Evillustrator lowkey set up for Nath’s actions in Reverser
In Evillustrator, Chloe bullied him and he felt betrayed by Marinette (that he saw as justified once he saw she was working with Chat Noir)
Those are obviously setting up/showing sensitivity to his work being made fun of and trust issues.
Cue Marc.
Where he thinks the entire journal was made just to make fun of him and his OC
Because of his trust issues and sensitivity of his work being made fun of
(Nathaniel tearing up the journal also makes sense under the context he thought it was just made to bully him. Why would someone have an attachment to something they just made to make fun of another person?)
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I was just thinking about what would happen if Copycat treated Ladybug better than AdriChat. Like, him respecting her personal space, (while unintentionally making Chat look worse). Then, when he finds out about her true feelings for Chat, he becomes an advocate for anti LadyChat, while also spreading awareness on how shipping strangers is NOT cool.
omg Copycat being super respectful and going the Evillustrator route where he doesn’t really want to cause chaos to Paris, he just wants to show Ladybug the kind of guy she could have.
Then Ladybug probably says something like, “Aw, Chat, you’re being really sweet but people might start thinking we’re a real couple.”
“…What?”
And then Copycat goes on a rampage, taking Chat Noir by his bell like, “YOU LIED ABOUT HAVING A RELATIONSHIP WITH LADYBUG?! I’VE BEEN TREATING HER LIKE A BOYFRIEND SHOULD INSTEAD OF PURSUING HER PROPERLY LIKE A GENTLEMAN BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU WERE DATING.”
Then Theo absolutely stanning Ladybug post-deakumatization and not supporting LadyNoir. Incredible. He’s like that one person in Paris who pops in unprompted in LadyNoir shipping episodes (”Prime Queen” and “Glaciator 2″) to be like, “well, actually–”
Anonymous asked:
Your copycat analysis made me think of a take I’ve once read ages ago (in a comment section on instagram I believe) where someone claimed Chat was right for pretending to be an item with Ladybug in order to protect her from a p***phile bc oh he’s sO pRoTecTiVe of his Lady and so LoViNg and like… no. Just no.
If that was the intent, then they would’ve portrayed it that way. Theo seems like generally good guy (not that there were no red flags but he was respectful to her in the end) and his height is around Chat Noir’s so I doubt he’s that old. Alix grew like a damn tree when she was an adult, so tall = adults like 95% of the time. (That and Paris isn’t aware of Ladybug’s age; if this is post-”Pharoah” where Ladybug claims to Alya that she’s “far older than her” then Theo probably thinks that she’s older than him.)
(Even Chat Noir doesn’t know Ladybug’s age either, soooo~)
Also, people like that who feel like they have to “keep the ‘bad’ men away from the woman they like” are almost always possessive scum. Ladybug never asked for it and she can handle herself. Funny how the stans suddenly treat Adrien like he’s socially aware of things as soon as it suits their narrative.
I get that alot of people go with the approach of "every Miraculous character is deeply screwed by the writers, so it's a writing problem" but at this point this feels like deflecting from the real problem
No shit stories and their characters are written by writers, but so many blogs I see now that go with that approach imo keep on dismissing the point of the problems people are pissed about because "well the characters aren't real, so I'm superior for saying it's the writers fault"
Guys, we KNOW they are fictional characters, you're not unique. But what is happening is that I get less and less out of the analysis posts from these blogs because they're beating around the damn bush especially when it comes to Marinette.
Yes, every character is screwed by the writing but Marinette has been retooled into the self-serving center of the universe who gets by though damn technicalities. This writing pattern is 2 disastrous seasons in, SHE IS THE PROBLEM.
You can try and sugarcoat that however you like by saying that Marinette is a fictional character so its the writers fault, but that doesn't change that Marinette's CHARACTER & WRITING is still the source of all the problems and that stories are being told to get emotional reactions. That's the entire purpose of a story.
No, I don't think people are doing it right by approaching all of Miraculous on a mere meta level. That's not how a story is supposed to be read. The meta level is an additional one on top of the emotional one, not the "rational way" to consume media.
And imo the analysis blogs I see around so much deliver less and less analysis posts I can do anything with. They are so caught up in explaining that the characters aren't to blame but the writers that they sideline why people are feeling the way they do.
There is this persistent dissonance in their posts about how apparently no amount of bad writing can change a character when that's just... objectively incorrect. Marinette for example is SUPPOSED to be compassionate and a thoughtful hero and partner/ leader to Cat Noir. Marinette in Canon though by this point is straight up NOT anymore.
But in their posts it's basically said that if people say that, then that makes them irrational because on a meta level the execution and effect of the writing is apparently irrelevant. Distant meta is king and the only rational way to engage with this story.
And I just don't see the point in that.
The outcome and the emotional effect of the writing is what actually matters. Not the intention behind it (no wonder people are using that excuse to defend Marinette's character. It's another variant of "but she MEANT well"). If Marinette is by now a toxic and even abusive partner and leader to be suck with, then that's the fucking damage the writing did. And said damage is DONE. That's her character NOW. Talk about the theory behind it however you like, the character CONCEPT is not Canon compliant anymore, and nothing is gonna change that besides facing the deeply rooted damage that has been done, analysing those on an EMOTIONAL level so you can then course correct the CANON character through the necessary development into becoming what the character was initially supposed to be.
