#Give my boy a show

[cosmicgalaxy22]

How have I only recently found out that the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit show was cancelled back in December 2021?! I am distraught and gutted! My baby's one proper shot in the spotlight since 2012 that I was avidly looking forward to, snatched away by Disney Execs. Not to mention Oswald's not at Disneyland anymore so I’ll never get to meet him if I ever go :(

Ever since I found about about him sometime in 2016-2017 whilst doodling old designs for Disney cartoons, I completely fell in love with that little rabbit. Even more so after finding out about Epic Mickey.

Oswald is such an amazing character who deserves more respect than he gets and has a huge fandom too, so why does Disney do this to him? Give him a show!

[wasabi-gumdrop]

Kabru has a secret admirer in the castle!

[technically-human]

When the ghost who read to you as you died activates all of your Must Protect instincts

[aunmenosheteroenespanol]

2.12 Chimney Begins - 2.09 Hen Begins - 2.16 Bobby Begins Again - 7.04 Buck, Bothered and Bewildered

Tommy's family arc

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Pick One: Magical Girl Show or Rom-com. You cannot be both.

Early in season four we get the episode Gang of Secrets. An episode that ends with Marinette outing her secret identity to Alya. A touching moment that sparked outrage across the fandom because it meant that Marinette had made the choice to reveal her identity to her best friend while keeping her hero partner in the dark.

This choice spat in the face of the exceptions that many fans had for the series. Thousands of pre-season-four fanfics feature moments where Ladybug and Chat Noir promise each other that they'll be the first to know each other's identities. After the Alya reveal, scores of fanfics were written to salt on Marinette's choice to tell the "wrong" person.

Most of these fics feature a betrayed Chat Noir quitting or otherwise punishing Ladybug for breaking their promise to be each other's first, thereby destroying his faith in their partnership. But that promise was never made on screen. It only existed in the realms of fanfic and, when Chat Noir finally found out in canon, his reaction was largely neutral. He never once blamed Ladybug for her choice or pushed for a reveal or even asked for the right to tell one of his friends.

So what happened here? Why did the fans have such wildly unrealistic expectations of canon? Were their expectations even unrealistic or did canon betray them? The answer to that is not as straight forward as you might think because it all comes back to one of Miraculous' many, many, many writing problems: Miraculous is trying to be both a Magical Girl Show and a romantic comedy, but those are not genres that mesh. You can only be one (or you can be a third thing that we'll get to at the end as it's the easiest way to fix this mess, but I want to mostly focus on where the anger is coming from and why the writing is to blame.)

To discuss this mismatch, we're going to do something that breaks my heart and talk about some of Origins flaws. While I love that episode and unironically refer to it as the best writing the show ever gave us, it's not perfect and its flaws are all focused around trying to set up both genres. Do note that I'm going to use a lot of gender binary language here as magical girl shows have a strong focus on gender segregation and rarely if ever acknowledge gender diversity.

Let's Talk Magical Girls

Magical girl shows are shows that center on young women and their friendships. While male love interests are often present in these shows, the boys tend to take a backseat and function primarily as arm candy while the girls save the day and carry the narrative.

A great example of this is the show Winx Club. This show features a large cast of teenage girls who save the magical universe from various threats with their magical powers. Each girl has a love interest, but the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship. I don't even think that we see the guys fight or, if we do, it's a rare thing. They are not there to save the day. They are there to be shipping fodder.

Like most magical girl shows, Winx Club starts with the main character making friends with one of the girls who will eventually become part of her magical girl squad. This brings us back to Miraculous.

Did you ever find it weird that Origins implies that Marinette has no friends? She doesn't even have a backbone until new girl Alya shows up to become Marinette's First Real Friend:

Marinette: I so wish I can handle Chloé the way you do. Alya: You mean the way Majestia does it. She says all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. (pointing at Chloé) Well, that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people. We can't let her get away with it.

This is a bizarre opening because Miraculous is not about Marinette making friends or learning to stand up for herself. If you skipped Origins and just watched the rest of the show, then you'd have no clue that Marinette wasn't close with her classmates before this year. You also wouldn't know that Alya was new in town and you definitely wouldn't know that Marinette had never stood up to Chloé before this year. So why is this here? Why waste screen time setting up elements that aren't actually important to canon?

Miraculous did it for the same reason that Winx Club did it: magical girl shows traditionally start with the main character making friends with at least one of her eventual female teammates because Magical Girl shows are all about the girls and their relationships. The boys are just arm candy.

But Miraculous isn't a magical girl show. The writers have explicitly stated that it's a rom-com and romantic comedies aren't about female friendship. They might have female friendships in them, but that's not where the focus is. The focus of a rom-com is on the romance and Origins is very clearly all about the romance.

