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At least we had a ending for the Dark Ocean/Dagomon/Demon plot that was left open in 02 with the novelization of Digimon Adventure -BEYOND-.

True. Like how, despite Tri being a mess overall, it at least granted a resolution to the "there were Digidestined before Tai's group, who sealed the Dark Masters initially" plot thread from Digimon Adventure.

aarikwrath

Point of order, before Tri bungled it, the previous group sealed Apocalymon, Apocalymon raised up the Dark Masters because he was sealed, they didn't even know he existed, according to the novelizations, ignoring Tri, the original team wouldn't have ever met the Dark Masters.

Before the OG team sealed him, he wasn't sealed, so he wouldn't need people to act for him from behind his seal, so they wouldn't exist.

I was genuinely extremely confused when the Dark Masters appeared in the og flashback in Tri, because why the hell were they there?

Why is Homeostasis speaking in riddles?

Why are the Four Holy Bums killing their teammate for no reason?

flightfoot

Really? Maybe this is a dubbing difference, or maybe my memories are off. I remember in the show Gennai saying something about how the Dark Masters were sealed behind a wall of fire by the previous digidestined.

aarikwrath

That was just Apocalymon.

We actually see him come out of it, even, iirc.

flightfoot

At least we had a ending for the Dark Ocean/Dagomon/Demon plot that was left open in 02 with the novelization of Digimon Adventure -BEYOND-.

True. Like how, despite Tri being a mess overall, it at least granted a resolution to the "there were Digidestined before Tai's group, who sealed the Dark Masters initially" plot thread from Digimon Adventure.

aarikwrath

Point of order, before Tri bungled it, the previous group sealed Apocalymon, Apocalymon raised up the Dark Masters because he was sealed, they didn't even know he existed, according to the novelizations, ignoring Tri, the original team wouldn't have ever met the Dark Masters.

Before the OG team sealed him, he wasn't sealed, so he wouldn't need people to act for him from behind his seal, so they wouldn't exist.

I was genuinely extremely confused when the Dark Masters appeared in the og flashback in Tri, because why the hell were they there?

Why is Homeostasis speaking in riddles?

Why are the Four Holy Bums killing their teammate for no reason?

uwouldthink

Thinking about it, couldn't Felix and Kagami simply borrowed the horse miraculous to bury their amoks somewhere on the moon?

Like, there were so many good solutions they could've used before "place their amoks in the exact place Felix proved can be stolen from".

flightfoot

Their explanation was that cosmic radiation could've damaged them. Personally, I think burying them in a lava tube would solve that issue.

aarikwrath

I still hold that given we've seen the Moon get hit twice now, the Bootes Void is still the best spot, put them in some thick sealed safe and chuck them into that and they're good for billions of years to googols of years, depending on if the universe ends in Big Crunch or Heat Death.

(We recently found evidence that throws into doubt which one the universe is getting.)

therealmarinette

okay, okay, okay, it all makes sense now.

I'll explain, but first watch this clip from "Feast" season 3.

stormy-blorbo

I love this idea, but something I reckon would fit Audrey even more is:

What if she was so selfish, she didn’t even take on the burden of using the Peacock Miraculous herself?

Three children, each with a different father, each father having to make the sacrifice so that Audrey wouldn’t have to. I think that’s the only way she could be even more disconnected from her children, while still having all the power over them.

Would be really sad if Chloe is an entirely different person without her mother literally mind controlling her daily.

aarikwrath

We don't know anything about a Mr Luksus other than he probably existed at some point, and it was implied Zoe's father died recently, which was why she was now with her mother, which fits the 'use Peacock and die 13ish years later unless you're Tomoe' pattern.

It's possible Chloe IS her normal child and Zoe and Noe are Senti's, Andre's fine, Audrey is fine, and Chloe just doesn't fit the Senti mold at all, she's terrible at almost everything she does (Shockingly, she has good hands and can apparently dance pretty well), her grades suck, she only stands out in any particular crowd because she makes a nuisance of herself, until, presumably, her mom and probably brother put a spotlight on her and started managing her public persona.

It's also possible it's just Noe and Zoe's father's death is a coincidence, it's possible all three are Senti's and Andre wanted a child incompetent enough to be unable to leave him but who could still defend herself if something happened, it's possible none of them are Senti's and the episode name was a red herring.

