Our Spiritually Elevated Rejection Of Canon Vs Their Intellectually Dishonest Refusal To Engage With

miraculous ladybug sucks but the one thing that was fun was that marinette has two love interests that play the femme fatale (chat noir: fun but dangerous, flirty, oh no he's trying to tempt me into giving away my identity, literally based on black cat) and the ingenue (adrien: innocent and naive, passive role, oh no they know nothing of the world so i must protect them, etc.) which are typically foils. but it turns out these two love interests that she must choose between - are the same person. instead of two stock tropes that she must choose between (the innocence and safety of her civilian life versus the dangerous adventure of superhero life) she must reconcile and choose both. and then they added luka because they were bored.

miraculous ladybug season 6 but instead of marinette panicking and sabotaging her confessions of love. now every episode she is panicking and sabotaging her confession that adrien is a little boy made of duct tape, a feather, and a dream.

if i wrote ml fanfic it'd be so self indulgentlike lila and adrien trying to appear friendly to everyone around them but the passive aggressiveness ramps up until there are looney tunes level shenanigans happening when no one is looking until they somehow become friends. But well the thing is that s5 I don't know what they're doing anymore so lila would be my OC. but that's fine i live in s3 forever i suppose...

sooo. divorce arc when

is miraculous s6 actually fleshing out the side cast? everyone say it's a joke rn

there's a timeline where instead of lila, emilie is the bbeg. please god bring me there

gabriel is fascinating in that he is a deeply fucked up guy. can't believe they let him win they should've shot him like old yeller. he needed to be put down

[ID: Two images of art of Marinette Dupain-Cheng from Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Chat Noir. In the first image, there are 7 headshots of Marinette, all of them smiling softly, with different hairstyles, masks, and eye colors for her Ladybug outfit, with text describing each. The first headshot is labeled, “0. A Marinette for comparison.” The next says, “1. Classic Ladybug,” where she has her original pigtails and mask. The next is labeled “2.” and describes her changed appearance as having “higher pigtails, ribbons as antenna, eyes become black.” The next headshot is labeled, “3.” and says she has a “ponytail, ribbons as antenna, eyes become red like an anime character.” The next is labeled, “4.” and says she has a “bun, ribbons as antenna, black and white mask like the face of a ladybug, purely white eyes (like spiderman lol.)” The next is labeled, “5.” and says she has “two braids, antenna attached to mask,” and “fully black eyes.” The last is labeled “6.” and says she has her “hair pushed back, antenna attached to mask,” and her “irises are white & sclera black.” The text also says, “honestly the look i go for with my akumabug design.” 

The next image is the same as the first, but without the text. End ID]  

marinette… my beloved… i think she’s really cute with the original pigtails and red mask, but i was thinking about how chat noir changes a lot about his appearance when he transforms, including eyes, hairstyle, the cat ears, etc… so i just drew a bunch of alternatives of her outfit all together! ladybugs in particular are such a nice theme, because bugs have that creepy/cool factor because they’re just very different than humans, but they can also be really cute! especially with their compound eyes!!! 

number 4 with the bun and black mask is usually what i go for when drawing a redesign of her outfit, but i’m fond of the alternatives here too. 

as a bonus: 

[ID: Ladybug with the redesign of her appearance from the above images, with braids and fully black eyes. Her eyes are big and shiny, as if about to cry, and her antenna are down as she pouts. Chat Noir is looking at her and says, “bug i’m sorry i won’t overuse the kitty eyes please just stop making that face.” End ID]

okay not to say any of these aren't valid takes people can like what they like and make what they want it's just crazy to me this is what people focus on when they're writing reviews of miraculous ladybug. or they get mad because it's a baby kids show for babies which like okay get real. in my opinion the worst thing about miraculous ladybug is simply that its narrative is completely incoherent. it can't hold a theme to save its life so it picks 5000 and puts it in a blender. it's a baby kids show and gabriel vomits ash in the finale from internal-cataclysming but they can't handle adrien finding out his dad is like. bad. and child abuse is like. wrong. if you can't handle child abuse as a theme then do not make hawk gabriel agreste moth a FATHER!!! crazy work.

i hate miraculous ladybug but i disagree with everyone else who hates miraculous ladybug and that's my true real problem. no video essay does it for me because they're literally wrong (because my opinion is always right btw) and every salt blog is wrong. "adrien should be the main protagonist" wrong. "the biggest problem is marinette being a stalker" wrong bad faith argument not understanding the genre (though it is a valid criticism to be uncomfortable with it personally) "marinette is a mary sue" literally wrong. "adrien is a gary stu" wrong. "adrien sucks and this is why marinette should get with some random guy named robin." what the fuck are you talking about.

i honestly think the writers really shot themselves in the foot (as they like to do) with the miraculous timer not existing specifically for adults instead of that just being a skill that has to be trained. The training montage in the beginning of Revelator was cool (in theory bc why is this only a two minute scene) but the fandom‘s main concern seemed to be about how fucked up it actually is bc this is basically forcing kids to grow up too soon. And I see where they‘re coming from, but also the lore for the timer is so unclear overall.

