Don't Ever Remind Me Of Miraculous Ladybug It's That Serious To Me. I Treat The Writing Of Ml Like Being

s5+ adrien agreste is like. what if the fridged wife was actually a zany teenage boy who we held at gunpoint until he forfeited all agency and plot relevance. but he stayed silly.

So there's a strange "defense" of Miraculous I've seen crop up on occasion. The idea that everything wrong about the Lovesquare powerdynamic is deliberate and will all be explored next season (lets put aside that this defense has been cropping up for 3 seasons now). The claim that Soon(TM), the writers are gonna make the characters face the concequences and explore the fallout of the entire jenga-tower of BS they've been "carefully" setting up all along... Which... isnt a defense I vibe with, cause it fundamentally boils down to "its not a Kids Rolemodel Show, its a deconstruction of a Kids Rolemodel Show". It's a defence that would place Marinette alongside Tyler Durden, Walter White and Rick Sanchez in the "you werent supposed to relate to them" pantheon. And while i think there are plenty of reasons that deconstruction is a usefull tool (even if i hate the dime-a-dozen "Childrens Fairytale but its depression" and "Superman, but psycho"' decon-stories out there). I'd argue 'Kids Rolemodel Show' is the one genre that should never be deconstructed, or at least not in the slow-burn,long-form way the people arguing this claim the show to be doing. And i hold that stance for one simple two-part reason: Poe's law, and the fact that the deconstructed genre is aimed at an audience with absolute zero media-literacy. (reminder: "5-6 year old kids" is the one audience where that is not an insult, simply a statement of fact.) A show aimed deconstructing a genre with an audience for whom it may actually be their first big piece of media is legitimately dangerous. Because there is no way a 5 year old can be expected to tell "deconstruction of a formulaic kids cartoon" from "Formulaic kids cartoon". The idea that "they've been making Marinette into a bad example deliberately and are going to reveal the entire show to have been a carefull ruse in season 6/7" is supposed to be a defense? Its frankly absurd. A 6 year kid who watched the show when it first aired and idolised Ladybug, could be old enough to drink by the time S6 reveals she was supposed to be a bad example. A little girl who based her relationships on the way Mari pursues romance would have a restraining order by the time the show indends to pull this twist. And some of y'all are claiming that "actually its a long-form deconstruction" is a defense? I legit don't get y'all.

gabriel and Adrien: obvious. don't need to say this. cold and distant, gabriels thrown himself entirely into his grief. when he's not working he's trying to find the miraculous, thinking to himself anything he fucks up he can fix with the wish. adrien might be neglected now but he won't remember anything but happiness when gabriel succeeds. if gabriel spends more time with adrien, it just prolongs their suffering

chat noir and hawkmoth: i hate this bitch give me your miraculous

the potential of a hawkmoth and adrien dynamic:

adriens POV "that's the villain I need to defeat by any cost but right now i have no powers and he could akumatize me, hurt me, hurt my friends - my best option is to fawn or flee --> this is an advantage to learn more about who im fighting without him trying to steal my miraculous"

gabriels "this is my son who is very well behaved usually and who I do care for yet I have forgotten entirely about in my grief. its strange, viewing him with this miraculous, seeing his emotions - im learning more about him now than in my own house. am i making a mistake? i can't be (sunken cost fallacy)"

potential chat noir and gabriel dynamic:

chat noir: adrien gets the freedom to ask his father questions that would seem disrespectful and get him in trouble in his own house. after all, chat noir has all the power and gabriel is the civilian. gabriel cannot harm him in any way--the power dynamic has been reversed, and it allows adrien to ask his father questions and interact with him in a more expressive way without consequence. of course, this is his father; adrien loves him, and he doesn't want to hurt him, plus it would seem out of character or even villainous for chat noir to hate a civilian randomly. but it gives adrien more of an outlet to express negative emotions with his father.

gabriel: "i need this boys miraculous but i can't transform right now, he has no reason to suspect me. this is a child--one that shouldn't be capable of bossing me around, yet holds the power of destruction so he can. --> this is an opportunity to learn more about chat noir, anything about his identity. if i seem nice enough, perhaps he'll let something slip. for some reason the hero seems to eat up any compliment i give him."

