#i always feel like my stuff is very Not Good and then i talk to the void and the void talks back

[muntitled]

Work In Progress

Pairing: Gwi-nam x fem!reader

Summary: Gwinam learns you never know how much you love something until lose it…

Warnings: God Complex!Gwinam, Dark!fic, DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT, Shy!reader, Bullying, Unrequited Love, Toxic Relationship, Jealousy, Madonna whore complex, Narcissism, Weaponizing!Cheongsan (sorry boo), Public sex, Unprotected Sex, Pral Sex, Underage Sex (technically), Masturbation Fem!rec, Dom/Sub, God Kink?, DUB/CON, humming, Spitting, Extreme Degradation, Mentions of Rape, Dacryphillia, Humping,Choking, Gagging, Subspace, Slapping, Sadism, Masochism, Breeding Kink,

A/n: the word 'rape' is used. Please be aware. You might recognize this fic if you've read my other stuff but it's because I rewrote it for another character cus no one was really checking for Gwinam like that. Kdrama fics are quite niche.

I'm not responsible for the media you consume

You have made peace with the incomparable fact, long ago, that if God existed then he was far too busy to attend to you. There is just too much going on all at once: Smartphones are threatening devolution. The planet is on the edge of a burning match. There are bigger things than this.

Still, swirling in the depths of your stomach is the incriminating need to cry, and pray, and perhaps maybe even touch yourself, too.

Your moral compass is a work in progress.

It had a knack for getting nefariously cloudy, especially when he entered the mix…

Gwinam's eyes are blown into saucers as he looks down at you. He is utterly restless, not knowing what to do with himself, when you took so much of him, so well. His satisfaction has you fighting the urge to hum and moan around the head of his cock.

Despite all this, you are clearly aware of the fact that you should not be enjoying this at all. Not one bit.

For starters, your knees are cutting into gravel, your shirt is unbuttoned because Gwinam was like a moth to a fucking flame when it came to your ample breasts and his hand was locked tightly in your kinky curls, forcing his cock even further down his throat.

You clench your toes, trying not to gag.

"Fuck, you're taking me so well," Gwinam got exceedingly verbal during most of your secret trysts. With his slurred speech, the boy could murmur every curse, praise and degradation under the sun.

"Such a good fucking slut," but the invisible word always hung heavy between you two. A word you always wanted to hear him say…

Mine. Mine. Mine.

He had always, and would always fail to claim you, in any capacity, even under the spell of sexual intoxication.

"What they don't understand… Is that I'm actually a really nice guy." Gwinam begins that weird quirk where he speaks to himself while he uses your body for his own pleasure. You were made to question whether you were his therapist or his whore. You love it though.

Every habit or quirk of his was indiscriminately locked away in a safe and buried in the depths of your consciousness.

"I'm really-" You slide your tongue along his shaft, ripping a hoarse groan from his chest and momentarily stumping his verbal momentum.

"What no one seems to understand, is that… I'm a… fair fucking guy, too." Feeling himself get too close, Gwinam eases his cock fully out of your mouth, languidly stroking himself but still assuming a firm grip on your hair. He is operating on that very specific plain of narcissism that

was special to Gwinam. He is aware of your presence, physically, but his words are spoken into the open air, like you are an inanimate object. A glorified fleshlight.

"And that fucking Jinsu," He punctuates his sentence with an incredulous laugh- it blossoms across his usually stoic visage, raising his buttercup cheekbones towards his smiling eyes. All you can do is sit back on your haunches, lift the sleeve of your fitted school jersey to wipe away the excess saliva. You remain kneeled in front of him, knowing he has yet to finish.

As he talks, a slow feeling of admiration seeps into the pit of your stomach which is utterly pathetic, given that your feelings will not ever be reciprocated.

"They wanna make me seem like a murderer-" he exclaims, "Me?! It's not my fault he tried to kill himself,” He laughs incredulously. His smile is utterly dazzling in the unambiguous morning glow, with his rugged hair messy just how you like it. You recognize his black undershirt as the same shirt he might've worn yesterday, and the day before that, and perhaps even the day before that. His school shirt was wrinkled and unkempt and his shoes had seen far better days - even better years.

Brewing inside you is the need to take care of him. You knew the rest of the student body viewed Gwinam as an earth-dwelling parasite. Something that is only capable of thinking within the capacity of its own survival. Something that takes, and takes, and takes. But how could he know anything different? You suspected that his home life was built on the foundation of survival, on needing to be the loudest, and proudest, and baddest of them all.

"What the fuck are you doing?" The sharpness of his words slice through your thoughts, bringing you back to the lot behind the science block. The sound of students trickling in for their morning classes filled your ears but Gwinam's gaze was placed firmly on something below his exposed cock. Throughout this mindless tirade, your hand had taken to rubbing soft, comforting circles against his leg, quite literally on its own accord. Gwinam is bent over, head tilted as he watches you questioningly. You rip your hand away, embarrassed by the weird show of affection. Seconds stretch to a minute, and your stomach sinks as time passes.

Gwinam, eventually dismisses you, as he always does. He shakes his head and resumes his stroking. "Whatever," He says, tilting your own head back and lining your mouth with the head of his cock once more. His visage darkens into a cruel sadistic grin. "Tell me you want me to come in your mouth."

Almost insitinvely, you did as he ordered, and like clockwork, he groaned and cursed and emptied himself inside your mouth. You swallowed his cum, wondering if he knew how deeply and truly your admiration actually was. There is a moment, perhaps imagined, after he's finished, when the aftershocks are still running rampant through his body, in which his fingers gripping your hair, rub along the side of your soft, supple cheek. It stays there for longer than necessary, leaving bits and pieces of your composure scattered in its wake.

Gwinam straightens his posture, stuffing his flaccid cock back into his pants before making himself as presentable as the student body knows him to be (which admittedly is not a lot).

Before he turns to walk away, he leaves you stranded on a glacier with his ice cold words cutting deep into your beating heart.

"Tell anyone about this-"

"And I'm dead," You interject, "I know."

And with that, you pull your ruffled collar over your lint-free school jersey and check your reflection on your phone to assess the damage Gwinam and his iron grip might have left. You needn't wait for an extension on the conversation because your job here was done, (pun so malevolently intended). As far as Gwinam is concerned, you are an easy conduit to release his frustrations because your unpopularity makes you so incredibly inconspicuous. You blend into any given crowd at any given moment, your name seldom reaching the heights of ridicule among his group because you are so forgettable… There had been no reason to point out your flaws, not because you did not have any, but because you were simply invisible.

It is particularly strange to have any social interaction beyond the bounds of forced proximity through group projects and class discussions… so Cheongsan gifting you even a sliver of attention had been violently unorthodox. So unorthodox in fact, you failed to look up from the weathered pages of your novel when his gentle voice wafted in your direction. It was second period, English, your teacher was running late and while the class descended into mayhem you decided to read.

"I don't know if you're aware of this but…" Cheongsan leans over your desk, a deep shadow over the pages alerting you to his presence, "They both die at the end."

It was incredibly rare that Cheongsan, who sat at the desk directly in front of you, ever felt the need to strike up conversation that was not purely academic. So naturally, you peer up at him with shocked, questioning eyes.

"Sorry?"

"Y-Your book," He stutters, suddenly overcome by a wave of embarrassment even though there was nothing at all to be embarrassed about… he turns his chair slightly in your direction, his eyes darting to the door and the empty teacher's seat before meeting yours once more.

"'They Both Die At The End. The title of the book you're reading."

"Oh…" You affirm, rocking your head back and forth, "You were making a joke?"

"Nah," Cheongsan waves a large hand in dismissal, "The only thing I made was a fool of myself." You're not sure when it happens but you feel the lower half of your face melting into what you suspect is a smile. You can feel your shoulders relaxing and your novel lowering imperceptibly, to see more of him.

"Work on your delivery next time and maybe we'll be getting somewhere."

"You know- I swear I had a pair of balls before the start of this conversation," He purses his lips and clasps his hands on his lap in a dramatic display, "Now I'm not quite sure where they went."

Gwinam's feet pass over the threshold as soon as the sound of your laughter rushes past him. It is almost charming in its familiarity but incredibly curious in its rarity. He can't recall ever seeing you with your head thrown back while the instinctive sound of amusement races through your throat. He does not know he's staring until someone in his friend group shoves past him, to get to their own seats.

His eyes remain on you as he makes his way to his desk, hoping, perhaps, that you would turn your head infinitesimally, in acknowledgement of his presence in the row of desks to your right. You do nothing of the sort and it not only fills him with a weird sort of dissatisfaction but it bubbles into full blown vexation when he realises who is capturing your attention so viscerally.

Gwinam has never prided himself on his patience or tolerance. Overthinking being something he lived without. Most of his actions were spurred from things he felt in the now, and he was really fucking uncomfortable with what was happening now.

Perhaps if he…

"You didn't let me know we were having a picnic," The sound of a chair scraping against the tiles had both you and Cheongsan rallying into silence. Gwinam appears at your side, pushing the chair against yours so he, too, sits facing Cheongsan. Cheongsan who suddenly appears incredibly uneasy. Gone is the comfortable atmosphere cooked by easy and amicable conversation. Gwinam injecting himself into your little bubble created a suddenly charged and suffocating atmosphere. You cannot keep your hardened eyes off Cheongsan as Gwinam lowers himself to his chair, legs spread as he slouches down, like he always does.

"Don't stop now," He exclaims, completely oblivious to the fact that your Science teacher might walk in at any minute. "What were we talking about?" Your heart wrestles in your chest as you see him turn to address you in your periphery. His slouching puts him a level lower than you but it does nothing to lessen his intimidation. "Maybe I should ask, Cheongsan? What were you guys talking about?" There is not a trace of friendliness present in Gwinam's tone, in fact it's the very opposite. Your nerves, swelling with anxiety, only escalates into full on panic when you feel him place a large hand on your skirt under the table.

Cheongsan's voice is low and his eyes are trained on the floor, "Books-" Gwinam cuts him off with fervour.

"Books! How interesting!" The hyperbolic wonder in his tone is utterly rude and unbecoming, but still you refuse to look at him. "And tell me, Cheongsan… how many books have you read so far?"

It is then that Gwinam's once stationary hand begins the faintest trace of movement. He begins slow and tame, his callouses barely registering on the soft fabric of your chequered school skirt until his fingers prod the lining of your skirt…

your breath hitches in your throat.

Never had Gwinam ever felt the desire to touch you. Not in the way he made you touch him. It was made explicitly clear that only he would benefit from your secret rendezvous' and so you were left to deal with your aching cunt alone, with the image of the face he made when he came, still burned into your mind. It had never been about you.

"A couple," Says Cheongsan, fighting to show this bully that he was affected by his intimidation. If only he knew that with every advance Gwinam's palm made, you simply were not there.

"A couple books?" Asks Gwinam for clarity. He remains lax and languid on the inside, but the nature of his wandering hand underneath the desk tells a new story. He finally slips under your skirt. His palm connects with the softness of your thighs and he seems utterly pleased by it

His hand is immediately restless to explore how far you would let him go. Which isn't very far.

Not at all.

If he thought he could suddenly touch you after myriad occasions of using you like a discarded toy… he had another thing coming.

The tips of Gwinam's fingers make gradually increasing strokes along your thigh until his fingers prod the stretch marks on your inner thigh. It is there when you stop him, clenching your legs together, blocking his hand from any further movement.

Gwinam's voice is strained as he says, "And you like reading, Cheongsan?"

Sensing something brewing between the two of you - your withdrawn, hazy gaze, staring directly through him and Gwinam's overabundance in questions, has Cheongsan reeling backwards.

"I asked you a question, Cheongsan."

"I like reading."

"Good! That's really good!" Quite suddenly, Gwinam tilts the ends of his half-moon nails into your thigh, forcing them to weaken and unclamp. Before you're even able to think, his palm is cupping your cunt through your panties- forcing an indecent yelp from your throat which you quickly (and very badly) disguise as a cough.

Gwinam is utterly pleased while he continues mindlessly stroking your cunt. Not for the purpose of any glorious stimulation it seems. His hand is just there to show you (and perhaps maybe himself) that he has access to the most private part of you. That thought alone has an unforeseen and sudden wave of lust coursing through his veins and surging straight to his hardened cock. He thinks of all the things he could have done to you but failed to do. He thinks about how, up until this point, he had ever been satisfied with using your mouth alone, not when he was denying himself the softness of your pussy all along. He felt angry with himself, for being so fucking stupid, he is angry at Cheongsan for seeing whatever it is he saw in you, way before he did and, possibly most harrowing of all is the fact that he is angry with you. And he can't help but be angry at you. How easily you whore yourself out to any and every man. If this thing with Cheongsan had gone far enough, would you venture as far as to suck his cock in deserted sectors of the schoolyard? Had you even fucked Cheongsan before?

You bite down on your lower lip as your head bows to your book once more. The words blend into one another, and all you can feel is a rise in temperature and Gwinam's suddenly restless fingers, pressing rudely against your clit - or the sole purpose of ripping an orgasm out of you right then and there, at the very back of an unsupervised classroom, with Cheongsan still very much a part of the conversation.

"You've got so many books to read in your lifetime," Says Gwinam. He sits up slowly, likely spurred on by the dampness seeping through your panties.

"Don't cut your life short by trying to entertain other people's girlfriends, okay?"

Your skin feels like you are bathing in magma and you hope Cheongsan could not see the slight tremor on your hand as you gripped the sides of your book with more force than necessary. His words, however - they have you shifting forward and widening your legs minutely. You crave for nothing more than to roll your hips in tandem with the circles he's pressing against your clit.

"Understood?"

Your orgasm is dangerously close, with the promise of sheer, disgusting shame and embarrassment if he continues. You feel Cheongsan give you one final look, perhaps pleading for an interjection of denial at some point but you've taken to bouncing your knee under the table, hoping the vibrations might create enough friction to aide Gwinam's hands. He is keeping you trapped in a space of wanting. So much so, that this almost feels like a punishment.

