1.) Consider The Attitude And Characteristics Of Your Character

Guys. Guys please. We have to remember that protagonist is not a stand in word for hero and antagonist is not a stand in word for villain. Please. We learned this in middle school. The protagonist is the character the audience follows. The antagonist is the character who is working against the protagonist.

"Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you."

“Without success.”

“Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck.”

You don’t understand, I NEED to see how Adrien would pretend to be Félix for something. I need some sort of situation where Félix needs Adrien to pretend to be him for a few hours so he can get away for a while and for Adrien to at first be like, “You sure? I’m kinda rusty but I think I can pull it off!” And then for Adrien to immediately dial up the dramatics the second he’s in Félix’s clothes.

I need Adrien to exaggerate all of his cousin’s traits, being over the top cryptic, cold, and snarky one moment then a dramatic showman the next. I need Adrien to visibly be having so much fun because he’s helping his cousin by making fun of him a little. I need Félix to witness Adrien’s performance and be like, “Oh no, he’s terrible, this was a mistake—” but then be absolutely wrecked by the knowledge that NOBODY is noticing a difference aside from like, Kagami and have a mini crisis of “Is this how I act?? That’s not how I act?? How are they falling for this??”

And by the end of it Adrien is like, “Y’know, that was really fun! We should do this more often, I see why you do it all the time! :D” And Félix is just sitting there. Head in hands. Grappling with this new information.

Also just:

Adrien, pulling out an absurd amount of stolen rings out of his pockets: Also what do you do with these once you’ve got them? I might’ve committed to the role a little too much.

Kagami, nodding along very seriously: Your method acting is incredible.

Félix, staring in horror: I’m not a kleptomaniac… Am I?

the Evilustrhater Kwagatama scene is just fractally bad.

The Evilustrhater Kwagatama scene just... sucks. It breaks down on any level of thought. 1-Only Kwami should be giving out kwagatama. (cause its literally the only bit of agency the little slave-gods have). Mari spends this "giving up her Guardian-authority" scene usurping Tikki's authority. (It doesnt matter if we're meant to "reasonably assume" Tikki gave permision for this. It still should've been Tikki handing it over.) 2-It further unbalances the team dynamics, by putting Rena into a position of at least nominal authority to, at some point in the future, take away Chat's ring, should she decide to do so. Ladybug continues to make decisions that effect the entire team, without consulting any members of her team. (Even Rena wasnt consulted on this decision, and has it foisted on her instead. But then, this might be deliberate if we're getting Ladynoir Conflict/Miraculous Civil War)

3-It erodes Alya's relationship with Trixx. At least on a symbolical level. By giving her a Bug kwagatama, before ever giving her a fox one, thus implying symbolically that her relationship with Tikki is better then her relationship with Trixx. 4-simultaniously it erodes the symbolism of the Kwagatama as trust between Kwami and Hero. Mari needed to be a hero for months living with Tiki side-by-side fighting evil on the daily before Tikki gave her a kwagatama. Adrien only got his in Reunion, thats a season 5 episode. Adrien had to die multiple times, faced multiple apocalyptic threats and prevented World War Three before he got a Kwagatama. (put a pin in that one btw, its going to be relevant later). Alya has only used the Ladybug Miraculous once, and that was seemingly enough. 5-It obviously undermines Fu's sacrifice. Setting up a "just own the magic friendship-necklace and you'll get your memories back" reveal immensely undercuts the weight of Fu's amnesia. To be clear, I was always expecting that they'd find some clever loophole to protect Marinette from said amnesia. But having it be a magic necklace that she's had since Season 2? Saying "the problem was solved before it was even introduced" doesn't so much reduce the threat, as it removes the threat entirely. I was at least expecting her to have to train with the Order or something, finish the training Fu never got to learn how to protect herself in advance, maybe a potion from the Book Fu never deciphered in time? or have someone else on the team figure out how to restore her memories after the fact. (IE: Felix could definitly make a "memory-restoring" senti, Maybe a cameo from Liirii "liberating" her from the chains on her memories.) But saying "Oh, you just needed your Kwami to trust you and you wont ever get Fu-ed" is just... shitty. 6- It casually implies that Fu went through not one, but two World Wars as the Turtle wielder, but never managed to earn Wayz' trust. after all, if he did he'd have a Turtle Kwagatama, and the show would've been much different. --Edit cause i somehow forgot 7- Do we really need a third back-up guardian. We already had the guy from Ephemeral, and Luka went to the order to train for that very same position.

(a realization about dialogue formatting, from a comic artist turned novelist.)

One of the first things a novice writer learns about speech tags is that they’re part of the “scaffolding” of prose. They should be largely invisible to the reader: use them when necessary, omit them when not, and be sparing in the application of verbs other than “said”. They serve only the function of clarifying who is speaking when it is necessary to do so.

