#sentinonsense

[ilikekidsshows]

I just noticed that some (most?) senti defender mostly think people who hate the senti BS hate the plot because Adrien isn't ...human? Because I saw them comparing Adrien with Nobody, Grimwalker (I think, from Owl House?) and I saw them even quoting Mew Two about the circumstances of one birth doesn't matter and it just so wild for me because they seems to be missing the most important point about a sentimonster which is the fucking remote control!

ADrien being a magical being is the least of the problem here, the one hit kill isn't even close to being as being problematic as the fact that SENTIMONSTER IS A BEING WITH REMOTE CONTROL AND ANYONE WHO HAVE IT CAN FREELY CONTROL THEM AS THEY WISH! Them renamed it to Sentihuman doesn't even erase the fact that they still aren't human and still a magical being with a fucking remote control!!

"But it's good for angst for bodily autonomy!" I saw some people said it. And here I thought angst supposed to have a happy ending to balance it, but what kind of happy ending that a sentimonster can have, who's life is so ephemeral? Who's agency can be overwritten by anyone anytime? Unless Adrien can be like a Pinokio then sure... But at this point I don't think Adrien as sentimonster even matter in Marinette's eyes, until she feels the need to control him for whatever bulshit excuses and justification that she can muster that is. Ephemeral exist as a case of point after all.

---

The argument that people against the “Sentipeople” concept just don’t like nonhuman characters has been around since the start. It’s a purposeful way of misreading the very first argument for why it was a bad idea: “it would dehumanize Adrien.” The people in support of such a storyline decided that “dehumanize” means literally making him not human, and that was inherently bad, when, all along, “dehumanize” means “deprive of human qualities, personality and dignity” (Merriam-Webster). It’s not the act of making a fictional character not human, it’s the act of depicting a human being as someone undeserving of similar dignity and consideration as what are considered as normal people. Dehumanization can be, for example, ignoring the struggles and traumas of real people, in favor of focusing on a more favored group of people. Miraculous, by turning Adrien into a Sentimonster, turns the focus from his reactions to how he’s being victimized by his parents to why his parents decided to have a Sentimonster kid. And we find out they were unable to have a child, so tragic :’(

This approach to “Sentipeople” was foreseen, by several people, but the fandom supportive of the idea ignored all these explanations and just focused on the word “dehumanize”, because it was the easiest to misinterpret to serve their narrative, which was that the people opposed to the concept are the ones not treating Adrien as human, because they’re the ones saying turning an abuse victim into a literal monster makes him less sympathetic! The writers never said that so there’s no way that could be a real thing that could happen! The idea of “SentiAdrien has very ableist, abuse-enabling connotations” being a statement of fact is inconceivable.

Never mind how the canon has made it blatantly clear that the “Sentipeople” concept will never, ever be tackled from the perspective of our most prominent example of one. The arc with Adrien’s supervillain dad finally gets wrapped up and he doesn’t just sit it out, he’s left oblivious of anything that happened. It’s obvious Adrien being a Sentimonster isn’t actually relevant to Adrien. It was there because the writers desperately wanted more attention and to give Emilie a “sympathetic” reason to use Miraculous with the superpower of creating beings lesser to humans that exist to serve a single purpose and then die, the human equivalent of tissue paper. The most fucked up superpower ever to create the most nightmarish scenario to be born into, and it’s used to excuse why Adrien’s obviously abusive upbringing wasn’t actually his parents’ fault; Adrien was just born different and had to be kept away from normal people for his own good because he’s just so susceptible as a Sentimonster.

The fandom is once again doing the heavy lifting for this show’s writers by creating these imaginary versions of the show where a Sentipeople story totally gets told from Adrien’s perspective and respects Adrien’s agency and humanity, when the canon gives us the opposite. Similarly, the canon is still calling them “Sentimonsters” with the fandom insisting terms like “Sentipeople” and “Sentihumans” be used instead, or else it’s the fans disrespecting Adrien’s humanity.

The fandom just loves to blame critical fans for the show’s failings. The show treats Adrien like the Pearls in Steven Universe, but, if we point it out, we’re the ones stripping away Adrien’s humanity and reducing him into an object to be owned. The show writers did it first, we’re just pointing it out.

Other people are scared Marinette will go through Adrien's phone in the future of the show (again). I'm scared Adrien will give Marinette his Amok as a token of his love, giving her half of his literal being, possibly without knowing he's doing so, and Marinette will have to accept or she'll hurt his feelings by refusing to accept the symbol of his feelings for her, and the fandom will cheer over how romantic it is.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Last post you talked about your ideal version of canon, I was wondering could you share it with us? If not, that's ok

Oh man, I could go on about my dream version of canon for ages! I've talked about various aspects of it on here with stuff like my "sugar" posts on Nino and Alya, but the broad strokes are:

Serialized story where it's basically one large narrative told in chunks

A true teams setup where Adrien, Marinette, Alya, and Nino feel like this amazing, tight friend group who grows into a found family as they get older, giving platonic and romantic love more equal billing

No guardian order, just have it be a single-person role that gets passed on from person to person

Kagami and Luka in supporting roles that have nothing to do with being love interests

Sympathetic Gabriel who feels like a truly tragic figure, but who does NOT get redeemed

Emilie gets an actual character

No sentinonsense

Revised miracle box that is way smaller and that has strong lore

The Agreste's aquiring the miraculous is far more morally complex, makes sense, and was not done for explicitly selfish reasons

Reverse the love square right from the start and never have the crushes flip

I've talked about all of these things on here, but the one thing that I've only briefly touched on is my love of a reverse square setup. I am passionate about that one, so let's take a moment to talk about why since it's probably going to be the most interesting to read.

