#WE GOOD WE FINE

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

I'm just gonna cope by rewatching all my amvs thanks

#knox rambles #DEVESTATED #i'm coping i'm coping #yeah this is about that lmk teaser i am being dramatic but also my last amv was literally a tribute to the animation WDYM- #WHAT DO YOU DO??? WHAT DO I DO? ?? #i'll be fine i'm just processing and coping we good we good #this is only my comfort show that got me through some of the worst times of my life its fine #i'm being vague so as not to spoil anyone o7 #cause i don't wanna put this in the main tag #vent #sort of?? yeah vent #relax i know i'm being dramatic probably but also this hurt #its something so trival amongst everythign that's going on right now but gods i'm feeling so sad all the time #WE GOOD WE FINE #MOVING ON #TAKE A BREATH TAKE A BREATHER KEEP GOING THE WORLD KEEPS SPINNIN #delete later

[sunderwight]

actually it's kind of wild that aziraphale left for heaven to try and save humanity and the human audience of the show has just been like "0/10 terrible decision go back to your demon partner" about it

aziraphale: I shall bravely sacrifice everything that makes me happy because I have a duty to protect the world

the world: boo no

#good omens #aziraphale #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #humanity: we got this bro go hug that sad wet snake and tell him you're sorry #humanity: we can handle jesus we've killed him before it's fine

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

#where's the word woman in this u might wonder if u suck #good news i am nonbinary and have a uterus so that is something that can happen #im also gender fluid tho which means im immune to certain psychic damage bc if u call me a woman i'll be like <3 okay <3 #writeblr #the tightrope of ''ppl need access to this'' #and like also #''what the fuck is going on over there'' is like. so difficult as an activist #i was <3 punctured <3 during mine #and almost bled out on the table :) they didn't have anyone standing by bc it's ''just a little insertion'' #so i started crashing and i vaguely remember apologizing for the fuss as i heard my heart rate monitor start going <3 tachycardic <3 #she wasn't even a bad doctor tbh #ps btw the reason i even HAD a heart monitor is that i have a genuine heart condition and they knew GOING IN that there was a chance #i'd crash on the table #like my heart just likes to do fun little tricks and <3 stop working <3 (i do not want to discuss the specifics ty i am okay im ontop of it #and they were like 'oh u will be fine' and then she did do a puncture thru my uterus . pop! #and im sitting there dizzy and feeling my heartrate start to drop bc it feels almost. beautiful. like. the whole ground just #woosh! out from under you. and shit is like grey's anatomy. i'm looking up at her grey eyes #she's old she wears this nice shawl she's like got Cool Lesbian vibes and people are sprinting into the room #from other parts of the clinic unrelated to me. while the monitor is like a little aria singing #and shes like hey youre okay stay awake stay with me something went wrong we have to keep trying #and i remember thinking - i was trying to think of nice things. i have so many beautiful places that now overlap #with this terrible memory #i became dimly aware that there was too much on her wrists and hands. like #that was too many liters #and then when they had finished all this. i packed up and drove myself home #i have had (bad thing) happen to me. and the same feeling happened after #that numb almost lamblike bleating. you cry without noise. like. ur body is so shocked and ur mind so empty #you just stare at the road and everything everything is happening behind glass and static and you are standing so far away from it #while you hold ur hands at 10 and 2. and something in ur brain is SCREAMING at you - IT WAS BAD AND IT SHOULDNT HAVE HAPPENED #and ur just watching the alarms in your body going off and youre thinking. a little pinch! ha. i think i just lost something important.

[birdmenmanga]

I think there's no greater indication that disco elysium is sympathetic towards communism when it literally says "communism is failure" and then the literal gameplay itself rewards trying and failing. The most obvious one being the Shivers check at the FELD mural, which is an Impossible 20 check BUT opens itself up again and again the longer you spend in the world doing things, but even just looking at sheer probabilities, for any given white check, rolling first and THEN putting a point into that skill upon failure is more likely to grant you success than putting a point first and then rolling, but that would require failing first.

Other things too: Precarious world saying you'll 100% fail red checks no matter what (not necessarily a bad thing, btw!! throwing the boule into the sea is a success but like. in some other ways one would want a perfect petanque throw instead. but people wouldn't typically assume that failure is desirable sometimes from the start) persuading you to accept that you'll fail some things that is irrevocable, for a world where everything is just a tiny bit easier.

