#marinette is very concerned

[meduarts]

Finally finished this! I was so into it during the lining progress but I gave up when I decided to color it XD

Inspired by: My Prompt and My Chat Fic

[kris-creations]

You know what this reminds me of?…

This-

And you know how that all ended??

Poorly…

[starlightartemis]

Summary:

Some of the Wayne siblings meet (and becomes slightly concerned about) the petite French girl who seems to find/throw herself into danger like it's normal.

Or: the Waynes' first impressions of 16-year-old Marinette Dupain-Cheng (because doing a semester abroad doesn’t mean you stop being a hero).

Decided to give the Marinette & Batfamily Members train a go and wrote a little something :D

[hamsternamedmarinette]

Realcat!plagg AU idea except I don't have the energy to draw a comic of it so you have to read a wall of text instead.

There is still magic and there are still kwamis. Kwamis can take a variety of forms. Tikki prefers to stay in the regular little sprite form we're familiar with on the show. Marinette gets her miraculous the same way she does in canon. Nothing on Marinette or Tikki's end deviates from canon, actually.

Adrien, on the other hand, gets his miraculous after a ratchet stray black cat wanders into his room carrying a strange jewelry box. He's mainly concerned with trying to get this cat out of his room without his father noticing, but after a while of trying and failing to capture it, he resigns himself to fiddling with the jewelry box and the ring inside of it. He discovers by accident that it's a magic ring that gives him superpowers. He forgets about the cat in his room (which is no longer in his room but in his ring) and goes off galavanting as a superhero the way he does in canon.

He's smart enough to deduce that the ring and his new fugly little cat are connected (since the ring gives him a black cat persona), but he has no reason not to think that the cat, now named Plagg (after the sound of him throwing up a hairball as per @buggachat 's comic, but also happening to be Plagg's actual real name, which Plagg finds hilarious but is also a little offended by) is anything other than a normal but very shady cat. Yeah, he's somehow connected to this magic ring, but he's just a normal, lazy cat who does normal, destructive cat things and shows no signs of higher intelligence. Adrien's conclusion is that as a counterbalance to becoming a superhero, he also now has to take care of this weird fleabag as a way to keep him humble. But he doesn't mind after a while.

Ladybug and Cat Noir don't talk about their kwamis that much at first. They're still getting the hang of the superhero thing and figuring out what's safe for them to talk about. But slowly they get more comfortable talking about different things, and that's when Cat Noir brings up the origins of their powers.

"So what happened when you got your miraculous? Was it just one ladybug bringing you your earrings, or like a whole swarm?"

"...What? It was my kwami."

"Your what?"

Adrien goes home that night and immediately demands answers from his cat. Plagg gaslights him for a while by remaining a normal, oblivious cat. Adrien eventually falters, thinking he's losing his mind, and ceases throwing accusations at his cat. And it is at this point that Plagg finishes the bit, finally transforms into his canon kwami form, and laughs at Adrien, who is screaming

[nobodyfamousposts]

Coffeenette

For the record, they blame Alya. All of them do. No question. They will never NOT blame Alya for this.

Even Nino, who is her boyfriend and supposed to support her. He’s agreed with her about almost everything. But not about this.

Even Rose, who is the sweetest girl in their class. She’ll apologize and be really nice about it, but she still blames Alya.

Heck, even Chloe did, which was a surprise. She was a bully sure, but as such, anyone would have thought this sort of thing would be beneath her. Though it could simply be that she just liked having any excuse to make fun of someone.

…Or so they thought until they saw Chloe scramble away to hide as soon as she saw it happen.

But none of them blamed Alya more for this situation than Marinette, who could only swear all unholy vengeance and glare daggers at her soon to be ex-best friend as she took her sole reason for living in this cold and terrible world and threw it in the garbage!

“Marinette, come on. It’s not that big of a deal!”

“It was innocent…”

“It was a cup of coffee!”

“The perfect cup of coffee. The coffee to end all coffees. Brewed to perfection and at just the right temperature. I could have died happily with that coffee. No other cup of coffee will ever compare. Ambrosia was in that cup and you threw it away!”

“Are you serious?!”

“Shh. Shh…I must mourn.”

“Get off the floor!”

“Mourn, I say!”

Oh sure, some had shrugged it off at the time. Alya had just rolled her eyes and dragged Marinette to class—coffeeless. Others had simply laughed a little at the dramatic display before moving on.

But those who knew better were panicking.

Some were already looking up therapists. Two were immediately calling their parents to ask about a school transfer. A few had given up on life and were writing up their wills.

It should be made clear: Marinette Dupain-Cheng was a kind girl. Sweet. Dedicated. Dependable. If you needed help, she was there. She was the one to look to for a solution to any problem. She was the first to put forth an effort and offer an olive branch, even if you hurt her. And of course the last thing she ever wanted to do was upset anyone. And if she did, she would be the first to apologize and try to make up for it.

…the problem was that this was all when Marinette was in a good space. And while her good days exceeded her bad days, that was not to say that there were not bad days. And when she had her bad days, they were…bad.

The thing that few knew about Marinette Dupain-Cheng was that there were…times, you could say, when she was not her normal friendly self. Times when she was…

…Grumpy.

Kind of mean.

Downright brutal, actually.

It only happened when she was either very angry or very stressed.

Which, unfortunately for everyone, has been increasing quite a bit since Hawk Moth made his grand entrance into the world of supervillainy.

Marinette had been stressed for a while and it showed. She’d been losing sleep. And they could tell she’s been more groggy given how frequently she’s been walking into walls and doors. They had thought this was cute at first. They had even laughed about it.

They hadn’t realized that this was actually only the first stage. Not until she started coming in with coffee—something she hadn’t done in years.

Marinette struggled when she was tired.

Thanks to Hawk Moth, she had lately been very tired.

And with her consistent lack of sleep, coffee had been her best friend. Or at least her best consumable friend. The sort of friend that brought her relief and made living bearable.

…until Alya took it away.

It turned out that Marinette’s parents had become…”concerned” about Marinette’s caffeine intake and had forbidden her from the beverage. Normally, they could only keep it away from her at home by either keeping her from the coffee pot or when necessary, switching to decaf. But Marinette had found ways around that by getting her bitter bitter life-saving paint stripper juice outside, usually on the way to school.

Or at least, she used to. But this was a new year and THIS time, Marinette had a new friend—and a BEST FRIEND at that in the form of Alya Cesaire, whom Tom and Sabine had chosen to enlist in their plot to protect their daughter from things that weren’t good for her.

Like coffee. Her precious life-preserving coffee.

And next to the Ladyblog and her secondary role as Rena Rouge, Alya had never jumped on anything faster.

Marinette’s morning coffee run? Done. A thing of the past as Alya would walk her to school and ensure they made no other stops along the way.

Marinette’s stash of coffee and energy drinks? Ransacked. Alya searched her locker, her desk, her bags. And being Marinette’s best friend, she knew ALL of her potential hiding spots.

Marinette’s emergency chocolate-covered espresso beans? Taken. Alya practically treated it like it was radioactive given the gloves and goggles she wore as she removed them. And in her defense, they very well may have been. Marinette was very tight-lipped over just where she had gotten them. She had tried to hide the fact that they WERE espresso beans, but Alya still wasn’t fooled.

Alya was on the hunt and there was NOTHING that could stop her. For her best friend’s “greater good”.

…as far as Marinette was concerned, the “greater good” could shove it.

She saved Paris on a daily basis! This was the LEAST it could give her in return!

Sadly, it appeared that Alya—and by extension Paris, cared not for Marinette’s sacrifice. Thus she was left to stew in her growing rage…stew like the precious brew she was being deprived of.

Up until that point it was clear that Marinette had been surviving on coffee and sheer spite. And now she only had one of those two things left.

But it would be fine! Really!

…so long as no one earned her ire.

Chloe had been one such unfortunate recipient of that ire some time ago in her younger days. Though Marinette had profusely apologized to her afterwards, Chloe never forgot and has held it against her ever since.

...well, after her several month sabbatical from school, at any rate.

So the fact that Chloe was suddenly trying to convince her father to let her take a vacation in the middle of the school year should have been a major red flag.

…or the way Marinette slammed her bag on her desk to get the class’s attention when they started getting off task and too loud in class.

……or the death glare she gave Kim the instant he tried to poke fun at her state with a literal poke to her cheek to try to wake her…and the injured finger he received for his trouble when she grabbed the offending object and bent it back.

…………or how most of the teachers were conveniently refraining from giving them any homework assignments they knew they should have been getting. Or not acknowledging Marinette’s grumpy behavior and sleeping in class. Or avoiding even looking in Marinette’s general direction.

The point was that it was evident that not all was right in the classroom and especially with their normally kind and happy Everyday Ladybug.

To their credit, the classmates had tried to bring Marinette coffee in order to help restore her to her usual state...or at least avoid her wrath.

But all their attempts were for naught, as Alya herself had become something of a bloodhound for caffeine. And having appointed herself as enforcer of the coffee ban, she would confiscate any form of the substance they tried to bring in and dispose of it in short order—much to the classmates’ horror and Marinette’s growing displeasure.

As far as the class could figure, it seemed that coffee was either simply useful in keeping Marinette awake and aware, or it was a comfort to her when she was feeling stressed.

Probably both.

And Alya, in all her misguided concern for the girl’s health, had taken it upon herself to remove the one thing keeping Marinette stable. Stable and happy and not inclined to traumatize anyone unfortunate enough to get in her way.

So yes, everyone in the class did blame her. They didn’t do anything about that resentment, of course, but they did still blame her.

Not that Alya seemed to care.

“Alya.” Nino knelt—literally knelt before her, his hands clasped as if in prayer. “Please. I’m begging you! Just let the girl have her coffee!”

She only rolled her eyes before throwing away yet another cup Marinette had managed to procure from the teacher’s lounge—somehow completely ignoring the daggers the other girl was glaring at them all with from the window of the classroom.

Alya was unmoved.

And seemingly oblivious to the scratch marks on the window left in the wake of Marinette’s pawing.

“It’s for her own good.” Alya insisted, much to the growing horror and frustration of those around her.

“What about our good?“

“You’ll be fine.“ She said dismissively.

“She made Kim cry!” Nino exclaimed, gripping his hat. 

“You’re exaggerating.“

“She brought out the Vial. Do I need to tell you about the Vial?“

“The what now?“

“Marinette has a special Vial she carries during…these times.” Max explained as he helped the despondent Nino to his feet.

Alya blinked.

“Okay?”

“She uses that Vial to collect the tears of anyone who so much as annoys her while she’s in this state!”

“That’s a little weird, but—”

Nino cut her off.

“She uses those tears to flavor her coffee.”

Alya stared.

“What?”

“She flavors her coffee with tears, Alya!” He continued, gripping her shoulders. “Not cream! Not sugar! Not cinnamon or chocolate or pumpkin spice like normal people and Americans! TEARS! OUR TEARS! What does that tell you?!”

“That tells me you’re exaggerating.“ She replied, looking decidedly unimpressed. And thus cruelly ignored his whimpering as she tossed the rest of the coffee into the trash bin.

She shot them a look as she slammed the bin lid closed, as if daring them to challenge her.

Nino looked on the verge of a breakdown.

Max sighed and texted the others.

To everyone else, the slamming of that bin lid was akin to a signal…one that indicated the sealing of their fates.

Some cried. Some prayed.

Most chose to stay out of the way.

…that was likely all they could do.

Other than blame Alya, of course. Which they did.

As Marinette’s antics changed from funny “walking into walls isn’t she cute” to less funny “eviscerate your soul with words”.

As whispers from the rest of the school followed the classmates, offering them sympathy and prayers.

As the very atmosphere changed from a sense of melancholy to ever growing unease and outright paranoia. As if her presence itself brought with it something seemingly eldritch in nature.

And through it all, Alya ignored the warnings and insisted this was for the best.

To be fair, it was perhaps her friendship with Marinette that offered her some protection from the worst of it.

…others were not spared.

Timothy—everyone remember Timothy? Prominent student and good friend to the rest of the class. Top of his class. Fellow swimmer and athlete to Kim and Odine. Was one of the few people Chloe would listen to. Tried to help Nino throw the party during Bubbler and the only one to notice Sabrina hadn’t appeared in a while in Antibug. Remember? That Timothy. Had totally been there all along and was well liked by everyone. Possibly as much as Adrien.

…until he admonished Marinette for bumping into him and not looking where she was going.

And.

Marinette.

Snapped.

It was the moment Marinette finally had enough. Both of the lack of coffee and of holding back her frustration about the situation.

It was also the last time Timothy was seen at school. Or anywhere for that matter. Given how abrupt it was and how people actively avoid mentioning him again, some question if he had ever really existed…

Eh, probably not. It was likely just a rumor.

What wasn’t a rumor was how Chloe (after being denied being allowed to ditch school) presumed that a new year and being Queen Bee meant she was stronger than she had been before and thus strong enough to put the caffeine-deprived version of Marinette in her place. She would prove to Marinette, to herself, and to everyone that SHE was the head bitch in charge.

Marinette was abruptly woken out of a nice daydream that either involved Adrien or coffee or Adrien AND coffee to find herself being yelled at. And find herself face to face with Chloe.

Oh wait, Chloe was the one yelling at her.

She had a hard time making out what Chloe was saying, but the fact remained that it WAS Chloe. Which was never a pleasant place to begin any realization.

It would help if she had coffee.

Was there coffee?

Marinette looked at her depressingly empty hands.

No.

"Well?! Do you hear me?!" Chloe shouted.

Marinette looked up at the blonde and took a slow breath before opening her mouth to speak.

...

…thirty minutes later, Sabrina found Chloe catatonic under her desk and took her home early.

To be fair, she had brought it on herself. After all, she really should have learned her lesson from the last time. But still, it was hard to forget the scene as Sabrina gently guide her out of the building as Chloe mumbled to herself, her face pale, her mascara running, and her eyes wide and haunted.

She was out for the rest of the week.

Bustier was...no help. In her ever rose-tinted fashion, she attempted to speak with Marinette early on what had been a particularly bad morning.

“Marinette, I heard you’ve been having some trouble with your classmates.”

It took a minute for Marinette to realize Bustier was there, much less that she was trying to have a conversation.

“—argument with Chloe the other day. It seems like whatever you had said really hurt Chloe’s feelings.”

Marinette blinked, trying to comprehend what was being said to her.

“—was uncalled for. Chloe didn’t deserve that.”

Bustier. Something about Chloe? She hadn’t seen her in a while. She thought things had been quieter lately…

“—you know how Chloe is and that she needs help. Surely whatever she said couldn’t have been that bad, and—”

These were clearly words, but they weren’t making sense.

“—remember what I said before about the Marinette’s of the world? It’s important to show love to people, even if they aren’t nice. So they can learn from your good example and—”

Marinette.exe needed coffee to continue this conversation.

“I think the two of you can talk this out. You can apologize to Chloe and model the right behaviors.”

Was there coffee to continue?

“—and who knows? Maybe the two of you will even become the best of friends!”

No.

“—what do you think?”

Marinette frowned at Bustier and opened her mouth to speak.

...

...it would be the first and only time Bustier would make such an attempt to speak to coffee-deprived Marinette. Nobody knows exactly what happened, as the students had come in when class started only to find Bustier in the aftermath, sobbing over her desk and completely inconsolable.

No class was had that day.

[chocostrwberry]

i'm a bit curious, so does your chat noir view ladybug less as a friend and more as a colleague? the way you described their dynamic where he's the protector, is it solely because he feels it's his duty or is it also because he cares about his friend? love your au!

It changes as their relationship develops!!

So at first, Chat Noir definitely saw Ladybug as more of a colleague. Most of all his relationships outside of his family were business-related (thanks to his parents), so he never had any friendships with people his age. Since she was the only one who can cure akumas, he felt like he was “working” with her to complete what was expected of them, which he had done basically his whole life up until this point.

HOWEVER ☝️🤓, as he started getting to know Ladybug, he realized that she actually saw him as a person. She would notice when he’s sad, ask about his day, be concerned/worry about him, and engage in conversations and listen to him respond. She was also funny, clever, and never shut him down for his antics but followed along and they had fun together every time they had to take down akumas.

Not just a replaceable body hired to do the job, but a meaningful partner. He really felt seen with her, and then he stopped thinking of her as a co-worker and more of a friend. She was pretty much his very first real friend ever in his life. (Nino in this AU and him aren’t close, but I’ll also explain that later giggles) And he ALSO knows it’s not because of his looks, since he wears a mask, which is also a bonus.

This was around the time he started developing feelings, but was too focused in getting Marinette’s attention to realize how much he really liked Ladybug.

They do this cute pinkie-promise thing too and it’s like a promise they’ll always have each other’s backs 🥹

[mochinek0]

Daminette December 2023: 18-Hiding in the Shadows

Marinette looked around her pent house in Paris. She had everything she wanted as a teenager. Well, almost everything. She was a well-known fashion designer, to the people that were aware of her. She kept her business a secret and used an alias. Her clients all came from judgement on her other clients. Others designers knew her as 'Passion' after her store's brand. Very few knew her as Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Gabriel Agreste, Audrey Bourgeois, and Jagged Stone.

Marinette had enough money to pay her rent, her fabric, all of her equipment, anything a business woman could need. Marinette herself, not so much. She missed being able to walk out and go sit at a café for a bit. When she saw Wayne Enterprise opened a section in Paris, she came up with an idea.

'Wayne Enterprises is a place that usually pays big. Even a part time job should be fine. A little play money couldn't hurt. A few extra euros so I could eat out, get some comfy clothes so I'm not rushing between orders and messing up wouldn't hurt.'

Damian Wayne sat at his desk, looking through potential applicants. Many of them were attached to big names or had one of their own. As he rang background checks, he could see they were all connected to each other in one way or another. He smirked at his idea.

'Let's put on a show. I want to see what kind of people these applicants are around each other. Would they out themselves?'

Mari was escorted to a waiting room as Damian Wayne got through other interviews. When the door opened, the last thing she expected was to see some familiar faces: Chloe, Adrien, and Lila.

"I don't know why you're even here, Dupain-Cheng." Chloe snarled, after the door was closed, "This is a big company that would love to work with our families. You have nothing going for you."

Marinette sat down and smiled, "Is that right? I guess I must have sent the wrong order to your mother and that's why she wore my design down the red carpet at the MET Gala."

Chloe tensed up and refused to meet her gaze. She could tell Adrien and Lila were surprised as well.

Chloe cleared her throat, "You're lying."

"Call your mother and ask." Marinette shrugged, "Oh, that's right! She doesn't like you; she prefers your half sister, who can actually work and living on her own, instead of leeching off of her Daddy."

"This isn't you, Dupain-Cheng." Chloe declared.

"No. This is me." Marinette shrugged off the concerned looks, "I'm just not being forced to coddle you to make Caline Bustier's life easier. 'Oh, just show Chloe some love, so she'll know what it's like and she'll get better eventually. You'll see.' Even she knew you were a horrible person. She basically thought you were The Grinch. That with enough love, your heart would grow three sizes and you wouldn't be such a bitch anymore."

Everyone was speechless at Marinette's attitude. This wasn't the Marinette that they grew up with.

"Chloe Bourgeois." a security voice called.

Chloe held her head high as she walked into the office.

"Damian Wayne." Chloe stated.

"Sit!" he demanded.

Chloe was shocked by his attitude.

'Doesn't he know who I am?'

"Do you know who I am?" she shouted.

"A spoiled brat; Ive read the articles on the internet." Damian stated, "You are known for crying for your father when you don't get what you want. Even though you are the oldest, your half-sister is who your mother relies on to bring customers for Style Queen in New York."

"My father-" Chloe snarled.

