#almost Chloe

[loganhowlctt]

HUGH JACKMAN as THE WOLVERINE aka James 'Logan' Howlett (2000-2024)

X-Men (2000) X2: X-Men United (2003) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) X-Men: First Class (2011) The Wolverine (2013) X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Logan (2017) Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

[bigfatbreak]

Does Chloe tone down her direct bullying/harassment of Marinette after that day to just the dead mom jokes out of guilt, or is it more that Marinette now being homeschooled means Chloe just lost access? Also, does Lila try the whole lying/sabotaging thing on Marinette and just fail or does Marinette just not care?

Lila has no reason to sabotage Marinette because Marinette isn't threatening her little empire she wants to build. In fact, she really wants Marinette on her side BECAUSE she's not apart of the school, so she doesn't need to keep up an elaborate web of lies! She can just try to befriend a talented girl who makes AMAZING food and try to get freebies~

meanwhile, with Chloe, things got really complicated after the pool incident...

Tom was not in the mood to put up with this crap.

[gayafsowhat]

Eepy hours

[longmaxsilvarg]

something about the main menu for life is strange genuinely makes me wanna collapse and sob

[vakariaan]

ultimate ships challenge - [4/10] she cleans up nicely scenes

[valengory1234]

Wait headcannon!

Both Red and Chloe speak very proper English when in an argument.

Because Red grew up speaking in riddles, and Spanish as her first languages (yes this is because of Kylie speaking Spanish) so English was a third language to her growing up. Even though she quickly learned the slang to better fit in with native speakers, she doesn’t always get it right, and when she’s stressed she’s called back to the most proper way to speak because that’s the version she learned under the worst pressure.

And chloe’s first language is French, of course, but she had to learn many languages as princess so that she could communicate with many different royals. And her lessons were in proper grammar, because she is a royal speaking to other royals, and they all speak proper language. And she’s also just a nerd who wants to be The Best, so she knows the history of where English words come from and her enunciation is on point.

So they’re both having high emotions, and English is their only common language, (as they found out the hard way) and they both just sound like the most proper and pompous assholes ever when they argue with each other.

And this isn’t just with each other, this translates to arguments with other English speakers in their age group. You’re trying to tease Red about Wonderland customs but you accidentally got under her skin for real, and she sounds like Henry Viii. Someone is trying to duel with Chloe but she brandishes her sword and starts talking like Shakespeare. Which just bewilders everyone!

[prophetickisser]

if you love me, you don't love me in a way i understand

wishbone, richard siken

[dum-vivere-vinum-rubrum]

Ah yes, 0.5 pics, my favourite

[xenofork]

when the za make you cray

[chaoticnerdsstuff]

Forced to be the father that stepped up😔

[spittyfishy]

Pokémon Journeys ladies and gents

[xwonderlandresidentx]

The mental gymnastics these people will do to defend a child abuser is downright astonishing

[whimsicalcotton]

girl stuck in timeloop has no problems whatsoever. more at 11

[snailvibes]

Evening chat I give you my list of some of my autistic Max Caulfield related headcanons except a lot ended up being pricefield related oops (does include spoilers)

Remember these are all HEADCANONS and me just being silly and having fun projecting on my fav lol

- that grey jacket she’s always wearing? That’s her comfort clothing item why do you think she’s still got it in double exposure

- even ever since she was really young Max has always been a picky eater bc of dealing with food textures and generally not liking a lot of things. Chloe always tried to make sure her mom bought things that Max liked so she could always have stuff to give her no matter what

- Max doesn’t really know how to like. Enter group discussions, it’s a lot easier for her to talk to people if it’s either one on one and with someone she’s familiar or comfortable with, she knows what she’s gonna say to someone before going in (like “I’m going to go up to Kate and check in on her” or “I’m going to go up to Brooke and ask about her drone”), or it’s someone talking to her and asking her questions, so when it’s people just generally chatting in a group she usually gets left out cus she doesn’t know how to jump in

- loud noises usually overstimulate her (vortex club party was hell) and growing up one of the more common times that occurred was when it stormed outside :) [which still held true throughout the game :))] post sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending she just kinda completely shut down in Chloe’s truck for a long while through a mix of it and the emotions from everything

- aside from Chloe, Kate was the first person Max found who actively listened to and engaged in her infodumping. During their first few tea hangout sessions she’d find herself accidentally going on about photography and stop herself, and every time Kate would encourage her to keep going cus she enjoyed hearing about it (ultimate Loves to yap + loves to listen duo)

- a lot of the time when Max shuts down she ends up going nonverbal for long periods of time and Chloe is the only one who can translate what she’s trying to communicate lmao. Everyone else, while they mean well, tend to just get confused so if she’s like with Kate or Warren when it happens they’ll just be like “shit time to track down Chloe”

