Miraculous Reactions

Side blog for anything critical I want to say about Miraculous. Read at your own risk.

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NOTE: I stopped watching the show after season five because I was no longer having fun. Temper your expectations and asks accordingly!

I enjoy critical media analysis and script doctoring, but those are largely frowned upon in the miraculous fandom, so I made this side blog! That way I could rant to my heart's content while allowing people to avoid my commentary if they so chose. Asks are welcome, but do note that this is, loosely speaking, a writing salt, character sugar blog. I legitimately like almost every main character and will defend them as being perfectly fine at their core. In my opinion, all of the issues come from the writing, not the concept, which is why I actively write and read fanfiction for miraculous. It's got too much potential for me to turn my back on it just because I find canon dead in the water. (Yes you can read my stuff, I just ask that you message me for a link for the reasons laid out here. There are simply too many people who get mad at those who say negative things about the show for me to feel comfortable giving a public link right now.)

A couple of key posts from this blog if you're looking for where to start: my general thoughts on Marinette, on Alya, on Chloe, on Lila, on Gabriel's redemption, on the sentikid plot, and my square shipping preferences if you're curious. The "season four was nonsense" rant is also a pretty good gauge of if you're going to enjoy it here. I try to use the tag "[Charater Name] Deserves Better" when a post gives some real focus to a character and how the narrative failed to do them justice, so that's a good thing to look for, too. Welcome to the blog!

Note, asks are welcome and will be answered! But it may take a while before you see them on the blog. I often write pretty long posts, so I make liberal use of the queue to avoid flooding your dash with lectures. I also won't respond to anything that's clearly calling out another member of the fandom. General asks inspired by the fandom are fine, but no "X said Y, what do you think about that?" "What do you think about Y?" is fine. I'm also very hesitant to blame any single person for the show's flaws unless there's hard evidence that said person is fully responsible for the flaw. That's just not how I operate. I even use "writers" as a catch-all term meant to encompass everyone who was involved in the creative process.

[writergeekrhw]

25 THINGS I’VE LEARNED IN 25 YEARS IN TV WRITING

Well, it’s actually been 30 years now, but here’s a spew I did 5 years ago on the bird app to commemorate my 25 years as a TV writer. 

I’ve edited it a bit for clarity. Hopefully some of you will find it useful.

1. In TV writing (and writing in general) there is only one unbreakable rule: Thou shalt not be boring.

2. Write characters people want to hang out with for an hour or so once a week for years to come. Even if they’re bad people, make them interesting, engaging bad people.

3. If your lead is a bad person, make them funny and/or sexy. Direct most of their bad behavior toward other bad people or themselves. Make them well motivated. Maintain rooting interest.

4. What makes a character special should be intertwined with what makes them struggle. Perfect people are boring.

5. Characters should complement/conflict with each other. No two characters should serve the same purpose/have the same backstory/have the same voice.

6. Cast the best actor, adjust the character to suit.

7. Give your leads the best lines/moments. No one is tuning in to watch the funny guest star. Like Garry Marshall said back on HAPPY DAYS, “I’m paying Henry Winkler $25,000 an episode. Give the Fonz the jokes.”

8. Your characters, good & bad, should reflect the reality of our wonderful, diverse world. White male shouldn’t be the default.

9. Avoid stereotypes. Stereotypes are boring.

10. If all your POV characters know some secret, the audience should know it too.

11. If your show hinges on a big mystery, know more or less what the truth is from the beginning. You can change it later if you need to, but write to a specific.

12. If your story doesn’t test your characters mentally, physically, psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually, you don’t have a story.

13. You can start by figuring out the Beginning, the Middle, or the End, but you don’t have an episode until you have all three.

14. Big suspenseful act outs (the last moments before the commercials) aren’t just a gimmick. They’re a good way to structure an hour of entertainment to make sure the audience is invested and your pacing is solid.

15. Every scene should be a consequence of the previous scene or a refutation of it.

16. A scene also needs a Beginning, Middle, and End. The end should propel the characters and/or audience into the next scene.

17. Every scene is a negotiation/confrontation between two or more characters who want different things or have different ideas on how to solve the same problem.

18. A good action scene is still a character scene. With punching. (This applies to sex scenes too, but you know, with sex.)

19. A crap page is better than a blank one.

20. It’s easier to cut than to add.

21. Good things rarely happen in the Writers Room after dinner. Go home, get some rest, write pages at home if you have to, start fresh in the morning.  Writers who have a life outside the writing room are better writers. Beware the showrunner who doesn’t want to go home to their family. That said…

22. Script by day one of Pre-Production. No matter what.

23. You’re a writer first. Almost nothing happening on set or in post is more important than the writing. Delegate when possible.

24. Make an extra effort to surround yourself with writers who are different from you (background, race, gender, orientation, etc). Listen to their perspectives, especially on experiences alien to you.

25. And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. In TV writing and life in general. 

PART TWO HERE:

https://at.tumblr.com/writergeekrhw/25-things-in-25-years-part-2-25-things-ive/okjzwofyiq6i

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

So S6 finally ended, and my worst fear is... that it will impact negatively to the Ao3 fics and fan-comcis I follow and they won't ever continue to update :( I understand how they can stop feeling motivated after being disappointed of the show's direction, so I can't let myself feel entitled. But, after S3, the only thing that made me keep loving MLB&CN was the fandom's creativity.

After S4 and S5, many fics that I followed stopped updating... so, I'm bracing myself for another wave of abandoned works (it has already started, two fan-artists had said they will probably not continue their AUs because they have stopped enjoying the show).

Still, if you let me say it here, I thank you all of you people that have showed us amazing stories and comics! Personally, you have better ideas than canon! I just hope that you remember that your fic or comic may have started based on the original show, but the essence of the idea is all yours! Kudos for all of you!

That is a completely valid fear. I know I stopped writing after season five started airing. The show went from being full of fun ideas with questionable executions to being full of complex, depressing ideas with terrible executions. The first is fun to play with. The second? Not so much. I don't want to play with canon as is and the amount of fixes I'd need to do to make the concept it's playing with work begs the question, "why not just write an original story? It's not like Miraculous is particularly unique in its concepts."

I know I wasn't alone in that opinion and I can imagine that season six's angst fest will have lead to more of the same, especially since the lies are still active. Hard to write happy endings with that at the back of your mind especially since this show's main appeal was the love square.

As a writer, I will say that I think it would be totally fair to leave a comment like this for someone who has said canon killed their drive assuming you want to know where the story would have gone:

I know canon has killed your interest in continuing this story and I totally understand that, but I really love what you've given us so far and would love to know where you planned to take this if you don't mind giving us a summary?

Taking a story from initial idea to finished version is the hard, time consuming part of writing for me and maybe others. Plotting a story out is the easy part (thus this blog being something I'm willing to run while writing for the show has stopped for now). I can tell you where every one of my stories was going to go even if something stopped me from finishing them. Who knows, maybe having someone to talk about it with will inspire them to write more? I know I was more productive when my bffs lived closer to me and I could babble about my writing with them.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I don’t have it in me to rewatch the whole thing but I wonder at what point Tikki moved from offering gentle guidance to Marinette to basically being her yes man.