I don't hate the canon setup for the crushes, but also I don't think that they're the ideal crushes. When it comes to romance stories, you want to design your love interests around each other. You want them to feel special and like they bring something unique to the table. Canon doesn't really give us that. There's nothing all that special about Adrien that makes him feel like the person that Marinette would be drawn to above all others. Same goes for Chat Noir and Ladybug, but we'll get to them in a second.

What is Marinette's biggest struggle? Her role as Ladybug.

Who is her main support in that role for most of the show? Chat Noir.

Who is her main support on the civilian side even before the reveal? Alya.

So why is Marinette's crush on Adrien and not Chat Noir? I don't know. It's the lesser setup by far and that goes beyond just the logic elements of who it makes the most sense for her to fall in love with. A lot of Marinette's worst behavior actually feels justified in a reverse crush setup, allowing you to write her without major changes to her character.

For example, Marinette keeping a chest of gifts for Adrien is kind of pathetic. She's friends with Adrien and she gives her friends gifts all the time, why can't she give him gifts, too? Reverse the crushes and suddenly this behavior makes perfect sense. Marinette isn't storing up gifts because of overblown fears of rejection. She's storing up gifts for legitimate fears about how her partner will explain these random gifts, thereby risking his identity, meaning that she has a sold argument for waiting until the time is right (post reveal) to give them to him.

There's also the legitimate fear that confessing her love could ruin their dynamic and put Paris at risk. Keeping her feelings to herself is now an act of self-sacrifice and not just an act of nerves. Basically everything about Marinette's hesitance just makes so much more sense if it's on the hero side.

But what about Adrien? How does this fix him?

I love the idea of our male romantic lead falling for our female lead because she's bold and brave, but it honestly doesn't fit Adrien's character. He is surrounded by powerful, confrontational women. Nathalie, Chloe, Kagami, Amilie, Audrey, and Tomoe are all no-nonsense women who get what they want. This means that Ladybug doesn't bring something unique to his life. She fits the standard mold. Adrien falling in love with her after she talks down Hawkmoth doesn't feel like the right choice for his character because it doesn't feel like something he'd be wildly impressed by.

Meanwhile, Marinette is shown to be a generally wonderful friend. She cares about others and will do what she can to make them feel welcome and accepted. That's a much more unique thing for Adrien to experience. Think about the umbrella scenes and imagine if it was Marinette apologizing. Marinette owning that she treated him poorly and asking his forgiveness. How often do you think Adrien gets moments like that? Doesn't it make more sense for something like that to make his heart flutter?

We see Marinette doing things like making banners to celebrate her friends (Timebreaker) and making sure everyone feels included (Reflekta). Imagine her giving Adrien that kind of treatment because it's just who Marinette is. She shows up to his fencing matches to cheer him on. Brings him his favorite snacks as a treat just because, surrounding this poor boy in honest, genuine love and support. Add in respect, too, and he'd be a goner because those are the things that he's not getting anywhere else! The things that make Marinette unique.

This brings us to our new civilian dynamic. In canon, it's Marinette failing to confess in ever more spectacular ways as Alya tries and fails to help. In a reverse crush setup where everyone is friends without gender barriers, it's things like Adrien coming up with his canon confessions and then watching Alya and Nino react with genuine horror because, dude, you're going to give her a panic attack! No! Bad kitty! Stop that! No confessions until you come up with a plan that we approve of and read at least five books of dating advice because holy shit did homeschooling do you dirty in this area!

Then, while Adrien is working to learn how dating works, he learns that Marinette is in love with Chat Noir and, oh no! He thinks she's into his public persona, totally unaware that she knows the real Chat Noir and loves his dorky self. So he tries to emulate his sexy alter ego while Nino and Alya suffer and Marinette is just generally confused because she doesn't think of Chat Noir like that, so she doesn't even notice what Adrien is doing.

This also adds a nice mitigating factor to Adrien's unwillingness to give up even though it's pretty clear that Marinette isn't interested in his civilian self. If he knows that she loves him, then his persistence is less concerning and more comedic. It's not that he can't take a no, it's that he honestly knows with 100% certainty that the answer is NOT no because she's told him that to his face. He just needs her to realize that the guy she's in love with is right here, ready and willing!

The potential for comedy is just so much more broad and so much less mean spirited because Marinette has none of Adrien's reserved nature, so her friends would totally know about her massive "celebrity crush". Adrien comes over for school projects and just stares longingly at her Chat Noir posters, wishing he could tell her his secret, but knowing that he can't.

