Okay, it's been long enough that I can actually discuss how Adrien's slavery is depicted in the show without anger-fueled exaggerations and hyperbole. I want to discuss how Miraculous treats Adrien's slavery very flippantly and how it is, like everything in this show post-retool, all about Marinette. The show has a lot of stuff that hints that the writers intend for Adrien to be viewed a very certain way. I believe the writers made Adrien a slave for Marinette’s benefit and I will explain how I came to this conclusion.
I’ve joked before about how Astruc has worked on Totally Spies, “one of the kinkiest cartoons ever made”. I’d like to tackle this idea and how it relates to Miraculous more seriously. I’d like to tackle the topic of titillation and how it relates to how this show approaches slavery with such flippancy. My claim is that Adrien being a slave is not meant to be horrifying, which is why the story doesn't treat it as such; it's meant to be titillating.
I usually don't use Read Mores, since they can lead to broken links later, but this is really long. Strap in, folks.
Titillation for the context of this analysis means “content with the intention to excite romantically or sexually”, basically it’s about “kinky” stuff. The purpose of talking about sexuality in relation to Miraculous is not to paint the writers as some kind of fiends, but to present the fact that many teenagers are curious about romance and sex and will think about sex unprompted. This means titillating content in cartoons doesn’t even need to be related to sex to be titillating. And Astruc has a history of putting titillating stuff in his work, with Totally Spies being a very notable example of how you can include non-sexual titillating content in a kids’ show.
It all comes down to expected audience reactions. Adrien is meant to be sexy. I don’t mean that in a “the writers think this is sexy” way, but a “the writers think the projected audience of straight teenage girls will think this is sexy” way. He gets put into bondage three times in ‘Copycat’, ‘Anti-Bug’ and ‘Reverser’ and all three times the camera seems to like to show him off. He is meant to be an object of attraction for the audience. The people criticizing this show have been pointing out how Ladybug's costume accentuates her butt for years, but this is not something that occurs with just Ladybug. When he isn't posing for the viewers, Cat Noir gets whacked around by Akuma’s a lot, but a lot of the time it ends with him in a prone position that is also titillating, in ‘Pixelator’ it goes as far as having his butt jut out. However, the idea that Cat Noir is the one who gets hit when an Akuma needs to show off how dangerous they are is also part of the power dynamic where Marinette or Ladybug gets to show off, so it’s not purely for titillation, which is why other examples, like ‘Stormy Weather’ are more comedic.
It’s likely that Adrien-as-Adrien doesn’t get to participate in the show’s slapstick much, since that aspect of the character is presented as the perfect beauty, a role usually reserved for female characters who only ever get a little bit flustered or banged up to make sure they keep looking attractive. Marinette screams "waack" and runs face first into a wall in the same episode where the silliest thing Adrien gets to do is sneeze (Mr Pigeon). Adrien is meant to be attractive, sexy, titillating, in different ways in his different forms. As Cat Noir he is more active and more sexy, as Adrien he’s more passive and pretty, much like how female love interests can fall into these categories. It’s the Betty and Veronica dichotomy; in the Archie franchise Betty and Veronica are shown as the wholesome and sexy romance options and the reason the writers go out of their way not to resolve the love triangle is to keep the appeal of these both options going. People’s tastes differ, so it would alienate some audiences to pick one over the other. With Miraculous they solved the problem by having the two romance options be the different identities of a single character.
Frankly, as of the season five finale, Adrien is approaching “sexy lamp” levels of replicating sexist ways of writing a female character but just changing the gender. What else do you call him lying on the floor in despair while his love interest gets his superpowers and uses them to beat up his abusive father, while somehow being perfectly fine and happily kissing Marinette later after said father is dead and gone? Adrien’s trauma is debilitating when it serves the writers’ purposes, but stops being a problem as soon as they need him to smile and look pretty. The main reason Adrien’s trauma is so inconsistent is so that he can act as Marinette’s trophy so that Marinette has somebody to kiss in the final shot. If Adrien was despairing about not being good enough for her, or grossly crying about being an orphan, Marinette wouldn’t have a fun time kissing him. And if Marinette isn’t having fun, the members of the audience projecting onto her aren’t having fun either.
Speaking of how Adrien’s depiction relates to Marinette, here comes the controversial part of this post: while Marinette is not depicted as a literal slave owner in-story, narratively, she is very much treated as Adrien's owner from a meta perspective. We, the viewers, are meant to see Adrien as Marinette's property, and the twist of Adrien being a part of a slave race in a dynamic where Marinette holds all the cards is meant to be a good thing. We have been primed to view everything about Adrien to actually be about Marinette, because Marinette is the center of the universe of Miraculous and Adrien belongs to her because he’s the main character’s love interest. Adrien being revealed to be a slave that Marinette could control but then chooses to “merely” manipulate is meant to be glorifying to Marinette and titillating to the viewer. I will elaborate.
