Just some dumb blog

[typemoonconfessions]

[princesshalfdemon]

old confession but it’s actually even better!

Medb had seven sons, but when asking a druid which of her sons would kill Conchobar, the druid said “Maine”

to which Medb responded by renaming all seven of her sons Maine in order to fulfill the prophecy to kill Conchobar

[lancelot2015]

Then one of them proceeded to kill a different Conchobar

[sarafangirlart]

I was thinking about how poorly Heracles is written in THAT webtoon and thought “argh stfu, be a good husband and make Hebe a sandwich you insufferable bastard" now I’m thinking of Heracles dressing like a maid serving Hebe, he’d be into it too lol

[lancelot2015]

Wouldn't be the first time he's been a maid

Does Hebe get to wear the Nemean Pelt like Omphale?

[love-is-a-pearl]

THEM

[irregularcloudi]

[lancelot2015]

The official Twilight Princess manga

I reallt recommend it

[ilikekidsshows]

You know ilikekidsshows,

Given their personalities and how t

Would you say Marinette and Kawai form Koe no Katachi are similar to each other?

I swear, Given how infuriating Marinette is especially about Chloe and Adrien, It's similar to how Kawai refuse to give Shoya a Chance despite how the latter is doing everything he could to atone for his bullying of Shoka as well)

Heck, Marinette may try to paint herself to be like Tohru form Fruit Basket but I say she's actually more like Kawai in hindsight as well (A Person who tries to paint themselves better their Bully but actually no better then them in hindsight and love to deflect the blame away form their own actions as well)

But what do you think?

Do you think Marinette and Kawai would get along if they meet? (And if they're in the other's role (Marinette in Kawai's role in Katachi and via versa for Kawai in Marinette's) How long would Shoya and Chloe last if they have to deal with Marinette and Kawai respectively?

---

It's been a while since I saw Koe no Katachi, but, I would assume Marinette wouldn't get along with Kawai if she figured her out or likewise. Kawai and Marinette both act like they're better people than they are, so being forced to see their behavior from the outside would go against that.

I'm not sure if them changing roles would really change much, though, because, as you said, they are very similar.

[lancelot2015]

Surprised you didn't comment on the idea of Marinette interacting with yet another disabled person

[dailyarturiartfgo]

Perseus wearing the “A Black Woman Is Speaking, Listen and Learn” t-shirt while hanging with Andromeda.

He is so proud of his wife!

[maryasmorevna]

there's something that bugs me about this "new" trend of gothic/dark romance enthusiasm – a genre as old as time, ik, i'm a huge fan too, but i'm speaking about a particular phenomenon i've observed in the last few years. it's the flattening of every dark/gothic/batb-adjacent pairing into, it seems, pure aesthetic and vibes and little else, so they're all so disappointingly similar there's hardly anything new or radical or subversive to them, or even to enjoying the genre in the first place. (i'd argue the romance genre has never been more commercially successful – see the whole romantasy mania - so how can it be inherently subversive if it's everywhere?

example: what do del toro's elizabeth and the creature have that is actually, genuinely gothic, even remotely comparable to other classic or more recent pairs of this genre (i’m talking heathcliff/cathy, erik/christine, dracula/mina, orlok/ellen etc.)? imo, in gothic romances, even when the male "suitor" (i’m speaking of het pairings because it's what i read the most, and so what i'm most well-versed in) is not expressly a villain or an antagonist (see rochester, just to give a famous example), there's a clear undercurrent of danger to the character. he may even be — and often is — harmful to the heroine. this love either turns into a destructive force or a redemptive one, or more rarely both, like in le fantôme de l’opéra. that’s not the case for elizabeth/the creature: she’s kind and compassionate and a bit weird (complimentary), clearly an outsider but still in a conventionally pretty and feminine way; he’s deformed but still hot, kind (“a good man”), a victim of ~evil abusive victor, and turns to violence mostly out of self-defence. he’s not a threat to her in any way, and most importantly, she never even thinks he may be. they meet like, three times (the third time, she gets accidentally murdered by ~evil abusive victor and dies), and they’re already soulmates according to Voice of God.

this has almost nothing of the gothic or of what is associated with the gothic, except the setting and the creature’s nature; their dynamic is mostly batb/star-crossed almost-lovers, which is a compelling trope per se, with sumptuous, beautiful, sometimes slightly pretentious visuals and dialogues. they’re sweet and pure and tragic – the world is the real antagonist here, and victor in particular is both the film’s real (anti?)villain and his own worst enemy, though it takes him a long time to understand that.

