#i think my issue with this season is just that it needed more time...

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Y'know, if Lila was just a one-off character for Volpina and we never saw her again, a few tweaks in that episodes writing could have made it a good lesson about not letting your temper get the best of you, even in a situation where your anger is justified

This is in reference to the post where I discussed how terrible Volpina's lesson is and I agree with the proposed change. If Marinette has to be in the wrong here, that's the only way to make it kind of work. In fact, this is what I thought the episode was trying to do on my first watch. When the next season started with Lila gone, I thought, "Okay, so that episode was supposed to be about being the better person and having a more measured response when you've been wronged. I don't think it did that lesson super well, but I can see what they were going for and we'll give them some grace. Definitely one that I wouldn't just give to a kid, though. Way too high a risk of them internalizing a very wrong message."

I only gave the writers that grace because I assumed that Ladybug had truly humiliated Lila out of Paris off screen (remember, we only see Ladybug out Lila to Adrien even though Lila was lying to everyone) and that is a pretty extreme punishment for a teenager making a dumb choice. Even then, saying that Ladybug was in the wrong feels a little too victim blame-y for my tastes. Lila was the one telling the lies and using Ladybug's name for clout on a city-wide scale or possibly even a national/international scale depending on the Ladyblog's viewership. By telling those lies, Lila was harming Alya's credibility and presenting herself as a sort of authority on Ladybug, a position that she was going to use to her advantage as we saw with her manipulating Adrien. She was also putting herself at risk if Gabriel or other villains believed the lies and saw her as a way to get to Ladybug.

That means that the lies Lila told aren't exactly minor, victimless crimes like the lies Marinette and Adrien tell to hide their identities. Lilia's lies needed to be outed on the same scale that they were broadcast and there's no kind way to do that. It's going to have a brutal edge no matter how pretty the words are.

There are times when it's right to be "the better person" and let a thing go, but it's hard to view this as one of them because this was not a nuanced situation. There was no reasonable option other than issuing a public retraction and Ladybug didn't even go that far! She had a single, private confrontation with Lila and then let the matter rest. A better version of this episode might see Alya and Marinette giving a really mean retraction on the Ladyblog that they then feel bad about because they should have been more professional, but that's about it as far as possible improvements go.

If we look at what the episode actually gave us, it feels like another Gamer situation. An episode that blames Marinette for impure motivations while ignoring anyone else's faults, creating a nonsense moral that just makes me mad. Ladybug-is-wrong-for-confronting-the-liar-for-impure-reasons is certainly a take. It's just not one that I'm ever going to agree with. To give a recent, real-world example, do people really feel that James Somerton was the wronged party because his many, many lies and instances of plagiarism were outed in a brutal public takedown? (Context part 1 & part 2, though part 2 is the one to watch if you only want to see why letting lies from respected sources go unchecked can be so messy.)

To be clear, I don't think that Lila's lies were Somerton bad in Volpina, but they were starting to go down that road and they arguably reached Somerton levels by season five. Fakes identities, almost getting Marinette expelled, using her lies to get social power from Gabriel, the list goes on, which is yet another reason to hate Volpina. Its nonsense moral is a big part of why Lila could do all of that. Ladybug should have outed Lila! Society suffered and will continue to suffer because she didn't. That's why you have to stop misinformation as soon as you possibly can, but that wasn't actually the moral of Volpina. The moral was that Ladybug was in the wrong for being mean to the liar. Maybe if she'd been nicer, then Lila wouldn't be so evil now which is a very gross moral! Volpina really does feel even more victim blame-y now that Lila is the new big bad.

That's a good segue to circle back and finish off my original topic: I gave the writers grace for Volpina until Lila returned and established that she'd never been publicly outed. At that point, Volpina lost any chance at me giving it charity. The lesson was worse than I thought and I was fully justified in hating it. It's one of the ones I use when I explain why I wouldn't want a child getting into Miraculous because the problem with Volpina's moral is pretty straightforward.

[ophelia-thinks]

fuches leading john back to barry while ignoring sally screaming for her son... so he could see barry one last time and then scuttle back into the dark, forever. breaking the cycle but in an evil way.

