#it shows that they had to rewrite his involvement in the plot a lot

[fangsandfeels]

It just occurred to me...

...that nothing was really stopping Cazador from Ascending aside from his lack of brain cells.

If the chamberlain guy was afraid that he'd become a replacement in the ritual to the point he tried to fake his suicide (and overdid it), it probably was technically possible.

The kidnapped victims weren't connected with their kidnappers through blood - none of the Cazador's spawns bit them. Cazador did. Cazador easily became a replacement for Astarion in the Ascension ritual - which meant there were no specific requirements for the sacrificial lamb aside from the runes on their skin.

So, technically, Cazador didn't need to catch Astarion to continue the ritual. He could have easily Turned any other person into a spawn, carved the runes, and proceeded with his plan. Only one piece of the contract was missing and it was rather easy to replace.

But he just had to be a little bitch about it. He just couldn't let it go even for a moment. He had to show who's The Boss. He had to Make a Point.

He spent tendays, months coping and seething over his bruised ego, refusing to proceed with the Ritual before Astarion came back -- and in his self-obsessed mind Astarion had no choice to come back because the opposite would be an insult to his Vampire Lord status.

The Ascension was literally at his fingertips. He could have Ascended, walked out into the sunlight, and used all that newly gained power to find Astarion himself.

But did he do that? Noo.

He chose to stomp off to his bitching corner and make an Astarion-shaped salt mine in his diary.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i'm so happy you brought back up the topic of rick's shitty writing of anyone even remotely non white / "white passing"

with that being said, do you think the shitty script he gave to annabeth in the show has to do with him just being deeply uninterested in adapting his story to include characters of color? bc it seems like once rick encounters a character that cannot be easily erased all ethnic or racial identity of to fit them into an usamerican specifically white ass narrative, he gets lost.

i just keep thinking how the only thing that "changed" about annabeth as presented in the show was her race but her plot relevance and her characterization got downgraded severely. meanwhile percy, whiter than before (wheres the mediterranean god look......................................), got half her functions. like i just look at rick in context and i wonder if he just gives so little fuck about characters of color he cant even write a decent character arc for an adaptation of a very established persona

thoughts? thank u!

I wouldn't be surprised if it's Rick (and the writer's room, since it actually seems Rick isn't all that heavily involved if much at all with the script itself based on some interviews) just has internal biases that he refuses to reflect on. It would be a consistent trend with the uptick in offensive writing in the books themselves (see: the troglodytes in general, all the Jewish kids in CHB being in Hermes cabin, etc etc). Rick seems to want to engage with these topics but refuses to actually assess how he's approaching it and his own biases while also overemphasizing his engagement with the topics. It's a kind of big talk/words vs actions type thing to me.

[this got a wee bit long so throwing it under a cut]

I was having a couple of conversations about this topic recently - one being group reading/discussion of WottG and how, allegedly, the slightly different characterizations in that book are inspired by the actors in the show. Annabeth is repeatedly and frequently described as motherly and maternal in the book, plus some other misc characterizations that make you tilt your head and go "Wait, what about Leah made you want to write Annabeth this way?" and concerns about it leaning into stereotypes. (It's also strange, because in the show Sally is MUCH more aggressive and less maternal, and this is painted like it's supposed to be a girlboss thing cause her being too soft and motherly was too weak or something? But now book Annabeth is now being described as all soft and maternal??? What. What is happening.)

Another conversation that i had with my therapist (cause we talk about pjo a lot lol) and later repeated and discussed more with other folks on discord more specifically regarding the show was a lot of discussion about the casting. Particularly casting choices and how the writing either is refusing to take casting into consideration to respectfully approach how things would be changed to avoid problems or are actively changing the script for characters in a way that is potentially if not downright offensive. Clarisse is the number one example i bring up because a lot of people say that the reason a plus sized actress wasn't cast for her was to avoid the "fat bully" trope. The thing is, there is ALSO a POC bully trope that is just as bad if not worse, so if they were actually taking offensive tropes into consideration one would expect them to avoid that too (especially since Percy was cast as a pasty white boy - which just makes it all look worse)? (Also other plus-sized characters like Dionysus and Gabe were also cast as skinny, same with Tyson. So it just seems like they don't want to cast plus-sized actors either.)

But also they're rewriting stuff that actively puts the casting decisions into worse tropes. Like hey, why is Percy (a white guy) the one who knows the "real" versions of all these myths and is expositioning them to Annabeth (a black girl), who in the books is supposed to know more than him? Why does he know better than her for some reason and have to guide her? Why is Percy teaching Annabeth about pop culture and how to be a kid? Not to mention stuff like the show constantly encouraging the viewer to doubt or distrust characters like Grover and Clarisse and Annabeth as red herrings as to who the traitor is. Plus there's no adjustments to stuff from the books like Annabeth initially being somewhat aggressive/antagonistic towards Percy, or Clarisse's aggression and bullying towards Percy to try and circumvent those being bad tropes in the contexts of the casting.

And there's an ongoing trend of characters who are antagonistic towards Percy in the books being divided into two groups: those who continue to be antagonistic towards Percy in the show, or those who are tweaked to suddenly become kinda silly-goofy and significantly less threatening. Gabe, Dionysus, Ares, and Hades are all examples of characters that should be antagonistic towards Percy but are softened SIGNIFICANTLY and played for laughs in the show. Echidna is played as a twist antagonist because she initially because she approaches the kids as very sweet and helpful. And they're all cast as white! Meanwhile other characters like Clarisse, Luke, Zeus, etc, are still antagonistic towards Percy (plus also like Annabeth initially and again, Grover being painted as a major red herring). Plus some new additions like Hermes, Mr. Lin Manuel Miranda himself, being wholly introduced into the plot when he's not supposed to appear until book 2, and all he does is sabotage the quest. Like, it's weird! That's a weird writing decision!!!! I get wanting to get that sweet sweet LMM cameo money, but, why is Hermes an antagonist here???????? he's not even supposed to be here yet!.

We also have stuff like Poseidon (who, like many of the god/major kid pairings so far seems to have been cast to match each other appearance-wise) saving the day for Percy and being this weirdly good dad, versus the books where we get the iconic "I am sorry you were born" line and Percy and Poseidon's tension is part of their arcs. Notably, Poseidon does this by ceding to Zeus, who is actively about to start a war. While Gabe is rewritten to be a total loser, Sally is MUCH more aggressive and her yelling and screaming at young Percy is supposed to be sympathetic for some reason? If Gabe were acting like Sally does in the show, he would actually be significantly more like his book counterpart! The show is making active decisions to paint these characters the way they do!

Admittedly, part of it may just be they got overzealous with their casting (not inherently a bad thing! diverse casting is good!) and then proceeded to not consider how that casting affects the way the characters are perceived. It also doesn't bode well for certain guesses we can make going further into the show - Thalia is very at odds with Percy initially. She's a very aggressive character. They fight a lot! Also Annabeth's description already implies that they're tweaking Thalia's character to be more "tough love" versus the books where she's significantly more of a bleeding heart when she first meets Annabeth. Like, I'm very happy about Thalia's casting, her actress seems amazing, but also I'm VERY concerned with how they're going to approach her character to make sure it doesn't end up wildly offensive. Athena is similar - we can guess based on casting decisions so far that they're going to try and cast Athena as similar in appearance to Annabeth/Leah. The show has already painted Athena has antagonistic and uncaring towards her daughter. If projected trends continue, these things are not gonna be great.

And the show does seem to rarely want to engage with these topics - like the scene with the cop in the train. You can tell what they wanted to address by having Annabeth be the one to confront him. The thing is they were too cowardly to actually have that conversation! They paint the kids as being unreasonable and getting unnecessarily upset when they aren't directly being accused of destroying a room, therein painting the cop as the one in the right in that situation. The implication seems to be a little bit they were going for "Oh, this is Annabeth's hubris getting them into trouble" but. that's such a bad way to do it! That's like the worst way you could have done it! (This is also a trend in books from HoO onwards, more or less - Rick tries to engage with certain topics, often using characters of specific demographics, and then proceeds to do a really bad job of it.)

There are also some aspects that are just like - in the books, Luke being a middle-class blond-haired blue-eyed pretty white boy is relevant! Because the fact that he has privilege from that particularly in how he's perceived is part of how he came to where he is and why he acts the way he does. Percy not having those same privileges, and having aspects like constantly inherently being labeled as a trouble-maker just based on his atypical (neurodivergent) behavior and coming from a lower socioeconomical background play heavily into his character!!! Percy being both a poor and disabled kid (and implied potentially POC) plays DIRECTLY into why he feels so strongly about standing up for other disenfranchised kids (in SoM, explicitly including other disabled kids and kids of color). It directly relates to his experiences and standing up for kids who are like him because he didn't have that, versus Luke whose perceptions and goals are very self-oriented. Now, in the show, we've essentially swapped Percy and Luke's appearances, and that paints a very different narrative. And that's important to acknowledge!

[crowleysgirl56]

Ok, so here are some of my rather long rambling thoughts. I’ll start off with some pros and cons and then provide some speculation:

My initial negative reaction:

- Compressing 5 hours worth of content into 90 minutes feels like things will be rushed and we won’t get a good story.

- HOW do you take a month to rewrite six 45 minute long scripts into a movie length feature and have it still be good?!

