#school kids are so much more 'feminists' now than when i was a kid

[righteousdelusions]

something I find really funny when it comes to latam 'conservatives is' posters is that they swallow the "the problem is forced inclusivity' bait, not recognizing that people that say this actually mean that putting a lbgtq character is always forced, because they shouldn't exist.

So you have a bunch of people like "we liked not forced inclusivity 🥳🥳🥳 love her" and like. The people you're quoting dislike you too, babe. (And like, they literally dislike you for being brown but let's not get into that rn rolfmao)

[excalibur-gone-missing]

Paring: jeonghan x fem!reader

Genre: fluff, 70's au, little to no angst

warnings: none, maybe a few swear words here and there

summary: Jeonghan might be a cocky bastard but when it comes to you he will turn the world upside down, or so he claims.

words: 2k

a/n: I request each and every one of you to comment on this fic don't be a silent reader it helps me as an author to understand my readers and i would love to communicate with all of you. Constructive criticism is always welcomed by me so do talk about this fic or send me an ask.

a/n 2: i heard a podcast and it made me want to write this fic because the love story of the two hosts was sooo damn cutee.

You knew Jeonghan from when you were literally a kid.

His father had moved to your city after a presentation from little Jeonghan on how to make a pocketknife using ice cream sticks that he learnt from his local friends, his mother mortified that her little sweet child would grow up to become a goon forced his father to change cities to go as far away from the place they physically could.

It was during his fathers pursuit for a stable Korean community in Canada’s ever-growing cities did he come across the name of your grandfather’s in the phonebook that sounded very much similar to his. Your grandfather being the trusting and kind man he was invited his father for a dinner in his house the following day and this event kickstarted a relationship between the two families wherein, his father bought a house six minutes away from yours in the small part of your city inhabited by mostly Asians.

You both had met when he was seven and you were only three, he still remembers babysitting you when you were in middle school as your parents trusted no one more than him. So, when he broke the beautiful glass table in your living room, he had skillfully blamed you resulting in a three-hour long lecture from your parents about taking care of ones possessions.

You hated Jeonghan then, you really did, so you refused to talk to him for the next almost five years.

Until you both found yourselves in a duet dance opposite to each other because it was the neighborhood talent show and it was mandatory for the kids to participate. Typical Asian parents.

To no ones surprise your dance number got a tad bit too much hype from the watchers and it kickstarted another full year of you both not talking to each other at all because of the teasing glances and suggestive remarks from adults and children alike.

The time you both talked to each other again was when it was you senior year prom at high school and your father being the overprotective man he was, did not allow you to go because according to him ‘prom is how American kids end up getting pregnant.’

He was wrong of course; kids get pregnant due to having sex but you being the soft-spoken kid you were did not have the gal to inform him that. You would rather spend the night being sad and watching Simpsons and crying about how unfair it is for your parents to not let you go and experience the night considered to rank number one in peak American high school experience.

This was the first time you saw Jeonghan as your lord and savior, which you obviously will never tell him because it will do nothing but fuel his over-the-top ego. But that day he had stepped in and talked to you father.

“It’s an experience and everyone should be able to experience it, I think you are wrong sir to take away this from your daughter,” he had oh so righteously said.

“Son, I would let her only if you take her, as I don’t trust anyone but you with my daughter.”

“So, I shall then.”

Now did this conversation shock you? Yes, it did especially your father’s response to Jeonghan, but you were not going to stir up any feminist conversation with your father right now, not when you just got the pass to go to prom.

That night was something you barely remember; it has been twenty years since then and you barely care about the overly hyped kids and the future alcoholics that you encountered that night. Now that you are wise and older, you understand your parents concern. Suzy from you class had become a mother at the prime age of eighteen, nine months later. You are thankful that your father made the wise choice for you that day.

That night from what you remember was just plain boring, you had come back at 11 to a quite house, had talked to the boy for the entirety of the night, watched the sunrise with him and at the end had hugged him thanking him for taking you to prom.

After that incident, you both had again gone onto your own ways and had not talked to each other for another year till the next family function, where you both were the only kids of the same age present as all your other friends were out of the country for college.

That weekend had sparked a friendship between you both, as you always stuck to each other’s side seeking comfort from one another as talking to anyone else somehow always circled back to your marriage and their extreme concern for your depleting eggs.

The friendship you both wove lasted a long while, throughout your college. Till one day you come back from a trip to Daegu, and he was there standing at the airport ready to rush you away from your family to the nearest Starbucks because he had some news for you.

Once in the café he informed you that he had landed the job he had been trying for right after finishing college. You were elated for him, so happy that you almost forgot to tell him about the potential marriage partner your parents had whipped up during your two-week-long stay there.

Jeonghan being the man he was asked you up front to marry him, confessing his hidden feeling for you and how the weight of them might have just decreased his height. Dramatic bitch.

