#this was never supposed to be a plot

[thewisestdino]

Bluestar and 43?

Like we never could before I'd fly to you tomorrow, I'm not fighting in this war I wanna drop my arms and take your arms And walk you to the shore

[sukibenders]

When other Yellowjackets fans, majority who are poc themselves, talk about how weird and frustrating it is that the writers introduced a random yte character and gave them a storyline when there were two (technically three but they killed off Lottie even when there was an opportunity for more) woc, who have been around since s1, that could've fit the mold instead (like Mari) and have actual personalities outside of building up/being the lapdog for another character. Or how often times many of the, limited, poc characters are often either treated poorly and killed off, or pushed to the side (Simone, reduced to the disposable black girlfriend trope and is nearly killed by her partner because she's in the way of a ship; Travis, since s1, had his trauma dismissed or ignored and was overly hated but no one talks about how he was SA'd by the girls he's now stuck with on top of having to eat his brother and not be able to grieve over it). How Taissa's whole storyline is just revolving around Van even with all the potential, especially given she's fighting to be free from her own mind, how Lottie's mental illness is treated so poorly as if it's not the butt of a joke then it's met with heavy criticism (and the only time she is met with sympathy for it, it's through the lens of a yte character embodying her and having an emotional conversation with her father). How you can have all of these reasons (and more) for being annoyed by Melissa's character or the direction of the show, and be met with #those fans downplaying these concerns, or just being overly antagonistic just because they find yte character #243 entertaining so obviously these conversations don't have merit. But this fandom has always had an...."interesting" way in which it discussed the poc characters on the show, so I'm not surprised.

[kaiserouo]

(next)

[mint-mango]

dusted off my nds lite to play one of my fav series again

[thimblings]

c'mon ashley it's not even grammatically correct (planning a fic mentally and working out dialogue for a scene and then suddenly Viago says "y'all's" because i'm southern and despite my best efforts some phrases are ingrained in me and honestly i would like to personally apologize to him for it)

[azuree1733]

I don’t think I’ve posted these doodles here

[citrine-elephant]

why are you blue ⁉🤨

gave leon iridovirus <3 post-plaga, bug brained and all.

good ending: the jump from plaga to leon leads to the cure for iridoviruses at the cost of his mental health (his coworkers keep calling him a "smurf" and "those alien guys from that avatar movie" and rarely a gay vampire) (he's completely fine otherwise and immune to the deadly parts of the infection)

it only jumped the species barrier because leon got that bug in him.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.

[mirellapryce]

In every fandom I enter my brain has to concoct a Spy AU, so here is my Spy/Argyle Dead Boy Detectives AU. Please note I never actually saw Argyle I just watched review videos so take this with a hefty handful of creative interpretation.

Edwin as author of queer spy/detective/whodunit novels, his most famous of which is “Agent Paine”. His career really took off in the last year, but now he’s stuck and his agent is telling him to get some country air and write another Agent Paine novel. 

Saved on a train by TCK who tells him all his novels are either things that have happened or things that come true. He’s a spy himself and he finds E.P. Rowland’s works just so fascinating. Anyway, now he’s here to protect Edwin and take him in to the spy agency. 

Along the way they meet Monty. (Anyone else?) 

Eventually they meet the real Agent Paine. Hi Charles. 

The man is handsome and charming, witty and has a winning smile. Oh no, he’s just Edwin’s type.  After the most confusing hug and subsequent interrogation about who he is, where he’s been for the last year, and what he knows about their spy agency, Agent Paine goes to yell at Agent King in the other room. The only part Edwin catches clearly is when he stomps back in the room saying, “This place will be safe as long as I want it to be safe. No one’s getting to him.”  

“So you’re him? You’re the Agent Paine all my stories are apparently about?” 

“Probably not, but I’m not actually much of a reader, so I don’t know for sure.” 

-choke and sputter and indignation- 

“My partner used to do the same thing. He’s the real Agent Payne. Spelled with a Y by the way. Why don’t you tell me what it’s about?” 

