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#miraculous ladybug meta

lostuntothisworld · 8 months

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It’s kind of messed up that Adrien fell in love with Marinette when she thought he was a statue and treated him like an object because:

At the time Adrien was working as a model, selling his body, and being treated like an object by his father and fans (and it gets worse when he’s turned into a literal object for Alliance).

I’ve said it before, but Adrien is narratively a girl. There is a VERY distinct femininity to his character. They literally put him in a dress and call him a princess. Having your girl coded character fall in love with someone because they treated him like an object has unfortunate implications.

Adrien is a Sentimonster, which have historically been treated as objects. (Looking at you, Gabe). Sentimonsters can be created and destroyed at the whim of their creator. Whoever has their amoks can control them like puppets. (Still looking at you, Gabe). Having a person who is canonically a member of a magical slave race falling in love with someone when they treated him like an object has unfortunate implications.

And to backpack on the previous points, Adrien is an abuse victim. His father isolated him, controlled every aspect of his life, emotionally and mentally abused him, and treated him as a life sized dressup doll. You know, like an object? More unfortunate implications.

And it didn’t have to be like this! They could have had Adrien realize he fell in love with Marinette during literally any other time. (I would have chosen Umbrella scene 2.0). Heck, the statue scene can even stay canon, if they continued to acknowledge that it was a cringey cringefest and moved on.

But no. Magical slave race girl coded abuse victim who has been treated like an object by his father and most of the people in his life falls in love when he’s being treated like an object. The writers really thought this one through.

#Miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #ml salt #adrien agrest #cat noir #Miraculous ladybug meta #ml meta

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rozunderpressure · 9 months

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I wish someone would talk about how Chloé is like… A literal tragic character…

Who she is currently does not allow her to make the current right choice, but also makes her worse which goes on to not allow her to make the right choice next time either, so she is stuck in a cycle where she is constantly nudged further into the dark with no one pulling her back because all the people who could, at one point, have done it have already been pushed away by previous bad choice she was nudged into making.

And people keep giving her bad advice and not responding correctly to her BS. Like Miss Bustier being dismissive of her bad behavior or Ladybug telling her to act more like her mother which probably made sense for Mari, WHO HAS A GOOD LOVING MOTHER, and is just a teenager who really should have not been given this kind of weight to carry.

The problem is that Chloé's problems are ones that are not solved by being a goody nice nice to her, which is how MLB (the show, not the character) likes to solve all its problems... They would be solved by her being give some real (AND PROPORTIONAL) consequences to any thing she does wrong, while also guiding her in a better direction…

Her problems can not be solved with a pep talk, which means they never will in this show... Which, again, makes her a very tragic character...

#Chloe Bourgeois #miraculous ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Meta #I posted this as tags in response to another post but I decided to make it its own post

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satoshy12 · 3 months

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Bruce:" I am not collecting children! They find me!"

Flash:"Yeah, right. Don't believe you."

Bruce: "What do you think? I put my arms out, and a new child falls into my arms to adopt!"

To show case it,

Bruce stretched out his arms only for two babies to land in his arms. With a name tag on them. Daniel and Marinette.

Bruce:" This doesn't prove anything."

Bruce is on speaking terms with their families. As the meta-babies most often teleported, Maddie and Jack met Sabine and Tom. And now they talk at least once a week, as Bruce and family is kind of part of it too.

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minoudrien · 5 months

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it’s nothing it’s nothing… I JUST THINK IT’S FUNNY HOW while the peacock miraculous was broken gabriel didn’t touch it and despite expressing guilt about nathalie falling ill he still let HER be the one to use it whenever the peacock’s power was ‘needed’ for gabe’s plan that day. he never once offered to wear it in her place.

but the second the miraculous gets fixed? oh no nathalie is no longer necessary, turns out gabriel CAN wear the peacock miraculous now and he’s going to use it for the rest of the season in conjunction with the butterfly miraculous to make himself stronger.

and this is NOT salt, i actually love that this specific writing choice just further proves something about gabriel’s character; he may feel guilty about it afterward, but he will not hesitate to put his loved ones in harm’s way for his own personal gain.

