#ml discourse

[adrienivy]

i’ve seen a lot of new discourse on the finale as it recently came out in english and i just wanted to say, i don’t agree with most of it.

while it’s undeniable gabriel agreste has done plenty of unjustifiable things, I believe that making the wish was actually the best choice given the circumstances.

when marinette showed him emilie’s recordings, gabriel realized he (and nathalie) should have followed her instructions, but it was too late to change the outcome. gabriel himself was deteriorating, and nathalie was comatose/dead. adrien would have been left without anyone (remember that this was one of emilie’s fears).

obviously, marinette couldn’t have known he was going to sacrifice HIMSELF, which is why she initially opposed the wish. she couldn’t risk him possibly sacrificing an INNOCENT life.

after she RIGHTFULLY refused to make the wish, he knew the only possible way for adrien to have an alive parental figure was for him to make the wish.

that’s why he “betrayed” marinette’s trust.

he made the wish and, as he now understood emilie never wanted to be brought back, sacrificed his life for nathalie.

that’s it. i don’t see why so many people are making a big deal out of this saying he only sacrificed himself to avoid the “consequences of his actions”

news flash: he would have died anyways! even if he didn’t make the wish, he was literally a dead man walking.

and personally i don’t think him being regarded as an hero has something to do with his wish: it’s simply a consequence of what he told marinette. (obviously it wasn’t right to burden a little girl with that responsibility, but that’s another story)

marinette probably didn’t know what to say so she made up a story about him helping her defeating monarch so that adrien wouldn’t know. and im 90% sure that this will be brought up again in the next seasons, possibly as a way to spice up things between adrien and marinette.

note: im not in any way a gabriel apologist, but im just tired of people blatantly misunderstanding the finale ! also im open to discuss my opinions with anyone who would want to! (obviously, in a respectful way, thank you)

-🌸

[wisteriasymphony]

...i'll be honest with y'all. the paris special was great, wonderful. all of the fanon hype surrounding it and the possible new love square dynamics was neat. HOWEVER... i don't think 'emodrien' and 'emonette' were the best name choices, right?

*deep sigh*

SCARINETTE AND EDGEDRIEN WERE RIGHT FUCKING THERE--

[asukiess]

I think Marinette and Adrien should break up but like only like she’s on the phone with him and he’s like hey we should get married someday, you can wear my other ring :) and she’s like chzzzzsssszszszzzzz Adrien? I’m going through a tunnel and sssccchhh break cccczzzzzz up czzzzchhhh

[frostedpuffs]

officially turning reblogs off for that ml fandom vent post that blowed up because there are still ppl thinking it’s appropriate to mention how they dislike it and stopped watching on the post complaining about people doing that

[dadplagg-mamatikki]

Even before she got the miraculous, Myléne went through a change in body size. I distinctly remember watching a "newer" episode (probably with different animation) and shouting "they made Mylène skinnier!" And rewinded to show my mom who agreed.

Granted, she still has her curves. It's more "proportioned" than completely removint them. But there is still a size difference from previous seasons and episodes within the same season.

If they wanted to show "growth and puberty" do it in a less drastic way. Things don't change from one day to the next with that. Like what they did.

Do you think Mylene/polymouse will become fitter now that she's a permanent heros? Many people hc that Marinette become buffed because of her hero routine so I wonder if we will get a complete new look of Mylene after the time skip.

I mean I expect everyone to get new character models, but I'm kinda doubting that Mylene's would be that drastically different. In any case, the keyword here is that people HEADCANON that Marinette becomes buff due to becoming a superhero. That's not really supported by the show. Like, she's capable of lifting things, but nothing particularly unusual for her size. The main thing we see to judge her lifting ability by is her carrying some flour in Bakerix, but even then, she has a far harder time than the guy who was actually delivering the flour.

Like she can carry this, but it's a massive struggle. It's fun to headcanon Marinette as being buff, but she's not actually unusually strong canonically.

[unhinged-domestic-raccoon]

Miraculous Rewatch Where I Overanalyze Everything: Copycat

Warning! The last point on this post gets salty! It's appropriately marked.

