#BEE YOURE BETTER THAN THIS
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Just found out my ex best friend is obsessed with bg3 (which is hilarious since they kept making fun of me for loving it during early access) because one of my beloved mutuals rbed a piece of art they made and it showed up on my dash
I hope your game crashes every time you go to kiss Gale you son of a bitch
#bg3#gale dekarios#I’m grabbing myself by the face and making direct eye contact with myself#BEE YOURE BETTER THAN THIS#GO EAT SOME CHEESE AND MOVE ON#GO TO BED EARLY YOU HAVE WORK TOMORROW#you come into my house after you have already mocked its wallpaper!?!?!#you come into MY house!?!?#guys I’m as the kids say….salty#they were so mean to me about it!!! and now it’s their current hyper fixation???#can’t have shit in glasgow smh#I haven’t spoken to them in almost 2(3?) years now#If you have a falling out with one of your friends talk about it with them before it festers into apathy guys#I thought I had ripped this rot out of me and yet?#I lost a really good friend because of this person#my last year of uni was a very lonely one because of this person#sorry for ranting xx#thank fuck I go to therapy
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your point about team rwby being the maidens’ liberators made me think - do you think blake is going to have a special connection to the summer maiden? I noticed that she’s the only one who hasn’t been close to a maiden yet
i think gillian asturias is the summer maiden (and this post is hysterical in hindsight. at the time i wrote it, the full-length v9 epilogue hadn’t been released yet so we’d only seen qrow’s section and about half of winter’s – hence my pausing to lay out the argument for salem going to vale next and making a pretense of hedging my bets on the crown being narratively central in v10. lol)
now! with regard to blake and the summer maiden, the common thinking here seems to mostly run along the lines of “…and that’s why summer maiden ilia,” or the more general speculation that the summer maiden will be a faunus character.
to this i say:
it’s a fallacy to conflate “blake will probably have a strong narrative connection to the summer maiden” with “the summer maiden necessarily is or will be blake’s old friend,” and the argument for ilia being due for maidenhood is quite thin otherwise, and
blake can and does have important narrative connections to characters who aren’t faunus, and it’s a weird to presume that in order for the summer maiden to have a meaningful tie to blake, she must be a faunus herself.
to expand on that first point, let’s consider the personal relationships between each of the maidens so far and ruby / weiss / yang:
pyrrha -> ruby’s friend
cinder -> ruby’s personal enemy
raven -> yang’s estranged mother
penny -> ruby’s friend
winter -> weiss’s beloved sister
the takeaway here – other than that if you’re ruby’s friend and someone offers you to become a maiden you should refuse – is half the relations between maidens and members of team rwby are antagonistic. (raven seems likely to at least try making amends with yang in v10, but as it stands in the narrative right now things between them are very fraught.)
it is just as likely that blake’s narrative connection to the summer maiden might develop through a personal conflict between them, rather than friendship. yes?
and, if i’m right about gill being the summer maiden, well—stop me if you’ve heard this one: a girl with a driving, passionate ambition to uplift her people from the ashes of centuries of conquest and subjugation is radicalized by a boy she loves who pulls them both deeper and deeper into violent, spiteful extremism that ultimately harms the very people they claim to fight for, until he finally crosses a line she can’t accept and she says no i will not.
that’s blake and adam but it’s also gillian and her brother. the difference between them is that blake’s red line was adam glibly revealing that the train heist was actually intended to be a massacre whereas gillian’s was jax stating his intention to commit suicide rather than retreat and live to fight another day; she helped yatsu subdue him specifically to save jax’s life, not because she had a crisis of conscience about their movement.
(there is a certain—really irritating—contingent of CFVY novel readers who project their own dislike of jax onto gill and insist that she turned against him because he demanded she ‘sacrifice her life’ to save him, which 1. he didn’t, he asked her to give him all her aura and then bodily shielded her because he’s physically bigger than she is so this was at worst a “if we’re going down together, i’ll make them go through me first,” 2. if gill only wanted to save her own neck all she had to do was rip her aura out of him and bounce, and 3. she explicitly says that the reason she did what she did is because he’s her brother, she loves him, and she couldn’t let him die.)
the point being, gill is still a radical; her soft betrayal of jax revealed her priorities in that she loves her brother more than The Cause, but in no way did it represent a break from her belief in the cause. if the epilogue is any indication, she’s just as committed to overthrowing shade academy as before. (and i think there’s a real chance that her actions will have improved her relationship with jax to some degree, because he believed she didn’t care about him at all! he thought she only stuck with him because his semblance compelled her to do so! and then gillian exploded his mind by revealing that his semblance straight up doesn’t work on her and she just loves him. which, if the twins are on the same page now, cuts down on the internal tension and likely makes them more dangerous adversaries to the coalition.)
but her history, the way she became like this, is eerily similar to blake’s radicalization in the white fang, and i think blake would certainly be able to piece that together. she’s also by far the member of team rwby i would say is most likely to recognize and relate to the genuine pain at the heart of the crown’s movement—vacuo has suffered.
