#writing: team miraculous | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lc-holy · 3 months

Text

Conférence Masterclass 808 (Translation)

I've taken the liberty of translating the conference that took place last year with the writing director of Miraculous (Sébastien Thibaudeau). It was only made public when someone posted a video of the conference a short while ago.

In this conference, Sébastien Thibaudeau will talk about the creation of Miraculous and his work on the series. He is joined by Chloé Paye, a new scriptwriter working on Miraculous season 6.

Sébastien talks a lot and repeats himself a bit, so the summary can be a bit confusing.

I strongly advise you to go and listen to the video if you understand French. There are a lot of details I'm going to leave out, and Sébastien is very funny.

Photo belongs to mlbfanfr on twitter.

Please be respectful in comments or tags. If you want to debate on things related to this conference, please make your own post. I apologize if there are any mistakes, I'm French and I'm not fluent in English.

-12 years ago, Sébastien arrived at Zagtoon, a studio that was just starting out and had yet to produce and broadcast any series. The producer (Jérémy Zag) and Sébastien hit it off and decided to start working together. Zag decides to give Sébastien total freedom over his projects. Sébastien then decides to put the spotlight on scriptwriters, because in this profession they are unfortunately poorly paid and never stay on the same projects.

So they produced a cartoon called Kobushi. A little-known series that did rather well, even if it didn't stay on the "Gulli" channel for long. The scriptwriters and producer were happy with the end result, as it was produced in a very short time.

Jeremy Zag then proposed another project, which he thought was quite good, but which he was unable to sell to broadcasters. At the time, the project was called "Ladybug". No one was interested, as the project was aimed more at an adult audience than a children's audience. Sébastien had to make sure that the project could be broadcast on Disney and TF1.

There was only a "trailer" also called "Ladybug" (but you'll find the video under the title Ladybug PV) animated by Toei animation. At the time, Sébastien had not yet been hired by Zagtoon. It was Jérémy Zag who convinced Toei animation to work with them (no mean feat, since Toei animation doesn't work with anyone).

So Sébastien started working with Thomas Astruc (the man who wrote and created the "Ladybug" project). At first, he didn't want to work on this project because he found it complicated. Thomas wanted to make a series for adults, but at the time, it was very complicated to make a cartoon for adults. What's more, they didn't have enough money to take on such a project. Sébastien finally agreed, but there were some changes to be made, which Thomas accepted.

-What Sébastien appreciated most in this project was the romantic comedy, the love square between the two main characters.

To meet the requirements of the cartoon industry, "Ladybug" had to be set in a neutral universe, in other words, in an imaginary country or the USA, but Zag, who loves Paris, declared that the cartoon had to be set in Paris.

In the end, Thomas Astruc's entire project was discarded, leaving only the love story between the two heroes and the city of Paris, where the story was to take place.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Sébastien explains how he writes Marinette's first dialogues: He says he talks a lot in real life, so he writes Marinette like him. She says out loud whatever she's thinking.

For Chat noir, he makes him tell his father's jokes. Something TF1 doesn't accept. The TV channel went so far as to refuse to validate the Bible (a collection of information on the series and episodes) until it had removed the sentence: “Chat noir makes jokes”. Sebastien has therefore removed the sentence, but will continue to make Chat noir tell jokes.

-The writing director's job is to get the producer, creator and broadcaster to agree. The series broadcast on TF1 and Disney are very different. TF1 wants series whose story can be told in a single episode, unlike Disney, which wants series whose story spans several episodes.

Sébastien and TF1 agree that Miraculous will be a series with one story per episode, a "Formula Show".

He cites the example of Dora the Explorer episodes, where every episode is the same: Dora goes on an adventure from point A to point B, she has to find 3 clues, then she meets Swiper, she sings a song to make Swiper go away, she uses the talking map to get from one place to another, then Dora manages to get to point B and the episode ends.

This episode format is used for children, to give them a reassuring framework, as they build themselves up through repetition. That's why series like Dora work so well with young children.

So Sebastien sold the Miraculous series to broadcasters as a formula show. A person gets angry, is akumatized, then marinette transforms into Ladybug then frees the person from the akumatization and… The End.

It's also for this reason that Marinette tries to confess her love for Adrien in every episode, but is unable to do so.

But he tried to go against what he had planned with TF1, by slipping little extra stories into certain episodes. Audiences were receptive to these slightly hidden stories. The TV channel even asked Sébastien if there really were hidden things in the series, but he denied everything. Thanks to the positive reception from the public, TF1 agreed to develop the characters of Marinette and Adrien and flesh out the universe a little more.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Once the bible is written, they have to write a script. But first Sébastien, as writing director, needs to know the mood of the series, and to do this he calls on Thomas Astruc, the series creator. Thomas is a great fan of classical painting. A single painting can tell a complex scene with lots of detail. He wants the episodes of miraculous to be like these paintings, there will be very few shots, but in a single shot a lot will happen.

-Sébastien explains that one of the things Thomas wanted to convey in the series was emotion. They didn't want to do what a lot of children's cartoons do, which is to beat the bad guys and win at the end of the episode. They wanted to tell kids that it's normal to have negative emotions. We can also become better people, learn from our mistakes and so on. It also reassures TV channels by setting up scenes that are repeated in every episode: people get angry, people akumatize then people deakumatize, end of episode...

Once the TV channels had been reassured, they set about writing a script.

-Sébastien asks Thomas to write the ending, as they're not sure the series will work. They also wondered what the aim of the series was, and what they wanted to say to the children. The two of them sat down in an office and wrote the ending, which turned out to be just the end of an arc. He even adds that now that they've written a lot more, it's important for them to write in advance so that everything is clear to them.