Marinette has been incredibly possessive of Adrien since day one and she is only occasionally depicted as being in the wrong about this, when she goes too far by the show’s standards. She stalks Lila and Adrien whenever she sees them hanging out together and she’s unreasonably jealous of Kagami. The only time she is depicted as being in the wrong is not when she's sniffing Adrien's pillow after breaking into his room, but when she actually bullies Kagami out of jealousy, and even that is depicted as more of an unfortunate misunderstanding than Marinette actively doing something wrong. Marinette is more sympathetic towards Kagami when she finds out she and Adrien aren't as close as she thought, that Kagami’s pursuit of Adrien is more hopeless than hers. Basically, Marinette is only in the wrong because Kagami isn't a threat, not because she was doing anything wrong by bullying her to defend her “territory”.
This gets flipped near the end of the season, though. When Adrien and Kagami do start dating, it's depicted as this big tragedy even more so than Master Fu losing his memories. Master Fu going missing is an afterthought, while Adrien choosing someone else over Marinette is the big “darkest hour” moment of the season three mid-finale, the cliffhanger moment of her crying in Luka’s arms while all hope is lost. Marinette isn’t directly crying about this, she is crying from “all the pressure”, but Marinette breaking down happens immediately after a scene of Kagami leaning in to kiss Adrien that has a somber dirge playing in the background. The first part of the finale has everything going wrong at the end; Master Fu is missing, Chloé gets willingly Akumatized, Marinette breaks down, and Kagami leans in to kiss Adrien. These scenes being put closely together is telling us that these are all bad things to happen.
Adrien ending up with Marinette is a given, but it's also taken for granted. Every girl with an interest in Adrien is depicted as an antagonist, while Marinette can do whatever she wants in pursuit of Adrien and will still be morally correct. Chloé and Lila, even Kagami to a degree, are villainized for their attraction to Adrien in a way Nathaniel, Luka or Zoé are not with their attraction to Marinette. Chloé and Lila are full-blown villains while Luka and Zoé are some of the most selfless members of the cast. Kagami is aggressive and socially awkward in a way that is used to justify Marinette's initial distrust and dislike of her (in ‘Ikari Gozen’ Alya voices her pity towards Marinette for having to spend time with her) while Nathaniel is just the pitiful bullied loner who’s still a liked member of the class friend group. Girls who want Adrien are bad for trespassing on Marinette’s territory and trying to “steal” something that “belongs” to Marinette.
The writers thinking Adrien belongs to Marinette is also not just subtext. Later in season five, when Marinette and Adrien finally start dating, Marinette even outright states that Adrien “kinda does a little” belong to her when she’s scared that Zoé has a crush on him. The fumbling of the line means that the writers are aware of how toxic it is to consider your partner your property, but they want to include that sentiment anyway, because that’s how they view the situation. Marinette’s boyfriend is her property and other people can’t even look at her property. ‘Emotion’ continues on this increased possessiveness by having the entire Marinette plot happen because she can’t conceive Adrien keeping things from her, because he isn’t allowed privacy from her while Marinette lying to Adrien (or Cat Noir) is a show staple.
This same attitude of Adrien not being allowed to have romantic options outside of Marinette has also been in the fandom for years. Every time a new female character was introduced, there was a worry that she’d “try to steal Adrien from Marinette”. Marinette and Adrien are endgame, the writers know this and the fandom knows this. The characters don't know this, but it doesn't matter because Adrien was already seen as Marinette's (future) boyfriend even back in season one when he barely knew her. And this attitude the writers and audience have is extended to the characters more and more as the show goes on, as almost every single character becomes an Adrinette shipper in support of Marinette in season five, while no one thinks to ask Adrien what he thinks about this. Only once, in ‘Desperada’ did Alya suggest that Adrien could make his own choice on who to date, but it was implied the choice should be Marinette specifically (Marinette smiles at this, while Kagami frowns). The cast is lucky the writers have decided Adrien already is Marinette's, or he’d be really uncomfortable.
Season five episode ‘Pretension’ goes as far with this as having Marinette basically ask Gabriel for permission to be with Adrien, convinced that she and Adrien can be together with no problems if she can just get him to approve of her. And then Gabriel tells her he’s promised Adrien to Kagami. You know, like a piece of property women were treated as before women were allowed to live without a man to control them. The finale then ultimately does have Gabriel agree to hand Adrien over to Marinette by dying and leaving her in charge of Adrien. Just because she uses the privilege to do some things for Adrien’s benefit doesn’t make what happened any less of a patriarchal transaction. In fact, the writers wrote it that way on purpose, with the knight and princess parallels they set up between Marinette and Adrien earlier in the show being something they are prominently proud of (the “reverse fairytale” as they put it). Adrien is the princess the dashing hero Marinette gets to earn with her feats of bravery; he’s handed to her like a piece of property and Marinette is too happy with her acquisition to even be outraged on Adrien’s behalf. And Adrien wasn’t even allowed to know about any of this, instead it gets handled solely between Marinette and Gabriel, like his opinion on the matter didn’t even matter. And why would his opinion matter, since he already is ready to promise himself to Marinette, even as the writers deny him the agency to actually make such a promise.
