Honestly, The People Who Say Ryan Is Irredeemable Are The Same People Who Said The League Of Villains

Honestly, the people who say Ryan is irredeemable are the same people who said the League of Villains from My Hero Academia were evil because of circumstances beyond their control and because they didn't react in an "acceptable" way to their traumas.

All the members of The League ended up being villains because of the injustices and dehumanization by everyone, because they were born with quirks they didn't ask for and also because of the unhealthy expectations that were imposed on them within their respective families and that they didn't receive any help: literally all of them hate themselves and see themselves as monsters that hurt people because everyone else is constantly telling them that they are monsters to the point that they genuinely came to believe that the only option they had was to die because they believed that otherwise they would be in prison all their lives and would have no future. And that is exactly what is happening with Ryan.

You have to remember that Ryan is a 12-YEAR-OLD BOY whose biological father spends very little time with him and the few times they spend time together that father ends up ruining those moments, he accidentally killed his mother because he couldn't control his powers and his other father figure loves him but at the same time he's testing if Ryan is trustworthy. Also, Ryan has horrible things revealed about his biological father and on top of that he is asked to kill that biological father who is the only living relative left to him and who has powers like him and on top of that he was threatened with sedation and locking him up, it was obvious that Ryan was not going to react well, that's too much for a kid to process.

Everyone sees Ryan as an object, and even Butcher and Homelander who genuinely love Ryan also dehumanize him; Butcher sees him as a weapon that can defeat Homelander, Homelander treats Ryan as his possession and can't stand anyone else having his son's attention.

And what about the little smile that Ryan lets out after seeing how the crowd cheered Homelander after seeing him kill someone? Like I said, Ryan is a kid and kids are blank slates and if the kid witnesses violence being perceived as something positive obviously the child will think that it is good to be violent. It's like when in Berserk, Farnese participated in a burning of heretics and burned people when she was a kid and instead of being told that what she did was wrong, people cheered her on which made Farnese internalize that burning people was something good.

And despite that, Ryan is still HORRIFIED by the idea of killing people. When he accidentally killed both Becca and Koy, Ryan felt horrible about it, he clearly doesn't want to kill Homelander or anyone else and the reason he doesn't react to Grace's death is because he was in a situation of high stress so he couldn't process what he did to Grace. Everyone is horrified by Ryan's accidental deaths but no one teaches him how to use and control his powers nor does anyone help him deal with guilt in a healthy way and the only person who does all this is Homelander but he does it in the worst way possible.

If everyone keeps treating Ryan in a dehumanizing way he will end up in two ways: either he becomes like Homelander or he decides to commit suicide to redeem himself because he believes he is a monster who hurts others and has no future.

All Ryan wants is to have a family and live like a normal boy his age and, honestly, I feel pity for him.

I don't know if you saw the Fairly OddParents but the scenario of Chloe going to the real world to beat up Thomas Astruc would be like in the end of an episode from the Fairly OddParents when Nega Chin goes to the real world to find the creator of Crimson Chin and he tells him "let's have a little chat about heroes" and proceeds to beat him up.

Let's be real, Chloe should've been the next Hawkmoth more than Lila, simply because Chloe has more reasons to terrorize the city.

The whole city was against her. Her parents were against her. She lost her privilege. She lost her hero status, and with the temp heroes are all back, it adds salt on her injuries. She hates both protagonists. And she's more than likely has enough savings to get herself supplies of butterflies and a hiding place, or she can just take one of Audrey's credit card.

Meanwhile, Lila's reason is just lame and petty. She hates Marinette and Ladybug (and Chat Noir as extension, but let's be real, who even cares about him at this point? Because the writers surely don't), she has the truth about Gabe that's more than likely only gonna be used in S7 finale, and...that's about it. She has no reason to terrorize the city other than to bring inconvenience for Ladybug. She couldn't care less about Adrien if it's not to hurt Mari. And she's infamous for bending reality to get everything her way no matter how big of a BS that is.

(Yes yes, i know that Lila is smarter and it would makes more sense for her to be the villain, but if her being smart means turning everyone into amoeba brain, then i reject the idea.)

I guess it's worth a shot to make Butterfly!Chloe AU fic.

