#break in my sanity

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

With the end of season two comes a second redraw!

[Nov 2022] [June 2023] [June 2024]

[spect-era]

Buncha sitting combiners.. yay!

[archivewriter1ont]

Cadet Batch Incorrect Quotes

Cadet Hunter: Echo, my head hurts.

Echo: Here you go. *gives meds and a kiss on the head*

Cadet Tech: Echo! Can I take apart this datapad?

Echo: *board game appears out of thin air* Why don't you play with this instead, ad'ika?

Cadet Wrecker: Echo, Crosshair stuck his tongue out at me!

Echo: Crosshair, we don't do that. That's rude. Wrecker, get off of that table before you fall and hurt yourself.

Rest of the 501st: *side-splitting laughter*

Jesse: Look at Mama Echo! *takes a boot to the head* Hey!

Cadet Crosshair: *hissing, holding his second boot for shot two* Don't call Echo names!

Echo: It's not nice to throw shoes at people, Cross! But thank you. *pats him on the head*

Echo, to Rex: Yes, I have four kids now, and the bitey sniper one is my favorite.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Miraculous vs The Power of Love

I've written several posts where I talked about Miraculous' poor use of the power of love trope and how that massively turned me off to canon. Three strikes and you're out! When this topic comes up I usually bring up Adrien and only Adrien. This has led to some anger at the fact that I didn't mention love failing anyone else as it absolutely has. I've also seen some anger over my desire for Adrien to defeat Gabriel's control and win the day since Adrien is a victim and that means that it's perfectly fine if he fails to beat his father's control no matter what the consequences of that failure are. After all, the failure isn't really on Adrien. It's on Gabriel. A sentiment I understand, but don't agree with since this is a writing blog. I'm discussing the message the writing is sending not which character gets the in-universe blame.

I'm not going to change how I discuss this topic since it is my honest opinion, but I can explain that opinion in depth to hopefully save us all from miscommunication! That's why I'm making this post! It addresses all of the above. I'll be linking to this whenever the topic comes up so that I can include some nuance without having to go into all of the detail I'm about to go into because - as you'll see - this is a long one which is why I don't go into this depth in other posts. It would just totally derail them. I'm also not going to go into the deconstruction aspect of things here because this is already really long, but I do have a post on that for even more nuance!

If you disagree with any of this, that's totally fine! I just ask that you keep the your counter arguments civil. Remember, we're talking about a badly written kids show that none of us have the power to change and the magical power of love isn't real so it doesn't actually matter if I'm right about this. Nor is Adrien going to thank you for coming to his aid. He doesn't exist and, as always, my issue is not him as a person. My issue is the way the narrative uses him as a storytelling tool.

What Is the Power of Love?

The power of love is a trope where either platonic or romantic love saves the hero from some type of conflict or upsetting situation. It's a rather broad trope that can be used in conflicts of any size, but even TV tropes acknowledges that it's primarily "applied in dire situations to make things better. In fact, in many Disney movies it's the solution to everything." That definition is how I approach the power of love.

To put it more bluntly, unless we're talking about a specific example, when I say "the power of love" I am thinking of a story's climax or, in the case of something like a multi-season show, one of the climaxes. More specifically, I'm thinking of the lyrics to one of my favorite cheesy pop songs:

There comes a time When you face the toughest of fights Searching for a sign Lost in the darkest of nights The wind blows so cold Standing alone Before the battle's begun But deep in your soul The future unfolds As bright as the rays of the sun You've got to believe In the power of love

If it's not the toughest of fights or the darkest of nights, then the power of love failing may disappoint me, but I don't consider it an unforgivable sin. In some cases, I'd even be disappointed if the power of love was brought in before the climax! The power of love is the ultimate cheesy move so it makes sense to save it for the last minute if using it earlier would lessen or even ruin that last minute epic save.

To show what I mean, let's talk about another trope that Miraculous has failed to use well, but that doesn't ruin the show for me. A trope that has led the show to do the exact thing we just discussed: ignore a small moment when love should have won to allow for a bigger win when all hope seems lost.

