#s4 has issues but i mean

[ancientstone]

that feeling when you get to the end of a season and you love it and apparently everyone else hates it ✌

[mattzerella-sticks]

"Who are you?"

"We're you, but on Amazon."

[motherfuckingbrad]

say what you will about community s4 but the thanksgiving episode where jeff tells his father how fucked up he is and how he literally harmed himself because he just wanted to feel like someone cared about him will never not make me cry

like we see jeff struggle with isolating himself and caring so much what others think and feeling like he needs to put up walls for most of the show, so for him to have improved so much that he can stand up to the first person that ever made him feel unwanted and admit how much distress it caused him is so good and makes me so happy

[cloneslugs]

ik rusty and brock are very nonchalant about the clones 19 years down the line but i do think the first time they had to use them must have been awful, assuming jonas sr didn't have it perfected/completed for rusty . the clone slugs are one thing, but the computer housing their memories/selves (the computerized [souls]) is a whole different mess, plus it also just means watching your kids die (for the first time) . and it's not like competent clones are a thing you can test for. sure you can check that the slugs are functioning and healthy, but it's not like you can test your backup data is gonna work bc once you put that into a slug then it's not a clone slug anymore, now it's your son, and neither of you are gonna kill your son . one of you is supposed to keep those kids alive (well really both of you, but one of you is specifically hired for it) & one of you is such a failure in all things science, all you can do is hang on to your father's coattails and hope he keeps you afloat, but you call these slugs your life's work. and sure your dad was doing some clone research when he was alive, but these boys arent his, they're yours. And you dont want to be your father as a father you want to be your father as a scientist, and you make these clones because you're a father, not because you're a scientist . etc etc dont know where i was going w this . rips off my shirt to show off another shirt that says "ask me about my ideas on the vital relationships related to clone slug twin sons"

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Me tryna preach what incredibly amazing gossipy and bitchy best friends Demetri and Yasmine would be while making it extremely clear that I would rather die painfully than romantically ship them

Nothing’s worse than when you’re talking to someone about character nuances and they refuse to take their shipping goggles off bc I said “oh yeah I think these two could have a really interesting dynamic if it was explored” and they went “well I ship this character with someone else so…” like bro I said they could have a compelling relationship, not that I wanted them to fuck nasty style

[bandtrees]

something i find really interesting about the tma fandom (genuinely) in terms of like fanon attitudes and character portrayals is how much you can tell most people binged it and at exactly what point they did

[queermikewheelertruther]

mileven vs byler fight

I think by now we’ve all seen that “I really want s5 to be milevens season” post, but I noticed something interesting about it.

“No fights.” Now this isn’t just specific to this post, I’ve seen plenty of other milevens say similar things and just generally being against the idea of a mileven fight.

But compare this to Bylers. I’ve seen countless amounts of posts wishing/begging for another Byler fight, a rain fight, etc. But why is this? What’s the difference between mileven and Byler’s fights?

With Byler, their arguments always end resolved. Mike apologies to Will, and they tend to have some sort of intimate moment(s) afterwards. But compare this to mileven, they don’t. Any relationship issues mileven has had throughout the series haven’t really been resolved.

These problems just kind of build up overtime and result in things like an argument “you can’t come back from.” I also feel like this is why milevens don’t want a mileven fight again. They know that it wasn’t really fixed. Their relationship isn’t doing so well by the end of s4.

As for Byler, their fights build on to their relationship, and also just their characters. As we’ve seen in s4, the rain fight encouraged Mike to join a dnd campaign again, and also attempt to bring the party back together. And their s4 fight, well I mean, all I have to say is the flirtatious bedroom scene(s) LMAOO

But milevens can clearly see that it’s not the same case for mileven. A fight wouldn’t help their relationship, because they don’t understand each other when they have a disagreement romantically.

