#nathalie ​talks

[bigfatbreak]

So! Which would Gabriel/Cockmoth prefer to deal with, between the two parents?

(My bet is 100% on Trauer Mantel)

they're sort of different problems tbh

[chocostrwberry]

Adrien dressed by Nathalie, Marinette, and himself!! ☕️🌞🧦

[purplecatghostposts]

Rewatching Risk and thinking about how genuinely freaked out Félix gets when he sees Emilie in the basement. That’s not just his aunt but someone who looks exactly like his mom. He bolts the second he sees her and it honestly looks like he’s going to make a run for it out of the house before Nathalie and Gabriel find him. You can see him floundering a bit to act like Adrien again before he regains his composure. I just. AAA. I love this episode. It’s the definition of ‘Fucked around and found out’. Félix was prepared for a lot but NOT finding the basement.

[coffeebanana]

having thoughts about the marinette and nathalie hug because like.

my god.

marinette's just had her world turned inside out

she's just a kid and how's she supposed to carry all this alone and what is she supposed to do and what does she tell adrien?

and then, suddenly, there's someone there to share the burden. an adult. someone who has a reputation for getting things done

so maybe, just this once, everything doesn't have to balance on marinette's shoulders alone

but it's nathalie--who, sure, adrien obviously cares about. but not someone marinette's at all close to. certainly not someone she probably thinks of as warm or parental or even very trustworthy. maybe marinette's even started to put the pieces together--if gabriel was monarch, then mayura must have been...??

those doubts seem insignificant when she actually sees nathalie

the last time marinette saw her, she was dying. and now marinette knows what gabriel wished for--at least some of it. she knows he did one good thing in the end. that he finally, to some degree, put adrien first

then another horrible truth dawns on marinette: nathalie doesn't know--of course she was aware gabriel was dying, but she still doesn't know he's dead

marinette's probably already thought up a hundred different ways she might break the news to adrien--even if she discarded them all just as quickly. she hasn't thought at all about breaking the news to nathalie

what's she supposed to say? however complicated things were in the end, gabriel was obviously someone nathalie cared about

marinette struggles to find the words, but nathalie just knows. she already suspected, because how would she be here if gabriel was as well? and now the truth's written all over marinette's face

it's not just marinette who needs that hug--though nathalie would probably never admit it, which is why it's marinette who's running to her

how many weeks has adrien been gushing to nathalie about marinette? about how she's so creative and strong and compassionate and full of love

and in that moment, nathalie understands

[themiraclefish]

Failed.

(GabeNath mini comic 5)

This is angsty

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.

.

Also Spoiler alert [season 5]

AU-Alternative Universe

Saw this reference on Pinterest and gave me an idea heh thanks😏

[buggachat]

wait. is nathalie adrien's godmother

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

So, controversial topic. taking in count that in a month, the webcomic "scarlet lady" is gonna end ¿what are your feelings about it?

I know that there's people out there that don't like it for the chloe salt, but i have to admit that the damnation that chloe went through, at least for me, gave her more agency than canon, for the fact that it wasn't manipulated by outside forces like canon did, it gave her the right to choose to be better or worse.

Another great element is that it does what canon refused to do: five back Adrian his agency by letting him vent his frustrations AND let him realize that his father is a bastard.

If you don't agree, that's more than excellent, i want to know your take in this topic, that being positive or negative 😄👍

My friend, you are talking to a big Scarlet Lady fan, so I'm happy to give my thoughts! Get ready for some gushing and in-depth discussion of the adaptation process. That's really what all fanfiction is, but Scarlet Lady is more of an adaptation than most since it's a true canon rewrite that often requires you to know canon to fully appreciate its jokes and meta commentary.

Before we get into it, I want to give a link to the comic for those who haven't read it. The artist/writer is @zoe-oneesama and this is page one of the comic. I'd follow the comic link if you haven't read it as the comic is nearing its end, so going straight to Zoe's page will spoil you on elements of ending.