The Evil Clone Thing

[Image description: the Buzz and Woody meme with the words "Evil Clones. Evil Clones Everywhere"]

There have been an absurd number of episodes where the evil clone/evil twin trope came into play, but the three big ones are Ladybug, Optigami, and the season four final. In each of these episodes, we see a good character replaced by an identical evil version. We also see the good character's love interest fail to recognize that their crush/romantic partner has been replaced. That means that all three of these episodes see the power of romantic love failing. We also don't see a more platonic version of love show up to save the day.

The worst of these episode is the season four final where Marinette doesn't recognize that Felix has taken Adrien's place. That deception is how Gabriel steals the miraculous so it's obviously a pretty big deal and can be argued as a major fail for the power of love. I don't disagree. I think that Marinette's love should have let her see through the lies and dislike that the writers took this route to make her lose. However, I don't have this on my list of moments when the power of love needed to win for the story to work.

While Marinette failing to recognize Felix leads to her darkest hour, it does not happen in her darkest hour. Her darkest hour comes when she actually loses the miraculous which happens in a completely different scene from the one where she's deceived. It's also worth noting that Felix is not present in this moment of loss so there was no opportunity for the power of love to pull off a last minute win.

The loss of the miraculous leads to a scene where Ladybug is sitting alone in the rain, ready to give up all hope. And what happens next?

[Image description: Chat Noir standing in the rain, smiling, holding out his hand to Ladybug]

Chat Noir shows up to reignite Ladybug's will to fight via his love and support. She takes his hand, he draws her into a hug, and they stand together as one, ready to once again face their enemy:

Cat Noir: We're gonna get them back one by one…until the very last. And we'll make sure this never happens again. Ladybug: You...and me? Cat Noir: You, the best superhero there ever was... and me, your loyal partner.

A lot of people love this scene and it led to some major hype for season five which means that it's time to quote some more of that cheesy song that I brought up at the start:

Stand by my side There's nothing to hide Together we'll fight to the end Take hold of my hand And you'll understand What it truly means to be friends You've got to believe (you've got to believe) In the power of love

While I don't love the season four final, it is a B-tier execution of the thing I was talking about earlier. Canon let love fail in a small moment to increase tension and give Ladybug a "darkest night" moment. That darkest night moment then led to a semi-epic power-of-love comeback that understandably got a lot of fans super excited for season five because they assumed that it was going to be the season of Ladynoir. In other words, for a lot of fans, the power of love did its job in the season four final!

All of this is why I don't bring up Marinette when I talk about the power of love failing. It does fail her, but not in her darkest nights and toughest fights. Any time she's overwhelmed and ready to give up all hope, someone comes along to give her the will to fight on. That person is usually Chat Noir because he's her end game love interest so of course the writers use him! His "you and me against the world" moments may not be the most epic example of the power of love winning, but they are the power of love winning, so saying that the power of love fails Marinette feels like an overstatement of harm. She's never had a total loss.

The closest we get to Marinette truly losing is the season five final. That episode feels like an ultimate-level failure to many of us, on par with Ephemeral, but the writers clearly don't agree. For them, season five had a happy ending which makes critiquing that final fight tricky. I'll be arguing that Adrien lost hard in the next section, but I can't say the same for Marinette and this section is about her so let's focus on that for now.

No matter how much I hate the final, I can't look at the picture below this paragraph and argue that love failed Marinette because what did losing cost her? This isn't the season four final where she genuinely suffered. This is her getting everything she's ever wanted! The miraculous are back in her hands, she won the heart of the boy she loves, and no one is actively messing with her love life anymore. That's a pretty solid win even if she didn't win the actual fight.

[Image description: Adrien and Marinette at the end of the season five final, kissing in the spot that used to house Emilie's statue.]