(id also like to add that milevens arguments just… aren’t on the same level as bylers. for example, milevens ‘fight’ in s3 didn’t feel emotional. it felt like the average teen couple breaking up but it didn’t feel devastating or even that big of a deal. as for byler, they want you to feel kind of taken back by their fights. they want you to go “wow, this is a pretty serious argument that no other friendship seems to have in the show.” and for a reason too. milevens fight in s4, it was upsetting but in a specific way. they’re trying to make it feel unappealing, hence why mileven is always separated and having problems throughout the series.)

[catoslvt]

Ben Hargreeves x Reader

I would've married you if you'd stuck around🐙

sorta s4 spoilers? but nobody takes the Marigold and lived their life.

plus I'm changing things because... yeah.

I walk into the birthday party for little Grace, who is one of Diego and Lila's children with her birthday present in my hand. It's just a silly child's keyboard because what the fuck do you get a six year old?

I make my way through the swarm of running and screaming children, the part of me that never grew up hurting because that's the childhood I always wished to have, yknow, running about, screaming my head off with all my friends but no, at the age of six I was learning how to disarm gunmen and learning how to control my powers.

God my life has gotten so much better without them.

Once I'm out the swarm of children, my eyes instantly fall on Sloane, Luther, and Ben, and I feel a slight shiver go down my spine at the sight of ben, I mean it's weird to think he has the face of the boy I used to love when we were like thirteen, but he's not the boy I love, I think anyway, I mean okay I sorta have feelings for this Ben, but I don't want him to think it's because he has the face of my old Ben, its confusing isn't it?

"y/n hi!" Sloane exclaims, waving me over with her hands, and I put on a wide smile as I make my way over to her, setting my present for Grace on the table beside her before she wraps me into a tight hug, which I return with an awkward laugh.

"I heard you're a firefighter now? that's sick." I say, turning to Luther with a smile and he just nods.

"we brought the Umbrella Academy, we're currently renovating it, I'd love for you to come stay some time." He tells me, and I widen my eyes, pretending to be interested as I make small 'oo' noises.

I hate when our family gather together, I mean Luther is married with a child, Diego is married with kids, I don't know what the fuck is going on with Allison, weve hardly spoken since we got to this time line and its not exactly that i dont want to talk to her, i just dont know what id say, Klaus doesn't need love, Five is technically married to a piece of plastic, Ben's just out of prison, Viktor has basically dated every girl in his town and I'm just.. there, I end up feeling extremely left out at the family gatherings when they start talking about issues with their kids or relationship problems because the only relationship problem was the fact Ben died on me.

"How was prison?" I ask ben, my eyes lighting up slightly as I turn to face him, all my attention now on him.

"I can't exactly say I enjoyed it." He tells me, raising a bottle of beer to his lips and taking a sip, and I just know his parole officer is gonna be pissed so I just let out a quiet laugh.

"So where are you staying then? I can't imagine your parole officer would let you live far." I then go onto ask, and he groans slightly, pointing at Luther and Sloane who are now talking to Diego.

"but I'm seriously debating robbing a bank just to get thrown back in." He then adds, looking around and I can't help but laugh a little louder.

"You're staying with them?" I scoff, turning to look at him with raised eyebrows.

"hardly by choice, I just needed a permanent address." He sighs, and I laugh again.

"Fresh out prison, and you're gonna be turned into a painter, electrician, plumber and babysitter. good luck." I tell him and he lets out a small chuckle before taking another drink from his beer.

"How have you been then?" Ben asks, and I shrug slightly.

"I mean, yeah, I've been.. living." I answer with a laugh, and he nods in agreement.

"Why don't we go get you a drink, we can sit at a table at the very back, and you can let it all out." He offers and I rapidly nod.

I sit at the table with Ben, taking a small sip from my beer before clearing my throat.

"I'm a child psychologist now." I tell him, and he nods slightly.

"I mean, it just felt right, yknow? I want to help kids so they don't end up with a childhood that we had. Well, I mean, without the powers, the robotic mom, the alien dad, you get what I mean." I tell him with a small wave of my hand, and he continues to nod, a small smile on his face.

