More and more my understanding of the love square is being shaped by the idea that Adrien has a lot of empathy but didn't grow up learning any compassion while Marinette tries so hard with being compassionate but has next to no empathy

When they interact, Marinette is trying so hard to make sure that Adrien/Chat Noir feels okay, but she isn't able to gauge his emotional reactions to what she does so she often isn't able to be compassionate in the best way possible. This can come off as hurtful to him, but often not in the ways you'd anticipate - for example, Marinette wasn't able to see how glad Adrien was to have received her gift in Glaciator 2, so she disregarded the gift because it wasn't what she had intended to give him. It made him happy anyway!

On the other hand, Adrien is often hyper aware of Marinette's/Ladybug's emotions, but he was never taught how to help someone through their emotions - what actions make someone happy, comfort them, etc. The only person who he ever had to be compassionate toward was Gabriel, who generally seems to want space when he's in a poor mood (for example, Collector). So Adrien is, for example, hyper aware of the fact that Ladybug is angry because there's billboards of them kissing in Glaciator 2 - but he thinks the solution is to let her blow off steam and handle the problem externally, rather than reassure her of what he thinks and how he feels and how nothing else really matters. (In the longrun, that may have prevented the events of Kuro Neko as well.)

And in that, they both have something to teach each other: the interesting thing is, both of them often just need to slow down and consider the other person. Adrien thought he was protecting himself by giving Ladybug space in Glaciator 2, because he thought she would flip out on him. (Okay, she did, a little, but we saw that when she was detransformed, she wasn't really mad at him.) Had he paused and thought about it from Ladybug's point of view (and asked what she was truly angry about), it would have helped him to see what the most compassionate thing would have been.

Likewise, Marinette needs to slow down and actually look for reactions to her acts of compassion. While reading body language isn't something she could just learn, it is true that she can't assume what the other person feels, so at least by asking them if she's helping or hurting, she would have a chance to help them better.

Why does Adrien love Marinette?

I think Adrien is in love with Marinette because he always tries to put up a front with everyone he knows, even if it’s just by instinct, but with Marinette it’s so easy for him to put down all his defenses and just be himself. He doesn’t even realize (until S5) he’s not pretending anymore because her presence is so warm and comforting to him. He has always been naturally drawn to her in a way he hasn’t been compared to the sort of heart stopping moments he’s felt with Ladybug or Kagami. Something more tender and quiet but dear to him.

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Can I tell you the best and the most important thing about "I understand you" line from Risk that no one is talking about?

Like we already said - Marinette, Félix and Kagami were the only ones who knew what's going on with Adrien. Even though Félix and Kagami were already familiar with his household more, Marinette had a loving family and never had a better view on his situation but she still understood what's wrong, but it's not just that. It's all about her approach. Félix mocked Adrien "unlike you I can say no to your father" and Kagami yelled at him "who's pulling the strings of your life". Even though they didn't have the same intentions they both told him the same thing "you have to put a stop to it". The thing is that Adrien can't because Gabriel doesn't care about what he wants.

But Marinette, when she asked Adrien "why don't you tell him" and he told her that his father doesn't listen to him and doesn't care, she looked away and said "I understand you".

She didn't need to hear more from Adrien. She didn't tell Adrien to become braver, stronger, she didn't tell him "you're not trying hard enough" which people tell abuse victims all the time, she didn't need to hear more. She understood him. That's exactly why he told her "you're the only one". Because she really was the only one who really understood him.

That's exactly what abuse victims need. They need your support. They don't ask anything from you, only compassion. Otherwise they feel guilty as if they are responsible for what's happening to them. That's all he needed from a friend. That's why he's holding her hand, that's why he's looking at her like that. She's his safe place. She understands him.

Maybe Marinette is just a friend, but she really is his friend.

Her own difficulty confessing to him is critical to her understanding. If she can't say the words too someone who, at worst, would let her down gently how much harder is it for him to ask someone who has already proved himself an ass.

Queen Bee’s Damnation Arc

I’ve never seen the Miraculous Ladybug fandom quite this agitated before, and that’s saying something ‘cause I’ve been active in this fandom for over six years at this point and I’ve seen all sorts of controversies. But the Chloé discourse goes above and beyond: anti-Chloé folks are attacking pro-Chloé folks, pro-Chloé folks are attacking the show’s creators…it’s a mess.