I think Noe likely IS a Senti, he's extremely successful at the things his mother/creator would have wanted him to be good at, and she dotes on him in a way she doesn't her other children, he stands out enough that he could easily be a Senti, his age could be explained, quite simply, as her just... creating him as older than an actual baby, maybe a five year old, since he looks 20ish, which makes it fit the timeline, roughly?

Zoe's Senti'ness is partly an indictment of character writing, in that she seems flat and empty most of the time in a way that parallels some of Adrien's struggles, but COULD just be a teenager whose depressed because her dad died and she got left with her abusive bitch mom, in a gender reversed Adrien way.

Basically, we know enough to know Audrey was involved, and that she likely used the Peacock at some point, but not that she absolutely did, or which of her three children, if any, are Senti's, and if so, how many, or who held the Brooch and who got the feather, or any number of things, none of which Season 6 is likely to tell us, since they want to leave bait for Season 7.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #chloe bourgeois #audrey bourgeois

flightfoot

I like this clarification on how the Fox Miraculous works, I figured you didn't actually need to know how to play the flute.

aarikwrath

... Didn't Marinette say she ONLY knew how to play the flute back in Desperada?...

One of the Jagged Stone eps, anyway.

echo-loves-flowerboy

I'm sorry why is Apollo's line of argument in Oristeia: "Moms don't really matter because clearly you can have kids without a mom I mean look at Athena"??

1. Literally not how that worked with Athena you are the god of medicine, you should know that

2. We're really not beating the mpreg allegations with this one

aarikwrath

Short Answer: Ancient Greek Misogyny.

Long Answer: Ancient Greeks thought that Women were just a vessel and that all of a child's essence came from the father, so the mother was basically just a box and could be theoretically replaced by anything, hence all the myths of children born from sperm landing on the ground or in seafoam or , slightly differently, from Zeus head after eating a fetus or something.

IIRC, it's where stuff like Homunculi came from as an idea later, in that they thought if you did it right you could make a baby with just a guys sperm and some other container.

It's probably related to why all the Goddess' of stereotypical man things were sworn eternal virgins who swore off all of what the Greeks thought of as femininity.

(When, for example, IIRC, the pre ancient greek version of Artemis was an Otome protagonist with a harem of pretty boy attendants in the Mycanean texts? It's been awhile since I checked, and I'm not a historian. The Ancient Greeks got rid of that and portrayed her as a sworn virgin goddess instead, because hunting is a man thing, and girls have to give up being girls to do man things. Same for Aphrodite's war god stuff from when she was Astarte/Innana/Ishtar, the Illiad straight up has a passage telling her to stay in the kitchen because the battlefield is no place for a love goddess.)

Though frolicking through fields of flowers was apparently fine? Athena and Artemis were doing that with Persephone when Hades grabbed her in at least one version of that myth, iirc.

Notably, If it's the myth I'm thinking of, Athena AGREES that mother's aren't real parents so it's not a mortal sin to kill your mother.

Anyone with more in depth knowledge or expertise feel free to correct me, I only dip into greek mythology occasionally, I have no illusions I'm an expert.

flightfoot

The Season 6 Miraculous finale might be a pair of flashback episodes

We still have no hint of the akumatization we heard about all the way in Illustrhater, the first episode aired of season 6:

Alya: Ms. Mayor, you were one of the first people to get akumatized by the new holder of the Butterfly Miraculous. Mayor Bustier: I was. Nino: Do you have any memories of the experience? Mayor Bustier: I remember how I felt prior to the akumatization, yes. I was extremely worried about our baby, and that's when I heard a voice. Alya: Did it belong to a man or a woman? Mayor Bustier: It wasn't clear, like several voices blending together. Alya & Nino: (gasp, look at each other with concern)

At this point, her akumatization either happened offscreen, Dirtifiers, Queen of the Dreadzone, or in the two finale episodes.

There's also an inconsistency between the London special and Re-creation that hasn't been addressed, and I don't know whether it's because we're gonna revisit that time period later, or if it's just because of writers not talking to each other.