- the compression of the story means we will likely not get any more flashback sequences. Admittedly I actually thought we probably wouldn’t get more flashback scenes in season 3 anyway, but this definitely proves the case that we won’t. There won’t be time for it.

- who has re-written the script? Because here’s the thing about Pratchett adaptations. They’re fucking shit. No one (in my opinion) has been able to successfully transfer that man’s unique sense of humour and writing style onto screen. Every single Discworld adaptation has been on a scale of awful to kind of meh. EXCEPT for season 1 of Good Omens. As much as we hate him now. As vile as he has become in our hearts, the thing about NG is that he understood Terry’s unique style. He understood what worked and how to transfer that to the screen. And that breaks my heart on so many levels. Because he was all we had. And we certainly didn’t want him any more. But still, who THE FUCK has written the finale script now?

Now here are my positive thoughts on the situation:

- NEIL GAIMAN GOT HIS SORRY ASS FIRED! GOOD!

- Consequences. The industry has signalled consequences. Finally!

- We are getting a conclusion! It could very well have been cancelled and we would have been left with the final 15 forever. We get to see them again. That deserves a Wahoo!

- thinking back over season 2, which I enjoyed, I actually do have to say a lot of it was kind of unnecessary filler. The flashback sequences were great. But the actual core of the season’s arc involving Gabriel was just a bit boring. I’m forever grateful for it because we got to spend almost 6 hours watching Aziraphale give Crowley heart eyes and Crowley do beautiful acts of service proving his love back. But the meandering stuff with Nina and Maggie and trying to work out why Gabriel lost his memory wasn’t all that interesting. I was here for A&C.

- so I think MAYBE that means the compression of what had already been written for season 3 means it’ll cut out the plot bits that drag. Hopefully this means it’s faster paced and tighter and more focused on A&C.

Speculations:

Thinking back to the last time NG interacted with the fandom, he had confirmed the first three episodes were written and were with Amazon for approval, episode 4 was almost done, the last part of episode 6 had been written, and he had started plotting episode 5. We never got a confirmation if he ever finished them. So this maybe indicates that the finale is lifted exactly out of these scripts. My assumption is they’ve brought in a script doctor to edit what they’ve already got and wrap up plot points. In which case, on the one hand it gives us close to the story and idea of what Terry imagined. On the other, the far more negative connotation, it’s still NG’s work. The articles that have all come out so far merely states “Gaiman is not involved with the production and the finale is based on his work”. This could be Prime distancing themselves without actually confirming how he’s contributed. Which is still largely disappointing.

So, once again I feel very conflicted. A lot of the fandom have been very adamant about not wanting to support the show if Gaiman was involved, and in the end he wrote the show. Even if he had been removed as producer and showrunner and wasn’t allowed on set (thankfully it seems all three of things have happened), I know that wouldn’t have been enough for some fans because he would still have ultimately been responsible for the product that we eventually see. And I don’t know how to feel about that.

I’m happy he’s gone, I’m disappointed the show has been gutted, I’m glad we get a conclusion, I’m sad it won’t be exactly what we wanted.

I’m SO THANKFUL that the women get some semblance of justice, that there is a consequence for a perpetrator, that a big ass company is finally listening to fans and moving with the times and signally this kind of behaviour isn’t appropriate and that repercussions can and will be felt.

Finally, I’ll remind everyone that there are going to be a lot of different and conflicting feelings from the fandom. I would ask that everyone try to be nice to one another. If you have a differing opinion, maybe rather than debating it you just allow that person their feelings and move on. Do not go after someone if you feel like they’re not reacting the “right way” to the situation. Just be kind please. It’s what Terry would have wanted.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

(I wish I could ask this in a video with GamingMagic13’s editing style, but I don’t have the energy for that.)

People say that, after Antibug, Chloé’s redeeming qualities started to show through throughout Seasons 2 and 3 because Thomas Astruc didn’t contribute to those episodes of those seasons as if he wasn’t on the writing team for every episode for those two seasons, including the ones showing Chloé’s redeeming qualities.

It’s not “Thomas left so the other writers started to make a redemption for Chloé, but then he came back and threw it all away”, it’s leaning more towards “Thomas, along with other writers, wanted to waste our time with Chloé pity parties for two seasons and trick people into feeling bad for her, which worked on plenty of reactors, and then yank the rug out from under them just for the sake of pulling a rug out from viewers” whether it’s the truth or not.

Also, do you get the feeling that, if people weren’t harassing Thomas and his family over Chloé’s “abandoned redemption”, Chloé wouldn’t have been made into evil incarnate to spite people?

Considering that the hiatus between Seasons 3 and 4 started towards the end of 2019, had to continue throughout 2020 due to the COVID pandemic with only the New York special to keep us busy in September 2020, and then finally ended shortly after 2021 started, that would have been plenty of time to rework scripts, because we know he was also on the writing team for every episode of Seasons 4 and 5 alongside 2 and 3, to made Chloé more and more unlikeable while propping up the male adults to spite Chloé fans, like several episodes of Teen Titans GO! and even this show are guilty of.

Whether all of this is true or not, I think it all lines up too well for too many other outcomes.

The "Thomas Astruc was able to completely rewrite the plans for this character and no one stopped him" take has always been a little wild to me especially since Chloe never showed meaningful improvement in canon. In fact, now that we've seen her story play out in all it's disappointing and time-wasting glory, you can even argue that Despair Bear was straight up telling you what we were in for since it's the same plot, just on a smaller scale.

As far as I know, there is no evidence for this "Chloe was rewritten" conspiracy. At the very least, no one has sent any my way on the multiple occasions when I've asked for it. Astruc is a credited writer for pretty much every episode involved in the Queen Bee arc and, while head writers have a good deal of power, they often don't have supreme power over their shows. This is especially true when it comes to kids shows since those have a lot of restrictions on what they can do. While I cannot speak French, I've been told that this class involves one of the writers talking about the multiple darker version of Chat Blanc that were rejected, leading to Chat Blanc being a season three episode instead of a season two episode like they originally planned.

These shows are products that are being sold to buyers who do have the power to reject the product and the writers work for a company. In most cases, they can be stopped!

There's also the fact that this is Astruc's career that we're talking about. You're arguing that he purposely messed with his reputation and screwed up the writing in the show that he's most well-known for in order to get back at online randos instead of just blocking them and moving on with his life. That's an insanely hard sell for me. Unintentional bad writing is a much easier explanation especially since he has nothing to gain from people disliking the Chloé stuff. This wasn't situation where Astruc needed to tank the show to get out of writing it. If Astruc left the project, then Miraculous would go on without him. While he came up with the initial idea, Zag owns the property.

Unless someone has hard evidence that Chloé was changed to spite fans, I am never going to buy into this conspiracy theory. Her bad writing is too in line with the show's other issues. Remember, this is the show that gave us Derision, everything about Lila, and Gabriel getting an 'ascends into the light with a smile' ending while his son sat the fight out and remains in the dark. Is Chloé really meaningfully worse than any of that?

I'd say no and, if you agree, then why do you think that she's so special? I've previously called her a canary in the coal mine and that's going to be my read until someone gives me evidence of something else. She was your warning sign that the writing was never going to be very good. I don't think she foretold just how bad it would get - that's why I kept watching - but her story showed that these writers were only good at short-form content and sucked at long-form content. In fact, Chloé's story is arguably better than a lot of the long-form stuff that the show gave us in season four and five. At least Chloé's story logically flowed together even if it was massively disapointing!

I also don't consider Chloé's season four and five writing downgrade to be all that telling because, once again, it's not unique to her. The class gets a similar downgrade in quality, going from "we'll help Marinette with her confession plans when she asks, but this isn't a major thing to us" to "we live for Adrienette and will make our own plans for Marinette to confess and force them on her/try to force Adrienette to kiss." It makes the entire class feels more shallow than ever.

Gabriel also gets a downgrade with his writing going more over-the-top than ever. We have things like him locking Adrien in a cell and using Adrien's amoks for no obvious reason even though Gabriel is supposed to get an ending where he dies totally at peace and ascends into the light. Totally nonsense choices just like the choice to make Marinette's inability to speak to Adrien because she's anxious into a full-out trauma response.

These are just a few of the many, many, many writing downgrades.

If you truly believe the Chloé conspiracy, then I'd strongly encourage you to watch at least the first of the videos I'm about to link and see if you notice similarities. I have all of them set to the specific, relevant timestamps in case you don't want to watch a massive video to see what I'm talking about because they all talk about more than the conspiracies that arose in these fandoms when the writing got "bad" (especially the last one. The conspiracy gets a very brief mention. I really only included it because I wanted three examples and just went with ones big enough that someone else had done research on the topic because it's not an area of fandom that I've ever waded into).

I'm linking these videos because I wanted to give you more than me just saying "this kind of thing happens all the time when media gets bad." Watching just a few minutes of each of these should give you the context you need assuming the timestamps work:

As you can hopefully see, the Chloé stuff is nothing new. So many pieces of media do something disappointing and then fans create conspiracies for why it happened, refusing to accept what is most likely to be the unfortunate truth: the writers thought they told a good story or, at the very least, they did the best they could within the confines they were working with be those confines monetary, temporal, and/or the limits of their own skills. That doesn't make the bad writing okay, you're fully valid in being upset, but there's also no need to create a conspiracy theory around it. It's probably not that deep. This shit happens all the time, especially in larger fandoms.