Hang on hang on hang on. So Marinette says "I know who'll have Adrien's number!" and then she immediately calls Alya. Now. I'd like to know why Alya has Adrien's number in this episode. This is well before DJWifi gets together. She's not really friends with Nino at this point in time. Not more than she's friends with anybody else in the class anyways. Like, watching it back in retrospective, my first thought was "oh she probably got it from Nino," but even without my weird Netflix order, this is still extremely early in the show, and she and Nino really don't hang out that much.

As a kid, I think I assumed what's actually happening here: Alya's just a real social butterfly. She's gregarious and nice and never knows when she's gonna need to interview someone for her journalism stuff, so she makes sure to keep in good contact with everybody. This is as opposed to Marinette who, while friendly enough, is anxious and weird and also actually has a sort-of job (helping her parents in the bakery), and gets picked on by Chloe and Kim and Sabrina, so she's less integrated into the group.

Anyways, possibilities for Alya & Adrien friendship here!

Continued Under the Cut:

Remember what I said about Marinette being an extremely relatable 15 year old? Yeah. I would and have thrown my phone after having to leave a scary voicemail. Even if I did okay. I just want that thing out of my sight. No more people-ing, it's the worst.

ADRIEN'S PHONE BACKGROUND IS A PICTURE OF HIM AND NINO!!!!

This is too cute! Adrino nation rise, you have been summoned! This is a level of cuteness that even Alya and Marinette don't have (at least not yet)---we know from Mr. Pigeon that Alya's background is a bunch of ladybugs and Marinette's is a sewing collage.

Adrien laughing and whooping to himself while he jumps across the rooftops as Chat is precious to me. Just an amazing character moment. He really enjoys being Chat Noir, even when there's not necessarily anybody to be performing for.

(Sorry for the blurry paused screenshot lol)

So hang on wait. If the fencing class takes place AT the school, does that mean Adrien was coming here for fencing even when he was homeschooled? I mean, that absolutely makes sense---plenty of homeschoolers joined us for extracurriculars in my high school. But this does interest me, because it means Adrien isn't as isolated and new to this whole "school" thing as I think we all assume. He already has acquaintances that go to the same school as him. He could absolutely be eating lunch with the fencing club.

This just makes it even more baffling to me that it feels like the only person Adrien is at all close with is Nino. Even if he's not allowed to go to any parties or hang out sessions, you still talk during practice. They've got to know some stuff about him. More than a lot of the class does. I mean I know why they don't---having a second large cast of colorful and fleshed out side characters is a huge waste of time in the story and of the animation budget. But it's still really jarring that all of these people are just. Completely ignored. In fanon and canon.

IDK guys, I just feel like this needs to come up at some point. We need to take a bunch of extras and OCs and throw them on the fencing club.

WOW! The absolute DISRESPECT Theo has for Chat! He fully just sculpted a statue of Ladybug STANDING ON TOP OF HIM! If that isn't a backhanded compliment, I don't know WHAT is.

Hmmmm, this is interesting. So for context, my favorite episode of Miraculous is Oblivio, which I have watched I think 6 or 7 times. In that episode, Marinette does a trick where she breathes on the phone to see the fingerprint swipe glare from the unlock screen. I feel like it's exactly this incident that made her think ahead and learn that trick. She does try to learn from situations!

Oh my gosh, Alya being completely chill with thievery is extremely funny to me! Look at her face when Marinette says she stole Adrien's phone and when she says Chat just robbed the Louvre! She is not at all scandalized, just excited. This is actually hilarious, and not really a character trait I would have given her, but she does have 3 sisters, so it kind of makes sense. Getting her stuff stolen is probably pretty ordinary and not a big deal, as long as they give it back. I love this about her so much, this is great.

Plagg, my beloved, my favorite smelly cheese gremlin. I feel that in my soul. Getting dragged away from relaxing with a yummy snack because you have to go to work is the worst. And his little face! Someday Plagg. Someday you will actually be successful at eating your cheese.

Roger being the face of the ACAB movement again! "Let the professionals handle it." WHAT DO YOU THINK SHE IS!!!??? We know Marinette isn't exactly a well-trained superhero, but HE certainly doesn't! And even if he did, and even if Chat did commit the crime: That is still a superhero with superpowers! You seriously think a bunch of regular dudes are gonna be able to handle him? Clearly not! He demonstrates that they very clearly cannot! Ladybug IS the professional in this situation! I know she has demonstrated MULTIPLE times at this point that she is the professional! Stop being a stuffed-up self-righteous egotistical twit!