and yet, they lack what imo is the most essential, classical quality of batb romance, aka metamorphosis. i don’t mean a physical transformation (i’ve read stories where the beast/ugly character doesn’t turn into a human being or beautiful – hell, i’ve read iterations where the beauty turns into a beast, angela carter docet!), but an inner transformation, happening in the souls and minds of the characters. the beauty is almost always terrified, suspicious, often angry or unable to even look at the beast; but something happens, or there’s a gradual shift, and she understands his inner kindness/value, or witnesses his transformation into a better human being than most “normal” people. still, both change. for elizabeth and the creature, there’s no need for that – it’s the world that must change. which i understand is the whole point, but it’s something GDT has been portraying for many years in his movies (and imo more subversively in the shape of water). it’s nothing new or particularly groundbreaking – and it doesn’t have to be, of course. but then… what do they actually share with most gothic romance pairings we can think of? is really it that grandiose, if it's the usual minestra riscaldata in a different coat...?

what i'm getting at is: when you flatten the whole genre into a catchy mix of tropes/alluring visuals, all couples become interchangeable, and you lose sight of the themes, the whys and hows, the build-up and development of dark romantic dynamics in favour of – what, essentially? hashtag aesthetic? that's an obnoxious pet peeve of mine, of course, but i'm nothing if not cerebral or maybe i'm getting old. now, book!elizabeth/the creature would be real gothic. GDT made almost a (albeit bloody and tragic) fairy-tale of it all, which obviously was the intention from the start; note the conveniently cast-aside symbolism of the creature as both adam and the fallen angel. i'm not saying that if you're into actual darker stuff you can't be into them too (there are no rules!), but i like to state what things are and what they aren’t. heathcliff and cathy are defined by their shared childhood/abusive environment/they’re both cunts (complimentary/derogatory); jane/rochester is a very different kind of story, and so is erik and christine's etc.

it's important, or else you find yourself surrounded by (i can't stress this enough) generic Tall Monster/Villainous Guy x Petite Pretty Pure but Plucky White Woman pairings, lacking any depth or real artistry in their writing. it’s as if this kind of pairings wear a small tinkling bell and when they appear people latch onto them, regardless of characterisation, themes, execution, roles in the story etc. and no, again, idt they’re as subversive as they appear, or we wouldn’t be inundated with dark romance/enemies-to-lovers romantasy books. and it's a shame, really, because at its best this genre is a compelling challenging of gender norms, social roles etc.

tl;dr: i'd prefer if people didn't associate something with the gothic label just because the aesthetic appeals to them (and yes, it is appealing) + i wish there was more variance and diversity in the genre. that's all.

[empty-dream]

(Anime-only here but I did read vol 1 years ago) I love how FSF story makes Sigma and Tsubaki meet each other and also the juxtaposition of their situation. And how in the end, Tsubaki is the trigger for Sigma to finally have a wish on his own.

Sigma never knows his mother. Not her name or anything else save for one fact that she died in the Fourth Holy Grail War. He was a product of rape and was taken away from her as soon as he was born. Then he was experimented on and raised as magus-weapon for some government. He is what's called an orphan all his life.

Meanwhile Tsubaki has parents, but they never care about her as their child. They see her as their prized product. They do experiments on her in the name of love, and that's what's registered on Tsubaki (perhaps as a way to cope), but really that's in the name of magecraft and the glory that comes from it. The fact that all they care about once Tsubaki fall into coma is her intact reproductive system is disgustingly clear in itself of where their intention and heart lie. So if the definition of an orphan is someone who does not have parents, then Tsubaki is also one.

As a viewer familiar with Fate series, the similarity and contrast between these two images from the flashback is heartwrenching in hindsight. Both Sigma and Tsubaki weren't born in a blessed house, neither do they have good relationship with their parents. But Maiya did remember her lost child and did see him as her own even though she only saw him once. Though she knew nothing else about him, she considered Irisviel's urging to find him if she came out alive. Whereas the Kuruoka couple, despite living in the same house as Tsubaki, never acknowledges her existence as their blood-and-flesh child in the sense of family that they should love. This is where their difference lies.

Later, the motive of each party saving Tsubaki is one of central focus in the anime. Some does it because they believe it's the good and right thing to do. Some does it because Tsubaki's servant is simply too dangerous and wild to be left alone. Some does it because of other's moral compass.

As for Sigma as the guy who has no wish or belief, he expresses a slight dislike over the concept of killing a comatose little girl. After being around people with high level of motivation such as No Name Asssassin and Richard, I guess that triggers him into doing whatever he likes. In a way, I feel like it's him doing 'well, I have this gut feeling, let's try that.' 

Being surrounded by such people, meeting Tsubaki himself and hearing how her parents have treated her through her father's own (brainwashed) mouth eventually let him formed conviction to protect her. But in the end, he fails, since how her servant works is out of control and doing-her-best-even-if-it-pains-her is the only thing Tsubaki knows about, she sacrifices herself in the end.