This is why I often give the advice of, "don't trust your mental health to stories that you have no control over." Is not that fandom isn't fun, I've just seen this shit before and I always feel bad for those who get involved with it. I've luckily never gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole, but I have gotten really upset when other fans continued to like a show that was bad, actually, and got a good deal of catharsis when most of the fandom woke up after the final was terrible. That still wasn't a good experience for me, though. It was not a healthy mindset to be waiting with baited breath for total strangers to agree with me that this random show was bad. I'm much better of bashing it with those who agree that it's bad, moving on when I'm no longer having fun, and letting those who like it be wrong (that is both a joke and real advice. Don't waste your time trying to change people's minds on something as insignificant as Miraculous. Just let them be wrong.)

[shihalyfie]

I've alluded to tri. having some very troubled production behind the scenes, and among everything that apparently went on back there, there seem to have been at least two major bottlenecks: 1) the fact that the director (who, based on his own statements about deliberately not consulting source material, most likely didn't even watch Adventure to begin with) kept asking everyone to make things more "mature" without being clear on what that actually meant, and 2) the fact they ran out of budget and had to rewrite the entire plot halfway into it. Even the most brilliant of creators probably wouldn't be able to work at their best under such conditions.

But conversely, this also means that there were some excellent people involved in production whose efforts probably haven't been as appreciated as they should be! So I want to take a moment to spotlight some people I want to give props to:

Ayana Yuniko and Nakanishi Yasuhiro: These two scriptwriters were childhood Digimon fans who were thrilled to be on the project, and their enthusiasm clearly shows in every interview they were in. Ayana even made keen observations like noticing that the Adventure kids aren't as super-tight as people tend to make them out to be (something I've pointed out myself, and something that generally only tends to crop up among fans who have studied the series closely), and Nakanishi stated that she would slip him detailed notes about the characters and their relationships.

Both of them stated they were trying to portray the Adventure characters in a character-accurate way but kept getting their scripts rejected for not being "mature" enough, leaving them unsure about what they were supposed to do. Their roles on the series were also limited; Ayana was on parts 1, 2, and 4 while Nakanishi was on part 4 only, and they were sharing the scriptwriter role with multiple others (even within a single movie). But if I were asked to pick who on the staff list I would want to see come back for another Digimon work, it would absolutely be these two.

Kakikara Yuuko: The one in charge of overall writing for the series. tri. had a total of five scriptwriters and could have up to four(!) on a given movie, so because of that, her statements on the series and its story direction have been a bit difficult to tell whether it was her idea personally or whether she was delivering the writing room's discussion result. But one of her final statements on the series basically amounted to "I'm grateful if you even came to watch it to the end at all," and she was quite humble about saying she felt things could have been done differently; considering it sounds like she had a hard time keeping everyone and everything in order, I can only imagine she went through a lot trying to make sure everything ended safely. Incidentally, her writing portfolio is also quite respectable (and even includes kids' shows).

Suzuki Takaaki: The person with the job of "setting researcher", i.e. the one with the job of looking into the lore. Sadly, it seems like most of his ideas didn't make it into the final series (possibly because of the budget loss-induced rewrite), but his one solo interview indicates that he put quite a bit of conscientious thought into how Digital World lore works, including the idea of an EMP weapon that would affect Digimon easily but not humans (an idea that doesn't pop up among fans as often as you'd think, and took up until last year to make it into actual Adventure material via Takeru's 02TB in-universe fanfic).

Sakabe Gou: The person in charge of the series BGM. We haven't heard a lot from him, but the little we have indicates that although he also had difficulty understanding what the director was asking for when he wanted "mature" music of some kind, he himself put some very thorough thought put into the composition. In particular, he went into detail regarding the music used at the beginning of part 4, which seems to be a fan-favorite track from what I've seen (it's also my favorite too!). Sakabe also has an extensive and respectable portfolio outside Digimon; in particular, he's very highly regarded in Kamen Rider circles, so if you have a friend who's a fan, it might be a good idea to ask them about it!

[imthepunchlord]

Possibly How It Should Have Been

Gosh, I've just thought about it sometimes, as I'm largely trying to turn my creative focus onto something more enjoyable than ML (hence less writing for ML fics), but sometimes I just can't help but focus on it. Cause it's a great concept and it's butchered and that bothers me so much.

And there's SO MUCH that could've been done to improve it. Some of which could be easy tweaks. Some of which needs massive overhauling. Some of it is just picking a lane, staying in that lane, and you follow the road to progress.

It's a great concept with a LOT of possibilities and ways it could've been done. I've actually thought about possible ML Rewrites a few times, I even reached out to a friend to try and help develop a Rewrite that we could've collabed on cause I was struggling to much to decide, and we both just got stuck cause there's so many options for characters and what could possibly be done as we could see so many pros for each option.

And of course, part of the pondering that came to my mind was seeing promising improvement with kwami swaps.

Like, Marinette and Adrien may have developed better if they had each other's miraculous. Plagg could've been the ideal foil to Marinette as he's the opposite of her in every way, addressing her overworking herself, prioritizing others over herself, and caring so much about her responsibilities that it just weighs and stresses her out. And with Adrien and Tikki, she could've helped him develop as an actual, step up in responsibility, learn to take on duty, to care about others over himself. She also would've helped him get the plot rolling, as Adrien is a stagnant character but Tikki is not. She's going to get him involved into the Agreste plot whether he wants it or not, and in turn, he's going to get Tikki to learn to be more attentive and considerate of her holders cause things can go south for Adrien very quickly if she pushes too much.

Gosh, another great kwami swap that could've been done that could've improved a lot was switching up who are the leads. I always wondered if Tikki and Plagg TRULY would've picked Marinette and Adrien, also if they were even the right picks now that we know that Fu doesn't know everything and is running on limited knowledge. As far as we know, they ARE the wrong picks for these two. And considering there was an ep of Tikki and Plagg picking their own users, I now wonder if Alya and Nino should've been our actual leads.

How Alya was initially as Scarabella screams to me that it would've better served in the Origins as a starting hero. Alya also has promising potential arcs as a starting hero, especially as being a superhero is her living her dream:

There's the struggle of balancing her civilian and hero life, she can learn that the civilian life is just as important.

She can learn that being a hero isn't all glory and isn't always easy.

She can learn the importance of secrecy, and what happens if she exposes herself to the public or to a friend (probably Marinette).

And a lot of the lessons Tikki is involved with would make more sense with Alya, who does get tunnel vision and isn't good at listening to others and isn't so considerate and can be very pushy with her own agenda. Alya naturally aims for the leadership position and Tikki wants her Ladybugs to be leaders, so Tikki can help guide Alya to improve as a leader. Lastly, Alya will challenge Tikki on her call outs, which could at certain points help established that Tikki isn't always right and is open to learn and adapt too. And Alya could busy herself looking into HM, making her theories and being nosy about his identity, which Tikki would readily be apart of and encourage. Which Alya should've done in the show than recklessly trying to expose the heroes identity to the public and help HM win. Which, if Adrien wasn't a hero, maybe that should have been his role instead, which Gabriel could encourage and Adrien is even more excited cause he thinks his father is taking an interest in what he does which can be some later Adrien angst for you.

With Nino and Plagg, the BIGGEST plus is that it would actually give Nino SOMETHING outside Alya and Adrien. It would've prompt him to get more focus, and based on what's seen, he's 2nd to Marinette in having the most friends, meaning he can be more engaging and present with what happens to his classmates. Plagg also could bring some needed chaos to his life. You can even expand upon what's seen in Horrificatr where Nino can be controlling, strict, and harsh so Plagg can work on that. Nino does have some similarities to Marinette where he does care a lot for his friends and is hardworking, so there's something there to make Plagg a bit of a foil to him. To expand on Nino's role as Alya embraces being the big hero and savior, could even do the fandom popular idea of him getting Guardian training.

With those two taken, this nicely opens up others getting the Five.

Marinette can work with either Bee or Fox. If you want to work off Chloe vs Marinette, it works best if Marinette has the Bee. Though I think Pollen's personality should be overhauled, but if not, at least there's a perk that yes man Pollen going to force Marinette to take initiative and decide things for herself instead of seeking advise from her kwami. And with Fox, that can work off Marinette being a meddler, schemer, being creative, and her more inclined to work from the shadows. There could also be a fun twist to explore with Marinette not liking liars and she has a miraculous tied to deception, plus her and Trixx could've been an interesting pair to see interact, especially if working off what's seen in Sapotis where Trixx is very observant and manipulative, but also a bit of a chaotic gambler (from what I've seen, later seasons seem to ruin Trixx as a character). And of course, Marinette having Fox could work off her vs Lila, you could even dabble in her vs Felix.

Arguably, Chloe MAY grow as Alya and Nino would NOT have been so tolerant of her unlike Marinette and Adrien, so Chloe could've gotten the Bee and actually be a good hero and character for it. But that can also come down to preference and how you want Chloe to go.

Adrien could've gotten the Turtle, which I think could've been one of the best miraculous he could've gotten as he naturally likes to be a protector, and this miraculous works off that while also giving him protection. Wayzz also could've maybe addressed Adrien readily sacrificing himself, help him learn to be more cautious instead of rushing in, or at least think and be smart about how you go forward. There's even a possibility of Adrien having Turtle full time, as Nino could share his suspicions with Fu about Gabriel, so Wayzz could be there as a spy to check things out, which would have Adrien eventually get involved in his own plot, but still allow things to be at a slower pace. And as Wayzz, ideally, seems to be serious and dedicated but also playful and open minded, I think he would be very engaging with Adrien, which in turn could mean that when Adrien needs a call out, he would listen to what Wayzz had to say more (as most of the time Adrien ignores what Plagg says).