This is further complicated by the fact that - as written - the season five final doesn't put Marinette in a position to use the power of love. She's never given a chance to save Adrien or even just talk to him. She doesn't know that's he's in trouble, locked up in a padded cell, suffering all alone! And Adrien's love can't rally her in her darkest moment when all hope seems lost because - for the first time ever in a season final - she never got one of those! She was a badass in the final fight! No pep talk or supportive teammates necessary! She would have had a total victory if the writers hasn't made her try to talk sense to the villain or sent her Adrien's ring just so Gabriel could make the wish, further adding to the problem of this show's absolutely vile messaging around love.

In other words, lack of love isn't why Marinette loses the final fight. She loses because the writers wanted love to empower Gabriel in his darkest moment, a move the writers have the audacity to call a mutual victory. (Gross. Abusive terrorist should not get power of love moments without a massive redemption arc first. It's yet another insult to the trope. Gabriel did not deserve peace while his son goes on to suffer.)

If you think about the episodes Ladybug and Optigami you'll notice a similar problem. The power of love failed to let Chat Noir and Alya recognize that their romantic interests had been replaced, but that failure didn't lead to their ultimate defeat. It didn't even lead the villains to a minor victory! Both episodes maintain the status quo.

This doesn't mean that I like those episodes. I would rewrite both of them to let love win because they're good examples of small moments where love can win without cheapening or ruining the season's big climax. I just don't view these episodes as times when the show needed to use the power of love if it wanted to honor its chosen genre. That requirement only applies when it's a darkest night or toughest fight.

Before we move on, please note that Ladybug was the power of Adrien's love failing, yet I never mention it when I'm complaining about the power of love failing. That's because I'm never purposefully listing every time Adrien's love failed and ignoring everyone else. I'm simply listing the moments when love needed to let the heroes win because we were in one of the show's darkest hours and that is the only time when I consider the power of love a true requirement. Love can fail in small moments to increase the tension, but if love fails at the moment when all hope seems lost, then why are we even here?

There are only three episodes that get that level of criticism from me and each one had a single character whose writing infuriated me: Adrien.

Adrien vs The Power of Love

There are three episodes where Gabriel's identity is revealed and the final fight goes down. Those episodes are Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, and the season five final. In each of these episodes, Adrien suffers on a scale that no other character has had to suffer:

In Chat Blanc he is akumatized and forced to use his cataclysm to kill both his father and the love of his life, dooming him to spend eternity alone in a dead word.

In Ephemeral he is akumatized and forced to use his powers to hand the love of his life over to his father, thereby allowing Gabriel to win and rewrite reality.

In the season five final, Adrien is left alone in a jail cell, tormented by nightmares while his father dies leaving Adrien an orphan. Adrien is then told some truly colossal lies about what actually happened, leading him to believe that Gabriel scarified himself to save Ladybug's life. Since Chat Noir's usual role in fights is protecting Ladybug, this is arguably the equivalent of Adrien being told that his failure to show up killed his father. I'm not even sure if that's the wrong message because Gabriel did die from a cataclysm and Adrien would understandably blame himself for that, too, so maybe this was a way to address that without going too dark for kids and why does that argument hold water? Wtf was this trash fire of a story line???

When you compare Adrien's treatment in these episodes to something like Marinette's treatment in season four final you can hopefully see why it feels like comparing a broken arm to a mortal blow. It's not that Marinette doesn't suffer. In terms of individual moments of suffering, Marinette beats out every other character! But while she may beat Adrien in breadth, he is the clear winner in terms of depth and the only one who never gets a true power of love moment.

Marinette's darkest nights and toughest fights ultimately work out so that she can go on to some new type of suffering, the old suffering fading away to nothing more than memory. Adrien's darkest nights and toughest fights lead to loss and suffering for which there is no cure other than rewinding time or rewriting reality. The season five final even has Adrien directly state that he's not worthy of Marinette's love:

Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.) Plagg: Surely Ladybug can help you. Adrien: If I ask her for help, I'd have to give her information that would jeopardize my secret identity... and I can't.

This is literally Adrien's last scene in the main story line. He doesn't show up again until the happily ever after epilogue where he and Marinette kiss. In other words, the show had Adrien directly state that he's unworthy of Marinette's love and then did nothing to counter that statement. I guess this poor unfortunate soul is just lucky that Marinette likes him enough to keep him around in spite of his many failings...

