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shipcestuous · 1 year

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(another Miraculous submission)

It's been wonderful to see Miraculous Ladybug** mentioned here! I'm the anon who sent in asks about Adrien Agreste (one of the main characters) and his dynamics with his parents, Gabriel and Emilie, a while back during the first or second season!

**This show is called so many different things. In the US, it's called Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. It's also called Miraculous Ladybug, or Miraculous, so there can be some confusion that way. (Sorry for making your tagging system harder....)

Anyway, since we're in the fifth season, we've seen more of Adrien and Gabriel's relationship, which continues to be chock-full of dramatic irony, seeing as Adrien is a superhero and his dad is his and his partner's supervillain nemesis. Lately, Gabriel has been making more of an effort with his son, paying more attention to him and being less neglectful. I suspect he has ulterior motives, just because he's the Big Bad, but whether that turns out to be true or not, it's so sweet to see how happy Adrien is anytime his dad does anything remotely nice for him. He gets these big, earnest "kitten eyes" and it's cute, but also so sad because we know his dad is a supervillain and he doesn't.

But I'm actually here because, since my last ask, we've met some more of the family--so I'm mostly here to talk about Adrien's cousin Félix. Who is a bit of a mysterious character in terms of his motivations sometimes, and doesn't have a single relative who he doesn't have a noteworthy relationship with, in one way or another.

First off--I'm aware of which blog I'm sending this to. But Adrien and Félix's respective moms--Emilie and Amelie (whos matching names are adorable even if we don't know much about their relationship--are identical twins, making the boys genetically siblings.

Plus, they themselves are identical. Legitimately identical. Félix is just Adrien with a slightly different hairstyle. There are a few different theories about why this is: some people think it's just for plot convenience (more on that in a bit) or animators not wanting to make another character model. Some people think maybe one of their moms actually gave birth to twin sons, but gave one to her sister who wasn't able to have a child for some reason. And there's a theory that's slowly gaining more canon support, that one or both of them are magically-created beings instead of natural-born humans, so some people think either one boy was created based of the other, or they were both created at the same time. (I have no idea, but I figure if one of the magic ones are true, they'd still be genetic siblings?)

Anyway, while Adrien is a fairly well-behaved teenager--aside from "constantly sneaking out his window in a cat costume to fight his supervillain dad to save the city"--his cousin(/genetic brother) Félix is... to be blunt, a little sh*t. When he comes to visit, he likes to impersonate Adrien and stir up trouble for him. And Félix is one of the only people who Adrien will actually show dislike for, even if Adrien still cares about him.

From the sound of it, the boys were really close when they were younger. (Félix's dad died within the past year, so maybe that's when he started acting out more? We don't know for sure. We do know Gabriel didn't let Adrien go to Félix's dad's funeral, which may explain some of the resentment.) And even if Félix pesters Adrien a lot, he does seem to care about Adrien in some way--he's been shown encouraging Adrien (in a jerky way, sure, but still) to do what Adrien wants to do, instead of blindly obeying what his dad tells him. When Félix finds out Adrien doesn't want to go on an extended trip for his modeling job, Félix volunteers to impersonate Adrien to talk to his dad for Adrien, and tell Gabriel that Adrien doesn't want to go since Adrien has trouble standing up to his father.

(It's implied, around this time, there might be magical reasons why Adrien can't disobey Gabriel, hence support for the magical theory I mentioned before. Which is kind of horrifying if true, but even if it is, part of Adrien's unwillingness to stand up to Gabriel is just because he loves his dad and doesn't want to disappoint him.)

On to Félix's relationship with Gabriel: like I said, Félix resents how Adrien obeys Gabriel seemingly without question. Félix has a long history of tricking his uncle-by-marriage--by impersonating Adrien, and then in his first appearance in the show, Félix steals (back) one of Gabriel's rings (which might have something to do with the magic control I talked about? seriously, this family/show is complicated).

The next time they meet, Félix has actually figured out Gabriel's identity as a supervillain--something that nobody else in the show has managed to do. (He may be a little sh*t but he's also one of the smartest people in the show.) Félix later confronts his uncle about it in a very tense scene.

However, despite his obvious disdain for Gabriel, Félix--when disguised as Adrien--siezes the chance to get hold of a lot of the magical jewels that supervillain!Gabriel wants, and Félix offers to trade them to Gabriel in exchange for the one magic jewel that can make those magical sentient beings I mentioned before (another point toward that theory).

