#because I only have like two ships I ship full-time

[eddwardharrison]

Since you've been making fusions, shall we be allowed to see a Nexus and Ruin fusion? Please?

I gotta say, I'm loving your fusions and their designs they're so silly and pretty!

…can you tell I was excited for this one…?

I’ve already had this fusion in my head for a WHILE. The entire time I’ve just been thinking about Lapis and Jasper’s super toxic fusion and giggling to myself. THE ONLY REASON I LOVE IT SO MUCH IS BECAUSE OF LAPIS’ DECISION TO KEEP JASPER DOWN IN AN ACT OF REVENGE. I LOVE DESERVED REVENGE. I thought it totally fit Ruin and Nexus because of all the harm Nexus inflicts on Ruin.

Ruin has always put morals first and kills anyone who threatens harm against people he cares about. He has nothing left to lose, but gives everything.

Not a ship!! I really like the idea that Solar and Ruin have a “we could’ve been friends” type of relationship that allows a shred of sympathy for one another, but thats basically it.

There’s a lot of SU references here, the first quote is a quote from Lapis herself!! The second dialogue, though, is my own writing!

OTHER CONCEPTS

• Nexus and Ruin are an incomplete fusion, this means they share a fused body, but their minds are still separated. This is very harmful for fusions and highly irregular.

• This fusion would help Nexus avoid his canon death.

• Ruin keeps Nexus hostage instead of letting him die in canon because he holds sympathy for Solar who would not live with himself if Nexus died before he could reach him. He also believes suffering in life is more of a punishment than death is.

• This is based off of complete revenge on Nexus and protection for Solar and the other celestials. Ruin doesn’t believe they deserve a harmful brother like Nexus.

• Ruin, as the fusion, flies off somewhere isolated to stay and focus on suppressing Nexus.

• Nexus has far less power when it comes to controlling the body from the mind while Ruin has all of the experience. Nexus didn’t ever have to face that mind-space suppression while Ruin knows how to take control from both sides.

• Nexus can still torment Ruin psychologically from his position and slowly break Ruin’s spirit. They both now have full access to his own memories, unadulterated.

Look at these two clips and tell me they don’t hold some resemblance.

[taylorkellysburneraccount]

Ignoring how fucking annoying specific parts of this fandom will be, yeah, this feels like everything involved was misaligned. Like, having Henren's story end in two-three episodes, continuing the series regular tradition of doing nothing with Josh if he isn't either taking up Maddie's role when she isn't there or being her gay bestie, making every scene with Eddie about how straight he is, and now doing the most out of nowhere break up for the only other main queer couple since Michael's actor torpedoed the last one.

I think, we might have to come to terms with the fact that...this is getting to be glee levels of bad. The shout out was a warning, we are about to get terrible plot lines from the worst parts of fandom because everyone involved were not ready for the actual implications of making a bisexual main.

And the way Oliver talks about bisexuality, I am sorry I know he's like your fave but as a bisexual man it sounds like he has never talked to a bisexual once in his life. I genuinely am kinda grossed out with the way he talked about Buck needing to immediately have a sex montage but ~gay~ now that he's bisexual. Like, that's all you can think to do with his character? Are you 15, you are a grown man Oliver maybe Josh should've given a gay speech to YOU.

That's probably the most disappointing thing, because it feels like they genuinely don't even want to do Buddie, so this breakup won't even satisfy the weirdos who went full homophobe to defend a ship that wasn't even under attack.

Like at least Glee had in universe reasons to do things, they took place in a school so adding replacements to avoid cutting out the school sets they had while splitting the run time with the now graduated cast members made sense no matter how poor the execution. It genuinely feels like the writers took the first thing they saw in the tags, and went "lets actually give NO PAY OFF."

Also is it just me or was Maddie written weird as fuck in the josh and buck scene. The "turning men gay" joke about Abby came out of nowhere and kinda uncomfortably so?

[fizziepopangel]

A Fizziepop Take: Let’s talk about the beginning of the end and what the last few episodes might mean for the next chapter of Stolitz

Well hello, my lovely peoples! I feel like I haven’t written a Fizziepop Take in a good minute, and I know I'm putting my two cents in a lil late, but I am back and so ready to talk about everything that we’ve seen in the last few episodes because it has been wild…. So, you know the drill, let’s get into it.

So, if we wanna talk about the beginning of the end, we need to be honest with ourselves; the real beginning of the end of one of the fandom’s most beloved ships started back with the incident at Ozzie’s. If you've followed my takes for a while, you know I talk about this night a lot, but that is because this was a real turning point for the couple; the relationship has been strained ever since Blitz felt what he felt that night when Stolas pulled away from him in public when all eyes were on them. Ever since that exact moment, Blitz felt like he was being used and taken advantage of, and despite things going back to a kind of normal for them, those feelings just ended up festering and since our loveable little horse-loving imp doesn’t have a lot of healthy ways to process things and has already had it imbedded in his brain that he ain’t shit, I don’t think he ever fully processed what that night meant from any other angle than “he’s embarrassed to be seen with me”. What does this have to do with how things ended? I’m so glad you’ve asked! Since Blitz never fully processed the events of that night and therefore was only ever able to see it as a royal being embarrassed to be seen on a date with a lowly imp, Blitz didn’t get to see the sweeter side of being gifted an Asmodean Crystal by Stolas in “The Full Moon”. To Blitz, the crystal was more of a “you’re being let go” type of thing because Stolas essentially terminated their contract and since they had never talked about their relationship being anything but contractual, Blitz had no reason to believe that this was really anything but Stolas telling him that he was no longer needed by him.

Now, we as the audience know what the real intention behind the crystal was, and I think Stolas put it beautifully when he tried to explain it to Blitz when he gifted him the crystal….. but I don’t think that words really do much for Blitz in most instances, let alone in the long term. Blitz is more of an “actions speak louder than words” type of imp, but here’s the thing about that: for this saying to be true, actions must be consistent. Because, yes, actions do speak louder than words, but if that action is only done here and there, it doesn’t always show what it should. In terms of the end of Stolitz as we know it, Stolas isn’t the only one who’s actions matter, and unfortunately, I’m not talking about just Blitz’s actions. Being that Blitz has been abused (probably way more than we’ve even seen), those actions matter. Abuse of any sort does a lot more damage to the victim than we sometimes realize, and because of that, it can do a lot of damage in how a person looks at things like relationships and love…. And given the transactional nature of their relationship, and the fact that Stolas hadn’t consistently been a genuine partner to Blitz outside of the bedroom, his reaction to the crystal honestly makes a lot of sense. First, he treats it like an elaborate role play, because sex is the only love language he’s consistently known in their relationship, then when he realizes that it’s a serious conversation, he’s pissed rather than grateful…. Is his anger perhaps a little misplaced? Probably, but the feelings are all real. Blitz does feel used and discarded by Stolas, something he’s obviously felt before since we see in his bad trip in "Truth Seekers" that he feels very much chained to the prince by the design of their relationship, and the fact that Stolas doesn't give him much time to really sit with what’s just happened between them after handing him an out of their relationship doesn’t help…. And then we see the panic when Blitz realizes that unlike what he’s used to, Stolas isn’t going to match his anger, he’s just going to remove himself from the situation and let that be the end of it….