#complex villains are so chefs kiss to me #i am eating up all that guilt. i am using it as syrup on my pancakes.#miraculous ladybug #meta #em.txt #gabriel

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cakemousse · 6 months

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alright unless proven otherwise, i'm going to hc that toxinelle's crush is actually griffe noire

or a “crush who doesn’t think I’m a lame-o”! credits to @2manyfandoms2count for the translation

it's unfortunate... but hear me out

the salters always say that the lovesquare is toxic codependency, imma show you what real toxic codependency really is, on the part of emonette at least

'he's rude as fuck and disrespects her all the time, there's no way emonette would fall for him' while this is true and i would agree under normal circumstances, toxinelle came from a world where she didn't have anyone, no super awesome friends to inspire her everyday, no best friend in life and in death, no mum who is gentle and calm, nothing. she's lonely and has nothing to fall back on, but you know who she can fall back on? griffe noire

even if he does let her fall

he is the only constant she has in her life, at least ever since she got her miraculous. even if it means getting insulted left and right by him, she puts up with him

why? cause if she doesn't she'll truly lose the only thing she has 'going' in her life

and we can see that after she read marinette’s diary about the part where ladybug and chat noir are partners or rather teammates, she looks at griffe noire, as though she’s thinking of being teammates with him. it’s something she wants, and we know it’s something she truly wants by the end of the special

also in this universe, emodrien has a crush on emonette, so what's preventing toxinelle to have a crush on griffe noire?

toxinelle isn’t happy, we can tell when she poured her heart out to ladyfly about everything and then finally about her crush thinking she’s lame all the time, but there isn’t much she can do if she wants her constant to continue be by her side

loneliness really does some fucked up things to a person huh?

the concept’s pretty fitting of a villain don’t you think? 🥲

#toxinelle #griffe noire #paris special #paris special spoilers #*#ml meta #is this meta? idk lol #moussing #miraculous ladybug #ml speculation #my poor baby 😭😭#shadybug #claw noir #1k

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uptoolateart · 10 months

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Okay, so what I was saying in my long Gabriel analysis rings true. (Ha ha...rings....) He changed to be accepted by Emilie's parents.

Deep down, Gabriel probably relates to Marinette. In the story Feligami tell...Marinette could easily be the poor tailor, while Adrien is the heir to the empire, ready to throw it all away for her.

At some point, Gabriel got twisted and sold out his values. It was probably a gradual process, which explains why Emilie initially fell in love with him and then stuck with him despite her unhappiness with him later.

In one of her videos for Nathalie, she said Gabriel got stuck on things. He was good enough for her but not for himself.

When he looks at Marinette, he sees a little of what he used to be. When he gives her that speech about being naive in the fashion world...he's talking about himself, once upon a time. I think he once had a dream like hers, and he let it go, focusing instead on the wealth and status he needed to be good enough for his in-laws.

Now, he envies Marinette, even if he's unaware of it. That's the only reason a grown man would be fixated on her in that way. He's treating her the way Emilie's parents treated him. He has to break her and get her out of his son's life because if he doesn't - if she achieves her dreams of marrying Adrien and becoming a designer without selling out her principles - it means he could have done this too. It will force him to reflect and take accountability for his bad decisions...and he just can't cope with that.

Similarly, when he hurls abuse at Cat Noir about what an ill-mannered child he is, and when he goes to such lengths to control Adrien...I really think he's seeing a reflection of his younger self there too.

Underneath the pancakes and bad dancing and total insanity, the man is nothing but a writhing heap of regrets and won't see that he had so many chances to do things another way.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #ml fandom #ml gabriel #gabriel agreste's a+ parenting #gabriel agreste #ml representation #ml spoilers #ml s5 spoilers #ml s5 #ml meta #ml analysis #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #ml adrien #ml marinette #adrinette #adrienette #emilie agreste

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trainsinanime · 3 months

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What so many of you fail to consider is that for Marinette, being Ladybug is crucial enrichment. If you don't throw an Akuma into her enclosure (the city of Paris) every now and then, she will develop behavioural issues and go insane from boredom. On the other hand, whenever that does happen, giving her an Akuma usually calms her right down. It's like a dog toy, or a laser pointer for a cat.

This is a fairly common thread through most episodes. At the start, Marinette has a problem, often involving Adrien, and she goes completely insane over it, trying to find solutions that are just buck wild. And usually, an Akuma appears, Marinette focuses all her mind on that for a while, and then realises that she went too far and calms down, because now her brain has been sufficiently stimulated and she burned off her excess energy.

Yes, defeating Akumas is stressful for her, no doubt, but I think it's even more clear that not doing that is causing far more stress behaviours to appear in her. She is an excellent guardian and strategizer, great at analysing situations and coming up with plans, and if you don't give her a proper outlet for that, she will come up with her own, often with humorously disastrous results.

So the (admittedly few) posts saying that Marinette shouldn't be Ladybug, or deserves to retire, are getting it all backwards in my opinion. If you retire her, you'll have to give her something else to do. Otherwise, the next time they're in the supermarket, she will build a weird contraption out of a shopping cart, canned beans and a quizz magazine to parkour to the top shelf, instead of asking Adrien for help.