I remember early Tikki frequently warning Marinette against misusing her powers or trying to gently guide (ineffectually) when Marinette tried to do some shadier stuff, like stealing a phones or taking on too much.

By season 6 tho she’s firmly in yes man territory. The only pushback I remember is in sublimation where Tikki outsources it to Alya who doesn’t do anything. I feel like Tikki’s change is so dramatic you could potentially read her as being sarcastic “isn’t it great you were able to convince Adrien to build a shrine to his dad?” Ect. But until the show provides any confirmation it just feels like Tikki has completely abdicated the mentor role.

Tikki doesn't seem to be an active presence in the season six scripts I've read which doesn't surprise me. The Kwamis stopped being mentors ages ago. I think a lot of it boils down to the show having far too many characters without clear roles for any of them. For example, once Alya learned that Marinette was Ladybug, Alya and Tikki started being used interchangeably. They both acted as Marinette's mentor/conscious depending on which one worked best for the episode. With Alya being easier to include (no risk of an identity reveal) and the new addition to the secret, she's largely replaced Tikki. This happened because the show focuses everything on Marinette so - outside of random one-off episodes - most characters have to be defined by their relationship with Marinette instead of being their own people with their own goals and plots.

If Alya was allowed to have her own plots, then she could shine as an investigative journalist and more traditional best friend while Tikki would be the sole mentor. It would also save Alya from being the Black Best Friend, a trope where black characters mainly exist to support the lead instead of being a more fully realized characters in their own right. They set up Alya to avoid that trope, but after the Ladybug reveal, I feel like she keeps getting shoved into it more and more. And the times she's tried to break out of the role and do her own thing - ex: when she told her identity to Nino - always seem to backfire on her for no good reason.

Did the second half of season six improve on that issue? I haven't paid close attention to the details and the first half of the season was doing better with letting side characters shine for one-off episodes. Did Alya ever get one of those? I know Nino's one-off was more about Marinette and Adrien than Nino's relationships with his parents so I'm guessing no, but open to being surprised!

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In fact, the situation with Pharaoh is even more confusing, because Thomas confirmed the canonicity of the French dubbing, which referred to Akhenaten. But they still say that he and Princess Nefertiti lived five thousand years ago.

And also, the heroine with Lady Bug miraculous could be based on the scarab beetle, just like Scarabella.

Post this ask is referring to.

Ah, I hadn't heard it was a translation error. That's one issue corrected, but you're right to replace it with another. I completely forgot that the episode gave a hard date for when this guy ruled:

Pharaoh: Ladybug, my sworn enemy! My nemesis may have kept me from carrying out my ritual 5000 years before, but she will not stop Nefertiti from coming back to me this time!

This is balderdash! Akhenaten and Tutankhamun were both 18th dynasty kings - meaning they ruled closer to 3000 years ago - and the only known kings to use their respective names so this can't be referring to an earlier king. And we still have the issue of the real life Akhenaten dying well before Queen Nefertiti so this is wrong:

She died several years before him, and the sun god Ra took her as his goddess.

It also arguably uses the wrong god because Akhenaten is the king who is famous for worshipping a single god and it wasn't Ra. It was a sun god though, so why use Ra and not Aten? I guess this could be why Akhenaten abandoned Ra in the world of Miraculous? Idk, I'm definitely putting more thought into this than the writers so I'm going to stop now.

I don't expect a show like Miraculous to give us a history lesson, but it could at least get basic, easily found facts right. This is Wikipedia-level stuff. You can learn it all in under five minutes. And if we had to do the stupid resurrection ritual and a god loving a moral - things the ancient Egyptians very much did not have in their mythology - then at least make up fake people to do it with. Don't spout this gibberish about resurrections and the gods marrying mortals while using the names of real people!

Btw, in case anyone was wondering why I keep using "king" and not "pharaoh", it's because the word pharaoh referencing a ruler was actually a relatively late addition to the ancient Egyptian lexicon. The word originally meant something like "great house" and was used to refer to the king's residence and even the administration in general according to some sources I've read. Either way, it was not used to refer to the king themself. The word didn't become a term for the country's ruler until the New Kingdom and it wasn't an immediate shift. The point being that, if Jali was actually embodying a king from 5000 years ago, then he would not call himself a pharaoh. In fact, even if he was from the 18th dynasty, he wouldn't have called himself a pharaoh as it was more an epitaph than a title and the term was only just coming to use at that point.

Of course, we're using the modern English versions of these words. If you got portal-ed back to ancient Egypt, both pharaoh and king would have been gibberish to them. And none of this means that you should stop using the word "pharaoh" to refer to Egyptian kings. That's the standard shorthand for an Egyptian ruler and it's a perfectly fine word. I'm not even mad the episode used it. It would have been cool if they went with king or even nswt-bjtj instead, but that could easily confuse people so using the word people associate with ancient Egyptian rulers makes total sense. I just wanted to throw in another ancient Egyptian fun fact since this is a post about historical accuracy.

[jacquesthepigeon]

“I can’t be Adrien’s girlfriend AND lie to him about his father every day”

Why wasn’t this a thought she had at the end of Season 5? Like I’m genuinely wondering if anyone at the writing staff called out Marinette for this super selfish decision.

They did. Multiple times. Via multiple characters. In multiple episodes. They just insist on stretching out a plot they don't know how to write.

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There are multiple season six episodes where Marinette decides to tell Adrien the truth only for Nathalie to talk her out of it. Mister Agreste gave us this:

Marinette: I can't take it anymore! We have to tell Adrien the truth! Nathalie: Have you lost your mind? You want to tell him that you're Ladybug?

and El Toro de Piedra gave us this:

Marinette: Wait! Should we be doing this? Nathalie: Protecting Adrien? Marinette: No! I mean do we get to make this decision for him? Is erasing part of his past really protecting him?

And there are multiple scenes of her being wracked by guilt, but ultimately deciding Adrien has to stay in the dark for one reason or another. There's really no ambiguity that Marinette is conflicted about the lies. The only ambiguity I've seen is her logic for the lies which has some minor changes from episode to episode as we see when we compare the London special logic to the Mister Agreste logic:

Nathalie: Don't you want to tell Adrien that his father was Monarch? Bug Noire: The only thing I can fix is the way Adrien will remember his father.

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!

In fact, of those in the know, Marinette's the only characters who even considered spilling the beans. Felix, Kagami, Plagg, Tikki, and Nathalie all seem fine with the status quo. None of them even raise the idea that Adrien should know the truth which makes for some very weird messaging. If the show wants the message to be that the lies are bad, shouldn't all of the heroes be again them? It's a very messy and dumb plot that's more focused on torturing Marinette and keeping the audience watching via cheap drama than it is on telling an interesting story. As for why it's written like that? I think it's pretty clear that this is the writers way to replace the endless failed crush confessions, but the switch doesn't work. The crush was so much lower stakes than this.

Alya and Luka get an honorable mention for being pro-truth, but their mid-season reveals both got magically erased within minutes of them happening so they couldn't do anything about it. Alya got a second reveal in the season six final, but that means it's been canon for like two minutes so who knows where that's going. So far she still gets the sanity crown, but it may be another fake out cliffhanger. Oh, and them both being instantly against the lies only highlights how badly the show is writing Kagami, Felix, Tikki, Plagg, and Nathalie. You can tell that the writers are massively over their heads with this crap.