vacuo wasn’t even a state until the end of the great war. it was a mistrali territory. its people were enslaved and worked to death in a systematic and horrifyingly effective project to extract every last speck of valuable resources from the region, and then even statehood was a slap in the face because they were left to fend for themselves in a barren wasteland whose ecosystem had been completely and utterly destroyed.
the crown is a mirror held up to the white fang; blake is insightful and empathetic enough to realize these similarities and see herself and her past mistakes reflected in gillian, but this time she’s an outsider to the movement—she can’t effect change from within or reclaim the true, important work from the vengeful extremists. so she’s limited in what she can do, practically, even as it’s going to be painfully clear to her that the crown is falling into the same trap adam did.
and at the same time, the new white fang will in all likelihood either be in vacuo or show up to join the coalition in v10, so blake’s part in her own movement, her place in her community, can be directly juxtaposed with her opposition to/empathy for the crown.
v9 sets up for this with blake’s advocacy for the afterans—v7-8 do as well to a lesser extent, because blake is still dealing with the personal fallout of v4-6 and thus is quieter about mantle than say, nora is, but like. blake draws a comparison between her experiences in the white fang and with adam and the moral compromises ironwood starts making after the election. it just seems… pretty clear to me that the narrative has been setting up blake to play a pivotal role in relation to the crown since at least v4 if not earlier, depending on how granular the vacuo outline was during v1-3.
so this is a narrative connection i very much expect blake to have with gillian regardless, but… if gill is the maiden…
well, she’s certainly not trapped inside ozpin’s vault/key maiden paradigm! so in that case what does it look like for a member of team rwby to fulfill this narrative role of liberation? probably something like de-radicalizing her and her brother by convincing them there is a better way forward than their divisive, violent, paranoid ideology. and blake is unquestionably the member of team rwby best equipped to get the ball rolling there.
further, blake’s semblance is a really strong counter to gill’s – that’s true of ruby and weiss as well, because gillian has to touch a person in order to steal aura and so agile, fast opponents are going to be tougher for her in general. but blake has two more things going for her beyond the basic mobility advantage, vis-a-vis making it personal:
the illusionary aspect of blake’s semblance will allow her to create decoys, which is a very powerful tactical advantage against an opponent who really wants to grab her, and
blake’s girlfriend is a hand-to-hand fighter, and an incredibly brave one with an intense protective instinct at that.
clears throat. we all remember yang getting possessed in rwby x jl part 2, yes? and blake clocking it instantly? well.
if blake and gillian are meant to be not just foils but personal adversaries in the vein of ruby and cinder—yang’s gonna get got. agile though she is, as a hand-to-hand combatant yang is unavoidably much more vulnerable to the twins’ contact-based semblances than the rest of her team, her personality will make it very hard for her to play it safe and stay back if it comes to an open fight, and there is nothing the narrative could do to lock in that personal enmity that would be punchier than yang being compromised.
even if gill as a personal adversary to blake isn’t in the cards i expect yang to get got anyway because, let’s be honest: do we really expect crwby to set themselves up with a golden opportunity to do a climactic love-overcomes-mind-control scene with the bees in v10 and then not take it? with how nuts the entire creative team goes for these two? after the climactic battle in ice queendom hingeing on yang being able to free blake from a nightmare with the mere lesser power of unrealized lesbianism? do we reeeally believe they would pass that up? lol.
#sidebar it continues to be hysterical to me that the average bees shipper is like#i feel like you guys really let the haters get to you bc every time i see bees v10 speculation from hardcore bees people it’s always like#''well there’s a lot going on but i hope they get a little spotlight. i hope they get to go on a date''#HELLO??? ??#or else it’s meeting-the-parents fluff (the belladonnas) or hurt/comfort (blake chews out raven etc)#which at least bespeaks an awareness that the relationship is narratively important#BUT WHY ARE YOU ALL SO TIMID#WHERE IS YOUR FIRE#why am i (casual bees enjoyer) the one who’s like I THINK YANG WILL GET MEMORY-TWISTED BY THE ARC VILLAINS AND THEN#BLAKE WILL HAVE TO FIGHT HER ON THE ROOFTOPS OF VACUO AT SUNSET PLEADING WITH HER TO WAKE UP#WHILE REFUSING TO ACTUALLY LAND ANY BLOWS ON HER#BUT THEYRE SOULMATES AND PARTNERS AND THEYVE FOUGHT SIDE BY SIDE SO OFTEN THAT AT A CRITICAL MOMENT#YANG WILL REACH OUT INSTINCTIVELY AND CATCH GAMBOL SHROUD AND ITLL BE LIKE SUNLIGHT BREAKING THROUGH THE CLOUDS#AND SHE’LL KNOW AND BLAKE WILL KNOW AND THE TIDE OF THE SEEMINGLY HOPELESS BATTLE RAGING AROUND THEM#WILL TURN IN AN INSTANT#AND THEN THEYLL KISS#like that just seems like obviously something that is going to happen in some form in v10#(also i think raven and blake will get along a lot better than bees shipper orthodoxy anticipate but that’s for another post)
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Sorry if this seems confrontational, but for the life of me I can’t get into your “Chloe has no growth” point when the show itself retracts growth from everyone and is inconsistent with everyone. You saying “The show just lays down basic character traits in Chloe” doesn’t make sense when her basic character traits are supposed to be her being selfish and spoiled.
