#I can rewrite and try ^^

[kira-loves0905]

lads x reader! [mentions of death] [can be seperate or together...?]

it was another day of gathering intel from him. the knob swiftly opens for you to paddle inside the cage the Praedator was in. he was sat on his usual place, body language high and mighty. the smirk drawling on his lips as he sees your figure walking towards him. but then, the expression falls, eyes zoning on the tell-tale purple bruise on your waist— courtesy of your rather revealing outfit.

"who hurt you?"

he growls, clenching his fists. your steps faltering at the sudden aura he emanates.

"I believe that is none of your issue-"

"it is, you see." he interjects before you could finish. "I'll repeat my question, darling. who?"

he mostly didn't mind the chains that bounded him on this interrogation chair. in fact, he barely wastes his strength on fighting against it: his posture always relaxed.

but seeing that bruise triggers something within his insanity. he doesn't know why he feels like it, the urge was strong to pull you towards him. to caress the taint mark that someone must've left on your skin.

you see the way he now strains against the chair. his muscles taut and veiny, gritting his teeth at how you just stood there. as if that injury was nothing for you, but to him it felt as if the world was already ending.

why is that? why did he feel the urge to do so?

"it's.. another Praedator." you forced a reply, or else the scientists in the facility might make another metal chair modified for his strength with how he's tugging all his might, "it was just careless of me. so I ought to not approach people like you too close for today."

"..w..what?"

left dumbfounded on your revelation, the straining stops.

"indeed," you nod a tad awkwardly at his odd expression. standing a few feet away, you brought out your materials needed to interrogate him. "let's start."

as the intel goes on, you were perplexed at his sudden compliance. he would've dumped all the information he has if it wasn't for the shred of pride he has left. heck, you hadn't even use much of the devices you brought.

shaking his behaviour as part of his... symptoms. you packed up your things, your movements careful and meticulous to avoid aggravating your injury any longer.

turning around to the door, you winced slightly at the inevitable ache. about to leave and treat the wound when..

"princess." he beckons your attention, "i've given you intel. yet you still insist not telling me who left that mark. least you could do was return a favor.. hm?"

"it was... that burly man down the hall," you said vaguely, heeding no mind. might as well entertain him, right? if it makes him obey and give more information then you don't mind.

oh how wrong you were.

the next day, there was an uproar of a sudden dead Praedator. no one knows who had done it. the execution flawless with no strings left behind. but the smirking man you've known for a while, with chains suspiciously broken only seen up close may know a thing or two..

[chimerafeathers]

when i was initially playing isat, there were a number of things that pinged on my “overused/shallowly used storytelling tropes” radar (specifically, the version of that radar built from reading too many tumblr posts complaining about or otherwise criticizing “tumblry” tropes—regardless of how much or how little i agree in some cases, my Awareness of them has increased).

then i finished the game, and decided that pretty much everything i had been side-eyeing had been more than earned, given weight and depth beyond my expectations.

and then i got my friend to play the game, and he ended up having a lot of similar initial reactions. specifically, when he got to the “family” scene in the full friendquest run through the house.

my friend had a stronger reaction than i did, but what Odile says here is something that both of us fundamentally disagree with. we ended up talking about the value and importance that intergenerational friendships can have—passing on history, providing frameworks for a range of healthy relationships beyond “family” and “peers” (including what respectful boundaries look like when interacting with safe adults), sharing skills and knowledge, forming a supportive network of people that you can turn to if your blood/legal family fails you. humans are a community-based, highly social species; it’s literally fine and good for an old lady to be friends with a preteen.

but it’s a very Odile thing to say, and tbh i’m more similar to her viewpoint in my personal life in that it takes a very specific level of comfort and intimacy before i will truly consider someone a “friend” rather than “someone i know (/friendly).” but he worried that having it said like that, point blank, would reinforce the concept of “you can Only be friends with people your own age, and the only valid relationships outside of that are Family and Romance (aka precursor to Family).” on top of that, there’s the idea that friendships can’t be “enough” on their own, that they always have to be labeled as something else to be meaningful.

which is a fair concern, in my opinion! but in the full context of the game, and in combination with other elements (ex. the Daydreaming One and Bonnie fitting the party into specific family dynamic labels), what Odile says there is kind of a misdirect. because they ARE friends, whatever else they call each other—and because Siffrin’s unique circumstances mean the idea of “friendship” feels so much more terrifyingly fragile and transient than it might to anyone else.

