Miraculous Ladybug

Can he combine them all. Or can only two be combined at a time?

Yeah, Hawkmoth can combine two or more Miraculouses together. In fact, in the potential future seen in "Ephemeral", he combined the Peacock, Moth, and Cat Miraculouses together to turn into "Shadownoir". The drawback is that it apparent puts a strain on the user, though this hasn't occurred too much besides Marinette getting dizzy from using all of them.

In any case, Su-Han is going to grill Marinette for this.

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Mar 12th 2022 at 1:37:01 PM

Alright, thoughts on both episodes. Spoilers ahead.

RISK

The first thing that happens after everyone is marked is that Adrien wants to stand up to his dad and Marinette wants to tell Adrien that she loves him. Congratulations, Hawk Moth, you created a villain with the power to move subplots forward!

That scene with Gabriel with his wife was really well done. Honestly, it's hard not to feel bad for him sometimes. And then he spends the rest of the episode either cackling like a maniac or being horrible to Adrien.

I couldn't help but notice that his new line was just Lila and Adrien's regular outfits painted white. I know, budget issues, but I can't help but imagine that Gabriel just threw the whole together in five minutes and no one dared to say anything bad about it, even when he demanded expensive trips (and later when he canceled the whole thing).

I really liked Felix's reaction to finding Gabriel's secret room. It's nice to see him overwhelmed for a change.

Kagami's small part was great.

Sidenote, is it me, or are the designs weaker in this season. There are more and more characters with pretty underwhelming designs, like Sole Crusher, Lies, Ephemeral or Rocketear. Also, basically, every single villain's power (except Fu, Qilin, and Rocketear) was some variation of putting negative curse effect on people (forcing to tell truth, turning into childhood dream, acting risky, acting simple, etc) I mean, those were always common in Ladybug but in this season those are like all of them.

STRIKEBACK

OK, just as predicted. It's called "Last Attack of Shadow Moth" because he will lose the Peacock. It will feel good to see his old design and go back to using his old name. Maybe we'll get Rena Rouge back too eventually.

Now on the thing, I was wrong - Rooster really does literally anything and is nothing more than an overpowered lazy plot device. (I thought it gives abilities that are physically possible to humans) That sucks. The only reason he couldn't insta-win this is that Gabriel cheesed it as well and made a sentimonster that is straight-up immune to superpowers. (Still, he could just ask for power to detect Peacock Miraculous but..whatever.)

I don't get new names. Pelibug? Flairmidable? As in flair + formidable? Is flair a dog word?

This is why I don't cry that hard about missing transformations. Some of them are pretty boring. Same thing about Felix's costume really. I feel we were too harsh on Miss Hound.

Also, poor Ivan was there to do nothing. His power was pretty useless in this situation, I guess, both for him and for Strike Back. Still glad he showed up since we can see his weapon (once, briefly, in the background, if you pay attention).

"We have to take opportunities when they appear". Felix didn't even know how right he was (or maybe he did because I think he was literally stealing the ring from Nathalie as he said that). But for real. I know that Felix fanboys love to cry about how brilliant he is but his initial plan (stealing peacock) failed terribly. He just had incredible luck later and he was clever enough to seize the opportunity.

Though, I like how he achieved it with Dog Miraculous, the Miraculous that almost every viewer dismissed as incredibly lame.

So now one noticed the frog marks all day but Ladybug still remembered that Adrien doesn't have one. Okay then.

It's hilariously cruel how ready Ladybug was to make Adrien a permanent dog hero. Poor Sabrina, abadonded after one mission. I can just picture Chloe yelling at her that she shouldn't have trusted that treacherous Ladybug.

I know how the quantum masking works but it still feels weird when Cat Noir and Flairmidable stand next to each other and no one can tell they look the same.

I was hoping for a bit more from this finale. The payoff of Magical Charms, to Lila trip story, some reveals to what Felix wants... I guess some of them are moot point or will be resolved next season...and maybe Charms have no twist to them and they just suck.

