#no salt intended

[zoe-oneesama]

“Therapy is for broken people, and our Adrien is PERFECT!” Aside from the inherent nastiness and problems of BOTH of the independent clauses in that sentence, considering how much Emilie is concerned with her public image as well as her image among the people in her Inner Circle, I wonder how it’ll affect her as she continues to drop little nuggets like that when she starts being seen as (and ESPECIALLY treated as) if not a Boy Mom or an Ableist Mom, at the very least an Innocently Insensitive Mom minus the coddling attitude someone like her would hope “naturally” comes with that title.

I mean, if OG, Canon Emilie went so far as to give herself Magic Wasting Disease by using a broken Miraculous to invent the Perfect™️ Obedient Prodigy Child that Literally Cannot Disobey and Has No "Flaws" instead of, you know...adoption...

I definitely see her as the kind of person who can't handle a "broken" child that might, idk, need some help?

[eriexplosion]

Okay so. I cannot take it seriously when people say that we weren't led to think CX-2 was Tech. Because no we were not just having foreshadowing of the creation of an Evil Bad Batch. The clues led directly to Tech.

We have to start with the fact that they didn't kill him off definitively. Start with his survival being debated (and there's no way they didn't know it would be debated because I choose to believe they are not stupid) then introduce a character that lasts suspiciously long and has weirdly intense beef with Crosshair and you already are inclining people towards believing this is Tech.

CX-2 goes through a speedrun of Tech scenarios with 1. the leg crushed by a heavy falling object, similar to Ruins of War 2. knocked over by an explosion leaving him dangling above the abyss from a line like Plan 99 3. going over a waterfall and crawling out in a shot that completely matches the scene from The Crossing.

One or two of these is a coincidence, all three together less so.

Plan 99 notes mixed into The Battle of the Snipers. Which the Kiners only explained as the notes 'sounding good in brass' and nothing else.

He gets distinctly Tech like dialogue and no I don't just mean 'domicile' though we do have to acknowledge that no one else in Star Wars uses this word on the regular. We also have the exact match of 'Who are you' to Decomissioned, and the matching of 'I have simply cut off her means of escape' to Tech regularly saying 'I am simply-' when explaining himself, which again is something no one else in the show shares. Tech has a distinct way of speaking that matches CX-2, especially as of Point of No Return. (And CX-2 doesn't really sound like Crosshair, because Crosshair is just straight up not as chatty as CX-2 and never has been.)

He gets a long, unnecessary scene with Phee where he suddenly forgets how to be a murder assassin and starts playing soft.

He doesn't shoot Hunter when he has a chance and chooses to instead shoot his own man, he doesn't blow up the Marauder while Wrecker is inside, and when Omega surrenders he opts to just wait for her to hand him her communicator. He doesn't even shoot Shep when Shep starts talking back to him, all of which indicated that maybe for whatever reason he didn't want to, bolstering the Tech theories.

Getting into an opinion rather than analysis here but: Evil Bad Batch is a stupid fucking idea, it serves no purpose whatsoever other than a cool boss fight that adds nothing to the story. Having a CX be someone, anyone they actually cared about would have been interesting and actually played into the themes of family and forgiveness that were set up earlier in the season. Instead it's just more people to kill off to zero interesting payoff. It's stupid.

Every person I spoke to offline thought that this was Tech. All of them. People that have never looked on social media, watched a theory video, anything. All thought CX-2 was Tech and were confused when he was speared. This was not terminally online theorizing gone wild, this was a very widespread thought and assumption.

So, if they didn't mean to do any of that and at no point intended to imply this was Tech and were solely trying to foreshadow their 5 minutes of Evil Batch fight? They did it poorly. When the majority of your audience actively believes you are leading to one direction only for it to be some other direction that you meant to lead them to, the problem is not The Audience Didn't Read It Right, the problem is you wrote it badly.

[ninadove]

Parallels. Do you see them?