S2 built off of that and despite what you say, had Chloe doing things that in S1 she wouldn’t have done. She apologized multiple times to the people she wronged, she willingly put herself in harm’s way to help the people she cares about and she was openly vulnerable to Ladybug in “Malidiktaor”. Something S1 Chloe wouldn’t have done. If there’s a distinct difference between a Chloe back in S1 and a Chloe in S2, then growth HAS taken place. But it doesn’t stay because of the formula (and the writers just don’t want her to keep that growth)
So what I’m asking is…what do you mean “Chloe doesn’t have growth”?
I can understand the “No arc” argument because an unfinished arc feels like there’s no arc at all (even though they are fundamentally not the same)
I wouldn't say that the show retracts growth from everyone. It's more that no one is ever supposed to grow. Every episode resets the cast. That's just how pure formula shows work and Miraculous is being sold as a pure formula show. The characters are meant to be static (one of the writers literally compared Miraculous to Dora the Explorer).
That static nature is why pure formula shows normally avoid giving their good-guy characters major flaws. It's the wrong medium for that type of thing specifically because the characters cannot change in meaningful ways throughout the show. They can learn little lessons that don't really change them and maybe have big change between seasons via a special or movie, but that's about it. Thus things like the season four conflict working so poorly. It's just a terrible choice for a formula show! The conflict is literally not allowed to develop properly because of the chosen format.
But sure, let's talk about Chloe and why I will die on the hill that she never demonstrated meaningful improvement even with the issue of the inconstant writing. In fact, seasons-one-to-three Chloe is one of the most consistent characters in the show. For this discussion to work, we need to start off by discussing character development and the two main forms it can take: character establishment and character growth.
Character Establishment
When the audience meets a character, they know nothing about said character. It's up to the writer to guide the introduction process. To choose when to reveal already existing elements of the character's personality, skills, and backstory. This is called character establishment. It is the writing telling you who the character is on a baseline level. Those reveals don't need to happen at the start of the story, though. They can be - and often are - held back for when the time is right.
When these reveals are delayed, it's important to remember that these elements were always part of the character. The reveal isn't changing who the character actually is. It's just changing how the audience views the character.
For example, we spend a good chunk of season one uncertain why Gabriel is doing what he does. Then, in Origins, we learn that it's all for Emilie. This is new information that adds depth to Gabriel's character, but it doesn't change him in any way. This is who he always was. We just know him better now and can recontextualize past events with our new understanding of his motivation.
Character Growth
Character growth is when writers take a character's personality or world view or even just their skills from point A to point B, allowing the audience to watch the character change and become a new better - or lesser - version of themself. This is usually part of a larger character arc where all the moments of growth add up, but it can take the form of small moments of growth that don't fit into a bigger picture, too. I'd probably still call that an arc, but we'll use the word "growth" a lot in this post, so let's just call it growth to be consistent.
Miraculous doesn't really have either arcs or growth because - once again - formula shows don't allow characters to meaningfully change, so I'm going to have to make up an example here. I'll use one that illustrates how character establishment and character growth can and do intertwine as that's an important thing to acknowledge to help guide this discussion.
Let's say that we have a character who lost their family at a young age. We'll call this character Mary. Mary's loss guides her character throughout the entire story, but the other characters and the audience are never told that this is what's going on. We just know that Mary acts in seemingly illogical ways at times and that she trusts no one.
Throughout the story, Mary learns to trust her costars, leading to a big, dramatic scene where she finally tells them - and the audience - about her past. This big dramatic scene is both the culmination of a character arc and a piece of baseline character establishment that allows us to understand Mary's character better no matter what part of the story we're reading.
Because these combo growth and establishment moments are so common in stories, it can feel like character growth when we learn new things about a character in a dramatic moment, but that's not always what's happening. Sometimes dramatic moments are just there to reveal what was always there by forcing a character to act differently than they usually do through the power of extenuating circumstances. These extenuating-circumstances moments are not character growth because, once the moment is over, the character resets to their normal self. The moment wasn't there to let them grow. It was there for the sake of the plot.
This is actually a really important thing that writers need to know how to do. Figuring out what circumstances will make a character say or do a thing they generally wouldn't say or do is part of how stories work. I have started stories with characters acting wildly "out of character" because I put them in the a situation where the behavior suddenly was in character!
Oh, you don't want to talk to this total stranger because you're an introvert with social anxiety who has yet to learn how to love yourself and open up to others? That's nice. Your leg is broken now and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. What you gonna do sucker? Lie there in the dirt or talk to the nice lady who wants to help you? Your choice! (Spoiler: he talked to the nice lady. He even let her physically support him when he'd usually never let a stranger touch him!)
As soon as that scene was over, the character reverted because it wasn't growth. He didn't become a more open person. He just did something he normally wouldn't do because the situation demanded it. It was extenuating circumstances so that the freaking plot could start.
This is what happened with Chloe in season two. Everything that people call growth is really just extenuating circumstances that reset by the end of the episode or even by the end of the scene.
