#lila will pay

[brierburrbrito]

Okay, so huge fan of Miraculous Ladybug right here, however towards the end of season two, less of a Marinette fan. Well, less of a Marinette/Adrien fan. So! I had an idea after seeing all of the MariBat fics all over AO3 and decided ‘yes, but maybe AdriBat??? 👀’

So that’s exactly what Im doing! Im in the process of outlining an AdriBat crossover!!! Yay!

So far, the plot is that after the Miraculous team defeats Hawkmoth, and its revealed that he is in fact Adrien’s father, Adrien becomes a sort of social pariah. The miraculous’ have deactivated in order to give the Kwamii’s time to regain their energy.

Marinette and the others weren’t able to reveal their identities to Chat Noir before Adrien was sent off. He’s having a real rough time. So by some means or other, he ends up in Gotham City, all alone. He comes into the possession of *giggle* a BAT miraculous and uses it to feel like he has a purpose.

Except he also uses his own skills (and leftover cat miraculous tendencies) to steal miraculous’ from around the city, because Gotham’s rogues are somehow getting them and its making life difficult for the Bats.

So the Bats are looking for two people who ARE THE SAME PERSON. One is a hero who is more like a bat than Batman, the other is a literal Cat burglar who seems to be more stealthy than Catwoman. They learn about the Miraculous through Constantine, and call in the closest known guardian.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

All while this happens, no one knows what happened to Adrien Agreste.

And because I can’t write a heteronormative ship to save my afterlife, assume everything is gayer than a rainbow.

[sugurugetos]

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY 4.01 — The Unbearable Tragedy of Getting What You Want (2024)

[michax-forever]

Just a few characters with no plot relevance at all,,, /SILLY

[psychicsolanum]

they were so evil for cutting this. this man has not had a single moment of true peace from the first episode. he's never ever taken seriously by his siblings the whole show. and the one scene where he finally gets himself help, and is fully supported by his loved ones and they TOOK IT FROM USSS!

Look at the hope in his eyes for the first time in his life!! he has a support system that loves him and he has hopes of a future where he can love himself!!! this is character development and a satisfying arc!

like they knew they were gonna take it all away from him anyway why couldn't they at least give him this.

[jynjackets]

… what if we were autistic and in love

jecki and osha from the acolyte [they’re fine. everyone’s fine.]

see below the cut for a surprise creature

aroace queen

[to-the-waterfalls-of-the-sun]

-V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

Ship in the Stormy Sea, 1887 -Ivan Aivazovsky

[lilacerull0]

sorry to break it to you, but the essence of elena and nino is that he compliments her writing. she thinks books are all she has and she has a complicated relationship with being the observer and not an active participant and she constantly doubts her abilities. she just knows writing is all she has and then he comes and says nice things about the thing that makes her her. it all comes back to that school article with them. i seriously have trouble understanding anybody who hates elena for loving him. like. you hate someone for the outstanding amount of love they have to offer. fuck you. we all know you wouldn't "get up".

[yolowritter]

In Defense of Gabriel Agreste

Oh dear Kwami, I can't believe I'm actually doing this... I can't believe that it feels necessary. Before we begin, I want to make a huge clarification. I am NOT supporting any of Gabriel's actions AT ALL, especially anything done in Season 5. That's abuse, that's child neglect, that's grounds for calling CPS. I will never excuse that kind of thing, and frankly this isn't what I'm here to talk about. I simply want to state my opinion on how canon has absolutely ruined Gabriel as a character, and give my own perspective on our local supervillain, including an understanding of his reasons and how Gabriel devolves the way he does in the actual show. This is a mixture of headcannons I've had that are somewhat supported by canon, and I hope you all enjoy my little analysis piece.

