(emerges from the bushes with a megaphone)
CONSIDER THIS
SO YOU KNOW HOW IN PJO, ATHENA'S KIDS ARE ALL JUST THE LIVING EMBODIMENT OF HER APPRECIATION AND ADMIRATION OF SOME MORTALS INTELLIGENCE AND/OR CREATIVITY?
IF WE APPLY THIS MECHANIC TO EPIC THE MUSICAL, WE COULD GET AN AU IN WHICH AT SOME POINT DURING THE TEN YEARS IT TAKES ODYSSEUS TO GET HOME, ATHENA SHOWS UP ON ITHACA WITH A BABY ALL LIKE "I was moping about the last conversation i had with your husband and accidentally made this, here you go." AND THEN HAND SAID BABY TO PENELOPE BEFORE DISAPPEARED JUST AS FAST AS SHE APPEARED.
(throws the megaphone as a distraction and retreats into the bushes again)
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[ID: Various digital drawings of Jonathan Sims from TMA, all set during season four. He is a tall, thin British-Indian man with receding and unruly curly grey hair. It Is long and usually tied back half-up, half-down. His skin is covered in a variety of scars, some fresher than others, and he wears rectangular glasses. In the first drawing, he is staring with focus down at the cigarette he is lighting. In the second, he is shown in profile, wearing a noticeably oversized mustard-coloured jumper, the neck of which he holds to his mouth and nose, with a tear visible in his eye. In the third and fourth drawings, his eyes glow red as he looks down with a sardonic smile, then at the viewer with a grave expression. Beside these there is a transcript excerpt that says “ARCHIVIST: (flatly) Or perhaps you could answer some questions.” In the last, he is shown sitting against an unseen wall, seemingly asleep, with his glasses tucked into the front of his shirt, and his head propped against his hand. Amongst the drawings are a cassette tape that has the note “recording by Martin Blackwood” and little hearts surrounding it; a lit zippo lighter with a spiderweb design; a clean and disembodied human rib; and a smartphone with a cracked screen. Above the phone are a series of texts sent seemingly from Jon to Martin: “do you hat e me pleas be honest”/”iM only yipts i PORMISE MAETIN”/”i;m sor ry for inconvcebie d.Ng you :’(” Then, there is a timestamp for “today, 9:34am”, followed by more messages: “Sorry. I want to reiterate that I’m still very worried; I don’t trust that you’re safe.”/”Let me know if I can help you.” The last message is a single heart emoji, but it is showing as not delivered. End ID.]
two of them
idk what to tell u. in s4 this man simply has a certain pathetic rizz. a wet dog je ne sais quoi.
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been having massive brainworms of yachi and kiyoomi meeting in college and becoming close friends + yachi having to play wingman for kiyoomi when he meets you
cannot stop thinking about unlikely friends yachi and kiyoomi. they probably first met during nationals in kiyoomi's last year in itachiyama. maybe she piqued his interest when he heard her tell hinata to go back to the bathroom and wash his hands properly.
they met again in uni and stuck together until they graduated and had to part ways because of their career choices.
and it probably was a gradual thing too, how they became friends. with kiyoomi being generally prickly and yachi being so shy. they just started sitting at the same table one day in the library. then, small nods of acknowledgment became hesitant attempts at small talk.
then, it turned into kiyoomi crashing into the chair across from yachi that he has deemed his throughout the semester and immediately complaining about some professor while yachi nods in sympathy.
then, it turned into yachi buying two orders of her coffee for that day because she knew kiyoomi would try stealing her coffee under the guise of "i just wanted to try what sugary concoction you brought today, hitoka. c'mon." that he swears he doesn't like.
they probably also have matching keychains that kiyoomi bought for them on a whim one day when he was out in the city. and kiyoomi was definitely the person yachi had on speed dial for when she went on dates that started well but ended up making her uncomfortable.
and in turn, yachi was the first one he told about you, about the person he was paired up with for a class presentation. she was the first to notice when kiyoomi started crushing on you, even before he himself realized. to notice the way kiyoomi would stare at you longer than necessary, gaze warm with an undercurrent of longing. and the way it might not be as one-sided as kiyoomi deemed it was when she catches you stealing glances at him when you think no one was looking.
and naturally, yachi is the first to set the both of you up, ditching the hangout the three of you planned with motoya and tsukasa (that was two weeks in the making, mind you) because "ah, sorry! a very important deadline was moved to today and motoya, tsukasa-san, and i haven't even done half of it." kiyoomi would be disgruntled at how bad that excuse was because the three of them aren't even in the same classes, let alone groupings. and he tells yachi as much.
you are none the wiser of course. "i'm really sorry!!! i was so excited too :(( we'll make it up to you both okay? xo" yachi would send to you and to kiyoomi, "if you don't end up kissing them by the end of tonight, don't even bother texting me. good luck!"
-
[Today 10:19PM] thanks, hitoka
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The unnecessary lack of personal stakes of Marinette Dupain-Cheng in the Agreste Arc
Inspired by a recent post by @starguardianniom, with half pinched again from my own reblog:
Marinette has zero personal stakes in the main conflict of her show, except that she happened to be the first girl who helped Fu across the road, and was thus chosen to wear the earrings. She doesn't even really seem to have any reason to be Ladybug aside from the basic "I can't sit back and do nothing" she stated in Origins. So a sense of responsibility conferred by being the bearer of the earrings, and an ostensible general desire to do good.