As for the leads, both would have an equal neutral involvement in the plot that can explain why things don't resolve quickly (looking at you Adrien who won't even ask questions about the suspicious book your father has). Alya would be a hero and lead for glory and self-righteousness, Nino would be to genuinely help others. Neither would have a super close tie to Gabriel, allowing him to sit under their noses for a while.

Also, gosh, you even could've had a lot of fun with color coded rivals/foils/personal antagonists for Alya and Nino.

If you really wanted to do Alya vs Lila, let Lila actually have the Fox or maybe she bought the Fox in Volpina, and this has Alya and Lila having the miraculous the other is color coded for. She could work off being a hero initially for the wrong reasons, just like Alya who starts for the glory too, as well as integrity vs deception.

Something could also be done between Nino vs Felix, with Nino really color coded for Peacock while Felix is color coded for Cat. Could play off both being ambitious to a fault and being selfish and nosy, but Nino cares more for others vs Felix is more exclusive.

And if expanding to others...

Of course could do Marinette vs Chloe if Marinette has the Bee, Chloe could have the Mouse, which could be funny to see Chloe deal with herself. That might humble her.

As for Adrien... could do him and Max being foils, work off Max getting Horse while largely wearing green, and I think Adrien is most color coded for Horse. Could work off both being perfectionist and could delve into the shared interest of gaming, with Max trying to bring out the competitiveness in Adrien. Could be thinking vs action.

Either way, ML is frustrating cause it's a show with potential and great concepts and it's irritating that it got butchered so. And the most frustrating thing is that there is just so many options to how it could've been done better. And kwami swap wise, these are my top two picks that would've been better.

Thank you for coming to my TED talks.

[three--rings]

4 Minutes episode 8

Non-spoilery conclusion: this show was flawed but I did enjoy it and I want to see more from everyone involved, you know?

So we're in the reality where Tyme is a caring doctor?

And where he is a good boyfriend even when breaking up...

I'm sorry but doctor/patient to dating is super uncomfortable. Like I get this is the fuzzy version of events but IDK gives me the ick.

Akira! My favorite actor in the show!

Okay toxic yaoi threesome I guess.

Wait tell me they didn't go back to Tonkla house, right? Are you fuckers at home when there's a manhunt?

Well, yeah, okay that clusterfuck was always gonna end badly. And honestly? I fuck with that kind of tragic doomed love between flawed people.

Okay making merits for the guy who shot you? Did Great know about their relationship?

Ah yeah I figured the money exchange was a setup.

Okay, okay. So...ultimately, I think the show was a valiant attempt at doing something different and being a really twisty mystery, but it could have used a rewrite, and probably more episodes.

Like, I really think rushing through the resolution in this episode is a mistep because it skips over the actual resolution of Tyme and Great's relationship, the actual love confession and getting together. Like, that's the MONEY SHOT of the romance and we don't really get it. Like, sure we got to see their 4 minutes versions of their relationship, but they didn't, and we didn't get to see them reunite and work it out.

I get from a writing standpoint, that's a very hard thing to write, especially in a snappy manner, which is why the easy choice is to skip it, but you're denying the audience the emotional payoff. And also sorta denying the really messy version of their relationship they had by only presenting us with a sanitized honeymoon version at the end. Like what I really want is seeing that hard work of these two flawed and hurt people getting over it and accepting each other for REAL.

Yeah what I really want is the fanfic of this show I think.

Other big missteps are how confusing a lot of the out-of-order stuff was with the Tonkla plot, though I ultimately got that.

And most of all, the lack of real characterization of Great up until we get the real version of his story. He just felt flat and blank until then, and I get WHY and I don't know how to better resolve that while still getting the "oh shit it wasn't real" reveal. But like...IDK.

This show very much feels like an experiment that was worthy and had a lot of hard work put into it but didn't quite land.

I really think the actors all did great and the filming and everything was excellent, so I hope we continue to get good stuff from BOC. I also really like Bible and Jes individually and think they're both super talented, but I'm not entirely convinced by the chemistry... IDK.

[egtotaldramatakes]

im so happy i found this blog my td obsession is going to take over again !!! i have an insane amount of headcanons however most of them are about mike and his system because they are my childhood and current comfort character (also a very personal character to me because my mental issues)(this is going to be a long rant)

so heres a ton of mike n co headcanons while i plot how to rewrite all stars and draw it:

- mal is actually really into psychology, and tries to learn about it a lot. this is wht he knows so much about the system and how he could take over in all stars so easily (though in my eyes half of all stars was not real and i am going to demolish the writers with a wrecking ball) alsobmal is actually quite smart, however it is not portrayed well. he is about the same level as alejandro in terms of understanding others socially, maybe as observant as izzy, however he does not like showing that. he also usually does dumb things brcause he craves chaos to make him feel like he has control over his life (can you tell im self inserting(joke))

- the whole system collectively sucks with school subjects involving remembering very specific, one time use things (social studies, language) and formula based subjects are easier. however their grades are not great. also, they are all smart, but show it in different ways. svetlana is coordinated, mike is emotionally understanding/comforting person, mal is emotionally observant, manitoba is good with nature and animals, i can go on but i am not good at actually describing things like these in words !!! ask me if u want more explanation ig

- due to the above (grades), home life is not easy, and mike went to total drama to escape from life where he lived, though it was not the greatest idea. he met zoey though!

- mal is not really evil. he can be mean/rude as a defense mechanism, and prefers to do chaotic things for fun, and like i mentioned above to have a sense if control. he is very reactive / hotheaded and will get angry/emotional easily. he likes to see others hurt because he was hurt so many times and probably believes nobody would try to care for him, which is a large reason he tries to take over in all stars, since scott exists. he is destructive, and likes to show proof that he can be powerful, where mike tries his best to hide very strong emotions, and act happy as much as possible.

- mal thinks everybody loves mike, and has liw self esteem because of tje fact that he isnt mike. ("im a bug eyed weirdo and everybody loves me!") but mike thinks nobody could possibly like him. vito and svetlana usually have very high self esteem however, svetlana due to being good with athletics and probably for having medals for sports, and vito for being abke to talk confidently to others, which makes others act nicer. chester and manitoba do not really care about how others view them.

- svetlana being active (and mal fighting in juvie) probably gave them an ungodly sleeper build (how mal was able to mess up alejandro's wrist in all stars)

- mal didnt really want to go to juvie, probably only going for a big fight where he really hurt someone out of defense, but after seeing how much of a big deal it was and how people actually paid attention, he disobeyed people a lot more to get a negative reaction, since to him, "at least it is a reaction" or something like that

- i need to stop writing angst because i feel like i got hit by a truck but !! anywasy mal initially doesnt trust zoey and tries to sabotage her bond with mike, however zoey does research on trauma / rffects of trauma and kinda figures out that if she does nice things for mal, he will not be as destructive. it is slow and difficult but they eventually manage to bond as well as form a friendship

- mike has rarely had good food and when zoey takes him out to a fancy resturaunt for the first time he cries bevause the food is so good (they used to live in a house where groceries were forgotten and would sometimes fend for themself, and when dinner was cooked it wouldnt alwsys be something they liked, due to the different food preferences between each alter)

- mike, svetlana, and vito are dog people, manitoba, chester and mal are cat people , zoey got both and takes allergy medicine for the dog (mike insisted she didnt have to get a dog and this only made her want onr more(she always wanted a dog but never got one because of her allergies(she never considered she could take medicine since nobody close to her owned a dog)))

- the cats name is patches, she is a calico with one eye who mal found on the street, he initially tried to ignore her but couldnt leave her outside.

- the dog has short fur, not sure ehat breed, maybe a chocolate lab. has a name like hershey or some chocolate brand

- they go insane the first time they have a birthday and cry when the cake is brought out and zoey cries because she had birthdays but at home and with only her family

- sleep terrors.

- mal tried to give himself piercings several times but it failed since mike would find it and remove it and it the piercing would close up

i want to write more about the othet alters but they have so little screen time in comparison :( i also havent watched roti / all stars in like 2 months and my memort is really bad so i dont remember alot to base hcs on, also i zone out alot when they are on screen

my head is going fuzzy again and my neck and head hurts so i am now 🧭 anon !!! perhaps one day i will reveal my blog heheheh..... i hope these hcs are okay / dont get me hate and i will be back!!! i think ive typed for 45 minutes god

.

[macawritesupdates]

Writing Update 9/19/2024

Been a while since I did an update! Last week I was on jury duty and it MURDERED my writing time as I had to change up my day and it took longer to get home (mentally draining....)

Been back at work this week, but still has been draining, so less time to get things done, but trying to get back into the flow of things! Hopefully more updates to show soon!

REQUESTS

I will get back to those as soon as I clear up some other fics. Just got a lot of long fics (12 in total) and one-shots (like ...5 in total?) that I'm writing and want to finish!

READER INTERACTION FICS

Can't Help a Cuddle: It has 5k words in and that is just the spicy scene it is going to open up with lol It is going to end up being a long chapter as it introduces more plot and the like going forward! Hopefully will be updating soon!