okay i will say one of the least utilized parts of ml is that the lovesquare isn't the only characters that can have multiple dynamics at once. and in fact one of my things i wanna do in a rewrite is have gabriel/hawkmoth have different dynamics with the main characters depending on persona.

for example; what is an interaction between hawkmoth and adrien agreste actually like? in a scenario where potentially hawkmoth finds out about ladybug being attached to a civilian AND having the excuse of knowing it because it's a popular model so it wouldn't out his identity, would he choose to endanger his son? or maybe would he do it himself instead of trusting an akuma, knowing he won't actually follow through with a threat to adriens life while an akuma would?

what's a dynamic between chat noir and gabriel? that's a superhero gabriel wants the miraculous from, but he can't be blatant about it, and more than that, he has no power over a superhero and no reason to dislike him. it's fascinating.

one of my fav fucked up things is the concept of adrien talking more to hawkmoth than his own father because gabriel learns that adrien is one of the most effective ways to bait ladybug. hawkmoth can read emotions, and one day he reads ladybugs enough when Adrien is in the vicinity- and woah, her emotions are so strong about him it's readable through the magical cloaking, even! he even justifies it morally because it's not like adrien is ever hurt. is it kidnapping if it's your own son? is it really hurting him if all your doing is playing chess with him on top of the eiffel tower, an unspoken threat of super powered violence enough to keep him from doing anything reckless? gabriel is spending time with his son /and/ getting the miraculous. and at the end of the day... when gabriel gets the wish, he can fix it all - so it'll be okay! :)

i get a direct message. "cal what is this april fools joke" im genuinely confused---"what april fools joke?" "t-the sideblog. its an april fools joke, right?" so i have poor timing, okay?

WHY DID HE GET SUDDEN GOOD VIBES??? AT THE END OF THE EP???? WHEN DID HE SHOW THE CAPACITY TO FROLICK AMONGST THE COMMON FOLK??????????? NO MORE RANDOM REDEMPTION ARCS FOR OLD WHITE MEN MLB WHAT THE HECK

If I may throw my hat into the ring here, I think the source of a lot of problems in the writing of Miraculous can be boiled down to its confusion over its target demographic.

There are two very clear audiences the show is trying to cater to:

Grade school girls around 5-10

Teens/young adults around 15-20

And this results in some. unique conflicts in the show's internal logic.

Because it's a superhero show for little kids, it's full of fun, bright colors, wacky villain-of-the-week designs, and the characters are all very straightforward with exaggerated personality traits. The cheerful, clumsy, scatterbrained girl protagonist, her utterly charming and goofy (but slightly clueless) love interest, her cool best friend, her mean bully, etc.

This extends to the romance; the show is so comedic that Marinette's nervous crush and Cat Noir's flirting are played up for laughs. Their more "problematic" behaviors read as cartoon shenanigans first and foremost, which I do think was the intention - they're both shown as being more than a little ridiculous for acting this way, so they're not exactly trying to encourage people to emulate them. They're allowed to be genuinely wholesome, too, because it's nice to give the kids something to go "aww!" at, but it's not meant to be more complicated or deep than that.

And of course, it's gotta follow a sweet and simple episodic formula! A conflict in Marinette's civilian life, an inciting incident to get a side character upset enough for Hawk Moth to turn into a villain, Ladybug and Cat Noir show up, there's fun banter, Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm to figure out a wacky solution to the problem, and boom! The day is saved, Marinette and/or someone else learns a moral, and we get a cute little end screen showing all the key players of the episode.

The one aspect of the show's setup that's a little more serious is the fact that Adrien has a super controlling and distant father, but even this is something that doesn't necessarily break the kid-friendly tone for the first season or two. Superhero shows in particular like to put in some stuff that's a little more emotionally challenging for the viewers, even when they're mostly comedic, so it's not totally out of place here.

For example, while they tend to have more grounded tones overall, Spider-Man cartoons are aimed at kids and regularly keep the conflict between Harry Osborn and his father, Norman, intact; often including the plot point of Norman being the Green Goblin, a notorious villain. It's a similar deal with Adrien, and his dad secretly being Hawk Moth.

