#not that he’s an unrealistic character

[lurkingshan]

One of my biggest Only Friends grievances that I did not actually post about much is how sad I was that we didn’t get the cynical and jaded, done with your shit, baseball bat-wielding version of Sand. I was so excited for that guy but he evaporated off my screen in favor of a people pleasing simp who sees himself as an actual dog begging for scraps of affection. Truly a sad turn of events that I’m still low key mad about.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy Halloween! 🧼🥩🎃

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Keep hearing people say maribug keep asking adricat if he's ok and he keep saying he's ok instead of telling her his problem but I don't remember it happened more than once in s4 in Rockettear but even then the circumstances of that episode did warrant the "nothing" answer he gave her unless he want to tell her that "nino tell me you let nino and alya know each other identity" which will reveal adricat identity. So when else did she ask? about the thing in hack-san, I think another credit goes to alya since she's the one who bring the topic to maribug who seems to be blissfully unaware that her leaving without telling adeicat that she send subtitute would be a problem.

I didn't get into this side of things in my other post because it was long and I wanted to focus on why Chat Noir's behavior was so frustrating, but this ask brings up the other big reason why the season four conflict was such a frustrating and terribly written plot line. Specifically, the part of your ask where you point out that Maribug seems blissfully unaware that her actions are having a negative impact on Chat Noir until someone points it out to her.

Yes, she is presented as blissfully unaware of this and every other interpersonal conflict we're given in season four. Your ask treats this as a failing on Maribug's part as if she should have obviously realized that she was in the wrong, but that's the whole problem. Telling kids - telling anyone really - that they should just magically know what others need is a frankly terrible life lesson as that's just not how the world works. You cannot just assume that everyone will have the same view of the world as you do and instantly pick up on the same issues as you do. That is the path to easily avoidable frustration and conflict. It also teaches people to assume that their view of the world is inherently correct when that is rarely the case. We often don't know the whole story and the other person's point of view may end up being equally or even more valid. This issue is extremely present in season four as Marinette has legitimate reasons to behave the way she does, which I'll get into in a bit.

If Marinette were written as feeling guilty about how she was treating Chat Noir, then this would be a different story. She'd be way more in the wrong and would shoulder a much greater portion of the blame. But as is? She has no idea that she's doing anything wrong. And until someone takes the time to tell her that her actions are causing harm, she is going to continue causing harm because she has no idea that she's causing harm.

In fact, I'd argue that the Alya thing in Hack San is a point in Maribug's favor. Throughout the episode, we see Marinette sending Alya messages on ways to be a good partner to Chat Noir, proving that she does in fact care about him. And then, as soon as Alya says, "You need to talk to Chat Noir," what does Maribug do?

She goes and talks to Chat Noir, giving him a pretty good apology for the problem she now knows she caused. Because, shockingly, Maribug doesn't actually want to hurt her partner. She also clearly cares about his feelings, making me want to take the season four conflict and tear it into itty bitty pieces because what is the conflict even supposed to be when you write shit like this?

I want to briefly step away from Miraculous and talk about this issue in a broader context via this YouTube short:

This short is from a Vietnamese woman who moved to Germany. Her YouTube channel is about her experiences there, including things like the short above which goes into the differences between what it means to be a dinner guest in Vietnam and what it means to be a dinner guest in Germany. In Vietnam, it's apparently standard for the guests to cook dinner with you where as, in Germany, you're expected to have the meal ready when the guests arrive, making this a situation where it's super easy to come across as rude just by doing what you think is normal.

Society is relatively aware that these types of culture clashes are a thing, but you don't have to be from different cultures to have these types of situations. Every person has their own unique needs and ideas of what "normal" is. The culture they were raised in will affect this, but so will their family, their personal needs, and many other factors. Two people can be raised on the same street and wind up with wildly different world views even though they supposedly share a culture. This is extra true when you add in compounding factors like neurodiversity, which is why it's an exercise in futility to say, "But Maribug should have realized..."

Well, she clearly didn't. And you can't change that she didn't realize whatever you're mad about. All you can do is have someone tell her what she's doing wrong. If she then continues the behavior, go ahead and judge away. But if she immediately corrects it like she did in Hack San? Doesn't that just prove that she truly didn't know that Chat Noir was hurting and would have probably fixed all of his problems if someone just pointed them out to her?

This is only exacerbated by the fact that Marinette's behavior in season four is largely unchanged from her behavior in previous seasons. The only major change is that she revealed her identity to Alya, but as soon as that's pointed out as a problem, she course corrects with an apology. After that, she thinks that everything is okay because why wouldn't she? Chat Noir said it was fine and everything else has been business as usual.

