#this is a very specific problem
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maybe a hot take but please don’t have or stop having children if you have an active eating disorder/body dysmorphia (including binge eating, not just restrictive disorders). seriously
thinking you’ll be the exception (because you’re So self-aware, unlike those Other disordered women) and won’t give your dysmorphia/eating disorder to your child is pride before a very slow and terrible fall
it never ever works. you’re never ever immune. i mean, such a huge reason of why there are so many of us now is bc our moms thought the same thing lmfao. didn’t matter how well-intentioned they were. no matter how much they tried to separate Their Problems from Ours. here we fucking are
i know it’s not women’s fault to begin with, but the reality is that those of us affected do incubate, nurture, and pass on the virus in the Current Way of Things
the buck needs to stop here. this isn’t a game. think of all the things your mother probably thought she was expertly hiding from you that you still picked up on and were profoundly affected by in a terrible and formative way. it will happen to you, too. don’t think it won’t.
if you know that you’re not solidly and confidently recovered, you have a responsibility to stop that buck and not actively attempt to create a child who will observe, mimic, internalize, adopt, and inherit your lifelong life-ruining behavior. the selfishness is breathtaking honestly
#eating disorders are one of the most treatment-resistant behavioral issues out there#once they take firm root#this is not quite the same as ‘don’t have children if you’re even a little bit mentally ill’ btw before anyone thinks it is#this is a very specific problem#and it is LEARNED#you cant always protect your child from the outside world influence but you can do something about what your child starts with at home#i am recovered now but i could’ve saved my whole life if my mom hadn’t been dieting when i was 7#so i started dieting too#bc she was my mom and i did what she did#cuz i was fucking 7#she never told me what a diet was. i just observed her.#and when she binged EYE binged#i blame her always for my food addiction
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reblog if you have to clean your room, wrap all of your Christmas presents, write 2 full essays as well as complete 3+ other assignments and do something about your moderate to severe depression and anxiety but instead you choose to listen to taylor swift’s folklore in your pajamas while scrolling on tumblr and eating fucking oreos
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Explorers of Sky is a good game.
#making the joke in the tags of my last meme wasn't enough i had to make it real#with way too much effort put into it as i do#pokemon#pmd#future trio#that's the tag right? WELL it'll have to be#i finished the main plot and the special episode and yeah#yeah yeah yeah#very good game very glad i can take real life damage when i hear don't ever forget with full context now#the special episode also confirmed that arceus isn't a dick it's just specist#as expected of specifically a pokemon god really#maybe the pla protagonist would have been sent home if they'd been turned into a pokemon!#then again they wouldn't have been turned BACK but... yknow that's still half the problem solved#ray's records#i suspend my disbelief i promise but sometimes thoughts are objectively funny#hero saved the world and gets to come back to life buuuut yeah no you keep your amnesia and you stay a pokemon cmon now#though to be fair THAT resurrection was all dialga#and it controls time not form (that's mew) or memory (that's... uxie?) so i can let it slide it did its best#anyway great characters in this game everyone say a prayer for celebi whose stubby little hands are very full with those two. attagirl.
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mint as my laptop daily driver is basically better than windows for me. all i use is firefox (internet and reading pdfs) and obsidian (literally any writing or notes). the update manager is so killer too
#the only problem is mint sometimes fucks with my trackpad or turns it off and my touchscreen is completely gone. oh well#sorry to a very specific follower no i havent read any linux documentation yet#but i do plan on it!
