#an other shitty analysis about Miraculous | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wisteriasymphony · 25 days

Text

The LuckyBug Miracle Team Sucks - TWEOS AU Analysis

(4 individuals who don't work for their miraculous, and 1 person that does)

Just to start off, yes, I am analyzing my own work. Nobody really has the same depth of information on this other than me, after all. I want to get more into these sorts of things, because I like to organize my thinking behind the choices I make in this fic, and maybe even draw people into my work as well!

Lucky Lucky Ladybug - Viperius - CARA.PACE - Renared - Chat Noir

These are the five main holders of the LuckyBug Team before CN quits at the start of TWEOS. We're going to be talking about why most of them suck at their job (but mostly why Lucky chose terrible miraculouses for her peers), starting from worst to best synergy.

Viperius - Snake of Intuition

The ideal holder of the Snake Miraculous is someone who is level-headed, wise, and capable.

Luka Marcel Couffaine is the exact opposite of all of these things.

In TWEOS, Luka Couffaine is as far removed from empathy as humanly possible, making him a terrible superhero in general, much less one with a power as important as interrupting the flow of time. Luka never goes out of his way to explore his abilities, rarely involves himself in battle unless forced to, and put more thought into giving his superhero form a sexy haircut than into being a good teammate. He is explicitly only a superhero for the money it brings in even though he is already the son of a world-famous rockstar. Luka is not intuitive or wise, he is shallow and self-serving.

More Suitable Miraculous: None of them. Maybe the Mouse so he can multiply and go fuck himself.

CARA.PACE - Turtle of Protection

The ideal holder of the Turtle Miraculous is someone who is stable, sacrificial, and steadfast.

Nicolas Ibrahim Lahiffe, unfortunately, falls short of the mark.

While not as outwardly shitty as Luka, Nino also lacks the right qualities in an effective superhero. Nino is the type of person who, as Quinton Reviews once perfectly put it, "would rather be chill than be right". Nino is laid-back and likes to show off with his Miraculous, enjoying how cool it makes him look while still helping out at the end of the day. ...But he's not exactly protective. If anyone even stood up to Lucky being physically abusive, it should've been him. But Nino does not protect the weak, because he is the kind of person to stand on the sidelines. Nino is not a source of stability, he's too much of a laid-back (and often cowardly) jokester to protect anyone.

More Suitable Miraculous: Monkey, Pig.

Renared - Fox of Illusion

The ideal holder of the Fox Miraculous is someone who is cunning, sly, and witty.

Aaliyah Thérèse Césaire is trying so hard to make it work, but is underserved by what she's been given.

If anyone in the team has the braincells, it's Alya. Alya can draft up plans with her Holo-Illusions like second nature, strategize on the fly, and takes to her ability to make diagrams out of thin air like a fish to water. ...But that's not what the Illusions are for, is it? As natural for her determined nature, she strives to bend her miraculous to her will anyways, rarely ever using her Illusions to actually distract and more to help her with her thankless job of the actual team leader. It makes sense that she would function this way, though! Alya is a proponent of the truth through and through, and is rather blunt often to the point of being brutally honest. Alya is not cunning, she is forthright and stubborn. If only she got a miraculous to reflect that.

More Suitable Miraculous: Ox, Rooster, Bee

Lucky Lucky Ladybug - Ladybug of Creation

The ideal holder of the Ladybug Miraculous is someone who is creative, compassionate, and clever.

Marinette Anne Louise Dupain-Cheng is this in all the wrong fucking ways.

It does take a creative person to formulate a plan to woo your celebrity crush with a perfect version of you. It takes someone who knows how to be compassionate to so effectively deny a shred of it to Chat Noir. It takes a clever person to make up a fake eulogy. And yet, at the same time, Lucky Lucky Ladybug is hindered by her hot-headed entitlement and her need to be the center of attention. She lets her team do the creative work, weaponizes her compassion as something to market herself with, and is somehow so caught up in her own world that she ignores evidence of Adrien being a relationship when it is staring her in the face. Marinette is best described as an embodiment of "creation" only in the sense that she will one day orchestrate her own undoing.

More Suitable Miraculous: Anything would be better than the Ladybug. That way she isn't brainwashing people anymore.

Chat Noir/Errant - Black Cat of Destruction

The ideal— Actually, let's break from convention for this one.

If anyone is fit to embody Destruction, it is Adrien fucking Agresté.

Once you get deep enough into TWEOS, Adrien is by far the most emotionally turbulent character out of any of them. It helps that the narration is so often colored by his input, but his range is exceptional and takes up a significant focus of the story. He is the mostly openly self-destructive and suicidal, romanticizing the idea of dying with his girlfriend, but is equally willing to destroy others in pursuit of his goals.

It's also worth taking into account that TWEOS is essentially a corruption arc. The whole point of the story is to witness his circumstances tear him apart, unearth his traumas, show a version of Adrien that becomes bitter and violent and vengeful. What power would suit a vengeful, violent person better than the power to destroy things?

Conclusion

In short, it's meant to be incredibly ironic that the only holder that truly embodies their miraculous is the one that quits. The entire ordeal is a stageplay put on by higher powers, of course it's more important to them that their puppets are obedient more than anything.

Of course, this isn't to say that synergy between a person and their miraculous is a good thing, either; That's what makes the eventual magic-induced insanity even worse, after all. This is what killed Emilie, what's ruining Marinette's relationships, and what is starting to happen to Adrien as well.

21 notes · View notes

ilikekidsshows · 8 months

Note

Would love to know your take on Nathalie’s "redemption."

Oh, you guys want Dunking on Nathalie Hours next? Okay, this is gonna be really ranty but I promise it's based on actual analysis. Yeah, let's go.

Look, Nathalie and Félix shouldn’t have been redeemed. Not because I think they’ve done anything irredeemable, but because it just wasn’t logistically feasible. The very rules of their universe mean that their “redemptions” were always going to be only surface level, that they’ll just profess to how much they care about Adrien without actually doing anything to prove those feelings, because Miraculous just loves meaningless words that don’t amount to anything these days, like with Marinette apologizing for her lying while lying some more.

Even after they “join” the good guys’ side. Nathalie and Félix are both still complicit in whatever crimes and villainy Gabriel commits because they know he is Hawk Moth. They know where his lair is, so they could even produce evidence to prove it to the police. Because Nathalie and Félix don’t get Gabriel put away, they allow his evil to persist and him to keep committing his crimes. This is especially flagrant because they claim they want him away from Adrien, but they literally have the power to take Gabriel far away from Adrien and don’t act on it.

Arguably, you could claim Félix went further than Nathalie on the redemption, because he at least tried to tell Marinette Gabriel was full of shit. She just conveniently forgot that episode happened when it was time to actually take Gabriel down. Even so, at this point, Félix has access to one of the strongest Miraculouses and he won’t use it to take on Gabriel himself. He won’t even make sure that Marinette understood his cryptic message to her. It’s a gesture as pointless as his words, because he didn’t follow through.

Now, here’s the thing; in the end it doesn’t matter what Nathalie and Félix might want to do, because they just metaphysically can’t stop Gabriel. The very rules of the universe they exist in won’t allow them to lift a finger against Gabriel, because they are not Marinette. Miraculous has never allowed anyone other than Marinette to save the day, at least not without Marinette getting a lion’s share of the glory, even before the retooling turned Marinette into the center of the universe. Nathalie and Félix won’t go to the police with their information, because then they would be responsible for taking down Gabriel, not Marinette. This is even apparent in Félix’s failure to communicate his knowledge to Marinette. He chose the most convoluted method and didn't follow through, all so that Marinette could stumble into the knowledge herself, because god forbid if a character other than Marinette Astruc is allowed to do anything in the universe Thomas Astruc created for his little pretend daughter.

What was I talking about again? Right, Nathalie’s supposed redemption. I think Miraculous’ characters do too much talking and not enough acting when it comes to their motives and intentions. Why should we trust anything these characters say when they don’t act on it? Nathalie isn’t a good guy, she’s Harley Quinn lite: the only reason she stopped being evil is because she got bored of being evil and her always-shitty supervillain malewife was shit one too many times. Just because she stopped actively committing evil acts doesn’t mean she’s good now. At best she’s neutral, at worst she’s just an accomplice who retired from active villainy since she still keeps her boss’ secrets despite her claiming she’s done with him.

#ml salt #ml writers salt #ml writers critical

61 notes · View notes

emsylcatac · 2 years

Note

One thing I love with Evolution is how much it parallels Strike Back: Marinette had good intentions, lost the Miraculous, had a panic attack and reconciled with Chat Noir, whereas in Evolution Gabriel acts just as shitty as usual, which makes him lose a precious Miraculous, have a panic attack and (seemingly) loses Nathalie. One chose love, the other power. I love me some narrative foils, especially if that means Maribug and Adrichat can thrive while Garbage Agreste ends up alone 👀

Anon this is so funny because I was discussing the episode with friends two days ago and I said basically this haha! That Marinette lost the miraculous but got her partner "back" (not that he was gone but you get what I mean, they reconciled like you said), while Gabriel got the miraculous but lost his partner! Because he took her for granted and didn't show Nathalie he wanted her by his side, while Marinette showed Chat Noir she wanted him. So their reactions parallel but in the end, Marinette didn't loose what mattered the most while Gabriel did

The way Evolution showed her trusting Chat Noir and listening more to him and them being back as a team, really, contrasted the whole episode with how Gabriel ignored Nathalie and hung up on her and talked over her. And like you say I think what we're heading towards is Ladybug getting all the support that Gabriel looses, and he'll end up alone.

@amimons had some really good analysis about it all, I don't know if she'll share them in a post on Tumblr 👀

It was so satisfying to see this and Gabriel's reaction, that he was finally facing some consequences for his actions and realising it, I really loved seeing him panicking 😏😌 I think it's the first time we see him having this reaction of going into some sort of shock because he understands he truly messed up and really..satisfying is the word, I'm excited to see how this will drive him even more over the edge!

#ask #anon #ml spoilers #evolution #evolution spoilers

172 notes · View notes

tara-myra · 2 years

Text

There’s two things I love . Musicals and Miraculous (well there’s more but you get the idea ) So long time ago I created a playlist

Lila- World burn

« I wanna watch the world burn

I got the gasoline

I wanna watch the world burn

And everyone get mean »

This is THE song that gave me the idea. World burn fits Lila so well , That girls just want chaos . The song emphasizes perfectly her hate for Cady and I think it’s the same for Lila’s hate toward Marinette

« Cady, time to watch your back

Cady, time to turn and cough

Because you took me down

But you didn't finish me off »

I was actually almost disappointed when I realize no one did an animatic of this song with Lila Rossi

Marinette - Helpless

« I'm helpless!

He's mine, that boy is mine!

Look into your eyes

And the sky's the limit, I'm

Helpless! Helpless!

Down for the count, and I'm drownin' in 'em »

It’s just our girl being sooo into Adrien . I could totally see her sing that song . I know she is more than just a teen being in love but I find this song really catchy and joyful and that sort of match Marinette’s vibes . The other songs I thought of was « Surface Pressure » ( especially after season 4) but I can’t really count it as a musical even if Lin Manuel Miranda wrote it .

Adrien - Dead mom

« Hey mom, dead mom

I need a little help here

I'm prob'ly talking to myself here

But dead mom, I gotta ask

Are you really in the ground?

'Cause I feel you all around me

Are you here, dead mom?