Origins as a Rom-com

Origins has a lot on its plate. It has to establish the villain's motivation for the first time, show us how the heroes got their miraculous, show us how the heroes first met on both sides of the mask, show us how they met their respective best friends, and show us how the heroes dealt with their first akuma. It would be perfectly understandable if this 40 minute two-parter didn't do anything with the romance. They have a full show to give us that!

In spite of this, Origins has some incredibly touching moments for both Ladynoir and Adrienette because romance is the heart of Miraculous. It is the main focus of the show. The driving motivation for both of our leads and the majority of the show's episodes. To tell the story of how their journey started without at least one of them falling in love would feel wrong. That's why we see both of them fall in love!

First we get Chat Noir giving his heart to his bold and brilliant lady, then we get Marinette's heart being stolen by the shy sweet boy who never once thought to blame her for her snap judgement of his character. We even get a touching moment where Chat Noir inspires his lady to accept her role and be Ladybug, leading her to boldly face their enemy and call him out:

Roger: I have a new plan, unlike you! Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You've already failed once! Ladybug: …He's right, you know. If I'd captured Stoneheart's akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn't the right one for this job… Cat Noir: No. He's wrong, because without you, she'd no longer be here. (they look at Chloe) And because without us, they won't make it, and we'll prove that to 'em. Trust me on this. Okay? Ladybug: Okay.

I love this moment, but it does lose a little of its power when you remember that we had an Alya-driven variation of this exact same thing five minutes prior:

Alya: HELP!! (Marinette suddenly gets filled with courage. She gets the case out of Alya's bag and puts on the Miraculous. Then, Tikki appears, happy to see Marinette again.) Tikki:(raising her arms) Mmmm! Marinette: I think I need Ladybug! Tikki: I knew you'd come around! Marinette: Well, I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but Alya's in danger. I can't sit back and do nothing.

This scene initially confused me because - if Miraculous is a rom-com - then why would you make Alya the reason that Marinette became Ladybug? Why wouldn't you have Chat Noir be the one in danger so that Marinette chose to fight because of her love interest and then encourage that bond with the later scene of him encouraging her? Why split the focus like this? Why give Alya so much attention?

In case you haven't figured it out, it's because Origins is trying to establish two different genres of show. Two genres that will continue to fight for the rest of the series (or at least the first five seasons).

Magical Girls Vs Rom-com

Why is Alya the one to shake off the nightmare dust and inspire the others during the season five finale? Why is Alya the one that Marinette trusts with all of her plans while Chat Noir is kept in the dark? Why does Alya and Marinette's friendship get so much more focus than Adrien and Nino's? Why was Alya the only temp hero who got upgraded to full time hero?

It's because Alya is Marinette's second in command in a magical girl show and magical girl shows focus on female friendships while the boys are just there to be cute and support the girls.

Why do most of Marinette's talks with Alya focus on Adrien? Why is Chat Noir the only other full time holder of a Miraculous for the first three seasons and then again for the final season? Why do Marinette's friends become more and more obsessed with Adrienentte as the show goes on? Why is the love square's identity reveal given so much more narrative weight than any other identity reveal?

It's because Miraculous is a rom-com and the love square is our end game couple, so of course the story focuses on their relationship above all else!

Are you starting to see the problem?

Circling back to our original question: no, it was not unreasonable for the fans to expect that the Alya reveal would have massive negative consequences for Ladynoir. That is what should happen in a rom-com and Miraculous is mainly written like a rom-com. But the writers are also trying to write a magical girl show and, in a magical girl show, Alya and Marinette's friendship should be the most important relationship in the show, so it makes perfect sense that the show treats the Alya reveal as perfectly fine because the Alya reveal was written from the magical girl show perspective.

When it comes to Miraculous, if you ever feel like a writing choice makes no sense for genre A, re-frame it as a thing from genre B and it suddenly makes perfect sense which is fascinatingly terrible writing! It's no wonder there are people who hate the Alya reveal and people who will defend it with their life. It all depends on which genre elements you've picked up on and clung to. Neither side is right, they've both been set up to have perfectly valid expectations. Whether those expectations are valid for a given episode is entirely up to the mercurial whims of the writers!

How Do We Fix This Mess

At this point, I don't think that we can, the show is too far gone, but if someone gave me the power to change one element of Miraculous, that element would be this: scrap both the magical girl stuff and the rom-com stuff and turn Miraculous into a team show where the friendships transcend gender.