In my world, that is so much more fun than canon's setup where Marinette has no reason to hope. I also wouldn't draw the crushes out anywhere near as long as canon did. I like getting couples together in the mid-game. It's a nice early plot to hook you in, but defeating the villain is the end game, so we don't need to draw the romance out that long. Romance isn't that special. It's not all that different from an arc about two characters becoming friends.

That's far from the only major change I'd make to shape canon into my ideal version, but it is the probably the change that I love the most. It's also the change that requires the least context to explain, so there you go!

[princess-of-the-corner]

they... there's no way Chloe should be a senti like. i can see them trying because they think they're capable of doing that but they've already hammered in their stance that she's Evil Just Because but if she's a senti then there's argument for programming and that would be a whole moral thing that they def can't write considering *gestures to all the current sentinonsense

she also can't be good either because then i can see how it would be like Marinette's "trauma" in derision where everyone's been shitting on Chloe for something she might have been literally programmed to do? like, imagine if enough fans demanded her be on the side of good and they actually did end up doing that but they do it in a way where they end up re-doing Felix's whole schtick and "oh it's not chloe's fault she's awful and worked with hawkmoth because she was programmed to be shitty (nevermind that we kept saying her neglect and abuse was non existent and didn't affect her as a person) all she needed was for some one to find her amok and give her a "be good" command!" or whatever like,....

Yeah either way it's a hot fucking mess.

I'd at least prefer the latter because it means she gets to be her own person and make her own choices by the end and hopefully get help for everything.

But both options fucking suck at this point.

[ilikekidsshows]

Okay, I consulted the wisemen of the the groupchat and this is what we got for you:

Liberate them.

Sentimonster liberation has to be unconditional.

It should be that Sentimonsters can't be controlled with the Peacock Miraculous or the Amok object after they're created. Better yet, don't include the Amok objects at all. Anything that makes the Sentimonsters an oppressed class takes away from them being abuse victims first and foremost.

Similarly, their creation shouldn't involve wiring their brains. Once again, the idea that Sentimonsters come with unremovable programming turns them into an oppressed group over being child abuse victims.

You can keep the idea that you can sculpt them to look how you want and give them special abilities, because humans have been trying to make designer babies for years and it adds to the parental control as a form of abuse instead of lessening it.

People that aren't directly abusing the kids but make excuses for the abusers or make the victims' problems about themselves need to be confronted with their abuse apologism if they were in the know. The people abusing these kids should be called out for doing it, instead of just getting off scott free while the other characters pretend they did nothing wrong.

Also, the Sentimonsters' thoughts and feelings should be taken into account. Similarly, non-Sentimonsters' opinions on Sentimonster matters should not be given priority.

hey I figure that you’re probably tired of talking about the Sentimonster nonsense but I genuinely still can’t stand that it’s an actual thing. The wildest thing about it is that I JOINED the fandom because of the Sentimonster theory, actually got excited for it and looked forward to hints, not believing the skeptics or the salters bc it didn’t seem like such a big deal—that is until I saw with my own eyes how SO MANY FANS said with their whole chest that, in “Ephemeral” Adrien HAD to be a Sentimonster or there was no other “sympathetic explanation” for why he didn’t de-akumatize himself or fight off Gabriel.

Seeing the victim blaming in real time was such a punch in the gut—and then they just kept on coming!! It finally hit me how damaging the entire thing because for the show as a whole. If even regular fans that weren’t even known for salting could so willingly disregard and ignore genuine abuse coping mechanisms in favor of magical BS… it was such a dark time. Abuse Apologism and victim blaming in a whole package

Sometimes, when I write about Miraculous, I pretend I'm writing about a show that only had three seasons. That's what the "zagulous fandom" tag is for; it's for posts that are about the parts of Miraculous that had Zag's executive control keeping Astruc in check. I also kinda accepted long ago that my blog's kind of a support blog for people who are against the Sentihuman concept.

When I first heard of the expanded Sentimonster theory, the one that went "all the rich kids are Sentimonsters", I instantly went: "You do realize how making victims of child abuse nonhumans with questionable rights minimizes their victimhood and excuses their abusers, right?" people told me I was making stuff up and whoopsie doo, the writers did exactly that.

Neither Gabriel nor Tomoe faced any consequences for abusing Adrien and Kagami because, after all, since they're Sentimonsters, the real abuse was that they didn't have their Amoks so giving them their Amoks resolves all their problems. The only abusive parent who gets acknowledged as such is Félix's dad, who is dead by the time we hear about any of this, because we can't have abusive parents face consequences for their actions because that might upset people or whatever excuses Astruc's giving for Gabriel's vindication now.

This also minimises all the affects of the abuse on the kids, since they can be handwaved away with: "They were just programmed that way." Kagami's bad social skills aren't because her mother isolated her, it's because she forgot to program Kagami with those skills. Félix's villainous behavior isn't because his mother is overly permissive with him, he was just programmed that way (by the eeeeevil Colt). Adrien isn't a people pleaser because he's repeating his abuse coping mechanisms with his overly controlling girlfriend to keep her happy the same way he did to his overly controlling father, he was just programmed to be the perfect doting son and boyfriend.

