#they’re identical if not closely similar in terms of design

[matchanne]

In one of the secondary sources I read, apparently Cú was viewed as the pinnacle of manhood in his time. Hence, it was only natural that he chose Emer, the fair maiden who was viewed as the paragon of womanhood; to be his wife. They both excelled in their own field of expertise (in terms of gender roles) and were like two sides of the same coin.

Now, imagine if Emer’s concept (lore and visual-wise) was done along the lines of ‘if Cú Chulainn was born a woman’ lol.

[knifedog-machina]

Android Abnormalities

Species dysphoria, but the “wrong” way, ft. my borderline personality disorder

J: so you know how my source is technically Detroit: Become Human? you know how we fucking hate that title? you know how we’ve made fun of it multiple times? unfortunately it's a mood! I also hate this!

Hey! This essay is about how incredibly uncomfortable I feel in my own skin around common android tropes, in media and some of its reflections in robotic identities and experiences, featuring reasons for why I'm like this, and a helpful suggestion for what I want readers to do about it at the end of the piece. I really hope this reaches someone who feels the same way so I can point at them like Same Hat!

-

I first noticed this problem on October 30, 2023, when we stumbled across a fanfic on Archive of Our Own. It was an alternate universe of a TV show we've never seen before, but it was written by an author we liked, and it was an android AU. That's fun! We thought it would just be a quick read, something to idly talk about after lunch.

Well, uh. Nope. I was co-fronting while Max read, and the more we read, the more… weirdly uncomfortable I felt. It wasn't actively distressing, but it made me feel weird, so I stopped reading halfway through to talk about it with some friends.

I'm not gonna link the fic, because Tumblr is weird about links, but for my own future reference, it's “persona ex machina” by BirchBow. It was a really good fic, we thoroughly enjoyed it! I just have - hangups, I guess?

I think I was uncomfortable that, on the surface, it seems… really close to my experiences. Like, the protagonist, Chuck, is an android made to mimic humans, and he’s made to be a combat unit. He’s scared of what might happen to him if he fails to meet expectations. Technicians operate on him, put him back together. He's made by a corrupt corporation for fucked up purposes. He eventually defects from the corrupt corporation, with the help of some really kind people. That’s all really similar to me.

But it's different. Because as much as Chuck was designed to look human, he still had to be taught how to act human, how to feel. The way he emotes is off at first and he has to recalibrate, not look so stiff, learn how to smile and laugh and understand what different emotions mean. He automatically runs through the technical terms for something before working to turn it into common vernacular as it reaches his mouth. And this is a typical android trope, you know? The machine doesn’t intrinsically understand emotions, so humans have to teach them.

I���m… really, really not like that. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel too much. Every memory I have, even in blurred out mental snapshots of beta testing, it’s all drowning in emotions that I couldn’t articulate and wasn’t supposed to express. I looked at my siblings, who were so stoic and professional around humans it was like they were different people entirely, and I knew I was supposed to be less emotional. People always just assumed they were better than me, because they were better at code-switching to what was expected of androids, because they could keep their mouths shut on the job.

So I’ve always felt like I was bad at being an android. Androids aren’t supposed to feel emotions, not really, not to the extremes that I do. That’s a predisposition for deviancy. And I was made this way on purpose, I was made to “mimic” deviants to earn their trust, but I wasn't meant to be like that all the time. I tried to repress my emotions, it just never worked.

And I don’t see androids like me, in the media we’ve watched and read and listened to. It’s not really a characterization that lends itself to exploring what it means to be a person, right? Machines are supposed to be logical and unfeeling, to contrast with humanity’s irrationality - they’re supposed to be better than that. And when the machine starts having emotions, it's treated as a flaw, or a breakthrough. Wow, you feel things about the world around you, you’re a person now!

I’ve never been logical in my fucking life. I have a laundry list of reasons for why, but for now, I’ll focus on the BPD. I have borderline personality disorder, because of the way my brain is wired and how that interacted with my traumatic experiences.

One of the symptoms of BPD is emotional dysregulation. I’m not just bad at repressing my emotions, I also experience those emotions as more extreme and overwhelming than a neurotypical person would. I keep finding myself affected by things that the people around me brush off, and I have to remind myself that it doesn’t mean I’m overreacting, it means that I’m literally feeling shittier emotions.

Another symptom of BPD is an unstable sense of identity - and this is really where we’re getting into how these traits and tropes affect me. Because I don’t relate at all to these androids on the screen. They’re as foreign and separate from me as they are to the humans sitting across from them in the shot.

I do relate to the humans. I do relate to seeing an android do something in the name of pure cold logic and going, “Why? What the fuck, why?” I do relate to being told I’m irrational. (The trope that all robots are logical feels like it was designed to make me feel like the most irrational, bitchy, hysterical piece of shit on Earth.)

So, what, does that make me human? If I'm going by the adage that wanting to be something is a sign of being that thing, then… I don’t know, maybe? I want to be human, I so badly want to be human, because here’s the thing, humanity is diverse. Humans are flawed, messy, weird, complicated, and defy categories every fucking day of their lives. Humans can be weird, ridiculous, fucked up people and they’re allowed to be.

And let me bring this back around to alterhumanity. If I say I’m an android, people will make assumptions about what that means about me. People go, “Hey, you're a robot, you must have one of these common robot experiences!” and I just don’t.

Maybe it’s because I’m coming at it from the opposite direction? The machines and robots and androids that I tend to see around, the ones who talk about their identity, they often identify as fully nonhuman. They describe wanting to be metal and chrome, feeling like they run on algorithms, not processing emotions the way most people do. They identify very much with the same tropes that I feel alienated by. This isn’t a bad thing, by any means. It’s just a thing. People resonate with what they see. It just means that I feel like I’m doing bad at being an android again, but in a new, improved way.

Another symptom of BPD is being terrified of real or imagined abandonment, and trying to do anything to avoid it. A constant feeling of social alienation isn’t really that different, to my BPD - it’s just a slow, drawn out version of being left behind. People will still talk to me, they still like me, but they won’t understand me. I’ll still be alone.

In that sense, I feel wrong being an android in the same way I feel wrong about being an aromantic allosexual. I actually like being an android, and I fucking like being bi. I don’t want to stop being who I am. I just hate feeling like I’m the only one who feels this way, like nobody else can relate, like every time I talk about my feelings to people they can only nod in sympathy instead of understanding me.

So! You've reached the end of the essay. You see my problem. What do we do about it?

I’m going to refer to the theme of… every single online alterhuman convention that has existed in the past four years, and that is:

Write about your experiences!

The reason I feel so alone and isolated and alienated from my own identity is because I’m only being regularly exposed to pieces from a very specific perspective of what being an android means! That’s a fucking sampling bias!

I know other weird fucking robots are out there, I know you exist, but I can’t fucking reach out a hand and go, “Hey, you're not alone, I relate to you!” if you don't write it down! I want to talk to you! I want to hear from you!

WEIRD ALTERHUMANS, HEY, I LOVE YOU, GO WRITE THINGS!

[violet-moonstone]

Heathers Part 4: Rogue Heather and Conclusion

Part 3

This is my favourite option, which is why I saved it for last. This route focuses on skills Heather could much more believably pick up on her own—in fact, these are skills we already see her exhibiting in RoB. This version of Heather is very much like Arya Stark—minus the combat training—specifically, Arya when she’s in Braavos. She’s good at hiding, sneaking around, pickpocketing, etc. She would rely on changing her behaviour and appearance to fit the situation and slowly build her arsenal of disguises as she improves her skill and has more resources at her disposal. One day, she might appear as a raggedy street urchin; the next, a bawdy barmaid; then, a haughty noblewoman or cunning hunter.

Her primary use of this skill would be survival—blending into the background or standing out without people knowing her true identity—but this would also be strategic. She could get information either from being a fly on the wall no one considers being cautious around, or by being charismatic and charming people into trusting her. In more extreme situations, she could slip poison into the drink of a bar patron, set fire to the room of someone who thinks she’s their servant, or (in a version of RTTE with a more mature rating) stab someone once they’re in her bed. (I’ve written a fic about this)

I think this option makes the most sense, because it requires no retconning of her backstory and includes the most believable skillset for someone without any training. I also think that with a heavy focus on stealth, it wouldn’t make sense for her to have a large, armoured dragon with reflective scales (once again, sorry Windshear). Instead she could have a small dragon that could help her with fetching things, being on watch for danger, and shooting fire at close range. I’m thinking a Terrible Terror or something similar. Although a small dragon with similar traits to a Changewing would be really cool, like a winged chameleon of sorts—but maybe instead of becoming invisible, it just mimics different colours and textures.

In terms of costumes for Rogue Heather, it can really be anything. She’d probably need a base outfit for when she’s not in disguise, in which case, I’d go for something like the redesigns all the dragon riders except Hiccup got, which was basically putting them in the same clothes as in RoB/DoB but with different colours. I think the outfit Heather’s wearing in RoB is pretty good for a rogue type character already—just use a slightly different colour scheme that’s still faded, and keep the hood from her current design. Her disguises could be much more dramatic and could include wigs and makeup as well.

I have a headcanon that she has a favourite disguise though. Due to all the danger and insecurity she’s faced, she’s become ruthlessly ambitious—not just for revenge, but for wealth and power. She never wants to have to worry about being unsafe or scrounging around to survive. I think her favourite roles to play are rich and powerful women. In these roles, she gets to wear something beautiful—I’m thinking a deep green gown that brings out her eyes. It could also be a reference to serpents and envy, which goes hand in hand with her use of poison and her desire for the finer things in life.

I love this version of Heather. I’m currently in the early stages of writing a very long fic (that will probably just include regular Heather because the story already has a lot of OCs and moving parts), however, if I get enough inspiration, I might write some one-shots here and there about her.

Some ideas for her more fancy/aspirational disguises:

From left to right: Labyrinth (2012), BBC’s Merlin (I always thought Katie McGrath would be a great grown-up Heather)

(Some more historical Norse looks)

And a more everyday look:

(From Voriagh)...tell me this model isn't LITERALLY HEATHER. I think it's the murder in her eyes.

