#ml speculation

[mamayura]

Okay but what's crazy is that the episode does subtly reveal that Adrien did keep it a secret from Marinette that he's more than silent jogging buddies with Sublime

In the beginning, Marinette says that when she asked Adrien if he and Sublime talk when they go running he always says "no". This is factually correct as we find out in the end through Sublime:

But there is obviously something not adding up here. Sublime literally says "Outside of running, of course Adrien and I talk". They just arent talking in any of their morning runs because Sublime in particular is doing it as serious training. So no talking because that would impact their breathing, but outside of that? Well, yeah, duh.

And that makes sense

Adrien and Sublime are in the same ancient Greek class, of course they would talk. I'm gonna go with the assumption that this is why Sublime started running by his side, because they vaguely knew each other from Greek class and when they crossed each others running paths one morning they were familiar enough to just run together in silence

Look, I- I dont know how to put this more elegantly, so I'll rip off the bandaid. The vibes I'm getting from this episode are that Adrien was more than cool with not talking anyway because he deliberately keep his friendship with Sublime a secret from Marinette because he knew Marinette would be weird about it and that made him uncomfortable.

He knows his girlfriend and she's peanut-butter-and-jealous.

And the thing is, as much as this certainly is a complicated topic with a lot of factors to consider for both sides, the way the episode had Marinette go about all this...

... the episode proved him RIGHT. He was right to be too uncomfortable with letting Marinette know about being friends with Sublime. She merely found out that they were running together in silence and proceeded to not only keep watching them each morning and taking photos, Marinette even proceeded to stalk the hell out Sublime:

No, this isnt normal. This isnt a "quirky girlfriend" thing to do, or "funny haha". Its one of the reason why Adrien didnt feel comfortable letting her know.

And, I mean, yeah. I can't blame him for it, can I? :I

Later on, Sublime is very quick to piece together that the girl hiding behind them is Adrien's girlfriend. Not the thing I would immediately go with, unless of course Adrien did already vaguely mention having a girlfriend to Sublime at one point. Then yes, her coming to this conclusion after Marinette followed her all day makes a lot more sense. Even if those are not.. nice implications. The episode does go on playing it straight at first that Marinette is the weird and a bit alarming girlfriend.

Look, you can pretty this up if you like, but for me, Adrien is clearly a solid bit uncomfortable and very apologetic here to Sublime because of Marinette's behavior. Sublime too is being nice about it to a degree you shouldnt take for granted. She would have had been perfectly justified in saying something else entirely. Adrien is trying to be a good boyfriend about this, but Marinette is out here proving him right in having struggled with wanting her to know about Sublime. Marinette has been following her around all day, Sublime noticed, and Adrien is doing good faith damage control here by telling Sublime that Marinette has good intentions and only wants to be her friend.

Something, though, that the episode clarified 3 times wasnt really the case:

It is so weird that at the core of the problem for both sides of Adrinette WAS Marinette being peanut-butter-and-jealous.

Marinette did NOT try to befriend Sublime out of some pure-hearted desire to know her. She did so because she feared that Adrien could end up not loving her anymore if she doesnt gain some control over the Sublime situation real quick

And Adrien DID keep his friendship with Sublime a secret from Marinette because, well, was he wrong?

And thats the thing. The episode just DROPS this in favor of saying that Marinette only had these pure-hearted intentions to know her when that isnt true. The episode proved Adrien alarmingly RIGHT in his gut feeling to keep Sublime a secret from Marinette, they just-

They just didnt let him know about any of it as if that makes it any less true. I would understand it if this episode had been entirely about tackling this issue for good. Adrien not being wrong for feeling uncomfortable with letting Marinette know about any new female friends and then Adrien gets proven right, but the situation is saved by Marinette's secondary desire of befriending Sublime.

Sure, not the plot of my choice, but I would GET IT because it would actually cover the given problem. Here it is... they didnt do it. Adrien was proven right, Marinette did everything wrong to Sublime that was possible and ended up breaking her prosthetic and ruined the sponsorship with a combo of Marinette's and Ladybug's harmful inconsideration.