Once everyone's outside the Reality Marble, Sigma immediately hears Tsubaki's now-concious parents talking of how they'd cut her hand to save the Command Spells to prolong their participantion in the HGW and preserve her reproductive system. Their daughter just sacrifices herself, and all they talk about is their business as if they're cleaning up after the mess she left behind. He might not remember anything but his mother's face looking at him, but for sure Kuruoka couple never looks at their daughter as her own person.

So when Sigma turns his gun on them, I was so happy but also afraid that nothing's gonna be shown or there would be prolonged fight. But when it's later cut to the clear image of their mangled corpses as Sigma walks away, I fucking cheered. Both for vengeance for Tsubaki and for Sigma's own growth. I think combined with what Faldeus did to Flat, Sigma's declaring he wants to destroy the Snowfield Holy Grail War is an apt way to close the curtain of the first stage.

(I don't know how it's written in the light novel but I'm sure there is a lot of clearer context to the plot and characterization there. Maybe someday I'll pick it up again.)

[lancelot2015]

I wanna point out that in the LN Sigma himself notes that they both were the subject of experiments and that's what gets him to start connecting with her

[pandaofsecrets]

No but a lot of stupid discussions in this fandom would end if people sat down and actually familiarized themselves with any of the genres/media ML is pulling all its material from.

"Marinette's motivations revolve around Adrien, the writers clearly prioritize him" ML is a romance. The female leads in those almost invariably have motivations connected to their love interests. That doesn't suddenly mean said female leads stop being main characters, or that the writers are centering their LI over them.

"Does Adrien deserve to hand out Miraculous" Handing out Miraculous shouldn't even be a thing, wtf are you on about? No team-based show allows characters to pick and choose their teammates.

"Marinette should take away this character's Miraculous" See above, with added 'Y'all have gotten too comfortable with Marinette having insane amounts of power over her teammates pretty much no other superhero is ever afforded.'

"You're getting mad that Adrien was kept out of the final fight and Marinette lying to him when you had no problem with Harry Osborn" Harry didn't have powers, so him not being in the final fight made sense. Also, the lie ended with Harry becoming a full-on supervillain, so unless you want to imply Adrien's going to become the next Hawk Moth, you're not making the comparison you think you're making.

"Marinette constantly embarrasses herself, the writers must hate her" If she was any other hero, yelling at a girl over petty romantic drama in the middle of a public park would end with a video of that outburst being all over the internet, Nadja running a news segment on why she's not qualified to have superpowers, and losing the spellbook just for good measure.

And so on and so forth.

[uwouldthink]

There are also a lot of those arguments that completely ignore the story structure and narrative roles.

So many arguments that are some variation of "Marinette comes across badly while Adrien doesn't suffer the same issues" can be answered with "that's because she has more screen time and focus."

She makes more mistakes? That's because mistakes are the inciting incident in most episodes and requires the character to fix those mistakes by the end. That means at least one of the plots of the episode needs to be dedicated to that character and often it just serves as a focus episode to them. Now count the number of episode that focus on Marinette vs ones that focus on any other character, including Adrien.

She constantly embarrasses herself? That's the comedy part of the rom-com. Comedy protagonists are the most common punchline in their shows. This goes double when the protagonist does morally dubious things, because then making them the punchline makes them a likeable character rather than a grating one.

Her love quest attempts are portrayed as jokes while Adrichat's attempts are portrayed seriously? Adrichat's feelings are given a few focus episodes where they're treated seriously and are barely mentioned the rest. Marinette's feelings are mentioned almost every episode and are often used as the plot shenanigans. Those are the jokes. In the episodes where her feelings get focus rather than being part of the normal status quo of shenanigans, that's when they're treated seriously.

She makes serious bad decisions while Adrien is perfect? That's because she's given the agency to make decisions while Adrien isn't allowed to be much more than the passive princess. When would he even have the opportunity to make bad decisions with the same magnitude as Maribug's? Nevermind that when a main character makes a bad decision like this, it requires follow up exploration to see the consequence, which once again requires screen time.

Marinette is always blamed for things that aren't her fault? Because she's the one always in focus and so the one who always has to learn the lesson of the day. The writers fudge things so that the inciting incident and the lesson learned are vaguely in line with one another to keep the episode structure which results in Marinette often taking responsibility over things that weren't directly her fault but that she kinda made a mistake in that general vicinity.

I've even seen people pointing at Maribug facing any obstacles at all as proof that the writers want to humiliate her. Which is nonsense because facing obstacles is just a function of being a main character.

So many of those "proof that the writers hate Marinette" are actually the result of the writers liking her too much and never allowing anyone else in the spotlight. As a result she ends up having to fulfill so many competing narrative roles over almost all the episodes and so she gets everything. All the mistakes, all the glazing, all the embarrassment, all the character exploration, all the bad decisions, all the agency, all the obstacles and all the awesome moments.

All of those things could be mitigated, if not outright solved, by having proper cast focus and allowing Adrien to be Mariette's equal.

