#ignore the whole villain thing

[aprylx]

This is like a trend on tiktok and i though it was fitting..ITS SUPPOSED TO BE A DRAWN THING BUT I CANT DRAW FOR SHIT, ALR??

(im making two versions of this just cuz i found two diff sets of pics and i love them both)

Idk I've recently gotten back into MHA and i just love shiggy sm, his character is sick

mha fanfic is currently in the works so stay tuned ;)

(TF2 followers; ERR, SLIGHT SETBACK DUE TO MHA HYPERFIXATION, I'LL RETURN SOON.)

[mistress-of-vos]

Gotham Pride: So many WE sponsored posts that are bland and tacky. A bunch of cops with night sticks. Very boring. Bi Robin and lesbian Batwoman aren't even there. People are literally getting maced in the crowd. Police warned Catwoman not to go.

Metropolis Pride: There's a whole ass LOD float. Lex Luthor was in drag, got kissed by Superman AND Lois Lane. It lasts for a solid 4 days. No crimes are committed because no one wants to be called homophobic by the Superboys. Dreamer and Supergirl lead the parade. Everyone is having the time of their lives. Bi Robin was found dancing with Superboy and Impulse.

[pa-pa-plasma]

hey i feel like we're really sleeping on that time Danny possessed Vlad & framed him for assaulting a minor

Editing with the clip because people don't believe me. Episode is 41: Eye for an Eye.

[thefirstknife]

Let's chat

So, the Winnower. Right?

Today, they finally released the lore on one of the ships that you got if you purchased (pre-ordered?) the annual pass. The ship is called Nacre. As usual with names of things in Destiny, this means something, though I'm currently unsure about the significance of this name in relation to the text of the lore tab.

But the text of this lore tab will cause a billion discussions and people will fervently believe in one side or the other. You'll understand why the moment you start reading the lore tab (I'll go through it a bit later in the text) if you remember the style of Unveiling. It's written in the same style with many references to Unveiling and the author speaks to us post-Witness' defeat (most likely).

I think it's intended to make us discuss and argue, given the inherent unreliability and religiosity of the subject.

But let's go back a little bit. Why the Winnower? Well, the word "Winnower" was finally mentioned in-game by the Witness. When you finish the second encounter in the Salvation's Edge raid, you proceed towards the third, and at one point the Witness will speak (it speaks a lot during the raid):

The rest of the post below:

Many people, upon hearing this, have jumped to the conclusion that the "Winnower" is now confirmed as a real thing; including Byf who made a video about it and now everyone and their grandma believes this fully and is already constructing fanfics about the next big bad.

And it could be true! But to claim that this line specifically confirms the Winnower makes me question people's media literacy. This line is spoken by the Witness. The Witness has both the reason to lie to us, but also the reason to believe in the Winnower. This is unreliable narration 101: the Witness could believe that it serves something else, that the reason it destroyed its own and many other civilisations is because it is following something greater. Obviously the Witness would believe that it's "the first knife" of some godly entity. It's religion. The word of a religious person who believes in a deity is not the proof that the deity exists.

This does not mean that the Winnower is NOT real. We don't know if it is. This only means that we can't use this specific source as proof.

But this line is very interesting to me because of how it's phrased. Initially, I believed that the Witness spoke to us, the Guardians, because that's what it does throughout the raid. But after a few reads, this feels like it's at least partially aimed at the Traveler as well. The third line in particular is interesting: "Each child we save from the game, you again force to play." This feels like it's talking about the Traveler's growing/resurrecting powers, especially about how it resurrected Guardians. We were dead, but then we were forced to play again. It's also speaking about it like the "game" which can be a sort of 4th wall-breaking, but also it could clearly be referring to Unveiling which also calls it playing a game.

The last line is also interesting in this context: "Gods forged us both." Who is "us"? Obviously the Witness considers itself here, but which "gods" forged what else? Does the Witness consider the Traveler to be a god, forging the Guardians? The next line is also weird in this context, telling us that despite gods forging us, "they cannot tell the knife what shape to carve." Either the Witness still doesn't understand the Traveler or the Traveler is not considered as the god because that's the Traveler's whole philosophy: it creates things, but it doesn't tell those things what to do. It would never tell us what shape to carve. So if this is not referring to the Traveler forging Guardians, it might be referring to something else forging the Traveler. Possibly! I am very intrigued by these lines and the line of thinking the Witness uses here.