Bug Noire: I swear I tried everything. Adrien: (looks at Bug Noire's hand and sees the Black Cat Miraculous and Turtle Miraculous Alliance Ring) If he hadn't locked me in here, I could've saved him... Bug Noire: Believe me, there's nothing you could've done. Adrien: (through sobs) Dad... Bug Noire: That's why your father had sent you and Kagami to London, to protect you. (Kagami walks over to him while hugging and consoling him) I'm so sorry, there was no good way of telling you all of this. I wanted to be the one to say it before you found out some other way. I'm... (voice breaking) I'm... so... so sorry, Adrien. I- Kagami: Thank you, Ladybug. Surely you have many other things to deal with. Bug Noire: Yes... (walks away before looking back and exiting the room)

Bug Noire didn't give Adrien his Amoks during this interaction. Yet he says she did when talking about it in Re-creation.

Marinette: You're not wearing it? Adrien: (while fidgeting with the rings) When Ladybug gave it to me, she told me how my father helped her to defeat Monarch, at the cost of his life. I don't know if I'll ever manage to be like him.

aarikwrath

Off screen Akumatizations aren't new, the Magician from Season 1, and apparently, Jagged Stone got akumatized 8 times, but we only saw like two or three.

Supposedly, during seasons 1-5, over 200 people were akumatized, but we only saw like, what, 50 of them?

Unless it was 200~ Akuma period, counting repeats, but even then, that means we missed like 60 of them.

The ring thing is super weird, yeah.

flightfoot

Amelie is such an entitled hypocrite, it's almost impressive.

I can definitely see where Felix gets it from. Adrien might just have the worst family in all of fiction.

I want Adrien to disown all of them and have Nino's parents adopt him. He might be the only person in Adrien's life who's never made decisions for him (Marinatte, Kagami, Nathalie) or outright abused him. (Gabriel, Felix, Emilie, Amelie.)

Yeaaah. Amelie lied about Felix being gone in Multiplication, and she knows about Tomoe and almost certainly Gabriel being supervillains, and... well she hasn't been happy about lying, but she hasn't been making much effort to tell Adrien the truth either, not even when she was ragging on Gabriel. I dunno why she thinks Adrien would run to her and Felix. If he has to run to some family members and not one of his friends, I'd imagine that he'd run to his paternal grandparents, they definitely knew nothing about this and they seem chill.

aarikwrath

Okay, I've seen people harping on about her lying to keep Ladybug and Chat Noir away from her son.

Her Sentimonster son.

Ladybug and Chat Noir, who kill sentimonsters.

Were looking for her sentimonster son.

And she did not help them find him.

Of course she fucking didn't, she'd be one of the worst mothers in fiction if she did tell them where he was.

Her desire to be honest is a preference, she's not going to turn over her son to people who have a decent chance of KILLING HIM.

The stuff with Gabriel I'll grant, there's no excuse for that, assuming Felix told her about it, and there's not much excuse for Felix not telling Adrien, himself, beyond how badly Adrien flipped out on him when he made his father poof away in Emotion, but that's hardly a good enough excuse.

She seemed to be TRYING to be honest with Adrien and lead up to it but Marinette kept interrupting, but it's hard to be sure of where they're going with anything atm, given the... really confusing statements from some of the writers.

fandomsandfeminism

Sometimes I think about how and why some people had such a *bad* reaction to the end of Steven Universe, specifically in regards to the Diamonds living.

Even though they no longer are causing harm to others and are able to actually undo some of their previous harm by living, some folks reacted as though this ending was somehow morally suspect. Morally bankrupt, even.

And I think it might be because so many of us were raised on a very specific kind of kids media trope:

They all fall to their deaths.

Disney loves chucking their bad guys off cliffs. And it makes sense- in a moral framework where villains *must* be punished (regardless of whether their death will actually prevent further harm or not), but killing of any kind is morally bad for the hero, the narrative must find a way to kill the villain without the protagonists doing a murder.

It's a moral assumption that a person can *deserve* to die, that it is cosmically just for them to die, that them dying is evidence that the story itself is morally good and correct. Scar *deserves* to die, but it would be bad for Simba to kill him. So....cliff.

Steven Universe, whatever else it's faults, took at step back and said "but if killing people is bad, then people dying is bad", and instead of dropping White Diamond off a cliff, asked "what would actual *restorative*, not punitive, justice look like? What would actual reparations mean here? If the goal is to heal, not just to punish, how do we handle those who have done harm?" And then did that.

Which I think is interesting, and that there was pushback against it is interesting.

