Strike Back Spoilers - Tumblr Posts

AT THE END OF THE DAY ITS ALWAYS THEM AGAINST THE WORLD!!!

something something about how ladybug may be paris' hero but chat noir is constantly ladybug's hero

From this

To this:

“Just you and me?”

"Just you, and me. And all of Paris.”

So we just gonna ignore homegirl lowkey dying over here 👀

From this

To this:

“Just you and me?”

"Just you, and me. And all of Paris.”

Chat's pure, unconditional love for ladybug, the thing that Ladybug always viewed as a weakness

is precisely what became her biggest strength when all hope was lost.

I-

I need a minute

they threw the sentimonsters into the sun and killed them without a second thought, and they made félix watch, but yes, tell me how the sentitwins are a good idea

Appreciation post for Felix being a really interesting character who, despite being the “calm collected cool and confident” trope, shows a lot of signs of strong emotion that really humanize him and remind us that he’s still just a child caught up on all this bs like all the others

Him being legitimately terrified/traumatized: 

Easily startled/on edge all day:

His hesitance at accepting a miraculous (after Ladybug asks “can I trust you?”):

Very real excitement at seeing a kwami:

His sadness at seeing the sentimonsters get thrown into the sun:

I don’t know, moments like these just give Felix so much depth imo, he’s so interesting. 

this came to me in a shower. season 5 i need this to happen

I’ve never seen so much emotion on marinettes face and its terrifying.

The breathing? The blush from crying?? The sheer and utter panic? all of it. its such a perfect scene that we NEEDED.

You know I think Chloé was so devastated because she just NOW understood what could've happened if her plan worked in Hawk Moth's advantage. She did betray Ladybug mostly to get back at her, not for evil to actually win. Now she's not just present during TWO apocalypses in one day but also powerless. Now she sees how it looked like from their points of view. Like Magneto when he lost his powers in X-Men 3 and only then realized how far he took the whole situation now that he is one of the people who can't do anything but witness the war HE started. I think this will be important for Chloé's character in the future. I'm not talking about character development but it might change her. She sees how much Paris appreciates Ladybug. She sees Ladybug and Chat Noir still standing "strong" even now when they barely have any chance to win. This will affect her character somehow.

augh…. the ending of s4 finale ending was everything…. ladybug admitting that she was lying to him, that she was pushing him away. they both know that they’re not doing good. they both know that their relationship isn’t good right now. but they’re still going to try. they’re going to do everything they can to Make it good. they’re not giving up on each other. they made a silent promise to work on it, to be better, to not let the distance between them happen again. obsessed.

thinking about the last ladynoir scene again and the parallel to origins, and how in origins marinette was initially rude to adrien and she fell in love with him when he forgave her and was kind to her despite this, and how in strike back the lightning strikes after she says that chat noir should’ve given up on her because of the way she treated him, and he offers her support and forgiveness in response, the same way adrien offered her only kindness after she’d treated him unfairly, and that’s it that’s how she fell in love, i’m so emotional about them aaaaaaaaaa

I keep thinking about how the reason ladybug felt the thunder at the time she did was bc I think she really has thought all along Chat Noir liked her bc he saw all her accomplishments and even if he was resilient she would inevitably push him away, and thus she worked in s4 to do it faster so it’d hurt less later.

And then when he sees her make possibly almost the biggest mistake she could’ve made (just behind losing the Ladybug or Black Cat) and still stands by her side she realizes she was wrong all along.

Because Chat Noir loves her BECAUSE she makes mistakes and tries SO hard anyway. He loves her resilience through all her hardships and mistakes. He loves that she MAKES MISTAKES to begin with.

Knowing who Adrien is, it makes SENSE that he’d be enamored with someone so imperfect who pushes through it anyway to achieve incredible and miraculous things because that’s what he wishes HE could do. In the depths of his heart he knows they’re both terrified all the time but as long as they can pick themselves back up they WILL and that’s what he loves so so much about her. It’s not that she’s never terrified its because she ALWAYS is and does it anyway, because so is he every day.

