Canon has Failed, Welcome to the Salt Side

(Primary account: @non-canon-central)

[sophieabigail2021]

[jacquesthepigeon]

Its been ten years (and, admittedly, quite a handful of poorly explained and petty posts) and people's refusal to play with the idea of how bigoted the show's writing is and how that in turn taints intended characterization still confounds me

Its as simple as "this character is not intended to be misogynistic" -> "the writing with this character reflects misogynistic attitudes" -> "the character is inevitably shown embracing and practicing misogyny"

Max's character wasn't supposed to be seen and misogynistic in Gamer for only blaming and targeting Marinette for beating him fair and square in a tournament despite Adrien also beating him, but the narrative's own misogyny makes it so that it can absolutely be read as Max being offended that a girl beat him instead of a guy

Same shit with adrichat's reckless, irresponsible, aggressive, and incel behavior

The argument was never that he was hellspawn

Its that the writing makes him act as such and frames it positively/sympathetically due to its own bigotry; the writing is trying to use bigotry in his character's favor

Then there's also the flip-side with bigotry tainting characters on the receiving end of discrimination

Marinette and the female cast have abundant shitty "traits" assigned to them solely because of the narrative's misogyny. They're catty, jealous, obsessive, possessive, etc. because they're girls and the narrative wants you to tut-tut them for it while, sometimes in the same episodes, expecting you to pity or support male characters for the same behaviors. The narrative's bigotry is not trying to benefit these female characters in any way.

That's not even getting started on the racism

Point is, its not about passing moral judgement on the characters, its about noticing what the narrative wants us to pull from them and refusing to embrace it when bigotry is involved

[ml-salt-central]

Announcement:

I mentioned a couple years ago that I was working on a rewrite of miraculous and between then and now, I've come to a realization... to do a rewrite, you need to at least have some love for the source material, your disappointment from it has to come from the fact that you believe it can better and you want it to be better because you love it so much. I, however, have no love in my heart for miraculous... so I was unable to see this project through, I hate the characters, I find the world boring and the concepts don't really interest me... so yeah, the rewrite is cancelled BUT I will share the ideas I had for it and the general lore and plot-outline I came up with because it would be a waste to not share them.

I do not have a schedule for when I will share the story concepts due to irl stuff and other projects I'm actually passionate about so... expect them whenever, I'll try not to take too long

[ml-salt-central]

The whole "Will Adrien find out the truth?" Thing is just the new love square btw, just another carrot on a stick that the show will dangle in front of the audience for as long as they can because they can't write a story that can organically make the audience want to stay and keep watching

[madamefeu]

I’m so sick of the ML writers trying to get us to feel bad for Marinette. ‘Boohoo, what if everyone finds out that I lied about Gabriel? No one can know the truth about Gabriel!’ Girl, no one made you lie about him. No one needed or wanted you to lie about him. The show wants us to think that Marinette lied to ‘protect’ Adrien when really what she did was make him feel bad about not wanting his abuser to be remembered as a hero. If Adrien finds out the truth and breaks up with Marinette, it will be completely deserved. Marinette has betrayed the trust of everyone she claims to ‘love’, and the show wants us to think that that’s a good thing. No.

[jennrypan]

..Im geniunely confused on why people want Marinette to be akumatized so badly and why they think itll be interesting.

Maybe I'm too annoyed by her behavior to think she ever deserves a crashout at this point but..truly. At this point..WHAT could SHE have to be akumatized about??

Lying to Adrien?

Making Paris believe Gabriel's a hero??

Losing the Butterfly miraculous??

Like..those are things that could've be avoided so easily. And I sweaaar if they try to make her op.

Idk. Its soo.. everytime Marinette has these big emotions its something that could've been avoided and its always Adrien making her feel better even tho her actions directly affect him 🫩

And then theres the weird ass bully group thats..gonna try and break them up which..honestly. go for it at this point?? Cuz sure why not.

Bustiers 'utopia' for sure.

[wisteriasymphony]

To anyone who hasn't recently checked twitter, by the way, the name of one of the three lacoste TNs who harassed andre in grendiaper was revealed and you would in fact pronounce it similar to "The N-Word". And yes, people are defending it as not racist.

[sweetcloverheart]

Y'know the worst thing about "Grendiaper" (Well, aside from the horrifically blatant racism/colorism at play) is that it basically reinforces all the complaints people have had about Zoe being a massive Mary Sue:

-Gets a brand new hero identity/form for seemingly no reason or justification (At least Cat Walker and Rena Furitive+Scarabella had narrative-based reasons for existing).

