#sorry i keep remembering more things

[whitefangz]

sorry i need to overshare on tumblr dot com. nothing serious but it might be long so im putting it under a readmore

i started seeing a therapist in june and just stopped and i am not intending this to come across as anti therapy in any way but im like LASKJF idk. i need to tell somebody else about this. I contacted her in like mid May i think and i specifically sought her out bc she said she does cognitive behavioral therapy and ive read thats a good option for people dealing w my issues and started seeing her in june and like. The first couple of times were fine i honestly didnt really like it but everyone and their dog is always like ohhh it always kinda sucks at first and also i simply hate talking about my feelings etc so i expected that. fine whatever. anyway red flag number one was that she didnt seem to understand how insurance works at all and said i could just pay her on venmo. and i was like. Um ok. but she said i wouldnt need to for a couple weeks so i just left it alone. red flag number two is that one time she brought her enormous dog and it lunged at me and tried to bite me in the face. LASJKFG which to be honest. I almost walked out at that point and i mean she was very apologetic + usual dog owner "he never does that im so sorry!!!!!!" and removed him from the office but like Who fucking brings their horse sized dog to a therapy appt without asking if the person is ok with it. And like she was accredited and shit its not like i was going to see someone in their basement. i would ignore these if i thought her sessions were like remotely helpful but all she would do was like. Ask me about what i did and then tell me not to do that. Like i pace around the house a lot when im anxious. and she would be like well try not to do that. ok! see you next week. Like. Do you think ive not thought of that one. she also kept insisting that my phobia has to be like rooted in some kind of trauma or that its actually Secretly about being afraid of embarrassment and i would be like. i dont think its either of those things. and then she'd be like Ok well i don't really know how to help you :/ Which honestly idk. i was put off by her saying that repeatedly as is but then last week she just decided she was going to make me try exposure therapy which i told her before i don't want to do / don't feel ready to do right now. i just want to focus on managing the anxiety first. and she just like told me to do it anyway LJKFD idk. i emailed her to tell her i didnt want to continue and she was like that's ok. you might want to try EMDR therapy. btw you still ahve to pay me on venmo. and im just sitting here like 1) No i dont think i will need to try that and 2) I paid her thru my insurance like a normal person LASKJF like i dont know. i feel like i dodged a bullet or something. i'll try again someday but at this point im just happy to stop paying $20 a week for a woman to tell me to meditate. perhaps this is an uninteresting wall of text but if you read this far picture me shaking your hand. just a life update from me

[xxplastic-cubexx]

alternate apocalypse ending or something who the hcrist knows anymore

[astearisms]

fionna and cake drawings before and after watching the episodes so far. it’s nostalgic and somehow cathartic and poignant and relatable and—it just started

[helloanthy]

your shapes are so fluid and soft and dynamic—it inspires me so much and i hope to someday reach the same level of skill in my own art ; U ; can i ask what your inspirations are? specifically for your shape language, but any general insp that contributed to your style would be super cool to hear about! thank you for sharing your beautiful art with us!! 💘

