#on some level the majority of the women and girls on this show are really hindered by their *status* as wife/mother/daughter/gf

[enwoso]

Could you write something maybe about Lucy Bronze having a younger sister that plays for Arsenal and she’s been dating Katie McCabe for a while but hasn’t told Lucy because she’s very overprotective and because of Lucy and Katie’s unspoken “rivalry” . Then at lionesses camp Lucy finds out by accident and they are playing Ireland next so the match is all a bit of chaos but the it all turns out fine and Katie and Lucy both just tease reader together?

Your work is amazing by the way!!

GAME OF HEARTS | katie mccabe x bronze!reader

masterlist

"i'm really gonna miss ya" katie spoke softly as the two of you soaked up your last morning together before you both went off on international camp.

you wrapped up in the warmth of katie's arms as every so often she peppered kisses along your collarbone, your eyes still closed as you hummed along to her words every so often to show you were listening.

"babe, i'll see you in four days" you rasped out as you moved slightly to turning so that you were facing the irish women as you could feel her chest rise up and down as you lay on it.

the two of you due to play each other in the upcoming fixtures, england travelling to ireland for the game. you being a little upset having to play against your girlfriend but it was only for 90' and then you could go back to being in your little love bubble.

"still- am i not allowed to miss my gorgeous, funny, beautiful, sexy girlfriend?" katie said with a her signature grin on her face as you opened your eyes, staring right back at the girl.

"your such a sap-" you whispered as she placed a kiss to your cheek, playfully rolling her eyes at your comment.

"yeah but only for you, and plus you love it little bronze" katie teased as now it was your turn to roll your eyes as she knew how much the nickname wound you up, lucy of course being the one who so proudly began the trend of calling you by that it was now something majority called you at international camps as well as by some of the girls at club level.

"oh actually" you paused for a second to let out a yawn, as katie moved a strand of hair from the side of your face tucking it behind your ear.

"please can we knock it down a level when it comes to my sister when we play against each other on tuesday" you pleaded, as a small glint in your eyes as you tried to convince the girl knowing the chaos which occurs in the league when the two come face to face.

you know it's just what happens when two very passionate players bump heads but you heard both versions of the story and adding fuel to that fire by telling your older sister that you were dating her arch nemesis may not go very well with a tray of cakes and a nice chat to say the least.

a sigh left katie's lips she understood why you were asking cause at the end of the day lucy was your older sister — someone you looked up to dearly and someone who protected you at all costs and she herself would do anything for any one of her sisters but katie also had a goal and that was to win.

"baby, i love ya but that's like askin' me to wear a tottenham shirt" katie grimaced at the thought of that even happening, it sending a slight shiver down your own spine.

—

being lucy's younger sister definitely came with its perks, like when lucy was first making her debuts you got to meet all the cool footballing idols you watched growing up and to be totally honest you were still able to do it now.

but on the other hand, she was still your sister. fiercely protective, sometimes too protective, and of course you always had your disagreements as well as the fact lucy knew all the ways to get under your skin. she was the typical big sister.

but when it came to football? she always had an opinion. especially when it involved arsenal and a certain player from there too. which just of course happened to be your girlfriend — katie.

the two of you had been together for just over seven months. you were keeping things quiet, it was a secret by no means you just hadn't exactly admitted to being in a relationship with the irish girl.

and as for your excuse for not telling lucy, well it just had never came up in a conversation.

so as camp rolled around and the upcoming friendly against ireland loomed in the next few days, you knew you had to be careful. but keeping secrets while sharing the same pitch as your sister, that was proving to be harder than you thought.

as you sat with a few teammates in the lounge area, scrolling through your phone and trying to mind your own business as lucy strode in.

her arrival as always was impossible to ignore, her energy filling the space effortlessly and her voice carried above the casual chatter.

"oi, y/n" lucy called out, waving something on her phone in the air a slight mischievous glint in her eye, "what's this, then?"

you glanced up, already dreading whatever was coming, knowing she loved to find some thing to take the mick out of you for.

lucy flopped down next to you as she thrusted her phone into your hands. it was a video posted by katie, to her story captioned 'reminiscing🩷', reliving a moment from a festival she'd gone to in the summer, you recognising it immediately as you were there two.

"i.. what am i looking at?"

"just wait"

just as the words left lucy's lips, the video flipped as the camera had been turned to face katie and that when your eyes went a little wider and your cheeks definitely went a little redder.

there was you, your arms wrapped around her waist as you head rested on her shoulder a lovesick smile on your face as you sung along to the music as katie had a massive smile on her face.

lucy squinted at you as you lowered her phone keeping it still in your hands, as her brow furrowed. "care to explain why you're looking at katie mccabe like she's just won you the world cup?"

your stomach lurched, you were usually so careful but this was clear as day as you scrambled to downplay it. "come on luce, you know we're close at club level your just being dramatic. we're just teammates"

lucy tilted her head, clearly not convinced, "a teammate thing?" she repeated, her voice dripping with skepticism. "that's not the ‘teammate' look. that's the 'i fancy you' look"

you opened your mouth to try and protest but nothing came out. your brain working overtime trying to figure out how to talk your way out of this when leah wandered into the room.

spotting lucy's phones in your hand, glancing at your panicked face and grinned knowingly. "oh has she found out then?" leah said, leaning casually against the doorframe, "took you long enough!"

lucy's eyes darted between you and leah, "found out what?"

"leah, shut up" you hissed shooting her a warning glare.

leah just completely ignoring you as she continued, "about katie, it's not exactly a secret anymore y/n. everyone with eyes can see there something going on between the two of you and i don't mean by just watching that small video on instagram-"

lucy's expression shifted from teasing to something more serious, as she leaned back slightly her arms crossed. "wait you and katie? that's.. actually a thing. i though they were just silly tiktok rumours?"

you hesitated, fiddling nervously with the hem of your hoodie. "yeah" you admitted not daring to look at your sisters gaze. "it's been a while, i didn't tell you because well — i didn't want to make thing weird. you and katie don't exactly.. get along"

lucy stared at you for a long moment, her expression unreadable before she let out a sigh, the tension in her shoulders easing. "weird? y/n i know i might be protective but i'm not a monster and that's just match banter. if she makes you happy then that's all that matters."

you blinked, slightly surprised at her sudden acceptance, "really, your okay with it?"

lucy smirked as she nodded, "yeah, but don't think i'm going easy on her when we play against ireland. she's still getting crunched in the tackles-"

you let out a small groan, "lucy!" as a chorus of laughter came from your sister, "i'm kidding.. well maybe." she whispered at the end but you still heard.

you laughed along, the weight suddenly lifting from your chest, as leah who had been watching the entire exchange with an amused grin, chimed in clapping her two hands together, "well that went better than expected!"

lucy raised an eyebrow at her, "don't think you're off the hook either williamson, if you knew and didn't tell me, your just as bad as her!"

leah held up her hands in mock surrender, "hey i figured it out myself, and plus it ain't my business and it was way more fun watchin' y/n squirm!"

you groaned as you buried your face in your hands as lucy and leah shared a laugh at your expense. but despite their teasing you couldn't help but feel relieved.

—

the match had ended in ireland, and the tensions from the ninety minute game between the players had melted away into the usual camaraderie of the post game routine.

players from both teams chatting, swapping shirts and taking photo as they celebrated another memorable clash as england had won, securing there space in the euros in switzerland.

katie and lucy were stood near the center circle, locking into a playful debate. from a distance you could see katie gesturing animatedly whilst lucy stood with her arms crossed, her signature smirk firmly on her lips.

curiosity and a little apprehension pulled you towards them, "what's going on here?" you as as you approached.

"oh just discussing which side of london is superior" katie said with a cheeky grin, titling her head slightly towards lucy. "you know london is better red, i'm sure you agree"

lucy scoffed, rolling her eyes, "please mccabe, london is blue on a whole different level."

"yeah yeah," katie said with a dramatic wave of her hand, "you guys are ok, i'll give you that but people who have a good sense of football know which is the better side of london"

lucy smirked, leaning forward slightly. "shame you picked the wrong side of it then."

katie gasped, clutching her chest in mock horror, "the wrong side? you mean the side which had trophies and the history to back it up?"

you groaned, pinching the bridge of your nose knowing the two of them well enough to know neither of them were going to back down, "you two realise you're both ridiculous, right?"

ignoring you, katie pulled her phone out of her pocket. "we should document this moment, don't you think" she waved lucy closer, "cmon bronze, let's get a picture. and maybe one day you'll see the light and come to the proper side of london"

lucy rolled her eyes but stepped in next to katie, you stood awkwardly nearby as katie held out her phone for a selfie the pair throwing exaggerated smiles.

right as the photo snapped, katie nudged lucy with her elbow and said, "awe that's a cute photo to. shame you play for the wrong side of london."

lucy snorted, glancing at the photo, "your lucky i don't delete this right now."

katie grinned, "it's fine, just caption it: 'the day bronze met greatness!'"

lucy laughed, shaking her head, "greatness? that's rich coming from someone who can't even make it past the quarterfinals in the champions league-"

katie gasped, turning to you, "babe you better defend me and the club now or i'm tellin' everyone you still steal my hoodies!"

you threw your hands up in exasperation a small laugh coming from your lips, "oh no don't drag me into this. you both know where my loyalty's lie."

"your sisters impossible, you know that? she doesn't appreciate brilliance." katie leaned against you dramatically sighing.

lucy raised an eyebrow, clearly enjoying herself, "brilliance? that's what they call it these days?"

katie tolled her eyes playfully as you just laughed, following the two of them as they both started to walk towards the tunnel. along with other players starting to make their way of the pitch.

katie had that familiar glint in her eye, the one that softened your heart no matter how chaotic the game had been.

"i'm goin' to go catch up the ma team," katie said as she reached out to tuck a loose strand of your hair behind you ear.

her touch was gentle and calm unlike her totally opposite persona on the field. a smile lingering on your face despite the lingering adrenaline from the match.

she leaned in, pressing a quick but soft kiss to your lips as she whispered, "i love you."

you heart swelled as you whispered it back, "i love you, too"

katie turned as she waved to your older sister as she star tee d to walk away, "see you soon bronze! don't miss me too much!"

lucy just shook her head muttering something under her breath as katie disappeared towards the irish team.

"what was that?" you asked an eyebrow raising as you turned to her.

lucy huffed, crossing her arms, "i said i don't think i’ll ever get used to that."

you laughed nudging your older sisters shoulder playfully, "you'll have to she's not going anywhere luce!"

katie fully disappearing in the tunnel as she turned a corner as lucy tuned to you with a grin, but it wasn't the usually teasing one.

