#ml lies spoilers

[bugsandboos]

reading everyone’s thoughts on the london special and marinette’s actions have given me a serious case of deja vu in relation to the s5 finale, here’s why

a very very VERY common reaction from the fandom i saw to the finale was “why are the writers letting gabriel get away with being a hero why isn’t he being held accountable horrible finale horrible writing i hate this show etc etc etc”

before i share my thoughts on this for like the thousandth time i just wanna mention i DID cry during the finale, partly because i was in shock and also because i HATED it. but now i genuinely believe it was one of if not the smartest thing the ml writers have ever conjured up and i just. fucking love it. (point is: i understand disliking it. that was me at some point, until i began to consider the implications of the “ending”)

similarly, a reaction i’ve seen to the london special (mainly from ml salters) is “why would the writers let marinette lie to the world when it’s so clearly morally wrong she’s such a horrible person she needs to be held accountable blah blah blah”

something both the s5 finale and the london special share is that THE ACTIONS THAT TAKE PLACE IN BOTH. ARE NOT MEANT. TO SIT WELL WITH THE AUDIENCE

NO writer on ml is trying to convince a fan that “gabriel was actually a hero because he made one selfless decision (that wasn’t even that selfless?????)”. NO writer on ml is trying to convince a fan that “marinette is completely right for hiding the truth about gabriel from not only adrien but also the whole world!!!!!! no one should ever find out!!!”

the entire point of the finale and special is to make the viewer uncomfortable, as we watch marinette sit with her questionable choices, watch adrien refer to his father as a hero and watch their class throw a party. none of this is supposed to make us feel at peace with the way this arc has concluded.

what people seem to be missing is that even if the s1-s5 arc has ended, the s6 arc is just beginning, CENTERED AROUND THE CHOICES THAT HAVE MADE US AS THE AUDIENCE FEEL SO UNCOMFORTABLE!! you’re completely ignoring the way the plot is set up if you think the writers are going to neglect gabriel’s storyline, because it is far from over.

i think it’s also important to mention that neither marinette nor adrien are at peace with what’s happened (even if that was implied during the s5 finale—the london special has provided us with this new information on their emotional statuses). marinette is clearly being eaten alive by guilt, seeking confirmation throughout the entire special that protecting adrien from the truth was the morally correct decision. adrien was obviously affected by his father’s death (contrasting the idea that he just “threw a party” without any emotional backlash), and will undoubtedly learn to grapple with his conflicting feelings on gabriel’s character throughout s6 (he sacrificed himself??? but he abused me??? but he saved ladybug and nathalie????? but he apparently assisted monarch?????)

POINT IS

no one is meant to be satisfied with the way things are in the miraculous universe at the moment. you aren’t supposed to want the truth about what really went down during recreation to stay hidden. if you feel uncomfortable with the current situation our main characters are in, GOOD! please stop the discrediting the writers, because your discomfort means they have done their job well.

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

meet the cast of "lies of attrition"

everything's going so well in my and @ladyofthenoodle 's post-s5 fic! look how fine it's going! absolutely nothing can or will go wrong!

[ozzo-the-wozzo]

Hey guys so do we want to talk about how Lila’s entire thing is that she lies and yet the biggest lie this season isn’t coming from her... but from Marinette.

How Lila and Marinette match each other intellectually, which Marinette herself says while fighting Lila (‘unlike the other Hawkmoth you’re actually clever!’). How Marinette has always fought against Lila’s lies but is now perpetuating one herself that will probably turn out to be one of the most (unintentionally-don't attack my daughter) harmful ones in the show- and its to Adrien- one of the only people who didn't initially fall for Lila's lies.

How the thing- the lie that is going to break Adrien this season, that will guiltrip him over his final confrontation with his father, make him hate himself for not being there for the final battle, and make him feel the weight of a thousand revelations and implications and betrayal once revealed, comes not from the villain known for lying... but from Marinette.

There is something to be said about villains paralleling the hero, and BOY is this season going to be one of the most heartbreaking and craziest examples of it yet.

[buggachat]

anyways felix loves artifical lifeform shadow the hedgehog, close relative of Giant Space Lizard Monster, who was created and built for a purpose and had humanity and love in his core but was horrifically traumatized and wronged by humanity and then decided to try to just kill the entire world about it. in this essay i will

[piromina]

huge props to marinette for spinning up that lie so fast and on the spot, too. I thought I was good but damn. of course she must have had a general idea of what she was going to say to adrien beforehand going off of gabriel's "make me look good" and her own love telling her that the truth would hurt adrien even more, but that's just a very vague idea. she could not have possibly spun up that entire story of a lie in her head beforehand with all that was going on - dealing with all the truths coming in one after the other, the crying, the emotional trauma, getting the kwamis back -

and of course, there's adrien. he is one of the highest things on her list of priorities, his safety being the first thing she needs to take care of. the problem is, she doesn't know how. the only thing she can do in that situation is lie. a small lie. just one to make it better for now and then she can make it a long-term lie later. make sure no one else finds out.

