#I personally despise the sentimonster theory

[pearl484-blog]

Has Miraculous Lost its Innocence?

Just got an ask from @tallwriter asking if Miraculous has lost its innocence permenantly, but my inbox ate it. Sorry.

So, just to be clear, I'm not really sure I understand the question, so I'll answer it in a few different ways.

Will Miraculous Ladybug ever return to primarily catering towards its younger demograghic again? No, I don't think so. It seems pretty determined to interact with older fans and grow up with its audience. I doubt it's going to backtrack. Which is kinda a shame, because one of the things it seems determined to lose is its episodic nature in exchange for an arc. Unfortunately, the episodic nature is not the writer's strength, and arc plots are...difficult for these writers. Their inexperience in this type of writing shows. Their style of arc building how also lead to them not being able to contain their stories in small chunks anymore, which leads to me ...not enjoying them as much, along with them following this weird piece of writing advice to make whatever is the most painful thing to happen to the characters happen.

On a side note, for any writers out there, please do not follow this advice. For a stronger story with a more coherent theme, figure out what your theme is and try to come up with conflicts that might naturally arise from this, and would enhance your theme instead of distract from it. Think of it like cooking. No matter how tasty all the ingredients in your kitchen can be, you can't make them all, and some foods do not pair well. Figure out what you're working towards, warm and savory? Cool and refreshing? Healthy and lean? Then go towards that. A triple layer chocolate came next to grilled salmon and roasted mixed veggies is an ...odd choice that would raise some eye brows. Is Miraculous always going to have mature themes? Miraculous has always had themes of bullying and child abuse from the beginning. Part of why I liked this show was its realistic depiction of emotional abuse with Adrien, and its refusal to adhere to the trope that is the school bully somehow being the most popular girl at school. Considering how its aiming towards an older audience now, and it's never shied away from subverting comon trope expectations, I do not expect this to change.

However, that is not to say that I enjoy every trope subversion that MLB has done, nor do I think that it has always handled mature subjects very well, but I'll touch on that a bit more in my next section.

Have I Lost My Faith in Miraculous Ladybug Permenantly

Short answer: No. But it's going to need a lot of back bedaling and extremely good writing to make me invested in the series again.

Most of this is related to one unfortunate plot point, the mishandling of child abuse. Of course, that's not the only issue. I also do not like Lila. She is my least favorite character in the entire series. I do understand what the writing team is trying to do with her. They messed up with her character during the episode "Chameleon" and they are trying to fix that error. It is an admirable effort, but unfortunately their attempts to fix that issue have not rendered a villain that is likable or is clever and easy to hate. Unfortunately, each time I see her, I see the hand of the author every time she shows up. Everything about her is contrived, and I do not believe that she could have all these lies. Furthermore, the handling of Chloe in Seasons 4 and 5 also seemed unnaturally spiteful and petty. Perhaps, they were trying to backtrack and make the character someone fun to hate, but unfortunately, they could not. Each time she appeared, I could only sense ill intent from the author, and it was not a good look. The absolute final straw was when Chloe is revealed to have a learning disorder, and Marinette takes the time to say that it is unfair for Chloe to get accomodations for her disability because she's been taking steps to mask it by having Sabrina do her work for her. This does not make me dislike Chloe in the way the authors apparently thought I would.

However, the biggest flub of all is Adrien Agreste. He is abused. I could use an abuse checklist, and he'd hit most if not all the boxes. The show is still one of the most realistic decpictions of emotional abuse in the media and a good demonstration of abuse, why people might not recognize the abuse, why a victim might make excuses for their abuser, why a victim might not believe they are abused, and in season 5, there was an excellent depiction of the honeymoon/apology part of the cycle. I am honestly so shocked at how realistic and well portrayed Adrien's abuse is compared to the stereotypical abused woman who's got bruises and blaming it on walking into a door. BUT dear god. There is so much victim blaming towards Adrien. Adrien is too weak to stand up for himself. Adrien needs protecting from his own fragile emotions. Adrien can't know information. Adrien keeps fawning. He keeps making VERY concerning statements about himself, his feelings, his relationships to people, and no one realizes how fucked up it is. No one challenges him. The narrative, at several points, ends with his fucked up abuse logic being the end-point of the conflict. In order for Miraculous Ladybug to regain my faith in it, I need for people to challenge the fawning. I need for Adrien's unhealthy behavoirs and mindset to be challenged. I need for those behavoirs to be shown as wrong. And I need for the victim blaming to be shown as wrong. I need for people to understand what they did was wrong.