Marinette did exactly what Adrien was afraid of... and they just DON'T resolve the initial Adrinette core of this issue. It's still ongoing. Marinette didnt even get to react in the end to finding out that Adrien did keep her in the dark about talking to Sublime:

I guess for now the explanation for that will be that Adrinette switched positions in this for once and now it's Marinette who isnt questioning it enough that Adrien only said the truth to her going by the technicality of "She only ask him if they talk while running".

Obviously, this is not how it works. He kept her in the dark. And whether he was right to doing so or not isnt important for the feeling I'm getting that this is just the beginning of a streak of similar problems like this. The postponed resolution to this will happen at a later point, and knowing Miraculous, they'll do it after it escalates to hell.

We already saw it in "Illustrhater" and the synopsis for "Werepapas" for example also sounds like Marinette will not stop here being a questionable girlfriend

I just dont understand why they would keep on DOING that?

[cakemousse]

alright unless proven otherwise, i'm going to hc that toxinelle's crush is actually griffe noire

or a “crush who doesn’t think I’m a lame-o”! credits to @2manyfandoms2count for the translation

it's unfortunate... but hear me out

the salters always say that the lovesquare is toxic codependency, imma show you what real toxic codependency really is, on the part of emonette at least

'he's rude as fuck and disrespects her all the time, there's no way emonette would fall for him' while this is true and i would agree under normal circumstances, toxinelle came from a world where she didn't have anyone, no super awesome friends to inspire her everyday, no best friend in life and in death, no mum who is gentle and calm, nothing. she's lonely and has nothing to fall back on, but you know who she can fall back on? griffe noire

even if he does let her fall

he is the only constant she has in her life, at least ever since she got her miraculous. even if it means getting insulted left and right by him, she puts up with him

why? cause if she doesn't she'll truly lose the only thing she has 'going' in her life

and we can see that after she read marinette’s diary about the part where ladybug and chat noir are partners or rather teammates, she looks at griffe noire, as though she’s thinking of being teammates with him. it’s something she wants, and we know it’s something she truly wants by the end of the special

also in this universe, emodrien has a crush on emonette, so what's preventing toxinelle to have a crush on griffe noire?

toxinelle isn’t happy, we can tell when she poured her heart out to ladyfly about everything and then finally about her crush thinking she’s lame all the time, but there isn’t much she can do if she wants her constant to continue be by her side

loneliness really does some fucked up things to a person huh?

the concept’s pretty fitting of a villain don’t you think? 🥲

[passionfruitpenguino]

I hope we get a scarf reveal soon. I feel like, with the inevitable “Gabriel was Monarch and Marinette lied about it” reveal, it could be interesting for Adrien to have a “Marinette made this scarf and never told me it wasn’t a gift from my dad” reveal. Because the scarf is an AGGRESSIVELY saner example of Marinette keeping something hidden for the sake of Adrien’s feelings; it could possibly help him see her motivations in a different context and be more forgiving when he realizes the truth about his father

[familyagrestefanblog]

Why do I get the feeling that the conflict of "Werepapas" will be that both of Adrien's pair of grandparents will be fighting over their orphaned grandson (most likely for inheritance reasons, though, i dont have it in me to hope for more)

But that is literally such a heartbreaking thing to be faced with that Adrien won't react the way they want which they won't take well. The British grandparents might even want to take Adrien to the UK because he has the Graham de Vanily rings, so because Adrien wasn't told the truth about them, he decides to give the rings back so he doesn't have to leave Paris

Hence why Maribug will have to get the rings back while Adrien is most likely literally gonna be trapped as the price to be won

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Okay so what if, Gabriel put one last order in the Adrien's Amok.

Almost like a Failsafe.

But for it to activate, Adrien needs to be holding the Butterfly Miraculous.

The moment he is holding it, Adrien only has one directive. Get the ladybug and Cat miraculous by any means necessary. And use the wish to Restore his Family.

And there we see Adrien become the final villain of Miraculous Ladybug.

Where is becomes a Fight of getting Adrien back to how he was, but Adrien Cant stop himself because the order wont let him think any thoughts except for Getting to his amok. But if they destroy it he dies.

[uptoolateart]

Whose Wish Was It?

So, we know the new butterfly holder is Lila. We also know what she wanted at the end of S5 was revenge against Marinette and Gabriel. With Gabriel dead, she must be focused on Marinette now.

