FINALLY A Cat Noir Centered Episode That Showcases Him In A Way We Rarely Get To See, From Going Out

So hang on, hang on, lemme make sure I’m getting this right. So she’s in a psych ward. In a wedding gown. And she takes the “miracle move on drug” the “forget him” pill of which the effects are temporary. Right, right. And then she’s set free, and immediately walks into a sterile office in a VICTORIAN MOURNING gown! And sits down to start working away on her typewriter. She’s writing, and she loves her muse, and it’s ruining her life. Okay. And then she and the muse are laying on the papers, in love. The pages of her work, her diary, her songs, THE FILES!! And they’re together, and the pages are flying around them, blocking them from the camera, okay? You still with me? She reaches for the muse and then she’s getting electric shock therapy?? With curly hair?? Okay. Okay. And again, loving the muse is ruining her life. And all the doctors, the people closest to her, run away scared when the electricity short circuits or whatever, and the muse is the only one who notices and stops it from killing her!!! The muse is in a (glass) phone booth, and Taylor is sitting right on top, but out of view from the muse. And they are in the middle of NOWHERE. The rust that grew between telephones??? And then we’re back in the office, and she’s pulling all the files out of the drawers!! In the mourning gown again!!! And she’s letting them out, ruining the sterility, and she’s freaking out, sobbing. And then she’s facing the camera, stone cold, letting the files swirl around her, now out in the open ON FIRE I MIGHT ADD. And back in the psych ward in the wedding dress, she breaks the glass to escape, to bolt?? And then, once the files are free, once the glass is broken, once the muse steps out of the glass!! Then she can touch the muse. Then she can touch the muse. Somebody give me an oxygen mask, holy shit

#PURE

After watching Glaciator 2.0, we ought to revisit Hack-San, Rocketear, and Wishmaker after getting more context from this episode, because I really wanna talk about Adrien and Chat Noir's characterizations as of late. Take a look at the scene from Hack-San as an example:

While there have been instances, such as in Oblivio and Troublemaker, where Adrien occasionally displays Chat Noir's mischief and playfulness, you don't usually see Adrien act out or be petty about anything. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't recall Adrien ever "acting out" like this in his civilian form in previous episodes. For the most part, this is the first time Adrien has shown any kind of emotional outburst (or immaturity, I guess?) in his civilian form. Adrien is usually portrayed as being"perfect" because he has to uphold his father's brand. Most of Adrien's emotional range is expressed through Chat Noir because Chat Noir is Adrien's emotional outlet.

We don't typically see Adrien act like this unless he's Chat Noir. Because of this, I have always found it a bit challenging to see Adrien and Chat Noir as the same person. At first, I thought that the writers couldn't make up their minds with his characterization, but now, especially after seeing Wishmaker, I think this disconnect between Adrien and Chat Noir was an intentional writing choice.

It's so easy for the audience to see Adrien and Chat Noir as two separate characters because, in a way, they are. That's certainly how Adrien views himself; he's either this teenage heartthrob who's constantly on his best behaviour, or he's the goofy and mischievous Chat Noir. These two personality traits are seemingly at odds with each other, and yet Adrien somehow embodies them both. This contrast was made especially clear in the art room scene in Lies:

"There. This is really you."

"Do you really think?"

"Yes. You're... perfect."

This scene honestly told us so much more about Adrien than I think most of us realize. A lot of people have analyzed this scene and said that Kagami is able to see Adrien for who he really is, but I don't think that's the case at all. Look at his reaction. If Adrien had a strong sense of self in the first place, then this interaction between him and Kagami wouldn't be like this at all. Adrien would be happy, or at the very least flattered, that someone actually understood him and wanted to get to know the real him. Yet, look at Adrien's face; he's not scared or put off, but he's definitely not happy nor relieved. He's unsure. He's confused. He doesn't connect with Kagami because he doesn't understand what Kagami means. Kagami only sees what she thinks is Adrien's true self, but even Adrien has no clue what that even is.

This season, Adrien is starting to push back against his father, as we saw in Mega Leech, and that line between Adrien and Chat Noir is slowly starting to blur. This "perfect" facade that Adrien has to perform all the time is starting to dissipate. His flaws are starting to show as he's being put in situations where he has to assert himself.

Now, before he can do all of that, Adrien is going to have to come to terms with that the fact that Ladybug isn't interested in Chat Noir, and that the idea of them being together is completely off the table.

Some people might look at this and say "well, yeah, it's about time. Adrien needs to learn about boundaries and stop projecting this fantasy onto Ladybug." That's true, yes, but a lot of people forget just how isolated Adrien is and just how desperate he is for some kind of deep emotional connection. Remember this scene in Glaciator?

"Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all."

Most of us overlooked this scene, but this was a crucial piece of characterization for Adrien, not to mention foreshadowing for Glaciator 2.0.

Of course, Adrien values Ladybug's friendship, but he always had this hope that she was going to fall for him eventually. Whenever horrible things went on in his life, he always turned to Laybug to make him feel better. Even after defeating the akuma in Lies, despite being on rocky terms with Kagami, he doesn't seem as bothered by it because Ladybug was still practically living in his head rent-free.

This is a heavy contrast to the way Marinette felt about her breakup with Luka, which left her devasted.

