#fix fic

Some endings should have been different than the ones canon gave us. This is definitely one of them.

This fanfic references and rewrites parts of the last two episodes of the final season of The Boys.

It turned into two videos but I'm finally finished with my essay about Age of Scorpius, and just now I'm realizing I never said what the topic of the video was

Welp, it's about the misogyny in the Age of Scorpius

In a more bittersweet yet hopeful timeline, soulmates can feel each other's pain, and die when their partner does. This is enough for Anakin to resign from the Jedi Order a week after Geonosis and confront the Council about the implications of the Clone Wars on the horizon.

CW: Mentions of canonical minor character death, injuries, limb loss, and slavery; implied abuse and/or religious trauma; allusions to in-universe ableism and chronic pain via fantasy hyperempathy; Anakin-typical psychology.

Snippet under the cut.

Like I steer clear of those sorts of videos in general because of how I often come out thinking, "Wow, way to miss the point of XYZ element," or, "I feel like I'm being summerized a fairly interesting fanfic that they could be pouring this passion into." It's a spectrum.

But a lot of them tend to lean towards the former. It's not that they "miss the point" and that they cannot possible critique it period but more in the case of:

-deleting whole characters rather than looking into how they could work. I think Miraculous has a good supporting cast while grounding the show with Marinette and knowing not to overwhelm too much at once even when it's a class effort.

Furthermore, they give Marinette's slice of Paris a firm identity. It ties in with my stanning of Steven Universe's Townies since, well, it's all well and good to save the world but we should get a firm idea of the world being saved first or it feels like just an empty sandbox.

Now one could argue how they could be expanded upon more without crowding things like, say, a Ladybug-lite episode that had them deal with their own problems and an Akuma attack before back-up from the Guardian arrives.

-treating character's flaws and mistakes made by them as problems in and of themselves, trying to sandblast their edges rather than embrace them as humans just like us. Look, call Marinette a stalker all you want but I'd prefer somebody took that and explored it from a different angle I may disagree with rather than do away with it.

My post speaks of this at length: https://matt0044.tumblr.com/post/773298817057587200/yeah-im-not-comfortable-with-the-way-stalker

-Chloe's redemption arc sticks the landing? Okay. But I feel it'd be more interesting to look at the reversal in Season 3 and try to understand where the narrative was going with it before thinking, "How could this've worked better?"

-Maybe Season 1's plot could've been more linear with some episodes informing the events of others more directly. However, I do feel like discarding the episodic format would nerf how Miraculous has stuck around for so long. Each episode being its own thing makes for rewatching just select stories rather than whole seasons easy rather than adhering to the made for streaming model.

My point is that some feel like they're cheating with less of a "fix" and more of an "overhaul" that's hung up over what Miraculous isn't rather than what it is. I often muse about rewriting a certain Power Rangers season myself but I often go for a "Take the existing elements and see how they can mesh from your execution" approach.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Long Walk (Movie 2025) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Ray Garraty/Peter McVries, Clementine Olson | Cathy Scramm/Hank Olson Characters: Peter McVries Additional Tags: Pete send the one letter he has to before he continues with his life, Post-Canon Fix-It, Fix-It Summary:

She wasn’t sure why she did that now; she was, in theory, safe from her greatest enemy. After all, Lena had murdered him in cold blood. She’d killed her own brother for a monstrous lie, and while there was little to mourn -the man he was died years ago by his own hand- it hurt. It hurt so much that the pain squeezed out of every pore, until she awoke in the depths of the night thinking the hot stains on her cheeks might have been from crying blood.

The one person she had truly trusted, respected, revered-

(desired)

-was a lie, an illusion. At least Lex had, at one point, been real.

Lena scouted her apartment. It didn’t occur her to check the balcony until she was about to go to bed. She was on the thirty-sixth floor. No one could get up here.

Kara was outside.

She hasn’t landed; she was hanging in the air with her cape lazily swirling against her legs as she hung in the nighttime breeze. She was far enough away that Lena couldn’t get a read on her.

