#only he could pull it off

[ventique18]

Warning: Cringe Sebek moment (we go to the Malleus church every weekend to sing him praises)

Although I, and a lot of people in the fandom really, like exaggerating Malleus as this lovable idiot who fucks up basically everything he does because of his lack of common sense, I looked through NRC's courses and am 90% sure he's their batch valedictorian. And that probability is being modest because his GloMas vignette shows us he's very strict at making sure he does everything perfectly.

Alchemy, Ancient Magic, Animal Linguistics, Art, Astrology, Abbreviated Spellcasting in Ancient and Modern Magic, Chemistry, Culinary Crucible, Defensive Magic, Flight, History of Magic, Enigmics, Musicology, P.E., Poison Refining, Potionology, Practical Magic, and Summoning.

Most of the above are subjects the game doesn't forget to remind us that he's great at, which isn't surprising as he's both a genius and an extremely hard worker. Top it off with genuine curiosity and openness to criticism, and we have the perfect student. Even his random school lines are arrogant wherein he says he doesn't even need to look at textbooks to ace a subject. The only subjects I could see that others would be better than him at are: a) Chemistry because he doesn't seem to care much about science; b) Animal Linguistics as I've never seen him converse with animals? But maybe a dragon has a bit of affinity with talking to them?; c) Culinary Crucible, but this is an elective and one he performed decently at; and d) Flight, because he admits that Lilia is better than him at this. Maybe Art could be listed here as his tastes are rather... unconventional, but I think any competent Art professor could evaluate his particular hyperfixations as truly works of art and passion lol.

The only way he wouldn't be the top student is if his idiotic zero-common-sense flaw takes over his life and he doesn't show up to exams. Which isn't unlikely, tbh. Anyway that doesn't take from the fact that he's extremely, extremely capable, and I find the dichotomy of his raw intelligence versus absolute lack of wisdom to be very interesting.

[sunderwight]

Thinking about a crack SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a horse.

Luckily he is not a normal horse, no! He is a spiritual stallion, a character that was mainly a joke about the novel's genre in PIDW, originally bred on Cang Qiong's beast tamer peak but not actually encountered until Luo Binghe's "raze cultivation society to the ground" phase. At which point there was a subplot about him finding the stallion and letting it loose to run free, as like, an allegorical reference. Occasionally Binghe would find other horses across the years that were obviously descended from that one, as more jokes, until Airplane forgot about the reference and never brought it up again.

Shen Yuan, of course, was always Big Mad that Binghe never got to actually ride this super magical mystical horse, and never got the horsegirl arc he deserved! Where is the man's companion animal? How can someone with nine billion wives and even more nameless underlings be fated for a life of perpetual loneliness??

Naturally, the first thing Shen Yuan does upon figuring out that he's this magic horse is break out of the beast peak and make for Qing Jing. He's not necessarily planning to go bond with the protagonist or anything, but he's not particularly keen to live out his fate as some feral horse that fucks other horses either, and he's extremely valuable so it's unlikely anyone will kill him even if they catch him again. So, might as well take the opportunity to clap eyes on his favorite character before he's doomed to a life of eating hay and whatever, right?

Horse SY manages to arrive on Qing Jing Peak right before the start of the skinner mission, though, just as Ming Fan is telling Luo Binghe that there aren't enough horses. Ning Yingying points out SY and is all oh look, one of the stable hands must have realized the error and brought another, and everyone else is kind of like "uh that is... not a normal horse...?" but then Shen Qingqiu gets impatient and snaps at them to get a move on, and fear of their mercurial shizun overrides everything else to the point where Binghe just clambers desperately onto this mystical saddle-free horse.

Airplane borrowed kelpies for his demon beasts at some point and they are pretty common, so it occurs to Luo Binghe only after he's climbed onto the strange and definitely not normal Horse SY that he might be on the verge of getting carried off and drowned. But SY just kind of rolls with it, and falls into line with the other horses.

Hey, it's an excuse to leave the sect! And practice doing horse stuff! And also, he's not going to buck Luo Binghe off of his back!

