Just create the thing you want to create. Because who's going to stop you? Oh, it's you yourself? Well you can't let that bastard win, can you?

For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.

summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.

Examples:

summary: Bruce

summary: "Bruce Banner"

summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk

You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.

The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.

expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.

You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.

otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false

i dont know how you manage to bring up something even more unrelated than what i used as a joke. Like you literally just looked up random symptoms because you have no genuine interest in the rights of neurodivergent people beyond infantilizing and pathologizing them for the purposes of justifying your spinelessness towards resisting bigotry and fascism. You have to be very purposely obtuse to believe that people criticizing harry potter fans are doing it directly because of the self-identification as opposed to the spineless immaturity of doing it with a franchise that is not only itself bigoted and created by a bigot but whose financial earnings are directly and explicitly being used to fund transphobia at large.

btw its ableist to criticize bigoted media made by bigoted people or criticize the infantilization of neurodivergency as a means to put off guilt but its just fine to be a kiwifarmer

Remember everyone,

Being proship doesn't mean you like every trope/ship. It means you won't harass over it.

You are allowed to dislike things! You are allowed to think they're gross! You don't even need to like any ship to be proship— these qualities don't make you a phony or less proship.

Proship means anti harassment. If you believe in freedom in fiction and that harassment over fiction is wrong, you are proship.

Oh, also, I've got two songs about cheating from the point of view of the person cheating (mostly the side chick's POV), rather than the person being cheated! They're: Are U gonna tell her? by Tove Lo (ft. MC Zaac)

and

You Right by Doja Cat ft. The Weeknd

(P.S. If anyone has more songs from the POV of the cheaters please please please HMU I need more for this specific pairing I have)

Oof these will have to be a hard pass for me as cheating is my biggest squick, like if cheating is part of the plot in so far as to break up a relationship and the victim finding better and getting with the actual person they are supposed to end up with its fine. But cheating in a pairing that stays together makes me feel legit sick or cheating and cheater ending up together. Bro I just can't do it I'll be sick.

But again power to you and hopefully some of out followers have some recs for you.

A lot of people freaked out about paparazzi by lady gaga because it basically depicted a stalker

I mean what do people think the paparazzi are other than glorified stalkers who get paid by shitty tabloids.

I've noticed something. People often only ever call out fujoshi for hating female character(s) for getting in the way of a ship, even though shippers of all stripes do it. I remember some pretty downright nasty ship wars of all kinds on DeviantArt *shudder*.

So true tho

Unfortunately there genuinely are toxic fujoshis who make all look bad by being genuinely misogynistic about female characters for "getting in the way" or simply existing

Shitty people exist in every circle. Like I'm not trying to dismiss but if you made a list of "there are toxic people in x group" the list would never fucking end. There are toxic people in lesbian circles, which doesn't mean I'm going to point fingers at all lesbians. There are toxic people in the trans community, that's not an excuse to be transphobic.

The fact that misogynistic fujoshis exist just mean that there are misogynist who enjoy BL that's the extent of it. If we want to solve the problem of bigotry in fandom we need to solve it in our everyday lives. Misogyny in fandom will not go away if we do not fight it in our real life circles and communities.

We shouldn't point fingers at whole groups over a few bad eggs. Generalizing, stereotyping, and strawmanning helps no one.

Neil Banged out his tunes today, on a train you have the comfort and relaxation to bang out your own tunes

Hey, fic reader not writer here. I was wondering if writers are conscious of having a core audience of readers?

Like when I go to give kudos to a fic of 1 specific author I see the same 10 names have also given kudos and I have a nice little smile to myself knowing the we have this in common. I just think it's really sweet.

Every writer I've ever talked to about it can easily name their regular commenters and kudosers. If I see the same name pop up in my kudos emails more than a handful of times, I get a swell of pride that someone liked my work enough to read more of it - and when they leave kudos on several works in the same day?? It puts a smile on my face so big that my cheeks hurt 😁

no no i see the moral the writers are going for here

"if you think someone is irredeemable, it's okay to dehumanize them! privacy? nope! dignity? what dignity? if they're bad people (by your metric), treat them like animals to be gawked at and punished!"