First off, let's kick things into high gear by discussing Gabriel's themes. From the get-go of Bubbler, it's blindingly obvious that he serves as the "strict parent" antagonist to Adrien's quest for freedom and self-expression. As an archetype, this works quite well in a lot of stories and media, so I was fine with it when I watched the episode. Through the rest of Season 1, we quickly come to realize that Adrien's mother (and Gabriel's wife) is "missing", due to some reason or the other. At this point some may suspect his relation to Hawkmoth, but there's no legitimate evidence to go off of so we put a pin on that. During Simon Says, specifically Chat Noir and Gabriel's little interaction, we get to see that Adrien does hold some repressed anger against Gabriel because of how overprotective the man is, and then comes the fond remark of Emilie's flair for dramatics. It's a line so many of us have discussed or used in fanworks, but rarely do I see people talk about how Gabriel delivers it. The usually stoic personification of dissapointment seems to finally have some emotion in his voice, for the first really important moment of his character. Combine this with the earlier talk between him and Ladybug, where he praises Adrien and seems genuinely proud of his son for keeping up with all the activities/modeling/etc. Therefore, we get a good general idea of who Gabriel Agreste actually is. A grieving father who has lost his partner to "mysterious circumstances", and is trying to protect his son from any kind of harm. Sure, he's going about it the wrong way and is definately overdoing it, but the act itself doesn't come from a place of malice. Keep this in mind as we move forward.

In Season 2, we start off with the episode Collector. And learn that Gabriel is Hawkmoth. Because of course he is, Adrien is one of the titular characters in the show, naturally the writers want to pull a Luke Skywalker at some point. "I am your father" and all that, we've seen it a million times before. Still, this brings up the question of why? Sure, Gabriel is an asshole. That's very obvious by this point, even though we don't have enough information to truly cast judgement on his reasoning for such behavior. But there's a significant gap between "overprotective single parent who stifles their child" and "local butterfly man who has beef with teenage superheroes". Therefore, this reveal immediately has alarm bells ringing as to what Gabriel's motive is. In a later episode, we have the Gorizilla Incident. And this is where he finally becomes a much more complex, much better character! Because Hawkmoth has captured Ladybug. She's right there, helpless, and all he has to do is either show up and steal her Miraculous, or just wait until she loses her transformation and then take the earrings. His arch nemesis, the person who has been preventing him from accomplishing whatever his goals are...is at his mercy. But...there's a problem. His son is also on the field of battle, and just jumped off a building. Wonderful! Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Gabriel releases Ladybug, therefore saving Adrien's life at the cost of the Miraculous. And much later, during Queen Wasp, Hawkmoth genuinely ponders if he's done more harm than good by trying to defeat the Heroes of Paris. (Side Note: I don't actually remember if we'd seen Emilie in the pod by this point, but whatever.) He would have quit, hung up the suit, and lived out his days as Gabriel Agreste. Miserably maybe, but he would have stuck to that choice. No more Hawkmoth. Until...he gets the chance to Akumatize a Miraculous Holder. And if you want to rewatch this scene, notice the mania in Gabriel's eyes. This extreme emotional reaction is the complete opposite of what we've seen from the man so far (dramatic monologues aside), and the chance at victory rips Gabriel's sanity away from him. Cue Queen Wasp, and later Scarlet Moth.

But I want to stick to this moment for a second. Queen Wasp takes place directly after Style Queen, in which Adrien gets turned into a gold statue. And sure, the show can tell us all it wants about how "he's been turned to dust" or some bs, but we all know Adrien is dead right now. And Gabriel knows it too. This is literally the reason why he tries to convince himself that he shouldn't be Hawkmoth anymore. Because he finally understands what kind of harm he's been doing. By this point it's like the 3rd time that Adrien is in immediate proximity to an Akuma and promptly gets bodied by said Villain, specifically because of Hawkmoth. I do not care what Season 5 says, Gabriel Agreste loved his son with every last shred in that broken, shattered fragment of a heart that was left after Emilie's death, and he shows it very clearly on multiple occassions. He even tries to connect with Adrien again, and has a genuine moment when they watch Emilie's movie together. Gabriel, for all his supervillainy and prancing about in a butterfly costume, seems to be healing throughout Season 2. So why does it only get worse from here?

