#sometimes those media are the same but sometime they are not

[teddypoi-qd]

{ID - Series of tweets from @/grumpwitch about working in a public library:

"Things I have learned about the general public whilst working at the library: 1. A huge number of people under 20 can't face clocks, having grrown up with only digital ones.

2. Many people don't know how to spell "library." It's in our email address. This causes problems.

3. A disturbing number of young people don't actually know how book-lending at the library works. They assume it costs money! Teach your children about libraries!

4. Crime and thriller are basically the same thing in many cases. In fact, we have doubles of books because of that.

5. People use hidden codes like asterisks to mark which books they've read! The system will let you know if you've already borrowed something! Just ask.

6. If an automatic door breaks, people will walk into it instead of reading the sign at face height.

7. Libraries are a godsend for blind and deaf people and not just for audioboks. They can come for help with filling out forms and getting directions.

8. Some elderly people go through books at a TERRIFYING rate. They are to be feared and respected. 9. Some people are so afraid of computers that they will come to you with a query and then become upset if you offer to look it up on the compute instead of in a book.

10. Some poeple have never, ever used a telephone. Especially older women. Their husband did it for them.

11. The DWP fuck over everyone but especially the most vulnerable and I haven't met a single library worker who hasn't helped struggling library users with food or phone calls or even a cup of tea when it's cold and they can't afford heating.

12. The Job Centre regularly lie to people and like to tell them that they can get services at libraries that simply do not exist. We will try our very best to help you get what you should have been given at the Job Centre.

13. Most banks assume that everyone has an email now. In fact, some people have trouble proving they exist at all without one.

14. Library folk are good folk. We do this because we are passionate about it. We have to be.

15. Libraries aren't quiet anymore. They're community hubs now. They may have quiet study areas but most libraries are bustling with activity. Between kids' classes, singing and memory groups for those with Dementia, crafts sessions and noisy office equipment, don't expect silence.

16. Libraries remain the only place where you can spend hours in a publically-accessible building without being expected to spend money. Parents come to entertain their children for free on wet days. People in poverty come for a warm place to sit. Libraries are a haven.

17. Some people will go their entire lives only reading 2-3 authors but still have enough material to read a book every month. (See also: Danielle Steel, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, etc.)

18. A library lives and dies by the staff on the counter. You can have the best funding, all of the books and tech in the world but you'll only get footfall if your staff go above and beyond. Sometimes even that doesnt work, though and it's frustrating.

19. We're funded based on footfall. I've seen staff cry because we lost a youth group to a private hall that has fancier facilities like a cafe. We need all the footfall we can get.

20. Staff are hitting their head against walls volunteering to create events, classes and groups only to have them shot down because local councils don't understand social media or want to charge for it. I can't overemphasise just how much unpaid work staff do.

21. Most of the facilities are only working because staff pay out of pocket to get things working. My manager bought a new laminator when we couldn't afford one. She buys in colouring materials for kids. We sometimes bring in our own stationary. We even buy lightbulbs in.

22. Authors don't like to visit little libraries because they don't get paid. Bookstores often pay.

23. The "sexy librarian" trop has actually done a LOT of harm and has caused countless incidences of sexual assalt by men who can't tell the difference between porn and reality.

24. Old ladies keep libraries in business. Old ladies who read are the best. Old ladies who can tell you exactly which page features the most gruesome murder scene are the very best.

25. Library staff ALWAYS want to know what you thought of the book. We want to know what to recommend to others!

26. I'm not supposed to have favourite library users but I do: I love library couples, who bicker over each others' reading tastes or share books and then argue about the themes. I also love the autistic kids with special interests. I will crawl over hot coals to get you a book about the specific type of train you are interested in, tiny child. I will listen to you tell me about it in great detail. I will try to remember for the next time you come in.

27. The single best moment, for me, is when a library user graduates from Young Adult to Adult and suddenly the entire library is open tothem! They can read anything! No more tiny teen section! All of the classics! Sci fi! Horror! They often get overwhelmed.

28. And finally, because I've spammed you long enough and because my typos are mounting up, remember this: Library staff can overcome many challenges but Book Gods help you if you deprive us of caffeine. You don't want to see what happens then.

END ID}

[gayaest]

Hey, so I mean this entirely in good faith and just want to see where you're coming from.

When you draw pictures of people (OC), why do you only list their name, age, disabilities, and race (and some other stuff sometimes)? not likes or interests or hobbies or a look into their life? Is there somewhere else for me to find out more?

Personally, I don't find those to be the most interesting things about a character or a person or an object or anything like that, and I don't typically base characters around it (not saying you do, just not sure why else they take precidence over other aspects of their character)

I love your art and hope youu have a nice day!

I’ll try to answer this in the best way possible, but my wording might be off because I am more ill than usual, so bare with me.

1. Experiences with creating Original Characters is not a monolith — what you like to do with characters may not be what another creator likes to do with them. Some people never make backstories for their characters and keep them mainly for designs. Some people like to create backstories, and both of these things can exist and are okay. What you personally find interesting isn’t the same for everyone.

Even if I do have backstories for many of my characters, not all of them are even close to finished yet or even fully fleshed out, I often start with basics and go from there. If you are interested in the backstories of my characters, I have a toyhouse in which I post them.

2. Race, Culture, Age and Disability is a huge part of a lot of people’s lives, I can attest to that for myself. A lot of what I put down as “descriptors” for my characters are for people to get the absolute “bare bones” of who this character is, kind of like a bio on social media. It may not personally interest you, but Culture is a huge aspect on how people develop and think, the way people grow up and who they are around influence their thoughts, likes, dislikes, career, life choices and more. I find that many people from different cultures are often very happy at the representation of their culture being present if done respectfully, and causes a lot of happiness to feel seen.

I have a particular interest in researching humans, cultures, disabilities and diversity. You don’t have to have those interests, the same way I don’t particularly have to have an interest in “likes vs dislikes” of a character.

It would concern me if someone doesn’t care about peoples race or ethnicity, the same way it concerns me when a white person says ���well, I don’t see color”, it erases the diverse experience of being human. It erases culture, experience, struggle and more. A lot of POC, myself included, find solace in knowing someone may understand a specific experience of what it’s like growing up a certain way. That we are not alone in our struggles.

And this all relates to Disability as well. Able-bodied people are not going to understand the life of a disabled person they haven’t lived in. Growing up disabled, becoming disabled later in life, in general /being/ disabled is a different way of life than the average person. We have struggles and experiences not everyone can relate to — which means by sharing this in a description of a character — it can actually tell a lot about what they’ve been through and understand.

Other disabled people may not understand what life is like for another disabled person — I have had numerous asks and messages by other disabled people and able-bodied people alike telling me they are happy to see representation of a specific disability, or that they discovered a disability through my artwork and they were able to research it or even apply it to their medical training. This is a huge reason for why I do what I do.

I’m glad this is a question in good faith — Thank you for liking my art, and i hope you have a good day as well.

If you have anymore questions, I have an FAQ:

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

over the last 3 months i have seen myself called (and sometimes blocked for being assumed to be):

a racist/a bigot

homophobic/queerphobic/transphobic

ace/demi-phobic

a fascist

for expressing opinions such as "I found the characters and background stories in Veilguard weaker and less interesting than previous Dragon Age games" and "i miss the amount of tension and conflict that we used to get to explore with the player character depending on their in-game background and life history" and "i did not feel Lucanis' character and romance arc was fully satisfying while I was playing through it".

and since this all started we now have:

seen the entire DA staff laid off from Bioware

heard many now-former bioware devs talking about how toxic the workplace was during the development of DA4

seen allusions to Bioware/EA executives overriding plot/plans that the Dragon Age writers/devs would have preferred

extracted large amounts of cut content from the games that show things like increased emotional response range for Rook, or alternate endings for companion arcs (NOT concept art content, but actual written and even voice-recorded dialogue in the game files), or increased impact from decisions you could make in the game

IN ADDITION to what we ALREADY knew about how many times the game changed direction/leadership changed/the mid-process layoffs, etc.

so can we maybe not keep putting "people who come into the Dragon Age universe from a place of love and were ultimately disappointed with the latest installment" in the same trash bucket as "dudes on twitter who were mad there were trans/nonbinary characters in their AAA game". can we FUCKING as a community acknowledge that there are many reasons someone might not jive with a change in direction other than jumping to "they disagree with me so they must obviously be horrible people, whose opinions shouldn't be counted anyway" (<-if this is your first impulse maybe examine that also).

i am so tired and i am never gonna get an apology for any of it but NOW that a lot of the people who were posting/reblogging these sentiments are hearing/seeing all these other things add up. it's like suddenly now it's "acceptable" to have problems with aspect of Veilguard or want more from it, because the writers/devs have shown they probably did too during it's creation. whereas when I said these things right off the bat (because the only thing we had was the game we got. not the game we can pretend they wanted to make instead) it WASN'T because apparently expressing opinions on my personal tumblr counts as "being mean to/harassing devs who worked hard on the game" or, again, assumed I am a racist/bigot/facist/queerphobic.

you're allowed to still like Veilguard. it's fine i promise. you can love the game if you love it and my not loving it has nothing to do with your own relationship to this piece of media. i am happy there are people who truly can enjoy it without massive Caveats. but i am still seeing like 3-5 posts Per Week express those opinions and it is really destroying my love for the community i once enjoyed.

[getinthehandbasket]

Cishet men don't seem to understand how IRL people can "growl" and "purr" things into someone's ear. Allow me to elucidate: Tom Hiddleston purrs. Henry Cavill growls.

[beaniebaneenie]

Look, the problem with this take is that even though you "just want to write fanfic where my blorbos make out sloppy style"?

There are going to be antis who think YOUR fic is somehow immoral. Are those blorbos the same gender? Well, how could you be introducing that to kids! Does the makeout eventually lead to sex? There are children online, you know! Is there an age gap (even just a few years)? How dare you normalize grooming! People will find any reason to ban something they don't like, especially with the prevailing belief that if you don't like something, there has to be some kind of Legitimate Moral Reason™️.

Fuck, "The Cat in the Hat" is on the banned books list. Really. It's banned because the children go the whole book without adult supervision and are taught that it's fun to listen to strangers at the door! And the poor fish, who is just trying to keep the kids safe and be responsible, is shown as the villain.... How can we be allowing children to read this!

For real, I'm not kidding. That's the reason it's banned.

There is always gonna be someone who finds a reason to hate what you write and willing to find a reason why it too should be censored.

As someone who lived through "Strikethrough" and is old enough to have posted shit on LJ, when you let people start censoring things and unilaterally deciding what is objectionable and why? The goalposts will always move and the nets will always catch more things than you want.

Also, those "disgusting perverted things" can be important and have far-reaching, genuinely good consequences.

I had a straight guy friend in college- grew up in a very conservative, anti-feminist house... but knew something wasn't adding up and went to a liberal quaker college, and was trying to undo a lot of the junk in his brain that was lodged deep in his subconscious.

For an English Lit course, he read Lolita.