Of course as it happens, the specific kind of magical horse that Shen Yuan is comes with a specially bred-for trait where they only bond to one rider. They're usually bred for like, kings and emperors and other highly important figures as status symbols, like magical companion animals but ones with perfectly mundane utilities. He's also got Shadowfax-like stamina and speed, meaning that Airplane can treat this kind of horse as interchangeable with a motorbike, and of course the capacity to cultivate. Which means that when the party finally arrives at their destination, everyone suddenly realizes that Luo Binghe has unwittingly bonded with a horse that's worth a fortune and won't ever let anyone else ride it now.

Shen Qingqiu flips his shit, Shen Yuan bites Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe hyperventilates, Ning Yingying gets kidnapped, and the situation basically resolves with Shen Yuan kicking the shit out of the skinner demon in defense of his new BFF the baby protagonist.

Well if he's going to end up letting anyone ride him for the rest of his life, Luo Binghe would be his first choice.

Anyway they get back and Shen Qingqiu is still spitting mad and offers Luo Binghe's head on a platter to the lord of the beast peak, but Beast Peak's people are actually kind of pleased. Like sure it's a little inconvenient, because Luo Binghe is a Qing Jing disciple and not one of theirs, but they were honestly beginning to worry that this stallion wouldn't bond with anyone! It's really hard to manage them when they don't! And SY in particular comes from a long and illustrious lineage that has nearly died out a few times, so they were never planning to sell him off even for a high price anyway. With a rider chosen, the odds of them getting him to cooperate for breeding purposes are a lot higher, plus it will be much easier to take care of him now! Though they will be taking Shen Qingqiu up on his offer of Luo Binghe's time, since "punishment" for this transgression will involve splitting his time between the peaks in order to help take care of SY (all the beast peak disciples are super relieved, apparently before Shen Yuan transmigrated, the horsey original goods was extremely prone to biting and kicking...)

Shen Qingqiu basically tells Luo Binghe not to bother coming back, which fills Binghe with despair, but he gets over it eventually. The beast peak is nice! They give him a cultivation manual as well, in order to help him understand what they do, and it seems that Binghe can understand it a lot better than his QJP one. The peak lord gives him permission to use the dorms as well, since there will probably be times when he has to stay overnight, and no one says much about it when Binghe basically moves in full time. On the books he's still a Qing Jing disciple, but functionally he's a transfer student now. He even sits in on classes and lectures, and a lot of the peak are just under the impression that he was transferred over to their peak in full.

Shen Yuan considers this a big improvement, and expects Luo Binghe to enjoy running around with all the pretty girls on the peak. But Binghe mostly seems to spend his time with him, in fact, asking questions upon questions not only about Shen Yuan's breed, but about his specific background and lineage. The beast peak is overall pretty nice, although sadly it's not full of cool monsters and companion animals as Shen Yuan would have hoped. Mostly the peak specializes in the cultivation world's equivalent of livestock and work animals, training beasts like spirit eagles and horses like himself, and raising animals prized for their meat, organs, bones, or other parts for medicinal, alchemical, or culinary ingredients, or sometimes components for weapons or other spiritual tools. They work the most closely with Qian Cao, Wan Jian, and An Ding.

Being a horse is honestly kind of boring for Shen Yuan, although running is fun, and he at least gets plenty of time to work on his cultivation.

By the time Sha Hualing's invasion happens, he's gotten pretty comfortable in his new state of affairs. Binghe has even figured out that he likes being read to, and has started reading aloud to him from various texts in the evenings! So far no good novels, or even bad trashy novels, but it's better than nothing!

Binghe also takes him for a lot of rides around the peaks (not Qing Jing) which is how they end up caught on Qiong Ding when the rainbow bridge goes down. When Shen Qingqiu tells Luo Binghe to fight, Binghe doesn't even have a weapon at hand.

Actually, he doesn't have a sword at hand.

Turns out having your magical horse kick a demon to death is still pretty effective!

Shen Yuan even manages to avoid getting poisoned too. Rather, Elder Hammer threatens to poison him and Luo Binghe charges at him shouting "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!" and etc, and does get nicked by the thorns, but only Binghe and Shen Yuan notice and of course the poison doesn't work on Binghe, congrats for unlocking a new hint as to Luo Binghe's mysterious origins!