But let's go back to the Winnower. As I already said, this doesn't prove anything, it only proves that the Witness believes in it. We also know that the Witness believes in this because in the final mission it also told us that it is "the first knife, the edge that carved purpose into being." Later, after its defeat, Mara and Ikora discussed this phrase, which I covered in this post. This discussion also entertained the possibility that there's something else beyond the Witness, something that wielded it as a "knife." Mara and Ikora don't make any conclusions; they discuss the possibility, but they end it with "we don't know."

They discuss it in the context of Unveiling; this lore book is canonically available to read to characters in the game, which is neat! It's been discussed several times now in the lore, and it's discussed here as well. Mara and Ikora have read Unveiling, it's where they've read about "the first knife" concept and are wondering what it all means and if there's a way to figure out the truth in the allegories. Again, they don't know the answer. And neither do we!

However, we as players have more information than the characters. I'm pretty sure the delay on the lore for Nacre was on purpose, because it would've been confusing to read that before defeating the Witness. The lore tab itself has no clear author; the only way to tell is to speculate based on the style and phrases used. The style will immediately be reminiscent of Unveiling (and the one page in Books of Sorrow when something speaks to Oryx). It's casual and friendly, but persuasive.

Let's read it piece by piece:

Let's chat, shall we? One more nice sit-down for the books. Did you think you wouldn't hear from me again, after all this? You'd have missed me, I hope—and I would certainly have missed you. Have no fear. I'm not so easy to be rid of. Now, let me show you: my beloved. Oh, no, not my sedimentary necrolite, fossilized in time. You've seen that. I speak of that dear and distant expanse of the universe, miraculous in its fullness and its emptiness all at once. Are you surprised to hear of it? Yes, I never much cared for the change of rules, but here we are, and there's no use in crying over spilled radiolaria. Besides, at the heart of it all, there was a gift. To me. That gift is the chance to speak with you. You, and a billion like you.

A few points right away. It's telling us that we should chat and that it hopes we didn't think we'd never hear from it again. If this is truthful and can be trusted, then it would be alluding to it speaking to us before, in Unveiling. But we've gone over the debate about Unveiling and who wrote it; most recent information was that it has to have been the Witness and the characters in-game believe so as well. So what's the truth now? I don't know! That's a full sentence. We simply don't know. There are far too many variables, allegories, metaphors and unreliable (and completely unknown) narrators.

Both options could also be true at the same time; if the Witness somehow managed to get a glimpse of the Winnower (in whatever form this entity exists), perhaps the Witness was given a speech of this nature which it could've adopted on purpose to further spread propaganda to others and to convince itself (and others) that it is a part of something greater. Again, we simply don't know.

The author continues telling us that it wants to show us its "beloved." It then goes into a bizarre description of something as "sedimentary necrolite, fossilised in time." I am not sure what this refers to, but it could be referring to the Witness? Because we've "seen that." A "necrolite" is an old term for a type of stinky minerals that form rocks which might be referring to the Witness' obsession to calcify and preserve things as they are; therefore, "fossilised in time." It could also mean something else. Really strange!

Either way, the author does not refer to that, whatever it is, it refers to the universe as a whole. The universe is its beloved. Then it continues and draws back from Unveiling directly. It tells us that it "never much cared for the change of the rules," the rules being the rules of the flower game and the change being the one the Gardener put in the game. It even jokes with "no use in crying over spilled radiolaria," a reference to the fact that previously, the winners of the game were always the Vex.

The interesting bit here is that, if the author was indeed talking about its disregard for the Witness, then the Witness claiming to be "the first knife" the Winnower wielded is not true. If this author is the Winnower, it does not really care about the Witness or its view of the final shape. Hell, the line about Winnower discovering the first knife in Unveiling would then not refer to the Witness at all, but despite that, the Witness believed itself to be that knife. This is why we can't use the Witness' words as any sort of proof, but also we can't use this narrator's words either.

To go back to the change in the rules, another intriguing thing is, in Unveiling, the Winnower appeared to be angry about the change. It's what made it "discover the first knife" and begin the fight with the Gardener. But here, it claims it didn't care about it after all.