“What do you want?”

She drifted closer, in that unnerving way she had.

“Hi.”

Lena sighed, and waved a dismissive hand.

“Go away, Supergirl. I’m not in the mood for another speech.”

Lena turned back inside, but stopped when she felt the soft gust of wind. Kara was a few feet away from the balcony now, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

She hated how things had changed when Kara told her. She no longer saw Supergirl, just Kara in a costume. It was impossible not to see her, and yet for three long years she’d done just that. Blinded herself. Refused to see the bitter truth. All she’d ever wanted was a real friend

(lover)

who respected and admired

(and loved and cherished)

her and with whom she could share those feelings, and she’d really thought Kara was it. She was the best friend

(the one)

that Andrea and Jack could never have been. She believed that so deeply.

(she doesn’t want me the way I want her)

“I’m not here to give you a speech.”

Lena looked up sharply.

“Then what? Here to stop me? Foil my evil plans? I’m a villain now, remember.”

Kara’s face turned hard. “Don’t lie to me.”

Lena barked out a bitter laugh, feeling that need rise inside her, that anger. She had lost everything. The love of her mother, the protection of her brother. No matter how wealthy she was, she could never have those back. There was no price for what Lena wanted.

“How dare you say those words to me,” Lena hissed. “You’re the biggest liar I’ve ever met. Everything you’ve ever said to me is a lie.’

“That’s not true.”

“You told me you’d always protect me. Who’ll protect me from you?”

Kara looked away, shuddering as she breathed, or silently sobbing. Lena smiled a thin smile, glad to twist the knife.

(stop it stop it stop it stop hurting her)

“Something happened to me tonight.”

“I don’t care.”

“A fifth-dimensional being came to me and offered to let me change the past. I could change whatever I wanted.”

“I don’t see any changes,” said Lena.

Kara shook her head. “His gifts were all poison. Every time I tried to fix what happened, it turned out wrong. I tried and tried and tried until I realized what was happening.”

“Which is?”

“I was supposed to learn that I can’t just push past my mistakes. I have to own them and accept the consequences. There’s no magic wand that can fix us.”

“There is no us, Kara. We weren’t meant to be.”

“How can you say that?”

Kara drifted closer, sank down so they were face to face with the balcony railing between them.

“How can you say that?”

“It’s obvious. Whatever this was, it wasn’t meant to be. We’re just too different.”

Kara shook her head.

“When I think of all the things that had to happen in order for me to be here right now, it boggles my mind,” said Kara. “Two species from two different galaxies evolved so close together. Just the chances of that happening are incredibly small, and…

“And then my people had to find this world, and Kal-El’s parents had to choose it for their son. This world, this world specifically, and then I had to get stuck in the phantom zone on my way here. All of those things and a billion others all had to happen in perfect, crystalline order just for me to walk into that office and see you.”

Lena has gone still, listening. Kara looked at her so intently, so reverently, that Lena felt something strain inside her, stretch against itself to the point of breaking. It took all her many years of carefully honed composure to keep herself still.

“Every moment I had with you was a gift. Every single one. There are times when… there are times when I think that if I could somehow have saved Krypton, I don’t know if I could, because it would mean losing you. I don’t know if that’s a choice I could make and I don’t know what that means.”

“That’s lovely,” Lena said, trying and brutally failing to keep her voice from cracking, “but it doesn’t change anything.”

Kara let out a soft, choked sound.

“I know that. I know I ruined everything and I can’t fix it. I just needed to say this because it needed to be said. I’m not here to ask you to forgive me. I’m here to ask you to forgive yourself.”

“Oh, please.”

“I can’t stop you.”

Lena blinked. “What?”

“I can’t stop you. I can’t fight you. I know that now. It doesn’t matter what you do, I won’t ever hurt you again. I don’t want to confront what that means.”

“That’s rich, considering that the last time we had one of these chats, your sister pointed an orbital fusion canon at my head.”

