#and it was also just. bad. it was badly written.

[vintageandroid]

Part of the enjoyment of watching stuff like The X-Files or Buffy or Star Trek or whatever is that like. Yes, there are some excellent episodes that are truly incredible, but sometimes an episode is the dumbest shit you've ever seen in your life AND IT'S DELIGHTFUL.

I mentioned this to a friend yesterday and she was like "Oh yeah because you know there will be good episodes again so it doesn't bother you!" but no. The bad episodes are fun on their own for me. I don't always want a slick streaming series with 8 episodes where each one is a work of tightly written cinematic excellence. I can enjoy that, too, but sometimes I want an episode with the dumbest premise known to man. Not all dumb, not all the time, not badly made or created as a joke, but just...silly but heartfelt.

Like yeah, okay, I love getting an episode where Brad Dourif is channeling the dead and it's beautiful and tragic and thought provoking and powerful, but sometimes I also enjoy "the problematic weirdly sexy genderfluid Amish people turned out to be aliens you guys" performed without a breath of irony.

[ragana62]

Hermione doesn't break rules openly, because she knows that having the aura of following rules means that when someone starts looking at the trio for who was responsible for all the laws broken, she will be written off on principle. She knows that being the responsible one gives her protection, and it gives all of them an escape route should things go badly.

I have always held it as a survival tactic. It's Hermione knowing that nobody even notices the quiet, polite, bookworm in the corner who just keeps her nose down and always turns in her work, with extra credit, perfectly complete a day early at least. The magical world is a dangerous place, she doesn't know anyone there at the start, and the people she does know have made clear to her on observation that even for those the magical world doesn't hate on sight, there's not much of a guarantee of help coming much less help that can do much of anything in the face of some of the opposition. She needs to fade into the background, because being in the spotlight is a target, and if she is going to take the spotlight, it needs to be for something positive like her academic work where she can still be written off as 'one of the good ones'.

And... it works. First year Hermione can walk up to multiple professors and say 'It's my fault, I read about trolls and thought I could stop it before it hurt anyone, they were just helping me' and every last one of them just nods and says 'yes, that seems perfectly plausible, good job boys, perhaps we don't do that again Hermione'. Second year Hermione already knows how to brew multiple NEWT level highly controlled potions and can steal the ingredients to make them, brew the potions in broad daylight, and turn up into the hospital wing when one goes wrong looking like a were-cat, and it raises no questions. The assumption is that she was just trying to work ahead and made a mistake, it absolutely wouldn't be that she stole ingredients to knock students unconscious and stick them into a closet so her friends could break into another house's common room while impersonating them. We see the pattern time and time again.

Hermione doesn't openly break rules, so her teachers, her peers even, don't look at her when a rule is broken, and more than that, if something goes wrong in the pursuit of breaking rules, she can bullshit her way out of it with little more than a 'oops, I was just really excited to try something new I learned and it went a little wrong, I'm sorry' and the problem goes away. And that's exactly why she feels confident she can get away with putting Rita in a jar, or stealing books from Dumbledore's office after sixth year, or any number of other things. Because she already has gotten away with things like that, and quite frankly, even if she does get caught, all she has to do is say 'I'm sorry, I was just really interested in some new reading material and didn't think he would mind since it was to help Harry...' and McGonagall will ignore it, or 'She broke the law, look, unregistered animagus! I was just trying to be responsible and help, especially with all the bad things happening around the tournament, you don't think she might have something to do with that, do you?' and everyone will just say 'ah yes, Hermione was just trying to enforce the rules and got a little overzealous, this is why we're going to make you a prefect. Maybe we need to put a little more thought into how we do that next time, okay? In the magical world, we tell an adult these things, instead of just jumping straight to trying to catch the perpetrator ourselves.'.

(I also think this is why Dumbledore is so confident in just saying 'two turns, you can save them both, have fun kids' and knowing she will know what he means. He has a rather similar understanding that appearances will always matter more than actions when it comes to consequences, even if I don't always agree as much with the actions he chooses to use appearances to cover over, and I think he recognizes that in her as well.)

i love how hermione has such a rule following aura that everyone ignores that she is the real rule breaker of the trio. harry sneaks out at night sometimes. hermione straight up kidnapped a whole woman and held her prisoner in an enchanted jar. even tom riddle didn't do that.