The goal of making it obvious that Adrien is cool with being objectified like this is probably why they make Adrien so obsessed with Marinette in season five, constantly repeating her name to himself and saying stuff like: “I can’t stop thinking about you” in ‘Pretension’. They need to drive it home to the audience exactly how okay Adrien is with everyone forcing him to be with Marinette. After all, you can’t force the willing. As of ‘Confrontation’, Adrien’s official goals for the future are: “I love Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” I guess, from the perspective of the writers, the childhood dream of wanting to be what his parents wanted from ‘Wishmaker’ wasn’t sad because of Adrien’s lack of agency; it was sad because he wasn’t forsaking all of his personal pursuits for Marinette specifically. As far as the writers are concerned, Adrien should only care about Marinette and nothing else.
This same entitlement is also present in Ladybug and Cat Noir's relationship. Every time Cat Noir is upset with Ladybug, like in Frozer, Glaciator, Syren, The New York Special or even Kuro Neko, they never talk about what caused it. This is especially blatant in cases where Ladybug has wronged Cat Noir personally, like Kuro Neko or the NY Special, where she never has to face up to what she did wrong because Cat Noir comes back because she “needs him”. Cat Noir will always come back to her without her having to do anything because she is the main character and she says she needs him. He exists for her and her needs. He exists for her; it’s just another way he’s hers.
Speaking of how Adrien is treated affects Marinette, even Adrien’s trauma actually belongs to her in the writing. I pointed out earlier that Adrien’s trauma shows up when the writers need to put him out of commission, but disappears as soon as he needs to be Marinette’s trophy, but it goes further than just inconsistency. The early seasons spend several episodes on how Adrien is being locked up by his father and unable to hang out with his friends and, between him and Marinette, Marinette is the one shown to be more upset and hurt by this. They don’t do this in every episode, as ‘The Bubbler’ actually does a phenomenal job of making Adrien’s upset actually about him, but the big point in ‘Glaciator’ is that Marinette is so upset that she can’t see Adrien that she accidentally leaves Cat Noir on read so he’s upset about that. Adrien is only upset because he didn’t get attention from Marinette, while Adrien’s literal abuse at the hands of his father is only important because it makes Marinette upset. Even Adrien himself gets in on this action in ‘Conformation’ when the writers go as far as having Adrien chastise himself of not being more worthy of Marinette’s love when his dad is once again busy ruining his life. Even Adrien himself makes his abuse about Marinette; him being abused is bad because it’s inconveniencing Marinette and inconveniencing Marinette makes him less worthy of her.
‘Cat Blanc’ is possibly the worst offender of all, though. This episode should be all about how Adrien is abused by Gabriel, culminating with Gabriel turning him into a monster that destroys the world. And yet, what is the episode actually about? It’s about Marinette. The worst thing that could happen to Adrien is about Marinette. Only Marinette gets to remember or even know about the possibility of Cat Noir getting Akumatized and only Marinette is traumatized by it happening. After all that the writers later dare to use this event that didn’t actually happen anymore, that Adrien doesn’t know about, to justify him giving his powers to Marinette, because he’s “scared of getting Akumatized” when something like that has never happened as far as he knows. But the writers had him reason this way anyway, because apparently the culmination of Marinette’s character development in the show means taking Adrien’s power as her own and then failing to win even with that at her disposal.
Another note about ‘The Bubbler’ that has to be pointed out is that it’s also the first example of Marinette being presented as good for Adrien simply because she treats him better than Gabriel. The final scene of Marinette giving Adrien his best birthday present yet and letting him think it comes from Gabriel is done to show how selfless Marinette is by letting Adrien keep thinking good things about his abuser. This idea that Marinette is morally good simply because she’s better than pond scum Gabriel is also present in the season five finale, where Marinette manipulates, gaslights and keeps important information from her abused slave boyfriend. Marinette is presented as being in the right because at least she didn’t literally control him with a magical geas like Gabriel did and gave him the object with which to do so (while notably not telling him what it does). Marinette will do the bare minimum of not taking literal ownership of Adrien and we’re meant to see her as a paragon of goodness for it, while she still has no respect for Adrien’s autonomy and hasn’t had any since the show started.
The way the Sentimonster “reveal” is handled shows this utter lack of respect for Adrien’s autonomy that the writers, and Marinette by extension, have. The reveal is not for Adrien, but for Marinette, just like every other piece of Adrien has been made to be about Marinette. Marinette gets to know and she gets to decide if Adrien gets to know, and she decides “no”. She will manipulate him and lie to him to keep him happy for herself, she will keep important information about him to herself that he might never find out if anything happens to her, because Adrien is hers and no one else’s and she has the right to make that decision because the world revolves around her because the world of Miraculous was created to be her playground. “Adrien” is just a toy on that playground for Marinette to play with as the writers see fit.