It also reminds me of the folks who get very weird about Aang not killing Ozai at the end of Avatar. And like, Ozai still gets chucked in prison, so it doesn't even push back on our cultural ideas of punitive justice *that much.* and still, I've seen people get real mad that the child monk who is the last survivor of a genocide that wiped out his entire pacifist culture didn't do a murder.

the-nerdy-autist

Quick question: how do you do "restorative justice" for a man like Frollo who actively tries to commit a genocide?

Hitlers exist. They need killing.

fandomsandfeminism

There are other ways to remove a person's ability to wield political and social power to commit genocide than dropping them off the side of a burning building that are all just as effective.

I'd also like to point out that the idea that you can prevent a wholesale genocide by like, killing the RIGHT individual, is a rather...simplistic understanding of what causes genocide.

Frollo, to use him as the example, is a priest (in the book), and a judge (in the Disney movie.) He's not just a bad guy. He's an extention of the Catholic Church/The State (depending on which version you want to lean on here.) His power to do harm comes from his position within those institutions and the power of those institutions themselves. The persecution of the Roma people within France isn't because there was a bad guy, but because of those systems of power being used to kill the people that the church and the government wanted dead. Frollo getting dropped off a building wouldn't stop the persecution of the Roma in any world that isn't, maybe, a Disney film.

In the real world, it's very easy to hold up Hitler as the boogeyman. But if Hitler had died, but the war machine of Third Reich Germany hadn't lost the Battle of Berlin/the War as a whole, the Holocaust wouldn't have magically stopped just because 1 guy died.

Look. I'm not saying that there's never been a situation in the world where killing 1 guy wasn't the objectively best option in a high stakes, immediately dangerous situation. The world is full of Trolley problems and self defense situations and nuance and context.

But this post is about Restorative vs Punitive Justice *systems*, and about how many people, in general, start and end their analysis of Justice with "did the bad guy get killed?"

I would even argue that this mentality, where as long as you are sure in your heart that it will SAVE LIVES, killing people is just and good and shouldn't be questioned because some people are just bad- that mentality? Forms the core of Police killings in our culture. Justifies shooting first and asking questions never. Because once you decide that someone has done harm, they need to die for there to be Justice?

I dunno. I just think maybe as a society, we should be open to...other ideas on the matter.

rosebramblewolf

i havent seen the lion king in years but im pretty sure scar doesnt fall off a cliff, he gets set upon by the pack of hyenas

fandomsandfeminism

1. The specificity of it being a death by falling isn't meant to be super literal. My point is more broadly about Disney villains getting deaths that leave the main hero essentially blameless for their deaths, while still feeling like justice was done because the bad guy dies.

Many Disney villain deaths ARE specifically by falling ( Gaston and Frollo are the most obvious examples, but theres more- Snow Whites Queen, Ratigan from the Great Mouse Detective, etc), or falling with a twist (Gothel from Tangled and Clayton from Tarzan come to mind). But sometimes it's a little more abstract- still a death that leaves the hero blameless, but not specifically a fall (Hades, Dr. Falcifer) Technically, it's not falling that kills them, but it fulfills the same trope.

2.

Scar absolutely fits category 2. He very dramatically falls off a cliff, in a parallel to Mufasa, and THEN gets eaten by hyenas. The fall is absolutely part of it.

The fact that *so many people* felt like this comment was the most interesting or relevant comment they could add to this discussion is....a little tiring.

aarikwrath

Keeping in mind that it's been a LONG time since I checked, I'm under the impression that punitive justice is just flat out wired directly into the human brain, it's not 'taught' to us, it's just the factory default.

I recall scientific studies testing infants who don’t even know any words yet to check for a ‘sense of justice’ where they had little simple ‘plays’ where simple shapes interacted, and even babies had an in built ‘understanding’ that the shapes that were mean should be punished and that it was good that this was so.

According to the testing I can recall being done, Restorative Justice fundamentally goes against our animal instinct, our monkey brain says their should be punishment and the human brain tries to excuse it, there's a wide spectrum of neuro divergence, so people born without that exist, and with difficulty, we can fight or unlearn instinctive behaviors.

Though in the case of Steven Universe, part of the issue is a combination of matters of scale, in that the Diamonds did harm on such a scale and so permanently that their flat out isn’t anything they could ever do to really ‘restore’ anything, the mass extinctions they (are implied to) have caused are irreversible, so it feels less ‘restorative’ and more like, they just got done with killing people and went to get other hobbies.

