#just not going to give paris a character arc.... like at all?

[bellamysgriffin]

Dana Watches Gilmore Girls: New and Improved Lorelai (6x01)

[laterreurofficial]

LT Doodle Stream Recap/Questions!

(Part 1/Part 2)

Hello everyone! Wisteriasymphony here. Yesterday the LT hivemind had the wonderful experience of our first doodle stream together!

For the purposes of cataloging all of the questions we answered on our stream (because somebody doesn't know how streaming works yet *COUGH COUGH*), I'm going to be answering them all here!

La Terreur takes place in 2002, and the events of the timeline last about a year. Of course, it's a retrofuturistic cyberpunk-y 2002, which explains later developments like the alliance ring and so on.

They're the same au! Miracle Exposure has just been a tag Silu has used to categorize talking about the effects of the miraculous, but it all happens within LT.

Hawkmoth is already a pretty solid design as is. Shadowmoth and Monarch will probably get overhauls later on, but why fix what isn't broken? Hawkmoth is already just the right amount of gross and creepy and fancy and bald, so no need to revamp that.

The consensus to far is that Felix arrived before the quarantine was instated, but he could easily have bribed officials into letting him into Paris if he needed to. The quarantine is mostly to keep people in, and if some idiot with a death wish high-paying member of the british aristocracy is willing to give money to a dying city just for a ticket in, then why wouldn't they let him?

@gaussiansphere put it quite nicely in the stream when he said that the heroes aren't trapped in Paris physically, but mentally. There's nothing theoretically stopping Ladybug from blowing a hole in the defenses of Paris and going on the run, but she has a moral obligation to protect her city. Everyone else feels roughly the same way, though we did discuss the idea of having the concept of migration fit Max better by virtue of his big goals in life involving getting out of Paris.

Also, the miraculous will likely be passed out differently. We're not following exact episodes, only storylines.

On a similar note....

Ladybug will probably alternate who she gives all of the minor miraculous to multiple times over the course of the story. She would find it ridiculous to pass them out to people "for keeps", as @sillysiluriforme put it, and before a certain point in the story will favor adult holders over teen holders. (Not saying why this changes though heehee, spoilers.)

MUCHAS GRACIAS!!!!!!!!!! Los ships no son un foco de La Terreur, pero.. Adrigaminette 100% mejor del mundo JAJAJAJA XP. de lo contrario es lo mismo que el canon.

Opinions de los kwamis hacia sus portadores es q los ven como niños. Son indiferentes a la humanidad en realidad. Los kwamis también los vicios q usan sus portadores para obtener. (Adrien huele a tabaco Y queso apestoso :/ Marinette no se afectada porque Tikki quiere el sabores dulces en su vaporizador).

#wispanol arc hehe. also YES you saw that right English audience, the kwamis are smokers. Marinette has to ask Luka's bandmates for vapes because the closest bodega to her house is run by a sweet Chinese grandma who her mom likes talking to, so if she bought from there she'd be absolutely screwed. Adrien just buys all of the tobacco as Chat, though.

We're not planning on having Aspik show up in LT, at least as far as we have planned. If he did, however, his rat eating desire would definitely go through the roof. He'd probably try and time his rat-eating specifically for when he's Chat Noir, just to make things easier for himself. (Until he eats one as Adrien by accident and has to live with the mental baggage for the rest of his miserable little life...)

Well.. there are a lot of characters that really don't need redesigns! Or where redesigns would be extremely minimal. Marinette's dad only really needs to get proportional legs and then that's it, and the same philosophy extends to most of the other minor characters.

Here are some of @clemnoir's designs for the rest of the class, though!

In fact, her lovely annotations somewhat answer another question we received....

We haven't figured out everyone yet, but the scholarships group so far is: Kim, Max, Ivan, Rose, Nathaniel, and Mylene. Adrien, Chloe, Sabrina, Alix, and Marinette are all paid tuition.

There could be! The ancient miraculous are indeed destroyed, much like the infinite amount of others like them, Bearinette and Lambdrien are just explorations of what it would be like if they hadn't been. The bear and lamb miraculous are not canon to LT, nor would any future ancients be. If we get any good ideas, you'll see them.

[wis is biting all of her fingers to prevent herself from talking about the coyote....]

The big issue Marinette has with being Multimouse is that she's no longer respected as the leader, at least as much as she's used to. Because she sees Ladybug as more of a responsibility than fun superpowers, her side effects are more psychological by consequence, whereas Adrien's are more physical. She also feels some sense of jealousy towards Scarabella, as well as general insecurity over not being the leader when she's Multimouse... but despite this she continues to use the Mouse Miraculous more often than in canon just for the sake of "training" Alya.

Silu dice muchas gracias!!!!! ...No conocen sus identidades fsgdss. Exposición al milagros del raton causa disocociación, duplicación no literal para Marinette jajaj. (Pero, no puedo decir si dos Marinettes aparecen en LT..... tal vez, tal vez no? huummmm)

Tambien, ellos comiendo ratones en privado. Nadie los trae en su almuerzo. Todos ellos tratan con sus síntomas en secreto.

Violence and misery and horror and class dynamics. I'll get into it more in Part 2, but characters' relationships to power is a huge part of this AU, both of the magical and non-magical variety.

[adrinoir]

The Miraculous Movie was different than the series…and that’s okay!

I watched the movie this morning and loved it! I think it’s important to talk about the changes that were made and what impact they had.

How the characters were rewritten

There definitely was a difference in how the characters were written in the movie, and some of the redevelopment of characters was really good!

Gabriel was by far the one who had the best redevelopment of his personality. Gabriel in the series is awful, as we all know.

In the series, he barely gives a shit about his own son, like there is absolutely nothing redeemable about his character. In every “what if” episode and the season 5 finale, Gabriel does not show any regret to hurting people, including his own son.

However, in the movie, Gabriel actually makes a better attempt to communicate with Adrien and, most importantly, feels strong regret when he hurt his son. He cries; he feels remorse for destroying Paris and injuring Adrien in the process. He hugs Adrien (along with the spirit of Emilie 🥹) and decides to stop being Hawk Moth. It was beautifully done. He got a redemption arc that he never got in the series. I know I personally felt so good watching that and seeing the relationship between him and Adrien being repaired.

Marinette was her usual clumsy self, but was written as having no friends at school because she embarrasses herself so much. In a way, it makes more sense than her being so popular like she is in the series. Kids in high school can be pretty judgy and ruthless. So it makes sense for the “clumsy girl” to be made fun of and judged by people who don’t know her well.

Adrien was different in a lot of ways. He wasn’t shown running to school to gain freedom. He wasn’t introduced as being a super model who’s friends with Chloe. Instead, he’s already going to the school, he’s already friends with Nino, and he happens to run into Marinette at the library. He doesn’t have that same chemistry with Marinette as he does in the series which is a bit odd that they took that away, but it does make sense that he’d turn her down when she asked him to the ball, since he loves Ladybug. In the movie, he very clearly sees Marinette as just a friend and it’s shown that he’s building a friendship with her without him developing a crush. It’s different but still wholesome, especially when he shows her the old family photo to her. Plus, it evens it out well since Ladybug obviously turns Cat Noir away but they’re still building up their bond, too. They both get turned down.

It was ehhh that Adrien was a bit too cocky at times as Cat Noir, but overall, his goofiness and self confidence is still pretty on brand for him. He was still very encouraging towards Ladybug but not overly flirtatious, pushing her to her limits. Instead, it was them lightly teasing each other and then playfully fighting. And, speaking of the playful fighting, their bond was stronger in the movie seeing as how they were shown spending more time together off duty and that they were treated as equals.

In the show, Cat Noir is automatically made sidekick and left in the dark about everything. But in the movie, he gets to meet Master Fu in disguise alongside Ladybug. Sure, he didn’t help Master Fu with his cane like he did in the series, but that didn’t matter since the lore was changed.

Alya was less annoying in the movie. Sorry. Don’t get me wrong, I love Alya in the series, but she’s so over the top at times with how obsessed she is over the heroes, blogging, and filming things for her blog. In the movie, she was toned down a lot and I liked that. It was also cute that Nino had a crush on her and just her, not Marinette first. Unlike the series, he wasn’t on that pipeline of guys who fell for Marinette since that pipeline doesn’t exist in the movie.

Tom was made out to be an embarrassment for Marinette which is honestly more realistic for a teenager. Most teenagers get pretty embarrassed by their parents, especially when they still treat them very childlike. And, I like that he went out to the fair to look for her since he heard there was danger. Marinette’s parents don’t usually go out to look for her or make sure she’s in her room when there’s danger afoot. So, I appreciate that they made Tom do that since he obviously loves Marinette a lot.

The rewriting of (some of) the lore

As I had mentioned in my previous section, the lore was rewritten, too. Instead of Master Fu being the one to pick Marinette and Adrien simply because they helped him, the kwamis sense that Marinette and Adrien are the right people to be Ladybug and Cat Noir. That was a much better way to write that, in my opinion.

Hawk Moth got ahold of the butterfly miraculous by mistake. That part wasn’t changed but also, it didn’t need to be.

The change of plot

The plot was very simple. It didn’t have a whole lot of crazy, in depth details like the show’s does. So, anyone who has never watched the show can easily understand and absorb what’s going on (I will be forcing my boyfriend to watch it with me since he’s never seen the show lol).

I like that it was very clear cut and easy to understand while still being intense and meaningful. It still summarizes a lot of what the series entails while fixing some issues in the plot development.

They didn’t doddle with Hawk Moth like they do in the show. He was a successful villain in his second attempt but then realized he should stop when he hurt his own son in the process.

Also, there was a reveal. It was a wee bit underwhelming, but I still think it was done well! It was a moment with just Marinette and Adrien alone, as it should be. And, it was cutesy and heartfelt. The fact that Marinette dressed like Ladybug for the ball (cutest dress ever imo) and Adrien dressed like Cat Noir was so cute. That’s what a lot of the fandom has been asking for and written about in fanfics, I feel like.

The romance between these two is most important. They didn’t need Kagami and Luka as 2nd love interests to throw things off track. Yes, I like these characters in the show, but they weren’t needed in the plot.

The music

I love musicals. I was a bit of a theater kid in high school, plus I’m obsessed with music lol. So, yes, I’m a bit biased when I say I love that they made this a musical.

I personally loved the music. I can tell a lot of good effort was put into it and I’ve already been listening to the songs on my Spotify. The song between Ladybug and Cat Noir in the theater “Now I See” and Cat Noir jumping on the clouds (literally, on cloud nine) singing “My Lady” was absolutely adorable and super romantic, which, as we know, is a big part of the show.

Even Gabriel’s song “Chaos Will Reign Today” was amazing! It conveyed a lot of emotion and turns into one of those dramatic villain songs. Keith Silverstein is clearly talented enough to sing for his own character and he did it well.

My only nitpick is that Marinette’s singer, Lou, has a very different voice than Christina Vee. So, Marinette sounds very different, much more mature-sounding when she sings and it kinda catches you off guard. I’m surprised they didn’t have Christina sing for her, but there must’ve been a reason why she didn’t. But, SQVARE sounded similar enough to Bryce Papenbrook when he sung for Cat Noir which i absolutely love.

Conclusion

I personally give this movie a 10/10 just because it made me smile the whole time, and it’s such a feel good movie. I’ll happily watch it again and listen to the soundtrack, especially on a day when I’m feeling down. It wasn’t perfect in every aspect, but it was perfect in a simple, heartwarming sense and that it can be watched by everyone, not only people who watch the series.

I understand if it made you cringe or you were moreso looking for a continuation of the series not a retelling. But, I prefer some simplicity which is a big part of what made me like it. Like I said, I know it wasn’t absolute perfection, but it was so frickin adorable and I can’t help but smile.

There’s a lot of differences but also plenty of similarities between the movie and the show. But understand they’re not meant to be the same and that’s okay! I don’t think the movie was horrible for most of the changes it made. In fact, I think most of them made sense and made it a bit more realistic (as I explained).

[moppets]

IIRC you also think DM happened in the past. Do you have a theory as to why Daniel's memory's were erased?

Are you ready for something insane???

I think it has to do with Marius de Romanus.