aaa thank u thank u so much for ur kind message ! 🥹 im honored you think so highly of my art and that it inspires you. the best compliment anyone could give me is that my art inspired them to make art too. and its really validating whenever im told my art is fluid and dynamic because i try very hard to make it so … drawing for me is kinda like carving marble i lay the initial sketch which is incredibly blocky and i spend an absorbent of the time trying to chip away at the edges make something rigid seem natural … pensive. i hope im understanding what ur asking correctly, but to quote ikuhara in regards to my shape language: "I think it's more beautiful when the body silhouette has clear contrasts (laugh)." i think its because i'v always been greatly inspired by fashion illustration & fashion editorial photography. runway and editorial makeup included in these i feel like also inform how i render eyes (yassified 💀) i started out drawing clothes and mimicking 20th century and 90s fashion illustration when i was little. in the salon i was always excited whenever we got new magazines so i could look at the celebrity fashion and red carpet sections. i also liked looking at the hairstyle lookbooks. late 90s and early 2000s so a lot of big/spiky/gelled/sprayed hair. and iv always loved haute couture especially sculptural clothing in the realm of guo pei, robert wun, heaven gaia, miss sohee, thierry mugler, schiaparelli, and richard quinn but i dont know if any of these influences translate here since the houses i named are heavily textiled and avante garde ... i try not to spend too much time rendering clothes bc at a certain point it becomes laborious which im trying to avoid feeling …… but i love sharing good art and these r my favourite designers 🥴 maybe this explains my silhouettes tho ? shrug mm perhaps more noticeable influences in how i shape fabric & clothing with my art here though would be houses like vivienne westwood, simone rocha and shushu tong besides fashion illustration & photography as i got older i got reallyyy into reading shoujo manga and that informed a lot of my style development too. particularly works of arine tanemura, matsumoto natsumi, ai yazawa, shinohara chie. and individually, mangas like kodocha, beauty pop, say i love you, kamisama kiss, kyo koi o hajimemasu (i dont remember a lot of these works plots only the art really but PLEASE do not read this last one i remember its really. really bad lmao) hononary mention of rosario vampire, which is not a shoujo but the first manga i read and was extremely attached to the art style artists who's interpretation of shapes and movement that i aspire to are kris anka, rené gruau, sara pichelli, j.c. leyendecker, hua sanchuan, and hisashi eguchi lastly iv never thought about my shape language explicitly in technical terms so i thought itd be interesting to try and put it into words. if it helps. so to me its kinda like

but also stylistic inspiration and aspirations aside, half of it is just the way my hand instinctually likes to move tbh. for example i drew out quickly what kind of lines make me feel the best and theyr like this

another contributing factor is probably that i really really dont like how it feels drawing straight lines. i like how they look and i wish i could Do them but hand tremors aside before even i still felt drawing straight lines was stifling and tedious like doing math. i love making a line that feels like a running rabbit i feel like for me at least in my art there is a lot that gets lost between inspiration—interpretation—execution—reception but i hope that i explained all this ok. its hard to put things into words haha. thank u again for the lovely message 🥲💗

[natjennie]

what's weird about the fantasy high drama is that like. it seems to me like people forget d&d is primarily a) a game you play with your friends and also b) luck based.

I mean it's fine to say that "nothing felt like a challenge" and "they just dominated everything and there weren't any stakes" but like. it's not as if they weren't up against huge threats. they lost the mall fight. the last stand was an onslaught of enemies. they fought a dozen dragons from an airship. the fights were hard. they're just really good. they've had very good dice luck in general this season and are all very high level and highly specialized. fig is gonna beat deception and performance checks. adaine's gonna figure out the arcana. riz is gonna succeed investigations. like. for some reason their strategical competence and wisely picked abilities are. a downside? a disappointment?

the thing about d&d that you need to remember is it's first and foremost a game. it's mostly random and it takes you down weird paths and you're playing to have fun with your friends. the dice are literally telling the story that it's their time, it's their year. they've struggled enough. they've trained enough. they're good at what they do. and in my post about the academic/domestic/personal stressors being the focus, d&d doesn't have any other system to work them out than rolling different skills. that's what d&d is. brennan set specific challenge levels for different tasks and the players strategized to prioritize which abilities they were strongest in. the challenges were there. and the players rose to them. they were both smart in their delegation of responsibilities and lucky with their dice rolls. of which, both are foundations of d&d.

don't mistake them being good players and getting lucky with there being no hardship. just because they smashed through the wall, that doesn't mean the wall wasn't strong. they were just stronger.

