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save-the-villainous-cat · 1 year ago

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Okay so how about a delirious or gravely injured hero / villain who starts telling the other details about their secret identity because they’re so sure they’re not going to make it while the other is like don’t even think about dying on me ?

"Look," the villain hissed. They pressed their hand into the wound the supervillain had stabbed into them. Flesh had ripped open and blood had been mercilessly dropping to the ground for the last few minutes. It was fair to say that the hero had...overdone it. The villain knew they could forget their own strength every now and then but they hadn't expected them to kill the supervillain that brutally. "I am dying."

The villain leaned their head back but the headache would not die. They dared to peek at the supervillain's body and somehow allowed themselves to relax. Years of anger and anxiety were gone now. Some peace was a good thing. Ignoring the tears and the pain, their eyes found the hero.

"Don't be ridiculous," the hero said but still, the villain could hear their voice shake. Whenever the hero's wall which they had built around their heart crumbled like this, the villain felt some weird sense of accomplishment. Wasn't this their job? Changing the hero? Even if the villain wasn't a good person, was this a good deed?

"No," the villain said. They grabbed the hero's wrist. Their nemesis was panicking, staring at the villain's wound in shock. "I am dying, love."

The hero shook their head and the villain wasn't sure if the pain made them hallucinate the tears in the hero's eyes or if those were actually real. They had never seen the hero this emotional.

"My parents aren't buried in the city," the villain said. "But I wouldn't mind if you chose a cemetery here."

"No."

"I have a cat, also. You need to take care of her. She's only five months old. I found her on the streets a while ago." The villain's hand crawled up the hero's arm until they found their hand and squeezed. "God, I thought I'd have some more time."

They couldn't even stop the tears. Couldn't control anything. Their vision spun and they felt bad for forcing the hero to watch them die. It was a little selfish, wasn't it? But wasn't it also a human desire?

Not to die alone?

"I have a sister, too. She lives far away, though. Maybe you'll find her phone number in my apartment? Could you take care of that? I know it's a lot to ask..."

"Don't you dare. I didn't murder someone for you to die now. I didn't protect you all these months for you to..." The hero swallowed and wiped thick tears away. For a second, the villain seriously thought they were dead already. I didn't protect you... "You cannot die now. I won't let you. You're too important to me."

"It's fine, I..." The hero pulled out their phone and dialed 911 with shaky fingers. The villain's eyes widened but they were too weak to protest. The hero tried to breathe but it was clear that it was quite troubling for them to take normal breaths. They were fighting just as much as the villain.

The villain had given up already, though.

"Yes, hello. I would like to report a murder. I killed someone. I also need an ambulance...I injured someone else, too," the hero said. "Locate my position."

They hung up.

"Fuck, what are you...?" The villain's heart was beating faster than ever. They couldn't believe what the hero had just told the authorities. Confessing a murder like this...asking for an ambulance? The villain wouldn't make it in time and the hero would go to jail either way.

This couldn't be happening. The villain had wanted them to live a quiet life, not dying young in prison. The amount of villain's the hero had already sent to jail was impressive and if the hero joined them, they wouldn't survive the first night.

The villain moaned when they moved. Pain was taking over and they weren't sure if they wanted to throw up or pass out.

"They won't put you in jail when you're injured like this. Especially not when I am the one who's responsible. They've been hunting you for quite a while now but in this case I am the criminal. This buys you time and they can actually save you at the hospital." The hero took in a greedy breath and closed their eyes. More tears.

"You're insane, you're-" The hero took their hand.

"It's the only way to save you. Your blood type is A+, right?" Perhaps? The villain wanted to throw up. This wasn't happening, the hero hadn't just pulled their Go to Jail Card intentionally.

"I think so?" The villain started to sweat and suddenly, it felt as if the world wanted to push them into the afterlife. They refused to die, now that the hero had confessed to a crime. But they feared they had no control over that either.

"Mine is A-, so I can donate. I'll try to stay on the ambulance, if they let me." The hero seemed to be back in their cold self. Always calculating, always thinking. Their poor hero. Always fighting.

"You'll go to prison," the villain whispered.

"And I will find a way to crawl back to you," the hero said. "I always will."

#you always got my fav requests #writing snippet #heroes and villains #heroxvillain prompt #heroxvillain snippet #hero #villain #request #an answer for an ask #hero x villain #heroxvillain

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glux2 · 1 year ago

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Musing: Emotional connection

Recently a very close person to me suggested i binge watch "Angel Hare", before that day my only exposure to that project was a fan game that had a very funny punchline in lampooning the "cursed videogame" genre.

So i watched the whole thing and it was great.

This scene right here made me feel more feelings than most of the media i have watched/played/read in like the last 5 years or so.

So it made my mind wonder, like, "hold on, when was the last time i felt this strongly about a piece of entertainment?"

Sure, if you know me, i felt strongly about the ongoing plotline for Noelle on Deltarune, so one would think "2021 when chapter two came out", right? but no, i got very invested but it wasn't it.

The last time i felt so strongly about a piece of media was actually Deltarune's predecesor, Undertale in 2015.

I finished Undertale in tears, i got in a very bad funk when i found out about the genocide ending, it truly made me feel emotions.

So i began to ponder, just what really moves me?

Full disclosure: I don't cry at movies. This is not a "look at me i am a badass who is not beheld by feelings" statement, no, i kinda just dont connect emotionally with movies as easily as other people.

I have talked about this, many times actually, Toy Story 3 did not make me cry, it always bothers me how people at the time were like "if TS3 didn't make you cry, you have no soul" and shit like that, so let me repeat something i have said many times before:

Toy Story 3 was a movie i went to see the day doctors had informed me my mother had entered terminal phase of cancer.

My friends took me to see TS3 when i felt the greatest sadness i have ever felt in my entire life. And im glad TS3 was a pretty funny movie that managed to distract me from what i was going through. TS3 uplifted me when i had a very real reason to cry.

So what im getting at is, i rarely connect emotionally with what conventionally makes people emotionally connected, not that i havent felt strong emotions from movies, but as we'll get to later, it's just not the stuff you would expect, when we get back to movies you'll be thinking, "what the fuck, Toy story 3 did not make you emotional but THIS THING DID?!"

So, if traditional "emotional things" rarely have moved me i began to think to myself, "what are things that have made me feel this strongly?"

I realized it's the damn weirdest things.

I'll try to list things that i can remember making me feel this emotional.

Now i'll be upfront, im not a very cultured person, so you'll notice most of this is...not very high brow.

Also, obviously spoilers for all this stuff im about to talk about.

Before we begin: Honorable mention goes to me finding out i had repressed memories of being traumatized as a kid by being show an animated adaptation of "Pilgrim's progress" by an aunt, which disturbed me greatly towards the end as the main character dies and before it the souls of two people he met are condemned to eternal damnation from making MISTAKES, not sins, not evil, but THE FUCKING MISTAKE of exploring alternate routes before them.

-Yoshi's Island, 1994 When i was a wee one Yoshi was one of my fave videogame characters, so of course i was beyond hype when a game where you play as yoshi came out, the ending is one of the greatest moments in videogame history, the beautiful music, the journey of the stork, and finally the classic Mario fan fare playing as baby mario and baby luigi being held by their parents with the words "Heroes are born", it's such a powerful moment. To this day i still cannot listen to that credits music without tearing up.

Sequel? Retcon?! I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, SHUT UP, THIS IS THE PERFECT ENDING AND NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED AFTER IT!

-The bicentennial man, 1999 The bicentennial man is one of the biggest examples of a movie being fucking mischaracterized in the marketing, this movie is based on Isaac Asimov's short story and later novel, it stars Robin Williams, so all marketing was presenting the movie as Robin Williams comedy movie, IT. IS. NOT. The bicentennial man is a scifi drama about the existential search for meaning and the nature of what truly is to be alive. You get invested on the quest of this robot trying to find humanity for 200 years, and the punchline to this movie is, in his quest for humanity he forgoes the immortality being a machine provides him as he had developed the way to turn himself biological, still artificial but biological, and he dies peacefully on his sleep before he can be told that humanity had declared him, legally, a human being. To me it was such a powerful moment, he found true meaning to his life, became human, yet died before knowing so.

-Courage the cowardly dog, "The Mask", 2002 This is a legendary episode of an already great show that has a lot of very good emotional moments, some may cite episodes like "the giving tree" or "the last star maker", but for me it's this one. For those who have never experienced this episode, it revolves around a cat girl named Kitty who one day shows up at Courage's farm and she's wearing an upsetting mask, she abuses courage because she believes all dogs are bad. The mask serves 2 purposes, one is metaphorical, "her inability to face reality", the second is to hide her identity as she believes she is in danger. The thing is, she is on the run because her lover best friend Bunny is trapped in an abusive relationship with a gangster dog who threatened to kill her if she was seen near Bunny ever again, the episode coats the whole situation with a ton of goofiness, but it's actually very fucking dark: A young lesbian is trapped against her will on an abusive relationship with a toxic, violent man who threatened to kill her girlfriend if she refused to date him. Courage, being a good little dog ventures to save Bunny and have her reunite with Kitty because, despite how bad Kitty was to him, he recognizes that Kitty is a victim and she and Bunny deserve better, leading to Courage letting them escape away together, to live happy and free. I don't think it's just me, but the final image of Kitty and Bunny hugging as the train takes them to freedom felt so powerful to me.

