Episode 6 - False Flag/Road Rage

Dany is a K-Pop fan in this story, so I picked out a K-Pop song for this episode – Chase Me, originally by Dreamcatcher but in this instance the cover by Rolling Quartz. Both Ladybug and Papillon’s teams are chasing the Rogue Miraculous.

False Flag

This was a difficult one to square away, but there is a constant thread running through the show that Marinette often makes bad decisions which she then has to tidy up. Fu and Marinette are both convinced that the only way to trust the Rogues is to have them completely under their control.

Using Rena Rouge to trick everyone was an easy way to introduce her in the Contingency timeline – Now I’ve got the first five, plus Viperion established, which was a necessary step in building the narrative towards the finale of Season 1.

Nuitailée

Nathalie transforming with the Butterfly Miraculous like this wasn’t in my first draft, because I’d forgotten just how much damage becoming Mayura had done to her by the point of the timeline split. When I reviewed the show after finishing the first draft, I realised I needed to change that. It was just a convenient coincidence that my decision to modify the Miraculous to enhance strength/agility/endurance perfectly complimented that requirement. Fusing with Duusu wouldn’t help Nathalie there, because of the damage, but with Nooroo? That’s a different story.

Although Nuitailée only appears on two episodes overall, she completely changes the landscape. It means that Nathalie is strong enough to help Gabriel a lot longer than she would have been able to be in the show, and it puts a level of paranoia into Ladybug and Chat Noir that can drive some of the story for a little while.

Chloé and Maria

When Tangle went to visit Chloé at the beginning of this episode, she genuinely was only going to apologise for kissing Queen Bee without asking (Consent is important, duh) and not to flirt with her. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have the beginnings of a crush on Chloé/Queen Bee. At this point, Maria/Tangle have only seen her in hero mode, and then an abrupt confession, so she doesn’t know how potentially dangerous such a crush is.

I modelled Chloé’s minor breakdown at the beginning of the episode on the one she had in Malediktator, where Ladybug stepped in to support her. It was one of the first times we explicitly saw that Chloé’s attitude was hurting her as well. She managed to tell Ladybug because of hero-worship, so I changed it to be the fact that she wouldn’t have to see Tangle again. I also deliberately referenced the moment in Heart Hunter where she decided to work with Papillon – she’s nearly at that point in this story.

I want to be absolutely clear that Maria/Tangle isn’t ‘fixing’ Chloé in this sequence. All she’s doing is listening to Chloé, just like Ladybug’s done in the past. Then, later in the episode, when she’s given a chance to make the right choice to be a hero, Chloé made that choice herself. Standing up to Ladybug when Ladybug was wrong allowed Chloé to accept the part of her that failed when she first became Queen Bee. Whether or not Chloé can continue to grow over Contingency will depend on both Chloé and Marinette’s decisions. We’ll have to see where it goes.

Road Rage

This is another Akuma that was just there to fill a space, although he will make a significant reappearance later on as well. It’s a pretty simple idea, but it felt fun to explore an Akuma who is prompted by the mistakes that Marinette made earlier in the episode.