so following that conversation, unable to properly defend the heavy-handedness without delving into major spoilers but still wanting to get my thoughts about it out, i wrote my train of thought into my notes. (for the record, the “defense” i wrote out was no longer necessary whatsoever once my friend finished the game. he Gets It.)

so here’s what i had, hot off the “AGGHHHH I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THIS BUT I CAN'T BECAUSE SPOILERS” presses of several months ago (with a couple edits for clarity/more public presentation and to wrap up the end point):

YES friendships can be deep and intense and consuming. that is objectively What Siffrin Is Feeling. HOWEVER. with all due respect, Siffrin’s perspective of interpersonal relationships is fucked and he needs maximum assurance that things aren’t just going to go away.

there are a LOT of levels of friendship. they are relationships that, theoretically, can come and go easily for a lot of people. “we used to be friends.” “someone i used to know.” “an old classmate.” people drop out of contact, change interests and hobbies and lifestyles, move away, get jobs or partners, and suddenly someone who was so important to you becomes a distant thought. someone you might remember on occasion, if you’re reminded they exist somehow.

there are lifelong friendships, too, that can be no less intense or even deeper than the bonds of blood. but how can you know that the person who calls you “friend” means it like that? if the feeling runs deep for you, but the bond is untested by time or distance? what if this is all a friendship of necessity, of convenience, and it will all fall apart as soon as you have no common goal forcing you together?

of course it will! they all say it will, every time they smile and talk about going home to their friends and families and jobs and say I hope you visit! instead of stay, stay, stay with us, we want to stay with you.

it feels like a promise waiting to be broken, when you believe that “this journey meant so much more to me than it did to any of you.”

when your greatest fear is forgetting and being forgotten. (how long until they forget you?)

but the idealized promise of “family” is that the bond does not degrade, that it can persist invisibly in the face of time and distance and change. something that no longer takes persistence to maintain lest you drift apart, because you can survive drifting apart—you will remember, you will be remembered, you will remain connected. something that would instead demand great force or neglect to truly sever.

it does not matter if this is true. Siffrin needs it to be true. they need a bedrock instead of shifting sand, always slipping away from them before they can grasp it. he craves routine, stability, permanence.

there is no guaranteed permanence when it comes to life, to human connection, of course. Siffrin knows this—that everyone they once knew and loved, every bond that might have once shaped them, has been erased, with no means to reclaim what he lost. family included. and Loop acknowledges this, too, at the end—that one day, Siffrin will have to be okay with letting go. he can’t keep them all glued to his side for their entire lives. they know this.

even so, “family” is as permanent as it can get, right? at least, if their friends become family, some of the uncertainty eases. if they all agree on this, it means they aren’t content to let each other fade from memory, to become “someone they traveled with, once upon a time.” so once it’s introduced as a possibility, Siffrin clings, clings, clings to that thought, drawing comfort from the idea that maybe they all feel as much for him as he does for them.

but we know that just saying the word isn’t enough. the loops didn’t break just because they called each other something different. the fear and loneliness run too deep.

even when being called some form of “family,” the bonds seemed so much more thin and fragile than what Siffrin craves.

they were all still going to leave.

Siffrin is trying so goddamn hard to be okay with that. they fool themself into thinking they’re okay with that. because they have to be! everyone else has something to return to, it’s normal for them to have lives beyond journey’s end, it’s just him who will have nothing left once it’s all over, and they’re. fine. it’s fine.

if they hadn’t made that wish (and if somehow they beat the king first try), they would have parted ways, maybe visited each other from time to time, and Siffrin would have done his best to cope while loneliness and fear continued to dissolve them from the inside. because that’s the normal friendly thing to do. it’s what all of them expected the others to want, and were all afraid to vocalize otherwise.

i get the pushback against everything being “found family” these days. i get that sometimes people are ““just”” friends, or mentors, or coworkers, or something that defies labeling, and that those relationships are rich and varied and don’t have to have the “family” label slapped on top to be important, pigeonholed into rigid set roles, because a lot of the time it doesn’t fit and only serves to undervalue and warp the nuances of the relationships that they actually are. i LOVE when friendship is treated as something that can drive someone just as insane with love as romance or family. in the real world, people should be encouraged to cultivate a huge range of different types of friendships and relationships to broaden our understanding of the world, each other, and ourselves, and prioritizing family over all else can be actively harmful.

i also think that if Siffrin could conceptualize that fact as something that could be anything but agonizingly one-sided, maaayyyybe the time loops would not have happened! i think that if after All That, the rest of the party had gone “you’re important to us, but like, we still do have other shit to do. we’ll keep in touch though!” Siffrin might have just imploded. actually, sorry, scratch that, that literally happened in the game and the world nearly ended.