Yes, Horse SY shows up to help Binghe in the Dream Demon event. He still looks like a horse for it, but it also marks the first time he's able to speak to Luo Binghe, which successfully distracts Luo Binghe from a lot of the tormenting visions of his past because talking magic horse friend has a way of doing that.

So the Dream Demon is like, that's not a normal horse, and Luo Binghe is all "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!" and Shen Yuan gets knocked out of the dream as usual. Wakes up to Luo Binghe rushing to his stall to check on him and prepare him some nice warm congee and double-check that he can't talk for reals (only in dreams for now, alas).

Anyway Luo Binghe has no reason to hide his demonic cultivation practice from his horse, so Shen Yuan gets to sit in on it as Binghe tries to put Meng Mo's teachings into practice, which he finds super cool. Binghe's normal cultivation also progresses quite a bit, but he's still very much disadvantaged there because the beat peak is only giving him like, half-assed guest disciple status lessons, no personal one-and-one tutelage, and he's unofficially banned from Qing Jing and wouldn't get any help there anyway (apart from Ning Yingying). The beast peak lord isn't really his shizun and Shen Qingqiu isn't going to take Binghe to do things like claim a sword from Wan Jian, either.

Luckily, Binghe can now confer with his horse in his dreams! Shen Yuan has such helpful ideas as compelling various hall masters and combat teachers to dream about their lessons, so that Binghe can insert himself into the form of their students and supplement his tutelage with nighttime training from all around the sect. And also stealing some blank documents from An Ding and forging paperwork to turn over to Wan Jian to make it look like Binghe has permission to claim a spiritual sword without Shen Qingqiu's approval.

What a way to pass the time before the Immortal Alliance Conference!

Horse Shen Yuan would like very much to just carry Luo Binghe away in the opposite direction, thank you, but he does have a system and it is still holding a metaphorical gun to his head about this. Still, there's no force in the world that could keep Shen Yuan in his stable when shit starts to go down, or that could stop him from kicking the snot out of Shen Qingqiu when he tries to throw Binghe into the Abyss. (Binghe's thoughts on the fight: "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!")

However, Binghe does still get thrown down, and Horse SY runs off whilst weeping crystalline tears of dismay as his mane whips in the wind, imagining a future where a blackened Luo Binghe returns for his revenge arc and symbolically sends his beloved horsie companion away forever to go frolic or some shit, which Shen Yuan is not interested in!

But what can he do? By the time Binghe gets out of the Abyss, his need for a horse will be decidedly minimal. It already went down a bunch when he finally got Zheng Yang (that Binghe somehow almost never flew anywhere on, surely for reasons unrelated to his bond with SY), and with Xin Mo and all his OP talents, even if he did keep Shen Yuan, wouldn't he become as much of a useless background character as countless auxiliary wives in his harem?

No! He won't stand for it! There has to be a way for him to convince even blackened Binghe that Shen Yuan is still the best ride in town!

Luckily, Shen Yuan knows where there are some power-ups that might be able to help him. While he won't touch anything that would be vital for the protagonist, he's more flexible on screwing over random future harem members or side characters, especially when it wouldn't even really harm them all that much. So while Binghe is going through his gauntlet of horrors in the Abyss, Shen Yuan embarks on his own level-up quest to dramatically increase his cultivation, and become more capable of keeping up with Binghe.

When this leads to Shen Yuan being able to take on a human form, he gets really excited, but that's mostly for personal comfort reasons. He can finally hold books again! And talk to people! Who cares if he looks like someone's ponysona gijinka, he can walk over to a stall and order meat buns!

Unicorn form is next, and it's... meh? Mostly it's a boost in his cultivation. The horn looks fun but doesn't really do much.

When he upgrades to being able to take on a pegasus form, now that's really cool. He can fly now! Not only is it crazy good fun, but it also increases his mobility exponentially. Surely riding a flying horse would be more comfortable than balancing on a sword, too?

But that's not enough for his actual goal, he needs to keep going until he finally finds the right bullshit mythical item that will do what he hopes:

Turn him into a dragon!

Unfortunately said bullshit item is in the demon realms, which are a fairly difficult place to navigate as either a horse or a human. Beefing up for the trip takes Shen Yuan just about two years, and requires all of his other upgrades. But he does it, he gets to the demon realms, eats the creatively named Dragon Fruit Plant, and... gets... stuck???