Dead mom

I'm tired of trying to iron out my creases

I'm a bunch of broken pieces

It was you who made me whole

Every day dad's staring at me

Like all, "Hurry up, get happy

Move along

Forget about your mom"

'Cause daddy's in denial

Daddy doesn't wanna feel

He wants me to smile

And clap like a performing seal

Ignored it for a while

But daddy's lost his mind for real

You won't believe the mess that we've become »

I couldn’t make it shorter this fit Adrien so well especially the « Are you really in the ground , cause I feel you all around » Sweet irony …💀

Marc x Nathanael - Sincerely me

« Our friendship goes beyond

Your average kind of bond

But not because we're gay

No, not because we're gay »

I knooow there’re plenty other songs but idk , they kinda match the energy of this one . Also they like to invent and write .

Alya x Nino - Black-out

«Don’t make me laugh, I’ve been trying all night , You’ve been shaking your ass for half of the heights

Real nice

You barely gave me a chance all evening

What

Do I get another dance

I’m leaving »

Honestly I chose this one for the voices , If Nino would have a singing voice it would definitely be Anthony Ramos . Also this part especially reminded me this couple . I feel like Nino is really possessive toward Alya because of his own insecurities ( as we can see in Rocketears) and I would totally see them arguing during a disaster with all the parisians people screaming and panicking in the background .

Zoe - Alyssa Green

« But your feelings have to be phony

Your weight has to be tracked

If you don't like shaking pom poms

You'd better learn to act

Just have everything perfected

By the time you reach eighteen

Don't ask how or why when you're Alyssa Greene »

I feel like it’s a song that could fit her especially considering the pressure her mom put in her shoulders to be someone else . It’s hard to chose a part honestly ALL the song fits Zoe

Félix - hurricane (The one from Death note and NOT from Hamilton)

« I’ll bring the pain

So be afraid

I will bring the power of the hurricane

Am the God of a brave new world

Much better than the last

The time for talking is finally in the past »

First ; Jeremy Jordan’s voice would have fit Félix so perfectly (again if the character has to sing). Secondly, It fit Felix’s god complex.

Chloé - Candy Store

« Honey what you waitin' for?

Welcome to my candy store

Time for you to prove you're not a loser

Anymore

And step into my candy store

Guys fall

At your feet

Pay the check

Help you cheat

All you

Have to do

Say goodbye

To Shamu

That freak's

Not your friend

I can tell

In the end »

Especially when it say « Say goodbye to Shamu » I feel like it’s exactly what Chloe could have sing when she welcomed her sister at her school (and when she realized this one befriended Marinette Dupain Cheng)

Gabriel and Emily - Our love is god

«I worship you

I'd trade my life for yours

We'll make them disappear

We'll plant our garden here

Our love is God »

That’s exactly them . I feel like they would have this weird relationship Veronica and JD has . Gabriel himself said he wants to rebuilt a world for him and Emily . Emily is his everything.

Harry Clown - Gay or european

« (All)

Gay or European?

So many shades of gray

(Warner)

Depending on the time of day

The French go either way »

Now we all collectively agreed the clown banged Gabriel Agreste during college …

Bonus Chat Blanc dead girl walking

« I wish your mom had been a little stronger

I wish she stayed around a little longer

I wish your dad were good!

I wish grown-ups understood!

I wish we'd met before

They convinced you life is war!

I wish you'd come with me—

[J.D.]

I wish I had more TNT! »

80 notes · View notes

muggle-born-princess · 2 years

Text

Update and Upcoming Projects~

Hello, hello~! It’s been so long since I last made an update, haven’t I? O: Anyways, I just wanna say that it’s now been 1 month since I've been living in Texas and so far, there have been a few ups and downs. First off, I’m living off the countryside, so you can guess what creatures I’d been running into lately. XP Secondly, I still wanna say that I am very sorry if I've been acting slow or been inactive lately. Lots of work to do in and around the house.

As for artwork and other projects, I just wanna say that as always, I am taking my time doing them as much as possible. Thankfully since my BF now has a new job working Mondays-Fridays, I’ll have all the free time to take care of myself. :) Speaking of taking care of myself, I had to back away from a few areas that were making me out to be a toxic and shitty person. ^^; One of them unfortunately being the Miraculous Ladybug fandom. More on that later.

All in all, while yes I may still be slow, I will be also working on a few projects here and there. My goal this spring/summer is to actually get back on track and be more active on every social media I have. Even if it’s something pretentious like Twitter, but that’s where I share my art, so what’s the damage there besides politics? =P I’d often been meaning to focus more on original content instead of fanmade stuff since I wanna learn to expand myself a little out there with my own creativity and see what I can bring to the table.

And now onto Miraculous Ladybug…

I figured that now is the time I go on an indefinite hiatus from it. I’m really sorry to anyone who has followed or watched me only for Miraculous-related content, but as of now, I don’t know how much longer I can take from it. The fandom has caused more harm than good with rabid Love Square shippers, character bashing, and not to mention,

an actual fucking su**de!

Yeah as you can say, it really did fuck a lot of people, including me. Once I get down to finishing S4, that’s when I will call it quits for now.

“But wait, what about your @pro-bee-sisters blogs and your AUs and fics?”

Those will not be canceled thankfully, but they will either be also on hiatus or still be a WIP. It honestly depends how my schedule and my day goes. In fact, I still plan on doing fanwork for the show since I have a lot of ideas for it, but for now, I’m gonna have to take a break from the show until the fandom either A; learns to chill the fuck down (Highly doubtful, but still) or B; begins to die down slowly as possible

I do, however, have three posts I wanna post ASAP. Two of this blog and one on Bee Sisters.

Upcoming Miraculous AUs/Fanfics

A Character Analysis on Zoe and Why She Doesn’t Work

My Real Thoughts on Chloe and Zoe

Also, I've realized that I now have 9 unread asks in my inbox and I do wanna say I am so sorry if you submitted a question and that I did not answer it. I’d been real careful attempting to answer what I think of them and how I respond to it. I will get to those ASAP, but before I do, I just wanna make one thing clear:

DO NOT ASK ME ANY QUESTIONS THAT INVOLVE MY PERSONAL LIFE!

As I said before in my old post, something asked me a very personal question regarding me on Discord and it was extremely shitty of them to do. I’m not usually one to call out people online unless they’re a dangerous threat (i.e. PAAITB is a good example), but what this person did to me was absolutely unacceptable and rude as fuck; and I will not tolerate it.

Therefore, that is gonna be my only rule for now on. If anyone else breaks that rule, I will permanently close all asks.

And lastly, please remember that I AM NOT exclusively Miraculous related! I have other fandoms too~ My other ones include:

Disney

Dolls (MH, Barbie, Bratz, RH, MyScene, EAH)

Nintendo

Mortal Kombat

Total Drama

Studio Ghibli

YOU ARE ALWAYS FREE TO ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT THOSE FANDOMS AS WELL! I WILL HAPPILY ACCEPT THEM!

Please also follow me on all my other social medias:

AO3

Art Blog

DeviantART

Fanfiction

FurAffinity (HEAVILY NSFW! MINORS DNI!)

Instagram

Newgrounds (HEAVILY NSFW! MINORS DNI!)

Twitter (HEAVILY NSFW! MINORS DNI!)

Wattpad

Have an awesome day everyone~

#update #announcement

8 notes · View notes

hms-no-fun · 3 years

Note

not a particularly serious question but who is the coolest godfeels character in your opinion

it really says a lot about the swerve godfeels 3 has taken that my gut response here is angel dirk. he gets a bunch of great one-liners, he's got a cool busted-ass godkiller sword, and he was rebirthed into the mortal plane like athena from the forehead of zeus. he gets SO many coolguy moments in chapter 8, it's unreal.

i think the runner up has to be dare. as the not-so-secret-anymore anime protagonist of godfeels, dare is basically the only character who gets an unambiguously happy ending out of chapter 8. not to turn this into a character analysis post, but it was really important to me that we have someone whose entire arc was tied into the fight for autonomy...

fuck it, i'm gonna talk about themes for a second.

in homestuck proper, retcon was treated like this sudden revelation that completely changed the game (literally and figuratively). coming into gf1, obviously the existential psychodrama of possessing that kind of power was a big focus for me. how that power and responsibility can eat away at you until there's nothing left, and how to find hope that life is more than just power (hint: it's other people).

then in gf2, that question gets expanded and recontextualized. now june is june, she's a trans woman demanding to be heard, demanding to have her own autonomy. when her friends react poorly to this, she reacts poorly back. obviously murdering your friends isn't the healthiest response to them being shitty to you when you come out as trans, but also this is homestuck. none of these bitches are healthy and they never have been. they're gods, and they can destroy countless lives accidentally. at least june made her destruction un-happen!

the other side of that in gf2 is dirk reacting poorly to having to revise his plans for june. he was relying on her passivity, and now he has to get aggressive. this is meant, beyond the obvious display of complex social transphobia on an individual level, as a microcosm of the power dynamics at play between marginalized queer people and those in power.

this is the conflict that gets expanded to a cosmic scale on gf3. we see in june's retcon-fueled powerset an unfathomable productive capacity, and in epigone we see the next level up beyond dirk, a systemic cannibalistic urge to seize that productive capacity and use it for its own ends. we see, as well, that in this kind of power struggle, queer people simply have no recourse in fighting back. when epigone arrives, that's all she wrote. no amount of will or bluster or strength is enough to fight back. it takes a miraculous chorus of hope to pull the afflicted out of its corruptive gestalt long enough to fight back, and even then epigone seems pretty confident that this merely delays the inevitable.

dare and dirk both serve as interesting counterpoints to epigone, because while they both fall to its influence, they also are the ones most responsible for keeping it from winning outright. it's telling that they're both exploited queer people with complicated histories desperately fighting for some kind of autonomy. which they both get! although in dirk's case it's a bit of a double edged sword for, uh, hopefully obvious reasons.

this is why it was important to me that dare be this archetypally lucky anime character. i knew from the outset that they would, eventually, convince X to let go of june, and that it would be quite literally a "the power of friendship" moment. the only way to sell that, in my opinion, is to have it be the culmination of this brutally painful and difficult journey through setback after setback. this depressed and often suicidal person choosing to live, which of course extends to X as they are members of the same system, and ultimately clawing their autonomy back despite all odds.

i don't know to what extent this makes dare cool, but it does make them one of my very favorite characters in the story right now, and someone i'm really looking forward to writing more of as time goes on.

#godfeels #homestuck #dirk #dare #sarahposts

15 notes · View notes

dishwater-blondie · 3 years

Note

Why do you suppose Gabriel is so cold to Adrien? It seems like he doesn't care much about Adrien outside of his relation to Emilie. Given how bad things are between them it's hard to imagine how their relationship can be healed in a satisfying way

I do have a lot of thoughts on this and they are grounded mostly in pure speculation. I admit the show itself seems to suggest that the majority of the affection Gabriel holds for Adrien is related through Emilie, or at least the majority of affection that isn’t implicit paternal fondness (if that even matters with someone as emotionally flaccid as Gabriel). And honestly, this kinda sucks. For people to do try to enjoy Gabriel’s character like myself, his relationship with Adrien as presented does serve as one especially shitty detail in what is already quite the shitshow. But what really bothers me is that there is immense potential for some compellingly intricate family dynamics in the Agreste household that is oversimplified by the idea that Adrien is a reminder of Emilie to his father and nothing more. Here’s an explanation of what I believe should be the situation:

I’ve already offered plenty of analysis on why I think Emilie should be a villain and the evidence we have suggesting this might be the case, so I’ll spare you all of that right now. What I’ve talked much less about is how Emilie herself could have thrown a wrench in the relationship between father and son. From what we’ve heard about her so far, we are to understand that Emilie was always the warm and affectionate parent, while Gabriel, given his rigidity and general coldness, was likely the disciplinarian. However, since it’s been theorized at length that Emilie must have been majorly responsible for Adrien’s isolation growing up (at least equally to her husband), one conclusion that I have drawn is that Emilie could have been the one making these rules, tasking Gabriel with enforcing them. That’s not to say Gabriel didn’t also believe in these rules. I’m sure he did. But it’s beyond obvious that Gabriel has an unhealthy devotion to his wife, so who is to say Emilie didn’t manage to convince Gabriel of a structured lifestyle he wouldn’t have otherwise favored? It’s possible (especially when you consider based on Audrey’s dialogue that Gabriel was probably the lower class of the two who had to work and marry his way into wealth).