Jealousy is Not a Good Friend: Also have it outlined and making good progress on writing it out so it should come out the same time or before Cuddle. Got some spice as always!

LONG FANFICS JJK

Broken in the Ways No One Sees: Going to speed run write out the last three chapters to the story as it one the poll for which one to finish first! I'll post chapters as I finish <3

When you Get Two Grandsons: Next chapter is coming and I'll be overhauling the tags to reflect the new developments! This story is remaining sweet and family feel wholesome!

Spouse Wanted: Experience not Necessary: the new chapter is NEARLY done and may be out tonight depending on how I finish up this last scene hehe! If not tonight, then going to be up tomorrow!

Lessons in Accidental Seduction: Eagerly writing out the next chapter! I'm excited for this one as it has nice character development and Sukuna really starting to work things out and he and Yuuji getting closer again <3

Malevolence of Love: Wanted to finish his fix before the 30th, but don't see that happening due to writing delays ; w ; BUT the next chapter is coming out and I know it is an anticipated one! Hoping it won't take long...

Who's a Good Boy: New chapter is in the works but not the priority fic at the moment!

The Yuuji Files: I am hoping a new update will happen SOON as I work through the scenes in this one. It is going to be a meaty chapter though as it has a lot of little plots going on in the B-plot area.

Careful What you Joke About: Also working on the next chapter now that the rewrites have been completed for the outline <3 I hope I haven't kept anyone waiting too long!

Mirrored Lives: Still need to rework and rewrite the outline and plot and get it to a point I'm more satisfied with.

LONG FICS MHA

What Sacrifices Heroes make that go Unsung: I WANT TO WRITE THE NEXT THREE CHAPTERS SO BAD AHHHH! I am going to push to make time to work on this one as ugh! I love it in my HEART so much and want to share ; w ;

A Rut Time of It: It is on the backburner as I get other fix worked out and finished up!

ONE-SHOTS IN PROGRESS

Pull Me Along if I Can’t Move Forward: Izuku/Bakugo sweet fic that is still in slow slow progress. Going to see if I can't finish it up soon!

Heatwaves and Curses Don't Mix: A pwp fic of Nobara/Yuuji/Sukuna with true-form Sukuna and his double dongs. Just pure smut for the heck of it that is slowly coming together

Playing House: Sukuita fic where Sukuna makes Yuuji play house like they did when kids but takes it too far. A pwp fic idea suggested when I was in the mood and is close to being done c:

Take Me to Prom?: Sukita one shot where Yuuji blackmails his cousin Sukuna to cross dress and take him to prom as his date. Shenanigans ensue

Once Upon a Blob: Sukuna, now Blobkuna, has a plan to get his body back and it involves the old fairy tale cliche of love's true kiss. Chaos ensures.

And That's When I knew It: A silly Uraraka/Kirishima one-shot where something horribly embarrassing happens and feelings are had (and spice XD)

FUTURE FANFICS IN PROGRESS

Culturally Inappropriate: Starting to outline the fic and name the characters who are going to be with Yuuji through the Possessed Anonymous group. Letting it build its own themes and feeling good about it so far!

This is the sequel to Historically Inaccurate and keeps moving with the themes and Sukuna and Yuuji building their relationship as vessel and and cursed spirit while also their personal healing. Gonna be good hopefully!

Law Meets Disorder: (Maybe changing to Law and Disorder for the title) Still mapping out my ideas but might get to finally finishing up the outline soon!

The Dragon Story: Still more an idea with more worldbuilding done than plot. Need to find a solid plot for it....

We Wretched Few: Heian Era court drama fanfic with an ABO flair to it that I've been poking around at :b

[voidlingduck]

Hazbin Hotel - Thoughts and Rewrite

Having seen the first four episodes of Hazbin Hotel, and having been casually following the Hellaverse since the pilot (I have watched the shows but not consumed any outside material) - I have had a lot of thoughts about the storytelling of Hazbin Hotel so far. In discussing my thoughts and feelings with @ekholocationn I ended up having some ideas on how I would handle the overall arc and plot of the show to make for a tighter narrative and address some of the flaws I found with the work.

This is very much a broad strokes kind of rewrite at this point, and trying to stay relatively true to what has been presented to us so far - it mostly involves shuffling things around and reorganising/refocusing the plot.

The main complaint with the plot of the show is that the Heaven plotline feels rushed and the cards are being played too soon, what feels like it should be a twist is laid bare in the first episode and furthermore it undermines the very purpose of the Hotel and Charlie's plan. Heaven as not merely an antagonistic, but an actively villainous force, feels like it's come too soon - and the way it's being explored isn't really satisfying. Camilla's reluctance to fight is difficult to justify, where Velvette, who is arguably framed as a villain, seems to be onto something and correct.

Speaking of Velvette however, her and the Vee's are what I feel are the shows strongest aspect at this point. These are villains that have incredibly strong personality and presence, and moreso, personal connections and investment to the cast at the hotel. Vox and Velvette's songs are some of my favourites, and Valentino is shown to be a serious threat to Angel and his potential for redemption.

This in mind, in my rewrite of the show, Season 1 of Hazbin Hotel would cast the Vee's as the primary antagonists to the hotel, and leave the angel's in heaven and their villainy as a mystery and twist reveal for later in the show.

Charlie has no reason to believe her plan won't work, in fact, she has a powerful Overlord as a benefactor - who while he seems to be a little disparaging, is still putting resources into her project. She is doing what she can to try and rehabilitate these sinners, however, the Vee's want to see this project fail and become active threats to the Hotel. Vox, because of his rivalry with Alastor, and Valentino because he wants to keep control of angel. The primary tension is the push and pull between Charlie as a force of redemption and light, and the Vee's as a representation of temptation, vice and hell's worst qualities trying to keep the sinners down. Charlie does not meet with Adam and the angels in Episode 1, rather, she is seen to be optomistic and hopeful, and Heaven is kept as this guarded mystery and protectors of order and goodness.

What about Velvette the other Overlords, and the angels though? I greatly enjoyed Respectless, and I don't want to snub Velvette, who is clearly a powerful villain in her own right. I don't want to completely erase the plot of the exterminated angel and Heaven's violence from the show. I would keep the scene of the Overlords meeting, and Velvette revealing the angel's severed head, however I would make a few tweaks. Firstly, this would be the first time we find out about the fact that an angel was killed - we are just as shocked as the other Overlords. Secondly, the Hazbin Hotel would be more of a point of discussion, and we would get a more overarching conflict between the Hotel and the Vees regarding what to do about the problem of Angel Extermination. Do we attempt to redeem sinners? Or do we just kill the Angels? I think for the purpose of this plot, the revelation that Heaven is moving up its extermination would coincide with the meeting of the Overlords, really being a trigger for it, and this episode would act as a midpoint - raising the stakes and introducing the broader conflict after a few episodes settling into the attempts fo the Hotel to redeem sinners and the Vee's attempts to intervene.

In this story rather than being the way the show opens, Charlie meeting with the angels would instead be a sort of climactic moment - and the revelation that Adam is a jerk and Heaven has no intention of letting sinners rise but instead wants to exterminate them would be a sort of Darkest Hour moment for Charlie. Her plan has failed, the Vee's are gaining more support... This way, there's been some build up, and the twist feels more like a twist - and it also feels like more of a gut-wrenching betrayal because both us and Charlie by this point would have investment in her plan and a hope that it might actually work.

I want to see how the show handles it's ending before I fully flesh out this rewrite, but for now this is the sort of broad strokes as to how I would approach structuring Hazbin Hotel if I were to rework it. I may or may not expand on these thoughts later when there is more material to work with! This post also does not touch on more nuanced topics such as the shows handling of sensitive issues and character arcs, it is more of a broad strokes analysis and retooling.

I thought it might be fun to share my thoughts and I hope people enjoy them! I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this as well :)

[lafaiette]

Tagged by the wonderful @emmg, I LOVED these questions about what our Inquisitor would do in Veilguard!

Tagging @lateforjianghu @andauril @canticle-of-apotheosis @beardedladyqueen

1. Their reaction to the Evanuris (fangirl/sigh/show them the middle finger/blink because they have no idea who they even are??/ask if evanuris is a new gluten free diet/suggest a ghilan’nain-elgar’nan-themselves 3sum because hot shit when will they ever get an opportunity like that again) → Scarlet is like "DAMN, you're ugly 💀" when she sees Ghilan'nain, and I'm pretty sure she will curse at Elgar'nan

2. How are they saying hi to Solas (punch/kiss/hiss/once again—middle finger/offer him a stylish hat??) → kiss ❤️first she smiles at him, then once things are less awkward between them, they hug and kiss (and make love). TEN YEARS. TEN YEARS OF LONGING.

3. What’s their go-to reaction when Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast recommends them a book? → She reads it straight away - they have the same tastes when it comes to literature. Smutty books with campy dialogues, over-the-top plot twists, and cliffhangers? She's in.

4. What did they do at the Winter Palace? No like really. Hook up? Get drunk and chat with the golden nug? Egg on every noble? → She ate and pocketed away all the sweets she could find. She also ate a lot, because the food was genuinely good and interesting! At the end of the night, when it was time to finally go to sleep, she and Solas used his hat to stash away the squishier, more delicate sweets and eat them in their room. <3

5. This is very important—did they have the ugly Qunari Par Vollen bed in their quarters and if not why did they make the wrong choice? (lmao I love that bed, so stupid) → sdkfkdglf no, Scarlet had the Free Marches bed! Comfortable, large enough for her and Solas, and she covered it with Dalish blankets her clan sent her.