In his new dragon form???

WTF this didn't happen to the random ox that Luo Binghe fed the fruit to in order to create a suitable beast of burden to impress the husband of Wife No.666! Although, thinking about it, maybe it did because it wasn't like the ox ever turned back into an ox afterwards. But Shen Yuan just figured that was because it was a simple beast of burden and saw becoming a dragon as an overall upgrade, why go back? He honestly hadn't really thought about it!

Cue Luo Binghe getting out of the Abyss only to shortly find that a random dragon is following him around. Maybe that just happens here? It doesn't attack him, at least, and he has no time to deal with it (or to sleep) because his first order of business is establishing enough of a foothold in the demon realms to regain access to the human ones, and find out what happened to his horse. And then kill Shen Qingqiu. In that order.

[amevdw]

[eerna]

me explaining why Will/Elizabeth/Jack love triangle was a perfect little one-movie arc that wasn't present in the final movie because it was never about choosing and instead just about dynamics and character development so they all outgrew it by then

[yourlocalabomination]

I saw people talking about how Ted would own so many patterned button ups and had the AWFUL realisation me and this man would share a closet.

(Also long haired Ted propaganda be upon ye)

[nyaskitten]

I feel like all the people saying Lego probably would not care enough to get a diverse cast for the ninja forget that, even if mostly just for sales, Lego HAS been trying to diversify itself, lmao.

While a horrific failure, Piece By Piece, the latest Lego movie, still made like a Bunch of new skin tones and pieces specifically for the purpose of being more inclusive. They got Snoop fucking Dogg as a Lego...

With Monkie Kid, Lego has like a large team devoted specifically to cultural accuracy, because of how revered the story they're basing their theme on is, and how important some of these guys are as religious figures.

Literally with Dragons Rising at some point they switched Arin from a white kid witth freckles to a black kid, and made the conscience choice to switch Euphrasia's intended race, lmao.

While these are specifically Lego minifigures and thus easier, you cannot possibly convince me Lego "just doesn't care" about being inclusive lol. Again, even if it's just performative or to drive up toy sales (sans that first example) they still are Doing it and are Aware of it, so truly, sincerely, I'm gonna say for (HOPEFULLY) the last time, there is no way in hell we're getting an all white cast.

I get that they dropped the ball heavy and hard w/ Ninjago because they couldn't be bothered to do cultural accuracy, but fun fact! Writers and executive's opinions, viewpoints, and ideas change after 13+ years! Do I think the racist elements will be Fully gone? No. There's a guy named Wu in a heavily Chinese-inspired series, ffs. Do I think they're gonna make all the ninja white, or get untalented celebrity actors? ALSO NO!!! I think there'll be like a big name celeb or two, but they're not gonna oversaturate the film with that.

Also I don't take arguments on this specific post I'm plugging my ears and running away lalalalalala

[atlantis-area]

MINHO (Body Rhythm, Music Bank Global Festival, 231215) [X]

[ghastlyaffairs]

for something as trivial and simple those feelings sure are hard to get rid of

also made a gif a version for fun + alt version with no tears under the cut

the gif is in very low resolution...this is a feature (i could make it bigger but that would require saving each frame individually and than glueing it all together. also i feel like low resolution suits it better. aesthetically and fits the mood)

[obsessedwithstarwars]

Danny makes jokes out of anyone finding out ghosts are real.

But only when it’s done through “accidental summonings”. In all fairness, if he hadn’t become a ghost at 14, he probably would have fuc-messed around with a ouija board too. So he can’t really blame them when the poor unfortunate souls happen to guess the correct phrase.

(And before you ask, it’s the ghostbusters theme song because of course it is.)

Instead of giving his victims summoners a heart attack, he decides to go for a more… Matrix approach. Incorporate a little humor into an otherwise terrifying experience.

Rather than a red pill and a blue pill though, he gives out a bright green glowing pill and piece of candy. He definitely gets annoyed more people don’t go for the candy. Just because it’s clearly the wrong answer doesn’t mean you should miss the opportunity for a delicious snack!

