#did SAMG made this?

[kochengnoir]

Ladybug vs Argos 😧🛐

[gentil-minou]

"also all the drama behind the scenes and the idea of creator/intellectual property versus the company idea, it doesnt sit well with me."

What drama?

i was on hiatus from the fandom when this stuff was being talked about and only heard through the grapevine later on but to my understanding the reason the movie was made was cause zag wanted to tell his story while the writers did not agree with his ideas and so he was like i'll just make my own movie

and then he pretty much put all the funding into his movie instead of the show leading to the really awful animation quality we had in the second and third seasons and why SAMG stopped animating so many episodes.

BUT DONT QUOTE ME ON THAT THAT'S ALL HEARSAY AND SPECULATION it could be totally false i have no idea just gossip. and as a rule i always side with the creator/writers and not the guy who has trust fund money

also let this be known i do not care if you see the movie or not i genuinely hope you enjoy and have a great time. i just hope people don't spoil for those who want to wait to see it in cinemas and that we be a bit more respectful to the people whose time and energy went into making this movie, by ya know not illegally filming a bad bootleg version of it

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Hey so I’m listening to the miraculous ladybug episode and you keep saying South Korea, I’m wondering did you mean Japan? Since Toei is a anime company so I’m imagining it would be Japan not Korea?

Also about the fan translation culture, you should look at 90s and 2000s anime community since those fans translated a lot.

Also I would just watch the main show, the Netflix things I’m pretty sure are non canon but idk

Sorry if I’m misunderstanding

Nope, it's a French-Korean show! Toei is indeed Japanese, but SAMG is Korean and the original language(s) that it was made in were French and Korean. :) You can read more about it from a very knowledgeable Miraculous fan on reddit here!

Thanks for asking!

[velvetiivenus]

*UPDATED* Evolution of Miraculous!

Note: so somehow I completely missed out on the 2010 "Miraculous Lady Bug" era, so I had to remake this pist with it included. Sorry! (Also, I'm sorry I haven't posted after my first post, I've been extremely busy since then, but I have lots of ideas for posts for you all!)

Hello! This post is basically the evolution of Miraculous, from The Mini Menace Ladybug in 2005 to the current show today! I'll be explaining each "generation" of the show's production, the fandom surrounding it, and where to find more information. I hope you enjoy! 😊

The Mini Menace Ladybug (2005)

Thomas Astruc first came up with the ideo of Ladybug when he was working on animating the show W.I.T.C.H and met a women with a ladybug shirt. They started passing notes, and one of them was a drawing Astruc made of her as a ladybug-themed superhero. This insipired Astruc to make more fake comic book covers, and he was originally going to make it into a comic book series similar to Spider-man. I don't think there were going to be any magical girl elements at all.

Marinette was actually named Marietta, and the series was going to be much darker, as we can see from covers like "Insecticide". Marietta was probably an adult (in an unamed cover, she is seen driving a car) . She probably didn't hide her superhero identity (her car is literally red with black spots...). Cat Noir's design looked much more similar to Snake Noir's from Miracle Queen. Then Astruc met Jeremy Zag, who was interested in making a cartoon about this concept, which leads on to the next generation. Sadly, there's barely any information about the fake comic book covers out there, and all I could find was the Miraculous Wiki page and a small paragraph on Wikipedia. I don't think there's much of a fandom out there, if at all. Moving on...

Miraculous Lady Bug (2010)

Around 2010, plans started to be made for a movie (and possibly a spin-off series) about Ladybug (at the time named "Lady Bug"). The movie would have been part of a trilogy and there were even plans for a comic book series based on these films. It's unknown if Chat Noir even existed in this concept, and I don't think Tikki and Plagg existed since they were probably introduced by Toei (who probably also introduced the transformations and all the other magical girl stuff). Félix didn't exist, and instead we had a character called Nathan. There is no concept art or information about Nathan apart from his name and that he was part of "the gym club", and since we don't know if Chat Noir existed in this concept he probably wasn't Chat Noir. I don't think there's any information on this era in the Ladybug Artbook, all I could find was the picture above and a page on the Miraculous Wiki.

Super Lady Luck/Early Development Era (2012)

So this one is kind of hard to explain, since it overlaps with later stages of development a lot. The concept was very vague, but this is when we first started seeing Félix...

(Note: the picture above might not actually be from this era. Some people believe that the top half of the picture shows Nathan instead of Félix (and that the art was later redrawn in the PV style), which means that Nathan could have been Chat Noir.)

Once again, since this overlaps with other stages of development a lot, I can't really explain it. Information on this "era" is even harder to find than on The Mini Menace Ladybug. There's actually much more information/concept art/whatever out there, but it's really hard to find. The two main sources for information about this era are the Ladybug Artbook and the game Super Lady Luck. Sadly, Super Lady Luck (also known as "Miraculous" or "Ladybug Adventures") was Flash-based and became unplayable in 2020, and the Ladybug Artbook is only available in Korean and is extremely hard to find (SAMG said they'd publish an English version in 2017, but they never did >:(... )

Quantic Kids (2012)

The Quantic Kids (also known as The Quantic Squad or The Quantic Team) was an early concept where Ladybug and Chat Noir were part of a team of superheroes. Originally the team consisted of Ladybug, Chat Noir, Melodie (a music-themed superhero), Mercury (a superhero with super speed), and Sparrow (who was brought back in the New York Special). Later another member, Gavroche, was added, and Sparrow was replaced by Kid Mime. The concept didn't help sell the idea to producers, whic resulted in Ladybug and Chat Noir staying as a duo. The Quantic Kids actually have a small fandom, with many people coming up with headcanons for their civilian identities. Once again, most information about this era comes from Super Lady Luck and The Artbook. (Please, SAMG, just give us the English version already...)

Miraculous PV (2012-2013)

This is probably the most well-known stage of development. Two trailers were released, one in 2012 (the one that everyone knows!) and one in 2013 (basically the same as the original, but in a different order, with added text and new music). Funnily enough, the original leaked video was never referred to as "Miraculous PV"- it was actually titled "Lady Bug Japanese Version". This was going to be much darker than the current show. Félix wasn't actually related to the PV version of Hawk Moth, Papillon (also known as The Butterfly or Monarch). The concepts of the miraculous were good luck (sometimes called "pure luck" by some sources) and bad luck, instead of creation and destruction. Félix wasn't originally in love with Ladybug- he was cursed with bad luck, and the only way to get rid of it was by getting Ladybug to kiss him- but eventually, he would end up actually falling in love with Ladybug. Sadly, this version was never produced because of worries that it wouldn't sell, and animation problems, like Ladybug's spots. Obviously, the best source of information is the original videos, but there's lots of info in The Artbook, as well (I know I've said this before, but PLEASE SAMG GIVE US THE ENGLISH VERSION. OR AT LEAST A REPRINT. ANYTHING. PLEASEEEE).

(Also, Bridgette was never actually a character. It was Marinette all along. I'm not hating on Bridgette, I love her as a fanon character, just thought I'd point this out).

Later Development (2014)

Around this time it was decided to switch to CGI, and we got this cute, alternative CGI-style transformation (if you want to watch it, you can find it on YouTube, but I forgot what it's called). Around this time, Félix was replaced by Adrien, because he came off as an "anime cliché" and it was thought that Marinette would never fall for someone like him.

Originally Adrien was supposed to walk with a cane, but this was scrapped as the writers didn't trust themselves to write him well. This era has the smallest amount of information on it. Apart from the CGI transformation, the only other information we have is a very short trailer in the alternative CGI style and a few pages of The Artbook (I'd say something about it, but I don't want to annoy you all:)).

Current Show (2015-Present)

I'm not going to say much here, since I'm assuming you already watch Miraculous if you're reading this post! 😁

I hope this post helped explain the basics about the development of Miraculous!