His motivations for all this still haven't been explained to the audience, as of the time I'm sending this, but no matter what they are, Félix is an interesting character who has these interesting, tense, complicated dynamics with both his cousin and uncle.

But onto Félix's relationships with his mom and aunt, because those are interesting too! But in a different way.

First, Félix and his aunt Emilie--since Emilie "disappeared" before the start of the show, we don't get to see them interact. But from everything we see of Félix, he seems to have really cared about her. (Makes sense, she is his aunt but also, biologically, has the same genes as his mom--and he loves his mom a lot. More on that in a sec.)

Since he and Adrien used to switch places as kids, we can assume Félix liked to play jokes on Emilie. But unlike with Adrien or Gabriel, he seems to be actually sweet with her. We see him smiling with this soft, genuine affection at a painting of Emilie that hangs in Gabriel's office.

And then--huge spoilers--when he first stumbles on Gabriel's secret underground lair, where he keeps Emilie's comatose body in a Snow White-style coffin (that seems to be life support?), Félix is visibly shaken and distraught in a way we've never seen him before. So he clearly cares about Emilie a lot.

But the most suggestive (unintentionally) relationship here is between Félix and his mother Amelie. Like I said, Felix is a jerk to basically everyone--but he's far sweeter toward his mom than most teenage boys are. They have a strong bond. When I mentioned that he stole Gabriel's ring, Félix stole it in order to return it to Amelie. But then, it turns out Amelie had wanted it back in order to give it to her son!

Whenever we see them together, their interactions are very cute and sweet. A notable example is here in this gifset: Amelie kisses her hand and presses it up against Félix's hand, and then he presses his hand up against his cheek. By the looks of it, it's something they do pretty often, even if he's somewhere around 14 or 15 by now. From the way he acts around everyone else, it's surprising to see how soft and happy he seems around his mom.

And it turns out Amelie has a sneaky, cunning side of her own--after Félix steals most of the magical jewels and gives them to Hawkmoth, the main characters come to his house looking for him. Amelie tells them, seemingly sincere, that Félix hasn't come home. However, after Ladybug and Chat Noir leave, Félix comes out of hiding, and we realize that Amelie lied to protect him (even from Paris's beloved superheroes!). It's not clear exactly how much she knows about what he did, but I don't doubt she would protect him even if she knew everything. Their bond seems that strong.

And on a completely different note--I wanted to talk about the Couffaine family too, since another anon mentioned Luka and Jagged Stone on your other blog. Long story short, two supporting characters are the twins Juleka and Luka Couffaine. Juleka is the MC's friend and classmate, and Luka is the MC's secondary love interest. They live with their rebellious mom Anarka on a houseboat on the Seine.

We haven't seen too much of the twins' relationship, but from what we've seen, they're very close and sweet with each other. They're in a band together along with some of their friends. (I love siblings who do music together!) Juleka introduces Luka into her friend group, and Luka listens to his younger twin sister when she talks about her dreams of modeling despite her shyness, and he encourages her to go for it. After Luka's relationship with the MC falls apart (due to her always having to sneak away for superhero things), Juleka encourages them to be friends because she wants her brother to be happy.

And! They both eventually get to be part-time superheroes, and so far, we've seen them work together once. Naturally, they make a good team, and so far, they don't know who the other one is! (So hey, "siblings as superheroes" anon--half of what you wanted is canon already. And there are actually a couple of fics out there where the two get crushes on each other in their superhero forms without knowing they're twins IRL... even if they're more crackfics than real shipping fics.)

(Juleka does have a ~very close friend~ who it's implied is her girlfriend--and they're very cute--but the show has never explicitly said they're dating or not. And even if they are, Rose has openly crushed on someone else before and Juleka seemed to encourage her, so they might be polyamorous. Who knows? Honestly, polyamory would solve most of the romantic problems on this show...)

And then there's the twins' parents. As mentioned, their mom Anarka is cool and rebellious. She used to be a musician too, and she seems like a good mom who has a fun dynamic with her kids. But what about their dad? Their mom has tried to keep his identity secret from them, but...

Their dad, it turns out, is famous rockstar Jagged Stone. (The whole family is into music, and I love that for them.) Both Luka and Juleka have been fans of his for a long time, and Juleka even met and asked him for his autograph earlier in the show before the reveal. It's fun because a lot of Juleka's class is a fan of his, and some might even have celebrity crushes--it's not hard to believe that Juleka and/or Luka might have had a celebrity crush on him too, at some point, even if it's never stated in canon.