So I’m gonna make a post breaking down Chloé’s character arc! That couldn’t possibly go wrong, right?

A couple notes here before I get started. I’m a screenwriter, and that’s the perspective I’m approaching this from. I’m not going to take a stance on what Chloé’s arc should be—I’m just breaking down what it currently is. And my goal here is to debunk the misconception that Chloé’s character development was erased at the end of season 3.

SPOILERS are present, up through Penalteam.

Here’s what’s happened so far in Chloé’s arc.

Let’s break that down.

I’ve capitalized specific names in the synopsis because Chloé’s arc is defined by her allies. In season 1, she has four allies—André, Sabrina, Ladybug, and Adrien. Season 2 adds Audrey, and at the end of season 3 she switches out Ladybug for Hawkmoth. Then in season 4, she loses each of her allies one by one—first André, then Adrien, then Audrey, then Shadowmoth, and finally Sabrina.

So even from this alone, we can see that Chloé hasn’t reverted to her status quo of season 1. In season 1, she was comfortable, and in season 4, she’s spiraling, cutting ties left and right, and digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole. This is a very different status quo, because it’s not stable. Things can change dramatically at any moment, and almost certainly will.

And most importantly…Chloé’s character development as Queen Bee hasn’t been undone. Even when she was a hero, she still had her selfish and hostile instincts—she was just suppressing them in order to achieve her goal of being a hero. Once that goal seemed out of reach, she had no reason to suppress those instincts anymore. But that doesn’t mean those behaviors went away and came back—they were always there; she was just able to temporarily hold them down.

So why was Chloé written this way?

There’s one thing that I never see people recognizing in the Chloé discourse—Chloé’s character arc isn’t over. There are more seasons of the show planned, and those seasons will definitely have Chloé in them. Thomas Astruc’s goal in writing Chloé was never to write the specific section of her arc that we’ve seen so far—it was to write her entire arc. Obviously, I can’t know what that arc is going to end up being, but there are some things we can more clearly understand.

When figuring out a character’s role in a plot, there are three essential elements to consider—a goal is what a character wants, motivations are why they want it, and methods are how they go about trying to achieve it. Let’s break this down for Chloé:

Chloé’s methods of suppressing her toxic instincts weren’t sufficient to achieve her goal of being a hero, and so she abandoned those methods in favor of the new method of siding with Hawkmoth. When that didn’t work out either, she abandoned that approach and currently sees her goal as unachievable.

Of course, it’s clear what she actually does have to do in order to achieve her goal—she has to put in the effort to actually learn how to not be a terrible person. And there’s a clear metric for that: she has to give Ladybug a reason to give the Miraculous to her rather than to Vesperia. Until Chloé unlearns her toxic attitudes, Ladybug will always choose Vesperia over Queen Bee—and that’s where Vesperia fits into Chloé’s arc, and I suspect this is why Vesperia was added to the story in the first place.

There’s no way to know whether Chloé ever actually will manage to get to that point; there are lots of directions her arc can take from here. But this is what her arc’s about—when someone doesn’t know how to care about other people, it’s impossible for them to be a hero. That’s the moral, and that’s why she was written this way.

It’s Adrien! If you grow up in a household where you’re ignored and not heard, manipulation is a survival skill! It’s the only way to get your needs met. You have to guide the person to the thing you need without them realizing you’re doing it. (I know manipulation has a negative connotation, but it’s like sooooo important for kids in these situations to protect themselves and I think it can be used for good and not just control. I can give examples if anyone is curious).

If you’re growing up in a household, where upsetting the parental figure earns punishment, you also have to get really good at reading their moods. You have to know when is a good time to push boundaries or when you can get away with a little more than normal, and when you need to be in hiding to avoid getting punished. So again, that’s Adrien!

Alya is relatively straightforward all the time. She’s overtly telling others what she with inks they should do a lot of the time. She’s not subtle. She’s never had to be. She’s the one growing up with a ton of loud siblings. Here you have to be loud to get needs met. Being subtle means you get ignored.