[triglycercule]

sleep deprived dust can't recognize what's dream and what's real when he goes in and out of consciousness so i think dust is allowed to be incredibly reckless when he's awake but thinks he's in a dream. he will kill whoever passes by him (or attempt to. for him it's an instict to shoot bones anyways.) he will drink 4 bottles of alcohol just because he thinks its just a lucid dream. have incredibly loud conversations with phantom paps because he's asleep so nobody will hear him talk. or just have loud ass breakdowns because again he thinks he's asleep!!! nobody's gonna know what he gets up to in his dreams. and until someone (probably phantom paps) tells him that he's not asleep and this is reality he won't realize until he's done something really reckless

horror is seconds away from exploding dust's skull open with his magic while dust is trying to strangle him and FINALLY phantom paps tells him he's awake and dust snaps out of it. killer is walking around the house with bones sticking out of him like pins on a sewing pattern (casually too. another day in the life for him) and he just asks dust what that was about. dust just gets off of horror and shrugs his shoulders with an idk. and then walks away. this is the 6th time its happened this month

[spielzeugkaiser]

hi, first off i really love your art. the h/c and warmth really hit me where i live and your illustration style is fantastic. lately i've been obsessed with the post where an unwell milek thinks geralt will leave him behind. was that an ingrained insecurity, assuming his super-witcher dad wouldn't have time for a sickly human kid?

[MASTERPOST] - Ahh, thank you for the ask! Yes, this scene.. I actually saw this a bit differently! It's not about Milek fearing Geralt will leave him behind, he actually wants him to. They need to find his Pa!! I think he often feels like a burden; Jaskier knows this, but Geralt isn't aware of this yet. Milek just wants to pull his weight, especially with Jaskier. A little sneak peak to their struggles regarding this:

Meanwhile Jaskier continues to struggle with his omega status.

[s0fter-sin]

need soapghost in public putting on a show, soap in ghost’s lap just worshipping his mask, kissing the teeth and licking along the cheekbones while ghost reclines back, one arm wrapped around soap’s waist as he makes direct eye contact with anyone who dares to look at them

[adelrambles]

Tips on Writing Bishop

I've been asked a couple times for advice on how to write a good (03-style) Bishop, and I'm well-aware he can be a bit tough to get a grasp on. As someone who's studied him specifically to learn how to write him as accurately as possible, I figured I'd compile some thoughts in case it'd be helpful to anyone else. I know a lot of Rise takes on him are basing off the 03 version, so maybe this could help generate ideas, too. SO!

Big Overall Points!

At the core of EVERYTHING Bishop does are two primary motivations. The first: the protection of the earth. What this means to him can get tricky, because it doesn't necessarily mean protecting the people, at least not all of them. But it will be better understood alongside the other:

The second: The protection of his sense of safety. Bishop has been deeply traumatized, and everything he does is born of a want to avoid that pain ever again. In his mind, earth is a safe area, a controllable factor, and anything outside it is a danger that must be eliminated. This is why he will still be willing to put himself and other people on the line in service of this; any sacrifice is worth the greater goal. (It's worth noting, Bishop will claim the first as his motivation freely, but is likely not consciously aware of the second.)

Bishop deals in Big Picture ONLY. Another reason Bishop will willingly throw away anything, including the lives of the people he claims to protect, is that he seems incapable of understanding things on a small, individual basis.

Bishop is a cold personality. He does not have strong displays of emotion. He does emote, but for the most part it's muted, so I recommend using emotional bursts very sparingly. (In my own writing, as an example, I try to limit my use of exclamation marks in his dialogue as much as possible.)

At his core, Bishop is afraid, and his response to fear is aggression. This also makes it particularly difficult to talk him down, if he's put in an emotional state. His response to not being in control is often violent retaliation.

With those basic tenants understood, let's move next to some major personality traits:

Bishop is a controlling personality. This is a direct result of his trauma response. Things that can be controlled are safe, therefore he must control everything. If something cannot be controlled, it's a threat that must be eliminated. If he doesn't know why something happened, he becomes angry (including even when it benefits him.)

Bishop is very low-empathy. When writing him, I try to keep in mind that he cannot put himself in the perspective of others. (Or if he can, he doesn't care to.)

Bishop is a sadist. He gets personal enjoyment from hurting others.

Bishop likes fighting, but only when he's winning. He will quickly leave if he can't see a guaranteed victory.