You'll notice how neatly this ties into the crew denying that Chloé was abused in any way ever by her clearly abusive mother. Chloé wasn't made into a Sentimonster, so we can't have her bad coping with her abuse be excused by "Sentimonster programming", so now the writers are just gaslighting the audience and saying: "Chloé wasn't mistreated by her parents which caused her to act to out to get attention (which she literally stated to be her motive in season 3), in fact, she's the one who's been terrorizing her poor, innocent father and he needs to be protected from this naturally occuring evil hellspawn."

All child abuse in this show gets excused.

Of course, now the writers have an added reason to make sure Adrien's abuse gets excused in particular: because they made Marinette benefit from it. As I said, Adrien is repeating abuse coping mechanisms learned from dealing with his father to keep Marinette happy. He's always prioritizing her feelings and never brings up his own problems, and this is good for Marinette, because she can just enjoy having a perfect boyfriend who caters to her every need and doesn't have problems of his own or with the ways she treats him (for all she knows). She's even maintaining this status quo by lying about Gabriel to Adrien, so Adrien won't get upset (and have emotional needs that she would need to help him with). Either we have to excuse Adrien's abuse, or we have to admit Marinette is benefitting from the fact that Adrien was abused, and even taking advantage with the way she makes no effort to improve their communication on her end, preferring to spy on Adrien and lie to him instead of just talking to him like an equal.

The show writers are also allergic to following through on their creative decisions, is what I think. They put all these different victims of child abuse and neglect in the show, and then dehumanized these children in different ways so that they wouldn't actually need to say anything about that abuse they wrote in and they can instead pretend it was never there. This is why I also think that, no matter how much the show's defenders insist the story isn't over yet, we will never be getting a proper resolution to the Sentinonsense.

[princess-of-the-corner]

the villain competency thing was something I was thinking about recently like. at least with Gabriel we have the whole kids vs adults, new generation vs old generation type thing and we didn't know much about him other than he was bad. additionally, since he was Adrien's dad, he had a control over him even without the sentinonsense. he posed a threat on both sides of the fight.

With Chloe and Lila, we were given them as civilians except they've made one so stupid that she's become an illiterate puppet scapegoat and the other can't even lie well without making other actually established smart people stupid enough to fall for it. And yeah they tossed in that bs with her fooling three separate adult women but like, idk i feel like that says more about them being incredibly negligent parents than it does about her cause is she just doing it for fun? what's that got to do with our heroes at this point in time? what's it show besides the fact that rather than making Lila actually great at manipulation you decide to show her manipulation by giving us scenes of something more "horrible" than her lying about knowing celebrities to a bunch of high school kids.

so if they decide to make this dumb blonde and plot armor liar our Big Villains from this point forward, they've got their work cut out for them. Like they're gonna keep retconning shit so it doesn't actually matter but if they cared at all about continuity then they can't make Lila the main lead villain without making her or the miraculous team look useless. If they're going with the callback to whatever scared her at the end of season 5 and have that help her be the main villain then damn she couldn't even do the evil shit herself huh? and if it's mainly just her and the akumas then high chance they'll toss in the heroes and have them be just as dumb as when they were around her at school. but then it'd be "why did Marinette give miraculouses to such pathetic heroes?" in the same vein of "wow the class was stupid enough to believe Lila's shitty lies" and it wouldn't even be their fault, it would be because they keep giving Lila plot armor. at the very least, the fact that Gabriel just kept doing the same thing over and over and kept losing was because that was established before they decided to be more story driven.

Chloe can't be smart. Austruc would absolutely refuse. so then you run into the same problem again except this villain is easy to beat and if you're all going against her at once then you're all the bullies at that point tbh. but also like, 18 vs 1?? gross. And she wouldn't even be a fun villain if she was stupid either. nowhere near Team Rocket levels of amusing cause at least they were their own characters. if they decide to make her a senti, it'll be bad either way cause they're def not gonna add any nuance to that. if they decide to make her good (highly highly highly doubt), it's going to be like those fics where Chloé has to go through so much shit as "punishment" that she's basically going deeper than the rock bottom of being literally abandoned by her dad and being abused by her mom that it's still a salt fic no matter how you spin what side she's on.

it's just like, the worst of characterizations of these characters and you picked every single bad story thread/end of each story arc of the past few seasons and it's a mess i don't have confidence in their writing to fix. but considering the writers' (specifically Austruc tbh) tendency to "we do what we want when we feel like we need to" attitudes to plot (side eyes that tweet about timeline) then highly doubt they'll even touch on old shit cause, as said by a different tweet, the Agreste Family Arc is over. they're def just gonna move on.

Yeah it's a mess

[ilikekidsshows]

#OP left out Marinette not informing her now-bf thet he is a magical boy who will die in the rings he is wering are ever broken#also he can be controlled with them#she just control that information... just the way his father did#and the writers seem to think this is OK

Including @generalluxun's tags because I was too tired yesterday to try to include the Sentinonsense without frothing at the mouth, and this is a much nicer way of putting it than I ever could.