Except:

Sometimes you might want to use a speech tag in spite of the redundancy. The fact that the reader’s eyes slide right over them is an exploitable property. By slicing a line of dialogue in half with a speech tag, you can force the reader to perceive a meaningful pause between two utterances—and the effect is much stronger than you might get out of an ellipsis or an em dash. Developing an intuition for when and how to do this is a huge part of learning to write dialogue, I think.

(And yes: if you ever wondered, this is exactly same the reason why comic artists sometimes “double bubble” their speech bubbles. Same end, different means!)

I maintain that Hey There Delilah by Plain White Tees is a 450% better song if it’s about a guy who’s lost custody of his daughter

Yes, omg it all works! I’ll admit, Felix were one of the few characters that I couldn’t quite figure out, but idea that the white reflects him wanting to take back control works perfectly.

I totally agree with everything you said about Chloe, but now that I think about it, the yellow could actually hold some significance too. I think the yellow jacket was there mostly to foreshadow her becoming Queen Bee, especially when combined with the stripes on her T-shirt (Alya also has a similar thing going on with her orange shirt). Funnily enough, there is a bug called the yellow jacket wasp, so you could also argue that the that fact that she wears a jacket specifically could foreshadow her eventual akumatisation into Queen Wasp and Miracle Queen too.

Either way, I think for Chloe the yellow could represent her desire to be a hero, with the white and black informing both her general attitudes towards people as a civilian (like what you mentioned) but also her motivations behind being a hero. Chloe has no qualms about using her power on other people, such as when she paralysed the person driving the train in “Queen Wasp”, reflecting how she likes to have power and control over others, which is symbolised by the white stripes on her t-shirt. The bee’s powers are also inherently controlling, literally being based of the concept of subjugation. However, she is also motivated by love, as evidenced by that moment in “Mayura” when she sees that all her family have been akumatised by Scarlet Moth. Seeing her loved ones like this distracts her and sends her off-kilter, to the point where it is eventually what gets her re-akumatised in this episode once they overpower her. With all this in mind, you could argue that she wants to be Queen Bee so she can both wield power over others and protect the people she loves.

Also, looking back on Heroes’ day, the fact that all the akumatised are red could even symbolise some twisted loyalty to Scarlet Moth?

So a year or two ago I saw this amazing post on tumblr about colour symbolism in Miraculous (I really wish I could source it here but I can’t find it anywhere I am literally kicking myself right now). Anyway, it is an incredible theory and once start seeing the connections you can’t stop. The basic idea is that the some of the colours that characters wear or are associated with symbolise their general motivations. The theory focuses specifically on the colours red, white and black. The meanings kind of evolved as more people reblogged but from what I remember the basic gist is this:

Red= duty / loyalty

White= control

Black= love

I think they actually said that black was romance, but that definition is just a little too limiting in my opinion and broadening in it out allows you to make more connections. I am also broadening out red as well to include loyalty for the same reasons (besides duty and loyalty are also pretty similar, so it’s not that much of a stretch).

Anyway, I bring this up because I saw the post at some point during season 4—definitely before the release of season 5 anyway, but looking back on the latest season just made me realise that oh my god they were so right. So, I’m just going to show you some of things I’ve noticed when it comes to this theory, especially surrounding season 5. (Buckle up guys, this is gonna be a long post).

But before I get into all that, I just want to mention that the placement of the clothing also informs the meaning behind the colour. This was also mentioned in the original post too I believe, but I can’t remember exactly how it worked so I’m just gonna put my own spin on it based on what I noticed.

So when I say the placement of the clothing I’m really just talking about whether the colour is the top or bottom layer of clothing—jacket vs. T-shirt, blazer vs. shirt etc.. The bottom layer is the character’s core motive, with the top layer being more secondary. A lot of the time the secondary motive informs the core one, so it kind of becomes the means with which they achieve their core motive. For example, a character wearing a red coat with a black T-shirt could be interpreted as loyalty or duty coming from a place a love—they do what they believe is right because of the people they love etc.

Ladybug / Marinette

Ok, time to put this theory into action, and what better place to start than the main character? Ladybug’s costume is pretty straightforward: red with black spots. The red obviously represents her duty as a hero, her main motive when in costume. and the spots could either represent her love for Paris or if you’re a Ladynoir shipper, her love for Chat Noir, it could really go either way.

Her civilian outfit is where it starts to get interesting though. Marinette wears a black blazer with a white top underneath. With the white as the core motive and the black as the secondary one, this indicates love from a place of control, and this is backed up by the events of show. Marinette clearly does love Adrien but she can also be very particular about how she approaches her love. She knows every detail about him, such as the schedule she has in “Copycat”, and feels the need to control every detail when she tries to confess to him, such as Operation: Secret Garden in “Gigantitan”. This controlling nature is only solidfied in the episode “Derision” after Kim pranks her on their date. “I should’ve had a plan […] I’ll never tell another boy that I love him before I know everything about him” (11:53-12:04).

