Cyan

Bear in mind, the Luke trilogy is a generic hero’s story. The Anakin trilogy also had some elements of a the hero’s story trope. And now Rey’s trilogy is promising to be a generic hero’s story again.

Star Wars’ wars always felt like fantasy war to me. Rebels versus Empire. Republic versus Separatists. Gondor versus Mordor. Potter versus Voldemort. Rogue One diverts from the narrative of the inherently Good™ Rebel Alliance and the antagonizing Evil™ Empire; by blurring the line between good and evil. The movie reminds you of the virtueless Middle Eastern wars.

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So, a big fad throughout the fandom at the moment is giving Miraculouses to the supporting cast, and I am SO BEHIND THIS. It would develop the show beyond the status quo and freshen it up spectacularly across seasons, because if it keeps being a magical girl monster-of-the-week show with wacky antics ad nauseum then I’m going to probably lose interest fairly quickly. Some of the most popular miraculous assignments are Alya receiving the fox miraculous, Nino receiving the turtle miraculous ( @thelastpilot ) and alternatively Lila receiving the real, actual fox miraculous. I’m going to throw my two cents in on what thematically would work with the rest of the show.

First of all, we know three miraculous holders for definite and one for almost definite. Marinette is Ladybug, Adrien is Cat Noir, Master Fu is the unnamed turtle hero and the likelihood is Gabriel is Hawkmoth/Papillon. The thing is, if you look at miraculous holders and their miraculouses, a pattern of character starts emerging.

Let’s start with Marinette.

Marinette is, in short, a clumsy klutz with terrible luck, who normally you wouldn’t trust with giving an ounce of responsibility to – not because she wouldn’t take it seriously, but because she seems totally incompetent. The ladybug miraculous, on the other hand, is the miraculous of luck itself, with the most responsibility of all the miraculouses – and indeed, when Marinette transforms into Ladybug, almost all her clumsiness goes straight out the nearest window and she gains HUGE amounts of responsibility – she’s the one responsible for cleaning up the mess after an Akuma attack. The miraculous is not given to Marinette because she’s the best person for the job – far from it, she acknowledges in the origins episode Alya would be a far better fit. However, what’s important is that she has the capacity to grow into the role of Ladybug – and she well and truly does.

Now, let’s look at Adrien.

Adrien is a rich kid who’s incredibly lucky – he’s had everything fall into his lap from a young age, and has had competence (fencing, multilingualism etc.) drilled into him, at the cost of not being able to loosen up and socialise. His miraculous transforms him into Cat Noir, the poster boy for destruction and bad luck, with a kwami, Plagg, who’s constantly getting himself into the kind of destructive shenanigans you’d expect from Marinette through his own hedonism. See the pattern? Adrien and Marinette both receive the miraculouses that don’t represent them – they represent everything they aren’t – but everything they could be if they developed.

Now let’s look at Master Fu and Gabriel, because they’re a little different, but equally as important.

Master Fu, on the surface, seems like an ideal fit for the turtle in terms of alignment. The turtle in symbolism represents age, wisdom, protection. Master Fu stands for all these things – but Master Fu is a miraculous holder beyond his prime. He is at the end of his development. I have a feeling if we ever saw young Fu, we’d see him as a figure of youthful energy, who just wants to let loose and have fun, possibly even be anti-authoritarian when it comes to adults. This should sound true of another character in the show, and I’ll get back to that.

Gabriel, if everything is hinting at what we think it’s hinting at, however, does not fit the butterfly miraculous at all. The butterfly represents stages of life, and change, moving on, transformation. It’s heavily hinted Gabriel’s wife is dead – at the very least, Hawkmoth/Papillon has Adrien’s mother’s picture in his locket. Hawkmoth/Papillon’s goal now seems to be to attain the miraculouses so he can resurrect his dead wife. He’s not accepting death, and he’s not accepting the creed of his miraculous – he’s rejecting it, twisting it, corrupting it, thus becoming the supervillain who uses his Kwami’s powers against their will.

When a miraculous is granted to an owner, they can choose to learn from it, or reject it. But most importantly, they are granted to people who lack the qualities their miraculouses represent – their character flaws are what the miraculous works to iron out. That being said, let’s look at Lila.

Lila is a compulsive liar. Her Akumatised form is presumably the actual hero that emerges from the fox miraculous – a hero of lies and illusions. This is unhealthy for her – the miraculous isn’t helping her overcome her weaknesses, it’s only accentuating her character flaws. Lila will never grow as a person if she truly becomes Volpina.