“If she’d fired that thing,” said Kara, “there would be no more satellite, and no more DEO. I would shatter the foundations and pull down the walls. I would rain destruction on whoever hurt you. I’ve seen what happens to me when something happens to you. I never want to see it again.”

Lena leaned on the railing. “Go away.”

“What you have planned, you need to stop. I can’t stop you, and if I can’t, no one can. Please, Lena. I’m begging you, don’t do this. Don’t become someone you’ll hate just to hurt me. I’m not worth it.”

“Not everything is about you, Supergirl.”

“Please. Don’t take away everyone’s choice. I know what that’s like.”

“Oh?”

Kara nodded, and in the moonlight, her tears sparkled on her skin. “On Krypton, we were assigned to guilds as children. We had arranged marriages. Everything about our lives was planned from birth. Here, people have so much choice. Yes, they make mistakes, but people choose life and art and love. You can’t take that away over me.”

“It’s too late,” Lena said, her voice cracking, finally. “I’m doing it and if you won’t stand in my way, it’ll be done.”

Kara took a deep breath.

“Okay. I guess I should go.”

Lena rocked back.

“What? No. I’m going through with the plan.”

“I know. I won’t fight you.”

Kara turned, about to rocket off into the sky.

“You can’t just leave!” Lena screamed, her voice ragged from liquor and tears.

Kara stopped.

“You’re supposed to fight me. You’re supposed to yell at me and tell me the truth, that you knew I was a monster all along, that you were just staying close to me to watch me, to get to Lex. You’re supposed to fight me! You’re supposed to fight me!”

“No.”

Lena let out an incoherent scream and balled her hands into fists, meaning to slam them on the balcony, but they struck the implacable flesh of Kara’s chest. Powerful arms gathered around Lena, sheltering her from the nighttime chill and the voiceless judgment of distant stars.

“I won’t ever hurt you again,” Kara murmured. “I promise. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you for what I’ve done.”

“Why?” Lena whimpered. “Why won’t you just fight back?”

“Because you’re just like me. We’ve both lost so much. We both don’t want to see anyone else die.”

Lena should have shoved her away, demanded to be set free, screamed, protested, shoved. Instead her arms wound around Kara, drawn as if by gravity, and Kara’s gentle fingers began to stroke through her hair, her warm breath on the crown of Lena’s head.

“Come back to our life, Lena. To our friends. Come home.”

“I killed my big brother.”

“I know. I failed you both. I’m Supergirl. I’m supposed to find another way, a perfect solution.”

“I had to. He’d never have let you live if he knew how I f…”

Lena caught herself as the last moment.

It was Kara who sobbed now, her entire body shuddering. So much power with so much tenderness, her vast crushing strength kept at bay as she held Lena like one of the most precious of treasures.

“In one of the timelines that Mxy showed me, you… you told me how you felt as you were dying. I saw you die so many times, I can’t do it again.”

Lena tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry.

“I didn’t get to tell you before you died. I was scared. I never thought you’d want me like I want you.”

Lena went stock still, feeling Kara’s shuddering breath against her as she held her own. She couldn’t look up, afraid that if she did, this would be a cruel nightmare and she’d jolt awake in an empty bed and a penthouse full of bitter memories.

“Kara,” Lena began, finally. “Kara, what are you saying? What do you mean?”

“It’s so hard to say,” Kara sighed, and then, almost to herself, “even if I don’t have much left to lose.”

“Say it.”

“I love you.”

Lena’s heart soared, and a harsh sob exploded out of her. She’d dreamed of those words, longed for them, needed to hear them. So many times, Lena had almost let herself believe it.

“I want this to be real,” said Lena. “I just don’t know if I can forgive you, Kara. It hurt so much.”

“Can we try?” said Kara. “Can we give it a chance? Can you give me a chance?”

Lena finally looked up, and when she saw those tear-stained blue eyes filled in equal measure with terror and hope, she knew.

“Yes,” she said, simply.

Lena looked behind her, and was suddenly full of revulsion and regret. She hated this place.

“Can you take me back to your loft?”