I fully agree. Calling the timer upgrade an "adult" power then giving it to the teen heroes is just weird. Just say that it has to do with experience or emotional maturity or something like that (not that Gabriel was ever emotionally mature, but let's ignore that issue for now). Everyone was anticipating this upgrade being a thing that happened when the characters turned 16 or 18. Having it just randomly show up while most of them are still 14 (15?) raises all kinds of questions and makes people give the upgrade undo weight.

I had another ask about this recently and in that one I talked about how lackluster this upgrade was. The characters don't actually mature, they just kind of will themselves into "adulthood" which is one of my main issues with the complaint you mentioned. A complaint that I have also seen a few times from different sources which is why I feel comfortable addressing it:

the fandom‘s main concern seemed to be about how fucked up it actually is bc this is basically forcing kids to grow up too soon.

It's hard to view the characters' "adult" status as "forcing kids to grow up too soon" when this upgrade is the least serious thing that has happened to most of these characters. Forcing Marinette to try to navigate the complex mess that Gabriel dumped on her lap is "forcing kids to grow up too soon." Luka being banished to Brazil because a terrorist wanted to capture him and force him to betray his friends is "forcing kids to grow up too soon." Adrien having to navigate being an orphan with no forewarning that his father was dying is "forcing kids to grow up too soon." The list goes on.

However, none of those things are why the characters are "adults" now. They're "adults" because of a rather generic pep talk. It's also worth noting that the scenes where the characters becomes "adults" are framed as moments of empowerment. That means that, narratively speaking, this is not supposed to be seen as a bad or concerning thing.

This show's messaging has always been wacky, but I'm pretty sure that this is less a commentary on how messed up these teenagers lives are and more the writers just wanting to show that the characters are growing up because we're six season in and growing up is not some great evil. It's just a normal part of life. That's why my criticism of this upgrade is not "upgrade bad" or "upgrade depressing" it's that this should have been part of a character arc where the characters actually grew up a little!

Also, complaining that the teen characters are "growing up too" soon feels too much in line with people who complain about shows like Miraculous "glorifying child soldiers." It's an action show aimed at young kids. The lead characters are going to be kids and teens because those are the kinds of characters young kids relate to. If you don't like seeing kids and teens being given responsibilities that they shouldn't have in the real world, then don't watch these kinds of shows. To enjoy them, you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief about the age issue and treat the responsibilities these characters have as fine in their world. Or, at least, not concerning because of their age. It's less "this is bad for a 14-year-old" and more "this is a terrible thing for anyone to deal with."

This is why you'll see me do things like treating Nathalie, Felix, Kagami, and Amelie as equally responsible for keeping Adrien in the dark in season five even though Felix and Kagami are "just teens". It's also why I don't really talk about Marinette being "just a 14-year-old girl." I get that defense, but I don't think it fits this genre because, if you're going to use that defense, then why is she responsible for anything? She's too young for everything she's doing! All the teen characters are, but is anyone arguing that they should all quit and be replaced by adults? I don't think so. If we put this stuff in adult hands then we would have a wildly different show.

I do think that the teen characters' age has validity in certain discussion - for example, I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to have teenage struggles because they are teenagers - but generally speaking, I'd avoid using age arguments when it comes to the characters' responsibilities and authority in shows like Miraculous. Characters in these shows are not supposed to be treated like normal teens by the audience. That just doesn't make for a good story.

Along similar lines, I don't like the "this character is only 14" or "it's only been a year in canon" arguments to defend things like the lack of character growth. That's just not a good defense for a fictional story like Miraculous. It's an action-adventure romcom, not literary fiction. It's not supposed to be hyper realistic. It's supposed to be a fun and engaging story. It doesn't matter how old the characters are or how long it's been in canon. What matters is that we're six seasons in and that season five saw the end of the show's first major story arc. By that point, it's perfectly reasonable to look for character growth and satisfying plot progression.