#or have the worst case of heterosexuality i have ever seen

[dresshistorynerd]

Ranking Men's Costumes in Renaissance Period Dramas - Part I: The Bad

Part II: The Good

I have a bone to pick with Renaissance costuming of male characters. Films and TV never seem to understand French hoods or the concept of tied up hair but the crimes committed with female characters costuming seem to pale in comparison with those committed with male characters costuming. It would be easy to find some atrocities that should be brought in front of the Hague from the bottom of the barrel shows like Da Vinci's Demons and Reign, both of which costuming is basically black leather jackets, pants and boots. If we're lucky, they have some vaguely Renaissance details imitating doublet or jerkin. But these shows make absolutely no effort, even the women's costumes are straight from modern fast fashion shelves (often literally). But I have noticed that even costuming that has some effort otherwise put behind it, still costumes male characters with the most boring costumes and minimal effort. The Tudors didn't have good costumes, but there's some effort towards historical immersion, even if quite lackluster, but the men's costumes are still so sloppy.

My theory is that they think men's Renaissance fashion was too goofy and embarrassing to fit their cool and sexy main male characters. Also men dressing up and taking care of their appearance? That's obviously homosexual behavior, and these hot men who the main female characters are fawning over are Manly and Heterosexual. So they don't dress up in fancy clothing or colour!

To give a fair change to the costuming, I will be selecting only shows and movies which have good costuming for the female characters. If they are not even trying, it feels kinda pointless to point that out. I have selected 10 period dramas. I haven't seen all of them so I'm not going to analyse the costuming any deeper than how good and well made they look and how well they evoke the historical setting. I don't demand historical accuracy, but I will be more harsh on that front if the women's costumes are succeeding in that. But one of the point of period dramas is to immerse into a historical setting, so if the costumes can't evoke that feeling, I think they have failed. Obviously this is not some objective ranking, but my opinions. This is in two parts (because of Tumblr image limits), so I'll start with the five worst costumes in order of best to worst.

5. Ever After (1998)

Ever After is supposedly set in Renaissance France, but the costuming resembles late 15th century and early 16th century Italy much more. It's not very historical, and clearly not really trying to be, going for more of a fantastical style. It works, I think because they make it cohesive and very pretty.

Men's costumes resemble also resemble Italian styles. The Lombardian style sleeves, short doublets and tight pants land it right there. The men's costumes are much more boring than the fun and fantastical women's costumes, but they got the least worse spot in this worst costumes list for several reasons. The pants are actually tight and they have codpieces. The sleeves are actually really great I love them. And there's no leather pants or doublets.

And look at this, at least one doublet is closed with lacing!! (I apologize for the very low image quality, it was the only picture I found of that costume.)

The biggest gripe I have with the costumes are the boots. Just let these male characters show of their calves. At least not everything is black but the lack of colour is still disappointing too.

4. Becoming Elizabeth (2022)

The female characters have quite excellent costuming. The fabrics are rich and gorgeous, the bodices are extremely smooth and crisp, some of the best I've seen, partlets are on point and correctly used. My only complained is the occasional open hair and yet another case of the weird upward pointing crown-like French hoods.

French hood didn't have any crown shaped thing, it was a hood and the headpiece is actually several headpieces made to reveal the lining of the hood in a crescent shape. So it is very much flat against the head. (I've written about French hood's construction before.) And sure they look more early Tudor fashion, the sleeves should be much more dramatic and the bodice elongated. Like here's a portrait of the actual young Elizabeth. But I think the detailing, great construction and good looking materials make the costuming beautiful and feeling enough like Tudor era.

So how does the men's costuming hold up? Pretty okay, which is why this show is so high up in the list. I haven't seen any leather pants on anyone. Leather jerkins were an actual thing, they just weren't black, and though the leather jerkin in the show was dark brown and not smooth hide, it was not black so that's something. Edward VI does have actual stockings and Renaissance shoes, which is great, but he is a kid and I didn't see any grown man rocking that style which is very cowardly behavior imo. There's some colourful silk jerkins in there too. And they even could get away with all black since that was very fashionable at the time. They are all wearing slashed trunk hose. AND! They have actual accurate codpieces sticking up! That is so rare especially in this period when the codpiece was not just a flat piece of fabric.

Unfortunately this is where the good things I have to say end. All of these court people are for some reason wearing riding boots inside and everywhere all the time. The hose are way too long and the jerkins are way too short. The hose should be just peaking under the hem of the jerkin. Obviously none except the kid uses thigh high stockings. One of the worst things though imo is the lack of structuring in the men's costumes. The women's costumes are so well structured, but the men's costumes are just wet rags hanging on them? The doublets were heavily structured to create a pigeon chest and hourglass effect.

In conclusion, there's clearly some effort made, some very nice historical details, but the overall look is very costumy and sloppy because of the lack of structuring and lacks the historical silhouette.

3. Mad Love (2001)

The movie is set around 1500 Neatherlands (and Spain). I think many of the costumes are gorgeous (like the examples below), though overall the costuming is quite inconsistent. Most of it fits at least okay to the time period and setting, though the red dress here is more along Italian styles, but not entirely off either for early 1500s Low Countries. Some costumes though are 50 years from future. Of the women's costumes alone, this would probably be the worst costuming on this list, though I think better than most Renaissance costuming, which is why it still ended up on this list.

The men's costumes resemble more early 16th century German fashion than Low Countries fashion, which was more similar to French fashion than German. In the red ensemble there's some weird jerkin looking overgarment, but jerkins were not a thing yet and they were never in this style. I will excuse the lack of codpiece since in Low Countries' fashion it was hidden under longer overgarments, even though in this more German style it would have been left in view. The hose are no where near fitted enough, and the boots should not be here at all. Overall this is kind of a mess, but it is better than the last two. We have skirt, we have weird sleeves, open neckline and most importantly, we have colour. Also while this shoulder-length curly hair wasn't in fashion outside Italy at the time, I still appreciate the sluttiness of it.

2. The Borgias (2011-2013)

Now we are getting to the territory, where the lack of effort is starting to be very obvious. Like the costumes till now were not particularly good, but clearly they at least attempted, even if not very hard. So, The Borgias. The show is set in the early 1500s Italy. The women's costumes are gorgeous. Not always the most historically accurate, but at least close enough and very pretty.

The men's costumes however... a deep sigh. Some of them are not that bad, like this first one has kinda Lombardian sleeves and a too small doublet showing off the lacing (in Italy the lacing was almost always ladder-lacing though regardless of gender, but it's something I guess). Most of it though, especially of the leading men, who are supposed to be cool and hot, is absolutely garbage. The same black leather jackets and pants seen in the bottom of the barrel shows. Like the costumes of the female characters and some of the male characters feel like they are from two completely different shows. Like sure they have codpieces, but their pants are so loosely fitted they wouldn't even need the codpieces. (I explain the use of codpieces in this post). And of course they have boots. Of course. In Italy it was even common to not wear shoes at all, they just sewed leather soles at the bottom of the hose. And even the men's costume that have tiniest bit of effort, are so dark and lacking in colour, when the most fashionable young men at the time wore these wildly multicoloured hose and doublets. The feeling I get the showrunners were so god damn afraid of giving the cool male characters any elements or details that could in anyway seen as feminine today, they stripped all the historical elements away. Like they couldn't even give Cesare lacing, they had to make it Manly Buckles?? It's such an insecure performance of masculinity. I admit the last image here is the worst offending example and there were some with a bit of color even, but in other ways most of it is exactly this bad. I will have to hand one thing to them though. They did manage to get the slutty shoulder-length hair right.

If this man is supposed to be sexy, prove it to me by showing his ass with lovingly fitted hose.

1. Rosaline (2022)

This is roughly set in the same time in Italy too as The Borgias, based on women's costumes, I'd say at the very end of 15th century. And those women's costumes are honestly great. They even have hand-sewn eyelets, ladder-lacing and cartridge pleats. Even some of the most high effort costumes don't get these details right. Honestly I only have issue with the hair, the hair goes from okay or outright terrible. They even made this super historically accurate Renaissance apron for a maid.

This got the lowest ranking so you know what comes next. The men's costuming is absolutely unacceptable. I feel like it would be excessive to even describe all the ways these costumes fail since to me they are so obviously bad. The difference between these women's dresses with such gorgeously crafted details and these men's costumes that give absolutely nothing is so stark and gives such a massive dissonance. They are just wearing modern skinny-ish pants, all the colors are so muted and dark, there's no shape, no structure, no codpieces, just sloppy bland jackets and pants. Even less effort than men's costumes in The Borgias have. Except one thing they have over The Borgias, they were able to ladder-lace that doublet. Otherwise these are just bland, boring and actively ugly. And it's so weird that they took this "gritty gruff "realistic"" route, when it's a comedy about Romeo and Juliet? You afford to be a little goofy with a comedy and yet you did this.

Extreme disappointment, do better.

Part II: The Good

[firstkanaphans]

Kanghan has one of the worst cases of comp het I’ve ever seen. He’s like, “I’m supposed to like girls and Pimfah’s perfect, so I must like Pimfah. And what I’m feeling for Sailom is completely different than what I’m feeling for Pimfah, so obviously I don’t like Sailom. I mean, sure, I want to kiss him and spend time with him and see him live out all of his dreams, but in a bro way, you know? Because I like Pimfah—the girl who shows absolutely no interest in me and will therefore never force me to go on a real date with her. I guess I’ll just have to walk around my buddy Sailom’s room scantily clad instead. I am heterosexual.”

[laundrybiscuits]

(continued from this and this)

“Yeah, I just told her to give them the cold shoulder. Don’t have to be mean or anything, just ignore ‘em a little. Play it cool. Drives girls crazy, ‘cause then they have to work to get your attention.”

Eddie stares at him. 

“Holy shit, Buckley’s gonna die alone and it’s gonna be a hundred percent your fault. That is the worst fucking advice I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Steve actually looks offended, like his honor’s been impugned. “What the hell, man? I’ve picked up like a million girls that way. I’m telling you, it works.”

“Yeah, okay, now I’m seeing why my sage advice is required for this whole endeavor. That kind of thing might fly if you’re some alpha dog prom king, but lesbians are like…giant pandas or some shit, okay? The conditions have to be precisely calibrated or they’ll just hibernate in a cave by themselves eating bamboo forever.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” says Steve. 