Specifically:

If Colt had Felix destroy an actual plush toy — do you think his heart broke when Ladybug tore of the little frog’s arm? Do you think he breathed a sigh of relief when it got fixed?

If the rabbit plushie in Representation is meant to be a metaphor — do you think he picked it on purpose? Do you think he was intentionally calling back to this moment they shared, right before the heroes threw Strikeback into the sun, in an effort to make her understand the pain she caused?

Whichever interpretation you prefer — do you think Felix equates this akuma to his own abuse and/or perceived mostrousity? Do you think he wishes he could be saved and fixed as easily as Froggy was?

[napping-sapphic]

Weather is nice which one of you wants to go on a hike with me and lovingly give me your hand to help me over any obstacles

[kondietorei]

alas the classic outfit swap

bonus doodle underneath ^^

drew this after realizing i only drew one sea salt ice cream orz

[mckinlily]

Occasionally, rarely, I remember that Allura is dead in canon (derogatory). And then I’m filled with such repulsion and disgust that I immediately nope back to my headcanon and denial for the next 6-9 months.

[spoofymcgee]

alright i've watched death in heaven and i've entirely revised my take on clara's character to the point where i think the 6k character study of her i finished last night is just. totally inaccurate and wrong.

my original perception of her was based on the fact that the narrative and the doctor's perspective both try very hard to make her a good character. she's the doctor's companion, which means she has to be good and kind and nice.

except that she isn't.

clara oswald is special. and she knows it. she's different from everyone else–there's something exceptional, something remarkable about her–why else would she get to travel the universe with the doctor? she isn't like everyone else, and she likes knowing that. it makes her feel powerful and better and bigger and in control.

she wants to have everything normal people have and more, to prove that she can live a regular life and run out in the middle of the day to save a planet, and this is what keeps proving to her that she's important.

she's the impossible girl–there's something different about her, and as long as that is true she's worth something.

which is not to say that she's bad: she's a little callous and sometimes cruel, she isn't very compassionate or sympathetic, but on the whole she has a basic set of morals.

and it's fine, for a while, i think.

but she fits everything into very specific boxes, including people, and knows where they go and of not how to control them than at least how to work around them.

and then the doctor changes, and she's not there to see it, and he regenerates, and she is there for that.

and he doesn't act like she's learned to expect, she can't rely on him, he doesn't treat her like she's special anymore, he's more critical, more honest, and she gets afraid.

she can't predict him anymore, and she's also afraid that he's getting too close to really seeing her, or maybe just stopping to pretend that he hasn't already. and somewhere, maybe subconsciously, she wants him to think that she's good and kind, wants to keep believing that she is, and she's just as afraid as he is that she isn't a good person.

and that's the crux of the problem with the doctor and clara's dynamic–they're too similar. that's why, in hell bent, the doctor doesn't need clara to figure out what's going on–he never has.

the doctor needed clara because he needed someone to believe he was good when he didn't. even if she couldn't convince him, he needed someone there to see him as good. twelve spends a lot of time thinking about whether or not he is good, whether or not he can be trusted, what kind of man he is and wants to be.

eleven spent the last three hundred years of his life defending a planet of innocent people who he got involved with his war. he watched them fight and die and tried to save them and knew that, in some very real ways, it was his fault.

as eleven, the doctor got big. the doctor got important. the doctor became a legend and a god and a figurehead and a nightmare and he doesn't know which one of those things cancel the others out.

so he needs someone there who just sees him as the doctor, plain and simple.

to clara, the doctor isn't important because he's a good man, or he does good things, or because she cares about him as a person. he's important because he proves that she's different from everyone else, that she's special–he's her path to the stars, to singularity.

oh, i don't think she knows that. i think she wants to believe–and does, maybe–that she loves him, that he's her friend, the one person she'll never leave behind. that's what she's supposed to feel. but the second something happens that isn't supposed to, the second her life diverges from the narrative she wants it to have, her first course of action is to try and force the doctor to do what she wants by threatening his life and freedom.