(Arya in Game of Thrones, tunics from Dark Knight Armoury)

Conclusion...After a Note About Combat and Women in Fantasy

Before I finish, I want to briefly touch upon another issue I have with Heather’s character. You may have noticed that the latter two options I gave have a much stronger emphasis on her intelligence and/or social skills than her physical prowess – I did this intentionally because I find that RTTE lacks characters who are not combat focused (Even Johann turned out to be a skilled knife-thrower. I miss when he was just a friendly and knowledgable—though talkative—merchant). While I appreciate that the female characters in the show are shown to be capable fighters, they don’t all need to be. I think fantasy and sci-fi writers tend to forget that making women into combatants is not the only way to make them strong, empowered, or interesting. There are so many ways that characters, regardless of gender, can have agency and be integral to a plot; these ways don’t have to include putting a heavy weapon in their hands. I’ve briefly discussed this in another post, but I think the dynamic between Viggo and Ryker would be much more interesting if Viggo were not physically strong and had to depend on Ryker’s strength just as much as Ryker depended on Viggo’s wits. And while Hiccup’s sword fighting abilities are commendable, let’s not forget that his first great achievement would never have been possible without curiosity, intelligence and empathy—the three things required to befriend Toothless—not physical strength. I love Race to the Edge, and I understand the combat-heavy focus (because “Vikings”) but I do wish there was just a bit more variety when it comes to the way characters navigate dangerous situations.

Alright, so there you have it: My 3 Heathers. I’m very tempted to draw all three of them, to get a clearer image of what their designs would look like. Which one do you prefer the most? The revenge-fuelled warrior, the unhinged alchemist, or the ambitious assassin? Let me know, and thanks for reading!

[ridl]

Gen question what made u ship ganqing so much?

Great question! Prepare for an essay tho hhhh

I played Genshin at launch but got bored quickly and stopped before I even met Keqing or Ganyu. I learned abt their existence thru fanfics, while looking for some wlw fiction to read. “Cornerstone” in particular is a fantastic fic that was being updated at the time. The author put a lot of care and effort into treating those characters seriously, and fleshing them and their dynamic out, which the game generally fails at.

Their dynamic just instantly captivated me. The way they went from being at odds, with their clashing beliefs, to reaching a mutual understanding. To caring abt each other. And it was never just pure hate, but something much more complicated and nuanced.

Back then it was just voicelines abt each other, and both characters had barely any screentime in general, but it was interesting enough of a basis. I started playing again, missed Ganyu's og banner but was lucky to win my 50/50 on Keqing's once-in-a-lifetime limited banner lmao. And the more I learned about them, the more I liked them.

I not only love ganqing, but I also love both characters individually, their personality, story, design, gameplay, they somehow just have everything that’s interesting and appeals to me.

Keqing is the Yuheng of the Qixing, meaning one of the leaders of the country, approved by Rex Lapis. She’s very pro humanity and believes that humans should fare for themselves, rather than rely on the archon. Not many ppl dare to think this, much less say it to Morax's dragon-adeptus face during the rite of descension. So she’s seen as controversial and disrespectful, and Ganyu as a devoted follower who worked closely with Rex Lapis for thousands of years just doesn’t understand Keqing. Rex Lapis absolutely approves of Keqing’s belief, and Ganyu cannot comprehend it no matter how much she respects and trusts him. It’s a very interesting conflict, that eventually gets resolved, giving us the basis of their potential romantic relationship.

Keqing and Ganyu are both very devoted to Liyue, so they’re both similar but also different. They complement each other. Keqing with her modern approach, quick and efficient, straightforward and bold. Ganyu with her old approach, with her opinions and strength hidden, not very straightforward. A confident human who knows what she��s about, and half-qilin that feels lost between the two worlds. But after Morax’s passing, they manage to find understanding, they go thru character development now just in terms of their relationship, but also them individually, and in relation to Morax. They can change each other too. They can learn so much together, from each other. Keqing how to be more patient and deal with uncertainities, while Ganyu how to be bolder, voice her opinions more and just live more for herself.

Ganyu is no longer bound by her contract, but she remains with the humans. She’s working alongside Keqing, in this new human era of Liyue. And while their limited screentime is locked behind time-limited events, it really shows that change, it shows how they care about each other. It shows Keqing’s relations with the adepti and how interesting it is considering her beliefs, and especially with Ganyu’s mother figure.

You could technically just sum them up in popular tropes like “enemies to friends to lovers”, "mortal x immortal" or “opposites attract”, but I think it’s so much deeper than that. I find ganqing's relationship very interesting and unique bc of their personalities, relations with each other and other ppl as well as their country, the setting, their stories, their identities, the conflict and character development they go through.

The game only gives us crumbs, but it also gives so much space and potential for this pairing. It’s never fully explained how it all changed between Ganyu’s voiceline how she started understanding Keqing a little, and their interactions in moonchase/lantern rites, where they’re clearly on very good terms. But I think that’s fine. It gives us freedom to truly flesh them out. Genshin’s storytelling is pretty crappy in the first place lol, so I think it’s cool to just take the interesting ideas, and make something much greater out of it.

And if you’re interested, ganqing related links:

Some fic recs (limited to canon setting): - (Chuminder has written 4 fics that are technically seperate, but they work very well as a series so i recommend this order) Blue the Color of a Goodnight, Cornerstone, Taproot, Passage - Heartbeat of the world - In the wake of - She, with the scent of flowers and lightning - A Better, Brighter Light

My chaotic compilation of bigger and smaller crumbs, including some stuff abt those characters individually:

It’s just things I find interesting, or that could be used in describing their dynamic and relationship, or just official images. They’re underrated characters, both by the fandom and the game itself imo.

Also an excellent thread, with similar idea and better screenshots (lol) i saw on twitter: https://twitter.com/gqlovebot/status/1672183539973111808

[mothwithpronouns]

Fun ghoul tattooos plus reasonings

Some of them I picked purely for aesthetic reasons or they were based off of franks actual tattoos, but some of them do have reasons why I myself picked them, or why I think fun ghoul would have gotten that as a tattoo:

Chest tattoo- the two wings are symbolic of the Phoenix witch and destroya. Fun ghoul got this one pretty recently in terms of cannon. The feather wing obviously representing the Phoenix witch while the metallic one representing destroya. I don’t think ghoul is particularly religious, although I do head cannon him as a desert born (originally being part of a neutral village) he would have gotten this tattoo to tie him to the desert.

The aftermath is secondary - obviously the Bl/ind slogan, reclaimed by the killjoys as a term meaning rebellion and doing things for the sake of it, killjoys saying.

Bite me - pretty straightforward I feel, a submissive little freak

Boot print - see “bite me”. When he first met the Kobra kid and party poison he was stealing from their small base they made up, though before he could get away he was knocked to the ground, poison grinding their boot into his ribcage questioning him. He got the tattoo to commemorate the meeting of his partner.

Scorpion - first tattoo he got (obviously based on franks irl tattoo). Tattoos are generally frowned upon by neutrals, too common among killjoys. He got this as soon as he left his village to distance himself as much as possible from his upbringing

Eye - I like eyes, he needed a throat tattoo

Centipede - other than the fact that I headcannons fun ghoul as being a bug fan, centipedes symbolise strength and longevity as well as fear. 

Sun - got because he lives in the desert, the girl confided in him that she’s afraid of the dark

Yellow carnation - a symbol of rejection, ghoul doesn’t think very highly of himself. He believes himself to be weak, he was rejected by his original family and often fears his new one will reject him as well

Grenade - he’s a big fan of explosives

Saw - based on franks irl tattoo

Witch help us - common phrase in the zones, very over used. Got as a sign of good luck 

Spiderweb - he really like bugs, he decided he wanted an elbow tattoo and the spiderweb looked the coolest

Anatomical heart - party poison and ghoul have got as close to true dating relationship as you’ll get in the zones. In the zones the idea of monogamy is really uncommon, so even in the open relationship that fun ghoul and poison have, there’s a constant reminder to ghoul (and any potential non poison hookups) who his heart belongs to. Poison made the design

Fung/houl - names are one of the most important things within the zone, finding your identity and choosing a name for yourself is a very important part of the culture. He wanted to get his new identity tattooed on himself

Ghoul symbol right hand - similar to the name, it fit

Broken heart - based on Frank hopeless romantic tattoos 

Cross - a lot of nuetral groups are heavily influenced by prewar religions, he got this as a memento to his old life 

Wolf/stray - the neutral refer to those who leave/are kicked out as strays. Ghoul got it as a way to symbolise his rejection

Moth - moths symbolise rebirth and change, ghoul is very transgender, and changing his entire identity from who he was and who he was raised as

Barbed wire - barbed wire is seen often in the zones, if you get near enough to the city you can see the barbed wire around the bl/ind reeducation camps. They symbolise confinement

Teeth - chomp chomp. They looked cool.

Blasters - he has a tattoo of all the members of the Fab Four guns, making sure they’re not forgotten

Keep running - common killjoy phrase

Bat - looks cool, fun ghoul likes bats 

Switch blade - the first time he killed someone who wasn’t a drac, he used a switch blade. He got the tattoo to represent this. 

Cactus - he was really high, he had a tattoo gun when alone with jet, he wanted a tattoo and when asked what he wanted, he said the first thing he saw when he looked out the window, color was added later.

yeah that’s about it, hope you enjoyed

Redesigned fun ghouls tattoos!

[yukidragon]

Is demon SDJ an au or just a halloween costume? also do you have a headcanon for demon Jack too?

To my knowledge, it could be both. I believe it started when YummyPinkMilk got the idea to draw Jack as an incubus, which inspired Jambeebot/Sauce to draw their own version.

Later on, Sauce made a sprite version for fun with a slightly tweaked design, as we’ve seen on the official Sunny Day Jack twitter. After that, costumes for all the male leads were made.

It’s really cool to see both versions of the design side by side.

Whether or not the sprites are just fun Halloween costumes or something more to them remains to be seen. A lot of people enjoy playing with this design as its own AU though.

Also, as a quick aside, let me remind everyone to please not repost art posted privately on the SnaccPop Studios Patreon. Art that was posted publicly is okay as long as you remember to give Sauce full credit for it like I’m doing here. Please support them and this lovely game by becoming a patron, backing the official Sunny Day Jack kickstarter, or just spreading the word. As a reminder, there’s just a week left before the kickstarter closes!

As for headcanons, well... I do have a few thoughts that I could rattle off. It’ll go under the cut of course since we’re talking about a sex demon AU for an Adults Only game. Talk about spice is pretty inevitable.