[blueberry-macaron]

I'm sorry, like seriously sorry but what the hell did they do to Luka's model in determination? He looks pale as a sheet and the screenshots of the lukanette post you have made me question that episode harder then Adrien supposed feelings by 5 seconds. Doing Luka dirty is this episode's end game I swear.

Have to agree, Luka only looks good in SAMG episodes (and I think he looked decent in Wishmaker).

Maybe ZAG was afraid people might simp too hard for him if he's too good looking? Or they ran out of budget bc of the agreste kitchen or smth /j

[leslie-lyman]

Welcome home Les! For the ask game: A and L 🖤

Thank you Cat!! 🥰

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

For Stranger At My Gate:

This movie is such a love letter to cooking and food, and the way this song plays at the end of the film over the happy ending, everyone warm and cozy and happy and enjoying an amazing meal and being together, is exactly the vibe I envision for the end of SAMG. I listened to this song a LOT while writing the last chapter, and if I listen to it while reading the last 20% or so of that chapter TO THIS DAY I will get teary.

L. Which character did you most write about this year, and why do you like ‘em?

Well since I wrote and posted the last four chapters of SAMG this year, it has to be Pero Tovar.

Oh man, why do I like Pero?

Honestly, at first…I didn’t. I didn’t dislike him, I just didn’t dwell on him much. I spent a lot more time watching and thinking and writing about more prominent Pedro boys. But then I figured out the rough plot of SAMG, and realized I could play around with a time-travel situation with him. And it was over the course of writing that story that I really fell in love with him. We don’t get much about him from the source material, so I got to shape most of the details about him and how he would react to our time myself, and I enjoyed that a lot.

At his core, he’s a grumpy, hungry mercenary, but one who clearly cares about William and openly risks his life for him. There’s a good man and a good heart somewhere underneath all that scowling and poor hygiene. He’s a brave, skilled warrior; he’s dangerous. He’s got a dry, sarcastic wit. He is, sometimes, a little bit of an idiot, but that’s okay. He’s so. Fucking. Broad. He’s tailor-made for the “grumpy man who is soft for one (1) woman” trope that is one of my all-time favorites to both write and read about. Tbh it’s actually surprising I didn’t fall for this man far sooner than I did!

I mean, look at this:

I never stood a chance.

[theinvisibledoodlewizard]

So Deserver not Canon to Blorbotverse, Understands. Deserver Not SamG.

Nope! Hehe.

I made the Deserver an aged up Eileen the Birthday girl from Word Girl. I always thought it’d be fun to think about what the kids did when they were older. :3

[yunyin]

Production frustration and creative respect

I'm frustrated that production didn't value all those lovely little animation nuances that SAMG did in s1. They make s1 so lively and charming, and I've missed it all so much! There have been nicely animated episodes since then, but as a whole you really do feel the budget cuts.

At the same time, this isn't a dig on the creative side. IDK if you guys have ever seen it but some of the production art is on ArtStation and there's one in particular that shows that the creative team is trying to make something as high quality as time/budgets allow.

Alexandre Grynagier worked on some of the models in s2, such as the Liberty ship and the Cesaire's apartment. Here are some of the comments he made on them.

"Allya's flat. It was a tough thing to design, as we needed a HD textured version within two weeks. This meant there was not time at all for design..."

"Liberty control deck. It features an insane amount of details for a low cost serie."

"Liberty 's main deck. The amount of detail is something i never reached before, as each prop can be taken individually and stand on its own. Crazy stuff for series design."

"Liberty's lower deck. Here again, this was a huge amount of work, and quite an unusual too, as anything can be shot in close up. Usually, series nether get that far in definition, or require the help from sevral other artist to get to this result."

"Liberty's lower deck, main living quarters. The amount of details is quite crazy, and it took me around 6 weeks to provide all of the HD elements required, including HD textures for all the posters on the walls."

It def gives me a sense of what the people making the show are dealing with, and esp as a person who is involved in creative work, I respect how hard they're trying to make the best of what they have.

[moonlitceleste]

Miraculous New York

Okay, so I didn’t know what to expect from the New York special. And let me just say I was actually pleasantly surprised because I liked it??

I thought it was going to be super cringey and stupid and have a ton of plot holes but like... it wasn’t?? For the first time in a while I enjoyed official Miraculous Ladybug content (since Maribat doesn’t count).

But it’s like ZAG actually listened to our critiques. 

Like, let me list a few great points from the episode.

Cat Noir actually listened to Ladybug’s requests at the beginning. He was thoughtful and seemed to, FOR ONCE, understand that she didn’t have to return his feelings. And instead of pressuring her like he’s done in previous seasons, he kept on giving her roses until he found one that wasn’t romantic that she would accept.

WHAT WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR: Marinette starting to get over Adrien!! Or at least realizing that obsessing over him wouldn’t get her anywhere. I was so worried that she’d spazz out the whole time and never be able to talk to him (like she does in the regular show), but she was able to muster up the confidence and even show her “Ladybug” side. (I did enjoy the short Luka cameo as well).

Introducing new heroes, and especially the option of not hiding one’s identity was super cool! The dichotomy of the ones in New York, who were able to live their life with their identities out in the open, compared to Marinette and Adrien was nice.

Cat Noir and the viewers finally realizing what his cataclysm can do to a person as well as realizing the devastation that could occur if Ladybug can’t use her cure—amazing!! I do think if Chat used cataclysm on a person rather an an android they would still be revived by the cure. Ladybug technically brings people back to life after every akuma attack; what’s different about cataclysm?

I really liked the explanation about how Ladybug’s cure works, because it seems like we’re finally starting to delve into the more technical parts of their powers and learning more.

There’s good animation—I think it’s SAMG but can’t be sure? I’m glad ZAG decided to go with whatever studio they did, because it really made the episode better.

The representation was great! I mean, mom and mom?? POC and different cultures?? ZAG was pretty good about it before but they really took this opportunity and used it.

Those were all really good parts of the show, but what really made me love this special was the development.

I was so scared the show would never get back on track based on what happened in seasons 2 and 3, but I feel like ZAG actually listened to the audience and improved.

This episode actually changed my opinion on Ladynoir. Not romantically, exactly, but just their dynamic. I never really felt like they were partners at all; Chat was useful from time to time but ultimately all he did was hinder Ladybug. It seemed like in the show all she did was fix his mistakes while he goofed around and attempted to pressure her into returning his feelings.

But it actually made me really sad when Adrien gave up the ring. You could clearly see Marinette’s devastation and anguish at losing her partner, and the animation for this scene was great.

I felt like I could really see just how important Chat is to her, and the bonding in this episode was top-notch.

Now, moving onto Adrienette:

I’m so happy that Marinette is finally making an effort to just chill out. Like, girl should have done that seasons ago. (Still love her though!)

It was nice to see Alya being a good friend to Marinette; same with Nino for Adrien. Marinette was a little awkward at times, but it’s still a huge improvement from what she was like before.

I’ve definitely already seen jokes about the sheer amount of times they said “friend” in this episode, but it actually made me happy. If thinking of Adrien as "just a friend” is what will help Marinette develop a deeper bond with him, I’m all for it!

And arguably the best part of the whole episode: THERE’S NO LILA!

Okay, I know she was there in the beginning, but at least she wasn’t there for the whole episode. That would have been infuriating.

Overall, I feel like the characters and their bonds with one another were fleshed out and explored lot more in this episode, and it was super nice to watch! It made everyone feel more real and defined, which definitely upped the emotional impact.

To be honest, the concept of the Shanghai Special is still eh to me. I don’t really like the idea of there being a whole new species of kwami cousins because it seems a bit forced; it’s like they’re pulling new ideas out of thin air in an effort to compensate for something. But based on the New York special, maybe it won’t be so bad. And maybe this is a sign that future seasons of Miraculous will be looking up too!