[cherrirui-official]

*Twirls my hair* I redrew one of my old Friendlocke drawings ahaha

CW for blood and friendlocke Sv spoilers

@saltydkart-reblogs

Definitely proud of how this one turned out! Probably could've done a few more things but the piece feels finished to me and tbh that's all that matters :]

Not posting the og for comparison bc I don't think I have it on me rn but you can find it here! (if the timestamp or link doesn't work it's at 3:46:36 on the third friendlocke violet stream on salty's channel)

[lemongogo]

anyways . silly thing

[harvestmoth]

hi

[lucabyte]

Same anon from before. I get what you're saying, but I think we just have a difference in how we view Siffrin's gender. I don't really think it's possible for him to have a traditional gendered upbringing. They're a unique character to analyze gender wise in that sense. The Siffrin we know essentially popped into existence nearly as blank of slate as a person could be. I think about thier gender from the pov of what it would like to be that blank slate, and the detachment that would bring to the concept of gender as a whole. There's nothing for him to hold on to because he can't remember what it means to be a guy in the first place.

So to me, the he is as constructed as every other part of his identity. <- Hoping this makes sense.

(contexts: essay & prev anon)

i see i see. thank u for elaborating

i think you've misunderstood my angle, which is fair enough since I ramble a lot. But now that I know where you're coming from I can say what I'm talking about is kind of from a different mode of like. analysis.

Basically, I'm not really arguing for siffrin being able to Remember how they were raised, outside of the very specific things they exhibit in game of being afraid to want for things, which is the wish craft thing. In-universe, what I'm arguing is that Siffrin has gone for the "default" for what they have. They're going for 'he' because it's what they went with at first, and are scared to make any moves in any direction because being assertive about their wants is the thing they struggle with. It could be constructed, sure, but whatever it is, its the one they started with/got given at some point and now they're scared to change it.

But, what I'm actually arguing for, which is the point you haven't quite gotten by the sounds of it, is that I'm arguing from a like, thematic "what was the author intending/drawing paralells with the real world" angle.

In this reading, siffrin's like, inability to remember their childhood upbringing doesn't really matter? because I'm kind of arguing past that line of reasoning. I'm more talking about my speculations on Adrienne's Intentions-- I'm trying to read the authorial intent, not the in-universe reasoning.

And to me, the big smoking gun here, is that the change religion is The Transgender Religion, and Siffrin is an Outsider to it. In terms of thematic writing here, it makes most sense, to me, for Siffrin's trepidation re: change to come from a character who has been written with the assumption that they've never taken a big leap and changed their whole identity, instead clinging to what they know.

This makes Siffrin's gender another potential avenue for the game to use as Theme. The fact that they are nonbinary already is something of note, but that they seem to be doing it out of apathy rather than joy (making them opposite to isabeau) would make the most sense, thematically. They're disconnected from themself (their culture, their body, their gender) and need to make decisions about it. They can stay nonbinary, they can stay masc aligned, they can lean harder in whatever direction they want-- But they should do it because it makes them *happy*, not because its the path of least resistence. (which highly resembles the theme of the game of having those difficult conversations about wanting things!)

Which, thematically, is a little more solid if they've never taken that control before. I'm talking way more about story structure and authorial intent than i am the character's *actual* gender identity and expression, yknow?

So like. not actually incompatible with your thoughts? You're just saying they constructed the he/they at least a little bit on purpose, and i'm saying it makes sense if they're just doing that by default-- but all i'm saying is that it makes more /thematic/ story sense, if this 'default/constructed' dichotomy *also* maps on to our IRL concepts of being transgender-- ie that default is based on your Junk. Which is something that Vaugarde (and Maybe the island) don't agree with, so yeah, maybe that doesn't matter to In-universe-siffrin. but i'm not arguing about in-universe-siffrin's choices as much as i'm arguing about Adrienne id5's choices when making siffrin.

BUT dont worry this is why i was so worriedly yapping about watsonian (in-universe explanations) vs doylist (author-based explanations) so much, beause I know most fandom discussion comes from in-universe theorising, but i'm doing is basically the opposite so i was kind of expecting people to get tripped up by it. So I hope this clears it up a bit?

To try and put it succinctly... umm..

Siffrin is a Fictional Character, and I'm speculating about the Design and Writing Decisions that went into making them, and then using that to inform my in-universe thoughts on Siffrin.