"Isn't the mayor anymore. He hasn't been the mayor in three years." the Wayne heir spoke, "If you're thinking of blackmailing me, you chose the wrong person. Spread whatever lies you want or cry to your father, the hotel owner. I could make one post about how horrid his hotel is and he would go out of business. Could you live with that?"

Chloe stood there, speechless. The only person who talked to her like this was her mother.

"I'm in charge, here, and if it came down to it, your job would be scrubbing toilets all day." Damian declared.

Tears formed in Chloe's eyes.

'He's glaring at me, just like Mommy. He doesn't look happy. He looks at me like he wishes I was gone or someone else.'

"We're done here." Damian stated.

Chloe quickly rushed out of the office. The three saw her rushing away, crying.

'I knew she wouldn't last.'

"Marinette, I can't understand why you're like this." Lila spoke, as she took her seat.

'He made that Daddy's Girl cry. I better go at this carefully.'

"Oh, shove it, Lila." Marinette sighed, "All three of us, here, know you're a lying manipulative bitch. You don't have to fake it."

"I don't know-" Lila continued.

"Adrien already told me years ago that he made a deal with you. He made one with me, too. Did he ever tell you that?" Mari questioned.

Lila glanced towards Adrien, who kept his head down.

"Oh, he didn't." she giggled, "You see, I was already designing for Jagged Stone when you arrived to our school. Adrien even had me autograph things I designed for him."

The model had turned towards Adrien and was now glaring at him.

"I could have made your whole 'tinnitus-kitten bullshit' story go up in flames since day one." Mari smiled, "I could have video called him and you would have been labeled as delusional."

"I took all our friends away!" Lila cried out, in victory.

"No." Mari answered, "You took away people, who were finally talking to me. Chleo ensured that for seven years, I had no friends. Those 'friends' just went back to not talking to me. You didn't actually do anything. If anything, you helped me. You took away the class president duties from me and I had more free time. You turned Alya and Nino away, so I couldn't babysit. I designed more clothes and got more clients. You didn't make my life worse, Lila, you made it better."

Lila fumed. Adrien had played peace maker between the both of them. From what Marinette was saying, she could have won the war in an instant! She thought she had chased Marinette Duapin-Cheng out of school all those years ago and here she was smiling, practially laughing at her, saying it wasn't true. She had thanked her and said she made her life better.

'I need this job so I can rub it in her face! I need to win against her!'

"I do hope you at least did some research into Damian Wayne." Marinette stated.

"I've known Damian Wayne since we were children!" Lila announced.

"Is that what it told you, you should say when you looked up how rich his family is?" Mari inquired.

Lila stood up, in rage.

'How dare she!'

"Lila Rossi." security called out.

Lila smirked, "I'm coming."

"She really should have done her research." Marinette spoke out loud.

"Why do you say that?" Adrine asked.

"Lila likes to play off her tears and looks." Mari declared, "Damian Wayne hates going to galas because of girls that try to attach themselves to him."

"And?" Adrien questioned.

"He broke an Italian model's arm two months ago, for lying to him." the designer stated.

Adrien paled at her words. Marinette merely smiled and pulled out her phone and dialed emergency services.

"Hello, what is your emergency?" the voice asked.

"I think we need an ambulance at Wayne Enterprise." Marinette stated, "I think someone's arm is broken."

"Are you with this person?" the voice questioned.

"No." the designer answered.

"I have sent medical to your location." the voice declared, before hanging up.

"That was pretty extreme, Marinette. I have faith in Lila!" Adrien shouted, "I don't think he would do that! The Waynes have an imagine to uphold!"

"Maybe, you should have done your research." Mari shrugged, "You still have time. Maybe five minutes."

Lila sauntered her way into the office.

"Hello, Mr. Wayne." She spoke, calmly.

"Sit." He demanded, not looking up.

Lila waved off his decleration. She moved past the chair in front of his desk and walked her way to his side.

"Can I sit on your lap?" She asked, "You see, I have tinnitus and-"

"There is nothing in here that would activate your tinnitus. Tinnitus is when you can't here anything for a brief amount of time, but a loud ringing. It's usually followed after hearing an extremely loud sound. I should know; I went to medical school." Damian stated.

'Shit. My usual tactics won't work here.'

Lila nodded and made her way back to the seat.

"Why shoud I hire you?" The Wayne heir questioned.

Lila fluttered her lashes, "I'm a model for Gabriel Agreste."

"Former model." Damian interjected, "You now model on Instagram and Only Fans."

Lila turned red. She didn't expect them to aware of her new lifestyle.

"Now, Miss Lerouch-" he continued.

Lila paled, "Wh-What did you call me?"

"Cerise Lerouch." Damian stated, "Did you think I would not delve into your background? I have to know who I am working with."

Cerise quickly leaped up from her seat and rushed around the desk.

"Don't touch me." Damian demanded.

"I'll do anything." Cerise cried out, grabbing onto his arm.

The Wayne heir growled, "Let go."

"I can help you relieve stress in other ways, you know." Cerise pleaded.

Damian grabbed her wrist and twisted it behind her back, harshly. Cerise screamed in pain.

"I have no need for whores." Damian spoke.

He grabbed the back of her shirt, arm still twisted, and walked her to his office door. He grabbed the knob and threw her out, in front of his security team.

"Drag this whore out by the hair, if you have too, but I want her off Wayne Enterprise grounds and blacklisted!" Damian shouted.

"Yes, Mr. Wayne." they spoke simultaneously, as he slammed his door shut.

"Shit, I think her arm is broken." the one on the left declared.

"She would call an ambulance?" the one on the right asked.

"Please, help me! It hurts so much!" Cerise begged, cradling her arm.

"You shouldn't have pissed him off." the one on the right declared, "Damian Wayne isn't one to mess around."

A man rushed towards them with medical workers.

"Did you guys call for an ambulance and someone with a broken arm?" the new guy asked.

"No, but perfect timing." the one on the left stated, "Girl with broken arm right here."

Cerise was walked by the waiting room. Inside, she could see Adrien looked horrified before turning to Marinette. She was smiling at her. Then, the baker's daughter flipped her off.

'She knew! That bitch knew how this would end!'

Cerise burst into tears as she was carted off.

"I guess that just leaves you and me, Agreste." Marinette stated.

Adrien began to feel uncomfortable.

"I do hope you do better than they did." She spoke, "For your Father's sake."

"Huh?" Adrien asked, confused.

"Damian Wayne isn't one to back down, not even to his father. He can make his father bow down to him. You have no idea how......attractive that is to a woman, Adrien." Mari smiled, "A man with a spine."

The model gulped, watching Marinette lick her lips.

"You should grow a spine." she declared, "Maybe then your father won't force you to model for him. I' sure that's why Kagami chose Felix over you. Your cousin has a spine. It looks good on him. Maybe, that's why Kagami didn't take my advice on how to get back with you after the break up."

Adrien only looked at her in shocked.

"Alya told me you broke up and I went to see her." Marinette continued, "I tried to help, but she didn't want to. She said it was better that way and well, Felix and you did look alike as teens. The same face with a spine; kind of hard to resist. They're so happy and their twins are adorable."

"Adrien Agreste, Mr. Wayne will see you now." the voice spoke over the intercom.

The model looked over at the designer. She waved at him, but said nothing. Adrien stood up and stood tall.

Adrien walked into Damian's office. It was intimidating; Marinette was right. He was scarier than his father.

"Why should I hire you, Adrien Agreste?" Damian questioned.

"I hate modeling. I prefer computers and science. I want to break free of Gabriel." Adiren admitted, "You don't have to worry about me telling him anything because I never learned anything about fashion. I couldn't even tell you the names of two different shades of fabric. If anyting, you should hire Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Marinette has always been an amazing designer. She was recognized by Father and Style Queen when she was only thirteen. She's the one who would know everything about fashion."

Damian hid his smirk behind his hand and looked down at the papers about Adrien again.

'What a miracle worker you are, Miss Dupain-Cheng. Agreste grew a spine.'

"We may have an internship available in our science department." Damian spoke, "Do you still live with your father?"

"Yes." Adrien spoke.

"We have a company home we prefer our interns reside in." Damian continued.

He noticed Adrien seemed relieved about that.

"The internship isn't a guarantee." The Wayne heir continued, "We need to see you commitment and dedication first hand. If you can't keep up, we'll put you in a different department. If you keep failing to meet our expectations, you'll have no choice but to keep modeling for your father."

"Tell him we'll work with him for one year, as a test." Damian continued, "You have one year to get your affairs in order. You'll need to move in one month from now and if not, consider the contract cancelled. I will inform them you are expected."

"Thank you." Adrien smiled.

Damian waved him off and Adrine walked out of the office, happy.

Marinette stood up when her name was called. As she walked towards the office, she saw Adrien smiling at a paper. She entered the office and closed the door.

"Please sit Miss Dupain-Cheng." Damian ordered.

Marinette immediately took a seat in front of him.

"Why should I hire you?" He questioned.

Mari shrugged, "You don't really have to."

"Oh?" Damian pushed.

"I'm only here for a part time job." the designer answered, "You know, helping out on the floor, coffee grabber, secretary gig. That sort of thing."

"Excuse me?" he asked, shocked, " Aren't you a fashion designer."

"With my own clients and I can pay for my own things." She smiled.

"Then why are you here?" Damian questioned.

Marinette sat back further in the chair and got comfortable, "Play money. I spend my own on my deisgns, fabrics, equipment, rent. Why not have a little extra to treat myself to a night out or a night in, for once?"

That was not the answer he had been expecting.

Damian laughed, "What if I decide to keep you?"

"Keep me as in?" Marinette pushed.

"I decide I want to become one of your clients." he offered.

"Are you offering?" the designer asked, "I've seen some of those suits you wear to galas and it doesn't bring you out to your full potential."

"And that would be?" he asked.

"You're outshined by your father, your older brothers, and the company." She spoke, "You can stand out, but maybe you want to fade into the back, less people to grope you."

Damian chuckled and stood up from his seat. He made his way around the desk and rested on it.

"What would you dress me in, right now?" Damian questioned.

"Depends." Marinette smiled, "Do you always wear a suit to work or are you interested in a change?"

"Tell me about this hypothetical change." He demanded.

"Ever heard of quick change wear?" She asked.

"No." he replied.

"It mainly takes woman into factor. Clothes that can go from working at the office to going out on a date or partying." Mari answered, "Just a few adjustments and possibly a new shade of makeup and usually people tend to think they took all day to get ready."

Damian took what she said into account, "And for men?"

"Most don't really have the option." Marinette shrugged, "Shame, but on you.....your figure. Well, there's nothing sluttier than a man wearing a sleeveless turtleneck."

The Wayne heir couldn't help but think of his old League of Assassin's outfits.

"No one at work would know if you have a blazer on and buttoned." She continued, "It is your office so you can always install a closet here and keep an extra pair of clothes. Jeans, if you prefer. Who is to say that this whole time, you weren't wearing sweatpants and just dressed from the waist up."

He chuckled ather way of thinking.

'Effective, but true not the less. I could kick out anyone who entered my office, should I choose to dress comfortably, and there was a closet hidden behind the cabinets.'

"Another thing most people tend to do is incorporate their culture into their clothing, as well." Marinette spoke, "Personally, I use apple blossoms in most of my designs for myself."

"Miss Dupain-Cheng, you are not what I was expecting." Damian declared, "I like to expect everything."

Mari smiled, "I've been known to be...unpredictable."

"You want to work part time in the fashion section." The Wayne heir stated, "Even if it's just grabbing coffee or lunch for others."

"Correct." she answered.

"Fine." Damian spoke, "You can work here, part time, at least three days a week. I f you have a big comission, I want to know about it. You can keep the details to yourself, but I want a time frame."

Marinette nodded, happily.

"I also want you to make me something to relax in the office that could pass for office wear." he suggested, "I'll pay for fabric of course. I can send you the details of my heritage via email, later."

Marinette stood up, "I'll start on that and bring it by Friday."

Damian grabbed her hand and kissed it, "I'll see you Monday morning, at 9AM, for work. We can go over your schedule then."

Marinette felt her face flush as his lips connected with her hand. His gaze was piercing.

"Yes, Mr. Wayne." She answered, flustered.

Damian waved his hand, dismissing her, but he still followed her to the door.

"You know, Miss Dupain-Cheng." He whispered, pressing himself to her back, "They may not be able to see it, but I see what lurks in the shadows. I can see what you hide there. I can wait a bit longer for the side of you that wants to come out and play."

"Is that so?" Marinette whispered back.

"I'll enjoy getting to know you, in the future." Damian spoke, before opening the door.

Marinette took a breath before she walked out the door.

"Marinette, did you get the job?" Adrien asked.

"Yes." she answered.

The model sighed in relief, "I told him you were good. I told him about Father and Audrey."

"Did you think I wouldn't be able to get it on my own?" Mari questioned.

"That's not what I meant!" Adrien cried, surprised at the question.

"Then, don't belittle me and my work." Marinette declared, "He already knew who I was. The Wayne keep a check on everyone and everything. Did you seriously not expect him to know about our families? He was probably listening to us in the waiting room."

Adrien gulped in response.

"Besides, I wasn't apart of whatever you three were fighting over." Marinette smiled, walking away.

'What did she mean by that?'

Adrien turned to see Damian Wayne leaning against the door, wearing a smirk on his face. Damian took notice of the model and hardened his gaze. Adrien gulped as Damian stood tall and closed his door again.

'What was he staring at?'

Adrien turned his head back down the corridor and saw Marinette speaking to the receptionist.

'He was after Marinette the whole time!'

'He already knew who I was.'

'He was probably listening to us in the waiting room.'

'Besides, I wasn't apart of whatever you three were fighting over.'

TAGLIST: @maribat-calendar-events @animeweebgirl@a-star-with-a-human-name@meme991001@vixen-uchiha@abrx2002@alysrose-starchild@fandom-trapped-03@dood-space@moonlightstar64@saltymiraculer@marveldcedits20@09shell-sea09@icerosecrystal@animegirlweeb@insane-fangirl-of-everything@blueblossombliss@nickristus-dreamer@megawhitleycalderonpaganus@missmadwoman@meira-3919@princessdaisysolosyourfaves@blep-23@fangirlingfanatic@darkhinauniverse@ravenr22@im-a-satanic-ritual@ravennm84@bianca-hooks123@a-slytherinish-gryffindor@starling218

[anna-scribbles]

thirteen update 💕💍🍽️🩸

chapter 5: february

summary:

“These things do not concern you,” Papa told him flatly. “I will run my household however I see fit. Your concerns are with your schoolwork and your modeling.” Blood pumped heavy and fast through Adrien’s heart. That wasn’t—fair. Concern was about all he was capable of these days. “And what about Maman?” Adrien asked, exhausted, reckless. “May I be concerned about Maman?” Something shifted on Papa’s face, all his emotions smothered in stone.

excerpt:

The best day of Adrien’s life was eight months and six days ago. No contest.

It was a crisp kind of cold that day, the Paris sky blooming a bright and brilliant blue overhead. The sun pierced right through the brisk February air, a shock of spearmint and adrenaline in his veins. He couldn’t stop widening his eyes, couldn’t stop smiling. The city was so alive. Strains of love songs poured out of open cafe doors and onto tourists, their hands full of red roses and lovers’ hands. The cobblestones sang with the patters of paired footsteps all down the street. It was the city of love always, but today especially. Today Adrien was made of the stuff, just bursting with it.

And, like every other day in the running for the best of his life, Marinette was there.

“You’d better not pull anything,” she warned, tightening her grip on his hand as they passed by a tourist couple looking very… engrossed with each other in the middle of the street. “And—and if you do, you have to tell me. Right now.”

Marinette’s brow was lightly furrowed, the bridge of her nose just barely scrunched up. Her hair was pulled half-back with a pink ribbon, matching the shade of the skirt she wore beneath her velvety black peacoat. Her Mary Janes clipped anxiously down the road and Adrien’s heart danced and swelled and spun in his chest.

“Pull something? Me?” Adrien stepped aside so their arms were outstretched, and then pulled at Marinette’s fingers, sending her tumbling back into his arms. She looked up at him, trying to frown, smiling. He grinned. “I would never.”

“I’m serious.” Marinette untangled herself from his arms and interlocked her fingers again with his. Her hand was the warmest thing in the world. She looked at him sternly, wagging a finger in his face. “I need to know so I can—prepare. Especially if it’s something crazy. No funny business.”

“Marinette,” he moaned, draping a wounded hand over his heart. One corner of his mouth quirked into a smile, eyes darting to meet her gaze. “You think I’m funny?”

She groaned. “I think you‘re—I think you’re ridiculous, and sappy, and romantic, and I think it’s Valentine’s Day in Paris”—this part she shouted, which drew a few stares—“and I think you’re about to take me on an insanely adorable date, and I think Alya took me to get my nails done last week—!”

“You’re so thoughtful,” Adrien remarked, swinging their hands back and forth. “And observant. What a beautiful mind you have, my lady.”

“You have to tell me,” Marinette insisted. She stopped them on the street and frowned at him, pink flushing the apples of her cheeks. “Is it—are you—?”

“Hm?” Adrien murmured, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. Marinette’s cheeks went ablaze.

“I—you—you know what I mean!” she spluttered. “Are you gonna…you know!”

He tilted his head to the side. “Am I…?”

read on ao3

[theerurishipper]

Something I've noticed is that the show goes out of its way to portray Adrien's trauma as romantic.

In Kuro Neko, Adrien is exhibiting a trauma response wherein he invalidates his own feelings and tries to be whoever the other person wants him to be, and Catwalker is explicitly based on the mask Adrien puts on to please his abuser, which is also the persona Ladybug develops an instant crush on. What the show tells us, however, is that Adrien as Catwalker telling Ladybug that it's his own fault for being sensitive because he was hurt by her actions and following that up by promising to take care of her is romantic and wonderful.

In Strikeback, Adrien is once again downplaying his feelings and hurt in order to come to Ladybug's support because she needs him. He is once again invalidating his own hurt and absolving her of all blame. What the show tells us is that it's so romantic that Adrien was willing to push away his hurt feelings and come to her aid like a loyal partner even though she never apologized to him or promised to change her behavior.

In Protection, Adrien's tendency to want to be perfect for everybody and cater to their needs is depicted on screen, with him assuming the full blame for Marinette's confidence issues. He has a whole conversation with Kagami about how he needs to change himself for her. What the show tells us is that Adrien is so romantic and so sweet for essentially assuming blame for Marinette's inability to tell him her feelings and saying that he has to be the one to change and cater to her needs.

In Collusion, Adrien's reacting to his father sending him to London by saying "Marinette and I will last forever," is him clinging to the very little good that is going on in his life. It is him once again centering his identity around this girl and his relationship with her because he has never been allowed to be his own person. What the show tells us is that "Adrien loves Marinette so much uwu."

In Confrontation, Adrien writing "All I know is that I love Marinette Dupain Cheng," is him once more centering his whole life around his girlfriend because he has been conditioned into defining himself around other people because he has never been allowed to an individual in his own right. What the show tells us again is that Adrien loves Marinette so, so much, you guyz.

In Conformation (credit to this post by @youremarvelous), Adrien telling Plagg he's angry at himself for falling short of Marinette's love is also him downplaying his own feelings and placing more importance on her, and him believing that he has fallen short of her love stems from him belief that he has to earn love. He's just shifted from defining himself based on Gabriel's wishes to defining himself based on Marinette's wishes. What the show tells us is that Adrien is such a good boyfriend for wanting to be perfect for Marinette.

The discrepancy between what has been portrayed and what the show wants us to think is concerning, to say the least.

[jacquesthepigeon]

I have personally seen cases where kids grow up as complete strangers to their heritage especially as is the case with my own cousin in California but that involved multiple factors

1) My aunt was isolated and practically estranged from boricua communities. There is a large latino population in California, yes, but it’s mostly Mexican, not a problem, but it’s drastically different from boricua culture. I cannot describe to you how sad it was to see her express relief at being around her people during holidays for the first time in over a decade.