So be a bit more careful with how you treat Marinette. If you force her to sit still, she will not thank you.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb meta #mlb shitpost #expanded from a reply I gave on another post a couple of days ago #just imagine for a second the plan lady noire would come up with to catch a laser pointer dot

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passionfruitbowls · 1 year

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i love how adrien tries to put marinette at ease by letting her know that he’s also still getting used to their relationship, and that he has his own worries. it shows her that she doesn’t have to be alone while navigating her feelings.

and then, when she pulls her hand away and apologises, he’s caring and patient. he doesn’t try and rush her into doing anything, he doesn’t dismiss the trauma she’s developed from people (namely chloé) bullying her in the past. he’s more than happy to wait until they both feel ready to be more affectionate with each other. and having that mutual trust and respect is a very important part of any relationship

#basically this moment meant a lot to me <3 #miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #ml derision #derision spoilers #ml meta #pfb talks

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theerurishipper · 7 months

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"Oh ClAw NOir's dEsiGn Is sO uGly" well that's your opinion. He's not ugly he's cringe fail and he's proud. And I think he deserves it. Just look at his evil lil' smirk. He's in his element, he's in the zone. He's the manwhore to his goth gf's girlboss. He's tired and he just wants to go apeshit. He just wants to go fucking feral. He's unhinged and he's a fucking loser. He's all dressed up in his little jacket and his little spiked bell and his purple eyes and his black lipstick and his double heads of sewer green hair and I think he's slay. Go off king, do your crimes. I support catboys' wrongs.

#MLB #Miraculous Ladybug #Adrien Agreste #Chat Noir #Claw Noir #Griffe Noire #Miraculous World #ML Paris Special #My meta #Yeah I still don't like the wannabe mullet #But he does and that's all that matters

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bittersweetresilience · 6 months

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the designers

the runaways

the ones who create

the ones who decay

the lovers

the halves of a whole

a short incoherent compilation of parallels between marinette and adrien and gabriel and émilie. i'm also thinking about the ones who make choices and the sacrificial lambs but for now have these.

inspired by @anna-scribbles! happy thirteen day!

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lostuntothisworld · 8 months

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Actually Plagg killing all the dinosaurs is a good thing because otherwise mammals wouldn’t have been able to take over and evolve into humans. Plagg basically birthed humanity with a cataclysm

#Yeah he did it but you should let him go because I love him your honor #Miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug meta #plagg #plagg meta

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fortuna-et-cataclysmos · 10 months

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In defense of s5 finale

I hear and see a lot of people expressing dislike of the season finale, some also in the tags and comments of my analysis/speculation posts. So I wanted to further expand on this.

Gabriel's victory -being remembered a hero despite everything wrong he did, especially abuse to Adrien- has left a sour taste in many people's mouth; many blaming the scenarists and not shying away from calling it "bad writing."

But I think that that was exactly what the scenarists wanted to do? The perfect world Gabriel leaves behind is unsettling, unfair, and I think that the creators have done their best to show that implicitly but clearly. I think that we are supposed to be irked by the finale.

Why do I think that? Because there were a lot of small things that gave the message that, as @emsylcatac iconically put it, "this is the bad place." I touched upon some of those in my previous post on how this was a victory for Gabriel and Lila, and a defeat for Ladybug. I'll try to list them more clearly here.

Gabriel a hero

This is the one thing everyone has the most problem with. At the end, Gabriel was declared the hero who gave his life to defeat the Monarch, who was none other than himself. Some artistic choices here are so over the top that I believe they were specifically made to irk us.

If the silver statue itself wasn't enough, the exact quote of Caline Bustier is:

All the rings that have been highjacked by the Monarch have been recycled into a statue in honour of the great Gabriel Agreste.

Then Tsurugi Tomoe goes on to say:

Beyond the visionary entrepreneur and genius creator that he was, we are celebrating a hero today.

See, everything bad about Gabriel has been flipped. If you count literally exploiting people visionary entrepreneurship, sure, he was that. And genius? He couldn't get the miraculouses of two teenagers for an entire year despite having all the resources, and he ended up succeeding only with the help of another extremely powerful person (Tsurugi Tomoe) and even then he ended up dying himself.

As of creator, he was literally a destructor. He destroyed Paris more times than anyone can count, and everything was fixed every time only thanks to Ladybug. Let's not also forget how he destroyed the Miraculouses to exploit their power.

Adrien's comment about his father

This is another thing many people have had problem with. It is so outrageous that I won't believe the creators would expect us to take at face value.

At the end, Adrien acknowledges that his father died to take down the Monarch, and says:

I don't know if one day I'll manage to become like him.

Lo and behold, the man who had emotionally neglected and abused his son to no end has turned into the said son's hero and role model. Adrien not only looks up to him, but also wants to make an active effort to become like him. Hell, he even doubts if he can be as good as him.

