actually-factually-anonymous

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Yes, but counterpoint: if Ladybug is Akumatized it's game over anyway.

Ladybug knows everyone else's identities. She knows who her successor/backup is (Alya). She knows where they live, she knows the Guardian secrets. In military terms: If Ladybug goes under the entire war effort is over because the General, logistics hub, intelligence officer, and primary fighting unit all just defected to the enemy side at once.

If Lila's allowed to use her brain, then the entire fight is over, she's going to have the earrings and all the knowledge she needs. And forget any idea that Chat Noir is somehow supposed to be able to serve as a backup/last line of defense for Paris; he's not been given anything to be able to be able to do that.

All the Guardian training went to Alya. All the knowledge he might need to be effective as the backup is stored in Ladybug's house- a place he doesn't know. He might, might be able to get to some of the other heroes in time if he knows their identities, but a lot of the other heroes are going to lose their Miraculous anyway- and he'd either have to try and scrounge up a new team within a day or unify them himself (does Chat Noir even know all the other Miraculous' powers? I don't think letting him know was ever a priority).

The only thing going for Adrien in this scenario is that he might have the foresight to "Miraculous Chat Noir" away Luka's memories of his identity before Lila inevitably forces it out of him (since Ladybug knows that Luka knows Chat Noir's identity, and yet hasn't insisted he leave Paris again...).

It's actually kind of funny just how ridiculously bad Chat's odds are in this scenario. Granted, if it ever happened in the show it would be all resolved/mitigated by Marinette having some weird plan that should fail but somehow works out anyway (and if it didn't, Bunnix would press the reload button since that's already what she did when Lila won fair and square).

But with how Marinette has set things up with herself at the heart of everything, she's made beating/Akumatizing her into an instant win condition for the Butterfly Villain.

Can we talk about how stupid the whole "Ladybug can't know Chat Noir's secret identity" rule is?

Because the justification of it is that if Hawkmoth/Chrysalis/whoever is torturing Nooroo this season akumatizes her they'll find out his secret identity too.

But the problem with this logic is that akumatized!ladybug is already game over. If Ladybug is akumatized but she doesn't know Chat Noir's secret identity... Guess what.

Chat Noir is still f*cked. Because what the hell is he gonna do against akumatized!ladybug? Only the Ladybug miraculous is able to purify akumas + fix the damage caused by the akumatized villain.

You do know Cat Noir can just Cataclysm the akuma, right? It doesn't actually need to be purified, and Cat Noir has destroyed akuma before with no problem. The real problem here is restoring the damage, but there was that time in the NY special when Paris got wrecked while LB and CN were away, and next we saw the city it was back to normal, sooooo...

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Yes, and a reminder as to just how terrible an idea choosing Alya as has confidant was: Alya had both been revealed to Hawkmoth as a hero (so one of the prime targets for his interrogation/observation) and had been been Akumatized maybe an hour ago when Marinette chose to spill her most important secret to her.

Irrespective of whatever opinion someone might have of Alya herself, there is just no way she wasn't objectively one of the worst choices Marinette had for someone to confide her identity to.

Say what you want about Adrien, but he never turned to someone and told them his secret identity on the same day they were Akumatized.

I'm 99% it's an accident but it'll never not be funny how Adrien is the superhero in the show who takes hiding his identity seriously.

IKR? His identity isn't known to anyone except Luka, while Ms. "No one must know who we really are" managed to have hers revealed to a whole bunch of people, including Félix. Not only that, but she once revealed hers on purpose. Like, I'm sorry, Marinette, I don't care how stressed you are, going and telling someone your superhero identity is a bad idea and you of all people should know that. The moment Alya gets akumatized, it's all over for you.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Interesting. While this is a kind of intriguing reversal on a much hatred and overplayed fandom trope, it's also a legitimate reason for Marinette to be angsty.

Now everything from series gets reframed, and suddenly her insecurity and arrogance makes a lot more sense. On some level she knows she's not as great as everyone thinks she is, but she still has to (or at least feels like she has to) be the greatest Ladybug possible at all costs. Of course, the fact that she doesn't need to be Ladybug in the first place for the first few seasons raises questions about things, but maybe its as simple as her feeling like being Ladybug is what gives her life meaning- what makes her more than the ordinary bully victim she was before.

After all, it was only after she got the earrings that her life became wonderful, even if they came with drawbacks.

And now everything about those "Tue Holder Implications" falls upon Marinette's head. She was the one who was getting manipulated all that time. She was the one who was getting used by a Kwami and her Guardian. She's the one who was guided to identify as her hero person, even while she was always meant to be discarded as soon as possible.

I've gone on before about how Marinette's problems are all manageable/self-inflicted, and how it's really just her handling them so badly that's the issue. And unlike Adrien in these salt-stories, her entire life and identity as a person isn't getting completely trashed beyond repair. But all that training, all that self-inflicted pressure, all her efforts as Ladybug amounting to her just being a puppet?

She might be handling her problems pretty badly, but she's a legitimate victim here, and it post-facto make a lot of her worst problems more understandable if it was an insecure girl trying to believe she was as special as her magical friend said she was- even though they both knew deep down the entire story was always a farce of manipulation that Marinette was desperate enough to believe in.

I'm kind of curious about what would happen if, instead of Temp Noir, it was actually temp Ladybug. Not thinking that she would go full villain, though that's certainly an option. More like how it would lead her to spiral out of control by herself.

Like if "true holders" were a legitimate thing and either everyone but Marinette is a true holder or if only Adrien is a true holder. If Parisians spent several seasons praising Marinette for literally mediocre work, mainly because it seems like Paris never had its own heroes before, only to find out that there's someone specfically best suited to the ladybug, or even several people who are way better at it than she is even if they're not true holders. Adrien as Mister Bug would be only ok at it which is actually impressive since that's his miraculous's supposed opposite. Alya could be better at being Ladybug than Marinette but she's too impulsive and follow's Marinette's style of doing things so she's not living up to her full potential.

And let's say finally Su Han comes along and yeah he's mad about the whole Feast thing but he looks at her more in confusion because this girl? Fu chose her? Why? Anyone actually trained in magic and miraculouses can see that she's barely suited to wield a miraculous at all, let alone the ladybug, and let alone be the leader of an entire team of miraculous users. No wonder she just hands these things out to her classmates like candy, she can't even detect magical compatibility. The only one even remotely compatible with a miraculouses in Marinette's posession might be Luka as Adrien's choice for the snake, and maybe even Chloe (because hearing that would piss Marinette off so, so much), who found it on accident and seemed to take to superheroing faster than the others did (or at the very least, she was a better fighter than Vesperia currently is). She might find out that Gabriel and Nathalie were fairly suited to the butterfly and peacock, and even Lila had more compatibility than she does. People she personally hates and would never ever give a miraculous to are more suited to having them than her, the supposed greatest ladybug in all of history. If people gained some recognition of what magic connection looks/feels like and Marinette never experiences it, she'd tell them they're wrong because she's the literal guardian of the box and she doesn't feel any of that.