At this point, I've written over a quarter of a million words of fanfic focused on these characters (the brain rot is real) and one thing I've discovered is that it is damn near impossible to keep Adrien and Alya from becoming friends. They're both new to their school while Marinette and Nino have gone to the same school for at least a few years. Alya and Adrien are both obsessed with Ladybug plus Adrien is a natural hype man who loves to support his friends and Alya loves to talk about her blog. Alya is dating Adrien's best friend. On top of that, Alya, Adrien, Nino, and Marinette are all in the same class, meaning that they pretty much have to be spending time together five days a week unless French school don't give kids a chance to socialize or do group projects. If so, then judging them for the first issue, but super jealous of the latter.

Given all of that, why in the world is does it feel like Alya is Marinette's close friend while Adrien is just some guy who goes to Alya's school? Along similar lines, while canon Marinette barely talks to Nino, I've found that Marinette and Nino tend to get along smashingly, especially if you embrace the fact that they have to have known each other for at least a few years.

If you embrace this wider friendship dynamic and scrap the girl squad, replacing it with Alya, Adrien, Marinette, and Nino, then the fight for narrative importance quickly goes away. It's no longer a question of is this episode trying to be a magical girl show or a rom-com? Instead, the question is: which element of the friend group is getting focused on today? The romance or the friendship?

A lot of hero shows do this and do it well. I think that one of the most well known examples is Teen Titans. That show has five main characters and the focus is usually on their friendships, but there is a very clear running romantic tension between the characters Robin and Starfire with several episodes giving a good deal of focus to their romance. I'd say that this element really starts in the show's the 19th episode - Date with Destiny - and it all culminates in the movie that capstones the series: Trouble in Tokyo. The character Beast Boy also gets a romance arc and, while it's more short lived, it's further evidence that you can have strong romances and strong friendships in the same show and even the same episode. You just have to own the fact that boys and girls can be friends with each other, a very logical thing to embrace when your show has decided to have a diverse cast of heroes instead of imposing arbitrary gender limitations on its magical powers.

I couldn't figure out a way to work this into the main essay, but it's relevant so I wanted to quickly point it out and give you more to think about re Origins. Have you ever found it weird how Origins gives both Adrien AND Marinette the "I've never had friends before" backstory and yet wider canon acts like Marinette has this strong amazing friend group while Adrien doesn't seem to care about making friends and instead focuses all his energy on romance? Why give both the protagonist and the supposed deuteragonist this kind of origin if it's not going to be a major element of the show? It makes so much more sense to only give one of them this backstory and then focus that person's character arc on learning about friendship.

[rivvyve]

Yes, they used Black Parade for the trailer. Yes, I know literally everyone on this site should have seen it for that reason alone. Yes. Dead Boy Detectives is worth the watch.

[krazieka2]

Here's a big old Fire Emblem Search & Find I did for the FE3H Masquerade Zine! Find the Golden Deer, but see if you can't find the rest of the students as well! For the ultimate challenge, see if you can't name every character! (Disclaimer two characters are NPCs with no names)

[vivitalks]

"percy, you really don't wanna start with this guy" "he's starting with me!" he is such a new yorker

[sojutrait]

boy room

[hum--hallelujah]

man I mean just. the SMFS album lettering is made of clay. the cover art is an actual physical painting. there's a lot less fx on the album as a whole than Mania (which is NOT a knock on my bbg Mania btw, just pointing out the different approach) or even SRAR and ABAP. the songs sound basically the same live as they do on the record because the production is so minimal. they have a huge vinyl dog head onstage with them, that they touch and interact with and talk to (and, in Pete's case, get eaten by). the attic scene is made by lowering a piece of rigging to literally make the stage smaller. there's actually a LOT of sets especially comparatively to their previous tours, the rigging around the stage is done up almost as a physical frame for it. they only have one screen onstage and it's small, its purpose is to be the 8-ball and to add a little bit of texture to the wider design. the backdrops, even the new desert scene for 2ourdust, are physical backdrops — one of which was made by one of Pete's kids — not LED or projections. the album title is made of clay. it's about existing in the world, making things so you feel alive, making the world a little more fuckin weird! do you get it yet?

[crismakesstuff]

ponyfies your superhero show 🐎🌟

[nell0-0]

AHHHH! He lost his EYE in the war! AHHHH!

I am perfectly normal about your last comic. I swear. Very normal. Just...not at all sobbing and emotional over it. You should know that. Definitely. ;_;

It's so good and so sad!

Yep ;u;

Glad you liked it tho!

Take the broken mask drawing as symbolism (?). A piece of him is now forever a part of Mask, and there's no taking that back.

There are many protrayals of Fierce Deity out there, but I like to think he ain't necessarily mean (quite the contrary), just a bit out of touch with how hylians work and feel. Fierce Deity deemed some things necessary for Mask's survival and well being, and not necessarily all of them were free of consequences. It was done with good intentions tho. If only he bothered to explain/tell Mask that...

