#why is there a lack of marinette salt

[blueberry-macaron]

Didn‘t want to make a salt post about the finale bc I just want to be done with canon but also I have thoughts especially now that I‘ve went through some fan discourse

So Adrien wasn‘t involved in the finale and an argument for this are that the what-if episodes show that Adrien would not be able to handle the truth, be akumatized as a result and end up destroying the world. And I understand because the messed up things Gabriel did are a lot to take in so Adrien being overwhelmed and anything but okay does make sense. However that makes me wonder

Why is Adrien even a permanent hero who wields one of the two most important miraculouses if him fighting Monarch is not only completely unhelpful but ultimately a guarantee for the heroes to loose?

If literally anyone else who didn‘t have this connection to Gabriel was the cat, this wouldn‘t be a problem at all! All of Marinette‘s friends are either indifferent towards Gabe or hate him. Of course they would have a moment of shock but most likely not to an extent where they‘d be akumatized into world destroyer, so Adrien being replaced as the cat would actually be beneficial.

Or the writers could‘ve given Adrien actual relevant character developement outside of his relationship with Mari and have him realize his dad isn‘t really a great person and have him find out before the finale what Gabe has been up to so that he has a little time to deal with everything before he tells Lb and they plan their final attack. Like there are ways to write him as a compelling and interesting character who overcomes the control his dad has over him, metaphorically and literally, which would actually be an inspiring character arc for him to get his autonomy he severely lacks.

But no, the writers think of Adrien as a little weakling who will never be able to handle anything that doesn‘t fit his world view bc god forbid he ever feels overwhelmed about anything so he needs to be coddled by Marinette and the narrative and everyone.

The way they‘ve set this up, Adrien is literally the worst choice for the black cat.

[shysublimecoffee]

I prefer not to sound harsh, but Miraculous has become a fandom where I find more enjoyment in reading fanfics than watching the show. It feels like there's a lack of effort or an attempt to justify and rearrange elements, often ignoring past seasons and assuming the audience won't notice. The handling of Derision is a notable example, with more astute critics than me delving into their dissatisfaction and the evident retcons.

I didn't anticipate the show going to such lengths as portraying Gabriel as someone deserving of a statue, and it left a sour taste in my mouth to see the hero endorsing it. Adrien/ChatNoir's portrayal has become quite pitiful, with a peculiar shift where Ladybug takes on a significant role in the Agreste Saga despite her absence from that narrative. Ladybug, who isn't even part of the Agreste Saga, is the one delivering heartfelt moments. The decision to sideline Adrien and put him out of commission is disappointing. It's his story yet she the one who has to make it about her. She gets to shine along with a cool costume to boot.

There's a palpable bias from Astruc against Chloe, evident in the show's treatment of her character. Despite her being manipulated by Gabriel Agreste, the narrative blames her for becoming mayor, and the absurdity of the situation is magnified when everyone in the story goes along with it. The inclusion of a scene in Revolution where Chloe is crying is perplexing and frustrating, as it seems to perpetuate the negative and irredeemable image the show consistently paints of her. The added layer of her mother being horrid to her intensifies my annoyance, especially when sympathetic scenes are presented in a seemingly contradictory manner.

I mean you want her to be the worst but yet she has scenes like this? Why not go all the way wtf. Why give her depth only to take it away and then make her be so demonized in s5 and act like she was like this from the start. When she's been a joke

I hate to be critical, but seriously, it's hard to ignore how the Miraculous universe is just dripping with untapped potential. Five seasons in, and the movie outshines the show effortlessly. It makes you wonder about the writers' team and their approach—seems like they're just coasting on low effort for profit, and somehow, it's working, thanks to Miraculous inexplicable popularity.

The show's been beating the monster-of-the-week horse for five long seasons, lacking any creativity in crafting interesting villains. Gabriel, honestly, feels like a starter villain, and if they're going to make him the big bad, can we at least get some villains with a bit more pizzazz? You know craft creative interesting villains? KNDS, Original PPG, Totally Spies they got it so why not Miraculous. It's so damn tiring seeing the same old song and dance with Gabriel 24/7 monologuing to his wife and releasing the akuma I thought Mayura would be important but she's barely there.

It's not even an excuse kids do deserve better entertainment so why should Miraculous lower its standards. Marinette is very weird to me as the protagonist because her lovelife is more focused over everything I gauged her well enough to know about her that the rest of the secondary needs more of a spotlight to be cast on them. I like her but am I the only one who just skips when she starts the whining about Adrien and her plan to again get together it was cute at first now I fast forward to the more interesting part of the episode because it irks me i'm tired okay... what other facet of her character do the writers focus on besides her love life? I hope I don't appear to salt on her but Imma tag it just in case. I think she's in neutral treading to dislike because how can I come back from her gaslighting her boyfriends I'm sorry I can't.

You know what I'm afraid of that if Lila gonna be the next big bad they'll just recycle everything from Gabriel onto her. We'll have the same akumatizations same monster of the week formula only this time it's Lila.

I trust more in the fanfic community to come up with a better substantial plot than Miraculous could ever be. I know romance is a big part but the lore is so damn little it's season 5 are they ever going to expand more in the later seasons lol.

I'm tired from writing this long. Imma go to bed now.

[theerurishipper]

So, as a child abuse survivor and someone who has been sexually assaulted by men who think they're entitled to take what they want Adrien is canonically a god damned dick.

He sexually harrasses Ladybug. When told NO he once let 2.161 million people drown because he was busy throwing a tantrum

Being a victim of abuse does not excuse the abuse of others.

He might not mean any harm but you know who else doesn't mean any harm? Gabriel. My goddamned mother.

Not meaning harm- lacking malice- does not mean harm is not caused.

People are going on about him being a rich white guy because anyone else acting like that in public would be considered an antagonist (in fiction), in jail, or have an active warrant for their arrest. And that's assuming they aren't killed for it.

First off, I am truly very sorry for your experience. No one should have to go through that.

But I still do disagree.

Adrien's pushiness when it comes to expressing his affections for Ladybug are in the same boat as Marinette being a stalker or Chloe being pushy with Adrien: it's a joke. You may find it to be a poor one, certainly, but it's a joke nonetheless. Miraculous relies on this kind of humor, it's not meant to be taken seriously. You can have issues with it, but imho acting like it's any kind of legitimate criticism of his character probably makes people like me less inclined to listen to any actual criticisms you may have.

I don't say this to trivialize your experiences, and if the joke is hurtful to you, you are well within your rights to dislike it or talk about how it's in poor taste to make jokes about these things, but that's all it is, a joke. It's absurdist humor. It's not meant to be taken at face value. It would be creepy if Marinette seriously had Adrien's schedule mapped out, tried to break into his house, or stole his personal items, but it's not supposed to be that way because it's a joke.

And as for your complaint about Adrien leaving people to drown, you can go ahead and blame Master Fu for that one. It's stated quite clearly in the show that the heroes couldn't do anything because everything is underwater. And he's staying there because he's waiting for Ladybug. Making up imaginary civilians who are drowning now isn't a good criticism. Ladybug spends a good amount of time underwater, but there's no-one there. There's no civilian begging for Chat Noir's help as they drown while he ignores them, so suffice to say that we're supposed to assume everyone is safe and sound. This is a kids show, so unless we're shown that people are in danger, we aren't supposed to assume they are.

And then let's talk about Adrien almost quitting.

I'll say it straight: he has every right to quit. He's a 14-year-old kid. This isn't his job. He's well within his rights to quit if he feels like this is detrimental to him. And it isn't about Ladybug not returning his feelings like you seem to be implying. This is about Ladybug keeping secrets from him and leaving him in the dark even though he's supposedly her partner. It took a situation like this for Master Fu to pull his head out of his ass and come give Adrien the tools he needed to do the damn job you're accusing him of not doing. How is he supposed to do anything if he isn't given then necessary tools and knowledge to do it? Should he just accept that he's being ignored and left in the dark? Accept his new role as Ladybug's unquestioning lapdog?

This is not Ladybug salt btw, this is Master Fu salt only, in this house we don't like Master Fu.

Anyway.

Literally look at why he tries to quit.

Adrien:(grimly) If you don't tell me what Ladybug is hiding from me, I'm done! Plagg: You can't do that! Adrien:(bitterly) Why not? No one'll know if I quit. No one'll care!

He doesn't think he's needed. He doesn't think anyone would care if he quits.

This isn't because of any entitlement. It's because he's being cast aside and left in the dark. It's because his partner (it's not her fault either, to be clear, it's Master Fu's fault) is keeping secrets from him even in this time, so he assumes he isn't needed and decides to quit because he feels like he's unnecessary and unwanted, and that no one will care if he quits. Adrien already has very low self-worth, and this is just adding onto all that already. If it is detrimental to his mental health, then he definitely has the right to step aside and quit.

So yeah. If this ask was to get me to change my mind, I'm sorry, but it didn't. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I think I've made my opinion on the matter clear.

[trainsinanime]

Representation and Recreation

Usual disclaimers: I like the show, I liked season 5, I had a lot of fun with the finale and I think it had a lot of great elements, like Bug Noir and Kung Fu Jagged Stone. I don't intend to be salty (though whether it is salt is, of course, up to you), I'm generally watching the show and in the fandom to have fun, not to complain, and season 5 as a whole delivered on fun.

With that out of the way:

Goddammit, this fucking season 5 finale! I want to write analysis posts, but I can't make heads or tails of it. I've seen analysis posts by others, and I've reblogged some, but I think all of them are lacking, both the ones that like the finale and the ones that don't.

For example, part of me wants to make a post explaining how the finale really only makes sense if you see it as three parts, taking Representation into account, and what it tells us about Adrien, Marinette, Felix, Kagami and Sentimonsters. I would really like that to be true. But then I start thinking about this, and it turns out I don't actually have a thesis here, it's just that Representation is a way better episode that sets up a completely different finale.

Think about it. Representation's "A" plot is that Marinette learns about the history of Felix and Adrien through an avant-garde theatre show. I think this is the best visual storytelling the show has ever had, and it's the prettiest too. Here, we learn about the Sentichildren, about Gabriel's role in creating them, and how Gabriel is a threat to them. And the Sentichildren need help, from Ladybug. As the presentation ends and morning dawns, it seems like Marinette has understood all that, and resolved to help the sentis.

This has no bearing on the finale whatsoever. Marinette learns that Gabriel is evil, again, and is surprised, again. In retrospect it almost seems like she thought there was a third Adrien-Felix cousin or something. The sentibeings don't appear, it's all about the wish.

Meanwhile, Adrien's plot is all about him beating the crap out of his father, and finally telling him off. This toxic relationship is finally severed. Adrien is still under his father's control, but he's managed to see him for who he really is, and articulate that, and finally symbolically defeat him, with the help of his friend. That's really great thematically, and it's arguably the culmination of the character growth we've seen all season.

This has no bearing on the finale whatsoever. Adrien just doesn't appear in the final battle whatsoever, and when he does appear (actually, who unlocked his cell?), he's just happy and seems to have made peace with the memory of his father again.

That's weird, right? If it weren't for Adrien and Kagami being imprisoned, Representation would have no impact on the finale at all, even though it's written as if it were the big lead in to the final big fight, where all the big thematic questions are brought out in the open.

Representation clearly sets up something, I think, but not the big season and arc finale that comes after it. Does it set up season 6? Does it set up anything at all? I certainly hope so!

Several people in the fandom have said that they trust the writers to pay this off. I'll be honest, I do not. This isn't meant as an insult to the writers, I enjoy the episodes they write, but the show just has a long history of doing things that look like setup that don't pay off. Marinette doesn't have trauma from Chat Blanc, she's got it from Kim. The Ladynoir conflict in season 4 ended up not that big a deal. Su-Han never mattered, and neither did the sisterly relationship between Zoé and Chloé.

(Aside: I have read all the posts explaining why it makes sense that Adrien isn't at the final battle, and none of them were convincing to me. Yes, it's Marinette's show, and I like that. They're not equals, no matter what the subtitle pretends. But to not have him around at all? His relationship with Marinette is the crucial engine of the show, and the whole thing with Gabriel also concerns him.

I particularly disagree with arguments that say Chat Blanc and Ephemeral proved it was a good idea to keep him out. He could have totally overcome whatever Gabriel put on him if the writers had chosen to write it that way.

The whole argument is flawed. It's a fictional tactical argument to explain away a real story issue. You can do that when discussing why the crew of the USS Enterprise didn't turn the Tricorder into a Transporter again or whatever, but this is a fun explanation, not an actual argument for why the story had to go this way.)

Anyway. This finale. I have no idea what it's about. I'm not even entirely certain I know what happened. I'm not sure the writers knew, and even if they do, they're certainly not saying. That is so, so weird. I love Bug Noir, though.

