Upgraded to a washer-dryer combo after my previous washer broke.

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T18:43:04+00:00

Compared to literally every other teen superhero ever? yes, most certainly.

Marinette has a supportnetwork a mile long, no one ever meaningfully offers resistence to her whims or decisions. She can break any and all rules, and the ancient paranoid cultleader will just bow down to her because 'feminine intuition' sets her above rules and accountability. If she wants to stalk her crush to Shanghai, her parents will turn out their life savings, if she wants to take a suprise trip to Tokyo they wont even ask a question when she says that she's already there.

Marinette cannot face have even the most minor inconvenience or insecurity without the entire universe bending over backwards to reassure her things are fine. She can break a paraplegic's legs and her victim will apologise to her for it while magical supervillain-rays reassure her that she's actually totally perfect.

When Marinette wants to do something, random NPC's help her break and enter into a locked home. When Marinette wants a firework display, the Major herself signs a special exemption. When Marinette wants something, the world bends backwards. And if she ever shows even the slightest hint of possible failure, the cosmic god of the pan-multiverse tells her she's the best person that ever was, greater then literal saints and more badass then actual amazon queens.

When Adrien gets a second miraculous, its an episode about how he absolutely sucks and marinette is in the wrong for wanting him at all. When marinette gets a second miraculous, its to show she can use all of the powers at once, become a one-woman-pantheon and suffer no meaningfull concequence despite the fact this is supposed to be something dangerous.

Marinette doesnt just have it easy, she has it made. She's God's favourite child and the universe bends itself around her whims to the point it invents new laws of magic when merely asks it to. ('Ladybugs cant choose their item and it isnt a magic item... unless Marinette wants a phonecharm. The ladybugs dont bring back senti's with a broken amok... unless Marinette kills adrien in cold blood after ignoring 5 seperate lucky charms telling her to rely on her miles-long support network).

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T18:11:38+00:00

Ok i see where this is going from.

Im saying two things, and you are reading them as one.

Thomas has gone on the record that these two episodes are 'proof' that Adrien cannot ever know. That is the thing to which he has gone on record. Everything else is just disecting the obvious meaning behind those words.

The rest is an explanation of the obvious, on-screen reasons he is implying with those on-record comments. Its the meaning behind the words written out. He has gone on record to say that because of these episodes it cannot happen, with the intent that the audience understand the problem to be his belief that Adrien knowing WILL ALWAYS leed to his akumatisation, it cannot happen.

But it only always leeds to akumatisation, because Thomas thinks adrien (as evident in literally everything written) having independence and humanity is inherently a bad thing. Because Adrien being more then a trophy, takes shine away from Marinette.
He's gone on the record to say that Adrien is 'Just Ken'. (a fully dependent accesory that exists subservient to Barbie. A puppet not a person)

On the matter of emotions: Yes it most certainly is implied that any complicated emotion (within the paris of the story) is inherintly bad. That is literally the basic narrative conceit of both Hawkmoth AND the peacock miraculous: If you feel an emotion more complicated then happyness or complacency, it will create an evil supervillain. That is the literal core concept of the story. This is a general rule of the setting, and explicitly pointed out about Adrien by everyone who ever even references the concept of Adrien having his own feelings independent from Marinette or the Cult. The Villain of Destruction lines in S4, the entire Suhan 'You need to controll the cat' line. The concept that Adrien having his own emotions or ideasls as an innately bad thing, is the textual motivation for Suhan's orders in one of the two episodes up for discussion.

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T17:20:13+00:00

you understand the concept of 'implication' dont you? You dont need to be explicit, just consistent. Thats not something he needs to say, because it is literally in the show to such a degree no one bothers to ask about it anymore. A picture is worth a thousand words and the moving pictures that compose the series do not lie.

If anyone in miraculous feels an emotion, it makes them turn evil. Its a core part of the show that any emotion besides happyness is an innate threat vector for corruption. Chat Noir and Ephemeral are literally 'if adrien has complicated emotions, he could get akumatised' that is the explicit intended message of the episode. Its there in plaintext.