This is admittedly all season six stuff and not from the season five final, but the lies were not a focus of the season five final. They only came into existence in the final minute of the episode. The London special is the first time they were actually addressed and that special is an angst fest where Marinette is wracked by trauma, guilt, and fear. Credit where it's due, Kagami does say that she doesn't like the lies in this special, but it's not a strong protest:

Bug Noire: Over over. But Adrien... cannot find out. Kagami: You're blinded by love, Marinette. But if this is your wish, I'll honor it.

And she immediately uses this as a way to save her mother:

Kagami: If she has nothing else to lose anymore, she could admit everything and reveal that Gabriel Agreste was Monarch. Bug Noire: And Adrien would find out about his father. Kagami: Adrien changed when he tried to confront his father. And I've changed since I met you. Everyone can change, my mother as well. I'll talk to her.

Which could have been an interesting character beat and even an interesting complication to the lie plot, but I don't think season six ever addressed this moment even though the Tsurugis get a fair bit of screentime. From what I've seen, Tomoe seem to still have full autonomy and Kagami is doing nothing to keep her in line. Has Tomoe's involvement with Gabriel even been mentioned by Kagami? Put it all together and it seems like the London special was more about justifying inaction than setting up interesting ideas for season six to play with which is very on brand for Miraculous.

This is where I once again remind you that the season five final largely matches the leaked scripts of the planned series final that was written before the show got additional seasons. The lies are in both versions. The only big difference is who is telling the lies. Every time the show treats the lies as an issue it's a retcon. They were not added to be a cliffhanger. They were always there and were supposed to be part of the big happy ending. That's why the show has no idea how to handle the lie plot. It wasn't an intentional plot or even just an intentional choice for Marinette's character. It was them changing their minds on how the lies should read so they could give Marinette a new thing constantly fail to confess. I've also personally always wondered if the fan backlash to the lies is where the idea for the new status quo came from, but I don't have any evidence to back that up.

Anyone who watched season six want to confirm or contest any of that? And as always this isn't a defense of Marinette's actions, it's a condemnation of how this plot is being written. If the lies were part of a functional and compelling story, then we could have a nuanced conversation about them where we pretended Marinette was a real person, but that's not what the show is doing. The lie plot is just an endless angst fest that's already required two magic reset buttons to make sure there's no actual progress. I would not be surprised if we see more of those in season seven.

And if Marinette was fine with the lies, no one called her out on it in canon, and the story just moved on? That would still be on the writers and not her because we're not talking about the actions of a real person.

[uwouldthink]

Season six watcher here, and I think I can provide an explanation for why this plotline is being written the way it is.

Namely, that the moral framework the writers are working on for the big lie is completely bonkers and doesn't match at all the way fandom precieves the big lie.

I made a post going over the way the show framed things which has all the evidence and analysis I'm basing this claim on. But the tldr is that the show seems to think that the big lie is bad because lying is bad, not because Adrien being gaslit into thinking positively of his father is bad.

In fact, it seems to think that it's actually a good thing, because it allows Adrien to be happy and move on from his emotional turmoil over the bad memories of his father. That deep down he longs to think positively of his father but simply can't do so because he can't let go of all the bad memories. It's really the anger and the emotional turmoil who are things hurting Adrien here.

Marinette isn't a stressed out girl who made a terrible mistake because she was in a terrible situation. Marinette is a noble hero whose love is so great that she's willing to do everything for the sake of protecting the people she loves. Including taking dubious means (such as lying) and making enormous personal sacrifices to the point of ruining her own life.

As far as the show is concerned, the big lie is Marinette nobly protecting Adrien from devastating emotional turmoil (which is just the worst thing ever) by taking it on her own shoulders and suffering the emotional turmoil in his stead. Her sin is loving Adrien too much, to the point of being unable to bear the thought of him being hurt. But that leads her to give him what he wants instead of what needs, which inhibits Adrien's personal growth (facing the bad memories and moving on from them to happy memories).

Under that framing, Marinette's motivations are perfectly consistent. Protecting Adrien is shielding him from emotional pain is fixing how he remembers his father. Lady Chaos is the natural continuation of Marinette's motivation in the London special.

Even Kagami's criticism makes perfect sense under this framing.

Kagami: You're blinded by love, Marinette. But if this is your wish, I'll honor it.

As far as the writers are concerned, Marinette's greatest flaw - the one that's making her do all these dubious things in s6 - is that she loves Adrien too much.

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I could totally buy this because it falls in line with how the show loves to write Adrien as a good and perfect angel who is too pure for this cruel world. Or as the head writer put it: "Adrien isn't flawed, the world is"

It's like how everyone thought the message of Chat Blanc was "Adrien can't find out about Gabriel during the final battle" or "Gabriel can't find out first" but the actual message was "Adrien can't find out."

[jacquesthepigeon]

“I can’t be Adrien’s girlfriend AND lie to him about his father every day”

Why wasn’t this a thought she had at the end of Season 5? Like I’m genuinely wondering if anyone at the writing staff called out Marinette for this super selfish decision.

They did. Multiple times. Via multiple characters. In multiple episodes. They just insist on stretching out a plot they don't know how to write.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

There are multiple season six episodes where Marinette decides to tell Adrien the truth only for Nathalie to talk her out of it. Mister Agreste gave us this:

Marinette: I can't take it anymore! We have to tell Adrien the truth! Nathalie: Have you lost your mind? You want to tell him that you're Ladybug?

and El Toro de Piedra gave us this:

Marinette: Wait! Should we be doing this? Nathalie: Protecting Adrien? Marinette: No! I mean do we get to make this decision for him? Is erasing part of his past really protecting him?

And there are multiple scenes of her being wracked by guilt, but ultimately deciding Adrien has to stay in the dark for one reason or another. There's really no ambiguity that Marinette is conflicted about the lies. The only ambiguity I've seen is her logic for the lies which has some minor changes from episode to episode as we see when we compare the London special logic to the Mister Agreste logic:

Nathalie: Don't you want to tell Adrien that his father was Monarch? Bug Noire: The only thing I can fix is the way Adrien will remember his father.

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!

In fact, of those in the know, Marinette's the only characters who even considered spilling the beans. Felix, Kagami, Plagg, Tikki, and Nathalie all seem fine with the status quo. None of them even raise the idea that Adrien should know the truth which makes for some very weird messaging. If the show wants the message to be that the lies are bad, shouldn't all of the heroes be again them? It's a very messy and dumb plot that's more focused on torturing Marinette and keeping the audience watching via cheap drama than it is on telling an interesting story. As for why it's written like that? I think it's pretty clear that this is the writers way to replace the endless failed crush confessions, but the switch doesn't work. The crush was so much lower stakes than this.

Alya and Luka get an honorable mention for being pro-truth, but their mid-season reveals both got magically erased within minutes of them happening so they couldn't do anything about it. Alya got a second reveal in the season six final, but that means it's been canon for like two minutes so who knows where that's going. So far she still gets the sanity crown, but it may be another fake out cliffhanger. Oh, and them both being instantly against the lies only highlights how badly the show is writing Kagami, Felix, Tikki, Plagg, and Nathalie. You can tell that the writers are massively over their heads with this crap.