Eddie shrugs. “Whatever, I’m not a panda scientist. The point is…okay, let’s do a thought experiment.” Oh, this is a bad, bad idea. The Munson specialty. “Say you wanted to get a guy interested in you. How would you do it?”

“I’d just—” Steve stops, frowning. “I mean, girls usually just…laugh at guys’ jokes and stuff. Or wear, like, makeup?”

“How are you so awful at this,” says Eddie. “Jesus. I swear to god I remember you doing better with girls at school. Anyway, I didn’t ask what girls do, I asked what you’d do.”

“Shit, I don’t know. Isn’t that why I’m here?” Steve’s getting a little huffy, fidgeting. “I’d just…find a way to hang out with the guy, I guess. Laugh at his dumb jokes.”

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie says patiently. “But that’s what you do with friends too, right? And when you’re walking a perilous path far from the bright streets of heterosexuality, you probably don’t want to risk being too obvious, in case you’re wrong. So you gotta just…give them an opening to let them, like, signal if they’re interested. If they’re looking for a sign, they’ll take it.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “Ok, but what if they’re not interested yet? Like…sometimes girls take a while to warm up to you.”

“Cut your losses and move on.” Admittedly, Eddie’s still working on that part. 

“What? Man, I’m starting to think you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Eddie scowls at the skeptical look on Steve’s face. “Jesus, the disrespect. Why am I not telling this directly to Buckley, anyway? She’s the one in need of these hard-earned pearls of gay wisdom.”

Steve lets out a big, gusty sigh and tips his head back against the couch. “Because she said if I tried to give her any more help with dating, she’d smother me in my sleep and pin it on Dustin.”

“Attagirl,” says Eddie approvingly. 

“But obviously she still needs help, so this is like—a stealth mission. For love.”

“For love,” says Eddie. “Yeah, okay.” 

———

“Hey, can you—”

Robin whirls around at the unexpected voice and promptly trips over nothing at all, arms flailing out to avoid crashing into the library returns cart.

“Oh, shit,” says the stranger, reaching out a hand like she’s going to catch Robin’s elbow, but pulling back at the last second. “Um. Sorry.”

Robin blinks down at a girl in head-to-toe black, including dusty black combat boots. “Aren’t you hot,” she says, then wants to die. “I mean—like, just, with the heat and all, it’s a billion degrees out, I think if I tried to wear that much black I’d instantly dissolve like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

The girl stares back at her for a second, then bursts out laughing. It’s a nice laugh. 

“As if. I’m from Utah, this is nothing.”

“Oh! Utah! You’re not—are you, uh, Argyle’s girlfriend?” The way Argyle’d described her, Robin had been picturing some kind of Elvira-themed ingenue in lace, maybe smoking like a 1920s flapper. This makes more sense for a real-life teenager, though: oversized t-shirt tucked into ratty black jeans, with some cheap-looking silver jewelry tied around her neck. Her eyeliner’s heavier than anything Robin’s ever seen in Hawkins, smudging messily a little in the heat that’s apparently nothing to her. It makes her look a little bit like a panda bear, but not in a bad way.

“Not anymore.” She grimaces. “Ugh, that sounds mean. We’re, y’know, still friends and everything. I’m Eden.”

“Robin,” says Robin, gesturing at herself like a loser. “Hi.”

“Hi,” says Eden, and smiles at her.

[mapleleafsunset]

warrior cats lgbt headcanons

I'm bored so here's my lgbt headcanons of every warrior cats protagonist!! also some other cats who i think are important in the first arc bc of how few protags we get

Prophecies Begin

Firestar : pansexual, he/they, cis Greystripe : bisexual (strong female pref), he/him, cis Ravenpaw : Gay, he/him but tries out bug/bugs, unlabelled gender

New Prophecy

Squirrelflight : queer, she/he, might be a trans man if she thought about it long enough Brambleclaw : the only one that i think is cishet. uncertain whether he is cishetallo or not though, he might be asexual spectrum Tawnypelt : t4t queer, she/it, intersex and transfem Feathertail : asexual lithoromantic lesbian, she/ae/bright, girlflux Stormfur : unlabelled, any pronouns (he/him pref), cis man Crowfeather : Trixic, they/them, nonbinary Leafpool : Bisexual, she/her, cis Power of Three

Lionblaze : cishetallo Hollyleaf : asexual greyromantic lesbian, she/they, demi-girl Jayfeather : oriented aroace gay, star/they/he, doesn't care to think about his gender but uses moonguardian, moonboy and starryghostic.

Omen of the Stars

Dovewing : Omnisexual (male pref) and probably aroace spectrum but she is scared of acknowledging that, she/her, cis Ivypool : Sapphic demiromantic, she/it/claw, nonbinary girl Flametail (he counts <3) : Aroace, he/him, trans man Vision of Shadows

Alderheart : Pansexual, he/him, cis Needletail : Heterosexual? aromantic, she/her, transmasc nonbinary girl Twigbranch : Asexual unlabelled, they/she, gender questioning Violetshine : Lesbian, she/ze, trans girl

The Broken Code Shadowsight : Asexual nebularomantic gay, he/it/they/xe, agender Rootspring : Asexual heteroromantic, he/him, unlabelled Bristlefrost : Bisexual (no pref), any pronouns, intersex A Starless Clan Nightheart : Lesbian, she/her, trans girl Sunbeam : Lesbian, he/they, butch (only comes out after leaving ShadowClan) Frostpaw : Lesbian with the worst case of comphet you've ever seen (do you notice a theme with this arc.), they/she but probably only keeping the she/her to make others happy, genderqueer

Dawn of the Clans Grey Wing : Asexual aromantic, he/they, cis Clear Sky : Heterosexual, he/him, trans man but he's probably the sort of trans man who tells other trans people that they aren't valid because they present differently Thunder : I wish I cared about thunder enough to have thoughts on him but he is the beigest character i have ever read about maybe only second to lionblaze i dont care about him his girlfriend fucked his dad why did she do that he creates the most boring clan ever and does literally nothing grey wing and clear sky are so interesting then you have to read a whole book about this man and i actually can't remember anything except from his girlfriend who deserves so much better than him why is he here he's so boring River Ripple (he's a protag to me) : Aromantic asexual, any pronouns, either genderfluid or agender

Other random characters i want to share my headcanons for because I feel particularly strongly about them

Rowanstar : Queer, he/him, trans man (obviously) Puddleshine : Demisexual homoromantic, xe/xem but they/them is okay, nonbinary Tall Shadow : Lesbian, he/she, views lesbian as her gender identity in a lot of ways Mousefur : Aromantic asexual, she/her, dont know about her gender Runningwind : Aromantic asexual, they/he, demiboy Redtail : Gay, he/him, trans man Sol : Queer, any pronouns, trans masc pangender Fallen Leaves : Sapphic, he/him, demigender Sleekwhisker : Lesbian, she/her, trans and she won't clarify in what way Mothwing : Lesbian, she/her, trans woman Cinderheart : Bisexual, she/they, girl to the left Cinderpelt : Bisexual, they/she, girl to the right Snowfur : Gay, he/him, trans man. PLEASE someone appreciate trans man snowfur he's so important to me Blackstar : Gay (bear), he/him, cis Fernsong : Going through every single gender and sexuality crisis everyday. Ended up settling on abrosexual, pronoun fluid and genderfluid but even then that might not stick. Ivypool somehow always knows what pronouns to use even if Fernsong hasn't told her yet Tallstar : Gay, he/wind, cis Jake : Pansexual, he/him and SO many neopronouns, cis Barley : Gay, he/him, trans man Darkstripe : the most toxic gay man you have ever met Hawkfrost : the second most toxic gay man you have ever met

this is SO many oh my god. i was planning to do a short list and now there's so many anyway i could go on for longer

[luckyladylily]

Watching Wednesday and the show is good but wow this show has the worst case of compulsory heterosexual romance triangle I have ever seen.

[tailorvizsla]

Title: A Night of Sexy Sex with Paz Vizsla (April Fool’s Day Fic) Pairing: Paz Vizsla x f!Reader, mentions of Armorer x Bo-Katan Rating: NC-17 Wordcount: ~4000 Warnings: Terrible euphemisms, PIV sex, unprotected sex. Literally the worst. Overuse of the words sex and sexy. One use of the word moist. Literally this is the worst thing I have ever inflicted onto myself. Author's Note: Part of the Bulbous Salutations exchange! The point of this is to write bad smut and to make people regret having eyes. Happy April Fool’s Day, y’all. :D

*Note: By continuing past the ‘keep reading’ thingie and reading this godforsaken fic, you hereby absolve me from any financial, legal, or moral obligation to pay for your therapy. I am poor. I cannot afford therapy for myself, much less anyone else. Thank u.

You’re not quite sure how Paz worked it out, but he knows that you’re a virgin. The Mandalorian equivalent of cin vhetin. Untouched snow, pure, unmarred by another warrior's touch or love emissions. You've never even held hands with a warrior. Well, except to like, rescue someone, or something. Never bare palm-to-palm contact, though - that was beyond your comfort level.

At first, when you were younger, you wanted to wait for someone to make it worth your time. It’s not like Mandalorians are inherently attached to the idea of virginity, or anything like that. But you did want someone you could trust to help you discover sexual pleasure like in those naughty novels. The ones where the verde have their helmets up over their noses, their lips crashing together in a passionate kiss while their armor has fallen somewhere onto the floor. The ones where if you'd bought them second hand, the pages would sometimes be stuck together. 

As the months and years went by, the partners you were with…they never felt quite right. It was never the right time. It was never for the right reason. And so you and your partners would move on. And now you’re at a point in life where you wonder if you’d made a mistake. 

If you should have just…fucked someone and gotten it over with. Maybe it would have worked out in the end. You’ve seen the raunchy vids the verde pass back and forth during deployments (they're also passing partners back and forth, too, those lucky bastards). You’ve read all the magazines that get your panties so wet you soak them, your pants, and the seat you're sitting on. You know what sex is, technically, but you’ve never experienced it.

So it feels strange to sit with the verde and listen to their exploits, occasionally adding your opinions when you really don’t have one. You’ve never had your pussy licked until you cried and screamed. You’ve never been fucked stupid, to the point where your brain leaves your head and you can't think. And you really wish you knew what it felt like. But, like always, you go back to your room and satisfy yourself with your fingers and that giant floppy vibrating thing you bought ages ago.

