#Like my entire life has revolved around creating

[captainkurosolaire]

I’m always impressed by the quality of your writing and the sheer creativity that you put into everything you do. If I could be one tenth as talented I should count myself blessed indeed. Plus you are kind and supportive towards others in a manner which does you great credit.

ANONYMOUSLY TELL ME YOUR HONEST OPINION ABOUT ME. I CAN’T REPLY, JUST PUBLISH.

[burntoutdaydreamer]

3 Steps to Improve Your Characters and Make Them Three-Dimensional

So I don’t have a process for creating/developing characters (to me the process is intuitive to the point where I wouldn’t even know how to explain it), but I do have a process for revising characters that just… fall flat, for whatever reason. 

I like to get to know my characters by throwing them into a bunch of different situations and seeing how they react, but sometimes that’s not enough. In these cases I need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to make them not feel like a cardboard caricature of the role I need them to fill. Here’s the process I use, and it involves three key questions to understand what makes your character tick.

1) What is this character’s fundamental belief- either about the world or themself?

2) Where does this belief come from?

3) How does this belief hinder them, and are they capable of growing past it?

Alright, here’s what the process looks like in action. 

Let’s say I have a character I need to flesh out for my story.

Character A is a middle aged coffee shop owner and the protagonist of her story. The central conflict of the story revolves around trying to save the family run coffee shop she inherited from her father when he passed away, which has recently fallen on hard times.

What is this character's fundamental belief?

Character A believes that the world is an inherently good and fair place. She believes that good is always rewarded and bad is always punished, even if the timing isn't always perfect. As such, she strives to live a virtuous life, putting as much good into the world as she possibly can. While she understands that even good people can face hard times, she believes that in the long term, if things don't work out, it'll be because she didn't put in the work needed to turn things around.

Where does this belief come from?

Character A grew up in a solidly middle class household with good parents that treated her well- rewarding her for good work, and fairly punishing her for misdeeds. Her parents gave her everything she needed, but also expected her to work hard for the things she wanted. She also had the experience of watching her father build a successful business through hard work and by building strong connections with the people in town. If we want to push this further, we could also say that this belief was reaffirmed by watching her brother ruin his own life, squandering all his money and goodwill with those around him on failed get-rich-quick-schemes and outright scams that landed him in jail.

How does this belief hinder them, and are they capable of growing past it?

Let's say that Character A recently hired a barista who seems perfect for the job. Strapped for help, she gets him started right away before getting the results of his background check. When the results come in, she finds out that he is on probation and was recently released from jail for a violent crime. Shocked, she fires him. Believing that people who end up in jail always deserve it, she can't see past her initial prejudices. As a result, her coffee shop suffers from the loss of her new star barista.

Some time goes on, and Character A encounters the barista again, and learns more about the circumstances that landed him in jail (maybe he was falsely convicted, maybe he was battling psychosis, maybe the violent act was done to prevent a loved one- anything that makes her question her initial assumptions). He then confesses that he is struggling to provide for himself and his family because no one will hire him because of his criminal record. Character A comes to realize that her belief isn't completely true, and that the world isn't entirely fair. Though it takes a lot of inner work to do so, including coming to terms with her privilege, she eventually accepts this, and revises her beliefs. She decides that even though the world isn't fair, people have the responsibility to make it fair.

She decides to re-hire the barista she fired. After doing everything she can to make things right with him, she proposes an idea she wants his help with. Together, they transform her family business into a joint coffee shop and community rehabilitation center. In addition to selling coffee, they also launch a program to provide resources to recently incarcerated individuals looking to reenter society. They'll host weekly events on job interview coaching, alcoholics anonymous, motivational speeches, group therapy, opportunities to connect with open-minded employers, and more. Their promotion of this new program enables them to secure funding from local patrons and public grants, and customers are willing to pay for more expensive coffee with the knowledge that that money will be put to good use.

Additionally, if we want to go with the brother in jail backstory, we could have this ending be an opportunity for her to reconnect with him and maybe even repair their relationship as she gets to see him in a new light.

Main Takeaways

And there you have it!

You can use this process on any character- protagonist, antagonist, side character, etc. By grounding your character's motivations and development in their beliefs, you can easily introduce depth and internal conflict while keeping everything connected to the themes and plot driving your story.

Depending on your character's role or your story's plot, the belief can be wide reaching and complex (such as a philosophy or ideology), or specific and personal (such as having to do with their self-esteem). Either way, it should always be tied to their personal experiences or observations. This doesn't necessarily mean a tragic backstory. It could be, but I encourage you not to make this your default way of creating character depth. A mundane but grounded and sincere motivation will always be more compelling than cheap, dark shock factor.

Generally, protagonists with happy endings and villains with successful redemption arcs are capable of moving past their beliefs, while tragic heroes and antagonists aren't, and this failure is usually the source of their downfall. Keep in mind that even if characters do move past their old beliefs, it will always be a difficult thing to do. It will require them to confront their own mistakes, biases, and emotional wounds, and require both internal and external work in order to fix whatever their old beliefs have damaged.

Hopefully this guide will help you approach your characters from a different perspective. Feel free to share any insights.

Happy writing y'all!

[memryse]

if mcyt isn’t fiction then

people who create dnd characters that are similar to them in personality are just playing themselves and should not be treated as having made a character

people who make any other dnd character should also be treated as just playing themselves since people refuse to even consider roleplay smps as fiction

any ocs someone puts a bit of themselves into? nope not fiction!

actors who play a character with the same first name as them aren’t really acting

and so on

maybe YOU can’t separate characters and real people and think that everything you see from a youtuber even when they’re explicitly acting is how they are in real life but we as a fandom just don’t have that issue lol. we’ve had disclaimers and indicators for when we’re talking about characters and not content creators for years because a certain smp contained a character having suicidal thoughts as a result of abuse at the hands of another character and we needed to make it absolutely crystal clear that we were referring to a fictional storyline and not real guy #1 being an abuser and real guy #2 being suicidal. these customs have either extended into other corners of mcyt fandom, or some developed their own independently like hispanic mcyt fans have used the word cubito to distinguish mc guy from real life guy from years, a term that other language speakers liked so much we’ve also started picking it up lol

we know exactly what we’re doing. i get that the line maybe does seem more blurred to an outsider looking in (i wouldn’t know given that both my first fandom at age 12 and current fandom at age 20 were mcrp lol) but it’s universally understood amongst us. i don’t have a problem separating hermitcraft!gem and empires s1!gem the wizard with a twin brother and empires s2!gem the princess and cc!gem the real life canadian woman.

idk it rubs me the wrong way that after years of trying to explain this we’re either met with people calling us racists because of three guys that the rest of us (all of us, really, because dream team fans do not claim to be minecraft fans. those are the type to actually write rpf and ship the real life racist guys) hate probably a lot more than any of you do, or they watch a few minutes of a less roleplay-heavy series/part and decide that the entire medium is invalid as a form of storytelling

it’s so annoying. i don’t think we need to be understood to have validity as a fandom we’ve been doing this for years already without that but it is so infuriating and sad how whenever there’s some kind of fandom poll thing one of three things happens

mcyt fans are banned outright and placed on the same level as something like hp

an mcyt fan runs their own and gets harassed for it

a non-mcyt fan allows us in until they get harassed so badly by whatever fandoms we go up against that they end up deleting our bracket

in what world is that normal behaviour. and that harassment always involves calling them all racist cishet white men such as misgendering both eret (real life bisexual genderqueer person) and their character (also queer), attempting to harass jimmy solidarity fans because jimmy makes mc videos so he must be a dream associate (the only time they interacted was in a tournament during which dream and georgenotfound shittalked jimmy’s best friends to his face), all the shit quackity has gotten for being a former friend of the dream team as if he wasn’t the #1 victim of their racism and xenophobia, the fact that any time c!technoblade is involved in a poll we have to beg other fandoms not to talk shit about him because the real life man died of cancer before dream’s grooming allegations came out, similarly when tfc was in one. and so on and so forth. all because people can’t separate roleplay and real life and think that the entire minecraft sphere revolves around dream just because their idea of mcyt does (not even his own smp named after him did that).