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lizzie design but i did it before the second episode and am now wanting to add parrot attributes
#my art#ldshadowlady fanart#lizzie ldshadowlady#wild life smp#wild life fanart#trafficblr#i truly just dont know what im doing with my style anymore#I think its the eyes. i dont have a specific way i draw them so i just kind of do it differently every time#and since the eyes are such a focal point it makes the entire thing feel very different even though i draw everything else-#-the same way i always do#im in that mood that makes youwant to punt your artstyle into oblivion#i want it to be weirderrrr. more stylized and expressive. get funky with shapes and colors.#it just feels so boring to me right now#its such a problem i just cant stick with a style. i love everything but nothing feels like its really mine you know#uuueueueugh
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gee i wonder if the issue could be at all related to the fact that the current treatment plan for his chronic pain consists solely of FUCKING IBUPROFEN
#i get that they're trying to make the point that house's pain flares with emotional distress#which is true! he does have psychological problems that need to be addressed!#but also. also. in addition.#there's this other little tiny minor factor worth mentioning which is#there is muscle. MISSING. from house's THIGH#ibuprofen and hobbies are not a suitable treatment plan for this condition#i'm not very knowledgeable about chronic pain but there have to be more options than this or vicodin#yes house has addiction issues#but what's happening here is not about that!!#he literally needs MEDICAL TREATMENT and he's being denied it!#house staying clean from the specific drug he was addicted to AND being on a proper pain management plan#are not mutually fucking exclusive#house md#house season 6#house 6x2#i need a tag for#house's chronic pain#house pain management#op
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The situation at Boiling Rock needed to be carefully designed by the writers to cause the Dangerous Ladies to fall apart. If circumstances were even moderately changed, then what happened there would be very different and it wouldn't end with both Mai and Ty Lee betraying Azula.
A lot of people assume that Azula was always doomed to lose her friends in the closing stages of the war and if it didn't happen at Boiling Rock, it would have happened elsewhere, but I'm not so sure. The fact that the writers had to weigh scales so heavily in order to destroy the friendships suggests the opposite, that Azula's bonds to her friends were stronger and more durable than people acknowledge.
"What if Boiling Rock never happened and Mai and Ty Lee stuck with Azula to the end, as everything else started to fall apart around her" is almost unexplored as an AU, but it is very possible.
#Azula#Mai#Ty Lee#Dangerous ladies#Azula meta#Mai meta#Ty Lee meta#that's not to say that they didn't have problems with Azula#but those problems might not have been made manifest#without a very specific set of events#AU idea
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I think the world is so wonderful... (Patreon)
#My art#Handplates#UT#Papyrus#I have not been able to get this idea out of my head for like - days now lol#It's only solidified the more I read! Heck!!#I dunno if I was necessarily hoping that reading further would point me in another direction but no now this is one of his songs lol#I really like Rugrats Theory actually :) The song of course it's lovely but I even have some nostalgia for the creepypasta haha#Been a while since I read it tho so that's probably just the soft haze of memory talking lol#But the song is still great! I'm partial to the English cover but I like the original as well :)#There are just so many fun lyrics! Especially for Papyrus specifically#''Everything I've been told I believe and yet people that I love just leave'' Gasterrr#''I think I'm old enough to understand so there's no reason to hide from me'' Sanssssssss#Once I returned to the scene of Sans trying to lie to him I just fjdslahfd these lyrics would Not leave me alone lol#I'm also Extremely partial to the second verse surrounding blindness and willful ignorance - his vision problems literal and metaphorical!#I wasn't planning to start a Handplates playlist but I guess by this point it's kinda too late haha#I also tried a different style of shading for this one ♪ Trying to style match a bit hehe#It's fun! Scratchy - tho some of that is from still using my usual brushes lol#I was Very inspired by watching the comic creation playlist - so cool! Very fun to watch and pick up ideas hehe#I knew I forgot something lol dang it - forgot the dash between WDG-2#S'what I get for using pre-plates references :P#For just a quick little thing I'm fairly pleased overall tho :)
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obviously hanguang-jun would wear sports bras…. right?
Wei Wuxian failed his perception and insight check rolls.