Let's Talk About Chloe
Chloe does not have a character arc, aborted or otherwise. She is never taken on a journey where we watch her change. All we get is delayed character establishment via extenuating circumstances, but it's given in ways that make some people feel like she was being given an arc. Let's talk about why that is.
Season one Chloe is a one dimensional mean girl. She has almost no depth. She's just here to be petty and cause akumas. She is not a fully realized character.
Season two takes those traits and keeps them, but also gives Chloe a lot more depth to round her out and make her feel like a real character. She's just as petty and mean as she always was, but we're finally allowed to see her in some moments that make her feel like a well of potential to become something more, which the writers basically had to do if they wanted to let her be a hero. The audience needed to feel like Chloe could be good in the right situation.
The feelings evoked by her newly discovered depth are why people go "oh, she had a character arc! My feelings about her changed in a big way!" But she didn't have an arc. You just got to know her better by seeing her in moments where she was forced to be vulnerable. That's not growth. Growth is meaningful, lasting change, not situational change. Everyone changes based on the situation! It's why the "True Selves" stuff is such nonsense. It implies that there's one set way that we're supposed to act in order to be authentic and anything else is some kind of lie which just isn't how the world works.
Let's look at some examples to drive home what I mean.
Season one established that Chloe idolized Ladybug. It's why we get things like this moment from Evil Illustrator:
Ladybug: Fine! You stay! Later! Cat Noir: What do you mean later? Ladybug: I mean, you're the one who wants to protect her, so you don't need me. So, later! (swings away) Chlo��:(looks over balcony) Ahhh! Ladybug! Text me! OK!
And this confession from Antibug:
Ladybug: [Chloe] pretended she was me?! How often does that happen? Armand: She idolizes you.
So Chloe adores Ladybug and wants to impress her/be her best friend. Cool. Got it. That never goes anywhere in season one because season one doesn't see Chloe and Ladybug interact much. The most we get is Ladybug saving Chloe from akumas, which doesn't allow for deep conversations. I don't think that they're ever alone in a moment where they can actually talk.
That changes in season two. In season two, they get to interact a lot and it's often in moments where there's a big threat and no one else is around, letting us see a new side to Chloe. But that's not Chloe changing. It's just the writers revealing that Chloe has more to her than the mean girl stuff because of course she does! Pure mean girls don't exist. Everyone has depth. We simply never saw that depth before because Chloe was never put in a situation where she needed to be open. We can't say that season one Chloe wouldn't confess things to Ladybug or chose to sacrifice herself to let Ladybug win because she never had the chance to do those things!
In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that season one Chloe probably would have done the same things as season two Chloe because season two Chloe doesn't really contradict season one Chloe. Antibug showed us that Chloe was pretty desperate to be loved and welcomed the way that Ladybug is loved and welcomed:
Chloé: Jagged Stone! Jagged: (thinking she's the actual Ladybug) Ladybug! What are you doing here? Chloé: Um… when I find out you were here, I knew you'd wanna see me! I had to come say hello. (Sabrina waves at Jagged)
and Chloe has always been a stubborn girl who stands up for what she wants even if what she wants is something bad. Antibug also showed us that Chloe can be genuinely nice to the people she cares about. Her and Sabrina's relationship is shown to be complex with them often having a lot of fun together.
Similarly, Origins sees Chloe showing her father genuine affection after she's saved from Stoneheart:
[Image description: Chloe and Andre hugging and looking very happy to be together]
Origins is the baseline episode that tells us who the characters are on day one, so I never once doubted that Chloe loved Andre, but Andre didn't get akumatized because of Chloe's actions in season one. He didn't even get akumatized for something that Chloe had nothing to do with! His first akumatization is in season two, so it's not shocking that we don't get a Malidiktaor type scene until Malidiktaor.
Chloe was vulnerable with her personal hero when her beloved parent was in danger, but not before? Shocking! Who would have guessed?
Me. I would have guessed. I didn't even realize that people were reading it as some sort of character growth because it clearly wasn't. Malidiktaor didn't feel like something new for Chloe's character. It just felt like the writers were leaning into things that we'd always known about Chloe and using them to better establish her character as someone who genuinely cares about select people. She just doesn't show most of the time.
The same thing goes for Chloe's sacrifice and apology in Zombizou. Chloe only sacrifices herself when there's no one left but her and Ladybug. When the choice is to let the terrorist win or take the hit and let you personal hero save the day. Brave? Sure, but also not growth. Chloe is team Ladybug for all of seasons one, two, and three! She wants Ladybug to like her! Plus even a petty brat can have moments of goodness where they pick a hero over a literal terrorist.
This honestly would have been a damming moment if Chloe didn't sacrifice herself. She functionally had no other choice here. The entire episode builds itself to the self-sacrifice moment so that Chloe is forced to make that choice even though she's been her petty bratty self throughout the whole attack. It's genuinely solid writing.