But if Lila found out Marinette is Ladybug, and took the miraculous...that's kind of enough. What would she wish for? She already has everything - apart from Adrien.

When Chrono Bug sees that light consuming Paris, she's told that because of one of her choices / actions, the biggest wish of all time is happening and effectively destroying the future of the universe. But we saw from Gabriel's wish that reality should just be remade.

Destruction is Cat's domain. And the first lucky charm Ladybug got in the London Special was a calendar showing a black kitten.

Put all together...I think the choice she had to change was lying to Adrien. Naturally, Ladybug assumed the villain also made the wish - because she doesn't suspect it's Lila. But I think what happened was:

Lila gleaned all the details, including Ladybug's identity, then told Adrien the truth at some point. In anger, he made the wish - or it was actually a mega cataclysm after Lila akumatised him as Cat Noir. But if it's a wish, he's the one who's likely to wish some kind of catastrophe in his distress.

The crucial point is that at the end of the special, Ladybug managed to hide her identity...but she didn't erase anything else in that notebook. Lila still has almost the full story of what went down in that basement - and the lair afterwards. She can still tell Adrien. The only vital information missing is Marinette's name.

I think the catastrophe was Adrien finding out at the wrong time, in the wrong way. But there's still scope for Cat to become Ladybug's temporary enemy, as the story evolves. We saw his anger at her when she first told him the lie in the white room. All the pieces are there. Marinette is just not seeing the bigger picture they comprise.

When she asked Plagg and Tikki if she made the right decision, this sort of stuff was probably rolling through their minds. They know how dangerous Adrien could be, if this goes wrong.

[starguardianniom]

Not gonna lie I'm still really pissed above and beyond about Gabriel's wish at the end of season 5.

Especially since he's being able to do it and instead wish for something else entirely anyway.

Like, for 5 seasons he wanted to bring back Emilie so Adrien could have his mother again.

He ends up instead going to join her in the afterlife and let Nathalie take care of Adrien instead.

He selfishly decided to not give Adrien back his mom but instead make him an orphan and have someone else do the job for him just so he could be with his love, so his feelings mattered more than Adrien's I guess. Given all the talk about Adrien needing his mother, oh well he can keep Nathalie instead. He could have legit healed Emilie and brought her back in Adrien's life and given what we see in Werepapas she seems to have been nice and just wanting her family together rather than obsessing over magical jewels and getting back her health, clearly the only adult in the house with reason.

Heck, Nathalie was dead in the end, he brought her back so he could simply go without remorse with Emilie.

I kind of hope that even if he's dead, he still went in hell separating him forever from Emilie.

Because honestly I doubt that Emilie would take him back in death after knowing what he did.

I feel she wouldn't be proud, as he wasted 99% of his screentime not caring about Adrien much when she wanted him to be there for him and he screwed it up, and if he did, he later took it back, and especially in season 5 where it was more emotional manipulation than love.

Hell I will say Gabriel ain't related to Adrien, he was made from his amok by Emilie and she had him for nine months in herself, Gabriel had no participation in it, unless you count that Emilie used her feelings of love toward Gabriel to create Adrien, but still, I consider him his step dad instead of his dad because one, honestly true that Adrien was made by magic and by Emilie alone with the Peacock miraculous so Gabriel did nothing except giving the peacock to her, whereas Felix was created by Colt, and Amelie also had him for nine months before giving birth to him, so Felix really does have a dad, Adrien doesn't much. Gabriel is married to his mother but he's more like his step dad.

And you know what, after seeing Werepapas, I feel we finally had the real reason for why Adrien was homeschooled, it was to keep Emilie company while Gabriel and Nathalie were trying to find the miraculouses.

That's honestly in equal parts sweet and sad. On one hand he got to be really close to her before her death years later, on the other hand it still made him really isolated from the world and he couldn't really be a normal kid while also being alone with his ill mother and being there the entire time she slowly was dying for his entire childhood and seeing her getting worse over the years, while his dad was too busy trying to save her than trying to spend what little time they had left, that's depressing as fuck.