Once Cheongsan is turned back around and facing the front of the class, Gwinam lowers his lips to your ears. You're so completely stimulated, even the warmth of his breath as you fight the urge to hump into his hand like a naughty little thing until you make a mess all over his hand.

"You're such a fucking slut, you know that?" Your book drops to your desk - muffled by the sounds of the classroom cacophony.

"Fuck," You whisper to yourself, blinking your eyes shut, fighting to ward off the need but to no avail. His fingers are long and limber, and they have you nearly cumming right there, in front of your entire fucking class. Had it not been for Mr Lee's haphazard arrival into the class, and the swift removal of Gwinam's fingers from between your legs… you might truly have become the slut he so often labeled you as.

Instead of moving to his designated seat, Gwinam lifts the same hand that has previously been in between your legs, right into the air.

"What?" Asks Mr Lee, his voice as lacklustre as his appearance.

"Can we go? We were excused by the Principal to assist Mrs-"

"Fine, fine," Says Mr Lee with a wave of dismissal before turning his attention to the rest of the class. "The rest of you, open your textbooks to page 56."

Gwinam's hand is clamped around your forearm, already leading you swiftly out the door in a long and wide stride. Had it been any other teacher at all, they might have recognized this for what it so clearly was.

"Here," you have barely made it fully into the girl's bathroom before Gwinam is stuffing his fingers down your throat, making you gag and yelp at the sudden intrusion. "Tell me how good you taste." He doesn't even bother to make sure you're truly left alone in the bathroom before pushing your front against the bathroom counter.

"Answer me when I'm talking to you," He forces his fingers deeper down your throat, causing you to cough and gag around them. You're supposed to be afraid because you've never seen him like this. Gwinam is always a ball of energy between trysts, but it's usually an energy he can somewhat contain.

You don't know what to do with him, not when he's watching you choke on his fingers through the mirror, while his other hand fondles at your breasts and rips your bra down until your nipples are poking through your school shirt.

The figure in the mirror distorts as your eyes begin to water. Thick beads of water grow pregnant at the ends of your eyes before rolling down the side of your face.

"My girl," Gwinam presses his face into your hair, breathing you in, pressing his front against your back. His hard cock in unmistakable through his pants, "My messy little girl,"

You finally moan candidly around his fingers, your fingers gripping the countertops while your hips buck into nothingness. Your eyes plead with him in the mirror, hoping they relay how utterly useless with lust you have become. It would not take hard work to cum, you're sure one more flick against your material-clad nipples might send you over the edge.

"Fuck, why didn't I think of this sooner," This is all new, even for the two of you.

"Spread your legs." He commands, even though his feet are already kicking them apart. "Come here," you break eye contact in the mirror to face the boy behind you.

Gwinam removes his fingers sitting in your mouth, leaving a trail of unbreakable saliva in its wake before replacing it with a long and messy kiss- one that has his tongue forcing itself inside.

Gwinam weaponizes your distraction to slide your panties to the side with one hand and rub your clit with his other, spit-coated hand.

You break away from the kiss, neck craning back and mouth hanging open while your eyebrows dissolve into crescents. You cannot look away from him, as you hump his hand.

"You wanna cum?" You nod enthusiastically. "And what if I told you, you can't cum until I've raped that little pussy of yours? Hm? What then?" His words have you mewling from the sheer pleasure they bring and your orgasm threatens to snap once more.

"Fuck," He hisses, feeling unable to remove his hand from your wet cunt but needing to, in order to undo his belt and pull his aching cock out. "Don't you dare fucking touch yourself," He says in a deadly quiet voice before bringing his hand up to your mouth. "Spit." You don't ever think of disobeying him, not when you're swimming so deeply in your subspace, not when he's the one to bring you here.

Gwinam collects every bit of saliva you offer him before coating his cock in the stuff.

Deciding not to waste anymore time, Gwinam does what his body is screaming for him to do: he bends you over the bathroom counter and pushes cock right through your slippery folds. It's tense and painful and your voice is hoarse from doing all that screaming but the sudden contact strokes a deeply sated part inside yourself. His curved and pretty cock ram your insides with reckless abandon, all while he delivers harsh and sharp slaps against your cheek. Gwinam keeps a firm grip on your throat. His mouth is inches away from you while his hips rut into yours. His words are being delivered through clenched teeth.

"You think you're so fucking cute, huh? You think you can walk around fucking any guy who even looks at you, huh!?" It doesn't even register that Gwinam wrongfully suspects that there had been something between Cheongsan and you, but you keep your mouth shut. For all his indifference in the past, this is how you would make him pay.

"Oh~ Fuck." His cock bruises your cervix, leaving Gwinam balls deep and feral inside you. "Fucking Cheongsan?! You wanna give what's mine, to fucking Cheongsan?!" It's utterly depraved and animalistic and it has your orgasm cresting. "What would Cheongsan think? If he saw me raping you in the bathroom like this? What would he think? Would he still want your slutty pussy knowing I've been inside it? Knowing that I've cum inside you and completely ruined you for anyone else,"

"You…" The tears threaten to spill, "it's only ever been you, Gwinam- oh my God! I'm so fucking close!" You fight down tears as the lava begins to bubble at the pit of your stomach.

"S-Say it again. Tell me you want me!" He exclaims, "Tell me you fucking need me."

"I fucking need you, Oh my God" You push your hips back to meet his thrusts.

His voice wavers after your confession. His strokes becoming sloppy, "F-Fuck! I am your God, baby. You need me so fucking badly…" He nods to himself while his heavy cock finds purchase in a specific clump of sensitive tissue inside your cunt. It has you clamping your own mouth shut, your elbows falling to the counter with your ass sticks out towards him, only allowing him better excess.

"I need you," You agree, swallowing a ball of saliva as you nod towards him through the mirror, "I need your cum inside me."

"Yeah-," Gwinam says, "M'gonna fucking breed your pussy right here, in the school bathrooms- fuck!" His grip on your throat grows tighter until you're wholeheartedly cut off from your air supply. You hump his cock until you feel it twitch inside you.

"Fuck! You're fucking making me cum you stupid slut!" You feel his hot cum spurting inside your walls, triggering your own orgasm that has you gripping his cock like a vice. "Oh fuck- you're fucking milking my cock, baby. Fucking take it." His hips stutter against yours until you've completely drained him of his cum. A sharp tremor settles over your bones and you gasp in vague increments, waiting for the overwhelming state of euphoria to subside… but it never does.

The weight of what you had done comes crashing back down but you are unable to feel anything besides an immense wave of satisfaction at having your deepest need satiated.

"I think I nearly killed Cheongsan today." His voice is a hoarse echo within the school bathrooms.

"There is no Cheongsan," You say, watching him through the mirror, "In my whole world, there is only ever you."

And a part of him believes you but he refuses to affirm something as emotionally stifling as that. Instead, Gwinam's eyes flutter shut as his nose finds your hair once more. His cock is still buried inside you, and you hiss as he moves his hips slowly, almost insitinvely. He loves being so wholly enveloped by you. He loves feeling you everywhere.

[giggggi-088]

doing this for my pjo dr <3 1 - i'd say the vibe of my dr is very nostalgic, 'vintage' in a way. like how it was back when everything was simpler. early 2000s vibes, bridge to Terabithia, percy jackson movie, any feel-good movie from that era. but also that own, almost intangible modern mythological kind of vibe you get by reading the books. 2 - any of my magic items, i have this thing of perfume that creates this rlly dense, thick pink sparkly perfume mist which is very helpful when anyone needs to get away or slow something down. it is overwhelmingly sickly sweet and perfumey like the scent when you spray wayyyy too much, which is great cause monsters hate the smell of it. and lowkey.. my PURSE!! 3 - probably whatever is offered up to me at the time. if we're talking about my mortal school, i'll probably just carpool or ride with my dad but for quests i'll take whatever i can get😭 pegasi are very helpful too, literally a live saver cause i have a very close bond with my pegasus and i just love them in general 4 - oh boyy do i have songs.. there are a lot that remind me of this dr, but i think the songs that best captures the vibe i'm talking about is welcome and goodbye by dream,ivory. for me this is the one i'd put at the top of the list, just because it embodies literally everything to a t?!! like seriously. the lyrics, the nostalgic & comforting yet bittersweet energy, the voice. i'm also adding hit me with your best shot by pat benetar, for.. 🤭 reasons.. i will not disclose.. IDKK idk what it is but this song is sooo me and my s/o coded

Like i can FEEL the training montage and also anything with a pop-punky kind of vibe, songs like all the small things, american idiot, my own worst enemy, LIGHT EM UP etc etc 5 - honestly i wouldnt say there's drama drama i mean at camp i feel like there are more important things to focus on 😭 there are RIVALRIES sure but its usually just stuff like 'ohhh my godly parent is better than yours' 'i heard you were talking smack about me/my skills'. there's definitely some romance drama though, nothing too serious but cmon. its a camp full of teenagers theres bound to be some crazy relationships and love triangles. as for me i like to think i get along with a lot of people except maybe drew or most the ares kids/clarisse 6 - my bed is near the back of cabin 10, and i have a window beside it with lace curtains. from my cabin i get a view of part of the canoe lake. 7 - i smell like sweet vanilla/vanilla cupcakes, and apples. the air at camp smells of a million different things that go together so well, though. fresh, and of grass fields, nature and barbeque and fresh strawberries. the smell of being out miles away, i've always been a country girl and i love the countryside so i love that naturey aspect of my dr even if we're in new york

8- i honestly don't know LOL. probably 'percy jackson and the olympians' in that movie trailer voiceover, im still mourning the fact we never got a 3rd movie 😞

9 - honestly i'm extremely similar to how i am here. i think people in my dr would describe me as friendly, kind, very stylish, kinda reserved at first but sociable, positive, poised, caring and a little soft spoken but sweet. i have a funny/upbeat side too but that doesn't really show until i'm comfortable with you or i trust you, so most the time i'm pretty chill and mellow, laid back. i believe others would describe me as a happy and agreeable person.

10 - a lotttt of pop & rnb but also some rock too. i'd say my favorite artists are cyndi lauper, brandy norwood, mariah carey, britney spears, alanis morenette, beyonce, sade and i cannot forget MS PAT BENETAR!!

11 - unexpected, adventurous, cozy, nostalgic, dangerous

12 - any of my friends/siblings tbh, hazel, reyna, piper, and ofc annabeth. tbh anyone but my dr starts in the lightning thief so i have to say chiron. am i the only one who thinks he has such a comforting father figure vibe?? 😭

13 - i have an adorable weiner dog/dachshund named prada. he's a boy and he's like my purse puppy, i carry him around everywhere. i'm an animal lover lol i have a fancy pink canopied dog bed for him. i also have a pegasus named sasha, she's a diva i love her. i bedazzle her hoofs and paint them different colors, i spend a lot of my time in the stables taking care of her and giving her sugar cubes and ribbons for her mane.

some photos if ur interested :)

14 - i honestly try to avoid it as much as possible, i'm not the type to take risks but i will stand up for myself when needed. if its just petty drama i rlly couldnt bring myself to care, a fight against a monster or enemy is a whole different story though and im willing to face that head on even if im not rlly that good a fighter and kinda 'weak' by demigod standards WE GOT THIS

live footage of me at camp half blood providing moral support during needlessly violent war games, circa 2007

hope you enjoyed reading this and i hope the questions give you inspo/motivation for ur dr too! 🙂

-ˋˏ QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU DEVELOP ANY DR ˎˊ-

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ᰋ-what is the overall vibe of this dr? (whimsical, cozy, etc)

ᰋ-what do you always have on you? (a phone, a lighter, etc)

ᰋ-how do you get around in this dr? (by bus, walking, riding a horse, etc)

ᰋ-is there a song that reminds you of this dr? (could be the lyrics, vibe or even voice)

ᰋ-is there any drama going on in this dr? are you involved?

ᰋ-whats the view from your window like?

ᰋ-what do you smell like? what does the air smell like?

ᰋ-if this dr was a movie, what would its title be?

ᰋ-how do other people from this dr describe you as?

ᰋ-what kind of music does your dr self listen to?

ᰋ-if you had to describe your dr in 3-5 random words, what would they be?

ᰋ-who from this dr would you most likely trust with a deep secret?

ᰋ-does your dr self have any pets?

ᰋ-how does your dr self handle conflict?

[drdemonprince]

sorry if this is too long but i really appreciate your perspective and would love some advice

i have a mixed gender friend group irl, however i am the only transmasc in the group (the rest of the group is queer transfems, queer cis women, and our token cishet guy) and ive run into a little issue in that im quite close to one of the cis girls of the group, and we occasionally have deep chats about our queer identities (we're both aro, im ace, shes bi) . these chats are great and i really appreciate her as a friend but one thing shes always bringing up, even in unrealted conversations is how much she hates men .

im not a transandrobro so this isn't gonna be one of those "im one of the good ones" or "i feel guilty for being transmasc" asks dw. the issue came up when i was discussing how i was going to start T pretty soon (i pass decently well without it already but as more of a butch/androgynous type look) and as we were talking about the changes she was acting... genuinley scared and disgusted??

especially when i talked about how i will likely grow more body hair, and how T affects scent and stuff. she was almost horrified. "yeah but you dont want that right? youll shave it?" . i already dont shave my body hair (she does) and i cant help but feel scared that one of my closest friends is going to find me revolting once i start transitioning medically.

i didnt even mention bottom growth after that because i was so scared of what her reaction to that would be.

idk if you have any experience or advice for this? or any reading on the subject? ive found that its only the cis women in my friend group who are acting this way as well. i feel like maybe its because theyve secretly been viewing me as "just" a masculine woman this whole time. i id as nonbinary with the group, but secretly i really do think im a trans man, but based on the disgust with those things im reluctant to come out again.

