It's weird to expect lb to be able to read cn mind and called her a bad partner for it. But it's even weirder for lb to ignore cn WHEN HES OBVIOUSLY IN DISTRESS and not called her a bad partner for it because I think called her a bad partner for ignoring it is understandable and justified especially since she consider herself as his boss.

Every time I bring up this conflict, I try to make it clear that I don't think Ladybug was blameless, I just think Chat Noir's writing was worse. Let's walk through the problem to show what I mean.

Season four stars with Marinette extremely stressed by her new Guardian status. In Truth and Lies, the first episodes of the season, we get this:

Ladybug: Will you cut it out with the practical jokes? I could have really hurt you! Cat Noir:(answering while hanging by the yo-yo) M'lady, the only thing that really hurts me is when you make me go on patrol by myself. (sighs, relaxing his posture) I even missed your little angry pout. Ladybug: Sorry, Kitty Cat, I'm a bit over my head at the moment. (pulling him up) Cat Noir: I bet! "Guardian of the Miraculous", big name, big responsibility!

This is also the start to Chat Noir communicating poorly. In this episode, he's straight up told that Ladybug is in over her head and he never once asks how he can help. In fact, we even get him saying this when asked how he feels about the change:

Truth: Cat Noir, tell me what- (interupted by Ladybug throwing a present at Truth) Ladybug: (covering her parasol with foil) ...do you think about my new role as guardian! Cat Noir: If it doesn't change things between us, then I'm good with it!

So not a great start to the season. I know people focused on Adrien's terrible treatment of Kagami in these episodes, but this Ladynoir dynamic was actually what rang alarm bells for me. I kept waiting for Chat Noir to offer his support since it was really, really obvious that Ladybug was in over her head since she was late to patrols, the last season literally ended with her losing her mentor figure, and, you know, she straight up told him that was what was going on?

The next episode is Gang of Secrets in which we see Marinette out her identity to Alya. I get why she did this, she needed support and her partner doesn't seem interested in giving it, but she can't say that for certain because she never asked him directly and she should have. Trusting Chat Noir over Alya would have allowed Ladynette to maintain the security of her secret identity - a thing she claimed was more important than ever - and to honor their partnership. At the very least, she should have told Chat Noir that Rena Rouge was now a full time holder so that he could account for that in battle and to minimize the fallout by owning up to her mistake asap. The longer a lie goes on, the worse the truth will hurt.

To Ladybug's credit, she does eventually acknowledge her mistake after the Scarabella incident:

Ladybug: You... must've been pretty surprised to discover there was another holder! (Silence. She sits beside Cat Noir.) Ladybug: I'm really sorry, Cat Noir. I should've told you. I mean, if I found out that you told someone about your secret identity, I'd... probably be upset, too. I'm really sorry I hurt your feelings.

This is a decent apology. She doesn't try to absolve herself of wrong doing. Instead, she acknowledges that what she did would hurt her, too, if the shoe were on the other foot. The only thing she loses points on is the fact that she doesn't tell him about Rena Furtive.

However, instead of agreeing with her and telling her that she has hurt him, Chat Noir says that she did nothing wrong and never once brings up how their weakened partnership is bothering him:

Cat Noir: You didn't hurt my feelings. You did everything right. Paris will always need a Ladybug superhero to watch over her. It's just... I realized that if one day that hero wasn't you, m'lady, since we don't know each other's identities, that means... I'd never see you again. Ever. And now, I just don't know if I can bear it.

This is the thing that I hate about this arc. The reason why I say Ladybug is blamed for not reading his mind. Especially because, three episodes later, we get Rocketear, which gives us this:

Cat Noir: Everyone has doubts now and then, (looks down) even me... Ladybug: Is everything okay, Cat Noir? Cat Noir: Yeah, yeah. (prepare his fist) Pound it! Ladybug: (fistbumps) Pound it!

Rocketear is the episode where Nino outs that he and Alya know each other's identities while acting like Ladybug said identities weren't a big deal even though that is very much not what happened. You'd think that Chat Noir would want to know the full story, but instead he just lies and says that everything is fine.

So we have two situations where the show allowed Ladybug to give Chat Noir a chance for clear and open communication and both times he turns her down.

What's worse is that he clearly starts making up stories in his head, leading to Kuro Neko, which starts with Adrien avoiding a fight on purpose as some sort of shit test. He then gets upset when Ladybug... doesn't lament his absence on national TV?

Clara: (from TV) By the way, where's Cat Noir? You've saved Paris without him quite a few times recently. Are you two at odds with each other? Carapace, Pegasus, Vesperia and Pigella: (from TV) Pound it! Ladybug: (from TV) Of course not, it's just that... umm, he's a partner like any other! The most important is to pick the best superheroes for each mission, with or without Cat Noir. No matter what, we've got a great team and we'll always be here to save Paris. (Adrien is shocked.) Adrien: (turns off the TV and sighs) "A partner like any other..."

Dude, what did you want her to do here? Complain that you flaked on her? Make Paris feel less safe by saying she doesn't know where you are? Imply that the fight was barely won without you? What are you doing? Plagg, you are completely failing as a mentor right now.

