YOUR DRAGON NAME

What makes you fall in love?

consistency 

reciprocity

intimacy 

chemistry

humor

honesty

passion 

something that stuck with me once, way back in middle school when i was still learning how to write - my teacher said "writing shock and tragedy is easy, it's humor that's the hardest."

i have been up and down the halls of academia. i have the fancy degree and the experience in publishing. i think i paved most of my own road with the little bricks of sorrow i had stored inside of me. i know i did it mostly with works that are blisteringly lonely. i know why we write like that. it's lifesaving.

but yeah, i mean. i also know how much people think that "sad" media is the same thing as "good" media. our human desire to connect is so hard-pressed that we immediately latch onto any broken themes. the bullied kids and the tales of inspiration. people keep saying things like "glass onion" and "everything everywhere" weren't actually good. because, you know, they're. happy. or happy-ish. happy enough. and we only value art if it's grimdark-adjacent.

do you know - people still consistently whine at me that my writing would be so good if i just capitalized things. i used to flinch. i get kind of a weird, vindictive little rush these days - i get to say thank you for the comment! i have chronic pain and this is how i conserve my hands so i can write more during the day :) grammar isn't real anyway! and now they're trapped in the room with me, you know? i get to pull out my map and show them how grammar is not the same thing as good writing.

writers have this thing. we scratch at our insides, constantly, prying our lives apart into splinters. prying the splinters apart into atoms. when we combust something into poetry, we control it. it cannot hurt us if it exists outside of us rather than burning a hole through the bottom of our lungs. it's not a wonder to me that so much of what i make comes out like a death gasp. i spent a long time at the bottom. i keep going back, too. when you're down there for so long, the only thing you can exhale is fumes.

but humor is hard. humor needs timing; which i can't promise in a paragraph. i can kind-of force it through careful spacing, but i have no idea how fast you're reading these things. humor needs a somewhat awareness of your audience, when really - anybody could be looking. humor needs us to understand what the joke is, why it's a joke, and to think - ha! that is funny. in tragedy, everyone understands the metaphor of a kicked puppy. in humor, you need to introduce them to the concept of a dog.

and forget about positivity. forget about anything not made for adults explicitly. every time i see a well-made children's media piece, i feel fucking horrible for the creators. most of the time, people see children's media as being sort of "not worth" applause, even though i'm pretty sure they have to work twice as hard. i have no idea how hard it must be to not be able to have your character just say. "well, fuck." something about a message of peace or friendship or caring - for some reason, that makes the media not for adults. like, okay. i'm pretty sure my father actually, out of all of us, could use a good book on how to control his temper and talk about his feelings.

but whatever. i write a short story about my ocd, and how it's fucking killing me. it gets an award. it gets published. i write a short story about my ocd, and how i'm overcoming it, and how my days are getting lighter and starting to flourish. i keep getting ghosted. no response. it just is lacking... something.

is this it, forever? you can be an artist, okay. but the trade off is that the things you make - if they're happy? if they're joyful? people will say it's stupid and pandering. you bite your nails off. you file your teeth. you hear something inside of you breaking.

the other day in a writing group, someone i'd thought of as a friend said: "you write so much better these days! i love what you make when you'd rather be dead."

I am still decompressing from the Arcane finale, and I will be for a very long time, but I just wanted to point out how important Arcane is as a show. Arcane is showing absolutely everyone just what happens when you put genuine care and attention into telling a story, and using the proper mediums to do so. In a media landscape that is saturated with lazy writing, endless parades of live-action remakes, bloated, uninspired CGI graphics, sexism, racism, misogyny, mindless, purposeless violence, hollow characters, weak or nonexistent character arcs, cliched backstories and tired tropes, Arcane has emerged as proof of what storytelling could be.

Arcane has already broken all of Netflix's records, both in the most-watched show on the platform, as well as the highest-rated, and that feels like all the proof we need of what audiences and individuals are starved for. It feels like a revelation of how all of our newfound media technology could and should be used. We don't want animation and CGI to be used just to recreate realism down to the fibers of a shirt or the individual hairs on someone's head. We want animation that is exploratory, revelatory, engaging - animation that shows us a new perspective, that breathes new life into the story it's telling - animation that tells a story in a way that no other form of media could. Beyond the animation, we want a story that means something. We want characters that have depth and nuance, that are morally fallible, even when they're trying to do what's right. We want heroes that are selfish and make mistakes, and we want villains that have a heart and an ocean's worth of depth behind all their villainy. We want stories that leave nothing behind, stories that care enough about the art of the telling that they follow every narrative thread, every character's journey, all the way to the end, bitter or otherwise. We want writers who fight for accurate and fulfilling representation.