Girl would lose her mind. She wouldn't believe it at all because what do you mean? Even Tikki said she was the best! And then it's later revealed that, since Tikki can't really go off on her own or she hasn't found an actual more suitable holder yet, she just needed to gas up Marinette every now and then because her self-esteem is annoyingly low but she gets the job done at least. The confidence did go to her head though and she's been ignoring Tikki's advice about the miraculouses more and more, it didn't even take her that long to start ignoring her instructions (re: Volpina and the Magic Grimmoire). Marinette's exactly the type of person that the Order would have used as an example as to why Guardians can't also be miraculous holders. The level of authority can get to their heads really quickly. This type of power shouldn't be left to one person, let alone one teenager who's not even all that great at being a superhero or a team leader.

Marinette would tell everyone that Su Han is trying to take the mirculouses away, because that is what he's doing but he's explained his reasonings and they were sound, she just didn't want to hear it. They would believe her over him obviously but it'll all come unraveling. If they reach a compromise and everyone in the current roster learns about the miraculouses from Su Han and it becomes glaringly obvious when Marinette falls so far behind or can't do certain abilities that others can do so easily. Or if in a tantrum she gives up her miraculous and Tikki finally gets the chance to pick someone more compatible (and it isn't Alya) and everyone keeps pointing out that this new Other Ladybug can do things much more effeciently and has abilities that Marinette would never be able to do. What's up with that? Marinette might get the ladybug back if she whines hard enough. But from then on everyone's gonna look at every akuma fight and say "oh, Ladybug should just do [power that that Other Ladybug had but Marinette doesn't because she's not compatible and her magic connection is near zero]." or "why does that Other Ladybug had wings and can fly but our original Ladybug can't?" and everyone realizes that she's mediocre at best, especially if the hero team is gaining abilities faster, despite them also not being true holders, now that they've got actually trained heroes to compare her to.

Ultimately, I can believe that she'd try to have her pity party to make them disregard the evidence but then end up having an Ace Attorney level breakdown when they're trying to reason with her when she's throwing a tantrum. They're not even going to take the miraculous away from her nor are they forcing her to give up guardianship since they don't want to force her to lose her memories but she's being annoying and difficult and has been snappy at Su Han any time he tries to teach her something about the miraculouses or about being a guardian. She's riled herself up so much and her insecurities are scrambling her brain that they're seriously considering forcing her to lose her memories cause clearly this whole thing is taking a toll on her. Everyone is genuinely trying to help but with Marinette it's her way or the highway and at this point they might choose the highway.

---

Now that's an interesting concept. What if the reason Marinette gets constantly praised by everyone around her for doing the bare minimum (barely even that) and despite publicly failing at the end of Season 5 is a combination of the public and Fu not knowing any better and Tikki just desperately trying to keep Marinette motivated enough to do that bare minimum because it's still better than nothing? Like ‘Illustrhater’ felt like a similar situation, where the team was too scared of Ladybug’s reaction to tell to her face that she was overstepping, so they vaguely hinted about how “strange” she was acting to Cat Noir instead.

For once Marinette would be justified in feeling anxious when she realizes that all that unearned praise really was unearned. Everyone around her just wants her to stop whining and start doing her job so much that they'll say whatever it takes to accomplish that. Like, fearing everyone around you secretly hates you and is only being nice is a real concern a lot of people with social anxiety face, and Marinette would now have a valid reason to fear just that, that everyone is just nice to her because they need someone, anyone, to use the Ladybug Miraculous.

And yeah, to rub salt into the wound, what if that personalized training only she was given is the only thing keeping her “ahead” of her teammates and looking more competent? I do think having the by-default most important power of purification plays a lot into what makes her look so good, because always gets the "finishing move” no matter how much anyone else contributes, but what if everyone else just sweeps right past her with their ability to use their Miraculous as soon as they're given even a little bit more instruction as they got previously? That would mean Marinette was only winning the title of “the best” because literally everyone else in the running was handicapped.

None of the other characters would even need to do anything. I’ve repeatedly said Marinette is her own worst critic and worst enemy and she would make herself miserable over this. Especially if, as you said, people she hates are shown to be better with the Miraculous than her. She’d try to make it somehow about morality, either to claim that there’s no way Chloé would actually be that compatible or crying about what a terrible person everyone must think she is for being unable to use magical jewellery to its fullest potential. Full-on pity party about how awful she supposedly is to get everyone to coddle her through this. Except the instant they say: “it’s not about morality, calm down” instead of “you’re right, how foolish of us, of course Chloé is too evil to be good with a Miraculous and you’re too good to be anything but perfect”, she’d start wailing all over again.

Marinette has an insanely fragile self-image and she's constantly preoccupied with how others view her. She has to be a great superhero, the greatest Ladybug ever, not doing anything wrong, or she is a horrible human being who doesn’t deserve friendship or love. Just look how much she snaps between "I'm the best" and "I'm the worst" with completely sincerity in episodes like 'Kuro Neko', 'Strikeback' and 'Sublimation'. That’s a really unhealthy way to live, especially because it makes her lash out at anyone wanting to help her or give her advice, because her needing help or advice and admitting to it is the same as admitting that she’s a terrible person in her eyes.

Marinette: on her Ace Attorney style breakdown: "I'm a fraud! I'm a terrible hero and that makes me a terrible person!" Everyone else: "No, you're just average."

And that might be even worse, because, if she was awful, she'd at least still be special in some way.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

To be fair, Marinette usually doesn't act like herself towards Chat Noir in those stories either- not that I'm defending her here.

It's just that her nasty qualities with Chat Noir like the casual physical abuse (smacking him with her yo-yo), the unprovoked mockery at his expense, and (some of) her arrogance all get mysteriously downplayed or ignored outright.

But indeed, Marinette never treats Luka, or Damian, or whoever the replacement cat is like with a hint of the casual disrespect she has for Chat Noir. She never considers removing them as the Black Cat if they happen to know her identity- despite her own rules. Heck, she almost always gives them full access to her secrets including her identity. She trusts them fully, and helps them unlock new powers. She treats them like partners.

Of course, if she even tried to treat an even slightly in-character Damian or one of the batboys like she did Adrien...

Well: it would never have come to it in the first place given their personalities and skills, but if any of them were put into Adrien's "Syren" position- they would have followed Ladybug to Fu and made it clear that they would not be subordinated like that. The only person who they might accept such treatment from would be Batman himself, and Marinette is not and never will be on Batman's level.