The shit test continues as Chat Noir goes to meet up with Ladybug now that the battle is over, arriving just as Ladybug has finished instructing the team on what to do:

Ladybug: Come on, guys! Hurry up before you all detransform. I'll meet you at rendezvous points. (The heroes jump away in different directions, and Ladybug starts typing something on her Yo-yo.) Cat Noir: Hey! Meow are you, m'lady? Ladybug: Great, thanks, but I gotta go retrieve all these Miraculous. Cat Noir: I could lend you a paw to help save time. Ladybug: Thanks, kitty cat, but it's a guardian's job to do it. Cat Noir: I know who some of them are, remember? I was there when you first gave them their Miraculous! Ladybug: You don't even know where their rendezvous points are, I don't have time to— Cat Noir: Playing cat and mouse is my forte, you know— Ladybug: (yelling) If you wanna save me time, stop wasting it in the first place! (Cat Noir gasps. As Ladybug swings away, Cat Noir clenches his fist.) Cat Noir: And take my Miraculous back when you're done!

So Ladybug doesn't publicly chastise Chat Noir for missing the battle and rejects an offer to help because of very legitimate timing concerns, leading to Chat Noir quitting because she failed his stupid, petty, childish tests. Realistic writing? Yes. Writing that paints Ladybug as the one in the wrong? No.

Going into this episode, Ladybug has no idea that things are messed up between them even though she has actually kept communication lines open. She asks him if things are okay, but he lies. And when he's ready to quit? He plays stupid games and wins a stupid prize. It's really not shocking that the next scene sees Ladybug totally baffled by what just happened:

Plagg: For a while now, you've been neglecting this camembert— I mean Cat Noir, and going on adventures with the all other cheeses! Ladybug: But he should be happy about it, it gives him more time off. Plagg: Cat Noir doesn't wanna have time off, Ladybug! He is in love with you! And your persistent calling on all the other heroes has broken his heart.

And how is she supposed to know that, Plagg? Was she supposed to assume that her partner was lying when he said he was fine? Because she did ask and he said that nothing was wrong. But something was wrong and it lead him to build up a story in his head, reading nonexistent intent into her actions, all of which is toxic and unhealthy communication.

I cannot stress how common this shit is. I've seen it so many times and I will own that I've done it in the past and wound up getting no support when I needed it because I'd directly told people I didn't and they committed the heinous crime of... believing me.

Here's the other thing, there are times when I'm in distress and legitimately don't want or need help. Times when I just need to be alone for a bit. So if someone asks me if I'm okay during those times, I'm probably just going to say, "Yeah, I just need a people break" or something like that. That's why the Scarabella scene is so bad. Ladybug can see that Chat Noir is in distress and he gives her a fully plausible answer: I'm not upset with you, I'm just saddened by the idea of losing you. And she believes him because why wouldn't she?

Same goes for Rocketear. It's reasonable for Ladybug to assume that Chat Noir is just shaken by the fight. She has no idea about the bombshell that Nino dropped right before the fight. She doesn't even know that Nino and Chat Noir are actually close friends, making this fight a lot more devastating than it looks at face value. Her actions here are not objectively wrong. They're only wrong if you know the whole story, including Adrien's needs. Things that she cannot know unless Chat Noir uses his words to tell her things.

I cannot over stress how much season four is a textbook example of denying yourself support because you cannot communicate your own needs. Is it an understandable character flaw for a character with Adrien's background to have? Yes. Absolutely. 100%. But it's still a character flaw. This season desperately needed an arc about Adrien learning to tell people what's wrong. Not because he's the only one in the wrong here, but because things cannot get better when Ladybug has no idea that she's hurting him. (Nino has no idea either, but let's keep our focus on Ladybug.)

One of the most important things you can do for your own mental well being is to dismiss the idea that your needs are the same as everyone else's. Everyone needs different amounts of attention and values different behavior based on things like their upbringing and life events.

I get the feeling that I'm wired pretty similar to Marinette. At least, it influences how I write her because I can go months without talking to my best friends and still call them my best friends, a trait we all share because two of use are artsy introverts and two of us are moms to young kids, which allows for very little free time. Meanwhile, my SO and his best friend spend hours on the phone almost every week. I swear that those two go into withdrawal if they don't talk at least once every seven days. If months went by without them talking? Something would be very wrong, but the exact same time gap isn't even remotely concerning when it comes to my friends. It's something my SO and I had to figure out when we got together because I need a lot less attention than he does. But we communicated and found a balance that we continue to work to communicate about so that he doesn't feel neglected and I don't feel overwhelmed by too little me time.

What I'm trying to say is Marinette wasn't horribly wrong for assuming that Chat Noir was telling her the truth or that he liked having a larger team so he had less responsibility. Those are reasonable assumptions. Especially since he never actually indicated that he wanted more responsibility until he was ready to quit and decided to shit test her by pushing for more to do when she was stressed and on a timer.

I do think that she should have offered it to him before that or - at the very least - the show should have clearly stated why she didn't do that since it apparently had nothing to do with Chat Blanc trauma like we all thought it did. I'm not saying that she's blameless or perfect or that there weren't things she could have done better. It's just really hard for me to look at Chat Noir's behavior in season four and go, "Oh yeah, he's the injured party here. Ladybug holds all the blame and did everything wrong." She did many things wrong, but generally speaking, she owned her faults and tried to keep communication channels open. Chat Noir chose to ignore those chances to talk or otherwise try to express his needs in a clear and understandable manner.

