#at least for the early seasons

[muse-write]

Halfway through OUaT S2 and the Rumbelle feels are real.

[twinstxrs]

so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.

[stewy]

i like wilson because he's always next to house but he never publicly defends him he's like you're my best friend i love you and you're on your own <3 godspeed

[vaguely-concerned]

there are a lot of daddy issues to go around on DS9 in general, but odo, bashir and garak are really in their own special little fucked up 'what am I but wrought in my father's image' club

[lostuntothisworld]

Okay so I think it's time for another spaghetti theory:

Lilamoth isn't collecting moms. She's collecting sisters (or siblings)

Let me explain my thought process here. So a big complaint the fandom has is that we don't have a proper rogue gallery for villains. It's just the butterfly, and nothing else. It worked for early seasons, but things might be getting stale for some folks.

Enter new characters connected to Lilamoth somehow.

So she has 3 moms so far (that we know about.) All but one have something in common: dark hair and blue eyes.

From left to right we have Mrs. Rossi (red), Mrs. Bianca (white), and her third mother who is deaf could possibly be Mrs. Verdi (green).

Then we have this fourth lady that we see Lilamoth watching on her phone in the season 5 finale. I would NOT be surprised if Odille is going to be her 4th mom. Dark hair and blue eyes, and she is also disabled, just like her third mom.

(And I would not be surprised if we find out her surname is Nero (black), or Viola (violet). More on that aspect of this crack theory in a bit...)

Anyway, back to the concept of a rogues gallery. In the finale we see Lila in a disguise that 's VERY reminiscent of one of her moms:

Certainly she can't expect to disguise herself as a woman in her 30's-40's, and especially not with glasses and bangs. But she can pass reasonably as a teenage girl with a dark bob and glasses. You know, a sister.

So we know a certain main character whose name is in the title and wears red with black polkadots has dark hair and blue eyes. We don't know Lilamoth's motivations and and end goal, but we can surmise that she wants to take the place of Marinette.

(And I KNOW I've seen at least one other person theorize this, and I cannot find the post(s) so if you can find it please let me know so I can link it here!)

The pictures we see is one of Marinette with her classmates on the Liberty where Zoe is accepted in the friend group, Marinette with her parents, 3 pictures of Marinette with Kagami, and one picture of Marinette with Luka.

It's interesting to note that there isn't a picture of Marinette and Adrien together shown to the audience. You'd think they'd emphasize that, but no, it's mostly Kagami. I know it's because it's because the episode focuses on Kagami, but still. Other than her, it's just Marinette's parents, Zoe and Luka (Luka! Marinette's ex!) showcased in the closeup screenshot.

I got sidetracked! Anyway, I think other than similar coloring (and color-themed surnames haha) Lilamoth is trying to find other teenagers who are willing to join forces with her. She probably will get her hands on some Miraculous for them, somehow. But I don't think the new jewels will be from the Chinese box.

Here's where things start REALLY going off the rails with this theory:

All of Lilamoth's rogue gallery of villains are her adopted sisters (or siblings) and they are all Luka's exes. He's got a type for Italians with dark hair and blue eyes...

Going back to the surnames, all the surnames have something in common: they share the colors of all of Adrien's various transformations over the course of the series so far:

Rossi: Mister Bug

Bianca: Chat Blanc

Verdi: Aspik

We're just missing Chat Noir (could possibly will be the surname Nero, as it's Italian)

and Ephemeral (it's interesting to note that the surname Lee in Chinese can mean plum, which of course, is purple)

So naturally, my crack theory circles back to Lukadrien is endgame.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

{{{{{{Edit as of April 3, 2024.}}}}}

I will NOT be surprised if this girl with black hair in an extremely recognizable style is a disguise of another sister.

Is Lilamoth collecting blackmail to manipulate them later? She's very obviously walking disguised in areas where there would be lots of cameras (The inside of the Agreste mansion, and the hotel).

(Edit as of April 27, 2024!)

Now we know the synopsis of the London Special, I believe the disguises are to hide Lilamoth's tracks because she knows Maribug's identity. Bonus points if these girls were previous Ladybugs in past time lines that Lilamoth stole the identities of...

[[[Edit: May 4, 2024]]]

I think I found the names of the previous Ladybugs: Marina, Shone, and Mio. (Please enjoy a silly extremely rough draft of where I'd personally go with the show)

As for the rest of the spray paint on the walls, this mural is an actual feature of the Paris Catacombs:

And while I think that most of the other tags on the wall are functionally meaningless and just there for ambiance, I do find the 777-777 tag to be of note. 7 Ladybugs till Lilamoth's goal? What's the deal with the arrows and the floating away 3 7's? Are 3 already "gone"??? Fascinating stuff! My mind is reeling!

[Edit for May 6, 2024]

Possibly figured out the source of the lightning in the season 5 finale. For whatever reason it's not showing up in the tags lmfao tungle is a functional website

[cable-salamdr]

In light of my nephew recently starting botw in German

(The fun thing about growing up with dubbing is realising the distinct lack of different VAs, so you end up randomly hearing Lego show characters blasting through the living room because someone is watching a dub.)

[wonderarium]

im the kind of person that generally takes media at face value when it comes to relationships and such. so its funny watching xfiles knowing mulder and scully are one of the patron saints of shipping while im just sitting here like im happy for these two really good friends that would literally kill and die for each other without hesitation :)

[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.

[guplia]

Okay so while rewatching season 7 I have suddenly gained a new respect for it lol

I love how despite being villains, Krux and Acronix still love each other and that Krux waited 40 years for his brother to return!

I also find it funny that Acronix travelled 40 years ahead in time, and from his point of view, his brother became old in a matter of seconds and nothing is the same anymore. But instead of being sad about it he loves the future! And technology!