No way this line can taken at face value. There are many children's shows with abusive parental figures nowadays (like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the Owl House) that have all handled the conclusion to that abuse generally well. The watchers' expectations are high in this respect; the scenarists would know that such conclusion, if not ironic, would not satiate the expectations of the spectators.

Lack of accountability: Gabriel and Tomoe

As many many people have pointed out, the general lack of accountability in this season finale is infuriating. So Gabriel mentally tortured THE ENTIRE WORLD POPULATION and not only never faced consequences in life, but also is remembered as a hero in death?

What about Tomoe?

Not only she has not faced any repercussion for being basically a supervillain, but also she is still a respected public figure who can go and make a speech backed by the mayor, in front of the freaking French flag. If that doesn't irk you, I don't know what will.

Worse is that, she goes as far as saying in her speech that:

I'll make sure to continue his legacy.

So she'll continue to be evil. Great hint that she'll continue being an antagonist in season 6.

As you can see, the new world that has been created is extremely unfair and problematic. No way this can be "the good place," an actual "happy ending."

Everything is fixed! No problems anymore!

Also, you'd realise that the world is perfect, a little too perfect. It is like a green utopian dream.

Caline Bustier has been the mayor "only for a few weeks" (direct quote from the episode), and she has already fixed all the problems possible in Paris. Not only that, she has also solved inequality and class struggle (again, mentioned by herself). Let's make Caline the President of the World already.

Funny that LITERALLY ALL THE PROBLEMS of a city could be solved, while the exact same episode showed Majestia, the freaking Supergirl of the ML universe, acknowledged in her nightmare that:

Even with all my superpowers, I'll never manage to solve all the problems of the world.

Well, Bustier says that she has no superpower, that people working together can accomplish that. Kudos to her and her democratic spirit. But like, perfect city in a few weeks? Even Mayor Bourgeois who wanted to send all the trash of Paris to space would realise that that's impossible.

There is no perfect solution, yet the world is perfect

Ladybug acknowledges that there is no perfect solution to Gabriel's situation. Trying to bring back his wife, he has caused irreparable damage to himself and to Nathalie, effectively leaving Adrien an orphan. He still hopes that Ladybug can fix it all. But she can't because of the nature of the wish: for one thing gained, another thing should be lost. In Ladybug's words:

There is no perfect wish. Every time a power is used for personal gain, it causes catastrophes. (...) We'll find a solution, but it will never be as perfect as one would wish.

Interesting, given that the world ends up being completely perfect?

All the problems are solved, literally everyone is happy, Marinette and Adrien are finally together. But the wish was made for personal gain, no? So where are the consequences? Where is equivalent exchange? The catastrophe, the price of the perfect, green, just world? I think we'll see that in season 6.

The dream world

The new world is seriously giving me weird vibes. Like it is a movie set. For those who have watched The Good Place, you'd know how in the town everything feels a bit too bright, artificial, perfect. I get the same vibes from the post-wish world.

The Agreste mansion is covered by green vines?? Way to hide the atrocities that were planned and happened here.

Here is a screengrab I found on the internet from The Good Place (the ladybug is a funny coincidence lol)

I am getting the exact same vibes!

Also, I have expanded on that in my post on "running out of time" theme, but basically in the ML universe usually the "real" stuff are associated with the night and the rain while things that happen in the sun turn out to be fake or erased/forgotten. So the feeling that I get from this finale is that, this new "perfect" world is not genuine; that the seeming happiness it brings will be soon destroyed (I doubt erased), just as it happened in other fake reality episodes like Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, Oblivio, or Jubilation. As I argued before, this is not a permanent victory. Hell, it isn't even a real victory, not with the secret Marinette is left to keep from Adrien.

Not a real victory

Another thing that makes me think that this ending is not genuine is the lack of Chat Noir in the finale. Yes, I am a fervent Ladynoir stan who was hoping for some Ladynoir action (if not reveal) and was hugely disappointed by the lack of Chat's engagement in the final fight, but now that I think of it, this may have been on purpose.

Notice how in Conformation, Ladybug says:

Our only way to win against him is to fight him together.

And yet, soon thereafter, she is catapulted into a fight with the Monarch.

Notice also it wasn't her choice to unify the miraculouses and face the Monarch alone. She had to, because Chat Noir wasn't there.

Let's remember that this show spent the entire season 4 explaining how Ladybug assuming all the responsibility alone leads to disaster, how she needs Chat Noir to share the burden with him.

Let's also remember how in season 5, especially at the beginning of it, we see Ladybug change her behaviour towards Chat Noir: she gives him more responsibilities (the Bunny Miraculous, the identity of certain holders if I am not mistaken), and how at one point she confesses that Chat Noir has been very serious and responsible lately (and then promptly develops a crush on him).

