#it drives everyone crazy

[lily0evans0gf]

“remus lupin doesn’t like physical touch-” SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! that man is always touching his boyfriend. all. the. time. there’s always a hand on the small of sirius’s back, arms wrapped around his waist, fingers playing with his hair. remus lupin cannot keep his hands to himself. ever.

[grinchwrapsupreme]

shawn's deep trust of lassiter keeps catching me so off-guard like when he's held captive and lassie and henry both turn up he tries to yell "carlton" not "dad" and when he sees a guy with a gun come into the restaurant he goes straight for lassie and keeps trying to get his attention instead of literally any of the other dozens of cops in the room with them and when he's telling someone to call the police he tells them to ask for lassiter, not jules, not vick, lassiter. like he spends all his time provoking lassie but the second there's danger there's literally no one else he trusts more

[hansooyung]

how does the song go? something about feeling fine.

TEXT 443-547-1797 TO REPORT THE END OF THE WORLD

[mushroominaforest]

Au Saint fun fact!

Having three eyes, Saint relies on all of them to see properly just like someone with two eyes would rely on both of theirs. This means that when they hide their third eye to make themself look less weird, they have terrible depth perception and are always tripping or walking into things.

[grimnyr]

I often think about how Lou Binghe is just a more attractive, darker haired, protagonist halo’d version of Shang Qinghua. SQH was too tired, too desperate, and too distracted to notice how much he put himself in LB upon his creation.

How flabbergasted SY would be when he realizes one day when Shang Qinghua looses his patience in a peak lord meeting. How SY knows that narrow eyed stare, twisted lip and voice like knives as he scolds his fellow peak lords for something SY isn’t listening to (he gets his work done thank you) - immediately calling SQH on it when he can and SQH is like no what are you on about bro?

LB doesn’t see it either when SY mumbles how the two look like kin, just a curl of his lips in dislike at his Shizun thinking of someone else.

Mobei Jun tilts his head and simply says ‘Shang Qinghua is Shang Qinghua’ when he hears about it.

It drives SY mad.

[dykedvonte]

Curly not immediately punishing Jimmy for assaulting Anya is something I don’t think a lot of people are viewing in the complex context for Curly as the superior to both of them and closest confidante they had.

Like I am in no way saying he didn’t under react or fail Anya by not being harsh or direct with Jimmy but it really is the case that he really couldn’t. Imagine being stuck in such a confined space with very little areas to genuinely hold someone if they commit a crime. It’s not like this was an event that occurred before they departed or that they have easy communication with The Pony Express to ask for how to proceed when something like this arises. Not to mention, Jimmy’s relative power in relation to Anya as the co-pilot and second in command, he has the knowledge and access to do something to her had Curly directly punished him in this setting.

They were also Curly’s friends. It’s not just the case of him mediating something between his subordinates but people he is personally invested in don’t want to see spiral further in Anya’s case while also not wanting believe his friend go that bad in Jimmy’s actions. They were both suicidal and Curly putting Jimmy’s stability first is both out of bias but also the fact he’s aware at some level Jimmy is a danger to himself and others if not constantly placated. Combined with the fact he was in denial or just not piecing together what Anya said it’s hard to say what he buying time for and what he had treat as urgent. This isn’t even saying he doesn’t care about Anya but he’s not going jump to the worst conclusions about his friends even if part of him acknowledges the evidence saying so. It’s a complicated thing but he’s still human and needed to process it on top of trying to keep a ship that already took on a lot of water from further sinking, metaphorically.

I just personally think that while Curly failed Anya, it was a scenario where there wasn’t much he could do to the best thing by her safely and like Jimmy, we are underestimating what a good leader would do in a very fragile and tense situation like he was in. By the time he may have been ready and had a plan, things were much too late.

[eposiemc]

"You betrayed me last season so I don't love you!"

guys i can't believe the gempearl divorce is real guys LOVE IS DEAD wl!gem is salty and bitter about how everything ended in secret life. how is it possible that none of us even thought about that possibility

[erinwantstowrite]

grayson being the boy wonder in his universe and peter being the webbed wonder back home :(

they're so intertwined it's insane

[goobobbers]

LARIAN MAKE SHADOWHEART FAT AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!!!!!!!!!!

[ratcandy]

words cannot describe how happy i am that heket remains lamb's #1 hater in the entire world even after her cleansing

[harringroveera]

Dustin is starting to regret befriending Steve

[arainaizevran]

wyll asks the dark urge what's it like to be back in baldur's gate, to which you can reply:

"I don't remember it. But I'm afraid of who might remember me."

and he says this:

your honour, i'm in love with him

[hellonerf]

i was so distracted by goring ame on his birthday that i almost didnt notice ame being a cutiepie in the new chapter! i would pinch his cheeks... i want to crush his face. black triangle was so super cute here

[elevensbian]

can we please stop using 60th stuff getting good view counts/a lot of hype as 'proof' of 13s era being bad somehow. like yeah nostalgia bait is gonna... bait people with nostalgia and therefore be popular. does not mean doctor who is 'back' or whatever because it literally did not go anywhere lol

[skyward-floored]

In hyrule warriors my theory is that the twilight princess area happens after tp itself based on how things are set up, but this of course begs the question of where exactly tp Link is, and my answer is that Cia goofed up and accidentally blasted him to botw’s time as a wolf

[descendant-of-truth]

If I may throw my hat into the ring here, I think the source of a lot of problems in the writing of Miraculous can be boiled down to its confusion over its target demographic.