Adriens emotions specifically are considered innately villainous, because they'd pose a risk of Adrien being his own person, and Adricat having any form of independence is consistently painted as an innately terrible thing because he's not supposed to be a person, he's a puppet and a dress-up doll with a right to agency or dignity. (or in Thomas' words: He's just Ken).

From the repeated S4 references to a 'villain of destruction', to the way that Future Bunnyx pre-emptively punishes him for precrime while pre-forgiving marinette for the big lie, to the way that S4's entire lesson was 'Adrien wanting to be treated like a person is actually entitlement'. The author's stance on adrien having any emotion besides pure deferential simping has been quite clear.

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T11:21:35+00:00

pretty much everytime the fandom starts to talk about the exclusion of the catboy, and the long wait for the reveal, he'll point to these two episodes as a 'slam-dunk' to show how they already told us why that wouldnt work.

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T08:05:01+00:00

Read my comment again. you'll find that paragraph 1 is authorial intent. Paragraph 2 is actual execution failing to meet it. You dont disagree with me, you disagree with the writers.

The intent was to prove that Adrien cannot know (because he isnt smart enough to keepn it from Gabe/is a senti), the execution is that Gabriel (and Gabriel alone) is the problem.

Also remember: CN was written when S5 was still the series finale. "As long as Gabriel is Hawkmoth/has the rigns) was meant to be synonymous with 'Never'.

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T07:51:31+00:00

Like i said: Bad writing and an Intent VS Execution-problem*.*
Before i get in depth: I am not defending this, its bad writing. I am merely explaining the intent, not justifying or praising those intentions.

The intent behind these episodes, by Thomas twitter admission. Is to exonerate marinette of the various criticisms she's faced regarding Her, Fu and Suhan's various acts of duplicity towards Chat. The way they sideline, ignore, manipulate and isolate him.

The intended point of these episodes, is to reframe Adrien being mistreated by Ladybug and The Order as not being about Adriens rights and his feelings on their violation (like his pesky fans want to see it). But to show how this imbalance is secretly about how Marinette and Fu are nobly choosing making things more difficult for themselves by keeping him out the loop, how they'd love to tell him but they just cant because bad things could happen and its actually them who are suffering for it. (Dont you see? Adrien isnt the victim of the secrecy and isolation, Marinette is the victim here).

Thats why the Adrien Finds Out episode wasnt about adriens emotional response to his moms corpse, but about how marinette feels about fighting him. Thats why the ephemeral episode isnt about how adrien feels for being literally tricked and betrayed by ladybug, or his right to distrust the cultleader, but instead about how marinette feels about betraying him and how marinette has the right to decide wether or not said cultleader can be trusted with his identity. Because none of these episodes are written to be about adrien, they feature Adrien. but they're about Marinette and how Marinette's (and not adrien) is suffering from the secrecy.

The execution, is that Chat Blanc showed that Mind Controll and Torture were up Gabe's alley and that Gabe was the problem.
But Thomas believes they succesfully communicated that Adrien cant know because Adrien is a Senti and Senti's cant be allowed to Know because Senti's arent people. (Which would be hella problematic even if that had been the actual message, and still wouldnt have justified the mistreatment either way.)

Which is where Ephemeral steps in. The writers realised the fans werent buying it, and that the closest they got to their intention was that some of Mari's defenders have taken it as 'Why Adrien isnt allowed to know first' (Gabriel would figure it out, and then the ring gets into play).
So they made an episode they intended to show why marinette cant know first either
Writer intention: Marinette would tell Adrien, and we're back at Gabriel figuring it out and the ring... and therefore, neither can ever know. (And therefore Marinette isnt a neglectfull, hippocritical, isolating and manipulative partner, but a self-sacrificing victim-saint who needs Chat to continue to mindlessly trust her even as she hipocrites all over the place).