- Chloe’s hair is one of her favorite things to mess with and play with cus she loves the sensation of running her hands through it, so when she’s overwhelmed Chloe will just take off her beanie and let Max run her hands through her hair for as long as she needs

- The Captain is her comfort plush which is why she brought him with her to Arcadia Bay. Usually she carries him around with her as much as she can but she didn’t wanna get made fun of for it at Blackwell so she started keeping him in her dorm. Post Sacrifice Arcadia Bay, she drags Chloe back to Blackwell before they leave so she can retrieve him from the rubble and starts carrying him with her everywhere again. Post Sacrifice Chloe she just starts carrying him with her everywhere at School without really worrying about what people will think, and everyone just doesn’t say anything cus they can tell she needs it.

- Max relies on music a LOT to block out the world when everything is too much. Chloe knows this and when she’s not using her earbuds to do it alone, will always offer to sit quietly and listen with her if she wants

- Warren Graham I know what you are /ref him and Max infodump about nerdy movies together almost every chance they get and sometimes they have to be pried apart in the halls to get them to go to class bc they will go on for hours if left alone to

- going back to that “Max struggles with conversation in groups” point, if said convos are happening in the photography classroom whether it’s a “class discuss this” moment or a group project, Kate will always try her best to get Max included in ways that work for her like asking for her thoughts or just pulling herself away from the group to chat with Max one on one

- girlie needs very specific instructions for things because otherwise she will overthink what to do and get confused and this has screwed her over with so many class assignments but I think she’d get help from Kate in that regard because she’s the only one she’s not anxious about asking if she knows what someone meant by something

[longmaxsilvarg]

that cardboard that max and chloe drew on has lived so many lives. how it survived a tornado i'll never know but seeing it in lis 2 (and bts) did so much good for my brain

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

So, controversial topic. taking in count that in a month, the webcomic "scarlet lady" is gonna end ¿what are your feelings about it?

I know that there's people out there that don't like it for the chloe salt, but i have to admit that the damnation that chloe went through, at least for me, gave her more agency than canon, for the fact that it wasn't manipulated by outside forces like canon did, it gave her the right to choose to be better or worse.

Another great element is that it does what canon refused to do: five back Adrian his agency by letting him vent his frustrations AND let him realize that his father is a bastard.

If you don't agree, that's more than excellent, i want to know your take in this topic, that being positive or negative 😄👍

My friend, you are talking to a big Scarlet Lady fan, so I'm happy to give my thoughts! Get ready for some gushing and in-depth discussion of the adaptation process. That's really what all fanfiction is, but Scarlet Lady is more of an adaptation than most since it's a true canon rewrite that often requires you to know canon to fully appreciate its jokes and meta commentary.

Before we get into it, I want to give a link to the comic for those who haven't read it. The artist/writer is @zoe-oneesama and this is page one of the comic. I'd follow the comic link if you haven't read it as the comic is nearing its end, so going straight to Zoe's page will spoil you on elements of ending.

General Thoughts on Adaptation

Adaptation is an art, not a science. There are things that are objective elements of a story. Things you really cannot change if you want people to feel like you're telling an adaptation of a given tale. But there are also plenty of elements that are more subjective. Things some people might consider vital, but that aren't truly necessary to stay true to the story's core. (Yes, the character core thing applies to stories too!)

For example, to be a Cinderella adaptation, you need to have some sort of big reveal moment where "the prince" finds Cinderella, but that moment doesn't need to involve a slipper and the prince doesn't need to be an actual prince. My favorite modern Cinderella adaptation is A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song and it twists both of those elements while keeping the major story beats in place, making it fully deserving of the Cinderella label while also being its own unique story that isn't a straight retelling, it's an adaptation.

I bring all this up because, as readers of this blog may have already guessed, Scarlet Lady does a lot of things that I personally would not do when adapting Miraculous. A big one being that I prefer a more complex take on Gabriel, but that's simply a matter of preference. A complex Gabriel is not a requirement for adapting Miraculous. Complex Gabriel vs comedic villain Gabriel is just a choice you have to make when it comes to adapting canon because canon is such a mess that both options have straight up backing in the source text. Even if they didn't, Gabriel's core role - villain - is one that leaves you a lot of room for interpretation based on other factors that we'll talk about in a second.

I'll close off this section with this: having read all of Scarlet Lady, I'll be so bold as to say that Zoe and I almost perfectly align when it comes to identifying the flaws in Miraculous because I've agreed with pretty much every change she's made. She did a fantastic job staying true to the core of canon while also telling the story she wanted to tell. It's not the way I'd redo canon, but it doesn't need to be for me to call it a fantastic story. Plus a lot of the different choices I'd make come down to narrative style and tone.