This is admittedly all season six stuff and not from the season five final, but the lies were not a focus of the season five final. They only came into existence in the final minute of the episode. The London special is the first time they were actually addressed and that special is an angst fest where Marinette is wracked by trauma, guilt, and fear. Credit where it's due, Kagami does say that she doesn't like the lies in this special, but it's not a strong protest:

Bug Noire: Over over. But Adrien... cannot find out. Kagami: You're blinded by love, Marinette. But if this is your wish, I'll honor it.

And she immediately uses this as a way to save her mother:

Kagami: If she has nothing else to lose anymore, she could admit everything and reveal that Gabriel Agreste was Monarch. Bug Noire: And Adrien would find out about his father. Kagami: Adrien changed when he tried to confront his father. And I've changed since I met you. Everyone can change, my mother as well. I'll talk to her.

Which could have been an interesting character beat and even an interesting complication to the lie plot, but I don't think season six ever addressed this moment even though the Tsurugis get a fair bit of screentime. From what I've seen, Tomoe seem to still have full autonomy and Kagami is doing nothing to keep her in line. Has Tomoe's involvement with Gabriel even been mentioned by Kagami? Put it all together and it seems like the London special was more about justifying inaction than setting up interesting ideas for season six to play with which is very on brand for Miraculous.

This is where I once again remind you that the season five final largely matches the leaked scripts of the planned series final that was written before the show got additional seasons. The lies are in both versions. The only big difference is who is telling the lies. Every time the show treats the lies as an issue it's a retcon. They were not added to be a cliffhanger. They were always there and were supposed to be part of the big happy ending. That's why the show has no idea how to handle the lie plot. It wasn't an intentional plot or even just an intentional choice for Marinette's character. It was them changing their minds on how the lies should read so they could give Marinette a new thing constantly fail to confess. I've also personally always wondered if the fan backlash to the lies is where the idea for the new status quo came from, but I don't have any evidence to back that up.

Anyone who watched season six want to confirm or contest any of that? And as always this isn't a defense of Marinette's actions, it's a condemnation of how this plot is being written. If the lies were part of a functional and compelling story, then we could have a nuanced conversation about them where we pretended Marinette was a real person, but that's not what the show is doing. The lie plot is just an endless angst fest that's already required two magic reset buttons to make sure there's no actual progress. I would not be surprised if we see more of those in season seven.

And if Marinette was fine with the lies, no one called her out on it in canon, and the story just moved on? That would still be on the writers and not her because we're not talking about the actions of a real person.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I'll be turning off asks for at least a few weeks as I'm not going to have time to answer them this fall, but I'll leave them on for a few more hours in case anyone wants to get a final ask in before the break.

Edit: and they're off! I'll answer all the ones in my inbox before I take my break.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

i know everyone discusses how it (theoretically) impacts the ladybug and cat miraculous being yin/yang, but aren't all unifications also symbolized this way?

i know it's focused on ladybug and chat noir because of how the box is constructed, yet every pairing of miraculous seems to use it anyways. all i'm left asking is what [insert two powers here] even do when combined? what's the opposing force? complementary? are they just opposing or complementary? do we gain anything new when combined? why are we using this?

this makes the whole yin/yang concept in the show feel incredibly shallow (shocking, we're using asian concepts and symbols with no deeper exploration. again.) i can't even say the main pairing does it well (bugnoire feels like any other unification imo) and now i have to sit here and wonder why the fox & ladybug or rabbit & cat are represented by the same thing.

i think it was you that discussed the concept of some miraculous pairing better with others + powers in the box given an opposing force, which i think would work better here. its more thinking than canon does.

I'd never given it much thought before, but you're right. Every unification has a yin yang in the back, though notably it's just the shape of a yin yang and not a proper one where the two concepts are mixed. For example, here's Ladybee:

[Image description: Marinette at the end of her Ladybee - ladybug and bee - unification. She stands in front of a yellow and red yin yang. The yellow bee symbol is in the yellow part of the yin yang while the red ladybug symbol is in the red part of the yin yang.]

Even Bug Noir doesn't have a proper yin yang:

[Image description: Marinette at the end of her Bug Noir - ladybug and black cat - unification. She stands in front of a green and red yin yang. The green cat's paw symbol is in the green part of the yin yang while the red ladybug symbol is in the red part of the yin yang.]

In both of these, the symbols should be switched as yin yangs are representations of balance between opposites. A little yin in the yang and vice versa. It would also just be a good way to symbolize the mixing that happens with unification. The kwami don't stay separate. They unify.

Of course, as the ask rightfully pointed out, most of the powers aren't opposites, so it's fair to argue that something other than a yin yang should be used as the background for the standard unification. It would have been cool if Bug Noir was the only unification with a yin yang. It would be even cooler if it was a proper yin yang to match the one in the miracle box.

This is yet another example of the show using Chinese cultural elements as little more than window dressing which is not great, but also not surprising. It fits the well established pattern.

i think it was you that discussed the concept of some miraculous pairing better with others + powers in the box given an opposing force, which i think would work better here. its more thinking than canon does.

Your memory is correct! I like the concept of unification, but I'm not a fan of the way the show uses it. In the episode that introduced the concept - Kwamibuster - we're told that unification has a cost but we rarely see that cost in action. Marinette wields all the miraculous at once without issue and, while Gabriel struggled the first time he used more than two miraculous, it immediately became standard that he could wield five without breaking a sweat and five is an insanely high number given that he gets infinite uses for each of them. That's too much power too easily accessed, imo. It's one of the many reasons season five was a mess. They had to massively dumb Gabriel down to make it work because that level of power vs the heroes single use should have been unbeatable.

So how would I fix this?

I know some people have suggested that every unification should come with new powers and/or a new weapon and I don't hate that idea. A lot of properties take that approach and make it work. I wouldn't do it with the miraculous, though. The powers are too random so trying to make synergies between them would be a headache. Like what new power and weapon would you get if you combined Fluff and Tikki? Timeline creation? An umbrella with a yo-yo attachment?* You'd have to make some massive changes for this approach to work.

My personal preference is to have unification be canon accurate and just add some drawbacks to make it a more complex tactical choice. I agree with the original lore that it should be hard to wield multiples and think it should max out at two or three for most people. I also like to add that it relies on the Kwamis' having good relationships. Try to unify two Kwamis' who don't get along and your transformation becomes unstable.

The other big change I like to make is one I've discussed before as a more general change. Namely that powers should never be infinite use. There should be a max and it should be low. I like to go with five uses because that matches the show's five minute timer so you can make the dots, paw prints, etc. a use tracker that turns to a transformation countdown after the last use. Unification doesn't give you more uses. It just gives you more powers you can spend your use counter on.

With those changes in place, unification no longer becomes OP the way it is in canon. Like in the context of canon, why do we need a massive team? People can wield multiple miraculous and everyone has infinite uses so just keep the team small and let everyone dual or triple wield! Add in the use limit and it's suddenly a discussion of which is better: a person wielding powers X and Y in tandem or X and Y having their full use limit, but separate wielders. That's far more interesting without making any massive changes to canon which is what I always aim for in my lore fixes. I genuinely don't think the show is beyond fixing. The base ideas are solid. They just need some minor tweaks.

