pandaofsecrets
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fanfic, analysis, headcanons + other random things that catch my interest | multifandom
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Who do you ship Sabrina with?
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What is a character's core?
I've used this term and variants of it in a few of my posts and I wanted to take a quick moment to define it because I'm not sure how commonly discussed this topic is, but it's an important one to keep in mind when evaluating and writing certain types of media.
Most genres of fiction make use of standard character roles/tropes. The plucky sidekick, the dastardly villain, the last girl, and so on. This isn't a bad thing. The existence of this stuff is a big part of how we define genres and how we evaluate writing quality. For example, if you're writing a romance, you're going to have romantic leads. Two (or more) individuals who will be together by the end of the story. If these roles don't exist, then you don't have a romance. And if their relationship feels toxic and unhealthy? You may not have a romance. Or, at least, not a classic romance. The worse the relationship is, the more you wander into the genre of "dark romance," which is all about enjoying deeply unhealthy fictional relationships.
This brings us to Miraculous and why I feel comfortable defending Adrien and Marinette as victims of bad writing.
Unless the writers are doing something truly insane, the love square is our end game couple. The ones destined for a happily ever after. That means that everything the writers do with these two and their relationship can be evaluated through the lens of, "are you honoring the characters' roles as the romantic leads?" And if the answer is, "No?" Then the writers are failing because "romantic lead" is a defining aspect of these characters. It isn't what they should be, it's what they are. Anything that goes against them being a good couple is bad writing.
This doesn't mean that they must be perfect. They're allowed to make mistakes and have flaws. Those are the sorts of things that drive a story! But the mistakes and flaws have to be treated as such by the narrative, they have to have some sort of resolution, and they have to be maintained in balance with the whole "love interest" thing. Too many mistakes and flaws and we've gone from "romance" to "tragedy," which is what I'd currently define Miraculous as.
This role evaluation thing isn't limited to romantic leads. Any character that has a clear role in the story can be evaluated via this criteria. For example, Alya is clearly meant to be a good best friend and reliable confidant for Marinette. You can tell this because of things like her learning Marinette's identity and her helping Marinette discover the secrets of the miraculous, big story moment that are treated as positives by the narrative. So anything Alya does that makes her feel like a bad friend is bad writing. It's why I get the Alya salt, but don't participate because I can't view her as the awful person the Lila stuff makes her out to be. That's not who Alya is narratively speaking.
Generally speaking, this core/role thing is my main way of evaluating characters in genre content like Miraculous. It's the driving force behind most of the character discussion on this blog and something I strongly encourage people to think about if they enjoy reading/writing genre content as it's a great guideline! Figure out the role a character is supposed to be in, generally honor that role, and you're golden! You have room for flaws and conflicts while still having something to keep you in check from straying too far off course.
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Who do you ship Adrien Agreste with?
(Without Marinette)
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Lets play a Game, "Which Character Canonically would said this?
That's not a problem! You know what my real problem is? To access mental health without revealing my secret identity to my therapist
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Master Fu: Oh, forgive me. I forgot to introduce myself.
Master Fu: I'm a mysterious old man.
Marinette: Glad we cleared that up.
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thinking about that time i put apple music's french lyrics of chat noir's angsty christmas song into google translate to see what it'd say
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Padmé Amadala 💖
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HAPPY STAR WARS DAY ♡ may the force be with you!
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Adrien: All right, due to many recent developments...
Ladybug: The latest of which is that Plagg has barricaded himself in the pantry in an attempt to avoid arbitration with the P.G.R.A. over his snack dues.
Plagg(distantly): I never signed on to that!
Adrien: We now find ourselves needing to pick someone to sub in as Ladybug's main partner.
Ladybug: I'm inclined to choose Ryuko, because she's the only active member of the cast who hasn't given me reason to doubt their sanity.
Ryuko: I would be honored to accept the assignment.
Rena Rouge: Excuse me, girl?! I have seniority?!
Ladybug: Rena, I just walked in on you and Volpina screaming in each others' faces for no discernible reason.
Rena Rouge: It's a Fox thing.
Volpina: You wouldn't understand.
Ladybug: ...You're right. I wouldn't.
Ladybug: Also, Volpina? Get out.
Volpina: Screw you too!
Ladybug: Right. So, for the foreseeable future, the show is now subtitled "Tales of Ladybug and Ryuko."
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newest hyperfixation alert!!!
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What Could Go Wrong?
“You said one person, right?”
“Fair is fair Chat. I told my secret to a friend, and I’d rather you told a confidant directly rather than it slipping out in a moment of weakness.” Ladybug appeared to shudder at a memory. “I’ll trust your judgement as long as you trust them”
“I do.” He said with conviction.