Vaguely, you wonder if you should have placed that order for the glow-in-the-dark tentacle heated attachments, just in case things don’t work out here.

Now, you are standing here in front of Paz's door, wondering if you’re finally going to say goodbye to your virginity the same way Armorer said goodbye to heterosexuality when she first saw Bo-Katan. You shift your weight from one foot to the other as you wait for him to open the door. After a few moments, you hear the door click and it swings open, revealing Paz's magnificent, thick, beefy frame. It's obvious he hasn't skipped any meals or workout sessions. He's so big and broad it makes your heart flutter in your chest.

He is not wearing his armor, which explains why you did not hear his footsteps. You worry your lip with your teeth as he shuts the door behind you. Normally, you would have never just jumped into bed with someone, but when you look at Paz - all sourness and grump and bad attitude - you know he’s the right verd for the job. He’s a good man underneath all that beskargam. And kute. And everything else. Look, point is, Paz is a good person. That's all that matters to you. And he’s sexy, so. Bonus points there.

“So,” you say to him. “When you woke up this morning, did you plan on being the one to pop the vacuum seal on my buy’ce?”

Paz chokes a bit.

“That’s a unique way to phrase that.”

A grin crosses your face.

“But…no,” he confesses. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to have sex with me at all.”

“I like you,” you respond with a shrug. “And even though I know you have a kink for my type…it goes both ways, you know?”

“...what’s your kink?” he asks curiously.

“Blindfolds, obviously,” you deadpan at him. He laughs in response as he shakes his head.

“We could get married,” he says. “That way, we can…you know, see what we are doing.”

“You’re the last person I would have expected to suggest marrying just so we can fuck,” you say out loud. He shrugs in response. “Alright,” you say. You’ve done stupider things than get married to have sex. Armorer has left plenty of dents on your armor due to your stupidity. What's another dent? She's going to have to fix it regardless. You and Paz swap vows as quickly as possible.

Then you reach up to take your bucket off. Paz hesitates for a moment, and then he follows suit, lifting his helmet to reveal his beautiful face. He's got a chiseled jawline and eyes like sapphires, glimmering in the fluorescent lighting. His hair is thick and glossy, and it sways slightly. Where is that breeze coming from? Mortification fills you as you realize he's waiting for you to speak. You grin at him.

“You’re cute,” you say.

He’s more than cute - he’s downright handsome under that bucket - but you’re not going to give him any more of a reason to inflate his ego. He smiles at you. Gods, his smile is beautiful and sexy, just like the rest of him. So, so irresistibly sexy.

“You too,” he remarks, and you decide that his voice is definitely the sexiest thing you’ve heard in your life.

Paz reaches for you. You inhale reflexively as his strong hands find your arms and wrap around them, as gently as a newborn loth kitten wrapped in a blanket. Gently, he strokes up to your shoulders, and then down along your breast plate to your hips. He carefully pulls you toward him. Then, he presses his forehead to yours in a Mandalorian kiss, making your breath hitch in your throat.

That feels nice, you decide, as you relax in his embrace. Hesitantly, you touch him, feeling the warmth of his body, the hard planes of his muscle. The unyielding beskargam under your fingertips. Paz lets out a purr of delight as he dims the light to something more comfortable for the two of you. The two of you start removing each other’s armor, piece by piece.

Soon, the two of you are standing there in only your kute. Your entire body feels warm and tight. Your breathing is more rapid, and you definitely feel your pulse in your throat. When you look at the zipper on his kute, you look away. Paz catches you and pulls you in, tilting your face up to his with two gentle fingers under your chin. You close your eyes and tug on his kute, eager to have your first kiss. Paz rumbles approvingly, his breath fanning across your lips.

Your first kiss is a chaste one - a simple press of his warm, dry lips against yours. You’re not quite sure how long it’s supposed to last, so you let him take the lead. Then he presses another kiss to your lips. And again. And again. Like he's trying to tap a sentence in da-di-da with his lips against your heated skin. His lips part slightly and he tilts his head and then he starts to nibble ever so gently. It feels like he's trying to suck on your tongue or something, but whatever, it feels nice. And very sexy. His mouth opens a bit more and his tongue darts out against your lower lip. 

It feels strangely good to have his hot mouth against yours, and your lips tingle as his tongue skims over them. Paz’s hands find your waist and skim upwards toward your chest. Heat fills you as he touches your breasts and tweaks your nipples through your kute, palming them like one would half-price muja fruit at a sus market stall. He pulls back slightly. The whine of protest that leaves you turns into a quiet moan as he kisses along your jaw. More heat fills you, like that one time you drank an entire bottle of tiingilar sauce on a dare.

Boldly, you reach up to undo the fastenings on his kute, inching the zipper down to reveal his chiseled pectoral muscles. Paz mirrors your gestures, never going faster than you. He carefully strips you down, his big, warm hands touching your breasts and cupping your ass. Paz guides you to the bed. Your chesticles bounce most boobily as you recline. So fucking sexy.

Paz carefully settles on the bedding with you. His weight makes the mattress dip toward the center. It’s dark in the room and you’re so shy you can’t even look in his direction. Paz catches your hand in his and guides it to his pectoral. You squeeze gently. His man titty feels so good in your hand. He flexes the muscle, making it jump in your hands.

“Touch me more,” he says. “Please?”

With shaking fingers, you touch his mountain-like shoulder, taking a moment to trace a scar across the skin there. Then your fingers drift down along his belly. It's soft, but firm, with a sparse forest of hair that dips down to his manhood area. You don’t go down too far, though - you’re not quite ready for that yet.

“Might be more comfortable if you sit on me,” Paz says. “You won’t have to lean over as much. And you’ll be in complete control, mesh’la.”

“Alright,” you whisper. He guides you onto him, your knees on either side of him, something hard and twitching against your belly. You assume it's his love Javelin missile, ready to pierce your pleasure target and explode on target. You resist the urge to look down, instead focusing your attention on the scars littering his ultra sexy skin.

“There we go,” he groans. “See, mesh’la? You can touch any part of me you want like this. I’ll just hold you and let you take your time.”

His hands settle on your hips, warm and strong as they massage your supple flesh. You continue exploring his torso, taking a moment to squeeze his nipple the same way he had squeezed yours. He inhales deep, a low noise of pleasure escaping him. You mentally file that away - he seems to like having his sexy man nipples played with. Finally, you know you’re ready to touch him there. You’re pretty sure he’s ready too. Swallowing, you work up the courage to reach out and touch his bulbous beef bayonet. It jumps against your belly and you jerk back.

“S’alright,” he says. “It’s just a little excited.”

His hand guides yours back to his cock. Swallowing, you wrap your hand around him gently. His skin is silky soft and warm, like slipping into a hot Denovian mud bath after hours of hard work. You know warriors are sensitive in this area, but you don’t know how much so. You’re afraid to hurt him, so you loosen your grip as you stroke it. Paz throbs and pulsates in your hand. It is super sexy.

“Don’t be scared, mesh’la. It won’t bite.”

His hand wraps around yours, squeezing you around him in a much tighter grip. 

“Just like that,” he says. “Just like that, don’t be scared…oh yeah, just like that.”

You aren’t sure if he’s really that into it, or if he’s putting on a show for you, but you feel much better knowing that this is bringing him pleasure despite your inexperienced touch. You wrap both hands around him the same way a rath'tar wraps itself around its prey, gnawing on your lower lip as you trace the veins on his thick, meaty baby-batter shooter.

Up at the top, you find he looks a lot like the diagrams. The head is round and blunt, with a slit in the tip. A droplet of pearly white love juice gathers there. Impulsively, you swipe your finger through his creamy Sichuan daddy sauce and lick it. It’s not what you expected, but it’s not unpleasant. Paz lets out a startled groan and his throbbing purple disco stick jumps in your hand again. A very generous glob of baby gravy leaks out and onto your hand as you stroke again. 

“What do you think?” he asks gently. “Does it taste good?”

Embarrassment fills your stomach.

“Uhm…yeah,” you say. “Not…not what I expected, but…uhm…it’s not bad.”

He looks delighted at your words.Then Paz grips your hip.

“Scoot forward a bit,” he urges. You obey, and your clit presses up against his fleshy pokey impregnation stick. Heat fills your entire body again. It’s so close to…there. “Move your hips - yeah, just like that, mesh’la. Do you feel it rubbing up against your little clit?”

“Y-Yes,” you whisper to him.

“Does it feel good?” he asks. “Do you feel your sweet'n'salty love juices getting my manhood all nice and slick?”

“Uh-huh,” you whimper. “Paz…I…”

“What is it, mesh’la?”

“Paz, I…I uh…I think I want it. Inside.”

“Not yet, mesh’la,” he says gently. “I want to make sure you’re really ready for it, alright?”

You nod, grinding your hips against that wet, firm ridge underneath you. His hands guide you on his girthy dipstick, and you’re too embarrassed to look at him. You can hear the wet noises of your bodies sliding together. Is it normal for that to happen? You can’t bring yourself to ask. If something isn’t right, he’ll tell you. But there's so much of it. It's all over his belly and thighs and you're pretty sure the novels didn't mention a literal tsunami of poonani juice.

“Good girl,” he rumbles up at you. “Look so good like that, mesh’la, grinding up against my flesh bes'bev like you can’t wait to have it in you. Does it feel good having it this close to your pretty little hole?"

You nod, unsure if you can even speak coherently right now.

“Every time you grind against me, I can feel you getting wetter and wetter,” he continues. “Your panty porg knows what to do with a big, hard sausage…it knows exactly where this babymaker is going to go, doesn’t it?”

A little noise escapes you.

“I bet your fingers don’t make your love channel all greedy and hungry the way my pulsating pussy plug does,” Paz says. “I bet your toys won’t feel half as good as having me all the way inside you.”

The thought of having him in there, inside your undiscovered lands, pressing up against your insides, stretching your walls the way your fingers and toys can’t, has you wild. You roll your hips again and you feel that knot in your belly break wide open. A moan escapes you, another gush of creamy coochie cum seeping out to drench Paz’s cumslinger.

Paz rolls you down onto the bed. Like this, it feels much nicer. He’s warm and strong and there’s something about the way his body covers yours like a weighted blanket. The way his hips fit between your thighs. Shyly, you turn away. Paz turns your face back to his and kisses gently. Then he works his way down, kissing your straining nip-noops and biting your hip bone. 