"I get it." He tells me, and we both fall into a comfortable silence before he breaks it right as I take a mouthful of beer.

"don't you miss your powers?"

that question almost makes me spit my beer everywhere, my eyes widening as I stare at him.

"God, no, I don't miss them in this time line Nobody knows who I am, nobody takes a double take or gawks at me waiting to see my powers in use, I can be whatever I want to be in this timeline and I plan on using that to my hearts content." I tell him, and he just looks at me.

"You don't miss them? not even a little bit?" He asks, and I shake my head, which causes him to shrug slightly.

"I miss my powers, I feel.. ordinary without them." He tells me, and I furrow my eyebrows slightly.

"No offence, but I'm glad you don't have your powers. You died because of them in my original timeline, and it's good to see what my ben would've looked like grown up." I tell him, and he gives me a sad smile before we fall quiet yet again.

"and i think it's good to feel ordinary, I spent my whole childhood wanting to be normal to fit in, and now I do." I then add, and he scoffs.

"There's nothing ordinary about us y/n. Apart from the Umbrella Academy and the Sparrow Academy, nobody in the world has gone through even a fraction of what we have, and you've technically went through more than me because the Umbrellas ended the world in 2019, just to then go and do it again back in the 60s, to come back for it to end in 2019 again.." Ben says, and I just scoff, but I can't help but laugh and nod.

"and both times was technically Viktors fault." I argue, and we both smile before Five appears from under a slide somewhere and nods, a bottle of beer in his hand.

"it was Viktors fault both times. Actually, she's not making that up." He tells ben as he makes his way over to our table, dragging a chair along behind him, and ben just raised his eyebrows slightly, clearly pissed off our conversation had been distributed by Five, who still looks like a kid.

"Well, isn't this just a sad table of losers who feel out of place at their nieces birthday party with all the married couples and kids." Five says as he sits his beer down on our table with a large clink.

"I don't feel out of place, I could easily find someone I could marry and have kids with. you couldn't because you look like you're 18." I argue, and five leans back in his seat and crosses his arms slightly, mouthing ben so subtly so that ben can't see.

"Wait, y/n, did you ever even move on after your ben died?" My other Ben asks, and I look at him, my eyes wide as I try to muster an answer.

I try to muster up and answer, but none suitable come to my mind because the truth is I didn't even try to move on, I felt like there was no point, my whole childhood my heart was set on the fact that I'd be marrying Ben, I wanted to at the time despite how young we were and the fact we didn't fully understand the whole concept of marrige and he said he wanted to aswell. when he died I just blamed myself, I thought it was my fault he had died and I convinced myself everyone I love will die because of me, as a sort of reminder that my powers were a curse. obviously, that fact was proven false because my powers are gone. but even now, I'm still cautious to open myself back up to love, but when I'm with this ben, I feel myself slowly opening up again.

"I tried, but nobody stuck around." I lie, and Five shoots me a knowing glare, and Ben just nods, yet another comfortable silence falling over us as I take a large drink from my beer, staring down at my hands before Five starts a conversation with Ben and I can't help but sigh a sigh of relief.

somehow, Luther and Sloane have convinced me to come to theirs to stay the night.

"I think it'll have beneficial effects on releasing your childhood trauma y/n." Luther tells me as I sit in the back of his car, ben at the other side as sloane sits in the front and stares out the window.

"I'm the child psychologist Luther. You just stick to putting out fires." I state, crossing my arms slightly as I stare out the car window, watching the world go by the single frame of glass, trying to hide my smile as I hear Ben laugh at my comment.

"Do you ever sit and look at people and just laugh to yourself because you've saved their asses from the end of the world three times now?" I ask to Luther mainly due to the fact the Sparrow Academy have only had to save the world once, which ended up in all but two of them dying and he just shrugs as he continues to drive.

"Imagine how Viktor feels, knowing he almost killed them twice." Ben says, and that causes me to laugh, slapping a hand over my mouth as I try to stop it.