Call me a dick, but just saying "the characters aren't real" is not a productive way of going about this dumpster fire anymore.
---
Another thing to take into account about the “it’s just bad writing” approach is that, like, it’s not like the way Marinette herself is being written has changed that much. What changed is how the narrative and other characters react to her and her behavior. Marinette has always been self-important, self-serving and self-obsessed, but these used to be treated as character flaws, signs of her immaturity and naivete she’d need to grow out of. Now we’re being told she’s flawless, actually, and has never done anything wrong ever and none of her mistakes were her fault.
Like, I’ve recently been familiarizing myself more with the “my dear diary” teen drama genre, and it really is more of a dramedy genre if anything. Most of these series will have a self-important, self-serving and self-obsessed protagonist and the entire narrative is filtered through their self-centered world-view, because we’re basically reading their diary where they vent about things that annoy or excite them. Now comes the kicker: the “comedy” of the dramedy comes from how comically over the top these protagonists are when they clearly and obviously misrepresent their lives and themselves to the audience. Miraculous is leaning very heavily into this downright selfish protagonist archetype, but actually wants you to agree with the protagonist when you can see, with your own eyes, because this is a different medium, that the world isn’t nearly as unfair to our protagonist as she claims.
Here’s another kicker: if you aren’t laughing at the joke or projecting yourself onto the protagonist, you’re most likely gonna hate the protagonist of most “my dear diary” books. They tend to be the most opinion-splitting characters in their own fandoms, with readers either loving them or outright despising them.
Dismissing these kinds of fandom reactions only when they veer into the negative direction showcases the real motivation of the “it’s all just the writing” crowd. I need to dissociate from the show’s story in order to discuss why Marinette is still so beloved by the fandom, because I just can’t feel that way about her anymore. Similarly, the people dissociating from the story in order to explain why fans are disappointed and outraged by the story, can’t see anything worth getting upset about in the show. They think it’s all okay. They’re not approaching the show purely logically, they are still emotionally invested, they still like the show. Of course the seemingly logical approach to fandom unrest seems to just be defending Marinette and the show, because it is.
It’s basically a way to retreat from the criticism. Like, the accusations of Marinette being a stalker used to be easily sidelined with “it’s just a joke you don’t like” until they made it a sign of canonical mental instability. It was a way to say: "this is a silly thing to be upset about". Now we’re sidelining the abuse apologia with “it’s just bad writing, that’s not what Marinette’s character is”. What these people are actually saying is: “she’s made up, so my made up version of Marinette in my head didn’t do that.” Like, when you have to deny canon exists, your analysis isn’t analysis anymore; it’s headcanons at the very least, completely made up at most.
I like to focus on the writing because I am a writer, and because treating the characters like people is the exact same kind of logic that leads to calling Adrien a sexual harasser and Alya a terrible friend. It just frames the problem in a way that primes people to get either defensive or vindictive depending on what side of the fence you're on, makes actually talking about it an unproductive circlejerk, and leads to the kind of garbage fire takes that gave birth to the salt fic genre.
Focusing on the writing also allows me to actually be consistent in my interpretation of the characters. Because here's the thing, just about every character in this show is garbage in some very key ways. Again, Adrien being a sexual harasser and Alya not exactly being the most reliable friend have just as much backing in canon as Marinette being a terrible leader. People didn't make these things up just to be contrary. They're in the show and I can't condemn one character while simultaneously defending the other two.
Then there's also the fact that while Watsonian analysis tells me why the criticism exists, it doesn't tell me what to do about it. Characters are ultimately tools in service of a story, and I need to consider what the underlying story actually is and how it all fits together before I can think about how to fix it.
For me at least, it's not about ignoring criticism as much as it's about making sure that my fandom experience doesn't quickly become unbearable.
That said, I won't deny that people do use "bad writing" to shield themselves from the idea that their blorbos aren't perfect. To give my favorite example, a lot of people like to call Nathanaël ripping apart Marc's notebook bad writing, when, like. For one, that's been his characterization since Evillustrator. He goes from calling Marinette sweet and perfect to accusing her of being just like Chloé in one second flat, and hunts down Chloé with almost sadistic glee. Dude is like a cat toying with his prey. For another thing, his rage is exactly what makes him interesting! It makes him stand out and serves as a great basis to generate conflict. Lean into that! This is one of the reasons I can't get into MarcNath. Marc is usually in character (mostly because he barely has one. Sorry, Marc fans.) but Nathanaël is always this bland uwu softboy and I hate it. If anything, taking his best character trait away so he can be shipped with Marc is the bad writing.
I see what you're getting at, like, everything is nuanced, let's not generalize everyone who uses a specific approach to discussing stories, and so on, but, while I can't be sure of the anon's intentions, my intention with the post was to specifically talk about the refusal to engage with what is going on in the story, what has always been going on, and shutting down emotional reactions to it because they aren't analytical enough.