No because really. you wanna talk about it? do you really wanna get into it? 

ML literally went like “Their mom’s fucking toxic as hell and Zoe not having her as the most prominent influence on her development because she was always away at school is why she’s so much different and because of how different she was she was treated badly by her peers and had to hide that for years so she’d stop being treated badly by them and has a shitton of guilt because of it and that is why she’s not an absolute piece of shit now,” it gave commentary on their different lived experiences and how Zoe’s expected to live up to a standard that she doesn’t even want to reach or else get treated badly for it 

and y’all went “no obviously she was made to be a nicer Chloe that Astruc made JUST to spite Chloe fans so she can’t get a redemption arc” 

Please. An ounce of critical media analysis, I’m begging at this point. 

Yes!! And it drives me crazy that people say her redemption arc was ruined. What redemption? She was humanized! There was nothing in the queen bee trilogy that showed her on the road to redemption. It was only meant to show WHY she was the way she was.

And the introduction of Zoe actually introduces an avenue for how that redemption MIGHT happen. And I could very much see Chloe’s arc ending on a turning point at the very end. Where she’s not actually redeemed but has made a crucial first step or reached a turning point. I don’t KNOW that they will do that, but it seems very much like something they could be pointing towards.

Seeing as Marinette is usually the POV character I usually saw who gets the most screen time was based on their connection to her.

Adrien - Marinette’s love interest and Ladybug’s parter

Alya - Marinette’s best friend

Chloe - Marientte’s rival/bully (and interestingly as Marinette has come to some kind of internal understanding with why Chloé is the way she is, Chloé’s antics have bothered her less, and Chloé has gotten less screen time. Some of which was replaced by Lila in season three, though we’ve not seen Lila this season yet.

Nino - is Adrien’s best friend and Alya’s boyfriend. He’s two degrees removed from Marinette even though they knew each other first. And so Nino’s character is often treated like just another student in the class, and he gets the same amount of screen time as the rest of them - maybe slightly more in that he’ll get a few extra lines when we get an Adrien or Alya centric episode.

And yes, I very much hope that Nino becomes more important! (But I don’t think he will).

I think Chloé will get a redemption or the series will end in a place that implies that she’s starting a redemption. But that’s my personal prediction.

I think Alya will become the guardian when Marinette loses her memories. And I hope Alya and Adrien become really close during this time.

And I think Adrien will get the love he longs for after it’s all over, and after he breaks free of his abuse and after he learns to see himself as someone who has value just being himself.

I don’t think Nino will ever get as much of a coherent arc. And as such, I hope that he gets a ton of attention in fandom because he is precious!!!! (And this is totally my current personal mission for MLB at the moment. Haha!)

Alya salt makes me really sad, and feels very undeserved. And I love a good Chloé redemption story, but not when it comes at the expense of Alya or Adrien. Chameleon salt makes me sad, and I hope we get over it some day.

Alya salt also bothers me from a racism perspective as it shows that poc often are considered irredeemable no matter how small their infraction was or if its healed or addressed later. And the white character deserves a redemption no matter how awful they are. How dare they not give her one?

And I don’t think these biases are conscious for most people, and yet, I feel like we can see them at play in fan’s reactions to these characters and their arcs.

The end of Hack-san is probably the first time she has seriously considered that he might really need emotional support.

Truth and Lies is the first time the fae mask cracks.

I keep seeing occasional posts discussing the trauma Marinette has from years of bullying by Chloé, and I think that’s a really interesting analysis angle. One part that I think is really interesting about this is the episode Darkblade.

All of season 1 really shows Marinette’s class slowly growing into a friend group together. At the start Chloé can randomly recruit Max and Kim as her henchmen. By season 2, we have the class throwing picnics and surprise parties for Marinette. The route there is subtle and constant, but the most obvious changing point is Knightblade and the class president election. This is an episode where everybody in the class literally gets to vote for or against Marinette, and they do vote for her. That’s great for her.

But at the same time, the route there is (in her mind) similar to Ladybug: She has to stand up, and do the job that everybody else either doesn’t want to do or is too scared to do. She tries to delegate this, to convince someone else to step up, and is shot down at every opportunity.