Basically trying to get into the author's headspace to get to know them better, rather than trying to get into the Character's headspace to get to know them better. It's just a different approach and as such it can lead to different answers. (esp since. siffrin is so cagey their headspace is uh. well. even they have issues with it. its hard to get in there)

[chussyracing]

He's not a Lando fan. He hates him and McLaren which is why we became friends in the first place. But he's a Max fan which well. Ofc Max is good, but I guarantee you he wouldn't survive the Ferrari experience from 2021-24 and come out with 4 titles at the end of it

to be fair, nobody survives that - hence why the drivers changes left and right in that seat. oh but wait, one driver survived through all that and you will never guess who it is 😁

[lesliemeyers]

dinner plans

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Sorry if this seems confrontational, but for the life of me I can’t get into your “Chloe has no growth” point when the show itself retracts growth from everyone and is inconsistent with everyone. You saying “The show just lays down basic character traits in Chloe” doesn’t make sense when her basic character traits are supposed to be her being selfish and spoiled.

S2 built off of that and despite what you say, had Chloe doing things that in S1 she wouldn’t have done. She apologized multiple times to the people she wronged, she willingly put herself in harm’s way to help the people she cares about and she was openly vulnerable to Ladybug in “Malidiktaor”. Something S1 Chloe wouldn’t have done. If there’s a distinct difference between a Chloe back in S1 and a Chloe in S2, then growth HAS taken place. But it doesn’t stay because of the formula (and the writers just don’t want her to keep that growth)

So what I’m asking is…what do you mean “Chloe doesn’t have growth”?

I can understand the “No arc” argument because an unfinished arc feels like there’s no arc at all (even though they are fundamentally not the same)

I wouldn't say that the show retracts growth from everyone. It's more that no one is ever supposed to grow. Every episode resets the cast. That's just how pure formula shows work and Miraculous is being sold as a pure formula show. The characters are meant to be static (one of the writers literally compared Miraculous to Dora the Explorer).

That static nature is why pure formula shows normally avoid giving their good-guy characters major flaws. It's the wrong medium for that type of thing specifically because the characters cannot change in meaningful ways throughout the show. They can learn little lessons that don't really change them and maybe have big change between seasons via a special or movie, but that's about it. Thus things like the season four conflict working so poorly. It's just a terrible choice for a formula show! The conflict is literally not allowed to develop properly because of the chosen format.

But sure, let's talk about Chloe and why I will die on the hill that she never demonstrated meaningful improvement even with the issue of the inconstant writing. In fact, seasons-one-to-three Chloe is one of the most consistent characters in the show. For this discussion to work, we need to start off by discussing character development and the two main forms it can take: character establishment and character growth.

Character Establishment

When the audience meets a character, they know nothing about said character. It's up to the writer to guide the introduction process. To choose when to reveal already existing elements of the character's personality, skills, and backstory. This is called character establishment. It is the writing telling you who the character is on a baseline level. Those reveals don't need to happen at the start of the story, though. They can be - and often are - held back for when the time is right.

When these reveals are delayed, it's important to remember that these elements were always part of the character. The reveal isn't changing who the character actually is. It's just changing how the audience views the character.

For example, we spend a good chunk of season one uncertain why Gabriel is doing what he does. Then, in Origins, we learn that it's all for Emilie. This is new information that adds depth to Gabriel's character, but it doesn't change him in any way. This is who he always was. We just know him better now and can recontextualize past events with our new understanding of his motivation.

Character Growth

Character growth is when writers take a character's personality or world view or even just their skills from point A to point B, allowing the audience to watch the character change and become a new better - or lesser - version of themself. This is usually part of a larger character arc where all the moments of growth add up, but it can take the form of small moments of growth that don't fit into a bigger picture, too. I'd probably still call that an arc, but we'll use the word "growth" a lot in this post, so let's just call it growth to be consistent.

Miraculous doesn't really have either arcs or growth because - once again - formula shows don't allow characters to meaningfully change, so I'm going to have to make up an example here. I'll use one that illustrates how character establishment and character growth can and do intertwine as that's an important thing to acknowledge to help guide this discussion.