[tashacee]

you told me to send an ask on tumblr about bean and the hero's aspect so here i am i'd love to see what you do with that

the poor bean is NOT gonna be happy

Aspects of a Bean

(Written for the @lu-community-write-a-thon)

Link put on the Hero’s Aspect once.

Just once.

He was too nervous when he first got it. He was on his journey and busy and he wasn’t sure what it did and it all seemed like too much. Even after his journey he let it sit in his slate. The note said that it contained the soul of a pat Hero! He couldn’t just throw it on like a casual party outfit!

But…

One day. One day long after it was over, when Hyrule was at peace and he didn’t have to fight every day…

One day. Curiosity got the better of him and he locked the door of his little hut on the plateau and shooed out all but the most resolved of cats (Mr Tubbs), and he pulled out the Aspect’s Belt.

It was beautiful. The carving of the jade, the intricate ceramics, the enamel- it was an incredible artefact and honestly, should probably be preserved for all of Hyrule to see. Zelda would like to see it, he was sure, to examine it. He just… hadn’t told her about it.

He wasn’t sure why. It felt private, somehow, in some way that he couldn’t quite articulate. He carefully clipped the belt around his waist.

The change was immediate. One moment he was himself, small and nervous, in thick, loose clothes and a big, tight, mask, and the next-

Oh no. Oh nonono, this was not good. This was bad. Wild didn’t like this, didn’t like it at all-

He reached for his belt, determined to take it off immediately, but before he could, something opened up underneath him, and the world went dark around him, swallowing him whole.

-

“Monster, five o’clock!”

Warriors jumped at Legend’s shout, looking around as he drew his sword. They had just been out getting some firewood but this was not anywhere familiar to them, and none of them trusted the apparent peace of their surroundings. These woods were too calm, too pleasant. There had to be a monster camp around here somewhere, the Chain simply didn’t get lucky like this.

And sure enough, there it was. Two days of peace in an attempt to lull them into a false sense of security, no doubt, but now Warriors could see it. A huge, hiking beast, kind of like some of the moblins they had, but also totally unfamiliar to him. He could just see it through the trees, its strange, twisted body, its long snout. It had fur in a few, uneven patches, but most of its body seemd covered in thick, mottled scars. Clearly this beast had been in no small number of fights, then.

Warriors switched to his bow and drew it.

The creature jolted, one remaining ear twitching towards the sound of the veteran’s shout as it turned to face them.

Warriors loosed his arrow. It whizzed past the creature, just missing its head as he got a good look at its face.

Hylia above. To say that the thing had been in a few fights was an understatement. If the rest of its body was twisted with scars, its face was destroyed. Half of its snout was gone, long, sharp fangs exposed to the world, its red mane not growing at all around its ruined left ear, its eye permanently narrowed  by the misshaping of its skin.

Warriors had never seen a monster so badly scarred. Monsters weren’t usually keen on healing and care for their wounded - that this one had lived-

The creature shrieked and stumbled backwards, landing hard on its rump and scrambling away from them, eyes wide and wild. 

The four of them advanced, but something about this didn’t feel right. What kind of monster fell over instead of fighting? What kind of monster tried to flee?

Wars slung his bow back over his back and drew his sword once more, moving forwards.

The creature let out a small bark and - and reached up, trying to? To - to cover its face? Its maw? And it scrambled up. It had long legs and a damn tail, so when it tried it could move fast. In an instant it had turned and dashed off, vanishing into the forest.

Warriors held out a hand, stopping his brothers from chasing after it.

“What the hell, Cap?” Legend grumbled.

Wars shook his head. “It-” he broke off, staring at where the creature had vanished. “It’s not a monster. I don’t think. It was scared.”

Four nodded along. “It had blue eyes, not red.” he added. “And it wasn’t armed. It seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see it.”

Warriors hummed, but before he could speak was interrupted by a sound from behind him, where Sky had been standing.

“Uh… guys?” he said softly. He had drawn the master sword and had turned his head down towards its blade. “I- yeah. Warriors is right.” Slowly, he re-sheathed his sword, turning towards them and holding out his right hand. It was already badly scarred with lightning burns, but there was a fresh injury on his palm, lightly pink with the shape of diamonds pressed into it. The shape of the decorations on the Master Sword’s hilt.

“He’s not a monster.” Sky continued. He couldn’t look at them, blind as he was, but he was turned to them with an intensity all the same. “He’s one of us. He’s a Link.”