And then there's how needlessly 'perfect' they are. Whatever flaws they have in their own stories, or even in the main show (Luka is a doormat, just one in Marinette's favor), they're never presented in a way that inconveniences Marinette- if they're present at all. Compare that to the once loud and brash Chat Noir, who is very much imperfect and who the show has needlessly humiliated and undermined at every turn to uplift Marinette (despite showing his strengths elsewhere at the plot needs). Her behavior to him can be 'justified' to a certain degree as theoretically in response to annoyance or perceived incompetence.

But that can't apply to the replacements, so unlike Chat Noir who comes pre-abused and imperfect, Marinette has to treat her new boyfriend with at least some respect.

One thing I noticed about "Adrien is replaced by another character as the black cat miraculous holder" salt fics is that Ladybug always treats them way better than she treated Chat Noir. If she treated them the same way she did Chat, anyone else would've either quit or given her a piece of their mind. Ladybug lucked out that her chosen "partner" was already brutally beaten into submission and accepted horrible treatment as "love."

---

Yeah, like, they fix a problem with the canon dynamic while remaining completely blind to the fact that they are, in fact, fixing something that is a problem. To them, there's no question of whether or not Ladybug treats Cat Noir exactly as he deserves.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Precisely.

Marinette has a wonderful life, and even before the Miraculous came into it, her worst problem was a school bully. Since then however she has gained privilege, power, and success in both her personal and professional lives that vastly dwarf the detriments that come with them.

And all of her problems have simple solutions to them. Chloe or Lila are actually unbearable?

Okay, move schools. Sure, it may be annoying to not be able to just cross the street to get to class anymore, but at least now your chronic tardiness will have an excuse.

Being Ladybug is stressful?

Pass the earrings on to someone else. No one's glued the things to your earlobes.

Being the Guardian is consuming your life?

Let Chat Noir help, it's not like you can say keeping the identities secret are a priority when you reveal yourself to Alya (who was one of the people Hawkmoth Akumatized literally an hour before you spilled the beans to her). Or get Su-han off the damn phone and get him to actually make potions/translate the Grimoire.

Hawmoth/Shadowmoth/Monarch keeps attacking Paris?

Go and actually try and find him then. There are currently zero episodes where you proactively try to search him out. Even "The Collector" only started because Tikki shoved the key piece of evidence under your nose.

Adrien isn't your boyfriend?

Find your big girl undies and confess like a normal person, and if he rejects you have a mope, then go pick out a boyfriend (or girlfriend) from the half-dozen people in the show that have had a crush on you. And stop crying at the thought of being Adrien's friend.

These are all solvable problems, or at least easily mitigated. Marinette's not mourning a recently passed parent, she's not suffering under an abusive authority figure who is both her parent and employer- who has also kept her socially isolated for most of her life and developmental years. She's not a custom built slave with a two-in-one remote control/kill switch.

Trying to honestly compare her problems to Adrien's, or really anyone else in the cast who doesn't have the world bend to accommodate her in the same way, is an exercise in futility unless you're trying to use the contrast to prove just how good she has it.

To this they I still don't understand why Maribug stans thought the writers hate Marinette when one of them literally have her as his pretend daughter and how often other characters hype her up even when she fuck over them (Chat Noir uhuk Sublime uhuk). Most of her suffering is usually self made or just overblown while ignoring other characters more serious problems.

I don't usually like to do Suffering Olympic but getting rejected by your crush would never be as bad as everything the writer made happened to Adrien. And her self made suffering always end up with people comforting and letting her scot off free.

Basically she's loud and dramatic af and her so called suffering is basically just cheap sympathy point.

There are some series where it feels like the writer(s) hate a character but Marinette isn't one of them. Like Gingerbrave for example. Most of the times Devsis love him because he based off Gingerman in Run, Gingerbread Man! and the writers used to be a bunch of kids pissed he died to random animal at the end right after out running human that try to eat him. But there are this weird era of ovenbreak being atrocious torture porn of 12 years old being blamed for something outside his control and I'm glad we past that bullshit. A 12 years old calling racist century old dragon friendless then stabbing them right in the skull is funnier.

Or if they want ml example, whatever the fuck happened with Chloe is more make sense to be taken as writers hating on their character.

---

Yeah, Marinette having problems and the show constantly talking about all the problems she has is not the writers hating her, it’s the writers making everything revolve around her. Like, it’s absolutely ridiculous to think that a character having anything less than a perfect, conflict-free day in a kind-of-superhero middle school drama show is a sign of the writers hating that character? The plot demands drama! It’s the whole genre. The writers always milk Marinette’s problems for maximum sympathy, which makes her the center of everything. Compare that to Adrien, whose problems are only relevant if they impact Marinette, and Chloé, whose problems we’re meant to laugh at.

Also, about suffering olympics, I’m finally going to say it: that term has been misused by the Miraculous fandom to shield Marinette for years. The whole suffering olympics thing was created for discussions of issues of social justice, of systemic injustices that cause different kinds of suffering to different people. The point of saying we shouldn't play suffering olympics was to keep focus on the actual point: most social suffering is caused by systemic injustices. It was also used to remind people to not distract from posts discussing specific types of injustice and suffering by derailing the conversation to injustices faced by a different group. This derailing often led to people arguing which types of suffering were the most worthy of attention and it made productive conversation about the source of these injustices impossible. All systemic injustice is wrong, so establishing a pecking order is pointless.

For the Miraculous fandom, “suffering olympics” means that Marinette with her happy homelife, friends and a support network suffering from being unlucky in love, mismanaging her schedules and stress is totally a “suffering” worthy of equal focus to Adrien being literally abused by his dad. And, like, “suffering olympics” shouldn't even be on the table here, because these kids aren't systematically opressed, unless you count Adrien being a Sentimonster, a servant-class creature.

So, like, let's actually play suffering olympics, because Adrien has Marinette beaten by a mile. Adrien is being abused by another person that is purposefully seeking to keep him abused. Adrien has no influence on this situation. Sure, outside factors are messing up Marinette’s plans to deceive Adrien into dating her and causing her stress, but she could influence all of these things bringing her so much “suffering” by getting tools and help that are readily accessible to her. Marinette has far more control over her "miserable" situation than Adrien does. If someone you know always whines about eating pizza again, you're going to ask: "why do you always order pizza then?" and "it's the closest restaurant" isn't going to cut it. If you can change the situation ruining your day, you have to take at least some responsiblity for your own mood.

Like, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about how stressed out poor, fragile Marinette is. This line was being fed to fans even before she became the Guardian “which is such a big responsibility, guys!” and it's gotten downright obnoxious since then. If being the Guardian and a superhero are so stressful it's a suffering equal to child abuse, she should quit. She's said she wants to quit and all her posts are perfectly transferrable so why hasn't she? This world is filled with people who want to be superheroes, dream of it even, and yet the top honcho is the one jackass who hates the job so much she's suffering. Marinette isn't supposed to know she's the main character so she should quit. This means that, now that she's the Guardian calling all the shots, all of Marinette's problems are self-caused because she has the means to leave the situation she's in with no one influencing her to stay.

