bug ⨾ out !

Ah, yes… the old excuse of ‘Félix doesn’t have good chemistry with Marinette’. As someone who has written a 26+ chapters story with the setting in the Ladybug PV Universe, I have to say that I have never encountered any problems where it was “impossible” for me to write Félix and Bridgette’s dynamics without creating bad chemistry between them.

Although, maybe it’s because I’m using a very special and very unique writing technique known as - character development.

Honestly, the more I think about Miraculous Ladybug and its characters, the more I think that the only reason they decided to make Adrien a Nice Guy is because they couldn’t bother writing some actual character development for him and instead decided to just hand him everything he wants on a silver platter. After all, isn’t it easier when your character already is super cool and super special and has just the right amount of trauma to make people sympathize with him in order to let him get away with literal murder (on multiple occasions!)?

To me, Adrien is a very one-dimensional and bland character who has no progress aside from flipping an internal switch and no life aside from obsessing over a girl. Take away his role as Cat Noir and him being Gabriel Agreste’s (the main villain) son, and there is really nothing that makes him appealing nor interesting as a character. Even if he is given an opportunity to develop as a character, he whines until the universe bends backwards to reward him without doing anything to deserve it.

It is also hilarious how they brought back Félix to be the one to actually progress the plot instead of letting either of the main characters figure out that Gabriel is Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth/Monarch, because they need to focus on unnecessary drama instead of actual story progression.

Part of the problem is that the writers here rushed things from the start.

They wanted a love square but didn’t want to make any real effort to set it up. So rather than show how it gets started, WHY either character would fall in love with each other, or even have scenes that showcase and give legitimacy to all sides of the love square, they instead chose to start right out the gate with shenanigans caused by Marinette in love with Adrien who is Chat in love with Ladybug who is Marinette. And since they really need to really highlight that this really is really love, they show a lot of cringe-inducing scenes to remind us all that Marinette is in love with Adrien. And have they mentioned she’s in love with him? Because she’s in love with him.

They also wanted heroes but didn’t really set up how they got there or learned how to use their powers or became so trusted by the city. There’s no training. Little indication of what made them qualified over anyone else. Origins had to be tacked to the end of the first season to finally give a clue and even that ended up contradicting so much of what had already been shown.

They wanted the love square and superhero partners who were in a love square. So that is exactly where they started things instead of where they built to.

Most good romance stories don’t start with the characters in love. Hell, many of them start with the characters very much in dislike or hate. Seeing how they start out and progress and end up falling for each other and getting together is half the fun of a good romance.

In this light, the chemistry between Felix and Marinette doesn’t have to be perfect from the get-go. That they needed it to be and were so intent to have things already start things off that way that they chose to abandon Felix and his setup when it wouldn’t work indicates impatience on the part of the writers.

The other part of the problem is that they went into this with an endgame pairing and no real idea how to work towards it. At least not well. Because this pairing HAS to be endgame, many shows and books pretty much make it clear from the get-go that these two are going to end up together. But because they can’t just HAVE the duo in question get together too soon and lose that drama, they throw in some romantic rivals for each of them to be with temporarily until they finally figure out (despite somehow already knowing) that they were REALLY in love with each other. This makes the romance tedious because everyone KNOWS what the endgame pairing is going to be. It’s made even more asinine because the characters themselves are clearly crushing on each other (whether or not they know it) so there’s really no reason they can’t just confess and get together except that the plot demands they don’t. It also causes the OTHER problem that a good half of the time, it’s the other relationships they’re made to have along the way that are actually better. They’re sweeter, healthier, more interesting, and the people involved seem happier. So because the writers have to reverse track to get back to that planned endgame pairing, they do something—usually something rushed and poorly planned out—to nix that relationship in order to force the endgame pairing while ignoring that in doing so, the endgame pairing is itself forced.

If they wanted the endgame so badly that they had to replace one of the characters entirely to make it happen, maybe it just isn’t a good endgame pairing? Maybe instead of finding a perfect Adrien for the perfect endgame, they should have been looking at the flaws of the two characters they originally wanted to use and try to work out how they would get there and how they would need to change? Not just to be a perfect couple, but to make themselves better by the end. That’s where character development needs to come into play.

The other OTHER part of the problem is that they wasted time with filler and random relatively unimportant plots for the sole purpose of having a single character “learn a lesson”. The same character at that. Every episode.

