#i just. dont get all the rules?? which i then feel is corroborated by the fact that there are so many different denominations anyway

[skylordhorus]

i think i like. fundamentally genuinely do not understand organised religion and i feel kinda bad abt it in case it makes me blunder and grossly offend large groups of people because i have a fundamentally different outlook on like. belief

[hezuart]

Hello! So I just have this tiny question whenever I come across the show. Note, I havent watched it. I only hear it from everyone in the fandom and some clips from youtube. So you can ignore dis or you can point things out and clarify it for me. But. The question I have with this show is... why are the kwami's being handed out like candies? I understand that some users have powers that help in the battle but... the kwami's have their own feelings. How are they just okay with being handed to multiple people? And they're always just so eager to help? Like do we have a kwami that when ladybug hands them to their classmate go, "Oh. This again?" Or "Huh. -sigh- okay let's get this over with." At least some kwamis that have a few issues with this arrangement. Can a kwami chose not to corroborate? But then again I guess if that were to happen, hawk moth would not have been hawk moth anymore if his kwami chose not to help. Which, now that I think about it, it would be interesting to see more of his kwami in the show. Also I just feel sorry that adrien/chat noir is treated like a second thought or a goofball to ladybug. Aren't they suppose to be the power duo??? It doesnt make sense. I remember watching this one scene in an episode. I dunno what it was called but I remember hearing ladybug say something along the lines of "oh i didnt call you chat noir because I dont know your identity" and nsjsndhdjs BRUH REALLY!?!?! oof, this show. Anyways, i think i ranted enough. I hope you have a lovely day and stay hydrated!!!

Hi there! I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability since I'm not fully caught up with the show and it's lore myself.

1. why are the kwami's being handed out like candies?

Marinette claimed that it is easier to keep one selected person per kwami over concepts that best fit their personalities. She thinks its easier to rely on a single person who already has experience with certain miraculous she gives them, which is why she usually returns the Kwami to a single person.

As to handing them out like candy, they're weirdly not. Marinette only gives them out for people to borrow them and not keep them perman etely, which I think is a little dumb. Imagine sailormoon keepsaking all of the sailorscouts' wands so they can't transform without her. Marinette always gets into trouble so it's very weird she doesn't just give kwami out for people to keep, but at the same time, Kwami would not need to be used at all if Hawkmoth weren't around. Alya is the only person in the show Marinette has permanently entrusted with the fox Miraculous (as far as I know, and three to four seasons LATER kgdjfhlkfjhk)

2. How are they just okay with being handed to multiple people?

According to the wiki, Kwami are ancient alien gods that rule over concepts. Tikki was the first. After eons, they encountered Earth and the humans that lived there. Kwami allegedly were spirit-like, and were unable to interact with humans. An ancient mage forged the jewelry that bound Kwami to them, which allowed Kwami to take on physical form for the first time. Kwami, without owners, are extremely dangerous and chaotic in nature. Plagg made the dinosaurs extinct, Trixx made the tower of Paris wiggle like jello, and allegedly Tikki, when hungry, goes a mad, etc..

So Kwami are bound by the Miraculous and they are bound to do their owner's commands. So Hawkmoth's Kwami cannot leave. The mage also cast a spell on the Kwami a long time ago, so they cannot speak their owner's names.

However, beware this could be subject to change since the ML series is full of plot holes and retconning is always possible....

spoilers below

This happened in one of the recent episodes. Tikki uses her Lucky Charm, and her powers go haywire. You can even see a humanoid appearance in the bright flash of light. Whether this means Kwami have human forms or not is a mystery but I think it would be awesome to see it.

Also 3. why is Chat Noir always given the bad end of the stick?

The writers.

Ladybug is glorified because she can deakumatize the butterflies. Chat Noir can just kill the butterflies. Chat Noir naturally has evil powers, since his power is destruction. But he ironically uses them for good. He is considered the support, but he keeps getting pushed to the side because of other Miraculous holders. They really don't showcase how the destruction of something can save someone (trapped in rubble, etc) they don't emphasize how much Ladybug truly needs Chat Noir.

One of the issues with this series is that without Hawkmoth, there is no story. Ladybug and Chat Noir would just be friggen.. chasing robbers in the streets. They'd be vigilantes doing police jobs. But in truth, every Kwami can be used for good, and every Kwami can be used for evil. Hawkmoth's Kwami jsut got the short end of the stick.