-Gets/creates a brand new power for herself (something that supposed to be limited to our main heroine and antagonist)

-Narrative ignores/gives her a free pass for doing horrible things that it regularly punishes the rest of the cast for (Ladybug "condemning" Fury's actions is meaningless when the show 1) is justifying it by having her targets be "mean/bad" people (and having one of them reject the apology given to him) 2) is likely going to walk back on whatever "punishment" she's given)

-Relies heavily on pity/angst to get you to like her/justify her bad actions huh that sounds familiar where have i heard this oh wait-

-Is getting an implied multi-episode arc while everyone else is getting oneshots/background events (Seriously, why is Zoe of all people getting a antihero vigilante arc when my man Nino "hasn't gotten to be relevant since S2" Lahiffe is right there!)

-Constantly being pushed to the forefront/given unnecessary focus at the expense of other characters

-Characters who are rightfully angry at being assaulted and publicly humiliated "mean" to or about her are condemned as horrific villains

It's like the writers read all the complaints people had about Zoe being plopped into the main cast with very little buildup or prep time and proceeded to double down on everything they were doing

[sunsetosirias]

(Grendaiper came out a few days ago but I have to rely on the review Smarty Pants made to understand what happened because I can't find the full episode anywhere online❤️)

I've been seeing people praising Zoe as Fury for "entering her Batman era" and "standing up to people who deserve it" but I can't get on board with the show begging me to find Zoe interesting in the way it wants me to nor can I agree with how a lot of the fandom is praising and hyping up Zoe's "justice".

With all the overblown punishments she doled out, not once did she bother to even attempt to explain why her victims were being punished in the first place, she just abandoned them without giving a shit about their wellbeing or mental states after the fact. How the fuck are they supposed to "improve" if they don't know what the fuck they did wrong? For all they know, they were attacked and kidnapped by a supervillain who torments those who can't fight back for shits and giggles.

Bob Roth was in a studio dressing room talking to someone when he was abandoned to cling to the top of the Eiffel Tower to avoid falling to his death. The bus driver was doing his fucking job when he was locked in a panther cage and genuinely feared for his life. A child was in what should've been the safety of his home when he was abandoned at the base of the Eiffel Tower in a humiliating situation in front of a giant crowd of strangers while being who knows how far away from home - oh, and he was being recorded to be further humiliated for online strangers too. No one can convince me Zoe gives a shit about "justice" after she pulled shitty stunts like this against people who don't have a chance to defend themselves against her.

Did Zoe wonder, for even a fragment of a second, how the public would respond to her humiliation rituals once they became widespread knowledge? To the public, Fury is a supervillain who's incredibly dangerous since no one knows their motive, thus won't know who the next target for their cruel humiliation will be; no one is safe since they targeted a child!

Zoe is an incredibly biased judge of character who doesn't stop to think why someone may act the way they do in the brief moment of time she just so happens to be watching them. She doesn't stop to think about what they could be going through or that they're human with limits to what they can put up with in a single day, all she sees is what she wants to see if it means enacting her bias excuse of justice.

I've seen a few arguments stating that Marinette shouldn't be allowed to revoke the Bee Miraculous from Zoe if she discovered that she's Fury because it would be hypocritical since she kept Felix. 1. Marinette is already a massive hypocrite so revoking Zoe from her status as Vesperia would be in line with what canon has already presented. 2. It's implied in canon that Felix has already apologised for his past actions and he isn't going to pull the same stunts that he did in the past. Felix's acts have been forgiven, are in the past and are no longer happening. Zoe's acts are threatening to do more harm since they're still ongoing in the present and she's showing no signs of remorse since she's still acting as Fury. (The Felix point isn't one I completely agree with canon on but it's still a point that exists and is worth mentioning)

Overall, Zoe has gone from a character I couldn't find myself caring to like due to Doylist reasons regarding the show's writing to a character I despise for Watsonian reasons alongside the previously stated issues.

Zoe is not a vigilante, she's a super powered bully who cowers behind the veneer of moral superiority over those she deems as lesser than her who she can freely torment without the risk of her victims fighting back

[sillysiluriforme]

[lizzylikeanature]

Miraculous is never beating the racist allegations, not surprised tho unfortunately.

Credits go to @/wisteriasymphny on Twitter/X.