and that's good enough for twelve. if he's a tool to her then he's not a god, and she's controlling enough that if he spins too far out from good she'll pull him back so she doesn't lose him, and doesn't lose the sway she has over him.

my proof for this in clara's character is the way danny's story ends.

she didn't object to the fact that he died. in the end, she more or less killed him. for a girl whose first plan when the only person she loves dies is to threaten to kill herself and her best friend in a volcano, she gives up very easily.

if this was a story about how much she's unwilling to let danny go–which it seems to be–then she shouldn't care what he wants. she should be trying to make him stay, or at least convincing him, she should be crying, she should be screaming and trying to stop the doctor from flipping the switch.

but instead she offers to do it. she stands there quietly and demurely holding him while everything wraps up.

clara was more upset by the fact that he died in a boring, ordinary way than the fact that he died, because ordinary, normal death didn't fit into the story of danny-the-hero, danny-the-soldier, danny-who-saved-the-world. she is not ordinary and so she is owed a star-crossed love story by the universe and star-crossed lovers are not separated by car accidents.

but if he dies a hero, if he sacrifices himself to save her and everyone on earth, if he's special, then she gets to keep being special by association, gets to be the woman he loved so much he resisted cyberman brainwashing for, the woman he saved the world for.

for clara, traveling with the doctor while maintaining her normal life is a litmus test of how special she is, and because she is special she is owed the life she thinks she should have by the universe. danny is part of what she is owed, and part of the reason she is owed it.

for the doctor, clara is the only person he has to rely on to see him as a man and measure whether or not he is still good, still doing the right thing, still staying within the lines.

neither of them are ever going to give each other up, and they both believe so strongly that if they express any genuine attachment and strong desire to keep travelling together then they'll scare the other off. so they won't even admit how attached they are to each other, and they won't walk away even though they keep pretending they will, because they need each other like air.

the second the doctor loses clara or clara loses the doctor, the illusion collapses, and they're going to have to see who they really are inside.

and. god. that's so fascinating to me.

[a-mythologynerd]

I may be totally wrong but a whole part of Hell Bent is the idea of visiting Hell changes you a little (or brings out what was already there…) as both Darlington and Dawes acknowledge about himself and Alex in terms of Darlington’s demon form and Alex’s flames. Except it’s more than that. Dawes is able to read the writing on the second descent

“The scholar. What knowledge had Dawes brought with her from the first descent?”

So that got me thinking. Dawes is the scholar in both plains, obviously checks out. Turner as the priest, checks out but curious how that’s gonna expand especially as his tingle thing and the way people talk to him is like a literal confession. Alex as the soldier and cannonball but also potentially a soldier/warrior queen(?). But more importantly, Darlington as the prince. Which confused me as his whole arc thus far is realizing he’s not the main character or hero but the knight/servant. So why a prince?? Which would normally imply a main character hero vibe.

So with all that in account, I think the idea is he either is or has the capacity to become a demon prince like Golagrot. With Alex as his queen. Queen consorts typically take the title of prince. As we are aware, G refers to Darlington as Alex’s demon consort. Darlington is apparently very scarily good at being a demon and seems to actually rival G. Anywho. Darlington has demon powers cause he’s a demon prince and Alex has her hellfire cause she’s a conquering queen. That’s it. That’s the theory.

[daveyfvckingjacobs]

new skin unlocked

[spittyfishy]

What did you think of Season 5 of ML, if you have seen it?

So, I have seen season 5 and frankly… I wasn’t a fan.

Season 5 was just chocked full of missed opportunities, because there were some interesting ideas there but the show's writing fumbled the execution so hard it was difficult to watch at times. Just seeing character assasination after character assasination unfold on screen was so unpleasant. I don’t think a single character came out of season 5 unscathed, I’m wracking my brain for anyone that got better this season, or at least didn’t get worse in some way, and I can’t think of any.