So taking on the Monarch herself is really against everything they have built up in season 4 and the beginning of season 5. That's why I think that this "victory" is so wrong: it was "won" only by Ladybug. Maybe if Chat Noir were there, he would have prevented the Monarch from making the wish (hypothetically, then we would have an entirely different timeline). If his identity were revealed the way Marinette's was, Gabriel could have controlled him through his amok. In any case, their defeat or victory would have looked very different from this.

In the end, we must remember that this world is far from being a victory for Ladybug: she has, after all, LOST. She couldn't stop Gabriel from making the wish. And while this world looks perfect, and we got what seems like a forever happy after ending for Adrinette, their happiness is set in a non-genuine victory and world.

So I think we shouldn't be angry with the show-runners: there is a reason why this ending feels and is wrong. If it were all wonderful, it wouldn't be the season finale. It would be the finale, period. And I believe that everything that has been disturbing us in this season finale will be addressed, if not consist of the core conflict of season 6. Let's all take a deep breath and turn to fan fiction or fan art till we get the new season now :) (at least that's what I'll do lol)

#miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #ml season 5 #from fortuna #ml conformation #ml recreation #ml analysis #ml meta #ladynoir #adrinette #ml speculation

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ilikekidsshows · 5 months

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The Totally Spies-ification of Adrien

Okay, it's been long enough that I can actually discuss how Adrien's slavery is depicted in the show without anger-fueled exaggerations and hyperbole. I want to discuss how Miraculous treats Adrien's slavery very flippantly and how it is, like everything in this show post-retool, all about Marinette. The show has a lot of stuff that hints that the writers intend for Adrien to be viewed a very certain way. I believe the writers made Adrien a slave for Marinette’s benefit and I will explain how I came to this conclusion.

I’ve joked before about how Astruc has worked on Totally Spies, “one of the kinkiest cartoons ever made”. I’d like to tackle this idea and how it relates to Miraculous more seriously. I’d like to tackle the topic of titillation and how it relates to how this show approaches slavery with such flippancy. My claim is that Adrien being a slave is not meant to be horrifying, which is why the story doesn't treat it as such; it's meant to be titillating.

I usually don't use Read Mores, since they can lead to broken links later, but this is really long. Strap in, folks.

Titillation for the context of this analysis means “content with the intention to excite romantically or sexually”, basically it’s about “kinky” stuff. The purpose of talking about sexuality in relation to Miraculous is not to paint the writers as some kind of fiends, but to present the fact that many teenagers are curious about romance and sex and will think about sex unprompted. This means titillating content in cartoons doesn’t even need to be related to sex to be titillating. And Astruc has a history of putting titillating stuff in his work, with Totally Spies being a very notable example of how you can include non-sexual titillating content in a kids’ show.

It all comes down to expected audience reactions. Adrien is meant to be sexy. I don’t mean that in a “the writers think this is sexy” way, but a “the writers think the projected audience of straight teenage girls will think this is sexy” way. He gets put into bondage three times in ‘Copycat’, ‘Anti-Bug’ and ‘Reverser’ and all three times the camera seems to like to show him off. He is meant to be an object of attraction for the audience. The people criticizing this show have been pointing out how Ladybug's costume accentuates her butt for years, but this is not something that occurs with just Ladybug. When he isn't posing for the viewers, Cat Noir gets whacked around by Akuma’s a lot, but a lot of the time it ends with him in a prone position that is also titillating, in ‘Pixelator’ it goes as far as having his butt jut out. However, the idea that Cat Noir is the one who gets hit when an Akuma needs to show off how dangerous they are is also part of the power dynamic where Marinette or Ladybug gets to show off, so it’s not purely for titillation, which is why other examples, like ‘Stormy Weather’ are more comedic.

It’s likely that Adrien-as-Adrien doesn’t get to participate in the show’s slapstick much, since that aspect of the character is presented as the perfect beauty, a role usually reserved for female characters who only ever get a little bit flustered or banged up to make sure they keep looking attractive. Marinette screams "waack" and runs face first into a wall in the same episode where the silliest thing Adrien gets to do is sneeze (Mr Pigeon). Adrien is meant to be attractive, sexy, titillating, in different ways in his different forms. As Cat Noir he is more active and more sexy, as Adrien he’s more passive and pretty, much like how female love interests can fall into these categories. It’s the Betty and Veronica dichotomy; in the Archie franchise Betty and Veronica are shown as the wholesome and sexy romance options and the reason the writers go out of their way not to resolve the love triangle is to keep the appeal of these both options going. People’s tastes differ, so it would alienate some audiences to pick one over the other. With Miraculous they solved the problem by having the two romance options be the different identities of a single character.