[pandaofsecrets]

Yeah. I've actually said before that the reason Marinette makes a mistake every episode is so she has a reason to be in every episode.

[generalluxun]

All this, plus shoehorning in 'borrowed' (held down and mugged) plotlines from Spiderman doesn't help. We know Spiderman was the inspiration, which is fine. They did actually change a lot of lore and make a new character.

-But then they decided to lean on Spiderman plots without thinking of the narrative impact of the changes they made.

The most recent is the Norman/Harry Osborn thing they have going on with The Big Lie. It's messing up S6, but I don't need to explain that to you guys.

The OG mistake, the one that is at the core of a lot of narrative dissonance is- They keep trying to run with the 'Burden of Power'.

Burden of Power is a classic Spiderman theme. The uncle Ben story cements it and it remains throughout.

No one else can be Spiderman but Spiderman. He's been given powers most people couldn't dream of. Not using them to help people is a moral crime of its own. Supervillains exist. Violence happens. Someone needs to help.

It's a setup for great angst and tough choices plots.

The writers want to apply that to Marinette *so badly* but never took the care to be sure it could stick.

At the ground level- Marinette never had to be Ladybug. The Miraculous is a transferable power and many people have been it throughout the centuries. We haven't taken a single step and we have fumbled the core of the trope.

Maybe the *choice* is predestined? Maybe Fu is a great genius who- no. No. He screwed up a a kid, got his entire Order killed, and has been running around the world for almost two centuries. He's the mystic Asian stereotype mixed with actual incompetence. Oops.

Maybe Fate brought them together! Wait- no. No. Not that either. It's actually a deliberate choice with a time travel device that creates a self fulfilling prophecy. I guess you could call a paradox fate, but not exactly the foundation you want to hinge your whole narrative on.

Aha! No one else can do what she does. She's just that good! Nope, others can do it. We've established the history, shown alternates, and we've also given her a track record over the last 4 seasons that invites skepticism. It doesn't count that people *tell* her she is the best relentlessly. People tell Trump he is smart and good at business, that does not make it true.

Perhaps stopping the villain is just *that* important. What they want to do that unhinged... Dangit no. The villain really just wants the jewelry that Ladybug and Cat Noir keep *bringing to every fight*. He's not really attacking Paris at all. Paris is literally just the place they have their slap battles. The fight doesn't happen unless they show up for it. The show even lampshades this. There's not even a cosmic alignment issue or anything requiring the Miraculous to exist.

*Other heroes exist in this world who could do this stuff*

They do give Marinette a memory-wipe trigger after 3 seasons. However we've seen it is entirely a voluntary trigger, not related to possession or use of the Miraculous at all. She's the Guardian but... That doesn't mean anything. She lost all but 2 of the Miraculous to no effect. She lost *all* of them at one point, and that had no effect. Guardianship is not required for... Anything? It means the box doesn't personalize itself for you but I dunno. I don't think accessorizing is worth a memory wipe. Otherwise its more of a tool *for the writers* than it is a burden *on Marinette*

So... Where is the Burden? Where is the responsibility? They spend a lot of time bemoaning and leaning on these things, but without actually *showing* them. They are not telling Marinette's story. They are telling Peter Parker's story with Marinette's situation and it *does not work*.

Which is really a damn shame because you *could* tell Marinette's story. There *is* a Marinette story already inside ML. There would have to be by now simply by weight of time. Yet, telling that story would require effort and confidence. Those are the two things the head writer has always been unable to muster.

[lancelot2015]

Great points all around, but

[rosie-love98]

So, Trekkies...

Was someone supposed to tell me that "Star Trek" had did a crossover with Larry Niven's "Known Space" via the Kzinti or was I already supposed to know that going in?

Kzin - Wikipedia

[lancelot2015]

Written by Niven himself

[dumblr-account]

So I just watched a video analysis about how to write a lovable jerk, y’know, as you do, and as the person broke down the different components of how this archetype is created, it grew more apparent to me how Astruc accidentally created this type of character in Chloe, and how the story decisions with her in seasons four and five actually only exacerbated this unintentional portrayal of her character (and maybe even potentially why many people find Marinette so difficult to like or even tolerate). Let me explain through the criteria given in this video!

credit to squampopulous for the analysis video

Step 1: Distance

The first step listed is the idea of creating distance between the character and the audience, pretty much the opposite of what you would do with an empathetic or relatable character. This often means the character moves so far from what the audience would expect from the real world, whether it be logic or morality, to make the jerkiness as absurd and over-the-top as possible that the audience ends up amused rather than disgusted. This is a large part how villains like Disney’s Hades or Dreamworks’ Big Jack Horner become so entertaining, or why audiences become so enthralled by Kuzco. This is something Chloe has done since her very first episode! The ways she bullies and hurts the characters in the show are so far removed from how actual bullies and privileged rich kids work that no one can (or at least, no one should) take her seriously!

