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destinygoldenstar · 5 months

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Just A Little Rewrite Of The Character Of Marinette Dupen-Chang/Ladybug (Part 1; Origins)

Hey y’all. So I never expected to come here.

I’m doing rewrites of characters as exercise cause why not? I always need to be writing otherwise my skill goes rusty.

I don’t have a wonderful history with this show. I remember watching season one as a kid, but I didn’t go beyond that because I got bored. I thought it was just a me thing and I was more attracted to serialized kids shows like Ninjago and the books of Sailor Moon. (Yes, that’s serialized.) As a kid I liked the books more than the 90s show and I think that’s a completely personal thing.

I think that’s just my personal preference, I tended to gravitate towards serialized shows a lot more and just have episodic shows as background noise.

But I posted before what drove me back in to this show. My GF’s sisters were a fan of the show, and the movie was coming out at the time. So I was forced to watch it with them and thought it was decent.

They hated Ninjago without even seeing it besides clips, and I liked that. We both saw these respective shows as childish junk without much intrigue and value. So I made a deal with them that I’d watch Miraculous if they watched Ninjago. They actually started to like Ninjago after seeing its compelling story unfold. They didn’t think it was serialized. As for me on the Miraculous show after seeing it Seasons 1-5, I expected that to be the case for me too…

What a surprise, I didn’t see the appeal and even got uncomfortable and upset at some points.

I would say why, but honestly, there’s so many YouTube videos online that pretty much say the same things as to why it didn’t work for me.

It’s too long, the villain suffers from the length and is a joke, the main character is a stalker, the secondary is a sidelined joke, they hate a teenage bully but give a middle aged terrorist a pass, messy lore, promotion of toxic behavior-etc. I’d just be repeating.

So instead of doing that, I got a cool idea that I got from one of the sisters. She asked “Well if you’re so much better than professional writers, how would you do it?”

I am NOT better. Keep that in mind. I’m just a scatterbrained person who likes to write and has personal preferences.

I do see the appeal with this show. Again, I was a Sailor Moon Stan as a kid, I liked Pretty Cure, magical girl properties are my special interest. So this show should’ve been a slam dunk for me. It has a very compelling IDEA of the secret identities putting a strain on a relationship between two leads, and the main villain being the father of one of them.

So… how would I bring forth the potential of this story? Well, there’s a lot more factors than you think. That’s why I’m going to only going to be focusing on one factor for now. (I’ll do Adrien/Cat Noir in another post)

I’ll see how this does, and depending on if people like it or hate it, I’ll continue and flesh out this rewrite idea.

So… love it or hate it, here you go.

The show’s theme introduces you to the idea of Marinette as a character:

“In the daytime, I’m Marinette. Just a normal girl with a normal life. But there’s something about me that no one knows yet, cause I’ve got a secret.”

Except, a more accurate description is ‘perfect girl with a perfect life’ because that’s how the story presents her a lot of the time. I can get behind being above average in privilege, but I can’t get behind none of her very blatant flaws being called out. This girl actually kinda scares me.

I wouldn’t mind it if her stalking-possessive nature was called out and a focal point for character development, but it’s not. I wouldn’t mind it if it was just placed in one bad episode, but it’s nearly EVERY episode.

I honestly don’t know if she’s better or worse than Total Drama’s Sierra…. Honestly I’d say Sierra’s worse cause she’s in a more sexual show, but I can definitely see arguments otherwise. (Y’all who know my blog, know I DESPISE Sierra as a character)

That, and Marinette’s essentially a ‘perfect person’ in the narrative and can do no wrong, to the point where she’s instantly a great Miraculous holder episode 1. It’s hard to relate to her, which I’m supposed to.

So I’m going to be rewriting her character to have a legit arc, and a likeable character.

Keep in mind that I am not here to ‘replace’ the original version. If you love the canon Marinette and the canon show, then by all means, love it. This is just an exercise and it’s not meant to be personal.

And uh, EDIT: This was originally gonna be one post, but… the essay got way too meaty and long, so I’m splitting it up into parts, parts being the significant points of growth Marinette has in this rewrite version. So… you guys like what I have so far, I’ll definitely continue this.

So, here’s my version of Marinette Dupen-Chang, AKA Ladybug.

Before I begin with Marinette, I have to address her status as Ladybug, and in order to do that I have to address the Miraculous, and in order to do that I have to address the power system, and in order to do that I have to change said rules.

In short, the original show is 130 Episodes long, not counting any specials. I feel like those can just be supplemental and I won’t be addressing them here. So many episodes are filler and this is ridiculous. It also hurts the threat of the villain when one story arc is THIS long.

So in this version, it’s NOT 5 Seasons of the Hawk Moth story arc.

Instead, it’s 2 Seasons.

How many episodes per season? I wrote all the episodes of seasons 1-3 on notes, cut out the episodes that were either filler or contained content I cut, or were just flat out offensive, and I STILL got a big number, so… I definitely plan it to change.

Yes there’d still be filler episodes with this logic, but it’s also not fast enough that the story feels like it’s going too fast, and personally, I don’t hate there being filler. So I can keep SOME.

But which episodes I’d keep in and which ones I’d cut out is a discussion for another day. If I mention an episode that means it’s not cut. That’s a given.

Basically, the Season 3 finale is now the season 1 finale. And the Season 5 finale is now the season 2 finale and the end of the story arc.

Cool?

Next, the lore regarding the Miraculous.

In the original show, there’s multiple Miraculous with different powers, and the Ladybug and the Cat Noir Miraculous are deemed the most powerful due to their abilities of creation and destruction respectively. And these Miraculous have been carried down from user to user since earth existed.

ALL of that is being carried over here. I have no problem with those rules.

But I am changing how the Miraculous work.

You can NOT swap users Willy Nilly. Whoever is linked to the Kwamii of a Miraculous is the ONLY one who can activate those powers. The only way to break that link is by using certain abilities that permanently cut that link. More on this later. (So NO Scarabella, no other ALT user, it’s just Marinette who can access it)

How does Hawk Moth plan to use the Ladybug and Cat Noir Miraculous to grant wishes with that logic? Miraculous’s powers can be released if they are broken, relieving their Kwamiis and ending the cycle of that Miraculous Hero forever. But if the powers are released, anyone can get their hands on it when they’re released, so you know, someone could use that to grant a wish of theirs.

I’m hesitant on this one, but regarding the ‘After you use a certain ability you only have five minutes left before you de-transform and have to replenish your Kwamii’. The rule itself is fine, it’s just broken constantly, especially in later seasons. Yeah in episode length it’s realistic but in universe some of these are definitely taking more than five minutes. So I WILL keep that rule but increase the time limit to TEN minutes. Not five.

In regards to the Ladybug Miraculous specifically. This one is important. The specific abilities themselves.

She has Lucky Charm, where she can summon a random item to aid her. Okay. Simple.

She has the ability to capture the Akumas. Okay. That’s pretty vital story-wise. Fine.

Then the titular Miraculous Ladybug…

Yeah fixing literally everything I removes consequences like property damage, people getting hurt or killed, etc.

So you’re probably thinking “Okay, this is where she cuts this power entirely so there’d be actual consequences”

Well… you’re actually wrong.

Yes, I didn’t remove this ability. But I DID change the rule for it.

Remember when I said the only way to break a Miraculous link is by using a certain ability that cuts the link permanently?

This is that for the Ladybug Miraculous.

You CAN use Miraculous Ladybug. And it DOES restore everything to its proper fixed state. (Physically.) EVERYTHING. All at once.

BUT, by doing this, the user resigns. Unable to use any power from the Ladybug Miraculous ever again. Any strength or power they got from the Miraculous is gone.

Once it’s explained to Marinette, and essentially the audience, it’s a stake of whether or not she should use that ability. Especially when there’s multiple consequences in battles that could be fixed. She could fix it. She could fix the world and resign and go back to her normal life. But when Hawk Moth would still be around, that’s not the right thing to do.

Why do I bring this up?

Well one it’s to keep in mind for some character choices. And two, it’s so I can reveal another big change on Master Fu. One that impacts Marinette’s character.

Master Fu is still the guardian of the Miraculous box. But he’s NOT the user of the Turtle Miraculous. He’s not a current Miraculous user at all.

Before Marinette, Master Fu was the previous user of the Ladybug Miraculous.

Yep.

First off, it’s my firm belief that all Miraculous are bound by no gender.

Second, the Ladybug Miraculous are basically one of the two most important, and considering the Cat Noir Miraculous Users hold the power of DESTRUCTION, why would the guardian of the box NOT be the Ladybugs?

Third, this establishes a connection between Marinette and Master Fu. But what exactly is that connection aside from “He used to have this power that he is now carrying down to her”?

That’s where we get into the Origins, where we’re starting discussions about certain key episodes.

Origins

The Origins episode begins not with an info dump narration, but with a little narration from our main character.

“In the daytime, I’m Marinette. Normal girl. Normal life. But there’s something about me no one knows yet, cause everything’s about to change for me.”

This is a younger version of Marinette. About 6-7 years old. She’s playing with her mom’s hat on the window seat of a bus.

She and her mom are on this bus moving to Paris France as Chinese Immigrants, as her mom is now engaged to a local baker that lives here.

Yes Marinette’s parents in the show weren’t married until just a few months after this flashback’s event. And this dad is adoptive and not biological. It’s not very huge on the story, maybe it could be discussed in a filler episode, but all it does is make Marinette not half Chinese, just Chinese.

If you’re gonna have your MC be non-white, have your MC be non-white. Especially if there’s the opportunity.

Anyway, the mom and daughter get off the bus and enter the city, and after some establishing shots on how grand Paris is (in fantasy land, anyway), the bus leaves, but Marinette’s mom realizes she misplaced their passports on the bus and runs after it to go get it back, telling Marinette to wait on the bench and play with the hat.

She does, wondering if she should put something in it as a pleasant surprise for mommy, and then…

Paris gets attacked.

In an almost dream-like state, black butterflies swarm the place, with people screaming and running. Some people not being fast enough and turning to stone once the butterflies make contact with them.

Think Chat Blanc, that’s kinda what it looks like.

Marinette watches it all stuck in place, unsure what to say or do.

That is until a voice demands the surviving citizens to go a certain direction.

That’s when the Ladybug appears in view, leaping in vision heroically and using their magic yo-yo to capture the dark butterflies. It re-directs them, but there’s too much for them to handle. They try, though.

We’ll learn, not here, but in a later episode, that this is Master Fu.

Marinette watches in awe of the ideal perfect looking hero handling the threat the best they can. All while they’re pleading to some ‘cat’ to stop this.

I’m gonna leave it at that here, but TLDR, this is to indicate that the previous Cat Noir (Not Adrien) is one of the villains causing this. Or at least working with the previous Hawk Moth. (Not Gabriel)

Anyway, this allows the Ladybug to take their guard down, and it results in him to direct the butterfly swarm the wrong way, leaving them to hit Marinette.

From there, her vision goes dark. But we know what happened to her.

We stay in her POV as we can’t see anything, but just hear the voice of the Ladybug.

“I’m sorry… it’s all my fault… but I’ll fix everything the only way I know how.”

We see a flash of red, and him decreeing,

“MIRACULOUS LADYBUG”

And just like that, red floods Marinette’s vision, and then starts to open up again to reveal Paris again.

Only, it’s perfectly normal, and back to the pretty state we originally saw it.

The Ladybug is nowhere to be found.

Marinette’s mom comes running to her daughter, grabbing her hand to take her away, terrified about what just happened.

Still, Marinette looks around for the hero that saved her. Confused. Curious. As an actual ladybug flies away in the sky.

*Queue Opening*

Keeping a shot of the sky, we follow the ladybug down to the bakery home that the Dupen-Changs love in.

Their house is the same as in the original. (Anyone else want that bedroom?)

The ladybug flies to the window of Marinette’s room and we see a few shots of fashion concept art, almost all of them with red and black colors. There’s also a few kid drawings on the wall of Ladybug and different variations of what her hero looked like. (None of them are accurate)

This is a show don’t tell way of giving the audience a good indication of Marinette’s character and how this prologue impacted her. She’s not only looked up to this heroic figure, but was also inspiration to apply to her fashion designing profession.

(Yeah anyone remember she was a fashion designer? That’s actually one of the aspects of her original character I unironically liked. I miss the old days when girls can be girly. So yeah, that’s definitely being kept here.)

It’s early in the morning. But we see Marinette, now a fourteen year old student, getting ready for school in a quick (like ten second) easy to digest establishment.

You may notice my concept art for Marinette on this post and that I added an ALT outfit to her original civilian design. Well this is why, and this is where we see that.

She does everything to make the look PERFECT in this scene. Re-tying the shoe laces to be perfectly even, adjusting the jacket collar to be perfectly firm, and trying to put gel in her hair to hide the cowlicks from her OG and Ladybug design.

The point is clear, again show don’t tell, that Marinette is a perfectionist who values her appearance. Though not in the diva way like Chloe, more so she cares about how other people see her.

This is gonna be a constant for this version of her character. She cares a lot about finding what she deems as the best version of herself, and beats herself up when she fumbles at that or makes mistakes, mistakes that she makes A LOT. Because she’s only human. However, with her idealism of Ladybug, she’s non self aware that she’s deeming ‘the best Marinette’ as a completely different person.

(I’m going for a theme of self love here.)

She even went as far as having made a ladybug patterned hat to display for school today. Which she sheds nervousness about.

She gets called by her mom to breakfast, and in the frantic pursuit, Marinette says she’ll be right there, fixes her hair again, and runs down the stairs-

-Only to trip over them.

Yeah she’s still clumsy. I didn’t write that out.

Her mom asks if she’s okay, to which she gives the thumbs up, and from there we get a similarly framed breakfast scene from the original.

There’s some changes to context though: It’s NOT the first day back at school. It’s not the first day of school at all. No, it’s only the first day for Adrian, who is transferring this day.

But Marinette doesn’t know that, nor does she know who Adrian is right now. (Because Gabriel keeps his son locked away until the agreement to let Adrian go to school.) So in a post about rewriting Marinette, I’m not gonna touch on Adrian centric scenes.

No, instead in this scene Marinette is concerned about a student council meeting. Saying “I bet Chloe will shut down my ideas again.”

Yes. Marinette is a part of the student council. An addition here.

She’s not the president though. She’s the fundraising officer.

The student body president is Chloe Bourgeois. Other student council members include but not limited to: Sabrina, Kim, and Zoe Lee. (Yes Zoe Lee is here from the start. She’s not a half sister, she’s a full sister. A twin.)

So not only is Marinette a part of this council, but in said council she is surrounded by Chloe followers. To get an idea of how… unfortunately treated she is there, as well as everyone supporting Chloe and her calls over Marinette’s, or anyone else’s. Not because they like Chloe, but because she’s the daughter of the mayor and therefore intimidating. So nobody wants to get on her bad side.

It also paints Marinette in the light of ‘I can’t speak up for myself or say my opinion if I know what’s good for me.’

Anyway blah blah her mom tells her that the hat fundraiser for a local insect zoo is a good idea, Marinette knocks over the breakfast stuff and is ashamed, her dad making his first appearance gives her the macaroons as a bonus, and she happily leaves for school saying she loves them.

The parents are loving and supportive in the original and I have no problem with that.

We get her running to school, finding an old Master Fu nearly getting hit, and her saving him at the expense of the macaroons.

Here’s the only change to that scene: (Aside from the Fu scene before not being here in favor of that prologue) Fu is NOT trying to test anyone here. He’s just an old guy now, and without any Miraculous powers, age caught up to him. Instead during the save and the crashing of Macaroons, Marinette scuffles to save a few whole ones, and accidentally includes the Miraculous Box in that mix.

Yes I know the box in the original is bigger than a macaroon, in this version let’s pretend it’s much smaller to fit an accident like this realistically happening.

After she leaves, Fu realizes the earrings are gone, and he starts to panic a bit. He didn’t intend that to happen and is ready to go after her to get them back before she interacts with the power item. Only problem? He’s old and can’t get to her fast enough.

Just like in the original, Marinette goes to school and Chloe and Sabrina, in their introduction, kick Marinette out of her original desk to make way for Adrien. With of course the tweak that no one mentions first days, and another change that Alya is NOT in the same class as Marinette.

There’s a reason for this.

So instead of anyone defending Marinette, Marinette just takes it and moves on, sitting in the corner quietly. She doesn’t object, she doesn’t fight back, she just takes it.

From there we get Adrien transferring into their class for the first time. (Yes he actually shows up here.) And Marinette, at first, is more interested in fixing her hat, UNTIL the last name gets brought up by Chloe. To which she recognizes the name ‘Agreste’ as a famous fashion critic in Paris.

That knowledge makes her unwilling to approach the new guy, thinking he’s the same way and will critique her at every turn. After getting chastised for sitting at the wrong spot, she wants at least one period of a break from it.

After class, and after Ivan gets sent to the office for… I guess calling someone out for bullying you too loudly?? That’s gotta be the most brutally realistic this show will ever get. Marinette spends lunch focusing on fixing up her plans, and trips over again, ruining the macaroons left. At that point she decides to screw it and silently shun herself for failure.

But this is where Alya, from another class, comes up to help her out, recognizing her as the Fundraising Officer. Marinette is surprised that someone recognizes her and apologizes all over.

Alya was trying to find a student council member to help her pitch a campaign idea for a local insect zoo that she knows so she can send off her pet spider there for safety from her little sisters. (Yes Alya has a pet spider. My headcanon.)

Marinette, who already had plans, decides to add that to her paper to sell her point, and Alya gets to see her work. She loves the work, and also recognizes the Ladybug inspiration on her hat. She expresses that if Ladybug was still here, they’d be thrilled to see her looking out for the little ones.

Marinette says there’s no point as she’ll never be like that, but Alya uses her hero fanatic nature to pump her up and to stand up to Chloe to get her plan heard. Thus the start of their friendship as they introduce and hope to see each other more.

Two things: One, Marinette isn’t really friends with anybody in school up till this point. She’s not this overly popular figure that everyone worships. She’s just a regular girl who trips over her own feet, and is seen as the quiet girl in the corner in a crowd of cool kids.

Two, everyone knows Ladybug as the local superhero that whisked away years ago. Ladybug is famous in that sense, and kids especially talk about Ladybug like a perfect hero. All the more significant when a new person takes on the Miraculous.

Moving on with Marinette stuff, we have the student council meeting she attends. She’s in the back keeping to herself as, again, the rest of the council is Chloe and her followers. Yes Kim and Zoe Lee are her followers too, AT FIRST. It’s not just Sabrina.

As Chloe discusses the fundraiser plan for her mommy’s magazine plans, or whatever you want to say, (point here is that Chloe is someone who focuses on results SHE thinks will be beneficial. Not considering what those results do to others) she gets votes, well, she silently threatens them with a stare to vote on that idea, but remembering Alya’s words, Marinette decides to speak up.

She shares her idea that since she and Chloe are both fashionistas, especially Chloe, they can sell hats to fundraise not for magazines, but for the aid of an insect zoo in need of the support, to be a safe haven for those critters.

Only Zoey is fond of the idea, but she doesn’t get to say anything cause Chloe shoots down the others voices. Chloe shuts that idea down, saying it’s a terrible idea and “Who would EVER want to waste money on creepy crawling BEASTS?!” That fundraiser would fail.

Marinette tries to speak up that she knows how-

But Chloe shuts down all of it rather harshly, even going as far to ask if Marinette has the mayor’s support?

“No-“

“Then stay in your corner. Not every Ladybug wannabe has the essence.”

She flicks the hat off Marinette’s head, says that her stitching is rookie’s work, and proceeds to campaign HER idea. While everyone goes along.

While Marinette, again, takes it and moves on, hugging the hat tight the rest of the meeting.

I want to bring up that this is a show don’t tell explanation on why Marinette isn’t often targeted for Akumas, other than MC plot armor. She’s naturally a quiet pushover person at the start. She’s a perfectionist and that goes for unprofessional emotions. She doesn’t wear her emotions on her sleeve or allow herself to break when it’s not fit, so instead if she doesn’t get the results she wants, she keeps the fit and disappointment to herself as much as possible and moves on with her day. Not because she’s emotionless, not at all, she just can keep a level head better.

She’s not Jiang Kai Smith, she’s not an impulsive hot head. She CAN control her temper.

The next time we see Marinette is when Stonehart begins to attack, to which he goes rampaging around the school to look for Kim.

Because it’s implied the class we see in the original episode is the first period. There’s no way in hell Ivan would be dormant and just sit in the office the entire day till Kim left school. So instead he’s just attacking the school.

When the attack happens, all students are demanded to evacuate. You know, treating this like an actual serious emergency, until authorities arrive.

Marinette and Alya are in the same room when this happens, and Alya being Alya, decides to go after the monster and ignore orders. Marinette tries to go after her saying it’s too dangerous, but loses her when she breaks a corner. Stonehart’s damage on a wall cuts her off, and the girl is forced to hide in an alleyway alone. And rubble traps her there. (Not on her. Blocking the way out is what I mean.)

So you know that after this, Cat Noir is trying and failing to deal with it as we get Adrien getting his Miraculous, accepting the hero position right away, and going to have some fun.

Marinette has the last scene of the first part though, as she, in fear, is trying to calm herself down. Again that ‘she has a level head’ thing I talked about earlier. She decides to find a way out of her situation and rummages around her bag, to which she goes for the macaroon box…

And that’s where she finds the Miraculous Box.

Wondering what that’s doing here, she opens it up, it glows, and Tikki is revealed, waking up for the first time in years.

Marinette’s reaction is basically the same, freaking out and throwing whatever she has at the little bug mouse thing.

Tikki chastises the rude awakening. She’s been dormant for how long and THIS is the welcome back party she gets-

Only to realize it’s a scared girl that’s doing this, so she changes the attitude to calm her down.

In the original, Tikki is… super boring. Basically she’s just an exposition and lesson of the day dump, and the only personality she has outside of that is being nice. At least Plaag has personality.

Not this Tikki though. As this Tikki is… kind of arrogant.

She’s deemed one of the most powerful Kwamiis of one of the most powerful Miraculous ever. She’s had her fair share of users. And thus she has high expectations for all her users to be these perfect idealized heroes… and Marinette ain’t it. So naturally she’s nice, but she’s also strict with her ideals and prideful in her power and status and expects the best out of Marinette. (In short, she would NEVER deem Marinette ‘the best Ladybug ever’)

She has a bit of a character arc, so don’t think she’d be that unlikeable for very long. I just gave her a blatant flaw to make her more interesting.