Love square for the relationahip ask game.

Relationship scale ask game

This couple starts off with Miraculous Brand Nonsense(TM). Some people find it problematic that Marinette knows so much about Adrien and follows him around so much, but it's played for laughs, and the show leans into the idea that a little bit of obsessiveness is normal in this universe.

Then Marinette starts growing out of it, she starts being able to talk to Adrien more normally as the episodes pass and this ship seems to be headed for more secure ground.

Then, all of a sudden, we get told that, actually, the “slightly obsessive” behavior is actually a sign of Marinette being emotionally and mentally unstable, but she’s still not going to get therapy for it or anything, because she was bullied so bad it traumatized her and that means she should get a free pass where no one ever seriously confronts her about her issues.

In addition, Marinette’s behavior starts getting worse. The sense of entitlement increases and the show treats it as justified because, well, Adrien is gonna end up dating Marinette, he just doesn't know it yet. We also go backwards on her communication, instead making Adrien do all the work in the relationship while Marinette sneaks around making sure her boyfriend isn't keeping secrets from her. And the show treats her as being in the right because Adrien just happens to be surrounded by supervillains and Adrien doesn't have any boundaries around her. Marinette doesn’t know any of this when she does the things she does but the facts are treated as a full justification. This all culminates in her gaslighting Adrien about how his dad was totally a good guy being treated as a happy ending.

The Ladynoir relationship, on the other hand, has been on the decline since 'Reflekdoll', and not even the attempt to do the power swap right the second time around could fix the damage done. Ladybug has been increasingly treating Cat Noir as more of an obstacle than a partner, where keeping important information from him is more important than keeping it from their main enemy, while Cat Noir pretends he’s fine with all this because he still isn't allowed to have boundaries even in the persona that supposedly grants him freedom.

This ship used to be fun. Can you believe it?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Yes because, once the writers decide to do something, they do clearly signal that something is coming it in a way where the "twist" will make sense to the intended audience (young kids).

For example, once they decided to make Adrien a sentimonster, the show suddenly had a ton of foreshadowing to set up that reveal (or, at the very least, foreshadowing that the rings somehow controlled Adrien).

Every time Gabriel or Nathalie gave an order, the camera focused on the rings. We also get Ephemeral where Adrien obeys his father's commands without even a token struggle, a thing that feels very off - and therefore counts as foreshadowing - in a season where rejecting akumas becomes far more commonplace. Alya does it without even seeing Marinette (see: Gang of Secrets). Adrien can't do it when he's looking her in the eyes, fully aware that she loves him and that she's his lady, meaning that touching her will let his father win.

When you compare that to the writing in Chat Blanc you can see how different it feels when they're writing Adrien like a human. Chat Blanc sees Adrien actively struggle against his father to the point where that episode isn't a win for either side. Everyone loses because Adrien was still human and still able to fight. I'm still not a fan of Chat Blanc, but at the very least it didn't imply that Adrien was totally incapable of resisting his father's commands. It just implied that Adrien probably shouldn't find out the truth during the final fight which I can admit is somewhat fair.

If they had always planned for the sentinonsense and written the show around it, then both Chat Blanc and Ephemeral would have been hints at Adrien's status. Instead, they feel like they're from alternate universes and that's not the only example that I can point to. It's glaringly obvious that, at the very least, they didn't care to write in at Adrien's status until mid season four (and do not bring up the pigeon nonsense. Dear gods, that was not and never will be foreshadowing. Your English teachers failed you.)

That's just one straightforward example of the ways that the show would be different if the sentimonster stuff had always been the plan. To really set it up, I'd expect a lot of other subtle to grand changes. Here are a few examples:

Kagami, Felix, and Adrien are the only sentimonsters that Gabriel and Nathalie have every known, so the first time Nathalie sends a sentimonster out to die, you could have Gabriel react in a way that hints at Adrien status while also establishing the fact that the sentimonsters that Nathalie creates aren't alive in the same way that the kids are (an element that the show desperately needs).

You could have Adrien and Kagami actually know each other and hint that their parents have something going on as would be expected if Tomoe was close enough to the Agreste to get a designer baby of her own. As-is, this more grand partnership feels like it comes out of nowhere and we still don't know what it's all about. I'm not even sure if we ever will know.

You could do more complex things with Felix. For example, have him mess with Adrien in a way where he's clearly testing what Adrien is allowed to do. Make it seem like Felix is an asshole who is constantly pushing Adrien's boundaries only to eventually reveal that Felix loves Adrien and was trying to see how free his cousin was/figure out what Adrien's amok was/etc. Really make Felix a freedom fighter instead of canon's lackluster nonsense.

The list goes on. There are so many major and minor changes you could make to canon in order to make this twist feel earned and well set up. As-is, I don't know why they made this choice.

My brother and I both felt like they just wanted shock value since the writing seems terrified to engage with the ideas that they've introduced, thus Adrien's status being used as a minor inconvenience to Adrinette and nothing of true narrative value. You could have replaced the sentinonsense with Adrien's bodyguard following him around and gotten a similar story because Gabriel doesn't give Adrien the kind of commands that you'd need a magical ring to give. Plus the commands that he gives are all waved away within minutes thanks to Nathalie having the backup ring because heaven forbid that we let the sentimonster stuff have real consequences!