2) Assimilation and shame was heavily encouraged. My aunt’s MIL, from Mexico, went as far as having her name legally changed to its English equivalent. Over the years since my aunt’s move to the states, there have been multiple incidents where she drastically exaggerated the state of the country and our living conditions (all way before the infrastructure, particularly electricity services, got noticeably Bad) based on sensationalist news articles. It got to the point where she called all of us “idiots” for staying.

Bringing it back to ML

According to a 2019 census, there were 71,500 parisians who reported being born in China, a figure that doesn’t account for descendants of chinese immigrants. That is a far cry from leaving Sabine isolated from her culture. She has ample resources to find and participate in a community of fellow chinese immigrants within the city.

In regards to assimilation and shame, just look at her fucking design and hobbies holy shit. It clearly doesn’t apply to her. As for her english (french?) name, it is a fairly common practice for people from various asian countries to adopt an english name. I’ve seen multiple explanations for this ranging from confucian self naming practices being influenced by exposure to western cultures all the way to workplace culture and convenience. In Sabine’s case, because her chinese name is so similar to her western name, I imagine it’s simply a matter of avoiding the headache of constantly correcting people on the spelling and pronunciation of her chinese name. It sucks that it’s something so many immigrants and even tourists have to do to be addressed respectfully but that’s also worth exploring within the narrative.

Which brings me to why it’s important that we recognize the crew’s intentions and POV when discussing how these characters and dynamics are written. They’re not considering any of these and countless other factors that affect how immigrants and their children interact with their own heritage. They want to be praised and lauded for being “inclusive” and “diverse” simply for commodifying a cultural aesthetic. They have no real concern for the people they’re profiting from or their lives and complexities.

So let’s assume for a moment that despite not being affected by any of the factors that I mentioned influenced my own aunt’s lack of educating my cousin about her culture, that’s still an issue that should be addressed specifically in regards to Sabine’s decisions in raising Marinette rather than pushing the blame onto Marinette for “not expressing interest” and learning on her own. The last few times my cousin has come to visit, we do our best to accommodate her and make her as comfortable as possible but when she inevitably lets it show that she is uncomfortable and would prefer to step away from the situation, my aunt has the nerve to shame her for not liking or participating in her culture. I assure you, my aunt was the only one blaming my cousin as we were all silently judging my aunt as she’s obviously the one responsible for it getting to this point, as we have been doing ever since we knew she wasn’t teaching my cousin spanish. So assuming this is the case with Sabine and Marinette, where Sabine had the means to teach Marinette at the very least the basics, and now Sabine is somewhat resentful of Marinette not figuring it out on her own, that is something that definitely needs to be addressed with close attention and care.

But they won’t.

Sabine is not a chinese immigrant in the interest of other chinese immigrants

Marinette is not a white-passing diaspora child in the interest of other white-passing diaspora children

There is no diversity or representation in this show that isn’t meant to turn them into props to make white men look better, be they fictional or real

That is the issue, not the existence of borderline caricature-esque immigrants or white-passing POC in the real world possibly getting representation. It’s not about them, never has been.

[kuromori4]

New Theory-

London special- Adrien made the wish and here’s why:

**edited to add new discoveries!

I was not expecting the full trailers to drop so soon after my speculation post!! I’ve been poring over them and screenshotting and theorizing the HELL out of them!

(On that note, this theory post will be LONG! But I have a lot of great theories!)

My Original theory was that somehow Adrien discovered the truth about everything. That his girlfriend is Ladybug, that everyone has been lying to him, his father was Monarch, that he’s a Sentimonster, and indirectly the cause of BOTH of his own parents deaths.

He learns that all of this pain and suffering was caused simply so that he could exist. So Adrien decides the world would be better off if his parents had never created him. If Adrien is never born, his Mother never dies. His father doesn’t become the villain and doesn’t die either. Nathalie never gets sick, Master Fu never loses his memories, and Marinette never has the burden of being Ladybug and Guardian placed on her shoulders. (Effectively causing the 'End of Ladybug!') Nobody suffers, nobody dies. 

So Adrien decides the only thing that can end all of the suffering his existence has caused, is the wish. Ladybug often says that any wish made would have to serve the greater good. Would Adrien not see removing himself from the timeline as a sacrifice for the greater good? 

With the new trailers released, I really think my theory is even more possible! But with more info, some things need to be rearranged. I’ll be looking at clips from both the English trailer and French/Disney channel trailer that dropped.

Let’s break it down! 

Bug Noire faces the aftermath

The trailers show a few interesting details throughout what we can assume is the aftermath of the final battle. We see BugNoire Cataclysm the Kwami prison, BugNoire in the basement, Marinette looking at Emilie’s empty coffin/chamber, some shots of Gabe from the final battle, speaking to Gimme, and Monarch losing his Miraculous. 

I can’t be sure where in the timeline this hug with Nathalie occurs, but I'll mention it now. It’s not the only time we’ve seen them hug… the image in the bottom right is from the previous teaser video.

So Bug Noire and Nathalie hug in the ruined basement, then later, Marinette runs into her arms? So… does Nathalie know Marinette’s identity now??

And of course Nathalie has no robot legs, so we have clear confirmation that she’s been cured. (Not that we had any doubt.)

Bug Noire flies to London to free Adrien and give him the bad news

In both trailers we see shots of BugNoire flying through both Paris, and London.

Then we see BugNoire in Adrien’s white cell, obviously giving him the bad news that his Father is dead. Note that Gorilla is here, (and upset!) 

Kagami is obviously there because she was also held prisoner, but her expression here is very interesting. Kagami gives some serious side eye. If BugNoire is lying to Adrien about the circumstances of his father’s death, Kagami would know. She knows Ladybug is Marinette, and that Gabriel was Monarch. She may be unhappy with BugNoire’s decision to lie to Adrien. She’s clearly being quiet about it, not opposing her lie. But she’s not happy.

Then we see BugNoire try to comfort him, and it’s strained. (I threw in the shot of Kagami comforting him, because I also find it interesting)

LB gives an announcement about Monarch’s defeat

In the French trailer, we hear LB’s voice saying (Translated) “It's time to bring the truth to light” and she appears to be giving a speech, likely concerning Monarch’s defeat. And she looks PISSED. Possibly because she has to lie about Monarch. (We hear Gabe’s voice in the trailer asking her to “make sure Adrien never knows the villain that I was”)

Marinette puts away the earrings

We see Marinette putting the Earrings back in their box, closing it, and putting it in her vanity drawer. This is also interesting to me because later on, we’ll see that she’s wearing them when they get stolen.

So why put them away? Perhaps she thinks her job is done, it’s over? Time to retire? Maybe she needs a mental health break? (Who wouldn’t?) Maybe she feels guilty for all that happened and thinks she doesn’t deserve to be Ladybug any more?

***Edit to add!: Someone brought it to my attention that these shots appear to be frame for frame, the same as Origins pt 1, when Marinette puts the earrings in the drawer with the intention of giving them to Alya the next day. Later in this theory I show Bunnyx dropping Marinette into her bedroom right in front of the vanity. It's quite possible that (current) Marinette is going to borrow the earrings from her past self to become Chronobug!!

LB and CN hug

Not sure when this will take place chronologically either, but let's get it out of the way. Look at this hug. It isn't just a hug.

it's a squeeze. They hold each other TIGHT. There seems to be some level of comforting, or relief, or upset there. There is certainly emotion in it.

However, I can’t be sure, but It looks to me like Chat is smiling? So it may not be a sad moment? And if he had just found out his dad's dead as Adrien... I don’t think he'd look happy.

Maybe it's the first time they see each other after the final battle? It could be an ‘I missed you’ squeeze. Ladybug never thought she would have to face Monarch without him. I’m sure she was concerned for Chat when Plagg showed up on his own. It could also be Chat comforting her over everything she went through alone. (Or vice-versa?)

Or maybe they’re saying goodbye? With Monarch defeated, maybe they consider hanging up their masks? (Which might explain Mari putting the earrings away?)

The real question is what does Chat/Adrien know or think he knows at this point?

Marinette tries to sleep

We see Marinette, after everything, trying to get some sleep. The poor girl has huge awful bags under her eyes, so it’s clear she hasn’t rested, and likely has been crying. She’s clearly distraught over this.

Some things to note about these shots: She’s wearing the earrings AND Chat’s ring to bed. (The cat Miraculous is rose gold when disguised for Marinette.) This means she either never sent Chat back his Miraculous, or they’ve already decided to retire from being Superheroes and she’s ‘taken’ it back.

Tikki and Plagg are on the bed with her, and all of the Kwamis are home and sleeping around the room. 

Ghost Guy is Adrien?

Ok so here’s where it gets really interesting: This guy shows up. I’m calling him ‘Ghost guy’

I believe Ghost guy is Adrien. There is also potential for him to be Felix, and I’m totally open to that possibility, but for now, I’m focusing on my theories for Adrien. (I do address Felix speculations at the end!)

So we see Ghost guy’s head pop up through the bed beside Tikki and Plagg. They are sleeping on top of Marinette’s blanket, right beside her. This guy is uncomfortably close to them.

Then we see him walking through her room, glancing behind him over his shoulder to look at Marinette, asleep in her loft bed.

(We’ll get to the last shot in a minute) Then we see his ghostly hand going through what appears to be either Marinette’s sewing box, or the vanity drawer.

In the French trailer, we see him more clearly, possibly hovering over her, and he’s putting the re-configured Miraculous rings on his fingers. Then we see his hand plucking the earring off her ear. (pictured above) Since Marinette was also wearing Chat’s ring, he must have taken that as well.

Moving forward we are going to assume that this is Adrien, that he knows everything, and plans to use the Miraculous to wish himself out of existence. Here’s why I think it’s him:

Starting with body language:

He seems to have some level of comfort with his proximity to Marinette and the Kwamis. He’s moving slowly. He’s not in a rush, he’s not being particularly sneaky, and you can tell it's quiet. It's like he's wandering around her room, observing. Even the way he slowly drags his hand through the drawer/sewing box. I feel like there’s almost a familiarity there. Somehow, that seems personal. You could even say based on body language that he seems sad, or wistful? It could even be guilt, reluctance, longing or regret?

If this is Adrien, he could feel guilty about what he’s about to do, or debating if he should go through with it. He could be in awe/shock at seeing the evidence of his girlfriend being Ladybug right in front of his eyes. And look at the way he looks up at Marinette’s bed?? It’s not full of hatred, or malice. His shoulders are relaxed, his arms/hands at his side. You’d think if this was Lila or someone who wanted to hurt her that they would have tense or angry body language?

Whoever this is, he doesn’t seem to have interest in hurting her. He takes the earrings without waking her up, he doesn’t attack her. In fact, across both trailers, we don’t get a single shot where LB is fighting or confronting him in any way. (She does fight Clock dude, but we’ll get to that!)

But if Adrien only needs the Bug and Cat Miraculouses to make the wish, why does he take the Monarch rings? So that Marinette can't stop him! If he leaves the other Miraculous with her, He knows she’ll try to stop him. She’s Ladybug. Of course she’d find a way! Even if she doesn’t know it’s him. And if for some reason she did figure out it was him and what he was trying to do, he KNOWS she'd stop him. This leaves her powerless and ensures he completes his mission.

Appearance:

Whether or not Ghost guy is Adrien, I do believe he’s a he. (Or at the least, male presenting)

Sure, he’s skinny. But he has fairly broad shoulders, flat chest, thicker thighs, Masculine hands, and slightly squared-out body features. 

Now look at the features of his suit- The shapes and patterns are familiar. The symbol on Ghost guy’s chest may look like an owl, but it also has a distinct shape that can be seen on Aspik’s, Snake Noir’s, and even Mister Bug’s suit. The helmet head is to hide his hair, with the pointy hood at the back being similar to Ephemeral’s, as is the glowing suit, which is also seen on Rabbit Noir’s suit. (And Astrocat’s, which also shares similarities in the helmet shape!)

Most significantly, the shoulder armor. It’s a consistent feature in most of Adrien’s personas. Some kind of shoulder armor/design or feature is prominent on Chat Noir, Astrocat, Mister Bug, Aspik, and even to a certain extent, Catwalker’s. Even the V shaped forehead/brow design is seen multiple times. (Aspik, Snake Noir, Ephemeral) 

And finally- The hand- look at the hand that phases through. Look at them long fingies! The small wrist and wide palm. It totally looks like Adrien's hand. Or at the very least, a masculine hand. (I added pics of Adrien’s hands further down)

Powers: 

Obviously this guy’s powers include phasing like a ghost, both through things, as well as in and out of visibility. If Adrien is trying to un-wish himself, I think his ghostliness could be symbolic here too.

I also don’t think Ghost guy is time travelling. He doesn’t seem to have time travel powers, and he seems to be only active at the beginning/setup, to steal the Miraculouses. He doesn’t appear to be involved afterward.

His appearance in Lila’s Lair (The catacombs)

Ghost guy is also seen in Lila’s lair, (shown above) phasing into the floor. In this scene he doesn’t touch/interact with anything. He seems to just be observing again. He doesn’t take the notebook that’s on the table in front of him (A notebook that everyone seems to be fighting over, see below) He's just there, and then phases away. If this is Adrien, what is he doing here in Lila's lair? Also, the open boxes on the table are noteworthy.

Marinette wakes up, Bunnyx grabs her

So the next morning, Marinette discovers the Miraculouses gone.Then Bunnyx grabs her and drags her into the Burrow. She has no Miraculous, so she stays Marinette, and at some point acquires a yellow vest. We see Mari and Bunnyx being shocked over time portals disappearing. Then it looks like Bunnyx deposits Mari back in her bedroom. (Though I have to wonder if this is her same bedroom? Or another timeline/universe? The synopsis does mention Bunnyx sending her back in time.)

Bunnyx helps someone up?

This one is VERY interesting to me. Who is she helping up? Who’s hands are these? I think most would assume that since we know Marinette ends up in the Burrow, that this must be Marinette. But Bunnyx grabbed her from behind, by the arms. Sure, Marinette is clumsy and could have fallen. But why the first person point of view? And why did this scene flash so damn fast it was almost impossible to spot? 

I’m going to go crazy about hands again, but these look like Adrien’s hands too! The skin tone, the wide palms! Below, I purposely selected pics with both Adrien and Marinette’s hands in them for comparison. You can also compare them to Ghost Guy’s hand in the drawer!

We always go on about how Luka is the only one who knows Adrien's identity, but… does Bunnyx? (And if she does, is it the present or future Bunnyx who does? We are consistently seeing young Bunnyx in these trailers.) Adrien/Chat has also used the Rabbit Miraculous before. He’s been in control of the Burrow before. 

Clock dude

Ok, on a completely opposite note, I am convinced that Clock dude is a woman! I also think that it’s Lila. Here’s why:

The only visual confirmation we get that Lila is involved at all is her face on one of the promo posters, and the scenes that show her lair in the catacombs.

But we do get this one shot of a slender, feminine hand (With a super wonky thumb, lol) holding the notebook. I assume this is Lila’s hand. Although we have a sleeve/cuff similar to Mari’s, it’s missing pink polka dots and the skintone is off for Mari, who is rather pinkish. Plus, this is Lila’s lair. It makes sense that it could be her.

Now let’s look at Clock dude.

Clock dude looks awfully slender. The thighs, wrists, arms and shoulders are all very slim, long, and feminine. Look at those long skinny legs! Sure, Chat Noir has long skinny legs, but they are thicker than this. In fact his legs are quite curvy, being thicker at the calf and thigh. 

Now look at the vest/chest armor type thing they are wearing. This part looks like it could be there purposely to conceal breasts. The boots even look like they could have heels!

Power-wise, it’s pretty clear that Clock dude has time-jumping abilities. They seem to interact with something on their wrist before poofing out. (Potentially to another time?) They also seem to be holding the notebook in their hand.

It should also be noted that Clock dude appears to play the role of villain. We see multiple shots where it’s implied that Ladybug (Or in this case, Chronobug?) is fighting them. 

Lila’s blue light from S5

So Clock dude has a very telling blue glow. Much like the blue light Lila sees at the end of Season 5. (Ghost guy also glows blue, so that’s another possibility.) 

The blue light from S5 could be Clock dude’s time portal opening up. Clock dude could be their own person, OR, it could be Lila’s future self! This might explain her reaction to the portal as well. I’d imagine seeing your future self might be pretty shocking. It's possible that Clock guy jumps to this time to start Lila on her path.It could also explain some other things. Like how did Lila get down to the basement during the final battle? She was on the floor above them. The elevator was broken. How did she get the Butterfly Miraculous from the basement water before BugNoire, without being seen?

If she’s Clock dude and is jumping all over time, She could have easily gone to the basement, collected the Butterfly Miraculous, then gave it to another version of herself. (Or some other such time travel paradox bullshit!) 

Especially since we see the Clock dude in the garden watching Nathalie and BugNoire after the battle. We know that Lila must have been present at that point to retrieve the Butterfly, right? But who’s visibly present? Bug Noire, Nathalie, and Clock dude. After all, we never see Lila herself retrieve the Butterfly from the water.

The notebook

This notebook is ALL over the trailers- everything seems to revolve around it. We know that the notebook contains the note claiming that Marinette is Ladybug. We see what I assume is Chronobug’s hands holding the notebook open to the offending page, and it appears that she is in the burrow. (White background with a portal visible in the bottom left corner)

You see Clock guy holding it before they disappear in the basement (See above) 

We see (Possibly Lila) holding it in her Lair. (Complete with mysterious jewellery boxes?)

You can see Clock dude’s arm holding it in Lila’s Lair. (There are no jewellery boxes in this shot. Also if Clock dude is Lila, then it’s her hand both times.)

There’s a shot of Clock dude jumping for it, in front of one of Bunnyx’s (Maybe Chronobug’s?) portals. And interestingly, they appear to be in the white cell/prison that Adrien was held in!

Then we see Chronobug’s hand grab it off the floor of the white cell from a portal. And finally, we see it in front of Ghost guy when he phases through Lila’s Lair. (And again, he doesn’t touch it.)

Perhaps Lila may be trying to plant the book where Adrien can find it. Maybe she is trying to set off a series of events for Adrien to get him to attempt the wish? It’s also possible that she’s doing all of this to hurt Marinette, and didn’t anticipate what Adrien would do with that information?

If Lila has proof of Marinette’s identity in that book, then we can assume she wants to use thaat information to ruin her life. How could Lila best use Marinette’s identity against her? Sure, the world can't know who Ladybug is. But Lila already knows.Felix knows. Kagami and Luka do too. And now possibly Nathalie? Really, a bunch of people already know. The biggest threat was Monarch, and now he’s gone. Tomoe could be a threat, with the potential of carrying on with Gabriel’s plans, but she seems completely absent from this so far.

So who is the most dangerous person that Lila could give that information to? Who’s story ends very badly every time he finds out Marinette’s identity? That’s right. Adrien.

We know Lila’s has a vendetta against Mari/Ladybug. Hitting her where it hurts most (Right in the boyfriend) by planting the book where Adrien can find it, could be her main goal here. Destroying Marinette in the most painful way possible. Through the boy she loves. And if this info causes Adrien to realize the truth about everything, it could set him on a path of trying to make the wish to undo the damage his existence has caused. 

So I did mention earlier there’s a chance that Ghost guy could be Felix. There ARE similarities that you could consider. He does look exactly like Adrien after all, same body type, shape, hands, etc. 

Felix’s involvement?

Outfit: 

When Felix became Flairmidable, he also had shoulder armor. However, I want to point out that he was pretending to be Adrien then. It stands to reason that the Flairmidable outfit is less about what Felix would wear, and more about what he thought Adrien would wear.

