#mlb king monkey

Spoilers and critique ahead so if that’s not your cup of tea no worries and see you later! But now—

Regards ques-ce-que il a fait a ma pauvre garçon

This show man, ugh. After the Ivan focused episode came out and was actually good I was so hyped hoping to see the other classmates get the spotlight, and then, they do this to Kim.

I thought after Derision they were done trying to make Kim look bad, but alas. Now we have Sleeping Syren. And it wasn’t without its okay moments, but great Hera they did him dirty.

The writers clearly hate Kim, I don’t know why but they’ve been on a character assasination mission with him since, well let’s be real here Syren. When they decided ‘you know what how about he just be the swim guy’, any attempt to make him a real and fun character was thrown out the window. And it’s only got worse from there.

So we have an episode focused on the guy the writers hate and are actively trying to get all the fans to hate, and a girl who has thus far had speaking lines in mayyybe three episodes? Who gave that the okay? Ondine’s fine, I’d be glad for her to get real development, but it would have to not go hand in hand with more of the Kim shmere campaign.

I don’t think it should be a controversial opinion but, it’s okay to have not kissed someone in the 11th grade? In my high school friend group only two people dated anyone (and they dated each other) which is like, fine and normal? There’s lots of other things to focus on at that age. So the fact that almost everyone in the main cast are in a relationship I don’t think is necessarily the norm. I get how it could make Ondine feel pressured to move things along between her and Kim, but there’s also literally nothing wrong with Kim not being ready for that.

And even before the bullies started messing with him he clearly didn’t want to kiss, so they should have explained to us the audience why.

If the show had any sense of continuity then they could have easily tied this to the events of Dark Cupid. Like, the last time Kim tried to do something super romantic for someone it went so spectacularly wrong that he ended up akumarized, so it makes sense this time around he’d go for a lighter more jovial approach, and it seems like up till this point Ondine wasn’t communicating that that wasn’t enough for her, and so Kim probably thought he was going to get a great grade in boyfriend.

And the last time Ondine was akumatized it was also because she wasn’t communicating her feelings and then got upset when Kim didn’t pick up on what she wasn’t telling him. And they’ve allegedly been dating since the events of Syren (despite that barely getting more than a passing mention once in a blue moon) so she should know by now that the writers made Kim dumb as a post and she needs to tell him directly.

I’m not taking the new trio of bullies into account much because A: it seems like Kim and Ondine had these issues in their relationship already. B: the new bullies suck. Their character models are so ugly, they’ve shown up out of the blue, Zoé simply hasn’t gotten enough focus to make problems from her past compelling, and this last one probably only bothers me but like (and slight tangent here)

How are these three fluent enough in French to attend a French high school? They’re supposed to be from New York, and from what I gather the US doesn’t have that many French immersion schools. I know the English dub has the characters speaking English but it’s a French show set in France full of French characters, THEY'D ALL BE SPEAKING FRENCH! I don’t get the focus on New York, it’s gotten a whole special, four characters that lived there full time now in Paris, and like for what? (This is why the New York special should have been the Québec special in this essay I will—)

But anyway, the thing that Kim got gaslit into believing (which yeah super gullible but that’s on the writers being lazy) was that if he and Ondine kissed they would both go into anaphylactic shock. Both of them. I’m anaphylactic to a lot of stuff, like A Lot of stuff, and it’s not something to be taken lightly. For those that don’t know your throat swells up to the point where you can not breath and then you die. It’s the bodies self-destruct sequence. And before you go it’s itchy red hives all over you and intense nausea and the ensuing panic that goes along with it.

When I was dating my girlfriend if they’d recently eaten something I was allergic to, we couldn't kiss. Literally, I’m not joking. As much as the show is playing it off as this ridiculous over reaction, I actually do live like that. Plenty of people with allergies do.

While I get that that part wasn’t the only thing the characters were upset with Kim about, trying not to send your girlfriend and yourself into anaphylactic shock is a perfectly fine reason not to kiss someone.

And also, just not wanting to kiss someone is a good enough reason not to kiss them.

Like plain and simple, that’s enough. The episode has them kiss at the end, but you can’t convince me Kim wasn’t pressured into that. Ondine yelled at him, he saw her talking with the girls so he knew they knew what was going on, Ladybug excluded and then got mad at him, and Ondine got akumatized because he wouldn’t kiss her. It’s good Ondine was more understanding at the end of the episode, but the bit where Kim asks how long he’s allowed to take to be ready is so sad?? He sounds so unsure of himself which is rare for a character like Kim, and I honestly wish they left it at Ondine saying as long as he needs if they can just be together.

That’s a sweet moment, the making out in the cafeteria less so.

Now on to Marinette. I wish any of the characters had learned anything at all from the many many many many failed attempts at setting up Marinette and Adrian to have clued in that doing the same to Ondine and Kim was a bad call. But they didn’t and Marinette kept pushing. Eventually even the other girls started saying Ondine should cut her losses and look for a partner that’ll be better for her. And Marinette wouldn’t have it, she just kept saying Ondine should try harder.

And this is the same Marinette we’re supposed to believe got year long lasting dating trauma from the same Kim?? (Derision making the rest of the show worse once again) It really doesn’t make sense. And then she gets mad at Kim for being dumb and mean when she knew he had always been kinda dumb and kind of mean?

And okay yeah the line “I should have never given someone like Kim the miraculous!” What? She so didn’t?? Kim is one of only three holders that Fu chose. The other two being Marinette and Adrian. And as bad of a guardian as Fu proved to be, if we’re agreeing he picked the right cat and ladybug then odds are he picked the right monkey!

Yeah Ladybug let him keep the miraculous, but she also let Felix keep a miraculous so I really don’t think she should be giving Kim any amount of grief if Mass Murder McGee over there gets to stay on the team.

And why use screen time on all the other heroes helping civilians if the miraculous cure is going to fix that anyway? Ladybug even says it doesn’t matter if Ivan got turned because she’ll fix it anyhow. It does nothing but make Kim feel bad and Marinette look petty.

I will give credit where credit is due, the aqua power up suits looked good. And I liked Princess Syrens design, it is quite pretty. I think I do still prefer the first Syren design but they’re clearly meant to convey different types of counters so that’s fine. The giant water Princess Syren (btw that’s her name in the French dub rather than Sleeping Syren) on top of the dome was also cool looking. It reminded me of Ryukomori which was one of the stand out Akumas from season 5.

Other than that, I personally didn’t find many more positives. I don’t love the new animation style, I think both Kim and Roi Singe looked better before. Ondine definitely got a glow up though she looked very pretty this episode.

But yeah, the Kim Ondine ship is a mess, and I don’t trust the writers anymore than I can throw them to be able to do anything that would actually make me ship it. Especially after this episode, the only thing they have in common is that they both swim. And a lot of people in Paris can swim.

Okay so my friend and I were discussing what the teams for the civil war in miraculous would be and the reasoning so here ya' go:

(SPOILERS UNDER CUT)

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