Narrative Style and Tone

I'm a novelist at heart, which means that I favor serialized storytelling. For those who don't know that word, it means stories that are one coherent whole just broken into chunks. Stories where the order matters. You can't start watching at a random episode, you have to start at the beginning. And skipping an episode usually means that you'll have no idea what's going on.

Miraculous is not a serialized show. It's primarily an episodic show, a word that means that episode order doesn't matter. Every installment stands alone.

Obviously Miraculous isn't completely episodic, but that's fine. Purely episodic narratives are rare these days. Most stories have at least minor serialized elements even if those elements are often ignored for multiple episodes at a time. This is where both Miraculous and Scarlet Lady fall. They're mostly episodic stories with serialized elements popping up every now and then.

Miraculous does this element poorly because it acts like it's a purely episodic show and then takes that to an absurd extreme. Rules, characters, and lore can never be counted on to stay the same from episode to episode even though that's not actually how episodic stories work. Scarlet Lady doesn't make this mistake. It understands that episodic narratives should have STORIES that stand alone, but that the WORLD the stories take place in must stay consistent.

Now that we've gone over the basic format stuff, let's talk about tone.

Generally speaking, tone is the vibe of your story. It can be serious, silly, dramatic, and so on. One of Miraculous' biggest flaws is that its tone is all over the place. It's a silly romcom that brings in serious topics in serious ways and then handles them with all the grace of a hippo performing ballet in a china shop because of course it does! Those topics are horribly suited to the show's overall tone so it has no way to properly address them.

This is one of the many things I love about Scarlet Lady. It takes the show's absurdist tone and honors it. That's why Zoe's version of Gabriel works so well! He's a silly cartoony villain in a silly cartoony comic as he should be. It's also why my versions of Gabriel tend to be more complex. More serious serialized narratives are where more serious complex villains thrive. Neither option is better than the other, it all comes down to how you're adapting the original work. Zoe's choices are perfect for her version's style and tone. If mine are even close to that good for my preferred style and tone, then I'll be a happy author.

Narrative Weight & The Chloe Thing

This is getting long, so I'll end with a note on Chloe since you brought her up as it's another great example of the fact that there are very few choices that are inherently right or wrong when it comes to adaptation.

I don't know if I'd say that I'm a Chloe fan, but I certainly don't hate her. I also love what Zoe did with the character! It's a prime example of a thing that I've talked about before: the issue with Chloe is not a lack of redemption. The issue is that Chloe was given too much narrative weight to be what canon made her.

Quick definition: narrative weight is the importance a narrative places on a person, event, thing, etc. The more time you dedicate to an element of your narrative, the more weight that element has in the eyes of your audience. The more they expect the element to matter. The way that you develop the element will also shape audience expectations.

In the context of canon, Chloe has more development than almost any other side character. We know more about her family, her childhood, her personality, and so on. This was an absurd choice for canon to make because Chloe is not actually important to the story they told. You could pull her out of canon and almost nothing would change. Gabriel can make akumas do whatever he wants so, lore wise, he didn't need Miracle Queen. In fact, he arguably shouldn't have made Miracle Queen. He could have just taken the miracle box and jumped right into the plot of season five. Similarly, Chloe being mayor was an absurd one-note moment that's easily replaced with something more logical.

Because of this, there are a lot of things you can do when adapting Chloe. Everything from turning her back into a one-dimensional mean girl to redeeming her to what Zoe did: take Chloe's narrative weight and petty brat behavior and lean into both to make Chloe a main antagonist while also acknowledging the fact that Chloe is a messed up teenage girl who needs some serious help. I'm super excited to see the end of Chloe's arc in Scarlet Lady as I think it's going to be one of my favorites in the fandom. That is admittedly not a high bar as I'm very picky when it comes to Chloe content. I think most of it falls flat because most of it fails to let Chloe hit some sort of rock bottom when she absolutely needs to if you want to do anything interesting with her. She's not the kind of person who will easily change or see the error of her ways.

Conclusion

Scarlet Lady is a fantastic adaption of Miraculous and Zoe is a fantastic and funny adapter. The comic might not be to your tastes - and that's fine, nothing has universal appeal - but it's still a great example of how to honor source material while doing your own thing with it, which is a true skill. One of the problems with many modern retellings and reboots is that the people running the show don't understand how to adapt a narrative. They take far too much creative freedom and end up with something that doesn't feel anything like the source.

If I found out that Zoe somehow got hired to adapt something I love, then I wouldn't have any concerns. I'd have no idea what she'd do with it, but I'd be confident that it wouldn't spit in the face of the thing I love. I'd personally read a hundred Miraculous re-imaginings with her at the helm.