Is There A Reason Why Hijas Only Means "daughters"? Or Is It Just One Of Those "it's Just Spanish Rules"

Is there a reason why hijas only means "daughters"? Or is it just one of those "it's just Spanish rules" things?

Another dumb question, if you don't mind!

I see it often that hijos means "children", but when I google if "hijas" mean the same thing, I'm getting mixed signals. One answer I got from my look-see is that somehow, if you say hijos, it means "sons/children", but if you say hijas, then it's exclusively "daughters".

Is this correct? If it is, why? Is it another one of those nuance questions, or is it a regional thing?

Yes, the default word for "children" is hijos which is also "sons"

But if someone asks ¿Tienes hijos? "Do you have children?" you might say Sí, tres hijas "Yes, three daughters"

hijas by itself only ever means "daughters"

Thank you for answering! Putting this into one of many notes about Spanish 😄

Sorry about this question, since it might be a bit vague, but I just want to be informed.

There's something I came across, where "tengo qué" means "I have to". Why? Is "qué" a versatile word that has multiple meanings, depending on context?

Yes and no

qué "what" is considered different from que "that/which", and then sometimes has idiomatic uses with other verbs

tener que + infinitive is "to have to do something" [in Spain and in older Spanish you sometimes see haber de + infinitive]

That's considered a more idiomatic usage of it, but like tengo que hacer la tarea "I have to do the homework", or tengo que hacer unos deberes "I have a few chores to do" is considered an idiomatic expression of tener; and the que doesn't have any specific grammatical meaning

But it doesn't have an accent mark

-

If you see qué it's an unknown thing, a "what". Primarily it's questions, but it can just be an unknown noun

If I saw tengo qué I would interpret it as ¿tengo qué? "I have what?"

The que without the accent mark is often "that/which", a word that connects clauses [two or more subjects and verbs]

In other words, es un lugar que conozco "it's a place that I know"; the que separates es "it is" and conozco "I know", separate subjects and verbs

...

There are other uses of que as idiomatic, like in some commands or indirect commands; very different from what you were asking about so I don't want to confuse you

I also think the show should have also worked on Adrien's crush on Ladybug, because he was also essentially romanticizing her. Would've been nice, and I feel like it might help with their developments.

What I find weird about Marinette's crush is that Origins has her not caring about Adrien being a celebrity or the son of a fashion designer she admires which sets it as being a normal crush on a person you know (who happens to be a celebrity) but then the rest of the show mostly treats it as a celebrity crush

There's a reason that I've often said that Origins the best writing that the show ever gave us. While it's not perfect, for me, it was the moment where the show suddenly got good and had true potential. My possibly far too generous read of that squandered potential is that the writers wanted to write a strong romance, but they used the wrong trope to guide that romance in the wider story, so we get a story that's the worst of both worlds. It fails to fit the mold that it's guiding trope is supposed to fit and it fails to be a strong romance because the chosen trope doesn't allow for a strong romance, so let's talk about why that is!

It's really common for formula shows with a teenage lead to have a character for that lead to crush on. Kim Possible had Kim crushing on Josh Mankey for the first few seasons. Phineas and Ferb gave Isabella a crush on Phineas and Candace a crush on Jeremy Johnson. Danny Phantom had Danny crushing on Paulina. I could keep going with examples because this is such standard trope! In fact, if you look at how these shows play these crushes, then you'll actually find a tame version of Marinette's writing where the crushes are often used for comedy.

The problem is that this trope is pretty much never used to develop a serious romance between two leads. It's either used to create tension between the true romantic leads or to give a character a little extra depth because people get crushes and it's a nice, relatable element for kids and teenagers.

The reason why you don't use this trope with romantic leads is because romantic leads are supposed to have an actual romance. We're supposed to watch them fall in love and be invested in their relationship! That simply doesn't fit the way this trope works because this trope is all about the experience of having a crush, not about the experience of truly falling in love.

To go back to the Kim Possible example, Josh Mankey is what TV tropes calls a "satellite love interest." He is truly just there to be shipped with Kim because she's a teenage girl and teenage girls have crushes so we need our cool teen girl heroine to have a cool crush. However, somewhere along the line, the writers decided that Kim and her partner Ron were going to be the end game couple. Once that choice was made, Mankey was out! But Kim didn't start treating Ron the same way that she'd treated Josh because Ron wasn't just a cute boy for our cool teenage lead to crush on. Her was her costar. A romance between them mattered as it's success would redefine the entire show! It's failure would straight up end the show! That meant that this couldn't be your standard teen romance. It needed to feel so much more real and powerful and lasting.

This is where Miraculous' problems come in. When we look at Origins, we can see that the writers really do want our romantic leads to feel like romantic leads. They want this romance to feel real and powerful. We can also look at season five to back this up. Once the square is together, they have some truly adorable moments. For example, the hand raise scene in Kwami's Choice was about the only good thing that episode gave us. We can even look at the final episode of season five to back this read. While it's generally a massive failure, it is all about Marinette's relationship to Adrien. He isn't just a cute boy that she's crushing on. He is massively impacting her life.

But when we look at the leadup to this romance happening? The things that took place between Origins and Kwami's Choice? There's nothing of substances. I can't even tell you why Adrien's crush flipped to Marinette or if Marinette's crush on Chat Noir was supposed to feel like anything more than a rebound. There's not even much substance once they get together because substance would require them to have deep conversations about their lives and they can't do that while the secret identities remain a thing.