#ask#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan wangji#Flirting works differently when you are Neurodiverse. You need to be told directly or its Not A Thing. (this is a ADHD wwx household)#call that...taking the Initiative....#He is just trying to be polite but also still stuck on a very specific idea of who lwj is.#'He can't be flirting with me - Lan Zhan would combust if he had a single gay thought!'.#combined with: 'I think I might have a little bit of a crush on lwj but it could just be a desire for closer friendship'.#And now we have a recipe for trying to take on the burden of 'protecting someone' from your feelings#when its really just a problem with communication and being afraid of your own feelings + feeling as if you need to handle it alone.#Which we all know is wwx's major flaw. Call that *~*~Character consistency*~*~#Anyways - your art gave me a much needed laugh today B*) thank you very much (also whoops I didn't realize I wasn't following you until now
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i'm going to scream i got accused of being a transmisogynist by someone on twitter because of this specific part of my t4t steddie art
#ramble#the thing is 99.9% of people thought it was VERY funny#i've had 1 person genuinely have a problem with it and it was because i kept eddie transmasc#basically they were upset because i didn't make them both transfemme bc i just. didn't want to#twitter hasn't learned that not everything is for you and if you don't like something you don't have to interact with it#and just because you don't like something that doesn't mean it's Bad#and also sometimes queer things aren't made to be understood by everyone#it was specifically because they thought it made them into 'just another straight couple'#as if that isn't a MASSIVE erasure of trans people's queerness#trans people in m/f relationships doesn't make them any less queer or somehow inferior to gay relationships#it boiled down to 'but you could've made them lesbians :((' YEAH BUT I DIDN'T#idk it was just absolutely infuriating trying to defend myself without saying 'idk what the fuck you want from me at this point'#anyway transfemme stevie is very big on twt but i didn't know whether to post it here or not#but i might if people want to see it because i love it a lot#twitter would die if they saw the olden days when we called them genderbends and there wasn't any trans content at all
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miss Toskarin you’re not convincing me that Skyrim was the ruin of all western rpgs. In fact you’re convincing me that the issues began with oblivion.
I'd better be careful or else I might convince you of my less loudly-held beliefs
#I liked oblivion well enough but it's got a lot of Very Serious problems that were never solved and instead festered forward into genre norm#although technically if you want to get more specific here#the problems that I complain most often about now actually started under the surface of morrowind's development#and intensified with the reception to tribunal#and then caught on fire with the lessons learned from bloodmoon (which is proto-oblivion in a lot of ways)#as with so many things the damage was more in the wrong lessons being learned from games with scrappy development cycles#and how those became incredibly toxic when applied as the standard for development rather than a freak accident of planning#consider how oblivion passively fucking up your character was a solution to people trying to play off-build in morrowind#and how skyrim being incredibly easy was a solution to oblivion's level-rotting#and how both of these solutions are solving a symptom by removing friction without replacing it#which is further incentivised because the game now has fewer features that would turn off someone who would otherwise not play an rpg
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“objectively speaking cas is probably more queer than sam and dean”
speak for yourself lmfao he is ludicrously handled as a character overall (in terms of establishing consistently meaningful motivations and conflicts for him) and he belongs in the fanservice bin in terms of what the canon did with his sexuality.
sam is the only one of these 3 whose entire narrative screams queer allegory argue with the wall. like I’m offended that you guys are putting any character in this show in the same league as sam to be perfectly fucking honest. I’m talking big-picture and narrative throughlines and you’re quibbling over gay jokes and the stupid fucking confession scene 🗿 this blows
#this isn’t cas Hate lol I just genuinely think he is emblematic of some of the poorest writing on the show#BECAUSE he stuck around for longer than he should have to please the fans#I’m describing a storytelling problem not a personal preference#I think he can be very interesting in fanworks specifically but as far as canon goes he is typically Painfully poorly utilized#I would be genuinely interested to hear an argument to the contrary#not abt whether he’s more queer than sam tho bc im sorry I cannot take that seriously in the slightest#anyway . whatever . kicks rocks
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I’m so glad that we live in a time and culture where every once in awhile millionaire musicians will publicly air out their grievances with each other via song. That sounds like something that would happen in ancient China but no it’s happening right now in current day everybody say thank you black people
#Battle rap as a concept is just so fun#I’ve been listening to other diss tracks since the Meg vs Nicki thing#Remember the story of Adidon? The Drake in blackface picture + ‘you are hiding a child’ reveal went CRAZY#also just listened to shether it’s insane that Nicki also got called out for supporting a sex offender in that track#like that is a very specific L to keep taking over and over clearly you do have a problem with Megan’s law
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Very specific archaeologist problems: when you didn’t study invertebrates and so it takes you a good 15 minutes to remember the word “nudibranch” after one pops up on a dredging monitoring project. Pulled it out of the mud and said, “Hmm, you’re not an artifact!” (I returned the poor confused bugger to the water, don’t worry.)