The senti-monster thing, by the way, DOES NOT HELP. It is not a good metaphor for abuse. Gabriel and Adrien was a good representation of a parent abusing their own child, now it's a representation of a creator abusing his creation. There is so little representation of a parent abusing their biological offspring. Why destroy it?

Did the authors not think the audience would be able to understand why Adrien obeys without magic? By making him controlled by an item, they undermined the whole abuse theme.

Adrien should be controlled by the man who raised him. The man he loved his whole life. The man who should've loved him. The man everyone told him loved him and knew what was best for him.

Adrien has been emotionally crushed his whole life. Told he's impulsive, too emotional, that he never makes good descisions, and the only way for him to be worthy of love is to be obedient, to be unresisting, to be perfect. He should think that molding himself to whatever people wants him to be is right, is expected, and his friends should challenge that. But they don't.

Each relationship Adrien has has been carved away besides Marinette and Plagg. Marinette will not help him. She cannot help him. Plagg is an abuse victim whose also internalized worldviews similiar to Adrien. He teaches him how to rebel. He understands these rules, but Plagg cannot acknowledge them as healthy.

Miraculous can restore my faith by re-aligning its abuse structure. Backpedaling and saying that abuse victims are not weak because they bend their knee. That sometimes they see obedience as the only option to survive, and that's okay. That victim blaming is not okay. That accomodation is good and necessary, and its wrong to be a jerk about it. That fawning is unhealthy. That molding yourself to what others want you to be is unhealthy. That judging your self-worth on how useful you are or how happy you make other people is not healthy.

I do not think it will do that. But it could. And the fandom has done that, so I will continue interacting with the fandom.

[depressed-teacup-inc]

I’m late but here’s Ephemeral I guess

Ok so first of all. I don’t completely hate Ephemeral. This is surprisingly not the most frustrating episode I’ve watched, and the entire 100th theme was both kinda silly but nice because like “haha get it 100th episode”

Now let’s talk plot. If there is one thing I honestly found frustrating that was kinda brushed over, is how terribly selfish Marinette’s plan was.

Like girl really went “let me rope Viperion into this entire time traveling plan just so I won’t have to find out who Chat is and I won’t have to actually reveal my identity and god forbid, talk to Chat noir and give him the decency of knowing the truth!” And it was brushed over??? Like no one pointed out that this plan is kinda assholy??? All because Ladybug doesn’t want Chat to know anything.

And before you blame Su Han on this, the man was not the one responsible for the plan. He told Ladybug she needs to find out Chat Noir’s identity, and take away the entire “oh I’m an old man with old morals I want to control the cat” shtick, and he is right! They should be honest about the identities! They should actually be able to work as a team both in and out of the mask!

Now of course, we all know Ladybug’s original plan wasn’t executed, because she found out who Chat isssss✨ Now first of all, she’s a jerk for laughing at his face when he says the truth (that was kinda mean but I guess that’s the comedy in this show!) And I despise the fact she really decided to not tell Chat her identity until much later because of whatever love struggle she had going on (like dude I don’t care love struggle, you’re equals!!! Please just tell him the truthhhhhhh) but hey! Her thirsty ass eventually revealed herself to Adrien, and if that’s what it took for some honesty to go around? Then so be it

(Like the before and after of her treatment to him? A bit concerning, but hey! She did defend him in front of Su Han and eventually told him the truth, so I’m less salty at her)

But of course. This won’t be miraculous without a shitty fucking excuse as to why knowing the truth is inherently bad! And the excuse of the day is!