[sweetcloverheart]

Clover Rants Miraculously: Complexity

Miraculous suffers badly from complexity addiction and it’s gotten absolutely worse since season 5 started. Character routes can’t be predictable or just being A to B to C anymore - no, there has to be a twist every minute, they have to deconstruct all the tropes and chara types, they have to keep the audience on their toes every second or else! No one’s allowed to predict anything and things can’t be simply as they appear. However, they also lacks the patience to make the complexity they put in relevant or meaningful. As a result, character growth becomes flat as their personalities and values are changed or reverted back to previous stages to suit whatever the plot needs, with opinions that seem ripped straight from reddit pages and twitter threads that seem to lack any understanding of the topics they’re preaching. No one is allowed to contradict or question anything and status quo must be maintained at all costs, even as it bogs down all the new plot elements and lore they try to bring in. It wants everything to be “deep” without actually doing any work in digging for it.

Which is why the canon Chloe salt, Marinette’s bullying backstory, sentikids, and the Gabriel thing fall flat in their jobs to get everyone to subscribe to the writer’s sole interpretation of the characters/plotlnes they present (and nothing else) - because the writers want the benefits of creating a deeply thematic work that goes outside the bounds of its genre without actually doing anything to create said depth.

Chloe can’t just be a dumb mean girl bully with a sad backstory to explain why she does it - nah, she has to represent the worst of humanity and parallel an abusive parent and monologue about how she has no soul and everyone’s stupid for thinking she does and turn out to be responsible for every bad thing to everyone ever, but the writers will never actually address any of it meaningfully while actively trying to pretend that any implications they made about her character or backstory doesn’t exist or act like it was actually this super malicious psyop done by Chloe herself and we just imagined seasons 2 and 3 in a collective mass hallucination.

Marinette can’t just be cringe about her first crush because she’s a teen and that’s what teens do when it comes to first crushes - nah, she has to have this completely out of nowhere and nonsense dramatic backstory about a prank by Chloe and Kim that justifies all the (kinda borderline creepy) stuff she pulled in the start of the show with PTSD and now you can’t make fun of/criticize her or your mocking a trauma victim you jerk (all while these issues get solved in one episode and all the other reasons to properly explain her flightiness around Adrien are either swept under the rug or just ignored due to inconveniencing their insistence of pushing this “Dating trauma” storyline that somehow only effects her with Adrien and not Luka or Chat Noire for reasons)!

It’s not enough that Adrien (and Kagami and Felix) is an abused kid trying to get out of his father’s controlling grip and come to his own as he explores expanding his boundaries and learns to stand up for himself - nah, he has to be a magical slave golem with 180 different flavors of awful implications baked into the lore of how his creation works and no feasible way for him in canon to actually break away from his dad on his own or with help, with the ending (if it makes it to the final draft/actual episode) regarding it making his entire journey of self-actualization and independence basically meaningless

Gabriel can’t simply be being an over-the-top control freak because of losing his wife and have that be shown as unreasonable - nah, he needs to be given Marinette’s exact same backstory (minus the bullying but I would not put it past them at this point) to justify why he’s totally in the right to be ruining children’s lives and terrorizing citizens and should totally be allowed to win in the end. It’s not that he’s unfairly putting the responsibility of his grief onto completely strangers and poorly justifying it with the idea that it’ll restore his family back to their idyllic days and benefit his son - in the end, guy’s just “a man who loves his family”, so let’s just forget about all the terrorism and emotionally abusing his only living child and focus on the important stuff, like the fact that Chloe and Lila are both the devil and more evil than him.

(Speaking of) Lila can’t just simply be a consummate liar who develops an irrational hatemance against our leading lady for pointing this out - nah, she has to turn out to have a gajillion different damn fake families and even faker aliases to jump through when she get tired of it or they get compromised, and all with it’s own naming system! Are her eyes actually green? Does she really have hair? Is she even Italian? Who knows - certainly not the writers! Isn’t great you invested years of interest and headcanons into a character who turned out to be a complete sham and whom the writers are now going to use to recycle the S1 villain gimmick because the Butterfly is the only villain allowed to exist? I sure am!

The writers want their story to be overly complicated and “deeper than average kids cartoons” but they want to retain their “silly simple cartoon” format and while it’s possible to do, the show runners seem adamant in not taking the steps forward necessary to achieve it, causing a constant conflict in both the show’s genre and character narratives that hurts it’s plotline

TLDR: In the immortal words - pick a lane my dude

[flufflepuffle296]

The Perfect Day

Hello!!! I wrote this prompt post-(ish)-s3 pre-s4 era where there was a lot of salt so this is about 3 years old I wanna say? So that’s why it’s so outdated so HEAVY Alya/Lila/Adrien/Tom and Sabine salt with a lot of Chloe sugar and slight Marigami (best ship) because *this was the vibe at the time* (ayyyy Kendall Jenner) on this page SO if that is not for you fair enough love that for you now SCROLL ON you have had many warnings about how old this is.

Also because this was written before all of s4/a few s3 episodes the lore is very much not present here and outdated so tough luck!

⚠️trigger warning!⚠️

Talking about s*icide here. Please stay safe and do not read this if you think it may trigger you even the slightest bit. Look after yourself! (Also I’m not trying to romanticise sewerslide in any way here (if you want the trauma dump version of how we came up with this you’re welcome to it) but if there is something that shouldn’t be in a post please do let me know and I will remove it but HEAVY TRIGGER WARNING).

SALT FOR (almost) EVERYONE

The Perfect day:

Marinette alarm startled her eyes open at exactly 4am. She scrunched her face up at the prospect of consciousness, but her expression softened slightly when she remembered: today was going to be the perfect day.

The perfect day, to die.

She clambered out of bed, and went downstairs to make her favourite breakfast, with a hot chocolate on the side and mountains of whipped cream, just how she liked it. She had spent the last week trying to convince herself out of this, but it was the only solution.

She was numb.

She was always going to be numb.

Nothing made her feel (that being a full sentence in itself) truly, wholly happy in her being anymore.

She went back upstairs to her balcony and ate her breakfast as the sun rose, squinting at her city. As she finished the last bite, she realised a good swing around Paris was just what she needed, so effortlessly transformed and pulled out her yo-yo, setting out for the Eiffel Tower, the source of so much inspiration for her designs.

Or rather, her *old* designs. She hadn’t the energy or mental strength to do anything she loved recently, nothing sparked much happiness or felt worth it. Her last design was about 2 months ago, but all it did was make her sob at the realisation that she was a failure and a fraud; nothing matched or was cohesive in any way. But in a way, realising her lack of talent when it came to her recent designs was sort of a net positive she concluded.

It meant it stung less when Lila spilled juice all over them, when Alya said they looked better smudged and ruined, or when Adrien delivered his father’s disapproval.

So instead she just watched the rest out the sunrise from her favourite spot, not picking out the different angles in the monument for a ridiculous geometric gown, or whatever her most recent fantasy was.

After another half hour, she sprung back home and got into her favourite Sunday dress, twirling her hair into her cutest hairstyle that the night before she had meticulously studied for hours on Pinterest, that she had always wanted to try. She packed her bag, three letters included, and ran out to catch up with her only real friend at a Francois DuPont.

Alya had left her a long time ago. After all, Lila had “no reason to lie”. She was “perfect”. Marinette was “just jealous” and “refused to cooperate”.

Because after all, it was always Marinette’s fault.

Marinette wished Alya the best in life, but she wasn’t going to waste much more energy on her. She was drained enough as it was.

Chloé was waiting for her, grinning ear-to-ear as she held up her first try at macarons for Marinette to critique. Marinette bit into the surprisingly good attempt at the cookie as they walked up to school together, laughing at Chloe’s sudden inability to swallow a cookie without choking. They walked to the back of the class and sat in their seats, ignoring their classmates.

It’ll all be over tonight anyways.

She spent the lessons talking with Chloé, as it wasn’t like she’d ever need the information after tonight. She encouraged Chloé to reminisce on their favourite times together, such as the day they realised they were different enough to be the same, or the day they realised that they (platonically) loved one another, and were the closest thing each other had to a soulmate.

That was also what Marinette considered a “perfect day”…

…Was Chloé going to be alright tomorrow?

At lunch, the pair met up with Luka and Kagami and went out to a cafe for food and orange juice, before sprinting after André the ice cream man and getting sweetheart ice cream together, Chloé paired with Luka, and Kagami with Marinette (“platonically” of course!). They parted ways once the hour was over, as they had to return to school, where Marinette spent the time daydreaming, recalling childhood memories from before Francois DuPont. This was going to be the last time she would ever remember them, after all.

They were let out of school at their usual time, thankfully no akuma that day, and Marinette, Chloé, Luka, and Kagami briefly chatted outside the gates, before parting ways. Marinette hugged them all tight as she left, handing them her letters and telling them not to open them until midnight AT LEAST.

She returned home, and watched her favourite films, favourite shows, and had her favourite meal for the very last time.

She kissed her parents on the cheeks, which was the most contact she’d had with them in a while, after Lila decided the bakery was her favourite Boulangerie, and she went upstairs to peacefully watch the sunset.

She would never have to deal with Chat Noir again and his flirting sexual harassment, so she decided to enjoy being Ladybug one last time. She transformed and went her usual route, ending up at the Eiffel Tower to finish watching the sun go down, swinging back home whilst it was still just barely light, taking notice of the cool air stinging her cheeks; the first real feeling she’d had in months.

Tikki begged her not to go through with it, but Marinette had made her decision, and renounced Tikki, telling her to find a new Ladybug; her only real plea being to warn them about Chat Noir prior.

Tikki was distraught, but Marinette used her guardianship to send her off and push her away — she needed to be alone for this, she wouldn’t let Tikki under any circumstance.

But Marinette didn’t want everything to be over quite yet, the air was too still, so she turned to her dust covered mannequin, and slowly stitched the zipper onto her old project that she never had the creativity or energy to finish. She tied a figure of 8, and snapped off the thread, taking notice of how it frayed.

Looking at it finally finished, it wasn’t as horrific as she made it out to be in her head a couple months ago, but still, not good enough to convince herself she had any worth.

She looked over at her clock.

10:30

I guess it’s time…

Marinette climbed up to her balcony and stepped over the railing, peering down. She took a deep breath…

And jumped.

She lay in the air, feeling as if she was floating for a second, waiting to to hit the ground. She thought she heard her name, but knew no one was around…

“MARINETTE!”

She felt a clawed hand grab her waist, knocking the air out of her as the two beings shot into the sky, the black figure clutching her tight.

She opened her blue eyes, and stared into Chat Noir’s brown ones.

…Brown?

…This wasn’t Chat Noir?

The black cat landed on a roof, hurriedly demanding to know if she was okay, in a voice that Marinette recognised must be —

“Kagami?!”

The black cat set her down on her balcony and explained that when Tikki was renounced, she was so distraught and furious she renounced Chat Noir of Plagg, revealing Adrien Agreste. The two Kwamis sailed around trying to find someone when they came across Kagami coming back from late night fencing. They quickly told her to read her letter as they were near incomprehensible from stress. Kagami briefly skimmed the letter before immediately snatching the nearest miraculous - the ring - and transforming into the black cat before sprinting across the rooftops as fast as she could, rushing to Marinette’s aid still clutching her letter. She arrived just in time to see her topple over, and saved her just before she hit the ground.

Marinette started sobbing in Kagami’s arms. Kagami sobbed with her a few minutes, promising to never let her go. She eventually picked her up once again and carried her to Le Grand Paris, where she banged on Chloé’s window. Chloé opened it and let the two crying girls in, announcing Luka’s presence as he happened to be in the room teaching Chloé guitar. He rushed to the girls when he saw them collapsed in each other’s arms. Marinette was feeling the first emotions she had felt in months, refusing to leave her saviour’s side, clutching to Kagami. Luka and Chloé listened as Marinette vented how she had been feeling, or rather the fact that she hadn’t been feeling anything, whilst Kagami stroked her hair and wiped her face, kissing her forehead every so often to remind her she was safe.

Chloé had a room prepared and the four of them off school the next day, booking Marinette in for a highly rated therapy appointment. The four friends snuggled in each other’s arms, Marinette in the middle. They fell asleep immediately, crashing from the excitements of the past hour, except for Marinette, who lay awake just a few more moments to make a promise to herself.

Every day, from today, I will make into the *perfect* day.