Writers, seriously, what the hell are you doing? This is the kind of dialogue that should lead into a power of love moment! How is thinking about Marinette leading Adrien to despair instead of strength? Why is Plagg just accepting this? Plagg is a magical being who was assigned to watch over Adrien. Shouldn't a character like that help Adrien rally in his darkest night? Where's Adrien's you and me against the world pep talk? That should go both ways!!! Have him break out, call Ladybug to tell her that he's not coming, only for her to rally him so he comes and at least fights outside in the city while she does her solo fight! Don't leave him alone to rot while almost every other character in the freaking show gets to fight!

It would be one thing if Adrien gave up because he was alone and scared, but Plagg is there and the writers directly bring up Marinette and love only to do nothing to show those as positive forces in Adrien's life!!! Instead, Marinette is the thing that keeps him from the fight because Adrien's nightmare is him getting akumatized and killing Marinette even though Adrien knows nothing about Chat Blanc.

[Image description: Adrien's nightmare where he's a blue haired version of Chat Blanc, holding Marinette's body in his arms having killed her with a cataclysm]

To be clear, in each of the three episodes I listed above, Adrien is undeniably a victim suffering at the hands of his main abuser. They're also some of the worst moments of abuse in the entire show. It would be perfectly reasonable for a real life person to give into despair if they were put into this situation, but real life people don't transform into magical cat boys who wield the raw power of Destruction. I was not looking for realism here. I was looking for hope and inspiration!

I wanted to see Adrien win! I wanted his love for Marinette and/or his friends to give him the strength to overpower his father's control because that's what the power of love is all about! When all hope seems lost, it's there to let the hero win because love is stronger than despair, hatred, fear, and magical remote controls! It is the bright light that blasts away the darkness in your darkest night! Unless your name is Adrien Agreste, then no love for you! Suffer, feather boy, suffer!

Example of what I wanted from canon

There are many ways to fix these three episodes so love wins, but to keep this simple let's focus on Chat Blanc and what the power of love winning might look like if we let canon play unchanged up until the moment where Adrien loses control of his powers:

Hawk Moth: Cat Blanc, I'm giving you the infinite power of destruction!! Together, you and I will seize Ladybug's Miraculous and awaken your mother!!! Obey!!! Cat Noir: (tries to fight back but fails) I'm sorry, Ladybug! (He succumbs his akumatization and transforms into Cat Blanc. Ladybug watches in horror at his transformation.) Hawk Moth: Seize her Miraculous, My Son!!! (Cat Blanc lifts his right arm to Ladybug, activating Mega Cataclysm.) Ladybug: No, Adrien! You have to resist!! (Cat Blanc whimpers as he changes his mind and points his arm to Hawk Moth.) Hawk Moth: How dare you!? Not me, Adrien!! Cat Blanc: (whimpering while looking to both of them) I... I don't know what to do!!!!!!

Instead of having the mega cataclysm go off here, we instead see this: Ladybug and Hawk Moth both realize that Chat Blanc is incapable of listening to either of them. Hawk Moth's reaction is to turn and run away, desperate to save himself. Ladybug's reaction is to run to her boyfriend's side, not caring about the danger. She wraps her arms around him, closes her eyes, and tells him that it's okay. That she's here and she loves him and she'll stay here and love him no matter what. It doesn't matter who his father is, it's still him and her against the world now and forever.

The more she talks, the weaker the mega cataclysm grows. By the time she makes her final vow, the mega cataclysm is little more than a flickering glow. A black clad hand touches both of her hair ties, disintegrating them, leaving her hair to fall free around her face since that was a thing in this episode. The minor wardrobe change makes her pull back and look at her boyfriend to see that he's back to Chat Noir, a purified akumas fluttering off in the distance. Chat Noir is crying, clearly distraught, but he's himself again because Marinette's presence allowed him to focus on her love over his father's poison. They won. Love won. Fear and abuse lost.

