#she's truly one of a kind

[ohrackham]

You know, I'm stuffed in a truck with a bunch of cowboys, honey. Let me call you later tonight, all right?

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

gukgak specifically from my typing (man w/ three jobs & a creeping sense of dread)

[ceramicbeetle]

little Tula sculpture because this season immediately put me in a chokehold in the best way possible <3

[ratatatastic]

https://youtu.be/RbgDHyeQNdE?si=WXnghZZuAyvgumVL

Keith saying him and Matthews fiancé do the cooking for him and he just sits there and heckles them. So on brand.

"And how about your barbecuing skills? It looked like you knew what you were doing behind that grill!" "Well, Matthew is pretty useless so! Unlike Brady—Brady can, you know, does things on his own but Matthew likes when I'm down there so I do cook and his fiancée, Ellie, does a great job so. He just sits back and critiques us but forgets that we're the ones doing all the work for him. Which—hey! It was playoffs! I'll do anything for my children."

NHL Tonight: First Shift | 10.16.24 (x)

unfortunately tracks for him and im still crying into my hands its always the one who cant cook for shit thats the mouthiest about it

and considering this clip from faceoff it really does track

[thattheater-kid]

Aroace culture is accidentally writing all your characters to be aspec because you have a hard time writing romantic and sexual relationships.

[chiyune]

first impressions :3

[lunarin64art]

That feeling when he can't stand to see you that way, no matter what you do, no matter what you say😩😭💔

[trappedinafantasy37]

Let's talk a little bit about Minthara and her oath real quick. Now, a question that I have seen pop-up in a few places between Reddit, Tiktok, and even Tumblr, is how the in the hells Minthara isn't already an oathbreaker. Well, I have 3 potential theories as to why that is.

Because it is merely a game mechanic and Larian did not want your only potential paladin to be an oathbreaker upon recruitment.

Her original oath to Lolth never broke because she never willingly joined the Absolute and her oath to the Absolute was made under false pretenses.

When she joins your group, she makes a new oath in your name instead.

Personally, I think that Minthara's oath is actually a mixture of 2 and 3. Yes, it is possible for a paladin to have multiple oaths at the same time. It just isn't a recommended practice in tabletop DnD because they can sometimes contradict each other, some oaths will straight up break other oaths, or the players just are unable to manage them properly. In this case, I do believe that Minthara has two oaths, one to Lolth and one to you.

I have not been able to find any reference to how paladin oaths work when the paladin is being coerced or mind controlled. But from what I have read in DnD lore, when a paladin makes an oath they have to do so willingly, deliberately, and consciously. None of those things occurred for Minthara when she took up her oath to the Absolute which is why it did not break her oath to Lolth (because it otherwise would have as she would have been sworn to destroy the Absolute for Lolth). And, technically speaking, the god that the oath is sworn to cannot go in and break the oath. Only the paladin can break their own oath. I only think gods can revoke divinity from their clerics. So, even if Lolth was truly pissed at Minthara, Lolth herself cannot just break Minthara's oath. That is something only Minthara can do. Minthara's original oath to Lolth still being intact is not necessarily indicative that she still has Lolth's favor, it just means she hasn't yet broken the terms of that oath. Even a crisis of faith (which Minthara is going through) won't break the paladin's oath either.

Another thing that is important to note is that as of 5e, a paladin actually does not need to make their oaths in the name of a god or before a god as their divinity is powered solely by the oath itself. Paladins are able to just summon divine smites and other holy based powers by sheer force of will and conviction (which is pretty damn sexy if you ask me). I mean, oathbreaker paladins still have access to divinity as well. Of course, paladins can still make an oath in the name of a god and most typically do, it's just that gods are not the source of power behind that oath. An oath is nothing but a vow, a promise that the paladin makes *to* a god, not the other way around. It does not even need that gods approval. So Lolth abandoning Minthara will also not break Minthara's oath either because Lolth is not the one who made an oath to Minthara.

