#ml theory

I find it funny how these intro scenes are being kinda brushed aside with the overall conversation because not only do they give a good insight on where Adrien's head is at the moment, but they also set up the perfect tragedy of what his life will become once the secret comes out to everyone. He won't be able to have that simple life he wants anymore and everyone will always be aware of "Adrien Agreste son of international terrorist" all the fripplin time.

...Unless.... 👀 He takes Adrien Agreste out of the picture.... 👀 👀

A. Noé, on appearance and Vibes alone, fits the bill for the Quantic Universe's analogue of Lucky Blue Smith

B. Noé Luxus is old enough comparative to the main cast that he is probably already married.

What then? Well, obviously his wife is the Nara Smith analogue. You know Nara Smith. Following that logic—following the logic of Miraculous condensing its characters into caricatures—he and his wife can be emblematic of every woo-woo mindless influencer or celebrity out there. His wife is Nara Smith, but she is also Gwyneth Paltrow, and Noé can be Clavicular and Joe Rogan and Jared Leto and, essentially, a bit of everything because this show is at its heart a comedy and Noé is now my mason jar of modern celebrity jokes.

So, Simone Luxus (canon until proven otherwise) is thus, inarguably, indisputably running a tradwife tiktok account, and if not Mormon probably as Mormon as she could get without being an American from Utah. The wave of cultural Mormon dominance is a very timely thing for a show set in 2016 to touch on, even perhaps prophetic by the standards of its own timeline—which might not even exist—and predicting things is good writing so this is canon or at least should be. Is Noé Mormon as well? Perchance. He dresses very modestly and is obsessed with acquisitions, and given that the Mormon Church is worth $239B and owns $16B acres of land in the United States we can also assume that Mormons are religiously compelled to amass ludicrous wealth, so Noé is merely practicing his faith, and same goes for all the tiktok tradwives making absolute stupid bank.

Plus, what are Mormons known for? Besides being rich? Besides being racist? Naming their children embarrassing shit! What are chronically online tiktok couples (especially American, especially white) known for? What are celebrities known for? Naming their children embarrassing shit! Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple. Elon Musk went with X Æ A-Xii. Noé Luxus named one of his children Green.

As Hawk Moth, Gabriel takes advantage of people (especially kids and teenagers) when they’re vulnerable, exploiting them emotionally and using them for his plans. Every time he akumatizes someone, he isolates them, forms a false bond, validates their emotions, and makes them feel understood so they’ll trust him. Once he has their trust, he manipulates them into giving him what he wants: Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculouses.

This is especially clear with two of his favorite akumatized victims: Chloé Bourgeois and Lila Rossi.

In Volpina, Gabriel sees Lila completely emotionally destroyed after the humiliation she suffers at the hands of Ladybug, and he takes advantage of her vulnerable state to get something out of her. He even calls her “his perfect prey” before akumatizing her.

The way he convinces Lila is simple:

He gives her back the sense of power she lost after being humiliated. When Lila is defeated, Hawk Moth says it won’t be the last time Ladybug sees her and he’s right. Gabriel keeps exploiting Lila’s resentment toward Ladybug to achieve his goals.

He makes Lila believe that she can trust him because they both “hate” Ladybug. Because of this, helping Hawk Moth and being akumatized becomes something comfortable for her, the result of the false emotional bond Gabriel builds each time he manipulates her. But in reality, he’s only using her. Both as Hawk Moth and as a civilian, he actively encourages her problematic behavior: he hires her to make another teenager’s life miserable (Marinette) and brings her into the Agreste brand… only to discard her without remorse the moment she’s no longer useful.

And now.. let’s continue with Chloe…

A similar pattern happens with Chloé, especially in the season 3 finale. Since the episode Miraculer, Gabriel had been planning for Chloé to betray Ladybug and join his side by exploiting her insecurities: feeling useless without being Queen Bee, and her desperate need for validation from Ladybug and, above all, from her mother.

Gabriel uses all this to isolate Chloé emotionally. He convinces her that he actually sees her “potential,” and that with him she can be Queen Bee as much as she wants because she’s part of his “chessboard.” Eventually, Chloé is fully convinced to switch sides. His manipulation is so strong that, even when she isn’t akumatized, Chloé claims that Hawk Moth isn’t her enemy, he’s Ladybug’s enemy. From that point on, her behavior worsens dramatically, fueled directly by Hawk Moth’s words.

