#I’m kind of restructuring her story a bit and it would be fun to expand some lore with asks!

[swollenbabyfat]

Dia is a dying unicorn brought back to life by a wizard, only to quickly be hunted down by a tyrannical lord that gives her the title of Royal Pet, a living trophy. Over time her and his wife fall in love and eventually overtake him, and Dia seems to get her happily ever after. But unicorns are immortal, and Dia has to navigate the world as a disabled being with no end in sight, watching everyone and everything around her change.

Due to her ancestors actions, Dia must cannibalize upon other unicorns to survive…but what does one do when they are the Last? In attempts to keep herself from starving, she must go to great lengths to use her own body to bring her nutrients, often getting into shady deals and bad situations with underground surgeons.

Seemingly apathetic to life after the death of her wife, Dia struggles to find meaning in her eternity.

I am taking asks on her while being sick, I’ll try to add doodles to responses as well!

[trainsinanime]

For the ask game: 13, 15, 17, 19

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

I’ve said this before: The Gorilla is not “Adrien’s only parent”. The Gorilla is the jailer who physically enforces the limits on Adrien’s freedom that Gabriel has set. That’s his job, and it’s one he actually does most of the time. In Gorizilla, Adrien and Marinette are trying to dodge him (and Adrien’s fans) long before he turns into an Akuma. In Origins, Adrien tries to dodge him when he wants to go to school.

Yes, the Gorilla is often bad at his job, and sometimes will let himself be bribed into being even worse at it. And yes, he has genuine affection for Adrien, more so than anyone else living in the Agreste mansion (Nathalie stans: Fight me). And I could imagine that someone else in the same role might be worse for Adrien. But still, when Adrien is running towards his freedom, the Gorilla is the person he is running from.

I don’t think he is irredeemable, far from it, and I’m perfectly okay with stories where Adrien decides to forgive him. I just think the fandom needs to acknowledge that there is something to forgive here in the first place.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

I’m still trying to sort my thoughts enough for a long-form post, but basically, I think the strict format hurts the show. There is only ever the one villain; there is only one plot; there is only one kind of threat. If you compare it to other shows in a vaguely similar conceptual space like The Owl House or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (what is Miraculous if not Buffy but happy), you can quickly see where it leaves a lot of development on the table because of those structural deficiencies.

Having multiple enemies in succession means the bad guys can have meaningful victories over the heroes, keeping the threat level up. At the same time, the heroes can make significant progress at times. Miraculous Ladybug just doesn’t have that, and the one time they did have a serious victory for the bad guy (exposing the other heroes), they couldn’t do anything with that.

The show also generally doesn’t have B-plots; at least no B-plots with any substance to them. The time spent on B-plots is instead given to the CGI battles, and to be fair, those can be a lot of fun. But that means there is really no opportunity to develop side characters better because there is no time; even the main plot often feels more like we’re watching a summary than a well-told story.

It also doesn’t help that the show is so strict about secret identities and amnesia for akuma victims and the like. Marinette can’t talk about superhero stuff with Alya (for most of the show anyway) and Chat Noir can’t talk about superhero stuff with Nino, which means those two don’t get any development. And Marinette can’t really reason with an Akuma victim, nor talk about personal stuff while in costume, so in the end the CGI battles are fun, but usually irrelevant when it comes to characterisation and plot developments.

The show seems to address some of these issues, especially with Rena knowing, but still, it’s far from ideal.

It’s a weird thing where it sort of balances out in the end; the show doesn’t seem to have the the time to develop any overarching story well, but it doesn’t have a good overarching story to begin, so it evens out. And they have given me enough bits for the minor characters so that I love all of them.

I’m a bit hesitant to post all this stuff because it makes the show sound horrible, which it is not. I genuinely love it and enjoy watching it. I just think that it could have been so much better if it had chosen a different format.

Not sure if this is unpopular, but it is a thing we’re not really talking about.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

Apart from “restructure the entire show completely and rewrite every single episode”, you mean? 😁

I think we could cut Lila, and instead give more time to Chloé. People keep acting like “Zoé is supposed to replace Chloé”, and no, obviously not; Lila is. People also keep saying “the writers hate Chloé”, and again, no, obviously not; if they hate anyone, they hate Lila.

Lila’s job in the show is to be the Cordelia Chase character; the antagonist for the non-superhero side of Marinette’s life. This is the role that Chloé previously had, until Marinette realised partly through season 1 that being the bigger person in that relationship is both easy and fun. But Lila isn’t a good replacement, because Lila has absolutely no character, no depth; she’s either conspiring to make Marinette’s life harder, or, more commonly, she’s functionally completely absent. The writers seem to have no clue what to do with her.

So either expand her role, or remove her. I’m leaning towards removal because Chloé could probably be a better antagonist; she has all the motivation and backstory, and the writers seem to genuinely enjoy making her the center of attention.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Honestly I am at a point where either the salt has died down, or I’ve managed to block it well enough, that I am basically very happy with the fandom. There are certainly a lot of hot takes I don’t enjoy, but my impression is that these are mostly the results of young people trying critical analysis for the first time, and I don’t want to be too harsh on that.

So… the thing that tends to disappoint me the most is really at the other end of the scale: I think the fandom is way too serious at times. The show is blatantly silly and cracky in every aspect, from its world building right up. Marinette may seem over-the-top, but in the context of the show, she seems to have about an average level of chill. Every single episode, if written as a fanfic, would be pure crack. The fandom is by no means a joyless place, far from it! But I think it could embrace the sheer insanity that is the world of Miraculous Ladybug even more. If you write a fanfic, and the Eiffel tower remains completely stationary the entire time, what are you really doing? 😁