This brings us to the events of “Apology Tour”. I actually really loved this episode despite the fact that my favorite couple literally just called it quits the episode before. We see the aftermath of what happened the night of the full moon, and we see the way both men start to grieve the relationship they had in their own ways, which I would argue is the true end of the relationship since this is where we see both men really accepting that they are no longer a thing the way they were before. We see Stolas taking all his eggs out of the Blitz basket and actually letting himself be happy with someone else, even if that happy is only gonna be for the night… And we see Blitz realizing that he not only truly loved Stolas more than he had wanted to admit, but we see him start trying to let go of what he had with the man despite the point of the episode being that he hadn’t really been ready to in the beginning…. Unfortunately, Blitz letting go leads to his spiral which we see in “Ghostfuckers”, and we see him get himself into a rough spot with his little found family; working Loona into exhaustion burning owl figurines as a form of therapy, not paying M&M while also fucking away all of I.M.P’s money, and using the job they get in this episode as a chance to just roleplay as someone who wasn’t him and therefore wasn’t going through what he was…Really, Blitz did go into a deep, rather dark place, and I suspect that he might be there for a while when it comes to love, which leads us to the big question….

What does this all mean for the fan favorite ship? Will Stolitz really be endgame if we just watched them break up the way they did? 

If you ask me, a humble Tumbr blogger who probably cares way too much about fictional demons, I honestly don’t think this hiatus will really affect the ship too negatively. The time apart may be just what Stolas and Blitz need. Both of these men have trauma they need to start working through individually, and while having a support system can be a helluva help when you’re reopening old wounds to try to get them to heal properly (hehe, see what i did there?), I don’t think either of them is really in a place emotionally to be the best support they can be for the other while they both individually try to do that. Stolas also needs time to learn who he is as a person considering he went from being a baby prince to being engaged, then straight from being engaged to being married, then married with a kid, and directly after that, he jumped into bed with Blitz and just proceeded to place everything he had in that "relationship"… He never really considered anything outside of loveless marriage with an abusive cunt or amazing sex and *hopefully* love with an old childhood “friend”. I think he needs some time to be alone and live just for himself as much as he can as a Goetia, and I don’t think he could have done that with Blitz right now, at least not fully. Vivzie is a smart woman, and she does a lot of things in her shows very intentionally, so I do think that she is setting the pair up for a happier, healthier relationship down the line and I think once they come together again and have more experiences apart from each other, we’re probably gonna get a sort of happy ending for the pair, or at least the start of a new beginning for them.

I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks, because as you all know, this is just a simple Fizziepop Take and anything can happen in the Helluverse, but my take definitely makes me excited for the next episode because I for one cannot wait to see what Vivzie has in store for us next.

[wisteria-lodge]

The Malfoys are treated as *remarkably* rich in the books, and this would be a nice way to explain that. If you were friendly enough/integrated enough with the muggle world pre-Statute that you were able to weather that transition... then you've got a *lot* of extra ways to pull in cash that other pureblood families don't have. The Blacks... I think it makes a lot of sense that they rose to prominence just after, or possibly because of the Statute of Secrecy. That's shipping money vibes. 100% they're not quite *as* old as Malfoys who (going by Pottermore) showed up with William the Conquerer --- Hello! I love your metas btw I want to ask though if the Malfoys are richer and older and if the Black's prominence are after the Statute, why are they never introduced as Ancient and Noble house like the Blacks? Like I think this title was only used for the Blacks (I don't remember if other families/houses was Ancient and Noble..

I think the Blacks are laying it on just a little bit thick. :D That's a title they gave themselves after all, and idk.... it's like when a country calls itself "the Democratic Peoples' Republic of ____ " Seems like you're trying a little too hard to prove something there. We know that people like Umbridge will just lie to make their family seem older than it really is. Why not?

I would compare the Blacks to maybe the Borgias or the Boleyns- making a name for themselves during the renaissance, and owing their success to being smart, powerful, good looking, and with a certain reputation for ruthlessness. And of course, to there just being a *lot* of them. Lucius strikes me as an only child, and I don't think it was at all unusual for the Malfoys to have only one or two children.

My own headcanon is that the Blacks have a reputation for being much more magically powerful than the Malfoys, with a special affinity for transformation magic. Like being a metamorphmagus is a Black thing the way being a parselmouth is a Gaunt thing. I think the Blacks would attribute their effortless good looks to being especially magically gifted, because what really is a metamorphmagus, other than natural beauty times a zillion?

(I also think the Malfoys have a reputation for being good-looking - I don't want to take that away from them - but their beauty is much more constructed. I just know the Malfoys have books full of private family spells that they use to keep their hair so pretty and so silver-blonde. They are all about living within this carefully constructed aesthetic. So of course Lucius falls apart a little, when he doesn't have access to a wand.)

[robylovi]

Often ppl will call two same-gender characters with chemistry not getting together queerbait but this was Not That

Voltron: Legendary Defender was genuinely Such a fever dream of an experience, it is what I use as a STANDARD when defining queerbaiting

I truly don’t know about any other show in which (SEVERAL) official accounts tagged things with the gay ship name, had the crew posting official ship art of them, POSTED FUCKING THIS

In which the half-galra and poc are under race and the two women in gender and the canonically gay character under LGBT next to Lance because- HUH FOR NO REASON JUST THE POPULAR QUEER SHIP GUY WHO WILL NOT BY ANY MEANS BE MADE CANONICALLY QUEER NEXT TO EVERYNE HOLDING THEIR DESCRIPTIVE CARDS RIGHT YUP GOTCHA

Also, in addition to them killing the canon gay character, not only did they do that but it was after giving him MAYBE 30 seconds of screen time total. Like were they doing gay rep on a speed run what WAS that lmao

This show HAUNTS me. I think about the Voltron Official Instagram account every. single. pride month. because I cannot get over when they posted this image