[working-dreamer]

The Person Within: An Analysis Of Professor Layton's Hidden Character Development

Spoilers for practically all of the Layton games!

Hershel Layton as a character is sometimes criticized outside of the fandom for having no personality other than his gentlemanly nature and taking the concept of enjoying puzzles to the extreme.

While I think this criticism shows a blatant misunderstanding to his character, I do think from a different angle that perspective makes Professor Layton more interesting.

Think about it. Most of his personality is taken from the tragedy of those around him. Randall was the one who was originally obsessed with archaeology and puzzles. Claire was the one who originally perceived Hershel as a gentleman (thus giving him the idea.) We don’t really see Layton take these aspects of his personality onto himself until tragedy strikes and these people are taken away from his life.

In the case of Randall's death, Hershel blamed himself for surviving and moved out of town because of his self-loathing and guilt. And when Claire disappeared Layton paused his studies for an unknown amount of time trying to find out what happened until he was beaten into a coma by a group of people associated with her death.

And yet instead of grieving like you’d normally expect from a person who lost his best friend and girlfriend, he internalized their interests and aspects of their personalities into himself. He wears their passions and dreams as his own to remember them. In a way, he’s always reminding himself that he couldn’t save them.

However one might wonder how Layton really feels about those things outside of his previous losses. Does Layton even enjoy archeology and puzzles? Or is it something he has grown to accept in his life simply because he is living out Randall’s dream? Does he feel like he has a choice in the matter?

I can easily imagine Layton having doubts deep within himself: Randall didn’t get to live and it’s my fault. His dreams should live on. I don’t deserve anything else.

Same with Claire. She saw him as a gentleman but he certainly didn’t feel like one after her disappearance if his memory of events is to be taken seriously. How long did it take for him to turn into the perfect gentleman? Especially if it's just a painful reminder of her loss?

It’s probably after waking up from his coma that he starts to really embrace the idea that he has to be the perfect gentleman because he knows he can never get her back. So all he can do is embrace what she thought of him before she died. So with all of this in mind is Layton’s gentlemanly persona genuine to who he is as a person? Or is it just a persona created in order to keep her memory alive?

Layton has kept the shadows of his lost loved ones close to his heart for years and probably would have always done so had he never gotten any closure. However, when Randall turned out to be alive Layton now has the opportunity to let go of that guilt. Claire came back in the future momentarily and Layton got to say goodbye. He no longer needs to keep their personal traits as his own.

So why does he still embody Randall's passion for archeology and puzzles and Claire's perspective that he's the perfect gentleman?

I think it's because Layton doesn't know who he is without these borrowed parts of his personality. Without those aspects that he adopted into himself… who is Hershel Layton? Deep down he is someone who has silently mourned his loved ones and repressed those emotions. And yet most of his life has been embodying said grief. It makes me wonder if Layton would ever look deep within himself and realize that he doesn’t have anything to claim as his own. His entire personality revolves around past guilt and trauma from people he loved and lost.

Shoot even his name isn’t his own! Hershel Layton was actually the name belonging to his brother and in a moment of sacrifice switched names so our Layton could be adopted. So our Layton loses the only family member he has left without even knowing who that is for the majority of his life!

So we have a man who feels guilt and remorse for the deaths of his best friend and his girlfriend so he doesn’t allow himself to develop his own interests and personality because he doesn’t feel like he deserves to be his own person. It's even implied that he believed for a time that he didn't deserve to be the one who survived the events that killed his best friend and girlfriend. And then adding to the fact that he never knew his real family so he most likely felt a different kind of loss by not knowing where he came from. All and all we find a man that feels alone and tries to make it right by embodying the traits of those he cared about.

We don’t get to see Layton develop his thoughts on all of this but we do see an interesting development later on. I’d like to think that Layton slowly began to heal after his adventures thanks to adopting Katrielle in the anime.

This is because, for the first time in Layton’s life, he had a family to look after. Someone who doesn't need a mystery-solving archeologist or a perfect gentleman detective. Someone who doesn't need the grand "Professor Layton." This little girl just needs someone to be her father and, while he tries his best, he doesn't really know how to do that.

Sure he had a familial relationship with Luke and Flora, but he never called himself their father. I don’t think he allowed himself that privilege because of all the self-loathing he had been dealing with before. When he adopts Kat it feels like it’s the first time we see Layton truly allowing himself to be a father figure. And yet he is still uncertain about if he should be the one in this role.

Layton feels like his adopted daughter should know where she came from (something he didn’t get to have) before he can start thinking of himself as a father. He’s scared that if he gets attached then it'll hurt worse when she eventually returns to her own family should she decide that is her wish. But if he finds her family first then he doesn’t have the go through that heartache. He wants to find them first so she can make an informed decision.

And he says this with the logic that he always had as “Professor Layton” with that calm and collected smile. Notice that he says "I want to solve this puzzle so that we can become a true family." He doesn't say "so that we will become a true family." It’s almost as if he is going to let Kat decide if she wants to stay with him or go back to her real parents and that choice will be up to her. However, it's somewhat implied that he already thinks that she would naturally choose her real parents if she had the opportunity.

Despite his wishes to be her father, he still seems to be internally preparing himself to say goodbye (hence why he disappeared for so long in the first place.) He just doesn’t want to get too close to another person only to lose them and suffer alone again.

It makes sense why he is distancing himself, but he’ll still solve the mystery. It's what “Professor Layton” would do and he’ll have to accept whatever happens once Kat learns the truth. He doubts that she would still see him as her dad if she could be with her real parents. He doesn't even know himself outside of the role of "Professor Layton" so how can he be a true father to her? She'll go away with her real family eventually anyway. Why would anyone choose him?

And yet when he sees her again Layton is surprised when she immediately cries out for him. She still calls him papa. She wants him to be her papa.

In a public display of overwhelming emotion, we see Layton openly weep for the first time. He is so overcome by these emotions and for once doesn't repress them. He's just so happy to see his daughter again (to truly call Kat his daughter again) and allows himself to fully express those feelings for perhaps the first time in decades.

If Layton from the original game trilogy saw himself like this he would have been mortified by this “un-gentlemanly” behavior. His mindset back then was that a gentleman never cries because he has trouble coming to terms with his emotions. He even chastised Luke in Unwound Future because “a gentleman never makes a scene in public.”

However, he was never a gentleman for himself. It was always for holding onto the guilt of losing his loved ones while trying to honor their memories at the same time. But he doesn’t have to hold himself to those impossible standards anymore. He no longer blames himself for their deaths, he found closure, and now he has found himself in a family who chooses to love him not because of those attributes “Professor Layton” embodied, but because she loves him for the person hidden under that persona. And that is enough for Layton to openly weep as he embraces his child.

I believe Kat's words here helped Layton more than she'll ever know.

So who is Hershel Layton if he’s not a gentleman or a fan of archeology?

The solution to that puzzle is really quite simple.

He is a caring person. And that’s all he ever needs to be.

[ecto42]

I think in D&D terms the typical assumption would be that a character with a chronic illness and/or chronic pain would have a low constitution score. The reality is a lot of people like myself would probably have constitution as our biggest stat because not only are we constantly staying up while fighting our bodies, we’re generally expected to ignore our own physical needs and wellbeing in exchange for being able to get things done. For example, I have been fully in the middle of a POTS episode and had to cook myself dinner, carry multiple loads of laundry up and down the stairs, etc. Like there’s such a real thing to Ashton Greymoore having chronic pain and yet their highest stat being Constitution.

I think something people are really good at acknowledging for Ashton as well as being apparent with Taliesin is that chronic illness generally means you’re stronger than people would assume, but you also blow through your resources faster and they can be just as counterproductive as they are helpful. It’s important to note that Taliesin struggles with chronic issues like hand tremors and has other chronically disabled friends like Dani Carr.