And Gabriel in the end just ends up prioritizing his own feelings over Adrien's, he dies and let Emilie die and let Nathalie handle the rest without a thought about what she has to say about it, sure Emilie was fine with Nathalie being there for him when she would be gone and I find it sweet, but also, also, still Gabriel's decision just comes from selfishness.

Though I still find it weird, because given season 1 Nathalie seemed like one of the most cold person around, for someone who is supposed to have been motherly to Adrien since he was young, the fact that she decides to just steal Marinette's gift to give to Adrien on behalf of Gabriel when he's angry at her for not making him remember about it, making it also look like she forgot about it and didn't care, and apparently probably also didn't give Adrien a gift herself either, well, it looks weird. Or just the writers forgot that Nathalie was pretty much more an employee and assistant than family back in season 1. Also there's the line where Adrien said that he always gets pencils from his dad so the scarf was a nice surprise, suggesting Nathalie has been secretly giving him pencils in his father's name for years, yeah, weird.

I guess that after using the peacock she tried to make the best with what little time she had left and tried to do right by Adrien.

Probably why Gabriel revived her while he went in the afterlife with Emilie, because she was doing everything he should have toward Adrien, and he knew he couldn't do that, but appreciated that she did, and felt like she deserved another chance and that Adrien would be in good hands with her. That's about the only reason I could see why he changed his wish at the end, because he knew Nathalie redeemed herself while she still had time while he was too far gone, so he decided that he didn't deserves to be with Adrien while she did and thus saved her. Possibly. It's the only selfless explanation that I could give to him for doing that, though I also feels it's still too little too late from him and makes him come across as a selfish, cowardly bastard that just runs away from his responsabilities to happily join his wife in death and let someone else clean up his messes.

[pisoprano]

I found it a bit odd that in the promo pictures for the Miraculous Paris special, Shadybug and Emonette both appear in one:

But Claw Noir only appears in his super form:

Now, this may just be a sign that Evil!Adrien isn’t going to get as much screen time as Evil!Marinette is, or be a side effect of how this show’s marketing tends to skew towards featuring the girls (and Marinette specifically).

But if we want to put on the tinfoil hat? There’s the conspiracy explanation for why we’re not being given info about Claw Noir’s civilian form in the promotional imagery:

That’s not Adrien. That’s Felix.

Felix is Chat Noir in the PV universe, so it’s not out of the question that he could be the black cat wielder in another universe. An AU where Chat is evil is exactly the sort of place you can make Chat!Felix canon.

And if you look at his transformation as Argos, what do we see?

Oh hey, it’s green hair and pink eyes, same as Claw Noir!

Coincidence??????????????

(yeah, probably)

[purrincess-chat]

Saw an interesting theory on tiktok about Lila this season and why she's always writing in notebooks. Someone suggested that she akumatizes herself to change her appearance so no one ever recognizes her, and she can watch Marinette undetected. She writes down everything that happens so when she unakumatizes herself and forgets, she can just read her notes. But this is why we don't see her face because it's always changing. 🤔

[ladyofthenoodle]

i don’t know what is happening to lila in her final scene, but i do know one thing: if lila’s as smart as the writers want us to believe she is, she won’t be going to school to turn everyone against marinette. no, her new identity will be angling for the role of marinette’s best friend.

after all, being marinette’s rival turned out pretty well for marinette, didn’t it? but being chloe’s best friend didn’t turn out so well for chloe.

if she’s smart, she’ll veer away from the outlandish lies about jagged stone and prince ali. if she wants to play marinette like a fiddle, she’ll tell stories about the bullies at her old school and standing up to them. she won’t give adrien a second glance. maybe she’ll even make comments about gabriel agreste and wonder if he was really as great as they say. maybe she’ll ingratiate herself as the perfect confidant for a stressed marinette who’s tired of keeping secrets. even better if she can position herself in opposition to what alya is saying, especially if alya is saying a hard truth marinette doesn’t want to hear.

if she’s smart, marinette won’t even realize she’s the enemy.

[mamayura]

You know what I would respect as Cerise's motivation to get the Miraculous of Ladybug and Chat Noir?

If this girl is actually out here just fucking HATING herself. She can pretend to be whoever's she wants and try her best to make herself believe that she's the greatest ever, but deep down she feels like she could never actually LIKE herself if she can't wish for being someone else entirely.