this story has to be “found family.” maybe they’ll get there one day, but Siffrin is simply not well-adjusted enough (or at all) to trust that any other kind of relationship is real enough to last. and it takes NEARLY BREAKING REALITY for them to accept even that much! that it’s possible for him, specifically! that the words aren’t empty dreams, that they’ve found something that they’re allowed to keep, that it’s not as one-sided as he’d convinced himself out of fear and self-loathing. that they won’t forget or be forgotten.

if Siffrin didn’t have the exact fears and insecurities and traumas that he has, i might still be looking at all those heavy-handed family conversations and going “urgh, okay, we get it, this is a bit much.”

but now i kinda appreciate those convos way more??? because it feels more like a conversation, a point of contrast with what this story means when it invokes “found family.”

it's not about the rigid roles or cozy aesthetics of family. Siffrin is not looking for a mom or a cousin or a sister or a little sibling. they want a home. somewhere to go, people to return to instead of just “visit.” roots, connection, permanence, safety. that is what “family” means to him. why his sadness is Mal du Pays—homesickness.

that’s also why just saying it isn’t enough! that’s why the final loop had to be ugly and broken. Siffrin needed to see that these people wouldn’t abandon them, even at their worst. that they could see him lashing out and bitter and needy and hurtful and still see someone worth loving. and that they would do this all before the word “family” is ever spoken, and would still do it even if it was never said.

the heavy emphasis on family and labels is, in some ways, a misdirect from the actual problems and the actual solution. the full friendquest run is a fakeout for Siffrin in that "the power of friendship" isn't enough to save them—at least, the one-sided, shiny veneer of it isn't. it takes raw, painful, soul-baring vulnerability—no masks to hide the ugliness, no "i'm fine, tell me how i can help you," no running away. the solution is ultimately "the power of friendship" and/or "found family," whatever you want to call it, as long as by those things you mean something messy and stubborn and mutual in its earnest devotion, riddled with misunderstandings and mistakes and the ever-present capacity to hurt each other, and still, always, bursting with love.

[mamawasatesttube]

ive been thinking lately about kon and the diaspora agonies of trying to learn your family's native language. but like, with kryptonian, in postcrisis continuity jor-el prepared some kryptonian tech to let clark insta-download kryptonian into his brain because he knew clark wouldn't have access to learning resources, plus the eradicator also gave clark some brain downloads, etc, so i figure that's just available to any kryptonian at the fortress of solitude. (whether it'd work for a human is another question - it might just take some mental prep like what lois did for learning torquasm-rao in that one arc, but that's another post entirely.)

anyways, what that means for kon is that i think he is able to insta-download the ability to understand spoken kryptonian/read written kryptonian, but until he gets the muscle memory down via practice, his kryptonian handwriting will be atrocious and he will have a very notable american accent when he speaks. and that'd be fine for the most part - sure, kara has a giggle about it, but she points out that clark's also got an accent! his is just less noticable because he's had several years worth of practice more than kon.

but. specifically. he doesn't have much time to unpack any self-consciousness about it, because when he goes to new krypton, he Knows they are all judging him for it. see? he's not a real kryptonian, just a clone. he sticks out like a sore thumb. what was kal-el thinking, giving him the name kon-el? he doesn't even speak properly. and he can hear himself speaking with an accent but he can't just stop having one. and it's so, so frustrating and embarrassing for him.

and then everyone on new krypton dies. and he will never actually get the chance to fit in or change any of their minds or unionize the labor guild and advocate for clone rights on krypton. the one time he got to actually interact with his family's culture, his heritage, and they overwhelmingly supported zod, a man who didn't even see him as a person at all.

it's a strange, hollow sort of grief. and he still has an american accent.