Now we’re coming back to Adrien’s role as the sexy, titillating love interest character that I talked about at the start of this essay. If Marinette granting Adrien the bare minimum of freedoms as a slave while manipulating him “for his own good” is meant to be a good thing, why is Adrien even a slave? Well, outside of the writers wanting to add a plot twist that doesn’t come with any messy plot they’d have to write about characters other than Marinette, Adrien being a slave is also meant to be titillating. What really is magical super slavery than very, very off the wall bondage and power play stuff? The idea that Marinette could rob her love interest of his free will with ease but won’t because she cares about him so much is very empowering in two different ways. It gives Marinette all the power in the relationship and it makes her out to be such a good person that even having ultimate power over another person won’t corrupt her. Adding to that, we have Adrien’s people pleaser abuse victim personality, which makes him fawn over the people he loves. If Marinette ever wanted to have control over Adrien, Adrien would give it to her of his own volition, no need for magical super slavery or unbreakable geases.
As I stated earlier, Marinette is meant to be the point of view main character the audience of teen girls projects themselves onto. So, really, Adrien’s slavery and abuse responses are all about that fantasy of having a cute boy you have all the power over but not needing to use it because the boy is so nice and devoted to you anyway. Adrien really is “perfect”, the perfect object of attraction, a being who technically has free will but whose free will you never have to take into account because he’s been designed and trained to value other people’s wants and needs over his own.
Marinette doesn't literally own Adrien within the story, but the writers make it very clear that they think she should. In fact, in all ways except the literal, she already does.
Going off on what you said in a previous post, I think his relationship with Emilie had a major effect on his psyche that bled into his other relationships. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see much of how it was , but there’s a lot to imply from what is said . Gabriel disclosing to ladybug about Adrien’s resemblance to his mother in dramatics— which could just be his dismissiveness of Adrien’s and Emilie’s emotional being . Adrien being isolated for years with only his mother for company . Which that in itself is concerning, I can’t imagine how toiling that would’ve been for him . There was definitely a lot of codependency there . AURGH I just wish they dived further into that , hopefully this season or the next ( doubtful )
Post in question.
Adrien's relationship with his mother should be SUCH a huge part of who he is.
Let's start from the obvious, his mom died less than a year before the show started. Her death is still recent. Adrien should still be massively affected by it.
This is not helped by here Werepapas showed us that there were long periods of time where Gabriel and Nathalie were gone and it was just Adrien and Emilie together. Keep in mind that Adrien wasn't allowed out to make relationships of his own. Emilie must've been Adrien's entire world for a long time, with the occasional guest appearance from Gabriel, Nathalie, Chloe and any tutors he had.
We also know that Emilie's decline was a long one. She was in a wheelchair years before she fell into a coma. That's not the kind of stuff you can hide from a child. So Adrien would've grown up knowing his mother has an incurable chronic health condition (possibly even suspecting it was terminal, considering she kept getting worse). That's not something that can simply be glossed over as a fun fact of his backstory. That had to have shaped a lot of things about Adrien's perception of the world.
There's also Emilie's emotional state to take into consideration. Dealing with a chronic condition isn't easy to say the least. It would take a major toll on her mental health, which would in turn affect Adrien a lot considering she's his primary caretaker and as stated before, she was the most significant person in his life.
Did Emilie have any friends? Confidants? People she could share her emotional burdens with? She had her husband and was close to Nathalie, but they were often gone. She had her sister, but she's all the way in London and we have no indication of how close they were. And even if she did have close friends, how much could they come visit and support when her health deteriorated and mobility became an issue?
All of that to say, there's a very real chance that the only person Emilie had that she could consistently lean on was Adrien.
Did that necessarily happen? Of course not. We don't know enough about their situation to say for sure anything. Emilie may have had friends she could rely on. She may have taken a lot of effort to not expose Adrien to that. She might've have miraculous coping skills and managed it all by herself.
But I would be shocked if Adrien wasn't exposed to at least some of that. Kids aren't oblivious, they pick up a lot more than you think. And Adrien is so empathetic that it makes a lot of sense he would pick up on his mom's distress and try to comfort her however he could.
Even if you're of the opinion that Emilie was a good person and a good mom, she was only a person at the end of the day. Would she really turn away comfort from her son when she was already dealing with so much? Would she notice if she came to rely on it a bit too much?
With Adrien's people pleasing tendencies and the way he defines himself by his relationships, he would actively go out of his way to comfort his mom. To the point he would take responsibility over her mental health the way we saw him taking responsibility over Marinette's mental health in s5.
But all of that isn't good for a child and can majorly mess with their emotional and social development.