-The first season was written by 19 authors, from home. He found it interesting that the series was written by several different authors, even if some of them didn't quite understand the premise of the series. One episode that Sébastien particularly appreciated was written by two “autrices” (I think it's weird to say “two female authors”, so I'll use the French word): the refletkta episode, with the story of Juleka who couldn't get into the photos. (Note that all the episodes were proofread by Sébastien and Thomas).

After that, they kept a few people on to work together on the scripts for subsequent seasons.

Sébastien explains that he keeps a close eye on the production of the episodes, to make sure that everything that goes into the picture is as faithful as possible to what they've written in the script.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-The kwamis exist thanks to Toei, who wanted funny little animals to sell plush toys. So the scriptwriters had to find a way to integrate kwamis into the story.

-(Again, Sébastien advises people to check out the Kobushi series if they can still watch it somewhere, or ask the leaker who leaked the whole of season 5 to give them the episodes (that's a joke, of course)).

-Sébastien talks about the Ikari gozen episode, which could have been a total failure because the storyboarder didn't fully understand the scenario. Sébastien asks Zag to redo the storyboard, which will add 10 weeks to the episode's deadline. The storyboarder admits that he's always done storyboards mechanically, without worrying whether the episode is good or not, whether the jokes are funny or not. Eventually, the episode was redone by the same storyboarder, resulting in the episode we all know today.

- They still have a lot to tell with Miraculous, to the point where they're wondering if they'll have enough seasons to tell everything they want to tell. Sebastien says there will be a season 6 and 7, and probably a season 8 and 9.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Chloé Paye met Sébastien when she was looking for an internship. She had never worked in animation, and knew nothing about Miraculous. She tells us how the scriptwriting team works. Each time, all the scriptwriters in the room have to be convinced of the script. They can sometimes spend hours on details to get everyone to agree.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- The driving force behind the series is that there must always be a secret between Marinette and Adrien. The lovesquare can never be broken, otherwise there's no series. Sébastien knows that some people are worried about this. Will they continue the lovesquare for another 4 seasons or more? How will they evolve? Sébastien says not to worry, they know where they want to go.

-It takes them 14 to 16 months to produce an episode, but it's often much longer due to unforeseen circumstances. And they don't work on one episode at a time, but on several at the same time. One episode takes a long time because of the 3D animation.

One of the things that's complicated with Miraculous 3d animation is that they can only display 3 characters at a time on screen, whereas the series requires them to display many more characters. It's also very difficult to correct animation errors, as this takes a lot of time.

-The TV networks were very surprised by the success of miraculous. They didn't think adults and children alike would watch the series. The TV channels were a little confused because they usually make series for a specific age group, but since miraculous had people of all ages watching, they weren't sure what to do.

- Sébastien says he's very happy that miraculous inspires a lot of people to create things, like writing fanfiction, however he's not interested in it because he doesn't want to be influenced by certain fans who would love to see certain things in the series.

- Writing direction also means paying attention to how the characters speak. They all have their own way of speaking. For example, Adrien will never say "j’te parle", but rather "Je te parle".

- During the writing process, the writers sometimes act out scenes to make the dialogue more natural. This is what happened with the episode "Gang of secrets". They felt that, with the success of the show and the pressure it was generating, they needed to write something to relieve their stress. So they wrote about Marinette and the enormous pressure she was under to keep all her secrets. The final scene, in which Marinette tells Alya that she's Ladybug, came naturally when they performed it together.

#miraculous ladybug #ml writing team #Conférence Masterclass 808

597 notes · View notes

rwsdarw · 25 days

Text

I wish the butterfly miraculous was more girly :( like make that man wear a skirt every time he wants to terrorize children please

#put me on the miraculous writing team tbh #I’m cooking

70 notes · View notes

miabrown007 · 9 months

Text

Felonies and Other Love Languages

Adrien Agreste: rich, lonely, freshly aware of the fact that he's expected to take over not a fashion, but a drug empire. Marinette Dupain-Cheng: broke, angry, freshly aware of the fact that bringing down drug empires is a blast. But where would she be without her team, Alya and Nino, and her very good friend, Luka? Not to mention the team’s newest addition, the kind, the funny, the ultra charming Chat Noir. If Marinette likes him, that’s alright, though. It isn’t like she’s dating Adrien Agreste for real. It’s all just part of her ten-step plan to make the Agrestes meet their demise.

Chapter 3 - Pandora’s Box (12,708 words, 3/32 chapters)

Adrien would like to walk along the edge of the curb with his arms outstretched. Like he used to when his mother was there, her palm hovering a breath away from his, ready to catch him anytime.

Instead, he scurries between patches of light on the crushed stone path of Place des Vosges. He doesn't understand why being late fazes him.

He shouldn’t even be here.

He should be up at the office, checking the CCTV footage with Kim to notify the police about the break-in. Or he should be at dinner, informing his father about today’s mishap. He shouldn’t be sneaking out under the disguise of meeting Chloé for drinks. And he definitely shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be searching for Carapace’s hooded figure in the shadows of the park.

In his head, Adrien knows that. But he follows his heart. And his heart rounds a corner with a leap, only to come to a halt in front of a well-lit fountain.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” Carapace says, his eyes shining brightly over his green facemask. He has his arms crossed over his chest in what seems to be a futile attempt at keeping himself warm in the spring chill, dressed in nothing but a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt.

Adrien doesn’t hold back his grin. With his own mask in place, it’s not like Carapace can see it. “You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”

It’s a stupid joke, but if he made up a cat-themed persona for himself, he intends to commit to the bit. Plagg would surely be proud of him. (Even if, realistically speaking, Adrien knows that house cats, much like fathers, are never actually proud. Still, he likes to pretend that what they share is special and goes beyond owning a Blue Ribbon pedigree.)

“You expect you’re walking into your doom and still show up? Admirable,” Carapace chuckles, unaware of the truth those words actually hold. “Now come on, the others are waiting for us. I promise we don’t bite.” He starts on one of the paths leading out of the park, muttering under his nose, “Well, most of us.”

