Ending 2

I'm sorry, but the fact that Chat Noir's new power is so convenient that Marinette doesn't face the consequences of hiding a terrorist's identity from her own teammates because they MIGHT tell Adrien is the stupidest argument this series has ever presented

And they created the Magical Charms.

I've said a thousand times that the justification for not telling Adrien anything being "we have to protect him, he can't suffer," is horrible, and I disagree. As Alya said in the last episode, no one can decide for Adrien whether he knows or not.

Taking care of him shouldn't be an excuse to lie to him, or to anyone else.

Adrien more than anyone deserves to know who his dad was and the things he did and why. He deserves to grieve for him and hate him if he wants to. Not telling anything is keeping Adrien in a bubble, a little glass box where he's safe.

Ladybug should have told him that Gabriel was Monarch immediately after the fight ended. She doesn't know that Adrien is Chat Noir, so she doesn't know there's a risk of the world ending because Chat went crazy and used his power.

She had the Miraculous at that time, so the only risk Adrien ran by telling him the truth was crying his eyes out. PLUS, he wasn't at risk of being akumatized because Gabriel was dead and Ladybug was there.

She didn't even have to make the information public; she just had to tell Adrien.

So no, I don't believe there was no option but to not tell him anything.

And I'm a little tired of people justifying all this by saying "Marinette is only 14, she's a child."

I get it, but there's a chapter where they tell you that Ladybug is already mature enough to be considered AN ADULT and use her powers infinitely. Even though Mari is 14, she's been Ladybug for about a year, where she's seen more than one loved one die, fought terrorists, adult supervillains, and even faced Su Han and the heroes of New York as an ADULT. Why is it that when it comes to taking responsibility (and almost always around Adrien), she's "just a child"?

But back to the last episode: Giving Chat Noir the power to erase memories is stupidly convenient for the plot. Marinette is safe from facing the consequences for lying and can continue being Alya's best friend and Adrien's perfect girlfriend without any problems because then if it happens again, she'll just find Chat and ask him to erase their memories again because "they know a secret that I can't tell you what it is, but it's bad and they have to forget it."

Only Mari doesn't know that Chat is Adrien, and that's another big problem. Marinette doesn't want to know Chat's identity, so she can't trust him with things because "maybe he knows Adrien and can tell him" is stupidly convenient and only makes me think that Marinette really doesn't trust Chat enough to tell him who the villain they've been fighting since day one is.

At this point, I really can't blame Lila for hating Marinette (look what you've turned me into, writers!) Marinette is really annoying, especially when it has to do with Adrien.

Sometimes I feel like Marinette sees Adrien more as a trophy, something perfect she wants, and not the guy behind it all. But that's the fault of the writers and their annoying need to make Adrien perfect and devoid of personality throughout the seasons. Not even Chat Noir can get a power upgrade on his own; it's Ladybug who has to tell Chat what to do.

And then the episode tries to teach you that erasing Alya's memory is actually giving Marinette the freedom to choose when to tell the truth.

FREEDOM FOR MARINETTE. But never for Adrien to feel ANYTHING.

I'm going to really enjoy it when Lila decides to really attack, even if it only lasts 10 seconds until everyone forgives Marinette for lying and Adrien just says "I love you even though we've been dating for months and you lied to me and hid sensitive information about my family. It must have been really hard for you to hide that my dead dad was the man who psychologically tortured all of Paris and even me, just because he wanted to revive my dead mom who had been hiding in the basement of my house for a year. Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow?"

And I can almost bet that Chat Noir's new power will be used to get Marinette's memories back if she gives up being a guardian, in a very convoluted way typical of the show.

Like: "The akuma caused Marinette to have to give up the box and lose her memories. If we use the Chat Noir Miraculous, we can erase the consequences of the akuma and Marinette will get her memories back."

Or much worse.

Paris found out that Ladybug lied and they hate her. We're going to use the Chat Noir Miraculous to erase their memories so they won't mistreat her anymore :D yeii freedom

Notes for what I'm writing are so funny >.<,,

I genuinely think I'm the funniest MF ever LMAOO

go check it out!!!

What is a character's core?

I've used this term and variants of it in a few of my posts and I wanted to take a quick moment to define it because I'm not sure how commonly discussed this topic is, but it's an important one to keep in mind when evaluating and writing certain types of media.

