Iridescent Night Light

She/her - this is mainly a miraculous blog

[sillysiluriforme]

The smoking and drinking brothers………..

[maddoyagi]

This drawing is a bit old and has lots of problems, but I like it :D

[heartfulselkie]

I think people often forget that the "burden of power" trope doesn't mean that the burden has to 100% be on the main character at all times.

Marinette is definitely facing the burden of power right from the beginning and part of her story is learning how to handle that. "Fate" doesn't seem to be as prominent in ML as other similar media so its arguable her power is not something completely locked to her in a way that other superheroes/magical girls might be (ones like spiderman or sailor moon where they are destined/cannot be separated from their power). Someone else chose to give the earrings to Marinette originally and initially she rejected them. But then she comes to choose that power and has kept choosing it since.

On the occasions she does pass the earrings to someone else, its only as a temporary measure (Reflekdoll, Hack-San) or when she does try to make it permanent it goes badly (Kwami's Choice) and she has to step back in. Does she have to take the earrings back? Technically, no. But she makes that choice to keep the burden because Ladybug is just part of who she is and she feels responsible for it. And when Marinette feels responsible for something she cannot let it go.

Being Ladybug is of course a challenge and a "burden of power", but part of Marinette's growth is learning how to share that burden. And like with any diificult lesson it's often two step forwards one step back. She's made mistakes and miscommunications, but she does learn from them. And from that she learns she is able to rely on others. She is not Ladybug facing the world alone. She has Chat Noir at her side and the rest of the miracuteam at her back. She is the leader, but the weight of power isn't resting on her shoulders alone. She has support to help her carry the burden.

It's something that she is secure in now so there isn't the same tension in previous seasons. Her "new" burden is now the secret she carries in regards to Gabriel/Monarch and that is something she can't separate herself from, not even on a temporary basis. It's something she can share with others to try and ease the mental toll, but her fears and need for control have moved on from "I have to be Ladybug and handle that on my own" to "I have to carry this knowledge and keep the secret to myself". She has Nathalie of course, but in some way's Nathalie is now filling the role that Master Fu once did - a voice to remind Maribug that a status quo has been set and rules have been made and it must be maintained.

This is obviously something Marinette will not be able to hold to herself long term. It's an evolved form of the lesson she learned previously and she'll grow even further as she finds how best to ease this "burden of power (knowledge)". It's already evident that this is not something she can keep to herself as it is damaging to do so, similar to how "having to be Ladybug and protect Paris alone" was damaging. The growing pains hurt like hell with this, but it's the next stage of her growth as a hero and as a person.

[iridescentnightlight]

i love that chat noir spent pretty much his entire screentime in the secret protocol trailer running around on all fours

[genderqueeradrien]

adrien doing a magic trick and making felix and kagami's rings disappear and them all reacting like this is sending me into the stratosphere

[genderqueeradrien]

he must think they have the object permanence skills of toddlers

[cutecipher]

its important for a woman to have machinations/schemes

[bukashki]

all I am is what you gave me all you are is what I took

[genderqueeradrien]

imagine going over to your boyfriend's house and his dad sends him to his room and then says all this to you. what do u even do .

[adrienscroissantx]

its a pixel art day so here u go folks we need to talk about them more

[gatotricolor]

my daughters i love them

[lc-holy]

Mind your heart, M'Lady!

[bukashki]

did a little experiment :p

[clingyduoapologist]

Marinette dupain-cheng is awesome they were just like “yooo what if we made the worlds most doomed girl and gave her adhd” and then they did. And then they did…

[tumble-witch]

So Ladybug has been into Twitch streams lately

Btw I wanna join VGen! vgen.co/TumbleWitch

[noblechaton]

it is funny how Adrien Agreste, costar of a French cartoon show made for 7 year olds, is one of the most lied to guys to ever exist

[noblechaton]

I don't think a single person he knows has ever told him the full truth about anything ever. he has no idea that he lives inside of a pressure cooker

[treatop]

if her web of lies wasn’t already complicated enough

[trainsinanime]

The current Miraculous Ladybug fandom discourse is just wild to me. Personally, I love season 6. I love the big lie. I love how Marinette is put through the wringer by her own choices. I love the drama, the pain, the anxiety, the potential heartbreak, the wrong choices, the flawed yet understandable motivations. To me this is a really interesting story, one we as a fandom should be celebrating.

But then the fandom discourse is dominated by people saying, "I think Marinette is making wrong choices here and I hate it", and responses to that. The positive views are mostly people defending the show instead of praising it. Long essays explaining why Marinette's actions are wrong but make sense in the context of her personality and motivations, which is literally what the show itself tells us as well. These are good essays but it's crazy to me that they're necessary.

Don't get me wrong, everybody is free to dislike the season for any or no reason at all. I'm just baffled by the ratio of hate to love I'm seeing.

Random aside: There's this post I saw a while ago that won't leave my brain, where someone argued, "if you love Marinette you have to hate the current storyline. Otherwise you don't love her, you just love drama." I'm still not sure I can fully wrap my head around that argument. Marinette is… not real, right? She's a fictional character designed to be endearing and a vehicle for interesting stories, and as of season 6, she's doing both perfectly. You're free to disagree of course, but the whole idea that there's a tension here between liking Marinette and liking drama, it just baffles me.

Season 6 is genuinely very good (except perhaps for the first few episodes). It looks great and it tackles more serious topics in a kid-friendly way and generally does this well, whether it's about online hate, dealing with autism, parents who don't get along, struggling with insecurity, and of course grief. And inside that all Marinette is getting the most interesting story of all and I genuinely love it. I'm not a season 6 apologist, I'm a proud season 6 fan.