I Honestly Think The Writers Really Shot Themselves In The Foot (as They Like To Do) With The Miraculous

pet peeve is when a fellow hater conducts their haterism such that they leave the hater community vulnerable to attack. “i think characterizing Character A in x way is boring and annoying” = beautiful, flawless, unimpeachable haterism. no one can tell u that u aren’t allowed to find a certain characterization boring. “it is morally/objectively wrong to characterize Character A in x way” = sloppy, reactionary, overcommitting. you have left our eastern flank open to attack girl what the hell….now my dedicated hater troops are taking fire from YOUR enemies fuckkkkk

someone's had to write a fic where adrien is told to wear his dead parents wedding rings and no one tells him of their importance so in an act of grief he does something like punch a mirror or flush them down the toilet and everyone has to deal with the fact that not informing adrien of his remote control autonomy has resulted in disastrous consequences right

the thing is that i actually love moral grayness. and i actually don't personally believe lying is always wrong. sometimes lying is necessary in the society we live in. sometimes people that want to hurt us want to use information we have against us, and there's no reason to tell the truth to those people. it's just self defense. so mls secret identity rules have never been a problem to me ever. in fact i think the superhero genre is a perfect avenue for exploring the topic of what is and isn't okay to lie about. but there are some things that are just so fucking crazy to me to keep secret and ml has reached the point where it's like Jesus fucking Christ.

okay i will say one of the least utilized parts of ml is that the lovesquare isn't the only characters that can have multiple dynamics at once. and in fact one of my things i wanna do in a rewrite is have gabriel/hawkmoth have different dynamics with the main characters depending on persona.

for example; what is an interaction between hawkmoth and adrien agreste actually like? in a scenario where potentially hawkmoth finds out about ladybug being attached to a civilian AND having the excuse of knowing it because it's a popular model so it wouldn't out his identity, would he choose to endanger his son? or maybe would he do it himself instead of trusting an akuma, knowing he won't actually follow through with a threat to adriens life while an akuma would?

what's a dynamic between chat noir and gabriel? that's a superhero gabriel wants the miraculous from, but he can't be blatant about it, and more than that, he has no power over a superhero and no reason to dislike him. it's fascinating.

one of my fav fucked up things is the concept of adrien talking more to hawkmoth than his own father because gabriel learns that adrien is one of the most effective ways to bait ladybug. hawkmoth can read emotions, and one day he reads ladybugs enough when Adrien is in the vicinity- and woah, her emotions are so strong about him it's readable through the magical cloaking, even! he even justifies it morally because it's not like adrien is ever hurt. is it kidnapping if it's your own son? is it really hurting him if all your doing is playing chess with him on top of the eiffel tower, an unspoken threat of super powered violence enough to keep him from doing anything reckless? gabriel is spending time with his son /and/ getting the miraculous. and at the end of the day... when gabriel gets the wish, he can fix it all - so it'll be okay! :)

ik its a kids show so theyd probably never delve into this. but in the universe where chat noir and hawkmoths identity were revealed to the public, i cannot fucking imagine the media circus that would go on. the court case alone would be so bad… “hawkmoth vs chat noir: domestic terrorism or domestic abuse?” itd be soooo awful they should make it happen. paris’ most fucked up family. the youtube videos. someone would request to make a documentary. and after all gabriels shit is revealed publicly he still only goes to jail for tax evasion à la al capone.

[ID: Two images of art of Marinette Dupain-Cheng from Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Chat Noir. In the first image, there are 7 headshots of Marinette, all of them smiling softly, with different hairstyles, masks, and eye colors for her Ladybug outfit, with text describing each. The first headshot is labeled, “0. A Marinette for comparison.” The next says, “1. Classic Ladybug,” where she has her original pigtails and mask. The next is labeled “2.” and describes her changed appearance as having “higher pigtails, ribbons as antenna, eyes become black.” The next headshot is labeled, “3.” and says she has a “ponytail, ribbons as antenna, eyes become red like an anime character.” The next is labeled, “4.” and says she has a “bun, ribbons as antenna, black and white mask like the face of a ladybug, purely white eyes (like spiderman lol.)” The next is labeled, “5.” and says she has “two braids, antenna attached to mask,” and “fully black eyes.” The last is labeled “6.” and says she has her “hair pushed back, antenna attached to mask,” and her “irises are white & sclera black.” The text also says, “honestly the look i go for with my akumabug design.” 

The next image is the same as the first, but without the text. End ID]  

marinette… my beloved… i think she’s really cute with the original pigtails and red mask, but i was thinking about how chat noir changes a lot about his appearance when he transforms, including eyes, hairstyle, the cat ears, etc… so i just drew a bunch of alternatives of her outfit all together! ladybugs in particular are such a nice theme, because bugs have that creepy/cool factor because they’re just very different than humans, but they can also be really cute! especially with their compound eyes!!! 

number 4 with the bun and black mask is usually what i go for when drawing a redesign of her outfit, but i’m fond of the alternatives here too. 

as a bonus: 

[ID: Ladybug with the redesign of her appearance from the above images, with braids and fully black eyes. Her eyes are big and shiny, as if about to cry, and her antenna are down as she pouts. Chat Noir is looking at her and says, “bug i’m sorry i won’t overuse the kitty eyes please just stop making that face.” End ID]

explaining s5 finale to my friends is so. everything i say is crazy. "adrien gets yellow wallpapered and is put in a white sensory deprivation chamber in london. there's a foosball table." i sound crazy. but it's real!

don't ever remind me of miraculous ladybug it's that serious to me. I treat the writing of ml like being in the damn navy.

i think miraculous ladybug should be legend of korra season 1. in the sense there's like a romance plotline that drives a lot of character drama but the main driver of conflict is the setting itself of a nitty gritty under city with a lot of problems with a heroine slowly discovering it outside of its sparkly exterior - mostly set at night, noir type aesthetics and undercover missions, an intimidating faceless villain that manipulates crowds. the thing is that legend of korra also sucks to me but more in the political messaging it does (it doesn't let korra make any substantial changes to her world) but it's a shit ton better than miraculous ladybug. but generally i think lok season 1 is the Vibe and Tone that the miraculous with the current themes would most fit? like aiming for an older audience but not an ADULT show.