I honestly have no idea if the next season will pretend that the sentimonster stuff never happened or if they'll let Lila do something with it because letting Lila issue commands would require them to take this plot seriously and they really, really, really don't seem to want to do that. Unless this is how they're going to show that Lila is evil while Gabriel wasn't? Who knows. Only time will tell.

Do you think it's weird that I was fine with Roxas finding out he was Sora's Nobody in Kingdom Hearts, but Adrien not being what we thought he was triggered my ick factor a lot? Do you think it's because we learned that about Roxas before we had a lot of time to get attached to him?

I was initially going to say that I can't answer this because I've only played Kingdom Hearts 1, so my knowledge of the later games is pretty limited. Then I remembered that my little brother is both obsessed with those games and the Mycroft to my Sherlock*, so I gave him a call and got the expert opinion (and a reminder that I need to play the Kingdom Hearts games so that my brother can talk about them with someone who understands story telling because those games apparently make a lot of... interesting choices.)

Here is the sum of my brother's analysis:

The two properties handled the concept of personhood and artificial beings in such wildly different ways that it would never even occur to him to compare them (though it was an interesting question once posed). A good portion of the later Kingdom Hearts games revolve around asking what a person even is. Should they try to make the Nobodies into people? Do the Nobodies even need to change to be people or are they people already? What makes Roxas different from other Nobodies? These questions start being asked very early on and, for all the story's flaws, you can tell that the writers are aware that they're dealing with a serious topic and that they're trying to do it justice.

Meanwhile, Miraculous introduces artificial beings who don't have true free will and then... completely ignores all of the ethical implications of that plot point. Emilie and Gabriel are good parents. The fact that the heroes have been killing off sentimonsters isn't concerning. Gabriel's commands are just a minor inconvenience to Adrienette and not anything that needs to be explored in a deeper way. He's still totally redeemable and it's fine that Adrien never learned the truth while his father was alive so that he could decide what that meant for their relationship on his own terms.

Given all of that, it's really not shocking that Kingdom Hearts makes you feel invested while Miraculous repulses you because the Miraculous introduced human sentimonsters for cheap shock value to the point where I firmly believe that it was a retcon. Meanwhile Kingdom Hearts planned major elements of the plot around the concept and set it up right from the start of the second game. If Miraculous had done the same kind of thing, then I doubt that most salters would be deeply upset by the concept. They still might dislike it, but it would be seen more as a matter of taste than as a true flaw.

*For those who don't know, Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock Holmes' older brother. Sherlock openly admits that Mycroft is the smarter and more observant of the two siblings. The same can be said of my sibling when it comes to story telling. Everything I can do, he can do just as well or even better. He's never seen miraculous, but knows the major plot beats from a mix of cultural osmosis and reading the occasional fanfic when an author he likes crosses fandoms. He is highly amused that no one he follows does anything save for fix-it type stuff and says it tells him everything he needs to know about canon's writing quality, an assessment I fully agree with.

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I think that it all comes down to the fact that they made Gabriel way too serious for a formula show setup to really work. He doesn't consistently read like a cartoon villain even though that's what formula shows need if you want them to work.

While there are lots of episodes that play Gabriel like your standard cartoon villain, there are just way too many big, serious moments that undermine that characterization. He generally feels like a true threat that needs to be stopped and it's this flaw that makes the heroes' lack of action feel lacking, which does tie nicely back into my original response about the serious elements being a bad call.

Contrast Gabriel to true comedy villains like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb or Dr. Drakken from Kim Possible and you'll hopefully see what I mean. These two are also cartoon villains who come up with evil plans almost every time that they're on screen, but they're so over-the-top and ridiculous that it's hard to take them too seriously. You don't expect them to ever win or even be truly defeated because they don't really feel like major threats. They're more minor nuances, which is what you want for a true formula show and these two examples are absolutely formula shows. You truly can watch the episodes in any order without feeling lost outside of minor character elements like crushes and relationship status changes, which notably change at the season level and not episode to episode because, once again, formula show!

I picked them for that reason and because it's worth noting that the heroes in these shows basically never get an upgrade or try to truly take down the villains once and for all (with the notable exception of optional, one-off movies that don't really count). The TV-show parts of these properties are doing what Miraculous does and making it work, creating two well-loved properties and proving that this setup can lead to quality television. Miraculous didn't need to give the heroes upgrades or make them track down Gabriel for the show to work. It just needed to make Gabriel an absurd human being whose threat level was well below zero. You can even do that and keep him sympathetic if you really want to. Dr. Doofenshmirtz is a pretty sympathetic and well loved character who also really loves his daughter and that works because the writers focused his villainy in a way that didn't directly contradict that love.