and once she started telling the lie, once the first words were out of the mouth, it was all improvisation. her next words showed up in her head as she was going, spinning up a believable story, just good enough to be taken as the truth. she rambled - a rookie mistake for liars - but you couldn't blame her. she's a professional liar, almost, with her superhero identity, but this one is different. just one hour after learning the truth she had to cover up all this with no warning beforehand.

she couldn't tell adrien the truth. but she couldn't do much to comfort him either. ladybug couldn't tell him something only marinette knows.

she had to lie. she had to come up with something on the spot. those words would haunt her for the rest of her life - that lie was all she could think about for the next couple of months because she had to make it work. she had to keep the truth and make everything work out. it wasn't a big deal. she just had to tell adrien something, anything that would comfort him! what would comfort him about his father? what would convince him that he was a good guy this whole time? that he was a, a, a hero! yes, she would tell him that. it was a white lie! she wasn't a bad person! she just had to tell adrien that his father was a hero so that he would never have to know the truth and suffer like she did. he was a hero.

was.

once that word came out of her mouth, there was no going back.

[cringefelinecreature]

To think that the lovesquares biggest most ongoing problem (honesty and communication) all started from a white lie about a scarf.

[ninadove]

One thing we haven’t talked about yet (understandably, because *gestures at Representation and cries*) is how Miraculous took the time to make a callback to the sketching scene from Lies IN THE FINALE

It’s been implied that art is to Kagami what “inner melodies” are to Luka: a way to access another person’s soul. When her sketches didn’t reflect what she wanted to see in Adrien, she tried to force the session to go her way — snapping at him and even physically “fixing” his pose herself, only for him to slip away from her.

AND NOW LOOK AT THEM

I bet Felix didn’t even know she was sketching him at first! All he has to do is EXIST NEAR HER and that’s enough. He’s enough!

She’s capturing his essence as he’s learning to do normal kid stuff and she in turn is learning to love her partner for who they are, not who she has been conditioned to think they should be.

This show’s writing can be inconsistent at times, it’s true, but sometimes they just hit the nail right on the head and it’s so satisfying. Felix and Kagami’s story is being told with so much love and care for them both and I cannot insist enough on how important it is to me and likely to many others!

[causalityparadoxes]

Lila is the character of all time. Like what the fuck is up. Everytime I'm like 'oh this cant get worse' they pull out another insane thing she has going on. The sheer ham of it all. The number of identities. The effort she would have to put in to keep this all going.

(Does she have journals or phone notes to keep track of this shit?? Does she have a different wig for each identity?? A different backstory for every group?? Is Lila even her real name???)

And what truely TRUELY ties if together for me is that she has no fucking reason to be like this. No wife in the basement, no tragic past (that we know of yet and god i hope she never gets a reason), etc. She just invented a dozen different fucked up little parallel lives to play because she thrives off attention, causing drama, and ruining peoples lives.

[bowser14456]

I'm not even done anymore.

[neirw]

what should have happened...

[bookishjules]

i need felix to lay it all out for adrien, show all the card he's been holding close to his chest.. about gabriel. about the rings. about their parents' pasts. about being sentis.. just please give your cousin all the information like he deserves

[miraculous-catboy]

Wait. If I interpreted something right, the Kwamis are aware of the other universes and are all places at once. Do you think Nooroo ever escaped the harshness of his reality by spacing out into the universe where he and Gabriel are friends?

[eggheadsguidetorunning]

MY NEW VIDEO IS FINALLY FINISHED

This is the Third one and its about Lila. It took me way longer than I thought to finish even though I had the essay done in December.

It might also be me doing my best to show why you would probably believe in Lila Rossi.

[adrinoir]

Headcanon: Adrien Agreste is Trans? (Part 4)

I absolutely love writing about this headcanon. Feel free to read my other sections of the trans headcanon: part one, part two, and part three.

Usual disclaimer: this is just for fun! Obviously cis boys can have these same qualities and traits. Don’t take it too seriously. These are all just things I’ve noticed. Also please keep in mind I haven't watched anything beyond Kwami's Choice: part 1 when I'm writing and posting this (so, I'm using what I currently know).

The incredibly strong dislike of modeling

This relates back to part one where I talked about Adrien’s discomfort in being a model. I had mentioned modeling is all about body - your face and body being everywhere, having to pose in front of a camera all the time, having to walk down the runway. There's a lot of visible discomfort we see in Adrien whenever he has to model.