There are two very clear audiences the show is trying to cater to:

Grade school girls around 5-10

Teens/young adults around 15-20

And this results in some. unique conflicts in the show's internal logic.

Because it's a superhero show for little kids, it's full of fun, bright colors, wacky villain-of-the-week designs, and the characters are all very straightforward with exaggerated personality traits. The cheerful, clumsy, scatterbrained girl protagonist, her utterly charming and goofy (but slightly clueless) love interest, her cool best friend, her mean bully, etc.

This extends to the romance; the show is so comedic that Marinette's nervous crush and Cat Noir's flirting are played up for laughs. Their more "problematic" behaviors read as cartoon shenanigans first and foremost, which I do think was the intention - they're both shown as being more than a little ridiculous for acting this way, so they're not exactly trying to encourage people to emulate them. They're allowed to be genuinely wholesome, too, because it's nice to give the kids something to go "aww!" at, but it's not meant to be more complicated or deep than that.

And of course, it's gotta follow a sweet and simple episodic formula! A conflict in Marinette's civilian life, an inciting incident to get a side character upset enough for Hawk Moth to turn into a villain, Ladybug and Cat Noir show up, there's fun banter, Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm to figure out a wacky solution to the problem, and boom! The day is saved, Marinette and/or someone else learns a moral, and we get a cute little end screen showing all the key players of the episode.

The one aspect of the show's setup that's a little more serious is the fact that Adrien has a super controlling and distant father, but even this is something that doesn't necessarily break the kid-friendly tone for the first season or two. Superhero shows in particular like to put in some stuff that's a little more emotionally challenging for the viewers, even when they're mostly comedic, so it's not totally out of place here.

For example, while they tend to have more grounded tones overall, Spider-Man cartoons are aimed at kids and regularly keep the conflict between Harry Osborn and his father, Norman, intact; often including the plot point of Norman being the Green Goblin, a notorious villain. It's a similar deal with Adrien, and his dad secretly being Hawk Moth.

You can easily anticipate drama coming from this, but the show primes you to expect it to work out fine in the end because every other conflict so far has been wrapped up in a nice little bow once the episode's over. Though I will say, the choice to have Hawk Moth be Gabriel instead of his own, separate character is perhaps the first sign of the tone shift to come.

And, uh. it sure is a shift.

See, Miraculous does not start out with what you'd call a... plot. It vaguely alludes to there being more going on behind the scenes, but the only thing it really tries to get you invested in is the Love Square dynamic. Marinette and Adrien dancing around each other while fighting crime IS the plot, and it's clearly going to end with a cool final confrontation with Hawk Moth.

You expect it to end like... well, like the movie. Identities are revealed, Gabriel realizes the error of his ways when he finds out he's been fighting his son this whole time, and they may or may not make up but he almost definitely gets arrested. Marinette and Adrien kiss, roll credits.

This is not what happens, because the plot the writers actually had in mind is complex in a way that I would argue is meant for the same audience as YA novels. And with that plot comes a lot of darker, weightier traits to these otherwise silly characters.

Marinette isn't just scatterbrained and nervous, she has debilitating anxiety and an increasing need to be in control of everything due to the stress she's under. She has panic attacks on-screen. She's not just great at strategizing, she also knows how to manipulate people, and does so with increasing frequency - and to Cat Noir at times, no less. Her positive traits haven't gone anywhere, she's still loving and creative and sweet and doing her best to help everyone she can, she just. has all of that other stuff going on, now.

Adrien isn't just a charming, goofy, clueless love interest with a gazillion skills and a controlling father, he's like. actively being abused, and in some cases straight-up mind controlled. His tendency to heroically sacrifice himself so that Ladybug can do her Cool Protagonist Thing is gradually but unmistakably reframed as being a sign of suicidal inclinations. He has identity issues out the wazoo and he doesn't even know he's an artificially created human yet, because everyone in his life is keeping secrets from him and/or lying to his face about crucial information.

Information like, uh. how his dad died???

Yeah, so we're at a point in the story now where there was no satisfying conclusion to the Gabriel plot, no team-up, no moment where he realizes he's been fighting his son, none of that. He still has something akin to a change of heart, but he also still kind of gets what he wants - the Miraculous of the Ladybug and Black Cat, which he uses to rewrite the universe with a wish. It's just that instead of reviving his wife, he trades his life for Natalie's. Of course, he was already dying anyway, which was his own fault but he did force Cat Noir's Cataclysm onto himself, so, that's another thing poor Adrien is going to have to deal with at some point.