I think the problem Chloe has is the same problem Magnifico from Wish had: the writers didn't know what to do with these characters so they didn't give them a consistent arc to the point of not knowing if they were going to be bad or have a redemption.

There was no Redemption or Damnation. Chloe Doesn't Actually Have an Arc at All

Does Chloe have an abandoned redemption arc?

No. Absolutely not. She also doesn't have a “damnation” arc or really any arc at all. She is a font of wasted potential for both redemption and damnation who never gets a true chance at either path. To explain what I mean, I have to first discuss the two types of redemption arcs and also how damnation arcs work. I’ll be doing this by discussing the guy who started the redemption arc trend, Zuko, and why his story doesn’t work for people like Chloe.

The Two Types of Redemption + Some Bonus Damnation

There are two general paths to redemption: redemption through a change in worldview (the easy path) and redemption through a change in self (the hard path).

Redemption through a change in worldview is what happens when you take a character who is a fundamentally good person and give them a messed up worldview, usually through their upbringing. The story will see that worldview challenged, resulting in the character changing how they view the world, but that’s about it. They don’t really have to make major changes to themselves at a fundamental level.

This is Zuko’s path. He’s born in the Fire Nation and raised to think that the Fire Nation is good. He also has a strong sense of honor and wants to do right by his people. When he’s included in a war council and told that the army leaders are going to willingly sacrifice Fire Nation troops, he stands up and says that’s wrong. This act results in him getting banished. During his banishment, he gets to see the rest of the world and learn that the Fire Nation is, in fact, NOT good. This ultimately leads to him switching sides because he has a strong sense of honor and wants to do right by his people. Who he is and how he acts never really changes.

Chloe is not like Zuko. She is a selfish, egotistical, petty, spoiled brat. For her to be redeemed, she has to accept that fundamental aspects of her character are deeply flawed. This might involve some changes to her worldview, but that’s only a tiny piece of what needs to change and I’m honestly not sure that she really has a messed up worldview. There are multiple instances where it’s clear that she knows that she’s being mean or bad and just doesn’t care.

This brings us to the topic of damnation arcs. For something to be a damnation arc, a person has to be presented with a choice between good and evil and they have to choose evil. Zuko actually has one of these. At the end of the second season of Avatar, Zuko is given the choice to join the good guys or to join his sister and be accepted back into his family.

He chooses his sister.

That’s a damnation arc because Zuko truly had a chance to change sides. The scene would play very differently if Zuko had to choose between staying in exile and joining his sister. Joining his sister would still be the wrong move, but it’s no longer damnation. It’s just doing a bad thing vs doing nothing (though it can be argued to be somewhat damning since Zuko is going against his own morals). Along similar lines, Zuko is redeemed when he chooses to abandon his family to do what’s right even though it costs him everything he wanted: his family, his girlfriend, and his home.

This is where Chloe’s “damnation” and redemption arcs fall apart. There is no point in the series where she’s actively given a choice between good and evil. She only ever makes choices between inaction and evil or inaction and good. Does that make her a good person? Hell no! But it does make the argument that she had an arc fall very flat. She never gets better, but it's hard to say that she gets worse.

Chloe’s Choices: The Good and The Bad

Chloe becomes Queen Bee without anyone saying she was fit for the role. She just finds a miraculous and uses it. The way she uses it is selfish, egotistical, and petty. In other words, it’s just Chloe being Chloe. While the actions she takes are horrible and definitely deserve punishment, they’re in character. She’s not acting worse than normal, she’s just being herself, but with superpowers. If she’d been given the miraculous and been charged to be a hero, then her actions would be damning because she would be choosing to go against her charge. But she’s not. She has no charge.

To really assess if Chloe has potential to change, you have to look at what she does when she’s given the choice to be good and this is where things get messy.