General Thoughts on Adaptation

Adaptation is an art, not a science. There are things that are objective elements of a story. Things you really cannot change if you want people to feel like you're telling an adaptation of a given tale. But there are also plenty of elements that are more subjective. Things some people might consider vital, but that aren't truly necessary to stay true to the story's core. (Yes, the character core thing applies to stories too!)

For example, to be a Cinderella adaptation, you need to have some sort of big reveal moment where "the prince" finds Cinderella, but that moment doesn't need to involve a slipper and the prince doesn't need to be an actual prince. My favorite modern Cinderella adaptation is A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song and it twists both of those elements while keeping the major story beats in place, making it fully deserving of the Cinderella label while also being its own unique story that isn't a straight retelling, it's an adaptation.

I bring all this up because, as readers of this blog may have already guessed, Scarlet Lady does a lot of things that I personally would not do when adapting Miraculous. A big one being that I prefer a more complex take on Gabriel, but that's simply a matter of preference. A complex Gabriel is not a requirement for adapting Miraculous. Complex Gabriel vs comedic villain Gabriel is just a choice you have to make when it comes to adapting canon because canon is such a mess that both options have straight up backing in the source text. Even if they didn't, Gabriel's core role - villain - is one that leaves you a lot of room for interpretation based on other factors that we'll talk about in a second.

I'll close off this section with this: having read all of Scarlet Lady, I'll be so bold as to say that Zoe and I almost perfectly align when it comes to identifying the flaws in Miraculous because I've agreed with pretty much every change she's made. She did a fantastic job staying true to the core of canon while also telling the story she wanted to tell. It's not the way I'd redo canon, but it doesn't need to be for me to call it a fantastic story. Plus a lot of the different choices I'd make come down to narrative style and tone.

Narrative Style and Tone

I'm a novelist at heart, which means that I favor serialized storytelling. For those who don't know that word, it means stories that are one coherent whole just broken into chunks. Stories where the order matters. You can't start watching at a random episode, you have to start at the beginning. And skipping an episode usually means that you'll have no idea what's going on.

Miraculous is not a serialized show. It's primarily an episodic show, a word that means that episode order doesn't matter. Every installment stands alone.

Obviously Miraculous isn't completely episodic, but that's fine. Purely episodic narratives are rare these days. Most stories have at least minor serialized elements even if those elements are often ignored for multiple episodes at a time. This is where both Miraculous and Scarlet Lady fall. They're mostly episodic stories with serialized elements popping up every now and then.

Miraculous does this element poorly because it acts like it's a purely episodic show and then takes that to an absurd extreme. Rules, characters, and lore can never be counted on to stay the same from episode to episode even though that's not actually how episodic stories work. Scarlet Lady doesn't make this mistake. It understands that episodic narratives should have STORIES that stand alone, but that the WORLD the stories take place in must stay consistent.

Now that we've gone over the basic format stuff, let's talk about tone.

Generally speaking, tone is the vibe of your story. It can be serious, silly, dramatic, and so on. One of Miraculous' biggest flaws is that its tone is all over the place. It's a silly romcom that brings in serious topics in serious ways and then handles them with all the grace of a hippo performing ballet in a china shop because of course it does! Those topics are horribly suited to the show's overall tone so it has no way to properly address them.

This is one of the many things I love about Scarlet Lady. It takes the show's absurdist tone and honors it. That's why Zoe's version of Gabriel works so well! He's a silly cartoony villain in a silly cartoony comic as he should be. It's also why my versions of Gabriel tend to be more complex. More serious serialized narratives are where more serious complex villains thrive. Neither option is better than the other, it all comes down to how you're adapting the original work. Zoe's choices are perfect for her version's style and tone. If mine are even close to that good for my preferred style and tone, then I'll be a happy author.