I believe this is important to understand that what we're dealing here is not a clear cut truthful chat with a friend. The author of this text, and the author of Unveiling, does not have to tell us the truth and we simply have no clue which one of these statements is truth, if any. Or, it simply changed its mind; perhaps it was angry back then, but now it no longer is, because it realised that the change in rules gave it the ability to speak to us, something it appears to value greatly. And "us" does not just refer to us as Guardians or even humanity, it appears to be referring to all living creatures in the universe. It continues:

I am making this offer over and over again, in every tiniest cell and the vastest of civilizations. Let me in. Take what you need. Be at ease. You have no say in the degradation of your telomeres, but in all the interim, the whole world is your sweet silicate shellfish. You exist because you have been more suited to it than all the others. Steal what you require from another rather than spend the hours to build it yourself. Break foolish rules—why would you love regulation? It serves you to cross lines, and if others needed rules to protect them, then they were not after all worthy of that existence.

This also seems to be a continuation of its philosophy in Unveiling. About taking and breaking and destroying and whether or not someone is worthy of existence.

Caricatures of villainy are out of style, I hear. Yes. I am no cackling mastermind: I am serious when I say this. It was not the trick of standing upright that lifted you from the dust: it was the mastery of fire, the cooking of cold corpse-meat. That is not any unique faction's province, neither good nor evil. It is simply truth.

And this as well, continues with its claims that it is, essentially, neutral. It is not a villain, it's merely stating the truth that sometimes destructive forces can be good. This can also have a second meaning, telling us that it will not be our villain in the game. As in, we will not be fighting against this entity because it's not something that can be fought in the first place, nor does it care to fight. The final paragraph adds:

This great, beloved cosmos. Always decaying, always finding that same old lovely pattern, despite every candle-flame burning amid the flowers. A billion electrons taking the path of least resistance. In Darkness or in Light, someone is always making my choice. Be seeing you.

Some more references to Unveiling with "same old lovely pattern" and stuff about flowers. And then it ends with telling us that Darkness and Light don't really matter because either way "someone is always making my choice." We can assume this means the choice to violence. And that's true; Darkness and Light, as we've learned, are not moral forces. Many atrocities were committed by Lightbearers, and Darkness users have, throughout the universe, been benevolent.

The author concludes telling us that it will be seeing us.

What does it all mean? We don't know!

I think a lot of people will take this literally; this is the proof of the Winnower, this is the proof that it is preparing to be the next big bad, that we will see it eventually, etc.

I'm personally not sure if the literal reading makes sense, primarily because we have no way to verify anything it said or who sent it and how. But also, if we accept that it is written in the style of Unveiling (which seems fairly obvious), then we also have to accept that it's not entirely reliable or fully truthful. As in, there's a lot of metaphors and philosophy here, rather than facts. Some of it could be facts, but we can't tell which those are.

I also think a lot of people will immediately conclude that this proves the Winnower as a real entity that exists somewhere that will be relevant going forward. Personally, I don't know. I'm not inclined to believe either option just yet. If we knew more about the source of this (and I'm not taking into account the Witness' beliefs), then it would be easier to discuss it, but for me this is just something that remains a mystery for now, in the same way a religion would be. This is what makes it interesting to me.

A reading I'm partial to is that this is a really neat conclusion on that chapter of the story without telling us too many details and facts about a text that, genuinely, reads better if it remains unexplained. There's... something... out there. We can call it the Winnower for simplicity. But this entity is not some sort of big bad physical being that's scheming behind the scenes and directing its pieces around; it does not care. It did not care about the Witness and its final shape, despite the Witness believing, potentialy, that it is enacting exactly what the Winnower wanted, calling itself its "first knife."

This entity is not the way the Witness imagined it or believed in it. This entity does not need to involve itself or even be physical; its adherents are everywhere in the universe, all the time, because "someone is always making my choice." No matter where we go in the universe and how much we explore it, we will eventually find those that choose this. It cannot be removed or defeated. We defeated the Witness, yes, but someone else can always rise up to do something similar. The fight is never done and it's not tied to simply Light and Dark. Our choice is not over because we won here; we could always choose differently in the future.

