Miraculous Ladybug

Damn that's concerning, that's a lot of actresses at once

Most of the cast are betting The Other Darrin it seems.

That's a red flag. In fact, I'm pretty sure in the US it's supposed to be illegal for an employer to prevent employees from discussing their pay, because it prevents some of the more basic forms of collective bargaining. Normally, companies fight back by making it "impolite" to discuss pay, but they shouldn't be allowed to explicitly forbid it.

Something is shady here.

It is 100% illegal in the US for a company to forbid its employees from discussing wages.

... Miraculous is a French production, though, and we don't know how that affects the legal side of things.

So here's some good news.

The cast is getting their raises.

Pog as yeet!

That's great news to hear.

I feel like a pretty decent criticism of the show is that Marinette seems a bit disconnected from the plot. Adrien has a personal connection with the villains, which would be good for milking drama, but Marinette has nothing personal with the villain which is a bit bad for having her as the focus of the show. A common criticism is how Chat Noir would be more interesting as the protagonist because of his connection to the plot through his father. I disagree with such an assessment as I would prefer to instead actually have Marinette be given a connection with the villain instead of being demoted from what is supposed to be her show. One idea I read somewhere is that Marinette as Gabriel's apprentice or as someone who at least heavily admires his fashion would give her more personal stakes in the plot.

And I have definitely noticed in the fandom, at least on Tumblr, that Marinette is often shoved to the side in favor of Chat Noir in fan-works. People will draw Adrien having great angst, while Marinette will be made to act as his emotional support which has the effect of effectively reducing her to a supporting character. And while this kind of bothers me, since I don't like women characters be made to act as emotional support for me (I find it to be a too common trope rooted in traditional gender roles), I honestly get why this happens. Somehow someway, the creators of this show gave way too many interesting and dramatic details to Adrien, instead of to Marinette (even though she is the main character and was designed specifically to be a great figure for young girls) and as a result, Marinette comes off as bland, while Adrien comes off as more interesting to her, as so much of the show revolves around his family drama. Whether it be his father, his mother, or his cousin, everything about the show's plot all comes back to Adrien, while Marinette has little personal involvement with anything. And it sucks honestly that this happened.

(I don't know this is just a ramble, as I'm venting my biggest issue with the show and how it affects the fandom.)

I say an easy fix would be to actually have one of her parents be The Dragon instead of Nathalie, or to tie her to Nathalie more closely. This could happen several ways

• The first one would be the "Raised by the Agrestes" thing, but that has a few issues (including Like Brother and Sister being an issue for the love square), but it does mean Marinette would have a personal connection Gabriel. an alternative would be to instead have Felix's family be the one to raise her.
• A easier scenario (and one that doesn't need orphaning Marinette) would be have Nathalie be involved with scouting out budding fashion designers and taking Marenette on as an apprentice.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 25th 2022 at 6:00:33 AM

Thing is, it was mentioned in the first season that Marinette admired Gabriel for his position in the fashion world. Iirc, that's why she was so interested in doing the hat making contest in Mr. Pigeon since it was being judged by him? And Style Queen does have her invited to a fashion show by him thanks to said hat design. So I do think it's rather unfortunate that this was never expanded upon.

I do remember it being popular fanon that Gabriel would approve of her as a Adrien's girlfriend because of her fashion talent until Chat Blanc crushed that pretty hard.

I like the second option. It gives more focus towards Marinette's desire to be a fashion designer. I also think that having the role of Guardian be something that is tied to Marinette's family, by making Master Fu related to her, would also bring more personal investment into her superheroism. Like the Miraculouses could be family heirlooms, and secret family responsbilities, that are passed down, only for Gabriel to steal them. The role of the story wouldn't just be him trying to get them, but her trying to take them back. I toyed with this in the past, but I like the idea of Gabriel being a metaphor for colonialism, so him stealing sacred objects from Chinese family seems like something that would serve as that kind of metaphor.

Agreed. I do get why a lot of fics focused on Marinette's personal drama that isn't a byproduct of Adrien's use Lila as the enemy instead of Gabriel, since Lila is the more personal villain for Marinette.

Wasn't the idea of Marinette inheriting an early idea? Either way, I would definitely read a fic of that

I did read a fic (which I can't find now) where Marinette's grandmother found the Miracle Book and gave it to her as a present when she was a child. She's been slowly translating it ever since, so when Tikki shows up Marinette actually mostly understands what's going on, even if she originally assumed the book was fiction and some of her translations are non-standard. I think it stalled at chapter 2, though, where the kwamis convinced her to take Chat Noir to see the Guardian after the very first fight.

I definitely like the idea of tying Marinette closer to Gabriel through the fashion world; most future fics typically have her working for him, whether or not he's still Hawkmoth. Having that be acknowledged more in the show would be nice, though.

There are a lot of odd choices in the show. Interesting ideas that are just kind of ignored. Marinette's fashion career is one of those things, though it is referenced often enough that I wouldn't say it's really ignored. The bigger one is how they make sure all the other heroes are temporary, greatly reducing the chances of any real team interactions. That one is changed by damn near every fanfic that ever focuses on the other heroes.

I wouldn't agree that it's "bad."

Most superheroes and magical girls - the two big inspirations on this show - have little personal connection to their archnemeses, save the ones that are created by their adversarial relationship. Marinette doesn't have to be related or have a personal connection to Gabriel for her emnity with him to feel strong or be adequately written. If anything, it comes off as something of a cop out.

It's also worth noting that only one of the heroes having a personal relationship is probably by design. That way one character can have personal drama with the character, and one character doesn't have to and can react to other things. There's no real necessity for both of them to have the same plot hooks - if anything, it's redundant.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 25th 2022 at 7:34:22 AM

Every Miraculous transformation phrase has been confirmed by the official Miraculous website, including Miraculous from Penalteam. So far we only knew the phrase for Barkk ("On the hunt") from the season finale.

"Stompp, make way!"

"Ziggy, bleat it!"

"Orikko, sunrise!"

(Also, that is one cursed looking Rooster Bold)

Heh, I just got the pun on Rooster Bold.

Marc helped everyone pick their codenames. By the time Sabrina, Ivan, and Nathaniel had theirs, Ladybug was already coming back with all the other heroes, and the only name Marc wrote for himself was "Coq Courage". He hastily crossed it out and panicky looked around until he noticed the latest comic he bought sticking out from his backpack...

Why don't they let the friends that they give miraculous powers to kept those powers? wouldn't it be better if they kept them and that way their team is bigger and stronger?

Half of this show is about Ladybug not doing things because "too risky".

Because Status Quo Is God.

And apparently "Ziggy" is spelled "Ziggi" now. Interesting. I've only ever seen it spelled as "Ziggy" before so this will take some getting used to.

Apparently, the main story of Season 5 will be 26 episodes long.

The 27th episode, "Action", will be a "bonus" episode for the fight against plastic pollution in Paris.

In my country, being forbidden from discussing your pay is completely standard. Every job I have ever had has forbidden me from discussing my pay (which is very low)

I agree with @Known Unknown. When both protagonists have a reason to be angsty, a story generally collapses into not-fun waffling very fast.

And it's an interesting dynamic with A&M not seeing each other's problems because their lives are so different.