#kuro rants

[kurowrites]

@my neighbours: is it really necessary to bang around every goddamn Sunday morning from 7am sharp?

Can't you do things, I don't know, QUIETLY?? Enjoy the peace and quiet from time to time?

MAYBE LET OTHERS SLEEP IN FROM TIME TO TIME?

[kurai-hono-blog]

Also if your hyperfixation readings have made it so you just happen to know more than kids your grade. Which translates to you answering any questions asked by teachers during class discussions. But you still suck at getting good grades. Which is then attributed to you being just too lazy to study and score well.

[kurai-hono-blog]

Smol vent-

It's 1 am I have work tom. Dealing with cough, periods, travel aches and a menty B. So many dark swirling thoughts, closing my eyes to the darkness in my room to the grey static of tear stained eyes. I need someone to take my brain out and just grate it. Maybe the shreds won't feel the pain, maybe the currents will still pass to form another nightmare like this reality. Idk if I need a grater or a particularly warm hug.

[cosmiclion]

I'm dead serious some of y'all need to stop commenting shit like "Kill it with fire!!1!" on every post of a bug or any "scary" creature you see. Idgaf if you have a phobia or how many legs it has, having such a violent hateful reaction to any animal is just not normal behavior. And that goes double for posts by someone who's happy about the creature, I'm not asking you to go cuddle bugs just to mind your own business, people don't want to hear how much you hate something they like.

[plague-of-insomnia]

gotta love when someone makes a post like “ship and let ship” and 50% of the comments are like “unless it’s proship”

like honey, SWEETIE, if you are ship and let ship then you don’t care about ANY ships other people ship… you can’t qualify it or you negate it entirely

[eraenia-era]

Brant

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Keep hearing people say maribug keep asking adricat if he's ok and he keep saying he's ok instead of telling her his problem but I don't remember it happened more than once in s4 in Rockettear but even then the circumstances of that episode did warrant the "nothing" answer he gave her unless he want to tell her that "nino tell me you let nino and alya know each other identity" which will reveal adricat identity. So when else did she ask? about the thing in hack-san, I think another credit goes to alya since she's the one who bring the topic to maribug who seems to be blissfully unaware that her leaving without telling adeicat that she send subtitute would be a problem.

I didn't get into this side of things in my other post because it was long and I wanted to focus on why Chat Noir's behavior was so frustrating, but this ask brings up the other big reason why the season four conflict was such a frustrating and terribly written plot line. Specifically, the part of your ask where you point out that Maribug seems blissfully unaware that her actions are having a negative impact on Chat Noir until someone points it out to her.

Yes, she is presented as blissfully unaware of this and every other interpersonal conflict we're given in season four. Your ask treats this as a failing on Maribug's part as if she should have obviously realized that she was in the wrong, but that's the whole problem. Telling kids - telling anyone really - that they should just magically know what others need is a frankly terrible life lesson as that's just not how the world works. You cannot just assume that everyone will have the same view of the world as you do and instantly pick up on the same issues as you do. That is the path to easily avoidable frustration and conflict. It also teaches people to assume that their view of the world is inherently correct when that is rarely the case. We often don't know the whole story and the other person's point of view may end up being equally or even more valid. This issue is extremely present in season four as Marinette has legitimate reasons to behave the way she does, which I'll get into in a bit.

If Marinette were written as feeling guilty about how she was treating Chat Noir, then this would be a different story. She'd be way more in the wrong and would shoulder a much greater portion of the blame. But as is? She has no idea that she's doing anything wrong. And until someone takes the time to tell her that her actions are causing harm, she is going to continue causing harm because she has no idea that she's causing harm.

In fact, I'd argue that the Alya thing in Hack San is a point in Maribug's favor. Throughout the episode, we see Marinette sending Alya messages on ways to be a good partner to Chat Noir, proving that she does in fact care about him. And then, as soon as Alya says, "You need to talk to Chat Noir," what does Maribug do?

She goes and talks to Chat Noir, giving him a pretty good apology for the problem she now knows she caused. Because, shockingly, Maribug doesn't actually want to hurt her partner. She also clearly cares about his feelings, making me want to take the season four conflict and tear it into itty bitty pieces because what is the conflict even supposed to be when you write shit like this?

I want to briefly step away from Miraculous and talk about this issue in a broader context via this YouTube short:

This short is from a Vietnamese woman who moved to Germany. Her YouTube channel is about her experiences there, including things like the short above which goes into the differences between what it means to be a dinner guest in Vietnam and what it means to be a dinner guest in Germany. In Vietnam, it's apparently standard for the guests to cook dinner with you where as, in Germany, you're expected to have the meal ready when the guests arrive, making this a situation where it's super easy to come across as rude just by doing what you think is normal.