Anyway, Tikki like in the original tries to calm Marinette down and pleads for her to help her. She doesn’t know why her previous master chose this girl as the new Ladybug, but fact of the matter is Marinette is the only one who can stop Stonehart.

Marinette starts listening at the mention of Ladybug. She could be Ladybug? She could be her hero?

Tikki, now that attention is granted, explains to Marinette her powers and how to capture the Akuma, and how to transform.

Marinette, without being ready, does, and transforms into Ladybug the first time.

To which her reaction is panicked screaming like in the movie.

Again, you seen my drawing on this post you see that I redid her Ladybug design.

The reason for this is simple: I just hate her design in the original show. Why is this minor wearing a body suit?!?!? On top of that it’s just a red body suit with black spots on it. I think you can do a lot more creative things with a superhero ladybug costume.

I will admit my redesign isn’t perfect. You can see a lot of my ‘magical girl stan go brrrr’. But I tried to keep the Ladybug motif as much as possible while also alluding to her Chinese heritage a bit. The gold around her black belt space is actually the yo yo string.

All I wanted to do with it was “NO minors are wearing body suits in this kids show! You can’t make me!”

Anyway, Part 2.

Marinette content is… at the same place we left her last episode.

Other than the setting of her being in an alleyway instead of her room, or an abandoned shop, this is literally just how the movie did it.

She finds the yo yo, gets yeeted outta there, gets swung to Notre Dame where the fight with Cat Noir and Stonehart was lured to.

And she crashes into Cat Noir. And they meet for the first time.

And their introduction to each other is… literally just the movie again. Seriously the movie did real good with this part. And, you know, the show could’ve used some more France landmarks than just the tower.

The only differences here that it’s Stonehart instead of the gargoyle. Which you can easily rewrite that design to be a stone gargoyle, it’s stone, it’s in the name. And Cat Noir had a plan to lure it here as a trap, that he was really confident about, but it fails. (He did become a superhero today after all)

Same chase from the movie just with that logic. Honestly this movie sequence did a really good job with setting up the two personalities of the heroes and keeping the lighthearted humorous tone of the show, while also being tense enough to keep interest.

But there really aren’t any citizens making watermelon jokes, cause most of them know Ladybug as a concept already. I can see Adrien, being shut out from the outside and all of that, making watermelon jokes and not knowing, but everyone else? Nah.

Not even the spot vision needs to be changed, as that’s just how Marinette thinks. It’s not part of her power, it’s just her. And I love seeing that thought process.

Same results too; They lure Stonehart in gargoyle form to a train station, Cat Noir gets his foot stuck, Ladybug saves him, and the train proceeds to run over the creature and destroy it.

Yes I know that’s not how Stonehart works in the show. I don’t care. This is beginner’s boss, let it be beginners boss. Regular rock monster. Not too complicated.

I know the magical girl formula well enough.

Anyway, there’s only one change here: This is NOT the end of Stonehart. As like in the show, the Akuma gets away to Ladybug’s neglect. Because she’s more worried if Cat Noir is okay.

The reason I use this sequence instead of the one in the show is because the origins episodes are supposed to be a two parter. As in two episodes tell one complete story. In the original though you have two instances of Marinette not being confident in her ability to be Ladybug, getting confidence to take on the role, fighting the villain, and winning. And then they just repeat the same thing again the next episode! Like what?!?! You don’t need her to have TWO instances of her learning the lesson!

So it’s just one of those instances here.

After they THINK the fight is said and done, Ladybug helps out Cat Noir as they both realize they’re surrounded by reporters and cops asking them questions.

Alya is one of them, asking if they’re the new Ladybug and Cat Noir.

To which Ladybug answers no. She’s not. In fact, she was thinking about handing that role to someone else, so… bye.

And she throws the yo yo and chickens out.

She goes to a… balcony? Bathroom? Closet? Somewhere that’s private. And de-transforms. Tikki congratulates the first fight, but Marinette isn’t too pleased with how that turned out. Tikki however assured her that it’s going to work out. They’ll get her in shape.

Marinette is about to leave, but then she sees in her view the multiple stone gargoyles around the city. All frozen.

Tikki asks if she captured the Akuma, to which Marinette realizes the mistake, and immediately starts beating herself up about it, saying over and over again that she can’t do this, she creates disasters for everyone, nobody like that could be Ladybug. Ever.

And Tikki doesn’t try to object, and simply states that if Ivan gets Akumatized again, this army comes to life.

To that, and realizing that the boy could be in danger, Marinette decides to go find him and help him. She may not be cut out for Ladybug, but she can’t just do nothing towards someone hurting.

She goes to a small hospital to find Ivan, and she asks a doctor how he’s doing. She says he’s not injured or sick at all, just distraught. He’s going to be okay.

Ivan is in a chair looking exactly that way. After a soft knock to let him know she’s here, Marinette tries to ask him personally what happened. He tries to be tense and say it’s of no business of some acquaintance like her, but she kindly insists, promising to not tell anyone any of it.

Not that she had anyone she was close to she could tell-but-whatever. You get it.

Still, Ivan refuses to speak. So instead Marinette goes to the crumbled paper, revealing that he was crushing on another girl in their class. Once she reads it aloud, Ivan says that Kim is always picking on him and taking advantage of his own feelings and he’s just sick of it.

Marinette, from her own experience, though without context here, says that she understands. “I get what you mean.”

This is vague enough to be taken into either context. Either she’s talking about Chloe, or Kim and her backstory with him from the original show, that… didn’t get cut entirely to your surprise.

Marinette says she’s no Cupid, but her advice is to at least try to get to know Mylene better. Maybe this could turn into a real thing one day.

Ivan is hesitant, saying he’s still mad at Kim, to which Marinette says “Then by all means, be mad at Kim. Just don’t let that possess your every waking thought is all.”

See I personally don’t like the message that ‘it’s better if everyone just stays happy’. You know me and my character, that’s not how I roll. So instead the message is ‘Control your negative emotions best you can. But when you have to feel them it’s okay to feel them, and the ones that take advantage of those feelings are the real bad guys.’

Ivan decides to call the school to see if she’s around, and Marinette decides to leave to give him privacy. What’s next on her mind is how to break the link between her and Tikki so she can hand off the Miraculous to someone else.

And as she wonders this, she bumps into Adrien, who also came to check on the Akuma victim. She tells him that Ivan’s fine and just needs privacy for now, then asks a little coldly what he’s doing here anyway.

Adrien says he was just… curious how he was doing. That’s all.

It’s awkward after that, as Marinette asks if he’s friends with Chloe. To which Adrien gets his line “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Marinette tells him she doesn’t need another mental beating today and tries to brush him off, thinking he’s all on board for Chloe’s plans. Adrien tries to say something but is interrupted by Nathalie showing up and needing to talk to him.

Alya finds Marinette outside to gush about the footage she got of the ‘new ladybug’ that’s showed up, and this is basically the “What if Ladybug isn’t cut out to be a hero even though everyone thinks she is?” talk. It’s important because the way Alya describes Ladybug in this scene is what Marinette wants to be seen as, so it’s something she can take to heart.

That’s when Ivan gets Akumatized again and the Stonehart comes back. Though MyLene didn’t even show up or answer, that’s why he’s upset. So instead he goes after and captures Kim… and Chloe. Cause she’s a jerk.

It’s the same as in the show with Cat Noir taking action and failing, as he can’t capture Akumas, and Alya gets caught in the crossfire for Marinette to witness.

And well, because the last talk Marinette had before the fight was Alya’s impression of her, and in this version not too long ago, it’s more fresh in hers, and the viewers mind, and hits harder.

(They’re well done shots. I will give the producers that.)

During Marinette witnessing the peril, we also get some flashes of the incident in the prologue. As this is the same spot that happened, and is now replaying in her head.

She’s familiar with peril like this. She knows the fear that comes with it. But Ladybug was there to save her and everything else when it first happened.

And now it’s her turn.

She has to be that Ladybug to protect these people that need it.

So she puts on the earrings again and confirms to Tikki that she is, indeed, the new Ladybug.

It’s the same fight as in the show, not anything to change there, up until the Hawk Moth speech thing, as in this rewrites context this is actually the first time we get introduced to Hawk Moth.

And Ladybug swearing to stop him is a little more impactful here, as she recognizes the dark butterflies.

She captures the butterflies, leaving all that’s left to save Ivan… and hesitantly, Kim. Ladybug, predicting the Akuma is in the other clenched… claw? Thing? Idk. From an observation in the previous match, makes the plan to figure out how to open the fist.

Details of that plan is… not in my script, cause you can creative no matter what. But just know it doesn’t involve anyone ‘growing closer’ in this scenario.

They get it, both boys fall, Ladybug and Cat Noir save them, she captures the Akuma, the day is saved. Only change is that Ladybug doesn’t use Miraculous Ladybug, for obvious reasons, as the other stone beasts disintegrate with the Akuma, and just become rock rubble around people.

We can do a character centric episode on why MyLene wouldn’t show up to stuff like this. Maybe something regarding her family.

After the fight, Ladybug assures Ivan she personally will not blame him for this. That was Hawk Moth. Not him. Ivan is still disappointed he won’t get the chance to tell MyLene, but she tells him “Well, you see her in school, right? There’s multiple chances to speak up. Just… do it. Even if she says no, it’s worth it.”

Keeping that message in mind for herself, she’s already on her original desk the next day, watching a broadcast that the news reporter is explaining about the heroic return of a new Ladybug and Cat Noir. She also mentions the footage is from a minor that goes by the name Alya, who in an interview says she’s starting a blog to post footage of the presence of Ladybug and maybe play the detective and figure out her secret identity.

Chloe sees Marinette back in her original seat and demands that she gets lost. Only this time, Marinette stands up for herself, and tells Chloe to get lost. After a snarl, the blonde gives up.

Ms Bustier tells the class that they’re doing Chloe’s fundraising idea by majority vote, and Marinette sheds disappointment. Adrien notices.

Then we get the rain scene.

Adrien says hi, but Marinette isn’t in a mood to talk. So he decides to bring up a fact that he voted for her idea.

That gets her interest.

Adrien explains how he knows they don’t know each other very well, and knows that people have their opinions about him… but he’ll be the first to say his, that he respects people with a good heart. Hopefully that convinces someone that he really is trying.

And he’s rich, so… he can help her help that shelter anyway. And he offers her his umbrella. It’s the same scene from there, with Marinette developing her crush, making him laugh, and being all awkward while she watches Adrien leave.

The last scene of the origins episodes is of Marinette (and Adrien) having a letter appear behind them out of nowhere. Unsure how and what to expect, they read the letter. Which tells them both:

“Meet me at *the massage spa’s address* at Dawn tomorrow. Come transformed. We have a lot to talk about.”

“- Ladybug from 2000”

I think you know who that letter is from.

So you know what I’m going for with Marinette throughout the rest of the show, is giving her an actual character arc. An arc involving a theme of ‘self love’. You love someone, but if you’re gonna love someone, you gotta love yourself. And Marinette clearly doesn’t seem to think too highly of herself unless she’s Ladybug. That’s because she’s basically pretending to be someone else, someone she saw in her youth as a perfect figure, and what the public views her as. With all the responsibilities that come with her new role, she clings to the image of Ladybug, rather than Marinette herself.

With the nature of Akumatized victims being a focal point, and Marinette being one of the two main characters, there can be some cases where Marinette interacts with or even befriends some of her classmates or other townies that we’re just acquaintances with her before. All while she uses the Ladybug idea in her head as the reason why she succeeds. Not realizing that in the best cases, it’s all just her. Just Marinette.

Her crush on Adrien is also important, as unlike in the original, I want her to actually talk to him, maybe awkwardly cause she’s still a kid, but still talk to him and get to know him. If Adrien loves her, then that must mean she’s worth it. But they can’t click and become a couple because Marinette cannot love herself. For one reason or another that becomes apparent and her pretending to be another drives the boy away from a love angle.

Marinette is also a little more flawed, and are flaws that actually get called out in some episodes. This is apparent with the new Tikki dynamic, clashing with Marinette’s more humble nature. She’s a pushover in her normal Marinette self and unable to say no to anything. When she tries to go do what she wants it leads to recklessness you expect from any teenager. She also has trouble trusting some people, due to her backstory with Kim, which yes is kept, but one, there’s some edits to it, and two, this episode is gonna be moved to a Season 1 episode so it’s blatant it’s not an excuse but rather used as a base for lessons Marinette has to learn. And you know, explaining her actions not justifying them.

The idea that something like that can be viewed as PTSD and excuse for bad behavior in the writers eyes is honestly disgusting.

What was that Terrible Writing Advice quote?

“Why use trauma to explain behavior when you can use trauma to excuse behavior?”

Not this Marinette though. Maybe through her inability to speak up or confront a crush, there can be a few episodes, not every episode, where she does certain tactics. But here’s the thing: Unlike in the show, these will be viewed as BAD things to do. Ones she gets CAUGHT doing and is disciplined as such. One she needs to apologize for and learn a lesson that there’s much better ways to interact than being an obsessive psycho.

And definitely by season two, this stalker behavior is non existent. Because she would’ve learned the lesson already.

And you know, she isn’t gonna be the focal point of every single episodes, as I definitely want some to be Adrien centric, and even centric on other side characters.

Don’t think Adrien is neglected, he’s an entirely different topic as I didn’t mention his bits in these origins. Because his issues are different from hers.

Anyway I’ll try to get the next post of some other episodes that are Marinette centric in my eyes, if you guys like this version. Or not, you know, best be honest. That’s cool too.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous au #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug and chat noir #tales of ladybug and cat noir #ladybug #rewrites #rewrite #character analysis #character designs #character redesign

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huge-enthusiast · 3 years

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Miraculous fic recomendations!!

This is just an excuse to show all my bookmarks? Yes. Yes, it is. I'm pretty sure most of this fics are really popular, but try see if you find something you didn't knew about!

All of the fics will be rated Teen and up audiences or lower. Also if I don't put the author's tumblr is because they didn't put it in the fic or/and I couldn't find it.

Pairing: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

knowing you by emsylcatac (they are not really the author of the fic but that's the account that says in the fic, the actual author doesn't have an account).

After dropping their transformations months ago, Marinette and Adrien see each other for the first time after being apart. They've both left too much unsaid and have to work to pick up the pieces of their confused hearts.

Chapters: 1/1

Post-reveal but mostly ladynoir, light angst with happy ending.

the last day on earth by Reiaji

The first time Marinette sees Chat Blanc, she's fourteen years old. The second time, fifteen—the third time, seventeen.

The closer she grows to Adrien, the harder it is to save him.

Chapters: 1/1

Post-reveal lovesquare, kinda heavy angst, hopeful ending.

tell me something i don't know by carpisuns (@carpisuns here on tumblr)

Do you think it still means something? To love someone, even if the universe said you had to?

The odds of having a soulmate are about negative one billion (or something like that). But somehow, like they always have, Marinette and Chat Noir find themselves together. They’re ready to finally tell each other everything, but it turns out that even soulmates have to keep secrets, and while their bond draws them together, duty forces them apart.

Chapters: currently 17/28 (WIPs can be exhausting but this one is 100% worth the wait!)

Mostly marichat but almost all of the lovesquare sides make an appearance, soulmates au, mostly fluff but it can get angsty if it wants to.

One Thing After Another by SKayLanphear

Marinette notices that, sometimes, Adrien acts a little out of the ordinary--like the time he stood in a cardboard box for no reason, or when he actually hissed at Nino. It's only when she starts to notice the similarities between Adrien and a certain feline that she begins to get suspicious.

Basically, Adrien acts like a cat when he probably shouldn't.

Chapters: 15/15

Mostly adrienette with one sided reveal by Marinette's side, miraculous side effects (by both sides wich is really cool!), it's fluff with a lil tiny angst for drama.

This would take some getting used to by Codango (@codango here on tumblr!)

Adrien peeked out from behind the chimney even as the magic of his own Chat Noir mask fell away.

She was still visible, her dark hair bobbing under the street lamps a couple blocks away.

“Marinette.”

Adrien blew out a confused breath. His fiery Ladybug… was the quiet little mouse who sat behind him in class?

“What. The.”

This… would take some getting used to.

Chapters: 8/8

Adrienette with one sided reveal by Adrien's part, awkward flirting, just fluff, nothing to worry about.

comfort food also by Reiaji!

In Marinette's house, cooking is a language of love, and Marinette loves Adrien more than most.

Chapters: 1/1

Adrienette with a little of ladynoir, super super fluff, a lot of insight into Marinette's chinese heritage.

The right side of his face by walkingonthestars (@hamsternamedmarinette here on tumblr!)

Marinette and Adrien are able to remain in their new seats in the back of the room at the end of Chameleon.

Chapters: 1/1

Adrienette, fluff with light angst.

it's a long way forward so trust in me by aloneintherain (@captainkirkk here on tumblr!)

“You’re not the only strong one around here, Chat,” Marinette said. She looked a little winded, but she wasn’t struggling to hold him up.

This close up, he could see the freckles on the bridge of her nose. He could see how that smug smile lit up her eyes. He could feel the strain of her arms—and wow, okay, he really wasn’t the only person around here with muscles.

Six times Marinette carried Adrien (plus one time he carried her).

Chapters: 1/1

All the sides of the lovesquare! Fluff with LOTS of mutual pining.

a fight that you were born to lose also by aloneintherain

When the prosecution starts throwing around the word victim in reference to Adrien, he has to stuff his hands under his thighs to keep himself from bolting out of the courtroom.

Adrien had felt unsafe during those last few weeks, but, until he had woken up and seen Father silhouetted in his bedroom doorway, that had only been paranoia. Father was controlling and cold, but he wasn’t hateful. Adrien was isolated. He was often hungry. And some weeks ago, when he had snuck out to visit Nino, sitting thigh-to-thigh on his bed while Adrien cried in that silent, crumbling way of his, he hadn’t argued when Nino put a hand on his shoulder and said, tentatively, That’s abuse.

But Adrien remembers being small and Father touching his hair after he’d aced another test; Father holding his scribbled drawings like they were something precious, and framing them around his office; Father, dressed as Hawkmoth, his eyes wild behind the mask, lashing his sword against Adrien’s baton; Father, collapsed against Mum, crying into her ashy hair.

Adrien finds out Gabriel is Hawkmoth, and Gabriel gets to bring his long-waited plan into action.

Chapters: 1/1

This one doesn't really focus in the ship that much as is an Adrien character study and an exploration of his relationship with his father, but they're still there so I put them here. Really heavy angst (this is one of this fics that haunt me in the middle of the night) with a happy ending. ❗TW: parental abuse, eating disorders❗

Supercut by LNC

Marinette loves her friends and Adrien can't deal.

Chapters: 1/1

Post-reveal lovesquare, again light angst, an exploration of Adrien's insecurities, Marinette Dupain-Cheng deserves the world, happy ending.

Madame Snare by jettiebettie

“Sounds like a lot of work for nothing. She should take this as a sign to have a relaxing weekend with no responsibilities.”

“It's a lot of work she put her whole heart into. It wouldn't be right for it to go to waste,” Adrien whispers to him. The look on Marinette's face is enough to cause Adrien's own heart to ache. If anyone deserves the satisfaction and pride from a job well done, it's her.

“Too bad there isn't anyone else who can walk in those death traps,” Plagg says. Adrien hums in thought, tapping his chin.

“I could.”

Chapters: 1/1

Marichat, episode-based, Chat Noir in a dress!!!, light angst but it's mostly just idiots being idiots and a lot of fun.

in the same sun by peachcitt (@peachcitt here on tumblr!)

"It’s hard to believe that I saw you last at the peak of summer, when the sun was close and warm - and so were you. It should go without saying that I miss you. I miss you something terrible."

"It’s been seven months to the day since I’ve seen you. I wish you were here more than anything else."

Two letters, signed with initials instead of names, found in Paris, France.

Chapters: 1/1

Ladynoir, just angst, that's it, written like letters. No ending, just pain.

an uncurtain discovery by Missnoodles (@ladyofthenoodle here on tumblr!)

When he returns from school on Wednesday afternoon, Adrien discovers the darkness in his own home. He struggles to come to terms with it. To his utter mortification and delight, Ladybug is nearby to rescue him.

(He does not discover that his father is supervillain. That will happen on a different Wednesday.)

Chapters: 1/1

Ladrien, it says it's crack, and don't get me wrong, is super funny, but I also found it sad as fuck?

An Open Secret by Kasienda

Adrien whirled around toward Marinette. She smiled at him.

He couldn’t smile back. He stared at her like the dumb blond model that he was often accused of being.

Something shifted in her expression. And her warm open Marinette smile transformed into Ladybug’s grin. He was looking at Ladybug right now.

He knew Ladybug’s name!

Her name was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

And he couldn’t say anything! Not to Marinette! Not even to Plagg, who had confided two weeks prior that Master Fu was growing increasingly paranoid since the location of his home and hideout had been compromised. Their master had apparently decided that Chat Noir and Ladybug would have to give up their miraculouses if they ever discovered each other’s identities.

It wasn’t fair!

...

A fic where they both know, but can't openly talk about it.

Chapters: 4/4

Post-reveal... but is it? Mostly adrienette and ladynoir, fluff with light angst and them being absolute idiots at hiding their secret identity.

golden (like daylight) by okayanna (@anna-scribbles here on tumblr!)

Friendship, Adrien decided, shaking off the mental image of Marinette’s hurricane eyes and hesitant mouth, parted in a small, careful “o.” He had a very strong friendship with Marinette. That was all.

Adrien thinks a lot about words, love, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Chapters: 1 + epilogue

Adrienette but has lots of ladynoir, another Adrien character study because I hate myself, it tries to not be angst but the writing will punch you in the guts and make you cry, it's so good.

Strangers in the Bright Lights by poodles (@ladybeug here on tumblr!)

Adrien is about two drinks in when he sees a girl at the end of the bar wearing black cat ears. It's kind of weird, so he watches her, and although it's crowded he can see her face when she turns around. She’s wearing a Chat Noir mask. He takes a quick look around- nobody else is wearing a mask. Just her.

Adrien finishes his gin martini and heads over to her. He could use some company tonight anyways, he hasn’t told anyone he’s back in Paris and Nathalie won’t arrive in town for another month. And it’s been a rough day, okay? A rough move! He’s not sure he wants to be back yet, and he spent most of the day in the Agreste mansion sorting through some photographs of his father he found in the study. Maybe he wants a drink and some stranger to tell him he’s pretty! That’s not a crime, is it?

Chapters: 1/1

Adrienette but it's also ladrien??? I think??? It's super super angsty but they're both drunk the entirety of the fic so it's also really funny.