Honestly this is a really common way that cis women microaggress against trans mascs! Those two identities have competing privilege/oppression intersections and a lot of really wild shit can play out as a result, as well as due to the projection that can happen because both groups have shared a social identity at some point (whether we liked it or not). It may not be fixable, but I think you need to set the tone that this kind of negative commentary on your transition and body is NOT acceptable, and to do so EARLY, so that you are establishing ground rules for how you will be treated.

Example conversation:

You: So I started getting some hair on my neck around my Adam's apple.

Her: Ewwwww, but you're going to shave it right?

You: (pause and look at her seriously). Gender transition is something I'm very excited about and that's very good for me, you know. I am happy about everything that's happening and I hope that as my friend you would be happy for me too.

Let's say that she continues to be somewhat shitty about your transition multiple times. Here is how you might escalate without totally blowing your lid.

Her: Wow, your [voice is so deep/your acne is getting so bad/your hair pattern is changing/whatever thing she is being shitty about].

You: (stop whatever task you're doing if any to give this full attention. lock eyes with her, maybe even sigh). I have told you multiple times not to comment on my appearance. It makes me very uncomfortable. I don't enjoy spending time with people who comment on how I look.

I think your focus should be not on correcting her feelings, which she needs to go like stare at a pond and reflect about on her own, but instead reign in her shitty commentary completely -- and if she won't do that for you, then you will need start ending conversations/walking away/not inviting her to things/whatever other boundary setting strategy you like. I would prioritize nipping the personal comments in the bud over the "men are so disgusting and evil" kind of commentary, because I think that matters more and seems to bother you more -- but if it were me? I would also be pissed that she wasn't including me in the category of "men" when she was talking about them, and would say things like "I'm a man too, you know." Or "Yeah, WE can be kind of annoying/boorish/smelly sometimes." This isn't some transandrobro NOT ALL MEN thing, it's an anti-transphobia don't misgender me thing. And perhaps by taking accountability for all that manhood is -- the good and the bad, the euphoric and the just neutral, you will influence her in a positive way to think about these things more neutrally. If not, well, that's her fuckin loss.

[hawksbacktattoo]

Wanna Be Yours | Miguel x Fem!Reader

Summary: reader finally confesses her feelings

Warnings: p in v, unprotected sex, creamp!e, dirty talk, smut with plot

Word count: 1.4k

Not proof read

Head lent on Miguel's shoulder while they talked with their friends, yn laughed when Hawk cracked another joke. She loved spending time with her friends, they were the light to her very dull life.

The seven of them rent a cabin for the weekend, just wanting some time to get away from the Valley. Too much toxic stuff stirring up again and they all needed a breather.

"So how's everything between you and Tory been?" Sam questioned, legs kicked up on the coffee table in front of the couch. "Pretty good, my mom invited her for dinner next week. I'm happy everything worked out." Robby gleamed, kissing Tory and pulling her closer to his side.

"What about you and hawk? Bit of an unexpected turn of events huh?" Tory chuckle, arms crossed over her chest. "For sure, couldn't stand him for a while but he has a good heart." She teased the boy, earning a offended look from Hawk. "I'm joking, I'm joking."

The group had always been pretty close but with graduation coming up, everyone had to focus on their own things. It felt good to catch up and see how things turned out for everyone. Demetri still head over heels for yasmine, which everyone was still shocked about happening.

"What about you yn, you got anyone wrapped around your finger yet?" Sam added, everyone's attention turning to her. Lifting her head from Miguel's shoulder, she glanced over at him clearing her throat.

"Uhm, no not really. Just been focusing on other things, heh." She awkwardly answered, nippling on bottom lip. "Boo, lame! No way there not someone you're interested in with the way you've been all googoo eyed recently." Hawk poked, head cocked to the side in disbelief.

She and Miguel had been spending a decent amount of time together since the whole karate thing ended. She will admit, she has been all giddy recently. "I'm sure she's telling the truth, she's been stuck with me for a while." Miguel chuckled, arm snaking over her shoulder.

She hates when he treated her like nothing but a friend. Of course he doesn't know her feelings but it still pings her heart in moments like this.

Tory looked over at yn, a smirk creeping up her lips. She was the only one who knew about her feelings for Miguel, swearing to yn that she wouldn't tell anyone. Clearing her throat, Tory took the heat off the two suggesting they should hit the beach before it gets any later.

The sand felt warm under her feet, eyes squinting from the bright sun beaming down on them. Hawk, Demetri, Robby and Miguel take off sprinting to the water, throwing the things down before diving in and splashing each other. The girls snickering at their childish friends. Sam followed not to longer after, hopping onto Hawks back.

Laying on her stomach, eyes scanning over words in her book. "When are you gonna tell him how you feel?" Tory suddenly spoke, rubbing sun screen on her legs. Pausing, yn lifted her self up on her elbows and looked up at her. "I've been meaning to for a while now. I'm just worried he won't feel the same, ya know?" Yn didn't want to risk her friendship with Miguel because of her own feelings. He meant the world to her.

"I think you worry too much, you'll never know unless you try." She stood, helping yn up with her and they headed towards the water. "The sooner the better." She finished, dipping herself into the cool water.

Sighing she stepped into the water, the temperature change making her shiver. The group played around for a while, playing Marco Polo, chicken and just splashing around until it fell dark.

Back at the cabin, everyone went up to their rooms besides yn. Turning on the backlight, she climbed into the hot tub. A sigh of relief falling from her lips as she sunk down into the warm water. Head resting on the edge of the hot tub she looked up at the sky, admiring how pretty the stars look.

Hearing the sliding door close, she turned her head to see a smiling miguel making his way over. "I see we had the same idea." He chuckled, kicking his sandals off and slipping in next to her. Yn just chuckled in response, focus turning back to the stars above them.

They sat in silence for some time, just enjoying the quiet air and the warm water. Thinking to herself, yn decided it's now or never. Arms slouching to her sides as she sat up.

"Hey mig, can I talk to you about something?" Her words almost came out as a whisper, nervousness washing over her when he looked down at her. "Yeah what's up?" He smiled, resting his arms on the edge.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling hard, her lips pierced together. Her heart was pounding in her chest but she knew it was for the best. "There's no other way to put this but.. I have feeling for you. I have for a while now, I've been trying to find rhe courage to tell you but I just didn't want to risk everything we already have." She spoke quick. Eyes snapping away from him and to the water to calm her nerves.

Miguel didn't say anything for a while, tongue gliding over his teeth as he thought. The silence was killing yn, heart racing faster from anticipation. "Glad you had the confidence I didn't." He finally spoke, breaking the silence.

Yns head snapped up, lips parting to speak only to be met with a kiss instead. Her eyes were wide, freezing momentarily as she tried to process everything that was happening. Pulling away from her lips, Miguel sighed relieved. "You don't know how much I've wanted to make you mine." He hummed, forehead pressed against hers.

"Then show me." She whispered and he listened. Pulling her into his lap he kissed her again, this time it was full of determination. Fingers finding the loop of her bikini top and pulling it. The thin fabric dropping into the water between them. "Make me scream for you." She muttered, fingers tangled in his curls as she nibbled on his lip.

The look of desire in his eyes was to die for. Yn squeaked feeling miguel rip her bottoms off of her. Yanking his swim shorts down, he lined himself before saying, "I'll have you screaming my name." And guiding her down his length.

He slid in so easily, a hungry groan rumbling in his throat. Biting down on her lip, yn sighed as he bottomed out, fingers digging deep into her hips. "Fvck me hard Diaz." She teased, tongue gliding over his jawline.

Brows furrowing, Miguel lifted her up before slamming her back down on to his cvck. Smirking when she moaned and gripped on to his shoulders. He repeated this a few more times, loving the way she cried when his hips slammed into hers. "Where's that cocky attitude now." He scoffed, wrapping his arms around her torso before fucking up into her fast.

The water splashed out of the hot tub on top the concrete every time Miguel thrusted up. Yn began biting down on her hand as her moan ripped through her. The way his tip brushed against her g spot had her seeing stars. "Yes Miguel fvck!" She cried out, head falling into her crook of his neck.

Moving her hips to meet his thrust, yn tremble in his arms. The way he sounded beneath her was magical, sucking in air and letting out a shakey breath. She could tell his was getting close.

Eyes closing, Miguel threw his head back. "Fvck yn, just like that." He moaned, hips stopping as she began slamming herself down onto him, fingers raking down his bare chest.

Feeling his climax rush through him, Miguel gripped her hips holding her still. Breathless moans spewing from his lips. "Sh!t.." He huffed out, holding her closer to his chest.

"So does this mean I'm yours." Yn spoke, voice hoarse and quiet. "Of course." He smiled, pressing a kiss for her forehead before splashing her with water.

"I'm gonna be sick." Demetri groaned, the two snapping their heads in that direction. There stood their group of friends, towels at hand and ready to get in the hot tub. "Well there goes that idea." Robby laughed, tossing Miguel his towel before heading back into the house, the rest following behind him.

Yn and Miguel looked at each other before bursting into a fit of laughter. "Demetri isn't gonna let us live this down." Miguel laughed out, pulling his shorts up and stepping out the tub. "Trust me I know." Yn smiled, taking Miguel's hand as he helped her out, covering her with the towel.

"You're so beautiful." He praised, arms wrapping around her with a accomplished smile.

[son-justdont]

okay so here's the update regarding my mom's opinions on catws

she fuckin gets it, dude

i talked about how despite everything hydra does to make him look intimidating, you can see that he's very neutral, sometimes even scared. i showed her this gif:

and she said "it's like he's lost"

we talked about how he's extremely calculating and doesn't react emotionally even in high stress or when he's being bested, like when Natasha fucked up his arm, or even during the face reveal. and she said "because they didn't understand the science of it... the serum enhances everything about the person, and he wasn't bad. that's why they had to work so hard and wipe him so much, because he wouldn't ever actually want to do those things." i couldn't help but smile while she was saying this lmao

she also said: "to me, Steve always seemed... independent. it's almost like Bucky relied on him more than the other way around" which is the most stucky thing she could've ever said. she's so fucking right

she was like "wait, so he pulled him out of the water... and then he just walked away?? so now he's just wandering around... and the longer he stays unfrozen, the more he's going to remember everything"

we can't quite yet watch civil war but we are very excited for it lol

oh, and she loved nick fury and she didn't even know who the fuck he was. i forgot to explain beforehand but she understood pretty quick. and then she was very upset when he "died" as well LOL she said "THEY NEED TO STOP DOING THAT." she hated rumlow immediately as well and i was like yeah that's the correct opinion

now i wanna respond to some of the comments under the cut cuz ive been having such a good time lmao

@bucky-boychik-barnes @impetusofadream HERE U GO (one of them is from a different post where i talked about the same thing lmao)

@ilovemosss i read this post out to my mom including the replies and when i read this one she went "YOU ARE!!!!!!!!!"

@sentowritesstuff @stuckydrewx @partofthefandom @musette22 @rillils @skullfragments

she really thought all these responses were so funny and sweet! i however will not be introducing her to ao3 lmfao. she's no prude but she's pretty shy. i'll have to just relay ideas i find myself, i think. if anyone has any non-M rated recs you think she might like based on what she's said, feel free to send them my way haha

honestly she'd probably enjoy herself but i am probably only be showing her Cap and Bucky related stuff LSKDJF we didn't even watch avengers and i sure as hell am not showing her AoU. i'm basically explaining the relevant information as to what went on in between movies. i was like "natasha is an ex russian spy that was groomed to be as a child. that's basically all you need to know" like i didn't even explain nick fury and she was SO UPSET WHEN HE DIED LMAO

and, i gotta spill the beans, but i haven't seen a marvel movie since the first black panther. yeah that includes IF and EG. i know what happens but my interest in marvel PLUMMETED back then and i never caught up. honestly i'm only back into this stuff because i rewatched jessica jones and then wanted to go through the whole MCU from the beginning, saw CA:TFA, went "oh yeah this was all that i liked," and went all in for them.

i have watched TFatWS and i loved it (it seems like the fandom doesn't though LOL) for what it was, so i'll probably show her that. she is gonna be so so so so so upset regarding steve's choice, just like the rest of us. and i'm not looking forward to it lol. but i'll update when that happens too

i'll have to make a post civil war mom thoughts once that happens haha

[impactrueno]

oh! i wanted to ask you too but i was thinking of how to articulate my thoughts before asking. I have a lot of trouble making / drawing fan art (it does make me happy don't get me wrong!), i get wildly insecure about basically putting my interests on blast and I guess I was wondering if you've dealt with that?

like I get worried about putting my own spin on an already established character and deep diving into their character more, and it gets my brain going in a negative spiral-y way y'know?

i know EXACTLY how you feel, been there many times!! it sucks!! there's so much you want to draw and express but you fear you'll come across as annoying or cringe or whatever

here's a secret. i'm not sure if this is a good tip due to reasons i'll get to in a second, but what i do to combat this feeling is act annoying about it on purpose. i'll get loud, intense, act all over the top like idgaf (even if i do, in fact, gaf) as a defense mechanism so if people think what i made is cringe, i can more easily dust off my shoulder and turn up my nose, all for the sake of the bit. it does work in giving me enough confidence to share stuff i feel strongly about, even if it's false confidence haha. but the truth is more often than not, people DO like the stuff i thought they were gonna hate.

case in point:

if you had told me back when i drew these that i would end up working on a couch gag on the simpsons i would've laughed like "lol that shit just doesn't happen"

maybe that's an extreme example. a more recent one would be when i started making trolls fanart. the risk of coming off as cringe to my followers was higher so i felt a bit insecure. hence the caption:

yes, acting this way does help me put out the content i feel a bit insecure or even embarrassed about. but in reality there's nothing to be embarrassed about. cringe culture is dead!!! but i'm still very socially anxious yknow???? i hate feeling vulnerable lol

the reason why i said this might not be a great thing to do is that it discourages being genuine. i think it's important to be genuine about the things you make and why you love them. people love to see passionate people create things, no matter what it is! and this is just with art in general, but if you're talking about fanart, hell all the more reason to share it! because fans will always eat up new content and follow new creators in their fandoms. sure maybe your stuff isn't to everyone's liking, but just how you can't please everyone, there will always be someone looking forward to what you make, even if you feel like it's not good enough. always remember: two cakes.