A while ago I read a post where someone said that they don't like fanfiction because "Why would you take someone else's story and butcher it?" When I read that, I thought "Isn't that harsh? Most fanfics are made out of people's love for the source material." Well, I think the Scarlet Lady AU by Zoe-Oneesama is exactly the kind of fic this person was imagining when they said that. "Scarlet Lady" is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic/saltfic/fixfic that fundamentally misses the point of pretty much every character and major plot point in it. And since it recently ended, it's time for my comprehensive review of it.

Just a few things before we begin. I'm going to assume that everyone reading this has read "Scarlet Lady", so I'm not going to recap the story. I was originally planning to write this on the day of the last page, but the final page was honestly such a nothing burger that I thought it wasn't the final page initially.

Some people may have a problem with the very concept of this review, saying its not fair for me to criticize a non-professional fanfic with this much scrutiny. I think that's an opinion Zoe herself holds. First, I think nothing is above criticism, especially not something that is claiming to be better than the professional product. People didn't hold back against "Spiderman: Lotus", did they? Even within this fanbase, people had some pretty harsh words for "Karma of Lies". Second, I think any discussion of non-professionalism went out the window the moment Zoe stated her intention to sell hardcopies of "Scarlet Lady". This arguably is professional. Third, I wouldn't be making this review if I thought this was a fanfic made out of genuine love and passion, and simply missed the mark. No, "Scarlet Lady" is in fact created out of nothing but spite and contempt, and I feel that makes it pretty fair game for criticism. So, without further ado, let's begin.

Why is Canon Better than Scarlet Lady?

In "Scarlet Lady", Emilie Agreste was woken up with no consequences, no buildup, no emotion, and no meaningful consequences. In canon, Emilie's loss was accepted by the characters and she died. I'm pretty sure that automatically makes canon better than "Scarlet Lady", so you don't even need to read the rest of this review! In all seriousness, this is genuinely some of the worst writing I have ever seen, and it is what made me decide that "Scarlet Lady" was a bad story, so I decided to just mention it on its own.

To be clear, I think Miraculous Ladybug is a poorly written show. "Scarlet Lady" is just worse. And since I used to enjoy Miraculous Ladybug, I'm in a good position to compare the two. When I read the ending of Scarlet Lady, what I though about canon was

I think that writing the middle part of a story is relatively easy. The audience is already hooked from the beginning, and they are intrigued for what might happen, so they'll keep reading even if not everything is great. I think the beginning and ending is the hard part. "Scarlet Lady" didn't have to worry about the beginning and getting people interested because it's piggybacking off of an already successful show. And since the ending of "Scarlet Lady" was so awful, it's clear to me that it was always badly written.

I'll now be analyzing "Scarlet Lady" in terms of its tone, its various characters, and more.

Tone

Every single potentially powerful moment in "Scarlet Lady" is played off as a joke. This may be in part because of the format, with it being released 8 panels at a time, so the audience has to be given something to be entertained by in every page. The thing is, I don't think that's true. I have seen plenty of webcomics where a situation is spread across multiple pages, and the audience doesn't instantly lose interest when one page is for setup purposes.

The consequence of this unserious tone is that the entire story is an emotional flatline. There's no moments that make you sad, no moments that make you happy, nothing that makes you scared or invested. Nothing feels like anything, because everything is a joke.

The season 2 finale of canon is actually really good, it feels like a real challenge with both sides giving it their all. In SL however, the same battle feels about as challenging as a stroll through the park.

I've seen a lot of comedies, and most of them still have a strong emotional core that isn't made into a joke at every turn. So arguing that SL is a comedy doesn't really help.

The problems with this unserious tone run deep, and you will see that as I explore the various characters.

Characters

I don't even like most of the characters in ML, but I could see the absolute downgrade they are in SL.

In general, I just wanted to say this: almost every character in this story is a sarcastic smartass. This makes them rather monotonous and uninteresting. Also very generic considering how common this archetype is these days.