We'll end with one final point to drive this home: You said that she's his boss. Well, if my boss asked me, "is everything okay with the project?" and I said, "yes" while freaking out about the upcoming deadline that I'm probably going to miss because he's given me too much work, the issue is not all on my boss. It's on both of us. Him for overloading me and me for not telling him I'm overloaded. You could even argue that it's mostly on me because I'm the only one who can properly gauge my own ability to do a given workload. As soon as it was too much, I should have said something. And if I don't feel like my boss is approachable? Then I should quit. But that isn't the situation I'm in and it doesn't appear to be the one that Chat Noir was in, either. He wanted to stay part of the team, he just totally failed to tell Ladybug how being on the team was making him feel.

People magically knowing what you need and how you feel is a myth. I promise you, most people in this world do not want to cause you pain, but if you cannot clearly express when someone is causing you pain, then you will continue to get hurt by people who would be very happy to not hurt you if they actually knew that their actions were causing you pain.

The Lila Alliance AU

Remember the alliance ring Sabine wanted to give Marinette in Jubilation? The one with the Lila avatar?

I swear it would have been interesting to see Marinette interact with the fake Lila.

Frankly, the only reasons she would not take the al Adrien is because she would never get anything done if he was her avatar, as she would drool over him all day probably and wouldn't want any more teasing of her crush on him via having him at all times in her ring.

Even when saying that it does sounds far-fetched, like a lot, too, but still, just for this, hear this out, if people can make Lila become Marinette's best friend in salt fics over the rest of the class who go too far in their behavior of not siding with Marinette over Lila, then this concept should be easier to accept.

With the Lila avatar, some light revenge through it sounds fun.

She can make her wear some ridiculous costumes, could probably make her call "Your queen" or something else ridiculous, heck she could probably get the Lila al to get her name changed to Super Liar or something, and get her to say a lot of stupid stuff. Maybe she could even design some ridiculous outfits for her to wear, like that banana man costume, and the virtual Lila would still wear it with a smile on her face.

Point is, Marinette get some fun out of humiliating the virtual Lila as she can't do anything against the real one for now.

This would be her therapy. And revenge, don't forget the revenge.

Of course, the fake Lila doesn't mind or notice that it is wrong, she's an al and doesn't have feelings nor is affected by the real Lila's hatred of Marinette in the show.

The fake Lila is nice and takes it all graciously, to her, her owner has a lot of free time on her hands to come up with all of this stuff. She's not there to judge.

It makes Marinette angrier because the fake Lila is basically the ideal image of what the real Lila likes to pretend to be normally.

It somehow makes Marinette sad that she can only like a fake Lila who's not at all who she knows, just like everyone else on the show who thinks Lila is actually as nice as her al.

The irony is not lost at all here.

Cherry on the cake, the real Lila is not aware of this at all.

And yes of course, Marinette takes the ring off when she transforms into Ladybug, she tries to leave it in her room, her locker at school, or with Alya when she can, or if not, in the first dumpster that she can find because no one would bother to think that someone would throw away an alliance ring in the trash, even less getting the trash picked up while there's an akuma attack.

Marinette gets to humiliate Lila in a way that doesn't affect neither of them, nor actually hurt anyone's feelings, as the al Lila doesn't care at all, she's not programmed to.

And no one else actually knows about it, except of course Tikki.

That would be the only Pettinette/Saltinette that I would accept in any form to be honest. Or the Marinette salt taken in some funny and unorthodox way that somehow works without making her look like a jerk in front of anyone or hurt anyone's feelings and it all works out and you can actually laugh about it without feeling horrible about it.

It's really some mindless fun and revenge but not actually taken on the actual person, just a virtual copy of themselves.

Like, you play the sims, make a character based on someone you hate, and you make them do stupid stuff, without hurting for real the actual person.

Again, the real Lila isn't hurt at all in this, as her avatar who is with Marinette is the only one who gets humiliated, except given it's a program, of course she has no feelings or opinions or shame, so it works for Marinette who doesn't get flak for being on the real Lila's case when she's doing stuff to her al, which is entirely legal given said virtual Lila is a virtual paper doll that can be dressed in all kinds of different and maybe some funny costumes and can be customized to say all the weird stuff of the earth, so the joke would be on the developers who didn't think this through more, not on Marinette, nor really Lila.

Submitted prompt: This Series Needs An Adult

Edit: The prompt has been edited to fix a misunderstanding, Lila's dad is meant to be an Arab man, not black, I relied only on a quick google-image search to figure out where Maghreb was, and assumed that because it was in northern Africa that it meant he was black. This is 100% my mistake, and I apologize again, it won't happen again!

AU on many fronts, including Lila being mixed-race and having a dad that’s in the picture.

Edited a lot so it doesn't break the rules: No downplaying or defending Lila's lying, including by saying she can't help it. If you want her lying to not be a bad thing, then it can just be an AU where she doesn't go around manipulating people in the first place.

And since this is an AU where she has a parent in the picture who's not as neglectful as her mom is in canon, and actively cares for her she'd be a lot less likely to be a compulsive liar because she wouldn't be constantly starved for attention/affection. Also edited to add more details.

I named Lila's dad Mir as a placeholder name since just calling him "Lila's dad" is a bit of a mouthful when he's pretty much our perspective character. Feel free to change it.

