Saw This Guy And Now:

Saw this guy and now:

Gotta find and read/watch this.

Izutsumi “Asebi” (イヅツミ) - Dungeon Meshi - Episode 20

And we know that if someone brings this up with Thomas Astruc, he'll just make up some BS about how they're pure evil anyway and chose to side with Hawkmoth (14-year-olds willfully choosing evil without outside influences, yeah right), therefore they're absolutely irredeemable.

Chloé was literally retconned into an evil hateful bitch with (apparently) no intelligence to speak of and is later shipped to an abusive mother, and Lila went from a girl desperate for an absent mother's attention to a grifting mastermind with several identities and three mothers whom she fooled brilliantly.

But no, Gabriel Agreste (who emotionally neglected his son, terrorized Paris for over a year, and falsely imprisoned his own child) is the sympathetic redeemable one, all because he has a good reason—which is debatable—to do it.

Yes. Logic.

It’s honestly disgusting how two teenagers, who’s downfalls were specifically orchestrated by Hawkmoth, who has targeted them, egged them on, preyed on their insecurities, and spied on them

Are worse than him somehow.

It’s weird how stans will get on Lila and Chloe’s case for “siding with Hawkmoth” (ignoring that this is an adult taking advantage of people’s negative emotions but okay), but willingly ignored Hawkmoth holding Chloe’s parents hostage, cornering her, and using her insecurities to get her to side with him, as well as him and Nathalie spying on Lila, purposefully trying to aggravate her with targeted messages and groom her into being an akuma victim.

Weird of the narrative (and the fandom by extension) to continuously hate these teenagers, ignoring all depth, background, and the adults surrounding them that may make them act the way they do, but will always show sympathy to the adult terrorist manipulating them because he has a dead wife.

I can't say for other people, but for me, it's hard to be all, "Oh! They are queer!" I was mildly surprised to learn Ms. Bustier had a girlfriend, like, "Oh, okay. So she has a girlfriend." Not much to think about, just a nice tidbit into her life—which is one of the only glimpses we got, other than, "She's a nice teacher."

ZOÉ THO.

I was actually pissed. Not because she was LGBTQ, but because it felt like another excuse to make another person in love with Marinette. We already have Adrien, Luka (Nathaniel & Nino, albeit formerly), even that damn sculptor! And now Zoé is part of the bandwagon!

Like, BLEGH! I already get it, Marinette is so treasured and lovable and she should be worshipped by everyone in the show, and anyone who says otherwise—*cough* Chloé *cough*—should be razed and burned.

Also, maybe show more attention to the other possible/maybe confirmed (no idea) pairings, and show their growing romance (PDAs are possible, just not crazy ones).

I'm not gonna lie, while I do think Miss. Bustier and her girlfriend Giselle (from Collusion) are cute, I still have problems with it for two reasons:

1. It feels like a mega slap in the face to those who wanted LGBTQ rep in the show for the longest time with other characters such as Marc or Rose, only to have them either water down or give out subtle but barely any hints if they were queer or not.

2. Why Bustier of all people? Okay, she’s a nice teacher. So? Nice doesn't mean shit. Hell, being gay/trans/queer doesn't mean shit either if you aren't gonna do shit about it. So why did they make Bustier of all people Sapphic? Hell, why did they make both Bustier and Zoe Sapphic of all characters? So the audience can root or side with them when Chloe shits on them? Is that it? No hun, it doesn't work that way.

In conclusion, while it's great to finally see some sapphic/queer rep from the show as well as some interracial same sex relationships rep, I hate how it was only done to Bustier/Zoe because once again:

Chloe = Irredeemable

To be honest, I never got the whole "Ms. Bustier and Zoe are both gay to make Chloe look worse" argument.

Yes, the revelation of their respective sexualities helps expand on their characters, but whenever Chloe attacks them, it's never based on their sexuality. We don't get any homophobic comments from Chloe like when she was racist to Marinette's uncle in "Kung Food", and the show never makes her out to be discriminatory towards the LGBT community.

I'm not saying this is a positive trait Chloe should be commended for, but unlike with her racism in "Kung Food", there's no evidence from canon to back up the idea of her being homophobic, much less use this as an excuse to villify her even further for bullying characters who happen to be gay.

Baking a pie

Snow White: makes it look simple & easy

Me: BITCH YOU LIED TO ME HOW U GOT THE ARM STRENGTH TO ROLL THE DOUGH

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

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.