#theo barbot

Chapter 3 Preview

Inside the saloon, Ladyboots put her hands on her hips, her coiled-up lasso flaring out as she spun to look at her three new companions—two out-of-towners, and whatever the hell Cactus Noir was. They were standing by the door like kiddies hiding behind their mama’s skirts, staring around the place with wide eyes.

Ladyboots arched an eyebrow. “Are y’all just gonna stand around like skunks in September, or are we gettin’ somethin’ to drink?”

Without waiting for the slowpokes, she marched forward, boots thudding loudly on the wooden floor of the saloon and spurs clinking, announcing her arrival.

Every head turned her way. They always did.

She locked eyes with the man behind the bar, blinking with pleasant surprise. It was Nat Kurtzberg, her favorite bartender in the region. He must have moved further west to pursue his artistic ambitions. Always insisting he needed the wide open space and inherent loneliness of the desert to get in “the zone”, yet always falling back in with people again.

Her kind of person.

Read at Ao3

Banner art by @kuromori4

This post took me a while to get to because I’m busy but also I had class during the livestream ugh sad.

*mordecai and rigby voice* duuuuude Alix is gonna be piiiiiissed

This episode had me lowk confused about the timeline ? But I mostly get it now. The beginning is a flashback to s5 in which Luka goes to Brazil for the first time with Su-Han, Jagged, and Penny (who were not shown for dramatic effect ig). Then, after monarch dies, he leaves again on his own

The airport security guy is like how tf did you get past security AND out on the tarmac without a boarding pass

Lmao “I’ll be back soon!” No you won’t diva why are you adding to the list of people lying to Adrien

They make Tikki sound so nonchalant about Marinette being plagued by nightmares

Stop feeding that boy those damn pancakes for breakfast everyday. No wonder he isn’t hungry. Don’t you guys have like pastries or omelets or something

Ok is Plagg like magically obligated to lie about what happened because Gabriel was one of his holders or is he also pussying out and doesn’t want to be the one to break the difficult news

“Delivery of choquettes… and Marinette!” “Just what I needed” “me or the choquettes? 😏” *no answer* I fear it was the choquettes. He’s starving for anything that’s not pancake

Vandalized? I see people theorizing that it was Felix but I hope it’s Nino. I need more Nino shenanigans don’t let Felix monopolize the shenanigans market

What is even going on with Theo’s character? I remember the whole thing about how people thought he was an adult but then they were like actually he’s a teenager with facial hair but also he works many jobs. And they used to always pose him near Mireille but after seeing both Aurore and Theo as akumas there’s still no sign of her. What’s the lore? They might be retconning him back to being an adult

Speaking of jobs, remember when Luka worked delivery? What happened to that, did he quit to go to Brazil? That’s a conversation with his boss I feel like we’re being robbed of. “Hey could I go on leave for a bit? The city supervillain is personally targeting me for reasons and I need to leave the country. I plan to return soon though” “sure I guess?” “Ok funny story I’m actually leaving for Brazil again, this time of my own free will soooo I guess I quit?”

Of course the project is funded by Tomoe Tsurugi. Atp her role as a villain is to ragebait the people of Paris as hard as she can at all times

Bro thinks he’s building the next Statue of Liberty

Also putting a statue that big in front of town hall is so silly because no one would even see the whole thing at once. If you’re too close to it you’d only see the bottom, and to see the face you’d need to be far away beyond the neighboring buildings

Defeated evil and poor taste ~ with his nimble fingers! Theo that’s gay

Your moth- *sniper rifle noise* DAD!

Man it really was about the pancakes this whole time

Theo thinks dry and rigid is a delicious description of pancakes because he’s all about gobbling that old man dick. Sorry

Marinette’s liar lesson from Luka… it’s true he did teach her new and elaborate ways to lie to people

Omg her lyre lesson, because lyres are similar to guitars and they both used the snake miraculous to lie to each other in the same way… the layers the foreshadowing

Nathalie’s about to start killing people over this, girl run

She’s mad af but saying everything in the cadence of a museum audio guide

She really is just trying to cover her own ass at this point. She doesn’t care how either of them feel

Man I called it that Luka’s fake girlfriend would be gorg and he’d look stupid for not liking her back (assuming she’s gonna fall for him for real idk)

Why is Luka the first one to react in concern to Marinette’s slip-ups

Flying for an hour and 14 minutes must be kinda boring I hope she’s got a playlist bluetoothing into her helmet

