i get a direct message. "cal what is this april fools joke" im genuinely confused---"what april fools joke?" "t-the sideblog. its an april fools joke, right?" so i have poor timing, okay?
ik its a kids show so theyd probably never delve into this. but in the universe where chat noir and hawkmoths identity were revealed to the public, i cannot fucking imagine the media circus that would go on. the court case alone would be so bad… “hawkmoth vs chat noir: domestic terrorism or domestic abuse?” itd be soooo awful they should make it happen. paris’ most fucked up family. the youtube videos. someone would request to make a documentary. and after all gabriels shit is revealed publicly he still only goes to jail for tax evasion à la al capone.
[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]
like im not saying anyone has to remember everything that gabriel has done but keep in mind he's done things like threaten nuclear annihilation to the entire North American continent, drowned the entirety of paris, and marinette is also aware he akumatized chat noir into literally destroying the entire world. so keeping this in mind, one might think to themselves "maybe the people of the world would like some sort of real closure and justice for these crimes against humanity." of course, if one only thinks about adriens wellbeing, it may seem like telling the world about it to be detrimental to him. but it's also important to keep in mind gabriel also did things such as: threaten to blow up the north american continent while adrien was on that continent. and keep adrien in the white cage. and the multitude of other things akumas have done targeting adrien personally - gorizilla? riposte? one might think even adrien would want some sort of closure or justice for how he's personally been treated by hawkmoth. of course, this may be terrible to find out that it's your father who didn't care about your personal or physical wellbeing, but at least a person can come to terms with how they were treated if they know all the facts.
of course marinette is a 14 year old girl who has a lot on her plate and having to navigate very hard decisions. and sometimes it seems safe to simply do nothing at all. especially with secrets like this - because you can't reverse telling people the truth, but you can always reverse a lie by coming clean later. but i do generally expect like most people with morality of any kind to think to themselves "wow. i think keeping this secret is detrimental to a lot of people and their personal growth and their capability of making autonomous informed decisions." at least one tiktoker could say "hey maybe adrien should know he's a sentimonster if nothing else so he can be aware he can be remote controlled so that he can better protect his autonomy" alas this show is for 7 year olds so no. marinette is always right. and so the shitty moral lessons of ml win yet again. i need tequila.
i can't go on tiktok and read comments. revelator has done something insane because i have seen so many comments saying what marinette is doing when it comes to lying about gabriel being hawkmoth is 100 percent correct and alya being upset about her lying is wrong. am i fucking crazy? am i out of my mind right now? or do tiktok comment sections live in an entirely different universe than me? because what do you mean it's the correct option to lie to the entire world about how the person who has terrorized them for years is actually a hero and not even tell his son that his father was a criminal. omfg does no one understand the concept of justice or closure or autonomy. even if telling the world gabriel agreste was hawkmoth might result in adriens life becoming harder, why not tell adrien and let him make ab informed decision about any of it? or do people hate letting other people other than marinette make decisions. this is actually driving me insane like i can't actually deal with reading people saying marinette is morally correct. what are we teaching people right now
the actual reason I consume mediocre media is because I have bad taste. the deeper secret pretentious reason is because I think there’s something very revealing about bad media that you don’t get with good media. when you watch a poorly executed plot point unfold, you see the machinery behind it. you see the gap between what’s actually on screen and the true goal the author is striving for. if it’s particularly awful, you can even measure just how poorly mismatched the author’s skills are with the story they’re trying to tell you. watching a poorly executed narrative play out feels like you’re discovering something, because you see all the wiring and guts underneath that better authors hide from you, in the same way that movies hide boom mics and books make you forget you’re turning the pages. if a story is good and executed well you just see the story. but I want to see the guts and wires!
s6 making lila the main antagonist (probably) is so sad like the excessive fake identities and such... it's not the same as it is s1-s4 its just not the same flavor. I need her petty 14 yo beef to stay petty 14 yo beef. can s6 at least have adrien and lila fight with nails behind the lycee. or have marinette teach adrien how to drive her scooter and adrien runs over lila mako-asami style like "oops sorry ^_^" i need their beef to be astronomical but also on a civilian level. like lila should be a normal 14 yo girl who just so happens to push people down staircases Not a supervillain. In my opinion.
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.
okay so i also haven't totally caught up with season 6. i really did think maybe they were saving marinette telling adrien for later but the crazy thing is that felix knows. kagami knows. nathalie knows. and you're telling me NO ONE has snitched. everyone is totally fine with not telling adrien anything. i hope everyone goes to hell im so serious