Chat Noir / Adrien

Chat Noir is also pretty simple when it comes to colour symbolism in the show. His suit is all black, indicating that his main motive is love. In earlier seasons this most likely symbolised his love for Ladybug but now that he is with Marinette we can assume that it symbolises his generally loving attitude, whether it be towards his friends, family, maybe even Paris itself.

His civilian clothing also points to this same idea, with his T-shirt being black. Adrien also has a white over shirt, but rather than this representing some need for control, I’d argue this more so symbolises Gabriel’s control over him, which of course, does inform a lot of Adrien’s actions. Gabriel’s control pushes the black down another layer—it suppresses it. Instead showing off his colours proudly like he does as Chat Noir he has to leave them cloaked under a white surface, trying to navigate his core motive of love while being unable to fully shake off the white. Think of the many times when Gabriel has kept him away from his friends, like in the episode “Bubbler” where he wasn’t allowed to have a birthday party, or in “Revolution” when Gabriel ships him off to London for the next school year.

Interestingly, this isn’t the only instance where a white top layer indicates control thrusted onto the character wearing the colour. Kagami also follows a similar pattern sporting a white blazer and a controlling mother. She also has both red and black in the bottom layers so make of that what you will.

Another thing to note is that many of Adrien’s modelling outfits are fully white, such as the one in the fragrance ad or the angel outfit in “Simpleman”, representing the complete control Gabriel has over him when he is modelling. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the only modelling outfit that is not white (apart from the stock photos like the ones in the mansion perhaps) is the one that he wears in “Queen Wasp”. Instead of fully white this suit is fully black, and it is topped off with a black pigeon hat, a hat that Marinette, who is in love with Adrien, made. Additionally, this is the episode where Gabriel almost gives up being Hawkmoth because of how Adrien was attacked by Style Queen in the previous episode. He is less controlling of Adrien and more loving in this episode, even go so far as to hug him in his first public appearance since Emilie’s death, and the black suit reflects that.

However, the idea that Adrien’s all-white clothes represent Gabriel’s control isn’t even just limited to modelling. When Chat Noir is akumatised in “Chat Blanc” his suit also becomes fully white.

In season 5, the Alliance rings are also closely linked to the colour white. The Adrien and Kagami avatars wear all white, indicating the controlling nature of the alliance and the fact that The two of them have no control over how their image is used. Even the virtual space that the avatars exist in is an empty white void, reminiscent of the padded rooms the two are placed in during the season 5 finale, rooms which are used to confine and control the two.

The only time when the Alliance interface is not white is when it changes to red. There’s two times this has happened as far as I’m aware: in “Revelation” when Hoaxer enters the Alliance rings and feeds the people fake news, and in “Confirmation” when Gabriel creates fake footage of Ladybug and Chat Noir kidnapping Adrien and Kagami’s avatars. In both of these scenarios, someone is preying on the public’s loyalty to the alliance rings and their sense of duty to get them to do their bidding.

And look, I know I’ve been straying away a from Adrien a bit, but I also just want to mention that the colour white is often associated with the rich and powerful of Paris in general. This is most clearly seen in “Emotion”, where the VIP party’s dress code is literally all white, reflecting how all the people in that room control Paris.

Gabriel

Speaking of rich and powerful, Gabriel also draws from the colour triad. He does have a few layers that aren’t one of these three colours but his very bottom layer is a white shirt, which isn’t a surprise really, we just went over how he is controlling with both Adrien and the alliance rings. He also has a striped red tie symbolising either his loyalty towards Emilie or the fact that he believes it is his duty to bring her back to life. The white stripes also indicate control, probably to reflect the way that he will do anything in his power to bring Emilie back, like using the miraculous wish, because he is incapable of accepting that sometimes things happen beyond your control and all you can do is move on.

In season 5 he wears all white as his obsession with the wish—his means of complete control, takes over. It could also represent how he’s become even more controlling of Adrien despite pretending to be more loving, (because again, he literally ships his own son off to a different country). Interestingly, in the episode “Destruction” he is inflicted with a cataclysm, a black cataclysm, which could be a visual metaphor for his love for Emilie literally destroying him, which is a really cool in my opinion.