In case anyone was wondering, here are miraculous that feel like an obvious pair to me. First we have Kaalki and Sass. When you use Sass, you're on a massive time limit so it would be good to pair that with a portal power that allows you to quickly yank people out of danger. Plus it lets Sass' Chosen stay far away from the fighting so they aren't zapped away before they can use their power. Sass and Wayzz would be another good pair for similar reasons. Mullo and Trixx also have potential as they'd let you make a clone or clones of yourself to follow your illusions around to make sure you don't need to change something.

These are the kinds of tactical thinking challenges I'd have liked to see the show play with. I'm trying to think of a canon unification that felt like a strong tactical choice and I'm drawing a blank. I guess you could count the illusion trick at the end of Kwamibuster? That's the closest thing that comes to mind.

*Side note: I don't like that canon only gives one weapon when you unify, but I also get why that happens. Many unification would look silly and most people can only wield one weapon at a time. At the same time, we were robbed of Gabriel being dramatic with a fan. The fan and the cane is the rare perfect combo which could have been fun.

I have been corrected! You do get both weapons at least some of the time. They seem to appear and disappear as needed like how Ladybee only has the yoyo above, but I think she does use the top at some point. I still think Gabriel should have gotten to use the fan to be dramatic.

[jacquesthepigeon]

Friendly reminder that we only have 1 episode left of the season and we still haven't seen bustier the supposedly first ever victim of lila getting akumatized, or everyone's reaction to a new butterfly holder appearing or literally any form of setup for the new status quo of the season 🫶🏻

They will continue pushing false advertising to new heights

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

at this point, i think the only logical course of action is that marinette is going to reach a breaking point, which causes her give up the guardianship and dump it on alya, in turn erasing her memories of lying.

lowkey… i had an inkling something like this was going to happen even in the latter half of s5, except then i assumed they were ramping up to push it on luka, because it almost felt “too perfect” that he knew both marinette and adrien’s identities.

it feels very poignant that marinette gave alya a kwatagama, and also that chat noir got a power to erase memories this season. they’re gearing up to do a soft-reset.

this shouldn’t bother me as much as it does, but it just feels so… cheap. literally the writers putting their hands up and nope-ing out of it. it’s been 3 real life years since the lie even started, which is a REALLY LONG TIME for a child, only for the plot line to be erased in the end? what lesson would this teach a little girl?? if you do a really bad thing to the people you love you should just keep it going until it breaks you and then forget about it?

I hadn't considered that Luka would replace Marinette as the guardian because I never thought that they'd let Marinette wipe her memories. Master Fu showed us that you lose absolutely everything and I have no idea how Miraculous could do something so dramatic without serious serialization. I still think that. I know season six has hinted at Alya becoming Guardian, but I don't see a way to do that in the show's existing framework. The show can't even handle reveals properly and those are largely expected to fizzle out to nothing. Like I don't think anyone expected Alya learning the truth to lead to a major change in her dynamic with Marinette and it didn't.

That being said, Luka does feel like the obvious choice to take over, doesn't he? I've always said that - in terms of personality - Luka gets my vote for being Guardian. That stance has only increased with him knowing both identities and getting training from Su-Han, the only fully trained Guardian in the show.

With all that setup, I don't know why the show is going the Alya route. Alya's awesome, but she never struck me as the ideal guardian. I don't think she'd be terrible at it, but it also doesn't feel like something the story set her up for in terms of who her character is. It's more like she's just getting the role because she's Marinette's bff and Alya deserves better than that. If she's next in line, then she should have received the guardian-themed development Luka got instead of having all her training off screen while Luka gets major moments that feel like setup to be the next guardian.

There's also the issue that the show hasn't really explained what it thinks makes a good guardian. I'm not even sure why one is needed with all the miraculous handed out. And how could Alya be guardian unless she knows every holder's identity? Does she know that? And why would Marinette want to make anyone she loves guardian when it's such a burden? Why not just give Su-Han the memory curse since he wanted it?

This lack of coherence is yet another example of one of Miraculous' defining issues: they don't seem to plan anything. They just throw shit at the wall because it's cool or shocking and hope that the pieces will come together somehow.

This is not an issue that's unique to Miraculous. I can think of many properties that fell apart for similar reasons. If you want to tell a big, complex story, then you need to make a plan and stick to it. Miraculous never does that which is why I wouldn't get too invested in anything season six gave us. Anything could matter and nothing could matter. There is genuinely no way to know. Like in the ask, you said:

it feels very poignant that marinette gave Alya a kwatagama, and also that chat noir got a power to erase memories this season. They’re gearing up to do a soft-reset.

This absolutely feels poignant, but the same could be said for so many things in previous seasons even though those things went nowhere. Here are just a few examples in reverse chronological order I'm curious how many my followers remember:

In the season five episode Confrontation we were introduced to the fact that magical charms can create a magical shield whenever a bunch of charm holders are grouped together.

[Gif description: Denis Damoclès' charm resonating with the charms of his students, creating a magical shield that purifies an akuma]

Confrontation is one of the last episodes of season five so this power being introduced right before the big final feels poignant. In a good show, this would be the setup for something big. In Miraculous, this is the setup for nothing. The power was not used in the season five final even though that episode saw lots of people teaming up to fight the villain. It was also not used in season six. Will it be used in season seven? Who knows, but if it is, that's way to late for it to count as payoff for the season five setup. To much time has passed. The poignancy is gone.

The season five episode Illusion introduced us to the resistance AND initiated both Lila and Gabriel into the resistance:

Gabriel: Of course, he can. Nino: You're so cool! I mean, kind. Thank you, it would be an honor if you would become Mr. Comrade Tartar Sauce, an honorary member of our resistance network!

Nino: Oh, my bad, I almost forgot to introduce Comrade Sweet and Sour. Lila: Hello, Comrade Béchamel. I know you haven't always seen me as your friend, but now that we're in the Resistance together, the war's behind us, right? Let's make peace. 

Lila's reveal ends the episode and even includes dramatic music which makes it feel poignant, but it's not. The resistance is basically forgotten after this episode. Lila being a part of it affects nothing even though there was all sorts of potential with that idea. For example, Illusion was the episode that saw Nino happily spilling the beans about his and Alya's secret identities to Marinette and Adrien while recruiting then for the resistance, another action that feels poignant. You could pair that with Lila being in the resistance to have her know Nino and Alya's identities but we get nothing. Neither action has negative consequences because this site cannot make up its mind about identity reveals being good or bad.

In the season four episode Gabriel Agreste we get that weird party where everyone has to turn in their phones and wear a mask which is weird and dramatic and feels like it should go somewhere, but it doesn't. The party tells us nothing and hints at nothing even though we now have The Kingdom in play and that would have been a perfect way to hint at their existence.

