Was Doing The Last Of My Work, Middle Of The Night (12-5am) Hand In Pain, And Was Pretty Much On The

Was doing the last of my work, middle of the night (12-5am) hand in pain, and was pretty much on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

AND THE ONE THING THAT KEPT ME FROM DOING THAT WAS:

"I have no time for this."

What's up with my mental? Did I just procrastinate on a mental breakdown?

Oof, I didn't even think about that. But now that it's been put out there, one realizes just how messed up the whole sentimonster thing is.

It also brings up questions about what a sentimonster is, what it can do, and how the Peacock Miraculous holder influences it.

Most sentimonsters present in the show aren't capable of free will, like the Banana Gorilla and the Reflekdoll—and the one that did gain it was the Sentibug, who just got poofed anyway by Mayura in the end.

However, Adrien never had that "break-out" moment, and if he did have one, we never saw it. So, the question really does put in a dark turn to the whole Adrien being a sentimonster.

One can argue that Adrien rebelling against his father is a sign of free will, but you have to wonder how much of that is Adrien's personality that he cultured himself and not some pre-programmed behavioral traits that Emilie wanted in a son.

The same goes for Félix. How much of his personality is his, brought about his father's abuse... or are they behavioral traits his father programmed in him or lingering emotions Colt was expressing himself before he died.

Then there's also the twin rings, and how Félix stole one of them that had his amok in it, so he could gain control back. Doesn't that imply that if you gain a sentimonster's amok, you could control it, even if you aren't the Peacock Miraculous holder?

I don't think Thomas Astruc thought this whole sentimonster thing through, because you've basically got several cans of worms that put darker twists into this whole Miraculous Ladybug stuff that can't just be ignored.

However, I highly doubt that he'll do anything about it. It kind of makes me wonder if he even realized exactly what he was doing by making sentient sentimonsters.

I think one of the worse things about Adrien being made a Senti is that now, I got to question how genuine he is and what is potentially influenced by Gabriel subconsciously.

Like, Adrien's stance on Chloe and Lila, both of whom help Gabriel with his agenda, it could be through Gabriel's influence that Adrien sides with them/discourages Marinette from challenging them. If they are stopped, Gabriel wouldn't have them to help him.

And then there's the matter of his romantic feelings and how he works off Ladybug. Gabriel wants to know who she is under the mask, and Adrien is often pushing for a reveal. Gabriel has a spiteful obsession over Ladybug, to the point he skipped out over his easy win with the Rabbit, and you got Adrien unable to divert away from Ladybug even when he starts dating another.

Is it possible that Adrien is just echoing Gabriel's agenda and intentions and is mistaking that for romantic love?

Given that whoever holds the item can fully control the senti, supposedly, yeah I now got to wonder what's truly Adrien and what's Gabriel's influence.

It goes even further than that. Whoever has the amok seems to be able to control literally every facet of your personality and those commands seem to hang around until someone overwrites them, so is anything about Adrien real? We know that Emilie was wearing one of the rings in her coffin, implying that she entered her magical coma while wearing it, so it's quite reasonable to assume that she actively used it pre-coma. In that case, what commands of hers are still controlling Adrien? What command of Gabriel's and Nathalie's were never undone? Who even is Adrien?

Like is his lack of strong negative feelings about his mother's death real or just the result of her telling him to not mourn her like she told Gabriel to not mourn her? Is he into piano because of natural interest or because his mom wanted him to like piano? Is his lack of career goals because no one bothered to program them in? Is he even capable of developing his own wants? Is his interest in Ladybug real or is it because she's kind of similar to Kagami and Kagami was the one he was supposed to fall in love with, so he just imprinted on the wrong girl? That last one is not helped by Kagami falling for Adrien's clone at the drop of a hat.

All of this is yet another reason why the sentistuff repulses me on a fundamental level. It just completely undermines everything about Adrien's character. This is not the sort of plot you pick for a rom-com and I'm here for the rom-com.

This reminds me of a zombie dream I had as a kid. Long story short, I was hiding terrified in a table, thinking to myself, "I wish this was all a dream"; then I realized it was a dream, and I shut my eyes tight to force myself awake. I woke up on the couch with my mom asleep in the armchair next to me, and I was so freaked out that I made sure to check if she was a zombie.

These days, I can actually lucid-dream a bit. I'd realize I was in a dream, and I could feel completely at ease knowing I could take control at any time; and sometimes, I'd even be able to restart or rewind my dream to either do something different or repeat something I like.

I sunk into really, really deep snow and couldn't climb back up to the surface and then after a few seconds went, "Wait, I know how to get out of this one," and instantly woke up.

Now? Well, this is the current list of characters with a messed up home life: Kagami, Zoe, Chloe, Adrien, Felix, Luka, Juleka, and probably Lila. Add in Rose's serious illness, Mylene's mother abandoning her, and Marinette's traumatic past dealing with a straight up hate campaign on top of all the trauma introduced over the course of canon and I just don't care anymore. I am drained dry. They have introduced way too many serious elements without exploring any of them in depth and that is a massive writing faux pas.