Lila Rossi

Lila is definitely the most interesting character to analyse under this theory, because not only do her clothes draw from the colour triad but even her name does. According to nameberry.com, Lila means night (ie black) and Rossi means red in Italian. She also wears a red cardigan with black underneath—duty or loyalty from a place of love. If we take Lila claims at face value then this makes sense, like in the episode “Chameleon”, when she catches a napkin with her sprained wrist to protect Max, all the while saying things like “I didn’t have a choice” (i.e duty) and “Why wouldn’t I Max […] you’re my friend” (i.e love) (5:40-42 and 5:47-50). But of course, Lila is a liar which means that everything from her name to even the clothes she wears is a carefully constructed illusion.

In the episode “Confrontation” it is revealed that Lila has actually been juggling two fake identities: Lila Rossi and Cerise Bianca. Now this is where it gets really interesting because Lila’s second identity also draws from the colour triad too. Cerise is a shade of red similar to that of cherries or rubies and guess what Bianca means in Italian? That’s right—white.

This can mean a few different things. Perhaps her Cerise persona is more noticeably controlling. Lila’s name directly reflected her clothing, with her first name indicating the the bottom layer (the core motive) and her second name the top layer (the means) so if we apply the same logic to Cerise then maybe her name indicates that this persona’s motives are control from a place a duty, in other words being bossy and controlling because she feels like it’s her job to lead and help everyone.

Another interpretation could be that these are Lila’s true motivations, especially with her being named after the colour white, and if you really want to stretch it, then you could also argue that the red indicates loyalty to herself; she controls everyone because it exclusively benefits her.

it could also be interpreted as somewhere in between. Instead of it being solely Cerise’s fake motivations or Lila’s true motivations it is rather a step closer to the truth. The loyalty to herself theory is, like I said, a stretch. If anything, her true motivation is probably just control for control’s sake, and in this Cerise persona her true colours are shining through a little.

I couldn’t really find a natural place to put this but I also just want to point out here that when she was akumatised into Hoaxer she still had the red and black colour scheme that she does as Lila because she’s still using the same tactics that she does as a civilian, pretending that all she does is out of love and duty. She does also however have splashes of white on her belt, tail and ends of her hair, so maybe that also symbolises her true colours showing through too.

I’m honestly curious to see if Cerise’s clothes will change in season 6 to reflect her name, especially with a lot of the other characters getting new outfits too. Either way I think it’s really interesting how both her fake identities are based off of these three colours.

The great thing about this theory is that it’s not just confined to these four characters. Plenty of more characters also wear these colours, such as Kagami, who I briefly touched on, Emilie (and Amelie by extension), Tomoe Tsurugi, even Nathalie. The only reason why I didn’t delve into these characters is because this post is getting pretty long and I think I’ve made my point, but really, I’ve barely scratched the surface here. There is so much significance with these three colours, they are literally everywhere.

I'm about to go to bed, so this might not make sense, but I think MLB is a good example of the dangers of an episodic show presented in a serialized manner. I think many things that rub people the wrong way would be less so if the show didn't pretend that it was serialized and that most of the episodes actually progress the plot. Because, when you view it as an episodic show that has a status quo to maintain, a lot of things fall into place

Cat Noir flirting but getting no where? That's the point. He's meant to flirt with Ladybug and Marinette's meant to (try to) flirt with Adrien, and its not meant to be creepy because the show not structured to showcase longform character growth. Each time might as well be the first time, as far as the writing team is concerned. That "Marinette knows Adrien's Schedule 3 Years In Advance" joke isn't creepy (well, more creepy) because its the first time she's done it!

Of course, you can point to actual character growth, but I don't think that proves me wrong - rather, I think it showcases that the writing team seems to think they're able to write both an episodic and serialized show and they're not. Repeated behavior in an episodic show is meant to reinforce character traits (Chat Noir has unrequited feelings for Ladybug) and the status quo while repeated behavior in a serialized show reinforces character flaws (Chat Noir doesn't care about Ladybug's comfort and can't take "no" for an answer)(or traits, but we're talking about flaws rn). And an overarching story? That means we're serialized and repeated behaviors now play a different function - and the writers seem completely oblivious to this fact.

Anyhow, hopefully that made sense. I just wanted to write that down before I forgot about it

Smth I’ve thought about ever since I first saw wreck it ralph is that in universe king candy is basically an irl creepypasta. Like he’s a racer that only exists in this one specific sugar rush cabinet, every other version off the game has princess vanellope. Literally no one knows he exists except for ppl who went to this one small arcade in the United States. And if the code for sugar rush has been dumped there is no trace of king candy bc he only exists in this one cabinet. I bet there’s ppl who traveled cross country just to see if king candy actually exists.

And then after the movie king candy disappears from the roster forever and is replaced by vanellope but she’s different than every other vanellope, different outfit different personality different kart different voice lines etc

It’s literally that one arcade cabinet creepypasta discussions and YouTube videos about it in universe must be crazy.

free my girl she did all that shit but the fandom is mischaracterizing her for it