[florshedworf]

i’m gonna attempt to sound cohesive be we all know mephone likes to keep the game under his control (or. well. used to)

(don’t have any images atm but also marshmallow’s disappearance)

but god . dude it runs so deep . like fucking obviously it’s because of cobs we fucking KNOW it’s cause of the damn corn !!

but what i mean by it “runs deep” is that it isn’t that he wants complete control of the game as in control of his contestants— but also maintain control of the perception of himself as the head, the host.

whenever he feels as if he’s not listened to, or told anything that he perceives is threatening his role as “host,” he lashes out (or makes a snarky comment)

obviously not all of it is necessarily malicious, doesn’t make it right for the contestant’s sake but you can still tell this clearly is a defense mechanism out of fear of things getting out of his control

in this scene (when he fires toilet AUGHH) there are gaps in his memory he cannot see, a vulnerability. and unfortunately connected the dots wrong and fired toilet in a fit of fear and anger.

i also think this fear of a lack of control is also why he left to make season 3 (and i mean. no shit) he realized that cobs had been in control of everything he’d done up to that point and then ran away to make something truly his. (“…an escape from an escape…” — walkie talkie)

and of course i have to mention the finale. i can’t not— it doesn’t completely tie the whole arc into a bow, there’s still healing needed

but it is a HUGE step to take this escape, this rebellion, something you fought so hard to keep control over and give it up. let it go

“and i don’t think it ever truly was.” <AUGHHHHHHH OTZ truly so normal about the guy 👍

[bumblingbabooshka]

I have an idea for making Seska and the Kazon more interesting (less Klingon-lite) and it's by making it kinda Seska v Chakotay (based on the episode where Chakotay helps that Kazon kid) Basically, the Kazon are this severely fractured group of historically disenfranchised and preyed upon people (they were literally enslaved by the Trabe who took their homeworld, kept them living in squalor while the Trabe lived in luxury, and are still trying to kill them. This is canon and it's insane that the Kazon are still the bad guys overall. Like, they're painted as this incorrigibly innately violent mass of idiots it's SO bad.) Basically my idea is that Seska, as a Cardassian and a spy, is someone who's used to infiltrating and subjugating groups. So I was picturing Voyager being attacked by the Kazon and accused of helping the Trabe again. Voyager says they absolutely would never help the Trabe or anyone else kill people and learn that swaths of Kazon have been being killed and captured and that all the evidence leads to Voyager. The Kazon Voyager interacts with from here on are acting notably different. Far more paranoid, cagey, and gruesome in their violence. B'Elanna remarks that it feels almost Cardassian. This (Voyager's involvement) is eventually revealed to be a Trabe plot (they're pissed Voyager backed out of helping them assassinate the Kazon's leaders) but what the audience knows and Voyager doesn't yet is that Seska is working WITH the Trabe. Playing both sides. As a spy within the Kazon she can make them more vulnerable to the Trabe and the Trabe have WAY more power and resources so of course Seska's gonna be on their side. Chakotay is the first one to figure this all out and he can't believe that Seska would do something like that. Not Seska specifically, anyone. Here we get more into the Maquis and Chakotay's thoughts and feelings on why he initially joined and how he feels about the movement now (still very passionately positive I refuse to believe otherwise). I hate the idea media LOOOVES to push that people who use violence in pursuit of noble goals 'pollute' that 'pure' goal or are 'just like their oppressors'. Shut uuup kill Cardassians kill the Trabe.

So Janeway's like this is incredibly unfortunate but now that we've cleared Voyager's name we really can't interfere with whatever's going on. Chakotay thinks Seska's doing something but we don't know for SURE and I don't wanna involve us unnecessarily let's just go. Chakotay argues against this and there's a tense moment during the meeting where it seems like there's gonna be a fight but Chakotay momentarily lets it be and instead speaks to Janeway one-on-one where we get much the same result. Ends on a sour note where Chakotay says he respects Janeway but their 'blended' crew is looking a lot like a Starfleet one. (He means this sort of behavior is exactly what he left Starfleet over: Inability to do enough good in his eyes due to a desire to remain more Neutrally Benevolent.) Later we get a scene of Chakotay talking in private to Neelix. They're using vague, mysterious language bc it's tv. After this we get hints that Chakotay's been talking to people in secret but we aren't told who or why. Eventually, several episodes later, Voyager is in a pinch and at the climax of the conflict someone helps them out of an impossible situation. The Kazon! Two different sects in fact which is highly unusual. It's revealed that Chakotay has been communicating with the Kazon behind everyone's back. He obviously hasn't told them anything about Voyager or given them anything which Neelix (who's been helping him) found hard to believe. He, along with all others in the delta quadrant, didn't think much of the Kazon but with one stone we've showcased both that the Kazon are like, people. Who want to live peacefully and are capable of working together which canon and the Trabe say is impossible. AND that Chakotay is excellent at convincing and uniting people. Honestly, Janeway and Tuvok conspired behind Chakotay's back enough that he deserves to do it at LEAST once and it's for an excellent cause. The Kazon show Voyager proof that Seska's been playing both sides using Cardassian tactics the Maquis recognize. She has the ear of the strongest sects as well as the Trabe. If Voyager doesn't help the Kazon, they're all going to be wiped out or enslaved again, the Trabe taking their homeworld. Someone points out that the Kazon just saved their lives. Chakotay points out that since Seska's behind this and he brought Seska here- Janeway interrupts. We brought Seska here, commander. If she started this, we'll be sure to finish it. [to the table] Together. The crew, united, (along with the Kazon!) all agree enthusiastically. Ideally, you know, there wouldn't be these third parties coming in to help the Kazon as if they Kazon are incapable of helping themselves but I'm formatting this as a Voyager plotline so that can't happen entirely - the main characters have to be involved BUT leaving off with them having two sects as allies gives us room to have Kazon characters interacting positively with the crew and each other. Maybe there could be two reoccurring characters from different sects and them slowly getting along in a genuine way acts as like a microcosm of what the Kazon can do (and parallels Starfleet v Maquis). I want it to be made clear through this plotline that the image of the Kazon as violent thugs is largely manufactured by the Trabe and their guarding of and constant quest for more resources is due to their background of having nothing. I hope connecting them to the Maquis in how they're painted and the Bajorans in how the Trabe and Cardassians exploit them also makes it seem less like the Kazon are idiots with no culture besides violence and more like this could happen to any marginalized group. Also Seska seems like such a villain to Chakotay specifically that I think they should get to fully duke it out. Ideologically.