This is how Chloe’s first encounter with her miraculous ends:

Ladybug: I have to get the Miraculous back, Chloé. (in the background, Nadja's van arrives) Chloé: Give me a second chance, please! Nadja: (holding a tablet with Audrey on it) Audrey Bourgeois, tell us live how you feel about what just happened. Audrey: (on the tablet) According to me, Chloé just clearly demonstrated that there is nothing exceptional about her. Cat Noir: (puts a hand on Chloé's shoulder) I know that you did the things you did to impress your mother. Ladybug: Anyone can make mistakes, even a superhero. What matters is how you fix them. I personally made one by losing that Miraculous. Don't make the mistake of not giving it back. Act like a hero. Cat Noir: And show everyone how exceptional you can be. (Chloé hands Ladybug the Miraculous) Ladybug: Thank you. Chloé: (the duo are about to run off) Ladybug? Cat Noir? (the cameraman moves closer) I'm sorry.

Chloe doesn't fight to keep her miraculous. A few quick lines are all it takes for her to hand it over. When Ladybug gives Chloe the chance to act like a hero would, Chloe acts like a hero. The same can be said of every subsequent time when Ladybug gives Chloe the bee miraculous. Every time Chloe is called upon to be Queen Bee, she does the job to the best of her abilities and acts as a functional member of the team. She's not incompetent. She doesn't put the team in danger so that she can be in the spotlight. Heck, the very next time she gets it, Chloe willingly admits that her father’s akumatization was her fault.

Chloé: It— it was me. I hurt my daddy's feelings. Because I want to leave Paris, forever. Ladybug: Because of what happened in school? I'm sure Marinette probably didn't exactly mean what she said. Chloé: Oh, it's not just her— actually, I don't even care about her— it's because I have no reason to be here: nobody likes me; I have no friends. I'm… useless. Ladybug: (remembering what Adrien told Marinette earlier at school about Chloé) A friend once told me: nobody is useless, Chloé. Chloé: It's easy for you to say that. You're Ladybug, a superhero. You serve a purpose. Ladybug: Yes, I can fix up all the messes. You said it yourself in your documentary. Chloé: (gasps) You saw it?! Ladybug: (nods) Mm-hmm. Chloé: Oh! I'm so embarrassed. That film's ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. I realize that now. Ladybug: Don't worry Chloé. You can fix your own messes, if that's what you want. You, too, can serve a purpose, but you have to want to. Chloé: (sniffles) I do want to.

When Ladybug asks Chloe to be a better person, Chloe is a better person.

This is why I say that Chloe has a perfectly functional view of the world. She knows when she’s doing something wrong and is able to do good when challenged to do so. Even on the civilian side, we see that Chloe is willing to be a little better when given the proper motivation. In Despair Bear, Adrien says he’ll end their friendship and so Chloe actively tries to save that friendship even if she hates every minute of it. Similarly, in Zombiezoo, Chloe sacrifices herself so that Ladybug can win.

Now, none of this is a redemption. It is, at best, the foundation for a redemption. We see that Chloe has the potential to be good when challenged to do so by the right person or circumstance, but she’s not trying to be better outside of those moments when she’s challenged. For her redemption to really start, she has to choose good over evil. She has to start improving when Ladybug isn’t watching or when Adrien isn’t threatening their friendship. For it to be a damnation, she has to choose evil over good.

She is never truly given that choice.

The two big scenes where Chloe gets “worse” are at the end of Queen Wasp and at the end of Hearthunter. However, in both of those scenes, no one gives her a choice to be better even though she’s primed and ready to make that choice.

Queen Wasp: When the Civilian Moment Should Have Happened

At the tail end of Queen Wasp, Marinette has the choice to go to New York with Audrey or stay in Paris. She chooses Paris, but brings Chloe with her to try and repair the relationship between mother and daughter. Here, Marinette gets to really see just how little Audrey cares for Chloe.

In a show where Chloe has a character arc, this should be the moment when she’s given a choice. She’s just spent the whole episode trying to get her mom to love her and it’s gone nowhere. Marinette, our hero, is standing right there, fully capable of saying, “You know what Chloe, your mom sucks and you don't need her validation. I know some people who already think that you're awesome. Come on, let’s get you back home and I’ll call Adrien and Sabrina to meet us there.”

