Love Square as of Love Eater (or me rambling through my feelings)
Hoo boy, so that finale eh? Anyway, this is an attempt for me to process through my thoughts. Definitely spoilery and slightly heading into headcanon territory.
I was wondering why when Marinette and Chat Noir ‘gave up’, why they didn’t choose the other? That would have solved the Love Square like solving a complicated rubiks cube.
After all, hadn’t Marinette said (in one of the specials regarding Chat Noir) that if Adrien wasn’t around…? And another poster said it best, how they were so confused because Adrien’s body language kept indicating how he was falling in love with Marinette?
Well for me, it’s because of two factors, timing and safety. As in Luka and Kagami were the safer options. No doubt that both Marinette and Adrien are attracted to the latter two and could definitely love them, but let me explain.
It’s obvious for Marinette. I don’t think she can ever bring herself to reciprocate Chat Noir’s feelings because of her self-confidence issues. For her she’ll never be as good as ladybug (and that was even starkly shown to her when Chat Noir ‘rejected’ ‘Marinette’ in Weredad), but even without that she is such a responsible girl that she’ll never put her own wants over that of Paris’ so there’ll always be those complications of secret identities and tangled emotions. So for Marinette, Luka is the safer option, and she feels her heart is safer with him because at least he sees or better yet ‘hears’ a part of her, even if not the whole part.
So for this reason, as much as it would be a lovely development, I don’t think Marinette will reveal her identity as Ladybug to Luka if she couldn’t even reveal it to Chat Noir, her most trusted partner. For the same reason as above, her sense of responsibility, but also because of that desire of safety. She’ll always know that Luka’s feelings are for her and there’s no Ladybug to ‘interfere’ with that. But on the flip side, it’s unfortunate because Luka would never get to know her fully as she is, two sides of the same coin, Marinette and Ladybug.
So how about Adrien and Kagami? Yes, I definitely see the attraction, but more than anything I see the understanding. It’s the same thing that Adrien shares with Lila and Chloe, that complicated family background and loneliness of being raised in a rich family, but unlike the former two, Kagami is principled and strong. With those two factors - a place of understanding borne from shared backgrounds, and traits that Adrien admires greatly as shown by how much he admires them in Ladybug (and also in Marinette to an extent), it’s no wonder that Adrien would choose her after ‘giving up’ on Ladybug. But like I said, it’s more of understanding, rather than passion.
So why do I consider Luka and Kagami the safer options? It’s because of their similarities to Marinette and Adrien respectively, the similar background, the similar interests and to an extent Marinette and Adrien know the latter two have feelings for them, and for those two who have been in unrequited love for so long, the feeling of the chance to have it requited must be a soothing balm to their egos and bruised hearts.
Marinette and Adrien and that complicated thing called Timing
Truth be told, when it comes to the Love Square, I’m more heartbroken over the Lukanette development rather than the Adrigami side, because of the reason why I believe Kagami is the safer option rather than Marinette for Adrien.
As to the love square, Adrienette has always been my favorite ship (Marichat is a close second), and the side that has always fascinated me is Adrien —> Marinette, because it’s always subconscious.
Kagami is the safer option for Adrien because Adrien can fall in love with Marinette and will fall in love hard and fast given the chance (as can be seen in Oblivio, Adrien is the one to fall first). Personally, I think he’s already in the process, but what he lacks is awareness.
Their problem is timing. Adrien was still in love with Ladybug when he told Marinette about the girl he likes, and Marinette thinks that girl is Kagami.
And can we just all give a hand to Marinette for her wonderful development?? She’s still in love with Adrien and she has her friendship with Kagami, but push comes to shove because she thinks they like each other, she makes the decision to back off because she believes it’s what’s best for the both of them. It’s both a good and bad development because it shows she’s matured from her time with Chloe and Lila (and really just wants what’s best for Adrien), but part of it has to do with her self-confidence issues because she doesn’t even put herself in the running, she doesn’t give Adrien a choice.
Because that’s the thing isn’t it? If Marinette hadn’t heard Adrien liked another girl, if she had confessed, if Adrien heard that confession…? What if right? Because I think it’s important that it’s not as if Marinette moved on because her feelings were rejected by Adrien. Because I think that there was a high chance of reciprocation had Adrien heard her feelings as if thinking, ‘oh, that’s it’ and feeling everything falling into place.
Because Adrien seemed hopeful when he thought Marinette was Ladybug in Kwamibuster. After all, hadn’t he said he’d love whoever was under the mask? But even that development is good (and isn’t it cute that ‘Marinette’s’ alter-ego is a mouse? it still matches with a cat, and I hope there’s an episode where Chat has to work with Multi Mouse, I think it’d be a funny scenario where Adrien is the one to know the latter’s identity instead of the other way around haha) because now that Marinette and Ladybug are two separate entities in Adrien’s mind, Marinette would have that comfort that if and when Adrien falls in love with Marinette, it’ll be for her rather than Ladybug (even though I don’t think Adrien thinks that way). It’d be more poignant, because it’s as if Adrien chose to fall in love with her twice, both as Ladybug and as Marinette.
Marinette doesn’t give herself credit. She doesn’t see how Adrien can fall in love her, but Adrien can and is probably falling (rather than the simple attraction he has with Kagami). He didn’t/doesn’t know how Marinette feels towards him, because Marinette has always denied it and has never given him a straight answer, unlike with Kagami whose feelings he does know, and he knows where he stands, like a safe harbor, which is why I think as deeply as he was hurt with Ladybug, there’s always that unconscious break in Adrien’s mind when it comes to Marinette, that he never sees beyond what she tells him on the surface because it’d be that much more painful to be rejected by Marinette (a Ladybug redux) on the off chance that he’s wrong about her feelings and there’s that added danger of losing her friendship which he’s already desperate to keep because of his preconceived thoughts of its fragility. So for him, wouldn’t it be better not to rock the boat and keep her friendship? But as with Marinette, who hurts only so deeply, precisely because it’s Adrien, Marinette is not just a safe habor like how Kagami is for him and how Luka is a safe space for Marinette, but his ‘something more’.