Let's say that we have a character who lost their family at a young age. We'll call this character Mary. Mary's loss guides her character throughout the entire story, but the other characters and the audience are never told that this is what's going on. We just know that Mary acts in seemingly illogical ways at times and that she trusts no one.

Throughout the story, Mary learns to trust her costars, leading to a big, dramatic scene where she finally tells them - and the audience - about her past. This big dramatic scene is both the culmination of a character arc and a piece of baseline character establishment that allows us to understand Mary's character better no matter what part of the story we're reading.

Because these combo growth and establishment moments are so common in stories, it can feel like character growth when we learn new things about a character in a dramatic moment, but that's not always what's happening. Sometimes dramatic moments are just there to reveal what was always there by forcing a character to act differently than they usually do through the power of extenuating circumstances. These extenuating-circumstances moments are not character growth because, once the moment is over, the character resets to their normal self. The moment wasn't there to let them grow. It was there for the sake of the plot.

This is actually a really important thing that writers need to know how to do. Figuring out what circumstances will make a character say or do a thing they generally wouldn't say or do is part of how stories work. I have started stories with characters acting wildly "out of character" because I put them in the a situation where the behavior suddenly was in character!

Oh, you don't want to talk to this total stranger because you're an introvert with social anxiety who has yet to learn how to love yourself and open up to others? That's nice. Your leg is broken now and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. What you gonna do sucker? Lie there in the dirt or talk to the nice lady who wants to help you? Your choice! (Spoiler: he talked to the nice lady. He even let her physically support him when he'd usually never let a stranger touch him!)

As soon as that scene was over, the character reverted because it wasn't growth. He didn't become a more open person. He just did something he normally wouldn't do because the situation demanded it. It was extenuating circumstances so that the freaking plot could start.

This is what happened with Chloe in season two. Everything that people call growth is really just extenuating circumstances that reset by the end of the episode or even by the end of the scene.

Let's Talk About Chloe

Chloe does not have a character arc, aborted or otherwise. She is never taken on a journey where we watch her change. All we get is delayed character establishment via extenuating circumstances, but it's given in ways that make some people feel like she was being given an arc. Let's talk about why that is.

Season one Chloe is a one dimensional mean girl. She has almost no depth. She's just here to be petty and cause akumas. She is not a fully realized character.

Season two takes those traits and keeps them, but also gives Chloe a lot more depth to round her out and make her feel like a real character. She's just as petty and mean as she always was, but we're finally allowed to see her in some moments that make her feel like a well of potential to become something more, which the writers basically had to do if they wanted to let her be a hero. The audience needed to feel like Chloe could be good in the right situation.

The feelings evoked by her newly discovered depth are why people go "oh, she had a character arc! My feelings about her changed in a big way!" But she didn't have an arc. You just got to know her better by seeing her in moments where she was forced to be vulnerable. That's not growth. Growth is meaningful, lasting change, not situational change. Everyone changes based on the situation! It's why the "True Selves" stuff is such nonsense. It implies that there's one set way that we're supposed to act in order to be authentic and anything else is some kind of lie which just isn't how the world works.

Let's look at some examples to drive home what I mean.

Season one established that Chloe idolized Ladybug. It's why we get things like this moment from Evil Illustrator:

Ladybug: Fine! You stay! Later! Cat Noir: What do you mean later? Ladybug: I mean, you're the one who wants to protect her, so you don't need me. So, later! (swings away) Chloé:(looks over balcony) Ahhh! Ladybug! Text me! OK!

And this confession from Antibug:

Ladybug: [Chloe] pretended she was me?! How often does that happen? Armand: She idolizes you.

So Chloe adores Ladybug and wants to impress her/be her best friend. Cool. Got it. That never goes anywhere in season one because season one doesn't see Chloe and Ladybug interact much. The most we get is Ladybug saving Chloe from akumas, which doesn't allow for deep conversations. I don't think that they're ever alone in a moment where they can actually talk.