You can also say that Gabriel “groomed” Adrien in an emotional and psychological sense. Adrien (besides being a sentimonster) grew up in an environment where having a cold, absent, controlling father was normal. Isolation, lack of freedom, and pressure to obey were part of his everyday life.

Any attempt to challenge Gabriel’s authority terrified him. Adrien constantly justified his father’s behavior using the excuse of his mother’s death, because that reasoning was likely repeated to him by the adults around him (including his own father). And since children are conditioned to love their parents no matter what, Adrien struggled to question anything that might threaten his father’s control because of that reason.

And let’s talk about how Gabriel manipulated Marinette in the S5 finale.

The final disturbing act of Gabriel’s happens right before his death. In his last moments, he asks Marinette (his son’s girlfriend) not to tell Adrien that he was Hawk Moth and not to let him find out the truth. With that, he dumps an enormous and deeply unfair responsibility onto her.

Then he dies, avoiding all the consequences of his actions, while Marinette is left carrying the weight of a massive lie. Confused, terrified, and emotionally shut down, she doesn’t know what to do, all because Gabriel used his dying breath to manipulate her and leave her holding the burden of his crimes.

That's way too many frogs.

Okay, listen. I was loving Alya through so much of S6. I was even thinking this girl would make a great Guardian - until the finale. Don't get me wrong - she's had some great moments in S6. But by the end of the season, I felt like she'd fallen back into her old personality traps, and I finished the episode feeling sooooooo frustrated.

Remember back in S1 when Marinette said Alya was always jumping to conclusions? It still applies. Yes, Alya worked out that Gabriel was Monarch - but she never paused to ask her supposed best friend just why she felt so compelled to hide this information. Even after all she knows, and all she’s witnessed, she isn't giving Marinette the benefit of the doubt. Instead of talking to Marinette about everything, she jumped straight to anger, judgment, and even borderline rejection.

The kicker is that she hasn’t really uncovered Marinette's secrets at all. Namely, she still doesn't know: 

* Why Gabriel was Monarch (honestly, why didn’t she think to ask this?)

* Adrien's origins (and, by extension, Felix and Kagami's origins)

* What Gabriel was plotting

* What happened to Adrien's mother

* What actually went down in that basement, and what specifically passed between Gabriel and Marinette

* Nathalie's part in everything

* Tomoe's role in everything

* That the rings exist, or how they've been used 

* That Cat Blanc ever happened

* Marinette's feelings about any of it (Alya can see that her friend is breaking down and she’s just adding to it, giving her ultimatums rather than a listening ear)

Let’s be real: Adrien does need to know the truth. Alya is 100% right about that. And he will find out. It's just a matter of time. And when it all comes out, it’s going to be so much worse than it would’ve been if Marinette had told him at the start. But we’re not talking about some adult with a full support network, here. We’re talking about an overburdened, traumatised child. As much as it kills me that Marinette has been keeping all these secrets, I completely understand why she did what she did. I also understand why Alya is so upset now. But where’s the compassion? Where’s the conversation?

Even if there is a conversation, a lot of Marinette's secrets aren’t really hers to tell. Alya has no automatic right to know about Adrien's origins or family history. Alya keeps reminding Marinette that friends are meant to trust each other - but that goes both ways. Alya didn’t trust her about the drama with Lila, or when Marinette told her Adrien didn't want to go on that tour, and now she isn’t trusting that there might be things going on that Marinette is not at liberty to share. And all these claims that it's not Alya's fault, it's because Marinette has demonstrated such crazy behaviour, etc. etc. just don't land with me. I'm not saying Marinette is perfect. Far from it. I've made no secret of how frustrated all her lying in S6 makes me, too. But just because someone has their own learning points, that doesn't negate the harm that's being done to them. Underneath all that panic, Marinette is a rational human being, and she deserves to be treated as such.