"i like her." she said pausing for effect, "but she's still completely wrong about london."

you laughed shaking your head, "i don't think she's ever going to stop trying to convince you and it's two against one. london is red."

"your both wrong.." lucy said with a smirk, "but besides that i think she's good for you." you smiled softly "thanks, luce."

lucy clapped you on the shoulder, her usual teasing grin returning. "now come on. let's go find some post-match food before mccabe comes back and starts another argument."

you laughed, following her into the tunnel, you couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of relief. katie and lucy might still have their friendly battles, but they were your battles now, filled with teasing and love from the two most important people in your life.

[tumblingxelian]

How do some even think that RWBY has male characters “hijack the narrative?” It’s like they project what their grievances with past stories on what looks like the same but not really.

Like Jaundice in Volume 1 flies right by marathoning the season. No bigger than a single episode of TV at 20+ minutes.

So the answer to that questions ranges from what you said to several things like:

Not watching un years & misremembering what was watched, being misinformed & not having watched at all, lying and such. But, I think I hit on another major reason for this problem and its kind of hilariously twisted so please hear me out.

Every arc I've noticed that a certain strain of "Fans" get very attached to one or two male characters and start projecting the idea that they are the real MCs & then get offended when it turns out they aren't.

In V1 to 3, it was Jaune & Adam. Then in volumes 3 to 6 it was Qrow & then Ozpin, Followed by Ironwood in volumes 4 & 7.

All these guys are introduced either in a typical shounen hero or antagonist or mentor and ally role.

Then have the layers people back to show what exists beneath the archetype and what they either have to overcome to remain on the actual main characters side. IE, Jaune, Qrow & Ozpin.

Or what it is that they long since failed or will fail to overcome and grow from that makes them into villains, IE, Adam and Ironwood.

The reason this keeps happening is because that particular strain of "fan" has such a "Men as default" head-space that they cannot, genuinely cannot grasp that they are watching a story about women. Thus they keep expected ay given guy who shows up to be the "real" main character.

Aside:

You may also notice Ren, Oscar & Marrow never gets on the above list. The closest they get is being someone else's cheerleader or not mentioned at all. Meanwhile the white (Or perceived as white in Qrow's case) cis and overtly straight men do get said treatment. I wonder why that could be? Such a mystery :/

But I digress, this is important because it reflects a deep subconscious bias in those "fans" & I think said bias also exists in the people making claims like this.

IE, because they treat men as the default & the protagonists in a given scene, while subconsciously placing women below them and more as accessories, their focus on any given scene is always on the men.

Kind of like those tumblr posts that are explicitly about women & have a bunch of people with piss poor reading comprehension tagging it with dudes or even going so far as to say "Just say gay men". & rather similar to that observation that a lot of fandom treats men, any man from a piece of media, as an inherently deep and complicated character with so much to analyze or so much freedom to expand on. Meanwhile dismissing women out of hand as awful & or boring.

Thus, when they see a group conversation scene, they instinctively assume that the one leading the conversation, with the most to gain from the conversation, with the most narrative weight in the conversation is a man.

Even if he barely said anything and all the lot relevant, interesting character stuff and such was being done by women.

This head-space persists consistently and inflames any given scene, story beat or exchange.

But, here's the twist, these "critics" know o a conscious level that RWBY is about women and that, that is a selling point. But then they look back over their memories, subconsciously blurring out the women and think, "Wow, the girls didn't do anything, it was all about the guys!" Even though its actually just cos they refused to pay any attention to a character that wasn't a man.

Then they get mad because "Clearly the writers are doing this wrong" and ten they get madder when these men fail, or are villains or have to learn lessons, because in their eyes, those guys are the righteous protagonists, and super complicated, "Can't these blank slate girls realize that? Can't the writers!?" But again, its just because they weren't paying attention, rather tan it being a problem in the writing.

Its very similar to that trend of, "There was no queer foreshadowing, they were both obviously straight!" & then their evidence is like, she looked at a man once, & so therefore every interaction with women she has is platonic by default and therefore does not contain foreshadowing.

Damn, could have just led with that, its male bias, rather than straight bias, but the end result is the same. They don't perceive the women on the screen, they don't see the queer signals.

Then, when the story develops around those women, when queer characters & events set up across years happens it slaps them across the face & they insist it must have come out of nowhere.

Sadly, nothing you can say is liable to change their minds, because in a way, they really are watching an entirely different show.

It'd be like if I went into Naruto thinking Rock Lee was the main character & then never adjusted from that perspective.

Not an identical situation, but one that conveys my point regarding why they claim so much nonsense with such confidence.

[evidence-based-activism]

"Obviously, no one is trying to "invalidate" these female-on-female victims or ignore female perpetrators."

wrong

ppl repeatedly insist female-on-female victims are just stupid and ignorant and all the problems are in their head lol

lots of your buddies openly say female-on-female is not even rape and nbd, and have even send harassing messages to victims of women that speak up about their experiences

go spend some time telling them how much you hate them for that instead of lecturing victims on how female perps are a total non-issue

I'm guessing this is in response to this post where I challenge an individual who is misrepresenting statistics in an attempt to suggest that women are similarly victimized by women as they are by men? The person who is suggesting that women who want to form male-free spaces are being unreasonable and bigoted for recognizing the fact that the vast majority of perpetrators of violence against women are men and desiring a space they can be free from that?

With that context:

"ppl repeatedly insist female-on-female victims are just stupid and ignorant and all the problems are in their head lol"

Okay, and people repeatedly insist that male-on-female victims deserve to be raped for "acting/dressing like a slut". Or that most of them are just liars out for revenge or "crying rape" because they're regretting consensual sex. Or that men have a right to sex from his girlfriend or wife, so it's not really rape if they're in a relationship or if it is, then the girlfriend/wife deserved it for "withholding" sex. (Or that the girlfriend/wife is being abusive for "withholding" sex.)

They say women should know better than to go out alone or drink at a bar or go to parties, and then they ridicule women who only go out in groups or don't drink or don't go to parties. They say teenage girls are "tricking" grown men into having sex and tell little girls that the boys who are assaulting them "just have a crush".

They call women dramatic, faking liars for crying during testimony or cold, lying bitches if they don't.

All of which is to say, that people on the internet are cruel and their vitriol is not directed at any one specific perpetrator-victim dynamic. Their cruelty changes shape, but the presence does not.

And, if you're curious, I do actually have some research on this:

While this is primarily about male vs female victims, it also shows women do not differ in male vs female perpetrator support. (Men – but not women – do report more favorable views of female-on-male perpetrators, although in absolute terms "degrees of victim blame and perpetrator support were low across all conditions".)

I supported these results by more sources in this post.

And for online posts specifically, I discuss in this post, how overall victim blaming/perpetrator support was more prevalent in online spaces than in research samples (and some possible reasons why). I also discuss how there were similar levels of victim blaming for both male and female victims. In fact, female perpetrators were explicitly condemned more often than male perpetrators (although possible confounding factors urge caution in generalizing this). And perhaps most important: many of the female-perpetrator-supporting comments were overtly sexualizing, suggesting they were mainly left by other men.

Now, wait, you may say, all of this research is focused on male-on-female, male-on-male, and female-on-male cases.

And, yes, that is true. There is little work on female-on-female cases specifically, likely because they are uncommon. Specifically, research suggests that solo-female sexual offenders (i.e., offenders who do not co-offend with another – usually male – person) usually assault male victims. Female offenders who victimize female victims are more likely to be co-offenders with a male accomplice [1-3].

All available research indicates that female offenders are condemned to similar degrees as male offenders. (Mostly in general, but also particularly by women.)

"lots of your buddies openly say female-on-female is not even rape and nbd, and have even send harassing messages to victims of women that speak up about their experiences"

So, a few things:

I do not consider people on this site "buddies" because I rarely, if ever, actually talk to anyone. Most of my interaction with other people on this site is via anonymous asks.

See the above section for similar examples of vitriol aimed at female victims of male perpetrators.

None of this is meant to imply such statements/harassment are "okay". I am simply pointing out that victims from every demographic face similar issues.

Harassment is not okay, and I have never suggested it is.

"go spend some time telling them how much you hate them for that instead of lecturing victims on how female perps are a total non-issue"

Anon, providing factually accurate information about male violence and correcting sexist misinformation is not "lecturing victims" or suggesting female perpetrators are a "total non-issue".

Explaining that the vast majority of violence against women is enacted by men is not excusing the violence that is enacted by women. As I said many times the last time this topic came up, "something doesn’t need to be common to deserve sympathy and rare =/= excusable”.

And the fact that you have interpreted my post in this way, that you are implying that I somehow expressed "hate" for female-on-female victims, when nothing in my posts has suggested this makes me wonder what the posts you described above (e.g., saying "female-on-female is not even rape") actually say. (In other words, how am I to trust your reading of these posts when you have demonstrated such a poor interpretation of mine?)

Conclusion

Most people, when asked in a research setting, endorse low levels of victim-negative and/or perpetrator-positive sentiments. These levels are somewhat higher on the internet, which may indicate either that people in research settings are conforming to a social desirability bias or people with more extreme opinions are more likely to post on social media.

Support for female and male victims is similar, as is condemnation of male and female perpetrators. Higher levels of victim blame for male victims and/or female perpetrators appear to come primarily from men – not women. There is little research on female-on-female incidents, likely because many of these involve co-offenders which are difficult to compare to solo offender incidents.

Correcting misinformation about female perpetrators is not an expression of support. Suggesting otherwise does not do you any favors.

References under the cut:

Augarde, S., & Rydon-Grange, M. (2022). Female perpetrators of child sexual abuse: A review of the clinical and empirical literature–A 20-year update. Aggression and violent behavior, 62, 101687.

Wijkman, M., Bijleveld, C., & Hendriks, J. (2010). Women don’t do such things! Characteristics of female sex offenders and offender types. Sexual Abuse, 22(2), 135-156.

Vandiver, D. M. (2006). Female Sex Offenders: A Comparison of Solo Offenders and Co-Offenders. Violence and Victims, 21(3), 339–354. doi:10.1891/vivi.21.3.339

[velvetvexations]

I feel like a lot of the trans women saying that masculinity/manhood is always rewarded in everyone because patriarchy often forget that the opposite is true, actually, for people who are seen as women/put in the "woman" category.

Because yes, trans women are usually forced into manhood and "rewarded" for being men, and punished for being women. But that's not because manhood is universally rewarded in everyone, but because partriarchy sees having been born with a penis as "man".

It also sees being born with a vagina as "woman", and every deviation from that is *also* punished.