The faux game over screen when you faint after reading Dora's letter— emulating a sense of failure on the scale of the entire game. When it rolls up most people go "What?? Game over?? No way, what did I do wrong!!" and waking up after that, with no huge or lasting impact on Harry's health or morale really tells the player, "Sometimes things will seem so bad that it all seems like it's coming to an end, but it's not the end, it's really not the end, go drink so water, you can still go on despite this failure"

I'm sure there are other things as well that are eluding me but like. The literal gameplay rewards failing and succeeding far more so than simply succeeding every single time, and I think you get a fuller experience of Elysium that way too

#just thinking thoughts... #disco elysium #idk man when did we get so scared of failing!! #people never want to speak in class because 'what if I'm wrong :(((' #well then you are wrong... that is okay... it's normal to fail... sometimes saying the wrong thing is a great way to jumpstart a topic... #'getting a good grade in X is both normal to want and possible to achieve' #okay sure but have you made peace with the fact that getting a BAD grade in X isn't a bad thing? #a bad grade in being friends... okay... so you didn't check up on someone in 3 months... you failed... that's fine... #you can learn from it!! you can learn how to keep in touch with people. how to take care of them when they're sick. #how to resolve a dispute. how to communicate and compromise. these are all things you are not born with #and will fail first before succeeding at #Like yes I get that in the age of surveillance your failures may be recorded and preserved forever and that's not great #but if we don't normalize failure I really think we'll just suffocate and die

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

#not a shitpost #serious post #ask to tag #tw trauma #cptsd #c-ptsd #and if so we should TALK about it #because it means there are a whole group of survivors out there whose mental health regularly worsens during holidays #like i know i am most certainly not the only person who feels an undefined Dread hanging over christmas/my birthday/july 4 etc #bc too many shitty things happened during those times and now my brain is hypervigilant bc traditionally these are the Danger Times #and this seems like it would be particularly common for survivors of abusive/dysfunctional households (aka most people with c-ptsd) #because holidays/vacations typically mean 1) the whole family is together/being forced to interact #2) and undergoing external stressors e.g. travel/relatives aka 'outsiders' visiting/routines & coping mechanisms being interrupted etc #3) there is social pressure for this to be a Fun Family Bonding Experience which only highlights the cracks in the foundation #and exposes the common Everything Is Fine/We Are A Happy Family lie #4) the cognitive dissonance of feeling tired/anxious/stressed/afraid during a time when you are 'supposed' to be Making Good Memories #and then everyone is angry/tired/anxious/triggered and things boil over and something or someone goes Very Wrong #weird that i'm posting this in october when halloween is...sort of the ONLY holiday i have only good and happy feelings towards #i got lucky there #also i have positive feelings towards Labor Day but that's for socialist reasons

[laniakea314]

Crowley trusting Aziraphale with his life and Aziraphale trusting Crowley with his own, both on the same night

Bonus:

“I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me.”

#they trust each other wholeheartedly i feel ill #Crowley looks so fine in 1941 tho #still can’t believe we got a whole minisode about what happened after the church scene #good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #good omens 2 #aziracrow #david tennant #michael sheen #neil gaiman #good omens spoilers #go2 spoilers

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

My student: I need your help with my dissertation research.

Me: What's up?

Student: I'm looking at mycoremediation and I got these fungi to grow on a site and I was going to pick them and analyse them

Me: But?

Student: Pigs broke in and ate my research.

...

Anyway today I learned I am no help at all because I could not stop laughing

#it's fine it was a pilot study #the results of which are that we need good pig fencing #the professional world of careers and tasks

[solarpunkani]

Hot 4am take but I feel like if we want to get people more interested in making their yards a more habitable space for wildlife like insects, we have to acknowledge that ‘Don’t want bugs in your house’ is still a 100% fair and valid point of view. ‘Loves nature’ and ‘doesn’t want roaches spiders and mosquitoes in the house’ aren’t opposites.

And with that in mind, when we propose to people that spraying pesticides around houses is Not A Good Idea, Actually, I feel like we need to give an alternative asides from ‘deal with it.’

