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

[tacroyy]

losing my shit about the two times vimes gets slapped by a woman in the guards books (night watch and snuff; spoilers for both below). terry pratchett is completely goddamn brilliant.

both times, it's near enough to the beginning of the plot that vimes is partially convinced he doesn't know what's going on and is still information gathering (so, working a little on autopilot, although thoughts are starting to coalesce). the women he encounters show up after a watershed moment—major transformative plot points on both occasions—and both help him and help move the narrative along with the information they provide. and this is my favorite detail—he's tired both times, too, and just needs to think, because of the amount of new information he's processing.

from night watch:

"I think perhaps I lost my memory when I was attacked," he said. That sounded good, he thought. What he really needed now was somewhere quiet, to think.

"Really? Perhaps I'm the Queen of Hersheba," said Rosie [Palm]. "Just remember, kind sir. I'm not doing this because I'm interested in you, although I'd admit to a macabre fascination about how long you're going to survive. If it hadn't been a cold wet night I'd have left you in the road. I'm a working girl, and I don't need trouble. But you look like a man who can lay his hands on a few dollars, and there will be a bill."

"I'll leave the money on the dressing table," said Vimes.

The slap in the face knocked him against the wall. /end quote

and from snuff:

She [Felicity Beedle] turned to Vimes. "It would seem, commander, that providence has brought you here in time to solve the murder of the goblin girl, who was an excellent pupil. I came up here as soon as I heard, but the goblins are used to undeserved and casual death. I"ll walk with you to the entrance, and then I've got a class to teach."

Vimes tugged at Feeny to make him keep up as they followed Miss Beedle and her charge toward the surface and blessed fresh air. He wondered what had become of the corpse. What did they do with their dead? Bury them, eat them, throw them on the midden? Or was he just not thinking right, a thought which itself had been knocking at his brain for some time. Without thinking, he said, "What else do you teach them, Miss Beedle? To be better citizens?"

The slap caught him on the chin, probably because even in her anger Miss Beedle realized that he still had his steel helmet on. /end quote

vimes makes mistakes. he makes mistakes all the time, and he knows this, and pays attention to them. vimes spends a lot of time thinking about thinking (engaging in productive, internally motivated metacognition well within his zone of proximal development, my master's in teaching insists i say). he thinks about his thinking, and he thinks about other people's thinking through the lens of his own.

in both instances, vimes is coming to realizations about the true nature of things.

in night watch, this would initially seem to be more surface than deep: he's getting to physical grips with exactly when and where (and who) in the past he is; he's learning the ground, mapping, figuring things out—but vimes is also trying to settle himself back in to what he knows, and what society is in these different times, to see if that fits. plotwise, in vimes's present, the seamstresses have a guild, rights, safety, standards, rules, regulations, and even societal respect—although certainly not close to what they deserve, it's much more than what they had before vetinari made their guild a reality. but in the past, where vimes is now, the seamstresses don't have this level of security, and are subject to violence (although it is shown to be societal and legal violence [being arrested for working during their profession's peak, etc] rather than interpersonal or sexual violence [the agony aunts exist and, it is clearly stated, dispense the same justice that they do in the future, specifically to individual clients rather than to larger institutional structures]).

so, when vimes puts down rosie by making a disparaging joke about her profession—oh, you're actually not important to me or to men or to society at all; your labor is not to be respected; i got what i needed from you and will of course pay you, but in the most insulting way possible—he's not only communicating what society thinks, but a moral issue of the novel as well. night watch, after all, is about revolution: who gets to be in power, and who gets to control who gets to be in power? it's frankly revolutionary for pratchett, a mainstream english author, to treat sex workers and sex work as positively as he does (of course, his depictions are not without flaws). he makes it clear that, after all, shouldn't we view sex work as physical labor? isn't it true that anyone who is employed is engaging in physical labor? how is a seamstress really different from a "seamstress"? (it's the power dynamics and misogyny standard to western/european/american/christian society: women and sex must be controlled by the patriarchial majority, kept small and afraid and in chains.) pratchett legitimizes the seamstresses in vimes's present. in vetinari's ankh-morpork, the seamstresses have just as much power as the merchants, the armorers, the assassins—and vimes knows this, but he did grow up in the past he's in now.

in snuff, vimes's approaching anagnorisis is more obviously manifested. brilliantly, pratchett begins vimes's encounter with the goblins by talking about vimes's childhood teacher, mistress slightly, who "taught [him] how not to be afraid" and made him blackboard monitor, "the first time anyone had entrusted him with anything;" vimes thinks he'll put a bag of peppermints on her grave if he gets out of this alive. all positive, and in fact clearly transformative, praise from our hero. but vimes is in a goblin cave, and pratchett has brought up mistress slightly because vimes is remembering his first (educational, not physical) encounter with goblins. this paragraph is worth quoting in full:

