#So. Basically bad end

[i3utterflyeffect]

Alan is about to get hit with a fireball and dark gets in the way and is injured. Chosen realizes that they are the one that almost killed Dark and has a crisis about it while Alan is tending to Dark.

Dark is immune to fire, I think, but a punch or something would definitely knock them down HARD. They may be strong, but Chosen is still a lot older and stronger than them!

It also probably wouldn't actually help in the end-- if anything, it would make Alan actually angry with Chosen!

The good news is it probably wouldn't happen— either because Alan waits to free them until they can talk or because Chosen and Alan simply just avoid fighting in front of Dark.

[egophiliac]

I loved your drawing(and I love your style in general) with Leia in your recent post! If/when you have time can we see more of her in your style? I get so happy whenever I actually see people mention/talk about her and she’s not just forgotten because we didn’t get to see much of her. 😭

thank you! 💙💙💙 Leia/Leah/Lea/whatever is fascinating to me. she is the ultimate unknown. what was she like? how involved (or even aware of any details of the invasion) was she? Silver's basically a physical carbon copy of his biodad, so what did he get from her? like, I understand why the two of them kind of have to stay as these super vague and mysterious figures -- the whole point of them is that their story ended 400+ years ago and they're not really relevant anymore (and. well. the more that gets explained about them, the less that can just kinda be handwaved as "oh the politics were Very Messy") (we can sit here and theorize all day but let us acknowledge that, ultimately, canon gave us almost nothing about them post-Meleanor and we'd just be making things up). I do still wonder about her though! RIP Lea, we never knew you and we probably never will.

actually you know what, as long as we're here, I think I WILL go ahead and just make some stuff up about what Silver might've inherited from her instead.

[formulanni]

Daniel Ricciardo as Judgement:

The Judgement tarot card symbolizes the arrival of absolution and the culmination of a significant undertaking, often related to past and life lessons.

Judgement indicates the cusp of rebirth.

In order to achieve that, you must look back upon your deeds and come to an honest evaluation of yourself. This leads to the awakening that signals a new way of life.

Tag list: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls

[thegreatidk]

My biggest beef with the way Annabeth was written in the show is that I think Rick fell into his own trap. Like his whole thing with Annabeth is that just because someone doesn’t look smart doesn’t mean they aren’t. And while it’s about their literal looks for both the show and the book, book Annabeth also sometimes acted in ways that people wouldn’t stereotypically associate with “smart” because I think we’ve all be condition to think bbc sherlock no emotions genius is the only way to be smart. Book Annabeth acts super flustered around Luke because she's a kid and she has a crush on him, she's afraid of spiders, and wanted to see the arch just because she thought it was cool. In general book Annabeth is allowed to be sillier and have a wider range of emotions than show Annabeth without it detracting from the fact that Annabeth is smart. I find this whole "stoic genius" idea is often used to put down teenage girls for being dumb and superficial just because they show emotions and the only way to beat it is to be cold, calculating, and emotionless and most people just aren't like that.

[bunnieswithknives]

The soul of Wicked is randomly inventing extremely elaborate relationships between characters who barely interact at all in canon. Also Fiyero is here.

[kekeandherrpgs]

Unexpected reunion

[sideblogdotjpeg]

ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally

(+ cropped versions !)

[vacz]

"Who are you looking at?" Bad End Friends (Comic)

I've spent all day trying to finish this comic! AHHHHH

So I present you an idea of a ship... Hunter x Ice Finn

"Why?" Well, if we think in the fact that in Adventure time's multiverse all the versions of Finn always ends up having a romantic relationship with a version of Huntress Wizard, and we take Bad End Friends as a canon alternative timeline where Finn didn't destroy Ice Finn's crown and so he later joined Bipper, how would Farmworld!Finn ends up with his version of Huntress Wizard as Ice Finn? Well the answer is simple: He doesn't end up with directly another version of her but someone who is similar to her... And guess who is more similar to Huntress Wizard?

That's right! Hun- Beast Wirt. I personally think Beast Wirt has actually more similarities with her since they both are like spirits of the forest who almost have the same personality, HOWEVER, I think Hunter and Ice Finn would have more CHEMISTRY and let me explain why:

They both are insane, they MATCH THEIR FREAK.

