A Very Sleepy Coco

No.

The concept of trying to reinterpret the song's meaning is exactly what I have an issue with.

"Isn't She Lovely" is a Black song, made by a Black man for his Black daughter. It is a song about Black joy, about Black fatherhood and beautiful Black baby girls. It is about Black people. It is for Black people.

Yet again, the issue is not with gender, but it is about race. To take that song out of its original context and rehash it into something whiter is what I take the most offense to, it's completely disrespectful and it doesn't even pay homage to the original culture. It's a form of whitewashing that is incredibly sinister, because it often follows along the logic of "wanting everything to be for everybody".

But you can't possibly partake in other cultures if you do not understand those cultures first, if you don't take the time to listen and be generous. To them, the song is just a song. Like most facets of the show, they take these brilliant works and strip them down to scraps, then try to spin that into something brilliant by telling people to look at the "abstract" and what isn't there. Then people go and theorize and completely overwrite the original intention, they erase the meaning, and it's very painful to witness.

Honestly I don’t think Alya comes across that way to me, especially in season 4 through 6. She’s allowed to disagree with Marinette and have her own opinions, and even her own moral code. That people deserve honesty and that true is important for someone to grow. We see this in revelator and lady chaos. We even see her grow from the journalist that wants truth no matter what to the journalist that knows when some secrets should be kept. Which started back in season 2 with Sapotis, where she puts back the miraculous after seeing that ladybug’s trust is more important than being a hero and even revealing her identity. And speaking of season 2, it’s also the start where we saw Alya’s sisters and her sisters are recurring characters. So in short, I think Alya doesn’t fit that trope and has good depth to her more than most black characters do. Though, I do wish she had more black features like having natural hair.

As for Nino, I think he fits to this trope sadly. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have his own life or goals… but they’re barely seen by the audience because he doesn’t have a lot of screen time to himself. He’s either stuck being Alya’s boyfriend or Adrien’s best friend, and sometimes he gets his own moment and plotline like with the resistance in season 5, where he did help ladybug and chat noir as well as having his own character moments but it wasn’t a lot of that plotline and the resistance disappeared after season 5 leaving Nino in the dust because he barely knows the main plotline of season 6, Gabriel is monarch and Marinette is hiding it from everyone especially Adrien until she gets the butterfly miraculous back. I mean he still gets moments where he has his own thoughts and opinions on things, rocketear is a good example of this. And we saw his parents for the first in chained titans and his home life, seeing how it shaped him to the person he is. But that isn’t enough, he should be allowed to do more outside of being Adrien’s best friend or Alya’s boyfriend.

One last thing to add about Nino, we don’t actually know he’s black. Like canonically black, he’s Moroccan, which is Arab. But him being black is up in the air, not saying it isn’t implied. We have Zeno as his Va, his curls, and one of his bracelet are an African pattern. But I think it should be explicitly shown in canon that he is black more than just implying it. As for his parents, I have a light skinned mom that has a similar skin color to Nino’s dad, so his parents being lighter than him is honestly pretty realistic because sometimes that’s how genetics works.

But yeah, I think Alya doesn’t fit this trope but Nino sadly does, also keep in mind I’m not an expert on this because I’m black.

And I wanna hear more about this “missing brother” Tom mentioned but never brought up again. Maybe Nino can have a legitimate conspiracy board hidden in the back of his closet and he has his brother’s friend’s contacts saved in his phone and occasionally calls them

And he eventually lets Adrien in on his goal to find him and the reason he didn’t do so earlier was because of Adrien’s own shitty home life and he didn’t feel like “dragging him into his own family bs.”

Also, Nino would definitely be pissed at Marinette/Ladybug after everything is revealed, not just because Adrien’s his best friend, but because he HATED Gabriel with every fiber of his being. He probably glares at people calling him a hero because that’s not the asshole he remembers. But he can’t say that because Gabriel got Ladybug’s stamp of approval and no one can badmouth Ladybug, and Adrien’s too in love with Marinette who keeps telling him his dad’s a hero and he doesn’t wanna get him pissed again after Heartfixer and because he DID have a crush on her, past tense

As for Chris, he may have spoiled him a bit to keep him out of the dysfunctional world that is their family, but he’s since mellowed out after a talk

Just give the kid a personality and other interests

But yeah, I would love to see that for both Nino and Chris. I would especially love to see him and Zoé interact more because they clearly closer than most people realize.

My liege! I found it! It was in response to someone asking why he was so upset about it being stolen by Lila in Chameleon. It says deceased brother, but to be fair, I had to use Google Translate from French to English

The Black Nerd. A common character type, the nerd will always be very interested in all things nerdy: science, video games, mathematics, etc. In an continued effort to combat stereotypes, the Black Nerd will be lack athleticism, probably being asthmatic (the nerdiest of conditions). The Black Nerd will dress smartly, suspenders and bow ties. They’ll always talk smart too, using proper English with complex words.

Now, I don’t have a problem with a black character being a nerd, indeed black people are a people; we aren’t all the same and we all have varying personalities. The problem I have is that too often we see a distinct disconnect between Blackness and the Black Nerd. The Black Nerd doesn’t listen to hip hop or rap, only classical music. The Black Nerd only has white friends, the only other black characters are into not nerdy stuff. The Black Nerd never ever uses AAVE at any time in any context.

