I Can't Speak On This Confidently, As We Haven't Seen The Episode "Gabriel" Yet, But I Think Adrien's

I can't speak on this confidently, as we haven't seen the episode "Gabriel" yet, but I think Adrien's growing resentment towards Ladybug is meant to parallel Gabriel's pipeline into becoming Hawkmoth.

I have also come to the conclusion that Adrien's whole character arc is revolved around the duality of the power of destruction, which I get is obvious, but hear me out. While destruction can cause chaos and harm to others, it also plays a necessary part in tearing down oppressive forces.

Let's talk about this scene.

What this scene has communicated to us is, despite the two of them having seemingly opposite personalities, Adrien is indeed Gabriel's son. What I mean by this is that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree; both have a tendency to get caught up on their projected fantasies involving the people they love.

The position Gabriel is in right now, being Hawkmoth and all, is a direct result of him being unable to process his grief. Much like Adrien and his fantasy of Ladybug, Gabriel clings onto the fantasy of a "better world" with Emilie to cope with his grief and reconcile his guilt. Consequently, Gabriel has now become Paris' biggest threat and he's dealing out collateral damage onto his family (i.e. Adrien and Nathalie).

Adrien is at risk of falling down the same path; Adrien's grief has led to him becoming emotionally dependent on his romantic fantasy involving Ladybug. Even after everything he went through in this episode, this poor boy is still clinging to this damn fantasy for dear life.

Right now, even after everything that happened in Glaciator 2.0, Adrien is still stuck on this cycle of hoping Ladybug will one day fall for him, Ladybug rejecting him and inevitably breaking his heart, him getting depressed and lashing out because of it, him and ladybug reconciling, and then Adrien slipping back into the fantasy again to rinse and repeat.

In order for Adrien to truly develop as a character, he needs to break the cycle. He needs to break the cycle of damage his father is doing to the environment (as demonstrated in Mega Leech), he needs to break the cycle of complacency in his life, and he needs to break the cycle of enabling his father's actions. In order to do that, he needs to stand up to his father and get him to break the same cycle within himself.

If Adrien can't break the cycle, he's going to succumb to it and end up just like his father... or worse.

I like what you have to say and I'd like to include my thoughts on Felix Chat Noir.

Actual question for y’all: is there any official confirmation that the leaked Catwalker concept art is for the villain of episode 23, Kuro Neko, whose name was changed? Or is that an assumption made by unofficial sources spreading the art around? And is there any confirmation that the character will appear in episode 23?

My first thought upon seeing this was “Felix”. Like he took the miraculous from whoever had it last and used it himself. My first reaction to the name “Catwalker” was like “skinwalker” which reminded me of the evil impostor act Felix pulled in season three, but then I realized that that was pretty dumb since that’s probably not what “Catwalker” is a play on. Plus, if Felix kept going with the impostor thing, why not make himself look more like Chat Noir? I get changing the design so that young viewers aren’t confused but the characters are due to in-universe magic, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. What does support it being Felix is that he’s supposed to appear in three episodes this season, all three of which we’re yet to see, and when this art (censor-blurred) was leaked in Lindalee Rose’s video, most people jumped to Cat!Felix.

My second thought: whoever this is is trying way too hard to look like Adrien.

I think my favorite theory, true or not, is that this is literally just Adrien again. For some reason, he loses his miraculous. Gabriel gets it in Ephemeral, but maybe Ladybug gets it back without permanently learning Chat’s identity, and needs to choose a new cat in an emergency, so she chooses Adrien. Maybe she does it because of her crush, or maybe Luka’s trying to lowkey push her, but Adrien thinks he can’t reveal himself, so he redesigns his hero persona. This leads to him having his bangs cut a lot more like his civilian self, and his name, Catwalker, being a pun on his modeling job. He chooses surface level traits that Ladybug would know about the famous Adrien Agreste to hide that he’s actually Chat Noir. My doubt here is that the pose of that 2D concept art is different from both his Adrien concept art pose and his Chat one. The concept artists typically reuse bases for the same characters, and I don’t recognize this one, although I haven’t seen many characters’ art.

There’s a popular theory going around that this is the “new visitor from the future” Winny mentioned once, and that he’s one of the future Adrienette boys. That theory is pretty cute and interesting, but this character’s face looks exactly like Adrien/Felix’s, and the character designers are pretty good at not making kids clones of their parents. Plus, if Adrien doesn’t want anything to do with modeling when he grows up, what would make his kid be “Catwalker”? I’m pretty curious about the visitor, but I’m not sure this is it. I don’t think this is future Adrien either, because he looks young and, once again, is trying very hard to resemble surface-level present Adrien.

About Kuro Neko

I’m not giving up on the sentimonster idea because the Zag influencers have said time and time again that Kuro Neko is the villain of the episode, just like every other “name” episode title in the show. If Catwalker really did get changed to Kuro Neko, he’d have to be evil, excluding the future-son-coming-to-help-theory or him being Adrien, unless Gabriel gave him the miraculous he stole and is forcing him to follow his evil plan.

This, or Cat!Felix, would be really interesting imo, and I’d love to see some angst and big brain plays. But as many have asked, why the Japanese name? This guy seems to be white, and there’s no component of Catwalker’s design that references anything Japanese.