Yeah. It. Yeah.

Baffling to see that when I critique a grown man for portraying a teenage girl as the root of all evil simply bcs of his own sick fetishization, there people who with their whole chest start saying “oh so should this fictional character just FORGIVE her abuser ?!? Should she be a pushover?!”

Girl, I’m critiquing this terrible show and it’s sexist views on women. Get your self projection into a bland main character OUT of here. If you’re so childish you can’t distinguish someone bashing on a creative team for its terrible writing and think I’m just saying “she should forgive her racist abuser” you’re obviously too young to be allowed on the internet

its really funny to me how people say "you liked the movie better because the show has tropes you dont enjoy" sorry, what tropes are we talking about again? Abuse enabling? Child abandonment? Poor character development? Plot inconsistency? Characters getting dumb out of nowhere? Evil Rich people getting their way with zero consequences? oh yeah those are great

The Virigin Miraculous:

-Barely knows how to develop characters

-Would rather focus on one relationship that would most likely break up in RL

-Villain's motive is unoriginal and a rip off of Mr. Freeze

-Refuses to develop the main bully and her only character is "Mega Bitch Face #12,345"

-Can't get Chinese culture done right; despite main character being Chinese

-The main duo aren't allow to go through any arcs outside of each other

-Heroes' powers aren't anything new

-Teaches that it's okay to feel bad for abusive parents and it's never their fault if their kid is a bully or psychopath

-The creator is an arrogant sexist white man who teaches valuable lessons about racism and misogyny

The Chad Turning Red:

-Knows how to develop characters

-Focuses on main character's relationship with both family and friends

-No villain at all. Just focuses on the damage Generational Trauma can have on you.

-The main bully does have some insecurities on his own and it's shown throughout the movie

-Helps the audience understand the meaning of Chinese culture and why it's important

-Main character goes through an arc of understanding both her family and herself; and even her mom does too

-Animal Transformation isn't new, but they make a good story behind it.

-Parent learns to not be so controlling over her child in the end

-The director is a woman of Chinese descent and actually knows what she is doing

Hello! I have a question about Marinette. It's clear to me that she struggles with control and may sometimes mistreat her partner, in my personal opinion. It appears that she lacks trust in Chat Noir, which is not only upsetting but also confusing.

Marinette seems to have a stable home life, and her school experiences, while not as dramatic as some fans portray, seem relatively normal. Her parents have a loving relationship, so it raises the question of why Marinette behaves this way. Where do her controlling tendencies stem from? It's perplexing to me that she doesn't seem to trust her own partner. It's almost as if she treats him as if he could potentially turn into a villain. Chat Noir goes to great lengths for her, yet we rarely see her reciprocate in kind. Her interactions often seem limited to positive affirmations and superficial gestures. I wonder whether this inability to comfort someone or communicate effectively is a result of her environment influencing her or if it's perhaps a consequence of her newfound powers affecting her ego.

I don't mean to criticize her character, but it seems that Marinette's acquisition of powers and constant praise, coupled with the lack of discipline or guidance from Master Fu and Su-han, has left her without a mentor or anyone to hold her accountable for her actions. Her role as the guardian and leader exacerbates this issue because she struggles with being upfront and truthful, especially with Chat Noir. The morality of the story seems quite protagonist-centered, and I can't help but wonder how things might have been different if Ladybug had a more assertive partner or a mentor to guide her in the right direction.

Marinette like my least favorite at least with Western Magical girl shows because of what she chose in the finale. I don't believe her intentions are necessarily malicious, but her actions in previous seasons have been frustrating to watch.