6. Who is their bff? → Dorian, Cole, Cassandra, and Varric. But Dorian is definitely her top BFF.

7. What have they been up to in the 10 years between Inquisition and Veilguard? → Recovering from the loss of her arm, giving advice to Dorian through their crystals, helping her clan in Wycome, assisting Varric and Harding in their search for Solas even though she can't be directly involved.

8. The most important question: how do they plan to annoy Solas in Veilguard? → Talks about the funny things they went through during their time in the Inquisition. It's not really annoying, she actually tries to make him smile. 😭

"Solas, do you remember when we fell into that bush of nettles, and our backs itched for days?"

"I... Yes."

"And when Cole brought all those rabbits into the stronghold, and they nibbled at your notes?"

"Ah, how I mourned that research. It took me hours to rewrite it all down."

"And that day in Emprise du Lion when we were out of supplies, but finally found some wild game to eat?"

"You made quite the good stew!"

"We wolfed it down, wouldn't you say? :D"

"Vhenan."

[itsclydebitches]

Trying to do a RWBY V9 rewrite where I actually address Penny’s death and I’m just, hitting a fucking wall. I was using a lot of “Penny was already dead as soon as Cinder got to her” ideas to justify Jaune’s decision, only to get smacked in the face with Jaune’s healing aura. There is really no way for me to write V9 without either, not acknowledging Jaune’s actions or going full throttle on making Jaune a shitty person. GOD, this show sucks

Where I personally get hung up in revised Volume 9 imaginings is his motivation. I've got no problem making a character a "shitty person" for a Volume—AKA making awful decisions with horrific outcomes that they need to come to terms with/perhaps make amends for, but are ultimately not reflective of their desire to do good—but I can't for the life of me come up with a good reason for why Jaune wouldn't try to save Penny. As you say, we can go the "she was already on death's door" route, but I had a problem with that logic in the canon, specifically because a) Jaune is not a doctor, b) Penny has had a human body for all of half an hour and doesn't know shit about what can and can't kill her, and c) even if they did somehow know for sure she couldn't make it, Jaune would have still tried. Not only does he have a healing semblance which makes him the one character perfectly justified in at least attempting a hail Mary, he's also the character who missed Cinder's attack on Amber, was kept from helping Pyrrha, and went through the horror of saving Weiss. Much like Ruby's "This is my fight too!" Jaune is primed to fight death kicking and screaming so that it doesn't take another of his friends. There is no consistent version of his character that rolls over and doesn't just let Penny die, but actively helps her do it.

Unless, that is, her death was inevitable AND not assisting her would cause harm to others. This is what Volume 8 tried to convey, but ultimately failed at. Spectacularly. As established, there's no reason for Jaune to buy into the supposed inevitability of Penny's death and, worse, the show has been wishy-washy af regarding the passing of the Maiden powers. Since Jaune is not privy to future scenes shown only to the audience—that is, Penny meeting with Winter—he'd have no reason to believe that killing Penny a few minutes faster would somehow keep the powers from Cinder's hands. For all he knows (and, frankly, for all we know based on RWBY's lackluster logic) the power still would have gone to Cinder due to her grimm hand involvement, or because she's still in Penny's thoughts as her (initial) killer, or maybe it goes to Weiss because she's in her line of sight, or Penny plans to send it to Winter by the act of dying means her thoughts panic and the powers just fly off somewhere else. Literally nothing established, "If you kill me now instead of letting Cinder's wound do the job I can DEFINITELY get this power to an ally instead," so to put that suuuuper iffy plan on the shoulders of the character who could have just saved her, or at least would have thought he could and been determined to try, is quite an egregious case of "Stupid for the sake of plot."

Honestly, fixing this mess requires fixing the death scene itself, ideally with work done far earlier throughout the series. The only thing I can think to do in a completely canon-compliant Volume 9 would be to have the girls act as audience stand-ins. That is, have Team RWBY asking all the questions we've been voicing. What convinced you that Penny was definitely dying? Why were you so sure this would keep the powers safe? Have Weiss gesture to her abdomen and emphasize that he healed her after she was stabbed with a flaming spear and you couldn't fix Cinder poking some holes an inch or two into Penny's chest?? Jaune shoots back that he needed to help her and she screams that he didn't, she was holding her own, and why the hell would you prioritize me potentially being mortally wounded by Cinder when Penny was already dying? Even if she couldn't be saved, why didn't you try?

Jaune's response would then set the tone for his arc throughout the rest of the Volume. Did he just panic? Is his ability to assess a situation compromised? Is he becoming colder, perhaps rejecting the idea that they should attempt hail Marys at all rather than just taking what seems to be the safest route? Idk. This is why my metas back around Volume 6 still held out hope and by Volume 8 had become a lot more pessimistic. We reached a point where even if RWBY gets its writing act together, there's simply too much damage to finish the series strong. Once you mess up that badly you'll continually hit those roadblocks of, "Hmm. How do I make that make sense?" and if the answer is, "I can't" it's just perpetual bad writing by virtue of RWBY having to build on what it set down before. (And no, the irony of us having this problem in a series that is simultaneously so inconsistent is not lost on me lol.)

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 2, Part 2/3 (p. 440-614)

Read the previous post here.

We pick up this second third of Act 2 by reading another section of Rose's GameFAQs walkthrough.

Credit where it's due, I like this section title.

Rose wants to know more about this hypothetical Pornsprite. This girl is freaky. Too bad Ao3 didn't go into open beta until a few months after Homestuck began, she would've been all about it.

Interesting how she only cites part of her guide as "logorrheic sludge." Honey, that's the entire guide. Brevity is not your strong suit.

Rose and Jade's first pesterlog. I'll use this as the jumping off point to talk about Jade since she has only appeared sporadically at this point and none of her logs were worth talking about.

Actually, she did have one log in Act 1 where she asks John about his present. The one interesting thing is that she apparently didn't know what Sburb was when John mentioned it.

So John, Rose, and Dave all knew about Sburb and none of them thought to tell Jade about it? Huh... guess that tells us a lot about the dynamics of their friend group.

Anyway, I realize this might be a "hot take" given her inexplicable popularity in the fandom, but I don't like Jade. And unlike with John, there never was a point where I did. I am of the mind that Homestuck would've been much stronger and have a tighter pace if she was cut from the cast of kids (or at least, this version of her. The story could also work if she had some heavy rewrites) and it was limited to John, Rose, and Dave. Rose and Dave alone make for an engaging pair, and I suppose John acts as a sort of "anchor" to ground their increasingly esoteric insincerity and bullshit. If he was fleshed out more, it definitely would've worked.

But Jade doesn't help with this dynamic at all. Like John, Jade is also much more grounded and sincere, but her personality is also coupled with an overwhelming optimism where she believes everything will be okay if left up to chance. If John is true neutral, Jade is 100% positive. He barely reacts to the otherworldly things happening to him, but she actively seems to enjoy them (the meteor crashing near her house is something she wants to explore regardless of the risk, and John struggling in Sburb is "exciting").

She doesn't serve as a convincing counterbalance to Rose and Dave and comes across as more of an extraneous extension of John's lack of danger sense than anything else. Do we really need two happy-go-lucky kids with slight variations on the same niche? The very fact that the story is able to progress without her involvement thus far shows just how little she matters.

These first two acts shroud her in so much mystery, and we barely know anything about her even through these sparse pesterlogs. (As we later see, this amounts to nothing, so all this intrigue is unfounded and only leads to an unsatisfying payoff). At this point in the story, we only know that she lives with her grandfather and someone named Bec (which Dave refers to as a "devilbeast"), she has a "goofy modus" which frustrates even Dave (who, mind you, mocked John for using a simple modus earlier), she lives in a far-off part of the world, and that she has some degree of inexplicable precognition.

Jade's cutesy cagey attitude about her precognitive abilities is fucking annoying, and it is perhaps the worst thing about reading her logs. "oh gee i know all this stuff but its a secret and you gotta find out on your own tee hee! :)" This truly is typical hackshit writing when handling characters with prophetic knowledge. You can't make them too useful, or else there won't be suspense or conflict. Instead they have to act as a ineffectual plot device to softly guide the characters along. Except she doesn't do any guiding. She just unhelpfully alludes to things that the others don't know yet and leaves it at that.

In fact, Jade as a whole is less of a character and more of a plot device, by which I mean she doesn't have any sort of character to speak of. Her overbearing cheerfulness is not endearing to read, neither is her dropping hints that she knows more about what she lets on. She doesn't have any entertaining chemistry with the others either. Her interactions with John are like watching two morons acting excited with each other while the world is literally ending around them. Dave intentionally strips himself of his personality because he has a crush on her and wants to impress her by being "nice," but she doesn't seem to reciprocate his feelings at all. Also, come on, dude, Rose is right there.

Rose is the only one who shows any scrutiny about Jade's "quirky" clairvoyance. But even so, she only expresses this through occasional, bemused remarks. Jade dodges the question whenever Rose asks how she knows about things she realistically shouldn't, and Rose doesn't ever press further.