"[Mistress Slightly] had one book in her tiny sitting room, and the first time she had given it to young Sam Vimes to read he had got as far as page seven when he froze. The page showed a goblin: the jolly goblin, according to the text. Was it laughing, was it scowling, was it hungry, was it about to bite your head off? Young Sam Vimes hadn't waited to find out and had spent the rest of the morning under a chair. These days he excused himself by remembering that most of the other kids felt the same way. When it came to the innocence of childhood, adults often got it wrong. In any case, she had sat him on her always slightly damp knee after class and made him really look at the goblin. It was made of lots of dots! Tiny dots, if you looked closely. The closer you looked at the goblin the more it wasn't there. Stare it down and it lost all its power to frighten. 'I hear that they are wretched, badly made mortals,' the dame had said sadly. 'Half-finished folk, or so I hear. It's only a blessing this one had something to be jolly about.'"

a near-perfect depiction, unfortunately, of the educational experience. encounter something that scares you and makes you uncomfortable, examine it with the help of a pedagogist, examine it on your own, take it apart so that you are not afraid anymore, and instead understand what it is and how it is made: that's the experience from the first word of the quote all the way until "Stare it down and lost all its power to frighten." and then, a heel-turn: your teacher shows that they completely misunderstood the lesson they were teaching—and that you, the child, understood both parts of the lesson perfectly: you absorbed the critical thinking skills and that this existing societal prejudice is, in fact, totally correct and should not be examined using the skills you just learned.

thus, pratchett has vimes, our hero, our moral center, spout the violent, ingrained, dehumanizing, incitement-to-genocide nonsense of the society in which he has been formed. vimes does this tiredly, without thinking, without making the connection between how things are and how they ought to be, missing the direct relationship of that required moral reevaluation to the case and situation at hand. and pratchett throws that directly back in vimes's face, physically. both times, pratchett says: even if you're tired, even if there's shit going down, even if your worldview is being turned upside down, even if you're in the dead middle of processing everything you've so recently learned, you cannot make the mistake of dehumanization/depersonalization. and you, of all people, have to know that, vimes. not one drop of alcohol passes your lips, not one minute after six goes by without you reading to your son, not one arrestee is subjected to even small or casual police brutality. and not one person—seamstress or goblin—is to be insulted and discriminated against and excluded from deserving to live. to do so, to make that mistake even once, is to face the immediate physical consequences of it from someone deeply and fundamentally in the know. you need the sense smacked into you.

from night watch:

"Consider that a sign of my complete lack of a sense of humor, will you?" said Rosie, shaking some life back into her hand.

"I'm... sorry," said Vimes. "I didn't mean to... I mean... look, thak you for everything. I mean it. But this is not being a good night."

"Yes, I can see that."

"It's worse than you think. Believe me."

"We all have our troubles. Believe me," said Rosie. /end quote.

from snuff:

It was a corker, nonetheless, and out of the corner of his stinging gaze he saw Feeny take a step back. At least the boy had some sense.

"You are the gods' own fool, Commander Vimes! No, I'm not teaching them to be fake humans, I'm teaching them how to be goblins, clever goblins! Do you know that they have only five names for colors? Even trolls have around sixty, and a lot more than that if they find a paint salesman! Does this mean goblins are stupid? No, they have a vast number of names for things that even poets haven't come up with, for things like the colors shift and change, the melting of one hue into another. They have single words for the most complicated of feelings; I know about two hundred of them, I think, and I'm sure there are a lot more! What you may think are grunts and growls and snarls are in fact carrying vast amounts of information! They're like an iceberg, commander: most of them is where you can't see or understand, and I'm teaching Tears of the Mushroom and some of her friends so that they may be able to speak to people like you, who think they are dumb. And do you know what, commander? There isn't much time! They're being slaughtered! It's not called that, of course, but slaughter is how it ends, because they're just dumb nuisances, you see. Why don't you ask Mr. Upshot what happened to the rest of the goblins three years ago, Commander Vimes?"

And with that, Miss Beedle turned on her heel and disappeared down into the darkness of the cave with Tears of the Mushroom bobbing along behind her, leaving Vimes to walk the last few yards out into the glorious light. /end quote.

[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

[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.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

I think something that we need to keep in mind is that Buddy Daddies is taking place in Japan. Not a fantasy setting or idealized depiction of Japan, but just real ol’ Japan. 

So a lot of shitty things happening to the female characters and the female characters in the series being placed in positions where they don’t have agency and power is likely being done on purpose. Why? Because the power that women hold in Japan isn’t much. They are still fighting for that, immensely.

Like, Japan’s gender equality ranking keeps getting higher (aka it keeps getting worse). It’s better than some previous generations for sure (and better than some other countries), but Japan went from ranking #74th in 2020, #80 in 2021, #103 in 2022, and now #104 in 2023, this is out of 190 countries. 