The epicenter of Armand is Marius. He is in every crack and corner of how Armand exists. His shadow falls over the dynamic of Louis and Armand in the show and Armand and Daniel in the QotD chapter. In the book, once Armand realizes Daniel truly loves him in Pompeii, what does he do? He resorts himself back into the role he knows, except he casts Daniel as Amadeo and himself as Marius. Daniel becomes fully dependent on Armand because isn't that what love is? Armand understands his love properly right when Daniel is dying so he turns him. Armand can't stomach turning Daniel (sounds like s2 finale babes) and Daniel loses his mind and ends up isolated in Marius' care.

1940s AMC Armand believes Marius dead. Does 2022 Armand? Timelines can change easily. He spent time with Lestat for the trial, it could have been revealed. Lestat would hold it over his head for making him do this. Or maybe, reveal it through a relationship with Daniel.

Armand makes sure the SF edit of memories allows him to flaunt he saved Daniel's life. This is important to him. Except, he didn't save Daniel's life at all in that apartment. Why is it important to Armand that Daniel (and Louis) believe this? Why is it important Armand can hold onto that? I think he really believes he saves Daniel's life, just not in SF.

In the books, Bianca, Daniel, Benji, Sybelle all become objects Marius takes from Armand. So if Marius did come to check up on Armand unseen (funnily enough he does so in Paris and it's in Paris that Daniel's memories start to form a coherent timeline again) and finds him in a relationship with a human boy? Oh no, Armand is Marius'.

Oh Amadeo, I've come to you again. You have a human companion? He is addicted to you, you hurt him, give him the Gift! Turn him or free him! You cannot love properly because that is your nature. Let me take care of this one for you, Amadeo.

There is a glaring neon sign stating the love has already happened because Armand turns Daniel in the show. He has no other reason to do so. Armand doesn't punish this way. Okay so past relationship, but Armand doesn't want Daniel in Dubai, except he is and he allows it. Why? The entire thing reeks of "I don't want this interview happening. I don't want you here, but I am weak and selfish and I wanted to see you again. I want you to remember me."

I think he believes he saved Daniel from a life of damnation and Armand by allowing Marius (or himself, but I don't think he is that strong in the Mind Gift) to remove the memories of their time. I free you from me and you can go onto live a life. I won't let you be cursed.

So yea, Marius. Show wise look at who is about to get the scoop on Armand and Marius through Lestat. You set up Armand as this false villain, Daniel starts realizing there is more memories missing, anger at Armand for taking more. Look at what you did to Nicki, look at what you did to Claudia and Louis, look at what you did to me. Drop the twist that Armand truly thought he was saving Daniel, start Armand's backstory/redemption arc, and you build them reuniting.

Devil's minion break up and reunite in the books, but that is never shown beyond a few lines. No way, this show wouldn't want a deep exploration of a human/vampire relationship. They're dramatists. Rolin Jones and co. have such a sandbox to play in with these two during the time Anne Rice doesn't write for them and that's why I think their timeline appears all over the place.

OH! Daniel sits by Marius' portrait in the dining room every time by the way. Also, crazy first name drop of a major character in a line from the episode titled "...after the phantoms of your former self" where only Armand is present in the scene.

Yea, I bet you never heard of him

[theerurishipper]

Part 2 of my Paris special commentary (Part 1 here) because Tumblr is an ass and has a word limit.

Disclaimer: This is long asf.

Marinette here playing 5D chess, queen shit.

The most important thing the special confirmed is that Gabe added the word "dark" to his transformation phrase on purpose cause he's a dramatic bitch.

I am here for Claw Noir mocking Gabe. Go off, king.

"Oh nO, iT WAs aN IlLusIon!" That giggle is adorable. She's so cute.

Ladyfly is an ass name, but she looks so great.

Not Gabe getting annoyed at Claw Noir's teasing. See, now this is why we stan Claw Noir on this blog.

Gabe's plan isn't half bad, actually.

Symbolism? In my children's cartoon? It's more likely than you think.

They're having a pun-off.

RIP Chat Noir's ear.

Gabe got feathered lmao

Monarch dipped like a little bitch.

A mirror, I called it. It'll make for some nice symbolism.

"Let alone a calm and gentle mom" I wonder what Sabine is like in their world to make Emonette feel like she's so alone.

I like how they handled the villains tbh. I wasn't a fan of making it seem like Marinette was one step away from becoming a supervillain at all times, but it seems less like that's the case and more like The Supreme took advantage of her suffering and vulnerability at her lowest moments.

It's also nice that they established that Shady and Claw weren't the actual big bads and are just hurt kids who got recruited into a fight they weren't ready for. Their motivation isn't some rehash of Gabriel's, they are literally trying to survive under the rule of someone who will kill them if they don't do his bidding, and because of whom they're dying. Their life is literally full of suffering and they're trying to find something that'll give them a way out. Shady wants Marinette's life, and Claw Noir wants his mother back.

Like, it doesn't excuse their actions, but it does add a more humane element to them that lends itself better to the kind of redemption Miraculous likes to do, which is to fix things with a speech. That's why this redemption works, and Gabe's doesn't.

Anyway.

The back and forth between Chat Noir and Claw Noir was pretty funny ngl.

And we discover that Claw Noir wants his mother back. Of course.

MY POOR BABY

When Marinette was talking about how she was also angry and hurt, but chose to love herself and the world around her and chose to try and fix it... that hit hard. Honestly, it did. It's everything I love about Marinette in one speech. I love it.

And then onto my personal favorite scene in the entire special, possibly in the entire show.

That whole conversation was powerful. "I'm as well as I can be anyway," that's so profound. Like, of course you aren't going to be 100% okay after losing someone you love, but Adrien wants to move on and be happy like his mother would have wanted him to. This scene really showcases Adrien's empathy and his strength, when he acknowledges that having no friends can make it harder for Claw Noir to move on, and then he tells him that only he can make the choice to stop being alone. And that's really true. This scene really showcases everything amazing about Adrien, his hope and optimism, his empathy and his strength. How he finds the strength to keep going by choosing to not be alone. It's beautiful.

Like, it could have been so easy for both Marinette and Adrien to give into their darkest impulses, and Shadybug and Claw Noir really are just representations of how letting your hurt overpower you can lead you down a dark path, and it really highlights their strength, that they choose to make the right choices everyday, despite everything. It really highlights their characters and their arcs. And they're able to take everything they've learned, and look at what they could have been in the eyes and help them change too. It's so poetic.

It would have been a little more impactful if the show had spent more than 10 minutes out of 5 seasons focusing on Adrien's grief and how it has impacted him, but whatever.

Anyway, it also had some Adrien and Nino friendship crumbs, and I'll be darned if I didn't gobble it up like a starved animal. Also, we have confirmation that "Space Mutants vs. Ghost Shark" is Nino's favorite movie, so Nino stans please say "thank you Paris special."

And they are REDEEMED.

Shadybug fixes everything with her Lucky Charm after spending the whole special making destructive ones. My heart.

Shadybug and Claw Noir stop being evil and immediately go from hating each other's guts to flirting shamelessly. They just speedran enemies to lovers in a matter of seconds. They literally just defaulted to flirting. Truly, the natural state of Ladynoir in any universe. We stan.

Gotta be honest, I'm not a fan of the new designs. Wish they had kept the old ones. I'm one of those people whose toxic trait is liking Claw Noir's design, so I'm a little unhappy with it, but hey, it's a sweet scene.

Also, Claw Noir's hair went from the color of rotten bananas to ripe bananas. If that was intentional, I applaud the writers for being both profound and funny as hell.

Aaaaaaand Gabe is back, because we can't have nice things.

The montage going through different realities was great, it was small but I enjoyed it.

They're literally so cute omg. Couple behaviors fr. I'm so obsessed with them.

HUGS

POUND IT

They're holding hands... already... like they're in love... I'm so emotional... I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS

And they're gone. But their adventures will continue forever in my mind and in my fanfics. And in other people's art that I will ravenously consume.

Cute Alya and Marinette scene. This is really sweet, I love the exploration of the impact Alya has had on Marinette's life.

And now, I'm not an Alyanette shipper, but I think they should kis- oh, wait, never mind, they did it.

And thus, the endless night comes to an end (it happened a while ago but that's just semantics).

Final thoughts

I really loved this so much. Sure, there were some exposition dumps that probably should have happened in the actual series, but that's not the fault of this special. This is probably my bias talking but this is the best special and it's literally perfect, no I will not take any constructive criticism on that. This, this special and everything in it, this is what Miraculous is all about. This is exactly what I wanted, this is what I signed up for. It's literally the best thing ever to come out of this entire show.

[pumpkinmetaphor]

Ouran, Performance, Audience

Okay I said I was going to write this and I can't look at it anymore so posting. Anyway, performance in Ouran is interesting and we’ve all been chatting about it lately. Each character puts on an “act” for the guests, each character puts on another “act” for the people around them. It’s a testament to how well the characters are written that we can unravel these performances throughout the text. I still think there’s several levels of reading the characters and the text as well. 

Ouran is satire- hence why they’re essentially parodying these archetypes. But Ouran is also self-aware, self-referential, and meta. Characters break the fourth wall. They’re, at varying levels, aware of being in a story. We have characters who obviously break the fourth wall (Kyoya looking right into the camera in episode 1, for example. I would say Tamaki’s “homosexual supporting cast” speech, except it’s kind of an anomaly for him) and characters who are resistant to any sort of self-reflection that might lead them to any sort of conclusions like this (Hikaru.) I will at one point go through the entire manga again and count how many times each character narrates– which, to my recollection, is uncommon outside of Haruhi (MC obvs, and framed as talking to her mother) and Kaoru (framed as talking to himself/ the audience/ Hikaru-that-lives-in-his-brain) but I could be misremembering.

This is generally played for comedic effect. Tamaki breaks the fourth wall when it’s funny. Kyoya plays dumb about plot conventions (such as “we have birthdays here?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”) when it’s funny for him to do so. 

Anyway that’s just my setup. I want to discuss the Paris Arc, specifically whatever is going on with Kaoru. 

Read More because this is 2k words.

Kaoru is an interesting character because I think the performance is a little more pronounced. There’s reason to interpret he generally controls the scripts, his host club act is a bigger deviation from his natural personality, and fundamentally, as a person, Kaoru is less solid in his sense of identity. 

Which does kind of beg a question. The version of Kaoru the host club girls get is clearly fake. But the Kaoru most people get is some form of a mask. Kaoru reflects Hikaru– which is what Hikaru needs until Kaoru fears he doesn’t. Kaoru seems to take Haruhi’s assertion that he’s the “less evil one” to heart. I think neither Hikaru or Kaoru know what Haruhi is going to say is the difference between them in Episode/Chapter 5 because they themselves don’t know– aside from this very philosophical “well the one who is you is the one who is not me and the one who is not you is me etc.”

Anyway, we all kind of understand the general baseline– Hikaru is going to grow up, fall in love, and spread his wings– Kaoru is afraid this means Hikaru will leave him behind. This is the plot. 

But I think a lot of this comes down to “the thing they won’t be able to share,” which is presented to us in the form of that cookie. Haruhi notes that Kaoru will just give whatever it is to Hikaru. Hikaru ultimately snaps the cookie in half and forces Kaoru to take half of it anyway. This kind of embodies the fundamental difference between them, in my book. 

(Ch. 45, various spliced together pages) Hikaru: It is literally not on Hikaru’s radar that there might ever be anything that he and Kaoru do not share. He does not conceive this on any level before the Paris Arc. Kaoru will literally always be here, he is a constant that Hikaru cannot conceive losing. Hikaru’s not afraid of Kaoru abandoning him– he may be, afraid something will happen to Kaoru that will take him away, but he’s not afraid of Kaoru choosing to leave. Why would he? Kaoru is the one person who cannot betray him. 

Kaoru: It is a given that Hikaru will one day leave. It is simply the only way. Hikaru will grow up and, for various reasons, Kaoru will not grow with him. And Hikaru will choose to leave– this will not be a betrayal, it’s just how life works when you’re not the main character in your story. Your carriage turns back into a grubby ole pumpkin and you’re left all alone. 