What do have Japanese names are Mayura’s sentis this season. Optigami and Hack-San were both pretty smart plans, all thanks to her. My headcanon is that she’s been taking Japanese on Duolingo while on bed rest lmao. What also ties into Japanese culture is this character who was spoiled in a Miraculous World video, which reminds many people of a Japanese lucky cat figurine.

I’m pretty intrigued by the spoiled models all around, and I love reading everyone’s ideas. Lmk if anyone would like analysis posts about any of the other leaks, but right now I mostly want to know what information has been officially confirmed about them and what is just conjecture. I know that’s pretty hard to place when these spoilers were leaked illegally and Zag wants to cover them up, but if anyone knows, please let me know.

Edit in conclusion: to be clear, the theory I’m leaning towards the most as of right now, (being true based on what we know, not what I want to happen) is that Catwalker is Felix pretending to be Adrien using the cat miraculous. The concept art pose is what throws me off of the “Adrien using the cat miraculous but pretending not to be Chat” theory the most, as much as I like it, and the character having Adrien/Felix’s exact face plus the model pun name is what throws me off the “future son” theory.

Okay but what if at the end of the episode we hear Little Kitty on a roof all alone without his lady

But this time instead of Adrien singing it...

We hear it from Marinette...

I REALLY want ephemeral to be Chat noir's 'Chat Blanc'. Where he gets the trauma on an identity reveal and has to find a way to deal with things. And he remembers that Shadowmoth is his father, and he has to DEAL with that.

Chat Noir uses humour (flirting, puns: ie: ladynoir banter) to deflect from talking about sacrificing himself and i have a feeling that's only going to progress during the rest of the season.

since he does it in Guiltrip (EP 11) as well after his suicide attempt.

which, yes, was a suicide attempt.

It was already established for them that the bubbles could be destroyed with their weapons far before he got touched by any of them, so why on earth would he active his cataclysm to use on one bubble. all that'd do is set off his detransformation timer and they already knew the bubbles were regenerating through the walls. it'd just be frankly dumb of him to active his power to destroy even a handful of the bubbles.

but this is about the moment in Lies not Guiltrip skfndmsk

it averts the conversation and it's easier for him to put on his clown mask and make her laugh than talk about his frankly suicidal tendencies.

(It was just earlier this day the Truth confession happened, he knows she appreciates his humor and clowning around.)

he did it in Lies after sacrificing himself. She's distraught afterwards, and before anyone's like well the suit protects them he wasn't that hurt y'all are just overreacting,, it doesn't protect them against just plain fucking gravity ????. He scaled up this building

and then went up farther on his baton before free falling down. the moment he passed through the dome he was paralyzed like the others, meaning that there was literally nothing, not even his hands, to catch him.

He either died on impact or he was stuck lying there in excruciating pain from the broken bones he'd have from hitting the ground at that speed.

and she's rightfully upset, she's scared and distraught and mad.

and he makes a flirty comment and diverts the conversation like he always does.

and what's she going to do? yell at him? tell him not to divert the conversation? and then what? they both know there isn't anything they can do to prevent this from happening and they both know it'll happen in the future. Where it be intentional or not, Chat's the more expendable one, he doesn't have the cure. Sometimes it's either him or Ladybug, and they both know he'll never let it be Ladybug.

He's putting her first emotionally, he doesn't want to cause her more stress than she's already under, and telling her idk how much pain he was in while stuck there paralyzed isn't gonna help. arguing with her about this, something they both know can't change, is just going to make things tense and uncomfortable.

He doesn't want to argue with her during the rare moments they have together.

He's said it before, and I think this episode made it clear with the BTS moments of his daily life as Adrien, the time he's got with her is the most fun he has outside of school. The only fun he has outside of school/schoolmates.

And he barely sees her anymore, she regularly misses their scheduled patrols and while he doesn't blame her for it, he's understanding of her role as the guardian and the stress that's come with it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, it doesn't mean it isn't a harsh reminder of a constant thing he deals with, being alone. It doesn't mean that it doesn't suck that the one positive thing he'd been getting through the day for, through the interviews, photoshoots and everything, and she didn't show up.

and she's visibly struggling emotionally throughout the first three episodes, he knows that and tries to be there for her, but doesn't want their time together to be wasted talking about him and this issue. He doesn't want to be another thing that's stressing her out, beyond the inevitable sacrifice that they both know sometimes is unavoidable. (Gamer 2.0, Timebreaker, Dark Cupid, esc.)

And I don't take her smiling as a "aw the writers are dumb and gross men and don't know how to write characters and here's my two cents on the ooc dynamic i've talked myself into believing is canon"

I take it as her accepting that there isn't anything they can do rn, and at least he's okay. He's joking and flirting and he's alive. That's good enough right now.

Being a Marinette Stan and an Adrien stan at the same time is actually really easy to do. You see them as two teens that can make mistakes and learn. Also, crucial step, do NOT demonize either one of them.

Like being a Marinette stan doesnt mean you have to hate adrien.

Being an Adrien stan doesnt mean you have to hate Marinette.

If you define being a stan based on who you hate more than who you love, than Clearly you are not a stan, but a salter.