The couple embraces. Hawk Moth's big gambit failed and they now know his identity so the fight is almost over. Paris will soon be free.

From there you can have an epic battle with the temp holders where the butterfly and the peacock are recovered. Nino gets to punch Gabriel in the face a dozen times or so as a treat and Adrien gets to cuddle up with some treats, sitting the fight out since he's already done his part by surviving the reveal of his father's identity.

You could also have Gabriel just give up because he doesn't have any moves left and the full implications of what he did are smacking him in the face, sapping him of the will to fight. Anything that lets this asshole suffer is fine by me! Emilie's fate is up to you. I like to make her at least semi-decent and revive her to give Adrien a happier ending and Gabriel the horror of divorce papers, but that's just me.

Final Thoughts

As I said at the top, I'm going to continue to complain about the way that Adrien was written in these episodes. I don't consider his victim status a reasonable excuse for the way these episodes played out. If anything, his victim status is an even bigger black mark against the writing!

I come to family-oriented media for hope and happy endings! I want stories about victims being empowered! I want Gabriel's controlling nature to totally backfire on him and not in a mutually-assured-destruction way like we saw in Chat Blanc. I want Gabriel's choice to cost him everything and for him to suffer that loss for the rest of his life while Adrien gets endless love and support, allowing him to survive the reveal and go on to live a happy life. If that's not what you're selling, then I'm not buying thus me giving up on canon after the season five final. There's just no coming back from that kind of colossal writing failure.

I will try to remember to use the word "forced" when describing the problems (as in "forced to kill"), but that's the only thing I can change while still sharing my honest opinion since my main problem with these episodes isn't Gabriel's treatment of Adrien. While I don't like how far these episodes took Gabriel, you don't need to rewrite him to make the episodes work. It doesn't matter how far the writing takes Gabriel, he should never be able to successfully manipulate Adrien while threatening Adrien's supposed True Love.

As soon as Adrien knows that Marinette/Ladybug is in danger, it should be game over for Gabriel because love is supposed to be stronger than all of the awful things that Gabriel has done up to and including the sentimonster crap. In fact, the sentimonster crap just makes it even more important for Adrien to win! Gabriel should think he has victory in the bag because he views Adrien as a perfect doll, but love proves Gabriel wrong letting Adrien overpower his amok and win. The trope is called "love conquers all" not "love conquers the mildly inconvenient." The more dire the straits, the more important the win!

Unfortunately, that's not the message Miraculous is sending. By letting Adrien give into his father's control in the show's darkest hours, the message is that Gabriel's control is stronger than love. That Adrien will never be free. That he was Gabriel's perfect doll and you were silly if you ever expected him to be more than that. That's not a message that I'm that ever going to agree with and is yet another reason why I only bring up Adrien + these three episodes when I talk about the power of love failing.

You are never going to convince me that Adrien being allowed to give into despair was a good thing unless you pair that argument with some major changes to canon like love square not being together and/or Adrien not knowing that his actions would endanger Marinette. Even then you need to design that fix in a way that ultimately allows Adrien to win otherwise you are sending a terrible message to the audience. There should never be a scenario where the final battle ends the way canon had it end.

Gabriel is the show's big bad, Adrien is his main victim, and the theme of their relationship has been control. That means that, when it comes to the final fight with Gabriel, Adrien needs to be involved in a way that gives him agency. I'm not saying he needs to fight his father on his own or even at all! I'm okay with him sitting out the fight so long as you pair it with something big like Adrien being the one to learn Gabriel's identity or something more dramatic like my simple Chat Blanc fix.

However, Adrien sitting out only works if it's his own, freely-made choice. As soon as you pair it with something like magic nightmare dust you are once again sending the message that Gabriel's control is the strongest force in Adrien's life. I truly don't understand how anyone can embrace that message and call it good, especially when canon didn't ultimately do something positive with it like letting Adrien become stronger as time went on. He actually got weaker as the show went on!