In fact, on a side note, I can see this is how Marinette has become so unlikable for many people! Aside from the fact that she is intended to be a protagonist, which inherently closes at least some distance, she is also meant to be empathized with, which puts the audience in close proximity to her as a character! This is a major factor in why viewers might be harsher with her actions than characters like Chloe or Lila: because we have closer distance, we grow higher standards for her! If you’re the type of person to relate to her struggles and insecurities, then this close proximity works perfectly, but if an audience member doesn’t have such a quality, it all falls apart!

Another disadvantage Marinette has to Chloe in this category is when her actions reach familiarity. While most of Chloe’s actions feel far too absurd to ever occur in any real scenario, such as becoming a dictator mayor as a teenager, many of the actions of Marinette’s get uncomfortably close to immoralities we see in life, such as sabotaging your crush’s other love interests for the sole purpose of becoming that person’s only option. And to make matters worse, the recent seasons have continued to draw more attention to these actions rather than exaggerating them, as seen in episodes like Derision or Sublimation! By narrowing the distance between us and our protagonist’s actions in how familiar we are with such immoralities in the real world, it gives significantly less leeway for suspension of disbelief! So it’s not hypocrisy that leads to more permissible parameters for Chloe than Marinette, it’s just the basic rules of storytelling.

Step 2: Authenticity

The second step mentioned is this idea of the lovable jerk shamelessly owning up to their jerk actions and in fact pushing forward on their behaviors and actions! This was demonstrated in the video by comparing the storyboard version of Woody throwing Buzz out the window versus how Kuzco got the old man thrown out his window. While storyboard!Woody tried to deny his actions which in turn horrified the executives the scene was pitched to, Kuzco’s refusal to back down or deny his actions made his scene much more comedic to watch! This is yet another aspect Chloe nails perfectly! Even when she tries to pretend she already got Adrien a birthday present in the Bubbler, the fact that she used an annoyance for workers struggling to carry it adds a level of shameless jerkiness that turns into amusement rather than appall for the audience, not all that different from how the video described Kuzco’s sincerity about his insincerity when he lied to Pacha.

This is also another aspect that demonstrates how Marinette fails as a dubious protagonist! Because the characters and herself are so in denial of her having any potential to be a bad person, this makes any and every bad action she performs stick out like a sore thumb! So every time Astruc or a Maripologist spews another excuse or justification for this character, it only makes those who notice the corruptness of her actions more bitter and horrified!

Step 3: Time Limit

Technically, this step doesn’t really apply for Miraculous Ladybug, or at least it shouldn’t. The fact that this show is written to be pretty much never ending means that we shouldn’t really have expectations for any limited time with this show. Furthermore, considering how the first season or so of this show was written to be comedic and episodic, no time limit should be established. Take Candace from Phineas and Ferb as an example. Although she does get small moments of development throughout the show, and she does acknowledge the passage of time and repetition in the episodic formula, she never really moves beyond her role as the control freak sister who wants to bust her brothers, and the audience loves her for it!

So, if this show was indeed written to be an episodic cartoon with wacky hijinxes and silly kids lessons, then characters like Chloe or Marinette would not be characters we expect to develop beyond the roles they were placed in from the very first episode! Marinette would be the insecure yet well meaning protagonist who learns a life lesson each episode, and Chloe would be the jerk bully/rival who exists for the sole purpose of antagonizing our protagonist and getting in the way of her goals!

Unfortunately, this is not what the show decided to do! Because they made the mistake of having Chloe want to be a superhero and even idolize Ladybug. This was the aspect that ultimately determined whether she was perceived as a Jack Horner or a Kuzco. Let me explain. If they truly wanted us to believe Chloe was a villainous character with no capacity for good or heroism, the writers could have portrayed her as skewing her perception of Ladybug to align more with her predeterminate selfish and bratty ideals, or have her be motivated to be a hero for the sole purpose of fame or attention!

Instead, from the moment they introduce her being a fan of Ladybug, they make it clear that she admires Ladybug’s heroism! And because she is established as a sincere and shameless character, with the plot never giving sufficient evidence to the contrary, this intrigues the audience into believing there is more to her! Not to mention, in the two-parter of Queen’s Battle, instead of going the Jack Horner route of leaning further into Chloe’s jerkiness and literally any selfish motives she might have, the story instead portrayed Chloe’s primary motivation and driving force behind her actions as approval, whether it be from her mother or Ladybug! This was only made it worse in Maledictator by conveying her genuine insecurity of being useless. And these qualities continued to persist throughout the rest of Season 2 and the entirety of Season 3 every time she brought Queen Bee up. By giving her a deeper and less jerk-like motivation, coupled by moments of sincere selflessness, this gave the audience the impression that she had a genuine capacity for change. So when the Miracle Queen finale and seasons after tried to back out and insist she is just evil, it’s far too late. The audience already saw her vulnerability and sincerity, and the writers didn’t take the proper steps to portray or reveal her as insincere for these moments!