And that's what Arcane has given us. I'm not exaggerating when I say I feel like this show has changed me as a person. Maybe that's a little dramatic, but I honestly think it's true. I am in total awe of what they've managed to do in just nine episodes. I am inspired and overwhelmed and hopeful that this is setting the precedent for what storytelling could look like in the future.

Prompt

A skilled but struggling actress is stunned when she is recruited by an unconventional team of criminals to be part of an elaborate heist that will rely on her improv abilities and charisma. Persuaded by the promised money, which is enough for her to travel to the city of her dreams to pursue her career, she second guesses her choice when she sees who else is on the team: an old rival who’s cheated her out of many a role.

- Lynn

Important people are assassinated but everyone else is just murdered

i looooove characters who are sacrificial lamb coded. characters who have never lived for themselves. characters born to be a tool, a weapon, a sacrifice, all of the above. a character raised by the heroes to save the world, at any expense, even their own health, even their own life. a character raised by the villains to end the world, at any expense, even their own health, even their own life. characters who are denied personhood so they can be used as tools instead. characters who never even had a chance to be people because they were shaped into something else from the moment they were born. characters who were born to die.

adrien agreste & the body language of abuse

anybody who has seen even only one episode of miraculous ladybug can perfectly describe who chat noir is - he's brazen, he's fun, he's witty, he's flamboyant and overdramatic. he's the kind of hero who will preen confidently, give you a captivating wink and then he's off to save the world. but he's not chat noir all the time, or even half the time. most of the time, chat noir is adrien agreste - a quiet and exceedingly polite kid, who is likely to fade into the background despite his supermodel status. and sure, he knows how to be graceful and how to exude charisma, and he's still capable of being a drama queen (like slouching down a wall from being lovestruck).

but this post isn't about that.

because adrien is gabriel agreste's son all the time - a cold, careless, intimidating man, who will raise his voice to force others into submission, and who is depicted almost always with clenched fists.

what i've tried to do here is outline through images how gabriel's abuse has altered and influenced adrien's body language. because of tumblr's image limits (and the limits of my own patience), i have definitely missed some scenes, but i believe that i've managed to present with commentary the most important parts.

warning: image-heavy post.

chat noir is larger than life. adrien agreste tries to make himself as small as possible.

one of the biggest visual cues that the show gives us about adrien is that he has the tendency to wrap his arms around himself as a way of protection, whether because he's afraid of being vulnerable in front of others, or because he's self-soothing. he will do that even when there are other people around him that are offering comfort. adrien avoids bothering others with his feelings as much as possible, and putting his arms around his front serves as a replacement for the tender and warm touch he craves. he can also slouch, or put his knees up while sitting, creating a cocoon of sorts to feel safe. we also see him standing with his arms crossed in the rare times he tries to confront someone (his father or ladybug usually). whether he's sad, angry, guilty, disappointed, adrien will try to retreat to safety by forming a shield, so to speak.

there is an indisputable link between body and mind when it comes to trauma. adrien tries to not take much space not only with his physical presence, but by also almost never speaking up in class (unless to defend marinette), trying to be concise when communicating, and rarely making jokes. he's extremely reserved.

one of the scenes between gabriel and adrien that solidifies that adrien is terrified of his father happens in the first episode of season 2, when gabriel forbids adrien from attending school as a punishment for stealing and losing the grimoire. notice how gabriel is speaking with his back turned to his son, insinuating that adrien is not even worthy of being looked in the eyes. at one point he clenches his fist, as if to threaten his son. adrien is sitting on his computer chair with his hands in his lap, only lifting them defensively when he tries to explain himself. gabriel stands directly in front of him, as if shadowing adrien with his anger and contempt.

let's take a look at another episode - 'captain hardrock', in which gabriel and nathalie are listening to adrien play a piano piece. the screenshots in the upper half are from a moment when adrien hits a wrong note - notice the sheer fear and panic in his expression. he is immediately stopped, reprimanded for making a mistake, accused of being irresponsible and influenced by his rock band friends, and he's forbidden from attending his friends' concert. what's interesting about this moment isn't how he once again tries to make himself scarce physically - it's the terrified glance he gives his father when he plays the wrong key. you can just tell that adrien has internalized his father's reproaches and that his disapproving voice lives in his head, even when gabriel isn't there.