He was disgusted with the protagonist. (Good, he's on the right track, you're supposed to be.) He and I were having a conversation about "the way this pervert talks about her"... and I gently pointed out that a lot of guys use those exact same phrases and mentality about the women they're interested in, who are adults... and end up making those adult women feel just as unsafe around those men.

That book helped him realize that looking at women like objects, like things men deserve, and the mindset that men can think about women in whatever way they choose and it's somehow "women's fault" if they get creeped out? Was a bad way to live, and a harmful philosophy to have. It also taught him that you cannot recognize a pedophile or harmful person on sight- that when a woman accused someone he knew of a horrible crime, the fact that "he's always seemed great to me" is utterly irrelevant. Reading Lolita made Nick a more compassionate, safer guy to be around.

Sometimes we need things that make us feel uncomfortable, or even grossed out.

By the way, there will always be people who find your fic about "blorbos making out sloppy style" somehow perverted, disgusting, and toxic. I once had someone tell me a very wholesome coffeeshop AU ficlet (where the worst thing that happened was someone's order getting mixed up) was "toxically positive" and "hella problematic" because it "intentionally ignored the serious themes the original show writer was trying to shed light on, and took these characters out of their very real problems and washed over all those social issues, just so you can see them kiss."

The attitudes described in this "Fandom Problem" are the most extreme on either side of the pro/anti spectrum.

Except the problem with this take is that for the proship side, the attitude of "you cannot criticize media ever" is a very very small minority; whereas for antis, it's essentially the entire group's publicly declared stance. (I've literally seen "Standard DNI" on some blogs, which means these people don't even know what they're supposed to be against, they're just so intensely afraid of not being against the 'right' things that they've tried to cover their ass so they won't be the next target of the mob.)

Most proship folks are 1000% here for media critique, for "critically consuming" media, for being allowed to dislike something for no damn reason. It's the "I don't like this, therefore it Must Be Morally Wrong" fuckery we object to.

I've had books I didn't like because the ending sucked, movies that bored me half to death, shows I just didn't vibe with... and media that I loved bits of and vehemently disagreed with other bits of.

"Law & Order: SVU" has had a massive cultural impact in bringing ideas like 'rape culture', victim blaming, and the difficulty rape victims face when attempting to report the crime into the public eye and mainstream conversations. It is also copaganda, because the cops are almost always shown as kind, compassionate people who always work hard for their victims, never break the law unless it's to get the Bad Guys, always believe their victims, claim that only Bad People ask for a lawyer (despite it being a constitutionally protected right), and the in-universe system puts away the rapist almost every time.

These are statements are both 100% true, and are an example of critically engaging with media.

There was a popular webcomic a few years ago that had some characters I LOVED (and still do), did some amazing things for its time, and had a lot of genuinely progressive things.

It also fell into some really unhealthy tropes, like "Out = Happy, Closeted = Bad/Wrong", the racist and sexist "Dragon Lady" trope of a small Asian woman being visually unassuming but somehow a Total Badass™️ who is actually better than all the guys at Guy Things and all the big strong men are scared of, not-great Jewish representation, and background POC only there to prop up the cis white male lead.

Most proship people actually WANT you to engage with media critically. To be able to have your proverbial thinking cap on while enjoying your blorbos, to understand that creators aren't perfect, no matter how progressive they are. It's those conversations around media- what did it do well, what could it have done better, what should it never do again- that make for better art.

The proshippers who claim that anyone criticizing media is a nazi? Very small and absolutely a minority.

The antis who harass people (including telling them to commit suicide) for literally anything that doesn't match their current definition of Morally Acceptable? The vast majority. It is a stance with a foundation built on harassment.

Even in this very take, the OP has beef with proshippers and infers that they're pedophiles, because proshippers claim that "if you ever criticize media for any reason that makes you a nazi, and that includes media that sexualizes children." OP has the belief that proshippers are bad, because they allow media that Sexualizes Children to exist.

...do you know how many abuse/trauma/Childhood Sexual Assault survivor groups were also banned during the Strikethrough and Boldthrough crackdowns? A lot. Virtually every single one.

Sometimes people write things that you might find disturbing, perverted, creepy, or deviant in order to process their own trauma. Sometimes people write to explore a dark theme or fantasy in a safe way, where no one is getting hurt and no crimes are committed. No one should have to out their history or disclose their trauma in order for you to feel better about what they wrote and why they wrote it.

They should tag it appropriately, so that anyone who is squicked or triggered by the material can make an accurate decision about whether to engage with the work, and can give informed consent to experience it.

Movie ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) are a very basic form of tagging. They tell the potential audience which age groups the film is generally appropriate for, and if it's not considered appropriate, it lists why (swearing, violence, gore, sex, etc).

Remember when parents were taking little kids to see Deadpool and getting upset because "no one warned them"? And people were like, "uh, we very much did warn you, that film was rated R for a reason"? That's tagging.

Tag your stories. Engage critically with media. It is possible to have mixed feelings about a book or show. How you create art does not have a direct correlation to your moral stance as a human being. Sometimes you dislike something for no damn reason and that's okay and very much allowed. These are the values of proshippers.

Antis are steeped in harassment, bullying, and cruelty- as well as actual censorship that has been proven to negatively impact communities, especially those of the marginalized and those impacted by trauma and abuse.

Being "neutral" is a privilege, but it's a privilege with an expiration date. Because as long as we allow people to say that what media you consume/create dictates your Moral Standing? Eventually, someone will decide that your blorbos making out sloppy style is indicative of Something Bad™️, and they're gonna come for your work too.

Fandom Problem #7610:

"Neutral shippers are just proshippers in denial" "neutral is the proship stance" "you're either proshipper or anti, you can't be neutral"

I'm shipping neutral because I think this whole discourse is stupid and both sides are terrible. You have the "this children's show is problematic because this ship is vaguely toxic so you're literally an abusive monster if you watch it" and the "if you ever criticize media for any reason you're literally a nazi and that includes media that sexualizes children." Most reasonable people don't fall into either category. Stop trying to drag me to your side or the other. I just want to write fanfic where my blorbos make out sloppy style.

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

heeyyy gaaanggg

the pose and the background of the album version (left) are based on oingo boingos only a lad album art. not cause i think he has anything to do with it but just cause ive been wantin to draw that pose for like. weeks and i didnt know who to put there. so why not my latest bug man.

[orions-aether]

"do you ever fear that the kindness shown to you by your friends is a reflection of their character? our family did not love us. and perhaps there is some trait of us that made that easy" um yes I do actually bleem shut the fuck up

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

Some Ford doodles

[wallbeatjournal]

Are true riverdale fans of the opinion it is a very good and nearly flawless show or does being a true riverdale fan mean being able to mock writing choices

it's long-running serial television plotted a season/half at a time so definitely not even "nearly" flawless.

BUT. i'm not doing combat with the writing team. i'm not actively reading against the text the way i have to in order to enjoy something like supernatural or the 90s robin comics or the fucking sopranos, which are patriarchal christiancore copworld rapeworld white supremacist horrorshows that hate their minority audiences, with like 2 good creatives involved and martyring themselves to fight the good fight on sparse rare installments if you try to approach them sincerely.

riverdale writing staff are like a favorite smart problematic tumblr mutual to me. I don't always like what's on their blog or who they're referencing. but we're in the same community and i'm interested and inspired and i trust their agenda overall, even when i see shit i wouldn't have fucking posted. but bc i'm not being condescended to or actively spited i'm not gonna condescend to or spite them, you know?

i expect rvd to age like twin peaks (another very uneven, highly referential serial juggling a couple of intensely cool metanarratives on top of its core story). and twin peaks fandom mocks twin peaks all the time. twin peaks includes some CLUNKY shit. it's kitsch. it's camp. it has a second season that is largely ASS. james is there. and on top of that it also includes some genuinely offputting-to-me stuff that just bothers me to sit through, even though i feel like i understand and respect what they're going for with it. i just don't want to watch someone sweep the fucking bar for minutes and minutes as entertainment. OK!!?

...so yeah. mock riverdale but in the right spirit. is that an answer? do i sound like i'm chugging the flavoraid koolaid fresh-aid? probably.

[aquaaquila]

OPENING

So, under our agreement in DMs, I've decided to properly break down each of your arguments regarding whether Canon is better than Scarlet Lady. It's all done in good faith and for the fun of discussing and by no means will I try to attack you personally as we established to make it clear to everyone reading this as well, and I will take it more seriously rather than dismissing it with "it's a fanwork, it's not that serious" as you already made rather valid point on why it doesn't matter to this discussion. I came to love Scarlet Lady and view it better than Canon, and there are plenty of points here I disagree with, so let's get into it.

GABRIEL AND EMILIE AGRESTE

For starters, I'd like to establish that just because there are single instances within the story that can come off as weak, doesn't mean the story as a whole is weak. Yes, sometimes endings of the stories could make you reconsider the value of the entire thing, but all the same critics and enjoyers of a piece of media can acknowledge that even if one aspect of the story (like an ending) is weak, it doesn't mean the story as a whole is weak. GoT comes to mind with how it is known to have a very shitty ending but the majority of the story is considered a peak masterpiece. I don't think it's fair to judge something because one thing rubs you off the wrong way as no story is ever going to be perfect or flawless but focusing on singular instances of flaws rather than a continuous problem within the writing is not a valid criticism but rather nitpicking or grabbing at straws.

But now let's talk about the elephant in the room that kickstarted previous paragraph regarding ressurection of Emilie. Now, the canon of the show itself never established WHY couldn't butterfly and peacock miraculous be used to bring Emilie back. The movie did have Nooroo tell Gabriel right away that he doesn't have the power to bring back the dead, but movie continuity gave us more grace regarding this whole plot point, while canon only made us question further regarding it. Sure any viewer could come into conclusion that healing or permanent ressurection could be off the table for either peacock or butterfly, but in hindsight of over 100 episodes of ML showcasing us different crazy powers either sentimonsters or akumatized showcased, it made fans question "what is the limit". We have truly cracked villains like Stormy Weather for example who managed to push the Earth outside of its orbit, making her planetary scale level of threat, and of course it's all thanks to butterfly miraculous granting her such power. We had sentimonsters and akumatized villains alike that could mimic and even enhance the abilities present within miraculous holders like Copycat, Volpina, Miracle Queen, Manipula. We even had villains creating completely new settings like Pixelator and villains capable of ressurection like Pharaoh in his debut episode. So the question remains: could either akumatized villains or sentimonsters bring back Emilie.

The answer is not clear because the Canon of the show never entertained this idea. It never gave us either Gabriel or Nathalie even admit that at one point or the other they tried to use those two miraculouses they found to bring back Emilie. Miraculouses that in theory could grant them any power they need even without the restriction rooster miraculous has. The Canon of the show neglected to give the audience the idea that indeed Emilie's sickness cannot be cured by any typical superpowers but requires a complete rewrite of the reality to cure. And Zoe, the author of SL capitalised on that.