Now let’s look at Marinette. Instead of preserving her initial role as the flawed yet well meaning protagonist, or portraying any growth into a righteous and upstanding hero, the episodes and plot progression shows her choosing her own self interests over others time and time again! How are we supposed to see Miracle Queen as a testament to Chloe’s irredeemability when the very thing that catalyzed this event was Marinette’s desire to get in between Adrien and Kagami’s romance, while Chloe was motivated by saving her parents? By repeatedly portraying Marinette in self serving ways that get rewarded, this leads to her jerkiness outweighing any likability she might have had in her first episode!

And that’s it for this analysis! I dunno if this is actually any good, and if you disagree with anything I said, that’s perfectly valid! You are not a terrible person if you do relate to Marinette, or you genuinely despise Chloe with every fiber of your being! This analysis was made with the sole purpose of examining fiction through the general parameters of storytelling that are used to influence the audience’s perception of said characters. But hey, if anything I referenced or talked about does interest you, you can watch the original video below! It most certainly explains these elements of a lovable jerk far better than I could ever attempt to! If you did in fact read through this longass post word for word, thank you so much for sparing me so much of your time in your average scrolling and skimming of posts, I appreciate it! Have a fantastic day!

[lancelot2015]

"Instead, from the moment they introduce her being a fan of Ladybug, they make it clear that she admires Ladybug’s heroism! And because she is established as a sincere and shameless character, with the plot never giving sufficient evidence to the contrary, this intrigues the audience into believing there is more to her!"

I wanna point out that this is a consequence of copying Spider-Man without really understanding it

Chloe is a Ladybug fan cause Flash is a Spider-Man fan and it's ironic cause they bully their civilian identities

BUT not even 20 issues into Spider-Man's history, Flash was doing stuff like going out of his way to warn Peter that he could be in danger if he kept talking out loud about knowing the Big Man's identity (Peter was actually planning a trap for him but that's not relevant here) and would eventually grow and become one of Peter's best friends and even a hero himself as Agent Venom

[cdsillyposting]

The new Fate in the Fate series of anime is set in america this is the ultimate opportunity to use american tall tales for servants (i know the servants don't always equate to where the war takes place but they sometimes do... sooooo)

Ideas:

Pecos Bill: Rider (rattlesnake whip, tornado mount)

John Henry: Saber (but he uses a hammer)

Paul Bunyan & Babe: Berserker

Davy Crockett: Archer (Long-gun)

And I wanna add Johnny Appleseed but idk if he really fits, he'd be a caster if nothing else but idk might wanna just skip

I think there's an interesting thing Fate does cause obviously the closer you ger to modern history the ideas of "Famous wizards" in history becomes fewer and far between, the idea Fate had of making famous storytellers Casters is really really cool.

You could make any founding father a fate character or if you wanted a notable figure from history american founding . Its all fair game as far as the franchise is concerned and you could justify "well why are these relatively small legends fighting at the same as these big history names? Simple Home Field Advantage Buff, idk if thats a thing but it could be

[lancelot2015]

Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill

[jacquesthepigeon]

I am begging y’all to stop responding to criticisms about the show’s writing with headcanons to fill in the gaps in their defense

[jacquesthepigeon]

There are reasonable inferences you can expect the audience to make like “in order for them to go from A to C then B must’ve happened”, not “obviously this 12 chapter fanfic happened off-screen why don’t ppl get it 🙄”

[uwouldthink]

Half the time people do this they already have an interpretation of the show they like and so make up headcanons to fill in the blanks and make the story fit their interpretation. The other half are people making up events and motivations that logically should be there but actually have no basis in canon.

I think the best example of that is that there are still some people attributing Marinette's actions in s4 to Chat Blanc trauma, despite us having interviews from the writers who outright state the motivation for her behaviour is the stress from being a guardian.

This isn't a case of word of god contradicting what canon shows either. We have several episodes where we see Marinette being super stressed out explicitly because she's the guardian, which leads to her making unwise decisions. Meanwhile Chat Blanc is only mentioned two times, one where it's logical to think about (Chat Noir states that they'll never be akumatized so Marinette thinks about an example that directly debunks it), and another where it shows up in the middle of a stress dream with a bunch of other stressors around it. It isn't the focus of the scene. And the reason the stress dream happened in the first place is because Marinette was stressing out about her guardian duties.

The thing is, canon is shit at actually communicating this was her motivation. In fact, canon is pretty shit at communicating the characters motivations period. Which allows people to pick whichever motivation they want to be true and assign it to the character based on their own preferences and headcanons rather than basing it on the character we actually see on screen.

The human brain has a natural tendency to try and make sense of the world, even if it has to make something up in order to fit what it saw into a logical and coherent narrative. It's not helped that on some level we literally see the things we expect to see. A tendency that's very much made stronger when the situation is ambiguous and requires interpretation.