After the cookie scene, Kaoru tells Hani that he has feelings for Haruhi. This is, in my opinion, when Kaoru takes the reins of the narrative. Of the carriage, so to speak. The carriage in the anime exists on the condition that no one acknowledges that they’re in a love story and “breaks” the found family. Kaoru saying he’s in love with Haruhi steers the narrative on the course to the inevitable. 

Which is great!

Except is Kaoru in love with Haruhi? 

My hypothesis: it literally doesn’t matter. Kaoru’s feelings for Haruhi do not drive the narrative. Kaoru talking about it does. He could be lying. He could be mistaken. He could be genuinely in love with her. It could be an idle crush. It doesn’t matter. It’s the performance of this love for the appropriate audience (aka: Hani, Hikaru etc.) that matters.

I think the base reading of this arc is that the cookie is Haruhi. Haruhi is the one thing they can’t share, right? They can’t like, keep eating biscuits out of her mouth and licking her face if Hikaru wants her to be his girlfriend and Kaoru wants her too. While I don’t think it’s incorrect to read this as a concern Kaoru has, I don’t think it gets to the heart of the issue. 

So, performance!

Kaoru puts on his little act for Hikaru throughout the Paris Arc. Generally tormenting him, ostracising him. In a way giving him a taste of what Kaoru goes through in a zillion Hika/Haru fanfictions or Kaoru’s own nightmares. This culminates in the date, where Kaoru basically brings Haruhi on the date he asked her on first (before giving it to Hikaru) and hitting every single mark that Hikaru missed. Not that anyone is enjoying themselves regardless to be honest. 

And of course, at the end, he kisses her and Hikaru sees and runs off upset. 

Except we, the audience, know Kaoru kisses Haruhi on the cheek. It’s a clear enough stage kiss from the art. Just close enough for us to understand that, from Hikaru’s perspective, Kaoru kissed her on the mouth. We’re bystanders, watching this plot unfold. Hikaru is Kaoru’s intended audience– that’s who he’s performing for. 

So what’s the difference then between this scene.

And this scene?

Well, first: what else can be the one thing Hikaru and Kaoru can’t share? If you go one level further, I think you come to the conclusion that Hikaru is the one thing they can’t share. After all, Hikaru cannot keep giving half of himself, half of his time, energy, love, self etc. to Kaoru all the time, and grow up. They suffer a classic case of enmeshment. Kaoru determines that Hikaru needs to be shoved out of the nest– and that the only way to do that is to stab him in the back. 

I don’t think Kaoru is trying to make Hikaru hate him. I do think what he’s trying to do is make Hikaru realise that he’s a person? Who is capable of betraying him, just like any other person. As long as Hikaru believes that Kaoru is “the only person he can trust,” he’s never going to grow up. By knocking himself off that pedestal in Hikaru’s eyes, Hikaru is forced to see him differently and Kaoru is prepared to accept however Hikaru might feel about him in the aftermath (though assuming he’ll drastically distance himself). 

(Side note. I think Hikaru and Kaoru internalise their maid-related-trauma slightly differently. While Kaoru’s fear is abandonment, Hikaru’s fear is betrayal. They just manifest similarly because there’s a lot of crossover. This is sooo long already, I’m not getting into it unless someone asks lmao.)

Loop back to the image again then. What’s the difference here? Well, it’s still a stage kiss! They both are. But, with one fundamental difference. 

Image one, Hikaru is Kaoru’s audience. He is performing to trick Hikaru (and possibly anyone else, like Hani and Mori, watching). But reality is clear to us, the reader.

Image two, you are Kaoru’s audience. He is performing to trick you. (but reality is clear to Hikaru, the participant)

Like, that’s pretty in your face huh? Faces obscured in a way that you don’t infer it as a cheek kiss as easily as you do with Kaoru and Haruhi. It’s also on the left page of the physical edition, meaning you have to skip to the next page to see the aftermath:

Kaoru’s not just tricking the audience. He’s queerbaiting the audience. Typical.

Firstly, I do think one can be led to the conclusion that if the one thing they can’t share is Hikaru, not Haruhi, that means Kaoru is not in love with Haruhi but is in love with Hikaru. In fact, I think that’s kind of the point with these panels. It’s framed as a bait-switch, which only works if the audience misinterprets the kiss. My ultimate conclusion therefore is that there is no textual romantic incest occuring. It is enmeshment at a bare minimum though. But that's another topic, another day, for somebody else.

Secondly, I think this is because the audience is, regardless, on the wrong track. Or at least not the full track. We have access to the narrative when other characters don’t, but we’re still reading the story Kaoru is telling. We’re still the audience to his performance of the story. It’s easier for Kaoru to tell a story that’s all about his brother– he’s been doing it his whole life. He’s not the main character, after all. So he’s telling us a story where the one thing they cannot share is Hikaru, telling all the other characters a story where the one thing they can’t share is Haruhi. 

So the one thing they can’t share is something more nebulous. It’s the identity. 

Which feels like a contradiction in a way, because the identity is Hikaru, isn't it?

They can’t be one double act, split down the middle. They can’t be one seed sprouting two leaves. They can’t be two halves of one cookie, or two halves of one soul. And the problem is, Kaoru views everything as something Hikaru has split down the middle and shared with him– and now he has to give it all back. 

I don’t really think Hikaru views “their room” as being “his room, that I share with Kaoru.” But I think Kaoru does. I think Kaoru views everything as something Hikaru has shared with him, right down to his own personality, his own face. Hikaru cannot leave, cannot grow up, unless Kaoru stops pretending to be him and gives him the half of his identity back to make one whole, true Hikaru. 

Only problem is, Kaoru has to cut that tricky spare leaf off. After all, when he gives Hikaru back the identity, Kaoru won’t have one. Kaoru is defined as being “the one who is not Hikaru.” My brother is Hikaru. The one who is not my brother is me. And how do you define that? When your brother is no longer there, who are you? 

That’s why it’s important that Hikaru dyes his hair. Because I don’t think him dyeing his hair matters if the issue is Haruhi (Haruhi can tell them apart anyway). I don’t think it matters if the issue is Hikaru (this would not, in isolation, fix Kaoru's thought process). 

It is however enough for Hikaru to be able to illustrate to Kaoru that their identity is inherently interwoven, not necessarily shared. It doesn’t matter if Kaoru is the same as Hikaru or not– because Kaoru is who he is. That may have been affected by the fact that they’re twins, but his identity is not negated by it. Kaoru's identity is not inherently a performance just because it reflects Hikaru, and he doesn't lose it when he ceases to reflect Hikaru.

(breathes)

CAVEAT AS ALWAYS: I am reading the English translation. While it is the official Viz Media translation, something is always changed in translation, localisation, and interpretation. With the assumption that everyone here is reading the manga in English (sweeping assumption, sorry) this is therefore a reading of the text inherently coloured by the site of circulation (English translation, volume compiled) and the site of audiencing: aka the fact that I am an English-speaking, European, media studies/animation academic, speaking on an largely American blogging platform to the like, twelve Kaoru stans that follow me. It also means your interpretation may be very different to mine! Anyway If you read this far, congrats! You deserve a cookie– whatever that might or might not signify.

[thorias]

So I've been thinking about how the "Saving Gambit" story is going to play out in season 2. Not much else to do right now but speculate since it doesn't look like we'll be getting any new information for a while; hell, at this rate, they probably won't even let AJ acknowledge that mid-credit scene in the finale until we've at least got a trailer to sink our teeth into.

Anyway... ideally, I'd like there to be more to it than just Rogue telling Deathbit that she loves him and then he's back to normal like magic. That's okay for Rogue, I guess, but Remy needs an arc too. And it would feel anticlimactic if it's that easy, especially after we got so gipped with the lack of Romy content in season 1.

I'd like them to build a real story around this, with the X-men trying a bunch of different ways to get through to Remy, but none of them work. I want to see Rogue try to drain the evil out of him like she did with Archangel in XTAS, only for her touch to have no effect because Apocalypse has accounted for that this time. I want to see Jean try to shut down the Deathbit persona telepathically, only for it to force her out of his mind.

I want to see them try everything they can think of to bring Remy back and fail every time until it all seems hopeless... and then hope arrives from an unexpected place.

We're getting into fanfic territory here, but we don't have much to go on for the time being, so screw it. Here's how I'd write the thing...

Archangel shows up to help the X-men with Apocalypse/Deathbit, giving them some new insight to go on. He explains how Apocalypse turns mutants into Horsemen; what it feels like and whatnot. Maybe it's a psychological thing where Apocalypse burrows his way into a person's subconscious and plants a seed that grows into something dark and twisted, which warps how that person thinks and perceives the rest of the world.

I see Archangel describing it as Apocalypse sifting through every memory and experience a mutant has ever had, looking for their absolute lowest, most vulnerable moment, when they feel utterly alone, hopeless and are most in need... and in that moment, Apocalypse appears to them (in their subconscious) like a savior and offers them a hand.

Them taking his hand symbolizes them surrendering to his influence and allows him to set up shop in their head, so the Horseman persona can take over. So if the X-men want to save Remy, they're going to have to deprogram him by getting inside his mind and finding that moment, so they can stop him from accepting Apocalypse's offer.

So maybe the X-men have to fight Deathbit to immobilize him. This gives Xavier an opening where he'd use Cerebro to boost his telepathy enough to get through Apocalypse's mental defenses, so he can take Rogue, go inside Deathbit's mind and start poking around in Remy's memories.

This is where Remy's arc can come in because they can do a lot of cool character stuff here. They start by looking at his childhood. Maybe they see him as a little kid in an orphanage (pre-thieves guild) with the nuns who run the place calling him "le diable blanc" and trying to beat the devil out of him. Then, after the beating, Apocalypse appears to child Remy and offers his hand... but Remy turns away.

They see teenage Remy having just run away from Belladonna and the thieves guild, having to leave his home, his first love and the only family he ever had. He's alone, miserable, heartbroken... again Apocalypse appears and offers his hand... and again Remy turns away.

They see Remy in Paris with Genevieve Darceneaux and her winding up dead simply because Remy Lebeau entered her life. As he stands over her grave, feeling guilt-stricken and heartsick, once more Apocalypse appears, offering him salvation, to free him from his self-loathing... and once more Remy turns away.

You know where I'm going with this, right?

Finally, they end up at the Genoshan gala on the night of the attack. A heartbroken Remy watches Rogue dance with Magneto, but can't stomach it and walks out. He sits alone outside, feeling utterly desolate, wondering if everything he thought him and Rogue had meant to each other was all for nothing.

One final time, Apocalypse reaches out... extends his hand... and in his despair... Remy takes it. That's the moment they have to stop.

The rest pretty much writes itself. Rogue jumps in between Remy and Apocalypse. Maybe there's a psychic battle with Xavier keeping Apocalypse at bay while Rogue tries to get through to Remy, finally telling him what really happened, that she'd actually rejected Magneto, realizing that Remy was right about what they have being "deeper than skin," but his self-loathing rears its' ugly head and he refuses to listen to her.

So finally, Rogue does what fans have been waiting for for 6 seasons, across 2 different cartoon series and 3 freaking decades: She finally tells him that she loves him... and she kisses him (they're on the psychic plane, so they don't have to worry about her powers hurting him here).

Maybe Rogue has gotten through to Remy and maybe she hasn't. His reaction is ambiguous, he still seems confused...

Xavier can't hold Apocalypse back anymore. Apocalypse confronts Remy and offers his hand again. It looks like Remy is reaching out to take it... but instead, he hands Apocalypse the Queen of Hearts card, which explodes in his face.

Apocalypse's hold over Remy is broken, the Deathbit persona is gone.

If they wrote something like that, I'd be pretty happy. But given how season 1 turned out, I'll probably have to lower my expectations.

[actually-factually-anonymous]

The unnecessary lack of personal stakes of Marinette Dupain-Cheng in the Agreste Arc

Inspired by a recent post by @starguardianniom, with half pinched again from my own reblog:

Marinette has zero personal stakes in the main conflict of her show, except that she happened to be the first girl who helped Fu across the road, and was thus chosen to wear the earrings. She doesn't even really seem to have any reason to be Ladybug aside from the basic "I can't sit back and do nothing" she stated in Origins. So a sense of responsibility conferred by being the bearer of the earrings, and an ostensible general desire to do good.