-

Needless to say, they all felt sick that they had mistaken a new brother for a monster. At first Warriors had tried to run after him, but he was already long gone and likely wouldn;t take kindly to being chased again so soon after they had literally tried to shoot him.

Warriors felt awful about that.

So instead, they headed back to camp with the news that they had found a new brother, and that he looked… less than hylian and that they may have tried to attack him as a monster.

Poor guy.

Warriors couldn’t get his face out of his head. That gaping maw, the twisted eye, the burns the whole way across his body. How could anyone live through something like that? How could someone live with scars that bad - they must have pulled and ached almost constantly. And then how he had tried to cover himself before fleeing.

Warriors felt awful. He hoped that he could get a chance to apologise. The guy clearly had been through a lot.

They ended up using Sky’s dowsing ability to search for him. They may not have had anything belonging to him but he bore the spirit of courage, and it was easy enough to search for that.

Well.

Easy enough to search.

Not easy enough to find though.

Warriors was honestly impressed. The guy had to have been seven feet tall and he had a tail. How he had managed to avoid being found for so long was no mean feat.

But of course, they did find him. In the end. He was a big guy, and once they started to find the broken plants and crushed grass where he had run through, they knew that they were on the right track. And then when they found the fallen tree, hollowed out by age, when they heard the soft, terrified sobs, they knew that they were in the right place.

The Chain stopped and exchanged glances, unsure of what to do. Only the original four had actually seen him, but they didn’t exactly seem like the ideal people to go and talk to him right now. Twi was probably the most outgoing but he relied on sign and they didn’t know if the guy would be facing them or if he even knew Hylian sign to begin with.

Wind was an absolute no-go. He meant well, but he was thirteen, and sometimes said the dumbest shit.

Time sighed and knelt, taking off his sword and setting it aside before crawling closer to the hollow.

“Hello?” he called gently. “So, funny story. My name’s Link. And so are all of my companions. And I think you might be too. Can I come in and talk?”

Warriors was standing only a little behind Time, and could just about see into the darkness of the log. To the huddled, shaking figure, curled up in a ball and facing away from them. It - he - keened, shivering all over, and Time raked a hand through his hair.

“I-” he said. “I know you had a bad experience earlier. My brothers- they made a terrible mistake. And they’re sorry. They’re right here, and-”

Another keen, this one in terror. Warriors felt his stomach lurch, and before he knew what he was doing, he had knelt beside Time, peering in.

“I-” he said. “I was the one who shot at you.” he could feel the guilt pool in his gut as he said it, could see his new brother freeze in place. “I- I dshouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Link. I can never take it back, but- but I want to help.”

He took a shuddering breath, and then in a moment of inspiration, began to unwind his scarf. The man - the boy? - in front of him was hardly clothed, but judging by his reaction, this was not his preferred state. He must have been brought here unawares, and Warriors wouldn’t have that.

“I- I’ve got a scarf. I’m holding it out, right behind you. If you reach back you can grab it, use it to - um. Whatever you want.”

The boy took a deep breath, then another. He was still trembling, but now a single, clawed hand reached around, feeling for the scarf. When he found it he snatched it away, pulling it around to his front.

It took a few minutes for him to wrap it around himself. Warriors was glad of how big his scarf was in this moment, because the poor guy seemed to not know what he wanted to cover the most. His head and face was his first attempt, but then as he made to turn he glanced down and saw his ruined torso and whined again, pulling at the cloth of the scarf to try and make it somehow bigger.

“Oh!” Time gasped. “Oh, right - here! Take my cloak! You can use it to cover yourself too!”

Sky gasped where he stood, understanding what was going on. “You can take my sailcloth too! Maybe that can help?”

Before long they had all donated something. The new Link seemed more than a little surprised to suddenly have so many lengths of fabric and spare garments thrust at him, but he didn’t protest. Within a few minutes he was wrapped up in a bizarre myriad of cloths and fully covered, and only then did he turn to face them. Only his teary eyes and long red hair were visible and he still seemed to shrink in on himself, drawing his arms in close, tucking his tail in around his legs. Warriors felt his heart break.

“Hi, Link.” He said, his voice maybe a little hoarse. “I’m Link, but I go by Warriors. We’re gonna look out for you now. It’s gonna be okay.”