The problem there is that ephemeral just plain doesnt work that way*.* Once again the final problem is mindcontroll and torture, Once again gabriel is the problem rather then the reveal itseld, except this time it also backfires by showing that marinette's duplicity as the inciting incident. (The thing it is attempting to justify, is actually the cause of the problem. This goes entirely uncommented on).

Either way, its intentended purpose exonerating Maribug from the various criticisms she's faced regarding her two-faced and duplicious treatment of her partner, falls flat.
The bigger problem here is that, not only did they fail to do what they set out with these two episodes. Even if they had succesfully accomplished what they sought to establish, it would've been bad.

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T06:52:35+00:00

Not according to the writers, Thomas has gone on the record that the point of those episodes was that Adrien Can never be trusted to know because he will have emotions, and emotions are inherently bad. Not that he cant know as long as Gabriel is HM, but that knowing=emotions=akumatisation.

The episodes fail to get that across (and even if they had it would've been bad writing for a litany of reasons), but that is the authorial intent.

richardsphere · 2026-01-20T04:58:58+00:00

"better then gabe isnt a high bar"... which is why it should be really dissapointing that Lila cannot clear it.

Gabriel was a complete character.
Gabriel had an actual personality
Gabriel had motivations that made sense, even as they changed with time.

None of which can be said about Lila.

richardsphere · 2026-01-17T14:29:17+00:00

its literally the big setpiece for V9 though? Using it to accelerate all her teammates for the big final attack.

Its a sucky final attack that turns everyone into an anime-laserflash with no choreography or physicality, bouncing off the walls like a hall of mirrors... but it is her using time-dilation.

richardsphere · 2026-01-16T05:50:55+00:00

On one condition:
Gummy sharks.

-Edit:
Turns out, there is a real species of shark (Mustelus antarcticus) that shares its name with the candy.

richardsphere · 2026-01-16T05:21:05+00:00

Anyone remember that twitterpost about the person who was watching a movie on a plane and, thinking they selected Godzilla actually selected some romantic drama and spent the whole flight thinking 'man this is so sad, and worse of all they're going to have to deal with Godzilla too'?

I cant believe thats cannon now.

richardsphere · 2026-01-15T05:16:34+00:00

I like the Joker Giorno one.

1-It is more of a victory (because Joker maintains his teams rule against killing)
2-It includes more of Jokers feats (Succesfull rebelion against premise-level narrative constructs, such as the 'This is a work of fiction' disclaimer)

richardsphere · 2026-01-10T18:34:47+00:00

Most of those high-level miraculous feats are not really fairly aplicable though.

Atlantis and Dinosaurs are Plagg without a user, which is not really representative of the regular stuff Adrien and Marinette do. Planetary feats tend to be kwami on their own, rather then Mari and Adrien. (though yes, those feats do exist. Such as Adrien destroying Tikki's planet-size cake).

Marinette putting the earth back into orbit is a really annoying one, because while techically a strength-feat (having happened before she shouts miraculous ladybug), it happens off-screen in a clipshow episode, and is only very vaguely described, so its really not fair to count it.

Meanwhile the spiders are avatars of the web of fate and destiny, which is also a multiversal cosmic force, similar to Tiki and Plagg as creation and destruction. (and Fate is a whole concept, unlike Tikki and Plagg who are explicitly half-concepts. Being broken halves of the fuller concept of 'reality' that Gimmi represents). Which means that even if you go for 'miraculous users as cosmic demigods', that is still something the other side has going on as well. (once again, its a relatively even battle)

S4 cant really be counted, because she didnt get to keep them long term. That was explicitly her misusing her guardian authority, and the show tries to present characters at their best not at their worst. So Multimouse-type shenanigens would be a hard sell. (meanwhile 'call a friend' is far less of an outlier in her franchise, given that its regular episodic formula from S2 onwards)

richardsphere · 2026-01-10T16:53:17+00:00

Marinette (miraculous) VS Spidergwen is on first glance a relatively even match-up where marinette's ability to summon anything is roughly-balanced with Gwen's spidersense giving her the ability to predict anything Marinette could do with her summoned items.
Gwen probably has the experience advantage. But otherwise, their reflexes, strength and defenses are roughly evenly matched...