—————————————————————————

Hello me again!!!! I had a few other endings in case we weren’t feeling this one so just quickly:

Alternate ending 1) She jumps. When midnight comes around her friends open her letters and rush to her place, only to find police and an ambulance declaring her dead, and if you want some more angst, Chloé and Kagami storm into the school the next day scream-crying at their classmates whilst Luka repeatedly whispers “I couldn’t save her” crying in his mum’s arms. (Very depressing)

Alternate ending 2) Marinette realises that she doesn’t want to die. Why should she? She’s just spent today just doing what makes her happy? She should live like this everyday! She has so much to live for! Sure therapy is needed and some communication too, but she can do it. (Yayyy happyyy)

This was for the most part written when I was around 14/15 so if the sentence structure is a bit shit I’m gonna blame it on that (and not my lack of progress in writing in the past 3 years!)

[wisteriasymphony]

It is quite funny that they got mad at that anon's message of a prompt depicting Marinette in a negative light... despite running an entire blog full of prompts depicting Adrien in a negative light

my philosophy regarding these things is that you have to be able to take as much as you dish out. it is probably reasonable to get a bit annoyed about being messaged off-topic things on a blog with a dedicated topic (unless this was on a separate blog of theirs, idk. this already feels like I'm involving myself quite deep into this drama and digging up old dirt), but having your reasons behind hating a character be based on such an immature view of things probably correlates to a lack of ability to gracefully take other viewpoints.

like, there are good reasons to dislike adrien as a character. some salt on him extends from grains of truth about his portrayal, just as salt on marinette extends from grains of truth about her portrayal as well; we all pick and choose these and exaggerate or flanderize them and essentially change the character to our dis/liking as we see fit. the best way to go about this is, imo, to play with tropes and conceptions of these characters and see where things go and how that reflects on the world and how that character, in turn, can affect people's views on things. media can be divorced from the real world, and often is, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and never will. part of the fun of salt is picking apart the characters and poking out how their traits aren't given the scrutiny and care they might deserve.

...the bad way to go is not examining why this character ticks you off, and instead framing them in the worst light possible without avenue for playing around with it. you'd be treating everything this fake person does with extreme scrutiny, exaggerating not for the fun of playing with the character, but to show everyone that this blorbino sucks ass and nobody should ever like them.

.....A troubling amount of salt is the latter way. Not all (most hangs in the middle), but enough.

^^ This does not apply to the mlb writers btw, especially The-Ass-In-Charge. They are real people whose writing choices are deliberate and not at all 'divorced' from the real world in the way a character's choices are. In fact, for every salt post about a character, there should be twenty pointing out that the writers were wack for choosing to make the character be that way. (This tends to be something Marisalters do better, in my experience, but that's not to say the problem isn't there)

...god, what was i talking about again? adrisalt? imo it's confusing but my own adrien is so different from canon that i'm not particularly bothered.

when we get an eddisalter/tweos!adrisalter, however. that will change. I might even make an annoying effort to get close to them because the best way to improve is to seek out criticism.

the first claudrien hater will get their post printed out and hung on my wall with a kiss mark in the corner. if rjwhatever would love to be that guy for me, send him my way.

[taldigi]

Do you take a Watsonian or a Doylist approach when you salt on Miraculous Ladybug?

Both. But I think any story needs to be considered from a doyalist perspective first and foremost. It's important to realize what the showrunners are intending to tell and then to acknowledge how the characters are embodying the story..

It's good to judge that the dish that you were being served is the one that they said that they would serve first, and then judge it based on that... If the chef says that the special is lasagna and I order the lasagna and then they plop down a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs in front of me... I'm going to be judging that first. And then maybe I'll consider judging the quality of the actual bowl of spaghetti but... I didn't come here for the spaghetti and meatballs I came here for the fucking lasagna. And you just can't say oh well it's pasta and tomato sauce and meat, It's basically the same dish. They were intending to make it like this, and if you had just looked harder than you would have realized that this was intended all along... why are you upset? Like no come on. It was promised to me that I would get lasagna. You can't gaslight me into this. Just because the chef decided at the last minute that they didn't feel like making the fucking lasagna and that they ended up serving me something with relatively the same ingredients that it's good enough. Like no man come on. I'm not going to just be happy with it. Besides, they put in a spice in the meatballs that I don't fucking like I might just even be allergic to it you don't fucking know!

It's... It's frustrating because I know and I see what the writers are trying to do. But like... Just because I know what they want to do and I see what they're trying to do... Doesn't excuse the fact that they failed. It doesn't excuse the racism. It doesn't excuse the bad lessons it shows and the bad character development and just everything bad about it. Intention means a lot. But intention isn't everything. And in the end the writers are the puppeteers of the story. It was their choice to make things happen in the story, it was their choice to make the characters act the way they were, and it was their choice to be ignorant of criticism or to willfully ignore an aspect or even include something really tasteless because I know they thought it was really really funny.

And these aspects can ruin something that might be innocuous in the show. A lot of people think that for example, the little weird flirts between the main two characters are cute and bantery but like if you look at the show as a whole and the way that the show runners act and just how they treat things in general, a lot of that falls apart. It's not funny it's harassment. It's uncomfortable. But they think it's funny they think it's quirky or they think it's a cute little nod to the fan base when it's not. And I think that the fact that the intention can warp these things so heavily means that this stuff is stupid important to the narrative.

I don't care what the fuck Lila does. I don't care what Chloe has done or what kind of decisions she made in the narrative. And I don't care that the writers tried to frame the things that some characters have as good things when in reality they were not. What I care about, is the fact that the writers made those decisions for them, and a lot of it comes from a lack of proper feedback or representation on the writing staff.

Nino didn't stalk his girlfriend. The writers made him stalk his girlfriend and it completely destroyed his character. And they failed to acknowledge the fact that it was a really fucked up thing of him to do. It made him seem distrustful , abusive, and manipulative. Lila didn't frame Marinette. The writers made her do it, and now she's literally the most hated character above actual white man and terrorist and grave robber and murderer Gabriel because the writers also decided to give him a very sympathetic stance in the story. Alya didn't bully Marinette into revealing her identity, the writers made her pressure her into it because they wanted to introduce a dynamic but they fucked it up and now it's toxic. Natalie didn't suddenly develop a conscience, the writers gave her one and now she's a sympathetic character after literally committing murder and being an actual compliance to terrorism.

But people don't like to think about the media they consume. They just want to consume and they don't want to feel pressured or or guilty about consuming something that might not exactly be good for them. So they brush it off or they try and frame it is something else because "don't bully me it's something I like let me like what I like." Or " this is my comfort show so I'm allowed to enjoy it without scrutinizing it because reasons." that's fine right? I like shitty media. I like objectively bad media. But I'm also aware of how to criticize that media and acknowledge its flaws.... Or at least try to.

Sorry I'm kind of rambly about it, I'm in a very bad mood right now.

[aeonghaseyo]

Note: I haven't watched Derision yet but I got spoiled by the Bible, but I'll tag this as a spoiler nonetheless. You're welcome.

Ah yes. More unwarranted Marinette salt. I would also like to manifest here that Pee Girl is in no way, shape, or form equipped to interpret Marinette's dialogue with an impartial and compassionate lens, as what victims of ANY traumatic experiences need the most.

Pee Girl is so quick to conclude that Marinette's resolution to dig up details about people she's interested in is a big red flag. I mean, I do agree, but she missed SOME CRUCIAL POINTS:

Marinette didn't have anyone to process her trauma with and heal. To even think that she should've had the capacity to heal on her own when she must have not told her parents about the incident or when she was unable to run to Socqueline after that is crazy. That includes realizing in a split-second that "stalking someone" is not the best way to cope with having a crush the next time she does have one. Of course, this shouldn't excuse her impulse to know every single detail about her crush even as a safeguard because it still counts as an invasion of privacy on the other person's part. But to come to that conclusion that Marinette is evil incarnate because she lacked time and resources to process and heal properly from that traumatic event is lunacy, and like it or not, Pee Girl, you are not innocent either and you're a fucking jackass.

NONE of what happened between her and Luka, or even her and Kagami, were a direct effect of that humiliation she suffered under Chloe (and partly Kim). Marinette may have hurt Kagami in the process of keeping her from Adrien, but THERE WAS NO INSTANCE OF MARINETTE HAVING TO FIGHT ANOTHER GIRL JUST TO GET KIM TO LIKE HER. It makes absolutely no sense to flame Marinette for hurting Kagami unintentionally (I don't even know why you're still not over it when they're best friends as of season 5) in the pursuit of Adrien when this sort of thing never happened with her pursuit of Kim from like, a few years ago. Also, Marinette wasn't even seeing anyone back then, so it also makes no sense to flame her for "not being loyal to Luka" when she had no history of cheating on anyone when Socqueline was still around as her bestie. So basically, Pee Girl blames Marinette for being an asshole to Luka and Kagami for... whatever happened between her and Kim? What the fuck is this logic.

To Pee Girl: You hate Marinette. WE GET IT. But your post is just basically scolding her for being a stalker, invalidating her trauma instead of just wishing for better days for her to heal, be a better person too and grow out of the habit of stalking her crush. I have to admit that there were some points in this rant that were valid, but it all boiled down to wishing for a witchhunt for Marinette even while she hasn't even processed her trauma with an expert. She's not a real person, but I for one believe that how you see fictional characters can be correlated with how you treat people around you. If you're this unforgiving, this uncompassionate and this unempathetic towards a 14-year old girl who had to endure a lot of psychological trauma from bullying, then maybe you're also a shithead who thinks victims of bullying deserve to be in pain, and whatever hurt they caused makes them spawns of Satan, even while their trauma has not been processed yet, even when they haven't even sought professional help.

BONUS: I don't care if you're a Marinette hate blog. But you're an asshole, and that's not supposed to be the rest of the fandom's problem. But I am one of those people who have a problem with this shitty ass take of yours that deserves to be incinerated in a landfill, because I have been bullied before and had to go through a time where my trauma was unprocessed and I had hurt people too. My crap wasn't excused, and I had a lot of backlash as a teen, so I devoted the rest of my time and energy to healing, processing my trauma, and turning to my support systems for genuine help. I had gone through therapy to be less sucky and to hurt people less, because NO ONE DESERVES TO GET UNJUSTLY HURT.

It's my turn to use your words against you, you ugly trick-ass bitch: I'll be lucky if I find a day to finally forgive you for your bullshit, but at this point, I don't wish to be THAT lucky.

[kisilinramblings]

re: that ask about people salting because Adrien's wish in jubilation was regarding romance and not something of his own - but in a way, isn't it right though? The show especially from season 4 has put Adrien in this box of 'Love interest whose existence is mainly dependent on their romance'? Adrien could've been a complex character and they could've explored his grief of his mother's death (because if she'd died a year earlier, no amount of optimism would lead him to be as cheerful - speaking as someone who has had to deal with a loss), but instead put him in this 'supporter' role. While marinette gets to have her own story and ~angst about her guardianship and her ~ trauma Adrien just...stays optimistic despite having much more serious issues and problems in his life ? And people then get mad when we get mad Adrien is being treated so badly by the narrative...Even gabriel gets treated with much more depth and care by the narrative when Adrien is the punching bag for it

Okay, life story! When my father died, I was the quickiest to mourn him. I helped out my older brother with the farm but after 6 months, I couldn't take it anymore of this routine and signed up to an university class in another region to get away and moved on. Why was it so fast for me? Because most of my mourning started when my father was still alive because he was sick (he died from an aneurysm rupture in the end, but at least it was quicker than his untreatable illness which would have been painful for him).

So, yeah, I understand Adrien, who got a sick parent before losing them. So tell me, Anon, am I -- or anyone -- an inhuman person to you because I don't want my father back even though I loved him?! No and neither is Adrien.

Because there is no typical mourning process. It's not a set amount of time then you are done. Some will go through it in a few months. Some will be mourning for several years. And it will be different between each members of the same family (and I speak from experience too).

Heck people can still be missing their dead love ones but still have the right to laugh during the process!

Adrien has done his mourning process and is trying to live his life. And new episode Passion also showed us it was also his mother's wish for him and Gabriel. Because she accepted she was going to die and wanted both of them to still find hapiness.

Unlike Gabriel, Adrien has moved on, but right now, the kid is rather inexperience in life. He is barely starting to define himself because, NEWSFLASH, not only has he lost his mother, but he is an abused child whose parent decided in his place what was best for him for years and were overprotective and didn't allow him the liberty to be himself. Adrien said it himself, as a kid, he wanted to be what his parents wanted him to be and never question what he truly wanted himself until recently (Wishmaker). Adrien has started to affirm himself, make life experiences and slowly gain independance outside the familial cell. Of course he has no clear idea.

So, of course Adrien can feel like a blank canvas at time, he is just starting to figure himself out! But since S1, we do know what he likes and what doesn't. He doesn't like to be a model. He was doing it initially to please his father. He is selfless and likes to please others. He has immense empathy. He loves to have fun. He makes puns. He hates lies. He doesn't want to travel the world. He wants to be with his friends, but above all, he wants an happy life with the person he loves. See? He is not a wax statue. He is a fictional character in a story build around a romance and going through a coming of age.