Anyhow, what I want to add is that this discomfort never eased up for him despite the many, many years he had to model. He was extremely adamant about quitting. Obviously, modeling is a very stressful job as is, especially with the amount of gigs and events to attend and the insane fans who want to know where he's at, plus he said he just wants to be treated as a son by his dad. However, having gender dysphoria is something that can really be heightening this discomfort and desire to quit.

I feel like there are a lot of people out there who would desire to live this lavish lifestyle of being a model, but Adrien can't stand it. So therein lies the question: aside from the normal stress, what is heightening his strong dislike for this job? It could also be the fact that it's keeping him from getting to try out new things he'd enjoy doing, but also consider that his father controls his life as a whole, it isn't just his modeling position getting in the way. And, as I've previously said, there's a lot of visible discomfort, which could easily be what's making him dislike modeling even more.

Additionally, Adrien's face is now not only plastered on billboards, but on almost everyone's Alliance ring. Gabriel scanned Adrien's entire body and created this AI version of him to relieve him of his modeling duties. However, Adrien is still uneasy and doesn't like seeing his face and voice on just about everyone's device (if they have him as their option and not Lila). Yes, it's obviously weird for him to see a fake version of himself saying things he never recorded. But, 1) his face has been all over Paris for years (MASSIVE photos of him), and 2) this should not be incredibly shocking behavior for Gabriel Agreste. So, is there some dysphoric discomfort here, too? Possibly. I know it's a stretch, but it's definitely a small piece to take into consideration.

He often lets people perceive him how they want to

I had also mentioned in part two that he's a people pleaser and melds himself to be who other people want him to be. I want to add, he also lets people define who he is instead of trying real hard to correct them; he lets them think what they want of him.

A good example of this is in Lies when Kagami is trying to draw Adrien. He tries to pose as a cat to try and vaguely show his Cat Noir side; to be silly. But, Kagami doesn't believe this. He even promises her that this is who he really is, that being silly is part of who he truly is. However, Kagami pushes him against a wall, stares directly into his eyes, and says he’s perfect and, "There. This is really you." To which he answers, "Do you really think...?" and just lets Kagami kiss him. Yes, Kagami was being a bit forceful (like, oof. She shouldn't have done that). But, Adrien didn't try to tell her she's wrong. He let Kagami perceive him in her own way.

Why doesn't he correct her? It could be because he wouldn't want people knowing he's trans. It’s a very scary thing. You don’t know how the people who claim they love you will react. Letting them think what they want to doesn’t raise suspicion that he’s hiding something, and clearly his effort on trying to open up to her more didn’t even work in the first place.

You could say he acts like "being silly" is such a big, important part of him that he feel must be hidden at all costs, because it seems that he thinks that him being silly and telling puns would possibly give away that he's Cat Noir. BUT him posing that way for Kagami and him telling cat jokes in the middle of class (in Ephemeral) proves that notion wrong.

One could say he also doesn't want people to know he's dealing with a bad home life, but it's been common knowledge from the start that he has a controlling father. Nino has come up with plans on multiple occasions to free him from his father so they can hang out together. Kagami's mother and Gabriel are friends. It's how Adrien and her met, and Kagami makes it very well known that she's aware of how controlling Gabriel is.

In Elation - one of the most recent episodes - he mentions to Marinette that his fans "wouldn't be such big fans if they knew who was really behind the mask". So, even now, he still feels the need to hide his truer self and that he wouldn't be liked for who he truly is. But, let's think about this for a moment. He has fans both as Adrien and as Cat Noir. He has friends who know his situation and care about him. So then…what is being left out that he feels people won’t like about him? THAT brings us to the next point.

Why does he think people wouldn’t like him?

With all that being said (in the last section), there’s no exact, definable reason as to why Adrien says people wouldn’t like the real him. So, this could mean Adrien is hiding something we as the audience can’t even see.

It’s obvious Adrien has underlying insecurities. But, it seems there’s more than just those insecurities, and this could be him possibly being trans and internally struggling with that gender dysphoria.

People like what they see in Cat Noir - his silly puns and kind heart. People like what they see in Adrien - his kindness and friendliness. So, why will it be problematic once people know they’re the same person? There’s no solid reason.

I had mentioned in my other parts of this headcanon that he’s very closed off which can be pretty common amongst closeted trans people. Adrien thinking people won’t like who he truly is without any definable reason could contribute to that. He doesn’t want people to know he’s trans because he feels they’d think very differently of him and may not like him.

Think about how quickly he believed Marinette in Elation when she said she liked Adrien but doesn’t anymore. It shows that sign of insecurity and dislike for himself. When the girl he likes shows so many signs that she like him throughout the entire show but denies that, he doesn’t believe her. It’s really sad.

The closeness with his mom

So, we aren’t given much background on Emilie, but one thing we do see is that she’s closer to Adrien than Gabriel is. However, what makes them close? We’re never given a reason.

