#elation

forever waiting for someone (not me) to write a ml season 5 canon divergence au veering off episode 5x09 elation because that episode revealed to monarch that chat noir had a close relationship with marinette, and seemed to imply he would keep targeting her to exploit that relationship and drag him out. but then adrinette got together and he never used this against her or targeted her specifically because of this or even remembered it, which was always super strange because at the very least he could have been like, "hey son, i don't think you should be involved with that girl who is a magnet for trouble and seems to be two timing you with a superhero." anyway i always think about how, what if adrinette didn't figure it out and chat actually fully struggled with not pursuing that relationship because of their power imbalance and his own personal guilt at knowing her as a civilian while dating her as a hero (no one really talks about this but as much as i love marichat, it makes perfect sense adrien would eventually remember everything he's been taught as a preteen celeb about not having personal relationships with fans because the power imbalance always means you're taking advantage of them. throw in the fact that he knows her irl and would be sneakily dating her without her knowing, it made perfect sense why chat had to stop that and pursue her as himself. a lot of adrien's reactions to things (like lila) come from a place of interacting with the world as a celebrity which doesn't always work out for him but is very consistent with his characterization. i just think it would have been interesting to see that moral dilemma drag on over multiple episodes instead of him very quickly realizing it's wrong and putting a stop to it immediately), at the same time gabriel keeps trying to akumatize marinette to bring out chat or or just starts targeting her relentlessly even without the akumatization attempts just because he can. it would have made for such an interesting story arc but unfortunately all we get is the one (honestly perfect) episode and then season 5 forgets it even happened. 😭 would be cool for someone to write this (i can't personally do it, i would be bad at anything action-based or the akuma fights, i'm a non-kwami au girl, sorry) so i can stop occasionally dreaming about what it might look like and how chaotic fun it could be...