#i'm not directly plaguing people with my paragraphs

[chatonnoir]

Predictably adrienette fangirls are vagueposting me and to no one’s surprise they’re being dense and illiterate about it at that so I’m going to repeat myself about what my actual problem with pre-reveal adrienette is and maybe they’ll read it this time before they go on to write another 8 paragraphs about how much they supposedly don’t care about my opinion

I love Adrienette, contrary to how the Adrienette fangirls are trying to frame this is as just being about Side Preference, because considering that people’s upset could be anything more than “they’re just salty it wasn’t their favorite side 💅” is apparently too complex a concept to grasp. You know why Adrienette could never be my favorite side of the square, though?

The problem is the show never let them be what they could be at their best because it always chose to prioritize drama. Things like their adventures in Gorizilla and them joking around together in Puppeteer 2... they never gave me more of it. They always chose cliche contrived drama and drawing out the will they won't they """tension"""" over letting them spend real time together and get close. And that just makes me mourn the fact its only this way because the majority of people think THATS the most interesting part of a ship. Why let Adrienette get to the point of being able to comfortably hang out together as close friends when that "diminishes" the """tension"""" after all??? No one wants to see FRIENDSHIP silly!

This side is always plagued with corny forced drama and manufactured "tension" more than other, which is achieved by not letting Adrienette get close as friends at all costs and throwing in waste my time bullshit like love rivals to extend the runtime of said "tension". Every seemingly promising scene with them becomes a microcosm of this phenomenon. Puppeteer 2 was nice but the comfort and joking around together didn't stick and they cut it short with more of that love triangle "the girl you're in love with?" bullshit. I was excited when it seemed like Marinette was going to join the fencing team in Riposte because their interactions in that scene were cute and I was happy to see them spend more time together and become comfortable while sharing this common interest, only for it to turn out that that was all to introduce a goddamn love rival plot that amounted to nothing besides developing the friendship between the two protagonists and said love rival more than their friendship to .... each other. Again, gotta prioritize the Tension!!1!1!!

I've said if I wanted to watch another generic school romance I'd choose to watch a much better one than pre-reveal Adrienette. One example? Anne/Gilbert. I'm going to talk about the Netflix version here: Anne/Gilbert feels a bit like what Adrienette might've been if the umbrella scene didn't happen and it took longer for Marinette to warm up to him. Anne gets awkward and babbles and puts her foot in her mouth around Gilbert.  Gilbert is all smitten smiles and soft looks when he sees her being Anne(TM) and being her weird self or standing up for what’s right. But that's not all. They're good friends. They have a rivalry. They tease each other. They argue. He tells her directly when he disagrees with something she did. They challenge each other’s perspectives. They grieve together. They hold each other and cry after they lose someone important to them. Anne’s the first person Gilbert wants to tell about things that happen to him. Gilbert comes to Anne to discuss his future when he's confused. This was all before they were even together. This is the depth and rawness and realness that I wish Adrienette gave me. Alas, it's Ladynoir that has all that depth and closeness, while I'm not even convinced Adrienette can even be considered "close" at the end of season 4. Three hundred “soft looks” scenes only go so far. They only just scratched the surface of said closeness with Risk, and even that wasn't entirely organic considering it took magic to get it to happen. I hoped that would finally be the start of letting Adrienette get closer as friends and have some real substance and--- oops! They're dating now lol.

Weird as hell that Adrienette fangirls are being like “you all think platonic relationships are less than romantic ones and it shows 💅 one lovesquare side getting together doesn’t kill the others” acting like they really did something when … the whole fucking issue here is that Adrienette needed to develop as friends. Even if we ignore the fact that this is a piece of fucking Romance media and therefore not the place to whine about the value of platonic love when the romantic development is literally the main fucking plot, Ladynoir has had all the depth and platonic development and platonic love built up already. Ladynoir is fully realized. They've struggled and been at odds and reconciled and seen each other at their best and worst and grown together. It’s Adrienette that’s lacking in platonic development, it’s Adrienette that some of us wanted to have developed into a strong platonic relationship first but apparently, for reasons unknown, they’re incapable of being friends and needed to date to have any of that long overdue development. The Adrienette stans KNOW they needed development, they even defend pre-reveal Adrienette by saying they needed the development, but bizarrely y'all think it absolutely had to happen through speed running pre-reveal dating rather than uh..... friendship. Are ladynoir stans really the ones failing to see the value of platonic love here lol