“Oh, mesh’la,” he growls at you. “Can’t wait to taste you. Can’t wait to send your pussy into hyperdrive.”

“Uhm,” you stammer out. “T-taste?...hyperdrive???”

“Tell me,” he says roughly. “Has anyone else gotten to taste you between the legs?”

“N-No,” you whisper. “Nobody…”

“No one’s been down here at all?” he asks. “Doctor doesn’t count. No fingers, tongues, or anything else?”

“No one,” you respond. “Uhm..only my own fingers…and my toy…”

“Good girl,” he whispers, placing a kiss against your clit. “Saving it up all for me…” A whine escapes you as his tongue darts out against your aching, throbbing clit. He hums in delight. His tongue probes between your lips, sliding up and then back down. “I’m about to fucking explode, mesh’la. Gonna cum all over myself just having you in my mouth.”

He’s slurring his words. He almost sounds drunk. He licks again and again, one hand keeping your hips pinned to the bed while the other spreads your flesh folds apart. Paz’s tongue delves in deeper as another moan escapes him.

“Gods,” he rasps out, his fingers spreading you wider apart. His tongue dips inside you, making your eyes roll back as you whine. “Like that, huh? Like having my tongue in you?” He drags his tongue back up to the little helmeted warrior in a boat, where he teases you with the tip of his tongue for a few moments. Then he works his way back down. 

“Fuck,” he stutters out. “All mine, only mine.”

He buries his face between your thighs, his tongue and lips working at your uber moist flower petals. He slurps and moans and purrs, sounding like a Wookie in heat. Then you feel his finger circling your unbreeched gates, your unconquered pleasure cove.

“Can I?” he asks, his eyes dark and wild as he meets yours. You nod shyly. You let out a little noise as he starts sliding his finger in. “Let me know if it’s too much for you, mesh’la. I’ll be gentle, I promise…” 

He dips his head back down as he pumps his finger in and out slowly, his tongue working at your outside pleasure doorbell. He sounds like a strill eating a bowl full of protein paste, loud but kind of endearing. Then he eases a second finger into your lockbox of love. His fingers feel so good inside! Your walls begin to quiver around his thick intruding digits, squeezing each time he pulls out, milking them the way you'll eventually be milking the green milk out of his one-eyed Thala-siren.

Paz groans and slurps at your clit, drinking up your pussy nectar like a man who has been trapped in a desert for weeks and you are the only source of hydration...that line sounded much sexier in the naughty holonovel. Maybe he’s savoring the dew on your flower petals???

"So good," he slurs. "So fuckin' good, wish I could live between your legs, mesh'la."

His fingers curl inside you and press up against your swollen interior doorbell - wait, who has an interior doorbell??? He presses up against your light switch of pleasure, making you squeak with delight. As you get closer and closer, Paz's enthusiastic vocalizations get louder and louder. He plunges his fingers into you and you cry out when he fingers your wet, slippery pink taco like he's a pianist and your vag is his piano.

"Ahhh! Paz!!!" you shriek as you finally reach your peak. "YES! Ahhhh!!!"

Your walls explode around him and you finish, crying out his name as the pleasurable waves squeeze and flutter. Paz pulls his fingers out like that one guy pulling a sword out of a rock. His fingers are wrinkled and wet, like he has spent way too long in the bath. He sucks on his fingers like he's trying to suck boba through a slightly too small straw.

"So fucking good," he rasps out.

Then he crawls onto the bed with you, sliding his third leg between yours, resting it on your mound of love. It spews out a jet of white, gooey erectoplasm onto your belly. Then, locking eyes with you, Paz angles himself into you, and gently starts to push in. He feels so gigantic inside you. As he keeps inching his massive love spear into your love spear holder, you cry out passionately, your eyes rolling back inside your head. 

You're not sure how, but he keeps fitting more and more of his Star Destroyer inside your humble shuttlecraft-sized hangar bay. Finally, he bottoms out, and you swear Paz's hymen hammer is poking you somewhere behind your left lung. A squeal, much like a minoch in heat, escapes you, and Paz lets out a noise like thunder as he moans and shakes. He starts to thrust slowly, his cock disappearing into you. You wonder if he's a magician because there's no way he should be able to fit inside you. Maybe he uses portals, like that one game you played once?

"Oh, fuck," he groans. "Fuck, you're gonna snap my turgid Manly Man Shaft in half, cyare. Your virgin hole is so tight I swear to Kad'Harangir it squeaks each time I pull out."

Once your slippery love tunnel starts to adjust around him, Paz starts moving faster, thrusting even deeper before, making you wonder if he's prospecting for beskar deep inside your Mines of Mandalore. So fucking sexy. The bed rocks and shakes with each devastating thrust into you - you swear you can hear the frame clattering each time it lifts off the ground. The headboard slams into the wall over and over, and a bit of drywall dust falls into your eyes, making them water up.

"Don't cry," Paz croons. "I bet it feels good, doesn't it?"

You're being fucked too stupid to respond, so you settle for a high-pitched grunt/whine.

"Look at you taking this trouser snake," he groans. "Pounding so deep into you it makes your belly bulge - "

You wipe some of the drywall dust out of your eye and look down. Yup, definitely. Each time he thrusts into you, you can see the tip of his cock in your abdomen, as if his helmeted sausage soldier is trying to get your attention. Your pulsating pussy starts to pulsate even more, squeezing around his cock like a warm, wet, velvety fist trying its best to squeeze his soul out through his pipi. Paz grunts and groans, his hips slapping against yours wetly. Vaguely, you can hear someone hammering on the wall.

" - it's three in the fucking morning, you dipshits! KEEP IT QUIET - "

The two of you ignore the other person and keep going. You scream as you orgasm around his cock. Pure electricity shoots through your entire body. Just like that one time you were trying to plug your data pad in to charge, but the charger was under your bed, so you were going at it blind, and you ended up touching the electrical prongs by accident. Your bearded clam gushes its sweet and salty clam juices, mixing with his pre-cum to create sex chowder, and you can feel the dampness spreading underneath you like high tide at love time as Paz just keeps hammering away.

"Cyare," Paz bellows. He roars like a hungry Wookiee. Or maybe that was more of an angry Wookie? Horn-gry??? "Oh, cyare! I’m gonna impregnate you! I’m gonna knock you up so many times the Mandostork is gonna stop coming to our Tribe!”

"PaaaAAAaZZZ!" you wail. "Ahh! Aaaa ~ Oh nhhh ah ah yessss! ~ ♡♡♡ ~ harder harder harder!!!!!!!!1!"

He keeps hammering into you. You're not sure if the pounding noise is the bedframe against the floor or if your neighbor is trying to beat the door down. But, again, the two of you ignore them, and Paz goes into hyperdrive. He's fucking into you so hard and fast his bald-headed buir maker is a blur inside you as it pistons and churns your insides into a pre-orgasmic puddle of goo. More and more of your beautiful, bountiful bajingo broth coats your thighs, his thighs, and the bed.

Your wails grow louder and louder as another orgasm starts to descend upon you.

" - please for the love of Kad'Harangir, Arasuum, and the Two Sisters - "

You climax again for the fifth or sixth time that night. He moans and grunts.

"You're so tight you're cutting off circulation to my diiiick," Paz hisses. "Gonna cum again - "

With another deafening roar, Paz finishes, his heat-seeking meat missile shooting jets of man cream into your penis fly trap like a Mandalorian quasar of love. He just keeps cumming, filling you so much that your nether regions can no longer hold it back. His weiner sauce sprays out, coating the bed in millions of fallen future Mandalorian warriors. He groans. With an obscene slurp, he pulls out. His cock is still half-hard, rising proudly above the forest of pubes, like a really tall cylindrical volcano spewing white magma. He puts his hands on his hips and smirks.

"Did you enjoy yourself, cyare?"

"Yes, Paz!" you exclaim as you collapse on the bed. 

He smirks and joins you on the bed.

"When can we have round two?" you simper up at him.

Paz's massive long dong beskar starts to stiffen. It stands at attention like a proud warrior would. It glistens in the dim light. He smirks.

"How about now?" he asks.

You giggle and pull him down onto you for a night of super sexy, passionate baby-making.

-

-

-

A special thank you to my husband for “creamy Sichuan daddy sauce”.

[hjellacott]

forgot to mention this stuff in the other ask, but I think that, yes women definitely have lots of problems, but Stats prove society shows little mercy to men… and stats show women in particular do the same in causing this suffering with the support of society as a whole. Suicide stats, divorce and who benefits stats, sentencing and length of sentences for the same crimes, custody of children, and the list continues.  Men’s mental health only just became relevant recently but there have always been help programs for women. Women get into careers and schools/universities because of DEI and quotas + affirmative action whereas men have no such thing. I’m no woman hater but men get shafted by society and women in particular too 

I think statistics really depend on year and country and specific departments and as a former psychology student, I know the way of making statistics can be very subjective sometimes, so I'd have to look at specifics. But in general, I think men are shown A LOT of mercy. To put for example the country where I'm from. In my country, a bunch of teenage boys murdered a teenage girl who was the ex of one of them. Of all those boys, most ended-up in other countries, and only one was sentenced and imprisoned, while the girl's body hasn't ever been found (and this was ages ago). More recently, my country has had several cases of men gang-raping women. Not women gang-raping men. And the sentences have always been quite lenient, you're out in a little over a decade, even in cases where there wasn't just rape, but also murder, or where the victim was underage. The only place I can think of where women might have a slight "advantage" is when deciding child custody, that it tends to go to the woman, but that is only because with the huge rates of men not giving a fuck about their children and abandoning them, women are traditionally more trustworthy to lovingly raise their children, not to mention you'd be surprised by the amount of cases in which the man, in a divorce of a heterosexual couple with children, does not want their children more than in the weekends. Like, it's happened in my own extended family, seen with these eyes. As there are also many cases where the man is considered unfit for sole custody (long working hours, or poor salary, or just mentally/economically/skillfully unfit, or worse, violence and abuse) or where they start of with an equal agreement and in the end the man is neglecting his kids so much that he loses his share. And even when violent men are stripped of custody, I know my own country is quite lenient with that too. For example, there's the case of a female friend of mine, who as a child was for years sexually abused by her father, who was violent to her, her mother, and her little brother. The situation ended-up in prison and the father lost custody and was in prison for about a couple of decades or so, before being allowed out. And for as long as my friend and her brother were underage, they were forced by social services to spend time with their father in the company of a social worker who apparently sucked for what I heard, and they were subjected to verbal abuse by their father in these occasions - and still, even my friend who was raped by him, the kids were forced by law to continue with these visits, that left my friend's brother a clinically diagnosed psychopath (poor thing had to continue going long after my friend was an adult and no longer going, because of the age difference, and my friend wasn't allowed to accompany him), and that truly wrecked them, purely on the basis that the man had a right to see his children by law. So from where I stand, if you're a man, you can be literally convicted for sexual abuse of your own family and you'll still have your every right and very little time in prisons that in my country are more like hotels. A woman, on the other hand, loses her sanity in the best case scenario, and her life in the worst.