It honestly feels like a setup for us going forward, but not for us meeting the Winnower or fighting it; instead, to tell us that if we plan on exploring more of the "beloved" universe, we will always find those we disagree with, those to fight, those who made the other choice. And if we're not careful, we may end up making that choice too. Whatever that entity is, the universe is making its argument for it and it will never truly be defeated. It can't be!

The Witness wanted to end the game. This entity states that the game has to play itself out.

Or it could mean something completely different. I'm not going to claim anything one way or the other and I think it's genuinely really baffling that anyone would try to do so. We all have our preferences for the story, but I don't think any of them are sufficiently backed up and I'm not going to hype myself up for a scenario that will probably never happen. Or we'll be hearing about "bad writing" and "retcons" in a few years time when the Winnower never shows up (or if it does).

The point is that this is a very intriguing piece of lore that fits perfectly with the mystery and religiosity of Unveiling. It's not some huge epic reveal, though it could always be something more in the future. However, we would have to get a lot more information to be able to make that conclusion. Something spoke to us in this lore tab, but we have no way of knowing who or how or why exactly now. We have no way to verify it either; is the author legitimate or is this a scheme from someone else pretending to be it? And even if the author is legitimately some other entity, is it truthful? Can we trust it? Should we? Does it even matter? Is this information important for us to understand our enemies or is this just insight into the philosophy and metaphysics of the setting?

Is the Winnower real? We don't know.

Is Unveiling still an allegorical mystery with some truths that we can't really tell apart from the metaphors? Pretty much yeah.

Is there going to be a lot to discuss about this going forward? Absolutely. It's why I wanted to write about it immediately because it's fascinating and I can't wait to see all the ways people will interpret it. I highly recommend that everyone reads it themselves and compare to Unveiling (and the last two pages of Inspiral).

I just don't want people to subscribe too hard to a single narrative and then get incredibly disappointed if it doesn't happen. There is not a single narrative being promised by this lore tab and we have no confirmed facts. But I'm super excited to see where this goes in the following years. Even if it goes "nowhere" as in this does not end up being setup for some big antagonist 5 years from now, I find it incredible that this was part of the setting. Weird space religions and bizarre entities from beyond the universe are some of my favourite parts of scifi so this whole thing, no matter how it ends, is a 10/10 story for me.

[wesavegotham]

I had kind of erased the fact from my mind that for a time in the Snyder Justice League run Bruce took care of a little Starro, dressed him up as a Robin and cared for him like he was a son while he also apparently couldn't be bothered to get off his ass and check in on where the hell Damian was and what he was doing for pretty much a year of Damian's life.

[thedrawnherbarium]

hey have you heard about that one new car brand with the cool ad?

looks great, I'm thinking of buying one🤔 their slogan sounds kinda strange though as if i missed some part of it. probably just my imagination though haha

[text close-ups & ver. without text below crop]

[thepinkofgoth]

Saw "villain AU" Snake/Otscon fanart and I just have to say. Just cuz Snake has a gun doesn't mean he would be the villain

[monards]

i fear that i don’t acknowledge enough the fact that i KNOW rhinedottir's evil !!! and she's horrible !!! and that she's wholly ireedamable !!! i know and love and respect that fact !!! i'd shoot myself in the frontal lobe if hoyo made her out to NOT be wholly evil !!!! but the reason i always go on and on and on about her humanity and complexity is because. SHE IS ALWAYS DUMBED DOWN !!!! TO JUST THAT !!!! it's literally the greatest and most moving theme (IN MY OPINION!!!) in genshin, that human beings are COMPLEX !!!! and they're MORE than just evil or bad or wtv. we see this through every character to almost ever be introduced to us -> literally just take arlecchino as an example. if anyone was at all paying attention to the discourse around her when the fontaine teaser dropped (and. 4.0 in general) it was the BIGGEST thing to watch people argue between "she's a harbinger, so she's clearly the most evil and the big antagonist of fontaine because of these accounts we have right now !!" versus the argument of "we've only seen ONE perspective of her so far, and it's no duh that all this stuff sucks -- but there's no way she's JUST gonna be all these horrible things,, because literally nobody to exist is just horrible and cruel with zero to no good in them. and also that'd make a shit narrative by hoyo in a story driven game" AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED !!!! we saw !!! in REAL time !!! that while arlecchino was rightfully cruel and horrible and, yes the things she did were fucked up beyond belief and she should absolutely not be excused for any of it - she is NOT just evil ! she's shown to care, albeit in a fucked up way that only shows she's even more deranged ; but what's so incredibly important about her is the way that her being "evil" doesn't mean she's incapable of anything else. She is evil, yes— but so many of those evil actions have *motives* and *reasons* that explain them (but not excuse or condone!) and, although they don’t save her grace or anything of the sort, they DO show her true character. AND YHATS SO IMPORTANT!!!! She’s capable of being an antagonist while still being justified in some form, and given nuance and backstory and redeemable traits