Adrien decides he doesn't actually want to know what Carapace means by that. In his hurry to catch up, the gravel almost slips out from under Adrien’s sneakers, but by some miracle—or years and years of athletic training—he keeps himself upright. “What did you say, who are these people we are meeting?”

The light of a street lamp glinting in Carapace’s glasses as he spares Adrien a glance. “I didn’t.”

It’s more than fair to receive the same non-answer to his question as Adrien had given earlier that day. Still, his chuckle is nervous. He fights the fidgety feeling that urges him to double check that the GPS on his phone is switched on.

“Don’t stress about it, they are friends,” Carapace adds in a softer tone as they exit the park on the northern side and stop in the shadow of the arcades. “We’re almost there, so I’ll have to ask you to put this on,” he says, handing Adrien a baby blue knitted scarf.

“There’s a dress code? This place must be really fancy,” Adrien laughs as he takes the piece of fabric and wraps it around his neck.

Carapace blinks at him, twice, before a chuckle leaves him too. “No, it’s— It’s for your eyes, actually. Just a precaution until we know we can trust you.”

Thank god it’s pitch dark and he can’t see the way Adrien flushes.

“Yeah, I— I knew that. Obviously!”

With much more reluctant motions, he re-ties the scarf around his eyes. He had considered swapping his contacts for glasses—for the sake of an even less Adrien Agreste™-looking disguise—but now he’s glad he’d dropped the idea. Blindfolding himself with them on would be a pain. Actually, merely existing with glasses and a facemask on is a pain, as Adrien was forced to discover this afternoon after much experimenting with the concept.

So, contacts, and anxiety over being only fashionably late it was.

“Sorry, it’s part of the protocol. Let me spin you right round here for a second,” Carapace says, his voice lighthearted. He grabs Adrien by the shoulders and turns him around a few times, until he has no idea what is up and what is down. “Thank you for choosing the Rena Rouge entertainment park, we hope you had a good time,” he says, in the worst imitation of a carnival pitchman.

Still, it somewhat eases the knot in Adrien’s stomach that’s as tight as Nathalie’s hairdo on any given day.

“And now, this way. We’re almost there,” Carapace says, grabbing his upper arm and guiding him forward.

The irony of their first meeting going almost exactly like this—only with their roles reversed—isn’t lost on Adrien, but at this point, he just follows the instructions. He's pretty good at that.

Losing his sight serves to draw his attention to his other senses. He’s acutely aware of the silence stretching between them, the noises of cars and buzzing electric advertisements on shops’ façades.

The pavement under his feet takes a sharp turn, and the city’s noises melt into the background, signalling their approaching arrival. Adrien can’t decide if that or his still spinning head is the reason he feels like he’s going to throw up his supper.

“Who is Rena Rouge?” he asks, despite his nausea.

The beam is evident in Carapace’s voice, even over the sound of a door opening and closing behind them. “Oh, Rena Rouge? Just the most amazing, passionate, talented girl in the whole wide world, who, coincidentally, also makes the best colombo.”

"Your girlfriend?" Adrien guesses.

"For the time being," a cheeky voice slices through the vanilla and pastry-flavoured air.

Carapace comes to a sudden halt. "Hey, what‘s that supposed to mean?"

"Well,” presumably-Rena Rouge says, “we are getting married sometime in the future, aren't we?"

"That's like, the worst way to put that, babe," he argues but laughs along nevertheless.

There’s another giggle, one that eases the trembling of Adrien’s stomach. "Um, guys. The plan."

"Right, the plan!" Rena Rouge confirms, as if she has completely forgotten they are, indeed, in the middle of something that is starting to feel suspiciously like a hostage situation.

Adrien, who at this point would really like to see his surroundings, shifts on his feet. "So, what's the plan?"

Suddenly, someone removes his scarf, two bluebell eyes staring into his soul. "You are the plan, Chat Noir!"

[read the whole chapter on AO3]

#miraculous ladybug #ladynoir #ladybug #ml fanfic #chat noir #miaraculous writing #heist au #faoll #felonies and other love languages #enemies au #in which Chat Noir joins the team dead set on terminating the Agrestes. nothing goes wrong

81 notes · View notes

ladyofthenoodle · 1 year

Text

team is a four letter word: chapter 10

rated T, alya & adrien & marinette & nino friendship, lovesquare romance, canon divergent from rocketear

blossom in the dark

chapter summary: Adrien receives more love than he knows what to do with. Marinette has a solution.

thanks @kasienda, @chocoluckchipz, and @jennagrinsoverml for beta reading and for being so supportive of me and this fic from the beginning! would not have made it here without all of you

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Adrien hadn’t been expecting anything in particular when he emerged from the restroom. Sure, he had a lot of ideas about traditional sleepover activities he’d seen in movies and was eager to try, but he wasn’t sure how realistic they were. His only other frame of reference was what Chloé told him about sleepovers with Sabrina, and he was pretty sure they were not going to be doing that.

So he didn’t have any expectations, and yet he was still surprised by the sight he was greeted with in the living room: the coffee table had been neatly rearranged, with his food closest to the center couch cushion, which was left empty with Nino and Alya flanked on either side. The kwamis floated near their heads, looking expectantly at his arrival. Marinette was curled up in the corner between Alya and a pink-spotted duffel bag, and Adrien sternly reminded himself to not assume the worst when she alone wasn’t watching him enter the room.

He was grateful to be wearing the pajamas she’d brought him—likely made herself—and that they’d had large enough pockets for him to slip his Marinette Lucky Charm into. He reached for it now; eager for physical proof that she cared about him.

It was easier to believe that now, even if he still needed the reminder.

read more on ao3

#team is a four letter word #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfic #miraculeakless #lovesquare #prpr #noodles writes

376 notes · View notes

motherofplatypus · 3 months

Text

The writers shot themselves in the foot when they made S2 finale. There's no way they can ever top the moment where Hawkmoth akumatized two musicians for the sole purpose of entertainment.