Kazuki and Rei are involved with an Organization that is male dominated. There isn’t a single female assassin in sight, Rei’s mother is non-existent, and wives, girlfriends, and girls (like Miri) are targeted because of their mere existence and bonds to these male assassins being viewed as a threat. Miri being non-blood related is also another reason why she is targeted, but her being a girl (and likely viewed as useless by Shigeki since, like I noted, we haven’t seen a single female assassin) is another. 

Men who don’t fit in or try to deflect from this Organization and the things it stands for, also become targets. Because they, too, are viewed as threats. They are viewed as traitors. Japan is still in a place, in regards to women’s equality, where men are the ones that have to support and speak up for women, in order to make the room and space for female voices to be heard loudly and for women in general to gain more power and control and agency over themselves.

There are, of course, many Japanese women fighting for all of this right now. They aren’t helpless, but the society they are navigating and fighting their way through, was not built for them to have the level of power as men. They really need the support of men, in the same way that any minority group ultimately needs the support of a majority group in order for their own voices to be properly heard. With Buddy Daddies, the Organization and Shigeki represent tradition. They represent “blood purity” and things remaining unchanged - in this case, men being in positions of power and traditional blood bound families that can produce blood-bound heirs. 

That is the world that keeps harming the women in this series, and that is the world that Kazuki and Rei are leaving. That’s the world that is viewed as being incorrect, wrong, and villainous. 

Meanwhile, the world that showed Kazuki and Rei that they could change is the one that is dominated by women - childcare. But, unlike the Organization, the world of Miri’s daycare is open to others - the head of the daycare is an older man, there was one male daycare worker at field day, Kazuki and Rei were accepted at the daycare, during field day you can see old, young, and Taiga’s parents who are “delinquents”. Women’s voices are heard. Miss Anna is depicted as strong. Miri is shown having agency, making decisions, being in a leadership role (both in Episode 6 when she leads her friends around the zoo to find Miss Anna and again in Episode 9 when she makes the field day speech). The mom’s shout and are loud (field day), we see them expressing themselves in various interesting ways in the mom chats. 

And it is only after Kazuki and Rei start stepping into this world, where learning, changing, growing, and accepting the non-traditional and unconventional are openly accepted that we start to really see them both grow and change too. 

Buddy Daddies writing isn’t perfect. I personally don’t like the whole “overprotective dad” stuff and I do feel that we should have gotten another episode between E10 and E11. Some of the events in E11 do feel rushed in their execution. Though I have seen far worse.

But the series is making some points. Kazuki and Rei are two men that are shown to be fully capable of caring for a child. There are some learning bumps along the way, but they are able to do it in the end. Many of the men who are part of Buddy Daddies, like the VAs, talk about how this is a series that men should watch, because more men need to be like Kazuki or learn to grow and put in the effort like Rei. 

Men in Japan (and like in many other parts of the world too) don’t put in the same amount of time, effort, and care when it comes to childcare and childrearing as women do. Our protagonists are showing that they can and should though.

And they have chosen to continue existing and pursuing the world of fatherhood, a space where women have more of a voice and unconventional family dynamics are welcomed, rather than stay in the world of assassination where men dominate and blood is what matters. 

If the series does go in the direction that many think it will, then Kazuki and Rei (likely along with the help of Kyutaro) are going to be directly targeting and potentially killing the character that represents tradition, male domination, and a world where women and children are killed because they are viewed as both useless and a threat at the same time.

Does it suck that most of the women in the series have been fridged or exist to further the plot of the men (Kazuki and Rei)? Yes, it does. But I think we are meant to feel frustrated about that. We can see the cruelty and pointlessness, and feel the frustration at the powerlessness that they have. 

The series hasn’t wrapped up yet. Episode 12 could do something that totally destroys this reading. But, for now, this is what I’m getting from the series. One of the script writers, likely the main one at that, since she is a veteran and has a lot of series to her name, is a woman. So I would like to think that these things aren’t just happening because the plot calls for it (getting Misaki out of the way for Kazuki and Rei), but for more complex issues instead.

[eashn]

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. 

A/N - thank you for reading! these were wayyyy too fun to write so this might be the prelude to a bunch more collegeAU!kuroo stuff i do in the future. send me an ask or a message if you’d like to be added to a taglist for that! 

requests for haikyuu headcannons/drabbles are WIDE OPEN!!! send in an idea, and follow @eashn​ 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.

[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.

[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

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[evidence-based-activism]

So men claim that women have more body empowerment and that body shaming them is considered wrong. But Ik that it’s not true but I really only have anecdotal evidence. Or that women are more likely to be affected by ED and that they get more cosmetic procedures done. Do you have any evidence that body issue affects women more?

Indeed I do!

Some of this directly addresses self-reports of body image, but a lot of it is indirect evidence. In these cases we extrapolate a higher prevalence of body issues among women based on a different factor (eating disorders, cosmetic surgery use, etc.) that we can is logically associated with body image issues. (Academic research supports this association [12]).