[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.

[w1lmuttart]

Found an old design I made of star boy back when everyone was rewriting the movie Wish lol

Went with both their true form, as well as a human form to blend in on earth. Anyway I like this guy so theyre mine now :)👍

[ganondoodle]

it may not look like it but this took a long time to make

heres a rough ability breakdown for the totk rewrite project (i know its hard to read in the pic so let me clear it up and add some extra info)

theres two ability wheels now, sages are not frame rate killing glitch ghosts around you but their abilities are selected through the wheel on the right (pic is rough concept, it is clearer what is selected and what isnt + it has names in final version, symbols are placeholders as well) and bound to the player, when you acitvate it an aura appears similar to the arm abilities and their ghostly form appears besides you, charging or firing when you hit A while the ability is active

SHIEKAH ARM WHEEL

ANALYZE: zelda tells you info about targeted enemy/NPC, it gives you info about it and informs you more dynamically about important things than the foto-entries do

FOTO its fotos :) zelda joins selfies tho and does silly poses with you

REWIND: functions like the time recall in canon, but this time it is a more developed version of stasis instead

AMIIBO: its ... amiibo

HOOKSHOT: grab onto anything (perhaps restricted but not yet decided), you pull yourself+zelda to heavy stuff, light weight objects are pulled to you (including light enemies like bats or small slimes) grab onto something and hold onto it, usable like a vine (think, ww grappling hook) but with limited duration (battery power?)

AUTOBUILD: like in canon but it uses luminous stones if material isnt all there (or other material you put out to so its more versatile and you are more aware of what you have, no accidental spending then)

BUILD: similar to canon, but no glue (it kinda just fuses with no extra graphic unless pehaps like a bolt or sth), you put stuff together anyway you want; build is also used for weapons (no extra ability needed), you just build a weapon on the ground and pick it up afterwards (it has to be a weapon handle part and then sth else to it, otherwise it wont turn into a weapon)

INFUSE: infuse somethign with ancient energy, useless on normal objects usually(?) but reactivates broken or deactivated tech like elevators and doors; used to dynamically access caves and especially labs (labs serve a similar function as shrines, they are old shiekah labs that broke over time, puzzles are diverse things like traversal and little quests in which you help the researcher ghosts of the people that died in these labs (by the calamity, earthquakes, accidents, or killed by the royal army when their tech was banned and they refused to give it up)

SAGE WHEEL:

WIND GUST: same as in canon

LIGHT SHIELD/LIGHT LASER: zelda uses a shield of light to protect herself in combat, it does not affect the player (or perhaps only when you happen to be within range, which is small, this is more a character thing for her than useful for you) for the player through the selection wheel; aim and tell her to shoot a light laser like rauru did in the moldora cutscene in canon totk (a bit more dynamic) it deals very high damage to anything hit but has the highest cooldown of all abilities; deals extra damage to miasma enemies

THUNDERSTRIKE: similar as in canon, it charges through you however (so the charging only gets stopped if YOU shoot an arrow or get hit)

FIRE .. BOOM THING: similar as in canon but yuno has a little animation of daruks shield around him again :)