-Twisted Metal Head-on, 2002 This is one of the weirdest things i have ever gotten emotionally invested, but honestly? i love when some shitposting franchise suddenly manages to pull this off, specially given the set up for this whole thing im going to describe starts in an early game as a fucking joke. So to contextualize this, the first two Twisted metal games were helmed by the og creators of the franchise, TM 3, 4 and small brawl were made by different developers when the creators lost the rights, but during the PS2 era when the og developers came back and created TM: Black, and TM: Head-on, Black was a reboot, Head-on was a retcon sequel to TM 2 that eliminated TM3 from the timeline, but not TM 4. Still with me? Okay so TM2 had this character, Krista Sparks, who was the revealed to be the daughter of the main antagonist of the game, Calypso, but hold on? wasn't Calypso's backstory that his family died in a tragic accident which lead him to become evil? So turns out, the FBI retrieved his daughter's corpse, turned it into a robot with a bomb with the intend to make her get close to Calypso and blow him up. The ending ends comically with a message reading "The FBI wishes to thank you for putting an end to Twisted metal". Stil Still with me?!?!?! ok! so Head on! In this game Krista is back, as a ghost, her ending consists on her confronting her dad, who has now brought up so much pain, misery and death to the world, Calypso tries to explain that the nature of his powers mean he has to do this otherwise he cannot use his powers, and his plan was for Krista to win so he could bring her back and her mom to life, but Krista is so horrified with what has happened that she refuses and blurts "I wish the accident that killed me and mom never happened" the intention being impeding Calypso from becoming this evil super natural villian, but as per all endings, it's always a monkey paw affair and Calypso knows it, looking saddened he grants the wish because he has no option, his powers force him to. Briefly Krista has a vision of her childhood with her dad before he became evil as they share a sweet moment playing on a swing set. HARD CUT TO A HOSPITAL, Krista is on a bed in coma, Calypso is there and whispers to her something along the lines of "Sleep tight my dear, may you finally find peace", as Calypso is leaving the hospital you can hear 2 doctors talking, mentioning that Krista had been in coma for more than a decade and apparently Calypso just had found out. Excuse me Twisted Metal, but WHAT THE FUCK? You are a dumb fucking edgy car combat game, how dare you make me feel these things?

-Mother 3, 2006 (translation on 2008) Mother 3 hopefully needs no introduction, or maybe it does, because many people have reduced it to a joke due to how nintendo stubbornly refuses to give us an official release, but also many of you must know this franchise is the spark that ignited the flame of the absolute Juggernaut Undertale would become, as well as many other games influenced by it. The Mother/Earthbound games were known for being quirky and deviating from the standard conventions of the game, notably for the modern day setting and unorthodox choices of how you deal with the villians, they were always billed as emotional, but i feel they did not live up to that...until 3. The general narrative to Mother 3 is about how greed is destroying the world, the main villian corrupting what we see of the world (a paradise little town where everybody is nice) by introducing luxury, money and status....and also stomping everything with his fascist army and cyborg mutants. Mother 3 is a game about how the worst traits of humanity are destroying the world and upsetting nature. Mother 3 is also the story of 2 twin brothers who suffer tragedy after tragedy after tragedy that ultimately pits them one against the other with the fate of the world at stake. Mother 3 punches you almost immediately by killing the mother character (which i might mention you're encouraged to name after your own mother) at the end of the first chapter and how this affects her surviving family. one of the Twins, Claus, is so disturbed that he decides to on on his own to try to kill the monster that took his mom, while the other, Lucas, was too afraid and weak to stop his brother, resulting on Claus dying as well...but the badguys take his corpse and reanimate it into a cold, emotionless cyborg who follow's the big bad's order and is using him to try to cause the end of the world. In the climax of the story Lucas is force to confront Claus, clause is a brain washed cyborg, his master is out of the picture and all he can do is fight, you can't reason with him...and then.... Lucas and Claus begin to hear a voice, a familiar voice, it's their mother, reaching for them from beyond the grave, pleading for them to stop fighting, suddenly Lucas and Claus both have a flash back to when they were babies, overhearing their parents talk about the hopes they have for them, the many things they will be able to achieve together, this makes Clause snap out of his brain washing, removing the helmet that had been hiding his face since he was resurrected, Lucas and him have a moment as they are finally reunited, Claus realizes all the bad things he has done while under control of the bad guy and realizes he must atone for his crimes, he prepares a lightning attack he knows cannot hurt Lucas and cause HIM to die. "Im sorry for all the problems i caused" he says as he is dying on his dad's arm, "I must go to where mom is now", as he passes away he can hear his mother calling for him, "You just be so tired" she says. Now i know it will sound insane for people to hear a videogame of all things can make one so emotional, but damn, just recollecting these scenes for this dumb post has made me start to cry, the emotional punch of this scene is very strong, it demolished me when i played the game back in the day, but now? After my own mother passed away? I have been scared of playing this game again. I mot sure if im emotionally prepare to go though that again, even 10+ years later. That's how powerful this scene was to me.

-Elite Beat Agents, 2007 If you have played this game, you know were im going, for those who dont, EBA is a silly rhythm game about secret agent cheer leaders that are dispatched around the world to help people in need by raising their spirit and allow them to overcome adversity, the game is insanely wacky and have scenarios like helping a ninja car salesman prevent a company from stealing his company's secrets, helping a washed up baseball star fight a lava spitting golem rampaging on an amusement park and traveling back in time to help davinci paint the mona lisa. EBA is also the second game in the Ouendan series, and there is something you need to know about this series: They all include tearjerker levels to contrast with all the goofiness. "A christmas Wish" is a christmas themed level set to Chicago's "You are the inspiration" and the story to this level is positively DEVASTATING: A few months before christmas a business man tells his daughter and wife he has to go on a business trip but he promises he'll be back just in time for christmas, the girl asks him to bring back a "girlfriend" for her teddy bear. The father dies on a plane crash. When the mother breaks the news to the little girl she gets angry, crying to the skies that her dad promised he would be back for christmas. The backdrop of the stage is set the girl and the mom doing things to remember the dad, like looking through a photo album and baking a cake for his birthday, it's very sweet, but...this is EBA, if you're doing poorly you see the "bad" versions of these scenes, and in this one, one is very devastating, the little girl is having a dream where she's chasing the spirit of her dad, if you're doing well she calls for him and for a brief moment the dad stops and starts turning towards her, if you're doing bad the spirit fades away and the girl wakes up in tears. Dear goodness. But of course, if you beat the level you get this sequence of the ghost of the dad showing up on chrismas morning to fullfil his promise, giving the little girl the teddy bear he promised and having the chance to say good bye to his family.

This punches you really fucking hard in the gut. I am incapable of doing this level without ending in tears. For a time i could not even listen to this song without tearing up until, i shit you now, the deadpool movie used it on a comedy scene.

-Punch out!!, 2009 This one is one i know got me because of personal nostalgia, when i was a wee one the og NES punch out was a big part of my childhood, Punch Out!! on the wii was a masterfully crafted tribute to the franchise. To not dwell too much time on this, this game has an interesting quirk, the ending is a downer ending and it's the only ending you can get. After you beat the last opponent there is a sequence where Mac and Doc seemingly are having a disagreement, where Mac seemingly has decided that if he loses 3 times, he'll retire from boxing completely. After this you face randomly opponents from the game, the first time you lose in this mode you lose your champion title, after three loses, it's game over and the story mode becomes locked for that save file. The final cutscene is Doc walking through what seems to be a gallery with boxing memorabilia, and untold number of years later, he is alone, he spots his old bike on this gallery and rings the bell, he looks up and speak to an absent Mac, "Good job son, good job", as he leaves the camera pans to reveal he was looking at a framed photo of him and Mac on one of their training sessions. The music on this sequence is so perfect, and it was aimed at people like me, people who grew up with the franchise, the idea was making it feel like Doc was reminiscing of YOUR time with punch out when you were a kid, and to make you think about how far YOU have come since the first time you played the games in an arcade, or your nes, or snes. It's actually pretty effective and it got me.

-Regular Show, "Trucker Hall of Fame", 2012 What makes this one different from others instances of me making me emotional, it's, much like the "Angel Hare" example at the top, this one is all about WARM HAPPY FEELINGS, so for those who did not watch this episode, let me summarize it for you: One day Muscleman gets word that his dad, who was his personal hero, has passed away, and he's tasked with carrying his final wish, spread his [hat's] ashes in a place called "Trucker hall of fame", you see, Muscleman was lead to believe his dad was a legendary trucker and that earned him his admiration, but during the episode Muscleman finds out he was lied to, his dad was a forklift driver that the truckers belittled, altho feeling cheated for having been lied to he carries on with his father's wishes. Now because this is regular show, when they arrive at the trucker's hall of fame they are immediately attacked by ghost trucker for "desecrating the hall of fame" as they spread the ashes something happens: The ghost of Muscleman's dad manifests himself and saves his son, taking the chance to apologize to his son and having the chance to say his final good bye personally. Despite the inherent silliness of the show's premise, i think this episode really did a good job on expressing that sense of catharsis of making peace with the passing of a love one.

-The Final Girls, 2015 A friend suggested we watched this movie, and much like Twisted metal up there, i absolutely did not expect for this incredibly stupid comedy horror movie to hit me with any sort of emotional connection, and yet... The Final Girls opens with the main character in a car with her mom, who is an struggling C-tier actress whose biggest achievement ever was appearing on a Friday the 13th knock off movie, during this sequence they get in an accident where the mom dies and even after it's been some time since the accident the main character has not properly moved on from the passing of her mom. Her friends and some people at the college she attends are preparing this horror movie festival where the main event is they are going to play the movies from the franchise her mom was on, and they suggest she should come. Then some bullshit happens and they all end up somehow trapped in the world of the movie. A quick rundown of the rules of horror movies is explained to them, the monster cannot be defeated by fighting it, it's only the final girl who can defeat the killer, and unfortunately for them they accidentally killed the character that, in the canon of the movie, is the final girl, so they believe one of them has to become the final girl and end the movie to hopefully get out of it. The problem is, the main character is experimenting shock from interacting with her mom's character, she is not taking well to seeing her mom on the flesh and she dedicates the entire movie to "save her mom", in the climax of the movie the mom character begins to understand that she is a fictional character and the nature of her attachment to the main character, understanding that they cannot be both the final girl and if then main character wants to make it back to the real world she has to learn "To let go", choosing to sacrifice herself so there is only one final girl. It's kinda weird, that of all possible premises, this managed to make a "You need to move on" message that somehow managed to resonate with me, you might have figured out by now a running theme here, but, i was really hard for me to deal with my mother's passing even if it's been years since it happened, so it's kinda funny for me to think these are the places i have found comfort from.

-Undertale, 2015 Okay this is tumblr, i already talked about Undertale on the prologue to, whatever the fuck im doing here, you know what undertale is, you know how effective it is, Undertale is really well designed for you to grow emotionally attached to these characters, so being able to see all these characters you know have grown attached to have their happy ending on the pacifist ending does fill one with a very satisfactory warm happy feeling that can move you to tears. ...Or you can be bummed out by being a little greedy gaming bitch and taking a look at the bad ending. Because you just couldn't help yourself, could you?