It is so so baffling because not only is that THE crustiest image I have ever seen but also?? the show is full of rainbows, they are Literally a rainbow robot why did the get the one picture where the colors look very much Not like a rainbow

they make me so insane

the insane thing about voltron: legendary defender 2016-2018 featuring esteemed actor Steven Yeun is that it was honest to God CRAZY queerbait. like. it's the only time I've ever been fucking GASLIT by a TV show. because they were showing you scenes that were so OBVIOUSLY written to be part of a rivals to lovers story, like, scenes where these two twinks were quite literally an INCH away from each other's faces, having heart to hearts in bedrooms and at SUNSETS, waxing poetry about how they secretly thought the other was actually very important and wonderful, smirking at each other, and saying shit like 'ha. like that?' in a voice like he's sucking someone's DICK (NOT JOKING). and they show you all these scenes and they're like 'heyyy see these guys? you like these guys? they're kinda cute together, huh?' and you're like 'yeahhh they kinda are! wait so are they endgame?' and then they spin their heads like the cop in the lego movie and they say 'NO. WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? THEYRE FRIENDS! DUDES! BROS! AND THEIR BEAUTIFUL CONVERSATION ABOUT SELF WORTH AND HOW MUCH THEY CARE FOR EACH OTHER IS ACTUALLY JUST THE GAYER I MEAN ALTERNATIVE LOOKING ONE PREPARING THE OTHER FOR HIS DATE. WITH A WOMAN. A GIRL. A FEMININE LADY. fuck you. you're insane. also we killed the actual canon gay character. SUCK A FAT ONE LOSERSSSS !!!' and it was 2018 and you just had to deal with it. cause everyone else was apparently fucking insane and started 1. shitting on the woman 'stuck in the middle' of the not-gay guys (who also drew the short straw, being one of the only women of colour in the show and getting killed off at the end for funsies) and 2. SENDING GLASS CUPCAKES TO THE VOICE ACTORS. and you didnt want to be associated with them. so imagine that. and now imagine you're esteemed actor Steven Yeun. and your character is the not-gay gay one. jesus christ.

[silverthelovebug]

(Original template by @mangosaurus if you want the blank one ^^)

Ship opinions with some headcanons ,,

[yakuza-emulation]

Yes, I think a rose matches your green perfectly!

So, those Mario & Luigi games, huh?

I’m gonna be honest, I was going to be normal, but I just fell unreasonably in love with Prince Peasley.

He’s just so stupid and fun, and I’m now realizing I might just have a thing for blondes… (this is like the third blond I’ve grown a fascination for)

I somewhat tried to do a similar shading style to the official art (where certain colours not in the original characters design at utilized as shading), but I didn’t really succeed. I still had fun messing with certain colours though, so I guess it was a success in the end, after all :)

[triglycercule]

give me more horrorkiller content i say as i proceed to post solely about full mtt/mttpoly. i cant I CANT i cant just SOLELY post about one of the duos...... i cant JUST post about 2/3 of them it upsets me. everything MUST be in a trio of else i merge into my bed and rip my skin off when i try to get up

[hershelwidget]

I don’t know anymore have a Caleb prepared to Fight for his bestie

“she asked for no pickles” lookin scene

[shidoukanae]

good afternoon the full posts for these pics are both far down in my queue atm but i wanna post snapshots of these fanart pieces a bit early because i adore how Paris and Helene look!!

I'm still new to this artstyle but gosh am i fangirling for these two!! i dont have the best grasp on their designs but my head is full of thoughts of them, both their manhwa interpretation and their light novel interpretation and im super excited to see how they interact next!!

[emptyjunior]

Enough random notes that have a written story on them as environmental storytelling, explore the space, get crazier with it.

You move into a house and aw cute, it has the kids height on the walls but you notice there's a three foot difference in height between measurements, you check the date, they're a month apart. The final measurement is on the ceiling. It's dated two days ago.

You're part of a recovery team that have finally found a stranded ship, they were found too late and have all passed a long time ago. They all died of starvation. You enter their storeroom, it's filled with food. In the dining hall you find the tables laden with perfectly fine looking breads, cakes, cured meats, jams, candies. Your medic says all the people sitting at the table didn't eat a Thing.

You wake up in an apocalypse. You can't find anyone at all as you wander the streets but you do hear faint music playing from somewhere. You stumble into a supermarket, to see all the aisles still full, except for the shelf that was full of ear plugs, which look to be the only thing that was looted.

Like there's light, sound, props. Having a street where every house is decimated except for One. Landing on a planet known for having No Water and a plant is growing and you don't know where it could have possibly gotten moisture from but you can't find the citizens Anywhere.

I'm sorry, I'm just kinda over the "graffiti on the wall to show the bad guy is around". That's not environmental storytelling that's just normal story. Show me I'm in the villains territory by the rain suddenly cutting out above me as I'm driving, even though it's meant to be raining all night. I park the car and step out, and realise the constellations are Wrong, until I see they're Not constellations, they're the blinking lights of a massive ship-

I Will stop now because everytime I go to write a sentence it devolves into another prompt but I'm just saying we have a Lot of senses, engage them, show me the Environment in environmental storytelling.

[sleep-0-deprived]

Dom! Yan professor x himbo reader imagines~! ໒꒰ྀི˶˙Ⱉ˙˶꒱ྀིა

Just imagining your biology professor being a total hard ass, rude and unkind to every student he’s ever had and giving out the most excessive amounts of homework daily, as soon as he met you something sinister had awoken inside him. The way you’d smile at him all stupid wearing shorts that showed to much and jogging pants that let him see the side profile of your cock during the first day of meeting you had this man losing it.

Just imagining you staying back after your college classes, you being freshly twenty three and scraping by if not failing every class you took, only making it to college on a sports scholarship with you staring and blinking at your professor all class. Yandere professor, just imagining him watching you from the corner of his eye the whole class, his hands moving on auto pilot only able to think about you and how you blink dumbly at him while he teaches making him speak up “is something wrong Mr L/n?”

Just imagining you getting stuck after class in tutoring sessions all hours of the day because he claims “I’m just trying to help you achieve better [name]” he’d utter those words so sincerely it would keep you oblivious while he stares at your ass and your pecs, bitting his lips when you lean in your chair showing him the perfect peak of your body having this man insane having to excuse himself for a moment during your sessions while he goes and “fixes” the situation between his legs.

Just imagining Yandere professor who rubs up against you grabbing and touching your body all over at any chance he gets with close proximity, slowly over time building trust off of his age and status, him pushing mid forties and freshly divorced. Just imagining him bringing up chats about his golden retriever just to twist your oblivious trust into something else, making you feel special whilst he gives you all the attention you could ever dream of with the intent of getting you all to himself wanting to possess and keep you like a boy toy.

Just imagining Yandere professor who asks you for “favors” claiming he’d make sure you passed all your classes, that you’d never have to worry about losing your scholar ship. He’d have your face in his crotch with your mouth wide open engulfing his cock all flushed in the face with teary eyes holding his thighs. Oh how he almost felt sorry for those poor girls that drooled after you during your games….almost, but having your mouth stuffed full of cock asking “am I doin good E’nough f’you sherr” while you soured your words with spit making slurping sounds just trying to please a good grade out of him.