Wait a second. Every serious moment is undermined by a joke, and all the characters are sarcastic smartasses. Was Zoe secretly an MCU writer this entire time?!

Chloé

I figure we should start with the titular Scarlet Lady. I actually think that the idea of a superhero duo where one of them is extremely lazy and unhelpful, but still necessary, is an extremely interesting idea for a dynamic. The problem is, there is no dynamic. Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir have no relationship, they just talk at each other constantly. And the result of this is that basically every interaction is the same: Scar does something selfish, Chat gets mad, rinse and repeat. It could have been interesting to explore different scenarios and ideas with these two, but no they just do the same thing over and over.

There is a pretty big plot hole here once Marigold is introduced. Why don't the heroes just take the Ladybug Miraculous back? It would be rather easy. Well, the explanation is that since Scar is still popular with the public, its best to keep her around for public cooperation and morale. Okay, I can accept that. Except, only a few episodes after this explanation we get "Zombizou", an episode where Scar straight up attacks Marinette in the middle of a battle, which causes Chat to get infected and them to very nearly lose. After that, there is no excuse anymore. Scar is clearly too dangerous to keep around, take her Miraculous now. But no, they actually don't even talk about what happened at all.

One particular episode where I have a problem with how Chloé is treated by the writer is "Silencer". In this episode, Chloé helps Bob Roth and XY with their plagiarism scheme. In canon, she had nothing to do with that. Now, yes, this is a different story and the writer can do whatever she wants. And this also gets Chloé more involved in the story. However, doing this just gives me a feeling that Zoe is blaming Chloé for something she didn't do. I don't know, it's just a vibe.

Anyway, throughout the story Chloé gets worse and worse until it culminates in her working with Hawk Moth and betraying everyone. And what are her consequences for this?

I mean, except for her father making her apologize (offscreen). So ultimately this plot feels like such a letdown. Chloé is the titular character that this fic's whole concept was started by, and yet it ends with her character just fading away with a whimper. What a letdown.

Marinette

This one will be quick. Zoe says that Marinette is her favorite character in ML, but I don't think she understands her at all. Remember what I said about every character being a sarcastic smartass? Well that is most prevalent with Marinette, and that is just fundamentally not who she is as a character. Marinette is someone whose is unabashed in her kindness and compassion. That's why plenty of people like her. If Marinette was in canon like she was in SL, she would be an extremely generic protagonist with almost no fans at all. The only reason anyone likes her in SL is because they relate her to the canon version.

I will say, I do like the idea of her being such a hero at heart that she'll run into danger even without powers. But this is completely diminished by her basically being invincible and having plot armor in her civilian form.

Adrien

Adrien in canon is one of my least favorite characters of all time. And yet, Adrien in SL is even worse. I'd go as far to say he's an anti-character. He has no growth, no arc, and no real personality.

The reason people like Adrien in canon is because they perceive him as someone who is treated very badly by his father and by others, but is still a kind person regardless. Well, in SL it's hard to perceive any poor treatment considering how he's only ever seen disobeying his father. And he's really never done anything kind throughout the entire comic.

Do you know the only reason people like Adrien in SL? Because they see him as who they wanted canon Adrien to become. Someone who can stand up to his father, who is useful in battle, and who doesn't put up with Chloé. But since SL Adrien was that way the entire time, there is no growth at all. Again he piggybacks off of his canon counterpart. If canon Adrien didn't exist, nobody would give a single crap about SL Adrien. None of the traits people liked about him in canon are present, and there is nothing new added to replace it. He is nothing.

Speaking of Adrien and Chloé, isn't it kind of weird that Adrien ended his friendship with her twice? In "Despair Bear" he ends his friendship with her and this is played as a big moment, even though he already basically ended their friendship all the way back in the pilot. There is not a single moment in the entire comic where Adrien treats Chloé like a friend.

As I mentioned earlier, Adrien has no emotional reaction to his mother coming back. In fact, I think it's fair to say that Adrien never loved his parents. And the reason for this is because Zoe hates his parents and she just imposed her feelings onto him, just like most bad fanfic writers do.