You being brough back to reality told him no and stated the reason to be man you could have potentially married. He obviously told you to say no to this unknown ‘son of a bitch’ and accept his proposal.

So being the bigger person, because Jeonghan obviously refused to, you reminded him that you had never dated anyone let alone him and you will not marry a man you have not dated.

This conversation then ignited your relationship the first step of which was turning down the said ‘son of a bitch’ while telling your father you wanted to focus on your career more, which you really did. Fast forward six months and while keeping up the long-distance relation with frequent phone calls late at night because your parents might pick up the landline and eavesdrop if its during the day, while at the same time trying to search for a job near Boston went on.

On one late Sunday afternoon as you were sitting on the kitchen island sipping on coffee you got an email from on of the companies, you had given an interview to, informing you had gotten an onsite job that would require you to move to Cambridge, and you were over the moon.

So, the preparations began for your send off and again Jeonghan stepped in like the messiah he is. He is absolutely not one, you refuse to accept. The man went ahead and told your conservative father he will give up his life to take care of you, till this date you claim it will be the opposite if a situation like that befalls you both. After packing your bags, you were on your merry way to live with the man.

It took you both some time to adjust to the new settings he would be over at your place during the weekends and sometimes you would be at his. This continued for another year or so before one night as you both were laying on the bed together when Jeonghan suddenly piped up.

“I think you should see other people.”

Not understanding what he meant you turned towards the guy and asked, “what do you mean?”

“I know we will end up marrying each other, so I want you to experience dating other men too, so you don’t get to ever claim I was the only guy in your life,” he explained to you.

You had yet to get a taste of exactly how much of a cocky motherfucker you are dating, said innocently.

“But Jeonghan you are the only guy I ever dated.”

That was the end of that conversation that night before you both went to sleep, but his urging never stopped. It went on for a few days till one day your exhausted and a tad bit insecure self, lashed out at him claiming he wanted to cheat on you, and he wanted a break. So, you gave one to him.

That entire year you had a flower bouquet delivered early morning to your house with an apology letter, although the apologies lasted only for a month before you forgave the terrified man, who apologized profusely after you accepted to talk to him. Even though you did feel a bit bad after seeing him, the guy looked like he was living during the great depression.

After that all was smooth sailing and he never ever tried to upset you at all, but his playful nature persisted anyways, not like you minded that.

Five years later during your sister’s wedding in Singapore was when his proposal was finally accepted. You had just arrived at the airport and yet again the man had swooped in and taken you away from your family under the guise of some kind of sound check that was needed to be done in the wedding venue.

Your clueless self agreed to go with him and without a second thought he took you to the cables to take you to an island that was nowhere close to the wedding venue. As you were getting increasingly confused, you kept asking him where exactly you both were going. He kept deflecting the topic, so you ultimately gave up and, as another family came up on the cable car, you started talking about your flight that you took with your family. The poor man did not hear one word, he was sweating bullocks and was essentially confused why another family was in the cable car that he had fully booked for you both.

As the family got down at the end, he stopped you from doing so too claiming it is not the stop, even though it was the last one. It was then the nervous wreck of a man got down on one knee in front of asking for your hand in marriage once again, and you being so in love with him accepted to spend the rest of your life with the man.

The rest of it was history, you both had to tell your parents none of whom were shocked at all, rather relieved that you both had at last agreed to get married and be together forever.

Now ten years later and with your two children, you are perfectly content with your life. Waking up with Jeonghan beside you everyday sounds like a dream and you are happy it came true for you.

As you tossed around the bed you saw Jeonghan eyeing you in his half-awake state.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

“Us,” you answer snuggling closer to him.

“What about us, huh?”

“The way you forced me to date some other guy because you wanted me to have more experience in dating,” you laughed at the memory.

“Don’t tell me about that it still haunts me till this day” he retorts with a shudder.

“Why did you do it anyways?” you ask.

“I knew I was going to marry you so I wanted you to have some more experience with dating others so whenever you have an argument I could say ‘hey remember that looser you dated!’”, he answers with laugh.

With a laugh you slapped his shoulder exclaiming, “I sometimes forget how cocky you can get!”

"How else do you think I got the permission to propose you in someone else's marriage!" he states sassily.

With that Jeonghan snuggles closer to you some more, its Sundays anyways the kids are with their grandparents and you both have all the time in the world to just bask in each other’s presence and not do anything at all.

[wellofdean]

OK, I was going to reblog this excellent post by @luckshiptoshore so go read it, because yes. Yes!! YES!!! But then when I got started my post got super long and I felt bad tacking it onto her post and decided to make my own in response to these tags:

#i am actually a bit obsessed by the whole hunting as queerness metaphor#it’s so clearly something everyone involved in the show is thinking about#supernatural

Gurl, me too! Like go back to the start! By the time Supernatural began, the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling had already begun in the hallowed halls of USC film school, and yo: I was there at the time of Kripke's graduation, and my best friends from college are full scale big giant time filmmakers now, whose names I will not share on main because it's uncool, and I don't want that attention, but... yeah. I am referencing FIRST HAND SOURCES on this.