"That's nasty! the first time wasn't fully his fault. He just discovered his powers and didn't know how to stop them." I tell him, leaning over to gently slap his arm, but I'm still laughing.

"Plus, it's also semi Luther fault for locking him in this weird, safe thing." I add, and Luther groans, muttering something under his breath, leaving me to smile proudly.

"Let's just sit in silence till we get home." Luther suggests, and nobody says a single word to protest and I guess it would be sorta rude if I did seeing as I'm staying at his house tonight.

I sit in my old room, looking around at how empty it is because the Umbrella Academy doesn't exist in this timeline, meaning this room is just a room where I just so happened to share all of my good childhood memories, or atleast the handful I can call good.

"Why would you actually agree to come back here?" Ben asks with a laugh as he stands at the doorframe, staring down at me with questioning eyes.

"I think it's actually partly to do with what Luther said, I think it's good for myself to come see the place and realise that everything that happened back in my time line is just memories now, I dont know I guess I'm trying to give myself some closure." I answer with a shrug as ben walks further into the room, now sitting beside me on the bed.

"What were we like? in your timeline anyway?" ben asks, and I feel my heart stop for a second as I look at him for a brief moment.

"Really young but you -" I cut myself off. Is it wrong to address this ben as my Ben? because it is the same person, but it's not at the same time.

"we understood each other, he- *you* were one of the only people at the Umbrella Academy who showed me love despite our age. if we were doing paired work, we'd always be together, at meals we'd always pass notes, during training we always went easy on each other, during missions we always had a close eye on each other, we'd always spend time in my room. yeah, we were really young, but we still loved each other." I tell him, and he just looks at me, a sad smile on his face.

"we were convinced we were gonna get married, and in all honesty, I would've married you if you stuck around." I then add, looking away as I get an unbearable feeling of sadness.

"I would've married you if you came to the Sparrow Academy timeline earlier." Ben tells me, and I almost choke on my spit as I look at him, my eyes wide.

"What?" I ask, shaking my head slightly.

"I felt myself changing slightly the minute I looked at you when our academies met, but I was too.." He trails off trying to find the words.

"stuck up? full of yourself?" I begin listing and he rolls his eyes but he smiles slightly.

"Yeah, yeah, I was too stuck up to actually allow myself to change for you, and also, I was too scared because I know im nothing like your ben so I didn't want to cause a disappointment as though you lost him again." Ben admits, and I just stare at him.

"Ben, you are my ben." I state, my eyes not leaving his face, not even when his eyes light up slightly, not even when he turns to look at me.

"I didn't want to tell you in case you thought I'm just using you because of what happened with Umbrella Ben, but I promise you that is not the case. You are my ben." I then add, and I see his eyes softening as a small smile appears on the edge of his lips.

"so it's safe to say we like each other then?" He asks after a moment of us just staring at each other.

"I guess so." I jokingly groan, but I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him into a hug, just savouring the feeling of ben in my arms, my ben as one of his arms wrap around my waist, the other one coming up to reach into my hair, pressing the back of my head closer into him.

"I can't believe you went to prison, you asshole! I was gonna tell you I had feelings for you once we all settled into the new timeline, and then you went to prison."I scoff, and he pulls away from the embrace slightly and looks at me.

"You could've always written a letter or something." He tells me, a smirk playing on his lips.

"I would've been better using a carrier pigeon. No chance was I gonna have a prison pen pal." I scoff, rolling my eyes, but I did write, and then I wrote again, and again, and guess what? I wrote again.

"I did write to you, over and over again, I just never had the courage to send them, because imagine you got one of the letters, wrote back but it didn't send to me?" I ask, a shiver going down my spine at the thought of never knowing if he felt the same way.

"Well, I would've rewrote the same letter every day and sent it to you until you got it." Ben says, a slight hint of promise in his words, and with that, I press a kiss to his lips, and he instantly returns it, his hand on my waist tightening, gently pushing my head closer to his as he depends the kiss and we continue in our kissing embrace got a few moments, before we hear a:

"When I said coming here would help to release your childhood trauma, I didn't mean by doing.. this." Luther says, and I just pull away laughing.