Society is relatively aware that these types of culture clashes are a thing, but you don't have to be from different cultures to have these types of situations. Every person has their own unique needs and ideas of what "normal" is. The culture they were raised in will affect this, but so will their family, their personal needs, and many other factors. Two people can be raised on the same street and wind up with wildly different world views even though they supposedly share a culture. This is extra true when you add in compounding factors like neurodiversity, which is why it's an exercise in futility to say, "But Maribug should have realized..."

Well, she clearly didn't. And you can't change that she didn't realize whatever you're mad about. All you can do is have someone tell her what she's doing wrong. If she then continues the behavior, go ahead and judge away. But if she immediately corrects it like she did in Hack San? Doesn't that just prove that she truly didn't know that Chat Noir was hurting and would have probably fixed all of his problems if someone just pointed them out to her?

This is only exacerbated by the fact that Marinette's behavior in season four is largely unchanged from her behavior in previous seasons. The only major change is that she revealed her identity to Alya, but as soon as that's pointed out as a problem, she course corrects with an apology. After that, she thinks that everything is okay because why wouldn't she? Chat Noir said it was fine and everything else has been business as usual.

Bringing temp heroes into help as needed? That's been going on since season two. Having these additional members has been vital in multiple battles and there have been plenty of times where Chat Noir took a background role to the temp hero of the day like in Sapotis, Rena Rouge's season two debut. So why would Maribug suddenly think that this dynamic is a problem when it's been working fine for so long? We even had a whole episode about how Chat Noir was still needed in spite of the new heroes back in season three! Or, at least, I think that was Desperada's message? This show is shockingly bad at giving clear lessons.

Keeping guardian knowledge from Chat Noir? That's also been going on since season two and was even treated as a conflict that supposedly got resolved in the episode Syren which was the episode that ended with Master Fu coming to the mansion to talk to Adrien after everything was over.

When I watched that episode, I assumed this meant that Chat Noir was going to be more involved in things like picking the temp heroes. I actually thought this was how we were going to get Queen Bee because I knew she was going to be a thing, but it made no sense for Marinette to pick Chloe for a miraculous. Of course, I was wrong. Nothing changed after Syren. Chat Noir remained nothing more than the comic relief while Ladybug got all the insider info.

To be clear, I think that was a terrible move writing wise, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what they went with. This is the established dynamic. I can't even say that Alya learning Marinette's secret led to something new. She's just taken Marinette's old role while Marinette has taken on Master Fu's old role. This show loves it's status quo and Chat Noir has been at least tolerant of that status quo since Syren, so it's not surprising that Maribug doesn't register that this is a thing that should change and no one bothers to point it out to her even though she has a mentor in Tikki (and Su Han, I guess?) and a confidant in Alya and a whole slew of Kwamis who could also provide insight if they were allowed to do that sort of thing. (Sass and Wayzz were robbed of mentor roles.) Additional blame goes to Plagg because he should absolutely have told Adrien to talk to Ladybug. What is the point of giving these characters mentors who never mentor? It's aggravating in the extreme.

To circle back to the first part of your ask, outside of Hack San and Rocketear, I don't think there are any times when Ladybug invites feedback from Chat Noir unless you want to give credit to the end of Kuro Neko:

Cat Noir: (lands next to her) I've been a really temperamental kitty, m'lady. I didn't realize how much trouble I'd make for you by giving back my Miraculous. Ladybug: (sits closer to him) Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir. No one could ever replace you.

Which isn't Maribug inviting him to tell her what's up, but she is clearly willing to listen to him and reassure him, further backing up my point about this conflict being some of the worst writing I've ever had to suffer through. If Maribug always fixes the issue as soon as she learns about it, you are not writing a situation where she's clearly in the wrong. You are writing an easily solved communication issue where she gets blamed for something she clearly doesn't realize she's doing wrong and it is so frustrating!!! I feel so bad for her. The next episode is Penalteam, btw, which starts the battle with this gem:

Ladybug: (laughs) Nice scare tactics, but it's not gonna work. Cat Noir and I are the best at soccer! Cat Noir: (Whispers to Ladybug) I don't know a thing about soccer M'lady. Maybe it's time to call the real team?

And basically just spends the whole episode making Chat Noir seems like a worthless partner while Maribug tries her best to make him - and everyone else - feel special.

Oh, and the episode before Kuro Neko? Well, it's technically Ephemeral, but that got magically overwritten so let's go one further back and we get to Dearest Family, which ends with this:

Cat Noir: (grabs a golden paper crown on the coffee table) Since I'm the king, (wears the crown on his head) would you be my queen, Ladybug? Ladybug: With pleasure, kitty cat! Tradition is tradition!

Oh yes, these two are in such conflict and Maribug does nothing to validate Chat Noir. He's in pain every episode and she's just totally oblivious to it.