Eventually, their mom does tell them Jagged is their father, and Jagged tells Luka that the reason he wasn't part of their lives before was because Jagged feared he would be a bad father to them. The twins start to get to know him better as their dad.

For a bit, Juleka fears that Jagged favors Luka over her, because she sees them getting closer and sees Jagged give her brother a cool record on their birthday. She feels neglected, until Jagged gives her his first bass guitar as her gift. (Awww!) Juleka's first venture as a superhero is actually in this episode, as both her parents get akumatized (basically turned into a mind-controlled villain) and she has to help save them. Afterward, she and her dad have a heart to heart. Jagged reassures her that he loves her and he always wants to be there to listen if she needs to talk, and she tells him that she loves him.

That's the last we've seen of these relationships in canon so far, but there's so much good material there. I love them.

On another note: one of Adrien's childhood friends and the MC Marinette's bully is Chloé, and her family is also interesting. Her mom Audrey is usually on another continent and she makes Gabriel Agreste look like a good father by comparison. She barely remembers Chloé's name, but on the other hand, Chloé idolizes and adores Audrey and is desperate for her attention. It's really sad.

On the other extreme of bad parenting, Chloé's dad André spoils her rotten, lets her get away with anything, and throws around his weight as mayor to get her special treatment. It isn't healthy, and he could stand to show his love in better ways, but he seems intent on making up for her lack of motherly affection.

And then eventually, we learn Chloé has a half-sister around the same age, Zoé, who comes to live with her and André in Paris. Chloé resents her and calls her only "half a sister," but in the meantime, Zoé really wants Chloé's love and friendship. At first, she tries to act more like Chloé in order to have a relationship with her, but gives that up after Zoé realizes that isn't good for anybody.

Still, Zoé keeps trying to reach out to her sister. When Chloé is akumatized out of jealousy for her sister, Zoé tells her (quoting a movie she's acting in, but still), "You may hate me, but I love you, and I always will, even if the whole world hates you, sister." Chloé is startled that Zoé would still reach out to her and want to be around her, after the way she treats her. (I suspect that, if the show ever follows through on Chloé's redemption arc, her relationship with her sister will be involved in that.)

Zoé also has an interesting, touching bond with her stepfather André. Both of them feel like they've had to hide their true selves and their interests from their family in order to be accepted. In contrast, they're able to be a bit more open around each other, and André starts growing a spine to stand up for Zoé, even disagreeing with Chloé in order to stick up for his stepdaughter.

(tl;dr: Zoé seems like she's going to be a good influence on both of them, and I hope we get to see an arc for the whole family.)

And finally, just because it feels weird to talk about one main character and not the other, I want to touch on Marinette Dupain-Cheng and her family. There's not a lot of overcomplexity or tension there, but a whole lot of sweetness. Marinette and her parents, Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng, are always shown to be supporting each other. Marinette helps them out in their bakery, and they encourage and love her. Sometimes, Tom and Sabine worry about their daughter, since she disappears a lot (and they don't realize she's a superhero because she doesn't want to endanger them with that knowledge), but they still believe the best of her.

Even though they don't know she's Ladybug, they are still encouraging and supportive of Ladybug whenever they're around her. They're big fans and have absolute faith in her.

Despite not knowing this huge secret, they still know her very well. Sabine is so used to her daughter's clumsiness and forgetfulness that she usually has something prepared to help Marinette out (even placing a basket of soft clothes at the bottom of their steps because Sabine knows she'll trip, lol). And she is very protective of Marinette, willing to fight for her sake.

Tom is also very fond and proud of Marinette. The two share a lot of interests, like playing video games together. When Tom is akumatized, it's actually because of Marinette--he thinks she's had her heart broken by Chat Noir due to a misunderstanding, and he becomes "Weredad," basically putting his daughter in a tower like a princess to protect her from ever being heartbroken or hurt again. It's really sweet.

Her extended family's relationships are also sweet. Marinette loves her grandmother Gina, even if Gina babies her, and she pretends to still enjoy the things she enjoyed as a little kid just to avoid hurting her feelings. (Also, Gina gets her a motorcycle for her birthday!)