One thing I always hated that this fandom did was treat romantic love as an ulterior motive or somehow shallow. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that once again that theme comes up in the defense of this plot point with “nOw LaDyNoIr CaN bE fRiEnDs wItHoUt uLtErIoR mOtIvEs.” I’m sorry some of y’all think someone wanting to get closer to another person or having affection for them is an ulterior motive lol. Maybe this is the consequence of how hollywood and popular culture has equated romantic love to sexual tension. Maybe this is why I’m having to listen to adrienette fangirls say deranged shit like “ladynoir was meant to be the platonic side and adrienette was meant to be the lovers side uwu” because of course, a deep bond built on real trust and friendship and affection with someone who you can share things you can’t with most others, a relationship reminiscent of what actual healthy romantic relationships look like in real life, isn’t romantic at all, but forced Tension and contrived schoolgirl drama, apparently, is romantic.

In case some Adrienette fangirls are still having trouble with reading comprehension: I love adrienette and everything they could be. I hate how they’re often handled in canon. When I talk about what Ladynoir has that Adrienette does not, that’s me explaining how their writing and development was handled better and how Adrienette isn’t allowed to reach that point, not why one side is “superior” lol. Despite me saying this I know Adrienette stans are still going to take it as a personal attack when I point out the objective fact that Ladynoir has the closer and more developed relationship lol

The past four seasons but season 4 more than any other established these themes of truth vs. lies and secrets and the importance of being honest with your loved ones and how secrets are hurting them more than they’re helping. They were even in the fucking titles of the first three episodes of the season. And it seemed so obviously to be building up to a reveal, of course the culmination of all the interpersonal conflicts and anguish they’re going through would be the two of them revealing their identities right? No, actually, the solution to the question of truth/lies/secrets posed at the beginning of season 4 is ….. for Adrien and Marinette to have sex.

That’s right, folks. Not identity reveal, not for Adrien and Marinette to be honest with each other the way Alya and Nino were, the culmination of this conflict is …. For them to have sex. The picnic blanket date scene where they lay down and try to kiss only for Marinette to be “Not Ready” and for Adrien to tell her that he can Wait For Her <3, which takes place in the same spot as the implied GabrielxEmilie Adrien Conception Picnic, is an unsubtle first time sex metaphor. Fuck honesty and personal growth! Fuck Adrien and Marinette actually saying goodbye to their best friends! "I'll never abandon you" and "never do that to me again" and "I'm afraid of you disappearing for my life" all didn't mean fuck all when it comes to getting fucked on a picnic blanket! The rest of the lovesquare got thrown over because Adrien and Marinette are just so fucking horny apparently :’) This is what the pre-reveal Adrienette stans are calling peak romance and the best season of the show. My god

Though I can’t say this kind of contrived botched unnecessary conflict and nonsensical “development” on the Adrienette side is new to this season. Adrienette stans were noting the Glaciator 2 -> Risk """"development"""" like "look! Marinette stopped seeing Adrien's sadness as an Opportunity to Win him and listened to his feelings! Character/Relationship development 😌✨" Except.... no. That wasn't development that ever needed to happen. Marinette was already capable of seeing Adrien's sadness way back in season 1 (Rogercop) and of caring more to see him happy than about pushing her own feelings on him (the scarf in Bubbler + being his 3rd wheel in Frozer). Then Glaciator 2 decides to introduce this asinine "Adrien is sad now's my chance!!1!1!" moment so that y'all can later pretend Adrienette had a development moment here when it REALLY didn't. That was literally not what was holding her back for the past 4 seasons. That was a solution to a problem that never existed in the first place.

The drawn-out “not being ready to kiss Adrien” conflict this season is a completely new invention too because guess what: We had Chat Blanc! We SAW Marinette was already happily ready to kiss Adrien in full view of her friends back in season 3!!! Pre-reveal Adrienette is repeatedly negating past characterization and past development and past established themes for its forced drama and Adrienette stans are shutting their eyes to that fact because uuwwwu cute Adrienette scenes!!!11!!!1

(And y’all know people can enjoy the scenes/think they’re cute while still disliking the plotpoint/writing surrounding it, right? Or is that still too complex a thought for this fandom)

