Short DPXDC Prompts #468

What is a character's core?

I've used this term and variants of it in a few of my posts and I wanted to take a quick moment to define it because I'm not sure how commonly discussed this topic is, but it's an important one to keep in mind when evaluating and writing certain types of media.

Most genres of fiction make use of standard character roles/tropes. The plucky sidekick, the dastardly villain, the last girl, and so on. This isn't a bad thing. The existence of this stuff is a big part of how we define genres and how we evaluate writing quality. For example, if you're writing a romance, you're going to have romantic leads. Two (or more) individuals who will be together by the end of the story. If these roles don't exist, then you don't have a romance. And if their relationship feels toxic and unhealthy? You may not have a romance. Or, at least, not a classic romance. The worse the relationship is, the more you wander into the genre of "dark romance," which is all about enjoying deeply unhealthy fictional relationships.

This brings us to Miraculous and why I feel comfortable defending Adrien and Marinette as victims of bad writing.

Unless the writers are doing something truly insane, the love square is our end game couple. The ones destined for a happily ever after. That means that everything the writers do with these two and their relationship can be evaluated through the lens of, "are you honoring the characters' roles as the romantic leads?" And if the answer is, "No?" Then the writers are failing because "romantic lead" is a defining aspect of these characters. It isn't what they should be, it's what they are. Anything that goes against them being a good couple is bad writing.

This doesn't mean that they must be perfect. They're allowed to make mistakes and have flaws. Those are the sorts of things that drive a story! But the mistakes and flaws have to be treated as such by the narrative, they have to have some sort of resolution, and they have to be maintained in balance with the whole "love interest" thing. Too many mistakes and flaws and we've gone from "romance" to "tragedy," which is what I'd currently define Miraculous as.

This role evaluation thing isn't limited to romantic leads. Any character that has a clear role in the story can be evaluated via this criteria. For example, Alya is clearly meant to be a good best friend and reliable confidant for Marinette. You can tell this because of things like her learning Marinette's identity and her helping Marinette discover the secrets of the miraculous, big story moment that are treated as positives by the narrative. So anything Alya does that makes her feel like a bad friend is bad writing. It's why I get the Alya salt, but don't participate because I can't view her as the awful person the Lila stuff makes her out to be. That's not who Alya is narratively speaking.

Generally speaking, this core/role thing is my main way of evaluating characters in genre content like Miraculous. It's the driving force behind most of the character discussion on this blog and something I strongly encourage people to think about if they enjoy reading/writing genre content as it's a great guideline! Figure out the role a character is supposed to be in, generally honor that role, and you're golden! You have room for flaws and conflicts while still having something to keep you in check from straying too far off course.

Original writing! Kinda funny, I guess? I don’t know, read it under the cut and please tell me what you think!!!!!!! I NEED OPINIONS PLEASE!!

Agatha looked at the man in her hallway incredulously. When she looked behind her, around her, even above her, she looked at him again with an arched brow.

“Care to repeat that?” She asked, with not a small amount of skepticism.

He was still beaming, his smile not faltering even in her impromptu search, and his eyes twinkled—yes actually twinkled— as he opened his mouth, straight white teeth gleaming.

“You, my Lady Agatha, have been determined to be the Chosen One of the Great Prophecy and will be the Realm’s Hero!”

That’s what she thought he’d said. He beamed even brighter at her, his teeth twinkling now. This had to be a dream. Or a hallucination. Or she was dead and this was what her brain had decided to conjure up. Why couldn’t she have a nice hallucination like—like eating at a five star hotel? Or even getting to retire with a hefty pension fund?

She pinched herself. It hurt.

Motherfucker.

The silence stretched, and stretched. And he was still smiling. Was there something wrong with him? Her head was blank, devoid of any thoughts except a faint buzzing sound. And then, just to cut off the silence that was becoming a little stifling by now, she blurted the first thing she could.

“But what about my cats?”

The man blinked, his perfect smile faltering for just a moment. His brow furrowed slightly as if the thought of cats hadn’t quite factored into his grand announcement. He opened his mouth, paused, then tilted his head, clearly trying to reassess the situation.

"Your... cats?" he asked, as though the concept of pets was a foreign one.

Agatha nodded. "Yes, my cats. All three of them. Whiskers, Tibbles, and Shadow. Who’s going to feed them? Who’s going to clean their litter boxes? You can’t just expect me to up and leave them!"