"Dismissing these kinds of fandom reactions only when they veer into the negative direction showcases the real motivation of the “it’s all just the writing” crowd. I need to dissociate from the show’s story in order to discuss why Marinette is still so beloved by the fandom, because I just can’t feel that way about her anymore. Similarly, the people dissociating from the story in order to explain why fans are disappointed and outraged by the story, can’t see anything worth getting upset about in the show."
I am talking about people who completely disengage from the idea that the show and its protagonist could be in the wrong. Of course there are people who still enjoy the show while feeling it needs some changes in its very makeup. But there are also people who refuse to see the problems as anything other "temporary bad writing", who think we just have to watch longer and the show will be good again.
I'm a writer myself. I have a master's degree in English literature. I know how to engage with writing in an analytical way, and have, in fact, done so over several of the things I also complain about. However, I'm also a member of the audience, and I watch and read stories to experience feelings. If a story fails to invoke specific feelings in me, it's failed as a story, same thing if I'd eaten food I didn't enjoy. I don't need to say "use this specific amount of these seasonings" to get that across, I can just say "there was too much ginger". Like, yeah, the former is more useful to the cook, but I'm not saying this stuff to the cook/writers, or even to the fans who say stuff like "Marinette is just a victim of bad writing and not wanting to see her own screen is wrong because of that". I'm saying this to the people reading my blog, who are also annoyed at seeing this stuff and want to vent.
Simply put, I am done with constantly excusing this show. New followers who are here only for my salt phase don't know this, but I used to defend this show so hard before the retool. I granted Marinette's character so much grace and good faith because I could see what the show was going for, only for the writers to increase those aspects of Marinette's character that I had to excuse in order to enjoy her on screen. This hasn't happened with any other character to this degree, except Chloé, who I was never that attached to, so I don't think it's hypocritical when I claim Marinette specifically has been made unenjoyable as a character, because I can't even watch past episodes with her, without seeing those character flaws that would later be glorified after the retool, because, as I said in the beginning, Marinette's character hasn't changed, the narrative around her character has.
Sure, I could write a hundred essays on how I think Miraculous' story could be more engaging, how it could more easily invoke the feelings I don't feel while watching it. But, at this point, what is the point? I don't feel like jumping through Marinette-shielding hoops again in order to engage in discussions with the fandom proper. I'm done with that. I feel like it doesn't matter how kindly or analytically anyone picks apart this show, because nothing is going to change. It's so hard to care about that kind of stuff anymore. I'm just tired, disappointed and angry and I'm dealing with it by ranting angrily. I'm pretty sure the same applies to my anons. There's a reason I call this blog a support group. It's tongue-in-cheek, but accurate. We're all just trying to cope in our own ways.
Oh, I see. I guess this post just reminded me of people who endlessly complain about Adrien and Alya, to the point of ignoring everything interesting about them. Or worse, saying that there's nothing interesting and that these characters should just be cut from the show altogether. The thing with emotional reactions is that they can veer of the rails very quickly. I hope anon knows that, but I said it anyway just in case.
I was also probably projecting my own experiences here. "Good premise but awful execution" was my first impression of the show. One of the first episodes I saw was The Collector, so I knew about the Gabe Moth reveal going in and always saw Marinette as essentially a satellite love interest being treated like a protagonist. Marinette being the only one to meet Fu, the weird choice that the temp holder system was, Fu and Marinette placating Adrien rather than actually addressing the issues, the Chloé episodes being an absolute dumpster fire, and Lukanette and Adrigami existing further solidified the idea that the writers don't really know what they're doing. Then Timetagger rolled around and established that Ladybug and Cat Noir were going to fail at their literally only job. The show came out and told us, point blank, that there's no reason to get invested. So I always treated the show as a list of writing prompts rather than trying to enjoy it on its own merits. If you were actually invested in the story, yeah, I'd see why you'd be angry.
I like Marinette. While there are many valid criticisms of her writing, the same can be said for literally every other character and she's actually doing pretty well given that she's the main character. After all, in a show where consistent characterization is an ongoing issue, the one with the most screen time will probably be the one who's the biggest victim of the issue.
This is heavily exacerbated by the rule that supposedly governs Miraculous. Namely that, in each story, Marinette must make a mistake. Or, at least, so says the head writer:
I really do not care what this guy says on Twitter or anywhere else. I only care about what's in the show because, if you have to go outside the text to understand the text, then you have no idea how to tell a good story.
However, unlike many of the tweets that I've seen, this one isn't some BS bit of lore. It's a writing rule and it has substantial backing in the text. It's extremely rare to have an episode where Marinette comes out smelling like roses and that's a problem because Miraculous has over 100 episodes. In other words, to follow this rule, the writers have to come up with over 100 ways for Marinette to be wrong so of course she's going to come across poorly. Why would you do this to your main character?
It's extremely common for kids shows to have a "lesson of the day" element to them. Someone always needs to learn something, but I've never seen a show misunderstand the assignment so badly. Learning a lesson is not the same as doing something wrong.
It's been a while since I watched the 2010 version of My Little Pony, but it really leaned into that whole "lesson of the day" thing and it actually knew what it was doing, so I'm going to talk about it briefly to discuss things that Miraculous should have done.