#someone in the writing team just watched Megamind and learned the importance of presentation #and they did a splendid job at that #Hawkmoth is such a drama queen but this is his best moment #we should've gotten more of him like this #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #mlb #miraculous salt #ml salt #mlb salt #ml writers salt #ml writing salt #ml writing critical #ml writing criticism #miraculous gabriel #gabriel agreste #gabriel salt #thomas astruc

43 notes · View notes

ninadove · 1 year

Text

We just finished (re)watching V5 and oh gosh.

The plot twist (you know the one) works so well. It’s so simple yet so satisfying.

I cried from relief again over Weiss. I cried from love again over Yang.

And let’s not even talk about Beeunion 1.0!

I love the writing on this show so much.

#rwby #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #bumbleby #raven branwen #rwby 5 #rwby spoilers #Seriously #I might have developed a sliiight obsession with Miraculous #But I still have trust issues from you-know-what #Even though the writing this season has given me so much hope #It’s nice to be able to trust a writing team so completely

86 notes · View notes

miraculouspv · 6 months

Text

The original lovesquare had so much more potential

I will start this post with a comparison. Just to show how much they did the lovesquare dirty.

PV Lovesquare: Bridgette loves Felix but he rejects her - Chat Noir loves Ladybug but she rejects him

CG Lovesquare: Marinette loves Adrien but "she's just a friend" - Chat Noir loves Ladybug but she rejects him.

Which is more logical to you ? Obviosuly the PV. It has been stated that the love square is identical to a "yin yang" relationship. Heck, even the original Miraclebox has a yin yang in the main miraculouses's place. Ironically, their relationship in the show is just very confusing. That's not yin and yang. They're supposed to be equal. And it is the complete opposite in the show. Their relationship isn't the same in and out of costume (Mari suffers from friendzone while Chat suffers from rejection). And Ladybug constantly treats Chat Noir like trash, belittling him, etc. Wait, that's not Ladybug. That's Astruc, the same man who ruined this show because of MONEY. Fuck money. I don't care if the show wasn't going to be popular among kids, can he predict the future ? And of the fuck refuses and invitation from fucking TOEI. The SAME studio which animated a TON of magical girl shows. Heck, even Sailor moon, the most popular magical girl anime ever !!! One piece, Dragon ball Z, AND Sailor Moon, those were all EXTREMLY POPULAR AMONG KIDS !!!

Going back to the PV; I prefer their relationship there because it's based on them being polar opposites. Take that: Bri is a happy teen, Felix is just well, depressed. Ladybug takes Bridgette's FREEDOM away, while Chat Noir gives it to Felix. See the pattern here ? There's a lot more, but OK, I'll stop there.

Thomas, Jeremy, and all of their crew are just money hungry. They treat MLB as a money-machine. It's just soulless ! Where is Season 1 ? Where is the top-tier SAMG animation ? Where is the expressivity in the characters ? In the PV ! Seriosuly, thay have no more excuses now.

#miraculous pv #ladybug pv #mlb pv #i'm sobbing #Fuck the writing team

33 notes · View notes

mireyaaaaaa · 5 months

Text

𝕌𝕟𝕣𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖

"As long as he's happy, I am too..."

Pairing/ nonidol!niki × reader

Synopsis/ reader likes niki but...

Genre/ mostly fluff, little bit of angst in some chapters

Warnings/ none

Pt.3

-----------------------------------------------

♡𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖'𝕤 𝕟𝕠 𝕨𝕒𝕪 𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥...?

-----------------------------------------------

"I brought popcorn!" said Hanni as she barged into my apartment

"Uhhh... So who's not here yet?" I asked

Eunchae told that Riki and Harja hadn't arrived yet. Of course. Just as I was about to call them, the doorbell rang. "Decent human beings." Yuna murmured, not directed at Hanni, definitely.

I went to open the door and let the two boys in. Ni-ki was wearing the black hoodie i had gifted him on his birthday! He looked pretty attractive in it.

"hey you okay?" he asked

"h-huh? Oh uhm y-yeah" WHY DID I STUTTER? I realized i was staring at him. The girls were giggling from behind. "the hoodie looks good on you" "i know right!! And the hoodie you gave is pretty cool in itself"

I smiled at him.

"OKAY OKAY LOVEBIRDS COME INSIDE NOW" Eunchae told us. I couldn't help but smile... WHYY

"Eunchae you know you're the only one i see in the name of lovee" riki replied (NOT SHIPPING THEM, THIS IS JUST A FIC) "riki stop being so cheesy. You know i dont like you as more than a brother right?" she replied. "BROTHER?" "YES." "But-"

"JUST START THE SHOWWW" hanni interptted their quarel. "Yeah yeah. Now stop screaming, we aren't deaf yet, by some miracle." harua sarcastically commented. Hanni threw her pillow at him. "HEY!" he exclaimed. "no spoilers for me and hanni please." yuna requested. "uhhhhh...." the rest of us glanced at eachother. "Okay sit down now. We're starting. I'm sitting next to y/n!" said Eunchae. "Me too!!" Riki followed. Even Riki... Wait... Why am i smiling? It's nlt a big deal... I guess?! He likes Eunchae, not me, not like that matters, we're just friends...

I heard Adrien Agreste say that in my mind for some reason!

There's no way right...? I'm not developing feelings for Riki... No... Right...? Uh oh.