Finally, there is nothing wrong for Adrien to long for love, warmth and a family of his own in his life, especially after lacking it for a while. Heck, if he were to decide to be a homemaker as his civilian occupation, would that offense you? There are women who despite having all opportunities to take any career choose to stay at home. Not because it is expected out of them, but because they want to be there for their kid. Just like there are people who are satisfied to just have a normal job instead of being a CEO or something.

So, it isn't weird if a fictional character and a male one at that become like this.

[miraculouswolf99]

Adrien Protection Squad

I am a big Cat Noir/Adrien fan and no one can change my mind. I have noticed a lack of Marinette/Ladybug Salt across almost all fanfiction platforms. And if I have to make things more even on my own, then I will do it. So, here is my take on a Marinette Salt and Adrien Sugar story. Don't like, don't read.

(Marinette Salt, Alya Salt, Girl Squad Salt, Juleka Sugar.) (Takes place after the episode "Felix.")

Juleka Couffaine was not known for her voice. She was the quietest one in the entire class. And that was saying something considering that Nathaniel was in her class. Nathaniel was the definition of the silent artist type who hardly ever spoke at all. So, if Juleka was somehow quieter than him, that really did say something about her own lack of using her voice.

But, Juleka was able to use her silence as a weapon. She noticed things that others did not. Being silent enabled her to easily hide and notice the things that others would not want to be noticed.

Juleka knew many things about many people. Things that they most definitely did not want anyone to know. Such as how Sabrina secretly hated Chloe and wanted nothing more than to be away from her, but knew that her father would get in trouble with the mayor if she did. Or how while Mylene supported Ivan and Kitty Section, she was not a fan at all of rock music.

Juleka thought that she was mostly alone when it came to people that noticed things. Until she became friends with the Flower Princess herself, Vallia Garden. Vallia and her twin brother, Lyon, were visiting Paris for a while because of a program they were doing at their original school which was like an exchange program, but without an actual exchange. The twins came from Greece, bringing along two heroes from their own home country.

The government had asked White Wolf and Beautifly to come to Paris to protect the twins. Their parents were known as the most charitable people in their country. Not to mention the richest. So, the government wanted the twins to be protected. Of course, they did not know that the heroes were also the twins. 

Lyon is known as the Ice Prince. He gives many cold shoulders to many people. There are very few people that he actually is comfortable talking about in a more free way. He only really talks to Adrien, Kim, Nathaniel, Marc, Kagami, and Juleka. Vallia was the friendlier one out of the two of them. She got her nickname as the Flower Princess because of her bright personality on top of her always having flowers in her hair. She liked Juleka because she preferred her quiet nature over the energetic and talkative girls like Alya and Rose.

Juleka liked finally having someone around that noticed things. And both being a part of the Girl Squad, they definitely noticed something about them. Only after the events happened because of Adrien's cousin, Felix, Vallia decided to speak to Juleka directly about what they both had noticed.

Vallia caught up with Juleka after she got back to the Liberty after she got de-akumatized. They both sat in her room on the boat in order to talk.

"Juleka, I think we both know that things might have gone a little too far with the other girls," Vallia tells her.

Juleka nods. "I didn't think that it would get this far, but it has. I can't believe she would do that on a day like this."

"We should have seen something like this coming," Vallia said. "Marinette has always been so weird when it came to Adrien."

"Not just weird," Juleka says. "But obsessed. I don't... I don't actually tell this to many people, but Luka has had a few stalkers in the past."

"Oh my gods," Vallia swore, covering her mouth with her hands.

"It's why he attends online school rather than going to a private school or going to Dupont with me," Juleka explained. "Between his good looks and his musical talent, not to mention people noticing how much he looks like Jagged Stone, a lot of girls have stalked him in the past."

"I'm so sorry," Vallia felt so bad for them since Luka really was such a sweet guy.

"Luka has managed to deal with it and the stalkers all eventually were given restraining orders to keep them away from him," Juleka said. "But, having experience with stalkers really does give me perspective on the whole 'Adrinette' situation."

"It's just too creepy what Marinette is doing," Vallia says. "I have had this bad feeling ever since 'Operation Secret Garden' started."

"The schedule, right," Juleka already knew what Vallia was thinking when it came to what the Girl Squad had been shown that day.

"I highly doubt that Adrien told her his entire schedule," Vallia says. "Especially his schedule for three years into the future. She either followed him around, got it online, or used both. No matter how it is put, it is really creepy. I have no idea how Rose finds it romantic."

"I don't know, either," Juleka sighed. 

"And do not get me started on all those presents that she has for him," Vallia got up and started pacing back and forth in Juleka's room. "She has gifts to give him up to when he is turning fifty. What in the name of Hades would make anyone think that is a sane thing to do?"

"It's also one thing to imagine a future to have with someone, but Marinette really does make it very creepy," Juleka added. "She not only has named all their kids, but also planned out how many they will have, what they will look like,  and even what their interests would be. She also specifically says that they would have a hamster as well. As much as any girl fantasizes about what their life would be like with the person they feel that they are in love with, Marinette's fantasy is really just adding to her creepy obsession."

"Plus, if she ever actually did end up with Adrien and had kids, I fear what she would do and how she would act if they were not what she imagined," Vallia says. "She actually plans for them all to be blond while having her blue eyes. The odds of all their kids being blond with blue eyes are extremely low. If any of her kids ended up the opposite, as in having her dark hair with Adrien's green eyes, she might outright reject them for not meeting the fantasy that she created in her head."

"Chloe might cling to him a lot and proclaim her love for him constantly, but not even she ever went as far as Marinette does," Juleka said. "I never thought that I would say anything good about Chloe."

"Well, you have to admit that even with her still trying to get back the bee miraculous, she has been doing better, lately," Vallia admitted.

"I'm just remembering all the times that both Chloe and Adrien have said how they are each other's childhood friends," Juleka said. "Out of everyone, Chloe would be the one that would probably sympathize with Adrien the most since she would have also known his mother."

Vallia nodded. "Not even Chloe would do something as selfish and cruel as Marinette did. Today is the anniversary of when Adrien's mother disappeared. We all wanted to send Adrien sweet messages to let him know that we care about him and that we were here for him on a day like this."

"And yet Marinette used it to send him a love confession," Juleka clenched her hands into fists really tightly.

"YES," Vallia started pacing again, really pissed off. "Adrien must have been feeling more depressed and sad than he ever has other than the day this mom actually went missing. What he needed were support and friends. And what does Marinette do? Take advantage of his vulnerability to try and confess her so-called love to him. What type of person does that to someone when they are vulnerable like that?"

"What do you think we should do," Juleka asked the Flower Princess, who was definitely not looking very much like her nickname at that moment.

"I think... I think we need to tell Adrien everything we know," Vallia stated.

"WHAT," Juleka yelled, probably rocking the entire houseboat when she did. "Are you serious? This could destroy Adrien. He sees Marinette as one of his best friends. If he finds out what she's done, this could destroy him and his ability to trust others."

"You are correct about that, Juleka," Vallia sighed. "But, it's better than leaving him in the dark. If he doesn't know, then he will continue to hang out with Marinette. He will continue to sit in front of her in class. And most importantly, he will be unable to avoid Alya's attempts to get him and Marinette together since he would have no clue that they would even be attempts to do that."

"It would fuel more into Marinette's obsession with him," Juleka knew that Vallia did have a point. "But, would Adrien be able to properly recover from something he would probably see as the ultimate betrayal?"

"If he has real friends with him, he could," Vallia says. "Friends that he would know in his heart would never treat him like that. It will be hard for him, but it will be better once he has an actual support system."

"Should we tell any of the others," Juleka asked her. "None of the other girls would ever get on board with this, but what about the guys? Or those outside our class?"

"I tell Lyon everything and he is a good friend to Adrien," Vallia knew she could trust her twin. "So, he would definitely be my first choice to help us protect Adrien."

"I have noticed that he does not like Marinette or Alya very much," Juleka showed how observant she was again. "And since you two are also rich, Adrien would know that neither of you would even dream of trying to use him for your own gain."

Vallia nodded again. "What about the other boys, though? I know that Nino pretty much follows Alya's lead when it comes to Adrien and Marinette ending up together."

"I think the guys would actually be on Adrien's side," Juleka says. "They did throw that amazing party that ended up attacked by that Party Crasher akuma."

"Hawkmoth really did not even try to come up with an original name that time," Vallia rolled her eyes.

"Tell me about it," Juleka agreed with Vallia.

"Well, we can definitely count on Kim to side with us and Adrien," Vallia said. "He is a lot smarter than people give him credit for."

"It also helps that as your boyfriend, you have probably ranted to him a lot about how much the girls were annoying you and creeping you out," Juleka smirked as she said it.

Vallia blushed. "You're lucky that you're correct and you're too cute for me to slap."

"You love me and you know it," Juleka giggled.

Vallia rolled her eyes again and got back on track.

"Lyon, Kim, and the other guys would certainly be on our side," she said. "While the guys are not as close with each other as the girls are, they are all still friends. And given that Party Crasher party, they obviously also care about Adrien."

"Nathaniel, Marc, Ivan, and Max may not know Adrien as well as Nino, Kim, and Lyon do, but they are still his friends," Juleka said. "Plus, Adrien is also an honorary member of Kitty Section even when he can not play with us because of his contract with Gabriel Fashion, so that does make Ivan loyal to him since he sees Adrien as a bandmate."

"Adrien has also actually been helping Nathaniel and Marc with their comic," Vallia tells her. "It turns out that Adrien loves anime, so when Nathaniel and Marc were having difficulties thinking of how to draw updated costumes for Ladybug and Cat Noir, Adrien helped them get some ideas by using his anime knowledge."

"I am... not actually surprised that Adrien loves anime," Juleka giggled.

"It does actually make sense," Vallia says. "Given that Gabriel is about as neglectful as a father can get, Adrien would probably have been raised more by Disney, cartoons, and anime than he would have been by his own father."

"Does Lyon still have that folder of evidence that he plans to use to get Adrien out of that house when it gets too much for Adrien," Juleka asked her.

"That folder has become a binder because of how much evidence that Lyon has gathered," Vallia stated. "He is waiting for the day when Gabriel pushes Adrien too hard. And given Gabriel hiring Lila when that girl is the least likely person to be a model ever, it won't be long. I mean, have you seen her hair? She looks like she has sausages dangling from her head. And that is not even touching on the fact that burnt orange is one of the WORST colors ever."

Juleka could not stop herself from laughing when Vallia said that. She may be known as the Flower Princess, but she could definitely be savage when she wanted to be. It was probably one of the few things that actually made people realize that Lyon and Vallia were siblings. Both of them could seriously smack talk like nobody's business. Neither of them started fights, but they sure as hell ended them with how great they are at verbally slapping people. Not even Chloe ever tried messing with them.

"So, we will most likely have all the boys on our side other than Nino," Juleka summarized.

Vallia nodded. "Do you think that we should try and get adults on our side as well? I mean, adults would probably be able to do more than a group of normal teens."

Juleka thought for a moment. "I... I'm not sure who we should get on our side in terms of adults. Since there will probably be legal stuff involved with his, my Ma is out. I love her, but everyone knows how much my Ma and Sabrina's dad do not get along."

"That's an understatement," Vallia knew very well how much the pirate mom and the policeman hate each other. "My dad is also out as well since he still speaks very little French. There has to be someone we can go to."

"This is definitely making me realize how much the authority figures in our lives have let us down," Juleka says. "Bustier is a nice teacher, but it is a toxic form of nice since he is always letting the bullies get away with their behavior while telling their victims to forgive the bullies even when the bullies are not sorry at all. And we all know that when it comes to Damocles, he is about as spineless as a person can get. Especially to those with money."

"Though, in a case like this, that can work in our favor," Vallia admitted. "Adrien, Lyon, and I are all rich, so Damocles would bend over backward to help us."

"Well, it would be less of helping us and more just doing what we want," Juleka said.

"Same difference," Vallia stated.

"I honestly think the best we can do is protect Adrien as best we can on our own," Juleka admitted. "Since Gabriel would probably just end up pulling Adrien from school, which is the last thing Adrien would want, we are definitely not getting him involved. Plus, I highly doubt that Bustier would do anything since she is always preaching about 'love' and 'friendship' and everything else that makes her sound like a kindergarten teacher."

"That woman has on the biggest rose-tinted glasses that I have ever seen in my life," Vallia shook her head. "It doesn't really help with the fact that it is a boy that is the victim. Gender equality may have come a long way, but that doesn't stop how guys are often ignored whenever they are the victims of a girl. During any type of rape prevention lesson, people are always talking about girls needing to protect themselves, but they hardly mention boys as anything other than the bad guy in any scenario. Guys can be victims just like girls can. Just like how you just told me how Luka has previously had stalkers."