[inlovewithregencyera]

Regency Era Accessories Part 6: Charlotte Bonnets

Hi, Happy New Year! I made these bonnets back in April but have had issues but as of recently, I've fixed most of them. They're hat hairs, and I converted them from maya40 who was kind enough to send me some meshes she didn't release. I did change the mesh to make a few variants and changed textures aside from swatch 31 which was the original swatch.

You get 9 Charlotte Bonnet Hat Hairs for your married regency ladies of the upper crust. The plain version without roses or bows could work for the middle class and slightly below! These can even be worn by your old early Victorian widows who can't let the fashion of their youth go! Appropriate for the 1800s-1830s, but do as you please! There are 3 different types of bonnets, each with 3 different hairs. The hairs are just these ones, I believe I took the roses from this set? I'm not sure, I made these in April of 24'.

Found in the Hat category, 31 swatches, I think you need growing together for them to work, but I could be wrong because I did embed all external resources in s4s so it may vary.

These are all VERY HIGH POLY, ranging from 16k-28k. The ones with roses and bows have the most poly, so download them with caution. No, they can't be decimated more in blender without looking like a mess, I've tried.

KNOWN ISSUES: I unfortunately could not close the holes on the side of some versions of these, which is weird because I used the same base. The vertex paint is green in blender on all of the hats, so I'm unsure what went wrong, but I'll show you what I mean. It's not a noticeable issue. I also have upgraded to dx11 and batch fixed my cc, so if the texture looks weird for you in your game, you should update to dx11. I've already batch-fixed these with s4s. Don't forget to download the hair color file, it's needed or else you won't have any hair with your bonnets!

Here, you can see the small pieces of hair poking out from the bonnets. It's not that noticeable when playing your game.

Another thing, if you want these to look the same color in my game you need to get a lighting mod. This doesn't make your game lag, you need this if you don't want the bonnet to look a bluish gray color. I use bright base dark rooms. I also use gentle cas lighting, no this won't make your game lag either. It just helps with the weird blue color that EA naturally has for some reason. Without a lighting mod, the cap will look like this

As always LMK if you have any issues! (aside from the ones stated above)

Pictures of Charlotte Bonnets below ; )

Please read my TOU before downloading!

@alwaysfreecc

DOWNLOAD

[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.

[starbuck]

I love the way Flint always looks so pikachu face surprised whenever he sees Billy do something Evil tm in S4

he’s like wow he’s changed. wonder who he gets that from.

[euryleli]

Am I going crazy when I say El has never seen Will and Mike be... WillandMike?

In s1 El and Will missed each other entirely. When he came back, El got trapped in the upside down instead and s2 was the same thing - Will and Mike worked together as duo for most of the season and El was off doing her own thing.

In s3 we learn that El barely spends time with the rest of the party and she only connected with max after the whole ordeal about Mike's nana (which happened months after the ending of season 2), so El and Mike spent all of their days together completely alone at her cabin or actively ignoring and ditching the party during group hangouts

We don't actually know what happened during the time skip from the battle of starcourt to the byers move, but I don't think it's a stretch to say Mike and Will's friendship was still off (especially because of their infamous fight and "it's not my fault you don't like girls")

In s4 we know El and Will finally got to properly know each other - they're family now, not only acquaintances with a connection to the supernatural - but when Mike arrived in Lenora... well, the airport and rink o'mania scenes speak for themselves. They were being weird and El was obviously too preoccupied with her own issues to actually do or say something about it

But El's not stupid... so do we think if she had seen how Mike and Will act around each other, she would've known?

She's really perceptive and her upbringing being so disconnected from society also means she doesn't see the world through straight and heteronormative lenses...