Pick-Up and Chase by also SKayLanphear

After she accidentally trips into Adrien and apologizes about "falling for him," Marinette learns that he's no match for cheesy pick-up lines--whether they were unintended or not. And while she finds it flattering that he turns into a flustered mess with only a few words, Marinette comes to regret making him uncomfortable. That is, until she learns he's Chat Noir. At which point the phrase "just deserts" becomes a permanent fixture in her everyday plans.

A story in which Adrien is flustered, Marinette is smooth as glass at dropping lines, and Chat Noir gets the romance he was always asking for--even if he doesn't quite know how to handle it.

Chapters: 10/10

Adrienette with one sided reveal by Marinette's side, it doesn't say it in the tags but I'm pretty sure the characters are much older than they actually are in the show, so much fluff and so much flirting.

Pairing: Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe

Nino Has Done Nothing To Deserve This by GuardianKarenTerrier (@guardiankarenterrier here in tumblr)

It's nothing, really- just an innocent comment, a joke. But when they hear it, Nino and Alya come to a realisation.

There were, in retrospect, dozens upon dozens of hints. Now that they're suddenly aware of all their friend's flimsy excuses and rushed explanations, they're not only sure how they've missed it, they're not sure how anyone else has either. They realise that it had to be magic protecting their friends- and that same magic has ceased to work on the two of them.

Well, this means they'll just have to start watching over their friends themselves.

Chapters: 7/7

This is more a found family fic than anything else, Alya and Nino are the mom friend, has light angst but it's mostly identity shenanigans in the most bizarre way. ❗TW: eating disorders❗

christmas lights by demistories

Nino checks up and down the street, checking to make sure there’s no raging akuma headed his way before he crosses quickly and ducks inside the small café. He closes the door quickly before the icy air can blow inside and tugs his beanie down over his ears. He spots Alya sitting alone in the corner.

Chapters: 1/1

Just fluff!! Really short but really sweet.

hold on, i still want you also by Missnoodles!

Written for the @thedjwifizine ! Wich I also recommend if you wanna binge a lot of djwifi fics while also looking at amazing art!!!

Five times Alya ran into her ex, and the one time he stopped being her ex.

Chapters: 1/1

Light angst with a happy ending! I don't really like the ex-lovers to lovers trope but this one is the only exception.

I will continue to expand the list in the future! But by now I hope I was helpful in the search of new fics!

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 2 years

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Miraculous Ladybug Season 4 – An Overview

Well... that certainly was... a season of television.

Yeah, this season as a whole had a lot going on. Some was good, some was bad, and a majority didn't make sense, so I've got a lot to talk about here. It's honestly got me in a bind, because I'm not sure how to feel about this season overall. I'm going to group my analysis of this season into several posts going over what I liked and didn't like. Buckle up, people. This is going to be arguably the longest post I've ever made.

How Alya (Sort Of) Got Her Groove Back

In hindsight, I think I've been a little too hard on Alya in the past. Her actions in episodes like “Chameleon”, “Oblivio”, and the New York Special really left a bad taste in my mouth going into Season 4, and I was wondering why the show still tried to portray her as a good friend. There's a difference between having good intentions and being oblivious to your friend's behavior. Thankfully, Season 4 did a much better job showing her friendship with Marinette isn't just forcing her to do things.

When Alya learned Marinette was Ladybug, there were some dumb moments like how the writers acted like she always knew (Gang of Secrets), had Alya say it's Marinette's fault that she was akumatized four times, or had her encourage Marinette to hit on Adrien after learning of his recent breakup (Mr. Pigeon 72). But then she started to take more action as Rena Rouge. Not only did she get to show off her illusion powers in more creative ways than before (all while not shouting “MIRAGE!” like an idiot this time), she was shown to be more supportive and willing to help Marinette with or without the mask. Episodes like “Hack-San” and “Rocketear” also showed a more vulnerable side to her as she struggled with some of her responsibilities, and it was really interesting to see her deal with it. It helped that unlike a certain other hero who I'll talk about later down the line, she actually took being a superhero seriously, and didn't try to abuse the power for her own personal gain. It was because of this kind of writing that I was honestly invested in the Alya-centric episodes this season.

Granted, the writers really started to stumble towards the finish line this season when it came to handling her character. While I like the idea of the show acknowledging how dangerous it is for Alya's family now that the enemy knows she's a superhero, but it felt like the whole Rena Furtive thing was just an excuse to keep Alya out of the plot after she helped Marinette for the first half of the season, as if she had no purpose. After becoming Rena Furtive, Alya barely got any screentime until the season finale, and was even left out of the big hero gathering in “Penalteam” as well. Sure, the finale tried to show off her supportive role, but where the hell was Rena Furtive in episodes like “Wishmaker” or “Dearest Family”, where Ladybug and Cat Noir needed more help? Hell, where was Alya in episodes like “Ephemeral” or “Kuro Neko”, when Marinette needed more help?

Her actions towards the end of the season didn't help her case, as they continued to dumb her down by still having her tell Nino she was undercover for some reason and then have her not believe Marinette's claims that Lila is a liar when she knows Lila isn't friends with Ladybug now, mainly to drive conflict. But the strange thing was that neither of these conflicts went anywhere. Because we didn't see Rena Furtive until the season finale, it was hard to get invested in her partnership with Ladybug and how this betrayal of her trust would affect their friendship, much less her relationship with Nino, who also didn't get enough screentime despite him knowing about Rena Furtive being a big risk.

In addition, because the writers forgot Lila existed, that conflict Alya had with Marinette just fizzled out while the writers had her decide to quit being a superhero after already getting in trouble in a way that had nothing to do with her friendship with Marinette or the conflict with Lila. And again, the way her cover was blown was done in such a forced way, as if only being hit by a villain with the power to make you take more risks would cause someone like Nino to show concern for his girlfriend when a Ferris wheel is about to hit her and a building with innocent civilians inside. It kind of reminds me of how people make fun of that scene from Spider-Man 2 where Peter screamed in horror when Mary Jane was about to be crushed by debris, as if Peter's body wasn't full of adrenaline and could have easily told Mary Jane to get out of the way. Just because it's stupid doesn't mean it's not realistic.

In all seriousness, I still liked how Alya was still the one to take fault for what happened during “Strikeback”. She didn't try and blame Marinette for everything or complain about how much keeping secrets sucks (like the aforementioned hero who I will talk about later). She took responsibility for her actions and insisted that even though she shouldn't be trusted with any Miraculous, it doesn't mean she can't support Marinette in other ways, like being her friend. Sure, the writers obviously rushed through that resolution just so they could have an excuse for Alya to lose the Fox Miraculous right before Felix swooped in to deliver one of the cheapest cliffhangers in television history, but I still liked how Marinette understood how hard keeping secrets was, relating Alya telling Nino to when Marinette told Alya her secret, as both were the result of a lot of emotional turmoil. It was honestly a refreshing change of pace here for Marinette and Alya to talk things over and come to somewhat of an understanding. Granted, they still skipped over her life potentially being in danger now that Shadowmoth knows her identity, but then again, he barely did anything with that information even before the season finale.

If the writers absolutely needed to make sure Alya didn't get the Fox Miraculous back, they should have cut Rena Furtive out entirely and gave her a new subplot where she could put her journalistic skills to use and start an investigation into figuring out Shadowmoth's identity while Ladybug does the heavy lifting with the Akumas. It could have lead to some great character development for Alya, and you could have even tied it into the subplot with Felix by having the two forge an uneasy alliance investigating Gabriel, as both of them have their own reason to not trust him. You could have even done a film noir episode like what “Rocketear” tried to do from Alya's perspective.

So yeah, while I had a lot of problems with how her arc was handled towards the end, I still think Alya was one of the best parts of this season.

Why All Three New Temp Heroes Were Awesome

I'm going to talk more about the way the temp heroes were written in general in a later post, but I still want to talk about the way three of the new heroes were handled, specifically Polymouse, Pigella, and Purple Tigress.

If you've read my reviews of “Mega Leech”, “Guiltrip”, and “Crocoduel”, I thought they all ranged from decent to pretty good, especially with how the new temp heroes were introduced. Mylene, Rose, and Juleka all had some good character moments and focus even before they became heroes, which was a lot better than earlier temp hero episodes like “Desperada” or “Party Crasher”, where the actual character who saved the day was an afterthought by comparison.

Here, all three of them had good focus episodes related to their personalities. I loved how Mylene had grown more confident with staging protests against the Oxygen Project, how Rose's optimism was able to break through Guiltrip's bubbles, and how Juleka spoke up to get her parents to actually talk for once. Even if I had problems with the powers of the Miraculous they had, I still thought they all had some good first outings, even if they didn't get to do as much as some other characters this season.

But yeah, what else can I say? I thought those three characters had good hero debut episodes.

The Writers Learn Squares Aren’t the Only Thing They Can Talk About

While I know what it was done for, I am glad that for once, the season's plot hasn't been exclusively related to the Love Square. Yeah, there were still episodes with Unfunny Marinette Slapstick while she acted all weird around Adrien (Lies, Mega Leech, Guiltrip, Optigami, Penalteam), but there were only about five episodes that focused on her relationship with Adrien (Mr. Pigeon 72, Psycomedian, Glaciator 2, Simpleman, Ephemeral), which is a lot better than when Season 3 had about twelve episodes with Love Square related plotlines (Animaestro, Backwarder, Reflekdoll, Weredad, Onichan, Oblivio, Desperada, Startrain, Party Crasher, The Puppeteer 2, Cat Blanc, Felix).

I'm just glad the show's finally focusing on other character and storylines that don't solely revolve around the Love Square. Granted, that doesn't mean the new storylines are good, or that an entirely different storyline about Ladybug and Cat Noir is good either, but hey, it's something.

And... uh... Yeah, I think that's about all the unironically good stuff I can say about the season, so now it's time for me to really get into all the stuff I didn't like about Season 4.

Chloe as a Character Is Pointless, Utterly Pointless

I've said it before, but I think the one thing people who like Chloe and people who hate Chloe can agree on is that they don't see the point of her continuing to get screentime, especially if it amounts to starring in episodes like “Gabriel Agreste” or “Penalteam”.

For the most part, I've made my peace with the fact that Astruc will never comprehend the fact that people like a character he views as the devil for some reason, but you would think for all the times he said that Chloe's “damnation arc” was planned for years in advance, there would actually be some kind of a consistent story to come out of it afterwards.

Looking back, what exactly was the point of Chloe this season? Would we as an audience have really lost a lot if Chloe was written off? Even as a villain, and I use that term extremely loosely, she barely got to do anything, yet she still got the most screentime out of all the non-Shadowmoth antagonists. There were times where it felt like the only reason Chloe even got dialogue was to make sure the voice actress could pay her rent, because all of the cameos she had across the season amounted to “Chloe says something mean to remind the audience that she is mean” (Lies, Mega Leech, Guiltrip, Optigami, Wishmaker, Dearest Family, Risk).

Even when the writers had her be the main antagonist of an episode's civilian plot, she was clearly played off as nothing more than a joke (Sole Crusher, Gabriel Agreste), yet still did very morally reprehensible things like throw people in the way of Akumas, so it's hard to tell if we're actually supposed to take her seriously as a threat or not. It gets even more confusing when you remember that both times she was akumatized this season, she was portrayed as a serious threat to the heroes (Queen Banana, Penalteam), when all the other times she got akumatized, she only had an advantage over the heroes because she caught them off-guard, and was easily defeated afterwards (Antibug, Queen Wasp, Heroes' Day, Miracle Queen).

The writers just don't get what people liked about Chloe when she was just a simple bully in Season 1. Yes, she did bad things and abused her father's mayoral power, but at the end of the day, she was meant to be a character who wanted to get whatever she wanted in life. Even her worst moments like trying to plagiarize Marinette's hat design (Mr. Pigeon), locking Juleka in the bathroom (Reflekta), and tampering with Marinette's uncle's soup (Kung Food) were to achieve very petty goals, and as far as she knew, wasn't trying to physically harm anyone. Ironically, the times where she was the closest she ever came to hurting people were completely by accident. The whole reason she and Adrien got trapped in one of Pixelator's photos was because Chloe was too stupid to know what his powers were, so Adrien had to save her (Pixelator), and Princess Fragrance could have been dealt with a lot sooner if she didn't accidentally kidnap a sick Tikki (Princess Fragrance). While she was still an antagonist, she was nothing compared to Hawkmoth, and even the writers made it clear she wasn't a villain, just a school bully.

This season, the writers are trying to simultaneously make us see Chloe as a threat and as a joke. Because of how she's been portrayed in different episodes, it's hard to tell if we're supposed to take Chloe seriously as a villain or not, but considering that she got the lion's share of screentime, you'd think the writers had some kind of plan, some kind of plotline that would pay off in the season finale. What did the writers end up doing with her this season?

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This is just so frustrating to me because so many issues with the pacing this season could have been fixed if the writers stopped trying to do something with Chloe when they clearly don't know what they can do with her now that she's not Queen Bee anymore. Sure, they tried doing something in “Penalteam” by showing how close she is with Shadowmoth, but just like the alliance with Lila formed at the end of the episode, it went absolutely nowhere. I'm not angry at Chloe because she's a villain. I'm angry because the writers are doing nothing but wasting time with her.

And you want to know what the worst part is? Her betrayal of Ladybug that Astruc loves to state was “planned from the start”? It's almost never mentioned this season. Outside of a few throwaway lines in a couple episodes that mention Chloe used to be Queen Bee (Sole Crusher, Queen Banana, Sentibubbler, Penalteam), Chloe's betrayal isn't mentioned at all, while the only time the events of “Miracle Queen” were specifically referenced was in “Optigami”, and even then, it's a brief flashback to remind new viewers without mentioning that she was willingly akumatized. I raised this question once in my “Sole Crusher” review, but how can you have two episodes dedicated to setting up the replacement for Queen Bee without even mentioning why she needs to be replaced in the first place? Again, you would think with how much Astruc loves to rub in the fact that Chloe is irredeemable in our faces, there would be more scenes mocking Chloe for siding with Hawkmoth, and they don't even do anything interesting with her being a willing victim for his Akumas.

Thanks to all the pointless focus on Chloe, so many other characters this season lacked the screentime that they desperately needed, like Alya, Luka, Su-Han, Lila, Felix, the other temp heroes, and I think there's someone else I've forgotten to mention...

Oh, right! Harry Clown! Let me tell you, we were totally robbed of “Psycomedian 2” this season—Okay, you know where this is going. Let's just get this over with, and talk about Zoe.

Chloe's Super Awesome and Totally Not Boring Replacement, Zoe, AKA, the Greatest Superhero of All Time, Vesperia

Look, I understand a lot of people hate Zoe, and before I start this section, I would like to remind everyone not to send hate towards the actresses who voice her like Deneen Melody. At the end of the day, she's just doing her job, and is clearly enjoying the role she has. And again, I don't think Zoe is a bad idea for a character in concept, just the execution. Now, with that being said, let's talk about why, just like her sister, Zoe was poorly utilized this season.

The idea of a more humble Bourgeois sister to contrast the more stuck-up and egotistical Chloe could have worked if the differences were used in a meaningful way. Instead, Zoe is used solely as a tool to show off how bad Chloe is, and nothing else. Both of her focus episodes this season introduce her exclusively as a contrast to Chloe. While Zoe is nice and pure, Chloe is selfish and evil. While Queen Bee was a selfish hero, Vesperia is far better and nicer judging from her first appearance. While Zoe and Marinette are friends, Chloe continues to bully Marinette for reasons that still haven't been explained. Because of how she's used with Chloe, we don't get to know a lot about who Zoe is as a person. The most we get was that she lost her friends for some vague reason (Sole Crusher), and that she wants to be an actress (Queen Banana). That's it. If the writers wanted us to get more invested in Zoe as a character, they needed to do more than just make her “Chloe if she was nice”.

And even then, you could have done more to show how she differs from Chloe. Consider the fact that Zoe lived in New York with Audrey. That could have lead to an interesting backstory, to see how tough Audrey was on her daughter, and to maybe see how she differed from Chloe, someone who was constantly coddled by her father. Instead, outside of a tweet from Astruc implying Zoe didn't agree with her mother (while still pretending to act like her in “Sole Crusher”), we get nothing about how growing up with Audrey impacted Zoe's personality.

Sure, you could have tied her self-worth issues into the constant belittling she may have received from Audrey growing up, explaining her need to lie in order to feel accepted by her peers, but why actually put effort into her backstory when the whole point of her as a character is to replace Chloe?

Just remember, most of the temp heroes recruited by Ladybug were characters we had come to know through their various focus episodes, and with such a wide ensemble of heroes, it's hard to not get excited at the idea of at least one character you really like getting a Miraculous. Zoe was just introduced in one episode, and the very next episode that she appeared in chronologically, she suddenly got to use the Bee Miraculous, so now, she's just part of the team. Like I said, I plan to talk about my issues with the temp heroes more in a later post, but this is just so cheap, and it does nothing to help Zoe's reputation as a flat character who was created just to fill in the Queen Bee-sized hole in the cast.

Hell, even in the episode where Zoe first became Vesperia, she barely got to do anything! Another reason that “Queen Banana” failed as an episode was that the writers spent so much time reminding the audience of how bad Chloe is, they forgot to actually have Zoe do anything interesting for what was supposed to be her hero debut episode. Sure, she did a lot as Vesperia to the point where the heroes had to tell the audience how awesome she was, but before the Akuma battle, all she did was get a few lines for the movie she was in. A majority of the first act was either the writers whining about how much TV executives suck (a sentiment I'm sure a lot of people agree with, but that's not the point), and having Chloe screw up the production of a movie, which I still don't get why that was the breaking point with Adrien and Andre. “Sure, you worked with a supervillain and temporarily enslaved all of Paris, but people worked really hard on this movie, damn it! You've gone too far, Chloe!” Then at the end, they tacked on this forced scene of Zoe tricking Chloe into accepting a Magical Charm because of the rule that was introduced solely for that episode while framing it as a heartwarming moment, as if we're supposed to be invested in Zoe saying she still loves Chloe.

This is why Zoe falls flat as a character for me: She's never given the chance to really stand on her own because all of her major scenes are supposed to show us how she's nothing like Chloe. We never really get a lot of time to get to know her, to connect with her. Instead, the writers just force these “emotional” moments to get us to like her to the point where I'm surprised Mr. Krabs isn't playing the world's smallest violin in the background. Scenes like the one where Zoe says she still loves Chloe could work, but we don't get a lot of focus on Zoe's feelings and why she still has faith in her sister.

And right after “Queen Banana”, Zoe just fades to the background. Sure, she gets a few cameos in later episodes (Gabriel Agreste, Crocoduel), but whenever she becomes Vesperia, it's always part of one of those hero teams Ladybug assembles to fight an Akuma with, so she barely gets any focus (Mega Leech, Ephemeral, Kuro Neko, Penalteam, Penalteam, Strikeback). She just uses her power, and then gets lumped together with most of the other temp heroes.

In general, Zoe is an interesting character in concept, but she's too intertwined with Chloe to really stand out on her own as a character. She always had a uphill battle to fight replacing Chloe, and the writers clearly didn't get that message with how little they utilized her.

Season 3? What's So Important About That Again?

Let's be honest, continuity has never been one of this show's strong points, but this season has taken that lack of attention to new levels. You'd think for a heavily continuity-driven season, the writers would do more to show the fallout of important events like what happened at the end of Season 3, right? If you've read any of my reviews, you should know the answer to that.

I hated Season 3, but I was at least open to seeing how certain plotpoints would be followed up on, like Marinette and Adrien's blossoming relationships, the fixed Peacock Miraculous, Nathalie still being sick, Lila working for Gabriel, Chloe's betrayal, and the fact that Alya, Nino, Luka, Kagami, Max, and Kim's identities were all exposed. With Season 4, it felt like it went out of its way to ignore everything that the previous season established.

Marinette and Adrien's respective relationships with Luka and Kagami? Both couples break up at the start of the season. Gabriel now having full access the Peacock Miraculous as Shadowmoth? He only uses it in twelve episodes (Truth, Queen Banana, GabrielAgreste, Mega Leech, Guiltrip, Optigami, Sentibubbler, Hack-San, Qilin, Ephemeral, Kuro Neko, Risk) and the ones I bolded were episodes where at least one of the Sentimonsters created was just a reused character model. Nathalie still being ill thanks to using the Peacock Miraculous? She's bedridden for the majority of the season, and barely gets to help out with Gabriel's plans, while it's never even made clear if he can help her recover with the information he has from the decoded grimoire. Lila working for Gabriel and Hawkmoth? She only appears during the last three episodes of the season, gets less than a dozen lines of dialogue, and could easily be cut out entirely without needing to change anything. Chloe betraying Ladybug? Like I said earlier, barely mentioned despite being responsible for a lot of the stuff that happens this season. Shadowmoth knowing all of the current temp heroes' identities? Only really capitalized on for two episodes (Optigami, Sentibubbler), and Ladybug doesn't even think about how risky continuing to ask them for help is outside of Alya, and even then, that's because of the risk she poses knowing her identity.

It'd be one thing like what DC's Legends of Tomorrow did during its fifth season premiere and basically got rid of all the bad things from the previous season like the Time Bureau, Mona, and Heyworld, but Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season still tries to use the characters involved in the events of the last season that the writers are trying to ignore, which only makes longtime viewers ask questions along the lines of “Wait, what about what this character did last season? Isn't that important too?”

First of all, if Luka and Kagami were going to be key players this season, why have them break up with their significant others after two seasons of buildup, and why barely touch on the awkwardness of having to spend time with their exes in public? Why does Kagami want to help Marinete get together with Adrien when she dumped Adrien for being dishonest? Why is Luka suddenly okay with Marinette harboring feelings for Adrien now that he knows they're both superheroes? The answer I have to all of these questions is...

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I still stand by my theory that the writers noticed the popularity of Lukanette and Adrigami, slammed the panic button, and broke up both couples to make sure the Love Square still got attention this season before the reveal happens in Season 5. I'm going to talk about the way both Luka and Kagami got treated later on in this post, but I still don't get why they still got a lot of screentime after the breakups when both of them were meant to be secondary love interests. At the very least, Luka got more focus on the hero side of things, but Kagami? I still don't know why she wants Marinette and Adrien to be an item when she should be hating Adrien's guts after she dumped him. Then again, the only people who actually hate Adrien are villains, so I guess the writers didn't want to confuse kids with something stupid like moral complexity.