To be fair, there were a few bits I liked. A couple akuma designs were good (Hoaxer, Dark Humour, Queen Mayor, and Ryukomori). I thought the Ryukomori episode was well done, I’d probably say it was the best of the season (which is a low bar). But everything else with Kagami was bad. Full honesty I hate Felix and what his role in the story has been so far, but I especially don’t like that Kagami got brought down with him. Felix is the entire reason Hawkmoth got EVERY OTHER MIRACULOUS and it seems like everyone forgot that?? He didn’t get any consequences At All, and yet when Chloé worked with Hawkmoth (when he already had the miraculous for the record) she was painted as the worst person on earth.

I know I’m not the only one who’s pointed out the double standard between how the girl characters are treated compared to the boys, but it really got highlighted this season. Male characters like Andre, Jaggedstone, Felix, and even Hawkmoth himself can do any number of horrible things and still be ‘sympathetic’, but the two fourteen year old girls are irredeemably evil?

I’ll admit I'm biased, Chloé has been my favourite favorite character since I started watching in season one, but she really deserved better than the show gave her. I don’t have an issue with her staying a villain, in fact I think she worked really well as a minor antagonist in season one, she moved the story along and was entertaining to watch. But the last two seasons they’ve made her out to be this giant threat, but haven’t let her actually do anything! She’s been nothing more then a lacky to Lila and Hawkmoth, as far as having Lila in her ear telling her exactly what to say. If Chloé is as bad as the show claims then she shouldn’t need other characters to hold her hand and tell her how to be mean.

But the writing is just like that. They really need to get better at ‘show don’t tell’, and even more importantly, consistency. Because they keep adding things after the fact and retconning things from the earlier seasons to try and clap back at fans criticisms, and it’s just sad. I’ll never stop complaining about the absolute train wreck that was Derision. They made Chloé worse then she was in season one, and made Kim so much dumber then he needed to be. At the beginning of season one Kim was characterized as a bully, he antagonized Ivan in Stone Heart and helped Chloé willingly in episodes like LadyWifi. But for Derision Chloé had to trick him into pranking Marinette? Why?

The pacing in that episode was even worse, because so much of it was dedicated to a flash back everything else was rushed at the end. And Marinette saying she’d never crush on anyone again if she didn’t know everything about them was clearly just the writers trying to justify her frankly creepy actions in earlier seasons because people pointed out that it wasn’t cute or funny it was just weird. And her whole line and issues in that episode flat out don’t work as a retcon because A: why even crush on Adrian at all if she vowed not to like anyone associated with Chloé, and B: we’ve already seen her in a relationship with Luka where she didn’t show ANY of the obsessive behaviour she showed Adrian OR freaking out about going on dates. AND ON TOP OF THAT there’s been two other timelines where her and Adrian have started a relationship (Chat Blanc, Ephemeral) and she hasn’t had any of the issues that come up in Derision.

It’s just such a lazy way of writing the story, and that’s really the core issue with this season. It feels lazy, like the writers couldn’t be bothered to watch their own show and make plots that fit in the world they’ve already built.

Miraculous is a franchise that’s dear to my heart, it’s how I met my best friend and really became comfortable sharing my art online, and I still really like creating content related to the characters, but I’ve been very disappointed in the show since about the end of season three. I still have a small amount of hope that maybe the show will turn itself around and improve, but it’s dwindling.

But at least when cannon goes off it’s rocker that’s what fan works are for!

[salted15]

happy birthday RTDL !!!

this is an open collab , so you can color the lineart if you want to btw !!! if you do then feel free to ping me in a post of it :] lines under the cut

NOTE that these are 4000x4000 images so they might be a bit larger than you’re used to

^ lines

^ magic shapes

[fernsnouveau]

What if we suggested that if you can't defend the Miraculous S5 ending without sounding like Mother Gothel, don't do it at all?

[chaos-has-theories]

You know - the Revolution moral of "sometimes the adults won't do what's necessary, so sometimes you have to be the one to step in. Maybe you're the adult now" gets a bit... muddled... by the fact that it's also about "haha imagine Chloé as mayor even though she's 14? Oh look finally her father stepped in and put his foot down".