But another is more a matter of timing, Steven Universe came out during a period of large scale IRL Facist Movements forming and seizing large amounts of political power across multiple countries, so a message like “If you just give the facists a hug, they’ll stop killing people” went over like an osmium balloon with a lot of people, because they’re being harmed or have active, in power political groups gearing up to actually attempt to genocide them.

In the case of the US, something like 60% of why it’s currently the way it is is exactly BECAUSE they tried to hug it out and let the Facists back in after the Civil War instead of stomping them out, so for some people, the ending to to SU feels like a trap even though that doesn’t logically make sense, since the Diamonds WON the “battle” so handily I have to put battle in quotation marks, they don’t need to fake anything, if they wanted to keep purging worlds of life, Steven wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it.

flightfoot

Just watched episode 3 of Witch Hat Atelier. Does Qifrey ever address Agott's actions? Because like, he lectures Coco for messing with dangerous magic she doesn't understand, but he left Agott EXPLICITLY in charge and wanted Coco to learn from her. While none of the trainees seem to have explicitly told him that she sent Coco off to take that test, Coco knowing about the test to begin with, and going and eager greeting Agott and presenting to her the flower, and then Agott just going off and leaving without another word should have at least caused him to question her about what she told Coco, and whether she sent Coco to take that test.

Like. It wasn't Coco's fault she took the test. She was simply following Qifrey's orders and listening to Agott. I don't like that he scolded her, even mildly about that, when he and Agott were really the ones to blame.

aarikwrath

Coco explicitly didn't tell him, mild spoilers, but Agott will mention it later that Coco covered for her.

Intentionally, too.

Anime might add a scene where he does ask about it, but the manga makes it clear they deliberately didn't let him find out.

buggachat

guys whe n . wehn . when did adrien paint his colorful WIP walls with white.

el toro de piedra:

sadnansi:

his metaphorical character development. the symbolism of him trying to figure himself out. splashes of color in his room that he put there himself.............. at some point, in s6, he painted over it. made it white again. im,,

aarikwrath

Hmmm?

Looks light blue to me? the lighting obscures it, but the baseboard is white, and you can see the wall is a different color.

australet789

Hi, hello. I just wanted to say that your takes on Marinette are breath of fresh air. Yes, she is a victim too. She is a teen put in a supremely unfair and traumatic situations. She is allowed to NOT handle everything well. Does she has some questionable antics? Also true, but the fandom is dead set on putting everything she does in a bad light, I question if they even watch this show with any brainpower on. I've been seeing so many people treating her as the worst person ever, I occasionally just jump into your blog to cleanse my brain of that, because MLB fandom is ridiculously bad at dealing with characters that have even a tiniest amount of complexity in them

Thank!

I remember someone pointing out that people brush Marinette's trauma because Gabriel is no longer alive, but that's like saying Adrien is no longer an abuse victim because his dad died

Both Adrien and Marinette are victims of Gabriel and while Adrien is going to therapy and figuring things out by himself (remember that is not Nathalie the one who appointed him to them, it's ALL ADRIEN), Marinette is not. Everytime she asked for help, the people she trusted ended up yelling at her face and saying "NO" instead of giving her a solution.

It's clear the parallels they are drawing between Marinette and Adrien, how Marinette is brushing the trauma under the rug because then it means she falied, she was hurt, and she can't fix things. She wishes to undo the wish but it means killing herself. Something she is considering to do still, mind you. Tbh if it wasn't for Félix and Kagami being grateful to her (because it was THEIR LIVES that were trusted to Marinette before she went to fight Gabriel) and Nathalie telling Mari to not kill herself during the London Special, she would be done for.

Meanwhile, yes, Adrien can enjoy the memories of his father but Gabriel by the end of his life wasn't that man anymore. And that didn't start with Ladybug and Chat Noir, not with Marinette, that went YEARS beforehand. And the only one who can figure that out is Adrien himself. Violently telling him "hey, your dad never loved you, nor did your mom, you are just a creature made to obey" is not the way. Adrien deserves to know about his dad being Hakwmoth? Of course! But first he needs to internalize all the other bullshit his parents never dared to talk him about, compared to Félix and Kagami. And that's ignoring the elephant in the room being The Council

It's so easy for everyone else to say "tell the truth, punish the villain" and you forget about the victims. Because that's why Alya fails in her argument: she just wants the truth out without thinking in the consequences for everybody else. Kagami losing her mom, Félix losing his freedom again, Adrien being shamed and his custody taken away. The victims are more important and now Marinette is part of them too.

