#this goes on this blog for a reason

[ripplefields]

yeah i like them . i'm sure no one is surprised

[glambots]

@ Steel Wool Studios (Official Twitter/X)

[luthiest]

so i got a job. the job. the big one. which is good. but…… like ethically speaking i don’t think im allowed to post photos of my bench? i dont know i can live up to my url anymore rip

i’m gonna have to turn this into a fancy drink blog or something

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

oooh okay! This is kinda specific, but could you draw a character who isn’t in the loop finding out about time travel? (preferably George cause I’m obsessed with the idea of him figuring it out but if you wanna do someone else I don’t mind) 😊

[candyheartedchy]

I think I just discovered a repressed fictional crush and I’m not sure how I should feel about it.

[shouyuus]

sry i aggressively interacted with every single post you've made, it will happen again.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

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

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

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

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

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

Setup

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

Payoff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[scroofy-was-here]

hello!! apparently there have been some anti blogs for certain tumblrs (the anti-4rielle blog who is harassing a minor :/) and I urge you guys to block them or report them if you can find something that violates tumblr's terms of service, and let other people know to block them as well. some of these are obviously ragebait accounts and continuing to interact with them will fuel the flames and have them continue spewing their horrible shit as tempting as it is.

and for the people who think it's funny making these blogs, it's not. no one is laughing with you :/ if you don't like someone, block them (or report them if you must) and move on.

[laswells-ashtray]

It's me yet again. I need me some slightly tipsy Kate and John in a lighthearted sparring match while her wife and Nik stand off to the side and gossip about their respective partners. (Again, take your time. Don't burn yourself out )

Now, because I can't describe movement for shit. I'm an internal dialogue like the Green Goblin voice or a banter typa muppet this interaction will mostly be between Nik and Laswell's wife. and I'm using my interpretation of her whom I have called Sarah if only because typing out Laswell's wife so many times makes the words stop looking real

"I cannot see this going well in the long run." Sarah Laswell, very proud wife of a certain Kate Laswell. It's not often she sees Kate get tipsy in front of anyone who isn't her, she'll indulge in a drink or two but never to the extent of this. However, it'd be dumb to assume that combining Kate, John and alcohol that Nikolai, bless that man, was paying for would lead them anywhere else.

"And yet you make no move to stop it." Nikolai doesn't bother pretending that he isn't amused, it's deeply humorous to watch two of the most fierce people he knows spar each other.

"Neither do you, don't think I can't see you staring at his ass."

"You haven't stopped looking at your wife's chest since she took off her jacket."

Okay, they're both deviants.

John is in what are probably his nicest jeans, not very suitable to a lot of movement given that they must've been painted onto his arse.

Kate is wearing a dark blue tank top that Sarah bought her absentmindedly last week and for the briefest moment, she considers just dragging Kate to the nearest closet and hoping it's soundproof.

The two move in such fluid ways that it's clear they've sparred together before. Even with a few drinks in both of them, it's the most gracious violence she's ever seen.

When John narrowly avoids Kate's elbow to the face Nikolai does little more than chuckle, he clearly isn't worried about his partner and he enjoys the smug grin on the other man's face.

"Tempted to video this." Sarah mutters, watching them both in awe. Even if her main reason for watching was to shamelessly admire her wife in all her glory, she can't deny how impressive Kate is. She throws a hit with enough force that Sarah almost pities John and she takes an equal hit with such little care. God, if there was to be a walking advertisement for lesbianism it would be Kate Laswell.

"That would involve taking your eyes off of them."

"Nevermind."

Nikolai understands, he truly does. His three favourite Johns are fucked senseless John, John when he's asleep and purring against Nik's chest like a cat and John when he's fighting just for the fun of it. Watching his biceps flex, testing the tight stitching around the sleeve of his t-shirt is a damn near biblical fucking experience.

Maybe the greatest bit of their little sparring match is how happy the two look to be there, throwing hits at each other while simultaneously muttering their banter in a way that neither Nikolai nor Sarah can hear. Carefree for once in their lives, it's no secret that their jobs weigh down on the both of them and to see them in a position so laid back, it's endearing.