Bringing back Emilie was indeed to drive home how incompetent Gabriel is as a villain along with him being hypocritical. Both of those are objectively correct statements as indeed Gabriel was the incompetent idiot that was a hypocrite even before episode Evolution as he displayed numerously how he doesn't focus on short-term goals along with long-term goals unless the plot allows him to (how many times had he had Chat Noir wrapped around his finger and could've easily taken his miraculous when he was captured or brainwashed and didn't think of removing the ring right away and rather would use him as an additional villain that in the end still can't beat LB and only risks CN snapping out of his brainwashing; the times he had CN cornered and thought of removing the ring are Malediktator and Chameleon that come to mind, and I can't totally blame him as indeed it was the fault of akumatized villains refusing to remove the ring, but back in season 1 it was already established that Hawk Moth can cause his champions pain and even remove their powers in case they decided to disobey him, so why wouldn't he used it on Malediktator?) or even creates villains that are completely useless and counterproductive to him (Gigantitan was never a good idea, Mr Pigeon shouldn't have akumatized over 100 times, Reflekta is inherently stupid with how she removes the jewellery and didn't even control her victims originally and Goridzilla is too big to even remove tiny pieces of jewellery by himself) making it appear even in Canon like he hardly cares about victory. Canon Gabriel also showed more than once how he is absolutely willing to endanger his son in Akuma attacks and he even considered chaos caused by broken Reflekdoll to be beneficial, even if said Reflekdoll no longer listened to orders from anyone and Reflekta herself had no real means to fight Mr Bug and Lady Noire.

So about no, it's absolutely in character for Gabriel to not consider simple solutions, play actual long game, or achieve even small victories because 9 out of 10 times Gabriel would send an Akuma and hope for the best, with him making bigger plans rarely and more often not even on his own. Zoe's characterisation of Gabriel didn't come out of nowhere, what Zoe did was essentially remove the bait-and-switch game the writers of the show liked to call "nuance" (as no, Gabriel is too inconsistent in his behavior to be considered nuanced), which is the real goal behind this comic.

Originally Scarlet Lady was used to be a critic regarding the aspects of it in and outside of the universe, but more than anything, it was also to give characters of ML consistent characterisations. Gabriel and Chloe did not have consistent characterisations because depending on the episode they either were troubled but caring or they were absolute sociopathic idiots who didn't care at all. Zoe decided to remove such inconsistencies by indeed making them what the show initially tried to make them to be: the worst. The show itself is going back and forth regarding whether or not should Gabriel be remembered as a father who was trying or a villain who deserves to be condemned, even in season 6, but Zoe decided to not give him the grace of a "misguided husband and father" because Gabriel crossed too many lines within the show to truly be considered as such so Zoe decided to not even lie to her audience that Gabriel deep down cares because he hardly does, and even his level of care is as good as lack of it.

And Scarlet Lady as a story has a major theme of recognising and standing up to the abuse people are facing in real life, with Gabriel being the worst offender of it. Whereas the show more than often is willing to excuse abusers for their shitty treatment, Scarlet Lady properly calls them out on it and never lets it slide. Much like how Chloe at the end of the story is exposed as a fake hero who abused her powers for personal gain, the same happens to Gabriel who in this story functions as "what if Chloe never changed" thus condemning such possibility and letting Chloe at the end grew out of this, while teaching the audience the dangers of lack of self-awareness and entitlement.

But I got sidetracked on the Emilie plot point (so I edited the whole thing to be about both of them as sometimes you make things on the fly) and started ranting about Gabriel so back to Emilie: it is in character for Gabriel to be short-sighted enough to not question whether or not he could've done this all along, and even in canon he is also shown to be also petty and truly enjoying himself as a villain even if it always ends with him sulking and swearing revenge. And the reason why Emilie is brought back... so Adrien will stay in Paris. Realistically losing both of his parents would mean Adrien would have to reach out to his extended family first, who don't live in Paris, which would end with him moving away, something nobody wanted. Not to mention how the final battle in Scarlet Lady didn't happen in the basement so no one knew Gabriel kept her body there and leaving her there or bringing her to the surface feels a bit gruesome, so to avoid heartbreak and let the heroes enjoy their victory free from the abuse of Scarlet Lady and Hawk Moth, Emilie is brought back so Adrien can continue living in Paris. And this also lets us get to know Emilie.

Now even if Emilie was indeed very kind and loving as canon likes to play her, one must remember that she still enabled her husband's worst tactics and hardly did anything to improve Adrien's situation. We never learned whether or not was Emilie advocating for Adrien to have a normal life, but we know that supposedly Adrien never had a birthday party, had any friends other than Chloe, wasn't allowed to go outside, and was a child model with tons of obligations. Emilie agreeing to all of this indeed doesn't make her a stellar mother even if she appeared loving, but all of this stuff really just doesn't paint a good picture of Emilie. Not to mention that we don't even get to meet Emilie in the series, we always learn about her from someone else through their rose-tinted glasses. Emilie is a fridge woman of a crazy sociopath who was actively ruining his son's life while we never learn how SHE felt about this. And considering how Gabriel supposedly loves Emilie very much that whatever she would say, he would make happen (as he went as far as to make a senti-child - which isn't canon in SL but the level of devotion supposedly still is there) means that at most, she was ok with what was going on (as she would shut this whole thing down otherwise), so to also continue the theme of abusive figures the Scarlet Lady had to offer, Emilie fulfills the role as beloved smother under the guise of perfect mom she crafted for herself. And I do think it's brilliant because even if it is a happier ending for Adrien, it's still not without issues.

I'll say, if you don't like how this plot point got resolved, it's fine, but saying that the very existence of this plot point makes the entire story worse by default is lowkey absurd (no offense).

TONE

Now let's talk about the tone: Scarlet Lady at its very core was always supposed to be satirical saltfic that also is a whacky comedy. The show itself lives for whacky humor, so Zoe embracing this aspect of the show is not bad. Saltfics are acquired taste alright, but that's also the point. They're for those who need the salt, and when it comes to Miraculous fandom, a huge majority needed it so of course it's popular within the fan base. It's cathartic, and it continues to be as canon continues to disappoint.

It's worth noting that the show continues to flip-flop between two genres: romantic comedy and magical girl show. Both of these formats are just incompatible with one another because both of them have very different tones and sets of priorities, which makes the show feel lacking in the aspect of writing. Rather than trying to make Scarlet Lady both at the same time, Scarlet Lady becomes just a whacky comedy with elements of a magical girl show and romantic comedy (but neither are main genres), and at the end of the day, it's still supposed to be a light-hearted (though certainly more salty) comedy.

And let me tell you that in spite of comedy being front and center, it does feature moments that are not played for laughs

CHARACTERS

While I can see where you're coming from with how everyone acts to be a sarcastic smartass... they're teenagers, and that should be rather a default. Not only that but they're teenagers in a crappy situation, so of course the humor reflects this. And when not dealing with teenagers, it shows adults who also aren't pleased with whatever is going on because the whole situation is ridiculous. You have a magical terrorist taking advantage of people as they're losing their cool and transforming them into a bunch of crazy villains wreaking havoc. Anyone would feel done with this especially when all of this happens because someone felt a negative emotion and some supervillain decided to make things worse. This is in general ridiculous and anyone in this situation would know better and express it.

However, while it is common for characters to be annoyed, and sarcastic and for this to be played for comedy, it doesn't mean they have generic personalities. I personally never came across a take where being sarcastic is considered being generic, usually, it is about being nice (and this is a fairly popular sentiment among the fan base on how all characters are generically nice). I understand if the said tone is not your cup of tea, that's fair, but it doesn't mean it's bad writing, as all stories have their own tones, Scarlet Lady having its own is not a crime. All characters in Scarlet Lady have in fact their own personality that are hardly the same, each character has their own archetype but they still manage to be on the same page and find common interests between themselves, you know much like what happens in real life.

CHLOE

There is a dynamic between Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir. It's just stagnant because Chat Noir knows that reasoning with Scarlet is useless and Scarlet lacks the maturity to establish an actual connection with Chat. She doesn't care about him at all which is why she's taking advantage of him in the first place too. The dynamic is not intimate, it doesn't evolve because it would require Chloe to grow as a person but the whole point of the story is that she doesn't want to grow, she's not a hero, and she's not here to save the day. She's here to take all the credit and gain fame and glory, and it's not someone you would want to hang around so Chat doesn't even try to reason with her.

There is no plot hole in heroes not reclaiming Ladybug miraculous sooner. However, it is established ever since Adrien met Fu that they don't know who Scarlet Lady is and he was actively researching her as seen in Party Crasher. So yes, the heroes are considering taking the earrings all right, but there's also another significant problem. Scarlet is beloved by the public (all thanks to the miraculous cure) and the public for the longest believed Scarlet to be a great hero. Even if in Zombizou Scarlet proved to be dangerous, literally no one else but Marinette and Adrien know about it, meaning any potential confrontation could end up with Scarlet twisting the narrative in her favor as after all, she only comes out for attention and never for anything serious. She actively appeared late to the akumas almost missing them completely especially once Marigold was introduced. It serves the point that Scarlet is a glory hound and not someone heroes can casually reach without an audience. And Marinette and Adrien made up their minds about reclaiming the earrings before Zombizou even occurred and arguably Zombizou was not the first time Scarlet seriously jeopardized the mission. Attacking Marinette is a surprise to neither of them because they're used to Scarlet just straight up being messed up and sometimes doing heinous stuff just because, but for the longest Scarlet was "in the right".

It's not until Queen Wasp Chloe reveals her true identity and by that point, people already lost faith in Scar, but her secret identity being revealed plus Alya's expose finally settles it and the heroes are finally able to retrieve the earrings without worrying the public would brand them as new villains and try to arrest or assault them while they are trying to do their job.

Zoe is not blaming Chloe for something she didn't do, she's giving her prominence by making her something she would do. Chloe proved to Mr Pigeon that she was not above plagiarizing and even if she didn't plagiarize anything in canon, in canon Chloe was absent from Silencer, but while her absence could've been justified in season 5 as a build-up to how Scarlet was no longer truly relevant, Silencer is the episode that still had to give Scarlet some groundwork for being around and Zoe incorporated Chloe into episodes she wasn't originally in just so Chloe can fulfill her role as a recurring antagonist better. She may not be the main character like Marinette and Adrien despite stealing the earrings, but she still needs to be relevant and you can't do that with her not appearing in the story. In Animan Chloe is not present but she is present in Scarlet Lady specifically to spoil the date and serve as the secondary antagonist of that episode. Silencer is not different in that regard. I'm sorry if you feel like Zoe is blaming Chloe for something she didn't do but really, that's not the case, Zoe just decided to include Chloe in Silencer in the civilian plot supporting XY, who she canonically supports and I already made a point about Chloe having no issues stealing ideas. It even made a good joke about how Chloe "found her people".