-Onward, 2020 This movie did not hit me as hard as the most emotional entries on this, but it still got me, because in the end of the day the main motivation of the characters on this movie is experiencing closure, catharsis over the death of their father, for Ian it's the fact that he died before he was born so he never met him and is driven by this desire to finally see the father who he shares such a connection with on the stories everybody who knew him in life have told him, and then there is Barley, the elder brother, who did know his dad in life, but is tortured by how, as a kid, he did not properly say good bye to him because he was terrified of death and avoided being there for him in his final days. The ending for this movie is very powerful, Ian choosing to sacrifice being able to meet his dad in the flesh, even for a few minutes, in order to give Barley the chance to being able to properly make peace with his dad and properly say good bye to him. Ian doesn't even get to SEE this, he does not get to see his dad even tho it was what he wanted most of all, but he understood bringing closure to Barley was more important than his selfish desire to see his dad, someone he never knew in life.

So what have i learned from whatever the hell this trainwreck of a post is...i guess that what really gets to me, what really moves me, is when a character, maybe not even someone i can realistically relate to, gets to experience closure, catharsis and be in peace with the people who are missing on their life. The majority of these things in here, even the Angel Hare example, relate to a character being able to experience catharsis by being able to properly make pace or otherwise contact someone they lost, or their ability to move on from this world, so to speak, knowing that their affairs and in order and that their loved ones will be okay.

Things can always look dark, the world may be trying to keep you down, maybe losing someone has been specially hard for you, but it's not the end of the world, you are loved and things can get better, it always hurts and we'll never stop missing what we have lost, but the memories of happier times are there to remind us, we can be happy again, and we can move on, use those memories as your motivation, you can lead yourself to a future filled with light.

#rambling #onward #mother 3 #angel hare #twisted metal #punch out #yoshi's island #undertale #deltarune #regular show #courage the cowardly dog #EBA

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lacedteatime · 1 year ago

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"Lazy" is your first and only thought, really?

I've had an issue with this for a while. In the first few days of UA, Aizawa assumed that Izuku was lazy in not training his quirk, and Bakugou assumed that Izuku had been hiding his quirk.

These conclusions are lackluster.

Late bloomers are a fanon thing, so I'll leave that out, but there are multiple other explanations that the other characters could have come to if they were as smart as Horikoshi tried to write them as.

OFA was shown to break Izuku horribly. What parent would let their child use their quirk if it had that effect? Medical costs are low in Japan, but it would build up, and it would leave Izuku with permanent damage (and has, so it is a valid concern). It would have been better writing for Aizawa to have "realized" this. Bakugou canonically wouldn't due to his belief that everything and everyone revolves around him, but... Actually, Aizawa wasn't narratively written as introspective in that arc, just as someone who says a lot of things learned from experience. That isn't a true indicator of forward thinking. So perhaps this whole post is pointless.

Who cares, I'm petty.

Another reason could have been that he saw Ochako about to be crushed by the 0-pointer and had a quirk awakening, causing a minor strength quirk to evolve into a major strength quirk without the protections the body of someone who originally had such a quirk would have. This would be a less likely conclusion to come to, but it would be something a teacher might consider while wondering why a kid with no control of his quirk due to "laziness" would go to such extremes to save someone in a test for no points after not getting any points with that power. This is probably the weakest explanation because of how quirk awakenings seemed to have been thought up by the author well past these arcs, and theytherefore might not have existed in canon before their introduction.

A third reason could just be that the Midoriyas are a law-abiding family. Quirks cannot be used publicly without a license, and using OFA (Superpower to those not in the know) in private would likely destroy their apartment and the ones around it. There isn't really a way around this. The first reason combined with this one would be a very reasonable and responsible explanation for why Izuku might have not touched it outside of its activation.

This becomes a little more complicated when you factor in Bakugou and try to question his reaction, as I am doing. What comes next will likely be pointless due to how Bakugou reacted without thinking in the scenes during Aizawa's and All Night's classes (I use Eraserhead's real name because he teaches as himself instead of his hero persona while All Might teaches as his hero persona).

Once Bakugou calmed down, he could have come to the same conclusions, though he would still think Izuku had been hiding a quirk. However. Inko would know that Izuku could have been pressured into demonstrating his quirk by his peers, thus breaking him and his surroundings. She might have decided to tell Izuku to pretend he was quirkless at school. This information wouldn't be shared with Bakugou.

It would likely not be shared with Bakugou's parents either, as we have no evidence that the two moms were actually friends. That's another bit of fanon. Sure, Mitsuki was protective of Inko the one time they interacted, but who's to say that she wouldn't have been like that with any other person she just met? If they were friends, I feel like that would have been shown to push the "rivalry" message from Horikoshi. Bakugou and Izuku weren't even shown to be that close of friends either -- Bakugou was arguably closer with mini Tsubasa and finger boy.

Anyway! I'm done, I think, but feel free to come up with your own explanations characters could have considered if you want to talk about it!

My next post will be more anti-Bakugou (I know this one doesn't fit the tag too much, but if I don't include it, I might have to interact with stans), whenever that may be, but I've had this stewing for years

#anti bakugou #anti bakugo katsuki #anti bakudeku #bakugou stans dni #aizawa critical #ua critical #The reason I put Aizawa critical while I have anti Bakugou is because at least Aizawa is written as a complex character #Outside of plot convenience and being Horikoshi's mouthpiece for stanning Bakugou #But you get the point

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inflame · 2 months ago

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if you knew what laura was like --- what she was really like --- it would Ruin The Vibe. that's something i think about a lot, and i think it's the reason a lot of fw/wm antis hate the movie so much. it's not that "we already know who did it": you kind of don't, until you watch it. not really. there's nothing redundant about it. it turns the popular interpretation of the 'answer' on its head completely.

but, anyway. the point is you cannot romanticize the movie. you cannot spin it into anything palatable. you cannot act like it's all this Exciting Supernatural Mystery and/or that laura's interested in being a part of it. it also refutes pretty much everything people thought they knew about her relationships (unless they read the diary). whether a person went into the movie viewing laura as a hero or a villain, it didn't give them exactly what they wanted. it sides with laura, always --- empathizing with her is the main (and, really, only) point --- but it doesn't pretend she's easy to love, and it makes it impossible to misunderstand where she's coming from. even apart from all the baggage, it's not what most lynch fans want from a narrative. it's really black and white. it Gives All The Answers. it has a completely different objective than the show itself (and from anything else he's ever done, tbqh). and fans say they want to know everything, but they only tend to mean "if my theories are correct and it's all what i want it to be".

which, you know. it wasn't. it wasn't fun. it wasn't romantic. it wasn't 'spooky'. it was ugly. it was also not exploitative of laura which, let us be real, a not-small portion of people were expecting and wanting to see. but it's not sensationalized. it's not even sexualized: all of the scenes that could be described as racy (or Whatever The Fuck) are aggressively uncomfortable to watch. no one in the audience is ever allowed to fool themselves about what's going on. the movie itself is basically designed like a panic attack: like, if you're sensitive, you will physically feel it. it will make you sick. you will feel with her! you will feel like her! which... is the point. but people did not want to do that. no one wanted to associate This Story with their """quirky""" favorite tv show, much less... admit it's what it's all about. that it's all been This Story the whole time and that it always will be. that it's all laura's story, both the best and the worst parts of the fabric of the thing. that you can't take her out of it and understand any of it at all.

idk. just something i think about. i also think about the broader portrait we have of her from the diary / my own Everything About Me And How I Spend My Time and i think if we were like, viewing home videos of laura throughout the show, THEN i think people would have complained that she was like. too funny. but that's just another note on the same thought track, i.e. "people do not like for characters to have more than one aspect to them", which is what this is all about. and what i am constantly yelling about. but i digress

hi :-)

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kzele · 2 years ago

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Basic premise that @hermesserpent-stuff and I talked about: (TSSM verse) Spidey gets unmasked by Sinister Six and they decide to perma-kidnap him. This due to a. them not wanting to fight a kid and b. Ock getting obsessive over realizing Spider-Man is actually a really smart/strong kid. The only one not on board with this is Shocker, who decides to liberate the kid and slips him Tombstone's card in the process. He separates from the Six after this and tells Tombstone how young the kid likely falls on the age range. The conversation below is a possible scenario where Tombstone and Spider-Man get real deep here. Tomby asks about why he does this and Peter keeps deflecting with humor until one day he jokingly says "I'll explain my reasons when you explain yours." Tombstone agrees and Peter does a great surprised Pikachu imitation. (I was Peter; they were Tombstone)

P: "I was joking!"

T:"I wasn't."

P: "Well, can't we respect each other's privacy for this topic?"

T: "no."

P: "Why's it so important to you, anyways? I thought we had this great professional antagonism going on. Do you really wanna spoil that?"

T: "Im quite happy to spoil our 'professional antagonism' if it means understanding why a 13 year old has taken it upon himself to fight my empire. and if that means sharing my own history, then I will" *intentially underestimating his age*

P: "I'm older than that and you know it! Try somewhere between the fifteen to twenty range; I'm not narrowing it down any farther. Why do you care about my age, anyways? And why do you think us hearing each other's reasons will change anything?"

T: "Perhaps its because I think your smart enough to understand my perspective on things. Perhaps its because I am genuinely interested to see what would drive a young teen to fight a war in this city alone. If I gave you a true answer, Im not sure youd believe me anyways. so determined to stay antagonistic.

P: "Isn't an honest crime lord an oxymoron? Besides, it doesn't matter how honest you are with me with exact reason being YOU'RE A CRIME LORD. And I wasn't under the impression I was fighting a war against anyone until you told me. My goal was and is helping people one day at a time."

T: "I dont tend to lie in my line of work over things meant to build dialogue. Do I lie as Lincoln? Perhaps. But when you tend to follow through there is much more respect and understanding. and why bother continuing to talk if some part of you wasnt interested. why even talk to me after montana talked to me about discovering your age. What is your goal with this conversation, beyond your usual veil of jokes that you use as a wall of comfort?

P: "Because I'm trying to tell you to drop it and because I don't understand what it is you really want with me anymore! It's confusing and I don't like not knowing what you're thinking. It was a lot simpler to tell when you were trying to off me like everybody else."

T: "what I want is to understand you. What Im thinking is that whatever caused you to be a hero was certainly traumatizing and definitely something that haunts you. and offing you is no longer an option I want on the table. That, and Im fairly sure montana's walk out on the six is indicative of future behavior from him if I wasnt already whole heartedly on board with changing my attitude towards you and telling my men to avoid killing you."

P: "That . . .is not something I've told anyone. Why should you know something like that before anyone else I know? Even if I did tell you, what are you hoping to get from understanding me?"