Narrative Weight & The Chloe Thing

This is getting long, so I'll end with a note on Chloe since you brought her up as it's another great example of the fact that there are very few choices that are inherently right or wrong when it comes to adaptation.

I don't know if I'd say that I'm a Chloe fan, but I certainly don't hate her. I also love what Zoe did with the character! It's a prime example of a thing that I've talked about before: the issue with Chloe is not a lack of redemption. The issue is that Chloe was given too much narrative weight to be what canon made her.

Quick definition: narrative weight is the importance a narrative places on a person, event, thing, etc. The more time you dedicate to an element of your narrative, the more weight that element has in the eyes of your audience. The more they expect the element to matter. The way that you develop the element will also shape audience expectations.

In the context of canon, Chloe has more development than almost any other side character. We know more about her family, her childhood, her personality, and so on. This was an absurd choice for canon to make because Chloe is not actually important to the story they told. You could pull her out of canon and almost nothing would change. Gabriel can make akumas do whatever he wants so, lore wise, he didn't need Miracle Queen. In fact, he arguably shouldn't have made Miracle Queen. He could have just taken the miracle box and jumped right into the plot of season five. Similarly, Chloe being mayor was an absurd one-note moment that's easily replaced with something more logical.

Because of this, there are a lot of things you can do when adapting Chloe. Everything from turning her back into a one-dimensional mean girl to redeeming her to what Zoe did: take Chloe's narrative weight and petty brat behavior and lean into both to make Chloe a main antagonist while also acknowledging the fact that Chloe is a messed up teenage girl who needs some serious help. I'm super excited to see the end of Chloe's arc in Scarlet Lady as I think it's going to be one of my favorites in the fandom. That is admittedly not a high bar as I'm very picky when it comes to Chloe content. I think most of it falls flat because most of it fails to let Chloe hit some sort of rock bottom when she absolutely needs to if you want to do anything interesting with her. She's not the kind of person who will easily change or see the error of her ways.

Conclusion

Scarlet Lady is a fantastic adaption of Miraculous and Zoe is a fantastic and funny adapter. The comic might not be to your tastes - and that's fine, nothing has universal appeal - but it's still a great example of how to honor source material while doing your own thing with it, which is a true skill. One of the problems with many modern retellings and reboots is that the people running the show don't understand how to adapt a narrative. They take far too much creative freedom and end up with something that doesn't feel anything like the source.

If I found out that Zoe somehow got hired to adapt something I love, then I wouldn't have any concerns. I'd have no idea what she'd do with it, but I'd be confident that it wouldn't spit in the face of the thing I love. I'd personally read a hundred Miraculous re-imaginings with her at the helm.

[drtwit]

I know I may be a bit annoying but I've got another idea... no need to answer it.

I've always thought that being Hawk Moth may not be as easy as Gabriel makes it seem, all because his akumas... are literal drama detectors, if I was Hawkmoth, I would literally akymatize no one... because the drama would be so good I would get distracted.

... What if this happens to Gabe too? Like, he wants to akumatize someone so bad... but the tea is just TOO GOOD!

Bonus if he tells Nath and Adrien all about it

Adrien: "Dad, are you gossiping with the akumas again?"

Gabriel: "It's not gossip, it's reconnaissance. I don't just pick out a random person to akumatize, you know, there's days of prep work that goes into this!" *Akuma noises.*

Gabriel: "What's that? Oh, he did not! Really? I think he's just jealous of you."

*Akuma noises* Gabriel: "No, once again Melissa, I can't akumatize you over an internet argument."

Nathalie: “Is something wrong, sir? You’re not sending the akuma?”

Gabriel: “Wait, Nathalie. It’s just—did you hear that? She just told her best friend that she never liked her outfit. Can you believe it? After all those compliments!”

*Akuma noises*

Gabriel: "I mean, yeah, I have plenty of tea in the cupboard, but why do you need so much?"

Adrien: "Should we be worried?"

