#tweos analysis

I personally see her as more aligned with nominal refusal (insofar as she is enabled to be a superhero, but that comes with acting in particular feminine ways/submitting to particular feminine expectations especially re: her dating Luka), but I can also see the argument for acceptance (given that Tikki is masterminding the whole thing, and Tikki is a conduit for certain fanon expectations that may skew misogynistic). maybe less emulation overall, but, hey, she called Adrien a bishie lol

That's such a good point to bring up... (Also I want to just take an aside and thank you for bringing that up yaaaaay I love getting the opportunity to engage with this theme of TWEoS!)

The thing with most of the girls in Adrien's general bracket is that they're usually a lot more nebulous as to what camp they fall into: They're not "women" yet, after all, so they haven't solidified what category they'll take on. For Kagami in particular, she'll unfortunately have a coming-of-age moment orchestrated her mother right before The Diamond Ball, but the rest of them could still be considered as struggling.

I said this ^^ a while ago while explaining the concept to a friend, but if I had to fit anyone into categories, Marinette is currently closest to an Emilie, and Kagami and Chloe are closest to a Tomoe. Claudia, on the other hand, will eventually show very clearly that she is none of these, and that's important. Of course she doesn't fit into any of these categories. She's never played by any of the rules! That's so important to her character. 

Back on Marinette being closest to an Emilie (at least in my intention, I think you're right that as far as Lucky Lucky Ladybug is concerned her behavior can come off as Tomoe-esque), I tend to default to describing any instances of white associated with Marinette as "lily-white", and that's because of Emilie. This is because the white lily is a symbol of the Virgin Mary which I have in the back of my head as, like, a "connecting motif" between the two.

This is from a scene that might be buried in that old Ao3 Anthology fic, but Marinette trying to emulate Emilie in particular was something I played with a bit: 

Unable to focus on what he was supposed to, Adrien instead noticed that Marinette was wearing that same familiar perfume again. It was the re-release of Aphrodite; A scent from Gabriel that his mother walked, talked, and nearly breathed advertisements for during the media's coverage of his parents' engagement. Old collections and prints in his father's collection always showed Emilie in blush pink silks and flower petals, and the most sensational was the one where his mother had her lips pursed into a deep red cherry, as the key ingredient was said to be "cherry hearts". Anybody with half a brain knew that cherries had a pit, and that they weren't exactly aromatic... but Adrien's mother could've sold the masses their own shit at the height of her popularity. Whether or not cherry hearts existed wasn't a concern anybody but Adrien had.

Of course, it's a whole thing that illocution and perlocution aren't the same, so my intentions and what the readers take away don't always line up all the time. You're right that me presenting her as hyperfeminine for male approval does not inherently make her an Emilie, but... If I can be completely honest, I think that execution gap is kind of cool so I'm not super broken up about it? If that makes sense? She is still, in some sense, sticking to her "roles" by pining after Adrien, but she's not cognizant of that.

Ugh, but then if I look back in TWEoS there's so many tiny pieces here and there where we can compare Emilie's "agency" through modeling to Marinette's superhero work.... Gabriel once specializing in power suits when Emilie was at the height of her career, Emilie's own goals of fame....

Émilie tucked herself close to Gabriel as the paparazzi swarmed them the moment they exited the building. The sparkling explosion of cameras was like watching the sun hit ocean waves, a million little flashes of white light out over an expanse that never seemed to end—Except Émilie was in the water, in the light, constantly drinking in the eyes and the watching and the clamoring for her... Gabriel would do the dirty work, Gabriel would put in the hours. Émilie would be made famous. (Show Business)

Wrapped around her torso like a book jacket was a scarlet corduroy blazer (double breasted, black buttons), the fabric’s wale catching a hint of diffused afternoon light from the window and weakening its color with the subtlest wash of a sterile, celestine blue. It was an offshoot of an old jacket his father had made in the late 80s: The power suits House Gabriel had exploded in popularly with, later pulled back into more demure ideals. Slimmer tailoring on the waist, brighter colors and smooth contours. What gave the alterations away were the seams in the shoulders—Shoulder pads had been taken out to fit a sloping shoulder and a quieter mien. (TWEoS Part 2 Chapter 8)

(Do you guys think I compare the two too much? Well, too bad. I picked the wrong fandom to be in if it wanted to ignore the square.)