Félix stealing Gabriel's ring in season three feels like it should have been used for something now that we know the ring's backstory, but it wasn't. Félix never used it to control Adrien and it wasn't even a meaningful bargaining chip in the season four final. Like does anyone think Gabriel would have said "no deal" if Félix only offered up the miraculous and kept the ring? And Félix offering the ring up so easily feels out of character when season five would see him go out of his way to steal Kagami's ring to protect her from her mother's control. Why is he so willing to risk everything to save this girl he just met and so unconcerned about his cousin's freedom?

My money is that Félix only offered up the ring it want an amok when it he style it. Once the writers reconned the ring into an amok, they needed Gabriel to get it back so that the amok could be used in season five without the story being meaningfully impacted (aka they need a way to let Nathalie undo every one of Gabriel's commands within minutes of them being issued which is the real reason there are two rings instead of one. Yet another example of something feeling poignant and going nowhere interesting.)

We even saw this issue back at the end of season one/start of season two with the reveal that Gabriel has the Guardian's book. That reveal is almost immediately hand waved away and never comes back. I bet many viewers have even forgotten that it happened.

The list goes on and on and you're right. Every one of these moments feels cheap because they are cheap. It's easy to write cheap drama that goes nowhere. It's hard to write good drama that matters. That's why so many shows fall victim to the cheap drama route.

I can think of multiple shows that end seasons on cliffhangers because that will make sure people tune in for the next season. The big problem is that many shows do that without planning how to resolve those cliffhangers, leading to absolutely nonsense payoffs. Miraculous does that all the time, but it's not limited to the season finales. They will do it with random episodes, too. So many episodes end with the promise that this will all mean something only for the episode to never come up again. I gave an example with Lila above, but I bet you can think of a dozen more to add to the list. Will the season six finale be yet another one of these?

Only time will tell, but my money would be on most of the finale's dramatic elements fizzling to nothing simply because that's the established pattern for this show. How many of the previous finales meaningful impacted the world and how many were immediately undone or ignored? That tells you how this show works. Expecting something different is just setting yourself up for disappointment. It doesn't mean that it won't happen, Miraculous occasionally has payoffs, but they're rare and you need to keep that in mind when watching this show. It's best enjoyed if you like cheap thrills and don't care if they go anywhere. If you want depth and quality writing, watch another show.

[mystic-myrtille]

This is a little bit of a side track but reading the part about the miraculous charms making the akuma shield made me realize a huge ass plot hole for the s5 finale. I don‘t know if amyone already pointed that put so apologies if I just reiterate something that‘s already been said, but:

These fucking akuma shield charms could‘ve easily been used to protect Adrichat from akumatization, which was the one argument from the writers to not include him at all!

Think about it, LB and CN face off Monarch, then he‘s revealed to be Gabriel, Chat freaks out and Gabe tries to akumatize him and Chat tries his hardest to fight it and just before he gives in, the whole hero gang shows up and combine their charms so Chat can reject the akuma.

This would also tie in perfectly with the power of love theme with all his friends supporting him through a tough time. Because they care about him. The power of love can be both about romantic and platonic love that way!

The pieces were all laid out. It could‘ve all come together so neatly!

And yet the writers just… decided to do none of that.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

That's exactly the kind of thing I expected to see in the final! Not Adrichat specifically - though that would have been the ideal scenario for a show that's supposedly about the power of love and friendship - but something that makes the shield powers introduction feel meaningful!

A big part of the final is the resistance fighting back. They all know about the charm power. They were there when it first activated and even played a part in activating it so they all have first hand knowledge of how to make it work. They also know that it has powers similar to Ladybug's cure since they saw it purify an akuma. Pair that with the fact that the show spent seasons four and five handing those charms out like candy and you'd think that this would be the setup for the teen characters rallying the various charm holders and freeing victims but nope! The charm shield was pointless drama and the charms are largely pointless, too. The show would rather give screentime to the special-only characters than give the characters we spent five seasons with a meaningful part in what is supposed to be the grand finale of the show's first arc.

This is why I say this show is all setup and no payoff. It's impossible to get invested in anything when even the most obvious plot points get ignored in favor of cheap drama and/or preserving the status quo.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

at this point, i think the only logical course of action is that marinette is going to reach a breaking point, which causes her give up the guardianship and dump it on alya, in turn erasing her memories of lying.

lowkey… i had an inkling something like this was going to happen even in the latter half of s5, except then i assumed they were ramping up to push it on luka, because it almost felt “too perfect” that he knew both marinette and adrien’s identities.

it feels very poignant that marinette gave alya a kwatagama, and also that chat noir got a power to erase memories this season. they’re gearing up to do a soft-reset.

this shouldn’t bother me as much as it does, but it just feels so… cheap. literally the writers putting their hands up and nope-ing out of it. it’s been 3 real life years since the lie even started, which is a REALLY LONG TIME for a child, only for the plot line to be erased in the end? what lesson would this teach a little girl?? if you do a really bad thing to the people you love you should just keep it going until it breaks you and then forget about it?

I hadn't considered that Luka would replace Marinette as the guardian because I never thought that they'd let Marinette wipe her memories. Master Fu showed us that you lose absolutely everything and I have no idea how Miraculous could do something so dramatic without serious serialization. I still think that. I know season six has hinted at Alya becoming Guardian, but I don't see a way to do that in the show's existing framework. The show can't even handle reveals properly and those are largely expected to fizzle out to nothing. Like I don't think anyone expected Alya learning the truth to lead to a major change in her dynamic with Marinette and it didn't.

That being said, Luka does feel like the obvious choice to take over, doesn't he? I've always said that - in terms of personality - Luka gets my vote for being Guardian. That stance has only increased with him knowing both identities and getting training from Su-Han, the only fully trained Guardian in the show.

With all that setup, I don't know why the show is going the Alya route. Alya's awesome, but she never struck me as the ideal guardian. I don't think she'd be terrible at it, but it also doesn't feel like something the story set her up for in terms of who her character is. It's more like she's just getting the role because she's Marinette's bff and Alya deserves better than that. If she's next in line, then she should have received the guardian-themed development Luka got instead of having all her training off screen while Luka gets major moments that feel like setup to be the next guardian.

There's also the issue that the show hasn't really explained what it thinks makes a good guardian. I'm not even sure why one is needed with all the miraculous handed out. And how could Alya be guardian unless she knows every holder's identity? Does she know that? And why would Marinette want to make anyone she loves guardian when it's such a burden? Why not just give Su-Han the memory curse since he wanted it?

This lack of coherence is yet another example of one of Miraculous' defining issues: they don't seem to plan anything. They just throw shit at the wall because it's cool or shocking and hope that the pieces will come together somehow.

This is not an issue that's unique to Miraculous. I can think of many properties that fell apart for similar reasons. If you want to tell a big, complex story, then you need to make a plan and stick to it. Miraculous never does that which is why I wouldn't get too invested in anything season six gave us. Anything could matter and nothing could matter. There is genuinely no way to know. Like in the ask, you said:

it feels very poignant that marinette gave Alya a kwatagama, and also that chat noir got a power to erase memories this season. They’re gearing up to do a soft-reset.

This absolutely feels poignant, but the same could be said for so many things in previous seasons even though those things went nowhere. Here are just a few examples in reverse chronological order I'm curious how many my followers remember:

In the season five episode Confrontation we were introduced to the fact that magical charms can create a magical shield whenever a bunch of charm holders are grouped together.