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Hi! Can you explain what really the power of foresight was with Faramir? I read the books earlier this year and I don't really quite understand it. He could predict the future? Like he would see it in his dreams? But how did he found out from Gollum that he was taking frodo and sam to cirith ungol and that he had committed murder before?
No problem, it's one of my favorite topics!
The concise explanation: I think Faramir's foresight/aftersight in terms of visions is a largely separate "power" from his ability to bring his strength of mind and will to bear on other people and animals, and to resist outside influence. The visions seem more a matter of broad sensitivity, something Faramir doesn't appear to have much if any control over. The second power is (in our terms) essentially a form of direct telepathy, limited in some ways but still very powerful, and I think this second ability is what Faramir is using with Gollum.
The really long version:
In my opinion, Faramir (or Denethor, Aragorn, etc) doesn't necessarily read thoughts like a book, particularly not with a mind as resistant as Gollum's. Faramir describes Gollum's mind in particular as dark and closed, it seems unusually so—
"There are locked doors and closed windows in your mind, and dark rooms behind them," said Faramir.
Still, Gollum is unable to entirely block Faramir's abilities. In LOTR, it does not seem that Gollum can fully block powerful mental abilities such as Faramir's, though his toughness and hostility does limit what Faramir can see. (Unfinished Tales, incidentally, suggests iirc that Denethor's combination of "great mental powers" and his right to use the Anor-stone allowed him to telepathically get the better of Saruman through their palantíri, a similar but greater feat.) I imagine that this is roughly similar to, but scaled down from, Galadriel's telepathic inquiries of even someone as reluctant to have her in his mind as Boromir, given that Faramir is able to still see some things in Gollum's mind, if with more difficulty than usual.
(WRT Boromir ... ngl, if I was the human buffer between Denethor and Faramir, I would also not be thrilled about sudden telepathic intrusions from basically anyone, much less someone I had little reason to trust.)
Disclaimer: a few years after LOTR's publication, Tolkien tried to systematize how this vague mystical telepathy stuff really works. One idea he had among many, iirc, was that no unwilling person's mind could be "read" the ways that Gollum's is throughout LOTR. IMO that can't really be reconciled w/ numerous significant interactions in LOTR where resistance to mental intrusion or domination is clearly variable between individuals and affected by personal qualities like strength of will, basic resilience, the effort put into opposition, supernatural powers, etc. And these attempts at resistance are unsuccessful or only partially successful on many occasions in LOTR (the Mouth of Sauron, for one example, is a Númenórean sorcerer in the book who can't really contend with Aragorn on a telepathic level). So I, personally, tend to avoid using the terminology and rationales from that later systematized explanation when discussing LOTR. And in general, I think Tolkien's later attempts to convert the mystical, mysterious wonder of Middle-earth into something more "hard magic" or even scientific was a failed idea on a par with Teleporno. Others differ!
In any case, when Gollum "unwillingly" looks at Faramir while being questioned, the creepy light drains from his eyes and he shrinks back while Faramir concludes he's being honest on that specific occasion. Gollum experiences physical pain when he does try to lie to Faramir—
"It is called Cirith Ungol." Gollum hissed sharply and began muttering to himself. "Is not that its name?" said Faramir turning to him. "No!" said Gollum, and then he squealed, as if something had stabbed him.
I don't think this is a deliberate punishment from Faramir—that wouldn't be like him at all—and I don't think it's the Ring, but simply a natural consequence of what Faramir is. Later, Gandalf says of Faramir's father:
"He can perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men ... It is difficult to deceive him, and dangerous to try."