Then, in the heightened emotions directly after the Zombizou win, we get this:
Miss Bustier: But I hurt a lot of people... Chloé: No... I did... I forgot your birthday, once again. And when I saw everyone had prepared a gift for you, I totally lost it. Because I, too, would've liked to offer you something. I'm sorry, Miss Bustier. Miss Bustier: Thank you, Chloé. Those words are the best possible gift you could ever give me. (hugs Chloé) (Chloé hugs her back, forgetting herself for a moment.) Chloé: Huh?... Uh, yeah. Okay then, we're all good.
A brief moment of vulnerability that quickly ends and does not stick around because Chloe's change was situational, not true growth. The next scene of that episode starts with Chloe being her usual self:
Chloé: Me? You want me to apologize to the entire class? Ridiculous! They should be thanking me for saving everybody.
And ends with the reveal of Chloe's gift to Miss Bustier, which was given in private via a note.
Once again, nothing new for Chloe's character. She acts as she always has, being mean to everyone while having moments of vulnerability when things get tense. Remember that hug between her and her father that we talked about earlier? Same concept. She had just almost died from an akuma attack and so she needed some emotional support, leading her to act more openly loving than she usually does when he's around. Once the moment is over, she reverts to the petty mean girl default.
Giving gifts to placate people is also something that we've seen before. A pretty similar thing happens at the end of Evil Illustrator, it's just played less sympathetic towards Chloe because the writers weren't giving her depth back then:
Sabrina: Too late. Chloé and I are doing the project together. Marinette: You mean, you're doing the project? Sabrina: Well, of course! After all she's been through... Marinette: Ughhh.... Nice new beret, by the way. Sabrina: I know, right! Chloé lent it to me. She really is my BFF! Chloé! Your geography homework's ready!
For any of this to be character growth, we need to see Chloe act differently over time. For her to be put in similar situations and get different outcomes, but we don't see that in part because Chloe didn't change and in part because season one didn't do much to develop Chloe's deeper side. We rarely see her alone or in moments of extreme vulnerability, but you need those moments to show her depth. That's why Despair Bear had Chloe crying alone after Adrien threatened to end her friendship and not before. Chloe is very reluctant to openly show depth. You have to force it out of her, which perfectly fits the character we met in season one.
Even her standing up to Hawkmoth and rejecting the akuma isn't character growth in my opinion. Chloe has always stood up to authority and demanded whatever she wants. She has wanted to be Ladybug's friend and be seen as a hero since season one, so it's not shocking that her extremely strong will would allow her to defy a terrorist. If there is anyone in this show who can stand up to a terrorist on shear "no!" power alone, it's little miss I-always-get-what-I-want. I could see a variation of this happening at any point in the show, just change Chloe's reason for defying Gabriel to match the situation. Rework these lines to be about a party that she wanted to go to and I'd still totally buy it:
Chloé: No, Hawk Moth! I am a superheroine! I am Queen Bee! Ladybug will come and get me when she needs me! I WILL NEVER JOIN YOU! (throws her photo onto the ground as the akuma exits it... and pants)
Chloe acted like a hero here because she wants all the perks of being a hero and can't believe that Ladybug would actually bench her. That's impossible! Ladybug wouldn't do that!
As soon as Chloe accepts that she won't be a hero again, Chloe stops acting heroic because acting heroic wasn't growth. It was her playing a part the same way she played a part in Despair Bear. She was doing what she needed to do to be Queen Bee again and not because it's the right thing to do. This would only be real growth if she rejected the akuma after accepting that she wouldn't be Queen Bee again, but that's not what happens. As soon as she accepts that she's out, she no longer has any reason to play nice. She never grew into a character who did what's right for the sake of doing the right thing. It's always been about getting what she wants or being seen how she wants to be seen. Until that changes, she hasn't changed.
So no, Chloe didn't have an aborted arc. They didn't start to redeem her and then change their minds. All they did was make Chloe one of the most complex characters in the show only to then not do anything with the character they wasted our time establishing, ignoring the complexity they gave her while also cranking her mean dial up to the point of absurdity where she's not even fun in her original role anymore.
I get why it feels like she had an aborted arc. The fact that the character establishment was delayed makes it feel like something shiny and new about Chloe. There's also the fact that the character establishment we get in season two is the kind of character establishment that you'd do if you were setting up for a redemption arc, but that doesn't change the fact that it was all establishment work. None of it was a true arc where we watched Chloe grow. We just saw her put in situations that revealed hidden depths.
Her showing depth is not her growing because when in the world does she show off this supposed growth? She only acts differently in the type of scenes that we've never seen her in before or around characters that we've never seen her truly interact with before. When she's around the established teen characters or in her usual scenes, then she acts the same way that she always has. We never see her be genuinely nice to Marinette or something like that. She's only nice to Ladybug and she's still rude to Chat Noir. That's not character growth! That's character establishment that can then be used to guide character growth!
Same thing goes for the stuff in Despair Bear. We learn that Adrien can push Chloe to be better, but he never does it again and she reverts as soon as he lets her off the hook, so it wasn't character growth! It was just Chloe establishing that she can play nice when she needs to. This means that she could grow if the story chose to take her down that path because we've established that she knows what being nice looks like. Fake it til you make it plot go, go, go! But the plot never went, went, went so meh?