Bishop is paranoid. This is probably self-evident, but it's the reason he's often so well-prepared even when things don't go to plan.

Bishop genuinely seems to enjoy science. He's shown to be far more lenient with scientist characters than anyone else, and he seems to involve himself in his scientists' projects to a degree. Enough to, at the very least, understand their work. (Given he was the one set to dissect the turtles, it might also be argued he has some medical or biology background, himself.)

Bishop is an opportunist and scavenger. He can roll with failures as long as he can find something to get out of it. If he's presented with an opportunity to stab someone in the back, and he has something to gain? He'll take it without a second thought.

Bishop is deeply self-blind. For all his perceptiveness and strategic prowess, Bishop is not very self-aware in the slightest. He is completely blind to his own hypocrisies, and thoroughly confident in his own righteousness.

Bishop adapts fast. He accepts situations for what they are and acts (Though he may still be angry about them, or what have you.) This is likely a skill developed via longevity; the world around him has changed rapidly, but he doesn't feel out of place at all.

Bishop will take extreme risks and thinks wildly outside the box. Also self-evident, if you're familiar with the plans he enacts throughout the show. He'll put a lot on the line if he thinks the reward is worth enough, and he's willing to go to extreme lengths to get what he wants, even if his plans would be considered crazy by normal standards.

Bishop is persistent. If he wants something, he won't stop until he gets it. If he fails, he'll retreat, make a new plan, and try again. It is very difficult to convince him to back down (and certainly not on moral grounds.)

Habits and triggers I've noted:

Being restrained of any sort puts Bishop in a panic. He is more likely to have an emotional response in these scenarios, and seems to have (an albeit muted) desperation to escape. (See: Leatherhead restraining him in the first encounter; His reaction to being trapped on the surgical table in Head of State.)

When being duplicitous or suppressing a reaction, Bishop will go to adjust his tie. This could possibly be considered his tell.

Bishop seems to have a particular fear of aliens blending in as humans. His slayer project was built around the assumption that this is a common threat. (Worth noting: This makes The Shredder the model of the exact threat Bishop is afraid of. Technically, Bishop himself may also fit the description of a threat shaped like a human.)

Writing considerations:

In 03's narrative, Bishop is EPF and EPF is Bishop. Narratively speaking, any organization Bishop is head of acts as if it is an extension of his will and character.

Bishop is shown to strike fear and/or discomfort into most characters he interacts with. Anything beyond this is an outlier, and will draw a reader's attention.

Dialogue-wise, Bishop is generally succinct and blunt. He does dabble in gloating, though, and especially likes to upset others. If he's given a chance to be mean, he'll usually take it. It can help to consider he has a Mission Mode and a Normal Mode. When it comes to Mission Mode, he gets straight to the point and hates unnecessary talking. Otherwise, he's still not very talkative, but will take the time to make pointed jabs or talk through a plan. A lot of his sense of humor seems to be rooted in how He's Better Than You (And You're Going To Die Painfully.)

It's a common pitfall that Bishop is depicted as seeking out the turtles. In 03, once he gets their DNA, he's done with them. Any encounters after that are incidental. Bishop does not care about anything that won't effect his greater goal. If he's targeting another character, it should have to do with a greater plan.

Bishop is an extremely competent combatant, shown to be able to handle up to 7 opponents at once. For a breakdown on his fighting style check out my other post on that!

Bishop is hard to kill, and oftentimes he accidentally contributes to his own defeat. (The hook from Bishop's Gambit is an example I get a LOT of mileage out of, as a perfect symbol of his self-defeating prophecies.)

We almost only ever see Bishop in the context of his work. While it could be construed that he depersonalizes himself, it's much more clear that the narrative depersonalizes him. As far as we, the audience know, Bishop's work is all that he is.

It's unclear if Bishop was released from his abduction or escaped. Depending on which you ascribe to, this can have ramifications for his mindset on how to deal with the alien threat. (Personally, because so much of his inability to cope hinges on a feeling of helplessness, I believe he was released. If he escaped on his own power, that undercuts it, somewhat.)

