#my least favorite trope

[literali1110]

Putting things in perspective:

Tim and Lucy did not break up because it was revealed that Tim had a baby mama.

So that's a win in my book 😂

[penworthy]

Where's the "episode where they all shrink down and go into a character's body" option

[pineapple-frenzy]

I love love love your zutara book two au. That's all. Thank you for sharing it with us!

Aaahhh thank you!!! It's honestly such a self indulgent au I'm glad people are enjoying it as much as I am :'>>

Here's a few more silly doodles of them!!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Why do you think they don't show Marinette comforting other characters? It's always been a weird writing decision to me, and I sometimes wondered if I was legit just erasing all the times it happened out of my memory or smth. Like the first character trait established for her is she struggles to say no to people, she is a people-pleaser. And there isn't a better way to make ur mc lovable than showing how they effect the people around them. AND it would make her breakdowns genuinely heartbreaking, because she keeps giving and giving and it's a genuine flaw. Like, she rushed off to comfort Ivan in Origins, right? We should have had more of that. I'm reminded of that one Lady Wifi (i think?) scene where Ladybug is smiling at her adoring fans and the camera while Chat Noir is in the background actually comforting a child lmao. It just feels so weird, because I think Marinette IS actually supposed to be someone who does that, who provides that comfort to her loved ones all the time (even at the cost of her own mental health, boom, an actual thing she can work towards). But we just keep getting the reverse instead. She just kinda feels like a shit friend? Showing that emotional labor would also make her exhaustion work because like, what does the guardian even DO? Tell not show, but they ain't telling shit.

One of the things that drew me to Miraculous is the fact that the show tends to write the characters in non-standard gender roles, so I actually like the fact that Marinette tends to be more of a fixer than a comforter. She drives people to action and wants to solve problems and is very good at taking the weight of the world on her shoulders, but she kind of sucks at emotional vulnerability and comforting people. It's genuinely a good flaw for her character and a lovely thing to see in a show aimed at girls. No, we don't all need to be stereotypically maternal figures. Women can be just as bad as men stereotypically are when it comes to emotions!

The problem is that the show is obsessed with Marinette holding every important role in the story, meaning that we don't get a more emotionally aware character or characters to balance her out. Nor do we get to see her learn that this is a flaw of hers and either improve or just own that she's bad at this and learn to trust someone else with these types of issues. (This is one of the many things I think Adrien should have been allowed to do, btw. Ladybug is the brains, Chat Noir should be the heart.) We also don't get a true sense of Marinette's struggles because the show's formulaic nature rarely allows for those types of problems.

The Lila thing is a good example. Lila says that she's going to destroy Marinette's friendships, but she literally can't do that because that would mean changing the way the characters relate on a massive scale and formula shows can't do that. So instead of seeing Marinette struggle as Lila lies and manipulates everyone into hating Marinette, we get extremely annoying episodes where Lila lies and everyone believes her, but no one gets all that upset at Marinette's constant accusations. They just treat it as a minor quibble which is actually more aggravating than Lila changing the status quo in my opinion.

There's also the issue that you brought up: we don't see Marinette truly struggling to be the guardian, so her new role doesn't feel like a big deal. Not much changes for her save for the kwamis being around now. We don't even know what her relationship with Master Fu was really like because he was barely ever on screen so we really don't feel her loss.

All of this is just another problem to lay at the feat of our ever-present issue: Miraculous does not have the right conflicts and characters for a formula show. Formula shows thrive off of things being lighthearted and the heroes lacking major flaws. Miraculous chose to make things somewhat serious and give everyone flaws that are just begging to be address, but that can't be because this is the wrong format for that type of thing.

In a team show where character arcs were a thing or even just one where character dynamics were a thing and Marinette was allowed to share the screen in a more balanced manner, then everything about her would work fine. She's set up perfectly for that kind of show. She is not set up for a formula show where she's basically the only character that matters outside of the villains. If that's what they wanted to write, then Marinette needed to be limited to minor flaws that never last more than an episode or at least limited to flaws that are purely situational such as being stubborn or the classic sudo-flaw of being clumsy that the show already embraces.