But, for a real source? The Oxford English Dictionary places the first use of the term "Queer Theory" in 1990, with Queer Studies as an option in the academy by 1992. I know the kids think it's a new-fangled thing, but Kripke graduated USC in 1996 (I graduated in 1995) and it was ALL THE RAGE by then. My friends read queer theory in their Critical Studies courses in the Film School, I read it in the College of Humanities getting my degree in Literature. By that time, you could not get through that school with any degree in any non-STEM subject without knowing about ye olde postmodern lenses, queer and feminist theory, and without knowing how to employ those lenses.

Queer refers to sexuality, yes, but the word's earliest use (again, according to the OED) is in the 1500's, meaning: strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.

So, ok, in 2005, Enter Supernatural, episode 1:

Presented? Two brothers. One actively seeking credit in the straight world that is not available to him in the bosom of his family: Stanford, law school, hot co-ed girlfriend, the other bound to his fractured, wounded family by duty, yes, but also by love, living on the fringe, alone, fighting monsters, and chasing after his father's approval, and who has long since given up any dream of being 'normal'. Episode 1 presents Sam's call to adventure, which he refuses when it's just familial duty, honor and love calling him, but accepts when the show takes a very straightforward and very telling path by classically fridging his woman. Ok, now he's on board. Like John, whose motivation is another dead woman, his motivation is revenge. So far so straight!

Dean though: he's different. He is already on the adventure and he was not 'called' or given the option of accepting or refusing because he had no agency when his feet were set upon this road. He does not fit the straight world at all, because he is cobbled together out of love, duty, deep guilt, striving, desperation and fear. This is who he is now, in some elemental, incontrovertible way. It was not a choice for him, he was born to it. His mother is dead, and we later learn, she made the choices that brought them all to this fate. Dean remembers her idyllically, but he is not motivated by revenge, more than any other thing, he wants to be worthy. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love.

Enter Supernatural's main theme: fucked up relationships between men enmeshed in patriarchy, which will eventually expand to include fucking GOD HIMSELF.

And like, there are SO MANY CLEAR STEPS ALONG THE ROAD in season one, and I am not even talking about sexuality and gender here, but there is SO MUCH TO SAY about it in season 1. But I am not talking about that -- I am talking at a structural, narrative level, the whole thing is just fucking all the way queered, yo.

The big climax?

At the end of the season, Dean says: "I just want my family back together. You, me, Dad... it's all I have." He is Sam's mother, John's partner! His vulnerability and emotion is feminized and contrasted with Sam and John's more overtly driven by their more masculine/straight heroic revenge quest. John: "Sam and I can get pretty obsessed, but you always take care of this family." Only that's not John talking, it's Azazel, and Dean knows it is because his father would never forgive how soft he is, how he will always choose love and family over revenge. Then, in the end, the show makes a huge point of telegraphing that Sam is finally aligning with Dean by refusing to shoot Azazel because he's possessing John, and Sam just can't do that to Dean.

Sam and Dean are thus bound together and cemented into a marginalised path, living on the road, haunting liminal spaces and cheap motels, confronting the monstrous everyday. Sam is presented as the brains of the operation, he does research, logics his way through things (masculine) while Dean is the heart who acts impulsively and on instinct and intuition (feminine).

It later transpires that Sam has a piece of the monster inside himself, and Dean has to learn to love the monstrous, he has no choice, because Sam is his brother and then Cas... and, and, and!

Like... I could go on and on, citing ENDLESS EXAMPLES. This could be a literal book. Maybe one you need to read with a magnifying glass like my condensed edition of the OED. LIke, the queerness of Supernatural is DIZZYING and MYRIAD.

But basically? FROM THE START, hunting is a queered version of family, and within that, Dean is a queered version of a Campbellian hero. Hunting is a metaphor for otherness and liminality, and that's even before you say a WORD about sex. It starts in deviation from the norms of family, masculinity and expands from there on so many levels both in story and on a meta level. The story is flesh on queer fucking bones.

I'm so sorry, but anyone who thinks queerness was not BAKED INTO Supernatural and more specifically into Dean from DAY 1 has clearly never seen Dean's insane lip gloss in season 1, and vastly underestimates the cultural awareness of people who write shit in Hollywood, and also the other people who put pink lip gloss on pretty boys in Hollywood. Nothing that gets on your screen wasn't a fucking choice made and approved by a LONG LIST of people who know what they are about.

[mariacallous]

According to the internet, I’m a “boy mum”. It’s not a term I’d heard until I gave birth to a baby boy. Suddenly, I was being bombarded with videos about the nightmare in store for me. This was footage showing the kind of destructive male-toddler behaviour that Jackass stars Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera would deem too risky. Meanwhile, their mothers were portrayed as longsuffering, harried, hard-as-nails veterans of the boy-toddler insane asylum.