------------------------------------------------------

ᴀ/ɴ > ʷʰʸ ᵈᵒᵉˢ ⁱᵗ ʰᵘʳᵗ ˢᵒ ᵐᵘᶜʰ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵇᵉˢᵗ ᶠʳⁱᵉⁿᵈ ʷʰᵒ ʸᵒᵘ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵃ ᶜʳᵘˢʰ ᵒⁿ ˡⁱᵏᵉˢ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳ ᵇᵉˢᵗ ᶠʳⁱᵉⁿᵈ...? ᵐᵉ ⁱⁿ ᵈᵉⁿⁱᵃˡ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᵃᵐᵉ ʷᵃʸ ʸ/ⁿ ʷᵃⁿᵗˢ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ⁱⁿ ᵈᵉⁿⁱᵃˡ ˡᵐᵒᵃ.

( Ĭ ^ Ĭ )

ᵃᵈʳⁱᵉⁿ ᵃᵍʳᵉˢᵗᵉ ⁱˢ ᵖʳᵉᵗᵗʸ. ᶜʰᵃᵗ ⁿᵒⁱʳ ⁱˢ ᵖʳᵉᵗᵗʸ.

◐▽◐...

ᴛʏ ғᴏʀ ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢ ᴘᴀʀᴛ 3! ᴘᴀʀᴛ 4 ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ sᴏᴏɴ

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

30 notes · View notes

yolowritter · 14 days

Note

Can I give you my rant about the absolute MESS Astruc and the rest of the staff did with the background of ML? Because it's infuriating to a history buff and cultural appreciator like me. Especially after the episode Darkblade shows they CAN do a good job (the story of the ancestor Darkblade is the last years of Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac and Conestable of France, just with names filed off), they just choose to be lazy. And infuriating.

Side material references the Fox, Bee, Turtle, Peacock, and Butterfly Miraculous as the Elemental Miraculous, drawing in the Wuxing... And they never explored that.

The Miraculous Order was based in Tibet... Except the Wuxing link above and everything else we see of the Order say they're Daoist-adiacent, and the Tibetan monasteries are Buddhist. And let's not go on the fact Tibet was a different and often rival civilization to China (even the CCP admits that, and bases their control on how China had CONQUERED Tibet before the British got involved) yet the Order is quite obviously Chinese...

Gabi Gassette changed name in Gabriel Agreste... Except this is impossible under French law. Changing one's personal name is already hard enough, and changing the family name requires a petition to the PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC proving you have a good reason under French law (and by what is shown, he didn't have one).

Joan of Arc never user her sword in combat, and in fact created her famous banner to have an excuse to not fight. So the scene of her getting time displaced and drawing a sword to fight is utterly ahistorical.

Lila Rossi is coded as an Italian, and I say that as an actual Italian. Her gestures, her expressivity, her hamminess, even her vindicativeness ("vendetta" is actually the generic Italian word for "revenge", but in English it became the word for "horrific revenge" because we're THAT vindicative), everything says she's an Italian teenaged girl. So all the "Cerise" nonsense is frankly ridiculous...

Now the really infuriating one, their take on Joan of Arc, of how she and the English bearer of the Black Cat were manipulated by the ambition of the Kings of France and England. Except Charles of France was the Dauphin, that is the heir to the throne, and grasping at straws to save France from the invasion when Joan showed up and requested he gave her an army to throw the English out of France and couldn't get crowned until Joan reconquered Reims, the city of the coronation. As for Henry VI of England, he was SIX (almost seven) when Joan entered the war (hence why Charles had a chance to reclaim the throne, to be crowned King of France one had to be a knight, and that meant one had to be an adult). These guys claimed Joan and Dark Grimalkin were manipulated by a desperate prince who was considering giving up and by a six years old child.

Sorry for the rant... But seriously, why did they do all of that?!

Because it's Thomas Astruc, and frankly I have no idea! Don't worry, rants are always welcome! By all means, I'm sure there's more stuff if we look for it! As a fellow history nerd, and also with Joan being my single favorite French historical figure ever, I have been seething ever since I saw their take on her. Henry the VI was literally just a child, and Charles was dependant on Joan because the English were demolishing France at the time! There is a perfectly good story in real history as to what could have happened to her and Dark Grimalkin! Just do an "partners on opposide sides of a war", slap in the iconic banner as her Miraculous weapon and call it a day! It would have been so much easier to follow real history! They didn't even need to do any work!

And as for the Cerise nonsense...that "explanation" better be really good. It better be Dark Souls-level deep lore with an interconnected backstory that ties up every single mystery in Lila's character better than Scooby Doo ever could, or I am going to lose my mind! I've already said this in my Lila post, but it's genuinely offensive that they had such a great idea for a character, and built her up so much...just to say "oh well actually she has three moms who don't even know eachother, and her name is Cerise, or Iris, or...something else". Lile c'mon! For Nooroo's sake here, it's a blatantly poor attempt to make her interesting again and it only worked because the fandom is grasping at straws for theory material because of the hiatus!

Any side material for the show just doesn't do a good enough job at actually giving us something new, or at the very least something interesting. The Miraculous and Kwami are constantly sidelined because why bother talking about this extremely high-potential universe you have in your show's Lore...if you didn't bother to fill in the blanks? Kwami are supposed to be Gods, Season 2 has references to Plagg blowing up Atlantis! Myths are apparently real in this universe! Please do something with that Thomas, it's free money! But nope, of course they ignore it.

The Guardian Order...well, I call them "The Jedi from Wish" for a reason. Like okay, religious order that has conservative thinking and backwards methods in a new world that is rapidly and constantly evolving. Cool concept! Unfortunately they don't even get their designs right, can't be consistent with which religion they're even based on, contradict themselves all the time, and make them utterly irrelevant after Su Han's first appearence. His only job in the story is to show up, yell at the protagonists, and then be proven wrong because "Ladybug is always right", only to apologize and then yeet himself to Brazil or something! I have an entire rant about this guy, but I'll refrain atm.