#solarpunk #anti pesticides #ani rambles #this is coming from personal opinion at 4am keep that in mind but like #I’m scared of roaches. i’m fine with them outside though #my parents dont like roaches and for good reason. they spray Ortho Home Defense along the veeery edge of the concrete by the doors to #keep roaches and shit from coming in because yknow. Florida. #if I tell them ‘hey actually we shouldn’t spray pesticides inside (ie raid spray) or outside (ie home defense) #theyre gonna ask wtf to do instead to prevent roaches #and if I tell them ‘nothing suck it up buttercup’ they’re gonna laugh and then double down on the sprays #we gotta have an alternative ready and honestly maybe I’m not looking in the right places but I genuinely don’t know of any #like one online friend told me leaving brush piles around the yard decreased the amount of bugs trying to come in but like #thats one person. anecdotal. and I haven’t seen anything online confirming that as a thing (yet) #idk man I’m going to bed. #might delete later #house pest saga

[cozylittleartblog]

lethal company is a workplace comedy

this prank got us All killed. btw.

#lethal company #comic #art #artists on tumblr #digital art #lethal company fanart #dat me #iirc we were on lake. it was foggy. i was so scared by Mask and i couldnt see thru the FOG i ran out and fell into the lake and DIED #one guy obvs sacrified himself for Le Prank and. i don't remember what happened to the 4th guy. mask prolly got him #AND WE HAD SO MUCH LOOT I WAS SO MAD WJHBDFGBHJDFG. ... IT WAS FUNNY THO NGL IT -WAS- FUNNY #im kinda ehhhhh (wobbles hand) about how i did the last panel and how i portrayed me running to the door but its. its ok #its fine its good enough i think #this wasn't supposed to be so involved DHJBSDFHJB #anyway i've been posting WIPs of this to my kofi page for members!! the Entire sketch is up over there #yknow. in case anyone is interested in that

[uncanny-tranny]

The whole "breasts shouldn't be politicized because the primary purpose of breasts is to feed babies!" can be a fine jumping-off point, but I really wish people thought deeper than that when we talk about the ways in which bodies are politicized and restricted.

Like, why's it that when we talk about breasts, they must have some Higher Purpose? It's true that breasts aren't inherently sexual, but they aren't valuable solely because they can potentially feed a baby. A human body doesn't have to serve a Higher Purpose in order for it to not be legislated against or policed, and I just wish people would remember it isn't always about babies, about other people, about anything else other than the people who have that body.

#feminism #dysphoria tw #your body doesn't need to have an Intrinsic Worthwhile Purpose so that you can live without fear #and it is fine if people say this to criticize the way breasts are overly sexualized and fetishized or what have you... #...but i encourage people to not see this as an end-all-be-all argument #because this opens discussions about how we politicize bodies and how we interpret them #i see overlap between this and the way trans bodies are politicized and policed honestly #and i guess personally i'm just so tired of the idea that to be safe your body Must Have A Good Reason To Be #and i fear this may reinforce the idea that we Must Serve Purposes and Be Useful and Used #ask to tag (genuine) #and what would this say for childless people? or people who cannot bear children? if they have breasts are they 'useless bodies' #because i have seen the ways some people's bodies are treated when they do not 'work PROPERLY' and that scares me #it scares me to potentially start treating people with different bodies as Defective and Unworthy and Unproductive #and i don't always trust when people latch onto purpose-driven arguments for human bodies that it stops at that y'know #have seen some discussion amd whatnot so 👍 #is it now time to clock put and be a silly goose yet?

[yrsonpurpose]

ways of saying i love you, without saying i love you.

#rwrb #rwrbedit #red white and royal blue #alex x henry #firstprince #mine* #userninz #userveronika #chrissiewatts #usernuria #usersteen #userclara #usermegsb #another gifset ticked off the list of ones ive wanted to make lmao #the book was FULL of these oooohh they really were saying it without Saying It #i cheated with a couple of them but thats fine i make the rules here #underrated line is alex calling henry brave #bc how often does henry hear things like that 😪😪 #also we deserved that scene of henry telling alex 'you are good' i wouldve died right there

[fearandhatred]

season 3 is going to change the trajectory of my existence forever and then i'll have to turn to a life of violence and crime to cope

#fearandhatred #isn't it so funny. haha isn't it soo funny that. that we'll canonically get to see aziraphale and crowley be happy together #and then. and then we will officially have no more good omens content #nothing to theorise about because the show is over #:) #:))))))) #:))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) #i'm going to commit arson #no yeah it's fine #good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #crowley #aziraphale

[starmaker-astral]

THEY KISSED GUYS

Allow me to repeat

THEY

KISSED

(I watched s2 9 months ago but I have peaks of lucidity sometimes... I mean, they KISSED MOUTH TO MOUTH like FOR REAL in real reality real! )

#we live in the best timeline EVER #im perfectly fine #im totally normal about this #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #gomens #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #good omens season 2 #crowly x aziraphale