Lila got to do absolutely nothing this season, and I don't get why the writers just forgot she existed when she was a big deal in Season 3, especially since she could have replaced Mayura as Shadowmoth's primary field agent. Even during the season finale, she didn't do anything to actually impact the plot, and was only used to show how bad the world tour Adrien was planned to go on was, as if being separated from his friends wasn't bad enough. And that's not even getting into the aforementioned alliance with Chloe that did nothing to impact the story of the season finale. The most we got teasing a bigger role for Lila next season was her smirking at Nathalie's failing health towards the end of “Strikeback”, which doesn't make sense because she doesn't know why Nathalie is like this, so there's no reason for her to be happy about Nathalie possibly being on death's door.

The show also made a big deal about Shadowmoth being the most dangerous form Gabriel has ever taken, yet he barely got to experiment with creating Sentimonsters that weren't either glorified props or reused character models. The writers didn't even do much to explore what makes Sentimonsters different from Akumas, much less why Shadowmoth doesn't solely rely on Sentimonsters when they're more effective other than because the plot said so. Sure, we've gotten hints that Adrien and Felix are Sentimonsters, but I don't get why time is being wasted on them instead of focusing more on showing off more Sentimonster allies this season. The official Miraculous Ladybug wiki is honestly doing more to flesh out Sentimonsters because with every one listed, they at least try to connect them to the emotions of the creator. You all remember that the Peacock Miraculous is supposed to represent the concept of emotions, right? Christ, I still can't believe the writers think we're going to remember all of the stupid “-ion” words every Miraculous is associated with next season...

And I still can't believe that the show missed out on trying all kinds of new stories now that all of the temp heroes identities were exposed, because according to Astruc, Shadowmoth doesn't see the point in workshopping his evil plans or learning from his mistakes.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

I don't even get why Ladybug doesn't consider looking for other holders like she did with Zoe. For the love of God, writers, you had the perfect justification for introducing the remaining seven temp heroes by saying Ladybug needed to rely on them now that she can't call on the other Miraculous anymore. Instead, you ignored the identity rule you all made a big deal about since day one, and decided to write off the temp heroes by the end of the season, SO WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL OF THIS?!

As for the villain who refuses to actually capitalize on opportunities when presented to him?

The Problem With the Villains, and Gabriel's Unearned Victory

Remember when Hawkmoth was an interesting and smart villain? Me too...

I don't get why the writers keep wanting to make Gabriel out to be a cunning villain when all of his most successful plans have been the result of outside sources giving him ideas of just dropping victories into his lap. I've already talked about how little he used the Peacock Miraculous instead of sticking to the same plan of using whatever Akuma he thinks will get the job done, but the fact that three of his victims managed to break free of his control (Gang of Secrets, Rocketear, Qilin), the latter two making it look very easy, only serves to make him look even more pathetic than he already is this season.

Most of the Akumas he actually settled on were ones we had already seen, they barely put up a fight, and were dealt with by the heroes like it was nothing, the worst examples being in episodes like “Mr. Pigeon 72”, “Gabriel Agreste”, and “Glaciator 2”. The new Akumas we got this season either had stupid powers that had nothing to do with their characters (Queen Banana, Rocketear, Simpleman), barely got to do anything cool with their powers (Lies, Wishmaker, Qilin), or just had powers other Akumas already had (Psycomedian, Risk). There were also all of those teams who had cool powers, but because the episodes wanted to focus on other things, the writers barely got to do anything with the concepts (Gang of Secrets, Crocoduel, Dearest Family). And don't forget most of the original Sentimonsters whose powers were only tangentially related to the powers their Akuma partners had (Mega Leech, Guiltrip, Hack-San). The point I'm trying to make is that the Akuma/Sentimonster lineup this season was a complete joke, and it did nothing to prove Shadowmoth was getting dangerous.

“But IOTA, what about the Megakumas?” You're probably thinking. The Magical Charms and Megakumas were only created to make it seem like progress was being made in the form of power-ups for Ladybug and Shadowmoth, when in reality, nothing changed at all. We only got to see the Magical Charm do its job once in “Queen Banana”, and in the next episode chronologically, Gabriel took advantage of his Sentimonster doppelganger getting one by just creating Megakumas that render the Magical Charms meaningless twelve episodes later. After that, it was back to the same song and dance they were in at the beginning of the season, and for what? A filler episode about another Akuma team and another filler episode about a soccer Akuma? Wow, I can see why you needed to abandon the Magical Charms introduced in the same season for aMaZiNG stories like that.

But the problem isn't just with Gabriel. Most of the other “villains” this season were either nonexistent, or got ahead by sheer coincidence.

Like I already mentioned, the problem with Chloe was that even as a villain, she did nothing but waste everyone's time, Lila did nothing but serve as a minor annoyance for a single episode, and Nathalie barely got to do anything but advise Gabriel on the plans he occasionally needed to get off his ass for. But then there's the problem with the other main villain this season, Felix.

Like the other villains this season, Felix was severely crippled by a lack of screentime thanks to Chloe, so it was hard to get invested that in him as a character, as he had only appeared in one other episode last season, and also the fact that he was meant to be a jab at people who liked the idea of the PV.

Another problem with Felix is that just like with Zoe, we don't get a lot of scenes diving into who he is as a character outside of his relationship with Adrien, but it's honestly even worse than what happened with the sisters. With Zoe, she was supposed to be endearing to the audience while the writers built off Chloe's established character flaws, as exaggerated as they were, but with Felix, the sole purpose of his character is to not only to show off how Adrien could have been after losing one of his parents (despite the two having different forms support and time to grieve), but also to show fans who are aware of the PV how supposedly unlikable Felix is as a character, and why it's good that Adrien replaced him instead.

In addition, with how his dialogue is phrased whenever he calls out Adrien for his submissiveness, we're supposed to see him as wrong no matter what, especially with how he hates that Adrien always listens to his father. This doesn't make sense because A) We know how poorly Gabriel treats Adrien without even considering “Cat Blanc” and “Ephemeral”, and B) WE KNOW GABRIEL IS THE MAIN VILLAIN, AND THAT ADRIEN SHOULDN'T TRUST HIM. We're supposed to see Felix as this strawman who only insults Adrien just so we'll feel more sorry for him. Like with how Zoe, it doesn't work because we barely know anything about Felix's life, so it's hard to really get a grip on his worldview and personality other than just being Adrien if he was a colossal asshole. And I haven't even gotten to the plot-related stuff Felix does this season.

Look, the idea of a more pragmatic and quick-thinking villain like Felix sounds good on paper, but the problem throughout all of his appearances that it's never made clear if we're supposed to hate him or not. In his debut episode last season, it was obvious that we weren't supposed to like him with how he went out of his way to screw with Adrien and all of his friends with those fake messages, but at the same time, there were still moments where you could understand why he acted the way he did. The dude lost his father fairly recently, and even before we learned the true significance of the wedding rings, he was pissed at Gabriel for keeping a priceless family heirloom to himself, and wanted to get it back. Now that it's all but confirmed that he and Adrien are Sentimonsters, it's even more understandable that he wants to get the ring to maintain his own free will, yet... the writers still make him act like a comically over the top villain.

Yes, we have gotten villains with understandable motives for committing crimes (obvious examples being characters like Mr. Freeze, Titan, Kamen Rider Horobi, Madame Masque, and Ransik), but the reason those characters are so fondly remembered is that there's more effort done to make you sympathize with them, to make you relate with them. Just like with Gabriel, the show keeps sliding on both ends of the spectrum by simultaneously making Felix this morally gray wild card with understandable motives, who also acts like a stereotypical cartoon supervillain we're not supposed to cheer for.

I mentioned it before in my “Strikeback” review, but a weird thing about Felix that he got from his uncle is his weird habit of making these “I want to harvest your heart” faces, once again trying to show that he's a threat who we shouldn't sympathize with. And don't forget how the voice actor, regardless of the dub, tries his hardest to make Felix sound incredibly sinister, as if he's a criminal mastermind. It's incredibly hard to take him seriously because of the over the top performance, especially in the English dub. I honestly broke out laughing whenever Felix was on screen because Bryce Papenbrook's performance was that bad.

Even when he had the chance to tell Ladybug about who Shadowmoth was twice, Felix still thought a better idea was to betray her and potentially screw over the world giving his crazy uncle fifteen artifacts of unimaginable power. If it was a last-minute decision after his other attempts to get the ring back failed, I'd get it, but he clearly acted like he was on top when he waited for Gabriel to come in so he could hear his ultimatum. I just—you do hate Gabriel, don't you? Every episode he's been in, he's made it clear how much he despises Gabriel, yet he's more than willing to give Gabriel not just one, but all the Miraculous in the Miracle Ball for the ring. Again, if he was more hesitant to make the deal or commented how much he despised Gabriel for everything he's done as Shadowmoth, it'd make sense, but outside of a single line right before he betrays Ladybug vaguely implying he feels remorse, he seems perfectly content with his actions before he leaves Paris again, meaning we probably won't see him again for a while.

And now, let's get into the actual circumstances of Gabriel's “victory”, and why it's a terrible cliffhanger caused by only the second dumbest plot twist to involve someone hiding in a bathroom.

Think about everything Gabriel did in the season finale. Would you say his plan with Risk and Strikeback was successful or a complete failure? Obviously, it was the latter, yet the show doesn't say that. Gabriel explicitly says that “He's won” when he takes out all the Miraculous from Ladybug's stolen yo-yo, when this was never his plan. Both Risk and Strikeback were part of the same plan that banked on Ladybug screwing up, but not once did Gabriel make it clear that his plan was to seize Ladybug's yo-yo. It was just a standard “Hope this Sentimonster gets the job done” plan that wasn't nearly as risky as Gabriel made it sound. Gabriel was seriously taking in yet another defeat until Felix was dumb enough to make that deal with him, and now he's acting like this is his greatest triumph. He didn't even do anything! Felix honestly put in more work to get Ladybug's yo-yo, and he didn't even know about Risk's mark influencing her or her yo-yo's connection to the Miracle Ball until after he was recruited as Flairmidable. Yet the show still wants us to see Gabriel as a threat now that he has all the Miraculous, when he didn't even plan on this happening? It's not the result of hard work and careful planing, but because of someone else doing all the work for him.

Compare the events of “Strikeback” to “The Agenda” from Beast Wars: Transformers, a season finale with a similar cliffhanger involving the main villain seemingly emerging victorious. After the Maximals capture the Predacon Megatron with the help of Ravage, a Predacon covert agent, it seems like he has nothing else to do, yet he manages to triumph thanks to coming up with several backup plans to achieve his goal. The Maximals discover Megatron's secret stash of energon cubes thanks to Tarantulas acting as a mole? It's really raw and unusable energon, and Megatron sent Inferno there to ambush Optimus Primal and Cheetor when they arrived. Ravage reveals he's going to execute Megatron? Megatron lets Ravage in on the Decepticon Megatron's plan he's following to travel back in time to assassinate Optimus Prime while he's still in stasis, changing history so the Decepticons win the war, and convinces Ravage to betray the Maximals. The Maximals manage to deal with all of the other Predacons other than Megatron? He still manages to get into the Ark before the Maximals do and mortally wounds Optimus Prime, arguably coming the closest any Megatron has ever come to victory. This kind of plotline works because not only does it show how resourceful this version of Megatron is, but because the cliffhanger puts emphasis into the stakes, and the level of uncertainty for how something this big will be resolved, because, as Optimus Primal put it best, “TIME ITSELF IS ALL BEING DESTROOOOOYED!”.

In contrast, Gabriel is shown to be completely inept as a villain who literally needed to have his greatest victory handed to him on a silver platter by someone who, as flawed as he is, should have taken over as the main villain instead of forcing the audience to deal with him for at least one more season. I'm not worried about how Gabriel will use the Miraculous for evil, and I'm not angry at Felix for betraying Ladybug. I'm pissed because of all the ways he could have gotten access to the remaining Miraculous, the writers chose one of the dumbest plot twists conceivably possible to end on one of the dumbest cliffhangers conceivably possible.

I was worried that with the use of the Rabbit Miraculous, the writers were going to pull a Dallas and undo the entirety of the fourth season for the sake of a cheap plot twist, and while I'm more than happy they didn't, that's not saying much. “Wow, you managed to write a season finale with slightly more competent writing compared to a finale that was literally conceived to bring back a popular character and boost tanking ratings, and became one of the most infamous moments in TV history as a result. Good job!”

New Plotline, Who Dis?

Easily one of the biggest problems with this season was it bit off way more than it could chew with all the plotlines and characters that either were severely underdeveloped or went absolutely nowhere. Credit where credit is due, almost every episode this season had some sort of impact on the status quo.

Truth: First appearance of Shadowmoth, Lukanette breaks up, Jagged Stone is revealed to be Luka's father, and Marinette starts to learn more about the Miracle Ball

Lies: Adrigami breakup and setting up the rift in Ladybug and Cat Noir's partnership

Gang of Secrets: Alya learns Marinette is Ladybug, and the connection between Ladybug's yo-yo and the Miracle Ball is established

Mr. Pigeon 72: Ladybug's new form and Magical Charms are introduced, while Marinette goes back to loving Adrien

Psycomedian: Yeah, no, this episode was completely pointless

Furious Fu: First appearance ofSu-Han

Sole Crusher: First appearance ofZoe

Queen Banana: First appearance of Vesperia, and Gabriel discovers what the Magical Charms do

Gabriel Agreste: Felix learns Gabriel is Shadowmoth, Gabriel gets a Magical Charm, and we get the first hints Felix is a Sentimonster

Mega Leech: First appearance of Polymouse, and we get the first hints that Adrien is a Sentimonster

Guiltrip: First appearance of Pigella

Crocoduel: First appearance of Purple Tigress, and Luka and Marinette start to talk again after their breakup

Optigami: Gabriel realizes Ladybug trusts Alya more than the other heroes, while we see more of Cat Noir feeling left out

Sentibubbler: Alya's family is endangered, leading to her eventually going undercover as Rena Furtive, while Cat Noir starts to grow more frustrated with Ladybug relying on other heroes

Glaciator 2: Again, nothing really changed this episode, but the writers want us to pretend Adrien actually learned to treat Ladybug with respect here

Hack-San: Through Scarabella, Cat Noir learns Ladybug told someone else her identity

Rocketear: First appearance of Rena Furtive, and Adrien learns the identities of Rena Rouge and Carapace from Nino

Wishmaker: Luka learns the identities of both Ladybug and Cat Noir, but keeps it to himself

Simpleman/Qilin: The Magical Charms obtained in this episode would be used as an example to show what Shadowmoth's Megakuma can do

Dearest Family: First use of the Megakuma, and more insight into Shadowmoth's goal

Ephemeral: More insight into what could happen if Marinette and Adrien knew each other's identities, more explanation for how the wish using the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous works, and more hints Adrien is a Sentimonster

Kuro Neko: Ladybug and Cat Noir talk more about the growing conflict in their partnership, while Cat Noir (supposedly) learns how much Ladybug values him

Penalteam: First appearances of Miss Hound, Rooster Bold, Caprikid, and Minotaurox, while Chloe and Lila forge an alliance

Risk/Penalteam: We get even more hints both Adrien and Felix are Sentimonsters, and Gabriel gets the other Miraculous thanks to Felix

While a lot of these plotpoints sound interesting, the impact they actually have on the status quo and overall conflict is very minimal. The writers clearly stretched the plot way too thin, because a lot of interesting subplots sound cool, but don't nearly get enough focus due to the sheer abundance of everything else this season has to deal with. There's Marinette struggling to get used to her new role as Guardian, Adrien's growing feelings of inadequacy when it comes to his partnership with Ladybug, Adrien also potentially being a Sentimonster, Alya adjusting to her new role as Marinette's confidant and as Rena Furtive while telling Nino about it behind Marinette's back, Felix knowing who Shadowmoth is while following his own agenda, Shadowmoth knowing the temp heroes' identities, Luka having to deal with his father being Jagged Stone and knowing who both Marinette and Adrien are, Zoe's troubled relationship with Chloe, introducing the last seven temp heroes, Lila and Chloe's alliance, Su-Han keeping watch over Ladybug, AND all the baggage associated with the Love Square at this point.

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Yeah, the writers obviously put way too much on their plate this season with all the plotlines introduced here, and most of them didn't really go anywhere. A lot of the more emotional moments like the Love Square stuff in the finale didn't work because there was almost no real buildup, so it felt like the writers were jumping from Point A to Point B without even thinking things through. A lot of these ideas sound really interesting, but they're just so underdeveloped, you're just left wondering what the point of all of them is. Even Season 3, for the most part, kept it simple, with the Love Square, Master Fu going on the run, and Chloe's growing hatred of Ladybug all playing a part in the finale, with only Lila being ignored. It wasn't executed well, but it still felt like there was some kind of plan for Season 3.

And that's not even getting into all the discussions about secrets this season that have absolutely no consistency, just like all the subplots. First, secrets are a necessary evil when Marinette and Adrien have to end things with Luka and Kagami respectively, then honesty is more valued when Marinette tells Alya she's Ladybug, then we're back to secrets being bad with Cat Noir feeling left in the dark by Ladybug, then secrets are good when Zoe tricks Chloe into accepting a Magical Charm because her mother wore it, but then being open is bad when Shadowmoth holds Alya's family hostage now that he knows she's Rena Rouge, but then being open is good when Alya tells Nino about her being undercover, and then it's back to secrets being okay when Luka doesn't tell Marinette or Adrien he knows their secrets, but soon, honesty is bad because the world ends again because Marinette and Adrien know each other's identities as a result of Marinette tricking Adrien, so that means secrets and deception are okay, especially with Adrien tricking Ladybug into thinking he's an entirely different hero, but during the finale Ladybug's in the wrong for wanting to keep her identity a secret.

You follow any of that? Because I sure as hell didn't, and I watched the entire season.

There's a difference between touching on certain morally gray themes, and actually telling a story with them. Despite constantly talking about secrets and honesty, the season never really makes a clear point on the subject. Instead, for some reason, the season finale chose to focus more on taking risks. Yeah, I can understand the connection, and there are a lot of potential hazards associated with keeping and sharing secrets, but during the finale, everyone just goes on and on about risks and the danger they're willing to go through. If you were going to make the finale about risks, why wasn't that the central theme of the season instead?

My problem with all of this isn't that any of the plotlines or themes introduced here are bad, per se, but rather, there were far too many plotlines this season to get invested in. If the writers cut out some of the more superfluous plotlines, like Alya becoming Rena Furtive or Chloe working with Lila, and focused more on only a handful of these, the overall story could have been more solid.

But now, it's time to talk about easily the biggest problem of this entire season, if not, the series as a whole. If you've kept up with all of my reviews, I think you all know who I'm referring to here.

The Problem With Angstdrien “What Have You Done for ME Lately?” Depreste, AKA, Cat Dour

Okay, look. Going into this season, it's obvious that there are a lot of double standards and trust issues on both sides that could make for some compelling drama if they were properly discussed, and could have addressed a lot of criticisms people had about both Ladybug and Cat Noir. Instead, the writers decided it would be easier to blame Ladybug for everything wrong in their partnership, and make Cat Noir out to be a helpless victim instead. Clearly, this show knows how to talk about morally gray subjects. I still don't get how a team of four paid writers got together, thought about how the season would go down now that Marinette is the Guardian, and thought that a better idea to focus more about how the major shift in the status quo affects Adrien instead of Marinette. I'm not saying Adrien shouldn't get any focus at all this season, given he's in the title, but it feels like we were supposed to sympathize with Adrien more than we were with Marinette.

Not counting the season finale, there were about ten episodes focusing on Marinette being the Guardian, or some of the tough choices associated with the job that she has to make (Truth, Gang of Secrets, Mr. Pigeon 72, Furious Fu, Optigami, Sentibubbler, Hack-San, Rocketear, Ephemeral, Kuro Neko), and the ones I bolded were episodes that also focused on how Cat Noir feels about the situation with Ladybug this season, about half of them. It sounds decent, but a majority of the Adrien-focused episodes in the latter half of this season go out of their way to show how unfair it is for him, like we should just ignore everything Marinette has to deal with as Guardian, team leader, and hero of Paris.

Episodes like “Rocketear” and “Kuro Neko” make Adrien out to be a well-meaning hero who isn't appreciated enough by Ladybug, who chooses to rely on other heroes instead of her faithful partner. At least, that's what the writers want us to believe, when in reality, it's far from the truth, for multiple reasons. For the sake of this argument, I'm mostly going to use context from this season, with a few exceptions later on.

First of all, the fact that Adrien is left out by Ladybug starts off poorly because in “Lies”, the writers showed him slack around while on patrol as Cat Noir. While the point is meant to show how Cat Noir doesn't have anything to do while on patrol and enjoys Ladybug's company, because of the attempt to play it off as a joke, it's hard for us to take this part seriously, especially later on in the episode. In a parallel to Marinette and Luka we see Adrien's relationship with Kagami start to strain as a result of Adrien having to stop Akumas and Sentimonsters as Cat Noir, culminating in Adrien failing Kagami's test with the charm he supposedly left to go get (when in reality, he was fighting Truth with Ladybug), which causes Kagami to get akumatized, and subsequently dump Adrien afterwards. This is obviously a sign the writers are trying to convince us that Adrien values the importance of being a superhero and keeping his identity secret over preserving his relationship with Kagami. This doesn't work for several reasons shown in the episode.

Not only do we see Adrien slack off as Cat Noir earlier in the episode, but we see him make a joke about Ladybug's angry look being “absolutely irresistible” after the writers supposedly frame the sacrifice that caused her to freak out as an act of trust. They want us to believe that even though we just saw Cat Noir defy orders from Ladybug right before flirting with her, he's willing to let Kagami cut off all ties with him because he takes being a superhero seriously? It makes even less sense because of the two main heroes, Cat Noir is the one who always advocates for revealing their identities despite the risk, so you would think Adrien would at least consider telling Kagami his secret, or at the very least, give us a reason as to why he still keeps his identity secret other than because the plot needs the two to break up. “Lies” just does a terrible job at setting up Adrien as a dedicated superhero who isn't appreciated enough by Ladybug, and it only gets worse from here.