So who actually needs secrets, lies and illusions in their life? Well, it’d be someone for whom truth is all-consumingly destructive. Someone whose self-destructive pursuit of the truth puts not only herself, but other people in the line of fire, and whose Akumatised form represents truth at all costs. I’m talking, of course, about Alya.

This is why fox!Alya appeals to me so much – because Alya would be able to learn and grow from the fox miraculous, because it represents traits that she needs to attain. Now, let’s look at the other popular miraculous assignment – turtle!Nino. That thing I mentioned earlier? Here it comes again.

Nino is the epitome of youthful vigour in the show – everything from his style to his DJing to his horribly outdated slang in the English dub (seriously, who the hell is a Totally Radical Dude in the 21st Century!? No-one. No-one is who.) His Akumatised form is Bubbler, a childish clown who tries to exile all adults. If there’s one person in the show who NEEDS the turtle miraculous and its traits of wisdom, age and protection, it’s Nino. This miraculous was MADE for Nino – right down to the outdated slang, providing an added meta bonus to the English dub that Nino becomes a massive allusion to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

This is why I love fox!Alya and turtle!Nino – because they work thematically with who has already received miraculouses. This begs the question – what happens to Lila?

I’d like to suggest something I think no-one else has thought of. I present, a digression: Peacock!Lila.

Peacocks are about vision, kind-heartedness and integrity – the peacock miraculous represents everything the fox miraculous doesn’t. If Lila became the peacock miraculous hero, she’d learn and develop SO MUCH MORE than if she became Volpina. She’d truly have the redemption and character arc that she needs – she’d learn there are more ways to solve a problem than lies, and that truth can be just as valuable. Likewise, this is why Peacock!Alya would actually be unhealthy for her – because it would only drive her even deeper into her already destructive drive for truth and justice.

This is what I call the Miraculous Character Development Theory. I dunno, it was just a thing that occurred to me.

NASA scientists have reported that they’ve successfully tested an engine called the electromagnetic propulsion drive, or the EM Drive, in a vacuum that replicates space. The EM Drive experimental system could take humans to Mars in just 70 days without the need for rocket fuel, and it’s no exaggeration to say that this could change everything.

But before we get too excited (who are we kidding, we’re already freaking out), it’s important to note that these results haven’t been replicated or verified by peer review, so there’s a chance there’s been some kind of error. But so far, despite a thorough attempt to poke holes in the results, the engine seems to hold up.

And the science community was like okay that… there’s no way that works.

Then they tested it theoretically and it worked.

Then NASA was like okay but technically this breaks one of Newton’s laws so even if it theoretically goes it won’t like, actually go. So they built it and tested it more and it works.

So what we have now is the scientific community slowly cautiously freaking out because this GODDAMN EM DRIVE breaks the RULES OF PHYSICS but every time we test it, it FUCKING WORKS.

The EM drive is in scientific community known as the Resonant Cavity Thruster drive, or affectionately, the Cannae Drive (I cannae do that, sir!).

Basically, it converts electrical energy into kinetic energy. What’s the big deal? You think. Tesla cars do the same! Well, yeah, but there’s a difference.

Cars move because of Newton’s third law: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The turning of the wheels pushes against the road, which in reaction pushes back at the wheels, which means the car moves forward.

Rockets do the same. They push fuel downwards, which in reaction pushes the rocket upwards. Now this is the freaky thing: the EM drive uses no fuel! It appears there’s a force, without a reaction force. Which is in violation with Newton’s third law!

Now, this doesn’t immediately mean Sir Isaac Newton was wrong in his Principia. As you may have noticed, I used the word ‘appear’ in the previous paragraph. Scientists worldwide are hypothesizing and experimenting fervently, trying to explain the propulsive force. One of those hypothesises that were eliminated, if I remember correctly, was that the expansion of the material of the engine itself due to heating, might have produced false measurements. Another hypothesis, which is a bit more difficult to experiment, is that the EM drive pushes against the quantum field of particles which quickly pop into existence and vanish instantly.

All in all, I’m very excited about the future of the EM Drive. Doubting reality as we know it (as stated above) , or more specifically, the third law of Newton, is too hasty a conclusion; as there is a myriad of hypothesises to disprove before we can conclude to that.