This would be fine, except that Adrien very much did have a reason to continue being Chat Noir. Plagg's Miraculous is the source of his freedom, and a new identity of his own making separate from the carefully curated child of Gabriel Agreste. Most importantly he had so much personal connection to the core plot that his narrative potential dwarfed Marinette's beyond compare.

His mere existence is the very axis of the plot, putting it in motion by the apparent desire for a designer child seeming being the very reason Gabriel and Emile sought the Miraculous all those years ago, and the consequences of his creation being the very reason that Gabriel devolves into magical terrorism. Hawkmoth being his father whom Adrien clearly cares for and whose goal of restoring his much mourned mother setup a truly impressive case for split loyalties for when Adrien (seemingly) inevitably learnt of his father's identity and true goal:

I made a comparison before between Avatar and Miraculous where Avatar won without question. Allow me to balance the scales here: the setup for Adrien potentially turning on Ladybug, or having to sacrifice his familial bonds for the sake of justice outweighed Zuko's own setup for choosing his ''honour"/loyalty to his family over his burgeoning sense of justice.

In potential at least. Rest assured that Zuko's character arc still far eclipses anything Adrien was ever allowed.

But the point I'm trying to make here is that in the very story that bears her name, Ladybug's only reason to be involved comes from the fact that she happens to have Tikki's Miraculous. She has no personal investment in the fate of Hawkmoth than other citizen of Paris, she certainly has no conflicting loyalties.

She doesn't even have a personal reason to continue being Ladybug. You can draw a parallel if you like with one of her ostensible inspirations Peter Parker, who learnt the price of personal inaction in a harsh and unforgiving manner that selflessly drives him to protect others. You can say that the Stoneheart incident fulfills a similar role.

But here's the thing: Peter Parker is Spiderman thanks to his radioactive blood. Ladybug is whoever wears Tikki's Miraculous. If Peter retires, he takes his powers away from the protection of New York. If Marinette gives up her Miraculous, a new Ladybug will arise in her place within a day. There's no need for her to be Ladybug, to take on that responsibility, and until the season three finale there's no personal stake for her to be the girl under the mask any more than any other Parisian citizen.

And that means that Marinette isn't the heart of her own story. In Avatar, it's Aang's quest to defeat the Fire Lord because it has to be him that restores balance. In Star Wars, it's Luke whose connection with Vader that has to restore Anakin's better nature. In just about any series there is a pressing need and personal stakes for the protagonist to be that The Protagonist of that story, that make that story their story.

But the setup here has all the pathos and personal stakes placed upon Adrien. Marinette is the centerpiece of the show, but Adrien's handed all of the narrative potential even as the writers let it go to waste.

It's like preparing a finely seasoned meal, then leaving it to rot as you serve plain vegetables. There's just no reason to have the vegetables when the fine meal is ready for consumption: and if that's a problem? If the plain vegetables were always meant to be the centrepiece? Then you should have seasoned the vegetables and made something delectable with them.

Because the saddest apart about Marinette having or actual ties or pathos to the Agreste Arc is that once upon a time that was not the case.

In previous Miraculous proposals, before the PV, Marinette Cheng was at least as part of the main story as Felix/Adrien was. There were various versions of how the story would go, with one echoing Cardcaptor's plot, and the later proposals looking more like what we got in the final product.

But all had Marinette having a personal stake in the story. In the Cardcaptor-esque plot, Marinette was Fu's granddaughter (or granddaughter figure), and Fu was the caretaker of the The Orb. A crystal that contained all the "fairies" (beings that served both the roles Kwamis and Akumas would later take). The story kicked off because Marinette brought her crush Felix into her Grandfather's store and accidentally broke The Orb, shattering it and allowing the Fairies to escape across Paris and empower countless people- heroes and villains both.

It was her mission to retrieve the Fairies, because she was the one who had released them. She was Fu's granddaughter and it was her responsibility to clean up her mess. It was her story, and Felix/Adrien was the one with less direct connection.

Later proposals ditched The Orb as the Kwamis were developed, but up until the most recent and final versions of the story Marinette retained Fu as either her blood Grandfather outright or at least a mentor so close from her childhood that she thought of him as a Grandfather. She also was usually being trained to be a Guardian or something like it herself from childhood.

She wasn't just a girl Fu found on the side of the road. She had as much connection to the Guardians and their world as Felix/Adrien did to Papillion. It even added a certain Montague-Capulet tragic element to the romance, since if Felix/Adrien and Marinette ever got together it would mean one having to choose between their partner and their family.

But for some reason, in the final product Marinette was stripped of all pre-series personal connections to the Miraculous.

The question is why? Was there really so great a need for Martinette to be "a girl like any other" that all of the plot relevance needed to be stripped out of her and added to Adrien, only to then completely ignore all that potential pathos by sidelining Adrien at every turn?

Because if you weren't going to do anything with Adrien, then all you've done is needlessly undermine Marinette's potential as a character.

Seriously, if you had given me the backstory of these two characters and asked which one was the main character: there would have been no chance I would have selected Marinette. Because all the writers have given her backstory is side-character material, whereas Adrien's very existence, as well as his relationship to his family and the Miraculous is at the heart of the story.

And I doubt there would be many others who would think otherwise.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

When Zoe-oneesama was still mapping out her plans for Scarlet Lady, she made an observation that two of canon!Sabrina’s biggest issues with her own personality are that she operates on both Mean Girl Logic AND Sidekick/Assistant/Slave Logic, which I agree with. This is evident in how, like you said, there are just as many moments — especially earlier on in the show — where Sabrina is gleefully going along with what Chloe wants as there are where she’s shrinking away or scared. Zoe also pointed out how this is highlighted in Evillustrator when Sabrina is trying to switch to being Marinette’s best friend and immediately tries to ingratiate herself by suggesting that they tell the teacher on Chloe and that she does Marinette’s homework. How would you handle a redemption or even just character growth arc for Sabrina with these main flaws in mind?

Here’s the OG post for reference (just for the Sabrina parts, not necessarily the SL parts since a few things were altered for the actual comic): https://zoe-oneesama.tumblr.com/post/180211248479/i-only-have-one-question-about-scarlet

(Link to the post that spawned this ask and a clickable link for @zoe-oneesama's post, which I'll also schedule to reblog the same day as this one if you don't feel like clicking a link)

Zoe is wise and makes excellent points. I've really enjoyed her comic's take on Sabrina and fully agree that people-pleasing Marinette is a poor choice for the character to help Sabrina be a better person in most situations. Marinette is great at standing up to those that she doesn't like, but once she cares about a person, she can be a bit of a pushover, which is a deeply relatable struggle. It's much harder to stand up to people when you care about them and want them to like you.

Adrien would be an even worse person to redeem Sabrina since he's even more of a people-pleaser! Marinette will at least stand up to her enemies, Adrien struggles to stand up to anyone.

This makes it hard to redeem Sabrina in canon because these two are our main characters. We want the plot and most of the subplots to revolve around them or the people close to them. We don't want Sabrina eating up screentime and elevating her narrative status to that of main character or major supporting character unless it benefits the wider story because the show isn't about Sabrina. She's an extremely minor character with zero ties to the leads outside of her role as Marinette's bully. No matter how much you like her, it makes no sense to give her serious narrative weight based on her established role in the narrative.

This means that Sabrina's path to the good side needs to either be very quick or somehow involve our leads and/or their core friend group without making them feel out of character. You could also somehow tie it to the villains and use it to develop them, but I really don't see that working for a redemption.

In spite of all of these issues, there are still a few ways that you might be able to make this work. Here's my pitch list. Note that the first three ideas could probably be mixed and matched into variants of each other where, for example, idea one's setup lead to idea two's plotline. I'm just keeping them separate to keep things simple and avoid repetition.

Idea 1: Remove Chloe and see what happens

Have season three end with Chloe leaving Paris because everyone blames her for Miracle Queen and Andre wants to protect his daughter. Without Chloe to be her leader, Sabrina is left adrift, so she looks for a new leader. She's already clung to Marinette once, so have that happen again, but with Alya more involved. Marinette will feel bad for Sabrina and Alya will be there to call Sabrina out on her bad behavior because you need a character who is willing to do that for this to work. Someone who won't try to sugar coat things like Marinette might if she's feeling sorry for Sabrina.

This path only works if you stick with the show's gender segregation issue where the girls and the guys don't interact much as it doesn't fit a setup where Sabrina is the fifth member of Alya, Nino, Marinette, and Adrien's little group. I don't even think it would work well in the larger group of girl friends. This plot line needs to really focus in on Sabrina and you simply can't do that with a large cast. The end result will probably be Sabrina becoming a pretty major character, pushing the guys even further into the background, so I don't really like this one, but it would work since canon is already giving Marinette and Alya way more importance than Adrien and Nino.

Idea 2: Self-Reflection After the Breakup

Have Chloe dump Sabrina. This could happen in several ways such as Lila not wanting Sabrina around as a witness or Sabrina failing Chloe in some way, leading Chloe to decide that she's better off alone. The cause really doesn't matter. What matters is the fallout.

This separation will play very differently from the one in the first idea. The separation is no longer forced on them, but an active choice made by Chloe, leading Sabrina to go into a full breakdown as she tries to understand what she did wrong. She may even try and fail to fix things. Chloe's continued presence will also make people wary of Sabrina, leading her to really have to face the bed her choices made.

Eventually Sabrina will reach a stage of self reflection where she wants to be better on her own. She will approach the rest of the class from the perspective of wanting help on her self-improvement journey, then someone who isn't a main character - and who hasn't suffered much from Sabrina's actions - will "adopt" Sabrina as their pet project. Sabrina's redemption will now no longer be a real plot line, instead it will be something we see hints of in the background. I liked the idea of this being Alix, that's a good fit. She would be very good at drawing lines in the sand. You could even make this a rabbit thing where Alix knows who Sabrina could be if she really works at improving and so Alix wants to help make that future happen.

Idea 3: Expand on Season Five's Speed-run Redemption

Stick with season five's plot of Sabrina switching sides because Chloe has gone too far, but instead of it being a one-episode thing, make it more drawn out. Make her and Marinette actually work together over multiple episodes and let Sabrina see what it's like to work with someone who cares about others. Someone who has lines that they won't cross. Marinette having a task to focus on will make her much less likely to baby Sabrina and give her Ladybug side a chance to really shine, which works since that's the side that inspires people to be better.

Idea 4: Paying it forward

Redeem Chloe, elevating her narrative role to someone who can have their own subplot, then have Chloe redeem Sabrina. Let their complex, but close friendship become a healthy and even closer friendship. This would let Chloe show how much she's changed and is probably the only path where I could buy Sabrina getting a miraculous as I just don't think that it makes sense for one of her main victims (Marinette) to give her magic powers. Just like Adrien should have picked Chloe, Chloe should pick Sabrina. "I know she's done wrong, but so did I and you still let me be on the team. Plus there's no one on this planet who is more loyal than Sabrina. This miraculous should be hers. She won't let us down."

You can also get real crazy and have Chloe pick Sabrina pre identity reveal so that Sabrina's redemption comes with a level of removal from the bullying baggage, making forgiveness much easier post-reveal. Identity shenanigans don't need to be limited to humor. They can be dramatic, too!

Personal confession time, that last one is my favorite. I just really love the power of love and friendship. I also really love the idea of the secret identities being used for more complex identity shenanigans such as easier redemptions. It's a lot easier to believe that someone has changed when you've become friends with their alter ego and seen the change first hand without the weight of the past hanging over you to bias your judgement. Option two is also pretty solid. Keeps Sabrina in her canon role while allowing her fans to see her grow into a good guy. Very best of both worlds.

I'll also note that the issue from my original post remains true: if you want to redeem Sabrina, then you need to stick to the version from the first three seasons. As soon as you add things like Derision to the mix, it becomes nonsensical to make her friends with her victims. She's simply gone too far with no complicating element to make her victims want a relationship with her.

