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k7l4d4 · 5 months

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Okay, this is gonna involve me unpacking a LOT of personal shit, so here goes...

I haven't seen my mom since I was five, because she was deeply mentally ill, and has no ability to take care of herself, so she gave me up to her grandparents. My grandparents tried really damn hard to raise me right, but when we moved when I was five, and my grandmother died later that year... things started going down hill.

I'm gonna state straight-up that my grandfather had depression following my grandmother's passing, and even in spite of that, he did TRY to raise me right. Too bad he was kind of an asshole. No, scratch that, he was a HUGE asshole, with a tight-fisted controlling streak wide enough you could swim the length of Lake Superior easily in it.

Ever since I was five, I haven't bee... good at handling my emotions. I fired back and forth between extremes easily, and I didn't know how to handle things going a way I didn't understand. This meant I got in trouble in school a lot when I was little. My grandpa's response to me getting in trouble? Yelling at me. FOR A FUCKING HOUR.

I was made to feel ashamed of having emotions, that nothing I did was right. Now, sometimes, I screwed up by genuine accident. Did this matter? Oh HELL NO. See, when I was young, I had a habit of pulling people into hugs around the shoulder and neck, otherwise known as putting people into Headlocks. I DID NOT KNOW WHAT A HEADLOCK WAS AT THE TIME. And yet, I got in trouble, and you want to know what my grandfather did? He said there was no way I couldn't have known what a headlock was without explaining HOW, and punished me by dragging me to the bathroom and forcing liquid soap into my mouth as a punishment. I wasn't even seven at the time, and I'll never forget the feeling of that slimy crap being scrubbed into my tongue until I burst into tears and tried to hack it up when it slipped down the back of my throat.

When I got into Middle School, and got something resembling muscles, my grandpa dragged me into his garage to "help" him work on his truck and stuff. Something something "giving me valuable life skills," which wouldn't be so bad if I weren't the embodiment of being an indoors kid who would rather curl up around a book and only interact with nature through a window. And yet, I was expected to stand still, holding bits and pieces of metal in place, wrench nuts and bolts, and more or less be his chore monkey. I never fucking retained ANY of the skills he taught me, because he was a lousy fucking teacher who expected someone to "just get it" after showing someone once. Oh, and HEAVEN FORBID you do a task he assigns you in a way that doesn't fit HOW HE PERSONALLY DOES IT to a "t." So there I was spending the next four years of my life being forced to act as an assistant to a grumpy old man's machine shop projects that he was in no shape to be doing, and frequently yelled at to the point of crying on more than one occasion because he couldn't somehow fucking grasp THAT I WAS NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO KEEP A PIECE OF METAL LIFTED FOR MORE THAN A FUCKING MINUTE AT A TIME!!!!

Oh... the yelling. I glossed over it, I guess. The yelling was kinda the staple of my grandpa being pissed off. He never hit me, but given all the times he's left my ears ringing, I'd say it's a fair trade, wouldn't you? Because here's the thing about my grandfather; the fucker wouldn't take responsibility for a fire he set if you found him holding a box of matches and a tank of gasoline.

I wasn't allowed to get angry with my grandpa. If we ever had a fight, it was my fault. If something went wrong, I was the one who had screwed up. If I tried to confront him on when he's being an insensitive piece of crap, he goes "I don't want to hear it" and walked away. To him, an argument only exists if HE is the one engaging it, if HE is the one in control; I wasn't allowed to have an opinion to express if he couldn't dictate the flow of a conversation. If I brought up one of his screw ups, he would say "it didn't happen," and treated me like I was either making something up or dreaming, to the point I honestly doubted if I remembered right, because he was so utterly certain he couldn't be the one at fault. The standout incident in my memory is the time he had a fit of road rage because he thought someone was tailgating him; his response? Hit the brakes and let them get close, and CHUCKLE about it before speeding back up, because WHO CARES THAT HE HAD TWO OTHER PEOPLE IN THE CAR AND THAT THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN HURT, HUH!? I was scared out of my fucking MIND, all because he had to get pissy and throw a fit in the middle of the fucking road!!! But whenever I fucking bring it up, he tries to change how it happened, or pretend that "he was just stopping for the stoplight" THE FUCK HE WAS!!

I have been infatilized by this man... for YEARS. If he had me do something on my own, he would come over and double-check it, nitpick at it until he found SOMETHING to complain about, and then would undo it and redo it himself. It was humiliating. A project that he had dragged me out of the house for, and after all the effort I put in... he just did it himself anyway. I felt like I was five again, like a little kid who couldn't be trusted at the big kid's table. It was so humiliating, and the only thing that kept me from crying at times was that there was nobody around to see him treat me like this, like I was a little kid instead of nearly a grown man.

