Loser baby emos ;)

"how can you like this objectively bad thing!" because i have bad taste. move on.

Long live my ability to expand my media literacy through exposure to the very same media. Being able to take something objectively bad and finding joy in it isn’t just a learning experience— it’s vital.

Everyday I claw my way in and out of bad and problematic media like I’m dodging a missile engaged F-18 fighter jet. At this point, I’ll be damned if I let it get the best of me when I’ve come so far.

If you’re not having fun, then you’re just not doing it right. And it’s totally okay and completely valid to simply find fun elsewhere instead. Because you will. Experience joy elsewhere, that is. Isn’t that what this is all about? I like to think that it is.

Edit: Thank you to my friend for telling me that I sounded like a facebook quote towards the end, because I am now cringing at my own wording

Okay, but one of the most compelling things for me was the fact Evolution made me grimace for Gabriel-

Of course, I know people are going to be sat reading this like:

But just hear me out

For the first time, we’ve genuinely seen Gabriel this desperate. To the point he’s downright suicidal. He completely forwent any warnings given to him, sacrificing his own health in the hope he could get the upper hand on the heroes. Frequently, he was unable to walk, or even just stay conscious. Seems familiar, right? Gabriel is beginning to start acting like Nathalie in season 3. Which is, in itself, ironic considering her complete 180 at the end of the episode.

But we don’t really take it seriously

I mean- it’s not just a nuance thing either. They’re clearly crossing the bridges of mental health this arc. The paralleling between Marinette and Gabriel is amazing. The final scene was a staple to the fact they were always two sides of the same shitty coin. Same day, same reactions. But for completely different reasons. One feels the weight of failed responsibility, and the other finally feels responsibility.

Even taking a look at his panic attack, you’ll see a minute detail: his eyes are zoned in on his ring.

Gabriel has spent this last year + entirely devoting himself to the Hawkmoth character. Expensing his work life and other relationships in a co-dependent like state to revive his wife. But with Nathalie (and only Nathalie) in his corner, he’s never had to deal with the fact he’s done wrong. By not indulging anybody else; he’s had no rational mind to guide him. And dear lord is he the type that needs to be guided.

The only person who’s mattered in terms of opinion was her. Adrien would, had he been in the know, but he isn’t. Simple as that. He doesn’t know. To Gabriel, his disdain for Hawkmoth couldn’t be properly proportional, because of a ‘surely it’d be different if he knew about his mother’ mindset.

He’s a family man, and he considers Nathalie (as of this episode at least) part of said family. Going so far as to give her the other ring. If Nathalie concurs, he thinks he’s doing exactly what he should be. He admires her. He’s said as such in the Nathalie mini-episode. Until now. Someone he so openly cares about, as far as he sees it, hates him. And while getting the thrashing he deserved was all the satisfaction, his response certainly was not.

In a way, it was child like. He’s disappointed his guardian for the first time, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that. But the progression is important, because we’ve finally witnessed another milestone. Persistent, traumatic grief can cause us to cycle (sometimes quickly or in a nonlinear pattern) through the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

These stages are our attempts to process change and protect ourselves while we adapt to a new reality. He’s finally come out the denial era. And while this new found anger may be misplaced onto Ladybug, it’s still a sign he’s finally beginning to accept what’s happened to Emilie.

Many people have said he’s lost his goal after all this time, and that may be true. But I raise this: it’s not about power either, like many suggest. In the ice-Paris scene. He’s merely trying to prevent what he sees as an ambush.

As far as he knows, he has a fair reason to worry about the mysterious box. It’s happened before, it can surely happen again. He’s aware they’re trying to draw him out, and that’s dangerous. Every time he underestimates the smallest of things, it bites him. We laugh, but from an outsider prospective, many would’ve overthought it.

Even when he was making the decision, he thought they were trying to defeat him as Scarlet Moth. Destroying the current timeline before he even had a chance to meddle. Monarch had no way of knowing whether or not his change would take place first. And all things considered, that’s precisely what they were trying to make it look like.

He wasn’t going to take their miraculous, he was attempting to push them into another burrow, like before. Hence his promise of return. He was going to go through with Nathalie’s idea! He just needed to stop them attacking the old him before dropping the USB in. Had he wanted to wish it, then there would be no need to come back at all. He was worried about his current timeline. Current relationships. So on and so forth. If he ‘chose wrong’, then he’d have nothing to go back to.

His choice wasn’t driven by power, merely worry for what he currently has. Gabriel is beginning to see what’s in front of him, rather than behind. That worry, though, was immediately repaid by the most devastating words of his life, no doubt. He, basically, was just told that his wife’s death was his own fault. Whether or not that’s what Nathalie actually meant doesn’t matter. That’s how Gabriel took it.

Given what we just saw too, that he’d been the one to deliver the miraculous to his wife, those words would’ve hit all the worse. The real kicker was the declaration of what he deserves. He’s just been shunned by his one true friend. Everybody else is merely an associate, or someone he sticks with because he owes them something, or they have something for him in return. Even the dynamic between him and Audrey relies heavily on the fact she was his mentor and likely has some other (presumably magic related) weight.

Plus, we see no evidence of any other family. The canon family tree for Adrien shows no grandparents from Gabriel’s side. Only Emilie’s. His current connections are likely all he has.

So step back, and take a look at this from a different angle. Widowed husband, mere inches away from saving his recently deceased wife. Reliving the very moment that caused her death. And then, his timeline comes under fire. So he goes to stop it. Just to be tricked. And then abandoned by the one person he can confide in. And widowed husbands often take other woman as ‘replacement wives’ in an attempt to get their emotional outlet back. A woman he puts on an equal mental pedestal to Emilie just told him to go fuck himself, in 3 different metaphors.

-His decision making

-His mental capacity

-His worth

Fucking ouch

He is, frankly, moving to his PV goal. Mirrored by the change in attire. Richard Sphinx was trying to forget his wife. Doing everything he possibly could to distract himself from her absence, and filling the void with material things.

At first glance, it’s not much, but if you think about it. It was… heavy for a first episode. I have no doubt he’s going to feel more sucker punches this season until his eventual defeat. And that’s genuinely concerning when we see how far he’s already descended.

I am back from the nether of eduction, so everyone hold their breath while I get back in the swing of things. This analysis I did a while back after Evolution perfectly follows on for my next mini-analysis that I haven’t quite gotten all on paper yet, but it’s worth adding on.

When I was really considering the Agreste’s sacrificial tendencies as a whole, the final really pulled everything together. My content warning gets a little deeper here, so proceed with caution below the read more line! Check the tags carefully, as this centres around the more nitty gritty psychology of mental states that is often triggering for some people.