-

Lila's dad is an archaeologist who knows what the Cat Miraculous looks like from ancient depictions of it, and he's great at spotting liars. And so one day when he's giving a presentation at Bring Your Parent to School day, he sees firsthand the way Adrien defends Chloe when she's openly and blatantly racist towards the other children, and even their parents. Marinette, Alya, Nino, Kim, Max, and Kagami and their parents are all targets of her racism, along with Mir and his daughter.

And to Mir's horror...Mrs. Bustier stands there with a stupid smile on her face, and does nothing, says nothing, doesn't do anything to stop her student from being horrifically racist.

None of the stories Lila had ever told him about her school ever included the fact that the teacher stood by and did nothing. He's assumed that Chloe was at least being punished for her misconduct, but now...now he sees that that assumption was giving too much credit where it wasn't due. Ms. Bustier does nothing, remains silent--

Until Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Alya Cesaire confront Chloe, telling her to knock off her racist comments. Then Ms. Bustier loses her gentle smile, and instead turns it into a frown, and scolds the two children for standing up for themselves, their friends, and their families.

And Mir gets to see firsthand how Adrien Agreste comes to Chloe Bourgeois' defense, even with all of the other students and all but one of the adults in the class arrayed against her.

The injustice of it all causes one of the other parents and their child to be Akumatized when they storm out of the classroom together, and in the ensuing chaos, Mir notices very quickly the way Adrien Agreste makes his excuses to leave the classroom to hide elswhere, even though the Akumas had already broken in to kidnap Chloe and had left.

As the kid is gesturing, Mir gets a very good look at the ring he's wearing, and recognizes it instantly, with a pit of shock opening in his stomach. He's stared at this thing's likeness countless times, he knows it like the back of his hand. It can't be possible--but it is all too possible, and now that he's seen both side of the mask, it's clear that the behavior matches up.

Adrien Agreste, the billionaire white boy who defends his billionaire white girl friends' abject racism, is the same white boy known as Chat Noir, who's been sexually harassing Ladybug, the real hero, since day one, his behavior escalating to new levels of horrible every week that went by, until now several times he'd been caught on camera trying to get people Akumatized by playing off their fears and angers.

It all makes perfect sense. Too much sense. He thought he was seeing red before, now he's more angry than he's ever felt in his life.

His only sensible course of action?

Follow Adrien as he leaves, take the damned sacred ring before Adrien can use it to transform, and go to the fight himself, leaving Adrien safely in the school with the rest of the civilians. Adrien tries to put up a fight, of course, but he’s just a kid, and Mir shrugs it off, then gives him a push back towards the classroom with a single command: “Go hide with the others. Your job here is done.”

He puts the ring on as Adrien continues to protest, and Plagg, asks one one question: “You’re here to help?”

“I’m here to help.” Mir replies.

“Then say ‘Plagg, claws out’!” Plagg commands, and Mir obeys.

They transform, and Mir and Plagg again order Adrien back to safety, then they leave out the window, ready to join the fight.

And that's how Marinette Dupain-Cheng ends up with Lila's dad joining her in the fight to rescue her friend and their family, and after the fight’s over, they meet up again for patrol that night, and－feeling she can trust him because of his actions earlier in the day－Marinette tells him just how much harassment, touching, kissing, unwanted advances, etc. she's had to deal with from Chat Noir. She finally breaks down crying at the end, too overcome with the emotions.

And Mir makes the executive decision that while he may not be what people imagine when they picture a superhero - he's in his fifties, he's a coffee addict, he's an academic not a fighter, and he’s an Arab man - he'll be happy to be Ladybug's sidekick until they can take down Hawkmoth if it means she never has to put up with someone creeping on her again. He’s not going to trust anyone else with helping this girl. He’d originally planned to give her the ring, so she could find someone to help her, but that just flew out the window along with his ability to care about how being a superhero is going to completely destroy his research schedule. 

He gives her a shoulder to cry on, and tells her, "I have a daughter. If anyone treated her like this boy treats you, I would get akumatized and I don't want to know what I would do next."

Thus begin the adventures of Ladybug and Nightcat, or, as Alya immediately dubs him on the Ladyblog, Dadcat. Because it's high time Marinette has an adult figure in her life who:

A) knows about her being Ladybug (which disqualifies her parents, unfortunately)

B) doesn't validate Chat Noir’s harassment towards her. 

And now, if Adrien wants to get to her again, he's gotta go through a superhero who’s hellbent on never letting that happen. 

Fights go a lot smoother with someone around who takes them seriously, not to mention with someone who is actually committed to fighting Hawkmoth to the point where he's trying to figure out the man's identity during their downtime like Adrien should have been doing for four seasons, and actively hindered when he lied to Marinette about finding the Grimoir in his father’s office.

In the end it turns out that with a partner who actually does his half of the work, Ladybug and Nightcat are able to take down Hawkmoth in a matter of a month and a half flat, and when that's settled, Mir gives her the Cat Miraculous with Plagg’s blessing. From now on, she can decide who she wants to work with, and if she ever needs him again, well, he had to detransform to give her the Miraculous, so she knows where to find him.

Marinette admits she's not sure if she wants to keep being Ladybug, and he tells her he supports her no matter what, because that should be her choice, too. Her consent matters, in all things.

"Chat Noir never told me that." She says.

"Chat Noir never told you that because he never believed it. Find people who do, and hang out with them instead."

-===================

Then and only then does he finally contact Adrien Agreste via email, now that he finally has time and energy to give him a piece of his mind.