[itseasydarling]

Hi.....Do you mind if I ask you some random thing? I used to love shounen and shoujo manga equally....But ever since I found BL manga 3 years ago, my interest in shoujosei (especially het romance) decrese a lot, and what I search for is just the dynamic between mc (male) and male lead...I don't want to read mc (female) and male lead or mc (male) and female lead...And what I want to read mostly are just mlm or wlw stories....

What do you think is happening to me? Is it really weird?

Hello dear. No, there's nothing weird about that and there's a couple (very common) reasons for why this kind of dynamic appeals to you.

If you're LGBTQ - stories with characters that are like you can feel very cathartic. You're releasing this tension you're experiencing in your own life and you're seeing a version of facts where everything goes right, and you can fantasize about that. Alternatively, you may be seeing stories where everything goes wrong and you don't have to fear the worst case scenarios because you've seen them play out, you release of tension and it gives you better tools to understand and address your fears.

It's also easier to find the characters relatable since you have something big in common. And I hope you know there's nothing weird about being LGBTQ.

If you're a woman (LGBTQ+ or straight) - someone put this into words better than I could:

Basically you can feel free to fantasize without the guilt and shame of doing so that women usually feel when the scenario is close to home. It's also an outlet for wider sexual fantasies and kinks because, again, no guilt of imagining those done to a woman. It also frees you from the gender roles and expectations of heterosexual romance.

If you're straight there's also this layer of feeling trapped by a patriarchal society that's putting all this weight on you. Same sex manga allows you to fantasize about romance in a way that's free of what's expected of you and you can put yourself on the shoes of any character and enjoy the ride.

And lastly, you used to love all stories equally before because you didn't how good it felt to have something that appeals specifically to your interests. Now the others don't feel the same anymore and that's okay.

[crystalelemental]

I'll keep general responses under the cut, just in case.

It's honestly a little funny how much the notes felt like building toward a secret ending, and then just...nothing. Like what? There's an exit to the south of that screen you just can't even use. I thought maybe if I explored everything but ran out of his office instead it would change an ending, like I'd have something to incriminate him and change the outcome, but nope. It's so wild how much that whole situation didn't matter. I also way overprepared for the catacombs. I saved up for a whole bottle of St Walpurga Oil and didn't even need it.

I think the with refusal endings are odd just because of how much went into getting you that far, and that we've proven the marquises can operate in the material world. Like, they sought you out to develop these gifts, and had an invested interest in bringing you to Ozzy, and you can just...leave? Like not even leave that night and just run toward Primaldorf (which was my first inclination for an ending), but go through putting all the offerings up, visit the tree and see the riches, and then just...back out. With no consequence. After all this background discussion about how giving up your resolve will turn you into one of the Golden Girls. And the witch not showing up at all in endings unless you intentionally botch the offerings is...strange. Like is there a reason for that, or...?

I wouldn't know for sure with Hans, but at least in the wish refusal end for Leb, they talk about Hans just...dying at some point, and that he must have just let her drop the nun thing and go travel. Which...sure? I have no problem with that as a conclusion, I'd assume he found his answer about the whole witch situation. Like okay, there was no witch because you don't take your wish and just up and leave and then nothing happens ever again, so...guess St Walpurga is on the level? I guess? I dunno, it isn't even entirely important, I guess.

Like, what is the thematic focus of the game in that sense? I've only played one route so there's stuff missing, but looking at how things end on Leb Route: following the wish route while sacrificing everything is the worst case outcome, messing up the ritual to give power to the witch somehow gets you killed, the church isn't exact stable given they're willing to kill you and have this deep fixation on sin. The only good outcome is...leaving with your lover. Letting go of all of that. Because ultimately, riches and status and comfort? Isn't really what Elise wanted most. Her own words betray that pretty consistently. It's not about fame and fortune. It's about being treated well. Being seen as someone worthwhile, in a way she's often not in town. You're constantly under suspicion for...well, existing. One old dude shouts about a witch, and half the town side-eyes you like "he's got a bit of a point" despite how much you do for them constantly. Choosing the companion who does see you as you are and loves you for it makes sense as the good outcome, because that is your real wish. The witch is a little odd, in that I still can't get a great handle on too much of her existence, but she seems all about the desire to create new life; to conceive a child. Bit of a reach, but all of Elise's romance partners are girls, and Walpurga seems more of a nature witch, so is her focus on bearing life in the womb and having to reject the witch's influence meant to be about like...a compulsory heterosexuality thing? I'm not really sure, but I still have routes to play and have been awake for all of 2 hours since finishing it, so this is not exactly coherent.

The second crow puzzle legitimately almost made me refund the game. Like I was so close to losing it. We do all this bullshit and the boy still goes out of his way to be "No we saw a witch and Elise is lying!" Like, child? I should have let the crows eat you.

The berry grove isn't like...the worst of it by any metric, I think it's just more annoying. I do not like navigation puzzles where the focus is "Everything looks super similar and it's damn near impossible to find anything," and mistakes costing like a third of your HP in a game where it's hard to keep sufficient resources is...not my favorite. It is at least static, I think, so like...small favors.

[mithliya]

you could have taken what lovbian said with more good faith instead of jumping to the less common sense part of what she said as reason she wasn’t right. pro-celibacy radfems are saying TO BE RADICAL you would, in the very least, have to understand why celibacy is optimal for heterosexual women (even if they don’t do it). we are talking about the definition of radical, and whether radical feminism is every compatible with such close chosen bonds to the oppressor. a radical black activist would understand why avoiding dating white people is kinda important. the worst part is that it’s bi women (attracted to women! can date women!) who are most offended by the suggestion of celibacy. let that sink in.

i rly hate how i can respond to someone visibly taking someone else's words in bad faith, respond to their literal words that i disagree with, n then IM the one whose reading in bad faith fdhsfhds like!!! what!

anyways i dont disagree w the notion that separatism is essential radical feminist action. what i disagree with is the weird desire to downplay all other aspects of radical action (how tf is an OSA woman having sex with 1 man worse than someone monetarily supporting the makeup industry and helping uphold patriarchal standards of femininity. how is the former easier than the latter. why even downplay the latter to begin with? what is the goal here? bc last time i saw someone do that it turned out to be bc she wanted to shave n wear makeup while dissing het-partnered women & that just seems hypocritical) & i also disagree with pretending like celibacy is an easy no biggie. like ofc itll be easy for us as lesbians lmao. for some OSA women it'll be easy, but for a huge portion it will not.

saying the ONLY feminist action that matters is separatism and "make up and other shit" is "inconsequential".. like that seems awfully convenient. its tooootally easy to be celibate4life and never have a romantic relationship ever again (which will be the case for most women bc most women are het) so if u dont do that then u cant be a feminist. but feel free to directly support the beauty industry and be hyperfeminine and do anything else bc "its inconsequential by comparison" & doesnt have any bearing on whether ur a radfem or not, apparently.

"your individual choices don't exist in a vacuum" but ONLY if ur not practicing separatism in ur dating life-- otherwise, they do exist in a vacuum and ur actions are inconsequential.

also the het women ive seen have been far more offended by the suggestion (& were very likely to make lesbophobic comments in response) but bi women are the majority in radblr so the ones who take offence at separatism have the louder voices.

[icedfae]

(—) ★ spotted!! FELIX KNIGHT on the cover of this week’s most recent tabloid! many say that the age 31 year old looks like MICHAEL TREVINO, but i don’t really see it. while  the DRUMMER is known for being ASTUTE  my inside sources say that they have a tendency to be CONCEITED i swear, every time i think of them, i hear the song PROJECTOR by SET IT OFF  {he/him / cismale}

shh, listen more, talk less

basics

Name: Felix Aries Knight Age:  Thirty-One DOB: July 29, 1991 Gender: Cismale Sexuality: Heterosexual Occupation: Drummer in the Arctic Monkeys Parents: Ainsty Knight (mother) and Aries Knight (adoptive father, unknown to Aries),  Mikey Dupont (biological father) Siblings: Flynn Knight (maternal half-brother) and Felicity Dupont (paternal half-sister) Hometown: Dublin, Ireland

i’ve seen this film before and i know how this ends

biography

Aries and Ainsty Knight were one of the biggest crime families in Europe, everything they had built behind blood money and cartel organizations. To everyone else, Ainsty was the love of Aries’s life, giving him his heirs to his cartel. The only secret was that Felix was conceived after a concert that she had gone to for one Mikey Dupont during his European tour.

Being paid off rolled right off Ainsty’s back and she took the money offered by the musician and played Felix off as Aries’s second and final child.

While Flynn was pushed to be the perfect cartel son, Felix was left to live his life as he saw fit. The favorite and golden child, Felix got away with doing just about anything. Still, he didn’t have a fuzzy and warm childhood. Their parents often left them to defend themselves while they ran the business that kept them relevant and wealthy. Felix relied on Flynn for pretty much everything and looked at his brother as if he had the world on his shoulders and wished that there was more he could do to help.

When the fateful night where his brother was attacked by someone angered at their father, Ainsty decided to do what was best for her boys. While Flynn was sent away to the United States, Felix was sent off to boarding school in London. Splitting them apart seemed like the best idea at the time, just in case they ever became targets once again.

Going to boarding school in London seemed to be the best thing for Felix. It was there that he met and bonded with Jesse Hart and the rest of what would eventually become Arctic Monkeys, the band he’s the drummer of even now. It started as them messing around and playing for fun but soon turned into their livelihood.