[hezuart]

....I miss the days when we had good cartoons and good stories or actual role models on TV, like Last Airbender and Teen Titans. Miraculous Ladybug. No. It's not that good, and the role model part, hell no. Like, You have Marinette, who is supposed to be the main protagonist, and she has friends AND her parent's approval of stalking him! Only one episode did someone find this weird and who may that person be? Alix in the episode where the baby is super tall and a giant, and then Rose said it was romantic. Like no! No! That is not okay! Stalking someone and calling it romantic! It's freakin Twilight all over again. A stalker vampire who is manipulative and a***ive, and then there is the werewolf who doesn't know boundaries. I liked Marinette in the episode Origins, where we got to know the character, OUTSIDE of her stalking. That was when she was likable and actually had some character outside of Adrien and stalking.

Adrien, he was a bit interesting, back in that episode, he wanted to go to school and make friends, while his dad was locking him up, unable to make friends after the death of his wife. But then...now we have stalking Maricreep and a cardboard cutout.

Oh! Oh! The icing on this crap cake of a show is the creator. I won't tell everything, but...I'll list a few things he's done - Claimed he and his team make better designs than Pixar( Way to insult the studio that pioneered the very form of animation Miraculous Ladybug uses today, Astruc, and he makes a huge risk, considering Disney is airing his show) -Deemed Chloe irredeemable, even though there is PLENTY of time to redeem her!

-He criticized Wonder Woman 1984, for having things that happened in the show, End of the movie, was exactly the same thing that happened at the end of Season 3.

There is much more, but their sensitive things involve horrible things, and I don't want to list them all. I can't watch this show, without getting mad. I'll laugh a bit because it's so stupid and their stories are laughable. Like nothing in the show matters, and the plot is so inconsistent. The things that made it interesting and had unique premises, like you said. But now...ugh. This show is leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth, I wanna rant about Kingdom Hearts again, and how it doesn't make sense lol

I don't know about Marinette being a role model, but the writing of her character is certainly... not great.

I've heard some things about the creator of the series myself, none of which were very good.

Honestly though, aside from writing, there's several other reasons why ML is a mess. It all involves the production of it.

It has like... three animation studios behind it which explains the inconsistent animation and jumbled airdates. It's a "joint effort by France's Zagtoon and Method Animation Studios with Toei Animation of Japan and SAMG Animation of South Korea."

So right off the bat there's going to be translation issues and inconsistency.

Miraculous Ladybug was originally pitched in 2D

The main characters were "Bridgette" and "Felix". The creators realized that Felix is too cold hearted / uninterested in Bridgette which doesn't make sense why she would crush on him. His Chat Noir personality was fine though. As to why Felix was cold hearted is most likely because of how he grew up with his father, isolated and unwanted. While I agree Felix needs more spark to him for Bridgette's crush to be believable, instead, the creators completely erased him and replaced him with a cardboard cut-out of a boy named Adrien who just lets his dad abuse him and doesn't see anything wrong with it and still loves him. While the Felix in the pilot already realizes his relationship with his dad is a lost cause.

The pilot was a completely different, but balanced dynamic.

Bridgette was actually super open about her feelings. Felix found her constant stalking/crushing annoying and did his best to ignore her, just like Ladybug does to his Chat Noir personality.

So it wasn't like Felix was the bad guy here, their level of interest was the same! Their dynamics were the same!

Instead, in the 3D version, Adrien, instead of not being interested in Marinette, he is indifferent to her / ignorant of her crush / thinks of her as just a friend / does not realize she has feelings for him. It is so obvious to everyone except for him that she likes him, and he doesn't find her annoying in the slightest, meanwhile, Ladybug gets to think Chat Noir Is annoying all she wants. It's unbalanced.

So Felix was completely replaced.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

THE CREATORS ARE LIKE??? YEAH NO ACTUALLY FELIX STILL EXISTS AND HE MIGHT BE ADRIEN'S COUSIN OR BROTHER OR SOMETHING ???

that's not weird or confusing at all!! The hell?? Why is this even necessary? He's even more of a jerk in the canon series!

On top of that, the early versions of ML renders were superior.

Marinette initially had black hair for her 3D render but the show runners were like "no make it a weird blue" and we got this

On top of that, allegedly there's a cinematic movie in the works with a DOZEN leaks

Meanwhile there's another project the studio has been working on called "Pixie Girl" (which may or may not have been considered an ML spin off or gotten a crossover at some point) that was set to release in 2019, but three years later there's been no news.

Also I'm in love with this Witch boy and if they change his design I will die

Yeah so in conclusion the entire production of ML has been hell and it certainly doesn't help that the initial superior ideas and concept art are overwritten by bad writers

[theroyalmisfitmess]

Review on “The Heirs”

Part 2: Choi Young Do—a compelling second lead that didn’t give me the second-lead syndrome

Before anyone goes and attacks me over my controversial statement, let me clarify that I absolutely adore Young Do’s character development and overall arc. However, this doesn’t mean the second-lead syndrome was felt. Oftentimes, over our love for some characters our judgement can get clouded—something I try to avoid a lot. So let me tell you why despite the enjoyable arc of Young do, I did not get the second-lead syndrome.

Let’s first talk about Young Do’s personal arc. His personal arc was about abandonment. Not only was he abandoned by his mother, he had a father with an iron-fist and felt betrayed by his best friend’s reveal about being a mistress’ son (which honestly, it was wrong of him to blame Tan for because Tan is an innocent product of a mistake). When Tan left for the US, he became the alpha guy at school which he used to hide his character flaws. From hiding behind his grief through malicious actions, he slowly learned to open up and be better. He learned to forgive and let go of things that are out of his control. His arc was beautiful, and when he finally met up with his mom at the last episode, it came to a full circle of satisfaction.

Now, despite the painful backstory that comes with Young Do, why did I not get second-lead syndrome? Firstly, it may have to do with the fact that I despised him initially. As much as I love Young Do he was a complete asshole before we found out about his backstory. Of course this changed, because I grew to love his character. But on a more technical argument, I couldn’t find any reason to ship him with Eun-sang because there really wasn’t a ‘you-deserve-better’ moment for the second lead. What I got from Young Do was a ‘you deserve your own Eun-sang’. It must also be taken into account that Eun-sang never lead Young Do on—she made it clear from the very start that what she wanted was friendship.

Apart from what I had just mentioned, Young Do was extremely abusive and borderline harassing Eun-samg and other people. Remember the broadcast room scene? Some people call Tan “possessive” of Eun-sang, but I don’t see it as that way. Tan has every right to be wary and angry with Young do because when Young do gets violent, Eun-sang gets really uncomfortable. Now, I am not excusing Tan’s violent behavior but most of his violent behavior stems from the fact that his girlfriend is being borderline harassed. To add, unlike Young-do, Tan never used violence to get Eun-sang to notice or like him.

In connection to what I had just mentioned, it must be noted how much Young-do and Tan actually parallel each other. Enter my third point: the final reason why I didn’t get second-lead syndrome from Young-do is his methods and motives. Again, Tan and Young-do are pretty similar in terms of what they’re going through. However, Tan’s methods of coping aren’t intentionally trying to hurt people. Aside from that, he matured and is always trying to be better than who he used to be. With Young-do, however, he is always trying to hurt people. It was satisfying to see him grow past that but it’s not enough to make you root for him to be Eun-sang’s boyfriend.

I’m gonna wrap it up here. Again, I absolutely love Young-do (the dog lover revelation was an A+ too) but his personal arc overshadowed him being a typical second-lead to ever feel second-lead syndrome from him. It’s nice to see that he and Tan became best friends again in the time skip/future scene though!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this analysis. Will post another one soon where I might talk about Kim Won’s love story and arc.