Well @dumbey, seems we’re in similar boats

Of course there are Black girl characters that are nerds. They just don't show up as often like other women nerd characters in media. Maybe because nerd/geek culture actively gatekeeps women out of these intellectual fields and/or fan spaces? Look at Childish Gambino and other nerds that throw a tantrum seeing Megan Thee Stallion into (the most mainstream) anime titles. That certainly will reflect on tv somehow someway🤷🏾‍♀️

But yeah, the Quirky Biracial Black Girl has been coming about a lot more lately. They are usually biracial because the idea of a monoracial Black girl into nerdy/alt/geeky interests doesn't sound realistic to writers. So clearly they have to be mixed with a nonwhite identity to justify their quirkiness 🙄 8/10 they usually are mixed white cuz that's the only kind of mixed identity available these people can write. Or I guess its more accurate to say they can only write whiteness as that's the default in everything.

Also the reason Black nerd boys don't really face this treatment is cuz the industry still views dark skin as an inherently masculine trait. So it's fine for the boys to be darkskinned or just monoracially Black. The girls, however, gotta be lighter in comparison to still emphasize that whole they are out of ordinary, they're still feminine 😬

That's why I like shows like Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

A Black nerdy teenage girl who wheres her fro out with love. She's surrounded by a diverse group of friends and family. And she's got a unique nerdy geek side to her that some people don't really get, not even her friends. That's ok, she got friends who are into the same stuff as her, many of which are other Black women!

(Art by @its-a-bird-its-a-cloud ,an amazing artist and friend)

Also not much to this, just wanted to post, if I have the energy, I can try to make some headcanons about them.

Honestly I don’t think Alya comes across that way to me, especially in season 4 through 6. She’s allowed to disagree with Marinette and have her own opinions, and even her own moral code. That people deserve honesty and that true is important for someone to grow. We see this in revelator and lady chaos. We even see her grow from the journalist that wants truth no matter what to the journalist that knows when some secrets should be kept. Which started back in season 2 with Sapotis, where she puts back the miraculous after seeing that ladybug’s trust is more important than being a hero and even revealing her identity. And speaking of season 2, it’s also the start where we saw Alya’s sisters and her sisters are recurring characters. So in short, I think Alya doesn’t fit that trope and has good depth to her more than most black characters do. Though, I do wish she had more black features like having natural hair.

As for Nino, I think he fits to this trope sadly. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have his own life or goals… but they’re barely seen by the audience because he doesn’t have a lot of screen time to himself. He’s either stuck being Alya’s boyfriend or Adrien’s best friend, and sometimes he gets his own moment and plotline like with the resistance in season 5, where he did help ladybug and chat noir as well as having his own character moments but it wasn’t a lot of that plotline and the resistance disappeared after season 5 leaving Nino in the dust because he barely knows the main plotline of season 6, Gabriel is monarch and Marinette is hiding it from everyone especially Adrien until she gets the butterfly miraculous back. I mean he still gets moments where he has his own thoughts and opinions on things, rocketear is a good example of this. And we saw his parents for the first in chained titans and his home life, seeing how it shaped him to the person he is. But that isn’t enough, he should be allowed to do more outside of being Adrien’s best friend or Alya’s boyfriend.

One last thing to add about Nino, we don’t actually know he’s black. Like canonically black, he’s Moroccan, which is Arab. But him being black is up in the air, not saying it isn’t implied. We have Zeno as his Va, his curls, and one of his bracelet are an African pattern. But I think it should be explicitly shown in canon that he is black more than just implying it. As for his parents, I have a light skinned mom that has a similar skin color to Nino’s dad, so his parents being lighter than him is honestly pretty realistic because sometimes that’s how genetics works.

But yeah, I think Alya doesn’t fit this trope but Nino sadly does, also keep in mind I’m not an expert on this because I’m black.

And I wanna hear more about this “missing brother” Tom mentioned but never brought up again. Maybe Nino can have a legitimate conspiracy board hidden in the back of his closet and he has his brother’s friend’s contacts saved in his phone and occasionally calls them

And he eventually lets Adrien in on his goal to find him and the reason he didn’t do so earlier was because of Adrien’s own shitty home life and he didn’t feel like “dragging him into his own family bs.”

Also, Nino would definitely be pissed at Marinette/Ladybug after everything is revealed, not just because Adrien’s his best friend, but because he HATED Gabriel with every fiber of his being. He probably glares at people calling him a hero because that’s not the asshole he remembers. But he can’t say that because Gabriel got Ladybug’s stamp of approval and no one can badmouth Ladybug, and Adrien’s too in love with Marinette who keeps telling him his dad’s a hero and he doesn’t wanna get him pissed again after Heartfixer and because he DID have a crush on her, past tense

As for Chris, he may have spoiled him a bit to keep him out of the dysfunctional world that is their family, but he’s since mellowed out after a talk

Just give the kid a personality and other interests

But yeah, I would love to see that for both Nino and Chris. I would especially love to see him and Zoé interact more because they clearly closer than most people realize.