I feel like there should be born Kwami that are naturally negative towards humans. Something like the anti-kwami, or some other kind of godlike spirits or creatures to rival them. Otherwise the story premise feels really empty.

There's an episode from the future where Nino's younger brother goes back in time to steal the Miraculous. He says he was sent by Hawkmoth, but the Hawkmoth in the future is not Gabriel Agreste. So even in the damn future Nooroo is still used as the bad guy!!! The Butterfly Miraculous is used for transmission!!! To give power to someone else of their own creation! Why the hell is it used for evil like just steal Plagg!!! Threaten to murder the entire human race! They'll give you anything you want if you have that kind of power!

Will Nooroo never be free???? Wtf writers! Let the poor guy go!

[drinkyourfuckingmilk]

Do you have an opinion on the whole Johnny Depp and AH situation? Would you be willing to share it? I think it's a shame that despite all evidence he has against her, he's still being torn down. People really don't think men can be victims.

yeah I do but Im always hesitant to express it because the narrative in the mainstream media is so negligent and still very much supportive of her despite actual evidence, and we absolutely live in a world where abuse against men isn’t taken seriously. that’s not just me repeating hot takes from online sources, I chose to do research topics in criminology at uni on abuse against men and the fact is, is that the way we raise and perceive masculinity means its very rarely taken seriously when a man comes forward and says he’s been sexually, physically or emotionally abused - particularly by women. 

there is also something to be said - and I have NEVER been a conspiracy theorist - but AH dated elon musk who has incredible wealth and influence over the media, and that the judge who decided the recent libel case between the two actually had personal and professional connections to AH’s own lawyer and LITERALLY said “it is not relevant whether AH assaulted JD” in his fucking ruling - this all means JD has not received unbiased judgement or justice in this case. 

I think that there is a fuckton of evidence against AH (actual recorded audio evidence), and corroborated and unbiased evidence against her that shows she is a consistent liar, abuser and toxic person including evidence that shows she is physically abusive towards her own sister and a previous romantic partner - she also blatantly stole the story of her former personal assistants rape experience to use for her own benefit. 

while there is a history with johnny depp of him losing his temper, its always been at inanimate objects (trashing a hotel room, slamming cabinet doors) or any actual physical assault alleged against him has been disproved by countless eyewitnesses. and every single character references for him shows he’s never been abusive towards another romantic partner. and I think that’s key. typically, in criminology and in statistics easily accessible by the public, a man doesn't just become suddenly physically violent against romantic partners at the age of like, what was it? in his 50s-60s? 

there’s ALWAYS a history of that abusive behaviour because its a chronic, behavioral pattern. JD has none of that. AH does. and I’ve had people message me and use a harshly worded text JD sent about AH to a friend where he uses vulgar language and violent ideas about her as proof he’s abusive. a shitty text written about an abusive ex isn't abuse. I’ve sent plenty of horrifically worded texts about fuckwit exes in the heat of anger. who hasn't? it doesn't make you abusive to the person themselves. who hasn't, in anger, wished horrible death and violence internally or in conversation with friends about exes who have profoundly hurt them? you can express these feelings as a means of venting anger in a safe place with friends - that’s entirely different from acting out those thoughts on the person themselves. 

basically; I completely believe JD is innocent of being an abusive person. because I didn't just take the media at face value, I have been actively reading all of the court transcripts. JD and his witnesses are consistent and supported by audio and video evidence. AH consistently changes her stories, her witnesses are much fewer, inconsistent, and are now no longer her friends. it speaks volumes. 

I still very much support the idea of believing victims at face value when they speak up. but I think, like anything in the world, its never black and white, and that grey area is that we need to be more thoughtful and considerate of men when they say they have been abused. because almost fucking nobody takes them seriously. 

because thus far, in light of INSANE amounts of evidence against AH, people will either deny it completely, or they’ll say “okay well then they were equally abusive to each other”. no, they weren’t. even in the audio tapes you have AH admitting to being violent and refusing to promise she wont become violent again, while NEVER saying to JD that he was ever violent towards her which you’d expect in a mediated conversation - and JD frequently says he insists on leaving situations where she becomes physically violent. he actively and repeatedly says in audio convos with her that she is violent towards him, and he HAS to leave the situation because its not appropriate. I’ve known physically abusive people - they dont leave a physically violent situation, they escalate it with their own violence. crim stats show the same. this is not mutual abuse to me. 

so yeah. I support JD in this, not because I’m a JD stan because I’m really by practice not a die hard JD fan, but because the evidence shows he is innocent, and having experienced forms of abuse myself, I know how important it is for victims to get justice or at least be heard. honestly fuck AH, she is a toxic horrible person from all accounts. 