If your plan to make someone bad pay for their wrongdoing doesn't include the victims and how they will be affected, your plan is foolish and leaning into doing more harm than good.

flightfoot

I'd like to counter a few things here.

Everytime she asked for help, the people she trusted ended up yelling at her face and saying "NO" instead of giving her a solution.

I'm assuming you're not talking about Nathalie, Felix, or Kagami, since they're all either actively helping her lie, or complicit in the lies via not telling Adrien the truth. Or Alix, who pretty much just told her that there were pros and cons to the truth and lies, but the most important thing was to take responsibility for her choices. So I'm guessing you're talking about Alya and Luka here.

Marinette never went to Alya for help with dealing with the "Gabriel was Monarch" thing. Alya found out about it during a fight and confronted her about it.

Rena Rouge: I thought we were no longer keeping secrets from each other. (A Tram passes by, concealing them) Mirage! (The Mirage creates a fake Ladybug and Rena. Rena grabs Ladybug and jumps away. The tram passes and the illusions go and assist in the fight) Scene: Rooftops of Paris. Rena Rouge stands in front of Ladybug holding the orb in her hand. Ladybug stands there ashamed. Rena Rouge: Does Cat Noir know that Gabriel Agreste was Monarch? Ladybug: I don't know who Cat Noir is beneath the mask. What if he knows Adrien and tells him the truth? Rena Rouge: But why lie to Adrien?! (shoves the orb back at Ladybug) Ladybug: Because the truth is too harsh. Rena Rouge: You don't get to decide what Adrien should or shouldn't know. Neither do I. Truth is essential for someone's personal growth, and now that I know I'm gonna have to lie! And you know I don't. like. Lying! Ladybug: That's why I didn't want to tell you...

Marinette didn't ask for a solution. I suppose you can say that Alya gave her one anyway, in the form of pushing her to tell the truth (at least to Adrien), but she doesn't want to do that one.

Now, Marinette DID actually go to Luka for help. And he DID try to give a solution. Bit since he didn't fully explain it and just asked Marinette to trust him (likely because it has something to do with Adrien being Chat Noir), Marinette backed out and erased his memory.

Luka: Marinette, tell me what's going on. Viperbug: Luka, I... lied to the entire world. Adrien's father wasn't a hero. He was Monarch. He made me swear that I wouldn't say a thing so that Adrien would think well of him, in order to protect him, but now because of that I'm having to lie to everyone! Luka: Why did you do that?! Viperbug: Because I love Adrien more than anything, and he'd be in so much pain if he'd ever have found out! He could get akumatized by the new holder of the Butterfly Miraculous. And I'll never, ever, EVER let anyone hurt him! I have to keep this promise and hide the truth from him, even if it burns my lips and my heart every day until the end of time. Do you think I did the right thing? Luka: I don't know, Marinette, I... I'm going to ask you something that you'll probably find very strange but... please let me borrow your miraculous. Viperbug: What? Why?! Luka: I know things that you don't, and I'm probably the only one who can fix this. Give me your earrings! Viperbug: No, no! Tell me what you're going to do, and I'll take care of it myself! Luka: Marinette, I love you! You're the strongest person I've ever met but this time I'm the one who needs to protect you! (He grabs her wrist.) You have to trust me! (Viperbug pulls away from him.) Viperbug: I'm sorry, I never should've told you any of this!

So I don't think it's fair to say that Alya and Luka just yelled "NO" at her when she went to them for help and didn't give her a solution. That is factually not what happened.

I do know that Marinette's traumatized by watching Gabriel die in front of her, even if it was non-graphically, and needing to deal with the fact that he's gone forever. I don't really believe that she would have sacrificed her own life - if she was genuinely deadset on that, she could've started on it before Nathalie even showed up, she still had both Miraculous after all. But I can see why she thought she'd at least consider it. I don't think Felix and Kagami had anything to do with it though, there's not much hint of that.