YIGA TELEPORT/KOGA CLONES (undecided yet): A: target a location in range and koga grabs you like a naughty kitten and teleports you both to the targetted location, you spawn in a little above ground giving you time to either perform a bullet time move or a sword attack from above B: summons a bunch of koga clones that serve as a distraction for enemies and combat support, they die in one hit (reference to kogas and monk moz kyoshias similar moveset; since there are no sage ghosts around you all the time and a max of two companions (zelda always, sage in sage dungeon) it serves as a replacment for that)

WATER ...WELL(?): sidon gives you a shield of water, elemental effect is applied to weapon and lasts as long as the shield does no matter how many times you attack; if it is hit by an enemy it breaks but you dont take damage; if the shield lasts it entire duration without getting hit it it grants you a percentage of your missing health back upon dissolving (ref to mipha healing powers anyone??)

im open to constructive feedback but overall im quite happy of makign it work out like that, although there are quite a few things that need polish i think this is both realistic and works well with what else i have been writing; remember tho, this is my rewrite so im undoing the things i dont like, like riju never being there when you need her bc she runs right up to the enemy and her losing her charge bc she keeps getting knocked over + overall uselessness of minerus robot (to me)

(totk rewritten project)

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

ok im gonna call it natlancan bc that actually sounds like it could be a word and bc all the other options are even dumber

[stripedstarsblueflags]

we seriously need to start reevaluating what constitutes a “ship war” because here i would’ve thought it was wars between the fans of certain ships but nothing i repeat NOTHING any f1 rpf fan can create will come even close to the efforts the ships themselves are taking to outdo each other

[epicfirestormer]

TRANSFORMERS ONE SPOILERS IN BOUND!!!

My current explanation as to why Skyfire/Jetfire isn't in Transformers One is because he died somewhere during Sentinel Prime's betrayal. Imagine he was a part of the High Guards, one of the scientists working alongside Shockwave and Starscream, before everything fell and he just happened to be one of the few to die first.

Or maybe, even, Skyfire/Jetfire went on a patrol, scouting out for research and resources while the fight between the Quintessons was still ongoing, and just got a bit too close between them and Sentinel had to take him down. Just to make sure he didn't spread the word, but didn't check to see if he was taken out. Instead, he just crashed, somewhere far off, forgotten and left to perish. Presumed dead by everyone else. Just like when he was frozen in ice.

[otter-and-terrier]

it's kinda hard to write terry into scenes where claudia and aaravos are talking like aaravos is manipulating/trauma dumping/yapping/making a plan or like whatever

and terry's just standing there like 🧍

[gumbootillustrations]

HAPPY CRATE DAY FELLOW BOGANS

may the bevvies be cheap and the yarns Legendary

anyway. have some of the fuckers getting up to crate day shenanigans as a treat.

plus what the gc woke up to the next morning lmao

uhh yeah. all three of the ro'bros r such fucking lightweights i'm sorry i don't make the rules

also im my rewrite lilly is aaron's sister now (no there isn't any weird sibling stuff its more "my brother is my best friend and i'm terrified that if he has any other friends i'll no longer have anyone who understands me" sorta thing. idk i hope that makes sense it makes more sense to me n is far more interesting than "rahhh jealous ex gf trope" hrnghgnggg) (she n aph r Absolutely the sils who catch up for coffee n talk shit abt their extended family (mostly derek) lmao)

[verboselocket38]

Rooftop Chat

[tvckerwash]

I like to think that during pfl (using his s9 characterization, not s10) wash is the guy you go to when you want to know something (ah la a line in the fall of reach novel I believe where chief says the enlisted personnel always seem to know stuff bc wash is clearly enlisted).

he's in a position where he's privy to information from the higher-ups, and he's friendly enough with the lower rungs that he knows the gossip going around. as a bonus though, wash ain't no narc, so if you want that information you need to offer him something of equivalent exchange (consequently fueling the 'guy who knows things' thing). for example, north had to tell him about using equipment in the field in order to get him to tell him what his meeting with internals was about.

wash isn't the only guy who knows things, of course, but he's the guy who has the widest base of general knowledge. ct is also someone who knows things, but she's a lot more specific, and what she lacks in scale she more than makes up for with how in-depth her knowledge is. wash is where you learn about something from, ct is where you get all the juicy details (to the point of it almost being tmi). she also has an equivalent exchange policy, but people tend to be a bit more reluctant to get information from her because of what her knowledge is (and the borderline 'insane conspiracy theorist' energy doesn't help either).

florida? well...you don't wanna know what he knows. the cost is simply too high.