Adrien had initially thought of Nino. His bro. His ride or die. Heck, he was the one who *taught* him the term ride or die.
But as much as he cared for his best bud, Nino didn’t exactly have the best track record for keeping secrets, especially from his girlfriend. And somehow Adrien had trouble picturing the Ladyblogger having discretion when it came to superhero matters. Leaving just one person….
“I’ll be transparent LB” he said, leaning against the roof chimney. “While I trust them, there have been times when we haven’t gotten along. Like when I started school for the first time.” Adrien shook his head at the memory, and mentally congratulated himself on how much he had grown since that first day out of his bubble. “I’ve even wonder at times if I somehow offended this person or done something wrong because they would seem to avoid me on purpose.”
Ladybug nodded along sympathetically.
“But other times, they’ve really been there to comforted me and support me. I know they care, even if they have an - er - strange way of expressing it…” he trailed off before meeting ladybug’s eyes again.
“I just” he exhaled, “I just want to be closer to them, and if sharing this secret helps break down those barriers, it’s worth it to me.”
Ladybug’s eyes softened as she cracked a smile. “This person sounds very special.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without them.”
“Then you have my blessing Chat”
Adrien beamed.
“Well in that case m’Ladybug, is it alright if I leave patrol early? I don’t want this to wait any longer”
A laugh from Ladybug, “Yes! Chat go! and I really hope this person is able to give you all the support you deserve.”
“He will!” Chat called back, already a rooftop away, not wanting to delay a second longer from sharing his secret with his father.
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A while ago it was a trend to draw this screencap of Tamaki. I wanted to join in 🤧💖
I finally touched my busted computer again, it has been not working as well and part of the touch screen is broken. I love paint tool Sai 2 but using my computer is a hassle 😭. Where can o petition to get an app for Sai.
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Two slight nitpicks, but for one, the comparison between Marinette meeting Luka and that scene at the end of Riposte is kinda apples to oranges. That's not where Kagami and Adrien interact for the first time outside of the fencing match, it's when Kagami unmasks herself and refuses to duel Adrien again, telling him that her family doesn't believe in second chances. For another thing, Adrien was in fact awestruck by Kagami's appearance when she removed her mask. As in, complete with a pink background, anime sparkles, and him having a hard time speaking.
Aspec Adrien
I was asked to elaborate on why I view (and always write) Adrien as some flavor of aspec (asexual spectrum) and I am happy to do so! It's part of what drew me to the character in the first place as I am also aspec. This does mean that my read is going to be biased as we tend to treat ourselves as the default, meaning that we're inclined to see similarities that may not be intentional. In fact, I don't think Adrien was intended to be aspec, a topic I'll touch on more at the end. First, let's talk about why I read him as aspec.
There are certain elements that feel more like "vibes" than hard evidence. Things like the fact that Adrien developed his crush after getting to know Ladybug instead of just immediately liking her because she's cute. That's not a uniquely aspec experience. It happens to those who identify as allosexuals too. In fact, I read Marinette as allosexual even though her crush on Adrien also only came about after getting to know him a bit.
The thing that really makes me feel like Adrien is out of character when he's is written as non-aspec is the way the love square's secondary romantic relationships have been handled as well as the writing around their main crushes.
Marinette has several crushes over the course of the show: Luka, Catwalker, Adrien, and Chat Noir. Yes, three of those are the same guy, but she doesn't know that, so we're treating them as separate characters. The Luka and Catwalker crushes are the main ones I want to talk about.
When Marinette meets Luka, we get this:
Anarka: ...could you go and tell Luka that we're waiting for him to start rehearsals?
Marinette: Of course. Uh, but who's Luka? And where is he?
Anarka: Luka's my son, you'll find him in his cabin.
Scene: Below deck in Luka's cabin
Marinette: (sees Luka) Uh! (Luka looks up at her) Hey, my name's Ma-ma uh Mamamarinette! Your mom sent me down here. The groove...uh... the group's waiting for you.
In this scene, Marinette starts stuttering and blushing before Luka even says a word. And when Marinette is joined by Catwalker in season four? She's so distracted by this cute new boy that she can't fight properly. Which was a weird choice, but it's what happened so let's run with it.
These are foreign concepts to me. I have never been nervous around a cute boy because - for me - cute is an ascetic thing, not an element of attraction. Before I learned about the ace spectrum, I legitimately thought this sort of thing was something made up by Hollywood as a lazy shortcut for writing romances. This is why I say Marinette reads as allosexual and why Adrien feels distinctly aspec because the writing around him and Kagami could not be more different.
Their first interaction is a fencing match, leading to an akumatization, leading to this:
Adrien: I personally think the point was yours.
Kagami: That's not what your friend saw.
Adrien: Marinette can get flustered easily. She's kind and means well. She'd never cheat. Today was her first-ever experience with fencing.