Meanwhile, yes, Adrien can enjoy the memories of his father but Gabriel by the end of his life wasn't that man anymore. And that didn't start with Ladybug and Chat Noir, not with Marinette, that went YEARS beforehand. And the only one who can figure that out is Adrien himself.

The problem is, Marinette gaslighting (well, a lot of people gaslighting, but Marinette's leading the effort) Adrien into trying to believe that Gabriel was actually a good, altruistic person is actively hindering this effort. It's not just stuff directly linked to the lie, she was trying to rewrite what Amelie was saying mid-interview to paint Gabriel as being a nicer, better person overall. Adrien's actively been trying to figure out how Gabriel became so cold and come to terms with the man his father's become, but he can't do that when all he's hearing is that he's been wrong about what his father's like all along. I don't know how Adrien's meant to internalize and come to terms with all the issues with his father when Marinette, Nathalie, and anyone they can recruit, keep telling him he was actually a wonderful person and everything he did was actually for Adrien's own good.

Note: I'm not using gaslighting to just mean "lying". I'm using gaslighting because the lies that Marinette's telling Adrien about Gabriel, and trying to get everyone else to tell about Gabriel, are meant to rewrite his view of his father to be more positive overall so that he accepts the "Gabriel is a hero" lie and stops digging into it.

It's so easy for everyone else to say "tell the truth, punish the villain" and you forget about the victims. Because that's why Alya fails in her argument: she just wants the truth out without thinking in the consequences for everybody else. Kagami losing her mom, Félix losing his freedom again, Adrien being shamed and his custody taken away. The victims are more important and now Marinette is part of them too.

This is inaccurate, Alya never pushes for this. She's specifically pushing for ADRIEN to know the truth. She never tries to push for the general public to be made aware of everything. None of this applies to just telling Adrien, which is what she actually pushes for.

While I agree with your statement that any plan to deal with the villain should also weigh the effects of that plan on the villain's victims, I factually disagree with a lot of the assertions you're making to support that conclusion.

australet789

I am including Nathalie because when Marinette discovered the letter she wanted to tell Adrien the truth then Nathalie said "No". Nathalie IS grooming Marinette, even if Ladybug at first wanted to lie, she wanted to change it later.

In Lady Chaos as well. Yes, Marinette is gaslighting Adrien in the episode, but the adults are Amélie and Nathalie. Amélie is an hypocrite there (since she HAS lied before to protect Félix, guess Adrien doesn't matter as much for her) not only because of Gabriel, because of all the senti stuff that's something not even Marinette understands fully.

Nathalie is only going through with the lie because The Council is looking for Ladybug, which, again, something Marinette doesn't know, and she thinks is doing it for the greater good when they are adults that want to breed perfect children

Yes, I'm also including Alya because it's not because she wants to do good, but because she doesn't want to lie. Revelator was all about exposing a liar because it was hurting others, because the lies were meant to hurt. If she really wanted to help she wouldn't have agreeded to have her memory erased.

Luka is another can of worms because he created several timelines to confess to Marinette despite her already having a boyfriend, lied, ran away with that knowledge, ran away KNOWING LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR IDENTITIES, and then demanded Marinette her miraculous wanting to make a wish (yes, it's confirmed he wanted to make a wish, that's why he wanted Marinette's earrings)

I'm not saying Marinette lying is good. She fucked up and she is paying for it. But the other people involved are NOT giving any solutions. They either don't want to adress the elephant in the room or are waiting for Marinette to carry the guilt alone. Because it's not the first time that everybody else, even Marinette's parents, turn their back on her when somebody else says the minimum against her, even without proof.

Waiting the bridge to collapse instead of trying to fix it it's not good. All of them, but specially the adults, deserve as much blacklash

aarikwrath

One thing.

Where was Luka wanting to make a wish confirmed?

I haven't heard that anywhere at all, and searching for it doesn't show anything that says that at all.

flightfoot

I just finished watching the first two episodes of Witch Hat Atelier. And I really want to know:

Am I seriously supposed to take that "history of magic" at face value? Because I find it incredibly convenient that the only good souls left in the world happened to be the ones who currently are in charge of controlling access to magic, and who memory wiped anyone who was able to disagree with their account of why they, and people under their control, should be allowed to use magic.

aarikwrath

It's VERY MUCH a 'history is written by the winners', anything further I could say would be spoilers.

It gets REALLY complicated.

