#hhh is still here in spirit ig

[werchezdeeno]

My Problem With Marinette Dupain-Cheng

DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion. If you have a different opinion, that’s totally okay! I’m not trying to invalidate your opinion, I just wanted to get my thoughts out! I respect yours, and I hope you respect mine! :-)

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Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I’m well aware that she is a hot topic in the fandom. Some people hate her, while others love her. Personally, I think the idea of her character is pretty neat. I’ve seen some people talking about how her home life is boring, and how it, in turn, makes Marinette boring. I disagree with that. I’ve always thought the writers were trying to have her represent inner struggles. Because of that, I think that having Marinette have a normal life is a good thing. She’s surrounded by good luck and people, but has inner turmoil due to balancing her life and her superhero life while also cracking under the stress of being a hero. I think it’s a cool idea. It shows how anxiety can attack everyone. It can also call for a good character, and it has so much potential. But that’s the thing: it’s only potential. Potential matters, but it’s the execution that matters most. And the execution of Marinette’s character? Yeah, that’s something I don’t like.

My problem with Marinette is that she has flaws, but they are never addressed. (Obviously I also have problems with her…questionable behavior towards Adrien, but since I feel uncomfortable writing about it, I’m not going to.) Marinette isn’t the best person. She does rude things, and is sometimes rash with people. And hey, in some instances, that’s a good thing! Characters need to have flaws in their actions so they can grow. The problem is, however, that none of Marinette’s rude actions are addressed. She’s been toxic on several occasions to her friends and people around her. For instance, when Lila was lying about being a superhero to Adrien, Marinette reacted badly. See, Lila wasn’t doing the right thing in this situation–she shouldn’t have been lying, but Marinette shouldn’t have transformed into Ladybug, call Lila out on her bluff in front of someone she knew Lila was crushing on, and embarrass her. There were countless mature ways to handle it, but Marinette chose the rash way. Which, again, is fine if she grows from it. But she didn’t. She never has.

The show depicts Marinette as being in the right all the time. Even when she is doing the wrong thing, she’s still put in a positive light. That’s a problem. Marinette needs to learn from her actions. After making a mistake, a character realizes what they did wrong, and they grow. I know that Marinette is young, she’s not going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean the show should gloss over her flaws. The show keeps on trying to paint her in a good light, trying to tell the audience that she is a perfect little girl who does nothing wrong. But by doing that, they are contradicting the actions they made her do and making her more and more one-dimensional.

I thought that making her a guardian would be a smart choice. I thought she would make bad decisions (which she did) and learn from them to become the leader her team needs her to be. She made the mistakes, but once again didn’t grow. And when a character tried to call her out on it, he was painted in a bad light. Marinette just gave him a stupid rant and then he’s suddenly all happy with Marinette. Like, no, that’s not what should’ve happened. Have Marinette accept that she was wrong and understand why. Take what she learned and implement it by showing her working to be a better leader. But alas, that didn’t happen. So all I can do is imagine. By ignoring Marinette’s flaws, the showrunners have made me less interested in her and more interested in other characters (Juleka, Kagami, and Chloe). It’s infuriating too, because I adore the potential Marinette has. She could have been a great character! She could have been a character with struggles and flaws and she could have grown from them! But, like most of my old hopes for the show, that never happened, and it may not ever happen.

In short, I like the potential Marinette has, but her execution throws me off. The show ignores flaws and actions and paints her in a perfect light, which creates a one-dimensional and infuriating character.

Anyway, thanks for reading this ramble. If you have any other thoughts, I would love to know them! That’s all I have today, so once again, thanks for reading!

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Signing off,

Jade

[cynamonowo]

hhh i'm sorry it took so long but @saxophone-kraken here's your fambly time (aitsf spoilers ig lol)

prompt list

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The thing is — Date does like summer. Seasonal sweets, ice cream, girls in sundresses and straw hats, cold beer in the hot evenings; sign him up for this, and more. And, when he was still goofing around in Saito’s body, he’d get chilly way too easily, so it was nice to be able to leave the house without seven-plus layers of clothing. Then — shit goes down, he ends up in a body with less hair and more aches, all the forgotten trauma smacks into him with the force of a fourth-grader, whose parents just announced their divorce, hitting a piñata. And then there’s a heatwave in late June that makes Date discover that this bag of flesh, bones, and depression does not work well when it’s hot. After getting home from work, he spends most of his time lying on the floor, miserable. Mizuki finds it hilarious. Date would be offended were his brain not slowly cooking in his skull.

Mizuki loves summer. Of course she does. Even high school doesn’t diminish her spirits.

Most days, when she returns from school, she announces her arrival with much ado, accompanied by a slamming door, the thump of her boots thrown into the corner, and a cheerful insult. Date’s used to this. If he weren’t, he’d go — well. Crazier. His marble repository has been reporting deficiencies for ages now, as today he instantly gets unsettled by his daughter’s quiet entrance. Her greeting is polite, for pity’s sake! Something must be wrong.

