Kamala being a great big sister and team Ben.

anyways rewatched eps 15-20 and in case u forgot them this is like. the general vibe.

she’s so cool i think we should keep talking about her forever

this post but it's all just my catgirl son boy

shaking six year old me by the shoulders YOU WERE RIGHT. YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT LOVE AND ABOUT FAIRNESS AND ABOUT SHARING IS CARING. YOU WERE RIGHT. THE ADULTS DON’T KNOW ANY MORE ABOUT TRUTH THAN YOU DO. KEEP BELIEVING IN THE FAIRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN. NOTHING IS “JUST THE WAY IT IS”. I AM SORRY THEY EVER CONVINCED YOU TO FEEL SHAME. YOU ARE REAL AND A PART OF THIS WORLD. YOU WERE RIGHT.

Sorry to everyone who’s enjoyed the last 130 years of science and culture journalism, but Disney needs the money to fund Toy Story 9

The revealed/angelic form of Tikki and Plagg, and the revelation of Gimmi, the Kwami of Reality.

Personally, i found their designs so cool and amazing !

nathalie sancoeur was in a toxic situationship wity gabriel and emilie agreste and then they both fucking died and now she's going after felix's mom someone should stop that woman

Adrien sure. had. a day. huh.

bonus:

lovesquare keeping secrets from each other conflict PART TWO LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO

bunnyx is pouring her fifth shot because she knows there’s two more seasons

I feel sorry for Nooroo, moving on from Garbage Agreste to an extreme sociopath.

Nooroo can’t catch a break.

no but no matter what gabriel is not a fucking hero and its actually so manipulative of him to tell marinette not to let adrien or anyone else for that matter i guess that HE was monarch that HE was a terrible father and that HE literally put paris and the whole world at risk because he was selfish and couldn’t just repent and face proper consequences……

S5 finale: wrapping up the "running out of time" theme

So I have been mentioning frequently that there is a theme of "running out of time" in season 5, but I wasn't able to make out the meaning of it, until now.

We can say that there are three situations where the theme explicitely manifests:

If you think I have forgotten other strings of running out of time, feel free to let me know!

Now let's look at these three strings individually:

This one is the simplest one as it starts very early on in the season, with the episode Destruction where he gets the cataclym wound, and ends in Recreation with his "sacrifice." Also worthy noting the names of the episodes. What starts as Gabriel running out of time in Destruction is concluded in Recreation with him making his wish, accomplishing his wish, and dying. We can consider this thread concluded.

2. Ladynoir running out of time

Of course, the first episode that comes to mind is Jubilation. In Jubilation we (and the blorbos) learn that they actually desire to be together, romantically. And indeed they get to live a perfect little life in their dream, ignoring the increasingly bigger alarm clocks that are trying to wake them up. Except that at the end Ladybug realises that they must wake up (duty calls!), and she abandons Chat Noir in the dream universe, broken.

From here on, nearly every episode is a warning for Marinette against being romantically together with Chat Noir:

The overarching message from Jubilation to Elation is that: if Maribug ends up with Chat Noir, it'll be a disaster.

So Marinette decides to close up her heart to anyone, and after a brief depression, Adrien finally convinces her to be with him and they become an official couple. From this point onwards, the key ship becomes Adrinette.

Does that mean that Ladynoir has run out of time? Not necessarily. They just decided to love each other in a different way. I should remind here that even though we tend to polarise the sides of the square as fandom, the creators have repeatedly told that the love square is one, there is one love.

The Ladynoir relationship has a direct connection to the Adrinette dynamics because after all, they're the same two people.

3. Adrinette running out of time

Now that Adrinette is finally together, they should have all the time in the world, right? Right? It's what Adrien says, after all.

But I couldn't shake this sense of urgency throughout this season. Every time they said that they had time, it made me feel like they actually don't and they don't know it. And it was exactly what they wanted to make us feel: with Adrien's move to London, it turns out they didn't have time. Worse is that, Adrien actually knew that he'd need to move to London but he couldn't tell it to Marinette, he kept it a secret all the way till he was shipped off to London.

And there is a parallel between Jubilation and Revolution here: in both episodes, their dream is shattered, they share one last dramatic kiss, and they are torn apart from one and other (@asukiess had a big brain time and pointed this out back when Revolution aired).

But now, in Recreation, Gabriel is gone. Everything is fixed? Everyone will be happy, right?

Well... No.

As I pointed out in a previous post, the world that Gabriel creates is a bit too bright, too perfect. The show is notorious for associating the sun with fake happiness at this point, while the "real" moments are rainy and/or dark. And let's see the colour palette in the end:

Another detail that makes me put on my tinfoil hat:

They're not very visible on the static image, but there are white butterflies flying over the flower arch. Those could be symbolising the end, as a reference to how Ladybug releases the purified akuma at the end of each episode. But it might also have a second meaning, a reference to how this world was in fact created upon the ideals of Gabriel.

And that can't be good for anyone. I explain more the consequences and aftermath of this episode in the post I mention above, but basically this world is Gabriel's ideal, and it is far from being a good place for neither Marinette, nor Adrien.

