#as a note to USAmericans. it does appear that the episode had been pulled from the premiere we were originally told

[coq-courage]

Well hi there! The fact I'm posting means that at least one of my boys appeared in an episode and yes that's spoilers but uh, [*points at url*], it's kinda expected at this point soooo

let's talk about that new episode, ye?

spoilers after the cut for MLB Season 6 Episode The Ruler!

on the left we have Nath's dad, on the right is his mum, and in the middle we have have.... looking like a kicked puppy that's waiting for the bad news that he's about to get it again

i want to point out that the living room (sitting room?) they're all in is very much... Staged. it's clear that the parents enjoy modernism and straight lines and minimal color

and then we have... Marc and his family with a closeup, they actually love each other and hug and are joyful and

and its really really really obvious that one family openly supports their child's endeavors and the other family "wants to support" but "keep finding fault"

also??? Marc having "business in the front, party in the back" vibes for his makeup is killing me, dude really said "i feel like eyeshadow today.... but only on one eye" i wonder if he switches which eye gets the makeup

and there goes my headcanon about Harry Clown being Marc's dad, damn, its a good headcanon but i do have to edit things now

the whole Marinette is sick b-plot is vaguely annnoying to me, cuz of the snot, i hate it on a cosmic level, its gross, but animated pretty darn well so hey! props to the animators! you made me feel like grossed out, which i'm sure was the goal

i'm loving Diane, visually, she's just poppin'

i just LOVE that when marinette said the next issue for the comic was already written, EVERYONE including a random kagami popped up outta nowhere to say "OWO"

just LOOK at these gays!

i get Nath a lot here, his uncertainty comes across clearly, as is his want to be something his parents can be proud of, and he's letting it intervene with what he wants to do, but, he's also able to recognize that his issues with the story are entirely personal and not at all related to Marc

Closeup of their faces to show them off

Also the way that after school, Marc is smiling so gently at Nath, so reassuring, "just cuz the story changes or ends here, doesn't mean we do", and Nath slowly smiles due to watching the smile, reassured that he and Marc are fine

And then once Nath is turned away long enough, that smile DROPS

We see that Marc is definitely more confident and sure of himself now, yeah, but we also see he will LIE about his emotions. Marc is doing the typical Older Person thing where they will do anything possible to ensure a younger person doesn't feel rejected

So he hides his disappointment

He hides how he knows he'll react

He doubly so hides since one of the first times he felt his emotions near Nath, he got Akumatized but yeah

and god, Marc, plz, i get why you're lying for Nath, i get it. your boy's mother is strict and doesn't approve of his method of art, and you dont want to get him in trouble, i get it, i just hate it

hey fellas is it gay to--

gently hold your partner's hand and rub the back of it with your thumb? no? just me? nah i think its pretty gay

also???? adrien finally admitting to us that he likely stinks of cheese??? awesome

now we're getting to nath returning home and his parents have found the script marc wrote....

i, when i first saw this, i told my friends to make sure they had spoons when they decided to watch it

if you had an issue with the whole Nath tearing up Marc's journal back in the Reverser episode, you will have an issue here

because apparently it runs in the family AND that does not mean good things for how Nath grew up

Shirel Kurtzberg finds Marc's script in Nath's room, and shows it to her husband, presumably neither of them read it, but they recognized the name on the front as the name of the comic that Nath had been working on with Marc

and the whole scene plays out like parents finding their kids' drug or porn stash, ending with Shirel taking the script (that, again, doesn't belong to anybody in the house) and running it through an industrial shredder (not even taking off the binder clips)

"See what encouraging him to read comics leads to?" she says as her husband rubs the back of his neck and looks away

if this is what they've done his entire life, then OF COURSE Nath's instinct had been to tear up the journal

children do as they are taught by their parents' examples

and its shitty but its true

Shirel very specifically shows her distaste for Nath's preferred style of art throughout the episode, while then naming some "noble arts" as architecture, industrial design, and scenography. This is why i made note of their sitting room design up there.

all the things she mentioned have a very specific thing, they are all made for people but do not actually include people, meanwhile Nath draws people, he draws about people and emotions

her noble arts are not about people's emotions, they are vessels for use, yes, they can still be beautiful and emotional, but Shirel comes across as very much wanting to be emotionless

Beige Modernism

she enjoys it

go back and look at the pictures on the walls in that room, they're full of straight lines, her art is made with rulers, everything is very precise, she is a very inattentive mother, very much a "my child will pursue my dreams" type of mother

and Nath cries hard when the script is destroyed, he rushes out and back to the school and

we get our first blatant misuse of powers that isn't Adrienette, and it's Nath Making Bad Decisions Out Of Fear

he fears what his parents will do, because of how they treat things that don't belong to them, and if they're not proud of him, if he's failing to be the son they want, then can he call himself their son? should he worry about what they might do to him who is therefore not their son?