So, IMO, Faramir's quick realization that Gollum is a murderer doesn't come from any vision of the future or past involving Gollum—that is, it's not a deduction from some event he's seen. Faramir does not literally foresee Gollum's trick at Cirith Ungol. His warning would be more specific in that case, I think. What he sees seems to be less detailed but more direct and, well, mystical. Faramir likely doesn't know who exactly Gollum murdered or why or what any of the circumstances were. Rather, Gollum's murderousness and malice are visible conditions of his soul to Faramir's sight. Faramir doesn't foresee the particulars of Gollum's betrayal—but he can see in Gollum's mind that he is keeping something back. Faramir says of Gollum:
"I do not think you are holden to go to Cirith Ungol, of which he has told you less than he knows. That much I perceived clearly in his mind."
Meanwhile, in a letter written shortly before the publication of LOTR, Tolkien said of Faramir's ancestors:
They became thus in appearance, and even in powers of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves
So these abilities aren't that strange in that context. Faramir by chance (or "chance") is, like his father, almost purely an ancient Númenórean type despite living millennia after the destruction of Númenor (that destruction is the main reason "Númenóreanness" is fading throughout the age Faramir lives in). Even less ultra-Númenórean members of Denethor's family are still consistently inheriting characteristics from their distant ancestor Elros, Elrond's brother, while Faramir and Denethor independently strike Sam and Pippin as peculiarly akin to Gandalf, a literal Maia like their ancestress Melian:
“Ah well, sir,” said Sam, “you [Faramir] said my master had an elvish air; and that was good and true. But I can say this: you have an air too, sir, that reminds me of, of—well, Gandalf, of wizards.”
He [Denethor] turned his dark eyes on Gandalf, and now Pippin saw a likeness between the two, and he felt the strain between them, almost as if he saw a line of smouldering fire drawn from eye to eye, that might suddenly burst into flame.
Meanwhile, Faramir's mother's family is believed to be part Elvish, a belief immediately confirmed when Legolas meets Faramir's maternal uncle:
At length they came to the Prince Imrahil, and Legolas looked at him and bowed low; for he saw that here indeed was one who had elven-blood in his veins. "Hail, lord!" he [Legolas] said. "It is long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lórien, and yet still one may see that not all sailed from Amroth’s haven west over water."
In addition to that, Faramir's men believe he's under some specific personal blessing or charm as well as the Númenórean/Elvish/Maia throwback qualities. It's also mentioned by different groups of soldiers that Faramir can exercise some power of command over animals as well as people. Beregond describes Faramir getting his horse to run towards five Nazgûl in real time:
"They will make the Gate. No! the horses are running mad. Look! the men are thrown; they are running on foot. No, one is still up, but he rides back to the others. That will be the Captain [Faramir]: he can master both beasts and men."
Then, during the later retreat of Faramir's men across the Pelennor:
At last, less than a mile from the City, a more ordered mass of men came into view, marching not running, still holding together. The watchers held their breath. "Faramir must be there," they said. "He can govern man and beast."
Tolkien said of the ancient Númenóreans:
But nearly all women could ride horses, treating them honourably, and housing them more nobly than any other of their domestic animals. The stables of a great man were often as large and as fair to look upon as his own house. Both men and women rode horses for pleasure … and in ceremony of state both men and women of rank, even queens, would ride, on horseback amid their escorts or retinues … The Númenóreans trained their horses to hear and understand calls (by voice or whistling) from great distances; and also, where there was great love between men or women and their favorite steeds, they could (or so it is said in ancient tales) summon them at need by their thought alone. So it was also with their dogs.
Likely the same Númenórean abilities were used for evil by Queen Berúthiel against her cats. In an interview with Daphne Castell, Tolkien said:
She [Berúthiel] was one of these people who loathe cats, but cats will jump on them and follow them about—you know how sometimes they pursue people who hate them? I have a friend like that. I’m afraid she took to torturing them for amusement, but she kept some and used them—trained them to go on evil errands by night, to spy on her enemies or terrify them.
The more formal version of the Berúthiel lore recurs in Unfinished Tales:
She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things "that men wish most to keep hidden," setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them.