Chat Blanc saw everyone lose because Adrien was able to at least try to fight back, denying his father total victory. Ephemeral saw none of that fighting spirit and Gabriel just outright won. Season five once again saw Gabriel win only, this time, the show didn't even let Adrien be part of the fight. What an uplifting character arc for Adrien! (That was sarcasm.) Play the episodes in reverse order and you might actually have something if you add a fourth one where he finally wins!

If you want to talk about more minor conflicts where the power of love should have won then I'm happy to do that! Canon has lots of options to pick from! But unless you specify that you want to talk about something minor, these three episodes are going to be my only examples of the power of love failing because they are the only times when love completely failed the character in question. Total loss, no silver lining, writers wtf are you doing?

Listing times when love failed Marinette or Alya in the same list as these three episodes just feels insulting to Adrien unless the context is something like a list ranking the failures from smallest to largest. I'll once again point out that I don't even list the other times when love failed Adrien because my issue isn't Adrien as a person. My issue is Adrien as a tool of the narrative and the asinine message that the Agreste arc sends to the young children this show is aimed at. I wouldn't even be okay with this in a show aimed at adults unless it was clearly marketed as a grimdark take on superheroes. Miraculous should not feel like a kiddiefied version of The Boys and yet here we are.

Why was Adrien granted magical powers and allowed to fight his controlling father for five seasons if Gabriel was just going to die without Adrien getting a decisive victory? Why focus season five on Gabriel controlling Adrien to such an extreme if Adrien was never going to be allowed to break free? Why make Adrien the main love interest and focus the entire show on romantic love if you don't have anything positive to say about romantic love? Why bother getting the love square together before every single final showdown in the freaking show if their relationship status was going to mean nothing? Where is my power of love always so strong?

(Btw, that song I kept quoting is from the original English dub soundtrack to Sailor Moon R - The Promise of the Rose. It plays as love and friendship save the planet Earth from an asteroid. The updated dub replaced the song with the original Japanese soundtrack and the comments are full of people complaining about the change because the song just takes this scene to the next level! I bring this up because Sailor Moon set many people's standards for the magical girl team show genre that Miraculous is clearly taking inspiration from, but failing to fully embrace. If you don't want love and friendship to be on par with nuclear weapons and asteroid attacks, then don't write a show about love and magic aimed at kids.)

[vieramars]

For my recent comic coloring and lettering class I adapted a (slightly abridged) scene from tmagp 21. It's not perfect and the font certainly needs work but I figured I should stop procrastinating posting it. So.

please click for better quality, and hopefully tumblr didn't crunch it to the point of illegibility

This took about 3 weeks total of work over the course of 8 weeks on top of way too many other assignments 🫠 I love art school

[nikki-rook]

David Tennant as Crowley [and one aziraphale] - Good Omens[S1]

[malpractisnt]

House may be broken but this scene RAN.

I present ep22 s2 “Forever”

House, the man whose cane is practically an extension of his personality, just drops it.

Im sorry, Gregory ‘pain is my brand’ House is running, AND NOT IN THE AWKWARD SLIGHTLY FASTER HOBBLE WAY

It’s like the entire show built him up as this sarcastic, detached, pain-wrapped puppy dog, and then suddenly, here’s this raw humanity that completely shatters that image.

This scene is a visceral reaction, and it’s terrifying because he hasnt been seen like this before. No snide comments no jokes, he just runs, its a whole moment of House shedding his armor.

Bro this is a man, who clings to that cane like it’s his shield, his sword, his one excuse for being a complete menace and keeping people at arms length, but he abandons it for once.

It’s not even a dramatic or calculated toss, it’s a reflex. He realizes the baby is in danger, and his body just overrides everything. Pain? Irrelevant. Ego? who?. Cane? gone.

Like for House to physically push past his own pain to the point where his limp is irrelevant? You feel the weight of that. I KNOW I DID

[sugarpasteltmnt]

Congrats on getting into the TMNT AU COMP again with The Neon Void!! I was wondering what do you think your boys would wear for the high fantasy theme?