There’s that possibility she’s manipulative like Gabriel but in a different sense, one that makes Adrien like her despite being abusive. But, of course there’s the possibility that she isn’t, which makes her the better parent.

So, if it were true that she never abused Adrien, that leaves the question: what makes them close?

Hypothetically, if my headcanon was actually canon, she could be the one parent who supports Adrien being trans. That reason alone would make them closer, but could also be just one reason amongst many others.

The headcanon still works if I flip it

What if instead of Adrien being a trans guy who already transitioned, he’s a trans girl who hasn’t transitioned yet? I know that might sound like a massive stretch, but I’ve heard this headcanon from other fans and there’s some good back up for this, too.

We all know Gabriel is a very abusive father. We all know Adrien’s childhood dreams were nonexistent because was forced to be who his parents wanted him to be (or he’s forcing himself to please them). What if this is because they don’t support Adrien when he told him he felt like a girl? That’d mean he’s forced to continue living as a boy to please his parents, because his parents don’t accept the fact that he’s trans.

And modeling? That discomfort in having to show the body he has this disconnect from the body he was born in but still has to have pictures taken of all the time.

And him overcompensating his masculinity as Cat Noir? Trans people who are still questioning or don’t have a choice to transition can overcompensate to try being comfortable in the body they were born into. For example, a trans guy who can’t transition might try to be a very feminine girl (makeup, dressed, etc) or a trans girl who can’t transition might try to be a very masculine guy (get real muscular, grow out their facial hair, etc).

Just about every reason I’ve listed in all parts of this headcanon work just the same if Adrien was supposedly a closeted trans girl which makes this headcanon even more interesting imo.

Also, we do see him shirtless in Mr. Pigeon 72 which some people say debunks this whole headcanon that he’s a trans guy. BUT, this isn’t necessarily true. 1) Puberty blockers exist 2) it supports the flipped version.

This flipped headcanon would also be extremely sad if it is true that Adrien is a sentibeing. The ability to change Adrien to be the gender he connects with would be possible, but his parents chose not to recreate another version of him for their own sake. Or, they did possibly try but it’s what ended up wrecking the peacock miraculous, which might’ve made them feel some hostility towards Adrien.

There’s other characters in the show that are canonically queer

There’s absolutely no denying that there are queer characters in the show. Even though it’s not directly stated that Juleka and Rose are dating and that Nathaniel and Marc are dating, it’s made very clear that they are just based on their interactions.

I also heard Marc is based on one of the staff’s gender fluid friends, which is really cool! That’s direct queer representation that they clarified outside the show.

If you know anything about Disney, you’ll know there’s some homophobia and transphobia around the company. For instance, I also watch The Owl House where the main character Luz is openly bi and Amity is openly lesbian. They end up crushing on each other and dating. They directly state in the show that they’re girlfriends, show Luz coming out to her mom as bi, and have scenes of Luz and Amity kissing. There’s also Raine who’s an openly non-binary character - they directly refer to Raine with they/them pronouns. Their VA is also non-binary. And what does Disney do, despite how incredibly successful this show is? They wouldn’t let the creator renew it.

So, other Disney shows such as Miraculous and Star vs the Forces of Evil show queer characters without directly saying that they are. People might refer to that as queer baiting, but with Disney’s proof of being homophobic and transphobic, I can understand why these shows wouldn’t directly say what these characters’ sexualities and identities are.

Anyhow, considering how they massively hint at Rose and Juleka being girlfriends and Marc and Nathaniel being boyfriends, there’s that possibility that other characters in the show are queer, too. That’s why I and many other fans of the show can easily create these queer headcanons for many of the characters. There’s a lot of signs in the show.

[burningstarfishqueen]

spoilers for the season five finale

Wrung Out

Chat Noir’s legs hung limp off the ledge. The sun rose over Paris. Clouds tinged the sky orange and scarlet. His eyes stung. 

His cheeks had dried. Salty tear tracks stood out on his skin, all the way to his collar. 

Ladybug’s breaths were quiet, even in the silence. He didn’t look at her. 

Echoes of shouts rasped in his throat. 

They’d sat on the Eiffel Tower, just apart enough they didn’t touch, for long enough. 

Rising to his feet, Chat let his gaze rest on her. Slowly, her head turned to him. 

She’d been angry—scared—before. The line of her mouth had softened. Her eyelids drooped. 

Her cheek could’ve been swollen. A bruise in purple, his father’s colors. For all his rage he’d never touch her. 

A nightmare burned to dust. 

He offered his hand. Her grip was strong. 

His voice was a weak croak. “You and me against the world?” 

It wasn’t a smile on her face, but she didn’t let go. 

“Always.” 

[wooawi]

can’t wait to see how this is gonna come back to bite everyone in the ass