-

Wild, as they named their brother, was a gentle, kind boy. He was nervous around others, and though some of that was due to being the only… whatever he was … in a world of hylians, the Chain could tell that most of it was due to whatever incident in his past had left him so badly scarred. They never mentioned it, of course, and instead welcomed him in with open arms. He was their brother, after all, and they loved him.

He laughed with them. He fought with them. He turned out to be an amazing cook and took over the making of meals each night, which no one complained about. 

He didn’t have to go along in an outfit made of scarves for long. Time had a few spare clothes that only took a little altering to fit him, and he didn’t mind that they made them loose. Hyrule wove together some dried grasses to make a mask that could cover the hole in his cheek and offered him a bag of salves for his scars. And then when they went to Ordon, Uli specifically tailored several outfits for him, much to his embarrassment and very obvious joy. They all knew by then that Wild loved pretty things, after all.

And little by little, he opened up to them. They couldn’t really communicate easily, not with the language barrier between their signs, but they made it work. They got to know him. They came to love him. Not just as their brother in courage, but as himself. As Wild. As Link.

And more than that - Wild surprised himself one day by realising that he loved them too. He trusted them too.

That they were a family, and somehow, wonderfully-

He was alright with that.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #7725:

Female writers that DO NOT know how to write men to save their lives deserve more harsh critique and way less defense.

Writers like CoHo, Stephanie Meyer, El James, and many more all exist, yet fans are expected to just accept how badly written most of the male characters they write are? In ways men that can't write women (AND men) are never defended?

Bad writing is Bad writing.

Also. I loathe when this overlaps with issues and double standards related to male fans and men in general.

Fandoms are so quick to point towards male writers that treat fictional male victims badly, as a "sign" that only men hate male victims and other men, yet a female writer that's just as spiteful and/or stereotypical around the men she writes should be ignored and/or praised?

Please listen and understand bad writing is never gendered.

[essektheylyss]

ngl, mentioning one of my hyperfixations does not necessarily activate my trap card. mentioning a book or media that I LOATHED, on the other hand,

[sageourplanetmeow]

It happened- they cancelled it. DUDE ALL THE CARTOONS I USED TO WATCH ON BOTH DISNEY PLUS AND NETFLIX HAVE PERISHED!

I’m a poor unfortunate soul.

And uh, so you know how MGADD had amazing representation for minorities? Along with other shows such as TGAMM and TOH it has been cancelled. Now, originally it could be fair to say this is a coincidence and this was purely Disney’s poor advertising strategies and them wanting to spend more money on their trash CGI films (in my opinion). However…

Yeah uhm- this episode was removed 🤨.

Excuse me? Why?-

Oh right, Disney is showing its true colours now. It doesn’t care about LGBTQIA+ representation, let alone trans representation. It cancelled this episode because what? Oh- I just found it- let me just…

“Respectful of the role that parents play in the discussions they have with their children”. Really? This is very obviously just insinuating that they want parents to say whatever they want about trans people. Well, guess what? Not every parent is an ally. Shocking, I know. This episode could have played an important role in terms of a kid watching it on their tv (not on internet archive) and considering that ‘ah yes, supporting trans people does seem like common sense’. Hell, maybe it could have decreased SOME level of bullying that happens in schools. Also, they’ve already reportedly removed a trans character’s storyline from Pixar’s new show: ‘Win Or Lose’ (which I haven’t watched). Also also they stopped queer representation (even in the background) in Gravity Falls. Also also also look at what they tried to do with ‘The Owl House’. They tried to suppress its queer representation. And not to mention the whole ‘Inside Out 2’ situation where they were telling them to change the lighting to make Riley seem less gay. Wow, Disney seems totally cool for doing all this. There’s no way they’re just been cowardly, transphobic and homophobic. Case in point, I find it hard to believe that Disney (as a company) has good intentions here. At this point, they’re getting rid of their cartoons and are constantly making CGI cash grab films.

At any rate, I am incredibly sorry to those who worked on the episode (which was completely finished by the way) just for it to be “held” from air. That must have sucked. Also, to other trans people, you have very right to complain about the way that Disney and everyone else in the world is treating us right now. It’s not shoving our queerness down their throats and it is not (in the words of a Rishi Sunak) “we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.” (I couldn’t bother to embed that quote).