Marinette never understood that because she HAS NO IDEA that Chat Noir is always terrified. She has No Clue. Because to her he’s the most brave and resilient person she’s ever fucking met.

“Chat, what am I gonna do?”

IT’S YOU AND ME AGAINST THE WORLD AGAIN <3

The Lack of Adrien POV is a Problem

Storytelling, by its very nature, promotes an understanding of the protagonist. If not outright sympathy for their circumstances. Even in situations where they are very much at fault.

This can and does extend to any POV characters, whether they are antagonistic in the story or not. The result being that the more we, the audience, see things through a certain character's eyes the more we sympathize with them.

Meaning that the less we see of a character's, even a protagonist's, viewpoint the less the audience will understand said character. Let alone sympathize with them.

Let's take Puppeteer 2 as an example: We start off with Adrien having to do a tedious task that directly results from being a child celebrity. So with very little prompting he invites his friends to go with him in order to be less alone while doing it.

However, no one there prioritizes Adrien's loneliness. The very reason they were invited in the first place.

Instead the narrative focuses on Marinette's inability to accept Adrien's friendship in place of a romantic relationship. This in and of itself is not a bad plotline... Except that it completely subsumes Adrien's plotline about his friends prioritizing Marinette's romantic pursuits over, well, being his friends.

Marinette's embarrassment, resulting from her own actions, over the statue scene is resolved in the same episode.

But the fact that Adrien's friends left him alone is never addressed.

This prioritization of Marinette's POV actively alters the fandom's perception of Adrien.

As far back as Origins, Chloe allowed Adrien to take the fall for something she did. However, because Chloe and Adrien's relationship always takes a backseat to Chloe and Marinette's relationship, or just generally Chloe herself, the fandom takes years to acknowledge that Adrien is also one of her victims.

Adrien's friendship with Chloe is never given the spotlight. Even in episodes such as Despair Bear and Queen Banana the focus is on Chloe's relationship to everyone else.

This lack of priority that Adrien's character suffers from came to a head in Chameleon. While Lila's threat to Marinette was given due gravitas, Lila impersonating Adrien and attempting to ruin his friendships was treated as a joke.

Lila posses just as much of a threat to Adrien as she does to Marinette. If not more so! But because we only see glimpses of Adrien's thought process the fandom is less inclined to empathize with his own struggles against her.

Then there is Felix.

Throughout season four Adrien was isolated and sidelined. Not only in regards to the heroes' changing dynamics but also in regards to his own relationships. We do not see Adrien's reaction to his breakup with Kagami, indeed we barely see them interact at all. We do not see Adrien's reaction to Nino's intentionally hurtful words. When they finally interact there is no reference to it at all.

Even when Adrien's emotions DO take the spotlight the narrative minimizes his feelings in order to prioritize Ladybug. Something that, supposedly, was being built up as a character flaw he would grow out of.

The entire season was building on some grand catharsis for Adrien's character. Some great revelation... And instead the spotlight is almost exclusively on Felix. A character that only showed up for one episode before the two part finale. Giving Felix more focus in three episodes than Adrien had all season despite the buildup. In spite of the buildup. Ignoring the buildup.

And this isn't new. The narrative has basically always prioritized antagonist POVs over Adrien's. Therefore minimizing his impact on the story even when he is at the center of it. Even when it supposedly brings him into focus.

i will NEVER get over felix accomplishing in one episode what gabe has been trying to do for FOUR SEASONS

this came to me in a shower. season 5 i need this to happen

can we talk about how ladybug’s mistake in strike back wasn’t actually her taking risks at all, how she thought through to make sure adrien was the right choice and her reasoning was completely correct, her plan to get froggy’s backpack worked perfectly? that it only went wrong because she gave the dog to the wrong person? that she wouldn’t have done if she’d taken the actual risk the episode explicitly called her out on avoiding—the identity reveal?