The prevalence of eating disorders among women is at least twice the prevalence of eating disorders among men in the USA [1]

This difference in eating disorders prevalence may be closer to 3-4 times as many women than men when examined world-wide [2]

At age 6 to 10, girls start to worry about their weight, and by 14, 60 to 70% are trying to lose weight. [3]

This Italian study [4] found women showed greater dissatisfaction with their bodies than males in reference to both their own ideal and what they believe the opposite sex finds attractive. In addition, women's expectations of what men find attractive were further from men's actual ratings than men's expectations about what women find attractive were from women's actual ratings.

This Chinese study [5] found that women reported significantly less body appreciation than men. In addition, lower levels of body appreciation were correlated with more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidality but only for women. (That is, lower body appreciation in men was not associated with these indicators of distress.)

This meta-analysis [6] confirms the above results, indicating lower body appreciation among women.

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2022 women accounted for 93% of all cosmetic surgery procedures [7]. (Note: cosmetic surgery is a type of plastic surgery that is specifically not reconstructive and not medically necessary.)

The percent of cosmetic procedures performed on women has been increasing -- not decreasing, as suggested by some -- over time. This is particularly true for cosmetic surgical procedures which increased from 84% female to 94% female from 2005 to 2022. Over the same time frame, minimally invasive procedures increased from 89% to 93% female and total procedures increased from 88% to 93% female [7, 8].

Women spend significantly more time on minor body-modification behaviors (i.e., "beauty enhancing" behaviors like make-up use, hair styling, etc.) than men around the world [9*, 10*]. It's probable that these behaviors are self-reinforcing, such that "beauty enhancement" leads to less comfort with the natural body, exacerbating body image issues and instigating more "beauty enhancing" behaviors. (*See the reference section for additional notes on this topic.)

So, women both self-report more body image issues/less body appreciation and display behaviors strongly associated with body image issues (eating disorders and both major and minor body modification).

---

A related issue here is the hyper-sexualization of women and girls in society. The APA reports on the extent of this issue and the problems it causes, discussed below [11].

Hyper-sexualization of women and girls is found in every form of media and advertising, on the internet, in girl's toys, and in women's and girl's clothing. Examples include:

Sexualized depictions of women (and a lack of strong, female protagonists) in television, movies, music, video games, magazines, etc.

"Increasing sexualization of female athletes comparable to their overall increasing visibility."

Comparatively recent "production of “sexy” clothing in child and teen sizes" (for example "the thong, an item of clothing based on what a stripper might wear, is now offered in “tween” stores as well as children’s wear departments, often with decorations that will specifically appeal to children.")

"Young women and adult women are frequently, consistently, and increasingly presented in sexualized ways in advertising, creating an environment in which being female becomes nearly synonymous with being a sexual object"

"Much of the content of mainstream magazines geared toward adolescent girls and young women heavily emphasizes ... rigid norms of physical attractiveness through the consumption of products such as cosmetics and fashionable clothing"

Other sources of sexualization of girls comes from: parents, teachers, peers, and the self:

Parental interactions (i.e., body commentary, diet culture) with girls has a significant impact on self-image. Beyond that parents may directly contribute to the sexualization of their daughters by supporting/initiating activities like beauty pageants or cosmetic surgery.

"[Teachers] encouraged [girls] to play dress up more than boys and ... encouraged girls in their dress-up games to play at being sexualized adult women."

Male peers "mark" girls as sexual at a very young age and make "sexual commentary and evaluation in school."

"Sexual harassment by boys and men is a regular part of school and work life."

The APA also acknowledges that sexualization can be internalized and result in self-sexualization:

"Psychological researchers have identified self-objectification ... as a key process whereby girls learn to think of and treat their own bodies as objects of others’ desires."

"Many studies have demonstrated that girls and women self-objectify more than boys and men do"

Ultimately this sexualization is harmful to women and girls:

Girls are more susceptible than women to sexualized messaging

Research shows hyper-sexualization directly reduces women's and girl's mental and physical performance on various tasks (e.g., math performance, sports, etc.)

"Near-constant monitoring of appearance that accompanies self-objectification leads to increased feelings of shame about one’s body"

Sexualization is linked to: lower self-esteem, negative mood, depressive symptoms, and diminished sexual health among adolescent girls and young women.

Sexualization may "lead [women and girls] to accept more constrained and stereotypical notions about gender roles and sexual roles" and "may contribute to broader societal consequences, such as sexism, sex bias, and sexist attitudes"

The above link is particularly important since "numerous studies have shown a connection between stereotypical attitudes about women’s sexuality and aggressive sexual behavior." (As in sexual exploitation, harassment, and abuse of women and girls, e.g. "findings suggest that viewing sexualized portrayals of girls could lead viewers to associate children with sex".)