For all Gabriel's awful actions, it makes sense that Adrien might want his father in his life, so you can potential make that redemption work if you handle it with extreme care, but Sabrina is just a random mean girl. There's no greater connection that would make the heroes want a relationship in spite of all that she's done. The only way to change that is to make Chloe a hero too because Sabrina is Chloe's best friend, so it makes sense that Chloe would want to keep Sabrina around (or at least these two were best friends in the first three seasons. I don't know what they were after that. It seriously felt like season four started with the introduction of Chloe's eviler twin).

[familyabolisher]

Elaborate on poor things? Haven’t seen it, just curious

i think caden does a great job at getting at the heart of a lot of its problems here. some of my own thoughts on top:

for a piece which clearly wants to work with the materials of frankenstein and dabbles in broader gothic tropes especially in its final plot beats, it really just -- it wasn't very fucked up at all! i think probably the worst thing we saw happen was bella killing a frog in the first half hour. the gore was unspectacular and the plot was profoundly low-stakes -- the film utterly fails in crafting any kind of a sense of tension, such that you're never really afraid for (or of!) bella, never seriously concerned that something bad is actually going to happen. it was all just a fun little romp through europe.

the humour was either just straight-up asking the audience to laugh at how a character telegraphed as disabled moves and communicates, or, like, marvel-type jokes that felt unnatural and forced. i don't think a single joke landed for me. it's not a black comedy because it's not black enough and it's not a straightforward comedy either because it is simply not funny. a better version of this film would've been a) more fucked up and b) funnier, with those two elements complementing one another very well, but -- well. Sad!

lanthimos thinks that making big, unwieldy gestures towards every discourse of the nineteenth century he can think of is the same as interfacing with them at the narrative level. we've got: science and religion! class struggle! sex work! humanism! enlightenment idealism giving way to socialist thought! misogyny! we've got class inequality and a very faint outline of imperialism, helpfully telegraphed by showing some starving brown people on-screen in a yellow filter for all of about five seconds. but none of these are actually engaged with -- they're thrown in as empty signifiers, as if to say, very vaguely, It's The Late Nineteenth Century, Big Ideas, We All Know About Those. nothing changes in bella's material conditions at the end of the film, save for like, the presence of her Black lesbian socialist lover. that's not engaging with what Blackness, lesbianism, socialism ought to problematise about bella's life and worldview; it's tacking the fact of those things on as a footnote and calling it development.

speaking of enlightenment-style idealism, the film makes very little effort to problematise bella's desire for self-improvement, and how that self-improvement comes about specifically through becoming articulate and acquiring greater motoric skills. as i said, the film takes a turn towards (very shallow depictions of) socialist thought once the action shifts to paris, but the underlying suggestion that bella's 'self-improvement' to the ends of making herself, essentially, less disabled was to her benefit is never challenged. this combined with the extent to which the film's aforementioned shit humour rested heavily on expecting the audience to laugh at bella speaking and moving oddly or saying something out of place &c. left a v nasty taste in my mouth.

the premise is stupid sorry. like it's just utterly inane. frankenstein for the most unimaginative people alive. for that matter, most of the plot beats are ridiculous and lazy -- the final arc, with the arrival of her old husband and the return to her old house, was very much giving "the deadline is at midnight and we still need to fill this last half hour and we've got nothing to put here so let's just whack out the first plot we can think of." like, it was incredibly rushed, ridiculously heavyhanded and patronising, and unable to add anything of substance to the piece (which, to be fair, nothing in that film was at all substantial, So Like).

it's misogynistic slop with a lazy plot and no real interest in engaging with the ideas it vaguely raises for five seconds. it's aesthetically decent, i guess, but like ... anything can be aesthetically decent. it's v easy for a film to look pretty and apparently v difficult for it to actually do anything substantial.

[fraudulent-cheese]

I think im actually going to change who wins in my team escope tdwt au?

Originally Noah was going to win and alenoah was gonna be the final 2, but it felt both like a disservice to Heather's character who does have development over the course of the season and it wasn't super compelling to me (she's way more invested in the competition than Noah is + my personal agenda of making Alejandro loose the competition in every single AU i write) + Noah winning just not making for a satisfying ending

Heather in this AU would end up in a similar "previous antagonist becomes antihero due to a bigger vilain popping up" position as she does in canon, but it's combined with her making a genuine friend on the show in Harold; she's shown in the best light she's ever been shown on the show and while a good chunk of the audience is supporting Noah for the finale, she still has a decent crowd of supporters.

It's also my personnal mission to make Alejandro loose in every Total Drama AU i write apparently, and him loosing the tie-breaker is perfect for angst. Also i've seen my fair share of tdwt alenoah rewrites and none of them have included both in the final 3 tie-breaker so it would be fun to explore, with Noah only standing a chance against Alejandro thanks to his dodging ability and wanting to put an end to their endless pining...

It could go two ways - either Noah wins the Tie-Breaker or Alejandro wins the tie-breaker.

Noah at this point in the competition is sure of three things:

Alejandro's a very competitive guy, with a flare for the dramatics

Him and Noah have had been semi-friendly semi-fighting all competition, with it dipping more into a rivalry as of late (the thing keeping him trying after Eva's elimination)

And based on both of these facts:

Alejandro's most likely looking for a dramatic victory over him. Noah's not willing to give him that.

So, mid-spar, Noah's trying to solve this conflict once and for all - Not his brightest idea, but he's joined Total Drama so he's made worse decisions - and opts to be genuine while dodging Alejandro's hits. His earnestness does break through eventually, and confesses to him. They're both standing near the edge of the fighting platform, and are both tired as hell from the previous challenge.

That is the only reason Noah considers as the one behind Alejandro leaning in and kissing him.

After this is where the ending would diverge depending on who ends up in the final two: Alejandro would win by Noah falling into the water right afterwards on his own accord, and Noah would win by tricking Alejandro into falling into the shark infested water.

either making it to the final 2 doesn't change the outcome of Heather winning in the end, but it would change the banter and Helpers; Heather would pick Sierra (who got over Heather booting her back in Paris because she's "a sucker for redemption arcs") and Leshawna (who's friendly with her in this AU) while the boys would pick a combination of the third placer + one of their closest friendship on the show (Courtney and Noah for Alejandro, Alejandro and Izzy for Noah). Heather still ends up in the cage trap and is genuinly pissed at this, but Harold and Leshawna (through the power of friendship) snap her out of it with a similar line as in canon (that she's a better person now and either 1. more deserving of the win for them if she's against Noah or 2. the 'good guy' if she's going against Alejandro) and manages to climb up the volcano.

If Heather's against Noah, she catches up to him due to his garbage athletisism and if it's Alejandro, it's the cast catching onto his distaste of the "Al" nickname and using it against him (probably Owen and Izzy, the latter joining in for shits and giggles). If it's against Noah it'll be a roundabout way of having a friendship finale, it's just the good guy with friends vs the less good guy who's gotten better thanks to friendship and self reflection, and if it's Alejandro and Heather it's just bad guy vs good guy, more like in canon :p they could have a stupid dramatic swordfight with the dummies that Alejandro looses like an idiot and it gets him slipping to the volcano's base (because it would be a funny visual).

The volcano still explodes at the end, but i don't know if i want the "alejandro gets partially burnt" ending or "everyone (but the million dollars) is fine" ending yet. idk

[imthepunchlord]

Honestly? At this point Miraculous seems like a pick and choose kind of fandom??? Like when the storyline and author of something become too much of a mess for the fans to care much for canon anymore so they just choose what the want to write fanfics about. It happens in stuff like DC where they can't have all the different characterizations of the characters together without contradiction. Death of the author situation I think???

It was already happening with fan artists so very intrigued by the PV. And then as new characters and powers were introduced people started omitting some characters n episodes.

Now, with the absolute nothing having done for the character arcs for most of the characters (Adrian, Chole, even Alya) people are just tired.

Understandably so. We have almost a decade of bad writing, inconsistency on characters, clashing set up and characters, upsetting/huge choices that don't have any real consequences to them or not the right response, and honestly at the core, nothing changing all that much. S6 is going to have LB and Chat still not know each other's identities, and are still going to face a villainous Butterfly user.

Only difference is that there's now a total of 17 heroes in Paris, but given that LB and Chat are the center piece, I don't know how much we'll really see them. Oh, and Adrien and Marinette are dating, though I wouldn't be surprised if s6 just had them broken up or immediately broke them up. They did it before. And this pair is supposed to chase each other eternally... maybe they'll stay dating s6 and onwards but idk, it seems like no one likes writing couples together, which is a shame as that can be a whole other can of worms and not always happy, as you're taking that partnership further, you're going to learn more of who your SO is, and there's going to be fights, there's going to be learning communication, there's going to be learning compromise. There's a lot to explore with couples together that's not always sunshine and rainbows, and hardly any show wants to really explore it. Maybe they will s6 but I'm not really anticipating the possibility.

Either way, yeah, ML is that medium where, because of the inconsistency, you can pick and choose what you think fits the character. Given the lack of consistency, it can be up for debate of what's even in character for this character.

Like, I remember when Collector first came out, and Chloe is sobbing about Adrien being pulled from school and I was so surprised by the choice. The Chloe that was presented in s1 would not be sobbing. She was be mad. She would go demand and threaten Gabriel to give Adrien back. Probably one of the few people she genuinely cared for, and this is a girl who knows that she has a lot of political power and can get her way easily. She would not be crying over this, she'd be marching her way to the Agreste manor, ready to give Gabriel a bad day for the audacity of pulling her friend out of school when she waited so long for him to join her in school.

And that's just one of many moments where something can feel out of character, at least for me. Depending on how you view Chloe, that could very much be in character. And that's the nice and frustrating thing with Miraculous, no consistency, anything is up for your interpretation.

Even more so when you have characters that have a clear route of progress to follow.

Like, take Felix, who got cut because he didn't work with what Astruc wanted to do, which yeah, he doesn't. Which he wanted to do a status quo story, which means little to no progressing forward, no major changes to that initial set up. Felix though is a character that needs progress. He starts out selfish, not wanting to be a hero, and his set up arc is learning to care. Learning to truly become a hero, learning to make friends and working with others, coming to genuinely fall for his partner and being genuine with her.

Felix would've been fine with a story progressing forward.

He had a clear path to take.

Chloe, given all the build up to be Queen Bee, had two clear paths to take, be it redemption and rising to becoming a hero, or embracing a role of full villainy.

Alya had a clear path to take, with her eagerness to expose the heroes publicly, she needs to learn the value and security of secrecy, and the reality that her trying to expose them put them at risk; that she needs to reevaluate her priorities and how she should go about things.

There's also the issue of lore, which ML has really bad lore. Which can leave us to be more creative with it, make changes so it makes sense. And this can extend to powers too, as I don't think a majority genuinely like all powers presented, I don't know anyone who really likes time traveling Rabbit or really knows how Rooster works. So it is really nice that people are pretty open to seeing Miraculous power changed or expanded upon.

And of course, there's the lack of consistency in what they set up.

Ladybug and Cat are supposed to be THE most powerful, the big two! But they don't feel like. Butterfly feels like the most OP given it can give any power and can make superior versions of preexisting Miraculous. Peafowl can do the same, and make actual life apparently, that you can fully control and terminate whenever you want. Rabbit can freaking time travel. Rooster it seems can give you any power you want, I know they tried to explain that Rooster can't do what other Miraculous do, but that's a clashing statement as Ladybug and Goat both generate items, and the Paris Special reveals that a Ladybug CAN control what items they gets, and you got Butterfly and Peafowl able to function the same, and in the Paris Special, Butterfly can make a champion that can go to different realities, and Rooster can give the ability to go to different realities, so I guess we'll just go with Rooster can give you any power you want?

Yeah, Miraculous over all is a huge frustrating mess. Even more so that it's still going on despite how sloppy it is.

And for me at least, I create content for it as I can SEE the potential it has for the concept. It's such a brilliant idea for a superhero/magical girl show.

Doing animal themed heroes, with their powers working off the animal symbolism, themes, folklore, and mythology? Yeah, that is great. That can give you SO MUCH to work with and do. Even more so, most animals have the same themes across different cultures, like everyone agrees that foxes are tricky, horses are about heroism and traversal, bees are the peak example of community, ect..