The first thing to note is that MLP had an unambiguous main character - Twilight Sparkle - but Twilight was not the one who learned all of the lessons. She had a pet dragon and a crew of five friends who would, occasionally, be the ones to learn the lesson because there were lots of lessons that simply didn't fit Twilight's character. Instead of warping Twilight to make the idea work (cough cough Ikari Gozen cough), the writers just let someone else have the spotlight for a bit.
This is an excellent way to build out your cast and Miraculous had plenty of opportunities to do it. For example, Lila should not have been Marinette's issue. The fact that Lila hates Marinette could have certainly stuck around, but the one who takes her down and learns to investigate her sources? That should have been Alya. A liar is the perfect enemy for an investigative journalist, but a poor enemy for someone who shines as a battlefield commander and overthinks when she's given too much time.
Another way that MLP would teach lessons was to have someone other than Twilight or the main crew cause the issue that they then had to deal with. This leads to one of the best moments in children's television:
And, frankly? Marinette deserves a moment like this. That poor girl has been through hell and is never allowed to make the right call when it really matters. The show will even completely rewrite its lore to make her fail (see: Strike Back). That is such an awful thing to do to your lead! Shows about female empowerment should include women feeling powerful and, no, Lila and Chloe don't count!
Also, the show is literally about Gabriel taking advantage of people who are upset. You don't need to have Marinette make a mistake to shoehorn in a life lesson. Akumas are life lesson fodder and season 1 actually seemed to get this. I'm not sure why they switched gears to "Marinette is the star and, therefore, must always be wrong."
The final way that MLP taught lessons was to have Twilight do something wrong because having your main character do something wrong is a totally valid way to teach lessons. It just shouldn't be your only way because you know who is always wrong in children's media?
Villains.
They wrote Marinette like a villain.
And a large part of the fandom hates her for it because of course they do.
I've used this term and variants of it in a few of my posts and I wanted to take a quick moment to define it because I'm not sure how commonly discussed this topic is, but it's an important one to keep in mind when evaluating and writing certain types of media.
Most genres of fiction make use of standard character roles/tropes. The plucky sidekick, the dastardly villain, the last girl, and so on. This isn't a bad thing. The existence of this stuff is a big part of how we define genres and how we evaluate writing quality. For example, if you're writing a romance, you're going to have romantic leads. Two (or more) individuals who will be together by the end of the story. If these roles don't exist, then you don't have a romance. And if their relationship feels toxic and unhealthy? You may not have a romance. Or, at least, not a classic romance. The worse the relationship is, the more you wander into the genre of "dark romance," which is all about enjoying deeply unhealthy fictional relationships.
This brings us to Miraculous and why I feel comfortable defending Adrien and Marinette as victims of bad writing.
Unless the writers are doing something truly insane, the love square is our end game couple. The ones destined for a happily ever after. That means that everything the writers do with these two and their relationship can be evaluated through the lens of, "are you honoring the characters' roles as the romantic leads?" And if the answer is, "No?" Then the writers are failing because "romantic lead" is a defining aspect of these characters. It isn't what they should be, it's what they are. Anything that goes against them being a good couple is bad writing.
This doesn't mean that they must be perfect. They're allowed to make mistakes and have flaws. Those are the sorts of things that drive a story! But the mistakes and flaws have to be treated as such by the narrative, they have to have some sort of resolution, and they have to be maintained in balance with the whole "love interest" thing. Too many mistakes and flaws and we've gone from "romance" to "tragedy," which is what I'd currently define Miraculous as.
This role evaluation thing isn't limited to romantic leads. Any character that has a clear role in the story can be evaluated via this criteria. For example, Alya is clearly meant to be a good best friend and reliable confidant for Marinette. You can tell this because of things like her learning Marinette's identity and her helping Marinette discover the secrets of the miraculous, big story moment that are treated as positives by the narrative. So anything Alya does that makes her feel like a bad friend is bad writing. It's why I get the Alya salt, but don't participate because I can't view her as the awful person the Lila stuff makes her out to be. That's not who Alya is narratively speaking.
Generally speaking, this core/role thing is my main way of evaluating characters in genre content like Miraculous. It's the driving force behind most of the character discussion on this blog and something I strongly encourage people to think about if they enjoy reading/writing genre content as it's a great guideline! Figure out the role a character is supposed to be in, generally honor that role, and you're golden! You have room for flaws and conflicts while still having something to keep you in check from straying too far off course.
A sort of good way to think about this is "if the character was written by someone else, what would change and would it be out of character?"
Because like, if an author thinks something is normal or not a problem, then the characters literally can't conceptualize that as a problem, because they're not real.
And you can see this in fanworks for fandoms where the characterization doesn't line up with the core because you have people aiming for the authors intent and people aiming for the most literal interpretation of the text
So if someone is writing Alya as a good friend, she might act differently to fill what the writer views as a good friend. But fics that frame stuff she does in canon and take it from the perspective of her being a bad friend because of her actions can and do veer wildly out of character.
Keeping in mind character cores is also how you write a good AU or canon divergence. It's not making a character do something they would never do, it's figuring out a situation where (at least from their perspective) the actions lines up with their core character traits.