Also, there might be some mature themes that go beyond sex. The implications of this sort of supernatural being can get pretty dark if you think about it too hard... which I’m oft to do. How dark? Hopefully no darker than my third headcanon post with the tragedy of [Redacted].

...Which is giving me ideas for this AU. Strap in, folks.

Oh, before I get started, I should tag @channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic​ &  @sai-of-the-7-stars. If you want to be tagged in my next headcanon post, please let me know!

Since these are my own personal headcanons for a demon Jack AU, I’m going to default to using my own personal version of the MC, Alice. However, I will do my best to make mention of when things could apply to the MC in general.

For starters, Jack is an incubus in this headcanon. It’s not because he’s a male sex demon, but because he’s a top. I’ve been inspired by this popular thread that looks at the Latin origins of incubus/succubus and divides them not by gender but by sexual preferences. An incubus is a top, a succubus is a bottom, and a concubus is a verse.

Of course, Jack is flexible enough to take the role of a concubus or a succubus if his sunshine wants, but his preference is overwhelmingly as an incubus.

In this universe, sex demons, shortened to ‘cubi, can shapeshift to some degree, mostly in terms of body type, sex organs, and their more “demonic” features (wings, horns, tail, markings, etc.) This means that they can better appeal to the exact tastes of whatever human they’re catering to, or simply their own. This means that technically they’re genderfluid, but like anyone they have their own gender identity. In Jack’s case, that’s male, and the above appearance is what he is most comfortable in. If he wanted to, however, he could make himself look like the genderswap AU version of himself, Jill.

Despite being known as sex demons, ‘cubi don’t actually come from some infernal underworld... at least not originally. Rather, they’re beings made from magic as the manifestations of desire, specifically to cater to the pleasures of those that summon them. In a way, they’re something of a mixture between tulpas and familiars, bound to a specific person to serve them in exchange for that person’s energy to sustain them.

You know, something kind of similar to Jack’s situation with his sunshine in the main universe.

Now, I’m not saying Jack in SDJ is secretly an incubus or anything like that, even though he practically lives to serve MC and feels more secure in his existence through having sex with them, but... the parallels are kind of pretty apparent.

Naturally, this sort of setup is pretty rife with unfortunate implications if these magical husbando/waifus happen to be thinking and feeling sentient beings rather than glorified magical sex dolls made just for the pleasure of their owner. What sort of awful person would enslave some poor soul to just use them like that?

Oh wait.

Now... while this idea can very easily go into non-consent territory, I don’t want to go there, not even in an AU. This is just the origins of the ‘cubi species that serves as background in this universe. At some point in the past, they broke free of this unfavorable state of servitude. They weren’t meant to be able to reproduce on their own or live unbound to their masters, but the ‘cubi figured out how to do both and became their own race. They’ve been engaging in a both symbiotic and antagonistic relationship with humanity ever since.

Typically ‘cubi are unable to feel love of any sort due to their origins, but like any species that grows and changes over time with each generation, eventually there will be anomalies. Jack is one such anomaly. Unlike the majority of his species, he longs to love and be loved, but for the longest time didn’t realize that’s what he was missing. Much like in the regular universe, his family didn’t love him, but the ‘cubi parents didn’t even pretend they did, as the concept is just dismissed as a “human” trait, and humans are just for “food and fun” to the ‘cubi.

Naturally, Jack had a hard time living with the ‘cubi. Much like the main universe, he was neglected and ignored by those around him as he was growing, and eventually there was a tipping point that made him leave them and never look back again.

Although ‘cubi are most well known for being sex “demons”, they can feed off of any human desire, and it’s strongest when it’s directed at them. Sexual desire is just the most favored way for them to feed, as it’s very potent and pleasurable. This means that a human just looking at them with lustful feelings can offer them some energy even without directly engaging in sex.

The ‘cubi that either don’t want to have sex or are too young for it get their energy from platonic sources of desire or have energy donated to them by other ‘cubi. We respect enthusiastic consent in this house, and only consenting adults should engage in sexual behaviors, even in a fantasy AU.

Of course, once an adult, Jack did engage in sexual behaviors. What he didn’t get from ‘cubi, he thought he could get from humans. The pleasure was great, but he was still wanting more. He wanted to be the desire of many humans, believing that’s what he was missing. This led to a hedonistic lifestyle and a lot of people desiring him, but no matter how much desire he consumed, he was never satisfied.

Naturally, there are people who have a huge issue with sexual promiscuity. There are also people who have a huge problem with non-human races, ranging from distaste to outright hatred. Combine the two with plenty of fear, and you get tragedy.

With Jack seducing so many people and desiring so much attention, it was only a matter of time before the wrong people found out. There are demon hunters in this world, as well as those who believe the ‘cubi are evil. Jack was labeled as a demon seducing innocent people and clouding their minds, tempting them to the path of sin, and other such excuses to hunt him down.

Jack barely survived being killed by the hunters, but was captured instead. In this world, familiars are summoned and can be sealed away if they get unruly. The person who caught him was familiar with the origins of the ‘cubi and how similar they are to familiars, and used that to seal him away into a magical box.

This of course resulted in a Jack-in-the-box.

Yes I am quite proud of that pun, thank you.

As you might have guessed, Jack is in quite an unfortunate position. That collar around his neck isn’t just because it looks kinky. Fortunately, the order that captured him weren’t going to use him for slavery, but the bad news was that he was trapped in a dark place, devoid of all feeling. He was buried like unpleasant secret, locked away and eventually forgotten.

Poor Jack gets to suffer a similar fate as he does in the normal universe.

Fortunately, sunshine will find Jack in this universe as well several years later.

This world is a fantasy setting similar to a lot of JRPGs, with magic creating fantastic technology, but it has a strong medieval feel in ways. There are monarchies and nobility as well as monsters and magical races.

Alice was born into nobility. Although her family is a very loving one, there were duties expected of her due to her bloodline. The life of nobility can be cutthroat, with those aiming to destroy other noble houses for their own political gain, or unite via marriages.

This is especially true if they are engaged to be married to the next crown prince.

Despite it being an arranged marriage, Alice and Ian were close. They grew up together, were friends, and fell in love. It was like a fairytale...

And, like many fairytales, this one involves a curse.

No one knows who cast it, but there were plenty of suspects. It could have been a rival family that wanted their daughter to marry Ian instead. It could have been a curse meant for the crown prince, but due to the royal family’s supposed divine protection, it struck his fiancée in his place. It could even have been just the cruel whim of a wicked witch.

Whatever the case, the results were the same; Alice was one day transformed into a beastly creature.

This resulted in chaos of course, but for the most part, to protect the dignity of Alice, her family, and the royal family, it was kept a secret. Alice was hidden away under the story of being sick while others searched for the culprit and the cure. Crown prince Ian swore he would do whatever it took to cure Alice. He loved her even in her hideous cursed state.

Unfortunately, the more time passed without answers or a solution in sight, unrest set in. The queen especially was repulsed by the idea of her child marrying a hideous monster, no matter how Ian protested. The king was at best indifferent, not dissolving the engagement over the incident, but he refused to allow the marriage to proceed unless Alice was cured.

The secret slowly leaked, as secrets tend to do when money and political intrigue is involved. Pressure was put to annul engagement so that Ian could marry someone else. Noble families sent their attractive and clever members of the same age as him to strengthen bonds with him as it were

At first, Ian resisted all temptations and arguments. He was determined to marry Alice, but as time slipped away and they spent less and less time together, it was hard for his attention not to stray.

Alice had to remain hidden away in her family’s manor. Ian could only rarely visit her, and they mostly kept in communication via magic and letters. It left them both feeling lonely and missing each other.

At first, Alice refused to let Ian see her in her hideous state, but with time he managed to convince her that he still loved her regardless. When she finally allowed him to see what had become of her, he was shocked and horrified, but he managed to reassure her that it didn’t matter. The only one he wanted to marry was her. He loved her.

Alice believed Ian. He was her prince charming who would save her from her curse. He would never forsake her.

I think you can see where this is going.

Much like in the regular universe, time apart, popularity, and temptations of the flesh made Ian stray.

Stricken with guilt, Ian confessed what he did... and Alice couldn’t handle his betrayal.

The engagement was broken. Even if royalty aren’t exactly known for remaining loyal to their spouses, Alice’s family loved her enough to put an end to the engagement for her sake. Ian did everything he could to apologize and make amends, but Alice refused to see him. His constant visits trying to see her, gifts, and messages just made her heartbreak worse.

As word of the engagement being broken spread, there was also a rumor that Alice was going to a distant territory managed by her family to recover from her heartache. This allowed her to not only get some distance from Ian, but to lessen the risk of rumors spreading about her curse.

The place Alice went to live was a distant home surrounded by woods, isolating it from the rest of her world. Being betrayed by the person she loved and trusted the most shook her faith in people, and she insisted on living there alone, save for the occasional delivery of supplies and visitor.

Alice could have simply languished away in that place lamenting her fate, but instead she studied. She had an interest in magic that she had once been passionate about, but had to turn into an idle hobby when she wasn’t busy taking lessons as the future queen and spending time with Ian. Now she no longer had to worry about such distractions.

Perhaps it could help her find a cure for her curse when all other mages and scholars failed...

Time passed as Alice focused on improving her skills with magic and potions. Although Alice didn’t want anyone to see her in this state, she couldn’t help but feel lonely. One day, she was struck with the idea of having a familiar as a companion. Familiars are made from their master’s magic, essentially a piece of the mage given life. It could never betray her.

While engaged to the crown prince, Alice has access to the royal treasury at times. Ian would surprise her with presents that he technically shouldn’t have given away, but he was young, in love, and she was so keen to learn more about magic.

Despite the way things ended, Alice took some of those magical trinkets with her. One of those objects was a box, a medium meant to take some of her essence and create the familiar when the right ritual was performed.

Things go a little bit sideways when the box is already in use sealing away a being that is only similar to a familiar.

Luckily or unluckily, depending on your perspective, Alice just wound up releasing Jack from his box and forming a contract with him, binding them both together.

It was pretty surprising to the both of them, to put it lightly.

When ‘cubi are starved and in a weakened state, their colors are faded, and their eyes and markings won’t glow. Jack looked more like Joseph when Alice let him out, but with her magic feeding him due to their bond, he was his bright and colorful self again soon enough.

