#ml lie

( Previous)

(What if Chat noir DID find out Ladybug's identity in Truth?)

-Now knowing that Lie occurs right after this.

-Adrien is still processing from the days events. He had just learned that Ladybug is Marinette.

-And he arrives to see Kagami waiting for him outside (the previous events of lies pretty much happen the same way for Adrien until he found out the truth)

-Adrien knows that Marinette/Ladybug's secret caused Luka to get akumatized. (now he doesn't know if they broke it off or not) But this isn't relevant.

-Adrien seeing Kagami holding his lucky charm hit a bit different.

-Adrien tries to plead with Kagami saying that he didn't mean to lie, its just...

-Kagami doesn't give him a chance to. Giving him that RAW line

-"We are both liars. I lie to be with you, you lie to not be with me."

-Adrien was shook but realized Kagami was an akuma villain ready to happen.

-He went after her, catching up to where Kagami was and he sees the akuma. He tackles her away. Kagami is mad until she sees the akuma.

-"I know your mad at me! I understand. I haven't been clear, but I don't want you getting akumatized!'

-Kagami notices the akuma approaching and tries to fight it off. But it was too late. The akuma go to her bracelet.

-She told Adrien to run (parallels to Luka with Marinette)

-Adrien says he will get help. he promises.

-Adrien leaves, and calls ladybug.

_____________________________________________________________

-The events of Lie happen basically the same. But Chat noir leaves quicker to talk to Kagami as Adrien (he has less time to gush)

-Kagami sees Adrien cares. Saying they need to have a serious talk later. But she was not in the mood tonight. Which Adrien respected.

-The next day at fencing class. Kagami beat Adrien's butt, not with rage, but precision. She was hitting her mark each time.

-Adrien and her are sitting on the bench in the locker room.

-Kagami airs her grievances. She says how frustrated she was, how she hates that he is lying to her, how much she has lied to make this relationship work. But she knows that even though he lies, there is sincerity. That she knows he does care. But instead of ending it there. She asks him a question.

-"Do you think this is something we could work through, that you would be able to work through?"

-Adrien wanted to respond that he would, and he knows he would try... but He remembers Ladybug. He saw how stressed she was, how hurt she was. And he knew, he knew deep down, that if there was a choice to be made.

-"Im sorry Kagami. I don't think I can." Adrien confessed.

-She was hurt, but she knew he wasn't lying. She handed him the lucky charm.

-Adrien asks if they could still be friends like in canon. But Kagami said she would need some time. Adrien understood.

____________________________________________________________

-Chat noir asked Ladybug if she was okay. If she was able to patch things up with... her boyfriend.

-Ladybug tells him that they split up.

-"Trying to make a relationship work as a hero really is hard." Chat noir commented. Speaking from experience.

-Ladybug apologizes for telling him since she remembers that he said.

-"Was he the one you turned me down for?" Chat noir asked. He wanted to know. But realized that might have been too personal. He did just find out she was Marinette.

-"Forget I asked that was..."

-"He wasn't."

-"Oh..."

-The cat wasn't sure how to deal with that information. He felt a lot of questions circling in his brain, but they ceased when he noticed Ladybug looking at him

-"I need to tell you something." She says, doing her best to stay steady.

-"Uhhh Okay." Chat noir unsure of where this was going.

-"You knowing my identity is dangerous. And you need to know that something like this happened before. In another timeline."

-Chat noir blinked. He was not expecting that.

-"Another timeline?"

-"Its a bit of a long story, its complicated and even I don't know the details... But..."

The Good

Chat Noir truly is a cat, overdramatic and teasing and inconsiderate and flawed, that's great.

He drinks milk when he's sad. It's genuinely funny!

All these parallels between the Tsurugis and the Agrestes. Some basic directing ideas but they work really well.

Kagami likes Toulouse Lautrec, she's a perfectionist artist and has to keep it a secret from her mother. And this isn't a hobby related to Adrien or her family's legacy, it's the thing she enjoys doing on her own. It's a good idea!

The repetitiveness of the "throwing the paper ball in the bin" motive. That's basic directing, again. But it works well. I like it when things work well, and sometimes they do.

Kagami sees through the lies of the Jedi Adrien's facade in a way none of the other characters have this far. I'd go as far as to say that she's a lot more perceptive about him than Marinette.