Juleka nodded sadly. "I have seen firsthand how hard it is for guys to get any type of justice against a female assailant. Luka had to give so much evidence against the girls that no one could deny that he was actually the victim."

"It really is going to be up to us to protect Adrien," Vallia said.

But that was when Juleka's bedroom door opened suddenly, making both of the girls nearly jump out of their skin. Thankfully, it was just Luka. But, from the look on his face, they both guessed that he might have heard what they were talking about. And from how his eyes looked, he seemed to have been crying as well. Juleka knew that Luka had been crushing on Marinette. So, hearing them talk about the type of person she really is must have been like a punch to the heart.

"Luka..." Juleka tried to talk.

"How can I help," was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

Vallia smiled as they gained their first ally to protect Adrien.

*****

To say that the boys were confused would be an understatement. Luka had texted Ivan, saying that he had wanted him to come to the Liberty to look at a new song he wrote. Kim was texted by Vallia, asking him to come to the Liberty with Max so that Luka and Juleka could also play Max's akuma villain game. Nathaniel and Marc were texted by Juleka, asking them to come over since she had an idea for their comic. Lyon had just come with his sister simply because Vallia told him what was going on. She did have to lock up his bow and arrows to keep him from going after Marinette, Alya, and the rest of the Girl Squad.

The boys were all sitting in the living room of the Liberty, which actually was a lot cozier than others would think given how much Anarka really did act like a pirate. Often saying how making a mess was a way of life to her. But even then, the houseboat really was a cozy and fun place to visit. Or live, in the case of the Couffaine family. 

"You guys would not happen to know why we're all here at the same time, would you," Ivan asked the rest of them.

"Unless all of you also wanted to try out my video game, I have a zero percent chance of knowing that is happening," Max said.

"Juleka texted Marc and me, saying that she had an idea for our comic that she thought we would like," Nathaniel says.

"Luka texted me and asked me to check on a song he wrote," Ivan only got more confused.

"Vallia pretty much just dragged me here," Lyon shrugged. "Not until after she locked up my bow and arrows. She gave me a lowdown of what was happening, but I do not have every detail."

"Well, if she didn't let you bring your bow, then it probably has something to do with either Chloe or Lila," Kim chuckled. "They are the only ones other than Hawkmoth that you threaten to shoot with that thing."

"I may not be White Wolf, but I am still perfectly willing to shoot anyone that pushes me too far," Lyon smirked.

He may actually be the wolf miraculous holder, but it helped to say little lies here and there to keep his secret. Vallia also had to do the same thing to keep her identity as Beautifly a secret as well. They did not like lying. But, in some cases, it is just unavoidable where lying is the only thing they can do to keep their loved ones safe.

Vallia, Juleka, and Luka all then walked into the room. Luka took a seat with the rest of the boys as Vallia and his sister stood in front of them all.

"Our apologies for bringing you all here under false pretenses," Vallia started. "But, we needed you all here because we need your help."

"Are you two okay," Kim jumped to his feet, worried for his friend and girlfriend.

"Kim, sweetie, we're fine," Vallia had to gently get him back in his seat. "Juleka and I have talked about it at great length and we... and we need to stop Marinette, Alya, and the other girls."

"Stop them," Marc was confused. "From what?"

"We want to end this entire 'Adrienette' thing," Juleka stated.

"You mean by finally getting them together in order to stop those crazy plans Mylene is always telling me about," Ivan guessed.

"Hades, no," Vallia practically looked insulted at the idea of actually bringing Adrien and Marinette together.

"What we mean is that we feel... No... we KNOW that Marinette is probably the worst person on the planet for Adrien," Juleka had never sounded so blunt in her life.

"Huh," they made all the boys, except Lyon and Luka, get even more confused.

"You all know that when it comes to Adrien, Marinette can be crazy," Vallia said, the boys all nodding at that. "But, Marinette might be literally crazy. Juleka and I have been with the 'Girl Squad' for a while now and both of us have realized that when it comes to Adrien... Marinette is basically a stalker."

The boys all gasped at that. Though, most of them did not look like they believed the girls.

"We know that this may be hard to believe," Vallia started. "Especially since we know that Kim, Max, and Nathaniel have all been with Marinette for years in class. But, this is serious and we are not joking at all. Marinette has gone way too far with her crush. It's not even a real crush anymore. It's an obsession. A really unhealthy obsession."

"What exactly has Marinette done," Lyon asked them. "You did not exactly give me details when you dragged me here, Vallia."

"Marinette has just gone way off the deep end," Vallia says. "She has Adrien's entire schedule written down for the next THREE YEARS! Adrien certainly did not tell her that, because there is no way he would tell anyone his entire schedule for that far into the future. So, Marinette either gathered all the info online or followed him in order to learn it. Either way, it is extremely disturbing."

"Marinette also has gifts for Adrien," Juleka said. "And while that is sweet to think about at first, it is not sweet at all at the lengths she went. These gifts are all labeled, signed, and meant to be given to him for birthdays and Christmas for years to come. Even when he is turning fifty, she has a present for him. It's one thing to want to get someone a present early if they forgot a previous special occasion, but definitely not in the way Marinette does it."

"And while we feel that the girls should have been at least told about the all-boys party you guys wanted to throw for Adrien while his father was away," Vallia started again. "It was still wrong of Marinette to put on a disguise and basically break into Adrien's house that way just to be a part of the party."

"She did what," the boys gasped, having not known Marinette did that.

"Later," Juleka waved her hand to signal that they could talk about that later.

"It's just been made really clear to us that Marinette has gone off the deep end and needs to be kept away from Adrien," Vallia stated. "It's creepy, invasive, obsessive, and there could be a time where she might even end up arrested because of the lengths that she is willing to go to be close to him."

"She... She did only try out for the Mega Strikes tournament because of Adrien," Max remembered. "I will admit that being akumatized into Gamer because I was beaten by a girl was sexist of me, but Marinette had only wanted to be in the tournament because of Adrien."

"She also did try and give Adrien Luka's guitar when Jagged Stone came looking for a new guitarist," Ivan said. "That guitar means everything to Luka and she tried to just give it to Adrien even when she was well aware that Adrien plays piano, not guitar."

"There is also when Kagami's mother was akumatized," Nathaniel says. "Alix told me about how Alya and Marinette had planned for Marinette to sabotage her and Kagami's chances at the Friendship Game just because she was jealous of how close Kagami and Adrien were getting. So, she wanted to stop Kagami from winning the game even when Kagami really was just trying to make friends."

They all could not help but look at Nathaniel in weird ways. They had no idea how he had known Kagami's real reason for joining the game. Especially since they doubted that Alix knew that reason. So, Marc actually spoke up and answered their unasked questions.

"I hang around the fencing team a lot," he explained. "It helps me to write better fight scenes when I actually witness things like that. It's also why I always watch the Ladyblog whenever Alya uploads another akuma fight. So, I actually do know a number of the members of the fencing team, including Kagami. So, I told Nathaniel about it after he learned from Alix what Marinette tried to do."

They all nodded, understanding Marc's reasoning.

"Speaking of Kagami, Vallia and I were also at that movie premiere that Adrien took Kagami to," Lyon said. "We both saw that because of how jealous she got, Marinette actually teamed up with Chloe in order to sabotage Kagami. Kagami might be slightly cold and is also called the 'Ice Queen' by most people, but nobody deserves that kind of treatment."

"Marinette actually teamed up with Chloe," Ivan showed how shocked they all were. 

"That is how jealous she gets," Lyon stated. "Only even getting worse when you remember that Kagami has never actually done anything to Marinette in the few times that interacted. It could have gotten a lot worse if Vallia and I had not been secretly interfering with their plans."

"Kagami is nice when you actually get to know her, as Marc has just proven," Vallia says. "So, she definitely did not deserve to be treated like that out of something as stupid as jealousy."

"I also have not gotten over how Marinette and Alya treated Juleka when Marinette tried to start her own website," Luka crossed his arms. "I know that Marinette apologized, but that still does not excuse everything that happened. I have been trying to get Juleka to come out of her shell for a long time. And yet the one time she does, it once again all becomes part of a plan to get Marinette and Adrien together."

Juleka looked at the others in the room. She had not told her brother the full story of what had happened. Both because she knew about his growing crush on Marinette as well as because he was always very protective of her. She knew that Luka would definitely have been pissed if he had learned about everything that had happened. He was a very gentle soul, but he also could raise hell if he was made angry enough. And upsetting his loved ones was really the only way to make him that angry.

"Alright, which one of you told him about that," she asked the group.

Without any hesitation, Lyon was the one that raised his hand.

"I regret nothing," he stated.

"I should have known," Juleka facepalmed.

"Well, I happen to agree that it was very wrong with how they treated you," Lyon stated. "No offense, but you are still a very naturally shy person. So, actually volunteering to model is a big step for you. That only makes it worse that you were basically forgotten by them the moment that Adrien was brought into the picture."

"That definitely seems to be a thing with Marinette," Vallia stated. "Whenever Adrien is involved, I don't think that she can see or notice anything else."

"And being honest, I doubt Marinette would ever actually have any chance with Adrien," Juleka, of all people, said.

That certainly got their attention. Of all people in the room, they did not think that it would be Juleka out of all of them that would say something like that. As someone that had been in the same class as Juleka for quite a few years, Kim had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"As much as I agree with you, Juleka, what makes you say it," Lyon asked her.

Juleka looked shy at all the attention on her, but she answered anyway.

"Well, it has been almost a full year since we have all met Adrien," Juleka explained. "Even those that were excited, shocked, or nervous about sharing a class with a known teen model, we have all calmed down and seen him as a person. But, Marinette has not changed at all about him. She is still a complete stuttering mess that can not form a single real sentence when talking to him. I don't think that she sees Adrien as anything other than the perfect model that his father makes him be all the time."

"I actually agree with Juleka about that," Nathaniel says. "It turns out that Kagami is really great at drawing. So, Adrien has been taking her to the art club, lately. He is always doing his best to get her to laugh because of how serious Kagami always is. He likes to joke around, make puns, and is generally probably one of the biggest anime fans that I have ever met. He is the complete opposite of the 'perfect model' that Marinette fell in 'love' with."

"If what she does is love, then I am glad most girls are scared away by my Ice Prince persona," Lyon stated.

"It also helps that you are gay," Vallia added.

"That too," Lyon agreed with his twin.

It was definitely shocking just how much this situation was causing. But nothing was more shocking than how it was causing Juleka and Nathaniel, the two most quiet people in their entire class, to be the ones that were being the most vocal about Marinette and her obsession. Though, they guessed that being so quiet meant that they definitely could see things that others did not because no one ever notices quiet ones like them.

"So, what exactly are we going to do," Ivan asked Juleka and Vallia since they were obviously the ones in charge of all of this.

"And why is Nino not here," Kim asked. "Shouldn't he also be here since this clearly involves his best friend?"

"We would have invited him, but he knows about everything that Marinette and Alya have done and yet never did anything about it," Vallia says. "For all that he says that he cares about Adrien and is his best friend, he certainly does not seem to care about how obviously obsessive that Marinette is."

The boys did not look as convinced as they had been when talking about Marinette's faults. But, at the same time, they did not really have any evidence to argue against them.

"As for what we are going to do," Vallia started. "We have talked about it and we feel that Adrien needs to be told everything that has been going on."

That was definitely a shock to the guys. They were all aware of how nice Adrien was, even to the point where he was a little naive, so they did not think he would react very well to hearing about this. They worried about how Adrien would react when he would be told.

"Are you two sure that he should be told," Luka asked them. "I know that I probably know Adrien the least out of everyone here since I am not in your class, but even I know this will definitely hit him really hard."

"It is a risk, but Adrien deserves to know," Vallia stated. "If Adrien doesn't know, he will still hang out with Nino, Alya, and Marinette. And that would usually end up with him landing right in the middle of probably even more 'Adrinette' plans that the Girl Squad will set up."

"As much as this will probably hurt Adrien, it is better he learns this now rather than later," Lyon agreed with his sister. "And as long as we let Adrien know that we are his real friends, that will definitely help him heal from the damage that learning about all of this will cause him."

The group all nodded, knowing that it was the truth. They just hoped that Adrien would not be akumatized over it. Because they were sure that if he was, then he would probably become the strongest akuma that Hawkmoth would have ever created.

*****

It turned out worse than an akuma. Adrien was a complete and utter wreck who seemed to have shut down everything other than his tears.

He was currently sandwiched between Luka and Lyon as the two boys were doing their best to comfort him. While it was Juleka and Vallia that had told him, their brothers had come along to be able to be there for the blond since they knew he would react like this. And Adrien definitely needed it.