When I was in Middle School, we were told to think about what we wanted to do with our lives. At the time, I wanted to be a video game developer. My grandpa's response to hearing about that? Complain and browbeat me into changing it because "every kid want's to do that." Literally NONE of my classmates at the time wanted to be that. Then again, my grandpa has never once hid the fact about what he considers "real work," and programming sure as hell ain't it. He made me ashamed of what I wanted to do with my life, until I lost all motivation to keep going.

I can't even count the number of times me and him fought and I started crying because of how small and alone he made me, and his only response was to "quit my fucking bawling." Because real men don't cry! Real men suck it up, buttercup, and keep it all buried inside, because that's how you get thing's DONE, you see. He shamed me for having emotions, for not conforming to the impossible standards he set for me.

My grandfather was also a bit of a prude; to him, it didn't fucking matter that I was a hormonal teenager going through puberty, I had to adhere to HIS standards of what constituted proper behavior. Always. He made me hate my body, yelled at me for self-exploration, and treated me like I was a disgusting THING he had to put up with having in his house whenever my self-control slipped.

Then there's the fat shaming. Which is really fucking rich, given that the man has a gut big enough you could fit a basketball in it, but what can you do? "Do as I say, not as I do," fucking hypocrite. It... it would be ONE thing if he just yelled at me to exercise more. But no. He doesn't do that. He needles me. He hems and haws. He asks "how's that jogging going?" He makes comments about me exercising more, or commenting on how much I'm eating, even when he's packing away two or three plates.

This has been my entire life. A never-ending slog through pushing my way past my grandpa's emotional abuse, and trying to keep one foot in front of the other, desperately looking for a way out. I don't hate him entirely. But I will NEVER forgive him for how he treated me.

I love Chloe as a character, because I see myself at my lowest in her. When I see her questioning why Audrey doesn't love her, I'm reminded of the times I asked myself what I did wrong while my grandpa refused to answer instead of just repeatedly yelling at me. When she confesses how useless she feels, it's like I'm looking at myself slogging through high school, asking myself what the fuck am I doing with my life. Every last scrap of desire for validation, for approval, for wanting people close but shoving them at arm's length... it's like looking at a mirror composed of my worst moments. When I see her, I see every little moment of failing to live up to impossible expectations without even being aware of the criteria that I've had to endure, and can see that she's endured in how Audrey demeans her. To me, the writers insisting she's "irredeemable" disgusts me; it's a mockery of everything I've been through, of saying that every time I couldn't be what my grandfather wanted me to be, every time I screwed up at school or got into a fight with a teacher because I was so overwhelmed that all I could do was lash out and hoped that everything would be better... that I was just this evil little monster who wasn't grateful for being taken in by someone who didn't HAVE TO. As if being given the absolute bare minimum of human decency is some kind of justification for being insulted, belittled, and screamed at until I was left curled up, ears covered, hoping that the scary things in life would leave me alone, because "sitting there and taking it" was the only thing my Grandfather would let me do when he was angry. I'm not just angry with how the show treats Chloe, how it uplifts Andre while ignoring his failures as a parent and just ignoring every way that Audrey's impossible expectations and abusive behavior have shaped Chloe as a person... I'm hurt. I felt betrayed. Like this character who I sympathize with, EMPATHIZE with, so strongly, was told "no, you are not ever allowed to grow," and being the only one held accountable for all the shitty things surrounding her... it was like a knife to the heart. I can't speak for anyone else... but when Thomas decided that turning an abused teenage girl into a demonized monster over the abusive father of the male protagonist and the rich brat who routinely hurts people just because he can... I lost any ability to respect him.

One question regarding my upcoming review

I'm making good progress on my review of the Season 5 finale, but there's one aspect about it that I want some more information on.

Much like with my "Qilin" review, where I asked my followers for their perspectives on police brutality and racial profiling, I was wondering if there were any followers of this blog who would be willing to share their experience with child abuse or neglectful parents.

Because the season finale will have a scene that will make me look back on earlier episodes with scenes of child abuse in regards to Adrien, Kagami, Chloe, and Felix, I want to get an idea of what ways the show missed the mark when it came to depicting the subject.

This is far from mandatory, but if anyone is able to share their experiences, I would greatly appreciate it, and I will be sure to credit you in the review proper.

#rant #personal trauma #thomas astruc salt #miraculous ladybug salt #trigger warning: emotional abuse #gaslighting #verbal abuse

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k7l4d4 · 5 months

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Yeah, in a lot of ways Astruc's self-inserts highlight his shortcomings both as a writer and as a person. He may not be a BAD guy and is most likely a genuinely loving father... but the man has ZERO self-awareness and a serious maturity problem.