The fear of rejection has been there for the past 7 years, ready to be tackled at any moment. Those of us that actually paid attention to Marinette’s character, and weren’t just projecting ourselves and our high school fantasies on to her like a lot of these pre-reveal Adrienette stans, were all waiting for it to naturally payoff with a Marinette confession scene, regardless of the outcome. Let her overcome that rejection sensitive dysphoria!!!! Oh, wait, nevermind, now that problem has been gleefully skipped over and apparently the REAL issue is that Marinette can’t kiss Adrien. Fucking Phenomenal. Marinette already knows Adrien loves her and was able to completely skip over the "overcoming her fear of rejection" part but she's still scared for some reason and everyone is going to pretend this is so compelling and soft uwu and not completely lackluster compared to the powerful character moment that could've been if she'd been allowed to confront this fear pre-relationship. The past 4 seasons of her trying and failing to tell Adrien how she feels were actually just more dilly dallying contrived runtime expansion because that issue was never going to be something she needed to overcome through Facing Said Fear, apparently. Adrien had adequate development in realizing he needed to drop the Cat-sanova schtick with Ladybug if he wanted to be seen for who he is. On Marinette's side of the personal growth and development? Crickets. She’s just a scared little animal who needs Adrien to handle it all for her uwu. She never needed to do any growing, it was always Adrien! Adrien’s Feelings were always the obstacle actually! It’s Adrien’s job to make this all happen! Fuck seeing our protagonist taking initiative and overcoming that seasons-long fear in a satisfying confession payoff I guess!

There were conditions under which I actually would’ve accepted pre-reveal Adrienette, like for example actually getting that confession scene, but the way it played out in canon flopped. I thought ML was following the Raimi Spider-Man plot, which it has been in many ways, but even those movies had Peter Reject Mary Jane after she finally realized she loved him, and only let them get together after his identity was revealed and Mary Jane was able to accept that Spider-Man and Peter Parker are a package deal. Here’s another example of an actual good school romance I’d choose over pre-reveal Adrienette every time: Sawako and Kazehaya. The pinnacle of sweet slowburn slice of life school romance. Kurumi, an actually effective romantic rival character, tells Sawako that she’s not worthy of being called her rival if she simply gives up and wallows without ever actually mustering up the courage to confess her feelings to Kazehaya. The love rival got rejected and got her heart broken, only to be the one who pushed the protagonist to confess, and then we got a beautiful, emotional confession scene where Sawako, despite all her shyness and anxiety, puts herself out there and pours her heart out and tells Kazehaya that she loves him, all Without Knowing Her Feelings Are Returned. It was powerful and satisfying and tear-jerking and earned and it put the reigns in our protagonists’ hands. Pre-reveal Adrienette flopped with this. Now I’m going to have to endure the fans acting like this half-season-long contrived drama/first time sex metaphor was the REAL issue all along and that it’s actually a well-written and compelling conflict. Now they’re going to pretend Marinette continuing to be afraid to confess and having to overcome that while already knowing Adrien loves her is in any way logical or satisfying. Who cares about seeing our protagonist take initiative and grow and be rewarded for it!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the same people who are rallying for this shit are some of the same people who’ve put Adrien salt on my dash and whine about Chameleon on a monthly basis because it was already clear from those salt takes that they clearly do not understand these characters. It was never about character growth for Marinette. Narrative themes never really mattered. It’s all about the self-projection. The people who are happiest about this are the Marinette kinnies who think Adrien needed to learn a lesson and Finally Notice and Appreciate NormalGirl Marinette and/or stop being “pushy” with Ladybug and learn his Lesson to blindly follow Marinette through all Chameleon-esque drama in the future. They love the idea of having that celebrity boycrush romance fall in to their laps with no personal reflection or growth on their own parts and they love their self-insert Marinette having an echo chamber entourage of friends that follow her blindly and never disagree with her if she has personal beef with someone. The inequality and double standard -- that Adrien's original crush was treated as the Obstacle that he had to Grow from and Get Over while Marinette's isn't -- isn't a problem to the Marinette kinnies because to them it's always everyone else's fault for not Appreciating or being Loyal Enough to Marinette of course. It was never about her growing. The real problem was always Adrien ~~~being too blinded by red and black to notice the cute girl behind him in class uwuwuww~~~ or however that cornyass cliche shitty fanfic line always goes.