Marinette doesn't actually meet her grandfather Rolland until the events of the show, because he and her dad had a falling out about Rolland's traditionalism. But even if he's stubborn, he still ends up caring about her and she about him. And despite the short time they've known each other, Marinette trusts him, even enough to leave him with the kids she was babysitting when she has to slip away to save Paris.

And then on the other side of her family, there's her great-uncle Wang. At first, Marinette doesn't speak Mandarin well, and Wang doesn't speak French well, but both of them make an effort in order to be able to communicate with each other. She helps him as he enters a cooking competition, gets furious on his behalf when his food is sabotaged, and saves him when he's akumatized.

During a special, she goes to stay with him in Shanghai, and his French has improved a lot. She goes missing during this stay, much to his concern. There isn't a lot to say about their relationship, it's just sweet.

It's also mentioned in this special that, apparently, Wang raised Marinette's mother Sabine when she was a girl. It isn't stated why, and we don't know too much about their relationship, but they seem to have a good relationship, as he's both Sabine's uncle and her adoptive father. (Which I guess makes him another grandfather for Marinette,as well as an uncle?)

As you can tell, there's a lot of big families in the Miraculous Ladybug universe. Some

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Anon, I'm so glad to hear from you again! You always make Miraculous sound like such a fascinating show. Wow, I can't believe all of the family relationships, it's so wonderful to have all of that on one show. Poor Adrien's family is so complicated. I love the introduction of Felix into the mix, so many possibilities there.

It looks like the ending of your submission got cut off, but hopefully we got all of the ships. Thanks so much for this great write-up. It certainly makes this look very appealing to fans of incest shipping!

#submission #asks #anonymous #miraculous: tales of ladybug and cat noir #adrien and gabriel #adrien and felix #amelie and felix #juleka and luka #jagged and juleka #emilie and felix #commentary #first post #noiv #nr #tw: incest

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 5 months

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IOTA Reviews: Representation

Oh, so NOW child abuse is bad. Could have fooled me last episode!

Let's get into the twenty-fifth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Representation

We start off with an English news report recapping the ending of “Revolution”, stating that Ms. Bustier is going to run for mayor, conveniently ignoring her attempted coup in “Collusion”. We also see that Gabriel and Tomoe are still uncomfortably focused on making Adrien and Kagami appear to be a couple in public, much to their dismay. While Kagami is visited by Argos (who once again sneaks up on her, like he usually does), Adrien realizes he can transform into his space form and see Marinette whenever he wants and transforms into Cat Noir, planning to reveal his identity to Marinette. Hey, did he even tell Ladybug about his sudden departure? Because it didn't go well the last time he left Paris without telling her (New York Special).

We then cut to Marinette right after the events of “Revolution”, going to the end of the year dance... even though when we saw Adrien and Kagami in London, the sun was still setting, and France's time zone is only about an hour later, meaning Adrien and Kagami must have flown there at ludicrous speed.

Meanwile, Argos and Kagami somehow got from London to Paris offscreen, and watch Marinette from afar, with Kagami revealing she knows she's Ladybug. They decide to tell Marinette that Felix knows who Monarch is in order to ensure his downfall. Nah, I'm just kidding. Here's the real reason they're coming to Marinette for help.

Kagami: My mother and Gabriel Agreste will never allow us to love each other freely. Only Ladybug can help us.

Yep, rather than prioritize the fact that Gabriel is endangering the citizens of Paris on a daily basis, Kagami is seriously more concerned about her relationship with her boyfriend being tampered with. This is like saying Lex Luthor is evil because he cheats on his taxes. Argos transforms back into Felix, and... oh, for the love of God... he disguises himself as Adrien in order to get closer to Marinette. You can't keep portraying Felix as this master of disguise if he only has ONE disguise!

Marinette sees “Adrien” and assumes he came back from London from her, assuming her boyfriend is much more active that the writers actually believe he is, so she tries to follow him while avoiding the guests at the party. Meanwhile, Gabriel and Tomoe learn their children are gone, so he goes to talk with Nathalie and—why the hell is she like that?

Seriously, this has never been established as something that happens when someone uses the broken Peacock Miraculous. Why didn't this happen to Emilie? She looks pretty healthy in her little coffin, and I doubt Gabriel is an embalmer.

Anyway, after Nathalie once again reminds us that she hates Gabriel, but not enough to call the cops on him, Gabriel transforms into Monarch and immediately detransforms back in order to akumatize himself into Nightormentor.