Just imagining Yandere professor who does random dorm checkups on you, making you stay over at his apartment the nights your frat bros throw parties, not standing for the thought of some sorority girl getting her manicured hands on you, you were His and he’d fuck you so good that you knew it. Two glasses of wine later sitting in his apartment with your hand gripping the counters in shambles “s-ir!” All you can repeat over and over is his name speaking it like a prayer to your messiah feeling a drunken man going at it fucking you so hard the sounds start buzzing together and the over head light in his kitchen blurs under your pupils.

Just imagining Yandere professor who had your legs spread wide open sitting leaned back on his desk eating your ass out like a starving man. Gripping your skin and kissing your pucker, practically making out with your rim and letting you ramble on cluelessly about your plays and strategies, whining about how “the coach is placing me as Qb this year!” While you grip the back of your professors head looking down at him just blinking and getting comfy when you see him having no intentions of letting you go since him being able to work your body and play with you however he liked was part of the “conditions”

Just imagining your grades going from a fifties and forties across the boards to becoming a straight A+ student having all of your friends asking how you managed to swindle that, having your fiends wanting to know your secret while one of them asks “all those time you’ve been ditching, you must be going off to secretly study huh!” Your closest buddy just laughs and nudges you during practice unable to tell him that you’ve been whoring yourself out to the most hated teacher on campus.

[0097linersb]

Sour Candy (m)

Pairings: Mingi x Reader

Genre: Smut

Word count: 5k~

Warnings: Very very very needy Mingi, wouldn't say exactly sub!mingi but kind of sub!mingi u know, good boi´s just very desperate. consent lines are kind of blurred in this one so pls skip if it makes u uncomfortable, this was just written in like an hour with absolutely no thoughts or grammar-checking, head empty only filled with crying whiny men <3

Follow me on twitter: wooyosgfreal <3

────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────

“What time did Yunho say he was coming back again?” You asked for about the fourth time that afternoon. 

“In like an hour or two,” Mingi answered patiently like he did all the other times you asked before. “Bro, why do you hate me?” 

“Because you keep making me play this boring game and it really fucking sucks.” 

“That´s just because you´re bad at it.” 

“You´re literally worse than me.” 

“Maybe modernity was wrong all along, maybe women really shouldn´t be allowed to have opinions.” 

“It is a fact, not an opinion. Maybe you men should still be in planes being shipped off to war and leave us alone.” 

“Fine. Do you want to play something else, princess?” 

“Let´s play Overcooked,” You squealed.  

Mingi didn´t even groan this time when you mentioned the game you and Seonghwa were obsessing over lately, simply going back to the home screen on Yunho´s Playstation and looking for the colorful icon. He knew there was no arguing with you. 

While the game was loading, Mingi handed you the main controller and stood up, fixing his shirt that had scrunched up and stretching his back, “Set everything up, I´m gonna go find some snacks.” 

You happily did as told, driving your little animated truck towards the level you had last failed at and playing with your phone to wait for your friend, at least until your vision was blocked by said friend pushing a red plastic bag in front of your face. 

“What´s that?” You asked, already reaching into the bag and picking up one of the soft candies inside. 

Mingi simply shrugged, already chewing on one of the jellies, “Dunno, found them in the kitchen. They´re pretty good though.” 

You trusted his words, popping the candy into your mouth and waiting for the flavors to kick in - and hell you wish you didn´t. 

“Oh my god this is disgusting,” Your face contorts in distaste. 

“It´s cinnamon,” Mingi stares you down, clearly not amused.  

“Yeah, with candle wax. Ew.” 

“Just swallow it and stop being a baby.” 

“I will literally kill myself.” 

He gave you another judgmental glare and sat down next to you on the couch once again, already reaching for his third candy from hell as you forced yourself to let it slide down your throat. You handed him the main remote and picked up the secondary one, coughing to see if flowing some air into your lungs would get the taste of rotten papaya out of your mouth.  

“Maybe it´s poison that Yunho left out as a trap because you keep stealing his food.” 

“Nah, it was right on top of the counter,” He waved it off, pressing play on the game. 

“My point stands.” 

“Yeah, whatever.” 

“You´re very eloquent today.” 

“You´re very annoying today.” 

“The salmon Mingi, the fucking salmon!!” 

“I´m getting it!” 

“Bro, you gotta throw it!” 

“Fuck. I know, but if I leave the fucking rice is going to burn.” 

“I´m throwing you more rice.” 

“I don´t need it.” 

“Yes, you do. Oh my god.” 

“What I do need are some clean plates.” 

“Oh, yeah. On it.” 

“Why do you like this game?” He groaned, cleaning the sweat from his forehead and reaching for another candy in the bag. “You´re making me stress eat.” 

“Doesn´t it make you feel pumped?”  

“Yeah, pumped to punch the TV.” 

“We have one more minute, we can do it if you stop being dumb.” 

“There are literally two plates on the counter ready to go and you haven´t delivered them yet.” 

“Jeez, done. Can you slice me some tomatoes?” 

“One sec,” He answered, mouth full of yet another candy. 

“It would be faster if you would just stop eating.” 

“We´re not making it anyways, let me enjoy one thing at least.” 

And he was right: a few seconds later the TV screen was filled with the sad numbers displaying how you didn´t reach the minimum score - didn´t even come close to it in fact. 

Mingi let out his frustrations by popping the nth white jelly past his lips and you stared at him in disgust, reaching for the bag to understand what that malevolent creation even was.  

“Huh...” 

“What?” He asked. 

“Hm, I mean, this is all in German or Dutch but I´m pretty sure this word means aphrodisiac.” 

“Come again?” His mouth was hanging open mid chew, unblinking eyes staring at you. 

“Hm, yeah. Wasn´t Yunho´s friend just in Amsterdam? The one with the big smile? Maybe he brought those as a souvenir, since you know, it´s Amsterdam. Like, ‘haha look at this candy that makes you horny´.” 

“Oh, yeah. But it´s like a placebo touristy thing, right?” He laughed nervously. “Like, these won´t actually make me horny, right?” 

“Nah, I don´t think this kind of stuff works. It´s probably just for shit and giggles. Do you feel any different?” 

“I don´t know, my heart is beating faster. I think I´m going to die.” 

“Mingi, relax. Now it´s probably just because you´re nervous.” 

“No, what if there´s some kind of drug in these? I ate almost 10 of them! Oh my god I´m going to die. Am I going to overdose, Y/N? What if I start hallucinating?” 

He was being a bit overdramatic, but he did have genuine concerns. 

“Wait, let me call Yunho.” 

Mingi didn´t even hear you, too busy at his own pity party as he whined and stared at the bag´s labels like he could suddenly speak Dutch.  

“Y/N?” Yunho´s voice filled your ears. 

“Hm, hi. Sorry to bother you at work but we´ve kind of got a situation.” 

“Oh my god, did Mingi break my door playing with the bar? I already told him-” 

“No, nothing like that. Huh, do you know that candy that you left on the kitchen counter?” 

“What? No. What cand- Oh. Oh.” 