Should really say something about Fairy Tail then. Natsu, Erza, Gray, Lucy, and so many other characters all had a tragic backstory one way or another, but one: they all varied in weight and depth; and two: they were all given their dues to be explored and to add substance to the characters, while also making sure it stays relevant throughout the story even if the arc is finished.

Natsu lost his only family when he was young, Igneel, and it added substance to his persistent philosophy of family; Gray lost his only mentor and pseudo-parent, Ur, and it's shown through how he uses his magic, and his tragic backstory is explored later on; Lucy lost her mother and later lived a neglected and miserable home life (sound familiar?) and while it's not shown in much of her life, her love for her mother is shown with how she literally writes letters to her and how she treats her spirits, and her family issues are also explored later on; and Erza, who was kidnapped and endured all sorts of horrific abuse in the Tower of Heaven before escaping, showed how that experience shaped her in her manner and her artificial eye, while also having her backstory also explored later on.

And there's so much more of them in Fairy Tail, in different guilds and different people that also vary in the stakes involved. Jellal, Oracion Seis, Loke, Mavis, Lyon, Ultear, and more. Their backstories are even mentioned in passing, even if it's not surrounding the trauma in general but memories related to said issues.

Goes to show that having multiple characters with different tragic backstories isn't inherently bad from a story perspective—if you do it right. The problem is that a majority of their "tragic backstories" are mentioned once and never talked about again. The Couffaine twins, Rose, Mylene, and Marinette all got a feature episode, and then go bye-bye afterwards. It never impacts their daily lives, or how it impacts their lives afterwards.

Others—like Kagami, Adrien, Felix, Chloe, and Zoe (iffy on this one)—might get the multiple-parter specials, but it's either mentioned in one episode, gets dropped for several more, and then mentioned in a later one as if they've been telling us about it the whole time; or it gets banged out in a row and never mentioned again. In the end, there's no build-up, no proper exploration, no lasting impressions; the "traumas" are just used for plot or excuse their behaviors (unless you're Chloe 'cause God forbid she ever had anything bad happen to her that she didn't deserve.)

I highly doubt any of these will ever be focused on in Season 6, because TA wants us to focus primarily on Marinette and her life; and to explore anybody else's trauma or tragic backstory, the camera needs to focus on them. But it likely won't, since anything that has to do with other characters has to do with how it impacts Marinette.

Do you think they should have made Colt a good father to Felix? Or are you fine with him being a bad father?

I don't think that Colt should have been anything. He died off screen before we even met Felix and Felix is a minor character. Why is he getting more backstory development than Kagami when Tomoe is alive and actively involved in the plot? Wouldn't it have been far more interesting if the play was her story?

But if we must include the mustachioed cowboy man, then I would make him a good father or, at the very least, a mediocre one. I'd do this for reasons that have nothing to do with me wanting Felix to have a happy childhood. I'm fine with him having a tragic past! The problem is that this is a story and, in terms of story telling, there is no reason to give him a tragic past. It adds nothing to the story. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that it detracts from the story, but we'll get to that in a minute. First let's go over why it's a pointless addition.

In his titular episode, Felix is a brat who tries to destroy Adrien's life. Those actions actually made more sense when we thought that Felix loved Colt and was acting out over Adrien not coming to Colt's funeral. Now that we know the full story, we're left asking, "Okay, so, why did Felix do any of that?" And don't say that it was to help him get the ring because it didn't help him get the ring. He got it from hugging his uncle and there were far simpler ways to get a hug.

And why did Felix even want the ring? That has yet to be explained because, in Strikeback, he was planning to go out of the country as "Adrien" without ever offering to exchange the ring. He simply stole the fake peacock and got out of dodge. He had no possible way to know that Ladybug would come to him for help, allowing him to offer up the miraculous and use the ring to sweeten the pot. I also don't believe for one second that he needed to sweeten the pot. He could have offered up the miraculous and nothing else and Gabriel would have gone for it. So once again, what was the plan with the ring, Felix? What was the plan?

While we're on the topic of Felix getting the peacock, Colt being abusive adds nothing to that plot either. Whoever has the peacock can snap any sentimonster out of existence. Felix could have the best damn childhood on the planet and it would still make perfect sense for him to want the peacock!

The only reason to make Colt abusive is if you want to explore that and use it to develop Felix's character, but I have absolutely no faith that they're going to do that. Colt is the Jagged Stone nonsense all over again. They're introducing a very serious issue that would dramatically affect the psyche of most people and then acting like it's no big deal. I think I saw someone say that Colt was only introduced to shut up the people calling Gabriel and Emilie abusive by showing us "real" child abuse as if abuse was an Olympic sport and you need to qualify for the team. I'd buy that theory, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

Even if I'm wrong and they are going to explore Felix's trauma, I still think it's a bad move. There's a thing called compassion fatigue. It's commonly experienced by health care workers who deal with traumatic cases day in and day out, resulting in thing like the inability to feel compassion for your patients because your compassion meter has been rung dry. You can experience a lesser form of this just from watching the news. Story after story of people in need to the point that you're desensitization to these events evoking horror or sorrow.