There's a lot of talk about how Gabriel's parenting affected Adrien and messed him up, but realistically the entire situation with Emilie would've left him messed up even without Gabriel's abuse.
you’ve already witnessed generations of cruelty and strife by the time you are placed on a chain around the neck of an infant. she is fussy and wild and nothing like the male heir that her parents would've scorched the earth for. still, she keeps you fastened around her neck like a promise—one that she only breaks sometimes, only when you hang too heavy and she begs her sister to take her place, just for a day, just so she can taste the freedom of running without anything knocking against her beating heart.
the girls are a pair, just like you. they joke about you—two rings, one future—and the wild one swears it's meant to be, because she cannot imagine shouldering her destiny alone. there is a reason the girls were born together, they decide. forged, like you, in the same flame. two rings, one future. two sisters, one life.
as they get older, they share your weight more evenly between them, the wild one increasingly shedding her lot in life like molted feathers. her sister steadfastly takes up the mantle—their future is a shared burden, after all—and you spend more and more of your days nestled against the quiet girl's collarbone. she traces your silver with anxious reverence—you are a promise, a promise to her. twin rings forever locked together. one life.
when the wild girl sloughs off her future for good, she takes you with her. you clang together against her pounding heart for the whole of her escape, and she doesn't slow down until she's gone. until she unstrings your twin halves from the chain and slides one onto her slender finger, one on his. she grins, tells her lover that you are a new promise. one that the wild girl has made to herself. the future is molten in her hands, it's whatever she wants it to be.
you travel with the hands of the wild girl and her lover as they stitch together a humble oasis, secluded from expectation. and when they grow bored of playing poverty, you graduate with them to stardom—with the lover's hand tracing grand outlines and cutting silken fabric and sewing neat seams. with the wild girl's manicured finger reflecting glistening gowns and camera flashes. still, no matter what he makes her, the wild girl's lover cannot make her happy. she buries her face in her hands and he holds her shaking frame. every part of you is wet with her tears. there is only one thing she wants, and it is something she cannot have.
but the future is molten, and desire burns hot. the hands that bear you now are used to fashioning life into something they want. so you join their grand search for satisfaction, tasting the salty air and thick dust of foreign lands. when doctors fail them, they seek mystics. and when mystics fail them, they seek the divine. you brush against the skin of a hunter, young and rough, who invests new blood into the search. the hands come up empty, always.
until, one day, they don't.
on the night you are changed forever, the air is charged with hope. your twin halves twinkle under candlelight. love and magic swirl together amidst sparkling laughter and bubbly champagne. lips press against you, folded into woven fingers, whispering words as fervent as a prayer.
and then—
and then everything is different. and then you are thrumming with life. and then there is a soul within you, wispy and delicate, just a flutter of consciousness. from your two halves are strung a lifeline, cords taut around the heart of a boy fashioned from magic and love.
the wild girl tugs your boy's lifeline like a puppet string, gentle enough to convince herself it's only a caress. it begins before he even tastes the air. kick for me, she whispers, twisting you with a careful thumb. I want to feel you. her prayer flows through you, strings tugging on your boy's fetal limbs until the wild girl grins at the life in her belly.
your boy, the coveted heir, is born far away from his grandparents' castle. far away from the humble oasis of his parents' youth. you brush against his lily-soft skin as he is brought into a world of harsh marble and bright lights. his squirming is calmed, his cries easily quieted. like everything else they touch, your boy is malleable in his parents' hands.
the lover—a father now, in technicality, but a lover before all else—carries you like a safeguard. he has fashioned finery with these fingers before, and now he'll wield you to fashion a son. he refines your boy like an offering, trimming the excess that hangs over the mold.
your boy grows taller and quieter, golden and careful. the molten star upon which the family hopes hang. not a prince, but an heir all the same, his inheritance is a heavy one. but all their tugging trains his muscles, and his smile stays intact. until it doesn't.
imbued with divinity as you have been lately, and witness to cruelty as you have been for much longer, you are familiar with the human impulse to play god. but no matter the lengths taken or the sacrifices made, you've learned that there is no one who can account for everything. and in the vein running through the wild girl's ring finger, you feel her pulse start to dip.
her decline is steady and wretched, a methodical deterioration of strength. you descend with her into baths of antiseptic and sweat. you rest with her brittle hand on the arm of a wheelchair. you tremble with her fingers against the wet cheek of your boy. when doctors fail her, the lover and the hunter do not bother with mystics. they barrel straight for the divine.
these years, you are split like never before. half of you waits, immobile, trapped with the wild girl—the stuck girl, dying girl, the mother—and your guilt-ridden boy within walls. and half of you leaves. over and over. you travel with the lover and the hunter everywhere, anywhere. wherever you go, desperation thickens the air. you are slick with sweat and blood. the hands come up empty, always.
when the wild girl's hand goes cold, you are laid with her to rest. artificial lights warm you both through glass, a flimsy approximation of life. but the only thing alive in your shared coffin is your boy's weary soul, heavy within you.