Through the band, Felix also met someone that was going to change his life forever. Normally the type to sleep around, the antithesis to Jesse only wanting a relationship out of women, Felix met Gaia Levy and was smitten almost instantly. She was only 22 years old to his 29 years but that’d mattered to him. She made him work for her affection, put in effort he never had to before and it only made him like her more. It didn’t take long for the two of them to fall in love with one another.

Due to the nature of his job taking him back and forth from the US to London, Gaia and Felix’s relationship would soon deteriorate. The distance hurting them more than anything else and one night after a sold out show, Felix made the worst decision he could have and cheated on her. When she caught wind of it, Gaia broke up with him immediately. He played it off as her fault when in reality he knew that he was the one at fault for it all.

He had been contacted by a reality tv show to appear on a season and he went for it to give the band even more publicity -- turned out it was Ex on the Beach and he was forced to deal with Gaia in close proximity again.

After the show aired and the death of his adoptive father happened, Ainsty finally told him the truth of him not being Aries’s. She named his father and wanting to know more about his biological family, decided to reach out to his half-sister, renowned actress Felicity Dupont.

you tell me how you’re right to light relationships on fire

things to note

Only relationship of his that has lasted longer than a few months was with Gaia, he usually gets bored easily

Has a Bernese Mountain Dog named Maeve who he brings with him whenever he leaves his home for longer than a day.

Still looks up to Flynn and is constantly bitching at him for not taking care of himself.

and try to lock us all inside because you’re wrong

[backmaskedliedermacher]

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Coming out as trans and starting transition at age 43 was terrifying for me. I was acutely aware of all the things I might lose by doing so, and little conception of what I could possibly gain. Of all the things I was scared of losing - family, friends, career - one stood out above all the others: the fear that transition would cost me my marriage. I valued my spouse more than anyone and anything else in the world. Having her in my life was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I couldn't imagine living without her.

I turned out to be lucky. My spouse, who identified as a cisgender, heterosexual woman, didn't fully understand gender transition. She didn't - couldn't - know what it might mean for our marriage. She didn't and couldn't know whether she would be able to stay with me, whether she would able to be married to a woman. She was, however, willing and able to travel along with me and find out.

She turned out to be my strongest ally. As I transitioned, she found herself loving me more, in both body and spirit. Transition made me a better, stronger person, and having her support made that process much easier than it otherwise would have been. I am profoundly grateful to her, for everything she's done for me, just before and after my transition.

Two years after starting my transition, I broke up with her.

Why did I do it? There are several long and short answers to that question. I'm going to start out with some of the long ones.

There are lots of ways to understand transition, but there's one process, above all else, that defines transition for me. It's not someone's name or clothes or hormones or surgery. My experience of transition is that it is the process of learning to value yourself more than who other people want you to be.

Before I transitioned, I did not love or value myself. My finding is that someone who has this experience, which is common to many, perhaps most, people repressing their gender identity, is going to have a really difficult time being in a healthy relationship.

In my case I didn't - couldn't, really - effectively take care of myself. My everyday experience was defined and controlled by my acute bouts of overwhelming emotional pain. I could neither predict nor effectively control these attacks. I needed my spouse to continue to function on a basic level.

The expectations I placed on my partner weren't healthy or fair. Nobody deserves to be treated the way I treated her when the gender dysphoria broke through the wall of dissociation I tried to control it with. She had, it turns out, grown up with an abusive father, and was well used to being treated worse than any human being deserved to be treated by people she loved. She was used to being afraid of the people she loved. She was used to feeling responsible for the behavior of the people she loved. In all other respects the way I behaved around her, when I was at my worst, was nothing like the way her father treated her, so she could tell herself that I was nothing like her dad.

Just like I could tell myself she was nothing like my mom. Some of the things she said to me… well. Nobody deserves to be treated the way she treated me, sometimes. I knew that. I know what sort of behavior is appropriate and what sort of behavior isn't appropriate. It was just that before my transition, I had bigger problems to worry about.

We were both willing to make compromises most people wouldn't. We were both familiar with having to make terrible choices simply in order to survive.

There is, perhaps, a word that springs to mind when I describe the nature of our relationship when things were at their worst. That word is "abusive". I don't feel comfortable using that word to describe our relationship. I know that many people repressing their transness have a pattern of getting involved in abusive relationships. I have seen this behavior in my friends, in other people in my communities, over and over again. I see people starting transition with partners who are supportive of their transition, but are in other ways appallingly abusive. I see people starting transition who adore their partners, who value their partners more than anything else in the world, and the rest of us around them are doing everything we can to stop from screaming at the top of our lungs at them to get out, to for God's sake get out now.

I don't know or care whether my relationship with my ex was like that. What I do value is that as much as I love her, as much as I value the relationship we had, I don't ever intend to get in a relationship like that again. I work to be responsible for myself, for my words, my behavior, my emotions, in a way that I wasn't before. I am not always great at it, but now that I love myself, now that I value myself, I am better at it. Better at working to establish and maintain healthy emotional boundaries.

I wish we could have fixed the things that were wrong in our relationship, at least to the point where we could have stayed together. I don't know whether we could have, whether we should have. All I can say is that we didn't. That, and that the odds were stacked against us from the start. Repressing and denying our gender identity is the bomb at the heart of our "cishet" relationships. When we transition, we detonate that bomb.

The thing about our relationship is that, before I transitioned, it worked. Being with her was good for me and was good for her. Her support made it possible for me to not just survive, but thrive as I never had before. Even before I transitioned, I grew, learned, accomplished things I never could have without her. And for my part? I was unfailingly kind and compassionate towards her. She could engage in all of the negative self-talked she liked, but I didn't see her that way, would never treat her that way. All of the work she put in to care for me and support me - it wasn't wasted. I loved her, valued her, appreciated her. She hadn't necessarily had a lot of that experience. Sure, our lives weren't always perfect, but we were happy with each other, with our marriage.

That doesn't mean that we looked at each other through rose-colored glasses. We both understood that she was my caretaker, that this was part of the dynamic of our relationship, and neither of us liked or wanted this to be part of our relationship. For us to have a true relationship as equals - this was a shared goal of ours, for more or less the entirety of our relationship.

I didn't realize just how hard creating a relationship like that with her would be. I've heard it said that when one partner transitions, you have to fundamentally change your relationship with them from the ground up, throw out everything and start over again from scratch. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The past doesn't just go away. Yes, two partners both start out with the deep love and caring they've built up for each other over time, but that's not all that gets carried over.

The love I have for her, the gratitude I have for her, is ineradicable. When some archaeologist digs up my skeleton a thousand years from now, if they look hard enough, they'll find it in my bones. Being with her has changed me, in a real and permanent way.

That's not, however, just something I can measure in love. I can measure that in fear, in pain, in guilt and shame. These feelings are just as much at the heart of my feelings towards each other as love is.

Feelings like that… they can be healed, given time, given work. I've put a lot of work into healing past trauma. Here's what I know about healing trauma: It fucking HURTS. It's a lot to ask. A lot.

I would have done it, mind you. I would have done it. She's worth it to me. I love her. Except even that, even if I did that - it wouldn't be enough.

Probably the least fair thing I did to her was change. Yes, yes, we all have a right to change, being open to change is important, change is good, etc. I changed a lot, though. I'm not just talking growing tits. I'm talking about becoming a different person.

Those of us who are repressing our transness when we enter relationships, hide it from ourselves as well as our partners - we enter into those relationships under false pretenses. That's not intentional. There's no cause or room for guilt or blame there. The consequences, though? Those are unavoidable.

The partners who get trans women's transitions the least, they'll often say things like "I want my husband back", and our mouths will be wide in shock. Who did they think they married? What did they love about us? Our manhood was the thinnest of veneers, a shell. Did they really fall in love with a cardboard cutout of a man? How could they not see that everything they loved in us was not just still there, but that we now had more of it?

Love is more than gender. Our changes, though, tend to go beyond the changes most people think of as "gender". Before my transition, I was one of the most deeply introverted people you could imagine. That was one of the strongest things my ex and I had in common. We preferred a quiet night in together to parties, concerts, social events.

A couple months on hormones and it turns out that whoops! I'm not an introvert after all. It's just that it's exhausting and unpleasant to have to pretend to be someone I'm not socially. All of a sudden I want to go out dancing every night. I'm a better person, a happier person, a more capable, stronger person, but we're just not compatible like we used to be. People in relationships have needs, and I changed to the extent that I could no longer meet hers.

Because it's not just dancing I'm suddenly interested in all of a sudden. I'm interested in doing lots of other things. And I'm not interested in doing them with her.

This isn't something I feel like I can really explain to cis people. I'm not writing this for cis people. I'm writing this for trans people who are telling themselves the things that I told myself - that after everything she did for me, that I owed her monogamy. That sex wasn't really important. Certainly not important enough to torpedo the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Well. Second best now, I guess.

Mia Mulder, as an aside in her most recent video, "Is Masculinity In Crisis?", hypothesizes that the changes we have to go through in order to transition, all of the assumptions we have to question, make it easier, more likely, for us to question other social norms, and that this is why so many of us are, in her words, "super gay polyamorous slutbags".

That's the short form. You want to know why I broke up with my ex? It's because I'm a super gay polyamorous slutbag.

That's not who we're supposed to be, who cis people expect us to be. We're supposed to be brave. Virtuous. Ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives, just like them. We're not supposed to be freaks who just want to do drugs, suck dick, and burn shit down. If I tell my co-workers about my girlfriend, none of them will blink an eye. If I slip up and tell them about my girlfriends…

I think what Mia's theory is on target, but personally, I've found that it's more than that, even, for me. I have a pamphlet explaining basic self-defense skills for transfemmes. What's stuck with me most is something it says on the cover: "Because what works for other people doesn't work for us."

That's it in a nutshell. Part of transition was realizing that everything I believed about myself and the world was wrong. That shit just didn't work for me anymore. The only way I could keep doing that was by valuing what other people wanted me to be over who I am.

My ex and I never had a very good sexual relationship. Dysphoria affects trans women in all kinds of different ways. Like many trans women, it was necessary for me to dissociate in order to be sexually intimate with my partner. Any physical pleasure I got from the act was far and away overshadowed by the overwhelming sense of wrongness sex as a man left me with.