Now we get to the temp heroes, and how supposedly, Ladybug is being unreasonable for relying on them more than she does on Cat Noir. This argument only makes sense if you ignore the context behind most of the temp hero episodes this season. Yes, there are episodes this season where it seems like Ladybug overrelies on the temp heroes (Mega Leech, Optigami Ephemeral, Kuro Neko, Penalteam), but most of those instances have been because Cat Noir wasn't available. While Ladybug called on the help of multiple temp heroes in “Mega Leech” and “Penalteam”, they were ultimately necessary when Cat Noir got incapacitated by the titular Akumas. As for “Optigami”, “Ephemeral” and “Kuro Neko”, the reason Ladybug needed help from temp heroes in those episodes was specifically because Cat Noir wasn't available. In “Ephemeral”, Su-Han literally chewed out Ladybug for needing the help of nine heroes when Cat Noir's Cataclysm could have brought a quicker end to the conflict. The reason why the show's claims that Cat Noir is overshadowed by the temp heroes don't work is because the episodes that supposedly focus on this ignore the context behind Ladybug needing the help of other heroes.

But then there's the situation with Rena Rouge. This is a situation that could have given Adrien a point in this argument, but the writers do nothing with it. This just makes no sense, because you would think with all the focus it got, Rena Rouge knowing Ladybug's identity could have been the breaking point in their relationship, as it actually makes her look like a hypocrite after years of enforcing the secret identity rule. Instead, even though Adrien learns that someone else knows Ladybug's identity (Hack-San), that Rena Rouge and Carapace know each other's identities (Rocketear), and that Rena Rouge was still active in secret and didn't know (Strikeback), he never calls out Ladybug for keeping these secrets from him. Alya even went behind Ladybug's back and told her boyfriend about being Rena Furtive, yet it's never brought up. Cat Noir is never even made aware that for the second half of the season, Alya had her Miraculous full-time, and didn't even tell him. Once again, the writers had a golden opportunity to justify a certain plotline, but ignored it in favor of using other examples to force their point on the audience instead of the obvious solution.

But let's get to the biggest part of this season's argument that falls flat: The idea that Ladybug doesn't trust Cat Noir. I've already talked about how Cat Noir is just as guilty of keeping secrets from Ladybug that the writers refuse to acknowledge in my reviews of “Hack-San” and “Kuro Neko”, so instead, I'm going to focus on a different problem I have with this plotline: We're never given a reason as to WHY Ladybug should supposedly trust Cat Noir with more responsibilities.

Put aside all the times Cat Noir has shrugged off responsibility in earlier episodes (Copycat, Glaciator, Frozer, Reflekdoll, Cat Blanc, New York Special, Lies, Sentibubbler, Glaciator 2, Hack-San, Ephemeral, Kuro Neko), but whenever Cat Noir whines about how Ladybug trusts him, he never says why he's supposedly trustworthy enough to be let in on secrets related to Ladybug's Guardian duties and knowing the identities of other heroes. All he says is that Ladybug should trust him without even explaining why, much less think of any form of compromise between the two. Yes, Ladybug easily could have let Cat Noir hand out Miraculous to the heroes whose identities he knows (Carapace, Ryuko, Viperion, Pegasus, King Monkey), and she could have let him know about Rena Furtive or that she had a confidant in general, but the show never says those are options. Ladybug is supposed to just put all her faith into Cat Noir without any solid evidence as to why she should take that risk.

Ladybug, at the end of the day, is doing her best to adjust to being Guardian, and here comes Cat Noir, walking up to her and demanding to know more secrets while refusing to contribute more. It's not even made clear if he actually wants to help her, or if he just wants to know the secrets she knows. If Adrien at least had any form of argument other than saying he's trustworthy without even providing any evidence.

There's also the fact that the writers want us to believe that Ladybug didn't stop to consider how Cat Noir was feeling about supposedly being left out this season, when again, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. “Truth”, “Furious Fu”, “Guiltrip”, “Optigami”, “Hack-San”, “Ephemeral”, and “Kuro Neko” have all had Ladybug reassure Cat Noir about how valuable of a partner he is to her, while she specifically asked him about how he was doing when he looked upset in “Hack-San” and “Rocketear”, to which he lied about being okay. What, was Ladybug supposed to read her mind or probe deeper into Cat Noir when he said nothing was wrong?

But here's the biggest issue with this plotline that the writers don't seem to get: All of Ladybug's greatest failures have been as a result of her trusting people.

What happened when Ladybug trusted Chloe with the Bee Miraculous even though her identity was public? Chloe got impatient after being benched for her own good, sided with Hawkmoth, exposed the identities of the other temp heroes, and forced Master Fu to mindwipe himself in the process (Miracle Queen).

What happened when Ladybug trusted Alya with the knowledge of her secret identity, and let her have the Fox Miraculous full-time? Alya eventually told Nino her secret, therefore risking her identity as Rena Furtive that caused her to lose her Miraculous right before Felix stole Ladybug's yo-yo, depriving Ladybug of yet another ally (Strikeback).

What happened when Ladybug trusted Adrien with the knowledge of her secret identity after learning he was Cat Noir? As soon as he found out Adrien's secret, Shadowmoth akumatized him, got both of their Miraculous, and won if not for the last-minute interference from Sass (Ephemeral).

What happened when Ladybug trusted Cat Noir to guard Paris while she went away? Cat Noir almost immediately abandoned his post and ran away like a coward when things went south, while Hawkmoth was very close to starting World War III had Cat Noir not decided to return at the last second (New York Special).

What happened when Ladybug trusted Felix (under the impression he was Adrien) with the Dog Miraculous, even after she was free of Risk's influence? Felix betrayed her, stole her yo-yo, and gave Gabriel every other Miraculous she had.

DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE???

Ladybug's problem has never been that she isn't willing to trust people, it's that whenever she trusts someone with an important responsibility, things quickly head south. But instead, the writers want us to believe stuff like how it's Ladybug's fault for trusting Felix when she had no idea he had malicious intent, was under the influence of an Akuma, and was convinced he was an entirely different person. This isn't a problem with Cat Noir, it's a problem with this season trying to get us to side with him while acting like Ladybug is the unreasonable one here.

And then there's the episodes that try to portray Cat Noir as trustworthy and a valuable partner, but only make him out to be so because Ladybug has no other options. “Psycomedian” “Hack-San”, and “Dearest Family” were episodes where Cat Noir had no choice but to do his job when Ladybug was incapacitated, “Kuro Neko” made it so Cat Noir literally couldn't be replaced even if Ladybug tried, and “Strikeback” portrayed Cat Noir as willing to work with Ladybug despite her screw-up, but only after all those pesky temp heroes were out of the picture, so Ladybug could only rely on Cat Noir.

In general, there's a serious problem with the way Adrien acts that makes it hard for us to sympathize with him. Whenever Cat Noir talks about Ladybug relying on other heroes and not trusting him, he sounds more like a bratty child than anything else. Even putting aside him smashing public property out of anger of Ladybug supposedly making a plan with Rena Rouge (Sentibubbler), he still gave Scarabella crap for a situation she had no control over (Hack-San), and outright sat out multiple fights before willingly giving up his Miraculous over Ladybug not giving him attention (Kuro Neko). Does this really sound like a hero worthy of being partners with Ladybug? The show never acknowledges his behavior as bad, and expects everyone to just be okay with Cat Noir doing several unheroic things, when Chloe was rightfully punished for acting in a similar fashion. In fact, I think the reason the events of the Season 3 finale were barely referenced was because the writers realized how similar the two were, so they hoped the audience would forget. There's a difference between being frustrated over an unfair situation and just being an asshole. And a majority of Cat Noir's worst moments have conveniently been behind Ladybug's back, as if the writers knew if she found out, she'd scold the hell out of him. But of course, not once are we told that what Cat Noir is doing is bad, and not once is he actually punished for his behavior, because GOD FORBID anyone but Marinette be forced to learn a lesson.

The whole plotline about Ladybug being a terrible partner to Cat Noir is honestly the most mean-spirited this show's ever gotten in my opinion. Rather than portray both sides as flawed and needing to improve for their partnership to develop, Cat Noir can just do anything he wants without ever having to face the consequences for his own actions, while this entire plotline about Ladybug struggling to get used to her being Guardian essentially wraps up by saying “Oh yeah, she totally sucks at her job, doesn't she? She's easily the worst Guardian ever! Thank God she has a partner as awesome and reliable as Cat Noir to comfort her even though he literally almost abandoned her a few episodes ago!”

Adrien as a character has already proven time and time again this season that he is anything but trustworthy, but the biggest problem is that this season goes out of its way to vindicate him for everything he does, while never giving Ladybug a chance to properly defend or explain herself. This could have worked, but the writers did a terrible job at convincing us to see him as a reliable superhero, even putting aside everything he's done in earlier seasons. It's not just Adrien that's the problem. It's the writers constantly coddling him and never letting him properly develop as a character. Afterall, Astruc himself said that Adrien isn't flawed, the world is.

Because why focus on actually giving a character flaws to move past, am I right? The only flawed character around here is Ladybug, who this season wants to act is the worst superhero compared to the saint that is Adrien Agreste.

Conclusion

This season is frustrating in so many regards. For every interesting new character or concept, there are three more underdeveloped or forgotten plotlines. For every enjoyable fight scene, there are episodes with terrible action sequences or resolutions that undermine the plot entirely. For every decent or actually good episode, there are six terrible or plain forgettable episodes. There are clearly a lot of interesting ideas at play here, but the season is just so scatterbrained, it's hard to get invested in any of it. Sure, there are a handful of good episodes, but when an episode is bad, it's REALLY bad.

If I could describe this season in a single sentence, it'd probably be something along the lines of “Interesting ideas, incredibly terrible execution”. This season just really needed more focus on the main storyline and only should have set up a handful of subplots instead of the bakers dozen we got. For fans who are new to the show, there are honestly only a few episodes I would unironically recommend, but I'll talk about that and the individual episodes in a later post.

Sorry this conclusion is short, but I've literally spent weeks working on this. Look, this season was really exhausting, and I just broke the thirty page mark, okay?

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

Video

It’s heeeeere! Another summasalt, this time with nearly twice the length of the first one!

(Turns out that not having caffeine doesn’t help me talk any slower.)

Script below:

Anonymous asked:

Thoughts on Rocketear?

Can you Rocketear the newest episode apart with your salt, my beloved Salt Queen?

Penny for your thoughts on Rocketear?

Aw, anon! You can have that for free! I'm a generous goddess.

"Rocketear" begins with Chat Noir and Carapace - just Carapace, really - holding back a pack of what I presume to be the physical manifestation of the writing staff's age, or at least a representation of how behind the times the writing seems.

Just as the dinosaurs break through Shellter. Ladybug shows up with the scientist who revived the dinosaurs in the first place and said scientist uses a whistle to calm the dinosaurs down. There's also a line from Bob Roth about putting the dinosaurs in a theme park to make money and I know what it's referencing but it's so incredibly random that it doesn't really come off as a proper joke.

Carapace was notably sad right after battle, but insisted that he was fine when Ladybug asked. Rena, sporting a... - I would like to say "new design" but it's a recolor in every sense of the word - is hiding behind part of a building and smiles after the heroes before walking off. Ladybug takes Nino's miraculous back but sees that he's still upset and asks him again what's wrong. Nino asks where Alya was and Ladybug claims that she only needed Carapace for the job, which cheers him up but only until Ladybug is already gone.

Mm, I guess Nino and Adrien relate in heroism not being enough for them unless they have their respective love interest to flirt with.

Also, I know this is an obvious set-up, but the show can't tell me that Ladybug just always brought Nino and Alya whenever she needed one of them. Season 3 required her to go to Master Fu to get the miraculouses, and unless she already knew that Nino and Alya would be in the same location - which, okay, the show does basically shove the two of them together whenever Nino is onscreen, fair, if two characters are in a relationship in this show then it's weird for them to NOT be with that person - but it just seems like a gamble, not to mention proof to Shadow Moth that the two are close if Ladybug constantly brings both of them.

Anyway, Ladybug goes into the sewer and asks Rena if she's seen any sign of Shadow Moth or his traps. Rena didn't see anything and they de-transform. Marinette is about to leave when she thinks of something, but Alya assumes it's about her new look, which was apparently not voluntary on her part and the suit automatically adapted to Alya's new role as Rena Furtive, which she has now named it as.

Marinette reminds her that this is supposed to be a secret and that they agreed that the fox has no owner. When Alya is evasive about whether she told Nino that she won't be Rena anymore, Marinette stresses that everyone needs to believe that Alya won't be using a miraculous anymore so that she can remain an undercover spy.

What's the point in changing the look if you're not going to show yourself anyway? I mean, insurance, I guess, but still.

Alya, exasperated, parrots what Marinette has apparently told her before: that she helps Ladybug with Mirage in case Shadow Moth tries to follow her so Rena can follow him instead. Marinette stresses the situation again and Alya tries to get Marinette to agree on her telling Nino that she's Rena Furtive, but Marinette refuses.

At Marinette's house, Alya talks further and explains that she doesn't know if she can lie to Nino since they don't keep any secrets--Alya, babe, you kept Rena Rouge from him and didn't tell him that you knew he was Carapace until Ladybug was forced to give you your miraculouses at the same time. I don't wanna hear it.

Marinette states that it's too late for that and also not technically a lie, but Alya gets upset and says that Nino will never trust her again if he finds out that she kept something from him. Marinette brings up how she had to keep secrets from Alya too, but they're interrupted by Tom appearing and wanting to play games with them. Marinette makes an excuse about homework that she's repeated many times, as Tom comments that the teachers give her too much. After Tom is kicked out - hang on, lemme just... - Marinette uses the moment to show Alya that she's lied to her family a lot and hasn't played games with her father in months. She states that there's no other option as they have to protect their identities, and Alya agrees to talk to Nino.

In Alya's room - I just presume at this point that Nino's house doesn't exist and Chris is an illusion - Alya tells Nino that they need to talk, but stammers and states that it's hard to talk about. Nino thinks that she wants to break up with him, but Alya assures that she loves him. She finally gets to the cover story that Rena herself made up in "Sentibubbler" and Nino understands, sad that she won't be around anymore but agreeing if it's what Ladybug thinks is best.

Is it weird that Nino respects Ladybug's wishes more than Alya does?

Nino hugs her and is confused by why Alya was nervous to tell him, as she can tell him anything and nothing will change their relationship. Alya feels guilty and hugs back, murmuring about how they don't have any secrets; that's not what Nino said, but sure, push this plot to its already predictable conclusion. I mean, I thought it was vaguely sweet that Nino switched to seriousness immediately when Alya said that she wanted to talk, but how am I supposed to be invested in this couple when their dynamic boils down to "STRONG, INDEPENDANT WOMAN who wears the pants in the relationship because her boyfriend is portrayed as a wimpy coward"? Like, the show constantly dragged Nino down to make Alya look "powerful" by comparison, and then when it comes to characters like Marinette, we get a girl who works very well outside of her relationship with her endgame love interest.

It's the fakest form of "girl power," dragging guys down to raise girls up or actually making a strong girl character but having her love interest be a weakness that creates flaws in her that weren't there originally and having that love interest be who she's "destined for."

I'm rambling, sorry.

In class, Marinette assures Alya that she did the right thing and Alya agrees. As they're leaving school, Marinette talks about how their "night walks" start soon, and Alya non-subtly talks about how Rena Furtive will be on the lookout while Ladybug and Chat Noir patrol. She stops, however, as gets excited about some pictures she took of herself as Rena Furtive, which has a lot of details that Marinette hasn't seen. I don't know whether to groan at what I just heard or remind everyone that Rena Furtive is literally just a recolor and therefore this is the writers patting themselves on the back for this design, so let's just move on.

Alya then shows Marinette her phone--AUGH, MY EYES--and suggests making a poll on her Ladyblog so people can vote for their favorite Rena design. Marinette has to stress again that Rena Furtive is supposed to be a spy and thus invisible, which Alya admits that she forgot about.

Okay, I've been holding off on talking about this, but now seems like the best time to bring it up. Alya has been a trash friend as well as a trash confidant, and her role as Rena Rouge boiled down to, "it was convenient for her to be the fox at the time it was needed." She's not particularly stealthy like one would expect of a fox, and she was easily one of the worst candidates to be told Marinette's big secret. I'll get more into this later, but I have to stress that Alya has treated Marinette no differently since learning of Marinette's identity and has already gone against Marinette's orders once before at the time of this episode airing. Episodes are constantly torn between validating their decision to have Marinette tell Alya, having Marinette be worried about the decision while the show considers her to be ridiculous for it, and then having Alya either consider or make choices that clearly don't gel well with what's good for her role. Much like Marinette, she lacks a sense of self-control and--wow, a female character who's impulsive, never seen that stereotype before.

Point being, "Sentibubbler" stressed over and over that Alya was the right choice and deserved to be both the permanent fox and the understudy for guardian, but then we have "Rocketear" here where Alya is making basic emotionally-driven errors that I'm not even remotely sympathetic to when Marinette has gone through so much worse over the course of three+ seasons.

*sigh*

Alya laments that it's hard to find new content for the Ladyblog - ah, yes, tell me more about your struggles, Alya - but figures that at least she can post stuff about Chat Noir instead of--I don't know--making fake Ladybug theories to lead people off Marinette's trail. Marinette says that it's a great idea, though Alya still doesn't look too happy. The scene then rewinds to a little bit to show a different point of view, this time with Adrien and Nino. Wait, this feels familiar, wasn't there another episode that did something like--ohhhh no, this is going to hurt.

After saying good-bye to Adrien - something I wish I could do every time he's mentioned or on-screen - Nino catches the bit of conversation where Alya talks about the Ladyblog. Nino talks as if Marinette isn't there and asks Alya out to the movies because Marinette is chopped liver and this is about Alya and how sad she is, guys.

Wow, she's turning into Adrien faster and faster.

Alya hesitates, but Marinette assures her that there's still time. Alya excitedly runs off with Nino and they watch what I presume are previews given the narrator, featuring recycled footage from the Ladybug PV. Nino is upset because Rena is mentioned but not Carapace, and the preview features Rena telling Chat Noir to forget Ladybug because it's Chat and Rena herself who are trulu made for each other.

I don't know what's funnier; the complete lack of self-awareness or the suggestion that a biracial couple would exist in this show outside of a special that gives them maybe a minute of screentime and acts more like suggestive canon anyway. I think I might've been too generous with that line about dinosaurs.

Nino is offended by the preview and Alya brushes off his comments, stating that it's just a cartoon and it's made to entertain people, though Nino himself is certainly not entertained. Can't say I entirely blame him considering that Alya doesn't really try to say anything substantial or even agree with him. No cuddling or reassuring kisses, she just gets slightly sad and turns to her phone for a bit.

After the movie, Nino is cheered back up again until he catches Alya on her phone once more. He offers to take her home, but she's distracted, and he comments that what she showed to Marinette looked pretty nice; I don't know because they didn't show it. Nino asks what it was and Alya evades the question, stating that her battery is running out. Nino is suspicious, but spots Andre's ice cream cart and the two head over there. Andre calls them his favorite couple and asks what they want, but Alya sees Ladybug gesturing for her and has to run off, giving Nino a cheek kiss as she goes which feels like too little too late at this point.

Nino catches some conveniently-placed kids arguing over who Chat Noir loves, but they settle on the fact that girls in general love Chat Noir. Nino is then seen at the Seine watching the Ladyblog's latest video, where Alya is talking up how amazing Chat Noir is. I hate to stop every five seconds to complain - okay, actually I don't - but I presume this video must've been made after the movie since Nino seems like the type who would actively follow his girlfriend's blog, yet not only is this video perfectly set up to echo the kids and the movie preview, but Alya - despite apparently caring about her boyfriend soooo much that she kept trying to convince Marinette to bend the rules - didn't even try to warn Nino or text him so he doesn't take it too seriously. It's like "Sentibubbler" with the conflicting messages about identity rules; Alya cares about her boyfriend but both isn't thinking about how he'll take the things she says and apparently doesn't know him well enough to realize that he wouldn't be mad over her keeping a secret that she was told to keep. I already talked about how they play up Nino to be the emotionally weaker one of the relationship, but then they don't have Alya try to cover or make up for that. She's been acting very much not like Alya - you know, the one who in "Sapotis" practically bragged about how great she'd be at covering for Ladybug - with her stutters and weak excuses, so I can't completely blame Nino for being upset after everything that's happened when he sees the writers projecting onto Alya as she talks about how Chat Noir is brave and funny and cute and showing all these images of him as well. I don't agree with all of his actions, but--oh yeah, speaking of which--

Nino calls Adrien and is talking to him about how Alya must be in love with someone else. Adrien dismisses the idea, as Alya and Nino are together basically all the time, and asks who she could possibly be in love with. When Nino suggests that it's Chat Noir, Adrien laughs and jokes about it being Fang instead. Nino points out the video but Adrien did see it but is overall unphased and convinced that it means nothing. Nino says that he'll find proof and hangs up, but Adrien is certain he'll find nothing. Plagg comments that Nino will find someone because Plagg's charisma has definitely contaminated Adrien.

Ugh.

Adrien expresses concern that he put on the cat's charm too much and accidentally made Alya fall for him, and decides to visit Alya as Chat Noir to be sure.

Meanwhile, we get a reference to film noirs as Nino narrates. That's the second blatant reference this episode and now I feel like they wrote this script while doing a movie marathon.

Chat Noir arrives at Alya's house and Trixx hides before Alya opens the curtains to reveal her surprise guest. Nino is nearby watching the scene with his phone as Alya wonders aloud if something's wrong. Chat assures that everything's fine, but brings up the video she posted. He insists that it made him happy, but points out that she's been following him and Ladybug since the beginning and that they know each other much better due to everything that's happened. He has some conveniently-worded dialog as he starts to say that he hopes something's just an illusion and Alya gets worried that he's about to bring up Rena. Chat continues and clarifies that he wonders if she started to feel something for him, though adds that he understands because just look at him.

UGGGGH.

Chat clarifies by making a heart with his hands, which Nino sees. Alya laughs at this gesture and states that she has a boyfriend, doing the same heart gesture and suggesting that her love for Nino is even more than that. Chat Noir apologizes - hm, I didn't know he had the capacity to do that - and hugs Alya, saying that he was just confused.

An absolutely unnecessary hug for two people who, at least in terms of their current selves, have had very little screentime together, but this is also the show where making eye contact basically means your friends and it's all just to push the plot along so Nino inteprets that Alya is in love with Chat Noir, so whatever I guess.

Alya states that Nino is far more irresistable than Chat, then adds that she doesn't even know his secret identity, and she'd never fall in love with someone she doesn't know. Nino then runs away upset and the scene cuts away to the next day where--

Wait, wait, wait, hang on a second. Two things right off the bat there.

