#and then get back to work properly

[pangur-and-grim]

Pangur whimpers and stares until I agree to feed her

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

how's the other guy holding up

[inthehouseoffinwe]

The ships burn and Fingolfin hates.

…the ships keep burning and Fingolfin fears.

Mad cackling can almost be heard a continent away and he can’t figure out whose it is: Morgoth’s, or his brother’s.

In either case, he knows the people Fëanor has just taken to the other side, Fingolfin’s dear nephews most of all, are in great danger. He knows his brother. And he knows what happens to the people around him when his passion meets rage in a merciless, all-consuming flame.

No one deserves to be in that line of fire.

So when his children and remaining nephews and niece cry out their betrayal and curse their uncle and cousins, he turns a firm eye to them.

“If I’d commanded it, would you not have done the same?”

They begin to shake their heads, and he frowns.

“Do not lie to me, children.”

They turn away. Fingon’s relief at his father’s words breaks his heart, his eldest should know he cares deeply for Fëanor’s sons. Surely? Has he become so distant? Would any of them have confided in him earlier if he’d just opened his arms a little more-

No use in what ifs.

He turns back to the burning ships and sends a small prayer to whoever might still listen to keep his nephews safe. Fëanor is gone, mind shattered with his father’s death, and he’s dragging his children down with him to ash and blood and ruin. They just have to survive long enough for Fingolfin to arrive. He’ll talk sense into his brother, he’s the only one who can. He’ll get the children their father back and fix all of this, pride be damned.

The Helcaraxë is the only option. His nine children spit venom at their half uncle, but no longer complain of their cousins. A year following him into this hellscape, a year of leaving the weakest to the blizzards lest everyone freeze yet refusing to turn back, has shown them exactly what they’d have done were the positions reversed.

It’s a sobering thought. He wonders what he’s done to deserve such dogged loyalty.

Wonders when he started taking advantage of the same things he hated and admired most about his brother.

Time passes. He wakes one day to a coldness in his fëa and sends another desperate prayer. A bad feeling takes route that grows day by day, fear and a strange fire dancing in his periphery urging him and his people on.

Time is running out Nolofinwë.

Ice slowly gives way to solid rock, then slush, then grass and he arrives at Mithrim in relief, all but running to the fortress, only to see little Makalaurë greeting his host. Eyes hardened, crowned in silver, heavy shoulders draped in a frayed red cloak-

And he knows it’s far, far too late.

Agony and despair are hidden behind a stony mask that he sees right through but can no longer reach. His open arms greeted with caution. Watching. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. His kind words with narrowed eyes, all but daring pity, and Fingolfin could weep.

There’s no reconciliation that can prove his love, his understanding, now.

Fëanor is gone.

His children are being consumed in the blaze left behind.

…and Fingolfin doesn’t know how to fix this.

[polliwoggers]

MSPAAAINT my best friend mspaint

[2isted-chocol8-art]

Hey! Just to tell you that I devoured all your art on Outer Wilds, I literally loved everything, and if there are some that I didn't "like" it's because I forgot, because everything, absolutely all your posts deserve the love of the entire fandom. Thank you for the fics that you made me discover by the way, I have some good reading to come!

Also, I would be infinitely grateful if you could draw Hornfels, like in they're daily life, or interacting with other hearthians, anything really (they're my favorite character, and there is so little art of them ;-; )

Infinite thanks you for everything you made, your art is damn gorgeous <333

Thank you so much for your lovely ask!! It makes me really glad to see people enjoying my art so much, specially since I put a lot of time and care in every drawing!

As per your request, have some Hornfels checking on Hatchy and Hal while they work on their translation software ::]

-> More Outer Wilds Art!