Nightormentor is a pretty average recolor of the Collector's design, which kind of makes sense, considering that Gabriel himself intended the Akuma for himself. The star pattern is okay, but there's not much I can really say. As for his powers, he's just another Sandboy, being able to force people to hallucinate their worse nightmares, only instead of a pillow, his weapon is a staff created from a pen containing the Akuma, with the Horse Miraculous' Voyage to boot. Why he didn't just give himself the same powers he gave Truth when he's trying to find Adrien is anyone's guess.

Cat Noir arrives at the Eiffel Tower to talk with Marinette, just as Nightormentor appears. The two fight, and after a few civilians get caught in the crossfire, Nightormentor escapes through Voyage. As Cat Noir heads to the Dupain-Cheng bakery at the advising of Max, Alya and Nino decide that the totally not useless Resistance should get involved.

While Marinette gives chase, Felix leads her into the school's art classroom, where he transforms into Argos and creates a Sentimonster using Kagami's ring. Felix and Kagami use the Sentimonster's power to do... uh... whatever the hell this is.

Yeah, this is basically a flashback, but the animators probably blew their budget needed for the new models on Ms. Bustier's baby bump, so we're getting this instead, thanks to the Sentimonster Argos created. There are several scenes of Cat Noir and Nightormentor interspersed, but like what I did with Marinette's flashback in “Derision”, I'll give you the summary before I talk about my problems with this.

When Adrien's mother and aunt, Emilie and Amelie, were born, Emilie (who was born seven seconds early) was trusted with the family heirlooms, the two rings we first saw all the way back in “Felix”. Even though this meant she would inherit the family name, Emilie didn't really like doing... whatever the Graham de Vanily family wanted her to do, but Amelie did. Eventually, while studying abroad, Emilie met Gabriel, and the two fell in love. Before marrying Gabriel, Emilie gave up her role as the sole inheritor of the Graham de Vanily family's vague legacy, while Amelie married a man named Colt to please her parents. Both couples wanted children, but it's heavily implied that Emilie and Amelie were infertile, so their wishes weren't able to come true. Emilie finally managed to get a bun in the oven thanks to the Peacock Miraculous, but this made Colt jealous that he couldn't have a child. Out of the goodness of her heart, Emilie asked Gabriel to give the Peacock Miraculous to Colt, in exchange for letting the Gorilla guard Adrien in the future. Using his own jealousy as a source of power, Colt got Amelie pregnant, though at the cost of his health. Colt figured this was the price he had to pay for using “sorcery”, and used this as an excuse to treat Felix like a monster and ordered him around using the ring containing his Amok. Felix himself was unaware that he wasn't human until Colt accidentally broke the ring (which wasn't one of the two wedding rings used to control Adrien and was an entirely different ring containing Felix's Amok), which he stole as soon as Colt died. This is meant to explain why Felix decided to steal back the Peacock Miraculous, in order to save his life. Felix later met Kagami, and the two explain that they need “Someone like Ladybug” to help them.

Now if your only information about this episode is through my summary, it seems simple enough. For everyone else who actually saw this sequence in the episode itself, I'm guessing your thoughts were about the same as mine.

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Let's go over every problem I have with this scene, starting with...

#1: The Way Kagami and Felix Explain This

Let me just ask something: Why can't Felix just talk to Marinette about what he knows since he now knows she's Ladybug instead of telling her everything through this weird play? You can still tell Marinette all of this without your two-man show. In fact, why did Felix have to wait until he knew Marinette was Ladybug instead of just talking to her the next time he saw her? Yeah, you could argue it's easier this way, but like I've been saying since Season 4, Felix has had no excuse to wait this long to tell Ladybug about the fact that he knows who her greatest enemy is.

And why the hell is it presented this way? Why does Felix have to recontextualize the story of his family's history in the form of a play? Why turn it into a stereotypical fairy tale that leaves out the names of all the important people, like Emilie, Amelie, Colt (whose name I only learned through the transcript of this episode), and Gabriel? If it was like a hidden message Felix and Kagami wanted to convey to Marinette, that would make sense, but why do they have to be so cryptic when they're only putting this show on for one person? You could easily avoid a good chunk of the questions this raises if this was a show Felix and Kagami put on for the public that Marinette was able to learn the information from. Yeah, it still wouldn't explain why Felix can't just tell Marinette about who Gabriel really is, but at least it's something.