Tormenting Twilight a bit is fun sometimes too ksksks

> Context about the ask HERE

> Twili Twilight looks HERE

> Continuation of this HERE

[bixels]

I'm not getting into The Giving Tree discourse...

[sabrondabrainrot]

Bring back LAES!

I'm steadily making progress on catching up on sun and moon show along with foxy and monty etc etc but it's pretty difficult when one of the main key plot lines is gone. I know a few spoilers thanks to fanfiction but I want to see the drama in person.

Here's some outfit ideas for tsams cause I'm a sucker for fashion and redesigns!

Order is, SolarFlare - Lunar - NewMoon - Old Moon - Sunny (Solar's dimension) - Sun

closeups and more brainrot under the cut!

Explaining my redesigns! Lunar - he's not really a redesign and more so an overdesign. I love adding tons of little details to him to really hammer home his star-ness. He's such an interesting little guy, like yes he acts childish but I can see he's really growing (SAD I CANT WATCH MORE CAUSE THE SHOW IS GONE). I saw the ep he killed Eclipse and homeboy revived. The entire time I was like "Waaahh Lunar??? Waaahhh???" but I love the drama ngl.

SolarFlare - Same as Lunar, not really a redesign I just drew him with no dirt. I really love his base design it's so neat it makes me think of like sci-fi concepts from the 80's. Something from fallout really. I think it's kind of funny Eclipse's aesthetics for SolarFlare when you compare him next to say Jack who Solar designed.

OldMoon - I just wanted to give him a sleek mad scientist cool guy suave vibe. I saw the more recent thumbnails of him with a turtle neck and idk that's just peak character design for me. I'm a simple woman put the dumb-dumb in a dark turtleneck. I want him to kind of look like the BadGuy TM (he's not actually) so he gets all edgy and hard edges and stuff.

NewMoon - I wanted to do a similar color scheme but instead he has lighter colors like more white incorporated into his fit. To give him the whole 'reborn' aesthetic. He's all like "old moon wore black well I wear white now I'm nothing like him so hah!" kinda thinking. I gave his cap a fur texture cause of that one ep he turned into a furry. I drew rounder stuff on him cause he's a big ol' softy sweety pie.

Sunny - Sunny is my headcanon of Sun from Solar's dimension. I think it's really interesting his default with no personality was theater performance and not say...doing daycare stuff? I feel like honoring the FNAF books with this design by leaning heavily into the theater performer look. I like to think in Solar's dimension Sun and Moon were originally made for theater. (so far in the show I've noticed Creator says 'they needed a daycare attendant' something like that so it comes off more like they were intended for the daycare from the start VS. Solar's dimension where Sunny's core seems to be more so for the performing arts.) I also wanted to make Sunny look different from Sun for the extra angst potential of "They're similar but not the same" so I leaned more into a blue palette for him.

Sun - I just wanted to give him big puffy everything. I took away the tutu. nothing against the tutu I just hate drawing the damn thing. I like to think Sun in main has white eyes because he's so burnt out from within. *badum tish* (eyes are the window to the soul-) I also covered him in stickers because he totally would just be covered in stickers from the kids. I also decided to give some of his rays cracks because I think he's extremely sentimental and even in a newly upgraded body (after using star power to defeat Eclipse the first time) he'd keep rays from his original body? I also put the cracks ones on the side of his face where Old Moon hit him. Why? Because it just seems like something Sun would do. I love him so.

Ok just some brainrot stuff, look away to avoid spoilers .

RUIN DESTROYED HOW MANY DIMENSIONS?? SOLARS DEAD. LUNAR KILLED ECLIPSE. DARK SUN IS PLOTTING??? MOON BE CRYING??? Also Francine just had a birthday! ONE OF THE BLOODMOON BOYS ARE DEAD AND SAME WITH ONE OF THE STITCHY BOYS??? HELLO?!?

I love the drama.

Also, I love how every single kid vibe checks Sun and he passes every time. Francine? She loves Sun and learns from him. FC? He ONLY feels safe with Sun for a bit. Barry? He hugged Sun after gonad checking him (a right of passage for the bunny kid). Jack? I'm pretty sure he literally is just one room away from Sun at all times (he also calls Sun's cats his master???). I have yet to see Dazzle, but Dazzle 10000% loves Sun (I've seen the edits).

ALSO? When Lunar was first brought into the family the first person he hugged was Sun and then later on when Earth was in danger he ran into SUN's arms for safety/comfort. They're family your honor.

Sobbing and Crying laying on the floor over Solar's death but I think he'll be back.

Also the molten thing with Ruin? I'm excited to see more.

I don't have a youtube account to post about saving LAES but if anyone wants me to draw more LAES just to help the community please let me know. I'm planning to draw my idea of Earth next.

[moeblob]

A lil guy !