[Gif description: Denis Damoclès' charm resonating with the charms of his students, creating a magical shield that purifies an akuma]

Confrontation is one of the last episodes of season five so this power being introduced right before the big final feels poignant. In a good show, this would be the setup for something big. In Miraculous, this is the setup for nothing. The power was not used in the season five final even though that episode saw lots of people teaming up to fight the villain. It was also not used in season six. Will it be used in season seven? Who knows, but if it is, that's way to late for it to count as payoff for the season five setup. To much time has passed. The poignancy is gone.

The season five episode Illusion introduced us to the resistance AND initiated both Lila and Gabriel into the resistance:

Gabriel: Of course, he can. Nino: You're so cool! I mean, kind. Thank you, it would be an honor if you would become Mr. Comrade Tartar Sauce, an honorary member of our resistance network!

Nino: Oh, my bad, I almost forgot to introduce Comrade Sweet and Sour. Lila: Hello, Comrade Béchamel. I know you haven't always seen me as your friend, but now that we're in the Resistance together, the war's behind us, right? Let's make peace. 

Lila's reveal ends the episode and even includes dramatic music which makes it feel poignant, but it's not. The resistance is basically forgotten after this episode. Lila being a part of it affects nothing even though there was all sorts of potential with that idea. For example, Illusion was the episode that saw Nino happily spilling the beans about his and Alya's secret identities to Marinette and Adrien while recruiting then for the resistance, another action that feels poignant. You could pair that with Lila being in the resistance to have her know Nino and Alya's identities but we get nothing. Neither action has negative consequences because this site cannot make up its mind about identity reveals being good or bad.

In the season four episode Gabriel Agreste we get that weird party where everyone has to turn in their phones and wear a mask which is weird and dramatic and feels like it should go somewhere, but it doesn't. The party tells us nothing and hints at nothing even though we now have The Kingdom in play and that would have been a perfect way to hint at their existence.

Félix stealing Gabriel's ring in season three feels like it should have been used for something now that we know the ring's backstory, but it wasn't. Félix never used it to control Adrien and it wasn't even a meaningful bargaining chip in the season four final. Like does anyone think Gabriel would have said "no deal" if Félix only offered up the miraculous and kept the ring? And Félix offering the ring up so easily feels out of character when season five would see him go out of his way to steal Kagami's ring to protect her from her mother's control. Why is he so willing to risk everything to save this girl he just met and so unconcerned about his cousin's freedom?

My money is that Félix only offered up the ring it want an amok when it he style it. Once the writers reconned the ring into an amok, they needed Gabriel to get it back so that the amok could be used in season five without the story being meaningfully impacted (aka they need a way to let Nathalie undo every one of Gabriel's commands within minutes of them being issued which is the real reason there are two rings instead of one. Yet another example of something feeling poignant and going nowhere interesting.)

We even saw this issue back at the end of season one/start of season two with the reveal that Gabriel has the Guardian's book. That reveal is almost immediately hand waved away and never comes back. I bet many viewers have even forgotten that it happened.

The list goes on and on and you're right. Every one of these moments feels cheap because they are cheap. It's easy to write cheap drama that goes nowhere. It's hard to write good drama that matters. That's why so many shows fall victim to the cheap drama route.

I can think of multiple shows that end seasons on cliffhangers because that will make sure people tune in for the next season. The big problem is that many shows do that without planning how to resolve those cliffhangers, leading to absolutely nonsense payoffs. Miraculous does that all the time, but it's not limited to the season finales. They will do it with random episodes, too. So many episodes end with the promise that this will all mean something only for the episode to never come up again. I gave an example with Lila above, but I bet you can think of a dozen more to add to the list. Will the season six finale be yet another one of these?

Only time will tell, but my money would be on most of the finale's dramatic elements fizzling to nothing simply because that's the established pattern for this show. How many of the previous finales meaningful impacted the world and how many were immediately undone or ignored? That tells you how this show works. Expecting something different is just setting yourself up for disappointment. It doesn't mean that it won't happen, Miraculous occasionally has payoffs, but they're rare and you need to keep that in mind when watching this show. It's best enjoyed if you like cheap thrills and don't care if they go anywhere. If you want depth and quality writing, watch another show.

[bigfatbreak]

Speak of the Devil

part twenty-eight previous/next

[zoe-oneesama]

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What is even the point in new magic artefak that literally just re skinned miraculous? Like, it's literally implied we had miraculous in every country why made a new power system that literally just copy-paste with bare minimum alteration? This not even counting non magic power. Like, the old power system are already inconsistent why made it worse by adding a new ones?

I'm assuming this is about the prodigious, the thing wielded by Fei Wu which is described thusly in the Shanghai special:

Nooroo: Please, master, think! It is for good reason that the Prodigious was abandoned in favor of the Miraculous! It was secured in that cave because it is too powerful, too dangerous!

As far as I can tell, that's all we get to explain the difference between this thing and a miraculous. I searched "prodigious" in the transcript and none of the things that popped gave any more details than that. Nothing in the special shows why its more powerful either. As best I can tell, it just lets you transform into 8 different animals with the strongest transformation - the Dragon - being an arguably better version of the Dragon miraculous which is cool, but that doesn't make it stronger than miraculous like the peacock and the butterfly. You could call the prodigious the miraculous of Transformation and I'd believe it because that's all it is. (Yes, I know that's Nooroo's Force. Doesn't change the fact that the prodigious does a similar thing.)

The miraculous wiki page on the prodigious doesn't give any additional info. It just quotes the special and drops vague lines like:

The Prodigious was abandoned because it was considered far too powerful and dangerous. This indicates that its power surpasses that of the Miraculouses, including even the incredibly strong ones like the Snake, Rabbit, and even the Ladybug and the Cat. However, it's possible that the Prodigious' sheer power is compared due to the sheer instability of it, rather than greater raw power.

I have no fact-based idea for why the prodigious isn't just called a miraculous. My best wild guess is that the writers have some cool lore for it that we're probably never going to see, but that they really wanted to hint at/technically keep so we get a confusing addition to the show that adds nothing to the lore we actually see. That guess comes from the fact that the writers have openly done this with other elements of the show. Like a lot of the weirdness about Chloe's parents is because the writers really like their never-been-canonized backstory for the parents that we'll likely never see in the actual show.

[isma-the-peacock]

If it was ONLY the prodigious, but this show won't stop creating sloppy clones of the miraculouses.

In The Shanghai Special we get the prodigious with the renlings, cousins of the kwamis (whatever that means)

One could say it's an exception since it was hidden because of it's terrifying power and all.

But in the Tokyo Special we get introduced to the sprites, space robot kwamis.

But hey, finally in S6 we get introduced to Irupé! Holder of the Hummingbird Miraculous! Right?

Nope, Twitter Man came and confirmed that this is not a miraculous, but a totem! (whatever that is)

Prodigious, sprites, totems, but what about the MIRACULOUSES?! You know the magical jewels from the title???

It gets annoying

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Oh wow, you weren't kidding, the hummingbird is apparently not a miraculous and the hummingbird itself is not a kwami.