[bittrlys]

I have heard some people saying that the show is going to address the issues of humans being discriminated against will be addressed in season 7 dark. What do you think about that?

Personally, I think it might be a bit too late for them to properly address it and do it in a satisfactory way especially because the main ship rayllum had rayla being prejudice against humans but her actions don't get called compared to Callum so i doubt her actions will be called out next season as both the fandom and the narrative love to frame her in the right when she can sometimes be quite hypocritical and in the wrong.

Also, I want zubeia to be called out for her actions and zyms father but I doubt that will happen either.

Another question I also don't like the series framing of dark magic. Now in season 6 (took us 6 seasons) to learn that dark magic creates a hole in your spirit and it corrupts you to aaravos but that feels like the writers adding it in there so people don't bring up the whole arguement that dark magic is bad because the narrative says so. Also the show doesn't convince me dark magic is so bad that viren SHOULDN'T of used it to save soren or that Callum SHOULDN'T of used it to save rayla.

Idk to be honest the handling of dark magic within the narrative is so confusing and bad.

Anyway sorry this got so long

My very upfront opinion is that there is clearly some dissonance, and perhaps even conflict, in the writer's room about Viren and Claudia, dark magic, the cost of it, and the intended take away from these characters and their actions.

Now, when writing, there's no particular requirement to be honest with your audience or to not accurately represent how history can be muddled and shift. "Humans learned dark magic" to "Unicorns taught humans magic and were slaughtered in thanks" to "Aaravos is implied to have taught humans dark magic" to "Aaravos's daughter Leola (a uni-horned elf) taught humans magic and was killed" is cohesive enough, even considering the writers are on record saying they may be changing things as they go, as happens with writing. (With dark magic being the main sticking point of anti-human sentiments, how and why it occurred matters.) I also don't think the show has never wanted us to sympathize with humans or not see their discrimination -- the sight of them in tears as they're exiled, evoking the Trail of Tears (still bonkers), or Ziard's bitterness over how humans starved or his terror when Sol Regem tricks him in hopes to destroy Elarion are moments of raw feeling where the camera centres humans and their pain. Most of our protagonists are humans, and Callum, though occasionally punished for his ambitions, is a character who wants magic who is heroic.

The ultimate problem, however, is that the show wants to have its cake and eat it too, which goes back to my earliest complaints in how they 'meta write' from what we expect of fantasy and muddle their own messages. Certainly this show could be a long-form exercise in tricking people into rooting for ethnic cleansing racists but like, it's a show for kids. Sol Regem is a bad dragon and he is obviously bad. Zubeia is a good dragon and she is obviously good. We're supposed to understand Sol Regem kinda had it coming and understand that Zubeia being hurt is allegedly sad. There's no deceit to this straightforward presentation. Viren, Claudia, and now Aaravos are sympathetic villains, but they're still villains. And when your villains come in two main flavours of Team Anti-Human (arising after humans wronged Xadians initially, natch) or Team Human (or adjacent) and every hero is Team Xadia because humans fighting against the disparity of their world is Causing Trouble while humans who extend the hand of friendship to Xadians are Bringing Peace, it ultimately teaches us that "Maybe humans had a hard time of it, but it's time they suck it up." I don't think there was anything more explicit to this than having our Out Of The Mouth Of Babes protagonist Ezran's Zubeia-backed speech at the Many Thunder Victims Memorial Valley.

A lot of writers like villains who have a point, because they feel it adds depth to them, but they often jump straight to "the villain is a marginalized person who is fighting for change in the Wrong Way" and this creates an implication that Fighting For Change At All is wrong because our heroes are never passionate champions for equality. They may like equality, but they say "Not now -- not like this --" and it isn't central to their beliefs. Team Xadia are not nominally Anti Equality or Anti Humanity, but their framing vis a vis our villains makes this lack of investment in the liberation of humanity quite clear.

All of this is to say that I agree, it would be too little, too late, and that the fact the show has *already established* humans as being victims of discrimination makes the narratives around them all the more galling and difficult to untangle. I absolutely would like to have the show deliver one of its extremely straightforward, directly to the camera-type messages on how humans were discriminated against, yes, but it doesn't fix six seasons of presenting all anger on behalf of humanity as something that is ultimately morally unsound and in need of changing. And how much further can they take it? Can they portray Xadians as a whole as privileged beings who have benefited from the mistreatment of humans? Not just a few bad apples -- can they actually, truly acknowledge Xadians as less than idealized? Can they take seasons upon seasons of trying to make us love Xadians and turn it around with frank questions about things like "reparations" and "acknowledging generational trauma without both-sides-ing it"? Can they give us a purely heroic human protagonist who is firmly Team Human and centres human interests? I don't think so. They prefer keeping to their "Callum and Amaya and Ezran constantly apologizing and putting down humanity in favour of their Xadian betters" agenda. (So bonkers they do this with three characters of colour, sidenote.)