[smallpwbbles]

Monkie kid season 5 ep 1 and 2 thoughts (SPOILERS)

DADSY ENJOYERS WE ARE FUCKING THRIVING THIS HIGH NOON

Pigsy saying he loves MK while stroking his face filled me with the highest amount of joy and whimsy that increases my life span

At the same time I love thinking about how their father/son relationship progressed cuz he literally only called MK son for the first time in S4, I’d love to understand why he never saw himself as MKs dad despite raising him

Literally hearing the eng voices again is just heaven on earth

Bro every time Mac and SWK bicker I gain years of life I fucking love it

Mac saying FFM has been his home just as long as Wukongs has me pondering a bit like did he mean that literally or did he mean he’s just been around on FFM a while after SWK established it

MK please when he said he couldn’t sleep I wanted to scream

THE FACT THEY REBUILT SWKS HOUSE I LOVE FOUND FAMILY MAN

I godda give to props to Wildbrain I can’t lie I really fuck with their animation you can tell the people who are working on the show now actually care (and it’s even more present throughout the season)

THE ENTIRE COURT EP WAS AS FUNNY AS I WANTED IT TO BE

Ten kings: we know that you scribbled your name out the book of the dead

SWK: smuggest face that screams he would do it again

I need Nezha to have a vacation he’s got daddy issues and is dealing with 3 monkeys like I’d hate to be him

The gutteral scream SWK did when they put the circlet on him I was SICK

“There isn’t anyone standing here that I don’t trust” while Mac looked up at him, what if I fucking died

“He always gets away” while showing macaque not getting away was sick

[thethiefandtheairbender]

as a lifelong ATLA fan who narrowly had ATLA dethroned as my top show by The Dragon Prince steadily over the past 5 years, the similarities between the two have very little to do with the surface level parallels that get regularly drawn between them.

Like ATLA, TDP has Books for seasons and chapters for episodes, but unlike ATLA, which only touched on storytelling sparingly as a theme, TDP is obsessed with interrogating storytelling and history and the presence of unreliable, biased narrators throughout many of its episodes (most notably 2x05, 2x06, 3x06, 4x04, and 4x07 among them). Half of what you learn in the 1x01 intro ends up being a lie once you reach S3, with more being steadily deciphered.

Yes, TDP has different magics with people living under those umbrella terms... for the elves. Humans are coming culturally at things from a completely different angle, and the elves' connection to their primal sources are discussed philosophically in detail, informing their practices and their culture first hand, including the way they chafe against humans, who are arcanum-less. Many animals in the world are also connected to magic, which influences both their design and which ones get hunted for humans' more 'clever' solution in dark magic, including each other.

The core issue of the Puppetmaster, down to being a coercive magic formed by someone deeply resentful of their imprisonment? Said puppetmaster is the main endgame antagonist of the entire show with all of S4 onwards being exploring the ethics of controlling people against their will in various methods, and the entire show itself being a thematic battleground of fate (imprisonment) vs free will for virtually every single character.

Where ATLA mostly concerns itself timeline wise with ending the war, very little thought is shown by any of the characters as to what they'll do after the war. This isn't a problem (as it reflects the sheer domineering scope of the conflict) but even Zuko being firelord is only ever really addressed with 2.5 episodes left till the finale. TDP, meanwhile, ends its 'war' in s3 and s4 opens up with dealing with the old wounds festering between people with centuries of history, the struggles that come when people aren't able to let go and believe they're safe or mourn in a healthy manner, and the religious/cultural clashes that may occur when trying to integrate different groups of people.

TDP also has an evil father with a devoted daughter and a brother who eventually defects, but it explores the reality of an abusive parent who loves/will sacrifice for you and your right to leave regardless, even if that means leaving the sibling you truly deeply love and who loves you in turn. Which means that when you and your sibling are on opposite sides of a deep ideological conflict, it actually really fucking hurts bc we've seen first hand just how much they love each other and also how and why everything fell apart not in spite of that love necessarily, but also because of it.

Is this to say that TDP is a 1:1 with ATLA or that it's better? No, not at all, and the latter is subjective. I prefer TDP, but I think they're about on equal ground when you look at each show currently as a whole (although TDP has two seasons left to go).

