I Get It.

I get it.

But if Ephemeral was supposed to be the starting point for the strife in Kuro Neko, it was done badly. In Kuro Neko, it doesn't sound like Cat Noir just slowly began withdrawing. Rather, it implies that Ladybug brings out so many heroes that he sees it as pointless to show up.

Hell, the thing Ladybug tells him at the end of the day, "Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean I don't need you at all", just further implies that he was nudged out of the circle.

I don't know if Ephemeral and Kuro Neko are [meant to be] connected, but if they are, TA did a bad job at it, because finding the end of yarn in the middle of the skein is easier than this (and I'd already done that multiple times).

What did you think if the episode kuro neko? For me it was peak „Lady//noir toxicity“, how LB yells at CN and then CN abandoning his position as one of the two most important heroes of the city only to later gaslight LB into thinking he‘s a completely different person. Even if they talked it out at the end, it was just… idk, that episode was really the nail in the coffin for the ship imo

I actually think Ladybug was pretty reasonable in Kuro Neko. She only yells at Chat Noir when he's running down her timer by keeping her from her Guardian duties even though he just missed an akuma fight, making her have to call in a whole slew of heros and defend his absence on the news. It's like the writers wanted her to look good even though she's supposed to be the source of season four's conflict, I think? Idk, the writing is just a mess.

I've talked about how the communication issues in that episode and it lead up drive me up a wall, but I don't think I've talked about how messed up it was for Adrien to come back like that. It was a dick move for sure. However, I mostly lay the blame on Plagg and Tikki's shoulders because Plagg is the one who came up with this idea and Tikki let him go through with it. They're supposed to be the mentors here and they are failing their Chosen hard in this episode and season four in general. Just terrible writing no matter how you look at it. I have no idea what the writers were aiming for in this episode. It was like a tiny preview of how much they were going to mess up with Kwami's Choice in season five.

When a hero quits, you're supposed to show the audience that no one can take their place because of who the hero is. Instead we get told that Catwalker was perfectly fine, but Ladybug can't handle competence without falling in love? And Kwami's Choice basically said that Adrien and Marinette could be easily replaced if it weren't for the Aliance rings. I just... this is a classic, beginner-level trope. How do you mess it up this badly?

I think "actually evil all along" Emilie would make more sense than Lila replacing hawkmoth and the former would still massively suck! So that's saying a lot.

It says a lot when the majority of the fandon isn't excited to see Lila take over as the main villain, and instead suggest ideas for other main villains who are actually old enough to drive.

I like that idea, of sentimonsters being more durable and not having real blood. By designing sentimonsters as basically not being like real people, it also separates the Peacock Miraculous from the Ladybug Miraculous, since I've seen posts before complaining that by having the Peacock Miraculous capable of creating flesh-and-blood creatures like Adrien, it's basically Creation, which makes no sense.

As for the dysphoria idea, it would've been cool if he had some identity crisis (yeah, I'm cruel) about whether or not his perceived perfection—handsome, smart, gifted—was his own achievements or something that came with being a sentimonster. That would've been interesting to see, and how would've been able to work through it.

Thomas Astruc claims that human-looking sentimonsters are human in every way except the way they were born, but I've seen some fics where they were more durable and didn't have real blood. Do you think that would give our poor cat boy serious body dysphoria, even if it came with some advantages?

Depends on how he was designed, I guess? Or how you want to write him.

I should mention that dysphoria isn't necessarily that logical. That's not a criticism of those who experience the different types of dysphoria by any means! I'm just saying that what triggers it isn't easy to guess. For example, I've heard first hand accounts of water bottle shapes and lipstick color triggering gender dysphoria. Because of that, Adrien may very well not be phased by things like his durability, but find other, seemingly random things triggering. Brains are tricky like that.

I'd highly recommend reading up on first hand accounts of dysphoria and euphoria before including this element in any writing assuming that you don't have dysphoria yourself.

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm glad Marinette isn't the only one going through the super-talented completely-gifted virtuoso shtick, but I'm also kind of disappointed that there really isn't anything except the aforementioned plot device ice-skating and talking to Adrien.

But I definitely agree on the whole take of MLB trying to be both episodic and serialized (which was a take that I bitched about but didn't actually have a solid name for it, so thank you for that 😅) and how it screws up the writing.

Marinette's capabilities are never brought up again despite being featured in previous episodes, and teens like Kitty Section, Alya, Nino, Max, and all the others get their brief spotlight before they get plopped onto the shelf to wait again for their moment.

The whole virtuoso trope isn't inherently bad in and of itself. It's actually a frequent trope used in lots of serialized literature or media featuring kids or teenagers (manga/manhwa/anime come to mind) especially in fantasy settings, and can be used well when done right. Lots of content with super-cool-can-do-anything characters—an apt description for this trope—usually highlight this ability and make use of it to not only add substance to the character, but to also add depth to the story and further the plot.

For this, I think Kiki Strike (book series); Dress-Up Darling (anime/manga); I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit (manwha—might be debatable since it also includes isekai themes); and many characters of the Marvel/DC universe (Batfam, Spiderman, etc.)

The OC I mentioned, (as awkward as it is for me to use my own character as reference), not only get highlighted because of her genius, but it's also given focus in the story and used to give depth to her character and influence the plot into challenging the limits of said genius.