Don’t listen to any friends or family members who say you’re exaggerating. They might mean well, but they’re been disrespectful. Don’t feel bad for fighting for your rights.

I’d also like to add that since trans representation for people of colour is already sparse/inadequate (as is representation for queer people of colour/people of colour and queer people in general), this is incredibly depressing. The show was very diverse and respectful, for that I have to applaud all of those who worked on the show. I mean that. It was amazingly well written, animated and designed. All the voice actors were brilliant at portraying their characters.

Ok I’ve said my piece, this is probably very badly written because I’m very tired. Join in the conversation if you have your own opinions or have more information to provide.

WATCH MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR

IT’S GREAT ESPECIALLY AT SEASON ONE’S FINALE I PROMISE YOU

PLEASE WATCH AND REBLOG THIS/ADVERTISE THE SHOW SO THAT SEASON 3 CAN GET GREENLIT

(Please we must prevent what happened to TGAMM, TOH, Ducktales and a bunch of other shows to happen to MGADD)

There’s also such clever writing in this show and the animation is creative and beautiful. The visual stuff is awesome. The fact that stuff have consequences and last and aren’t solved immediately means a lot. There’s some VERY powerful metaphors sprinkled in and the characters, their design and their VAs are fantastic and leave me wanting to see more of them after every watch.

Check out the tags cus I’m promoting more shows in there including ones that are already gone but oh well.

Oo imma also promote some indie shows in there.

[narnia-dreamer]

Me, going to Critical role tag to see Predathos arts and theories (and also parallelisms to the Collector):

Also me, finding only hatred and people complaining:

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

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.

[dellinah]

You know what. Who wants a damn ramble.

These two pieces of media are very unrelated but I promise they make me feel similar things in opposite ways

Maybe bc i watched both in the same week but anyway

I've seen both Mufasa 2024 and HB several times having their writing and plots compared to "fanfiction" and obviously it's an insult and people never go any deeper than that but I'm tired of accepting that fanfic-y plots aren't hella cool sometimes and that it's all the same bc it's really not and also man it's really not that deep in the end oh my God

Bc you know what. We write/read fanfiction bc we want silly guilty pleasures that we rarely see in "professional" writing and we want to see those cool tropes happening. But then when those tropes do happen people complain that it isn't professional enough??? So what the fuck do you want then

Like Loona having a demon feral wolf form is PEAK deviantart 2012 furry fanfic headcannon but also. That's so fucking cool man. I love her. People ask oh why does she have a demon form but man why should she NOT. Yeah you'd see it in fanfics but isnt that bc we want it. It's in character and in universe and it's cool and I love it bc it's so random but it doesn't destroy the universe and it's COOL it really doesn't go deeper than that man

Meanwhile Mufasa writing is fanfic-y in the way that it has a lot of tropes that you see in TLK fanfiction (white lions, made up lion biology, etc) but it's also BAD bc it's sooo badly connected and the pacing is terrible but also they don't even DO anything cool with it. It doesn't do anything new or exciting with the wacky ideas they decide to use. It doesn't do anything cool with white lions. It doesn't do anything cool with Mufasa being adopted. All comes and goes and leaves no impact.

It'd be the same if they'd randomly introduced Loona's wolf form while she was on the phone or smth. Literally nobody would find that cool the way we are now bc it's hella cool THE WAY they did it

Like fanfics can be bad or good and that's fine bc the only reason they exist is to be self-serving and I give them all the right to be as dumb and as badly written as they deserve and for some people it's just stress relief and some people are literally 11yos having fun. Do whatever you want

But when you have some kind of production then yeah, we expect some level of quality. I just don't think that being "fanfiction level / fanfic-y" is inherently bad you know. It's about how you use it

Both Loona being a feral demon and the whole Mufasa movie have a lot of fanfic tropes but one of them used it in cool ways and the other used it in dumb ways but the tropes themselves aren't the problem you know

I just don't think that fanfic tropes are inherently bad and I'm tired of acting as if they are. Fuck I love THE LION GUARD over Mufasa because The lion guard actually does cool stuff with whatever they did and embraced it being as insane as it is while Mufasa just threw random stuff and didn't do anything with the tropes they used. I would be SO INTO Mufasa having white lions and ghosts and magic and fights and lion monarchies if they bothered to do anything cool with it.

