#but shes very used to keeping to herself so as to not make the people around her uncomfortable and so wont engage physically unless they do

[triptychgardener]

Oh also am I being a tad reductive when talking about the quadrants? Yeah absolutely. But I do think it's important to see what the comic actually says and demonstrates about relationships within these frameworks, rather than trying to find like. Some platonic ideal of a "TRUE" romance, or trying to figure out how the quadrants are actually *supposed* to work.

Like. We're supposed to take Meowrails as the platonic (no pun intended) ideal of a moiraillegience. They are quite literally used as The Symbol for it in comic (their typing quirks forming the <>).

And when we see their initial relationship online, it is... not great to say the least!

Equius is domineering and dismissive of Nepeta's agency, and is very explicitly *keeping her away from her friends* in this game, and keeping her with him, ostensibly for protection, a thing he does an awful lot despite Nepeta clearly being very capable (see him keeping Nepeta from FLARPing with the other teams. Even if that, in universe, may have been a good idea.)

And even though we do see softer moments between the two of them, and their relationships seems to have improved by the time we reach [S] Equius: Seek the highb100d, this is one of our FIRST demonstrations of a pair of moirails in the comic, designed to be indicative on the concept. In our other examples, Vriska seems barely cognizant of the idea that she's even IN a relationship with Kanaya to begin with, and it falls apart due to the boundaries between pale and red romance (boundaries that, like the human boundary between "friend" and "lover," are artificially constructed); Karkat and Gamzee failed so horribly that Karkat gives up, and it fails to prevent Gamzee from enacting more violence on Terezi; Feferi finds it utterly exhausting to constantly be preventing Eridan from committing violence, and rightfully breaks it off with him; and finally, Terezi is unable to prevent Vriska from inflicting a final and great violence upon herself at the end of the comic, especially when she wants clearly to be Vriska's everything.

For kismessitude, I keep seeing people groping around in the dark for what a True, Healthy Kismessitude is, and I really hope I don't have to tell you that you shouldn't build a relationship off of mutual hate. Our key example given for black romance is, well.

A relationship that literally always ends up with one member murdering the other. In both universes.

Also notable is that we almost never see a kismessitude where there *isn't* some significant power imbalance between the two parties. The Black Queen is Jack Noir's boss, Equius literally designs Aradiabot to be utterly subservient to him, and Gamzee specifically uses Terezi's disability and insecurity to trap her into a relationship with him.

A healthy rivalry or making fun jabs at each other is one thing. But a system is what it does, and kismessistude consistently produces abuse and often fatal violence between two people. The only one that ends without that violence is Eridan and Vriska. And that was just because Vriska didn't really care anymore.

Auspisticism is pretty rare in the comic, and even most of the characters don't seem to have a very strong grasp on the subject. Our example is... Kanaya auspisticizing between Vriska and Tavros.

Which mostly just feels like Kanaya is trying to stop Vriska from picking on Tavros, not facilitating a relationship.

Kanaya is kind of our Key Person here though, being described as "the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice" by Eridan when he is trying to proposition her to auspisticize between him and Vriska. It's a mediative position, that seems to mostly be used in attempts by Eridan to make women talk to him (getting Kanaya to mediate between him and Vriska, trying to get Feferi to mediate him and Sollux, both times unsuccessful because, again, they don't care.) It also exhausts Kanaya, she doesn't like it, and she's not very good at it, if there even is a good state to be in for auspisticizing, as anyone who's had to deal with polycule drama knows.

Ultimately, it's a way to offload the emotional baggage of a toxic relationship, either extant or imminent, onto a third party (always a woman for some reason! Funny that) because Alternian relationship structures seem designed to encourage violence and aggression for the purposes of imperialist expansion.

The REAL point where it matters is when Rose starts to get into Auspisticism, and we start to see when it can really go wrong.

During Game Over, while Gamzee is ACTIVELY BRUTALIZING TEREZI, Rose, who has been talking to both parties and trying to auspisticize, freezes.

Trying to understand this framework as an extant thing is actively causing her to undergo analysis paralysis. She sees, obviously, brutal violence being inflicted on her friend, but because she has positioned herself as the mediator of an obviously abusive relationship, the maintenance of this relationship is suddenly a priority in trying to navigate it. Her fear of getting in the way of what could be a "normal" relationship loses her precious seconds that may have ended up costing lives.

This sort of thing happens all the time. When you see a relationship as an object and a structure whose preservation is worth striving for, even when there is nothing to be gained by maintaining that relationship, it can leave you trapped in abusive and toxic scenarios. On Earth, the preservation of marriages beyond the point where one or both members of the contract get anything positive from it causes devastating unhappiness, inequality and abuse. The preservation of these structures has a purpose.

In America, as well as many other countries on Earth, the purpose of the institution of marriage is largely to put reproductive and financial power in the hands of men, and to construct the nuclear family along the lines which maintain structures like Christianity, capitalism and patriarchy. That has just historically been the case. Does that mean that no one should get married, or that no one can be happy in a marriage? Of course not. But people didn't fight for things like gay marriage, and are still fighting for marriage equality for disabled people and other groups, just for the sake of being "normal." They did it for a lot of reasons. Hospital visitation rights, the ability to have some say in what happens to their partners after death, insurance sharing.

But as the institution of marriage is expanding to include more people, we should really start questioning why these sorts of things are locked behind a contract that also assumes A Lot Of Things about two people that may not necessarily be true, i.e. a desire to live together, have sex, reproduce, share financial interests etc, when a more holistic approach to relationships where they aren't simply All or Nothing is going to make a lot of people a lot happier.

There's a couple of specific phrases in wider Homestuck Fanon that always bothered me. Those being that a relationship "is beyond or transcends quadrants" and that someone wants another person "in all four quadrants." Partially because it always seemed to just describe two people who really really love each other a lot, semantically similar to us calling something True Love but I digress. Like, in an ideal world, most relationships would transcend quadrants! Individual aspects of each type of relationship that are usually cordoned off should be available for you to pick and choose. The lines between a friend and a rival and a lover should be obliterated, but it's said instead to indicate when someone is No For Real In Love, when usually it's just two people who are human dating. There's a good swathe of people who seem to think that all the quadrants are bad EXCEPT for red which is the Normal Human Way Of Being In Love and is therefore good. I mean, this is kind of the whole thing the Candy timeline is based around, right? Everyone cordoning themselves off into neat little marriages, having babies and living in suburban houses with white picket fences.

And we all know how well that's going.

[ckret2]

Are THEY in universe considered as dreamy and handsome as apparently tumblr users find THEM? If yes, does that have anything to do with how THEY won THEIR elections

VENDOR doesn't strike me as the type of person who feels beautiful or attractive; so I doubt THEY've received much of that kind of attention.

To organics, it probably depends on how much the viewer likes the aesthetics of 1950s kitchen appliances with woodgrain. But they still see THEM like an appliance. So THEIR visual appeal generally caps out at "would buy THEM for the break room; wouldn't invite THEM to the bedroom."

To other machines... I'm going by what's frequently portrayed as attractive in transformers fandom: and unfortunately, THEY've got no real points of articulation; no interesting function-related kibble (no tires, no wings, no treads); very few lights at all; lots of unpainted components in a utilitarian way... Plus I feel like most robots wouldn't be into woodgrain, y'know? It's quirky, but "sticking a banana sticker to your forehead" quirky, not "stylishly avant-garde" quirky.

THEY're probably some people's type (THEY're apparently some tumblr users' type), but not many people's type.

I see THEM as like, equivalent to a middle-aged woman who wears just enough makeup to be considered "acceptable" but has never taken pleasure in the process, and has always worn serious business suits with skirts or button-up shirts with slacks in order to be taken seriously, and keeps trying diets that never stick and whenever she vents about this to her friends they awkwardly reassure her that dieting is hard and it's fine when really she's longing to hear someone say "but you already look great" and feel like they aren't just saying it to be nice; and now she's past her prettiest youthful years but has realized she's never been made to feel beautiful, never made herself feel beautiful, and she's a serious businesswoman so she tells herself that that's frivolous and she shouldn't care but she does care, and it's not shallow vanity to care, because all these years of not caring is a side-effect of viewing her body with an air of disdain and resentment for not being good enough and not being worth the effort to make it good enough; and so she buys a paisley shirt with bright green flowers that she thinks looks outrageous but actually really likes and hopes it will be the start of finally figuring out her style, and aside from the print it's still a respectful button up so surely it's professional enough to wear to work, and all her coworkers are like "wowww, that's... different" and she doesn't know if it's because the shirt's really that ugly on her or if they just aren't used to seeing her as the kind of person who can wear these shirts, when the truth is, they can just tell how deeply uncomfortable she is in this shirt, she doesn't know how to wear clothing she likes without being hyper self-conscious. She doesn't know how to make herself feel beautiful. But she wants to.