Talking, reading passages and gesticulating when he looks at Charles and realises. “Are you?...Sorry, why are you crying?” 

Wiping tears. “Sorry mate. It’s just, my husband’s been missing for a year. It’s been rough. Don’t worry about me. What happens next?” 

(Darn. Of course a man that handsome is already taken) 

“So, E.P. Rowland?” 

“Yes? That is my name after all.” 

Laughing. “Oh yeah? What’s the P for then?”

Pause. Uncertainty. Eventually settles on it being a flourish, but he’s unsettled. He should know what the P stands for or he should remember putting it there in the first place. 

Charles goes through the plots and tells Edwin what did happen, and what hasn’t yet, but that the plots he came up with make sense. He looks sentimental when he tells Edwin that he has the mind of a strategist. They come to the conclusion that the books Edwin writes are probably actually about his missing partner/husband. Edwin is excited to suggest that maybe therein lies the key to finding the other Agent Payne (tho admittedly a part of him is jealous and doesn’t want his time with this handsome spy to end), but for some reason Charles doesn’t seem all that eager. When pressed he admits that he called for backup when he sent King away, and that he’s more focused on getting Edwin to a more secure location. 

Crystal is backup and despite Charles warning her ahead of time she’s also ill-prepared for E.P. Rowland. They immediately start squabbling. Something about the banter feels comforting which is ridiculous. He also doesn’t like how cozy she seems to be with Charles. Doesn’t she know he’s married even if his husband is MIA? Doesn’t Charles? 

Spy and fight things happen. They get to HQ where he meets a lovely lady named Niko who is similarly teary like Charles had been. But unlike Charles she’s read all his books and is eager to discuss them with him. Especially the romance parts. Edwin hadn’t said anything to Charles, but after they concluded that Agent Paine was actually Charles’ partner/husband, Edwin could see all the hints that Charles was the rogueish, impetuous love interest in his novels. Now he feels a way about some of the steamier things he’s written, knowing these are real people. He didn’t tell Charles about that. He can tell from her grin that Niko already knows. 

Something-something action happens, then reveal that Edwin is THE Agent Paine/Payne. He lost his memories in an operation gone wrong with Monty where Monty betrayed them at the orders of Esther Finch. Or Edwin found out Monty was a mole and Monty somehow wiped his memories (I’m leaning more towards spy tech than blunt force injury). Technically Monty should have killed him, but Edwin and Monty are friends (/Monty has a crush on him) so he just removed him and made up a story that Edwin was missing.  

Pieces are coming back to Edwin now. He should be focusing on the betrayal and what he knows about Monty and Esther’s plans, but his brain keeps picking memories of Charles instead. How they were best friends long before they were lovers and then husbands. How for the last year it’s felt like he’s missing a limb, always looking over his shoulder to tell someone something, missing a comforting touch even though he hates other people touching him. 

Anyway, it turns out that when they got married, Charles took Edwin’s name because of bad association with his dad. Edwin kept his name but secretly thought of himself as Edwin Payne-Rowland because he only associates the name Rowland with the best person he knows. 

[bird-butch]

HHM is the kind of work place that tells you "we're all just one big family here :)" when they hire you and then proceed to make your life a living nightmare. and you have to smile and nod and express how thankful you are for such a warm welcome to a place where your boss can be just as neglectful as your real dad and tell you in the same condescending tone that really it's all for your own good and you ought to be more grateful for all he does for you. which in reality is just about the absolute bare minimum plus an expectation of getting your eternal undying loyalty in return, and wow they were right it really is like family in here! don't speak out of turn, don't make choices in your personal life they don't approve of, don't associate with the Wrong People, or you're grounded!

[sleepyvib-es]

rick bringing percy and annabeth back in cameos just to consistently shit on their characters is enough to ruin my mood for at least a week

[aphelea]

honestly nothing is funnier to me in keeper than the sheer amount of people who care about sophie's love life. i have yet to encounter a single other middle grade novel where everyone so directly discusses the main character's relationships in the way kotlc does and it's fascinating

[xmoonlitxdreamx]

Wip... posting in case i dont finish, im slow these days 😵 love to draw a stupid little pinup tho.