I am !!! NEVER !!! going to say rhinedottir is a good person. she isn't! no shit sherlock ! how the fuck do you think im gonna go on and ignore the fact she sent both her kids to their deaths, and also fed one to another. dare i say, that is NOT anything good !!! suprise of the century !! woah !!! -- but what i AM gonna say is that she's much beyond that? hello !! not only has the point of her having not a zero good trait or will in her body been. proven false over and over and over again. but it's such ! Sad and not compelling is character choice for her *not* to be nuanced and complex and justified in a fucked up !! — like do you REALLY think hoyoverse (who is clearly capable of, and likes to make) complex characters, who are horrible, while not being *only* those horrible things, would pass up a golden (haha) opportunity to make a characters whose entire existence is JUST that??!,!2????

believe what you want! Do what you want! This is a silly video game that will be eroded along with time in a hundred in so years ! But god so help me, please don’t be willfully ignorant to the complexity and nuance of characters, just because you want a villain. No villain , real or not, is entirely evil. People are complex and multi faceted and people really, really need to hop off this cart of going “okay but stop saying she’s multifaceted because it takes away from her being evil” because it DOESNT! If anything, it makes her so much more compelling . Which is something some people can apparently. Not handle.

[il3x]

"Mannequin's trial demands that a candidate changes themselves, and that it be hard."

here [throws a S9!Toga lore snippet at you and runs]

[aletheialed]

what if i took genshin. and made him fucked up.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

I Had Miraculous Ladybug Thoughts, Specifically the Chloe Lila Alliance Situation, and I'm Making It Your Problem! I am So Sorry!

Just. Read the title of this post. I am the most biased person you could have on this topic. You've been warned.

Okay, so. Chloe. If you are in the ML fandom, first off, my condolences, we shall suffer together. Second off, you know that Chloe is incredibly divisive. On the one hand, she's an absolute a**hole to everyone around her at any point in the series that is not season 2 and parts of season 3. On the other hand, it is clear that she has no adults teaching her how to not be an a**hole or regulating her behavior because the only people who have the necessary authority should not have ever been parents.

And then you have that whole thing in season 2 where they started to explain her awfulness and gave her the bee miraculous and she started getting better and developing a support structure, and then she stopped being allowed to have the bee miraculous and dove headfirst off the deep end. This frustrates pretty much the entire fandom. On the Chloe hate side, you wonder why they were wasting time with this. On the Chloe love side, you just got baited, and you're annoyed as heck, and you also are wondering why they wasted your time with this.

But fine, okay, it's dumb, but whatever, the fanfiction can work with this. What the fanfiction has a MUCH harder time working with is Chloe and Lila forming an unholy alliance over their mutual hatred of Marinette and Ladybug. Because the problem here is, it's redundant, it doesn't make sense, and makes Lila even more of a Mary Sue.

Tangent warning: YEAH I SAID IT! I think Lila is a Mary Sue. You don't have to think that. My definition of a Mary Sue is "a character that warps the fabric of the story around them without it making any sense because the author likes/hates/pities/has other strong emotion about this character/ too much to care about a coherent narrative." Not everybody defines a Mary Sue this way, but by this definition, Lila is a Mary Sue. Everyone immediately loses their brain cells around her despite being compassionate and sometimes intelligent individuals who will kill for Marinette in most other scenarios. Nonsensical story warping just because the author said so. Tangent aside:

What this alliance does is it gives you two manipulative lying b*tches who willingly get akumatized to further their petty schemes and are out to destroy Marinette and Ladybug and are weirdly possessive of but don't actually seem to care for Adrien. There's really no point in having two. They occupy the same narrative niche and it is awkward and stupid and I DO NOT LIKE IT. Neither does most of the fandom it seems, because this alliance rarely appears in fanfiction.

