THIS. The Whole Thing You Said About The Lack Of Substance In Marinette And Tikki's Dynamic Is The VERY

THIS. The whole thing you said about the lack of substance in Marinette and Tikki's dynamic is the VERY reason why I prefer Adrien and Plagg.

With Plagg and Adrien, their relationship seems more alive, with their disagreements and heartfelt moments. It just seemed more substantial compared to Marinette and Tikki.

Not like disagreements are necessary, but every time Tikki pops up to speak, it seems like she's there just to say her piece or play the "voice of reason" just to get the story to move. She just seems more like an extension of Marinette, instead of a friend and foil to Marinette's clumsiness and forgetfulness.

Hi! Been loving reading through all your Miraculous reblogs and the meta you've written - you have some really great stuff on this blog! I was curious if you've ever written/reblogged anything talking about how, from the very start of the show, Miraculous uses Tikki as Marinette's absolver? Marinette "makes mistakes" and "owns up to them" according to Astruc's tweets, but I find myself feeling that the "accountability" she takes is rarely related to what she did wrong in the first place, even when the show tries to tell us otherwise, and it's usually Tikki or a different yes-man, like Alya or Adrien, absolving her of her mistakes, whether the situation had anything to do with them or not. Ikari Gozen is an episode that always comes to mind for this - Marinette is absolutely terrible to Kagami, sabotaging her, badmouthing her, and going through her phone. Marinette never expresses remorse to anyone but Tikki, but Tikki absolved her so the narrative never addresses the issue again. Tikki tells her "it's never too late to make things right" and Marinette invites Kagami out for juice without ever taking accountability for her previous actions. And Kagami just GOES with it, even stating that SHE was wrong about Marinette and that she understand why Adrien values her. I I will admit, I don't really like Marinette as a character, because I find her consistent self-absorption, and the narrative's endorsement of it, to be really maddening, but I'm pretty new to the fandom, and the subreddit isn't a great place to find thoughtful analysis, so I'm looking for perspectives here! Thank you for your time!

Hey, thank you so much for your kind words! <3 sorry for taking so long. I've had my ask box deactivated for several years now and i completely forgot about me already having started replying in my drafts. 😭👏

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No, I don't think I've ever written or reblogged something about Marinette's dynamic with Tikki, but I do have thought about it. For me, their dynamic is just lacking much... idk, substance? I remember reading from Marinette stans that they think Marinette and Tikki have a much deeper bond than Adrien and Plagg which is something I simply cant understand at all. Plagg is the only person Adrien actually truly HAS in all the neglect and bad treatment he's stuck in from all sides. Plagg takes on so many roles for his kid and has grown so much because Adrien needed it.

The thing is, Tikki and Marinette's dynamic is very different so I'm just not able to properly read them because I personally would need a Plagg in my life and that's perfectly fine. That's why I dont talk about them.

But about your point now:

I definitely agree that Tikki is one of the main indicators about what is wrong about the way Marinette is written as protagonist, especially since the retooling in season 4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Tikki also used to have a bigger presence in the how which was by now mostly made redundant by Alya always being with Marinette and in season 4 Marinette (unnecessarily and dangerously) keeping all the Kwamis outside the box all times so they too stole screen time from Tikki.

So Tikki lost alot of her personality. I believe to remember her also being more energetic and excited in the earlier seasons, showing off more to her character, which would by now make her yet another character the show sucked alot of their life out of so they aren't in the way for Marinette. Tikki seems alot more down these days, that I definitely noticed.

Marinette has Alya now, if that makes Tikki sad because she isn't relying on her the way she did before then Tikki has to deal with it quietly and not bother Marinette (seriously, Tikki reminds me ALOT of Adrien and they're both treated badly in the narrative for Marinette’s sake :/)

And this reduced characterization makes it by now very noticeable imo that Tikki herself as a Kwami often doesn't really know what is going on because she lacks experience with alot of things. I wholeheartedly agree that Tikki is one of Marinette's strongest and most damaging enablers because Tikki is because of it not actually allowed to be challenged in her dynamic with Marinette the way Plagg is with Adrien. Where Plagg is allowed to grow, Tikki is kept the same because Marinette is not allowed to be really pushed back on.

The show has to my memory always been quite open about Tikki not being familiar with alot of things so Marinette can explain things to her. The problem comes, as you say, from the show then weirdly still acting like Tikki saying some random vaguely positive thing about whatever Marinette just did.. suddenly meaning it doesn't need to be taken care of anymore?