Then we have Ghost guy’s hood. Yes, Felix wears a hood as Argos. I’d still argue that the hood looks much more like Aspik’s headgear in style and shape. Then from the scene where Ghost guy is standing in Lila’s lair, we can sort of make out his back, and it looks like he might have a slight set of tails on the back of his outfit, which is slightly reminiscent of Felix’s argos costume. I’ve seen it mentioned by other theorists. (I got this pic off someone’s Tumblr, hope it’s ok) There’s also the pose, a shot from the back where his hands are at his sides with fists clenched. 

However, based on pose alone it could be anyone. Chat Noir and Viperion have been seen in the exact same pose. And those interesting details that I pointed out previously for shape and style in Adrien’s other personas don’t apply to Felix. All in all, there aren't very many similarities. (They also don’t apply to Viperion, so you can’t even say it’s a style belonging to the snake Miraculous either!)

Now looks aside, What about motive? We Know Felix wants to protect Adrien. We know he also knows Ladybug’s Identity, As well as Monarch’s. He has all this info at his disposal, and has for some time. So why would he steal the Miraculous from Marinette AGAIN? And why NOW? Adrien’s father is dead. Even though it hurts Adrien, in essence, Felix’s goal is met. Gabriel will abuse his son no longer. So why would Felix need to make a wish? He has the Peacock Miraculous, no one can use it against them. I mean the only thing that comes to mind is potentially wishing that the 3 senti-kids are made into ‘real’ kids? Honestly, that actually seems pretty weak to me. 

Plus, isn’t Felix working towards redemption? We see him and Kagami joining the kids for the pool party at the end of season 5, and they seem to have been added to the lineup of heroes. Do you think Ladybug would EVER trust him EVER if he had managed to steal all the Miraculous from her TWICE, and make a wish? HELL NO. Even if he pulled out some sob story about helping Adrien, there’s no way. 

You could argue that at least this time, Marinette having Chat Noir’s ring with her is a rare opportunity to get 2 for 1. But… How would Felix even know that she has both? Felix was mysteriously missing from the entire finale scenario, besides returning Kagami to her mom just to be imprisoned. (I have my questions about this, for sure)

I’m not saying I don’t think Felix is involved at all. Because I’d sure as hell like to know where the hell he’s been?! And how, after everything, he seems to get into Marinette’s good graces enough to at least be present with the rest of the team in the future. (Though I’ve heard it argued that his presence may be out of necessity, because he knows too much about LB and she needs to keep him close. Which makes sense for sure.)

I’ve also heard it argued that If Ghost guy is Felix, perhaps he knows Clock dude is coming and tries to take the Miraculous to protect them before Clock dude can get their hands on them. Which… why wouldn’t he just show up to warn Marinette that Clock dude is coming?

Unanswered questions!

Assuming any of these theories are correct, I still have unanswered questions. 

How does Lila become Clock dude, where does her time power come from? Does she Akumatize herself like Gabe did? We see Nooroo and the Butterfly Miraculous on the table in her Lair, both with Clock Dude and Ghost guy. But Gabriel would take off the Miraculous when he Akumatized himself, so it’s not ruled out.

How does Adrien become Ghost guy? Where does his power come from?

How does Marinette become Chronobug? By all accounts, her Miraculous is gone. So how does she get the yellow Ladybug suit? Is she wearing Bunnyx’s Miraculous? Or is it a fusion?

Where is FELIX?

The takeaway:

To me, this tells a story similar to Chat Blanc, in that way that it proves to Ladybug that without a shadow of a doubt, Adrien and/or Chat Noir CANNOT know the truth. It gives a completely rational explanation for why the story may progress with Adrien being oblivious to his father’s identity, and/or his being a Senti-being. She might learn that an Adrien who knows the truth would be an Adrien who doesn’t want to exist. She wouldn’t want that for him. This is all irrefutable reasoning for Marinette to NEVER tell him. 

She wouldn’t even have to find out that Adrien is Chat Noir for this theory to work. Think about it, if she finds out it’s ADRIEN who steals the Miraculous, that would explain why Ghost Guy’s suit looks more like Aspik’s and Ephemeral’s suits than any of Chat’s other identities. Because Marinette KNOWS Aspik was Adrien. (Though she wouldn’t remember Ephemeral.) It wouldn’t even necessarily reveal his Chat Noir sides. 

Also keep in mind that this is her boyfriend! Of course she trusts him, and wouldn’t initially suspect him, because it would be so outside of her wildest thoughts. And discovering that her boyfriend is so distraught over his father’s crimes and the truth of his existence that he tries to end it? (Or at the very least stop it from ever beginning?) It would hurt her SO much. Because of course, she’s going to feel responsible for everything! That she somehow failed as Ladybug, failed to protect Adrien, failed to stop Gabriel, lost the Miraculous again.

And of course, this even helps along the Lila is Clock dude theory. She wants to destroy Marinette. And what better way than by destroying her through the boy she loves??

Yes, that would probably mean that if Marinette fixes everything, Adrien will forget it all (or… never have learned it. Time travel, AmIRight?) and it never happens (Again)

Adrien can’t know things

We see repeatedly that Adrien learning the truth only hurts him. And others. This would be the proof Marinette needs to always keep the truth from him. A valid reason for Marinette to lie to her boyfriend. 

Because if she doesn't, the world ends. Or he gets akumatized, or he goes off the deep end and tries to wish himself unborn.

I'M SORRY IT WAS SO LONG BUT IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Every Episode of Miraculous Ladybug Season 5 Ranked (Part 2)

Part 1

(This site's stupid 30 images per post forced me to do this, so thanks for nothing, Tumblr)

#14: Transmission

I swear, I'm not doing these on purpose. This is just how I've been ranking the episodes.

Like I said in the last part, this episode just did not need to happen. The first half is cheap melodrama between Marinette and Adrien and the second half is a run of the mill Akuma fight with two different heroes. This is the story that seriously warranted two parts this season?

I just can't stand the fact that Marinette and Adrien gave up their Miraculous so easily here. Maybe if it was Season 2, Season 3 at the latest, I'd buy it, but near the middle of Season 5? They honestly view their love lives as more important than the battle with Monarch. If it was anything else like the stress or physical danger, I'd also be understanding, but Tikki and Plagg decide that Marinette and Adrien are so miserable that they need to be happy by losing their Miraculous without a fight. Remember, this was just two episodes after “Reunion”, which showed Joan of Arc was a Miraculous holder. So fighting in the Hundred Years' War didn't get so much as an ounce of concern from Tikki, but teenage angst is too much for her little heart to bear?

Maybe it's the benefit of knowing this won't be permanent, but the issue I have is how much the show draws this out for so long, as if the audience is supposed to buy it. “It's really happening, guys! Ladybug and Cat Noir won't be the stars anymore, we swear!” This kind of plot can work under the right circumstances. All you needed to do is at the very least, make it something they choose to do instead of their Kwamis taking their Miraculous away so we can see them weigh the benefits of giving up life as a superhero in ways that aren't exclusively about their love lives. I'd even buy it if it's something Ladybug and Cat Noir actually agreed on before quitting.

While I can sort of get Alya becoming Scarabella due to her experience with the Ladybug (even if she chose to give up using any Miraculous at the end of Season 4), Zoe getting the Cat just feels like the writers put a bunch of names in a hat and picked hers. The two just don't have as compelling a dynamic as Ladybug and Cat Noir do, because they don't get a lot of time to know each other. Alya and Zoe have almost never interact with each other, so the masks don't really shake up their relationship, because there's no relationship to speak of.

Also, the Akuma here was really forced. We know nothing about this new character while the show acts like we're supposed to know who he is based on some minor hints with Nora calling earlier. While I will give the show credit for arguably giving us the most powerful Akuma of all time due to being both a man and a bear, he's as forgettable as a villain as Kitty Noire is as a hero.

Just about nobody here comes out smelling like roses in this episode. The Kwamis are morons for caring about one ship becoming canon, Marinette and Adrien are selfish cowards for giving up their Miraculous with little hesitation, their friends are ignorant buffoons for thinking some random attempt to get Marinette and Adrien to talk will somehow seal the deal, and Alya and Zoe are idiots for not thinking that they should take off the shiny ring that tracks their every movement. It's a terrible episode, and the only reason why “Deflagration” is ranked higher is because it didn't irritate me as much as this one did.

#15: Determination

And now we're onto the really bad episodes this season.

This episode is pretty much what you've come to expect by Season 5. People keep forcing Marinette into situations she's clearly uncomfortable, and we're supposed to just laugh at her anxiety, because we still have eight episodes to go before the show decides to take her mental health seriously.

What makes this episode really sting for me is that it's Luka and Kagami that are forcing Marinette into these unfunny antics this time. For the most part, they never really stooped to this level and didn't try to force anything with their respective love interests until they had trouble in their relationships that required them to communicate. But now, even though one knows Marinette and Adrien are superheroes while the other is usually very blunt with her feelings (at least, before she became this season's next victim), they're going to try forcing Marinette and Adrien to spend time together even they both know they have feelings for each other and MY GOD, THIS IS SO STUPID! It's just a cheap excuse for more pointless shenanigans that stopped being funny years ago.

Yet somehow, that's not the worst of the Love Square drama this episode. It's here where we learn that Adrien fell in love with Marinette over a season ago, during a scene where she violated his personal space. In addition, Adrien somehow showed no signs of attraction to Marinette until the plot demanded it, and came right after another episode showing him falling for her. Why not make it the fake confession Marinette practiced with Cat Noir in “Glaciator 2”? The kiss Marinette gave Adrien at the end of “Heroes' Day”? I'd even take another umbrella scene callback like in “Mr. Pigeon 72”. But no, it's the statue scene that the writers decided on. It's like they noticed all the criticism Marinette got in that episode and were like “Joke's on you! Adrien actually liked being lusted over like an object!”.

And then the masks come on and make things even more convoluted. Adrien at least got to reflect on the events of a previous episode to explain his new feelings for Marinette, but what caused Ladybug to suddenly fall for Cat Noir after four seasons?

The writers don't even bother with an explanation for this. Ladybug spontaneously becomes attracted to Cat Noir with absolutely no foreshadowing, buildup, or even callbacks to earlier episodes. The writers either wanted to complicate things one last time before Adrienette became canon, they wanted to bury the Ladynoir conflict arc from last season in the sand, or the most likely option, a combination of both.

The idea of the public turning on Ladybug was an interesting one to take, seeing how she's been universally beloved for the past four seasons. But despite hinting at it in “Multiplication”, this is the farthest is goes, and even then, guess who's behind it? You can't keep raising points against the main characters if it's only Chloe who does it. It doesn't open debate on the story and essentially tells the audience that they're wrong to agree with her, no matter what kind of point she makes.

As dumb as the way it happened was, Ladybug still screwed up and endangered the city by losing the other Miraculous, but we can't actually challenge children by acknowledging that the hero actually did something wrong and needs to grow as a person. We need to use a recurring character as a strawman to tell the audience that only bad people think this way! Way to remove any interesting internal conflict, writers.

The Akuma was pretty weak, just being an older Puppeteer, down to using wax statues like what happened in “Puppeteer 2”. The army of wax heroes could have been interesting, but there wasn't enough time to do much with the idea. The one thing I liked was how the Ox Miraculous' Resistance was used. It felt like an upgrade instead of a core power Manipula got.

This episode pretty much set the stage for a new level of frustrating Love Square drama this season, and it was one of the season's first outright awful episodes.

#16: Conformation

The only reason this episode isn't at the bottom is because the rest of the ones on this list are far worse by comparison. Make of that what you will.

Like most season finales, this one continues the tradition of being better at buildup than actual execution. Gabriel's plan is pretty decent, even if it's just Heroes Day on a global scale. He utilizes his public influence and business skills to plan out a plan to get almost all of humanity working for him. While I don't like the Miraculized, I still think Gabriel being on top works here, especially since he's not going out into the field like the last three finales.

But other than an okay evil plan, this episode is still pretty bad. Marinette being infected with nightmare dust only happens to get her to the Agreste manor because the writers forgot that Marinette learned Gabriel was Monarch last episode. It could have been a decent way to up the stakes by showing Ladybug not being at 100%, but like everyone else, she just fights off the nightmare dust and doesn't have a single problem during her fight with Monarch. In general, the nightmare dust isn't really utilized well, only being an excuse to bring out the Miraculized. It doesn't impact everyone fighting off the Miraculized, and there's no lesson or theme about fear that's conveyed here.

Speaking of nightmare dust, I'm pretty sure the only reason why it was introduced in the first place was to bench Adrien, which is still easily one of the dumbest decisions the show has ever made. While everyone else had no problem resisting the nightmare dust, Adrien is just physically incapable of doing so because of some half-assed character arc the show pretended happened. So either Adrien got a more potent dosage of the nightmare dust, or Adrien's just too weak to actually overcome his fears. “Sandboy”? Never heard of it! The fact that the writers also tried to claim they were being subversive with fairy tale tropes and cliches didn't help, since it devalues Adrien as a character even further. He's not a superhero and Ladybug's closest ally. He's just some damsel in distress who needs to be saved. Let me just remind you, if the genders were reversed, this would not be seen as some bold move, but the same overused cliche trying to be something new.

I already talked about my problems with Nathalie in “Passion”, and the stuff she does here isn't really different. Despite enabling Gabriel for five seasons, the episode has the balls to act like Nathalie always had morals and is appalled by Gabriel planning to sacrifice someone to save his wife. Just remember, “Passion” established that Nathalie had a history as a treasure hunter, so this is like Indiana Jones not knowing what the Holy Grail does. Nathalie only got dumber than in “Passion” because she somehow thought she could take on a supervillain with nothing but a crossbow and a body that already has one foot in the grave. And just like Felix, Nathalie can't even apologize to Ladybug for the aiding and abetting a terrorist thing. Between Nathalie, Felix, and Gabriel, does using the Peacock Miraculous just make you an idiot?

While the buildup is decent, it's just not enough to really get audiences excited for the second part.

#17: Representation

This episode is yet another example of the show's double standards.

Without going into detail too much, this episode came right after “Revolution”, the one that essentially portrayed Audrey taking control of Chloe's life as a karmic punishment. What happens in this episode? We learn Felix's father literally took control of his life and it's portrayed as wrong as child abuse should be. That's why this episode is still better than “Revolution”. It at the very least understands how serious child abuse is, and tries to tell Felix's story with as much dignity as two teenagers in white onesies can have.

With that being said, there's a reason why this episode is as low as it is. The Sentimonster play used to tell Marinette about Felix is just so stupid. The sets and costumes look ridiculous, it's hard to take the story seriously with Felix and Kagami doing all the voices, and most of it is unnecessary since the whole point is to tell Marinette that Gabriel is Monarch... something that the writers decided she needed to find out on her own in the next episode. It comes across less like Felix trying to alert Ladybug to who Monarch really is and more like he's just trying to justify his own actions. Hell, the actual reason he decided to tell Marinette about Gabriel was because he and Kagami were worried about their own relationship being ruined by him. And yet somehow, Ladybug lets him on the team at the end of the season.

The stuff with Adrien was also pretty dumb. It's cheap fanservice that reminds the audience of Cat Blanc when none of the characters should know who Cat Blanc is. You can call him Anticat all you want, but everyone can see that he's just Cat Blanc with blue hair. It's bad enough that this was what all the times Cat Noir almost Cataclysming people this season was meant to lead up to, but this is pretty much the reason why Adrien is benched during the finale.

This episode really shows how desperate the writers are to make people take this show seriously by showing serious topics like genocide and child abuse, as if the show didn't already ignore the horrible implications previous episodes (like the very last one before this) raised and will continue to raise during the season finale. So much of the episode is just dark for the sake of being dark. It's nothing too horrifying for children, of course, but the issue is how obvious it is that the writers are trying to raise the stakes right before the season finale and show how mature the show's writing is. For lack of a better term, it's this show's equivalent to “Ow The Edge”.

#18: Revelation

Get ready for the episode where the writers abandon all attempts to be subtle and create an episode specifically to attack people who think Chloe isn't the most evil character on the show. Because how dare they be optimistic and try to see the good in people! What do they think this is, a kids' show?

While a big problem with the Lila episodes was how stupid the class is, this episode made it so Marinette got to join in on losing brain cells too. Despite outright admitting to neglecting her duties as class representative (as absurd as it is to be in charge of notifying teachers about student progress they should be aware of), we're supposed to agree with her for not telling her teacher about Chloe cheating. Not only does this make no sense since you'd think Marinette would want to see Chloe get punished, but her claiming that all Chloe does is abuse her privileges loses any point to it because Marinette admitted to not doing her job as class representative, making her just as lazy as Chloe and unintentionally helping her through not telling the teachers. And that's not even getting into how many times Marinette has broken the secret identity rule despite also being the one to enforce it the most as the Guardian.

If the episode at least admitted to Marinette having personal issues that prevented her from displaying any form of professionalism towards Chloe (especially since this episode takes place after “Derision”), that'd be fine. Sometimes, people just can't let bygones be bygones and let their emotions dictate how they handle things. If she willingly resigned from her position by admitting she was just as at fault for Chloe getting as far as she did with her cheating, that would have worked. Instead, the episode does the same things it did with Adrien for the last few seasons: Go out of its way to vindicate Marinette's complaining and never even consider the idea of her being wrong in the slightest.

It's also hilarious to see Ms. Bustier act like an actual teacher for once and plan to work with Chloe to help make up her missed work, but portray it as a bad thing because in Marinette's eyes, that's not a punishment. Since the school year is almost over, Chloe will have to attend summer school at best and be held back or even expelled at worst. How the hell does that not count as a punishment, Marinette?

And don't forget how she gets not one, but two separate scenes insulting people for being idealistic and not wanting to write off people as beyond saving, the second one being copied from Astruc's Twittter.

And remember, this was right before a string of episodes where characters were able to change their ways, including Sabrina (Chloe's accomplice), Andre (Chloe's enabler), and Gabriel (Chloe's supervillain contact). How the hell is Chloe the only one being written off as irredeemable when she didn't pull off any of her evil plans without help? You can still punish Chloe. All I want is for the other characters to be punished as well.

But let's talk about the main event for this episode: Lila. In one of the most confusing “twists” in the show's history, she's now an identity thief who lives with three different mothers. Why? Because the writers have no idea how to hype people up for her being the main villain for Season 6, so they think just making her mysterious for the sake of making her mysterious is enough to build her up as a villain. It's like the writers realized Lila had absolutely zero resources of her own, so they felt like they needed to establish her as an evil genius to compensate. “Who cares if there's no logical explanation for how she's gotten as far as she has despite constantly boasting about her celebrity connections in public? We have to make her vague and mysterious, damn it! It worked for Judas Traveller and Kaine, didn't it?”

This episode takes multiple shots at fans and tries to make Lila seem more compelling than she actually is. It feels more like damage control than an actual plot-relevant episode.

#19: Illusion

Want to see the main characters acting like idiots for almost a half-hour? No? Too bad!

So much of this episode's conflict, the characters trying to investigate a possible lead related to Monarch, comes from everyone making stupid decisions. Nino tries to get one of the most influencial men in Paris akumatized, talks about it in public, falls for his trick, and lets him into his secret alliance. This season really cemented his role as the Zapp Brannigan of Miraculous Ladybug with how incompetent he is. If you really want to start portraying Nino as a tactical genius, maybe you should actually show him doing something smart instead of getting outsmarted by obvious tricks.

Of course, the other characters aren't immune to Nino's stupidity either. Marinette, Adrien, and Alya just go along with his asinine plan to get Gabriel akumatized, never question his logic, and ultimately still go along with the Resistance despite how obnoxious their leader is. The worst part is Ladybug not recognizing her own partner being stung by Venom... when they're fighting someone with access to over a dozen Miraculous. I know Cat Noir was born with glass bones and paper skin, but I don't think he literally freezes in terror when he's scared. And of course, Ladybug never questions the tiny invisible men who stunned Cat Noir after this scene.

