADRIEN'S safety BECAUSE it's Adrien and her reward was more important to her. There is no way around this. Werepapas is not out of character or far fetched, Marinette has been acting like this since season 4, you all just ignore it and think acknowledging it is "salt".

Marinette, canonically, looked in Adrien's eyes and decided that him being himself makes his safety worth being risked so Marinette can have her chance of getting in his pants as her perfect care taker and prince charming.

Werepapas CANT be out of character for her, her actions line up with previous characterization of hers to risk Adrien for her personal short term benefit and comfort, just taken one more step further which at this point is also perfectly in character for Marinette to do.

[starssoblue]

"the reason adrien is just instantly good at everything he tries is because he is programmed to be that way as a senti" aside from the fact that i don't think that's how it works (and also while he was decent at everything he tried with marinette he wasn't instantly good at all of them, and what marinette actually said to him was that he could improve in anything with practice but it was a great first attempt) did we all collectively forget about how adrien actually canonically isn't the best singer?

[coffeebanana]

it is fun how nobody is in agreement about wtf really happened to adrien/the amoks KAJBDFKJSFDKBF

[generalluxun]

I hope it's not untoward to jump in, I think the Adrien angle has been well covered but the OP mentioned other subjects and hey, why not discuss them?

Lila-her transformation is... Meh? Like, she hadn't been fleshed out enough for me to be upset. Her lies were always ridiculous, her plots were always just 'because we said so' and her having 43 mothers 57 identities, and an evil lair? Sure, why not. She's not a person, she's a trope. I figure they wanted to avoid another Chloé mistake(humanizing a hate sink) and just made her so unbelievable that 'Supervillain' is the only thing that fits. The fact that she's a teen girl and only the two teen girls are 'absolute evil' is a whole different discussion worth having bit it isn't this one.

Nathalie- Isn't actually fridged? Fridging involves the injury being for the trauma/motivation of the male/important character. Gabriel cared for like... An episode or two. Her condition is more to play for sympathy in the audience leading up to her 'redemption' and to give her a reason to turn on Gabe. It's 'poor Nathalie, look what she did for love! She's just so loving and good and forget about the fact she hired Cash to kill Sifu and killed Sentibug'

Cat Noir Crush-yeah, they murdered the lovesquare quickfast to get to Adrienette, then retconned in the traumaplot for several episodes. S5 really feels like a final season where they wanted to hit all the points instead of pacing them out. I'm guessing it was written before S6-8 were greenlit. Is it unfortunate? Yes. Elation's Marichat is basically my favorite part of S5.

Zoé- I've talked about her lots. Maybe not on tumblr? She's such a pointless character *who did not have to be* If all they needed was a blonde not-Chloé kinda bratty girl Aurore was *right there* to be tapped in. Unrequited crush on Marinette? Kagami. 'Protection' is basically the perfect setup for a Kagami based 'Adoration'. The *only* narrative purpose for introducing a 4th season half-sister into the Bourgeois family is to *be a catalyst for change* and I don't mean for the whiny rich white man. It even looked like Zoé might... Then they just did nothing with her. She is a character who exists only by what she carves out of other people's stories. The most interesting part of canon!Zoé is how her Wasp-namesake fits how she invaded and took over the hive like a parasite. She could have been so much more.

Cheating- they ignore *both* parties cheating in NYC. Luka drops Marinette off and you can still *see him out the bus window* when she starts gagaing at Adrien. Setting the NYC between seasons was such a weird choice. It was the only time they were both taken. Audrey's infidelity is one of those 'we are ignoring it because we also ignored how Chloé having a sister only a yr younger than her when we already showed her mother leaving a toddler Chloé while not looking pregnant is really weird' it's a hole they're just paving over. Bad? Yeah. Par for the course though.

Weird events-S5 is a mess of 'wouldn't it be cool if' and creator indulgences. Again, if it were a final season it kind of makes sense? I don't *like* a lot of the choices but I can see why you go wild with your finalé material. I expect a big reset for S6. They need to build up a new status quo and somehow break this 'utopia' they created. Utopias may be fun to live in, but they're very boring to watch. There's a reason Star Trek follows the people out on the fringes, not the prople hanging back chilling on post-scarcity earth.