Frankly, as of the season five finale, Adrien is approaching “sexy lamp” levels of replicating sexist ways of writing a female character but just changing the gender. What else do you call him lying on the floor in despair while his love interest gets his superpowers and uses them to beat up his abusive father, while somehow being perfectly fine and happily kissing Marinette later after said father is dead and gone? Adrien’s trauma is debilitating when it serves the writers’ purposes, but stops being a problem as soon as they need him to smile and look pretty. The main reason Adrien’s trauma is so inconsistent is so that he can act as Marinette’s trophy so that Marinette has somebody to kiss in the final shot. If Adrien was despairing about not being good enough for her, or grossly crying about being an orphan, Marinette wouldn’t have a fun time kissing him. And if Marinette isn’t having fun, the members of the audience projecting onto her aren’t having fun either.

Speaking of how Adrien’s depiction relates to Marinette, here comes the controversial part of this post: while Marinette is not depicted as a literal slave owner in-story, narratively, she is very much treated as Adrien's owner from a meta perspective. We, the viewers, are meant to see Adrien as Marinette's property, and the twist of Adrien being a part of a slave race in a dynamic where Marinette holds all the cards is meant to be a good thing. We have been primed to view everything about Adrien to actually be about Marinette, because Marinette is the center of the universe of Miraculous and Adrien belongs to her because he’s the main character’s love interest. Adrien being revealed to be a slave that Marinette could control but then chooses to “merely” manipulate is meant to be glorifying to Marinette and titillating to the viewer. I will elaborate.

Marinette has been incredibly possessive of Adrien since day one and she is only occasionally depicted as being in the wrong about this, when she goes too far by the show’s standards. She stalks Lila and Adrien whenever she sees them hanging out together and she’s unreasonably jealous of Kagami. The only time she is depicted as being in the wrong is not when she's sniffing Adrien's pillow after breaking into his room, but when she actually bullies Kagami out of jealousy, and even that is depicted as more of an unfortunate misunderstanding than Marinette actively doing something wrong. Marinette is more sympathetic towards Kagami when she finds out she and Adrien aren't as close as she thought, that Kagami’s pursuit of Adrien is more hopeless than hers. Basically, Marinette is only in the wrong because Kagami isn't a threat, not because she was doing anything wrong by bullying her to defend her “territory”.

This gets flipped near the end of the season, though. When Adrien and Kagami do start dating, it's depicted as this big tragedy even more so than Master Fu losing his memories. Master Fu going missing is an afterthought, while Adrien choosing someone else over Marinette is the big “darkest hour” moment of the season three mid-finale, the cliffhanger moment of her crying in Luka’s arms while all hope is lost. Marinette isn’t directly crying about this, she is crying from “all the pressure”, but Marinette breaking down happens immediately after a scene of Kagami leaning in to kiss Adrien that has a somber dirge playing in the background. The first part of the finale has everything going wrong at the end; Master Fu is missing, Chloé gets willingly Akumatized, Marinette breaks down, and Kagami leans in to kiss Adrien. These scenes being put closely together is telling us that these are all bad things to happen.

Adrien ending up with Marinette is a given, but it's also taken for granted. Every girl with an interest in Adrien is depicted as an antagonist, while Marinette can do whatever she wants in pursuit of Adrien and will still be morally correct. Chloé and Lila, even Kagami to a degree, are villainized for their attraction to Adrien in a way Nathaniel, Luka or Zoé are not with their attraction to Marinette. Chloé and Lila are full-blown villains while Luka and Zoé are some of the most selfless members of the cast. Kagami is aggressive and socially awkward in a way that is used to justify Marinette's initial distrust and dislike of her (in ‘Ikari Gozen’ Alya voices her pity towards Marinette for having to spend time with her) while Nathaniel is just the pitiful bullied loner who’s still a liked member of the class friend group. Girls who want Adrien are bad for trespassing on Marinette’s territory and trying to “steal” something that “belongs” to Marinette.

The writers thinking Adrien belongs to Marinette is also not just subtext. Later in season five, when Marinette and Adrien finally start dating, Marinette even outright states that Adrien “kinda does a little” belong to her when she’s scared that Zoé has a crush on him. The fumbling of the line means that the writers are aware of how toxic it is to consider your partner your property, but they want to include that sentiment anyway, because that’s how they view the situation. Marinette’s boyfriend is her property and other people can’t even look at her property. ‘Emotion’ continues on this increased possessiveness by having the entire Marinette plot happen because she can’t conceive Adrien keeping things from her, because he isn’t allowed privacy from her while Marinette lying to Adrien (or Cat Noir) is a show staple.