Most genres of fiction make use of standard character roles/tropes. The plucky sidekick, the dastardly villain, the last girl, and so on. This isn't a bad thing. The existence of this stuff is a big part of how we define genres and how we evaluate writing quality. For example, if you're writing a romance, you're going to have romantic leads. Two (or more) individuals who will be together by the end of the story. If these roles don't exist, then you don't have a romance. And if their relationship feels toxic and unhealthy? You may not have a romance. Or, at least, not a classic romance. The worse the relationship is, the more you wander into the genre of "dark romance," which is all about enjoying deeply unhealthy fictional relationships.

This brings us to Miraculous and why I feel comfortable defending Adrien and Marinette as victims of bad writing.

Unless the writers are doing something truly insane, the love square is our end game couple. The ones destined for a happily ever after. That means that everything the writers do with these two and their relationship can be evaluated through the lens of, "are you honoring the characters' roles as the romantic leads?" And if the answer is, "No?" Then the writers are failing because "romantic lead" is a defining aspect of these characters. It isn't what they should be, it's what they are. Anything that goes against them being a good couple is bad writing.

This doesn't mean that they must be perfect. They're allowed to make mistakes and have flaws. Those are the sorts of things that drive a story! But the mistakes and flaws have to be treated as such by the narrative, they have to have some sort of resolution, and they have to be maintained in balance with the whole "love interest" thing. Too many mistakes and flaws and we've gone from "romance" to "tragedy," which is what I'd currently define Miraculous as.

This role evaluation thing isn't limited to romantic leads. Any character that has a clear role in the story can be evaluated via this criteria. For example, Alya is clearly meant to be a good best friend and reliable confidant for Marinette. You can tell this because of things like her learning Marinette's identity and her helping Marinette discover the secrets of the miraculous, big story moment that are treated as positives by the narrative. So anything Alya does that makes her feel like a bad friend is bad writing. It's why I get the Alya salt, but don't participate because I can't view her as the awful person the Lila stuff makes her out to be. That's not who Alya is narratively speaking.

Generally speaking, this core/role thing is my main way of evaluating characters in genre content like Miraculous. It's the driving force behind most of the character discussion on this blog and something I strongly encourage people to think about if they enjoy reading/writing genre content as it's a great guideline! Figure out the role a character is supposed to be in, generally honor that role, and you're golden! You have room for flaws and conflicts while still having something to keep you in check from straying too far off course.

'Seeing one of his friends blinded as a teen. BIG contention in his relationship with Melisa for a while.'

HELLO??? HIS WIFE BLINDED HIS FRIEND?? WHEN WAS THIS??! Sometimes my characters literally jump out of the page what the hell...

Guys, I'm re-reading the outline for one of my books (my favourite book, that I've been writing for YEARS), and this is so funny to me.

'She smiles a strained smile, and goes to bed. The next morning she makes a plan where she decides to pretend to have a Talent, in plants. This is not a good plan.'

I LOVE IT, I LOVE MY PAST SELF

Okay, but what if Danny, in an effort to be less of a liar and more of a cheater, learned sleight of hand and magic and lock picking?

What if, as he gets older and the need to explain how he got in somewhere, or how he got something, or how he got out of something gets to be so abysmally frequent that he just decides: fuck it. I’m gonna be that guy. You know, that guy that just Knows Weird Shit. That guy that just Does Things because he’s a little feral.  

Instead of risking his identity and/or getting shot at as Phantom he just...becomes the delinquent that breaks into random places just to see if he could. Just ‘cause he’s bored. If they coincide with Phantom’s activities? Well. Phantom’s a cool guy. Maybe he’s got taste. 

He’ll break out some card tricks, do a little invisibility, make a little telekinesis happen--just cool little party tricks in the middle of the day. Break into locked closets just to ditch class purely because “fiddling with his magic tricks is better than class” (and totally not because he’s out there fighting ghosts, no sirree). 

Practices incessantly during lunch hours. Starts trying to break out of handcuffs in math class. A little bit of a routine with escape artist tricks applied liberally to get out of English class. Tries to see if a teacher can catch him in the act. (They never can, and it only takes a couple months for it to be purely on his skill, and not with a little help from his powers).

Loudly proclaims he’s trying to hunt Phantom, but not to “rip him apart,” just to hang because Danny thinks he’s really neat. 