These are all my opinions etc etc. feel free to tag me if you want to split any off to their own discussions.

There does seem to be a trend in the specific sect of this fandom that I circulate where people are only openly against writing decisions that impede Adrien's role in the story. Nothing was ever discussed on my dash about the following:

Lila's bizarre transition from a normal mean teenage girl (a strong narrative antagonist for Marinette's civilian conflict) to a weird Machiavellian criminal

Nathalie's (and Emilie's of course, but I'm saltier about it with Nathalie) role in the story being a prime example of a Fridged Woman

The way Marinette's long-coming crush on Cat Noir was tossed aside after two episodes

Zoe still not bringing anything to the narrative

The weird undiscussed presence of cheating in relationships in this whole show (Adrien apparently cheating on Kagami with Marinette in the NYC special, Audrey Bourgeois blatantly having cheated on her husband)

The increasingly bizarre events in this show that, to me, clearly just exist to make people go :O, not unlike how shows like Riverdale became increasingly bizarre over the course of their run in order to get viewers because they knew they couldn't grab viewers with their mediocre premise alone (Chloe becoming mayor, Felix and Kagami's weird little play, etc)

There's a lot more I wanted to add here, but figured were more my opinion than an actual Thing to be discussed.

Never saw any of this discussed in my circle of Tumblr, but I HAVE seen an absolute ton of discussion surrounding Adrien's screen time, Adrien's family dynamics, Adrien's role as a hero, Adrien's internal struggles, and how the writers apparently don't explore any of those things to their full potential.

And it makes me wonder why people are so fixated on him. Because I'm sorry to say this, but I've personally always seen him as a pretty unremarkable character. Don't misconstrue my words and say I said I don't like him, because I do like him. But I hardly consider him the most interesting character in the show.

My theory? He's just an easy character to fixate on, for the following reasons:

None of his struggles come from his financial, racial/cultural, or other kind of protected background, meaning discussions on his struggles don't have to be "difficult."

The fact that his primary antagonist is his father (as his father, and not as Hawk Moth) means fans can easily take the "I want to adopt him and give him a good home" route of character analysis

He's perpetually positive, meaning it doesn't require a lot of mental energy to like him-- he can just be a lovable "sunshine boy" to people.

On the rare occasion he IS upset, fans become obsessed, because who doesn't love more emotional depth?

When he's positive/nonplussed about something that he morally should be upset at, fans can easily explain it away as a result of his upbringing.

He's cute. There's no way to talk around this. He's got big green eyes and baby cheeks and flippy blond hair and a soft voice and cute habits like scratching his neck when he's nervous. The first three things are traits character designers often employ to get audiences to like their characters. The last two things are examples of things you can do to get people to subconsciously like you irl. This part is just psychology, and it makes me wonder if people would be affected by all the above points if he didn't look the way he does.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to like Adrien for any of the above reasons. I just want some people to think about their opinions of this show and ask themselves whether they feel as strongly about other writing decisions as they do about the ones that "hurt" Adrien, and, if they don't, why they feel so drawn to Adrien in the first place. Because it's definitely not because the show does him dirtier than everyone else.

[slysum]

I think I am the only one who doesn't want that letter from El toro de Piedra to get burnt

From a narrative perspective, if Adrien doesn't see that letter, it would be written for nothing. Nathalie, Marinette, and the viewers don't get that much new information from it other than "Gabriel wants Adrien to resurect him and Adrien's mom," but if Adrien reads it? Yeah, that would impact the story A LOT.

AND we never get to know what the last part of the letter was. You don't just cut off a sentence without finishing it later. Otherwise, it would be really anticlimactic.

Like, imagine if Darth Vader didn't get to finish the "I am your father" thing. If he said, "I am your-." That would leave the viewer, and Luke, on a suspance. And if that suspense is drawn out for too long, people will start to get annoyed.

Also, I'm pretty sure that letter will be the only way for Adrien to find out he's a senti.

[gameguy20100]

You know, rewatching the series, one thing has never been explained.

Why was Gabriel forcing Adrien to learn Mandarin?

Wouldn't Japanese have made more sense? Considering the arrangement to have him marry Kagami.