He starts by telling Adrien that he and Chloe are both racist jerks, and that chloe who has absolutely made comments about Lila's skintone that Mir, a Maghrebi-French man, finds abhorently offensive and no, Chloe being Adrien’s friend does not excuse her racism, Adrien, or yours by defending her. No, it's not okay for Chloe to be racist to someone just because she doesn’t like her. The reason she doesn’t like Lila is that Chloe’s racist. This is not a difficult concept. Any comments Lila’s made back do not excuse racism. Nothing does.

Secondly, goofing around, making puns, laughing and acting like a six year old at play when akumas attack? Are you serious, young man?! People died! Too many people to count had gotten seriously hurt! No, it doesn't matter that it got fixed by magic once the fight was over, the whole experience was still traumatic, and it's disgusting that Adrien ever thought it was okay to endanger the public like this, what the actual hell was he thinking? Did he have any idea how much psychological damage he’d done to the people of this city?

Thirdly, Ladybug had clearly not been faring well with the stress of being a hero, and if Adrien couldn’t grow up for the sake of the people of Paris, couldn’t he at least act like a reasonable human being for her sake? No? He were too busy hitting on her, to the point where the people of Paris had noticed and discussions of his sexual harassment were rampant on social media? Gross. Despicable. Not how anyone should ever behave, let alone a superhero.

Fourthly, Hawkmoth had still been running around undefeated for months under Adrien’s reign as Chat Noir, thanks majorly in part to Adrien’s harassment of Ladybug, his refusal to take the fights seriously, and his directly aiding the villain by antagonizing people to the point of Akumatization.

That was why Mir had taken the Ring of the Black Cat away from him － because wearing it meant accepting a responsibility, and Adrien had refused to uphold that responsability.

Mir loves Lila, and now he loves Ladybug too like a second daughter, but unlike some people, his love translates into doing something to make the city safe for his loved ones to live in, rather than tormenting them for his own pleasure.

He ends the conversation with one scathing final comment:

(But I suppose, if you did stop the great evil, then there would have been no reason for Ladybug to continue putting up with your horrible behavior, would there have been? I wonder if that's the real reason the situation had been allowed to go on for so long.")

Why are there people who dislike Adrien?

I did an analysis on this about Marinette *rolls up sleeves* now it’s time to do one about Adrien. Both points of view deserve to be analyzed.

If you dislike Adrien's character -

It can be considered missandry if you think he's weak or just dislike him because he's a boy.

But again, like I wrote in Marinette's analysis, it's not missandry if you don't like his personality or things he does. It's just judging bad writing.

Like Marinette, Adrien is by no means a perfect character. But, also similar to Marinette, he's multi-talented - gets good grades, knows Chinese, is really good at fencing, is a super model, and saves Paris. That's a lot for the average person to handle, and he was able to do it all up until season 4, in Ephemeral, when Gabriel forces him to take on the press conference. He also starts having breakdowns, depressive episodes, and uncontrollable anger.

His lack of communication skills is also definitely something that people don't appreciate. He doesn't tell Ladybug about his feelings and instead just destroys things (scary, I know). But, Ladybug is also bad at communicating - this isn't a one way street.

Chat Noir knows Ladybug is dealing with a lot of heavy stress and that's most likely the biggest reason why he struggles to have a serious talk with her. They both drifted for their lack of communication with each other, and both of them need to fix this.

Adrien is also very impulsive when he's Chat Noir. I don't have to explain it again, there's the constant flirting. But there's also him jumping off of buildings, sacrificing himself to akumatized villains, destroying things etc. which drives Ladybug up a wall and makes her worry for his life. He's made out to be scary, it's kinda demonizing his character. People don’t have to like or tolerate impulsive behavior - it’s unpredictable.

That's the whole thing with Adrien. His behavior and personality jumps around a whole lot because his sense-of-self is poor. A lot of people struggle to understand why he feels this need to change his behavior all the time and please people. But it definitely comes from loads of self-doubt and not getting to explore himself as a person. I do see how it could be irritating to keep up with someone who doesn’t have a very consistent behavior or personality.

Adrien is of course accountable for the things he does. However, the difference between him and Marinette is that he's not a Marty Stu because he suffers consequences.

Adrien gets a lot of harsh consequences for his actions. For instance, Ladybug has gotten very, very upset with him on numerous occasions for his impulsive behavior. She has no shame in yelling and telling him what he's doing is not okay.

Additionally, I've also seen people ask why Adrien doesn't stand up to his father. Well, whether he's a senti-monster or not, he's been through a lot of abuse that makes it difficult for him to do that. I think that's also something that's misunderstood. Kagami called him out for it because he lets people control him like a puppet, so it makes sense why it's frustrating, but understand that it's certainly not going to be easy for him.

If you think Marinette's actions are excusable but Adrien's aren't -

That can be missandry because you're seeing the female as stronger than the male. But, it mainly seems to be a misunderstanding as to why Adrien acts the way he does.

Again, like I said in my Marinette post, they're both to blame. Not one over the other.

The most common thing I've seen people get on Adrien's case about is his constant flirting with Ladybug. She tells him no but he still has a lot of faith that she'll eventually come around. Consent is a thing and he's taken his flirtatious behavior a bit too far at times. Luckily, in season 4, he's dialed it down, but again, I do understand why so many people don't tolerate this sort of behavior - you shouldn't. Especially, if you've had to deal with this yourself, it absolutely makes sense.