You can easily anticipate drama coming from this, but the show primes you to expect it to work out fine in the end because every other conflict so far has been wrapped up in a nice little bow once the episode's over. Though I will say, the choice to have Hawk Moth be Gabriel instead of his own, separate character is perhaps the first sign of the tone shift to come.

And, uh. it sure is a shift.

See, Miraculous does not start out with what you'd call a... plot. It vaguely alludes to there being more going on behind the scenes, but the only thing it really tries to get you invested in is the Love Square dynamic. Marinette and Adrien dancing around each other while fighting crime IS the plot, and it's clearly going to end with a cool final confrontation with Hawk Moth.

You expect it to end like... well, like the movie. Identities are revealed, Gabriel realizes the error of his ways when he finds out he's been fighting his son this whole time, and they may or may not make up but he almost definitely gets arrested. Marinette and Adrien kiss, roll credits.

This is not what happens, because the plot the writers actually had in mind is complex in a way that I would argue is meant for the same audience as YA novels. And with that plot comes a lot of darker, weightier traits to these otherwise silly characters.

Marinette isn't just scatterbrained and nervous, she has debilitating anxiety and an increasing need to be in control of everything due to the stress she's under. She has panic attacks on-screen. She's not just great at strategizing, she also knows how to manipulate people, and does so with increasing frequency - and to Cat Noir at times, no less. Her positive traits haven't gone anywhere, she's still loving and creative and sweet and doing her best to help everyone she can, she just. has all of that other stuff going on, now.

Adrien isn't just a charming, goofy, clueless love interest with a gazillion skills and a controlling father, he's like. actively being abused, and in some cases straight-up mind controlled. His tendency to heroically sacrifice himself so that Ladybug can do her Cool Protagonist Thing is gradually but unmistakably reframed as being a sign of suicidal inclinations. He has identity issues out the wazoo and he doesn't even know he's an artificially created human yet, because everyone in his life is keeping secrets from him and/or lying to his face about crucial information.

Information like, uh. how his dad died???

Yeah, so we're at a point in the story now where there was no satisfying conclusion to the Gabriel plot, no team-up, no moment where he realizes he's been fighting his son, none of that. He still has something akin to a change of heart, but he also still kind of gets what he wants - the Miraculous of the Ladybug and Black Cat, which he uses to rewrite the universe with a wish. It's just that instead of reviving his wife, he trades his life for Natalie's. Of course, he was already dying anyway, which was his own fault but he did force Cat Noir's Cataclysm onto himself, so, that's another thing poor Adrien is going to have to deal with at some point.

And because there's all these astronomically messed up things in Adrien's life, and Marinette's the one who got to learn about all of it before him, she decides that maybe it would be better if he just. didn't know about it. Which is understandable, if I was 14 and had all this information about my boyfriend's life that he didn't, I wouldn't know how to begin telling him about it, either.

But. can you see how we've maybe lost the plot, here?

Here's the thing: starting with a simple framework and gradually getting more complex and subverting the audience's expectations for how the main villain is going to be dealt with is not a bad thing. The fact that it gets darker over time is not an issue. I actually think that all these developments are, themselves, pretty cool! I'm a sucker for angst and complex character dynamics and the show is absolutely giving me those things.

The problem is that it didn't just start with a simple framework, it started with the framework for a different demographic entirely, and perhaps just as importantly, it never actually... stopped.

For as much complexity and intensity they're injecting this story with, they're still working under the logic of it being "for young kids." We still get goofy villain-of-the-week designs with equally goofy motivations, and the supporting cast is stuck remaining two-dimensional no matter their circumstances. Chloe is the most blatant example of this - she was made to be a simple bully first, so no matter what else they do with her, she has to remain straightforwardly evil.

This, I think, is the reason that Gabriel is a more nuanced and "sympathetic" antagonist than her, and why so much care goes into Adrien's character as a victim of abuse while Chloe is just a Problem Child despite suffering similar neglect; she wasn't made to be interesting, and so the show is resistant to changing that. Gabriel and Adrien, however, were already made with nuance in mind, and so they're allowed to develop as characters. And at the same time, it's a kid's show! We need to teach the kids what kind of behavior is acceptable, and Chloe's home life isn't an excuse to treat people badly, so--!