Also, she's literally making all her problems Adrien's problems now, so Adrien is dealing with both his suffering and her suffering, so he’d be winning regardless.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

So it's been a while since I played, so I checked the wiki. Much to my surprise it states that indeed Frisk somehow could get beyond the barrier in neutral endings, and that the sunlit patch of grass is indeed outside of the kingdom.

Which is supposed to be impossible, so I suppose in my memory I assumed that it was just another part of the kingdom. But I stand corrected.

It also says that in neutral endings the six other human souls are lost, so if this is the case: then the argument for genocide is far weaker (thankfully).

Not gone though.

Given that Frisk would be a child trying to get entrances on a dangerous mountain sealed off, I suspect that again this could very much be delaying action. As Toriel pointed out, all it would take is a single human soul for any monster to be able to cross the barrier to get more, and the chances that another human will never fall into the underground again seems low.

Still, it's a fair sight more hopeful than the cold logic I calculated above.

i wonder if the first monster absorbing a human soul incident or maybe not the first, just the one that would be the catalyst for the human monster war later on, was not like Asriel + Chara (pontentially dangerous but mostly harmless) but somewhere closer to Omega Flowey in appearance, personality, and threat level?

still would not justify waging war against all monster kind and sealing them away, but would probably be more understandable? i think?

(sorry if this doesn't make sense)

Considering that it takes less than 10 souls for a Monster to become a god, I'd say that humanity had every right to be afraid. Do you know how easy it is to kill 10 people, especially when you have magic bullets?

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Maybe Fu just wanted the biggest burden off his shoulders! It's been a while since we bullied Fu on this blog so let's go with that!

I don't think people give Fu (or the Order in general) anywhere near the amount of grief they deserve, so I for one am all for this explanation!

This is the moron whose best idea of dealing with his old Sentimonster coming back for him was not only disarming the two people under his 'care' who'd already proven themselves capable of handling all kinds of Sentimonsters and Akumas more dangerous than Feast ever was, but also trying to escape by pedalling out of Paris when he had The Horse Miraculous in the box strapped to him.

Which could be forgiven as a one off mistake of a man overwhelmed by fear, until you remember his track record in the series and realize its par the course for him. Quite seriously, I think the only two things he does competently in the series is translate the Grimoire, and make potions: everything else is questionable at best.

Heck, even the very suffering caused by the Butterfly and Peacock villains is directly on his shoulders because he never went back and solved the problem he caused. Sure, Fu the scared initiate child had an excuse. I would even buy Fu the traumatized teenager trying to eke out a living wherever he could not being able to deal with it

But what about the 150 years after he spent as an adult with nearly an entire Miracle Box in his hands? I've given Marinette all kinds of roasting for not utilizing the box's powers to try and deal with Shadowmoth, Fu had 150x at least more time than she ever had with it so I can't exactly let him off the hook there.

That's easily more than enough time with those resources to find an easy solution to his sentimonster and the lost Miraculous, and bring back the order with the Miracle Cure. But he failed, just like he did with just about everything in his life that we see.

Sure, in these kinds of stories where child heroes take the lead, the mentor figures or the ancient heroic orders that once protected the world have to be sidelined somehow. Otherwise the world they live in wouldn't be one ripe for adventure. But that's the usually done by providing a good reason to stop them from solving the problems the hero is supposed to. Like having them restrained in some way, or in the case of heroic organizations: being destroyed by the main villain as the inciting incident of the plot to explain why they can't protect the world, rather than having them just be unfathomably incompetent.

Obi-wan never had a device that would kill Palpatine and restore the republic, and any Jedi he might have called on to aid him and Luke were systematically destroyed. Zordon chose 'teenagers with attitude' for his heroes, but he at least he was trapped in a time warp which restrained him from getting out and fighting, but still served as the mission control and set up countless resources for the rangers to use in their war.

Fu fumbles everything that he touches, and Su-han's even less useful than him even when he's not watching Cat videos. The Order was destroyed because they were too stupid to put a lock on the Miracle box or to revise their test to something less insane. Then it is restored with whatever other miracle boxes they have in their possession.... to do nothing when the Miracle Box's contents are stolen and the universe is endangered.

They are incredibly incompetent. And I do mean that literally; the scale of their incompetence is beyond credibility.

And this would be fine if Fu's, Su's and the Orders flaws were addressed. Or even if they were a parody of wise mentors and ancient orders. But the show seems to present Fu as a genuine mentor figure, and imply that the Order is remotely competent.

It's quite dissonant to say the least.

Here’s a quick but necessary question: why is the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous even out? I know for the plot but from a logical standpoint it doesn’t really make sense to have both out especially when they’re the main targets of Monarch, and by keeping them out you incentivize him to do more evil against Paris.

In the movie it at least was explained by Tikki and Plagg making the choice rather than Fu, and that together they make each other stronger. In the show, though I got nothing. Sure Ladybug is useful, but the Black Cat is more often that not a liability in the situations and Fu chose them vs having no choice. Honestly, if Ladybug and Chat Noir stopped appearing or at all, then Hawkmoth would have no reason to continue attacking Paris

---

I do actually think that the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous come with the most versatile powers, so that could be it. The ability to create something once per fight and the ability to destroy something once per fight are both powers that can be taken advantage of in a moment’s notice in a way the other powers can't. It's really super risky to have those Miraculous out every time, though, although it did lessen the pressure on Fu, since Hawk Moth didn't make finding the Guardian a priority.

Maybe Fu just wanted the biggest burden off his shoulders! It's been a while since we bullied Fu on this blog so let's go with that!

[actually-factually-anonymous]

You know, I do like Undertale as a whole, but there's always been certain elements like the above that warrants a second look.

The backstory alone for example doesn't make much sense, even if humans had an initial massive advantage, all it would take is one monster killing a weak human like a child (and there are plenty of monsters willing to kill children if push comes to shove, as Undertale itself proves) to become an incredibly powerful being. Not necessarily a god, but just with one soul that singular monster would likely gain massive power that dwarfs anything a tribe of spear-wielding humans could do.

And from there the tides turn instantly. Because that one empowered monster can now kill humans and empower themselves at an exponential rate.

Granted, the fact that humanity won the war at all does imply that indeed, not a single soul was taken in that war (somehow, even though regular monsters can kill Frisk just by 'talking'). But then why would humanity- this dreadful race- just seal the monsters away? Why not just kill them all? Especially given just how dangerous the threat of an empowered monster could be.

There's at the minimum some serious missing pieces here. From an in-universe perspective, the entire story itself would almost certainly be propaganda.

But it gets even worse though.

Because if the claims are true, if all it takes are seven human souls for a monster to become a reality-warping god of any degree... well.

Then suddenly the Genocide Route becomes actually easy to rationalize.