[ml-salt-central]

THE FUCK YOU MEAN CHLOÉ HAS A BROTHER?!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Do you think that Marinette had character development and that she lost it in Season 6 or that she never had character development at all?

No one in this show has true character development where they grow over the course of the narrative. At least, no one has lasting positive development. Any positive development will be limited to a single episode and then be immediately undone such as Marinette promising to be more open with Chat Noir in the season four final only for her to maintain all the secrets in the next season.

The only kind of development that sticks around is when characters get worse. Marinette is allowed to keep more and more secrets, Chloe is allowed to be a bigger brat, and Gabriel is allowed to treat Adrien worse and worse because those things don't move the plot forward. They make the plot stagnate.

If Marinette was allowed to actually show off her supposed growth from season four, then she wouldn't keep things from Chat Noir and then Adrien would learn the truth and we can't have that so Marinette must never be truly better. She can only ever be worse because she has to keep secrets for the show to work the way the writers want it to work.

Similarly, Adrien couldn't actually learn to stand up to his father because then Adrien would have been able to make it to the final fight and that would have lead to him learning the truth so he has to be too weak to resist the nightmare dust. A strong, independent Adrien is too dangerous for a show that's all about the status quo.

This is, as always, why you don't introduce big serialized conflicts in episodic formula shows. The two just don't mix.

[storygirl000]

i know everyone's gonna be focusing on marinette's actions this episode (which honestly, even as someone who's always leaned more in marinette's favor, i can't even begin to defend), but can we talk about how sublime is portrayed for a moment?

bc as far as i can tell she's basically the poster child for the "saintly disabled" character. like literally. her only "flaws" afaik are her lack of legs and her overbearing mom. she's literally shown playing a harp as birds flock around her like a goddamn disney princess. it honestly feels like she only exists to be perfect and thus stoke marinette's jealousy.

so uh. congrats on once again botching writing a disabled character ml writers.

[jacquesthepigeon]

Anyway the big issue with the crew’s approach to tropes and “plot twists”, aside from being very lazy attempts at shock value, originality, and unpredictability, is that they never seem to have considered what the intent and messaging is behind certain tropes, whether they agree with said intent and messaging, and if there’s another original way to convey the intent and messaging instead of immediately abandoning it in favor of skipping to whatever the opposite of a trope is without further thought for what it implies

[ml-salt-central]

Random thing but Zoe being canonically into girls is the equivalent of putting a toothpick with the lesbian flag on a slice of white bread, it still has no flavor or substance, it just has a neat decoration

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I’ve always wondered why I’m so harsh on Zoe outside of just her character being used to it’s simplest degree (ie just being a replacement for Chloe) and I think I get it now.

Zoe is a perfect example of the “good/perfect victim”. The writers literally used her to downplay Chloe’s own abuse experiences by saying “See? Here’s a teen who was also abused at school and she turned out to be a sweetheart who’s so much better than Chloe in every way” blatantly ignoring She and Chloe possibly different home lives because Zoe had a different father.

As someone with experiences of toxic home lives I don’t appreciate it when abuse gets undermined especially parental and Zoe being used as a mouthpiece for what I guess can be summed up as abuse apologia made me think so lowly of her as a character.

Thoughts?

I actually just got another ask about my thoughts on Zoe, so I'll schedule this to post the same day since it's topical. In that post, I talked about why she bugs me and it's because she reads like the main character in an escapist self-insert power-fantasy fanfic. Once again, to be extra clear, those types of fanfic are FINE! Power fantasies and escapism are extremely valid things that are popular in professional works, too. For example, they basically dominate isekai and romance stories, but Zoe showcases exactly why characters like this only work as main characters in escapist fantasies. If you try to make them work as a normal side character, they just feel weird. Make them the main character or don't write them. Since she's not the lead, why is she even here?

I didn't consider the perfect victim angle in that other post, but now that you've brought it up, I'm wondering if that was indeed why she was introduced. Is she here to show that someone could have Chloe's mom and still come out to be a good person? The writers do seem really obsessed with that idea as we see from this moment in Derision:

Marinette: (as she goes down the stairs) I just got three more hours of detention on Saturday, and it's all because of Chloé. Rose: Don’t be mad at her. She's this way because her mother left her when she was young. Mylène: So did mine! And you don't see me having fun bullying Marinette. We've got to do something about your pants. I'm afraid they might be ruined for good.