So, the thing about Marinette is that she sets very high expectations for herself. Just look at her arc about not being able to confess her feelings. She catastrophizes, she plans all these elaborate schemes accounting for every detail, she can't bear to let anything go wrong, because she has such high standards for herself and a fear of failure. She can't confess to Adrien because she's afraid of his rejection, and she spends the series trying to find the perfect plan to ensure that he won't reject her. Once she becomes Guardian, she has all these new responsibilities, these new burdens, and she doesn't want to fail, she doesn't want anything to go wrong. And so, she tries to control everything. Her controlling tendencies stem from her fear of failure and her high expectations of herself.

For the record, I will say that Marinette does trust Chat Noir. She trusts him with her life. But just because she trusts him doesn't mean her fears aren't there, and it doesn't stop her from acting in ways that don't quite convey that trust that she has in him. Marinette can get myopic about her problems, and she often has trouble understanding things from others' perspectives. She has the tendency to, for lack of a better term, make things about herself. Like in Illusion, for instance, when Adrien was being taken out of school by Gabriel because of Nino's plan, Marinette instantly starts talking about how she is a curse for Adrien and how she should stay away from him, instead of about Adrien. Does this mean she doesn't care about Adrien? Of course not. But she still gets so caught up in her own feelings that she fails to consider the feelings of those around her. She spends so much time trying to make sure that nothing goes wrong with her current situation that she fails to notice the bigger picture.

For example, see Hack-san. Marinette is leaving Paris, and so she focuses on the immediate problem that she is facing, that she's leaving Paris without a protector. And she finds a simple solution, give her Miraculous to Alya. Easy, problem solved, right? Except it's not, because she accounts for herself but not for her partner, who is understandably blindsided by a new substitute appearing instead of Ladybug. In the same episode, we see another example. Marinette is stressed and struggling and hurting, and she confesses to Alya that she is Ladybug in Gang of Secrets. Now Marinette has the support of her BFF and her stress is being alleviated, so everything is fine, right? Except, she doesn't consider how Chat Noir might feel about her breaking the rule they set together and that she should tell him (this is not salt on Marinette for telling Alya, she had every right to do so).

Marinette isn't the most empathetic person. She is very kind, very compassionate, very sympathetic, and she is overall a wonderful person. But she has trouble putting herself in other people's shoes and understanding their perspectives unless they tell her herself. She understands that the people around her are struggling and she feels the desire to help them, but she also doesn't quite understand their feelings themselves, and that can lead her to making her own conclusions. See Guilttrip, where Marinette (and the whole class actually) just jumps all over Rose when she learns she's not well without considering how she might feel about it. In Crocoduel, she tries to distance herself from Luka because she doesn't want to hurt him, without considering that, well, she is hurting him.

Marinette has the desire to help others and be there for others, and it is that compassion and kindness that make her so wonderful. But she can also find it difficult to understand others or put herself in their shoes. She doesn't easily understand other people's emotions, and she can't often look beyond her own perspective and her problems to see how she's affecting other people. Oftentimes, when Marinette has hurt someone, her remarks will be more self-deprecating than apologetic. Which is not to say that she isn't sorry, and I am not saying that Marinette doesn't ever consider other people's feelings, but it doesn't come easily to her, and she often requires other people to point it out to her. Alya points out to her that she is hurting Luka by avoiding him, Alya tells her to talk to Chat Noir, Chat Noir tells her to speak to Chloe about not giving her a Miraculous anymore... things like that. And naturally, not considering others' views on things also has the effect of making her feel like she knows best and dismissing others' perspectives, like in Dearest Family, when she dismissed the Kwamis' advice about Tikki's cosmic hunger, because she thinks the only way to handle things is her way.

So, what happens when you have a tendency to want to control things, a myopic outlook on your problems, and a lack of ability to consider other people's perspectives? Why, you get the Ladynoir conflict of Season 4.