Although Adrien does have a good enough grasp of Japanese to know what Kanji means "talk," so... *shrug*

[yunyin]

Have people talked about this skull motif on Marinette's dress?

This feels like such an odd choice to me. I'm not sure what to make of it yet.

[goldenharmony]

By the end of S5, Chloe has pretty much lost all her close somewhat positive relationships (Ladybug, Adrien, her father, her butler, and Sabrina). Since Climatiqueen mentions Zoe following the online Bee community where Chloe seems to be in charge, I hope that we will revisit these lines and the two sisters reconnect again. Chloe could realize that she hasn't lost Zoe (as long as Chloe starts to adjust her attitude around her).

(Pessimistic people who speak in bad faith about the ML team, DNI! Thank you. <3 )

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Sometimes I wonder why Adrien even got the black cat ring. What makes him a good holder for the miraculous of destruction?

We get somewhat of an answer with Marinette for the miraculous of creation. She's a creative person with a lot of creative hobbies, which allows her to use lucky charm very well.

But then, shouldn't Adrien be a destructive person in one way or another? Not him being toxic or hurting people. Just his personality having something to do with the concept of destruction.

I've seen some people argue that Adrien is a good black cat holder because he's not a destructive person and that the best holder for destruction is someone who isn't destructive, unlike with creation where the best holder is someone creative.

It's sound logic, so I can't really argue with it. However, on a thematic level it promotes a narrative of "creation is good, destruction is evil. Therefore we want as much of creation and as little of destruction." Which can work for some stories, but wouldn't fit with the imagery of mlb of how creation and destruction are a yin and yang thing rather than a good and evil. Both in how the miraculous are presented in the box, how Ladybug and Chat Noir are (supposed to be) equal partners and how the show never really explored or acknowledged much how destruction can be more dangerous than creation (other than Chat cataclysming people on accident/trying to when angry, but those are more for shock value than actually making a thematic point.)

The saddest thing is that as a character, Adrien is perfectly positioned to show the ways destruction can be good. His arc should be all about cutting off the toxic people in his life (namely his father), which is peak "destroying something bad so there can be good".

His establishing character moment in origins even plays into it, with how he rebels against Gabriel's control to run away to school. That's already a big action where he tries to destroys Gabriel total control of his life!

You mentioned in a recent ask how there's not much canonically to support that Adrien values freedom or that he uses Chat Noir as a way to gain freedom, which is correct. But I think the reason why it's such widespread fanon to the point it's confused with canon is that thematically Adrien should value freedom above all else.

His literal worst nightmare is being trapped in an ever shrinking cage, which he only escapes from by transforming to Chat Noir. His life is tightly controlled by his father, and Chat Noir allows him to both knowingly stand up to him (like in simon says) and unknowingly fight his father. Whenever he and Ladybug are trapped, cataclysm is the answer, not lucky charm.

But incorperating that into the narrative would require the show to engage with the themtics of having characters associated with specific concepts on... any level at all really. Or just have themes in the first place that more than accidental unfortunate implications.

Sometimes I wonder why Adrien even got the black cat ring. What makes him a good holder for the miraculous of destruction?

The show has done a terrible job with most of its power assignments. You can headcanon and rewrite ways to make them work, but in the context of canon, many of them make no sense. Like in what way is Nino a protector? And why was Alya given Illusions? Odd choice for a journalist. What even makes someone a good holder for Illusions? I go the storyteller route and fix Alya accordingly, but that's not canon. Canon clearly wants her to be an investigative journalist who is obsessed with truth, not good stories which would be a better match for something relating to revelations or investigation.

As you rightly pointed out, Adrien has similar issues. What makes him a good holder for Destruction? What does it even mean to be a good holder of Destruction? I'll give you my two cents, but you'll quickly see that none of this is canon. This is just what I think canon should have done. I also don't think there's a way to make Adrien's assignment work in canon as it's way too late in the game to make the kind of changes Destruction's power set needs for it to feel like a good Force. (Note: I don't think Destruction fits anyone in canon because of the following issues. I think it's got fundamental design flaws. I'm only focusing on Adrien since it's his assigned Force.)

