#this is garbage i apologize

[emily-mooon]

Scott Pilgrim Characters as Text Posts but they’re mostly of Stacey and Neil cause I’m obsessed with them :]

[fernsnouveau]

I actually disliked the direction where I'd recently seen a bunch of the more reasonable S5-critical ML fandom people going. Those discussions and analyses were spiraling increasingly towards demonising Marinette over time, as we were left hanging with the s5 ending for a long time, and the fandom had nothing new to talk about.

I actually liked her flaws.

But then the canon does... this...

And I do admit, it's an in-character way to push Marinette towards a villain arc. Like, if I had to construct a darkfic scenario where Marinette goes evil and try to keep it as close to her canon personality as possible, it would look something like this. Which, I guess, means that it's theoretically easier for me to accept than, for example, S5's occasional incidents of Edgy Murderboy Chat Noir (how is that the same character who had TWO guilt-based mental breakdowns about accidentally cataclysming someone completely out of his control, including the main villain??!). I'm sure there are in-character ways to turn Adrien (or anyone else) into a villain, but Murder-Noir was Not It.

Of course another reason why the writing of Murder-Noir gives me extra heebie jeebies, was how it felt like an abuse apologia excuse, validating Gabriel's accusations for Adrien to not "deserve" autonomy, nor to experience or express any negative, inconvenient emotions. Murder-Noir feels like it's a writing choice directed at child abuse victims in the audience, who related to Adrien. "See, your abuser was right, you're horrible and overly emotional and out of control, so you NEED to be rigidly controlled for your own and everyone else's good!

Anyway.

While I admit that Marinette taking up Gabriel's mantle this way is technically in character, I cannot claim to enjoy the writing choice at all. I liked Marinette's flaws. I wanted to explore them. I did not want her demonised to this extent. She could have been meaningfully flawed without becoming better at being Gabriel, than Gabriel himself was!

After this, the only justification for the lovesquare to stay together, would be as a wish-fulfillment or "reward" for Marinette, and that's not enough for me. When I think about, if there was a real-life abuse victim in Adrien's position (minus the supernatural elements), and then they were friends with, and/orstarted dating someone who repeatedly treated them the way Maribug has been doing (and "repeatedly" is important here, it demonstrates unwillingness to learn from mistakes and be sincere about apologies – S4 was brushed under a rug as soon as Chat Noir superficially forgave!), ESPECIALLY but not only siding with the abusive parent and lying to the victim that the abuse they experienced was "not really abuse" and For Their Own Good, and demonstrated this complete infantilisation and lack of respect for the abuse victim, wanting to see them only as a palatable, innocent fairytale being who's not allowed to be inconvenient, express negative emotions, make informed choices mor generally be a complete person...

Obviously the right thing to do, for the abuse victim, would be to get the hell away from that person.

It does NOT mean that the person is irredeemable. They're just... not owed the abuse victim's forgiveness and continued presence in their life.

And I can't ignore that anymore.

We failed to get an arc about Adrien surviving and escaping Gabriel and healing. He has now been put into a position where, in order to ever be okay, he would have to survive and escape Marinette in order to heal.

I don't like this. It feels very hopeless and bleak and unenjoyable. I don't even think the story is gonna go there and free/heal Adrien (Astruc made it clear that Adrien isn't supposed to be his own character or have agency, he's supposed to be Marinette's accessory and that's never gonna change).

But as far as I'm concerned, any excuse for the lovesquare relationship to get back together after this, would have the unpalatable aftertaste of propaganda to make victims return to their abusers.

I don't like this trajectory!!!

[captainhysunstuff]

22 more images below the cut (Warning: Less than moral discussion ahead):

Light leads L to a particular stretch of woods that he calls "neutral ground" and demands to hear L's conditions for him to work with Kira. L tries to explain in a way that will convince Light to accept his assistance. It appears to be successful...

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Transcript

Big Disclaimer here: I, personally, don't condone the "Kira Plan" in any way, shape, or form. I don't even believe that there is a "correct" way to enact it. I am very firmly on the "Anti-Kira" and "Light is a Tragic Character with Bad Coping Mechanisms/Self Delusion" teams. I don't want to spoil too much of what's left of this story, but I do have a plan/explanation in the future~.

[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

I FORGOT TO THROW OUT AFTER THE EPISODE RELEASED NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[ringleader-inky]

Lily Orchard is stupid but what else is new?

So recently Lily has made a challenge that is as follows:

(Keep these rules in mind)

And AntGr and CrimsonEnder made a list of 50 of those charcters. Which Lily responded to and hoo boy is it bad.