I'm sorry but the results of Chloe siding up with Hawk Moth almost cost her her life. That doesn't seem to me like someone avoiding the consequences of their actions, especially when you remember Chloe was on board siding with Hawk Moth without much convincing, unlike Heart Hunter where Hawk Moth made an effort, here Chloe was ecstatic to join him and she coughed blood because of it and if Nathalie didn't feel like undoing it, she could've ended up terminally ill, and it's something Chloe DID realise and it shall haunt her for the rest of her life. Not only that but Bourgeois specifically had to move out of Paris after Chloe's betrayal before things would escalate, which was always in line with this family. They always get away with stuff because they have the money and status to do so. And yet, they couldn't stay around in Paris anymore as they were genuinely threatened by the possibility of a lawsuit coming their way. Heck, they might never be able to truly return to Paris because of this and there's no guarantee that they're free from legal issues in the future, they simply just didn't stick around to find out within Paris. So Chloe because of her actions effectively lost a chance of ever making up for her behavior with anyone within Paris (and losing her closest friends throughout the comic too) and had to leave her home and live somewhere else while having a memory of how Scarlet Lady led to her public image being ruined and Blue Blood almost killing her. I think that's more than enough and it was as Chloe swallowed her pride to apologize to Ladybug and she attempted to better herself by remembering her butler's name and was willing to clean up her stuff all by herself, which is a development for her showing how Chloe was not incapable of growth and learned her lesson at long last. Any further punishment for this would be kicking the lying on the floor.

Chloe's a titular character, but she was never the main character. Her being a titular character aside from helping distinguish the AU is also about her always stealing the spotlight and hogging all the attention. She still shaped the story in a specific way but not in a supportive role or as a lead that had to grow but much like in canon, as a recurring antagonist.

MARINETTE

Marinette in canon has shades of being a sarcastic smartass. I mean have you met Ladybug? She's always down for some witty quips and at times annoyed and sarcastic about how silly sometimes things are, especially it shines when she interacts with Chat Noir. This isn't a trait given by Zoe, it's a trait that she already has.

But this isn't her entire personality, on the contrary, the comic can't help but stress how lovely Marinette is as a person. Adrien falls in love with her for how sweet and considerate she is, which can be seen in Bubbler when he pretty much proposes to her silently as she gives him a coffee. She treated Pollen so well that she was genuinely upset at the thought that someday she would have to say goodbye to her queen. She even made custom gifts for all the kwamis in the box in Sandboy. The entire class is willing to protect her in Zombizou because of how much she means to them and in Heroes Day everyone gets to say how much they are grateful for Marinette helping them all across the comic. Marinette still is generous and kind with a heart of gold while also still having her temper and her intelligence which also means she's not afraid of calling out the BS of others, especially now that throughout the comic, she starts to gain more confidence as part of her growth.

I elaborate later on her so-called plot armor and Marinette nowadays is not exactly popular and well-liked :/

ADRIEN

It's pretty rich to say that Adrien has no character development on a post about how canon does things better because it should go without saying that canon refused over and over again to give Adrien any growth, any real development as a character, slowly but surely turning him into a trophy husband for Marinette that has no real agency whatsoever.

Adrien in Scarlet Lady has range: he can be sweet, optimistic, idealistic, righteous, and heroic, he can also be sarcastic, jaded, and petty, has a temper, he can be serious and responsible, and can be goofy and charming. He's expressive, he's rebellious, he's strong-willed, he can be an idiot sometimes. No-personality where?

In Scarlet Lady Adrien actively is fighting for his agency because he has no other choice. Adrien wouldn't need to fight if he didn't have a reason. Adrien is in a position where he can't be passive, he can't lack backbone, and he can no longer just let either Gabriel or Chloe do what they do because he IS the only one who has the power to stop them. Keep in mind that while we didn't see it in the comic, Origins up to Chloe stealing the earrings went exactly the same way, meaning Adrien sneaked out to go to school but ultimately complied and returned home with Nathalie despite how unfair it was and Gabriel still told him to not attend a school which made him run away to his room where he found Plagg. So it's already established at first that while Adrien is fighting for his freedom the second he's in, he didn't have it immediately in him.

However, Scarlet Lady changed this and allowed Adrien to grow. It allowed him to realise that if he doesn't stand up for himself he only will lose chances of his own happiness so he stands up to his dad, and throughout the comic, he has to do so constantly because Gabriel constantly tries to control him and restrict him. Adrien can't allow himself to back down, but he also doesn't always succeed like in Captain Hardrock when he initially failed to fight for his own freedom.

It doesn't however mean that Adrien hates his dad. In Captain Hardrock, it can be seen how he hugs his dad and is happy when he lets him go to the concert of his friends. He was genuinely happy when he thought his dad gave him a nice scarf for his birthday. He genuinely broke down at Master Fu's place over his dad being a villain, because he did love him and all this hurt came from a broken heart. Adrien didn't hate his dad until the finale, but as he points out in Goridzilla Gabriel never did anything that would make Adrien trust him.

And with Chloe: Adrien didn't end their friendship at the beginning of the story, he threatened to end it much like he did in Despair Bear (though was even more upset and vocal about it then in comparison making it even more genuine) and of course, him and Chloe don't hang out across the comic because Chloe is still at her shit, but Adrien still doesn't officially end it till Despair Bear as he's still giving her a chance to improve, but it depends on Chloe and Chloe alone. However, Chloe only proceeds to get worse, actively stalking him which Adrien does all out as something that is not ok with him and as he should. She's still bullying people around him and he does not like that. The comic actually gave us a very good reason why Chloe and Adrien are friends that never hang out, unlike canon that informed us only in the pilot episodes that served as the season 1 finale on how Adrien and Chloe are childhood friends, but the rest of season 1 treats it more like Chloe is obnoxious girl clinging to Adrien's hip while he doesn't say anything. Still, it is shown at the end of season 5 how Adrien is genuinely upset that Chloe is alone and hurting but still acknowledges that Chloe only has herself to blame. However, he did not like the fact that his former friend collapsed in front of him, making him hate Hawk Moth with a burning passion. So funnily enough, Scarlet Lady gave Adrien and Chloe's friendship more grace than canon because canon Adrien never hangs out with Chloe willingly, them being childhood friends only comes sparingly and only as an excuse on why Adrien won't tell Chloe to buzz off, Adrien's threat in Despair Bear ended up being pretty empty, Chloe herself ended the friendship in Queen Banana when Adrien brought up his threat from two seasons ago that was undone in the same episode it was introduced and then supposedly Adrien gives Chloe one last chance in season 5, even though at that point Chloe stopped giving a flying fuck about what Adrien thinks or feels, and it doesn't help that he only made his final declaration of ending the friendship when he learned how she traumatized Marinette IN THE PAST, while Chloe, in fact, bullying all of his other friends for 5 seasons straight while he was present to witness it.

And Adrien objectively is a victim. He was always established to be a victim, but Scarlet Lady in fact did allow him to be more than a victim through his growth across the story where he learns what true love is. Even if his mother wasn't necessarily bitch in sheep's clothing, she still put him in a messed-up situation by not allowing him to have any other friends than Chloe, experiencing the outside world, enabling Gabriel's negligence, allowing Gabriel to exploit Adrien as a model and make him learn and do various things Adrien might not even have any interest in in the first place (like one thing is Adrien playing piano because he likes playing piano and wanted to learn and the other thing is Gabriel making him play piano, as if it's some important life skill and not something that can be either a specific profession Adrien would take in the future or a funny hobby he would do for himself alone) and Adrien apparently also never had a birthday party in his life while Emilie was still around. Emilie's character is a fridged woman in canon but without even putting as much thought into her because she's treated like she passed years ago when it's only been 1, roughly 2 years. So Emilie still has 13 years of being around Adrien's 13 years of sad backstory, so excuse Zoe for deciding to make her not so innocent because of this as this would be a moral failing on her part regardless.

Adrien's growth in Scarlet Lady can be also very clear to see. He starts as his optimistic, naive self who quickly learns that he is in fact taken advantage of and not treated right by those around him, so he starts to fight, disobey, and most of all, release all the emotions he was feeling that were the result of all the years of having to suck it up. Then throughout the comic, we see how he also goes from this tired and jaded to regaining his joy again and trust in other people, becoming more relaxed, relying more on others and not just himself, building friendships and relationships with multiple people, and learning what true friendship is around and realising more and more every day how his situation is pretty grim but it can get better and it will get better as he no longer is alone and no longer has to fight alone too. He even lets to finally let go of not just his anger but even his sadness at the end of the comic. Sure you have a point that fans are extra satisfied because this Adrien is what we want him to be, but that's also the point. You want your characters to be likable, and to resonate with the audience, and Adrien's passiveness just no longer resonates with people because it has no real payoff.

Adrien is being kept in the dark about everything, he can never truly do things on his own unless the plot allows him to for as long as it needs until Ladybug can solve the entire problem by herself. Scarlet Lady does him justice and acknowledges him as a proper hero who is only perceived as a sidekick instead of a sidekick who is only perceived as a hero when clearly not (and this comes from a guy who used to defend Adrien's role's validity as LB's equal, but no there never was equality).

In Scarlet Lady, the reason he's silent while Gabriel is confronted is because he also has to process just how awful Gabriel is and it's not like he can reveal his identity wide in the open like that. Marinette dodged a bullet by Alya not being present for the beginning of LB's speech, otherwise, she would figure Marinette was Marigold and Ladybug. It doesn't mean he has no reaction, he's just suppressing it but he did let out a good cry at Fu's, and his dark eyes are a reaction in itself, just not the one of falling apart, but it's not like he also didn't slam Gabriel to the ground before that with Fox Trot despite it being unnecessary. And calling out Gabriel is not a turning point for him but the culmination of his growth. Oh, and Adrien absolutely has a reaction to his mom coming back; he's too stunned to speak and confused on H O W and what to think of it. God forbid the guy to be confused.

THE MALE CAST

It's worth noting that the only girls who want to get in are the ones who are supposed to be kept out, no other women are being kept out from entering, and Nino saying keep the girls out is about condensing the plot of the comic instead of repeating every word canon has to offer.

Arguably SL did boys better by showing how guilty they are with their entire plan, properly acknowledging how much of a dick move they're doing right now by ditching the girls despite promising to help them, while in canon they straight up just didn't care, just acknowledged it, but didn't care. Heck, it's even better when it appears to be a plan made on the fly and not something Nino planned beforehand including making up specific excuses to the guys knowing they wouldn't be able to lie, while in SL it's a comedic plot point on how Nino has lists of excuses that never got elaborated on, though you could justify it by Nino becoming Fox Trot and perhaps writing some excuses for himself if he needed to jump into action, but then again they're the same as canon, very specific so it's unclear but it's better if it's unclear instead of very clear on how Nino planned right from the start to lie to girls and ditch them.