Kagami:(she looks surprised for a moment, then smiles.) You like her a lot, huh?
Adrien: Marinette? Yeah, of course! She's a very good friend, and you'll really like her too, once you get to know her.
There's no blushing or flirting or any of the things that characterize Adrien's behavior when he's in love. This trend continues through all of the Adrigami sub plot. It never feels like he's actually into her even when they're dating. His heart remains fixed on Ladybug who still receives lots of flirting and pet names even though he's off the market. It really reads like he's only dating Kagami out of a want to be loved and not because he actually feels anything for her.
To be clear, he was in the wrong there. He should never have agreed to date Kagami if he wasn't willing to fully commit to their relationship, but I also can't ignore what this implies about his sexuality given that Marinette is such a stark contrast. While I think the writer's actual intent was more, "oh, Adrien was only ever destined for Marinette" or some other BS, the fact that the same cannot be said for Marinette means that this comes across as a difference in sexuality. Marinette can easily crush on people based on pure physical attraction while Adrien either doesn't experience physical attraction or he only experiences it under heavily limited circumstances, two options that are highly characteristic of aspec people.
If Marinette and Adrien were only able to crush on each other, then I wouldn't read into this so much. It would just be your standard romance plot as a lot of romance-focused media avoids complications like love triangles once an endgame couple has been chosen. But that's not what the show gives us. Marinette crushes on many people practically at the drop of a hat while Adrien has a much harder time falling in love. But once he is in love? He's all in! Ride or die!
This was probably done to subvert the gendered stereotype that boys are the thirsty ones and girls are the ones whose hearts remain "true." A stereotype that's bullshit! It was another reason it took me so long to understand the sexuality spectrum. Before I understood the various ways a person could experience attraction, I thought it was just a male vs female thing where guys experienced a thing that girls like me just didn't (my christian upbringing did not help to dispel these notions). Because I've done so much work to get rid of these harmful stereotypes in my own worldview, the stereotype idea didn't even occur to me until late in the game. And even if that was the intent? It doesn't change the fact that sexualities are a thing and Adrien reads super aspec.
I'll end with a brief note as to why I don't think the writers intended to make Adrien read as ace. It's mostly due to the fact that they've claimed Twitter credit for Max being ace and Alix being aro. This means that the writing team is at least aware of the sexuality and romance spectrums, but instead of claiming that Adrien is intended to read aspec - credit I would give them as I don't think rep needs to be explicit to count - they claim rep through two background characters who you could slap almost any label on without contradicting canon because canon never even touches on how these two feel about sex and romance. A lack of expressed interest is not the same as a straight up statement of disinterest. Based on what is in the show, you could write Max and Alix as fully allo and still have them be show loyal. And, to be clear, you're allowed to write these characters with any sexuality you want even if canon says they have a specific type of romantic and/or sexual attraction. They're fictional characters, not real people. This was specifically a discussion of my read on canon and what the writing staff has explicitly confirmed about their intended rep or lack thereof.
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can we not compare Adrien to Anthy from Utena actually?
I mean unless you actually want to discuss the possibility of Adrien stabbing Marinette for being accidentally complicit in his abuse, I don't think that's the comparison you think you're making
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Character salt for Miraculous Ladybug is so bizarre that I can't take it seriously most of the time. Everytime a character gets criticized, my mind jumps back to how incredibly stupid the people who write Miraculous Ladybug, specifically Astruc ofc, are. Like it would be one thing if these critcisms came up if the show was actually good, but it isnt. Marinette and Adrien just function like mouthpiece puppets to push the world's most asinine storylines for whatever deranged narrative the writers are cooking this week.
After what happened with Chloe + Felix and how the butchered Marinette, Adrien and Kagami or how they glorified Gabriel. It's hard to take the Adrien, Marinette, Felix, Chloe, or (insert character name) salt seriously. This show actually tried to play good victim, bad victim and abuse apologia with me. Sorry I'm not highly invested in character critcisms. This show is too busy being a garbage fire mess. The show is so fundamentally broken at its base that character critcisms feel meaningless. The shows own writers have the most backwards ass line of thinking, and you're telling me the problem is Adrien and Marinette have no sense of personal boundaries or decorum? When the shows writers themselves exaggerate their worst behaviour for comedy or slapstick??
Maybe this is just reductionist (sorry I guess), but character salt feels meaningless when the themes of the show themselves are so backwards or poorly thought out and done.
#ml character salt is putting the cart before the horse#like. get back to me when the show starts making sense#and THEN we can talk#miraculous ladybug
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Sad Villain Hours
#shadybug's FACE#category: art#miraculous ladybug#miraculous ladybug: paris special#shadybug#marinette dupain-cheng
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