T: "Spider-man. Teenagers, while rash, dont tend to start fighting without reason. and fighting crime means a bigger reason than most. Im not a fool. and I want to understand you because you are impressive and I find myself wondering exactly who failed you... Perhaps failed is too strong a word. But i cannot help but notice that you stand alone. and I am curious abot the why." *tombstone is not entirely sure what he'll gain from understanding. better manipulation sure. but something else is pushing him to ask and he is unable to lable it*

P: *turns his head away from Tombstone's face* "Why not? No one else has to get hurt this way."

T: *tombstone is speaking softly now* "Yes no one else is hurt. But you are. And you, despite whatever it is that happened in your past, certainly have value. It might be hard to hear, especially if you've been told otherwise. But no teenager should face the wrath and cruelty of the world alone; crime fighting ones included." *A part of him is self reflecting as his own time as a teen, alone and dealing with the world.*

P: "It's my choice to do this, just like it's yours to commit crimes. What are you even trying to say here? It's not like you're going to help me fight crime. Plus, your path makes you even more alone than me. *pause as it kicks in* Is that why you're going through this hyper-focused empathy kick? Because you think that we're similar?"

T: "Im not sure what Im trying to say *shrugs at the admission which is strategic* Maybe seeing someone potentially burn out or get snuffed out by life has broken past my barriers and reached my cold heart. *deflecting*

P: "Uh, huh. Because you haven't seen anything so harsh in your line of work before, right? You have a boatload of supervillains that went through rough times. Marko and O'Hirn, for instance? I don't see you doing any of this for them, so I gotta ask: is this really just a matter of age to you?"

T: "Yes." *lies, he cannot help but see himself in spiderman in some way. he has no idea why*

P: *looks at him* "I call bullcrap, but whatever. Okay, fine. Why do you do what you do? There. I asked it."

T: "Many people told me that I would never amount to anything, and that I shouldnt even try. and i listened to them for a while. till about 21 i ran around under other peoples orders, failed out of school, and was in and out of prison for petty theft, arson, and assault. and then i realized I wanted some control over my life and wanted to fix the problems around me. so i started taking over the underground and fixing it. At least thats the short version of everything."

P: "Thats sucks, but what makes your story any different from the others I fought? Doctor Octopus has claimed similar things about wanting to better run things, but I think we both know that's his ego and anger issues talking there. From my understanding, he got stepped on a lot, too."

T: "Whats different is I dont go after teenagers intentionally like Ock does. And the changes Ive made have actually improved a lot of this city. You werent alive when I was growing up. Not to come across as egotisical, but the areas of the city under my control are far better than they once were. between removing sellers from schools and controlling where fights of petty thugs occur and removing major gang wars happening every few weeks on most streets and running genuine charity outreach, this city has changed for the better. and maybe you dont see it and/or dont agree with it. But I stand by the work that the big man has been able to do.

P: *frowns under the mask* "Maybe, but why keep being a part of the violence now that you can get out of it? It still hurts people. I know you're certainly not the worst option this city has when it comes to running things, but a lot of death still happens under you both directly and *slight pause* indirectly.

T: "someone will always be the big man. The city will always have crime. People will always be cruel. I made my choice and face my sins, knowing the fate of the city if someone else took my place."

P: "Sins which includes trying to kill me after I scared some of your thugs too much, despite the fact I never hurt them. The only thing I hurt there was your bottom line."

T: "If you think thats all you were doing, I envy your view of the world."

P: *confused tilt of the head* "I'm not following. What's there to envy? What else was I supposedly doing?"

T: *blinks* "You do know that one method of territory encroachment for mobs and mafias is crime prevention. perhaps I can better explain this from a business angle. Do you remember blockbusters?"

P: ""Okay, so I encroached on your territory. I think you're going to explain further because I'm still not getting it. You thought I was part of someone else's organization moving in on your rackets?"

T: Some what. Blockbuster took over the rental market by coming in with lower prices and once the other stores could not compete it took over and jacked up the prices. Often crime lords do the same, come in with protection and then start charging for it once they own the territory. I though you may have been an initial sting operation to test the water. Until I saw you starting to deal with the likes of Vulture. It was rather concerning, given that spiders were the calling card of none of the crime bosses I was familiar with. and unknowns are a lot more dangerous than typical take overs."

P: "I get how protection rackets work. *snorts* It's kinda funny you thought I was part of a rival shadow mob. What about afterwards, though? When you knew otherwise that wasn't just targeting you or trying to take over."

T: "An annoyance that made me network look weak and ripe for taking over. Had more than one gang fight. Montana's Enforcers and Hammerhead had quite a few rough weeks before things resettled into the status quo when everyone realized that you were an exception, not the rule."

P: *looks slightly sheepish* "Uh, not exactly my intention to start gang fights, or at least not like that. I didn't realize they got 'inspired' by my own fights."

T: *attempts to be reassuring* "I can see that now. But back then I wasnt sure what to think. Not like I had the ability to call and ask. Dont stress to much over it. they were small compared to what they could have been."

P: "Fair enough. Were there any casualties?" *a little worried still, but also trying to keep from telling his story for as long as possible*

T: "Not as many as there might have been. Given Montana's new suit, he was able to knock out a lot more people than normal. Now. Enough about my operations and thought on your first forays into the limelight of the underground. Ive shown my cards. might i see yours?"

P: "I was hoping you'd forget. Fine. I got my powers due to a lab accident. I didn't realize what had happened to me until I felt sick. Hot and cold flashes, senses dialed up to the nth degree, and my whole body was in a lot of pain. I passed out and woke up like this."

T: "Forgive my pressing, but I dont think that is enough to drive you to fight criminals all over the city."

P: "It's not. I didn't start out trying to do this; I just wanted to make some money for my family. So, I did some prize-fight type stuff, right up until I was cheated by the manager of this one establishment. Said I needed the money and I won it fair and square. He told me it wasn't his problem, but he sure changed his tune when his money got stolen. He yelled at me to catch the thief as he ran by."

T: *listening without interrupting*

P: *voices catches* "I told him. . .that it wasn't my problem. It felt good at the time to say that to him. I forgot about this when I returned home to the man who raised me; he was shot dead. I followed his murderer to the warehouse where the police had him trapped. Care to take a guess as to the guy's identity?"

Part 1 End

#tssm peter parker #tssm tombstone #tssm #tssm doctor octopus #sinister six #spiderman #part 1

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the-technorats · 11 months ago

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percy series ep 3 thoughts

so you can't rate shows on letterbox'd so i'm going to log my pjo thoughts here: (spoilers for ep3) (watched 27 dec 2023)

oracle scene was funny. for all the show onlys, it seems as though grover is the one kind of being built up as the character who's going to betray percy (at least in the beginning of this ep), which is an interesting choice.

on the action sequences (part 1): i do think the action sequences are pretty lackluster. when i rewatched the percy jackson lightning thief movie, the action and violence and reactions seemed very proportionate - like, the appearance of a horrifying monster actually had impact, whereas i feel like in the show, the pacing and choreography make it seem pretty banal.

the fight with the fury on the bus was uninteresting and didn't seem like much of a fight at all. annabeth's supposed to be quick and athletic and a really skilled knife fighter (skilled enough that she can even use a knife as her primary weapon instead of a sword) but there so far hasn't really been any proof of that. i'm willing to be a lot more generous though because the actors are very young and the target audience is clearly much younger than i am as well, and it's obvious that for those reasons they're trying to avoid violence/body horror/gore. however, the fight scene with clarisse in ep 2 was incredibly well-shot and choreographed, and it had action and movements that felt real and impactful, so i don't know why they don't try to achieve the same things with the other fight/action sequences.

on medusa: i was so interested by the way they were going to decide to portray medusa's story, especially because of sally's comment in ep 1 to percy about perseus being a hero because 'he killed monsters' like medusa: "who said she was a monster?"

i loved em's line: "the gift the gods gave me is that I cannot be bullied anymore," which initially insinuated to me that this adaptation of medusa is the one who was sexually assaulted by poseidon in athena's temple, so athena made it so no man could pull that with her ever again, but then they went with the "athena decided I embarrassed her and needed to be punished" story which i kind of feel like isn't totally consistent with the "gift" narrative? i mean they can be mutually exclusive in that what may have been originally a punishment from a god can be taken as a gift since she has to live with and make the best of it, but when medusa called herself "a survivor" and talked about "bullies" (a term that makes sense in the context given that it's a kid's/middle grade show) i will admit i was hoping it would go a different direction. alternately though if she were a SA survivor i don't know if killing her would have been the right move in the end lmao and ik they had to kill her for the plot.

i do think there was a more overarching message of the importance of understanding the unheard/unrepresented sides of stories as well as the lesson for annabeth that the gods aren't infallible and morally just but are petty and vindictive and cruel and humanlike. so i think the story was dealt with pretty well, all things considered.

on medusa and the action sequences (part 2): again, i think medusa's death scene was pretty anticlimactic. (this is not because i see them as adaptations of equal quality or even on the same playing field at all, but again,) to compare it to the pjo:tlt movie - the movie's medusa fight scene had a lot more impact; the tension and fear and stakes felt a lot more heightened and real while still being quite comedic/entertaining.

cool idea, in the show, using the hat to turn medusa invisible, but again, i wasn't ever actually convinced that the characters felt scared, under pressure, winded/tired after fighting, or even emotionally scarred by the intensity of the moment/having to decapitate someone. while all of the other scenes portray high emotions very impactfully and earnestly (i.e. sadness, wistfulness, loneliness, hurt/comfort), i have yet to be convinced that any of the demigods have been even a little bit frightened of any of the monsters, from the first fury attack at the met, and this unfortunately makes the stakes seem much lower.

while i understand the focus of the show is on character building (mainly through the dialogue), i don't see why the fight/action scenes can't be just as visually compelling and impactful. the emotional tension between the characters and the depiction of each character's internal conflicts, while powerful, can only do so much if the plot itself isn't supporting those developments, and I feel like the addition of the action sequences in the books serves to elevate the storyline to match the emotional stakes. they can tell the story as much as they want thru voice-over and dialogue, but the characters' physical actions represent just as much about the characters and their choices and motivations as their direct interactions with each other. i think maybe some of this stems from not wanting the story to be misinterpreted or to in any way resemble the movies, but you have to trust your audience. you can't just say everything explicitly, and if you do have to, then i don't think a tv show is the right medium in which to tell the story, which is typically my main issue with book-to-movie/tv adaptations.

anyway, while this seems like a lot of criticism, it's really only that one overarching problem that stands out to me. i obviously love the source material and (anyway would argue that i have to love it in order to want to think about it this much) the show itself, and the actors, and this has absolutely EVERYTHING to do with the fact that it's extremely extremely obvious how thought-out, how deliberate every single minute detail is. if there's one thing at all that matters to me, it's creators who care about their work, and this is a perfect example of ones who do.

on tv show percabeth: BRO "I CHOSE HER 'CAUSE I COULDN'T IMAGINE WE'D EVER BE FRIENDS" ???? FUCKING INSANE THING TO PUT IN THE SCRIPT LIKE?? they were NEVER this explicitly antagonistic toward each other in the books holy FUCK i mean. this drastically changes the trajectory and future impact of the slow-burn. the books were strangers to friends to lovers - maybe strangers to annoyances to friends to lovers if we're being generous, but the show is really going for that enemies to lovers arc huh. the fan edits are gonna go so fucking crazy once we start getting toward the final 2 books. and for them to only have one itty-bitty kiss midway thru botl with no emotional catharsis or resolution until the tail end of tlo? we're all gonna be absolutely frothing at the mouth for it when it finally finally finally comes around.

excited for next week!! i've been dying for the st. louis arch scene.