So, women and girls have more body image issues, and in addition to that our sociocultural landscape is directly contributing to (possibly creating/perpetrating) these issues. The (negative) effects of this social messaging extends beyond body image into general views and behaviors of and towards women and girls. Notably, we do not see similar objectifying messaging commonly produced and distributed about men and boys.

References under the cut:

Deloitte Access Economics. The Social and Economic Cost of Eating Disorders in the United States of America: A Report for the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders andthe Academy for Eating Disorders. June 2020. Available at:https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/striped/report-economic-costs-of-eating-disorders/.

Galmiche, M., Déchelotte, P., Lambert, G., & Tavolacci, M. P. (2019). Prevalence of eating disorders over the 2000–2018 period: A systematic literature review. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 109(5), 1402–1413. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqy342

Mehler, P. S., & Andersen, A. E. (Eds.). (2017). Eating disorders: A guide to medical care and complications (Third edition). Johns Hopkins University Press.

Gualdi-Russo, E., Rinaldo, N., Masotti, S., Bramanti, B., & Zaccagni, L. (2022). Sex differences in body image perception and ideals: Analysis of possible determinants. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(5), 2745. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19052745

Liu, Z.-H., Cai, H., Bai, W., Liu, S., Liu, H., Chen, X., Qi, H., Cheung, T., Jackson, T., Liu, R., & Xiang, Y.-T. (2022). Gender differences in body appreciation and its associations with psychiatric symptoms among chinese college students: A nationwide survey. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 771398. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.771398

He, J., Sun, S., Zickgraf, H. F., Lin, Z., & Fan, X. (2020). Meta-analysis of gender differences in body appreciation. Body Image, 33, 90–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.02.011

2022 Plastic Surgery Statistics . (n.d.). American Society of Plastic Surgeons. https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/plastic-surgery-statistics

2005 Plastic Surgery Statistics . (n.d.). American Society of Plastic Surgeons. https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/plastic-surgery-statistics

Kowal, M., & Sorokowski, P. (2022). Sex differences in physical attractiveness investments: Overlooked side of masculinity. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(7), 3842. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19073842

Kowal, M., Sorokowski, P., Pisanski, K., Valentova, J. V., Varella, M. A. C., Frederick, D. A., Al-Shawaf, L., García, F. E., Giammusso, I., Gjoneska, B., Kozma, L., Otterbring, T., Papadatou-Pastou, M., Pfuhl, G., Stöckli, S., Studzinska, A., Toplu-Demirtaş, E., Touloumakos, A. K., Bakos, B. E., … Zumárraga-Espinosa, M. (2022). Predictors of enhancing human physical attractiveness: Data from 93 countries. Evolution and Human Behavior, 43(6), 455–474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.08.003

Zurbriggen, E. L., Collins, R. L., Lamb, S., Roberts, T.-A., Tolman, D. L., Ward, L. M., & Blake, J. (2010). Sexualization of Girls 2010 (p. 72). American Psychological Association.

Presnell, K., Bearman, S. K., & Madeley, M. C. (2007). Body dissatisfaction in adolescent females and males: Risk and resilience. The Prevention Researcher, 14(3), 3–7. https://www.academia.edu/6035545/Body_Dissatisfaction_in_Adolescent_Females_and_Males_Risk_and_Resilience

*These studies support the assertion I made, however I have a significant issue with them I want to address. These studies indirectly or directly imply equivalence between all the "beauty enhancing" behaviors they report on. However, these behaviors range from acts necessary for health (hygiene, exercise, caring for diet) to behaviors with no other benefit/potential negative effects (such as makeup use and "looking at mirrors"). There was also insufficient clarity on what was included in each category (i.e., did they consider shaving to be a form of body hygiene?, is acne medicine or or other medical skin products included in cosmetics or hygiene?, etc.).

But, as an example, it's clear that comparing makeup use to cardio- or strength-exercise is a false equivalency. Exercise provides significant immediate and long term health benefits, whereas makeup has an at best neutral and most likely negative effect on physical and mental health. Equating them in order to create near-parity in "beauty enhancing" behaviors is disingenuous.

And on that note: (1) Despite this, even when including these pro-health behaviors (in [9] as an explicit attempt to find sex parity in behaviors), women were still found to spend significantly more time than men on "beauty" enhancing behaviors around the world. (2) When excluding exercise (and other health-promoting factors) from the analysis, this difference becomes even more extreme, indicating that most of the time men spend on "beauty" is on health-promoting factors where as most of the time women spend on "beauty" is on non-health-promoting factors. Indeed [9] indicates that women and men spent equal time on hygiene, men spent more time on cardio and strength exercise, and women spent more time on all other (non-health-promoting) behaviors. The supplementary materials for [10] indicate that women spend more time on "beauty enhancing" behaviors, but that men spend more time on exercise, indicating that removal of exercise would strengthen the effect of sex on these behaviors. Unfortunately, they do not provide an analysis of each individual factor.