One main reason why: Gabriel has left Marinette with the truth about the Monarch, and she agreed to keep it a secret from Adrien. But we know that it will eventually come out. Either she tells it to Chat Noir, or maybe Lila plots something, but it won't remain a secret forever. And when it does... it will have tremendous impact on not only Adrinette, but also Ladynoir.

This world is a fantasy world where Marinette and Adrien have ended up together, just like in: Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, Oblivio, Jubilation. And at one point the alarm clock will ring, the hammer will drop, and both Ladynoir and Adrinette will run out of time. Except that this time, we may not be able to revert back to the status quo.

Gabriel has left them with a tickling time bomb.

gotta hand it to ML this children’s cartoon really said “child abusers don’t get enough wins in our media landscape” and set out to rectify that problem

S5 finale: A perfect world and a fake victory

EDIT: I have jumped the gun and thought that Lila had also figured out Ladybug's identity, but now I see that may not be the case. So this post has been edited accordingly. Sorry!

Gabriel's "sacrifice" has created a perfect world but an imperfect end, which I think was the point of this season finale.

Just before he makes the wish, Ladybug tells Gabriel that perfection is not possible, but solutions can be found. Gabriel refuses her offer of help and goes on to make the wish a create his perfect world.

But the world is actually perfect only for him. Even though he is gone in this world, everything still revolves around him: he is remembered as the "great designer" (actual quote from Nadia Chamack), the hero, the good father.

Meanwhile, Marinette is left with the weight of a tremendous secret from Adrien, and we see no addressing of Adrien's fear of becoming Anti-Chat or Chat Blanc and destroying everything and everyone. Since he is still the holder of the Cat miraculous, the possibility (hence his fear) probably remain.

The way that Gabriel is defeated also resonates a return to season 4 dynamics where Ladybug is doing all the work, while Chat Noir is nowhere to be found (due to his father's control over Adrien).

Now the Monarch is gone, but the fact that Ladybug defeated the Monarch alone means that we're back to a place where Marinette thinks she needs to do everything by herself.

Which is very dangerous, given that the new Butterfly miraculous holder Lila knows that Ladybug and Marinette are the same person, and from her threat to Marinette at the very end of the episode, we know that she won't hold back from attacking her both in civilian and superhero life.

The season finale gives the feeling that Ladybug has won, but if you flip the perspective, you see that Gabriel has also somewhat won: he may have died, but he did accomplish his aim. He was already dying due to the catalysm wound, so this ending is a very positive one for him.

Meanwhile, the real winner here is Lila, who ended up with the Butterfly Miraculous. Plus, no one knows that, so she has the advantage of information asymmetry.

Whereas Ladybug and Marinette... sure, everything may look fine, if not perfect in the world, but they're actually running out of time. Remember the recurring theme this whole season that "they're running out of time?" Gabriel already ran out of time. Ladynoir had already ran out of time in Jubilation, and their friendship will also likely be impacted by Marinette's secret. But also, once the secret comes out, Adrinette will also run out of time...

THEY MADE A FUCKING STATUE IN HIS HONOR A MORHERFUCKING STATUE TO THAT ABUSIVE PIECE OF SHIT DOMESTIC TERRORIST FUCKHOLE

AND OF COURSE ADRIEN DOESNT FIND OUT ANYTHING. HE GETS RO KEEP HIA AMOK BUT LOL HE SOESNT FIND OUT HIS FATHWR WAS AN ABUSIVE FUCKBUCKET

WHAT RHE FUCK WAA RHE POINT OF HIM FIGHTING HIS FATHEE IN REPRESENTATION IF THEY WERE JUST FONNA MAKE HIM SEE HIS FATHER AS A HERO IN RHE END WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY GIVE HIM CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT LIKE THAT JUST TO WIPE IT AWAY LIKE IT SIDNT FUCKING MATTER IMAGINE BEING AN ABUSE VICTIK AND SEEING YOU ABUSER AS A HERO LIKE WTF WHERE IS HIS FUCKING AGENCY MOTHERFUCKER

CAN YOU TELL I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OMFG I AM SO ANGRY

ALSO ALSO ALSO SO IF MARINETTE IS NEVER GOING TK TELL HIM ANYTHING ABOUT HIS FATHER OR BEING A SENTI IS SHE JUAT GOING TO CARRY RHAT SECRET FOEVWER???

OH YEAH BECAUSE THATS SURE TO MAKE FOR A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP RIGHT THERE OK NOT LIKE SHE NEEDS ANY MORE TRAUMA LMAO

WILL SEASON 6 FUCKING FIX THIS? FUCK I HOPE SO

Ok rant over I’m gonna scroll the tag and/or Twitter for a bit and go to bed, it’s 3:25am.

Please don’t come at me for this post. I’ve been holding all of this in since I watched Recreation in storyboard form months ago. I knew this was coming. It doesn’t make me any less angry.

Also yadda yadda Lila is the next Hawkmoth, woo fuckin hoo. I wonder what freaked her out there in the end though.

OH MY GOD WHAT.

I mean we got a glimpse of Tikki's true form in Dearest Family, but WOW, didn't expect to see her and Plagg so clearly!

Also their combined form is named "Gimmi", which is pronounced the same as "gimme", which seems awfully on-the-nose given that Gabriel wants Gimmi to gimme the Wish.