“Huh, yeah. So... Mingi found it and ate like 10 of them?” 

“Y/N.” 

“Is that bad? He´s kind of freaking out, he´s afraid there´s like drugs in them or something.” 

“There are some stimulants in them but like, in minor quantities. He won´t die because of it. But bro, bro.” 

“What?” You whined, Yunho´s tone making you anxious. 

“He had 10 of them? San had like 3 and said he was at it for hours.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, oh.” 

“So I guess these do work, huh?” 

“Haven´t tried them, but from what San says it´s some strong shit. Did you take any?” 

“Just like one, tastes like organic trash.” 

“Yeah, good. Let me know how it goes, please just stay out of my bedroom.” 

“Your bedroom? Why would- What are you trying to imply, Jeong Yunho?” 

“Oh shit, client calling. Byeee,” He laughed. “Stupid.” 

As soon as you put your phone away, Mingi stopped talking to himself like a mad man and stared at you with big hopeful eyes. 

“I have good news and bad news.” 

“Am I going to die?” 

“That´s the good news: no, you´re not. No.” 

“And what are the bad news?” 

“Apparently you will get very horny, though.” 

He froze at your words, looking down at his pants, “I don´t feel it, though.” 

“Maybe you won´t, it might be different for everyone,” You shrug, standing up and grabbing your sweater. “All I know is that I am leaving because if it does happen, that´s not a sight I want to be here for.” 

“Please no,” Mingi whined, literally throwing himself on his knees to catch your arm before you could walk away. “Don´t leave me alone here. I just ingested unknown substances, what if my body reacts badly and I actually die? What if I throw up and drown in my own puke here all alone?” 

Once again, over-dramatic but right.  

“Yeah, you´re right,” You sighed. “I would still rather die than see you with a boner so here´s what we´re gonna do: I´m locking myself in Yunho´s room and you can freely roam the apartment and do whatever you want, I´ll check up on you every few minutes. Sounds good?” 

“Yeah, ok,” Mingi agreed. 

“Also, if you´re going to like - ” You motioned vaguely towards his pants hoping he would get what you were trying to say. “Give me a heads up so I can put on some earphones.” 

“Oh my god,” He whined in shame, cheeks going flush. “Yeah, ok.” 

“Ok, good. Huh, bye,” You awkwardly waved as you made your way towards Yunho´s room. “Good luck.” 

You closed the door behind you, hearing as Mingi opened some other game back in the living room. There was not much to do in Yunho´s room so you decided to lay in bed and scroll through Tiktok until Mingi stopped thinking he was going to die and you could leave. Also, you did eat one of the candies too, so you guessed that if they did work, you would feel it as well. 

10 minutes later you still heard Mingi normally playing and cursing outside, but you still decided to yell out an “Everything good?” just to be sure. 

“Yeah!” Was his answer. 

Another 15 minutes went by, and you shot him a text. 

Not dead yet? 

Mings: Still good, I don´t think these things actually work. 

Maybe Yunho was just messing with us.  

Mings: Yeah, fucking asshole. 

You went back to watching your silly little videos, not even noticing the time passing or how everything suddenly went quiet outside. Over half an hour had gone by when your ears finally perked up at the lack of your friend´s loudness.  

You sat up in bed worried. 

You good? 

No answer. 

Mingi? 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

You were already picturing his dead body looking all stupid on Yunho´s carpet, thinking about how you were going to explain to the paramedics that he died because he ate too much horny candy.  

No, even worse: How would you explain this to his family? 

Oh, no. Not your best friend. How would you live without him? You liked teasing him and you bickered a lot but you love- 

Your little spiral of insanity was interrupted by a knock on the door and your body was finally able to move after how it had been paralyzed with fear for a few minutes. 

“Mingi?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh, thank god. You scared the shit out of me,” You took a deep breath in relief, staring at Yunho´s white door. “What´s up?” 

“Huh, can I come in?” 

You furrowed your eyebrows at his tone.  

Something sounded weird about this.  

“Sure,” You answered skeptically.  

Mingi opened the door and came in, head cast down and gaze not meeting your eyes. 

“What´s wrong-” You started asking worriedly, about to jump out of the bed to go check up on him before your eyes finally zeroed in on the very prominent bulge in his pants. “Song Mingi! What the fuck?” 

“I- I don´t know what to do,” His eyes finally met yours, cheeks tinted in pink and hands trembling. He looked at you like a kicked puppy.  

“And what do I have to do with it? Go deal with it yourself. Eeew, we talked about this,” You raised your hand in the air to try and block the bottom half of Mingi from your line of vision.  

“I already did,” He groaned, rubbing his face in frustration. “Twice.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah. Nothing fucking works - and also, I just can´t stop thinking about you.” 

“What?” You never heard your voice go so high before. “Nuh uh, we´re not going there. Absolutely not.” 

“I´m not happy about it either, ok?” His fingers were squeezing the corner of the door so thigh they were almost white. “Just please, help me out this once. Please.” 

Oh. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

You just prayed that the reason you started clenching around nothing was because the candy was finally kicking in and not because stupid Song Mingi was practically begging in front of you. 

“No!” You screeched, weirded out by your own sudden reaction. “This isn´t you talking, it´s just th stupid candy, you´ll regret it after it wears off -” 

“No but I won´t,” He disagreed, closing the door and rushing towards you like a madman in three large strides. 

You had never seen him like this, you never once in a million years could have gone as far as even imagining the look in his eyes right now. 

“Fuck. It´s just - your skin is so soft, you know?” Mingi pushed the covers to the side so his hand could squeeze your thigh, his knees dipping into the mattress as he crawled on top of you. You were too shocked to move away, frozen in place with your mouth open wide, not really knowing what to do as he rubbed the palm of his hands up and down your skin, squeezing it occasionally with a heavy breath like he had just reached heaven´s gate. 

“Mingi,” You warned, but your voice didn´t sound that threatening anymore. 

“Please, just once,” He breathed out, practically rubbing himself against your body like a cat in heat forcing you to slowly lie back in the bed, his hands gently guiding yours over your head as you slid down. You looked up at his glazed eyes, at the way his hands were shaking around your wrists, the way he was discreetly rutting against your thigh without even realizing he was doing it. He looked so vulnerable and frenzied – And it was doing something to you. 

“Mingi,” You whined, not even sure what you were trying to say or do. 

“You kept walking around with this white top all day,” He let out a broken groan, looking down at said top. “Your boobs look amazing in it. I just- I – Can I?” 

His begging eyes were enough to get you automatically nodding before even realizing what you were agreeing to - When you did process what he was asking for though, his right hand was already squeezing your boobs and kneading at them like his life depended on it, his calloused fingers firm on your body. You could feel how hard he was every time he subconsciously ground against you, shaky hot breaths leaving his lips and hitting the sensitive skin on the side of your neck where his plump soft lips kept lightly brushing against with every move. 