But expanding on this, we also have ample evidence that Emilie liked being idolized in her own house. Why else would there be giant golden portraits, statues, and a beautiful multi-story repository/garden - at least two of which had to have been prepared before she had fallen asleep? Might we speculate, then, that Emilie liked to be the center of attention? That she reveled in this overzealous dedication Gabriel exhibits towards her? And if she likes it from Gabriel, why wouldn’t she like it from her son, who doesn’t seem to register that she had to have played a considerable role in keeping him sheltered from the world? Adrien’s isolation is blamed on Gabriel even though he has more friends and freedom now than he’s had throughout the rest of his life. Yet, Emilie is still thought of as the better parent.

To a great extent, of course, she was. At least in terms of giving her son the time of day and being emotionally available to him. But what if she closed Gabriel off from this role? What if she made him play bad cop, enforce the rules she liked while she got to swoop in with her love and comfort and ignore that she was just as responsible for the way things were? What if she facilitated these parenting roles, ensuring she was always painted in a good light and never blamed for her son’s hardship?

[I mean, look at Amelie, who blamed Felix’s bad behavior on the fact that his father was no longer around to keep him out of trouble. She’s not responsible. His dad was the disciplinarian. Not her. She can’t control her son (even though she very much is)].

Now Emilie is gone and Gabriel doesn’t know how to step into the role she’d played all their son’s life. He seems so uncomfortable with Adrien showing him any kind of affection. Like it’s new to him. Like he doesn’t know how to be what Emilie had once been. Like he even feels guilty for filling that space.

Remember when Gabriel expressed that all he has left of Emilie is the grimoire and Adrien? Well, he is obsessed with that grimoire (or what it represents, the miraculous endeavor as a whole). But he keeps Adrien at a distance. If memory is all Adrien provided for him, wouldn’t he taking advantage of that more? If he truly values Adrien only as something Emilie left behind, I feel like they’d have a different relationship. Still a very, very unhealthy one. But different. “Closer” feels like the wrong word even though I do mean “less distant”.

But no. Adrien seems almost emotionally off limits to Gabriel. He’s not brushing Adrien off because he’s too painful of a reminder - Gabriel literally never stops reminding himself of Emilie. Gabriel brushes Adrien off because he doesn’t know how to be something other than what he’s always been - the iron fist. The bad cop. The disciplinarian. Being as loving and warm as Emilie used to be would not only force him to confront the fact that they don’t need Emilie anymore, but it would also betray the hard and fast structure of their family functions, the structure Emilie implemented to secure her place in the emotional center of her husband and son’s worlds.

As for how to heal their relationship, I talked a little bit about this in my post about Gabriel’s redemption, but I want to add that I do think it’s imperative these dynamics are exposed and both Agrestes realize how their relationship has been manipulated and that they properly communicate about it.

Thank you for this ask! This was some fun analysis.

#gabriel agreste #adrien agreste #emilie agreste #fuck emilie juice #agreste family #ml analysis #miraculous ladybug

75 notes · View notes

orsuliya · 3 years

Note

I fully agree with your analysis of wanru; a lot of people somehow do not acknowledge the hardships she goes through as a character and you acknowledged them in such a cogent manner

Xie Wanru gets really bad press and I can understand why. After all, it’s rather easy to lump her in with other spiteful, plotting women... who, when you think about it, are not that similar at all. The Rebel Princess gives us female antagonists in all shapes and sizes, and with all kinds of motivations too. There are definite shades to their spite and some of them are more justified than others in their shady deeds.

Xie Wanru, Empress Wang, Wang Qian, Su Jin'er... They've all been dealt very different cards and their subsequent actions should be judged in direct relation to that, as should their individual level of spite and the way they choose to express it. And at the end of the day? Xie Wanru, for all that she may be an Empress, gets the short end of the stick.

The one who I really have a problem with is Su Jin'er, who has started off in objectively the best position out of all our female characters. Sure, she's not a princess, but... Actually, what is she? In the book, she's born in a dance studio and is not told who her father is until after her mother dies. There is an implication that the father might have been a figure of some status, but we're also told that such children are usually left behind and that girls often get taken into some dignitary's house as small concubines. Su Jin'er escapes that fate by being noticed by Auntie Xu and is subsequently taken in as a servant. In the drama, we're not given this or any other backstory for Su Jin'er, but one thing is clear: there is not even the smallest implication that being taken into the Wang household wasn't the best possible fate she could have had. And believe me, with her level of spitefulness, if there was any inheritance or status due to her and then denied in her service to the Wangs, it would have come up sooner or later.

And it's pretty clear that whatever Su Jin'er's actual status, she is no mere rank-and-file servant. More of a companion. At no point, not even back in the Wang Manor does she dress or behave like other servants; why, in the very first episode she roughhouses with not only Awu, but also the young master of the house. She's an obvious favourite, occupying a position that could very well belong to a less illustrious blood relation and often dressing just like an unmarried well-bred lady of some means. Why, in episode 40 lesser maids hand her out of the carriage with a degree of respect due to a mistress and not another servant.

She also has every reason to expect to make a brilliant marriage once she's of age. Awu would have made sure of that, we know that much. What kind of marriage could that be? No concubinage for Su Jin'er, that's for sure. No, most probably she would get a substantial dowry and become the main wife of an army officer (we know Hu Guanglie sees nothing wrong with potentially seeking a match among Awu's maids) or perhaps a merchant. Or perhaps a civil servant or a minor noble, depending on that dowry and on Awu's continued favour. Turnip's patronage would have counted for a lot as well. I also get the feeling Awu would have wanted to see Su Jin'er situated just as well as Yuxiu, so there would be probably no expense or influence spared in order to achieve that goal.

And if Su Jin'er didn't want to marry? Well, unlike Xie Wanru, Awu, Empress Wang, Mi'er and Gu Caiwei, she has the luxury not to do so. She can simply stay on with Awu and in time take the place of an honoured matron, Awu's second-in-command. Not unlike Auntie Xu or Empress Wang's main attendant (Nanny Evil), or Xie Guifei's and then Xie Wanru's trusted servant (Nanny Sus). It's not a bad fate. And with the way Awu treats her childhood companion, it's also her choice. Nobody is going to force her to do anything. As long as the Wangs and the Yuzhangs have a smidge of power and influence, she would have been safe; and during her childhood she could count on Princess Jinmin taking an interest in her fate as well.

There is also no suggestion of mistreatment going on there. Xiao Qi certainly isn't going to meddle with his wife's servants and Awu herself takes the sancticity of her household seriously, going as far as to take Yuxiu's side over her own cousin's. I doubt it would be different with Su Jin'er. Any snobbery shown by Wang An doesn't count as it starts only after Su Jin'er inexplicably becomes an Imperial Concubine, reappearing miraculously and climbing the ranks with her mistress presumed dead or at best a traitor.

Even Su Jin'er's accusation that Awu should have known of her secret feelings for Zitan make little sense. Hadn't Su Jin'er spent years encouraging their romance and spinning fantasies about entering their household as Awu's trusted companion? Awu is not actually telepathic. And it's fully possible that if Su Jin'er confessed her true feelings at any time after Huizhou, Awu would have offered to help in any way she could. No skin off her nose if Zitan takes a concubine or five; it's betrayal and selling her to Helan Zhen that Awu takes umbrage to, not Su Jin'er getting Zitan's flute.

To recap: Su Jin'er enjoyed safety and some degree of privilege with comparatively little being demanded of her in return. She could choose to marry or not, depending on personal preference and was guaranteed a position of respect and honour for life without needing to risk her life for it (hello, Hu Yao, my love!). Hell, if she wanted to marry she could probably have any man she wanted except those at the very echelons of power. The world was her oyster!

And then she threw it all away, all her brilliant prospects, her integrity, any bonds of friendship and sisterhood, her honesty, dignity and even self-respect... for a man. Which, to me, is a shitty motivation, but understandable to a degree if one gets some reciprocity and/or if the man in question is even remotely worth it. Not that any man is worth that much! And certainly not Zitan.

In my opinion Zitan is not worth breaking a favourite mug, much less one's life. Now, if Xie Wanru wanted to blow up the palace, I'd gladly hand her any explosives she may need for that, provided she evacuated the servants first.

#ask and answer #the rebel princess #what I wanted to really say is #thank you for the compliment!

33 notes · View notes

dramatic-squirrel · 3 years

Text

Maybe I'm biased to new characters but I have a thing against Zoe from Miraculous Ladybug. So, like, hear me out for a bit, although I'm sure most of this has been said already.

On her own, I don't hate her. Her character design is cool, her insecurities make her relatable and I like how she has bonding moments with the mayor. But in the context of the show, she just feels unnecessary and somewhat annoying to me.

Unnecessary in that is already a large cast of characters for people if the goal was to replace Chloe as Queen Bee. I've seen people mention Aurore as an option, which does seem like a good idea. But there's also Mireille and like every adult or Alya switching between Fox and Bee now that she's in on the whole miraculous secret. There are 15 characters in Bustier's class, there's Kagami and Luka and every other character that already makes reoccurring appearances and then they want to add another character. That's a really huge cast for a show that has to spend like 10 minutes an episode just setting up the villain of the week. And while not every character needs to be mentioned every episode, it tends to sideline people to the point of not seeing them for several episodes (think Natalie or how we don’t get much about Sabine or Tom that often despite being Marinette’s parents. Or Lila who literally shows up for an episode here or there to be a nuisance then disappears again (I have a thing against Lila too that has nothing to do with her being am objectively horrible person in canon)).

Then there is the fact that I find her introduction somewhat annoying. We basically spend two episodes focused on Zoe which annoys me. Those are episodes that could have been better spent on lore. Or they could have used those couple of episodes to make Lukenette and Adrigami feel like actual relationships instead of the tease that they were. Not to mention the almost instant trust Marinette has towards Zoe kind of annoys me. Zoe comes in acts very friendly when they're alone but at school literally becomes a second Chloe. Even understanding Zoe's motivation, it's a bit weird to trust her so soon with a miraculous. Even weirder that it's the bee miraculous which she had previously lost and, being the new guardian, would certainly feel incredible anxiety about handing out the bee miraculous. The miraculous that lead to Miracle Queen. To Chloe's half sister. Who literally demonstrated a desire to do anything to be accepted by her family an episode ago and who was hesitant to take the miraculous because of Chloe.

Not to mention, Zoe becoming a superhero is probably the worst thing for her character at the moment. She has anxieties about people not knowing the real her. How she acts differently in order to fit in and that caused her to question who she really is as a person. Adding on another persona/identity/secret does not help. And no, it's not like in Chat Noir's case were being a hero let's him relax and let's him be himself. Others have mentioned how she clearly seems to be playing a role when she's a superhero (I can’t find the post where I saw this from, it’s not my analysis but I thought it made a good point). To summarize, it’s the way she took to being a superhero instantly, with the poses, the lines and everything that kind of makes it seem like she’s playing a role, especially when we consider that in that same episode she was playing a hero in a movie and that she wants to be an actress. Not hard evidence but, somewhat suspicious.

I won't completely write her off. As I said before, there are points about Zoe I like right off the bat. And I really like how Marinette is basically adopting rich kids with shitty parents. But the fact that Zoe was almost exclusively made in order to replace Chloe does not lend itself well to her character.

And no, none of this being written changes anything about the show, but it makes me feel better getting my thoughts out there.