This… shit.

I swear I started laughing like a hyena when Gabriel figured out who Adrien is. Like that was so unrealistic and laughable (like the show couldn’t even do Adrien detransforming or something, because Adrien is that fucking good at keeping secrets!) and honestly? Illogical as well. Like by that logic, any time Adrien/Marinette have done anything like their hero identities or vice versa, Everyone including them should have went “WAIT ADRIEN AGRESTE IS CHAT? WAIT IS THAT MARINETTE WHAT THE FUCK?!”

(Also the way they tried to say that it was Adrien being too reckless and himself that his father finds out his identity)

So yeah great writing on that one guys, you’ve shown that the entire glamour Mumbo jumbo and therefore the entire show is completely pointless

But of course, not everything sucked in this episode. There is one true MVP that rose to the challenge and had to tolerate this shitshow with a front row sit…

My boy, Luka Couffaine!

Luka, you are still very flat personality-wise, and your entire arc this episode is still tied to “oh yeah I love you marinette I’ll do anything to help you” but dammit you saw this shit going down and fixed it, and that deserves a Pat on the back at least!

I still wish that while Ladybug explained her super terrible excuses for why her plan is completely ok and fine he would have called her out on the BS of keeping Chat outside the loop and asked for honesty instead of being like “ok marinette I love you marinette” but hey! We can’t always get what we want!

Bottomline is: this episode was kinda meh. I know people are losing it over the reveal (that didn’t even end up sticking) and are finally angry at Gabriel (the sentimonster Adrien theory is going strong, now let’s see what Felix in Gabriel Agreste is gonna do—probably find out who Gabriel is and stay quiet who am I kidding) but I just found it to be a fact of life. Of course the identity reveal is dragged out and of course they instantly love each other because screw talking, and of course Gabriel sucks, have you seen the guy?!

But yeah! I hope all the love square shippers at least got some form of relief with the reveal, and that y’all have a miraculous dayyyy (terrible pun I know)

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[ilikekidsshows]

Wanna know something about Senti-Adrien that really bothers me?

Both the defender of the theory and even Thomas himself keep on going about "Human sentimonsters are the absolute same as regular humans besides how they were made!" and keep on comparing to people who were born out of artificial insemination and this just... pisses me off so much.

Cuz like, okay, maybe on a biological level, as in, "This human born out of magic has a body like any ordinary human", I guess I can see it. But being the same, exact same thing??? Nope.

Regular humans can't have their autonomy hijacked and be controled by a magical object, that if broken, they disappear, nor can they be killed off by the snap of a finger by somebody wearing a brooch.

They can be as human as they come, but if they were made by an amok, they are sentimonsters.

It bothers me so much.

Like, personally, I just used to dislike the theory because story theming means a lot to me, and SentiAdrien being a thing would just ruin a lot of the theming in the show when it comes to Adrien's character. I know a lot of people don't think theming is a big deal, I know a lot of people don't even understand what theming is and why it could be important. But I wrote my MA Thesis on theming; it's something I know a lot about and find immensely important to a good story. It's just my personal preference that a story has consistent theming and I tend to like ones that confuse their own own themes less.

However, the way the Theory Stans diss people who don't like the theory has made me despise the theory to the degree where I will stop caring about the show if SentiAdrien happens. Just because my issues with the theory are personal do not mean that they don't exist or that they are less important than the reasons someone has to like the theory. People are justified in not being okay with Magical Super Slavery used as a "cool plot twist". It's a pretty controversial story device. Never mind the other perfectly justifiable reasons for not liking it, like thinking it's being done poorly or not liking how it messes up the themes.

Similarly, no matter how many times the theory Stans say that SentiAdrien is biologically a human it still won't change the fact that he was created to be a magical slave. He was intentionally made to be a thrall to an artefact that creates slaves with no intended agency and who are beyond merely "expendable" but "fragile" to the degree they'll disappear with a thought. Not viewing something fragile as important is a common psychological defense against loss, but in the case of "fragile beings", it's not just a psychological hangup, it's a story device in itself.