It's the same thing as the show has Adrichat, Alya or Luka do. Most of what the narrative and Marinette as the main character want to hear at this point is being told positive things whenever something went wrong. If that positive thing actually holds any water the way it was executed is beyond irrelevant which reflects incredibly badly especially on Marinette because she is the main beneficiary.

Again, remember Cat Charming in "Kuro Neko". From Marinette's perspective he should have no valid opinion on the Ladynoir conflict AT ALL because he just arrived half an hour ago and never even met Chat Noir in her eyes. But still, Marinette made him the deciding voice of the Ladynoir conflict, absolving her of all blame to entirely put it on Chat Noir, because Cat Charming validated her and said positive things about her mistakes so she doesn't have to really think about them as mistakes anymore if she wishes to not have been in the wrong.

Which for the show somehow equals that she isn't and they aren't real mistakes anymore she should genuinely work on (and therefore still hasn't really beyond surface level)?

Who tf cares if this is literally not how it works and how badly it reflects on Marinette as a character that any random dipshit can walk up to her, validate her, and she'll just... GO with it (making Marinette ironically the most endangered person regarding Cerise now because that girl has plenty of identities and Marinette doesn't give a damn who's validating her as long as she's validated by a person not explicitly telling her they're evil)

Where was I? Ah, Tikki!

Tikki is at the end of the day yet another character who's kindness is kinda weaponized by now by Marinette's narrative.

We've reached a point where one kinda has to say that Marinette shouldn't be told optimistically positive things anymore because not rarely will these words just be used to sweep Marinette's biggest flaws under the rug when it really wouldn't have hurt anyone to simply cover the damn conflict at hand.

As you said, there are writing rules, but I think they were "Marinette has to make a mistake every episode" and "Marinette has to learn something every episode". And as you correctly said, these two things often don't necessarily go hand in hand. To the point where the thing she learns is making the initial mistake even worse (I wanted to look for a more precise example, but at this point it's literally all of Ladynoir)

Which of course absolves her of having to properly take her blame or accountability in ot of cases, too. If I were to approach it in bad faith, I would say that this is exactly the reason why the writing rules don't specify that the lesson learned needs to be about the mistake she made... and that's exactly what I'm saying. Bad faith sounds rather realistic to me.

I remember someone having had made a post where they explained that Marinette as protagonist is written like a villain or antagonist, and the more I look at all the aspects of this show the more does that take check out.

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(damn, I am out of PRACTICE in responding to asks! I hope I didn't talk right past the point you wanted to hear in my response. If I did, please clarity with another ask, I'm not sensitive to that)

Baking a pie

Snow White: makes it look simple & easy

Me: BITCH YOU LIED TO ME HOW U GOT THE ARM STRENGTH TO ROLL THE DOUGH

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The problem with Marinette is that claiming her as "the best Ladybug ever" or "the best leader" gets moot when there's no measure. We hear nothing about other Ladybugs in the past, so there's no one to compare to as "the best Ladybug ever". And as "the best leader", there's also no one to compare her to. Of course she'd be the best leader—you can call yourself that however you want because there's no competition!

And as a "leader", she gets next to no challenge taking on a leadership role. She's just good at it. The point of writing a character, especially a main character like Marinette, is to challenge them. Give them struggle. Marinette doesn't struggle as a leader. She either makes a coincidentally-good choice with no backing from the story whatsoever (which is 90% of the time) or she fucks up and is told it's not her fault.

Every time Marinette forms a "team", everyone is magically amazing and is 100% obedient to Ladybug. If they weren't obedient (like Kagami) it gets resolved in the episode and then they're 100% cooperative like the rest. There's a difference between being a leader and just plain being the boss. Being the boss means you get the final say in choices and people do what you say. A leader inspires, leads, and is a big responsibility that should be treated as such, because your choices strongly impact the lives of the people that trust you.

I 100% agree on the five-man band. The "temporary heroes" concept feels just like a cheap excuse to make more costumes, but a single consistent team with their own dynamics—not just as heroes but also people—would help not only challenge Marinette's abilities, but to actually enrich the story and introduce more arcs that could help us become invested in what the show tries to preach.

Any fanfic I write always uses the original five-member team, because they didn't need to go away. It didn't need to change. And frankly, giving so many people different miraculouses for no other reason than "Marinette thinks they deserve it" actually devalues the importance of the miraculouses, since apparently anybody will do.