Now, when she does stand up, the others rally around her and support her. But she has to be the leader and make the difficult choices.

That is similar to being Ladybug: Marinette does try to delegate that, and it goes poorly when Alya gets captured. She takes the job because she has no other choice. When she does so, she gets the love of the city and a catboy companion. But she has to be the leader and make the difficult choices.

So it’s no wonder that Marinette is unwilling to delegate. Others can and will provide moral support, but if she doesn’t step up and act as a leader at all times, then that will leave the Chloés and Hawkmoths of the world in power, and that is a trauma that she will do anything to avoid. In particular, fighting against injustice together as equals, like in Malediktator, is kind of foreign to her. That is crucial for understanding how she sees the world and her relationships with the people around her, including her cat.

darkblade is such a turning point in the class dynamic and the chloe marinette dynamic and we don’t acknowledge that enough

i also feel like at some point it was implied that, even though marinette’s classmates have her back now, her previous-to-season-1 attempts to stand up to chloe weren’t received with such support - chloe was the bully, marinette was the target, and most people tried to stay out of the way. i can’t recall if/when that was actually said though.

either way, this whole line of thought also explains why alya is the person marinette is most comfortable delegating to — alya was the first person to stand up to chloe on marinette’s behalf. alya saw marinette, a girl she didn’t know, getting harassed, and went out of her way to stick up for her. that’s why marinette tried to give alya the earrings in origins, and that’s why she did give them to alya in season 4.

alya is someone marinette trusts to take her own initiative to stand up against injustice, even without marinette leading her — because alya is the only person who did that for marinette before she was a leader.

There’s often a lot of subtle nuance in longer works of media, where things are not a direct repetition but a rhyme or callback.  

Think about family or friend in jokes that keep popping up.  It isn’t exactly the same as the first time, but it is a level of similarity.

Miraculous Ladybug is nearing it’s 100th episode.  We’ve seen a lot of character growth, though it isn’t always forward.  That’s okay; after all, life can be like that sometimes.  We’ve seen beneath the masks (of all kinds) to understand the drives and motivations… if you’re paying attention to the hints and clues anyways.  Even a number of the secondary cast has had a lot of time to be further fleshed out and their motivations spelled out in far clearer detail.

We see Marinette’s thoughts and motivations most clearly, in largest part because the show is mostly from her point of view.  Sure, we get the occasional villain blog in from Gabriel’s side of things and the infrequent Adrien and Plagg show.  However, all of that provides more context to the driving plot, ie. the motivation behind the villain and the eventual brewing conflicts for Adrien that will need to be handled sooner or later.

So many people very easily forget that our heroes are young teenagers.  They make mistakes…and that they are allowed to.  They’re allowed to have absurd crushes and hopes and dreams… even ones they don’t necessarily expect to come true.  The seasons have allowed them some growth and maturity although we’re being told that only a year or so would have passed in all this time.

Bafflingly, I keep seeing people assert that the dynamics haven’t changed, most especially for LadyNoir.  Just like Adrinette, the LadyNoir angle is the tested friendship with half relationship hopes.  In fact, Chat Noir stated that he hoped it wouldn’t in Furious Fu, the surest sign of foreshadowing that it would continue to change in massive ways.  I can only assume that most of these people have stopped watching the show because Season 4 has demonstrated some of the most dramatic change yet.

In fact, the only thing that hasn’t changed is that they care about one another.  They’re both just struggling to do that right as the pressures surrounding them are proving more than either of them can handle alone.

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I don’t think I’m gonna be “okay” with the Chameleon salt and especially the ongoing popularity of the Alya demonization that proliferates throughout those types of stories any time soon, even if a lot of the time it seems to be more a case of just needing someone to fill the “antagonist traitor best friend” role than hatred against Alya specifically. The hundreds of early Chameleon salt stories that became popular during season 3 established her in that role, and it seems to have just stuck as an acceptable interpretation going forwards, even well after it has been thoroughly disproven as being even remotely viable.

I understood it at first since Alya seemed to be falling for Lila’s lies and since Lila said she was going to turn Marinette’s friends against her, and well, Alya’s one of Marinette’s friends. The plot writes itself, even if sometimes it was taken well past what could be considered feasible for such a show.