Instead, this is what happens:

Marinette: I think you're wrong. A huge part of your life is here in Paris, too! (she steps aside, showing Chloé and Butler Jean) Audrey: Chlorene? Uh— Chloé? Chloé: (looks at her mother, then at Marinette in a guilty manner, then back at her mom) Why don't you love me, Mom? Audrey: But… Uh— Of course I l-l-love you. Marinette: (groans) You're also wrong about your daughter not being exceptional. In fact, Chloé is exceptionally mean. She's the worst person I've ever met. She may be more heinous, pompous and selfish than you. Compared to both of you, even a rock seems more capable of love. (Audrey and Chloé are furious with Marinette for telling mean things to them.) Chloé and Audrey: (shouting) How dare you⁈ (gasp and look surprised at each other) Marinette: See? You're both much more alike than you think. (walks off; humming)

…our hero, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I’m not saying that Chloe’s poor behavior is Marinette’s fault. Chloe’s choices are her own, but it’s hard to say, “why didn’t she change?” when even Ladybug doesn’t seem to want her to. If no one is actively encouraging Chloe whenever she does better, then it's 1000x harder for her to get better. Fake it til you make it is a huge part of self improvement. Being a better person for validation or selfish reasons often leads to meaningful change and is a legitimate way to start a self-driven redemption arc. (Go watch The Good Place if you want a prime example of this.)

Hearthunter: When the Hero Moment Should Have Happened

Hearthunter and Miracle Queen are supposedly the end of Chloe’s “damnation” arc. The moment where she makes the wrong choice and, to be clear, Chloe does the wrong thing here. Helping Hawkmoth is a bad move and she deserved to face some consequences. However, the choice to help Hawkmoth has the weirdest setup for a “damnation” arc that I’ve ever seen.

In Miraculer, we get this line from Gabriel: all I need is for [Chloe] to lose all hope in Ladybug. To become angry enough so I can akumatize her.

This is also the episode where Chloe rejects an akuma (Chloé: No, Hawk Moth! I am a superheroine! I am Queen Bee! Ladybug will come and get me when she needs me! I WILL NEVER JOIN YOU!), the episode where Lila helps manipulate Chloe into doubting Ladybug, and the episode where Ladybug tell’s Chloe that she’ll never be Queen Bee again, setting up the tension for the season final.

However, even though that tension is set, the thing that turns Chloe to the dark side is… her parents being akumatized. Not some random akuma that Chloe wants to help with. Not Hawkmoth just randomly showing up with the bee. No, we have both of Chloe's parents as the victim of the day and Ladybug actively chooses Ryuuko over Queen Bee, making Chloe the first and only hero who doesn’t get called in when a loved one is in trouble.

All of that leads to this:

Hawk Moth: Chloé Bourgeois, rejections hurt! (Chloé turns to face him) Your talents deserve to be recognized! Ladybug and Cat Noir's reign has gone on long enough. It's time for Paris to have a new queen, and the Queen Bee on my chessboard is you. Chloé: You've akumatized my parents! If I had my Miraculous I'd- Hawk Moth: (puts up his hand and interrupts) You're right, but I did it for one reason only. So that you would finally realize that Ladybug will never give you the Bee Miraculous again. I, however, always keep my promises. (shows her the Bee Miraculous in his hand) Chloé: This isn't real! How do you have it? Hawk Moth: Try it and see for yourself. You're Ladybug's greatest fan. You've helped her, you've trusted her, and what has she done for you in return? Chloé: (gets angry) Nothing! She couldn't care less about me! I'm done with her. She's irrelevant, utterly irrelevant! (reaches out to grap the Miraculous, stops) I want you to deakumatize has my parents first!

Just like with Queen Wasp, Chloe does the wrong thing. She didn’t have to take the bee. She didn't have to stay selfish, egotistical, and petty. But at the same time, this isn’t really a damning act. It's an act that makes her unsuitable to be Queen Bee again, but she wasn't going to be Queen Bee anyway. She wasn't choosing to be a villain over a hero. She was just choosing to be selfish at a time when she's been actively manipulated and when her parents are in danger.

In other words, this is just Chloe being Chloe. She’s acting the same way she did when she first got her miraculous. If no one is going to believe in her, then why should she be a better person? Why shouldn't she just stay the same? She's arguably no worse than she was in Queen Wasp, the consequences are just greater because of Hawkmoth's plan and the powers he gives her. The only real change is that she no longer idolizes Ladybug so Ladybug no longer has a chance to encourage Chloe to be a better person, but Ladybug never did that anyway, so what does it really matter?