if anyone would like to actually investigate this case beyond mainstream media, here are links to the court transcripts of both sides and of the audio evidence. 

court transcripts: https://www.nickwallis.com/depp-trial

audio evidence: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg0C-N_MPYYOXyF4T3jMxNQ/videos

EDIT: another key thing from the audio tapes is that AH is CLEARLY not afraid of JD. A person who has been physically or emotionally abused is meek, reassuring and placating to their abuser. She is not. At all. He is the one who seems to submissive and mediating in the conversation. Accusatory but still willing to smooth it out which in my experience is characteristic of an abuse victim who is sick of the bullshit but just wants the bullshit to stop.

[captain-aralias]

Fanfic year in review - 2019

yeah - i’m going to answer all these questions too. just watch me. 

List of Completed Fics this year:

Keep Calm (Carry On, S/B and ensemble, Teen, 69k)

Sex and Blood (Carry On, S/B, Explicit, 16k)

The Sound of Silence (Carry On, S/B, Teen, 10k)

Coming Up For Air (Carry On, S/B, Explicit, 4k)

Hang the Moon (Carry On, S/B and ensemble, Teen, 30k)

The sky isn’t black anymore (Carry On, S/B, Explicit, 9k)

This is fine (B7, B/A and ensemble, Teen, 4k)

Total: 7 fics, 142k words - making it one of my most prolific years ever in terms of word count! (even though i wrote about 30k of ‘keep calm’ last year, which would take the total down to a more reasonable level). 

i answer some questions about them below the cut... 

Best/worst title?

Keep Calm is the best title, for sure, as it’s a role reversal of ‘Carry On’. The only bad thing about this title is that i love role reversal fics and i can never use it again. also... i guess as i got to the end i started to think... ‘Should i bring out this theme of calmness...? is this even a theme????’ It was a bit distracting, essentially. 

worst title is ‘Sex and Blood’, which does what it says on the tin - can’t deny it. it’s supposed to be about how vampirism links the two things for baz, right? .... but i don’t like it. also - when people comment on it (thank you! please do comment on it! please keep reading it!) this stupid title that i wrote appears on my lock screen of my phone, which i just leave lying around at work. 

but i know - i did it to myself. i should have thought of a better title. 

Best/worst summary?

i don’t know if i already pointed this out on tumblr, but i noticed recently that all my ‘carry on’ fic summaries have a [Clause A - bad or good situation] but/or some other conjunction [Clause B - something happens that causes a fic to exist!] structure, except for ‘The Sound of Silence’. 

Even having realised that, I’ve still written a summary with the same turn for my as yet unnamed bodyswap fic... 

I think the best summary is probably ‘Keep Calm’. 

Worst summary - Coming Up for Air, but I was trying not to give spoilers for Wayward Son. and it’s a PWP.

Best/worst first line?

generally i love my first lines, and hate my last lines. 

i would say all of my 2019 first lines are indeed pretty good. ‘The sky isn’t black anymore’ is straight into being X-rated so i’m not going to quote it here in case that’s not your jam, but i like it a lot. 

i also like: There’s something wrong with Baz. (Sex and Blood). Obvious - but, it works.

i don’t not like any of them, even the really long rambling first line of ‘This is FIne’.

i will call out the first line of ‘Keep Calm’ though, because i spent ages trying to work out how to punctuate it, and i still don’t know what i should have done. it currently reads: The Mage is waiting for me, outside the door to Mummer’s House.

depending on when you read it, though (and i’m sure you didn’t notice) it may have had no comma (The Mage is waiting for me outside the door to Mummer’s House.) or it might have been a dash where the comma was, or even - gasp - a full stop (because rainbow likes to break sentences into fragments so that’s ok).

 i kept changing it. this may seem like a complete waste of time (and i think the right-right answer is that there shouldn’t be a break at all - no comma is correct), but i wanted the first sentence to FEEL like ‘the mage is waiting for me’ - the place is merely corroborative detail. the point is the mage is there, about to take simon away and change the plot. hence ... the punctuation.