Like personally as an AMAB person with a condition that primarily hits AFAB people particularly hard, I’ve had cardiologists tell me “If anything your heart is overly muscular.” Which like, thanks dude yeah that’s decades of anxiety and years of POTS hitting and me having to stay standing up. Like I was in marching band in high school and I was the kid basically double-time marching in giant steps every show because I was the easiest to place since I’m so tall. Then when I worked fast food I had to either maneuver through hoardes of people to get back to my station or just push through them completely. In 90+ degree weather in the summer in Alabama with an anxiety disorder and a “heart condition” that’s actually just another neurological condition. Like I spent years doing manual labor and unloading trucks and pallets while exhausted on like 3 hours of sleep. You have to develop that kind of resilience when the capitalist system reinforces a world where no matter what if you want to survive as a person straddling the poverty line you have to work your ass off.

This doesn’t even get into the kind of resiliency you have to develop as an undiagnosed neurodivergent person who’s being told by absolutely everyone for most of your life that you’re doing everything wrong. Like Adaine from Dimension 20 is such a good example of that. This is also why I love the portrayal of Ayda Aguefort so much, because she really is like me having to learn everything from books because no one else in her life can explain things the same way that a book can. That is one of those things that as a late diagnosed autistic & ADHDer it’s really hard to explain personally without getting really like tragic or depressing in conversation because it sometimes is just a matter of “I’ve effectively been abused my entire life purely because the system wasn’t built for me and I had a lot of expectations I failed to live up to.”

All of this as a way to say that neurodiversity and disability are much more interesting and heroic feeling when they are portrayed by actually neurodiverse and disabled people, as well as those who love those people enough to tell stories that include them. I think TRRPGs and RPGs in general are a great way to explore this. Often times when we see disabled people in shows or movies that revolve around their disability there is a lack of agency, whereas often times with TTRPGs you have to create your own agency in the first place.

[oneshortdamnfuse]

I hate that Barbie review post going around - not because there aren’t fair criticisms of the movie, but because any fair criticism in that post is diminished by a blatant aphobic viewpoint:

What is utopian about a world without sex?

Sex doesn’t have to exist in a fictional world, especially one that depends on the imagination of young children.

Without sex, what is the material difference between Barbie and Ken being boyfriend girlfriend of just being friends? What is the nature of the desires Ken has that Barbie can’t match?

Sex is not a requirement for a romantic relationship. You can also “just be friends” and have sex with someone. We assign meaning to our own relationships. That is beside the point that when young children are playing with dolls, they are developing their own idea of what the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” mean. That doesn’t often include sex.

Ken’s entire drive throughout the movie is based on the fact that the Ken doll is seen as an accessory to Barbie. He doesn’t have his own identity, and that becomes problematic as he bases his purpose around being with Barbie. He begins to believe that Barbie owes him for his dedication, which is something real men do all the time to real women. Instead of finding themselves on their own and unpacking why they measure themselves based on the attentions of women, they get mad at women for not reciprocating and they create a culture to punish women. Ken’s “desire” is Barbie’s attention, but Barbie has her own life and interests that do not include him. It’s not that she can’t “match” his desires. It’s that she doesn’t want to.

It does not have to be explicitly about sex, but even if it was about sex, again, it’s not about being unable to “match” that desire. It’s about not wanting to, and people who don’t want to have sex for whatever reason are punished for it by a society that tells us sex is necessary and owed in a meaningful relationship.

Why do the dolls have no genitalia in the real world, given that they are otherwise turned into flesh? Why did you make a point of specifying this?

You are obsessed with a doll’s genitals, which feels like a TERF dog whistle. They’re still dolls in the real world. Barbie chooses to become “human” in the end. That’s why there’s a joke at the end about her going to the gynecologist. Still, their lack of genitals is not only a joke but a reminder that Barbie and Ken are dolls who are enjoyed by children in a fantasy land that doesn’t revolve around sex.

This isn’t the only part of the post that grinds my gears, but the whole thing reads as specifically hostile to people with different lived experiences regarding sex and gender. I absolutely hate it.

[synergysilhouette]

My frustration with Asha's writing

A lot of people liked "Wish," and a lot of people didn't, and a particular concern for the latter was the main protagonist. Since I'm in the camp of "I'm frustrated with 'Wish,'" I'll discuss a little bit about why Asha feels like such a letdown.

She's an archetype, but not an individualized character. She screams "Disney heroine," but she doesn't have anything about her that makes her character stand out (positively) among other Disey female leads. She has no flaws that hinder her, and her positive traits are vague at best. "I care too much," is the most generic thing I've ever heard a main character say. In fact, it becomes almost meaningless when a character (who genuinely means it) says it about themselves; caring too much is a statement that works best when talking about someone else. In fact...

2. She has significant plot armor. She gets far in the process of being considered to be Magnifico's apprentice, but it's never said WHY. Considering her friend (or friends? I'm not sure) works in the castle, Dahlia putting in a good word for Asha would make sense to why Magnifico would consider her, and even him asking around town for their opinion of her would make more sense. But it feels like she gets so far in the process simply because she's the main character, despite Magnifico knowing next to nothing about her. And Magnifico has several magical powers at his disposal, but he's still defeated by her (mainly because he only uses his staff against her).

3. She has a lot of influence, but again, it's not really said how or why. During the reprise of "This Wish," the people of Rosas side with her against Magnifico--but this is likely because she's the only one who dared to stand up against him. We only see Asha interact with the people of Rosas during the opening song with her as a tour guide (how did she get THAT job?), and it feels very professional, very timed. It doesn't feel intimate or personal, like Asha has built up a good rapport with the other citizens.

4. Her family is poorly defined. Sabino's wish is to create a song that inspires the next generation, but as Magnifico himself mentions, that's a vague wish--plus imo, it's cheating; rather than working hard and creating a legacy for yourself, you want to wish to give something for people to remember you by. And Sabino is obviously older than Magnifico, but his life--and how he lived it without the kingdom of wishes--is never explored. Perhaps if it was explained that he experienced great hardship and his spirit was broken, it'd explain why he was so fixated on getting a wish. And Sakina's wish is never explained. She's probably the worst-characterized parent in a 21st century Disney movie, since she's pretty much just there. And Asha's father inspired her, but he isn't shown much. I'd have enjoyed it if the plot revolved around her trying to revive her father and it proves Magnifico's point that some wishes can't/shouldn't be granted.

5. She learns NOTHING. Her whole song is about "I've lived a lie" when that's not entirely true; she takes a very black and white view on the situation without ever trying to evolve her viewpoint via Magnifico's perspective, and the people of Rosas never stop to think "we shouldn't be codependent"; they just think "we shouldn't have let Magnifico lie to us." It's a giant avoidance of guilt on everyone's behalf, and since Magnifico is a villain, no one really cares that he has some semblance of a point. When you look at protagonists like Pocahontas, Judy Hopps, and Anna, you see how they learned a new way of looking at things, that they've suffered hardships (either through their own making or otherwise) and that they've grown from it.

6. She's "relateable." Disney's adorkable thing hasn't been too much of an issue for me up to this point; it was unique when Anna did it, and it never feels super cringey with Mirabel and Moana (though if Mirabel is cringey, it fits into the narrative). But now it's tired. I'd enjoy more mature leads like Raya, Tiana, and Elsa, rather than Disney trying to make a protagonist that tries--and fails--to be quirky. And I never really saw Rapunzel as adorkable as her later leading ladies. But Asha tries too hard; honestly that should've been one of her flaws in the film. Her desperation to meet everyone's approval would've been something neat (albeit familiar if we compare her to Mirabel) to explore in the film.

[juliettedunn]

Do you think Belos is not as complex as his fans makes him out to be?

I don’t think it’s a case of more or less complex, it’s that a lot of Belos stans mischaracterize him to the point they make him a different character. The stans ironically completely erase what makes Belos, Belos.

The “Belos” a lot of Belos stans present is the guise he wears to manipulate others and himself, hiding his actual character and nature beneath.

Belos is one of my favorite villains, because he manages to be a truly reprehensible villain with no redemption in sight, while also having a lot of layers to his psychology. He’s a villain whose thought process/general psychology I find fascinating to think about, as I think it’s quite well-written and reflective of people like him in real life.