Because while Chat Noir expresses his love for Ladybug in words, Adrien expresses his love for Marinette through his actions and his gestures, unlike the former, they’re in ways he cannot control, or even realize.
Because as he was consciously loving Ladybug or consciously choosing between Ladybug and Kagami, he was unconsciously loving Marinette all this time.
It’s in the way Chloe (because I believe part of the reason why she targets Marinette specifically is how as Adrien’s childhood friend, she notices his attention or ‘something’ towards her), Lila, and Kagami, three separate girls who holds affection for him all pinpointed Marinette as someone he liked (so even as Adrien denies it, pfft ‘she’s just a friend’, there must be something in his actions that give off those signals).
It’s in the way he was off his balance when he thought Marinette ‘liked’ Chat Noir, as compared to how cool and collected he is when it comes to Chloe, Lila, and even Kagami. How in Weredad, he was equal parts both Adrien the boy, not Adrien the model, and Chat Noir, how unsteady and unsure and off-balance even as he was resolute to ‘reject’ Marinette for Ladybug.
It’s how he unconsciously holds her and wants to keep her with them. In Love Eater, he was the one who wanted Marinette to stay with them and Kagami was the one to look at him after his slight outburst (and Marinette in her melancholy didn’t even realize the attention he was paying to her, as if reversing the dynamics, Adrien chasing her rather than the other way around), and holding her hand, but not Kagami’s while running away.
It’s in his soft gaze and how it’s especially when she’s not looking at him that he looks at her in that way, meaning it’s something he wants to do while not being conscious that he’s doing it (Startrain for example). Even when he says ‘wow’ and agrees with Kagami that ‘she’s right’ that Marinette looks beautiful. It’s not with the same expression and voice that she says it which means that that’s not a way a friend is supposed to say it. From the start of Season 3, Adrien has been gazing like Marinette in a way that a ‘friend’ doesn’t usually gaze at another friend.
It’s in the way he’s so desperate to make her laugh and be for her what Plagg is for him, someone who saved him from his loneliness.
It’s in the way he wants to keep her safe whether from Akuma or backstabbing classmates, and the way he feels safe with her, falling asleep so easily and so comfortably when they’re together.
So far, from everything I’ve seen Marinette continues to be a special and different existence for Adrien, different from his other friends and different from other girls who like him (Chloe, Lila) or who he likes (Kagami, Ladybug). It’s just in a way he hasn’t, can’t, or won’t define yet.
I really do appreciate this development because we have things like destiny and choice come into play. Ladybug and Chat Noir are yin and yang, so perhaps all this time Adrien thought it was inevitable that they end up together, that they were destined, but on a meta-level and one must really appreciate Tikki and Plagg for this, the two kwamis don’t push Marinette and Adrien together as if they’re the only ones that should end up with the other. Because even in the real world. such a thing isn’t healthy. As much as they recognize the burden put onto the two’s young shoulders, the two kwamis don’t want their lives to be dictated by the miraculous. They encourage them to make their own choices, whether liking each other or other people. And that’s something important that Adrien, and to an extent Marinette, has to learn. If they do end up coming back together, it’s more meaningful that they do it by choice.
On the other side, on the surface, Luka and Kagami are people who seem made for Marinette and Adrien respectively, as if destined for them, even as they still have that inexplicable link between the both of them. So ultimately do Adrien and Marinette choose what’s safe and perfect for them? Or do they choose a more painful path for that ‘something more’? Because as much as I believe Adrien has those feelings in him, they’ll remain skinny love if he doesn’t let them develop. As for Marinette, she has to open her heart to the possibility that the person she loves can love her back.
I really do love how developed it is, because Kagami and Luka are people Adrien and Marinette can fall in love with and have happy relationships with. And in the meantime that they’re in this situation they can better develop as friends, which is what Adrien has always wanted. But here’s the thing, as much as Marinette has her self-confidence issues, she is Ladybug and Ladybug is her. Without her stuttering and after deciding to be friends, she’s starting to show her confident side to him (as shown in Love Eater when she used her hair ties for a distraction) and as we know in Oblivio, Adrien is helplessly attracted to that part of her, with or without her mask. We’ve already seen him slowly ‘fall’ for her sweetness and righteousness, so only time and Season 4 will tell how he will react to her boldness and banter, a Marinette that isn’t stuttering but is his friend. Hoo boy, is that boy in trouuuuuble~
It’s less clear for Marinette for me because while Adrien is in the newborn stage of love towards Marinette or will be (at least for me), Marinette is already in the worn-weary and heartbroken stage towards him. Can she be a bit more selfish and start to see herself as worthy?
I can easily see is it as being between Lukanette and Adrienette. The seeds are already there. Although not exactly jealousy, there was something about Adrien’s face when Luka was the one to catch Marinette and not him. So I think it’s this point that will be the determining factor of everything changing in the safe status quo they’ve all established. How will Adrien feel with a Marinette who is his friend yes, but a Marinette that has chosen Luka? I think Adrien will find that he isn’t as satisfied as he thought he’d be at being ‘just friends’ with Marinette. And irony of ironies, it’s at a time when Marinette has decided herself not to be jealous of Kagami. Ultimately what’ll happen to the four of them is what they choose it to be. More than timing or destiny, it’s the choices they make that matter.
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