Nathalie: "We probably should have started worrying when your father put on a butterfly costume and called himself Hawkmoth."

Adrien: "Good point."

Gabriel: "They’re meeting at the park in ten minutes! She’s going to confront her! Go my akuma, don't miss the fight!”

Gabriel just likes feeling included, alright?!

[thetardisisnotourdivision]

I am unreasonably upset about the fact that I've been forced to accept that Gabriel was a Gerald.

For context, in An Inspector Calls, Gerald Croft is engaged to Sheila Birling when he meets a homeless, struggling Eva Smith in a bar, and essentially in return for a home and money he shows her affection (ahem), then gets rid of her once he no longer has a use for her. Now, obviously this isn't a direct translation, but the essentials are - a Gerald is a character who uses another character, in return for something they need, usually masking the fact that they're using them with affection and love.

And against my will I've had to accept that this is exactly what Gabriel does to Nathalie.

Did I want to think he had potential to be better? Did I think he genuinely cared for Nathalie?? Hell, did I just really really want somebody to care about Nathalie???

Probably all of the above but the point is: he's Gerald. And I cannot - I literally can't unsee it now. Their whole dynamic in S3 is like “oh boohoo I'm sorry I wish you didn't have to use the peacock Miraculous and kill yourself over it but uh I need to use your powers” “yeah no that's fine I'm all good”. Which, given the "Gerald" theorem, I'm assuming leads to the fact that what Nathalie needed, above all, was someone to care about her - and Gabriel came along, as Sheila Birling puts it, "like a fairytale prince", and was so caring and gentle and... Yeah. She fell for him. And. Yeah he genuinely did seem to care like twice. But so did Gerald. Gerald actually admits that he did care for Eva, just not the way that she cared for him, and, uh, not enough to not just dispose of her. So he discards her anyway when she stops being useful.

Leading me neatly to my point.

He starts using the peacock Miraculous the second it's fixed, the slimy bastard, HOWEVER. It runs way deeper than that. Assuming I'm right (which I almost DEFINITELY am), then Gabriel only needed Nathalie while she was useful. She didn't stop being useful in season three - she's still scheming for him, helping him with plan after plan. It's only partway through season 5 that she officially servers ties with him, and starts to actively hinder him.

Nathalie stops being useful when she fails as Safari. And I reckon that's when Gabriel and Tomoe decided she had to go.

(It's painfully, I-was-ugly-crying-over-it obvious in Conformation that Gabriel is fully prepared to let Nathalie die - in the original storyboard, her alliance was encouraging her to sleep, and he's very obviously prepared for this moment - I've made a separate post about it that I'll link if I can find it. However, onto the next bit)

With all of this, there's one thing that sticks out to me - Nathalie didn't see any of it until it was already too late. There could be many reasons for this. But you know who would have seen through it? Whose parents were all loving and perfect until she married the wrong man? Emilie. Emilie, who left behind those videos, which on the surface look innocent, but when you look deeper look like a (love confession???????) AHEM a warning. I reckon Emilie noticed what was going on and realised that Nathalie wouldn't see through Gabriel, so she left those videos addressed to Nathalie (not Gabriel, which surely they should have been - they were about him, after all - unless they were there...) as a warning. I don't think the videos were supposed to be about helping Gabriel, I think Emilie was warning Nathalie to get the fuck out of that house, and to take Adrien with her. Because Emilie knew it'd end like this.

Yes I'm still mad ok give me a break.

[a-flaming-idiot]

Hawkmoth: *Sneaks in through the window* Mayura: *Flips light on to reveal her sitting in a chair while stroking Chat Noir in her lap* Mayura: "And where have you been all night, sir?" Hawkmoth: "I- I- *clear throat* If you must know, I was out battling that wretched little Ladybug and her friends into the early hours of the morning." *Spinny chair turns to reveal Ladybug laying across Rena Rouge's lap* Ladybug: "You wanna try again, Hawky?"

