#category: analysis

Stealing the phone in “Copycat”? Marinette panicked in the few seconds of time she was given when she realized that she was about to be caught. Same concept with not returning Alya’s phone in “The Mime.”

Playing against Max in “Gamer” and “stealing” his spot? Extremely limited time frame to try playing.

Not trusting her longtime bully in “Antibug” (the audacity) and offering Nino a date with Alya in “Animan”? Quick decisions made in a short period of time that she swiftly comes to regret.

Giving Manon the doll in “The Puppeteer”? Manon pressured her in the short amount of time as she was about to leave

Yelling at Lila in “Volpina”? Impulsive, with her original intent to be showing herself to Adrien and revealing that Lila had stolen the grimoire.

Getting angry at someone she thought had kidnapped Adrien in “A Christmas Special”? High-intensity emotional moment for all involved and she almost immediately regrets it.

Snapping at Nadja in “Prime Queen”? In the moment, under pressure, on camera, Chat wasn’t helping, and all while Nadja was insisting that she was lying, not even giving proper context to images she was showing.

Making a “rude” comment at Chloe in “Malediktator”? An irritated thought (that she didn’t even seem to mean saying outloud) that she made impulsively.

Lying to everyone in “Catalyst” because she didn’t want to disappoint them? Immediate and brought on by Chloe’s snarky comment.

The plan alongside Chloe in “Animaestro”? Pressure brought on by Chloe (based in what is seemingly a lie by her) who talks about plans happening right now that they need to stop right now.

Wanting to call out Bob Roth publicly in “Silencer” (because apparently the show thinks she’s to blame for Luka’s akumatization there)? She was angry and was about to be led away by Luka.

“Chat Blanc” where she sneaks into Adrien’s room to deliver a gift? Brought about based on panic after being threatened by her friends.

Taking things out on Lila in “Ladybug” and the lie she gives Chris in “Christmaster”? Impulsive with little time to come up with a different path to take.

Going off at Chat in “Miraculous New York” for leaving Paris unprotected without telling her? Immediate reaction and right in the middle of an akuma battle where emotions are already high.

“Truth” (just “Truth” in general, really)? Panic and things being thrown at her unexpectedly.

Yelling at her friends in “Gang of Secrets”? Little time frame brought on by the crumbling dollhouse and their unexpected arrival.

Handing off the earrings to Alya and not telling Chat in “Hack-San”? There was basically no time at all.

Helping Adrien with his favor in “Simpleman” and dropping off the kids with Rolland? Adrien needed an answer right then.

Holding off Viperion’s Second Chance in “Ephemeral”? Less than five minutes of time.

You can also make this argument for many scenes such as the statue scene in “The Puppeteer 2″ and the guitar scene in “Desperada”; these are not plans, these are impulsive actions she makes through an overflow of emotion (and based somewhat in someone else’s advice/action, but again, we’re not talking about that).

How this reflects on Adrien is that Adrien’s worse acts are not impulsive; in the biggest actions people salt on him for, it’s because he lets himself either stew over a matter (whether intentionally or otherwise) and take it out on Ladybug after time has passed, or he had plenty of time to think about it and then didn’t.

“Copycat”? He’d seen the “““warning signs”““ from Theo early on, and then a whole akuma battle to admit to Ladybug what really happened. He chose not to and Ladybug remained oblivious.

“Glaciator”? He waited from sunset to evening for Ladybug and had a moment with Marinette, giving him ample amounts of time to not take it out on Ladybug (for something she already said she might not show up to because she had plans), and then he did it anyway.

“Syren”? He had plenty of time from his first mini-fit over the matter to quitting while Paris was underwater, but he only riled himself up more rather than cooling down.

“Frozer”? Tons of time, from the rejection (back in “Glaciator”, mind you, then again here) to planning a date with Kagami and then to Frozer showing up and freezing Paris, yet he went from sad about being rejected to outright annoyed with Ladybug for it.

Supporting Lila in general? Literally over a season of time and he has yet to tell any classmate that she’s taking advantage of them.

“Chat Blanc”? This guy had so much time to tell Marinette about what he knew before an akuma forced his hand that there was a montage of them hanging out together.

“Miraculous New York”? He had from Plagg’s suggestion to the bus leaving to reconsider and he didn’t.

“Lies”? Ladybug ditching him on patrols is portrayed as something that has been happening frequently, yet he’s still hoping for akuma to happen just so he can see her.

“Glaciator 2″? Two seasons of having been rejected and Ladybug getting upset over these things specifically (”Prime Queen” and “Oblivio”) to shape himself up.

And “Rocketear” will likely follow the same exact trend. Adrien has time - plenty of time, really - to sort his feelings out, but he doesn’t. He just works himself up even more, often with zero prompting from anyone else (with Plagg sometimes actively calling him out or trying to dissuade him).