With that being said, he's got his own obsession with Ladybug (like Marinette does with Adrien) between the flirting, gallery of pictures of her on his phone, and doing internet research to figure out her identity. I think what bothers me is there's no blatant reason why they both obsess over each other to an extreme point. Adrien was kind to Marinette and went out of his way to explain what happened with the chewing gum on her seat. And, Ladybug is an intelligent and powerful hero who was happy to partner with Chat Noir.

But, why did extreme obsessions develop from that? I think the one reason is that they're silly 14-year-olds who are infatuated with each other and over-fantasize them - despite who they really are deep down. They find each other dreamy and get these ideas of them that aren't necessarily there. But, the heavy amount of flirting and stalking isn't acceptable, no matter how you look at it.

Adrien has said a few times that her friendship is all that really matters, but then goes right back to flirting with her as if he had no realization. Bad kitty.

Because of his crush on her and lack of support from his own family and friends, he really clings onto Ladybug. Some people don't tolerate clinginess and don't think it's valid, which is another reason why there are people who dislike Adrien.

And, I get it, it can feel very annoying and burdening to deal with someone who's clingy. Adrien should find someone he can confide in, but he does struggle to open up because of how sheltered he is, plus he's gotten shat on by his father, Nino, and Kagami for his behavior.

My conclusion

Both characters need to be written as equals and people could try to gain a better understanding of Adrien's character. There are a lot of posts analyzing his character because there are so many implications as to why he acts the way he does. Also, his situation hasn’t been improving, the boy deals with an awful lot.

I understand if you like Marinette better, but don't hate on people for liking Adrien unless they're being legitimately misogynistic. We need to stop bashing other people for liking who they like. That's my reason for writing these posts - there's valid reasons backing up why you may not like either of them.

Thank you for reading.

So, Guardian Chloe au:

For this au, Marianne and Fu either reconnected years earlier than in cannon, or never separated in the first place. With someone around for Fu to rely on (and to help him realize when hes moving from 'cautious' to 'paranoid'), he's more comfortable bringing more people into helping with the Miraculous stuff, and bc of that he's keeping an eye out not only for potential Black Cat and Ladybug weilders, but for a potential successor as well, who wouldn't be fighting on the front lines every single time if/when whoever has the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous decides to start supervillain-ing.

Chloe is on the pretty short list of potential weilders and successors bc of her strong innate Magic that's compatible with most if not all of the Miraculous in the box Fu has, but since she's pre-cannon/S1 levels of character development, she's pretty low on the list. Then Origins happens, and when Fu is on his way to test Marinette and Adrien, his shoe breaks and he winds up tripping into the road as a car is coming for real. Luckily for him, he's pulled out of harm's way by none other than Chloe, who decided to walk to school that day in the hopes she would run into Adrien bc she knew he was going to try to get to school that day. She shows genuine concern for his wellbeing before getting back into her whole 'trying to be Audrey Jr to try and earn her mother's love' routine, but before she leaves she gives him some money to 'buy some not completely ugly shoes' and definitely not bc she doesn't want an old man with a cane to trip and hurt himself walking around with a broken sandal.

This brief interaction leads to Fu reconsidering Chloe as an option. He still gives Mari and Adrien the Ladybug and Black Cat respectively, but he starts looking into Chloe more, to try and see if the cracks in her act he saw were a fluke or if she would be a genuinely good Guardian, doing the same sort of background checking that he did with Marinette and Adrien.

And as for Chloe, her run-in with Stoneheart (especially the part when she was thrown off the side of the Eiffel Tower) and Hawkmoths reveal lead to her coming to the conclusion that purposefully upsetting people while a magic terrorist who uses negative emotions to turn people into supervillains is basically painting a target on her back. She starts on the road to redemption, moreso as a method of self-preservation at first, but as time goes on, and with some help from Ms Bustier (and maybe a classmate or two who've noticed her change in behavior and after finding what Chloe's doing offer to help with things like how to give complements without making them sound backhanded, little things like that that make a difference overall) Chloe starts changing for the better, and she realizes that she likes the way things are changing.

Fu and Marianne are seeing all of this from the sidelines, and also see her helping out with a few Akumas she's been caught up with. After Princess Fragrance happens (without Chloe tearing up Rose's letter of course) and the really close call of Tikki being sick and Chat getting mind-controlled without backup, Fu decides it's time to reach out to Chloe and start training her. The next Saturday, Chloe wakes up and finds a box in her bed that wasn't there the night before, and opens it to find the Fox Miraculous (picked that one since it's one that can be used from the sidelines instead of one that requires being super hands on) and Trixx gives a brief explanation about what the Fox Miraculous can do, and tells her that the Guardian of the Miraculous wants to meet her at the top of the Eiffel Tower later that night.

Chloe transforms and meets a transformed Fu at the right time and place, and he gives her a brief explanation about how he's the Guardian of the last Miracle Box, and that he wants to start training her as the next Guardian since he isn't going to be around forever. Chloe asks why he picked her of all people, bc she knows that she isn't a very good person, and Fu tells her that it's partially bc of her natural Magic, but in large part bc he can see her potential to be a great Guardian and a great person.

