#episode six in short

[yllwjktscult]

S3 episode 6 in picture

i will NOT elaborate, mari was really sweet to nat and gave her comfort/comforted her when they talked and she sat next to her and i cant wait for their friendship to involve more (stop hating on my sweet sarcastic mari girl, its her way to cope with the whole thing, i would be just like her, hiding my real emotions thru sarcasm and jokes in here too. Her true sweet self is showing this season and im so here for it)

[jammatown919]

Just sent my friend this text

“I think several years in the future Yaz still jolts awake in tears some nights and 95% of the time it’s PTSD shit but the other 5% she just had a dream about the night Sammy dumped her ass for three days six years ago and she cannot get over it despite currently being married and in bed together”

And immediately decided I want to do something with it between all my other Yasammy wips. May or may not get to it but it’s out in the world now.

And like, it sounds sad phrased like that, but it’s genuinely some “you were mad at me in my dream do you still love me” type shit.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

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

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

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

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

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

Setup

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

Payoff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pennamenotfound]

'Family On Six'

Little ficlet I wrote in the middle of the newest MisMag episode when I was Going Through It. Spoilers under the cut.

Jammer, Sam, and K need to convince Evan to come back.

“Hey, man, what do you think ‘family on six’ means?” Jammer demanded. “You keep saying you’re bad to be around, or whatever, but you’re family, dog. Do you think you’re making things better by keeping me from having you around? You’re fucking family, dog. ‘Family on six’ means you’re part of the fucking team, man. We’re the motherfucking Pilot Program, and it’s Goat House forever and fucking Pilot Program forever, man! And that means we need you, dog. So shut the fuck up with all that fucking bullshit and come back to us! Fuck, I thought we figured this shit out already when you decided you were going to keep your magic back at Gowpenny, man. I thought you got it then. That we loved you and it didn’t matter what happened, what blood snakes come out of your leg or however many demons are in you or whatever, because we handled the blood snake and we handled the demons, and—and can’t you just be part of the team, Evan? Why can’t you get that ‘family on six’ includes you and it always has and it always will and there’s no other way that ‘family on six’ goes? We can’t do ‘family on six’ without you, dog. Come on.” Jammer shook his head. “You’re fucking family.”

“I think…” Evan’s voice was shaky but matter-of-fact. “I think I’ve never really understood family, because I never really got to have one.”

“Bullshit, man!” Jammer snapped. “That’s bullshit! You had us. You have us.”

“I think Jammer means that we want to teach you,” Sam cut in tremulously. “We want to teach you to be part of a family. All that matters is love. All that matters is we love each other, and then everybody gets to stay and be together and be family. And it doesn’t matter what—what use you are. The use is just—just being there and being family. Being together and—and happy, and just—just being. That’s what family is. That’s what we want from you. To just… be Evan so we get to be around our favorite Evan.” Sam’s lip trembled. “P-please come back, Evan. I—I don’t want you to be gone. I—I need you, please.”

“I know I fucked up,” K said. “I—I was trying to fix something that—that was too big for me to fix alone, and that—that didn’t really even need fixing, anyway, and—and you don’t need to be fixed, Evan. You’re—you’re all good. You don’t—I always tried to fix you. Like you were a bundle of tropes and character traits, but you’re Evan. You’re just Evan. And I really like just Evan. I’m sorry.” Tears were running down K’s cheeks. “I’m really sorry. But please come back and be just Evan like you always were because I miss you. And I miss us. Jammer’s right. We’re not us without you. But—but it’s not just that you coming back would make our lives better. I—you deserve to just exist anyway. Even if it made nothing better. ‘Cause you’re—you’re just good, Evan. And you existing even with nothing else around is just good. Please come back.”

Evan looked away. “You always have to save me.”

“You’ve saved us before,” Sam said. “And even if it was always us saving you and never the other way around we’d still want to do it because we’d rather have you than—I guess the—the time we’d’ve saved? The energy?”

“Easy trade, dog,” Jammer agreed. “We’d always choose you.”

“That’s what family does,” K said. “Choose each other.”