After transition, I wanted, needed, to figure out what sex actually meant to me. To figure out what I actually wanted. I wanted to know completely what others so discreetly talked about.

The respectable thing - no, the fair thing would have been to figure this out within the confines of the monogamous relationship I had with my spouse. She loved me. She was attracted to me physically. If I was going to figure out my sexuality, of course I should do that with the woman I loved. Right?

I didn't know how I was supposed to do that. Our entire sexual history had consisted of me doing things I hated, doing things I never wanted to do again, never wanted to think about again. Tried not to think about while doing them, in fact. That was my sexual history. I spent ten years conditioning myself to not think about my sexual desires when I was with my partner.

I wasn't going to figure out my sexual desires with her. Wouldn't have been able to do it even if she understood the things I told her about my sexuality, which she didn't.

I guess she thought about sex and relationships about like most people do. She didn't believe in God, wasn't a Christian, but I feel like the phrase "two people becoming one flesh" is a pretty good description of her idea of relationships. (It is, at least, more romantic than her way of phrasing the sentiment.)

I didn't and don't look at relationships that way. I want my partners to be happy, and for them to get what the things that they need, the things that are important to them. If there's something that's important to them that I can't give them, I want them to be able to get that thing from someone who can. This gives me joy. The word polyamorous people use for this feeling is "compersion".

To my ex's view - the prevailing, normative view - if I can't give my partner something that's important to them, that means I'm a failure as a partner. To my ex's view, having multiple intimate partners is greedy, disrespectful, and licentious. It is cheating. Full stop.

Even beyond this, there's a whole variety of intimacy my partner was unable to comprehend. When I started my sexual exploration, I wasn't certain I even wanted sex. Sex wasn't what I craved. It was loving touch.

This is really normal for trans women, and has been for a long time. Jan Morris talks pretty clearly about having these desires in her memoir Conundrum. A lot of us are just completely starved for loving touch, and have been for a long time. The normative concept of this sort of loving touch is "foreplay". I find the assumption that loving touch is intrinsically linked to sex… well, just as bizarre and incomprehensible as she seems to have found my belief that loving touch isn't intrinsically linked to sex.

Back in the days when I marveled that even one person would find me tolerable to be around, these fundamental disconnect weren't an issue. I didn't desire intimate relationships with anyone, including my current partner. This was no longer the case.

So of course we talked about it. That was the basis of our relationship. We talked through things. We came to a common understanding. We worked out our problems.

We couldn't work out this one.

What she needed from me - total emotional and physical monogamy - was clear, clearly expressed, and non-negotiable. When we talked about the issue, what I was talking about made her feel afraid, angry, pressured to do things she didn't want to do.

I didn't always treat my ex as well as she deserved to be treated, but when she told me what I was telling her made her feel threatened and coerced, I knew I had to fucking stop doing that. That's not how I treat people I love. Talking our disagreements through was not an option for me, in this case.

So I had to work stuff out on my own. Could I give her what she needed from me? No. Once I knew that, there was only one option left.

And that's why I broke up with my ex.

Was breaking up with her fair of me to do? No. Did she, does she, deserve better? Yes. Neither of those things matter. I had a choice. I could have stayed with her. I could have buried my desires, chosen not to explore my desires, for the sake of someone else. I'd been down that road. I knew where it led.

Well, that's not entirely fair. Staying with my ex wouldn't literally have killed me the way not transitioning did. I probably could have led a decent, respectable life, if I'd stuck it out. Grown old and died with her in the house we bought to grow old and die in together. I wouldn't have been happy, not the way I am now, but I would've been more secure. Being secure used to be more important to me, back being happy wasn't a real option for me. Being secure used to seem more possible to me.

I don't know. Transition changed me. That's all I can tell you.

[commanderandace]

What do you think about jong kook and so min? I read in yt comments and many people said that jong kook acts sweeter towards somin. Then I had the insecurities again. ofc I love them as an older bro and younger sis. They are so cute!

i think they make for a great sibling dynamic but for romance? hard no. i think they both are aware of that as well? like you have somin sharing how her mother would hypothetically love jongkook as a son in law but thinks he’s too old for somin, and somin herself seems to think of jongkook as too scary to be attractive (like in that episode when they were like ‘who’s the best looking RM male member?’ and somin was like i thought about it and specifically placed myself into dating scenarios and i just think that it would be way too scary to date jongkook oppa. i do not vibe with it. meanwhile haha has three kids. that guy fucks he must be hot he’s def got moves and i’m woke for this opinion. she was valid for that, but guess who picked jongkook as the hottest one with zero hesitation?)

anyway. it’s like you can just tell neither of them are bothered by dating jokes because those jokes aren’t “oh is there something there?” jokes they’re “if this happened, it would be the most outrageous thing” jokes. if/when somin teases jongkook about stuff like “oh oppa do you like me? lmaooo” she just gets scolded and shut down immediately, and you can tell jongkook just... isn’t bothered at all. and that somin isn’t flirting she’s kidding around. of course jongkook’s very fond of somin; he’s very clearly warmed up to her over the years, but romantic interest? it’s not there, on either side. i think jongkook’s got a bit careful with his interactions with jihyo (and vice versa), he’s got this... obsession? with pretending she doesn’t exist on social media, the last picture he posted featuring her face was like six years ago. but her legs were in his instagram story! because Of Course they were sitting near each other during the filming break. they’re....... the way they are

so, in conclusion, there’s really no need to feel insecure? i don’t know if jongkook and jihyo will ever marry, but i think that if they never happen, there’s no way jongkook and somin would ever happen either okay lmao

[nyxi-pixie]

that bit in s4 where els like 'u dont love me anymore >:(' and mike responds 'who said i didnt' is funny enough by itself (rip to el hope u realise ur into women and go date max instead🙏🙏)

but literally anytime i watch it i just remember that tiktok audio abt the dentists reviewing the toothpaste😭😭😭 "so did u like the toothpaste?" "who said i didnt! but who said i did👹" and i cannot hold myself together ASJFJSJDJ

[teaandfiction-28]

Fluff #3

A slightly different approach with this one starring two of our favourite boys!  Thank you @indelibletraces - hope you enjoy! 💛

—————————

Prompt: “Are you blushing?”

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings: Language, Mentions of sex

Timeline: Set between C23 and C24 of “Perfect Storm.”

“Alright, I want both of your heads on a swivel. We got one shot at this prick...make it count.”

Lifting his thumb from the transmit button on his radio, Hank settled in for what would likely be an uncomfortable couple of hours. 

The medical examiner had found an almost-faded stamp on the inside of their most recent victim’s wrist which had led them to The Scarlet Letter, a high-end male strip club in River North. The evidence they had unearthed so far indicated that their victim was involved in an elicit relationship with one of the dancers who was likely to have been the last person to have seen her alive. Judge Anderson had outright refused to grant them a warrant so he’d had no choice but to send two of his female detectives undercover in an effort to flush him out while the rest of the team continued to chase down other leads that might help them close the case. 

He dropped his eyes from the nondescript black door that Kim and Kate had disappeared behind moments before to the tablet in his lap currently displaying the footage from Kate’s button camera, the two women apparently being guided deeper into the club by a handsome, well-dressed host. 

“You alright, man? Seem a bit anxious.”

Hank glanced towards his long-time friend and colleague briefly before turning his eyes back to the screen with a sigh and a slight shake of his head. 

“If Anderson would just come outta the fucking closet, I wouldn’t have needed to send them in there.”

Anderson’s proclivity for entertaining male company at this specific venue when his wife was out of town was the worst kept secret in Chicago yet still he kept up the charade of being the loving, devoted and, most importantly, ‘heterosexual’ husband he wanted the world to perceive him to be. 

“They’re big girls, Hank. They can look after themselves.” Al said quietly, his mouth tugging into a wry grin at his friend’s unusually antsy behaviour. 

Hank had always been protective of those he cared about but, ever since New York, he had been particularly cautious with the assignments he gave Kate, despite her making it abundantly clear on a number of occasions that she was not onboard with being turned into a glorified administrator. 

Barely ten minutes had passed when their suspect finally made an appearance, strutting towards Kate like a peacock in mating season, hair perfectly preened and chest puffed outwards. But it was clear this man had zero respect for other people’s personal space when, without as much as a hello, braced his hand somewhere behind Kate’s head and proceeded to roll his hips in slow, fluid movements right in front of her face, his rock hard abs rippling with each gyration.

“Bet your man can’t satisfy you the way I could, baby.” He grumbled in a deep tone, reaching out to take Kate’s hand and place it on his slick chest, catching her wrist to slide her palm down towards the waistband of his tiny blue trunks.

Hank hoped to God that Kate stopped him before he reached his intended target but, to his horror, she simply crossed one thigh over the other and appeared to casually lean back in her chair but, mercifully, she did withdraw her hand away from his body. 

“My man can satisfy me just fine.” 

‘Oh no.’

Of course Hank knew she was just playing along but he was also very aware that the man next to him was listening in to their conversation...and that he knew exactly who she was referring to when she spoke about ‘her man’.

“Oh yeah?” Flashing a dazzling smile, he moved to straddle Kate’s thighs, grinding his prominent bulge against her torso. “You know, it’s a real shame that you women are conditioned to believe that an orgasm every fortnight is the best you’re ever gonna get.”

At this point in their relationship, Hank liked to think that he knew Kate pretty well. He knew the trivial things like how she liked her coffee and how she secretly doused her hotdogs in ketchup when she thought he wasn’t looking. But he also knew that a surefire way to get under her skin was to behave like a microaggressive asshole in her presence and Hank found himself hoping that maybe this would be the one time that she just let the arrogant comment slide.

It soon became clear that tonight would not be that time. 

“Well, I can’t speak for all of ‘us women’ but, believe me when I tell you...” Her tone was barely more than a breathy whisper as she leaned forwards to rest her lips against the man’s ear. “...he’s upset if more than twenty four hours pass without me screaming his name.”

Hank felt his cheeks become red hot as he sat in stunned silence, his eyes still glued to the screen as he watched Kate pin the man down to a nearby table with both arms wrenched behind his back, very obviously placing him under arrest. Within minutes, the two women were frog-marching him out into the street, still clad in only his underwear before shoving him into a nearby squad car and escorting him back to the district. 

After a few beats of uncomfortable silence, Hank lifted his eyes to meet Alvin’s across the cab. 