I assumed it would disappear after people had their fill and it had been disproven at the end of season 3, but too many people connected with the potential of such a betrayal/revenge plot for it to happen that easily. Especially with the possibilities it provides for getting rid of characters the author doesn’t like (which mostly seem to be Alya and Adrien) and replacing them with characters the author likes better (which mostly seem to be Chloe and Luka).

But after seeing them continuing to have this popularity and the celebration of portraying Alya as a bully or even an assaulter or murderer to be torn down, with thousands of fics relying on such a premise, with them being some of the most popular ML fics, for years on end? I’m pretty resentful and bitter about that. Scratch that, REALLY resentful and bitter about that. And I can’t quite convince myself it’s unwarranted, not with what a staple it’s become over the years, with nothing but fan consensus to back it up.

But I also can’t make it stop or disappear, much as I wish everyone would just collectively agree that Alya doesn’t deserve this, nor the class or Adrien or anyone else who’s targeted in these. 

At this point staying out of anywhere that it might come up, anywhere associated with it, is the best I can do, and finding things to keep my mind occupied to try and drown it out.

I feel the same. Any time I see a new chameleon salt fic pop up, I can’t back away from it fast enough. I the Alya and Adrien salt is such a huge turn off for me. I read a couple close to the episode first airing but I’ll never read another one. I can’t understand why people are still stuck on that episode.

From what I can tell, a lot of people at this point have basically used it to launch a new canon, one where Alya is violent and malicious and basically just an awful person, with the class more generally being traitors, in order to get that revenge plot stuff in. It seems less to be based on being stuck on that episode, and more just wanting that story, especially since Marinette can then be protected by her “true” friends. Kind of a “Mean Girls”, “Heathers” situation. But the way it’s impacted the popular perception of the characters… just no. Especially when a lot of the salt was originally saying that the show was so awful, and that this kind of thing was what SHOULD have happened, or what is deserved, and then having that be used to make “Alya becoming Lila’s sycophant and leader of the class of bullies intent on mistreating Marinette, and Marinette subsequently tearing her and the rest of her former friends down, emphasizing how worthless, shallow, and malicious they all are” one of the most ongoing popular and celebrated versions of the class and interpretations of Alya.

From a catharsis standpoint I get it, with the “I’ll show them all!” kind of attitude. But it’s harder and harder for me to accept that the longer it goes on, with seeing it happen again and again and again, particularly with the implications for Alya, who’s already torn down viciously whenever there’s even the faintest hint of her potentially conflicting with Marinette or not having her as her top priority in all circumstances at all times.

I filter out anything with Lila now becuase I hate the revenge story and hate how awful these precious beans are portrayed, but even before Chameleon I hated the interpretation of Alya of being pushy and determined to get into everyone’s business. Like the idea that she would feel hurt or betrayed when finding our Marinette is Ladybug, or that she would grill Marinette for all her secrets like she has some kind of right to them. Neither of those is true to canon and ANY POINT in the series.

Alya is an extrovert, and she doesn’t take crap! (That was how Mari and Alya became friends - by standing up to Chloe!) And she stands up for her friends. BUT just watch her with Marinette! She is SO patient, SO supportive, and SO RESPECTFUL of Marinette’s boundaries. It’s GORGEOUS! Having a friend like Alya is like life goals, ya’ll! LIFE GOALS! 

Ok so if I’m honest? I can’t stop thinking about the implications of Chat Noir’s bell being a reflection of Adrien, and not of being the black cat.

Like. Plagg explicitly expresses displeasure with this particular design element, and wouldn’t want it anywhere near him if possible. Plagg wants to live free, and not have anything domestic or civilized associated with him, not the bell, not school, or homework or expectations. He just wants his camembert and to be left to eat and sleep as he likes.

So where does this put Adrien? Adrien, who wants to go to school, who tries to live up to expectations even as they suffocate him? Adrien, the inheritor of the powers of the black cat, who wears a bell around his neck?

A lot of times we see Chat Noir refer to himself as a stray, trying to lean into that street cat living free sort of appearance. But what stray cat willingly wears a bell around his neck?