[sirfrogsworth]

i figure you're probably getting a lot of angry and hurtful messages and comments about your empathy for evil people post, so i just wanted to say i really admire your integrity. it's hard to feel that way towards these people, but i think you're right. it doesn't excuse their actions but it does help us understand them, which can help us fight them while also identifying and not giving in to our own evil impulses. i also admire how you've responded to these comments, by treating them with empathy and gentleness too. it's clear you've treated empathy like a discipline, and i truly respect that.

i just wanted to send you some support. you're not alone in this corner, and i think it is important work. not for everyone to deal with directly, but you're good at it, and i'm glad you're challenging others to try

I appreciate that. Thank you. And thank you to all the others who have expressed the same sentiment.

Honestly the reception has been mostly positive. And a lot of great conversations are happening in the notes of that post. And I'm seeing a lot of additions that have helped me clarify and understand what I'm feeling. So overall I'm glad I vented those thoughts out in the middle of the night when I was tired and not concentrating well. Those foggy thoughts turned into something positive.

The negative stuff is always louder. And I wish I had a way to focus on the good in proportion to the bad. But the hurtful things just stick with me a lot more. Personally I deal with it by responding and hoping some of my words are absorbed. It is a technique that has helped me find closure throughout the years. Some prefer to block. Some prefer to ignore. But I need to respond at least once and attempt to find an understanding and rebut the things I disagree with. I have changed a few minds over the years. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

And, in this case, we are essentially on the same side. So I don't feel like I'm talking to a wall like with MAGA folks.

One thing I never used to do was tell people they hurt me. I would act like it all bounced off me. But I just don't have the energy or will to pretend anymore. So I now let people know upfront. I say, "This hurt me. Your words caused me harm." And I think with my normal civil responses that I've been doing for years, that little change has helped me process the hurt and move on much faster.

I also recognize how scared people are. And I get the feeling a lot of these folks are much younger than me. And a lot of them are queer. Society made it seem like that was more okay than ever. And a lot of people decided to be themselves very publicly and it seemed safe. It seemed like progress had been made.

And that progress undid itself very quickly.

And now this thing that felt so freeing feels like they unknowingly put a giant fucking target on themselves.

Anger, fear, anxiety... I recognize it in the people giving me a hard time. I disagree with them about empathy and humanization. But I understand how they probably got to that mindset. I have similar thoughts when I am at the height of fear and anger. And that's where my empathy helps temper them.

Their first instinct is always to dig in and double down. I know it takes a lot of willpower to resist that initial instinct. I've had years of practice resisting that. But I know how hard it used to be to admit I was wrong and change my perspective.

But I do hope my words and the words of all of the people contributing amazing thoughts to that post will get through eventually. I ask that people give them a little grace in the hopes that may happen.

[batsplat]

top 5 misconceptions ppl have about casey hehe

lol. well. this kind of question is always a bit tricky because tbh I don't really have my finger on the pulse of what people are saying about casey. also often it's less 'misconceptions' and more 'crucial contextual information people aren't particularly interested about', which isn't really in the scope of the question. AND it's hard to draw the line between what I would consider my Takes and what is like. actual established fact. but sure. here's some stuff

honesty: you know the kind of talk - he's a straight shooter, he says what he really thinks, he doesn't hold back. he hates the media and thus he doesn't have any media game.... one of these things is true, the other one is very obviously not true. casey's become pretty excellent in striking the balance between coming across as authentic + expressing a decent share of his earnestly held opinions but ALSO pursuing his agendas and making active informed decisions about what narratives to pursue. he's really good at it!! it allows him to be effectively outspoken about stuff he genuinely cares about! but obviously that's something that should be kept in mind when assessing what he's saying he's always been an underrated communicator - journalists are pretty consistent in telling us how, even though he obviously didn't like a lot of his pr obligations, he's good at articulating his opinions and explaining how the sport works. he has EXPLICITLY talked about learning from valentino on the media front, which!! if he's telling you that he's taken a class in media manipulation skills from mr media manipulator himself, I think that's worth paying attention to?? he's talked about getting better at sucking up to journalists. he learned how to choose his moments. he also obviously sometimes played the pr game.... it's fair to say his apology to valentino at brno 2008 was not heartfelt, but he still did that and mostly sat on that grudge for TWO YEARS until the relationship properly started deteriorating. he said he had no problem with ducati when he came back from his illness break in 2009 and had no problem with them pursuing jorge, was very firm on this and essentially portrayed it as dumb rumours. which is something he has later repeatedly explicitly contradicted he lies! he has his agendas! you have to read between the lines with a lot of what he's saying! his autobiography is very unreliably narrated! his version of events is often HEAVILY edited, where some quite key details will never be brought up again (sometimes they'd even help make his point, but (imo) make him feel worse about himself, which is extra interesting) and certain details repeated ad nauseam so they'll stick in the public consciousness. he's good at this!! and his *reputation* for being honest and always speaking his mind is super useful for this. if everyone believes you always say what you really think, even when in the past it's been to your detriment, and you keep telling everyone you'll say what you really think because you don't want to play these media games and just want to be honest then... eventually maybe everyone will believe you're more honest than you are

justified in his grudges/grievances: as someone who is pretty confident that I hold the dubious honour of having written the most words about casey stoner on this website, this may be an odd complaint but. he's not always right. I find the 'hater' thing so grating because it's so glaringly one-dimensional and erases his ability to be genuinely unpleasant to people it'd be quite hard to frame as deserving targets. this is less 'misconception' but more in the general category of 'stuff that annoys me', but it's quite obvious when people mostly just use him as agenda fuel without being particularly interested in casey himself. and the thing is, right, he had a lot of Legitimate Grievances, but also he had some things that just... were not. he could be pretty patronising and had a temper that must have been a bit exhausting to work with until he got himself under control, he could be tactless to the point of being quite cruel. also, man, he really has got his conspiratorial leanings. a bit too ready to attribute malice when incompetence is perhaps a more reasonable explanation, very much on the look out for bias, deeply suspicious. at times paranoid. his european thing is objectively A Bit Silly, like I get how this happened but it's also not exactly the height of rationality. as a bonus, he seems to be at least a little prone to going completely cold towards others (not unlike a certain rival of his) and will stick to his grudges,, even if they're not particularly well-founded

relationships with non-valentino aliens: this is a bit of an umbrella one, but they're all kinda defanged. I don't think it's crazy to suggest casey experienced a fair bit of resentment towards all these guys. you don't really need to read between the lines too much to conclude that casey didn't like how much more highly rated dani was than him (stresses how it was ultimately to his advantage that he had a worse bike/team in 2005 because he learned how to deal with adversity or whatever; his 2006 tantrum after losing out to dani; the condescending tone he has slipped into at times). the jorge relationship, there's just a massive knowledge gap I reckon - casey really didn't like jorge at the start of 2008 and was quite ugly about it tbh. even if the story about him saying that jorge was faking needing a wheelchair after breaking his ankles isn't true (which personally I do kinda buy). and like... he just does not give a shit about marc. athletes are an egocentric bunch, this was after his time, it's just not his fight. obviously his own later rhetoric about all three of these guys is partly to blame but like,, he has an agenda here!! he wants to emphasise the contrast with valentino!! and all power to him, but, man you have to keep this in mind

blanket valentino rivalry item: listen. I think everybody can interpret information in different ways. and I think when you are a fan of something you should be able to have fun with it however you please. but I also think some interpretations are very wrong and I try not to perceive them. it's a rivalry that exists in public discourse in a really unhappy place where the most infamous moments are super well known but the actual details are super not well known. both laguna 2008 and jerez 2011 are infinitely more interesting if you familiarise yourself with a couple hundred key contextual facts and relevant quotes, I promise you. man... so much stuff you could get into here... let's not. in general, I think it's worth considering that casey really really really really hates admitting to weakness and is maybe motivated to de-emphasising how much he cares or has ever cared about valentino + how valentino has behaved towards him. it's also worth considering whether he might not be motivated to make it sound like mind games were a failure for valentino in that rivalry, backfired on him etc, and whether that really chimes with the actual. factual record

consistency of principles: he's a hypocrite!! for all his perfectionism and tendency to self-flagellate, he does hold others to standards he's not always willing to follow himself. the obvious thing is the 'ooh boy if somebody said this about YOU, you would pray on their downfall until the day you died' principle - and, look, obviously he would argue that when HE gets slandered people are wrong and when he's DOING the slandering, he's right. but. come on. also, mr respectful riding having two incidents of physically lashing out at another rider while they're on the bikes is... it's a bit much. perhaps the most interesting one is the health thing - for completely understandable reasons, he's hyper sensitive to how other people discuss his health, but it comes with a tendency to... be kinda weird about some of his rivals' injuries. either by downplaying them, suggesting they're not really a thing at all, or by exhibiting what skews dangerously close to schadenfreude. idk the misconception here is just... having him be straightforwardly principled.... like he's not, he's self-centred enough he does sometimes struggle to like. consider stuff outside of his bubble. and... well. sometimes he's a hypocrite

anyway. those were just the first five things I thought of. obviously these are all of a general theme... I basically think people make him way too boring. one-dimensional reliable character witness whose two character traits are 'neurotic' and 'hater'. if you talk about him like that, then at the end of the day you're probably not really that interested in him lol. which is fine! but. well. idk man. personally I do think he's more interesting than that

[nexoncrowfeather]

I shall now post stuff >:3

hello. i'm nex's girl friend. my name is Leia. I go by uzi. my mom doesn't let me post stuff on Tumblr. but nex does! my mom doesn't know he has Tumblr, so she'll never know!!! heh. take that, mom. I wanna use Tumblr as an online public dairy, so i'll be sharing some info with you guys!! but mostly not private info. first, i'll start by talking Abt nex. nex is 19 years old, & he's a femboy, he's REALLY hot. he has brown hair and green eyes. he's neptunic, neptunic is a sexuality where you are attracted to women, non-binary people, or anyone who doesn't identify as a man. I'm like actually obsessing over him!!!! >_< he's really nice to me, and he's sooo FREAKING smart it's like not even funny!!! when he lived with his shithead of a step dad, his dad would search him for any blades, money, knives, and really anything he wasn't supposed to have (so basically he wasn't supposed to have anything), but guess what? nex would wear yoga shorts with pockets under his actual pants! he'd hide razor blades, money, and really anything flat in there! then, I let him borrow one of my non padded bras, and he'd hide candy in there! he always wears baggy gothic clothing, so his dad never noticed! and he still doesn't know that nex did that, even today! nex never had good parents, his dad was very strict and didn't support him. when nex first said he was neptunic, his dad slapped him and grounded him for six months!!! nex always was really good at hiding his depression, but then his mom got him a therapist, and he finally had someone to vent to. his therapist is a really good person, she actually cared abt him, and she never told his parents about the bad stuff that he did. but then, one day, when I was at school, I noticed him sitting all alone at one of the lunch tables, I didn't know him yet, but I really did feel bad for him, so I sat next to him. I offered him some of my lunch, but he refused to eat. he had a cut under his left eye, I asked him how he got that, and he just said it was his cat. we talked some more, and I found out that he was in 5th grade, so he was older than me. I was in 2nd grade at the time. over time, me and nex became close friends, but, when I first met him, I immediately started liking him!!! it wasn't until he was in sixth grade that he confessed his love for me, and we started dating! I know, I know, he's like way older than me, but deep inside, he's still ten years old. nex is very protective over me, and when I came over to his house for the night and told him that I was getting bullied at school, he said he'd deal with it. and guess what he did the next day? he walked me to school, went out into the recess area with me, and beat the holy shit out of the boys that bullied me. luckily no one saw him, so he didn't get in trouble. now he goes to elevate academy, and I go to river city, but that doesn't stop him from seeing me!! in the middle of the night, he'll go grab his moms tablet and face time me. and whenever me and my fam come over to his house, we're locked in his bedroom for the entire night. nex goes by n, and his full name is Nexon crowfeather. it's pronounced nex-in. yes, he just had to change his last name to his favorite character's name, crowfeather. you know, from warrior cats? he likes crowfeather a lot. when I move out, i'm changing my name to uzi. then, when we get married, my name'll be uzi crowfeather! and when we have a daughter, we'll name her ghost. then her middle name will be nori, and then her last name'll be crowfeather. nex's FULL name is nexon hesper crowfeather. at first, nex was gay, but when he met me, he realized that he wasn't attracted to men anymore at all. nex is also a therian. his therio types are silver fox, cross fox, and Turkish van cat. his father doesn't support therians, so he hates nex. but I love him to pieces, and that's all that matters.

[icantthinkyandere]

Hello there! Can i request some Yandere Ellen Joe, Zhu Yuan and Alexandria Sebastiane x reader (Gender Neutral, Romantic hcs), please?

Shout to the Ellen lover (platonic) in my life. Not to use to Alexandrina's character but I tried my best.

Here's Zhu Yaun stuff I did: link

{Yandere Ellen Joe}

There are three things Ellen cares about. Her friends, her job, and video games. She really only cares about the second one because it allows her to hang out with her friends at the arcade and anywhere else they wanna go to. She doesn't go out of her way to interact with anyone but them, cashiers, and whoever her job needs her to talk to.

