#ask zoe

Uh, Sublime seems fine? I mean it's hard to get enthusiastic about yet another Comically Flawless Character for Marinette to compare herself to for no reason. I guess it's that to me Sublime herself isn't interesting, she's just kind of a prop for other characters to reflect off of. That's kind of the downside to being so Comically Perfect, most of her personality just doesn't read as real or relatable. I mean, she wasn't even the akuma, her mother was. And her mother and father's dynamic around both each other and Sublime's career are much more complex and I have way more to talk about the two of them than Sublime herself.

The only place of any interest is her unique way of dealing with her anxiety - making it separate from herself and talking shit to it. Of course, this was just a contrived way for Marinette to mistakenly believe Sublime was talking shit to her, so even that's not without it's annoyances, but it's definitely A Strategy to dealing with your Inner Saboteur. Reminds of the post/tweet about turning your Intrusive Thoughts into a drunk backseat passenger so it's easier to write off as nonsense.

Sublime's design is okay, I like having a character actually lean into some less saturated colors for once. I just wish she had more contrast because it's a lot of similar blue on blue on blue, especially where her dress hem meets her "legs". And it's crazy that her default hair has FIVE BRAIDS, at LEAST. Where does all that hair go when she puts it in a ponytail though?

The name is cringe, but we all knew that. It's like the episode title "Sublimation" was decided on first and they worked backwards from there. I don't know if Sublime is a common name in Belgium (doubtful), but in English it's just weird because that's Not a Name. It's not even a common adjective that people use. In English, a more appropriate name would be "Grace" or "Harmony" or "Bliss" - they are names but they're also pretty literal. But then they couldn't have the "gotcha!" moment from naming the episode "Sublimation". Does it sound weird to French viewers the way it does in English???

I'm glad she's so forgiving but also has a healthy amount of Oh This Girl is Craaaazy in the way she interacts with Marinette. Willing to meet her half way but isn't like "oh that's cute how she's a total freaking weirdo!" She sees Marinette for exactly who she is. And I'm glad she's Adrien's friend, he needs his own damn friends.

I made Marinette interested in mechanical engineering, aka, making inventions. She's helped around the bakery by making repairs since she was little and now can make new things on her own, but also wants them to be cute. She still has a crush on Adrien, but it started as a celebrity crush from when she was little into full blown love upon meeting him in person.

Mostly she's the same. Design wise, I was playing around with her pigtails to ACTUALLY resemble ladybug wings opening and closing, though it still needs some tweaking - the two part pony tail isn't cute from all angles unfortunately.

What Marinette needs is an actual tie to the Big Bad, which in canon is uhh (checks notes) Fashion? and Adrien?? I guess??? But even that is just a connection to GABRIEL and not Hawkmoth, so that's where I'd focus on changing things for Marinette in a rewrite. Something to make her care beyond just He's Doing a Bad Thing.

I changed Adrien's profession to being a Child Actor (Paris is the birth of Film as well as Fashion you know, and at this point, the show has done more to celebrate film than fashion). It puts him in the public eye in a way that I feel appeals more to people in his age bracket - being a famous model just doesn't feel like it would hit outside of his professional peers the way being an actor would.

I also think it would lean in to his identity issues - acting since he was little and always being pushed to perform, it would be easy to lose your sense of self when you're constantly putting on a role. Chat Noir would also become another role, though he might have fun with it and put on a different facade every fight (though reverting to his usual Chat Noir ways mid way, kinda implying that IS at least *part* of Adrien's real self)

He's not a sentibeing - I just kinda can't get behind it. But I think keeping Felix and even Kagami as Sentibeings and then having Actual Normal Human Boy Adrien constantly pressured to keep up and even out perform them would open an interesting conversation. Hell, it'd be interesting if Felix finds out about Sentibeings first and just ASSUMES Adrien is one due to him keeping up with them, only to find out that actually Adrien is human. Kinda gives Felix a bit of humanity too, that he's not beyond human reach.

But also stresses Adrien the fuck out lol.

This is so not a final version of Alya, like my Koki Marina I have redrawn her a million times, this is actually just the first draft

I mostly just changed a few things in Alya's motivation - I NEED her to be the Guy in the Chair. I NEED her to know about Ladybug/Marinette's identity from the beginning, so she can ACTUALLY shine as a support character instead of reading as a hypocrite in the second half.

It makes way more sense to me for her to be focused on unmasking Hawkkmoth, not Ladybug or Chat Noir. Like, what does unmasking Ladybug even DO for the GOOD cause? So it's her drive from the beginning, which I think will ACTUALLY help the plot go forward???? I know the show wanted a Monster of the Week flow to it, buuuuuut it's frustrating that neither the bad guys NOR the good guys made any real headway. With Alya pushing the good guys closer to Hawkmoth, it allows the writing to push Hawkmoth to make bigger plans and moves so that they can STAY toe to toe without ending the show too soon. The illusion of progress.

I haven't touched on Nino too much. I would want him to be Adrien's Guy in the Chair, but he'd probably be less focused on unmasking Hawkmoth and more on helping Adrien with his work/hero/life balance. So support strictly for Adrien.

The only thing I go back and forth on is whether I'd even want the audience to know that Adrien = Chat Noir lol. Obviously, there's no way to do a rewrite and NOT have people already know the twist, but I'm thinking in a hypothetical universe where I am starting from Ground Zero. Like as if this is a reboot 20 years from now with a new audience who's never seen the original and is seeing the show for the first time.

God, imagine the discourse between Chat shippers and Adrien shippers lol.