And that's why VENDOR got woodgrain paneling.

[local-lamppost]

Initial thoughts cause it's 4am

Spoilers

First off, wow... it's really good. I've been saying that if season 2 is as good as season 1 Arcane would be my new favorite show and we are on track. Anyway, just gonna list stuff until I can process/rewatch a billion times

Mel lived! I was so certain that they would just kill her off, make that Ambessa's motive (give Jayce a reason to keep fighting the Undercity) but it's much more interesting keeping her involved in the narrative. Love her trying to bother understand and undermine her mother. Those Black Rose guys best not have hurt a hair on her perfect head.

Speaking of. What in the Utena are these Black Rose magic people? I love the look of their magic. I wonder how they can corrupt people. Is it a spell? Do they slip them something?

Love how the divide of Jayce and Viktor was done. Jayce betrayed Viktor's wishes of destroying the Hexcore. Last season, Viktor wanted to forget about using the core to save himself after Sky and begged Jayce to destroy it when the core wouldn't allow Viktor himself to do it. In Jayce's mind though, the core is the solution to Viktor's problems. He didn't know it killed Sky or that it can influence Viktor, but all Viktor can comprehend is that Jayce didn't trust him. Didn't keep his promise. And this is fresh off of Jayce's season 1 antics against the Undercity, so Viktor's faith in his partner was already shaken. Viktor's also comfortable in his mortality/death, even though he wants to prolong it like every other human, but Jayce can't fathom loosing Viktor-the man who saved his life and made his dreams reality.

(Side note: Am I a JayVik shipper? I never considered myself one, but after writing this...)

JINX HAS A KID! I love this choice. Give Jinx a kid so she is able to learn what Silco and Vi had to go through with her, that no matter how big or dangerous a scheme to take this child into account. The confrontation in ep 3 really showed what Jinx will have to consider now that this kid's decided to adopt her as an older sister or something. Especially nice detail of how Vi-who has always had to consider the kids in her life-immediately stops fighting and starts looking for ways to keep the kid safe.

I was wondering how Jinx would loose a finger and Caitlyn shooting it off to save Vi is just- The fact that the only way these two can show they care about Vi when it comes to each other is by hurting the other.

Sevika's new arm is fantastic. It's a peace offering from Jinx, but also a way for Jinx to feel better (it was something she could fix). The mechanics of it are really fun. It reminds me of Kite's weapon from HxH with how it didn't always work/give her what she wanted in the fight. I especially love the victory rockets and built in theme song.

Ambessa is so interesting. Between her character song to the introduction of just what she is fighting against, I am very intrigued. She reminds me of Cersei Lannister, except she loves her kids as more than just extensions of herself (as of what we've seen, but I think that'll stick). Her using Salo to establish herself-which also keeps Mel safe by distancing her-but also dropping him in order to prop up Cait at her first opportunity is such a clever move. She truly is the fox and the wolf, but she is above all a mama bear.

Not much to say about Heimerdinger or Ekko yet, but I am definitely curious to see what they do about the wild runes with Jayce. The three of them have a fun dynamic, what with Heimerdinger still being peeved about magic/being ousted, Ekko hating topside and having a new reason to do so with them poisoning his tree, and Jayce being recently seperated and divorced from both his partners.

Vi is an enforcer. I didn't know how they were gonna handle this, but they did it so well. Of course she wants to fix things for the people her sister hurt. She feels responsible. She can say she doesn't blame herself, but how true is that? Why else would she be wearing a badge if not for her guilt? She is desperate to do something right and being an enforcer seemed to be a way to make Cait happy, get her gauntlets (what she believes is necessary to make any kind of change), and be first in line in the hunt for Jinx. She says that her sister is dead, that Jinx is a desecration to Powder's memory, that they are not sisters but isn't it supposed to be 'nothing is going to change that'? How much of all this is just something Vi is telling herself to keep going? Cait is her motive right now, but after ep 3 I definitely see why she starts spiraling.

(2 Side note: Her new best friend/drinking buddy is such a real one. They have a bender in the gutter together and now he's following her into and out of the enforcers. I wonder if he knew Vander? In any case, he is a delight.)

Cait and Vi kissed... CAIT AND VI KISSED! Then NOTHING HAPPENED AFTER! NOTHING! No immediate break up, nope.

So Cait. I love Cait and I am hyped for her arc this season. I am ready to fight tooth and nail for her. I am a Caitlyn defender. So what she's being manipulated into leading a military state due to her grief/unresolved anger/guilt/Ambessa being better at this than her, she looks amazing in her cape. It balances.

Seriously though, the writing for Cait especially is so solid. She is desperate to hold herself and her family together, to protect her city. She still wants to protect the innocent, to heal the Undercity, but her anger at a select few of those she wants to help is clouding the greater image for her. Vi seems to be acting as her better half, the side that cares for the innocent-the protector. Ambessa is the agressor, encouraging Cait to take drastic military action against the Undercity as a whole. Vi's disillusionment with Cait is due to the fact that Cait desire to heal, not harm, is what caused her to fall for Cait to begin with. To see more than some privileged topside enforcer, but a woman who genuinely cared and was willing to abandon her peaceful naivety to learn for the greater good of strangers.

I'll also point out that they separate when Cait starts blaming Vi for them loosing Jinx. Before, everyone but Cait put responsibility on Vi, she was supposed to be the one to help lighten the load and absolve some of the guilt. Now Cait is becoming another one of those who slam the blame on Vi. She changed. Why does everyone around VI change?

Can't wait for the next batch of episodes.

[pratically-imperfect]

Caitlyn is so messy and complex of a character, and while her original goals were paved in good intentions, she's ultimately turned her back on it unwittingly. The grief, trauma, stress, and the weight of her name and new posts, it's all adding up. All while everyone around her on the topside slowly turns their backs to her previous convictions. So, in her anger - her agonizing RAGE - she turned on the last person who could keep her accountable, who held her beliefs. Because not only did Vi endorse taking the shot, make it clear, but she ended up preventing her from it. And Caitlyn...I 100% believe SHE believed she wouldn't have missed. But I also believe that, had she taken it, she would have. She lost what she's shooting for. It would be naive to think that, in a chaotic situation such as that, that she could thread the needle...and at what cost? If they weren't killed, they would have been deeply traumatized. Continuing a cycle.

All while at home, surrounded by people who bow to her, she's constantly having her original morals tested and questioned. And now she's got Ambessa in her ear, weaponizing all the vulnerabilities she's accumulated from: Being made to confront her privilege and prejudice, to being kidnapped, made a hostage, watched Jinx explode the tower and killed her mom, a terrorist attack at a MEMORIAL from the people she'd been wanting to help (turning this from Jinx being the solo scapegoat of her past prejudice, to being an act of the people of Zaun as well), and so many little things that just add up.

She lashes out, at the height of her distress - not necessarily in malice as that implies a true intent, this felt feral to me (and that FLASH of regret at the end of that stare, before she turns...) - because frankly she isn't thinking anymore. She isn't rational, and her actions are reactional. Her emotions are raw, overwhelming, and she feels like she's alone, and also like she needs to protect herself.

This of course doesn't excuse her behaviour. She said regrettably discriminatory things about the people of Zaun in her quest for blame and revenge. Of course she chose to rise to Ambessa's 'request.' And she rejected Vi both verbally and physically after making some very harmful, manipulative sounding statements to her. Caitlyn IS in the wrong. However what this does is explain things. Humans are complex and the world is PAVED in shades of grey. Our personalities change over time, we act differently with different people. The nicest people can still do bad things, just because their perspective makes it seem good. The evilest of people can, much in the same way, do good things but have bad ulterior motives.

There is so much going on than just this, or just that. There is more to this conversation than being apologetic only to Vi OR Caitlyn. They're both victims, they've both done bad, and they have both made mistakes, and neither of them are wholly GOOD or BAD.