[breath-of-void]

The Sea Beast vs Nimona

I'll preface by saying that these two movies do not need to be in competition with each other nor is the purpose of movies really to BE in competition with each other, but I noticed certain similarities in their messages that I think are worth pointing out. Particularly, I noticed that The Sea Beast does some incredible work where Nimona fails. Mainly, this will be praise for The Sea Beast with some comparisons tossed in for flavour.

The Sea Beast is a movie decrying the evils of blind nationalism while acknowledging the sacrifices of those that came before both in service of and against the system. As with many good movies, a myriad of comparisons can be drawn to modern day problems. While The Sea Beast seems pretty comfortably anti-war, it could also be a more general critique of the treatment of Others. This is where the comparison with Nimona comes in as it is also about the Other (though more specifically, it appears to be about transgender identities. Again, it could be any Other identity that the majority rejects).

I've expressed before that Nimona's lack of monsters hinders it because we don't really get to see the majority have to contend with them. Nimona is the first real monster anyone ever encounters and she promptly dies and is lauded as a hero. In The Sea Beast, there are monsters abound and they look very different from humans and from each other. On one hand, this is just good world and creature building, but on the more meta level, Other does in fact look different. Nimona is not wrong for this, but it seems to say that the Other looks just like you despite acting and BEING different. Again, not a bad thing, that is true. The Sea Beast's approach says that the Other does in fact look different and that can be scary, but 1) they are not a monolith; they look and act different from each other as well, and 2) they are just as capable of great intelligence and compassion.

The Sea Beast also establishes the career and legacies made from violence against the Other. Nimona does this as well, but it feels lackluster. In one of the most amazing movie "tricks" I have ever seen, The Sea Beast starts by indoctrinating the viewer into their world. It shows a child stranded after a Beast attack, a little girl reading stories of heroism against the monsters to her foster siblings, a mentorship bordering on fatherhood as one man still capable of so much compassion (sacrificing his thirty year goal to uphold a code) passes on his livelihood to the boy he rescued. Aboard the Inevitable, there are women in power, fraternity abundant, all manner of diversity and none of it is ever ridiculed or played for laughs; it's a good place where everyone is happy and proud to be there. And these are the "villains." Jacob "who killed five of them beasts in the span of two days" is our loveable oafish deuteragonist. It even shows the hardships that Captain Crow faces when the king and queen try to replace him. Compare this to Nimona where the Academy is very obviously evil from the start. It is shiny and monolithic and only Bal, an outsider, seems remotely likeable. Nimona starts you with the view from outside, while The Sea Beast starts you from inside.

Obviously The Sea Beasts... everything works better as an anti-war film, but other institutions are mirrored here. The Church can feel like a warm and loving place that is sometimes at war with itself and the powers that be, but it only seems that way because you belong. Every member has their own lives and families and hardships both in and outside of their religion, but that all coalesces into unjustified hatred of the Other. Of that which does not fit in. The Sea Beasts starts us off by showing how amazing and wonderful it is to be a part of the In Group and even shows them triumphantly slaying a beast... then it shows us Red's kind eyes. It shows how quickly leadership will cannibalize itself to harm something that it has always been told is harmful (that's something else I love, Captain Crow didn't start it, he's a victim too). It even shows those that profit directly from it (royalty) and those that profit from the sidelines (Batterbie). Again, more effective as anti-war, but still poignant. Where Nimona falters on this point is that the Director was the monolithic bad guy. She feared the unknown, yes, but the moment she attempted to hurt innocents, everyone turned against her. In the Sea Beasts, the crew continued to follow orders albeit less sure of themselves. It took heavy proof and an impassioned speech to get people to stop and think.

On that note, Red didn't sacrifice herself for anyone. She was willing to listen to reason and to not kill the captain, but she didn't need to prove her moral superiority. That was it, reason. If she killed him, then people continue thinking monsters are only capable of violence. Especially since it was obvious he was just as brainwashed as everyone else. In Nimona, with no prompting, she decides that it is her duty to fly headfirst into a monster killing laser to protect people who, just a moment ago were stoning her as she tried to kill herself. It was a preachy mess. How much more impactful would it have been if she took the one person that was kind to her and flew out of the way and let the people look on in horror as they realize what their leaders were willing to do to harm someone who was no threat to them?

In the end, The Sea Beast does a ton of leg work in just about ten minutes more to show the humanity of the oppressor and why they do what they do before stating definitely that it is no excuse. My absolute favourite thing it does is that it never goes back on Maisie's backstory. Her parents aren't actually on some island somewhere living alongside the Beasts all kumbaya, they actually are dead and they were killed by Beasts. Compassion is not a genetic trait. Maisie has as much right to hate and fear the Beasts as anyone else given what she has lost to them, same as Jacob, same as Crow and Sarah Sharpe... but she chose compassion. She learned and accepted and forgave with the knowledge that the Beasts aren't evil, just upset.