And lastly abt Gabriel's name change, I honestly didn't know that. Cool info, I'll add to my list of "times the writers didn't do their 5-minute google search". But like, c'mon. You're choosing to incorporate an important detail about your main villain into his backstory. Shouldn't you have somebody do the research to see if that's even possible? Even the intern is better than no one! I swear...and then us fanfic authors spend hours upon hours looking up obscure stuff just so one sentence/joke can be factually correct.

#miraculous ladybug #yolo rants #don't worry #i'm just as mad as you #and tomas astruc will be sorry #when i get my hands on him #petition to send the entire writing team to a “back to basics” class #rant post #thanks for pointing it all out by the way #i'm going insane #this is why i re-wrote the kwami lore in acoll #istg im gonna scream #but oh well #goodbye vocal chords #anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk #and ranting with me #i'll see myself out

7 notes · View notes

boom-fanfic-a-latta · 1 year

Text

Meeting the Team (Team Dad Cinnabar AU)

Inspired by @hailfire17's Cinnabar AU

When the disguised Gabriel Agreste had approached Chloé Bourgeois in the aftermath of her outburst to her mother, he’d been prepared for several responses to his offer. From an outright rejection, to suspicious curiosity, to immediate agreement.

He most definitely had NOT expected her to size him up, nod, and start dragging him along to another room in Le Hotel de Grand Paris.

And he was not at all prepared for when she flung open the door to reveal a collection of half-a-dozen teenagers, and for her to declare to them “Everyone, we have an actual mentor now!”, a statement which drew the room’s full attention.

“…Chloé, what the hell?!” a very familiar redhead in a red-and-black suit exclaimed in disbelief. “Half of us are transformed right now, you can’t just—”

“What do you mean, ‘an actual mentor’?” the even MORE familiar blonde boy beside her interrupted, and Gabriel had to fight to not give himself away and demand to know what on earth his SON was doing in here playing video games with LADY ROSE.

“Everyone, this is—actually I’m not sure what his name is yet, he never mentioned it, but he’s claiming to be a former superhero and was offering to train me. I figured it would be Nice of me to extend the invitation to the whole team.”

Gabriel was absolutely speechless, attempting to process what the Bourgeois girl had just said.

The whole team?

What did she mean, “the whole team”?!

“…Wait, so not just the guardian’s weird ‘doesn’t actually tell us anything’ teaching?” an unfamiliar, short-haired brunette asked, looking interested. “Well, sign me up!”

“I agree with Lyle.” Ryuko, the Dragon of Tokyo, got up from the beanbag where she had been sitting, inspecting the man. “A more active teacher would be beneficial for us all—even with my own prior experience in heroism.”

“Guys, will you keep it down? I’m watching something!” The ginger boy looked up from his computer just long enough to shoot the room a glare, before going right back to what he’d been doing.

“Okay—seriously, Derek, just stop,” Lady Rose grumbled. “None of us care about those stupid Minecraft videos you’re obsessed with! You can watch them when we AREN’T with the team!”

“Lily, shut up! You’re one to talk—”

“Look, the majority of us actually LIKE Vocaloid!”

“Sorry about those two, they’re siblings. They get like this a lot.” Adrien shook his head. “I think becoming heroes made both their self-control worse, but then again, I only met Lily AFTER she’d become the new Ladybug, so who knows.”

“LOOK JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T LIKE IT DOESN’T MEAN I HAVE TO STOP LISTENING TO IT!”

“Lily! Chill! You too, Derek. We don’t want another LynelMaster.”

“Honestly, though, I’d pay a lot to see Lily commit arson again,” the pink-haired rabbit hero Bunnix admitted from where she was lying on the couch. “I wish one of us had filmed that.”

…Dear goodness, what had he gotten himself into.

Chloé groaned. “Will everyone please pay attention?” she said with a huff, clapping her hands. Turning to the man, she sighed, rolling her eyes. “I only just joined this utterly insane group yesterday, but I’ve already seen enough to know that we desperately need adult supervision.”

Gabriel had barely been there five minutes, and had already come to the same conclusion.

“I can believe that,” he replied, shaking his head. “What I can’t believe is that these are the heroes who have been defending Paris for the past few months…”

“It’s very hard to take in, yes. Honestly, I nearly had an existential crisis yesterday learning that Lady Rose is the same girl who keeps asking me for Vocaloid music recommendations in class. But that’s nothing compared to the one I had after learning Adrien was Chat Noir—”

Chloé kept talking, but Gabriel heard none of it after the absolute bombshell she had just dropped.

Adrien.

His son.

Was CHAT NOIR?!

If the disaster that was Style Queen hadn’t already made him swear off being Hawk Moth anymore, this revelation would have done so in a heartbeat.

He’d been fighting against his own son.

For MONTHS.

…He needed to sit down.

“—thing I will admit is that Lyle coming out suddenly felt a lot less out of nowhere once I learned they were Piccola Volpe—wait, where are you going?”

Gabriel managed to keep his composure as he strode across the room to an empty armchair, before immediately collapsing into it, holding his head in his hands.

“You…you’re all just children,” he finally managed to breathe out. “The heroes of Paris. Are all teenagers. Who in the world ever thought it was okay to give this responsibility to actual CHILDREN?!”

He couldn’t believe it.

All this time, he’d assumed they were in Lycee at the LEAST, and more likely even older than that.

But no.

These were Collège students. 13, maybe 14 at the most. And the boy at the computer looked even YOUNGER, maybe 11 or so.

He had been fighting.

Children.

And one of them was his son.

Forget trying to train a new Hawk Moth to take his place.

These children needed an adult.

And apparently, the burden of being that adult had now unwittingly fallen on him.

Him, the supervillain that had been terrorizing them.

Most likely the least qualified person alive to take care of them.

Gabriel Agreste had most definitely not signed up for this.