Now I'm only going to be doing several characters from this list because 1. I don't know some of these characters and 2. I can only handle so much of Lily's stupidity. So with that out of the way let's get this show on the road.

Of course you'd put N here because you didn't understand his story to begin with. N definitely does fall under number 2 because he was raised by Ghetsis. You know... THE LEADER OF TEAM PLASMA! I've said this before, but I'll say it again N essentially grew up in a cult. That's not even mentioning that in black and white 2 they show that some of Team Plasma really did think they were freeing pokemon. You see part of Team Plasma split because some followed N's ideologies and others followed Ghetsis. They have a whole safehouse in Driftveil City where they protect pokemon separated from their trainers. But yeah N's ideology was totally swept under the rug guys.

First of all, Donkey Kong was actually a villain. It was in his very first game where he kidnapped Pauleen. You know.... this one. You were probably around when it came out Lily.:

So technically Donkey Kong is qualified for this list believe it or not.

As for Dedede and Meta Knight their case is quite simple.

In Dedede's case in the game Kirby's Nightmare In Dreamland. Dedede literally breaks the Star Rod that powers the Fountain of Dreams. Which allows the people of dreamland to have dreams, but since the Star Rod no longer powers it there's no dreams. However Dedede did this because he was trying to keep Nightmare from absorbing the Fountain Of Dream's power and taking over the world. Nightmare is cosmic deity that's evil will destroy Dreamland if he got out. So in that instance Dedede does have a point. After all if the Star Rod isn't in the fountain then Nightmare won't come out and kill everyone.

As for Meta Knight's case. Well... just look at fucking Meta Knightmare. The reason why Meta Knight wants to conquer Dreamland is because Dreamland is lazy. While that might not seem like a good point, consider that Dedede is stealing food from the people and how there's some sort of cosmic threat every year or so. You kinda start to see his point a little bit. But if that doesn't work then how about in Squeak Squad where he steals the chest from Kirby and Daroach. The chest had Dark Nebula inside of it and was sealed away. Therefore having someone try and open it would be a big fucking problem.

Last but not least... Edgeworth:

Before we get into why this point is bullshit I'd like to bring up this ask:

I bring this up because it proves that Lily doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. You see Edgeworth isn't just a state prosecutor. HE'S A CHIEF PROSECUTOR! He's not just some joe shmo. Also really, prosecutor can't be evil? May I call Manfred Von Karma to the stand:

In case you don't know. This man is a prosecutor that had a perfect record. All of his defendants were served the guilty sentence. However the only reason why they were found guilty was because he forged evidence. Meaning Manfred is responsible for putting people innocent in prison. He even went so far as to murder Edgeworth's father. And guess who was his protege?

That's right none other than Miles Edgeworth himself!

Meaning that up till Phoenix had arrived Edgeworth was doing the exact same thing Von Karma did. Granted not forging evidence, but still putting innocent people in jail because of he wanted to keep his reputation and he didn't care for justice. Therefore in the first game Edgeworth was the villain. Whether you like it or not. And because Lily never specified that the villain had to be redeemed or not Edgeworth is viable enough to be on this list. So check fucking mate Lily.

[desterea]

more mystic malfunction posting! my second favorite scene from the latest chapter, I want @vanillavengeance to know it was very much appreciated

[moeblob]

Despite charisma being a pretty important stat for paladins, Paul has no charisma in the base plot. So I decided it would be really funny to have him have super low charisma in game, too.

So the whole "roll a save" in town is because Karen and Paul want to visit a tavern for info and Chris thinks it would only be fair to bully Pauladin with an NPC version of his hot bartender depending on the save.

[antiqua-lugar]

I never played early access so I have no idea what the vibes were there, but it's wild to me that some people really thought Gale was gonna have some secret evil plan? Like never mind his whole personality, he is the only companion who approves of every single good choice anyone makes.

[toffeebrews]

I found this drawing really funny (art by @/jakei95) This was with some post captioned something along the lines of "how did people react when people learned of dreams age?"

I think the person who rbed deactivated though so I couldn't snatch that one (im sure ill find it, someone rbed it at some point)

[lord-squiggletits]

Sometimes I think about how Pharma spent a good 4 million years being next in line after Ratchet, performing medical miracles like 4 way organ transplants, and doing cutting edge research such as documenting the first age-related death of a Cybertronian, only for the situation at Delphi to destroy all of that and get the Autobots treating him like living scum.

Like damn you'd think such a level of loyalty to the cause and dedication to your craft would at least give you a few mourners or people asking "what happened to cause such a radical change" but I guess for Pharma it just ended with him being completely abandoned by the ppl he was loyal to for years.