But you hit the nail on the head, as sad as that is to me (sometimes, I wish this show could prove me wrong on some areas). They basically use certain virtuoso abilities like Kitty Section being a phenomenal band or Alya being successful enough to be interviewed on TV or Nino's music catching attention on a popular gameshow or Max being the next Albert Einstein, just to make episodes, and then the rest of the writing fails to reflect this later on. These skills get ignored or receive fanfare for only that one episode, and is abandoned both in story and writing.

Or in Marinette's case, it's used as example as to how amazing and cool she is.

Like I said, this kind of makes me sad. I thought the bar couldn't get any lower for this show, but then it just shows me how naïve I am.

On a side-note though, really cool that you actually fenced for a few years! At least you know your stuff, so you can be the resident expert on the sport that Adrien is supposedly the best student at (have my doubts on that one now, since you just said MLB is laughably bad at portraying fencing), but I'm low-key disappointed that the show is also shitty at portraying fencing.

Curious, but do you know of anything Marinette is bad at? I didn't realize this until before, but Marinette always seems to be presented as amazing at everything. Like, I can get baking and designing, since they're things she's had personal experience in, but everything else? She's either super amazing or she needed five minutes of instruction and she's incredible.

Gaming? Absolute pro. Art? Amazing. Fencing? Just a little help from Adrien, and she's so good. So far, the skills she's presented to be absolutely amazing at: gaming, fencing, art, fashion, costume design (surprise surprise, fashion and costume design are two different avenues), baking, DIY, mechanical engineering (Miracle box hiding place and snapping diary box), fighting, leadership, decision-making, Guardianship, school (somehow straight-A student despite her tardiness and Ladybug issues).

And that's all I can get off the top of my head. I'm scared that there might be more. The only things I can think of that she's bad at is ice skating (which feels like a plot device for the Frozer episode, since she adapted so quickly to ice-skating as Icebug) and talking to Adrien.

I have a character (non-MLB) with the kind of genius that lets her master anything if she's seen it two or three times, but that genius has limitations itself that later compels her to actually think and work hard to master said subject. But Marinette is never even implied to be similiar to this, and everything she's good at is just passed off as "Amazing Marinette" and then left alone.

What do you think? If there's any other examples of things she's bad at, clumsiness nonwithstanding, please tell me, because this thought is driving me bonkers.

Nothing comes to mind, though I will say that Marinette wasn't a very good fencer. Then again, the show is actually laughably bad at portraying fencing, so I guess we just have to take Adrien's word for it that she was good. (I fenced for several years. May even have my old meddles somewhere as proof, though I doubt it.)

This isn't unique to Marinette, though. Most of the teen characters are absurdly talented. Kitty Section was so cool XY stole their music and their look. Alya runs a blog that's so successful that she was interviewed on national TV (end of PrimeQueen). Nino got to be on that TV competition in Simon Says. Max has tech in a literal space ship. The list goes on and on. Marinette just has more than most because she's the main character.

This isn't necessarily a flaw. It's normal for kids shows to have kid/teen characters who are super cool and talented because the goal is to inspire real kids to try things. The only reason it feels like a flaw in Miraculous is that this type of super-cool can-do-anything character is usually reserved for low-stakes episodic shows. Serialized shows (aka, shows with an overarching plot) will still have kid and teen characters who do the things adults usually do because that's what the target audience wants to see, but these kid and teen character will be a lot more nuanced and flawed. They're allowed to fail because their stories can take multiple episodes to resolve whereas characters in episodic shows have to have everything figured out and wrapped up in 20 minutes, allowing for way less nuance to their characters.

Because Miraculous is trying to be both an episodic and a serialized show, you get a lot of awkward characterization and writing. Sitcom drama with prestige TV stakes. We want Miraculous' cast to feel like they belong in a serialized drama because Miraculous has a serialized plot, but the individual episodes must stand alone, so the characters can't have the depth they need. It's messy, ugly writing.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS WASN'T ACTUALLY THEIR PLAN

TALKING DOESN'T DO SHIT! SQUEEZING! WATER! BLANKET!

D.I.S.T.R.A.C.T.I.O.N.

Speaking from someone who had to help someone from a panic attack, just aggressively shoving things doesn't do anything.

What I did was stick cold water [in a bottle] in their hands and make them drink (learned these tricks from Pinterest). Then, when they could speak, I tried to get them to talk about topics I knew would turn into a long debate/discussion (less effective).

Honestly the class's plan to calm someone feeling negative emotions to avoid akumatization is pretty bad

I liked the scene in 'Guiltrip' where the class talks to Juleka and try to comfort her, which drives the akuma away

...and now in s5 (not naming the episode because those titles are not memorable, what was Astruc thinking??) Juleka is having a breakdown over having to redo school next year again and we have the class screaming at her and shoving her a giant picture of cute animals..

"Damnit, Juleka! Stop having a panic attack, or I SWEAR TO GOD, I WILL KILL YOU!"

I don't think the animal picture thing happened in "Confrontation", but I get what you mean with how poorly emotional stress is handled.

Almost.... depression is trying to get back into my life after years of no contact, and I don't want to open the door.

Unfortunately the little bitch keeps tapping on my windows.