The cafeteria scene is something that should really be cited as an example of how terrible this show is with acknowledging continuity. You thought there would be some compelling drama discussing the secret identity rule and all the double standards it has? NOPE! It's a funny joke about how confusing the identity stuff is at this point. The fact that Nino somehow doesn't understand the concept of secret identities in this scene is yet another reason as to why he isn't even qualified to lead an anime club, much less a resistance against Monarch.

The idea of Monarch using an illusion to fight Ladybug and Cat Noir was an interesting one, but it still had some holes. For one thing, what if the two heroes can't dodge one of the illusion Collector's attacks? What if they're fast enough to try tying him up, only to dispel the illusion? The entire plan pretty much relies on the fact that Ladybug and Cat Noir are too slow to catch the Collector.

But one scene that has only become more questionable after the finale is Ladybug trying to reach through to the illusion Collector. Like several episodes this season, it comes across like the show is spitting on idealism and wanting to solve problems peacefully because Monarch tricked Ladybug into believing he willingly rejected an Akuma. Remember kids, if someone says they want to change, it's really a trick as part of an evil supervillain's plan to maintain his secret identity.

This episode is like a microcosm of everything wrong with Season 5. Poor morals, characters acting like idiots, shooting down any potential for plot development, and being told characters are right when their actions say otherwise.

#20: Confrontation

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the episode where the writers just gave up.

There is just so much that happens in this episode that the writers cram in. There's Marinette's “final” confrontation with Lila, the battle with Reflekta, Sabrina's redemption, Juleka's character development, Ms. Bustier's character development, Mr. Damocles' character development, and the reveal of Lila's true nature. I don't think I need to tell you that the writers struggle to make all of these plot threads work in less than a half-hour.

First off, Marinette and Lila. The previous episode implied that Marinette let Lila have this short-term victory because she had her own plan to expose her. This episode puts that plan into action. See, she has the genius idea of going along with submitting school application forms to Lila and Chloe with no actual countermeasure in place, waiting for Sabrina to have a sudden change of heart so they can work together to expose Lila and Chloe through a bathroom peephole. This is the kind of tactical intelligence that will be studied in the history books, let me tell you. There's just no weight to Marinette and Lila's final battle of wits because there isn't any. There's no series of gambits or scenarios that actually pit their minds against each other, so you don't get a lot of satisfaction from Marinette's triumph over Lila. It doesn't help that there's more focus on Sabrina than on Marinette, but I'll get to that later. Even the actual payoff is anti-climactic. Most of the class' apology to Marinette was deleted because Mr. Damocles using a Magical Charm shield was just too important to leave on the cutting room floor according to the writers.

This episode really shows just how Marinette's classmates are like NPCs in the Lila-centric stories. They don't second guess Lila's accusations due to their past experiences with Marinette, and as soon as Marinette's name is cleared, they instantly apologize to her and don't even think about how easily they were fooled by Lila and Chloe. The worst example is Alya, Marinette's confidant and someone who was trusted to temporarily use the Ladybug Miraculous last episode, falling for this and not trusting Marinette. My sister in Christ, your friend goes out and saves lives on a weekly basis at least. How can you fall for Lila's story? This is why I think the Lila episodes should have all been set pre-Season 4, so Alya falling for Lila's lies is a little more believable since she isn't already in on Marinette's biggest secret.

I also have to roll my eyes at how melodramatic the talk about everyone's “futures” is. Yes, I don't know a lot about the French education system (If there's anything I'm getting wrong here, don't hesitate to let me know), but I don't get why they're treating their high school choices like such a big deal. Maybe if it was college, I'd get it, but high school? Why can't you just transfer if it doesn't work out? But then again, this is the same show created by a man who thinks school uniforms are a sign of fascism.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

Speaking of futures, this episode also showed just how little the writers cared about Adrien at this point, with how a supposedly heartwaming moment is him having no plan in life other than Marinette. I know this might seem weird given my problem with him last season was his refusal to think about anyone but himself, but there's a difference between wanting someone to follow orders without complaining and giving them absolutely no motivation outside of their significant other. And once again, if you swap the genders, this becomes sexist as hell.

But the big problem comes in the form of how the side characters are utilized. I don't know why the writers decided to focus on developing characters like Sabrina, Juleka, Ms. Bustier, and Mr. Damocles with five episodes left in the season. This should have been done in earlier episodes, not in the middle of a major story arc. I'm just left not caring about the development because it takes away from the conflict between Marinette and Lila, to say nothing about how little Adrien and Alya contribute to the story.

To me, this episode feels like the writers had no idea how to make Marinette outsmarting Lila into an episode, so they crammed in all these half-assed character arcs to pad out the runtime. While “Revelation” personally upset me more, I personally think this is the worse episode of the two from a writing standpoint.

#21: Revolution

Given how often I've criticized the way Chloe has been handled over the years, I bet you're surprised that this one isn't at the bottom of the list. You'll be even more surprised to learn that I think Chloe is one of this episode's saving graces.

This episode (along with “Derision”) provide an example of the Chloe we should have gotten ever since Season 3 ended: A villain who's allowed to be a threat while still being funny. So much of the past two seasons have done nothing but portray Chloe as nothing but an incompetent joke, but here, near the end of the season, she's in a position of power and is taken seriously. The episode does a good job showing how tyrannical Chloe's rule as Mayor is while still making it funny and in-character for her. She uses her power on frivolous things because she's a teenage girl who doesn't understand the complicated issues that come with politics. It's also why her idea of punishment involves detention, because it's something she's more familiar with as someone in middle school. Of course, even the episode all about Chloe ruling Paris with an iron fist isn't stupid enough to actually let Chloe be a compelling antagonist. No, we need to constantly remind the audience that Chloe is being played, as if we're supposed to see her as nothing more than a pawn even though the show still wants us to see her as an irredeemable monster.

Putting aside that one speck of something interesting, this episode is still incredibly bad. So much of the story is dependent not on how smart the villains' plan is, but rather, how lazy the heroes are. Not only is there not a single moment where Ladybug and Cat Noir acknowledge that the whole reason why Chloe was able to take over as Mayor was their fault, they act as if Chloe abusing her power to make everyone's life a living hell isn't enough of a reason to stop her. What kind of Prime Directive bullshit is this? YOU JUST HELPED SOMEONE LEAD AN INSURRECTION AGAINST A POWERLESS CIVILIAN! HOW IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT?! If there was at least something involving Ladybug and Cat Noir taking responsibility for what happened or at least showing that they played a part in this (especially since they “grow up” in this episode), I'd get it. Instead, because this is Season 5, our heroes are perfection incarnate, and can't ever be wrong. Even when they finally decide to get off their asses and stop Chloe, they didn't know she was akumatized, and nobody seemed to care before Chloe blurted it out, so Ladybug and Cat Noir have no excuses for slacking off.

The final battle is just a joke. Not only is it another excuse to force the Resistance into the plot, it shows Ladybug and Cat Noir unlocking the full power of their Miraculous in the most anti-climactic way possible. Even though they spent most of the episode caring more about their personal lives than actually stopping the obvious threat, somehow, this means they “grew up”. There's no buildup, no explanation, and no catharsis gained from this achievement. All of a sudden, Ladybug and Cat Noir are adults now. There's one decent scene with Adrien, but that's far from an actual explanation. What, did you actually expect an explanation for something this huge? Too bad! We need to have Marinette tell Chloe she's not afraid of her anymore even though she was never afraid of her prior to this season. Of all the things that happened this season, this is the one that makes it clear that Season 5 was supposed to be the end. There is no way Season 6 can happen unless the writers come up with some crap that undoes this, because Ladybug and Cat Noir have essentially unlocked god mode.

But I saved the worst for last, and you all know what it is: Chloe's punishment. I still can't get over the fact that there's actually a scene heavily implying we're supposed to be happy Chloe is going to live with her emotionally abusive mother in the same season that's trying to tell a serious story about child abuse. There's already been so much said about all the horrible things this implies, so I'm going to try and bring up something else. Specifically, how everyone is just okay with this. I can buy Ladybug given all the things Chloe has done to her, but it's pretty odd that Cat Noir, Andre, and Zoe all decide to wash their hands of their association with Chloe as if they never knew her. They don't even feel bad that it had to come to this, and feel absolutely no sympathy for her. Remember in episodes like “Malediktator” and “Queen Banana” that showed Adrien and Zoe still cared for Chloe despite all the terrible things she's done, teaching kids a lesson about trying to show compassion to your enemies? The writers sure didn't, because Adrien and Zoe don't get to say a thing about Chloe after she's defeated. Way to establish connections between characters and do nothing with them, writers!

This episode had so many things wrong with it, and it only got worse the longer it went on, to the point where the ending is essentially condoning child abuse. It's disgusting, but at the very least, it means we're not going to have to deal with Chloe in Season 6.

.....

#22: Adoration

This is one of those episodes I honestly didn't think would hate as much as I did.

I think of all the episodes this season, this is the one that shows how frustratingly inconsistent the characterization is. Characters will either announce how much someone has changed or will take a complete 180 while the show makes it clear this is how things have always been. Not only does the show say Zoe has somehow changed and suddenly developed feelings for Marinette, but Chloe's view of Sabrina has gotten even lower, to the point where she calls her an underling to her face. Because actually showing character development and changing interpersonal relationships is too hard for these writers. It's like that rule everyone knows: Tell, don't show. That's how it goes, right?

Before anyone gets on my case about this, I'm not trying to say that Zoe having a crush on Marinette was a bad idea. The issue is more how it comes across like the show is trying to earn brownie points with LGBT+ audiences with the reveal. The issue is that this major revelation isn't about Zoe, but rather, Marinette. It's from a Marinette-focused episode all about her heterosexual feelings for Adrien while Zoe's coming out story is nothing more than a cautionary tale to get Marinette to finally try kissing Adrien. I'm not saying Marinette should have dumped Adrien to be with Zoe. The point I'm trying to make is if you want to show something as huge as a character coming out as sapphic, maybe put more focus on that character's struggles than the struggles the straight main character goes through. Maybe instead of being an afterthought in the story, make the episode about Marinette helping Zoe confess her feelings to a girl she likes.

This was also the episode that laid the groundwork for Andre and Sabrina's “redemption arcs”. Normally, I wouldn't mind something like them changing, but it's less to show a character becoming a better person and more to vilify a different character. Andre went from a corrupt politician who abuses his power to please his daughter to an honest politician who is forced to abuse his power to please his daughter. Sabrina went from Chloe's loyal friend who chooses to help her make people miserable to Chloe's underling who is being forced to help make people miserable. Both of them were perfectly willing to go along with Chloe's acts in the past, and as we saw in “Revolution”, being a pawn didn't excuse her from being punished, so by that logic, they shouldn't get a free pass either. It's also strange how this wasn't the episode where Andre and Sabrina officially cut ties with Chloe, considering they already had issues with them. There wasn't really a reason to wait if they already made their issues clear, especially Sabrina. Somehow framing Marinette here is okay but doing it a few episodes later is too much for her?

Also, Lila served no purpose in the episode. Just like in “Collusion” and “Revolution”, all she does is tell Chloe to do things she was perfectly capable of doing in earlier episodes. We're supposed to see her as a mastermind, but I don't get why she has to hold Chloe's hand here. Why can't Lila come up with her own plan or manipulate different people from behind the scenes? It only further highlights the double standards because while Sabrina being a lackey to Chloe earns her sympathy, Chloe being a lackey to Lila doesn't for some reason.

I am getting really tired of the whole “Nobody believes Marinette” formula that every Lila episode relies on (Chameleon, Ladybug, Risk, Revelation, Confrontation). It's the exact same story. Everyone who has known Marinette for the past four seasons suddenly loses all trust in her, only instead of instantly believing Lila, it's Chloe. CHLOE. This is worse than Lila, because she's at least in good graces with other people, but this is the same season that solidified the idea of nobody liking her at all. They seriously take her words at face value over Marinette, someone whose friends know has tormented her for a year at least (Derision)? Put aside how I feel about Chloe, this is a story that depends on trusting someone nobody has any reason to trust, and it makes no sense.

There are just so many minor issues in this episode that pile up enough to really piss me off. It's like a death by a thousand cuts.

#23: Collusion

I normally don't try to get political on this blog unless I absolutely have to, and talking about this episode is one of those occasions.

If you've been around since the early days of this blog, you'll remember that Astruc once compared Chloe to Donald Trump, and not too long after the January 6th attack on the Capitol Building at that.

Even before that thread, Astruc made a joke comparing Trump to Chloe less than a week after the attack.

Whether you agree with Astruc's views on Trump or not, the point is that he kept up with American politics and strongly opposes him. So anyway, let's get to the episode where the heroes let someone lead a small army to storm the mayor's office and force him to resign, which is totally different from what Trump did.

I cannot get over just how confusing this episode is. For a show created by someone who usually keeps up with American politics, this is such a tone-deaf episode. I get that the story is trying to lean into French history, and I'm not sure how far into production the crew was when the attack on the Capitol happened, but given how Astruc was aware of the drama, he and his team should have at least considered the implications this episode could raise. The problem with the discussion around January 6th is that the supporters see it in as righteous a light as Miss Sans-Culotte is. As far as they know, what happened wasn't a violent invasion of government property, but a peaceful demonstration. Sure, none of the talking balloons said “Hang Andre Bourgeois!”, but it still brings similar imagery to mind.

Something that also harms the French Revolution narrative is the fact that all of Miss Sans-Culotte's supporters are helping her against her will. Much like countless Akumas throughout the show's history (Darkblade, Kung Food, The Puppeteer, Princess Fragrance, Despair Bear, Befana, Zombizou, Malediktator, Gamer 2.0, Mr. Pigeon 72, Hack-San, Revelation, Confrontation), Miss Sans-Culotte brainwashes innocent civilians so they can help her cause. This goes against the idea that she's speaking for the people, because her victims don't have a say in this. She's not reenacting the French Revolution, she's reenacting Order 66!

Also, this is something I've neglected to discuss. Why make Miss Bustier pregnant at all, much less akumatize her while pregnant? Outside of her students telling Chloe not to make a scene because the stress caused from dealing that is bad for the baby, Ms. Bustier's pregnancy adds nothing to the story. Seriously, the story thinks Chloe annoying the class is more dangerous for Ms. Bustier's baby than Ms. Bustier herself running around and getting into fights with her baby inside. It could have made for some interesting drama where Ladybug and Cat Noir are hesitant to hurt a pregnant woman, even if she's been akumatized. While the writers do try to work around it by giving her minions to do the fighting (as much as it mucks up the themes of this episode), it still doesn't explain why she needed to be pregnant during this episode in the first place.

Putting aside how unlikable Miss Sans-Culotte is in this episode, you can't even enjoy seeing Andre getting kicked out of office because this is the same episode where the writers really want us to feel bad for him. Look at how sad the rich white politician is. Let's ignore the fact that he's a big part of the reason why Chloe is as bad as she is, has abused his power multiple times, and is all around the cause of his own problems. But even though this is a show that tries to take an anti-capitalist stance (which I'll get to more in “Emotion”), we're supposed to side with one of the biggest symbols of everything wrong with capitalism and political corruption. Even then, Andre is framed for corruption instead of the several instances he actually abused his power, as if they're trying to say he was never a corrupt man. He just loves his daughter. Is that too much to ask for? His daughter herself? Eh, who cares? You really need to support the rich white man. Are we sure this show was created by a liberal?

But the biggest issue is the moral. It's impossible to frame Miss Sans-Culotte storming the mayor's office as a peaceful protest because she's clearly inspired by one of the bloodiest and most violent revolutions in history. If she was supposed to be a violent warrior who needed to learn there was a better way, that would work, but instead, the show downplays how dangerous she is... when she has a guillotine blade for a weapon. You can't claim Miss Sans-Culotte is non-violently protesting Andre's administration when she brainwashes innocent civilians, storms into the building, and demands he resign without any question. Even taking all that into consideration, the moral ends up backfiring because forcing Andre out of office caused an even bigger problem with Chloe taking over, and the very next episode threw the non-violence message out the window.

Whether or not you want to consider the political implications here, this is still a terrible episode with a terrible moral.

#24: Pretension

I've always had issues with Felix, and after the trainwreck that was “Emotion”, let's just say this didn't exactly do anything to raise my opinion of him. Just like his other appearances for the last few seasons, he did absolutely nothing to help Ladybug, focused on only doing things that benefited him, and making everyone's lives worse due to his incompetence. And somehow, this idiot is the one who moves the plot along the most.

The entire conflict happened because Felix kidnapped Kagami without even coming up with a plan. Even when he believes that Kagami is a Sentimonster (I apologize for saying that word Felix hates, but once again, the show provides no alternative to it), he doesn't think of Tomoe being able to track her or command her to leave even at a far distance. He doesn't even try to explain himself to Ladybug and Cat Noir and spends more time running away from everyone who wants to kick his ass. But by the show's logic, he just needs friends, even though his entire deal is that he works alone to get what he wants.

It's bad enough that Felix has to screw up everything he touches, but now he's dragging Kagami to his level. Kagami has cemented her role as Felix's lackey/girlfriend and nothing more. People give Marinette crap for the way the behaves around Adrien in and out of universe, but Kagami knows nothing about Felix, yet a single conversation about his past is enough for her to fall head over heels in love with him. She went from someone not willing to take any bullcrap from Marinette and Adrien to believing Felix's story in a fraction of a heartbeat. This season really likes ruining the few likable characters the show has left.

I also have to roll my eyes at the conversation Marinette and Gabriel have about fashion. For one thing, it's one of the few times the entire season remembers that Marinette wants to be a fashion designer and doesn't really factor into her rivalry with Gabriel. This season made their conflict revolve around how to treat Adrien, not their views on fashion. It feels like they only brought it up to remind viewers that Marinette is still into fashion. Well, that, and also to take a stance on artistic integrity... supposedly.

And on that note, it's amazing how the writers display little to no self-awareness during this scene. The show that embraces sticking to the status quo and rejecting almost any attempt at keeping consistent continuity is now trying to teach children about the importance of being willing to take risks when creating something. This is like Hannibal Lecter trying to promote veganism. I get the message, but the messenger's history is keeping me from buying it. It doesn't help that for a scene trying to point out how outdated certain views are, the show ultimately chooses to take the side of the man with the “wrong” mindset by the end of the season.

The pancake metaphor really confuses me too. It's meant to be a running gag that the only thing Gabriel knows how to cook is pancakes, but A) Nothing is really indicated to show how terrible they are as a metaphor for how bad his outdated views are other than Marinette's verbal assessment of them, and B) We later learn Gabriel used to be poor, so either he never knew how to cook prior to earning his fortune or being rich somehow made him forget basic living skills. I'm just saying, when an episode of Sid the Science Kid manages to better convey someone doing a terrible job making pancakes, you might need to put in a little more effort to show how bad Gabriel's pancakes supposedly are.

Finally, Tomoe. This episode didn't really do much to show her as a compelling threat, given all she did was nag Gabriel and try to shoot her daughter when she didn't even try commanding her to fight back when she was kidnapped. She's nothing more than a female Gabriel and is another example of how overstuffed this show's cast is,

This episode is awful, plain and simple. It took aspects from previous episodes that were already questionable, and doubled down on them while acting like there weren't any problems at all.