I started feeling iffy about the Love Square back when I saw Origins. Just... showing that the class wasn't really friends before, and that Marinette in particular was bullied and 'apart' from everyone made her crush on Adrien feel... less. Like she started obsessing over the first guy who was nice to her, especially since it was seemingly unprompted. It also made her friends seem fair-weather. Basically, it hurt my opinion of everyone but Marinette, who genuinely just wanted everyone to be happy and started working for it.

Agreed. You almost start wondering if they’re only friends with her because she managed to stand up to Chloe, like--maybe no one wanted to be friends with Chloe’s “favorite target,” y’know?

wow, i’m sad now

Anonymous asked:

Have we ever been given a reason as to why Ladybug thinks Chat Noir is ""irreplaceable""? The best explanation so far is Ladybug being unsure of her solo capabilities, but that point was rendered moot in Glaciator 2. What can Adrien do, that an experienced fighter like Nora or Kagami can't?

I think, psychologically, it’s because Chat Noir has been around since the beginning, particularly “Origins” (hope the previous anon doesn’t mind me shamelessly piggybacking off of their points lol) which was one of those “the days that changed her life forever so it’s very vivid in her mind” moments.

Chat is “irreplaceable” in the way that Adrien is “irreplaceable”; they were there on those big days and both offered her an act of kindness when she - before getting out of bed to start the school year - had no friends, no one to rely on, and no one really interacted with her (presumably) since she was unlucky enough to be bullied by the person that no one wanted to be the victim of.

Alya is probably in a similar boat for the same reason, essentially making Adrien, Chat, and Alya the Holy Trinity of “Irreplaceable and Always Forgiven.” The fact that Marinette lets them off so easily (honestly, even throwing Chat in the trash was letting him off easy) is a testament to this. They can’t be replaced in her life because they were in the right place at the right time and Marinette - emotionally - doesn’t want to rock the boat. She can’t even bring herself to give other heroes different miraculous for the sake of identity protection (I know it’s because the writers are lazy, but we’re talking about an in-universe explanation), so this is a girl who doesn’t like change and doesn’t like dealing with change.

Aw, thank you very much! I appreciate the compliment!

I think the main advice that I can give is that, if you’re trying to force a way for the two characters to fight or conflict with each other, something’s wrong. It’s fine to go, “I have these two characters and their flaws are [x] and [y] so they clash in [z] way,” because that’s taking already established parts of the characters and using the relationship to develop them out of it. However, if you’re going, “I can’t let them get together yet, so I’ll create [x] and [y] in order to keep them apart/keep them from falling in love for now,” then that’s a problem (an example is Marinette’s stammering, something that was never established in “Origins” before the Adrien crush happened outside of her freak-out to Tikki, despite the fact that Marinette’s shyness/self-consciousness is already there to prevent her from confessing).

You can technically create flaws for them, but there has to be a cutting off point where the suspension of disbelief needs to be taken into consideration, because people would start wondering, “okay, but why bother at that point?”

There needs to be enough of the relationship to be worth holding onto. What does the character lose if they drop the relationship? What did they gain in the relationship? Did the positives outweigh the negatives?

Take Marinette and Luka because now I can explain it outside of a fanfic where it’s layered under Luka’s dorky music references:

Luka brings Marinette to a place of calm where she isn’t normally able to be. He’s understanding, empathetic, and finds her quirks amusing/charming rather than something to be mocked. He’s happy with who she is and - while he does have limits - tries to find any middle-ground he can with her because her friendship is more important to him than their capacity to be in a romantic relationship. He can see when she’s stressed and reacting unlike herself and is never offended because he gets her.

Meanwhile, Marinette brings a certain energy to Luka’s life. She’s his inspiration - his muse - and his music is all the better with her alongside him. She brings out emotions in him he doesn’t normally feel, but only to healthy degrees and in a way that ultimately benefits him (Bob Roth would’ve never given Kitty Section a deal had Luka not gotten akumatized). While Marinette may not “emotionally” support him the way he does for her, it’s because he doesn’t need it as much, and Marinette ends up offering her own form of support in "Silencer,” the surprise evident on Luka’s face when she brushes him off to face Bob Roth herself, determined to support him when he was ready to give up as if to say, “no, you say it’s not worth it and I’m saying that you’re worth it.”

Marinette heightens Luka from the calm that makes him come off as unaffected, whereas Luka calms Marinette from the emotions that cause her problems.

They’re both incredibly creative, are the only planners in the group (Ladybug has given orders to every other hero wholly and completely whereas Viperion gets his own way to instruct via what he’s seen through Second Chance), and can play off of each other’s energies. The only thing that stopped their relationship were issues outside of their compatibility.

I said it before, but the goal should be “they’re friends first, romantic partners second.” Romance is an extension of friendship and should be seen like the rule of squares and rectangles: a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square. Similarly, romance should always derive from friendship but not all friendships are romantic.

Oooo, that’s a really interesting question! Yeah, it’s what makes me wish we got other interactions that we haven’t seen before.