The man hesitated, his eyes flickering as though searching for an answer that would satisfy her. "Well, my Lady, surely your noble companions will be well looked after—"

Agatha cut him off with a raised hand. "By who? You? The Realm’s Hero isn’t exactly a part-time gig, is it? I mean, between saving the world and fulfilling the Great Prophecy, when exactly am I supposed to find the time to change the litter? And do you know how picky Whiskers is about his food? He only eats the chicken pâté, and it has to be room temperature." She was rambling now, and her eyes had strayed over to the door she was leaning against. It was dusty, and she winced a little at the state of it. She’d have to remember to dust it soon. Assuming that this ‘Hero’ business didn’t put her out too much.

The man’s smile had faded entirely now, replaced by a look of utter bewilderment. This was not how these proclamations usually went. There was supposed to be awe, excitement, a dramatic embrace of destiny. Not... cats.

Agatha watched as the man struggled to find words, feeling a small sense of satisfaction in his discomfort. She had no idea how to deal with being a "Chosen One," but she was quite adept at handling pushy strangers who thought they could just barge into her life with outlandish demands. Being a wedding planner helped with that. She crossed her arms over her chest, her skepticism growing by the second.

"Listen," she said, her voice softening a bit. "I’m sure saving the,” she had to pause here, remembering his words earlier “Realm is very important and all, but I have a life here. A small life. With cats! You can’t just expect me to drop everything because some prophecy says I’m supposed to. It’s not that simple."

The man finally seemed to regain his composure, standing a little taller and clearing his throat. "My Lady Agatha, the Great Prophecy is not to be taken lightly. The fate of the Realm hangs in the balance, and you are the key to our salvation. Your—" he paused here, much like she did earlier, and he seemed to be clearly struggling with the idea “cats, while surely beloved, are but a small part of a much larger tapestry. Surely you can see the greater good—"

"Stop right there," Agatha interrupted again. "If you’re going to try and guilt-trip me into this, we’re going to have a problem. Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not saying no, okay? I’m just saying I need to think about it. Maybe read up on this prophecy, find out what it actually entails. And, y’know, figure out what to do with my cats." She frowned a little at the end. If the answer was that she had to leave her cats behind, then she was going to have to do a lot of thinking.

The man sighed, the twinkle in his eyes dimming slightly as he realized this conversation was going to be far more complicated than he’d anticipated. How did he do that? "Very well, my Lady," he said, his tone more subdued. "I shall return in three days' time for your decision. In the meantime, I suggest you prepare yourself—both for the journey ahead and for the weight of the responsibility that comes with being the Chosen One."

Agatha nodded, though she wasn’t entirely sure what "preparing herself" meant. Finding a bow & arrow? That seemed very on point with what was happening right now.

The man gave a stiff bow, turned on his heel, and with a flash of light that made Agatha wince and shield her eyes, he vanished from her hallway, leaving her alone with her thoughts—and her cats, who had finally decided to come investigate the commotion.

She looked down at Whiskers, who meowed expectantly. "Well," she said, picking him up and scratching behind his ears, "What do you think? Should I save the world? Or should we just go back to bed and pretend none of this happened?"

Whiskers purred loudly, clearly in favor of the latter option.

Agatha sighed. "Yeah, that’s what I thought."

I'm sorry, but the fact that Chat Noir's new power is so convenient that Marinette doesn't face the consequences of hiding a terrorist's identity from her own teammates because they MIGHT tell Adrien is the stupidest argument this series has ever presented

And they created the Magical Charms.

I've said a thousand times that the justification for not telling Adrien anything being "we have to protect him, he can't suffer," is horrible, and I disagree. As Alya said in the last episode, no one can decide for Adrien whether he knows or not.

Taking care of him shouldn't be an excuse to lie to him, or to anyone else.

Adrien more than anyone deserves to know who his dad was and the things he did and why. He deserves to grieve for him and hate him if he wants to. Not telling anything is keeping Adrien in a bubble, a little glass box where he's safe.

Ladybug should have told him that Gabriel was Monarch immediately after the fight ended. She doesn't know that Adrien is Chat Noir, so she doesn't know there's a risk of the world ending because Chat went crazy and used his power.

She had the Miraculous at that time, so the only risk Adrien ran by telling him the truth was crying his eyes out. PLUS, he wasn't at risk of being akumatized because Gabriel was dead and Ladybug was there.

She didn't even have to make the information public; she just had to tell Adrien.

So no, I don't believe there was no option but to not tell him anything.

And I'm a little tired of people justifying all this by saying "Marinette is only 14, she's a child."

I get it, but there's a chapter where they tell you that Ladybug is already mature enough to be considered AN ADULT and use her powers infinitely. Even though Mari is 14, she's been Ladybug for about a year, where she's seen more than one loved one die, fought terrorists, adult supervillains, and even faced Su Han and the heroes of New York as an ADULT. Why is it that when it comes to taking responsibility (and almost always around Adrien), she's "just a child"?