My son is very physically active, but he’s also a gentle, cautious child, so this doesn’t resonate with me, or with several of the “boy mums” I know. (Meanwhile, some of the “girl mums” spend their days chasing their Tasmanian Devil-esque daughters like they’re in a Looney Tunes cartoon.) Yet it’s everywhere. Then, last week, I saw a report that found girls were playing outside less than boys, even at two years old – something that shocked the researchers, who hadn’t expected to see socialised gender roles emerging so early.

It didn’t shock me, sadly. Not when I’m regularly tearing my hair out in clothes shops trying to find something for my two-year-old son to wear that isn’t black or camouflage, like he’s a ninja, or a small soldier already primed for aggression.

“It’s not our fault, but we’ve all internalised that ‘boys-take-up-more-space’stereotype,” Kirstie Beaven, the founder of Sonshine magazine, a publication geared towards raising boys for a more equal world, tells me.

“Girls’ clothes are made for sitting still and looking pretty, while boys’ clothes are made for activity, even in the baby or toddler sections. Parents of babies tend to underestimate girls’ gross motor skills – expecting they will be less competent than boys at crawling or climbing – and we’re all more likely to encourage our sons to take physical risks, and expect our daughters to ‘be careful’.”

Beaven says that by the time our children are two years old, we probably don’t expect our daughters to need as much outside time. “Nor are they as comfy or confident when they are outside,” she says. “If your shoes are too flimsy to climb a tree or your T-shirt is cut uncomfortably short and tight, it’s not surprising you want to go home early.”

As a 90s tomboy kid raised in dungarees, this thought breaks my heart a little. A lack of outdoor physical activity will disadvantage girls from a young age, and these gendered expectations harm boys, too, as Ruth Whippman, author of the book BoyMum, tells me.

“The flipside of the ‘boys play outside more’ phenomenon is that parents as a whole give boys less of the kind of quiet indoor-type attention that they give to girls,” she says. “Wide-scale research across countries shows that from as early as nine months, parents spend more time with girls on activities such as learning letters and numbers, singing, drawing and telling stories. Girls now outperform boys at school and researchers believe these differences in parental time inputs account for a significant portion of the difference.”

What I loved about Whippman’s book was that it beautifully conveyed the internal battle many intelligent feminist mothers found themselves having when raising boys who may be conforming to certain stereotypes.

“When my three boys were small, people used to tell me all the time [that] ‘boys are like dogs – all they need is food and exercise, and just try to wear them out’,” Whippman says. “I used to absolutely hate it, as it seemed so dehumanising. But perhaps what I hated even more was the fact that in our case it was kind of true.”

Of course, like most mothers, she initially held herself responsible.

As with many of these questions, a complex interplay between nurture and nature is involved, and it’s stupid to deny biology any kind of role. Whippman highlights how male foetuses get a shot of testosterone in the womb that has been linked in other mammals to a tendency to play more roughly, while girls may be able to sit still and focus for longer at younger ages because the areas of the brain responsible for impulse control and emotional self-regulation generally develop earlier in girls.

The point is, though, that parents often increase this divide by failing to correct their own unconscious biases and help their kids work on the areas where they could improve their skills. As Whippman puts it: “When it comes to gender, as parents, we end up turning small differences into big differences.”

Seeing how much my little boy needs me, how much touch, affection and reassurance he craves, has been one of the most educative experiences I’ve had since I became his mum. I’ve known many men whose feelings as little boys were neglected, often in contrast to the comfort and time any sisters’ emotional needs were given.

“If we don’t let boys express all parts of their personalities and emotional lives because they are just ‘wild monsters’, we are not only doing them a huge disservice, we are storing up problems in how they interact with others in later life,” says Beaven, who also says that the “boy mum” stereotype boiled her blood.

If we are to tackle the crises in violence against women and in male mental health, we need to be open about how damaging these stereotypes are for boys as well as girls. That starts with being honest with ourselves about how much we, as parents, are encouraging them. That’s why you’ll never find me identifying as a “boy mum”, no matter how much the internet wants me to.

[drmaddict]

She takes after her mother

Summary: Children don't always take after their parents. This is a fact that Jason and Eddie are also confronted with.

Word count: 1.815

"What's she done this ti- Munson?", Jason looked in surprise at his former classmate, who was already waiting in the principal's office at Hawkins High.

"Carver?", he looked just as surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Probably the same as you.", he sighed and dropped into the unfortunately all too familiar chair.

The office door opened again and Headmistress White came in. She wordlessly placed a plastic coffee cup in front of Jason and nodded to him.

"Jason.", she sighed.

"Hi Beth." He just nodded and reached for the coffee. He pulled a face.