We can laugh and say we support woman's wrongs, and continue to love and support our favourite girls, but it's important to look at the wider context, and that there's more to it all.

I think it's this messy complexity that makes us love them, and it's also what will make the payoff so much more sweet when the time comes...if it comes. I can hope.

[bazingabitch2000]

Tori Spring and Michael Holden head canons:

Michael and Tori are both autistic, though they express it differently. Michael's traits appear more outwardly visible, while Tori’s are subtler, perhaps because Solitaire is narrated from her perspective. We see her tendencies through her internal thoughts, actions, and reflections, all filtered through her own lens. I also think Michael may have ADHD as well.

Michael and Tori are in a queerplatonic relationship. It is NOT a romantic or sexual relationship. Their kiss at the book's end feels out of place; their connection doesn’t need that romantic signal. Queerplatonic relationships like theirs are as valid and significant as romantic ones. Michael is Tori's person, and Tori is Michael's person. I think what they have is beautiful, and it shouldn't be meddled with.

Michael is one of the only people who is able to make Tori laugh - and I mean REALLY laugh. She doesn't hide her face so much when she laughs around him. Sometimes, she laughs in spite of him. She can't help but admit that he cracks her up. She secretly loves that. Michael also secretly loves that. Sometimes they'll spend hours laughing until their faces and tummies hurt, and one of them either decides to finally go home, or they both just fall asleep together.

Tori just borrows Michael's sweaters whenever. She gets looks from her mum, Charlie, and the others, and she knows what they think. She knows they think that her and Michael are together. She doesn't bother to correct them because it's too exhausting, and they'll never get it.

Tori is cold - always. No matter what time of year, or how many layers she's wearing, she is always cold and always complains about how cold it is. Michael is the opposite of this, and is always lovely and warm. He doesn't even have to wear loads of layers. He's always pretty warm. Michael teases Tori for the fact that she's always freezing cold.

Michael makes Tori watch films she's never watched, and once she does, she reluctantly admits that they're actually great films.

Once Tori watches a new film that Michael has recommended, she makes a playlist based on the film, or a favourite character of Michael's from that film.

Tori finds people who reject pop music as “too mainstream” insufferable. She can rant about it for so long that the room falls silent.

Michael is never surprised when he sees that Tori is online at like 2 am. He teases her about it, and begs her to try and go to sleep at a respectable hour, but she never gives in.

Tori refuses to speak with anyone at breakfast if she can avoid it. She makes a point of making sure she can eat breakfast alone in the kitchen or eat it in her room. Either way, her headphones are on as she listens to Coldplay or Radio Head. If someone interrupts her, she glares and reluctantly removes her headphones.

Sometimes, Tori dissociates while she's around her friends. She finds herself questioning whether everything going on around her is real. Whether it's actually happening. Her friends don't seem to notice.

Tori's closet is full of hoodies, while Michael has a growing collection of sweaters.

Tori drinks everything with a straw.

Michael likes to give Tori small doodles, drawings, and notes. Tori keeps all of them and looks at them every once in a while when she can't sleep.

Tori absolutely refuses to ever use the overhead light. She will avoid using it at ALL costs.

Tori gets very bad migraines a lot. They even make her lightheaded and on the brink of fainting. She shrugs it off or plays it off that she's fine around others, but Michael can usually tell. Michael brings paracetamol or ibuprofen always, just in case. He also reminds Tori to drink water.

Tori lives off buttered noodles/pasta, mac n' cheese, or nuggets and chips a lot of the time. She can't cook to save her life.

Sometimes Tori finds herself watching game shows like Tipping Point and The Chase. She genuinely enjoys watching them and tries to play along.

Tori refuses to buy a new phone until her current one is on it's last legs. She just can't comprehend why and how people will buy a new phone once a new model is out.

When she was younger, she would get in trouble for cutting her hair on her own with a scissors.

Tori almost always has a blanket with her in her house. She has plenty of blankets in her room. When she's in the living room, you can bet she has a blanket.

In school, Tori was either the one telling everyone to “shut up” or sitting silently by herself. She was never part of the noise.

Michael would feel bad if any of his teddies were left out, so he would sleep with all of them, or have some sort of rota/routine and sleep with a different one each night.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Is there a reason Marinette’s lying to Adrien about Gabriel doesn’t make sense to you from a character-standpoint? She’s lied a fair bit in the show for reasons other than keeping her identity or crush on Adrien a secret, and her love for Adrien has consistently created a blind spot for her in terms of her “general” morals/behavior.

Is there something more specific to Marinette’s pattern of behavior that indicates how her lying about Gabe would be OOC, or is the lie something you believe Canon!Marinette should recognize as too egregious to take part in?

(The closest alternative explanation I’ve seen thus far is that she shouldn’t have any reason to lie for Gabe because they share zero good will, but if we interpret it as lying for Adrien, then I’m not sure if that explanation fits.)

I have, admittedly, not gone through the show and tracked every lie that Marinette has ever told to see if I can weave together a pattern that backs Marinette's behavior at the end of season five. It's possible that there's a lie that I'm forgetting that would totally change my stance and, if you think that's the case, then feel free to respond to this with a comment or an ask on that topic! My "this is BS" stance is based on the overall story of the show and the ways that I've seen people try to justify the season five lies as those are the arguments that I've thought through and found lacking.

We'll start by discussing the two lies people use to try to back Marinette's behavior at the end of season five: the scarf and Chat Blanc. Then I'll talk about the story's lead up to the season five lies and why it makes for a horribly unsatisfying story in my eyes. If someone gave this to me, I'd be suggesting some major edits to make it work on a technical level.

The Scarf

For those who don't remember, the season one episode The Bubbler sees Marinette make Adrien a scarf for his birthday. She drops the scarf off at the Agreste mansion with a note for Adrien and the hope that this will get him to finally notice her. Nathalie then takes the scarf and uses it as a gift from Gabriel instead. Marinette learns about this during this exchange at the very end of the episode:

Alya: Yo, nice scarf, Adrien. Off the chain. Adrien: Yeah, can you believe my dad got this for me? (Marinette looks surprised) it's so awesome. He's been giving me the same lame pen for three years in a row.... Alya:(to Marinette) You gotta tell him you were the one who knitted the scarf. Marinette: But he seems so happy about his dad. I don't want to spoil it for him. Alya: Aw, Marinette. (they hug.) You're amazing, girl. You know that, right? And someday Adrien will figure it out too. Promise.

I can see why someone would look at this and call it a setup for the end of season five. There are some parallels here. The problem is that there are a lot of massive differences, too. Differences that make this a really crappy setup:

Marinette does not lie in this scene. She simply overhears a lie and doesn't correct it. Remove her and Alya from the scene and nothing changes. The lie still exists. Meanwhile, without Marinette, the season five lies would never have come to be.

Marinette knows about the scarf lie for about a minute on screen. She hears about it and tells Alya to let it go within the same scene. That's a gut reaction, not a carefully planned and considered deceit. Once again, wildly different from what season five gives us.

Adrien and Marinette aren't shown to be close friends in season one. They rarely talk to the point that I didn't even know that they were supposed to be friends until we got to Origins. That complicates correcting the scarf lie. How does Marinette approach a random classmate and explain a situation that she doesn't even fully understand herself? That's very different from Ladybug telling a lie to a civilian or Marinette lying to her boyfriend.

Season one Marinette has no idea how messed up Adrien's home life is. All she knows is that Adrien liked her gift, but that he thinks it came from a different person. She doesn't even know that a lie was involved in this confusion! As far as she's aware, this could just be a minor misunderstanding that she'd rather let go because does it really matter who the gift is from? This is extra true because the scarf never comes up again, meaning that this is not an ongoing or damaging lie as far as canon is concerned.

That last point and the issue of Marinette never actually telling the lie herself are probably the biggest points in Marinette's favor. If Adrien wore the scarf all the time and used it as a comfort when he was fighting with his dad, then you'd have a solid case for Marinette needing to say something because the lie is arguably doing actual harm. This is especially true if you let Adrien say things like, "I wear this to remember that my father loves me," to Marinette. But that's not what canon did.

As far as canon is concerned, the scarf lie exists for all of a minute. A minute in which Adrien expresses delight in the gift, but gives it very tepid weight in terms of what it means for his relationship with his father. (Adrien's room is full of nice gifts, I don't think a scarf was going to make-or-break their relationship.) After that, the scarf never comes up again, meaning that Marinette's gut reaction to not immediately destroy Adrien's happiness is all we get. That's hardly a great setup for her being the source of massive ongoing lies about Adrien's personhood and the truth of his father's abuse.