This is one of the many reasons why I adored @zoe-oneesama's Scarlet Lady comic. She did an amazing job turning Gabriel into a cartoon villain while still rooting his character in canon. When I read Scarlet Lady, I never got that nagging sense of "why aren't you trying to stop this guy?" because Scarlet Lady maintained the silly tone that you need for a superhero comedy. She never once treated the Adrien-Gabriel conflict as a big deal and that was absolutely the right move on her part. If you want to tell a comedy, that relationship cannot feel like a big deal. If canon had matched her tone and gave up trying to make serious complex villain Gabriel happen, then Miraculous would be fine as-is.

But that's not what canon did. Instead, canon gave us Adrien longing to be close with his father along with things like Chat Blanc, the sentinonsense, or this moment from Queen Wasp:

Gabriel: (guilt-ridden) I don't want to break our promise, but… I can't keep putting our son in danger. Style Queen was supposed to be my masterpiece… but even she failed. I feel like I've done all I possibly could, you know? I'll never be able to fulfill my wish without Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous. (Scene shows Emilie in her coffin) Forgive me, Emilie. I'm giving you up, Nooroo.

While I love this moment and want more of it, it's a terrible thing to include if your goal is to write a low-stakes monster-of-the-week formula show for kids because this scene isn't from that kind of show. It's from a far more serious show that can have things like character arcs where we see the villain slowly descend into madness.

But if you have the villain slowly descend into madness then you can't maintain a status quo and formula shows thrive off of the status quo so Gabriel maintains a consistent level of evil and his abrupt heel-turn at the end of season five comes across as total BS as does this bit from Evolution where Nathalie acts like Gabriel has gotten worse over the seasons:

Nathalie: (on-call) You had the Time Miraculous. You could’ve chosen to save Emilie! You could’ve chosen to save me! (coughs) But instead, you chose your obsession with Ladybug and Cat Noir. You're insane, Gabriel!

What obsession is she talking about? The show never gave Gabriel an obsession! I could play Origins back-to-back with almost any season five episode and you wouldn't notice anything different about Gabriel's writing. Writers, you cannot imply character arcs via lines of dialogue. You actually have to show them on screen!

This scene and basically everything about Nathalie's "redemption" are exactly what I was referring to when I said that the writers picked terrible elements to subtly "hint" at. Everything they pick is something that you need to actually explore if you want it to work. They want to redeem Nathalie, but she never feels truly redeemed because she never does anything to stop Gabriel because she can't because this is a formula show. This means that she comes off as kind of pathetic. Saying one thing while doing nothing other than maintaining the status quo. She should have just stayed Gabriel's evil sidekick.

Disclaimer in advance: I haven't watched season 4 or 5 in their entirety, nor do I intend to, so maybe I'm missing info. Most of my knowledge comes from lurking in the fandom.

Why do you think the show was seemingly allergic to allowing their main characters to make any sort of meaningful progress? At the end of season 1, Ladybug comes into possession of the Miraculous grimoire, a major clue that "Hey, Hawkmoth is probably Gabriel Agreste" and then the Collector immediately ends with her and Adrien placing him completely above suspicion (I actually don't mind this, it makes sense for Gabe to throw the two off the trail, but to the best of my knowledge, this is the only time the protagonists make any headway toward Hawk Moth's identity. I wish they had done more active investigation.)

The power up potions show up during Syren, except... they don't do much in the way of a "power up." They're used exceedingly sparingly, and really only let LB and CN compensate for environmental challenge. Nothing else, no actual evolution. This could've been a way to show LB getting more in sync with her powers, being able to create specific solutions to her problems. You could've had similar moments for Chat Noir, upgrade like the ranged cataclysm Chat Blanc could use, or something to do with bad luck. Instead, it was a cheap gimmick.

The temp heroes start getting called in beginning with Sapotis, except that most of them are called in because... you're here and I need this incredibly specific power, which you just so happen to be perfectly suited for. Shut up and do nothing follow orders. (The episode Party Crasher and King Monkey being the most egregious example, imo. Then again, i havent watched Penalteam, and I'm told that episode is far worse). The temp heroes don't really add anything to the plot (Save Rena suddenly being Ladybug's confidant, but that's a rant for another day.), except to cause conflict with CN, and they're all gone as of the Season 4 finale anyway.

Speaking of season 4, the charms. Finally, concrete progress, a way to limit hawkmoth, to cut him off from potential vic— wait what the hell is a megakuma? Why do this? What was the point? This is what I was talking about with Syren, Ladybug coming further into her powers, finally being able to start pushing Gabriel into a corner, and it's undone that same season. Apparently transmission is more powerful than creation, despite repeated assurances the Ladybug (and Marinette) are special.

And then there's the alliance rings. Why can Tomoe and Gabriel make these? No idea. What it means, though, is that LB and CN have no chance of reclaiming the lost miraculous, and just have to passively react to whatever the hell Monarch is up to... again.

I'm told that for the big finale, Marinette wasn't even the one to discover Gabriel's identity, Felix straight up told her, and then Gabriel won. He made his wish. The hero of the story failed to save the day, after doing practically nothing.