Faramir, by contrast, has a strong aversion to harming/killing animals for any reason other than genuine need, but apparently quite similar basic abilities. He typically uses these abilities to try to compassionately understand other people or gather necessary information, rather than for domination or provoking fear. Even so, Faramir does seem to use his mental powers pretty much all the time with no attempt to conceal what he's doing—he says some pretty outlandish things to Frodo and Sam as if they're very ordinary, but it doesn't seem that most people he knows can do all these things. This stuff is ordinary to him because it flows out of his fundamental being, not because it's common.
It's not clear how much fine control he has, interestingly. This is more headcanon perhaps, but I don't feel like it's completely under his control, even while it's much more controlled than things like Faramir's vision of Boromir's funeral boat, his frequent, repeated dreams of Númenor's destruction, the Ring riddle dream he received multiple times, or even his suspiciously specific "guess" of what passed between Galadriel and Boromir in Lothlórien. Yet his more everyday mental powers do seem to involve some measure of deliberate effort in a lot of the instances we see, given the differing degrees of difficulty and strain we see with the powers he and Denethor exhibit more frequently and consistently.
This is is also interesting wrt Éowyn, because Tolkien describes Faramir's perception of her as "clear sight" (which I suspect is just Tolkien's preferred parlance for "clairvoyance"). Faramir perceives a lot more of what's going on with Éowyn than I think he had materially observable evidence for—but does not see everything that's going on with her by any means. He seems to understand basically everything about her feelings for Aragorn, more than Éowyn herself does, but does not know if she loves him [Faramir].
I'm guessing that it's more difficult to "see" this way when it's directly personal (one of the tragedies of his and Denethor's relationship is that their shared mental powers do not enable either to realize how much they love each other). But it also doesn't seem like he's trying to overcome Éowyn's mental resistance the way he was with Gollum, and possibly Frodo and Sam—he does handle it a bit differently when it's not a matter of critical military urgency. With Éowyn, he sees what his abilities make clear to him, is interested enough to seek out Merry (and also perceive more than Merry says, because Faramir has never been a normal person one day in his life) but doesn't seem to really push either of them.
So I tend to imagine that with someone like Faramir, Denethor, Aragorn etc, we're usually seeing a relatively passive, natural form of low-grade telepathy that simply derives from their fundamental nature and personalities (as we see in Faramir with Éowyn, possibly Faramir with Aragorn). That can be kicked up to more powerful, forceful telepathy via active exertion of the will (as described by Gandalf wrt Denethor's ability to "bend[] his will thither" to see what passes in others' minds, and seen with Faramir vs Gollum, Aragorn vs the Mouth of Sauron, more subtly Faramir vs Denethor). At a high point of strain this can be done very aggressively or defensively (Denethor vs Gandalf, Denethor vs Saruman, Denethor vs Sauron seriously is there a Maia that man won't fight, Faramir vs the Black Breath given his completely unique symptoms that Aragorn attributes to his "staunch will", possibly Aragorn vs the Black Breath in a healing capacity...).
Anyway, I hope these massive walls of text are helpful or interesting! Thanks for the ask :)
#honestly hilarious that first age men straight-up lie to the fëanorians and nobody has any idea#gollum says a one-word falsehood to faramir and starts screaming. some people are just made different i guess#(more seriously i think these abilities are so different between lotr and the silm because of narrative structure and functions#faramir and denethor aren't insignificant but are placed in such a way that their abilities support lotr's structural integrity#rather than breaking the logic of the story the way really-good-at-telepathy fëanorians would#...hence the awkwardness of finding something for galadriel and celeborn to be doing lmao. the real problem children of tolkien lore!#aragorn /is/ central enough to cause problems but his abilities are less specifically focused on telepathy so it works#i bet random citizens of pelargir felt that berúthiel's very faramir-ish abilities were absolutely OP though#...justice for gondorian cats honestly. i know tolkien was weird about feline life but i choose to believe faramir is a friend to cats)#anghraine babbles#legendarium blogging#legendarium fanwank#anon replies#respuestas#faramir#jewel of the seashore#húrinionath#denethor#sméagol#lord of the rings#jrr tolkien#anghraine's meta#long post#the letters of jrr tolkien#nature of middle earth#berúthiel#anghraine's headcanons#éowyn
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Watching Miraculous, I feel that the show is written that no matter what Marinette decides to do, she would be in the wrong - she is in the wrong for not telling Chat about Chat Blanc (ignoring her own trauma in the matter), but if she told him, the show would make it the wrong choice...