The only reason for her to start any interest in anyone is if they're introduced to her by her friends. The relationship going forward heavily depends on whether her friends want to get you two together. Even then, it will take a very long time for her to gain romantic feelings.

One of the best ways to gain her affection is by giving her candy. Obviously, showing someone you care for them is always a good way to do this. But, since Ellen can't function without sugar, making sure she has a lollipop or some hard candy will stick out a lot to her.

This is mainly because she knows her personality can be a turn-off to people who don't understand her or don't take the time to get past her shell and simply write her off as another rude teenager. Realizing that she isn't just helps show her that you can look past her surface level.

She's not used to thinking about romance with everything else on her plate before her job is revealed to her friends. She didn't expect to get a crush on anyone or a real person anytime soon. Or in the future.

She didn't picture anyone's attempt at setting her up with someone would work. The most she pictured with her life was graduating high school, college, her job, friends, and family. Never a partner.

She's never had a crush before, or at least a crush this big before, so she doesn't know how to handle it. She's heard her friends and people talk about romance before, so she knows thinking about them often is normal. But wanting to say, "No you don't," when she gets turned down for a hang-out session at the arcade because you have other plans is a bad thing.

She thinks her feelings are from her inexperience with romantic feelings. She's a little too embarrassed to ask anyone, so she reads romance manga or watches romcom anime/shows/movies when she can.

If the object of her affection is single, she'll take a very long time to confess once she figured out her feelings. First of all, she doesn't know if it's a good idea since she is already worried about her work life infecting her personal life, like with her friends. Second of all, she doesn't know how to confess or how it would come off.

Unless her friends find out, she'll bottle it up until she can't. When they find out, they kindly help her set it up, and if they get the person to confess first, she'll accept. Very awkwardly.

{Yandere Alexandrina Sebastiane}

She is both the best and worst yandere to have.

Best because if you get her attention, she is very kind and caring. To the point that she won't even be a yandere by choice. She analyzes her feelings, realizes they are inappropriate, and puts a stop to them since she doesn't want to upset you.

Bad because if you accept her feelings, her caretaking will go up by a thousand, and she will poison you with her cooking.

One of the ways to put yourself on her radar is by being one of her customers. She's a pretty mysterious woman who most likely spends most of her time at home making puppets so, if you're a regular customer that's the best chance of getting to know her.

Getting her attention this way is even better if you're kind and not weird about her being a maid. Or creepy. Or ghost-like. Or dislike her puppets/dolls. Most of all, she appreciates people who like these things and will ask her questions about the creation process.

She'll never act on her feelings. It's inappropriate to flirt with clients, after all! If she sees them in public, though, well, she already cares about them a lot, and it is her job to take care of them. So, following them a little while won't be too harmful. She already knows where they live anyway!

After the first time, she stalks them because she wants to make sure they are safe, and she scolds herself for her bad behavior. Stalking is bad, and no one should do it.

Unless they want her to, of course, then she'll stalk them 24/7.

Once she believes they've made a good connection and her feelings will be reciprocated, she will confess. She will also confess her yandere thoughts because she doesn't want to find them from you. If it's something that makes them uncomfortable, she wants to make sure she can better herself.

If they don't mind, however, she won't test the limits of what they'll tolerate. She'll just act like a classic yandere from what the internet said about them, with less jealous and murderous tendencies.

She will basically just move in immediately whether that's entirely moving in or just keeping 90% of her stuff there. She already cleaned and cooked as her job while learning the layout of the house. Again, she doesn't test any limits of what she can and can't do. She'll ask what they prefer since they're dating now, and that's different from a job.

Alexandrina still wants to do her job, but she'd love to be the live-in yandere of your dreams. The worst part of her moving in is her Bangboos being around her lover more now will often accidentally expose any of her more negative emotions she tries to hide when she pretends to not have certain yandere aspects. Which will often be threats of them not wanting you to be around other people or let them take care of you.

[celtrist]

As incredible as it seems, i really like your idea for obsessed sir pentious just acting like a normal romantic partner for alastor (just a little glingy). Dont get me wrong im loving the dark stuff happening in your au, i just thought that sometimes you need a little break from all the dark stuff, a little cup of fluff, a bit of a "safe heaven" you know??

I also dont think that pentious could be same level harmful like vox, vaggie, valentino etc. Yes hes still obsessed so i imagine him wanting to hold hands, watching alastor sleeping, stalking him a little bit but not doing much besides that, making him take care of the eggbois, playing fighting, maybe creating deer related inventions to try impress alastor 🤔

Im a sir pentious fan i think that noodle is just a simple man with simple wishes 💅😅

Yeah, that's sorta my same thought process. Obviously everyone is pretty much OOC in this AU, but I do genuinely try to make it sorta "in character" for them. Like what if these character's with their canon selves WERE put into this situation and how would their obsessions vary?

And Pentious, out of everyone, was like the one character I really couldn't think bad things for. He's just such a wet cat of this series. People call Lucifer pathetic? Did you not SEE Sir Pentious at all? When someone had asked what he'd do, I remember being a bit lost and just saying he offers a bunch of harmless gifts to Alastor that Alastor declines or destroys in his face. And I think at the time I mentioned him being a bit stalkerish, but I might be remembering wrong. But yeah, Pentious' worst crime being a harmless stalker compared to everyone else just feels like it makes sense for him.

And I definitely remember talking about how having some light-hearted stuff in the midst of the dark stuff would probably be good for the AU! I think it was about there being a good end in the AU where the curse is lifted, but it's more or less what you said. The dark stuff can get pretty boring/mind-numbing after a while if there's nothing to like, break the monotony so to speak. It's kinda why, while the AU definitely has some very dark content with it, I have always thought about it a bit more like a dark comedy. Not always obviously, but the whole idea of Vaggie making traps, Charlie's delusions about Alastor and Vaggie's relationship, Lucifer just under the impression they have an "enemies to lovers" thing going on, and even Rosie's and Alastor's occasional lunches together were always meant as sort of dark-comedy parts of the AU. Nothing serious. Heck, both Sir Pentious and Niffty are actually just silly jokes all in all. They're both the most harmless of the crew. This might seem strange with Niffty, but I never really imagined her succeeding in her advances. And like I said, Pentious is just a puppy pretty much. I never imagined (in part because I was never able to) think of anything dark for his character to do. And with you're own thoughts about it, I think it cements the idea for me that Pentious doesn't really have anything dark going on (again, aside from stalking but he also just watches others sleep in the main series, soooo....).

Pentious also works as an occasional "sidekick" so to speak seems kinda fun. It'd be similar to that sort of relationship you see in kid shows where Character A is clearly in love with Character B, and Character B ignores it or brushes it off but will use that crush to their own benefit. Sheldon and Jenny's relationship from My Life as a Teenage Robot would probably be a fairly good sum up to Alastor's and Pentious' relationship? Pentious is way too obsessed from stalking to creepy shrines and poor attempts at flirting, but the guy doesn't really harm Alastor nor wants to harm him in any way. And to be honest? I feel like Alastor would, on some occasions, maybe throw a bone. If only because it wouldn't make Pentious start pushing any harder. Plus, Pentious being more "normal" in the love department compared to everyone else is a bit of a nice contrast to the monstrous actions of everyone else. I never thought about how his obsession would actually be (again, aside from gift-giving and being a doormat to others pretty much), but I do like the idea he would just be in a nice relationship with nothing really terrible happening.

[tuttle-did-it]

I’m rewatching DS9 with the Delta Flyers rewatch, and I think Keiko/Miles had an amazing relationship. I love that there are times when they can't stand to be away from each other, and that there are times when they aren't even sure if they want to be in the same room with each other. I love them. I don't think they're as stereotypical as you might be remembering-- there were some subtleties and nuances beyond the stereotypes of being in a cis-het relationship— or any relationship for that matter.

The only episode I have really actively disliked with Keiko and Miles was the TNG episode where Keiko is turned into an 12 year old. The actress they had for young Keiko was not very good, and Colm seemed to be questioning his life choices as he's having to argue with a 12 year old girl playing his wife. It was an uncomfortable plot line (I get that’s the point, but maybe a little too uncomfortable). I thought her character was written terribly, the episode was absurd, and would have MUCH preferred they had used that time with Rosalind to write a much better story for her.

I have always loved Rosalind. She is an amazing actor, she is absolutely gorgeous, she has wonderful chemistry with Colm, and she just seems like a really fabulous person. Armin can't say enough praise when he talks about her as a guest star. I have NEVER understood why people say there was a problem with Keiko because I've never known anyone who said that. Everyone I've known feels the same way about her. I'm going to guess that it was primarily men who were offended at seeing a blond woman who wasn't a 28 year old with big tits bouncing around.

Chakotay…. you know what? I will be honest. I never liked his character, even before I found out Beltran was a pile of shit. to my knowledge, Beltran has never claimed to be Native American. As I understand it, he does have some ancestry for Native America but does not identify that way, I think he's primarily known as a Mexican American actor. In fact, I remember articles complaining when Voyager first came out from Native Americans and First Nations people pointing out that there were a lot of Native actors who would have been perfect for the role, there were a lot of Native consultants who would have helped them not write shit (they hired a hack -- apparently knowing he was a hack???-- white dude who was an ʇɹǝdxǝ on Native cultures. Who knew nothing about Native cultures and made out all the fuck up. (Fact check me on all of this, friend it's very late/early and I have had a pain flare-up for 4 weeks that is dulling my bloody brain).

Even without knowing Beltran was a piece of shit, I have never liked his character. I also never liked Reg Barclay, and I liked the character of Torres but didn't always love Roxanne's performance of her. hmmm what do they all have in common…. ahem. Could it be a red hat with 4 letters words on it? Why yes. Yes it could. (More on Torres later)

I love Prodigy. I do. I think it's a brilliant show and I think they actually do some very clever stuff with anti-nostalgia when the rest of the entire fucking franchise is nothing but nostalgia (Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, Picard in particular). I strongly wish they had not brought Beltran back in, and kept with the anti-nostalgia stuff they were playing with. The kids' storylines were all fantastic. In my opinion, it was the best New Trek show out there. The writers clearly knew and understood the two different people Janeway could be, they gave story arcs to every character, they managed to make the Borg scary again (well done there). It was just a good show. But it was harmed with the Chakotay sideplots that never needed to happen.

The writers were clearly Chakotay/Janeway shippers, which… no. I would have loved if the story was… anyone else. I mean, maybe not Kim, but yeah, pretty much anyone else. I think the show would have been far stronger if they had kept with the anti-nostalgia here, and they did not need a forced relationship that never should have happened. I’d have much preferred if Janeway had a completely asexual reason for going back to the Delta quadrant— preferably one that involved something she fucked up 30 years ago.

Torres…. you know, I am going to disagree with you a bit here. Am I angry that they made the Latina woman angry and out of control? Yes. Does it drive me absolutely insane that Torres-- the only main character woman of colour on Trek since Uhura-- is constantly being told to control herself? Abso-fucking-lutely. (and don't think I'm not still raging that they were STILL FUCKING DOING THIS 30 FUCKING YEARS LATER WITH RAFFI BECAUSE FUCK YOU STAR TREK)

However. I would argue that Torres might be one of the women on Trek who has had the MOST character development.

Everyone credits Janeway as the first woman captain as a main character. YAY! great. Women in stem. We love it. So why aren't we acknowledging the first woman engineer? These two women run the fucking ship. They are allowed to be leaders, and for the most part, the men who work for them adapt to this pretty quickly and don’t really cause problems because ewww my boss is a woman! Ugh! No, just she is my boss, she knows what the fuck she’s doing, I will do my job.

I also kind of loved when Janeway is like, how long will this take? and Torres says x hours. Janeway says fine, I want this done in (less than) x hours. Torres fights back saying No, I said it takes x time. I don’t exaggerate. I said what I said. I just liked their relationship— she was allowed to push back, and Janeway seemed to value that in her (most of the time. Not at first. But eventually).

I think they were best with Torres when she was dealing with her struggles of identity. I have never liked the Klingons, I will be honest. I hate Klingons. I hate Worf. I don’t like the Klingon culture, and I think most of the time they’re just an excuse to show how “civilised” the Federation and Starfleet are. It bothers me how the original series mainly used them in Blackface, and I’ve noticed an annoying trend in science fiction to often put the person of colour in alien makeup, often monstrous or villainous. It can feel quite racist to me, as the original series mail had Klingons basically in Blackface, and are often in sci-fi to show monstrous characters to show how evolved and superior the white characters are.

I generally am very very bored of Klingons. Torres may be the only one I’ve ever liked. No… wait. Oh! Suzi Plakson.. Key… K’Elar? Something like that. K’Ehleyr. (Thanks internet). She was amazing, and very much like Torres in that she was half human, half Klingon, and kinda hated Klingons. Loved that. She was sort of the template for Torres, now that I think about that. She was an excellent character. They shouldn’t have killed her off.

Anyway. Torres. I kind of loved that Torres was a Klingon who Didn't Get Why Anyone Would Want to Be A Klingon. She hated every element of being a Klingon. Some of it was just ‘I don’t get these idiots, all they do is fight and yell and I just want to sit and read a book in the bath, go away.’

Some of her rejection was down to previous traumas as a kid, which I liked that they went into. That people have rejected her because of the way she looks. And she can’t just make it go away. And self-loathing- how how hard she pushed that Klingon identity away, even though visually, that's the first thing anyone would notice about her. And the first thing she sees in the mirror.

Hating and loving her mother enough to be willing to go to "hell" to save her. To go through all the Klingon crap that she hated for someone she loved because deep down, some part of her did still value that Klingon crap because she valued her mother.

She also had an excellent storyline about the trauma of being part of two very different cultures-- but also, her terror at passing this trauma as generational trauma onto her child. To the point she's willing to try to change her child's DNA so she can ~pass~ for the preferred culture. Whatever my feelings on Roxanne, that episode was absolutely incredible-- and from what Robbie says, Roxanne came to the writers with her script covered in notes for them from her own experiences. It was one of VOY’s stronger episodes.