So, it is very much possible that when Minthara joins your group, she does make a new oath in your name as oaths don't need gods. But, Minthara herself does not actually know how to live her life without having some kind of god figure so she just kinda puts you in that spot for the time being. I mean, she literally prayed to multiple gods and you were the one that answered. Which is also one of the many reasons why she does to along with what you want to do (even if she disagrees) because the oath she made to you would keep herself in check and keep her from acting against you. Minthara already is a very loyal person, but if you have any doubts on Minthara's loyalty, just keep in mind that she is quite literally oath bound to do whatever you tell her to do and will not betray you.

Minthara also never goes out of her way to become an oathbreaker, even after you free her from the Absolute. To be precise, you have to command her to break her oath. And of course, she will do so willingly knowing the consequences. Despite her oath being broken, she will still abide by the tenants of that oath. But she does enjoy the freedom that comes with being an oathbreaker and now nothing will hold her back from achieving her goals. However, she also says she does not know if her oath will still stand when all the nonsense with the Absolute is resolved and she even implies that if you do take the Absolute, she will no longer have an Oath of Vengeance, but an Oath of Conquest (which I think fits her better than vengeance if I'm being honest).

Minthara also makes quite a few suggestions to you that would actually break you oath if you are a paladin. Such as making an oath to Gortash, or making certain choices in regards to the vampire spawn. But, Minthara never does any of these things herself and I think that is purposeful. She knows these actions are oathbreaking type of actions. She attempts to orchestrate a fight between Dame Aylin and the wizard knowing fully well that it will break Aylin's oath. And she really wants you to go snitch on the wizard (although I just think it's because of her disdain for wizards rather than her being a little scoundrel to mess with Aylin's oath).

She is very very careful to keep herself in the position that she is because she doesn't want to be an oathbreaker initially. She is also very careful to tell you to do all these things. The language that she uses in regards to her oaths are also very important. Her original oath to Lolth would have her sworn to destroy the Absolute. But, we also know that Minthara very much has other ideas for the Absolute that do not involve destroying it (but oaths only break from oath breaking actions, not oath breaking thoughts). And her oath to you, she very specifically says that she is sworn to destroy all those who serve the Absolute, which is not exactly the same kind of oath she has with Lolth.

But, there is only one instance in this game in which Minthara will willingly become an oathbreaker and you do not have to command her to be one and that is if and only if you claim the brain. Her choosing not to destroy the brain when she had the opportunity to breaks her oath to Lolth. Now, the oath that she makes to you is where it becomes very very tricky. The oath she made to you, she specifically uses the language to "destroy all those who serve the Absolute". Her oath gets broken to you because she has become someone who serves the Absolute. But, there's more than that. If you become the Absolute, you also enthrall all your other companions which would make them servants of the Absolute and she also does not destroy them. Ironically, her choosing to serve you as the Absolute, breaks the oath she made to you because she has gone back on what she said she was going to do in your name. But most importantly, she chose not to get vengeance for herself.

Her oath to you was never to help you become the Absolute. Her oath was specifically to assist you with destroying the Absolute and all those who serve it. Her choosing not to destroy the Absolute and everyone who serves it, breaks both of her oaths. So, the Minthara that greets you at the gallows is now an oathbreaker. But, as I mentioned earlier, Minthara has already expressed the notion of taking up a completely different oath if you were to claim the Absolute. She helped you become the Absolute, knowing it was going to break her oath, and she had the intention of immediately replacing it with an Oath of Conquest, making her the first official paladin of the Absolute.

The fact that she wants you to become Absolute at all and that she prefers being an oathbreaker is why I read her as a canon oathbreaker. But she will never break her oath out of betrayal, but because of loyalty and devotion. She breaks her oath trying to make you as powerful as you can be. I have also discussed previously that her devotion is her fatal flaw and her choosing to remain devoted to you could potentially get her back in the same position you found her (that is if you betray her and choose to use the Absolute to reenthrall her). Her becoming solely devoted to you officially removes any and all ties she has to Lolth. But it causes Minthara to remain stagnant in which she doesn't learn anything, she doesn't change at all, and she doesn't grow.

She will live the rest of her life devoted to someone that isn't herself and act in the name of someone that isn't herself. She will live the rest of her life helping you achieve your goals and ambitions and what she wants is kinda secondary to all that because she has propped you up on a pedestal. She has always lived her life in service of a god and she does not know how not to. Many of the things that she has done in her life are not because she wanted to do them, but because she had the burden of expectations either from Lolth, from her family, or from Menzoberranzan culture and her oath kept her bound to these expectations. And she is falling back into that cycle with you because you failed to show her that there was another way and that she could be devoted to herself. You failed to show her that she does not need a god and she can indeed choose for herself.