[everythings-a-feather]

ok so now that we have the whole season I redid the tier list (I belive by @polkadotbrat)

and very quick thoughts, these were supposed to be a sentence each but I couldnt help myself

ma poule tier- its all the felix episodes cuz I am only invested in him at this point) strike back may be my overall fav this season cuz I was torn between wanting felix to be the dog and the peacock but strike back let me have my cake and eat it too also ik that felix giving hawkie the whole miracle box is like an awful betrayal or whatever but the miraculous zoo is gone thank god tho the ladynoir moment had me feeling empty and I just cant empathise with marinette at all at this point because none of the things she actually fucked up this whole season blew up in her face she just got played by felix and honestly good for felix. Also isnt lucky charms whole thing "it gives you what you need not what you want" and it pointed at felix, when Marinette could have picked up Adrien from the past TM before risk was active instead of Felix whos just unaffected. tho maybe its just that in Felix the episode its established that he can throw with dead accuracy so the lucky charm lead her to felix because hes good at throwing??? idk man ML is weird with this stuff

silver medal- Psychomedian almost made it to ma poule because ladynoir my formerly beloved but as my investment in them as of end of season 4 is dead its getting knocked down a tier. Crocoduel, purple tigress my beloved. Glaciator 2, Marichat shenanigans were very fun. WIshmaker, I like luka in this one and if the show pretends ephemeral never happened and he gets to do actual things I might actually like luka overall. Rocketear, angst my beloved, spawned good fics, detective nino was funny.

did something for someone- Gang of Secrets, eh honestly idc but the adressing of Marinette being stressed is nice, Hack-san, I liked scarabella and chats dynamic, please let there be canon bridgette so that felila is guaranteed to never happen tho canon bri will also need a personality shift (maybe be more Lawful Good than she already was to balance Felix being chaos energy?). Optigami- smart plan ig. Mister Pigeon 72, all it did was convince me that it should have been Marigami and Lukeadrien not Adrigami and Lukanette tbh, Hawkmoth x Mr Pigeon my... I wanna say crack ship beloved but I seriously think Feluka could work and Im not sure if theyre aware of each others existence since Luka isnt in Adriens class (Im not rewatching "Felix" to confirm this). Sentibubbler, congrats Alya stans? closest to being in the next tier

(un) bothered- Dearest family, I had hopes but the episode is eh. Furious Fu- Order of the guardians should have stayed dead. Guilt trip- Marinette... please Adrien almost has this covered. Penalteam, eh, powers underutilised here, tho I really like Penalty. Megaleech, SAMG was wasted on this episode. Truth and Lies- (total deadpan) oh no Lukanette and Adrigami the two ships we saw develop so much on screen and I was completely emotionally invested in and that the NY special didnt tell us broke up immediately after they started dating, seriously tho I cant take lukanette seriously as a pairing and Adrigami has potential but im kinda eh also Kagami literally has the "I will lose the love triangle" hair so.

Incredible anger- EPHEMERAL MY BELOATHED "BUT I DONT LIKE CHAT NOIR" GIRL WDYM WE SEE THE WAY YOU TWO LOOK AT EACH OTHER LUKA SPEEDRAN MY BELOVED TO MY BELOATHED EPHEMERAL LOOKED UGLY THE WRITERS DIDNT UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE LIKE CHAT BLANC. Kuro neko, almost everything @parismystere has said about this episode, I was clowning and hoping it would be a "adrien I need you to be a temp cat while I find Chat Noir" while Felix is in town idc about the middle but Adrien does tell felix he is chat so Felix as adrien says "oh well I happen to know chat noirs identity-" and gives the ring back to adrien while also solving the "we cant reach chat cuz no one knows his identity" problem cuz 'Adrien' knows who chat is, also this would tip them off to something fishy going on with Felix' well... Id say betrayal but for that Felix would have had to have been on their side and Felix doesnt seem to be interested in LB and CNs miraculous anyway. Sole Crusher and Queen Banana- Zoe my beloathed, also Id watch Chloes movie over whatever garbage they were actually filming any day, a chaotic bad movie is always better than a boring one.

I couldnt finish Qilin or simpleman and I dont wanna waste energy on them

[toujoursmiraculous]

Thoughts and Reaction to ROCKETEAR!

It's a long post, but when are these ever really short? xD Seeing Carapace first made me so excited. I've been sad we haven't had much of him in the show. And then I saw that it seemed like Ladynoir was doing pretty good as they only had Carapace helping them this time. More S2 & S3 like. So I was like cool, cool, this is great. But what the heck scientist WHY ARE YOU BRINGING TYRANNOSAURUS REX'S BACK! Obviously she's going to be something big later on, she's too nicely animated not to be back. Not to mention Bob Roth's plans. Anyone else both intrigued but also scared at what that could do later? Big upcoming plot point, I think.

I screamed awwww because this is everything. I've wanted a LB/Carapace and Marinette/Nino friendship bond in this show since season 1. This scene made me incredibly happy! I'm a huge Nino fan, for those that don't know, so you can imagine how much I love this episode. Even though sad Nino.

"Alya, everyone has to believe that you will never use the Miraculous again!" End of episode: So anyway... So what I'm seeing here is, Alya's not fond of the idea of being just a spy, not being in on the action. Even though it's Ladybug's plan. Chat Noir isn't fond of what's going on right now either, where he thinks what's going on is all Ladybug's plans. Alya makes the decision to not do what Ladybug wants and tells Nino she's still Rena Rouge. So what's Chat Noir going to do to go against her? Because that's coming up on the horizon. Despite everything being easier for Marinette since everything's not just on her shoulders now, she's still been unable to play video games with her dad, and we know how much she loves doing that. :c That's really sad she doesn't even have time for her family anymore. DJWifi over here being all adorable. "You don't love me anymore!" Me: *Chat Blanc flashbacks* Alya suggests her new content could be Chat Noir edits and Marinette's like YES DO THOSE. Then those edits helped push Nino into thinking she was into Chat. Big oops. Not gonna lie, the rewind freaked me out for a moment. Last time I saw that was Chat Blanc so I thought something big was up. But nope, it's just like that scene in Puppeteer 2. Ugh poor Nino! He knows something's bothering Alya, but she won't say what it is and her behavior's too off from how she normally is. Poor guy. x.x Grumpy Nino that Carapace doesn't get attention and then they wrote his girlfriend with Chat Noir. I remember when Alya was grumpy for a bit about Rena Rouge not getting a party to celebrate her. Movie Ladybug telling Movie Chat Noir that he's better with Movie Rena Rouge. Is this a reference to the episode in Avatar, The Ember Island Players? Getting strong vibes when Play Aang and Play Katara were like, we're just friends nothing more and it's great! Play Katara was extremely into Play Zuko. I can see why Ladybug dismissed the movie (or was it the previous one since it's been awhile? Maybe?) because Rena Rouge and Chat Noir???? The writers (of the movie) just wanted to be different because everyone can see Ladynoir, unless they're blind. Alya and Nino are Andre's favorite couple. YES THANK YOU. I mean they're not my favorite because Love Square. BUT they're my second favorite next to them. Those kids are super adorable but definitely that kid playing Chat wasn't doing Nino any favors. First picture Alya shows. Chat with a heart tail. Yeah that's not doing her any favors lol. Nino: UGH CHAT NOIR'S COMING IN BETWEEN ME AND MY GIRLFRIEND. I KNOW, I'LL CALL MY BEST FRIEND TO VENT TO ABOUT IT. Best Friend Chat Noir: Best Friend Chat Noir: Welp maybe I should see what's up. Maybe I went a little to hard on the cat charm and she's fallen in love with me. Me: Oh oof here we go. Also can I ask, if anyone knows, who animated this episode? The fluidity is great and it looks really pretty. But it doesn't quite look like SAMG's work either. Whoever did it, I love it. S2 Chat Noir: You're not replacing me with a turtle, are you? :c S4 Nino: Who would want a reckless turtle as a partner? BOYS STOP. But yeah this whole scene had me laughing so hard XD Very dramatic and I love it. Nino's hilarious even when he's worried and sad! I would've absolutely loved to have heard this in English with the old English voice of Nino, but the new one worries me on whether or not he'll do a good job sounding like Nino and less high-pitched and whiny. :/ New York Nino was great but S4 Nino....x.x THE TRANSITION BETWEEN HIS INNER MONOLOGUE AND SPEAKING REGULARLY AGAIN 😂😂😂😂 Brilliant! It doesn't really feel like Miraculous Ladybug this episode, and I love it. Not that I don't love the show as usual but wow this is great. Okay, I want to point out that Chat Noir

probably was more worried about it than he would've been otherwise because of what happened with Marinette in Weredad. It probably made him more cautious about this sort of thing.