The way it all happens kind of reminds me of this scene from this old Halloween special I saw a lot as a kid, Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktacular. In that scene, some of the kids act out a scene of this little girl's parents entrusting her with a flashlight to explain why she carries it around, in order to scare off any monsters she runs into, using the graveyard they were in as a makeshift set. This scene works a lot more because it's done in more of a tongue-in-cheek way, with some of the kids breaking character to boost their own egos (for example, the kid playing the mom comments about how responsible she is), and how one kid in particular gradually gets fed up with the whole thing. The scene does its job at delivering exposition in a way that isn't meant to be taken too seriously, and it's clear this is being done by some kids goofing around in-universe.

With this episode, it's clear that the writers want the audience to take this whole backstory seriously in spite of how absurd it all is. Seriously look at this.

We are seriously expected to take this backstory seriously when it looks like some theater major's midterm project. The animators want it to look artsy and unique for the sake of making it look artsy and unique. Why does it look like a play these two put together themselves if they're supposedly using a Sentimonster's power to do it? If the unnamed Sentimonster's powers is how Marinette is seeing all this, why can't it actually be seen as a flashback? Was it always intended to be a handmade play that was changed to the product of a Sentimonster at the last minute?

I get that the animators probably wanted kids to pick up on the visuals of the play, but even then, it makes it hard to really stomach the serious themes this backstory brings up, like infertility and child abuse, with the way they're presented. Not only do Felix and Kagami all play the characters using these white jumpsuits and masks, they also do all the voices, meaning that the only “dialogue” we hear from Colt is delivered by Kagami putting on a deeper voice. Let me repeat that: the only times we hear Colt, the abusive parent and all around garbage human being, talk, it's done by a teenage girl trying to make her voice sound deeper.

But hey, maybe the goofy voice will be overshadowed by the nuanced depiction of child abuse, right? Right?

#2: The Portrayal of Colt and the Double Standards Regarding His Treatment of Felix

I have never seen a single show struggle this much to convey a lesson as simple as “Child abuse is bad”.

When it comes to the parents in this show, terrible parents like Gabriel, Audrey, and Tomoe are almost never held accountable for the way they treated their children. If the writers aren't claiming they really love their children deep down, they're either downplaying how cruel they are at best or playing their behavior for laughs at worst. But here we are, the penultimate episode of the fifth season, and we finally have a parent who is unambiguously treated as a terrible human being with no redeeming qualities... and I still have problems with this.

This flashback really goes out of its way to let the audience that Colt was a real piece of scum in life. He only wanted a child out of jealousy, used his Amok to force Felix to do whatever he wanted, was heavily implied to have physically beat him at times, and blamed him for his poor health on his deathbed when he was the one who wanted to use the Peacock in the first place. Now that I think about it, why did Colt even use the Peacock to create Felix instead of Emelie? Was the episode so determined to paint Colt as a bastard that he wanted to be the one to create Felix himself?

The point I'm trying to make is that the show doesn't really explain why Colt was like this. Why was he such an angry man who treated his only child like crap? I don't know, because all the show's telling me is that he was just a dick. He honestly feels more like a caricature than anything else. He's only as terrible of a person he is in order to make the audience sympathize with Felix. I'm not saying that what Felix went through was okay, but it has the same energy as scenes of Gabriel talking to Emilie's body. It's mostly there to make the audience sympathize with an antagonistic character in spite of all the things they've done.

What's really weird is that even though the whole point of this play is so Felix can tell Marinette Gabriel is Monarch, so what does Colt have to do with this? I'm not saying he's not worth mentioning, but it makes no sense for Felix to tell Marinette about his abusive father before he tells her about Gabriel. It feels more like Felix wants to find a way to excuse his actions before telling Marinette about Gabriel being Monarch. And remember when “Derision” made a big deal about Chloe's terrible parents not excusing her actions? Funny how that conveniently doesn't apply to Felix in this episode.

In fact, let's talk about the elephant in the room: The fact that this episode aired right after “Revolution”, an episode that literally said a character living under an abusive and controlling parent was a fitting punishment for her. HOW THE HELL IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT FROM THAT? If anything, this episode really shows the double standards this show has about child abuse, how the only way your situation can be taken seriously is if you're a “good victim”. Chloe's a “bad victim”, so she doesn't get any sympathy when her mother outright says she's going to take control of her life, yet when Colt actually takes control of Felix's life, we're supposed to sympathize with him now. Why am I supposed to feel bad for Felix now when you just told me I shouldn't feel bad for someone in a similar situation last episode?