In Adrien's case, he's not just clinging onto this romantic fantasy, he's become dependent on it for his emotional well-being, so much to the point where it clouds his better judgement. Now he's experiencing emotional whiplash after being faced with the fact that his fantasy won't ever become a reality. He can't depend on this fantasy anymore, because now he has to face all of the loneliness and lack of control he has in his life and realize that he's the only one that can change it.

This is the catalyst for Adrien's character development, and it's going to be intense.

A Roadmap of Lucaya: Season 1

We all know Maya liked Lucas for a long time (and that the “she only liked him to see if he’s good enough for Riley” thing is bullshit). But when did he start liking her? When did it start becoming obvious?

In other words, I thought it’d be fun to map out the Lucaya story from the pilot until Texas, and see what we can see. Since this will take a while, I’m going to focus on season 1 only in this post; season 2 will come soon.

So, let’s take a look at the Lucaya moments, big and small, and then we’ll talk about them in a broader sense.

Pilot: The sloppy joe thing. Farkle uses sloppy joes and chicken pot pie as obvious metaphors for the girls (sloppy joe = Maya, chicken pot pie = Riley). Lucas is eating a sloppy joe, as is Maya. I personally don’t think this necessarily means Lucaya, but it’s an interesting minor observation. (It’s also a callback to a Boy Meets World episode and Cory and Shawn have a verrry similar lunch food=girls conversation)

Boy: The start playing their “game” of teasing each other.

Father: The game continues. Maya seem almost jealous when she can’t get Lucas’s attention back onto her as she’s teasing him while he walks away with Riley. At the school dance, he brings her a rose. She comments that he puts thought into their game; he agrees.

Maya’s Mother: Lucas shuts Farkle up when he starts putting his foot in his mouth in regards to Katy not showing up to Maya’s art show.

1961: The first time Lucas is outright supportive of Maya: he encourages to keep trying with her art.

We see more of their game when discussing his great grandfather - Maya sings a song about it, and Lucas doesn’t seem to mind. Likewise, Lucas is thrilled when he finds out Maya’s family comes from the Clutterbucket name.

And things start to get interesting here: Maya’s grandmother May seemed to have a “missed opportunity” - the theme of the episode - with Lucas’s grandfather. (Likewise, there’s a hint of this with Riley and Farkle’s grandparents.) While this connection is between the grandparents and not the kids, this is all VERY eye opening.

Crazy Hat: The birth of the first hahurr. It comes after Maya spent a day (offscreen) alone with Lucas.

Flaws: Lucas picks up Maya to stop her from doing something she might regret. Maya later jumps on his back to stop him from doing the same thing.

Friendship: Lucas appoints Maya as his Secretary of State, and it’s very clearly spelled out that it means he thinks highly of her. She helps put together a video for him that means a lot to him.

Their games continues, when Maya sings a song about him and he plays along on his harmonica.

First Date: There’s an interesting exchange between Farkle and Lucas about dating the girls, and Lucas says if Farkle started dating one, he’d start dating the “other one.” Moments later, Maya approaches him and he greets her as Other One.

He ends his date with Riley (that they’ve been on for all of 2 minutes, poor Riley) because Maya’s upset and encourages Riles to go to her.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t address this, even though I honestly, truly don’t know what to make of it:

Maya is wearing a yellow top, and Lucas is in a bright turquoise. In the background of the scene, there’s a boy and a girl at the water fountain (I think?), and she’s in a bright turquoise dress; the boy is in yellow.

So what does it mean? Possibly nothing, but it’s sooo strange. They’re not explicitly focused on, but they are very much in several shots, and it’s a little distracting and hard not to notice. I’m not saying this automatically means Lucaya, but...god it’s bizarre. If they were both in blue, or more neutral colours, I’d chalk it up to coincidence. But yellow and turquoise? That shit’s intentional.I just don’t know why.

Okay! Now that we’ve laid out the Lucaya moments, what can we gleam from this?

Well, it seems to me there’s been small nuggets of Lucaya from the early days. They start playing their “game” as early as the second episode, and it ramps up throughout the season. Lucas never seems to be genuinely upset with her about any of this; in fact, her encourages her and often joins in in some way.

Crazy Hat seems to be the turning point: they spend time alone together, and Maya hahurrs him, which quickly becomes a staple in their relationship. And to make it more interesting, we see them get more physical with each other directly after that episode. Interesting development, huh?

We’ve seen that despite their teasing, Lucas is protective of Maya and her feelings pretty early on. We also have it spelled out for us that he thinks highly of her - in the same episode where he takes Riley on a seemingly romantic princess horsey ride, no less.

Lucaya is low key in season one, but it’s there. We see their relationship develop and grow as the season progresses. Season 2 is where everything ramps up like crazy, but there are some eyebrow raising moments in season 1 for sure.

a child,

rip alex mercer you would’ve loved chappell roan

au where everything is the same except marinette has black hair and grey eyes and she goes all blue when she transforms and that’s why no one recognises her

I JUST NOTICED ANOTHER PARALLEL

imagine the “are you doing anything later?” “i have a previous engagement” scene from the beginning of the incredibles but with ladynoir 

what a great day to wake up knowing you've stanned kagami from the very beginning