#I love you fics with plots also | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nadvs · 10 months ago

Note

heyyy i have a request i think about whenever i go to your profile. about an angst or fluff fic or blurb about your bio(?) “i don’t think your friends will like me” with rafe and (hopefully)kook!reader. (i hope this sparks interest if not its fine <3)

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Your friends were less than thrilled when you told them that you were talking to Rafe, but they held their tongues. Once you started dating him, though, they refused to keep quiet any longer.

He has a bad reputation. He’s known as a psychotic douchebag who gets into a fight at almost every party. And they reminded you of that every time you mentioned him.

You finally snapped one day, telling them that you appreciate the concern, but you’re with Rafe for a reason. They weren’t exactly supportive, but they shut up.

He isn’t all he presents to the outside world. Behind the inflated machismo, Rafe is fun. He’s sweet. He makes you feel like flowers are blooming in your chest every time he looks at you. And nobody can convince you that he’s simply no good.

The country club is loud and bustling, every partygoer dressed in the best, most expensive thing in their closet.

After a month of dating, this is your first time coming to a club party with Rafe as his girlfriend. His hand is at the small of your back as you enter the ornate banquet hall.

You look up at him, smiling at the adorable way he scans the room, the chandelier lights twinkling in the blue of his eyes.

Rafe is out of his element. He usually comes to these things with his buddies, drinks a little too much, and doesn’t give a shit what people think.

But he’s here with you. And the pressure is heavy on his shoulders.

“My friends are over there,” you say, pointing to a table on the far side of the room. You spot a few free seats.

“I don’t think they’ll like me,” he replies, voice low, lips curled up in a nervous smile.

You pivot to face him, hands smoothing over the fabric of his suit jacket.

“Well, I like you,” you say matter-of-factly. Rafe looks down at you with a knitted brows.

“Yeah, for now.” His words leave his mouth before he can even think about them. Rafe glances away, his lips in a nervous, hard line.

“What’s that mean?” you ask softly.

He only shakes his head, an awkward smile on his face.

“Nothin’,” he drawls.

You won’t take that as an answer. Your hand finds his. Rafe loves the feeling of your palm pressed around him as you lead him out of the room you just entered.

Your heels click against the floor as you round the corner into an empty hallway, turning to face him again.

“What’s that mean, Rafe?” you ask again, your eyes deep with concern.

Rafe’s heart is pounding in his ears. He didn’t expect to have this conversation tonight.

It’s been eating away at him. He’s not an idiot. He knows his reputation. And he didn’t care about it until he met you.

“You…” Rafe sighs, looking down at the floor, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t even know where to start.

“Yeah?” you ask.

“I know you know what people say about me,” he finally says.

You don’t play dumb. There’s no point.

“And you think I agree?” you say. Rafe steps back, scratching the back of his neck with another sharp exhale.

“You might,” he replies, tone low. You look at him with doubt etched into every one of your features.

“Rafe,” you say with a breathy, disbelieving laugh. “I don’t care what people say. They’re wrong about you.”

He’s not so sure. He can’t control himself at times, anger and aggression pooling out of him. People see that ugly side of him. He can’t deny that that side exists.

“Are they?” he asks. His voice is thin and vulnerable. You haven’t ever seen him like this. “I’m not always like… the way you see me.”

Rafe feels like he’s teetering at the edge of a cliff now, seconds away from falling, from losing you.

“You know that we went to all the same parties before we got together, right?” you chuckle. Rafe meets your eyes again.

You saw him drink himself into oblivion and get into fights and leave parties with a bloodied face and swollen knuckles. Countless times.

“I saw everything and I still want you,” you say. “I don’t give a fuck if people don’t like you.”

Rafe’s chest burns. He almost dropped off the cliffside, but you just pulled him back.

He swallows the lump in his throat and pulls you in, cupping your cheeks to softly kiss you.

He didn’t care what anyone thought about him before. Now, he only cares about what one person thinks. And he’s kissing her and she wants him and that’s all that fucking matters.

#i wrote a blurb but also added this to my notes to maybe write as a full fic if i can construct a plot #i just love the concept of boyfriend rafe worrying about his rep with you :(#also first time writing a kook!reader hehe #ask #rafe cameron blurb #blurb #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron and you #rafe cameron and y/n #rafe cameron and reader #rafe cameron fluff

328 notes · View notes

miraculouslbcnreactions · 8 days ago

Note

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.

#anon ask #ml writing critical #ml writing salt #pandaofsecrets #character core #Once again none of this is meant to excuse any specific actions as “not that bad”#This is just me explaining how I approach the characters #I know there are fics out there that try to be sugar while embracing some of the bad parts of canon and that rarely works for me #To address these issues correctly you basically have to rewrite canon with the goal of properly setting up and addressing a specific issue #You can't just jump into canon as-is and fix anything in a truly satisfying way because canon is such a disaster #Lila and Alya is a perfect example #Alya's writing in Lila's episodes goes so hard against who Alya is supposed to be that you have to completely rework Lila and/or her lies #Which is why my list of favorite Lila takedowns is so short #Even the ones that are kind to Alya have her painfully gullible because of how badly written the Lila stuff was #You can't have Alya smart and clever while including all the things she's canonically done in the Lila plot and I hate it #Season five at least temporarily killed the fun of writing for this fandom for me #I hope to get it back so I can finish my in progress stuff because I really do love these characters #Canon just makes it so hard to have fun these days #The stuff I've heard about season six is just depressing #I hope my love for the characters and ideas comes through on this blog in addition to my frustration #I wouldn't be here if I just hated everything about the show #Canon is so beyond saving that I can't even read a lot of non-salty fanfic these days #The stuff that tries to embrace the later seasons while also giving happy endings just depresses me because it never works.#I can only read early canon stuff AUS and reboots #Only way I can enjoy the fandom is to treat canon as a popular but horrible fanfic that a bunch of the fandom is embracing for some reason

49 notes · View notes