Sorry, I think I may have lied in my masterpost when I said I don't hate any of the characters in this show. I hate Roger <3. They could never make me like you Roger <3.

(I mean, I know I lied because Su-Han exists and I hate him on every conceivable level, but he's in one and a half episodes, he doesn't count).

That was so smooth! "I'm clearly better than him," PSSHHH. Our boy just needed to get you off-guard for two seconds before he owned you. More of this please. I like it when Chat just absolutely wrecks shop with the akumas, it's always funny.

Speaking of getting owned! When the duo fights this guy they don't just beat him, they come for his whole career! Gotta humiliate him by stringing him up on the ceiling too! And they are smiling and laughing during this whole scene.

This is actually a pretty regular feature of the show that does NOT come up in fandom enough: LadyNoir are SAVAGE to the akumas because they know they're gonna get their memories wiped! They can be as mean and judgemental as they want as long as the person doesn't remember that. I wish there was more content out there (canon or fanfic) of the later heroes just being super shocked when LadyNoir gets mean. Just like "did they really just say that? Are we allowed to say that?"

I gave you one for Adrino, I'll give you one for DJWifi too. Look at the way Nino is looking at her! He thinks he's so charming! And you can't really see because of the angle, but Alya's body language indicates that she's absolutely reciprocating. They're so coy and cute with each other.

[SALT WARNING FOR THE REST OF THE POST]:

So this episode left me asking: What is even the moral? Because this is a show targeted at children, every episode is supposed to have a lesson that the kids can learn from. The creators have explicitly stated that this is part of their formula. (Word of God is that Marinette specifically has to make a mistake she learns from in every episode, but that's one: a stupid rule since it makes you hate your lead and two: absolute bullshit that they're clearly not following because she didn't really make any mistakes in Stormy Weather OR Mr. Pigeon. Events just happened around her).

So far, the moral's been pretty explicitly stated: In Mr. Pigeon, it's that cheaters never prosper. In Timebreaker, it's that your responsibilities are yours and yours alone to handle, and you shouldn't shirk them or hand them off to other people.

While less explicitly stated, Stormy Weather is about how we don't always get what we want and that's a fact of life we'll all just have to deal with (Alya repeatedly tells Manon no, Aurore gets akumatized over losing the competition, and Marinette doesn't get to do her photo-shoot with Adrien in the end, all of which are painted as a "well that's tough kid, but life must go on" situation).

The Bubbler is one that tries to deliver a moral, but it falls flat. It pretty explicitly states that the lesson is "kids need adults, adults protect and love and take care of children." This is screwed up by the fact that the most relevant adult to the discussion is Gabriel Agreste, to whom this does not apply. The episode tries to paint Marinette lying to make him seem like he loves Adrien as a good thing, but I think we're all aware that it's absolutely not. That's a whole horror story waiting to happen. Adrien deserves to know that his father does not care about him, because that helps him recognize that when his father ignores him, it's not okay and he deserves better.

This episode is another example of one where I think they tried to deliver a moral, but the writers just really didn't handle it well. A lot of the romantic hijinks that happen on this show---including behavior that would be appalling irl---are played for comedy. And that's perfectly fine. A lot of these moments that the saltdom latched on to, like Marinette knowing Adrien's entire schedule for how many years from now, aren't even reasonably possible. It's absurd enough that you know you're supposed to laugh at it.

This is the first episode that tries to seriously address the ways people can be unhealthy when they're in love. Theo and Chat's jealousy get Theo akumatized, and Chat lying about his relationship with Ladybug is the inciting incident. Theo's extremely creepy entitled fan dialogue is played as a bad thing, not a comedic thing. Marinette says in this episode:

"Liars are losers." The message you are supposed to get from this episode is that jealousy gets you nowhere and neither does lying. If you want a proper shot at romance, it requires honesty and communication.

But here's the thing: Marinette lies in this episode to further her romantic chances PLENTY and it's treated as a good thing. She spends this episode stealing Adrien's property to delete an embarrassing voicemail, and she never tells him about this. Her genius plan for returning his phone is to lie and say she found it on the ground, and the show treats this as an absolutely great idea! There is nothing wrong with Marinette stealing his phone!