Thematically-speaking, Bishop parallels both his own torturers and his own victims at the same time. He has perpetuated the cycle that traumatized him in the first place by trying to fight fire with fire. (In that vein, I don't think he's capable of understanding that, not seeing aliens as people in the first place, just dangers. Considering how deeply ingrained his trauma is in his worldview and actions, it would probably ruin him, if he were ever able to actually grasp it.)

Bishop and EPF are likely a commentary on the military of the time 03 was coming out. This can be something worth keeping in mind, when figuring out his greater themes in your story, though it can just as well be discarded if it doesn't fit.

Adding to that, Bishop has an extensive american military background. His skills and knowledge will reflect that.

Bishop also plays on and references a number of real-life alien conspiracies. It can be worth digging through conspiracy history to drum up ideas and themes, too.

The ethical and philosophical quandaries of Bishop's body-hopping and humanity tend to not hold too much weight, because Bishop, himself, doesn't seem to care.

If I think of more I'll certainly be adding on to the reblogs of this post! Or, if you have more thoughts, please feel free to add! If you're in the mood for more Bishop ramblings, that's practically most of this blog atm, but this post is a particular favorite. If you're interested in Fast Forward!Bishop, specifically, consider this post! (also read Taking Pawns. slipped in that self-promo, nice.)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I wouldn't really agree that boys are just arm candy in magical girl shows and only there to look cute. Yeah, sure the girls' friendships are the focus, but the boys are usually very much involved in the plot and most shows do explore their feelings about the odd things that happen due to magical shenanigans even if they aren't in the know (It's why ML baffles me even more with how they screwed up Adren's arc when he's the deuteragonist, when all these boys are supporting cast and get well rounded arcs)

I'm not much of a winx fan, but the specialists were very much not arm candy. Did the girls talk about them being cute? Yes, it's what teenage girls do. Did the narrative suggest they were good looking? Yes, but that's standard for most love interests in any genre. But we still got scenes with them talking amongst themselves about how they themselves feel and they got a fair share of badass fight scenes even if they wield no magic. A large amount of episodes actually included the boys and girls working as a team solving a mystery or fighting a villain. The girls might deal the finishing blow but the boys were still integral to the plot.

I hope this doesn't come across as hate, it definitely wasn't my intention. I'm just a bit too passionate about the magical girl genre.

I do think you have a good point with ML having a problem choosing a genre or blending two genres successfully.

For the CCS fans, I will add though that Cardcaptor Sakura had both Tomoyo and Syaoran serve as sources of motivation for Sakura. And both Sakura and Syaoran collecting cards even if Sakura is the only one who could seal them and yet never made you question whether Syaoran was even necessary for the job the way ml does with Chat.

I wasn't trying to say that boys have no part to play in magical girl team shows or that they're always treated as having no lives beyond the girls, that's why I mentioned that the Winx Club boys - aka, the Specialists - have their own (mostly off screen) lives and occasionally show up help the girls:

the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship

Even then, this is certainly a simplification of the roles that they play in the story, but I kind of had to simplify their roles down to their base components for the original post's discussion as I was talking in broad strokes of how these stories are written.

In terms of those broad strokes, the Specialists are absolutely only there for shipping fodder. That's why each one is assigned to a girl from the start and why their main role in the narrative is supporting their assigned love interest or causing relationship-based drama for their assigned love interest. If it weren't for shipping, then the Specialists would not exist.

While the Specialists do have fleshed out characters and may even effect the plot, the execution of those elements is designed around the girls. A really obvious example of this is the character Timmy, who has character development as the boy's tech guy. Why is he into technology? Because he's the designated love interest for the fairy of Technology and we have to show why they're a good match. Along similar lines, the boys don't really get plots that are removed from the girls because this is the girl's show. Every episode features one or more of the Winx, but the boys are optional and often don't appear.

This is because, narratively speaking, the boys are just love interests and that brings us back to Miraculous' big problem. You can't have a show where Adrien is written like a Specialist while also being part of the Winx Club and where Alya is written like she's part of the Winx Club while technically being more of a Specialist in terms of power set and actual narrative role.

I'm was thinking back to my memories of various Winx Club plots to find one that really highlighted what I mean here and I remembered that one of the big dramas in season one was the reveal that Bloom's love interest - Sky - was in an arranged marriage and had just never told her. As it turns out, that's a great example of what I'm talking about re Adrien!

