#miravulous ladybug salt

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Im about halfway through Party Crasher rn and its insane how bland Adrien is normally and how endearing he is when we get to see him hang out with his friends without him being on this pedastal by Marinette. Its not even like hes always that boring when Marinette is around or like this show cant write them being cute together because when they were hanging out as "just" friends in season 2 they were honestly pretty adorable! I also really liked them when they thought they were a couple in Oblivio, but for some reason the writers insist on writing Marinette as this bumbling fool whenever shes around him so anytime theres an opportunity for them to spend time together and develop their relationship, we need to get through this barage of bullshit hijinks where Marinette can barely get a word out and then the episode ends with a small moment where something kinda cute-kinda romantic happens but it doesnt actually affect their relationship in any meaningful way

I honestly think focusing more on Adrien would make the romance so much better because it would actually gives us reasons for Marinette to like Adrien because as it stands she really only seems to like him for shallow reasons but the show doesnt really acknowledge that? Like, they try to paint characters like Chloe and Lila as in the wrong for only liking Adrien for his looks and money but its fine for Marinette to do the same thing because idk, shes nice ig not a poorly-written caricature of the Mean Popular Girl archetype ? Granted, MLB has that False Ideal Self/True Flawed Self dichotomy-thing going on with Adrien obviously being that false ideal self in contrast to Cat Noir so you could say it kind of is calling her shallowness out but idk, this just reeks of misogyny to me

Also, before anyone accuses me of anything, I dont mind Marinette being the sole protagonist of the show while Adrien is just the love interest rather than the co-protagonist like you would think from the full title, I just think romances inherently work best when all of the people involved get an equal amount of focus and get fleshed out equally. I think if they wanted to have Marinette be the sole protagonist, it wouldve been better to focus more on female friendships (which is what actual magical girl shows tend to do anyway) and spend more time exploring the relationships between Lila and Chloe and Marinette/Ladybug. That would be a pretty interesting way to handle the theme of Persona vs Real Self with Chloe bullying Marinette but idolising Ladybug and Lila despising Ladybug but wanting to be friends with Marinette (ik that doesnt actually happen but shhhh Im trying to dream up a better version of this bad show) and you could even do something with Kagami outwardly being the type of person you would expect to be Ladybug but no actually being Ladybug and maybe even wanting a life closer to the one Marinette has

Also, to kinda bring this back around to Party Crasher, one of the things that I do apperciate about the show is how the Miracuclass feels like a big 'loose' friendgroup with smaller more close-knit 'sub' friendgroups within it. I dont exactly know what french school culture is like, but it seems like once the classes are picked, youre gonna be spending most of your time at school in the same group for several years. Its like that in germany too and since most popular media is american and about The American School Experience, I dont often get to see that dynamic portrayed in media and I appreciate that. I just wish we could have a few episodes that focus a bit more on those smaller dynamics, like Max and Kim have a pretty sweet unlikely friendship going on, the person Nathaniel texts his bad excuse to is Alyx and they have similar interests and seem happy to sit next to each other but I feel like they hardly interact, it'd be nice to flesh out Marinettes Girl Squad and some of their individual relationships a bit because aside from Rose and Juleka and Marinette and Alya I kinda feel like the only reason they hang is just that theyre all the girls in their class who dont suck ass. Also, this isnt really based on anything in canon, but I recently had a thought that Nino and Luca would probably get along well since theyre both musicians and theyre both meant to be Cool Guys, just in different ways and I like Adrien and Ninos friendship and the few times Adrien and Luka got to interact I thought they were cute and idk, ive been getting really attached to the idea of Adrien, Luka and Nino as a trio