"Sugar's out.", she explained and sat down at the table. "Mr. Munson. I'm glad you could come."

Munson wiped his hands on his torn jeans. "No problem. What's the boy done?", he laughed nervously. "Handed a book in late? Was it dog-eared? Sometimes he forgets himself, when he's doing calculus."

Beth grinned. "I know you're a rare guest, but please take this seriously."

Munson nodded immediately. "Sure. Sorry."

A rare guest. Jason wanted to scream. And he sat here almost every other week, because his little brat of a daughter thought, she had to play rebel. Although her grades were impeccable, she just couldn't control herself and was always getting into trouble.

"So...", she placed the two files in front of them.

The one in front of Munson still looked almost virgin, while the one in front of Jason was almost bursting at the seams.

Annoyed, he took a sip of the much too bitter coffee. For the last two months, he had really hoped, that she had come around. No incident. No phone call.

"So. You two kids seem to be getting... getting closer.", she began.

They both looked up, perplexed.

"What?", they asked almost in unison.

She nodded. "Yes. From what I hear, they're probably a couple. And I'm just outing them here. Well. Now you know."

"Axel - my Axel, who can't look at a girl without blushing, has a girlfriend?", Munson asked incredulously.

"And Jennifer willingly lets a boy touch her, without breaking his nose?" Jason asked, equally puzzled.

Beth nodded. "I'm just as surprised. By the way, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Jonsen's surgeries went very well."

Munson laughed. "Your daughter's a thug?"

"Self-proclaimed feminist.", Jason grumbled. At first he'd been happy, not to have to worry about some guy breaking her heart. Now he'd rather that, than constantly worrying about his daughter breaking someone else's.

"How can it be that your little girl is so crazy?"

"Takes after her mother.", Jason sighed, exhausted.

Munson laughed. "Oh, I'd like to meet her."

"If you find her, let me know. She ran off and left me alone with Jennifer, when she was ten.", Jason nagged at him. Since then, his daughter just hadn't been the same. He did everything, but she pushed him away more and more. No matter how he wanted to be involved in her life. He went to her debate competitions. He said, it was okay, that she didn't want to be on the swim team anymore. He allowed her horrible music. Nothing helped bring her closer to him again.

"Oh... I'm sorry about that.", Munson said tersely, looking down at his hands. "If it's any consolation. Axel doesn't exactly take after me either. He's a little wimp. But my wimp. His mom took off too."

"Hm."

"Gentlemen.", Beth chimed in again.

Jason wiped his face. "Sorry Beth. Shoot."

"Well we're pleased that the two of them complement each other so well. Axel is finally coming out of his shell more and Jennifer has become much calmer... Just... Well, the two of them were found today... They were found in a somewhat prickly situation today.", she said, slightly fumbling.

"Prickly situation?" Munson asked. "What, did they make out too hard and scare the janitor?"

Beth narrowed her eyes embarrassed. Jason suspected the worst.

"Please don't tell me-"

"They had sex in the school swimming pool."

Jason buried his face in his hands.

Munson just looked at the principal, grinning stupidly.

"Mr. Munson!", she reprimanded him.

"Sorry.", he interjected, but continued to grin.

She sighed. "Actually, I wouldn't make a big deal out of it, but the janitor caught them and since he's going through his second divorce, he's not too fond of young love." She pulled the school files back towards her. "At worst, they've broken a few hygiene rules. So they'll both be staying late this afternoon, picking gum off the benches. Nothing serious. But the janitor is looking in through the window right now, so I'd ask you both to look shocked, while I put these stamps on these scratch sheets. And action. Perfect." She smiled at them both. "Your little lovebirds will be in my office."

They followed the principal to her room, where there children were indeed waiting.

"Jennifer. Feet off the table.", Mrs. White said calmly. "And out of my chair."

She nudged the girl, who had made herself comfortable at her desk and was drinking coffee from one of the ceramic cups waiting for her.

"Sorry Beth.", she smiled and stood up relaxed. Jason looked at his daughter reprovingly, but she ignored him.

Munson, on the other hand, walked up to his son and smacked him on the shoulder, grinning benevolently. The little boy wanted to sink into the ground.

Jason looked closely at the scrawny heap of misery. You'd think his daughter would choose someone... just pick someone else. The boy sitting there was almost her photo negative.

He was wearing a checked, short-sleeved bottom up shirt, glasses with plain a metal fram and beige pants. He took an inhaler out of his trouser pocket and put it in his mouth. One pump later, he inhaled deeply.

Munson just rolled his eyes with a smile. "Just relax. You just have to scrape off gum. Harvard will still take you and you won't end up at a gas station like your old man." He tousled the boy's short curls, which seemed to be the only thing he had of his father besides his dark eyes.

"Dad!", he groaned and slapped his hand away.

He just laughed.