If that was what they wrote, then I'd probably agree that we needed more instances of her asking if Chat Noir was okay. But it's not what they wrote. If you look through the list of season four episodes, you'll find that less than half of them deal with the supposed conflict of the season (by my count, only 8 of the 24 episodes before the final actually showcase the conflict and they are not in a logical order in terms of escalation as I tried to demonstrate above). The rest of the episodes flat out ignore it or even straight up work against the conflict like when Ladybug says this to Chat Noir in Guilttrip: "I probably don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't do this without you. And it'd be a lot less fun too."

Seriously, what even is this season? What is the conflict supposed to be? Because it sure as shit isn't Maribug undervaluing Chat Noir, if memory servers, season four sees her validate him more times than any other season. And it isn't her guiltily hiding things from him like so many fanfics claim because we have multiple points of evidence that prove that she's completely oblivious that there even is a conflict. So what conflict are the writers actually trying to write?

What's even more baffling is that none of this logically leads to the loss at the end of the season:

Maribug's new secrets didn't lead to her downfall. The only reason she lost was because of the secret that's always been there - a fact that's never revealed to her - and a freaking evil twin! So why did it matter that Maribug was keeping secrets? This is made even worse by season five maintaining all of the secrets, once again begging the question of what lesson were we trying to teach here???

Chat Noir wasn't needed for the final fight of the season, Maribug only needed the powers of a few of the temp heroes to win, a baffling ending to a season whose focus was Chat Noir feeling unimportant. You could scrap that conflict entirely and the ending would not change. In fact....

Adrien quitting to be nothing more than a good little boy who obeys his father would have actually saved the world from eventually being rewritten. If you think about it, the season four final actually punishes Adrien for being defiant. So does season five as, if Chat Noir had quit, his father would still be alive. I thought this show was supposed to be a romcom, not a tragedy. Why is Adrien being punished for being a hero? Is this supposed to be karma for lying to Ladybug with the whole Catwalker thing?

This shit is why I say I'm a writing salt, character sugar blog. I can't get mad at the characters when they're in such a nonsense story where things never logically tie together. They all deserve so much better.

None of this is meant to imply that ignorance is a blanket excuse for hurting others. Nor is it meant to imply that you have to forgive someone who hurt you just because they didn't mean to. There's a ton of nuance around these topics. But season four acknowledges none of that nuance while creating a situation that desperately needed nuance because there was no clear right and wrong here. Should Maribug work to be more aware of others feelings? Sure, but that journey can only start after she's made aware of her faults and no one ever points them out to her. Does Chat Noir need to work on clearly communicating his needs? Desperately, but no one is teaching him that lesson so he remains a terrible communicator who suffers in silence. What impressively bad writing.

[twopolars]

When they go back to the actual timeline, would Mahiru still be Tsubaki's eve?? Coz that meant Tsubaki subclasess would also be around Mahiru right??!! I really like the idea of Mahiru being surrounded by many people tbh 🥲. Plus Sakuya will be with him too. And I think it would be good too for Kuro... you know, bonding with the youngest brother who hated you in the past etc,etc.

Don't you think it's enough loneliness for Mahiru and Kuro? 🥲. Yes, I know that they found each other but the more the merrier right?

Or!! Whether Tsubaki wlil no longer be Mahiru's servamp, at least he considers Mahiru and Kuro to be the people he looked up to. That'll be great not only for Mahiru and Kuro, but also Tsubaki.

[grelleswife]

*grasping my fellow like-minded Kuro fans by the shoulders* Listen to me, comrades…we are NOT going to tolerate attempts to make The Cursed Ship popular and widely-accepted on this platform again, or misgendering of our lady Grelle Sutcliff, or sliding backwards into the mire of fandom toxicity, in the wake of this new anime announcement. We 🔥 are 🔥 not. 🔥

[aomiiine]

I feel like ive waited a millennia for brants banner

[so-bitya]

wonder if red felt pressured she had to act like that all the time, or disappointed that she couldn't live up to the image as well as her sister. so it didn't matter how she got with her husband, if she felt that herself was never good enough. it feels like she's demeaning herself the entire time while she's giving advice. so its not so surprising that she felt detached about him after he died.

[elencelebrindal]

Wuwa rant

I opened wuwa 3 times total this month. I'm so disgusted by the fanservice being shoved into the "story" every five minutes. There's no interesting lore anymore, it's just lost to the whole mess that is this incel-catering game, I'm so done with it.

It was so promising at first, it had so much potential. I had hope for Rinascita, but it's just disappointing. Characters are not even explored deeply because the only thing that matters is their relationship with Rover, and that's mostly in a fanservice way.

I want to say something nice about it, I really want to. I love analyzing characters and environments, I love watching animations and scenery, but the exaggerated fanservice just ruins everything for me. The majority of the fandom doesn't help either.