Once again, none of this is to blame Marinette. She doesn't have to try and make her bully a better person. That's a huge ask. But with no one actively trying to make Chloe better even when she shows that she can be better when given the right motivation, it's silly to say that Chloe had a damnation arc or really any arc at all. She ended where she started and, if that's all they wanted to do with her, then they should have just left her as a one-dimensional mean girl instead of making her one of the most developed characters in this bloated mess of a show.

Personally, I would have liked to see a redemption arc because I enjoy morally grey characters and it would have been nice to have someone on the team who wasn't a kind, sweet, goody-goody (for a team with 18 freaking members, there's really no moral diversity, which is boring). It also would have stopped Chloe and Lila filling the same basic role for 3 seasons, which was stupid. (Why do you think Lila showed up so little? It's because Chloe could do almost everything she could do and do it better.) Second choice would be don't develop Chloe, leave her as a petty mean girl and give her focused screen time to Nino and Adrien. Their relationship is barely a thing and that's disappointing considering its strong setup. Cutting Lila and giving Chloe a true damnation arc would have also been far more satisfying.

It would be fantastic and even fun if this happened in the show but taking into account the mediocre writing that the show has, I highly doubt that the writers would let something like this be done.

So is that just her own schedule and she was keeping it up to date with everything she knows about Adrien then? That’d honestly be a lot less creepy and a good explanation.

Still a bit stalker-ish having all that stuff about Adrien on there in the first place but it’s an improvement

Also that looks like the picture from the opening credits of Alya and Marinette where they have mustaches drawn on

We all know that the movie Wish had potential but it is very poorly written so I think the movie would have turned out better if they had made any of these options:

1) Better implement the problem of desires and their consequences. For example, the anime Madoka Magica explores the theme of wishes, how your wish can be granted in the worst possible way, the consequences of this way of obtaining your wish and how people realize that what they wished for was not what they really wanted and how they have to deal with it. It would have been interesting to see this in the movie and how the characters handle it.

2) Asha was a potential Miyo Takano so the movie could take advantage of this to make Asha a villainous protagonist and see her rise from antagonist to full villain becoming obsessed with making her grandfather's wish come true to the point of becoming more amoral until she is a total villain. It would have been interesting if Asha has Miyo Takano's story and personality.

3) Making Asha reflect and realize that Magnifico turned to dark magic out of desperation to stop her because he got carried away by his paranoia that someone would want to harm his kingdom which makes Asha understand Magnifico's motivations, try to save him from his corruption and make him stop his paranoia.

4) Make Magnifico always carry his book of dark magic with him. That way it would be shown how Magnifico gradually became corrupted due to the dark magic of the book and the longer he was around the book the more he became corrupted, that way Magnifico's descent into villainy would be more believable.

5) Another way to make Magnifico's villainy believable is to show more directly that he believes that people only value him for his ability to grant wishes so seeing that many wishes that the inhabitants of Rosas ask him to grant are wishes that they can fulfill themselves without his help but they decide to leave everything in the hands of Magnifico out of laziness, he ends up exploiting and getting angry because he feels exploited by his own people. In this way, Magnifico would have quite justified reasons to be angry, and therefore, all the inhabitants of Rosas would have to recognize that some wishes could be achieved by themselves as well as recognize their exploitation of Magnifico and save him from his corruption or make Magnifico repents and stops when he sees that his subjects have changed for the better and seeks to help them in a healthier way, such as giving them advice so that they can fulfill their own desires.

6) Give Magnifico the personality of Big Mom. Big Mom is a rather violent and ruthless pirate empress who has a country called Tottoland where anyone can enter but she forces them to give parts of their soul to her to keep the ecosystem of Tottoland running. She created Tottolando to make her dream come true and that is to make a country where people of different races live together in harmony and are the same size as her, but everyone in Tottoland is scared of her, including her own children. Simply Magnifico would have been a more convincing villain if he had the same violent and unstable personality as Big Mom, if his subjects were afraid of him as Big Mom's are and if he forced his subjects to give them their wishes as Big Mom does with their souls of her subjects instead of waiting for them to be given to Magnifico and willingly.