I'll also remind you that this all happened at the very start of the show. The Bubbler is one of the first episodes people see. If this is your best argument for Marinette's behavior five seasons later, then we have a major writing problem on our hands. You should not have to dig back to the very start of the show to justify a major character beat like this. There should be more relevant material. We'll circle back to that problem in a minute. First let's quickly touch on lie two and why it also falls flat.

Chat Blanc

Another thing people point to as foreshadowing for the season five lies is the fact that Ladybug kept Chat Blanc from Chat Noir and, if Chat Blanc was actually affecting her, then I would agree with this take. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. The official story is that Ladybug's actions in season four had nothing to do with Chat Blanc. It was just guardian stress! If that's true, then I don't think she should tell Chat Noir about Chat Blanc.

Why?

Since when do we tell people about all the awful things they did while they were akumatized? There's no point to that. It's cruel. Do you think that Ladybug also needs to walk him through everything he did while under the control of various akumas like Dark Cupid? If no, then how is Chat Blanc any different? What's the value in telling Chat Noir the gory details of what will happen if he ever has a moment of weakness and becomes akumatized? He already knows that it will be bad! Why tell him exactly how bad it will be? I can't come up with a single good canonical reason.

Ladybug has no idea what caused Chat Blanc, so she can't warn Chat Noir what he needs to avoid. You can't even use the "he should know about Bunnyx" argument because that wasn't Bunnyx's debut. Canonically speaking, the only reason that Ladybug should talk to Chat Noir about Chat Blanc or any other bad thing that he's done while under the power of an akuma is if it's effecting her or their partnership and it's apparently not! That's why Marinette never reacts to Chat Noir getting a white makeover (see: the Paris special & Jubilation) and why Chat Blanc is never discussed in the show outside of that one brief nightmare callback in Sentibubbler.

To be clear, I think that's an asinine choice as Chat Blanc's memory hurting Ladynoir would have been semi-decent foreshadowing for the season five lies, but the writers decided to go another route. They also let Chat Blanc haunt Adrien even though he doesn't know about it, which I don't even know how to dissect because it's such terrible writing! If you don't know what I'm talking about, this is the official explanation for why Adrien couldn't make it to the final fight. The reason for the white-and-blue Chat Noir that haunted his nightmares:

Mélanie says that he "could become Chat Blanc" and the others add that even though he does not remember and has never lived it, Chat Blanc still has an influence on his actions.

Quality writing here folks. Quality writing. At the very least have season five Adrien be freaked out about the fact that he cataclysmed a human! That would make this make at least a little sense, but we don't get that. Instead we get Adrien almost cataclysming several akumas like it's no big deal while having nightmares about a thing he's never even been told about (see: Derision and Jubilation and probably other's I'm forgetting.)

The Events of Season Four and Five

As you can hopefully see, we don't have a great, ongoing pre-end-of-season-five lie to point to as proof that Marinette would decide to tell the massive lies that she does. That's a pretty big writing flaw, but it's not a show stopper. A lie like this could still fit her character if the story sets it up right.

The problem is that the story doesn't do that. It actually sets Marinette up to be primed to want to tell the truth.

For all Miraculous' nonsensical and wacky writing, the season five lie still comes at the end of two seasons with relatively clear messages. Those messages were to trust others and avoid lies. Let me show you what I mean.

While season four's writing is an absolute disaster, we cannot ignore the fact that the stated lesson in Strikeback is that Marinette learned to trust others, give up control, and stop lying:

Ladybug: Why don't you just give up on me? I've lost ALL the Miraculous! I'm the worst Guardian EVER! I wanted to control everything, I didn't listen to you, I lied to you, I kept you at a distance! Every time you offered me a helping hand, I never took it! I really made a mess of EVERYTHING! (continues sobbing)

This is what Marinette says to Chat Noir directly after losing the Kwamis. This is the lesson that she supposedly learned. The end note of the season. The word of god meant to be internalized by children everywhere. The show even goes so far as to have Ladybug give Chat Noir more responsibility in the first episode of season five (Evolution):

Cat Noir: Catch, m'lady! (throws the Rabbit Miraculous at Ladybug and she catches it) Only the holder of the Rabbit Miraculous can open a time portal. Ladybug: (contemplates shortly then places the Rabbit Miraculous on his chest, smiling) You do it, kitty. Cat Noir: You want me to control time? Ladybug: It's you and me, remember?

Really driving home this idea that Ladybug is going to be more trusting and open with others moving forward.

The meat of season five sees Marinette and Adrien start dating. During this arc, Marinette learns to be more open with her feelings around Adrien while also being confronted with the reality of just how messed up Adrien's home life is. Marinette and Gabriel clash with each other over Adrien with Marinette fighting for Adrien's freedom and Gabriel trying to control everything:

Gabriel: I don't think you understand, child, so let me put things differently. Life is like fashion. You think you have a choice, but all you have is the illusion of choice. And I decide what choices are given to you. Marinette: You're wrong! (Shows Gabriel her sketchbook.) Fashion is about listening to people, it's about understanding who they are, what excites them and creating the clothes that will help them express their inner world. Help them connect with others and make their dreams come true.

This conflict means that Marinette and Gabriel do not have a single positive interaction in the entire season outside of maybe the final. We also see Adrien defy his father more than ever before. This is not the kind of setup you write if you want Marinette to tell Adrien that his father was a hero. Why in the world would she think that he'd want to be told that kind of lie? Why would he even buy it after all of the things that Gabriel has done? The final literally sees Adrien locked in a padded prison cell!!! Writers, what are you doing??? Why did you write this???

There's also the fact that season five has a major theme of lies = bad. It's the season where Lila's lies are finally outed, but only after they almost cost Marinette's friends their futures. For those who need a reminder: Lila tried to mess with the forms that stated where everyone wanted to go for lycée and would have succeeded in pulling off that harm and blaming it on Marinette were it not for the lies being outed.

On top of that, we also see Adrien keeping the plan to ship him off to London from Marinette, ending in this exchange:

Marinette: (on the video call) Adrien! Adrien: (voice breaking; in tears) Marinette, I should've told you sooner, but... up until the last minute, I thought I'd find a solution. I tried everything, I swear. Marinette: (on the video call) Adrien, what's... what's going on? Adrien: I have to leave Paris. (his voice breaks) I'm not worthy of your love. I feel terrible for hurting you.

Adrien kept the truth from Marinette to try to keep her from being hurt and ended up hurting her more than he otherwise would have because they don't even get a proper goodbye.

None of this is a solid setup for Marinette turning around and lying to Adrien about his father. Why would she do that after all of the harm lies and Gabriel caused in season five? Between this and season four, she has not been setup to want to lie to Adrien. Season five needs massive rewrites to make that choice work! (Note: I have yet to see the London special, but based on everything I've heard, I think it's just going to cement my annoyance at Marinette's wishy-washy writing by continuing to ignore the plot of the seasons leading up to the final and the special.)

Final Thoughts

I don't think that Marinette lying to Adrien about his dad is a terrible idea. It's a believable struggle! It just doesn't fit her character's journey. They've failed to have her tell that type of lie before and they had her tell this lie after two seasons where the main lessons were how much lies have hurt her and the people that she loves. If she hasn't gotten the message that you shouldn't lie by now, then when exactly is she going to learn it? It's incredibly hard for me to get invested in characters that aren't allowed to grow and learn from their mistakes and Miraculous has made it abundantly clear that it will not let these characters grow if growth messes with the plot that the writers want to tell.

I will openly admit that I think that Marinette's lie was a last minute retcon to make there be a cliffhanger to season six, but let's ignore that and give a quick three-point plan of how you could make this ending work:

Really lean into the negative consequences of people knowing the truth about things. Nino knowing Alya's identity outing Alya. Luka getting shipped off to Brazil. Make the truth hurt Marinette at every turn. Basically remove all lies = bad consequences and have Ladybug see losing the miraculous be the result of trusting others because she trusted "Adrien" and lost, leading her to keep pushing people away

Don't let Lila be outed. Have Lila be a good president and make that part of her big plan for the next season.