Yes, people who are seen as women/girls may have more freedom in expression of gender (depending on where they are from. I hate when ppl act like people afab everywhere can just dress like men without punishment. There are so many countries with laws on what "women" (and those treated as women because of their agab) can wear, and if anyone believes for one second that breaking these laws is REWARDED in any way, they're so fucking deep in their own head and need to talk to someone from these countries) but that freedom was fought for by feminists! Feminists have fought to be simply just allowed to wear pants. It's ridiculous to look at how it is now (in the western world) and make conclusions on that without looking at *why* it is that way now and how it was before.

And people are usually expected to grow out of their tomboy-"phase" by the time they reach their late teens, or early twenties at latest, and become a feminine woman, wife, and mother. If you don't do that, your masculinity gets punished.

And the masculinity of people afab is also only (begrudgingly) accepted (in SOME places in the world) as long as they're still visible as women or girls and their masculinity is hot and serves cishet men. As soon as they step "too far" out of these roles (by being non-binary or men, or being "ugly", fat, or anything that would make them "undesirable"), their masculinity gets punished. Horribly.

It's really infuriating when (trans)radfem trans women try to act like their experiences are universal and whenever someone says something that disagrees with them, they must be lying or "delusional" (yay, ableism! so progressive /s) for thinking that they were, in fact, punished for their masculinity or manhood...

Sorry for unloading this on you, didn't know where else to put it. And thank you so much for listening.

I think a major issue here is that no matter how much we try to reason things out and work through why they act the way they do, radical feminism, trans or cis, ultimately comes down, at some point, to a deliberate decision to prioritize egocentrism and their own desires over seeing other people as real, actual people - not even other transfems, who they just sexualize and try to control, or call a TERF if they can't. And it's hard to reason with that.

Like, they have to know on some level that they hyperinflate trans women in particular being "socially murdered"* to use as social capital and terrorize younger** transfems into isolating themselves. Maybe a very long time ago for some of them it came from the distress they felt from the legitimately immense danger transfems face in a variety of contexts, but they've shot far beyond that now and just don't really care. They've built a cage of unreality around themselves that makes me feel like I'm talking to aliens.

Like the other day, I was talking to one who insisted that the tee-em-ees will not show up for me. Like, I said they did, and she said they won't, and I was like, but they DO! They have! Always! I've seen it with my own eyes, directly for me specifically! But it was just "who hurt you," "let yourself be angry," "don't settle for just scraps," "they won't treat you better if you throw yourself at their feet," "social murder," and it's like WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ARE YOU HAVING A STROKE? WAS THIS A DREAM YOU HAD?

And what about the deliberately cruel fuckery, the constant derision of the most petty things like forcemasc? What the fuck do they get out of wrongly asserting that women are never punished for masculinity and never have a problem with being viewed as masculine, like why are they doing that, what is their goal? Because it seems like it's literally just "mock and invalidate the sexual interests of others and deem it an inferior copy of our thing."

What do they get out of misgendering cis and trans men for forcefem funsies and telling them to suck it up? They don't really believe that their forcefem joke is the only thing that might make an egg crack. That's extremely obviously a lie. They're doing it because they want to, because it's their kink, because they don't care about the feelings of other people, and they can use transmisogyny as a convenient defense when people ask them to moderate literally any of their behavior for the comfort of everyone else to literally any extent while demanding everyone else shut up and defer to them on every single topic in every single situation.

And this stuff with D20 and Ophiuchus and the transmasc character being treated better? A lie. Just fully making it up. Inventing it. Fabricating it. For attention.

I've never had one acknowledge it when I've tried to explain that I first learned about all of this from transmasc friends bringing it to me so they could defer to my opinion.

They're determined to stay like this. It sucks.

*truly a phrase that makes me livid to even think about now, they reduce it to about the same level of seriousness as forcefem jokes, every single time it's so thoughtlessly hollow and self-obsessed but you could guess that from it being a fair description of every thought they externalize

**let me make this clear, I'm referring to young adults, I am not accusing anyone of being predatory towards minors nor am I saying the motivations are necessarily sexual anyway, although clearly transradfems don't care about the effect their hyperbole will have on the mental health of minors exposed to it and trained from a young age to never trust anyone, so underage transfems are very much a concern here, but not in the sense that they're being directly and personally abused in any way

[aenais]

kuroo tetsurō | College AU hcs

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ 𓈈 🀢

summary: a comprehensive list of the CollegeAU!Kuroo headcanons that have been plaguing me for years. 

warnings: allusions to alcohol, some sexual content, swearing, kuroo’s abs.

general

he’s double-majoring in business and chemistry—does hella good in both. 

academic weapon

fairly active in the party scene, but won’t admit he secretly hates it sometimes. prefers the quieter, more refined bustle of the science library or the local cafés. 

didn’t want to commit to the professional level, but still plays club volleyball. never quite finds another team that fits him like Nekoma did. 

on the outside

those dark locks are unruly as ever. 

he’s always been huge but reaaaaally buffed up after high school: broad shoulders and massive, sculpted lats. chiseled abs and the V-line of a fucking god.

he’s worked hard for that body (more on that under Habits), so he shows it off with what he chooses to wear

fitted tees

those sleek athletic compression shirts

prioritizes comfort—his wardrobe is definitely hoodies- and sweatpants-heavy. see images above for a visual 

owns like, nine pairs of gray sweats. the cheeky bastard. 

habits

hits the gym like it’s a religion. his routine is immaculate: strength training couple times a week, a run/jog outside nearly every day. he kickboxes sometimes. plays volleyball of course. 

doesn’t take enough rest days

and forgets to stretch afterward. his shoulders are always tight because of it. 

has a fairly decent sleep schedule

but. he’s a caffeine addict. pulls all-nighters at least once a month, flipping through his textbooks while sipping hot, black coffee.

takes his tea without sugar

and his whiskey neat

doesn’t drink much, though. especially at parties, he likes being able to talk intelligently—to nail first impressions with biting wit and laid-back charm. there’s a certain level of self-possession he cultivates in order to achieve that, though, and alcohol tends to mess with it.

always drives his friends home when they’ve had too much.

academics

he’s good. 

really good. 

aced Organic Chemistry his freshman year while everyone else was shitting their pants

chats with his Business professors during their office hours for fun

his notes are disgusting. loose leaf sheets stuffed into his books, chicken-scratch handwriting littering their margins. 

can’t draw good Lewis Diagrams for shit. his Chemistry TAs give him hell for it.

still, he somehow manages to earn the highest test scores in the class.

competitive. silently simmers when he catches someone earn even a slightly higher grade. he always needs to be the best; he’s greedy for success and recognition. 

total workaholic. grinds himself to the bone.

but also, he really, really loves what he does. the little things thrill him: an Acid-Base titration gone perfectly right, or a really good conversation about Keynesian economic theory. 

he’s such a dork. he’ll never admit to it though

after hours

he’s not a fuckboy. he’s not.

he just…has a certain effect on women. and boy, does he know it.

as mentioned above, he parties fairly frequently—he’s a hot, outgoing twenty-something, so naturally he’s getting invited to a lot. but again, he doesn’t always enjoy the crowds and the noise, and he really doesn’t like getting wasted. 

but if there’s one thing kuroo loves? 

it’s attention. 

though he lingers at the quieter edges of crowds, pretty girls still seek him out, striking up flirty conversation over the din of party music. 

he’ll admit the talk itself is never actually interesting. none of those women are quite smart enough to keep up with him

but all the same, he goes home with them—because they all want him so much. and god, does that stroke some animalistic part of his ego. 

the truth is, kuroo kinda needs to feel wanted. he’s a man that spends all his time competing—beating himself into shape to achieve his various goals. so, when people make him feel like he’s good enough as is, it’s worth a lot. 

his hidden insecurities are part of the reason he won’t approach any truly intelligent women, the ones he notices in his lecture halls and classes. deep down, he’s a little scared of women that can dominate him academically.

but, secretly? he’s also really fucking attracted to that.

desperately wants to meet someone he can actually talk to, a person that’ll share in his ambition and can keep up with his wit.

but for now, settles just for fucking to relieve stress. wakes up more often than not to an empty bed, with no reminder left behind of the girl that was in it the night before. 

thank you for reading! follow @aenais for more!

[warningsine]

We Are Lady Parts, a British series about an introverted engineering Ph.D. student who is roped into playing the guitar for a local all-women Muslim punk band known as Lady Parts, was one of the most delightful and original television debuts of 2021. Its absence these past three years has been deeply felt—but luckily, Lady Parts is now back onstage, returning with a second season of antics and self-discovery, streaming on Peacock (in the U.S.) and Channel 4 (in the U.K.).

Music has always played a major role in the series thanks to Nida Manzoor, We Are Lady Parts’ showrunner and creator, who, alongside her siblings, also writes and supervises the music for the show. Season 1 blessed us with original songs like “Bashir With the Good Beard” and “Voldemort Under My Headscarf.” Not only are there some great new additions in the second season—from “Malala Made Me Do It” to “Villain Era”—but the music this time around boasts both a tighter sound and a stronger voice. There are even some standout covers, like a stunning punk take on Britney Spears in Episode 3. Slate chatted with Manzoor to discuss We Are Lady Parts’ musical evolution, a surprise (and instantly iconic) cameo, and how we can pay homage to the trailblazers who came before us. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Slate: While music has always been the central impetus of the show, it seems to drive even more of the plot this season. After establishing themselves and growing a fan base, the members of Lady Parts are trying to make the band a real deal by recording a debut record. This means that you got to play with the music a bit more this season. For example, there are a few more cheeky covers in there. What was your intention with writing and supervising the music this season?

Nida Manzoor: Music is at the heart of the show. It’s the heart of Season 1, and I had such a joyful experience writing the songs with my brother and sister. For Season 2, I wanted to challenge us, and thereby challenge the band. I wanted the songs to be more complex. I brought in my collaborators more on a ground level. All I came with were song titles and styles. I wanted to do a Western-sounding song called “Malala Made Me Do It” because I wanted to see the band just be silly and go different places. With the song “Glass Ceiling Feeling,” which comes later on in the show, I wanted to see the band feel like they’ve evolved from Season 1. Moving away from their traditional punk songs and seeing them explore different ways of expressing themselves was really exciting to me.

Let’s talk about “Malala Made Me Do It.” The sentiment sort of reads as an alternative to the mantra “What would Jesus do?” in so many clever ways. How did this idea come about? What does “Malala made me do it” mean to you?