#pjo #percy series #percy jackson #walker scobell #leah sava jeffries #review #episode 3 #analysis #thoughts

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martsonmars · 2 years ago

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Happy Sunday, friends! And happy Easter/bunny day/chocolate day/egg hunt day to those who celebrate <3

Thank you to everyone who keeps tagging me even though I keep going MIA, and thanks @hushed-chorus and @stitchyqueer for the tag today! I'm still struggling with writing, but this past week I started two new WIPs and had some ideas I'm really excited about, so I'm feeling a bit hopeful. Sharing something from both my new WIPs (so a thousand sentences and not 6) because I miss validation hahaha.

1. Story I started writing on Friday to process my feelings about something that happened that day. I don't know when I'll continue it because I need to be in the right headspace. This is the end of it, because it's the happiest part and that's what I needed to write 😂

“Right, sorry, I'll leave you to your...” He waves at the storage unit, and Basil can't blame him for the confusion. What do you call something like this? The physical trace of three generations of nostalgia and silences and grief piling up on the shoulders of one. “I'll leave you be.”

But no, this is wrong.

This isn't what Basil meant.

He cannot stay here alone with the ghosts of his past.

“Are you going home?” he asks Simon.

“Dunno,” Simon shrugs. His entire body goes along with it. It makes Basil hope. “Am I?”

That's an opening. An invitation. The chance for Basil to grasp the moment and let himself be.

“I need to eat so much cake that my stomach will hate me for a month,” he says, and Simon's entire face lights up like a kid's on Christmas morning.

“I know just the place.”

Second WIP and tags under the cut!

2. This one was supposed to be fun and flirty but for now it's mostly melancholy feelings. Sharing two snippets because I can't pick one hahaha.

Nine days since he showed up at their monthly showdown in an apron, his mask barely covering a flushed face and a halo of windswept curls making him look like a warrior angel come to bring an end to all sinners.

“Being a hero doesn't pay the bills,” he shrugged, yanking off the apron and throwing it off the roof. (His bicep flexed even more beautifully when it wasn't covered in red spandex.) “And not all of us have the luxury of daddy's money.”

‘Not all of us’ indeed, Baz thought, but he couldn't let the way those words were affecting him show. He couldn't stop embodying the image of the perfect villain he'd worked so hard on, or what would be left?

This shouldn't surprise Baz either. It doesn't.

Of course this is the kind of place that would make him feel at home, because isn't it what heroes do?

The real heroes, not the ones hiding in comic stripes and showy clothes and sensational acts that break more than they fix. Not the untouchable ones.

But the heroes who know that the only way to change the world in a way that matters is to hold out a hand when people fall even though you can't fix the bumps in the road that made them falter.

To help them stay afloat and swim to shore even though you can't relieve them from the weights that are sinking them down.

I hope I can finish this one soon!

@wellbelesbian @urban-sith @tea-brigade @sillyunicorn @mostlymaudlin @facewithoutheart @palimpsessed @otherpeoplesheartachept-2 @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @forabeatofadrum @johnwgrey @fatalfangirl @prettylightsbigcity @whatevertheweather @confused-bi-queer @moodandmist @bookish-bogwitch @letraspal @dragoneggos @captain-aralias @takitalks @cutestkilla @ileadacharmedlife @gekkoinapeartree @bazzybelle @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @basiltonbutliketheherb @ivelovedhimthroughworse @nightimedreamersworld @artsyunderstudy @ionlydrinkhotwater @yellobb @orange-peony @ic3-que3n @whogaveyoupermission @yeonjunenby @erzbethluna @larkral @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @shrekgogurt @raenestee @onepintobean @theearlgreymage @technetiumai @jbrrring @brilla-brilla-estrellita @thewholelemon @theimpossibledemon

#six sentence sunday #my writing

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jormofyore · 5 months ago

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Mental Illness and TTRPG's

Today's post is a little more serious, and it's something I've wanted to touch upon for years, and that is the inclusion of mental illnesses in TTRPG's. For reference, I have schizoaffective disorder, which is a weird combination of schizophrenia and bipolar type 1, along with ADHD, added onto having a minor in psychology and a lifetime of experienced with this damnable illness.

Last year, I presented at NEPCA, an international pop culture conference, on the representation of schizophrenia in the video game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Might have even got a couple of awards from it, which is pretty cool. That said, I gave some rather strong critiques of the game, and it isn't the first time I have encountered mental illness in media and games; don't get me started on crime shows. The point I want to make is how clumsy games often are when representing mental illness in their medium, especially TTRPG's. Mental illness is too often treated as a blunt weapon when utilized in games, and I'm not entirely sure of why. Maybe it's because of a lack of a understanding, or maybe it's because it's an edgy inclusion, but too often, these illnesses are meant to create a tragic character of some kind or give their purpose meaning. Give wikipedia a glance when listing fictional characters with schizophrenia, and you'll notice quickly how many of them are villains or used as a kind of comic relief. It's a tiresome trope, I assure you.

The main question you should always ask yourself before "giving" a mental illness to a villain or hero is: "why do they need it?" Sure, it may make the fallen paladin feel more authentic to have PTSD, and rightly so, it would be traumatic to make an error that you are unapologetic about that cost everything that defined you. But what is it about psychosis that draws people to give it to their villains and other characters in an effort to flesh them out? What purpose does it provide? What does it add to the character to make them see or hear things or fall into random, serious depressions? Why does it matter? These are just a smattering of questions that are important before deciding to make a character edgy. Once, a couple decades ago when I wasn't properly medicated, I was in a LARP and became afflicted with a Malkavian's Total Insanity. Lucky for me, I was already in the throes of a psychotic break that evening, and got voted for bonus experience points for what everyone thought was some of the best roleplaying they'd ever seen. Hilarious, I know. But recognize that some people's fiction is another persons real life that they often cannot escape before you include that "fiction" in a game. I'll never forget the mess of a book Hero's of Horror was for Pathfinder 1 and their inclusion of various mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, as a penalty inducing trait. A bit embarrassing to see my illness turned into a game mechanic, bro.

I'm not telling anyone not to include mental illness, because games are about exploration and agency. I want people to experiment and play about with what it means for a fictional world to have aspects of seemingly inescapable realities. It may seem funny to include a clown who is told what pranks to do by the voices he hears, thus foiling all kinds of divination magics. But what I am asking is that you just ask yourself a few questions about the purpose of including mental illness in a game before you pursue making it a theme. Be sensitive that it may cause discomfort due to how close to home it is. It's a tricky topic that is potentially going to upset or offend a person you may never expect, so all I ask is to treat the inclusion of these illnesses responsibly.

#pathfinder #pathfinder 2e #mental health #dnd #mental illness #psychology

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itsuki-minamy · 1 year ago

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"AYAKA" (VOICE DRAMA 11)

Translation: Naru-kun

Audio: Here

>> Previous chapters: 01/02/03/04/05/06/07/08/09/10

Jingi: Oooh, it hurts! I'm drowning! It is painful! It is exhausting! What the hell is this?! Can someone explain to me what is happening?!

Give me a break! I mean, please give me a break, really!

I mean, it was Yukito who just showed up?! No doubt about it!

He was responding to me, so it wasn't a hallucination, it was real!

Ah, but what? Like this? I should be dead, right?

I'm dead now, right? But why was he...?

Does he really have psychic powers? Can he communicate with the dead? Because he is a dragon, is everything possible?

No, no, no, no! That's not what's important now!

It doesn't matter what you do right now. So, hurry up! Please help me quickly!

Yukito! Yukito! Yukito!

Shit, it doesn't work! I cannot hold it anymore! I'm drowning! I'm drowning!

No... Wait... What kind of body do I have now?!

Actually, I don't think so, right? After all, I'm dead. In that case, there is no such thing as drowning, right?

This pain is so painful, maybe it's just my mind?

So... I guess if I just go with the flow... Strangely, I didn't back down, I feel comfortable... Relaxed...

Guuaaah... What?! Gaaaah...! Eh?!

No, no! No way! If I give up, I will die!

I'm already dead, but I feel like I'm going to die more seriously!

Damn, why do I have to deal with something like this?!

I have successfully accomplished a once-in-a-lifetime task! I am the savior who sacrificed himself to save the island! What is this treatment towards such a tragic hero?

Normally, I should go to heaven and get drunk with heavenly wine, right?

I don't even know what that means and I'm drowning in gurgles?!

I am doing something wrong?

Damn, if this was the case, I should have done whatever I wanted! Things like that and that...

No, no! I've done everything I can think of right now!

Of course! I was planning to ascend to heaven without any regrets in my life! But seriously, I don't understand why something like this was waiting for me!

Even if it is unreasonable! Anyway, how long will this last? Until next week?

Am I going to be like this until next week? Kaaaah...! It's a joke?!

Yukito, Yukito! Please come quickly! Oh, help me!

#ayaka #jingi sagawa #yanagi yukito

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pigeonwhumps · 2 years ago

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Diaries of Eloise and Agatha Stanbury and Ira Waterhouse

Taglist: @painful-pooch (also @octopus-reactivated and @maracujatangerine since your actor pet post sparked this idea I'm tagging you too! Even though there isn't much acting whump actually in this, only the characters...)