And it's absolutely fair that Adrien is not held accountable because he literally never planned for this to happen and genuinely was upset and questioned why they couldn't invite the girls. Nino assuming girls wouldn't want Adrien and boys to have fun is wrong, they would only be upset because the boys ditched them to have fun with Adrien, which is a plot point in SL. However, since SL didn't neglect to let Adrien make proper friendships with his classmates, they know Adrien most likely didn't plan this, nor ditched them because he never made a promise to come help plant the trees in the first place. Why should Adrien take the blame for guys throwing a party inside his house when it was never his idea and was somewhat peer pressured into it? Everyone knows Adrien deserves such a party including Adrien, so of course people are not upset that Adrien got such a party, they're upset that guys made this party on the very day they promised to plant trees and left girls alone to do it. The canon still didn't hold them accountable while SL did because it remains the same in both versions that guys ditched girls and kept them out of fun while also lying to them. This isn't even about sexism but it's worse when you know you could invite any guy to the party and none of the girls which is also what Canon did by bringing almost every male character to the party.

NATHALIE

Mary Sue characters are not just competent women characters, Mary Sue is a female character that lacks flaws and weaknesses, but that's not the case for Nathalie. For starters, it has to be said that Nathalie is insanely apathetic, a passive enabler who also thrives and enjoys the chaos. She's by no virtue a good person, which is what usually Mary Sue is supposed to be. The comic certainly doesn't make Nathalie a good person, it just makes her a better villain than Gabriel and that also serves the purpose of being foils to both Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir, she is initially a Cha Noir to Gabriel's Scarlet Lady. That's why she succeeds in the end because much like Cha Noir, she's a hypercompetent sidekick held back by the incompetent fraud who has even worse morals than her and can't do the job properly.

It is informed in canon that Nathalie was a treasure hunter hired by Gabriel and Emilie to find miraculouses, so it stands in no reason for why Nathalie shouldn't be able to decipher the Grimoire, especially when in the show if Alya was able to see through Grimoire (not necessarily decode but understand how it actually works as rather an archive for the discoveries) on her first try, Nathalie should be even more capable to do so by being an adult with experience when comes to such stuff. It could even be argued that Nathalie in fact spent the entire series decoding the grimoire beforehand while doing it behind Gabriel's back so while he was fooling around, she was preparing an actual solution to the problem but didn't present it because he wouldn't listen to her.

But her flaw was not standing up to Gabriel. She absolutely should've done for the good of their mission alone but in the end, she didn't, and even showed to be quite a hypocrite because here she is annoyed that Gabriel is enjoying his villainy, but she as Jackal and Mayura proves to be not that much better. The difference is that Nathalie is at the end playing around (which is quite messed up) while Gabriel supposedly has a bigger goal in his mind, but unlike Nathalie, he can't get the job done even if he tries.

In canon, Nathalie can suffer from bad writing for how despite Emilie telling her to look after Adrien while she's gone, she still didn't start seriously doing it until season 5. Her feelings for Gabriel happen out of nowhere and the reason behind it is how she admires how he would do anything for his family, but any viewer of miraculous knows that Gabriel isn't the sharpest tool in the shed and actively ignores means for success even before season 5, so Nathalie who was initially introduced as cold and professional assistant should know better that even if Gabriel is capable of doing anything for his family, he still is very much a failure. And despite her supposedly being competent, she also pretty much ends up making quite big mistakes which also makes holes in her image making her inconsistent. So is she trying to do something or not? Can she do something or not?

In SL it is answered that "yes, she can, but she won't" because she's just apathetic. If Gabriel somehow wins, they win, if he doesn't then she can do what he can't. She doesn't care who gets hurt on the way, but she knows that there's no point in taking unnecessary casualties. Hence she heals Chloe when she feels the effect of the peacock, because her death is just unnecessary, and so are the deaths of other potential victims of the miraculous powers. Still, Nathalie is willing to release a sentimonster to the public just because she's bored.

Mary Sues are supposed to be always right, but Nathalie is not right, she simply just wasn't caught, and the reason she didn't get caught is because she's using her brain, which is good as villains should be competent otherwise where's fun in that?

ZOE

I'm sorry but this entire paragraph really feels incorrect for multiple of reasons.

For starters getting mad that Zoé didn't have her backstory explained once again can be traced back to canon. The canon never gave you ANY reason for how Zoé came to be. Her father is mentioned once and never again, and supposedly has no issues with Zoé stepdad winning her in the custody battle he wasn't even involved in and had no real say in. There was never an announcement that "Audrey is ashamed of Zoé" as arguably, Audrey showed more care for Zoé than she did about Chloé in Zoé's debut episode. She didn't fumble her name the first time we met her (though season 5 later on fixes this apparently), nor was she happy to kick Zoé out of Paris the moment Chloé IMMEDIATELY requested it. She actually looked scared about how she couldn't fire her. This was very OOC for Audrey in Sole Crusher but it still pretty much already debunked the points you're bringing about how Zoé brings Audrey shame, when no, clearly not, otherwise Audrey would vocalize it as this is the same woman that said on live tv how Chloé is not exceptional at all without missing a beat.

Zoe didn't need to explain Zoé's backstory because the Scarlet Lady comic as a whole drives from canon and the target audience is the very same audience that already is aware of what's happening in the actual show. The comic isn't a complete standalone story and never intended to be as even the very first chapters rely on the audience knowing how things went as Zoe admitted herself, she was not good at drawing fighting scenes and the humor in SL was about mocking Canon and its decisions, and if Scarlet Lady was standalone, said jokes indeed wouldn't even need to exist, but where's fun in that?

Zoe never made any alterations to the marriage between Audrey and Andre (actually dodged the subject as a whole which arguably is better because you're allowed to theorize on how either Audrey or Andre aren't married for that long or are divorced or in an open relationship, or that indeed there was an affair - speaking of which said theorizing shouldn't be a point against Zoe) and never made characters in-universe question this aside from how somehow Adrien who is a childhood friend of Chloe didn't know about Zoé (canon never said him and Chloe were never as close, on the contrary the canon said Chloe and Adrien are closer than what we actually see on the screen and SL comic at least justified distance between Adrien and Chloe in Adrien establishing boundaries Chloe didn't respect while canon only informed us they are childhood friends who were close before Adrien started going to school, but it always came up sparingly), though the author note justifies him by saying Chloe also didn't know and truth to be told, , which does make sense when you remember how self-absorbed Chloe is with how in Goridzilla she completely ignores his request on seeing his movie with her, so, of course, Chloe would never pay attention to ever bringing a subject of having a half-sister unless said half-sister would appear in a flesh, and even then Chloe wasn't all too pressed about it, and there is some quality in it. Sometimes affairs happen even if it's not right, but they still happen and sometimes they do result in children. Here's a question: what do you do with said kid? Well Scarlet Lady indirectly answers this question by embracing Zoé into the family and never rejecting her based on being a bastard child, and that's good because it shows that even those kids who never asked to be born into such a situation still deserve to have a normal life and be treated like you know, people, and not mistakes

Zoé and Andre actively refer to each other as stepdad and stepdaughter in Malediktator in both English and French in the comic, Zoé does not refer to Andre as her actual dad or parent but stepparents still are parents even if not biological ones and Andre is actively looking out for his entire family and Zoé being the nice person she acknowledges it, hence she does treat him as a family. It was never stated they have a strong bond, they simply just don't hate each other and since both of them can be nice, they're nice to each other. In therapy scenes, they ARE one family, even if Zoé arrived recently, and Zoé needs therapy as much as the rest of the family because it's Zoé who acknowledges how Audrey failed BOTH of her daughters, so, of course, all 3 would be involved and Andre who was the main caretaker of Chloe would also be involved in this.

Also, I can't help but disagree with the notion that Zoé in SL is deprived of anything interesting in canon. On the contrary, what canon only provided as informed traits of Zoé of how she's an actress masking and adapting to please her family, which only existed for her debut episode and then rather got dropped, Zoe properly utilises this within the story across Zoé's appearances in the comic, not immediately explaining it off the bat as Marinette questions who Zoé truly is at the end of Malediktator. Aside from that, we saw Zoé cleverly lie for good reasons multiple times across the comic, arguably more so than in canon. She manipulated Audrey into accepting Chloe's gift which certainly saved Chloe's face on national TV, while making her happy and somewhat improving things between her and Audrey; she made herself Style Queen's assistant so she could bring Marigold's attention and didn't blow Marigold's cover while doing it, then she also tried to persuade Chloe into giving up the earrings (though that one didn't end well, but it's the effort that counts). Zoé in the comic showcased more of her personality than Zoé in canon because in canon her personality is informed and not showcased immediately after her debut episode, she's just another nice friend of Marinette who occasionally gives her a free pass to get into fancy people parties as a recurring thing, and then love square healthy support. In Scarlet Lady it's established that Zoé no longer knows how to be herself anymore and who she is, which is different from "no personality" and it is a nice conflict her character has to face that is ongoing and not resolved in one chapter.

Another thing is that Zoé's affection towards Chloe is way more sincere than what the canon provided. Zoé in canon arguably doesn't care much about Chloe at the end of the day. She's either terrorized by her or just puts up with her. Zoé never made an effort to reach out to Chloe or make things right with her after their falling out. Zoé pretty much like everyone left Chloe behind, but Zoé in SL did the opposite. She tried numerous times to reach out to her so Chloe wouldn't be alone hurting, she even rushed into tears with her eyes when she saw Chloe collapse after the usage of peacock miraculous keep in mind Zoé only knew her for a week and she still cried for Chloe despite her not treating her much better than canon version of her. She rushed Chloe into the hospital while swearing under her breath how she would never forgive Hawk Moth and she flipped Gabriel Agreste off while stinging him with Venom with a silly and enthusiastic face for almost killing her sister. But that silly enthusiastic face also speaks volumes on how much Zoé hates him and everyone in the comic hates him more than just a comic relief. Everyone is collectively furious, Zoé isn't somehow less furious, it's just that you downplay everyone else's fury because the author did decide to end it on a more comedic note with how Marinette nonchalantly tells him to shut up once he wanted to go on a tirade on how if he got his wish none of it would matter, which is fair because she ripped him a new one beforehand and the fact that he still is on his own thing means there's no point in giving him more of their time, which is what you should also do when encountering bullies, trolls, incels, and dicks in general. Zoé is happy she can contribute to Gabriel's defeat considering she missed the major beatdown to prioritise her sister's health over revenge and she still had her own petty revenge by ensuring he lands in jail for life without having the dignity of last words.

Even the scene that is quoted from canon "I still love you even when the whole world hates you is way more sincere than the anon version that played this scene specifically before Zoé tricked Chloe into accepting a magical charm and said quote not even being words Zoé came up with herself but her lines from the movie she recited just so she could soften up Chloe. In SL however, the scene is intimate between Zoé and Chloe and exists specifically so both Zoé and Chloé can have happily ever after as best friends forever.

Vesperia in the comic got to use space power-up as a bonus, but her not having Vesperia's strengths from Queen Banana is justified because what enraged Chloe about Vesperia is that she's the new holder of the bee miraculous. But Chloe in SL wouldn't hate Vesperia more than she already hates Marigold, Chloe in SL is not Queen Bee so she doesn't care who wears the hair comb. Arguably Chloe would be more pissed if Zoe wore a ladybug miraculous, but that didn't happen because the ladybug was always meant to be wielded by Marinette. Another thing is that Vesperia didn't do anything other than what Queen Bee did during Heroes Day and her not getting to achieve much is also because she's both a newbie and because Queen Bee failed during Heroes Day to do anything interesting.

