Dream!Alya: Marinette, why do we still have to keep our identities a secret. I mean, you told me that you're Ladybug, and it hasn't changed anything! Dream!Luka: Lying, lying again, always lying. The burden is too much to bear. Dream!Alya: You'll feel better once you're rid of your secrets, Marinette. Dream!Alya: Let's drop the masks!

Marinette later claims those are projections of things she wishes for. So let's interrogate exactly what she's wishing for here.

She wants to stop lying, that much is obvious, but the way it's framed is fascinating. This is not about the big lie, at most there's an indirect reference to it via the dialogue. However, we do get two explicit references to lying about her secret identity.

Her secret identity isn't anything bad, but it's the secret that's highlighted here. It's the sheer act of lying and keeping secrets that's burdening her so much, not the contents of the lies and secrets.

The other focus of the scene is that she'll feel so much better once she stops lying and gets rid of the secrets. The focus here is purely internal of how it would make Marinette feel. She wants to get rid of the stress that lying and keeping secrets causes her.

All of this actually lines up perfectly with the characterization we see in Mister Agreste.

Marinette: I can't take it anymore! We have to tell Adrien the truth!

This is the only motivation she gives for why she wants to tell Adrien the truth, because she "can't take it anymore". The entire episode shows that the guilt and stress of lying is burdening her, and this line shows us that she would really like to get rid of it.

Once again, it's not the contents of the lie that bothers her so much as the act of lying itself. This is confirmed when later in the episode she explicitly says that she thinks lying to Adrien about his father is the right thing to do.

Luka: Why did you do [lie to Adrien]?! Viperbug: Because I love Adrien more than anything, and he'd be in so much pain if he'd ever have found out! He could get akumatized by the new holder of the Butterfly Miraculous. And I'll never, ever, EVER let anyone hurt him! I have to keep this promise and hide the truth from him, even if it burns my lips and my heart every day until the end of time. Do you think I did the right thing?

Her dilemma here isn't about whether it's right to keep this information from Adrien or not. She's convinced that knowing this information would do nothing but hurt him and that he's better off not knowing it. Her dilemma is whether it's right to protect Adrien if it means lying to him.

She sees lying as inherently a bad action, and that's what eating her up inside this entire time.

EDIT: I realized saying that she sees lying as inherently bad action was me oversimplifying things to the point of inaccuracy.

Marinette doesn't mind lying. She does it quite often and even in this episode she lied a bunch to avoid discomfort.

Well for one i am French and while the 2000s were a bit before my time it definitely helps.

Small concept comic of the young sides. Not great because I don’t have my iPad rn but you get the idea.

I always feel baffled by the interpretation of Virgil and Janus being "former villains" or having had a redemption arc, because I feel like there's a crucial point that has been missed.

The overall theme of the series is about accepting that people are made up of a bunch of messy and often contradictory impulses that nonetheless all serve a purpose. Overall, it's about finding a balance in our lives to settle these conflicts. Virgil and Janus were never villains, they were vilified and that's different. The "Dark Sides" arc is about understanding that treating these impulses as wholly "good" or "bad" is typically harmful.

reading this post by @time-is-restored really stirred my brain back into wtit territory, which made me realize that. uhm. didn't remus and logan essentially suggest the same thing in the context of nico?

to jog your memory — remus uses an apparition of nico to exacerbate thomas' fears of nico's perception of him. he specifically hopes thomas fulfill these desires of his, or at least give into the idea that he should be scared of nico, which explains why he got frustrated that logan essentially shut him down.

and the irony of it is that logan came to the same exact conclusion! he shut down remus for the same thought! and even funnier, is i'd argue they got there because of the same reason. mischaracterize remus all you want, but his first true showcase of upset is near the conclusion of wtit. when he says "you're going to pretend i don't exist, so i'm gonna pretend you don't exist," it subtly discloses that remus dislikes being unlistened to in a similar vein to logan's own problems.

and i mean, we knew they were mirrors. but why i mention all these is because i predict that remus' arc is going to be more intertwined with logan's than what we think.

i'm not saying this because i'm biased. actually, this realization came when i began looking into psychological research papers about anger. the first paper i read specifically looks into anger as a mediating factor between malevolent creativity and justice sensitivity. malevolent creativity in humans produce innovative, out-of-box ideas that meant to service one's interest despite being potentially taboo. this kind of thinking is most present with people who experience frequent injustices, especially systemic ones. stealing is an example of this kind of creativity, not necessarily because it makes you a bad person but rather, if you are financially struggling, you have no choice but to pursue unconventional strategies to fulfill your sense of justice.

researchers observe that justice sensitivity and malevolent creativity are deeply entwined with each other, but what mediates both, what ensures both these facets are thinking objectively, is anger.

anger is often a misrepresented emotion in today's society, both within the psychology field and within more cultural contexts like religion. most of the time, anger is said to be a precursor to vengeance. meaning, people expect anger to be the cause of harmful and violent acts. but part of the low opinion on anger actually comes from people who want to maintain status quo thinking. they would argue anger is not necessary if problems can be solved via peaceful means.

but truly, anger is found to be a true mediator between justice sensitivity and malevolent creativity and action. researchers have found that anger allows those slighted by systemic injustices to think more constructively, as it merely reflects one's objective perception of how one is treated. in fact, researchers posit that anger's main role isn't to enact vengeance more than it is a communication tool. pain doesn't cause anger, per se, but anger is needed to communicate said pain.

the injustice that anger seeks to communicate specifically is the anger that comes from being unrecognized. read this excerpt from this research about justifying anger within a psychological and moral sense:

The desire behind anger primarily entails seeking recognition and respect rather than exacting revenge. While many believe that anger is caused by pain, in reality, pain is merely a physiological sensation. Anger is directed at others’ disrespect and belittling attitudes toward oneself. For instance, if someone steps on “my” foot intentionally, it may make “me” very angry, whereas if it was unintentional, the anger would be greatly reduced or even disappear, despite the pain being identical. Therefore, anger is not triggered by feelings of pain, but rather by others’ disrespect and belittlement toward oneself or loved ones, which can also be described as a feeling of being offended.

so my point is: anger is quite important not just in the context of logan's current arc but remus'. it contextualizes why remus says logan is "speaking his language" in wtit. anger is an important driving force for both of them, with logan being more representitive of justice sensitivity (esp considering he is the one thomas turns to when wanting to rationalize his feelings abt a situation).

the problem is that anger seems to be an undiscussed topic amongst the sides. the reason why remus and logan come to such staunch conclusions about thomas and nico is not necessarily because they're wrong — they have objective fears about rejection in the midst of a very vulnerable time for thomas — but because both remus and logan are, well, isolated. malevolent creativity and justice sensitivity do not work alone, mal creativity especially. in fact, judgment is worsened without that mediating factor of anger (and emotional regulation!).

the fact that remus and logan do not work together, as well as the fact that catholic morality is generally adverse to enabling anger, makes it so that thomas develops an inability to externalize feelings of being slighted to those who offend him. it's a self-deprecating mechanism, and adds to why thomas is at such a low state in the current timeline of sasi. we don't even address his frustrations against nico in wtit!

i do think i need to sharpen my thoughts on this a lil bc im writing this in a hurry (it's xmas morning lol) but i do expect that remus and logan specifically seem to have an intertwined plotline of response towards injustices and being shutdown. i'm pretty excited to see how this manifests in future arcs