But TDP takes a lot of what ATLA was doing thematically with some of its most interesting beats and then builds or expands upon them further. It talks further and more consistently about the cycles of violence; in many ways, Jack De Sena's character, Callum, begins the series largely where Sokka had ended (and he's not the most like Sokka anyway; very much his own thing); we get Faustian bargains and centuries' long grief and fucked up people who are trying both succeeding and failing at not doing fucked up things. There are antagonists, but it is very hard to actually label anyone at this point a straight up villain. Moral greyness is where the show starts, and it just continues from there.

That's not to say the show is nothing but dark and depressing - like ATLA, there's a steady thread of hope and humour even as the show gets steadily closer and closer to its 11th hour point - but the show is usually emotionally heavier. There's more blood and potentially disturbing imagery with body horror and on screen death. There's so much foreshadowing you basically can't go more than 5 minutes into any episode without having something that's going to come back around or be referenced again like 3-5 seasons later.

Just to be clear - TDP is like ATLA, but it's like ATLA in interesting ways beyond the more shallow surface level that usually gets attributed to it, while still very much being its own show and its own thing. And that is why I tend to recommend it to people who like ATLA.

Thank you and goodnight

(Also, the fandom doesn't have any ship wars, and the show is queer as fuck)

[love-byers]

btw they knew will was going to have feelings for mike when they wrote

Do you remember the first day that we met? It was...it was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends. I just felt so alone, and so scared--but I saw you on the swings, and you were alone too. You were just swinging by yourself. So I just walked up to you and I asked--I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. You said yes. It was the best thing I've ever done.

why the fuck would brilliant writers like the duffers give a character such a beautiful touching monologue, make the recipient of the monologue in love with them, just for it to mean absolutely nothing in the end.

if s5 ends with mlvn endgame and will accepting mike doesn't share feelings and moving on then all of that amounts to nothing. it literally means nothing. it'll be as if it never happened.

if the narrative of will and mike's arc is "gay boy falls in love with straight best friend because of straight best friend's adoring behavior and he just has to accept that some people are just straight" i will be absolutely flabbergasted. literally nobody besides mlvns want that.

part of stranger things since s3 is that some people ARENT straight. we think robin is straight and has feelings for steve in s3 because the writers allowed the heteronormativity, just so they could flip it on our heads later on. and they do a similar thing with vickie in s4, giving us hope that she shares robin's feelings, just for us to be devastated when we see her with her boyfriend. then they DOUBLE flip it on us by revealing vickie does indeed like robin.

the writers are literally teaching you to not just assume people are straight no matter how it may seem. we saw vickie flirt with her bf and kiss him and look happy when he kissed her neck and GUESS WHAT?? NOT STRAIGHT AND HAD FEELINGS FOR SOMEONE ELSE!!!

in almost all the most beloved couples, we've seen them appear happy with someone else before. like, genuinely happy. but we know that doesn't mean anything, because they can appear happy and still have issues/have hidden feelings for someone else. nancy told steve she loved him to his face and not even a week later got with jonathan. murray literally says you can genuinely like someone and be attracted to them and have real love for someone else at the same time.

not everything is what it seems. wizards of waverly place literally prepared us for this like come on

[aprillikesthings]

So this is somewhat of a continuation of my "you could headcanon Catra as demisexual based on canon" post, but I wanted to write a new post for this.

So there’s a fascinating conversation to be had about why, in fics where Catra and Adora aren't together (yet), so many of us have written Adora as…not a prude per se, but far less likely to hook up with other people—and have written Catra doing that, instead. (I mean, I have an unpublished WIP that includes that; I'm not throwing stones at glass houses here.)

And I do think some of it is that Adora is awkward in that way that’s so often some combo of a sheltered upbringing/ADHD/autism; whereas Catra is in fact more openly flirtatious.

(Disclaimer: In this post I'm using "slutty" in a neutral-to-positive sense.)

But the irony is that One, plenty of people who share those qualities with Adora are in fact hella slutty*; and Two, Catra clearly doesn’t intend to follow through on all that flirting.