How much focus could other characters have gotten had they had the time? How much could the plot have been moved forward if they’d allowed the characters to actually be proactive? How much time could have been freed up to offer that necessary focus if we removed all the unnecessary filler scenes full of cringe, frustration, and second-hand embarrassment?

And the final part of the problem is that they stick to the “Status Quo is God” setup despite all odds, and that just wouldn’t work for any male lead except Adrien. Felix in the PV and in canon is not a static character. Unlike Adrien, he is driven and proactive in ways Adrien is not and cannot be. In the PV, he became a “hero” to try to break his bad luck curse. In canon, he played both sides in order to secure his safety and freedom, with no real thought of the consequences until he’s actually hit with them. He is a selfish character. Selfish and yet understandable. 

So you know what?

For example, here are some secrets Chat keeps:

Knowing Ladybug's identity in Chat Blanc: This benefitted him because he could date Ladybug without her knowing he was Chat or that he knew her identity. Sure, it isn't canon to the main timeline, but we know this is what main timeline Chat would do if given the opportunity.

Almost relinquishing the ring in Syren: If Ladybug knew that he almost quit in the middle of an akuma attack (which had almost certainly already caused many to drown) just because he was bitter about being kept in the dark, he might look bad.

Not telling the truth about causing Theo's akumatization (through another lie): If Ladybug knew that Chat lied about them being a couple when she wasn't around to deny it, that would make her upset. But she'd be even more upset knowing that it caused an akumatization. And she'd be even more upset because until that point, she blamed herself for said akumatization.

Pretending to be someone else as Catwalker: He got to be a hero again, avoiding the consequences of quitting. He also essentially got a “do-over” to try to make Ladybug like him more.

Now, let's look at some secrets Ladybug kept from Chat:

The existence/identity of Fu: She asked Fu if she could reveal his existence to Chat, and he said no, not yet. And upon hearing that, she respected Fu's wishes, and didn't tell Chat, even though she wanted to.

Alya/Rena Furtive being a permanent holder: Well, technically Ladybug and Alya kept this secret, and it wasn’t just from Chat. But telling Chat could have put Alya and her family at risk. And it was also Alya's secret, so again, not really Ladybug's to tell.

The plan to find out his identity in Ephemeral: The way they chose to find out Chat's identity really sucked in this episode and there were a million better plans Ladybug could've used, but she did it so that Chat could keep his miraculous. So she lied to him because it would directly benefit him in the long run. (And I get that the plan needed to be that way for plot convenience, but still.)

The identities of temporary heroes: I feel like this one speaks for itself, but just in case it just doesn’t... Chat doesn't need to know the identities of the heroes Ladybug picks because she is always the one who chooses them, and in season 4, she’s also the guardian. The identities should only be revealed if necessary.

Oh, that’s not even a question. Yes.

While I can acknowledge that his hero experience has had some sources of trauma (Chat Blanc - before the timeline reset, “killing” Aeon, finding out about the Chat Blanc timeline later and the nightmare about that, cataclysming Monarch, etc..), comparing his hero experience and any resulting trauma from it to Marinette’s…it is no contest.

Especially when Adrien’s trauma is usually only focused on for the episode a specific incident happens in and he seems unaffected the rest of the time. The main things that seemed to stick to put any damper on his mood is in Season 4 where he starts feeling left out and unnecessary to Ladybug due to more temp heroes joining in. And outside of that, being a hero was an escape from his shitty home life, it was a net positive in his life.

Marinette’s distress is focused on way more explicitly. Becoming a hero has done nothing but add stress to her life. Girl is stressed like 24/7. The writers go out of their way to place the blame on her in almost every bad situation she’s put in. Add in the fact that she also has more responsibilities put on her with being guardian and the threat of untold amounts of memory loss if she gives the title up…

Ah, yes… the old excuse of ‘Félix doesn’t have good chemistry with Marinette’. As someone who has written a 26+ chapters story with the setting in the Ladybug PV Universe, I have to say that I have never encountered any problems where it was “impossible” for me to write Félix and Bridgette’s dynamics without creating bad chemistry between them.

Although, maybe it’s because I’m using a very special and very unique writing technique known as - character development.

Honestly, the more I think about Miraculous Ladybug and its characters, the more I think that the only reason they decided to make Adrien a Nice Guy is because they couldn’t bother writing some actual character development for him and instead decided to just hand him everything he wants on a silver platter. After all, isn’t it easier when your character already is super cool and super special and has just the right amount of trauma to make people sympathize with him in order to let him get away with literal murder (on multiple occasions!)?