They allowed two women (Janeway and Torres) to have quite severe depression and mental health issues, which frankly I think was a rather brave of them considering this is 1998 Star Trek— and that these women were the ones in charge, but no one used that as an excuse to replace them with men. Janeway’s depression was a self-loathing and guilt, sitting in her quarters and refusing to come out. (And occasionally trying to blow up the ship…….). Torres’ depression also turns inward, but to the point where she is engaging in self-harm— and could have very well killed herself multiple times. And I believe it was made quite clear that Torres’ depression regarding her heritage certainly went back to childhood, as did Janeway’s depression issues. Were these issues resolved too quickly? Yes. But I think it was a HUGE thing that they allowed the two most powerful women on the ship just fucking Not Be Okay.

Also, whilst I don’t love cis-het relationships in general, I didn’t hate Torres and Paris. I appreciated that they took the time for them to both grow up a little bit before bringing them together. I appreciated that they did become friends before it turned into something more. Not my favourite paring by a mile, but I think they did some nuanced stuff with them— the episodes where he’s asleep in front of the tv was maybe too silly, but as a couple they were inoffensive most of the time.

I thought it was an interesting choice to make Paris more interested in honouring her Klingon heritage in multiple episodes, and having her pushing back— no, I don’t care about this shit, leave me alone!

In Lineage (possibly Torres’ strongest episodes), when she is trying to change her child’s DNA, I liked the way Paris pushed back and had to really fight to get it into her head that he was not like her father, and that he loved the part of herself that she hated so much. These multiple episodes regarding her mixed heritage— and trying to learn how to love what she saw in the mirror even though it was a representation of everything she rejected— that mattered. That spoke to a lot of marginalised people who are two things, and thus feel like nothing. Who wish they could pass for this but they can’t because of that. That episode mattered.

Women on Trek were not treated well by the writers. Full stop. Torres was not treated well. Listen, I love Gates— Gates was the only reason I ever even stayed with TNG. She was the only one who seemed to have a personality on the show, to me. The only one I vaguely cared about— and on paper, she was nothing. But Gates managed to infuse her with much more.

And then Michelle Forbes came along and — oooh, yes, I’ll stay for her, too. This one is interesting! I like her. But I think Gates would have killed for her character to have that much development. I believe Denise and Michelle Forbes would have stayed if their character had half as much development as Torres.

Nichelle desperately wanted to leave— and stayed because Martin Luther King begged her to.

Terry did get quite a few cool episodes, but only one or two delved into her deep traumas, things that broke her. Because Jadzia had 7 lifetimes— she’s worked a lot of her shit out by now. We had a few. Maybe if Terry had been given just a few more episodes of substance, she wouldn’t have burnt out as easily. (And maybe if Rick Berman hadn’t treated her like shit, too). But I'm a big defender of Jadzia because as a trans kid, she was the first positive version of queerness I saw. She was allowed to be both a woman and a man, and her sexuality was obviously open. That meant a lot to me as a kid.

And I do feel that Nana was burnt out by S7 as well. They stopped giving her interesting stories, put her in heels and said hey go stand there and snog Odo. That was an irritation for me.

And Marina? Christ. Troi didn’t have a personality —aside from hating her mother, liking chocolate and saying ‘captain he’s very angry’ when there’s an alien SCREAMING on the view screen. Marina would probably have biten off her own arm if she could do anything more than sit there saying ‘and how does that make you feel?’ Troi didn’t become remotely interesting until like S6 or something.

And I adore Jeri, but the Borg Barbie thing really did get old for me. If they had just let her fucking wear clothes instead of looking like it was painted on, that would have gone a long way. But even she had more story than many of the other women in Trek. And don’t get me started on how much I was screaming on Picard when Seven spends the entire last year sitting in silence whilst the white men talk about how hard their lives are, and putting up with another stupid white man constantly dead-naming her. And she’s apparently not allowed to be with her lover because Raffi needs a man has to “teach” her how to control her emotions. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. No— we’re not getting into that. We are not getting into that cos this is already WAYYYY too long and it is 0320 and I should have been in bed at least an hour ago. We are not getting int— christ I hate Picard. FUCK YOU STAR TREK.

Ahem. Sorry. So. I think we can all agree that women on Trek, there was a very low bar for character development. And by bar, I mean a toothpick on the ground. But a few of the women did manage to shove that toothpick a little higher. Women in Trek have not been treated well. But I admire every one of the women in these shows for doing the most they could with what little they had.

But when I really sit back and think about character development for women in Trek, I’d say that Torres is certainly one of the ones who was allowed to do a lot more than most. I think she was allowed to be a lot more complex than people realise. Torres, Kira, Jadzia and Seven were probably the women who were allowed to have the must substantial stories— even more so than Janeway, sometimes.

Pretty sure nearly all of the women in the entire Trek franchise would beg for as much development as Torres got. Was it enough? No. Was it more than most of the women in the franchise got? yeah.

Miss Piggy has better storylines than so many of the women in these shows. (well. Torres, Kira, Jadzia and Seven did okay. But all of the women deserved better)

(and to be fair-- even with now cheated these women all were for incredible storylines, they still matter to a lot of people. Nana recently published a book on Trek women and how fans have spoken to her about how much they mattered and how they changed the lives of fans everywhere. And I think that's incredible. That these actors could bring so much more than what was on the page to still reach people -- despite how 2-D they were written.)

Does anyone remember that episode of Star Trek: Voyager where Tom Paris commits a traffic violation in alien space and he has to go to alien remedial driving school? I have no idea which episode it was, but it's such a great concept. There are so many episodes about high-stakes encounters with crazy alien legal systems where death is on the line, but I wanna see more alien planets with very mundane legal systems. I wanna see an episode where there's a big dramatic trial, and our heroes lose, but then find out that they have misunderstood what was going on and will simply have to do community service for a week or something.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the biggest things that makes me see Leo as trans is absolutely the size of his carapace in comparison to his brothers’.

And I’m not talking about height! I’m specifically looking at his shell here, because when you compare him to the others, particularly Donnie who is nearly the same height as Leo, it’s very clear that Leo’s carapace is much longer in proportion to the rest of his body.

Like - standing side by side, even though Donnie is shorter his carapace ends noticeably higher up than Leo’s does. And I like this not only because it really helps push the idea that Leo could very likely be trans (or intersex!), but it’s also just a fun design difference between them.

(It also lends way to future scenarios of Donnie eventually getting taller than Leo, but sitting down still has Leo being the taller one haha.)

[karliahs]

I tried to give myself a little break from writing because I thought that's what I needed, but turns out the writing is load-bearing at this point. what I really needed was a break from writing stuff that I ever intend to polish up and show anyone. tapping out random comfort daydreams full of square brackets and 0 context is vitally necessary in fact

[pythagoras180]

GABRIEL AND EMILIE AGRESTE

For your first point, there is a quote from MusketAnna on Twitter than comes to mind about this topic.

"[Game of Thrones] was on TV for a decade and had a stranglehold on popular culture and it ended so poorly that literally the moment it ended its cultural influence dissolved. It's amazing. It was like, overnight and it's baffling to think that something that was so everpresent for eight years simply ceased to exist because we all collectively decided it wasn't worth it. Eight years of memes, references, a presence you could not get away even if you tried and didn't care and all of this, ALL OF IT, undone to such a point that I can't even remember the last time I saw [Game of Thrones] referenced or talked about."

I agree, canon has done an absolute garbage job at establishing the limits of these powers. But SL did not "capitalize" on anything, considering the result is (in my opinion) garbage.

Gabriel being an idiot in canon is simply due to the writers not being good enough to write an actual good villain. I think intentionally writing a terrible villain is even worse.

"And the reason why Emilie is brought back... so Adrien will stay in Paris" And what is it called when a writer writes a terrible plot point just to justify something else they want to happen? It's called bad writing. "And this also lets us get to know Emilie" "Get to know" on the same level as all the other anti-characters in this story.

You're right, Emilie isn't a character in canon. But she also isn't one in SL, she is just another strawman punching bag.

TONE

Romcom and magical girl are not incompatible genres, I don't know where you get this idea. And you know, there are a lot of moments in your response where you just kind of say stuff without providing examples or backing it up in any way.

"it does feature moments that are not played for laughs" Like two moments across countless pages? And something being "light-hearted" isn't really an excuse. Kids movies still contain enough power to make the audience feel things. Something being all light-hearted all the time isn't entertaining.

CHARACTERS

"they're teenagers, and that should be rather a default" I was once a teenager too, and I can tell you that my classmates had different personalities. "Sarcastic smartass" was not the default, especially not for the girls.

"I personally never came across a take where being sarcastic is considered being generic, usually, it is about being nice" Have you heard any discourse surrounding superhero movies in the last couple years? This characters archetype is like a cancer throughout Hollywood.

"All characters in Scarlet Lady have in fact their own personality that are hardly the same" Well, not really. I expect every character to react to any situation in the same way, with a sarcastic and smartass quip. Sure, the characters aren't totally identical, but that individuality gets lost when their exteriors are basically the same.

CHLOÉ

Justifying why characters interacting is boring doesn't make it not boring. If there was nothing interesting that could be done with Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir after the first two interactions, then the author should have found a way to cut out those interactions entirely.

Everything you said about the public liking Scarlet Lady is stuff I already knew and acknowledged in my original post. So to restate my point, getting rid of a dangerous individual that very nearly caused the heroes their defeat is more important than their PR. This is a BS excuse the author uses to justify keeping Scar around for longer than she logically should.

In your paragraph about Chloé's consequences, you use a lot of words like "almost" and "maybe". That doesn't feel like real consequences to me, and I don't believe Chloé has actually learned anything.

MARINETTE

Yes, Marinette can occasionally be a little snarky. But my point is that her characters always had an underlying sincerity to her that SL!Marinette absolutely does not have, because Zoe is allergic to sincerity.

SL does a whole lot of "tell, don't show" with Marinette's character. And even if she does help people, I still don't like her simply because of how outwardly unpleasant she is in her interactions.

"Marinette nowadays is not exactly popular and well-liked :/" You know, even with the abhorrent character Marinette has become in season 6, she's still at least a character.

ADRIEN

As I said in the original, I don't like canon Adrien. And I don't think he got any real development, but at least he had the potential to get some, which is more than I can say in SL.

"No-personality where?" You just listed a bunch of traits, that's not what a personality is. I could also list a bunch of traits for canon Adrien.

"So it's already established at first that while Adrien is fighting for his freedom the second he's in, he didn't have it immediately in him." You just described a bunch of BS that happened offscreen. I wouldn't be surprised if he was physically dragged back kicking and screaming.

"allowed Adrien to grow" No. That's my entire point. He is the exact same character sarcastic smartass at the end of the comic as he was at the start.

"He genuinely broke down at Master Fu's place over his dad being a villain, because he did love him and all this hurt came from a broken heart" You mean that moment that, like everything else, was undermined by a joke? Right...

As for all the Chloé and Adrien stuff, tell me, what is the difference between ending a friendship, and threating to end a friendship and then not treating someone like a friend a single time for the entire rest of the time you knew them? Chloé and Adrien were never friends in SL. And you know, canon Adrien giving Chloé all those chances to learn her lesson is more character work than every character sarcastic smartass in SL combined. And I don't even think is was good.

"And Adrien objectively is a victim" Agree to disagree for canon, but in SL he is absolutely not a victim by any metric.

"Adrien apparently also never had a birthday party in his life while Emilie was still around" Oh hey, I made a post about this exact thing awhile while ago.

"So Emilie still has 13 years of being around Adrien's 13 years of sad backstory, so excuse Zoe for deciding to make her not so innocent because of this as this would be a moral failing on her part regardless" Adrien does not have 13 years of sad backstory in canon, he had one year of sad backstory. His fans just make this up to make him a perpetual victim because that's the only way they can contextualize his character.

As for everything you say about Adrien's "growth" in SL, well I think that's fundamentally disproven by the fact that literally the first thing we seem him do is curse out his father. He has no growth.

"Scarlet Lady does him justice" By turning him into an anti-character? Sure...

"Oh, and Adrien absolutely has a reaction to his mom coming back; he's too stunned to speak and confused on H O W and what to think of it. God forbid the guy to be confused" If God had rules for writing stories, he probably would forbid this. Again, this potentially powerful and emotional moment is undermined by a cheap gag that tells us nothing about the characters sarcastic smartasses.

THE MALE CAST

"no other women are being kept out from entering" Did you see other women at the party?

"instead of repeating every word canon has to offer" Bad excuse. "The author didn't want to just repeat the words of canon, so she had Nino say something different that completely decontextualizes the scene."

"Arguably SL did boys better by showing how guilty they are with their entire plan" In canon, Nino did express regret to Marinette about what he did. Except in canon, Nino did what he did because he thought it was the only way to spend this time with Adrien, not because he's a misogynist.

"And it's absolutely fair that Adrien is not held accountable because he literally never planned for this to happen and genuinely was upset and questioned why they couldn't invite the girls" It was perfectly within Adrien's power to say "no", yet he didn't and just went along with Operation Sexism. He's just as culpable as the others.

"This isn't even about sexism but it's worse when you know you could invite any guy to the party and none of the girls which is also what Canon did by bringing almost every male character to the party." In canon, this is played as a funny turn of events. In SL, Nino explicitly said to keep girls out of the house. That's the difference.

NATHALIE

This will be quick. You claim that Nathalie has all these flaws, so tell me, when in the narrative is she called out for them or punished? Oh, she isn't? Mary Sue, end of story.

"especially when in the show if Alya was able to see through Grimoire (not necessarily decode but understand how it actually works as rather an archive for the discoveries)" That's not even remotely the same thing. That's like saying "This Russian child was able to understand this book written in Russian, so it stands to reason that this grown man should also be able to understand it, even though he doesn't speak Russian."