Pre-reveal Adrienette has framed the rest of the lovesquare, and especially Adrien's feelings for Ladybug, as a simple obstacle that always stood in the way of the end goal of Adrienette, not a completed/fully realized square. Pre-reveal Adrienette decided that the entire point of the season 4 conflict was actually about making Adrien finally ~get over~ Ladybug so he'd ~notice~ Marinette. Pre-reveal Adrienette made it so Alya's entire role in Season 4 was actually just to get in-between Ladynoir to reach this end. Pre-reveal Adrienette started with the two of them bizarrely forgetting about the existence of their superhero best friends and ghosting them to get laid, which, seeing the later eps, was clearly just a summary of how this entire phase of their relationship is going to play out. Pre-reveal Adrienette bizarrely snubs the years-long plotline of Marinette's romantic feelings for Chat Noir after just 3 episodes of exploring them (even the Adrienette stans are relying on pure speculation of future episodes to justify this shit, you know, when they're not relying on their asspull argument that ladynoir stans just "think platonic relationships are less than romantic ones and it shows 💅🤪").

It’s hilarious to hear pre-reveal Adrienette fangirls vaguepost like “you’re just mad it wasn’t your favorite side 💅” when I’ve said multiple times that I would not have been satisfied with pre-reveal Ladynoir either because I Wanted to see that climactic Marinette confession moment and see Marinette’s fear of rejection handled in a satisfying way (and my dream for season 5 was to see all 4 sides openly simping), meanwhile it’s exceedingly clear these Adrienette stans are making a lot of excuses and hinging their defenses of pre-reveal Adrienette on pure speculation (lmao when their justification depends on future, yet-to-be-seen episodes being Better) and retroactively rewriting the past four seasons to ignore the abandoned themes and to tell anyone who doesn’t like it that they're just salty about their own side and were actually hallucinating all the blatant themes in the past seasons and to pretend this writing isn’t completely disjointed and nonsensical because they’re actually the ones who only care about seeing their favorite side be canon 🤷‍♀️

[boiled-dennis]

i am enjoying seeing people speak critically about the show.. discussion of this sort should be more welcome. (this is a long post)

one thing i really don't like is how rcg use words like "psychopath" or "sociopath" to explain the characters' bigoted behaviour. aside from the obvious sanism (which i'll get to), it just oversimplifies everything. it implies that bigotry isn't learned/taught, or that you have to be a Certain Way in order to be capable of bigoted thoughts and actions. anyone can have dehumanising beliefs about other kinds of people. "nice" or "polite" people can be pieces of shit too. bigotry is often not loud or physically violent.

for them to continuously use the terms psychopath and sociopath, it just furthers the incredibly dangerous idea that people who get those labels attributed to us (those of us with ASPD) have some kind of inherent "evil". to use it as an explanation for bigoted beliefs also means you're calling a whole group of extremely misunderstood and demonised mentally ill people Racist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist, sexist, violent people.

with this logic, you are basically removing any accountability. if you're saying "they're psychopaths, they're bound to be shitty about that because they don't care about anyone", then you are actively erasing the responsibility any person has to recognising their own damaging, bigoted behaviour and making changes.

something i'd like to make clear is that a lack of caring (apathy) is neutral.. it is also a symptom that cannot be controlled and can often cause distress to the person experiencing it. you cannot, in good faith, apply some moral status to that. however.... actively hating people for who they are, and saying or doing bigoted things is a conscious choice, no matter how familiar a person is with behaving that way.

if people want to try to be The Most Socially Aware Person about this topic, then they need to recognise that the concepts of psychopathy and sociopathy have no validity and exist only for racist and sanist reasons. people love being conscious of other forms of bigotry in the name of "progressivism", but still cling so strongly to the idea of psychiatry being reliable and untainted by oppressive systems.

all of this also applies to when rcg or other people describe the characters as narcissists. all that does is demonise highly stigmatised and misunderstood mentally ill people, and attribute bigotry to mental illness. people with narcissistic personality disorder are not more likely to be abusive. i'm sure you've heard by now, but mentally ill people are way more likely to be abused, than be abusers. this is even truer for people with personality disorders.

people often claim that it won't hurt "real" psychopaths or sociopaths if those labels/collections of traits are used as an insult, because we "don't feel anything anyway", but believe me it actively puts us in danger when you continuously make these false connections between us and everything wrong with the world. (also it is literally impossible for any human to not feel emotions at all. those of us with ASPD may feel muted emotions, and this symptom often causes distress- we certainly do not enjoy it)

people might say "it's not that deep", but i'd say it only seems that way to them because they're not the one who gets affected by it. generally this issue just reeks of liberalism, ironically they tend to be the ones who are "apathetic" to other peoples problems, just because it doesn't affect them.