Almost as soon as Vallia and Juleka were done, Adrien looked on the verge of either passing out or breaking down. Through a very shaky tone, he asked if they had proof of what they were saying. Neither of the girls was offended since they understood that Adrien really would want proof of someone he considered a great friend acting like that before he made any real decisions.

It was a good thing that Vallia had taken photos of everything in order to have proof. She showed Adrien everything she had. Marinette's wall of pictures of him, of the entire schedule she had for him, all of the presents, and there was also a video that she took when Marinette had been on one of her rants about their "future" together. Adrien had lasted about two seconds after seeing all of it before completely breaking down.

Lyon and Luka both comforted Adrien as best they could, understanding that someone like Adrien probably just had his heart completely broken. This was probably the first time that he ever really felt a sting of betrayal like this. Not even just from Marinette, but also from Alya, Nino, and the other girls in their class as well. 

"I don't... I can't... Why did... How could..." Adrien could not form a single sentence as he sobbed.

"We knew that we had to tell you the moment that we knew Marinette had gone too far," Vallia tells him. "We couldn't let this continue."

"We are so sorry about this, Adrien," Juleka says. "You do not deserve to be treated like this by those you call friends. You are a person, not some type of prize to be won."

"I just... I have always talked about how much I hate fangirls and fanatics in general," Adrien managed to actually talk. "There have been times where girls have often tried sneaking onto photoshoots or breaking into my dressing room. Some have even tried stalking me to the point of attempting to break into the mansion. They terrify me. How could they do this to me?"

"We can try and sugar coat it for you, but that would not be helpful at all," Lyon said. "The only answer that we can give in general would be that Marinette has always had this obsession with you. And with you ending up in the same class as her, it only ended up with the obsession growing."

"You have made it clear that you want a normal life," Luka says. "I have heard from both you and your real friends how much you hate modeling. Your song is also very telling about how much you crave and hope for a normal life."

"I've just grown so tired of it all," Adrien looked and sounded so exhausted of his life. "I'm tired of running from crowds of fans, tired of having to be perfect all the time just to please my father, tired of having to look over my shoulder to see if anyone is following me, tired of never being able to hang out with my friends like a normal teen. I would give anything to be normal."

"We know that, and you have told them that, but the real problem was that they just refused to listen," Vallia said.

"You deserve better than that," Lyon tells him. "Vallia and I know more than others how hard it is to always be in the spotlight. People want to get close to us just so they might get either one of the gems in our family vault, an exotic animal from the sanctuary as a pet, or a rare plant. It's the hardest thing to really find those that want to be around us for no reason at all."

"We wanted you to know that we would be here for you," Luka says.

"I don't... know what to do," Adrien admitted. "While I have had stalkers in the past, this is the first time that it is someone I actually know."

"You do not have to do anything," Juleka places a hand on his shoulder. "We are going to be here to keep them away from you."

"I guess you can call us the Adrien Protection Squad," Vallia giggled.

"Did Lyon already threaten to shoot them with arrows," Adrien managed a small chuckle.

"I wanted to, but Vallia wouldn't let me bring my bow and arrows when she and Juleka told us about everything that was going on," Lyon admitted. "They are lucky that I am not White Wolf. Otherwise, we would be looking at some new ice statues in town."

Vallia had to convince her brother not to use his hero identity to seek revenge. Lyon had been very tempted to. If there is one thing that a wolf does, it's protect its pack. Over time, most miraculous users do tend to get more like the animal that their miraculous is themed after. It is one of the reasons why Vallia is always so good with plants given her butterfly qualities. So, Lyon was getting more like a wolf every day. Those like Ladybug, Cat Noir, Hawkmoth, and Mayura have not used their miraculous long enough for the same side effects to happen to them.

"You can be scary sometimes," Luka says. "I hope that you know that."

"Says the guy that can hear the heart songs of everyone he comes across," Lyon countered. "I've met empaths before and they are no joke."

"I think that it is really clear that we are the normal ones in our families," Vallia tells Juleka, who giggled in response.

"My mom thinks that she is a pirate on top of my brother being an empath," Juleka says. "I've always known that I am the normal one."

Adrien was able to smile at how they were all interacting with each other. Them being so normal was helping him adjust to what he had just learned about his other supposed friends. They were not treating him as if he was made of glass nor were they treating him with pity. Yes, they were worried about him and wanted him safe, but they did not do it in a way that made him feel as if he could not take care of himself.

"School is tomorrow," Adrien suddenly says. "I don't... I don't think that I can normal around any of them."

"You don't need to be," Vallia said. "You just try and go about your day as normally as possible while the rest of us run interference. But at the same time, you do not have to hide how you feel about them. You are your own person and they do not have the right to try and force you to be with Marinette just because she is obsessed with you and yet they only see it as a simple crush."

"You have no need to worry as long as the rest of us are around," Lyon tells him.

"Thanks, guys," Adrien smiled at them.

*****

The next day at school, it was definitely obvious to a lot of people outside of Bustier's class that something had changed for the nicknamed "Akuma Class." They saw that except for Nino, every other guy in the class almost seemed to form a barrier around Adrien as soon as the teen model arrived. 

After having been given permission from Adrien to tell others, Marc told his friends Aurore, Ondine, Jean, and Mirelle from his class about what was going on. They all agreed to help keep Adrien away from Marinette and the other members of the "Girl Squad" during things like lunch, recess, and other general things where all classes were together instead of separated.

Even in the actual classroom, things had definitely changed. While being supported by Vallia and Lyon, Adrien went to Bustier and requested to change where he was seated. When he told their teacher that he was no longer comfortable where he was sitting, or with who he was sitting close to, she allowed him to change where he was sitting. Adrien chose to sit in the back, next to Lyon.

Adrien moving also had the rest of his "protection squad" moving as well. Vallia, who had been previously next to her brother, moved to be next to Juleka in front of where Lyon and Adrien now were. Max and Kim sat in front of them while they allowed Chloe and Sabrina to stay in their usual seats in the front. Nathanial and Ivan were not sitting next to each other at the desk on the other side of the aisle from where Lyon and Adrien were. They wanted to keep all the girls that remained in the Girl Squad away from Adrien.

It was definitely a shock to the rest of the class when they came in. Chloe looked like she wanted to say something since she was farther away from Adrien than before. But one look from Adrien made her be quiet. Marinette was the one that looked the most upset. If it was not for the fact that she had made it to class with barely a minute to spare, she could not come up to Adrien to ask why he and the other guys had moved.

Rose also looked upset because Juleka had nothing to say about Vallia taking her place next to the goth. Lyon's icy glare also did not go missed by them at all. And since he got back his bow and arrows from where his sister had hidden them, he was a lot more dangerous.

When their class had ended, Marinette had almost made a complete beeline for Adrien. But the guys had rushed Adrien out so quickly that he had basically been a blur. Lyon, Vallia, and Juleka all stayed behind so that they could confront the other girls over what was now going to be happening from now on.

They kept the girls in the classroom, only allowing Chloe and Sabrina to leave since they were not involved in the girl squad drama.

"We have something to say to you all," Vallia said.

The girls were definitely shocked. Especially since for the first time since they had known her, Juleka was standing tall and proud. There was barely a hint of her usual shyness.

"What are you talking about," Alya was the one to ask them.

"We are talking about how you all have gotten way too far when it comes to Marinette's obsession with Adrien," Vallia answered.

"I am not obsessed," Marinette looked like she wanted to yell at them, but did not. "I'm in love with him. There is nothing wrong with love."

"If what you have been doing is love, then I want no part in that," Juleka stated.

"Juleka, why would you say such a thing," Rose looked hurt and shocked. "Marinette and Adrien will be so beautiful together."

"That fantasy is going to stay a fantasy," Lyon crossed his arms. "I have met my fair share of stalkers in the past, but you all take the cake. Especially you, Marinette."

"Stalker! How dare you call my bestie a stalker," Alya looked ready to punch Lyon.

"He's calling it as he sees it," Vallia said. "Besides, there is no better way to describe Marinette. The wall of pictures, the screensaver on her computer and her phone, the box of presents, the schedule. She is a stalker and you are all doing nothing but enabling that toxic behavior."

"I am not a stalker," Marinette protested. "I did all of that because I love him. He is just so perfect in every..."

"He doesn't want to be perfect," Juleka interrupted her. "Adrien has said time and time again that he hates everything his father makes him do, especially making him act perfect all the time just because it is 'good for the brand.' He would do anything to just be normal."

"It's awful that you have the gall to claim that you love him when you do not even seem to care about what he wants," Vallia says. "Everything that you have done that you say is because you love him is all the same stuff that a stalker would say. They all claim to be in love with their targets with most of them even delusional about being in a relationship with them. Just like your made-up fantasy future with him."

"You're crazy," Lyon was blunt, to say the least. "If I had been Adrien, I would have moved the other side of the planet to get away from people like you."

Marinette had the gall to look like she was gonna cry at the things they were saying. Alya comforted her while glaring at the three of them.

"I can not believe that you three are acting like this," she was definitely pissed. "After everything we did to get Marinette and Adrien together."

"Have you ever once tried to ask about what Adrien might want," Juleka also crossed her arms. "Did it ever cross your minds that Adrien has a say in this as well? He might not even be interested in her that way. And considering how often he calls her 'just a friend,' then I say that he has already made his feelings really clear."

"Just because he is a guy does not mean he has to automatically be into Marinette simply because she is a girl that likes him," Lyon stated. "He is allowed to like her that way or not. And I highly doubt that he is going to want to have anything to do with her from now on."

"What did you do," Marinette shouted at them.

"We told Adrien everything," Vallia said.

"WHAT," the rest of the Girl Squad yelled.

"Why would you do such a thing," Mylene looked so shocked and scared.

"For someone that thinks that Marinette and Adrien are made for each other, you sure look scared about him learning about your actions," Lyon said. 

"What you had done was not okay in any way, shape, or form," Vallia continued. "Everything that you have done is nothing other than showing that we are right about you being a stalker that is obsessed with Adrien. So, yes, we told him everything."

"And just as we knew what would happen, he was horrified, betrayed, and probably the most upset that we have ever seen him," Juleka says. "His heart was broken when he found out what you all had done. Especially Marinette. He thought she was a really good friend, but he now has seen her true colors."

"What you did was not cool," Alix glared at them.

"What was not cool was everything you guys and Marinette have done," Lyon said. "Not even just all the matchmaking plans, the schedule, and the presents, but everything else as well. Marinette, you teamed up with CHLOE because you were jealous of Kagami. Kagami never did anything to you and yet you tried to sabotage her because Adrien likes her."

"She is not the right girl for him," Marinette tried to protest.

"That is not for you to decide," Lyon yelled at her. "Adrien is his own person with his own desires. If he wants to like Kagami, then he has every right to. Especially if she likes him back. Real love is a two-way street."

"And what you did during the anniversary of his mother's disappearance was awful," Vallia said. "That was the day he needed our love and support the most. But you then made it all about you by taking advantage of his vulnerability in order to send a confession message to him. As much as we hate his other actions, Felix deleting those videos was the best thing he probably ever did in his life. Adrien did not deserve to have your selfish actions make that day even worse for him."

"I can't believe you three turned your back on us like this," Alya looked like she really wanted to punch them.

"I love him," Marinette was still showing her delusional state of mind. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"The sad part about that is how you actually believe all of that," Juleka said.

"Adrien knows everything," Lyon reminds them. "You are just lucky he doesn't want to bring up charges, which he is legally allowed to do because of your actions. Hopefully Adrien will actually be able to heal from this with the rest of us helping him."

"Time to wake up and smell the roses of reality," Vallia tells the girls. "Your ship had not only sank but it was sucked into a whirlpool never to see the light of day again."

The three of them then left the classroom, leaving the girls to try to plan more things to get Adrien and Marinette together. All plans that will be doomed to fail.

Not, the three only had one thing left to worry about. 

And that would be trying to figure out how to stop Kagami from killing the entire Girl Squad when she learns what they did.

[iwasbored777]

I disagree with that salt take that the writers are "humiliating" Marinette but I do agree that the earlier seasons didn't work as good on her emotional side of character like the most recent ones. They didn't take her this seriously and in most cases not seriously at all and that's crystal clear but I don't think they humiliated her. But she lacked that idk how to say it but they didn't work on the audience to feel her, like now. Before I just loved her but I didn't feel her, I understood her and I could relate to her but I couldn't feel her. Now I can. I think it was season 3 where they actually took turns with writing her, maybe that's why i liked that season so much. Despite giving her character development, they gave her depth that's hard to achieve and finally they do it right. Like if there is one thing I have to praise season 3 finale for it's this.