There are a couple default solutions in fanfiction:

1. Redeem Chloe. I like this solution. I like Chloe, I think she's entertaining, and I think her interactions with other characters as a good guy are especially entertaining, I think she brings a lot of valuable skills and perspective to the cast as a good guy, I think she has a lot of reasons for being an a**hole that should be properly addressed, and I think the reasons her redemptipn arc got aborted were stupid. Most fanfiction goes the route of having redeemed Chloe viscerally hate Lila too, because Chloe goes after enemies with passion and her whole heart. This is a clean solution, but not great if you don't like Chloe all that much or are trying to make it canon compliant (best of luck to you, canon is all over the place).

2. Only focus on one as a villain and yeet the other out of the story. If Chloe is the villain, set the story during the time that Lila was off being Cerise or wandering around Paris or whatever, or before she showed up. If Lila is the villain, give Chloe an unrelated reason to decide she's not dealing with that today, thank you very much. Usually used in salt fics to dunk on whichever character grinds your gears more without unwanted interruptions. I like salt fics, and this is also a good clean solution. Having both of them is redundant, so just remove one. For Lila, it makes sense because she's a Mary Sue and writing her is annoying, so pretending she never existed is a great fix to that. For Chloe, it makes sense because "lying manipulative ladybug hating b*tch" only really starts being her archetype after the writers screwed up her character with a million inconsistincies. Before that, she was more of a "comically loud, bossy, really obssessive fangirl b*tch," so Lila just works better for certain plots. Downside is that you can't focus on Chloe-Lila interactions, and you sometimes have to do a bit of finagling to figure out how to remove them from a situation they would ordinarily be VERY invested in.

3. Make them hate each other. This is one of my favorite solutions because I have a weakness for villain rivalries that are equal parts comedic and dramatic, but bias aside, this absolutely works. They both want Adrien's sole, undivided attention, and, prior to aforementioned screwing over of Chloe's character, Chloe is the world's biggest Ladybug stan, and Lila is her number 1 hater. They also both have a weird power over the adults in the story that two 14 year old girls really shouldn't have. All these factors make it very easy to guess they would clash. Watch as they try to destroy each other! This plays into the "they both suck, but it's different flavors of suck," and makes those flavors mix BADLY together. The one downside is that it is hard to not make this the central focus of the story, because both of them are so over the top that they're absolutely going to drown out most other going ons, and this is technically supposed to be about Marinette and Adrien. It also erases some of the storylines you can get from an actually thought out alliance.

4. Redeem Lila. I have only seen this in one place, but it is a prominent place and that's more places than my suggestion on this whole ordeal. The prominent place being the Scarlet Lady AU by the very talented and lovely ZoeOneesame. Her take on it was basically:

"Chloe in this AU has the ladybug miraculous, and Chloe sucks at her job, so Lila's ladybug hatred is justified. Marinette is in love with Chat and isn't involved in the ladybug drama, so Lila has no reason to hate her. Adrien is both much smarter and much more active in this AU, so he wouldn't deal with Lila in the same hands-off way. Everybody else is also smarter in this AU and would probably know Lila was lying and also not care because they are forgiving and compassionate. So Lila's lies would most likely get called out, she would have the freedom and desire to figure out who she is beneath the lies, and she would have a justified hatred of Scarlet Lady matched by other characters in the AU, and would probably band together with them."

And thus, no filter, vindictive good guy Lila was born! Again, I have only seen this in Scarlet Lady, but it is amazing over there, so I had to talk about it. Redeeming Lila is an unconventional choice for sure, but I think if you arrange for circumstances where Lila would rather ally with the heroes than the villains, then you can get a lot of mileage out of her people-reading/manipulation skills helping out the heroes while possibly scaring the crap out of them at the same time. This has basically all the same downsides as the Chloe redemption though. It's not fun to do if you're here for Lila salt, and it's ABSOLUTELY not canon compliant.

Now. You may have noticed that nobody who writes fanfiction for this show does the canon Chloe-Lila alliance. This is for a myriad of aforementioned reasons: it's redundant, it continues the confusion of Chloe's character arc, and Lila is a Mary Sue, so anything that involves her tends to be frustrating. But, I think there is a way to make it work, so I'm writing about it.