[artharakka]

Beautiful, But Broken

#bg3 #tiefling #tw blood #c: Viivi #so I redid my bg3 character because I wasn't feeling durge that much. So now my sibling does durge and I regular tav Viivi #(changed her to tiefling for funs) #at least I meant to do regular tav but uhhhhh things have gone very unfortunately very fast #anyway. Viivi is an artist; she does painting sculpting poetry and some prose. Experimenting with this and that #unfortunately she is deaf which made making connections a bit hard in the fine arts world #fortunately she has a patreon with one very generous patron (she's fey warlock)✨ who has bestowed some gifts of charms for her #which have opened doors of many art galleries #She's not a fighter so although she is confident in her own lane she is also very aware of her mortality #so she avoided any fights she could #which might have saved her but also got her into the mess of her lifetime #you see she couldn't fight the entire goblin camp and their leaders. She would've just not survived that. So she convinced them #that she is a True Soul. She is good at convincing people. It worked. They thought she is on their side. Good #Halsin also though Viivi was on their side. Halsin attacked Viivi's party. Now Halsin is dead. #So Viivi and her group were still alone deep within enemy fort. Viivi made new plans. She frees the prisoner who says he will warn the grov #Good thinks Viivi now they know to flee. I will go to Minthara and tell we got the information from prisoner of the grove location #she will trust us and we walk off #when we get back to grove they have not fled and Minthara is at the gates #Minthara wants Viivi to sound the horn. Zevlor wants Viivi to sound the horn. Viivi asks Zevlor to please tell this plan in detail. #Zevlor says just blow the horn already. Viivi does that. Minthara thanks Viivi for leaving the gate open as planned #Zevlor does not thank Viivi for that. Viivi is confused as she did not leave the gate open. (for real the damn gate was left open) #So I did a Massacre. #now Karlach is gone Wyll is dead. Lae'zel is also dead #but apparently Minthara is ready to be very loving and sincere with Viivi. The most helpful person she has met in very long time. #Viivi might love her #so that is how she's doing.

[nadhie]

and here comes the angel of thursday on a monday morning with the steel chair

#HOW ARE WE DOING GIRLIES #FINE I SEE #my rambles #ofmd #spn #good omens

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Keep hearing people say maribug keep asking adricat if he's ok and he keep saying he's ok instead of telling her his problem but I don't remember it happened more than once in s4 in Rockettear but even then the circumstances of that episode did warrant the "nothing" answer he gave her unless he want to tell her that "nino tell me you let nino and alya know each other identity" which will reveal adricat identity. So when else did she ask? about the thing in hack-san, I think another credit goes to alya since she's the one who bring the topic to maribug who seems to be blissfully unaware that her leaving without telling adeicat that she send subtitute would be a problem.

I didn't get into this side of things in my other post because it was long and I wanted to focus on why Chat Noir's behavior was so frustrating, but this ask brings up the other big reason why the season four conflict was such a frustrating and terribly written plot line. Specifically, the part of your ask where you point out that Maribug seems blissfully unaware that her actions are having a negative impact on Chat Noir until someone points it out to her.

Yes, she is presented as blissfully unaware of this and every other interpersonal conflict we're given in season four. Your ask treats this as a failing on Maribug's part as if she should have obviously realized that she was in the wrong, but that's the whole problem. Telling kids - telling anyone really - that they should just magically know what others need is a frankly terrible life lesson as that's just not how the world works. You cannot just assume that everyone will have the same view of the world as you do and instantly pick up on the same issues as you do. That is the path to easily avoidable frustration and conflict. It also teaches people to assume that their view of the world is inherently correct when that is rarely the case. We often don't know the whole story and the other person's point of view may end up being equally or even more valid. This issue is extremely present in season four as Marinette has legitimate reasons to behave the way she does, which I'll get into in a bit.

If Marinette were written as feeling guilty about how she was treating Chat Noir, then this would be a different story. She'd be way more in the wrong and would shoulder a much greater portion of the blame. But as is? She has no idea that she's doing anything wrong. And until someone takes the time to tell her that her actions are causing harm, she is going to continue causing harm because she has no idea that she's causing harm.

In fact, I'd argue that the Alya thing in Hack San is a point in Maribug's favor. Throughout the episode, we see Marinette sending Alya messages on ways to be a good partner to Chat Noir, proving that she does in fact care about him. And then, as soon as Alya says, "You need to talk to Chat Noir," what does Maribug do?