...Oh crap we're supposed to be teaching kids about acceptable behavior. Uh. Um. Quick, bring back the ice cream akuma who cares way too much about his ships so that Cat Noir can learn about consent! Uhh, but don't change his character too much afterwards, he's only marketable because of his silly flirting, and we can't lose that.

Yeah, remember when I said that the romance having problematic elements to it used to work well enough because it was clearly just exaggerated cartooniness? It wasn't free from criticism or anything, but you could see how it was intended to be endearing and silly, right? You were supposed to point and laugh at Marinette's convoluted plans to spend time with Adrien, at Cat Noir's dramatic flirting attempts that Ladybug herself fondly rolled her eyes at.

The tonal shift into deep character exploration kinda paints the previous stuff in a worse light, and to an extent, I think the writers know that. It's hard to laugh at Cat Noir being flirty all the time when he's also supposed to be taken completely seriously, and the more Ladybug rejects him, the more it turns into harassment, and it. kinda just stops being funny, even with the comedic framing.

It's also hard to laugh at Marinette's crush being so all-consuming when they try to tell us (in what I can only assume was an attempt to get people to stop complaining) that she's like this because it's fueled by an event in her past, one that made her so scared of loving the wrong person that she now needs to know Everything about them before asking them out. Her cartoon antics aren't funny under that light, it's just concerning, but they're dedicated to keeping it up anyway.

The show runs on straightforward cartoon logic where you're not supposed to think about it too hard just as much as it runs on grounded, closer-to-real-life logic where people are messy and complicated and actions have consequences. It's so divided that you can hand-pick parts of the story that are influenced by one or the other pretty easily, and depending on the episode you can find instances of both in the same 20-minute time span. Maybe even multiple times!

Neither thing they're trying to go for is bad, and neither is a better approach than the other, but forcing them into the same show makes both sides suffer.

It's not just hard to laugh at the parts I mentioned earlier, it's hard to take Gabriel seriously as a villain whenever you rewatch an episode and remember that he has a once-per-episode pun-based speech that he says so self-seriously that you can't help but laugh at. It's hard to take him seriously when you remember that he repeatedly akumatized a Literal Baby and practically threw a tantrum every time it didn't work, or when he randomly steals (and enthusiastically performs) his nephew's musical dance number, or something similar that you would only do for a cartoon villain aimed at five-year-olds.

And I can only imagine this whole show is a marketing nightmare, too. Hey, little girls, here's your cool role model! She's cute and smart and talented and powerful and can fix anything by shouting the title of the show! Hope you're having fun watching her tell her boyfriend that his newly-deceased father (who used deepfakes of him to sell merchandise that's built to enslave the population and then locked him in a solitary confinement chamber in another country) was actually a hero who sacrificed himself to stop the main villain instead of, y'know, being the main villain! Aren't you excited to watch her wrestle with the guilt of this lie for the next season or so? Doesn't it just make you want to buy her merchandise??

Like. what is even happening right now. what am I watching. how did we get here and why did we start where we did if this was what the story was going to be about

i honestly think the writers really shot themselves in the foot (as they like to do) with the miraculous timer not existing specifically for adults instead of that just being a skill that has to be trained. The training montage in the beginning of Revelator was cool (in theory bc why is this only a two minute scene) but the fandom‘s main concern seemed to be about how fucked up it actually is bc this is basically forcing kids to grow up too soon. And I see where they‘re coming from, but also the lore for the timer is so unclear overall.

I fully agree. Calling the timer upgrade an "adult" power then giving it to the teen heroes is just weird. Just say that it has to do with experience or emotional maturity or something like that (not that Gabriel was ever emotionally mature, but let's ignore that issue for now). Everyone was anticipating this upgrade being a thing that happened when the characters turned 16 or 18. Having it just randomly show up while most of them are still 14 (15?) raises all kinds of questions and makes people give the upgrade undo weight.