Exactly. This is why it's hard for me to read most salt fics. Are they often based on real things that happened in canon? Yes. Absolutely. 100%. I cannot deny that the author has a valid complaint and is pulling from the actual source.
At the same time, the source of most salt is general writing problems and not character-specific issues, which means that salt fics aren't fixing bad writing. They're highlighting it and making me remember the worst parts of the show, which is not why I read fanfic. I read it to enjoy the things that the show failed to give me.
Fanfics that change minor elements of a character or ignore big parts of canon while sticking the character's core? Well, those may be more canon divergent on the surface, but to me, those fics more true to the spirit of adaption then anything that tries to honor the literal text of canon.
The one exception to this is anything that takes canon's bad writing and uses it to tell a good character arc that ultimately honors the character. A good example of this is how a lot of Lila take-downs fics give Alya an arc about learning the truth and apologizing to Marinette. Alya being oblivious is, unfortunately, so inherently tied to the Lila plot that I get why so many fics take this approach. It's part of the catharsis of a good take down: Lila faces her dues and Alya gets to redeem herself, proving that she really is a good friend.
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Hello, new to interacting with the fandom tbh. It's been a few years (1 year and a couple of months) since I've seen miraculous. Why did s4 and s5 so cluttered? Sentimonster Felix and Adrien? Shouldn't that complicate things? I mean, they're created with magic. And Kagami and Felix? After he kidnapped her and stole all of the miraculous to give it to Hawkmoth? He's even worse than Chloe, why did they make him into a hero? Like he should have been an anti-hero at best. And why Catwalker? Why all of the lovesquare shenanigans? It's so confusing. And did they seriously replace Chloe with Zoe (gosh even their names sound the same)? Half-sister? Who wasn't even there in episodes with Audrey? Zoe from New York, a better sister than Chloe with a heart of a hero? Am I reading a fanfic? And why did they make Alya and Zoe into ladynoir's replacement if Ladybug and Chat Noir are coming back anyway? What is this mess?? And did they seriously make Chloe into a mayoress? Uh hello? She's a minor? Minors aren't allowed in any government offices no matter their age or status. What happened to this show??
The early seasons were already cluttered in its writing but at least they're at least understandable. But what the heck is s4-s5? Heck even the powers of some of the kwamis don't make sense.
I obviously can't give you the real logic for why all of this happened since I'm not one of the show's writers, but I can give you my best guess based on what we know about the show. In my opinion, all of this nonsense happened because of poor planning and bad writing both of which were compounded by the fact that Miraculous is an episodic formula show where every episode is supposed to be able to stand alone as its own self-contained story.
This is not a bad thing in and of itself. There are many successful properties that use this format. The problem is that it's a terrible format for everything that Miraculous is trying to do because this format means that nothing can be properly developed. As an example from your list, Felix can't be a complex character who requires multiple episodes to properly understand. He has to be straight-forward enough that I can catch a random episode and understand who he is in that episode even if it massively contradicts other episodes. That's why his "redemption" is so wacky and nonsensical. It's not a coherent narrative. It's a highlight reel of the big moments in a narrative we never get to see in full because that would require some level of serialization.
This is the answer to basically everything you listed. For example, why did season five start with all of those awkward lovesquare shenanigans? Those happened because the square can't have a functional arc where the they get together as that would require a storyline that goes over multiple episodes, but the writers still wanted to make them getting together dramatic, so we get a disjointed mess of shenanigans where Ladynoir gets married in one episode, the crushes flip in the next episode, and Marinette is #Thirsty for Chat Noir in the episode after that even though it completely contradicts Marinette's emotional state in the crush flip episode (she wasn't #Thirsty, she was #Horrified!)
We don't even see the square actually get together! Kwamis' Choice gives us these two moments:
Alya: How did we go from “I’m pathetic and I’ll never love again” to “Yay! I’m going out with Adrien”?
Marinette: I’m not going out with Adrien…
and
(Marinette attempts to reach out and hold Adrien's hand but shakes as she is a few inches away from his hand. She attempts to do it again, but this time forcibly reaching for his hand.)
Adrien: Are you okay, Marinette? If you're not ready, you don't have to.
Marinette: (while struggling to reach out for Adrien's hand) No! I can... do this!! (grunts aggressively)
Adrien: You know, we can just be friends if you prefer.
Marinette: No! No, I don't want to be friends with you!
Adrien: (taken aback and gasps) I see...
Marinette: No! I didn't mean it like that! Ugh, my hand... will obey me!!
And then the very next episode opens with Chat Noir and Ladybug telling each other about their new relationships:
Cat Noir: I'm super happy for you, m'lady. Can you believe it? I have a girlfriend, you have a boyfriend, and we can talk about it!
Ladybug: Like real friends.
Ladybug and Cat Noir: It's awesome. Pound it!
Which makes no sense because when did the relationship happen???? I thought you two weren't dating yet??? What is going on here???