I don't know man. It's not that deep. Sometimes stuff can be silly but also cool. Media can be silly and fanfic-y as long as they write it in a cool way. Which Helluva Boss did and Mufasa didn't and that's the point

Have a great night

[nekoyin]

so I saw this at class, did it, thought I posted it, turns out I didnt so TAKE TWO

ty for the tag <3 I'm gonna do my husband of almost a decade now Poe Dameron

1. Was there any specific point / any specific moment that suddenly made them your Blorbo, or did you slowly grow to love them more and more until they became a Blorbo to you? lowkey fell in love with that pretty ass face from the start THEN HE OPENED HIS MOUTH AND WAS SASSY??? also love me a man who'd punch a person in power that's hot 

2. What’s the thing you love the most about your Blorbo? uh uh uh yes (if I had to choose, his passion and want to free people from the First Order/the fact he's a revolutionary)

3. What's the thing you dislike the most about your Blorbo? the fact he's not real and kissing me rn :( (and that he risks his life a lot of the time to try and save as people as he can, it's noble, but it worries me ;;;;)

4. If you could talk to your Blorbo, what would you say to them? I love you. I'll always support you no matter what UNLESS YOU GO ONE SOME STUPID SUICIDE MISSION DON'T DIE I'LL CRY :(((

5. What's the one thing the fandom gets wrong about your Blorbo? I think that Poe being a flirt is a thing, but I don't see him being like this fuckboy that lays with people and doesn't care/forgets names afterwards. He seems the type to remember everyone's names, whether or not he is friends with them enough to sleep with them if that makes sense. 

6. Is your Blorbo an introvert or extrovert? Extrovert 

7. Describe your Blorbo in 3 words. pretty, brave, dumb (affectionate)

8. If your Blorbo were real, would you trust them with your life? Yes. Absolutely. He seems the protective type so I am SAFE

9. Do you talk to your family or in-real-life friends about your Blorbo? THEY ARE SO FED UP WITH ME YAPPING ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE HIM LMFAO 

10. Is there any crime, any wrongdoing your Blorbo could commit that would make you stop loving them and remove them from your hyperfixation entirely? Nah bro i lowkey like my men a lil insane so

11. Do you like seeing your Blorbo suffer? Mixed. Cuz I like angst, but I need a happy ending. 

12. Do you ship your Blorbo with any character? ME DUH (and kinda Finn but I relate to Finn a lot so what that say bout us)

13. If your Blorbo is from a live-action media, are you also a fan of the actor who plays them?  YAH he was my introduction to Oscar Isaac

14. Would you still love your Blorbo if they were real? YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. HOW BAD. I AM TRYING TO GET A REAL LIFE POE DAMERON TO DATE. PLEASE UNIVERSE ONE CHANCE ONE-

15. Is your Blorbo a victim of badly written script / bad plot / character assassination in the hands of canon? Yes imo and it makes me so so sad :(

16. If you could change one canonical thing about your Blorbo, what would it be? I think I'd change the fact that he tried to get back with Zorii, I don't mind her existence, but she was literally abusive POE BABY WHY ARE YOU ASKING TO KISS HER YOU SHOULD BE KISSING ME :(((

17. When you first discovered your Blorbo, did you realize from that moment that they would become your Blorbo? Oh I was torn between him and Kylo initially, but I knew I'd like Poe more for longer… didn't really expect this long though HAHAHA

18. Do you gatekeep your Blorbo? / would you want more people to know about your Blorbo? I TRY TO BUT HE'S TOO POPULAR :( People are like “oh I'm his biggest fan/spouse” and I'm like GET OUT YOU JUST JOINED THIS FANDOM IVE BEEN HERE SINCE DAY ONEEEEE /hj

19. Has a fanfic about your Blorbo ever made you cry? Thinking about him can make me cry. I'm trying to write a fic rn that the PREMISE made me cry (I’m sensitive)

20. Do you think this character will still be your Blorbo three years from now? I'VE BEEN HERE ALMOST TEN YEARS BABY IT AIN'T EVER STOPPING

uhh idk who to tag but @latenightbrawler pookie look at the thoughts about my husband

20 Questions

BLORBO ASKS GAME

reblog if you’d like people to send you asks about your Blorbo

was there any specific point / any specific moment that suddenly made them your Blorbo, or did you slowly grow to love them more and more until they became a Blorbo to you?