[navree]

unfortunately i do think this was kind of a weak season finale, there's a lot of stuff from overarching story arcs throughout the season that feel really unresolved (not in a 'this story is gonna keep on going' way, just a straight up 'we're not addressing this any longer' kind of way).

like, have sam and lois talked? she has a lot of abandonment issues and the last time they interacted he abandoned her and it sent her spiraling, have they communicated about this? why did waller go on the run? did checkmate turn against her? why are slade and lex apparently on the same side now? they hated each other and slade should be thrilled lex's metallos failed, why are they suddenly apparently pals? do they even still work for the government? clark and lois's "break up" and the issues involved in it on both clark and lois's side hasn't ever actually been addressed and it needs to be, are we ever gonna see that? where tf are clark's little shorts????? are they gone forever?????

combining that with the fact that this episode feels really padded (given that there was just this constant circular 'they're up they're down they're up they're down' for like 90% of the fight with brainiac), i do really feel like the story would have been better served if they cut the padding, resolved the brainiac invasion at the end of ep 9, and devoted ep 10 to addressing these myriad loose ends in a tight enough way that the season doesn't feel incomplete but still leaving doors open for season 3. because some of the loose ends are fine, 'oh we don't know what happened to hank henshaw', that's just a good teaser for whenever he shows up next season as metallo, that's a good loose end to have for a season finale. but a lot of these just feel like unresolved plots that aren't getting any resolution ever. sam lane went through an entire character arc and we didn't see any of it and it feels jarring, it feels like a writing fail. which is unfortunate because i really love this show and most of the writing has been very good, especially this season.

so i hope that they're able to be a bit tighter and more cohesive for season 3. and also pay chris parnell a hundred million dollars so he can voice anime slade wilson in every single episode.

[hauntingblue]

I don't know what to say... everyone got a happy ending except the people who actually wanted a real revolution and had a cause for it... but it's not like we had much of their opinions on this I guess... also no final lez sex scene... tragic

[talkorsomething]

I can't sleep again.

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

huntlow shippers who cherry-pick every single frame where these two stand next to each other and TJLC it into a secret metanarrative that they’ve actually been madly in love since the moment they met, but disney forced the crew to cut the token m/f couple during The Shortening bc somehow there was no way for these two to have any meaningful conversation in the many many times they were onscreen together

vs.

huntlow dislikers who cherry-pick those same screenshots and say that because other characters blush in non-romantic contexts sometimes, it definitely means every single interaction between these two were 100% platonic on both sides and all huntlow shippers are under a collective delusion, and that dana terrace is being held at gunpoint by disney/other members of the crew to add in a romantic subplot she hates against her will. despite it also not being romantic somehow

FIGHT

[bunnyb34r]

Well glad to know I'm not the only one not feeling the Christmas season this year. Mom isnt either

Now we dont know why, but here are my guesses. Feel free to place your bets.

Is it:

Bc our aunt/great-aunt died and essentially dissolved the family

|_> Bc of this we've faced so much bullshit from the surviving family we have left.

Bc the only remaining family we have are major assholes aside from like 4 people.

Long covid?

Work stress/ working under a tyrant piece of shit.

Bc I'm an adult now so the *magic* is gone?

All of the above??

[sammygender]

listened to three episodes of mabel (the podcast) yesterday. SO good, holy shit. i’ve been meaning to listen for years and i get it immediately. just the first episode was so good. turns out i’m not actually that hard to get into podcasts i just haven’t been finding the right ones…

[sateurn]

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

These sobs really limited my tags?????

I have so many more thoughts this is so so much less than 1/2. Broski. Big dislike

[rapha-reads]

Ooooooh boy, oh, blimey.

Ted Lasso series 3 episode 11, "Mom City". Can we talk about it?

Because I think I just spent the entire episode crying and sobbing in my scarf. Had to take off my glasses at some point 'cause I couldn't see anything.

If this is the penultimate episode, what's the last one gonna be?

Between Jamie being adorable and heartbreaking and awesome and a Momma's boy, Roy and Keeley being so cool and cute and kind, Beard being heartbreaking and soft and cool as hell, Nate finally making it back to the good place, and Ted finally speaking his hurt and hs sadness and his fear... My heart is in thousands of pieces.

[sorikaied]

honestly i may have more worse blogs that i followed and ended up unfollowing after a point more than worst mutuals throughout the decade i’ve been on hellblr

[mean-vampyre]

The thing about dean winchester brain worms is that you don't know you have them until it's too late to do anything about it

[mbat]

i feel like the biggest problems with lucifer wouldnt be there if it wasnt a show written by christians for christians and i do mean that

[whispering-kavka]

the struggles of today proved to me that i might indeed be a little mentally unwell

[zindagood]

Dunno why ppl take what producers n actors say about a show in interviews so srsly, esp when the text seems to hold up on its own so well. Like its p likely they need to tone down their own discussions to be more palatable in the media or whatever sooo idk id rather rely on what im seeing there on screen than if the cast n crew rly think race is involved in the writing or not. It obviously is, i dunno why it matters if the some actors might hedge around that topic during an interview. Them censoring themselves in front of a camera is a different discussion entirely that does deserve to be criticised maybe but ultimately, i dont think it affects what has already gone into the show. Idk i just think ppl should treat all that as supplementary info that can make the text more interesting, not necessarily the entirety of what cast n crew think and feel about it

[crest-of-gautier]

a short little compilation of some of my splats from the nov 2023 greetings splatfest!