The only answer I can come up with is what I said above: the writers need each episode to be self contained, but they also wanted the square getting together to be dramatic and have some semblance of an actual plot-line, so they tried to do both of those things by giving us a highlight reel instead of a coherent narrative. Does it work? Not really, but that's why a multi-episode romance plot is a terrible choice for an episodic formula show that vows to have each episode truly stand alone. There is a reason I keep pointing out that Kim Possible got its endgame couple together in an hour-long special that didn't follow the show's standard formula. That's about the only way to do it right while maintaining your status as an episodic formula show.
Pick a plot/plot point from your list and ask yourself: can I tell this properly in a self-contained 20 minute episode while also including an akuma fight? If the answer is no, then that's your answer for why it's bad. It's also the answer for why there's so much crap in seasons four and five. The writers are trying to advance their season-specific plot and their multi-season plot in disjointed chunks while also keeping the audience engaged. This led them to add in tons of random shit that will never be properly addressed, but that makes for solid cheap drama because, once again, everything the show gives us needs to be done in self-contained 20 minute stories that also include an akuma fight.
This is also why Marinette never tried to rescue the Kwamis. That would require her to be able to track down where they are and she couldn't succeed in doing that until the final. She also couldn't make slow progress throughout the season because that's too serialized. Because of those limitations, Marinette spends the season being cringe over Adrien because that doesn't need a ton of additional context for a viewer to understand what's going on. A line or two at the start of the episode tells you the current status quo even if that status quo doesn't feel like it makes much sense for the characters from the perspective of the ongoing narrative.
An example of this is Marinette going from crying over her crush on Chat Noir in Determination to being happy about her crush in Passion. Her being upset is way too complicated to explain and resolve, so instead we get this:
Alya: What do you mean you're in love with Chat Noir?
Marinette: I don't see what's so weird about it.
Alya: It's weird, because you were in love with Adrien just, like, yesterday. (points at the corkboard with photos on the wall next to them)
Marinette:(covers the corkboard with her body) Adrien? Yeah, but being in love with Adrien was not a good idea.
I don't like any of this, but it is what it is. Expect more of the same in season six
Do you think people cling on too much to Adrien's high road advice as a reason to salt on him?
Yes, especially when there are plenty of other reasons to salt him that have previously been ignored. But to that end, it DOES serve as the final straw for people after a SERIES of problems that had previously gone unaddressed.
Much like many aspects of the show, Adrien has displayed problematic behaviors that have been overlooked and waved off in the earlier seasons. This is likely or especially due to the way how in each and every incident, Adrien was narratively shown to be correct. In his stance. In his choices. In his behaviors. He was always right. It doesn't matter if he shouldn't be, because he is.
Now unless you're a hater or anti or salter or whatever negative name people tend to get for not liking a story as it's presented, readers and watchers tend to follow along with the narrative as it presents things and how it presents things. It's a common setup in any story. Protagonist Centered Morality, I feel framed best by Susan in the Discord series:
Susan: ...and then Jack chopped down the beanstalk, adding murder and ecological vandalism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused anything if you're a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
Pretty much this. Most people will follow what the narrative says because it's the narrative. If the narrative wants you to focus on Marinette being embarrassed, you're going to focus on how much she's cringe. And if the narrative wants you to view Adrien as a perfect sunshine boy who never does anything wrong, anything he does is going to be framed through that lens and it's difficult to break from that view and call out the times when he is wrong. Not unless he does something particularly severe.
It should be noted that outside of Chameleon, Adrien had, among other things: lied to his partner, caused someone to get akumatized and had his partner take the blame, was messing around during life-threatening and city-threatening situations, did nothing as Chloe tormented people right in front of him, DEFENDED Chloe after she tormented people right in front of him, bailed on an event with friends to set up a date with someone who said she had other plans and then got mad at HER for it, tried to flirt or confess in the middle of an active crisis which took necessary attention away from said crisis, caused himself AND his partner to get hit by akuma powers and needlessly be taken out of commission.
And yet people could mostly overlook these instances. They weren't his fault. Chloe is his friend. Marinette is worse. He's just a kid. He has a tragic backstory. So on and so forth. Easy to overlook. Easy to ignore in favor of the Sunshine Boy setup people were given and want to believe in.
But there were three major instances that really grabbed people's attention and stayed:
His attitude in Frozer. It probably wouldn't have been so bad except this rejection already happened in Glaciator, where he was supposed to have learned a lesson and accepted just being Ladybug's friend and now apparently didn't, despite it happening earlier that very season. Then in response, he decides to date Kagami as a rebound, drags Marinette with him on his date (without realizing how he's asking his friend to be a third wheel on a DATE) and focuses on her when he's supposed to be with Kagami, throws another tantrum in the middle of an akuma fight and refuses to work with his partner when the city is literally frozen, and requires Ladybug to apologize to him for hurting his feelings before he finally working with her. Again. But okay, he's a teenage boy in love. Not used to rejection and got his feelings hurt. Lovesquare is endgame so of course it'll work out anyway, so it's not like this bump in the road is really going to matter long term so we shouldn't hold it against him. Fine. Dumb, but fine. We've forgiven it in other shows and other poorly done teen romances, we can forgive it here.