I SAW????? OMG WOW 😭 Thank you to those of you who nominated my silly little story!!! I'll try to do something special to celebrate (like uhhhhhh fixing all my typos LMAO WHOOPSIE)

and gosh, that's a hard one!! sorry to say that my first thought is DND parties lol (i'm not well versed in high fantasy creatures and dynamics so forgive me lol)

I can see Raph as a kind of paladin. Perhaps a "giant" paladin because he's so big compared to his brothers LOL. I think it would be cute if Mikey was fairy-esque, or an elven-esque theme-- but definitely a fun cleric. Donnie would be a goblin because 1) that would be hilarious 2) he's my scrunkly little gremlin who loves to be in his lab mehehe. Definetly an arificer.

as for Leo....

perhaps a lost bard turned "evil" sorcerer lol

[nestastits]

I’m gonna go ahead and put this bullshit to rest🫶🏻. Nesta is not leaving Cassian, they love each other and it would kill them if they ever had to be apart(both of them canonically say this in their thoughts). Cassian absolutely would not cheat on Nesta nor leave her nor hate her. He never has hated her. This man couldn’t and wouldn’t have a relationship romantically, physically, or emotionally after the first time meeting Nesta (he says this in acosf). Lastly, he has been in love with her from the first time he met her and ain’t falling out of love anytime soon or ever. He literally faught the compulsion of the crown, a Dead Trove that makes people do whatever is said by the holder, through his love for Nesta and stabbed himself not being able to stomach hurting her even if he was magically made to do it.

Does he have issues regarding his treatment of Nesta? Yes. But guess who else does? Nesta. She didn’t always treat him kindly. Did he fix what he said and did to her? Yes. As well as Nesta fixed what she said and did to him. Are they allowed to have arguments from time to time? Absolutely, if they didn’t they would never work out and the relationship would be blindly toxic. Furthermore, THEY ARE NOT FEYSAND AND THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE. NOT EVERY COUPLE HAS TO BE LIKE FEYSAND TO BE A GOOD MATCH.

Overall, Nessian are in love. They are Mated. At the end of acosf they talk about a future regarding a family of their own, a life of their own. They have been willing to die together multiple times and when faced with danger, both of them have been known to do unimaginable things (cassian fighting the crown, Nesta literally unmaking someone) they wouldn’t be able to do this if they weren’t in love and a true fated mated pair.

Thank you for reading! If you disagree don’t get your panties all in a wad and leave hate comments, I don’t feel like losing any more brain cells over nonsense that comes from people who both have no reading comprehension and have to literally change a characters entire arc/personallity to make a theory work.

[localvillagecryptid]

As briefly explored in this post, Vi's "enforcer arc" could've gone plenty of different ways- including not at all. This actually gave me another idea, though it kind of takes some fiddling and setup.

Basing a bit of this idea once more off of @srslylini proposing the possibility of Vi becoming some kind of important figure in Zaun, I think it'd be interesting to see Vi becoming something Piltover sees as an "enforcer", but for Zaun instead. This is somewhat related to this post, though it doesn't necessarily have to be to work.

Basically, if Zaun is trying to become independent, just demanding it isn't going to work, as seen in the entirety of the show. They'd need some serious stuff up their sleeves.

Obviously they have Jinx, and even Ekko, but as established in my previous post delving into the revolution-arc-that-wasn't, Jinx really isn't the activist type. And also, strong and smart as she is, there's only one of her. She'd need assistance, even if she DID have a change of heart. (This could lead into Vi and Jinx's slow reconciliation as sisters, as well as tie into season 1's themes about cycles and their fathers and how they can't achieve anything if they don't work together, etc. But I've already discussed this in the previous post.)

In a version of Arcane in which Zaun is politically fractured instead of the relative monolith it gets presented as, Vi, as probably Vander's most recognizable child, might receive some level of (unasked for) political support from people who essentially want a new Vander. Jinx and Ekko (and possibly Sevika) might also have factions of varying sizes as well.