I wonder what Hawky will do with his new toys. Maybe we'll get old villains like Stormy Weather but now with Miraculous. Probably return of Miracle Queen/Queen Wasp and improved Volpina. Maybe akumatized version of actual holders like King Monkey and Ryuko, that could be interesting (and budget-friendly!). His only limit here is that he doesn't know all secret identities. There will probably be a variety.

@miraculous: He can probably try to combine them all, but we also made a prediction of what might happen if he tries a dekahextuple metamorphosis, and it's not great for him.

As you can see, we've done a lot of thinking about what might happen next now that the season is over.

My thoughts about some of season 4.

• I still think Zoe's entire existence reeks of bad writting and Austric hating Chloe so much I assume he wishes he could casually kill her off but can't since its a kids show

• They started half-assing the miraculous towards the end haven't they? Ox is essentially 20th Century Boy, I like that. Dog ultimately feels like the other one that was actually thought out. Pig doesn't seem like it'd have many uses in combat. Tiger seems like it's just a weaker version of the Cat, and Goat a weaker version of Ladybug. Rooster...pretty much breaks the story in half, it's Ben getting full control of Alien X in Ben 10: Omniverse all over again, something op that kills all dramatic Tension, yet no one bothers to use because they have the Idiot Ball.

• Looks like Ladybug is facing the consequences of keeping Cat Noir out of the loop, shoving him to the sidelines, being hypocritical about her knowing his Idenity, and trying to control everything. Maybe she'll be more open with him this time.

• Felix managed to do in 1 episode what Hawk Moth failed to do in 4 seasons. He's the most competent character in the show

Edited by anoni on Mar 12th 2022 at 11:17:41 AM

I love Felix.

Felix: *screws up plan to steal the Peacock, suddenly Ladybug shows up trusting him with every cell of her body because she's Risked and thinks he's Adrien and hands him over Thief Miraculous* Whole Internet: "Felix is the smartest person on the planet."

I mean, if we're being technical, Felix's initial plan failed badly...it was Gabriel's long-term gamble with Risk that paid off amazingly.

I also thought about Alien X. I bet Rooster has some limitations (I don't think he can many any power that is too abstract like "power to give my team 1000 points" or too complicated with numerous rules and safeguards, and I bet he can't just cheat one use rule, for example, power to create healing stick instead of power to heal) but there is nothing stopping him from asking for mind control or Miraculous detection. I'm going to guess that writers will just use Rooster as a stand-in for any new Miraculous they no longer have to create, e.g. "Ladybug defeats the villain with a clever combo of Illusion Miraculous, Shield Miraculous, and Invisibility Miraculous." or "Ladybug takes Super Intelligence Miraculous, what we never made one, just use the Rooster".

OK, I finally figured out the codenames.

Pennybug - PEgasus/buNNY/LadyBUG

Flairmidable - Flair + Formidable. "Flair" means smell in French and also in very old timely English, mostly as a hunting term for a dog's smell. Apparently, flair used to refer to smell, with time it referred to all five senses, then to the general feeling or intuition for something, and eventually for talent or knack for something. You learn something every day.

Edited by Sunchet on Mar 13th 2022 at 11:54:19 AM

Honestly I don't think anyone would mind chloe staying a mean girl if they had never teased us with the possibility of her becoming better

Edited by Groverman62 on Mar 14th 2022 at 6:53:59 AM

To be honest, I remember when they made her Queen Bee a lot of people complained she was Unintentionally Unsympathetic. Myself included.

Honestly it feels like Chloe having a redemption arc at all was due to Executive Meddling due to how forced it seemed at points in season two.

Frankly it would have been better if Zoe had been Queen Bee from the start.

I mean, judging by Astruc's comments on Twitter, he definitely never wanted Chloe getting a redemption arc.

So the moment he got the pressure off him he threw that out? I can kinda get it, but it doesn't do the show much good if it already started.

I always wondered if there was dispute among the writing room bc I think there were other staff members that did seem to like her while Astruc seemed to despise her even when s2 was first airing. Maybe that's what it felt so all over the place even when it was ongoing.