Consider the following:

1: The overwhelming majority of the monsters we meet are either perfectly fine with the prospect of assaulting the human world, or are outright enthused at it. That's what the kingdom's clear collective intentions are at the time Frisk comes to the underground.

2: The only reason the Kingdom has not yet done so is because they only have six human souls. All it takes is one more to complete the set, and if you take the presented details as fact: humanity will be facing an enemy which (even if Asgore might be reluctant) will destroy them with unstoppable power.

3: Any monster can achieve this level of godlike power.

These three factors here place the human/Frisk in a perilous position. Presuming that they have any affection or care for the world above, they're in a trolley problem.

Killing Asgore won't stop another monster from taking his place. In fact, only killing Asgore is probably the worst option, since his replacement likely won't share his hesitation. If anything, this likely means that the six souls will be absorbed by his successor and will easily take the seventh soul needed from the outside world within days, or will likely be overthrown without Asgore's long settled authority and replaced with someone who will.

Simply hiding away with Toriel or in some other secluded space is the next best option, especially if the other souls can be freed somehow. But this is ultimately only a delaying action. Humans are falling into the underground, and whether it's the next human or the next half-dozen who land on that bed of flowers- the required human soul count will be met sooner or later.

In theory if Frisk is somehow able to get out of the Underground despite the barrier still being up, they could warn others away, or have the hole they fell down sealed off. But that requires them to be able to escape the barrier, which is never shown to be something they can do.

So in the end the human/Frisk faces a problem: do they bet that the monsters won't do as they say and attack humanity with godlike power, or do they make sure they can't make good on those intentions?

---

Personally, I'd probably bet on the former. But if the soul that fallen down that hole had been one of reason or logic, it would be easy to understand how they'd come to a dark path in this scenario.

Because in a fit of irony, Undertale- the game about treating monsters as people- has a situation where consciously hunting down each and every one of them just like those countless enemy mobs in any of other game is actually reasonable.

Again- not something I'd consider ethical for obvious reasons. But when more or less the entire Underground is talking about attacking my species with godlike power and any one of them could achieve it with just ONE more soul... the options aren't great.

Pacifist Frisk being able to get a golden ending by refusing the Trolley Problem would be something I'd never imagine as an option.

Kudos to the Soul of Determination for finding a third way.

i wonder if the first monster absorbing a human soul incident or maybe not the first, just the one that would be the catalyst for the human monster war later on, was not like Asriel + Chara (pontentially dangerous but mostly harmless) but somewhere closer to Omega Flowey in appearance, personality, and threat level?

still would not justify waging war against all monster kind and sealing them away, but would probably be more understandable? i think?

(sorry if this doesn't make sense)

Considering that it takes less than 10 souls for a Monster to become a god, I'd say that humanity had every right to be afraid. Do you know how easy it is to kill 10 people, especially when you have magic bullets?

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Why? He's got a dozen little people ready to listen at any one time, including at least two who can literally sense his emotional state.

He's never alone.

An AU inspired by just-an-idiotic-nerd's : https://www.tumblr.com/princess-of-the-corner/788385576256782336 Black Birdwing AU:

Shortly after "Evolution", Gabriel's neurons switch on and he remembers that Felix exists, has the Peacock, and really doesn't like him. He also remembers that he has literally over a dozen Miraculous in his possession now (thank to Felix actually), he knows where Felix sleeps (or can just trace him with some combination of said Miraculous), and has no reason to let Felix keep the Peacock.

So Gabriel just mugs Felix.

Maybe he teleports in, maybe he uses the broken invisibility/venom combo. Perhaps he uses the Rooster to erase Felix and Amelie's memories of incriminating information (because why not?), maybe he takes Felix's Amok as insurance.

Regardless, Gabriel gets the Peacock back and Felix is no longer a player on the board, and out of nostalgia he decides to keep the Peacock as it is rather than shoving Duusu in the Kwami-zoo.

Unfortunately for Gabriel, both he and Nathalie are still dying and for whatever reason in this AU they both cark it well before the Miraculized plan is ready.

So now Adrien is left orphaned, and without an explanation as to why all three people in his house died/disappeared after getting seemingly similar symptoms. So, as just-an-idiotic-nerd proposed he has his home checked for hazardous materials, and ends up finding the Kwami Zoo.

Plus the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous in a suspicious pile of black ash.

Things do not go well for Adrien as he puts them on to get answers. Nooroo tries to break things gently, but Duusu DGAF and cheerfully loredumps everything- complete with leading him down to the lower basement and flying over to open Emilie's casket.

"... And Miss Emilie died because she overused my Miraculous when she made you!"

Adrien can only stare catatonically.

"Kid, you alright there?" Plagg waves a paw in front of Adrien's face.

Nooroo just sighs and shakes his head.

"Great, you broke my holder."

"Our holder now!" Duusu cheerfully zips around. "He's one of mine after all!"

"Hang on-"

"It would be nice to get to eat for once," Nooroo muses. "And he is named after a butterfly-"

"HEY!"

Adrien just ends up sort of doing whatever the three squabbling spirits want because he got the full impact of everything his parents+Nathalie did+ his cataclysm killing his father at once. Ladybug not only doesn't find out, she doesn't even know why Chat Noir stopped showing up around the time the Akumas stopped because Adrien's more or less a zombie directed by three floating bobble-heads.

The three aren't even using the rings (which you know, would allow a kwami to theoretically control a sentibeing wielder like the wielder could them), Adrien's just on autopilot and the most mature and sensible of the three spirits (Nooroo) keeps getting overruled by the impulsive other two. Eventually a new villain arises, 'Black Birdwing', who routinely Akumatizes the fromageries and florists of Paris into assorted cheese and flower related monsters.

---

Assorted details:

-There's no actual goal here beyond the Kwamis doing what they want. Every 'fight' has the three just eating and playing in the background. The other Kwamis might get involved now and then, but it's mainly these three driving the shenanigans.

-Paris' new villain is just making food and toys for the Kwamis, mainly because he's too mindbroken to say no and this is the first time the Kwamis have gotten a chance at doing whatever they want since... ever since they were bound to the Miraculous really. And they're having a field day.

-Adrien's more or less constantly AFK and the little guys have the wheel. Somehow they're still more of a threat than Shadowmoth.

-Whether or not Ladybug realizes Chat Noir is Black Birdwing is up in the air, but if she doesn't she's probably very confused why Plagg is having fun every other fight.

fucked up get my boy some therapy

[actually-factually-anonymous]

It really is funny, because even if you don't care for Adrien as a person, "Punchingbag Noir" amounting to Ladybug's primary tactic is just objectively a silver bullet in the idea that she's a competent leader.

Chat Noir goes up against Akumas one on one (or worse once Sentimonsters and multiple teams of Akumas are introduced) for at least minutes at a time. Said Akumas are also usually so dangerous that a duo of Ladybug and Chat Noir explicitly cannot beat them together... so she just leaves him to go fight on his own.