Jason looked at his daughter again. Torn jeans, a jacket with an impossible number of patches and a rumpled T-shirt, that he wasn't sure she hadn't already worn to sleep.

"Anthrax?", Munson asked cheerfully, pointing at her shirt.

Jennifer looked at Munson as well. "Yup."  she said, looking at him closely. "Black Sabbath... Classic.", she just nodded with a bored.

"That used to be the shit."

"Hmm. Back in the day, maybe.", she just nodded.

Munson grinned and looked back at his son. "Respect.", he just said and slapped him on the back again. The boy simply took another pump from his inhaler.

Jason sighed. "We're going to the gynecologist tomorrow.", he decided.

"Dad!", she exclaimed in shock.

"Nothing Dad!" he countered. "I'm not going to be a grandfather, until you finish school!"

"And we couldn't have this conversation in private?"

"If you'd seduced the kid somewhere more private, we probably wouldn't be having it at all."

"How do you wsnt to know, that I seduced him?"

"So you're telling me that this 110 pounds of asthma and fragile bones gave the gigolo. No offense to you, kid.", he turned briefly to little Munson.

He dropped his inhaler out of sheer shock. Hectic he bent down after it.

"Okay. They're going to serve their sentence now and they're welcome to leave.", Mrs. White interjected again.

"It was nice to meet you, Mr. Munson. Jason. See you around."

The four of them left the room. The couple was collected by the janitor and Jason and Munson went outside to their cars.

"How did those two end up together?", asked Munson aloud. "I mean. I love my son, but what does she want with him?"

Jason shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Most guys she beats up. He must be doing something right... Tell him, he's invited to dinner Friday."

Munson nodded. "Kids, huh?"

"Kids.", Jason sighed. He rubbed his face. "Fancy a beer?"

"A beer with my former nemesis? Sure. But you're paying."

Jason rolled his eyes. "What else."

Jennifer and Axel lay entwined in each other's arms. Some would almost say, they were trying to eat each other. Axel jerked away, took out his inhaler and inhaled deeply.

"Sorry.", he mumbled.

She grinned. "No problem.", she sighed, playing with his shirt collar. "I know an abandoned boathouse by the lake. We'd have our peace and quiet there."

"O... OH... Okay." Axel groaned shakily as she ran her hand emphatically over his crotch. "Do you Do-you want to drive?"

She nodded and was already pulling his car keys out of his pants.

They drove in silence, listening to Pantera over a cassette Axel had found in a thrift store. Jennifer brought the car to a halt, almost dragging Axel with her.

The door was open, as usual, and she pushed her boyfriend through the opening.

"Hey!"

"Urgh!"

"Axel?"

"Mr. Carver?"

"Fury!"

"Munson."

The four of them looked at each other in surprise, until Jennifer took a closer look. Munson's hand was under her father's T-shirt and his lips were conspicuously red. Both of their hair were completely disheveled and her father's hand was stuck in Munson's pants.

"Urgh! Fuck no!" she groaned.

"Language!", her father reprimanded her immediately.

Munson laughed. "With the things you throw out sometimes-" Her father slapped him on the back of the head.

"OW!"

"What are you doing here?", her father asked angrily, trying to put them both in a more presentable position.

"The same as you, it seems.", she said confidently, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Munson grinned. Jason narrowed his eyes in humiliation. Axel just stood there silently and looked at the floor.

"Okay." Munson snapped out of his stupor and zipped his pants again. "We're getting out of here."

"But-", her father started.

"But nothing. They're old enough and at least they're not in the school pool. We both have a house each and we just wanted to pretend, we were still in high school here. Let the youth get the experience and let's go.", he said, pulling her father with him.

The two of them looked after their fathers, overwhelmed.

"I would have never expected this in my life.", Jennifer admitted.

"I've got a few more Oxis, if you want to forget about it.", Axel said bluntly.

"How can your dad not know, that you're selling this shit?"

"He trusts me and... Well, he's not the brightest light sometimes.", he grinned.

She laughed. "Okay. Give me that." She smiled and let Axel put the little pill in her hand. She kissed him briefly. "I've never had high sex before.", she grinned.

He grinned mischievously. "I'd be your first?"

"And I hope my last." She stroked his scrawny chest.

"I love you."

"I love you."