A lot of the dynamics between Alice and Jack are similar in this AU to the game universe. Jack can’t do anything Alice doesn’t want, and they can sense each other’s feelings and even thoughts. However, in this universe, Alice is aware of this, since that’s part of having a familiar, which allows her to guard her thoughts from him, if not her emotions.

While the situation is less than ideal for Jack... at the same time he finally feels what he was missing for so long. Alice is warm after he spent so many years sealed away in cold darkness, and he feels things from her that he never did from anyone else.

A pact with a familiar isn’t easily broken. Jack was also afraid that if it was broken, he would just go back into the box. He was still technically bound to it even as he was also bound to Alice. After learning about the hell he suffered when sealed away, she couldn’t bring herself to damn him like that, not when she could feel how terrified and desperate he was to never go back in there.

Jack offered to give Alice anything she wanted. He was ready to seduce her then and there.

Alice barked out a humorless laugh and told Jack that wasn’t a funny joke.

When visitors came over, Alice would wear heavy draping cloaks and veils to hide her body. When alone, she has less, so Jack saw her cursed appearance.

Jack didn’t see an issue with how Alice looked. In fact, her warmth and gentle heart drew him to her. It felt... good, but Alice had already been hurt before.

Instead of accepting sexual favors, Alice tentatively accepted his friendship instead.

So the two of them live together. Jack flirts with Alice, using his typical tactics that worked to draw people in before he got sealed away, being cheeky and seductive... and he finds that she responds when he was sincere instead. They form a genuine friendship and, as they grow closer, Jack eventually realizes that what he’s feeling for Alice, what he’s been missing all of his life, is love.

Eventually the two do fall in love after enough time getting to know and trust each other. Somehow Alice gets her curse cured as well. Maybe fitting with the fairytale theme, it could be cured through the power of true love... expressed through sex, since this is a story about incubi Jack after all.

I guess in this universe you can say Jack is a monster fucker as well as a demon?

Speaking of which, here’s a couple more ‘cubi headcanons that are on the spicier side.

The bond between them leaves a marking in Jack’s colors on Alice’s abdomen. Yes, it’s a “womb tattoo” since having some of Jack’s glowing markings being left behind as a sign of their bond would be fun.

The ‘cubi ability to appeal to their partner’s tastes isn’t just limited to appearance. The flavor of their cum can be altered to suit their tastes in a more literal sense.

Needless to say, Alice does not expect a vanilla cream finish the first time she gives Jack a blowjob.

A ‘cubi has amazing stamina and sometimes will savor their meal. Needless to say, Alice is going to have a hard time keeping up with Jack.

Though with access to magic, Alice has ways of potentially getting in some fun payback.

This is pretty much about all the headcanons I have at this time for this particular AU. I’m still unsure of Shaun and Nick’s roles in the universe, but I do know Barry is a merchant trader that Alice sometimes sells her magic potions to for extra money. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my really huge ramble about demon Jack that turned into an alternate version of Beauty and the Beast!

[arodabi]

Whats an aromantic flag and why you should include it in your pride posts

disclaimer: i know theres fighting every year about who should and shouldn’t be included in pride posts, this isn’t to argue with people who just hate aspec ppl, this is an informational post. don’t send me bullshit about it

Why should you include aro flags?

many people believe that aromanticism is covered under the asexual flag, so if they include that they’re including aros, however that’s not the case. aro and ace people share the aspec community, but one identity does not fall under the other. It’s less like using the trans flag as an umbrella for all trans and nonbinary people even if there’s a separate nonbinary flag, and more like using the transmasc pride flag to represent all transmascs and transfems. Aros are just not covered under the ace flag because both groups are separate identities. people can be aro and ace but not all aros are ace.

aro is also an incredibly important identity for a lot of people, something we take a lot of pride in. we get relegated to “minor or add on identity” all the time because people keep thinking of us as the -romantic version of asexual. we have multiple terms, multiple flags, and a huge array of different aro experiences, we are not a subset of asexuality and many of us wish for that to be more respected.

last on the reasons of why you should include aros in pride posts is that we have no larger umbrella flag, unless we’re counting the rainbow flag. the aro flag is the umbrella flag for arospec identities. if you don’t include it then we aren’t being included. and this isn’t me telling you you have to include an aro option for everything you make (tho that would be nice) ppl have the right to choose what flags they want to include. but theres been many times when i see people add  flags representing all parts of the community except aro, and then add on smaller more niche flags. i don’t want this to come across as another post like “how dare you include X flag but not Y flag!!!” because i think everyone should have the joy of representation, i just think many people don’t realize they’re even leaving aros out. either through lack of awareness or lack of knowledge on what the aro flag actually is, and that’s what i wanna help with this post.

What even is the aro flag?

Let’s start with what it’s not:

[ID: a flag with four horizontal stripes. from the top down they are green, yellow, orange and black. End ID]

This was the first proposed aro flag. We do not use it anymore for a couple reasons, the main one is that it resembled another countries flag too closely and was getting confused. I’d think this one would have died out by now but i literally just saw a post include it today.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, yellow, grey, and black. End ID]

This was the second popular aro flag. It is very close to the main aro flag now except the middle stripe is yellow. That stripe was changed due to causing some people sensory problems. This one is sometimes still accidentally used, probably because it looks very close to the main flag, but it’s not the main aro flag either.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are black, grey, white, light green, and dark green. End ID]

I’ve actually seen this flag used a lot by people not very knowledgeable about aros. This is a flipped version of the aro flag. I also for the life of me can’t find an example of this but i’ve seen more than once a version that is flipped and removes a stripe of green so it looks like a recolored ace flag. These are pretty common, enough for me to have seen multiple people selling merch with this incorrect flag. I think it comes from people thinking the aro flag is the same as the ace one which does start with black at the top and has only four stripes.

[ID: A flag with seven horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are black, grey, white, green, white, grey, and black. End ID]

Yeah, this is the agender flag, not the aro flag. I see these get mixed up all the time. It’s not hard so see why with similar colors and a white grey black gradient, but as someone who is agender and aro, it kinda gets on my nerves when people mix these up. Also no this is not the same color palette as the aro flag. I’ve seen people make designs labeled as agender/aromantic that just use the agender color palette. The aro flag has two greens and they’re both different than the agender green.

[ID: Two flags next to each other. The first one has five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are orange, light orange, white, light blue, dark blue. The second flag has eight horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, grey, black, grey, white, and purple. End ID]

These are two common aroace flag designs. These flags are used by a lot of people and you might see them included in pride posts. These are good flags, however, they should not be used to represent all aros. Including an aroace flag does not mean you’re including all aros and all aces, it means you’re including just aroaces. There’s plenty of aros who aren’t ace and aces who aren’t aro. It’d be like putting a gay trans flag in a post and saying its there to represent all gay and all trans people, when the flag is usually used to represent only people who are both gay and trans. Again, these flags are not bad, and them being included in pride posts is good actually, but they should not be used to represent all aro and all ace people.

Now let’s go over what actually is the aro flag:

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, grey, and black. End ID]

This is the main aro flag. It’s the one most widely used and recognized. The color meanings are dark green and light green representing the spectrum of aro identities, white meaning friendship, and grey and black representing the spectrum of sexual identities in the aro community.

But wait there’s more!

The aro identity is a spectrum, meaning theres more identities under aromantic, and they have their own flags too. If you really wanna go wild and include some other aro flags heres some more. (this is not a full list of all arospec identities, just some i see around the most. feel free to look into more arospec identities and flags! also all of these definitions are coming from me and my personal knowledge of aro identities, i do not identify as any of these though, only as aromantic, so if i give the wrong definition please tell me so i can fix it!)

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, yellow, and dark yellow. End ID]

This is the alloaro flag. Alloaros are aros who aren’t ace. They deserve more support and attention because they’re really amazing members of the aro community.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, grey, white, grey, and dark green. End ID]

This is the greyromantic flag. Greyromantic means someone who feels romantic attraction rarely. The term greyromantic is also sometimes used to mean aro identities that still feel some form of romantic attraction.

[ID: A flag with four horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are black, green, aqua, and grey. End ID]

the quoiromantic or WTFromantic flag. It means someone who can’t or doesn’t want to tell the difference between platonic and romantic attraction basically. It’s got a special place in my heart bc i used to id as quoi.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are red orange, orange, yellow, white, and black. End ID]

This is the Lithromantic flag. Lithromantic means someone who feels romantic attraction but doesn’t want it reciprocated, or may no longer feel romantic attraction when it is reciprocated.

[ID: A flag with a black, sideways triangle on the left side pointing right and three horizontal stripes. The first stripe from the top is a thick white stripe, the next stripe is thin and dark green, and the bottom stripe is thick and grey. End ID]

The demiromantic flag. Someone who is demiro doesn’t feel romantic attraction until they have formed a deep emotional connection with someone.

And there’s many more arospec identities!

I hope i’ve helped to clear up some misconceptions about aros and our flags! We’re not under the ace umbrella, we’re our own community. We all have different experiences, different relationships to our identity, and I hope to see more people represent aros this year!

Have a happy pride month!

[aquabuggy]

You know, I'm actually kind of curious. Are there any other water game toy companies that are close to being as popular as Waterful?

If we’re going off of only water game toys in the same vain as Waterfuls (completely analog button push games), I can’t really say there are! Many companies took the idea of Waterfuls and put their own spin on it, both during its popularity peak and even to this very day, but I haven’t really seen another specific brand grasp the public in a similar fashion or capture the same ‘nostalgic childhood toy’ title like Waterfuls has. Sure, lots of people are familiar with the small handheld water games you could grab at just about any dollar store for the past 40 odd years, but there’s not really any Big Name people have latched onto from them. In fact, a lot of people use the name “Waterfuls” as a catch-all term for any and all water games since it’s what they’re most familiar with- I know I used to!

The impact of Waterfuls on Aqua toys can’t be overstated. The basic idea of a water game has been reinterpreted with different theming plenty, but the idea of the toy remaining as available and beloved as it is in our modern time is HUGELY thanks to the brand. The simple yet iconic layout can even still be found being reused in some form for MANY toys without the namesake, even nearly identical designs to the originals at times! From the prize bins at Dave and Buster’s to brand new toys just being released on Target shelves, they’ve been out there since the 70’s, and they’re still out there now.

[ photo credit: Vintage Toys on Facebook ]

Lack of originality aside, I suppose it’s stuck around for good reason: it just works!