The writing around his self-inserts draws some attention to this, when compared to a certain other case, Bob Parr from the Incredibles. Bob Parr, very quickly, is established to be a fundamentally good person, but one who is caught up in trying to relive his glory days without much regard for the consequences, and who has a lot of pent-up frustration regarding the world and where his life has ended up... he also ends up reflecting a lot of talking points regarding talent and success that many consider to be Brad Bird's own frustration bleeding into the writing. But, more than anything, it's established that his behavior and attitude, are unacceptable and are more him deflecting from his real problems and lashing out at others. All of this is then woven into the overarching narrative of the movie.

In contrast, Astruc's self-inserts are represented by Tom, an idealized image of Astruc as a father alongside a romantic partner and fictional daughter, and his in-universe self, who he portrays as a polite and underappreciated artist who is unfairly picked on by others. While Tom DOES occasionally get a few jabs by the writing, his actual screw-ups, such as in Rogercop, are brushed aside. In contrast, In-Universe Astruc shows how startlingly little self-awareness Astruc actually has by presenting himself as purely a victim without acknowledging his actual failings as a person or how his behavior has alienated others online, and all in all just having Animaestro come off as Astruc trying to be "in on the joke" without being able to comprehend what he's done wrong, and thus coming off as out of touch and overly sensitive. Heck, even the way the episode ENDS for Astruc's SI basically has Marinette pandering to his ego and need for validation rather than him getting over it and striving to do better.

It comes off largely as Astruc trying to desperately reassure himself that he knows what he's doing and that the "haters" are all wrong under the veneer of self-parody. A man whose attempts at self-deprecation can't even have him own up to his own immaturity is not someone who can pull off humor at their own expense, and it shows.

I was thinking about the times you said Astruc may not be as horrible in real life as he seems online. I kinda imagine he might have similar problems to his character in the show: Has a lot of ideas and is not good at handling situations where people don't understand his vision. Since we mostly see he interact with people when it comes to he believing people don't understand his vision, it means that's that part of him we know way more about than the other parts.

It's honestly mind-boggling that Astruc thought self-inserting himself into an episode would somehow improve his image, when, if anything, it only served to show how terrible he is dealing with criticism.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #thomas astruc #thomas astruc salt #the incredibles #bob parr

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k7l4d4 · 6 months

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To Mr. Astruc, I have to say this:

Yes Adrien doesn't suffer for it... BECAUSE HE DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT IT. Stalking is not defined by harassing or threatening someone, it is defined by taking an unhealthy degree of interest in a person's personal life without their knowledge or consent, and it's made clear multiple times that she knows far more about his life and schedule than she could ever get by legal and ethical means. She stalks him. It doesn't matter if Adrien considers her a good friend because I'm pretty sure there are plenty of cases of stalkers whose targets once felt the same thing before they found out about it.

Her friends repeatedly enable and go along with her behavior without batting an eye, so no, it is never shown to be a bad thing outside of all of THREE TIMES when it's even acknowledged that her actions exist in this manner, and it never meaningfully changes her behavior at all. Astruc, I sincerely hope you never have to deal with a stalker like you've portrayed Marinette as, for your sake. I don't think you'd defend her actions if you had first hand experience.

Anyone else starting to think the show enjoys romanticizing the concept of stalking your love interest?

Like we have a massive list of examples for Marinette, and now we have Felix doing the exact same thing with Kagami.

The best thing is that Astruc doesn't even consider what Marinette does stalking, so I doubt he'd say the same about Felix.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #thomas astruc salt #marinette dupain cheng

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k7l4d4 · 6 months

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Personally, as a Chloenette fan, I don't think Zoe's inclusion and sexuality was meant to stop Chloenette shippers... mostly because I don't think the writers are clever enough to do that. I think they wanted to shoe-horn in a form of representation that didn't involve admitting that any of the more established characters (besides Caline, who is so rarely important to the plot she's basically a background character ninety percent of the time) are LGBTQ+.

As usual, they want their cake and to eat it too. But overall, Zoe's biggest problem is that she's so blatantly shoehorned into the plot and events of the show that if she weren't so rarely plot relevant, she would stick out like a sore thumb. They try to make her important, but she never actually DOES anything of substance. She just "exists."

Been reading some asks claiming/fearing they wrote Zoé to crush on Marinette to “paint the haters as homophobic” and/or to “stomp on the hcs of Chloé crushing on Ladybug” but I want to add some silver lining here if it’s possible?

I’m not saying Zoé coming out as sapphic is immune to criticism + those who criticize it are being “homophobic” because that’s a bit much (her being used as a set piece for Adrienette bugs me), but I also feel like it’s also a reach to say this all is linked to spiting Chloé.