Have Gabriel and Marinette get along. Gabriel has said that Adrien is like Emilie, let Gabriel see himself in Marinette, leading Gabriel to trust Marinette to be Adrien's support should the worst happen. Let the final fight be a heartbreaking moment between two people who have an actual relationship built around loving Adrien. Have Adrien going to London be a "convenient" trip to get him out of the way on the day of the evil plot and not a prison sentence so that Gabriel doesn't look cartoonishly evil. Make it feel like he cares! Sell the redemption!

Do that and, yeah, I'd buy Marinette's choice even without setup lies because you don't need setup lies! Setup lies don't matter anywhere near as much as selling this lie and the writers simply didn't do that. I don't believe for a second that Marinette would lie for Gabriel or think that this was what Adrien wanted based on the relationship season five gave us for those three characters. It is so glaringly obvious that this is nothing more than a stalling tactic that has nothing to do with Marinette's character and everything to do with the show's rule that "there must always be a secret between Adrien and Marinette." I genuinely struggle to understand how anyone sees it as anything else.

[izvmimi]

“Thank you for always being so understanding about all of this,” Izuku says between spoonfuls of soup. You look up from your own bowl, then around; Inko has stepped out of the room to use the restroom, and the two of you remain facing each other at dinner.

Tenko hasn’t joined the three of you tonight, citing “other plans”, but you have the impression that nerves have gotten to him finally and Izuku agrees with your assessment. The thought of Tenko, once Shigaraki, being nervous about how the general public will receive him feels somewhat ridiculous, but it is a very fair thing to be worried about given the circumstances.

After all, it’s only been 5 years since the meta war, and even if he’s proven himself to Midoriya and the Hero Commission, he has no guarantee going public in this matter will be well received, even if Deku will be by his side, promising emphatically and empathetically in his own very Deku way to stop him again if things get awry, and the people believe in their Symbol of Hope.

Yet, what Izuku is referencing is something unrelated completely. His hand reaches over the table to cover yours gently, and he smiles warmly at you, and in that look, you remember how happy he was to see you from his hospital bed, adjusting a few flowers and cards on the counters before being startled by the sound of his voice. He was happy to see you intact, safe, despite having gotten precariously close to the main fight. 

Izuku remembers your body moments away from disintegration every so often, the expected turn in his stomach not lessening over the years, and often wonders why you’ve managed to forgive Tenko the way you have, allowing him to crash on your apartment sofa and eat up all your snacks, and to permeate daily conversations between the two of you.

But you, like the people will during the press conference tomorrow, believe in his ability to be good.

Your lips part slightly with the touch as though you were to say something in surprise, but you choose not to, smiling instead, using your other hand to finish your soup. 

The words I trust you and I have hope, are left unsaid.

—

The cameras don’t stop flashing but Deku and Entropy continue to face the cameras politely, smiles matching, Entropy’s not as wide but still warm. The dreaded tomato isn’t tossed at his face and while there are a few insults hurled from the back of the crowd, understandably, they’re easily drowned out by the cheers of support.

The two young men both pledge to keep the city safe.

The trial period of their partnership will be for about a year before they’ll eventually act independently, and while it seems like a sensible idea upfront, you and Izuku find out that the netizens have quite a lot to say about it.

Parole officer Deku…

They’re really running out of new concepts, aren’t they?

Do you think I could turn him back? He might have been sexier before…

That last comment has 200+ replies and you pore through them on your phone while Tenko returns with four iced beverages, three of them coffee and the fourth a lemonade with an alarming amount of caffeine in them. Sparkles eyes his drink, while accepting her latte from him, then shakes her head.

“You know those kill people, right?”

Tenko blinks for a moment, then shrugs before putting the straw in his mouth. 

“I mean…” you pipe up and Izuku gives you a look to warn you not to make the joke you want so desperately to make, and you press a finger to your own mouth coyly.

Sparkles figures out where you were about to go in that sentence and kicks your leg under the table. Tenko sips on his drink and says nothing.

“You guys looked great out there,” you say, instead. “I would definitely trust my life to you both,” you add and Sparkles nods enthusiastically. You watch her pat his shoulder gently, then catch herself, pretending she was wiping off a bit of lint.

You’ll send her a text reminding her she doesn’t need to pretend that he wasn’t with her last night in a couple minutes, but for now you let the two newly partnered pros give their own press conference perspective.

There are many new books to be written and you wonder which page you’ll turn first.

[rita-repulsa-ke]

Death and the Scarlet Witch

"She tried to wreck my life, destroy my family, literally murder me after she thought she'd stolen my power," Wanda says, using her fingers to count off all of Agatha's crimes. "She also tormented me with my past and lied to me. A lot."

That does, Rio has to admit, sound like the woman she loves. Especially the lying part. She can't keep a smile off her face.

This probably makes slightly more sense if you've read Scarlet. Rio goes to visit the Scarlet Witch, during the time Wanda is hanging out in that cabin at the end of Wandavision studying the Darkhold.

This one has warnings for lots of mentions of death, small-d, and also Rio is not always very nice. She is, however, very romantic over Agatha.

Death is everywhere. She is on a Road that doesn’t exist and, in that same second, she is next to the hospital bed of a young man, both of them ignoring the flurry of activity around them as nurses and doctors try valiantly to save a life that has already passed into her hands.

“I wasn’t ready,” he says.

“Most people aren’t,” Death replies. “How was what you had?”

He thinks about it, then gives her a tentative smile. “It was pretty good?"

She offers him her hand. “Sometimes, that’s the best you get.”

In the same blink of an eye, she sits on wet pavement next to woman staring at a mess of twisted metal.

“I wasn’t ready,” the stranger says.

Rio keeps her sigh internal. “Most people—“

An elderly woman in a nursing home. A child swimming where they shouldn’t have been. A man killed in a fight gone wrong.

Death is everywhere she needs to be.

And simultaneously, she is at a cabin in a beautiful, remote wilderness, a cabin that radiates an achingly familiar dark power.

She pushes open the door, startles a woman making herself a cup of tea, and has to hastily deflect the bolt of red energy flung toward her.

It isn't a very good deflection and in her head, she can hear Agatha murmuring, you’re so sloppy. You have so much power, but your technique—

Yes, Ags, I know. Shush now.

“Hi,” Death says. “I’m Rio.”

The woman stares at her, then gives a short, mirthless laugh. “I know who you are,” she says. “You have followed me all my life.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Rio says.

She can’t help but notice that Wanda is beautiful.

Not like that. No one is beautiful like Agatha, frustrating, gorgeous monster that she is. No, Wanda Maximoff is beautiful like an apocalypse. She is the end of any number of worlds, the potential for a sea of corpses the likes of which even Rio has never seen.

It does amuse Rio to imagine how jealous Agatha would be, though, were she here. She always hates when Rio is looking at anyone but her.

Rio never is, of course. Not really.

“What do you want?” Wanda asks, snapping her back to this moment alongside a million others. “Is it—is it my time?”

She sounds so hopeful.

"No," Rio admits. "I wanted to talk."

She isn't sure what she wants, not really. Revenge, maybe, but why should she? Agatha doesn't deserve her fury, would scorn her protection.

Rio wants to protect her anyway.

Still, there are rules. She can't simply take Wanda. And she's made enough exceptions for Agatha already.

Wanda's laugh turns softer and simultaneously more hollow. "To talk. Death wants to talk to me. Why not? I feel at this point we should be good friends, you and I." She sits in a chair that wasn't there a moment ago, and Rio is coming to the interesting realization that Wanda is not entirely well.

Agatha had told her once that the Darkhold broke weak minds. She'd told her that while throwing bolts of dark magic at Rio and crowing over her success in having mastered the Book of the Damned, of course, but the point still stands.

"Lots of people die," Rio says. "You aren't special."

"Aren't I? Aren't I special? The Scarlet Witch," she says the words with too much emphasis, drags her voice over the sounds. "There's a whole chapter on me in the Darkhold, did you know? If that is not special, I don't know what is." She laughs again and there has never been a more humorless sound.

"Riiiight," Rio says. She's starting to think she doesn't need to enact revenge, she can sit back and let the universe take its course.

Feels a little passive, though.

"What more can you take from me?" Wanda asks. "What more can I lose?"

Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out too, she thinks. "I'm not here to take," she lies. If Agatha can do it, so can she.

"…Do you understand grief? Can you?" Wanda asks without prelude, and now Rio isn't sure this broken woman, sitting in a chair that doesn't exist, is talking to her at all.