Well...this is where my headcanons come in to fill the void. Obviously I could go on a tangent about the writers here, but I don't care enough to waste my breath on that again. Swiftly moving past that, I honestly think Gabriel suffers from Tunnel Vision during this show. And yeah that's not a "condition", but think about this for a second. Nooroo warns that there are terrible consequences for misusing a Miraculous in Origins, and the show...never follows up on this? Well, that's weird. Unless the consequences are mental. A deterioration of the self, in a way. Consider: a good portion of the fandom already talks about Gabriel and Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Monarch as different people sometimes. What if that's literal? What if that's the consequence? Gabriel was depressed, desperate and heartbroken after Emilie's demise, but according to a cutscene from Miraculous Rise of the Sphynx (and I swear to God why didn't they put this in the actual show???) Gabriel and Nathalie actually spent around a year looking for the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous before deciding to use the Butterfly. It was Gabriel's last resort. And look at how Hawkmoth acts in Season 1. He's...well, he's acting. Playing the role of a villain to lure them out and defeat them, knowing full-well (at least after Stoneheart) that Ladybug can fix pretty much anything he destroys if she wins, and he can just do the same if she's defeated. Gabriel has a safety net, he's acting the part of an evil villain, complete with dramatic monologues and "curse you Perry the Platypus" moments after ever defeat. Then in Season 2, he knows the jig is up. The stakes are too high and this Hawkmoth bs is hurting the one piece of Emilie that he has left...so Gabriel decides to quit.

And this is where the corruption comes in. During "Feast" in Season 3, Hawkmoth re-states his goal of "taking all the Miraculous!" Uh...hold on just a second. Didn't Gabriel only need the Ladybug and Cat? Yes, exactly. That's why the events of the show even happen to begin with. So why has it now changed to all the Miraculous, if the rest are useless in terms of bringing Emilie back? Well, Gabriel's thirst for power is slowly corrupting his mind. Hawkmoth is officially in control by this point, and it gets much, much worse from here. With Mayura at his side, Hawkmoth has a real person to care about, and take care of. Nathalie supports him, keeps Gabriel afloat in this ocean of despair that they're both slowly drowning in.

But what happens when Mayura can't be there anymore? What happens when Gabriel (now as Shadowmoth) spends hours upon hours inside that dark lair, deliberating his victory? It becomes his sole focus. What tiny specks of humanity were still left inside of this hollow shell called Gabriel Agreste have been devoured by a beast that hungers for only one thing. Power. Emilie is no longer loved by him, barely even remembered to begin with. Now instead of genuine heartbreak over his wife's loss, Shadowmoth is using her as an excuse to keep going. He rationilizes it all to himself, saying "this is for my family" and "they will understand" to hide from the very obvious fact that neither Emilie or Adrien would ever stand for this. His ambitions have stripped Gabriel of all sense and sanity, leaving behind a madman simply wearing his skin. The last time we ever see even a flicker of clarity in his head is during Glaciator 2.0, when Adrien is about to be Akumatized. But this is also the biggest indication that it's almost too late for Gabriel, because has to think about it. Sure, he doesn't actually Akumatize Adrien, but even since Chat Blanc it's become perfectly clear that he can and will go through with that to get an advantage over Ladybug. Here, Shadowmoth considered Akumatizing him anyway, even with just the usual chances of winning.

And in Ephemeral (I'm pretty sure, could be just before or after), Nooroo's worst fears have finally come to pass. Gabriel affirms that he wants to destroy the entire world using the Wish. And then re-shape it into one where he's the top dog, by extension making the Agrestes like the Supreme. Gabriel has gone completely off the rails by this point. I'd even argue that the person he was only a few months ago (don't get me started on that timeline btw) is dead. Gone, burried six feet under along with his wife, because Gabriel Agreste would never do something like this. Monarch just makes everything even worse, especially with Evolution. Just like Nathalie said, he had the perfect chance to warn his past self about the Peacock being broken. Step in the portal, detransform, explain that he's Gabriel, then tell them "hey so the recipe to fix it is on this page of the Grimoire, you need to do this before Emilie makes Adrien" and that's it. But he just ignores it completely because of his obsession, hence proving the point I'm trying to make.