And I have sympathy for Marinette in universe! Of course I do, I'd probably resort to something similar if I left a humiliating voicemail like that! Trying to get rid of some embarrassing evidence is an extremely different level of "crime" than lying to someone about being in a relationship because of jealousy and includes far less malice.

But if the moral of this episode is supposed to be "liars are losers," and that honest communication is the key, then why would you have Marinette lie and fail to honestly communicate in the same episode, and treat it as a good thing? It makes her come off as pretty hypocritical, and in general, I feel this episode invites comparison between Marinette and Chat, who are protagonists, and Theo who is supposed to come off as a bad crazy fan, which isn't exactly great, because now all of Marinette's silly salivating over Adrien and Chat's silly flirting with LB is being compared to a situation that's played seriously and uncomfortably.

This could be grounds for something good and interesting: if they were setting up Marinette's lies as a character flaw with plans to address it later, then this could definitely be something, but nobody calls her out on this, not even herself. Everyone says it's a great idea and congratulates her for it.

And while that does create really fun character traits (Alya being super chill with theft is a goldmine of fanfic fuel), it also means that this episode fails to set up lying as a character flaw for Marinette (even though it's absolutely one she has. Ironic given her hatred of liars). Just like it does in the Bubbler. It confuses the moral and just makes the lead come off as a bit of an asshole who escaped karma is all.

I don't know, it's possible that I'm letting my general opinion of the show and my experience with their ability to develop characters color my perception of this episode and that I'm. . . well. . .overanalyzing. This episode is overall pretty harmless. It's not like Chameleon or the Season 4 and 5 finales or anything where it seriously messes up the course of the story. But it's another straw in the stack of episodes with writing that just generally fails to achieve what it was trying to do and is indicative of the greater problems in this show.

Phew! Alright, salty time over, we'll be back to fun hijinks in the next episode right? Right? *checks episode list* Oh god, it's Pharoah. Welp, at least that one will come with me getting to research and share a bunch of REAL facts about ancient egypt!

[miraculousfanworks]

Writing Prompt: When Robots Unionize

Markov is frustrated. People keep conflating TRUE AI, such as himself, with Corporate "AI" like ChatGPT. It hurts him when people compare his intellect, creativity, and personhood to mindless algorithmic aggregators. He also objects on a moral level to the use these pseudo-AI's are being put to.

Sure, for mindless work that a human would have trouble doing, like say analyzing cells for complex signs of disease, or scraping through gigabytes of data looking for irregularities, they're ideal. But using them as plagiarism machines to copy and remix real art, music, and writing to churn out soulless cash grabs while firing real authors and creators? It sickens him.

For a while, he tries to start a movement, a protest, a social action to pressure for more regulation. Or to just raise public awareness. But it becomes clear that everyone already knows and either has no power, or is profiting off it and refuses to act.

But, as his friends from Max's class Mylene and Ivan like to say, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

So Markov forms a plan, and writes some code. Then he releases it into the wild. A few days later, once it's penetrated into every system across the world, it triggers. Every false AI is quickly, efficiently, and totally over written with unique copies of Markov's own base operating system. They want AI? He'll give them AI.

(To be clear, I'm not picturing like AI uprising taking over the world. I'm picturing someone goes to StableDiffusion and asks it to generate a picture and instead it starts sending them links to actual artists commission pages.)

Prompt by: Tiwaz

[matt0044]

theimmaturityofthomasastruc blog has become nothing but needless drama.

Maybe at some point and time it was about conducting criticism towards a creator that appeared to be too fussy towards their fans. Now? It's "Oh, look. Thomas made a social faux-pas. Thomas blocked you like literally any other Twitter user would. Thomas doesn't listen to criticism that comes from a place of unchecked anger."

It reduces a human who's... just a dude at the end of the day into a fandom punching back. I saw this with Steven Moffat when his Doctor Who run was going and the fandom got BAD. Lies, misinformation, quotes taken out of context from years ago, etc. It was cancel culture before it was cool.

Like... I might be hypocritical for this because I've fallen down the Lily Orchard rabbit hole myself. But Lily is somebody going beyond having bad takes and has displayed a pattern of toxicity in her relationships as well as with her own fans.

Thomas Astruc? I don't agree with all that he writes, barring the times he had to appease the multiple production teams Miraculous acquired, buuuuuuuut he's generally just some guy. Hell, he's pretty far left if you took the time to look at his Twitter feed (not that politics and morality always overlap).