Chloe accepts, they set up a schedule where she visits Fu's massage parlor. Since Fu is still a bit hesitant about letting Hawkmoth know there are more Miraculous in Paris, Chloe hasn't participated in any Akuma battles or even revealed herself to LB and CN yet. Until the day one Lila Rossi joins Ms Bustiers class, and Adrien comes to school with the Grimore.

I haven't puzzled out exactly how thing go exactly, but Volpina ends with all three heroes becoming aware of Fu, and with Chloe (who I really need to figure out a Fox hero name for) becoming an active player in Akuma battles.

That's all I've got settled on for now, aside from some small details later on, like Trixx relentlessly pranking Audrey after Style Queen and all that, an couple concept sketches for Chloe's Fox hero outfit, but other than that I'm still plotting things out bc I'm hoping that this is the idea that helps me break through my writers block and I'm hoping getting a rough draft planned out will help me stuck with it.

....goddamn that got long.

Oh beautiful!

Also I offer Vixen for Fox!Chloé.

Feligami feels

Somehow I feel the Feligami in the show sounds almost believable in retrospections. Felix explaining himself to Kagami, Kagami immediatly getting he sucks even more at social connections than herself, still getting where he's coming from, with her mother proving his point a bit. She accepts it and take his side, and even defends him from the heroes. So far, he's the only one who tries to get her out of her abusive mother's thumb, like Marinette is trying with Adrien and getting him free from his father. Still doesn't excuse his actions from past episodes, maybe it will come to a head another time, after all not everything is always solved in the span of one episode, we don't see the Lila issue being solved in one episode, we don't see the stalking that Marinette did to Adrien stopping after one episode, we don't see Chat Noir stopping to flirt for real with Ladybug after one episode, it takes several episodes/seasons to stick for good, or if not fixed yet, it's for later, maybe. Kagami is also forgiving, she forgave Marinette for her sabotage in Ikari Gozen and accepted her friendship, she forgave Adrien for breaking up with her, took maybe a while to get on friendlier terms with him again, but still, and it still didn't make her stop having feelings for him, while also understanding that she and him weren't perfect for each other despite what their parents and Marinette thought before. Kagami forgave Marinette for dragging her around and not listening to her and pushing and projecting her feelings about Adrien on her in Mr Pigeon 72, and also even after learning Marinette knew Adrien's schedule for the. NEXT. 3. FUCKING. YEARS. And still saying Marinette is perfect for Adrien at the end of that episode. And she jokes about it in season 5. I've been a huge fan of Kagami since day 1, but her just letting slide that Marinette knew Adrien's schedule instead of calling her out like probably anyone else in this show probably should do instead of finding it cute and enabling most of the time her behavior, that kind of bummed me out. Still love Kagami to death, but also she's not perfect either, and is also starting to get to learn social behaviors better. Still, her first reflex when she got kidnapped by Félix was defending herself and ripping into him how he kidnapped her away after spending some time spying on her was just wrong on many levels and not being impressed at all. Then her mother attacks them, then attacks her directly, then later ask why Félix wouldn't summon a Sentimonster to fight her back, and Félix explains his reasons, which in my humble opinion, are entirely valid (having flashbacks of Sentibug back in Ladybug as my main reason). She understood where he was coming from when he described the creatures he brings to life with the Peacock, and liked his explanation. She started to see him as a kindred spirit like he saw in her first. Of course, that's only the second time they literally speak, after the disastrous first real meeting in Emotion. Still, it went to a better start than when they first met. They can change their perpectives of people after learning a bit more about them, one just bad impression doesn't condemn them for life after one episode because there's more to it than it seems. We saw that in the Origins episodes, Marinette hated Adrien in the first episode because of a misunderstanding and walking in a little too late to a not what it looks like situation, the next episode Adrien explains himself, and Marinette falls in love with him right there and then. Yes the circumstances on how Feligami and Adrinette started are completely different I know, just saying that the feelings of the girls were the same at the start and they changed at the end to be the complete opposite of what they were feeling toward the guys at first. Or like how the fandom hated Chloé until the Queen Trilogy where seeing how awful her mom was toward her and how it explained more of her behavior gave her many fans who keeps defending her 3 seasons later. This is just my analysis on it.

This is just an idea that I want to tell someone. Au where Adrien doesn't go to public school, and when Lila shows up she claims to be dating him.

Okay, my brain ran with this a little because Adrien not going to public school is a hell of an AU on it’s own and would change things. 

Biggest changes would be: 

Ladynoir is Canon, as Marinette has Canonically admitted that she’d fall for Chat if she hadn’t fallen for Adrien. 

A lot of Akumas happened differently, and both Marinette and Adrien haven’t really gotten to meet one another yet. There’s been a few times where they ran into each other, but not long enough to really talk. 

episodes like Evilustrator and Simon Says, with major Marichat/Ladrien interaction, involved different plans and/or the Hero of the pair not showing off and interacting as much since the civilian is a stranger and not a friend. 

This all technically takes place during/after Volpina but during Season 2, even though Lila is doing her Season 3 stuff, because the exact events of Volpina don’t happen, and Lila doesn’t disappear for a whole season. 

Anyway, back to Lila: 

She shows up on day 1 claiming to be Adrien’s secret girlfriend and also bffs with Ladybug. 

Lila specifically says it’s a secret relationship because of Adrien’s fangirls and stuff. 

