#miraculous speculation

So, um. Those Miraculous rings from the spoiler image. With the Miraculous logos. Could it be that Chat Noir’s ring is also one of those? Created by someone else? That there’s a trueTM Cat Miraculous lying around somewhere? That somebody else might be controling it? In a non-senti way? Which could be why there’s an episode called Destruction?…

Analyzing the Penalteam spoiler(s)

Usually these types of spoilers have no meat to talk about, but a couple things caught my eye in the latest Penalteam one.

1) Didier Roustan is a guest star in this episode. This isn’t surprising to me because Astruc said there’d be a football/soccer episode with a special guest and he posted a cropped image of cartoon Didier’s concept art. French sports fans quickly figured out it was him from his style. Plus, he’s been in the special guest section of the s4 end credits this whole time along with Franck Dubosc, Philippe Candeloro, and Veronique Berecz.

2) I noticed something odd about the people present in this scene

Since Ms. Bustier is here, it seems like the soccer game is a class field trip, but some people are missing. I bet Lila’s just skipping as usual, but Kim, Max, and Nath aren’t here either. This wouldn’t be the first time Nath disappears when physical activity is involved, but according to Winny, he’s supposed to get a miraculous this episode, and you’d think a competitive, athletic game with a famous sports journalist is something Kim would never miss. I wonder where they and Max went. I’m guessing there will be an explanation because-

3) the number of people present is very convenient. A typical soccer team is comprised of nine people, and there are eighteen people in the collage part of the intro, perfect to play a full game. Subtracting Marinette and Adrien, there are nine kids on the field in the spoiler. There are also seven kids not present. If Shadowmoth’s villain(s) transform/mind-control etc everyone here except Mari and Adrien, who get away as usual, then there will be a perfect nine-on-nine game.

I predict that Chloe, Sabrina, Alya, Nino, Mylene, Juleka, Rose, Alix, and Ivan will be Penalteam. Ladybug and Chat Noir need an opposing team, so they’ll recruit Pegasus, King Monkey, Vesperia, Viperion, and Ryuko, but they’re short two players. This is where Ladybug gives Rooster Bold and Caprikid miraculous for the first time as Winny spoiled. That’s why Kim, Max, and Nath are conveniently elsewhere when the conflict goes down.

“But what about Minotaurox and Traquemoiselle?” I know right? I think Ivan will get his miraculous in Risk and Sabrina in Strike Back. I’m a bit nervous for their screen time, but I can see the ox miraculous helping Ladybug defeat some difficult villains like that big robot dude and the dog helping her physically locate the elusive Shadowmoth (spoilers indicate he’s hiding in the Louvre?). Ivan is part of the team in Strike Back, and we haven’t heard much about Sabrina, but her hero name implies a superpower like “detection”.

4) what’s going on with the villain? Usually, in a guest episode, the guest star is the akuma, but not always. Veronique Berecz was just herself in The Puppeteer 2.0 while Manon was the villain. We know Chloe will be akumatized into Penalty, but that’s all we’ve seen of the villain. SM can only send one akuma at a time, but it can influence more than one person.

I’m thinking, since Penalty’s akumatized object is a whistle, her power will be controlling people by blowing into it, which is how she influences the rest of the team. It would be kind of like Darkblade and his knights. It’s possible that Didier will also be a villain, but I don’t know. Since he’s a journalist/commentator, I can see him narrating what’s happening in the fight and even helping Ladybug out that way, but maybe he plays a minor role as himself only outside of the fight like Veronique.

5) I don’t expect massive plot progression from this episode because there’s a guest star and two new heroes, and it’s The Soccer Episode, but I feel like there just miiight be some Chloe stuff. I mean, other than for comic relief, why put such an episode as the 24th? Usually the 24th episode is relevant in some way.

In the past, Chloe has been akumatized into powerful villains over serious things, but in season four she gets two new forms that are both silly and caused by random tantrums. I think that her anger over stupid stuff is indicative of some deeper negative emotions. In Queen Banana, she was akumatized over the movie group ignoring her instead of indulging her controlling ideas, but on a deeper level, she was jealous of the positive attention Zoe was getting. How easily the kids at school started liking her and showering her with stuff like lead roles in a film. This was also the episode where she “broke up” with Adrien at the end, but Zoe said she’d always love her.

I think we might see something similar in Penalteam. Chloe will be akumatized over something dumb and bratty like nobody wanting to play with her, her team having terrible chemistry and sucking while Marinette’s team thrives under her leadership, her getting second choice because of Marinette’s good luck and getting stuck with the less athletic kids, etc. But I think underneath it all, she’ll really be upset because she will once again feel left out. All her classmates are friends who can work well together, but nobody wants her there to spoil the fun, much less boss them around.

Maybe I’m being too ambitious here, but I think this might be the episode where she loses, or at least starts to lose, Sabrina. She lost Adrien in QB, and Sabrina’s all she really has left except Zoe whose attention she rejects. Since Sabrina will be receiving a miraculous, Ladybug needs a reason to trust her. She needs to think for herself and be ready to serve the greater good, not Chloe, and I don’t see how she can naturally have that change during an action-packed finale. Maybe Chloe will finally get to Sabrina and she’ll realize this is it. Maybe she’ll have time to sit on it, and only make her decision later. But it’d make sense if Chloe’s repeated poor actions cause her to lose another person, especially the one who’s the closest to her and who gives her the most power.

Without Sabrina, Chloe is kinda screwed. Sabrina carries her stuff, does her homework, organizes everything, plays all her games, backs her up, and most importantly, lets her feel powerful. If not for her, Chloe would just be some jerk that no one wants to be around who happens to have enough money and connections to have her way, but Sabrina is the one who hypes her up into the Queen B she is. If she turned her back on her, she’d lose confidence. That’s something that would truly make this episode 24 special, a development in Sabrina, and Chloe finally reaching that point where she has no one there for her except her detested half-sister, which finally creates the potential for actual development and learning a permanent lesson rather than putting on a good face to get Ladybug’s approval on occasion.

6) last thing, my guesses always change for these, and they’re usually impossible to guess, but I never stop making theories lmao. Now that we know what the tools are for the rooster and goat miraculous (pen and paintbrush respectively), my guess for the powers changes to “inspiration” and “passion”. That’s it, final answer. If I change my mind again, or if one of my old guesses was right, pretend this never happened, but I feel like we’ve gotten a lot of info/spoilers about them versus the other new heroes, so it’s nice to be able to have guesses actually based on something.

As is typical ct-multifandom fashion, I’ll close out this post with a prediction that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the post or anything I discussed. Derailment time! I predict that the new character from the future, who I think will show up in the finale, probably Strike Back, is going to be future Max/Pegasus. Why? ‘Cause it makes sense to me and I want to see him. He’s one of Bunnyx’s closest friends, his miraculous would be one of the ones that’d get the biggest power boost from an adult user, and the two of them are probably a yin-yang pair (ask me about those btw). Also his name miiiight’ve been mentioned in a comedically bleeped-out spoiler Lindalee Rose interview about the s4 finale, saying “beep” is gonna be there to mess up SM’s plan, but maybe it was “Plagg” or someone else. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. Manifesting future Max. But seriously, ask me about yin-yang pairs.