ZOÉ

"The canon never gave you ANY reason for how Zoé came to be" Like I said, it's self-explanatory. "Her father is mentioned once and never again" Twice actually, and referenced a few other times. Point is, he exists, unlike in SL. "She didn't fumble her name the first time we met her" Do you remember how this scene went? The butler introduced Zoé by name 2 second earlier. The only way Audrey could get it wrong is if she has dementia.

"The comic isn't a complete standalone story and never intended to be as even the very first chapters rely on the audience knowing how things went as Zoe admitted herself" I'm saying that there's several parts of SL!Zoé that contradict canon, so the explanation doesn't make any sense here.

"canon never said him and Chloe were never as close" I never said that it did. I'm saying that SL implied that they weren't close, and that's the reason Adrien didn't know about Zoé.

"Chloe would never pay attention to ever bringing a subject of having a half-sister unless said half-sister would appear in a flesh" Okay, that just loops back to my other question. Why are they only meeting now for the first time, when they are teenagers? SL gives no justification for this.

"Well Scarlet Lady indirectly answers this question by embracing Zoé into the family and never rejecting her based on being a bastard child, and that's good because it shows that even those kids who never asked to be born into such a situation still deserve to have a normal life and be treated like you know, people, and not mistakes" No, that's what canon does. In SL, Zoé just appeared out of hammerspace, so it has nothing to say on this subject matter. And again, Chloé and Zoé were kept apart for years. For no established reason!

"Zoé does not refer to Andre as her actual dad or parent" She does. She refers to Audrey and Andre as "our parents".

"In therapy scenes, they ARE one family, even if Zoé arrived recently" I'm referring to the fact that the therapist says something like Andre spoiled the girls, even though the first time we see Zoé with Andre was a couple weeks before this, tops.

"in canon her personality is informed and not showcased immediately after her debut episode" She taunted Queen Banana so well that plenty of real people thought she was being serious. And she tricked Chloé into accepting the charm. And she tricked the butler into not going to the party. She demonstrates her personality, unlike in SL.

"it's just that you downplay everyone else's fury because the author did decide to end it on a more comedic note" It's simply. Comedy weakens emotion. The fact that Zoé hating Gabriel is made comedic means I don't really buy it as real. So I don't buy Zoé's love for Chloé at all.

"Another thing is that Vesperia didn't do anything other than what Queen Bee did during Heroes Day and her not getting to achieve much is also because she's both a newbie and because Queen Bee failed during Heroes Day to do anything interesting." So since one character failed in this season finale, that means this other character accomplishing nothing in her singular appearance is okay? No, it's not. You could have cut out Vesperia and nothing of value would have been lost. But the reason that value is lost is because we were teased with something potentially cool that amounted to absolutely nothing.

BECAUSE CANON DID IT TOO

So you seemed to misunderstand the point of this section in your first paragraph. I'm not criticizing SL for relying on canon for context, it is fanfiction after all, I'm criticizing SL for sticking to some things from canon even though it damages the story of SL.

You're basically saying "All the Miraculouses were included because Zoe got greedy and wanted to use every idea and design she thought of." That's not a defense at all.

"It's worth noting that Zoe did release recently for the anniversary of her comic an "extended scene" of all the heroes beating down Hawk Moth and each of them contributing to the battle as no, Chat Noir didn't solo Hawk Moth" Don't you think that the fact that this is "extended" it inherently means it's unnecessary? Characters doing something in a fight doesn't justify their inclusion on its own. For example, if Hawk Moth had a series of minions they had to fight through to get to him, and everyone's unique skills were necessary, then that would have justified their inclusion. Chat Noir did basically take care of it himself, because his inclusion was the only one that was narratively meaningful.

* "but it's nice to know that all miraculouses were included" Ah yes, "Destroying the stakes is okay because it means we got to see all the Miraculouses in action."

In "Cat Blanc", Bunnix is slowly disappearing as a result of the timeline changing. Like I said, there aren't really any alternate timelines, changes to the timeline simply overwrite the old one. So again, no, the fact that Zoe treats SL's timelines like it's the MCU means that SL is completely incompatible with canon, and how it established alternate universes work.

"he's a superhero getting himself in very scary and risky situations and Marinette could end up as a casualty due to her lack of superpowers" Being in a relationship doesn't mean she needs to fight villains without superpowers.

"Marinette is not indestructible" Remember when she casually tripped Timebreaker? Yeah...

"said episode is a rip-off of the Marichat fanfic genre" I'm sorry, what? This is the show that that fanfic genre is based on. How exactly can it be a rip-off?

"And the comment 'sometimes it's better to diverge things' while on a post that is bashing said divergences comes off as a bit hypocritical." No it isn't. "These changes are bad" is not incompatible with "Keeping these things from canon damages this story."

In canon, Ladybug and Cat Noir reflected on the Sentibug situation after it happened. In SL, Sentiwasp was forgotten the second she was gone. There is zero substance in SL.

"Reflekdoll is a low-stakes mini-story, so that makes it okay to forgo logic and just do the Miraculous swap without even trying to justify it." That's really not a counterargument at all. "Sure you can like the canon version of Reflekdoll" I never even said it was good, I simply said it met the bare minimum requirement of making sense.

ZOE AND THOMAS ASTRUC ARE ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH

So you seem to again have misunderstood the point of a section. I never said that these two are equals morally or anything. It's simply about them having similar ideas. However... "Zoe doesn't GLOAT herself as a great writer" Yes, yes she absolutely does.

Okay, I guess I was wrong when I wrote that SL!Chloé went to a different country. But I stand by everything else I said. Chloé is a strawman punching bag, so I have no confidence that she will actually change at all or anything will turn out fine for her.

"Also, sidenote Marinette calling him out is not wrong as Adrien also called out Hawk Moth while gaining his power up, and Marinette also deserves a right to defend her boyfriend, especially since Adrien always had to deal with Gabriel alone" This is actually really funny, because you can literally copy-paste this exact quote to defend Adrien's role in the canon season 5 finale. Just replace "Hawk Moth while gaining a power up" with "his father during the Nightormenter fight". Like I said, on the same wavelength.

CONCLUSION

I'm not saying these emotions aren't valid, I'm saying it's bad to act on them and let them bleed into your work. To be clear, I hated how canon season 5 ending. And yet, as much as I hate to admit it, it was still better than SL's ending. It felt like Marinette faced an actual challenge, and there were actual characters making actual decisions. Low bar, I know.

I actually think partaking in Saltfics just feeds those bad emotions.

But she didn't do justice to any of the characters, and I think I've broken down why. She made every single on of them worse.

"Zoe herself pointed out how Marinette has plenty of flaws, especially within her story (like her clumsiness, her temper, her jealousy, and her tendency to overthink and complicate stuff)" I can't remember any of that stuff causing any actual problems. So they're not real flaws, they're something an an amateur writer slaps onto their character because they heard people say that characters need flaws. And I was mostly talking about Adrien in this section.

I'm specifically talking about the fact that the only reason anybody like Adrien and Marinette in SL is because they liked them in canon, despite the fact that in SL they have none of the traits people liked about these characters from canon. Fanfics can depend on context from canon, but not when they contradict that context.

"They didn't exist just to bash the story of someone else, but to serve justice to those characters so their happily ever after feels earned and satisfying." Canon somehow felt more earned and satisfying than SL ever could, simply because canon has actual characters and a story.

I was being mostly hyperbolic with how I ended the original. But the fact is, there are a lot of people on both Tumblr and Reddit that have absolutely no critical thought and just mindlessly consume what they see. Bad content can still have a fanbase.

To finish up and respond again to your defenses of the writing of characters like Gabriel and Chloé, I'm going to use one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movie reviews.

"And here's the thing, it does not take any talent whatsoever to depict a character whose death would be cathartic to watch. [...] In the case of 'John Wick', it is very efficient. Man is bad because man kills puppy. No time is wasted showing us ten different scenes of man killing ten different puppies."

Canon is Better than Scarlet Lady

I while ago I read a post where someone said that they don't like fanfiction because "Why would you take someone else's story and butcher it?" When I read that, I thought "Isn't that harsh? Most fanfics are made out of people's love for the source material." Well, I think the Scarlet Lady AU by Zoe-Oneesama is exactly the kind of fic this person was imagining when they said that. "Scarlet Lady" is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic/saltfic/fixfic that fundamentally misses the point of pretty much every character and major plot point in it. And since it recently ended, it's time for my comprehensive review of it.

Just a few things before we begin. I'm going to assume that everyone reading this has read "Scarlet Lady", so I'm not going to recap the story. I was originally planning to write this on the day of the last page, but the final page was honestly such a nothing burger that I thought it wasn't the final page initially.

Some people may have a problem with the very concept of this review, saying its not fair for me to criticize a non-professional fanfic with this much scrutiny. I think that's an opinion Zoe herself holds. First, I think nothing is above criticism, especially not something that is claiming to be better than the professional product. People didn't hold back against "Spiderman: Lotus", did they? Even within this fanbase, people had some pretty harsh words for "Karma of Lies". Second, I think any discussion of non-professionalism went out the window the moment Zoe stated her intention to sell hardcopies of "Scarlet Lady". This arguably is professional. Third, I wouldn't be making this review if I thought this was a fanfic made out of genuine love and passion, and simply missed the mark. No, "Scarlet Lady" is in fact created out of nothing but spite and contempt, and I feel that makes it pretty fair game for criticism. So, without further ado, let's begin.

Why is Canon Better than Scarlet Lady?

In "Scarlet Lady", Emilie Agreste was woken up with no consequences, no buildup, no emotion, and no meaningful consequences. In canon, Emilie's loss was accepted by the characters and she died. I'm pretty sure that automatically makes canon better than "Scarlet Lady", so you don't even need to read the rest of this review! In all seriousness, this is genuinely some of the worst writing I have ever seen, and it is what made me decide that "Scarlet Lady" was a bad story, so I decided to just mention it on its own.

To be clear, I think Miraculous Ladybug is a poorly written show. "Scarlet Lady" is just worse. And since I used to enjoy Miraculous Ladybug, I'm in a good position to compare the two. When I read the ending of Scarlet Lady, what I though about canon was

I think that writing the middle part of a story is relatively easy. The audience is already hooked from the beginning, and they are intrigued for what might happen, so they'll keep reading even if not everything is great. I think the beginning and ending is the hard part. "Scarlet Lady" didn't have to worry about the beginning and getting people interested because it's piggybacking off of an already successful show. And since the ending of "Scarlet Lady" was so awful, it's clear to me that it was always badly written.

I'll now be analyzing "Scarlet Lady" in terms of its tone, its various characters, and more.

Tone

Every single potentially powerful moment in "Scarlet Lady" is played off as a joke. This may be in part because of the format, with it being released 8 panels at a time, so the audience has to be given something to be entertained by in every page. The thing is, I don't think that's true. I have seen plenty of webcomics where a situation is spread across multiple pages, and the audience doesn't instantly lose interest when one page is for setup purposes.

The consequence of this unserious tone is that the entire story is an emotional flatline. There's no moments that make you sad, no moments that make you happy, nothing that makes you scared or invested. Nothing feels like anything, because everything is a joke.

The season 2 finale of canon is actually really good, it feels like a real challenge with both sides giving it their all. In SL however, the same battle feels about as challenging as a stroll through the park.

I've seen a lot of comedies, and most of them still have a strong emotional core that isn't made into a joke at every turn. So arguing that SL is a comedy doesn't really help.

The problems with this unserious tone run deep, and you will see that as I explore the various characters.

Characters

I don't even like most of the characters in ML, but I could see the absolute downgrade they are in SL.

In general, I just wanted to say this: almost every character in this story is a sarcastic smartass. This makes them rather monotonous and uninteresting. Also very generic considering how common this archetype is these days.

Wait a second. Every serious moment is undermined by a joke, and all the characters are sarcastic smartasses. Was Zoe secretly an MCU writer this entire time?!

Chloé

I figure we should start with the titular Scarlet Lady. I actually think that the idea of a superhero duo where one of them is extremely lazy and unhelpful, but still necessary, is an extremely interesting idea for a dynamic. The problem is, there is no dynamic. Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir have no relationship, they just talk at each other constantly. And the result of this is that basically every interaction is the same: Scar does something selfish, Chat gets mad, rinse and repeat. It could have been interesting to explore different scenarios and ideas with these two, but no they just do the same thing over and over.

There is a pretty big plot hole here once Marigold is introduced. Why don't the heroes just take the Ladybug Miraculous back? It would be rather easy. Well, the explanation is that since Scar is still popular with the public, its best to keep her around for public cooperation and morale. Okay, I can accept that. Except, only a few episodes after this explanation we get "Zombizou", an episode where Scar straight up attacks Marinette in the middle of a battle, which causes Chat to get infected and them to very nearly lose. After that, there is no excuse anymore. Scar is clearly too dangerous to keep around, take her Miraculous now. But no, they actually don't even talk about what happened at all.

One particular episode where I have a problem with how Chloé is treated by the writer is "Silencer". In this episode, Chloé helps Bob Roth and XY with their plagiarism scheme. In canon, she had nothing to do with that. Now, yes, this is a different story and the writer can do whatever she wants. And this also gets Chloé more involved in the story. However, doing this just gives me a feeling that Zoe is blaming Chloé for something she didn't do. I don't know, it's just a vibe.

Anyway, throughout the story Chloé gets worse and worse until it culminates in her working with Hawk Moth and betraying everyone. And what are her consequences for this?

I mean, except for her father making her apologize (offscreen). So ultimately this plot feels like such a letdown. Chloé is the titular character that this fic's whole concept was started by, and yet it ends with her character just fading away with a whimper. What a letdown.

