#post-approval support

[fisherrprince]

Instead of writing a fanfic like a normal person this oneshot turned into two separate, contextless things,

[doveywovy]

tobiizu au where both of their brothers are posting about them on reddit for advice, but their viewpoints on the situation are so different it takes months for anyone to figure out its the same situation.

madara is asking for advice because he's terrified his brother is in an abusive relationship....the new boyfriend is cruel and meanspirited and RUDE!!! and unresponsive to, uh, "Weasel"'s affections. madara knows weasel is a little spoiled but he's ultimately a wonderful brother who always tries his best, he really doesn't want his sparkle to get dulled by this insufferable man :( would he be the asshole if he claimed he saw the piece of shit so-called-boyfriend cheating (he hasn't, but he's SURE the guy is) so he could force them to break up?

hashirama, meanwhile, is posting about how his sweet little brother just entered his first relationship and is worried it'll turn....uh.....well....bad.....because the guy is....really intense. like hashirama is SURE he means well but he's pushing for tattoos on the second date and thats kind of fast, right? his little brother has said no so far but he's really prone to doting on his new boyfriend in his own way, and will probably give in....should he be worried? is there any way he can give some good advice? could he suggest a therapist to this guy to maybe get him to calm down?

[earthbovndmisfit]

something something Phantom Blood ending where all is good and well afterwards 🌈️✨️

[theonceandfuture]

Once & Future Infodump #1

500 years ago, the kingdoms of camelot and balor were one. camelot was ruled by a family of dragon shifters, notorious for their strong connection to magic, their kingdom lying deep within the darkling woods. balor, to the southeast, was ruled by the dragonlords, companions of the dragons that lived within both camelot and balor's borders. it is said that the peace between the kingdoms ceased when one man, known now only as the dragon king, the leader of the dragonlords, became too greedy, and desired the throne of the pendragon family as well as his own. (some sources argue that it wasn't the greed of the dragon king that motivated his actions, but the influence of a trickster god, but since the beginning of uther's reign, this knowledge has more or less been lost to time due to the purge of magic in camelot.)

the dragonlords used their unique abilities against the pendragons, twisting them to their will. as punishment for their cruelty, the gods had no choice but to intervene, (possibly because this problem was caused by the gods themselves, but who's to say?) and they struck the dragonlords, diminishing their numbers and dimming their power. the last of the dragonlords went into hiding for hundreds of years, keeping their ways to themselves and protecting the dragons from persecution. the pendragons thrived, though the dragon blood in their veins thinned over the years, naturally diluted by their mingling with humans. though it is still whispered that the pendragons retained many of these traits, despite no longer harnessing the ability to transform. in uther's time, the remaining dragonlords reunited with the pendragons, forming a friendship once again. but once again, the peace did not last between them...

some quick facts about dragon shifters:

the ability to transform into a dragon sticks around for about 5 generations

usually they are born like humans, but sometimes (say, like, 25% of the time?) they are hatched from eggs, much like actual dragons

most of the dragon shifters that have been around for the past century or so are related to the pendragons, hence why dragon shifters have disappeared (they can only copulate with humans, think of it kind of like how scientists think that the neanderthals disappeared)

some dragon shifters used to be created purely through magic (aka they have no genetic parents) and thus they would typically take on the appearance of the humans they grew up with in their human forms

anyway. that's what you needed to know in order to understand the joke i'm about to make. merlin was under the impression aithusa would probably look like him or gaius/freya because he assumed she was created through magic, but aithusa is actually a distant pendragon ancestor who's egg was preserved for centuries using magic!

thus, this image:

(aithusa is just arthur with albinism)

edit: corrected my language on this post! for those who may not be aware, "person with albinism" etc is a more respectful way to describe people with albinism as opposed to the way i said it before. here and here are my sources.

[namisweatheria]

I'm sick of gender and monogamy and the same tired tropes and dynamics and the same young conventionally attractive people (mostly men) being put into them I WANT SOMETHING NEWWWW. Nami can have a Yuri romance dynamic with any other East Blue Strawhat and she is the- ok i actually don't know the yaoi term- but like- the one in the dynamic that's more confident. She is literally that powerful and gender dont real. GIVE ME SOMETHING NEW!!!!!!!!!!!!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hi I hate to be cheesy but I wanted to say that while a lot of people - very rightly!!! - point out how cool your art is and how inspirational it is that you showed art can be learned, not just a rare natural born talent, I also LOVE your sense of humor. The dialog and visual jokes are always so sharp and are guarenteed to make me laugh! Because I'm autistic as hell lol I like to bookmark things I can read through over agian when I'm looking for laughs and your blog is now high on the list! Thx!

Be not afraid to be cheesy; your genuine message has brought me immense joy B’*)

[taibhsearachd]

Okay but can we talk about how TommyInnit said "that's the Minecraft equivalent of wearing a MAGA cap, wearing a bright green [read: Dream green merch] hoodie"?