The thing is, they're all being supported for different reasons. Jinx's main followers are seen as "blue haired radicals" (lol) who want war, Sevika's as people who want familiarity/think she can control the Chem-Barons or Jinx, Ekko's as people who're probably tired of fighting and just want peace/are hoping he has better solutions than shimmer and gangs, etc., and Vi, as I said, has people who want another Vander, who want the relative security and quiet of that era back. In other words, they each mean something different to people. And in order to make their reluctant alliance work, they'll each have to embody this "persona"/symbolism to some extent, at least to the public.

So maybe, in line with the perception of her being the "new Vander", the next "Hound of the Underground", Vi (possibly with new gauntlets, courtesy of Jinx - shoutout @blog-i-hate-friday) takes on a "protector" type image for Zaun? Jinx is the rage/spirit of rebellion, Ekko (and his cool ass tree) is the hope, Sevika's the brains that runs their messy operation, and Vi is the defender. To Piltover, they're seen as Zaun's "council". Overdramatized stories of them repaints their stations in ways the Piltovans deem more "palatable" and "civilized", with Vi as their "chief enforcer", as she and her crew are in charge of keeping actual Piltovan enforcers off of Zaun's soil and generally protecting their fellow Zaunites. Jinx spends more time making gadgets than she does blowing stuff up, but the mark she left on Piltover makes the image of the "loose canon" impossible to shake. Ekko is more worried about implementing water filtration systems or running the Firelights- who often patrol with Vi's people- to be "terrorizing" Piltover, but they still think the Firelights were responsible for Progress Day. Perhaps he becomes, in their eyes, something of a cult leader (after all, they call him the Boy Savior, he who inspires so much hope- this must be for a reason, right?). Sevika is nothing like Silco- but it makes it easier for the Piltovans to pretend she is, than to accept that a wine aunt and her team of traumatized barely-adults are running circles around them.

Eventually, in some possible future in which Zaun's demands are finally accepted- that is how Piltover will address them, aligning with their League Champion titles (though they do not have the guts to refer to Jinx as the Loose Canon to her or her allies' faces).

[norgeant]

This is our norgeant content for the week gang 👊😔

The McLaren and Williams hang out

[pkmn-redirect]

Chapter 2 - Page 20

First | Previous | Next | Latest Index

Broke my tablet pen finishing this page up- RIP. :'D

[heybiji]

bed head

[clefdesoll]

コナン くん ❤️

[lotus-pear]

just finished shido’s palace in persona 5…………..devastated beyond repair

[not-kamenx]

DO IT!!! DO IT FOR CIEL KAMINARI!!!! D O I T FOR SHIERU KAMINARI!!!!

I’ve gotten attached to Ciel if that wasn’t obvious

sorry for the lack of content (drawings and the fanfics I write or say I’m gonna write) AND REPLIES TO PEOPLE I’m taking care of my sick cat because life apparently wants me losing both of my pets in 2025 😭 I was GONNA try to be sunshine and rainbows around this time and be more social but. Welp.

being a Beyblade X fan is so unreal btw. what the hell do you mean this randomly popped up in my brain after I confidently counted on my fingers and proclaimed Robin and Jaxon had SIX letters instead of five? (Yes that happened. Only until after I counted Multi’s name I realized it was five letters.)

anyways yeah that’s to sum up what’s been happening before tomorrow’s episode drops and I explode once again

OH YEAH btw some more things ab the Mario and Beyblade X silly AU me n my friend thought of. They said I could share the memes and stuff so the top two ones are my favorites

I drew the bottom drawing a while ago because I couldn’t think of anything to draw

Multi cannot run for her life anymore after beating the entire world in one go with Chrome just speeding through the levels as fast as he can

MEANWHILE Ekusu is just chilling thinking about the sushi Sigrid is gonna make with him once she wakes up from a nap (she too got yeeted into the castle, that’s why Multi’s going)

I like to imagine Ekusu is just wearing the entire like upper half of Peach’s dress (and the crown) but like, he’s wearing his normal attire on the rest. Poofy sleeved pink shirt but normal shorts underneath and the leggings and shoes so it clashes horribly and screams Ekusu fashion because did you SEE what he picked out in Popularity Production 😭 the creators gave Ekusu OP skills but styling himself is not one of them