I had another ask about this recently and in that one I talked about how lackluster this upgrade was. The characters don't actually mature, they just kind of will themselves into "adulthood" which is one of my main issues with the complaint you mentioned. A complaint that I have also seen a few times from different sources which is why I feel comfortable addressing it:

the fandom‘s main concern seemed to be about how fucked up it actually is bc this is basically forcing kids to grow up too soon.

It's hard to view the characters' "adult" status as "forcing kids to grow up too soon" when this upgrade is the least serious thing that has happened to most of these characters. Forcing Marinette to try to navigate the complex mess that Gabriel dumped on her lap is "forcing kids to grow up too soon." Luka being banished to Brazil because a terrorist wanted to capture him and force him to betray his friends is "forcing kids to grow up too soon." Adrien having to navigate being an orphan with no forewarning that his father was dying is "forcing kids to grow up too soon." The list goes on.

However, none of those things are why the characters are "adults" now. They're "adults" because of a rather generic pep talk. It's also worth noting that the scenes where the characters becomes "adults" are framed as moments of empowerment. That means that, narratively speaking, this is not supposed to be seen as a bad or concerning thing.

This show's messaging has always been wacky, but I'm pretty sure that this is less a commentary on how messed up these teenagers lives are and more the writers just wanting to show that the characters are growing up because we're six season in and growing up is not some great evil. It's just a normal part of life. That's why my criticism of this upgrade is not "upgrade bad" or "upgrade depressing" it's that this should have been part of a character arc where the characters actually grew up a little!

Also, complaining that the teen characters are "growing up too" soon feels too much in line with people who complain about shows like Miraculous "glorifying child soldiers." It's an action show aimed at young kids. The lead characters are going to be kids and teens because those are the kinds of characters young kids relate to. If you don't like seeing kids and teens being given responsibilities that they shouldn't have in the real world, then don't watch these kinds of shows. To enjoy them, you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief about the age issue and treat the responsibilities these characters have as fine in their world. Or, at least, not concerning because of their age. It's less "this is bad for a 14-year-old" and more "this is a terrible thing for anyone to deal with."

This is why you'll see me do things like treating Nathalie, Felix, Kagami, and Amelie as equally responsible for keeping Adrien in the dark in season five even though Felix and Kagami are "just teens". It's also why I don't really talk about Marinette being "just a 14-year-old girl." I get that defense, but I don't think it fits this genre because, if you're going to use that defense, then why is she responsible for anything? She's too young for everything she's doing! All the teen characters are, but is anyone arguing that they should all quit and be replaced by adults? I don't think so. If we put this stuff in adult hands then we would have a wildly different show.

I do think that the teen characters' age has validity in certain discussion - for example, I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to have teenage struggles because they are teenagers - but generally speaking, I'd avoid using age arguments when it comes to the characters' responsibilities and authority in shows like Miraculous. Characters in these shows are not supposed to be treated like normal teens by the audience. That just doesn't make for a good story.

Along similar lines, I don't like the "this character is only 14" or "it's only been a year in canon" arguments to defend things like the lack of character growth. That's just not a good defense for a fictional story like Miraculous. It's an action-adventure romcom, not literary fiction. It's not supposed to be hyper realistic. It's supposed to be a fun and engaging story. It doesn't matter how old the characters are or how long it's been in canon. What matters is that we're six seasons in and that season five saw the end of the show's first major story arc. By that point, it's perfectly reasonable to look for character growth and satisfying plot progression.

ik its a kids show so theyd probably never delve into this. but in the universe where chat noir and hawkmoths identity were revealed to the public, i cannot fucking imagine the media circus that would go on. the court case alone would be so bad… “hawkmoth vs chat noir: domestic terrorism or domestic abuse?” itd be soooo awful they should make it happen. paris’ most fucked up family. the youtube videos. someone would request to make a documentary. and after all gabriels shit is revealed publicly he still only goes to jail for tax evasion à la al capone.

Funniest fandoms are where the fans are like, "I'm obsessed with this. I don't recommend it even slightly."

okay so i also haven't totally caught up with season 6. i really did think maybe they were saving marinette telling adrien for later but the crazy thing is that felix knows. kagami knows. nathalie knows. and you're telling me NO ONE has snitched. everyone is totally fine with not telling adrien anything. i hope everyone goes to hell im so serious