But back to the last episode: Giving Chat Noir the power to erase memories is stupidly convenient for the plot. Marinette is safe from facing the consequences for lying and can continue being Alya's best friend and Adrien's perfect girlfriend without any problems because then if it happens again, she'll just find Chat and ask him to erase their memories again because "they know a secret that I can't tell you what it is, but it's bad and they have to forget it."

Only Mari doesn't know that Chat is Adrien, and that's another big problem. Marinette doesn't want to know Chat's identity, so she can't trust him with things because "maybe he knows Adrien and can tell him" is stupidly convenient and only makes me think that Marinette really doesn't trust Chat enough to tell him who the villain they've been fighting since day one is.

At this point, I really can't blame Lila for hating Marinette (look what you've turned me into, writers!) Marinette is really annoying, especially when it has to do with Adrien.

Sometimes I feel like Marinette sees Adrien more as a trophy, something perfect she wants, and not the guy behind it all. But that's the fault of the writers and their annoying need to make Adrien perfect and devoid of personality throughout the seasons. Not even Chat Noir can get a power upgrade on his own; it's Ladybug who has to tell Chat what to do.

And then the episode tries to teach you that erasing Alya's memory is actually giving Marinette the freedom to choose when to tell the truth.

FREEDOM FOR MARINETTE. But never for Adrien to feel ANYTHING.

I'm going to really enjoy it when Lila decides to really attack, even if it only lasts 10 seconds until everyone forgives Marinette for lying and Adrien just says "I love you even though we've been dating for months and you lied to me and hid sensitive information about my family. It must have been really hard for you to hide that my dead dad was the man who psychologically tortured all of Paris and even me, just because he wanted to revive my dead mom who had been hiding in the basement of my house for a year. Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow?"

And I can almost bet that Chat Noir's new power will be used to get Marinette's memories back if she gives up being a guardian, in a very convoluted way typical of the show.

Like: "The akuma caused Marinette to have to give up the box and lose her memories. If we use the Chat Noir Miraculous, we can erase the consequences of the akuma and Marinette will get her memories back."

Or much worse.

Paris found out that Ladybug lied and they hate her. We're going to use the Chat Noir Miraculous to erase their memories so they won't mistreat her anymore :D yeii freedom

sorry to bother you, but you had mentioned a Percy/Rachel/Annabeth AU and I was wondering if you had any crumbs of it you would be willing to spare

My thought process is that Percrachelbeth gets together around September post-PJO, it's a touch odd for both Rachel and Annabeth since they were previously antagonistic, but Annabeth realizes she was also snappy because she also liked Rachel. Then Percy vanishes and Annabeth and Rachel get the time to bond and fall in love more, while Percy dreams about them (adorable). Everything happens in HOO, and TOA, and then Rachel's dad dies.

She's left in charge of the company, since he apparently had a fit of conscious and left it to her, but surprise! Lex Luthor wants something (a Mcguffin), and thinks Rachel will be easier to manipulate, unaware that Percy and Annabeth are completely down to ruin his life.

The comprehensive takedown of LexCorp begins, and they get an invite to the inauguration of Oliver Queen as Mayor of Star City, which Dick is also invited to.

This is basically more of a Green Arrow/Teen Titans with a splash of Lex Luthor x PJO fic, I'm thinking that Cissie might be a legacy of Apollo, I'm sticking to blonde Percy, but there will be jokes about Annabeth having Dick's taste in redheads which Rachel bears with dignity until she starts ominously predicting people's futures.

This is not a bother, please send me more asks, I love answering them!

I wanna post my fic… but the time zones THE FUCKING TIME ZONES

oh. wow.

write a story about how you became the world’s most powerfull person… by accident.

Feral McGee™

It starts with the Joker. 

His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he? 

Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again. 

The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does. 

It happens like this. 

The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair. 

Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham. 

And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair. 

Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up. 

He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold. 

Then he looks towards the camera. 

“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves. 

Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham. 

“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”

“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”

—

The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler. 

He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes. 

While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely. 

Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch. 

They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”

The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black. 

Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless. 

“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”

“Hn.”

—

After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised. 

Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on. 

Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down. 

Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.  

He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again. 

And then the Joker escapes. 

It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after. 

Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up. 

They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™. 

The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid. 

Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed. 

“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say. 

They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger. 

“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood. 

“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”

Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it. 

In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him. 

When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker. 

“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”

The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”

“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice. 

 “Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 

“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”

“Hn.”

Wouldn't you like...?😎🎵

Reblog to make it die faster

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.