“Malala Made Me Do It” was one of the first ideas I even had for Season 2, before I had any other deeper story ideas. And then, as I was writing the script with Bisma’s story arc, where we see her being challenged as a mother with her daughter moving into adolescence, I wanted to explore this idea of motherhood and her tension through the song. But with the song itself, I was like, “It’s just going to be a Malala hype track. I want it to celebrate this incredible woman who’s done so much real, meaningful work for girls and women.”

I must spoil this moment for readers because I have to ask about Malala’s cameo in the show during the fantasized music video for “Malala Made Me Do It.” What was your pitch to Malala to get her on the show? 

Initially, I had no intention to reach out to Malala. I was like, “She’s not going to want to be in the show. She’s a very serious person in the world.” But then I went to a talk of hers, and she was expressing her love of comedy, and she had this incredible dark sense of humor, this great wit. And I’m like, “Maybe I have a chance for Malala to be in the show.” So I wrote her a long letter of why I’d love her to be in the show and how I think she’s an inspiration, and sensing her love of comedy really emboldened me to do that.

She was immediately like, “Yeah, let’s do this,” and was so chill, so kind and gracious on the day. So full of love, so easy to work with. I feel like there’s a lot of reverence around her, but she’s a woman in her 20s—she contains multitudes. She does a lot of meaningful, serious work, but she’s also a really fun, joyful person. I really wanted to celebrate that.

Speaking of celebrating women, one of the focal storylines in the season, with the character of Sister Squire, explores what it means to pay homage to those who have come before you by doing something meaningful with the space that they’ve created. Who are some of your inspirations that you tried to honor with this show, particularly with Season 2?

One person for me is the actor who plays Sister Squire, Meera Syal. She is a comedy legend and hero of mine. She co-created a sketch show called Goodness Gracious Me, which is all about the South Asian experience. It was so witty. The show was so inspiring because it was impressive, it was cool, it was edgy. It made me, as a young brown girl, feel cool. To get to have her play Saira’s hero in the show was honestly a dream come true. Between working with her and Malala, I was like, “I can retire now.”

In terms of women in punk specifically, there’s the singer of the band X-Ray Spex, Poly Styrene. She was a woman of color in punk in the ’70s. It was just so rare. Her music really talks about identity, self-expression, these really meaningful feminist themes. It’s so contemporary, yet she was writing this stuff in the ’70s with such a playful tongue-in-cheek vibe. She’s been a hero and inspiration as well, making the show.

I want to talk about the covers this season. You cover three of my favorite songs: “The Reason,” by Hoobastank; “More Than Words,” by Extreme; and then, of course, “Oops!…I Did It Again,” by Britney Spears. How did you decide what songs to cover? 

I knew I wanted to do a Britney cover. I am a millennial, I came up at a time when Britney was just everything and a goddess and a queen and so much a part of my childhood. Getting to do a cover of her song, but in a punk way, was just joyful. I think it was one of the most fun days to shoot on set because we felt like we were getting to perform such a brilliant and iconic song, but also making it Lady Parts, in those iconic costumes with their suits. Even now, when I rewatch the show and when I was working in the edit, just watching the Britney performance was my favorite thing. It was everything.

Hoobastank, “The Reason,” it’s just that classic early 2000s, very cheesy, but still such a great tune. It was so fun to get to honor that song and that band because they were such a formative part of my childhood. It was something my sister suggested. We were initially going to write an original that Amina sings to Ahsan. She’s like, “Oh, it should sound like Hoobastank’s ‘The Reason.’ ” I’m like, “Wait, Hoobastank’s ‘The Reason’ is perfect. Why don’t we just try and get that song?” Because it’s nostalgic and brilliantly cheesy and it’s perfect for the rom-com storyline. So that was a no-brainer.

Oh my God, do you remember the music video for “More Than Words”? Black and white and the two of those guys with their long hair and guitar. Again, such an iconic moment growing up. That song was so phenomenal. So much of making Lady Parts is an excuse to just bring in all the music I loved growing up, and that was one of those songs that I would watch the music video for and just sing along to. Me and my siblings would sing those harmonies. So, again, it was like, “Oh, I love this song. Can I have it in my show?” It’s such a romantic song, and having Amina and Billy play that and sing that to each other was perfect for the story.

Throughout Season 1, music was a way for the members of Lady Parts to get what they really wanted, whether it was control or creative agency or freedom from self-imposed religious ideals and traditions. Would you say that it still serves the same purpose this season, or does it function slightly differently?

I hadn’t thought of that. I definitely wanted the music of Season 2 to feel like an evolution. I still think music is a way that we see the characters express themselves and express their frustration with how they feel they’re boxed in and limited. With a song like “Glass Ceiling Feeling” or “Villain Era,” it’s that traditional pop-punk sound, but what was new and different was that it was Amina leading that song, so you got to see her really enter her villain era and lead it. “Malala Made Made Me Do It,” for me, was a big move away from Season 1. I was like, “What if Lady Parts did a Western?” It was just trying to push and evolve the music from Season 1, but, in much the same way, I wanted the songs to feel organic, coming out of the storyline and the truth of the characters and grounding it in their experiences.

We wanted the songs to be fun, but we wanted them to also evolve from Season 1 in terms of style and complexity. All the songs are much more difficult to play in Season 2. The actors really upped their game because the songs are faster, they’re more intricate, there were more harmonies in them, so there was a level of difficulty that was much higher this season. But I think, in many ways, the songs operate in a similar vein of allowing the characters to express themselves through music.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

ATHENA CYKES (ACE ATTORNEY)

1.) Despite supposedly being the MAIN CHARACTER of the game she was introduced in, she somehow still always ends up playing second fiddle to Phoenix and Apollo, to the point where she isn’t allowed to take the lead on even so much as a single case. Instead of the senior lawyers standing to the side in a mentorship role like they do for literally EVERY OTHER PLAYABLE CHARACTER, Phoenix and Apollo keep stepping in to outright take over for her. She literally does not make it through even a single case without needing some male character or other to swoop in and hold her hand every step of the way, not only Phoenix and Apollo but once even Blackquill, her rival prosecutor, as well.

Why? It has nothing whatsoever to do with her competence level. It’s a video game; her competence is determined by the player’s, just like everybody else. It seems like the writers just couldn’t STAND the thought of her doing anything on her own, or thought that the players would walk out en masse if it wasn’t the Phoenix and Apollo Show every second of gameplay. (And yeah, it DOES sometimes take me some time to warm up to new characters, but that was the case for Apollo too! At least give me the CHANCE to judge her on her own merits rather than assuming that I’ll immediately write her off!) Like, why did you even WRITE this character if you think so little of her?

2.) WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN. She’s introduced in the middle of a male characters “trilogy” (Apollo justice) so the story is never about her. She appears in aa5 only to NEVER headline her own case IN HER INTRODUCTORY GAME and always fail unless a man comes in and saves her. Her own story is sidelined for Apollos. Next game, she only really appears in one case that’s a throwaway and still can’t do shit on her own. Ugh. She deserved to be treated better, more competent, etc.

3.) my girl is an attorney and a practicing psychologist at age 18 (youngest defense lawyer in the series) & is often shown to be more competent than her male colleagues, and yet is constantly pushed out/sidelined/generally treated like an assistant character rather than a lawyer (the assistant position in these games is usually reserved for characters who don’t have law degrees/are generally not educated enough to understand the courtroom proceedings to their full extent. athena is none of those things but she gets treated the same way by the game because. well. we know why.) Instead of being the main playable attorney in her debut game, the story is taken over by her male colleague (WHO ALREADY HAD A WHOLE GAME DEDICATED TO HIS BULLSHIT BTW) & her development is ignored in favor of his in both her debut game AND her second game. Even when her backstory IS explored it’s done via a male family friend of hers, meaning even when her OWN story is being told it’s not even about her it’s about simon’s lame ass. for extra context here in her debut game she is only the playable attorney in one case out of five, while the other (male) playable attorneys were playable in all or all-but-one of the cases in THEIR debut games. capcom hates women sooooo bad

KOTORI MIZUKI/TORI MEADOWS (YU-GI-OH! ZEXAL)

1.) first: ygo zexal is directed (and partially written) by known misogynist shin yoshida who is on record as saying that he would Never write female characters if he wasn’t being forced to by higher-ups. kotori’s voice actor signed a legal contract forcing him to include her character in Every Single Episode. she gets no duels that aren’t tag duels (2v2 duels), one of those is interrupted in the middle and all others she both loses, aren’t even shown in full, and all happen in the same episode. she is literally contractually required to be a major character and the dude in charge still point blank refuses to do anything with her despite the fact that she’s supposed to be the female lead of the series. please take pity on her for being handed to one of the worst people in the world and how despite the active attempts by other people to make her relevant in the story she was still denied that

2.) She only dueled once in the whole show and it was when she was brainwashed. Her main role is to only cheer the male protag on and say his name during his duels I guess.

[hwnglx]

do u think the jealousy men in kpop have of her are whole groups of idols orrrr is it like small pockets of them? but either way if i were jennie she should tell them to man up. lol make their own success. does jennie still love performing / blinks? sometimes she gave the vibe that she didnt really want to perform as well as say lisa.

i have to honestly say, it's more of an exception, that a male idol doesn't feel intimidated by female idols more successful than them. this has been a reoccurring theme throughout several of my readings. the more successful the woman is, the more insecure the men get around her. also, i gotta say that i can see this being more severe for korean men. so many of them are still bizarrely uncomfortable with the thought of women overtaking men in the same category, in their mind that's just not how it works. this is more of a trivial example, but during my reading i saw boy groups being weirded out about girl groups taking the win over them at music shows. doesn't matter if they're idols, they're still men at the end of the day, so a large majority still go through life seeing women's primary advantage being their sex appeal. many korean men struggle comprehending women's appeal lying in their talent. which is fucking weird to say the least.

to get to jennie, it's definitely the insecure idols with a fragile ego who seemed to be most jealous of her. i could also see some idols feeling genuinely attracted to her being such a boss, however they were more of a minority lol. (though i saw some even thinking they could benefit from jennie's success by linking up with her so lol talk about fragile egos) i couldn't really see any whole groups persé, feelings do seem to vary from member to member.

jennie loves the creative and expressive side of performing, but she doesn't enjoy the pressure and the strict gazes that result from it. i can sense that, for a long time, her view of performing had been tainted by all the scrutiny she was put under, and i can see her having a lot anxiety about going on stage for a good while. in my reading, i could sense this huge dislike towards being controlled, and having to continuously reach this level of perfection in order for people to not hate on her. she very often felt like she was singled out, and no matter what she did, she never really did enough for people to leave her alone. like doomed if i do, doomed if i don't.

however, i can tell she's been able to shed a lot of those negative emotions towards performing at this point, and wants to bring back the genuine love she has for it. the stage was usually her home, the place she felt most comfortable and confident at, so she wants to go back for sure.