Recently digitised diary entries of former pets Eloise and Agatha Stanbury, and their guardian Ira Waterhouse. All three were British pet liberation activists in the early to mid 20th century. These entries are from before they set up the Dockside Boarding House, commonly regarded as the first and longest-running safehouse in Britain.

[note from Calixte Văduva, Assistant Archivist to Raphael Fiori, Apprentice Digital Assistant: take out longest-running, you idiot. You want people to know where they live?]

1.7k

CWs: BBU, pet whump, film whump, recovery whump, broken jaw mention, non-con nudity (non-sexual) mention, PTSD, whipping mention, gagged mention, kidnapping mention, beating mention

Diary of Eloise Stanbury, January 1927 - August 1928

Related topics: Eloise Stanbury, Agatha Stanbury, Ira Waterhouse, Pet Liberation History, World Pet History, 1920s Britain, Social History, British Diaries

Transcribed by Calixte Văduva, Assistant Archivist at Rising Sun Bay Archive, Rising Sun Bay, ON

1st of January 1927

Dear Diary,

Agatha is teaching me to rede and rite, and as it is a new year I am of a mind to rite down sum of my thorts. I am asured this is entirely privat. We shall see.

Master's film studio went bankrupt last month. I cannot express how relieved I am. Surely now they will stop serching for us. I hope so. If we ar found we ar ded, I no this. The collaps has, however, stirred up my memories and the titeness in my gut again.

One of my strongest memories of the studio is wen we filmed propaganda during the Great War. It was the only time Agatha and I wer involved in filming for the war effort, but it was time enuf. Agatha and I spent ar time not filming counting the ways the film munishons factory treated pets differently to ar real one. And Agatha sumhow laffed so hard, she disrupted the paid crew and snorted thin gruel out her nose.

Then the camera operator broke her jaw so she culd not disturb them agen. It was okay, cos she did not need to talk and they only needed to film her back anyway, but then Master bete her later for showing him up, until she culd barely work. That part was wors.

My dremes ar confusing, full of fire and drowning even tho I was never in the fire. Ira ses it's cos I am so scared of fire. Agatha ses it's cos I almost drowned. I am not so sure of either. Maybe it is a punishment, for burning down the studio. Maybe I should not hav dun that. I am a free pet but a pet nonetheless, and arson is a crime.

Agatha's braver than me. She makes me braver too. I would never have dared laff before she was rented to Master, let alone run. I'm not sure the defians was always good for her tho. She has many scars, inside and out. I luv her, scars and all, but I don't no how she can be so brave.

There was a servis on Christmas for the local heros of the Great War. Mr Foster was mentioned. That scares me. He scares me, and I do not understand how Agatha is not scared. He was her owner for over a decade, after all.

She scoffed at that, wen I asked. She sed that there's no reason for her to be afrade, and she wuld like to find and thank the soldier who killed Mr Foster. She also sed he's not a hero. I think she should be careful. We didn't see the body. Wat if he comes back?

It's stupid. I no it's stupid. Even if he was still alive he'd hav better things to do than come after Agatha. He'd hav to, right? And I am grateful that he's ded. If he wasn't, I may not hav been abl to stay with Agatha after the Great War ended. It just feels wrong to celebrate so much wen we never saw a body.

Ira's talking about buying a bording hous, away from here. We're so close to the site of the new National Pet Training Centre, and it feels like there ar inspectors around every corner now. Also I do not understand half of wat Ira says about lacking in the gud food and spase, cos this is the best I hav ever eaten and I can live on far less, but I think that is also a reason. I do not no why a bording hous tho. I am scared to move, this is the safest I hav ever felt, but I will hav Agatha and Ira, and I will not go back to being a pet.

My name is Eloise Stanbury, sister, possibly, to Agatha Stanbury, ward of Ira Waterhouse, and I am a free woman.

Eloise Stanbury

Diary of Agatha Stanbury, October 1926 - February 1927

Related topics: Agatha Stanbury, Eloise Stanbury, Ira Waterhouse, Pet Liberation History, World Pet History, 1920s Britain, Social History, British Diaries

Transcribed by Calixte Văduva, Assistant Archivist at Rising Sun Bay Archive, Rising Sun Bay, ON

26th of December, 1926

Dear Diary,

Eloise asked me yesterday whether I am still afraid of Mr Foster. I think I managed to convince her that I am not, but we shall see. She has enough on her plate without worrying about me too. She's terrified already, and if she knows I am scared it will make her worse.

I am scared, though. So scared. Mr Foster is dead but I cannot forget everything he did to me. The decade when clothes were an extremely rare occurrence, when I almost forgot my own name. He once claimed that training was half the fun in owning a pet, and it showed. I came to London for the season and was kidnapped to be his pet instead. The scars are never going to leave me.

I cannot sleep alone in the dark anymore. I used to love it, until Mr Foster, but now it's like I cannot get my mind out of his house. Even after being owned by Mr Hayes instead for over ten years I cannot do it. How can it be legal to leave a person in your will, anyway? I confess that the lack of pet owning in my parents' circles has left me rather ignorant in the matter, but it still seems wrong.

Mr Foster was terrifying. He still is. I see him in half the faces on the streets, when I am brave enough to leave the house. Eloise says I'm brave, but I am not so sure. If I was so brave, surely Mr Foster's rules and sadism would not still be so affecting?

Ira does not agree with me. She says it is perfectly reasonable, that soldiers still have shell shock so why shouldn't I be affected by being scarred? I am unsure what to do with that.

I have fought, but it was not a war. Soldiers are not caged naked and gagged with horrible experimental gags, or whipped and beaten by sadists. They are not scarred on film simply because the starring pet is too valuable to be damaged herself.

That sounds like I blame Eloise. I do not. None of this was her fault. I hope, if I had ever become an actor as a person, I would have paid attention to the pets forced to perform, but most likely I wouldn't. I try not to think about that.

Mr Foster still haunts me, awake and asleep. Eloise does not know. She cannot know. She has enough nightmares of her own, and I do not want to wake her up from mine. I am so, so glad Mr Foster is dead, and I think (I hope) that Eloise thinks that is all I am. I told her the truth, just not the whole truth. I really would like to thank the soldier who killed Mr Foster. But I also wish I was not constantly so scared.

With love

Agatha Stanbury

Diary of Ira Waterhouse, December 1926 - October 1927

Related topics: Ira Waterhouse, Agatha Stanbury, Eloise Stanbury, Pet Liberation History, World Pet History, 1920s Britain, Social History, British Diaries

Transcribed by Calixte Văduva, Assistant Archivist at Rising Sun Bay Archive, Rising Sun Bay, ON

Wednesday, December 8th, 1926

Not content with having a London office, the WRU are now building a large training centre nearby. It's too close. Far too close. The numbers of inspectors and recapture officers are increasing daily it seems like now work has started, and my girls haven't left the house for days. Even when they do, they come back spooked, especially Eloise. If she was a cat, her hair would stand on end constantly.

The supporters of this new 'pet' class claim that it's entirely voluntary. Maybe for some it is. Maybe they really believe that. But if you're signing a lifetime contract, and being given a drug that's supposed to induce amnesia, making you more compliant and reliant on your owners, I'm not sure that it counts.

It is not always voluntary, anyway. A few weeks ago, Agatha told me her story of being kidnapped into it. How she tried to show an inspector her lack of a seller's mark and number, and he had her tattooed for a bribe. There must be others like her. As bad as the pet trade is, it feels even worse without even the pretence of volunteering.

We need to move. We are so close to the training centre, and one day our house is sure to be inspected. The girls will certainly be taken and killed, with no regard to even Agatha's kidnapping (I have my suspicions about her upbringing but I cannot find any living relatives in the society pages). And I won't come out of it well either.

I have been thinking of starting a boarding house. There must be others like my girls in need of a kind hand and an escape from the wretched pet system. I had to stop giving Agatha cleaning chores because she'd tremble in fear until I declared the house spotless, and Eloise sometimes stays in one spot for hours, forgetting that she is allowed and able to move. Even, maybe especially, if she's uncomfortable. They are both scarred, inside and out, and I'm sure there are others who could use a safe place to stay, at the very least.

I haven't brought my idea up to either of the girls yet, although I feel certain that neither would object to it. They're both kind people, although Eloise wouldn't like me calling her that. She gets prickly when anyone except Agatha says nice things about her.

If Eloise was an animal, she would definitely be a cat.

Ira Waterhouse

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writeious-hand · 2 years ago

Text

Holding Out for a Hero: Part 3

I agree with the comment, the last part got very serious. I have time, here is a little Easter gift for anyone who has liked the story thus far. I've started rolling a die for characters making checks (you'll see later) and using that for writing.

This section is more about Alariel and Xenk's past, do enjoy less angst. Links to earlier parts under the cut.

Xenk X Cleric!OC

No Beta, we die like men.

______________________________________________________________

"If it makes you feel any better, both Edgin AND Doric chewed him out."

Alariel looked up to see the muscle-bound woman, Holga, standing at the entrance to her tent. It had been an hour or so since she had met the barbarian.

"I stand by what I said. I cannot travel with you, not with him. Besides, with him here you really don't need me."

"I didn't come here to ask you to help us again." Alariel looked up at her in confusion. Holga sat down beside her on the cot. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. I know how shitty it can be running into your ex."

"Oh." She didn't know what to say. Maybe it was because she was used to doing all of the looking after. Alariel hadn't had someone to look after her in quite some time.

"So should we be calling you Alariel or Lyra?" Holga offered her one of the rolled calligrapher's tool sets that had been set out to be placed into her bag of holding.

"Either is fine. One of the younger children had some difficulty pronouncing my name, and it sort of stuck with the people of the community. It was sweet." Her hands stilled in packing as she smoothed the leather cover of a journal.

"You don't have to leave since we showed up. Don't wanna chase you out of your home." Holga looked closer at the young woman. She appeared to be younger than her, but it was always hard to tell with elves. If this one knew Xenk, she was at least 100 years older than her.

"No, this just gives me a reason to finally move on. Like I had said, I lingered here too long anyway." She took a stack of her journals in hand and continued her packing.

"If you don't mind me asking, where will you go?"

"I've been heading to the Sword Coast for a while now. I haven't been in a city in some time, so perhaps I will make my next stop in Waterdeep before heading up to Neverwinter. I know I could spend the next century in either place and never hear the same story twice."