She's also starting to notice a very interesting similarity between that chair and a certain Road she's currently walking, a Road she always knew wasn't real.

"I do understand grief,” she says, no lies this time. There is something she grieves more deeply than she'd ever thought possible.

Wanda is still talking, still mostly to herself. "I had a husband. I had children. I had everything I ever wanted."

"The ones you made with magic?" It had taken her some time to find Agatha—she isn't sure how long, she's never been good with time—to find the strange little town and the stranger situation her beloved had gotten herself into this time. But find and save her she did, unsticking her from that miserable curse.

Not that Agatha had appreciated Rio sweeping in to save her. She never does.

Still, she remembers Agatha screaming herself awake, sobbing in Rio’s arms, and she does hope there is something more she can take from the Scarlet Witch.

Wanda nods in listless agreement, that family, the fake magic ones.

How fake is suddenly a very interesting question.

"Hey, I want to ask you something," Rio says.

Wanda only nods again, staring vacantly into the past with the expression of a woman who has not fully lived in the present for some time.

"When you broke the spell, you also broke a woman's mind and left her in that place, imagining she was someone else. Someone even more annoying. Why'd you do it, Wanda?"

Now Wanda's attention snaps to her, rivulets of scarlet magic racing up her neck and down her arms, and oh, she is dangerous, all that power with so little control. Rio can picture Agatha's sneer.

"Agatha," Wanda hisses the name. "Is that who you're here to ask me about? Death has come all this way to ask me about Agatha Harkness?"

"That's the one," Rio agrees.

"She tried to wreck my life, destroy my family, literally murder me after she thought she'd stolen my power," Wanda says, using her fingers to count off all of Agatha's crimes. "She also tormented me with my past and lied to me. A lot."

That does, Rio has to admit, sound like the woman she loves. Especially the lying part. She can't keep a smile off her face. "Still. Aren't you supposed to be the good guy?"

"Not that good, I guess," Wanda says, and now even more of her attention is focused on this conversation. Though much like Rio, some part of her always lives elsewhere.

Motorcycle accident. Liver failure. A bad heart. Death deals with all of them without taking her eyes off the Scarlet Witch.

"Agatha did also break you out of your weird sitcom project," Rio points out. "Made you realize that what you were doing was hurting people. Did you know, I wonder? What you were doing to them? Did you know and try to ignore it, in order to keep everything you wanted?"

Wanda comes to her feet, surges like a wave, staggers like a corpse. Her teeth bare with fury, her eyes leak pain. "Of course I didn't! Are you just here to torment me?! Do you think that I don't have nightmares about what I did to those people? Do you know what I lost to make it right?"

Wow, she's dramatic.

"She only did it because she wanted my power. I was in her head. That woman has never done a single kind thing for anyone in her life, not without getting something in return," Wanda continues and Rio can't hold back her laughter, high-pitched, shrill giggles that contain a note of unfettered delight.

"You've got that right," she agrees, and ugh, she wants Agatha, Agatha smiling, Agatha laughing, Agatha complaining about things not happening fast enough, Agatha kissing her—

Agatha whirling her around with a crown of flowers in her hair, her expression that of someone being tortured on the rack. Agatha, laughing too loudly, cheeks flushed with cheap beer, toasting to them both. Agatha, explaining some ritual in intricate detail while she inscribes runes, talking to Rio mostly to keep herself on track.

Agatha, in their bed, lit by the fireplace behind her, head on her hand, looking at Rio like she hasn't in centuries. "I've missed you," she admits, with a sly smile. "I've been thinking. You and I always made a great team. What do you say we get the band back together?"

This isn't right. This isn't how it happened.

"Can you forgive me?" Rio asks anyway, hating how desperate she sounds.

Somewhere a man falls from the top of a building, several stories too high for survival to be a possibility and lives anyway.

"Of course I can," Agatha says. "I love you."

Hah, as if. Even during their best times, Agatha never would have said it so easily. But her hand is on Rio's cheek, and she's so warm, she feels so real. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss her.

There’s something important she's forgetting.

An ICU has a quiet night, no deaths even among their most critical patients.

"Rio, kiss me," Agatha prompts, and the smile on her lips is so close to being right, a taunting, teasing, tormenting expression. "My love, come to bed."

This is what she wants, isn't it? This is what she's always wanted, Agatha, gentled a little, sweeter, softer, but still the woman she loves.

No, she thinks, this isn’t what I want. I want the real thing. I want the jagged edges, I want the cruelty and the manipulation and the way she screws up her face before she says anything even slightly romantic. I want the way she makes big, sweeping gestures to prove her own power, the way she kisses me like she owns me, the way she sings silly, made up songs to herself when she thinks no one is listening and how she can never sit still, not even for a minute—

I want my Agatha.

A girl falls from her bike, in front of a car and—

Death roars back into the world.

Now it’s Rio’s turn to stagger, as reality reasserts itself. "...You got into my head," she says, and she's still so shocked that she's not even angry about it, only impressed. "Congratulations, no one has ever done that before, not even Ags."

No wonder Agatha went after Wanda. Enough power to, however briefly, divert Death. And suddenly, she's very glad that Agatha, who at least claims to hate her, did not succeed in gaining that power, no matter how much Rio loves her.

"You love her," Wanda murmurs. "You really—kind of creepily—love her."

Rio throws her head back and laughs, a shrill, sharp sound, the squeal of tires on the road, the scream of witnesses. "I do," she admits. "I really, really do."

"I could see you, for a moment. The whole of you," Wanda continues. "All the places you are. All those people. So many, all the time. I don’t know how you stand it." She sags suddenly, leans her weight against the much more real counter. "…Can I ask you something?"

"Go for it."

"When I die, will I see them again? My boys and Vis?"

"Yes," Death says, with absolute certainty. "You'll see them again."

Wanda sinks to the floor, pulls her knees to her chest and shakes with relief, tears rolling silently down her cheeks. "That's all. That's all I needed to know."

"Not yet, though. It isn't your time. You still have things to do," Rio says. "Because you know what, Wanda?"

Wanda only stares up at her, face slick with tears.

"You're right. Death will follow you all your life. In fact, I think we'll be seeing each other again very soon," Rio says, letting her mask drop, and she can see her own skinless reflection in Wanda's widening eyes. "You and me? We are going to have so much fun."

Then, as Wanda starts to form a question, Death is gone. After all, how could she take Wanda now? There is still so much the Scarlet Witch can give her, so many bodies.

Besides, it would be breaking the rules.

But it turns out that there is something of Wanda's she can take. Something waiting for her on a Road that doesn't exist, something she's overlooked, something Agatha, manipulative as always, has been hiding in plain sight.

Rio will make certain that Wanda sees her boys again.

She leaves the cabin, but remains everywhere else.

Somewhere a girl sobs on her shoulder and Death pats her back with practiced movements, perfected over millennia. In that same blink of an eye, she holds an old woman's hand, kisses an old man's cheek, listens patiently to a priest perform his own last rites and guides a protection witch beyond the veil.

Then she steps back onto the Road, hands behind her head, whistling to herself. She's going to go find Agatha. She's already annoyed by all that has been kept from her, and she has no doubt it will be a fight, one where her beloved will probably say something manipulative, cruel or both.

Still, even knowing all of that, she can’t wait to see the real thing.

Want to read something sad? Try Nicky

Want to read something fluffy? Try Flirting

Want to read more Rio thinking about Agatha? Try the thief

[thanks-for-the-crabapples]

Initial thoughts while watching arcane s2 act 1, spoilers below

Ep 1:

Literally in disbelief that Mel ended up alive, surely thought they were going to kill her and thus spark off Ambessa's arc

Absolutely unhinged that Viktor's last wish was for Jayce to destroy the hexcore and he uses it to save his life. There will surely be no repercussions from this action

Caitlyn and Vi hugging stfuuuuuuu

I really wish we had gotten to see Caitlyn defending Vi to the Enforcers instead of just hearing about it. I think that would've been really helpful for Cait's arc as well as made their future rift more impactful :/

That chem baron attack had me on the edge of my seat !! If they actually killed Mel in that moment I would've been so mad that I wondered about her for three years then found out she was alive then saw her die.... not yet at least :|

Okay but was the chem baron lady always that fit? Like,,,,hello

Cait and Vi fighting together is *chef's kiss*

Made a joke that Ambessa was late to the party cause she was watching her own music video to hype herself up. If only :(

Caitlyn storming in and claiming herself as a decorated officer and leader of House Kiramman to get her way holyyyyyy shit girl get it

Ep 2

These little differently animated opens are so slay

Very fun to see behind the curtain of this power grab. Love Sevika saying they don't give up their own people. She has changed somehow??