[crystallinestars]

FR I feel that if you tossed the Genshin guys into a romance sim, it would actually be pretty legit-looking. Now if only there were some sort of actual Genshin otome game 😭 (if I could romance Kaveh in such a game, I think I would die and go to heaven)

Yeahhh I feel that there is such a pattern among male and female characters. Like for female characters, I guess that the ones who are kind of more… “male-gazey” are less likely to be popular with women? Like in terms of both appearance and personality. Though even this is difficult to define. Ladies like Beidou and Dehya seem to be REALLY popular with girls, at least in the west (if I am wrong tho plz correct me). Even Navia (whose design I suppose shows a lot of skin) seems to be well-liked by guys and girls alike, I follow a girl on here who is absolutely crazy for her (and tbh I am no different 😭). To me I guess that for these three, they’re good role models for girls so that contributes to their appeal to women players? Cos they have strong, confident attitudes and kick hella ass, but they’re also kind + beautiful… so I suppose they’re like, people you could admire on an aesthetic and personal level but also you could aspire to be like them.

To be fair I like Lisa as I remember running around as her a lot when I first started playing (and chatting with her cai bot gets wild sometimes cos she’s always calling me out for like low self esteem, bad mentality, etc 😭😭), in general I like all of the girl characters ahahahah though for Lisa and many others I could def see how they’d have more appeal to guys.

And for guy characters, I’ve seen guy players admire Diluc and Alhaitham ! Like they have a sort of “masculine” appeal, aspirational for guys I think. I’ve even seen some guys on the Alhaitham subreddit start to hit the gym to become buff like him 😮 Sorry for digressing so much with this topic ahahah just that it is very interesting to consider.

My BF has been fueling my Kaveh love AHAHAHA like when I’m using his computer he lets me run around as Kaveh as I haven’t been able to pull for him yet. Now I have much more Kaveh merch than before but I think that I will try to amass even more…

Ooooo that makes sense, yeah cons do get pretty crowded esp in the areas like the artist alley where people are crowding around booths. And maybe it’s for the best that you avoid cons cos (TMI in advance) the con stink is REAL 😭🤢🤮 Though some of them apparently distribute deodorant or soap for attendees, hopefully it alleviates the smell…

Yeahhh Touhou is hella old, like the franchise is older than I am (I was born shortly before the first windows OS game in the series came out 🫡). I know that ZUN is still producing new official games about every 2-3 years, and for merch I see that there are fumo plushies for the newer characters coming out, a pleasant surprise. But I think the barrier of entry is much higher due to the nature of the games so it’s less “mainstream” for young people compared to Genshin, as Genshin you could easily download if you have phone, iPad, non-mac computer, etc. But from what I’ve seen, you could encounter stuff of the most popular characters at cons if you keep your eyes peeled.

On the topic of merch (crazy complaint incoming!!!)… so I posted a pic of my Kaveh haul somewhere and someone made a comment alluding to that ship. This was the first thing I saw this morning, and OMG I was so irritated that I straight up blocked this person 😭 Sadly I can’t remove their comment (this would be more ideal). I guess this is rather extreme reaction as the comment was harmless… though in the description I literally put some unhinged stuff about “oh me and Kaveh are gonna get married” so I was wondering how they did not get the hint that “oh, this person doesn’t care for that ship.” I am bewildered that the shippers are everywhere, feels bad cos in the community I’m in, most of them are so so sweet but majority of them are also shippers of that ship.

Like when I see an arbitrary pic of [any Genshin guy] or Aventurine, I don’t go “ooooh la la Lumine’s gonna get that” or “hehe Stelle or Topaz is gonna enjoy this” respectively… ofc this is first world “problem” but still… they tether Kaveh to feeble scholar so much 😭

Also I was on a small yumejoshi community and I found a girl who is also Kaveh enjoyer, and who also feels uncomfy with the shippy stuff. It was a pleasant surprise that there are other Kaveh likers with a similar POV to us, since from my observation I see that many of them like that one ship along with him.

This got so long and convoluted, I hope it is not difficult to read !!! It does not help that I am currently running on some 3 hours of sleep and a can of green tea (it has no effect on me). If there is anything that needs to be clarified plz let me know !

-🍓

Genshin girls in general are quite good, both on a design and personality level. Many of them are popular with women because, as you said, they look pretty while being badass. It also helps that the writing for female characters has improved significantly over the years, making them more fleshed out and complex.

I didn’t like Lisa’s flirtatious attitude at the start, but I have grown to love her a lot, and got excited whenever she appeared in events. I wish there was more of her, tbh. Navia is also my favorite Fontaine character overall! I saved for her so much.

I adore most of the Genshin ladies, actually. The only ones I dislike are Ei and Yae Miko.

Yeah, I think the cool and stoic type of male characters are more popular with guys. And I remember seeing that one guy on the Alhaitham sub! I wonder if he reached his goal?