"Those the socks Kate bought him for his birthday last year?"

"Да."

"Thought so, I picked them out."

"I assumed so."

"What gave it away?"

"The word cock printed on the soles." Sue her, she thought it was funny and given the expression on Nikolai's face so did he.

She watches John swipe out Kate's legs from under her and feels pride settle in her chest when the other woman immediately pulls the Englishman down with her.

She spares Nikolai a knowing glance, it would appear the both of them are going to be enjoying their nights when they head home.

Kate moves so quickly that Sarah can't help but think of one of their cats back home as she pins John to the mat, their sparring might be lighthearted but she wouldn't make the mistake of thinking Kate would let herself move.

Her muscles are taut as she holds the struggling Englishman in place, her back arched and a downright gleeful smirk on her face. Strands of hair fall into her line of vision, fallen loose from her typical bun and they frame her face in a way that can only be described as angelic. If angels were the single most fuckable woman that Sarah has ever interacted with in her entire fucking life, Jesus Christ.

As much as John is losing, he does so proudly. Who better to lose to than Kate of all people. And Nikolai isn't complaining, John's t-shirt is riding up and he's offered the perfect view of the happy trail he has every intention of running his face over later.

Their little sparring match comes to an end, with both participants walking over to their respective partners before heading to grab their shoes and the jackets that had been dumped carelessly on the floor.

It's only when Nikolai catches the two sharing a look that he realises they've been played. Kate and John are both too smart to start a friendly spar for no reason. And it isn't a coincidence that both Sarah and he are desperate to drag their partners away for the night.

They were putting on a show. Sly bastards.

[some-pers0n]

I might be poking at a bear here but I kinda really dislike the "all or nothing" attitude the WoF fandom has. This character is evil the worst piece of garbage imaginable or is secretly a great character and you're just a fool for thinking otherwise. It's ridiculous at times

Like I recall the stuff with Secretkeeper a while back. Now, call me crazy, but I don't think she's some horrifically abusive and neglectful parent. She did the best that she could. Was it great? No, but she was trying to keep her daughter safe in a hostile world that she was terrified would reject or, worse, hunt her. Her leaving Moon alone for days was bad, yes, but she wanted to keep Moon free from the horrors of the volcano. She loved Moon and clearly took care of her a lot. You can't just look at a character and paint them as being a "horrible abusive POS" for something that, let's be real here, is much more forgivable and understandable than anything Coral, Scarlet, Diamond, Cobra, Jerboa, or Kestrel did

[moonpaw]

[arthur-lesters-music-stand]

I've headcanoned Arthur as aromantic bisexual for a while now. I know in the text, he's only intended to be heterosexual through and through, but there's so much that speaks to this other idea. Ofc the "I watched you fall in love--well, like" line lives rent-free in my head as an explanation for his aromanticism, as well as all his proclamations that friendship is a stronger kind of love than any other. (Maybe just chosen platonic loves in general? Because he's obviously expressed love to Faroe and Daniel pretty powerfully in a more familial sense). His bisexuality is really just that he's clearly been with a woman, and has a LOT of tension with a LOT of men in this show lol.

But, unfortunately, I relate a lot to Arthur. Not the child drowning part! Not that, thankfully. Just a lot of other stuff! Still not a great look I know but work with me here.

Now, I always took my identity as bisexual for granted. I've known since a young age, haven't much questioned it, and always assumed that extended to my romantic identity as well. If my experiences with feeling love and romance didn't quite line up with the popular perception of it... well, that was just on me.

But this view of Arthur has really made me explore what aromanticism means (as well as Jonathan Sims making me look more into understanding asexuality!). I just thought I was learning for the sake of getting to know others better. But god... maybe that line from before rings so clearly in my head for a reason?

I don't think I'm aro. I've been tossing "demi-bi" as an option to call myself in my head for a little while now. I'm not sure how easily or soon I'll land on a label, or if I ever will. All I know is that I do experience love, romantic attraction, even! But it's just... different than how I think it's expected of me. And whether that's because I do love the people I should love as partners a little closer to friends, or because I'm not understanding what people want from me in the first place, I don't know. But something is off here, and this silly little headcanon is finally making me acknowledge that.