So yeah this entire paragraph about Zoé I can't help but disagree with 100%.

BECAUSE CANON DID IT TOO

I already sporadically mentioned how indeed Scarlet Lady requires you to watch a show beforehand and it can be an issue if you want to treat Scarlet Lady as its standalone story, but it never was a standalone story. It's an adaptation of an existing story that has meta-commentary within it establishing a relationship with canon, which is what makes Scarlet Lady its own unique thing. It still tells you its own story, but not down to every detail because Zoe changes only some aspects of the story, not all of them. She does change them fundamentally alright, but there are still things that remain unchanged because they didn't need to change.

Zoe originally DID NOT in fact plan to include the entire miracle box, the original idea was for Scarlet Lady to have 4 seasons ending with only 7 main miraculous being used with the zodiac only slowly being integrated more into the narrative of Scarlet Lady. Zoe included the rest of the zodiac because as she described it "she's weak" but really, she just enjoyed pitching costume ideas for other miraculouses and integrating them into her story. Zoe's an artist, of course, and she likes to draw, she would take the opportunity of drawing characters in various different aesthetics of different miraculouses and even include some meta-commentary regarding those miraculouses. At the end of the day Scarlet Lady comic was a fun project Zoe didn't do just for the fans, but for herself as well. Sure Zoe never intended to continue the story forever unlike the canon, but the canon also at times acts like some miraculouses and their holders just don't exist until it's convenient and Zoe still gave each miraculous a chance to shine and purpose to serve in the story, fulfilling the role it serves in both canon and Scarlet Lady: a gimmick. It's a nice gimmick to include more heroes with different powers that occasionally help the heroes. That's the point.

It's worth noting that Zoe did release recently for the anniversary of her comic an "extended scene" of all the heroes beating down Hawk Moth and each of them contributing to the battle as no, Chat Noir didn't solo Hawk Moth. It's worth noting that Ladybug and Chat Noir were losing battle to Hawk Moth on their own in both Scarlet Lady and even in canon, so while having 13 heroes giving Hawk Moth a smackdown seems extra, it makes sense knowing how none of the kids could defeat Hawk Moth on their own and it required a team effort to take him down, heck even bigger than 5 people alone too.

Sure Fu could've delivered miraculouses without the need of the rabbit, but it's nice to know that all miraculouses were included in the end and the rabbit certainly made it easier to collect all the miraculouses without revealing his face or having kwamis go on a very long journey all across the city. Zoe would have initially just not used rabbit at all but leaving one miraculous out just would feel like something that would bother every fan reading the story at night. Canonically the rabbit miraculous CAN in fact connect to alternate timelines. Chat Blanc was a timeline that didn't exist in Bunnyx's future as she exclaimed herself. In Chat Blanc she learned about the existence of Chat Blanc in the first place as it never happened before according to her. However, if Bunnyx could see this timeline existing, there's no reason to believe that she can't see other timelines existing. Scarlet Lady story pretty much started the same as canon (minus the sentichildren thing Zoe did not see coming and therefore didn't include) with Chloe's actions taking the timeline in a different direction. Granted it still served as a setback to Marinette receiving ladybug, and not a universe-altering timeline like Chat Blanc. So no, Zoe didn't make Rabbit more OP, just took advantage of the fact that Rabbit already had such capacity to view and travel into different timelines to include Bunnyx. Bunnyx as herself serves only for one reason: easter eggs, giving the audience nods to canonical stories that wouldn't be adapted into Scarlet Lady. And easter eggs are appreciated greatly.

Zoe did NOT in fact forget to include the reason why Marinette and Chat aren't together. It's established in seasons 1 and 2 how Marinette despite having a crush on both Adrien and Chat Noir didn't realise how deep her feelings go. She didn't realise she was in love with Chat until she sat down with Master Fu in Evillustrator. The same episode also included why Chat and Marinette can't be together: he's a superhero getting himself in very scary and risky situations and Marinette could end up as a casualty due to her lack of superpowers. Marinette doesn't possess her plot armor in SL, she can very much BE targeted by the villains, as seen with Befana succeeding in getting Marinette. Evillustrator also almost drowned both of them which is what made Chat freak out in the first place. Marinette is not indestructible, she's just under the protection of Chat, but he had to tell her that he can't risk her getting hurt and told her to stop involving herself with akumas, making Mari unable to see him as often meaning they simply wouldn't be able to establish a relationship like that as Chat Noir still has a duty and double-life. Season 3 onwards includes the love square of Marigold wanting to be with Chat Noir but not necessarily returning the same feelings as he loves Marinette and Adrien chasing Marinette but she doesn't love Adrien that way. Adrien knew he only had a chance as Chat Noir at the given moment and he was down bad enough to settle for this but Marinette had to establish that she couldn't be with Chat after making the promise to not engage herself with the akumas which is inevitable for Chat to engage himself so Hawk Moth also stood in the way of him having relationship along with the love square still existing in Scarlet Lady, just not being near AS dramatic and convoluted. Also, it's not like Adrien didn't make his crush very obvious, but he also didn't confess to Ladybug immediately and waited an entire season to do so, despite also not being subtle at all *cough cough*Animan*cough cough*.

Also, it's extra petty to say the writing of Elation is better than the entirety of Scarlet Lady when said episode is a rip-off of the Marichat fanfic genre that shouldn't exist the way it does after episodes like Glaciator 2 and Weredad. Like I get you may not enjoy the story, but as of now we have been talking about some aspects of Scarlet Lady (not all of them, like I did expect to see some points about Alya, Lila, Sabrina, Luka, and other characters along with some other decisions, but they did not appear here so I assume they don't bother you enough to be mentioned otherwise they would be here as you did bring some trivial points here in my opinion) so my point from first paragraphs stands that just because you dislike some aspects of the story doesn't mean the entire story is badly written, especially when those things are a matter of taste. So going as far as to say something badly written is better because you dislike something else for not meeting your expectations just... isn't right.

And the comment "sometimes it's better to diverge things" while on a post that is bashing said divergences comes off as a bit hypocritical. So do you want canon divergence or respect what canon is provided? Oh, wait, you want a completely different story. Valid but that's not what SL was supposed to be in the first place.

Ladybug episode was the first episode to entertain the idea of sentibeings being the same as any other living being by giving us the first known human sentimonster. However, all it took was CN and LB admitting how "perfect' she is and then LB deciding to not destroy her once she gave her the amok and then stating how amok is required to control sentimonster and anyone can do it without peacock's intentions. That isn't much different treatment with Sentiwasp as she also just got introduced and then once you got her amok she immediately switched sides much like Sentibug did. It's worth noting that for the majority of the chapter people weren't certain Sentiwasp was a sentimonster and some people thought it was just Chloe, so unlike with other sentimonsters, there never was "she's not real, she's a mindless creature", it's a shocker to learn that she's actually a magical construct but she still had a lot of her own personality and even looked conflicted when LB proposed her a second chance and when LB took the amok it even teased a promise that Sentiwasp could be something more. At the end of the day she wasn't made evil, she was just in the wrong hands and who knows, maybe if she lived, she could've been a hero. But then Chloe snaps her out of existence not giving her a chance, which isn't much different from what Mayura did or what happened in that episode as for the majority of it Sentibug was nothing but following orders and antagonizing LB and CN only to switch at the end, but she didn't get to do much and she died the same episode she was introduced in. The same also happened to Sentibubbler. It's hard to say that the Ladybug episode proved Sentibug to have sentience when for the majority of the episode she was strictly controlled by Mayura, Sentiwasp looking conflicted by a small margin actually does better by showing Sentiwasp questioning her programming, Sentibug never questioned it though.

Reflekdoll in Scarlet Lady is a low-stake mini-story as Mayura doesn't have any other agenda other than spiting Adrien for ruining her evening indirectly by causing havoc and Adrien and Marinette by that point already know each other's identities, so their swapping powers feel more like a fun experience than a necessity, unlike canon. Sure you can like the canon version of Reflekdoll but there's nothing inherently bad with low-stake power swap for the fun of it.

ZOE AND THOMAS ASTRUC ARE ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH

Literally, no. There's a difference between an artist establishing boundaries with its fan base and an artist being petty and having a large ego. I don't think I need to elaborate on the immaturity of Thomas Astruc, there already are plenty of blogs dedicated to this subject but I'm not one of them. Zoe doesn't GLOAT herself as a great writer, she simply is just having fun with the idea she had. She does however not let people walk all over her. And unlike Thomas, she didn't play the bait-and-switch game with the audience, she made her intentions clear from day one on how she wanted her story to go, and while fans of the show have every right to be upset by having empty promises made by the show for redemption of Chloe by how much the show invested in her and this arc only to assassinate it and not do anything good with Chloe afterward, but Zoe never even teased Chloe redemption, so for people to be upset Scarlet Lady is not a redemption story is on them, especially 5 seasons and 5 years in.

Chloe at the end of season 5 went to Versailles, that's still France and not THAT far away from Paris. And in SL they were specifically escaping potential legal charges they could face, while canon didn't even entertain the idea that Chloe should be legally charged for what she did but just had Andre banish her to suffer the abuse from her mother. Not the same ending as the entire Bourgeois family leaving together with the promise they will make things right within their family.

Also, sidenote Marinette calling him out is not wrong as Adrien also called out Hawk Moth while gaining his power up, and Marinette also deserves a right to defend her boyfriend, especially since Adrien always had to deal with Gabriel alone.

CONCLUSION

Anger and hatred are valid emotions and you should be allowed to dislike and even loathe things that upset you or know aren't right with you anger is also a natural human emotion and reaction. Saying never be angry and hateful at all is just a toxic positivity mindset to have that can be even harmful as not all human beings can always be positive all the time and it's unusual for people to not be angry or upset. The SL comic didn't ruin a good ending unless you wanted Gabriel to be redeemed. The guy would face justice regardless and hit karma hard for being a magical terrorist in the first place. People are allowed to hate him because he took advantage of everyone, including hatred and anger. Heck Zombizou itself teaches you that there's nothing wrong with being angry and you're not a bad person because you hate.

Not true at all, there are plenty of satirical stories, saltfics, and spite stories that are very enjoyable and well-written and can serve great lessons. It is an acquired taste alright, but it's not always badly written. Saltfics can help you deal with negative emotions you have as sometimes it's better to let it out by either writing or reading and saltfics can sometimes give you a new perspective on things too.

Zoe isn't even arrogant, she absolutely recognizes her own faults and shortcomings, she knows her story isn't flawless but she also knows that the writing of canon didn't do justice to the characters within it so she did it herself and people praised her for it. A lesson about arrogance really should apply to Thomas sorry not sorry.