His behavior in Syren in which he demanded to know secrets from people when the secrets were not theirs to tell him, and went so far as to attempt to blackmail his kwami (which was funny) and threaten to quit and abandon the Ring that the big bad is after while the city is flooded and people were trying to not drown (which was decidedly less humorous). But it was played for wholesome when Plagg reassured him and he got what he wanted by Fu revealed himself even if Adrien did nothing to actually show he earned it, so all's well that ends well, I guess? And people could justify it because "they're partners" and "part of a team" and "she should trust him" and "it's not fair he's the only one left out of the loop" and "he has a right to know" and just general "Fu is an idiot" (which is admittedly hard to argue). So people were disgruntled, but most were willing to overlook it.
His holier than thou lecture to Marinette in Maledictator over everyone being happy Chloe was leaving. When all Marinette was doing at the time was watching everyone else have fun. When Adrien specifically guilted Marinette and not any of the other actual partiers involved who were literally throwing a party over his friend leaving and probably should have warranted a lecture more than the girl just standing there. When the girl in question was also Chloe's main target and out of everyone had valid reasons to be happy that her bully won't be around to bully her anymore. When Adrien himself has historically been present to witness Marinette being targeted including twice he witnessed Chloe attempt to steal from Marinette, once he witnessed her try to blackmail Marinette, and numerous other times when she actively caused harm to Marinette and others. When Adrien then proceeded to sit in a corner and pout rather than do anything else or just leave if the party really bothered him. When Adrien, if he really cared so damn much, could have gone after Chloe himself! Or y'know...have stood up for Chloe earlier when she got upset in the first place. But fine, okay, Chloe is his childhood friend. So maybe he's just being biased and oblivious to the fact that his "friend" is a horrible person. But people can excuse and justify it in that they are friends and friends support each other, and the longer someone is friends with someone else, the harder it is to break from them. And that Marinette was probably just the target of his lecture because she was the one there in the moment (and the only one who would listen without arguing). And her calling Chloe useless was "mean" despite it being quite frankly the least of what she could have said about her in the moment (coughcough theft cough blackmail cough punished the entire school cough TRIED TO CRASH A TRAIN AND NEARLY KILLED HER AND HER PARENTS COUGH-FREAKINGCOUGH). Fine. Childhood friend means Adrien supports her in all her horrible and even deadly actions. Frustrating, but again, able to be explained and you can see where he's coming from.
These are all things that definitely got Adrien some side eye at best and some detractors at worst.
BUT if you really think about it, all of these examples are objectively worse than his lecture to Marinette in Chameleon. Not accepting being told "no" and continuing to chase a girl who isn't that in to him (while leading on another). Putting lives at risk over personal wants that could quite honestly wait until AFTER the crisis is over. Defending someone who is harmful and guilt tripping the victims. Compared to those, telling someone to leave a liar to their lying seems relatively minor.
So why this? Why here? Why is it Chameleon that has people saying enough is enough? Why is it this episode that is causing the sunshine boy to be so tarnished and the subject of salt in fan fiction?
Because this is the time when it couldn't be rationalized. There wasn't even a valid sensible canon-based reason for his stance. The arguments that Adrien "knew confronting her wouldn't work" or that he "handled her like paparazzi" or that he "knew Marinette previously failed when she tried" (even though he wasn't there and didn't know) or that he "didn't think anyone would believe him" don't come from canon. Those were fan arguments made after the fact to justify him after the base was broken and the outcry became too much to ignore.
This case didn't have any of the ties or rationales of the previous incidents. Adrien wasn't defending himself or his place in a partnership. He wasn't fighting for his love or his dream or an outcome he wanted and that we all knew was coming—if anything, he was fighting against her. He wasn't defending a friend like he did with Chloe—I mean, it's pretty evident he doesn't even really know or like Lila at this point, and for all intents and purposes, this is apparently only the second day he actually had any interaction with her. There was no notable reason Adrien really had for why he essentially chose to protect Lila over literally anyone else as she wasn't a friend and it wasn't in his interests to protect her from a consequence that wouldn't hurt her short term as much as it would likely harm everyone else long term.
And yet, he still defended her and her freedom to lie. Over Marinette. Over Ladybug. Over his friends. Over any sense of right and wrong he seems to have no problem throwing around when it comes to Marinette/Ladybug. Which seems like he targets her 9 times out of 10 compared to pretty much anyone else by this point. So it's little wonder then that people who didn't already hate the lovesquare because of the cringe factor from Marinette started to hate it for being incredibly unhealthy given that their relatively limited interactions tend to involve him lecturing her for failing to live up to his double standards that only seem to apply to her in any given situation.
This incident by itself doesn't seem like much, but when looked at as part of the series as a whole, it's when people couldn't keep overlooking this trend. Where he seems to admonish the wrong person. Where he acts like a mouthpiece rather than a person. Talks like he’s wise in a situation he seems to have a childish and one-sided view of. Acts like a brat but is treated as though he has no accountability in the situation he causes. Where he is wrong but no one and certainly not the narrative acknowledges it (not until season five and two seasons too late when it doesn't matter and he's still not the one facing consequences for it).