Bringing temp heroes into help as needed? That's been going on since season two. Having these additional members has been vital in multiple battles and there have been plenty of times where Chat Noir took a background role to the temp hero of the day like in Sapotis, Rena Rouge's season two debut. So why would Maribug suddenly think that this dynamic is a problem when it's been working fine for so long? We even had a whole episode about how Chat Noir was still needed in spite of the new heroes back in season three! Or, at least, I think that was Desperada's message? This show is shockingly bad at giving clear lessons.

Keeping guardian knowledge from Chat Noir? That's also been going on since season two and was even treated as a conflict that supposedly got resolved in the episode Syren which was the episode that ended with Master Fu coming to the mansion to talk to Adrien after everything was over.

When I watched that episode, I assumed this meant that Chat Noir was going to be more involved in things like picking the temp heroes. I actually thought this was how we were going to get Queen Bee because I knew she was going to be a thing, but it made no sense for Marinette to pick Chloe for a miraculous. Of course, I was wrong. Nothing changed after Syren. Chat Noir remained nothing more than the comic relief while Ladybug got all the insider info.

To be clear, I think that was a terrible move writing wise, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what they went with. This is the established dynamic. I can't even say that Alya learning Marinette's secret led to something new. She's just taken Marinette's old role while Marinette has taken on Master Fu's old role. This show loves it's status quo and Chat Noir has been at least tolerant of that status quo since Syren, so it's not surprising that Maribug doesn't register that this is a thing that should change and no one bothers to point it out to her even though she has a mentor in Tikki (and Su Han, I guess?) and a confidant in Alya and a whole slew of Kwamis who could also provide insight if they were allowed to do that sort of thing. (Sass and Wayzz were robbed of mentor roles.) Additional blame goes to Plagg because he should absolutely have told Adrien to talk to Ladybug. What is the point of giving these characters mentors who never mentor? It's aggravating in the extreme.

To circle back to the first part of your ask, outside of Hack San and Rocketear, I don't think there are any times when Ladybug invites feedback from Chat Noir unless you want to give credit to the end of Kuro Neko:

Cat Noir: (lands next to her) I've been a really temperamental kitty, m'lady. I didn't realize how much trouble I'd make for you by giving back my Miraculous. Ladybug: (sits closer to him) Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir. No one could ever replace you.

Which isn't Maribug inviting him to tell her what's up, but she is clearly willing to listen to him and reassure him, further backing up my point about this conflict being some of the worst writing I've ever had to suffer through. If Maribug always fixes the issue as soon as she learns about it, you are not writing a situation where she's clearly in the wrong. You are writing an easily solved communication issue where she gets blamed for something she clearly doesn't realize she's doing wrong and it is so frustrating!!! I feel so bad for her. The next episode is Penalteam, btw, which starts the battle with this gem:

Ladybug: (laughs) Nice scare tactics, but it's not gonna work. Cat Noir and I are the best at soccer! Cat Noir: (Whispers to Ladybug) I don't know a thing about soccer M'lady. Maybe it's time to call the real team?

And basically just spends the whole episode making Chat Noir seems like a worthless partner while Maribug tries her best to make him - and everyone else - feel special.

Oh, and the episode before Kuro Neko? Well, it's technically Ephemeral, but that got magically overwritten so let's go one further back and we get to Dearest Family, which ends with this:

Cat Noir: (grabs a golden paper crown on the coffee table) Since I'm the king, (wears the crown on his head) would you be my queen, Ladybug? Ladybug: With pleasure, kitty cat! Tradition is tradition!

Oh yes, these two are in such conflict and Maribug does nothing to validate Chat Noir. He's in pain every episode and she's just totally oblivious to it.

If that was what they wrote, then I'd probably agree that we needed more instances of her asking if Chat Noir was okay. But it's not what they wrote. If you look through the list of season four episodes, you'll find that less than half of them deal with the supposed conflict of the season (by my count, only 8 of the 24 episodes before the final actually showcase the conflict and they are not in a logical order in terms of escalation as I tried to demonstrate above). The rest of the episodes flat out ignore it or even straight up work against the conflict like when Ladybug says this to Chat Noir in Guilttrip: "I probably don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't do this without you. And it'd be a lot less fun too."

Seriously, what even is this season? What is the conflict supposed to be? Because it sure as shit isn't Maribug undervaluing Chat Noir, if memory servers, season four sees her validate him more times than any other season. And it isn't her guiltily hiding things from him like so many fanfics claim because we have multiple points of evidence that prove that she's completely oblivious that there even is a conflict. So what conflict are the writers actually trying to write?

What's even more baffling is that none of this logically leads to the loss at the end of the season:

Maribug's new secrets didn't lead to her downfall. The only reason she lost was because of the secret that's always been there - a fact that's never revealed to her - and a freaking evil twin! So why did it matter that Maribug was keeping secrets? This is made even worse by season five maintaining all of the secrets, once again begging the question of what lesson were we trying to teach here???

