Fheskekkvrjkckec Okay So The All Left AU (courtesy Of @sabertoothwalrus) Would Not Leave Me Alone, So

For cosmere inktober, day six: "Cryptic"

Because Pattern may be the Cryptic, but he's not the truly cryptic one.

Sunrise

I'm so bitter that we're not getting that Amelia-One season

did Gilmore Girls invent the coffee shop AU

I feel a need to bring this back in the wake of the canonical representation of Adrien as a princess and Marinette as his knight in shining armor

Gender Roles in Miraculous Ladybug

Miraculous Ladybug is filled with excellent subversions of gender stereotypes. And no, I'm not just going to say it's feminist, because what I'm talking about is much broader than that. The show is filled with characters that refuse to fit the standard roles their gender lays out for them, both for female and male roles.

Let's start with the most obvious example, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, or Ladybug. It's pretty clear that her character and function in the story revolts against stereotypes of femininity: she is a woman—well, a girl—but she leads her team, which is a traditionally male role. She is the decision-maker, the rationalist, the realist, the one who catastrophizes before she hopes—this is stark contrast to the traditional expectation that women follow and comfort, holding the team up with optism and joy. She is the head, not the heart (that's Adrien). She is driven, strong, determined, and self-assured.

Adrien, too, subverts stereotypes—perhaps more than Marinette, although it's not something you notice immediately like Marinette's subversions. (This is because we're familiar with the patterns of feminist characters, but not the anti-sexism found in Adrien.) At heart, Adrien is arguably the most clasically "feminine" character in the show. On the surface, it's easy to see—he is a model, objectified for his beauty, something that has been done to women for all of history and is still being done today. But it runs deeper, too. He is submissive, mild, willing to bend to other's will—both his father's and Ladybug's, as well as the desires of other people in his class like Chloe and Lila (both of whom are, interestingly, women). His kindness and sensitivity, as well as his role as the heart and support when suited up, all mirror traditionally feminine traits and roles.

And yet, despite all this subversion, neither of the main characters are simply a rebellion against stereotypes. It's clear in Chat Noir's tendency to flirt and his function as a protector, but it's especially evident in Marinette, who doesn't just subvert female stereotypes—she also fulfills them.

Marinette is a leader, a thinker, a pessimist, but she's also interested in fashion and art, both of which are considered feminine. More than that, she's incredibly kind, exemplifying that women can abandon the negative feminine stereotypes of submission and obedience without sacrificing the positives like kindness and selflessness. And finally, she's clearly not a "strong independent woman who don't need no man" because she wants a man. No, she doesn't need a boyfriend, but she wants one. True feminism doesn't mean women throwing aside all romantic relationships, it means not pressuring women either way, into or away from romance. Marinette can be strong and independent while still loving someone and wanting to be loved back.

The characters in Miraculous Ladybug are not governed by stereotypes. They were written to be good, nuanced characters, not feminist characters. Marinette has both feminine and masculine traits, proving that traditional "feminine" values are just as valuable as "masculine" ones. Adrien has both, but far more feminine than masculine traits, demonstrating that masculinity is not superior, and that toxic masculinity is just as harmful as classic sexism.

Miraculous Ladybug didn't say "We need to stop forcing women to be feminine," which is a common and harmful misinterpretation of the feminist vision. It didn't say "We should let women act like men!" or "Femininity is bad! Let's leave it all behind." It said, "Stereotypes—both for men and women—are harmful, and we should let people just be people instead of defining them by their genders." It created a world where there are no traditionally feminine and masculine traits, there are just people traits, and anyone can be anyone.

One of my favorite side effects of my Year of Overthinking my Sexuality is what I learned about the differences between aesthetic and romantic attraction.

Did you know you can think someone is pretty, or cute, or handsome, without liking them romantically? Yeah! Maybe that's common knowledge, but I sure didn't know until I went down the rabbit hole of researching asexuality. The result of that extensive research and the discovery of separate terms for separate kinds of attraction is that I now feel much more comfortable finding people attractive.