There’s this perception that in order to be interesting, a villain has to be sympathetic or redeemable in some capacity.

It’s popular to give villains sympathetic motives or backstory, and even redeem them, to avoid the simplistic “I’m doing evil things because I’m evil” type.

And this type of villain can absolutely work, it’s just not necessary for every story, or for a good villain. You can have a complex, layered villain whose psychology is fascinating to think about, without them actually being sympathetic in any way.

Belos doesn’t think “I’m doing evil things because I’m evil.” He justifies himself with a twisted line of thought built around his own selfishness, insecurities, immaturity, and possessiveness, as well as the Puritan ideology he embraced.

A big part of his character is that he warps reality in his own mind to suit his needs. That’s why his mindscape is literally layered, with the beautiful, heroic paintings at the start hiding the true, ugly memories. He isn’t just lying to other people; he’s lying to himself. He’s so caught up in his own delusions and persecution complex, he’s lost sight of reality and starts to be confused by his own lies, built into the very structure of his mind.

The show makes it clear how his view of the world, that he is an oppressed victim, is delusion. It shows Caleb embracing his brother warmly in the Boiling Isles, despite the aggression he displays. It shows people were friendly and trusting during the time period he arrived, and only lashed out at him once he began to kill and oppress, like the demons avenging their brother Blue Fang. His fake child disguise used to manipulate Luz is shed to reveal the true sinister man underneath as his real inner self.

His misery is of his own making. He killed Caleb, he refused to change. Even after four hundred years, he refuses to do anything but whine about what witches and demons took from him, despite the fact he was always the aggressor.

Belos’s story is the story of a man driven by an extreme selfishness, a desire for coddling and protection, to have everything revolve around him and his needs, at the same time as he claims to want to purge the sins of others for being selfish and evil. A man who is so caught up in his layers of lies and manipulation, he himself loses sight of what he believes, and eventually descends into crawling, whining slime. It’s a pathetic end that is his own fault.

But Belos stans want to ignore the story being told in favor of believing the simple narrative he presents at face value - that he was a mistreated kid whose brother abandoned him to cruelty and persecution on the Boiling Isles. They take the story to be a simple “tragic orphan was wronged and now he’s bitter” instead of an exploration of the psychology of this kind of truly reprehensible human being, who absolutely does exist.

The thing they portray is fine for a character story, but it’s not Belos. It’s so blatantly missing the entire point of his character, that they might as well just create an oc.

We have to shed this idea that a complex villain means a sympathetic one. You can have a rich, layered character who has basically always been a piece of shit, and remains so. Sometimes those are the best villains out there, depending on the themes of the story.

So no, Belos isn’t less complex than they make him out to be. He’s just a different character entirely.

[antianakin]

Padme: Yeah let's go hide away after you've committed double genocide and destroyed a democratic Republic so you never have to face consequences for anything you've ever done, you're obviously still a good person and I will believe that even if you tried to kill ME because I'm so blinded by my own lust and desire to escape the darkness in the galaxy that I'll protect you and have faith in you even after you have proven yourself violent and unstable!

Ahsoka: I would literally die to ensure you don't feel like I abandoned you even after you genocided my entire people, desecrated my home, and had the men I loved and trusted and who literally created an entire identity around loyalty to me be mind controlled into wanting me dead because I feel so guilty over leaving you behind and cannot fathom that you might ever do evil things despite making me go through a borderline abusive training regimen that involved me being knocked unconscious on a hard surface for over an hour.

Obi-Wan: I will walk away and leave you die when you show no remorse for committing double genocide, destroying a democratic Republic, and enslaving an entire galaxy because while I love you, I will never love you so much that I will pretend you aren't a danger to everyone around you, including myself, your wife, and your own children, and there is no life that is worth less than letting you live just because I used to love you.

Fandom: Obi-Wan is SO ATTACHED to Anakin, he's let his ENTIRE IDENTITY revolve around Anakin, and just CANNOT SEPARATE HIMSELF FROM ANAKIN, and would literally do ANYTHING for Anakin, even if it went against the Jedi code, obviously it's AHSOKA who would actually kill him without hesitation while Obi-Wan would hesitate, because Ahsoka's relationship is the most normal and has the least amount of unhealthy attachment and obsession in it on her end.

[dailydegurechaff]

challenge: hollow knight bug tanya

vessel tanya

my thoughts got long. warning under the read more for Hollow Knight spoilers.

ok listen listen, while i have you i need to implant an idea here

This oversimplifies both character’s motivations and stories a bit but like. do you see what im cooking. the vibes are THERE

like. Being X wants to bring Salaryman to his lowest to see if that suffering will make him a believer. Salaryman's values revolve entirely around his autonomy & free will. so an au where being x reincarnates Salaryman/Tanya into Hallownest as a Vessel, a creature that is meant to have no agency and is generally very doomed

so we'd see HK AU!Tanya (Bugurechaff if you will) trying to survive in this new world, but also slowly learning the lore of this world and what's happened to it. and I think over time, as she discovers who the Radiance is/was, she'd probably realize the similarities between Radiance and Being X and go "Hey wait a damn minute." My thought is she'd have a classic Tanya Misunderstanding Moment and misconstrue the two of them as one entity. Whether this fills her with vengeful rage and she takes it upon herself to destroy the Radiance, thinking Rad is Being X, I'm not sure. I could potentially see it.

some other vague ideas

Tanya's whole shtick is that she wants to achieve a comfortable, safe life where she's free to do whatever she wants. I genuinely believe that after somehow escaping the Birthplace, fighting through the ruins of Hallownest, and eventually coming across the town of Dirtmouth, she'd gladly end her adventure there. Think about it. Dirtmouth is safe, nothing really substantial goes on up there. There's no point for her to go back into the depths if she can just live peacefully there without any problems. There is nothing to stop her from doing this. Like, does she need the Geo to buy a house? No point, the whole town is virtually abandoned, just pick a house and live in it. Elderbug actually says this about Iselda moving in.

I think the point I’m trying to get at here is that if the story will let her, Tanya would probably get complacent. Which means that we'd probably need to find a reason to force her to act if we want her story to go farther than just 'makes it to Dirtmouth, the end' Do you think she'd get bored eventually? What is there to do? As said previously, nothing really goes on there, and there are very few permanent residents.

One way I feel like Tanya could be pushed is in regards to her social motivations. Like. I feel like she needs to be seen as a respected, productive member of society in order to feel fulfilled. I don't think she could get that in Dirtmouth, so the question is: Is this desire enough to overcome her desire for safety?

I think motivating Tanya to get moving and back to exploring (and therefore learning about Hallownest & by extension the Radiance) could be more easily accomplished by giving her companions who drag her outside of her comfort zone. So like. Let's drag more YS characters into HK.

In my head I have the mental image of tiny little vessel Tanya rescuing some other travelers on her way to find a safe place to settle. These travelers being Bug!203rd Battalion (Visha, Weiss, Koenig, Neumann). And she just absolutely destroys whatever was endangering them. And they're so impressed by her they just end up following her like lost puppies.

And like. Vessels can't speak. So she can't just tell them to go away and leave her alone. So she has an entourage now, who at least can help her fight. They also probably tell her about Dirtmouth, and they travel as a group to bring her there.

Maybe after she makes it clear she'd like to live peacefully in Dirtmouth, they end up leaving her. Only to return later when she's gotten restless, new party member in tow (Grantz!), who she helps to train and such.

Also also, Vessels being unable to speak definitely creates problems for both Tanya and the narrative. It has the possibility for hilarity with the good old Tanya Misunderstandings that YS is so good for, but also it creates problems with getting her to interact with people. There would have to be a LOT of charades, characters conveniently bringing up information to her, or conveniently guessing what she's trying to get at, which i feel would be hard to do naturally.