To me, Adrien is a very one-dimensional and bland character who has no progress aside from flipping an internal switch and no life aside from obsessing over a girl. Take away his role as Cat Noir and him being Gabriel Agreste’s (the main villain) son, and there is really nothing that makes him appealing nor interesting as a character. Even if he is given an opportunity to develop as a character, he whines until the universe bends backwards to reward him without doing anything to deserve it.

It is also hilarious how they brought back Félix to be the one to actually progress the plot instead of letting either of the main characters figure out that Gabriel is Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth/Monarch, because they need to focus on unnecessary drama instead of actual story progression.

Oh, certainly!

The writing of Miraculous Ladybug is a complete mess, there is little to no character development nor plot progression (and when it happens, it's rushed), the main villain has overstayed his welcome and should've been booted much earlier, even the main characters are deprived of actually progressing the plot, there's a bunch of retcons that make you wonder whether the writers even read what they wrote in the previous episodes,...

I had mentioned before at length regarding my distaste, dislike, and dissatisfaction with the character of Lila Rossi in Miraculous Ladybug canon. A character so horrible, so poorly written, and so two dimensional that I did not think it was possible to make any iteration of her I wouldn’t dislike.

And yet it seems @zoe-oneesama has come through for me yet again in Scarlet Lady by taking what was quite possibly one of my biggest issues and most despised characters within canon and with only a few changes, turning her into something enjoyable. Dare I even say…likable.

Villainess AU update! Part 2 of the previous upload

Avoiding subjects that might change the status quo? Marinette? Never! 💃💃💃

Villainess AU update~

Part 1 of another comic :)

Marinette’s feelings are?

“Her mind seems far away at times.”

Sometimes Mari feels the effects of being the only “person” in a predetermined world

Like this? 😭💕

Introducing the “heroine” Lila

I’M WHAT THIS CITY NEEDS !  — BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD

You're not wrong.

Sadly, honestly at this point, the bar is so low for Adrien and the writing around him that it seemed impossible that he would ever say the words "I'm sorry" in any truly meaningful way.

So a lot of us are just happy that he at any point acknowledged being wrong at all and apologized for it. That was all we wanted. That was all we've BEEN wanting. So much so that we're willing to give leeway for the sheer fact that he says it.

Unfortunately, this apology comes a good while too late to really matter and it's further invalidated by having the victim reassure him and make him feel better by framing his justification as being too nice.

The thing is, Adrien's words and apology DID validate Marinette. The problem is that the writers can't let Adrien be at fault for anything and of course make it Marinette's job to make him feel better, so they have the victim try to reassure HIM and thus undercut the validation that she deserved and the fandom was long wanting.

...then there are a couple other things to consider here:

For all that they're trying to twist his mistake into a sign of how wonderful he is, the problem is that Adrien's issue here wasn't that he was "too nice" but that he was passive. He actively prioritized the feelings of a liar and manipulator like Lila over the wellbeing of his friends.

This is evident in the other problem in that Adrien is apologizing for what he said to Marinette and NOT the fact that he hadn't acted himself in the matter. This is indicating that he had no problems with Lila lying until it bothered him and it only bothers him NOW because he's in love with Marinette and they're dating.

The OTHER problem is that Adrien is LYING.

Adrien: I shouldn't have told you to wait to act against Lila.

Stop.

Review that.

Do you see the problem here?

Because while I don't know about the French version of this scene or the scene in Chameleon, there's a major discrepancy here in the English version:

He never told Marinette to wait to act.

Adrien: Are you going to tell everyone? Marinette: 'Course I am. Lila is— Adrien: (interrupting) A liar. Yes, I know. But do you really think exposing her will make things better? If you humiliate her, she'll just be hurt more. Making a bad guy suffer has never turned them into a good guy. Lila: Ladybug and I are like two peas in a pod. Marinette: So we just stand by and let her lie? Adrien: As long as you and I both know the truth, does it really matter? Marinette: You're right, maybe it's not such a big deal.

It's been a common argument from Adrien defenders that this is the approach Adrien was taking. So in a way, it makes sense for that to be the angle the writers try to use since the fandom practically handed the excuse to them.

But at NO point in this discussion did Adrien say to take a wait and see approach. At no point does he imply that they would or even should act against Lila at a later time. At no point does he even express a belief that Lila's lies will be revealed. Because at NO point in any of his lines did he express genuine concern for anyone but Lila.

What he DID do was invalidate Marinette's feelings and dismiss her very valid concerns.