And then there's these little beings that are based on those animals, that have lived through a long history alongside humanity? Easily could've been the most fascinating part of the show, especially if they work off animal archetypes. That gives you a preset personality to build upon, and can shape each kwami's view, moral, and guidance.

Like Pollen as a Bee should have values of having a role to play in the great hive of the world, you might need help finding your purpose, and to believe that humans should communicate, work with others, work hard, be kind but take no bull. Live a life of integrity and responsibility.

Trixx as a Fox though should be a trickster. One that's ultimately for the greater good, but she's going to be chaotic about it. Maybe a little selfish, maybe a little mischievous, and maybe a little risky. She's going to urge a value of cleverness and perception in her humans, but she's also going to let them act for themselves as she wants to see how things play out for curiosity and fun. And in the grand scheme of things, everything will work out as Trixx intends, with her having various predictions on how things will probably go, but my goodness, anyone caught up in her gambling game is going to be in for a wild ride.

And with these two very drastic animal archetypes, it sets up Pollen and Trixx to clash on how they handle things, expanding upon kwamis having unique dynamics, some as friendships while others are rivalries.

Then of course, there's the intrigue of what humans they could get paired with, especially if you go a route of foils that could open the way for growth.

Like Bee was set up as Chloe's ultimate foil, being the opposite of who she was: being mean and petty, lashing out, being lazy, egotistical, selfish, doesn't work with others unless she values them. All of that is the opposite of what bees represent. And all of that is what Chloe needed to grow and improve, but no, we can't make progress, she has to stay who she is, so the Bee is catered to her lashing out.

So yeah, it's a big shame as I freaking love this concept, especially as I like animals, I like reading up on their mythology and symbolism and such. But it's so horrendously done. And that's the biggest shame as I think it could've been one of the great cartoons to recommend. But not how it is now.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Illusion

You know, It's really sad how this is a Lila episode, and she somehow isn't the most annoying character to come out of it.

Let's get into the fifth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Illusion

We start off with a news broadcast where several people are interviewed about the recent developments this season. There's an attempt made to show differing perspectives, but while half are recurring characters who are confident Ladybug and Cat Noir will beat Monarch (Xavier, Mr. Damocles, and Alec), the other half are antagonistic characters who either blame Ladybug for everything going wrong or are too stupid to care about the bigger picture (XY, Chloe, and Bob Roth).

This is one of the overarching problems with the show, its refusal to show any nuance in its arguments. We already know how easy it is for the writers to blame Marinette for things whenever there's a conflict, but whenever there's an argument where both sides make interesting points, the opposing side is almost always represented by an antagonist or jerk who frames their view in either a condescending or idiotic way so it's easy for the viewer to brush them off, and the same can be applied to their side of the argument as well. Hell, it's already happened twice this season with Lila and Chloe (Multiplication, Determination). It just comes across like the show is pretending to act like its conflict is deeper without actually showing any real nuance with it. I get that some arguments aren't morally gray, but if you're trying to discuss Ladybug's past failures, put more effort into showing how the people of Paris would see something like this without knowing the full context.

Also, this is a minor thing, but I actually like how when we see Alec on the talk show, he's wearing a wig like the one he had in “Wishmaker”, and has the same positive outlook on life he had at the end of that episode. For a show that usually plays loosey-goosey with its continuity, it's surprising to see the writers actually acknowledge the character growth of someone as insignificant as Alec.

Congratulations, Miraculous Ladybug. You managed to give a very minor side character a consistent arc. Now if only you could put the same amount of effort into writing your main cast.

We cut to Adrien's room where, shock of all shocks, he isn't exactly a fan of his image being used for a high-tech ring without his consent. He storms off to see his father, but it turns out that Gabriel is experimenting with the idea of not being such a terrible father for once. He's making breakfast, saying that Adrien can call him “Dad” now, and even admits that he's been very neglectful towards his son ever since Emilie “disappeared”. Yeah, he's cooking breakfast in his white suit and haircut that makes him look like a grandpa for some reason, but hey, at least the kitchen isn't on fire.

Of course, Gabriel still isn't really good at comforting his son, as seen with his response to Adrien's concerns about Alliance.

Adrien: Speaking of which, Dad, I'm not really comfortable with having my face on all these rings. That's actually why I didn't want to be a model anymore, to avoid that. Do you understand?

Gabriel: Of course, I understand, my son. But that's the point; it's just an image, it's not you! And since this image frees you from your obligations, we, the Agrestes, are able to spend more time together. But if you'd rather everything went back to the way it was before, just say the word.

Adrien: You're probably right.

Gabriel: You'll see, my son. Alliance will bring us closer.

“I know you're concerned about me using your image for something that I could have hired literally anyone else for, but if you would rather go back to being a model on a strict schedule, just say the word.”

Father of the year, ladies and gentlemen.

We get a decent interaction between Marinette and Alya where they discuss ways that Monarch could be giving Miraculous to his Akumas, unaware of what the Alliance rings do. Alya comes up with an interesting hypothesis that Monarch is using the Dog Miraculous to swipe them back, and honestly, that sounds like a much better plan than “develop a cutting-edge AI ring and hope whoever I akumatize had enough money to buy one”. I like this bit, as it shows the two thinking of ways to stop Monarch beyond beating whatever Akuma he sends out next. It honestly could have been a really interesting story arc to see Marinette, Cat Noir, and Alya learn more about how Monarch is using the new Miraculous he got instead of having us know what he's doing already.

After class ends, Nino talks to Adrien about an underground resistance he's forming with his friends, deciding to give each member a condiment-themed title.

Alya: What's up with the sauces?

Nino: What's up is Ladybug and Cat Noir don't have us to help them anymore.

Alya: (nervously) Um... uh... what do you mean, “us”?

Nino: Well, us, you Rena Rouge, me Carapace! (Alya kicks Nino's leg underneath the table) Ouch! What's the big deal? We can tell Marinette and Adrien we used to be superheroes. It's not like we have any Miraculous that Monarch could steal from us. The only ones who need to protect their secret identities are Ladybug and Cat Noir, not us. And anyway, I already told Adrien about Carapace.

Adrien: (chuckles nervously)

Marinette: Adrien knew?! Alya, did you know that he knew?!

Alya: What, no, I swear I didn't know at all! (kicks Nino's leg again)

Nino: Ow! Come on! He's my best bud, I can tell him stuff! You and Marinette tell each other stuff, don't you?

Alya and Marinette: No we don't!

Yeah, remember how shocking it was for Nino to reveal that he and Alya were Rena Rouge and Carapace to Adrien in “Rocketear”, and how we thought this reveal would play into something big like the Season 4 finale, possibly splintering the trust several characters had with each other? This is what it culminates in. Wasn't waiting over a year since that plotpoint was established totally worth it for that gag that once again ignores the secret identity rule?

Also, just because you don't have a Miraculous, it doesn't mean Monarch can't target you like he did last season (Optigami, Sentibubbler), you dumbass.

For the first time in God knows how long, Lila actually becomes relevant when she asks to sit with the four, only to be rebuffed by Marinette and Nino. Using some more condiments and food as props, Nino explains his plan.

Nino: We're gonna film an akumatization.

Alya: And how are you, Comrade Ketchup, gonna be in the know when and where this akumatization takes place?

Nino: Easy, Comrade Beurre Maître d'Hôtel. I'm gonna make it happen.

Yep, this is the plot of the episode, people. Nino's going to try and get someone akumatized. Now I know what you're all obviously thinking: Isn't this cruel?

Adrien: Isn't that cruel?

Alya: Totally! To make someone suffer just to discover Monarch's technique? Super cruel!

Nino: No, it's not! You forget Ladybug always fixes everything in the end with her magic ladybugs! The akumatized victims forget what happened to them.

Oh yeah, this is totally ethical, you guys. Who cares about the emotional trauma an Akuma victim would go through, much less any civilians endangered by their rampage?

To make things even better, guess who Nino wants to get akumatized?

Okay, putting aside what we, the audience, already know about Gabriel that Nino doesn't, why would he think pissing off one of the most influential fashion designers in the city of Paris is a good idea? He says he's targeting him because it's easy to do so during parent-teacher conferences, but why not target someone else who has been akumatized more often than him, like Xavier/Mr. Pigeon? I don't think the idea of a more morally gray plan to stop Monarch is a bad one, it's just that this plan is so stupid, and the writers only go over the ethical implications, and that said plan is so ludicrous, Nino is basically asking for a restraining order.

While Adrien and Marinette agree to Nino's plan, Alya only hesitantly goes along with it, but unbeknownst to any of them, Lila was overhearing their conversation, so she goes to tell Gabriel what they're doing. During the conferences, Marinette barges in and pretends to trip and drop some pizza onto Gabriel's clothes, and I'm going to assume that either the pizza was cold of Gabriel is really good at keeping a cool head because there's no way taking a hot pizza to the chest wouldn't hurt like hell. Adrien and Alya come in with more food, and we get the one funny joke of the episode with Alya half-assing her performance as the half-heartedly throws some cake onto Gabriel's suit. Pretty funny how Nino is conveniently the only one who isn't taking the risk by attacking Gabriel in front of his teacher by filming the whole thing, isn't it?

Gabriel has had enough and does a 180, planning to take Adrien out of school and somehow, Marinette blames herself for going along with the plan... even though she was the only one to not approve of it, while Adrien and Alya did, and even then, the latter two were very hesitant. It turns out this was all part of Gabriel's plan, as we see him transform into Monarch as soon as he gets to his lair and uses Trixx's power to create a Mirage of his civilian form, having a breakdown so dramatic, I'm surprised he didn't end it by saying, “YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, MARINETTE!”.

The illusion of Gabriel turns into the Collector again, and now he supposedly has the Horse Miraculous' Voyage as a power. Adrien and Marinette transform into Cat Noir and Ladybug respectively, and try to fend off the “Akuma”. Back in Monarch's lair, we learn that he somehow has the ability to unify with five different Miraculous at once, choosing to do so with the Bee, Mouse, Horse, and Rooster Miraculous. Why is he able to do this now?

Monarch uses Voyage and heads to the sewers, activating Venom before using Multiplication to create eight smaller clones of himself, finally using Sublimination to give the copies the power of invisibility. Strange, wouldn't wanting to be invisible count as a wish? While looking for “the Collector”, Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm, getting a bag of shredded cheese. The two chase after the illusion, only to fall through a Voyage portal into the sewers, where Cat Noir is almost immediately stunned by one of the clones. Hey, it took five whole episodes this season for him to be incapacitated by an Akuma to pointlessly raise the stakes this time! It's a new record! Ladybug throws the cheese to reveal the clones, who are then chased off by some nearby rats.

Monarch goes back to his normal form, and after a small pep talk, the illusion pretends to reject the Akuma entirely before falling into the water. The real Gabriel detransforms and then pretends to have gotten out. So Gabriel tricked the heroes with his foolproof plan... except for the fact that Ladybug and Cat Noir should have recognized the use of Venom, the hidden clones of the Collector when the video Nino got only said he had the Horse Miraculous' power, the akuma somehow purifying itself when Ladybug still needed to de-evilize it in “Rocketear” and “Penalteam”, the fact that Gabriel should be soaking wet from falling into the water, and the—okay, you all know where this is going.

Meanwhile, Nino sees the footage of the illusion and sees what he believes to be the way Monarch gave the Collector the Horse Miraculous' powers. Nino then apologizes to Gabriel for attacking him, Gabriel forgives him, and Nino invites him into the Resistance, with a bunch of new members. The final scene reveals that in addition to Nino, Alya, Marinette, Adrien, and Gabriel, the Resistance now has Max, Kim, Rose, Juleka, Ivan, Mylene, and to Marinette's horror, Lila. Also, there's a post-credits scene where Gabriel explains what he did to Tomoe when literally everyone watching was able to figure it out.

Okay, so let's summarize. The first mission for Nino's resistance involved assaulting a private civilian, was easily discovered before it could even be implemented, was just as easily foiled by an illusion, now Monarch and one of his allies have infiltrated the alliance as moles, and Nino isn't even aware that his plan was a colossal failure. This resistance isn't exactly going to be like the Rebel Alliance, is it?