You could perhaps solve this with her meeting someone who can teach her to write or sign? Like Lemm or Quirrel. I think it'd be cute to see Relic Seeker Assistant Tanya with Lemm for a little while. I doubt she'd have an interest in the relics, but he'd probably give her a lot of insight into Hallownest history.

the Type 95 is definitely a charm in this universe. In HK canon, we're told charms are created by a bug's dying wish or something to that effect, so my first thought was that it would be a charm made by HK AU!Schugel's death that Tanya ends up getting her hands on, and then Being X blesses it... But then we also see in HK canon that Leg Eater is able to make his own charms, albeit fragile/easily breakable ones.

so my concept is this: Bug!Schugel creates his own fragile charm. I'm thinking the effect would probably be something revolving around converting infection to usable Soul/Mana (akin to the canon Type 95's Mana fixation thing). So, wandering inventor Schugel, looking for an assistant comes across Dirtmouth! Vessel!Tanya, who's hanging around (probably bored out of her mind and desperately needing to do SOMETHING productive) sees this invention and think it might be useful for the world, happens to have nothing better to do, and gets roped into this. Naturally something goes wrong, and before it fails horribly and disastrously, Being X steps in and blesses the charm. This makes the effect work, but using it also causes the wearer to become more susceptible to mental corruption/infection.

Also, I think that it also needs to become permanently unequippable (Like Void Heart) so Tanya can't get rid of it. Also also, the charm needs to have some insane cheesy name after Being X alters it. Everlasting Blessing. Immortal Prayer. Idk. But it needs to be something Tanya would hate.

I think the Silver Wings Assault Badge could also be a charm. I'm not sure what it's effect might be, but maybe something like the monarch wings, but its powered by Soul. She's an aerial mage. She needs to fly. Also it needs a cheesy charm name too. Fluttering Soul. Wings of Argent. etc. you get what I'm going for.

The Pale King is described a lot as being pure white and gleaming. Vessels, as his offspring, do look a bit similar to him. I think somewhere within this concept, you could have Tanya gain the White Silver nickname based on her appearance. Her mask/head is pale white like PK and when she uses Soul she shines like silver? idk i think it could work. Someone (203rd member perhaps?) sees her fighting and bestows the nickname on her and it gets shortened to just Silver or something

(Before this, since Vessels cant speak so she can't tell anyone what to call her, she gets called "Little One" by Elderbug. She hates it.)

if you couldn't tell, i've thought about this a lot. i invite you all to think about it with me. if you have ideas. please. share them. especially if its about other YS characters and how to fit them into HK universe. also especially if its about how HK characters would interact with her. Is the Knight/Ghost running around in the AU? How do they feel meeting a fellow sibling like this? What about Hornet?

[pyrotechnicdarts]

so many thoughts about how twitch and thrash are so much smaller and thinner than the other cybertronians, and just how much the show uses this to emphasize the fact that they are children and should not have to be a part of this war.

they are young and new and the world is so big and suddenly theyre thrown into a conflict that they were told was long over. and like! they are not meant for this war, partially because the war was supposed to be over!

the other bots are all big and bulky and armored, which conveys just how much of cybertronian life has revolved around this war. but twitch and thrash, the first cybertronians born after the war ended, are not big and bulky and! they shouldnt have to be! they were born in what was supposed to be a time of peace!!

 the triplets, on the other hand were created through a plea for help, for protection, and you can see that even though theyre still a lot smaller than other cybertronians, they are still very visibly bigger and more armored than the twins

(and as a little side theory i think the emberstone definitely played a big part in differences between the twins and the triplets: it was probably somewhat aware that cybertronian conflict was over on earth, or maybe just that there hadnt been any conflict in that area in a while, so it didnt give thrash and twitch the bulky armor they would need if they were born in times of war. the emberstone definitely knew that there was active danger when it made the nightshade, jawbreaker, and hashtag, which is probably why they were built taller, bigger, sturdier. more fit for the conflict it knew they were being born into)

but still! even the triplets are still so small compared to bots like optimus and megatron and even though they are more fit for battle, they are still children!!

and its terrifying and tense watching battle scenes that the terrans are in because they are just so small compared to everything else and the way a lot of the framing of these scenes is from their eye level to show just how much bigger and scarier everything looks to them (ie this shot with novastorm vvv)

and the framing and composition of so many action sequences really does wonders to get this whole point across! i am forever thinking about the entire sequence in the final episode where twitch takes out the canon and the way it starts with this frame and just how small she looks in it

she is so small and young and inexperienced and unlike the rest of her species, war is a stranger to her and she shouldnt have to be a part of this but still she has to be. she was told that she and her siblings are the future of cybertronian kind, but the world she was born into hasnt given up the past yet. she was told that she was born after the end of a war that had chased her kind for millions of years and yet here she is, watching her family fight for their lives. and its just houhhghhhghg. houwuuehuhgh. hough. so many thoughts.

this is sooo incomprehensible but do you get me. do you get what i am saying.  the thought behind the character design and shot composition is just. phenomenal. earthspark is very quickly becoming one of my favorite tf shows of all time

[andreal831]

Elijah and Stefan could live without Klaus and Damon

One of my tik toks about the end of The Originals has brought forward a lot of people saying Elijah "couldn't live without Klaus" or something to that effect. I've seen people use this same argument for Stefan. And I hate this thought process.

First, it is usually said to completely discredit their sacrifice. For instance, when I talk about how it made no sense for both Elijah and Klaus to die at the end of TO and completely orphan Hope. I will always argue that Elijah should have been the one to sacrifice his life and Klaus to live for his daughter. Would this ending have broken my heart, yes, but it would have aligned better with the character arcs and overall story.

When the fandom talks about Klaus' sacrifice, it's to say how amazing he was, how he finally got redemption, and how much he loved his daughter. When Elijah's sacrifice is talked about, it's to bring up Hayley's death and talk about his codependency with Klaus. The same thing happens with Stefan, they mention Elena and his codependency on Damon. Completely neglecting the fact that these characters did in fact sacrifice their lives for their family.

Second, it's canonically inaccurate. Elijah and Stefan both showed multiple times that they can live without their brothers. That, in fact, they are better off without their brothers. We don't know their full lives, but in most flashbacks we see, they are either separated or recently reunited. Stefan makes friends with Lexie who completely turns his vampirism around. She is his best friend and knows him better than anyone and she warns Damon to stay away because Damon has the tendency to push Stefan off his sobriety when he gets bored or angry. Damon actually does more harm to Stefan. When Damon 'dies,' Stefan creates a life for himself away from the supernatural. Sure the fans didn't like it, but he still moves on. Unlike Damon who wants to entomb himself because Elena is gone.

Elijah and Klaus do spend the large majority of their eternity together, but they also have spent large chunks of it apart. Specifically most of the 1900s. Elijah leaves in 1919 to lead Mikael away and only reunites briefly in 1933 to warn Klaus. They are only together for a matter of days before Klaus threatens to dagger Elijah. They go their separate ways again. We don't see how Elijah is coping in this time, but he does manage to live nearly 100 years without Klaus and seems to come out on the other side fine. Similar to Stefan, Elijah thrives without Klaus when he erases his memories. It's the happiest we see him throughout the entire show.

Finally, we see throughout both shows that Stefan and Elijah are a little bit unstable emotionally. They both view their lives as less than because of their trauma. Both Stefan and Elijah choosing to sacrifice themselves had less to do with codependency and more to do with self worth. They were both characters who felt an immense amount of guilt for all of the harm they had caused and viewed themselves as monsters. They did not think they deserved to live and be happy, unlike Damon and Klaus. So when we frame their deaths around their brothers, it detracts from their struggles and their deeper characters. I know the show liked to push the narrative that their lives revolved around Damon and Klaus because of ratings/Julie Plecs' weird obsessions, but it completely erases the characters to do so.

Elijah and Stefan could live without their brothers. They did and seemed to be happier. Obviously losing a sibling would be devastating and they would mourn, but it would give them a chance to find true purpose in their lives. Both families had a mass amount of codependency but it's usually only focused on Elijah and Stefan as a way to make their characters revolve around the other brother. It's sloppy and honestly tired writing. If the writers cared more about the story than ratings, we would have seen character growth and seen Stefan and Elijah learn to branch out on their own and break the toxic cycle.