Best/worst last line?

as i said - very few of my last lines are what i wanted. i have not mastered them at all. too often it’s just ‘this is where i ran out of story’. the worst is the ending to the ‘Sound of Silence’ where i literally resorted to ‘Carry On’ cliche to get out of it: And he kisses me.

it’s fine, it works - but i could have done better.

the actual ending line of ‘Hang the Moon’ is pretty good i think, but the pacing of that ending is all wrong. i’m much happier now i wrote a whole extra fic so the weight of everything ending isn’t on those final hundred words. 

the BEST last line i wrote... the one that actually really works (for me) is ‘Coming Up For Air’. And I feel like I can breathe again. 

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

apparently i wrote a lot - which i probably wouldn’t have predicted last year, although by this time last year i’d written ‘the mage’s heir’ and the first half of ‘keep calm’, which did provide much of the wordcount for this year. so - i guess if i’d thought about it, it would have seemed plausible. 

first person helps me write long. and in b7 i learned to write long. 

i guess i’m surprised because it felt like i wasn’t writing that much in comparison to some people in the fandom (and i probably still didn’t in comparison!) and i wrote several long things rather than many short things, so the list is still pretty short despite being MANY words.... 

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

strange though it may be to say - i probably wouldn’t have predicted i’d write blake’s 7 this year. ‘never go back’ - that’s my motto. or rather ‘i can’t go back, my brain doesn’t work that way’. but good to have done it. 

What's your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

hard to say. it’s a draw between ‘keep calm’, which i love because it did everything i wanted it to. and ‘hang the moon’, which is a collection of all my favourite tropes loosely disguised as a fic. 

they’re also the two longest - and i tend to like the long ones better for reasons i have gone into before.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

it’s pretty much a tie between ‘keep calm’ and ‘sex and blood’ - and since ‘keep calm’ was many chapters long, is earlier, and much more heavily promoted by self and the big bang, i’m pretty sure that means ‘sex and blood’ is more popular over all. 

thank you fandom, for loving vampire porn as much as i do.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

we all know (well, those of us who know what it is) that b7 is a tiny fandom, so with that in mind, i think ‘This is Fine’ is well appreciated! <3

the story that is (to me) surprisingly about half as popular as most things that i’ve written for ‘carry on’ is ‘Coming up for air’, which i have now re-linked for you in case you never read it.

it disproves the rule that shorter porny things will be more read (although obviously the vampire porn suggests the opposite). idk, i thought it would catch those who were in the post-wayward son crash, like i was. 

the other thing to say here is that it was still extremely appreciated - i mean, it’s got about 50 times as many kudos as any of my b7 things, and overall i would say it is a thing that is well received. i know i’m fortunate to be friends with people who re-blog my stuff and people who comment, and i (in turn) really appreciate THAT. 

so - it’s not a whine. just an observation

Story that could have been better?

i think i would have written ‘This is fine’ better if i’d written it five years ago. i definitely could have written a blake-travis mindlink to make the gods weep with its perfection ;) what a prompt.

i’ve talked about how i don’t rate the endings of ‘Sound of Silence’ or ‘Hang the Moon’ as well, so i think these could have been better. if only i was better at waiting.., and thinking of an ending. or just - if only i was better at endings. 

Sexiest story?

i think that’s the one that has the word ‘sex’ in the title. because vampires are sexy. and so is informed consent.

Saddest story?

sad?? what is this SAD? 

‘This is fine’ is quite sad given that it’s also about telepathic pornography. because we know everyone’s going to die soon. 

and ‘Sound of Silence’ isn’t sad, at least i don’t think it is - but Baz certainly is sad while it’s happening. 

Most fun?

i think ‘hang the moon’ is the most fun - because it has all the things that i like best happening in it. they fight some merwolves together, they go plate shopping, simon fights lots of people, fiona is there - it’s very fun.

Story with single sweetest moment?

hang the moon, probably. the bit with the moon. 

although i was thinking... surely i should talk about ‘keep calm’ a bit - isn’t it my equal fav? and i was thinking - what is the sweetest moment there... and the answer honestly is that i think the sweetest moment is the bit where the mage and simon are gardening together and simon doesn’t know if their relationship is doomed forever ... AND THEN the mage tells simon they can watch some VHSes of lucy next time simon comes back and they dont hug, but it is ... enough <3

I’M SORRY - I LOVE AWKWARD FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIPS BEING REDEEMED. 

Hardest story to write?