27 notes · View notes

miraculouscriticismshub · 7 months

Text

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #mlb season five #mlb salt #mlb season 5 spoilers #mlb writers salt #mlb season 5 finale #mlb season 5 finale spoilers #felix fathom #felix graham de vanily #mlb felix #felix is a victim of bad writing #felix deserves better writing #argos #redemption #mlb heroes team #ryuko #ladybug and chat noir #astruc salt

10 notes · View notes

internetgiraffekid1673 · 1 month

Text

I Had Miraculous Ladybug Thoughts, Specifically the Chloe Lila Alliance Situation, and I'm Making It Your Problem! I am So Sorry!

Just. Read the title of this post. I am the most biased person you could have on this topic. You've been warned.

Okay, so. Chloe. If you are in the ML fandom, first off, my condolences, we shall suffer together. Second off, you know that Chloe is incredibly divisive. On the one hand, she's an absolute a**hole to everyone around her at any point in the series that is not season 2 and parts of season 3. On the other hand, it is clear that she has no adults teaching her how to not be an a**hole or regulating her behavior because the only people who have the necessary authority should not have ever been parents.

And then you have that whole thing in season 2 where they started to explain her awfulness and gave her the bee miraculous and she started getting better and developing a support structure, and then she stopped being allowed to have the bee miraculous and dove headfirst off the deep end. This frustrates pretty much the entire fandom. On the Chloe hate side, you wonder why they were wasting time with this. On the Chloe love side, you just got baited, and you're annoyed as heck, and you also are wondering why they wasted your time with this.

But fine, okay, it's dumb, but whatever, the fanfiction can work with this. What the fanfiction has a MUCH harder time working with is Chloe and Lila forming an unholy alliance over their mutual hatred of Marinette and Ladybug. Because the problem here is, it's redundant, it doesn't make sense, and makes Lila even more of a Mary Sue.

Tangent warning: YEAH I SAID IT! I think Lila is a Mary Sue. You don't have to think that. My definition of a Mary Sue is "a character that warps the fabric of the story around them without it making any sense because the author likes/hates/pities/has other strong emotion about this character/ too much to care about a coherent narrative." Not everybody defines a Mary Sue this way, but by this definition, Lila is a Mary Sue. Everyone immediately loses their brain cells around her despite being compassionate and sometimes intelligent individuals who will kill for Marinette in most other scenarios. Nonsensical story warping just because the author said so. Tangent aside:

What this alliance does is it gives you two manipulative lying b*tches who willingly get akumatized to further their petty schemes and are out to destroy Marinette and Ladybug and are weirdly possessive of but don't actually seem to care for Adrien. There's really no point in having two. They occupy the same narrative niche and it is awkward and stupid and I DO NOT LIKE IT. Neither does most of the fandom it seems, because this alliance rarely appears in fanfiction.

There are a couple default solutions in fanfiction:

1. Redeem Chloe. I like this solution. I like Chloe, I think she's entertaining, and I think her interactions with other characters as a good guy are especially entertaining, I think she brings a lot of valuable skills and perspective to the cast as a good guy, I think she has a lot of reasons for being an a**hole that should be properly addressed, and I think the reasons her redemptipn arc got aborted were stupid. Most fanfiction goes the route of having redeemed Chloe viscerally hate Lila too, because Chloe goes after enemies with passion and her whole heart. This is a clean solution, but not great if you don't like Chloe all that much or are trying to make it canon compliant (best of luck to you, canon is all over the place).

2. Only focus on one as a villain and yeet the other out of the story. If Chloe is the villain, set the story during the time that Lila was off being Cerise or wandering around Paris or whatever, or before she showed up. If Lila is the villain, give Chloe an unrelated reason to decide she's not dealing with that today, thank you very much. Usually used in salt fics to dunk on whichever character grinds your gears more without unwanted interruptions. I like salt fics, and this is also a good clean solution. Having both of them is redundant, so just remove one. For Lila, it makes sense because she's a Mary Sue and writing her is annoying, so pretending she never existed is a great fix to that. For Chloe, it makes sense because "lying manipulative ladybug hating b*tch" only really starts being her archetype after the writers screwed up her character with a million inconsistincies. Before that, she was more of a "comically loud, bossy, really obssessive fangirl b*tch," so Lila just works better for certain plots. Downside is that you can't focus on Chloe-Lila interactions, and you sometimes have to do a bit of finagling to figure out how to remove them from a situation they would ordinarily be VERY invested in.

3. Make them hate each other. This is one of my favorite solutions because I have a weakness for villain rivalries that are equal parts comedic and dramatic, but bias aside, this absolutely works. They both want Adrien's sole, undivided attention, and, prior to aforementioned screwing over of Chloe's character, Chloe is the world's biggest Ladybug stan, and Lila is her number 1 hater. They also both have a weird power over the adults in the story that two 14 year old girls really shouldn't have. All these factors make it very easy to guess they would clash. Watch as they try to destroy each other! This plays into the "they both suck, but it's different flavors of suck," and makes those flavors mix BADLY together. The one downside is that it is hard to not make this the central focus of the story, because both of them are so over the top that they're absolutely going to drown out most other going ons, and this is technically supposed to be about Marinette and Adrien. It also erases some of the storylines you can get from an actually thought out alliance.

4. Redeem Lila. I have only seen this in one place, but it is a prominent place and that's more places than my suggestion on this whole ordeal. The prominent place being the Scarlet Lady AU by the very talented and lovely ZoeOneesame. Her take on it was basically:

"Chloe in this AU has the ladybug miraculous, and Chloe sucks at her job, so Lila's ladybug hatred is justified. Marinette is in love with Chat and isn't involved in the ladybug drama, so Lila has no reason to hate her. Adrien is both much smarter and much more active in this AU, so he wouldn't deal with Lila in the same hands-off way. Everybody else is also smarter in this AU and would probably know Lila was lying and also not care because they are forgiving and compassionate. So Lila's lies would most likely get called out, she would have the freedom and desire to figure out who she is beneath the lies, and she would have a justified hatred of Scarlet Lady matched by other characters in the AU, and would probably band together with them."