#miraculous ladybug #zoe bourgeois #miraculous ladybug rant #ml rants #controversial ml opinions #zoe lee #i didn't know her last name was lee #until i saw it in the wiki

24 notes · View notes

emilyofjane · 3 years

Text

Why the Disney Princesses definitely need therapy: a Hot Take

Snow White

Losing her parents as a child and having to learn to take care of herself at a very young age (Snow White is 14 in the movie, and judging by her work ethic, she appears to at least have some experience with living independently before moving in with the 7 dwarves)

Lack of socialization due to isolation

Depression due to isolation and loneliness. This makes the whole “Someday My Prince Will Come” thing much more believable, because Snow White really isn’t in any sort of immediate danger and doesn’t need “saving” or whatever; she’s just tired of being alone and wants human companionship. (And tbh who can blame her? The poor girl’s literally talking to birds and moved in with the first group of humanoid creatures she could find ffs)

This one’s a bit of a stretch, but I’m pretty sure Snow White would also have an unhealthy fear of strangers and/or an irrational fear of being poisoned after the whole apple fiasco

Cinderella

Being raised in an abusive home environment for most (if not virtually all) of her life

The complete lack of positive social interaction throughout her life has probably led to problems with social withdrawal and isolation at some point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has repressed symptoms of chronic depression due to loneliness.

Her closest emotional confidants are literally two talking mice, and that just screams “My only friends are animals because their love is unconditional I’ve been invalidated and unloved by every human being in my life” (aka extreme emotional neglect)

She probably has tons of questions about her biological parents that were never answerd because, again, her stepfamily hated her, which would obviously lead to some emotional baggage

If we consider Cinderella III: A Twist in Time to be the new canon, she definitely has some unresolved PTSD from her near-death experience (the “almost getting crushed to death in the carriage because it was transforming back into a pumpkin” scene)

Aurora

Existential crisis because the three fairy godmothers basically rewrote her entire identity as “Rose” and hid the fact that she was a princess

Never knowing who her real parents were as a child, leading to emotional baggage similar to that of Cinderella and Snow White mentioned above

Either the emotional burden of having to make up for 16+ years of lost time with her biological family, or the grief of losing her biological family without ever getting the chance to know them (idk whether Aurora actually got to meet her parents by the end of the movie or if they died before she woke up, because I don’t remember exactly how much time had passed while she was in the coma)

Speaking of the spindle prick-induced magical coma (which is a really long-winded and inefficient way to kill someone honestly, idk what Melificent was thinking), Aurora also has to deal with the emotional burden of how much time has passed while she was in a coma, which would only further feed into the existential crisis and emotional trauma in bullet points 1 and 3.

(Also, off the record, but Aurora’s entire life post-movie is just a hot fucking mess and she really deserves a second movie exploring that concept imo. I know that Sleeping Beauty has already gotten a live-action villain spinoff, but the story of Aurora herself really deserves to be reexamined under a modern lens also. Aurora is easily one of the most overlooked Disney princesses and tbh she deserves more love.)

Belle (feat. the expanded lore from the live-action movie)

Witnessing her mother die from the plague in their own home

Being forceed to move from the more culturally progressive city of Paris to the unnamed “poor provential town” in the movie, where she is clearly the odd one out and is subject to gender inequality on a daily basis (in the form of being publically shamed and socially ostacized for being an educated woman)

Being regularly sexually harassed by Gaston, which is further exacerbated by the villagers and their close-mindedness. Not only is Gaston’s behavior enabled and encouraged by the villagers, but they even go so far as to idolize Gaston — as shown during his namesake song — despite his obviously predatory actions, simply because he is a cishet white man that they find conventionally attractive

Watching her father get arrested despite being 100% innocent...TWICE

Also being arrested when her father is wrongly convicted a second time, by none other than her abuser

Watching her lover — who besides her parents was the first person in her life who truly loved her and respected her intellect despite being a woman — nearly die in her arms, as well as everyone else in the castle (who ALSO respected her regardless of her gender) nearly die at the same exact time.

...And you know, Stockholm Syndrome or whatever. (But tbh, given how everyone in the castle was very kind and respectful and how the Beast was a tsundere at best, Belle would probably suffer far more from PTSD brought upon by Gaston and her previous environment than from “Stockholm Syndrome” in a castle where everyone actually treated her like a normal fucking human being. Unpopular opinion I know but as a sexual assault survivor this is literally a hill I will die on.)

Jasmine

I’ve actually never watched Aladdin all the way through, so unfortunately I can’t give a full analysis of Jasmine’s conflicts...but I have seen that gif of her saying “I am not a prize to be won” and that just screams “I’ve suffered a lifetime of female objectification and gender inequality despite my social status, and not even in the highest position of authority possible am I allowed to have a voice” and idk about you but that is really fucked up man

Ariel

PTSD from being manipulated by Ursula to give up her voice and nearly losing everything (both her previous life in the ocean and the promise of a new life on land with her love interest) because of it

Near-death experience from *vague hand gesture to whatever the fuck that was at the end of the movie*

Inevitable depression from abandoning the only home she’s ever known (the ocean) and leaving her friends and family behind

She’ll probably also need some form of behavioral therapy to help her adjust to her new home on land, whose culture is still extremely foreign to her — and maybe even additional therapy for social anxiety, given how her first 3 days of human interaction were so mortifyingly embarrassing that she’ll probably be laying wide awake at 3 AM and thinking “oh my god I can’t believe I looked Eric’s parents dead in the eyes and brushed my hair with a dinner fork” for the next 10 years.

Tiana

PTSD from literally being turned into a frog

Overworking herself to the point of near burnout, and being unable to fully live out her prime adult years because of said burnout

Constantly dealing with shitty customers, bosses, and other white-collared people disrespecting her and treating her as subhuman because of her career choice, which is unfortunately a common shared experience among restaurant workers and those who work hourly wages

Since this movie takes place in the United States presumably before the 1960’s, it’s probably safe to assume that Tiana also probably had to deal with segregation, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of racism off-screen on a daily basis, which would obviously take a toll on her mental well-being and further exacerbate the issues mentioned in #3

Grief from losing her dad, which has likely been repressed due to her workaholic tendencies denying her the ability to properly take the time to mourn

I don’t even know what to categorize the whole witch doctor shenanigans as, I just know that she and Naveen are both going to need some SERIOUS therapy after going through all that shit

Rapunzel

Being raised in an emotionally abusive and controlling environment for her entire life

Being completely isolated for 18 years with no social interaction whatsoever with anyone except her own abuser

Existential/identity crisis from discovering that she’s actually a princess, that her “mom” was actually the one who kidnapped her as a baby and tried to cut her hair, and that everything she knew about herself and the world she lived in was essentially a lie to keep her obedient to Gothel

Near-death experience (the drowning scene)

Internalized fear and mistrust in strangers — and quite possibly in people in general — due to Gothel’s lifelong warnings that people in the outside world would only want to take advantage of her

Watching the woman who raised her MERCILESSLY STAB THE ONLY OTHER PERSON SHE EVER KNEW AND LOVED IN THE GODDAMN CHEST

Watching the woman who raised her LITERALLY CRUMBLE TO DUST IN FRONT OF HER VERY EYES

WATCHING FLYNN, THE ONLY OTHER PERSON SHE EVER KNEW AND LOVED BESIDES HER GODDAMN ABUSER, FUCKING DIE RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER before she miraculously healed him

Because Flynn’s revival was such an uncanny revival that not even Rapunzel knew how she did it, she obviously thought he was gone for good...and since Gothel was gone also, there must’ve been at least a split second before she healed Flynn where, for the first time in her entire life, she was completely and utterly alone. That alone deserves to be a bullet point because holy shit

I’m not even going to get into Tangled: the Series man this list is getting too long as it is

Elsa

Losing her parents at a young age

Abandonment and isolation issues (mostly self-inflicted due to her own fear of hurting others, see #3)

Internalized fear and self-doubt of her powers — and, by extension, fear and self-doubt in herself

Guilt from nearly plunging Arendelle into an eternal winter

Guilt from almost losing her sister (twice!) due to her own direct actions

(Coinciding with #3) Guilt from isolating herself from her sister to protect her, only to nearly get her killed by the very thing she was trying to protect her from

Anxiety. Just lots and lots of general anxiety.

(Omitting Frozen 2 for Elsa because I haven’t seen it yet and this list is getting too long)

Anna

Also losing her parents at a young age

Abandonment and isolation issues, but hers are moreso due to Elsa “shutting her out” as a kid and having no one else her age in the castle to interact with

Lack of socialization in general for much of her childhood, as well as any social anxieties/lack of social knowledge and etiquette/etc. that would come with it

Abusive relationship with Hans (I know it was only one day, but holy fuck that was a trainwreck. What Hans did to Anna is a literal breeding ground for PTSD and trauma)

Coming to terms with the fact that the trolls fucking erased her memories of Elsa having ice powers and that Elsa isolated herself to protect her (and not, you know, because she hated her or something)

Leftover guilt from holding a grudge against Elsa for most of her childhood for shutting her out, because NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL HER THAT IT WAS FOR HER OWN GOOD and she never knew why

Basically Anna and Elsa both need joint therapy or family counseling or something because holy shit their parents did NOT handle this situation properly AT ALL

(Also omitting Frozen 2 for Anna because I haven’t seen it and this list is also getting too long)

Moana

Surprisingly, Moana’s movie was relatively tame — in fact, because her tribe returned to voyaging and she is now exploring the seas/following her passion, these events were arguably beneficial to Moana’s mental health rather than detrimental. The only emotional baggage I can really imagine Moana having post-movie is leftover grief from her grandma dying and maybe the stress of having to put up with Maui’s shit

#shitpost #meta #disney characters #disney princess #long post #this has been in my drafts for literally a year so i may as well post it

32 notes · View notes

nautilusopus · 3 years

Note

do you have any favorite books?

Coraline by Neil Gaiman is the obvious answer lol. Still my favourite book to this day, obviously hugely influential in my own bullshit. Seriously check it out if you can find a copy, it’s pretty short and absolutely worth your time.

The Devil’s Storybook by Natalie Babbitt and its sequel (The Devil’s Other Storybook) are more of an anthology of short stories starring the Devil, who occupies every role from vague background presence to put-upon protagonist that are funny and thought-provoking and genuinely clever and that pissed enough people off that it was a banned book for a while. “The Imp in the Basket” is the kind of short story I wish more people knew about and wanted to sincerely discuss what actually happened at the end.

ugh i haven’t read a book i actually enjoyed in over ten years at this point uhhhhhh

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I think potentially the only classic I had to read in school that I genuinely liked and actually finished in one sitting on my own time. And I think the first time any themes a book had for me actually clicked and I was able to do any kind of meta analysis of it completely unprompted. Baby’s first literary comprehension. Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical piece set during the bombing of Dresden in WWII, and also some period in the “future” (the 80s lol), and ALSO on an alien planet as the protagonist is abducted and taken to a human zoo. The story is told achronologically, and I feel is hugely influential to my own shit where it skips around, building a narrative almost entirely by juxtaposing specific moments in time against one another. It's surreal and thought-provoking, and if you only ever make yourself read one classic, it should be this one. *

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. Bear in mind this thing has fuck-all to do with the movie, and while in retrospect I now am able to enjoy the Don Bluth movie as its own thing, I remember being fucking furious when they busted out a goddamn magical amulet. It’s a different kind of story, but is more magic realism than outright fantasy, and the titular rats get a lot more backstory, as does the late Mr. Frisby iirc.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. God that book fucked me up. It is about a snotty porcelain toy rabbit that gets dropped overboard a ship into the ocean one day, and the various owners he has over the years as he changes hands, and the impacts they have on him, and it makes me fucking cry every time and is to date the only book to ever do so so fairly warned be ye. Fucking shit I wish I could dish out gut-punches half as good as that book could.