Zoe did not remove characters' flaws, she simply didn't exaggerate them to the moon and back like in canon. Zoe herself pointed out how Marinette has plenty of flaws, especially within her story (like her clumsiness, her temper, her jealousy, and her tendency to overthink and complicate stuff), they all exist within the story and other characters also have their flaws and shortcomings.

Whenever Zoe contradicted elements from canon, she explicitly made a comic page about it. What she decided to not contradict was left unchanged. Simple as that.

To say the least, even a year ago Scarlet Lady is fondly remembered not only just on Tumblr but on Reddit as well. Even I decided to make a reply to your post because I cared about Scarlet Lady, and it wasn't made yesterday now is it? They didn't exist just to bash the story of someone else, but to serve justice to those characters so their happily ever after feels earned and satisfying.

So there's that. Excuse me if sometimes things aren't coherent but it's a very large essay I made here, feel free to correct me if something bothers you or if I missed something.

Canon is Better than Scarlet Lady

I while ago I read a post where someone said that they don't like fanfiction because "Why would you take someone else's story and butcher it?" When I read that, I thought "Isn't that harsh? Most fanfics are made out of people's love for the source material." Well, I think the Scarlet Lady AU by Zoe-Oneesama is exactly the kind of fic this person was imagining when they said that. "Scarlet Lady" is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic/saltfic/fixfic that fundamentally misses the point of pretty much every character and major plot point in it. And since it recently ended, it's time for my comprehensive review of it.

Just a few things before we begin. I'm going to assume that everyone reading this has read "Scarlet Lady", so I'm not going to recap the story. I was originally planning to write this on the day of the last page, but the final page was honestly such a nothing burger that I thought it wasn't the final page initially.

Some people may have a problem with the very concept of this review, saying its not fair for me to criticize a non-professional fanfic with this much scrutiny. I think that's an opinion Zoe herself holds. First, I think nothing is above criticism, especially not something that is claiming to be better than the professional product. People didn't hold back against "Spiderman: Lotus", did they? Even within this fanbase, people had some pretty harsh words for "Karma of Lies". Second, I think any discussion of non-professionalism went out the window the moment Zoe stated her intention to sell hardcopies of "Scarlet Lady". This arguably is professional. Third, I wouldn't be making this review if I thought this was a fanfic made out of genuine love and passion, and simply missed the mark. No, "Scarlet Lady" is in fact created out of nothing but spite and contempt, and I feel that makes it pretty fair game for criticism. So, without further ado, let's begin.

Why is Canon Better than Scarlet Lady?

In "Scarlet Lady", Emilie Agreste was woken up with no consequences, no buildup, no emotion, and no meaningful consequences. In canon, Emilie's loss was accepted by the characters and she died. I'm pretty sure that automatically makes canon better than "Scarlet Lady", so you don't even need to read the rest of this review! In all seriousness, this is genuinely some of the worst writing I have ever seen, and it is what made me decide that "Scarlet Lady" was a bad story, so I decided to just mention it on its own.

To be clear, I think Miraculous Ladybug is a poorly written show. "Scarlet Lady" is just worse. And since I used to enjoy Miraculous Ladybug, I'm in a good position to compare the two. When I read the ending of Scarlet Lady, what I though about canon was

I think that writing the middle part of a story is relatively easy. The audience is already hooked from the beginning, and they are intrigued for what might happen, so they'll keep reading even if not everything is great. I think the beginning and ending is the hard part. "Scarlet Lady" didn't have to worry about the beginning and getting people interested because it's piggybacking off of an already successful show. And since the ending of "Scarlet Lady" was so awful, it's clear to me that it was always badly written.

I'll now be analyzing "Scarlet Lady" in terms of its tone, its various characters, and more.

Tone

Every single potentially powerful moment in "Scarlet Lady" is played off as a joke. This may be in part because of the format, with it being released 8 panels at a time, so the audience has to be given something to be entertained by in every page. The thing is, I don't think that's true. I have seen plenty of webcomics where a situation is spread across multiple pages, and the audience doesn't instantly lose interest when one page is for setup purposes.

The consequence of this unserious tone is that the entire story is an emotional flatline. There's no moments that make you sad, no moments that make you happy, nothing that makes you scared or invested. Nothing feels like anything, because everything is a joke.

The season 2 finale of canon is actually really good, it feels like a real challenge with both sides giving it their all. In SL however, the same battle feels about as challenging as a stroll through the park.

I've seen a lot of comedies, and most of them still have a strong emotional core that isn't made into a joke at every turn. So arguing that SL is a comedy doesn't really help.

The problems with this unserious tone run deep, and you will see that as I explore the various characters.

Characters

I don't even like most of the characters in ML, but I could see the absolute downgrade they are in SL.

In general, I just wanted to say this: almost every character in this story is a sarcastic smartass. This makes them rather monotonous and uninteresting. Also very generic considering how common this archetype is these days.

Wait a second. Every serious moment is undermined by a joke, and all the characters are sarcastic smartasses. Was Zoe secretly an MCU writer this entire time?!

Chloé

I figure we should start with the titular Scarlet Lady. I actually think that the idea of a superhero duo where one of them is extremely lazy and unhelpful, but still necessary, is an extremely interesting idea for a dynamic. The problem is, there is no dynamic. Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir have no relationship, they just talk at each other constantly. And the result of this is that basically every interaction is the same: Scar does something selfish, Chat gets mad, rinse and repeat. It could have been interesting to explore different scenarios and ideas with these two, but no they just do the same thing over and over.

There is a pretty big plot hole here once Marigold is introduced. Why don't the heroes just take the Ladybug Miraculous back? It would be rather easy. Well, the explanation is that since Scar is still popular with the public, its best to keep her around for public cooperation and morale. Okay, I can accept that. Except, only a few episodes after this explanation we get "Zombizou", an episode where Scar straight up attacks Marinette in the middle of a battle, which causes Chat to get infected and them to very nearly lose. After that, there is no excuse anymore. Scar is clearly too dangerous to keep around, take her Miraculous now. But no, they actually don't even talk about what happened at all.

One particular episode where I have a problem with how Chloé is treated by the writer is "Silencer". In this episode, Chloé helps Bob Roth and XY with their plagiarism scheme. In canon, she had nothing to do with that. Now, yes, this is a different story and the writer can do whatever she wants. And this also gets Chloé more involved in the story. However, doing this just gives me a feeling that Zoe is blaming Chloé for something she didn't do. I don't know, it's just a vibe.

Anyway, throughout the story Chloé gets worse and worse until it culminates in her working with Hawk Moth and betraying everyone. And what are her consequences for this?

I mean, except for her father making her apologize (offscreen). So ultimately this plot feels like such a letdown. Chloé is the titular character that this fic's whole concept was started by, and yet it ends with her character just fading away with a whimper. What a letdown.

Marinette

This one will be quick. Zoe says that Marinette is her favorite character in ML, but I don't think she understands her at all. Remember what I said about every character being a sarcastic smartass? Well that is most prevalent with Marinette, and that is just fundamentally not who she is as a character. Marinette is someone whose is unabashed in her kindness and compassion. That's why plenty of people like her. If Marinette was in canon like she was in SL, she would be an extremely generic protagonist with almost no fans at all. The only reason anyone likes her in SL is because they relate her to the canon version.

I will say, I do like the idea of her being such a hero at heart that she'll run into danger even without powers. But this is completely diminished by her basically being invincible and having plot armor in her civilian form.

Adrien

Adrien in canon is one of my least favorite characters of all time. And yet, Adrien in SL is even worse. I'd go as far to say he's an anti-character. He has no growth, no arc, and no real personality.

The reason people like Adrien in canon is because they perceive him as someone who is treated very badly by his father and by others, but is still a kind person regardless. Well, in SL it's hard to perceive any poor treatment considering how he's only ever seen disobeying his father. And he's really never done anything kind throughout the entire comic.

Do you know the only reason people like Adrien in SL? Because they see him as who they wanted canon Adrien to become. Someone who can stand up to his father, who is useful in battle, and who doesn't put up with Chloé. But since SL Adrien was that way the entire time, there is no growth at all. Again he piggybacks off of his canon counterpart. If canon Adrien didn't exist, nobody would give a single crap about SL Adrien. None of the traits people liked about him in canon are present, and there is nothing new added to replace it. He is nothing.

Speaking of Adrien and Chloé, isn't it kind of weird that Adrien ended his friendship with her twice? In "Despair Bear" he ends his friendship with her and this is played as a big moment, even though he already basically ended their friendship all the way back in the pilot. There is not a single moment in the entire comic where Adrien treats Chloé like a friend.

As I mentioned earlier, Adrien has no emotional reaction to his mother coming back. In fact, I think it's fair to say that Adrien never loved his parents. And the reason for this is because Zoe hates his parents and she just imposed her feelings onto him, just like most bad fanfic writers do.

In terms of Adrien having no arc, there is one moment I wanted to talk about. During the final battle, he gets a power upgrade when he's talking about how he doesn't understand Hawk Moth's perspective, and he doesn't want to because Hawk Moth is so awful. This moment is played as if it's character growth for Adrien, but I want to ask, in what way? Well, I guess it does make sense because Adrien always gave his father the benefit of the doubt, stuck by Chloé even though she's cruel, and defended Lila. All those things could be considered him trying to understand a bad person. Too bad that none of that happened in SL. Adrien always hated his father, he ended his friendship with Chloé day 1, and he never defended Lila. Zoe was so focused on removing all of Adrien's flaws that she left him with no starting point for this supposed arc. In general, flawed characters are more interesting than perfect ones. Again, the only reason people liked this scene was because they subconsciously associated SL Adrien with canon.

Also, Zoe adds in her headcanon that Emilie was a bad parent. This headcanon only exists because people are incapable of imagining Adrien being anything other than a victim. I call it my "Perpetual Victim Theory". Anyway Zoe just makes up a bunch of random crap that has no basis in canon just to make Adrien more of a victim.

Gabriel

At first, "Scarlet Lady" looks like a Chloé saltfic. Well, that's only partially true. It's actually mainly a Gabriel saltfic. It honestly seems like Zoe hates Gabriel so much that she can barely think when he's involved. Gabriel is always portrayed as a complete moron with absolutely no humanity at all. He honestly seems more like a caricature in a political cartoon rather than an actual character. I actually find it hard to believe that his motivation is to bring back his wife considering how devoid of human emotion he is. Because the main villain of the series is a buffoon who can't be taken seriously, there is never any actual threat or tension. People criticize canon Gabriel for all his bad decisions, which is absolutely fair, but there are at least a few moments where he is genuinely menacing, and some moments where he is human. But writing him that way would require Zoe to let go of her hatred for a few minutes, so that's clearly not an option.

Nathalie

To put it simply Nathalie is a Mary Sue. She's a "girlboss" that does a bunch of horrible things she's not punished for. She can create a sentimonster to solve all the show's problems, she can decode an ancient book without a reference (Some people have defended this by claiming that the book was decoded IRL. IRL it was written in Engish in a different alphabet. That's not true in-universe). She's so much smarter and cooler than everyone else. Mary Sue, plain and simple. Oh, and she hates Gabriel because of course she does. She's a character written by Zoe after all.