Add in the fact that season one was a bit of a test season with lots of elements that got dropped and the fact that characterization in this show has always been wildly inconsistent from episode to episode and I'm really not seeing a strong argument for Chloe having an intentional arc that somehow got aborted. People just saw the potential for her to have one and argue that potential is the same as an aborted arc when it really, really isn't.
To give an analogy, Chloe's story is like walking into the kitchen and seeing grandma laying out the ingredients for her famous chocolate chip cookies. We get excited because, hey, cookies! Then we come back an hour later and there are no cookies. Nor is there some other sweet that uses the same ingredients. There's just ingredients, sitting unused in their original packaging, making us wonder what the heck grandma was up to. At the same time, she never really started making cookies. She just set out ingredients. They're still there, totally unused, waiting to be made into something, so we can't call them a failed cookie attempt. That implies a level of commitment that was never there. She didn't even say that she was making cookies! We just assumed she was because we, understandably, wanted cookies and wanted to believe that grandma had a purpose to her actions.
#ml writing critical#ml writing salt#chloe deserves better#I did initially think that they were going to redeem Chloe#But they only ever did the initial setup work#They never committed to anything#In fact I though Queen Bee's intro was the writers saying that she wouldn't be redeemed#And that the hero Chloe thing was just a fakeout to make people watch season two#Which is still what I think Queen Bee was#The writers love cheap fakeouts like ending a season on a mass reveal that then goes nowhere#Chloe's writing is par for the course and not anything especially bad compared to the rest of the show#Queen Bee was just an excuse to make you keep watching#Chloe was never getting redeemed or even properly damned#Is that deeply frustrating? Yes#But it's also the most logical read of her story with strong backing in the text itself#I'm not a fan of the conspiracy theories about the writers sabotaging her on purpose#That's just not how this goes#Sorry to disappoint but occam's razor applies to writing too#Bad writing is just infinitely more logical than a bunch of writers purposefully risking their careers to get back at online randos#Chloe stans are just not that important or influential#I can point to so many shows where people came up with insane theories to justify the bad writing and it's just...#I get the desire for complex reasons to explain why a thing you loved failed you but that's just not a logical conclusion in most situation#Nor is it all that healthy to go down those conspiracy rabbit holes. That's just going to damage your mental health#Curious to see the reaction to this one#Remember we're talking about fiction here and play nice please
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(Leo speaking to Hephaestus:)
Leo: I used to think I was creative. I used to think I was smart. I used to take pride in the things I invented. But it’s just you, isn’t it? Everything I’m good at, everything I like about myself, it’s just your powers I inherited. If I wasn’t your son, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this. I wouldn’t be good at anything.
Leo: I thought that I had earned this. That I had learned when my mom taught me about machines, that I had built my abilities myself. But it’s all just shortcuts and fakery. It’s just god magic. It’s not real. It’s not mine.
#like it’s one thing if your power is water attack or turn into bees or something inhuman#but I imagine a lot of demigods have crises like this one#with powers that enhance qualities they already had so they’ll never know who they would have been without a god making them ‘better’#like if Annabeth’s power is her intellegence? she can’t even take credit for her own mind (by this logic)#for a non-charmspeaking Aphrodite kid with a less unnatural level of making people like them?#when you can’t tell what is and isn’t magical affects then how do you know anyone would ever like you for your normal non-goddy self?#what about Hypnos kids who wish they didn’t constantly feel tired and could manage to Do more with their lives?#like imagine your special magic godly enhancement is Cannot Stay Awake and it’s a struggle to complete even simple tasks. thanks I guess.#there’s probably examples I’m not thinking of#but powers that enhance rather than add??? it’s like there’s parts of your identity that don’t belong to you#at least that’s how I would feel about it probably#percy jackson#heroes of olympus#leo valdez#hoo leo#pjo hephaestus
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will you guys kill me if i say aventurine + age gap with an older reader
#bee chats#listen i have a lot of thoughts about this#mainly the fact that you can clock that he doesn't seem to really enjoy sex#and that it's more of a performance for your sake#and you know better than to bring it up directly with him#bc he'll run#he's skittish underneath that confidence#and you already know he doesn't like to be Seen#so you end up having to play a very careful hand because you don't want him sleeping with you bc he thinks that is what you want#it gets messsssyyyyy
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Not to continue my recent trend of oversharing on tumblr dot com, but I am very much struggling not to feel like I'm doing everything in my entire life wrong at present
#normal things to think after your doctor tells you you need to get a blood test re-taken bc you mistimed your dose#I'm just. I'm tired man.#I've been putting off a phone call for two months#i spend every day lately torn between do I need to go to hospital or am I just unfit and anxious#I rot and decay when left alone but also people are Too Much#I want to Create but I can't get started and when I do I'm just so disappointed with whatever I make#I'm exhausted but I'm awake at 4am bc if i go to sleep tomorrow will start and I'll have to do this all again#and I need so fucking badly for someone to just crush me so hard in a really long hug until my bones realign#and i need to find past me shake her by the shoulders and yell “you're fine! you'll be fine! cut your hair! eat your greens!#take up swimming and also some new pronouns! no one else will respect em but they're for YOU and so is the health stuff#please for the love of fucking god just look after yourself better than i did!“#there's toooooo many fuckin holes in this sinking ship#I need a full body MOT and then to be cradled against the chest of a large gentle man for 12-36 hours#mr. bees speaks
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New funniest phone call is my youngest who is meant to be at a sleepover going, “Momma, there are bees coming out of (friend’s) basement lights. Can you come save us? Bring dad.”