The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, which in and of itself is an angry rebuttal against everything the Chronicles of Narnia has to say, as well as Christianity in general. You’ve probably seen shit floating around about the HBO series, which I have not watched. Lyra is a horrible gremlin child running wild around a parallel universe Oxford until she accidentally stumbles onto a conspiracy that goes all the way to the Church which unofficially runs the government and eventually starts an interdimensional war against God. The first two books I think are better than the last one, which really drags in spots (and in a twist of irony had Lyra’s sexual awakening censored from the North American release which like... come on man). Absolutely worth checking out though, especially if you’re an angry pedant like I am.

Tales from the House of Bunnicula, by James Howe. Honestly the entire "Bunnicula Expanded Universe"(???) is great, but in particular I'm mentioning this sub-series because I think it actually kind of taught me to write. The framing device used is that they're being written by Howe's pet dog and sent in to him to publish by proxy. On top of having just a lot of good storytelling tips for beginners (how to create a plot! how to create character motivations! how to write female characters like actual people!), they're also fun little satire pieces of various kinds of genre fiction. Like, the third book is a riff on Harry Potter and making fun of all of JKR's worst writing tendencies, like her compulsion to phonetically write out everyone's fucking accent.

these days i'm just too picky to enjoy books anymore idfk. you have no idea how fucking disheartening it was growing up with actual taste (snooty snooty snoot) and watching everyone go nuts over stuff like divergent and eragon and maximum ride and fuckmothering twilight and shit. like, yeah misogyny absolutely played into why people shat on it because teenage girls aren't allowed to like anything, but lest we forget they were still shitty books guys. that never stopped being true or anything. and you were a social pariah if you didn't like them and that sucked. and then a couple ostensibly good series, like harry potter and artemis fowl and hunger games just dropped the fucking ball for one reason or another as they went on and never picked it back up. i think the mid 2000s almost singlehandedly just killed any real enthusiasm i had for reading altogether (this is not even getting into the fact a lot of really fucking bad "grown-up" novels came out around that period too. whole era was a baaaad time for books). so here i am writing, i guess, because i've decided you fuckers can't be trusted to make anything good yourselves. if you want something done right...

(*I like to think if Cloud wrote a book he’d write something like Slaughterhouse-Five. I think at one point I was even working on a fic along those lines -- a fictional story vaguely based off the burning of Nibelheim and the fall of Shinra that was written, in-universe, by Cloud several years later. Abandoned it just because of how fucking complicated it would be to do. Might come back to it one day.)

#asks #Anonymous

15 notes · View notes

trainsinanime · 3 years

Text

I just saw someone bring up the concept of a Miraculous Ladybug AU designed after Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which positioned Marinette as Ramona Flowers and asked who should be Scott Pilgrim in this. They were working on a crossover story and I’m not really into that, so I decided not to reply directly, but I still think it’s interesting to think about.

The first key to Scott Pilgrim is that it’s about Scott Pilgrim (there is a subtle hint in the title), and Ramona, and Knives, and both Steves and so on are really only secondary. The other key is that the comic and movie are not actually about him defeating the world (here the title is lying), it’s about defeating himself. The exes are just avatars for his own dark side: He’s clingy, cheating, has a superiority complex and is generally inconsiderate to those around him, just like the exes were, and must get over all of that, or else he will just become another evil ex himself. I wish I could say this is deep analysis, but the end of movie and comic literally spell that out when Scott is faced with Nega-Scott.

So what does this mean for Miraculous Ladybug? Here, the hero is Marinette, so it makes a lot of sense to do the whole thing gender-flipped. So what would make sense here is a scenario where Marinette learns to defeat her own weaknesses and shitty behavior by beating up colorful magic supervillains, before she can finally kiss the pretty boy…

…and that’s just literally what the show already is, isn’t it?

Not that that’s a bad idea, mind you. You can still have a lot of fun with AUs that are conceptually close to the source material, and plus, it’d be fun to see american fanfic writers treat the Toronto setting with the same care as they do the Paris one. (Sorry. I love you all, but some of the things I’ve seen, honestly…)

If you instead insist on having Marinette be Ramona, well, okay… Since the heart of the story is the Marinette-Adrien relationship, obviously Adrien would be Scott. And since the setting encourages outlandish over the top behaviour, he’d probably be wearing black leather, and we’d be back in the kind of AU that Ladrien fans use as evidence when saying “Marichat is popular because people are sexist/prefer traditional gender roles”. We don’t need more of that, in my opinion.

So let’s instead go through some other options for the Scott role:

Chloé or Lila: Now there’s someone who could really use some atonement via metaphorical real-life video game fights. I’m lumping them together because they’re conceptually not that different, but I kind of like Chloé more for this, since she has more established depth. Plus, her admiration for Ladybug is a good start for a crush on Marinette.

Alya. I know people want to write Alya bashing, it’s in their system and they need to get it out somehow. I don’t know why they would want to bash Alya, she’s awesome. But if such stories have to keep happening, then I suggest making Alya the hero of them. Plus, we just need more Alyanette in this fandom in general.

Luka. Every defeated ex forces him more into having a personality, or alternatively another instrument he can play a few notes on.

I initially didn’t think Kagami would work, but I’m starting to come around on the idea. It would look very different, but she has the skill for awesome fights, and she does need to get over her take-no-prisoner approach to basically anything. Plus, just imagine her fight with a very confused Adrien, who has no idea why he’d be considered one of Marinette’s exes.

An aside: If you’re noticing a pattern of mostly women in this list, it’s because in the show, almost all meaningful well-developed relationships are between women. Yes, we could have… rolls dice… Kim in here, but I just don’t think that’s an interesting enough story.

Finally, if we ditch Marinette as Ramona and just insist that it has to be a woman, the obvious pairing is Emilia Agreste as Ramona, and Gabriel as Scott. Now there’s a guy who doesn’t realize he’s an evil ex. The main downside would be that this would imply a happy ending for them, and I don’t want Gabriel to get a happy ending at all.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb meta

6 notes · View notes

geekgirles · 4 years

Text

Goodbye & Broppy

After the song was released, I felt the need of doing something I haven't done in a while for the Trolls fandom: an in-depth analysis.

The lyrics of the song were a real tearjerker; the separation, the longing, the sadness, the impression of giving up as the only option... And, considering it said Justin Timberlake was supposed to sing it, and the mentions of "My queen", "My love"; it totally sounds like a Broppy song.

Now, I know @georgebeard mentioned they'd talked to an animator who confirmed the scene was indeed deleted from the film. However, as a loyal and experienced member of the Miraculous fandom, I know better than to cross out the possibility of being misled in order to avoid spoilers (I'm looking at you guys, Chloé redemption, Félix , and Chat Blanc). So, there's that.

And even if the song did not make it in the end, we must not forget the first movie and its extra content.

If you purchased a DVD copy (like myself), or were obsessed enough to search for every possible Trolls-related video on YouTube (like myself), you must have surely found the deleted scenes from the film.

Poppy's dresses.

Poppy's storytelling.

"Bringing Back Happy."

And that's what I wanna talk about!

Bringing Back Happy was a, rather early (considering its storyboard stage), villain song that Chef was supposed to sing. So, even if Goodbye doesn't make it into Trolls World Tour, the chances of it appearing as extra content are pretty high, considering it was even mentioned before the release of the movie.

If that weren't enough for ya, there's more. Don't worry.

As I mentioned earlier, if you're familiar with the deleted scenes, you'll know 2/3 were in a very advanced stage of animation before being scrapped. Not to mention, the one major change we got no info about: turning Poppy's coronation party to the 20 year anniversary since they escaped the bergens. Again, a scene so advanced in its animation stage that even made it to the trailer!

Moreover, there's this detail in the very first trailer of Trolls World Tour that stuck with me: Branch's quote "This is a terrible idea that will blow up in your face!"

Which, if we compare it to his supportive attitude in the latest trailer ("I'm coming with you"), is completely different and even unexpected.

And that leads me to this: there are many reasons why a scene would be deleted; it gives a character a quality they didn't want, Chef didn't get to sing because it made her too funny, while Poppy didn't wear her dresses because it made her look spoiled; it becomes longer than they expected, another reason for the dresses and, I think, for the storytelling; or it changes the vibe of the movie greatly (if you guys knew the original script for How to train your dragon 2...).

On a side note, I remember a post from long ago that explained that one of the reasons its OP liked trolls so much was because, unlike the vast majority of films, Poppy and Branch never really had a fall out. They were always together.

What do I mean with this?

What if their fall out happens in this movie? What if Branch says that line out of frustration and Poppy and him, both devastated, are forced to go their separate ways?

That would be the perfect cue for a song as romantic and heartbreaking as Goodbye.

Not to mention, it would also explain how on Earth Poppy could be captured by Barb, alone. Because there's no way Branch wouldn't go down with her otherwise, and you know it.

Now that the song analysis and theorizing is out of the way, let's move on to the deeper part of the analysis: Broppy itself.

As someone who's been a hardcore Broppy shipper even before watching the movie, you can believe me when I say that it'll devastate me if they killed Broppy.

Even so, I also consider myself as someone both highly emotional and analytical, hence, why I create such analysis on the things I love. Trolls being no exception.

Something I want to talk about to make you all understand my point of view is the way Dreamworks works (as I see it). And for that, I'd like to compare Trolls, HTTYD, their tv shows, and their main ships, Broppy and Hiccstrid; respectively.

If there's something I've noticed about Dreamworks and Disney, that's that Disney movies have a much greater stand-alone value than Dreamworks'. That's why 95% of its films end with an extra-official couple or why their sequels are either shitty compared to the original (Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Mulan...) or a fucking masterpiece. I mean, take Frozen, for instance. The film made a major point on criticising Disney's "I get together with someone I barely know and we live happily ever after" trope. And yet, even if it was much subtler and less intense than usual, that's exactly what happened with Anna and Kristoff. Maybe they weren't married, but they got officially together. And as for Frozen II... I haven't seen it, but I've been told it's very, very different than the first one, and very, very good.

So, yeah. Stand-alone value.

But Dreamworks... Dreamworks manages to reach beautiful conclusions that, at the same time, let the plot perfectly open for more stories to be told.

Seriously, just watch How to Train your Dragon!

Every film had its ending, but it also made you wonder what was gonna happen next. It made you understand that the saga wasn't over, just a part of it. And I think that's what they're trying to achieve with Trolls.

I mean, sure. The plot of the sequel wasn't what we expected at all and made many of us think about the astounding amount of fanfics that delved in the possible existence of different kinds of trolls... But it left us all with one question in our minds, "what now?" And, at the same time, the film had reached a beautiful conclusion.

See what I mean?

I wholeheartedly believe this is something Dreamworks aim to achieve with its pairings. They don't want them to be rushed, they want to develop them. Sure, they want us to see there are ships, but they strive to form deep, strong relationships with much more meaning behind than just sharing an adventure together.

And that, that is something I can clearly see with Hiccstrid and Broppy.

If we take HTTYD, the hints on the romantic relationship between Hiccup and Astrid were even greater than Poppy and Branch's. Heck, they even kissed. And you know what was their official description for Riders of Berk to half of Race to the Edge? Not-so-platonic best friends.

But that's because they took the time to naturally develop and strengthen their bond!

Which is what I think is supposed to happen to Poppy and Branch.

Sure, they are close. Sure, they were on a life-changing adventure together. Sure, they are countless hints on their romantic feelings.

But they still spent 20 years being practically strangers.

They still need to learn how to be a team together. They still need to learn how the other works. They still need some basic ground.

If we keep on comparing the two films, we must not forget that HTTYD 2, despite having Hiccup and Astrid as betrothed, wasn't as heavy on their romance as the first and third movie were.