[lissu]

sorry if this is something you'd rather not answer, i totally understand, but i have been going through it these last few months lol. how did you realise/come to terms with being trans? i've been in gender limbo for a while now and i'm simultaneously sick of it and terrified of what the truth might be 😅

i don't mind answering, but this is not going to be simple or short.

buckle up for a lissu gender journey! i'm giving you as much context as i can, i hope there's something here that can help you out.

content warning for mentions of eating disorders (not in detail) and internalized transphobia.

this is baby lissu. i was luckier than most people, as my parents are feminists and they insisted that every kid got the same hobbies, opportunities and expectations. i have two older brothers and an older sister. we wore clothes as hand-me-downs (including this beautiful hat), so i got to wear "boy clothes" from a young age.

my first language is finnish, which is gender-neutral (no gendered pronouns at all), and i think that this gender-neutral upbringing caused me to not think about gender at all in my childhood.

then puberty hit, and i realized i hated being a girl. the 00s sexism was real, but also being a "tomboy" got me a lot of teasing – there was no winning in middle school i think. i didn't know about being trans or anything back then. i cosplayed boy characters (i also drew a beard on myself a lot and just walked around like that??) and dreamt of binding but didn't know how to do it.

i was really drawn to emo/visual key aesthetic, idolized femme men (or, bishounen as we anime girlies called them) and cried when i had to wear makeup or dresses. i developed an eating disorder in my teenage years, i was so uncomfortable with my body and myself.

in my late teens, i went full femme and got hetero married. every time i got more femme my ed got worse (my boob situation was really unfortunate for a Guy). at this point i also got into some radfemmy thoughts, thinking that being a woman is supposed to be awful and something that people just bear and don't want to be. i internalized that thinking, kind of in a doomerist/blackpilled sense where i thought that being a woman equals suffering. sprinkle in some man-hating here and you have a beautiful stew of trans denial.

(jfc i look like a stepford wife in photos from this time, the dead eyes really make the look)

i did ask my spouse if he'd be alright with dating a man a lot, in that "if i woke up tomorrow and was a man what would you do" way. i think already at this point i knew this was not right for me, but like i said, i was fully convinced every woman hated being a woman.

in 2019 i cut my hair, cried a lot, and thought about coming out as nonbinary. i had a lot of mental health issues going on (undiagnosed adhd and workplace bullying made me burn out) and i decided i was too busy for a gender crisis.

at this point i kinda knew what was going on – i started daydreaming about being a guy. still, i thought it was impossible, like literally an unattainable dream. i had internalized transphobia, and on top of that, trans healthcare is really hard to get into in finland and i thought i was "too old" to transition at 24. so i kinda figured out it would be easier to just live as a weird girl – the thing is, it was really hard, and then 2020 happened so i went back to closet full-time.

i have to mention i was wrongly diagnosed as bipolar 1 at this point and on heavy medication (difficult women amirite) – most of my time was just about surviving and not really living. my ex was addicted to drugs and mean to me, and i overall felt like a heaping pile of garbage. i had fully committed to being femme, but seeing photos of myself during '20-'24 i always look like i'm in drag. i kind of am.

this is taken a day after my divorce. i was in such denial at this point i fully committed to being a lesbian. i thought all my issues were because i was dating the wrong gender and not because i was not living like i wanted to.

i think something shifted in the next months. i was re-evaluating who i was and who i wanted to be with... i don't think there was one single instance that made me realize i was trans but maybe it was a lot of things.

i kept dreaming about being a guy. i was jealous of guys at the gym. i was jealous of guys in the same way i'd been since i was that weird anime-loving girl in my teens – i was wondering why guys got all the things i didn't get? why didn't guys hate being a guy? i also met some women (cis and trans) who were clearly overjoyed about being a woman and identified with it strongly. it made me realize not everyone hates being a woman, surprise surprise.

at some point i realized i don't have to be a woman if i hate it so much, no one is forcing me to live like that except myself.

(this is me, two months on t showcasing my new favorite mug.)

i dated another trans guy briefly and he had some tips on how to get on hormones without the hassle of finnish trans health care, and when i heard it i immediately knew i wanted it. i had no hesitation and contacted the clinic the same day. it affected me a lot, seeing a hot and out trans guy about my age, short and still so confident in himself. he proved a lot of my fears wrong, and it was the final push i needed to start a medical transition.

it was like admitting something i had known for years and yet i had to practice saying it out loud. a big thing that made all the difference for me was that i realized that i didn't just have to tolerate being who i was "born" as and i could choose what to do with my life.

i would say that the biggest reasons it took me so long (29 years) to realize i was trans were:

gender-neutral language and upbringing

lack of information AND misinformation about gender affirmation and trans healthcare. transphobia made me think i was going to be ugly and unlovable if i transitioned. also the trans clinic in finland seems to be widely feared and hated, and i have medical trauma and putting myself through that seemed like a nightmare. i am now getting a referral to the clinic, now that i'm four months on hormones and getting my top surgery next week (i still need the finnish diagnosis to get hysto). i am still afraid of the clinic.