[luceafarul-de-dimineata]

Expanding on my previous post, I think having to take care of child of the enemy would be such a wonderful deconstruction of Leviathan's character.

Leviathan's main motivation for everything he does is to protect the future of Hell, to protect the children and avange the ones that were lost in the experiments. He eliminates anything that might be dangerous for Hell because if there's even a 1% chance of someone suffering he would blame himself for it. He wants to go find the seed of the fruir of knowledge even though he knows it's a dangerous journey, just because it might save his subjects.

Also, Leviathan (as far as we know) has the most personal reason to hate angels. He's seen them at their cruelest and they've always been a traumatic force in his life. While the other kings got to have more peaceful childhoods (again, we don't know if they were abused, I'm just going off what we know) Leviathan never had that priveledge. Even before the war he was abused by them, and now, in his adulthood, he still can't move on because he sees his subjects being killed and tortured by the same people that abused him.

I think that out of all the characters, Leviathan would be the most... interesting father. Don't get me wrong, he won't be bad, but the sort of abuse that Leviathan had to go through changes you in ways you might never expect. He loves kids, the main reason he fights this war is to make sure the children in Hell get a childhood that isn't characterised primarly by war and death. But if he had to deal with a child 1 on 1 for long stretches of time...

He'll probably be extremely overprotective of them, going by the same rule of 1% change of danger = death. The way most parenting works, especially from people that were abused in their childhoods, is that of trying to protect the child from the trauma they experienced. I doupt Leviathan would even let angels look at his kid, or anyone that he percieves as dangerous for that matter.

We also see in the Orias event that Leviathan can be very nice to the people he likes, and I think that it would be the same for his kid. It would be something like

Leviathan strangling MC: I need to kill you, MC, for your life is bringing certain doom amoungst my people

Levi's kid: Dad, can you help me with my algebra?

Leviathan dropping MC to the ground: Yes, sweetheart, what is it? Do you want us to repeat your multiplications table?

Tl;dr of this post is - stop saying Leviathan would be a shit dad. He'll be overprotective of his kid, but he'll never in a million years hurt a child

[ratbugs]

Ava being over 900 explains so much that is literally a grumpy old man in a hot blonde woman body

[fantasticgothicpeachsludge]

Blorbo Bleebi…

[d4rkshad0w]

i hate the miscommunication trope so much cuz what do you mean Kit and Ty could have been together the last 3 years if Kit didn’t confess his feeling while Ty was trying to resurrect his dead sister

[lady-raziel]

i know it's probably already been done before in some form but i really want to write a story where a group of background characters/NPCs with 2 lines of dialogue band together to go after the main villain while the protagonist and their allies are still in the middle of the formative rising action

I'd title it The Inconsequentials and the tagline would be "Not mattering has never mattered so much."

[blackkatmagic]

I think one of my favorite things for exploring characterization and making sure plots are character-driven, without people just being puppetted by the plot, is playing out how different characters in the main role would change a story.

Like, if your MC is an asshole who won't admit their feelings, and you want to check that they're driving the plot, plug in a character who's good at being kind and see what changes. If your MC is rebellious and free-spirited, plug in someone who follows the rules. If the plot doesn't change, you have a problem. If it does, it's one of the hallmarks of a good story.

[supernovaa-remnant]

I am absolutely in love with your accidental courtship au, its a delight.

I dont know what species you're planning for Dream, but I'm imagining he tells Techno after all the cards are on the table, hes had time to process and they're both aware and on board with a courtship so Techno can finally follow the correct customs.

That, or, au of an au, Techno accidentally follows Dreams culture and Dream is absolutely gobsmacked. Like its an obscure culture and something Very strange to do unless you know it, even for Techno.