[heraadora]

You're the epitome of a bitter lesbian LMAO. Let me guess, male figure in your life hurt you and now anything male adjacent makes you repulsed? Trauma reeks out of your posts and trying to make heterosexual women detach from men because of YOUR personal issues is so funny. It really does read as a 16 year old girl who never truly grew out of that black-white mentality. Seeing a whole rant about how PIV sex is "evil actually" and "needs lube" when sufficient foreplay and a gentle hand is all that's needed as the fluids that come out with arousal is PLENTY. You disconnect the inherent emotional weight sex comes with.

There's a reason why women and men who get raped have a stronger psychological reaction than if they were beat. Sex comes with a million barriers that directly wire to your brain that drastically alters when it's taken without consent. You can easily delve into research that doesn't abide by your inherent biases by saying "it hurts!" When it easily can NOT hurt. Or adjust with, again, the gentle hands of a partner.

Let me guess, you advocate for women and men to whore themselves out with no clear direction? Having meaningless one night stands that leave them devoid and hungry for more, an ACTUAL relationship? Humans are social creatures. Much of the real pleasure is found in that connection, and sex is like a physical manifestation of a love between two; callously removing that makes you no better than a wild hedonistic dog with no grasp of conscience. Mindless pleasure that just brings a brief, superficial boost in dopamine that subsides in an instant when you're just using "a self warming toy" 💀

(Also, telling women not to have PIV sex while suggesting toys that serve to directly mimic PIV sex is genuinely so fucking stupid and defeats the entire purpose??? were you ACTUALLY thinking a thought or was past trauma that you can't glam up for Tumblr hitting your face again sweaty?)

Statistically, 75% Woman experience pain in PIV:

And I am not at all triggered. Foreplay and natural bodily fluids still won't help with the fact that PIV will start to hurt right after the threshold of 5 minutes in and you will need additional lube to take care of that or else you will end in serious Vaginal wall injury.

If you penetrate with mere bodily fluid it will start to hurt while inserting as you will be able to feel the rough skin texture and inside of Vaginal wall is sensitive and can cause irritation. Depending on your hymen size it will hurt from a little bit to downright bleeding and excruciating kind of pain. If you have a naturally big opening at birth it might slip easily or else you will have to do manual exercise for at least a couple months before actually pursuing it.

Also, You are the one writing coke rant on my month old Tumblr Post where I am showing people the reality of PIV Sex. If anyone is showing signs of clear trauma it's frankly you. And I am not traumatized by any man. I never fucked them. I am a Lesbian. I just know about how sex actually works and the people I fuck manage to get me off without making my vagina Bleed out in a insufferable level of pain in order to jerk their pee pee inside my hole and treat me as a broodmare rag doll.

Maybe you are a trad wife straight woman with insurmountable and parasitic level of attachment to the phallaus even though you never knew how it feels to have your mind going high at the moment of your 20th orgasm and that makes you bitter at lesbians who simply tell you to grow a spine and try alternatives like rose toys and vibrators. In that case you should get over your personal past trauma of being called a cock sucker whore for being such a ardent defender of PIV by some random terf tumblr account so that you can make peace with the fact that majority of woman and their body isn't accommodated enough to deal with PIV sex and there are plenty of sexual activities that are objectively much more erotically and physically pleasurable than PIV, and much more safer, healthier, better, and things that actually make you come, if you are a Female.

Either this or the last portion of your writing sort of gives off this weird impression that you are a straight man. So in case you are a straight man, umm..... your ex gf or gf or wife or whatever woman that bothered sleeping with you- lied about loving it and having a orgasm. She probably just wanted to be nice. You probably saw her releasing body fluids and then basically thought that is the marker of orgasm. When that's not even how orgasm works. The physical marker of orgasm is something only the woman who experienced it can tell. Majority of straight woman don't even know how a orgasm is supposed to feel because they never experienced it in the first place. You seriously think you made her climax? Really? LOL.

And about that sex toys comment,,,,,, I think you should know how sex toys actually look like. Since you are illiterate and that's probably because you are a man , here are a couple pictures of female accommodated sex toys. They range from vibrators to rose toys to Vagina Shaped Flesh Light for the purpose of Vaginal Scissoring and sensation of oral sex.

Anyways, It was a very sudden message. Putting radtwt tags on my post so that Our Radfem Ladies, Lesbian Girls, Femmes, Dykes and Knight in Armor and Prince Charming Butches can read it and have a good laugh out of it.

[i-was-a-teenage-eldritch-horror]

Hi! So I'm rewatching Evangelion and just discovered this section of the fandom (including some of the other accounts you've mentioned in the past). I'm reading through a lot of critiques of Shinji (that I agree with) and gender in the show, but I'm sort of confused on what you think the show critiques and what y'all think the show is bad at? Like, if you talk about how Shinji acts towards Asuka in EoE, is that to a detriment of the film and you feel like it wasn't resolved?

Wrt gender, the show extensively critiques Shinji's misogyny, especially in end of eva. However, this can sometimes be difficult to spot for the first time viewer (especially if they're coming off of less complex media) because so much of the show is from Shinji's POV, and of course he justifies this to himself!

I'll go on record stating that I think end of eva is basically a perfect film, I wouldn't change a thing about it. You can argue it both ways wrt if Shinji's treatment of Asuka is resolved or not. I think the film would lose a lot if the most disturbing scenes (hospital scene, hell kitchen scene, and the beach scene) were removed. They're not detrimental, they're integral. Because the thing is, the show had been building up to these scenes showing us how Shinji objectified Asuka. Just go and rewatch episode 8 and 9, it's there from the start. But even before that, Shinji is making wackass misogynistic comments to Misato from episode 1. Is Shinji's treatment of Asuka resolved? Kind of? I'm erring on the side of no, because the last thing he does is collapse onto Asuka and start crying. But also I don't think that makes the ending of the film bad.

The main thing about asking if eva treats the women and girls in a misogynistic way is that, well, is this misogynistic writing or is it just writing that's true to life? I grew up in a home where my mom's life was habitually in peril, I'm no stranger to this stuff.

Asuka is repeatedly beaten down by the narrative -- the narrative allows Rei to get even with Shinji in a way that it refuses to Asuka. I wrote a post about this some time ago that you may have read. Even though Rei's situation is objectively worse than Asuka's the narrative respects her and uplifts her more.

Then there's Misato, who is complex yet also kind of sloppily written. But "complex" and "sloppy" in some ways are basically synonyms. What do I mean by this? Misato has the Electra Complex thing going on with her dad and Kaji. And then you also have her assault and weirdly seductive relationship with Shinji. So, you have two major, major flaws in her character. Then add the fact that Misato is at once attracted to her dad and becoming her dad. THEN add the thing with Shinji into the mix and things get super weird and messy. Because one thing eva excels at is that you can analyze characters through other characters (I have a post about this in the works), so it's like...was Misato's dad predatory towards her? Her seductive relationship with Shinji would suggest that. But the key word is "suggest" -- there's nothing outright in the show that states this. But there also doesn't have to be? It's A Lot, and there are lots of things in the show that are never explicitly stated yet are obvious.

Personally, I have analyzed the show's writing choices before in a sense of human beings sat down and decided to write these events into the show. That's necessary and valid, but looking at eva in-universe, I'm more inclined to interpret these events and traits as simply being true to life.

As far as more surface level critiques, the way the women and girls are drawn at times is just so yucky and objectifying that it really gets in the way of the show's attempts to develop these characters. Much of the nudity is unnecessary -- Utena tells a similar story focusing on abuse with only a fraction of it. However, I also really think people should quit huffing Utena and Ikuhara's farts. Utena also suffers from patriarchal entrapment, there's a good essay on ohtori.nu about it.

Does this make sense? It's ok if not. But I hope it does!

[nix-that-rad-lass]

Reading the Hunger Games, specifically TBOSAS, really makes me think about the whole “man written by a woman” thing in a new light.

I came to the startling realization that I’ve had similar thought processes to Coriolanus Snow- that of constantly being watched, of having to present a certain way, of having to be constantly aware of every action and every potential meaning.

And it hit me like a freight train when I realized that Snow is written with more humanity, fallibility, but also vulnerability than almost any character I’ve ever read that was written by a man.

Snow is such a strange character to read from the perspective of because he is so clearly male, so clearly represents toxic masculinity, but the paranoia and consciousness and self doubt he exemplifies are such a major part of female socialization, self objectification, and internalized misogyny.

Snow is a good character and he’s an excellent villain, but him reflecting the humanity and internal struggles that so many women experience and live with day to day is so out of place for a male character. Most male characters are not written to experience this level of self surveillance, but almost every girl and woman in real life is raised to internalize this same level of uncomfortable and exhausting self surveillance.

Add to this that many male authors so rarely incorporate vulnerability, blatant hypocrisy, cognitive dissociation, and narcissism into their writing, especially as a relatively blatant character flaw (rather than a character trait or even a strength) and it goes to show that a male character written by a woman just has an extra layer of depth that many men written by men lack.

If we wanna get misandrist with it, we can also say it’s a bad thing that Suzanne Collins wrote Snow so well, made him a complex and conflicted character because so many men in real life seem to lack this same depth of thought, nuance, and even lack the mental flexibility to be as hypocritical as Snow. Snow is written almost too well, he is almost too human- and I say this as someone who has grown up and lived all my life around men who are just as, or maybe more, narcissistic, fragile, hateful, hypocritical, and selfish than Snow’s character. The men I have known irl who have the same traits as Snow have never shown the same complexity, humanity, or vulnerability that Snow does.

Even when writing an evil male character, female authors so frequently award them more humanity than even similar men irl are capable of. Even in fiction, even as villains, women give men more humanity than men themselves express.

Not to say all men are shallow asshats, but that every narcissistic and abusive man I’ve ever met who exemplifies the same traits as Snow lacks any depth behind their actions, thoughts, beliefs, and has no reason for their poor treatment of others beyond maliciously selfish ignorance. Snow, for being a pretty evil and corrupt person, displays a level of humanity and care, and a remarkable lack of sadism, compared to real life men who have the same traits, and even similar experiences to Snow.