This same attitude of Adrien not being allowed to have romantic options outside of Marinette has also been in the fandom for years. Every time a new female character was introduced, there was a worry that she’d “try to steal Adrien from Marinette”. Marinette and Adrien are endgame, the writers know this and the fandom knows this. The characters don't know this, but it doesn't matter because Adrien was already seen as Marinette's (future) boyfriend even back in season one when he barely knew her. And this attitude the writers and audience have is extended to the characters more and more as the show goes on, as almost every single character becomes an Adrinette shipper in support of Marinette in season five, while no one thinks to ask Adrien what he thinks about this. Only once, in ‘Desperada’ did Alya suggest that Adrien could make his own choice on who to date, but it was implied the choice should be Marinette specifically (Marinette smiles at this, while Kagami frowns). The cast is lucky the writers have decided Adrien already is Marinette's, or he’d be really uncomfortable.

Season five episode ‘Pretension’ goes as far with this as having Marinette basically ask Gabriel for permission to be with Adrien, convinced that she and Adrien can be together with no problems if she can just get him to approve of her. And then Gabriel tells her he’s promised Adrien to Kagami. You know, like a piece of property women were treated as before women were allowed to live without a man to control them. The finale then ultimately does have Gabriel agree to hand Adrien over to Marinette by dying and leaving her in charge of Adrien. Just because she uses the privilege to do some things for Adrien’s benefit doesn’t make what happened any less of a patriarchal transaction. In fact, the writers wrote it that way on purpose, with the knight and princess parallels they set up between Marinette and Adrien earlier in the show being something they are prominently proud of (the “reverse fairytale” as they put it). Adrien is the princess the dashing hero Marinette gets to earn with her feats of bravery; he’s handed to her like a piece of property and Marinette is too happy with her acquisition to even be outraged on Adrien’s behalf. And Adrien wasn’t even allowed to know about any of this, instead it gets handled solely between Marinette and Gabriel, like his opinion on the matter didn’t even matter. And why would his opinion matter, since he already is ready to promise himself to Marinette, even as the writers deny him the agency to actually make such a promise.

The goal of making it obvious that Adrien is cool with being objectified like this is probably why they make Adrien so obsessed with Marinette in season five, constantly repeating her name to himself and saying stuff like: “I can’t stop thinking about you” in ‘Pretension’. They need to drive it home to the audience exactly how okay Adrien is with everyone forcing him to be with Marinette. After all, you can’t force the willing. As of ‘Confrontation’, Adrien’s official goals for the future are: “I love Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” I guess, from the perspective of the writers, the childhood dream of wanting to be what his parents wanted from ‘Wishmaker’ wasn’t sad because of Adrien’s lack of agency; it was sad because he wasn’t forsaking all of his personal pursuits for Marinette specifically. As far as the writers are concerned, Adrien should only care about Marinette and nothing else.

This same entitlement is also present in Ladybug and Cat Noir's relationship. Every time Cat Noir is upset with Ladybug, like in Frozer, Glaciator, Syren, The New York Special or even Kuro Neko, they never talk about what caused it. This is especially blatant in cases where Ladybug has wronged Cat Noir personally, like Kuro Neko or the NY Special, where she never has to face up to what she did wrong because Cat Noir comes back because she “needs him”. Cat Noir will always come back to her without her having to do anything because she is the main character and she says she needs him. He exists for her and her needs. He exists for her; it’s just another way he’s hers.

Speaking of how Adrien is treated affects Marinette, even Adrien’s trauma actually belongs to her in the writing. I pointed out earlier that Adrien’s trauma shows up when the writers need to put him out of commission, but disappears as soon as he needs to be Marinette’s trophy, but it goes further than just inconsistency. The early seasons spend several episodes on how Adrien is being locked up by his father and unable to hang out with his friends and, between him and Marinette, Marinette is the one shown to be more upset and hurt by this. They don’t do this in every episode, as ‘The Bubbler’ actually does a phenomenal job of making Adrien’s upset actually about him, but the big point in ‘Glaciator’ is that Marinette is so upset that she can’t see Adrien that she accidentally leaves Cat Noir on read so he’s upset about that. Adrien is only upset because he didn’t get attention from Marinette, while Adrien’s literal abuse at the hands of his father is only important because it makes Marinette upset. Even Adrien himself gets in on this action in ‘Conformation’ when the writers go as far as having Adrien chastise himself of not being more worthy of Marinette’s love when his dad is once again busy ruining his life. Even Adrien himself makes his abuse about Marinette; him being abused is bad because it’s inconveniencing Marinette and inconveniencing Marinette makes him less worthy of her.

‘Cat Blanc’ is possibly the worst offender of all, though. This episode should be all about how Adrien is abused by Gabriel, culminating with Gabriel turning him into a monster that destroys the world. And yet, what is the episode actually about? It’s about Marinette. The worst thing that could happen to Adrien is about Marinette. Only Marinette gets to remember or even know about the possibility of Cat Noir getting Akumatized and only Marinette is traumatized by it happening. After all that the writers later dare to use this event that didn’t actually happen anymore, that Adrien doesn’t know about, to justify him giving his powers to Marinette, because he’s “scared of getting Akumatized” when something like that has never happened as far as he knows. But the writers had him reason this way anyway, because apparently the culmination of Marinette’s character development in the show means taking Adrien’s power as her own and then failing to win even with that at her disposal.