Dream doesnt, like, really realize Techno is courting him, hes way too busy mad pin board solving How The Hell Techno a) found out what Dream is and b) found the customs, like hes an ender dragon or something who no outsider know jack shit about

Eventually it'll kick him in the head that oh god, Techno is flirting with me. Eventually.

okay, so, here's the thing: dream doesn't know what he is. like, he doesn't remember his very early childhood. he figures he had someone taking care of him at some point, but he doesn't remember anything about them. he was on his own a lot when he was younger, until he befriended sapnap who eventually dragged him to bad, and he'd been with them ever since.

so, he doesn't know what he is. bad's from a very old, practically dead culture; demons just... aren't around anymore. just like how phil comes from the elytrians which also aren't around anymore. sapnap is blazeborn, so bad tried very hard to be mindful and respectful of that and teach him blazeborn culture. but none of them know what dream is. so, dream isn't sure what culture he's from. he (and sapnap, honestly) identifies a lot with demon culture, and he lives according to a lot of their customs because bad had shared his culture with him. but he still doesn't feel that it is wholly his culture, y'know?

he has some customs that he still follows from when he was really little. he doesn't remember who taught it to him, but it feels right.

to be clear: techno did try demon courtship rituals. and blazeborn courting rituals. and human courting rituals. all of which dream does know about, but it just never clicked in his mind that that's what techno was doing. dream just figured techno was misinterpreting the cultures in his attempts to find new ways to expand their rivalry to include cultures dream connects to. a touching gesture, even if it's a bit off (you'll find this is a common thought they have about each other).

as for what dream is... I think he's probably from the end in some way. he's very very humanoid, but his night vision is beyond that of a normal human's, and he's faster and more agile than a normal human, too. he doesn't mention it often, but he also has more of an affinity to magic and enchanting.

bad doesn't know what he is, but bad's also from the nether, and, whatever dream is, it's something that even bad wouldn't know.

but phil. well, phil's elytrian. he's from the end. of course he'd know what dream is. he figures it out around doomsday. he then, of course, tells techno, and techno tries those courtship rituals. how unfortunate that courtship rituals are not one of the things dream remembers about that culture lmao.

(there are some things, though, that kinda trigger memories within dream, and, like you said, he's absolutely baffled at how techno knows these things. except dream doesn't know that these things are a courting ritual, he just recognizes pieces of it. and then he's too preoccupied figuring out how techno knows).

[mleemwyvern]

do you like team rancher? would you like to fill out a tierlist of 64 different flavours and tropes for them? well, i love ranchers, and i made a tier list template of (some of) the many different ways to ranch.

have fun!

[jesse-pinko]

Blue the Raptor’s characterization in the movies and the tv show is honestly very funny to me at this point… there’s only so many times you can chase the human protagonists around and then do an about face and let them go or literally save their lives before I stop viewing you as a dangerous maneater and start viewing you as a cranky old woman harmlessly waving her cane at the neighborhood kids

[wander-wren]

presumed death literally the trope of all time. you’re telling me i can have the grief and horror of character death AND have the happy ending too??

not to mention the possibilities after “dead” character turns up again.

maybe they have no idea their loved one thinks they died, and they show up all nonchalant only to realize things have gone horribly wrong. maybe their loved one thinks they’re a ghost/hallucination/trick and won’t accept them.

maybe they do know their loved one thinks they’re dead and they’re choosing to keep up the facade for their safety. watching from afar, unable to comfort them.

maybe they faked their death and believe their loved one is in on the scheme when actually that message was never received.

maybe, in the process of whatever almost killed them, they forgot about their loved one/old life/etc, and aren’t aware they have anything to return to.

maybe they “died” thinking no one would notice their absence, leaving their loved one full of regret for things unsaid. perhaps their loved one heals and moves on, only for “dead” character to return.

and just, augh, the aftermath. waking up to find “dead” character gone and assuming it was all a dream/they really did die. the codependency. the anger, even, that they didn’t come back/let themself get hurt/lied. maybe guilt if their body was abandoned by their comrades, only to learn that they were alive all along.

name me a trope that does more i’ll WAIT.

[eternalglitch]

I'm sorry I have to say it but it would be cool to bring bring leosagi ship up in lfls it could help with leo's healing/bringing his inner leo out. Or don't ship but a scenario where leo meets usagi. Just a thought don't take it to offense.

I deeply do not like any shape or form of leosagi ajkhsld I do not want that rabbit within a hundred yards of my eyesight.

[animationismycomfort]

burn was done DIRTY in the show