That changes in season two. In season two, they get to interact a lot and it's often in moments where there's a big threat and no one else is around, letting us see a new side to Chloe. But that's not Chloe changing. It's just the writers revealing that Chloe has more to her than the mean girl stuff because of course she does! Pure mean girls don't exist. Everyone has depth. We simply never saw that depth before because Chloe was never put in a situation where she needed to be open. We can't say that season one Chloe wouldn't confess things to Ladybug or chose to sacrifice herself to let Ladybug win because she never had the chance to do those things!

In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that season one Chloe probably would have done the same things as season two Chloe because season two Chloe doesn't really contradict season one Chloe. Antibug showed us that Chloe was pretty desperate to be loved and welcomed the way that Ladybug is loved and welcomed:

Chloé: Jagged Stone! Jagged: (thinking she's the actual Ladybug) Ladybug! What are you doing here? Chloé: Um… when I find out you were here, I knew you'd wanna see me! I had to come say hello. (Sabrina waves at Jagged)

and Chloe has always been a stubborn girl who stands up for what she wants even if what she wants is something bad. Antibug also showed us that Chloe can be genuinely nice to the people she cares about. Her and Sabrina's relationship is shown to be complex with them often having a lot of fun together.

Similarly, Origins sees Chloe showing her father genuine affection after she's saved from Stoneheart:

[Image description: Chloe and Andre hugging and looking very happy to be together]

Origins is the baseline episode that tells us who the characters are on day one, so I never once doubted that Chloe loved Andre, but Andre didn't get akumatized because of Chloe's actions in season one. He didn't even get akumatized for something that Chloe had nothing to do with! His first akumatization is in season two, so it's not shocking that we don't get a Malidiktaor type scene until Malidiktaor.

Chloe was vulnerable with her personal hero when her beloved parent was in danger, but not before? Shocking! Who would have guessed?

Me. I would have guessed. I didn't even realize that people were reading it as some sort of character growth because it clearly wasn't. Malidiktaor didn't feel like something new for Chloe's character. It just felt like the writers were leaning into things that we'd always known about Chloe and using them to better establish her character as someone who genuinely cares about select people. She just doesn't show most of the time.

The same thing goes for Chloe's sacrifice and apology in Zombizou. Chloe only sacrifices herself when there's no one left but her and Ladybug. When the choice is to let the terrorist win or take the hit and let you personal hero save the day. Brave? Sure, but also not growth. Chloe is team Ladybug for all of seasons one, two, and three! She wants Ladybug to like her! Plus even a petty brat can have moments of goodness where they pick a hero over a literal terrorist.

This honestly would have been a damming moment if Chloe didn't sacrifice herself. She functionally had no other choice here. The entire episode builds itself to the self-sacrifice moment so that Chloe is forced to make that choice even though she's been her petty bratty self throughout the whole attack. It's genuinely solid writing.

Then, in the heightened emotions directly after the Zombizou win, we get this:

Miss Bustier: But I hurt a lot of people... Chloé: No... I did... I forgot your birthday, once again. And when I saw everyone had prepared a gift for you, I totally lost it. Because I, too, would've liked to offer you something. I'm sorry, Miss Bustier. Miss Bustier: Thank you, Chloé. Those words are the best possible gift you could ever give me. (hugs Chloé) (Chloé hugs her back, forgetting herself for a moment.) Chloé: Huh?... Uh, yeah. Okay then, we're all good.

A brief moment of vulnerability that quickly ends and does not stick around because Chloe's change was situational, not true growth. The next scene of that episode starts with Chloe being her usual self:

Chloé: Me? You want me to apologize to the entire class? Ridiculous! They should be thanking me for saving everybody.

And ends with the reveal of Chloe's gift to Miss Bustier, which was given in private via a note.

Once again, nothing new for Chloe's character. She acts as she always has, being mean to everyone while having moments of vulnerability when things get tense. Remember that hug between her and her father that we talked about earlier? Same concept. She had just almost died from an akuma attack and so she needed some emotional support, leading her to act more openly loving than she usually does when he's around. Once the moment is over, she reverts to the petty mean girl default.