First of all, don't do what canon did where 6 just have Lila teach Chloe how to lie. Take full advantage of the fact that they are two very different types of a**hole. They can ally for the same reasons: they both are super possesive of Adrien and are raging about him getting together with Marinette. And while I don't like the arc of Marinette being a trash and controlling guardian who shows inordinate favoritism to Alya and Zoe and literally nobody else because she's gay for them, you can still do that and have them both hate Ladybug too. I don't like that plot beat, mostly because it's never really addressed that Marinette is in fact a bad guardian outside of some light sulking from Chat, but it can work. She's a 14 year old girl in way over her head with no adults left to help (except the kwamis, but they don't really count because they are very unhelpful). It makes sense that she wouldn't do a good job at first. But whatever their reasons for teaming up, lean into the fact that Lila is a two-faced secretively awful person while Chloe is an in-your-face publicly awful person. From there, it depends on the tone you're going for.

Chloe is a great villain for humor because she's so loud and dramatic. She can get away with saying and doing really insane and rude stuff on the grounds that she's insane and rude (and also rich and powerful). People don't have any expectations for Chloe to be nice or rational, so she can do stuff like try and write a Queen Banana character into the class film and be met with annoyance and frustration rather than outrage and shock. So if you're going a lighthearted route, let Chloe be the one who does all the public legwork for their schemes, and let her be absolutely over the top about it.

On the other hand, Chloe can also be threatening in a far more tangible way than Lila. Lila can make people think you're a bit of a jerk, but it takes a lot of work for her to come close to getting Marinette expelled, even with all her Mary Sueness to help. Chloe can just look at the principal and say "My dad will fire you and remove all school funding if you don't expel her." Chloe won't make people dislike Marinette because nobody likes her, but she can physically hurt Marinette in ways that Lila can't. So if you're going for drama, you can lean into that. Chloe is in a completely different social class than everyone else and has actual power.

Either way, let Chloe be a complete drama queen who is publicly out to get Marinette, because there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

Meanwhile, let Lila work in the background. Lila has never been a comedic villain, only getting introduced after the show had taken a turn for the more dramatic, so don't bother. Leave that to Chloe's antics. Let Lila be the actual threat who is driving their plans. A lot of the reason Chloe was manageable while Lila never was is because Chloe's rage tends to be directionless and impulsive. She has a short temper that can easily be triggered, but also easily soothed, and she doesn't have any thought out plans or long form schemes. She just does whatever she thinks will make her happy in the moment. Have Lila be the one who convinces her to think in the long-term, and who comes up with an overarching plot to get rid of Marinette, adding a sense of real tension to the situation. Sure, before Chloe could have you expelled on a whim, but she also would have stopped bothering the second Adrien paid attention to her. Lila will help Chloe drop that boundary.

Lila also has the advantage of people actually liking her and being willing to do things for her without threatening or bribing them. Lila can do things like make it so Marinette doesn't have any of her friends around to help in an emergency. She can make it so people believe Chloe might actually be justified in her crusade against Marinette this time. She can plant seeds of doubt and distrust and she can socially isolate Marinette in ways Chloe can't. Make people love and believe in her instead, slowly destroy Marinette's support system, and so on. It not only is really dramatic and upsetting, it basically leaves Mari with just Adrien and Chat to rely on, which is FANTASTIC ship fuel if that's your jam. This can also let you have some other prominent characters come to the fore. Have some Kagami focus. Have some Luka focus. Bring in Socqueline and Felix and see how that changes things.

Point is, between these two, you could have a genuine, non-redundant threat that you can get emotional mileage out of. Lila is on one side turning all of Mari's friends against her and scheming to destroy her in the long term. Chloe is on the other side threatening Marinette's lifestyle---her bakery, her school, her fashion career, her public image, her existence in Paris---anything that can be damaged by the Mayor and the Style Queen is under attack. And then you have Hawkmoth on the other end, throwing akumas in her face and forcing her to make impossible choices. I would imagine Lila also gets akumatized on purpose whenever she needs a little extra help, while Chloe just gets egged on and pushed off the deep end by Lila whenever Lila thinks it'd be advantageous. So that trifecta is super genuinely threatening. But you can also have Chloe being a really stupid drama queen whose fits of rage can still be silly and poorly thought out, even with Lila helping her. And you can have some really heartwarming stuff as the people left in Marinette's support system band together and become even closer to get rid of these two once and for all. I just think this plot beat has a lot of untapped potential if the writers didn't make then fulfill the same narrative role, and I haven't really seen it explored yet.