Super fun watching Sevika and Jinx reminisce about being Silco's henchwomen. They say behind every strong man, lol

Viktor waking up?!?!? Hehe he's nakey. They made Jayce give him a blanket so we wouldn't know about his arcane pee pee, sad

Affection that held us together??? Yaoi

They just love throwing more and more irreparable moments at Vi and Jinx's relationship huh? Talking about the arcade and how sad Jinx was to see Vi as an Enforcer using the gas :((((

Caitlyn's rage??? Okay girl go off. Let us see your rage. I support women's wrongs

Jinx's line about taking out the only family she has left kill me

Viktor as Jesus is not what I was expecting but I'm here for it

Ep 3:

So fascinated by the Kiramman lore and The Gray

Also, just have to say that the intro is so good and I never would have expected comfortable clothes for everyone but it's giving. Whoever put Cait in a black turtle neck thank youuuu

*kinda blacked out and missed stuff in this episode cause* CAITVI KISS LETS GO HAJAFHSJSKFK

Scientist team up is delightful

Definitely thought the temple fight was gonna be ep 9, very interesting fight and dynamic, it makes me very sad :(

"You're not my sister" ahhhhhhhh

I've taken ventilation classes before and idk how Jinx made the air do that lol

Cait and Vi break up scene, hundreds dead thousands injured. It's me, I'm dead

I'm so ready to witness all of Caitlyn's wrongs

Def blacked out most of ep 3 and missed quite a bit of note taking cause so much was happening. Can't wait to go back and process it all again. Until then I'm going to keep wallowing

[bird-inacage]

Arcane S2 Act 1: Caitlyn's Arc (The Call of Revenge)

This is not my usual corner of tumblr, but I adore Arcane and I wanted to air out my thoughts on Act 1. There's understandably a lot of contentious commentary surrounding Caitlyn's 'villain uprising'.

As Mel points out, "she hides it admirably, but the poor girl's in so much pain". Caitlyn is by all definitions a loose cannon right now. She's clearly not in a sound nor stable state of mind. She's plagued by immense levels of grief, anger and hatred, that have her possessed and consumed. She's tried to put on a brave face but she's lashing out. She's raw. She fantasises about killing Jinx. Revenge is rarely ever rational or fair. It's emotionally charged and can often veer into madness.

During their fight with Jinx, all that comes to a head. In the heat of the moment, Caitlyn completely loses all her rationale, any dregs of compassion we knew from S1 swiftly go out the window. She must kill Jinx, no matter what. When people lose something dear, revenge can become their sole motivation, the only thing giving them purpose and a reason to keep going or to even stay alive. When a war suddenly takes away one of your loved ones, it becomes personal and very real. Up until that point, you can take a more diplomatic approach. A more idealistic stance. That is, until you've become a direct victim of the situation.

There was always a degree of sheltered naivete we saw with Caitlyn in S1, which clashed with Vi's more jaded (or grounded) sense of reality. And now Caitlyn's experiencing that for herself. Those feelings are currently at their most heightened, most potent and therefore; most dangerous. Luckily Vi had Vander to guide her when she tragically lost her parents, but there's no one to steer and influence Caitlyn when she's now at her most vulnerable and volatile.

Vi is wrapped up in the centre of said conflict and is still processing a lifetime of grief herself. Jayce is pre-occupied with Viktor. Mel has disappeared. Her mother is dead. Her father is paralysed by grief. There is no Grayson or equivalent to lead the enforcers. She doesn't have a mentor figure to consult or look to for guidance, who has her best interests at hand. "I don't know how, okay?!"

Ambessa seeks to exploit Caitlyn as a figurehead to aid her own objectives, precisely because she's in the perfect position to be easily manipulated and weaponised. "Come child", is a stark reminder that essentially Caitlyn is still a child. A child whose lost their mother and lost their way and now stands in the middle of a political hailstorm. So when Ambessa offers out her hand, it's no surprise Caitlyn takes it.

In my opinion, attempting to deem Caitlyn's actions as categorically right or wrong is a huge disservice to the complexities of the situation and the story. No one sets out to be the villain of their own narrative. We feel justified in what we do, because of who we are and what we've gone through. In our own minds, our actions make sense to us. And quite frankly, no one is immune to that.

[whereispearlescentmoon]

Ok, so starting with Jimmy, my thoughts are mainly based on the animatic and less of Jimmy as a character. Essentially I view him as the person who tries to die in order to save the ones he cares about, and he does over and over again. (I view him as doing this in order to show the inevitability of death each season to try to get his allies to not be complacent in the games) But the part that I think is interesting that no one seems to talk about, is that he fails every time. In third life, his death caused Scott to die trying to avenge him, in Last Life, Martyn died trying to make a deal with a watcher to save him, Double Life doesn't work as well, but you could say that his death caused Tango to die of grief. Then in limited life, Jimmy dies in the exact way that Grian is going to die, but his warning is completely useless and Grian dies in the exact same ways anyways. (I headcanon that this made him finally realize that his deaths were meaningless and the "curse" ends). My thoughts on Pearl started later and kind of build off these thoughts with Jimmy (also kind of based on the posts bigb enthusiast and mapleejay made on nosy neighbors canary in a coal mine). Pearl in Limited Life and Secret Life is desperately trying to be the "canary", using her death in order to save her allies and let them win. In limited life she does this literally with BigB, repeatedly giving him her time. However, she fails as a canary, she outlives the coal miner. Then in Secret Life she has new allies and makes the same promise to them, that she will do anything to get them to win. But then again they all die before her. But then there's scar. Pearl desperately clings to the idea that Scar can be the one that she saves with her death, she makes him an honorary mounder, and then tries to sacrifice herself to him before the final fight but he refuses. Then they win the fight and are the only two left. (next part is mainly headcanony) So then Pearl is left here in the same position Scott was, able to finally sacrifice herself to let her ally win. But Scar doesn't give her time, he immediately betrays her, because he was never a mounder, that was just Pearl desperately needing someone to save. And so she is killed by Scar unable to save anyone

You and I have completely different interpretations of what a canary is (partially why I don't generally vibe with canary Jimmy), and also who Life!Jimmy is, but this is really cool!

For me, Jimmy isn't a canary because, and I'm not saying this to be mean but it's true, his deaths are kind of meaningless. Or maybe not meaningless, but they don't teach anyone anything other than people are going to start perma-dying. This may be a deep pull, but if you watch RPDR or Survivor, there's always a moment when the first person has gone home and someone says, like, "Well it's gotten real now" because even if you know someone has to go first, it's still a hard thing.

Jimmy isn't dying on purpose, and his deaths are ultimately meaningless once the actual blood bath starts and people start killing each other vs his deaths which are accidents or to mobs. Maybe crow is a better bird for him honestly, or raven. A bad omen. The tragedy of Life!Jimmy is that, well, he just keeps getting screwed over by small mistakes that kill him. Letting go of shift for a second or looking an enderman in the eye or not choosing the right path to avoid a warden. He's the universe's punching bag.

Pearl is very specifically a canary in Wild Life because her deaths are warnings. Don't shift near edges because the hit boxes are wonky and you'll fall, don't try to put a shield up because you'll eat your weapon, the snails can instamine blocks and leap over one block gaps. She's not dying on purpose, but her deaths are meaningful. She will be useful, in life or death. She must be. I don't really see Canary!Pearl for the other life series. Yes, she sacrifices herself to give BigB time, but if that's canary criteria, so are Skizz and Scott.

I also don't necessarily see what Scar did as a betrayal. There's two of them left, only one can win. Pearl expressed repeatedly that she didn't want to win, she wanted one of the other Mounders to win. By making Scar a last minute honorary Mounder, she has a duty to lose to him. Yes, she technically didn't sacrifice herself, but I don't think she was fighting to win. Someone who's fighting to win doesn't tell their opponent about the zombie behind them. They don't ignore the golden apple in their hot bar. Hell, she only even got one hit in on Gem because she wanted to step away and let Scar beat Gem himself.