Mingi took advantage of the position, sucking against your vein and leaving pleas in the form of little kisses around your skin. His thumb played with your nipple and your hands were still abandoned on top of your head against the sheets, not sure if you would really let this happen yet - but Mingi didn´t seem to mind, too lost in worshipping you into compliance.  

“I need to fuck you. Like, right now. I´ll - I´ll make you feel good too, I promise,” The shakier and breathier his voice sounded the wetter you got. “I promise. I promise. Please. We -we don´t even need to fuck I can – I can – Let me – Just the tip- Anything-” 

“Just the tip?” 

“Yeah,” He eagerly nodded, his eyes so hopeful you could melt. 

“Ok,” You agreed, physically not being able to say no to his pleading eyes.  

“Fuck,” He groaned in surprise, not actually thinking you would agree to it - But since you did, he wasted no time and made quick work of practically ripping your cotton short down your legs in one harsh tug. “Under normal circumstances I would, you know – But, I – right now I – I can´t.” 

“It´s ok,” You assured, afraid he would actually cry if you made him wait another single second with how desperate he was. 

He hooked his finger on the bottom of your panties and pushed them to the side, not even being able to take them out. He stared at your pussy for a moment, his eyes looking even more insane than before at the sight, like he would actually growl at you. 

“Fuck,” Mingi cursed as he went out of the little trance he was in, pushing his sweater pants and boxers down in a rush - once again not even bothering with taking them all out.  

And oh fuck. 

His cock was so hard you could imagine how it actually hurt; it throbbed against the skin of his abdomen without even being touched, looking swollen and angry with all the veins surrounding it - And man were you glad you agreed on just the tip because there was just no way that would fit without a lot of preparation first. Even with how wet you were right now. Who knew? 

Mingi leaned on top of you once again, one arm supporting the weight of his body in between your legs as he gently guided his dick up and down your folds, his eyes closing at the feeling, a violent shiver taking over his thighs and up his spine with a loud groan.  

Like he had absolutely no control over his body, Mingi positioned himself against your entrance, slowly pushing just a little bit in as promised. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” His groans sounded so raw against your ear as he cursed over the initial resistance of your walls, his forehead meeting your neck to try and ground himself. 

You even let a moan out yourself because this was absolute madness, it felt insane. Your whole body was buzzing like you were electrified, your fingers ached to scratch Mingi´s back and pull him all the way in - Damn, those candies were good.  

And you only had one. 

“Y/N, fuck,” Mingi gasped as he started moving his hips in shallow little thrusts so he wouldn´t break your agreement. “Ah - Ah. I can´t think strai - You´re so pretty. Fuck, fuck.” 

His lips met your neck once again, messy kisses full of saliva and teeth as he shuddered on top of you, leaving marks that would soon turn purple. You could feel how tense every single muscle in his body was as he fought against himself to not rut deeper into you every time he moved, and you were biting onto your lip so hard to keep the noises inside that you could taste blood.  

“Thank you, thank you,” You shivered at the way cold air hit your neck when Mingi pulled back a bit to look you in the eye, “Can I go ah- a little deeper, please? Just a little. It feels so good, I need ah- more. Fuck.” 

“Mingi.” 

“Please,” He cried out and you just couldn´t believe the sight in front of you. 

Tall big strong Song Mingi with the deep voice, reduced to a disheveled delirious mess. His ashy blond hair rumpled, his cheeks burning pink and skin glistening with sweat, his pupils huge and shiny and he just looked so disheartened that it was breaking your heart to not let him just use you however he wanted.  

“I need you,” He agonized, his right arm clinging onto your shoulder like you would run away from him if you could, so out of it that he was already pushing deeper into you without even noticing, eyes shut so tightly at the sensation of your walls around him. “Please, please, please, please,” It was like a mantra. 

He was far gone. 

And kind of so were you. 

You whine in pain and raspy moans left Mingi´s soft lips every time he thrust back into you, hitting farther each time, “I´m sorry, baby. I´m sorry. You can take it right? Ah – Just a bit more, I promise. Fuck. I´m almost ah- in. Why do you smell so good? It´s driving me ah – insane.” 

It hurt, it did hurt, but you also didn´t seem to mind that he was practically splitting you open when his voice sounded this pretty apologizing for it. 

The speed and strength of his hips started picking up to match his urgency, his plush lips were open so captivatingly and his weight was now supported by both arms so he could pistol into you. He didn´t have a specific angle or rhythm to it, his moves were strictly instinctual and carnal, your nails finally finding your way down his back to keep yourself anchored to reality. 

“You´re so so so beautiful, fuck. Your lips - can´t stop thinking about them around my ah- cock. Will you show me?”  

You loved how broken his voice sounded. 

“Yeah, baby. Whatever you want.” 

He shuddered once again at your words, “I´m so close.” 

“Me too,” You nodded, still doing your very best to not let noises of pleasure escape past your lips – and kind of failing. 

“Let me hear you,” Mingi growls, managing to somehow snake his hand in between your bodies to start drawing quick circles on your clit. “Please, I love your voice.” 

You wouldn´t be able to hold back even if you wanted to.  

His chaotic rhythm had an appeal of its own, every broken moan that left his mouth drew you closer to the edge until you finally reached it. Your vision went black, nails digging into Mingi´s biceps so harshly you would feel bad for it later, every muscle in your body tightening as it all washed over you in a devastating wave, leaving your body in the form of gasps and breathy moans. 

“Oh my god, fuck,” Mingi cursed at the way your walls were clenching so tightly around him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

He wouldn´t slow down and you were still coming down from your high, twitching with the aftershocks as the oversensitivity quickly began to rise, but you decided to ignore it the best you couldand push through it - you could tell Mingi was close anyway with the way his thrusts became even more erratic, and his voice went up with every moan.  

You were mesmerized by his glossy unfocused eyes, the frown on his forehead, so frantic to get what he needed by ramming into you. He looked so pretty like this, you wanted to destroy him-  

Wow. 

Wait. 

Now where did that come from? 

“Shit, I´m gonna- Fuck, fuck.” 

You watched as his whole body froze for a second before violently shaking, his eyes shot so tightly he was probably seeing white as he continued thrusting into you to ride his orgasm to the end as you felt something warm hitting your walls. And his moans, oh his moans – I mean, you were not deaf, you had always been well-aware that Mingi had an attractive voice, but to hear it like this, so raw and relieved, was truly something else. 

Mingi let out one last broken cry as he slowly stopped moving, dropping his weight on top of you to catch his breath, chest heaving up and down against your ribcage as his muscles continued twitching here and there. You took advantage of the moment to get yourself together too, stabilizing your breathing and trying to figure out what the hell just happened as you two went down, but you also kind of expected Mingi to say something or try to joke around a bit to lessen the burden of the fact that the two of you just fucked - and when he didn´t, well, you started getting worried. 