LOL Chat's sulking because Alya's laughing at the idea of being interested in him. 😂😂 I know that's a blow to one's ego and all, and he's dealt with this kind of thing a lot so I do feel bad for him, but that is his best friend's girlfriend and he definitely doesn't want her to like him. Alya: With him it's not just ❤️it's *makes massive hand gesture indicating she loves him deeply* SO SO SO CUTE OKAY ALL THIS DJWIFI 😭 Alya: And I don't even know your secret identity! I would never fall in love with someone I don't know. Chat Noir, literally fell in love with Ladybug, whose identity he doesn't know. Well Alya, I wonder if you saying that matters for later somehow.... o.O Nino running away crying is honestly one of the things that hurts me most in the entire show. Ugh. Adrien over here being all, I'm having a good day. I'm happy and smiling and it's great. And then it wasn't. Adrien, if Nino let him and didn't interrupt, would've told him about how Alya really doesn't love Chat Noir, and that would've seriously led up to his identity being exposed since Nino was watching and filmed them. o.o Did you notice how he was going to tell him about it? S4, the basement is where it's at. Adrien: Uhh, when did you arrange all this? Nino: *pounds fist on desk* I ASK THE QUESTIONS! 😂 So like. Why is Nino interrogating Adrien when he's after Chat Noir? He doesn't know they're the same person. XD He's looking at him like Adrien has info he's keeping or something omg.

Also again this animation is so nice. Adrien, feeling uncomfortable and so turns the music off. Nino, wanting his dramatic music on while he interrogates Adrien, turns it back on. Adrien, feeling even more irritated and uncomfortable, wants the music OFF and turns it off. Nino, turns the music back on. This may be a reference to something, I don't know, but lolol it's so funny. This episode is both super hilarious and super angsty! Honestly they've done such a good job in my opinion. Nino: I'm talking about something that I shouldn't tell you! ...but I'm going to tell you anyway! Alya's Rena Rouge and I'm Carapace! Okay but the way Adrien went from shock to utter anger, knocked his chair back and grabbed Nino's shoulders like "Tell me the truth. You two know about each other?" Aw man, my poor sunshine boy. A lot of the stuff bothering Adrien is all circumstantial, none of it is to purposefully keep him in the dark. And yet from his perspective, that's how it looks. "I thought secret identities must be protected at all times! If that was the truth, you would never tell me this!" Alright so three things. If he's referring to him saying that Nino and Alya know about each other, that was situational and important info for him to know now that this is out. It wasn't important to know before this. The time it happened was dire and was really no time to get around it. If he's talking about Nino telling him the secrets, well yeah that's not supposed to happen and Nino broke that trust. But also, I get the feeling pretty strongly at this point Adrien's going to be breaking some rules too and one of which is he's going to tell Nino who he is. Adrien's being too emotional in this scene to not be involved in it all, I'm wondering if that's going to be questioned later by Nino. He's acting like he knows too much to be a random viewer of the heroes like the rest of Paris. Also Adrien's best friend just totally dissed Chat Noir and went off about how he throws himself at Ladybug whenever he sees her with roses and love confessions. 😂😂😂 This is just too funny! "But he's always rejected because Ladybug finds him annoying! And she's completely right!" Omg Nino, that's not the reason anymore, shush! "And then Rena Rouge appears and he goes *tickles under Adrien's chin* hey pretty lady! You look elegant and you have great perfume." OMG does Chat Noir actually say and do stuff like that to Rena Rouge or is he just exaggerating here XD "If I could I would shut his mouth forever!" Yeah Nino, say what you really think about your best friend in the entire world. Yikes poor Adrien though. I never imagined he'd hear all these bad things about himself from his best friend directly like that. :/ That's a major misunderstanding of him. Which kind of pushes me more towards the "he's going to tell Nino" theory. Sad Adrien transformation DDDX Alya: *explained everything about why Chat Noir went over to her house in the middle of the night* Marinette *facepalm* Ugh that Chat Noir... Well at least there will be no misunderstandings there! xD "Chat Noir, you stole Alya from me! I will steal your life from you." Good lord man calm down. You can't just kill a man! Fanon: Chat Noir gets attacked by a guy over Marinette. Canon: Chat Noir gets attacked by a guy over Alya. Time to go back to the basement! lol Nino's music's still playing xD And the video is left with it paused on Chat Noir hugging Alya. Marinette looked a bit sad, but it was probably more about the situation being a mess rather than being sad he'd hug her. Meanwhile, Chat Noir's fighting Nino and would rather get beaten up by him than fight. x.x "I can't believe that I doubted you." "I can't believe I chose to do anything but be with you!" She wiped away akumatized Nino's tear just like how Ladybug wiped away akumatized Chat Noir's. ALL THE PARALLELS 😭😭😭 But that hug is so sweet!! Nino broke off the akumatization just like Alya did :o Dang, I wonder if that means something later too. "Love and secrets do not go well together, Ladybug. And I'm sure you have a lot of

them!" Secrets = from Chat Noir. Love = for Chat Noir. Yeah even Shadow Moth knows at this point. xP Thanks for that foreshadowing. Nino's charm is my favorite charm so far! It's my favorite shade of blue. Chat Noir: Everybody has doubts sometimes...even me." Ladybug: Is everything okay, Chat Noir? Chat: Oh yes...pound it!

So um. The placemet of Adrien's poster in between Chat Noir, Ladybug, and just with this entire situation feels very strange. Very intentional. But no clue exactly what that could mean..... Nino and Alya are happy over there watching those two, like they're waiting for them to figure things out or something. But really, Adrien should've talked to Ladybug when he could still do so calmly and be reasonable. I doubt that's going to be the case later on. And honestly Ladybug doesn't even know what's going on. Every episode we've seen really either has them working together or she's unable to be Ladybug when he's unable to be Chat Noir most of the time. I've said it before but these two really need to communicate. Nino and Alya are like a less adorably romantic version of what they'd be. "But they're a couple and they know their secret identities, so why does that rule exist for us but they can know?" Very simple. Because they were temporary holders and the Miraculous they had, Hawk Moth hasn't made it his life's mission to obtain, unlike them, who are permanent holders and Hawk Moth's been after them fiercely to make a Wish that could destroy everything. But. The fact he's asking this, and Marinette's Chat Blanc nightmare, really points in the direction that he's going to eventually find out that while she's thought about telling him all along, Chat Blanc's kept her from doing so.

Okay, so while it looks like he's staring up at the moon, if you notice, it really is just one of the pink bubbles.

Now, they could be making it seem like it's the moon though to give it a double meaning. But poor Kitty, he's feeling so awful right now over in that dark corner Dx Nino felt bad for only two episodes? and it got resolved, so hopefully this all won't last too much longer for him! Marinette had a few shaky episodes so hopefully he'll have a few before it gets resolved. But somehow I think that may be wishful thinking. This episode was so amazing, honestly. Wonderful writing, made me laugh a lot, aw a lot, and hurt a lot. It focused on the core 4 characters which I've wanted more of for a long time. The animation was beautiful. And it just felt so different in such a good way. Chat Noir's having a hard time right now, and I know there's a lot of anger and hate about it going around. But please, think of this as him hitting a rough spot in the road to a much better and brighter future. He's going to end up okay, he'll understand it all someday. And that day's honestly not that far for him if you think about it.