This should be a recipe for disaster. Chat Noir as it is already comes within a few seconds of losing his Miraculous multiple times in the show under this brilliant approach, but if Hawkmoth or Mayura were allowed to have a brain they'd have noticed this pattern and just shown up themselves to beat Chat into a pancake once Ladybug leaves for the umpteenth time, and taken Plagg there and then.

The only reason this... choice to repeatedly leave Chat Noir in needless peril didn't lead to Gabriel winning sooner is pure plot armor.

Funniest thing about about Cat Noir being reduced to a meat shield is that someone with a black cat miraculous is the worst meat shield ever, because if their identity got exposed or if akuma got their miraculous the villain would be halfway towards fulfilling their goal.

---

YOU WOULD THINK SO, HUH?! But nooooooo, our master strategist team leader, Miss Greatest Ladybug Ever who’s already the best version of herself will put the literal power of destruction on a silver platter, tossing around the second half of the power to rewrite reality like yesterday’s garbage, and she won’t even consider using the teammate whose power is being impervious to superpowers, or the guy whose power is creating a super strong magical shield. Nah, the guy with the touch of death is far more suited to get whaled on.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Being driven magically insane is definitely an absolutely bonkers escalation.

I see what you did there.

Indeed though, after everything the fandom did to Adrien: it's pretty damn rich for them to whinge about 'salters' or 'harsh punishments'.

But as for story and driving Adrien to a fate worse than death: I'm pretty sure it was primarily their way of both getting the ring off Adrien without making Marinette 'look bad', and ensuring that he was 'punished' (you know, despite the the magic driving him nuts being responsible for his actions).

Which is actually a pretty common thing. Not necessarily the insanity- though Adrien having his personality changed in some way because of the ring isn't rare in these stories- but something happening with Adrien to justifying taking the ring off him without Marinette having to feel guilty. Because the writer inevitably wants Marinette's Miraculous partner to be her romantic partner, so they need an excuse that lets Marinette revoke the ring besides the actual reason of using it like an engagement ring.

And it's ridiculous for multiple reasons, but the biggest one is that it's entirely unnecessarily.

I mean, obviously having it revealed that Adrien's cortex was steadily getting cooked through the show because Fu apparently judged him expendable and Plagg never cared enough to warn him before it was too late is already unnecessary. (And also no way to frame those implications as anything but monstrous).

But the one good thing about the whole Senti!Adrien nonsense is that he's one of the only characters in Miraculous that can actually die for real. Humans, robots, whatever else have you: they can always be brought back with the Miraculous Cure.

But Adrien is one of the three people on the planet who can't be- under the right conditions of course.

Ever since this theory floating around fandom, even before it was 'confirmed' through that play, there's been a ready made out for any writer who wants to have their cake and eat it too with having Damian or whoever else being the Black Cat and Marinette's love interest.

Just have the rings be destroyed. Just kill Adrien. Heck, they could just have Gabriel do it with the Peacock if they wanted. Boom, done, clean slate to replace him at will.

But no, instead we have insanity, character assassination, and horrific implications about True Holders that retroactively turn Adrien's existence as Chat Noir into a tragedy within the context of any story that features said True Holder nonsense.

I just realised that even Adrien salt fics have him end up better off than in cannon.

---

At least in salt fics he gets to know the truth. Sure, the authors only reveal it to him to hurt him with the information, but, at least he isn’t stuck as Marinette’s RealDoll boyfriend catering to her comfort alone anymore.

Like, when people who are self-professed haters of this character treat him better than the people behind his show, you know things are fucked up.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Pretty much.

Marinette even before Season 5 was far from a perfect person, and had done plenty of things that would get another character condemned to the saltmines a dozen times over.

Just off the top of my head.

-Attempting to use Adrien's day of grief to confess to him (easily worse than any of Chat Noir's pushy moments by an order of magnitude)

-Her schemes against Kagami.

-Trying to expel Luka from his own (shared) birthday party.

-Leading Hawkmoth to Fu, because of her own petty jealously distracting her.

-Ephemeral.

In terms of habitual awful behavior and spectacular acts of selfishness, Marinette had just about every character beat out except the villains.

But every other character was always held to a higher standard than her. It didn't matter that they were fourteen. It didn't matter that if they meant well or were simply inconsiderate, or if the plot bent their pre-existing traits to accommodate a story.

No, Marinette deserved better.

But now that the rose-coloured glasses are finally started to come off large sections of the fandom; suddenly all those factors matter. Suddenly it's unfair to judge a character like that after years of burning Adrien, Alya, and anyone else who wasn't Marinette at the stake for far lesser 'crimes'.

And the most ridiculous part of all of it is that Marinette is still being handled with kid gloves by the fandom.

If she was being held to the standard the fandom set years ago, there would pages upon pages of new fics about Marinette being having her Miraculous ripped off her ears so Tikki could go to her "True Holder", who had everything Marinette did but was better in every way and whom the story would use to make Marinette look as stupid, pathetic, and morally inferior as it could. Not to mention having every aspect of her feelings and relationship with Adrien condemned as abusive, exploitative, and shallow. Oh and of course that's alongside every aspect of Marinette's life getting irreversibly ruined before she's carted off to face criminal charges for the many activities that she got away with before thanks to her authority and privileges.

No. There's none of that. There's a handful of fics about her having to come clean and face some temporary consequences, maybe one or two where Paris reacts appropriately and turns on her without the narrative portraying the public as ungrateful or otherwise incorrect in doing so.

'Marinette deserves better'.

No. No Marinette deserves at the bare minimum some actual consequences. But if we were to judge her by the standard set by the countless Satlfics, Maribat crossovers, and assorted character bashing fics for half a decade at this point: I can't even fathom how much worse she deserves.

You know all these excuses people make for Marinette could easily apply to the rest of her class when Lila was around.

They were all 14 when she came, they were all manipulated by her, and they all thought they were doing the right thing. Did they get any sympathy? NO! They all got raked over the coals and instead had their lives ruined in those awful Salt Fics.

---

Yeah, like, there’s nothing special about Marinette that makes her somehow exempt from judgement or makes the other characters deserving of harsher scrutiny. But, like, that’s the thing with Maripologists; their idea of what constitutes as “fair” is highly conditional and uneven. Mostly it means “the character I identify with must get all the sympathy and no one else should get any because it’s all about how I, I mean Marinette, feels!”

[actually-factually-anonymous]

I don't know about that one OP, maybe some salt fics do but I'd wgaer most of them make a point of ruining him out of out spite.

Just off the top of my head I can remember two stories:

-A fic where Adrien's entire life and prospects are irrevocably destroyed over high school drama, to the point where suicide would have been easily understandable. The fic could be Karma of Lies before that extra chapter came out to try and patchwork over the implications, but could also be a thousand others.