Another note about ‘The Bubbler’ that has to be pointed out is that it’s also the first example of Marinette being presented as good for Adrien simply because she treats him better than Gabriel. The final scene of Marinette giving Adrien his best birthday present yet and letting him think it comes from Gabriel is done to show how selfless Marinette is by letting Adrien keep thinking good things about his abuser. This idea that Marinette is morally good simply because she’s better than pond scum Gabriel is also present in the season five finale, where Marinette manipulates, gaslights and keeps important information from her abused slave boyfriend. Marinette is presented as being in the right because at least she didn’t literally control him with a magical geas like Gabriel did and gave him the object with which to do so (while notably not telling him what it does). Marinette will do the bare minimum of not taking literal ownership of Adrien and we’re meant to see her as a paragon of goodness for it, while she still has no respect for Adrien’s autonomy and hasn’t had any since the show started.

The way the Sentimonster “reveal” is handled shows this utter lack of respect for Adrien’s autonomy that the writers, and Marinette by extension, have. The reveal is not for Adrien, but for Marinette, just like every other piece of Adrien has been made to be about Marinette. Marinette gets to know and she gets to decide if Adrien gets to know, and she decides “no”. She will manipulate him and lie to him to keep him happy for herself, she will keep important information about him to herself that he might never find out if anything happens to her, because Adrien is hers and no one else’s and she has the right to make that decision because the world revolves around her because the world of Miraculous was created to be her playground. “Adrien” is just a toy on that playground for Marinette to play with as the writers see fit.

Now we’re coming back to Adrien’s role as the sexy, titillating love interest character that I talked about at the start of this essay. If Marinette granting Adrien the bare minimum of freedoms as a slave while manipulating him “for his own good” is meant to be a good thing, why is Adrien even a slave? Well, outside of the writers wanting to add a plot twist that doesn’t come with any messy plot they’d have to write about characters other than Marinette, Adrien being a slave is also meant to be titillating. What really is magical super slavery than very, very off the wall bondage and power play stuff? The idea that Marinette could rob her love interest of his free will with ease but won’t because she cares about him so much is very empowering in two different ways. It gives Marinette all the power in the relationship and it makes her out to be such a good person that even having ultimate power over another person won’t corrupt her. Adding to that, we have Adrien’s people pleaser abuse victim personality, which makes him fawn over the people he loves. If Marinette ever wanted to have control over Adrien, Adrien would give it to her of his own volition, no need for magical super slavery or unbreakable geases.

As I stated earlier, Marinette is meant to be the point of view main character the audience of teen girls projects themselves onto. So, really, Adrien’s slavery and abuse responses are all about that fantasy of having a cute boy you have all the power over but not needing to use it because the boy is so nice and devoted to you anyway. Adrien really is “perfect”, the perfect object of attraction, a being who technically has free will but whose free will you never have to take into account because he’s been designed and trained to value other people’s wants and needs over his own.

Marinette doesn't literally own Adrien within the story, but the writers make it very clear that they think she should. In fact, in all ways except the literal, she already does.

#ml critical #ml writing critical #miraculous ladybug critical #ml meta #ml salt #zagulous fandom #adrien agreste #just like with my 'adrien gets disrespected' post none of these things would be THAT bad by themselves #but it's this much stuff all at once

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gentil-minou · 1 year

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I really should be sleeping but I really think one of the reasons Adrien is so fond of the statue scene and why it led to the realization of his feelings for Mari is because in that scene she's basically doing what he does as Chat Noir to Ladybug.

As in she's speaking his love language.

And I don't mean cringe, I mean honestly saying how she feels, showing open and deep devotion for the other person, a willingness to be vulnerable and dramatic in pursue of passion and love.

It must have been so jarring for Adrien to see Mari act that way, because it really is something Chat would do. And while I do think he thought it was just her joking around, that playfulness is what Adrien adores! And remember in psycomedian how important comedy is for Adrien! And Mari, well she's like him!

That "cringe" that all the haters complain about is exactly what Adrien loves about Mari, because it's exactly how he would express his feelings! And, as we've seen in canon, it is what opens his eyes to her and to his own feelings.

Don't forget Mari has ALWAYS struggled with her feelings and never been clear about them. That's WHY the statue scene happened in the first place, because Adrien thought she hated him. And all he wanted was to know if she maybe, just maybe liked him back. At least as a friend.

What he got instead was something way more, and I really do think it's because once she did say her feelings, in that ridiculous over the top way of hers to a statue, he realized they were more similar than they'd previously though.