Chat Noir wasn't needed for the final fight of the season, Maribug only needed the powers of a few of the temp heroes to win, a baffling ending to a season whose focus was Chat Noir feeling unimportant. You could scrap that conflict entirely and the ending would not change. In fact....

Adrien quitting to be nothing more than a good little boy who obeys his father would have actually saved the world from eventually being rewritten. If you think about it, the season four final actually punishes Adrien for being defiant. So does season five as, if Chat Noir had quit, his father would still be alive. I thought this show was supposed to be a romcom, not a tragedy. Why is Adrien being punished for being a hero? Is this supposed to be karma for lying to Ladybug with the whole Catwalker thing?

This shit is why I say I'm a writing salt, character sugar blog. I can't get mad at the characters when they're in such a nonsense story where things never logically tie together. They all deserve so much better.

None of this is meant to imply that ignorance is a blanket excuse for hurting others. Nor is it meant to imply that you have to forgive someone who hurt you just because they didn't mean to. There's a ton of nuance around these topics. But season four acknowledges none of that nuance while creating a situation that desperately needed nuance because there was no clear right and wrong here. Should Maribug work to be more aware of others feelings? Sure, but that journey can only start after she's made aware of her faults and no one ever points them out to her. Does Chat Noir need to work on clearly communicating his needs? Desperately, but no one is teaching him that lesson so he remains a terrible communicator who suffers in silence. What impressively bad writing.

[unusual-ly]

I am Thinking About The Implications regarding Ted’s love interests

With Jenny, they were best friends, there was genuine affection and mutual feelings for each other but neither of them acted on it because they both assumed they didn’t have a chance, and then it was too late

With Charlotte, Ted was in love with her but she didn’t reciprocate, he was just one of the men she was having an affair with behind her husband’s back. He never lets himself be too vulnerable and open with her about his feelings, resorting to either yelling at her or just deflecting whenever she starts to talk about Sam. He’ll just take whatever he can get with her

With Lucy, he can actually express his feelings and be affectionate, but only because he’s playing the role of Konk. He has something to hide behind instead of being truly vulnerable. Even when he’s only talking to Hidgens, at least later in the episode, he stays in character, he falls into Konk’s speech patterns because he’d rather be him, in part because Lucy likes Konk. He even asks that she let him die as Konk just so he can feel loved by her

And then, before he’s approached by Sheila, we learn he does actually want to someday start a family, get married and have kids

After the misunderstanding with Jenny, Ted no longer feels he can be open and vulnerable about his feelings, puts up this front of only being interested in sex when he really does want a relationship beyond that, and only feels safe expressing himself truthfully to others when he’s someone else

Ted please for the love of god learn how to express your feelings in a healthy way I am begging you

[yuridovewing]

genuinely embarrassing how blossomfall gets more fandom sympathy than breezepelt. “boohoo my sister is disabled and my mommy is emotionally abusing her paying more attention to her than me and i hate my stupid ass sister for getting herself disabled and wish she died. also im a grown ass woman.” vs “my dad hit and neglected me as a child and isolated me from my clanmates and it left me maladjusted and seeking validation from terrible sources and its implied hes like this because he’s drooling after the one that got away” like how is this not cut and dry. you cant even soak in the shitty “well breezepelt was a shitty kid” excuse because blossomfall was also shitty before and after the incident. tbh, id argue she’s shittier because breezepelt actually did change his behavior while blossomfall is just as bigoted as ever.

[mohntilyet]

i read the wigmaker job recently and there’s an idea that really stuck with me, which may well have been discussed before, but it’s really been itching at me. it came from this exchange near the end –

“i don't want to quit.” / illario sat back. the distance between them suddenly felt much wider than a table. / “even if it kills you,” illario whispered. / “death is my calling,” lucanis stated, matter-of-fact. “just as yours is to become first talon.”

(the bits before and after this give important context, too, but these specific lines are what gnaw at me)

i. really wonder if this conversation – and the long-standing beliefs held by both of them that it’s indicative of – contributed to giving lucanis to zara.

like, illario coming to terms with the fact that lucanis really just will. not. stop. for ANYTHING. his cousin WILL get himself killed doing this and lucanis won’t have any regrets. he’ll leave illario to go this alone. (no one to follow after anymore.) combined with the envy of knowing that lucanis is and always will be caterina’s favorite, and she will likely pick lucanis to be first talon even tho lucanis does not want this At All…

i wonder if he thought that, well, if lucanis is going to die anyway… maybe it’s better to have it happen sooner, rather than later. why put off the inevitable? especially if this is the one thing that could shift caterina’s gaze to illario and give him what he’s wanted – what he’s earned.

lucanis wouldn’t be happy as first talon anyway (honestly, illario seems to see that what lucanis is NOW isn’t so much ‘happy’ as it is ‘obedient and content to accept the scraps that gives him’), and he’s GOING to get himself killed doing this, anyway… and sure, they COULD wait it out. wait for lucanis to do something foolish enough that he can't just walk away from it. maybe he’ll even last long enough to be made first talon (if caterina can ever bear to loosen her grip from the title) and be miserable for a while. years even, maybe. before he, again, does something he can’t walk away from.