In canon, Nathalie has some complexities. She's not great, but she's certainly better than this.

The Male Classmates

I'm just going to say it. Almost every male classmate was character assassinated in "Party Crasher". In canon, Nino lists his female friends to Gorilla and tells him to not let them in the mansion. This is because he assumes that if they find out that they ditched tree planting, they'll stop the boys from hanging out with Adrien. Is it a jerk move to ditch their plans in order to spend time with Adrien and not tell the girls? Yes, but it's understandable and they have limited time with Adrien. In SL, Nino tells Gorilla to keep all girls out of the house, which instantly imposes a sense of underlying misogyny to the situation. Oh, and they let Marc in even though Marc is nonbinary in this story, which implies that the boys went full Royce Du Pont, which is unintentionally hilarious.

I have no idea what motivated Zoe to change the boys from regular flakers to misogynists, maybe she just misunderstood the original episode, but it's still bad. Also, the SL episode goes out of its way to say that Adrien isn't at fault. No, he was completely complicit in the blatant sexism as well. So yeah, pretty much all the boys are instantly made worse by this one episode.

Zoé

In these previous cases, I have been making comparisons to and defending canon characters that I don't even like anymore. But Zoé Lee is my absolute favorite character in Miraculous Ladybug, and I was not happy with how SL handled her.

So a pretty important question right off the bat, how does SL Zoé exist? Zoe said that since canon didn't explain Zoé's existence, neither will she. But the thing is, what is there to explain? Chloé's parents have been married 20 years. Chloé's mother lives in New York, away from her family in Paris. Chloé's mother also has a daughter in New York with another man, much younger than 20-years-old. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out what happened there. But I'll spell it out anyway: extramarital affair. In fact, I think the whole reason the writers of canon made Zoé Chloé's half-sister was to hint why she hadn't been mentioned before: because Audrey was ashamed of her, and Chloé didn't know about her.

On the other hand, "Scarlet Lady" never mentions Zoé's father, has her refer to Andre as her parent, says Zoé lived in New York, and never implies that Audrey is ashamed of her in any way. How does this make sense? Well, maybe Zoé is the older sibling in SL, and Audrey and Andre met and got married after Audrey was already pregnant, and Zoé's biological father isn't involved in her life. It still seems weird that Zoé was living in New York instead of Paris (why not live with her stepdad that she's close enough to call a parent, and how did they form such a strong relationship long distance?), but this does make most of the situation make sense. Except for one little detail: Why on Earth are Chloé and Zoé only now meeting for the first time? It makes absolutely no sense that their parents would not even tell these two about each other. How was Zoé so close to Andre to call him her parent, but didn't meet her sister until she was a teenager? None of this adds up. And honestly, it seems like after a certain period of time Zoe just straight up forgot that Zoé only arrived recently. In the therapy scenes, she acts like they were always one family. When canon gave Chloé a sister, they gave a reason why nobody knew about her until now. When SL gave Chloé a sister, she just suddenly has one who isn't explained and they act like she was always around. In fact, the only part where they acknowledge her showing up suddenly is when Adrien hasn't heard of her, but SL actually just implies that this is because he was never actually close with Chloé.

Putting all that aside, SL also sucks out everything interesting about Zoé. Gone is her cleverness or willingness to lie for the right reason. In fact, the defining characteristic that SL gives Zoé is that she has no personality. I've seen some people claim that SL had Chloé and Zoé having more of a sisterly bond, but I actually don't believe that Zoé actually loves Chloé. During the final battle, Hawk Moth has basically poisoned Chloé, and for all Zoé knows, it could be fatal. If I were in Zoé's shoes in this situation, I would be furious with Gabriel. But is she? No, she just has the same jokey, ironic disgust towards him that all the characters do. Yeah, this is one of the moments when the comic's insistence to turn everything into a joke hit critical mass. Doing that ends up damaging the characters.

One last thing. In canon, Zoé was pretty cool as Vesperia. She helped out a bunch of times, and she was one of the only heroes to demonstrate unique skills in how she taunted Queen Banana into anger. Not in SL though. Vesperia achieves nothing, she could have been cut out entirely and nothing would change. That actually transitions nicely into my next point.

Because Canon Did It Too

Zoe has said that she wants to keep the lore consistent with the show. Even though she didn't like the name "Venom" for that power, she kept it for consistency purposes. I can respect this idea, but there are multiple parts of this story that would have just been better if it diverged.

For one thing, having 19 Miraculouses and as many superpowered characters. I can understand why canon did this: because they clearly want the show to go on forever and they want as many characters as possible to fill that time. SL on the other hand was only planned to last a certain number of episodes, and yet Zoe crammed in as many heroes as the original did. This leads to a lot of time setting up these characters that leads to nothing, because they're all barely in the finale and contribute basically nothing. It would have been so much better to simply limit it to the 7 main Miraculouses, that's so much more manageable.

Another thing is the Rabbit Miraculous and time travel. Zoe acknowledged how OP it is and how it can instantly solve the conflict. She might not want to change its power because of her lore rule, but if she had just ignored its existence entirely, that would have been totally acceptable. But no, the final battle has Master Fu using the Rabbit Miraculous, which instantly makes the stakes even lower than they already were. It wasn't even necessary, Master Fu is shown to be faster than he looks, he could have just delivered the Miraculouses the normal way. Oh, and there's also the fact that Zoe looked at the insanely OP Rabbit Miraculous and said "That's not OP enough." She also gave it the power to teleport to other universes. To be clear, this completely contradicts canon. ML is not the MCU, alternate universes are not alternate timelines. Changes to the timeline just overwrite the old one, and you can use the Rooster Miraculous, not the Rabbit, to visit other universes. So yeah, despite Zoe saying she wants lore consistency, SL actually doesn't fit into the Miraculous multiverse that canon established.

Also, let's talk about the romance. Like canon, there's a love square that doesn't get together until way later. But it seems like Zoe forgot about an important rule of romance: if the characters aren't together yet, why not? In SL Marinette and Chat clearly like each other, and unlike canon's Ladrien, they talk quite a bit. So why don't they get together? Canon actually has a really great episode "Elation" where Adrien decides that he can't date a civilain as a superhero if she doesn't know his identity. But nothing even like this is remotely acknowledged in SL (Sidenote: The writing of "Elation" is better than the entirety of SL). Also, Adrien doesn't confess for most of SL, I assume because Marinette didn't confess in canon, but this is just so out of character for Adrien. He's not the kind of person to hold his feelings back. In canon, he confessed to Marinette only a few episodes after he started liking her. He claims that he doesn't want to date until Hawk Moth is defeated, but then he starts dating her before he's defeated, so this is a BS excuse.

When Chloé snaps away her sentimonster, Zoe copies the line "How could you?!" from "Ladybug" in canon. This is a completely soulless copy though, because that episode made it clear that Sentibug was sentient, and Chat Noir was genuinely angry in this moment. None of that same substance applies to SL, it's just a meaningless copy of a better scene.

In canon "Reflekdoll", Adrien and Marinette are modeling her designs, and they take their Miraculouses off in order to wear the earrings and ring she made. When Reflekdoll attacks, they try to get their Miraculouses back but end up switching them. In SL "Reflekdoll", Marinette and Adrien are wearing each other's Miraculouses during the photoshoot for no discernable reason. Both versions have a Miraculous swap, but the original earned it and SL absolutely did not.

Zoe and Thomas Astruc are on the Same Wavelength

Zoe has made it clear that she's not a fan of ML's creator, Thomas Astruc. And yet many of her ideas ended up being the same as his.

In both Canon and SL, Chloé publicly commits a bunch of serious crimes, but faces no legal consequences. Instead, she is taken to another country where she can resume her life as a rich brat because she's learned absolutely nothing. Yeah, Chloé's ending in both is basically the same.

In the season 5 finale of canon, there's this huge fight between the side characters and an evil army. This fight has absolutely nothing to do with the actual important fight between Bug Noire and Monarch, so the side characters are completely wasted. In the final battle of SL, the other superheroes contribute nothing and are completely wasted. Chat Noir basically took care of Hawk Moth all by himself. So both finales involve wasted side characters that should have just stayed home. Less time would have been wasted.

Zoe actually says that she added Marinette calling out Gabriel in response to the canon finale. This is absolutely hilarious considering it's still Marinette calling out Gabriel, which basically did happen in the canon finale. Adrien still just stood there and didn't say a word!

Conclusion

"Scarlet Lady" is absolutely worse than canon Miraculous Ladybug. And I think there are a lot of lessons to learn here.

First, don't be so angry and hateful. Zoe basically ruined any possibility of a decent ending simply because her hatred of Gabriel made it impossible to write him like an actual person or a good villain.

Second, any story written in bitterness or spite will be bad. That might not be totally true, I haven't read every story. But I feel that every fanfic I read where the author clearly hates a character has everyone behaving OOC and the story being meanspirited and bad.

Third, don't be arrogant. Just because you can recognize flaws in a story doesn't mean you can do better. Maybe just make some posts calling out those flaws.

Fourth, the way to fix a bad character is not to simply remove all their flaws. Acknowledge those flaws and do something with them.

Fifth, while fanfics do often build off of the original, they can't depend on elements from the original when they contradict those elements. Again, the only reason people like SL Marinette and Adrien is because they associate them with the originals, even though their personalities do no match up.

All in all, I think the world and characters of "Scarlet Lady" will be forgotten only a week after its over. There is no actual substance to them. The only purpose of this fic was to bash somebody else's story, and yet it ended up being so much worse than canon in almost every way.

[writeouswriter]

People need to start understanding the difference between actually harmful or "bad rep" vs just rough around the edges but still complex and nuanced rep that doesn't quite line up with your own personal experiences or the over-sanitized ideal of what you think "good rep" should be

[nellasbookplanet]

The funniest kind of critical role "critique" is always going to be the 'they present themselves as if they aren’t rich/a company no I will not give any examples' crowd. Like what does this even mean. They start literally every single episode with informing you they are professional voice actors. They have clearly advertised sponsors. They have an entire line of merch and an animated show. The production value of the set is bonkers. They run a charity foundation. Do you want them to start every episode with a blaring siren and a warning saying 'beware! company run content! we make money!!' Are you just angry that they are friends having fun as they make a living. Do you have any understanding of how money works.

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[daincrediblegg]

I really wish people would stop being obtuse with their readings about things. Is it really demonizing The Thing or is it deliberately using a social perception and common tropes to frame the character in a certain light so it can deliberately subvert those things at the precise moment when it is necessary to prove that point that people are Not Like That?

[nostalgia-tblr]

"i miss the days when all TV shows had the perfect number of episodes for their story (AT LEAST 20) and since nothing got cancelled before it's time there's 7+ years of those shows for me to watch on DVD these days, and even the filler episodes are good! They may be a bit forumulaic at times but it's a great formula and that's why I shun modern TV in favour of weird old shows like [names 2-3 of the most popular and successful TV shows of the 1990s]!"