-And another fic where it was revealed that because Adrien wasn't the "True Holder" of the Black Cat Miraculous, he'd gone irreversibly insane before the story start as a result of Fu using him as Ladybug's partner. The fic ended with Adrien still insane, but also with the story stating that everything he'd done while under the influence of soul-destroying magic was his own damn fault and those were the consequences thereof.

(Akuma Victims were still innocent though.)

And I think we all know that if we were to ever skim the crop of the more popular salt/bashing fics that we'd find plenty of brutal and disgustingly disproportionate fates for Adrien that death would be preferable to.

Canon may have ruined Adrien's character arc and placed him in a disgusting gilded cage of abuse apologia, but if nothing else the studio restrictions stop the show writers from even coming close to what the fandom does to Adrien.

I just realised that even Adrien salt fics have him end up better off than in cannon.

---

At least in salt fics he gets to know the truth. Sure, the authors only reveal it to him to hurt him with the information, but, at least he isn’t stuck as Marinette’s RealDoll boyfriend catering to her comfort alone anymore.

Like, when people who are self-professed haters of this character treat him better than the people behind his show, you know things are fucked up.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

That's the thing about Miraculous: if the show could commit to it, it would actually be amazing as a deconstruction/antithesis to a teen superhero/magical girl show.

What you have proposed here would be a great element of that.

Normally in a magical girl show with where the main boy and girl have a love-square like setup like Usagi and Tuxedo Mask, it's the case where over time the two come together and learn to appreciate both sides of their prospective partner.

But in this setup, you have the opposite where the male character just steadily gets brutally disillusioned. Genuine understanding occurs for sure, but there's no crush progressing to a romance, it's an infatuation that gets dispelled and reveals a deeply flawed person that no one should be in a romance with any time soon.

It would just be one part of many genuine subversions of the Magical Girl and Superhero genres of course. But for Adrien it would probably be the turning point for his character.

I think things in miraculous ladybug would make infinitely more sense if Marinette hated Chat Noir.

---

Marinette resents his shows of skill, treats him as an opponent to outsmart rather than an ally, makes sure he knows less about what's going on than the main villain, never worries whenever he disappears, has no interest in getting to know him as a person, jumps at every chance to replace him that doesn't cast her as the villain and her playful banter sounds like genuine dissing concerningly often. I mean, she certainly treats him like someone she doesn't want around.

New Mari-salt fic concept: Marinette is trying to get Cat Noir to quit because she wants him off the team and just taking his Miraculous for no good reason would make her look like the bad guy. Bonus points if she already has a replacement picked out.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Indeed. I've gone on ad nauseam about the failures of the 'heroic' characters and how any logical assessment makes them complete failures despite whatever 'vibes' they might have. But the villains also fall into that mold, despite whatever impression they might make.

For both sides, once you strip away the bias an emotional impressions the series tries to push upon you: they're both utterly incompetent even within the logical limits of their world and genre.

Felix and Nathalie are the worst of course, the narrative seems determined to present them as the clever and competent ones whereas Chloe and Gabriel are usually the fun-to-beat losers. Like you said: Nathalie achieves nothing as Mayura or as a hero outside of her first powered appearance where she saves Hawkmoth.

Felix is even less impressive though. Leaving aside that his evil plans up til season 5 have more holes than a sponge, and the sheer insane levels of luck that were given to him that allowed him to pull off his plan in "Strikeback" (coupled with idiocy when you realise he could have just mugged Gabriel with ease for the Peacock and Butterfly both and not traded all those Kwamis and Adrien's amok away), or how easily his plan in "Gabriel Agreste" would have failed if Gabriel had made a Shadowmoth-senti instead: what does he actually accomplish?

He arms Gabriel.

That's it. That's Felix's grand contribution to the story plot. All the secrets he holds that could have been used against Gabriel, the tricks he pulled to get Adrien's ring and the Miraculous? Nothing else makes a difference to the bottom line. Even the reveals he makes in his play amount to nothing because Ladybug acts exactly like she would have if she never got said reveal.

All Felix has in the end is the Peacock, a failed genocide attempt, and a relationship with Adrien's ex-girlfriend that has disturbing undertones from both sides.

In regard to that villain stuff let's go with how effective they were.

Okay the contestants were: Gabriel, Tomoe, Lila, Chloe, Felix and Nathalie

This is going to be hard to 'rank', so I'll summarize instead.

Felix's Goal: Free Adrien/All Sentimonsters

-Mostlyfailure, this guy is all over the place. He gave power to the person *in control* of Adrien, he only ever retrieved one of two rings(meaning Adrien was never free) He tried to do a genocide only to have a breakdown at the first minor setback. He fought with the actual heroes fighting Hawkmoth instead of working with them. In the end Adrien was only freed due to Gabriel's own self-destructive choices, and it's a tenuous freedom at best since Felix *NEVER TOLD ADRIEN ANYTHING*

He did manage to swipe and replace Tomoé's ring without her noticing because ????(plot) which is his partial win. Now he's on Ladybug's leash and thoroughly domesticated by Kagami, so, he's done.

Lila's Goal: ????? We have no clue... make Marinette Miserable I guess?

-Extremely effective, despite phoning it in 75% of the time. Every time Marinette runs up against Lila Marinette ends up looking terrible while Lila comes out fine. The only exception was in Revelation where Marinette is saved by Sabrina-ex-Machina. Also, every time Lila 'loses' she dodges any sort of meaningful setbacks because of it.

She loses some points for being pretty much a Deus Ex herself.

Tomoé's Goal: ???? Get Kagami together with Adrien... I guess? She didn't seem to care too much. Mold Kagami into a powerful Heir?

-Mostly success. While Adrien and Kagami did not get together(yet) Tomoé never seemed all that invested in it. It was probably a way to expand the Tsurugi Zaibatsu more than anything else. Kagami is technically 'off the leash' at the moment, but that is only because Tomoé is unaware and Kagami has not done anything to challenge the status quo yet. I would call that a point in Tomoé's favor. If you've trained the dog not to wander, does it matter you aren't holding the leash?

Bonus points for Tomoé barely putting in any effort over 5 seasons.

Nathalie's goal: Resurrect Emilie/Get with Gabriel/Get with Emilie?

-Complete Failure. I'm sorry to all the Nathalie enjoyers out there, but the Nathalie you love exists almost entirely in your head(and she's cool don't get me wrong!) Canon Nathalie is such an inconsistent mess I want to assume her S4+ characterization is influenced heavily by her being on too many painkillers 24/7.

There's also the fact that Nathalie only really *exudes* the aura of competence. When she's sent out she really doesn't live up to it much.

She steals the Peacock when *the guy who would start WW3 for his goal* tells her it is too dangerous. She gives herself super cancer in the process and achieves... nothing. Pretty much every other time out she is equally as ineffective. Her best contribution was as Gabriel's external Hard Drive to upgrade him to Scarlet Moth.