Is that plot line technically based around Sky and letting his life effect the plot? Sure, but the fallout of that reveal revolves around Bloom, not Sky. The story doesn't really care how Sky's feeling as the conflict progresses. Instead, it focuses on how it affects Bloom and her friends because of course it does! She's the main character. It would be really weird if that plot suddenly focused on her side character love interest and his friends during one of her darkest hours/biggest moments.

Think of that and then consider how the ending of season five is written. Notice any similarities? Sure, this is Adrien's family drama, but because he's just a Specialist, the focus isn't on him. It's on Winx Club member Marinette and Adrien only shows up at the end for a kiss. That is the problem. That is what I'm talking about when I say that Miraculous will randomly write him as if we're watching a magical girl team show where Adrien is just the love interest.

In fact, let's really dig into this example because it's a good one.

You can have a look at the transcript for the finale episode of Miraculous season five here and see for yourself that Adrien doesn't even show up on screen until the final scenes when the big drama is over. The Winx Club wiki also has episode transcripts, so I took a look to see what happened in Winx land during the arranged marriage reveal plot (I love that this is a thing. It's so useful for fact checking myself!) This is the script for the episode after Bloom learns the truth. Sky does not appear even though his lies and family drama are the fuel for this episode's events, which are a major part of the season's arc. Note how perfectly that matches Adrien's writing?

Similarly, Sky's dialogue in the reveal episode is all about Bloom. He's worried about her learning the truth and thinking less of him. To match that, here's Adrien's only real dialogue in the penultimate episode of season five (full transcript):

Adrien:(Covers his ears.) I cannot transform... (Looks at his ring and tries taking it off.) Plagg: What are you doing?! Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.)

Switching back to Winx. After Bloom learns the truth about Sky, bad things happen because she's depressed. This results in her and the Winx going off on a journey to learn the truth of who Bloom is. After the girls share this big plot moment and Bloom gets her mojo back, the boys show up to be their ride home and to give Bloom her romance moment where Sky wins her back by declaring that he broke off the arranged married because he loves her.

Sky notably doesn't get an arc about choosing between his arranged marriage and his true love. We don't even know that the marriage is broken off until he tells Bloom because that was never really a conflict as far as the narrative was concerned. Of course he's going to pick Bloom! He's her designated side character love interest! He only exists to be with her. We don't need to treat this as a serious thing for him. The arranged marriage plot was never about him anyway. It was about giving Bloom a reason to have a darkest hour moment that moves the plot forward. Similarly, Sky calling off the marriage is nowhere near as important as him telling Bloom that he's called off the marriage to be with her in a grand romantic gesture.

This perfectly mirrors Miraculous' season five ending where Adrien doesn't appear until after Marinette is done fighting her big girl power fight against his father. As far as the writing is concerned, that fight isn't about him. His connection to the villain only really matters in terms of how it affects Marinette's actions during the final battle. Then, when the battle is over, Adrien shows up to give Marinette her big romance moment because, while the plot may be driven by Adrien's family, he is not a Winx club member. He's just a Specialist. Or, in the words of the head writer:

[image text: She's Barbie, he's Ken. You don't like it. I get it. It won't change. Anything else?] (The full, even more damning context of this tweet can be found here.)

What else can I say other than, "I rest my case."

Oh, and also that I didn't take this as an attack. I just thought it was a good opportunity to really dig into the nuances of this and what I was talking about in that original post as I never know how obvious this stuff is if you don't closely study story telling. As this case study hopefully shows, if a show is about a group of girl friends using the power of friendship, then their love interests may have important roles, but the boys are never going to be more important than the girls and most of the boy's screen time will be focused on romance and how their existence effects the girls because it's ultimately the girls' world. Without them, the show wouldn't exist. Without the boys? Well, then we just wouldn't have a romance plot.

[vigilskeep]

if you took a bad enough hit while dao rock armour was active, could you have scars from blunt force trauma that spiderweb like cracks in stone

[pleasedontcareaboutme]

It's missing my father hours rn so imma just dump a bunch of pictures here and cry

( sorry i don't know the source of anything I just had them on my phone)

(also dont read the tags i just need to let it out lol)