I think the worst thing about Snow is that his characterization as a control freak narcissist sets the precedent of assigning too much humanity and giving too much credit to actual narcissistic abusers irl. Because real life narcissistic abusers lack any real humanity, depth, or ability for growth- but Snow shows each of these traits to some degree; he just chooses to disengage with them, he chooses to remain stagnant and stunted- but real life narcissistic abusers lack those traits to begin with. Snow is such a good villain because he made the choice to be one. Real life narcissistic abusers were never even on the playing field when compared to Snow; Snow actively chooses to repress his humanity, whereas real life narcissistic abusers chose to never have humanity in the first place.

[swashbucklerred]

Speaking of Kenny, it feels like he has the opposite problem in some fans' eyes? (I'm not going to pretend he isn't flawed himself, he is. But I feel like depending on how you see his perverted-ness, plays a lot on how you see him as a person. Especially in terms of morals, when it really shouldn't.)

(at this point i think i should clarify that i havent actually watched the newest episodes and am a bit behind, so if im missing anything major thats 100% on me, but i think if there was a massive 180 twist on anyones character i would have heard about it by now)

first off, lets get it out of the way: every single character in south park is flawed. i am never denying that. even wendy, who is generally the voice of reason (kyle is also the voice of reason but hes way more hot headed, while wendy tends to keep her cool a lo better) originally started off fucking insane. she flew a lesbian into the sun because the boy she liked had a crush on her! (a bit tangential, this links back to what i mentioned before about "character development vs retconning", where i think wendy being the (mostly) level headed liberal mouthpiece now is actually supposed to be retconning her earlier characterisation, especially since they were briefly using bebe as the voice of reason (bebes boobs destroy society) before switching their roles because m+t will die of 18th century diseases if forced to write a three dimensional woman)

that said, the fandom definitely has a problem where they exaggerate kennys perversion to the point hes a borderline sex criminal who should never be allowed near women (or smaller, weaker men, since people also do this when they want him to be the strong, dominant seme to his soft, submissive uke (usually butters)), when that is just not true at all

throughout the show, kenny actually treats women with respect. in tweek vs craig, he wants to be in home ec with the girls because its safer, and he never says anything to make him uncomfortable; they actually like him around, and hes only forced to stop taking home ec because the teacher thinks girls should only do girl things and boys should only do boy things. when he wants to trick or treat with the girls in the scoots, its not because he wants to hit on them, hes just lonely and wants to be friends with them. even during the ring, when he DOES want his girlfriend to have sex with him, he prioritises her comfort and happiness and agrees to the promise ring because its what she wants, and he NEVER pressured her into doing anything she didnt want to do! and in fbw, if you play as a girl, mysterion doesnt say anything pervy, he says he has the urge to protect you

the idea that kennys some sort of uncontrollable sex pest comes down to how he has an inappropriate interest in sex (he hit puberty early and his father leaves porn around the house where he can easily find it (exposing a minor to pornography is a sex crime btw just so were clear here, and if youre able to laugh it off with kenny bc hes the comic relief (and people rarely take the sexual abuse of boys seriously) then can you at least think about karen)) and he is 9 years old so he thinks grossout humour and words like "boobies" are funny, which his friends also think is funny, but kyle doesnt get saddled with the "perverted misogynist sex pest" label by the fandom

but generally, kenny is a much harder character to analyse than butters because what kenny represents is much less clear. hes not used as consistently or clearly as butters, and the writers intent is less in-your-face obvious, so we cant cross-reference how his actions relate to his archetype or what real life group hes supposed to be satirising because... he isnt really satirising a real life group. most of what we get from him was an unintentional side effect from 30 years of them using kenny for whatever and his character stacking up overtime, even when they care about him much less than they do stan and kyle (or even, like... clyde 😭)

so at the end of the day... not many interpretations of kenny are wrong, perse. but i think so many suffer by boiling him down to the "comic relief pervert" trope, with only vague references to mysterion or karen in context of "he might be a perv, but he has a good heart deep down!" as if its what justifies him not being put on a list. theres SO MUCH more to kenny if you actually dig your teeth in! you can get a LOT out of the little bits of characterisation they sprinkled in throughout the decades. he is NOT just an uncontrollable pervert, and if you want to treat him like one then no one can stop you but its so obvious where youre coming from when you make kenny some ultra macho sex pest so you can pair him with your sweet and innocent, never did anything wrong, a gust of wind could knock him over Leopold "Butters" Stotch

[direwolfrules]

Oh my fairy godmother I am so happy you are post about Ever After High!!! Do you have any fanfic or au ideas involving them? Like, what if one character had another destiny or what if they were in the Star Wars universe?! It’s just interesting to think about!

Hey! Glad to see we share another fandom interest!

So, I have this barebones post for what I would have done as a crossover between g1 Monster High and Ever After High.

As for general fanfic ideas I have a few. I shall now list them in varying levels of detail:

1. A Very Charming Groundhog Day Year:

Basically, the Charming siblings time loop back from a bit after Dragon Games but before Epic Winter to the day before the school year started (the day of the Family Ball in the books). While it would be kinda angsty, the best time loop fics are usually crack fics, and this would be no exception (if I ever wrote any of these things).

So Daring, Dexter, and Darling are all initially in states of panic and anxiety. Daring, he was in the middle of a quarter-life crisis and now has to deal with everyone and their fairy godmother thinking he's Apple's Prince Charming.

"Daring Charming, more like Distressed Charming, am I right?"-- Dexter, who should get to exhibit asshole little brother energy more often, as a treat.

Speaking of Dexter, he's panicking cause of all the awful stuff that's going to happen during the school year and also because now he has to go through the nerve-racking ordeal of asking out the girl he likes all over again.

Darling's in hell because everyone and their fairy godmother expect her to be this perfect little damsel, again, which is just- ugh. There are days she wishes she could carry her sword around with her, and they're most days. Also, she never got to talk to Apple about their True Love's CPR, which is just tragic.

The loops go on for a while, some constants in them include: Darling freeing herself and helping little Good-Enough Charming get one of their grandfather's trophies for the scavenger hunt, Dexter and Darling teaming up to kill the changeling and free cousin Charity (sometimes Daring helps but he's content to let his siblings have fun for once), Darling accidentally on purpose flirting with Apple and Apple experiencing several degrees of gay panic, Dexter fumbling asking out Raven for the first time (he's really such a dork, just a funky dude), and the Charming Siblings teaming up to make Milton Grimm's life a living hell.

In one loop they secretly film him playing with his toy unicorns and his action figure of himself and they hijack Blondie's mirrorcast to play it to the entire school.

After several loops a Monster High crossover happens, and so in every loop after that the Charming sibs, who have grown incredibly gremlin-like after experiencing the insanity of the school several dozen times, make sure to drop monster slang when it's just them and Cupid. Like:

Darling: "Wow, Cupid, that top looks clawsome."

Daring: "Totally, it's freaky fierce."

Cupid: "What?!"

Darling: "That top looks nice on you. Anyway, we gotta run."

Dexter: "Yeah, see you later ghoulfriend!"

I have some other half-baked ideas for this one but it'd probably be it's own post.

2. Murdoch Mysteries-ish AU:

This one makes no sense if you've never watched the hit Canadian Detective Show, Murdoch Mysteries. Or maybe it makes some sense, idk. Instead of a modern AU, we have a 1895 detective AU. It's barely an idea, I have no idea if I'd even keep this in the fantasy setting of (an 1895) Ever After or not.

Dexter is the Detective William Murdoch of this AU, the man with no game and beautiful blue eyes who women keep inexplicably falling in love with. He's observant and a little strange but he's also a brilliant detective. One of the major differences though is Dexter is the disowned son of old money parents.

Raven's the Dr. Julia Ogden, the outspoken, independent, and compassionate coroner helping solve cases and being amazing. Her rich, controlling mother doesn't much approve of her life choices but old Mrs. Queen can suck it. Raven and Detective Charming have a clearly mutual attraction but they're both hesitant to act on it cause what's a romance without a good slow-burn.

Hopper's the Constable George Crabtree of this AU. Listen, the everyday George matches Hopper's human side, and writer George matches Hopper's frog side. I will not elaborate, because I really cannot. Just feel the vibes, cause the words aren't coming.

I'm not 100% sure who'd be the Inspector Brackenreid. Part of me kinda wants to make it Professor Badwolf, and then I could make Milton Grimm the asshole commissioner. Coach Gingerbreadman is the Inspector of Station 5, the rivals of Station 4.

Daring is heir to the Charming family fortune. Golden boy, everyone loves him, wants more than anything to be able to talk to his little brother in public, but their parents would disown him as well if he stepped out of line.

Apple is one of Raven's housemates at Sisters boarding house, run by Bella and Brutta Sister. She was once courted by Daring, it was at the point where people were expecting an engagement announcement any day. That's when they suddenly broke it off, with no explanation (the explanation is Daring's in love with another girl and Apple's in love with his sister). Snow White and her husband barely agreed to let her move into the boarding house, I honestly have no clue how Apple managed to pull that off but good for her.

Idk, Darling's a vigilante. She's got the same deductive genius as Dexter, she just doesn't have the same ability to join the police force. Inspector Badwolf is tired of his cops being outdone by the mysterious White Knight (yeah, yeah, I made Darling into Victorian-era Batman). Couldn't the White Knight patrol Station 5's territory? (The answer is no, because Darling really wants to catch a glimpse of her twin and also because Sisters Boarding house is in Station 4's territory and sometimes she likes to secretly crash with her girlfriend).

3. The Destiny Cycle AU (AKA: Ever After High but the Rebel Movement is an actual Rebellion AU):

What it says on the tin. Raven discovers the book is fake before Legacy Day. Her and Dexter, who in this AU is believed to be Ashlynn's future Prince Charming because someone made a good post about the potential dynamics that could cause and I love it, set out to uncover what other secrets those in charge are hiding.

Basically, in this AU Ever After is a dystopia where the Royal Families tied the survival of their dynasties' rule to their stories. Like, magically tied them. The Fates themselves have been bound by the magic of the Destiny Cycle. Ever After's Destiny-bound citizens are forced to repeat the same stories as their ancestors, all because Happily Ever After doesn't include a revolt or the institution of democracy. All stories are repeated as a precaution against anyone figuring out what the ancestors of the Royal Families did.

Taking some inspiration from the SDCC Raven Queen doll's letter from her mother, the Evil Queen discovered the truth about the Destiny Cycle, said "not my kid you bastards", and proceeded to try to break the Cycle's bonds. Her taking over other stories and cursing Wonderland was an attempt to stretch the probability bonds of the Destiny Cycle's magic to the breaking point.

Stuff's gonna go down and basically these kids know time is running out until there's a war, cause the only way to avoid being offered up as a lamb to the slaughter is to overthrow the whole system.