I would respect it if that were the reason why Cerise currently may be out here playing more of a massive in scale long-game to change the world to her liking instead of actually trying to get the Miraculous, but in the end, she'd still need the wish for the last step of her plan.

First, change the world to whatever she wants as preparation and pay back and then use the wish to do the one thing she thinks she could never manage otherwise: changing herself so she doesn't hate herself anymore. Cause she most likely wouldn't even know how else to go about that. What self-loathing person does?

Knowing this show's writing, I wouldn't be surprised if her wish in the London special was something like "being someone Adrien can, will, and HAS fallen in love with for real" and that obviously would have ended the current timeline to create a new one instead (since, you know, Thomas Astruc is constantly bragging about how consistent the character's characterizations are, so I guess Cerise's crush on Adrien will stay too)

Right now I'm just really into the idea that Cerise's wish is actually incredibly tragic and that she's so awful because she has basically entirely given up on herself and is putting all her cards on the world and life she will have once she's done with all this.

[wield-the-mighty-pen]

Umm so I had a thought...

You know how Marinette and Gabriel are supposed to be foils, and there are clear mirrors in both their personalities and their ambitions. Except- you know, Gabriel is evil and power hungry and selfish, whereas Marinette is motivated by justice and is incredibly self-sacrificing.

What if Miraculous continues to draw this parallel between protagonist and antagonist, except this time not with Marinette... this time with Adrien?!

At first glance, there might be very little tying Lila (cerise?... for the sake of this post she is Lila) and Adrien together. But delving further there are actually quite a lot of parallels.

Adrien and Lila are both social chameleons who had been showcased by Gabriel to function as a figurehead for his company. They are both desperate to make friends and social connections at school (albeit for different reasons), have a preoccupation with Maribug, and both come from very mysterious/shady backgrounds. The main difference, again, between these characters is that Adrien acts with empathy and altruism, and Lila acts with maleficence and self-interest.

The Adrien and Lila parallel has actually been referenced a few times in the show, but what I find most interesting is the scene at the end of the episode "Ladybug" where Adrien makes his first threat to Lila.

This episode follows a pattern of nearly every Lila episode, where Lila does something and Marinette is powerless to act. And while it is shown in season 5 that Marinette does in fact manage to take Lila down, we as the audience are well aware that she is far from gone and will be coming back with new vengeance.

The thing is, prior to that season 5 episode, Adrien's threat is the first thing to actually work. Adrien understands Lila, by nature of his life I am sure, he is surrounded by Lila's all day. While we know that Adrien chooses to see the best in people and may take time to identify threats to himself and those he loves, once he does, he is well adept at handling manipulators. After all, he'd hardly be able to survive in his own home if he couldn't.

In seasons 1-5 it became clear that Ladybug, moreso that Chat Noir, was able to defeat Hawkmoth, because she understood the way he thought and was able to plan accordingly. Already in the London special, Ladybug was having trouble facing the new Hawkmoth. Notably, Chat Noir was not there.

I just wonder what the potential dynamic will be between Chat Noir and the New Hawkmoth and if in fact, they will be positioned as foils...

[fortuna-et-cataclysmos]

In defense of s5 finale

I hear and see a lot of people expressing dislike of the season finale, some also in the tags and comments of my analysis/speculation posts. So I wanted to further expand on this.

Gabriel's victory -being remembered a hero despite everything wrong he did, especially abuse to Adrien- has left a sour taste in many people's mouth; many blaming the scenarists and not shying away from calling it "bad writing."

But I think that that was exactly what the scenarists wanted to do? The perfect world Gabriel leaves behind is unsettling, unfair, and I think that the creators have done their best to show that implicitly but clearly. I think that we are supposed to be irked by the finale.

Why do I think that? Because there were a lot of small things that gave the message that, as @emsylcatac iconically put it, "this is the bad place." I touched upon some of those in my previous post on how this was a victory for Gabriel and Lila, and a defeat for Ladybug. I'll try to list them more clearly here.