Anyway, I guess I'm writing this publicly because I want to say thank you? Thanks to all of you, the Malevolent fandom, for bringing such a great show into my life. For allowing me an avenue to make friends and create art and relate to experiences I never quite considered this much before (the aro stuff as well as other things). Mhmmm I suppose if I come up with an "answer" to my questioning identity I'll mention it somewhere? Until then, thanks for reading.

[revenantghost]

Why would anyone use AI to finish or even write fics when absolutely nothing out there can be as brilliantly unhinged as a fic writer

[darkstarofchaos]

since the writers and this fandom has a hate boner for prowl, if he has a support network, who would you include in that little circle? very much would not include every autobot that punches him because fuck them lmao. but yeah? who and why though? for me, and i know i shouldn't be looking into their relationship through a shipping lens, but jazz seems like a good choice, he is the only one i can see that could possibly be in that circle 😭

Oh, that's an interesting question. And a difficult one to answer if we're looking specifically at IDW, because it's not enough just to be nice to Prowl - the character(s) need to be a positive (or at least neutral) influence in his life. For example, I wouldn't count the Constructicons, even though they were outwardly nothing but supportive, because they loved Prowl for all the things he hated about himself. Prowl needs people in his corner who can help him become who he wants to be, or at least won't hold him back by praising him for things he regrets doing.

Another issue with the Constructicons is that their support was superficial - they just did what he wanted, and then dropped him for basically no reason (yes, they had a reason. I do not accept that reason because they've been in Prowl's head and knew he never wanted them or saw them as anything but tools, but liked him in spite of that. It makes no sense to know he would drop them if he could, then get mad at him for doing just that).

Arcee pretty much did the same thing: she was perfectly happy following his orders, but then she dropped him the moment she felt like he was impeding her personal growth. And no, I don't care if that's a misrepresentation of what happened, because this also happened:

Way to prove him right, Arcee.

So that's another criterion for being a part of Prowl's support system. If you consider yourself as bad as or worse than he is, you're happy to do things he expressly said he doesn't want to do, and then you get uppity because you were given a chance to change and he didn't, you're no better than the rest of the morally judgmental pricks that make up a large percentage of the Autobot ranks.

So with (some of) the ranting out of the way, who actually fits my unreasonably strict criteria of... *checks notes* ...Being genuinely supportive and neither pushing Prowl to be worse nor punishing him for not knowing how to be better?

My first choice would be Cerebros, for being the only person I can think of to ever apologize to Prowl for hurting him (I think Bumblebee actually apologized too, but Bumblebee grabbed him by the throat in a fit of anger, and Cerebros took over his body briefly to save their little group from Sentinel, not knowing he had trauma around being controlled. I'm gonna say the accidental harm with good intentions is more forgivable than straight up violence). Admittedly we don't see a lot of Cerebros, but honestly, that might be a good thing since there isn't time for the writers to turn him against Prowl.

I would also propose Red Alert, who similarly doesn't get a chance to turn on Prowl after their peaceful final interaction. I feel like Red might be one of the only people who wouldn't just dismiss Prowl's trauma around being controlled and having his mind messed with, having experienced both himself, and the romantic in me likes that the moment he was about to kill Prowl was the moment he broke free of Sentinel's control. I doubt it meant anything beyond being the most dramatic moment for him to return to himself, but with no evidence to the contrary, I'll read whatever I want into it (I don't actually ship them, but considering Sentinel's scoffing about sparkmates, it would be thematically appropriate for Red to break free at that moment because of genuine affection for Prowl. You know, if there was actually a theme there and it wasn't just the writer who wrote most of the romance in IDW using aromanticism to make a villain more hateable. But anyway).