This is part of the wider problem that every side of the square feels like casual friends at best because the their story wasn't written like a romance. It was written like two sets of impossible crushes where the focus was on the struggle of having an unrequited crush and not the thrill of a romance. Adrien isn't Marinette's Ron, he's her Josh Mankey. Same goes for Ladybug and Chat Noir. While Ladynoir was closer than Adrienette, we never got moments that showed them as close friends with a bond like no other. Alya and Marinette are closer than any side of the square and that's a pretty massive writing failure for a rom-com unless Alya is secretly Marinette's end game romantic partner.

To continue our Kim Possible case study, Kim and Ron really don't feel like a couple for most of the show. For the first three seasons, the focus was on their friendship to the point where I didn't even think about shipping them when I first watched the show. But when the relationship suddenly happened in the final season? It still felt natural and right! Of course these two would get together! How did I not see that?

If Miraculous wanted to make the square feel like a true romance, then they needed to take a lesson from shows like Kim Possible. They need focus on making Ladynoir and Adrienette extremely strong friendships with a background element of pining and romantic tension. You could keep Marinette's failed confessions, but they should almost always fail into cute friendship moments like Adrienette gaming in Gamer. Same goes for Ladynoir with moments like that one episode where Chat Noir could have learned Ladybug's identity, but chose to respect her boundaries instead. These kind of moments keep us excited for the square because they make it feel like they're obviously meant to be. But when it's just Chat Noir hitting on Ladybug and failing to get a positive reaction or Marinette failing to even talk to Adrien? That's not love. That's a hopeless crush.

This doesn't mean getting rid of Alya. Kim Possible had a female best friend, too! Her name was Monique and I loved her, but Monique and Kim's relationship never felt more important than Kim's relationship with Ron. There was even an episode where Monique tried to replace Ron since he was unavailable and she failed hard because, without Ron, Kim can't be a hero. If you want another show to look at to see how the square should have been written, then I'd check out Danny Phantom. That show has an endgame couple - Danny and Sam - and their relationship always had a romantic tension to it, but it was primarily a friendship for most of the show. I'm not saying that these two shows were perfect, but they did a great job with the romance element and show how Miraculous could have made the square work.

There are actually a lot of ways that show's like Kim Possible could have inspired and guided Miraculous. It's why I like using it as an example where I can. It's really sad to see a 2016 show failing so hard when there's a wildly successful 2002 show out there that had already shown how to succeed when using similar concepts. Marinette and Kim are even similar characters as are Adrien and Ron and even Plagg and Rufus. The template was out there, guys! Kim Possible even shows us how to take a comedy side kick and develop him into something more as the series goes on. Episode one Ron and end of show Ron aren't the same character. End of show Ron feels way more important!

This is also why it's so useful to study tropes. They're the building blocks of stories so it's very useful to understand why certain builds are popular so that you know when and where to use them. Don't like a trope? That's totally fine, but you generally want to start by asking "why is this popular" instead of just dismissing the trope all together assuming you're working in a genre where that trope dominates. Like I'm personally not a big fan of the satellite love interest, but I appreciate why they're a thing and understand when you should use them.

I'm only in my early twenties, but God I felt 105 when I saw this 😭

I was telling my niece about flash games and she asked what's flash oh god

I remember something that somebody mentioned to me here, which was when I was questioning the whole "senti-Adrien" thing, and why Emilie and Gabriel never considered IVF or adoption. After all, Emilie was toted as an angel, so pretty sure biological connection shouldn't matter.

What they told me was that there wasn't much to Emilie anyway. Sure, she was represented as kind, but there was next to nothing else besides that. She was practically a blank slate, so unfortunately, there was nothing to contradict her.

Which, in a show that also toted family love as one of its strongest values, is sad when the LITERAL DRIVING POINT to the whole story has next to nothing going for her.

Wondering about how much of Adrien is real seems to be the tip of the "Astruc didn't think things through" iceberg. How much of any senti-person is genuine? Does Tomoe only think Kagami can't draw because she cannot? Is Felix an ass because Colt Fathom was?

(Post this ask was in reference to)

I'm always wary of laying all of the blame at any one person's feet without hard evidence that this is only their fault since there's a core writing team and pretty much every episode has multiple credited writers. Add in the fact that many other people are also directly and indirectly involved in the writing process and it becomes real hard to point fingers from the outside, which is why I tend to generally wave at the whole crew under the banner of "writers". Other than that issue, I agree with you. It seems like everyone involved either didn't think the idea through very well or they thought it was a kids show, so the horrifying implications didn't matter.

I never know what a kid will pick up on and Miraculous' target demographic is pretty young, so this may indeed be something that flies over most kids heads. It's still not a risk that I would take, though, and I'm baffled as to why they even did it.

This isn't supposed to be a super dark show, so you generally want to avoid including dark elements unless they're absolutely vital because why risk upsetting your audience when you don't need to? And the writers really didn't need to. They went the "Emilie had no idea that the peacock would kill her" route and, once you go that route, you don't need to give her a complex motivation for using the peacock. Complexity is only required if she knew that using it would kill her. And even if they did go the "she knew" route, they still picked a terrible motivation! If your infertility is effecting you so badly that you're willing to die to get a baby, then you don't need a magic baby. You need mental health support because you are in a very dark place.

Thank you! 🤗 Because this was screwing my head over, and Google wasn't helpful in the slightest.

Another dumb question, if you don't mind!

I see it often that hijos means "children", but when I google if "hijas" mean the same thing, I'm getting mixed signals. One answer I got from my look-see is that somehow, if you say hijos, it means "sons/children", but if you say hijas, then it's exclusively "daughters".

Is this correct? If it is, why? Is it another one of those nuance questions, or is it a regional thing?

Yes, the default word for "children" is hijos which is also "sons"

But if someone asks ¿Tienes hijos? "Do you have children?" you might say Sí, tres hijas "Yes, three daughters"

hijas by itself only ever means "daughters"