God, I really gotta make this into it's own post as well now. But here's a basic rundown of some stuff I'd include:

Dexter and Raven being young and in love and just all the secret romance feels

Snow White knows about the Destiny Cycle, but Apple absolutely does not know.

Apple being born blonde is a sign that the Evil Queen's schemes loosened the grip of the Destiny Cycle, at least for a moment.

Ashlynn, Hunter, Dexter, and Raven as secret rebel leaders.

The backgrounders will have actual roles dammit! (Looking at you Lawrence Bonecrusher III, aka Orc Boy).

An exploration of artificial Destiny Cycle "True Love" vs. real True Love, featuring Apple, Daring, and Darling.

C.A. Cupid, sent by her godly family to infiltrate Ever After and cure it of the Destiny Cycle, because it's interfering in the domains of the gods.

A unique Monster High crossover idea that I will elaborate on in another post.

These children absolutely end up having to kill someone and it scars them forever.

As for different destinies AUs or Star Wars AUs, I haven't really given them much thought.

I think, in a Star Wars setting (possibly Old Republic?), Raven would be a Jedi padawan descended from a long line of Sith. Instead of Mirror Prison, her mom is dead and her Force Ghost is bound to a giant, mirrorlike piece of kyber crystal. Uh, not 100% sure who her master would be.

Darling would also be a Jedi padawan, and Maid Marian would be her Master. Maid Marian gets into custody battles over this kid with this old Jedi Watchman known only as The White Knight. She'd still have her time-slowing hair flip, in this AU it's just a unique way of activating the Force Slow ability.

[ssecretgardens]

hey y’all! this is denver [sh/th, cst, also the mun of seo daon and do jihan] with ydh entertainment’s soloist noh saetbyeol / saena. you can find her career info here, her stats here, a pinterest board for her here & everything you need to know under the cut! as per usual, please like this post if you’re interested in plotting and i’ll come to you asap. ♥️

i.

tw for brief mentions of body image, disordered eating & a toxic mother-daughter relationship.

noh saetbyeol was born may 30, 1998 to an, uh… unwell single mother. her mom is a raging narcissist who had gone through a number of failed relationships/engagements/entanglements and ultimately decided that all she really needed was a child who would love her unconditionally. never told the father that she was pregnant, and saetbyeol never attempted to find him as she grew older.

early in life, it was pretty much saetbyeol and her mom against the world. there were occasional visits from other family members (saetbyeol’s parents and sister mostly), but again—her mom was a raging narcissist, and those relationships felt the affects of it as well so they didn’t come around much. for a while, she had her mom on a pedestal.

her mom had always kind of wanted to be an entertainer, but never had the confidence to actually pursue it considering she isn’t/never was conventionally pretty. but her daughter was! never put a ton of pressure on saetbyeol to do well academically (which was nice) but did push her to take dance and vocal lessons and to take them seriously (which was less nice). umm… eventually saetbyeol learned to like it! it made mom happy, so it made her happy—however, the older she got & the better she got at performing, the more her mom would criticize her body/looks. was always trying to “help her” look better through providing smaller meal portions and giving unsolicited advice. naturally, their relationship had started to deteriorate.

attended numerous auditions starting at age 15, never got signed. still, she was working with professionals to continue to strengthen her singing & dancing skills and eventually she was good enough to get a spot on some fucking competition show as an “independent trainee”. her mom encouraged her *not* to do it and instead to continue looking for a company that would take her right away, but she decided to go through with it anyway. was one of the most popular picks amidst people voting at home, but was less popular with the actual panelists/judges on the show and ultimately didn’t make the cut but was immediately picked up by ydh. trained for eight months before she debuted.

had a burst of popularity in the first ~year of her career, went viral a couple times & picked up a majority of the fanbase that she still has today. however, has struggled to reach *that* level of success since—has yet to have another song go viral, is pretty well-recognized and most people who hear her name know who she *is* but she’s not really bringing in new fans like she used to. present-day, she’s trying to figure out what her next move should be to get a little more attention/popularity. also attempting to move away from the aegyo-centric image and concept she’s (mostly) stuck to so far while needing to find some other point of appeal.

ii.

publicly, saetbyeol is incredibly upbeat. most of her songs speak of bravery, hope, self-love & confidence, and her personality mirrors it well. she comes off as this happy, sweet girl who doesn’t doubt herself for a second—she’s always smiling, she always has something nice to say, and she’ll do any aegyo or fanservice that’s asked of her in a second. seems incredibly genuine and is generally seen as a role model of sorts for young women & girls.

but most people who know saetbyeol personally probably know her as… well, a raging bitch. because she is a raging bitch. used to be, anyway—very recently, she became self-aware and realized she needs to treat people better. before that, she was a nightmare. at best, she was passive-aggressive and high maintenance; at worst, she was confrontational and condescending.

admittedly, she has a *lot* to unlearn and it’s going to take some time. still has an attitude ad tends to treat people a little unfairly, but has gotten really into journaling as a means to understand herself and her feelings more deeply. it’s helped calm her down a little bit. has looked into therapy but isn’t quite ready to take that big of a leap yet.

is and always has been pretty lonely. nowadays, she’s putting a lot of effort into meeting new people and making genuine friends. can seem a bit overzealous, like she’s trying too hard to fit in or pay attention or even *be interested* in other people. again, baby steps… but she’s trying!!! and maybe it’ll work!!!

iii.

open to any & all plots, but here are some thoughts to get the ball rolling:

a younger/newer idol who used to look up to her, but was quickly disillusioned when they met her. now that she’s on this self-improvement kick, she feels like they deserve an apology.

a mean girl friend… someone she’s spent countless nights shit-talking others with. of course, that wasn’t all that there was to the friendship, but… well, it was a lot of it. and saetbyeol doesn’t really want to be that way anymore, so she’s started slowly breaking away from her—is there any resistance? does she think that saetbyeol thinks she’s above her now?

a friend who was always genuinely too good for saetbyeol but stuck around through it all anyway. maybe they saw that she needed someone who actually meant well in her corner or maybe their low self-esteem wouldn’t let them break away from her; whatever the case, she’s hurt their feelings a hundred times and doesn’t feel like she could ever truly make up for it. they swear that it’s okay and they forgive her. do they mean it?

an ex whom saetbyeol treated as an accessory. she swears that she truly loved them, but they never felt it—she was always focused on her phone when they were together & diminished their feelings any time they tried to talk about being hurt. recently, she’s been trying to come back into their life & they’re suspicious of her intentions.

new friends who feel a little perplexed by saetbyeol. on one hand, she is nice—on the other, she kind of seems like she doesn’t really give a fuck when they’re talking. maybe it’s all in their head?

idol-actresses or actors whom she’s met at auditions / someone she is/was interested in who had heard of what a bitch she is and won’t give her the time of day because of it / idols she really admires (worships the ground that her haute pink bias walks on, probably trying to become a part of her inner circle) / etc etc!

[itsthenovelteafactor]

lucy & holly in the show

contains spoilers for season one of lockwood and co and the hollow boy

i’m curious how a second season of lockwood and co would develop lucy and holly’s dynamic given the differences in lucy’s character in the show and how she interacts with other women - a bunch of musings/rambling incoming.

(i adore both versions with my whole heart)

in the books a lot of lucy’s arc is unlearning her internalized misogyny (specifically the idea that girls cannot be both feminine and strong and her nlog tendencies). it’s done in a way i think is very thoughtful - her judgement of other woman is clearly born from an insecurity in her own femininity brought on by starting work very young and constantly being told being an effective agent is the only thing that should matter to her (i believe it’s her mother that tells her “pretty is not your profession”). she has a knee jerk resentment of holly and kat because of this, because if they *can* succeed in both being effective agents and traditionally feminine, that means that it is possible and she, lucy, is in some way lacking. all this coupled with a burgeoning attraction to lockwood and she’s suddenly hyper aware of and sensitive about all the ways she isn’t elegant or refined or graceful (and completely unaware of that fact that lockwood likes her because she’s lucy, and because she’s brave and kind and challenges him). it’s a really well done arc, and if i hadn’t known going in, i would’ve assumed the series was written by a woman based on how nuanced and empathetically its written (honestly major props and kudos to j stroud for that one).

this isn’t, however, an aspect of lucy’s personality in the show. she’s still judgmental, prickly, and very much *lucy*, but it isn’t pointed specifically at the other female characters in the same way (she snipes at flo, but not in a way that is different from how she snipes at kipps or george, and doesn’t single kat out at all). this change actually makes sense to me, largely because lucy in the show is supposed to be 16, as opposed to her book counterpart, who is 13/14 at the beginning of the series. the same arc would be harder to pull off, because so much of it is tied to the particular moment we meet her in the books, and would have made show lucy look immature in a way that is less understandable (not to mention that while lucy as a narrator only really describes herself through the lens of her insecurities, the shows audience can see that ruby stokes is quite conventionally attractive). they also spend more time in the beginning establishing a meaningful friendship between her and norrie, and her having an important female friend prior to holly would change their dynamic. however, for the plot of the hollow boy to work properly, we still need that conflict between holly and lucy, and while it could just be a case of there being resentment about lucy feeling replaced, i had a few thoughts of other ways it could be developed that might be interesting to explore with these versions of the characters.

lucy is hostile to holly because she is still dealing with what happened to norrie and on some level feels like making another female friend would be disloyal or replacing her in some way. in this scenario, they could tie in those voice recordings she’s been sending to norrie, and use the moment at the end when holly and lucy realize they had similar trauma to resolve the conflict. holly’s been in a similar situation and she can finally talk about norrie in a way she hasn’t been able to with lockwood and george. you could have moments where lucy and holly are getting along and lucy is somehow reminded of norrie and instantly shuts down/goes back to being very businesslike. i think this would make sense and feel true to lucy of the show while also fitting into the hollow boy really well.

lucy’s mother in the show is more explicitly abusive than in the books, and she could be hostile to holly because she thinks she’s trying to “mother” her in some way. book lucy has a decent if strained relationship with her family, and sisters she’s close to. show lucy, however, was both verbally and physically abused and forced to run away (side note: i can’t see show lucy visiting her family like in the book, but think it’d be really touching to have her go visit norrie in the hospital, which could also make her a lot more vulnerable emotionally when she and holly first meet). this one could play out in a similar way to the books, with the final resolution being a moment of lucy realizing holly is just a scared kid like her (maybe a nice callback to her line in season one about being scared all the time). i also like this one because it could get more into the trauma of the kids who are forced into leadership/parentified positions too young, and maybe also echo some of kipps’ arc as well.

the show’s characterization of joplin is a bit different than in the books, and given the guilt lucy harbors for how everything with george went down at the end of season one, she could be very touchy about anyone new joining the group and knowing anything about what they are doing. i could totally see her watching holly and george get along and getting very protective, in the process unintentionally making george feel like she doesn’t trust his judgement anymore (which could set up some of the same protective feelings that lead her to leave at the end of the hollow boy).

anyway these are just my ideas and i’d be curious to hear other people’s thoughts!