And it's not like he actually follows the stances he himself promotes. In Chameleon, canon presents him with this idealistic stance that Lila could change if given a chance, except he doesn't give her a chance. He doesn't push her to be a better person. He doesn't support or in any way help her to be the better person he insisted to Marinette she could be. He also doesn't do anything or warn anyone when she keeps lying and actively harms the people he says he cares about. He doesn't do anything one way or the other other than some lackluster encouragement to stop lying and a warning that goes nowhere. It just further gives credit to the argument that Adrien either simply doesn't care about other people, or that he doesn't care for Marinette specifically. Neither is conducive to the lovesquare or the increasingly tarnished view of the "sunshine boy".
And it could have worked. Canonically and intrinsically to his character. His idealism and trust in the wrong person comes back to bite him. He learns and grows from it. Except that, much like with nearly everything he does in canon, Chameleon set it up that Adrien was the writers' mouthpiece and thus was not "wrong". I'll grant that they did have him admit it and apologize to Marinette for it two seasons later, but it is pretty evident that during Chameleon, they intended his lecture to be right, with no foreshadowing and no implication otherwise. And I'm fairly certain they only backtracked and had him do that much because of the amount of fan outrage over the episode.
So yes, I think his lecture in Chameleon was really a final straw since unlike Chloe, Adrien has NO relationship with Lila to justify his defense of her. Especially when the argument is in favor of letting her lie to the people he's supposed to care about. That combined with how jarring it was how most of the class just sided with Lila over the seat issue in the first place, and I think people were less inclined to just ignore the problems in the episode specifically and with the series as a whole as they were compared to the first and second seasons. Not just with Adrien, as we see that Alya also started getting more callout and salt since then as well as more retrospective scrutiny over her behavior in earlier seasons.
But yeah...Chameleon was where things seemed to take a 180, so it's bound to be the deciding episode and deciding incident that sticks out in people's minds with these characters. That's probably why it ends up the go-to for salt and complaints on the characters involved instead of any of the other incidents that would arguably warrant it more.
And we’re back, baby! Miraculous fanfic inception- Spiderverse, but if it were involving all of the Miraculous Ladybug AU's here on Tumblr.
That being said, I have a couple of ground rules that I need to put in place (so that it can stay up).
First off, this won’t operate like a regular au, seeing as how most of these au’s aren’t mine. I don’t plan on doing much in the way of writing a full length story for this (like I’m doing with Miraculous Coccinella). Maybe just a couple of comics. I’m hoping this will act as a creative springboard for everyone seeing this to create their own stories/artwork.
Feel free to send me your head cannons on how specific au’s depicted here might interact! (I have some fun ones in mind already)
I won’t be answering asks about adding specific au’s. Just assume all au’s are included in this, but I won’t be making comics for/theorizing about au’s that aren’t already in this artwork. Please don’t send me asks about au’s outside of this artwork in connection with this concept (not because I don’t love other au’s as well, but just for my own mental sanity).
Please do create your own artwork/stories based off of this concept! If you’re thinking you would love to explore how your au would fit into all of this, create your own art, comic, story, text chain, you name it, exploring just that! Tag me so I can see!!!
Now with that out of the way- go forth! Have fun with this concept!
AU’s involved:
Cannon’s Miraculous Re-Verse (by Zag)
Re-verse AU by @revolutionary-thoy
Scarlet Lady AU by @zoe-oneesama
Lady Fairy AU by @beebeebombam
Miraculous Coccinella AU by me :)
Villain/Villains AU by @bigfatbreak
Dad Villain AU by @bigfatbreak
Bakery “Enemies” AU by @buggachat
Lovey Bug AU by Miraculous Tumblr (jump-started by @pisoprano @wolflover2426 and @blur0se).
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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That bitch Andre the Ice Cream Man is so wishy washy with his ice cream philosophy. Marichat can't get ice cream without you throwing a tantrum, but Lukanette and Adrigami can? And then Adrienette? Guess you can't read soulmates well after all. Stop pretending you know everything about everybody. Get back to the office job buddy.
My take on Cat!Marinette. A design I made for some AUs.
I’m not a fan of Lady Noir’s braid. It’s just- not practical, so I removed it, threw in a handy belt and inserted some elements from traditional Chinese clothing.
So like, the mldc or any overworld crossover trope really, usually have it so that akumatization is considered a bad idea when it comes to powered individuals, and more so if trained individuals.
I’ve only seen a couple fic where instead of empowering, Hawkmoth (and all other names he got) completely overwrites a individual’s abilities or skills and sometimes make them really silly. Potentially deadly akuma, while still possible, does not hinge on a individual’s own skillsets or abilities.
I just think that should be explored more.
Imagine Superman got akumatized, and he has all these powers, but then Hawkmoth just make him have the power to make everyone completely powerless (because maybe Superman is super tired of responsibility of being super one day while within the vincinity of Hawkmoth).
But that might just me, who prefers crack, fluff, comfort, fix-its and everything that feels good in fanwork I read or watch.
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i don’t think i made a post about this before, but to all the queer content creators in the ml fandom: if you post your work to archiveofourown, you can add your queer ml fics to the Miraculous SFW Queer Fics Collection. just type in miracu_queer in the “Post to Collections / Challenges” box