To circle back to the beginning of this post, I am perfectly fine with how Gabriel's character devolves and spirals into madness across the show. It's a cool plotline, could have been really interesting if the writers bothered to explore it but even with only what we have, I'd say it adds a ton of depth to his character! Or...would, if they bothered to explain this! Like seriously, you can pretty easily infer than something of the sort is happening, especially in later seasons. Just give Nathalie or Nooroo one or two scenes where they are worried about Gabriel going insane! Especially Nooroo, give the poor guy a few lines trying to warn Shadowmoth like "Master, please! You need to think about what you're doing! Can't you see this isn't you anymore?" or something of the sort. Sure, it doesn't have to be so on the nose, but you get my point! Instead they did nothing with this amazing idea that's already there because they wrote it by accident! And guess what? Gabriel goes from a sympathetic villain in Season 2 to an utter maniac who locks his "beloved" son in an insane asylum during Season 5!

Like are you kidding me??? What alternate universe did I get dropped into where this is the "logical" followup to Hawkmoth's storyline? One of the only things Gabriel even had going for him in terms of complexity was his genuine love towards Adrien! And like I said, I'd be fine if this how they wanted to make things and play the "tragic villain consumed by a lust for power" card! For Nooroo's sake, it's dangling right in front of them like a carrot on a stick! But instead of making the slightest bit of effort and explain that this is happening, or that it's an intentional plotpoint for Gabriel's character, their innaction just reduces him to a one-dimensional "evil because he's the villain" cardboard cutout! Believe me, I love unapologetically evil characters, who do the worst things for funsies! But Gabriel Agreste can never be that type of bad guy because you set up an entire storyline about his poor wife who died because adoption is apparently illegal in this universe! Don't get me started on Emilie Agreste, she's getting a rant of her own soon enough! But come on, would it kill you to at least try and give your villains some depth???

Thomas, do you want me to have a stroke? An aneurysm? To keel over dead like Gabriel's character development? Should I maybe put a fridge in my basement for good measure? And do not talk to me about the "tell Adrien how good a father I was" bs the finale had in it! Just- just don't touch that with a ten foot pole! But...I will admit, there is a very interesting direction they can take Gabriel's character now that he's dead. Because sure, he's now a one-dimensional asshole that screamed in his basement a lot before beating up a cat(bug)girl and dropping dead, but hey! Gabriel Agreste can haunt the narrative now! Have Lila use reunion to talk to him! Have Marinette be tormented by the stupid promise she made! Have Adrien be conflicted over how Gabriel treated him! Give us an existential crisis because "the hero who defeted Monarch" doesn't match up with the abusive asshole Adrien has known for the past year! Gabriel Agreste's character has been utterly trainwrecked by the writers' refusal to explain anything about him beyond a superficial "boo hoo my wife keeled over". Yeah buddy, so what? You can at least be interesting about it!

Anyway, I'm going to go cool off and make another draft for how to fix this idiot's character development. Or you know, give him some in the first place because he's lost it all. I'll see you all soon with an "In offense to Emilie Agreste" post, but until then, Stay Miraculous everyone!

[synthient]

Sense8 seems like a show where the plot mostly Doesn't Matter except as a vehicle for the characters to do something fun/cool/melodramatic. And with most of the plotlines that got dropped because of the cancellation, it's easy enough to infer roughly where they were going that it doesn't really feel like you missed out on that much. I do, however, wish we'd gotten to see more of Lito's fledgling "rich hollywood gay guys who suck" subplot

[hueynomure]

Felix + "pet" (for prompts)

"How," Felix hissed, burning gaze darting from the horrible girl to the fake ring on his finger.

"What," she scoffed with her corny Italian accent, "you think you're the only one with tricks up their sleeve? I may teach you a few things as long as you're in my service."

"I'll kill you and half of Paris before I become your slave," he replied, tone colder than ice.