First off, we're just gonna sidle past that "wouldn't fall in love with someone you don't know the identity of" while ignoring the existence of the love square? Not even Chat thinking about how he doesn't know Ladybug's identity and trying to excuse that he doesn't have to? This guy is that certain of their relationship?

Secondly, Nino is practically sobbing and Shadow Moth doesn't take this as his opportunity? Same guy who akumatized Mr. Pigeon 72 times and has akumatized Gigantitan more than once? What is this pacing???

But--alright, so Adrien comes into school and sees Nino, still dressed up in his detective gear, which gets ignored completely as Adrien goes to tell him about Chat Noir and Alya. Because the show doesn't know how Adrien would convey this within reason, Nino interrupts him, taking him down into the lower part of the school where he has a desk and chairs set up. Adrien goes to ask when Nino had time to do this, but Nino slams his hand on the desk to cut him off. Nino presents the evidence he took and they go back and forth, likewise with Adrien turning off the background music while Nino turns it back on. Adrien insists that it's a misunderstanding, but pleads innocent when Nino asks how he knows. Adrien states that Alya is just a superhero fan and that she and Chat Noir have nothing in common.

Again, the complete lack of self-awareness is astonishing.

Adrien repeats what Alya said about secret identities and how she wouldn't fall for someone she doesn't know - they're really ignoring this, aren't they? - and continues hitting Nino's soft spots about how unlikely it is until Nino decides to tell Adrien something he's not supposed to.

He tells Adrien, not only that Alya is Rena Rouge, but that he's Carapace. Adrien goes through a range of emotions beyond sAD for once, shocked at the fact that they know each other's identities. Nino states that they don't keep secrets from each other, except now Alya is with Chat Noir. Adrien still doesn't understand and brings up how secret identities have to be protected, or else Nino wouldn't have told him because Ladybug wouldn't agree to it.

Oh, here we go. So that's why they waited.

Nino states that it was Ladybug herself who gave them their miraculouses at the same time; not giving the reason why, of course, nor pointing out that they're temporary heroes so there's understandably some leeway. Adrien is having a moment, but manages to bring the subject back to Alya and Chat Noir, who he still doesn't think are a thing. Nino argues that it's because Adrien doesn't know Chat Noir, but he does because he's Carapace and knows how Chat Noir acts. He says that it's all flowers and confessions when Ladybug appears, but he gets rejected because Ladybug thinks that he's annoying, and she's right. He adds that Chat flirts with Rena Rouge and that's all that needs to happen, with Chat stepping in on the first mission Carapace lost in. Nino laments the loss of the love of his life and wishes to shut Chat Noir up forever; we all do, Nino, we all do. Shadow Moth finally steps in with - oh, less than eight minutes left in the episode, yikes - and Nino is akumatized into Rocketear.

Rocketear rejects Adrien's pleas to stop, insisting that Chat Noir is who he's after, not Adrien, and Adrien transforms in sad fashion despite Plagg's reminder of who Rocketear is after. Alya, meanwhile, is in the art club with Marinette - wait, since when was Alya in the art club - telling Marinette about how Chat Noir thought she was into him due to the video, which Marinette groans at. There's an earthquake and they peek outside to see Rocketear firing his tears at Chat Noir, shouting that he stole Alya from him. Chat Noir tries to tell him otherwise, but Rocketear won't listen.

Alya groans at Nino doing this, then she and Marinette set off to find a place to transform. They conveniently go to the same place Adrien and Nino were, so they see the desk that Nino had set up.

Genuine question, how seriously does this episode want me to take itself, because now when I recount all the unnecessary love square drama in my head - because you know that's where this is going - I'm going to have to think, "Nino, dressed in a detective outfit, ripped off his fake mustache and told Adrien both his and Rena's identities, and also that Ladybug was totally cool with it and thinks that Chat Noir is annoying."

Gettin' two completely different vibes here. The episode clearly wants to be important but it doesn't take itself seriously either, which it totally could while including enough jokes to keep things light. Instead, I'm just left scratching my head and wondering what tone they're going for.

Marinette finds Nino's phone on the desk - I'm calling continuity error on that one because he at no point put it on the desk, at least not on-screen - and she questions Alya on the video she sees. Alya insists that nothing happened, apparently completely unphased by her boyfriend having spied on her, and says that he wouldn't have misunderstood if he'd heard the actual conversation.

The two transform and Ladybug immediately uses Lucky Charm, receiving a projector. Ladybug is clueless and Rena Furtive suggests creating an imaginary movie like Nino. Ladybug gets an idea, remembering Alya's earlier comments, and Rena confirms that she remembers every word of it.

Aaaaand, just like that, all of the tension has been completely sucked away. You know, "Backwarder" was a trash episode, but at least when Ladybug was showing every step of her plan, she didn't tell us what it was.

Meanwhile, Rocketear and Chat Noir are still arguing--I started zoning out at hearing the same thing over and over again at this point, so I just presume they were fighting over who does stuff behind their love interest's backs better; I don't think they came to an agreement but they're both losers anyway.

Chat Noir says that he'll prove his innocence, tossing his baton aside to show him giving up, but Rocketear points out that it proves nothing and strikes Chat Noir with his tears.

Our endgame love interest, everyone. Straight As yet about as smart as a sack of bricks, and that at least won't flirt with anyone non-consensually.

Chat Noir makes a point that he doesn't want to hurt Rocketear, and Shadow Moth tells Rocketear to take his miraculous before finishing him. Chat Noir can only weakly tell him not to before Ladybug snags Rocketear's wrist and diverts the shot. Ladybug explains to Rocketear about the projector and how it'll let him hear the audio of the recording he took. She adds that she doesn't know what Chat said, but she trusts him.

Marinette, I'm sorry, I feel so bad for you.

Ladybug turns on the projector and Rocketear relaxes at actually hearing what was going on. Rena then de-transforms and hurries out to meet with Rocketear, hugging him as Rocketear apologizes for doubting her. Alya also kinda sorta apologizes in a way I don't understand and Rocketear then breaks his akumatization, very casually, all on his own.

Yeah, just--casually, in a matter of seconds in fact. You know, it's really sad when people resisting akumatizations are more tense and emotionally compelling than them breaking them. This is twice in one season now and has zero impact considering that Nino's reason for being akumatized was already taken care of so he had no reason to stay akumatized anyway. Him breaking his own object to release the akuma would've at least been different, but instead it's just a repeat of what Alya went through with even less tension considering that Alya's wasn't even that good in the first place, relying on her relationship to Ladybug rather than who she knew to be her best friend.

Moving on, Ladybug captures the akuma and uses Miraculous Ladybug to bring everything back to normal. Shadow Moth monologues about how love and secrets don't go well together and he's sure that she has a lot and I'll talk about this later.

Ladybug hands over the magical charm, which Nino takes but insists that he won't need it, as he'll never let Shadow Moth use his love to manipulate him again. Plenty of other things to get akumatized over, but they gave the supposedly ace character a robot to help him stick out and also gave the supposedly aro character a miraculous back in season one to give her more importance. If characters aren't in love then they need something to ceompensate for it.

Nino apologizes to Chat Noir for being wrong and Chat Noir assures him that everyone has doubts, even him. He gets sad and Ladybug asks him what's wrong, but he insists that he's fine - officially throwing away his right to be upset at her later as far as I'm concerned - and they do their usual fist buuuuu--

...Really?

Everyone then splits up and Chat Noir sulks by himself instead of--you know, talking to Ladybug, or asking her anything, or making any sort of excuse for her because that would mean he actually has faith in her and understands that their partnership is different from temporary heroes, even if the excuse was as basic as her wanting to protect him more than the others because he would be that egotistical if they didn't want to stretch out this unnecessary drama.

Later on, Adrien is staring at a picture on the Ladyblog that might be a metaphor for the show considering how "in the foreground" Chat Noir and Rena are.

Adrien vents about Ladybug giving miraculouses to Alya and Nino, but Plagg states that she's the guardian. Adrien clarifies that he's referring to Alya and Nino knowing each other's identities, but Plagg doesn't see the issue. Adrien gets huffy and asks why the rule exists for LadyNoir but not Ninya, but Plagg again points out that she's the guardian, so she makes the rules, though obviously he uses cheese metaphors to convey it.

Okay, Plagg is only, like--half-right because he doesn't have all the information. If you don't mind me rambling for a bit, I'm on the fence here because, on one hand--yes, I agree that Marinette should be allowed to make her own rules, and I often do that in my writing because I think she should be permitted leeway in order to let herself be happy, but on the other hand, it's not technically her rule, as she had to let Alya and Nino in on their identities back in the Season 2 finale, so Fu was still around for a season. She wasn't even guardian yet!

Now, presumably so the fandom could blame Marinette if anything happened, Marinette never discussed this with Fu on-screen, so I can't say whether or not Fu knew, but I feel like he must've since Marinette had to have told him the heroes' identities off-screen, given "Party Crasher," and thus I imagine that Marinette would tell Fu everything that happened, which is consistent with what she does on-screen even if she'd keep things from him for a little while.

"Furious Fu" had also established that not even Master Fu followed rules completely, meaning that Marinette is in this awkward spot of mostly following what Fu taught her, which aren't all guardian rules anyway, and having to break the rules on occasion for various purposes. I can't say what Fu approved of and what he didn't, because episodes spend so much time on the love square that they forget about Marinette as a person and how she interacts with everyone else. From an emotional standpoint, I can't blame Marinette for not revoking the miraculouses of people whose identities get discovered because of her, as I imagine she feels guilty and it probably doesn't seem fair to force them into another miraculous or have them be entirely without one because of a mistake that she made, meaning that someone needs to be throwing a lot of red flags for Marinette to be through with them.

Though obviously, from the show's standpoint, it's just an excuse to not make new models, but I complained about that enough in "Sentibubbler" and this episode even went out of its way to design a detective model for Nino while spraypainting Alya's bodysuit in the same breath, so this is the world we live in.

Anyway, Marinette is essentially in this position where she still has Fu's rules hovering over her, but she's also trying to step out on her own and make her own decisions to varying degrees of success or failure depending on your point of view. Tikki--wait, no, bad idea--Su-Han then, could easily give input on these things, perhaps with Marinette discussing a modern day set of rules for someone her age and going back and forth with Su-Han on what the right choices to make are, finding something that's comfortable but within a realm of predictable control. Su-Han was okay with some rules being broken after seeing how Ladybug handled them and they could've easily made this episode about that instead, but instead, we get rules being set and then being broken on a writer's whim.

Which now brings us to the end of the episode, where Marinette is on the phone with Alya and apologizes for causing trouble between her and Nino. Alya tells her not to worry and she'll fix things - you know, those things that, to Marinette's knowledge, have already been fixed - and asks if Marinette trusts her. Marinette does, and Alya hangs up in order to face Nino.

Yeah, that feeling of dread in your stomach? That means you know how predictable the writing is and what's about to happen, good for you.

Alya explains that she has to tell Nino something and he's worried, this time trying to sheepishly break the tension. She explains that she's still Rena Rouge, much to Nino's shock, and adds that she's in hiding, which is why Ladybug didn't want her to tell anyone. Nino asks why she's telling him if she's not supposed to tell anyone - proving my point from a while back that he wouldn't have been upset had she kept it a secret - then asks if Ladybug agreed with it.

I want to give him a pat on the back for considering Ladybug, but he didn't even tell her when he had the chance that Adrien knows his identity now, so I'm just beaten down at this point.

Instead of answering the question directly, Alya says that she can't hide her identity from him because she loves him and they don't have secrets.

You know, like Nino telling Adrien about Rena's identity, or Alya saying specifically that she's a permanent holder, which I'm sure both of them will confess to since they said that they don't have--aaaaand the episode ends on happy triumphant music, okay.

I mean, I guess Alya at least didn't tell him that Marinette was Ladybug, but that is such a low bar and not even remotely worthy of congratulations when Alya told Nino the specific thing that Marinette told Alya not to tell; the thing that they had agreed on.

Nino wasn't upset anymore. He won't be getting akumatized either. Alya endured the supposed hardship of being a permanent fox holder for four episodes before breaking down and telling her boyfriend. Even her excuse doesn't hold any water because, again, they're both still technically keeping a secret, particularly Alya who knows Marinette's identity as Ladybug. The episode also apparently forgets that Alya and Marinette's friendship must not be as strong by her logic of telling Nino specifically everything, as Alya kept Rena Rouge a secret from Marinette for all of Season 3, but tells Nino about continuing to be Rena Rouge in Season 4. Boyfriends before BFFs without explicitly saying it, or to be more specific, whatever screws Marinette over the most, because that's what this comes down to, made worse by "Optigami" where Marinette told Alya that she'd tell her everything and I guess that doesn't go both ways.

"Sentibubbler" had Alya stress that no one would ever know. She promised Marinette and told Marinette to trust her, and the episode spent its entire running time talking her up and assuring Marinette that she was the right choice, even considering Marinette ridiculous for worrying when Alya had done something without Marinette's permission the episode right before it. Then, three episodes after "Sentibubbler," when Marinette is finally comfortable and trusts Alya completely, Alya betrays that trust. Nino betrayed that trust, knowing he wasn't supposed to do so but telling Adrien his and Rena's identity anyway, because he was losing an argument and needed to PROVE something.

Marinette gives them an inch and they take a mile. Marinette bent the rules so that they could continue to have the miraculous they'd started with and they disrespected her because it was hard for like a day.

And if this bites them back, it won't reflect poorly on them, it'll reflect poorly on Marinette.

It's not like Alya just overrode Marinette. She didn't go, "Hey, I'm telling Nino, I'm sorry," or tried her hardest to go back and forth with Marinette until they both agreed. No, she did what she told Marinette she wouldn't do without saying a word to her, because LOVE and SEEEECRETS.

And this only applies to her, of course, because don't think I didn't notice the parallels between this episode and "Truth," because WOW.

Episode begins with Marinette hoping for something and it blows up in her face? A date at the cinema that ends on a sour note? Plot-centric couple trying to get Andre's ice cream and the female with a secret needing to leave in a hurry? Boyfriend character getting akumatized over their girlfriend's secret? Boyfriend assumes/suggests that the girlfriend's secret involves Aaaaaadrien - or his alter-ego in "Rocketear"'s case - and the episode hints as much to him even though he's completely wrong? Akuma's colors are blue and black? THE BRIDGE?

But, ahhh, little difference, here and there, y'know, like how Marinette was forced to break up with her boyfriend while Alya got to keep hers, and Nino got to have long talks with Alya while Luka got little to nothing with Marinette.

Because do note that Alya, while trying to convince Marinette and talk to Nino about not keeping secrets, at no point suggests that Marinette deserves to be happy and deserves to have a boyfriend and that Marinette should be allowed to tell Luka her secret so they can get back together, so you have Alya here selfishly prioritizing her relationship with Nino while making no comment about Marinette's relationship, essentially asking Marinette to allow her what Marinette herself didn't have the luxury of, and Alya knows this because Marinette told her. It is both incredibly insensitive of Alya and incredibly insulting of the show to make so many parallels between this episode and "Truth" just to have everything crash down for Marinette because she's Marinette while everything goes well for Alya and Nino because they're not Marinette.

We've talked before about the formulas that are literally baked into the show, and one of those is how Marinette makes a mistake in every episode and has to learn from it. What that mistake is in this episode, I don't know, but considering that she apologizes for Alya and Nino's problems, I guess the show blames her for what they themselves had taught her.

Point being, there's a clear karma system in place, but it only applies to Marinette, and forcing her to mess up in every episode means that she is literally not allowed to be with Luka because had she been able to clear things up between them, he would've eagerly accepted her and they could've been happy. It'd be too difficult for her to mess up when Luka doesn't put mountains of pressure and expectations on her like everyone else. Factor that in with how she can be herself around him and it leads to situation that are too difficult for her to screw up in because her mistakes - more often than not - center around Adrien or her role as guardian.

And because another rule in the show is to bring up Adrien so they don't "lose him for too long," she can't avoid bringing him up either. If he's not in the plot, he has to be mentioned, leaving Marinette in a lose-lose situation that she'll never be free from.

So, let me just get this straight then:

The guy who spied on his girlfriend instead of talking to her about his assumptions gets to keep his girlfriend, not because he realized it was wrong regardless of whether he was correct or not, but because the situation had been cleared up for him, yet the guy who actively resisted his akumatization, saddened by his girlfriend's secrets but wanting her to share them when she was ready, gets broken up with and tossed to the wayside because he's not a rich blond boy who got a miraculous because he happened to be within the twenty meters of space where Fu was searching for new holders?

Meanwhile, the girlfriend who has gone against the wishes and insistence of her best friend - guardian of the miraculouses, by the way, so she calls the shots, something that Alya herself said in "Optigami" BEFORE GOING ON TO DO HER OWN THING IN THE SAME EPISODE AND BEING REWARDED FOR IT - is allowed to go against the wishes and insistence of her best friend again for the sake of "all love, no secrets" with her boyfriend and so she can have the happy ending she wants, yet the girl who was chosen for a miraculous without her consent, forced to screw up and talk about a random boy who doesn't even go out of his way to spend time with her, treated like absolute trash by writers who find humor in her misery, and is the only one to receive overly harsh and long-lasting consequences for her actions while also covering up and forgiving the actions of others within the episode where they do it...

doesn't get her happy ending, and won't ever get her happy ending. That thing Shadow Moth said about love and secrets not going well together? Yeah, only goes as far as the writers want it to, because both Nino and Alya still have secrets, and some of the ones they did tell each other were forced by someone else and kept until that very moment. This idea that people in love have to tell each other everything and that it makes a relationship stronger makes me immensely uncomfortable, and that lesson is also in "Guiltrip."

People should be allowed their secrets, and obviously there are exceptions for things that are being hidden with malicious intent, but being essentially forced to share everything or risk not having a "full and complete" relationship is stifling and sounds like it'd only cause stress.

This episode sucks. It furthers and confirms everything I've already thought about the show, Nino's screentime continues to be dependent on Adrien, Alya, or both, there are pointless references that completely take me out of the experience, and the utter betrayal from Alya and supposed message of the episode just reminds me that Marinette is inevitably going to be stuck with a guy who didn't even DO anything in this episode and is going to let himself stew instead of asking for any sort of clarifications from someone he apparently trusts so much.

So the takeaway is that Marinette's life is awful, she'll be forced to apologize for rules that she didn't even come up with herself, her best friend will walk all over her for the sake of her relationship with a guy - not even for the sake, really, they were going to be fine, it was more for HER personal comfort if anything - and the guy who actually makes Marinette happy and could've known her identity instead BECAUSE HE AT LEAST DIDN'T HAVE A TRACK RECORD OF SPILLING HER SECRETS gets treated in the exact same way that she does; like nothing, just something to abuse unfairly.

What a waste of an episode.

#MC's Videos #category: episode summaries #category: salt #salt: adrien agreste #salt: chat noir #salt: alya cesaire #salt: nino lahiffe #video: critique #MC's Renders #render: persona #episode: Rocketear #((I would usually apologize for rambling but you guys seem to like it lol.))#((I could still afford to trim down the summary probably and repeat myself/ramble a BIT less but yeah.))#((I'm also feeling a little more comfortable this time around))#((which might come off in my inflections.))

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adrinoir · 2 years

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Marinette’s relationship with her parents

I saw a couple posts today about how just because Marinette has good parents doesn’t make her a bad protagonist, and doesn’t make her life sunshine and rainbows.

Yes to all of that 100%

I’ve been meaning to write a post about this because again, it’s not something that’s mentioned much.

It’s a surprisingly common thing in animated shows and comics that the protagonist has (a) deceased parent(s). And, it’s usually something that ties into the plot and affects the main character’s personality and/or actions.

However, in Miraculous, our lovely deuteragonist Adrien Agreste follows this trope, which is a nice change of pace. It gives balance by having two very different family dynamics. You don’t always see both involved in one show, let alone the deuteragonist being the one with family trauma.

I wrote a post about how we shouldn’t be debating if Marinette or Adrien “has it worse,” and that concept certainly applies here. Just because Marinette has a better home life than Adrien does not make the issues she deals with any less valid.

View it as Adrien’s issues stemming from his abusive parents and Marinette’s issues stemming from her guardianship. Two very different causes. They really can’t be compared and should never be in the first place.

But also consider, Marinette can’t even have the ideal relationship with her parents that she wants because she has to keep her identity as Ladybug away from them.

Notice how much further she was from her dad in this past season because she was so busy trying to figure out the Grimmoire with Alya. Notice how much she struggled just trying to have a day out with her mom.

I can vouch, it’s so difficult and causes distance in the relationship with your parents when you don’t feel comfortable or safe telling them about things happening in your personal life. I know in my latest post about Wishmaker I mentioned I can relate to having controlling parents. That still stands. But they’re also similar to Marinette’s in how they’re still together, they care about me a lot, and that I have that distance from them from discomfort in talking about my issues.

One could argue she could tell them since she told Alya. But, keep in mind, she was breaking down when she decided to tell Alya (not a planned thing) and she was still very worried about confiding in her about such a big thing.

Additionally, parental and platonic relationships can be so different from one another. There’s a solid chance Alya reacted very differently than how her parents would have if she had told them, instead.

And not even considering Marinette’s own issues affecting the relationship, we don’t see her parents checking in with her a whole lot. They typically let her have her privacy and her own social life without asking a billion questions as to where she’s going and what she’s doing. That’s not bad parenting, but it most likely plays a part in Marinette feeling less inclined to tell them.

Speaking of feeling less inclined to tell them, there’s that obvious reason of them being put at a bigger risk if she tells them her secret. It was obviously already dangerous putting her best friend in that position, but it’d be even more dangerous telling her family - the people who live with her.

Marinette obviously loves them deeply. So of course she’s going to continue hiding her second life from them. And, her parents obviously love her and worry about her, too. But there’s that rift, and it’s definitely shown that it’s difficult for Marinette to hide this from them, and that she really doesn’t want to in the first place.

We can also totally put some of the blame on Master Fu for making Marinette isolate herself more than ever from her family, friends, and day-one partner.

#miraculous ladybug #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculous #miraculers #ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #tom dupain #sabine cheng #sabine dupain cheng #tom and sabine #mr pigeon 72 #glaciator #ml analysis

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ilikekidsshows · 3 years

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Hi! I loved the Adrinette analysis you made...do you think you could make a similar one for Ladybug and Chat Noir over seasons 1 to 3?