#25: Derision

And now we're onto the really, REALLY bad episodes this season. One of the reasons why this post took so long to make was that I wasn't sure how to rank these last three episodes. Thankfully, I managed to find a way to rank them based on the morals are executed. With that being said, let's start scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Ah, “Derision”. You're the only episode that makes the backlash caused by “Chameleon” seem like a pleasant breeze. It's incredible to see just how much negative a reputation this episode has in the fandom. Virtually nobody likes it because it manages to upset everyone with its poor characterization. I'm talking Marinette fans, Adrien fans, Chloe fans, Kim fans, and pretty much every other character's fans. I've only seen a few die hard fans defend this episode, and they're the people on Tumblr who defend pretty much everything done this season.

I have just one question to ask about this episode: Why did it need to happen? We didn't learn anything new that we didn't know already. We know Chloe is mean, and we know Marinette used to be more timid and had no friends. We didn't even need that much of an explanation for why Marinette acts the way she does around Adrien, seeing how it was usually played for laughs

Speaking of which, let's talk about the fact that the episode tries to shame the audience for laughing at the jokes about Marinette's reactions to Adrien. You know, something that was the show's primary running gag ever since Season 1? A running gag the writers ran into the ground by the end of Season 3 but still chose to go with it? Now we're not supposed to have laughed at it, assuming we laughed at it all. Way to insult even the small portion of viewers who didn't get on your case about this, writers.

I only have about two positive things to say about this episode. For one thing, Chloe actually served as a pretty decent antagonist in the flashbacks. Much like in “Revolution”, when the writers actually let her be a villain on her own without being made a pawn, she can be somewhat entertaining. If this was the Chloe we got after Season 3, I don't I would have been as upset at the direction Astruc's team took with the character.

In addition, the thing that saves this episode from being at the bottom is that unlike the next two, it actually understands that what the antagonist did was wrong. They don't make up excuses for what Chloe did and she actually gets called out as a result. It doesn't lead to anything major, but it's something.

Like with “Queen Banana”, there's not much else I can say that hasn't already been said. There's plenty of retcons, the characterization for everyone is off, it attacks the audience, and the message about trauma got fumbled by the show's usual double standards. It's been said over and over again, and it's become a symbol of how much the show's quality has degraded.

#26: Emotion

I think if you've kept up with my reviews of this season, you should know by now that I don't exactly like Felix, and most of the problems I have with him can be attributed to this episode. In fact, for a while, this was going to be my choice for the bottom slot.

It's clear that the writers want to make Felix this wild card who's only in it for himself, but like most of the show's antagonists, they want to show Felix as this devious mastermind... but he's also not really evil, and you should feel bad for him. For most of the episode, Felix does nothing but make everyone's lives worse during his first outing as Argos. He smears his cousin's reputation yet again, tricks his girlfriend into dancing with him, condemns some rich kids for the crime of being rich when he's just as rich, and eventually wipes out all life on the face of the earth. But he's just doing it for his cousin, we swear!

While Felix has understandable motivations for what he does, wanting to free Adrien and Kagami, the way he tries to achieve his goal makes it hard to sympathize with him. If the whole point was that what he did was wrong and that he needs to find a different way, that could work. Instead, we're supposed to see him as this tragic figure who was forced to do terrible things when the episode shows him happily singing while causing chaos. It's the same problem with Gabriel, wanting a sympathetic character to do unapologetically evil things. The fact that he has to be told that genocide is bad doesn't make us want to sympathize with him when he breaks down crying. It paints a picture that he's crazy but the show wants to act like he isn't.

Even putting all the crap with Felix aside, the episode is still unbearable. The stuff with Marinette was poorly executed and was just done to get her involved in the plot, and later become the first one to excuse Felix for betraying her. Other than the dance scene, you could easily just have Marinette swing in as Ladybug when Argos starts his rampage and nothing would really change. The episode tries to make jokes about how unnecessary this is, but as usual, its attempts to be self-aware come across like its saying “What we're doing it wrong, we know it's wrong, but we're gonna do it anyway!”

Speaking of the dance scene, I can't stop rolling my eyes whenever Felix tries to be all “We live in a society” to Marinette. Forget the corrupt politicians, corporate moguls, human traffickers, and despotic rulers of foreign nations. The absolute worst section of humanity is composed of the teenage children of the 1%. Sure, you'd have to break my legs before I'd agree to supervise them at this party, but I don't get why these are the people we're supposed to see as irredeemable monsters. Do the writers think because these kids associate themselves with Chloe, we'll automatically hate them? Newsflash, but if I had to choose between hanging out with some annoying kids and a mass murderer, I'd stick with the annoying kids.

Rewatching this episode was what helped me finally realize just what my problem with the show's anti-capitalist message is. How the hell am I supposed to hate the villains on this show for being rich when several characters are rich or at the very least, are successful thanks to their connections to the rich? Think about it for a second. Putting aside Adrien and Kagami, you have Marinette, the daughter of two of the most popular bakers in Paris and earned the respect of multiple celebrities, Alya, the daughter of a chef who works at a five-star hotel, Nino, someone who got to DJ at a major fashion show, Rose, who is friends with a literal prince, Luka and Juleka, the children of a popular rock star, and Max, the son of an astronaut with access to cutting-edge technology. Somehow, these people are supposed to be poor? They make Monica from Friends look like Oscar the Grouch. It's why I can't take the message seriously. You can't write a story about a class struggle when both classes are shown to be pretty well-off.

The only thing that saves this episode from being at the bottom of the list is the fact that despite committing genocide while singing, Felix at least gets what he did was wrong and makes up for it. It doesn't fix everything else he did in this episode, but that's better than nothing. As for the villain featured in the episode that's at the bottom of this list? If you've been keeping track, I think you know who I mean.

#27: Re-Creation

I'll admit, I'm sort of cheating here. I'm judging this episode more as a finale than an individual episode, but I'm making an exception because the plot is tied to wrapping up all the loose ends this season.

I'm mentioning this because for a season finale, the stakes just feel so low. The fight between Bug Noire and Monarch doesn't have any weight to it because they've barely interacted at all for the last five seasons. These are supposed to be two mortal enemies, but you can't really buy the enmity between them. It ultimately cheapens the moment of Bug Noire triumphing over Monarch in the end... before Monarch triumphs over her not long afterwards, but we'll get to that.

The stuff with the Miraculized doesn't help either. We already know that the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous are in the Agreste manor, so the Miraculized's goal is impossible to achieve. It's never even explained why the Miraculized don't go back to the manor to help Monarch beat Bug Noire, since they should still be able to track the Miraculous. All of the fights with them just come across like filler, and there's no real sense of danger or hopelessness to be found. Whether the Miraculized win or lose is irrelevant. Nothing will happen either way because the important stuff is happening in the Agreste manor.

This extends to the part where all the heroes appear to help. It doesn't come across as an Avengers-esque moment for the climax, because it doesn't change anything. The episode never explains what any of these characters were doing prior to the events of this episode and why only now they're helping out. The United Heroes are the most egregious example because unlike Fei or Su-Han, they're a major organization whose members include the president, and they didn't do a damn thing when Monarch stole all of the other Miraculous. Speaking of, there is no way in hell that Su-Han taught Mirakung-Fu to three random people over Ladybug and Cat Noir, much less that those three people are actual masters after about two months at best. Maybe they got to train in Bunnix's Burrow? After all, she's not doing anything else to stop the end of the world other than sending four people over to Paris. This whole sequence really highlights how bland the other heroes of this universe are. If they're not slacking off when they're needed, they're criminally underdeveloped because there's a slim chance they'll get spin-offs to flesh them out.

But I think the biggest issue me and other people have with this finale is the resolution. In what is easily one of the most baffling decisions the show has made, Bug Noire doesn't defeat Monarch, and Monarch gets to make his wish. I don't care how many times the writers technically say she won because she beat him in a fight. Gabriel backstabbed her at the last minute and got her Miraculous to make his wish. Yeah, he died, but he succeed in achieving his goal, never faced any real consequences, didn't get any closure with his son (much less apologize for abusing him), told Marinette to lie about the monster he was to him, and was turned into a martyr with a statue made of the same things he used to control the world.

This ending infuriates me because it not only makes Marinette out to be a terrible hero for failing to do the one thing she was chosen to do (get the Butterfly Miraculous back), but it also ultimately makes Gabriel out to be a decent person even though he destroyed and recreated the world. All Marinette did was take credit for saving the world, and even then, Gabriel got more celebration in the end. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! She got outsmarted by an abusive parent and didn't even get a new statue in her honor!

But the most damning thing of all this is the fact that this finale retroactively makes everything that's happened over the last five seasons completely pointless. If Gabriel making a wish wasn't as bad as it was supposed to be, why didn't Ladybug and Cat Noir let him borrow their Miraculous? Why make the stakes this high if you're going to downplay the impact of a madman recreating the world in his own image? Follow-up question: why make the stakes this high if the wish being made is ultimately shown to have huge benefits for society? In an attempt to wrap things up with a happy ending, the writers accidentally made the conflict completely meaningless.

That's why this resolution is the ultimate example of the writers refusing to allow any major changes to happen. If they're willing to treat the end of the universe as less important than Ms. Bustier becoming mayor, why should we assume they'll ever take their story seriously? For God's sake, every character you know and love is essentially dead, and we're supposed to act like that isn't a big deal? That's how you wanted to end the show originally? Then again, at least they tried to resolve something, unlike the Love Square. We still haven't gotten a reveal, and I don't think we ever will at this point. These writers will drag out the story until the show stops becoming profitable, which won't be for a long time.

And with that, I am officially done with Season 5. Honestly, after having to rewatch this season again, I'm not sure if it's even worth giving Season 6 a shot. There's nothing to look forward to, and Lila becoming the main villain isn't really appealing to me. At the very least, I have the movie review to look forward to, meaning I can watch something good for a change.

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A few people have defended Chloe and Lila's writing by saying that teenagers being just as capable of heroism as adults means that they need to be just as capable of villainy as adults. I know that's not good logic, but I can't put my finger on WHY it's not good logic, can you weigh in on this?

I actually don't think it's bad logic at all. They're right. Teenagers are absolutely capable of being monsters. A teenage bully may not have the wide reaching impacts of a terrorist, but teenage bullies still do real and lasting harm that can shape victims for the rest of their lives.

This is why you have to be really careful when it comes to redeeming either of these characters (and also Sabrina since she's almost as bad as Chloe in my eyes). You cannot minimize the harm that they've caused by saying "well, they're just kids" or even by pointing out that Chloe and Sabrina were victims of abuse.

Fourteen-year-olds are more than old enough to know right from wrong. Yes, they're not full adults yet, but they're in the stage of life where they're learning how to be adults. That's why we call them young adults! People in this stage of life are very capable of understanding that their words and actions can hurt people. Heck, three-year-olds are capable of that! If you don't think that these teenage characters understood that bullying Marinette was hurting Marinette, then you're arguing that these characters have some sort of developmental disability or psychological disorder or something of that nature that is effecting their development in an extreme manner. If so, then that requires immediate serious intervention by professionals, but I don't think that anyone is making that argument for anyone save, maybe, Lila.

On the abuse side of things: being a victim is not a free pass to hurt innocents. Victims don't get a magic ticket that says, "you may now do one free abuse" every time that they're abused. By that logic, giving Audrey an abusive past would absolve her of everything that she did to Chloe. The same goes for Gabriel and Adrien, which is why this is such shitty logic. Nothing justifies Gabriel and Audrey's actions. What they did to their children was wrong.

The same logic applies to all characters and all types of abuse. Victim status doesn't prevent you from becoming an abuser. It's actually quite common for abuse to lead to more abuse which is part of why you can't grant exceptions on the basis of victim status. If you do that, then you eventually reach a point where no one is accountable because everyone has been abused and is therefore a blameless victim who can do no wrong. No one wants to live in a world like that.

There is of course, a lot of nuance to this topic and a lot of it is heavily situational. For example, I totally believe that certain exceptions have to made for extreme cases that I'm not going to give examples of to avoid triggering content, but you can probably think of some. However, we're not talking about extreme cases here. The characters that we're talking about are reasonably normal fourteen-year-olds. Young adults who have been allowed to be part of society and who know that what they're doing is wrong. And if they don't know that bullying and terrorism are wrong? Then we're back to the concern that something is deeply wrong with these characters and they need immediate serious intervention from trained professionals.

To be fair, Lila may end up being that kind of character, but Chloe and Sabrina certainly aren't. Since Chloe was the character mentioned in the original ask, we'll focus on her for the rest of this. While Chloe has absolutely been abused, she's not some isolated victim who has no idea how the world works. She's been allowed a reasonably normal childhood. This scene from Malediktator is actually pretty solid writing for a character like Chloe:

Ladybug: I'm fine with helping you, Chloé, but first… I need you to tell me what happened. Why is your father— I mean, Malediktator, so mad? Chloé: It's because of this super lame loser named Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She's this horrible girl in my class and she hates me. (Ladybug looks angry, but then contains her feelings) She's ganged everyone up against me and she— Ladybug: Maybe this Marinette girl isn't entirely to blame? Chloé: Uh! Ugh. Okay, it wasn't totally Marinette's fault. She is really mean to me sometimes, but actually, this time, Daddy got angry all by himself. Ladybug:(not buying it) All by himself? Chloé: Yeah, because… there was something he couldn't do… Ladybug:(puts a hand on Chloé's shoulder) Chloé, it's me, Ladybug. You can trust me. You can tell me the truth. Chloé: I— I— Ladybug: Mm-hmm. Chloé: It— it was me. I hurt my daddy's feelings. Because I want to leave Paris, forever.

She knows right from wrong and she knows when she's hurting people. She just doesn't care most of the time because she's never had to face consequences for causing harm so why should she care? It's not like it effects her! This is why she only cares about the damage she causes when it effects her or the people she loves.

That's not a deeply messed up world view. A lot of people only have strong feelings about things effecting those they love. Chloe just needs to work on being more neutral to people outside her circle because that's how we make a happy functioning society. (This is a hint of that nuance I mentioned before. I'll give a few more hints as we go on, but we won't really be digging into it due to word count. Just know that I'm aware of it.)

Giving Chloe an abusive past didn't absolve her of her actions. It just gave us a potential reason for why she does what she does. This actually does make Chloe's abuse important! Once we know the reasons why her character is doing something, we can then understand her character and better guide her story. Understanding that she's a victim means that she can be helped because this isn't some inherent part of her. It's learned behavior and that means that she can unlearn it.

And now we get to circle back to the original ask and discuss why it's still valid to be mad about Chloe and Lila's treatment and why it IS bad even though it's not wrong to have "evil" teenagers.

The reason why Chloe and Lila's lack of redemption is concerning is because full grown adults who have done far worse things are being redeemed based on nothing while these two teenage girls are being treated as beyond hope. If Gabriel Agreste and André Bourgeois are allowed to have happy endings without doing anything to earn those happy endings, then why are Chloe and Lila being treated as devils? What message is this show trying to send to kids? That it's okay to be a terrorist as long as your reasons are good, but be a bully at 14 and you're doomed for life? That's total BS!

It's especially concerning because Chloe's bad treatment of her adult father is being used to justify his redemption while Audrey and Andre's terrible parenting is not being used to give Chloe a similar free pass. Writers, wtf are you doing? No one should be getting a free pass in this situation. They all need to take action to right their wrongs if they want to be redeemed. Andre shipping Chloe off to live with her mother is an adult man saying, "oops, raised that one wrong! We'll let's just pretend that never happened."

Don't get me wrong, Chloe's actions are still fully her own and she needs to own that, but crying, "Daddy" only held power because Andre did whatever Chloe told him to do. He held all the power and was happy to misuse it in order to make his daughter happy. That means that he holds blame here, too. He allowed his daughter to become a total brat by encouraging bratty behavior.

This was not a situation where Chloe was a danger to others for some reason. A situation where Andre was truly doing the best anyone could hope to do in order to keep his daughter placated so that she didn't physically hurt anyone. It was also not a situation where forces beyond Andre's control were effecting his daughter and shaping her personality while he was desperately trying to guide her down the right path. It was just plain old terrible parenting. He spoiled Chloe rotten, got the completely predictable end result, and then threw her out for a better version that someone else raised. What an uplifting message! (That was sarcasm.)

Chloe and Lila would have worked reasonably well in a story where all of the important characters were teens. A story where Lila was always the big bad, Gabriel was a minor character, and Chloe's parents never got any screen time.

That's not the story that the writers wrote, though, so the "teenagers can be evil" defense falls flat because if domestic terrorists aren't evil and child abusers aren't evil, but bratty teenage girls are, then what are we even doing here? This is extra true because the people this show is aimed at are not adult men. They're little girls who may very well relate to Chloe and Lila.

There's also the issue of Chloe being dammed while other teen characters were given a free pass for no real reason. Felix, Sabrina, and Kim have all done equally bad or even worse things. Felix is especially uncomfortable because he's basically a male Chloe who did all of the same actions - and often did them better - yet he doesn't have to give so much as a simple apology for what he's done. He's just good now because Kagami needs a boyfriend.

Chloe outed herself in public while emotionally compromised? So did Felix and he had weeks to plan before hand, too! Chloe did it in a totally reactive manner without any real plan.

Chloe used the miraculous that Gabriel stole? Felix stole the miraculous himself and gave them to Gabriel!

Chloe bulled Marinette? Felix bullied Adrien!

Felix even did some of the same things as Lila! He tried to ruin Adrien's friendships via manipulation and deceit in his first appearance. He knew Gabriel's secret and used it to his own advantage instead of telling the heroes. He used a major terrorist attack as an excuse to further his own goals. The list goes on! So why is he being welcomed onto the team with open arms? And why is no one telling Kagami just how dangerous her new boyfriend is? She wasn't there for most of this so she has no idea who she's dating.

And this isn't even touching the mess that was Derision's terribly delivered message about owning your actions and not blaming others for your bad behavior. That episode makes everything about Chloe's treatment look even more hypocritical.

In summary, the issue is not that teenagers can't be bad guys, they absolutely can! The issue is how all of the other bad guys and bullies are being treated compared to these two and how inconsistent the rules are. Of course, we haven't seen all of Lila's story, so who knows what the end game is for her. Maybe she'll also be trying to restore a dead wife and so she'll get a free pass, too.

[mochegato]

Party Foul

The party was buzzing, as were most of the people there, the wine and champagne having been flowing for a good few hours by then.  And most everyone having partaken more than a bit.  Everybody had smiles, some a bit sloppier than others, but smiles none the less.  Everybody was chatting, some a bit more animatedly than others, but chatting none the less.  Everybody was happy to be there and spending time with friends or ‘friends’ or complete strangers that they wanted to become friends or ‘friends’, some a bit happier than others, but happy none the less.

Everyone, that is, except one particularly petulant participant, who decided that instead of engaging with the crowd or even the attendees who he was friends with and enjoying the free alcohol and energetic environment, he would take up a position on a barstool, nursing a beer all night, and just glower.  Well, not just glower.  Somehow, he managed to absorb and destroy any echoing laughter or lightness that mistakenly entered his atmosphere.  All except for one particularly perky partygoer. 

Marinette bounced up to him, a wide but exasperated smile on her face.  “Why aren’t you enjoying the party?” she demanded playfully as she pushed her way between his legs so she could run her hands over his shoulders, up his neck, and into his hair just to muss it up a bit.  Not that it would upset him, she knew he wasn’t overly concerned with his hair, especially in front of these people, but it was the kind of cheeky move that usually entertained him.  Plus, tousling his hair just made him look sexier and they both knew it.

Jason gifted her a bemused roll of his eyes as he settled his hands on her hips.  Almost as quickly as his hands landed his body tensed again and he gripped her tighter, his gaze lifting past her shoulder to glare again.  She shook her head and then his shoulders with a chuckle.  “You’re so tense.  This is supposed to be fun.  Loosen up.”

“I’ll loosen up when those men stop staring at you,” he grumbled, his eyes never leaving the floor in an attempt to stare down any debauchers dense enough to continue to leer at his girlfriend.

