Thomas Astruc, the next Butch Hartman

I’m so sorry about the audio overlap guys! I think something happened in between when I finished and when I uploaded it bc it wasn’t like that when I was editing. I’ll try to avoid that in the future! edit: My reference to his poor grammar has been brought up and I’d quickly like to apologize for that! I was intending to say that considering incorrect grammar is improper in professional settings, but I did not account for the fact English is not Thomas’ first language despite being aware of that. I’ll be more considerate in the future! I never intend to make inappropriate comments, and if you ever feel as if I have, please let me know so I can work on that :) Actually threw my phone across the room when I saw this had over 100K views what the hell 6 months later edit so many people from my school have watched this but now I’m wondering why they didn’t realize it was me. Summer, why didn’t you know it was me 🤨 I thought we were friends Summer 🤨 /j

I knew this guy was defensive AF when he self inserted himself as a director who couldn't take criticism 😅

Thomas… don’t you realize the reason Chloe failed, messed up, and doesn’t want to take responsibility is because YOU made her like that on purpose 💀

Morale of miraculous: stalking is ok, as long as you g i r l

I feel like the only character Thomas wants to be successful is Marinette. To the point where she can gaslight, abuse, hurt, stalk and ignore other characters and everyone will be like “yeah, that’s fine.”

Thomas Asstruck teaches children that a neglected teenager is irredeemable and can't change

I feel bad for the Miraculous fandom, because almost all of them that I’ve encountered are really nice people, many of them are genuinely more creative and better writers and artists than the actual Miraculous writers and artists, and Astruc seems determined to give them the worst product possible. The fans deserve a better show.

Thomas really can’t even use the excuse that he wants characters to stay the same because no only are the episodes aired out of order, classmates getting miraculous left and right with no explanation and then getting their origins episodes later, Marinette and Adrien having girlfriends/boyfriends for entire seasons, and Alya finally learning Marinette’s secret. So, that’s completely out the window. I’m so sick of people trying to justify Chloe not getting a redemption because the writers are sabotaging that character. If she’s supposed to be the run of the mill preppy rich brat, then why is she so important to the plot later in seasons 3-4, why does she get a miraculous in the first place, why does she get MORE screen time than a character like Lila who is actively supposed to have an affect on the plot (albeit the writers don’t do anything with her either)? “Chloe is a racist, Chloe is so mean, Chloe only cares about fame, ladee ladee lah blah dee blah” Chloe is a 15 YEAR OLD GIRL with neglectful parents who spoil her and a sister who everyone likes better than her. Why is everyone acting like Chloe could never change, what is this, “Twitter: The Animated Series”? You can’t give Chloe a mean spirited and bullying personality and then give her a best friend who sees good in her, a miraculous when you EXPLICITLY said “bad people don’t deserve miraculous’”, and MULTIPLE times of her learning her lesson and even APOLOGIZING, FIGHTING OFF an akumatization based on the sheer WILL POWER and DETERMINATION TO NEVER BETRAY LADYBUG, and then go, as a grown man, “Psh, what a bitch. She’ll never change” IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE I DON’T EVEN LIKE CHLOE, but her development as a character is wasted. She went from unlikable to confusing as hell because they can’t decide what they want to do with her.

It was hard to see Chloe's "damnation" coming when the show never treats Chloe's behaviour as a big deal. Whenever she does something bad the characters just eventually shrug it off as Chloe being Chloe. Chloe even got the Bee Miraculous back in Maledictator despite doing nothing to earn it, and there's plenty of "Chloe just needs a chance" messages throughout the show. So, how were we meant to see that all Chloe's behaviour as red flags when the show itself ignored them? Astruc brought up that Chloe nearly crashed a train in a Tweet defending the damnation, but the show itself forgot that Chloe did that by the end of the episode and it's never brought up again. Also, there are many examples of badly handled redemption arcs out there, where the characters don't have to do anything to earn forgiveness and their bad actions are just forgotten. It was very easy to view Chloe's arc as just yet another poorly handled redemption arc.

thing i wanted to point out as an asian that really pissed me off: thomas said that kung food was based off of chinese monks outfits and Beijing opera masks. but.... why combine the two? he could've gone full opera or full monk and it would've been less confusing, it honestly seems like he just connected the two bc it's chinese and not for any legitimate reasons. and like you said none of these things have to do with the fact he's a chef! the monk robes could have been explained away with it being his religion and had him wearing prayer beads as a civilian to tie it together but the opera makes no sense as he's not a performer. he should have either been a chef or an opera performer, not try to cram in both

Astruc also has some Chris Sonnenburg in him, who's known for creating Tangled: The Series. He actively attacked Varian fans for not praising Casandra, even within the fan discord server. Astruc himself has attacked Adrien fans just for wanting him to be given equal screentime and focus as Marinette, and accused people of being sexist and just mad because "the girl is the leader"

I get what he is trying to say but he could have been nicer about it. He could have said. Sorry, we wanted Chloe to be evil. Sometimes people are just bad people" We appreciate how much you love Chloe though".