[spittyfishy]

i'm curious, what HCs do you have for which Remnant took which part of Enoshima?

The thing is I’m not sure I have any very unique head canons on that front. I mean there’s the three that most people seem to agree on, that being Nagito with the hand, Mikan with the womb, and Fuyuhiko taking the eye.

I might have said it before but I do think the most interesting one of those three is by far Fuyuhiko. Cause like Mikan and Nagito make sense, they’re the ones we get to see be remnant-y the most and grafting Junko onto themselves checks out with how they act, but Fuyuhiko? I don’t think he does anything in the game that would indicate he’d willingly rip his own eye out to replace it with a dead girls.

But the fact that he did (allegedly at least) gives a really interesting look into how despair affected him specifically. It’s really the only bit of insight we get with Fuyuhiko since the brief scene we get of the remnants out and about at the end of despair arc just has him leading some soldiers against the Future Foundation. So we know he took control of the Kuzuryu clan, and that he still works with Peko since she’s there too, but that’s kinda it. So figuring out how the eye thing fits into that is really neat.

But as far as headcanons for the others go, I do think that if Fuyuhiko got something then Sonia and Imposter would feel like they deserved something too. I don’t think either of them could really graft a whole body part though, Imposter still needs to be able to become anyone else at the drop of a hat so having to be ‘Togami but also he has a girls hand haha don’t worry about it’ wouldn’t really work. And with Sonia I always see it as she keeps herself a level above everyone else, like most people are dirty and sick and scrounging around just to stay alive but then here’s this glittering image of unflappable royalty to juxtapose that. It makes Sonia seem more reverent but also makes everyone else seem worse, so I don’t think she could afford to blemish that unmared image.

That being said, I could definitely see Sonia using some of Junko’s bones to fashion a crown or some other kind of jewelry, that way she’d still have a symbol of Junko without compromising her status. Imposter I’m not sure about, but maybe their despair would come from being the only one of the remnants political powerhouses that didn’t get anything.

[celeste444spacey]

What is this celebrity energy thing anyway? + how to actually start with channeling it

Some people are just magnetic and just seem to effortlessly get likes and attention on social media. Some people just seem to be getting more, even though you are just as, and if not more talented.

How do they do this anyway???

Well my loves, it's a little thing that we call here, Celebrity Energy.

Now the thing about celebrity energy is a lot of people mistake it for talent. And here's the thing,

Talent only gets you so far.

The immediate instinct when you don't get the same attention as some people is "oh i'm not good enough", "oh they're way more talented", "oh i probably am not talented enough for this, oh i don't have skills for this" yadda yadda yadda.

ENERGY gets you famous. NOT your talent. And this is where people get it wrong. And no, it's not even about your looks.

You have probably met certain people in your life that just have this unexplainable appeal to them. It's just something that pulls you into their orbit and keeps you hooked.

Now that energy? That magnetism? That some sort of 'there's-more-to-them' feeling you get? That's your key to fame.

Some marketing 101 (from a business student herself)

When you sell a product you focus on it's core values

For example: let's say you're selling a lip gloss, the basic features you focus on while marketing is it does the job. It makes your lips look pretty, or acts a treatment or whatever. Then you move to what differentiates this lip gloss from the other products in the market. Those are the winning attributes i.e. the features that makes people BUY it.

Honestly these core principles apply similarly to you if you want fame but this is the key difference

Your consciousness is the product.

As Whitney Uland says,

Fame is just the resource of having people's attention.

Channeling the Celebrity Energy

The first thing you have to ABSOLUTELY 1000000% get rid of is the fear of being perceived. As long as you fear being seen and people making opinions on you, you will ABSOLUTELY never get noticed.

That's because that insecurity and fear of perception can create this void like halo around you, and basically flush down all the magnetic parts of your energy down the drain.

You have to let your authenticity linger and have to make peace with the fact that not everyone might like that. The most magnetic of personalities attract two extremes of opinions, people would either kill for them or absolutely hate them. (Taylor Swift and Beyonce for example).

Celebrity Energy is a mix of confidence, charisma and absolutely unapologetic aura.

Best part? You don't even need to be famous.

Audience looks for someone they can connect to, someone that feels like their 'best friend', someone that they can see themselves in, while also seeing someone they want to be.

And that's why people say swifties are rabid. Taylor has created a very fundamental connection with them over 18 years that has brought us to this very landscape where she holds such cultural significance over two generations. It's almost an emotional significance she upholds in many people's life to the point for the fans, it feels like they know her even when they don't actually know her.

They feel like she's their best friend when she doesn't even know they exist.

And that's cause of the vulnerability she has shown to throughout her discography or her journey. She's not scared to be perceived. Same with you, you shouldn't be scared to be perceived. Because other people's perception is not something you can control. And other people's perception is not your responsibility.

Well this is it for this post, I will be making another post detailing on how to actually channel your celebrity energy, since this one already got long enough ahaha. (And super sorry for the inactivity, ya girl had her midterms and she was kinda slacking off soooooo)

[sugar-soda]

Shiva Eyes are similar to Pearls but are much more common, so they fill many different roles to whoever they are assigned to serve (normally higher ranked gems, but never high enough that they get a pearl). Servant, scribe, bodyguard, jester, engineer, you name it, a Shiva Eye has to do it. As such, our Shiva struggles with who she is and what she wants to do. She wants to do everything one day and nothing the next. A life of people changing you to suit their needs doesn't make one confident in oneself, so she latches on to anyone who just lets her be as she decides. She'll try anything once, and has found a few things she likes for herself, like cuddling and the soft, squishy things humans call plushies.

Her weapon is a set of small, twin shields she can use as both gauntlets to punch things and as protection. 

While old by human standards, she is a bit on the younger side for a gem, so she doesn’t remember much of the Diamonds, just the Gem she served until they were shattered. Now she happily does whatever Ilux and Noi ask her to, because they are so much nicer to her. She’s a bit gullible on some things, but as long as it's nothing harmful, she’s willing to forgive. 

Noi (Nacre) and Ilux (Pale Pearl) are her favorite gems. They just let her be Shiva Eye, and she likes that they explain things to her.

She would love to hear Noi sing again, no matter if its distorted or underwater. She'll gladly remove any crabs from the area for them, but they got to help when she needs to reach the top shelf for any of her hobby stuff.

Noi has tried to teach her how to play guitar (it hasn’t gone well, Ilux's ears are bleeding, Noi has the earth strength of a thousand suns) but she’ll play the drums, while Ilux plays the harp and Noi plays the guitar. 

She learned to sew blankets because of how cold the planet they are. She made a rainbow blanket for Ilux since they aren't that colorful themselves (not that she has room to talk). Noi got an blue and gray one to match their colors.

She is aware she must belong to some Diamond, but she isn't sure which, nor does she care enough to find out. If you were to ask her to name the Diamonds, she couldn't tell you. If you ask who is in charge of her, she'll probably point to Noi and Ilux. She technically belongs to Blue Diamond (Scott) now, though she used to belong to a Diamond thats been away for a while now....

Some one (likely an ammonite or ammolite guard who didn't know any better) told her about fusion and how it works. She isn't too keen on the idea of sharing her body with someone.

She was taken to the Reef after the…unfortunate incident with the last Gem she served. She does any odd jobs no one else does. Cleaning, studying and keeping local wild life away, entertainment, inventory, ice breaking when it gets too cold, sparing partner and anything else that gets overlooked. She has been found in a few vents, but she got herself out.

The three of them make plushies of each other. They got a few extra that look like the guards, corals, and a made-up Diamond. Shi made a random misshapen one that doesn't really look like any Gem and is really large. She uses it as a punching bag for practice.

Has asked Ilux to thow their spear at her for dodging practice. They have not agreed so far.

She will be very confused when the others show up. What do you mean we have to leave the Reef?....

So I have been talking to @honey-minded-hivemind about a Steven Universe/ X-men Au using Ocs of ours. If you want to hear more about it go check them out! @thewickedweiner is also making an oc for it, so check them out too!

It is a platonic yandere au, so if that isn't your thing, you likely won't like this au.

Here is my oc: Shiva Eye (Shiva or Shi)

(She's a bit more red than she is supposed to be but I'm tired of fighting the website.

https://www.dolldivine.com/classic-games/gemsona-maker )

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

[wewerebornsextuplets]

i missed you sooooo so so much!!!