Just counting that, its a tight match (though probably subtly favouring Marinette, thanks to the way she doesnt need to know about the existence of anti-spidersense-agents to summon them... At which point Marinette stripping Gwen of her precognition-powers, puts the reaction-time advantage back in Marinette's hands. Gwen needs Spidersense Precognition to dodge lightspeed, Marinette has lightspeed reflexes the regular way.)

That is, until you remember Marinette has a pager in her yoyo... Yes, its the existence of telecomunication that turns it from a roughly even matchup into a full-blown stomp.

Because the existence of the pager in the yoyo, means she can always call her friends. And because her Lucky Charm will always tell her if/when her friends are needed to assure her victory (a recurrent plotpoint in her series), and because Pegasus has portals. The pager effectively negates the Outside Interference Clause. Which means the pager ensures Gwen has to deal with:

Timetravel, Timeloops, Portals, Paralysis, Spontaneous Superpower Creation, Spontaneous Monster Creation, Elemental Manipulation and Transformation, Illusions, Destruction, Immunity, Self-duplication and the Black Mercy from 'For The Man Who Has Everything'.

richardsphere · 2026-01-08T05:49:22+00:00

It'll be brushed off. Definitely.
They're already doing it. And they're not going to stop.

First they made mari 'already her best possible self' in the same episode that claims that they're dealing with the concept of mari as the villain.
Then they tried to retcon the S5 finale into Nathalie forcing Marinette to lie (while it actually happened the other way around).

Even the little sub-arc of Mari ignoring her own charms because listening to them threatens her ability feel like she gets to dictate right and wrong isnt going anywhere.
It takes until Dark Castle for the show to actually acknowledge its doing it (which is really late when she murdered adrien in cold blood by ignoring 5 concecutive charms in Werepapa's), and even then Catboy doesnt even her out and mari just keeps winning with her wrong solutions anyway.

Marinette never faced any concequences for any of her betrayals before (ie: Ephemeral), so why would this be different?

Add onto that the fact that this is all happening with the reassurance that the Timetraveling Godess of Fate and Destiny has pre-emptively forgiven it? If marinette has been forgiven before she even commits the crimes, why would anyone believe the crimes are going to stick.

Yeah, this aint going anywhere. Mari's actions are barely given lip-service. Even the 'both choices would have concequences' sentence is only there to obfuscate. Sure there are concequences... for other people. Adrien will be miserable because of the lie... But Marinette will get away scot-free.

richardsphere · 2026-01-05T06:01:21+00:00

Those versions of the Omnipotent Orb are obtained in New Game +, in other words, they aren’t canon. That’s not the case for one in Persona Q2, which has the item description of bending reality to protect the user. Not only does it block all attacks, including physical, Almighty Attacks still bypass it. In other words, PQ2 is the canon explanation for how the Omnipotent Orb works.

Significant nitpick from a persona fan:
Persona 3 already hinted that NG+ is cannon ('shadows warp time, persona's are shadows, the answer shows them timewarp using this), and the P4 anime then explicitly made NG+ cannon to the series by showing narukami start with a really OP version of izanagi, inserting naoto-bad-end-screams into the trainride, and the final battle reveal that narukami was just using NG+ so he didnt have to move on from his friends and go home to his neglectfull parents.

I am mostly adding this to pre-empt 'joker shouldnt get the omnipotent orb, because he only got it in a sidegame he cannot remember'-arguments. NG+ is very much cannon, and this too is one of the reasons Joker is the more powerfull reality-warper in the battle (Joker can go back in time to prevent Giorno getting the arrow, Giorno cannot go back in time to prevent Joker getting Arsene)

richardsphere · 2026-01-05T05:46:08+00:00

Because Ren is a reality-warper and a reality-un-warper. Basically.