I would not add Fort Max to the list, because even though he seems to at least accept Prowl's presence by the end, everything about their scenes together is so? Weird? Max is mad at him when he first shows up, but then apart from a few disparaging comments (mostly meant for humor) he's just kind of fine with him being there? And Prowl himself is completely out of character, the whole scene with him forgetting why Fort Max might hate him is one of the most "he would not fucking say that" moments I've ever experienced from canon material. Those two issues feel like Fort Max speedran forgiveness or something, and I really don't think it works. So yeah, Prowl can have the rest of the Luna-1 crew, but I'm not sold on Max.

Unfortunately, while I've come to like them as a pair (and I'm not sure why you "shouldn't" look at them through a shipping lens?), I don't think I would count Jazz as part of Prowl's support system:

As Prowl notes, that's a biased description of events, and one Jazz presumably got from Optimus or one of the others who was present for the Combiner Wars arc. But the fact that he accepts that version of events, and that he supports Optimus long after Prowl has had enough of him, makes me feel like he would actively choose Optimus over Prowl if he had to. At very least, if you told him that Optimus physically attacked Prowl after his arrest, I don't think he would believe you. Or he would believe Optimus' version of events, which is that Prowl "made" him do it (come to think of it, Optimus must have told people something to explain how Prowl "escaped". Wonder what it was).

So yeah. Looking at canon as it is, I really can't come up with anyone else I'd choose as a support system.

Now if I could choose to ignore parts of canon, I would definitely pick Jazz because it seems like he and Prowl got along really well during the war. I also feel like Arcee shouldn't have been so quick to turn her back on him, considering she was such an enthusiastic partner in crime, so I guess I'd add her to the list. Maybe Wheeljack, since he was willing to give Starscream a chance (though Prowl almost killed Wheeljack while being controlled by Bombshell, so I could see that maybe being too uncomfortable for one or both of them).

And if you want an option that's more a giant "fuck you" to canon than anything that could actually happen, I've always felt Prowl and Starscream should have been friends. Which sounds like it flies against the "no bad influences" rule, but Starscream himself was trying to do better after a while, so they could have done better together. Plus, I like the idea of outcasts standing by each other when no one else will.

[madaqueue]

i have nothing but respect for people who have private/mutual only sideblogs but unfortunately you all are forced to see every single thought i have !!!!!

[eywaseclipse]

Neytiri’s Selfcare Day Headcanon

Authors Note: Found this in my drafts with some dust collecting lol

Neytiri’s self care day:🦋✨🌱🥭🌲🍯

It’s rare enough for Neytiri to get a day of solitude let alone the time to take extra care of herself away from the kids

She feels guilty at first when she leaves Jake alone with all of them, but he constantly reassures her to go for the day and enjoy herself

She starts off with a hunt. Nothing makes her feel more exhilarated than going back to her roots as a hunter

She typically cleans herself in the communal hot springs on busy days with the clan, even though the family of the Olo’eyktan has a private spot

She makes use of the privacy for once and brings all her salves and scrubs

She loves exfoliating her scalp with a homemade scrub, and then lathering her braids with liquid from the Panopyra plant

She decides that if she’s going to really take care of her hair, she might as well just unbraid her luxurious locks and really get into it

She loves using the healing rose oil to care for her braids and rub gingerly onto her scalp helping to lock in the moisture

She uses the humid air to air dry her hair which is quite wavy out of her braids

She’ll go and find a giant tree branch in the canopy after collecting some fruits and just sit there for a bit enjoying the sounds of the jungle

She snacks on bananafruit, bladder polyps she packed earlier, and some episoth seeds

She can’t help herself and thinks about the kids so she ends up collecting a bunch of rocks that remind her of them

She will take her time rebraiding her hair gently weaving it all together. After she’s done she’ll finish up with some more oil like Lionberry oil to keep her hair shiny and healthy

She loves the Forest Hive Nectar. Clear in color and floral in scent, it makes an excellent moisturizer when combined with some ground up dried Vineshrooms to make a paste, and will rub it into her skin all over her body and face which acts as a nice moisturizer. It has a nice minty smell to it

After a little nap she collects some herbs for her mother and Kiri smiling about it as she harvests them and makes her way back home feeling relaxed and rejuvenated