These narratives that the brothers can't live without the other is simply pushed so the fandom can feel good about their sacrifices instead of actually looking at it for what is was: a sacrifice.

[maleyanderecafe]

My Angelic Husband is actually a Devil in Disguise (Webcomic)

Created by: HaeMyang / Hiella / WOONGIN THINKBIG / Nyamm(Art)

Genre: Fantasy/Romance

I have mixed feelings about this webcomic- mostly because I absolutely adore the concept of a damsel yandere, one that uses their incompetence or feigned uselessness to get close to their love interest, however, I'm not sure I really like how this webcomic does it. Don't get me wrong, there are some good moments within it, but it's not particularly how I would write a damsel yandere. As of writing this, there are about 40 chapters out.

The story starts with Seita about to graduate from the college before her family attempts to sell her to get married. Her family would often gamble and treat her badly, trying to sell her to pay off the debt. She is then invited by Miere Lunaria, one of Seita's classmates. Miere wants to have someone who can manage his accounting and assets as he himself is too incompetent to do so. He proposes a contract marriage so that she can work under him, and in exchange, would pay off the debt for Seita's family so she doesn't need to worry. The contract would terminate under a four years allowing Seita to live her life. Not really able to go back to her family, Seita accepts and the two get contract married. The two of them have to pretend to be like a loved couple, going on dates and living together as to maintain Miere's reputation as a duke and of course, sleeping in the same bed together. After some cute moments while Miere and Seita working on their garden together, Miere travels to the prince. Unfortunately, this leads to a bunch of bandits attacking them on their travels, leading Miere to die. Seita has to attend his funeral but continues her duties taking care of Miere's assets. Miere returns after three years as we learn that he's not dead, but rather was working with the prince to get rid of said bandits. He's able to reconcile with Seita after all these years and despite this, Seita still accepts him and forgives him for what he did. During her years of being alone, she worked hard to continue her work, and befriended a local merchant named Roynus whom she works with closely, and who Roynus gains a crush on. After Miere comes back, Roynus basically tries to pull her away, stating that she only was with Miere for a month, yet Seita still retains loyalty to her husband. We find out also that Miere is actually quite competent in most things from basically Seita's work to actually assassination, but feigns ignorance as a way to get by Seita's side, as he feels she will simply leave him if she finds out that he can basically do all that he can this entire time. He uses his servants to watch over Seita even while he was gone for the three years and slowly wins her over in lovey dovey ways. Miere also keeps an eye on Roynus, being extremely jealous over the fact that he was by Seita's side those years that he was gone and that he is pining for her, attempting to find skeletons in his closet to out him. After a weird side plot about burning pillows so that Miere can sleep without a divider and be with Seita, we get to see how Miere fell for her in the first place. While at the academy, he would watch her from the treetops studying, seeing how studious she was. After noticing that she enjoyed some flowers on the road, he ended up taking up gardening, and despite the fact that he actually quite dislikes gardening, Miere still did it to maintain a connection to Seita. The last couple of chapters revolve around Miere buying an expensive piece of jewelry for Seita disguising it as something cheap, Roynus's return in winning Seita's heart and the introduction to the vice-master of the assassin group, Bianca.

As I said, in concept, I should like this manga. I like the way that Miere pretends to be incompetent to get Seita to like him. Seita believes that Miere needs her because he can't really do anything right, not even from just maintaining his assets but also just not putting on his clothes properly. Of course this is all a ploy so that Seita will stay with him, but I... also don't really see the point in it all. Miere could have very easily just had a contract marriage to pull her out of her bad family without having to resort to acting pretty stupid to be honest. Other than the initial ploy of getting her to marry him, he really had no reason to continue acting stupid but lovey dovey in front of her. Honestly, even if Miere had revealed to her right after that he was an assassin, there would still be no way for Seita to leave him and Miere could probably just play into the angelic facade he had anyways instead of this entire thing of incompetence. Plus now that he has gone this far, Seita is likely going to have more trust issues with Miere because he's pretended for so long, which regardless could have been avoided if he had just told the truth. The other thing which I think is pretty obvious as a problem is the sudden time gap of Miere pretty much dying and then coming back after three years. The two of them only really had a month to bond and to be honest, it wasn't really anything that I really saw as especially romantic or deep. He then basically pretends to be dead for three years, leaving Seita a widow essentially only to come back and then beg for forgiveness... to which Seita accepts it?? I mean, I get that Seita basically doesn't know this guy since they literally had a month together, but I think that most people would be at least a little pissed off that they were essentially ditched for three years to do a bunch of work all while thinking that Miere was dead the entire time. It makes way more sense for Seita to ends up with Roynus because as he said, the two have only known each other for a month at that time and Roynus had been by her side for two years. Yes, there was the contract, but like I said, Sieta basically had to do all of his work without the knowledge that her husband was alive, so despite the fact that he was on a mission for so long, still didn't know that he was alive. The assassination thing also doesn't seem to come up a lot since we never really see him actually.... you know, kill anyone. We know he's dangerous, but we're never really shown it other than him threatening a bunch of his servants.

I actually do like Seita as a character but unfortunately I feel like she's pretty underutilized and the plot forces her to make some dumb decisions at times. Seita being a hard worker and having to manage Miere's finances is very interesting and she does manage to do some good work with it, but honestly she could have gone way farther like fund her own school or even just get back at her parents in some way. It feels like they just gave her a bunch of responsibilities and power but she's not really allowed to use any of it- especially when she thought that Miere was dead. She probably could have used the money to help manage the safety of people traveling so that they wouldn't get killed by bandits or something but she doesn't. I get that part of it is because the servants are watching so they wouldn't really let her get away with anything too big, but like...she could have done more and should have done more since that seems like something that she would do. The other big thing I feel like they just did for plot reasons is her falling in love with Miere after one month of interaction, thus allowing her to forgive him for ditching her for three years. I can kind of accept her accepting him ditching for three years because to her this is just a contract marriage, she just wants to leave her family and have enough money to sustain herself, so she doesn't really care about Miere... or at least she shouldn't because again they knew each other for a month, but somehow in that one month of being together, he was able to woo her that much, which is absurd because again, they barely did anything noteworthy together. Afterwards, of course, Miere is far more lovey dovey to make up for the time that they missed together, but it's still very strange that Seita would just accept it without really any anger or disappointment. I also feel like her falling for Miere's more lovey dovey side so quickly is a bit out of character, but that just might be me. She's not aware of Miere's assassin or more devilish side, so I'm curious to see how that will end up in the future.

Okay, we finally end up with Miere and I really want to like this guy because again, I love the damsel yandere on guys, but I just don't understand what he's doing and neither does most of his other servants. I think the logic is that because Seita married him to help him with his incompetence (and to get out of her bad family), he has to continue feigning that kind of personality, but like I said before, if the two are in a contract marriage they cannot divorce until after four years like the contract says, so even if Miere pretty much killed someone in front of Seita, they two wouldn't be able to divorce or else Seita wouldn't be able to escape her family. Even as a damsel yandere, he does very basic things for incompetence like not being able to do any of the actual documentations, not being able to put his shirt on (or something) and not staying on the right side of the bed. I personally think he could have gone further either pretending to be completely innocent and himbo like or just incompetent in terms of clumsy and can't live without Seita type deal, but he doesn't really commit to either of those. He also, again does the really stupid thing of faking his death for three years, which kind of basically only leaves on year for you two to actual fall in love, which you are extremely lucky that Seita even speaks with you afterwards and doesn't just move on with Royus since she thinks that you're dead. Other than that, he also uses his royal money to buy things for Seita and make deals for her, while also trying to find secrets from Royus to try to snuff him out, as well as just use his power to do whatever he can to be with Seita. And that's about it. I guess it's fine, I think the artwork is also a bit stiff in a lot of places but like, there's nothing specifically special or interesting about it.