In fairness the Lost Light is just a random cruise ship of Autobot misfits and not an actual military organization with any kind of authority, but it's still sad lol.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

My favorite thing about Jemrauth, last king of Arateph, is that he is so devoted to his wife and the concept of marital fidelity that it reshapes the politics of an entire planet. Unfortunately, he keeps falling out of any stories I try to tell in this setting, and even if I do manage to get him to show up, there's no way I'll be able to fit in any of this backstory. Which is an excellent reason to talk about it here.

Jemrauth's grandfather, King Evris, had no interest in ruling a planet and preferred to focus on his interest in landscaping, botany, zoology, etc. Which meant that by the end of his reign, the royal palaces had amazing gardens, but the planetary government was in shambles (because the ruling Houses had been able to run rampant without oversight).

Jemrauth's father, Hilath, (who basically started running the planet as soon as he was old enough to hold adult conversations), thus decided to value his duty to Arateph over any personal preferences. This included marrying a politically ideal woman that he didn't care two straws for.

Hilath thought the pursuit of virtue was irrelevant to ruling Arateph, and this philosophy spilled over into his private life. Once the succession was secure, he saw no reason to remain faithful to his wife, and openly filled his needs for companionship with an array of mistresses he housed in the palace.

Unfortunately, Jemrauth's mother did care for Hilath, and her husband's behavior broke her heart. (Especially since he'd string her along just enough to make her think he still cared for her and maybe they could fix things.)

(Also, it wasn't like she could have her own set of lovers, because while the king can do what he wants, cheating on the ruler of the entire known universe comes with extreme political, social and sometimes legal consequences).

After she gave her husband his heir and spare (Jemrauth's older brother and sister), Jemrauth's mother decided that this third child (conceived unexpectedly during one of those stringing-along periods) was hers. She took an active role in raising Jemrauth and was very close to him. Jemrauth was thus very aware of how much his father's behavior hurt his mother, and learned to view infidelity as one of the most heinous sins.

Jemrauth became his father's unfavorite--how could Hilath respect someone raised by his wife, who always took her side? It wasn't like Jemrauth was necessary anyway.

Except, um, surprise! Hilath lost his heir and spare to a plague in Jemrauth's late teenage years, which left Jemrauth as the only heir, despite not being raised for the role.

When it came to choosing a wife, Jemrauth knew he needed to marry a woman who he loved and respected and who he would always remain faithful to.

Not long after meeting Marastel, Jemrauth knew that she was the perfect complement to his personality and would make an ideal wife and queen, and he fell head-over-heels.

Hilath was outraged when he found out. Jemrauth had chosen possibly the most unsuitable woman on the entire planet. She was part of House Kepha, which was historically distrusted by the crown and the other houses because of a history of rebellion--and worse, she was on the lowest rungs of it. If he'd fallen in love with a commoner, it would have been better than this, because then at least she wouldn't come with the political baggage. As it was, her low-but-not-low enough rank was just enough to enrage people from every House, and Hilath forbid the relationship.

Jemrauth believed that the relationship had gone too far for him to honorably release Marastel--and besides, he didn't want to. He couldn't marry Marastel, but he refused to marry anyone else. This went on for years, with Jemrauth and Marastel remaining faithful to each other.

Finally, Jemrauth reached the age of ascension and took the throne. His father wasn't worried about the marriage question; an elder king still held a lot of political power, so even as king Jemrauth couldn't marry without his father's consent.

Except, tradition held that the king takes a virtue name upon coronation to define the virtue he holds most important to his reign. Jemrauth took a name that meant loyalty. Caring about people more than the power of the throne--openly declaring he was going to be the opposite of his father. Even worse, the name also had a layer of meaning that stated Jemrauth would remain loyal to Marastel specifically.

At the time of Jemrauth's coronation, renewed societal interest in virtue had Hilath under political scrutiny for his lack of it. He couldn't keep his son from living up to his virtue name. Hilath was enraged, but had no choice but to relent.

Hilath died a short time after Jemrauth took the throne, so Jemrauth was able to rule without his father's interference (or his help, which actually would have been valuable).

As king, Jemrauth wasn't great at keeping his personal feelings separate from his need to cooperate with someone politically. If he found out that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, he immediately classed them as "absolute scum unworthy of respect" and would not work well with them.

The nobility quickly learned that if you want to get anywhere with the king, you either have to be faithful to your spouse or (more often) work really hard to keep the king from hearing about your philandering. This caused upheavals in the Great Houses as lords cast aside or tried to hide mistresses and illegitimate children.