[leo-artista]

I enjoy reading angst as much as anyone else, but one thing I really can't handle are characters doing or saying things they never would just for the sake of angst

[vulpinesaint]

kind of unfortunate that so many fantasy epics are also war novels because i will be honest i just do not like war novels that much... the grand clashing of forces is compelling obviously but it requires characters to talk about so much practical battle strategy and while i can get my brain to comprehend all these fantasy maps and kingdoms and borders and battalions and front lines and army movements it takes up. so much space in the book. feels like i'm fighting a war of my own trying to get through it sometimes

[avelera]

I definitely don't need more WIPs right not for Dreamling, but sometimes it is fun to brainstorm a total nonsense fanfic-y premise played totally straight, which is why I'm fondly remembering the Cinderella Dreamling AU I brainstormed on one of the servers.

(Canon Divergence AU, because that's how I roll)

2022 rolls around and Hob and Dream are friends. Just... friends. Hob would love there to be more. He sometimes suspects, more like wishes really hard, that Dream would like more but, as usual, the guy isn't talking if he does. And Hob is too chicken to ruin the friendship they finally achieved to do something so uncouth as proposition his oldest friend.

He comes to the sad and perhaps inevitable conclusion that Dream has had all the chances in the world to say something so the only conclusion is that Hob's just not that interesting to him in that way. Stands to reason. The more Hob learns about the Dreaming and Dream's fantastical realm and all his adventures, the more Hob's almost single-minded dedication to living a normal life despite his immortality seems a bit... dull.

Enter Desire. Or Death. Or both. This is fanfic-y nonsense, after all, the point is there is a device and the device is our fairy god-person who is also sick to death of watching Dream pine from afar but is also a huge fan of chaos.

They (let's go with Desire for now, even if the trope is a bit overplayed, because it seems like their sort of thing) offer Hob a proposal. The chance to go into the Dreaming each night to woo Dream. Best of all, it will be with Desire's protection of his identity and a small amount of magic to create a persona for wooing Dream that won't be immediately obvious.

Oh, also, Dream is throwing a big fuck-off bash for Faerie or some other Dreaming ally so there's gonna be a party for weeks up there. Perfect place to slip in a new stranger. (Hob is a little charmed by the idea that he gets to be the stranger for once.)

Enter: the Knight of Roses.

Basically, Hob creates a persona into which he pours all of charm, wit, and courtier's polish from 600s years of life. If nothing else, he's having the time of his life at what is essentially a fancy magical masquerade ball where he gets to try his damndest to sweep Dream off his feet.

And it seems to be working. Hard to tell with Dream. But each night, Dream seems excited to see the Knight of Roses again.

(It is working. It's working very very well. The Dreaming is awash in flowers. Dream spends every waking moment he's not at the ball pacing his quarters, interrogating his subjects as to how in the world he can't get to the bottom of who this is, and every person who could nominally be considered his friend including his siblings and subjects are tearing their hair out with how sick they are of hearing about the Knight of Roses.

Hob doesn't hear about it though in the waking because Dream is in love with him and doesn't want to ruin any chance they might have together someday by agonizing over a mysterious guest who is probably some trick sent by Desire or Lucifer or someone to mess with Dream. He has no idea how right he is and how wrong he is not to bring it up to Hob.)

Secret Identity shenanigans ensue, of course, until we hit a breaking point with drama, tears, etc etc the usual for the trope because of course (gasp!) Hob is the Knight of Roses and there never was any need to create a separate persona because Dream was also agonizing over whether Hob was interested and Hob was so chill around him he assumed he was misreading all the signs. (Hob was working so, so hard to appear that chill around Dream.) Identities are unmasked and everyone lives happily ever after.

(But Hob is keeping the outfit once they're officially together, because Dream really, really liked the romance of the whole Knight of Roses identity but he likes it even more now that he knows it's Hob and not an evil trap laid by one of his enemies.)