It was immediate. Watching Steven flounder then discovering the tragedy that is Marc. I started on the show, then began collecting the comics.

what’s the thing you love the most about your Blorbo?

I loved the representation of DID, autism and childhood trauma.

what’s the thing you dislike the most about your Blorbo?

We barely got any Jake in the show, and he’s such a fantastic character in the comics. Comic Jake is the only way I can imagine him. Moustache and all.

if you could talk to your Blorbo, what would you say to them?

Not a thing. He’d get a damn hug.

what’s the one thing the fandom gets wrong about your Blorbo?

I think every adaptation is unique to that person and they’re wonderful for sharing. I’m a hoe for every crumb I’m not even sorry.

is your Blorbo an introvert or extrovert?

Depends who’s fronting. Steven’s an ambivert: extroverted to avoid the feeling of loneliness, introverted in his hobbies and day-to-day. Marc’s a huge introvert and doesn’t like many people, how Frenchie puts up with him I don’t know. Jake is a natural extrovert, it comes easy to him to find a friend in anyone.

describe your Blorbo in 3 words

Damaged hot mess

if your Blorbo were real, would you trust them with your life?

Most likely… kinda. Squinting real hard at you, Khonshu.

do you talk to your family or in-real-life friends about your Blorbo?

My partner can’t get away from my obsession. My brother brought me the same MK action figure Marc's holding in the asylum. It was really unexpected and touching. They let me drag them all over the city stopping in as many comic stores as I could visit.

is there any crime, any wrongdoing your Blorbo could commit that would make you stop loving them and remove them from your hyperfixation entirely?

Mean to animals would make me very sad.

do you like seeing your Blorbo suffer?

Every damn day of the week.

do you ship your Blorbo with any character?

I ship him with anyone and everyone, it’s such a problem. I love all ships in all shapes and sizes. All the new ships coming out of Marvel Rivals has sustained me well lately.

if your Blorbo is from a live-action media, are you also a fan of the actor who plays them?

Oscar Isaac is one of the best humans alive. I love his face, his personality—everything. He made it easy to love the characters he plays.

would you still love your Blorbo if they were real?

Probably. I’d always be rooting for him that’s for sure.

is your Blorbo a victim of badly written script / bad plot / character assassination in the hands of canon?

Kind of. How they handled Jake suucked.

if you could change one canonical thing about your Blorbo, what would it be?

Make comics Jake canon!

when you first discovered your Blorbo, did you realize from that moment that they would become your Blorbo?

I didn’t expect to go down as bad as I did. It wasn’t until I started writing him in 1x1 & group roleplays was where I truly fell down the hole.

do you gatekeep your Blorbo? / would you want more people to know about your Blorbo?

No gatekeeping allowed in this house! I am thrilled anytime more people discover MK by any means. It’s so much fun seeing new people arrive and interact with the fandom.

has a fanfic about your Blorbo ever made you cry?

Not a fanfic, but episode 5 made me ball. Hit close to home. I’m not one to cry easily so have yet to find a fanfic that will.

do you think this character will still be your Blorbo three years from now on?

Probably, I still have a lot more to write and explore.

Questions posted below empty for easy copy paste:

was there any specific point / any specific moment that suddenly made them your Blorbo, or did you slowly grow to love them more and more until they became a Blorbo to you?

what’s the thing you love the most about your Blorbo?

what’s the thing you dislike the most about your Blorbo?

if you could talk to your Blorbo, what would you say to them?

what’s the one thing the fandom gets wrong about your Blorbo?

is your Blorbo an introvert or extrovert?

describe your Blorbo in 3 words

if your Blorbo were real, would you trust them with your life?

do you talk to your family or in-real-life friends about your Blorbo?

is there any crime, any wrongdoing your Blorbo could commit that would make you stop loving them and remove them from your hyperfixation entirely?

do you like seeing your Blorbo suffer?

do you ship your Blorbo with any character?

if your Blorbo is from a live-action media, are you also a fan of the actor who plays them?

would you still love your Blorbo if they were real?

is your Blorbo a victim of badly written script / bad plot / character assassination in the hands of canon?

if you could change one canonical thing about your Blorbo, what would it be?

when you first discovered your Blorbo, did you realize from that moment that they would become your Blorbo?

do you gatekeep your Blorbo? / would you want more people to know about your Blorbo?

has a fanfic about your Blorbo ever made you cry?

do you think this character will still be your Blorbo three years from now on?