When Marastel was struggling with miscarriage after miscarriage and Jemrauth refused to divorce her, some of the lords tried to set up Othello situations--since the king found infidelity horrendous, they tried to convince him that Marastel was unfaithful so he'd cast her off and marry someone more suitable. They didn't count on the fact that these two loved and trusted and communicated with each other, so none of the manufactured evidence had any ring of truth to it.

The nobility (and some later historians) tried to convince themselves that Jemrauth wasn't really faithful to that wife of his--he was just trapped by his virtue name. They tried to read a lot into Jemrauth's interactions with other women--sometimes the king attended social events while his wife was at home recovering from miscarriages/related depression--but though Jemrauth may have been a bit too sociable (especially when trying to distract himself from his own depression after the deaths of his children), he was never unfaithful and always madly in love with his wife. 1000% chose the right queen. Zero regrets.

This is my way-too-long no-one-read-all-of-this way of saying that I love that this guy's most enduring trait is how much he loves his wife and is dedicated to the concept of true--as in, faithful--love. And I think about it all the time.

[desultory-novice]

Sorry Noir, I'm the one who said Gooey could eat the fish. I didn't know it was for you

"...Eh, it's on brand for me. As long as he enjoyed it."

(I guess I could try using my powers on it to make another, but I've never done that for, like, food and living stuff. That was always more Adeleine's thing...)

-

But trying once couldn't hurt, right? A test to see if you can still use your "gift" of materialization?

-

((...Mom, Dad, I know that on the list of bad things I've done you're horrifically ashamed of me for, using the Power Most Dark to materialize a fish ranks really, really low, but still...))

((...Also, you weren't REALLY watching from heaven during all that, were you? God... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I failed you and I failed myself and I'm such a...!!)

*POP*

"...Huh. Damn. It's just another fish bone..."

*POP**POP**POP**POP**POP**POP**POP**POP**POP*

"Uhhhh...?!"

...

[BONUS?!]

If you wish, you can have an awkward teen in an ugly scarf transport to YOUR OC a perfect duplicate of this EXACT fish bone, because *SOMEONE* may have let his intrusive thoughts mess up his experiment and now has way, way too many.

It only carries a mild Aura of Darkness.

[Noir's Field Trip Masterpost]

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

TRICK OR TREAAT!!

Have some fanon Warriors

I am so very sorry for this

[becauseplot]

Hi hello here with my daily (hourly) (minutely) caged qphil musing because I have insane amounts of brain rot---I wonder if ccphil is gonna keep consistent with the fact that his character was still in his mexican independence day outfit when he got caught.

And other people have pointed this out, but I can't stop thinking about it, because like, assuming he does get rescued, the first thing his rescuer(s) are gonna notice is his outfit, and seeing him still in his independence day outfit---they're immediately gonna clock the fact that he's been in there since last friday. Like, qphil probably won't know exactly how long he's been in the birdhouse (there's no clocks in there, no windows, nothing; that's a whole other post entirely, though) but the others are gonna know. Immediately.

And it's not just that he's been in there since friday, but since the end of the labyrinth fiasco. Because yes, everyone else went straight from the party to the labyrinth without changing outfits, but then everyone went home. Went to bed or kept hanging out. Changed into comfier clothes. Not phil, though. He went to the party, to the labyrinth, to his house, and then was immediately dragged here. They're going to look at him and think, God, he was probably in the middle of getting ready for bed when this happened! (He was.)

There's something deeply unsettling about it, I just can't quite put my finger on it. It's like in a horror movie when a victim is picked off at a party and their body is found still wearing their cute dress or fancy button down, hair still done up, makeup still on. The knowledge that this person was caught completely unaware. The knowledge that they were having a good time, or had just had a good time, when it happened.

Idk if this makes sense but. Man. I hope ccphil keeps his mexican independence day skin on for when he gets out. I hope it's all dusty and wrinkled and torn up around the cuffs. I hope the red neck bow is coming undone. I hope it still has all its little golden tassels on it.

[shadow-kid-cole]

hello friends i wanted to ask for help from those with a better memory for lore/details from the games than i have. a friend of mine is doing a presentation party soon, and i want to do mine on da2 - why my favorite game kind of sucks and how i’d fix it lmao i’ve got a lot of ideas and have been replaying it to find extra details, but my memory isn’t great and i know there’s a lot of great meta posts about it on here, so i wanted to give y’all a chance to chime in! what are some things you think i should include? what are your favorite or least favorite aspects of the game? what parts are really cool and what parts do you hate? specific examples of scenes/quests/dialogue would help - also, if you know of any posts or anything else that have this type of info, send them my way! i love da2 and i’m very excited to talk about the game that it is and also the game that it could have been, so i want to be sure i have enough for it to make sense!

[all-fleshed-out]

SEMI-ANNUAL MUTUAL CHECKER--