Whats extra annoying is that on the Villain side, Gabriel is absolutely allowed to push the status quo. First we get Scarlet Moth and mass akumatization, then the peacock comes out, then it gets fixed, and then Gabriel straight up steals all the Miraculous (save LB and CN's of course, and then they steal the rabbit back because the writers realized "time travelling villain" was a horrendous idea. And Felix is allowed to keep the Peacock, because ??? Gabriel has to my knowledge not given up any other power, before or since). And he's always held the power, he's never been at risk of losing his own miraculous because he doesn't need to go out in person, so why does he keep getting stronger and raising the stakes while the heroes can't do anything.

Sorry for being so long-winded, just... needed to get my thoughts out.

Put on your tinfoil hats, folks! We're gonna make some educated guesses as to what is going behind the scenes with Miraculous, but remember that these are, ultimately, guesses. I don't know the full story and I probably never well.

I've mentioned before that writing for TV can suck because you're not allowed pure creative freedom. There are a lot of hands in the pot limiting what you can do because TV shows cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make. Some even cost millions. That means that final product needs to be considered commercially viable unless you're independently wealthy and have money to burn. This doesn't mean that passion projects can't be commercially viable, it just means that they're generally not approached with the idea that commercial viability is the most important thing.

Writing for children's shows can especially suck because you're heavily limited by the intended audience and by what large corporations deem acceptable for that intended audience. If you're not totally on board with keeping things Disney's version of kid-friendly, then you're not going to have a fun time.

This brings us to Miraculous.

I have often assumed that there were some wacky hi-jinks going on behind the scenes that would explain why the show is such a mess because I don't think that Miraculous is anyone's ideal version of the core concept. The wonderful @nixthelapin recently confirmed it for me by sending me a link to a translation of a lecture given by Miraculous' writing director.

In that interview, we get hard confirmation that the core members of the writing staff originally wanted to tell a darker story for adults or teens, which may explain all the random dark stuff that the show will include but totally fail to explore. We also got this:

Sebastien sold the Miraculous series to broadcasters as a formula show. A person gets angry, is akumatized, then marinette transforms into Ladybug then frees the person from the akumatization and… The End. It's also for this reason that Marinette tries to confess her love for Adrien in every episode, but is unable to do so. But he tried to go against what he had planned with TF1, by slipping little extra stories into certain episodes. Audiences were receptive to these slightly hidden stories. The TV channel even asked Sébastien if there really were hidden things in the series, but he denied everything.

So there you go. There's the hard confirmation of my theory. Miraculous was sold as a formula show so it's mostly written like a formula show, but the writers want to do more than a formula show, so they're adding in all these hints of something more, leading to massive fan frustration when those things don't lead to satisfying plots because, if they did, then it wouldn't be a formula show!

I get the temptation to do what they did, I really do, but I don't think that it was a good move. They would have been better off trying to make an awesome formula show or by being a lot more selective in what greater story elements they wanted to include. There are things that you can develop in formula shows while still keeping them formula shows. One thing that comes to mind is subtle character development. For example, they could have set up all of the temp heroes by giving them strong roles in one-off episodes. Roles that established their heroic potential. What you can't do well in formula shows is complex character development like the mess that was everything with Chloe and Lila.

This may also explain why we get baffling statements like this one from that interview that the writers gave at the end of season five:

Mélanie says that he "could become Chat Blanc" and the others add that even though he does not remember and has never lived it, Chat Blanc still has an influence on his actions.

Are they trying to let Chat Blanc effect the plot without breaking the formula element? If so, then dear gods, this is not how you add subtle continuity to your formula show!!! But that may be what they were trying to do here and in many other places. After all, we also get gems like this:

They note that Marinette's nightmare at the beginning is reminiscent of the episode Weredad from season 3. At this point, we can see that Marinette starts to understand who the villain is although she's not fully conscious of it yet. Thomas says that you can read it in two different ways: if you don't take the previous episode into account, she's starting to intuitively link things together but if you did see Representation, you know that she knows who Monarch really is.

I'm seeing a common thread. What about you?

While the writing director interview doesn't say this, I'm assuming stuff like the charms, the powerups, and the additional heroes come from a similar type of issue. My best guess is that these weren't elements that the writers wanted to add. They were things that marketing made them add to sell toys and so the writers shoehorned these items in because they couldn't find a way to organically fit these elements. I'm not blaming either side for that issue, btw. There isn't really a clear right side in the fight of creative freedom vs a show needing to make money to keep being made.

Since we're talking about that interview, I'll point out that we also got confirmation of another wacky writing rule to add to the list of poor writing choices:

The driving force behind the series is that there must always be a secret between Marinette and Adrien. The lovesquare can never be broken, otherwise there's no series.

"Our main couple can never be fully honest with each other or else there's no story" is a pretty awful rule, but it's what they're going with and that's a big part of why the love square is a mess. It's also a rule that I've often assumed was there based on the writing, but it's nice to get official confirmation of it.

None of this is to absolve the writers of blame nor is it to say that everything is their fault. The point here is that Miraculous' problems are a complex mess of everyone trying to make a good final product without being on the same page with what that final product should look like, resulting in a show that will never live up to the full potential of what anyone wanted for it.