Imagine that being Danny’s best fucking cover, cause at this point, whose gonna question why Danny is standing right where Phantom just disappeared to? Danny probably broke in just to stalk the poor ghost. Jesus. He’s been in weirder places for weirder reasons. He once pulled a rabbit out of some kid’s ear. His reason? 

“I just thought the coin trick was so dull. Plus, you know, bunny ears? ...No? Too much of a stretch? Yeah I thought so too. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board I guess.”

ON FICTIONAL ESSAYS, AND WORLDBUILDING

I love writing. That is a truth; one that I will hold onto for probably my whole life.

I really do love writing, especially for my baby. It is a behemoth of a book that I’d started when I was 11, and continued adding onto it until I started actually writing it when I was 17. I have too many ideas—too many headcannons, too many bits of lore that I want to incorporate into my story.

Again, I think I need to reiterate—I really do love writing. That doesn’t mean I don’t get tired of it. I will go weeks, sometimes even months where I don’t want to even touch it. Where the thought of writing and seeing that cursor just … blink makes me shudder.

But just because I don’t want to write the story doesn’t mean I don’t want to continue with my lore.

Here is another thing about me: I love history. It was my favourite subject at school. I got an A* in it. I love how history is rich, how it’s a long, long story that is still continuing. I love thinking about how people felt. How a decision made hundreds of years ago (if not thousands!) impacts us today.

I also, secretly (guiltily) love essays. Oh, sure I complained about it with my friends whenever it got assigned. But doing the research, finding the right words to articulate your thoughts, being able to read back on your writing—sometimes even just formatting an essay—I really did love it.

And that brings us to the topic I wanted to start today.

Fictional essay writing.

When I can’t stand the thought of writing the actual story, I open a blank document and start writing an essay as though I’m a character in my book needing to write a history assignment. I add actual quotes (albeit fictional), use actual dates, even reference as though I’m the character.

It can be therapeutic sometimes. There’s no pressure to move the plot forward, no anxiety over pacing or character arcs. It’s world-building, but in a reflective way. A way that forces me to know the world I’ve created as deeply as the characters do. It makes me question my decisions, makes me stopper up plot holes.

Sometimes reading back my work—it reads as though a seasoned academic had written it. But they hadn’t—I wrote it. I wrote that battle, that political treaty, that royal lineage. It makes me strangely proud of myself; as though I’ve actually done the work to research and trawl through endless websites until I’ve snagged on one that actually fits my essay. As though I’ve spent hours agonising over it, and sending draft after draft to a professor.

It makes the world feel alive, like it’s breathing outside of the story I’m struggling to write.

And it’s funny, because half the time those essays never make it into the book. They’re tucked away in a folder no one but me will ever read. But I know they’re there. I can always re-read them when I feel the need to; when I’ve forgotten a simple fact, or a food or a certain dialect.

It really is very useful—and it helps that I love it.

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A year's worth of progress! Instead of doing a straightforward redraw I decided to improve upon the original concept by drawing sequences instead of singular poses. I don't enjoy redrawing old work beat for beat, so this reflects my current skills more effectively and also does the concept better justice than what I was capable of last year!

The 2023 art

PSA: Don't use Open Office

I keep seeing people recommending Open Office as an alternative to Word, and uh... look, it is, technically, an open source alternative to Word. And it can do a lot of what Word can, genuinely! But it is also an abandoned project that hasn't been updated in nine years, and there's an active fork of it which is still receiving updates, and that fork is called LibreOffice, and it's fantastic.

Seriously, if you think that your choices are either "grit your teeth and pay Microsoft for a subscription" or "support free software but have a kind of subpar office suite experience", I guarantee that it's because you're working with outdated information, or outdated software. Most people I know who have used the latest version of LibreOffice prefer it to Word. I even know a handful of people who prefer it to Scrivener.

Open Office was the original project, and so it has the most name recognition, and as far as I can tell, that's really the only reason people are still recommending it. It's kind of like if people were saying "hey, the iPhone 14 isn't your only smart phone option!" but then were only ever recommending the Samsung Galaxy S5 as an alternative. LibreOffice is literally a version of the same exact program as Open Office that's just newer and better – please don't get locked into using a worse tool just because the updated version of the program has a different name!