I like ML because it has a formula that I've never seen in superhero genre before, a girl as a leader whos also the brain of the team who's also one that have little to no emphaty paired with a boy who's the heart of the team that also a team mom yet the brawl at the same time. That premise is so good because usually it's the girl who is the heart of the team so this formula is good... In concept.

The problem is that the leader, aside from lacking in emphaty departemen is also very avoidant and self centered. Way too self centered to even notice the problem in her team and that's a very dangerous line to walk on. Of course usually this problem would be fixed when the heart of the team try to talk to the leader, that's how it's usually goes, right? Except the leader either keep dismissed him or outright ignore him which makes the conflict prolonged. The writers seems to be saying that she could do everything, even comforting her own teammate which she failed spectacularly.

Even now as s5 ended, I haven't seen Marinette as the leader, try to talk to Adrien about the problem. There's just no growth on her part. In fact, she double down in her secrets. At this point they're basically just keep the false peace.

In Timetagger Bunnyx said Ladybug is the best team leader, but with current dynamic and her lack of growth as of current, I feel like that assessment is as false as Fu's saying Marinette as the strongest Ladybug. Considering he only know ONE Ladybug holder. There's no base in those praise, just pure bias.

Yeah, like there's no growth going on for Marinette but that's probably because all the traits we see in her, being self centered and lacking in empathy, the writers didn't intend it. That's why there isn't an arc planned to resolve it. And it makes people claiming she's the best Ladybug ever when she doesn't have much to show for it under her belt.

But she ain't special.

I'd be ranting all day if I had to list every character that has a trait (good or bad) we all see but I doubt the writers saw it too, like Adrien being Marinette's equal or Chloe coming off as more sympathetic than intended in the early seasons. But then, when they do notice a character flaw a notable chunk of the fandom complains about... you get bullshit like Derision (to address Marinette being a "stalker"). Honestly, I'm more afraid of what they'd do to rectify this.

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm glad Marinette isn't the only one going through the super-talented completely-gifted virtuoso shtick, but I'm also kind of disappointed that there really isn't anything except the aforementioned plot device ice-skating and talking to Adrien.

But I definitely agree on the whole take of MLB trying to be both episodic and serialized (which was a take that I bitched about but didn't actually have a solid name for it, so thank you for that 😅) and how it screws up the writing.

Marinette's capabilities are never brought up again despite being featured in previous episodes, and teens like Kitty Section, Alya, Nino, Max, and all the others get their brief spotlight before they get plopped onto the shelf to wait again for their moment.

The whole virtuoso trope isn't inherently bad in and of itself. It's actually a frequent trope used in lots of serialized literature or media featuring kids or teenagers (manga/manhwa/anime come to mind) especially in fantasy settings, and can be used well when done right. Lots of content with super-cool-can-do-anything characters—an apt description for this trope—usually highlight this ability and make use of it to not only add substance to the character, but to also add depth to the story and further the plot.

For this, I think Kiki Strike (book series); Dress-Up Darling (anime/manga); I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit (manwha—might be debatable since it also includes isekai themes); and many characters of the Marvel/DC universe (Batfam, Spiderman, etc.)

The OC I mentioned, (as awkward as it is for me to use my own character as reference), not only get highlighted because of her genius, but it's also given focus in the story and used to give depth to her character and influence the plot into challenging the limits of said genius.

But you hit the nail on the head, as sad as that is to me (sometimes, I wish this show could prove me wrong on some areas). They basically use certain virtuoso abilities like Kitty Section being a phenomenal band or Alya being successful enough to be interviewed on TV or Nino's music catching attention on a popular gameshow or Max being the next Albert Einstein, just to make episodes, and then the rest of the writing fails to reflect this later on. These skills get ignored or receive fanfare for only that one episode, and is abandoned both in story and writing.

Or in Marinette's case, it's used as example as to how amazing and cool she is.

Like I said, this kind of makes me sad. I thought the bar couldn't get any lower for this show, but then it just shows me how naïve I am.

On a side-note though, really cool that you actually fenced for a few years! At least you know your stuff, so you can be the resident expert on the sport that Adrien is supposedly the best student at (have my doubts on that one now, since you just said MLB is laughably bad at portraying fencing), but I'm low-key disappointed that the show is also shitty at portraying fencing.