I want to be alone right now… *starts strumming sad guitar music while wistfully staring out at the ocean*

Yay they’re making Luka more cringefail finally. One breakup and he moves to a different continent to run away from his feelings. This is your “mature bad boy” romantic rival folks. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long

Seriously though I’ve been getting so tired seeing people still interpret him as like… a sexy mysterious emo flirt rather than a teenage boy who is so allergic to conflict that he’d rather deport himself than talk about it

Luka: she didn’t love me back… what am I supposed to do now? Just get over it and date some random bird superhero? Kagami and Nathaniel:

“Adrien and I will make sure not to be too close when you’re around” girl that is NOT the answer why are you even humoring that

Seeing Viperion’s old suit in the new style makes me miss the bright colors and shiny textures of it, like the new one is nice but it’s much more toned down/less flashy and the old one with all its little details looks much better with the new animation

Irupe: Luka your flashback has been going on for a while now can you answer my question

Notice how Marinette drags people around by their hand and not the top of their arm? *looks at Nathalie and Luka*

Viperbug is so gorg it’s hard to take the sad stuff seriously like oh no she’s so sad :((( she’s serving though… but oh yeah so sad

“Marinette I’m about to say something that’ll probably sound very strange to you” *becomes physically aggressive* idk what you were trying to do there Luka but I think you kinda beefed it

I see people saying maybe Luka’s secret knowledge is from the Rio special but idk if that makes sense because didn’t they say the Rio special takes place during s4? <- in that case that means our introduction to Irupe will not be her meeting Luka for the first time in Brazil probably because that was s5.

I think he’s just referring to the knowledge that Adrien is Chat Noir.

Possibilities for why he wants the miraculous: the wish (unlikely), that whole thing about how the bug and cat holders can’t be in love for some reason (not so likely), wants to tell Adrien the truth and be the one to defeat him when he gets akumatized to protect his identity, wants to be the one to tell him the truth under a false identity to cover everyone’s asses (most likely, since he specifies he wants to protect Maribug)

Guys prediction time!!! I think something’s gonna happen later on where Marinette will have to make someone else ladybug temporarily and she’ll specifically NOT choose Luka because of what just happened. Maybe a situation where Mister Bug and Scarabella aren’t available for some reason

Luka is shocked that ladybug did the same thing to him as what he did to her

They’re oddly not suspicious when someone transforms with the snake in front of them only to immediately detransform and be like everything’s actually chill and cool ahaha

Also don’t think I’m not paying attention to who’s out here misusing their miraculous! So far this season we’ve got Marinette, Luka, and Nath, and I’m sure there will be more

Btw I’m so glad remembering that although revelator is ep 11, the ruler is ep 15, because that means that the rest of the season won’t be an ever-escalating, stress-filled psychological torture circus for Marinette, and there will still be episodes where her biggest concerns of the day are sneezing really loud and reading yaoi ARCs and shit

But also at that point she doesn’t have as much faith in Alya and Luka. Mayhaps they’ll use that as an opportunity to get her closer to other characters if not to just isolate her.

It’s also interesting that Marinette telling Luka the truth and then erasing it when he reacted poorly was something she did intentionally, and she felt safer telling him first rather than Alya. Then there’s the fact that Alya finding out was purely on accident. I suspect Marinette expected that Alya would react exactly how she did, but was maybe hoping that Luka would more affirming and certainly didn’t expect him to start going off about her miraculous.

You could say Marinette trusts Luka more than Alya but I think it might be more like Marinette knows Alya better than she knows Luka, and Alya is more bluntly honest with Marinette than Luka ever was

Does Mayor Bustier have a bit of a butt chin now or is that just the lighting in one scene

Tonal shift I know

Yes Lila hitting the famous statue poses and using Gabriel Agreste’s own voice

Adrien’s paralyzed :(

Ig the wish isn’t common knowledge among regular people but now Lila’s telling them about it. I wonder why Gabriel didn’t it’s a great incentive

Oh dear he cataclysmed his arm… again

In the moment when Chat Noir’s arm gets trapped I kinda wish they had him pass out for a second or something so it’d make more sense when Theo just casually took his ring off. Why not make a fist

EEEEWWWW why is nobody talking about the part where the giant finger reaches down and the little hand squelches out of it brother EUGH

Unfortunately this is one of the top 5 villains who came the closest to defeating them

Love him or hate him Adrien is speaking facts. Adrien anonymously online: okay everyone please don’t go harass anyone but I’ve compiled a google doc about why Gabriel Agreste was actually a terrible person

Casual body horror <3 <- something I wish they leaned further into in the wax statues fight in determination

Ok I have not seen a single person bring this up but I have to give Theo credit for rejecting the akuma. His akumatized object was the model statue, and I believe it turned into the entire giant Gabriel engulfing him. When Adrien called him out, it broke on its own, releasing the akuma. This isn’t a fight where they forcibly snap the object, they won by changing Theo’s mind and having him surrender because of it

Don’t become a crazy parasocial stan, kids!