When you're telling a story, you need to keep this phenomena in mind and be very careful when introducing multiple sources of trauma. The more trauma you introduce and the quicker you introduce it, the less impactful that trauma will be for your readers. If you're a good writer, then it will also be less impactful for your characters. Allow me to explain with a quick example.

I had a brief Marvel phase and, while I never wrote anything for that fandom, I made up a few stories in my head. A lot of them revolved around my favorite character, Tony Stark (aka Iron Man). Tony becomes Iron Man after being kidnapped by terrorists and I love confessions of traumatic backstories, so I was working out how to do one for him and the Avengers to help bond the team. Then I realized that his teammates are all orphans and that the majority of them were raised in poverty. Most of them have also gone through scientific experimentation of some sort and not all of it was voluntary. In other words, in the world of the Avengers, Tony's trauma isn't really special. His team might sympathize with him, but they wouldn't be deeply impacted by his story the way I wanted them to be because most of them have gone through equal or worse trauma.

Circling back to Miraculous: they keep heaping trauma on these kids and it's a terrible move. When Adrien was the only character with a messed up home life, things were interesting.

Now? Well, this is the current list of characters with a messed up home life: Kagami, Zoe, Chloe, Adrien, Felix, Luka, Juleka, and probably Lila. Add in Rose's serious illness, Mylene's mother abandoning her, and Marinette's traumatic past dealing with a straight up hate campaign on top of all the trauma introduced over the course of canon and I just don't care anymore. I am drained dry. They have introduced way too many serious elements without exploring any of them in depth and that is a massive writing faux pas.

Generally speaking, when telling stories, you should default your characters to whatever a happy home life is in their universe unless you're going to do something with the non-happy home life. Non-happy home lives complicate stories and you don't want to introduce a complication if you're never going to explore it. This is why I think that Colt should have been at least a decent parent. It's also why you'll see me say that Emilie should be at least a semi decent parent even though canon has made that option impossible unless you ignore a lot of the unpleasant implications found in Adrien's backstory.

While I love evil villain couples, Emilie is in a coma, so she can't be Gabriel's co-conspirator and I personally have no interest in her waking up to start a new villain arc. When she wakes up (or finally dies), the Agreste's story is over and so she basically has to be nonthreatening for that ending to work. It also circles back to the issue of keeping the trauma tight and focused so that the trauma you do include really pops!

Reminder that the above is a discussion of story telling, not a commentary on what makes real people interesting or the commonality of home life issues. There's also nuance I didn't get into because this was already really long. Writing trauma well is a really fascinating and complex topic.

Unfortunately, it comes off that way—that Chloé never had a strong chance at redemption or damnation—because they never bothered to give her an arc.

The episodes always have to structure with 90% of the camera's attention on Marinette. It's about Marinette and HER struggles, so the episodes have to relate to Marinette somehow.

But you can't do an arc without giving the subject in question some attention. To do a damnation arc, you need to show just how many obstacles they tripped over on the way there. We needed to see Chloé fail time and time again, to see that frustration build, until it exploded.

But we didn't get that.

When Chloé wasn't Queen Bee, she was the same petty brat who cried for Daddy when things got tough. And when she was Queen Bee, she was a damn good hero. Then we just get jumped with the "Sorry, you can't be Queen Bee anymore" and Chloé just goes right back to being bratty until Miracle Queen, after which she was suddenly an irredeemable villain.

Her damnation arc was very much a tell-don't show situation, and it just doesn't work that way.

Do you remember the famous Astruc words “We thought she (Chloe) was redeemable. She wasn’t”? I think that under that he meant “We tried to redeem Chloe. We failed”.

The translation that I've seen was:

They said that [they gave] Chloe everything to be redeemed, Thomas Astruc even [said] that he really wanted to redeemed her but that was just out of character for her to become good and a real person in her place will not choose to become good.

Which I would not interpret to mean that they messed up Chloe's writing and can't admit it. To me, it reads as something much sadder. It sounds like they think that they wrote an actual arc for Chloe where people tried to help her and failed because people like Chloe are beyond redemption.

You must have a pretty depressing view of the world if you think personalities are set in stone at 14 and a pretty lackluster idea of what it means to help someone if you think that the show really showed people trying to help Chloe change.

My feelings about Chloe have always been that she had no arc and I stick by that assessment. She never had a strong chance at redemption or damnation. She was a petty brat from day one and she stayed a petty brat until the end both through her own failings and because no one cared to help her change (looking at you Adrien), making her "story" a massively unsatisfying waste of screen time.

I love it ♡

It's really cute!