Fragile beings dying is often used as dark comedy. Rick and Morty has Mr. Meeseeks, a being that seeks to die by fulfilling the purpose it was created for. These things wanting to die is the main joke of the episode. Similarly, in Gravity Falls, a kids' show, Dipper makes Paper Clones of himself who die from getting wet and them getting melted is played for laughs with one of them even welcoming death. In Steven Universe, alternative timeline versions of Steven get erased out of existence as a weird-funny moment. Metatext is important, especially in today's world where people are more aware of other shows and story devices than ever before. If you use a joke trope seriously, you need to build it up. But instead we get Sentimonsters casually killed, erased and purified every couple of episodes since they were introduced. Of course we're not thinking much about their life in comparison to humans; that's literally what the show is telling us to do by treating fragile beings the same way any show where their deaths are supposed to be funny does.

[giuliafc]

what an inappropriate comment to add onto that person’s art :/ the artist doesn’t want it to be canon, either, if you’d bothered to pay attention. bringing erotic manga into it is REALLY sketch, too, wtf?

my comment isn't about the art, the art is great as usual. It's not an attack to her, and I have read her comment where she says that she doesn't want it to happen and I respect that.

But i'm sick and tired of reading about this theory of sentimonster adrien. I don't like the idea. i hate the idea. The idea REALLY bothers me. And if you knew what Video Girl Ai was (which obviously you don't) you would know what I mean when i'm talking about sentimonsters being a child version of it. Of course it would be NOTHING erotic (it's a cartoon for 6 year olds!) but the story concept is very similar to the sentimonster idea, and based on how that manga ends (which has NOTHING to do with being erotic, by the way) I would hate the idea even more.

The reason why I hate it is because it totally invalidates Adrien's abuse (as much as some people keep saying that it wouldn't, they can't convince me!) making him become a made up creature linked to an object that can be wiped out from reality if the peacock holder just snaps a finger. And not only that. If the peacock holder so decides, they can wipe the Adrien that we love and know out with the snap of a finger AND also CREATE A BRAND NEW ONE. One that won't have all the experiences that Adrien had. One that won't have the morals and the ethicality and the goofiness that our Adrien has, but that would be only a "perfect" marionette in the peacock's holder's hands. The Adrien we love and cherish would be gone and all would be levt would be this marionette that is nothing like the Adrien we rely to. And THIS is what I'm talking about when I say that I REALLY, REALLY despise the idea.

Besides, about the art, I haven't said that I hate her art or her story, I said that I hate the sentiadrien idea, which is VERY different. i haven't said that HER ART follows the steps of an erotic manga. I said that the SENTIADRIEN THEORY could lead to sentiadrien becoming similar, in a child 6 year old story term, to the same concept that was addressed by that GREAT erotic manga (and I highlight it to you again, it's a GREAT manga and a GREAT story. the link with the sentimonster idea is NOT AT ALL IN ANY WAY linked to the erotic aspect of it.

have I made myself a bit more clear?

[judyhopps934-mt-zd]

I. Knew. It!

Since the episode "Chameleon", Lila threatened Marinette that she would turn everyone against her and we were probably wondering how or when will Lila implement her plan. The initial description of "Ladybug" stated that Marinette got "expelled" from school. (TheThings had a theory that there was something lost in translation and by "expelled" they meant "suspended", but who knows.) Now, it says that Lila will turn everyone against Marinette. And it makes sense that Lila does it as she is just the worst human being in the Miraculous universe. In Wikipedia, she is labeled as "sociopathic" and let's be real, she shows these behaviors. Also, she is very manipulative to get what she wants and tends to get away with it. She lies to her own mother for goodness sake! I mean, how much more evidence do we need to prove Lila's moral evilness??? Even Chloé has more human decency and does not necessarily manipulate others (this is the same girl that got Alya suspended for looking in her locker). Also, while Chloé is despised for her attitude by the majority of her peers, Lila is loved by her classmates and make sure she gets what she "needs". (She literally pretended to have a hearing issue when she didn't have one to begin with.) In addition, according to the video, there was a visual in which even Chloé seems surprised/shocked by what was happening and Lila was smiling in the background. I swear, the fact that Lila makes everyone turn against Marinette would then end up in her suspension/expulsion for all I know, whether it's her peers that tell on her based on whatever rumors Lila told or if Lila manipulated the teachers or told on her. Regardless, also take note that Mayura can turn people's fears and create sentimonsters who will fight alongside that person. The sentimonster Ladybug/Marinette faces would be the result of the fears of the possible isolation that she would face. So, we can blame this all on Lila and her horrible excuse of a character. I knew from the moment since we first met her in "Volpina" that she would be a monster and she is. Case closed. I rest my case.