If we think back to S1, Alya used to be such a squealing, Ladybug fangirl - when Ladybug wasn't a real person to her. It's such a classic case of ‘never meet your heroes’. As soon as she found out, her attitude changed. The first time she got to use the ladybug miraculous herself, she was sighing at Marinette's list of rules and tips. Even towards the end of S6, she was rolling her eyes at Cat Noir and getting irritated with him for attempting to save her own best friend rather than following her plan - as if her way of doing things was the only way to do things. Now, she thinks her way is the only way regarding Adrien, and if Marinette doesn't comply, I guess it's over.

But Marinette doesn't need rejection and anger. She needs HELP.

I so wish we had seen Marinette tell Alya about the new butterfly holder invading her home. I wish we'd seen Alya regret having judged Marinette as simply paranoid - yet again. I hope so much that we get to see Alya learn who the butterfly holder is. I hope we see her reflect on the long history with Lila. I just want to see her take Marinette seriously, and respect her as someone strong and intelligent and struggling with something that is simply too much for any one person - let alone a child - to carry. Because it’s easy to judge from the outside - but the fact is, no one else has been in Marinette's position. Alya has never been the Guardian. She wasn't in that basement with Gabriel. She's never had to make these kinds of decisions. She's never held her boyfriend's literal life in her hands.

All that said...Alya is just a child, too, the same as Marinette. She’s also learning, making mistakes, and hopefully going to grow from them. I hope we see all of that, too. And I hope, in S7, we see Marinette find real, adult support from her parents. I hope someone just gives her a damn hug, already.

Also, I'd love to see Sabine take on Nathalie - and Tomoe, for that matter. I adore Nathalie as a character, but seriously. There is so much flack in this fandom for Marinette, Felix and Kagami, but every one of them is a victim of child abuse, just like Adrien. It's the adults like Nathalie, Tomoe and Amelie who have so much to answer for. They're the ones who knew what was happening all along - who knew what was being done to these children - and who did nothing about it, or even aided it.

Not kidding. I just checked and Nathaniel says almost exactly the same thing as Ladybug when she revealed herself as Marinette to Adrien :

"S'il-te plaît dit quelque chose" / "Please say something"

"Dis quelque chose" / "Say something"

But also in direct view of all the civilians and cameras looking in this very attention-drawing direction

AND in front of this devil spawn of a villain??

We are VERY nonchalant but serious about this, and we're given off the vibes that calling Ladybug is just not an option here? Hell, Adrien literally just said that something is more important than telling Marinette that he loves her while also saying that he can only do so IF they get through this. Which sounds like everybody here expects the Ladybug-plot-armour to not apply this time. So she wont be here. That's what the scene is saying.

Which I guess actually checks out. Ladybug has made it very clear that nothing could ever justify her knowing who Chat Noir is, so whatever hell he's going through he has to do it alone because in her leadership, she's owed that the boy underneath Chat's mask doesn't exist and not a millisecond should be expected of her to take him into consideration. By all means, this does check out. Its why the s5 finale happened the way it did.

So, what? Is this a continuation of that Ladynoir murdering writing?

Is this a situation where a dimension-jumping villain showed up through the Supreme's influence (set up in this very special) and said villain also knows who Chat Noir is (because multiverse) and just fucking announced that? So Ladybug cant be called and she will instead fight with the others in Paris next special while Chat's in New York? Is the only reason why Ladybug wont give him hell for having gone to New York to help there without telling her that she just left for Tokyo without telling him either?

Is that what's gonna happen here? Cause no way Maribug wont be in the next special, but I can see it happening that the next special will be split in two halves, Chat in New York and Ladybug and team in Paris.

Cause considering that this is pre-s6 and everyone still wears their old suits, is the next special where they get the new hero designs? That actually would make sense. And I can see it happening that Ladynoir are gonna get their suits separately because Ladynoir is just dead in the water now.

But that still doesnt solve the situation that everybody in New York will know who Chat Noir is. So what? Are we gonna get an incident pre-s6 where Chat Noir's random memory erasing powers were already brought up? Will the amount of people he has to mind-wipe be so big that inexperienced with said power he had to nuke his own memories, too, and all everyone remembers is having fought this villain off?

Why is this short scene giving off so many weird vibes of this beind dead serious and Ladybug cant be called while also raising the question of why on EARTH we are this casual about Adrien transforming in front of whole New York AND this monster of a villain?