"You won't do anything of the sort," she ordered, idly fiddling with the real ring on her finger. "Now bark, pet."

Felix clenched his teeth, the urge to obey building up inexorably.

[Possibly not what you expected, but the juxtaposition of those two words made go Uh Oh lol]

(I'm not currently taking more prompts)

[lilacevans]

would have thought you would have the first chapter written before teasing anything. you got us all hyped up for nothing. i don’t think anyone was expecting to wait this long and now some of us are interested anymore and you’ll lose more the longer you take. just food for thought.

are— are you taking the piss?

genuine question…

[nerds-yearbook]

The pilot of 1990's The Flash premiered on September 20, 1990. The character of Iris West (Paula Marshall) didn't crossover to the ongoing series. The TV movie showed the origins of Barry Allen (John Wesley Shipp) becoming the Flash. Shipp would also cameo as the Flash in Arrow (2018), Supergirl (2018), and the Flash (2014 - 2023). ("Pilot", The Flash, TV Event)

[a-grayscale-galaxy]

How does Lila have SIX. LEVELS. of wizard.

[caleblandrybones]

valentine's is coming up post girlfriend bait

[vampirepuppygirl]

You know, I grew up catholic and never experienced catholic guilt, and it still kind of confuses me

When I went to mass, the readings and the gospel were always just life lessons or stories to make you think, and what it wanted you to think about was usually humility and piety and loyalty and faith and stuff like that

Faith formation was mostly about learning the history of the church and important stories that you should remember, plus prayer memorization

I don't ever actually remember a time where they were specifically like "you must feel guilty about this" or "everyone by default deserves to go to hell and you must constantly prostrate before god to be deemed worthy"

It was "everyone sins and everyone drifts away from god and that's okay because he will never abandon you"

It was "Jesus died for your sins. To liberate you from them so you're no longer beholden to the old way, so you're no longer beholden to original sin, so you can have a clean slate without ceaseless penance"

The sin forgiveness cycle that Catholics kind of get pulled into was always described to me as a liberating cycle. It gives you the freedom to sin and the freedom to make mistakes as you bumble through the blind chaos of life without worrying about perfection or damnation

Even when I went to confession it wasn't just a blanket "don't do it again" it was "think about why that is a sin and let that experience teach you something."

If I know anything about catholics it's that they love rules and they love the pursuit of knowledge, I once had a very long conversation with a priest about why a certain rule was a rule and why a certain sin was a sin and it was a lot more complicated than just "god said so," even if I can't remember the specifics anymore

I don't know, maybe it was my specific diocese or I've just been around a lot of liberal priests or something, but I even had someone tell me basically word for word "As long as you follow the ten commandments and use the seven virtues as a framework to guide you, you're set. Use confession to scrub away the sins you can't avoid and that's it. Nobody is without sin so just do your best and that's all anyone can ask of you."

Primarily, what growing up catholic taught me was just the importance of love

Love your family, love your neighbor, love a stranger, love the Earth, love nature, and fundamentally love yourself. And forgive yourself. And be patient with yourself. Because I was taught that everyone sins and that's okay.

And that's okay.

I was taught that seeking absolution and forgiveness is meant to steer you in the right direction, yes for the ultimate goal of heaven, which was defined to me as Oneness with God. And hell was defined to me not as a multi-tiered demon filled demiplane of fire and brimstone and ice, but simply the state of separation from god.

But it wasn't just about salvation it was also about making the Earth we live in now a better place and they are rules specifically to facilitate good communication and good relationships with other people and yourself, and obviously God (but whatever.) It was always basically let God absolve you of your guilt but don't force yourself to feel guilty if you make a mistake.

I don't really consider myself catholic anymore, mostly because of other people, catholics and protestants who use their religion as a tool to spread hateful rhetoric and become their own personal left hand of God, instead of using their religion to spread love and patience and understanding and forgiveness and tolerance and all of the things that they actually fucking preach. Why y'all throwing stones huh? Y'all ain't without sin. Literally nobody is. That's the point.