[Image description: a tweet of an image of Irupé and her hummingbird shaped companion. The text above the image claims this is a "hummingbird Kwami". The show's head writer retweet the image and added "Spoiler: this is not a kwami"]

That's.... a choice. As always, this show's lore baffles me. There are no canon rules for what kwamis are or what they can and can't do so why should anyone care if this is a kwami or not? What makes this meaningfully different? Why do we need things that aren't kwamis when they act and look like kwamis? It feels more confusing than fun.

I forgot that the Tokyo special also introduced bonus non-kwamis. I read the summary and it does sound like the sprites are meaningfully different from a kwami in both firm and function. They're robots, not animals, and they grant group powers in addition to individual powers which the miraculous don't. I was under the impression that the show runners want Stellar Force to be a spin off which is another good reason to make the sprites a separate thing.

None of that applies to the prodigious so I still think that one should just be a miraculous that was hidden away especially since the special acted like the prodigious was too powerful to use and then let Fei keep it. That's needlessly complicated. A hidden miraculous is so much easier to understand. I obviously can't make a fully informed analysis of Irupé's totem since we know nothing about it, but with her being such a minor character and with no spin off planned, I'm struggling to see why she needs to have a fourth type of power and not just another miraculous or even another prodigious.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Hot Take:

Odyseus should be "Ancient Greek Black Car Holder" (and not Heracles), given that latter half of his story is about "returning to 'his M'Lady", and he managed to defeat powerful opponent "with cunning and puns" by introducing himself to said opponent as "Oudeis" (which means "Nobody" in Ancient Greek) during one of adventures that he had.

I have not yet read the Odyssey so I can't comment on that, but it sounds like a good fit! My only criticism is the same criticism I have of using Heracles which is that the show has already given us a miraculous holder who was a real person and I would prefer the show to pick either historical figures or fictional figures and stick to that choice since their audience is little kids. When you're trying to educate little kids you want to be clear what is fact and what is fiction. I can think of shows and story collections I loved as a kid that used a blend of both, but they were always clear which was supposed to be which and you can't really do that in something like Miraculous unless you want to break the fourth wall.

Then again, the show's version of Joan of Arc was an insult to the real woman and had almost nothing in common with her real story, so why not go the fictional route for the rest?

[blueberry-bubbles130]

Lots of people have said it before me, but Chloe’s situation is messed up in so many ways. With multiple adults having groomed and used her, before tossing her aside. And how she’s still being groomed and exploited, but isn’t aware of it. Or she is, and just refuses to acknowledge it because she wants to think this is love.

But another thing that I recently realised that O think makes it so much worse is just how publicly available this knowledge is, in universe. Such as in Queen Wasp, when Audrey says there’s nothing exceptional about her on live tv. Which is several levels of horrible itself. But it’s also shown in miraculous there’s social media, so it’s highly possible someone else had recorded it and put it online for everyone to see. Presumably this also could have happened when she was removed as mayor and Andre dragged her off and sent her with Audrey.

Meaning that literally anyone in the universe of miraculous could easily find the footage of Chloe being treated badly online.

Yet of course, both the show and Thomas refuse to acknowledge this other aspect of tragedy to Chloe’s character. As no one, especially any other adults other than Noe and Audrey, has attempted truly help Chloe in any way. Leaving Chloe to be manipulated even more. While Thomas has arguments with fans online about it, and then bashing Chloe fans in the show itself.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

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Even more dumb is how the London special revealed that Tikki knew about everything since Origin since future Marinette used her

(Post this ask refers to)

For those who aren't watching anymore, the London special sees Marinette go back in time to Origins and take the earrings after Origins!Marinette decides to give them up:

Past Marinette: ...Tikki? (puts the earrings back in the box and puts the box in the drawer) I'm really sorry, Tikki... Past Sabine: (from downstairs) Marinette! Breakfast is ready! Past Marinette: Coming. ....[cutting out superfluous dialogue]... (Present Marinette grabs the Miracle box from the drawer, closes it and returns to the Burrow with it) Marinette: Woah, I feel like that was like ten years ago. (opens it as Past Tikki comes out of it) Past Tikki: (sees Marinette and Bunnyx) Marinette? When are we? Marinette: We're at a point in time where someone stole my Miraculous. We need to figure out who, when and how. Then I'll bring you back to the Marinette you just met. (puts on Ladybug Miraculous) 

In the show's very tepid defense, this is the only interaction Past Tikki and Present Marinette get. Once it's over, Marinette immediately transforms and stays transformed until the earrings are ready to be returned. The show has never been clear on how aware the Kwamis are while they're being used for a transformation so it's possible that Past Tikki didn't learn that Gabriel had the butterfly, but that's just a headcanon. I can't say for sure that's how transformations works and there are episodes I can think of that argue against this read which is the whole problem.

In the original post, there are lots of ways to defend Tikki not knowing that Gabriel has the butterfly in spite of her supposed access to the knowledge from other dimensions. Too much info for her to parse while in her chibi form is my favorite, but it's not canon. It's the audience making logical headcanons to fix canon's lack of explanation which would be totally fine if Miraculous treated itself as a silly show for kids where you're not supposed to think about things too deeply. It doesn't, though. It clearly wants to been seen as child-friendly, but serious media and serious media invites higher scrutiny. It's perfectly fair to look at things like season six's lie plot and ask why the show isn't addressing the other liars in the room especially when the show keeps including scenes that make Tikki feel like a less-than-stellar mentor figure. My personal favorite was this one from Passion:

Plagg: Sugarcube, the situation is stinkier than the old, rotten Brie I keep hidden away for emergencies! My holder has fallen in love with yours! Tikki: Well, that's wonderful! She's head-over-heels in love with him too. Plagg: No, it's not wonderful, it's cataclysmic! What happens when they tell each other how they feel and the feeling is mutual, huh? It'll take them two seconds to tell each other everything. I love you, you love me, kissy-kissy, I'm Ladybug, you're Cat Noir, BOOM! The end of the world! Tikki: Don't worry, Plagg, that's not going to happen. My holder has decided to run away from her real feelings to pursue an impossible love with Cat Noir instead. Plagg: Uh, just to be sure, sugarcube, you do know that Cat Noir and my holder are one and the same person, right? Tikki: I do, but my holder doesn't. Plagg: If she declares her love to Cat Noir, something tells me she'll find out soon enough. Tikki: You have nothing to fear. When my holder is in love, she never gets anywhere. She'll just knit hats and make very complicated plans that will never come to fruition.

I get that this is supposed to be a joke, but it falls flat because it's in the middle of what's clearly meant to be a serious discussion. Plagg is worried about the fate of the world and Tikki's response is, "Don't worry! My holder hasn't had any personal growth even though we're in season five. The world is fine." That's not funny to me. That's just sad. Comedy shows can blend comedy and serious topics, but this is not how you do it. I can't think of a time Miraculous' did it well so I'll have to save that topic for another post where there's room to talk about other shows in depth and keep this post focused on the Tikki issue.

I don't think canon wants me to view Tikki as a bad addition to Marinette's life, but that's my takeaway from the way the show plays her. She is not helping Marinette become a better person nor is she willingly, but regretfully sacrificing her charge's well being for the sake of the world. She just doesn't seem to care about the world or Marinette all that much.