Giving gifts to placate people is also something that we've seen before. A pretty similar thing happens at the end of Evil Illustrator, it's just played less sympathetic towards Chloe because the writers weren't giving her depth back then:

Sabrina: Too late. Chloé and I are doing the project together. Marinette: You mean, you're doing the project? Sabrina: Well, of course! After all she's been through... Marinette: Ughhh.... Nice new beret, by the way. Sabrina: I know, right! Chloé lent it to me. She really is my BFF! Chloé! Your geography homework's ready!

For any of this to be character growth, we need to see Chloe act differently over time. For her to be put in similar situations and get different outcomes, but we don't see that in part because Chloe didn't change and in part because season one didn't do much to develop Chloe's deeper side. We rarely see her alone or in moments of extreme vulnerability, but you need those moments to show her depth. That's why Despair Bear had Chloe crying alone after Adrien threatened to end her friendship and not before. Chloe is very reluctant to openly show depth. You have to force it out of her, which perfectly fits the character we met in season one.

Even her standing up to Hawkmoth and rejecting the akuma isn't character growth in my opinion. Chloe has always stood up to authority and demanded whatever she wants. She has wanted to be Ladybug's friend and be seen as a hero since season one, so it's not shocking that her extremely strong will would allow her to defy a terrorist. If there is anyone in this show who can stand up to a terrorist on shear "no!" power alone, it's little miss I-always-get-what-I-want. I could see a variation of this happening at any point in the show, just change Chloe's reason for defying Gabriel to match the situation. Rework these lines to be about a party that she wanted to go to and I'd still totally buy it:

Chloé: No, Hawk Moth! I am a superheroine! I am Queen Bee! Ladybug will come and get me when she needs me! I WILL NEVER JOIN YOU! (throws her photo onto the ground as the akuma exits it... and pants)

Chloe acted like a hero here because she wants all the perks of being a hero and can't believe that Ladybug would actually bench her. That's impossible! Ladybug wouldn't do that!

As soon as Chloe accepts that she won't be a hero again, Chloe stops acting heroic because acting heroic wasn't growth. It was her playing a part the same way she played a part in Despair Bear. She was doing what she needed to do to be Queen Bee again and not because it's the right thing to do. This would only be real growth if she rejected the akuma after accepting that she wouldn't be Queen Bee again, but that's not what happens. As soon as she accepts that she's out, she no longer has any reason to play nice. She never grew into a character who did what's right for the sake of doing the right thing. It's always been about getting what she wants or being seen how she wants to be seen. Until that changes, she hasn't changed.

So no, Chloe didn't have an aborted arc. They didn't start to redeem her and then change their minds. All they did was make Chloe one of the most complex characters in the show only to then not do anything with the character they wasted our time establishing, ignoring the complexity they gave her while also cranking her mean dial up to the point of absurdity where she's not even fun in her original role anymore.

I get why it feels like she had an aborted arc. The fact that the character establishment was delayed makes it feel like something shiny and new about Chloe. There's also the fact that the character establishment we get in season two is the kind of character establishment that you'd do if you were setting up for a redemption arc, but that doesn't change the fact that it was all establishment work. None of it was a true arc where we watched Chloe grow. We just saw her put in situations that revealed hidden depths.

Her showing depth is not her growing because when in the world does she show off this supposed growth? She only acts differently in the type of scenes that we've never seen her in before or around characters that we've never seen her truly interact with before. When she's around the established teen characters or in her usual scenes, then she acts the same way that she always has. We never see her be genuinely nice to Marinette or something like that. She's only nice to Ladybug and she's still rude to Chat Noir. That's not character growth! That's character establishment that can then be used to guide character growth!

Same thing goes for the stuff in Despair Bear. We learn that Adrien can push Chloe to be better, but he never does it again and she reverts as soon as he lets her off the hook, so it wasn't character growth! It was just Chloe establishing that she can play nice when she needs to. This means that she could grow if the story chose to take her down that path because we've established that she knows what being nice looks like. Fake it til you make it plot go, go, go! But the plot never went, went, went so meh?