ANYWAY time for my actual thesis of this post:

The real reasons, IMHO, that it's easier to see Adora as less slutty than Catra:

Adora is so visibly uncomfortable in her skin, and Catra is not

Adora doesn't even realize when she's attracted to other people

Catra however is aware of when people find her attractive (and changes how she interacts with them based on that)

The tweets aren't connected; they weren't part of the same thread. But ND's made no secret of the fact that he gave Adora a bunch of his own traits**, and it was after s5 that he started coming out as trans--which isn't to say Adora is intended to be read as dysphoric. But the way Adora never thinks of herself or what she wants carried over into not thinking about her physical body as anything other than a tool, and not feeling comfortable in her body, and not feeling like she owned it. (Which....is probably related to ND's religious trauma, considering how many conservative/fundie Christians straight-up tell women and girls their body doesn't belong to them. In those words. Literally.)

And I think that's part of why Adora reads as so awkward. The idea of someone wanting her and finding her attractive is just bizarre to her to the point that she doesn't even see it.

She does clearly find other people attractive! But I don't think she realizes she's doing it--she reminds me a bit of when I was 15 and stared at women in bikinis on the beach and tripped over my own feet because I was looking at them and not where I was going lol, and had literally zero idea I was doing it until my best friend told me about it later.

Adora didn't even know she wanted to kiss Catra until just before it happened--if Glimmer had pulled Adora aside in the Crimson Waste and said "lol you want Huntara so bad," Adora would've been genuinely confused!

And that's all before you get into the whole She-Ra thing, and you could write a long-ass essay about Adora's sense of identity and the degree to which she sees She-Ra as herself or not. But the fact is that She-Ra has a different body than Adora! Taller, stronger, a lot more hair lol. And the people around her clearly value She-Ra differently than they do Adora. So that's a whole. Thing.

Meanwhile: Catra just feels comfier in her body. She does try to tamp down her cat-like qualities to some degree, especially in s4, but a lot of it was just that her ears and tail tended to give away her emotions, and she was trying to hide them. She stops suppressing that at some point after Save the Cat. (And then the Universe gave her a mood ring alien cat, lol.) Catra's got her own pile of Issues, but her body is just not one of them.

There’s a scene at the end of The Coronation (s4ep1) where Catra is in her s4 outfit for the first time, and she basically does the “I’m in charge now” thing at Hordak, and I’m sorry but it’s...not NOT sexually charged, even leaving aside that her new outfit has thigh slits and a boob window. She’s sitting in his throne and purring (loudly!) and then purrs out a "Hey, Hordak."

She basically forces him to his knees, taunts him, and then we see from his POV as she sits back in that throne and crosses her legs. If she’d done that in a scene with literally any non-male character it would be seen as ship-bait!

Is she intentionally flirting with Hordak? Lol no.

But you'll notice: She doesn't do it with Scorpia, when she's mean to Scorpia. With Scorpia she's just...biting and cruel. So she clearly has some idea what she's doing when she taunts people, enough that she knows Scorpia would take it differently. She knows Scorpia finds her attractive and is trying to push Scorpia away.

Catra also doesn't do it with Double Trouble! Double Trouble flirts with Catra, but Catra gives none of it back, and as noted in my previous post, is even visibly uncomfortable with it at times.

Which isn't to say Adora never does the "flirtatious taunting" thing:

But like, where. Where do you think she learned it from.

(this post is once again relevant)

EDIT: another example of Adora learning it from Catra, taken from a "She-Ra Crack" video:

(*Me. In my 20’s. Just remember kids, lots of neurodivergent nerds are hella slutty.) (**iirc that's how he got diagnosed with ADHD. Everyone just like "hey is Adora intentional ADHD rep" and he was like "no, I wrote her like me?? ...oh. shit.")

(Lastly: anyone reblogging this to shame people for writing/hc'ing/shipping whatever they want will get blocked. I'm not even sure I hc Catra as demi and I wrote a whole post about it lol.)