And People Say She Didn't Get Character Development!

And people say she didn't get character development!

Not people saying Adrien “lost all character development by the end of the episode” 💀 When are people going to realize losing their feelings for their original love interests is NOT character development and doesn’t resolve anything lmao. There’s nothing wrong with them being in love. This is a romance series ffs. Enough of that “reverse the lovesquare” bs

They need to learn how to HANDLE their feelings. They need to learn how to be themselves around their crushes. They need to be the ones to take initiative to overcome their personal barriers and show their crushes who they really are. That’s character development. 

Y’all, Adrien literally experienced THE most important character development in regards to the romance plot. Hearing Marinette’s confession about how she acts around her crush, and how she thought her crush was stuck up and pretentious before she realized how kind and genuine and sensitive he could be and fell for him, made Adrien finally realize what’s been holding him back. Adrien finally realized he needs to stop playing casanova and crossing Ladybug’s boundaries and just be himself - i.e. kind, genuine, and sensitive - to have a chance at Ladybug returning his feelings. This means Ladybug is finally going to be able to see ADRIEN shine through Chat Noir.

Recall Origins, where Marinette realized she was wrong in what she initially thought of Adrien after he opened up to her about how new he is to school and friendship, and she fell in love with him after seeing his kindness and vulnerability.

Now we’re moving towards that repeating with Ladynoir - and this time Ladybug will see Chat Noir’s vulnerabilities. We’re now closer than ever to not only having Ladybug realize her feelings for Chat Noir, but also to her eventually learning and coming to terms with his identity, which is something she hasn’t considered at all thus far, unlike how Adrien has already thought about Marinette being Ladybug. And given how it’s been foreshadowed all season, I’ve been betting on Ladybug learning Chat Noir’s identity by the end of this season — whether it happens this season or later, this is a big step in warming her up to seeing the resemblance before it happens.

Adrien realized he has to be genuine and vulnerable with Ladybug if he wants any chance of her truly loving him. THAT’S HUGE. That’s the realization he’s been needing to make for three and a half seasons. That’s the realization Kagami was trying to get him to make in the art room scene back in Lies -

That even when he’s being silly he’s still playing a character and not being genuine. He wears the mask of a perfect dutiful son as Adrien. He doesn’t stop wearing a mask as Chat Noir – he puts on a different one. One where he can ignore and hide all his vulnerabilities and loneliness and solely play the part of the charming, funny Cat-sanova with superpowers. Just because it’s a character he LIKES playing doesn’t make it any less of a character. He wasn’t ready to come that realization then, but he’s done it now.

And what did he do in the very next ep that comes after this one?

He was vulnerable and honest with her about his feelings. He opened up about how terrified he is of losing her, of being abandoned. It can’t have been easy given what we know about what happened with his mother, and you can see that it wasn’t easy for him – his voice wavers and he curls in on himself and looks away from her. But it worked, and it brought her closer to him – both literally with her hand on his, and emotionally, by softening her up to him more and helping her understand him a bit better and finally allowing her to give him heartfelt reassurance.

I REALLY want ephemeral to be Chat noir's 'Chat Blanc'. Where he gets the trauma on an identity reveal and has to find a way to deal with things. And he remembers that Shadowmoth is his father, and he has to DEAL with that.

Anyway the only really strong theory I have about Ephemeral is that it's going to give Adrien as much reason not to want a reveal as Marinette has. I don't think that it'll remove a source of conflict, but I think it's going to completely reroute that conflict from being caused by Adrien's trauma (abandonment issues, etc) clashing with Marinette's trauma (PTSD from Chat Blanc). Instead, the conflict will be that they are both fundamentally terrified of the reveal -- at least until Hawk Moth is out of the picture, which doesn't seem as though it's going to happen for a long time.

It’s interesting how Glaciator 2.0 again showed that there is a big wall between Adrinette at the moment, caused by the fact that Marinette is too caught up in her own crush to really see Adrien for who he is.

Specifically, her reaction to seeing Adrien be sad is more “awesome, I can enact my plan!” than sympathy. And when her plan goes wrong because she picked the wrong gift, she never pauses to notice that Adrien was really happy to get a pottery wheel from her, even if it was unusual.

The frustrating (and fun!) thing is that it was all so close to working. It already did work, back in Gamer, when she gave him her lucky charm! If Marinette hadn’t been so caught up in her fantasy, if she had looked at the actual Adrien and his actual feelings, she could have absolutely made his day here. In fact, she did end up cheering him up immeasurably when he was wearing black and she had stopped with all the schemes and was just herself.

This matches e.g. Malediktator. Marinette was so focused on the fact that Adrien looked hot in the ad to see how it was distressing him. Her crush is in the way of her actually seeing him.

Even though it’s popular, I would not describe that as her putting him on a pedestal. She is not in love with the model and the image (at least not just); she is aware that he’s a real human boy who sometimes feels sad and frustrated. However, she is too much in her own headspace to really see what’s happening with him. And that is, in various shapes and forms, the defining factor in the Adrinette relationship right now.

Ok wait take back what I said bc how great would it be if THIS scene:

Isnt actually brought up until the END of the episode, and it’s not necessarily ladybug figuring out his identity but more so her falling in love with him like she did with Adrien and then the episode ends there and it’s not reversed 🤡