She snorted and bobbed her head so it would be directly in his eye line, forcing him to shift focus back to her.  “Jealous of some strangers looking at me?”

“No,” he answered instantly, though his objection was contradicted by his eyes immediately returning to the party behind her and narrowing.  “But if they touch you like it looks like they’re clearly just looking for an opportunity to do, I’m going to kill them,” he finished with a growl.

She took a step back to look over him.  This is why he’d been so grumpy all night?  Because he was jealous of some strangers and potential clients?  Because he didn’t trust her?  “Really?” she demanded incredulously.

“What?” he asked in a matching tone.  “You’re mine.”

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow, took another step back, and cocked her hip.

“Nobody touches you without your permission,” he elaborated like he was explaining why someone gets wet when they jump in a pool.  “You don’t lie, you don’t cheat, and you’re mine.  So, if someone’s touching you, it’s without your permission, and nobody gets to disrespect you like that.”

He leaned back in his chair and let out a deep, aggravated breath, like the thoughts going through his head were weighing heavily on him.  “But if I kill them, it’s going to make you upset, and I don’t like upsetting you.  So, I can’t do that.  It’s all very frustrating.”

Marinette stared at him for a few seconds before lunging at him.  She threw her arms around his neck to pull him in for a deep, enthusiastic kiss.  She ignored where they were and all the people who might be watching them, letting her love and admiration flow through her lips and her hands.

It took a second for him to respond, momentarily thrown off by the sudden shift, but he enthusiastically pulled her closer as soon as his brain caught up.  He cupped the back of her head to hold her closer and angle her head better, careful not to mess up her hair she had spent about an hour on.  He might be caught up in the moment, but that lesson was deeply ingrained in his psyche.

After quite a while, she finally pulled back to grin sappily up at him.  “Move in with me”

“What?” he asked, still dazed, his mind still reeling from the unexpectedly passionate and very public kiss.  Marinette was typically shy about public affection in public.  Not withholding, but not excessive.  This was mind rattling on several levels and wholly welcome.

“I love you,” she panted.  Her eyes were twinkling with excitement.  “Move in with me.”

He blinked a few times before finally processing her words and the implication.  “No,” he answered simply.

She backed up a bit and let her arms drop almost as fast as her heart had done.  “Oh… okay.”

He pulled her back against himself, his arms folded around her, anchoring her in place, his favorite place for her, pressed against him, as much of her touching him as possible while still allowing him to gaze into her eyes.  “My place is FAR nicer than yours.  We’ll move into my place… or get a new place one with a room for you to design in so it isn’t strewn out all over our living room… maybe get a pet…”

Marinette’s brilliant grin returned and her arms flew back around his neck.  “Oh.  Okay!”  She hugged him so tightly, his oxygen intake started decreasing, but when she started vibrating against him in her excitement, he forgot all about needing oxygen.  “Let’s go home.  I give you all kinds of permission to touch me as much as you want.”

Jason grinned wickedly.  “Yes, ma’am,” he exclaimed as he picked her up, tossing her over his shoulder and rushing toward the exit and their future.

[princess-sof-time]

Hi I Can Ask Marinette, Adrien, Felix, Luka, Alya And Kyoko With A Male S/O Using Their Miraculous.

How would they react to the fact that the transformation left a very provocative costume leaving a good part of the skin exposed?

How would they deal with the fact that the S/O is much more skilled and stronger when using the Miraculous than they are, to the point of being able to use it infinite times without detransforming?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ──────

🄼🄰🅁🄸🄽🄴🅃🅃🄴 🄳🅄🄿🄰🄸🄽-🄲🄷🄴🄽🄶

• Marinette, known for her fashion-conscious nature, would indeed be initially taken aback by the revealing costume that her male S/O's transformation creates. As a designer and someone who pays attention to modesty and practicality, she might feel a mix of surprise and concern regarding the outfit's suitability for crime-fighting. The revealing nature of the costume might not align with Marinette's sense of fashion and her desire to create outfits that are both stylish and functional.

• However, being a compassionate and open-minded person, Marinette would quickly remind herself that the transformation and the resulting costume are a direct consequence of the Miraculous powers. She would understand that her S/O doesn't have control over the design and appearance of the costume, and she wouldn't judge them solely based on their outward appearance. Marinette would recognize that their true value lies in their actions, character, and the virtues they display while using their Miraculous.

• Marinette would take the opportunity to have an open and honest conversation with her S/O about their feelings regarding the costume. She would assure them that she understands their concerns and that she values their comfort and well-being. Together, they would brainstorm ideas to modify and improve the costume, finding ways to make it more practical, functional, and aligned with their personal preferences.

• Furthermore, when Marinette realizes that her S/O is more skilled and stronger with the Miraculous than she is, she might initially experience a sense of inadequacy. As a determined and ambitious individual, she might question her own abilities and feel a tinge of self-doubt. However, Marinette's innate strength lies in her resilience and ability to turn challenges into opportunities for growth.

• Rather than being intimidated or threatened by her S/O's skills, Marinette would choose to embrace their strengths and view it as a chance to learn from them. She would recognize the potential for their partnership to become even more effective and powerful with their combined abilities. Marinette's dedication to justice and her sense of responsibility would motivate her to support her S/O in any way she can.

• Marinette would actively collaborate with her S/O, pooling their strengths and expertise to develop new strategies, tools, and gadgets that can enhance their crime-fighting efforts. She would involve herself deeply in their training, seeking to improve her own skills while also providing a supportive and encouraging environment for her S/O to flourish. Together, they would become a formidable team, combining their unique talents and perspectives to protect their city.

• Throughout their journey, Marinette's unwavering belief in the power of teamwork and her dedication to upholding justice would shine through. She would continuously inspire and uplift her S/O, appreciating the growth they bring to the table and reminding them of their importance in their shared mission.

• In the end, Marinette's willingness to adapt, learn, and support her S/O would not only strengthen their relationship but also lead to even greater achievements in their fight against evil.

🄰🄳🅁🄸🄴🄽 🄰🄶🅁🄴🅂🅃🄴

• Adrien, renowned for his reserved and polite demeanor, would undoubtedly be taken by surprise when confronted with the revealing costume his male S/O's transformation creates. As a fashion-conscious individual himself, he would find it challenging to reconcile the provocative nature of the outfit with his own modest and refined style. The sudden contrast might momentarily cause Adrien to feel self-conscious and uncertain about how to react.

• However, Adrien's compassionate and understanding nature would quickly prevail as he reminds himself that the costume is simply a consequence of the Miraculous' powers and not a reflection of his S/O's character. He would actively choose to focus on the person behind the costume, valuing their bravery, dedication, and selflessness as a hero. Adrien would see beyond the superficial appearance and recognize that his S/O's true worth lies in their actions and the goodness of their heart.

• Upon discovering that his S/O is more skilled and powerful with the Miraculous, Adrien would experience a mix of surprise, admiration, and perhaps a slight blow to his ego. As someone who has trained extensively to become a competent hero, it may initially challenge his perception of himself and his abilities. However, Adrien's kind and supportive nature would swiftly override any negative feelings, and he would wholeheartedly embrace his S/O's prowess.

• Rather than feeling threatened or jealous, Adrien would view his S/O's enhanced abilities as a valuable asset to their partnership and the entire team. He would find genuine joy and excitement in learning from their expertise, appreciating the opportunity to grow as a hero alongside them. Adrien's innate humility would enable him to set aside any ego-driven concerns and prioritize his S/O's success and well-being during their heroic endeavors.

• Adrien's admiration for his S/O's abilities would shine through his unwavering encouragement and support. He would be their biggest cheerleader, always celebrating their achievements and providing a constant source of motivation. Adrien's eagerness to learn from their skills and experiences would create a strong bond of trust and collaboration between them. Together, they would explore new strategies, combining their unique perspectives and strengths to devise effective plans.

• Adrien's dedication to his S/O's safety and well-being would be unwavering. He would go above and beyond to ensure their protection during missions, always keeping a watchful eye and stepping in whenever necessary. Adrien's natural instinct to prioritize the needs of others would extend to his S/O, fostering an environment of trust and dependability.

• In the end, Adrien's growth as a hero and as a person would be shaped by his S/O's influence. Their partnership would become a source of inspiration for both of them, allowing them to exceed their individual limits and achieve greater heights together. Adrien's kind-hearted nature, coupled with his willingness to learn and support his S/O, would make their bond unbreakable and their heroics all the more impactful.

🄵🄴🄻🄸🅇 🄵🄰🅃🄷🄾🄼

• Felix, known for his reserved and serious demeanor, would indeed be visibly taken aback by the provocative costume that his male S/O's transformation creates. As someone who values propriety and modesty, he would find it challenging to accept the revealing nature of the outfit. Felix might struggle to conceal his discomfort, his stoic facade briefly faltering as he grapples with the unexpected nature of the transformation.

• However, as Felix grows closer to his S/O and witnesses their heroic efforts firsthand, he would gradually come to understand that appearances are not everything. He would begin to appreciate their bravery, dedication, and the selflessness with which they approach their role as a hero. Felix would realize that their actions and intentions matter more than their attire, and he would shift his focus to what truly defines them as a person.

• In time, Felix would learn to look beyond the costume and see the virtues that lie within his S/O. He would appreciate their unwavering commitment to protecting others, recognizing that their strength and bravery come from within, rather than the clothing they wear. Felix's perception would evolve, allowing him to value their character and the sacrifices they make to keep their city safe.

• Discovering that his S/O is more skilled and powerful with the Miraculous might trigger a mix of emotions in Felix. On one hand, his competitive nature might ignite a sense of rivalry or even a tinge of inadequacy. As someone who takes pride in his own abilities, it could be challenging for him to accept that his S/O surpasses him in certain aspects.

• However, Felix's admiration for their abilities would gradually overshadow any negative feelings. He would come to appreciate their talents and the unique strengths they bring to the team. Felix would recognize that the success of their missions relies on collaboration and a shared goal rather than individual achievements. He would find solace in focusing on his own unique strengths and contributions, knowing that he has an important role to play in their partnership.

• Although Felix might be reserved in expressing his admiration and support, he would quietly learn from his S/O's expertise. He would observe their techniques, strategies, and decision-making, seeking to improve his own skills through their example. Felix would work alongside them, ensuring the safety and success of their missions, using their differences as a way to complement and strengthen their teamwork.

• While he may not openly express his admiration, Felix's actions would speak volumes. He would prioritize their well-being and lend his unwavering support, even if it means taking a step back and letting his S/O take the lead. Felix's steadfast dedication and determination to protect their city would align with his S/O's own resolve, forging a powerful and effective partnership.

• In the end, Felix's growth and acceptance would not only strengthen his bond with his S/O but also contribute to their shared success as heroes. Together, they would overcome obstacles, learn from one another, and ultimately inspire those around them with their unwavering commitment to justice.

🄻🅄🄺🄰 🄲🄾🅄🄵🄵🄰🄸🄽🄴

• Luka, known for his calm and empathetic nature, would readily accept the provocative costume that his male S/O's transformation creates. Understanding that it is a direct result of the Miraculous' powers, Luka would see beyond the outfit and perceive the true character and intentions of his S/O. He would be quick to offer reassurance and emotional support, reminding them that their worth extends far beyond their appearance and lies in their actions and the goodness in their heart.

• Luka's unwavering belief in the power of inner beauty and the strength of one's character would help him navigate any initial surprise or discomfort caused by the revealing costume. He would prioritize understanding and appreciating his S/O for who they truly are, rather than judging them based on their outward appearance. Luka would remind his S/O that their actions as a hero, their selflessness, and their determination to protect others are what truly define them.

• Discovering that his S/O is more skilled and powerful with the Miraculous than he is would genuinely impress and inspire Luka. He would feel a deep sense of pride in his S/O's abilities and strengths, recognizing them as an inspiration and a valuable asset to their crime-fighting team. Instead of feeling threatened or insecure about his own capabilities, Luka would embrace the opportunity to learn from his S/O and grow alongside them.

• Luka's genuine humility and open-mindedness would enable him to appreciate his S/O's guidance and expertise in using the Miraculous effectively. He would eagerly seek their advice and willingly incorporate their insights into their crime-fighting strategies. Luka's receptive nature and genuine enthusiasm for learning would create a harmonious dynamic where they both benefit from each other's knowledge and experience.

• O apoio de Luka a seu S/O seria inabalável. Ele os animaria de todo o coração e celebraria suas conquistas, reconhecendo que seu sucesso contribui para um bem maior. O incentivo gentil de Luka e a crença inabalável nas habilidades de seu S/O criariam um ambiente de confiança e confiança, permitindo que eles prosperassem como uma equipe.

• In the face of any challenges or setbacks, Luka would be a pillar of support, offering his understanding and empathy. He would be there to provide emotional reassurance and comfort, reminding his S/O that their worth goes beyond their skills and achievements. Luka's calming presence and empathetic nature would help alleviate any pressure or self-doubt they may feel, allowing them to regain their focus and continue their heroic journey.

• Ultimately, Luka's relationship with his S/O would be characterized by a deep sense of mutual respect, admiration, and growth. Their bond would strengthen as they face challenges together, with Luka's gentle nature and unwavering support serving as a foundation for their shared experiences. Together, they would form an unstoppable team, embodying the true essence of heroism and making a positive impact on the world around them.

🄰🄻🅈🄰 🄲🄴🅂🄰🄸🅁🄴

• Alya, known for her insatiable curiosity and adventurous spirit, would undoubtedly have an initial reaction of excitement and fascination towards the provocative costume that her male S/O's transformation creates. As someone with a keen eye for fashion and a love for all things unique and eye-catching, Alya would appreciate the boldness and individuality of the outfit. She would recognize its potential to capture attention and spark conversations, making her S/O stand out among other heroes.

• However, being a responsible journalist and a carin girlfriend, Alya's enthusiasm would be tempered by her practicality and concern for her S/O's well-being. She would consider the practicality and safety of the costume, ensuring that it allows for ease of movement and protects her S/O during their crime-fighting activities. Alya would collaborate with her S/O to make any necessary modifications or enhancements to the outfit, ensuring their comfort and security while still maintaining its unique appeal.

• Discovering that her male S/O is more skilled and powerful with the Miraculous than she is would initially surprise Alya. However, being the supportive and encouraging friend that she is, Alya would quickly recognize and appreciate the value in their abilities. Rather than feeling threatened or jealous, she would enthusiastically cheer for her S/O, genuinely proud of their accomplishments and talents. Alya's natural curiosity would kick in, and she would seize the opportunity to learn from her S/O, eagerly seeking their guidance and expertise in using the Miraculous effectively. She would see their partnership as a chance for mutual growth, viewing it as a collaborative effort where they can share their knowledge and experiences to become even more formidable heroes.

• As the owner of the Ladyblog, Alya would also use her platform to showcase and celebrate her S/O's incredible talent. She would document their heroic journey, highlighting their achievements, and sharing their stories with the world. Alya's passion for journalism and her commitment to truth and justice would drive her to create impactful and inspiring content that not only informs but also motivates others to take action.

• In summary, Alya's initial excitement and fascination towards the provocative costume would be tempered by her responsible and caring nature. She would prioritize the practicality and safety of the outfit, ensuring her S/O's comfort and protection during their superhero activities. Discovering her S/O's superior skills with the Miraculous would not dampen her spirits but rather fuel her enthusiasm to learn from them and improve her own abilities. Alya's support and dedication to their partnership would be unwavering, as she sees it as an opportunity for growth and collaboration. Through her work at Ladyblog, she would amplify their achievements, using her platform to inspire others and create a greater impact in the world of heroes.

🄺🅈🄾🄺🄾 🅃🅂🅄🅁🅄🄶🄸

• Kyoko, known for her disciplined and competitive nature, would undoubtedly be taken aback by the provocative costume that her male S/O's transformation creates. With a strong sense of modesty and a preference for more conservative attire, she would find it challenging to accept the revealing nature of the outfit. It would contradict her own personal style and sense of decorum. Kagami might initially struggle to reconcile her values with the costume's design.

• However, being someone who highly values strength, skill, and dedication to justice, Kyoko would quickly recognize and appreciate the abilities of her S/O. Despite her initial reservations about the costume, she would respect and admire her S/O's commitment to their role as a hero. She would see beyond the external appearance and focus on their character and actions, acknowledging the bravery and skill that lie beneath the costume.

• Discovering that her male S/O is more skilled and powerful with the Miraculous might trigger a mix of emotions in Kyoko. On one hand, her competitive nature might ignite a sense of rivalry and a desire to improve her own abilities. She would see their superior skills as a challenge and a motivation to push herself further. Kagami's determination and relentless pursuit of excellence would drive her to train harder, seeking to match and even surpass her S/O's level of skill and strength.

• On the other hand, Kyoko would also possess the maturity and wisdom to acknowledge and respect her S/O's expertise. She would recognize the value of their abilities and view them as a valuable ally rather than a threat. Kyoko would eagerly strive to learn from her S/O, taking every opportunity to train alongside them and absorb their knowledge and techniques. She would see their partnership as a chance for mutual growth, understanding that they can push each other to reach new heights.

• Despite any feelings of competition, Kyoko would wholeheartedly support her S/O. She would be their biggest cheerleader and advocate, offering encouragement and praise for their accomplishments. Kagami's loyalty and dedication would extend beyond the training sessions, as she would stand by her S/O's side during their heroic endeavors, ensuring their safety and success.

• In summary, Kyoko initial reservations about the provocative costume would stem from her strong sense of modesty. However, her admiration for strength and skill would lead her to appreciate her S/O's abilities and dedication to justice. The discovery of her S/O's superior skills with the Miraculous would trigger a mix of competitive drive and respect. Kagami would use this opportunity as a motivation to improve herself, while also recognizing the value of her S/O's expertise and viewing them as an important ally. Through their partnership, Kagami would strive for mutual growth and support her S/O wholeheartedly, both in training and in their heroic pursuits.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ──────

[generalluxun]

Half-Baked, An ML fanfiction.

So this comes out of my 'Chloe goes back in time' AU. set after she's stolen the black cat Miraculous, but before the repercussions of that have really gone full swing.

This AU came about mostly from asks, so the tag can be searched on my blog for getting up to date on our collective ramblings for it.

Super short Summary: Post S5 Chloe goes back in time into her Origins-timeframe body. She is angry at everyone and everything. She gets herself akumatized early on and steals the Cat Miraculous from Cat Noir(who wasn't taking things seriously, it's S1) Seeing it's Adrien she freaks, breaks akumatization and runs off before Ladybug arrives. Adrien is keeping who stole it a secret(though he tells LB he lost it) hoping he can get it back himself to make up for losing it.

Fic is under the cut because it is 4172 words. I'll also be posting it on AO3 tomorrow.

With the smell of fresh baked goodies taunting her nostrils, Marinette dodged between racks laden with hot trays and mixing bowls of fresh dough. She was already late for school, but seeing her parents frantically running around made her pause.

“Dad?”

Tom flashed her a big smile but immediately turned and fled into the back. Her mother turned from where she was scooping still-warm pastries off cooling trays and into boxes too soon. “Honey, your father and I are very busy today. A large catering order came in unexpectedly. It was extremely short notice, but you know your father.”

Marinette couldn’t help but puff up a little, “It’s the Egyptian opening at the Lourve, right?”

Sabine paused. “Why, yes honey. How did you-”

Marinette gushed, “I knew dad was bummed about missing out on it, so yesterday I took a few freshly baked pastries over to the museum before school. I managed to find a way back to the curator’s offices and wouldn’t leave until he tried one. You should have seen the look on his face! ‘Young lady I think that is the best confection I have ever tasted.’ It looks like it was worth being an hour late.”

Marinette froze mid-pantomime. Her story had run away with her again, perhaps to a few places her mother didn’t exactly need to know.