Overall, I think it's a good concept that's not very well executed. I would have liked it if Miere had an actual strong reason for him to actually pretend to be stupid. And perhaps actually use his assassination skills for something useful instead of just having it be something that he has and basically never uses.

[flightfoot]

Do you have recommendation for Adrien centric fic that doesn't revolve around love square?

Yeah sure! Love Square still exists in some of these, but it ain't the focus.

---

Slowly Fading (from my misery) by @wehadabondingmoment

“You’re looking awfully deep in thought today, minou.” Ladybug’s gloved hand stroked over his hair and Chat Noir closed his eyes with an unstable breath. He got like this sometimes. Lately, it had been getting worse. Or: Gabriel likes using the rings to order his son around. After a while, it starts having effects on Chat Noir as well. (The more often Gabriel commands Adrien to act a certain way, the more it gets ingrained in his mentality. He suffers because of it.)

This is a gorgeous fic. Adrien’s been puppeted around, forced to obey orders for reasons he doesn’t understand, for so long, so often that a lot of times his own body doesn’t even feel like his. A lot of residual orders keep on bubbling up and stopping him from doing what he wants to do, and he just… doesn’t understand why. Considering how Adrien looked in Pretension when Gabriel forced him to go to his room so he could talk to Marinette alone, and how desperately Adrien tried to head back there but couldn’t make himself open the door, how terrified and confused he’d seemed, I think his feelings here, his mindset, is pretty close to canon.

---

adrien agreste and the consequences of tweets making fun of yourself by Anonymous

Well, Adrien thinks, what’s the worst that could come from a few poorly thought-out tweets lightly ribbing his own civilian identity?

I love the focus here on how people just assume what Adrien’s thinking and feeling and act on his behalf, without actually waiting to see what HE wants, and Adrien’s growing frustration. How they create a version of him in their heads, but don’t care to check with reality to see whether he actually wants their “defense”. 

---

The Parable of the Caller by @nemaliwrites

A week after Hawk Moth’s identity has been revealed, Adrien finds himself with nowhere to go, nothing he can do, and worst of all, strange gaps in his memory he can’t explain. In a stroke of luck, he stumbles upon a burner phone filled with voicemails from one of the Saviors of Paris: Chat Noir himself, who disappeared following Hawk Moth’s arrest.

But with each new voicemail Adrien listens to, he’s forced to confront the fact that there might be some kind of connection between himself and Chat Noir — and discovering it might leave him more broken than before.

I absolutely adore this fic, it’s a fantastic character study for Adrien! Basically in this universe, Ladybug and Chat Noir talked about who should be Guardian, with Chat eventually convincing her that he should be the one to take it on, primarily due to the whole “the Guardian gets amnesia about Miraculous-related matters” situation, and wanting to protect Ladybug from that. Then he finds out Gabriel is Hawk Moth, they take him down, and he relinquishes the Miracle Box and his guardianship to Su Han - all without having a Reveal with Ladybug, since well, he’s not in the greatest shape mentally at the time.

It’s a real treat to see Adrien’s thoughts and feelings about one of the Heroes of Paris leaving him all these voicemails, treating him like this close friend for reasons he doesn’t understand, and just seeing Chat Noir as this outside person. He’s got a very different viewpoint on Chat when looking from the outside than he would from the inside, with being able to see his heroic and good qualities far more easily when he doesn’t know that he is Chat.

Also Marinette’s struggling in the background of the fic with the loss of her partner and guilt over sending Adrien’s father to prison. It gets touched on at various points, and you can tell that she’s having her own story off to the side that we’re just not entirely privy to, what with this tale being told entirely from Adrien’s perspective.

---

Eventually by @lucid-ao3

Adrien’s life has been dictated by rules, monitored, and controlled for years. He has learned to compartmentalize. It’s not that bad. It always gets better, eventually. Doesn’t it?

Recovery can be an unexpected obstacle when you didn’t realize you were being hurt in the first place.

OR: How Adrien lives and copes with the emotional abuse inflicted on him over the years, and how he ultimately could overcome it.

If you want a good “Adrien doesn’t realize how abusive his father is but slowly buckles more and more under his tyranny, until things come to a head, and he actually gets the HELP HE NEEDS” fic, this is a good one!

---

Awaken by InkyIbis

The previously white butterfly, now oozing black and purple as a conduit of the butterfly miraculous powers, flutters softly within the silvered-gloved hand.

It sits there for a long time.

"Go, my akuma," The soft sigh pushes the butterfly, the akuma, out towards the despair of a love not returned. The same ache within his chest. On a level so great that he's willing to sacrifice the city to mend it.

It's okay if he's the villain for now. He'll force the miraculous of creation and destruction to be revealed, and once he gets his hands on them, none of this pain, none of his loss, will ever happen.

This is essentially a canon rewrite for Miraculous (specifically seasons 1 and 2, with a bunch of the events mixed around) that focuses primarily on Adrien, with his relationship with Nino being the main driving relationship of the fic. (Don’t worry, Marinette’s still treated fine, she’s just not the focus). This is the best “rewrite Miraculous with more of a focus on Adrien” type fic I’ve seen, with it reworking the plots of the episodes so that they’re different enough to be their own distinct thing - it’s not trying to just rewrite the canon episodes but from Adrien’s POV, there’s a lot of lore changes going on as well, and things occur in different orders.

Like lorewise, Chat’s given a more important role in cleaning up the mess the akumas leave, with his power helping to cleanse akuma victims and he and Ladybug needing to use their powers in tandem in order to cast Miraculous Ladybug. There’s also no Miracle Box holding the kwamis. Instead, Chat sometimes surpasses his limits and ends up summoning kwamis, which is dangerous to him, but very useful.

What really makes this fic great though, is its focus on Adrien’s emotions. You really get a feel for Adrien’s insecurities, especially when it comes to not feeling like he’s good enough for Nino, with not wanting to bother him when he absolutely should, with feeling like he’s not a good enough friend to him, and then there’s dealing with all of Gabriel’s usual abuse on top of that.

Speaking of Nino, this is an Adrino fic (though several characters get crushes on Adrien, Nino’s the one who matters most for this), though a slowburn one. Nino’s clearly head-over-heels for Adrien, but Adrien has like, no context for what a romantic crush feels like and is basically viewing Nino the way he viewed Marinette in canon prior to season 5. He clearly cares for him a lot, including romantically, he just... doesn’t get it.

Anyway, if you want an interesting canon rewrite fic from Adrien’s perspective with Adrino as the main pairing, this is a good story to pick up!

---

Dr. Walker & Kitty Hyde series by @pearl484-blog

Summary of the first fic, Rain Falls, Everybody Lies:

Chat Noir loves the rain. He loves the danger. He loves the excitement, and he especially loves how much Catwalker hates it. 

Jekyll and Hyde AU

Adrien AUGreste Entry 3: Rain

So like the summary says, and the title indicates, this series is inspired by the popular conception of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - not how the book actually goes, but how it’s portrayed in popular media, with Jekyll splitting himself in two, with a “good” side and a “bad” side. 

During Kuro Neko, instead of just changing his appearance through changing his mindset, Adrien took more extreme measures, sealing off his “undesirable” characteristics, his anger and sadness and all his sharp edges, into the ring so he could assume a more placid, genial persona that’d be more accepted - Cat Walker. 

But Chat Noir’s still there, taking over whenever Adrien gets too testy, and desperately trying not to be pressed out of existence entirely. With embodying Adrien’s sealed anger and snappishness and rebelliousness, he’s not too kind to the other heroes - he already felt looked down upon and ignored before this, and seeing them accept Cat Walker while he’s fighting for his life doesn’t endear them to him either.

The series isn’t unfair to them - this isn’t a case where one party is entirely in the wrong and another’s entirely in the right. Marinette, Zoe, Nino, and all the others - they did wonder about what was going on with Chat, but he wasn’t in a position where he could see it, and he did have legitimate questions about how much Ladybug would budge on things, if he’d told her what he was going through. It’s a series that emphasizes characters hurting and lashing out in some terrible ways, but that hurt still being respected, and working things out, trying to get everything to a better place.