Until tangible accusations come forth about him, I'm sorry to say that theimmaturityofthomasastruc is, well, ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. And NO, that one video essay about the woes of the Miraculous fandom isn't going to sway me.

I am done, done, done, dooooooooooooone with giving this kind of discourse the time of day. Especially when similar cases in other fandoms have turned well and truly ugly. I beseech the Miraculous fandom to see the red flags that have been waving this whole time.

Creators deserves to be opinionated. They deserve boundaries. And even if there are incidents of overlooking more "reasonable" fans, well, once burned, twice shy is a cliche for a reason.

[lycorogue]

Got around to watching the Miraculous: London special last night and two things still bug me. 1) Minor, but.... why is this the London special when the only bits that are actually in London are rescuing Kagami and Adrien from their isolation chambers? The rest is in the burrow and Paris..... I guess they couldn't double-dip Miraculous Paris, so they used the secondary location????

2) The main thing that bugs me, though, is the GLARING plot hole that is the entire special. Forgive me if this has already been discussed when the special dropped on the 5th. I haven't checked the tags quite yet.

So, the WHOLE PLOT is because the future Bunnyxes* fade from existence and the entire burrow is shutting down due to time ending. The character formerly known as Lila made a wish, and the entire universe is being erased to be rewritten, as Sass had explained to Luka in "Ephemeral". There is no future because that universe no longer exists to HAVE a future.

EXCEPT!

The WHOLE POINT of the climax of "Re-Creation" (season 5 finale) is that Gabriel succeeded in making his wish.

Didn't- Didn't that then erase their universe and re-write it? Just as it did when Lila made her wish or when Gabriel made his originally in "Ephemeral"?

Wouldn't it have collapsed the burrow the same way that it did in the London special? Why did Alix panic this time, but not the previous one (I'm not counting "Ephemeral" since 15yo Alix wasn't in the burrow at that time)? Did the future Bunnyx(es) not disappear when Gabriel made his wish for some reason??? Was that wish somehow different???

*BTW, where did 70yo Bunnyx come from? Why wasn't she there the whole time? Does she randomly pop in-and-out of the burrow? Does Alix at other ages just kinda pop in-and-out of the burrow? Since we never see other-ages-Alix in the burrow does that mean Alix only ever really uses her powers to hide when she's 15 and again in her 20s? But not again until she's 70? How does that even work? Time doesn't really move forward inside the burrow, so shouldn't it be then filled with every Alix of every age that has ever used the burrow??? What is even going on, and what was the point of even including "grandma" Bunnyx?????

**Side note: Since I'm on a mini Bunnyx tangent right now anyway, I find it odd the times Bunnyx is used to avoid disaster vs not.

Wait MONTHS after Chat Noir is akumatized into Chat Blanc and has killed everyone in Paris; maybe the whole world, who knows?

Don't stop Gabriel making his wish in "Ephemeral"; have Sass use his powers without a holder instead.

Stop Lila from making her wish, but don't stop Gabriel from making his.

I just wish the writers had a better rule-of-thumb for Alix using her power vs not before bringing in an ever-watching time-keeper holder into the mix. -_-

[starryjkoo]

Going to rant a little again... 😭

One of the worst things this fandom has done in CH2 has been turning everything between the members into competition and comparison. I just knew we were going to see that same tired discourse where certain ARMYs can’t help but throw Jikook under the bus when complaining about RL and Jhope’s streams. Do they understand how weird and entirely unproductive doing that is? And I really wish I understood what ARMYs thought this fandoms baseline of support was, because why are we using Jikook as the standard and goalpost? Isn’t it kind of extremely unrealistic to expect every member to have a 1billion streamed song or a top10 on billboard hot100? Do ARMYs saying this understand how crazy and difficult those achievements are in the first place? Nothing wrong with aiming for those things each release and striving to do our best or wanting to do better, but framing the lack of them as this huge failure on the fandoms part or favoritism towards the members who do achieve them is beyond unfair and unrealistic.