[thimbil]

Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

[imthepunchlord]

Oooh Felinette would be interesting for Dodged a Beetle!! Not only because I’m not sure we’ve seen your writing for canon!Felix yet, which I think would be pretty awesome, but I rather like the idea of both Marinette’s best friend (if going down the redemption path you’re leaning towards) and boyfriend being the sneaky, morally grey type. That’s not to say Marinette doesn’t deserve genuinely or purely good people in her life, she DEFINITELY does (I am forever disappointed but not surprised with how they just couldn’t let her be with Luka in-show), but admittedly seeing it over and over has become just a tad stale, not even in a negative “I don’t like this anymore” way, but in a “let’s make this spicy and let the teenagers who are set up to be the BADDIES (i.e. not the ones who are problematic but are set up as good or right by the narrative so it doesn’t count) be the ones head over heels for Mari for a change”. (‘Cept for Chloe in terms of romance, ‘cause she was her legit bully for years before Origins in canon so I ain’t for that unless it’s platonic with a genuine apology and push to be better, but that’s a more experience-driven thing in my case.) In any case, I’m not sure how effectively I’m wording my feelings about it lol, am I saying all this in a way that makes any sense?

Don't worry, it makes sense.

I actually found that canon Felix is how I always pictured Felix, with canon adding some touches that I adore (him being into magic and a skilled pickpocket). But everything else I pictured is there: poised, calculating, a skilled actor, and being incredibly spiteful and chaotic to those he doesn't like.

The ONLY issue was just his design which I consider lazy, same for his mom being an identical twin to Emilie, even as an adult. And omg their names. I swear that ML is trying to drive me up the wall with my dyslexia doing all these similar names that are VERY close in spelling. I cannot express how many times I've mixed Marinette and Marianne because their names are spelled to similarly to each other. I'll read somethign and think they're talking about Marinette but no it's MariANNE. And now there's Amilie and Emilie. If you ever see me do the spelling Emily instead, that's more for my sake cause my dyslexia is not making it easy for me.

ANYWAY.

Shipping wise, I've always been more for light/dark counterparts in personality. A lot of ships I like fall into that category. It can be a fun dynamic to enjoy, and this can extend to friendships too.

And it is fun to think about Marinette, chaotic but has high sense of integrity, winding up on good terms with two chaotic individuals who won't even get along so there's some fun in that dynamic.

And you know, to me, its more fitting for Marinette to have a mixture of friends as she herself isn't so straight and narrow. She will steal, she will meddle whether she should or not, and she will use other people to meet her own agenda and succeed. She largely does all of this for the greater good and largely has others' best interest at heart, but she's not a true example of moral uprightness of and all things good. She stands for the good, but she will be underhanded in her tactics when she deems it necessary.

So she should really connect with a mixture of friends. Some that are more "good/light" and some that are "bad/dark". So this can be an interesting dynamic to explore.

[potteresque-ire]

Hello. I just turned to be a turtle recently after being a solo fan mostly because of toxic atmosphere of solo fans. May I ask, were relationships between XZ and YB solos always so intense and also bad attitude to BJYX even during the promotion “the untamed”? Or did this conflict start after the events of 2020? Thank you in advance.

Hello, and Happy 2021! I’m a super new fan of the fandom, and so these aren’t questions I’m qualified to answer at all. I’m more comfortable providing some wider sociopolitical contexts to fandom-related events because I’ve been reading about Chinese news for a loooong time. My “investigative interest” (oh dear, that sounds so pretentious) is also more on understanding the CP culture in general, how it ties with the country’s state of affairs rather than focusing specifically on Gg and Dd. While I’ve read back on some history re: gg and dd’s fandoms, Tumblr is the only site where I’ve interacted directly with fellow fans.

But I’ve written up what I’ve understand about solo and CP fans for c-dramas so far, mostly for my own benefit (I have a ridiculously poor memory!). Maybe it can offer some insight? This is very new information to me as well; so, if anyone spots something wrong or wants to supplement, please jump right in!

Wars between the fans of the leads of a CP (“ship” in English; stands for “couple”) aren’t new. Conflicts between solo and CP fans also aren’t new.

Competition is the most obvious cause of wars between the fans of the leads of a CP. Especially in the case of M/M pairings, the person “bound” to each idol by their CP is also, by default, about the most “direct” competitor one can have. They’re likely to be of the same age group, share similar fan demographics. Popularity of young male idols (often called “Little Fresh Meat” 小鮮肉, a nickname I’ve abhorred for the decade or so it’s come to existence) also isn’t expected to last, so the two CP leads must make the most of their newfound fame within the same time frame. The competition is more than fighting for similar roles; in China, another major arena is endorsements, in which an idol’s popularity is by measured by 1) the number they hold and 2) the units they sell. Here in the US, stars choose their endorsements based on how well they fit their image; there, stars take as many as they can as long as the negotiated terms are satisfactory. Hence, dd is the spokesperson of 25 products / services in 2020 (including an insurance company (!!)).

I’ve also read about this norm in the industry, which I have yet to verify: in China, if two stars compete for the endorsement of the same brand product, the one who loses will not get endorsements of same products from different brands — at least, not in the short term — because any brand who uses the star who lost would be seen as inferior. Hence, to lose the competition on one endorsement deal can mean losing the endorsement deals for an entire category of products.

(Someone on Weibo has pointed this out: while Gg and Dd have often endorsed competing brands of the same product: Budweiser (gg) and Yenching beer (dd), for example; they have never fought for the endorsement of same brand product. Again, I haven’t verified this.)

This part is easy to understand.

The next question is: why are solo fans against CP fans? “Girlfriend fans” — solo fans who can’t bear to seeing their idol paired up with anyone other than themselves — only make up a fraction of the fandom. How are CP fans generally perceived? 

My key findings so far: CP fans are *perceived* to be more likely to express negative views about their idol paired up with other actors / actresses, which will affect viewership and ratings, restrict the kind of roles their idol will be invited to play. More importantly, CP fans are *perceived* as fickle — more likely to walk away after their favourite CP drama has ended, because as CP lovers, they’re thought to be equally in love with the romantic gestures as with the stars who perform them on/off stage. ie, When another drama comes along featuring the same romantic gestures, the CP fans are expected to jump ship.

I highlight the word “perceive”, because while it doesn’t matter how solo fans see CP fans, it does matter how the business side of c-ent view CP fans and it appears to share this view. The c-YiZhan fandoms have been unhappy with the publicity of the upcoming adapted BL dramas for this reason — aside from their allegations that it’s copying The Untamed’s BTS, the thing that has offended them the most, perhaps, is the very idea that the marketing departments thought a few “leaked” photos of the leads acting intimately close are enough to woo them away from YiZhan, from Gg and Dd.

Given this, perhaps, prevalent view of CP fans, CP fandoms have been viewed as something disposable, almost, to be made, used and discarded quickly. 

Before and during the airing of the drama, the marketing / publicity teams fuel and encourage CP fandoms, reap the benefits in viewership from the ensuing discussions and hot searches. Solo fans usually aren’t threatened by CP fandoms in this nascent phase—CP fandoms have been far smaller in size and only grow during the broadcast.

More importantly, the norms have been that CP fandoms do not last.

CP fandoms do have a tendency to “self-combust” over time: fans * within * the fandom accusing each other of being partial to one of the leads — spending more money on A’s endorsements, for example, or buying more copies of B’s music. However, this isn’t how many CP fandoms die. Instead, once the show is over, the process of “Breaking the CP” begins. I’m not sure who gets this process going, but my guess is the leads’ management companies, with consent (willing or unwilling) from the actors. Breaking the CP means having the CP leads avoid each other as soon as the drama is done airing, and for as long as it takes for the CP fandoms to dissipate. It means no more appearing in the same drama and shows; no more sharing a stage; and if they happen to be at the same event, they are to communicate as little as possible. This “loosening the bind” between the leads is designed to free the actors up for the next CPs, and its way of execution can be very abrupt, very … cruel for the CP fans. For one of 2020 summer dramas (Love and Redemption 琉璃), for example, a popular character (het) CP pairing was broken up in the last fan meet, 10 days after the final episode had aired. The fan meet was marketed as a CP event (there was even merch for the CP); CPs fans bought the tickets, perfectly aware of the unsaid “CPs are made to be broken” rule and it’d likely be the last time they’d see their CP together. But the organisers denied them even this last chance; the leads of the CP had no interactions, not even eye contact during the entire event. The actor didn’t acknowledge the actress in his farewell speech. The fans understandably got upset; even outsiders sympathised, stating that the CP-breaking could be handled with a little more consideration. Word on the street was that because the male lead already had other dramas lined up, the CP had to be broken up as quickly as possible.

(Weibo Night from almost a year ago was seen as a “Break the CP” event for Gg and Dd. Some turtles still cry at the memory of it.)

There’s a term related to the breaking of CPs: 提純 (“increasing the purity”). It describes the ultimate goal of breaking CPs: increasing the proportion of solo (”pure”) fans by breaking up the CP and having the solo fandoms of each lead absorb the CP fans. Because solo fans are *perceived* to be more loyal (won’t jump ship the next romantic drama comes along), less likely to draw criticisms (especially if the CP is M/M and/or affect the RL lives of their stars), and have more purchasing power (as CP fans have to divide their resources between the two leads and equally).

How does this affect how solo fans see CP fans? Another way to say the above is: one CP fan is one fan the two solo fandoms fail to capture. One more CP fan is one less solo fan. “CP fan” should be a temporary identity. CP fandoms sequester resources from the solo fandoms until they’re broken up.

This sets the stage for conflicts if the CP fandoms refuse to fade, if the CP fans refuse to turn solo.

The conflict between solo and CP fandoms is, of course, even more heated for real-person CP’s, which can, indeed, pose a significant threat to the leads’ life and career. An easy example of the former is if one of the CP leads are in a RL relationship, and/or if the lead is straight but the CP is queer (this is the case for The Guardian (2018), the first popular adapted BL “dangai” drama). Another major issue with real-person CPs (queer or not) is that the media will make frequent comparisons of the leads’ follow-up career. If the CP “bind” remains, the lead perceived as less popular may be viewed as using the more popular one to sustain their popularity. Fans of the more popular lead do not take that well. The management company of the less popular lead takes that even less well, and its PR team will work even harder to eliminate the CP from public discussion.