Like you said, I think Zoé being queer was a character trait they added to flesh her out, but they also skipped over the “fleshing out” part bc why Marinette (other than the fact she was nice to her first, other than the fact for the sake of Love Square drama). They just make her more of a satellite, a lot of characters suffer this but Zoé has a terrible case (Chloé’s nicer sister, Andre’s favorite child, Cat Noir’s understudy, now Marinette’s unrequited admirer)

I don’t have plans to watch “Adoration” (season 5 for the matter) but that’s my thoughts on the ordeal

I suppose you make a decent point there, especially as Zoe was introduced right as Chloe started to hate Ladybug.

I don't entirely agree with the idea that it was done solely to stop Chloenette shippers, but I see where you're coming from.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #chloe bourgeois #zoe lee #chloenette

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k7l4d4 · 7 months

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Ugh, not only is this just a bad take in general (the anon's to be clear), by generalizing all Chloe fans as the same, it's a hypocritical double-standard. Like, where are the people calling out toxic and rotten Marinette and Adrien fans who bend over backwards to excuse their actions while painting basically EVERYONE ELSE as the villains? Yeah, there are some Chloe fans who are rotten jerks, but they are just a loud minority. Most people who want a Chloe Redemption want one so she can change for the better and own up to her actions and the consequences they have had.

I think it's funny that chloe fans act as rotten as she does. Do you hope that if she gets redeemed it means that everyone who is annoyed with your behavior on and offline will one say suddenly tolerate you

Do you mind explaining what makes Chloe fans "rotten", or why you think I'm annoying? I'm just saying, if you're going to call me an asshole, you can at least bother with showing some evidence.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug salt #miraculous fandom salt #miraculous fandom critical

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k7l4d4 · 7 months

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As someone who grew up on Captain Planet re-runs, I'd like to point out quickly that while the villains were pretty nasty pollution makers, their reasoning for doing so varied; Hoggish Greedly (not a subtle name at all) and Looten Plunder both pollute because they unironically see it as the best way to maximize profit and comfort for themselves, and don't care who gets hurt in the process. Sly Sludge pollutes because of his own ignorance and short-sighted recklessness rather than malice. Heck, the other half of the equation, Dr. Blight, Skumm, and Zarm, only care about pollution due to being either literally insane, a dangerously violent mutant, and a conflict spirit, respectively.

Half of them are representations of corrupt business practices who genuinely do not care what damage they cause so long as they come out on top, which isn't untrue to real life, and the other half are more allegorical characters representing social issues and potential risks brought on by lack of oversight.

IOTA Reviews: Action

So, this is a interesting one to talk about. Not only is this the first episode in all five seasons to not be written or directed by Thomas Astruc in any capacity (though the other three writers on his team, Melanie Duval, Fred Lenoir, and Sebastien Thibaudeau still wrote this one), not only is it not connected to the ongoing plotlines of Season 5 in any way, but this episode was made with the help of the Breteau Foundation.

For those who don't know, the Breteau Foundation is an organization that works together with schools by giving children access to technology for their lessons, helping them with their psychological needs, and teaching them about ways to protect our environment. This episode was even made available on the Breteau Foundation's website for free in addition to educational materials meant to teach kids about recycling.

Yeah, when we were kids, we got excited whenever the teacher played an old episode of The Magic School Bus or Bill Nye the Science Guy in class, but nowadays, TV shows are producing episodes of their shows specifically so they can be shown in class. And I'm not talking about those half-assed science lab worksheets with pictures of SpongeBob on them either.

The point I'm trying to make is that there was clearly a lot put into this episode, and it's all for a good cause to help teach children about how to protect the environment in order to ensure a better future... and of course, I'm still going to make jokes about it, because I'm just some schmuck on the internet who isn't backed by a major educational foundation.

Let's get into the 27th episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Action

We start off with Marinette and Adrien heading over to the Liberty so they could be told about the pollution in the Seine River by their class' resident environmental activist, Myl—Nino, I mean, Nino. No joke, Nino gets more lines in this episode than Mylene does, even though ever since Season 2, Mylene has been established as the one to protest polluting the environment. I get that she already had a lot of screentime in an earlier environmental episode (Mega Leech), but why would you have Nino be the one to help spearhead this protest instead of Mylene? Hell, the plot of another episode started from him trying to get him and his friends out of helping Mylene plant trees for the environment (Party Crasher), so this makes even less sense.

I should also get this out of the way by pointing out a few continuity errors in the episode. For one thing, Marinette is stuttering around Adrien when she had mostly gotten over that issue after “Derision”, Kagami is now one of the avatars for the Alliance rings, something that had been established in “Revelation”, and the episode mentions that the Alliance rings are made of plastic when the season finale shows that they're actually made of metal. I don't want to harp on this too much, as this episode obviously wasn't meant to really tie into the main plotline so it would be easier for kids who aren't familiar with the show watching this episode, seeing how this was meant to be viewed as a standalone story. Besides, compared to other plotholes in the show like the ones I'll cover next time, these are fairly minor.