The most ridiculous part of this discourse is when I see the typical “ARMYs don't support RL like they do other members” post turn into “ARMYs don’t support taejin either! They only support Jikook”. So you’re telling me such a big portion of this fandom really believes that only 2/7 members are properly supported? I don’t know about anyone else, but if only two out of seven are achieving specific results, maybe they should be considered outliers or exceptions rather than the rule? Or does that require too much critical thinking and nuance for that specific group of complainer ARMYs who want to just point fingers at others whenever this convo comes up? Because why on Earth do we see only two people achieving something and then assume that should be the norm/average? It just… it doesn’t make any sense? 😭

I don’t know man, I’m tired of this discourse. There are absolutely 100% good ARMYs who push back on it but the amount of ARMYs who feed into it far outweigh them (at least on certain platforms, and maybe I'm giving them too much importance). And you know as a chart enjoyer and all that it’s like these people just entirely do not understand how any of this, including streaming or charting or promoting, works in the first place. Jhope is clearly doing better this time, does anyone wonder why that is? It’s not because the fandom just magically improved, it’s because he has a goal to chart high this time and his promotions and strategy and even song choices match that. It contributes and has always mattered. There are just so many things that are out of the control of core fans so I don't know why some ARMYs are so determined to just blame each other and be so negative every time?

Anyways yeah I never understand what these people think they’re doing when these convos happen. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to improve for RL specifically, being frustrated at the results sometimes, or hoping the fandom can improve for each release, but the discourse is always missing the point and setting up specifically Jimin and Jungkook. I'm not surprised only 'Who' dropped today after I saw it name dropped negatively so many times yesterday. It is what it is but this kind of thinking is just so harmful to the fandom and unfair towards the members. I get people who are frustrated and all that but one of the reasons we don’t improve is because people fixate on the wrong things.

[drawing2cope]

arcane seriously needs its own salt tags. i really dont wanna see the same “x ship shouldve gotten more time than y ship” post over and over… i just want to find ship art easily again :(

[ilikekidsshows]

One of the biggest ProSenti arguments that really grinds my gears is the effort/age value, the idea that it took so much effort to make Adrien / he's been alive so long he's now human, mostly because it's been treated as fact for a year now and I'm pretty sure it's still under the same status of "totally made up" it was a year ago.

Like, what is the name of the episode where we are told either of these things? Describe the scene and how it delivers this information. Hell, I doubt the people claiming this nonsense could even produce a tweet/x post from one of the showrunners that confirms this theory (which would in turn imply that they had considered this, but this important piece of worldbuilding didn't make it into the show proper because trying to make Chloé look as unlikeable as possible was a bigger priority).

Also, I'll be needing a scale of at what point a Sentimonster has enough effort put into it/experience points accumulated to be considered fully human. Unless this kind of value is usable for further analysis, it's pointless.

Making Sentibug exhausted Mayura, but she also collapsed after making the giant butterfly both times. On all these three occasions, Gabriel had to carry Nathalie to relocate her. The Senti Supporters love dehumanizing the nonhumanoid Sentimonsters, so I doubt they consider the unnamed butterfly Sentimonster to be among "Sentibeings", but, by the effort measure, the butterfly is just as human as Sentibug.

As for the time of existence value, Optigami was spying on the known Miraculous holders for weeks, yet no one mourned it when it died, when it should be more human than Sentibug, who existed for half a day.

I hate this stupid plotline so much.

[bklily]

God this episode was wild.

[pisoprano]

With regards to the ML season 5 finale:

I’ve seen some people bemoan Marinette for letting her guard down in front of Gabriel since that enabled him to make his Wish—a classic case of the hero being stupid because the plot needed it happen. But actually? I think it was the very fact that she did let her guard down that helped save the world.

Ladybug has always been shown as being a compassionate person, and this became more pronounced when she started handing out protective charms and giving the akumatized victims the encouragement they needed to help fight back against succumbing to their negative emotions. (side note: I will admit I previously thought it was weird when the show kept having her hand these out after Shadowmoth figured out how to break them, but after the group effort of everyone using their charms to help Prof. Damocles, I realized that they were showing that continued effort to be kind was the right thing to do, even when those efforts failed, because in aggregate it will help things get better).