And because there's all these astronomically messed up things in Adrien's life, and Marinette's the one who got to learn about all of it before him, she decides that maybe it would be better if he just. didn't know about it. Which is understandable, if I was 14 and had all this information about my boyfriend's life that he didn't, I wouldn't know how to begin telling him about it, either.

But. can you see how we've maybe lost the plot, here?

Here's the thing: starting with a simple framework and gradually getting more complex and subverting the audience's expectations for how the main villain is going to be dealt with is not a bad thing. The fact that it gets darker over time is not an issue. I actually think that all these developments are, themselves, pretty cool! I'm a sucker for angst and complex character dynamics and the show is absolutely giving me those things.

The problem is that it didn't just start with a simple framework, it started with the framework for a different demographic entirely, and perhaps just as importantly, it never actually... stopped.

For as much complexity and intensity they're injecting this story with, they're still working under the logic of it being "for young kids." We still get goofy villain-of-the-week designs with equally goofy motivations, and the supporting cast is stuck remaining two-dimensional no matter their circumstances. Chloe is the most blatant example of this - she was made to be a simple bully first, so no matter what else they do with her, she has to remain straightforwardly evil.

This, I think, is the reason that Gabriel is a more nuanced and "sympathetic" antagonist than her, and why so much care goes into Adrien's character as a victim of abuse while Chloe is just a Problem Child despite suffering similar neglect; she wasn't made to be interesting, and so the show is resistant to changing that. Gabriel and Adrien, however, were already made with nuance in mind, and so they're allowed to develop as characters. And at the same time, it's a kid's show! We need to teach the kids what kind of behavior is acceptable, and Chloe's home life isn't an excuse to treat people badly, so--!

...Oh crap we're supposed to be teaching kids about acceptable behavior. Uh. Um. Quick, bring back the ice cream akuma who cares way too much about his ships so that Cat Noir can learn about consent! Uhh, but don't change his character too much afterwards, he's only marketable because of his silly flirting, and we can't lose that.

Yeah, remember when I said that the romance having problematic elements to it used to work well enough because it was clearly just exaggerated cartooniness? It wasn't free from criticism or anything, but you could see how it was intended to be endearing and silly, right? You were supposed to point and laugh at Marinette's convoluted plans to spend time with Adrien, at Cat Noir's dramatic flirting attempts that Ladybug herself fondly rolled her eyes at.

The tonal shift into deep character exploration kinda paints the previous stuff in a worse light, and to an extent, I think the writers know that. It's hard to laugh at Cat Noir being flirty all the time when he's also supposed to be taken completely seriously, and the more Ladybug rejects him, the more it turns into harassment, and it. kinda just stops being funny, even with the comedic framing.

It's also hard to laugh at Marinette's crush being so all-consuming when they try to tell us (in what I can only assume was an attempt to get people to stop complaining) that she's like this because it's fueled by an event in her past, one that made her so scared of loving the wrong person that she now needs to know Everything about them before asking them out. Her cartoon antics aren't funny under that light, it's just concerning, but they're dedicated to keeping it up anyway.

The show runs on straightforward cartoon logic where you're not supposed to think about it too hard just as much as it runs on grounded, closer-to-real-life logic where people are messy and complicated and actions have consequences. It's so divided that you can hand-pick parts of the story that are influenced by one or the other pretty easily, and depending on the episode you can find instances of both in the same 20-minute time span. Maybe even multiple times!

Neither thing they're trying to go for is bad, and neither is a better approach than the other, but forcing them into the same show makes both sides suffer.

It's not just hard to laugh at the parts I mentioned earlier, it's hard to take Gabriel seriously as a villain whenever you rewatch an episode and remember that he has a once-per-episode pun-based speech that he says so self-seriously that you can't help but laugh at. It's hard to take him seriously when you remember that he repeatedly akumatized a Literal Baby and practically threw a tantrum every time it didn't work, or when he randomly steals (and enthusiastically performs) his nephew's musical dance number, or something similar that you would only do for a cartoon villain aimed at five-year-olds.

And I can only imagine this whole show is a marketing nightmare, too. Hey, little girls, here's your cool role model! She's cute and smart and talented and powerful and can fix anything by shouting the title of the show! Hope you're having fun watching her tell her boyfriend that his newly-deceased father (who used deepfakes of him to sell merchandise that's built to enslave the population and then locked him in a solitary confinement chamber in another country) was actually a hero who sacrificed himself to stop the main villain instead of, y'know, being the main villain! Aren't you excited to watch her wrestle with the guilt of this lie for the next season or so? Doesn't it just make you want to buy her merchandise??

Like. what is even happening right now. what am I watching. how did we get here and why did we start where we did if this was what the story was going to be about