Theories everywere

Perhaps Aphrodite took their friendship for granted. Perhaps she didn't truly realize how much it meant to her. Not until she burned that bridge beyond repair. When her vanity led her to offer Helen of Sparta to Paris. A woman who was kidnapped once before by Theseus. Who was one of the many demigods cherished by Lady Loyalty.

i was working at a little cafe where I could deny service over bad behavior, harassment etc. & mask mandates had just ended a week before & already people were being weird about me still wearing mine—an N95, the kind shaped kinda like a duckbill.

so this man walked in, looked at me sooo scathingly, laughed at me, and said “damn. never known a woman to choose…practicality over looks.”

And I just said, “oh. you can go, you’re not getting a drink.” And he said, “what???”

I said, “sir, you just walked in at 6 am & called women impractical and me ugly in one sentence.”

they're missing her BAD but also watching zoe tweaking from the corner of their eye praying she doesn't crash out and get on a 1v1 brawl with poseidon

But the thing is, the episode doesn't exist in a vacuum, it has context, and the context is that the writers choose to focus on Marinette's pain for a tragic yet predictable bereavement where she is surrounded by a healthy support system in an understanding domestic environment, being comforted by the boyfriend she is actively gaslighting and manipulating.

Adrien was so kind and empathetic to Marinette in this episode; he lets her feel what she needs to feel, he doesn't push her to give more than she's ready to give, and he stands by in an encouraging, supportive role rather than seizing control of the situation. " You don't have to tell me what's wrong if you don't want to. [...] You can cry as much as you need. [...] How was it, by the way?"

Then you compare their situations, how Adrien has lost all the members of his immediate family, how Marinette knows everything he doesn't, and how she's the main puppet-master pulling all the secret strings in his life taking over the role his father vacated. Adrien isn't allowed to grieve properly, to seek other resources, to reflect without judgement, because Marinette is desperately possessive of him. When he made friends with a new girl (change, change is good for grieving people and he met Sublime while trying out a new active hobby), Marinette stalked both of them to make sure there was nothing funny going on. When Adrien recall how terrible and abusive his father was, Marinette lies to him in an attempt to change his mind. When Adrien considers seeking a therapist, Marinette immediately tries to shut that down, preventing Adrien from building a proper (and professional) support system and make Adrien wholly dependent on her: "You can talk to me about him, right? [...] I help him! I'm his girlfriend, you know."

It's one thing for Marinette to be the main character of the show, but it's another thing to make her the main character of someone else's pain. No matter what Gabriel put Adrien through, Marinette will - with tear-filled eyes while consistently suffering in private, making sure to let the audience see how much she doesn't want to this as if she truly doesn't have a choice, as if she's not the most powerful superhero in Paris – continue his work.

It's just a jaw-dropping moment to see that after everything Marinette has done to Adrien in the name of 'love', he still comforted her during a hard time and Marinette actually had the audacity to accept his comfort as if she deserves it. It's extraordinarily tragic that Marinette is dealing with a dying grandfather, but making Adrien her emotional crutch in a case of bereavement is genuinely so cruel and perverse.

when Anne Bonny crossed the threshold of camp, she felt the wildness and the freedom the Athenide promised her; much like the tempestuous goddess that claimed Anne as her daughter

when Will Solace crossed the threshold of camp, he felt the soft reflection of sunlight bouncing off the soft waves of the lake as he was claimed by his father

when Annabeth crossed the threshold of camp, she immediately felt as if her godly sister stood between her and the hoard of monsters; Areia gave her sanctuary, Polias inspired her mind

"We were designing this Resident Evil game when we realized we'd accidentally made it so that you can launch enemies into the air with a melee attack and then juggle them indefinitely with bullets and that's undeniably fucking sick so we made a whole separate game out of it."

"People played the game and realized you could use the Enemy Step feature to jump cancel out of attacks mid air and trap enemies in infinite air combos. Sweet, this will become basically the core of DMC's entire combat system going forward."