Ice Finn wouldn't be weird out for Hunter's appearance at all, like he did with the Lich, so Ice Finn would judge him according to his action and god- he gets it, At first he would hate him because Hunter is literally chopping people! But after getting an explanation of why he does this, Ice Finn would sympathize with the feeling of "wanting to protect your family" and want to help Hunter with his brother. Ice Finn proposed to Wirt the chance to save lives without having to change that much, and Hunter couldn't resist it, he could finally do something good for humanity! Maybe he could even redeem himself!

IT'S A KING AND KNIGHT DYNAMIC WITH SOME TONES OF PANTHERS IN CRIME

Hunter would watch around for people, and if he finds them then he should bring them to Ice Finn so he could freeze them. However, most of the time he spent it around Ice Finn himself, sometimes helping him with spells or other stuff like cooking, and other times just hanging around together. Their relationship is more equal than it seems, Hunter is just as enthusiastic as Ice Finn in saving lifes the way they do, Ice Finn constant joy and quick reactions are like fresh air for Hunter, who misses some real emotion in life, while Ice Finn has someone who actually cares about his safety and it's not manipulating him for his own selfish desires. Hunter loves Ice Finn's madness because it is a constant of movement, life and joy! While Finn isn't weird out at all by Hunter's more creepier madness, and actually finds him pretty cool and charming. They both don't judge each other and they are openly crazy together

Hunter is normally submissive, and has a craving for love to the point that he could fall really HARD for someone who shows him affection, of course Hunter would be protective and very jealous if someone tries something with Ice Finn, he thinks Finn as one of his more precious properties so Hunter would not let go this guy. Ice Finn is not innocent either, he was the one who kidnapped Hunter in the first place, Ice Finn makes him sleep on a cage even, you can say he also sees Hunter as a pet, one he loves so much but a thing at least...

However, even if they have these things that for normal people would be very toxic, for them is living a romance, a strange and delusional romance, where both souls lost deep in madness find each other to be their own guide though the black ocean of insanity

So tell me your opinion, I hope you guys like it! ^^

[a-s-levynn]

Between the second hand smoke and the glass on the street A Series of Small Offerings - IV/3 - day35

[youaskedfurret]

The lack of media literacy in the baldurs gate fandom is astounding. There's a good ending for Astarion and a bad ending for him and people keep picking the bad ending for him and being shocked when he's mean to them LMAO.

[butchvamp]

also it is really funny even with the chantry basically removed from the game it still gets handled with more care and respect than any of the other religions, the fact that you get so many options to comfort the andrastians when it's revealed their maker may not be real, and you can even pray at the temple later with the viper after minrathous is attacked... every character is just assumed andrastian, and if they're not it's always used against them in some way (dalish elves are repeatedly punished in these games simply for being dalish and are depicted as being foolish for wanting to connect with their gods and culture instead of assimilating and "moving on from the past") it's always amused me in that way even when trying to be critical of the chantry, the writers still manage to always grant it and the andrastians so much grace because of their real world bias (white + culturally christian) and the obvious real world inspiration for andrastianism. even with it's absence in veilguard it's still There in more subtle and even insidious ways given that all blame is placed on the evanuris instead.

[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.

[idontmindifuforgetme]

the neurologist i shadow is so funny bc she has a valley girl accent and yet she's the smartest person in the room. this woman was casually doing case consenus ab a man w frontotemporal dementia in the highest girliest voice imaginable. i want to be her i think

[aquastellae]

🌸 Good / Bad ending ❄️

[butwhatifidothis]

it annoys me so much when people say "edel had no other choice" as a thought terminating cliche. like even IF that were true, how one goes about that is still a characterful thing that gets minimized to "so it's not her fault stop being mean to her she just did what she had to". like. does she feel regret? does she apologize ot the people she's hurting? does she view it as righteous? who knows, becuase the argument is only ever used as a "stop being mean to my wife" line and not a character thing.

Yeah cuz like. Okay so let's say that starting the war was absolutely not her fault because xyz circumstance robs her of any substantial say in the matter.