this dude is basically the yandere dev of the animation industry

Thomas talks like he didn't write the characters himself, ''Chloe is not bad writing, she CHOSE to fall back int her flaws'' Uh yeah?? And you were the one who made her make that choice.... Also note: Stuff like this can work as well if the message you're trying to convey is ''sometimes people don't change and they fall back into harmful habits and we can't help them unless they decide to help themselves'' which is fine, but thomas isn't trying to do that, there's no reason at all for chloe to fall back into her habits, everyone likes her better when she's nice, her idol ladybug likes her, adrien is her friend again and she generally likes herself more when she's nice as well. So what's the insecurity she has making her fall back into old habits? What's her fear? Her motivation? Where are the compelling emotions shown that makes chloe have a human reason for falling back into being a bully. You can't draw a line up then draw the same line down without connecting the two - the 'damned arc' wasn't planned. People fall back into habits for reasons, without a reason, it's bad writing. A puppet following the writers demands and not a 3 dimensional character.

One thing I hate about Astruc's instance on Chloe is how he says she "doesn't deserve to be a super hero" Being a hero isn't something you deserve to be or not, you either either a hero due to the choices and actions you make, or you are not! The "super" part of the 'superhero' just involves having super powers. Chloe could very well be a hero on her own without having powers, but Astruc treats the status of hero itself as something Chloe has to work for harder than any other person, while Marinette, who makes the exact same mistakes (more often and refuses to learn from them, like stalking Adrien, sabotaging Kagami, ditching the kids she promised to take care of and shoving that responsibility to Alya or her grandfather so she can stalk Adrien again, etc.), gets to have a free pass because she's the protagonist! I would argue Marinette deserves the powers even less than Chloe! Chloe has a reason to be a shitty kid, her own mother can't be bothered to remember her name, abandoned her as a child and left her family for another man in New York with whom she had another kid, and all her father does is spoil her to the core to make up for the void Audrey left in his daughter's heart. But Marinette is a shitty person for no reason whatsoever - her parents love her dearly, are always supportive of her hobbies, friends and career path, and never question her weird behavior when she has to go save Paris! THEN WHY IS SHE STALKING HER CLASSMATE, SABOTAGING HER FRIENDS AND USING HER HERO TEAMMATES LIKE TOOLS!? Seriously, she only sees Chat Noir as a portable Cataclysm whom she has to work around, and not with! She traced a plan to distort time and space so she could get an information out of him, information that he was more than willing to share with her and she knew it, and then pass on that information to two other people Chat did not consent to knowing or even knew they would have that information shared with, but Ladybug herself would not have any recollection of the event! WHY NOT JUST TALK TO HIM LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING!? Chloe was the best and deepest character in the show, but Astruc has an unreasonable hateboner for her and decided that everyone who likes Chloe is evil (I'm not kidding, it's one of his responses on Twitter to the Chloe drama). Meanwhile Marinette does even worse things, but since Astruc likes her, she deserves to be a superhero!

He sabatotaged Chloe because she was becoming more popular than Mari then tried to gaslight everyone into believing his narrative. Her trajectory from villain to hero was plain as day, starting from when she resisted akumatization. 🤭....Chloe is still my favourite character simply because I'm not bored when watching her, not because she's a good person.

Watching this video proving what I've been saying makes me sad. However, I hope your aware that Butch Hartman has done much worse things than Thomas, but your spot on that both these men can handle criticism.

I just love how Thomas acts as if Chloe was a real person and not a fictional character created by him.

"Chloé opened up, she had help, but she failed", that's completely untrue. Albeit her development was inconsistent (to the point that at times it felt as if there were 2 different characters with the same face on screen), she DID show good will and a good side. There were scenes showing she was simply after validation, bc she had been literally abandoned by her mother when she was a little kid, leaving her with a father who'd simply shower her with gifts but offered her no positive model. When her mother finally returns, we learn she never bothered learning her daughter's birthday, or even her name! Ladybug manages to reach out to Chloé, who opens up to her, confessing she doesn't really care about her rivalry with Marinette, and saying she knows nobody likes her and taht she feels she's worth nothing. For some reason, the protagonist decides that instead of trying and befriend her, ecnouraging her good side, the best solution is to help her bond with her mother... pointing out how they are both bullies! She was the first person to ever reject an akuma BEFORE transforming, and it was clearly out of loyalty for Ladybug - her hero at the time - not out of greed as Astruc claims. Then LB dumps her without a proper explanation, and in the finale Marinette indirectly pushes her towards Hawk Moth when she summons Kagami instead of Chloé to fight against Chloé's akumatized parents (out of jealousy no less, bc she'd seen Kagami getting closer to Adrien). Chloé feels pushed aside and ignored by her hero, and thanks to Hawk Moth's manipulations through Lila she ultimately loses all faith in Ladybug. Damnation arc my @$$. The protagonist pushed her back to the dark side.

I remembered seeing the comment of an unfortunate person who commissioned 300$ for a drawing from Bitch Hartman and got a scribble that looked like it was made in MS Paint in 5 minutes so I offered him one of my shitty drawings free of charge as a consolation prize. I may not be able to draw that well but I must say Butch's commission raised my self esteem as a newbie artist. Like "Hey...At least it's not as bad as that thing."