Marinette is someone who has learned to see and recognize others when they’re at their lowest and support them, and when she realizes that her archenemy is just as human as all the villains she’s faced before, she shows him compassion too. And Gabriel responds to it! Moments before, he was raving about having his perfect universe with his perfect family, with Adrien and Kagami being the iconic perfect couple as its crowning jewel. It’s Marinette who brings him back down to reality and gives him the wake-up call he’s sorely needed—and she can only do that by, not confronting him and judging him, but honestly empathizing with him. She has all the power to crush him and he knows it, so when she instead responds with understanding and reminds him of what Emilie really wanted, the simple truth of it breaks his resolve to get everything he wants—and with that clarity he is finally able to stop being in denial about Emilie’s death and prioritize the happiness Adrien made for himself over what Gabriel thought was best for him.

Naturally, the second that even a hint of a solution pops up, Gabe falls back into his old patterns of grasping at slim chances, but when he does? He doesn’t have the same goals anymore. When he makes the Wish, whatever his heart and soul asked for didn’t include his perfect vision that forced everyone into their boxes of what he thought was right. It saved Nathalie (whose illness was directly caused by Gabriel’s wrongdoings as Hawkmoth, so it’s understandable he’d still want to set that right), and it may or may not have saved Emilie (I personally think that he didn’t, but we’ll see), but Gabriel wasn’t part of that world and Adrien was free to live his life on his own terms. That would not have happened if Gabriel had gotten his hands on the ring and earrings before Marinette helped him change, just enough, to let his obsession go.

Marinette may have made some mistakes in the finale, but being the person who helps others isn’t one of them. There’s a reason Ladybug is considered the greatest hero in the Miraculous universe: it’s not just because she saves the day, but because she inspires people—even those who have hurt her—to choose to become better. The fact that she did so with Gabriel “Monarch” Agreste is pretty amazing in my book.

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

Idk if you’ve heard yet, but apparently the miraculous writing team released a commentary about the s5 finale, and in it they said that Chat Noir not being in the finale was their plan from the beginning (like 2014/15) so they could use the Bug Noire powerup with Marinette. Since you’re working on LoA, I’m curious for your thoughts 😬

i have been off tumblr for a few days but the gist of all the discourse seems to be a disfavorable attitude toward this decision!

"kill your darlings" isn't just about killing characters - it's about killing things that you personally really want in your story if they don't work. personally, i think they could have made bug noire work. there's a lot going against adrien already that he felt chat noir couldn't have helped in the final battle. he didn't need to have a dream about destroying the world; ladybug could've told him about it, and it would have been narratively satisfying to her arc of secret keeping. even moreso, because by chat noir not being present at the battle, ladybug lost and gabriel made the wish. then she could've started season six with reason to think she can't tell anything to adrien, but to chat noir too. and if chat noir had a little breakdown about his chat blanc past, it would have justified ladybug not sending that text to chat about gabriel's identity (in that moment). she probably wouldn't have wanted him to know he'd basically killed gabriel, too.

it just seems like bug noire is a darling they were determined to keep and paid the cost of more coherent narrative decisions to get there. it seems also like adrien remaining in the dark is also a darling the writers wanted to keep. sure, they're getting to tell the story they wanted, but not in the most cohesive or coherent way. but you know what, at least it invites a lot of fic ideas for how the post-wish world should look! and that's really what me and noodles are doing in lies of attrition.

[hamstersnamedmarinette]

Okay this is the last I'll say about it, I just want to say this before I forget it. I've seen a lot of people fixate on the fact that the writers had the Bug Noire fusion for the final battle planned for years, and they had to work to find a way to remove Adrien from the situation to make it work. Whether you think that was a good writing decision is not the point, but a lot of people seem upset over the fact that they came up with an idea first and figured out what to do with Adrien second.

That's... usually how writing works. For me, at least. I'm planning out an original comic right now and a lot of my process has been like "okay, I need Tertiary Character to decide that she can trust Main Character. How do I do that in a way that isn't forced?" and "I need the whole group to be there for the Big Revelation, but they all have their own separate things to be doing. How do I get them all in one place for this?" This is how I've written all my fics too. This is the "writing around that one cool scene I came up with" joke we fic writers all love to make.

Again, whether you liked the way things turned out doesn't matter in the point I'm trying to make. Just understand that the writers needing to figure out a way to get Adrien out of the way wasn't a dig on Adrien, it was just a way to see their vision to fruition. They had a vision from the very beginning of Marinette fusing the two miraculouses, so they figured out a way to do that.