In terms of Adrien having no arc, there is one moment I wanted to talk about. During the final battle, he gets a power upgrade when he's talking about how he doesn't understand Hawk Moth's perspective, and he doesn't want to because Hawk Moth is so awful. This moment is played as if it's character growth for Adrien, but I want to ask, in what way? Well, I guess it does make sense because Adrien always gave his father the benefit of the doubt, stuck by Chloé even though she's cruel, and defended Lila. All those things could be considered him trying to understand a bad person. Too bad that none of that happened in SL. Adrien always hated his father, he ended his friendship with Chloé day 1, and he never defended Lila. Zoe was so focused on removing all of Adrien's flaws that she left him with no starting point for this supposed arc. In general, flawed characters are more interesting than perfect ones. Again, the only reason people liked this scene was because they subconsciously associated SL Adrien with canon.

Also, Zoe adds in her headcanon that Emilie was a bad parent. This headcanon only exists because people are incapable of imagining Adrien being anything other than a victim. I call it my "Perpetual Victim Theory". Anyway Zoe just makes up a bunch of random crap that has no basis in canon just to make Adrien more of a victim.

Gabriel

At first, "Scarlet Lady" looks like a Chloé saltfic. Well, that's only partially true. It's actually mainly a Gabriel saltfic. It honestly seems like Zoe hates Gabriel so much that she can barely think when he's involved. Gabriel is always portrayed as a complete moron with absolutely no humanity at all. He honestly seems more like a caricature in a political cartoon rather than an actual character. I actually find it hard to believe that his motivation is to bring back his wife considering how devoid of human emotion he is. Because the main villain of the series is a buffoon who can't be taken seriously, there is never any actual threat or tension. People criticize canon Gabriel for all his bad decisions, which is absolutely fair, but there are at least a few moments where he is genuinely menacing, and some moments where he is human. But writing him that way would require Zoe to let go of her hatred for a few minutes, so that's clearly not an option.

Nathalie

To put it simply Nathalie is a Mary Sue. She's a "girlboss" that does a bunch of horrible things she's not punished for. She can create a sentimonster to solve all the show's problems, she can decode an ancient book without a reference (Some people have defended this by claiming that the book was decoded IRL. IRL it was written in Engish in a different alphabet. That's not true in-universe). She's so much smarter and cooler than everyone else. Mary Sue, plain and simple. Oh, and she hates Gabriel because of course she does. She's a character written by Zoe after all.

In canon, Nathalie has some complexities. She's not great, but she's certainly better than this.

The Male Classmates

I'm just going to say it. Almost every male classmate was character assassinated in "Party Crasher". In canon, Nino lists his female friends to Gorilla and tells him to not let them in the mansion. This is because he assumes that if they find out that they ditched tree planting, they'll stop the boys from hanging out with Adrien. Is it a jerk move to ditch their plans in order to spend time with Adrien and not tell the girls? Yes, but it's understandable and they have limited time with Adrien. In SL, Nino tells Gorilla to keep all girls out of the house, which instantly imposes a sense of underlying misogyny to the situation. Oh, and they let Marc in even though Marc is nonbinary in this story, which implies that the boys went full Royce Du Pont, which is unintentionally hilarious.

I have no idea what motivated Zoe to change the boys from regular flakers to misogynists, maybe she just misunderstood the original episode, but it's still bad. Also, the SL episode goes out of its way to say that Adrien isn't at fault. No, he was completely complicit in the blatant sexism as well. So yeah, pretty much all the boys are instantly made worse by this one episode.

Zoé

In these previous cases, I have been making comparisons to and defending canon characters that I don't even like anymore. But Zoé Lee is my absolute favorite character in Miraculous Ladybug, and I was not happy with how SL handled her.