Feel free to use this idea in fanfic, tell me that it sucks and would be bad, or ignore me, I mostly just needed to write this down!

If the mood strikes me or multiple people express interest (yeah right), I will make a (probably much shorter) post explaining how you can redeem both of them effectively and also why I think that would be bad in most circumstances.

Congratulations if you read this whole rant, now please go to sleep. Please. So much please.

[spotsupstuff]

I love NAE and I know he is a bit (well, more than a bit) of an antagonistic cretin, but it feels like his anti-social personality might be a coping mechanism for personal issues and insecurities he is struggling with. I could be completely wrong and he's just simply a bad person, but I feel like it's more than that. Either way I think he needs a therapy animal.

hoyly hell you've just given him characterization shots in so many directions that i don't know where to look first GJDSKLMCL

he's not exactly antisocial or anythin! antagonistic cretin he is, but that's just how he rolls, lil bit of a douche- have you seen that one vid with a guy walking his Emu hold on here- he embodies this in most situations

on one hand NAE is a lil shithead but he's a Fun shithead. cursin' up a storm is kinda just what some people do/how they interact. heavens know that when i bring out the curse n nasty words it means i'm havin a nice chill convo with someone

after this

he went and notified his own Admin/Mechanic about it so she could've go and help out Sparrows with things

if he was just Plain asshole stuff like this wouldn't happen

these two hang out, Euros gets a rise outta him by bringing up something painfully stupid, NAE calls him a fucking idiot with an apocalyptically low count of neurons and then they continue their hang out

he's neither a bad person or coping with his own issues/insecurities! he's just a tiny ball of rage who's rolling through life wishing he had one more finger so he could flip people off. bastard is prolly the best off outta the dramatic tragedies that are most of the Eo iterators

guy is guying 🤷‍♀️

n honestly he'd... probably kick an animal sooner than take one on for therapy reasons, he would Not have the patience

[angelsdelight]

it's actually kind of crazy how hard and fast m.h.a crashed LOL like im looking at the spoilers for the most recent chapters and like . yikes !

[woolydemon]

for ppl that know my tf fan lore you would think I'd be ryu/kita pilled since I was blur/bee CEO but actually I was driven by my shock/bee instincts to be drawn to ake/kita instead <- none of these words are in the bible

[littlebigmouse]

I understand a lot of Arcane fans expect Viktor to go down a proper "villain" arc to become the Machine Herald, but in my humble opinion Jayce is barrelling down that particular slippery slope way faster and harder than Viktor ever does in Season 1.

Viktor is elbows deep in an isolation-arc, that's true, and he does and will feel understandably abandoned by his friends top-side. But his intentions are good, his methods are entirely self-destructive, which isn't good to him but also explicitely not bad for anyone else, and I think there's still a huge step needed for Viktor to reach the point where he'd willingly hurt others for his goals (I mean, I'm sure we'll get there, I just think it needs more time).

And no, Sky doesn't count. Sky died in a freak lab accident that would have never occurred had she not violated all the most basic lab-safety protocols. Viktor could only be to blame if there aren't any lab safety protocols and he failed to implement any, but that's just as much on Jayce and Heimerdinger and Sky herself.

The only thing Viktor can be blamed for here is covering up her death, but that does not hold a candle to... everything Jayce is up to in the later episodes.

I also fully expect Jayce to fall back into full warmonger mindset.

And wouldn't that be nifty. Jayce and Powder as the ultimate parallel, driven to destruction as the only way out they see, both having influenced each other's tragedies without knowing. Both having their (former?) loved ones trying to stop and or reach them, with varying degrees of stopping and reaching and all the ugly fighting inbetween.

I maintain Jayce and Jinx have too much in common. It's going to be desastrous.

[mx-paint]

It does get really annoying when people misunderstand the message of a game and it's storyline but sometimes we have to also understand that sometimes it's the fault of how it's being told