i think it's funny that some people would use maomao as an example of a 'strong female lead' to put down other shojo girls who are traditionally more girlish and feminine and emotionally sensitive (or 'crybabies') as if maomao wouldn't be the first one to jump into their defense if they're in the same universe. maomao is literally the most girls' girl, empathetic, understanding girl you'll ever see and she'll hate you for putting other fmcs down to lift her up

like. how do you like maomao bcs you're supposedly a feminist but you hate like a man??

the ironic part being that maomao is also fairly feminine and emotionally sensitive

(light novel volume 1)

and also in season 2: "I know I should stop here, but... there are things that make one angry."

like .. a lot of her personality is her getting emotionally invested to write a wrong (the FIRST EPISODE im pretty sure tells us maomao has this habit) and just generally being REALLY sympathetic to people, especially the other women around her.

and she's fairly feminine like .. she paints her nails, she doesn't contest to or hate the fancy dresses she's dressed up in time to time, and she doesn't inherently hate makeup itself, she just doesn't usually get all dolled up for her own safety. but she chooses to put on makeup and a dress and a fancy scarf her sister bought her and dance at the end of season 1, yinghua asks to stuff her waist and chest for the garden party and maomao says "sure, i don't care," and several of her plans or stunts involve her getting all dressed up and pretty looking (see: moon fairy) and she never complains or anything, the only thing she doesn't like is taking her freckles off, and even then, she gets VERY invested in makeup and says "if i'm going to do this, i'm gonna do it right!"

like .. she's feminine and sensitive and enjoys feminine things, she's just also insanely autistic and really likes poisons on top of that. she's my favorite feminist girls girl

Maomao going meow meow

hi tumblr, long time no see

here's a burningcheese dump ❤💛

bye now see you in like a year 👋👋

my new favorite minecraft mob - gaslighting

Starscream throwing a tantrum

Individual drawings + extra doodle below cut

catty ⭐

I know that showrunners can't really predict what's going to happen five seasons on, but I really wish we could have known the extent to which Chloé bullied Marinette. I think if what happened in 'Derision' was mentioned or alluded to in the early seasons, there wouldn't have been as much push back to Chloé's failed redemption arc.

That implies that the story in Derision existed (at least in the way it does now) back at that point.

Which it very likely didn’t as her behaviour in it doesn’t 100% track with the way she behaved in the early seasons.

We didn’t know that she bullied her to that extent back then because it wasn’t the original plan to make her completely irredeemable. So in that point of the story she hadn’t.

Viewing it from an irl production perspective that is.

I’m completely 100% ok with people believing Chloe doesn’t deserve a redemption arc (my opinions on it are quite complicated themselves) Especially now with the direction they did take her character.

But I always take issue with people buying into the idea that the damnation “arc” was absolutely always planned and spinning that around to say the pushback to them abandoning the redemption arc at the time was a mistake on fans behalf.

Especially when there’s a lot of evidence irl that Chloe was not originally supposed to end up with the story she did. That there are noticeable seams where the trade off happened.

Like as someone who has a massive special interest in toy design and the children’s toy industry as a whole? To a slightly neurotic degree?

I can pretty confidently say that she wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the amount of merchandise she got if she actually was always planned to get that bad.

Toy companies hate making merchandise of villains. Especially if it’s for something they consider on the “girls show” side of things. It’s like pulling teeth for even the teeniest bit of villain merch.

And Chloe got a lot of merch. (For the 2-3 merch cycles before her damnation arc started.)

Characters always intended to be villains don’t get this. They straight up don’t.

Especially with how positively so much of this frames her.

She’s shown as a smiley positive force. This is the merchandise a character gets when the marketing team is told they’re a heroic character. A character they want kids to look up to enough to dress up as them.

This portrays a very different idea for Chloe. Merchandise does not conceal narrative elements. In fact it often spoils them. Over half of show spoilers come from merchandise.

The cut off of her getting merch was so abrupt that she has merch releases officially considered “cancelled” that still had a few end up on store shelves.

One of which portraying her… with a pink hair streak…

Hmm.

Hmm.

I’m pretty sure it’s the exact same shade of pink too.

A lot of people on both sides of the Chloe redemption debate believe Zoé’s sudden slightly wonky introduction was as a response to fan backlash. I’ve always personally doubted that. Miraculous writers just don’t write like that.

I think the marketing department and licensed toy companies had the writers metaphorically by the throat. Because this kind of un-communicated narrative swerve is the exact kind of thing that pisses them off.

I would be pissed off too if I just spent years building up the merchandise presence of a character only for the writers to just go “actually she’s gonna stay an insufferable shitheel. In fact? She’s gonna get worse! A lot worse!”

So they were likely made to either backpedal on it or introduce a new similar bee miraculous holder asap.

They chose the latter and Zoé was born. Pulled directly from scrapped Chloe ideas.

For me to believe the damnation arc was always the plan? I’d have to believe the writers lied to the merchendisers. Which makes them look like complete assholes, and would be a confusing thing for them to do.