So a pretty important question right off the bat, how does SL Zoé exist? Zoe said that since canon didn't explain Zoé's existence, neither will she. But the thing is, what is there to explain? Chloé's parents have been married 20 years. Chloé's mother lives in New York, away from her family in Paris. Chloé's mother also has a daughter in New York with another man, much younger than 20-years-old. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out what happened there. But I'll spell it out anyway: extramarital affair. In fact, I think the whole reason the writers of canon made Zoé Chloé's half-sister was to hint why she hadn't been mentioned before: because Audrey was ashamed of her, and Chloé didn't know about her.

On the other hand, "Scarlet Lady" never mentions Zoé's father, has her refer to Andre as her parent, says Zoé lived in New York, and never implies that Audrey is ashamed of her in any way. How does this make sense? Well, maybe Zoé is the older sibling in SL, and Audrey and Andre met and got married after Audrey was already pregnant, and Zoé's biological father isn't involved in her life. It still seems weird that Zoé was living in New York instead of Paris (why not live with her stepdad that she's close enough to call a parent, and how did they form such a strong relationship long distance?), but this does make most of the situation make sense. Except for one little detail: Why on Earth are Chloé and Zoé only now meeting for the first time? It makes absolutely no sense that their parents would not even tell these two about each other. How was Zoé so close to Andre to call him her parent, but didn't meet her sister until she was a teenager? None of this adds up. And honestly, it seems like after a certain period of time Zoe just straight up forgot that Zoé only arrived recently. In the therapy scenes, she acts like they were always one family. When canon gave Chloé a sister, they gave a reason why nobody knew about her until now. When SL gave Chloé a sister, she just suddenly has one who isn't explained and they act like she was always around. In fact, the only part where they acknowledge her showing up suddenly is when Adrien hasn't heard of her, but SL actually just implies that this is because he was never actually close with Chloé.

Putting all that aside, SL also sucks out everything interesting about Zoé. Gone is her cleverness or willingness to lie for the right reason. In fact, the defining characteristic that SL gives Zoé is that she has no personality. I've seen some people claim that SL had Chloé and Zoé having more of a sisterly bond, but I actually don't believe that Zoé actually loves Chloé. During the final battle, Hawk Moth has basically poisoned Chloé, and for all Zoé knows, it could be fatal. If I were in Zoé's shoes in this situation, I would be furious with Gabriel. But is she? No, she just has the same jokey, ironic disgust towards him that all the characters do. Yeah, this is one of the moments when the comic's insistence to turn everything into a joke hit critical mass. Doing that ends up damaging the characters.

One last thing. In canon, Zoé was pretty cool as Vesperia. She helped out a bunch of times, and she was one of the only heroes to demonstrate unique skills in how she taunted Queen Banana into anger. Not in SL though. Vesperia achieves nothing, she could have been cut out entirely and nothing would change. That actually transitions nicely into my next point.

Because Canon Did It Too

Zoe has said that she wants to keep the lore consistent with the show. Even though she didn't like the name "Venom" for that power, she kept it for consistency purposes. I can respect this idea, but there are multiple parts of this story that would have just been better if it diverged.

For one thing, having 19 Miraculouses and as many superpowered characters. I can understand why canon did this: because they clearly want the show to go on forever and they want as many characters as possible to fill that time. SL on the other hand was only planned to last a certain number of episodes, and yet Zoe crammed in as many heroes as the original did. This leads to a lot of time setting up these characters that leads to nothing, because they're all barely in the finale and contribute basically nothing. It would have been so much better to simply limit it to the 7 main Miraculouses, that's so much more manageable.

Another thing is the Rabbit Miraculous and time travel. Zoe acknowledged how OP it is and how it can instantly solve the conflict. She might not want to change its power because of her lore rule, but if she had just ignored its existence entirely, that would have been totally acceptable. But no, the final battle has Master Fu using the Rabbit Miraculous, which instantly makes the stakes even lower than they already were. It wasn't even necessary, Master Fu is shown to be faster than he looks, he could have just delivered the Miraculouses the normal way. Oh, and there's also the fact that Zoe looked at the insanely OP Rabbit Miraculous and said "That's not OP enough." She also gave it the power to teleport to other universes. To be clear, this completely contradicts canon. ML is not the MCU, alternate universes are not alternate timelines. Changes to the timeline just overwrite the old one, and you can use the Rooster Miraculous, not the Rabbit, to visit other universes. So yeah, despite Zoe saying she wants lore consistency, SL actually doesn't fit into the Miraculous multiverse that canon established.