Yeah, this episode sucked. It's easily the worst one so far in my opinion. There were a handful of decent moments and ideas here, but my God, the story was just terrible. Morally gray subject or not, it's hard to get behind the heroes when they try to intentionally piss someone off for a plan that the audience knows is going to fail, especially a plan as stupid as Nino's. This episode features Nino at his most obnoxious and unlike Alya, Marinette, and especially Adrien, he doesn't even feel bad for what he did to Gabriel when it ended up being (as far as we know) completely pointless. It feels like the writers wanted to gloss over the ethics of Nino's plan by making Gabriel the victim, because if it was anyone else, it would have made him look like a colossal prick. The fact that he learns nothing and thinks his moronic scheme was a success really doesn't help.

The other characters thankfully weren't as bad. It seemed like the writers were trying to show some self-awareness by having Alya, Marinette, and Adrien object to the plan in one way or another, but it never really went much other than them begrudgingly going along with it, much less calling him out for his actions. At the same time, they all got some decent moments, like Alya and Marinette's discussion about Monarch and Adrien struggling to convey his feelings about the Alliance rings to Gabriel.

It's also kind of weird that it took us about five episode into the season for Lila to finally be relevant again after she did absolutely nothing for the last three episodes of Season 4 and the first four episodes of this season. It was only three and a half years since “Ladybug”, the last major Lila episode premiered, right? But hey, at least the writers didn't overindulge in the dumb Lila lies like her other episodes, and was used more as an informant to kick off Gabriel's counter to Nino's plan.

Putting aside how terrible Nino's plan was, Gabriel's plan still had a lot of problems to it. Like I already mentioned, it's a little strange that Ladybug and Cat Noir never talk about the tiny clones they fought, or the fact that Cat Noir was stung by Venom. I can kind of suspend my disbelief by saying Ladybug was too focused on the battle to think, but why the hell didn't Cat Noir say anything? You would think after working alongside Queen Bee and Vesperia, he would recognize what being stung by Venom must look like. Yeah, Ladybug and Cat Noir didn't know Monarch can now use more powers for some reason, but it still really bothers me, because they should know the Collector can't multiply himself. It's also strange that he made his trick so hard to find when you would think it would be more obvious to see

But overall, this one was just a chore to get through. It feels like the writers saw how much some people didn't like Nino in “Rocketear”, and were like, “You call THAT character assassination?” And speaking of...

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... NINO

Was there ever any doubt? The dude talked about his identity in a public place, nonchalantly blew him and his girlfriend's cover when he had no reason to for his Resistance, tried to get his best friend's dad akumatized while not caring about any potential damage, showed no remorse for what he did when his plan blew up in his face, tried to tell Ladybug and Cat Noir about what he learned while they were fighting the Collector, and all that was for a plan that didn't even work because the intel was discovered with ease, to say nothing about how he unintentionally let two enemies into his own Resistance. I've seen a lot of stupid decisions in this show, but never have I seen a single episode where a character makes screw-up after screw-up and doesn't even realize how much of a colossal moron he's being. With the past five episodes I covered and awarded Biggest Idiot Awards to (Ladybug, Alya, Xuppu, Mr. Damocles, and Luka), it was more them not seeing the bigger picture. Here, Nino is honestly trying to help Ladybug and Cat Noir, yet he failed at his job in every way.

[theerurishipper]

Hello! I have a question about Marinette. It's clear to me that she struggles with control and may sometimes mistreat her partner, in my personal opinion. It appears that she lacks trust in Chat Noir, which is not only upsetting but also confusing.

Marinette seems to have a stable home life, and her school experiences, while not as dramatic as some fans portray, seem relatively normal. Her parents have a loving relationship, so it raises the question of why Marinette behaves this way. Where do her controlling tendencies stem from? It's perplexing to me that she doesn't seem to trust her own partner. It's almost as if she treats him as if he could potentially turn into a villain. Chat Noir goes to great lengths for her, yet we rarely see her reciprocate in kind. Her interactions often seem limited to positive affirmations and superficial gestures. I wonder whether this inability to comfort someone or communicate effectively is a result of her environment influencing her or if it's perhaps a consequence of her newfound powers affecting her ego.

I don't mean to criticize her character, but it seems that Marinette's acquisition of powers and constant praise, coupled with the lack of discipline or guidance from Master Fu and Su-han, has left her without a mentor or anyone to hold her accountable for her actions. Her role as the guardian and leader exacerbates this issue because she struggles with being upfront and truthful, especially with Chat Noir. The morality of the story seems quite protagonist-centered, and I can't help but wonder how things might have been different if Ladybug had a more assertive partner or a mentor to guide her in the right direction.

Marinette like my least favorite at least with Western Magical girl shows because of what she chose in the finale. I don't believe her intentions are necessarily malicious, but her actions in previous seasons have been frustrating to watch.

So, the thing about Marinette is that she sets very high expectations for herself. Just look at her arc about not being able to confess her feelings. She catastrophizes, she plans all these elaborate schemes accounting for every detail, she can't bear to let anything go wrong, because she has such high standards for herself and a fear of failure. She can't confess to Adrien because she's afraid of his rejection, and she spends the series trying to find the perfect plan to ensure that he won't reject her. Once she becomes Guardian, she has all these new responsibilities, these new burdens, and she doesn't want to fail, she doesn't want anything to go wrong. And so, she tries to control everything. Her controlling tendencies stem from her fear of failure and her high expectations of herself.

For the record, I will say that Marinette does trust Chat Noir. She trusts him with her life. But just because she trusts him doesn't mean her fears aren't there, and it doesn't stop her from acting in ways that don't quite convey that trust that she has in him. Marinette can get myopic about her problems, and she often has trouble understanding things from others' perspectives. She has the tendency to, for lack of a better term, make things about herself. Like in Illusion, for instance, when Adrien was being taken out of school by Gabriel because of Nino's plan, Marinette instantly starts talking about how she is a curse for Adrien and how she should stay away from him, instead of about Adrien. Does this mean she doesn't care about Adrien? Of course not. But she still gets so caught up in her own feelings that she fails to consider the feelings of those around her. She spends so much time trying to make sure that nothing goes wrong with her current situation that she fails to notice the bigger picture.

For example, see Hack-san. Marinette is leaving Paris, and so she focuses on the immediate problem that she is facing, that she's leaving Paris without a protector. And she finds a simple solution, give her Miraculous to Alya. Easy, problem solved, right? Except it's not, because she accounts for herself but not for her partner, who is understandably blindsided by a new substitute appearing instead of Ladybug. In the same episode, we see another example. Marinette is stressed and struggling and hurting, and she confesses to Alya that she is Ladybug in Gang of Secrets. Now Marinette has the support of her BFF and her stress is being alleviated, so everything is fine, right? Except, she doesn't consider how Chat Noir might feel about her breaking the rule they set together and that she should tell him (this is not salt on Marinette for telling Alya, she had every right to do so).

Marinette isn't the most empathetic person. She is very kind, very compassionate, very sympathetic, and she is overall a wonderful person. But she has trouble putting herself in other people's shoes and understanding their perspectives unless they tell her herself. She understands that the people around her are struggling and she feels the desire to help them, but she also doesn't quite understand their feelings themselves, and that can lead her to making her own conclusions. See Guilttrip, where Marinette (and the whole class actually) just jumps all over Rose when she learns she's not well without considering how she might feel about it. In Crocoduel, she tries to distance herself from Luka because she doesn't want to hurt him, without considering that, well, she is hurting him.

Marinette has the desire to help others and be there for others, and it is that compassion and kindness that make her so wonderful. But she can also find it difficult to understand others or put herself in their shoes. She doesn't easily understand other people's emotions, and she can't often look beyond her own perspective and her problems to see how she's affecting other people. Oftentimes, when Marinette has hurt someone, her remarks will be more self-deprecating than apologetic. Which is not to say that she isn't sorry, and I am not saying that Marinette doesn't ever consider other people's feelings, but it doesn't come easily to her, and she often requires other people to point it out to her. Alya points out to her that she is hurting Luka by avoiding him, Alya tells her to talk to Chat Noir, Chat Noir tells her to speak to Chloe about not giving her a Miraculous anymore... things like that. And naturally, not considering others' views on things also has the effect of making her feel like she knows best and dismissing others' perspectives, like in Dearest Family, when she dismissed the Kwamis' advice about Tikki's cosmic hunger, because she thinks the only way to handle things is her way.

So, what happens when you have a tendency to want to control things, a myopic outlook on your problems, and a lack of ability to consider other people's perspectives? Why, you get the Ladynoir conflict of Season 4.

Marinette in Season 4 spirals down a web of controlling information and deceiving her partner by keeping secrets and lying to him due to her new role as Guardian and also in part because of her trauma from Chat Blanc. None of this is malicious. Marinette trusts Chat Noir. When she says she'll never abandon him, she means it. When she says she wants him around, she means it. But that's not enough. Marinette wants to control all the information and stay in control so badly that she fails to see how badly it is affecting her partner. She feels like it's the only way to do things and fails to consider her partner's feelings and perspective because she thinks she knows best how to handle it. She gets defensive and irritated when he asks her to let him help. And it shows itself most clearly in episodes like Ephemeral, where in an attempt to stay in control of everything, she is ready to violate Chat Noir's trust in her and reveal his identity to Su-Han without his consent.

It simply doesn't occur to Marinette that she should do more than try to smooth things over with Chat Noir. Despite understanding that he feels left out, she smooths over the situation with assurances that she doesn't even end up keeping. Of course, Chat Noir isn't an open book, but he did make his displeasure clear, and she still didn't do anything to fix their issues. Look at Kuro Neko. Chat Noir gets upset and quits, but Marinette still doesn't introspect and think that maybe she did something wrong and hurt him. She doesn't apologize for her outburst; she doesn't try to think of what went wrong. In the end, Chat Noir apologizes to her for having emotions and she just gives him another "I still want you around," line that quickly loses meaning when Ladybug is bantering with Rena Furtive like she's her favorite in Risk. Even when Marinette says something, her actions prove otherwise.

But I will say, this is all alright. It's a realistic flaw to have, to not be able to consider other people's feelings all the time. Everyone does it to some degree. Marinette isn't doing this because of any malicious intent, she's doing this because she's stressed and tired and traumatized. Her outburst isn't good, but it is understandable. She shouldn't have yelled at Chat Noir, but she isn't a bad person. She's allowed to learn to do better and grow from this.

What does make Marinette seem bad, though, isn't even due to Marinette herself as a person. What makes Marinette hard to like, is when her flaws are met with the protagonist centered morality stick that Miraculous loves so much.

Because Marinette never has to actually confront her mistakes. She yells at Chat Noir in Kuro Neko, and the episode is full of Chat Noir telling her she did nothing wrong and ends with him apologizing to her. In the end of Strikeback, Marinette admits to her mistakes, but Chat Noir sees her distress and swoops in to absolve her of her wrongdoings, and she carries on without fixing anything or changing anything. She admits to her mistakes, but it falls flat because, well, they didn't really result in anything. She was never wrong to do any of it, really. It's not her fault that Felix stole the Miraculous. Chat Noir already accepted that he's just another one of her sidekicks now, and he previously learned the lesson that she didn't do anything wrong and that he is the one is being sensitive about it. Marinette is never truly wrong, and so she doesn't ever have to fix her mistakes or address her flaws. She doesn't have to learn to communicate better with others, she doesn't have to apologize for her mistakes, because she is never truly in the wrong and everyone will go out of their way to excuse and absolve her of everything.

And this protagonist centered morality is the reason for the Season 5 finale. Marinette lying to Adrien about his existence isn't framed as bad because she's the one doing it, and because Marinette is Good™, it's not a bad thing for her to do. She didn't learn anything from Season 4, because the writers don't think she did anything wrong. She's the best leader, she's the most amazing superhero ever, and the story bends over backwards to justify her mistakes and her flaws by having other characters simply forgive her or take on the blame themselves (and by other characters I mean Adrien). And when she does make mistakes that actually have lasting consequences, it isn't actually her fault, like when Felix stole the Miraculous from her. And this protagonist centered morality makes it so that Marinette doesn't really have to grow or change as much as she just has to allow the other characters to prop her up and relinquish their agency to allow her to shine. She never has to try to understand them, she never has to do all that weak emotional support shit, because she's the all-powerful and amazing Marinette, and Adrien is just her prize for when she wins and her emotional support partner.

