#you literslly could not make her actions any better in this episode. there is nothing you could do short of getting rid of this episode-

[tex-now]

Chameleon is the most ableist episode in all of Miraculous Ladybug holy fucking shit

this is all gonna be pre season 4 jsyk

Also serious note here, my words are not gospel. I myself am not physically disabled nor do I have severe enough disabilities that it requires specific accommodations. If anyone who has any experience with this has any input they want to add or wants to correct me on anything, you are more than welcome to.

Okay let's go

Immediately off to a bad start, Marinette is upset that she has to sit in the back because she doesn't want Lila to sit next to Adrien and no, this is not because she wasn't talked to about it beforehand, because when Adrien offered to sit in the back in her place Marinette adamantly refused.

And since Marinette really was causing such an unnecessary ruckus, (ill be momentarily ignoring that Lila was lying) she was making Lila feel bad for needing accommodations. Which is super fucked up of her. And also i distinctly remember Lila cuddling up to Adrien which made Marinette angrier but that's not in the transcript so take this with a grain of salt.

Okayyy the dreaded lunch scene. I have a lot of problems with this scene so I'll do the biggest one first: The fact that the narrative states that Lila is in any way benefiting from having a disability.

People carrying her lunch trays, getting her food, making sure she doesn't have to lift a finger because of her sprained wrist and treating it like shes benefiting from it is like. Atrocious on so many levels. Not only does it state that Lila is benefiting from having a disability but it also frames making accommodations for people with disabilities as being "used" in some way, which is why disabled people don't usually get the accommodations they need because they don't get "special privileges" or the people who should be accomodating them "refuse to play favorites." Horrible thing to teach children.

And then. The napkin scene. I'm gonna say it. Marinette is the fucking worst in this episode. She is being actively ableist here, assuming that since she had one bad experience with Lila being a liar, that she's lying about everything, including having a disability, which leads to her to try and "prove" that Lila is lying. Which is super fucked up.

She throws the napkin at her in order to prove that she's lying about having a sprained wrist, and since she doesn't like Lila this is an entirely okay thing to do ig/s. The reason why this scene in particular upsets me so much is because stuff like this happens in real life all the fucking time, and people have suffered because of it.

Neurodivergent and disabled people have to fight for accommodations or to be taken seriously, by literally everyone around them while neurotypical or able bodied people constantly brush them off or interrogate them in order to prove that they are disabled, and having the main character do someting like that and end up having her be framed in the right (eventually) is abelist as fuck.

The bathroom scene is also incredibly gross to me. Marinette corners Lila in the bathroom and LITERALLY SAYS (paraphrased) "I don't have the proof for it, but I know you're lying about your disability because you lied about being friends with a celebrity so therefore I get to be ableist as fuck towards you >:(" I don't think I have to explain why that's ableist.

Okay. The elephant in the room. Lila IS faking her disabilities. She IS pretending to have them in order to benefit off of other people. This is the biggest problem in the entire episode.

The narrative itself supports the idea that

1. People benefit from having disabilities

2. Attempting to "prove" that someone doesn't have a disability is okay

3. Making accommodations for people with disabilities is "using" the accommodating party in any way

4. Being ableist is okay as long as you're right in the end

And that is hammered in by this scene in particular. Marinette is being egregiously abelist throughout the entire episode and IS being the bad guy here but since the writer's need to make her NOT look like the bad guy turns out she's right Lila is faking everything and is evil lol/s

Its not just the characters themselves that are being ableist, the writing itself is so ableist that it is literally imbedded into the story of this episode and is essential in order for it to work at all. Which is a huge writing failure on the writer's part.

Okay I think I'm done. Is this coherent at all

Edit: Okay I think I failed to adequately criticize lila's part in this post. I think that what Lila did was egregiously disgusting and was incredibly uncomfortable to watch, but im not really sure what to say about it? I have thoughts on the matter yes but because Lila is such a nothing (until season 5/4 which I haven't really gotten to yet) character other than being Evil that it's hard to get frustrated with her in particular outside of my frustration with this episode in particular.

I'm very sure it's not clear so I'll say now: I like Marinette and hate Lila. But I also want to make sure that I'm criticizing the episode without my biases getting into the way, but I ended up going too hard on Marinette and not hard enough on Lila. Which. Is my mistake. Not that its anything to apologize for it's my post but I wanted to clarify