Nino tells Marinette and Adrien, and by extension, the audience, that the Seine River is full of pollution, and the Liberty has recently been converted into a makeshift water treatment plant. The problem is that with a recent increase of plastic in the Seine, it's becoming harder for the Liberty to filter out all of it. Hey, here's an idea: Maybe don't set up your homemade water treatment plant in the longest river in Paris.

The reason for all the new plastic comes from a recent ad campaign promoting some vending machines that sell these paper fans that were designed by Gabriel and are sold by a man named Bertrand King, who looks like a cross between Willy Wonka and Colonel Sanders, down to having a southern accent in the English dub.

Nino suggests that Adrien talk to Gabriel himself, but as usual, Adrien doesn't think he'll listen, so the kids decide to go to Bertrand King's company while picking up an order for plastic containers for the Dupain-Chang bakery... even though I'm pretty sure most bakeries store pastries in paper instead of just plastic.

Nino has the others dress up in disguises, but like most of his plans this season, it fails miserably, so Marinette comes up with a little story about Adrien meeting up with Bertrand. The kids make an impassioned presentation to Bertrand, asking him to help change the way he operated his business like making his fans out of more biodegradable materials. Surprisingly, the man whose entire livelihood revolves around selling plastic doesn't want to listen to the people saying everything his company is doing is wrong.

Bertrand: This is all intentional. It's the wonderful cycle of throwing away and buying again that makes my fortune. If people didn't throw away and buy new items again then I, Bertrand King, would no longer be the King of Plastic! So, there is no way any of this is changing.

Wow, a rich person in Miraculous Ladybug turning out to be a total jerk? What an unexpected turn of events.

Bertrand points out how much plastic is used in everyday society, using pens and the Alliance rings as an example, and seeing how we cut to the next scene afterwards, we can assume he had them thrown out. Oh, come on, you couldn't even parody The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air like you did during “Intuition”? The kids then try to go to Andre and Gabriel for help protesting the fans, but because one's a corrupt politician and another helped make them, they won't do a thing. Marinette tries to ask Nadja, the local news anchor, but because the ad revenue from Bertrand's company funds the channel she works for, she can't do a thing or else she'll be out of a job.

This leads to the kids deciding to do the sane thing and HACK THE NEWS BROADCAST SO THEY CAN MAKE A SPEECH ABOUT POLLUTION.

Because it's not like Marinette and the others could have just gone to another news network with this story or uploaded it to the internet instead, right? And sure, scowl at the camera while you're giving this presentation too. That won't make you look like a bunch of eco-terrorists at all. The kids give a presentation about how dangerous plastic is, and how people can use fans made of more biodegradable materials like bamboo instead. Also, we get cameos from Jess, Aeon, and Fei, but they're pretty much there just to remind viewers that the New York and Shanghai specials happened.

Of course, the episode's following RWBY Volume 8 logic, so rather than view them as a bunch of lunatics who hijacked a news broadcast, the public immediately turns on Bertrand's company, arguably faster than what happened with Andre in “Mega Leech”. Speaking of, Andre and Gabriel change their opinions to make themselves look like they were always against Bertrand, and seeing how this episode aired after Season 5 ended, didn't really sit too well with viewers.

Bertrand calls out Gabriel for lying, but Gabriel doesn't care, secretly using this as an opportunity to akumatize Bertrand into King of Plastic through his pen.

King of Plastic has a pretty underwhelming design. It's clear that the intent was to make him look like plastic, and there is a noticeable reflection on his body, but other than that, it doesn't really fit the anti-plastic moral. I think maybe if they did more to make his movements seem more stiff like a living doll, or at least make him look less like he's made of candy, it could work more. The Miraculous power this time is the Bee Miraculous' Venom, which he can use through one side of his lance to stun any victims so he can use the other side to turn them into plastic statues. It's sort of like the dollmaker episode of Arrow, only we don't get to hear the sound of anyone's esophagus hardening.

King of Plastic makes short work of Andre and the local police squad, and Adrien is forced to put teaching Marinette Mandarin on hold so he can transform into Cat Noir, while Marinette transforms into Ladybug as soon as she's alone. After he transforms Adrien's bodyguard into a plastic statue, King of Plastic fights Ladybug and Cat Noir, eventually transforming Cat Noir's staff into plastic too. Even though he was originally akumatized to get revenge on Gabriel, King of Plastic leaves the Agreste Manor and heads to the Liberty to get revenge on Marinette and Adrien's friends instead... for some reason. Even the episode points out how weird this is.

Cat Noir: Didn't you want to take revenge on Gabriel Agreste?

Ladybug: He probably has more than one enemy.