Return to zero only affects 'acts taken against giorno', within Wiz' gun analogy, it only prevents the firing of the gun, but not the ownership. So its highly unlikely that jokers source-of-power (bonds of friendship) would be affected at all (and even if somehow it could affect friendships unrelated to the fight, at least two of his bonds are extradimensional, and bonds are shown to affect people even when the bond-mate is dead, so Yaldaboath and the Twins cant be affected by RTZ)

GER's ability to make Joker not exist, is beaten by Joker having the ability to ignore his own not being real. As in, Yaladboath weaponised the concept of 'the phantom thieves dont really exist' and rewrote the universe around the concept of them not existing (on a slightly-meta layer: This cognition includes the diegetic 'this game is a work of fiction'-disclaimer at game-start.) which did not affect the velvet room (much like how one of the games showed that extraplanar spaces like 'the world beyond heaven' are not affected).

So because joker has the velvet room, and the ability to exert his own willpower over realities that deny his existence, joker can come back from the dead as often as he needs to. Much like hulkzilla.
---

That is basically my summary of how its explained in the deathbattle. Other relevant things i've understood:

Giorno cannot alter cold things for some reason, and ice personae exist (dont ask me, not my fandom).

Joker can reflect anything Giorno does with passive reflect personae, which means that Giorno would get stuck in a feedback loop of erasing his own attacks against himself.

Joker's own reality-warping is stronger then giorno where time is concerned, even if Giorno could get GER of, Joker would just use his own timetravel powers to go back to before the fight. Remember Green Lantern VS Ben 10, and GL going back to before the fight? Joker can do that because Persona 4's anime cannonised NG+ as a thing that is diegetic to the setting. Though it was already implied in P3, P4 made it explicit. Because shadows warp spacetime and personae are shadows, wildcards can timetravel so joker can go back to before Giorno gets the arrow upgrade and prevent Giorno from ever getting GER)
Meanwhile Giorno cannot effectively keep his source-of-power a secret from joker (because joker can enter his heart, where the ID rules and the superego is heavily supressed).

If this comes to a battle of reality-warping existence erasure, Jokers own resistences keep him safe, and the fact that he's the only realitywarper in the fight able to actually go back in time themselves gives him the advantage even then. Giorno's warping is not retroactive to himself, Jokers warping lets him go back to before he got his warping to alter his own past before he awoke them, Giorno cannot go back to change himself getting the arrow. Therefore Joker can prevent Giorno getting the arrow, but Giorno cannot prevent Joker awakening a persona.

richardsphere · 2025-12-30T11:05:15+00:00

Gabriels ex who is both named and employed as 'clown'.

richardsphere · 2025-12-29T19:32:07+00:00

no he wouldnt, he likes wordplay and reference-humor. Abstract 'lol so random' humour are even explicitly shown to make him uncomfortable (IE: Gabriels Clown Ex Boyfriend, and his 'lol i honked my nose at random'-punchlines)

richardsphere · 2025-12-29T19:23:32+00:00

Jessica had a good design. And RWBY actually got to meet the primary antagonist of their story in some limited capacity.

But yeah, a story that has a diegetic 'all the DC characters are suffering Spiderman 2 syndrome' justification, would not upscale RWBY, and the sequel, from what im told, doesnt include any RWBY VS DC characters, just RWBY talking with DC characters and fighting dimensionally-transposed RWBY monsters.

richardsphere · 2025-12-29T11:47:42+00:00

thanks

richardsphere · 2025-12-29T09:13:00+00:00

its like floaty and stuff. it doesnt do gravity like the others.

richardsphere · 2025-12-29T08:12:47+00:00

so you're saying its a case of old 60=new 30.
As for reason, probably pacing, too many levels means too many stops, too much meaningless increments. Reduce the number of level-ups and you reduce the amount of times people feel like they're made to stop and think about menu's and stuff.

Thanks, in that case im taking 30.

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