Mlb is a show that leaves so many blank spaces in ways that make the story illogical that it practically invites the audience to fill in the gaps themselves. And because continuity is shit and we barely if ever get a good look at what characters actually think, people are given free reign to run wild with their headcanons since 90% of them aren't going to get contradicted.

[uwouldthink]

Just to clarify, there's nothing wrong with headcanons or exploring the gaps left by the show, even if they're blatantly contradicted by canon. That's half the fun of fandom after all. Don't let me or anyone be the fun police.

The issue only comes into play where headcanon are brought up in a discussion explicitly about canon. When writing analysis or criticism of the show, the point is the show itself. Not what fans can do with the raw material it provides.

Some fans have a tendency to paper over the flaws in the show with their own inventions and then credit the show for the work they put in to connect everything into a logical narrative. By doing that they both give the show credit it doesn't deserve, and talk about a story that the rest of the fandom didn't watch since they're ths ones who came up with it.

The headcanons themselves aren't the problem. The problem only comes when "headcanons" and "canon" are treated as the same thing when they should be seperate.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The thing is, canon is shit at actually communicating this was her motivation. In fact, canon is pretty shit at communicating the characters motivations period... Mlb is a show that leaves so many blank spaces in ways that make the story illogical that it practically invites the audience to fill in the gaps themselves.

This is painfully true and the Chat Blanc thing is indeed a great example of WOG not matching what canon is showing us. When we look at what is actually in season four, Chat Blanc is the only thing that makes sense as a motivation because nothing else logically explains the bizarre mess that is that season.

Guardian stress or a desire to keep secrets don't fit the keep-Chat-Noir-in-the-dark conflict because we see Marinette trust Alya even though that requires revealing her secret identity to someone who has been akumatized multiple times and who the villain knows is an ally after the big identity reveal at the end of season three. That is a massive risk for Marinette to take so you expect there to be a reason why she takes it instead of just trusting Chat Noir whose identity is still a secret and who has never been akumatized in the main timeline. Pair it with the Chat Blanc nightmare at the start of season four and Chat Blanc is the logical conclusion for the audience to reach. After all, why remind the audience that he exists if he doesn't matter? The pieces all fit so of course a bunch of us thought that's what was going on!

And yet, when we look at the end of season four and everything that has happened since then, it becomes clear that Chat Blanc doesn't matter to Marinette. We weren't supposed to think that the season three mass identity reveal was plot-relevant and that nightmare at the start of season four was just some sort of weird red herring. Chat Blanc never crosses Marinette's mind again even though the story had multiple opportunities to address it. Instead, the character who is officially traumatized by Chat Blanc is Adrien even though Adrien never learned about Chat Blanc. For those who haven't seen it, this is the WOG explanation for why Adrien had that nightmare about killing Marinette and didn't attend the final fight:

[The writers] had to find a way for Adrien to not become his superhero self, cataclysm the walls and go help his lady in Paris. The end result is that Adrien is reminded of the devastating effect of his power by the nightmare and would therefore do anything to avoid hurting people... Mélanie says that he "could become Chat Blanc" and the others add that even though he does not remember and has never lived it, Chat Blanc still has an influence on his actions.

Please remember that this was the season that started with Adrien cataclysming his father and the story could have used that to have a plotline where Adrien was afraid of his power leading to this nightmare. Instead, the story never addresses that moment outside of the episode where it goes down and, when a nightmare keeps Adrien from the fight, that nightmare is based on a thing Adrien never experienced or learned about.

All of the above is terrible story telling. There are massive gaps in the narrative that no one can follow. How could anyone look at the way canon handles Chat Blanc and figure out that Marinette is fine while Adrien is traumatized? Nothing establishes that! It has no backing in the text!

That's the big thing you should look for when evaluating a story's quality. An audience missing something doesn't necessarily mean that the writers didn't do their job. People miss things all the time even if they're glaringly obvious! I have seen people ask "how did X happen?" when X is directly stated in the text, but that's the catch. It's directly stated in the text. If you ask the author, "how did X happen?" And they say, "look at chapter 23 where Katy and Willian talk about this" then it's not really WOG. The explanation may be coming from the writer, but they're not just pulling shit out of their ass. They're pointing you to the text to back their answer. Any fan could make the exact same augment. It just has extra authority coming from the author as that makes it clear that this interpretation is the officially intended one and not just a thing that makes sense, but might not be the intended reading. (Which doesn't make it invalid, it just means that it's not what the author was going for. That's what death of the author is all about.)

When you look at the quote above, that isn't the case. The writers can't use the text to back their bullshit. Instead, they directly state that a character is being effected by a thing he explicitly never learned about or experienced. In other words, no fan could make a convincing argument for this reading using the text because it has no backing in the text. The only reason this explanation is technically canon is because it's coming from the writers. That inability to use the text to explain their own story is what makes this genuinely terrible writing.