7) I feel like Asha would have shined more as a protagonist if she were like Miles Morales in the sense that Miles has a more convincing evolution than Asha. Miles Morales is motivated to be Spiderman because he feels guilty for the death of Peter Parker in his universe, but his parents remind him not to forget who he is beyond his work as Spiderman and he ended up accidentally creating Spot and ruining a canonical event without knowing it. What makes Miles decide to try to save both his father and the multiverse because Spiderman always tries to save all and why Miles believes it is his responsibility to stop Spot for creating and angering him. It would be interesting if Asha had conflicts (about feeling guilty that her grandfather did not get his wish and that Magnifico turned bad, although that is not entirely true, and that because Asha feels that she should be the one to make her grandfather's wish come true and of being the one who stops Magnifico) and overcame them and watched her mature like happened with Miles.

I said it before and I’ll sing it as many times as I have to : the precise reason Casca survived the Eclipse is that 1) within the narrative, the Skull Knight intervened and saved them and 2) outside of the narrative, Griffith would have instantly killed Casca instead of raping her, if she hadn't been just as "guilty" in Griffith's eye as Guts for his jealousy. Raping Casca was not only about punishing Guts for choosing Casca, it was also about punishing Casca for choosing Guts, instead choosing him, Griffith, because he failed to see that he still greatly mattered to both of them, despite them having fallen in love with each other.

Complementing what you said, I want to share other reasons why I think Griffith wanted revenge on Casca too:

1) He saw that Guts and Casca were happy which probably meant that, in addition to realizing that he was no longer the epicenter of Guts and Casca, Griffith became suspicious of the closeness that Guts and Casca had after their rescue and the fight against Wyald (maybe even he suspected that they had intimate relationships) which makes him suspect that they purposely abandoned him in that prison and took advantage of his absence to be happy at the cost of his torture. When he tries to attack Casca, she rejects him but does not recriminate him nor does she tell him that She loves him, she doesn't even kiss him but she simply expresses pity for him and hugs him out of pity, which confirms Griffith's suspicion.

2) After Guts' fight against Wyald, it is Casca who tells Guts that if he wants to be Griffith's equal he will have to leave without her or the Hawks (including Griffith) and Griffith heard everything Casca said. Basically, Griffith not only punished Casca by stripping her of her agency and using her as a pawn to hurt Guts and because she chose Guts over him and his dream, but Griffith punishes her for (in Griffith's mind) encouraging Guts to abandon him again.

3) This reason is related to the previous two and is that the vision of Griffith living a quiet life with Casca is like a harbinger of the possible future that he would have as a result of Guts' second departure and Casca being left alone as his nurse out of pity, just imagine Griffith's situation: living without being able to move or take care of himself, without being able to speak, that Casca only stays with him out of pity and that the son they are raising is not even his son but Guts', that must be frustrating because what the vision shows is not only everything previously said but that Griffith now lives under Guts' shadow in all aspects. Griffith simply couldn't stand that Casca doesn't stay with him because she loves him but she only does it out of pity for his condition as an invalid.

That is why Griffith punishes Guts and Casca because if he cannot be in their hearts as their epicenter for love then he will force them to have him in their hearts and think of him through hate and/or fear.

For real though, the main issue I have with ship wars between one mlm ship and one het ship is not even that the character who gets slandered is automatically the woman (duh), over some obscure concept that her writing is suboptimal while the mlm dynamic has more depth or whatever

No really, it’s more the fact that ship wars exist simply because society once decided that somehow there needs to be a hierarchy between romantic dynamics and platonic (ie friendship) ones, with romantic ones necessarily having more importance and significance for the characters involved (same for people irl).

Therefore it is my belief that over 90% of ship wars wouldn’t exist, if most fans didn’t feel the need to systematically give more emotional weight to romantic dynamics over platonic ones, and that even when the writers themselves gave countless examples within the narrative that both mattered independently for the characters involved.

TL;DR love exists in all shapes and forms and doesn’t need hierarchy or comparison to be validated

No one asked for it, but I said what I said.