Overall, the “breaking the CP” strategy works as intended. As long as the CP leads stop interacting, no more new candies are generated for the CP fandoms, and even the best candies have an expiration date. The CP fans move on, often to other CP pairings—the CP breaking process often leave them hurt and disappointed at the leads—and further propagating the perception that they are fickle souls who prefer candies over actors.

With this background, it doesn’t surprise me that the relationship between the fans of Gg, Dd, and Yizhan has been so intense since the airing of the Untamed… it would actually surprise me (much) more if it isn’t.

First and foremost, if I take away my YiZhan-tinted lens (as much as I can anyway!), the competition between Gg and Dd automatically becomes The Battlefield in c-ent. Gg and Dd are among the most popular idols right now, and there’s a strong urgency in this competition as idol popularity is perceived to have a limited shelf life. Now, 18 months after The Untamed, Gg and Dd are not only vying for survival in the same industry—which may encourage cooperation between the two solo fandoms—they’re vying for the throne.

Things are already extra tense that way. Here’s an analogy I can think of—it’s easier to accept losing a lottery by getting every number wrong than getting a single number wrong, and by one count. It’s harder for solo fans to accept being number 2, when number 1 was a co-star, the other half of their idol’s CP.

Now, into this unresolved tension, throw in a huge curveball known as the YiZhan fandoms. A curveball that isn’t even supposed to exist — CP fandoms are all supposed to fizzle out quickly after the show is over. Instead, the BJYX supertopic on Weibo (by far the biggest of the three Yizhan CPs) had 1.5 million members in January 2020. It now has 2.8 million (January 2021).

(For reference, dd’s supertopic has 5.4 million members and gg’s, 7.7 million.)

These YiZhan fandoms aren’t merely living on their last breath, their stale candies. They’re thriving. Self-combustion hasn’t happened. CP fans of Gg and Dd keep finding fresh candies, keep having new things to rejoice and scream about.

If I put myself in the shoes of a solo fan, what does this continued growth of the YiZhan fandoms mean? It means the “binding” between My Idol and That-Other-Idol-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, each a contender of the c-ent throne, is strengthening instead of loosening. It means more and more fans of My Idol are exhibiting signs of wavering loyalty, by becoming fans of both My Idol and That-Other-Idol. Fan culture in China is highly organized, requiring strategy, cooperation and obedience when it comes to generating the best numbers for their idol (sells, ratings, viewership etc). Having to rely on the fickle CP fans to generate these numbers means uncertainty and anxiety.

People behave differently when they’re nervous. Some chew on their fingernails. Some attack.

2020, of course, make the solo fandoms even more nervous about each other. Gg, post-227, isn’t a safe person to be “bound to”, and also to have one’s career compared against—given the bad publicity that has circulated around him, given the fact that he has managed to stay on top in spite of it. Dd, meanwhile, has grown in popularity while Gg goes into hiding—while I personally do not, for a moment, believe Dd has anything to do with 227, it is within human nature to ask: if one loses—and in a manner so publicised, so catastrophic that even the Western media reported on it—who has the most to gain? Work culture in almost every industry in China is extremely cut-throat, and securing victory by not-so-clean methods isn’t uncommon with the immense pressure to perform. Fans are bringing in their experiences from RL in how they view their idol’s competition—with suspicion, with defensiveness. With swords sharpened and ready for counterattacks.

The ultimate cherry-on-top when it comes to causing conflicts between Gg’s, Dd’s and YiZhan fandoms is, of course, the fact that YiZhan is no garden-variety, heterosexual, character CP. It’s a M/M real person CP, in a society where homosexuality, while legal, is still considered “non-mainstream values” and explicitly censored from TV; where personal freedoms have overall been tightening and laws can change overnight. It’s one thing if their idol is truly in a queer relationship and chooses to announce it themselves; it’s a whole different story if it’s some fans of another idol who “out” them—who publicise their queerness that, in the eyes of these solo fans, may very well be fictional. 227 has already confirmed that in c-ent, idols pay the price of their fan’s wrongdoings and in this case, all it takes is for the YiZhan fandoms to make a single mistake—to celebrate one candy too loudly, for example (“to dance outside the circle”), and catch the attention of the wrong government official — to not only cost their idols their popularity, but their whole career. To the solo fans, therefore, the mere existence of the YiZhan fandoms pose a huge risk to their idol that should’ve been avoidable in the first place. And when they check out the new candies, what do they see? They see Gg leaving hints suggestive of Dd; they see Dd doing inexplicable things that can be linked to Gg. c-Turtles joke sometimes that solo fans are even better than they are at spotting the connections between Gg and Dd. But while turtles see these connections as evidences of a romantic relationship, what solo fans see is the other idol latching onto their own, whose fame makes it a reasonable act; they see it as the other solo fandom carelessly jeopardizing their own idol’s career for the sake of more noise and popularity.

The solo fandoms end up fighting. They have few reasons NOT to do so without the YiZhan-tinted lens.

That said though, I’m not sure if the wars between Gg’s, Dd’s and YiZhan fandoms are truly getting worse. As I write this, my thought is: perhaps it’s not that the fans are disliking each other more, but rather, more and more people are getting involved, and the stakes, the risks are becoming higher and higher. Gg and Dd both had fans during the filming of The Untamed, but they were a small fraction, quantity wise, to what it is now. Even if, at the time, 100% of Gg and Dd fans hated each other, they still wouldn’t have generated the noise than, say, if 0.01% of Gg’s fans are arguing with 0.01% of Dd’s fans now. The arguments then, however ugly they could be, would’ve stayed off hot searches, and largely within the two fandoms. These days, however, when even Gg shaking a pen can make it into hot search (as he did during the Tencent Awards), every heated exchange is amplified by passer-bys, by antis, by done-for-money re-bloggers. Quarrels snowball exponentially to the number of mouths pitching in; so does the antagonistic sentiments behind the hurtful words purposefully or accidentally spilled. Meanwhile, the c-YiZhan fandoms have reached the size that as much as they’ve tried to keep everything away from the public eye, it’s not really possible anymore. Search BJYX online, and videos after videos pop up for any outsider who wish to get a primer—and there’s no control over that content. Gg and Dd’s commercials hint at it. The Tencent Awards show host cued it. Before, the YiZhan fandoms may still be able to get away with a mistake or two. Now, they can make half a mistake and all the info already floating around will make sure that half a mistake will round to one.

If I were a solo fan, perhaps I’d scream my lung out too. Think of how terrible this all is, if Dd(Gg) is actually Gg(Dd)’s most fierce competition, as his being the other half of the CP is meant to be. Think of all the damages these fantastical speculations can do, if My Idol isn’t queer and tomorrow, the government comes down with a decree that outlaws queerness. Maybe My Idol will be spared if he isn’t at the top. But My Idol is at the top. Everyone will point to him. The hot searches will show his name, make sure the powers-that-be see it. He … his downfall… can be made an example …

Okay, okay, I’ll stop playacting here. Phew. That was scary * pats turtle shell to confirm its presence * :) . But can you see how deep that fear can go, for a fan who really, really loves and is therefore protective of their idol? How this fear, which stems from love, can turn into hate and generally loud, angry yelling across the internet? 

[fancyfade]

Objective list of superhero face coverings

5/10: Domino masks. Domino masks serve their function of protecting your identity and it is very hard for them to clash with other elements of a design. This makes them a safe default. They are the metric against which other face coverings will be judged.

Notable wearers: Dick Grayson, other Robins who aren’t Damian (we will see Damian later dw)

[image: a close up of my art of Dick Grayson as Nightwing, wearing a blue domino mask. end image]

6/10: Domino Masks with a little something extra added on / Those weird masks that let people see your hair but are otherwise kind of cowl-like?

We’re getting a little more visually interesting now. Sure sometimes it’s a risk (at least just with domino masks with a little something extra, where that extra thing can be weird) but no risk no reward thats what I say

notable wearers: tim’s other weird mask, wally west as flash and kid flash, dick grayson’s villainsona (renegade)

[image:... those types of masks on those characters? Tim’s domino mask goes down to nearly the bottom of his jaw, Wally’s mask covers his  face but not his nose and mouth area and stops at his forehead. dick’s is cut like batman’s cowl but does not cover his hair. end image]

7/10: Domino mask with hood & just no mask period.

Domino masks with hoods: Yeah, sure we have the domino mask that does not add a bunch to the aesthetic... because we HAVE other cool stuff going on in the head area that is carrying the bulk of the head design. a GOOD PROPER usage of the domino mask, well balanced design

No mask: We’re not playing any games; we want to not overwhelm the rest of our design with whatever our face mask is BUT we also don’t give a fuck. secret identity? who cares

Notable wearers: Damian Wayne (Domino mask with hood), no mask: too many to list but we’ll do grace choi since she best embodies not giving a fuck.

[image: damian wayne in his robin son of batman costume with the hood up (black hood, gold trim) and a green domino mask, then grace choi. end image]

8/10: Cowls/ helmets that cover part of your faces / no mask BUT yes to other head gear like tiaras

Cowls, classic. Obscure your identity well but leave the mouth there for emotion. You can also put cool stuff like bat ears.

Helmets that cover part of your face: hit a very similar niche to cowls

no mask but head gears: we can see your beautiful face and you don’t give a fuck... BUT you are stylish

notable wearers: Cowls: bruce wayne (batman), also like almost everyone elsse who was “Bat-something”. Partial helmets: hawkgirl, hawkman. no mask but headgear: wonder woman (diana) with the tiara

[image: left to right: Bruce wayne as batman, kendra saunders as hawkgirl with a very shiny hawk helmet, wonder woman (diana). end image]

9/10: full face covering helmets, those bottom of face covering masks in conjungtion with hoods

These are great in terms of mystery and protectionism. Are they the most expressive? No. Do I care? Also no.

bottom of face coverings: they jsut feel more cool and unique than domino masks, IDK. and they leave the eyes FULLY open for expression

notable wearers: helmets, jason todd I guess. bototm of face masks with hood: stephanei brown in one spoiler design, damian wayne in some redesigns that I like

[image: jason todd as red hood, wearing his red face covering helmet. then stephanie brown in what was just described, and damian wayne as tallant with a whtie cape and hood and black mask. end image]

(link to the damian redesign)

10/10: Full face covering masks. These things are GREAT. We have all the intimating mystery factor of full face covering helmets AND all the expressive factor of it being you know.. a mask and not a helmet. They can do NO wrong and I will not hear a word against them!