The biggest issue with Destruction - and the reason some people think that the best holder is someone who isn't destructive - is the fact that canon has failed to show Destruction as a positive force even though Destruction can absolutely be a positive force! You wouldn't know that from canon, though. Canon shows Creation as good and Destruction as just kind of there.

Cataclysm is sometimes useful in a fight, but it doesn't add much value to the world. Another miraculous would often work just as well or even better as cataclysm has been known to cause trouble. For example, it's arguably the reason Adrien is an orphan, severely undermining my ability to look at it as something that benefits Adrien!

The newly introduced "Miraculous Chat Noir" ability isn't great either. So far, it's only been used to have Adrien unknowingly denying himself information because Alya would absolutely have caved and told him the truth if he hadn't erased her memory. What a wonderful way to introduce a new power! I'm so happy that Adrien finally got an upgrade! (That was sarcasm. Worst power introduction in the show.)

Tikki is seen as a good and positive Kwami while Plagg causes chaos and gets blamed for things like the loss of Atlantis and the death of the dinosaurs. Su-Han is even on record as saying that Plagg should never be out of the box because Destruction just isn't a good thing to set free. But Tikki being free? That's fine even though she's Plagg's equal.

All of this is why I will once again get on my soapbox and argue that Adrien should be the one purifying akumas, not Marinette. Purification is an act of Destruction. You are removing taint and restoring something to peace. Which is fitting because Adrien's life is full of things that he needs to remove in order to find peace. Marinette doesn't have that kind of plot line so her being the one with the purification power is both bad lore and just thematically bad. She's a creator, let her stick to creation!

Because Destruction can so easily cause harm, it should also be about self control. It's yet another one of the many ways that canon could have leaned into this idea of intent mattering. Over the course of the show, Adrien should have become better and better at targeting his cataclysms so that they only destroy the thing(s) he wants destroyed while leaving everything else intact. If that isn't a solid metaphor for things like emotional self-regulation, learning when to cut things from your life, and healthy boundary setting than I don't know what is.

All of this leads to my lore bible's list of what makes a person a good match for Destruction, none of which is canon, but my rewrite, my rules:

Someone who is capable of controlling their negative impulses to an absurd degree. They cannot be inclined to act out when angry or frustrated. It’s okay if they're emotional, the question is what they do with those emotions because a Chosen of Destruction cannot get upset and physically act out while transformed.

Destruction’s powers have to be perfectly honed in a way that the other powers don’t, so the ideal Chosen will be someone patient who doesn’t mind hours of practice.

While the first two traits in this list are the only essential ones, Plagg has found that his best kittens are those with kind, nurturing natures. In almost all of the strongest miraculous teams, Destruction is the team's heart. The one who encourages others and brings everyone together. (Destroying barriers between people?) Destruction needs kindness and selfless love to direct it properly.

You mentioned in a recent ask how there's not much canonically to support that Adrien values freedom or that he uses Chat Noir as a way to gain freedom, which is correct. But I think the reason why it's such widespread fanon to the point it's confused with canon is that thematically Adrien should value freedom above all else.

Also agree on this. That's why the post you mentioned had this bit:

it's pretty popular for people to say that Chat Noir is Adrien embracing freedom, a take that makes perfect sense given his backstory and the way he's played in Origins. However, it's hard to call this canon. Outside of Origins, there's not much in canon to back up this read.

Adrien wanting freedom makes so much sense for his character, but then they'd have to actually give him a character so of course canon won't go there. Imagine how much better his "I don't know what I want to be" arc would have been if his final note was about wanting to explore the world instead of about loving Marinette. Essentially take this:

I've been thinking a lot, and still not know what I would like to do later in life. The only thing I know for sure is that I love Marinette Dupain-Cheng. But I guess that doesn't really help you. I'm sorry. Adrien Agreste.

And make it something like this:

I've been thinking a lot and I still don't know what I would like to do later in life. The only thing I know for sure is that want to try out as many things as I can to try to find my passion. I'm not sure how much that helps you, though. I'm not even sure where to begin. Sorry. Adrien Agreste.

This? This is what a character arc looks like. We start with him having no idea what he wants, move to him accepting that fact, leading into him trying a bunch of things, ending with him finding happiness. His happiness being tied to his girlfriend is not a good message just because he's a boy and she's a girl. This is not what feminism looks like!