But I like what I was taught. I use what I was taught a lot. Technically even if I don't consider myself catholic I still am. I have been confirmed, I could waltz right into a catholic church confess my sins and my doubts and have a long conversation with a priest and boom blank slate once more. There would be penance hoops I would have to jump through but that's literally what happens with every confession, so still

But that's always what confused me about Catholic guilt like

What were you taught?

[jabberwockprince]

OK I JUST NEED TO TALK ABT CHLOE BOURGEOIS AGAIN NO ONE LOOK AT ME

seeing chloe be SO casual about being akumatized despite the implied effects it has on people is REALLY fucking funny and good but consider my very cool very nice very epic alternative of chloe choosing to dwell on negative feelings JUST to get akumatized because that's the ONLY time people will actually worry about her and treat her like a victim/real person, even if its out of DUTY like ladybug and cat noir. not just akumatized bc she wants to be a bully and then have all the other villains treat her like a nuisance for no fucking reason

you can even keep her being super casual and happy about being akumatized, it fits within this entire thing too, shes happy because people are gonna be forced to pay attention to her one way or another

then realizing that it's not enough because everyone knows she's being this rotten and getting herself akumatized on purpose, so she resorts to straight up becoming a villain because negative attention is still attention in the end ???

SORRY I JUST NEED TO TALK ABT THIS REAL QUICK

idk you cant just give adrien a rich spoiled friend who also has a dysfunctional family to parallel his own and then tell me they used to be each other's only support while growing up and not make me think about that forever?????

chloe as queen bee finally seeing one of her heroes treat her (albeit reluctantly since. yknow, marinette) like a human being with potential. and then wanting to become a better person as a result, but not being able to progress as fast as she wants to bc you just cant undo all those years of bullying in a second. and changing for the better takes so much effort and time too. THAT mixed with marinette and her PTSD being unable to reconcile with the fact that chloe, the person who made her life so awful as seen in derision, is TRYING to be better, leading to ladybug

chloe as miracle queen AND queen wasp still being effectively manipulated by monarch because "hey, another deeply insecure and damaged child, just like my son! lets take advantage of that". like. they had the set up already, with chloe wanting to trust ladybug and rejecting a goddamn akuma bc SOMEONE finally trusted HER to be more than a shitty rich brat. EVEN if ladybug wasnt gonna give her the bee miraculous anymore, chLOE STILL MADE BABY STEPS INTO BEING A BETTER PERSON????

you can still keep lila and monarch's constant manipulation, getting chloe to be worse and straight up hate ladybug, its the perfect set up. idk why they just had to retcon or forget everything they had for chloe in the first seasons????????

do you KNOW what chloe as a supervillain that acts as a foil to ladybug would've DONE to me????????? the scenes they had between marinette and chloe about how theyre not so different???? the fact that chloe is a perfect parallel to marinette and all the ways they could've found common ground??? NOT EVEN LIKE. BEING FRIENDS AT ALL, JUST "we strongly dislike each other, but we agree on many things and make really good points together". marinette forced to confront the fact that theres STILL more to people than what she sees, even the ones that she DISLIKES and that she needs to mature more as ladybug ????

why does FELIX get the benefit of the doubt as some "well meaning" villain but CHLOE GETS DEMOTED TO CARTOON VILLAIN ????? THIS LORE IPSUM WIKIPEDIA HAVER IS JUST OUT THERE LIKE "FUCK ADULTS AND AUTHORITY, THEY JUST TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US CHILDREN" LIKE I DONT EVEN KNOW YOU SIR????? why should i CARE abt this one he JUST showed up out of the blue

like, this season was really good at giving marinette more depth, taking some aspects that were played for fun in the first seasons AS SERIOUS THINGS NOW, like her out of the blue obsessive nature that EVERYONE (me included) complained about. a lot of the episodes are really well written and theres ACTUAL ADVANCEMENT in plot and character dynamics but chloe is straight up STUCK as the mid arc villain whose dialogue has been demoted to "i hate the poor and i hate the planet and i love the sound of my own voice" with zero depth whatsoever????????????????????????