She goes and talks to Chat Noir, giving him a pretty good apology for the problem she now knows she caused. Because, shockingly, Maribug doesn't actually want to hurt her partner. She also clearly cares about his feelings, making me want to take the season four conflict and tear it into itty bitty pieces because what is the conflict even supposed to be when you write shit like this?

I want to briefly step away from Miraculous and talk about this issue in a broader context via this YouTube short:

This short is from a Vietnamese woman who moved to Germany. Her YouTube channel is about her experiences there, including things like the short above which goes into the differences between what it means to be a dinner guest in Vietnam and what it means to be a dinner guest in Germany. In Vietnam, it's apparently standard for the guests to cook dinner with you where as, in Germany, you're expected to have the meal ready when the guests arrive, making this a situation where it's super easy to come across as rude just by doing what you think is normal.

Society is relatively aware that these types of culture clashes are a thing, but you don't have to be from different cultures to have these types of situations. Every person has their own unique needs and ideas of what "normal" is. The culture they were raised in will affect this, but so will their family, their personal needs, and many other factors. Two people can be raised on the same street and wind up with wildly different world views even though they supposedly share a culture. This is extra true when you add in compounding factors like neurodiversity, which is why it's an exercise in futility to say, "But Maribug should have realized..."

Well, she clearly didn't. And you can't change that she didn't realize whatever you're mad about. All you can do is have someone tell her what she's doing wrong. If she then continues the behavior, go ahead and judge away. But if she immediately corrects it like she did in Hack San? Doesn't that just prove that she truly didn't know that Chat Noir was hurting and would have probably fixed all of his problems if someone just pointed them out to her?

This is only exacerbated by the fact that Marinette's behavior in season four is largely unchanged from her behavior in previous seasons. The only major change is that she revealed her identity to Alya, but as soon as that's pointed out as a problem, she course corrects with an apology. After that, she thinks that everything is okay because why wouldn't she? Chat Noir said it was fine and everything else has been business as usual.

Bringing temp heroes into help as needed? That's been going on since season two. Having these additional members has been vital in multiple battles and there have been plenty of times where Chat Noir took a background role to the temp hero of the day like in Sapotis, Rena Rouge's season two debut. So why would Maribug suddenly think that this dynamic is a problem when it's been working fine for so long? We even had a whole episode about how Chat Noir was still needed in spite of the new heroes back in season three! Or, at least, I think that was Desperada's message? This show is shockingly bad at giving clear lessons.

Keeping guardian knowledge from Chat Noir? That's also been going on since season two and was even treated as a conflict that supposedly got resolved in the episode Syren which was the episode that ended with Master Fu coming to the mansion to talk to Adrien after everything was over.

When I watched that episode, I assumed this meant that Chat Noir was going to be more involved in things like picking the temp heroes. I actually thought this was how we were going to get Queen Bee because I knew she was going to be a thing, but it made no sense for Marinette to pick Chloe for a miraculous. Of course, I was wrong. Nothing changed after Syren. Chat Noir remained nothing more than the comic relief while Ladybug got all the insider info.

To be clear, I think that was a terrible move writing wise, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what they went with. This is the established dynamic. I can't even say that Alya learning Marinette's secret led to something new. She's just taken Marinette's old role while Marinette has taken on Master Fu's old role. This show loves it's status quo and Chat Noir has been at least tolerant of that status quo since Syren, so it's not surprising that Maribug doesn't register that this is a thing that should change and no one bothers to point it out to her even though she has a mentor in Tikki (and Su Han, I guess?) and a confidant in Alya and a whole slew of Kwamis who could also provide insight if they were allowed to do that sort of thing. (Sass and Wayzz were robbed of mentor roles.) Additional blame goes to Plagg because he should absolutely have told Adrien to talk to Ladybug. What is the point of giving these characters mentors who never mentor? It's aggravating in the extreme.

To circle back to the first part of your ask, outside of Hack San and Rocketear, I don't think there are any times when Ladybug invites feedback from Chat Noir unless you want to give credit to the end of Kuro Neko:

Cat Noir: (lands next to her) I've been a really temperamental kitty, m'lady. I didn't realize how much trouble I'd make for you by giving back my Miraculous. Ladybug: (sits closer to him) Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir. No one could ever replace you.