[algernoninwonderland]

So the Shanghai Special wasn’t nearly as terrible as I had feared it would be!

The good:

Superhero stuff that doesn’t involve fighting off villains. At last. Only took us 3 seasons but that finally happened.

The Cheng family. Well, Wang Cheng. He’s really a good guy. They hired Bing Yin, an actual Chinese actor to voice him instead of the white VA they had in season 1. That’s the bare minimum and I shouldn’t be praising this, but at least they did it.

All that sweet sweet Cheng family history. I loved every second of it. Cheng Xia Ping.

Bastille the Cockatoo.

All the background characters. Their models look actually finished, and good, with varied fashion choices, unlike these monstrous Parisians (though to be fair, we Parisians are a terrifying people). The Mandarin they speak isn’t gibberish, they hired actual Chinese-speaking people for that. Once again, bare minimum, it’s not praise as much as me noting this.

Some of the sets actually look like Shanghai! That hadn’t really been true of the New-York special, but here, the Bund actually looks like the Bund! Good job on that!

Some of Fei’s characterisation! There’s this nice internal conflict within her that I quite enjoyed (even though the way it’s shown… But we’ll come back to that later). Her character animation is pretty good which almost makes up for the more caricatural parts of her character. Thank you SAMG!

Expressive lighting. So much of it. It’s nice, and something the regular show was lacking. It’s genuinely good!

Some of the soundtrack is fitting and moody and isn’t orientalist nonsense.

These three kids. I want a spin-off series starring them and Fei.

Wow, antagonists who are adults and capitalists who exploit vulnerable kids are the bad guys and join forces. You know, not angry teenagers. Accumulating large sums of money is only truly possible through the exploitation of other people. Yes. I agree with you there, person that wrote that part of the script.

The Renlings and the Prodigious, from an entertainment standpoint. Cool concept, cool powers, I quite like that.

Hawk Moth getting vaporised. Take that, sucker.

Fei doesn’t turn into a blonde after all! They changed it! Wow! It’s the very bare minimum, once again.

The noodle thing is true!

The bad:

This whole eclipse thing. Was it really necessary? Sort of. Are we made to care about it? Sort of. Not really. Unfortunately not very compelling.

Why Marinette Goes to Shanghai in the First Place. I get that she’s a teenager with a crush but come on. 

Some directing observations: Marinette looking at pictures of Adrien on her phone while her uncle is introducing her to their family. That would be fine if she weren’t the audience surrogate, really. The thing is, if she isn’t shown to care all that much about her family and only wants to see Adrien, if she doesn’t ask to know more, the audience is encouraged to feel the same way, i.e. to not care.

She isn’t shown to be spending time with her uncle at all. We get like two minutes at most with only these two alone. Because apparently Marinette getting acquainted with her Chinese family is not that important to her character. Newsflash, when you make a show, you get to decide what is important or not, unless the producers really force your hand. And so what’s important is that Marinette has a crush on Adrien. Wow, never heard about that one before.

All That Kung-Fu nonsense. Is every Chinese character playing a prominent role in this show proficient in martial arts in a way or another? In 2021? Could we stop making Kung-Fu this thing with sort-of-mystical elements in it, and chi strikes and whatnot? Xu Xiaodong would like a few words with you. Yes the fight choreography is decent, but c’mon.

All that “ancestral values” stuff. I mean, really?

The Ugly:

Not specific to this episode, but Marinette really knew nothing about the Chinese side of her family before? Her parents only planned on saving money to travel with her one day but nothing beforehand? Really? That’s terrible writing.

Fei’s backstory is a cliché wrapped inside another cliché from old Kung-Fu and Wuxia movies, and that’s because the special isn’t long enough to do everything it wants to do properly in just 50-something minutes.

These stupid voice-over moments. It feels almost amateurish. If your directing is strong enough as is, the images should be able to do the talking themselves.

Part of the music is good. Part of the music is utter rubbish with all the musical clichés about China you can think about wrapped into one neat package.

Yes it’s a show for children, but the moralising aspect is really shoved in our faces in an unsubtle way this time, and, more annoyingly, it’s very superficial. The whole “purity” thing… What is that even supposed to mean? The show doesn’t do its work, it doesn’t define what that is supposed to mean.

The Prodigious and the Renlings only raise more questions that probably won’t be answered ever, this worldbuilding continues to be a mess.

It’s always about the Love Square, isn’t it? It can’t not be about the Love Square. When some things happen that aren’t Love Square-related for more than five minutes, the special is yanked back to that. Yes, we know Marinette is infatuated with Adrien. Yes we know Adrien is kind of oblivious. We know that. You’ve been telling us that for three seasons straight. We haven’t forgotten. Now do something else for fifty minutes please, since this isn’t following the show’s regular continuity, this would be the perfect chance, right?

Overall, it’s pretty good, for Miraculous, but Miraculous shouldn’t be your standard for goodness.

Not unsalvageable/10, not a complete catastrophe but not nearly as good as it could have been.

[miraculouscontent]

(Shanghai-related asks)

.

Anonymous said:

Did you see how, supposedly, the reason Marinette goes to Shanghai is bc Adrien is there. Because you know, that's a totally normal thing to do.

You know, there’s this suspension of disbelief where characters are allowed to do certain things that you’re like, “okay that’s not realistic but it’s fun so I don’t mind.”

Yeah, this is not fun.

Anonymous said:

Based on the new trailer for the Shanghai special, one of my biggest fears is that we won't see Marinette interacting with Sabine's family outside of Uncle Wang, even Sabine is nowhere to be seen in the trailer, please ZAG at least give us one of Sabine's parents, we're starving

I’m still rolling my eyes that there’s not one piece of dialog with Sabine talking about stuff related to her family, though her cheongsam is also flipped so--

Anonymous said:

Synopsis for the Shanghai Special: To join Adrien in Shanghai, Marinette is going to visit her uncle Wang who is celebrating his anniversary. But, as soon as she arrives in China, her purse gets stolen with Tikki inside, whom she needs to secretly transform into Ladybug! Without money and alone in the immense city, Marinette accepts the help of a young and resourceful girl, Fei. The two girls will ally and discover the existence of a new magical jewel, the Prodigious. Hawk Moth, also also present in Shanghai, seeks to finding it since a long time... Yea, cause Marinette still hasn’t suffered enough :p

mAriNEtTe mAkeS a mIsTakE iN eVeRY sToRY

Anonymous said:

As someone of Chinese descent, I felt extremely bothered by how miniscule the boy's , the one on the right (?) taking a picture with Adrien, eyes were when I saw the Shanghai trailer. It feels extremely... stereotypical? Not sure if that's the right word. I mean, he could just be squinting, but it still bothers me. Especially if that's their normal eye shape.

I heard similar complaints when Kagami arrived. They really stress the eye shape when it comes to someone full-on Asian (and if you’re half-Asian then you get wholly round eyes which makes no sense). It also gets weird because I feel like we have characters in the show who could pass for Asian (Mireille at least has the proper eye shape without it being over-exaggerated; I don’t remember if her skin tone is correct or not), but when characters are actually Asian, it’s usually taken to the exaggeration.

My sympathy goes out to everyone of Chinese descent who’s going to have to deal with the special. I’m literally a mish-mash of whiteness (American, French, and German) but even I know it must suck.

Anonymous said:

im tempted to watch the Shanghi special with my family, we're part chinese and have been to shanghi a few times. Then we can laugh and yell at it together, no need for show context

omg

As long as you have fun! Give it a good roast for me!