Why is the Notre Dame right there why is it so close and big. There’s a clip going around of the miraculous team working on the show which includes someone positioning the set model for the little chunk of Paris they’re in and I kinda wanna see if I can find that video somewhere where I can pause it and see where all the places are supposed to be in relation to each other.

Speaking of that, the Couffaines seem to live by Canal St Martin which is a bit far from school, no?

If Irupe’s miraculous or whatever is that necklace then that’s so laughably obvious, even worse than Alya’s old miraculous design. I think it’d be hilarious if the flower in her hair was the real one and the necklace was just there for the lols.

I love her nose shape and how they gave her thick eyebrows. If I see a fan artist not drawing them I’m hexing you

Curious if there will be any sort of explanation for how miraculous/whatever holders keep meeting each other in the sea of millions of people or if it will always be plot convenience bullshit. Like ok Marinette meeting Jessica and Aeon on a school trip to NYC kind of makes sense. Jessica and Zoe having been friends? Big coincidence. Marinette running into Fei? Also quite lucky. Now how did Luka and Irupe meet. I’m hoping it’ll have something to do with what Su Han is up to on his magic-related travels rather than pure coincidence.

Comments about the upcoming eps

Romantic advice and birthday parties are two of the famous things that never go wrong in miraculous

ALIIIIIXXXXXXX she’s coming home Martha I’m coming home sweetie

Putting that on hold for a sec I’m excited for Sleeping Syren because I want more Ondine but also… all the reactions I’ve seen from people over the synopsis is like, “break up with Kim queen he doesn’t deserve you”. Um. Surely they’re trying to grow Kim’s character and redeem him? Surely there’s more to this situation

What if Kim is asexual or something and that’s why he hasn’t kissed Ondine. What if he just doesn’t want to. I hope Ondine is also kinda toxic and is making assumptions or having secret expectations she doesn’t talk about. Let them both be kinda fucked up and perfect for each other

Dark Cupid inflicted everyone with a curse that could only be broken by true love’s kiss and Ondine is getting akumatized into sleeping beauty whose curse can only be broken by true love’s kiss because she hasn’t gotten one yet… I see what’s happening

I kind of hope the resolution there will be him kissing her hand or something idk subvert the expectations

The whole team has to pull up to fight this one except Max and Nino, wonder what’ll happen to them

Also I hope we get a last name for her this ep so we can all tag our posts about her finally

As for the dark castle, very excited to see Alix. I hope the akuma is Alim this time, I’m eagerly awaiting new akumas for old characters who haven’t had theirs yet

Please let Alix be fucked up about being stuck in the burrow but trying to hide it, don’t make her be 100% happy about everything that’s happening

Alix: here’s fluff, can you watch her while I go smoke? Marinette: sure no problem Alix: okay I’m ba- *Paris on fire*

I’m guessing they’re gonna tell everyone that Bunnyx gave her miraculous to Marinette and not ladybug in order to explain why she’s not there

Hey mom, how come Alix gets to have two birthday episodes while some characters have 1 or even 0? Also I don’t have any trust in season 1 continuity but this kind of suggests that Adrien and Nath’s birthdays have happened already, and I guess the 15 sign in Adrien’s room points to that. Interesting that his birthday would be off-screen this arc if that’s what’s happening.

Ig that makes Alix 16. I hope they come up with a good explanation for why she’s older than most of her class since they say she’s doing great academically and surely wouldn’t get held back over grades.

It seems like Luka is most likely not gonna be there. I feel like something will happen later into the season where they’ll both be in the same place at the same time and become friends

I need her character interactions with everyone like where have you been loca

I don’t think we’ve heard a peep about Wreckless Driver yet even though it’s slated to be aired. What are the chances of this being the Marc episode? I say this because the title has that “not a main plot” side character focus energy