PS: And after watching "Ikari Gozen", I wonder if Kagami will help Marinette???? I know she can no longer receive the Dragon Miraculous, but maybe she could lend a hand, superhero, as a friend, or otherwise???

And another thing, I wonder to what extent will Adrien be manipulated (if at all) by Lila. After all, he knows Lila is a liar and he refused to affiliate with her after Nathalie and the Gorilla were reprimanded by Gabriel. So how would that go? How far does the description go regarding close ones? Does this include Adrien who knows Lila is a liar? Does the description even go as far as include enemies like Chloé and deepen hate?

Only time can tell for all of this.

Source and Links:

Video: https://youtu.be/luCDO_TB2PQ

Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Miraculous:_Tales_of_Ladybug_%26_Cat_Noir_episodes

[ilikekidsshows]

The big problem I find with the theory , is that adrien being an abuse victim who gets constantly controlled by his biological father is something a lot of people can relate to . Making adrien a santi kinda ruins that by making it seem as if the reason adrien is so obedient to his father isn't because of straight up abuse , but because of some wired magic reasons .

Yeah, basically. Like, I personally despise the idea that anything bad happens for a specific reason, because it makes the people who actively and purposefully cause bad things to happen just victims of circumstances. The idea that an abuse victim doesn’t break out of their abusive relationship because the abuser has a literal magical remote control for them rather than because they are being abused to the degree where escape is difficult if not impossible is something I find very hard to stomach.

Because, here’s the thing; abuse victims often don’t recognize that they need to get out of an abusive relationship. This blindness to abuse is especially true in the case of parental abuse. Gabriel’s abuse of Adrien is so integral to Adrien’s character specifically because it creates a situation with no easy solution. That’s why it’s been a consistent theme for four seasons. If Adrien was a magical robot that Gabriel was controlling, that would create 100% indisputable evidence that Adrien can’t stay with him, even if Adrien loves Gabriel and still feels like Gabriel loves him. It also makes everything else Gabriel has done pale in comparison in a way that downplays the actual, real life abusive acts we've seen him commit on-screen.

In addition, if they can just grab the remote control for Adrien-bot away from Gabriel and that’s the end of it, then that retroactively suddenly makes the problem of Gabriel and Adrien’s relationship very easy to solve in a way that just can’t be translated to real life. Which would, in turn, make it so that any time Marinette tried to use her Ladybug status/powers to get a leg up in her civilian life and was shown or told to be in the wrong (like in Volpina, Heroes’ Day or Cat Blanc), the show was holding Marinette to a different standard, since magical solutions were always going to be okay when it comes to Adrien.

I will also point this out, since you also mentioned the blood bond, that having the abusive parent be an adoptive parent instead of a biological one would also be the show demonizing adoptive parents because only a biological parent can truly love their child and no parent would ever mistreat their biological child because blood bonds are inherently Good and True. Which is why I doubly despise the new theory going around that Gabriel’s weird masked-rich-people-only party means that every single rich parent in the show has a Sentimonster kid. Meaning that the only good parents on the show have blood bonds to their children and all the abusive ones basically adopted theirs. Because people who want to or have to adopt instead of birthing their own kids are inherently evil and abusive, I guess.