#ml catalyst

Chloe revealed her identity not just to one close partner with a trust and bond forged by fire, but to the entire world. ANYONE, even people who aren’t keeping up with Paris’s resident superheroes, could look up either Bourgeois parent (one of whom is definitely world-renowned) and would probably end up finding out Chloe’s Queen Bee, and relatedly, look up her reveal of her identity and find people buzzing about how she’s the daughter of famed fashion critic Audrey Bourgeois or the mayor of Paris and known upscale hotel owner Andre Bourgeois. And you’d better believe those journalists would slap those names in headlines for those easy clicks and showing up in search engines (well, Audrey’s name anyway. For Andre, they’d probably say “Mayor of Paris”). Because of how Chloe revealed her identity, the information would be easy as pie for Hawkmoth to get and abuse even if he weren’t the father of her childhood friend and acquainted with her parents. I doubt either Adrien or Marinette would reveal themselves on such a grand scale, even after the whole Hawkmoth ordeal is over, for this very reason. Nor would they reveal each other that way. So, the Chloe situation/point is not really applicable to LB and Chat revealing themselves to each other and each other alone, and is more so a reason why Chloe should stop being the Bee--so Hawkmoth doesn’t have easy leverage over one of the heroes.

As for Nino and Alya: 1) They are new to Superhero-ing and thus prone to mistakes and misjudgements anyway. It’s not like S1 Chat was also seen throwing himself between LB and Akuma attacks, or prioritizing things like flirting with his crush over self-preservation and/or taking down akuma, often to the detriment of himself and Ladybug or anything right?? [1]

On top of that, though the Catalyst situation made LB think that they needed as many Miraculous wielders as possible, it was a terrible time to call on them due to their lack of experience in comparison. Several incredibly strong akuma all at once, which most of the team didn’t have the experience of fighting one-on-one the first time and, though I’m sure Alya scrounged up every clip she could find of the action with akuma she personally couldn’t go see and record, analyzing every frame for hours would still not be the same as the practical experience LB and Chat get constantly, that RR, Carapace, and even QB only get when Lucky Charm says “Go get their help, Marinette”.

And 2) Carapace and RR were only akumatized because the writer(s) slammed Alya with an idiot ball as big as the Eiffel Tower. Carapace’s shield literally falls at her feet, she doesn’t even have to move much to get it, and still she runs into danger and throws herself in the way instead of the actual shield at her feet. I don’t think I can stress this enough, the shield was at her feet. Grabbing the shield, telling Carapace “HEAD’S UP!”, and yeeting it at him would have taken at MOST the same amount of time as personally running over there and jumping in the way. But nah the writers had to go back to the classic duo (as lampshaded by Chat before he Cataclysms the hole into the sewers), so huge idiot ball for Alya...

And Ladybug, now that I’m thinking about it. It would have taken, what, a second to shout “KISS HER, CARAPACE!” Let’s assume either 1) Nino didn’t watch the premier of Face to Face (not touching the whole “not watching his apparent heroes’ exclusive interview” thing) so he didn’t see Ladybug explain that kissing Chat was needed to break Dark Cupid’s spell, 2) Carapace didn’t notice that it was Dark Cupid that caused Rena to get so pissed, or 3) Carapace forgot in the heat of the moment. It’s fine to assume Carapace forgot, he’s new to this and not a genius... unlike Ladybug. She knows the solution to Rena’s erratic, angry behavior, knows that Carapace is unlikely to mind because they’re dating, and yet says nothing as Carapace puts all his effort into hugging Rena, ineffectively handling the issue AND immobilizing himself, being open to attack by any of the akumas, but most critically (because at that point iirc it’s pretty clear he’s the linchpin of Hawkmoth’s plan) Dark Cupid. You know what, Chat got the idiot ball too, for the same reasons as LB. Whether he believes the kiss was only to break Dark Cupid’s hate spell or not, he still knows it definitely did break the spell. Sure, he’s not aware of Carapace and RR dating out of costume, but duty calls in this case. It’s dangerous to leave her angry and susceptible to Scarlet Moth right now.

But, again, writers wanted to just have LB and Chat for a while so. Idiot balls.

If ANYTHING, the mistakes and misjudgements of Chloe, Nino, and Alya were there to show how far LB and Chat have come from their early stages in Season 1. Chat trusts LB to be able to dodge or block most incoming blows provided he gives her a heads up on ones she doesn’t seem to see, and neither have let any personal grudges or attachments stop them like they did in the past [2].