Not surprising. My biggest issue came from her not being punished for what she did with the subway, however the show still gave her the Miraculous anyway. It kinda shot itself in the foot with that. And doesn’t help that the Season Three finale tries paint her as undeserving when a key part of the issue is Marinette screwing up.

Not sure it I would say it was forced. It felt like seeds were being planted with the idea Chloe can become a better person, but it was supposed to be a process. Season Three pretty much killed it before something was actually done with the idea.

Not even sure if Zoe was concept at that point.

Edited by Cross on Mar 14th 2022 at 4:17:02 AM

Season 4 also having Marinettr trust the same people Gabriel knows of with Miraculous after spending an entire season saying she couldn’t trust Chloe due to her identity being know, which rubbed people the wrong way.

It did weirdly paint her as a Hypocrite for that.

Well, Marinette still was ready to give Miraculouses to revealed people if it's an absolute emergency. And with everyone revealed, she must have decided that she can't replace that many people, and she will just have to abolish her rule and simply be more careful from now on (which she was as proven by Optigami). Chloe ironically caused Ladybug to drop the rule that she hated so much but she couldn't benefit from it anymore.

But yeah, it was obviously done because writers didn't want to retire all those heroes and it would be nice if she at least acknowledged in the show why she's doing this.

On that note, I'm surprised that Chloe never made a big deal of the fact that she knows that Alya and others are superheroes. She still remembers that, right?

Man if they wanted to Felix to be enigmatic they sure succeeded because I cannot imagine why he'd especially want the Peacock Miraculous so badly.

Because he’s a Sentimonster.

Tbf I thought it was pretty clear he was. He seemed legit agrieved at the others deaths, really searches for the Peacock miraculous and was weirdly coerced into doing stuff by them having it

You joke, but that's the leading theory in our circles.

That Adrien's mother had the Peacock miraculous could mean that like the rings, Felix and his mother could also consider it an heirloom of their family that they want back.

The Felix Sentimonster theory I can get behind, because of what was already mentioned and Gabriel's lines about erasing him "with a snap." It's the Adrien Sentimonster theory that I'm pretty sure has nothing but wishful thinking behind it.

As for Chloe's redemption arc, I don't have a problem with her not being redeemed. Either in a no redemption arc, or she starts a redemption arc but fails to follow it through. We don't have enough failed redemption arcs in media, I don't think, where the heroes try to redeem someone and simply fail. Not a "this was all a trick from the start" thing or a "she died before she was redeemed" thing, just a simple "she's not willing to accept enough guilt to truly be redeemed." The Order of the Stick did a good one.

The problems with Chloe are mostly behind the scenes, though they leak into the show. Apparently she was never intended to have a redemption arc and it got forced in; fine. But then Astruc started insisting that she never had any redeeming qualities whatsoever, taking scenes to show her being extra terrible to the few people who cared about her, and then brought in Zoe as a better version. It just rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

I've seen a few great rewrites of Chloe interacting with Zoe (both post-redemption and no redemption), so having a nicer half-sister of the bully come in is by no means a bad thing. It just feels too much like Astruc saying "you wanted a blonde Bee, right? Here you go, stop complaining."

The Felix Sentimonster theory came from the Adrien Sentimonster theory evolving to them both being Sentimonsters, and IMO there's still strong hints towards Adrien being one. The finale hammered home the idea that Adrien can't say no to his father, and ever since Felix stole Gabriel's wedding ring he's been seen fiddling with the ring he took from Emilie when ordering Adrien to obey, and supposedly he's obeyed instantly when Gabriel does that. The finale highlighted that ring and Gabriel's dismay when he was faced with a disobedient "Adrien" but had given the ring to Nathalie.

If Gabriel has any sympathy points left after both time travel episodes then I feel the ring theory is killing them completely.

Come to think of it. The Peacock is the one that allows the Sentimonsters to be created right? It makes me wonder if Felix can use it if the ring theory is true