"It's funny you mention that..."

And that was how Alariel learned that the odd band of adventurers who were looking for her help were actually the heroes of Neverwinter. By the time Holga had finished telling her version of the story, Alariel had to set out her Orb of Light and had practically filled a scroll with the details.

"This still doesn't make sense..." Lyra's brow was furrowed. "You are still being chased by these assassins?"

"We lost them most recently around the Goldfields. I chopped one up real good and threw the parts in the river." Lyra was both disgusted and impressed at the barbarian's work.

"But why isn't Xenk just smiting them?"

"Doing what?"

"Smiting. You know, holy radiance on the blade... thundering force... banishing fiends?" Holga still gave her a blank stare.

"I mean, his sword-dagger glowed when he was fighting that assassin in the Underdark?" Alariel gave a small shake of her head. Why wasn't Xenk using his paladin abilities? A soft glow to his blade could be compelled duel, but she had seen firsthand the brilliance of his devotion. Why wouldn't he have killed them the first time? Destroying the undead was part of his mission.

"Anyway-" Alariel knew she couldn't get invested in this new mystery, no matter how much she wanted to, "I think I've kept you up late enough as is. Humans need more sleep than elves do, yes? Thank you again for letting me record your story."

"No problem. I was curious after seeing how many books you had in your tent. What the fuck is up with that?"

Lyra shook her head, and laughed at the crude language of her new friend. "No wonder you all are so confident in my abilities to defeat Thay assassins. I'm no war cleric, I am a follower of Deneir."

"The Scribe of Oghma?"

"The God of Glyphs and Images?"

Holga's eyes lit up with recognition. "The candle with the eyeball!"

Lyra deflated and looked at Holga confused and a bit concerned. "How in Oghma's name did you know that, but not his domains?"

"My ex-husband used to frequent this bookstore, and it had a little shrine in the window. I asked one day who it was for."

Not long after their discussion, Holga left to meet with the other members of her makeshift family. They had found a section of the shanty town where they were allowed to pitch a tent. While Simon, Kira, and Doric were trying to get the tent out of the opening in Simon's bag of holding, Edgin still was pacing back and forth in front of Xenk, who looked to be meditating on a bare patch of ground.

"A note!? You left her alone with a note-"

Xenk seemed to be ignoring him at this point, but Edgin had said the same speech about 9 times.

"-You were engaged! How does this not come up in conversation, I mean really you think you know a guy.-"

Holga walked up to the tent-pitching group. "Hey bug, think your old man will run out of steam any time soon?"

"I don't think so." Kira looked between the paladin and her father, "Not only did he royally embarrass himself, but with love you know he's always had this sense of self-righteous honor."

"Well I for one," Simon interrupted, "would love it if he would stop. Maybe then I could finally concentrate on getting these poles to stay up."

Doric rolled their eyes, "Sure like that's the issue."

Suddenly, Xenk turned toward the outside of the village. Standing, he drew in a deep breath. Glancing around, he drew his sword,

"They have found us."

#hofah hat 3 #xenk x oc #xenk the paladin #xenk yendar #dnd hat #dnd movie #fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #no beta we die like men #my oc #cleric!oc #dnd #honor among thieves #light angst

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pixies-and-poets · 2 years ago

Note

Okay as much as I'd hate to see the whole "irreversible" damage thing Bride mentioned with Spawny fixing Phantom's voice being canon I, really wanna see how you'd interpret that in story form-/nf

Ok, it was fun (but upsetting) to write Phantom being so unhinged. And this is my first time writing for Spawny, who I assume can talk now, just like the others.

Enjoy!(?)

Something from Nothing

Hunched alone on the cold floor, the little Rabbid huddled against the wall, tracing its rough stones with his hand, to distract himself by feeling something. He still wasn't sure exactly where he was, or how he had gotten there. He just knew he was very high up, in some kind of old structure, in a very frightening place. The wind outside sounded like wails of terror, and the thunder like shouts of anger. It made him want to cry; and he would have, if his strange eyes were capable of it.

He wished more than anything that Mama Peach was there, to hold him close and give him kisses on the head above his visor, like she always did. Or Beep-0, who always had such interesting things to tell him. Or even Junior, who'd become a good friend once he'd gotten over being such a jerk. He was so tough, and determined... he'd find some way to break out of here...

If any of the Heroes were there, they could make him laugh... he just wished he wasn't alone. Well, he wasn't ALONE- but he wished anyone else was here, except-

The door to the room flew open, and silhouetted in its frame was a looming, rounded figure. The tiny rabbid winced and drew back even further against the wall.

"Child," came the rasping voice of the newcomer as he drifted closer. "It is time."

Spawny bit his lower lip, before whimpering in his soft, childish voice: "W...what do you want with me?!"

"Why, you are here to FIX me, of course, child," came the reply. The figure was close enough to see clearly now, illuminated by the frequent lightning from the window, and Spawny's lens-eyes widened as he looked up at his own most complex creation; now his kidnapper.

But he didn't look like Spawny remembered him. His hair - was it hair or a wig? - had grown frazzled, its curls coming undone; his fine clothes torn, his white cravat stained with dirt, his eyes bulging even more than a Rabbid's usually did. The child didn't quite understand the desperation, the agony, written on every inch of the ghost's body and face, and audible in every strain of his broken voice. He merely understood that the Phantom had become far, far more frightening than ever before. He did not like him anymore...

"How am I s'posed to do that?" asked the boy, trembling.

"You tell me," said the ghost hoarsely, looming over his kidnappee. "You CREATED me. You made me what I am today, child. You created me with one purpose: to sing. And now I cannot sing. So FIX me, boy!!"

Spawny whimpered wordlessly. "WELL?" boomed the Phantom, his voice crackling.

"I... I can't just DO that," squeaked the tiny Rabbid. "I merge stuff... I can't just fix somethin' outta nowhere. Maybe if you brought me another one of those record player thingies, I could-"

"I don't WANT another gramophone, child," came the answer, as the ghost pointed at the device in his belly. "This one is me, and I am it. You will not be replacing any part of me. I am not a Ship of Theseus, thank you."

Spawny didn't know what that meant. He gulped and put a hand to his head; the headaches were starting to come on, and he felt his visor start to heat up slightly in turn. "Where... where are we, anyway?" he said, wondering if Phantom would just give up with enough distraction. "Where did you take me?"

"This is the Tower of Doooom. It is the place I have chosen for my dramatic rebirth, for my first new song. So GET TO IT, SPAWNY-"

"I'm SORRY," cried the little one suddenly. "I, I can't- I don't know. I DON'T KNOW!! I can't do it..." Pain surged through his temples, and he put his paws on the side of his head. "Ahh- AHHH- Mama Peach..."

Suddenly a manic grin spread across Phantom's face. "Do you really think she will come?!" he rasped. "To save you? Do you think she will come here, and I can sing to her once again?!" He picked Spawny up in his big paws and held him to his face. "HURRY, BOY, BEFORE SHE GETS HERE- I MUST SING-"

"No, NO!! I CAN'T, I DON'T KNOW HOW-" screamed the child, flailing, and suddenly his entire body glowed blue and his headset began to spark and crackle. A dizzying wave of pressure and pain started in his skull, then spread down into his throat- a blue pixelated beam shot from his eyes, and his... mouth... into his captor, filling his ghostly body with light. Still holding Spawny, Phantom looked down at his own transparent form to see his gramophone surrounded by the SupaMerge's energy.

Spawny's body went limp in Phantom's hands, his eyes closed as a small trail of smoke rose from the corners of his visor. The ghost sat the woozy Rabbid down, propping him against the wall once more, as he raised his arms and let out a powerful, perfect blast of song that merged with the shrill wind outside.

Momentarily, Spawny shook himself awake again. He noted the smell of burning, and put his paw to his visor. It was still very hot to the touch. But he was fine, so he thought... he could still sense that it was working. There had been no permanent harm done, as far as he could tell.

But how had he done it? He didn't even know that, himself. What had he merged with the Phantom, to give him his voice back?

His captor was at the room's large window, silhouetted by lightning, practicing his scales. When he noticed the boy was awake, he turned to him. "Thank you, child," he said, his face a wicked smile. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Although - I swear my range is slightly higher - and my voice in general, at that. You may have made me into an alto instead of a tenor..."

Spawny swallowed hard, and nodded. The overheating had made him thirsty.

Can I have some water- he wanted to ask, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out but a broken gasp.

#mario + rabbids #mario plus rabbids #alter answers #fanfic #the phantom #spawny

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theographos · 1 year ago

Text

Learning time

I have given up on Thomas Astruc's (or asstruc for the intimates) cause a long time ago. He is the living proof that when in a position of power, your ego and feelings of entitlement are your number one biggest ennemy.

So I am writing this post not to try to prove a point to him (I mean, I have twitter, i am french, I could do that directly without any problems) but as a reminder for all of our writers, writers-to be, people who wish to work in chara design, you name it.

This post is about lgbtq+ representation and women representation and may contain spoilers about Miraculous Ladybug, but also can be understood by people who don't watch the show.

A strong female lead ?

For those who aren't familiar with Miraculous, Marinette Dupain-Cheng is the female lead of the show. She is a superhero called Ladybug who works alongside Chat Noir and they form a duo who fights against Hawkmoth, a super villain who has the power to create super villains based on their negative emotions.

But here, the problem isn't that Ladybug is the head of the duo and the one who comes up with all the plans, the problem is that the so called "equality" between the duo doesn't exists.

A strong female lead cannot be considered as such when the men in the show are at best disposable. Of course it depends on the tone of what you're writing : if you intend to make all the men less competent as some kind of satire of how the women were treated in old movies then go for it ! (just be careful to make the satire visible and understandable for th majority of your audience). But it becomes a problem when you pride yourself in having a duo based on equality.

As a quick summary, Ladybug is the only superhero who can purify the supervillains from Hawkmoth's influence, she was the first one to meet the Guardian of the Miracle Box (a box full of jewelries that makes you a super-hero) then became the guardian of a that said box, one of the main sources of information about the heroes for the citizens is on a blog called "Ladyblog", she is the one who gets to choose who gets the super-hero jewelry and who has to give them back to her, at the end of season 5 she is the one who fights Hawkmoth alone, and overall she is the main character of the show, so most of the episodes revolves around her.