Which isn't Maribug inviting him to tell her what's up, but she is clearly willing to listen to him and reassure him, further backing up my point about this conflict being some of the worst writing I've ever had to suffer through. If Maribug always fixes the issue as soon as she learns about it, you are not writing a situation where she's clearly in the wrong. You are writing an easily solved communication issue where she gets blamed for something she clearly doesn't realize she's doing wrong and it is so frustrating!!! I feel so bad for her. The next episode is Penalteam, btw, which starts the battle with this gem:

Ladybug: (laughs) Nice scare tactics, but it's not gonna work. Cat Noir and I are the best at soccer! Cat Noir: (Whispers to Ladybug) I don't know a thing about soccer M'lady. Maybe it's time to call the real team?

And basically just spends the whole episode making Chat Noir seems like a worthless partner while Maribug tries her best to make him - and everyone else - feel special.

Oh, and the episode before Kuro Neko? Well, it's technically Ephemeral, but that got magically overwritten so let's go one further back and we get to Dearest Family, which ends with this:

Cat Noir: (grabs a golden paper crown on the coffee table) Since I'm the king, (wears the crown on his head) would you be my queen, Ladybug? Ladybug: With pleasure, kitty cat! Tradition is tradition!

Oh yes, these two are in such conflict and Maribug does nothing to validate Chat Noir. He's in pain every episode and she's just totally oblivious to it.

If that was what they wrote, then I'd probably agree that we needed more instances of her asking if Chat Noir was okay. But it's not what they wrote. If you look through the list of season four episodes, you'll find that less than half of them deal with the supposed conflict of the season (by my count, only 8 of the 24 episodes before the final actually showcase the conflict and they are not in a logical order in terms of escalation as I tried to demonstrate above). The rest of the episodes flat out ignore it or even straight up work against the conflict like when Ladybug says this to Chat Noir in Guilttrip: "I probably don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't do this without you. And it'd be a lot less fun too."

Seriously, what even is this season? What is the conflict supposed to be? Because it sure as shit isn't Maribug undervaluing Chat Noir, if memory servers, season four sees her validate him more times than any other season. And it isn't her guiltily hiding things from him like so many fanfics claim because we have multiple points of evidence that prove that she's completely oblivious that there even is a conflict. So what conflict are the writers actually trying to write?

What's even more baffling is that none of this logically leads to the loss at the end of the season:

Maribug's new secrets didn't lead to her downfall. The only reason she lost was because of the secret that's always been there - a fact that's never revealed to her - and a freaking evil twin! So why did it matter that Maribug was keeping secrets? This is made even worse by season five maintaining all of the secrets, once again begging the question of what lesson were we trying to teach here???

Chat Noir wasn't needed for the final fight of the season, Maribug only needed the powers of a few of the temp heroes to win, a baffling ending to a season whose focus was Chat Noir feeling unimportant. You could scrap that conflict entirely and the ending would not change. In fact....

Adrien quitting to be nothing more than a good little boy who obeys his father would have actually saved the world from eventually being rewritten. If you think about it, the season four final actually punishes Adrien for being defiant. So does season five as, if Chat Noir had quit, his father would still be alive. I thought this show was supposed to be a romcom, not a tragedy. Why is Adrien being punished for being a hero? Is this supposed to be karma for lying to Ladybug with the whole Catwalker thing?

This shit is why I say I'm a writing salt, character sugar blog. I can't get mad at the characters when they're in such a nonsense story where things never logically tie together. They all deserve so much better.

None of this is meant to imply that ignorance is a blanket excuse for hurting others. Nor is it meant to imply that you have to forgive someone who hurt you just because they didn't mean to. There's a ton of nuance around these topics. But season four acknowledges none of that nuance while creating a situation that desperately needed nuance because there was no clear right and wrong here. Should Maribug work to be more aware of others feelings? Sure, but that journey can only start after she's made aware of her faults and no one ever points them out to her. Does Chat Noir need to work on clearly communicating his needs? Desperately, but no one is teaching him that lesson so he remains a terrible communicator who suffers in silence. What impressively bad writing.

#ml writing critical #ml writing salt #adrien deserves better #marinette deserves better #kuro neko salt #my queendom for some good character arcs #and good story arcs #there's just so much squandered potential here #ml fandom salt #ml fandom critical #Adding those tags because I am sick of people holding Marinette to unrealistic expectations #This was long so I didn't add this part of the rant but: #It's important to remember how much we know as an audience vs what Maribug knows #Adrichat is really good at putting up a front that everything is fine #And Marinette knows nothing about his homelife when he's Chat Noir #Plus the show has made this kids kinda terrible at understanding Adrien's home life