And thus, no filter, vindictive good guy Lila was born! Again, I have only seen this in Scarlet Lady, but it is amazing over there, so I had to talk about it. Redeeming Lila is an unconventional choice for sure, but I think if you arrange for circumstances where Lila would rather ally with the heroes than the villains, then you can get a lot of mileage out of her people-reading/manipulation skills helping out the heroes while possibly scaring the crap out of them at the same time. This has basically all the same downsides as the Chloe redemption though. It's not fun to do if you're here for Lila salt, and it's ABSOLUTELY not canon compliant.

Now. You may have noticed that nobody who writes fanfiction for this show does the canon Chloe-Lila alliance. This is for a myriad of aforementioned reasons: it's redundant, it continues the confusion of Chloe's character arc, and Lila is a Mary Sue, so anything that involves her tends to be frustrating. But, I think there is a way to make it work, so I'm writing about it.

First of all, don't do what canon did where 6 just have Lila teach Chloe how to lie. Take full advantage of the fact that they are two very different types of a**hole. They can ally for the same reasons: they both are super possesive of Adrien and are raging about him getting together with Marinette. And while I don't like the arc of Marinette being a trash and controlling guardian who shows inordinate favoritism to Alya and Zoe and literally nobody else because she's gay for them, you can still do that and have them both hate Ladybug too. I don't like that plot beat, mostly because it's never really addressed that Marinette is in fact a bad guardian outside of some light sulking from Chat, but it can work. She's a 14 year old girl in way over her head with no adults left to help (except the kwamis, but they don't really count because they are very unhelpful). It makes sense that she wouldn't do a good job at first. But whatever their reasons for teaming up, lean into the fact that Lila is a two-faced secretively awful person while Chloe is an in-your-face publicly awful person. From there, it depends on the tone you're going for.

Chloe is a great villain for humor because she's so loud and dramatic. She can get away with saying and doing really insane and rude stuff on the grounds that she's insane and rude (and also rich and powerful). People don't have any expectations for Chloe to be nice or rational, so she can do stuff like try and write a Queen Banana character into the class film and be met with annoyance and frustration rather than outrage and shock. So if you're going a lighthearted route, let Chloe be the one who does all the public legwork for their schemes, and let her be absolutely over the top about it.

On the other hand, Chloe can also be threatening in a far more tangible way than Lila. Lila can make people think you're a bit of a jerk, but it takes a lot of work for her to come close to getting Marinette expelled, even with all her Mary Sueness to help. Chloe can just look at the principal and say "My dad will fire you and remove all school funding if you don't expel her." Chloe won't make people dislike Marinette because nobody likes her, but she can physically hurt Marinette in ways that Lila can't. So if you're going for drama, you can lean into that. Chloe is in a completely different social class than everyone else and has actual power.

Either way, let Chloe be a complete drama queen who is publicly out to get Marinette, because there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

Meanwhile, let Lila work in the background. Lila has never been a comedic villain, only getting introduced after the show had taken a turn for the more dramatic, so don't bother. Leave that to Chloe's antics. Let Lila be the actual threat who is driving their plans. A lot of the reason Chloe was manageable while Lila never was is because Chloe's rage tends to be directionless and impulsive. She has a short temper that can easily be triggered, but also easily soothed, and she doesn't have any thought out plans or long form schemes. She just does whatever she thinks will make her happy in the moment. Have Lila be the one who convinces her to think in the long-term, and who comes up with an overarching plot to get rid of Marinette, adding a sense of real tension to the situation. Sure, before Chloe could have you expelled on a whim, but she also would have stopped bothering the second Adrien paid attention to her. Lila will help Chloe drop that boundary.

Lila also has the advantage of people actually liking her and being willing to do things for her without threatening or bribing them. Lila can do things like make it so Marinette doesn't have any of her friends around to help in an emergency. She can make it so people believe Chloe might actually be justified in her crusade against Marinette this time. She can plant seeds of doubt and distrust and she can socially isolate Marinette in ways Chloe can't. Make people love and believe in her instead, slowly destroy Marinette's support system, and so on. It not only is really dramatic and upsetting, it basically leaves Mari with just Adrien and Chat to rely on, which is FANTASTIC ship fuel if that's your jam. This can also let you have some other prominent characters come to the fore. Have some Kagami focus. Have some Luka focus. Bring in Socqueline and Felix and see how that changes things.

Point is, between these two, you could have a genuine, non-redundant threat that you can get emotional mileage out of. Lila is on one side turning all of Mari's friends against her and scheming to destroy her in the long term. Chloe is on the other side threatening Marinette's lifestyle---her bakery, her school, her fashion career, her public image, her existence in Paris---anything that can be damaged by the Mayor and the Style Queen is under attack. And then you have Hawkmoth on the other end, throwing akumas in her face and forcing her to make impossible choices. I would imagine Lila also gets akumatized on purpose whenever she needs a little extra help, while Chloe just gets egged on and pushed off the deep end by Lila whenever Lila thinks it'd be advantageous. So that trifecta is super genuinely threatening. But you can also have Chloe being a really stupid drama queen whose fits of rage can still be silly and poorly thought out, even with Lila helping her. And you can have some really heartwarming stuff as the people left in Marinette's support system band together and become even closer to get rid of these two once and for all. I just think this plot beat has a lot of untapped potential if the writers didn't make then fulfill the same narrative role, and I haven't really seen it explored yet.

Feel free to use this idea in fanfic, tell me that it sucks and would be bad, or ignore me, I mostly just needed to write this down!

If the mood strikes me or multiple people express interest (yeah right), I will make a (probably much shorter) post explaining how you can redeem both of them effectively and also why I think that would be bad in most circumstances.

Congratulations if you read this whole rant, now please go to sleep. Please. So much please.