She's really assertive and that isn't shown to be necessarily an absolutely bad thing, or an absolutely good thing. There's some nuance in there. Can you believe it?

Nice fencing scene there, all these sparks weren't really necessary but it's done competently. They got the movements and the speed right.

The show really hammers down the fact that being friends/dating a superhero without knowing their secret identity means you're forced to deal with them vanishing all the time and hiding things from you and that it's pretty terrible. Kagami's expression progressively sours as Adrien is shown to disappear more and more. That's good directing.

Some good character blocking and shot composition during the scene taking place outside the Hôtel de Ville.

“A cop never lies!” “You're lying!”

Bob Roth calling out Jagged Stone.

Fang, the true Best Boy of this show.

Some really stellar voice acting from Benjamin Bollen. He's always good.

Kagami isn't the bad guy for taking her distances with Adrien! Wowie!

The Bad

Cheap ship teasing is cheap.

Would they really leave Adrien making a sadder face in that TV show thing? Nah, that's a moment that completely breaks that conceit.

Portraiture as the capture of the truth within people, “portraits can't lie” and all that stuff. The art historian within me is shrivelling.

The show is mixing up a lot of stuff for the sake of this “truth and honesty and lies” and remains very superficial about these things.

What is Adrien's “true self” anyway? Is his being a clown as Chat Noir part of his facade or not? It's really interesting and that would require an episode of its own but no, have a handful of minutes instead, that should do the trick, right? No it doesn't…

Everything after the 13 minute mark, really.

What kind of villain design is that? What is it meant to convey? Liars are paralysed… That's it? Wow. I'm genuinely impressed. Incredible stuff. I am awed.

That white ball of light means some pretty ugly rendering. Like, really ugly. There's exactly one good-looking shot during this akuma fight and it's the one they used in the season's trailer.

DQ Animation and Artage Studio are getting better. They're still not as good as SAMG. Which means that the character acting is really wooden during the more subtle moments, and generally not as good as the scenes would require. Character make weird faces that don't quite work during some scenes. It's not distractingly awful but it's not good.

It's a show with a fandom that uses every little character detail to call a character they don't like the literal devil. Kagami expressing her anger physically is a double-edged sword.

Some really weird shots with weird camerawork.

The Ugly

Do you remember when Marinette said she loved Adrien because he was kind and caring and all of that stuff and then started drooling over the picture-perfect, airbrushed image of him instead of trying to get to know him as a person, meaning that she's in love with his image? But then the show still tried to push the idea that she was truly in love with him as a person? They're still doing this now. We've had the exact same joke for like two seasons. And yet we're meant to root for Adrien and Marinette to get together because…???

Chat Noir acts irresponsibly, yet has immense responsibilities, the show portrays him as funny and as always it’s inconsequential, he never has to face the consequences of his actions for more than five seconds

That scene with Chloé and Sabrina. Is is supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to be awful? I don't know. It was just rubbish.

I get that the point is that Kagami has to lie to spend more time with Adrien and that she's done so during Ikari Gozen already but are you sure this is the same character who needed an app to talk to people just a couple of episodes ago? The same character who absolutely despised liars earlier on? Why not show her second-guessing herself then?

She's a fast learner, for sure, she's been shown to get better at complimenting Marinette in the span of just two episodes, but this is a whole other level of off-screen character development. She used to lie by omission, now she's a very chatty liar.

Which just confirms that in Miraculous, characters change radically to accommodate the episode's theme. They have no integrity, no internal coherence. It's a recurring flaw with the writing and it's never been as glaring as it is now.

That cheese analogy is awful and gross. I already thought that the "changing targets" stuff from the earlier seasons was awful but this is just as bad. So people you want to date are like game or fermented milk, then. How romantic. Not objectifying at all. What a great conception of what relationships are like.

Some pretty awful writing. Chat Noir "dying” was cheap and fell completely flat and the dialogue came straight out of a Wattpad fic.

Shadow Moth's “Noooooooo”, straight out of Revenge of the Siths.

And now the lesson of the episode is… Love Square, Hell Yeah? Really?

What was that final scene? It's rushed and stupid and we're meant to be satisfied with it but it's the worst thing ever and “sometimes we must lie but we know we can trust each other” is such a hypocritical line when you take the show as it has been this far. And yet you're meant to clap and be happy about it?

Love this dork