After following King of Plastic there with Cat Noir, Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, getting a plastic bag. Because it's already made of plastic, it can't be transformed, which gives Ladybug an idea. She tells Alya to activate the Liberty's water treatment function, intentionally overloading it before Cat Noir Cataclysms the engine. This jettisons the collected plastic and overfills the deck of the Liberty, trapping King of Plastic so Ladybug can break his lance. So in an episode meant to teach kids about how dangerous plastic is, the day was ultimately saved by plastic. I'm sure that won't confuse any kids watching this in class.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, tells Bertrand about how dangerous plastic is, and he immediately vows to change his company's ways before Ladybug gives him a Magical Charm as useless as a plastic toy before she uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage.

The episode ends with Bertrand funding the repair of the Liberty before vowing to change the way his company operates, as do Tom and Sabine, who now sell their products in eco-friendly containers. Unfortunately, with all the renovations being made to his company that come with moving away from plastic, Bertrand had to stop funding this groundbreaking cancer research institution in America in order to prevent his company from going bankrupt.

Anyway, this episode was pretty good. I honestly didn't have a lot of problems here. The plot was pretty straightforward, the themes of how easy it is to perpetuate companies that damage the environment were handled pretty well, and the main characters were pretty active.

Even the greedy corporate asshole meant to be a stand-in for real life executives was handled pretty well, having some quirks that make him stand out while showing how ignorant he is to the situation without making him completely insufferable. This episode could have easily gone the Captain Planet route with Bertrand, but they showed he wasn't intentionally endangering the environment because he felt like it, but rather, because he cared more about his company making money, even showing him ultimately realizing the error of his ways.

If there's one problem I had, it's with the way the Akuma fight was resolved. I get that any other Lucky Charm wouldn't have been immune to King of Plastic's plastic powers, but I feel like weaponizing the plastic the heroes spent most of the episode fighting against in order to stop the Akuma sort of muddles the message the episode is going for. It's not the worst way to resolve an Akuma fight, but it just bugs me personally.

While I still think “Mega Leech” did a better job with the environmental message, overall, this episode did a pretty good job teaching the moral it set out to teach.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... ANDRE (THE OTHER ONE)

Shockingly, nobody really acted that stupid this episode. Yeah, the kids were pretty naive thinking they could make Bertrand change his company's way of production, but still took action when that didn't work. Andre, on the other hand...

While Gabriel and Nadja had their own reasons to support Bertrand (Gabriel for Monarch reasons and Nadja for financial reasons), the only reason Andre went along with the fans polluting the environment was because they happened to have his image as one of the designs, and when the public started to turn on Bertrand, Andre acted like he always opposed him, and when confronted with an akumatized Bertrand, begged for his life like a coward and said he would reinstall the fan vending machines. While I guess it's better than having Chloe be the primary supporter of Bertrand's company, I need to reiterate that this aired after the last few episodes of Season 5 tried to place Andre in a more sympathetic light.

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k7l4d4 · 8 months

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Personally, I think Chloe would TRY to be the firm, strict parent who lays down the law for the kids and keeps them from running wild (partially out of a fear of not wanting to turn out like her own parents), but she's such a softy that she crumbles the second they start pouting. In contrast, Marinette is able to use the power of Mom Energy to make the children behave perfectly in her presence, and acts as a shoulder for Chloe to lean on when she's stressed or doubting herself.

I imagine they have three daughters (the how I leave up to interpretation), the oldest being an energetic hothead who takes after Chloe in terms of being a passionate drama queen, who longs to become a superhero and save the world... albeit having inherited Marinette's clumsiness. The middle child is solemn, somewhat sarcastic, and often ends up embarrassed by her family's antics, but loves them all the same; she's no genius, and often needs help studying, but she's passionate about learning, and often practices gaming with Marinette on weekends. The youngest is a mildly manipulative sweetheart, having an innate sense of how people work and how to tug on the heartstrings of others, which she usually uses to get treats or presents... but she also inherited Marinette's passion for justice and doing the right thing, and is a huge advocate for social causes... albeit still being too young to understand the complexities just yet.

beloved chlonette shippers, I have to ask. what's your hc for a Chlonette family/Chlonette parents with their (ridiculously) amazing kids?

#chloe bourgeois #marinette dupain cheng #chloenette #chlonette #chloenette fankids #chloenette family #headcanons #bourgeois - dupain-chengs

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k7l4d4 · 8 months

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To be fair, it’s less that Marinette lost them and more that she got robbed by someone she had no reason at all to suspect of stabbing her in the back, and who then proceeded to make such a ridiculously lopsided deal when they could’ve just stolen the Peacock Miraculous (yes, I mean Felix, Felix was an idiot here). But beyond that, yeah, it doesn’t make much sense. Nor does Gabriel acting as if Felix trading him all the Miraculouses was something he had planned for and not dumb luck falling into his lap.

Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t future Alix yell at Cat Noir for losing a miraculous in the future? Am I misremembering things? Like lol Ladybug lost all the miraculous but I guess that doesn’t matter

Well, you see, it's different because while Cat Noir just lost one Miraculous, Ladybug lost all the other Miraculous to Monarch and--okay, yeah, it makes no goddamn sense.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous writing #miraculous writing critical #felix fathom salt #gabriel agreste salt

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k7l4d4 · 8 months

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I honestly love Zoe as a concept (mysterious half-sister who is almost the same age as Chloe that she’s never heard of), but her presentation is... kinda ruined. Like, she doesn’t FEEL like a “nicer Chloe.” She doesn’t feel like Chloe at all! She just comes across as a generic-ish nice girl with an interest in acting. Heck, her introduction episode is basically a copy and paste of the Trope Namer for the Mary Sue trope, and Queen Banana shills her as this amazing Bee Miraculous user... when she either does basically nothing, or just uses Venom, compared to Chloe who actually knew how to fight with the thing.

It comes across as forced because she both came out of nowhere in a very blatant way without any reference to her existing beforehand, AND Chloe also being severely flanderized?? It cheapens what little value her appearance was meant to have, as was her almost immediately getting the Bee Miraculous.

If Zoe had been mentioned or hinted at existing back in, I dunno, Season 2? 3? It would’ve made her appearance a bit easier to swallow. Honestly, the fact that so many people act like “she grew up with Audrey and SHE didn’t turn out to be a brat, so clearly it’s all Chloe’s own fault!” tends to annoy me. Like, people are different and they react to different things in different ways; Chloe’s entire issue is that she wanted Audrey’s love and approval and thought mimicking her was the best way to get it, because Audrey was barely around and belittled and insulted her whenever she WAS, whereas Zoe would’ve gotten a firsthand look, twenty-four seven, of what Audrey is like as a person and would’ve known that she wouldn’t ever get any love from her... if it weren’t for the fact that she’s apparently been in boarding schools most of her life, so Audrey wasn’t in her life any more than she was in Chloe’s.

Sorry for the rambling, I have... many, MANY complicated feelings about the show’s current writing

correct me if I'm wrong cause I'm probably overthinking this, but of all the characters to be a different Chat Noir aside from Adrien and Marinette...it was Zoe. Zoe who is supposedly Chloe's replacement. Chloe who the fandom hc as being Chat Noir in a lot of AUs and generally just a popular Kwami Swap AU character for the cat miraculous.

Maybe it's just me being upset (still) about Chloe's lost potential but meh. I wish Zoe is treated better tho, right now she's like every other character - relevant when the plot needs it or another Adrinette 'shipper'.

#chloe bourgeois #zoe lee #miraculous ladybug season 4 #miraculous writing critical #bee sisters #zoe deserves better #chloe deserves better #let them be happy

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k7l4d4 · 8 months

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Like, the Love Square can work in theory, absolutely. The biggest problems it had was the unshakable status-quo, the constant excuses or diversions from WHY they can’t just reveal it already, and just a lack of actual growth or change in either Marinette or Adrien’s behavior (despite the show insisting it DID happen). But to me, what the anon is saying makes sense, as while the Love Square could work, the show already has so many potential plotlines and stories that are actively hampered by how much screentime is instead devoted to the LS, that removing the LS entirely, or going for a more straightforward “will they won’t they” without the identity drama, would make for a much more compact and coherent story.

I feel like this show could be improved by a million percent if we just took the love square out

Like astruc keeps acting as though no one can do this show better than him but like. literally all you have to do is not have a dragged out love square, no?

I feel like the Love Square could work, it just needs a different execution instead of removing it entirely.

#miraculous ladybug #love square critical #love square salt

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k7l4d4 · 8 months

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One of the biggest flaws in the show’s execution is that they treat these “reveals” as an excuse to soften a character, rather than taking a critical look at what those defining events actually MEAN. MHA had a similar set-up with the League of Villains, with nearly all the most iconic members each having a sad or tragic backstory... but all of their backstories are used more to highlight how screwed up they’ve become or already are, and the social issues that enabled those problems in the first place. It doesn’t make their actions LESS BAD, or tries to imply they have noble reasons for their actions outside of their own heads, whereas MLB treats each reveal as like a switch is being flipped and makes it so that the characters are just “misunderstood” and can now become good guys, or get a sympathetic ending (SCREW the S5 Finale).

I think your response to the arc ask just a moment ago hits it on the head. Characters don't go from being good to bad or visa versa in ML, they were just always good or bad originally and it was 'misunderstood'

There is no growth only reveals.