“Well...it’s, uh...” Alvin cleared his throat, dark brown eyes twinkling with mirth under the glow of a nearby streetlamp. “It’s good to know you can keep up with her.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Alvin.” Hank groaned, tossing the tablet into his lap none too gently before busying himself with starting the car, desperate to get as far away from the awkward situation as he could. “She was just keeping her cover.”

“Hey man, good for you! I’m actually kinda prou-” Al cut himself off mid-sentence, leaning forwards to get a better look at Hank’s face. “Wait a minute, are you blushing?” 

Hank’s grumbled threat of tossing him out on his ass if he ever spoke of this again was drowned out by Al’s loud bark of laughter. Once he had gotten himself under control and wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes, he eventually promised to keep shtum about the apparent ‘Sex God’ status of his best friend under the proviso that his backlog of paperwork that Trudy had been hounding him about for months would be up to date by the end of the week. 

“Deal.” Hank muttered, idly wondering how Kate was going to react when she found out that her Freudian slip earned her a week full of late nights at the office when she could have been at home ‘screaming his name’.

[fatliberation]

I’m Abandoning Body Positivity and Here’s Why

In short: it’s fatphobic.

“A rallying cry for a shift in societal norms has now become the skinny girl’s reassurance that she isn’t really fat. Fatness, through this lens of ‘body positivity’, remains the worst thing a person can be.” (Kayleigh Donaldson)

•  •  •

I have always had a lot of conflicting opinions about the body positivity movement, but it’s much more widely known (and accepted, go figure) than the fat liberation movement, so I often used the two terms interchangeably in conversation about anti-fatness. But the longer I’ve been following the body positivity movement, the more I’ve realized how much it has strayed from its fat lib origins. It has been hijacked; deluded to center thin, able, white, socially acceptable bodies.

Bopo’s origins are undoubtedly grounded in fat liberation. The fat activists of the 1960s paved the way for the shred of size acceptance we see in media today, initially protesting the discrimination and lack of access to equal opportunities for fat people specifically. This early movement highlighted the abuse, mental health struggles, malpractice in the medical field, and called for equal pay, equal access, equal respect, an end to fatphobic structures and ideas. It saddens me that it hasn’t made much progress in those regards. 

Today, the #bopo movement encapsulates more the idea of loving your own body versus ensuring that individuals regardless of their weight and appearance are given equal opportunities in the workplace, schools, fashion and media. Somehow those demands never made it outside of the ‘taboo’ category, and privileged people would much more readily accept the warm and fuzzy, sugar-coated message of “love yourself!” But as @yrfatfriend once said, this idea reduces fat people’s struggles to a problem of mindset, rather than a product of external oppressors that need to be abolished in order for fat people to live freely.

That generalized statement, “love yourself,” is how a movement started by fat people for the rights of fat people was diluted so much, it now serves a thin model on Instagram posting about how she has a tummy roll and cellulite on her thighs - then getting praised for loving her body despite *gasp!* its minor resemblance to a fat body. 

Look. Pretty much everyone has insecurities about their bodies, especially those of us who belong to marginalized groups. If you don’t have body issues, you’re a privileged miracle, but our beauty-obsessed society has conditioned us to want to look a certain way, and if we have any features that the western beauty standard considers as “flaws,” yeah! We feel bad about it! So it’s not surprising that people who feel bad about themselves would want to hop on a movement that says ‘hey, you’re beautiful as you are!’ That’s a message everyone would like to hear. Any person who has once thought of themselves as less than beautiful now feels that this movement is theirs. And everyone has insecurities, so everyone feels entitled to the safe space. And when a space made for a minority includes the majority, the cycle happens again and the majority oppresses the minority. What I’m trying to explain here is that thin people now feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces. 

Regardless of how badly thin people feel about their bodies, they still experience thin privilege. They can sit down in a theater or an airplane without even thinking about it, they can eat in front of others without judgement, they can go the doctor with a problem and actually have it fixed right away, they can find cute clothes in their size with ease, they do not suffer from assumptions of laziness/failure based on stereotype, they see their body type represented everywhere in media, the list goes on and on. They do not face discrimination based off of the size of their body. 

Yet diet culture and fatphobia affects everyone, and of course thin people do still feel bad about the little fat they have on their bodies. But the failure to examine WHY they feel bad about it, is what perpetuates fatphobia within the bopo movement. They’re labeled “brave” for showing a pinch of chub, yet fail to address what makes it so acceptably daring, and how damaging it is to people who are shamed for living in fat bodies. Much like the rest of society, thin body positivity is still driven by the fear of fat, and does nothing to dismantle fatphobia within structures or within themselves.

Evette Dionne sums it up perfectly in her article, “The Fragility of Body Positivity: How a Radical Movement Lost Its Way.”

“The body-positive media economy centers these affirming, empowering, let-me-pinch-a-fat-roll-to-show-how-much-I-love-myself stories while failing to actually challenge institutions to stop discriminating against fat people. More importantly, most of those stories center thin, white, cisgender, heterosexual women who have co-opted the movement to build their brands. Rutter has labeled this erasure ‘Socially Acceptable Body Positivity.’

“On social media, it actually gets worse for fat bodies: We’re not just being erased from body positivity, fat women are being actively vilified. Health has become the stick with which to beat fat people with [sic], and the benchmark for whether body positivity should include someone” (Dionne).

Ah, yes. The medicalization of fat bodies, and the moralization of health. I’ve ranted about this before. Countless comments on posts of big women that say stuff like “I’m all for body positivity, but this is just unhealthy and it shouldn’t be celebrated.” I’ve heard writer/activist Aubrey Gordon once say that body positivity has become something like a shield for anti-fatness. It’s anti-fatness that has been repackaged as empowerment. It’s a striking double-standard. Fat people are told to be comfortable in their bodies (as if that’s what’s going to fix things) but in turn are punished when they’re okay with being fat. Make it make sense.

Since thin people feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces, and they get to hide behind “health” when they are picking and choosing who can and cannot be body positive, they base it off of who looks the most socially acceptable. And I’m sure they aren’t consciously picking and choosing, it comes from implicit bias. But the socially acceptable bodies they center are small to medium fat, with an hourglass shape. They have shaped a new beauty standard specifically FOR FAT PEOPLE. (Have you ever seen a plus sized model with neck fat?? I’m genuinely asking because I have yet to find one!) The bopo movement works to exclude and silence people who are on the largest end of the weight spectrum. 

Speaking of exclusion, let’s talk about fashion for a minute.

For some reason, (COUGH COUGH CAPITALISM) body positivity is largely centered around fashion. And surprise surprise, it’s still not inclusive to fat people. Fashion companies get a pat on the back for expanding their sizing two sizes up from what they previously offered, when they are still leaving out larger fat people completely. In general, clothing companies charge more for clothes with more fabric, so people who need the largest sizes are left high and dry. It’s next to impossible to find affordable clothes that also look nice. Fashion piggybacks on the bopo movement as a marketing tactic, and exploits the very bodies it claims to be serving. (Need I mention the time Urban Outfitters used a "curvy” model to sell a size it doesn’t even carry?)

The movement also works to exclude and silence fat Black activists.

In her article, “The Body Positivity Movement Both Takes From and Erases Fat Black Women” Donyae Coles explains how both white people and thin celebrities such as Jameela Jamil profit from the movement that Black women built.

“Since long before blogging was a thing, fat Black women have been vocal about body acceptance, with women like Sharon Quinn and Marie Denee, or the work of Sonya Renee Taylor with The Body Is Not An Apology. We’ve been out here, and we’re still here, but the overwhelming face of the movement is white and thin because the mainstream still craves it, and white and thin people have no problem with profiting off the work of fat, non-white bodies.”

“There is a persistent belief that when thin and/or white people enter the body positive realm and begin to repeat the messages that Black women have been saying for years in some cases, when they imitate the labor that Black women have already put in that we should be thankful that they are “boosting” our message. This completely ignores the fact that in doing so they are profiting off of that labor. They are gaining the notoriety, the mark of an expert in something they learned from an ignored Black woman” (Coles).

My next essay will go into detail about this and illuminate key figures who paved the way for body acceptance in communities of color. 

The true purpose of this movement has gotten completely lost. So where the fuck do we go from here? 

We break up with it, and run back to the faithful ex our parents disapproved of. We go back to the roots of the fat liberation movement, carved out for us by the fat feminists, the queer fat activists, the fat Black community, and the allies it began with. Everything they have preached since the 1960s and 70s is one hundred percent applicable today. We get educated. We examine diet culture through a capitalist lens. We tackle thin, white-supremacist systems and weight based discrimination, as well as internalized bias. We challenge our healthcare workers to unlearn their bias, treat, and support fat patients accordingly. We make our homes and spaces accessible and welcoming to people of any size, or any (dis)ability. “We must first protect and uplift people in marginalized bodies, only then can we mandate self-love” (Gordon).

Think about it. In the face of discrimination, mistreatment, and emotional abuse, we as a society are telling fat people to love their bodies, when we should be putting our energy toward removing those fatphobic ideas and structures so that fat people can live in a world that doesn’t require them to feel bad about their bodies. It’s like hitting someone with a rock and telling them not to bruise!

While learning to love and care for the body that you’re in is important, I think that body positivity also fails in teaching that because it puts even more emphasis on beauty. Instead of saying, “you don’t have to be ‘beautiful’ to be loved and appreciated,” its main lesson is that “all bodies are beautiful.” We live in a society obsessed with appearance, and it is irresponsible to ignore the hierarchy of beauty standards that exist in every space. Although it should be relative, “beautiful” has been given a meaning. And that meaning is thin, abled, symmetric, and eurocentric. 

Beauty and ugliness are irrelevant, made-up constructs. People will always be drawn to you no matter what, so you deserve to exist in your body without struggling to conform to an impossible and bigoted standard. Love and accept your body for YOURSELF AND NO ONE ELSE, because you do not exist to please the eyes of other people. That’s what I wish we were teaching instead. Radical self acceptance!

As of today, the ultimate message of the body positivity movement is: Love your body “despite its imperfections.” Or people with “perfect and imperfect bodies both deserve love.” As long as we are upholding the notion that there IS a perfect body that looks a certain way, and every body that falls outside of that category is imperfect, we are upholding white supremacy, eugenics, anti-fatness, and ableism.