I knew I was leaving myself open for this ask, and I kinda dreaded it, because 80% of Ladynoir screen time is dedicated to defeating an Akuma, meaning the characters have something else to focus on rather than progressing their relationship, and most the relationship stuff is just Marinette being really stubborn and refusing to properly look at her partner. In other words, there's significantly more screen time, but also proportionally less stuff going on in Ladynoir than in Adrinette because the characters are superheroes on the job and one party is actively resisting any development happening. It's also a very different kind of arc and relationship to Adrinette where the goal is just the two of them getting closer and more comfortable with each other. Ladynoir has that as well as all the trust issues and superhero team dynamics. Basically, this post is definitive proof that Miraculous has had plot development before season four, and it has had a lot of it. I got almost dizzy with it while compiling this.

Once again, I’m trying to go in a somewhat chronological order to properly track the relationship.

In 'Origins', we only get one-sided Ladynoir stuff. Marinette is new on the job and completely focused on solving the Akuma problem and nothing else. Meanwhile, Adrien actually takes note of his partner. He sees her flounder but ultimately put together a clever plan. He sees her lose faith but ultimately pick herself up and deliver a really badass speech at Hawk Moth. It's really no wonder he fell in love. The number one thing he learned about Ladybug is that she can fail and the second thing was that she could pick herself up again and grab the win anyway. I've brought up earlier in the Top Adrinette Scene discussion that Adrien is very scared of failing, because his father does not forgive failure, so Ladybug being someone who can turn a failure into a win understandably makes his heart go pitter-patter.

Meanwhile, Marinette barely noticed her partner. As I said, she was fully focused on solving the problem, but she was also getting distracted by her own insecurities. Marinette's first experience with Cat Noir was that he was kinda smooth and seemed to be much more confident than Marinette. Her second experience was that he tended to leap before he looked, but was perfectly willing to listen to her say-so. We have a very brief attempt at flirtation from Cat Noir, that Ladybug barely seems to even notice.

In 'Bubbler', Cat Noir actually gets to flirt with his Lady. He's clearly intent on getting her to notice what he's getting at, but Ladybug seems mostly exasperated with him. At this point their partnership is new and Marinette is most likely thinking back to their first case, when Cat Noir was so patient and supportive and not this...much. She still doesn't tell him to quit it, though, meaning she’s trying to accept him being a lot.

'Stormy Weather' has Cat Noir continuing in his attempts to get Ladybug to notice him and this time she responds playfully when they're not right in the middle of a tense situation. She's getting used to this being Cat's way of interacting with her and keeping the mood light.

'Lady Wifi' has the pair discussing the secrecy between them, with Adrien actively making the decision that honoring Ladybug's wishes concerning keeping their secret identities is more important than knowing the identity of the girl he's in love with, that doing so is the proper way to love her. 'Lady Wifi' is also the first time Marinette panics at the idea of something romantic being suggested about her and Cat Noir, when Alya says Adrien might be Cat Noir, that Cat Noir might be the boy she's repeatedly told Alya she's in love with.

'Copycat' shows us for a fact that Ladybug has no idea that Cat Noir's flirtations with her are genuine, and Cat Noir is growing tired of his feelings going entirely unnoticed.

Because of his growing frustration over not being able to communicate his feelings to Ladybug in a manner that she'd take seriously, Adrien goes the extra mile to write her a love poem in 'Dark Cupid'. When he receives a response that appeared with no sender, just a ladybug, he entertains the thought that Ladybug answered his poem and does in fact return his feelings (not realizing that Ladybug would need to know his identity to deliver such a note to him specifically, but Adrien does generally worry less about secret identities than Marinette). 'Dark Cupid' is also the first occasion of Marinette's by-now patented plan "Pretend to be in Love with Cat Noir" to solve problems, except that she was absolutely certain that a True Love's Kiss could occur between them, so there isn't even much room for pretending, but Marinette's denial is so powerful, she'll try.

In 'The Mime' we see Cat Noir actually testing Ladybug's receptiveness to a date, by suggesting that they could have gone to the play together if they didn't have to detransform. Ladybug replies that she has other plans before zipping away, and Cat Noir merely smiles after her. His feelings are growing, and he might still be remembering the love note he got. In fact, this is probably why he says "We are meant to be," in 'Gamer'.

In 'Animan' Ladybug actually does some of her own flirting with Cat Noir by giving him chin scritches. We also see a very straightforward gesture of affection from Cat Noir to Ladybug, when he hugs her in relief after the battle. Ladybug smiles softly at him, seeing that her partner cares about her well-being, while Cat Noir jumps back, embarrassed over his own reaction, or perhaps even afraid of censure. Adrien isn't the type of person to suddenly grab people in a hug, most likely because such "overly emotional" displays are discouraged in the Agreste household. This is the first occasion of Adrien projecting his father's supposed reaction to a thing he does on Ladybug, so he runs away from her.

In 'Simon Says', Cat Noir clings to Ladybug when faced with Gabriel looking at him weirdly (he's trying to figure out if he's Adrien, but Adrien himself never realizes his father was suspicious of his identity). At this point, Ladybug has started to become something of a security symbol to Adrien specifically against his father.

'Reflekta' is the episode where Cat Noir reminds Ladybug that he doesn't just deliver quips and he is actually a hero in his own right, even with diminished capabilities, in response to Marinette almost leaving him behind because he couldn't use his Cat Noir powers, because he'd "just slow (her) down", and then it turns out she couldn't have won without him. However, with the scene of Cat Noir taking the hit, Ladybug also starts on the process of realizing exactly how important her partner is to her success. Noticeably, it's while they're plotting together that Ladybug responds to his flirtation by flirting back, even if not very well (protip, Marinette, demeaning someone isn't funny to anyone but the person doing the demeaning, the other person is not suddenly lacking a sense of humor). Cat Noir is also a bit softer with his overtures in this episode, his cheeky flirtation gaining a bit more intimacy.

In 'Antibug', we can see the lessons Ladybug learned in 'Reflekta' sticking, with Ladybug listening to and valuing Cat Noir's input, unlike how the last time he tried to give her advice in a Chloé situation in 'Evillustrator', when she acknowledged he was right but couldn't bring herself to follow his advice. She also flirts with Cat Noir of her own volition, when she rings his bell. Cat Noir also keeps showing genuine warmth towards Ladybug instead of being just cheeky, when Ladybug compliments him. They affirm their bond after taking down Antibug.

The events of 'Reflekta' and 'Antibug' together influence what happens in 'Volpina', where Marinette is very suspicious of a new superhero showing up, without ever suspecting she could have been an Akuma in disguise. Cat Noir is her partner, and Cat Noir is her only partner. She’s not only learned his value, but has grown possessive over him. There's no need for any outsider. This jealousy over Cat Noir is actually something Marinette doesn't get over during the first three seasons the way she learns to deal with her jealousy over Adrien.

By the time 'The Collector' happens, Adrien has developed enough trust in his partner to ultimately believe her over her suspicions about Gabriel being Hawk Moth. This episode also has the first time Marinette voices concern over Cat Noir's emotional well-being instead of merely physical, who, of course, can't tell her what's wrong because it would break the secret identity clause.

'Prime Queen' has some very nice mutual Ladynoir flirting at the start of the interview. However, they're both mortified when Nadja comes out with the pictures. Cat Noir is confused, because he had no idea that their relationship could even give that impression, he must have been feeling like he hasn't been making much progress in getting closer to Ladybug. Meanwhile, Marinette goes defensive for the first time since 'Lady Wifi' only, this time, even more so. She even runs out on Cat Noir when he, very understandably, wants an explanation why he head to learn from a reporter that she'd planted one on him instead of from her. The episode confirms that Marinette will refuse to, in any way, discuss anything romance-related in relation to Cat Noir, even when there's an innocent explanation, like breaking an Akuma's spell. She's so defensive it's suspicious.

We also have another occasion of Marinette "pretending" to be in love with Cat Noir to solve a problem. While Cat Noir purrs either over the confession, having her close, or both. Marinette also jumped at the chance to "pretend" to confess her love so eagerly, that it left Prime Queen unimpressed. Still, Marinette refused to commit to the "ruse" enough to kiss Cat Noir while he's actually conscious and aware of it, because then she'd have to deal with the aftermath of kissing him.

'Dark Owl' has the first true test of faith between Ladybug and Cat Noir, when both of them have to trust the other not to look while they have to recharge. Although, considering 'The Collector', this is actually the first test only for Ladybug. At the end of the episode, Adrien also genuinely asks Ladybug out on a date for the very first time when they unexpectedly have free time from Owl-sitting, but Marinette preferred to skip off to spend time with Alya since she hadn’t gotten to see her while being so busy with The Owl's antics for so long.

'Glaciator' has Cat Noir planning an actual outing for Ladybug. The thing is, before 'Glaciator', Marinette's response to Cat Noir asking her out has always been that she has other plans, no can do. However, in 'Glaciator', she specifically says: "We'll see," and then she ends up ghosting him because she forgot to even send him a message that she didn't feel like going anywhere. At the same time, Gabriel purposefully stands him up for dinner, causing Adrien to project onto the Ladybug situation so hard that he doesn't think Ladybug even sees him as a real friend. Considering Adrien was under the same impression about Marinette in 'Puppeteer 2', it is typical for Marinette to send these kinds of mixed signals (which is fitting, considering how clear communication seems to be the biggest bullet point in her character development agenda).

On the upside, Cat Noir's compromised emotional state led to him being more frank about his feelings to first Marinette and later to Ladybug, finally making Marinette understand that Cat Noir is actually in love with her and how sensitive her partner can really be and that she can hurt his feelings. Notably, in this episode, Marinette particularly enjoys employing her "Pretend to be in love with Cat Noir" gambit, this time even going as far as kissing him, after finding out he's actually in love with her. Indeed, at the end of the episode, her rejection to Cat Noir is entirely focused on her having feelings for someone else (as well). She never once said she doesn't love him, and, in fact, never claims so in the English dub.

In 'Sapotis' we also see a brief glimpse of Marinette's jealousy over Cat Noir when he welcomes Alya onto the team so warmly but, because Rena Rouge was a teammate Marinette herself chose and trusts, she doesn't feel threatened enough to express it more than by merely keeping an eye on their interaction. 'Sapotis' also starts the arc of Cat Noir starting to lose faith in Ladybug having his best interest in mind when Rena Rouge appears out of nowhere and he's expected to just accept that no-questions-asked.

'Gorizilla' notably has Marinette repeatedly voicing her belief that Cat Noir will show up, something Adrien appreciates a great deal, going as far as blushing over something so simple. He's astounded by the fact that his Lady has faith in him, but it seems he still believes it despite the notion being strange to him.

'Frightningale' really drives home the arc going on in this season. 'Riposte' was the first time we saw Ladybug and Cat Noir seamlessly working together to neutralize an Akuma, but in this episode, they move in perfect synch while fighting Frightningale while handcuffed together. Cat Noir and Ladybug's teamwork has reached phenomenal levels.

I've repeatedly said that 'Syren' is less about Cat Noir and Ladybug's relationship and more about Fu's relationships with his two chosen. Still, this is the episode where Marinette gets put on the spot and comes through for her partner and Cat Noir learns that Ladybug keeping secrets from him wasn't of her own volition, but because of Fu, restoring his faith in her completely.

It's most likely because of the trust Ladybug showed towards him in 'Gorizilla' and their perfectly synchronized teamwork in 'Frightningale' that Cat Noir tries to confess to Ladybug again in 'Frozer'. These two episodes could give Cat Noir hope that he might be winning Ladybug over, especially since, as I said before, Ladybug has not said she doesn't have feelings for him. But she, of course, rejects him, although it's notably with more wistfulness than the last time, especially when she comments how she doesn't think it's possible for the "other boy" to not be a concern. 'Frozer' takes place during the arc in season two that covers Marinette's growing frustration at her inability to progress with Adrien the way she wants to and the discontent shows in her interaction with Cat Noir as well.

The change in how Marinette regards Cat Noir's input in fights between season one and two is especially noticeable in 'Style Queen' and 'Maledictator'. Both times Cat Noir is absent in a fight and this influences how Marinette approaches fighting the Akumas. In 'Style Queen' Marinette tries to play it sneaky but also needs to be saved by Plagg's intervention in his holder's absence. In 'Maledictator', Marinette's plan involved siccing the brainwashed Cat Noir on the Akuma's goons. Cat Noir has become necessary to Marinette, which is why he's able to galvanize her during 'Heroes' Day' by reminding her that the two of them against the world is what's always worked.

Season three as a whole revolves around Adrien losing faith that Ladybug could ever return his feelings the way he wishes and Marinette getting several warning signs about how she could lose Cat Noir. I might even go as far as saying that this season has negative Ladynoir development (in that their relationship grows more frayed and brittle instead of stronger).

A big reason for this new development direction is 'Reflekdoll', which, according to the production codes, happens early in the season. In this episode, Ladybug and Cat Noir learn the worst possible (false) lessons about themselves and each other and they carry those lessons for the rest of the season. In my 'Reflekdoll' conflict analysis, I wrote that Ladybug basically "learns" that Cat Noir is fae-like in that he isn't bothered by mortal things like stress or heartbreak. Cat Noir, meanwhile, "learns" that, while it doesn't matter if Ladybug makes a mistake because she can always fix it, him making a mistake makes him fundamentally less worthy as a hero and a person, so he could never be as valuable as Ladybug even as a person and not only strategically.

'Weredad', meanwhile, is the quintessential evidence episode for Marinette being both possessive and in denial about Cat Noir. She's literally pretending to be in love with him to him, while totally denying to herself that she feels anything for him, all the while she's feeling jealous over him seemingly moving on from her to be in love with her. The reason it's so important that no one but Marinette herself and Tikki know what went down in this episode is that Marinette's denial would never last if someone actually questioned this whole mess.

This is also an episode where we can clearly see the aftermath of what 'Reflekdoll' did to Cat Noir. He's once again projecting his situation with his father onto someone else (this time Tom), but he's also blatantly refusing to fight Tom at full strength, because he feels that it's his fault he got Akumatized, allowing himself to get hurt severely because he feels he's not that important, that he might even deserve it.

'Oblivio' has Ladybug once again do the whole: "How dare you say I'm in love with Cat Noir I am quitting this conversation right now!" routine. Cat Noir also got actual confirmation that something about him made his Lady want to kiss him when their memories had been wiped.

'Desperada' has the semi-infamous scene of Ladybug saying she doesn't need Cat Noir and, while she learns the valuable lesson that yes she flipping does, this is also the episode where Adrien repeatedly fails to use the Snake Miraculous correctly, having to give it up to someone else, feeling like an undeserving failure *turns to look at 'Weredad' and then at ‘Reflekdoll*.

'Kwamibuster' is an episode where everyone keeps telling Ladybug not to trust Cat Noir and she believes it to the degree that she sees him as a bigger threat than a Kwami-targeting Akuma. In other words, Cat Noir being treated like a part-time hero again in season four is because of 'Kwamibuster'.

'Gamer 2.0' is actually an important episode for the Ladynoir dynamic. This is the episode where Marinette takes on way too much responsibility (voluntarily) and is really stressed about it, while Cat Noir dismantles that stress with his good humor and positive outlook. This episode enforces the lesson that was stated outright in 'Reflekdoll': "Everyone has their role", and Cat Noir's role is to be the jokester who makes Ladybug feel better. Also, Cat Noir doesn’t even hesitate to make a sacrifice play for his Lady, because he’s less important.

'Timetagger' foreshadows that Marinette's words of affirmation are losing their effect. She repeatedly says things like "I trust Cat Noir", "You're irreplaceable", "You know you're the best", but she doesn't know how to express her regard to Cat Noir in actions. And it's important to note that Adrien was raised among liars and manipulators. Even if he doesn't doubt Ladybug's intentions, he might doubt the depth and truth of her feelings for him. Because Ladybug is so nice, she might lie about valuing him to make him feel better. Words aren't enough when words are the only thing between you and your insecurities. This is also an episode that feeds into Cat Noir's worthlessness arc, with Bunnyx repeatedly insisting that Ladybug in the future is just awesome, while Cat Noir broke her Miraculous. Even Ladybug shoots him down at the end of the episode when he tries to ask for extra affirmation, claiming he "already knows he's great".

In 'Puppeteer 2', Cat Noir's hope from 'Oblivio' that Ladybug might be starting to be won over by him comes back to bite him when the wax Ladybug gets close to him by pretending to be coming onto him. He only realized she was a fake because she smelled wrong, something that comes back to haunt him in 'Ladybug', when he's faced with a perfect copy, whose only difference to the original is that she's apparently in love with him. The villains clearly know he’s so in love with Ladybug it sometimes blinds him.

With the villains using this clear weakness as an in, it's no wonder that Cat Noir finally makes the decision to move on from Ladybug in 'Heart Hunter'. He tries one more time to test her interest to see if she'd be jealous of him dating and, when she's merely overjoyed, he decides to finally move on to Kagami. However, when faced with the actual reality of Cat Noir giving his attention to someone else instead of her (instead of in addition to her), Ladybug actually finds herself hurt and questions the lack of "My Lady" in Cat Noir addressing her, but she instantly denies it when Cat Noir notices. Denial denial denial...

Aaaaaand that's a wrap! Putting this together made me realize just how interconnected the show really is but no one notices because there aren’t any secret identities being revealed, people getting together or lore being revealed. Even something that seems like a breather episode like 'Gamer 2.0' has a larger role in the arc of developing the relationship between our main heroes.

#miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug #ladynoir #lovesquare #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #ml meta #long post #REALLY long

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jennagrinsoverml · 3 years

Note

Do you have any Adrien-centric angst fics? Like, fics that will completely gut you emotionally and you have to lay down for an hour after you read it just to decompress?something like that?

I've recced angst fics before, but let's have some SADRIEN hours around here, shall we?

a fight that you were born to lose by @captainkirkk

When the prosecution starts throwing around the word victim in reference to Adrien, he has to stuff his hands under his thighs to keep himself from bolting out of the courtroom.

Adrien finds out Gabriel is Hawkmoth, and Gabriel gets to bring his long-waited plan into action.

One-shot. (But a LONG one-shot--it's 18k.) This one really digs deep into the abuse that Adrien suffers at Gabriel's hands and the emotional fallout from that. Gabriel is really, really, really terrible here. Worse, I don't think it's OOC at all. This fic is gorgeous, but it's a hard read and it goes to some dark places.

Anhedonia/When Adrien Met Marinette... by @mikauzoran

Chat Noir hadn’t been lying when he told Ladybug he’d moved on. It was only when he found out that Ladybug was Marinette that he realized he was wrong. Meanwhile, Marinette thinks that she’s missed her chance when Adrien insists that he’s gotten over his feelings. Now, they’re roommates and making themselves miserable as they pine for one another, thinking the situation’s hopeless. Things finally come to a head, and they’re forced to sit down and have an honest conversation about their feelings.

One-shot. Adrien's just so sad and lonely and pining here, and I'm here for it. I really found myself getting swept away in his feelings as I was reading. This isn't dark and doesn't get into any heavy issues like some of the other fics on this list, but I found that it was very relatable and evoked a lot of emotion.

Adrien and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by @vickyvicarious

Chat Noir's used to bad luck - it kind of comes with the territory. But detransforming in the middle of a crowd of reporters is a little worse luck than he’s used to having.

And he hasn’t heard a thing from Ladybug since.

(AKA the "everyone finds out all at once" angst fic no one asked for.)

One-shot. Oof, does this one ever hurt. Adrien's painfully in-character, and the way he's trying so very hard to stay positive even as his life is completely falling apart and everyone keeps hurting him...it's so him and it packs a punch.

The Importance of the Black Cat by @chatonne-rousse

Plagg gets down almost two full wedges of cheese before Adrien sits down on the edge of his bed with a heavy sigh.

“Hey, Plagg?” His voice is quiet but doesn’t betray any emotion yet. That’s actually more worrying.

Steeling himself, Plagg swallows the last big bite of cheese and zips from the desk to perch on top of the globe, facing his holder. “What’s up?”

He heaves another sigh before looking up into Plagg’s eyes, emotions still unreadable.

“How important is the black cat?”

*****

Adrien has a lot on his mind - concerns, questions, doubts. And right now, he has only one being to confide in. There is not enough cheese in the world to make Plagg want to handle this situation, but his holder needs him, and he knows two things with certainty: his very important place in the world, and that no one hurts his kitten. Not if he has anything to say about it.

One-shot. You want some season 4 flavour Adrien angst? How about some post-Optigami wallowing? I love the portrayal of Adrien and Plagg's relationship with the mix of light and heavy. Pretty sure I still owe Rosie a sequel to this one because I wanted to see more resolution afterwards and made the mistake of sharing my thoughts on that 🙈 It's just very thought-provoking!!

Working Past It by Taitai83

Chat is deeply hurt by Ladybug's actions, and he needs to process those feelings. He finds that confiding in a friend is helpful in finding clarity.

One-shot. Here, have some more season 4 angst! This one is shamefully overlooked. Go read it and help fix that!! Remember when Gang of Secrets came out and we all wondered how Chat would react when he found out Ladybug told someone her identity? This was an early stab at that, and I found the reactions and thought processes here to be so in character. Plus there's some nice marichat hurt/comfort, though purely platonic.

Timetagger 3 by rosebud1000

Years after Hawkmoth's defeat, Marinette and Adrien encounter Timetagger for the third time. And this battle hits closer to home than any other.

One-shot. Here we have some more of the fallout from Gabriel being a shitty parent, only we have an adult Adrien who is a father himself struggling to reconcile how his father acted with his own parental feelings. As a parent, I really felt this one.

Chat Noir's Family by fleurjaune

The thing is-

The thing is Adrien doesn’t actually mean to lie. Not at first anyway, but they have to keep their secret identities secret don’t they?

And his family, well, their tragedy is out there for the world to see and the world did see it.

One-shot. The more Chat lies about his life and his family, the more we learn about Adrien and see how he wishes his life was. And that chasm...really fucking hurts. I wish this sweet boy could have the kinds of relationships and family dynamics he lies about.

Partners by @karkalicious769

"Um." Alya fidgeted nervously as her earrings beeped their countdown. "Ask me a question that only Ladybug would know the answer to."

Chat Noir barred his teeth, and— Were they always that sharp? At least he wasn't growling again. "You are not Ladybug," he snapped.

"Just do it!"

It was all Alya had to go off of and she really needed to pull this partnership together before the akuma got any worse. She wasn't deluded enough to think that she could do this without Chat Noir.