[generalluxun]

Record Scratch -A Fanfiction

Author's note: This fic is a gift for @mantabanter I absolutely loved the challenge of writing a path for these two(Chloé and Nino) to shipping. I hope those interested will enjoy the journey as much as I have! A few baselines:

This is not Alya Salt, she is amazing.

They are in their final year of Lyceé, HM is still a thing. *waves vaguely at canon and shrugs*

There will be some chapters with minor 'mature content' (light M on AO3) I'll mark those chapters as they come out. If anyone knows how to mark specific text, I could do that instead. It's not huge swaths of the story.

Full text of the chapter below the cutoff.

AO3 Link for those who would like to read there:

“-no, Nino, Nino, you okay?”

The voice seemed far away. Nino was too far away from his body to place it. A light touch shook him gently though, and with that anchor his spirit found its way back. Marinette, of course Marinette.

Nino looked up from where he sat and gave her a smile.

“Of course, Mar. I’m golden, why wouldn’t I be?”

Marinette gave him a pained smile. “Well, you’re in my seat, for starters.”

That knocked the rest of the world into focus around him. Nino blinked. Civics class, the only class he shared with Marinette now, and he was, in fact, in her seat. He didn’t have an excuse for it, or much memory of how he ended up in it this morning. All he had was a dull ache behind his ribs to explain his lack of coherence.

Marinette’s hand on his shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. “We could switch seats, if you want? At least until things…” She trailed off, her smile becoming more strained and awkward.

Nino balled up the pain. He flashed her another smile. “Nah it’s cool, Mar. I just had a mix in my head this morning on the way in, got me a little dazed. It’s cool. I’m cool.”

Nino grabbed his bag and gave Marinette a thumbs up, before heading to his seat.

It’s just one class, just fifty minutes. It’s no big deal. Things are cool. There’s no reason to be a baby about it. It’s not like-

“Hey there, Deej.”

That voice ripped right through his flimsy excuses; sweet, sincere, concerned, sad, loving, everything. Alya set her bag on the desk beside him. She smiled and the sun came out. She clasped her hands together and it was a prayer. Nino fumbled his notebook onto his desk.

“He-hey, babe-” He cut off the word and gave her an apologetic look.

Alya leaned across her chair, one knee on it. Her hair fell forward over her shoulders in a chestnut cascade he had always marveled at. “It’s okay. I mean, I just did it too. I don’t see why we can’t keep doing it, right? We’re still us.”

Nino nodded, keeping a novel’s worth of thoughts silent in his head. He turned to open his notebook. “Yeah.”

He felt, more than saw, Alya arranging herself at her desk. In his mind’s eye he could picture every motion, matching them to every little sound she made, right down to the ‘tsk’ when she realized she’d put her books back into her bag in the wrong order yet again. Class would be starting soon.

Her voice drifted across to him at a whisper. “Did you have a good weekend?”

Like an hourglass in reverse, all the warm feelings that thinking of her in the moment had generated swung down into a leaden weight in his stomach. “Yeah,” he lied.

“That’s great! We should try to do something this weekend, the group of us.”

Nino could picture it. The weight grew heavier. “Nah, I can’t.” Not entirely a lie.

“Oh, well, soon then?”

Nino pushed, “Yeah, soon, sounds good.”

The teacher walked in. Alya whispered one last thing. “I miss you.”

------------------------

“You’re going to come out with us this weekend, right?” Adrien nudged Nino.

Nino slung his bag onto one shoulder. It was getting easier to lie every time he was asked today. “Nah, dude. I can’t. I have a project. See you tomorrow, though?”

From the way Adrien’s cheerful expression fell, Nino hadn’t done a great job this time. In his defense, he was a bit run down after the other half-dozen invites today.

Adrien put a hand on Nino’s shoulder, in exactly the same way Marinette had. They’re so like each other these days. The thought was a happy one; Nino loved his friends. Then a hundred little ways he and Alya had aped each other over the years rose up and dragged it all back down.

Adrien looked Nino in the eyes. “Don’t shut yourself up. We're here for you. Life’s still good, and you gotta work for the future, right?”

Nino put his hand over Adrien's. “Yeah, dude, I got it.” He gently nudged Adrien’s hand off his shoulder. “I’m cool.”

Adrien paused, but then nodded. He flashed a smile that bounced right off Nino, then stepped back and waved. “Take care, Nino. See you tomorrow.”

Watching Adrien go, Nino stopped suppressing the ache. It grew inside of him, filling him up to his fingers and toes. With it came a numbness and tingling. The sharp cuts, the stings, the wounds, all faded into the background as gray overtook color in the world. He didn’t need to put on a face, he didn’t need to be Nino. He didn’t even need to be.

He was floating in his purgatory, slowly piecing together the steps that would take him home, when a voice with the ability to cut through even the thickest fog reached him. It started off softly.

“-oh hold on, I need to fire off a reply to this.”

Nino was dragged from a memory made on a picnic blanket; laughter and warmth turned upside down into regret and loss. The voice resolved out of the fog into a yellow blob. That blob sharpened slowly into a person. That person resolved into a collège-era nightmare.

Chloé Bourgeois swiped her thumb across her phone screen, then turned her devilish blue eyes on him. “You look hideous.”

If Nino had more energy left, he would have run screaming. Instead he stood stunned, then let life throw whatever this was going to be at him. “Thanks, Chloé. We done now?”

Chloé’s energy was checked, but only for a moment. She gave him a flat stare, then shook her head quickly. She gestured with her phone at him. “I know what your problem is.”

Nino adjusted his bag. “About a hundred and seventy-five CM right now, and blonde.”

She didn’t pick up on it right away. Of course she didn’t. Alya would have.

Eventually the connections clicked through and Chloé’s slack expression curled into a chagrined smirk. “Oh, so you’re a snapping turtle, now? No, dummy. I mean your other problem. The one going on up here.” Chloé stepped in and flicked the brim of Nino’s cap up.

He backpedaled and swatted the air between them. “Hey, you haven’t talked to me in almost a year. Why don’t we keep it that way?”

Instead of being put off, her eyes sparked. Chloé leaned in, closing the distance between them faster than he could retreat. “Ha! I knew it! Yes. I and only I know what you need. You can run around with your little pack of loser-buddies all you like, and you’ll still be like this by the time we graduate. Pathetic. Is that really what you want?”

The combination of her close presence and her verbal assault reduced him to a simple defensive, “No?”

Chloé straightened up out of his space, a smug little smile blossoming on her pink painted lips. “See? Then you really must come with me. I’ll have you sorted out in no time. I have just the thing. Come on!”

She snatched him by the wrist and turned, pulling him after her with surprising strength. Nino stumbled after her for several steps before he regained his balance and braced himself, slewing them to a halt.

Chloé rounded on him, her eyes flashing. Nino winced under that long forgotten sharpness, but remained immobile. Chloé threw his hand away from her and stood tall again, hands on hips. “Make up your mind, turtle soup. Are you coming or not? I don’t ask twice.”

Or even once usually, Nino mused. It was inane. It was Chloé. In all the years he had known her, this was a long accepted truth: No good could come from anything she had planned.

Nino knew what was at home, though. Quiet looks and unasked questions, until it all drove him to shut himself up in his room again until the morning. A night spent staring at music that wouldn’t play, compositions that wouldn’t blend, and beats that lay listless.

He knew what lay at home. The path Chloé offered was a mystery. That unexpected truth drilled a hole in his armor of apathy. He shuffled his feet and decided. “Yeah, I’ll come. Don’t get any ideas, though.”

“Perish,” Chloé drawled.

------------------------------

The ride to the hotel was unsettling. Now that she had him, Chloé didn’t seem inclined to actually talk to him. She sat, legs crossed, and scrolled on her phone. The most attention she paid him was when he experimented with the controls on the door. He accidentally slid the partition between them and the driver down part way. He got a disgusted huff as he scrambled to raise it again.

Nino began to imagine himself in a mafia car. The private eye who had gotten too close to the truth. He was being taken up to the penthouse for a little ‘talk.’ He’d have to use all his wits to avoid wearing a pair of cement shoes in the river. Nino glanced at Chloé again. She was the big boss's moll. Rather, that’s what everyone thought. In a twist she would be the big boss herself, running the operation from inside her dupe of a father’s hotel. Nino’s chances of survival were slim. How would he escape?

This fantasy lasted him on the walk through the hotel lobby. The gaudy gold and marble only served to build it all up. He was well and truly lost in a world of excitement and drama as Chloé let him into her suite.

The slanting light of the evening sun bathed the room in yellows as we entered. BeeBee crossed to the windows. Every step of her walk was a poisonous invitation. The roll of her hips, the sway of her hair - she was a venomous creature, but more than one man had succumbed to that bite. Would tonight be my turn?

Nino balked. That line of thinking had gone places. He shook his head and refocused.

She drew the curtains, the better for privacy. Privacy for what? I regretted not bringing my piece. It’s not like me to hurt a lady, but this lady was trouble with a capital T. As she turned, the light still filtering through the curtains threw her features into darkness, just two blue orbs and pink lips in shadow. She fixed me with that sapphire stare and spoke.

“You think you can hide it. Maybe you can, from run of the mill losers, but you can’t hide the truth from me.”

I swallowed. Just what had I gotten myself into? Where was the thrust and parry? Where were the little word games? This dame might just be deadlier than I imagined. I cast about for something, anything, to distract her.

“It’s a nice place ya got here.” I stalled.

It almost worked. She stepped into the light and those eyes sparked from predator to childish delight. She turned, gesturing at the decor in decadent gold and verdant green.

“You like it?”

She froze before I could answer, and that head of silken blond coils turned back to me. Those sapphire eyes narrowed to gleaming blue slits.

“Oh, you’re good.” Ha, no way I could be that lucky. Still I had to play the game.

My mind raced as she crossed towards me. The click of each of her heels upon the hard floor was a gunshot. When would the real one come?

“Why did you bring me up here? If you already knew, why bother to drag me all this way?”

She stopped just out of arm’s reach, hand on hip. Her perfume closed the gap and grabbed me by the throat. She raised one arm to gesture to the other room, and her oversized blazer slipped. The straps of her undershirt presented one bare shoulder, a distraction. One I could ill afford. A jacket that big could hide a weapon, and she was just the woman to use one.

Invitation turned to business. “Some things are better done in private, don’t you think? Away from prying eyes? Now, are you going to come clean, or do we need to do this the hard way?”

I’d made a mistake coming here. Now I just had to get out with my life. All I had was the bag on my shoulder. I could use it; knock her down and make a break. No. Her security would have me before I could make the lobby. I’d ‘fall out a window’ and that’d be the end of Nino Lahiffe, private eye. I had to get her closer. A hostage might not be the most heroic of tactics, but it might just keep me alive. Whatever weapon she was carrying would give me a fighting chance against whoever she sent after me.

“The hard way? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You brought me here. I think the ball’s in your court.”

Her superior smile dropped, I missed it instantly when faced with the glower that took its place. She curled the fingers of her gesturing hand into a slow fist. “I see.”

She took a step closer. I steeled myself. That smile was back, and its confidence had me second guessing. She leaned in close.  My palms were sweaty. There was victory in those eyes. I’d make my move in 3… 2… 1..

She breathed, “Alya.”

The world snapped back into focus. The sweet release of another time and place were torn cruelly away and Nino’s heart punished him for seeking relief. Nervous tension turned into hot, sticky, useless energy. “Wha-what about ah- mm Alya?”

Chloé drew back. Her triumphant smile now a full smirk. “Oh puh-lease. You’ve been walking around like five akumas stacked on top of each other for more than a week now. If Shadowmoth hadn’t graduated to criminals from school kids, you’d have a higher count than me by now. When one of the golden couples breaks up, it's all across the school."

All across the school. There was a reality to those words. A finality that he had kept at arm's length even through everything. The fragile escape of seconds ago was completely obliterated. Nino sagged. "Yeah, so what?"

Chloé scoffed. "So, you. Come on." She turned and walked to the sitting room. 

Nino dropped his bag. He was on autopilot following her. He was crashing after his reprieve and someone pulling and pushing him into place was a familiar feeling, even if the love was absent. 

That thought rolled him down another slope of memories. Alya had always been the’ together’ one, the one who had a plan. Following along was easy and comfortable. Only now, he had no idea what to do with himself. All the advice he was getting wasn’t working.

“You’re sad.” The acerbic voice pierced his fog.

“Yeah.” Autopilot.

“You’re downright miserable.”

“Yeah.”

“She left you.”

Nino swallowed. A minor rebellion brewed, not against Chloé, against reality. “Not left. It’s ah- mutual. It’s like, just a sensible thing for, you know, university.”

He finished in a mumble, staring at his feet. He was trying to remember all the facts and reasons Alya had given him, ones his friends had assured him all made sense. He shuffled his feet and pushed himself to look up. If he could meet Chloé’s gaze, he could be right.