(The post this user is referring to)

It feels like the writers want to show that they're capable of character development, but whenever they play the "Character X has a tragic backstory/is a victim of another villain" card at the last second, it comes across as incredibly forced.

#miraculous ladybug #my hero academia #mha league of villains #felix fathom #gabriel agreste #andre bourgeois #miraculous writing critical

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k7l4d4 · 8 months

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I’m not the Anon, but one guess I could see would be controversy farming. Making something that would provoke people and stir up trouble just for the sake of attention... or just because they can.

About the season 4 was made during season 2, the sources from the s1-4 scripts link someone sent you a while ago.

Extensively look at the top of the page on the scripts and you'll see dates, the season 4 ones claims that they were made while season 2 was still airing, personally I believe that the dates were backdated by whoever leaked it

Assuming that's true, do you have a theory as to why they'd do something like that?

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous fandom critical

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k7l4d4 · 8 months

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One thing I’d point out to the original asker, Gabriel has ALWAYS been portrayed as an abusive father (whether the writers intended it or not) due to his controlling behaviors, dictation of Adrien’s social life and schedule, forcing his best friend to never associate with Adrien again due to accidentally criticizing his parenting... yeah, the dude has NEVER been a good parent. It just got more obvious the longer the show went on.

I always felt the way Gabriel got the miraculouses (peacock and butterfly) was very… underwhelming, to certain extent

The idea of him hiring someone to find them and going on a epic quest is kinda good, but I also expected something more. What if Gabriel hired someone very dangerous like a kind of Evil organization which wanted to exploit the power of the miraculouses or at least a evil organization which only got the grasp of the miraculous after making a deal with the agreste since they promised a lot of money, and at the end they saw the great powers of the miraculous and said “maybe I want more for this deal”, Nathalie could still be the ones who helped find them like a retired member of said organization. Imagine if after Gabriel was defeated in like season 3, the leader of said organization appeared asking for the miraculouses since he’s deal with Gabriel was to get Akumas to make weapons with in exchange of keeping the secret of Gabriel having the miraculouses, and when the villain arrives he takes Gabriel’s place has the ‘big bad’ by changing the Akumas with Robots or something similar. It would connect with the past events, making it feel like the universe is more grounded and actions have consequences (I always love when details which could be look over like “how did this war between humans and monsters start?” Get fleshed out to explain a future threat like “oh it was the fault of this man which manipulated both sides so he could gain ultimate power”, but miraculous always takes this concepts like the ‘what destroyed the order of the guardians’ or ‘what broke the peacock’ and then proceeds to give the most simple and boring answer to return to the status quo)

But something so crucial has “the way Gabriel found the miraculouses” feels very unimportant, that adds nothing to Nathalie’s character, Heck it even makes her even less interesting to me.

I always saw this small parallel between Marinette and Nathalie (fell in love with this rich boy and did everything for them in blind love) and then it results the way Nathalie and Gabriel meet was when Gabriel was married and searching for magical jewels to impregnate he’s wife. Why Nathalie fell in love with Gabriel? I always thought they were childhood friends to parallel Adrien’s and Marinette’s relationship in earlier seasons, but current seasons make Nathalie slightly interesting and deep, but kinda take away what kinda made me interest even in the slightest on the character, specially when Gabriel became a Abusive father all of the sudden which turned their relationship also suddenly into the joker and Harley Quinn and just because she surpassed the Harley Quinn syndrome doesn’t mean she became more of a endearing character (mainly because she didn’t do much or actually tried to stop Gabriel outside of a couple scenes which didn’t actually add nothing to the plot), specially since the appeal to me was how Gabriel didn’t want Nathalie to risk herself, a lot of people say Gabriel was abusive but at first (before Gabriel became a psycho) Nathalie did brought herself a lot of pain when Gabriel openly asked her not to do that (heck, 70% of the time she was Mayura is because of her own choice against Gabriel’s wishes. Until suddenly Gabriel stopped acting like a character with deep who cared for her like showed before, and actually asked her to use it which completely contradicts heroes day part 2. So this ’abusive to Nathalie’ Gabriel was a mix of character assassination for both)

I just feel how Nathalie wasn’t handled well, and the way Gabriel got the miraculouses wasn’t very climatic or even interesting since we don’t even know very well how Gabriel even discovered the existence of this jewels

I don't really expect a big flashback episode, but if this backstory is something you're using to build the entire show's conflict on, I'd at least expect more than "Kid Fu broke the Peacock Miraculous, lost it and the Butterfly, and then they were found by Gabriel and Nathalie a long time later".

Then again, this is the same show that decided to put the scene showing why Gabriel decided to become Hawkmoth in the video game of all things. Believe me, when I get the time to cover that, I'll have a lot to say about that decision.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous critical #gabriel agreste critical

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