Curious, but do you know of anything Marinette is bad at? I didn't realize this until before, but Marinette always seems to be presented as amazing at everything. Like, I can get baking and designing, since they're things she's had personal experience in, but everything else? She's either super amazing or she needed five minutes of instruction and she's incredible.

Gaming? Absolute pro. Art? Amazing. Fencing? Just a little help from Adrien, and she's so good. So far, the skills she's presented to be absolutely amazing at: gaming, fencing, art, fashion, costume design (surprise surprise, fashion and costume design are two different avenues), baking, DIY, mechanical engineering (Miracle box hiding place and snapping diary box), fighting, leadership, decision-making, Guardianship, school (somehow straight-A student despite her tardiness and Ladybug issues).

And that's all I can get off the top of my head. I'm scared that there might be more. The only things I can think of that she's bad at is ice skating (which feels like a plot device for the Frozer episode, since she adapted so quickly to ice-skating as Icebug) and talking to Adrien.

I have a character (non-MLB) with the kind of genius that lets her master anything if she's seen it two or three times, but that genius has limitations itself that later compels her to actually think and work hard to master said subject. But Marinette is never even implied to be similiar to this, and everything she's good at is just passed off as "Amazing Marinette" and then left alone.

What do you think? If there's any other examples of things she's bad at, clumsiness nonwithstanding, please tell me, because this thought is driving me bonkers.

Nothing comes to mind, though I will say that Marinette wasn't a very good fencer. Then again, the show is actually laughably bad at portraying fencing, so I guess we just have to take Adrien's word for it that she was good. (I fenced for several years. May even have my old meddles somewhere as proof, though I doubt it.)

This isn't unique to Marinette, though. Most of the teen characters are absurdly talented. Kitty Section was so cool XY stole their music and their look. Alya runs a blog that's so successful that she was interviewed on national TV (end of PrimeQueen). Nino got to be on that TV competition in Simon Says. Max has tech in a literal space ship. The list goes on and on. Marinette just has more than most because she's the main character.

This isn't necessarily a flaw. It's normal for kids shows to have kid/teen characters who are super cool and talented because the goal is to inspire real kids to try things. The only reason it feels like a flaw in Miraculous is that this type of super-cool can-do-anything character is usually reserved for low-stakes episodic shows. Serialized shows (aka, shows with an overarching plot) will still have kid and teen characters who do the things adults usually do because that's what the target audience wants to see, but these kid and teen character will be a lot more nuanced and flawed. They're allowed to fail because their stories can take multiple episodes to resolve whereas characters in episodic shows have to have everything figured out and wrapped up in 20 minutes, allowing for way less nuance to their characters.

Because Miraculous is trying to be both an episodic and a serialized show, you get a lot of awkward characterization and writing. Sitcom drama with prestige TV stakes. We want Miraculous' cast to feel like they belong in a serialized drama because Miraculous has a serialized plot, but the individual episodes must stand alone, so the characters can't have the depth they need. It's messy, ugly writing.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS WASN'T ACTUALLY THEIR PLAN

TALKING DOESN'T DO SHIT! SQUEEZING! WATER! BLANKET!

D.I.S.T.R.A.C.T.I.O.N.

Speaking from someone who had to help someone from a panic attack, just aggressively shoving things doesn't do anything.

What I did was stick cold water [in a bottle] in their hands and make them drink (learned these tricks from Pinterest). Then, when they could speak, I tried to get them to talk about topics I knew would turn into a long debate/discussion (less effective).

Honestly the class's plan to calm someone feeling negative emotions to avoid akumatization is pretty bad

I liked the scene in 'Guiltrip' where the class talks to Juleka and try to comfort her, which drives the akuma away

...and now in s5 (not naming the episode because those titles are not memorable, what was Astruc thinking??) Juleka is having a breakdown over having to redo school next year again and we have the class screaming at her and shoving her a giant picture of cute animals..

"Damnit, Juleka! Stop having a panic attack, or I SWEAR TO GOD, I WILL KILL YOU!"

I don't think the animal picture thing happened in "Confrontation", but I get what you mean with how poorly emotional stress is handled.

I think "actually evil all along" Emilie would make more sense than Lila replacing hawkmoth and the former would still massively suck! So that's saying a lot.

It says a lot when the majority of the fandon isn't excited to see Lila take over as the main villain, and instead suggest ideas for other main villains who are actually old enough to drive.