You mentioned in your ask that she never offers support to Chat Noir like he does for her, and that she is never held accountable for her actions, and this is all the protagonist centered morality at work. The world revolves around Marinette, whatever she does is Good and Right regardless of what it is, even if it is something like gaslighting her boyfriend into loving his abuser. And unfortunately, that isn't something that is out of character for Marinette. She's been established to be someone who will do whatever it takes to protect people, and who's flaw is that she doesn't often consider their feelings on the matter when making choices that affect them, even when it comes from a place of love and care. And because of the protagonist centered morality, the show makes this seem like it's a good thing instead of portraying it as a flaw. That is what ruins her character for me.

I hope this answers your question. Thank you for your ask!

[nedjsmlfavs]

Why I Love Ladrien

If I write a fic where the square gets together pre-reveal and I then actually write about them dating instead of skipping straight to the reveal, the side that I’m going to do it for is Ladrien. Here’s why:

It’s the side that lets them share their trauma. Most of Adrien’s struggles come from his civilian life and most of Marinette’s struggles come from being Ladybug. But Chat Noir can’t tell Ladybug about his home life and Marinette can’t tell Adrien about her Ladybug struggles. Only as Adrien and Ladybug can they be fully open about the part of their life where they need the most support.

Ladynoir is on equal footing for my favorite dynamic and its comedic potential skyrockets with Ladrien. There are so many ways to mess with Chat Noir or to give him the time of his life while Ladybug stays totally oblivious. Any Ladrien fic that I write is going to see lots of Ladynoir as a compliment. Ladynoir for the comedy, Ladrien for the fluff (see: Villainous Matchmaking)

The civilian/hero sides of the square have the most potential for identity shenanigans and I live for identity shenanigans. To me, it’s the main appeal of pre-reveal dating.

Their mutual celebrity status puts them on equal footing and allows for a myriad of setups where they get to know each other or even secretly go on a public date without attracting any suspicion. It’s just two famous people talking at an event. Nothing to see here!

The non-Miraculous stories that I write are basically all a ‘friends to lovers’ dynamic with getting together being the climax of the relationship arc, so it’s fun to change things up and write a story where the characters are in love right from the start. You still get the relationship deepening that comes in all romance stories, but doing that while they’re dating instead of having dating being the end is a nice change of pace. Dating stories are rarely all that interesting to me because the tension dies as soon as they start dating, but add in the identity shenanigans, secrets, and ever-present threat of Gabriel and, suddenly, there’s still loads of tension and the dating scenes are now the fluffy, sweet moments to temper the surrounding drama.

I like to get my characters together before putting them through hell so that they can support each other through the angst, building their relationship up through that struggle. Ladrien fics let you do that without having to do all of the hard work of getting the characters to fall in love and get together before you put them through hell, meaning that I can write much shorter stories with a much clearer focus on the struggles over the budding romance.

Ladrien’s fun! It deserves more love! I'd rank it as equal to Ladynoir on my personal preference meter, but it's so under-explored that it holds the strongest draw for me.

(Description for the linked fic: When Chat Noir is tragically unable to attend an event with Ladybug, the mayor calls in a favor from a designer ‘friend’. Now she’s attending in style, on the arm of the hottest male model in Paris. Which would be fine if it weren’t for one, tiny issue: Paris’ favorite domestic terrorist now knows how Ladybug feels about his son. This leads him to his greatest plan yet, using Ladybug’s extremely obvious crush on Adrien Agreste to akumatize Chat Noir.

Come on, you can't tell me that's not fun! Ladrien is comedic gold.)

[trillscienceofficer]

I think it's actually quite interesting to see “Someone To Watch Over Me” still considered among the Voyager best (needless to say, I disagree!) Here are two perspectives, one ‘unofficial’ from shortly after the episode aired, and another more official for the show's 25th anniversary, which just ends up borrowing from the former, by then already 20-ish years old, source!

from Cinefantastique Vol 31 #11, April 2000

from Star Trek: Voyager - A Celebration (2020)

Transcription under the cut:

From Cinefantastique:

MY FAIR BORG Behind-the-scenes of fifth season's “Someone To Watch Over Me.”

By Anna Kaplan

When thinking back on VOYAGER’S fifth season, executive producer Brannon Braga enthused, “One of my favorites of the year is ‘Someone to Witch Over Me’, the Doctor-Seven show. It’s very, very charming, and heartbreaking." In the episode, Seven finally decides to go on a date, and the Doctor coaches her on proper etiquette. Along the way, the Doctor realizes he is falling in love with Seven.

Noted scripter Michael Taylor, who worked from a story by Braga, “When an action show finds that it can do a comedy, it’s gained a certain level of confidence in its actors, in its writing staff, just in a general sense of what the show is about, that it can loosen up a bit." Enthused Jeri Ryan, “Even the editors were coming up to me on the set and saying, ‘This never happens, but everyone was coming in out of the other editing room, and stopping what they were doing and watching this show while we were cutting it together.’ They said it was just so charming that everybody loved it.”

Robert Duncan McNeill, who plays Tom Paris, directed the show. “It was a very unusual episode for STAR TREK, because it’s a very traditional romantic comedy,” he said. “I have to admit, when I first read it I was a little nervous. I thought, this is not what someone would expect from a STAR TREK show. But the response has just been incredible. A lot of people are saying it’s going to be one of our best episodes. It’s got the Doctor and Seven of Nine in a kind of MY FAIR LADY situation, with the Doctor trying to teach Seven about love, and improve her social skills, and in the process finds himself having feelings for her.”

In a subplot Ethan Phillips as Neelix gives a tour of the ship to a repressed alien monk, played by Scott Thompson of KIDS IN THE HALL. “We want to get something from his race,” said Phillips. “They arc a highly moral race, and before they can give it, we have to make sure that they sec us as an equally moral race. I am entrusted to show him our ship and all our functions, so that he can assess our righteousness. The guy turns out to be a lush, and a complete drunk. It’s kind of like that movie with Peter O’Toole, MY FAVORITE YEAR; the guy is entrusted with keeping him sober. It's a funny part and a really neat role.”

McNeill continued, “I really enjoyed working with Bob. He never gets tired of figuring out new ideas, and funny moments, and quirky things to do. Jeri found, I think, a different kind of humanity in Seven of Nine than we have seen before, a real kind of child-like sense of humor in her character. Seven and Bob sing together in a real nice, little moment."

McNeill added, “The ending wasn’t written when we shot the whole episode. When the whole script wasn’t written, we were just sort of making it up, shooting it as it was being written. It’s very hard to plan ahead and say, ‘You don’t want to give away too much in this moment. You want to save it for the end when you realize your feelings.’ It definitely kept us on our toes, kept us aware of how much we were telling, in what order we were telling the story, and not to have the Doctor fall in love with Seven in Act One, to really find the whole journey, and fill it out fully. It’s a real actors' show, so I felt particularly excited, being an actor, to work on a show that really depended on the performances and the subtleties that the actors could bring to it.”

What about the end? Said McNeill, “Because it’s two series regulars that are playing around with love, that’s always a very dangerous subject. If you go too far with it, you’ve got to live with the consequences. If you are not ready to deal with it on an ongoing basis on the series, then you have to be really careful with how far you go.”

The ending was filmed some time after primary shooting finished. Laughed Robert Picardo, “This episode is like the movie CASABLANCA, because we shot it without knowing what the end will be. It’s like shooting a romantic story, without knowing the payoff. But CASABLANCA turned out pretty well. I’m hoping that we will be equally fortunate.” The writers chose not to reveal the Doctor’s feelings to Seven. At the end, the Doctor is alone at Sandrine's, playing the Gershwin tune “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

****

from Star Trek: Voyager - A Celebration:

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

SEASON 5 EPISODE 22

AIR DATE: APRIL 28, 1999

Teleplay by Michael Taylor

Story by Brannon Braga

Directed by Robert Duncan McNeill

Synopsis The Doctor teaches Seven about dating, then realizes he may have feelings for her himself.

One of the most popular episodes of VOYAGER is a bottle show, with the captain barely seen and no serious peril, unless failed diplomacy and a broken holographic heart count.

That Robert Picardo's EMH was going to be standout character was obvious from his first scene in VOYAGER's pilot episode. Three seasons later Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine revitalized the show with her debut. Pairing them proved to be a magic formula.

The Doctor established himself as a mentor for Seven, helping her come to terms with her humanity, a complement to Captain Janeway's maternal approach. The on-screen rapport between the two was self-evident. Ryan agrees: “I loved any of my scenes with Bob Picardo's character the Doctor. I love their dynamic. He's a delightful human being to work with and be around anyway, So that was always fun.”

In season 5's ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’, when Seven reveals a curiosity about human mating behaviour, the Doctor eagerly a lesson plan for her first steps into romantic relationships. His class is initially played for laughs. with the Doctor performing a farcical interpretive dance in front Or the image of an ovum. When Tom Paris adds his own input, he turns the tuition into a wager, which the Doctor happily agrees to. However, when Seven discovers that she is the subject of a bet she is genuinely hurt, leaving the Doctor to realize how insensitive he has been.

If the plot seems familiar, it is. “It's My Fair Lady with Seven,” cowriter Brannon Braga smiles. “‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ is one of my favorites. I thoroughly enjoyed writing that episode." Cowriter Michael Taylor summed up the setup. “Putting those two characters together in that episode, it's not the blind leading the blind, but it's the partially sighted learning from each other and also standing apart from the rest of humanity.”

A key early scene has the Doctor select a tune for Seven to sing. which she does with aplomb. Taylor said, “I remember walking around with all these ideas I had for what the song should be, and Brannon just picked this much simpler song, which was all that was needed to really focus their interaction.” The Doctor and Seven perform a duet of the much-covered 1939 ditty, ‘You Are My Sunshine’ which elicits a look of pride, or first hint of love on the Doctor's face. The story was becoming more than an amusing look at Seven's clumsy dating efforts, though her at dinner with Lieutenant Chapman at Chez Sandrine was a comedy highlight.

This episode marked cast member Robbie McNeill's third stint in the director's chair. “That was one of my favorite episodes to direct,” he says. "It had more comedy than we'd typically have. It had rom-com silliness. reached out to some actors who were very good friends of mine play some of the supporting roles that Seven went on dates with: Brian McNamara (Chapman and David Burke (who played the hologram Steven Price) Was one of my best friends and a wonderful actor."

The parallel story involving Neelix's ordeal with visiting Kadi ambassador was also farcical. "That was the episode where we had the comic actor from The Kids in the Hall [Scott Thompson]." McNeill continues. "He was the alien that came on board. the Drunk Monk We cast an actor who had a lot of comedy chops. It was one of the better light-hearted, but also really meaningful and heartfelt episodes."

The story shows just how versatile VOYAGER could be. It's a romantic comedy involving an artificial intelligence teaching a former Borg drone how to be human. There are no action sequences or alien threats and yet it is one of the series' best stories.

“There is nothing wrong with that episode,” Braga says. He was particularly pleased with one shot. “The Doctor realize he's in love with Seven of Nine and that she isn't in love him, when she's singing. Robbie McNeil does this when shes nice little push in to the Doctor as she's singing ‘You Are My Sunshine”—a great moment. That wasn't planned and you know it kind of ended there for most part, unrequited.”

The ending for the episode was yet to be written when shooting began, leaving the director and crew having to wing it. McNeill remembers, “It definitely kept us on our toes, kept us aware of how much we were telling, in what order we were telling the story, and not to have the Doctor falling love with Seven in Act One, to really find the whole journey. and fill it out fully.”

On the last scene between the Doctor and Seven Jeri Ryan reflects, "I thought that was so lovely and so touching. [The end] just broke my heart.” The conclusion is deliberately subdued as the writers were not planning to develop a romance between the Doctor and Seven of Nine. And so, the Doctor returns to holo program Paris 3 Chez Sandrine for what would be a final visit, to perform the title tune for the episode—‘Won't you tell her please to put on some speed, follow my lead, oh, how I need someone to watch over me.”