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Pleasure Is My Business: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.1k

Summary: You’re brought back to your high school days with this case. You put that behind you when you graduated, but life has a funny way of bringing you closer to the person who made your life miserable back then.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

x

"The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture." - Camille Paglia

Before you leave for work, you grab the coffee you premade as soon as you wake up. The coffee is right next to your high school reunion invitation. The opened card stares at you whenever you pass by it, begging you to acknowledge it. High school was one of the worst years of your life because not only did kids bully you, but you felt their own pain as your own.

It wasn't fun.

This reunion is in a few days but you're still in Quantico. Looks like you won't get to go, and honestly, you're kind of relieved. Spencer wants you to go and prove to everyone you're this hotshot FBI agent (which you are), but you don't feel like proving to a bunch of people who never gave a fuck about you in the first place.

"Are you gonna go?" Spencer says from behind you.

"We'll, seeing how it's in a few days and we're not in Dallas, I don't think so. It's so stupid because instead of a night, they made it a whole weekend getaway. As if I want to spend more time with them than I have to."

"Maybe you can go to the other one."

All you can do is shrug. You really don't want to get into this right now, plus, you have to get ready for a case Hothc pulled together. Hotch got called to Dallas early in the morning to do a briefing on a case sent by Patrick Jackson, the attorney general.

Hoyt Ashford, a hedge fund manager for a major bank, has turned up dead in a hotel room. Hoyt didn't do too well in the public eye after going on talk shows and talking about how the real estate crisis wasn't a real thing. He posted an apology video about the issue, but once word got out that he died, his lawyers classified it as a suicide.

If you know any better, then that's not true.

According to Hotch, there was Viagra near Hoyt's body. Considering that his wife was at home with the kids, it's safe to assume the prostitute he was with killed him. Something that's confidential and not to be mentioned in any reports is that Hoyt took $10,000 out of a fund in cash. No one saw the prostitute he was with, which isn't surprising since they know how to be discreet. According to Patrick, this is the second murder in Dallas.

You might be able to attend your reunion after all.

"Female serial killers are a fascinating field," Spencer says once everyone is in the air. "We don't have much information on them, but what we do know involves throwing the rules completely out the window. Take the signature, for instance. They don't torture or take trophies because there is no sexual gratification when a woman kills. Murder is the goal. They don't have to do anything extra."

"So, basically, women are more efficient at killing," you half-joke.

"Historically, they have had body counts in the hundreds."

"Assuming that the job is the stressor, what are some of the reasons prostitutes kill their customers?" Hotch asks over the phone.

"Money, drugs, and PTSD. At some point, every call girl, no matter how well paid, gets coerced into an activity she didn't consent to. Aileen Wuornos used to purposefully stage paid sexual encounters as an excuse to murder men she thought would rape her," you explain.

"Wuornos was psychotic and disorganized. I think this girl is poisoning them before she has sex with them."

"She's using Tetramethylenedisulfotetramine. It's a popular rat poison in China which can be easily soluble in alcohol," Spencer explains after reading the files Hotch sent over.

"Poison is the perfect MO. It's quiet, quick, and the victims never see it coming because they think they're getting lucky." Hotch makes an uncertain noise. "Does that mean something to you?"

"These men are paying $10,000 a night for discretion as well as sex. She has a history with them. She didn't decide to kill them at the moment. She walks in with the intent to kill them, and she's doing it before she sleeps with them. She's not just organized, she's also methodical. She decides early which one of her clients is worth killing," Hotch says.

"Maybe the victims all share the same fetish. Both victims were in their fifties, highly visible, and careful of their image. If they were kinky in the same way, they'd go to great lengths to hide it."

"We're facing a corporate culture that'll do everything it can to keep us out."

"Actually, I had some luck there. Hoyt's wife isn't too happy with how he died. She agreed to talk to us but because every silver lining has a dark cloud, the hedge fund released a statement." JJ pulls out her phone to read the statement that was sent to her. "Ashford died peacefully in his home, according to lawyer David Madison.' They're already trying to close ranks."

"Does that language sound familiar to anyone else?" Spencer asks.

"What do you mean?"

"It's the same thing as the murder of the first victim. 'According to the company lawyer, Stanton died peacefully in his home'."

"Y/N and Morgan, start with the wife and see if you can get her to open up. JJ, call the lawyers and tell them I want to meet with both of them."

"You want to play them off each other?"

"I think one of them wrote both press releases. Let's see which one calls us back."

Once you land, you and Derek head over to the Ashford home where Yvonne Ashford is eagerly waiting for you.

"Mrs. Ashford, we're very sorry about your husband," you say.

"I've been getting nothing but condolences all day. I feel like a hypocrite for accepting them, knowing how he died."

"We think your husband might have been targeted because of something sexual he did with this call girl. I know this is hard, but is there anything you can tell us about what he liked?"

"In bed? I can sum it up in one word. Younger."

"How much younger?"

"Twenty-five. That was when I first met him."

"So, your age difference was part of the attraction?"

"Are you kidding? It was the whole relationship."

"Mrs. Ashford, no offense, but your husband spent a lot of money on this woman. Was there anything else at all that he liked from a younger woman besides the ego boost?" Derek asks.

"There's a certain kind of man, Agent, for whom the only kind of sex that matters is the ego boost. In a marriage like ours, you have to work at it or in my husband's case, pay for it."

Your phone rings and you step off to the side when you see Hotch is calling.

"Yeah, Hotch?"

"We got a meeting with a madame that sets meetings up like the one Ashford was in. Spencer is heading over to meet with her. I want you to go with him."

"Sure." You hang up and walk over to Derek. "I got to go. See what else you can find out about Hoyt."

"Yeah."

The madame, Lauren, is hosting an open house where she is able to meet clients discreetly. It's actually pretty smart since people might think they're there for the open house instead of something else entirely.

"This is actually pretty smart," you say when you meet up with Spencer. "Properties like this are safe and an inspection-free investment for large sums of cash."

An older woman walks out of the house with a big smile on her face.

"Well, hello, you two!"

"Are you the--"

"Isn't this neighborhood just fabulous? You're gonna love this house," she cuts your boyfriend off. She escorts you two inside the house for more privacy. "You two need lessons in faking it. I teach a class."

"So, you arrange dates for escorts?" you ask.

"All I arrange are meetings. What happens between two consenting adults when that meeting is over is something I'm not liable for. Now, who wants a scone?" she offers from a platter.

"Listen, we're looking for someone who is a high-end prostitute who takes fees up to ten thousand dollars. She has the intent of killing her clients before having sex with them."

"Oh, yes. We all know about this woman. She's terrible for business."

"I guess there's only so many men that can afford the service you provide, right?"

"Yes, but with the way she's behaving, she's only hurting herself. An escort's client list is the most important investment she has. It's her daily income and her retirement package when she sells the list."

"She's not working with a service then. No madam would allow an escort to kill off the clientele."

"What about the type of work your employees do?" Spencer asks nervously. "We're sort of operating under the assumption that this escort is killing men who make her perform a specific sexual act."

"What did you have in mind, sweetie?" she smirks.

"I... I don't even... I don't know."

"Don't mind him," you giggle. "It's his first time."

"If I may, I think you're looking at this all wrong. Start with this question: why would a man pay a woman five figures?"

"It's not just for sex, is it?"

"Of course, you've got to be good in bed to be successful, but that's the easy part. What men want more than the no strings attached sex is a therapist. Someone who will absorb the worst parts of their personalities."

"They're looking for someone to tell their fears and insecurities to. Everything they can't take home to their wife."

"That's what I groom my girls to do--how to talk to these men and how to listen. Don't get me wrong, deviancy comes with the territory. I can't tell you how many men need to be submissive as an outlet from their extremely stressful jobs. I can tell you that if the sex was the reason she was killing these men, she would have broken long before she charged $10,000."

"It isn't how these men act in bed, it's how they act out of it," Spencer says.

This unsub isn't killing at a specific time because it's whenever her client wants to meet with her. While you've been talking to Lauren, another murder has taken place. You and Spencer leave the open house and immediately head over to an office firm.

Joseph Fielding is found dead inside the elevator, tied to an office chair with X's marked in lipstick on his eyes, and clear tape wrapped around all over his mouth.

"The victim is Joseph Fielding. He was the CFO here," Rossi says when you two get there.

"Was he poisoned?"

"Yes, and staged. She killed him in his office and then rolled him out here to be found."

You walk over to the victim but pause when you see the energy left behind by the unsub. It's blue because the unsub is a female, but you recognize this energy. There are eight billion people in this world with eight billion different base energies. Every single person you've met has their own energy signatures, and you're familiar with this one. Not only have you seen this energy before, you know the person attached to it.

You've met and gotten to know this person before.

"I know this unsub," you say.

"You do?" Hotch asks.

"Yeah, but I can't put a name to it yet. I've definitely seen it sometime in my life."

Hotch gives you time to put a name to the unsub, but for right now, he focuses on what he can see physically.

"The lipstick is new."

"It was done postmortem. Reid said female serial killers don't leave a signature. I think she did that just for us. She's already exposed him at his most vulnerable. Now she wants to be noticed."

There is commotion by the barrier formed by local police by a man trying to get through, which he does eventually.

"Which one of you is Aaron Hotchner?"

"Me."

"I'm Larry Bartlett. I represent Mr. Fielding in Webster Industries."

"This is a closed crime scene, Mr. Bartlett."

"I know. I spoke to Ellen Daniels, and she said you're a very reasonable man."

"Escort him out, please," Hotch says to one of the officers.

"No, wait. Please." The officer tries to grab him, but he doesn't leave right away. "The press is outside and they can smell blood. Is there any way we can handle this discreetly?"

"We're not about to lie for you," Derek says.

"You don't have to lie. Just don't comment."

"Excuse us."

Hotch takes the team off to the side to talk about the benefits of not commenting on the murder. "Is there any reason to go public yet?"

"Validating her is exactly what she wants. If we hold back, she's more likely to make a mistake," you say quietly.

"He doesn't need to know that. We need everything you have on Fielding like bank accounts, tax records, and emails."

"Everything?" Larry asks in uncertainty.

"Everything."

"I'll gather everything and send it in the morning."

x

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