#lost talks#no I cannot save you the bees are not bees for one those are wasps#and they’re literally in the walls and the ceiling!!#anyway I went and brought my partner and we taped over all the lights#and cleared out the very angry wasps that were not still in the ceiling#and now they have to figure out what to do with that I guess#my neighbor was like oh good you brought your partner#and my son laughed and went no you want mom#and then I less than gently reminded the lesbian that being a woman does not mean I cannot do things#and that my partner being a man does not make him better at catching not-bees#lmao#I’m taking it as a parenting win tho that my kid was like You Need Mom For This Trust Me#lmfaooooo
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as a picky eater, it's like. super annoying when people act smug when you try something new and like it like come on 😐 leave me alone 😔 i fucking *wish* i liked more foods goddamn!
#my dad wasn't beeing too bad about this but like man. i said the crab cake i tried was kinda good.#im not ordering that on my own or anything but like if it's brought to the table as like an appetizer then#maybee id have one? ALSO the fact that a classy restaurant made them i feel like is going to automatically be better#than other places no? (not always but since i generally hate seafood and fish youre going to have to impress me if that makes sense)#cus he's like well crab cakes are pretty much the same everywhere and man i certainly doubt that!#look at the restaurants we have in town man 😔 they're not great and if any of them served crab cake then im not eating it at those places#(unless he meant like the only places that have crab cake would bee fancier but idk)
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BOO 👻
FUCK
#HI#hope your day is going well :3#buggy thoughts#buggy answers#better than drinking alone#bee movie (2003)
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hi, i saw your post on tips and rules that you've learned with anxiety and it was extremely helpful, but i was wondering, have you ever been anxious in public? like feeling anxious and getting overwhelming racing thoughts? not in a social anxiety kind of way, just anxious about things you normally worry about coming randomly to you in public, and if so how do you deal with that? (you don't have to answer ofc)
Two interpretations of this; hopefully one of them is helpful for you.
First interpretation: if you mean you start to have an anxiety spiral and you don't have the privacy you normally use to calm down? Yeah, I've had that.
If you can, get headphones and listen to music. Any music works, but I'm a worldbuilder, so putting on something that lines up with a project I'm working on gets me thinking of that project instead of the current spiral.
If you can't use that, and you can't find a way to get privacy, you have to do a little detective work. WHAT is making you anxious? Are you worried about something someone said, and it's spiraling into a crisis of "everyone hates me"? Did you leave something on at home, and now you're going through worst case scenarios? Is there something important coming up, and you can't stop thinking about it? It can be anything, but those are the ones that plague me most.
Step one: Figure out the source of it.
Step two: Once you know what it is, envision two things: The absolute worst that can happen, and the absolute best that can happen. Not just the end result: walk yourself through getting to that point.
Step three: Dismiss both of those, because they're both incredibly unlikely. The most likely thing to happen is something in the middle.
Step four: Focus on that middle outcome and treat it like it's inevitable. How are you going to deal with it when it shows up? The more you think about solutions to that, the more the worst case scenario is going to fade into the background.
It takes a lot of practice.
If, on the other hand, you mean that your thoughts are so fast and that it's making your head spin and your heart race and your stomach feel sick, then distraction is KEY.
Start bringing headphones everywhere and find something on Youtube to listen to. Pick a project that encompasses a lot of thought processes and focus on what you want from it (as I said, I worldbuild, so I'll start thinking of planetary formation or monster classifications). Start counting your steps as you walk from place to place, or the tiles on the ceiling if you can't move.
Neither of these are going to 100% work on the first try. It takes conscious decision to do them, and to stop thinking about the source of your anxiety in the first place. But if you chip away at it and tell yourself that the thing you're worried about isn't that bad, then very slowly, you'll start to believe it.