[generalluxun]

This here. This quote. This is what explains so much of ML's writing and is a basic writing 101 failure:

During the scene that leads to Adrien wearing the Alliance ring after being reticent to it, they say that they had a conflit when writing it as they had to find a way for Adrien to not become his superhero self, cataclysm the walls and go help his lady in Paris.

They had a specific scene in mind *since 2014*(bugganoire fusion) and 'had to find a way' to make it happen. This is two cardinal writing sins.

1)(almost) Never write backwards. It's just as bad in writing as it is in logic. If you start with an outcome and then simply work to justify that outcome, nothing that flows from that process will feel organic. This obviously has some caveats. Clearly you have some idea of where a story should go when you get cracking. Tolkein didn't sit down to write a story about the ring *not* being destroyed.

That isn't what is happening here. Here that have put Adrien in a situation and now, because of what they want to make happen(bugganoire) they have to find a way for him to *not do the character driven action he would obviously do in this situation*. So they have to shoehorn in this 'nightmare' that is the exact opposite of what we have seen this season (Cat Noir being more comfortable cataclysming people, not less) It's weird and disjointed because it's all in service of self indulgence over narrative.

2)Kill your sacred Cows.

My brother in Vishnu, you had the idea for this in 2014. Ten blessed years and five seasons have passed since then. LET IT GO. The story as is cannot possibly be the same as the one anyone had envisioned in 2014. That's just not a thing. Editorial needs, censors, budget constraints, *new* ideas, all of them will have blended to move the narrative in unforseen ways. Clinging to a 2014 'cool idea' and forcing present narrative to contort itself to make it happen is the height of hubris and carelessness for your craft.

Better writers have absolutely swerved their stories because of things that unfolded naturally in the course of writing. Follow in their footsteps. The story that tells itself is going to outdo any you hold in your head. One grows naturally like a living thing, the other is a series of polaroids yellowing in a pile.

[lancelot2015]

Kind of like how HIMYM had the finale prepared since season 1 but the characters just weren't the same by the final season

[calebwittebane]

"AZ the first physically disabled character in a pokemon game!" im happy for AZ he looks great and all but wally was literally the first... in 2002... and then ghetsis in 2010... put some facking RESPECT on the green bitches...

[calebwittebane]

attaching yr tags because youre so real for adding these examples, i didnt know that abt pryce in the manga but at the very least i really shouldve mentioned brycen grusha and opal--smh @ me saying to put respect on the green bitches as i neglect to mention the blue bitches...

[evil-tboys]

ID: tags that say "#pryce in the manga was an ambulatory wheelchair user and was a cane user in the game #grusha and brycen both had career ending injuries #nemona is pretty strongly implied to be physically disabled in some way #blaine and professor magnolia and opal all use canes. do people not count disabled characters when they're old? #like granted #AZ has a functional grip rather than a knob. or a horrid thigh bruiser like ghetsis #so his cane actually looks like a medical device #but. AUGH!"/End ID

[lancelot2015]

If we're talking PokeSpe, there's also Red, Sabrina and Sird all having pretty bad aftereffects of having been frozen, the blind kid from the RS arc and there's enough hints that some have concluded that Spe Steven is visually impaired, though that last one's mainly headcanon

[elsoplao]

Friend recommending Batman comics:

Friend: This one is pretty good. It’s about Batman protecting the Holy Grail.

Me: What Holy Grail? The one from FSF?

Friend: Not that one! That one is too dangerous!!

[lancelot2015]

This reminds me that I gotta get back to reading that fic about Zero happening in Gotham

[unhonestlymirror]

He has WHAT

[lancelot2015]

Probably just kept the Vibraslap

[seina91]

“How old is Sigma?” was a question I’ve always wondered since the text said Sigma is actually older than he looks since since his appearance stopped aging due to the experiments done to him as a child. So some time ago I did some research, and here are the calculations below:

First, Fate/strange fake takes place around 2008/2009.

Next, we know Fate/Zero takes place in 1994.

Maiya met Kiritsugu 11 years before F/Z, so Sigma must have been born at the latest by 1983. (Interestingly, since Kiritsugu was 29 during F/Z, Kiritsugu was just 18 years old when he rescued Maiya.)

Subtracting the years, Sigma is at least 25/26 by the events of F/SF (unless there were some shenanigans like Reines in Apocrypha…)

A bit unrelated, but since Maiya was already dead when Francesca/Francois picked up Sigma following his government’s collapse, Sigma was at least 11 years old at the time. And he has been working as a mercenary ever since…

TLDR - Sigma should be 25/26+ years old in FSF.

[lancelot2015]

Searched this post to note something

Thanks to Narita's Twitter commentary we know Sigma might be older than Faldeus

This means Faldeus is barely into his 20s and that explains a lot