Miraculously Marked

This Friday was a harbinger of a new goal: write like the unnamed kid that had Mrs. Valentino before I'd read Cat in the Hat

Now, I can say I have good vocabulary (ignore the fact I know harbinger from Genshin despite never playing the game) but the oxford dictionary kid is a level I am still far from for many reasons, but we don’t need to get into the minute. As Mr. Unnamed has imprinted his essay in my head, the thought of him has found refuge with my other goals: getting into college, opening a bakery once I’m a rich lawyer, causing the third Boston Tea Party, and becoming a master of spinjitzu. Ninjago references aside, I don’t know this kid (well, he’s a man now but for dramatic effect, he’s going to stay ‘kid’), yet his writing alone has marked him.  

The question of someone being marked or unmarked is one of opinion. In the U.S., my parachute-bound self is quite noticeable, but in Mumbai, hardly anyone would bat an eye at my presence alone.  

Guys can you tell these are the same person?!?!?!

In France however, when you have a ladybug-adorned, pigtail-bearing, yo-yo spinning 16-year-old, it’s honestly quite hard not to notice the resemblance between the only other character in the show who has blue pigtails... yeah, I can’t say that I understand how the entire character base of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir have failed to recognize Marinette and Adrien in their superhero forms.  

In just about every superhero universe, the main hero literally changed their clothes to a costume, puts a mask over their eyes, and heads out to defeat evil. Every character in Miraculous has donned their hero suit in an open park, behind a bench, with their hair staying pretty much identical post-transformation, and you’re telling me not one member of the public could figure out that their peers go and fight butterflies daily? Clark Kent/Kal-El literally takes off his glasses and becomes Superman, and outside of the Justice League and his wife, the universe has no idea who The Man of Steel is.  

These people have such strong characters as heroes, saving lives daily, sacrificing their own well-being for the sake of humanity, that their real self is often unmarked and rather... ordinary. The pedestal that these heroes are put on makes it impossible for the public eye to see them as ordinary in their day-to-day lives. If any of Marinettes friends put her next to Ladybug, I still doubt they’d be able to tell they’re the same person, simply because they can’t see past the grandeur of the hero being this clumsy teenager who’s in a love square...with herself (the writers are a bit goofy for that one I can’t lie).

Being marked may not be only through looks, but through actions, but the pedestal someone is put on is often too high for themselves, and their bona-fide-self doesn’t wish to climb.

...can you tell I pulled out my better diction because I still cannot fathom how this kid pulled out loquacity mid-essay-