What about using Demonic Beasts? What about her siccing her army and different set of Demonic Beasts on her own "friends" so that she could make more Demonic Beasts? Stealing from a gravesite to do so? What about starving her citizens, and being the only lord TO starve her citizens in their route? What about killing Judith as she ran away from her? Hell, invading the neutral Alliance in the first place? What about helping the Death Knight get away with stealing Flayn if 25 turns pass? What about saying nothing about Kronya even after Solon reveals himself at Remire? What about giving Jeritza a hunting ground to enable his bloodlust and not, like. Professional help?

She couldn't even mention a means she's working on to do anything about her starving citizens? Did she have to blame Claude (and everyone really) not immediately bowing down to her as to why the Alliance was violently invaded, and not her violent invasion being the reason it was violently invaded? What about persecuting Church followers who didn't do shit to anybody, did she have to do that shit too? Never freeing Brigid and instead stationing her men there on her route and sending Hubert there off of it; that was forced on her too? Taking Byleth's credit during the siege instead of letting them get the recognition they deserve - what, just, fate forcing her hand once again?

Are we really going to sit here and say because the war "needed" to happen, Edelgard was forced to do literally all of that (and more)? That because Edelgard was "forced" into war, she was also forced to do literally anything involving the war?

Like you said, her stans saying that she "had no choice" but to start the war does nothing to say anything about her as a character, because they also reject everything else she did regarding her war as having anything to do with her agency. They treat "she had to do this" as a means to protect the moral purity they want her character to have so they don't feel bad rooting for the villain to win, not as something that goes on to mean anything for her.

And I'm not asking for her to save literally every single person ever from any harm ever to prove her care about not going to war exists, I'm asking for LITERALLY ANYTHING. Because she quite literally does nothing to mitigate harm from anybody in this war, and regardless of whether the war was "forced" on her hands or not she absolutely could have done something to make sure her people suffered as minimally as possible. Which damn sure isn't seen in her hiding behind them as she sits in her throne room (a thing Dimitri and Claude absolutely don't do, with either similar or less time to prepare to protect their people). Or starves them, a thing uniquely said about her route (as literally all the other ones have the army go with lacking food supplies). Or allows Thales to conscript them under threat of death. Or openly saying that she thinks weak people would only stay weak after her war because they're "too used to relying on others" - because when her war takes everything away from people, it'd be THEIR fault for staying weak, which is *chef's kiss* so kind and caring amiright guys. Definitely shows off that she understands and/or cares about the ramifications of her war onto the people, and not that she has her head shoved squarely and firmly up her ass.

What does it meaningfully mean for the war to not be Edelgard's fault, if she's not going to do anything to indicate that she cares about other people enough to want to not force war on them? Hell, when she very explicitly shows she doesn't particularly care about how it'd affect people, if it affects people in a way that doesn't align with her beliefs? When she very explicitly says she's perfectly willing to sacrifice her people for her higher cause, and then goes on to sacrifice her people for her higher cause? If she doesn't even try to help others because the war was forced on her, that at best makes her one of powerless victim or uncaring defeatist - neither of which fit the resolute caring ambitious revolutionary they paradoxically also want her to be. So, again, what does it actually mean for the war to not be a result of Edelgard's agency, if she regardless of that still shows callous indifference to those harmed by the war?

It's a question no one who posits this about Edelgard is able to answer, because as you said, it's not meant to be anything more than a shallow defense against her own actions. Letting Edelgard have even the slightest smidgen of agency in her own actions means accepting that she is a massive fucking penis. A huge gaping asshole. A plain ol' jerk. Which again! Is INFINITELY more engaging to watch than this marionette strung along by literally everyone around her into "looking" like a villain, only being her "true" self when she's feeding kittens and dwawing her cwush and burping her googoo gaga babyass girlfriend they also tend to make (f!)Byleth over her shoulder

[sovamurka]

Lmao, I bet Riot Music's producers are now a lil bit angry about the missed opportunity to do anything with "Ma Meilleure Ennemie" like they did with "The Line" because you'll never guess which one had absolute 0% of promotion and which was promoted to the point of making a music video