[morsmortish]

pandora would LOVE palomas

[thatswhatsushesaid]

just some pointless and petty ship salt i can’t contain because i slept badly last night, please read at your own risk

romantic n!elan’s most unforgivable crime against me, personally, is that it’s the boring version of the relationship. it’s boring to me. it is the least interesting way to lean into the mess of 3zun dynamics in both cql and mdzs because slapping the trappings of romance onto the relationship between nmj and lxc makes it easier to ignore how little these two men have in common with each other anymore.

(“but ray, couldn’t you say the same things about xiyao?” i suppose someone else could, but it won’t be me, because xiyao for me becomes more interesting with the introduction of romance given all the textual parallels that exist between what goes down between lxc’s parents, and the ultimate, tragic end that befalls lxc and jgy. but just to be clear: no arrangement of 3zun is explicitly romantic in the novel, and i’m not asserting that novel xiyao is canon. cql xiyao real tho)

part of platonic n!elan’s canon tragedy for me is this shadow of fading intimacy that looms over the interactions we do see between them. imo the book does such a good job of conveying the feeling of two people who were once good friends who have been drifting apart from each other for a long time; xiyao-feels did a really thorough examination of every in-text interaction between them on their blog, i just can’t find the post right now to share the link (a tragedy, it is SUCH a good post), and i can’t credit their analysis enough for informing how i feel about these characters’ relationships now.

i don’t have a neat way of wrapping up this post with a little bow on it or anything but, like. aside from my personal preference for not enjoying ships that include powerful, violent, angry men as one of their unavoidable components (even when i can appreciate that power and violence and anger is core to that character’s particular tragedy), i just find the romance angle to this specific dynamic way less interesting. sort of like my feelings on the three tumours and the blackwater arc in tgcf come to think of it.

[elystelleven]

So I've finally finished the update, and this is all I have to say.

Oh my god.

OH MY FUCKING GOD.

I don't think I've ever been so on the edge of my seat over a game like this. The FACT that the episode itself is paced slower is already a good sign... but for it to go down THIS route?! I can't believe it man. Oh my god.

Here's everything I liked about this update:

1: the writing itself. It's clear from the get go that narrative-wise, the devs wanted to branch out after that underwhelming anniversary update. The story was experimental in the way it handled rather mature topics for what's otherwise a kiddie game. The topic of plagues, loss, resilience, and even existentialism and mortality are brought up, and perfectly blend well with Cacao's development. The references to Buddhism were a treat too! Simply *chef's kiss* that's all I have to say.

2: Mystic Flour Cookie. I came into this episode expecting her to be another typical shallow stoic villain, but turned out to be WAAAAAAY more than that.

Her entire domain was just beautifully designed and it's safe to say she may be one of the best written villains in the entire franchise. The story succeeds at showing off how intimidating she truly can be but doesn't shy away from the nuances of her philosophy. Her interactions with Dark Cacao solidify this even more, exposing what appears to be HIS personal drawbacks to the audience that all turned out to be portrayed in her own lens. The voice acting was the cherry on top and I applaud the VA for doing such a successful job! Now I'm infatuated with her even more! My girl really out here helping me discover my love for characters like her and White Lily <3

3: Dark Cacao and the rest of the cast. Remember when I talked about his personal drawbacks and how they're exaggerated to a certain degree? Well APPARENTLY, the devs finally discovered how to thread it all and used those flaws as a driving force for his character growth! I find it extremely clever especially with how it coincides with his themes of resolution. The plot twists and *those* scenes were DELECTABLE, I was at the edge of my seat this whole time as I progressed!

The old dumpling people, despite only appearing for a short while, were quite a delight to meet. They only had a minimal ounce of screen time but I can already see their personalities shining through! Peach Blossom was adorable as well but I wished we got to know a little more about him.

Overall? This update may have stirred up some controversy in the Cookie Run community, but hey! At least its story definitely exceeded my expectations.

The hype was worth it. 9/10. It's definitely up there with Golden Cheese as one of my favorite story arcs.