She gets her clock cleaned by Chloé Bourgeois. She stands around idly by while her moth slowly bonks itself against Fu's shield, letting Chloé 1v2 the Fused heroes. (I guess when you think about it she realizes Chloe's the better fighter?) When she goes out as Bisexual Steve Irwin her power is defeated by switching nametags.

She even gets a free 'motivation switch' in S5 and flubs that one too. She comes up a corpse and it's only by the *villain's* choice that she gets a do-over.

Canon Nathalie is all Aura no trousers, sadly.

Gabriel's Goal: Resurrect his wife, and some other vague inconsistent rich person nonsense.

-Loss by forfeit. He got it, he just decided he didn't want what he got.

I'm not going to pretend Gabriel is a super genius here, but this is in terms of effectiveness. He's lucky he was battling teens, and not very motivated ones at that. He did keep throwing things at them, which appraently was too much for Marinette to keep up with, since she never actively looked for him. He also lucked out that by the time he went out in person in S5 for a throwdown, Marinette had developed Villain traits herself. She had him dead to rights in Destruction but she went into Villain-monologue mode and that cost her the game.

In the end Gabriel's various schemes did add up. Marinette got his with the nightmare toxin, which apparently lingered(but only until the S5 finale?) and that sucked all decision making skill out of her. So she ignored a very obvious warning and ran headfirst into combat solo. Locking down his son kept Cat Noir off his back(accidentally!) The Alliance bots were some added Chaos, though they didn't pull through in the end.

The real success was seeing the opportunity and seizing it finally. Marinette gave him an opening the size of a barn door and he ran for it. Yet, once it was all done he passed on it by because... *waves vaguely*. The idea that Emilie MIGHT be upset with him was apparently too much? Like he couldn't wish her to NOT be upset with him? Ah well, whichever.

Yet he did Win on a secondary goal, because in the end he was in complete control of the future of all of reality. This is one of the BIG reasons the S5 finalé falls so flat, Control was Gabriel's *thing* and he never had to give it up.

Chloé's goal: Have people like her. Get Adrien. Be adored. Be Rich.

Mostly Failure: Up until second half of S5 she was at least FUN to watch(The Mission Impossible scene in Gabriel Agreste was glorious!) but she achieved nothing. One might put it down to trying to chase too many goals.

Want Adrien to like her? Well then she can't be too domineering.

Want her mother to like her? Well then she can't be too nice.

Want her class to like her? Well then she has to stop liking the things she likes.

Want Lila to like her? Had to burn all other bridges.

Want to be a hero? Sorry, no options there.

She made a bunch of bad choices, following several sets of unwritten rules and all of them contradictory. In the end though almost all of her wants were about wanting *other* people to want things.

She wanted to be wanted, but you can't control that. So she was defeated by not setting an attainable goal, while her failures alienated everyone around her.

I enjoy her, but as a villain, she was not good. She made a better hero in the few episodes she had than she did a villain in the entire rest of the series.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Just imagine the scene when he finds out.

Adrien finds the Butterfly and peacock, and puts them on to get answers. Nooroo tries to break things gently, but Duusu DGAF and cheerfully loredumps everything- complete with flying over to open Emilie's casket.

"... And Miss Emilie died because she overused my Miraculous when she made you!"

Adrien can only stare catatonically.

"Kid, you alright there?" Plagg waves a paw in front of Adrien's face.

Nooroo just sighs and shakes his head.

"Great, you broke my holder."

"Our holder now!" Duusu cheerfully zips around. "He's one of mine after all!"

"Hang on-"

"It would be nice to get to eat for once," Nooroo muses. "And he is named after a butterfly-"

"HEY!"

Only Adrien just ends up sort of doing whatever the three squabbling spirits want because he got the full impact of everything his parents+Nathalie did+ his cataclysm killing his father at once. Ladybug not only doesn't find out, she doesn't even know why Chat Noir stopped showing up around the time the Akumas stopped because Adrien's more or less a zombie directed by three floating bobble-heads.

The three aren't even using the rings (which you know, would allow a kwami to theoretically control a sentibeing wielder like the wielder could them), Adrien's just on autopilot and the most mature and sensible of the three spirits (Nooroo) keeps getting overruled by the impulsive other two. Eventually a new villain arises, 'Black Birdwing', who routinely Akumatizes the fromageries and florists of Paris into assorted cheese and flower related monsters.

AU where Nathalie dies from the broken peacock, and Gabriel dies from the cataclysm. Neither of them tell anyone about them being supervillains.

Adrien is very glad that Hawkmoth seems to have quit, as it means he doesn't have to worry about getting akumatized while he grieves.

He also realizes that 3 of the people who lived in the mansion all died from mysterious illnesses that not a single doctor could even identify, let alone cure, and comes to the conclusion that it's something wrong with the house. His mom and Nathalie had identical symptoms, and given how much faster Nathalie's symptoms progressed compared to Emile's, whatever is causing it is getting worse.

(He's pretty sure his house wasn't built with any hazardous materials, but like, it would be the easiest explanation.)

He finds out about the secret lair while construction is being done, and puts 2 and 2 together about his father being Hawkmoth, along with what actually caused the mysterious illnesses.

("My Lady, I have good news and bad news. Good news? I found and recovered the peacock and the butterfly! Bad news? Where do I even begin.")

GOD

[actually-factually-anonymous]

Maybe that's the real ending.

There's actually been some discussion about Adrien becoming the endgame Butterfly Villain after Lila+ however many other people get Nooroo after her (the future Butterfly was never named, Marinette could fail to get the Brooch back from multiple generations of Hawkmoths!).

But I don't think he needs to 'turn evil' or snap under stress or something. He could legitimately wake up to the reality of his situation and have the presence of mind to actually take the Brooch from the previous villain when Ladybug is busy monologging (she already does that alot) and just leave.

Maybe he has the ring and can erase memories. Maybe he doesn't because Bug Noir mark whatever was needed, but Adrien realises that the only way out for him for him and Nooroo both from the cycle of controlling masters is to join forces and escape.

No terrorism. No speeches. Just leaving with the rings and Brooch, and setting up a new life someplace else.

And after over a decade of her failing to track the Butterfly villains, It's not like Ladybug's going to be able to find them. So really, a happy ending for Adrien, Nooroo, and Paris who will finally be free.

I honestly think Adrien should take Nooroo and GO, like sneak out of the house in the middle of the night and make a run for it. Maybe he can explore the world, crash with the Gorilla when he needs to, idk. He needs to get away from every single person in his life right NOW

---

Marinette would hunt him down. She'd finally put effort into something and it would be to make sure Adrien is safe, and by safe, she means with her, where she can own him and keep an eye on him. She'd have to hang onto his rings for safekeeping too. And none of it would be out of character.

Adrien needs to wipe out the knowledge that he even existed from all of Paris and then book it.

If you made Adrien the protagonist, Miraculous would be a horror series.