#princess garçon

[wisteriasymphony]

I had a little moment on twitter about how the overwhelming majority of transfem!Adrien content over there predicates Adrien's identity on her worth as Marinette's wife/girlfriend or Émilie's daughter (and good god, am I tired of people taking the canonically identity-struggling character, putting her through the literal "discover your identity" process, and then not actually letting said character be her own person), and while this a little off to the side I want to talk about it anyway.

Miraculous subverts misogynistic fairytale archetypes without deconstructing them. We all know this. If the archetypes are to be deconstructed and the misogyny of them and our world at large is to be unpacked, it must be something we do ourselves as fans.

I like taking Adrien's "damsel in distress" depiction and making it less about Marinette's duty to save him and more about Adrien's hopelessness. I think part of deconstructing the trope is to acknowledge that being a damsel in distress sucks regardless of who you are, and that while in TWEoS I've said that Adrien cannot experience misogyny himself (since Adrien is not a trans woman in that fic either, I stand by it), there are larger societal forces at play with misogynistic influences that relate to the way he is treated. Him being uncomfortable with his role is much more important than any tension being dismissed for the sake of easy romance, and if I ever decide I want to tackle the way Marinette could also feel disservice by her role in canon I imagine it would go the same way: In either case, playing the tropes straight is bad. I do not think it is good writing nor good feminism.

I shouldn't act like I have all the answers nor should I act like this is the extent of my thoughts (hell, I'm sure I'll add more eventually as they come to me), but I think as far as tackling the show's mishaps go, exploring Adrien as a damsel in distress as a way of looking into Adrien's mind and even exploring Adrien's thoughts about his/her/their inability to escape their (previously, as of s6) abusive home life... I'm inclined to think that's the right direction.

[wisteriasymphony]

here's my late contender for @sadrien-week Day 2: Identity! And, while we're here, I have a >1k little fic for Day 3: Depression nest right here as well! :) https://archiveofourown.org/works/64576597

[wisteriasymphony]

Talking about Adrien playing the damsel in distress role always makes me want to talk about the fact that Felix, interestingly enough, also embodies a traditionally female trope? He's the femme fatale lmfao:

Confident. Mysterious. Identical twin of a beautiful model- so, inherently, beautiful. Ambitious. Charming. Complex relationships. Morally ambiguous. Independent and manipulative. He's even a liar and a thief. A driving force of the narrative. Wreaks havoc. Divides the audience.

Yes he's pretending to be Adrien but it doesn't change the fact that he uses his wiles to seduce the protagonist into deadly traps and get what he wants <- this is the sticking point of the archetype, so Lila doesn't make the cut because although she tries this with Adrien, it ultimately fails every time, and she doesn't push it to the same degree Felix does.

Hence: both twins take on traditionally female tropes and this is kind of really funny to me. And these two particular tropes can juxtapose beautifully.

I mean, I wouldn't really call the shit Felix pulled "seduction", but your point is deeply hilarious to me. Gender-swapping-as-groundbreaking-feminism strikes again. God bless Zag.

[wisteriasymphony]

I have no idea how la terreur works or why mlb is on my feed after so long but I just wanted to propose for the other Adriens? on your page to be named Bdrien, Cdrien, ... I feel it would be very funny

It would be a disservice to the genre to make an April Fool's dating sim announcement but the joke would be less that dating sims are an inferior genre of game and more than I would never be able to figure out Ren'py on my own. HAHAH KIDDING if you guys try and make me do a PJ's daycare style omnicrossover I will post a video of me blowing my brain out instead.

[wisteriasymphony]

don't you hate it when your internalized self-hatred is personified as yourself but in mommy drag

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I have no evidence for it but I know in my heart that somehow Adrien's princess dress in Gabriel Agreste is connected to Emilie. I fucking know it's meant to look like one of his mom's dresses or something like that. I will die on the hill that it's all connected to him being the last vestige of her somehow. Her successor, her perfect copy, whatever. No I'm not untying you from the chair you need to sit down and listen to me goddamnit, we are having a discussion—

[wisteriasymphony]

the 'twins both being assigned female stock characters' thing actually gets even funnier for me when you remember their current situations.

everyone is always forcing adrien into the role of the damsel! he's a trophy with no say in anything! if we actually gave him a choice, is this what he would say he wants? or does he want a chance to be the knight in shining armor himself?

meanwhile we're told that felix was completely different before colt died so i can only assume he's actively leaning into it: he grew up watching classic film noir movies, saw these women alongside the hardboiled detectives, and went "this is what i want to do with my life" to both of them. fully committed to playing the dual roles of modern sherlock and byronic heroine.

Every time Felix puts on hosiery he imagines Colt's appalled reaction to his son crossing the other side and he cackles to himself. Daddy can't stop his precious little man from wearing women's clothes now, can he? 'Cause he's DEAD!

[wisteriasymphony]

Your version of Marinette kind of reminds me of Rumi Hidaka from Perfect Blue.

YAYY!!! Perfect Blue was a huge inspiration for TWEoS, honestly, so I'm glad it gets picked up on! Marinette gets a mix of traits from a few characters in Perfect Blue, tbh, same with Adrien. Its whole deal with identity and perception from the perspective of a celebrity works very well with miraculous-esque shenanigans, imo. One of these days I'll draw Adrien with the ice pick poster... It'd go so hard with Emilie in the background...