‘keep calm’ took me months and there were moments when i thought - fuck, this is not ending, and i hate not being able to talk to anyone about this because this fest is going on for months. and i was fortunate that i had the idea of emailing sharkmartini who i then did not know at all, and she was enthusiastic and getting that feedback made me think - ok, this is worth doing. i can finish this. 

but also - i started writing ‘sound of silence’ immediately after the ‘mage’s heir’ finished and i eventually published it over a year later. because the device i’d chosen meant that simon couldn’t say or do anything for most of the bloody story. and that meant that nothing happened, baz, thanks for nothing, and it was very hard to write.

and ‘This is fine’ - i must have written it in a few weeks. so it clearly wasn’t that hard. but in comparison to back when i (though i) knew everything that Avon would ever think or say... it was hard.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

Coming up for air was the easiest story. i haven’t written anything else in a day for this fandom, although it is something i’ve done before, back in the day. 

most of the others were also really fun to write, unless i put them in the ‘hardest story to write’ box. so, you know - about half. 

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

i started to write ‘no’, but that isn’t true. writing ‘The sky isn’t black anymore’ shifted my perception of the way that i’d written Baz in ‘Hang the Moon’ i.e. my own fic (how wanky is that?) 

most of the others are me putting things that i think about characters into words. so i did the thinking before, rather than during. 

Most overdue story?

i wanted to post ‘This is fine’ on Gauda Prime Day and didn’t :( but i know bunnacula said that was ok ;) so i think the most overdue was the one that took me over a year to finally bother finishing. 

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

eeeeeer... 

yes, maybe. i would say writing a happy ending for simon in ‘keep calm’ where the happy ending is that he gets a better relationship with his father (see above) as well as getting to go out with baz (whose happy ending is also not just about simon, but mostly is) is a risk in a fandom where everyone hates the mage so much. 

and then i finally wrote my thing about how i think the mage is actually right about many things, and fiona is classist. what i haven’t ever said explicitly on tumblr, i don’t think (though i said it on LJ) is that another reason it is so much easier for me to be sympathetic towards the mage is that he literally is a version of roj blake (the main character of my old fandom and my personal fav). obviously the mage is a blake who is a bit more autistic and significantly further off the deep end on the ‘greater good’ scale than blake ever was. but blake even also dresses like robin hood and is from wales. i haven’t said this before because i feel like it cheapens my semi-championing off him/might make people who really can’t tolerate the mage think ‘wtf? is aralias mental? why does she like roj blake so much?’ to be fair - lots of people in b7 hated him too. 

ANYWAY. what i learned from that is - these are the stories i want to tell and no one got upset, so that is awesome and i shouldn’t be so worried about what people think before i know what people think. 

i also wrote vampire porn, but i didn’t consider that a risk. because i knew that sharkmartini would love it - and that was one person and that was enough. are we all going to write more vampire porn in 2020? i hope so.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:

good question but hard to answer. 

i think the theme is ...... possibly influenced by ‘wayward son’..... poor communication is bad; good communication is good. maybe? 

and the fic that most demonstrates this is one that i have the most problems with, and that’s ‘The Sound of Silence’ where simon literally can’t communicate for the first half of the fic. and then baz solves his own problem by saying ‘sorry’ and giving back simon’s voice. 

‘The sky isn’t black anymore’, which i really like but feel i haven’t talked about much (it’s an unproblematic fav!) feels very similar and in fact i struggled to make it less about communication/saying what you want than it kept wanting to be. because i was thinking - this isn’t the problem of the fic! the problem is that it’s all too fast, right? but actually - and here we come back to the learning about the characters - it was both. 

because baz is a character who doesn’t communicate. and, like simon in ‘sound of silence’, he was also shut out from the POV in ‘hang the moon’.

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

write more! i want to get my ‘wayward son’ bodyswap out the door before the end of february..... maybe even january, but february sounds very achievable.

i have to finish my zine fic and then lop about 2000 words out of it, probably. 

i want to write another epic thing that is also about politics and vampires. it’s the one where natasha is alive, as well as other things. the problem with this one is that while i know a lot about it, i dont know exactly what the arc is - and i’m bored of re-writing simon giving up his magic to fix the humdrum (which i did... once... but i guess that was too often). so i have to try and work out what the climax is if it isn’t that - and i like to know the ending before i start...... but. my goal is to figure these things out and then write it. 

vampire porn - obvs. 

aaaand - for all of us: i will run a remix! oh yes, i will run a remix. ‘carry on big bang’ (which i definitely won’t do, it’s too solitary for me and too slow, alas - even though i keep thinking ‘i could do my vampire thing! it’s long’. it’s got to be a no) and the zine are in the first half of the year....... and i’m busy and stuff. so i thought it was going to be in december - but now i’m probably going for sign ups in march, post in may. I LOVE REMIX. i’m excited already.