Gabriel a hero

This is the one thing everyone has the most problem with. At the end, Gabriel was declared the hero who gave his life to defeat the Monarch, who was none other than himself. Some artistic choices here are so over the top that I believe they were specifically made to irk us.

If the silver statue itself wasn't enough, the exact quote of Caline Bustier is:

All the rings that have been highjacked by the Monarch have been recycled into a statue in honour of the great Gabriel Agreste.

Then Tsurugi Tomoe goes on to say:

Beyond the visionary entrepreneur and genius creator that he was, we are celebrating a hero today.

See, everything bad about Gabriel has been flipped. If you count literally exploiting people visionary entrepreneurship, sure, he was that. And genius? He couldn't get the miraculouses of two teenagers for an entire year despite having all the resources, and he ended up succeeding only with the help of another extremely powerful person (Tsurugi Tomoe) and even then he ended up dying himself.

As of creator, he was literally a destructor. He destroyed Paris more times than anyone can count, and everything was fixed every time only thanks to Ladybug. Let's not also forget how he destroyed the Miraculouses to exploit their power.

Adrien's comment about his father

This is another thing many people have had problem with. It is so outrageous that I won't believe the creators would expect us to take at face value.

At the end, Adrien acknowledges that his father died to take down the Monarch, and says:

I don't know if one day I'll manage to become like him.

Lo and behold, the man who had emotionally neglected and abused his son to no end has turned into the said son's hero and role model. Adrien not only looks up to him, but also wants to make an active effort to become like him. Hell, he even doubts if he can be as good as him.

No way this line can taken at face value. There are many children's shows with abusive parental figures nowadays (like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the Owl House) that have all handled the conclusion to that abuse generally well. The watchers' expectations are high in this respect; the scenarists would know that such conclusion, if not ironic, would not satiate the expectations of the spectators.

Lack of accountability: Gabriel and Tomoe

As many many people have pointed out, the general lack of accountability in this season finale is infuriating. So Gabriel mentally tortured THE ENTIRE WORLD POPULATION and not only never faced consequences in life, but also is remembered as a hero in death?

What about Tomoe?

Not only she has not faced any repercussion for being basically a supervillain, but also she is still a respected public figure who can go and make a speech backed by the mayor, in front of the freaking French flag. If that doesn't irk you, I don't know what will.

Worse is that, she goes as far as saying in her speech that:

I'll make sure to continue his legacy.

So she'll continue to be evil. Great hint that she'll continue being an antagonist in season 6.

As you can see, the new world that has been created is extremely unfair and problematic. No way this can be "the good place," an actual "happy ending."

Everything is fixed! No problems anymore!

Also, you'd realise that the world is perfect, a little too perfect. It is like a green utopian dream.

Caline Bustier has been the mayor "only for a few weeks" (direct quote from the episode), and she has already fixed all the problems possible in Paris. Not only that, she has also solved inequality and class struggle (again, mentioned by herself). Let's make Caline the President of the World already.

Funny that LITERALLY ALL THE PROBLEMS of a city could be solved, while the exact same episode showed Majestia, the freaking Supergirl of the ML universe, acknowledged in her nightmare that:

Even with all my superpowers, I'll never manage to solve all the problems of the world.

Well, Bustier says that she has no superpower, that people working together can accomplish that. Kudos to her and her democratic spirit. But like, perfect city in a few weeks? Even Mayor Bourgeois who wanted to send all the trash of Paris to space would realise that that's impossible.

There is no perfect solution, yet the world is perfect

Ladybug acknowledges that there is no perfect solution to Gabriel's situation. Trying to bring back his wife, he has caused irreparable damage to himself and to Nathalie, effectively leaving Adrien an orphan. He still hopes that Ladybug can fix it all. But she can't because of the nature of the wish: for one thing gained, another thing should be lost. In Ladybug's words:

There is no perfect wish. Every time a power is used for personal gain, it causes catastrophes. (...) We'll find a solution, but it will never be as perfect as one would wish.

Interesting, given that the world ends up being completely perfect?

All the problems are solved, literally everyone is happy, Marinette and Adrien are finally together. But the wish was made for personal gain, no? So where are the consequences? Where is equivalent exchange? The catastrophe, the price of the perfect, green, just world? I think we'll see that in season 6.