and can anyone judge him? take a look at these two screencaptures from 'stormy weather 2'. what happened is that adrien walked into his father's office, bright and enthusiastic, eager to tell him about the interesting idea behind his last photoshoot, and not only did he dare to interrupt gabriel's villainy, but he also accidentally called him 'dad' instead of 'father', as gabriel demands. a dirty look over the shoulder, two clenched fists, and adrien immediately apologizes and retreats.

adrien lives life on the defense. he has a naturally delicate and sensitive personality, which earns only eye rolls and accusations of put-on dramatism (there is also something to be said about how gabriel and adrien's relationship neatly corresponds to male and female gender roles, but that's yet another meta for another day).

notice the scene with ladybug in the image above - a rare time where adrien's trauma body language has bled into chat noir. he's insecure because 'nobody tells [him] how awesome [he] is', and he refuses to look ladybug or alix in the eyes while saying it. adrien is uncomfortable with looking at people during his most vulnerable moments.

'glaciator' is one of the episodes that can serve like a crash course on the way adrien carries himself under stress, this time because he's disappointed and heartbroken that the girl he loves didn't come to his surprise.

when around his father, if there's somebody else around he feels close to, adrien might lean on that other person, in order to feel stronger and braver.

now. not to be a conspiracy theorist about a cartoon or something, but. as miraculous is told from marinette's pov, we don't have a lot of episodes that focus on the agrestes, so we, the audience, often rely on guesswork and speculation. what was the relationship between emilie and gabriel? what was emilie really like? is she really as good as adrien claims, if he was strictly isolated the entire time she was alive? i do think that adrien's life has been mostly unexplored in canon (so far), and that includes his relationship with gabriel. i want to make it as clear as possible - adrien is brave to the point of stupidity, and not just as chat noir. let's not forget that he jumped from the top of a skyscraper, lead only by his faith that ladybug will save him, who, by the way, was busy being captured by gorizilla and screaming for help herself. if that's not crazy, i don't know what is.

adrien is afraid of his father. you don't get a child that so obviously displays trauma symptoms with a few cruel jabs. i very, very strongly feel that we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gabriel's abuse. look at the screencaptures above from the episode 'simon says'. adrien is familiar with his father's insults, very much so. who else remembers how his father was nowhere to be found when he won a fencing tournament in 'chat blanc', but the day his technique is slipping, his father is waiting at the top of the stairs of the agreste mansion, ready to reprimand adrien? and speaking of 'chat blanc'...

these two moments might be the saddest. we don't know yet if adrien knows the true identity of hawk moth in 'ephemeral'. i'm leaning towards yes, because adrien is so courageous that he had no problems fighting what he assumed to be the real hawk moth with an umbrella in 'the puppeteer 2'.

in both situations, he's being cornered. adrien's moving slowly (hell, he's crawling in 'chat blanc), his face frozen in a mask of pure fear. look at adrien in 'chat blanc' - a boy who has the power to destroy everything he touches is now trying to surrender and is begging with one palm in the air. in both cases, right before getting akumatized by his father, adrien displays the trauma stress response known as 'freeze', instead of 'fight' or 'flight'. he's immobile and passive. a classic adrien line is 'i can't stand by and do nothing!', and yet here he is, thoughts completely shut off, unable to plan a way to get to safety or fight for his self-preservation.

ladybug has said that chat noir is braver than her. he is reckless, for sure. but when it comes to gabriel, adrien retreats to an almost womb-like state physically, instead of the openness and 'world is my oyster' attitude he displays as chat noir. he mistakenly believes that the less space he takes, the less he is heard and seen, and the less he asserts himself as someone with wants and needs, the less angry and disappointed will gabriel be. and that is adrien's biggest mental fallacy, since we're talking about the man who will readily make adrien suffer, only because adrien is getting into his way.

i love sunsets, i love discovering new music, i love stargazing, i love walking, i love the smell of earth after it rains, i love coffee, i love the smell of books, i love quiet afternoons, i love open windows, i love the underlying flavors in food, i love poetry, i love freshly baked bread, i love painting my nails, i love flowers growing through cracks in the pavement. etc etc

AM I THE ONLY ONE GETTING ACHILLES AND PATROCLUS VIBES FROM NETFLIX'S YOUNG ROYALS?

it's just me? ok

A therapist and a patient have an ordinary appointment. Except one of them is a serial killer and the other is trying to expose them. But who is who?