Why would they want merchandise of a character intended to get that awful?

Simple. She wasn’t. Not at first.

Once again it’s completely valid to not believe Chloe deserved a redemption. I believe heavily in the importance of nuance of takes in fandom spaces.

But it’s important to recognise there were very valid reasons people were (and still are) upset.

Chloe was very noticeably and suddenly retconned out of nowhere. To the degree even merchandisers were caught off guard.

We had every reason to not expect them to take her in a direction they didn’t originally intend her to take.

We’re not psychic.

Finally got boo-jewelled cleo! (A grail g3 doll for awhile now!)

And you know? it’s little things like them thinking to put a girl of colour on the back pictures with cleo (a character of colour) that really makes me love g3.

Because G1 wouldn’t think to do that.

Like it makes me think back to g1 using a white kid to model their honey swamp (their first black character with properly Afro textured hair) costume and how they didn’t even once double think that choice when the photos came in.

I think about all those stories I’ve heard of black kids being so excited when they saw honey in stores because she looked like them! A character had their features!

And I wonder if any of them who ran to the computer as Halloween neared to see if there was a costume of her, when seeing it modelled on a white kid doubted even for just a second if honey was actually made for them.

Because getting a black kid to model the costume and wig for a black character (especially one as significant as honey) wouldn’t be hard. It’s extremely easy to match the model to the character!

Once again g3 does it with no issue!

Even for Draculaura! A character people might not immediately process is Asian in g3, they got an Asian kid to model her!

It’s just… more instinctual to the way g3 is built?

In g1 its efforts to be more diverse were added ON to the original experience. They had the feelings of extras. Some were good! Others… less so.

While in g3 those efforts seem more baked into its core brand dna. It’s what it’s all about!

It might be because I’m a bit mushy as a person but it always makes me so happy to see!

I love how casually inclusive g3 is💗

G3 DOLL AND TV/CARTOON

BOTH DESIGNS ARE BEAUTIFUL AND BEFORE YOU GUYS START A WAR BECAUSE OF THE DESIGN DIFFERENCE

G3 NEFERA STARTED AS A TV/CARTOON DESIGN FIRST

BEFORE SHE OFFICIALLY GOT A G3 DOLL

SO THE G3 DOLL IS A REDESIGN FROM THE TV SERIES VERSION

Which is why it feels weird cause why didn't the just copy the show's design? It's not that complicated.

Not made, just confused in this era of screen accurate toys.

Or maybe the Transformers brainrot has set in.

Because her released after the cancellation of the show. So lacks an obligation to any show accuracy!

We don’t 100% know why Mattel decided to end the Nickelodeon show despite the toy sales being stronger than ever and having zero current plans to retire the brand.

But I personally suspect it’s because there’s been an internal shift about the direction g3 is developing in.

It’s a crack theory but… I’ve always gotten the vibe Mattel really didn’t expect g3 to be as successful as it has been.

I don’t think they were intentionally trying to botch it either but there was a noticeable change that started to happen around… monster ball I’d say? Where Mattel suddenly started taking g3 a lot more seriously.

In a way they kinda weren’t before.

A change emphasised a lot more by the core refresh redesigns!

What kind of doll line just redesigns the main characters core appearances mid generation?

That’s usually the kind of thing saved for soft/hard reboots! But no. They just decided to change the main appearances of the main group out of nowhere!

This is still g3, it’s still the same characters we know from g3 they just… look different now.

And the core refresh was a very new idea. The show creator Shea Fontana said the reason the characters never got the updated designs in the show was because they never received the core refresh designs.

Despite the fact that if they had a normal length development cycle they’d have at least gotten their prototype designs.

The show artists got the designs for dolls that released after the core refresh but not core refresh itself?

It’s like g3 got to the point where Mattel had originally planned to fade it out but they had an, “oh shit. This is actually successful? We’re actually doing this then?” Moment!

And started readjusting the brand trajectory now they were serious.

Which meant stuff like the show and live action movies (which had the original brand trajectory baked into their DNA) got cancelled because they no longer reflect what Mattel wants g3 to embody!

Which is why characters stopped reflecting their cartoon counterparts!

It’s also happened to g3 Jinafire on a subtler level!

With her doll originally supposed to just have a longer version of her show hairstyle. But they ended up changing her hairstyle completely!

I hope they don’t forsake all the show designs completely though. I’m actually a really big fan of Moucedes and skelita’s show designs! I hope they survive the shift!

Tldr: there’s been a shift in the way g3 does its character design and the show is no longer reflective of that.

Why does Draculaura look EXTRA cute here?

The g3 Nickelodeon artstyle is actually really good quality for something made on a 3D tv budget.

Sometimes cracks showed but overall it almost always looks VERY clean and deserves more praise than it gets.

she's the fire he's the smoke

perhaps in another life...

Fire & Ice

"Sleep has not found me in centuries, but somewhere in the vast Night Kingdom i find myself dreaming of you.

Again and again."

you can sleep peacefully, hero

Capitano "blueshes"