#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.

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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.

[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