[Review/Recap] Miraculous Ladybug Season 2 Episode 17: "Reverser" (SPOILERS) · 8:47am Jul 24th, 2018
A shy writer with low self-esteem and a crush on Nathaniel is Akumatized when a misunderstanding crushes his spirit.
Marc, a student from another class, is a creative writer with no self-confidence. Marinette finds him lurking under the stairs when his class is on break, and invites him to come hang out in the art room with her class during their free hour.
Here we see another teacher (GASP!), and Nathaniel is drawing his "Illustrator" (no longer Evil) teaming up with Ladybug to fight "Queen Wasp". Interesting...
Marc comes along but is nervous about showing off his writing, which is too bad, because Nathaniel really could use a writer to collaborate with. Just when the two of them are starting to hit it off, though, Chloe comes along and messes everything up with her bitchiness. Alix ridicules her, though, and she exits stage left...but it's too late, Marc's nerves are shot and he runs off. He drops his writing notebook, which Marinette finds. She takes it to the bathroom to read it when she discovers the story is called "Diary of Ladybug"--
OK, pause the script.
Marinette went to the bathroom to privately read some kid's private writing notebook, which is a fanfiction about HER.
I'm sorry, but HOLY FUCKING HELL, MARINETTE, WHAT.
--ok back to the story.
So basically, through "Diary of Ladybug", we get the strong impression that Marc has a serious crush on Nathaniel. (All the fanfics where Nathaniel outs as gay just got MASSIVE vindication!)
When Marinette returns the notebook, she suggests Marc talk to Nathaniel about working together. Marc has a patented Marinette Freakout over the prospect, sounding exactly like Marinette whenever Adrien is the topic. Marinette, proving herself to oblivious AND hopeless, comments how silly he sounds.
Yeah. REAL silly, pot.
Pot gives Kettle a lame idea about how to get these two together. Her stupid idea leads to Nathaniel thinking the "Diary of Ladybug" is...well...Ladybug's actual diary.
Marinette's plan is to have Nathaniel return the "diary" to the author in person at the park, which she's staking out from her terrace using her phone camera zoom.
Hmm. Marc is wearing a red hoodie...possible Star Vs. the Forces of Evil shout-out?
Things fall completely to shit when Nathaniel is disappointed that he's not meeting Ladybug as he expected. Nathaniel thinks this was all a prank and rips apart the journal, crushing Marc's dreams and leaving him open to Akumatization.
Hi, Hawk Moth!
Marc becomes Reverser, an Akuma with the power to invert anyone's personality, taking their strongest trait and flipping it to its opposite. Also, Reverser has the coolest Akuma design to date.
Ladybug avoids Reverser's attacks for a while before ending up being dragged halfway across the city hanging from his glider. Then, Reverser targets a civilian to create an opening to attack Ladybug directly, rendering her clumsy and uncoordinated as opposed to her usual agility and skill. When Chat Noir joins the battle, he gets hit too, and his bravery turns to terror. Both heroes fall into the Seine, and Reverser goes off to do his own thing while he waits for them to resurface. Apart from dicking with some random people, he also causes a potential disaster by reversing Mayor Bourgeois' decision to launch Paris' garbage into space--leading to garbage meteors dropping onto the city!
Meanwhile, at the Louvre, Alix knocks some sense into Nathaniel, and Ladybug and Chat Noir show up there looking for him--after a long day of cab rides and klutzing.
Ladybug concocts a scheme to deal with Reverser AND the garbage situation, which heavily involves Nathaniel and Alix. Ladybug's complicated plan works and saves the city. She also manages to complete her mission of getting Marc and Nathaniel together! They collaborate on a comic, which they dedicate to Marinette.
Decent filler episode. Interesting that it mentions Queen Wasp before her actual debut. 9/10.
i saw the schedule the Queen Wasp episode was actually supposed to air b4 this but i think their saving it for end of season stuff or near end and this was supposed to be breather after that ep
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Yeah, the schedule got shuffled a bit, but the three-episode Queen Bee/Wasp arc will air in August as the next three released episodes.
I think it's been established that Marionette can be terrible sometimes, not as terrible as 'Give her ten minutes and a room full of people and she'll create the next Legion of Doom' Chole, but in little ways like with the 'diary' thing here.
And the morale of the story is... I think...
Don't read fanfiction about yourself
Or be careful with the title of your story
Or space dumpsters are dumb
Or Marinette's clumsiness is a bad superhero trait
Or Marinette's classmates shouldn't be underestimated
Or those fics just got massively Jossed. Marc's fic may have been written from Ladybug's POV, but they were based on Nath's drawings and the only ship shown is LadyStrator. This far Nathanael has shown an interest in two people (technically one person): Marinette back in Evillstrator, and Ladybug here.
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Marinette, not Marionette. And how is anything she did here "terrible"? A little weird with the reading-it-in-the-bathroom thing, but all she was trying to do here was help Marc. It's not like she could've predicted Nathaniel would have a meltdown out of freaking nowhere.
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Dude, I ship gay maybe once every 50 years and I'm only 40. Don't piss in my rainbow toasties.
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Don't let a little thing like me poking holes in the logical framework of your ship stop you from shipping. If my years of fanfic reading have taught me anything, it's that things like "logic" and "solid evidence" tend to be rather... superfluous... to a shipper with enough determination.
4906869
I'm thinking of that quote from the second Under Seige movie.
"Assumptions are the mother of all f##k-ups!"
Really, if there's any one moral of this story, it's to not assume things when you can just verify them. If Marinette had caught Nathaniel's mistake at the school entrance, the whole episode could have been avoided. Of course, then we wouldn't have gotten to see Reverser's awesome outfit, and some serious Nathaniel/Marc shipping...
Crazy kids! And, If I were a student there myself, I would be questioning why Adrien hasn't been akumatized yet, since he has a very strict father and all that stuff. Marinette seems to have her stuff together, but man. The Reverser does look awesome!