Because the focus of the film was Hiccup becoming a leader. Not becoming Astrid's husband.

And, considering the plot of Trolls World Tour, it's still very possible that it won't be as heavy on Broppy as it was the prequel. After all, TWT is more about diversity and harmony than happiness, which is what made the contrast between the optimistic princess and the cynical survivalist so important for Trolls.

But, please, fear not. This does not necessarily mean that Broppy is dead. It just means we might have to be careful about letting our hopes up and, more importantly, in case nothing is conclusive about these two in Trolls World Tour, that we just have to be a little more patient.

After all, a good written ship never disappoints.

281 notes · View notes

emsylcatac · 4 years

Text

About French culture & Cheek kisses - ML interpretation

I have seen people around wondering how French view cheek kisses amongst other things compared to other countries, from an American perspective for instance where it can - apparently from what I’ve heard - be considered as invasive.

Well. Since I’m French I hope I can enlighten you a bit about French culture regarding kisses and apply this in ML. Some of the things I’ll say will maybe seem obvious for you but that’s not necessarily the case for everyone (otherwise I wouldn’t make the post because I wouldn’t have seen people wondering about it).

First I have to say that I actually have no idea how everyone deal with cheek kisses in every country but here it is for us: · We greet each other most of the time with ‘la bise’ which mostly consist in being cheek-to-cheek on one side then the other while ‘making the kissing sound’ (we actually don’t really kiss the person’s cheek, some might but it’s usually done all pretty quickly so we don’t take the time; I mean our lips mostly brush the cheek at best more than anything else). Usually, boy greeting girl = la bise, girl greeting girl = la bise, boy greeting boy = shake hands, sometimes la bise but rarely. Best examples in Weredad when Marinette & Chat Noir greet each other or in Despair Bear when Chloe & Marinette have to greet each other with reluctance.

· Now. About ‘real cheek kiss’. I didn’t think we did them more than elsewhere but since it seems that it surprised people in ML I guess we might. Regarding those, I’d say it depends on the person - for instance I’m not a very touch sensitive person so I tend to avoid those. But I have friends who are very touch sensitive with each other or in general and will pretty often kiss their friends on the cheek, hug each other, etc. Mostly depending the moment and it can be for plenty reasons: a ‘thank you’, an emotional moment, comfort, friendly banter, etc. Regardless, those happen mostly between friends & not strangers or people who don’t appreciate each other but this seems kind of obvious.

So I’m going there to show different cheek kisses that happened in ML & try to analyse in which ‘kiss-cheek’ kind of category it falls into from my point of view as a random French person. Someone else might offer another analysis but yeah here is mine so bear with the long post:

The rest undercut so you don’t have to deal with a 10km post in your dash ;)

1 · Ladybug’s cheek kiss to Chat Noir in Glaciator

Here, the point was obviously to trick the villain of the day. But Ladybug didn’t exactly need to do that. I also interpret her action as a result of what she just learnt about CN (that he’s in love with her & made her a surprise) and that they made-up after their quick argument. Chat Noir apologised so it’s also a way for her to say “we’re good and thanks and sorry again, I care about you”.

2 · Chat Noir’s cheek kiss to Ladybug in Glaciator

Here, you have 2 partners who trust & care for each other deeply and are friends with a very strong bond. They have established that.

And right now, they just had a heart-to-heart conversation -- the first REAL Ladynoir heart-to-heart might I add -- where CN bared his feelings to LB and she did the same in return, gently rejecting him.

This is the kind of cheek-kiss between friends done after an emotional moment & especially a heart-to-heart. This is Chat Noir’s way of saying to Ladybug “It’s ok, we’re good. You’re my best friend. Thank you for taking the time for me”.

Also, seeing that she kissed him on the cheek just before, it’s also a way of answering her back: that they’re good. At least I see it that way.

3 · Kagami’s cheek kiss to Adrien in Frozer

Had she done one kiss on each cheek, it would have been considered a mere ‘la bise’. This feels a bit more intimate or personal because she does only one so, contrary to the greeting form, she’ll likely kiss more with her lips on his cheek. Anyway.

This is Kagami thanking Adrien for their date & saying she had a great time, and a sign from her that she is opened to pursue a romantic relationship with him were he interested.

4 · Marinette’s cheek kiss to Luka in Frozer

(I couldn’t find the actual gif of the kiss so you’ll have this one instead to situate the moment in the episode in case you forgot)

Contrary to Kagami & Adrien, Marinette didn’t view this outing with Luka as a romantic date but I don’t think I’m teaching you anything there.

Her kiss to him was as a ‘thank you for coming with me & supporting me and for being a good friend to me today’. She also spent a nice time with him so there's certainly underlying romantic intentions from her, but it’s in a ‘maybe I like you but I’m not sure and right now I’m in love with someone else’ kind of way.

5 · Marinette’s cheek kiss to Adrien in Mayura

Here you have Adrien throwing flowers to Marinette in the most sweetest form possible, complimenting her & thanking her. And literally unknowingly seeing her for who she is: Ladybug.

Marinette’s cheek kiss is a way to say ‘thank you’ for everything he said, and she says that just after. There’s also clearly underlying romantic actions on Marinette’s part so it’s also a way for her to let him know how much she appreciates these words coming from him in particular.

6 · Rose’s cheek kiss to Juleka in Reflekdoll

Here, it’s Rose acknowledging Juleka’s situation -- she was having a panic attack and decided to stay behind. Rose is letting her know she’s here for her and offering comfort.

Whether the kiss has underlying romantic intentions or not is up to interpretation since ML is not completely clear about the two’s relationship. Maybe they’re together? Maybe they’re in love but not a couple yet? Are they ‘just best friends’? Regardless, they share a strong bond and care deeply for each other and are the best of friends so the kiss is natural between them. It’s a way for Rose to say ‘you’re brave, I’m not forgetting you while we’re a way, see you soon & take care’.

6 · Lila’s cheek kiss to Adrien in Onii-chan

(Again - I sadly couldn’t find the appropriate gif so I made a shitty screen-shot instead)

First, let me remind you that Adrien & Lila are not friends and they both know it. This day, Lila wasn’t invited at Adrien’s, she invited herself. Adrien insisted to do homework while she was... More interested in anything else.

Here, she’s kissing his cheek while he’s clearly not expecting it for the sole purpose of taking a picture & make people jealous. That’s.. It. Nothing else. There’s no emotional moment, no ‘thank you’ reason, and most of all no friendship bond nor trust between them. I’m not saying you should always expect a cheek kiss when you get one but this was particularly coming out of nowhere.

Basically, this is Lila forcing herself on Adrien for her personal gain and being more than invasive. All of that while keeping a proof of this achievement. I’ll let you dwell on that one.

7 · Ladybug’s cheek kiss to Adrien in Desperada

(Weirdly enough - no gifs there found, what a shame. Maybe I just don’t know how to look for them. Oh well)

Technically, Ladybug & Adrien don’t have a strong friendship or a deep bond between each other. However, Ladybug trusted Adrien with a Miraculous and she knows him outside of the mask.

He just showed her a weakness here just before, confiding in her that he failed 25 913 times and that he couldn’t do what she asked and felt very bad about it. He was pretty emotional.

This is a ‘thank you’ kiss from Ladybug as well as a comfort kiss. Can there be underlying romantic intentions? Certainly since she’s in love with him - she obviously won’t act on those as Ladybug though but she wouldn’t have done it to Nino for instance. But she is touched that he, her crush, did all of that for her. So she feels even more the need to reassure him and let him know she was still happy of her choice & that he doesn’t have to apologise for anything.It’s also a way for her to apologise to him that he had to go through all of that because she picked him with her heart & not her head.

8 · Marinette’s cheek kiss to Luka in Loveater / Hunter

(Again - couldn’t find the gif so shitty screen shot instead)

Here, it’s Marinette saying different things: thank you for the ride, thank you for helping me, as well as some underlying romantic intentions whether she is aware of them or not. Luka has made it clear that he likes her and just played her ‘her melody’ or something. So she is letting him know that she is thankful he played her song & that she has acknowledged his feelings and doesn’t completely exclude the possibility of seeing him as something more than a friend.

I don’t like the term of her ‘keeping him under wrapped’ but there’s a bit of an idea of that here. To me, they don’t have a strong enough friendship for this kiss to be taken as only a friend kiss, though it’s not completely romantic either - a kid of mix between the two that Marinette may not be aware herself. If that makes sense.

_______________

I think I gave my interpretation of most cheek-kisses that happened in ML! I hope I clarified well enough the topic.

Again, it can seem pretty obvious for most people or some may interpret those differently, but it can still be interesting and useful information! :)

558 notes · View notes

pinelife3 · 5 years

Text

Mindhunter: No Magic

I’ve been reading the book Mindhunter. You might have seen the Netflix/David Fincher TV show (or read the book?) - it’s based on the life of FBI agent John Douglas, the guy who pioneered criminal profiling, especially of serial killers, in the 70s, 80s and 90s. An interesting element of Mindhunter is how many cases Douglas worked on where the police consulted a medium. I kid you not! In tough, high-profile cases where the local police needed a breakthrough, they would sometimes call a psychic to ask for confirmation on their leads, hoping that the medium could magically intuit something about the case that the cops had missed (where does the killer live, what does he look like, what’s his line of work, etc.). It doesn’t sound like Douglas himself ever called a medium, or put much faith in their psychic intuition, but he does mention that they were around and contributing to cases he worked on. It seems like in the early days of profiling, people had a similar opinion of Douglas’ work: that it was superstitious, unscientific, unreliable - this even extended to his testimony and analysis as an FBI expert sometimes being inadmissible in court:

Though I’d already been qualified as a crime-scene analysis expert in several states, the defense referred to me as a “voodoo man” for the way I came up with my interpretations, and the judge ultimately ruled that I wouldn’t testify.

In “Killing Types”, a post on this blog from January 2016, I compared two accounts of how the criminal psychological profile of the Butcher Baker was developed. One account was from Wikipedia, and the other was Douglas, who personally developed the profile:

The serial killer in question was Robert Hansen AKA the Butcher Baker (everything I’m gonna write about him is via Wikipedia. You should just read their article if you want a more detailed account as I’m just summarising here). He was a very shy, skinny young boy with acne and a stutter. He was horribly bullied and the cute girls in school didn’t like him. Wikipedia doesn’t have a citation for this, but apparently: because he was “shunned by the attractive girls in school, he grew up hating them and nursing fantasies of cruel revenge.” As he grew up, Hansen became an adept hunter. Like many serial killers, Hansen was also a thief and an arsonist. From 1971 to 1983 he murdered at least 17 women ranging in ages from 16 to 41.

Hansen’s typical move was to abduct women (usually sex workers) and take them to his cabin near Anchorage, Alaska. There he would rape them and then set them loose so he could hunt them in the woods. Of his confessed murders, many of the bodies have not been found.

By 1982, three bodies had been found in shallow graves in the woods and the Alaska state troopers called in the FBI to assist in putting together a criminal profile. According to Wikipedia, FBI agents put together a profile for a person with the following characteristics:

Experienced hunter

Low self-esteem

History of being rejected by women

Would keep ‘souvenirs’ from his murders

A stutter

...[Douglas] devotes a chapter to Hansen, and the way he describes what happened is actually kind of different from Wikipedia’s version of events. Wikipedia makes it sound like the FBI turned up and pulled the profile out of thin air just based on looking at the crimes, whereas Douglas says that when he and his boys rolled into Anchorage, Hansen was already a suspect. So what they were doing was comparing what they knew about Hansen to what they knew about the crimes and seeing how things matched up and if he was a likely suspect. So the profile they put together did include the bullet points above and, yes, some of that would have been speculation (such as the self-esteem problems, the history of rejection, and the souvenir keeping), but the rest (such as saying he had a stutter) were based on the fact that they knew Hansen and it was completely fucking obvious he had a stutter and acne scarring. Anyway, Douglas describes his profile and process as follows:

“[Hansen] was short and slight, heavily pockmarked, and spoke with a severe stutter. I surmised he had had severe skin problems as a teenager and, between that and the speech impediment, was probably teased or shunned by his peers, particularly girls. So his self-esteem would have been low… And, psychologically speaking, abusing prostitutes is a pretty standard way of getting back at women in general.