OR. or. or illario could cut through all the pointless waiting and get right to the point. go straight to where this was always going to end up.

(and maybe part of it is an extension of anticipated grief, too – the loss will be agony. if illario controls when and how it happens, he can control his grief. …except he hasn’t accepted the inevitability of lucanis’ death quite as well as he’d thought and when he gets sloshed at the wake, real grief seeps through the cracks)

i dunno. something about both of them viewing lucanis’ death as a foregone conclusion and how illario Might have had that shape his decisions.

YEAH . YEAHHHHH. i do also think the “to reason” exchange is what solidifies it in illario’s mind. lucanis is like 'this has been a productive if tense talk with my cousin. surely he sees sense now.' and illario is like ‘what the fuck. i think he wants to die’ <- okay im exaggerating a bit but i do absolutely see the end of wigmaker’s job as the start of lucanis-illario’s downward spiral. there’s a reason that it’s something lucanis is stuck on during inner demons, and the exchange that you have very nicely broken down is what he hears echoes of, this is where he knows it started to go wrong

probably the worst part is lucanis WOULD have worked himself to death and it takes the series of events in veilguard for lucanis to see other options for his life, and still he ends up being shoehorned into first talon by the end of the quest. i thought his quest would parallel iron bull’s, in that rook shows them that living outside and away from crow influence is possible, and that he is much more than the weapon they turned him into, but it ofc doesn’t go through like that. it’s genuinely a bit heartbreaking that lucanis finally has support and like. FRIENDS. but with the way the game ends he’s pulled back into the crows and to a life that will be about protecting a cousin that the organisation he runs hates, and for as long as caterina lives, unable to say no to her. and meanwhile after lucanis has made connections outside of the crows, illario has absolutely nothing left (prison of his own making i get it but i still want to get his ass out of there. 😭) so the codependency that they used to share is gone as well. maybe lucanis has a foot out the door but i genuinely have no idea how illario goes on after this

[bloomeng]

a lot of people are saying edward but i really hope it isn’t. i love edizzy of course but can we allow this man to have his own life outside of ed for one second. it’s what he deserves.

personally i like the idea of it being his mother.

[showsandstuff]

So I joined the Fairly oddparents hype train and can I just ask one thing... Am I the only one who hopes that Dale gets a redemption arc?? Idk how they'd write it realistically considering who and how Dale is, but I want him to care for his son, because that's what Dev deserves. May be too late though. I still believe they could pull it off tho.

If that doesn't happen (which I find likely) I hope they at least develop Devs relationship with Peri next season. Peri already cares for Dev and I fully buy the sunglasses-memory theory.

[fangirlforeversthings]

Husband, Babygirl Pookie, Spartan daddy

Brasidas of sparta ladies and gentlemen

[justanotherhh]

me: dammit stolas you can't just walk away from someone who's struggling to connect with you, even if they're doing so through the poorly processed means of yelling insults, you've gotta give them time to work through it and not need to control everything

also me: [is aware that i also need to engineer situations to go perfectly and if someone started yelling at me i too would immediately get triggered and leave the situation and cry and if i had portal-making powers would yeet them to another continent, never mind just outside the door]

[madeofjules]

Peeta, in the arena: *saves Katniss's life before she saves his*

THG fandom: "Katniss didn't need Peeta's help in the arena, she was always saving his ass and would've won without him!"

[ihaveanaversiontodecisions]

seeing the "Jon isn't a poc character because white people make up most of academia and also the voice actor is white and his name sounds white!" tma discourse on twt makes me want to claw my fucking eyes out.

"b-but i j-just imagine him as white🥺"

*extremely loud incorrect buzzer*

[gremlin-pattie]

House m.d. is better autistic representation than The Good Doctor could ever hope to be

[somewhereincairparavel]

Yk how wolves just nuzzle their cheeks with eachother to show affection? Now imagine Jason Grace going around doing that to the people he loves. Just gently rubbing his cheek with their faces 🥺 tell me he wouldn't do this. I dare you.

[gojooooo]

man i love open endings. the fact that thanks to yuuji there might indeed be the next time sukuna talks about in case some idiot decides to eat a finger again. and we need fics where yuuji is that idiot

[nickbutnodick]

i watched mufasa today and was writhing in agony the whole time. partially because it was ugly. partially because the plot sucked. and not as much because i had horrifying period cramps.