The curly-haired boy on my cross country team? Cute. The woman with the braid carrying her child? Very pretty. The short kid I keep passing in the halls? Gorgeous. The big lady I ran into at the grocery store? Breathtaking. It's made me realize that the vast majority of people in real life actually look really good. Very few of them perfectly fit what I've been taught to see as conventionally attractive, but so many of them have faces I long to just . . . look at. I swear, ninety percent of the girls I know from church are prettier than any model I've ever seen. Most people, maybe even all people, are attractive in a very genuine, very mundane, and very beautiful way.

I like feeling like I can say someone looks good without implying that I like them. And I like admitting that if I'm honest, everyone looks good.

"The fire in his veins cooled under her rain, and stillness settled over him. Something soft fell into his lap. He held it up and breathed in its scent, sweet and flowery. Marinette.

"He buried his face in the fabric and held it close, imagining he was holding her instead. It hurt to be together. It hurt to be apart. But the hurt felt like a promise, and when she was in his arms he always felt that he was exactly where he was meant to be (the cosmic phenomenon, the whole that made sense). He couldn’t touch her, but she touched everything around him.

"(She was the rain, and she was everywhere.)

"The last chord rang though the room and then faded into silence. There was a rustling sound on the recording, and then he heard his own voice whisper into the microphone: 'I love you, Marinette.'

"The recording stopped. Adrien sat motionless, still hugging her hoodie."

-@carpisuns, "tell me something i don't know'

I don't know why this scene hit me so hard—the entire story is full of scenes that both make me want to sob and smile for the rest of my life, after all. But this one . . . I just had to draw it. It feels almost immoral to illustrate a scene from this story so imperfectly, but I can't do perfect art, so I tried to do emotional art instead. (No it's not raining in Adrien's room, I was just trying to illustrate the metaphor that Marinette is rain, I'm sorry this is so bad Mar, I love this story so much)

I heard that Ladrien can be called Sunspot and this is the image that came to mind:

For some reason, nothing hits me harder than seeing characters laugh hysterically because of frustration or exhaustion or anger or grief. We always talk about how subversive tears of joy are, but man, laughs of sadness are so much worse. Maybe it's just a me thing, but my chest always gets tight and my breathing shallow whenever a character starts laughing because of a negative emotion. I just. Can't. Handle. It.

And Infinity Train uses this trope two times!

First time with Simon:

You could argue that this is laughter because of insanity, not negative emotions, but it still hits hard. No matter how much you hate him. At least if you're me. Seriously, this was my reaction when I first saw Simon's death/breakdown scene:

The second time Infinity Train pulls this is with Ryan:

This, too, killed me! Emotionally, at least. Why is it always the laughing?!

Anyway, yeah, of course I want Infinity Train to continue, but it might be a good thing that it doesn't if they planned another one of these maniacal laughter scenes in the next season. Not sure I could handle another amazingly animated, amazingly written, amazingly voice-acted breakdown like this.

Plance Steampunk/Fantasy AU

Pidge is a mechanic with a knack for chemistry (see Varian from TTS). Her father and brother go exploring in neighboring lands for their kingdom, but contact with them is lost during a storm. Pidge has to use all her engineering skills to find and save them. The kingdom fights her and her search every step of the way, for reasons Pidge hasn't been able to determine. Do they just not see the point of wasting resources saving two people? Or do they have something to hide?

Lance is a guard who escorts Pidge home after she storms into the castle demanding the royal family send a rescue team after her family. He starts spending time with her and helping her on her mission--partly because he believes it's wrong the kingdom refuses to give her aid, and partly because he can't help but find the ruthless little genius fascinating.

Almost definitely never going to write this, but I do like the idea, and I had to illustrate it. Pidge hasn't bothered to get a haircut recently in this drawing--her hair is overgrown and messy, but also rather cute.