Look. If you're an entity born of fear who is at least hundreds of years old and you've invited me into your workshop to answer my Computer Based Questions™ and thought to yourself "I want this one to be comfy. Humans like to sit. I'll get a chair!" and subsequently somehow aquire money, thusly getting acquainted with modern money transaction system all the while learning what the internet is and actually use that money to BUY A CHAIR (not steal it because why would an otherworldly, fear based entity steal anything, no no, let's keep it within the letter of the law) and then you look me in the eyes and go "Sit! I bought you a chair!" I will sit in it instantly and nobody is moving me for the next hour at least, that chair is precious now.
Into my adulthood find it increasingly fun to watch shows like Miraculous Ladybug or W.I.T.C.H and find how absolutely horrifying they have the potential to be if we looked at the premise a bit too realistically.
Most of them operate under the same procedure, the kind of Monster/Problem of the week formula which requires them to leave whatever they're doing behind, trying to maintain cover with flimsy excuses and awkward encounters. The entire monster of the week process usually builds up until the final showdown with the Big Bad™ that's been behind everything all along and needs to be stopped to save the World/Realm/School, depending on the scale on which the show operates. Now, this is all well and good and catered around a specific magic system that let's individual (sometimes chosen, sometimes born as the Chosen One™) people access a very individual power which leads to easy catchphrases, easy OC creation and picking a favourite character by choosing whichever power one finds 'the coolest'. And it works. It's a children's show. And all you need for it not to be is to rotate a tiny bit to the side.
Let's first take Miraculous Ladybug as an example.
Looking at the main characters, we first have Marinette. Clumsy bakers daughter, very awkward around her crush, talented artist and aspiring designer. She's spent years being the victim of bullying, so much so that, due to certain events revealed in the show, she is actively traumatized and has major trouble trusting that people genuinely want to be in a relationship with her. On top of that she strives to do well in school, help out her parents and has retained a moral compass that's pointing in the right direction. And then she helps an old man who promptly decides that she is clearly the right person to save Paris from the Big Bad™.
Next we have Adrian, the model, the love interest, the earnest and friendly boy who just wants to lead a normal highschool life but instead lost his mother at a young age and with her went his autonomy. No matter his reasons, Adrien's father is barely around and emotionally abusive when he is. He has more scenes with his secretary than his own son. You would think this gives our boy Adrien the freedom to do as he wishes, with his father never being there and all but alas, Adrien's schedule is strictly managed by both father and his secretary. Outside of high school, which he had to fight tooth and nail to actually be allowed to go to, he's always shadowed by his Chauffeur/Bodyguard. In school he's a bit clumsy with social interaction at first because he's unsure of how to go about it but he's quick at making friends since he's actually a pretty cool dude. And one day he too helps an old man who immediately decides that this young high school boy is the perfect man for the job.
Now, let's actually talk about the Big Bad™. He of course has his very own reasons for doing what he does with no regard for collateral damage. He wants what our two protagonists have and he's not going to stop at anything to get it. If we're beginning to talk about superpowers, his is essentially one that acts on human emotions and sort of enhances it. Temporarily gives them what they need and gives him the ability of pulling a 'guy in the van' by being able to look through their eyes and provide assistance and or directions. In itself, pretty okay power. Not exactly evil. But here, like it does so many times, comes in the misuse of power. The field of human emotion is strong and vast and even though he's not exactly manipulating it outright, enhancing it can potentially count, especially when using it for his own gain as he so swiftly does. He solely focuses on hatred, on sadness, on anxiety, on everything that can make people lash out and he gives them the power to do just that, using his 'man in the van' abilities to what is essentially blackmailing them into getting him the thing that he wants. There's a whole rant about why that is a stupid tactic and another about Marinette's and Adrien's powers but I'll leave that for another day, let's focus on what this entire situation means for Paris when looking at it outside the confines of it being a children's show.
The Big Bad™ targets mainly children, which is logical considering they have by far the widest and most uncontrolled range of emotions. Easy picking for a bit of emotional manipulation. These happenings are canonically well known in Paris thanks to the monster of the week situation. Those facts mean several things.
1. Our protagonists must be on constant guard 24/7. There is no telling when a strong emotion is felt and by whom, there's no telling when a rampaging villain trots through the street lashing out at civilians. There's constant patrols by our superheroes and even cases in the middle of the night or multiple times per day. There's no 'day off' when you're the only two people that can revert the powers of the Big Bad™.
2. Since nobody else can do anything about these monsters and nobody is safe (not really anyway and later on in the series only temporarily), Paris has to exist in a constant state of forced cheer and repressed anxiety. Especially young people need to learn to repress negative emotions quickly, otherwise they might be susceptible to the Big Bad™. Everybody treats the two heroes like MVPs because what else can they do. There is a police force and they're trying their best at minimizing the damage but there is so many people they can't reach or can't help because they, unlike our protagonists, don't have actual superpowers.
3. The affected children don't have an age limit. They can be literal toddlers who simply had a nightmare. The danger in this is, the younger the child, the less inhibitions there are about lashing out on other people or hurting them because they don't yet have a concept of empathy. And even if they're older victims, they don't necessarily hold back, even subconsciously. Which inherently touches on another subject entirely with Marinette's powers of creation and her ability to revert everything back to the way it was. How far does that extend? There's enough buildings that have crashed or wild animals being let loose or parts of the city being flooded that we can assume that people died in the fray even though the show never tells us outright. So, how far does it go? We've seen transformed people going back to their normal selves, we can assume people with injuries probably being healed. But what if help is too late? Do they come back to life? Do they remember everything if they do? Do they come back as the same person they were before? Are they beyond saving? My personal canon is that they do die. That dead stays dead, no matter if you fix their cause in the aftermath. Which leads me to my final point.
4. The strain this puts on our protagonists. Not only do they have their own personal trauma to deal with but the need to repress their emotions comes back on them tenfold. It has been well established that they are not exempt from being turned and they have what the Big Bad™ wants so if they do get possessed Paris is as good as fucked. The sad thing is, that it isn't as much of a problem as you'd originally think. Adrien is very used to repression due to his home situation and has to learn to want things for himself and stand up against his father from his friends. Later in the show it's shown that he had the potential to be possessed, sure, but only after something so traumatizing happens that he completely breaks. Marinette is already repressed after years of bullying and telling people that she's fine as to not worry them and throws herself into work and responsibilities so that she won't have time for the fallout. All of that and considering they have to manage a teenage life with the 24/7 constant vigilance of being the only people able to save Paris on the daily? It's no wonder that fanfictions about this show can turn into heavy angst without even changing much of the plot.
I cannot wait until it gets colder and I can sink into my oversized clothing, successful denying any form of gender attributes and instead living life as a simple blanket burrito reading books and drinking tea.