yes, its a stretch, BUT i can assure you that this is one of the things that would run through the mind of someone in a situation like that

Nath wants the love of his parents, and because they don't approve of something he enjoys with all his heart, something he loves deeply, he fears he is unloved and therefore not their son

SIGH

okay, that long serious bit is over (for now)

props to Marinette for not giving in and letting him destroy the proofs

props to Marc for calling out Nath's bluff

Ew Points for Marc using Marinette's snot tissue to wipe his eyes after crying

props to the half-blind wheelchair-bound teacher for thinking of Nath's wellbeing and not forcing him to stay in school when he obviously couldn't pay attention

props to Marinette for trying to change Shirel's mind

Tea for the students watching from the overhang and listening because they all support Nath and Marc but aren't sure what to do and if they could even do anything

MAJOR props to Nath for this

he finally decided

he would NOT let his mother ruin a beloved hobby for himself

did he say he disobeyed? no

but that face is perfectly clear to me

that face says "you know what? i'm DONE! you don't like my hobby? oh well! i love it! and i love the kind of person my art lets me be and i'm tired of letting you railroad me into a Perfect Son, who then ends up hurting his friends because they believed in me and relied on me and following your orders has made me hurt them and i'm done."

unfortunately for Nath, he's not exactly a poet, that's Marc, so when Nath wants to be perfectly clear, he is clear visually

New Butterfly, my love, i dunno how to tell you how much i love you, how clever you are

now for my fav thing

Marc straight up JUMPS onto The Ruler's back, he is READY to take her down, he will protect Nath, he will fight The Man/The Machine/Whatever

hell yeah! go for it you punk! fight the power!

but err...

you absolutely hit your head there.... and the shoulders.... and hmm

Marc? darling? sweetie?

please see a physical therapist, immediately

have yourself checked over for any of those like pinpoint pressure injuries that interrupt bloodflow, please? (aside, did i mention i love taht Season 6 actually gave you ears outside of being a hero? cuz i do)

and then we see that Nath is also perfectly willing to fight, mostly to protect Marc but yeah

now uh... hmm.... Nath's transformation.... imma just leave it at, comic book boy entered a wardrobe (closet) and david bowie (ziggy stardust) left it and its just exceedingly funny to me cuz both were bisexual redheads

now, the mind control of The Ruler is interesting, she stamps you and you do the next order given as long as it's one sentence, or so it would seem

i think we can name on one hand how many times Marinette's plans required her trusting other people to be smart enough to carry them out without her saying much of anything, and its nice to see that Nath could put it together

this is a special aside for, "a jet plane?" and the fact that her sneeze caused the perfume cloud to disappear

New Butterfly (i can't spell her name~~).... why are you sus of Nath? do you know? i think you might know something, or at least suspect, which, considering who are you... fair

then that last scene

Nath is nervous, worried, but he's also resigned, he has come to terms with the fact that his parents may not enjoy his work, but he's showing them the finale anyway, and Marc is happy to support him, anyway he can

the parents read

the father immediately is crying and "damn okay, that was some good shit"

the mother... she is pensive

she looks at the cover page, with the sun knight and the dark knight, she had just finished looking at the last page, where, we can presume, they kissed because of that ending title card

she's thinking

she looks at the charm Ladybug gave her and decides to THINK a little harder

she sees her son holding the hand of a boy that screams the rainbow

she realizes she was wrong

emotional art has a purpose

but also

she realizes how hard he worked, how much joy it brings

she realizes she misjudged something here

she says she's sorry

then she says she loves him

family hug time, words are left unsaid but then the father says, quietly, "hey marc, aren't you part of the family too? come join", and he does

that wasn't even in question

the moment they realized exactly how much HEART was put into the comic, the parents made sure to let Nath (and Marc by extension) know that they loved him and didn't find fault in Specific Choices

and then... then the true final scene arrives

i almost don't want to talk about it, i feel like it's a scene that needs to be viewed and not talked about

so... i'll leave the talk of that Final Scene as:

which is gayer, the kiss in El Toro OR Marc and Nath in the Final Scene of The Ruler?

--

before i finish this post off, i do also wanna mention how i KNOW that everyone is taking the episode as "gay son comes out to homophobic parents" but while i can see the heavy handed metaphor, [*points at literally everything in this episode*], his mother very clearly thinks and realizes that the comic is basically Nath's coming out, and that her son thinks she doesn't love him, so she clarifies that

it can be that deep, but i wanted to make sure we ALSO thought about the surface level interpretation here. there are many kinds of issues in the world, and simply being unable to make a parent proud is an unfortunately common one that strikes hard no matter the age of the person