Rayla is interesting because I think they have a fundamental disinterest in her inner world. She's so defined by her relationships with others and traumatic things that happen to her personally are ignored (her feelings on her banishment getting sidelined into Callum stuff, or her overcoming her fear of water to save Callum and Ezran happening off screen.) Her prejudice is a standard result of her upbringing but it's another thing that hasn't really come up in a while. I don't know if they so much want her as a character to be right, or prejudiced, or whatever, so much as they use her as a mouthpiece for particular opinions they need stated. She was learning about humans as much as Callum and Ezran were learning about elves and now she's learned she's just chilling being another one of Ezran's inexplicably pro-monarchy shooters.

Onto the second half of your ask about dark magic -- this season has firmly shifted the dark magic usage into an addiction metaphor, and so we get the "hole in your soul" (the anti-Birdhouse In Your Soul.) I do think this makes sense with earlier seasons. Dark magic has always been shown as corrupting the user (hence the monstrosity, and hence Viren being likely to die if purified of it, because it's become so entwined with his inner core) and this destruction of the self has been a reason to avoid it. I'll even be generous and say it's not entirely "Evil People Are Ugly" but instead a lot of "Self-Destruction Is Terrifying." However, I've been obsessed with this since I saw it:

"He shouldn't be monstrous in his final moments of heroism" is very funny. The writers are aware they have thoroughly codified Ugly, Monstrous = Bad and would try to bend themselves over backwards to let a Good Act be done via Evil Means in a way that minimizes the evidence of the evil means. This is why you have to put that "inherent evil" in quotation marks because real inherent evils don't tend to get a pass. And because they want dark magic to still exist in the show and still be used by sympathetic characters like Callum and Claudia without rendering them utterly reprehensible they have to make it the hole-in-your-soul addiction metaphor and say it costs the user as much as, if not more than, it costs the world around them.

Which is, like, fine, but at a certain point it is like -- Yeah, if we can see times where dark magic is basically a necessity because your choice is either "dark magic, or let your child die" or "dark magic, or let a dragon flambé your people" -- which many of us would consider non-choices -- then you have to respect that people maybe will have to make that choice. And if the cost is more on them, then ...? It's practically a noble sacrifice. To oppose it for reasons of Aaravos is a non-argument. Viren was mainlining dark magic for decades and it wasn't until he got that mirror that Aaravos became a problem and Aaravos isn't always going to be around ... not to mention that now that he's free I think he has abilities that go well beyond "souljacking." Aaravos in this case represents more the 'spiritual death' associated with this internal corruption. So can we find reasons to oppose it that go beyond The Harm It Causes To An Individual, Who Should Be Allowed their Autonomy?

They still throw half-hearted nods to the previous seasons much more heavy-handed "omg the beautiful butterfly" "omg the baby deer" (single crying tear) "stop hurting the environment" "magical beings are superior to you" type anti-dark magic rhetoric (see Claudia and the cat thing) but it seems the writers have come to realize they need dark magic to exist as much as the people in universe need it to exist, and so they're trying to focus more on the internal cost. Personally, I think this is a fine place to take it and if the intent is to return the discussion to how humans have been discriminated against, it's a wise thing to do. So I won't protest it much, although we can discuss villainizing addicts and so forth and why Rayla's lack of compassion in approaching Callum's dark magic use is difficult to watch.

It's funny, because I wouldn't even call myself "pro dark magic" as I do see it as harmful, but the hypocritical and condescending treatment of dark magic users in the narrative is something I take issue with more than the use of dark magic itself. This is why, if they are leaning into this more sympathetic reason for rejecting dark magic, I hope we see increased sympathy as to why dark magic is used and why, until humans are liberated (i.e. given equal access to magic and Xadian resources) it's pretty much essential.

Thank you very much for the ask! ♥ Don't apologize for the length, as you can see I love to ramble away myself. Also yeah didn't fit this in anywhere else but fuck that narrative deadweight Zubeia. Thunder at least got shaded by Rex Igneous even if Rex Igneous was Mean and Scary.