if we're going to pretend that the show and rcg's intentions are motivated purely by #activism then you gotta be even more critical of it. i actually love the show (and in many ways it is one of my favourite pieces of media), but i also hate or disagree with a lot of what is in it and intentions that were put into it.. i don't think i could ever Not critically view a piece of media that i love. personally i think it also cheapens any complex commentary or characterisation they're trying to make, if they keep summarising it as "the show about narcissistic psychopaths".

at the end of the day, rcg are generally not in positions where they have to really think about how marginalised people live and what affects us. to quote mac, they are straight, white, cis males. privilege is a genuine barrier.

this article talks about the subject in a simple, straightforward way (just a warning, it covers heavy topics and has mentions of uncensored ableist slurs)

[drbennedict-writingadvice]

Hi I'm amateur writer anon and I'm asking this question to the entirety of writer tumblr askboxes (ones where I can ask anonymously) about one of my biggest weaknesses in writing: the first opening sentence/paragraph. Please give me some advices on how to write an intriguing first sentence/paragraph so that the readers can get more into it and i can also get right into writing it :(

Hi, anon! In my experience, there are a few main things to focus on in the first paragraph to help make it as strong as it can be. I’m going to focus more on the paragraph than the first sentence because I think that’s the most important part. I’ll try to be as concise as possible, but I just drove 13 hours from Chicago so my mind is a bit fuzzy! 

My first piece of advice would be that if you’re a beginner, don’t start with a prologue. Unless they're really well done, a lot of prologues can just seem like a waste of time and an author’s indulgence (I’ve been told this directly by a published author who was reviewing my work. It’s harsh but true). Especially if you want to get published, a lot of agents (not all of them though!) are put off by prologues. 

Get into the scene quickly. You need to set the scene, but do this as quickly as possible. Unless you have arrestingly beautiful descriptive writing like Tolkein, readers will lose interest if you blather on about the setting for too long. With that said, it is important to set the scene a little bit. If a reader can’t imagine where the scene is taking place it’s difficult to get invested in the story. Try to stick to just a few sentences up front and then you can pepper in additional details later on.

Keep it simple. Don’t inundate the reader with too much detail in the first paragraph. Choose what you think is the most important detail or problem and only introduce that at first. You have a whole novel to go into more detail and reveal additional problems/plots, don’t overload the beginning.

Your first page should all take place in the same scene. Don’t jump around too much at the beginning, it will confuse your readers and a confused reader won’t stick around for too long. The first paragraph/page should give the reader a good sense of the genre, the target audience, and the tone of your book. 

If you can think of a good hook sentence, great! if not, do not beat yourself up over it, and don’t let that stop you from starting your story. Some of my favorite books have perfectly ordinary first sentences. If you can’t think of a hook, just start the scene. As long as the scene is interesting and the writing is good, readers will forgive ordinary opening lines. If you really want to start with a hook, a hook sentence should be something unusual or interesting that ties into your story. But don’t start by immediately putting your main character in danger. The reader doesn’t know who this person is yet, and frankly doesn’t really care about them. Think about what you love about your book, why you decided to write it, what grabbed your attention when the idea first surfaced, and try to get that feeling into the first sentence/paragraph. I remember the opening line from an anonymous one-page critique session I went to that started with “Jim’s mom had died twenty-seven times today,” (full disclosure I don’t actually remember the character’s name). That was a great hook sentence, it’s unusual and unexpected and makes you want to read more. It turns out that the person’s mom hadn’t actually died that many times, but that the character was being plagued by a Djin who was giving him horrible visions. This one sentence grabbed the reader’s attention and was a great setup to explain the current situation and main problem. 

A few additional words of advice. It is rare that you will find the perfect first sentence in your first draft, or your second, or your third. Those really witty and fascinating and perfect first lines that we read are often the product of months of re-writing. If you have a sentence you like but doesn’t feel quite right, try reworking it. Try changing the point of view, or the feel of it. Play around with it. And re-read novels and short stories whose opening lines you love. Study them not as a normal reader, but as a fellow craftsperson. How are they constructed? Are they a question? A quote? An action sentence? A description? Etc. There are some first lines that are universally attractive to everyone, and then there are some first lines that some people love and others don’t. Figure out what you like in a first line/paragraph and then try to imitate it. You will write significantly better if you’re writing something you like rather than something you think others will/should like. 

Sorry that this is so rambly and long but hopefully at least some of this helps! Again I’m working off of five hours of sleep and a long drive so please feel free to reach back out if anything needs clarification!