The vermilion warriors are gross, lol. Ngl I felt sorry for Cyrus Borg in this scene:

If I were in his place I would literally die of shock. I would just ask Machia to kill me otherwise. Or maybe I would throw up.

But yeah! The time twins are cool and so is season 7!

[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

I FORGOT TO THROW OUT AFTER THE EPISODE RELEASED NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[sunshine-zenith]

Random thing that just hit me — wouldn’t Peri’s birth year actually be 2002 in universe, not 2001?

(Not to apply a coherent timeline to a franchise that literally has two of its main characters go on a ten thousand year long vacation, casually has dinosaurs be electricians, and had that one seemingly controversial episode dedicated to using magic to hand wave the floating timeline in universe, but the ANW did it first by having Cosmo canonize 2001 as when he and Wanda became Timmy’s fairies)

There was that entire special in the original series where the entire plot was kicked off by Timmy having Cosmo and Wanda for an entire year — Abra-Catastrophe. If Timmy got them in 2001, had a fairy-versary, and a hand wavey amount of time later wished Cosmo and Wanda could have a baby, that would logically put Peri’s birth in 2002, even with the timeline breaking/fixing magic the from later in the series

Putting aside the in universe weird ways fairies age and time passes in Fairy World and going off in universe birth year to in universe current year, that means Peri is 22, not 23. Not a big difference at all, but still neat to think about

[maraudersmary]

the bau do not care about any other part of law enforcement bc why are they picking up evidence without gloves like hotch babe you used to be a prosecutor you should know they need the untainted evidence to prosecute

[moonshynecybin]

Marc's ego acting as a protective buffer post-sepang ties into how 'win at motorcycle racing' comes before 'old man dick' in his hierarchy of needs - and that flow is, for me, what keeps rosquez from just feeling horrifically upsetting as a ship even pre-sepang. In 2013-2014 marc is so young and down so bad that the power imbalance could get untenably icky if it wasn't also abundantly clear that his sense of self/self-worth are derived from racing and not vale's opinion of him. 1/2

literally he is defining himself as a rookie in relation to vale as a flirting tactic, not because it has an impact on his self worth, and that is what makes it awesome… idk vale looked at this insouciant lil 20 year old speedrunning all of his most controversial moves in the space of a few months in his rookie season and was like. omg he’s just like me !!! and then later on it was [much darker tone of voice] omg he’s just like me…

and then when they fell out marc went okay. and had enough sauce and gumption to not only ruin vale’s day specifically at sepang during the race (and the resulting head loss arguably cost him the title) but then proceeded to win the next four world titles in a row AND vale’s backyard track misano SEVENNN times, the first of which in the premiere class was in 2015. like i think you’re right, what makes it a successful ship is that marc inarguably matches his freak from talent to joy right down to his ability to stunt on people based on pure fucking spite and the terribly heartbreaking interplay between them BASED on that similarity is neigh unsolvable but DEEPLY sexy as a result

[markantonys]

now for the training yard scene, i would hazard a guess that this is nynaeve on the right and elayne on the left (mostly hidden by the tree, but i can see a bit of long reddish hair peeking out)

i know it would be insane and illogical to have egwene and gawyn miss meeting each other by 1 episode, but if the andoran arrival isn't until 3x02 and we also have an image of rand and lan training somewhere outside tar valon in 3x02, possibly indicating they've headed out on their trip, and now we're seeing possibly only our tanchico crew still around in the white tower for the quarterstaff fight, i can't help but worry! of course, it's entirely possible that egwene is somewhere in this scene too but just not visible from this particular angle, or that this takes place later in 3x02 and she's met gawyn earlier in the episode before leaving with rand & co, or that the quarterstaff scene isn't until 3x03 (which i actually think might make the most sense since if the tanchico crew aren't reaching tanchico until the back half of the season, they'll need a little something to fill up a 3x03 in the white tower, and then i'd guess they'll sit out the big rhuidean ep4; this would also allow gawyn and galad's 3x02 screentime to be focused on just getting to know them and the family dynamics, and then 3x03 we see more of them in a new setting here with the fight scene)

[hawkeyeslaughter]

what i think the 4077th gets at subway as a former subway worker

hawkeye — says he’s gonna be simple and actually is . white bread blt but he wants that bacon CRISPY . like almost burnt crispy . and then he gets lettuce and tomato mayonnaise and an egregious amount of pepper

trapper — your classic philly but with the cheese sauce . and onions and peppers . white bread . sometimes he throws some jalapeños on there for shits and giggles

bj — ham and turkey on herb and cheese ! also with pepperjack and toasted . and then he gets lettuce tomato onion and pickles . he believes in keeping it simple . and also mustard !

frank — american club and american cheese on wheat . toasted . a fuckton of olives . onions . lettuce . ranch . oil and vinegar .

margaret — turkey , provolone on white bread and she puts it through the garden . a lot of mustard . salt and pepper and maybe a little vinegar .

henry — henry does NOT get tuna contrary to what all of you may believe . he gets a roast beef sandwich on white . with cheddar . lettuce , tomato , a little spinach ( on lorraine’s insistence ) , onion , oil , vinegar , and mayo .

potter — sherm does get tuna . he gets it on white with provolone and pepper and vinegar and that’s it .

charles — charles does not eat subway .

klinger — klinger gets a foot long meatball on herb and cheese with mozzarella but he’s also one of those insane people who gets mayonnaise on it <3

radar — radar gets veggie on white with lettuce and pickles and cheddar and mustard and he tells you about all his pigs while ur making his sandwich

[ash-tree-eyes]

These were the vibes in part 42, right?