Marinette and Chloé, of course, know Lila’s lying. 

Mari knows because she’s Ladybug and has never met Lila

Chloé knows because while she does know about Adrien having a secret girlfriend, the info she’s gotten out of him don’t match Lila at all. (things like ‘she has blue eyes and black hair’). 

Also, with Chloé, either she isn’t actually into Adrien romantically (my usual trope), or she’s accepted his love for Mystery Girl and moved on. 

After that, they can see through Lila’s other lies. 

Both girls try to tell people that Lila is lying, but no one believes them.  

Everyone thinks it’s just ‘Chloé being Chloé’, and she’s jealous over someone dating the guy she likes 

Mari is a little more difficult

None of them personally know Adrien and Mari doesn’t have a crush on him

But Lila can manipulate a crowd. 

she asks if Mari is ‘one of Adrien’s fangirls with all his pictures on the wall’. 

Technically the wall of pictures still exists, but it’s purely design reference instead of a fangirl shrine. 

But between that and Lila pulling out the tears, it makes everyone doubt her. 

This leads to a wonderful Mari/Chloé friendship as they team up to expose Lila. 

They also help each other too. 

Marinette helps Chloé be a better person in general. 

Chloé helps Marinette stand up for herself even more

Together they find the balance between ‘being nice’ and ‘being a doormat’. 

Eventually, Chloé calls a meeting at her hotel. And she invites Adrien because he’s involved in this too. 

Adrien and Marinette meeting is... fun. 

Adrien finds Marinette familiar, but brushes it off as ‘I think I rescued her from a few Akuma attacks’. 

However, as the discussion goes on, they find that they’re very comfortable around each other. 

Then one of them says one of the inside jokes from their ‘Ladynoir’ sides and, well, the cat’s out of the bag. 

While those two are staring at eachother like the pointing spiderman meme and just yelling, Chloé’s like ‘uh, guys?’ 

They make up a thing, saying like ‘oh, we met... on the Ladyblog comment section! became friends there! and uh... that was an inside joke so now we know who the other is!’. 

Chloé’s suspicious, but it’s the best explainaton. 

That said, she does kinda scream because ‘goddamn it! of course your mystery girlfriend was Marinette motherfucking Dupain-Cheng!’. 

They then inform Adrien about what all Lila has been saying. 

He does kinda say the ‘can we take the high road and not call her tf out in a humiliating way?’. 

But both Chloé and Marinette explain that Lila isn’t just a walking tabloid magazine, she’s manipulating people and all that. And yeah he’s on board. 

On to the actual plan!!

The girls’ original plan was just to have Adrien show up at a class event and be all ‘who tf are you?’ to Lila. 

But with the extra information that Mari is the real secret girlfriend...

That still kinda happens, but the buildup is more fun. 

It’s like a class picnic thing. Everyone’s there. 

While everyone is a little exasperated with Mari’s sudden rude behavior concerning Lila, they’re not turning against her because I have more faith in them than that. 

Lila herself is going on and on about ‘her bf Adrien’, of course. 

She sees Marinette not fighting back, and thinks she’s won and finally broken the girl. 

Then Chloé shows up, fashionably late of course, dragging Adrien along all ‘hope you don’t mind I brought a friend!’. 

Adrien immediately goes over to Marinette all ‘hello, princess!’. 

Mari is a little bit of a disaster at that, but used to it as she’s been dating Chat for a while. 

Once he introduces himself and everyone makes the connection and all go ‘but what about Lila???’. 

Adrien plays dumb, for the most part. Him asking ‘which one is ‘Lila’?’ and looking between every girl in the class is genuine

Someone speaks up, pointing to Lila and saying ‘your... secret girlfriend?’. 

Adrien’s just like ‘Actually Marinette is my gf so....’. 

Everyone loses their shit over that. 

Lila tries to play damage control, claiming that ‘obviously Marinette has seduced him into cheating on me!’. 

That starts to get traction before someone points out ‘he didn’t even know which girl you were’. 

Everyone asks Mari for details on her dating Adrien, and she gives the ‘I didn’t know it was him because we met online under usernames but then when we met irl thanks to Chloé...’. 

Chloé pulls the attention back to Lila being a fuck. 

She points out that since they all now know that Lila was lying about dating Adrien, how about they listen for once about how everythign else is a lie too?

Mari, Chloé and Adrien work in tandem to debunk Lila’s lies now that people are actually listening to them, 

Lila still tries to lie her way out, but it’s too late. Everyone’s pissed. 

This is the point where she actually gets Akumatized for the first time. 

Mari and Adrien disappear to be Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Lila is a tough Akuma, and this is the first time they decide to bring in backup. 

And of course by that I mean ‘let’s have an excuse to give Chloé the Bee!’. 

The trio manage to take down Lila, the girl throws a fit over the whole thing, vowing revenge. 

Afterward, Chloé goes up to Marinette and Adrien all ‘so... met through the Ladyblog, huh?’. 

yeah she figured them out. Because Ladynoir banter is just like Adrienette banter. And also she remembers seeing Tikki, and just met Pollen, so she made the connection. 

They’ll still have to deal with Lila, especially as even if the class is aware of her shit she can always cause chaos elsewhere. 

They also have to address the elephant in the room that is Marinette and Adrien explaining their relationship to their respective families. But it goes over pretty well. Mostly. 

Other than that, all’s well that ends well!