“I also made much of the fact that Hansen was known as a proficient hunter… I don’t mean to imply that most hunters are inadequate types, but in my experience, if you have an inadequate type to being with, one of the ways he might try to compensate is by hunting or playing around with guns or knives… I was betting that Hansen’s speech problem disappeared when he felt most dominant and in control.”

So I think we can call that another case closed: it is not possible for an FBI profiler, no matter how gifted, to look at a crime scene or a string of murders and miraculously determine that the killer has a speech impediment.

As you saw above, my read of the passage from Mindhunter was that Hansen was a top suspect, that Douglas made some additional speculations about Hansen, but essentially just endorsed the guy the local cops already suspected. So specific details in the profile that seem like magical inferences weren’t as magical as Wikipedia made them seem. In January 2016 I hadn’t read Mindhunter, but I looked up what I thought was the relevant section on Google Books and that was the basis for the above section of my blog post. (If you’ve never tried to read things online for free, you may not be aware of this, but Google Books provides previews of lots of books, but you have to buy the book to read the whole thing - so back in 2016, I just looked at the pages of Mindhunter that Google had made available for free.)

Now I’m finally reading Mindhunter in full, my take on the process of profiling has changed: I do believe that Douglas and co. could have inferred that the killer had a stutter or bad skin without knowing Hansen (a man with a stutter and bad skin) was the top suspect. Indeed, Douglas tells a number of stories where he and his team correctly made similar inferences - for example, in the profile they wrote up on the Trailside Killer (not covered by Wikipedia but chronicled elsewhere). On the process of developing the profile of Hansen, Douglas writes:

We didn’t profile Hansen or devise a strategy to identify and catch him according to our usual procedure. In September 1983, by the time my unit was called in, Alaska state troopers had already identified Hansen as a murder suspect. But they weren’t sure of the extent of his crimes, or whether such an unlikely individual, a family man and pillar of the community, was capable of the terrible things of which he was being accused...

Even though the police had a suspect before I heard about him, I wanted to make sure my judgement wouldn’t be clouded by the investigative work already done. So before I let them give me the specifics of their man during our first phone conference, I said, “First tell me about the crimes and let me tell you about the guy.”

They described the unsolved murders and the details of the young woman’s story. I described a scenario and an individual that they said sounded very much like their suspect, down to the stuttering...

In a sense, this was the opposite of what we normally do in that we were working from a known subject, trying to determine whether his background, personality and behaviour fit a set of crimes.

Is he a wizard? How’d he do that? How could Douglas know from the description of the crimes that Robert Hansen had a stutter?

The truth is common, ordinary, sensible: he had seen, heard about and worked on cases like this many times and had developed an impression of the kind of person who is capable of hunting women like animals in the woods. He’d spoken to serial killers in prison about their crimes, observed them up close, understood their motivations (control, domination, power, punishment, lust, rage). He’s a walking database of crimes and correlations, which allows him to mentally compile the information he’s received, query it against similar cases and then make what seem like totally uncanny inferences. In terms of demystifying something that seemed arcane and inexplicable, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book as satisfying and steady as Mindhunter. This guy isn’t magical - he’s just fucking sick at his job. He knows his shit. He’s a towering obelisk of professional competence.

That’s not to say they got everything right. For example, Douglas and his unit saw a big difference in lust killers who raped their victims vs. killers who masturbated at the scene. If a killer doesn’t rape his victim but masturbates over her, Douglas and co. would infer that the killer lacks confidence, that he’s inexperienced with women, he’s single, anti-social, probably has a shitty job or no job at all, and because of that he likely lives at home or with a relative, he feels he lacks control, etc. This type of analysis was often correct, but did sometimes lead them down the wrong path (which Douglas acknowledges in the updated foreword for the 2017 reprint of Mindhunter). Since the publication of Mindhunter in the 90s, a number of prominent non-rape lust killers have been caught and it turns out they were married with kids, they were upstanding members of their community, they were homeowners who worked decent jobs, and they seemed normal around women in social settings (see: the BTK Strangler). They simply weren’t the conspicuous, twitching deviants Douglas and his unit imagined.

Mindhunter feels like a book from a different time. Douglas is vociferously pro-death penalty. He’s more sympathetic and vengeful when the victim was a cute lil blondie than a street worn whore. He is interested in the psychology of killers, but is unmoved by their troubled backgrounds: Douglas acknowledges that practically every serial killer he studied had abusive parents, never felt loved or safe, were victims themselves in many ways - but he’s pretty indifferent towards that angle. This perspective would probably get more play in a book on criminals written today - modern writers might be interested in a holistic view of criminality and suffering as cyclical. Douglas does say the number one thing we could do to prevent the development of serial killers and psychos is love our children more and have more resources available to intervene when kids seemed to be headed down the path of darkness... but, look at Douglas’ description of a guy they were looking for in Illinois:

Like so many of these guys, this one is a real loser with a poor self-image. He may come across as confident, but deep-down, he is extremely inadequate.

The UNSUB is a real loser!

One of the key sources of information for Douglas is the killer’s signature. A signature differs from a modus operandi (MO) in that the MO is how the crime is carried out (e.g. killer surveils house for weeks in advance, cuts phone line during the night, breaks in via a window, uses the victim’s tights as a ligature, etc.) while the signature is what the killer does to get off: posing the body, keeping trophies, torturing the victim, taking photographs. Douglas says a killer’s MO may change over time based on failed crimes, stressors, changes to police work, etc. but a signature will remain steady. For example, when Bundy was at his most desperate after escaping from prison (for the second time!), he went on a poorly planned spree. By now, Bundy knew it was all over. The police knew who he was, what he’d done, and were searching for him - it was a matter of time until he was recaptured. The electric chair was waiting. Bundy’s MO had developed with experience and he was typically an organised killer who used a kit, props, and had the skill to lure his victims, but when he knew the net was closing in, he became disorganised - his MO changed. Instead of approaching a pretty girl on the street, luring her to his car and then taking his time to torture/kill her, he broke into a sorority house in the middle of the night and attacked the residents in their own rooms in vicious, quick attacks. Interestingly, this methodology was similar to his original technique when he was younger and less experienced. When he was under pressure, he regressed. Via Wikipedia:

Bundy's modus operandi evolved in organization and sophistication over time, as is typical of serial murderers, according to FBI experts. Early on, it consisted of forcible late-night entry followed by a violent attack with a blunt weapon on a sleeping victim. Some victims were sexually assaulted with inert objects; all except Healy were left as they lay, unconscious or dead. As his methodology evolved Bundy became progressively more organized in his choice of victims and crime scenes. He would employ various ruses designed to lure his victim to the vicinity of his vehicle where he had pre-positioned a weapon, usually a crowbar. In many cases he wore a plaster cast on one leg or a sling on one arm, and sometimes hobbled on crutches, then requested assistance in carrying something to his vehicle. Bundy was regarded as handsome and charismatic by many of his victims, traits he exploited to win their confidence.

For Douglas, an MO is not a reliable way of tying crimes together - because an MO can change. But a signature (which is often at the crux of why the crime was committed) will remain relatively static and is a good clue that two crimes carried out in different ways may be related. The MO may tell you some practical details about the killer (he owns or has access to a car, he’s a local who’s familiar with the back roads, he was known the victim because he was able to gain access to the home without a struggle, etc.) but the signature is driven by behaviour - and that’s what reveals the pits inside a person.

What’s been revelatory for me in Mindhunter is how there is a real, meaningful link between private behaviour and the surface-level details a person. We like to think that our interiority is private and inscrutable to others, that we’re boxed canyon mysteries with rich inner lives and motivations that are inconceivable to the people around us, that our true selves transcend superficial things like how we look or where we work - but Douglas can tell whether a guy will get a haircut after he’s killed someone. He knows if the killer was drunk at the time of the crime. He can tell if they were in the military or not - and if they were, whether they had a dishonourable discharge. How old the killer is. His race. Whether he’ll want to talk to people about the crime. The chances of him owning a German Shepherd. Whether he finished high school. If he keeps a journal. Whether he’s ever been married - and if it was a happy marriage. Most of these are visible details of ourselves that we display to the world, and feel safe displaying because they don’t give too much away: you don’t think people can accurately read anything serious or private about you based on something like how old your car is or whether you watch the nightly news. But all these insignificant details do reveal something. Maybe it is kind of magical.

#Trailside Killer #david carpenter #robert hansen #Butcher Baker #John Douglas #Mindhunter #David Fincher #FBI #Ted Bundy

1 note · View note

sweetsweetnathan · 5 years

Note

Top five favorite characters.

This is definitely a question that will reveal a lot about me, so I hope that’s what you’re looking for ;P It’s going to get really fucking long, so I’ll store it beneath a cut so it doesn’t destroy anyone’s dash.

I’m doing these in ascending order, so #5 is least most favorite and #1 is most most favorite. I feel it’s important to say than since #5 is a character that is going to make a lot of people roll their eyes (as is #4, frankly).

#5 - Holden Caulfield from the Catcher in the Rye

Waitwaitwait, don’t leave just yet! I have tried to explain why I like this character to people I go to school with, and they barely let me finish a sentence before reminding me that he’s a whiny brat with well-off parents who spends the whole book wallowing in self-imposed misanthropy.

These are not the reasons why I like him!

Although I do feel it’s worth pointing out that he’s barely more than a child (he’s 16, which is the age of consent where I’m from, but by no means “adulthood” anywhere), lost his younger brother at an even younger age, witnessed a suicide, and he does in fact live in a world that is extremely alienating to people who are opposed on principle to conformity. But even these are not the reasons why I like him! I like him structurally, as a character in a book, way more than I like him as a person. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the book doesn’t want you to like him. It wants you to pity him.

Allow me to share a passage with you to explain myself better:

Anyway, I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can't imagine. I started sweating like a bastard—my whole shirt and underwear and everything. Then I started doing something else. Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie." And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him.

Holden is a kid given to sudden panic and fatalistic thinking. There’s something in his subconscious telling him that his life is fragile, that it can be taken away at any moment. Suddenly everything can change and what you thought was safe and innocent can be threatened and defiled. This is an existential crisis without a readily apparent inciting incident (though it has one, we’ll get to that). The Catcher in the Rye isn’t a story with an especially noticeable structure-- we’re not on a journey to destroy the One Ring, blow up the Death Star, or defeat any villain really. Holden is trying to get home. The obstacles he encounters aren’t necessarily trying to stop him from doing that, but they’re obstacles nonetheless. Why? Not because the universe is conspiring against him, and not because there’s an all-powerful villain threatening him with destruction. The obstacles come completely from Holden himself.

So why is it that the Catcher in the Rye can get away with this? On paper a character piece about someone taking the long way home one shitty night sounds like the description of countless Creative Writing 1 school projects, not literary classics. How does Salinger make it work?

The answer is in the prose itself, which like the obstacles is possessed entirely by the main character. Let’s examine this passage:

My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat. He's dead now.

Look at each sentence: “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder’s mitt. He was left-handed.” It’s obvious after reading it that he’s talking about his dead brother in past-tense. What’s the big deal there? He talks about the whole damn story in past-tense, because he’s telling it long after it happened. How is this significant?