Anonymous said:

Excuse my french (pun intended) but

WHAT EVER LOVING HELL HAPPEN TO THE SPECIAL!!

Marketing.

Also the writers wanting to make sure you don’t forget that Adrien is a guy who exists.

Anonymous said:

Hi, Clarity! If you don't mind me asking, do you have any thoughts on the upcoming Shanghai special based on the information and trailers we have?

When I found out that Marinette was spending time with her great-uncle Wang, I was so excited. I was hoping that this special will be a breath of fresh air and spontaneously focus just on Marinette and her family for once. Maybe we'd explore Marinette's Chinese heritiage and learn more about her mother, Sabine and extended maternal family.

Then I saw Gabriel in which I eye-rolled 180* like any degree of character development. Like... great... more needless Miraculous lore/exposition. (Can we even call it exposition? I doubt any of the Miraculous-related events will be referenced within the show.) Whilst Miraculous lore is great and does expand our knowledge on the Miraculous, it steals any individual focus that Marinette could potentially have. It also tends to "hands everything" to Hawk Moth, who gets almost everything done his way without him even trying. Hmm, I guess as Shadow Moth, he won't have to use Mayura as his catslyst anymore. He'll have to ruffle his own feathers. (I don't know why I'm making a bird joke about Gabriel here. I hate him snd I couldn't care less about him.)

Also by reading the special's synopsis, it mentions that Adrien and Gabriel go to China for an unknown reason (maybe business related.) So Marinette decides to go to spend time with him (also spend time with Wang concurrently.) This might be a minor issue but I don't want Adrien to always be the centre focus of Marinette's motivations/desires. (He isn't always but I feel he is more than he should be.) Let our beautiful amazing girl just have an amazing time with her family in China. The writers need to stop Adrien being an integral part of Marinette's character. This special should be about Marinette (along with her family) and them solely.

Moreover, I'm worried that Marinette will imminently be embarassed/scolded/humiliated in some way. The synopsis mentions that she loses her bag (that contains Tikki.) Inevitably, she's going to be scolded for this for not being careful. The writers will blame her for the destruction that Hawk Moth will cause and not the actual man terrorising Shanghai himself. And no needless lovesquare drama please. If I'm not interested in it in Paris, don't think I'll be interested in it in Shanghai. And please do not let it be used to cause Mari/LB to suffer. Romance (no matter how contrived it is in this show) should be about finding joy and happiness. It should never intentionally be a burden for anybody, especially if it's for comedic purposes. Why am I worried that CN will yell at LB this time?

Maybe I'm just being pessimistic. I hope that the writers actually have them communicate properly about this time. Like they should both be honest (an important aspect of healthy relationships), to build clarity and to avoid confusion. Like the needless drama in NY could have been avoided if Adrien didn't ignore Ladybug and actually TRUSTED her by telling her the truth about him going somewhere instead of complacently lying to her, then losing her trust. Both could have told each other that they are going to NY "for personal reasons" without giving too much detail. To prevent suspicion, the writers could have included the American superheroes hosting an event inviting them or asking for their help to defeat that Micromonster guy. LB and CN could have both then collectively made a decision that if anything were to go wrong in Paris, they could quickly use the Horse Miraculous to transport to France in time (like Marinette was advised to do in "Startrain") or use the Rabbit Miraculous to travel back in time/manipulate events. There was no need to make Marinette suffer for the sake of needless lovesquare drama.

However, I love the animation for the special. It is mesmerising and beauitful and the graphics look superb. The atmosphere looks so clean and the nature-aspects (Hawk Moth's hideout) are intricately detailed. The lighting also complements the charactrrs and the settings' colours. A huge round of applause to SAMG for their excellant hardwork for animating this special despite the pandemic!

If you have any worries about the special, free free to do so! I want to conclude my message by thanking you so much for being such a lovely, kind, confident and resilient person. You always confidently express your opinions and strcture your essays clearly and legibly. I always look forward to reading your posts. I know I can always count on you to express our frustrations with the show's writing on our behalf and speak up for Marinette's mistreatment and inustice! 😊

Firstly, thank you! I gotta defend Marinette because we know the show won’t!

Anyway, I agree with basically everything you said. My biggest comments on it are like--

- I’m already tired of places just being used as set pieces for specials. I actually have a history of disliking specials/movies for shows because its purposes is usually just to get people hyped up, but that means big plots with big stakes and I end up thinking, “okay, but why can’t we have that in the show?” That’s always the issue I take with it; movies/specials prove that they can come up with high stakes plots, but we can’t have equivalents in the show because...?

- I officially tune out now anytime Marinette’s crush on Adrien is mentioned. It gets tiring and it just makes me feel bad for her and simultaneously angry at the writers for treating her this way. Add that onto the “Marinette always makes mistakes” rule and it’s clear that they’re creatively bankrupt and needlessly restrict themselves for the sake of making Marinette suffer. I’m just insulted that Gabriel is going to Shanghai for his fashion business but Marinette being into fashion is ignored.

- The animation is nice but whenever I see it, I’m reminded that we couldn’t have much SAMG in Season 4+5 because they were busy working on the special. The show should always take priority over some lame special/movies. I won’t judge the special for it but I’m salty about it regardless.

[ecofinisher]

Stuff I noticed at Snow Queen Fire & Ice and Miraculous Ladybug 😀

I just had to. Even if it is a waste of time. 😅I've done one a long while ago between Miraculous and Monster Buster Club. This one had to be done as well, all just because of those small, little spirits 🥺😥

To be clear, I’m not comparing it to what is better and whatnot. I’m comparing the similarities between the two. The spirits there made me think of the kwamis? Funny I didn't pay attention to it at first xD But then the fun part came......Three times I have watched the movie and I suddenly began to think......Hmm Gerda has the creation powers like Ladybug and Rollan destruction......Holy brick! They could be the lovesquare as well if they had added more romance into it 😂 How did I not see? (It's because you saw Kristanna mixed with Hansanna you nut)

So where do I start? Well just to summarize the shows for those who don’t know one/both of them:

Short info about both, if unfamiliar:

Miraculous Ladybug is a French animated TV show, that debuted in 2015 and is set in the modern metropole Paris and is focused on the lives of the clumsy Marinette Dupain-Cheng and the famous teeny-model Adrien Agreste. Both wield special magical jewelry, which is called a “Miraculous” which they use to transform into the superheroes “Ladybug and Cat Noir”  The two don’t know each other’s identity, but funnily Adrien has a huge crush on Ladybug and in the civilian life he sees her as just a friend, while Marinette is obsessed with Adrien and sees Cat Noir only as his trustful crime-fight partner. Both students are around 14 years old in the show.

As superheroes they fight villains, that were akumatized by Hawk Moth. (He owns the butterfly miraculous, with which he can create supervillains by sending an akuma (Butterfly jinxed by Hawk Moth’s magic) and Hawk Moth’s miraculous sends people’s negative feelings such as anger, sadness and disappointment and uses his akumas to follow them and akumatize them and they’re transformed by Hawk Moth into a specific-themed supervillain.

Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice (Release year: 2016)

Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice is the third installment of the Russian franchise "The Snow Queen" It consisted currently out of 4 movies, an upcoming 5th installment, and a pre-school TV show. The first movie came out in 2012 and was also the studio's very first movie.