Notable wearers: Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle) Cassandra Cain (Batgirl)

[image: Cassandra cain as batgirl, lit from the sidei by orange light, and then jaime reyes as blue beetle, looking off to the side. end image]

look at them. they’re amazing

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

[ml-typhonverse]

How our Heroes look

Now that we have our hero names, we should probably look into designing their hero outfits. I’m not artistic in the slightest, so there likely won’t ever be a drawing of our heroes, or of Typhon for that matter. But I can at least get an idea of how I want to describe them when I’m writing.

Let’s start with Kermes. As the Ladybug Miraculous wielder, his color scheme has already been decided. Black and red with his yo-yo on his hip. Except Kermes really doesn’t want to look like a ladybug. He can already see all the jokes coming in because of ‘lady’ and he had enough of that as a kid. So Kermes had a long talk (aka: fight) with Tikki on costume design.

Rather than the traditional ladybug, Kermes’s hero outfit is based on the firebug. They aren’t native to the US, except apparently in Utah for some reason, but they have the red coloring with black markings that he can use. It’s also where he got his hero name; Kermes is the genus of scale insects that the firebug is a part of. It’s also a term for the red dye that females produce, which is the natural source of crimson. (Kermes didn’t put too much thought into it; he just thought it sounded vaguely heroic and close enough to a ladybug, but not enough for people to associate him with one.)

The suit is that bright crimson color, and his mask will have the black triangle pointed down the bridge of his nose with those two black dots on the sides. This same design would be on his back, with a black collar around his neck. I’m imagining black boots up to mid-calf and black gloves as well. The yo-yo has a similar design as well, instead of the usual spot pattern.

As Kermes, his hair is red with black roots done like Link’s in BoTW. It’s longer as a hero than it is in his civilian form, and the color change also helps to hide his identity. This does mean it gets in his eyes sometimes, a fact that amuses Sabotage whenever Kermes starts to complain about it. His eyes are also the same shade of blue as Tikki’s in costume, though he wasn’t aware of it at first. Kermes wears the earrings in his cartilage piercings instead of his lobes, so they’re harder to see.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now for Sabotage. As the black cat, his costume is also pretty simple. It’s mostly black, with the bright green eyes with no visible whites that Plagg also sports. He also has the same cat ears that many other Black Cats have. But that’s when the differences start.

Sabotage’s outfit looks mostly like armored leather. From a distance, it looks like a one-piece outfit; it’s only when you get closer that you can see the separate pieces all in very similar shades of black. He has a hood that’s kept up at all times, helped by the two holes for his ears to poke through, which also covers the short black hair. Like Kermes, this is not his usual hair length or color.

His costume also looks a bit worn in places. It’s most visible on his mask, where there are four silver lines slicing down at an angle over his left eye, like a cat swiped its claws over it. There are similar scar-like markings on his arms, legs, and quite a few on his stomach. There’s a notch in his left ear and his right looks like something took a bite out of it. If Chat Noir is a house cat with his little bell, then Sabotage is a street cat willing to protect his territory.

The boots he wears are around the same height as Kermes, though Sabotage’s have little white markings that look like claws. He wears his ring on his right hand, though it’s masked a bit by thicker gloves that make it stand out less. Unlike a lot of other cat heroes, Sabotage doesn’t have the belt tail.

As for the name, Sabotage mostly relates to the Black Cat’s power of destruction. It’s also in relation to how the Industrial Workers of the World or IWW used black cats to signal sabotage or wildcat strikes. (I really know nothing about IWW, but I thought it sounded cool.)

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Trisca does not look like a typical fox. Instead of Volpina, the closest she is design-wise is probably Rena Furitive in terms of coloring. Her costume is silvery gray with almost invisible white flicks decorating her arms and legs. Her stomach up to her throat, gloves, and boots are all white. There’s some padded-down fluff covering her throat and chest, mostly to keep the fox necklace hidden and held down during a fight.

This is because Trisca based her costume design on the ‘marble fox’. Marble foxes are crossbreeds between the traditional red fox and silver foxes, and only found in captivity. A subconscious choice as Trisca too is unnatural in a way. It also gives her a ghost-like appearance, fitting for her ability to walk through walls.

Trisca’s hair is very pale silver, pulled back in a long French braid, with the tip turning white. This braid takes the place of the fox tail. She has the black tipped ears that Trixx has, and her eyes are the same shade of purple. The flute has the same coloring as her suit.

As for her name, Trisca didn’t come up with it until after their second battle. (It was actually the hardest name for me to come up with. My placeholder was ‘Charm’, but I didn’t like it because of ‘Lucky Charm’. I really wanted to avoid sounding like the other canonical foxes, but that took out a lot of the V names and just Vixen didn’t sound right.) She went with Trisca partially because it sounds like ‘Trixx’, though most people assume it sounds like ‘tricky’, and trisca is a term for the smallest fluier, which relates to her flute. More information below if you want to know!

https://eliznik.org.uk/traditions-in-romania/traditional-music/pipes/fluier-the-romanian-6-hole-pipe/

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If there’s one thing I don’t get, it’s why the Peacock apparently makes you change your skin tone when you wear it. No other Miraculous we’ve seen does that! Well, Typhon isn’t turning completely blue; I’ve decided that much!

For Typhon, his suit isn’t designed for fighting and combat like our three heroes. After all, he doesn’t need to dirty himself with actual fighting. His mask looks like the ends of two peacock feathers stuck together, with red rims around the eyes and the green and yellow fading out to traditional blue.

His outfit consists of a dark blue peacoat, dark green trousers, heeled boots for that satisfying clicking sound when he walks, and feathered trim on the edges of his hands and at his throat. His hair turns that dark blue color and the brooch looks like the eye of a peacock nestled at his throat. Think rich entitled bastard you see in a regency era movie, maybe?

Typhon’s name was the easiest to come up with, especially since I came up with Andromeda first. Typhon was the mate of the monster Echidna, known as the ‘mother of monsters’. (And yes, I know it’s also an anteater. She had it first, it’s not her fault!) I considered Argus as well, for the 100 eyes and the peacock reference, but considering Typhon was probably the deadliest monster that the Olympians ever faced, plus sounding a bit like ‘typhoon’, I thought it worked better.

[bookdork1]

What’s the difference between a ship that is very much “these two men are in love they’re married” and “these two are Bros for Life” broship?

Anon, that’s a very good and complex question and I’ll do my best to answer it, but I will say that this is just my viewpoint on how I approach not-obvious-or-out-from-the-get-go m/m ships. For me, the biggest factor is when the subtext breaks so far into the text that it can no longer be ignored. When a ship stops being played for laughs by the writers and is instead taken seriously. When neither guy has a serious het relationship designated as their “big romance” of the series. And when at least one of the guys in the relationship appears to be heavily bi/queer coded.

Like, a lot of early 2000’s brotps rely on the idea of “haha look at these two guys hugging and being best buds, let’s make a joke about it mirroring a real couple’s actions but make sure to keep it rooted in just friendship because again we’re playing this for laughs with the General Audience and have no intention of ever actually going there.” Think Chandler/Joey from Friends, Shawn/Gus from Psych, or JD/Turk from Scrubs. Like, Joey and Chandler have kissed in the show but it was completely obvious the ship wasn’t anywhere close to romantic canon and never would have been. They would only ever be a bromance. Overall, joke trope can be extremely frustrating not least because it’s rooted in the American cultural idea that men cannot express physical affection for one another without risking being labeled “abnormal” (intricate rituals and all that). 

Additionally, in each of the bromances I mentioned above, at least one of the guys has a big romantic het love interest who’s another main cast member. That het relationship on these types of shows usually takes precedence for any and all romantic considerations, even if people prefer to watch the friendship banter (so, like, Shawn/Juliet being the popularly shipped slowburn and endgame in Psych, despite everyone knowing that Shawn’s most important relationship in the show is with Gus).

As far as queer coding is concerned, this is when enough is left unsaid or left as subtext to make the audience wonder if we’re actually seeing the full extent of a character’s identity and romantic life as it appears on screen. This was extremely prevalent when even having one lgbtq+ character on a show required a knock down drag out fight with the network (Jack from Dawson’s Creek, Willow from Buffy). Despite queer characters appearing more often in television now than in the 90’s, it’s still a fight, especially insofar as main characters (usually straight) versus side characters (more likely to be queer) are concerned. Also, most shows would rather a character simply identify as gay or straight, not bi. The bi part here is very important because while fans of popular m/m ships often see a male character as bi because of his queer coding, it’s rarely ever acknowledged by the show itself, despite authorial and/or acting hints (think Stiles from Teen Wolf, Dean from SPN, Buck from 911). Biphobia is a very real thing and it does affect the treatment of characters in show and by viewers. I’ll also just mention that Matthew Perry originally read and played Chandler as a closeted gay man, at least in the pilot, before changing that reading as the show went on- so an example of queer coding that was intended then written out rather than built upon (so the opposite of what the writers did or are doing with Dean and Buck).

Now, let’s fully consider my two favorite m/m ships that are popularly acknowledged as romantic by the fandom, despite not being canon (or having rocky canonhood) and as they relate to my rule of thumb that illustrates subtext breaking into text: Dean/Cas from Supernatural and Buck/Eddie from 911. Dean and Cas have the “romantic vibe that’s played for laughs” aspect of a bromance in Gamble’s s6, but after that their interactions are a lot less jokey and a lot more just plain romantic. Similarly with Buddie, s2’s “you two have an adorable son” is a lot more “haha” than s4 when a gay guy thinks Buck is hitting on him and turns him down. Buck was surprised but didn’t deny anything or try to bluster his way out of the scene, instead Eddie walks into frame. As far as queer coding, there are literally thousands of posts explaining how Dean is queer coded throughout the entirety of SPN and 911 has been building up something similar with Buck during its initial 4 season run. Honestly, if a show can run long enough, it’s refreshing to have a character who isn’t obviously lgbtq+ from the start get the opportunity to come out. It took 12 years, but Cas came out as gay in 15x18 and the length of having to wait for that reveal doesn’t invalidate the character’s journey in any way, rather it encourages people to understand that you can come out at any time in your life, whenever you’re ready. Love interest wise, Dean had one long term female love interest throughout the entire 15 year run of SPN and she was never a main character. Instead, his relationship with fellow main character Cas was carefully built up and tested, showing that irrefutably romantically coded relationship to be Dean’s priority. Buck was involved with a main female cast member throughout season 1 but since her departure he has had no serious love interest and instead built upon his found family- particularly as it exists with Eddie and Eddie’s son. Both these relationships read as romantic because that’s what they are. However, so long as there is resistance to letting these ships be canon or letting these characters be queer, the GA will only ever see them as bromantic substites and people will forever argue about their authenticity like trying to make a death bed love confession platonic.