So Rose had prior knowledge about a game that will bring her cat to life. We later find out that this opportunity to revive Jaspers was her her motivation for playing Sburb. Doesn't seem worth ending the world for, but whatever. I daresay this casts Jade in a bit of a villainous role for planting the idea in Rose's head in the first place.

Actually, if Jade ended up being a twist villain, that would've been interesting and provide, you know, intrigue! Or if nothing else, it would've at least added something of substance to her character, something she desperately needs. Even ignoring that angle, you'd think the other kids might be more than a little resentful toward Jade since she knew the world was going to end, yet never told any of them about it.

But no, Hussie can't implement anything that would've been conducive to good storytelling. Especially if it leads to, gasp, conflict!

Okay, enough of Jade, let's get moving.

I want to bring attention to this passage and compare it to the earlier "symphony impossible to play" one with Rose. First of all, it's worth noting the rain/drought contrast between their respective settings. Unlike the more elegant and cerebral prose in Rose's section, this one reads more like a stream of consciousness from Dave's perspective. Loose and casual, even ending with a Snoop Dogg-esque rhyme at the end before transitioning to an actual Snoop Dogg verse.

Yeah, for those who haven't caught on, John Keats didn't actually say that. Very easy to miss, I'm sure. For those counting, this is also misattributed quote gag #5. I am positively rolling with laughter.

I find it noteworthy the room where Bro has his whole setup is stated to be the living room, not a bedroom. I'm quite certain that the Striders live in a one-bedroom apartment where Dave gets the room and Bro has all his shit in the living room and kitchen.

Dave's relationship with Bro is an inverse of John and Rose's relationships with their guardians. Whereas Dad and Mom decorate their homes with shit they think their kids will like in order to seek their approval, Bro isn't doing any of this for Dave's sake. He fills his home with his puppets and weapons because he's the one into that shit (ironically or otherwise, it doesn't matter). Dave in turn adopts Bro's mannerisms because he craves his approval.

The amount of mental hoops he needs to make in order to justify his brother's fixation on sex and puppets is concerning. Is Bro even being "ironic" or is that just an excuse he tells Dave so he doesn't have to explain this stuff any further? I think the love of Lil Cal, his childhood possession and best friend, led to a love of puppets being a core part of his personality. Everything else that extends from that is up to interpretation.

Like Dave, Bro is also a hipster doofus who does things seen as patently "uncool" in a bold display of being unique. The logic is such: a disregard for what society deems "cool" is what leads to it becoming "cool" ironically. At a glance, Bro's interests include typically "cool" things like ninja weapons, video games, and rapping. Bro plays with expectations by using these interests, which he may very well only enjoy ironically, in conjunction with puppets, which he loves genuinely but passes them off as ironic since most people deem them creepy and uncool. Applying a sexual element to the puppets makes an interest in them even creepier, so Bro does so if only to make his love for them appear even more ironic.

Convoluted and confusing? Yeah, that's Bro Strider, baby.

I don't know how necessary it was to show just how Dave gave Lil Cal a fist bump, but I do like this panel. One of the few reminders we get that these characters are, in fact, small children.

Bro's 6-character password is "puppet" right? It has to be. (Correction: a helpful anon has informed me that the password is actually "lilcal"). Also, just like his home, his desktop organization is also a mess. There's no method to this man's madness.

For all the negligence and questionable parenting methods Bro is guilty of, he still cares for Dave in some capacity. He stays up to date on his webcomic and blogs, and even hangs up one of Dave's SBaHJ drawings on the fridge. I wonder if Bro, on some level, likes the idea of raising a kid that he can raise to be just like him, but is just a woefully inept guardian that he doesn't know the first thing about parenting.

Remember, these are the kinds of websites Rose says she likes.

Just gonna say perhaps it's not ideal that Dave is being exposed to this kind of thing at such a young age. As much as he idolizes Bro and wants to emulate him, he can't get over the fact that all this sex stuff disturbs him. Yet he doesn't even view it as sexual, only as a form of irony, one he can't comprehend until he can somehow overcome his aversion toward it. It's kinda sad, really.

Unsettled, Dave's first recourse is to talk to John to try and calm down. John leaves him hanging. Such a good friend, am I right? He then goes to Rose, where they have the earlier conversation where she says she likes Bro's websites, but this time we get added context.

Dave of course is attempting to act casual about the whole thing, only slightly alluding to his deeper distress, and Rose is just like "That shit rules. I like it." This whole exchange is both tragic and darkly comedic.

Rose really does come across as a little pervert sometimes. She casually drops sexually charged phrases in conversation ("sun's lurid glare"), her username is a lewd double entendre (tentacle the... I'll let you finish that phrase), and she does show a marked interest in sexual topics (Bro's websites, the Pornsprite... honestly I'm surprised she doesn't suggest that to Dave at any point).

Both she and Dave play with innuendo and act as though they're mature and know all about sex. However, Dave's attitude toward sex is more a response to his exposure to it at a young age, whereas Rose is more casual about it and sees her flippant attitude toward it as a mark of maturity. She must love treating sex as this trivial little thing that might make others uncomfortable, but not her because she's soooo grown up.

Also, if Rose truly did give a shit about psychoanalysis, she probably would've picked up on Dave's cries for help in his messages. She really isn't as perceptive as she lets on.

Thank you, Rose, for saying what I was thinking.

Rose gets a kick out of Dave's webcomic and laughs when John makes references to it. Also, she doesn't tell John about what Dave told her earlier about the puppets when he mentions it. How nice of her. John is a fucking jackass though. Seriously, fuck him.

I'm putting a pin in this for later. Rose being able to "see only [...] what John can see, or has seen already" will be important to note later on.

Another tragicomic exchange where Rose continues to make light of Dave's distress. I wonder if she is incapable of seeing Dave as being sincere in this moment and thinks he's overreacting as a part of their usual back-and-forth.

Here it is. My favorite Homestuck page.

Dave wants to please Bro and goes along with his shtick no matter how far he pushes the envelope. This only encourages Bro to go further and further in his methods of fucking with Dave. Is his end goal to push Dave to a breaking point, or does he truly hope something with click that will make Dave truly understand him? Either way, it's fucked up.

I didn't want to get into Bro Discourse during this reread. I know there are opposing camps who either think he's a monstrous child abuser, or a silly guy who did no wrong. Personally, I think that while he doesn't read as outright malicious, it's safe to say this dude is a menace and has no business raising a kid.

It's really skeevy of Bro to incorporate his underage brother in his fetish videos, which will doubtless be uploaded to his site for others to view. This is probably the one of the more damning things he's guilty of.

Bro has reduced the kitchen as a storage space for his weapons. It's a wonder how he's able to take care of himself, let alone a child.

It's stated that Bro doesn't have anywhere else to store his stuff, which further reinforces my theory that Dave has the only bedroom in the apartment.

Yes. Thank you. One can only watch characters launch objects at high speeds for so long.

Dave's sylladex shenanigans are a little more tolerable than John's. Assigning different names to objects in order to make them fit in the modus is more fun than watching things eject once the deck is full.

This metaphor caught me off guard. It's so abrupt and out of pocket, I love it.

Shit's about to go down. Let's see how things resolve when I finish Act 2 next week.

Read the next post here.

[switch]

Hi Switch! You're the Moriarty Expert I trust the most, so I thought I'd ask. Can you explain the reason you dislike Ruler Moriarty as if I'm an idiot/have little FGO knowledge? I play the game, but I barely know anything about meta, writers, or any sort of controversies and I figured you'd be able to give an objective rundown of why the character is bad for someone who might not get any out-of-game context. If you don't want to that's okay too!!! Have a good day either way

uhh to put it in the simplest possible terms, and with an immediate clarification that this is not about ‘he’s cringe’ or ‘i don’t think he’s hot’, there were three different ingame side-stories which all happened about 2 years before ruler ever released, and these side stories set up that there was going to be a Plot Event involving two different characters (sherlock and enkidu, we don’t know if these plots were planned to intersect or not), and moriarty was heavily involved in both. the basic setup was:

1. moriarty wanting the main character to trust him over sherlock if anything happens, being concerned that sherlock would be willing to do something extreme to save humanity that moriarty doesn’t want him to do (to clarify moriarty isn’t good in this situation and sherlock isn’t necessarily evil it’s just a whole thing i won’t get into here), suppressing the protagonist’s memories of this conversation so sherlock doesn’t get suspicious, and then he has a very vague and open-ended speech at the end about what’s gonna happen next.