When he did, though, it blasted his feeble defense. She was leaning on a marble counter -Was this room remodeled too? He didn’t have the energy to take note- looking so completely sure of herself that Nino felt embarrassed for protesting.

“Really…” she drawled again, putting a nail in the coffin of his argument. She turned, leaning back against the counter, elbows propped on it. “Are you mad?”

“What? No!” That was an easy declaration. “Why would I be mad? She’s going through the same thing I am right now. We’re still gonna be friends. It’ll work out. After university, who knows? We could get back together.”

Chlé raised an eyebrow. That was all it took; he’d made her counterarguments all on his own. He’d done it a hundred or more times already. Nino looked away. He grimaced, the truth of it threatening to drag him down again.

Chloé cooed, “I can help you.”

Her slouched posture had her blazer pooling around her waist, leaving both shoulders bare and emphasizing what little her lithe physique left her under the shirt. The height she’d grown into made it a long trip up those slender curves to her sharp features. Scenarios in black and white leapt from the pages of detective novels in lurid detail. Nino felt sick. Moreso because a tiny, injured voice buried deep growled, ‘Go ahead.’ He squashed it.

He had a better, smarter, angle on this. “Why?”

Eyes half-lidded, brightened. She laughed and flicked the fingers of one hand. “None of your other little buddies seems to have a clue. I bet they have all the support in the world, don’t they? Cheer up. It’ll work out. You’ll feel better in time. You’re still friends. She still loves you. Years will pass before you know it. You never know what will happen. I’ll bet your lovely little mirror couple even went on about how long and hard their little thing took.”

Each pronouncement had a matching memory in his head, a matching moment, a friendly line, a look, a touch, word for word. Nino felt the prick of a ghostly knifepoint between his shoulders. He wasn’t in a mafioso’s office, but he was still in danger. “Yeah, so? You didn’t answer my question.”

His reaction sparked another laugh. Chloé turned around, propping herself up, leaned over the counter the other way now. Nino kept his eyes up. She traced a finger along the marble to a little concealed switch. “If I know what to do, then I’m better than all of them put together.”

Of course. Years apart, but all the same. The knifepoint faded. Nino clenched his fists. “This is all just some dumb revenge game?”

Something in his voice made her look back over her shoulder at him. He’d expected to catch her out, instead those eyes were bright again. “There it is,” she purred.

Without waiting for an answer she pushed herself off the counter. “Why can’t it be both? You need help. I can do that, and I absolutely get to enjoy being the one who has the answer this time. What does it matter to you, as long as you get what you need?”

She reached back, tapping the switch, and her room transformed. The counter split, opening and retracting. Panels in the walls spun. White Marble was replaced with black metal. Speakers of all sizes lined the walls, surrounding them. Panels near the floor opened to subs. The counter had blossomed into…

Nino’s eyes widened. Professional lust surged. “What kind of a sound system is this?”

“The most expensive one, I’m sure.”

Her smug smile barely registered. Nino had eyes only for the spread before him. Multiple mixing boards, studio monitors, rigs that looked so custom he would have to tinker with them just to be sure. Nino’s fingers twitched. He took a step towards it and when he received no reproach he stepped up to the display, running his hands over the consoles. His mind raced, organizing it all in his head, familiarizing himself with it instinctively.

Amid it all, Chloé whispered close to his ear. “You need to be angry.”

It snapped him back again. Nino had begun to feel like a swimmer struggling against undertow. He turned his head to her. “Angry? I can’t be angry at Alya. I love her. She’s done nothing wrong. I screwed that up once already.”

Chloé tapped a touchscreen set into the display. It was a simplified music access point. All around it were little taped notes and arrows. One of the notes read: ‘Vibration things.’ Nino was pretty sure it was controls for the woofers.

She groused. “I don’t see why you can’t be angry at her. She’s such a-” Chloé cut herself off, waving a hand. “Whatever. You don’t need to be angry at her. Just, be angry!”

Nino’s eyes followed her hands, but she was moving too quickly, not even letting screens load. “I don’t want to be-”

Hard rock swallowed his reply. Two riffs in, Chloé jabbed a set of sliders, pushing them all the way to the top without restraint. The speakers roared guttural growls. Notes were tortured beyond music into painful waves of violent sound. Nino clapped his hands over his ears, but not before something within him responded to the cacophony. It tickled his joints and rumbled a warning.

He looked back to Chloé and received another shock. She was hunched over the console, in the backlit glow her face was flushed and contorted. Her mouth was open but what she was saying, screaming, was lost in the storm. There were lyrics- words in the music someplace, but they were overrun.

Nino reached for the controls. Chloé turned to him, feral light shining in her eyes. She hit another set of sliders, and the subwoofers exploded across the overlapping waves. They hit him with a physical force. Nino staggered, each pulsating throb found an echo within. He squeezed it down, falling to one knee. He wasn't sure what was happening, but he knew, more than anything, he couldn't let what was rising meet what was pounding on the gates.

"Chloé!" Nino bellowed. The woofers ate his voice.

The beat slammed him again and again. It was shaking something loose; a crust of blackened ash clinging to his bones. Flashes, Alya, smiling, laughing, wonderful, gone. Nino pushed back. Shelter! He could protect… he didn't know. He could protect… himself. He just had to hold out.

The silence, when it came, was deafening. Nino was shaking. His brain struggled to unscramble itself. He gulped for air, pushing himself up.

The other sound in the room registered - panting. 

Chloé was supporting herself on the console. She was smiling, red-faced. Most strikingly, she wore a sheen of sweat and wasn’t freaking out about it. She laughed, shook her head, and laughed again before standing and wobbling drunkenly. “Coward.”

Nino shook his head, trying to chase the ringing out of his ears and the tremors out of his limbs. It felt like something had cracked inside of him. “You’re crazy.”

Chloé reordered herself in record time. Hair touched up, blazer straightened, and expression molded back into her far more familiar mask. “Well, yes, but that’s beside the point, isn’t it? I’m right. You’ll see eventually.”

Nino sniffed. “You don’t know me.” It rang petulant to his own ears.

“I know anger. We both know that, don’t we?” she smirked. “You had it all right there, all you had to do was let it out. You can’t hide what it did to you.”

Nino crossed his arms. “Made my teeth chatter and probably gave me tinnitus,” he grumbled. “That’s about it.”

Chloé stepped up to him again, perfume, presence, person. She raised a hand and Nino braced, but it was the lightest of tickle-touches as she lifted moisture from his cheek. The act drew the sensation to the forefront. The two streaks he hadn’t even felt amid the chaos painted themselves overtop of everything else.

Chloé held the drop of moisture on the end of her fingertip. “When are you going to let yourself be angry?”

A rumble inside answered. Something pushed at the cracks. Nino averted his gaze. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to- “I- look. I don’t need to be angry, I don’t want to be angry. This isn’t about being angry. Sorry to disappoint you, Chloé, but you’re still just as wrong now as you always were. This is about me and Alya, and no one else.”

“Of course.” The words were ice in the air.

Chloé turned away from him, and he could breathe again. She crossed the room to the shrouded windows. Nino raised his head to follow her with his eyes. She kept her back to him and waved over one shoulder.

“Off with you, then. There’s nothing for you here, I suppose.”

That’s it? Nino felt oddly cheated. There should be a fight, right? Chloé didn’t just take getting told off, especially not by him.

He reached out toward her back, but never took the accompanying steps. The rumble threatened again and he snatched his hand back. “Yeah, umm… thanks for trying, I guess.”

Another hand wave was all he got, and an exaggerated rise and fall of her shoulders in a huff. Nino took the escape, and ducked back to the entryway. He grabbed his bag, and bolted from the room. Too worked up to wait, he took the stairs three at a time on the way down.

He didn’t stop running until he was all the way home and  in his room. On the other side of the door, Chris’s ‘Yo, bro, what’s up?’ was safely ignored. 

Nino dropped his bag and sagged into his desk chair. His heart was still racing, and he couldn’t blame it entirely on the run. It was still there, clinging to his bones, that crust of blackened ash. He could feel the cracks. He could feel something oozing.

He reached for his phone-

No. Who could he talk to? Who would know what to do? Pep talks, invites, and hugs, when what he needed was…

Nino shook his head to kill those thoughts. He wheeled himself over and scrambled on his shelf for- there it was. He pulled the orange-bound album out and flipped through it by the light of his window and the evening stars. Pictures in shadow, memories of her. Happy times recorded forever were a mortar in the cracks.

I’ll be fine. It’s fine. I love Alya. She’s right. This is for the best.

[boom-fanfic-a-latta]

ok something I will warn about revelation though (since it is the most mediocre episode in the season as far as I've watched. Again, this season's full of banger episodes, this is just like the one exception and I'm sad it's like I think important-):

Istg why didn't they properly address the fact that Alya knows that Marinette is Ladybug and Lila claimed to be best friends with Ladybug. Like. Alya you know that Marinette/actually Ladybug despises Lila. You know that. You know her. YOU'RE her best friend. Like i know as a teenager myself we aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed but I feel like this is a bit too obvious for her to not even acknowledge. Or for Marinette to not even bring up. Like why isn't Mari pointing that out either.

Also I just wish she'd like. Just tell people about how Lila literally threatened her. Like just tell Alya about that come on girl tell her what Lila said-

(Ok with the latter one I'm guessing since Marinette is like. Very anxious and stuff she might just be too paranoid about the possibility of Alya thinking that SHE'S lying about it [even if that's probably not what would happen I know from experience that paranoia doesn't exactly stem from intelligence and rationale-] to say anything about it. Like especially back in Season 3 where Alya didn't yet know that she's Ladybug. and by the time Season 4 Gang of Secrets happens Lila hasn't really been doing much so she probably wasn't at the forefront of Mari's mind. And then going into Season 5 it's probably just been so long that she'd think Alya would doubt her 'cus "if it happened that long ago then why didn't you tell me sooner?/why are you only telling me this now?" And- again I don't think Alya would assume she's a lying bxtch or anything, she'd probably assume it was an akuma pretending to be Lila first or that Lila had already been akumatized or something, but. Yeah, again, paranoia and stuff-)

Though thinking back on it I kinda like how Hoaxer as an akuma is like. basically the show version of the dumb way some salt fics act like Lila could just say literally anything and no matter how stupid people would believe it without question. So that's literally what Hoaxer's power is. Including that one thing I saw pop up a few times in fanfics where she lies about Marinette being Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth/Monarch. Like she literally does that exact lie and the only reason people believe it is because her powers are literally mind control stuff. So yeah that was clever I liked that-

(Tbh a lot of stuff about that episode felt like it was basically just. Looking at salt fics and saying "this is what would actually happen in the show with these scenarios" and as someone who generally dislikes salt fics that's kinda. Idk, cathartic? I'm just sad at the lack of Alya realizing Lila is a piece of shxt who threatened her best friend but then again I feel like if that happened then Alya probably would've been the one to get akumatized and that would've been a game over I think considering she knows who Ladybug is XD would be cool if they did like a cat blanc or ephemeral kind of episode on that concept though, maybe give Marinette a little more trauma making her think that if she ever exposes Lila then that'll lead to the end of the world and she'll just have to live thinking this and-

I like subjecting my blorbos to the horrors I'm sorry-)

Tbh I think a lot of my opinions on the episode may just be tainted by the fact that seeing lying in fiction upsets me when I don't know for sure the liar is gonna be outed by the end. Which isn't a fault with the episode it's just a personal thing. So idk if I'm judging the episode right or not it may be better than I had thought especially looking back on it like this and just thinking about the aspects I did like-

though again I also just. Hate like everything they've done with Chloe and that includes this episode and Lila's campaign in it-

the stuff that happened toward the end of the episode with Marinette resigning as class rep seemingly with the idea that Lila having that position will lead to her exposing herself (?) has me hooked tho-

also just. All the stuff with Nathalie-

man you have a lot of thoughts

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

Simply put, Marinette is half French/half Asian with a more French appearance, which is something that is not uncommon. Also, the show is French so that's why they chose to make her look French. No need to overcomplicate things or even respond to any salt nonsense.

I'm very aware of that, considering that I can think for myself and I happen to have something called "common sense" (which marinette salters lack), and it's not "overcomplicating" to call out the racism in the fandom. People like you always tell others to not call out things like racism and sexism because it's "nonsense" but the actually bigoted people don't think of it as nonsense. So yes, it is very much needed to respond to racist and sexist salt takes in the fandom, thank you very much.

[chatonnoir]

if a lot of people hate Marinette for liking Adrien a lot and view her as not having much personality, then why is Luka so popular if a lot of his screentime and character is about being Marinette's alternate love interest?

you know why