I'm so tired of this. The story was so intriguing, too, and it's just... nothing to me now. Every dialogue leads to some sort of fanservice, or prepares to it. Every story can't go on without some sort of innuendo, flirting, or the like.

It's the same thing, over and over, and it's just annoying at this point. And to do this, after establishing a profound connection between Shorekeeper and Rover (which is something I absolutely hated, they could have done such a beautiful relationship between creator and creation that wasn't romantic but it's gathering wives I guess), is just poor taste. Why even bother to establish something if you're just going to move onto the next piece of fanservice next?

I'm genuinely upset at the development of this game. My liking of some of the characters doesn't change the idea I have of it now. And the worst thing? Even when I really like a character, like Zani or even Ciaccona (her personality is amazing so far), they just find ways to shove fanservice into it. Zani's liberation looks cool, but in the context of a game that constantly sexualizes its characters is just bad. It literally threw me off and I don't want to pull for her anymore. She and Brant were my favorites in Rinascita design-wise, and now I don't want to pull for her anymore.

I really like the style wuwa has, the scenery is amazing and the combat is great, but the catering is too much. No character can be unique because everything is fanservice even when they try to be unique. Cantarella would have been such an interesting character if the game didn't have so many characters already sexualized to hell and back. Even her design (still too much for me but okay) wouldn't have been such a problem if she was the odd one out. But she's not. She's just another sexualized woman.

All the interesting things that make characters worth analyzing are just not there in wuwa. The world doesn't feel alive because there's too little to actually see, despite there being so much. It's sad.

[kurai-hono-blog]

venting ahead

I feel so deeply unloved that i literally just want to bash my head against a wall just don't stop till my brain is mush JUST so I dont have to feel like this anymore. My parents- the people I have to live with becoz I work close to home are nothing but neglectful pieces of shits. Cannot be bothered abt my health until it gets worse enough to require hospital care and then ONLY care about the bill and my recovery UNTIL they have to pay the bill. Aftercare or preventive care can go fuck themselves. Any thing and I mean ANYTHING I ask for is asking for too much from people who are soo busy dealing with their own adult problems (they don't have that much going on, but they never solve any of their own problems just complain about it till it piles up and LOOKS like a lot of problems).

I have always been independent because I wanted to be nothing like them. But even the most independent people need loving, need someone to fight for them. I can never have that with them or anyone else in my life for that matter.

I am loosing interest in everything i loved and cant muster energy for anything new. I hate how the person I am always becomes reduced to a scared crying kid just trying to survive whenever I come back home. It's why I left for college. It's why I applied for job in a different state. Rotten luck that they had another office in my city otherwise I would have moved out already.

I crave love sooooooo badly right now- the kind that only someone living close to you can provide. I neeeed someone to take care of me when I get sick/injured no matter if I can do it on my own. I need someone to cook for/with me because they want to make me happy, not because cooking is a chore that just has to get done. I want someone to be happy for my success and cheer me on instead of casting doubt if I so much as stumble in life. I need someone to listen to my issues and actually change their behavior instead of just apologising and making the same mistake again and again.

I know life is more about just your parents and there are more good people out there. But I don't think I have much strength in me to get to them If I am walking around a hole this big where my hearth should be. And I will most likely have soooooo many behaviour issues by then that it won't even matter becoz I wont even be able to hold onto any meaningful relationships just like I couldn't in college or school before that.

I don't know when I will quit living but I think it will most likely be voluntary death and If it happens while my parents are still alive- I bet they will still grieve while not having a clue about what caused it.

I hate that I live in a culture where dating is frowned upon, so I can't even search for this love outside. Funnily enough I might not even wanna look for it even if I could. Cause the disaster that was my childhood has taught me that your partners will only ever hurt you. So I don't even feel love towards anyone until they show me love again and again. Like I am some sort of feral animal. And all the people I have met so far don't have that kind of patience, they just wanna get laid.

[cosmiclion]

You know I’m right ☠️

[plague-of-insomnia]

why do people do this?

This is a doll I had fallen for when they first announced it last year, but bc of money problems I had to wait until recently to buy it. I bought one a few weeks ago as a belated bday gift to myself but her arm was missing a big chunk so I tried to get a replacement, but they were sold out.

I found another one and ordered it and it arrived today! I was so excited…. until I saw the box.

Someone bought it, took almost everything — the stand, the boots, earrings, HANDS, hair accessories, dress accessory, and second outfit— dyed her hair! - and put her back in the box with shoes and a jacket from an older doll and returned her…

and the person who packed my order apparently thought missing hands and lose dolls are in this season 🙄😩

Got another refund and a new replacement is on its way, and I just hope this one will be fine…. 😩

(BTW, the second photo is the first doll i got compared to this one so you can see how they dyed the hair)

[thependragonarchives]

was i going to draw all reapers? yeah did i get burnt out? ...yeh anyways ghostie ronald, it just fits, see you in a week