“What if it was your lives?” Evan asked. “I could never ask you to give your lives for me. I—I wouldn’t want you to.”

“Because you love us! And we’d want to give our lives because we love you!” Jammer shouted. “That’s why it’s ‘family on six,’ dog! That’s why we say it! Because we’re fighting for family! Do—do you think we’re playing over here? Do you think we’re straight-up lying to you, dog?”

Evan swallowed. “No.”

“Then what? Do you think you know better than us what’s good for us? We’re saying you’re good for us! We need you on the team, so come be on the team!” 

“I’m really sorry, Evan,” Sam said suddenly.

Evan’s head snapped around to stare at her. “You don’t have to be sorry, Sam,” he said.

“But I do, though. I—I think we left you behind. I think—I think we all had something to go towards and you didn’t and we didn’t think to take you with us. Jammer went to do college and K went to do their Itsy Bitsy Spider stuff and I went to do Britain’s Got Magic and you… stayed. You worked at Gowpenny until magic broke and then you were working with Dr. B to fix magic, and… I should’ve done more for you. I should’ve invited you to come live with me and be on the show, or—or maybe you wouldn’t’ve liked being on the show, but you could’ve been part of the crew. I should’ve asked you to come be part of it. I—I shouldn’t’ve left you alone, Evan, and I’m sorry.” Sam was crying now. “I think because you were alone so long and then you had us and then you were alone again you think ‘us’ is temporary but it’s not, Evan. Us is forever because family’s forever and you’re family.”

“It’ll be different. I promise,” K told Evan. “I promise. I won’t try to fix you or change you or anything ever again. I just want you back.”

“What if it’s all bad?” Evan choked out.

“It’s pretty bad now,” Sam said. “I mean… you’re dead. I think we’d all rather things were bad with you than bad without you. One bad is better than two bads.”

And Evan embraced Sam, and he was there, arm and all, and Jammer hugged them both, and after only a moment’s hesitation, K joined the group hug too.

“I love you guys,” Evan said, his voice muffled and watery.

“We love you too,” Jammer replied.

“Love you too,” K echoed.

Sam squeezed Evan even tighter. “Of course we love you.”

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

<3

[passerinesoncaffeine]

I desperately need to learn every instrument under the sun you dont understand. I need this so bad. it might just be that I forgot to take my meds but I dont have time to sleep. I need to learn electric guitar.

[dawnleaf37]

in honor of the tpot short with the failed debuters (assumedly) being announced soon heres my tierlist of all the tpot debuters most favorite to least

tags for longer opinions :3

[hertwood]

Maybe I'm biased bc I did binge the entire premerge but I swear that used to last longer

[frostbite-the-bat]

this appeared on the side while watching a video and holy SHIT yall need to leave ppl alone and get a fucking LIFE holy shit what

[ziracona]

Finished White Collar and I’m glad they were able to give it an ending, since they got cancelled and had to do a 6 episode season for their last. But it made me so sad they didn’t have the time to do it properly.

[acerikus]

Finished umbrella academy season 4. What the fuck

[sm0lcatfish]

ya’ll i am never getting over the ths reboot cancellation

[vaultdwellerfromthesouth]

"Life's But A Walking Shadow, A Poor Player That Struts And Frets His Hour Upon The Stage, And Then Is Heard No More. It Is A Tale Told By An Idiot, Full Of Sound And Fury Signifying Nothing"

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Click for higher image quality. This digital fanart of mine is of a young, emaciated, and bloodied Vergil Sparda around the time of Devil May Cry III. Inspired by Shakespeare's Macbeth, which was applied to Vergil as a character study. Quote is also attributed to Shakespeare from Macbeth.

[cabeswaterdrowned]

I have the opposite project with my final project for my writing class than I do for the anthropology one: I like what I’m doing for it but I keep wanting to take the individual stories in directions where they’ll be longer than will actually work for me to finish the assignment on time

[friedfriedchicken]

Doing the planning for 'Input, Output' and realizing that Breakdown and Soundwave had less than a year on Earth together

[hauntingblue]

I cant believe I am already on fem law... this happened like 2 days ago I cannot do it....