Marinette

This one will be quick. Zoe says that Marinette is her favorite character in ML, but I don't think she understands her at all. Remember what I said about every character being a sarcastic smartass? Well that is most prevalent with Marinette, and that is just fundamentally not who she is as a character. Marinette is someone whose is unabashed in her kindness and compassion. That's why plenty of people like her. If Marinette was in canon like she was in SL, she would be an extremely generic protagonist with almost no fans at all. The only reason anyone likes her in SL is because they relate her to the canon version.

I will say, I do like the idea of her being such a hero at heart that she'll run into danger even without powers. But this is completely diminished by her basically being invincible and having plot armor in her civilian form.

Adrien

Adrien in canon is one of my least favorite characters of all time. And yet, Adrien in SL is even worse. I'd go as far to say he's an anti-character. He has no growth, no arc, and no real personality.

The reason people like Adrien in canon is because they perceive him as someone who is treated very badly by his father and by others, but is still a kind person regardless. Well, in SL it's hard to perceive any poor treatment considering how he's only ever seen disobeying his father. And he's really never done anything kind throughout the entire comic.

Do you know the only reason people like Adrien in SL? Because they see him as who they wanted canon Adrien to become. Someone who can stand up to his father, who is useful in battle, and who doesn't put up with Chloé. But since SL Adrien was that way the entire time, there is no growth at all. Again he piggybacks off of his canon counterpart. If canon Adrien didn't exist, nobody would give a single crap about SL Adrien. None of the traits people liked about him in canon are present, and there is nothing new added to replace it. He is nothing.

Speaking of Adrien and Chloé, isn't it kind of weird that Adrien ended his friendship with her twice? In "Despair Bear" he ends his friendship with her and this is played as a big moment, even though he already basically ended their friendship all the way back in the pilot. There is not a single moment in the entire comic where Adrien treats Chloé like a friend.

As I mentioned earlier, Adrien has no emotional reaction to his mother coming back. In fact, I think it's fair to say that Adrien never loved his parents. And the reason for this is because Zoe hates his parents and she just imposed her feelings onto him, just like most bad fanfic writers do.

In terms of Adrien having no arc, there is one moment I wanted to talk about. During the final battle, he gets a power upgrade when he's talking about how he doesn't understand Hawk Moth's perspective, and he doesn't want to because Hawk Moth is so awful. This moment is played as if it's character growth for Adrien, but I want to ask, in what way? Well, I guess it does make sense because Adrien always gave his father the benefit of the doubt, stuck by Chloé even though she's cruel, and defended Lila. All those things could be considered him trying to understand a bad person. Too bad that none of that happened in SL. Adrien always hated his father, he ended his friendship with Chloé day 1, and he never defended Lila. Zoe was so focused on removing all of Adrien's flaws that she left him with no starting point for this supposed arc. In general, flawed characters are more interesting than perfect ones. Again, the only reason people liked this scene was because they subconsciously associated SL Adrien with canon.

Also, Zoe adds in her headcanon that Emilie was a bad parent. This headcanon only exists because people are incapable of imagining Adrien being anything other than a victim. I call it my "Perpetual Victim Theory". Anyway Zoe just makes up a bunch of random crap that has no basis in canon just to make Adrien more of a victim.

Gabriel

At first, "Scarlet Lady" looks like a Chloé saltfic. Well, that's only partially true. It's actually mainly a Gabriel saltfic. It honestly seems like Zoe hates Gabriel so much that she can barely think when he's involved. Gabriel is always portrayed as a complete moron with absolutely no humanity at all. He honestly seems more like a caricature in a political cartoon rather than an actual character. I actually find it hard to believe that his motivation is to bring back his wife considering how devoid of human emotion he is. Because the main villain of the series is a buffoon who can't be taken seriously, there is never any actual threat or tension. People criticize canon Gabriel for all his bad decisions, which is absolutely fair, but there are at least a few moments where he is genuinely menacing, and some moments where he is human. But writing him that way would require Zoe to let go of her hatred for a few minutes, so that's clearly not an option.

Nathalie

To put it simply Nathalie is a Mary Sue. She's a "girlboss" that does a bunch of horrible things she's not punished for. She can create a sentimonster to solve all the show's problems, she can decode an ancient book without a reference (Some people have defended this by claiming that the book was decoded IRL. IRL it was written in Engish in a different alphabet. That's not true in-universe). She's so much smarter and cooler than everyone else. Mary Sue, plain and simple. Oh, and she hates Gabriel because of course she does. She's a character written by Zoe after all.

In canon, Nathalie has some complexities. She's not great, but she's certainly better than this.

The Male Classmates

I'm just going to say it. Almost every male classmate was character assassinated in "Party Crasher". In canon, Nino lists his female friends to Gorilla and tells him to not let them in the mansion. This is because he assumes that if they find out that they ditched tree planting, they'll stop the boys from hanging out with Adrien. Is it a jerk move to ditch their plans in order to spend time with Adrien and not tell the girls? Yes, but it's understandable and they have limited time with Adrien. In SL, Nino tells Gorilla to keep all girls out of the house, which instantly imposes a sense of underlying misogyny to the situation. Oh, and they let Marc in even though Marc is nonbinary in this story, which implies that the boys went full Royce Du Pont, which is unintentionally hilarious.

I have no idea what motivated Zoe to change the boys from regular flakers to misogynists, maybe she just misunderstood the original episode, but it's still bad. Also, the SL episode goes out of its way to say that Adrien isn't at fault. No, he was completely complicit in the blatant sexism as well. So yeah, pretty much all the boys are instantly made worse by this one episode.

Zoé

In these previous cases, I have been making comparisons to and defending canon characters that I don't even like anymore. But Zoé Lee is my absolute favorite character in Miraculous Ladybug, and I was not happy with how SL handled her.

So a pretty important question right off the bat, how does SL Zoé exist? Zoe said that since canon didn't explain Zoé's existence, neither will she. But the thing is, what is there to explain? Chloé's parents have been married 20 years. Chloé's mother lives in New York, away from her family in Paris. Chloé's mother also has a daughter in New York with another man, much younger than 20-years-old. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out what happened there. But I'll spell it out anyway: extramarital affair. In fact, I think the whole reason the writers of canon made Zoé Chloé's half-sister was to hint why she hadn't been mentioned before: because Audrey was ashamed of her, and Chloé didn't know about her.

On the other hand, "Scarlet Lady" never mentions Zoé's father, has her refer to Andre as her parent, says Zoé lived in New York, and never implies that Audrey is ashamed of her in any way. How does this make sense? Well, maybe Zoé is the older sibling in SL, and Audrey and Andre met and got married after Audrey was already pregnant, and Zoé's biological father isn't involved in her life. It still seems weird that Zoé was living in New York instead of Paris (why not live with her stepdad that she's close enough to call a parent, and how did they form such a strong relationship long distance?), but this does make most of the situation make sense. Except for one little detail: Why on Earth are Chloé and Zoé only now meeting for the first time? It makes absolutely no sense that their parents would not even tell these two about each other. How was Zoé so close to Andre to call him her parent, but didn't meet her sister until she was a teenager? None of this adds up. And honestly, it seems like after a certain period of time Zoe just straight up forgot that Zoé only arrived recently. In the therapy scenes, she acts like they were always one family. When canon gave Chloé a sister, they gave a reason why nobody knew about her until now. When SL gave Chloé a sister, she just suddenly has one who isn't explained and they act like she was always around. In fact, the only part where they acknowledge her showing up suddenly is when Adrien hasn't heard of her, but SL actually just implies that this is because he was never actually close with Chloé.

Putting all that aside, SL also sucks out everything interesting about Zoé. Gone is her cleverness or willingness to lie for the right reason. In fact, the defining characteristic that SL gives Zoé is that she has no personality. I've seen some people claim that SL had Chloé and Zoé having more of a sisterly bond, but I actually don't believe that Zoé actually loves Chloé. During the final battle, Hawk Moth has basically poisoned Chloé, and for all Zoé knows, it could be fatal. If I were in Zoé's shoes in this situation, I would be furious with Gabriel. But is she? No, she just has the same jokey, ironic disgust towards him that all the characters do. Yeah, this is one of the moments when the comic's insistence to turn everything into a joke hit critical mass. Doing that ends up damaging the characters.

One last thing. In canon, Zoé was pretty cool as Vesperia. She helped out a bunch of times, and she was one of the only heroes to demonstrate unique skills in how she taunted Queen Banana into anger. Not in SL though. Vesperia achieves nothing, she could have been cut out entirely and nothing would change. That actually transitions nicely into my next point.

Because Canon Did It Too

Zoe has said that she wants to keep the lore consistent with the show. Even though she didn't like the name "Venom" for that power, she kept it for consistency purposes. I can respect this idea, but there are multiple parts of this story that would have just been better if it diverged.

For one thing, having 19 Miraculouses and as many superpowered characters. I can understand why canon did this: because they clearly want the show to go on forever and they want as many characters as possible to fill that time. SL on the other hand was only planned to last a certain number of episodes, and yet Zoe crammed in as many heroes as the original did. This leads to a lot of time setting up these characters that leads to nothing, because they're all barely in the finale and contribute basically nothing. It would have been so much better to simply limit it to the 7 main Miraculouses, that's so much more manageable.

Another thing is the Rabbit Miraculous and time travel. Zoe acknowledged how OP it is and how it can instantly solve the conflict. She might not want to change its power because of her lore rule, but if she had just ignored its existence entirely, that would have been totally acceptable. But no, the final battle has Master Fu using the Rabbit Miraculous, which instantly makes the stakes even lower than they already were. It wasn't even necessary, Master Fu is shown to be faster than he looks, he could have just delivered the Miraculouses the normal way. Oh, and there's also the fact that Zoe looked at the insanely OP Rabbit Miraculous and said "That's not OP enough." She also gave it the power to teleport to other universes. To be clear, this completely contradicts canon. ML is not the MCU, alternate universes are not alternate timelines. Changes to the timeline just overwrite the old one, and you can use the Rooster Miraculous, not the Rabbit, to visit other universes. So yeah, despite Zoe saying she wants lore consistency, SL actually doesn't fit into the Miraculous multiverse that canon established.

Also, let's talk about the romance. Like canon, there's a love square that doesn't get together until way later. But it seems like Zoe forgot about an important rule of romance: if the characters aren't together yet, why not? In SL Marinette and Chat clearly like each other, and unlike canon's Ladrien, they talk quite a bit. So why don't they get together? Canon actually has a really great episode "Elation" where Adrien decides that he can't date a civilain as a superhero if she doesn't know his identity. But nothing even like this is remotely acknowledged in SL (Sidenote: The writing of "Elation" is better than the entirety of SL). Also, Adrien doesn't confess for most of SL, I assume because Marinette didn't confess in canon, but this is just so out of character for Adrien. He's not the kind of person to hold his feelings back. In canon, he confessed to Marinette only a few episodes after he started liking her. He claims that he doesn't want to date until Hawk Moth is defeated, but then he starts dating her before he's defeated, so this is a BS excuse.

When Chloé snaps away her sentimonster, Zoe copies the line "How could you?!" from "Ladybug" in canon. This is a completely soulless copy though, because that episode made it clear that Sentibug was sentient, and Chat Noir was genuinely angry in this moment. None of that same substance applies to SL, it's just a meaningless copy of a better scene.

In canon "Reflekdoll", Adrien and Marinette are modeling her designs, and they take their Miraculouses off in order to wear the earrings and ring she made. When Reflekdoll attacks, they try to get their Miraculouses back but end up switching them. In SL "Reflekdoll", Marinette and Adrien are wearing each other's Miraculouses during the photoshoot for no discernable reason. Both versions have a Miraculous swap, but the original earned it and SL absolutely did not.

Zoe and Thomas Astruc are on the Same Wavelength

Zoe has made it clear that she's not a fan of ML's creator, Thomas Astruc. And yet many of her ideas ended up being the same as his.

In both Canon and SL, Chloé publicly commits a bunch of serious crimes, but faces no legal consequences. Instead, she is taken to another country where she can resume her life as a rich brat because she's learned absolutely nothing. Yeah, Chloé's ending in both is basically the same.

In the season 5 finale of canon, there's this huge fight between the side characters and an evil army. This fight has absolutely nothing to do with the actual important fight between Bug Noire and Monarch, so the side characters are completely wasted. In the final battle of SL, the other superheroes contribute nothing and are completely wasted. Chat Noir basically took care of Hawk Moth all by himself. So both finales involve wasted side characters that should have just stayed home. Less time would have been wasted.

Zoe actually says that she added Marinette calling out Gabriel in response to the canon finale. This is absolutely hilarious considering it's still Marinette calling out Gabriel, which basically did happen in the canon finale. Adrien still just stood there and didn't say a word!

Conclusion

"Scarlet Lady" is absolutely worse than canon Miraculous Ladybug. And I think there are a lot of lessons to learn here.

First, don't be so angry and hateful. Zoe basically ruined any possibility of a decent ending simply because her hatred of Gabriel made it impossible to write him like an actual person or a good villain.

Second, any story written in bitterness or spite will be bad. That might not be totally true, I haven't read every story. But I feel that every fanfic I read where the author clearly hates a character has everyone behaving OOC and the story being meanspirited and bad.

Third, don't be arrogant. Just because you can recognize flaws in a story doesn't mean you can do better. Maybe just make some posts calling out those flaws.

Fourth, the way to fix a bad character is not to simply remove all their flaws. Acknowledge those flaws and do something with them.

Fifth, while fanfics do often build off of the original, they can't depend on elements from the original when they contradict those elements. Again, the only reason people like SL Marinette and Adrien is because they associate them with the originals, even though their personalities do no match up.

All in all, I think the world and characters of "Scarlet Lady" will be forgotten only a week after its over. There is no actual substance to them. The only purpose of this fic was to bash somebody else's story, and yet it ended up being so much worse than canon in almost every way.