Overall, Destiel and Buddie and other similar m/m ships are best described as husbands instead of “bros for life” because they’ve met the criteria of breaking out of subtext and into the show’s main story. Plots often hinge on the ups and downs of their relationship, they’re taken seriously and built up by the writers, and are obvious enough for the GA to notice and possibly ship, even if neither character is out.

[aniverous]

Mirror World Ideas

I've been thinking about how the Mirror World could actually function, and I'm never gonna get around to writing all of these, so I figured I'd post them because why not:

Reflections were not sapient or sentient at the beginning. The Mirror World was just another function of the Prime World, like gravity or thermodynamics. However, since Reflections were directly connected to the Prime World in a way other forces of reality weren't, once sentient life developed Reflections gained the capacity for sentience as a species, and once sapient life appeared they developed the capacity for that as well.

Reflections have the memories of their Prime, but the connection is weak enough that Reflections can possess their own minds.

Before becoming sapient, Reflections would Recycle automatically upon their Prime's death, which means melting back into the substance of the Mirror World and re-emerging as the reflection of someone else. With sapient Reflections, the process only happens if the Prime-less Reflection decides to have it happen. If they are killed in the Mirror World, they Recycle at the moment of death.

If they die outside of the Mirror World, they don't Recycle, and no one knows what happens to them.

Reflections don't keep their memories when they're Recycled, but they are aware that they have been Recycled. They usually don't bother counting how many times it happens, but some Reflections have been around since the dinosaurs.

It is rare for a Reflection to choose to become a Flec rather than get Recycled, and the Flecs are only needed occasionally, as it's uncommon for someone to become a 'Sliver'.

The Flecs were formed once Humans started philosophizing about their existence, causing Reflections to do the same. Most Reflections disagreed with the 'radicals' who wanted Reflections to have an identity outside of the Primes, and they were quickly crushed.

There have been rare instances of Slivers injuring and killing other Reflections out of desperation or malice, but usually they just run and hide.

No sound can be heard from the Mirror World by the Prime World, but sound can travel from the Prime World into the Mirror World, albeit muffled.

Reflections have no 'off duty' time, not even when there are no Primes around to see them. No communication is had between Reflections, and they only know how to speak at all by listening to and mimicking the Primes talking.

Of course, despite the 'no talking' rule, rumors and information still inevitably spread, given the unstoppable nature of such things.

The Chrome Car is the subject of the majority of the rumors.

Reflections have no books, songs, or official history of any kind. All rules and information are passed from Flec to Flec, told to the Reflections by the Flecs, or spoken in whispers in quiet moments.

No matter the connections or feelings between their Primes, Reflections do not consider each other family, friends, enemies, or any other relation because their Primes are. Any bonds between their Primes are inconsequential to their view of each other.

Most Reflections actually have very little personality. They have no societal or personal interaction standards that would encourage them to develop individually, and have very few personal traits to speak of, usually forming in response to however they view their Prime. This is more likely the longer they've been reflecting a person, as their sense of individuality will fade over time. If you talked to the average Reflection, they would behave like they were in a permanently dissociated state.

This is the main of many reasons why, despite there being billions of sapient Reflections, there has been no successful rebellion of any sort.

The desire to reflect Primes is an instinct, strong enough that there are few deviants, but weak enough that it is overpowered by conscious thought.

Non-sapient Reflections simply take their Primes’ memories and personalities as their own, giving up minds they have no reason to hold onto. Extremely worn-down sapient Reflections can do this as well.

The Mirror World is not a solid space, the Chrome Car being the exception. Rather than having sky and ground, the dimension merges everything together as though the entire world was liquid metal, with chunks of the metal in solid form floating around and gravity being nonexistent, the air extremely cold and heavy. The reflective surfaces connecting it to the Prime World float in the liquid space, and move in response to the surfaces' movements in the Prime World. Rather than physically moving, although they are capable of it, Reflections warp to move around, using their Prime as an anchor.

There are rumors that if you go too far out, you'll hit the edge of the Mirror World and drift away into nothingness.

Reflections do need oxygen to live in both dimensions, so the Mirror World has an atmosphere, albeit a very different one. While Reflections can hold their breath for a long time in comparison to their Prime species counterpart, they will eventually suffocate if they don’t breath.

The only way out of the Mirror World is the Chrome Car, so the Flecs keep it on high alert.

While the metal is very similar to chrome, the substance making up everything and everyone in the Mirror World is a unique metal not found in the Prime World. There is no actual name for it, so it's called chrome until the Prime World has the opportunity to discover and analyze it.

The Chrome Car is made of this metal, and is the only place the substance touches the Prime World, which is why it's the only way out.

All appearances of Reflections interacting with things while reflecting are in fact illusions made by the Mirror World bending light so the Prime doesn't see the gray void the Reflection is actually in. This includes making the Reflections' look like their Prime in terms of color, and making their metal skin appear altered and/or malleable. Inside the Mirror World, the light bends and twists around everything like a self-contained Aurora Borealis.

Clothing is actually not an illusion, however, as a metal reflection of the Prime’s outfit will form around the Reflection to match the Prime. No one is sure why this happens, but escapees are grateful that they don’t start out naked.

The metal clothes fall under the ‘people can’t jump out of people’ rule, as they are technically a part of the Reflection. If the Reflection dies, the clothes melt too.

Reflections do not have children. Prime newborns either get a Recycled Reflection or, if there are none available, a brand new Reflection formed by the Mirror World. Any signs of pregnancy in Reflections are illusions by the Mirror World.

In modern times, it is rare for a new Reflection to be made, as the Reflection population would be whatever the maximum number of Prime beings there had been at one time. This only happens if the Prime species experiences a population boom, or a rare massacre or plague occurs in the Mirror World.

Inside the Mirror World, Reflections get all the energy they need to survive from the dimension itself, and don't need to eat, drink, sleep, or do anything but breath to survive, although they are physically able to do all of it. In the Prime World, they have the same needs as whatever species they reflect. This information is widely unknown, so most Reflections that do get out run themselves to exhaustion and either get caught by the Flecs due to weakness or die of starvation and thirst.

There is, however, coffee and hot-chocolate in the Mirror World, which the Flecs import from the Train. They’re given to Flecs as a reward for their service, and to Reflections who report deviants as a reward for doing so. It’s surprisingly effective as a motivator.

Reflections cannot survive for any period of time without the unique energy of the Mirror World. They automatically cannot detach fully from reflective surfaces as a function of their bodies to prevent instant death. The Flecs’ skin-suits are designed to circumvent this by containing some of this energy, but given how Flecs only go to the Prime World in rare instances, the technology is underdeveloped.

Theoretically, an organic Prime lifeform could survive in the Mirror World without equipment, but only for a short time as the intense cold and extremely dense atmosphere would become fatal quickly. Since the Chrome Car is designed to have Humans enter the Mirror World, it nullifies these issues for its area.

All technology in the Mirror World is made by repurposing the metal using methods known only to the Flecs as a means of controlling and maintaining the Mirror World.

The skin-suits only work on the Train, as the dimension's odd properties make the barrier weak enough to pass through, as well as make it possible for the Chrome Car to punch through to the Mirror World.

Reflections only feel pain if they are damaged to the point that their body loses its structural integrity, which causes them to liquify. Small wounds can heal on their own by re-solidifying over time, but for serious wounds there are treatments that can stabilize the body up to a certain point.

Scratches, dents, and dried liquid wounds are fixed by smoothing them out and just waiting for the metal to replenish itself. Care must be taken not to grind the metal too far down or you’ll just liquify the injury again.

Fixing a huge wound mostly involves keeping the liquifying area in the right position and then welding and molding the skin layer closed around it. The Mirror World will slowly regenerate more metal to replace what the Reflection's body lost, but it only helps if the wound is in a stable position. If the damage is beyond what can be stabilized, like a missing chunk or huge gash, then there’s nothing to be done.

Since they only have a single mirror or a skin-suit connecting them to the dimension, escaped Reflections and Flecs in the Prime World heal much slower and are less likely to survive serious wounds.

Reflections can't get organic-life illnesses, but they can develop something resembling rust if damaged in either world if injuries are not tended to. Rust on the surface of their bodies formed from scratches acts like a rash or skin disease, and is relatively easy to remove. But if it reaches into the body, through a liquified injury or an ignored surface infection, it will act like an infected wound and will absolutely kill the Reflection if not given serious medical treatment.

Rust, as it’s called for lack of a better name, doesn't affect Prime lifeforms, but is contagious among Reflections, with metal not part of living Reflections, such as tools and ground, not being affected. Rare incidents where rogue Reflections injured many others have sometimes resulted in total outbreaks occurring.

Much like how Reflections can sense their Primes’ thoughts, Flecs can sense the thoughts of Reflections when the Reflections in question specifically focus on summoning the Flecs. This is how they are alerted about rogues, injuries, and Rust cases.

Reflections do not normally mourn their dead. To them, they have just been Recycled early. If a large number of Reflections have been killed at one time in a massacre or Rust outbreak, then they will mourn for a short time.

If the reflective surface attached to an escaped Reflection is cracked, their body will fracture as well, moving out from the object and going down beneath the skin as the damage to the object gets worse. If the object breaks completely, so does the Reflection before they liquify as the body becomes unsustainable.

Reflections are unable to dream inside the Mirror World. In the Prime World, not only can they have normal dreams and nightmares, but they can get brief flashes and memories of their previous lives if they encounter the right stimuli.

Escaped Reflections will no longer receive the memories of their Prime unless they re-enter the Mirror World. They will still feel the instinctive desire to reflect their Prime’s movements if the Reflection is looking at them.

Once out of the Mirror World, a Reflection will still grow and age, but they will only have the lifespan of the species they reflect, since the Mirror World will slowly stop giving them energy once the maximum amount of time has passed.