Add in the fact that season one was a bit of a test season with lots of elements that got dropped and the fact that characterization in this show has always been wildly inconsistent from episode to episode and I'm really not seeing a strong argument for Chloe having an intentional arc that somehow got aborted. People just saw the potential for her to have one and argue that potential is the same as an aborted arc when it really, really isn't.

To give an analogy, Chloe's story is like walking into the kitchen and seeing grandma laying out the ingredients for her famous chocolate chip cookies. We get excited because, hey, cookies! Then we come back an hour later and there are no cookies. Nor is there some other sweet that uses the same ingredients. There's just ingredients, sitting unused in their original packaging, making us wonder what the heck grandma was up to. At the same time, she never really started making cookies. She just set out ingredients. They're still there, totally unused, waiting to be made into something, so we can't call them a failed cookie attempt. That implies a level of commitment that was never there. She didn't even say that she was making cookies! We just assumed she was because we, understandably, wanted cookies and wanted to believe that grandma had a purpose to her actions.

[lesbian-munkustrap]

I’ll think I’m unique because I’ll watch a show and immediately start calling the most pathetic, horrible, gross little loser man with any hint of queerness my little meow meow princess and then I get on tumblr and find out once again that I have never had an original thought once in my life we are truly all the same

Every single time I search a new character in the tags it’s a bunch of other lesbian pfps saying “yes that sad, pathetic loser man IS our little meow meow, you’re so right” like what is it, why are they catnip to me and apparently a bunch of other people just like me?? I don’t get it

[houndsrending]

I keep making up a guy in my head to get mad at while reading LOGH because I keep imagining people trying to say its Leftist and that is literally not something Ive seen literally anybody saying for real but Im still reading this book thinking like "Imagine if somebody tried to say this book that starts off talking about how humanity nearly fell apart due to societal rot and decadence is leftist" and tapping my foot

[zylphiacrowley]

Because of my specific brand of brainrot and my desire to know more about Shetona lore in general, I was trying to figure out what Erenville's home might have looked like pre-dome and how Tesh'pyani village might have operated. Literally all of this is just my guesses, most of which are barely even educated ones. OTL

below the cut to save your scroll wheel

In case you can't read my handwriting my notes in the bottom right say:

-Unsure about sleeping area? -I assume it was only Cahciua and Erenville living here. -There is a much larger structure across the street (communal dining/recreational space?) -chimney, but unsure about if there's a fireplace.

The only intact structure inside is the thing I have labeled "bench/bed?" and some built in shelving in the walls. I think that the structure that I have labeled "bench/bed?" is actually a bench and there might be the remnants of a table in front of it (or that could just be the rubble from deterioration of the home). I am def not sure about that tho because even using the intact houses in The Outskirts make it hard to tell what that particular structure was used as. Some places it looks like seating, some places it looks like a bed. ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

There's only 5 structures total in the village (which I partially owe to the restrictions of how big the map could be and how much real estate the village could feasibly be able to take up in-game). 3 of the 5 structures are smaller. My theory is that those 3 smaller ones are all individual family homes, and the larger structures might have been more like a community hub, or community leaders residence? Maybe both?

The houses in Tesh'pyani village are also pretty much identical in structure to those in Luwateninyawawsa in Shaaloani (pictured below) but you can't actually enter any of those houses (╥ ω ╥)

Anyway this is all just my probably barely coherent rambling and turning over game lore in my brain (I also need to do more side quests which might uncover more lore [yes I've done the BTN/MNR Wachumeqimeqi quests, but I haven't done the last big Wachumeqimeqi end quest yet]). I'm just starving for more Shetona lore Square Enix pls!

Quick edit to add that if you have more solid theories or knowledge on the subject please feel free to add your input! I'm literally just throwing out my string-of-consciousness ideas here.

[sonknuxadow]

wishing that the hype for sonic 3 would just die already because im tired of hearing about it vs knowing that the suffering wouldnt truly be over because theyre talking about making a fourth movie . hell on earth