[zaaaras]

what scares me the most about nathalie getting more and more sick is that if she ends up like emilie… gabriel won’t care about her enough to save her alongside emilie. and her sacrifices will be for nothing

[clock-06]

Started a thing called Miraculous Mondays w a friend who is willing to get into the show and has been enjoying it so far!! Yippee!

This led me to finally watching the movie from last year that’s in the S6 animation style

AND COULD SOMEONE PLEASE CONFIRM TO ME THAT IT IS OR ISNT GETTING A SEQUEL

Because WHY would you set up a Mayura Nathalie movie if you’re not going to give it to us 😞😡

[knockknockitsnickels]

[dyrewrites]

Before Deluca -- the littlest vampire

A mist swelling as we found more glowing cats on the sparse trees of what might have been a park. With another step into all that white, it revealed how thoroughly it wasn’t. It was a cemetery.

Nonexistent before that step, glances behind suggested it all there ever was.

“Closer, treasure,” Lucient warned, holding tighter, “I’ve seen only Jacques manage mists so thick...and none this trick.”

My chuckle was not appreciated and he slapped my arm for it.

Lifting him over a tangle of root and mud, I earned a taste of lips and, as he retook my arm, I asked, “Could the one we seek be one of his, my love, or his maker even?”

Glowing softly, in splotches through the impossible white—made evermore for the darker night enveloping the cemetery—brighter cats led us. Snaking through monuments and headstones, nothing else pierced to tell of distance or location within the city we’d surely lost.

Cool as the mists were, wisping sweetly along my face and hands, I didn’t mind them so much as Lucient. Who held tighter for my heat.

“Doubtful,” he sighed, “similar ability means nothing between maker and made. If it did you’d be hiding under a parasol with me on our outings.” Giggling, softly, for the kiss I stole, he continued, “it is what we make it, so they say.”

“What of Mariette and all her wolves?”

“She likes wolves, she makes wolves.”

“There’s little sense in your words, my love,” a fissure—which made less sense—forced a stutter in our pace, before Lucient scooped me up and leapt over it. My grin for the display did not amuse, earning me rolled eyes and too sweet a kiss before he set me down.

“Little sense to be had, treasure,” he tried to explain, while pointing to a set of cats further ahead—a hope of an end, “We’re not an easily studied thing. Even what books there are offer vague guesses. In the mist’s case, however, she may simply be very old. Greater abilities come with age.”

“Seemed more mad than old.”

“That, too, comes with age…” Reflective, his voice.

And I sought to tease it, “is my love worried of going mad?”

“Mm,” a kiss, but not an answer.

The set of cats marked the entrance to a mausoleum, one too small—I thought—to be worth all the trouble of mists and markers.

A new one waited on the door, a riddle.

“Não é uma fruta, mas, ah, tão doce; compartilhada entre amantes quando se encontram.”

Tilting my head for it, as Lucient groaned, I realized I didn’t know the language. We’d encountered so many in our travels, yet not many written, “Any ideas, my love?”

“‘Not a fruit, but oh so sweet; shared between lovers when they meet’,” he recited with all the enthusiasm of a bored child. “It’s Portuguese. A children’s riddle, treasure,” stepping forward, searching for eyes he assumed watching, he spoke just below a shout, “Are we to perform the answer or speak it?”

Assuming perform, I grabbed him, turned him to face me and sought his sweet tongue with my own. Delicious his surprise, more his hands—one snapping to my waist, the other digging fingers in my hair—and none of the mist mattered in that hold. Nor the giggling through it, heard and assumed our host, it didn’t matter.

“A kiss, yes, with such passion...such desire,” the giggle spoke.

Mattering enough to part us, to spin Lucient on a nearby headstone, where the giggle sat, “and your point in this?”

Ignoring his question, she spoke to the thick mist and bare branches above us, “When I were a ‘he’, a pretty lady found me dancing in a stolen dress. Such passion she showered me in, such sweet promises to make my desires real.”