Also, let's talk about the romance. Like canon, there's a love square that doesn't get together until way later. But it seems like Zoe forgot about an important rule of romance: if the characters aren't together yet, why not? In SL Marinette and Chat clearly like each other, and unlike canon's Ladrien, they talk quite a bit. So why don't they get together? Canon actually has a really great episode "Elation" where Adrien decides that he can't date a civilain as a superhero if she doesn't know his identity. But nothing even like this is remotely acknowledged in SL (Sidenote: The writing of "Elation" is better than the entirety of SL). Also, Adrien doesn't confess for most of SL, I assume because Marinette didn't confess in canon, but this is just so out of character for Adrien. He's not the kind of person to hold his feelings back. In canon, he confessed to Marinette only a few episodes after he started liking her. He claims that he doesn't want to date until Hawk Moth is defeated, but then he starts dating her before he's defeated, so this is a BS excuse.

When Chloé snaps away her sentimonster, Zoe copies the line "How could you?!" from "Ladybug" in canon. This is a completely soulless copy though, because that episode made it clear that Sentibug was sentient, and Chat Noir was genuinely angry in this moment. None of that same substance applies to SL, it's just a meaningless copy of a better scene.

In canon "Reflekdoll", Adrien and Marinette are modeling her designs, and they take their Miraculouses off in order to wear the earrings and ring she made. When Reflekdoll attacks, they try to get their Miraculouses back but end up switching them. In SL "Reflekdoll", Marinette and Adrien are wearing each other's Miraculouses during the photoshoot for no discernable reason. Both versions have a Miraculous swap, but the original earned it and SL absolutely did not.

Zoe and Thomas Astruc are on the Same Wavelength

Zoe has made it clear that she's not a fan of ML's creator, Thomas Astruc. And yet many of her ideas ended up being the same as his.

In both Canon and SL, Chloé publicly commits a bunch of serious crimes, but faces no legal consequences. Instead, she is taken to another country where she can resume her life as a rich brat because she's learned absolutely nothing. Yeah, Chloé's ending in both is basically the same.

In the season 5 finale of canon, there's this huge fight between the side characters and an evil army. This fight has absolutely nothing to do with the actual important fight between Bug Noire and Monarch, so the side characters are completely wasted. In the final battle of SL, the other superheroes contribute nothing and are completely wasted. Chat Noir basically took care of Hawk Moth all by himself. So both finales involve wasted side characters that should have just stayed home. Less time would have been wasted.

Zoe actually says that she added Marinette calling out Gabriel in response to the canon finale. This is absolutely hilarious considering it's still Marinette calling out Gabriel, which basically did happen in the canon finale. Adrien still just stood there and didn't say a word!

Conclusion

"Scarlet Lady" is absolutely worse than canon Miraculous Ladybug. And I think there are a lot of lessons to learn here.

First, don't be so angry and hateful. Zoe basically ruined any possibility of a decent ending simply because her hatred of Gabriel made it impossible to write him like an actual person or a good villain.

Second, any story written in bitterness or spite will be bad. That might not be totally true, I haven't read every story. But I feel that every fanfic I read where the author clearly hates a character has everyone behaving OOC and the story being meanspirited and bad.

Third, don't be arrogant. Just because you can recognize flaws in a story doesn't mean you can do better. Maybe just make some posts calling out those flaws.

Fourth, the way to fix a bad character is not to simply remove all their flaws. Acknowledge those flaws and do something with them.

Fifth, while fanfics do often build off of the original, they can't depend on elements from the original when they contradict those elements. Again, the only reason people like SL Marinette and Adrien is because they associate them with the originals, even though their personalities do no match up.