The head writer has publicly stated that one of the show's guiding rules is that Marinette has to do something wrong in every episode, so I'd say that you don't just have a feeling. You've actually picked up on one of the show's not-so-subtle core tenets. It's also a core tenet that I strongly disagree with because - as I said in the linked post - when it comes to shows like Miraculous, the only characters who are always in the wrong are the villains.
If Miraculous was a different type show and Marinette's blunders were more comedic, low-stakes, sitcom-type stuff, then it could work. Two examples that come to mind are:
That's So Raven - this is an old Disney Channel show where the main character was a psychic who randomly got visions of the future. A lot of the episodes focused on her having a vision, interpreting that vision wrong, and then doing something foolish as a result. So Raven was usually in the wrong, but she was wrong in a way that rarely hurt others. If memory serves, she most just caused herself unnecessary stress.
Phineas and Ferb - another Disney Channel show about two imaginative and inventive young boys who have fun doing crazy things like building a roller coaster in their backyard. They do these things without parental permission so their older sister - Candace - is always trying to get them in trouble. In spite of this, the general viewer feeling towards Candace seems to be one of amusement, not hatred. This is probably because she never causes pain for anyone but herself, making it hard to look at her as a negative force. If Candace was written more like Marinette, then people would probably hate her, too.
While we're on the topic, it's worth pointing out that, while Candace isn't a villain, she is the antagonist. Her presence causes much needed tension. Since she's always out to ruin her brothers' fun, every episode has the low-key stakes of, "Will the boys get caught this time?" Without Candace, you lose those stakes and Phineas and Ferb becomes a lesser show because even sitcoms need stakes.
Semi-serious magical girl shows don't need characters like Candace to add stakes to the story. This is because semi-serious magical girl shows have built in stakes from the presence of villains and evil magic. It is the height of absurdity to make a rule like "Marinette is always wrong" in a show with an evil villain who is out to steal Marinette's magical earrings and use them to rewrite the universe.
The presence of the "Marinette is always wrong" rule shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the type of show they're writing. You only make rules like that in low-stakes shows like the ones I listed above. And even those shows understood that, if you have this rule, then you also make sure that the only person who usually suffers is the one making the mistakes. The writers of Miraculous really haven't done that because of course they haven't! This isn't a low-stakes teen drama. Marinette has too much for responsibility and the narrative stakes are far to high for her mistakes to come across as minor.
This is especially true because they keep picking mistakes that should lead to character growth and then not actually writing any character growth. Once again, that style of writing can work in sitcoms*, but Miraculous has way too many serious elements to be written like a pure sitcom. That doesn't change the fact that the writers are writing it like one, but it does explain why the writing leads to so much frustration for fans.
*I wanted to note that even sitcoms often make the audience hate the leads because it's hard to write anything where the leads keep making endless mistakes without making the leads look awful and sitcoms run off of every episode containing a mistake. This is why long running sitcoms tend to have a good number fans who hate at least one member of the core cast. Ted and Lily from How I Met Your Mother are great examples of this and it happens because the mistakes they make usually effect others. If the show had only been two seasons long like originally planned, then they would have been fine.
#anon ask#ml writing critical#ml writing salt#marinette deserves better#I figured that I should acknowledge that you CAN write your main character as always in the wrong without making them a villain#But only in very specific types of stories#I don't think it works in anything but sitcoms and even sitcoms have to be careful as it's easy to make your audience hate your lead#That's why a lot of long running sitcoms end up with people hating the leads#Because sitcoms often run on the leads doing something wrong so you have to keep making the leads mess up#Miraculous should have been able to escape that issue because it has a villain to create problems but they decided to not use that#And fall back on a writing style that's basically guaranteed to make people hate the lead#It's fascinating
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