 It is by design impossible to discuss Claudrien without bringing up the fact that they are separated by class; It informs one of the major tensions that keeps them from being open about their relationship and influences both their personalities and major insecurities (Claudia enforces distance between her and the rich boy who should be out of her league; Adrien trips and falls over himself to prove his usefulness through financial means; Part 1 of TWEoS invokes prostitution multiple times as a lens by which to view their relationship should they give in to their less honorable traits). Granted, this is not particularly revolutionary as far as het or het-passing ships go. Rich Boy & Poor Girl is a romance staple, for telenovelas especially. 

What's interesting, however, is that the class divide aspect is something that a lot of people seemed to be expecting from Miraculous, but that is not necessarily given focus. (Chloe has derisively called Marinette "Baker Girl" and the like, but it seems the extent that ML is willing to explore class divide as a theme is through middle schoolers swapping insults.) 

It's not even that Marinette is actually upper middle class—More so that the class divide does not even need to be acknowledged as existent. Marinette despairing about being undeserving of Adrien is always framed in much more general terms, after all. Since the impact class has on the story as a whole is negligible, people occasionally headcanon their way into making Marinette explicitly working class; On the other hand, the neglect of class divide as a theme is sometimes cited by fans as a character writing flaw with Marinette in particular as opposed to being something evident throughout the whole show. 

(I've seen some posts on the Marinette Critique Studio bring that up specifically . I know a chunk of my followers are in that community, and I will admit I do occasionally look just to see what people are saying.)

I'm kidding of course; as you say, the fact that they're not 'classically' Asian does add a lot to their story. the fact that Luka specifically is the one to make the dog-eating comment funny on multiple levels. the most racist possible way of racially affirming himself. a little like how way Juleka (and even Marinette) is/are very anime-forward.

and that also maps to the weird resentment/vindictiveness from Luka towards Adrien onto how he talks about Kagami; no wonder he sees them as the same kind. he resents that Japanese is a legitimized socio-racial category but at the same time appreciates he has a more visible target to dunk on. loser!

also, a little note on Butler: I kinda referenced them because it was the first book/theorist I could think of very about gender and hetero production, but they've got their own bag of troubles with regards to opinions about anti-colonialism and violence; needless to say, their winning the Frantz Fanon award is not without its detractors lol. for any aspiring queer theoryheads out there!

It's partially gift-giving, but more in the sense that he likes helping his s/o where they need it the most. ...And when you're one of the richest idiots in Paris, most of the time the one thing they need more than you is money.

Going a bit into a Marxist analysis of the Cannibalism Chapter , Adrien is conditioned to see himself as a resource first and person second. This is why being eaten alive is so tantalizing to him—it's the distribution of his "value" to those who are more worthy of it. (Actually, his interest in it is multifaceted, but I'll leave that for its own silly post.) So, this willingness to provide financially is an extension of that same desire. He finds that the pinnacle of his worth as a person is what others can exploit him for, as that is what he was raised to believe by his (exploitative) parents.

That kind of bled into your second guess as to why he would unconsciously hookerify his partners, but I do agree that that is also true—He has plenty of insecurities regarding people appreciating him for who he is. He has horrible abandonment issues and has felt unloved in most of his interpersonal relationships, so he will leverage anything he can if that means his partner won't leave him. This is why he hastily regifts Marinette's pastries to Claudia in Chapter 55: Not only has he been using his money to bribe Claudia into maintaining their relationship (before the breakup, that is), but now he's doing it with food, something that he knows Claudia has trouble with. Chapter 55 is actually so good for showing off a taste of Adrien's more manipulative habits. Like with the prostitution thing, his intentions are... pure-ish? But it's still kind of scummy and pathetic, and I like when his flaws get to shine.

Also if Claudia wasn't so caught up in her reluctance to rely on others (because accepting gifts is, in her mind, what leads to people asking things from you in return), she would 100% be willing to continue the relationship even if it was solely financially driven. She does appreciate Adrien's company on its own, and she does genuinely care for him... but her issue with the dynamic is actually more that accepting money puts her in a "debt" to him and she doesn't like where that could lead. This was the intended implication of her Ch49 spiel to Karra, and later fleshed out in her conversation with Chat in Ch55, but I'll be more explicit about it in the future now that it's brought to my attention. Especially when they're finally honest about these insecurities and talk it out like they should. I had a few scenes in mind where this would play out, but they were written with a different trajectory for the story in mind so they might not work anymore. Oopsies