He was so right and it's so funny.

[abyssal-ilk]

very interesting to me that if you decide to ally with the mages in dai, vivienne doesn't lose approval at the moment of picking that choice, but she DOES lose approval if you talk to her between allying with them and the attack on haven. not really sure what meaning could be behind it (my favorite guess is that she's stressed out of her mind with the arrival of fiona and the other mages and the inquisitor talking to her is an annoying distraction she doesn't need at that moment + she has to put on a show of being disapproving of their choice because otherwise she is willingly complicit which is dangerous for her), but the delay is funny to me. you don't even have to take that hit of disapproval if you just wait to talk to her at skyhold.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

“it could mean that they didn't think further than season five and we're about to get a lot of awkward writing.”

Genuinely, I’m pretty sure this exact problem is about to rear it’s ugly head into the plot so hard. Once it becomes obvious enough next season, I think this is about to become the biggest gripe people have with the show.

I don’t subscribe to the “Chloé was rewritten by TA out of spite” theories—however—it is almost **impossible** that season 5 didn’t, at the very least, have the bones of the plot laid out *when it was still intended as the final season,* and then those bones were **heavily** rearranged when contracts were signed for Miraculous Ladybug to continue production beyond that point.

This is quickly having a domino effect on the plot, where storylines are being re-sculpted left and right to somehow tie-up the arc of the previous 5 seasons, whilst still maintaining pre-reveal status quo for the seasons still to come. The most glaring problem with this is, of course, that they had to royally shoot Marinette in the foot to make that work.

I don’t want to put my tin-foil hat on too much, but Adrinette getting together sans reveal is just a symptom of the show continuing past it’s original intended “end of life”. We were likely supposed to get exactly what is holding Adrinette back from being interesting right now—the reveal—in the original midseason finale of season 5 instead of Kwami’s Choice.

What’s an even more cynical thought—if season 5 was the end of the show like intended at one point, there is ZERO chance that Marinette would have even NEEDED to lie to Adrien about his father. *THAT’S* what frustrates me most about the season 5 finale. Not that it’s shocking, not that it subverts expectations, that it’s so glaringly obvious the main character is making a decision simply because the plot for future seasons implodes on itself if she thinks logically for 1.2 seconds. It’s not interesting. It’s only there because they wrote themselves into a corner they never intended to be in 5 years ago.

And as the seasons tick on and on, the cycle is just going to continue to chase itself in circles under the guise of “drama” and “plot”, but in reality the episodic nature of the show means that none of the plot lines will ever conclude in a satisfying way

(Post that inspired this ask)

it is almost **impossible** that season 5 didn’t, at the very least, have the bones of the plot laid out *when it was still intended as the final season,* and then those bones were **heavily** rearranged when contracts were signed for Miraculous Ladybug to continue production beyond that point.

Now that is a theory I can get behind and will even admit to subscribing to. Season five absolutely feels like it was written to be the final season and we know that it was, originally, supposed to be the final season. It's not a conspiracy theory to say, "I think that they may have committed to elements of season five before they got a sixth season and that ended up making season five into a bit of a mess."

I'd be fascinated to know the behind-the-scenes timing of things and what was written before the season-six greenlight and what they were allowed to change after season six became a thing. Things like scripts, lore bibles, and plot lines get signed off on by a lot of people! It's entirely possible that the writers' hands were tied on certain elements of season five. If the leaked, season-five Bible is to be believed, it says that it was signed off by TF1 & Disney and has a date of 1/29/21, about three months before season six was officially announced, implying that major elements of season five may have been set in stone all the way back in early 2021:

[Image description: footer for the leaked Bible reading "Ladybug - Bible FINAL VERSION updated season 5 - approved by TF1 & Disney 1/29/21 - CONFIDENTIAL]

This may mean that the writers literally weren't allowed to make major changes to season five because they'd already gone through the approval process for the overall plot. It's also possible that they could have redone things, they just didn't have time based on production timelines or maybe they did have time and just couldn't think up a new version of season five in the time they had. There's no way to be sure with the limited information we have. Maybe season five is exactly what they wanted it to be!

It's hard to buy that, though, because a lot of the awkward writing makes so much more sense if there was supposed to be an identity reveal at the end of Kwami's Choice. Like why Adrien is worrying about how to tell Marinette that he's leaving, but he never once stops to think about Ladybug. If he knows they're the same person, that's suddenly perfectly understandable.

I also full agree that the lie at the end of season five feels like another stalling tactic and not a piece in a well-crafted narrative. It's really common for the writing to get stilted in TV shows and movie series that get renewed past their expiration dates because no plot can last forever. Even the best writers can't draw a concept out to the end of time and Miraculous doesn't seem have the best writers. Now that they've been greenlit for ten freaking seasons, I think we're in for a wild ride and I don't mean the fun kind. Serious identity shenanigans like the love square are not designed to last for 86+ hours. (The show has 26 20-minute episodes per season, so if you multiply that by 10, you get a little over 86 hours + specials and such.)