[booasaur]

Special Ops: Lioness - 1x07

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.

[dinowatermelons]

The one thing I refuse to believe about Luffy is that he doesn’t know what sex is. He has two older brothers, was raised by mountain bandits, his grandpa is Like That, and his idol is a pirate that loves to party.

This was not necessarily good sex ed though.

I’m imagining Dadan cornering luffy a few days before he sets off on his adventure to give him SOME FORM of lecture about being careful and it going something like this:

Dadan: listen brat, I’m only going to say this once. I don’t want to take care of any more kids, so if meet someone-

Luffy: -to pull out. Yeesh, Ace already told me.

[biasomnia]

DANDADAN SPOILERS

With this tinyyyy bit of info I am theorizing what the next arc will have as the interpersonal drama after tiny Momo. I currently call it “Okarun starts becoming popular and Momo has to work with Aira to keep everyone away from the dweeb they fell in love with bc everyone else besides them -and Jiji, maybe Vamola- don’t see past the surface level” aka “Okarun’s confessed so it’s Momo’s turn”

[nottheeconomy]

A crown of irises and a single dahlia!

Full images beneath the read more!

[zahra-hydris]

A familiar figure turns to you. Heinrix van Calox, Interrogator of the Ordo Xenos, bows his head respectfully. "Lord Captain."

[torahtot]

you can always tell when someone doesn't have maga men in their life and god it makes me angry.. "if you're nice and compassionate you can be the one woman that makes them realize women aren't mean!" my mom bent over backwards for my dad for 25 fucking years he has plenty of other women kissing his ass and it never changed anything. do you really think that before being radicalized they never knew a single kind woman? they were never friends with a nice girl? alt-right men's problem with women isn't just that they've experienced too many mean women and they need to be shown that women can be nice, it's that they think women are inferior and don't deserve rights and don't understand anything so you can do what you want with them. and it takes a lot more than being nice to show someone that you aren't inferior. this isn't a case of being nice even when it's hard for the sake of deradicalization, it's about spending every fucking interaction with someone trying to get them to see you as a human being with value and a functioning intellect while they just laugh and show you that's never going to happen.

i cannot stress this enough: random women are not just going out and Being Mean to men. ur average guy interacts with plenty of women throughout his life- close women amongst their friends and family, casual interactions etc. most people don't start out being shunned by women, they start out being treated as NORMAL. & when they show their disrespect in normal society, it isn't tolerated, but when they go to alt-right spaces (which they're pushed towards online) they're told they're allowed to be as horrible as they want with no consequences because they're entitled to everything. it isn't "women aren't welcoming and the alt-right is so friendly so i'll become alt-right," it's "women don't let me disrespect them and the alt-right tells me fuck them, do whatever you want, you're entitled to it all" and why would you choose the group where you have to be a normal accountable person when there's a group that will reward you for being a shithead who gives no fucks?

the alt-right can afford to be more friendly and welcoming because they can allow bigotry. this can't work the same way for progressive spaces because we can be as kind & welcoming as possible but at the end of the day we have lines where we have to say "this behavior/speech isn't allowed in this space," and for certain people, that just can't win against a space where you can be as nasty as you want. these posts always end with a disclaimer saying "of course being kind doesnt mean you need to tolerate their bigotries" but what they don't realize and what drives me crazy is that women not tolerating bigotry IS the "women are mean" that radicalized them in the first place. they perceive you pushing back on any bigotry or bullshit as you being a meanie and treating them like they're ontologically evil. the 'kindness' they need to be deradicalized is you letting them walk all over you.

idk what the answer is to deradicalizing them and im sure relationships are part of it but you can be as kind as you want and all it will do is destroy you ime. i cant stand to see people (who have never even successfully deradicalized any man by being nice btw they always speak in hypotheticals and not from experience) double down on telling women to do things that will see no results and only hurt them, especially when any woman who has tried can tell you exactly how it went