Resume from the first two movies is the young girl Gerda, which lost her parents to the Snow Queen makes her way through the entire snow lands to find her younger brother Kai, which was kidnapped y the north wind. With help of Orm, Snow Queen's servant she makes her way up to the Palast and defeats her, saving her brother and waking up Orm's eyes to a "better world" The sequel is focused on Orm's continuation, which makes a promise to never lie again and this promise made a reflection of himself come to life and appear near him, when he had no idea, what to do with life issues. The more he began to create white lies and bigger lies, the more life his reflection gained until he was able to get out to the real world. The reflection, which calls itself "The Snow King" tricks Orm and leads a fight against Troll warriors by sending his ice-made minions. Gerda was the last warrior to enter and make it to the main hall of the palace to miss Orm, which was fading away due to Snow King's existence and he pretends to be an injured Orm, which is warmly embraced by the girl, but then gets frozen by him, not realizing she had fallen into a trap. When things were over for everyone and the bad guys had won, Orm figured out how he would make everything okay by confessing his mistakes, which erased Snow King from existence and unfroze all warriors and friends again, which were angered at the naive troll.

This is lowkey spoiler-free. I didn't want to go into much detail here, but I would suggest you watch these movies, mostly no. 2 and 3, which are really worth seeing. As well you can see the first and see how much the studio had improved since the first up to the 2 and 3 one.

The Fire and Ice one, I'm supposed to be talking about happens a few years later, Gerda and Kai left the orphanage to go live on their own and make money to be able to at least be able to eat. Their last visit didn't make any profit and they took a ride with an old friend of theirs Alfida (The Robber girl) to pass the night by Orm, their troll friend, which had matured and was responsible to babysit the triplets of his cousin. On said night, a Spanish boy named Rollan shows up by his doorstep and is introduced to the visitors as a friend he met shortly. After the dinner ended in a disaster Kai and Gerda split and Rollan followed Gerda to give her rights, then bonded with her from being looking for his mother as well and introduces her to a map with an artifact called "The Wishing Stone" which grants any wish. Gerda agrees in tagging along and together they make it to survive the dangerous tomb encountering the wishing stone. Fact is the wishing stone was something else and this is where the powers of the Snow Queen and the Fire Demon were kept and due to Gerda and Rollan's touch on the stone, it had awakened the spirits, getting the two infected with the powers of said villains. Soon as they find out with Orm what happened, they need to get back to the tomb to retrieve the powers before the north star rises and makes their transformation complete, which means both would lose their soul/bodies to the villain. .

Random info:

1. The most popular franchise of the studio aka knowns for:

Miraculous is mostly know to be addressed as a ZAG animation product, but other known studios have worked on it as well such as SAMG Animation, TOEI and Method Animation.

Currently, the most popular series produced in France.

The Snow Queen 3 is the overall fifth movie released by Wizart Animation and was on its release the studio's best-grossing movie so far. Currently, the studio's filmography contains about 8 released movies (Counting with Secret Magic Control Agency in 2021), Two televisions shows and at the moment three movies are announced to be released.

Currently, the franchise is the most popular one in Russia, which is also where it was produced.

The similarities I noticed:

The spirits

Coal (Up) and Snowflake (Down) (Left Side)

Plagg (Up) and Tikki (Down)(Right Side)

Tikki and Snowflake have female pronouns. Both are shown to be "feminine", kind, lovable, and correct. They're a spirit of creation.

Plagg and Coal have male pronouns. Both are shown to be "male". cunning and curious. They're a spirit of destruction.

All four are able to use their powers on their own. They don't need to be with their holder to be capable of.

Differences:

- Plagg and Tikki are able to communicate verbally with each other and with humans.

-Coal and Snowflake can't speak, they usually use body language and mimic. Also, they do noises like laughing, groaning, speaking, and such.

- According to Tikki, her species (Kwami) don't fall in love/can't fall in love.

- Snowflake and Coal are shown to be romantically interested in each other. They're shown flirting and having little date-like moments, as they're away from their "owners"

- Coal is able to multiplicate. It's unknown if he's able to do it in command or only if he falls or is hit.

The "Alter egos"

Marinette is the face behind Ladybug and Adrien wears the mask of Cat Noir.

Gerda is possessed with the ice-powers of the Snow Queen and Rollan wields the fire-power of the Fire Demon.

Gerda and Marinette share the creation ability, while Adrien and Rollan are responsible for the destruction. They're each other's opposites.

Differences: Gerda and Rollan are aware of each other's identity and recognize each other's faces, despite small differences. Adrien and Marinette don't know each other's hero identity and weirdly have minor differences in their looks.

Marinette and Adrien's personality as heroes is quite different from their civilian ones, while Gerda and Rollan's don't seem any different.

It's unknown if, during the time Rollan and Gerda are under possession, their personalities are slightly altered by the villains or not. Rollan is shown to get quickly tempered with Gerda's friend, when it comes to their mishap, which usually turns into arguments.

The Yin-Yang effect

Power of creation and destruction

Marinette = Ladybug miraculous, the red earrings / Power of Luck (Creation)

Adrien = Black Cat Miraculous, the black ring / Power of Misfortune (Destruction)

Gerda = Ice (Creation) (The ice-blue shape on the crystal)

Rollan = Fire (Destruction) (The red shape on the crystal)

Character A bickers often with character B.

Ladybug with Cat Noir. Most of the moments Ladybug feels annoyed at Cat Noir's puns and flirt attempts during their missions. She had her rude moments, but deep inside her, she adores him. With Adrien's she's currently befriended, but has a huge crush, nearly an obsession with the blonde, which sometimes makes her double life harder and under pressure, she has taken choices, which led to ungood consequences.

Gerda with Rollan. Rollan's seems more relaxed with pressuring into retrieving the powers back, unlike Gerda. Rollan's easy tempter with Orm, when he's blamed for his issues annoys her as well. Gerda has shown interest in Rollan since the night she has met him and they bonded over the night when heading to the forbidden Tomb. Rollan has shown interest in her as well, but not as much as her.

"Buttmonkey Sidekick"

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Cat Noir - Thrown around by villains at billboards, yeeted by his own dad at the fricking Eiffel tower, sometimes risked his life to protect Ladybug and get wrapped up into odd situations.

Rollan suffered a few nutshots (One by himself as well), survived a very dangerous tomb, had his head frozen by Gerda accidentally, managed to step-dance in the middle of a shoot-out without getting hit by a bullet, accidentally (Or not) uses firepower with help of his butt. (Sounds ridiculous? There' the picture 😂) Press R for respect.

Naturally handsome boys.

Cat Noir and Rollan.

With and without "masks".

Don't think before acting

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Characters look the same

Gerda and Ladybug

Gerda has additional makeup on her face.

Characters look differently with their alter egos

Cat Noir and Rollan

Cat Noir has a wilder hairstyle and has cat-like eyes.

Rollan has a different skin tone, a fire-like shaped hairstyle, which he can put on fire and his eyes are slightly red-brownish.

The brains

Ladybug and Gerda.

The muscle

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Falling into the darkness

Cat Noir and Rollan

Cat Noir lets an akuma take over him and turn him into Chat Blanc, which destroys the entire world in an alternate universe.

Rollan lets the Fire Demon take over his body at the retrieval of the power and nearly commits genocide of entire kingdom.

Tall boy, smoll girl

Cat Noir to Ladybug

Rollan to Gerda

"Lovesquare"

Cat Noir has a crush on Ladybug. Ladybug doesn't. She has a crush on Adrien, which is Cat Noir's alter ego, which she's not aware of. Adrien sees Marinette as a friend only and has no idea, she and Ladybug are the same person although they look the same.

Gerda is attracted to Rollan since the first time she saw him. Rollan begins to feel attracted to Gerda with the time she's around him.

Rollan and Gerda are aware of each other because they were given the powers in the same place.

Marinette and Adrien were confirmed to be canon and should end up in the 5th season, eventually.

Rollan and Gerda should be considered canon at the end of the 4th part, due to the ending credits showing them share a kiss.

Power font:

Ladybug & Cat Noir: "Magic jewelry" (Miraculouses)

Rollan & Gerda: The wishing stone

Difference:

The wishing stone takes away after 24 hours of control over the power wielders and turns them into the slave of Snow Queen and the Fire Demon. The characters' real person is gone for good.