Judging by “Captain Hardrock” and “Desperada,” I think Alya sees Luka as a someone her to potentially dump Marinette onto when she decides that it’s a good idea, but when Luka isn’t available, Alya just continues pushing for Marinette to get with Adrien. It’s more of a half-hearted thing, like well, if Luka is there--

Alternatively, he’s just there for her to tease Marinette over instead of having an actual deep conversation over Marinette’s feelings concerning Adrien versus Luka.

I would imagine that the relationship is strained, yeah. Luka is a go with the flow type, so he’s not someone who likes to force others to do something. When Luka and Alya generally interact, I think they get along, but things can get awkward when Alya is openly teasing Marinette in front of him.

Luka wants things to be fair. If Marinette ends up getting with Adrien in the end, he wants it to be because there was no pressure/nudging by anyone else, whether in either love interest’s direction or for her to make a decision in general (hi, New York special). He wants Marinette to have her own time to think about it and everything, which she really only gets around him/on her own.

Ooooo, so like--making things “equal” that were already unbalanced?

That’s a really interesting concept! I do think about the wish thing a lot and I’ve been vocal about there needing to be more behind it than just “equal exchange” because it’s kind of generic, and I adore that idea that the wish can just be granted without drawbacks if things were already lopsided.

I also wonder sometimes... not to be morbid, but what about the reverse of Hawk Moth’s wish (by the way, glad the official website clarified the whole “world” thing because his wish goes deeper than just “I want my wife back,”), which is - in its most simplistic form - bringing someone back to life, so the reverse would be wishing someone were dead? Like, what, does the living person (who presumably just gets teleported to the surface or brought back from ashes depending on if they were buried/cremated/whatever) get assumed to be the next coming of God???

I’m going to support Lukanette as a ship no matter what regardless of what the show does with it, with only a very small part of it being out of spite due to “you cowards had something amazing and then proceeded to do nothing with it.”

Also, here’s the thing about Luka: the show doesn’t waste its time with him.

He never shows up for long, but when he does, you almost always learn something new or see something else established. Now, could the lack of screentime be because Luka makes Marinette feel calm and happy which is the exact opposite of what the writers are after? Yes, obviously (hi, “Gamer 2.0″), but the point still stands.

If we presume that the trend from Season 3 is going to continue, the Luka side of things isn’t going to drag. There’ll maybe be one or two episodes about it before that subplot "ends,” with more focus going towards Marinette pining over Adrien or being sad around Kagami and Adrien.

For Lukanette, that’s an easy fix. Take Adrien out of the equation and problem instantly solved. It’s not like the love square where we have a dumpster full of issues that two seasons can’t cover without feeling like a rushed mess. The love square is too far gone but Lukanette can be salvaged with a fix-it or two.

Initially, I thought the writers could just be lazy if they wanted and yeet both Luka and Kagami out of the country (the former with Jagged taking him on as an apprentice or something and just being like, “I’LL TAKE YOU ON TOUR WITH ME” and the latter with Kagami going back to Japan), but after the official Miraculous website said that Luka has no interest in being a rock star, I had to scratch that off.

The trend with Marinette is usually “it’s her fault” or “she gets hurt/humiliated,” so it’s totally possible that they have Luka just decide to move on from her and the narrative will blame Marinette for it, or Marinette will “move on” from Adrien and go to tell Luka, but then see that Luka is with his own love interest now (”bonus” if there’s a lesson about not pursuing people who aren’t reciprocating even though the love square exists), leaving Marinette sad and eventually comforted by Adrien, which will bring her back into love territory (these are more just examples and not me speculating seriously).

¿Why does almost everyone in the fandom ship adrinette?

Yeah, I wouldn’t vent so much about the love square if it wasn’t shoved in my face all the time. There’s a difference between having a romantic aspect to a show and having that romantic aspect take over basically everything, which is why I fully understand calling it an “agenda.”

As for why the fandom still ships it... well, I can think of a few:

- Reliving the season 1 days when the love square was “better”. It’s easier to sort of stay in that time and have anything after it feel more like “optional canon.”

- Enjoying the concept more than the execution. After all, it wasn’t like the ship didn’t have potential, so some people prefer to run with that instead of giving up the ship entirely due to how the show has used it (this is in the same vein as “they enjoy the fanon content but not the canon content”).

- Sunk Cost Fallacy: giving up on Adrienette means that all the time spent shipping it built up to nothing, which is a depressing thought that’s hard to handle.

- The feeling of, “it’s the endgame ship and therefore it must be shipped,” as if liking any other aspect of the show isn’t enough without liking the ships it promotes.

- Spite. People disliking/salting the ship openly (or, for example, and totally hypothetically, suggesting that another ship might deserve to be endgame instead) makes them like it more just to spite those people.

- They simply don’t see any problem with the ship and thus continue to enjoy it.