I… never even thought about how stuffy and smelly cons would be. Lord, that makes me want to go even less. Ew 😣

I looked up when the first Touhou game came out, and it seems like it released the year I was born. So yeah, the franchise is hella old… But I thinks it’s nice that it still has fans even to this day. Even if it’s become harder to find fan content of it 😔

I’m so sorry you had to wake up to a comment alluding to That One Ship, especially since you simply wanted to share something you enjoy. The way a lot of shippers post obnoxious ship comments under art depicting a solo character is a serious problem. It’s very annoying to constantly be reminded of a ship you dislike, plus ruins the enjoyment you could have derived from the post itself. For whatever reason, I only see it happen for m/m and f/f ships.

It’s not wrong of you to block the person. If they make you uncomfortable, then the best thing to do is quietly block them. The Japanese and Chinese fandom communities often recommend to others to block liberally so they can create a safe space for themselves online and not see things they dislike. It’s all about protecting your mental health and having a comfortable space.

I am also sorry to say that a lot of people don’t check bios, or simply don’t care about your boundaries. Once, I had a few shippers of that ship follow me on Twitter despite my bio saying for fans of that ship to not follow me. Even after I made a tweet saying I’m uncomfortable with such individuals following me, one of them left a like and continued to follow me 😐 They knew but disrespected my boundaries, so I removed them.

It might seem harsh to block or remove people over ship differences, but in our modern era of toxic ship discourse and harassment, I don’t blame anyone for feeling triggered by certain ships or their fans. It’s much better to block a stranger online than subject yourself to psychological torture. The other person will forget about it in time, if they ever even find out you blocked them at all.

lol trust me when I say there are a much bigger number of Kaveh-lovers in the yume community who also don’t like his ship with a certain Scribe! I’m friends with a few of them. In fact, my entire social media circle is of Kaveh fans who like him exclusively with girls.

I feel like the Japanese and Chinese yume communities are better on that front compared to the English yume community. I try to stay away from English communities in general…

Sorry that my response also got so long. I hope you can get more than 3 hours of sleep tonight! The weekend is almost here, so here’s to hoping you can sleep in!

[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

CARMELITA MONTOYA FOX (SLY COOPER)

1.) Carmelita has always been portrayed as a sexy badass, but the fourth game in the series does her dirty. Throughout the game she’s given the “bitchy ex-girlfriend” treatment and is always regarded as an unreasonable nag. In addition, they put her in an impractical miniskirt (previous games had her in pants), and there is a minigame where she is forced to dress like a belly dancer to distract some guards (including prompting the player to have her shake her ass for extra coins) and when she complains about this, nobody listens to her, and is then reduced to the damsel in distress in the final act of the game, when previously she has always been a major help in taking down the final boss. While not the main reason a lot of Sly Cooper fans hate this game, it’s certainly a factor.

[sosuigeneris]

What are men in those circles looking for in a woman (not in India specifically but in general)

this answer will be more generalised. Not all men are like this but I would say majority.

Ambition is seen as desirable but to an extent. They want to be able to joke around “my wife runs this wellness company” bs but they don’t want you flying around the globe making it work. It’s going to be tough being at the peak of your career and be married to someone like this.

Education is also pretty huge. Most rich circles are right leaning. Parents do influence their children on what their “ideal” partner should look like. Serious business families (meaning, those not in entertainment) stress heavily on education level (should be at least undergrad), health, background, and ability to adapt. You need to be able to adapt to the environments you’ll be thrown in. You’ll encounter gossip (and the absolutely crazy kind), jealousy, backstabbing, performative support, crude remarks, fights (even physical ones), psycho family members and if you make the mistake of engaging or calling them out (rather than just politely dealing with it) you WILL be in hot water.

looks. If you look like a fashion nova model, out. If you look like a hippie, out. If you have crazy hair or really huge tattoos, out. Again, I’m generalising. Most rich girls who are not in entertainment tend to dress extremely casual - what really sets the outfit apart is that it’s casual stuff from high end brands, paired with a designer pendant or bag or shoes. You need to “show off” the right brand accessory, not the whole outfit. And when it’s time to shine like at a gala, you can really stand out.

there are elements of the trad wife that most of these guys want. They want someone attractive, who they can bring to the most important events and not feel embarrassed, someone who is almost overly-friendly, someone who doesn’t earn more than them, inclined towards children, strong compatibility of values etc. They want someone who looks modern, feels modern but has some of those old school elements that you can’t guess easily. Most of these women you’ll notice also take care of their philanthropic endeavours - which is the best way to network, gain fame and creative more businesses. For that reason you need to be an extrovert and know how to host, all that jazz.

getting married fairly young (I personally feel under 26 is quite young to get married) is also common. The marriages where the girl is of an “ordinary background” are commonly long term high school / university sweetheart type relationships.