Though the primary reason I and some of my friends side with the Brim Caps as often as we do is just that so many of them are dripped out of their minds.

flightfoot

I think the retcon in Miraculous London about how all the akumatized villains doesn't remember what they did as akumatized villains exist because, if we think about it, all akumatized villains did gave permission to be transformed into villains. It's not like Gabriel immediately transformed them into villains, they have to agree with his terms and accept his offer of giving them power first, them they are tranformed. People can reject akumas if they want and even break free from akumatization by themselves. In the end, all the akumatizations are willingly. It was Gabriel, who was a horrible person, that decided to seek people at their lowest to manipulate them into saying 'yes' to his offer and help him.

Eh... this is definitely underselling the mental influence the butterfly villain can exert. I'd love to see that cleared up more. But it goes beyond just manipulation, there's clearly actual pressure involved. Hawk Moth and Chrysalis wouldn't have been nearly as large of threats as they are, otherwise.

aarikwrath

I just think it wasn't a retcon, they've always said that people don't remember being akumatized, and that the one or two lines that imply people do were just errors, I know Chloe's line after... Was it Queen Banana? about her remembering Vesperia were only in the english dub and not the french.

I think... Iirc, the first thing we saw that implied someone who was willingly akumatized remembered things was Ms Bustier in Zombisou, and that might have just have been her panicking over remembering right before she got effected, we know people remember talking to the butterfly user before they become an Akuma, so she probably remembered being tricked into agreeing and felt subjectively immediate regret, I don't think we'd had the fact everyone remembers the pre akumatization conversation said outright until season 6, so in hindsight, I could see some people talking about remembering THAT and it being misconstrued as them remembering being akumatized themselves.

The only other time it stands out was Lila, after her... Second akumatization into Volpina, she smiled after Hawkmoth turend her back, but the fact she turned back in her room rather than in the street with Ladybug and Chat Noir standing over her would have made it obvious she succeeded, and as... Hoaxer, she'd had a plan before being akumatized and wasn't on the ground or tied up when she turned back, making it at least seem like she succeeded, she probably had to check her emails for the stuff from Nathalie to confirm it.

The absolute biggest bout of confusion is in Reunion with The Pharoah, I CANNOT imagine a way to resolve that episode that makes sense with akuma not keeping their memories, unless they meant for Alyx' letter to clear things up? But even then, it's a pretty bad fumble, writing wise, because he should have gone right back to being mad at Ladybug before he read it.

flightfoot

Thomas said on Twitter something very interesting about why Felix and Amelie don't tell Adrien the truth themselves:

"We must consider the devastating impact of this revelation. Beyond the shock, imagine what Adrien might conclude: for example, that he caused his father's death, or that he is responsible for his mother's demise! You'd have to be utterly devoid of empathy to think this revelation would be a mere formality."

With someone commenting:

"Emotional intelligence doesn't actually exist in some people…"

To which Thomas replied:

"Yes, I can only see that as an explanation for such a misunderstanding of things."

What do you think, Flight?

I think it sounds like Felix and Amelie are cowards who have no problem pontificating about how they'll be the ones who are there for Adrien when the Lie is eventually unraveled, but are unwilling to do so themselves for the same reason Marinette is: they can't handle his potential reaction to that news.

aarikwrath

Thomas' always says Marinette is correct in everything she does.

Being honest, he's probably just as oblivious to the real reasons someone would be upset by these lies as Marinette is.

flightfoot

They don't remember? That's weird. It always seemed like people remembered willing akumatizations. Maybe Chrysalis chose to take their memories for some reason?

aarikwrath

According to the writing team, people don't remember being akumatized full stop, no matter what, which is why Lila had to write herself notes in the London Special.

They've always said this, so I don't know why sometimes they'll write a scene so it looks like someone remembers.

flightfoot

Tikki: Adrien seems to be feeling much better, thanks to the things you asked people to tell him.

TIKKI YOU AREN’T HELPING-

Tikki acted so WEIRD in Lady Chaos. In Heartfixer, she was trying to get Marinette to consider telling the truth, but then two episodes later she seems to think that Adrien being happy because of a lie is a good thing?

aarikwrath

The way that sentence is framed screams sarcasm to me.

We know Tikki uses Sarcasm, because she does it with Plagg often.

It's... POSSIBLE to read that sentence as Tikki giving Marinette shit in a way Marinette won't catch.

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