2. moriarty outright saying he’s planning to turn enkidu into some kind of weapon and isn’t going to give the main character a say in the matter, and having a vague open-ended speech about what’s gonna happen next

these side stories are still in the game. they can still be read. but at some point, the culmination to the sherlock plot was pushed to happen much earlier in the writing process because the original chapter it was slated for got bloated, and some rewrites happened…

so after 2 years of being excited to see those stories play out, what we actually got was, uh, just ruler. all of a sudden. this new cooler younger moriarty who is an extremely different character just showed up with no foreshadowing because they did not have time to foreshadow him, made holmes kill himself, and… that was it. moriarty himself did not factor into this chapter at all. him being worried what sherlock was gonna do that he didn’t want him to? erasing the protag’s memories? enkidu? not relevant at all. moriarty’s side story i mentioned up there, which was supposed to be a prelude to this plot event, wasn’t even made universally available to players who don’t have him for this chapter (they usually do this for side stories relevant to main chapters), it was suddenly so irrelevant.

moriarty got a followup side story after this that… still didn’t address any of the still hanging plot threads. it’s just him talking about how he’s sad that sherlock is dead, but also sherlock is definitely going to come back since he killed himself at a recreation of reichenbach so obviously that didn’t kill him (okay). no open-endedness. a lot of moriarty fans felt like it read like a character retirement. and also kind of just like a commercial for whatever new sherlock unit we’re probably going to get down the line. absolutely nothing like his previous ones. the only acknowledgement of how weird this all is was just him going “oh, it just happened sooner than i expected” which frankly feels like the writers just looking directly at the audience to wave it away.

and, more infuriatingly, an interview with the writers shortly after (the same one that confirmed the rewrites/early sherlock plot happened) outright said that yeah, ruler wasn’t originally part of the plan, they kinda just made him because they wanted to see a young moriarty and decided to use him. they also stated that young moriarty still had a role to play in the story (he also blew up at the end of that chapter), which they never do for characters? which, like, okay, what about moriarty?? the guy whose dropped plots you can still access in the game??

so yeah anyway it’s been 2 years and moriarty is still in hell. i mean they still use him in marketing once in a while given he was one of the most recognizable fgo originals, but he never gets to show up in any events without being attached to ruler, despite everyone insisting at the time that he definitely wasn’t functionally being replaced, and all the relevancy is on ruler as the Real Main Story Character, so you can maybe understand why moriarty fans who actually read those side stories and that interview feel like we got shafted just so they could sell a new, coincidentally more conventionally marketable unit. so naturally we’re gonna be kind of pissed off by the character they did said shafting with.

also as more of an aside, moriarty is a really bad unit gameplay wise who hasn’t been buffed in like four years (and his only two buffs were actually kind of bad but that��s getting picky), and ruler is a lot better than he is. moriarty didn’t even get a pity buff or anything, so that’s salt in the wound. a bit more subjectively, ruler enjoyers are also chronically really bad at tagging him distinctly from moriarty so if you want to look up fanart of moriarty but not ruler you basically go to hell forever. moriarty even has a nickname thats contextually unique to him (shincha) but it gets used for ruler so much against all sense you can’t even use that to avoid him, it’s so bad. i filtered everything i could think of and i still just had to stop going into moriarty’s tags on here after ruler happened, which just makes me sad.

[floraracoon]

Gems of Dupont - Rewrite

Since it's been bothering me these past few days, this is a list of how I would rewrite a fic I wrote last year, called The Gems of Dupont on Ao3 if I were to do so.

Spoiler Warning if you want to read the fic then read this

Premise: There is a group of students who while anonymous, are known to have a lot of power. Namely, they have a history of getting rid of unsavory figures in the school or associated with it. Their current targets are Marinette (stalking, minor abuse of power, and her actions towards her 'rivals'), Adrien (bystander, actions as Chat Noir towards Ladybug, etc.), Lila (obvious), Alya (misinformation, slander, and something else), Mme. Bustier (bystander, emotional manipulation, poor teaching methods), Mr. Damocles (fraud, neglect, etc.), and Fu (facing the consequences of his own actions)

Problems: A scene that I did not flesh out enough to show the reasoning behind it, too many characters involved in the takedown, illogical plot points, involving characters that make no sense, and moving too fast due to me losing interest but not wanting to go on hiatus or abandoning the work.

The Rewrite:

Establishing the Gems -

The sign of the Gems (a wreath of gems on Mme. Mendelieve's door) is shown, causing rumors to spread through the school

Adrien, Alya, and Lila ask what they are, giving them the full explanation

The Gems are a group of six that every year go through and gather evidence of people's wrongdoings, before giving them to those that would cause the most change. This most of the time results in someone leaving the school. When they are done, gems are left where the person sits. Each gem represents something, and while there are six Gems, there are more gems.

Chloe scoffs out loud while Lila internally scoffs. Chloe thinks she is immune, as she has never been hit before. Lila scoffs because she thinks she hasn't been caught, to begin with.

Cut to a group chat, where two people are arguing over the nicknames they have in the chat. "Eye candy" seems particularly frustrated and claims they bring something more to the team than their good looks.

Safety Measures -

We see a week pass, with people becoming more and more anxious waiting for something to happen. Some sign that this wasn't a fluke. The first week is always when it is that they send out the warnings, where are the warnings?

But one day, as Nino walks in, having not arrived with Alya due to her running off to record an akuma fight, he finds a note sitting on his desk. The note contains a list of numbers and timestamps. A small doodle of a gem sitting in the corner.

On another day, Rose finds a small slip of paper that has Prince Ali's phone number on it, also with a small doodle of a gem in the corner

Luka opens a note left on his bed. He finds the chords for a song, with no lyrics. Each page has small annotations of cherry blossoms in places where lyrics would be, and a doodle of a gem in the bottom corner.

Kagami is surprised when a note falls out of her locker, with a message in brail saying "He hesitates, where is his backbone?". A gem is engraved on the page

The first -

Alya is the first to go down. After a fight between her and Nino that results in their break up, she learns that her parents got a similar note to the one that started the fight.

The numbers and timestamps were coded for different videos on the Ladyblog. The one for Nino was instances where Alya endangered him and those around him. The fight was about her recklessness, and her want to get up close to akuma fights with little regard for her safety.

The one her parents got, however, was every single time she had endangered herself.

The two of them were busy with work often, so they only really watched the videos Alya sent them. Often those were the ones where she stayed safe for the most part or had a lot of views.

So they opened her blog, to investigate what these timestamps were, only to find their daughter once again throwing herself into situations she shouldn't have. Along with countless posts trying to figure out the identities of people who were trying to protect the city and a single post that had them questioning her integrity.

The next day, Alya was pulled into distanced learning. She was also grounded until further notice, with no blog posting for one day per timestamp listed.

Will continue this post tomorrow, as this is getting really long

[not-goldy]

You are comparing apples to oranges.

JM showing up in a Tae live is not the same as Tae insisting on joining a show that JM and JK already planned and started to execute - with all investors, logictics, finance approvals and other arrangements planned out.

I don't know what's the issue here. If JM sent an invite to all in the group, then maybe Tae should have let him know he wants to join too. And that also rules out Tae's claims of "being hurt coz JM didn't invite". Coz JM did invite, based off that.

Jimin mentioned him and Tae hadn't met or spoken in a while. But JK was hanging out with Tae a lot, wasn't he? Then why didn't JK invite him? Tae has a habit of always throwing JM under the bus. And I can see why JM is wary of him.

All I am seeing on twitter, tiktok, YT and every other platform these past days is tkkrs and KTH solos hating on JM (and wishing him worst and d3ath) for "hurting Tae". Tired of them always throwing JM to the wolfs.

Well apples and oranges are all fruits so it's not that far off.

Okay. I'm so sorry I'm not gonna let you apply this double standard in peace. Whether it is live or a trip, a me time with a member is a me time with a member.

We don't get to tell them which form of it is more valid than the other. I'm so sorry.

The basic underlying principle here is the same and it is that they are All entitled to spend QUALITY TIME ALONE with whomever they choose whether it is alone on a live, alone in the back of a track, alone on a couch surrounded by other members or on an expensive trip somewhere.

You can not dictate for them which medium they should use, the resources they should invest in or the effort that must go into it. You are dead wrong if you believe that.

Even if Jikook had decided not to go on a trip but to spend those moments with their fans alone on live in the trunk of their car Tae would still be dead wrong if he inserted himself against their will.

You lot have lost the plot if you think the journey itself was what was special. The journey was just a means to an end- the end being Quality time with each other.

Miss me with the double standard

B. Well again, his feelings are valid. The last thing we are gonna do is invalidate people's feelings in this space. He said he wasn't invited, JM explained WHY HE WASN'T INVITED. If JM invited him, intended to invite him at all he would have said so and called Tae out for trying to start drama he ain't afraid to set record straight. Please let's not do this.

They didn't invite him. They had their reasons. Let's respect their reasons and let's respects Tae's feelings about it too. We ain't gonna rewrite the narrative arh arh. Neuw.

3. Your thoughts and feelings on this are equally valid. You are free to express them. Let's just keep it objective especially where someone who isn't your bias is involved. We gonna have a productive educative insightful discussion out of it that would help us break things down and unpack and understand their dynamics more. That is the whole point of this discussion y'all shouldn't turn this into a bloody war.

4. We dont know how Tae could possibly have not been invited. And this is something I pointed out earlier that if they have a group chat then wouldn't it have been the case that if Jikook had posted to the group that everyone including V would have seen it?

However the fact Jimin himself explained that Tae was busy with promotions so they didn't invite him also raises question mark. It's okay to admit we don't know all the fact and we may need further clarification of it from both of them.

Because it would have been easy for Jimin to say, well we didn't invite everyone individually we posted to the group and everyone responded but you.

And then Tae would have had to explain why he didn't check his messages in which case him being busy with schedule would have made so much sense.

But let's refrain from invalidating his feelings they are as valid as your opinion.

5. Tae hadn't met or spoken in a while- true, but then Jimin also explained to Jungkook that he face timed V at least once in a month so there's that.

6. I see your point about Tae not putting JK on the spot too. We already discussed this and every one shared their opinion as to why that is. If you have opinions on this that will help us understand why that is better feel free to share with the class

We all talking because we all seeking understanding of their situation. If you don't have anything helpful to add on Tag your posts as rant so I know what to do with it