#you've gotta think of coping mechanisms like medicine#first pill isn't going to get rid of your fever#you've gotta be consistent with it until it's all gone (ie: thinking about coping mechanism only serves to go through the motions)#or else you aren't going to get permanent progress#and some people have better immune systems than others so sometimes it takes less effort#you get what i'm saying?#ask bee#anxiety
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My mom needs to stop accusing my kitten of peeing on the floor every time she sees any spilled liquid. It's true that the baby had a bunch of accidents but she's doing better!! She's using her litterbox most of the time but my mom sees any water on the floor and is like. Your cat peed again 🙄 always sounding as if it's my fault. And on a few different occasions she got angry at Salem for doing a mess even though it was clearly water on the ground, not piss. Leave my baby alone
#also like. shes very bad at helping salem with her litterbox#i mean sometimes salem goes to the bathroom but tries to pee somewhere else. like she understands that thats the pee room#so any time i see her enter the bathroom i immediately put her in the litterbox if shes not already in it#and i told my mom that#and i also told her what to look for when salem is about to pee and if she starts digging in the floor we have to put her in the litterbox#and i do it always and salem is getting better at it#but mom kinda ignores the signs that she may piss and then gets upset that she pissed#also like unrelated to salems litterbox problems. but mom is so bad at understanding her body language#in like very basic ways#i mean when salem is asleep dont wake her up. when salem has zoomies you cant cuddle her or shell try to play w your hair or hands#sure im no expert on cat body language and im still learning to understand my baby but these are like. obvious#idk maybe its like partially me just being overprotective of the baby like. you dont know her like i do#but she doesnt know her like i do#sure we adopted her a week before i came back from germany so my mom and brother knew her longer than me#but my mom is at work most of the time#its me and my brother taking care of her#ugh#bee buzz
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ngl at times i get the urge to datamine some of the convo files to see if some of the lines Berci is getting are responses to his behavior or just generic lines that a custom Tav gets, but at the same time those lines usually play out in a funny way so i don't want to wreck the illusion
#hablaty#bee gee three posting#like the emperor was gushing about how complex his mind is and how it's full of contradictions#and how that made figuring him out challenging but fun#and like... we're talking about bertalan aka berci here#he's a good guy but he's also a trainwreck at being a good guy#he has an intelligence of 9 (9 now bc he got one point plus with the investigation proficiency whoops)#so like... what? where?#and then he followed it up by saying he responds to facts better than to coddling which... that's true tbh#mainly bc my guy is kinda literal you have better chances to get him to do your bidding by just telling him to do it than manipulating him#so it was a funny convo from that perspective and i do wonder if he just says that to everyone or if it's a beginning of BoW moment#also gale called him tenacious when the two of them first talked about tara#and i saw that he has alternate lines with the different origin characters#but i haven't seen if he has anything else to say to tav so that has me curious too#idk i'm just interested in how my boy is perceived bee gee three doesn't have a neat little reputation tracker like the pillars games
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Selkieposting on Our Own Blog now! Although selkies technically can carry their pelts on their backs, and said pelts have limited shapeshifting abilities, this isn't done often. Why? Because, though they have limited abilities, they are still pelts - some sections of them have additional structure in the form of bones, even!
As such, especially with the very limited number of pelts in general that Exist, it's immediately obvious you're carrying around a selkie pelt - which in turn means that either you're a selkie, or that's Someone Else's Pelt (which is most likely stolen, by statistics alone), and with how valuable selkie pelts are (especially living ones, with the shapeshifting abilities that they can offer), most people really don't want to advertise that they have that big glaring weak point. A mix of safety in obscurity and not showing off your most valuable possessions every day.
#also if you wear one on the street then someone could technically just snatch it off your back which would be. Not Good#most selkies don't really bring them out. they stay at home where theyre safe. limits how far one can range from home but eh#better than risking having it stolen#selkie pelts are like the only source of animal skin out there as well unless you live somewhere very weird like The North#and thus can get skin from some of the very few remaining mammals or the handful of bug species with REALLY out there mutations#as such even dead selkie pelts are insanely valuable and you dont really want to broadcast you have them#leifs pelt gets hung up over the mantlepiece after his “death”#and his family all rationalize its occasional movement as the house settling and such right up until. uhh. An Incident#which we will write. eventually.#bf aus#selkieverse#basically like if your soul was tied to one of those ostentatious rich people fur coats you see in movies n shit#insanely luxurious item. if someone takes it You Will Fucking Die and people knowing u have it in and of itself is A Risk#there are legal protections against stealing pelts in the bee kingdom ofc but there are often. Issues With Reporting That#since whoever has your pelt also has control of you#unpleasant situation all around
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my brother's copying me lol
#i eat bees.#my mom shared with him my adhd diagnosis and now hes on that train all of a sudden#like my good bitch .... ive been ahead of the curve for fucking hears#he does this all the time too#like he sees smth from me and that its working and hes just like. o i need to do that exact same thing right this instant and do it BETTER#bitch youll never be better than me bc youre still stuck in your head
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aventurine & an older reader whose husband is his target for a takeover—he gets the asset and takes you too, a sprinkle of salt in the wound
#bee chats#he knows you deserve better than your husband#but also doesn't consider himself any better#so he's just intent to get you out#but he can't help but covet a little bit too#and you're not willing to be pushed off either
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(Usogui chapter 014)
(Usogui Chapter 395)
(Usogui chapter 404)
(Usogui chapter 465)
(Usogui chapter 530)
hi, i love dynamics that r like “we make each other worse” on the surface but when u look deeper it is actually just “we understand each other on a level that no one else does and nudge each other out of our typical comfort zone” which just circles around to “we make each other better”. it’s abt the accidental growth just by being in each other’s lives. idk
#i like to let pages speak for themselves but for added context thats the 1st 2 chunks for makin each other worse#then them understanding each other more than anyone else ever could ''your relationship is truly complicated'' + its 25#then them making each other better :]#i couldve used the prince bee pages for this also but they deserve their own post which someone did do n i gotta read#usogui#usogui meta
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