the half of you that remains upstairs with the living is clenched tight in the lover's fist. his grief is tactile, sharp. all-consuming. a heavy blanket that crushes the house, crushes the spirit of your boy until it's withered away to nearly nothing. when the lover pulls your boy's lifeline now, it's like the tightening of a noose. you rest hollow as a gravemarker, spanning the stories between life and death in this house.
when new magic thrums at the hollow of the lover's throat, you feel it resound in his bloodstream, humming beneath his skin. it feels like grief crystalized into something hungry and mean. it feels like hope.
the cruelty you witness in the next months is not shocking or special, not in the grand scheme of things. it is cruel nonetheless. you switch hands—from the lover to the trickster, your boy's soul twin. you brush once more against the skin of the quiet sister, louder now, having borne your promised future alone. eventually you are parted from the cold finger of that dead, wild girl, and for a time you find your halves spanned between the hands of the cruel lover and his hunter, who's resided with him all the while. you have held souls and futures and wedding vows in your bands, and now you hold something unspoken, volatile, crumbling.
at the end of it all, both of your twin halves are held victorious in the lover's fist. your boy's soul cries out, oceans away, tied up by more than just puppet strings. a knight clothed in magic puts up a valiant fight, but it is no matter.
the world is molten, and the lover shapes it into something he wants it to be.
in the aftermath, you lay cocooned in the palm of the young knight. terror rings out from her at the sight of you. the world, just reformed, hasn't cooled yet. in her hands, now.
on the day you first meet the finger of the boy whose soul your bands keep, the new world is in perfect bloom. roses sweeten the air and sunlight glints on your shiny silver. when you settle onto your boy's finger, it is the first exhale of a lifetime. his heartstrings rest, now, in his own hands, for himself alone to pull. this is the promise you hold now. but it is not the promise that the knight gives to your boy. her soft skin brushes lightly against you as she pulls your boy close and gives him a gentler promise, one that is easier to say.
you have been witness to cruelty and strife for generations by the time you are placed on the finger of a young boy made of magic and love. and you will be witness to more.
How do you think Adrien’s anger would come out if he wasn’t Cat Noir? Like when you look at it, we only really get to see Cat Noir as his anger outlet. I can’t remember him ever releasing his anger as Adrien. He just stews. So once his father is out of the picture and he doesn’t model anymore I wonder how his anger will present. Passive aggression? I doubt he’d be outright violent as Adrien- it’s just easier to do as Chat Noir because he’s a fighter/hero. But maybe sassier like he was with Scarabella or Ladybug in Season 1? Or would he just grow a bunch of pent up anger that risks turning into bitterness/resentment?
You are right about that, he does tend to use Chat Noir as an outlet for that. I'm gonna go with pent-up anger turning to bitterness/resentment, making his personality a little more similar to Felix's (though still not to that level).
Adrien has a few anger responses that he reveals in the show. Here is a list from minor response to major of what I've seen (I've been rewatching Season 1 to practice my French, so you may notice a lot of examples from there).
If you commit a minor offense that he feels is mostly harmless but either a) is serious enough he feels he can't stay quiet, or b) you repeat it enough, he'll privately confront you about it. He does this most obviously in Cameleon, and with Nino in Rocketeer, but he also does this in Anansi as Chat. Unfortunately, Chat's version -unlike Adrien's "gentle but serious approach"- is a bit too lighthearted so Ladybug doesn't realize Adrien is being serious and keeps pushing on his insecurities.
This is a polite tactic- going somewhere alone with someone who has hurt you so you can gently tell them that that wasn't right away from prying eyes. The private setting prevents them from being publicly humiliated by you saying that -no matter how gently you say it, it's still a rebuke and impolite- and it prevents you from being seen as a bad guy because no one can see your rebuke.
However, you cannot do it often or people will catch on, and this is not acceptable unless you are in some way a leader/mentor/Guardian to the person you're doing this with, and it can be stressful as it's very close and may turn into a confrontation -which is Bad.
Chat's version tries to mix this with humor to further soften the blow, which undercuts the "I'm being very sincere with you because this is serious" undertone these things have. (I personally headcanon that Chat thinks Ladybug is emotionally fragile on some level and tries to protect her both from her fear of failure and his "out of control" feelings)
2. The glare. Adrien gives whoever he's not happy with a dirty look or a look that makes it clear he's uncomfortable. He either does not believe that this is a big enough deal to protest and make a scene, or does not believe that saying something will change this behavoir, either because he said something before and was ignored, or he does not have faith that the person he's dealing with will change that behavoir.
The most common example is Adrien's non-verbal "please stop touching me"s with Chloe. He pulls away, looks uncomfortable, and gives every possible non-verbal sign of "I do not like this". However, it can be seen as late as Risk when Adrien is clearly non-verbally saying "I do not like this. I am miserable." Say what you will about Adrien not verbally complaining very often, but non-verbally, he is very vocal.
Granted, this is a kids' show that's animated so it's exaggerated, but he does use it a lot. In this vein, I've heard they had to cut down on a bit of animation with Adrien after season 1, and if so, then it's probably safe to say that if they hadn’t, he'd be EXTREMELY expressive non-verbally.