Whatever Sabine’s thoughts, she kept a gently serene face. “That’s… very clever dear. Only… perhaps you could ask before helping next time? This really is such short notice.”

Marinette winced. “Is it really? I could help! I can just call in sick, then I would be able to-”

Rushing back towards the kitchen, Marinette snagged her foot on one of the giant mixing bowls. She tripped and collapsed into it as it spun, coming to rest blinking up into her mother’s even more concerned looking face. Sabine reached down and helped Marinette extract herself, brushing some wayward flour dust off her backside.

“No, no, that’s quite alright, dear. Your father and I will handle it. It’s not as if sleep is necessary every night. On your way now. You don’t want to be late, again.”

That last word carried the only hint of maternal reprimand, but it was enough. Marinette let herself be ushered out the door. On the way to school she managed to convince herself everything would be okay. It would be fine. It wasn’t the end of the-

The Agreste Limo pulled up in front of the steps to the school, and ‘end of the world' took on new meaning. Adrien got out, but his walk up the steps had none of its usual spring. Even knowing the truth, it was hard for Marinette to overlap the image of him with Cat Noir. Hard, and maybe a moot point.

Marinette shook herself. No. Not a moot point. We will get the ring back. I will get it back. Anyone can make a mistake. She hop-stepped to catch up with Adrien and gave him her biggest smile, “Morning, Adrien!”

He might not know it, but he’d helped her become Ladybug. Now it was up to her to return the favor.

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Time was not on Marinette’s side though. Not even half the day had gone by when the school shook as if in an earthquake. Sirens sounded in the distance. Alya had her phone open to a news cast before anyone else even had theirs out.

“-eaking News. A giant man…monster…thing… has once again been sighted in downtown Paris. Police are on their way, but as we approach the presumed akuma I have to wonder, what can they hope to do? Will Ladybug and Cat Noir show up once again to save our fair city?”

Nadja’s voice rose clearly from the tiny screen. Marinette couldn’t make out the akuma clearly as the helicopter circled though. All at once the helicopter lurched.

Nadja turned to ask someone off screen, “What’s that smell?”

The camera jostled, the helicopter lurched again, and the image went dark.

Marinette jumped up, “We have to do something!”

“Do something?” Kim blurted out from the back before anyone else. “Ivan got turned into a giant monster and almost turned half the class into crepes! What are you gonna do? …No offense big guy.”

Marinette heard Ivan mumble something even as she watched Adrien’s shoulders slump in front of her. She had to think fast. “What am I gonna do? I’m gonna go to the bathroom! Can’t think on a full bladder, right? Haha. Ms. Bustier can I go please?”

Another rumble shook the entire classroom.

Nino scrambled to his feet, “It sounds like there won’t be a bathroom to go to pretty soon.”

Ms Bustier raised her voice clearly but gently, “Alright class, everyone out. We rendezvous at the park. Stay with your seatmates.”

Sorry Alya. Marinette bolted for the door.

It wasn’t until she set eyes on the akuma that Ladybug’s forebrain took control back from her reflexes. Fear grabbed ahold of her and queasiness dropped her on unsteady legs on the nearest rooftop. The akuma was huge, topping even stoneheart. It was visible head and shoulders above the rowhouses. The only saving grace was a strange familiarity. It was dressed like a baker, complete with toque on its head and giant wooden peel in its hands.

The combination of silliness and fear forced a nervous giggle from her lips. The giggle reminded her that she was alone this time, her partner couldn’t help her. That sealed her lips once more with fear. It’s all up to me, alone.

Doomsday scenarios pressed into her thoughts even as the akuma strode on in the distance. What’s its power? Why is it here? What is the item? Where is it go-

Ladybug’s brain did the math and drew the line from the akuma right through the school towards… Our bakery!

She was in motion instantly, vaulting two streets closer. She was crouched for another leap when her senses shoved another fact through her emotions. Screams.

Screams weren’t surprising, but the tone was wrong. The akuma swung its peel and something scattered below it. If only for a cat’s sight. Screams of fear turned to joy then fell silent.

Ladybug balked again. She had to think. Emotion wanted her to act, but she couldn’t afford to be wrong. How close could she get? The akuma moved on and she followed from a distance, trying to pick up any clues she could. How close is too close? The akuma plowed through a building in its way. More screams of fear, a swing of its peel and fear turned to joy then silence again.

She needed to get closer. But-

Ladybug was stuck.

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“Go away!” Chloé stalked across the square, away from the class.

Sabrina trotted after her. “But, Chloé… we’re seatmates! We’re supposed to stick together.”

Chloé spun around and screamed, “Stick together? Is that what you call it? You sure didn’t stick with me when I needed it! Save me the trouble and go play with your new friends right now. Go!”

She jabbed a finger over Sabrina’s shoulder, but didn’t wait to see the results of her outburst. Her stomach felt hollow and sick. Her fingers tingled and her eyes itched. She wanted to scream until she ran out of air, but that hadn’t done any good before.  So instead she was getting away from the others as fast as she could. Chloé jogged across the street from the park and was around a corner in seconds. Sabrina didn’t call after her again.

For some stupid reason that made the sickness in her stomach worse.

Chloé stalked blindly, immune to the cracking of masonry and the heavy tread that threatened to knock her off her feet. Out of her tunnel vision a single figure resolved in the distance. Red, spotted, standing still on a rooftop. Ladybug.

She was just…standing there. The crunch of another building rang out but the hero didn’t move. “DO SOMETHING!” Chloé howled at her, unheard.

She hated Ladybug. Ladybug was lame. Ladybug was a loser. Ladybug was a failure. Ladybug was a traitor. Ladybug… was a hero. Ladybug was supposed to be saving the day. The thoughts rattled around and fought until Chloé squeezed her eyes shut and dug her nails into her hair in frustration.

With a sudden clarity Chloé’s eyes snapped open again. She whipped a hand around in front of her. “You! Come out now!”

The black cat kwami sparked into existence, anger evident on his tiny features.

“Tell me how to transform!” she demanded.

He crossed his arms smugly and replied, “hmmm Mm mffm Hmm.”

Chloé growled, “Talk! You can talk! Tell me!”

The Kwami gasped but still grinned, “That’s the one thing you can’t order me to do, Miraculous or no.”

“Rrraaaaaggh!” Chloé pointed at the distant Ladybug, “She’s not doing anything. Tell me the password or we’re doomed!”

Plagg crossed his little arms, “Give me back to my rightful holder, and she’ll have a partner again.”

Chloé stomped her foot, “No! I can do this! I know what to do better than any of them do right now! I’m the hero!”

Pagg seemed unimpressed. He rolled his eyes,”You? Nobody would make you a hero. What would you even do with a miraculous?”

Chloé's world narrowed again,to a haze of red with a floating black blob in the center. She advanced on him, “I’ll cataclysm the stupid  akuma. I’ll cataclysm stupid Hawkmoth. I’ll cataclysm everyone and everything that gets in my way. No one will take you away and nothing will stop me this time.”

She was seething. Memories of disappointment, failure, and humiliation broke down into the core emotions and blended into a hateful spiral. She waited for the next barb to come, but instead Plagg’s green eyes turned towards her with a spark of devilish curiosity in them.

“Really?” he drew the word out, “That just might be interesting to see.” One fingerless hand thrust at her face. “Don’t think I’m out of tricks though. You just watch yourself.  It’s ‘Plagg, Claws out.’”

Emotion spoke before thought could form, “Plagg, Claws out!”

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The akuma waded through the remains of the school and Ladybug knew she had to act. The bakery was at hand, and though she couldn’t see from back here, she could just imagine her father standing out front with a rolling pin. She still didn’t have a plan. She hadn’t risked getting close enough to get a good look. It had seemed prudent, but a nagging voice whispered she might just be too scared on her own. Had Cat No- Adrien been brave enough for both of them?

She tensed for a leap, but a sound like a thunderbolt stopped her. A black blur streaked at the akuma. It struck clean, staggering the giant, and clung before scuttling across the akuma’s bulk.

Ladybug was airborne before she had time to doubt. The blur had resolved into a person, a cat person. Her foolish heart leapt for a moment at the impossible idea her partner might have returned. No- it wasn't him. This person darted and leapt from point to point, tearing at the akuma. Buttons, hat, pockets were all ripped and torn. The akuma reeled and swatted at the attacker. One meaty hand connected and sent the black-clad fighter into the pavement in an impressive crater. Ladybug didn’t even have time to gasp before the fighter leapt from the cracked road and was back in the fight.

Ladybug landed, still one block away. In part she was still gathering information, in part she wasn’t sure how to engage with that black buzzsaw in motion. She had time now, her partn-

The other fighter was buying her time.

Ladybug was still trying to understand the ferocity of the assault. The -Ladybug mentally decided on cat hero just to organize her thoughts- was fended off time and again, taking blows that had to hurt. They were -she was- was relentless though, rebounding from being knocked clean through nearby buildings.The akuma’s apron fluttered to the ground like a torn parachute.

It clicked, akumatized object!, just as the akuma found space to swing its bakery peel. This time Ladybug could discern pastries showering down from the end of it. The cat hero was crouched for another leap but instead raised her head and sniffed the air. She reoriented herself and pounced… the confections.

Ladybug had her info. She raised her yo-yo, “Lucky Charm!”

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The smell was irresistible. Chloé dove at the showering pastries, and she wasn’t the only one. Civilians swarmed out from everywhere, her classmates among them. Each and every one scrambled for the treats. There was no stopping it. Chloé bit down on a tart even as she scooped up half a dozen croissants. That she was aware of the compulsion made it worse. She growled around oozing jam and ground her teeth on buttery crust.

The too familiar feeling of helplessness was poison in her veins. Control, she needed to have some kind of control. She couldn’t stop so she pushed in the other direction. She crammed her mouth full until her jaw ached and she could barely breathe. It worked! She had a muffin in each hand but she could move freely again.

She launched herself at the akuma again.

A patch, no. A giant thermometer, no. She broke and broke. The muffins were goo, smashed against her palms. She couldn’t breathe but she wouldn’t stop.

Wouldn’t. Did. She bent double while crouching for another jump. Trying to inhale had dragged a chunk of her food-muzzle into her throat. She choked, coughed, heaved, choked again, and gasped for air. Her stomach twisted around the magical treats she’d already swallowed and dropped her to her knees.

Ziiiiip *thwip*

She was wrapped in a too-familiar away, airborne, grabbed, thumped on the back. She was spun again, free, something was shoved up her nose. Her overstimulated senses finally managed to focus. Her vision focused. Ladybug stood before her, with a tissue box in hand and polkadot tissues up each nostril.

Chloé hissed, “What do you think you're doing?”

“Saving you!” Ladybug grabbed her arm, “What do you think you are doing?”

Chloé pulled free and snarled, “He’s got an akumatized item on him somewhere, I’ll find it.”

Ladybug reached for her, “Do you have any idea what it is?”

Chloé recoiled and scanned. The akuma had turned away from them. It looked over the Dupain-Cheng bakery of all things. A petty part of her wanted to let it smash the place. That part of her became one more thing to be angry at.

She bared her teeth over her shoulder. “No, but I’m not the kind of hero who stands around doing nothing.”

She vaulted away with a protest lost in her wake. She landed and jumped again, elation mixing with rage. Her claws scored the doughy skin on the back of the akuma’s neck, checking the downward bakery-dooming swing of his peel. He swung it at her instead, showering her with sugary bait that no longer had any power over her. Her mouth was open, panting as a part of her breathing. What next? She picked a target and broke it. Then another, and another.

“The peel! Destroy the peel!” Ladybug’s voice rang in her ears.

Ladybug was a loser and probably wrong, but that wooden peel sure was big and this sure would be fun… “Cataclysm!”

She met the akuma’s swing with an outstretched hand. A grove’s worth of wood turned to powder at her touch. The butterfly flew free.

*Thwip* -snap- Ladybug caught and purified it. The akuma shrank to a befuddled looking baker. Chloé stood victorious in the center of a wasteland of violence and destruction.

Elation beat out anger, for just a moment. She threw her head back, spread her arms and, “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!”

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The primal scream from right beside her made Ladybug cringe and fumble the lucky charm she had been about to toss into the air. Once she recovered herself the fact that the crisis had passed gave her a moment to actually evaluate her erstwhile companion. Evaluate, and remember that she was not a partner, she was a thief.

A ragged looking thief. Her blonde hair -did the cat miraculous make the user blonde?- was a voluminous mane down her back, bedecked with black metal hooks and barbs throughout. She turned post scream to give Ladybug a maniacal grin, revealing her needle-like fangs in place of incisors. Her heterochromatic eyes, one blue and one green, were feline as Cat Noir's had been, and her pupils were currently giant black moons swimming in color. 

“What are you looking at, Ladybum?” The thief drawled, raising the hand still dusted with cataclysm remains and flexing her fingers slowly.

Her gloved fingers ended in wicked looking black ‘claws’. She wore black leather, that much remained consistent too, but her V-neck collar was torn, not tailored.  Lastly, in place of Chat’s amusing belt-tail she had a razor thin wire wrapped around her waist with a heavy cat's paw pendant hanging from the end.

Ladybug narrowed her eyes, “You stole Cat Noir’s miraculous.”

The thief turned her hand, revealing the paw print ring with three toes left. “Finders keepers.”

Ladybug swapped hands and spun her yo-yo up, “Give it back.”

“No!” The thief lunged, catching Ladybug’s yo-yo mid-spin.

Ladybug countered, wrapping her line around the other girl’s arm ensnaring her. The thief’s other hand went for Ladybug’s neck. Ladybug blocked the lunge with the remaining length of her string, but the other girl’s palm pressed within scant centimeters. They were locked taut. Whoever gave ground would lose.

Those wild eyes were narrowed to slits. No akuma had ever scared Ladybug this badly. The anger melted from those features but the fingers still stretched for Ladybug’s throat. Ladybug felt a prick against her skin. “It has to be a pun, doesn’t it? Of course it does. Call me… Purrge. I’m going to turn Hawkmoth to dust, and anyone in my way.”

Ladybug strained. Her own anger fueled a push that took Purrge’s claws from her skin. “You’re crazy! I’m taking that ring back. You don’t deser-”

*Chirp* *chirp*

The overlapping sounds cut across the tension. Purrge’s eyes darted to Ladybug’s earrings. Ladybug’s were drawn to Purrge’s ring. Her mind raced. Has it been three or four?

Purrge’s lips curled into a sharp fanged grin, “You used yours first. You think you can take me down in time?”

Ladybug wanted to, oh she ached to, but there was more riding on this than personal satisfaction, but how to- A very slight easing of the pressure against her line; was it a ceasefire? Ladybug took a chance.

She pulled back, letting the line go slack. No claws cut off her breath. She didn’t wait. She scooped up the lucky charm and turned, “This isn’t over!  Miraculous Ladybugs!”

Ladybug tossed the charm even as she began her swing. Triumphant cackling bubbled up behind her. She didn’t look back. Paris rebuilt itself as Ladybug swung further away, seeking out a quiet spot and settling for behind a dumpster.

Marinette burst from the shadow of the dumpster at a run. If she got back quick enough maybe she could catch a glimpse. Maybe there would be a clue. Maybe she could get her partner back.

There wasn’t, and she couldn’t. Not yet at least. All that awaited her was the rest of the class. Alya almost knocked her over, grousing and shaking her by the shoulders while delivering a friendly but stern dressing down. At least she wasn’t the only one gone. Chloé had unsurprisingly run off and still wasn’t back. It took some of the heat off at least.

A few of the class, plus her parents, were gathered around a baker who sat head in hands on the curb. Marinette recognized him immediately, from even before the akuma. She scooted into the semi-circle.

“Mssr. Levure?”

He looked up in confusion.

Marinette gave him a guilty smile, “I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

She saw surprise, anger, then guilt pass over his features.

She continued, “I’m sorry. I think I’m at least partly responsible for all this. I convinced the curator to switch bakeries. I just wanted to help my family… but I didn’t stop to think about how doing it this way would impact them, or you. I know my dad and he’ll run himself into the ground to do all this work. Not only that but our bakery will probably be closed so he can do it. All our other customers will suffer.”

Marinette looked at her parents, who watched her with proud curiosity. She looked back to Mssr. Levure.

“Maybe… both bakeries can share the catering? I’ll make signs. We can promote both and have an even better, more varied selection for our guests. Would that be okay?”

Marinette held her breath. Mssr. Levure, her dad, and her mom held one of those ‘glance and head tilt’ conversations adults so often did. Then he stood and brushed his hands off before holding one out to Tom. “A temporary partnership?”

Tom shook hands, smiling. “Done.”

A small cheer erupted from the half dozen onlookers, and Marinette had the satisfaction of righting at least one wrong today. Still, there was one other… She looked around and spotted Adrien sitting by himself.

“What a day huh?” She announced her presence.

She might be right next to him, but he was still sitting far apart. “Did you see? Ladybug’s got a new partner.”

“Partner?! Oh no no, that’s not what it looked like to me at all. More like a new enemy, or a stray cat, or an enemy cat, or a stray enemy. There’s no way Ladybug would just replace her partner.”

Adrien turned to face her for the first time. The hope on his face was heartbreaking. “You really think so?”

Marinette fidgeted. Instinct said he needed a hug, but, but… he was… and she was…  Nervous laughter bubbled up without warning, “Ha! Sure sure No way! Oh look! It’s Alya! No one knows Ladybug like her. She runs the Ladyblog! Why don’t we go ask her together? I’m sure she’ll know! Come on!”

She waved her arms frantically to signal Alya, kicking herself internally the entire time.

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On a rooftop balcony nearby Purrge landed hard. What should have been a hero landing turned into a stumble, a stagger, and a few lurching steps. A flash of green enveloped her, then Chloé collapsed face first onto the pavement.

Plagg zipped in a wide loop through the air, “What a debut! I think you broke three whole blocks before Ladybug put it all back together. Crack! Boom! That was fun, and you still beat the akuma, so Master Fu can’t yell at me!”

Chloé’s persistently prone repose caught his attention.

“Kid? Kid?”

He floated over, sitting atop her head, no response.  He turned an ear down against her skull, then floated to her back to do the same.

“Tsk, You gotta let the timer run out when it wants to, kid. You’re still pretty small.”

This got a response. The fingers of one of Chloé’s hands curled into a white knuckled fist for the space of a breath before uncurling again.

Plagg hmphed.

A CCTV camera, set up for security footage but never watched, recorded something odd that day.  The blanket from Chloe’s bed lifted itself by a single point and dragged itself out to the balcony(after one of the balcony doors mysteriously rotted off its hinges) The blanket was spread haphazardly over the recumbent heiress.

A little later the trashcan in the suite tipped itself over, and trash began emptying itself onto the floor.

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“Master Please! Calm, Master! Here, your beads.” Wayzz hovered nervously with the prayer bracelet in his hands.

“Calm? Calm!” Master Fu paced between the gramophone that hid the miracle box and the small TV in his room. He would stare at the TV, then go reach for the gramophone, then pace back to the TV.

When he turned to Wayzz his face looked pained and afraid, not angry. He pointed at the TV, “How can I be calm when… that?!”

Frozen on the TV was a still frame of Ladybug and a Black Cat wielder who was obviously not Cat Noir, locked in a struggle.

“The Cat Miraculous is out there in an unknown holder’s hands. It could be in danger. The Ladybug could be in danger. If Hawkmoth were to get his hands on the Ladybug…”

He went back to the gramophone again and laid his hands atop it,

“We must get it back. We must be careful, but we cannot delay. Ladybug will need help in the meantime, someone she can rely on, a power that can aid her when there are so many variables in play.”

“Master, do you mean…?”

Fu keyed in the secret combination to open the antique player, and reached for the Miracle Box hidden within. “Yes Wayzz, him.”