You were mustering up the courage to say something after the two minutes of silence when the last thing you expected to happen, happened.  

Your eyes were blown wide, “Mingi-” 

“I can´t stop, I´m sorry-” He whined, his still rock-solid cock now slowly moving inside of you once again, rutting into you like he had absolutely no control over himself. 

He was still hard? 

Wasn´t this like his third time already? 

His whole body was shaking in overstimulation but he wouldn´t stop grinding into you, “I´m sorry.” 

“Mingi,” You tried pulling away from him thinking that´s what he was asking for. 

“No, don´t. Ah- Need you,” He desperately grabbed onto your thighs and wrapped them around his hips, your chests flushed against each other's as he hid his forehead on your neck to keep fucking deep into you. Literal whines of pain were leaving his lips, it was like he was an animal incapable of rational thoughts, and it was making you feel dizzy. 

“Mingi, love. You´re going to hurt yourself.” 

“No, feels so ah- Just one more,” He moaned, body shuddering. His whines got you clenching involuntarily around him, suddenly realizing you were kind of close to the edge already. “Please.” 

You felt a strong bite on your shoulder disguising a groan, the animalistic act crashed with how smoothly he was sliding in and out of you, but it also showed how deranged he was at the moment. You tightened your thighs around Mingi´s hips and pulled at the hair on his nape, not bothering with trying to cover up your moans anymore. 

Mingi took the action as permission and started gradually moving his hips faster, broken little whines getting louder and more frequent each second until he was once again supported by both his arms and pistoling into you.  

“I can´t - I can´t,” His voice was so shaky, so broken. “I - Please.” 

And then your whole world stopped as you watched the first tear roll down Mingi´s cheek. 

You were mesmerized, you wanted to frame it.  

“It hurts,” He whimpered, another tear falling, followed by another and then another.  

“You´re almost there,” You cooed, deciding to be useful to the poor giant man breaking down on top of you. “Aren´t you? So close.” 

Mingi nodded, blinking harshly to clear his vision which resulted in more tears running down his face. You just couldn´t help supporting your weight onto your elbow so you could lean up and hold his jaw, kissing the salty traces across his cheeks until his face was clean. He immediately started shaking, moans growing whinier and choppier, his thrusts started losing their patterns as he plowed into you like his life depended on it, entering a mental state he never knew existed before. 

His right hand grabbed your thigh with enough force to bruise it badly as he came for what you imagined was the fourth time in an hour, holding you so close that you could feel his cock hitting impossible places deep inside of you. Mingi was breathing so hard you were kind of worried for his well-being but the noises leaving his lips assured you he was feeling pleasure at least as his nose found its place on your neck once again. 

“Feeling better?” You asked once he had calmed down a little. 

“Kind of,” He pushed back to look at you with a low chuckle, his eyes looking a tad bit saner already. “But I also kind of need to eat you out.” 

You felt his dick twitch inside of you at his own words and how the fuck was that even possible? 

A painful whimper left his lips at the slight stimulation, already way past oversensitive, “Please?” 

 He had the nerve to pout. 

[all-pacas]

I finished my Rome book and have now begun one about Pompeii. I’m 65 pages in and I already love it: yes, it covers the volcano, but most of the book is about “this is what the town and daily life of it would have been like, actually.” Fascinating stuff. Things I’ve learned so far:

- The streets in Pompeii have sidewalks sometimes a meter higher than the road, with stepping stones to hop across as “crosswalks.” I’d seen some photos before. The book points out that, duh, Pompeii had no underground drainage, was built on a fairly steep incline, and the roads were more or less drainage systems and water channels in the rain.

- Unlike today, where “dining out” is expensive and considered wasteful on a budget, most people in Pompeii straight up didn’t have kitchens. You had to eat out if you were poor; only the wealthy could afford to eat at home.

- Most importantly, and I can’t believe in all the pop culture of Pompeii this had never clicked for me: Pompeii had a population between 6-35,000 people. Perhaps 2,000 died in the volcano. Contemporary sources talk about the bay being full of fleeing ships. Most people got the hell out when the eruption started. The number who died are still a lot, and it’s still gruesome and morbid, but it’s not “an entire town and everyone in it.” This also makes it difficult for archeologists, apparently (and logically): those who remained weren’t acting “normally,” they were sheltering or fleeing a volcano. One famous example is a wealthy woman covered in jewelry found in the bedroom in the glaridator barracks. Scandal! She must have been having an affair and had it immortalized in ash! The book points out that 17 other people and several dogs were also crowded in that one small room: far more likely, they were all trying to shelter together. Another example: Houses are weirdly devoid of furniture, and archeologists find objects in odd places. (Gardening supplies in a formal dining room, for example.) But then you remember that there were several hours of people evacuating, packing their belongings, loading up carts and getting out… maybe the gardening supplies were brought to the dining room to be packed and abandoned, instead of some deeper esoteric meaning. The book argues that this all makes it much harder to get an accurate read on normal life in a Roman town, because while Pompeii is a brilliant snapshot, it’s actually a snapshot of a town undergoing major evacuation and disaster, not an average day.

- Oh, another great one. Outside of a random laundry place in Pompeii, someone painted a mural with two scenes. One of them referenced Virgil’s Aeneid. Underneath that scene, someone graffiti’d a reference to a famous line from that play, except tweaked it to be about laundry. This is really cool, the book points out, because it implies that a) literacy and education was high enough that one could paint a reference and have it recognized, and b) that someone else could recognize it and make a dumb play on words about it and c) the whole thing, again, means that there’s a certain amount of literacy and familiarity with “Roman pop culture” even among fairly normal people at the time.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Since you've mentioned Scarlet Lady in one of your posts, what's your opinion on it?

I've mentioned before that I'm a big Scarlet Lady fan, which is the only reason that I'm comfortable answering asks like this one. I don't publicly criticize the content of hobby creators. That's wildly inappropriate! Punch up, not down.

The linked post was a general discussion of the adaptation process and how @zoe-oneesama did a fantastic job, so for this one, I'm just going to do some general gushing because I do actually like praising and enjoying things!

Scarlet Lady's chosen format (comic) allows it to have this wonderful conversation with canon where it can rely on the framework of canon to tell it's own story while also using canon for jokes and meta commentary. This means that Scarlet Lady is about as close as fan content can get to a direct reboot because it's able to have moments like this one from the comic's first post:

[Image description: Adrien standing in his room after transforming into Chat Noir for the first time. He is beaming and his eyes are shining with excitement as he exclaims, "This is gonna be awesome!"]

A single picture that communicates everything we need to know about Adrien getting his miraculous. When I've done this same thing in fanfic, I had to write out the full scene because that's how novels work. You have to give the full picture. With a comic, you can just quickly acknowledge this thing that we all already know and then move on to the new stuff. A picture really is worth a thousand words! (Or, in my case, more like two thousand...)