Inspired by the wonderful @psycheetamore Hitting a few others I'd love to see do this! @mystra-midnight @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @faretheeoscar @moonbeammist @therapardalis @weheartchrisevans @silvermoon343

[mintaikkcorpse]

There's always those fics that put too much emphasis on it 😔

(Original video made by rarityswifez of Tiktok. I just added the words)

[gay-jesus-probably]

Fantastic news everybody: Zuko/Sokka is only about 600 fics away from overtaking Zutara as the most popular ATLA ship tag on AO3. Finally, nature is healing.

[corellianhounds]

There were parts of TBoBF I wanted to like but the writers and directors just kept making story choices that made their characters look dumb or inept.

I wanted to like the fight sequence with Mando and Boba working around each other in the streets, but if they were able to hide on the rooftop of the bombed out Sanctuary until getting the drop on the Pykes et al., why on earth would they leave the rooftop

Why would you come out of hiding. Why would you give up your cover in exchange for being wide out in the open. Why would you give up the literal high ground to go stand in the middle of a three-way intersection within a more achievable firing distance for your enemies. Why wouldn’t you stay on the roof firing from afar, something the both of you as hunters would not just know how to do better than anybody else there, but would know TO do in this specific situation. Why are you negating the element of surprise and the entire purpose of being on the rooftop to begin with.

I don’t care how cool they could have looked. I don’t care that we get to see the jetpacks in action. I don’t care how it’s supposed to represent some “I’ve got your back” moment between these two. It’s an incredibly basic directorial and fight choreography flub to have your two characters purposefully put themselves into danger when you’ve literally just established that they had the strategic advantage. Even children know it’s harder for people to get to you when you’re up somewhere out of reach.

[elliotly]

Wait, you’ve never been to a psychiatrist and had your brain issues made cannon? I thought it was all intentional ngl. There are so many “Have you ever been tested for (insert disorder)” coded characters in your work.

nope, but that may change in the future! growing up, my family alas was of the belief that quote-on-quote "mental illness" is "all in your head" (which, like, yeah that's kind of the point.) Idk, to their credit, they also taught me that thoughts don't matter as much as actions do. Everyone responds differently to different things, and that difference doesn't have a Moral Value or make you a Bad Person. a lot of Instincts that People Oughtta Have don't matter as much as the positive actions those instincts are supposed to lead to, and realizing this helped me a lot growing up.

as for a lot of my characters' POVs, I often write based on how I see the world/experience things, albeit sometimes with certain facets amplified. but that's kind of why I don't claim a lot of my characters have a canonical neurodivergence and/or (insert disorder) even if it ends up being pretty obvious they might, because if it was unintentional, I don't wanna claim unintended 'representation' JK Rowling-style lol. (that being said, I do also write characters with canonical neurodivergence in mind! this stuff only applies to like, the ones where i haven't clarified/confirmed anything specific.)

[sherlock-is-ace]

watched the first ep of Dead Boy Detectives today, did anyone also think the dialogue was a bit clunky?

I don't mean it was unwatchable or anything i just feel like it didn't feel realistic the way they introduced the characters and world... It felt like the dialogue was for the viewer instead of an in character thing. We were gonna be introduced to a viewer surrogate within the first few minutes, there was no need to have the characters who already know how the show's world works spell it out for nobody... and then explain it again when Crystal showed up? idk it felt like something I would write (not a complient) 😅

[definitely-not-an-alb]

Back with the bullshit, in today's news of 'I think these two guys don't have the greatest reading comprehension', they just compared King's writing to being in the YA style of having generally very little to no subtext and such and then as an example used the Hunger games ... and then went and promptly summarized Katniss's character in such an embarassingly wrong way I would never let myself be caught on tape with it.

To give an example for why I keep beefing with this to people who haven't read these books but have read Hunger Games; one of the cohosts thinks Katniss 'has no interiority that is not fully explored by the narrative itself' - a statement that I would not even directly disagree with, if it was not then immediately followed by the explanation of it: 'we know all of her thoughts, we know she likes kind of that weird little bread man and the big buff hunter man! she likes both men! and so that's what the novel's about, it's doing that'. And, like, mate, based on that 'analysis' of a book written for 14 year olds, I think you should in fact not be analysing anything more complicated than Stephen King novels.