He glances at Mizuki, and the dread worsens in an instant.

“Are you hurt?” Date asks, somehow managing to pick himself up and all but dash to her side. She looks up at him, unruffled, one eyebrow raised.

“No.”

“Then… why are there bruises all over your face?”

“I fell.” The response’s way too quick, coming off hella rehearsed, as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. There’s dried blood above her upper lip. “This kid dropped her sundae, and I slipped. Oh well.”

“Uh-huh.” Date gives her a gaze that spells out just how much he does not buy it. “Because you’ve got the sense of balance of a toddler, not just the brains.”

She flips him off, trotting away to pull two bottles of water from the fridge; Date manages to catch his before it hits him in the face. “Why are you so pushy?” Mizuki asks as she sits cross-legged in her armchair. “Maybe I don’t wanna tell you.”

“Maybe you oughta, considering I’m your guardian now.”

“Wow, look at me,” she says, putting on a lower voice, “I’m Date, I’m so responsible, I need to stick my nose into everything because I’m a cop, boo-hoo.”

“Hey!”

“What?”

“I’m just worried!”

“That’s your problem, dude. What, you going to have Aiba hack into CCTV if I don’t tell you? Jeez, chill out.”

Okay, this is getting nowhere. Clearly, the hot weather plus whatever that happened is getting to her, making her even brattier than usual. Date sighs, flopping back onto the floor and pressing the cold bottle against the back of his neck. He’s so not in the mood to deal with this bullcrap. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mizuki cross her arms, mouth pursed into a thin line. Ah. The standard ‘I wanna talk about things but I don’t wanna talk about things’ pose. Teenagers. Next time he sees Hitomi, he’ll have to ask for tips.

“You hungry?” he says, closing his eyes. “There’s stew.”

“Nah, I’m okay.”

“Fine, but take some to school tomorrow; we don’t want it going bad.”

“Whatever, Date.”

They stay silent for a moment. He hears footsteps, the bathroom door opening, closing, opening again. Plastic rustling — he cracks open his good eye to watch Mizuki clean herself up with wet wipes. The bruises stand out starkly on her cheeks, one blooming across her nose, the beginning of a black eye. Is she getting bullied again? He sighs tiredly. Mizuki catches his gaze and holds it, expression steady, while plugging the charger into her phone, placing it on the table next to Aiba.

“It was because of Daddy,” she says, quickly, spitting the word out like they’re poison.

“Hm?” Sitting up, Date tilts his head. “How so?”

She shrugs. “Y’know. Being the daughter of a murderer doesn’t make me a popular person at school. So some kids decided I oughta get punished for that.”

“Aw, shit, that’s tough.” He gives her an apologetic grimace, brushing the sweat off his forehead. “You didn’t fight back?”

“They jumped me.” She shrugs again. “And, if I did, they’d just decide I’m as violent as Daddy was, according to the crap from the news, so I just booked it.”

Not a good time to point out the bad language. Taking a long sip of his water, Date mulls this over, unable to come up with a comforting answer. Those are the cards they were dealt, the truth a beast of another kind. Unfortunately, Renju had to be a scapegoat in order not to upset the public too much, which does suck. Hell, he was Date’s best friend, and now people think he killed his kid’s mother. Mizuki seems dejected but accepting of their ordeal, so all he can do is probably just support her. This is his kid now and while he may know fuck-all about parenting, he can at least try to give her options.

“Do you want to change schools?” he ends up asking. Mizuki’s expression hardens for a split second before dissolving into the palpable melancholy as she shakes her head.

“That’d be just running away. Besides, it’d happen everywhere, so I just have to deal with it.”

“I’m sorry, kid,” Date says honestly. “Wish I knew what to do.”

“It’s fine,” Mizuki says with a weak smile. “They’ll move on sooner or later.”

“Until then… D’you wanna see your therapist more often?” He can offer her that, and maybe it’d be enough.

“Actually… yeah.” Nodding, she says, “But only if you go too.”

“Hey!” He raises his hands. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“Date, I don’t need Aiba to know what a bunch of lies that is.”

“I’ll tell her that, she’s gonna be overjoyed that you dissed her so easily,” he says, voice dry. “Whatever, let’s have this your way.”

“Sick.” She gives him a thumbs up. “Now that we’re done with this, I want some ice cream.”

“You didn’t even eat dinner yet.”

“I deserve ice cream.”

“Jeez. Yeah, you do.”

They have ice cream. Date’s still feeling bad for her, so he lets Mizuki rope him into a beach trip on the weekend; watching her call Iris to invite her and Hitomi to come with, he cracks open a cold one and tugs on his sweat-soaked undershirt. Charged up, Aiba tells him the heatwave’s only going to get worse.

This is unfurling to be the oddest summer of his life.