Marinette in Season 4 spirals down a web of controlling information and deceiving her partner by keeping secrets and lying to him due to her new role as Guardian and also in part because of her trauma from Chat Blanc. None of this is malicious. Marinette trusts Chat Noir. When she says she'll never abandon him, she means it. When she says she wants him around, she means it. But that's not enough. Marinette wants to control all the information and stay in control so badly that she fails to see how badly it is affecting her partner. She feels like it's the only way to do things and fails to consider her partner's feelings and perspective because she thinks she knows best how to handle it. She gets defensive and irritated when he asks her to let him help. And it shows itself most clearly in episodes like Ephemeral, where in an attempt to stay in control of everything, she is ready to violate Chat Noir's trust in her and reveal his identity to Su-Han without his consent.

It simply doesn't occur to Marinette that she should do more than try to smooth things over with Chat Noir. Despite understanding that he feels left out, she smooths over the situation with assurances that she doesn't even end up keeping. Of course, Chat Noir isn't an open book, but he did make his displeasure clear, and she still didn't do anything to fix their issues. Look at Kuro Neko. Chat Noir gets upset and quits, but Marinette still doesn't introspect and think that maybe she did something wrong and hurt him. She doesn't apologize for her outburst; she doesn't try to think of what went wrong. In the end, Chat Noir apologizes to her for having emotions and she just gives him another "I still want you around," line that quickly loses meaning when Ladybug is bantering with Rena Furtive like she's her favorite in Risk. Even when Marinette says something, her actions prove otherwise.

But I will say, this is all alright. It's a realistic flaw to have, to not be able to consider other people's feelings all the time. Everyone does it to some degree. Marinette isn't doing this because of any malicious intent, she's doing this because she's stressed and tired and traumatized. Her outburst isn't good, but it is understandable. She shouldn't have yelled at Chat Noir, but she isn't a bad person. She's allowed to learn to do better and grow from this.

What does make Marinette seem bad, though, isn't even due to Marinette herself as a person. What makes Marinette hard to like, is when her flaws are met with the protagonist centered morality stick that Miraculous loves so much.

Because Marinette never has to actually confront her mistakes. She yells at Chat Noir in Kuro Neko, and the episode is full of Chat Noir telling her she did nothing wrong and ends with him apologizing to her. In the end of Strikeback, Marinette admits to her mistakes, but Chat Noir sees her distress and swoops in to absolve her of her wrongdoings, and she carries on without fixing anything or changing anything. She admits to her mistakes, but it falls flat because, well, they didn't really result in anything. She was never wrong to do any of it, really. It's not her fault that Felix stole the Miraculous. Chat Noir already accepted that he's just another one of her sidekicks now, and he previously learned the lesson that she didn't do anything wrong and that he is the one is being sensitive about it. Marinette is never truly wrong, and so she doesn't ever have to fix her mistakes or address her flaws. She doesn't have to learn to communicate better with others, she doesn't have to apologize for her mistakes, because she is never truly in the wrong and everyone will go out of their way to excuse and absolve her of everything.

And this protagonist centered morality is the reason for the Season 5 finale. Marinette lying to Adrien about his existence isn't framed as bad because she's the one doing it, and because Marinette is Good™, it's not a bad thing for her to do. She didn't learn anything from Season 4, because the writers don't think she did anything wrong. She's the best leader, she's the most amazing superhero ever, and the story bends over backwards to justify her mistakes and her flaws by having other characters simply forgive her or take on the blame themselves (and by other characters I mean Adrien). And when she does make mistakes that actually have lasting consequences, it isn't actually her fault, like when Felix stole the Miraculous from her. And this protagonist centered morality makes it so that Marinette doesn't really have to grow or change as much as she just has to allow the other characters to prop her up and relinquish their agency to allow her to shine. She never has to try to understand them, she never has to do all that weak emotional support shit, because she's the all-powerful and amazing Marinette, and Adrien is just her prize for when she wins and her emotional support partner.