In fact, one theory I have about this backstory is that it was intended to kill two birds with one stone, no pun intended. I believe that this episode wasn't just written to give us more insight into who Felix is as a character, but also to show the audience what “real” child abuse is like. As far as the show is concerned with Gabriel, Audrey, and Tomoe? They're not actually abusive parents, Colt is, so you should condemn his actions, and not those three. It's blatant double standards, which is nothing new for this show.

#3: The Way Amelie Just... Lets This All Happen

In my “Derision” review, I discussed how strange it was that so many people in Marinette's life did nothing to help her against Chloe, and the same thing applies here with Amelie.

This episode never really explains where Amelie was when Colt was abusing Felix, much less if she was even aware of it. At least with Marinette's parents, they didn't know because most of Marinette's suffering was at school. Amelie lives with Felix and Colt, so what's her excuse? She seriously didn't overhear Colt yelling at Felix or notice the orders Colt gave Felix? Was she just that ignorant to her child's suffering? Remember, this is supposed to be Felix's good parent.

In fact, does Amelie even know Felix is a Sentimonster? Yeah, “Emotion” established that Amelie knows Felix is Argos, but this episode doesn't really make it clear if she knows Felix is a Sentimonster or not. If it was clear Amelie knew nothing about what Felix really was, it would arguably make things easier to stomach, as she wouldn't know the power Colt had over him.

Instead, even though she's Felix's mother, the show doesn't really explain what she actually did when Colt was making Felix's life a living hell, especially since the flashback says that Amelie was forced to marry Colt, so you can't even say she was blinded by love here. Hell, I'm not even sure if Amelie knew the cause of Colt's untimely passing.

#4:This Doesn’t Really Do Much to Explain Felix’s Actions

Now before you say I'm being insensitive, let me make one thing clear: My issue isn't with the fact that this was done to get the audience to sympathize with Felix. The problem I have is that the backstory doesn't do enough to explain why Felix did the things he did.

Okay, Felix wants the Peacock Miraculous. Understandable, he doesn't want to die, so he has to do morally questionable things to preserve his life like betraying the only person capable of stopping the man who can kill him. What's less understandable is his plan to get the Peacock Miraculous from Gabriel. You'll notice that the backstory didn't mention Felix's first appearance, where he only stole the rings belonging to Amelie's family, and he didn't even think to look for the Peacock. Instead, it cuts from Felix realizing he's a Sentimonster to him striking a deal with Gabriel, not even mentioning that he gave Gabriel back one of the rings as part of the deal, which still makes no sense.

If Felix's goal from the start was to get the Peacock Miraculous, why did he bother stealing all of Marinette's Miraculous as a bargaining chip for the deal instead of the family ring? In fact, why did Felix even steal the ring and wait an entire season to trade it back to Gabriel for the Peacock a season later? And for someone who claims to care about Adrien, he really didn't see anything wrong with giving Gabriel one of the two rings capable of overriding his free will.

As a matter of fact, why the hell is Felix even so hostile towards Adrien? Why did he go out of his way to smear his reputation in his debut episode if all he wanted to do was make a bargain with Hawkmoth? In “Risk”, he mocked Adrien for how he talked, while Adrien himself was aware of how he made him look bad in front of his friends, and that's not even getting into how he made himself look like Adrien as part of his plan to betray Ladybug, which would have screwed him even more if Adrien wasn't already Cat Noir. For someone who claims he wants to protect him from Gabriel, Felix really doesn't care about his cousin all that much.

In fact, why does Felix even hate Gabriel at all? The show hinted that the two had a history, yet during the backstory, which I need to remind you, was told from Felix's perspective on the events, has a surprisingly generous portrayal of Gabriel. Did Felix know Gabriel was Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Monarch during his first appearance? Does Felix blame Gabriel for how Colt treated him growing up? Does Felix hate Gabriel for how he treats Adrien? Did Gabriel intend to get Colt sick in the first place? Seriously, what is Felix's deal with Gabriel?!

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How does a flashback organized by Felix himself do nothing to really explain why he did the things he did?

#5: The Fact That There Are STILL Several Unanswered Questions Here

For something meant to fill the audience in on several important topics, there are still so many questions about the history of the Agreste and Graham de Vanily families.

Other than the vague backstory about them being rich, we still know nothing about Emilie and Amelie other than them being rich and possibly infertile. We don't know if Amelie ever loved Colt, if she knew he was abusing Felix, or if she even knew if he used the Peacock to play god.