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Shadow of the Chat by @pearl484-blog

Chat Noir discovers that he has a living Shadow. Unfortunately for him, it is not fond of Ladybug. Inspired by the prompt: 5 times Character A and B thought they didn’t have anything in common and 1 time they realized how similar they are.

I wrote a fic based on this one and @wackus-bonkus-maximus fic “One Does Not Love Breathing”, basically importing Shadow into odnlb in order to help take down Monarch. It’s called “One Does Not Love Shadows”, btw.

Anyway, I love how this one-shot uses some of Carl Jung’s ideas about everyone having “shadows”; parts of ourselves that we consciously reject or suppress, and using that to get Chat some help. If you’ve ever played a Persona game, this will be familiar to you, as those games are based off of Jung’s ideas as well.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Just wanted to let you know that your Pretender AU has given me a Smokescreen brain worm.

What is he? What is his purpose? Why is he so secretive and mysterious?

(you don't need to answer these questions)

I am going to answer them anyway because at this point, all of the AUs I am particularly fond of are going to be turned into fics eventually. No use beating around the bush here on Tumblr. Glad to see my Pretender AU has infested a mind other than my own!

Optimus, while devoted to his task, was no fool. With Megatron targeting him and his inner circle of active Pretenders, he needed a failsafe. His initial plan was to create a cache of Pretender larva which would, in time, develop on their own and either come to serve under him or one would naturally evolve to take on the role of Firstborn. Thousands of Insecticons were instructed to remain in stasis alongside the cache as a barrier. Then to be safe, he guarded them through careful artificial EM field generator which gave off the impression that his brood were one huge dweller and carefully never visited. That was Optimus Prime's failsafe.

However, without his knowledge, his creator began yet another experiment.

Optimus was the first, and his biggest folly was being put into the wrong mech. If his host had been ANYONE else, his life would have been all but safeguarded and he could have grown his brood in peace and even become an ally to Autobots and Decepticons alike given enough time. But Orion Pax was influential, and that meant that Optimus was, for all intents and purposes, a failure in Shockwave's optics. He was too well known and in such extreme circumstances that he could neither be studied or fulfill his function properly. With all that in mind, Shockwave attempted to create another Firstborn in order to have a backup.

Everything went according to plan. A new Pretender was made, and this time its biology was adjusted so that it would not require a host. Shockwave built its CNA so that it would have its monstrous form and a completely normal civilian appearance. Then, in order to keep Megatron from noticing his creation, Shockwave quietly placed his newest creation amongst the last generation of sparklings to emerge from the Well. It was then taken in and raised amongst soldiers and Shockwave returned to serving Megatron, content in the knowledge that his Pretenders, his failsafe to ensure the survival of their species, were going to fulfill their function one way or another.

But of course, biology tends to act of its own accord. Smokescreen instinctually knew from the moment he could think for himself that there was already an active Firstborn. And thus, instead of shifting and becoming one himself, he instead adjusted his very CNA over time. He served in the Elite Guard with the express purpose of getting to the only living Firstborn and was quick to take the opportunity to serve Alpha Trion if it meant access to relics that could be of use. He did not intend to be thrown into a pod and sent careening toward Earth, but it all worked out in his favor in the end.

(He did in fact try to eat the phase shifter to store it before Alpha Trion caught him.)

Smokescreen had the potential to be a Firstborn, but with Optimus very much alive and well, he changed to fulfill a less critical role. His entire functioning revolves around safeguarding the future. If he cannot create new life himself, he will protect the future of their kind, consequences be damned.

Backstory out of the way, Smokescreen is an Attendant. He is a one of a kind, but likely won't remain that way if the Pretenders are allowed to increase their ranks. His entire purpose is not necessarily to protect living Pretenders, or even attach himself to any of them. Rather, he developed to be a pragmatic and logical entity more focused on long term planning. He does not care a great deal about any other living Pretender because of the way he functions. If he knew about the cache, he would have been guarding it with his life until he sensed the death of the other Pretenders and knew it was time to wake his kin. But as he was unaware of it, he has settled for throwing his entire spark into taking care of Optimus now that he's on Earth.

Smokescreen does everything he can to keep Optimus relaxed and secure. A happy Patriarch is one who will produce more lava. More lava means more Pretenders. And of course, since Optimus is at war all the time, Smokescreen is able to satisfy his lingering desire to rear young via tending to Optimus's spawn. He is creepy even to other Pretenders. He is a little too obsessed with Optimus, or rather Optimus's spawning capability, for any Pretender to like him all that much. The only reason he is tolerated is because of how much calmer Optimus is around him. The Prime himself assumes that Smokescreen was an early hatcher from his failsafe cache, which is why he is unconcerned with Smokescreen's strange behavior and lack of true attachment to the group.

Smokescreen is well aware he is not well regarded by anyone save for Optimus, and so he has conjured up countless plans to take as many larva as possible and flee in the event things go up in flames. He's a schemer, and he is not willing to risk his life when the Pretenders are yet at risk. Their species comes before all else. Let Optimus fight, Smokescreen will secure their future.

[mrultra100]

I know this is a bit sudden, buuuuuuuuut...

I've been thinking a fair bit about the canned MSM tv show recently. For those not aware, Big Blue Bubble was originally planning to turn My Singing Monsters into an animated series. However, they've since canned it for... reasons? I dunno, I’ll never understand how BBB came to can this idea, but from the looks of it, this series looked like it would be very good. I even have a few thoughts dedicated to how this could work, if it ever get brought back from the dead. And that includes things like the personalities of the main characters, along with some juicy ideas for things like worldbuilding based on the games' surprisingly deep lore.

Pom Pom- A cheerful soul motivated by endless creativity. Her main goal in life is to create various musical masterpieces as a sort of maestro. A bit like Charlie from Hazbin Hotel, if you can see it.

Mammott- The lovable doofus of the trio. Loyal to his friends, Mammott isn’t the brightest bulb in the shed, but his heart is much larger. Can get into sticky situations due to his state of mind.

Furcorn- The straight-Mon of the trio. While he’s more than happy to support his friends, he serves as the voice of reason within the group, especially with things like Pom-Pom going in over her head, and Mammott’s child-like curiosity getting the better of him. Is also both sassy and blunt.

While the general tone of this show would be similar to the laidback and wacky tone of the original games, Those Singing Monsters could have its own sense of worldbuilding, and that could be reflected in the tones of its seasons. The plot of at least the first season revolves around Pom Pom and co going on all sorts of wacky adventures across the Monster World, singing songs and getting into all sorts of mischief along the way. An idea for an overarching plot could go into in a couple of ideas.

Idea A- The rediscovery of the lost element of Fire, and the attempts made to bring it and the Monsters belonging to that element back into The Monster World. Could also expand on and and show off an animated iteration of the events of the Dawn of Fire, the events that led to its end and the Fire monsters being forced into hiding, and how it’s affected The Monster World since.

Idea B- Admittingly, this could work more as the plot of a Season 2, but the story of the Celestials could work. How they came into existence, their history with the Colossals, the formation of Starhenge, and how the end of the Dawn of Fire led them to being dormant. Due to some sort of problem, Pom Pom and co. would go on some sort of grand, season-spanning adventure to find the Celestials, reawaken them, and bring all of them back together.

It's not entirely perfect, but an attempt was made. Heck, you could even throw in more aspects of the franchise's world into this show for more plots; Things like the Magicals, the Shugafam (Probably have Shugabush be voiced by Kristian Bush himself), the Ethereals and the Pocket Dimension, the Rare and Epic monsters, the Wubbox and the Wublins, The Colossingum, Mythical Island, and more would all help with the stories of this show.

And as much as it sucks that it's currently canceled, maybe, in some sort of strange sense, there's hope for TSM. The franchise has been getting more and more popular in recent years, so Big Blue Bubble could be made to realize the potential of a MSM show, and roll with it. And besides, Fandemonium wasn't the best way to go around with the concept of a My Singing Monsters show. As much as I can get behind it, they should've thought about it more.