It's probably a good way for him to vent his uncomfortable feelings in a way he can frame as accidental. Shame it's easy for those who don't want to listen to say they don’t see it.
As a side note, my favorite instance is when he gives Gamer a death glare for threatening Marinette. He can't really say anything, because it's useless and probably do more harm than good, but gosh, he sure makes it clear he is mad.
3. The complaint. At this point, Adrien is not happy, and he trusts the person he's talking to enough to believe that if he explains that he's unhappy, the behavoir will change. This is less soft then the gentle call out, and can be public. He doesn't seem to like it in Season 1, but he can jump to it if he feels an offense is great enough (Kung Food, he thinks Chloe is being racist asking a Chinese chef to make her sushi) However, as seasons progress, he'll snap to this more often, more quickly. The important part is that they are clearly for the recipient to hear and generally and do not hold a malicious undertone. He's not upset yet. He's just unhappy.
4. The mutinous muttering. At this point, Adrien is starting to get genuinely mad. His volume is getting lower, and he's starting to get sarcastic, sometimes mean spirited. He's already warned you several times to stop, and now he's giving up on that happening. He doesn't seem to care at this point if he's heard or not, and he usually tries to leave after he's finished his mutiny.
5. Evasion: Adrien likes to leave and avoid when he's upset. If he thinks things can't be patched up, he'll make himself scarce. This can be done physically and emotionally.
6. Agression: When sufficiently angered, Chat tends to destroy or attempt to destroy whatever is most convienent. He does not appear to have any kind of rational thought when doing this and justifies this afterwards. This is expected because duh, anger, but it is often in a way that damages his goals.
Note: it takes A LOT to get him here, but once he's at this point, he seems to have no coping skills. During and after. Gabriel probably uses this to justify his comments of Adrien being too emotional. Adrien seems aware of this as his temper before this takes a lot of time and repeated incidents before he snaps, and he USUALLY tries to leave and avoid once he's trjly starting to get mad.
What are the biggest forms of psychological damage that Adrien is suffering from?
"Psychological damage" is kind of a wide term, but if I had to pick the most deep seated issue that would cause him the most trouble is that Adrien defines himself by his relationships to others.
Adrien obviously has low self worth, and the way he judges himself is by what he can do for the people around him. Not just the people around him in general, but specifically his main relationships.
In the show we saw him doing it with Gabriel, Ladybug and Marinette. If the show let Emilie be a character, he would've also had a similar relationship to her. All of those relationships affected how Adrien saw himself in a major way.
In fact, his relationship with Marinette very much reads as him no longer having a relationship to define himself by and so latching on to Marinette for that.
S4 was just a long arc of him learning he's not allowed to expect any sort of relationship with Ladybug. He's going to be just one more of her subordinates, and being anything other than completely okay with it is just him being sensitive.
At the end of s4 and during s5, we also see him getting massively disillusioned with Gabriel. For all that he's being blamed for not standing up for himself, he does try. He was already getting fed up with Gabriel and running out of excuses for him. To the point where at the end of s5 he calls Gabriel out for being a shitty parent.
With Marinette he falls for her for absolutely no reason we're given (even the statue scene doesn't explain the why) at around the time he lost those other relationships and after that he starts to revolve his entire life about being her boyfriend. To the point where he outright says the only future he sees for himself is as Marinette's boyfriend.
His entire subplot in Yaksi Gozen also show that. Adrien is very much the one doing most of the work in adrientte. Sometimes he even does all the work. However, in the episode he feels inadequate for not being able to do for Marinette those cool little gifts she does to him. Not being able to do this thing for Marinette makes him feel really shitty about himself even when he's the one holding most of the relationship.
The boy deseprately needs to learn how to live for himself rather than feeling he must earn his right to exist by being useful to others.
Hold on. Hold on, I wrote a Miraculous fic in the style of Disco Elysium and it was fun. It was great. Disco Elysium style is such a fun way to explore a character’s mindset.
INLAND EMPIRE: Uh oh.
>>> What do you mean ‘uh oh’?
> This is fine.
INLAND EMPIRE: You’ve done it. You stuck your hand inside the toaster. You pushed an electric appliance into the bathtub. The shape of your silhouette is traced with withering scrutiny for whatever stupid, incomprehensible decision you’ve made. Don’t look. It won’t phase you if you don’t look.
> If I can’t see it, it can’t see me.
>>> [Empathy - Formidable 18] Face it.
EMPATHY [Hard: Success] - It’s the boy. The boy wearing the facade of Adrien Agreste. He is looking at you. Something is churning behind his eyes. Something intense.
EMPATHY [Hard: Success] - Hate. Absolute, unadulterated hate.
EMPATHY [Hard: Success] - You are standing between a hound and its delectable piece of raw steak. It is baring its teeth at you.