This would be fine, except that Adrien very much did have a reason to continue being Chat Noir. Plagg's Miraculous is the source of his freedom, and a new identity of his own making separate from the carefully curated child of Gabriel Agreste. Most importantly he had so much personal connection to the core plot that his narrative potential dwarfed Marinette's beyond compare.
His mere existence is the very axis of the plot, putting it in motion by the apparent desire for a designer child seeming being the very reason Gabriel and Emile sought the Miraculous all those years ago, and the consequences of his creation being the very reason that Gabriel devolves into magical terrorism. Hawkmoth being his father whom Adrien clearly cares for and whose goal of restoring his much mourned mother setup a truly impressive case for split loyalties for when Adrien (seemingly) inevitably learnt of his father's identity and true goal:
I made a comparison before between Avatar and Miraculous where Avatar won without question. Allow me to balance the scales here: the setup for Adrien potentially turning on Ladybug, or having to sacrifice his familial bonds for the sake of justice outweighed Zuko's own setup for choosing his ''honour"/loyalty to his family over his burgeoning sense of justice.
In potential at least. Rest assured that Zuko's character arc still far eclipses anything Adrien was ever allowed.
But the point I'm trying to make here is that in the very story that bears her name, Ladybug's only reason to be involved comes from the fact that she happens to have Tikki's Miraculous. She has no personal investment in the fate of Hawkmoth than other citizen of Paris, she certainly has no conflicting loyalties.
She doesn't even have a personal reason to continue being Ladybug. You can draw a parallel if you like with one of her ostensible inspirations Peter Parker, who learnt the price of personal inaction in a harsh and unforgiving manner that selflessly drives him to protect others. You can say that the Stoneheart incident fulfills a similar role.
But here's the thing: Peter Parker is Spiderman thanks to his radioactive blood. Ladybug is whoever wears Tikki's Miraculous. If Peter retires, he takes his powers away from the protection of New York. If Marinette gives up her Miraculous, a new Ladybug will arise in her place within a day. There's no need for her to be Ladybug, to take on that responsibility, and until the season three finale there's no personal stake for her to be the girl under the mask any more than any other Parisian citizen.
And that means that Marinette isn't the heart of her own story. In Avatar, it's Aang's quest to defeat the Fire Lord because it has to be him that restores balance. In Star Wars, it's Luke whose connection with Vader that has to restore Anakin's better nature. In just about any series there is a pressing need and personal stakes for the protagonist to be that The Protagonist of that story, that make that story their story.
But the setup here has all the pathos and personal stakes placed upon Adrien. Marinette is the centerpiece of the show, but Adrien's handed all of the narrative potential even as the writers let it go to waste.
It's like preparing a finely seasoned meal, then leaving it to rot as you serve plain vegetables. There's just no reason to have the vegetables when the fine meal is ready for consumption: and if that's a problem? If the plain vegetables were always meant to be the centrepiece? Then you should have seasoned the vegetables and made something delectable with them.
Because the saddest apart about Marinette having or actual ties or pathos to the Agreste Arc is that once upon a time that was not the case.
In previous Miraculous proposals, before the PV, Marinette Cheng was at least as part of the main story as Felix/Adrien was. There were various versions of how the story would go, with one echoing Cardcaptor's plot, and the later proposals looking more like what we got in the final product.
But all had Marinette having a personal stake in the story. In the Cardcaptor-esque plot, Marinette was Fu's granddaughter (or granddaughter figure), and Fu was the caretaker of the The Orb. A crystal that contained all the "fairies" (beings that served both the roles Kwamis and Akumas would later take). The story kicked off because Marinette brought her crush Felix into her Grandfather's store and accidentally broke The Orb, shattering it and allowing the Fairies to escape across Paris and empower countless people- heroes and villains both.
It was her mission to retrieve the Fairies, because she was the one who had released them. She was Fu's granddaughter and it was her responsibility to clean up her mess. It was her story, and Felix/Adrien was the one with less direct connection.
Later proposals ditched The Orb as the Kwamis were developed, but up until the most recent and final versions of the story Marinette retained Fu as either her blood Grandfather outright or at least a mentor so close from her childhood that she thought of him as a Grandfather. She also was usually being trained to be a Guardian or something like it herself from childhood.
She wasn't just a girl Fu found on the side of the road. She had as much connection to the Guardians and their world as Felix/Adrien did to Papillion. It even added a certain Montague-Capulet tragic element to the romance, since if Felix/Adrien and Marinette ever got together it would mean one having to choose between their partner and their family.
But for some reason, in the final product Marinette was stripped of all pre-series personal connections to the Miraculous.
The question is why? Was there really so great a need for Martinette to be "a girl like any other" that all of the plot relevance needed to be stripped out of her and added to Adrien, only to then completely ignore all that potential pathos by sidelining Adrien at every turn?
Because if you weren't going to do anything with Adrien, then all you've done is needlessly undermine Marinette's potential as a character.
Seriously, if you had given me the backstory of these two characters and asked which one was the main character: there would have been no chance I would have selected Marinette. Because all the writers have given her backstory is side-character material, whereas Adrien's very existence, as well as his relationship to his family and the Miraculous is at the heart of the story.
And I doubt there would be many others who would think otherwise.
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