Don’t get me wrong, I love Kagami, but her and luka’s introduction to the show was a major downturn.
Like we were promised that they wouldn’t just be love triangle fodder, but look at how the writing treats them. Yes they have their own character at least, with kagami’s mom’s expectations etc (which is a copypaste of adriens struggles but wtv), and luka’s....... whatever.
But the writing is just like “oh no, we can’t let adri or mari spend any time with a person of the opposite gender or they might fall in love”
Which is a bit too yandere for my tastes tbh. Let adrien and kagami be friends, sheesh. People lost their appetite for love triangles a decade ago guys.
It might have been slightly better if they were like, established characters before all of this. Like if they were at least explored as much as the classmates were previously, so they felt a bit like human beings. The classmates have had like no screentime recently anyway so you developed them and dumped them to bring in other undeveloped characters as plot devises.
I get it tho, adri and mari’s “will they, won’t they” is what is driving the series. you can’t just have them get together, there has to be obstacles. But you wanted an overarching plot in a serialised show. so you cant have the episodes out of order confusing to casual viewers, if they went from not being able to talk to eachother to friends it would be jarring.
But like, guys, my dudes, they way ur going is that they are going to be awkward crushing from afar right up til the last ep, confess, and get together. which is just, bad romance writing. romance requires the characters to like... interact with eachother yeah? see how their personalities interact with eachother, playful banter, overcome differences.
They’ve tried to do this with the love square, I think? but they wasted an opportunity. ladynoir had them actually interacting, but now its about chat’s onesided love. ladrien is just an extension of maris crush on adrien but in a suit, and vice versa. marichat is the one that made sense to be platonic but they like, no we can’t have them be friends and get to know eachother, lets shove in a romantic plot even tho neither of them likes eachother that way.
I get that the show draws heavily upon magical girl genres, but those worked for a reason. generally we got the protag crushing on a bland dude in the first ep, sure. but then it actually progressed. like she would witness him taking care of an abandoned cat or smth. we get adriens sad backstory from neutral perspective. mari isnt slowly getting to see more of him, which is why she comes off as a creeper to some people. and honestly its part of the reason adrien is bland. if we saw snippets of his life being neglected, it would feel sad or deep. but we are shown every minute of it so many times. so its like yeah ok, what else have you got. its boring. at least give him a goal in life, other than ‘be loved by people’. even if his goal is to give money to charity, give me something. this boy is entirely defined by his relationship to others.
And... lets get to marinette. I like marinette, i do. she has a personality and drive that i like. that said, people love to shit on her. fandom and writers. and u know what? I can’t blame them. mari is a bit of a creeper. yes she is a schoolgirl with a crush, but there are like limits yeah? posting photos all over her room, stalking, stealing his things, creating a timetable of his schedule, not wanting him to spend time with other girls. these are not normal schoolgirl crush things. this is yandere-101. and the show does treat these as flaws, kinda, and im ok with her having flaws as a character- i’d be mad if she didnt. but how is this going to resolve itself.
what lesson is it teaching kids if she actually gets together with him, “just follow him everywhere and think about him every second of the day, base ur life choices around him and never let anyone else get to him and you’ll be rewarded”. they obviously need to have some kind of revelation moment where mari stops worshipping him, throws out her posters or smth, and decides to get her fix by spending time with him instead. the writers had the perfect excuse with jagged stone barging in and calling her out, but they cant fix this. because serialised show. they can’t have her grow or move on because then its too jarring out of order or smth. they are trying to cater to a wider audience (adults/teens etc) with the long-term plots but also want to keep it casually consumable to the average 5 year old. you need to pick guys.
if its primarily a kids show, its going to be all monotone until its summed up in a finale. which is fine, usually. the big bad is defeated and all is saved by the power of friendship. I’m ok with that plot tbh.
but no, they chose a romantic base, and gave their villains sympathetic backgrounds. they chose more involved topics to explore. ones that require progression and growth. so they either have the finale with the couple getting together out of nowhere, or the big bad is given a slap on the wrist but redeemed with no consequences. either of them is a pretty bad moral lesson for kids tbh.
- yeah i’m not always entirely correct here, these are just some vent thoughts, im not really trying to police anyone. take this with a grain of salt because this was just born from personal salt-
gracieabrams
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
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