The dream world

The new world is seriously giving me weird vibes. Like it is a movie set. For those who have watched The Good Place, you'd know how in the town everything feels a bit too bright, artificial, perfect. I get the same vibes from the post-wish world.

The Agreste mansion is covered by green vines?? Way to hide the atrocities that were planned and happened here.

Here is a screengrab I found on the internet from The Good Place (the ladybug is a funny coincidence lol)

I am getting the exact same vibes!

Also, I have expanded on that in my post on "running out of time" theme, but basically in the ML universe usually the "real" stuff are associated with the night and the rain while things that happen in the sun turn out to be fake or erased/forgotten. So the feeling that I get from this finale is that, this new "perfect" world is not genuine; that the seeming happiness it brings will be soon destroyed (I doubt erased), just as it happened in other fake reality episodes like Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, Oblivio, or Jubilation. As I argued before, this is not a permanent victory. Hell, it isn't even a real victory, not with the secret Marinette is left to keep from Adrien.

Not a real victory

Another thing that makes me think that this ending is not genuine is the lack of Chat Noir in the finale. Yes, I am a fervent Ladynoir stan who was hoping for some Ladynoir action (if not reveal) and was hugely disappointed by the lack of Chat's engagement in the final fight, but now that I think of it, this may have been on purpose.

Notice how in Conformation, Ladybug says:

Our only way to win against him is to fight him together.

And yet, soon thereafter, she is catapulted into a fight with the Monarch.

Notice also it wasn't her choice to unify the miraculouses and face the Monarch alone. She had to, because Chat Noir wasn't there.

Let's remember that this show spent the entire season 4 explaining how Ladybug assuming all the responsibility alone leads to disaster, how she needs Chat Noir to share the burden with him.

Let's also remember how in season 5, especially at the beginning of it, we see Ladybug change her behaviour towards Chat Noir: she gives him more responsibilities (the Bunny Miraculous, the identity of certain holders if I am not mistaken), and how at one point she confesses that Chat Noir has been very serious and responsible lately (and then promptly develops a crush on him).

So taking on the Monarch herself is really against everything they have built up in season 4 and the beginning of season 5. That's why I think that this "victory" is so wrong: it was "won" only by Ladybug. Maybe if Chat Noir were there, he would have prevented the Monarch from making the wish (hypothetically, then we would have an entirely different timeline). If his identity were revealed the way Marinette's was, Gabriel could have controlled him through his amok. In any case, their defeat or victory would have looked very different from this.

In the end, we must remember that this world is far from being a victory for Ladybug: she has, after all, LOST. She couldn't stop Gabriel from making the wish. And while this world looks perfect, and we got what seems like a forever happy after ending for Adrinette, their happiness is set in a non-genuine victory and world.

So I think we shouldn't be angry with the show-runners: there is a reason why this ending feels and is wrong. If it were all wonderful, it wouldn't be the season finale. It would be the finale, period. And I believe that everything that has been disturbing us in this season finale will be addressed, if not consist of the core conflict of season 6. Let's all take a deep breath and turn to fan fiction or fan art till we get the new season now :) (at least that's what I'll do lol)

[familyagrestefanblog]

But I am glad that they're seemingly not gonna ignore that, by all means, Nathalie has no natural right to have custody of Adrien.

She's not related to him, she didn't marry Gabriel, she hasn't adopted Adrien.

The people who Adrien's custody would go to are his grandparents or Amilie. I fully expect Amilie to move into the mansion, but Nathalie will step up as Adrien's mother figure.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

You know what would be REALLY interesting. Is if Adrien did know the truth about everything. He knows his dad was actually Monarch. Knows he’s a sentimonster, and knows that this is being kept hidden from him. The only thing he doesn’t know is that Marinette is Ladybug.

But the reason he doesn’t confront Ladybug or anyone about this is because… he realizes their intentions. He knows they are doing all this to protect him, to try and keep him from suffering. So he simply just locks it away. Pushes it down. Because it’s something he’s done out of habit. He did however make some countermeasures, like locking one of his rings away as a means of keeping the amok whole, but still maintaining control of himself. He is just not sure of what to do with this information, it why he didn’t have an external change yet. Because he himself is unsure of what to do.