One-shot. SPOILERS FOR HACK-SAN!!! And yet some more season 4 feels because let's be serious, this season is putting our kitty through the ringer. And this fic definitely does it, though by playing with the episode a little. Although we've got a tight Alya POV, Adrien's hurt and suffering is palpable, and made all the worse by how resigned he is. Read this and sufferrrrrr.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #ml fanfic #ml fic rec #adrienette #adrinette #ladynoir #marichat #angst #fic recs #jennarecsml

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ravennm84 · 4 years

Text

Serafina

Part 2 Part 3

Based on @unmaskedagain post “Marinette’s Haunted Doll” this is my take on the story and the kind of things Serafina would have done to get even. There’ll be three parts, and will hopefully be posted through the week. Blood, gore, and character death ahead. You have been warned.

She was seven years old when her Grandma Gina’s sister, Ramona, passed away. Marinette couldn’t remember ever meeting her. Her dad said that she was a very private person and didn’t get out much. Since she had never married or had any children, all of her relatives were asked to come over to the house and divide the property before the rest was sold and equally divided.

While her parents had been in the kitchen, looking over some family cook books, Marinette had wandered around the old house until she came to a small room. It was full of spiderwebs and old toys, which greatly interested her. She spent a long time looking through the boxes and shelves until she found a locked chest in the closet. Remembering the key she had seen in a dresser drawer, she retrieved it to see if it worked. It was hard to turn, but she heard the click and was able to open the lid. Inside was a box with an envelope laying on top of it. Curious she opened the envelope and read the note as best as she could.

“If I’m dead, Serafina killed me.”

Tilting her head in curiosity, Marinette set the letter aside and opened the box. Inside was an old looking porcelain doll. It was covered in spiderwebs, the dress was old and ripped, she was missing a shoe, and the hat looked like it was stained with red paint.

“Are you Serafina?” She asked the doll before carefully lifting it out of the box. “I don’t think you’re bad, you just look lonely. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of you!” Giving the doll a gentle hug, the little girl got to her feet and left the room and letter behind. Finding her parents, she asked if it was okay to take the doll home so she could take care of her.

Tom remembered seeing that doll when he was a kid and had always thought it was creepy, but if his little girl saw the good in it, he would trust her. And since none of the other relatives wanted anything to do with the doll, it came home with them.

Once home, the little girl raced up to her room with the doll and immediately got to work. She threw away the old dress, hat, and shoe before cleaning away all the dirt with a washcloth and carefully combing out the knotted hair. Then Marinette got to work on making Serafina a brand new outfit with new shoes and a hat. It took a few days, but she was really happy with what she came up with: a pink Victorian dress with rose and pearl accents, a wide brimmed hat with maroon feathers, and maroon slippers that tied with ribbons around the ankles.

Proud of what she had made, Marinette held the doll up high as she twirled around her room. She had been interested in fashion and clothes for months now, and making the pretty outfit for Serafina was a lot of fun. If anything, it proved to her that fashion design was what she wanted to do.

“I hope you like your new clothes, Serafina. You make the perfect little model, so I hope you don’t mind if I make more clothes for you later on. I promise to only make you clothes that will make you feel pretty.” Giving the doll a kiss, Marinette placed her next to her computer before skipping down stairs for dinner.

~oOo~

Serafina had not been expecting this when the young girl, Marinette, had opened her box. It had been decades since anyone had shown her any kindness. For so many years, she had been passed from person to person, shoved into boxes and hidden from sight or attempted to be sold off. Serafina had had no choice but to punish many of her past owners, and she had not been lax with their punishments.

But she didn’t feel the need to do that with Marinette, this girl was different. She wasn’t afraid of her. She didn’t scorn her and hide her away where no one could see her. No, this girl was kind and made Serafina feel loved; something she hadn’t felt in nearly a hundred years. Staying with Marinette, she knew that she would be happy. So, no one needed to die here.

And she was.

The porcelain doll smiled quietly on Marinette’s desk as the years passed, and felt more for this girl than she could remember with anyone else. She felt beautiful whenever Marinette used her to experiment with a new outfit before she would make a full sized outfit for herself. She had fun when the girl would sing and dance around the room, sometimes even picking her up so she could dance with her. She felt entertained when she would play movies on her computer, one time watching a movie about a haunted doll like herself; they didn’t watch much before she turned it off, but Serafina thought it was funny. Scratching people and leaving notes wasn’t scary, she had done much scarier things than that.

As Marinette grew into a teen, Serafina felt proud as she grew from a shy girl into a fearless superhero. Her owner had a lot of love and light to give, so it made sense to her that she became Ladybug. She also felt scared for the girl, not wanting to lose her to Hawkmoth, but silently promised her that if she was ever hurt, the people who hurt her would pay her back in blood.

Serafina was also aware of the tiny god that gave Marinette her power, just as Tikki was aware of her. No doubt, the god could sense the darkness that dwelled in her porcelain body, but realized that she cared for the girl and would not harm her. So the little god wisely said nothing, she would hate it if Marinette suddenly feared her.

After all, the three of them were happy and at peace.

Until the day Marinette came storming into her room, complaining about a girl named Lila. From what she could hear, this girl was a liar and was using her friends. Knowing how much her human cared for other people, that didn’t sit well with how it would affect her. Then she didn’t hear anything about the girl for months. But when she was mentioned again, it quickly got worse from there.

Serafina heard about the threats, the lies, almost being akumatized, her crush Adrien telling her to take the high road, all of it. She watched as one by one, her friends turned against her. Bullying her while accusing her of being a bully until only three of her classmates remained. She knew that the teacher and principal were useless and even accused Marinette of being a problem, especially after the expulsion. Serafina had nearly enacted her revenge that day, but held back when she was reinstated the next day.

Nathaniel, Rose, and Juleka were the only people left that believed her or even bothered to try and help in her class. There was also Kagami and Luka, Juleka’s brother. Serafina would admit, that boy was sharper than most. When he first saw her, his blue eyes studied her intently for a long moment until Marinette spoke up.

“That’s Serafina, she’s been passed down through my family for a long time. She was in really bad condition when I got her and took a lot of work to get her fixed up, but it was worth it. She was my first ever model and I’ve never felt lonely since she’s been around.”

Luka looked back over at the doll and gave her a smile. “I can tell, I’d bet no one gave her the proper love or attention until she came to you. And I think, if she could talk, she would say that you kept her from feeling lonely too, and all she wants is for you to be happy.”

Serafina liked that boy, a lot more than she had liked Adrien when he had come to play video games. The boy genuinely seemed to care for Marinette. And even though he could somehow sense that she was more than just a doll, he didn’t spill her secret. Yes, she approved of this one.

And then, less than a week after she returned to school, came the worst day. They were taking pictures at the school and Marinette had worked so hard on a new dress; it was pale purple cotton with teacup sleeves, a tulip skirt and pink lace at the hem. It was so sweet and looked like she was going to a spring tea party. Then half way through the day, she came into her room crying. Her makeup was smeared, there were bruises and scratch marks on her arms, another bruise on her cheek, her hair was a mess and covered in dark blue paint. The same paint that covered almost half of the dress. Tikki was doing her best to comfort the girl as she showered. Marinette was unable to save her dress and ended up throwing it away before she cried herself to sleep on her bed.

Serafina was angry, the kind of anger she hadn’t felt since Ramona had attempted to burn her in the fireplace… and that hadn’t gone well for her. Tikki flew over to face her. “I know what you’re thinking and I can’t condone you falling into old habits and killing her entire class. Despite how much they’ve hurt her, it would still break her heart if they all suddenly died.”

The doll actually considered that for a moment before picturing some very specific people. Lila, the liar that was trying to take away/destroy the person she cared about. Alya, the best friend that betrayed her, acted like a hypocrite, and took joy in hurting her. Adrien, the boy that not only broke his promise to help her as a civilian, but continually harassed her as a pseudo-hero. And finally, Hawkmoth, the person that was constantly putting her in danger. Everyone else that had harmed her would be punished, paying back the harm they had done to Marinette in blood, but those four would pay with their lives.

Tikki shook her head. “As angry as I am with Adrien, you can’t kill him. Marinette still has feelings for him and if he dies, she might never get over him. I can’t stop you from punishing them, but please try not to kill them. You know that she has a big heart and it would hurt her to lose any of them, so please keep that in mind.”

Serafina would have argued, but the little god was right. Killing around Marinette would only upset her. So she would do her best to punish them without killing them… although, accidents do happen.

~oOo~

It was easy enough to sneak herself into Marinette’s bag the next day of school. It was even easier to select her first victims. One of her classmates, Kim, stole her backpack and dumped out all of her stuff, including her. The boy laughed about Marinette bringing a doll to school as he ran up the stairs to keep it away from her. It took little effort to make the boy trip, in full view of everyone that had been watching, and fall backwards down the steps.

Serafina had landed at the top landing with a perfect view of the boy’s tumble, and it was oh so satisfying. She could see his knee bent in the wrong direction, a bone in his arm protruding from the skin, and blood dripping from the cuts and open wounds. But the sound was even better, all the cracking and popping of bone before he began crying like a little girl, begging for his mom. Ah, she hadn’t realized how much she had missed those sounds.

When the principal came out to see what was happening, she hid her presence and let the principal trip over her and fall as well. He even landed on Kim, causing more injuries to both of them. She held back a laugh as the grown man wailed and cried until the paramedics arrived. Loading the two into the ambulance while one of the teachers called the Board of Governors. A representative, M. Rupere, quickly came to take over the principal’s duties while he was gone, and was surprised when a bunch of students tried to blame Marinette for the incident.

“And how is it her fault?” He asked the students that surrounded him. “Did you see her push or trip M. Le Chien or M. Damocles down the stairs?

“Marinette brought in a doll and Kim was distracted by it when he was going up the stairs, that’s how he tripped and fell,” Lila told him with tears in her eyes. “Then M. Damocles tripped over the doll and fell down the stairs too. It’s just like how she pushed me down the stairs last week and I hurt my knee. I think she’s actually trying to hurt people.”

The man looked at Lila for a moment before looking to the top of the stairs, but there was no doll there. Then he looked back at Lila with a stern glare. “Young lady, if you had been pushed down the stairs last week, you would have been severely injured just like your friend or M. Damocles. And whether or not it was Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s doll that caused the incident or not, does not mean that she is at fault for the accident. To the principal’s office, right now. I think we should have a discussion as to why you are trying to blame another student for something she did not do.”

Totally shocked, the girl looked around to her followers for some support, but they were now looking at her with uncertainty. They had just seen two people fall down the stairs and receive severe injuries, so how was Lila walking around just fine without a scratch on her? Huffing in annoyance, Lila stomped her way to the office while the class stared after her, most of them noticing the lack of limp to her walk.

Serafina was pleased with how this was turning out, she had already punished two of the people that had betrayed Marinette and had begun sewing seeds of doubt with the liar. At the moment, she was hiding in the classroom, observing everyone so she could figure out the best way to punish them. She noticed Rose, Juleka, and Nathaniel sitting close to the girl and doing their best to comfort her. She also noticed Nino, a boy she had seen a couple of times over the years, casting looks back at Marinette.

During the first break, the boy cautiously approached her, clutching his hat in his hands. “Hey dudette, listen… I, um, wanted to say I was sorry,” he said, having a hard time looking her in the eye. “After Kim fell, what that Governor dude said about Lila not being hurt, and the fact that I’ve known you forever. I felt so stupid. You would never push someone down the stairs or cheat or steal from someone like that. And I tried looking up Jagged’s discography to see if there was any mention of a song about Lila, and there was literally nothing. I tried telling Alya, but she didn’t want to listen and-”

Nino was interrupted by Marinette giving him a hug. Serafina smiled at that. The boy had thought for himself and admitted that he was wrong. He apologized and Marinette was willing to offer him forgiveness. She supposed that Nino could also be exempt from punishment, so long as he never betrayed the girl again.

Half way through the second lesson, Lila had returned to the class with two weeks worth of detention and had a meeting scheduled with herself, M. Rupere, and her mother at the end of the week. Serafina decided to let the girl’s empire fall before going in to completely destroy her.

During lunch, when all the students had left. Serafina got to work on punishing Mme. Bustier. She started by slamming the door shut, it made the woman jump and look around the room, but there was no one there. Then the giggling started, causing her to look around the room again. This time, she walked up the steps to see if anyone was hiding in the room, but she was completely alone. When she turned back to her desk, the papers she had been grading were torn to pieces. A bit panicked, Bustier tried to run out of the room, but the door was locked. As she struggled with the door, she heard the scraping of chalk and froze for a moment before looking at the board. Large words were scrawled in block letters: LIAR, ENABLER, MEAN, CRUEL, and the most frightening of all, YOU WILL PAY.

Bustier’s hands were shaking as she erased the words from the board, not understanding what was happening. Only taking a breath when the door opened and her students began to file in. Serafina quietly laughed at the teacher’s fear, she was another person that she would take her time in punishing. Payback for failing to help Marinette. For now, it was time to take out her biggest supporter.

Again, it was much easier than it should have been to sneak herself in Alya’s backpack and go home with her. When the girl found her she sneered. “The klutz must have put you in my bag by mistake.” Then she smiled cruelly at her. “I think I’ll give you to Etta and Ella to play with before giving you back to Maribrat, maybe tell them that you need a makeover and give them some permanent markers too.”

Turning to take the doll out to her sisters, she stubbed her toe on her desk chair hard enough that she felt a crack and dropped back on her butt while hissing in pain. When she was finally able to think past the pain, she realized that she had dropped the doll and didn't see it on the floor. After wrapping her foot, she looked all over her room but couldn’t find it anywhere.

That night, things got… more than scary. Alya was absolutely terrified.

First, her computer turned on, on its own, and started printing off papers saying “YOU KNOW THE TRUTH”. She turned the computer off, only for it to turn back on after she’d climbed into bed and the browser pulled up past searches; specifically, the searches that proved that Lila had been lying. She had found that out after Lila had disappeared from school for months, but had kept to herself so she wouldn’t lose her credibility on her blog or have to admit to Marinette that she’d been right. Turning it off again, she’d decided to sleep on the couch when her phone suddenly let out a hiss and burst into flames.

Letting out a shriek, Alya rushed to her door, and had just barely opened it when it slammed shut on her fingers, causing her to scream as she struggled to pull her hand free. She could hear her parents and Nora shouting on the other side of the door, trying to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Her head got fuzzy and she suddenly felt cold, she realized that she was going into shock. Her parents’ shouts became garbled background noise and Alya heard the sound of tiny feet running around the room. She tried reaching the light switch so she could see, but it was out of reach.

From the light outside her window, she could barely make out the movement of a small shadow, moving from one part of the room to another. Coming closer and closer to her with every sweep. Alya began tugging harder on the doorknob and her hand. She needed to get out. Something was in the room with her. She could almost feel the darkness creeping closer. It wanted to hurt her!

What happened next, Serafina couldn’t have planned better if she’d tried. Alya jerked back her trapped arm and the doorknob at the same time Nora threw her shoulder into the door as hard as she could. Sending the teenagers flying into her bedside table and her head hitting the corner with an audible *crack*. The doll smiled silently in the corner of the room as the paramedics were called and listened to her parents cries for their horrid daughter to wake up. They called time of death at 2:03am.

~oOo~

It was a bit more of a chore for Serafina to get back to the school, but it was still manageable as her mother had to inform the school of her daughter’s death and pick up her things. The woman had also noticed the information that had been brought up on Alya’s computer and thought that she had been up late chasing a lead. And as the lead had to do with the disturbing behavior of one of her daughter’s classmates, she thought it best to show the acting principal the information before taking her leave.

Making her way back to the classroom, she saw that the news had spread already. Nino seemed to be hit the hardest, as it was his girlfriend, but he would get over it. Kim was still out of class, and likely would be for a few more days. Tikki saw the doll when she was peeking out of the purse and gave her a disapproving glare, but there was nothing she could do. And in Serafina’s defense, she had only intended on maiming the failed journalist, her death had been an “accident”.

When class let out for lunch, Serafina got back to work tormenting Mme. Bustier. Today, the door slammed and locked shut a few minutes after the last student left. The woman shrieked and was struggling to open the door when the giggling started again. Bustier started screaming for it to “go away” but the giggling continued. Turning back to the door, books began flying at her from all over the room, hitting her chest, back, arms since they were shielding her head.

Then the door opened to show a panicked looking M. Rupere. “I heard screaming, are you alright?” The red haired teacher looked extremely frazzled; her hair was a mess, eyes wide and dilated, and her hands were shaking.

“The books,” she said in a trembling voice. “There was giggling, the door wouldn’t open, and the books attacked me. And this was the second time!”

His eyebrows rose to his hairline as he stared at the woman. “Did you see who was throwing the books at you?”

Bustier shook her head in a frantic manner. “There was no one, the books just started flying at me after the giggling.”

Giving her a slow nod, Rupere gently motioned her to step out of the room ahead of him. “How about you take the rest of the day to recover? Some rest will do you some good.”

To his relief, Mme. Bustier agreed and collected her purse before leaving the school. Looking around the room, he was confused to see all the books in place on the shelves. Curious, he went to examine her desk and saw essay papers… covered in red ink with large “F’s” on every one of them. Reading the paper on top, all he saw were a few grammar mistakes, nothing that should have resulted in a failing grade. A bit unsettled, Rupere called the Board to schedule a psychological exam for the teacher. Serafina watched the man with satisfaction, at the rate she was going with that terrible teacher, she wouldn’t be around much longer.

Her next victims were Max and Alix during science class. She switched a couple of labels on the tubs on their desk before hiding in the room to enjoy the show. Half-way through class, Max poured a large amount of reactive chemical into the mix while it was warming over a burner, and the glass exploded. The two screamed and cursed in pain as Max tried wiping the liquid away from his face, only succeeding in getting more in his eyes. Alix tried wiping it away with a cloth, not noticing in time that the fabric was also soaked in the chemicals that now covered her entire face.

Serafina was impressed with how quickly Mme. Mendeleiev reacted to the incident. Doaning on gloves in an instant and leading the two students to the chemical wash station. Both students looked to have chemical burns on their faces, arms and necks. She could already see the burns covering a large amount of their exposed skin. While the class was distracted, Serafina switched the labels back so it would appear that the two had not been doing as instructed.

When school let out, the doll hid away in Mylene’s bag and ended up going on a date with the girl and Ivan. They commented on the bad luck their class seemed to be having and wondered out loud at what the cause might have been.

Mylene was hesitant to speak as the two ate their ice cream. “Do you think… maybe it’s karma coming back on our class?”

“Why do you think that?” Ivan asked her, seeming genuinely curious. Deciding that their conversation might lead to something more, Serafina waited and listened.

“It’s just… ever since Kim fell down the stairs, it’s got me thinking. Lila says that Marinette pushed her but the only injury she says she got was a bad knee, and she’s been walking around fine since then. And then she tried blaming Marinette for Kim and M. Damocles, when Kim shouldn’t have been running up the stairs and M. Damocles tripped at the top of the stairs when she was still down in the courtyard.”

“You’re right, now that I think about it. Lila lied to that new principal and she did it really easy.” Ivan nodded slowly, his brow creased as he pulled out his phone. “I wonder if she lied about anything else.” Mylene watched over his shoulder as he looked up the story about saving Jagged Stone’s kitten from an airplane. There was nothing, the only article that came up about a pet was his crocodile, Fang. The story said that he had hatched the reptile himself seventeen years earlier and any other pet wouldn’t be as rock’n’roll as Fang. “I don’t think Jagged ever had a cat, this article says that he’s only had Fang for longer than we’ve been around.”

Mylene pulled out her phone and called Rose, putting the call on speaker when she answered.

“Hi Mylene, did you hear anything about Max and Alix? Are they going to be okay?” The girl asked as soon as she picked up.

“Ivan and I haven’t heard anything about them yet, but we have a question for you, Rose, and it’s something only you would be able to answer.”

There was a slight pause on the line. “Go ahead.”

“Do you still chat with Prince Ali?”

“Sure I do! We video chat every Saturday and I send him videos of our performances with Kitty Section. Why do you ask?”

“Ivan and I were wondering… Has he ever mentioned Lila to you?”

There was another pause, although they could hear a hushed conversation in the background. “So, you guys figured out the truth about Lila?” When they didn’t respond right away, Rose continued. “I found out a few weeks after Lila says she came back from Achu. I mentioned Lila to Ali and asked him about the charities they had been working on together, but he’d never heard of her. And Ali is only working on charities involving children, nothing with the environment. When Juleka and I tried asking Lila about it, she got really mean and threatened us if we told anyone. I would have been akumatized if Marinette hadn’t been there to calm me down.”

Ivan and Mylene were horrified, not only had Lila been lying to them, but she had threatened Rose, Juleka, and probably Marinette too. “What should we do?”

“First, you should apologize to Marinette for how you’ve been treating her and let her know that you know the truth.” They heard Juleka over the phone. “Lila has been more terrible to her than anyone else and she keeps getting in Lila’s way to protect us and Nathaniel since we know the truth about her.”

“Who all knows?” Ivan asked, feeling a bit sick to his stomach. Sure, he and Mylene hadn’t really hurt her or done anything, but they hadn’t stood up for her either and they were supposed to be her friend.

“Us, Luka, Kagami, Nathaniel figured it out when she said she could introduce him to Stan Lee, Nino figured it out yesterday, and Adrien’s apparently known from the start but didn’t say anything because he doesn’t think her lies are hurting anybody.”

Both of them could hear the acid in Juleka’s voice when she mentioned Adrien, and they couldn’t argue with her. They knew he had led a sheltered life, but how could he claim that ‘lies don’t hurt anybody’ after sitting back and watching Lila and her friends torment and bully Marinette?

Mylene hadn’t even realized that she had asked that question out loud until Rose answered them. “He told us that it was Marinette’s own fault for antagonizing Lila, and ‘If she just took the high road like I told her, then Lila would leave her alone’. It took everything I had not to slap him.”

Coming from Rose, that really was saying something.

Serafina was then taken on a shopping trip to an arts supplies store, a card shop, and a stop at an ATM before going to Marinette’s family’s bakery. She smiled quietly and with great respect to the couple as they apologized to her girl, gave her cards, an entire bolt of soft purple cotton the same color that her ruined dress had been, a new sketchbook, and money to pay her back for some of the things that Marinette had given them over the past year. They even asked her to provide them with proper receipts, and admitted that they knew the amount they had given her wasn’t enough to cover everything. But they promised to pay her back before asking for anything else, as well as pay in advance for any future items or baked goods.

The little doll would have cried right along with Marinette if she could. These two had proven themselves to her and would avoid punishment, just as Nino had.

Taglist (it’s a long one):

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#marinette dupain cheng #Marinette deserves better #alya salt #lila karma #lila salt #lila gets exposed #bustier salt #class salt #class redemption #adrien salt

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