This allows Zoe to keep the same akumas that we get in canon without her story feeling like a boring rehash because she can focus on what's different in her version. A novelization of the same content would have to show both the stuff that stays the same and the stuff that changes for it to be coherent. That's a lot less fun to read and write. It's why I basically never revisit canon akumas in my own stuff. It's just too derivative for the written word.

This is one of the big reasons that I loved Scarlet Lady. Because it was able to have that more directly conversation with canon, it was able to take canon and say, "hey, why don't we embrace the tone that you established in season one and retell the story with that vibe?" That's something that I desperately wanted to see, but that is totally unsuited to my chosen artistic form. It couldn't be a novel. It had to be a comic.

If you want to know what a true formula show version of Miraculous would look like, Scarlet Lady is it. It does everything that Miraculous should have done:

Sticks to a lighthearted tone where nothing is ever super serious

Keeps Gabriel entirely unsympathetic

Has slow character development and background hints at a bigger plot as the only serial elements, allowing the individual episodes to be their own story while never feeling incomplete or rushed

Allows characters other than Marinette to shine while keeping Marinette as the clear main character

Makes Adrien narratively important

MAKES THE LOVE SQUARE CUTE SO I CAN ACTUALLY SHIP IT

Understands that Lila and Chloe can't coexist as antagonists

Reverses the love square, which is the best way to tell their story. Yes, I will die on my "love diamond" hill. It's a good hill. Come join me. I'll bring cookies.

I could keep going, but you hopefully get my point. While Scarlet Lady is certainly not the only way to do a formula version of canon, it's proof that a formula version does work! You don't have to go the serious route for Miraculous to be successful.

I want to take some time to gush about the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so I'll put that gushing under a "read more" in case anyone hasn't seen it. I'll finish out this less spoilerish section with this:

I feel like some people are surprised when they learn that I love Scarlet Lady because - as some of you have probably picked up - it is quite different from my ideal version of canon. I'm not sure why that would stop me from enjoying a thing, though. It's important to remember that our personal ideals are not the only way to tell a good story. There are lots of ways to take what canon gave us and make something wonderful! It's part of the reason that I enjoy being in a fandom.

If I only wanted to see my ideal take on canon, then I'd stick to writing/imagining my own stories. But I don't want that! I like seeing alternate takes, too. Scarlet Lady is one of my personal favorites. It's completely different from anything that I'd ever think to write and that's why I'm so glad that it exists! I like being entertained just as much as I like creating my own entertainment and I don't want to only read stories that look like something I'd write. That's boring!

Spoilers below:

I've mentioned before that there are many, many ways to properly handle Chloe's character and Zoe did such a good job with her take on that! Chloe isn't absolved of all the things she did wrong, but she's also treated as a young woman with the ability to change.

While the comic bares the name of Chloe's alter ego, she was the never the main character. She never went on a journey. The story kept her to her shallow season-one self: a petty brat who just wanted attention. It did this because that's who Chloe was in canon and who Chloe needed to be for the comic to work.

The first time we see any complexity from Chloe is in the comic's final few episodes, which was absolutely the right call for Zoe to make! In a recent post, I talked about how the end of a formula show is the only time when you can break the formula in catastrophic ways and that's what Zoe did. She kept Chloe static until it was time to end the story and that's when the formula breaks. That's when Chloe gets depth because, once she has depth, the formula doesn't work.

That depth is not used to redeem Chloe, but to show us that there's hope for Chloe. That this petty brat who we've been dealing with has some serious issues and needs help. Help that she's going to get far away from the people that she's hurt because her issues aren't an excuse for what she's done. They don't erase the harm that she caused. At the same time, understanding her issues makes us hope that she can be better now and Scarlet Lady took a moment to give us that hope. To show us the START of Chloe's true story.

That is the kind of ending that I have wanted to see in so many properties!!! It was so wonderful to finally get one that did this right. A story that understood that full redemption to the team and damnation to death/suffering are extremes on a scale of possibilities. You don't have to go to extremes! You can fall in the middle and the middle is a perfect, natural place for Chloe to land in this kind of story. Fully redeeming or even fully damning Chloe simply doesn't work in lighthearted formula content. It's too big a lift as canon has already demonstrated.

I also loved Zoe's take on Emilie. I've mentioned that I don't like evil Emilie in part because it makes her revival feel like the start of a new story. She's back and she'd bad, so we have to take her down now! But I don't want that. I want the story to end when Gabriel is stopped. Zoe does this by giving us an Emilie that is another perfect middle ground. She matches canon's uncomfortable implications without feeling like a true villain who is a threat to society.

[jroaryester]

so, i've fallen down the "humans are weird" rabbit hole, and i couldn't help but notice most of it is about how humans are just really durable, adorable, friendly, how we'd pack bond with anything, about how we have such a hive-mind and empathy and determination to survive when things get rough, how we could survive things most other aliens would die from, how we could eat stuff that would poison other aliens, how we inject ink into our skin and pierce it with pieces of metal and drink toxic substances for the sake of entertainment..

it's always human defences and endurance

but i never see people talking about human **aggression**

like, imagine a spaceship happens to have several humans on it even if most residents are alien species, and two of the humans get in a fight.

and i'm not just talking physical, i'm sayin' all kinds of fights.

imagine if two humans got in a serious screaming match and genuinely hurt a few of the alien species sensitive to loud sounds as they watch, flabbergasted at how the two are literally yelling in each-other's faces without breaking a sweat or getting tired from it, while one of the sound-sensitive aliens literally passed out because it was SO loud

or imagine them simply being in shock after interacting with humans for a long time and having this image in their head of humans being so friendly and able to get along with anything and anyone, including stabby, or any predatory, aggressive species we just so happen to find cute. that image getting completely shattered seeing two of the humans they're friends with showing clear anger and aggression in a display they could only describe as "terrifying" in the most visceral sense of the word

or two humans getting in an actual physical fight, and here's where the *several* humans on ship part comes into play,

so the two are duking it out in a violent display of pure hatred while other humans, amused and thoroughly entertained by the violence that would already have put any of the less durable aliens out of commission gather around the fighting pair and start ominously chanting "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT"

prior, the aliens hadn't dared intervene or get any closer because either way they recognized it as a danger

meanwhile some humans JOIN IN for absolutely no reason and it becomes a full on riot

and the aliens just stare like ?????

confused at why they'd find it so endearing, at why they'd literally join for no reason at all, horrified by even just a punch to the gut because to some of the more vulnerable aliens that's their equivalent of literally getting an organ ripped out of them and somehow STILL fighting and then ripping out an organ out of the opponent themselves

and most of all, if humans are capable of befriending aggressive, large predatory beings and getting along with practically everything,

what from the fresh pits of hell triggered two *humans* to fight *each other* of all creatures?

(that is, assuming aliens don't have much knowledge of our history, wars, politics, etc of course.)