On a related note, why did Emilie and Gabriel decide to use the Peacock Miraculous to create a son instead of adopting? Scratch that, why did she specifically create a Sentimonster to give birth to like a normal baby? Was there some kind of Macbeth-esque guideline that Emilie had to give birth to a child in order for said child to get the inheritance? Did she use the ring to control Adrien like Gabriel does now? Seriously, this is the character the show's conflict is all based around, and we still know nothing about her other than the fact that she was nice.

This flashback just makes no sense, and is such a stupid and confusing way to deliver exposition.

Anyway, during all this, Cat Noir and Nightormentor are fighting, and for the third time this season, Cat Noir attempts to Cataclysm him someone, even when he had Nightormentor pinned down. Nightormentor breaks free and hits Cat Noir with his magic dust, causing him to hallucinate... Cat Blanc?

Yeah, the script calls this form “Anticat”, but given how it looks like a reused Cat Blanc model coupled with the petrified people of Paris, this is clearly meant to bring Cat Blanc to mind. The problem is that NEITHER CAT NOIR OR NIGHTORMENTOR KNOW ABOUT THAT. Why would you remind audiences about an Akuma that technically never existed?

Better yet, is this what Cat Noir trying to his Cataclysm on people this past season (Destruction, Jubilation, Derision) has been building up to? The fear that he'll lose control? You could have fooled me, as he never really showed that much remorse for almost hurting people other than Monarch. Yeah, you could argue that because Nightormentor based his hallucinations off his victims' worst fears, but again, this fear had little to no buildup this season because Cat Noir never felt any guilt for Cataclysming Monarch after “Destruction”, and whenever tried to use his Cataclysm on other people, Cat Noir never really realized the weight of his actions. If you want to make a character arc about Cat Noir worrying about hurting people with his powers, go more into the guilt he feels for hurting Monarch and using that guilt to affect his actions. Don't just use some “Cat Blanc” nostalgia bait to convince the audience that there's been a character arc.

Nightormentor takes advantage of Cat Noir's emotional state to get his Miraculous, only for the Resistance to save Cat Noir by... throwing stuff at him. And this is how they defeat him. While Nino, Alya, Ivan, and Zoe distract Nightormentor, Kim and Max help Cat Noir focus, Cat Noir Cataclysms Nightormentor's baton.

Zoe traps the Akuma in a jar, Cat Noir doesn't take it, he heads off to detransform and confess to Marinette, only for the hallucination to still affect him since Ladybug didn't use Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage, and even though he knows it's just a hallucination, he still uses it as a reason to not reveal his identity to Marinette, even after Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma herself.

The episode ends with Gabriel and Tomoe locking Adrien and Kagami in these white rooms while under heavy surveillance to ensure they won't escape, vowing to start “Operation: Perfect Alliance”. Because these two like using the word “perfect” more than they like subjecting their children to what one of my anons referred to as “white torture”.

Because that's a good way to keep your children under control: psychological torment.

Other than the stuff with Felix and Kagami, this episode was pretty dull.

There's just not much I can really say here. The plot was barebones, all Marinette did was listen to Felix and Kagami's story so the writers didn't have to involve any of them in the main conflict, and even Cat Noir confronting his akumatized father doesn't have a lot of weight to it because towards the end, it focuses more on Adrien's nightmare instead of his relationship with his father.

This episode is nothing more than a prologue for the final battle. It's only here to establish Adrien and Kagami's presence in London, Marinette learning Gabriel is Monarch, and even more setup for Gabriel and Tomoe's final plan. And trust me, the buildup will be far from worth it.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... FELIX

It's amazing. The only time this season Felix goes out of his way to actually help Ladybug, and he still screws it up. He abducted Kagami from her hotel in London without thinking of Tomoe hunting him down again when that was the entire plot of “Pretension”, only decided to tell Marinette he knows who Monarch is because he's getting in the way of his relationship with his girlfriend, did so in an unnecessarily convoluted way, and even though he made a big deal about not wanting to use Sentimonsters in his last appearance, he still used one to tell Marinette his life story instead of just saying “My uncle is Monarch”.

And if you think Felix will get a chance to truly redeem himself in the finale, think again, bucko. Other than a brief cameo, this is the last thing he'll do this season. Aren't you glad the writers made this character prominent for seven episodes over three seasons and did nothing else with him?

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