This isn't even why people think that Chloe is the way she is? It's not just because her mother left. It's her father's terrible parenting, her absurd wealth, and the fact that her mother didn't actually leave. Audrey is still very much around, she just ignores Chloe most of the time and insults her on the rare occasions when they're in the same place. That's a recipe for disaster.

Sure, some people are lucky enough to come out being a good person in spite of their messed up home life and those who come out as jerks don't get a free pass to be jerks, but it's not like it's a total shock when bad home lives lead to people being jerks. The bully with a bad home life is a stereotype for a reason.

I'll once again point to The Good Place as an excellent show to watch if you want to see a realistic journey for a Chloe-like character. A journey that acknowledges the struggles that come from a messed up home life without giving the characters a free pass to use that home life as an excuse for their actions. Part of their journey is accepting that they have to stop blaming their parents and take charge of their lives.

Miraculous could have done something similar if it wasn't a formula show. The potential was there. But it is a formula show and the writers apparently don't think that Chloes are capable of change. I get that childhood bullies suck, I had one! I am very happy that she's no longer in my life, but I also don't think that she was incapable of change. She just needed to be put in the right situation where she accepted that change was needed and that never happened when we were kids. Has it happened since then? I don't know! Some people never change, but that doesn't mean that they can't change. Most of us are capable of changing. It just takes the right catalyst and a lot of hard work. People rarely start changing out of nowhere. It almost always has an inciting incident.

That's actually part of why Zoe's story feels so shallow. We're never really told why she was the way she supposedly was pre-canon or what caused her to change into her canon self. This is the backstory we get in Sole Crusher:

Zoé: I'm... really sorry about today. I thought that if I did everything Chloé wanted me to, she'd accept me. I just wanted to meet my family's expectations. Which is why I left New York in the first place. At the boarding school, I was playing a part; being someone else, hoping they'd accept me. But finally, I just couldn't anymore. That's when everyone turned against me, and one day, I found roaches in my locker. They all said I was a loser. Maybe they were right. I get that I'm different, and... I'd understand if you guys didn't want me as a friend.

So Zoe lied about everything and, when she revealed that she was a massive liar, everyone turned against her? Shocking. Why wouldn't they welcome a confirmed liar with open arms? That's so weird! (That was sarcasm.)

Seriously, why are we acting like Zoe was the wronged party here? This is literally Lila's story save for the motivation behind the actions (as far as we know). There are times when motivation matters, but this is not one of them. If you've spent weeks (months? years?) lying to people, then they're not going to trust you when the lies are revealed. Maybe you'll get lucky and someone will be willing to hear you out and give you a second chance, but that's an act of kindness. It's not an act of basic human decency.

This speed run story probably wants us to believe that everyone at Zoe's school was evil and that Zoe had to fake a personality to fit in, but I don't believe that. Writers, if you want me to believe it, then actually show us her story! You had a full New York special to do it! Why didn't you make Zoe the lead there since the specials love to introduce new characters to hog the screen? Have Zoe's school be the American school they go to and have her personality change be caused by Marinette and Co. so that Marinette and Co. trusting Zoe in Sole Crusher actually makes sense instead of feeling like something the plot forced on them! This is the scene I'm talking about, btw:

Marinette: (confused) I don't understand. When I met her this morning, she was so nice. Alya: That's crazy. Chloe's influence is so toxic that she's managed to corrupt her sister in a few hours. Alix: We gotta get her out of there.

Why are you all so sure that Marinette's two-minute-long interaction was the "real" Zoe and that her new personality is all Chloe's fault? Why are you acting like it's impossible to fake being nice but faking being evil is totally reasonable?

It really feels like this show is trying to say that people are either inherently good or inherently evil. Zoe was inherently good and just played at evil, so she's fine, but Chloe is just evil so she's doomed. That is really not how the world works, but now that I think about it, it does match the way the miraculous are often used. There are "evil" and "good" versions of some of the powers instead of just powers that can be used for good or evil. I've never liked that because it makes no sense. Why do akumas need a good form? Why is there an evil transformation phrase? Why do the miraculous even have an evil mode? Who programed that in???

While were on the topic of things that were possibly done just to show that Chloe is evil: is this why they made Jagged Stone an absentee parent to Luka and Juleka and then made the "twins" totally cool with it? Is the show trying to say, "Look! Luka and Juleka are nice! Therefore this is a Chloe problem. Stop blaming her parents!"

Who knows, but your idea certainly has merit. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that this must be what's going on, we don't know and I don't like to treat educated guesses as fact because they're not, but the text certainly has evidence to back this read.