Slipping from the headstone, she danced around us—so slight she was, near a child in height and I worried, briefly, for something I’d not previously.

Lucient dashed them, the change doesn’t work on children, treasure...they desire too much, in fleeting bursts. She is small, not young.

“Promises, promises,” the giggling vampire sang, stopping to stare up into my grin and Lucient’s scowl, “Took the sun from me instead, and my family, my village...my life.” Spinning, arms out and ragged black dress fluttering, she sighed, “But I wasn’t what she wanted when changed. So she took herself too.” Dancing from headstone to headstone, she kept close enough not to lose in the mists, “Leaving me to the dead things, with their dead blood singing too sweet. Where I learned the animals and the mists, and other shapes.” Turning to us, grin wide and sharp—teeth not as ours but more a shark’s—she giggled higher, “This shape, which is my favorite. I am anything now. Everything. Even in the light, sometimes, if careful.” Vanishing in mist too like what surrounded, she reappeared in front of me, arms out, hands almost touching, “Not like this one, so lucky this one.”

Smiling, for her enthusiasm, her display, her story perhaps, I played into it, “this one knows and is sorry it is so rare.”

Scoffing, Lucient kept quiet, and close while our host’s misty eyes grew too wide.

“No, no. Not rare, some will say it is, but it isn’t,” throwing her arms up and spinning again, she swooned, “We’re everywhere.” Narrowing her eyes, and tightening her lips, she drew a chuckle from me as she spoke quieter, “Can’t tell for many, but we’re everywhere. Alone,” curling into herself, elegant and smooth as all her movements, she dropped her voice lower, “even together so many are alone.” Bursting from the cocoon she’d made of herself, she gestured wide at both of us, voice bright, “But not you! No, not you. So I had to meet you. Close and real.”

“Oh, la pièce est terminée?” Lucient taunted, “I half expected a musical number.”

“My love,” I tried, adding a nudge, “we meet so few of our own not out to kill or keep us...and it was a fine little show.”

Rolling his eyes, he sighed and waved a hand, “I suppose it wasn’t too terrible.”

The other smiled, watching us too intently, “Nathaly,” she blurted, pointing at herself, then at us, “and you?”

Hesitant for names shared, Lucient intended to lie, so I answered before he could, “Ludovico, and he is Lucient.”

Chill those eyes, and I adored them—refused to look at them, but adored them.

While ‘Nathaly’ giggled, rushing around us in a flurry of tiny bats before reforming as the small woman again behind us, “Come, come, my home is yours.”

Stone shook, spitting bits of root and dust with a touch of her pale brown fingers, splitting the mausoleum doors wide.

To say the smell wafting from inside was unexpected would be an understatement. I had decay in mind, filth and rot and damp. What flowed were sweet flowers, heady in their perfume. Lucient’s raised brows showed he felt similarly for them, but he pressed closer anyway, as did I, and with wary steps we followed the little vampire.

→Before Deluca Taglist<-

// feel free to ask to be added or removed ^.- //

@watermeezer @starbuds-and-rosedust @thespacelizard

@your-absent-father @mr-orion @cowboybrunch @olliexwrites

@rowanmgrey-author @the-golden-comet @wyked-ao3 @leahnardo-da-veggie

@lychhiker-writes

[tosteur-gluteal]

I dreamt that I was at a dinner with Hawkmoth and Natalie, and I was Sunny from my MLB au. They were talking about their evil plans and routines and then I said "Well in my universe I turn into Ladybug to fight against Papillon, a different one."

Then they proceeded to explode in laughter to my face like "sure kiddo"

FUCKING EXCUSE ME. YOU'RE THE ONE GETTING FOOLED BY LITERAL TEENAGERS OVER AND OVER AGAIN YOU-

[tengo-sentimientos-saben]

Surprising the change of looks.