That said, I don’t think Adrien has the bell out of conscious choice. I think it’s a reflection of something deeper that even he refuses to acknowledge.

Adrien could be considered a stray. But he’s a stray cat that wants, no- desperately needs, to be found. A cat with a noisy collar, hoping someone will find him and take him in and love him.

And we already know most of this about him, but ngl this symbolism breaks my heart nonetheless.

ok so..

we know ladynoir conflict is coming, but… is alya and marinette conflict imminent too? now that alya essentially chose nino?

marinette was pretty clear that she didn’t want nino to know… and alya went behind her back to tell him anyway. meanwhile marinette’s essentially sacrificed every relationship in her life except for alya to keep this secret. broke up with luka, barely speaks to her parents, gave up on adrien, and is slowly unknowingly torpedoing her relationship with chat noir.

marinette’s circle of support is shrinking down to just alya. and as she relies on alya more and more she’ll keep intentionally pushing chat noir farther away.

and alya? is refusing to do the same. which! good for her! to be clear i do not blame alya for this at all.

but marinette is NOT going to be understanding when she finds out. because she made a different choice. and keeps making it. and suffering for it.

and if marinette finds this out after the blow up between her and chat noir? that’ll be even worse.

then she’ll really be alone

look at marinette’s face. she thinks they are bonding over this. it’s something they have in common, the burden of keeping secrets from your loved ones

but alya isn’t on the same page. she didn’t ask for this (of course marinette didn’t either, but that’s a whole tangent). at the end of the episode, alya makes the choice to not continue to share this with marinette.

marinette’s sense of camaraderie with alya here is an illusion - one that marinette has created for herself. and that’s devastating because in her excitement to share this with her best friend, she’s missing the person who she actually does share this burden with

if anyone thought this was alya salt you need to go back and read the post again

i did not even remotely imply alya is a bad friend or not supportive of marinette

alya is still bff goals, she’s allowed to make mistakes

I don’t think it was a mistake though? Or at least not COMPLETELY a mistake.

Like what Marientte was asking her to do isn’t healthy. And Marinette never gave Alya any choice in whether or not she would lie to Nino. She insisted she had to lie.

And I know why Marinette asked that if her. She doesn’t think she herself has a choice either. Doesn’t think that there is any other way for a superhero to be. And she is not asking Alya to do anything she herself is not willing to do.

But when your friends give you directives about how to interact with your significant other? When they ask you to lie or omit soemthing, that is a red flag! And that advice should NOT be listened to blindly.

Alya made the decision that she was NOT going to let her relationship fall apart. She made the decision to not engage in the same unhealthy behavior that Marinette is. She chose something different for herself. Which is good because she’s the one who has to live with it.

Alya didn’t share any of Marinette’s secrets btw. She only shared her own.

Now, what Aya should have done to also keep her friendship healthy. She should have told marinette that she was struggling with the lying to Nino. That she couldn’t handle it. And then given Marinette the choice of either letting Alya Tell Nino OR actually stepping down as Rena Rouge so that she wasn’t lying anymore. But yeah, being fourteen, that might have meant she had to give something up that she loved and she likely wasn’t willing to risk that.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. And there’s no Alya or Marinette salt here either!! They are both amazing and beautiful and doing the best they can. Conflict (and some unhealthy dynamics) will arise in EVERY relationship even the good ones. Because like we just can’t be perfect and we can’t read each other’s minds.

Characters making bad choices and doing bad things and being emotionally unintelligent sometimes is something that can actually be. So good. And make characters feel more real and relatable and, actually, likable

Adrien doesn’t have healthy outlets for his emotions and bottles them up until they become dangerous

Marinette tries to hold all responsibility to herself and leaves people in the dark and can carelessly hurt people around her

Alya can be careless and a bit tunnel visioned, leading her to say or do things that hurt people without her even realizing it

And I 😍 love that about all of them

I second all this so hard!!

I feel like I didn’t appreciate Ladrien enough in the beginning of my jumping into this fandoms either, but the more I write the more Ladrien has become my favorite dynamic to explore!

This was beautiful, Carpi! Thank you for the essay!! I nodded so hard the whole way through!