Well, the last line is “He’s dead now.” Not “He died”, but “he is dead”. So the whole book we’re reading past-tense lines. But this one, out of all of them, is present-tense. And because of that sudden shift we regard it differently. Allie’s death isn’t something that happened in the past. His being dead is something that’s happening in the present. It’s the reminder that this is a story Holden is telling, which solidifies the illusion that Holden is real. Holden is not real-- Salinger, the writer, is real, and Holden is made up. But when Holden has the dimensionality of having both memories of the past and feelings of the present, he seems more real than another, living person. It illustrates the beauty of prose writing: Movies can give us spectacle, and visuals which evoke emotional depth that words can’t. Games give us agency and interactivity to act as ourselves or as someone else in a situation that is alien to us. Prose gives us no visuals, and affords us no agency. What it gives us is the opportunity to see the world through someone else’s eyes. And Holden Caulfield will always be one of my favorite characters for exemplifying that.

#4 - Luke Skywalker from Star Wars

After all that, Holden is beat out by Luke?

Yes, but listen: Holden I like for professional reasons. Luke I like for personal reasons. See, I have some anger problems. The causes are as numerous as they are complex, and not very interesting. The bottom line is that my emotions are pretty untrustworthy. I actually dislike when people say that a space is dedicated to letting people feel their feelings uninhibited. What if my feelings are violent and hateful? What if without inhibition, I become the kind of person I hate? I have seen things that I wish I could unsee, things that I hate. Being told to let go of that hate feels like being told to permit evil to exist in the world. I cannot abide that. There are certain behaviors that I will oppose no matter the situation. Through this I put myself in an awkward situation: Everyone who doesn’t feel this way begins to look complicit in the wrongdoings of the world. Focus too long on what makes you unhappy, and happiness seems like an unnatural luxury. Feed anger too much, and you forget how to feel anything else. This is what’s called the “Dark Side”.

Luke struggles against the Dark Side. How could he not? His family was taken from him by a system that exploits and murders with impunity. He took the fight to his enemy and destroyed their greatest weapon-- but they’re still not defeated. In the Empire Strikes Back, Luke is terribly impatient to seize the powers of the Jedi. He wants to win. He wants the Empire destroyed. Anything in his way is wasting his time.

When we see him again in Return of the Jedi, he is as close to the Dark Side as a person can be. He walks into a gang leader’s palace, strangles his guards, mind controls his adviser, and pulls a gun on said gang leader. When the gang leader takes offense to all this, Luke promises him death if he doesn’t submit to Luke’s demands. Luke is indulging in every wrathful instinct he has. But he knows that what he’s doing isn’t right. He meets Vader and the Emperor expecting to turn Vader away from this same behavior, but the Emperor has concocted a situation where only might can make right.

If I was given the opportunity to decide between offering patience to the evil people I’ve met, and killing them without consequence, I don’t know if I’d make the choice Luke made. His story is fantastical, but to me it feels very real. It’s a story about finding balance. One has to act to stop bad things from happening. But one must also restrain themselves, or become one of those bad things.

#3 Guts from Berserk

So I just talked about anger problems and the Dark Side and all that, so you’re probably thinking, “Oh, Guts is that, but just like...more.”

And okay, that’s a little true. A find that in Guts a lot too. But similar to Holden, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the literary structure Guts is constructed with as well. None of his empathetic qualities would mean anything without this structure. If he’s not going somewhere, then he is just the angry, violent stereotype of a manly man that solves all his problems through violence that people stereotype him as.

So let me introduce you to Booker’s Seven Basic Plots:

Going to an art school has resulted in me feeling that it’s necessary to spend some time justifying the existence of a textbook about structure. So I’m going to detour away from Guts in order to do that.

To keep a literal textbook’s worth of storytelling analysis very short, the seven basic plots are not meant to be the only plots that should exist, or even the only plots that do exist. They are an incredibly versatile sets of story frameworks. Allow me to explain by comparing two stories that share one of these seven plots: Crime and Punishment and the Catcher and the Rye.

These two stories are “Rebirth Plots”, and Rebirth Plots are comprised of five elements:

Falling Stage: A young hero or heroine falls under the shadow of the dark power.

Recession Stage: For a while, all may seem to go reasonably well. The threat may even seem to have receded.

Imprisonment Stage: Eventually the threat returns in full force, until the hero/heroine is seen imprisoned in the state of living death.

Nightmare Stage: This continues for a long time, when it seems like the dark power has completely triumphed.

Rebirth Stage: But finally comes the miraculous redemption, either by the hero (if the imprisoned figure is the heroine), or by a young woman or child (if the imprisoned figure is the hero).

Crime and Punishment and the Catcher in the Rye are both Rebirth Plots, but they focus on different aspects, and are thus completely different stories. Most of Crime and Punishment is the Recession Stage, where the main character has gotten away with his crime. Contrast Catcher in the Rye, where the Recession Stage ends basically as soon as he leaves his school, whereupon he spends a short time in the Imprisonment Stage and everything until the last chapter is the Nightmare Stage.

So even though the Seven Basic Plots presents an outline, it's not an outline meant to exclude strange stories that don’t fit it. Quite the contrary, it’s designed to include radically different stories, sometimes within the same categories as more traditionally-told ones.

So with that in mind, what story does Guts find himself in? Well, that’s the exciting thing: Guts is so incredible because he goes on every kind of adventure.

Overcoming the Monster - This is Guts’ story when Casca is captured by the Holy Seein the Conviction Arc. He has to fight against a whole society built around zealous hatred-- zealous hatred that mirrors his own obsessive pursuit of Griffith.

Rags to Riches - The first third of the Golden Age Arc is famously this kind of story, as Guts goes from a nameless mercenary to one of the most famous commanders in Midland, making friends along the way and overcoming his apprehension towards close personal connections.

The Quest - The journey to cure Casca of her trauma during the Fantasia Arc is a very long version of this kind of story. Guts gathers allies, teaches lessons, and watches the world change around him, as he changes as well, allowing his heart to soften again.

Voyage and Return - The Black Swordsman Arc and the beginning of the Conviction Arc sees Guts gallivanting around Midland killing demons, only to return to Goto’s cabin to find Casca has departed due to his own failings.

Comedy - The middle of the Golden Age Arc is this, with Casca and Guts falling for each other as he begins to develop into his own man separate from Griffith.

Tragedy - The end of the Golden Age Arc, which I would feel bad about listing here three times if it wasn’t fourteen fucking volumes long. Here Guts loses every connection he’s made over the years, then finally loses himself as he chooses to pursue vengeance rather than stay with Casca.

Rebirth - The whole of Berserk is a Rebirth Plot on many levels. To start with it’s Guts’ shift from the antisocial Black Swordsman to a symbol of hope in a world overrun with demons. For the world of Berserk it’s a change from being centered around an Idea of Evil to believing in something Good.

Guts is a fascinating character for how he changes again and again, yet still stays the same.

And Unlike Luke, Guts does sometimes fail. But despite the fact that he fails, he finds chances for further redemption. This is because despite every awful thing he’s been through, he still goes on fighting. There’s this brilliant moment when Guts is a child, where he’s run away from home after killing his abusive foster father in self defense. Guts is surrounded by wolves, injured, and starving. He tells the wolves to kill him, because he doesn’t want to live anymore. And yet when the wolves attack, he reflexively defends himself. Even as he wants for death, there’s a part of him that denies it. He wants to go on living, no matter how bad things get. There’s a lot of strength to be learned from that.

I hope Miura will live to see the series end. The character has been at war for so long, and he deserves to put down his sword and live in peace.

#2 Conan the Cimmerian

Let’s take a detour from all my personal issues and literary analysis to talk about the wisest character on this list. It might not seem so, but the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard are some of the most brilliant and insightful works of fiction ever published.

Holden Caulfield gives us a realistic look at a troubled teenager. By viewing this teenager’s uncensored thoughts on the world, we’re allowed to see the world through his eyes. Doing so teaches us a lot about ourselves, and what we discover isn’t always so attractive. Conan is similar. Conan hails from Cimmeria, a gloomy and unforgiving land. There is no civilization in Cimmeria. Its people are tribal and nomadic. There are many different languages and ways of writing, no currency, and scarcely any agriculture. But Conan’s story does not take place in Cimmeria. Conan’s stories take him all over the world of Hyboria, which itself is essentially a pre-historic earth, where he explores the cultures of all the “civilized” nations. This, more than the violence, adventure, or lurid depictions of women, is what makes Conan worthwhile to me.

Allow me to share with you a passage:

Conan has seen how people behave when there are no rules imposed on them. He knows how cruel they can be, as well as how kind they can be. More than anyone Conan knows the dangers of civilization, how its rules and customs and trappings might convince a person they are good when they’re letting their fellow man starve, or that they’re bad when they’re committing violence against someone whom the rules of society declares above reproach.

Conan brings a perspective to things that is sobering and unique, and looking at things through his eyes helps a person see humankind not as one divided by lines on a map, but as a singular entity which expresses itself in many different forms.

#1 Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan

Gif source: https://weheartit.com/entry/214956834

Anger, Dark Side, hopefulness, blah, blah, blah. What makes Eren so special? What makes him more special than Guts?

Let me tell you something personal about me: I have a best friend. And contrary to all my expectations growing up, it’s a person who considers me her best friend right back.

She is the only person I know that I consider my intellectual equal (arrogant statement, totally true). I love her immensely. Indescribably. Just like, a fucking lot. We express this love in a lot of different ways. To begin with, we talk all the time. Almost every day, for hours. We share with each other the things going on in our lives, our thoughts, our opinions, the games we play, the movies and TV we’ve seen, our desires for the world, all of it. She is the first person I ever talked to about some of the stuff I experienced in my childhood.

In short, she is pretty special.

When she watched Attack on Titan for the first time it was I who showed it to her. We watched up to episode 11 on that first night, and the rest of the month she texted me her reactions to the events of the first and second season. As she watched she got really enamored with Mikasa, as Mikasa is a lot of what she would like to be in life (capable, dedicated, beautiful, six feet tall, etc). But of Eren, she said that he reminded her of me. In fact, she said that she started to just look at Eren as me-on-the-screen, and when Eren would do something reckless or talk back to someone, or give a crazy-sounding speech about what he believed in, my friend told me she’d say “Classic Nathan [

There is a quality among the great heroes of literature, both from the east and the west, that Eren exemplifies in spades. While Eren has a tendency towards action that makes me admire him and a defiant nature that makes me envy him, his most powerful quality is his immense capacity for hope. You can see this represented in every character on this list in some form or another. Holden hopes against all reason that his sister can be saved from the falseness of the world. Luke hopes that a person can turn from the Dark Side. Guts hopes that life is worth living, even if it’s shown itself to be nothing but suffering. Conan’s hopes are the most justified, as he places it in the vastness of the world, and the world can’t help but satisfy him.

Eren hopes that the titans, insurmountable as they seem, can be defeated. He hopes that the world, tiny as it may seem behind the walls, can be explored. He hopes that people will listen to him when he speaks. He hopes that when he fights for what he believes in, he won’t die. He hopes for so much, and no matter how much is on the line he is ready to fight for those hopes, and to deny anyone who wishes to restrain him.

And my best friend told me he reminds her of me.

I’m not saying she was right. I’m not as strong as Eren. I’ll shut down socially when I’ve judged people to be dumb, evil, or boring. My hope doesn’t carry me over every mountaintop. Not that it does that for Eren; part of what I love about watching his story is that he struggles and falters. Hell, he dies in his first engagement with the titans.

But like Guts he keeps fighting.

Like Luke he struggles against his lesser qualities.

Like Holden he has a viewpoint of the world that leads me to consider myself.

Like Conan he is different from everybody else, but still believes in himself.

And that’s all I want to be.

1 note · View note