[oh-no-its-bird]

On top of everything else that's happened in the last month or so

(girlfriend breaking up with me / me running off in the night w the friend I was supposed to be maid of honor with bc her (now ex) fiance came home drunk and scared us, while ofc we also both were in swimsuits and had like NO money or even shoes due to incredibly poor timing / Getting stuck in Dallas for TWO MONTHS longer than I meant to be due to bullshit work transfer systems (and admitedly my own inability to remember that deadlines exist) / that same friend going BACK to her shit boyfriend alone to a city 4 hours away from anyone she may call for help if things go wrong / me now no longer having a place in dallas to stay for these next 2 months bc I was SUPPOSED to stay with that friend but her bastard boyfriend doesn't want me in his house anymore bc he knows I'd tell his girlfriend to dump his ass)

I have now lost my fucking house keys.

Anyways I may or may not be way less active for a bit so this is the formal apology and explanation for that. Sorry guys, we are NOT going back to ur normally scheduled rapid fire ninja content as promised for like. A minute. Possibly. We'll see. Sometimes my own motivation wave surprises me.

Tbh it's my own fault for daring to become a fanfic author tbh. Should have known the "sorry I didn't update, my house burned down teehee <3" curse would come for my ass

[hymnoeides]

Mayhaps we have some Autolycus art? I love your design for Odysseus and I’m curious how you envision his thieving grandpappy

Grandpappy… this guy def teases younger ones like ‘Got ur nose!!!’

[yirima-chai]

💜❤️Magneto❤️💜

[ravinoforre]

It's a little bit late, but Happy Anniversary to Pokémon Colosseum! This took the best part of a month to complete (working on and off). Likes and reblogs heavily appreciated! Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40

The two paintings side by side on my wall (as a side note, both of these were signed digitally on their solo photos for me to show online, since I didn't want to risk messing them up with my inconsistent squiggly signature or have the pen misfire horrifically ^^' )

[bottlemandx]

award for most neurotic 13 year old goes to...!!!!

(LOW-EFFORT FUNNIES UNDER CUT)

[loadingbnha]

⏾Moon⏾ & 𖤓Sun𖤓

[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.

[captainmaxatx]

Omega! Logan who was born in the 1800s when secondary gender roles were very prevalent but it actually really suited him and he wanted to be a home maker and have a bunch of pups but he was always too big and hairy and and not seen as a good Omega. Alphas would sleep with him but never treat him the way they would a “proper” omega and they didn’t ever want anything serious because it’s like almost shameful to have a big hairy omega.

Then times change and Omegas start breaking out of the cookie cutter roles and they go into the work force and what not (feminism but it’s omegas) and Logan is very happy for them he thinks they all deserve the right to choose, but still no one wants him. And everyone expects him being an omega with the way he looks to be at the forefront of the movement to want the change for himself, but he doesn’t.

And over the years he toughened up and stops looking to start a family and put his dreams on the back burner to become what everyone expected of him.

And then everything happens and all the sudden Logan finds himself in a universe without secondary genders, where he isn’t a too big and hairy omega, he’s just some guy.

And unintentionally he finds his way into the role he’s always craved, where he takes care of the home and the dog while Wade makes the money, and it’s the closest he’s ever been to the life he wanted. He mostly retires from fighting and heroing, but now he’s ready for a new challenge. And being near Laura has only served to dig up that old desire and instinct he tried to bury so long ago

And I mean, even if the mutant hate wasn’t as bad as it is in Logan’s old world there was still a time here not to long ago when mutants were ran out and scattered around the world. And now with the people at Xavier’s working on getting the Mutants back into the city trying to re group with their still dwindling numbers. I mean Logan and Wade should help with the mutant re population efforts, who better to do that then two very eager immortals who can heal from anything and with a whole gang of friends around them for free child care.

[chimchiri]

Secret love letter ??? Who could it be???

[mortysmith]

while we're on the subject of "morty-prime teamup" what if there was another two crows situation

[lulu-the-bugaboo]

Seeing how neat Ace's handwriting is as a child (especially compared to Luffy lol) just makes me imagine how patient Sabo must have been with teaching him

He probably had to correct him several times, and when Ace eventually got frustrated and lost his patience, he would encourage him and compliment his progress

They make so soft