I just don't see how they're going to draw out the identity reveal for another five seasons without making the love square a toxic waste dump, but I also don't think that they're ever going to do an identity reveal in the mid game. They're saving that sucker for the end no matter how much it ruins the story. (Watch season six prove me wrong, lol. You never know.)

[some-stars]

i will not be watching the murderbot show bc if the two white guys in charge cast a white person as mb--WHILE making the rest of the cast accurately racially diverse--that tells me they do not understand or give a shit about any of the themes at a very fundamental level, and this is going to be one of those slick $$$$ adaptations that gets a bunch of surface stuff "right" but the core is utterly hollow and rotten

and aside from the themes of the story itself, on a metatextual level it's just fucking disgusting to take a story about slavery and make the enslaved character white and almost everyone else BIPOC. that is CLASSIC white bullshit

the murderbot fandom is, as usual, fucking insufferable, and wrong about every other thing they're complaining about besides mb being white

[butchvamp]

i really like a lot of the banter in veilguard, it's one of the few times the companions can actually exchange some verbal jabs especially at the start of the game. i've said repeatedly that this game is lacking friction and i stand by that ☝️ i think the problem isn't that they all automatically get along, some of them don't at all in the beginning-- Davrin and Lucanis i think are the most obvious, and Taash and Emmrich as well-- but the thing is. Rook just speaks their therapy-speak to them and suddenly it's all fine. we don't see a lot of the friction in cutscenes or significant questlines, only in banter.

again there is Davrin and Lucanis of course who i do think are the most successful and organic relationship in the game. and that's because we actually get to see them go from being hostile to supporting and ultimately liking each other, and it feels born out of mutual respect rather than Rook forcing them to hold hands.

i like a lot of Bellara and Neve's banter as well, and they seem to spend a lot of time together at the start of the game when there's not that many people at the Lighthouse yet, and Neve consistently shows up for Bellara during her story. i also like Neve and Lucanis together, they're very cute. there are definitely friendly relationships that feel natural, but then there are moments like where Taash bulldozes over Bellara when discussing Mythal's and Solas's relationship, and Bellara isn't allowed to snap back at Taash for being disrespectful. she (+ elven Rook) are also never allowed to call out Harding for her racism, we either have to agree or just not acknowledge it and always be really really nice to Harding specifically.... and i think little moments of friction within actual main plot beats and significant cutscenes (like is done with Davrin and Lucanis) would have made a lot of the dynamics more interesting rather than just dancing around it and relegating it to banter or limited interactions you could ultimately miss if you don't have them constantly in your party/aren't constantly checking in at the Lighthouse. also companion approval should actually matter and they should be allowed to vocally disapprove of Rook's choices.

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I think a key thing to remember when judging all those "Astarion/Minthara/Lae'zel disapproves" reactions to like... helping orphans is that in context they're often rather realistic and practical considering what's being asked of them. If anything it's the more good-aligned companions willingness to drop everything and risk their lives to help randos in need of help that is unreasonable to expect.

Remember, from their perspective things like save-scumming are not real. They cannot metagame and prepare for what specific enemy or attack they might face. In-universe, death has consequence and you can die. Plus we're on an unknown time limit here to potential squid-ifying, not to mention their own personal baggage.

It's like... they're playing blind and on Honour Mode, and the consequences of failure isn't just a story going the way you might not like or your fave character dying. It's actual life and death. There are real stakes here for them.

So while yes they can approve of just... petty asshole stuff or even genuinely evil stuff, it's not unreasonable for them to have a problem with risking their lives for random strangers. Because if they're in your party, that's what you're doing. Making the choice to put their lives on the line for strangers. If anything they're all oddly brave and ride-or-die for whatever bullshit decisions you make from the start--I mean it takes a lot of reckless altruism while also being an asshole to them specifically (it's not hard to balance their approval by being nice to them directly on a good playthrough) to get them to hate you, let alone ditch the group.

[tarulink]

Still can't believe there are ppl who really think OOT Zelink are siblings/twins!!!!!

They are so desperate to deny their romance omg 😭

[recurring-polynya]

I am never not thinking about Renji giving people rides on Hihiou Zabimaru, but somehow I forgot about the time Rukia used a Hakuren to launch Kon into the air during the kemari episode.

Reader, she was not sorry.

Unfortunately he started to go out of bounds, so Tessai felt it necessary to shoot him down with a Bakudou #99, p2.

I cannot emphasize enough that this was for a game of kemari to resolve some vague beef Rurichiyo and Kenryuu were having, there were literally no stakes whatsoever to everyone else, who just showed up and chose violence.

[annoyingann]

my ass is still a little on fire >:(

[horrorosier]

🫐: “don’t go telling your tumblr mutuals that i got whipped cream on my latte today i’m a poser”

me: “okay 👁️👄👁️”