Her duo on the other hand, is showned to do way more mistakes than Ladybug, he wasn't even aware of the Guardian's existence until he became mad at Ladybug for repeatedly leaving to some place in secret and not wanting him to know, he had to be mad to have been hidden the existence of the Guardian to convince Ladybug to tell the guardian to go meet Chat Noir, he kinds of is a comic relief character, so he is often in situations where he can be laughed at (Ladybug does too, but it only happens when she is Marinette, but since Ladybug's character is left untouched, it kind of gives the vibe of the mighty hero and the clown that follows her) and it has been showed multiple of times that if Ladybug isn't here, no matter Chat Noir's efforts the city is doomed.

And believe it or not, it's not just a case of main character syndrome, most of the female characters in the show are considered as a real deal compared to male characters.

Alya Cesaire and Marinette's bestfriend.She has been showned to make mistakes, but is also brave, intelligent, at the head of the Ladyblog who also happens to be even more popular then the news on TV. A single girl in middle school is showed to be a more efficient and appreciated source of information than literal journalists. She also becomes the first know to know the real identity of Ladybug, and is actively helping Ladybug in her hero duties unbeknownst to anyone, even Chat Noir.

Nino Lahiff is Chat Noir's bestfriend (when he is a civilian), he is showned as sort of a laid back character with a problem for authority and some insecurities. He is overall fine, but he is still a comic relief character, so really he isn't showed in the same light as Alya for example. He did rejected Hawkmoth's influence from him once, but it was in a really rushed way in an episode where he draws conclusion before having a proper talk with the person, so it's half a victory really.

Chloe Bourgeois is the mean girl egocentric daddy's girl stereotype. At some point the writers tried to write a beginning of redemption arc for her, where you understand that her behavior mainly comes from childhood trauma and a dysfunctinal family, but it has been given up since Thomas Astruc explicitly said that trying to find redeeming qualities in Chloe, a 14 year old girl abandonned by her mother and with a father that compensates with giving her everything she wants, is like defending a r*pist. No, i'm not making this up. Since then she often is an ally of Hawkmoth. Yes a grown man allies himself with a 14 year old girl.

Jagged Stone, a man who abandonned his children and their mother early on in their life, has been given the chance to write his wrong towards his children, without any emotional consequence from them. It means that the day the children learned he was their father, he said "well now i'm ready to be a father" and now they all hangout. One of the two children was mad at the fact that their hid their father's identity from them, but nothing about how he abandonned them without any kind of child support. Even when he became one of the world biggest's rockstars.

Lila Rossi has been hinted by the writers as a villain "who will make Hawkmoth looks like a baby". It's safe to say that she has a huge lying problem because she managed at the age of 14 to convince people she was a famous actress, that songs were written about her but also who managed to lie to three different women and make them believe they were her mothers. Yes, Lila Rossi has three at least three different identities with three different mothers. Oh also she has yet to show any kind of redeeming qualities, so really she can't be described as anything else other than an evil liar. She is also an active ally to Hawkmoth. And she isn't forced to, she just saw a man actively hurting numerous of people every week and thought being her ally was a great idea.

Hawkmoth, even if is unarguably evil, is showed as a grayer light than Chloe or Lila, even though he is a grown ass man with a child. He is desperate for having lost his wife, and is ready to do anything it'll take to have her back. He has made the entire city of Paris suffer à this point and has been showed to be capable of ending the world if he ever won. Though you will have scenes where you can feel how much he is in pain, and in some scenes you see him having quality time with his son. It's not much, but it's a lot more than with Chloe or Lila.

Overall, a lot of main female characters in the show are showed to be able to out-perform literal adults. And while I'm a big fan of characters that goes against the rules and authority, here it's just "girl boss" being taken a bit too far.

Because meanwhile, three of the main male characters in the show are either given a sort of redemption/portrayed as gray compared to children that are yet to be fully aware of the consequence of their actions, or not taken seriously enough. It has been a while since I saw Chat Noir being a hero by himself, without following Ladybug's plan. So again, having the female leading isn't the problem, the problem is that the writers are doing it while dragging the male characters in the dirt or giving them less consequence for their actions compared to female characters.

Marinette is really close to a Mary Sue, and it doesn't make her strong in any way.

If you're writing a strong female character, take a few steps back and try to simplify your plot. Now, is your female character strong because of her, or because you're doing some favoritism/the other male characters are showed to be incompetent ?

A good female representation isn't someone who achieves anything and has every power in the world.

You take your character, you give them strength and weaknesses, you give them good sides and bad sides. Now, take that character and put them in a situation where their weaknesses are showing, for example a loner forced to work with a team, a healer having to fight someone, a 14 year old girl who tends to be a control freak having to fight a grown man who also is a control freak but with a larger scale of control than her. (the last one is a simplified version of miraculous lmao)

And depending on how they make it out of this situation, depending of how they deal with it or why they are in this situation in the first place, this is what will make those characters strong.

Gays in cartoons, is a hint canon ?

Yllogique Have you ever met : the fans on the internet ? *the picture they share*

Thomas Astruc "Stop with the hypocrisy/bad faith. You saw the episodes, you're well aware of what has been hinted or not. It's not a coincidence that Juleka is considered as canon.

Les_Intervalles Their LGBTQ+ identity is not canon because it isn't explicitly showed through a dialogue or an action. For the New York Special, we do not count it since it is not, to our knowledge, reliant on the french production and airing because it is only available on Disney.

Thomas Astruc If there is no action or dialogue, how do you explain that people noticed it ? And for the NY special, you're simply wrong. It has been produced and aired just like the others.

Les_Intervalles There's a difference between a ship made by the audience and a canon relationship. For the special NY, we didn't find any sources confirming a french production, only a source from Disney.

Thomas Astruc Stop with the hypocrisy. You're very aware that the audience would not make those ships if we didn't gave them the elements to do so.

This is a very touchy subject to be honest. Because on one hand having a gay character in your cartoon makes the big boss afraid, and more often than not the show doesn't gets approved or it gets canceled (The Howl House for example).

But on the other hand people have used the excuse of "hinting a character's sexuality" to pass them as gay, just to earn the approval of the LGBTQ+ community. (J.K Rowling for example with her character Dumbledore. It's a whole other subject that is way too long to talk about here, but tumblr is full of people who will talk about it way more than I do.)

So let's recap : If you're too forward, your show gets canceled (even more if your audience rate isn't particulary high), if you're not forward enough then the audience can call you out for trying to queerbait them.

(Queerbait is a term used when a show, a business or something else tries to be appealing for the LGBTQ+ community purely for marketing reasons and without any desire to make a valid representation.)

It's a very hard subject really, even for RIOT GAMES, the one who created League of Legends, a game so popular that they have been able to organize world cups for it for years now, the writers struggle to add gay characters and cannot go further than mere "hints." So for that matter I don't have an answer for you today.

But... I do have some thoughts about how Thomas Astruc justified his hinted gay couples. To him just the fact that people ship them is a big enough proof for their existence.

*insert laugh*

I don't need to write thousands of words as to why this is such a bad argument. If you've been a tiktok, you're aware that there is a ship between Sukuna and Cinderella, and even though it has been created for troll purposes, there's is content for it, it's still a ship. If you've been long enough in the LGBTQ+ community, or even in the Harry Potter fandom or the My Hero Academia fandom, you're aware that gay ships are either misinterpreted friendship/bromance or people who just took two person they found hot and made them kiss.

I am not a pro-shiper, but I am still aware of the fact that content doesn't equal ship. People are shipping everyone with everyone, they don't need anyone's help on that. And while sometimes it's very wrong, like incest or p3do ships, shipping is most often than not empty of canon facts.

If your only argument to say that you have gay people in your show is to say "well people ships them" is not a really great argument. It's like someone apoligizing to you while trying to find excuses and to shift the blame on you.

If one day you arrive in this situation, doing what he's doing isn't of any help. Because at the end of the day, he is still responsible for not being more forward with gay characters. He's not forced to scream on every rooftops that they're gays, of course, but getting visibly pissed at people not seeing his gay characters is misplaced.

If you hint a character's sexuality, it stays a hint. Some people can understand it while other cannot. The fandom will never fully understand everything that you put in your show, because it's still art, and art is subjective.

If your gay representation is based on hints it is normal that people do not notice it. A hint is not canon, because not everyone is going to guess it as hint. People see hints everywhere, even more so on the internet.

So if one day you found yourself in the position of having a hinted LGBTQ+ character that some people doesn't consider as canon, insisted of saying "you're just hypicritical, you're the problem." I recommand you to explain why you decided to leave it as a hint. Explains the differents hints, explain why you have not been more forward about it in the show because it's your show, it's your responsability to say what is canon and what isn't. The fans can say stuff like "it's canon in my heart", you can see fans shipping two characters and loving it so much that you decided to alter the story to make them together (At first Harry Potter was supposed to end up with Hermione Granger, but after seeing the ship between Ron and Hermione, J.K Rowling changed her mind).

But at the end of the day you're responsible of the canon and you're responsible of what you're writing.

And as a side and final note, I wish to reassure the one reading this post and telling themselves "but I have no reasons to have hinted this character's sexuality !". Here is a list of reasons as to why you could have hinted a character's sexuality :

It's a side character. The plot isn't about them, but I still wished to plan out bits of their identity and personality since they appear in some episodes/chapters to make them feel more human and not just plot devices.

It's a background character. Representation comes in many forms ! I decided to draw/add a lot of LGBTQ+ representation in the background of my stories because I wanted to add more diversity while establishing this scene in public. They aren't anything to be proud of since they aren't actively playing a role in my story, but they're still worth of being acknowledged.

This character is just at the beginning of their journey ! More about their identity will be discovered as we go, it's normal to not know everything about them right at the beginning. Stay tuned to see more of their stories !

The character isn't aware of this part of them yet. They will be at some point but it'll take time. They still see themselves as a cishet, but it's because of hetero normalization.

The main plot isn't about romance. Adding a romance sub plot to my story will disrupt the pacing and what I have planned for the future/i don't really enjoy having romance in my shows. I'm still thinking of ways to make their identity more striking to the audience without having them scream it everywhere. If you have any ideas let me know !

It's a corporate issue. The corporation I work for didn't not allowed me the freely show their identity, so I had to tone it down a little. But really for us the writers, they're LGBTQ+

After three hours of intense writing and badfully researching through Thomas Astruc's tweets, here is my post. I have yet to edit it properly yet, so feel free to correct me on some mispellings or problems in my translation of the tweets.

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