You mentioned in your ask that she never offers support to Chat Noir like he does for her, and that she is never held accountable for her actions, and this is all the protagonist centered morality at work. The world revolves around Marinette, whatever she does is Good and Right regardless of what it is, even if it is something like gaslighting her boyfriend into loving his abuser. And unfortunately, that isn't something that is out of character for Marinette. She's been established to be someone who will do whatever it takes to protect people, and who's flaw is that she doesn't often consider their feelings on the matter when making choices that affect them, even when it comes from a place of love and care. And because of the protagonist centered morality, the show makes this seem like it's a good thing instead of portraying it as a flaw. That is what ruins her character for me.

I hope this answers your question. Thank you for your ask!

Friendly reminder that it's totally possible to hate/salt about TA without harrassing him, they're not the same thing. Heck, I've never talked to the dude in my life, he doesn't even have me blocked (probably because he doesn't know I exist).

But I still have every single right to hate his entire ass and rant about him to my heart's desire, because of his absolutely atrocious attitude, "opinions", how he treats his fanbase and the way he uses having a female lead to hide behind his misogny.

And it's a hella convenient people complaining about TA harrassers (and that's not even getting into how they're labelled as harrassers the moment they "dare" to disagree with him) sure love ignoring how HE treats anyone who doesn't kiss his ass.

if the reason why Marinette become control freak is because the trauma she had in derision (still think it's BS ngl), then what could possibly caused her to think of Adrien as... An object? Idk, I don't think it's something that can be caused by ADHD, it does howvee make it obvious that she's self centered. Although usually people become self centered because they have insecurity related to an inability to love and being loved, which odly is something that Adrien should have than Marinette considering the people around her definitely love her and they're openly show it.

I just find it's odd the one who have this load of trauma and become self centered is Marinette, not adrien. I mean if idk about the miraculous and just know character from their trait I'd say the one who hass abusive family is Marinette. Which is odd considering the one who act more normal, (outside of Adrien fawning tendency and depresion, is the one who's whole life is centered around abuse and gaslighting. But then again I'm not psychiatrist nor am I good at reading people so I could be wrong. 🤷‍♀️

Apparently, her being pranked led to her thinking that she has to know everything about any boy she likes to the degree that she'll stalk them. Which is some BS right there. Honestly, Derision is one of the worst episodes to ever come out of this show and should be forgotten forever. I don't consider it when I analyze any character, because it just makes them all look bad.

But to answer your question, you're right that Marinette grew up in a loving home. But that's not always enough to erase someone's insecurities. Marinette can be self-centered and can often be inconsiderate of others' points of view, but that's a realistic flaw and it's pretty common. I personally don't think it's anything more than "Marinette can be too focused on what's right in front of her and what her problems are that she neglects to consider the people around her sometimes." Marinette is pretty insecure and anxious, of course it's understandable that she isn't the best at being able to get out of her own head sometimes. It doesn't really make her a bad person or anything at all, it's just something she needs to work on a little. I personally found it very relatable (for the first 3 seasons anyway, until the narrative starts to justify her every mistake).

I also don't think Marinette thinks of Adrien as an object per se, but she doesn't really know him as anything more than Mr. Perfect either. And that's not really her fault entirely. Sure, she doesn't really put in the effort to get to know him, but Adrien is also very closed off. I think it's unfair to expect that Marinette should not be self-centered, but Adrien should be because Adrien has more trauma. People react to different things in different ways. Adrien's trauma manifests in different ways and he has different ways of coping. I don't think it's right to say that he acts less traumatized than her, because... he doesn't. He fawns, he masks his true feelings and tries to be perfect. Just because he is more reserved as opposed to Marinette being more expressive doesn't mean he doesn't also have trauma or that he is somehow unaffected by it. I think it's rather reductive to expect that victims have to act a certain way and have to be affected in a certain way for it to be understandable that they are traumatized or hurt (this isn't directed at you specifically anon, I'm just saying). People react differently to trauma and there is no one universal experience.

Thank you for your ask!