HALF-LIGHT [Medium: Success] - It wants to take a bite.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - Beside her, the tall man stood motionless. Although the whole of his body faced Ladybug, his eyes didn't. Behind the dark lenses of his aviators, he kept his sights somewhere else. You.
HALF-LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Peepin' Tom, eh? Why don't you give him something look at?
> [Authority - Basic 10] Intimidate him.
>>> Now is not the time.
VOLITION - Exactly. Why waste time on a needless display of dominance? It's not what Adrien would do. If you step out of line, your frail house of cards will crumble in an instant. You should stand your ground instead. Keep things civil. You've already gotten this far.
> Ignore him.
> "Is something wrong?"
> [Suggestion - Legendary 20] Be Adrien.
SUGGESTION [Hard: Fail] - Keep things civil? No problem. Adrien loved to keep things civil. You show off an Adrien-branded smile, the best of the best. Look at the eyes, the mouth, the seamless facial muscles-- pore free. Couffaine's eyes are now entirely fixated on you, but you keep smiling. You have nothing to hide, after all.
HALF-LIGHT [Medium: Success] - His gaze envelops you like a fist. Your body tenses with dread. You shouldn't have done that.
>>> [Empathy - Legendary 17] Does he know?
> Don't panic. Keep smiling.
EMPATHY [Legendary: Fail] - Even if he does, what does it matter? Victory is already within your reach, and there is nothing he can do about it. The prick probably thought he could scare you. He can try all he likes.
> It's a checkmate either way.
>>> What if he knows?
LOGIC [Medium: Success] - If he knows, he'll tell Ladybug, the trust you built will break, and you will have to act fast. Call on Fetch, grab as many jewels as you can, and bail. If Ladybug detransforms too soon, a mishap occurs or you trip, well...
HALF-LIGHT [Easy: Success] - (chuckles) You get fucked, mate.
As the one commenter asked, what do you imagine Adrien would be like raised by Tom & Sabine, both as a Senti and as a non-Senti?
He would have a lot less issues, but would also gain some totally brand new ones. Even as a non-senti.
Tom and Sabine are both pretty emotionally immature. They share their daughter's aversion to discomfort and are pretty bad at placing boundaries. Part of the parent's role is to model emotional regulation strategies and help the child process their emotions. But as Marinette shows us, they suck at that.
In canon Adrien already showed that he can develop many emotional regulation skills all by himself, so the same would apply here. He would learn to process his feelings on his own, and along the way he would learn that he can't rely on his parents to help him with that. Not because he can't get his parents' attention (as in canon), but because they're incapable.
So he would probably develop avoidant-dismissive attachment rather than the anxious-preoccupied one he has in canon. Meaning that instead of his abandonment issues and tendency to cling to his relationships, Adrien would lean towards being hyper-independent and avoid emotional intimacy. Tom and Sabine being so permissive and hands off with their parenting would also reinforce that.
That doesn't mean he would be a jerk, but rather that he would be very self sufficient, struggle asking for help and have his emotional walls pretty high. He probably won't be conflict avoidant like he's in canon, so he would be more willing to confront people if he needs to. I think he would still like sports and engage in them a lot for fun. He gives me the vibe of being a reserved kid who's polite and friendly with everyone but not close to anyone.
Adrien tends towards internalizing rather than externalizing, meaning his issues manifests more as anxiety/depression than as problems with his behaviour. The lack of a support network (in terms of people he feels comfortable being vulnerable with) makes me pretty certain he would develop depression, probably sooner rather than later. No one would really notice it, both because of said lack of people he can open up to and because canon shows us he's high functioning even while depressed.
He would be the kind of guy who seems to have a good life with nothing wrong until one you hear he killed himself which seems to come out of nowhere. (Not saying that he would be suicidal, but he did show some outright suicidal behaviour in canon like in Guilttrip.)
Senti-Adrien would be way more of a mess.
Part of Tom and Sabine's permissive parenting style is that they don't have any expectations from their kid. That would fuck up Adrien bad. How can you be what someone wants you to be if they don't want you to be anything? There are no expectations for him to latch onto and try to fulfill.
He would develop a lot of anxiety as a little kid over it. It would feel to him like he's stumbling around in the dark with no indication of whether what he's doing is right or wrong, but it would feel like everything he's doing is wrong simply because he didn't manage to find the right answer yet.
As he grows up he would gravitate towards people who have a rather specific image of who they want him to be. Which would not end well, considering the type of people who do that are generally not good at caring what the other person want. I see of string of a lot of toxic-to-outright-abusive relationships in his future, which needless to say won't help his mental health.
He would have to luck out on some really great friends who are both willing to put in the effort to break through his emotional walls and have at least some expectations of him to not trigger his anxiety and send him running for the hills. Otherwise, I don't really see him having a happy ending. Especially because the problem is rooted in senti psychology in such a way that a lot of treatments for humans would make things worse for him.
It's kinda hilarious how both Adrien and Marinette could have turned out so much worse if they were given one another's lives.
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
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