man-hating in leftist circles. even my trans-inclusive friends said jokingly that all men are awful or that they hate being attracted to men. it made me afraid to tell these people i was a guy and i held a lot of similar beliefs

i had Other Issues going on and it was easier to blame my discomfort on anything else than dysphoria

fear of transphobia. online it seems like everyone hates us and i was worried people were going to cut me off. well, no one cut me off and people have been kind and accepting, curious and supportive. i'm the first trans person a lot of people around me have knowingly met (i hang out a lot with 50+ yo athletes in my boxing circles) and even people who have never heard of it before are accepting. most people don't actually care, including my parents (i did mention the feminist thing upfront lmao)

the last part is kind of hard to explain but admitting i was a guy felt like giving up on something. i was a good-looking woman with, as mentioned, great assets (f cup tits at 21 did make me feel Some Type of Way) and i had some shame in admitting that i didn't want the attention i'd been getting. like i said, this is hard to explain but i felt like i was losing some privilege or "downgrading" from a hot and weird woman to a short and weird man.

my dysphoria didn't make me want to kill myself. i think there's a lot of emphasis on trans suffering, and because my genitals or boobs didn't make me always feel awful, i thought it was just body dysmorphia (thinking i was fat or ugly when i was neither)

after i started my transition and came out of the closet, i've been happier with myself than ever before. ofc my issues didn't just magically vanish, but my self-hate is not adding to the pile. for the first time ever i feel HOT and BEAUTIFUL and when i look in the mirror i smile.

i think admitting the truth to myself and my loved ones WAS terrifying, but i've never felt loved in the same way. i love myself as ME and so do my loved ones.

one more thing, i think that when i was presenting a woman it was really conditional to me. i was only a woman if i was dressed femme enough or had makeup on or when my hair was done and then the rest of the time i didn't feel like anything, really. when i came to terms with being a guy, i feel like a guy now 24/7. i don't have any terms and conditions to being a guy the same way i had for being a woman.

i know this was like the new new testament, feel free to ask about any of the specifics for clarification!

[shin-meddlesome-hero]

Some of my notes from watching Zeta Gundam very, very slowly (up until ep. 34)

(Needless to say that it contains spoilers and that I get very annoying about the female characters because that's my thing)

-I'm 6 episodes into Zeta Gundam and I still don't know what to make of Kamille. On the other hand, it took me a look at some screenshots of SD Gundam Kamille to know that I'd die for him.

-I was very surprised to see Kamille openly declaring that he's autistic. Why don't we have more of that?

-20 episodes in, now (watching v. slowly). So... Z isn't exactly that great about women... right? 0079 left me gladly surprised on that front, but my expectations were super low. Maybe I should turn off that part of my brain while watching this.

- I hate to say this about a female character but so far Beltorchika is so annoying. Wake up, sis! You can't fix the dude, you barely know him! He's not opening up to you, and please leave the 15 year old out of your problems with Amuro!

-"I learned karate and how to make Mobile Suits to become a man!". Kamille isn't beating the transmasc allegations /J

-It makes sense that Kamille resents her mother for apparently caring more about her job than her family, but this does speak more of that general anxiety about women in the workplace than of anything else. Might be a common cliché at the time, still don't like it.

-She's allowed to be a terrible mom, but maybe for other more nuanced reasons? Also the fact that Kamille mentions that Fa made things that his mother should've done for him... it's gonna be really awkward if Kamille/Fa is the endgame ship.

-So, if both Kamille's parents were responsible for the development of the MK-II, then when he fights in it, one can say that his parents are still protecting him. On the other hand, we could also consider the MK-II as Kamille's little br- *gets shot*

-Ep 21: The titular Zeta Gundam appears. -Male Feminist guy is creepy. -Bright has the vibes of an exhausted High School teacher. - Fa rescues Kamille in space. This two are soo endgame

-Bright: Emma, you should do something about Kamille and Fa. Emma: Nah. I'm not Kamille's mom, besides, teens like to make drama as a form of recreation.

Emma is so cool. (Also, she and Reccoa should kiss)

-If there's a fanfic out there about Bright Noah being a clueless high school teacher/principal, please let me know. That's like the perfect AU for him.

-Girls can also fuck up in the battlefield and get slapped as a form of military disciplinary tactic! Hashtag equality. (But seriously though, I wasn't expecting Fa to become a pilot. Interesting).

-In the comment section of the dubious site where I'm watching this show, people are saying that Zeta is ahead of its time. And yeah, in many aspects it is. On the other hand it took Gundam 40+ years to have a girl protag. Suletta Mercury should've been invented like 30 or 20 years ago.

-Meanwhile, Scirocco is high-key trying to get Jerid killed and failing. They're both huge losers.

-Also, Kamille is slowly and steadily growing on me.

-Kamille becomes more mature and thoughtful. - The story brings Katz to be the new impulsive boy who fucks everything up. -Katz matures after a couple of episodes. -Now there's a pair of annoying kids whose only purpose is to awake Fa's maternal instinct (???) It never ends!

-On the other hand, I did enjoy those five seconds where Quattro was babysitting those kids. Would've preferred more of that.

-I love that in-universe everyone refers to teenage drama as "recreation". Even Kamille at some point admits that he and Fa are engaging in such recreation. At least their relationship is evolving in a healthier way than Amuro and Fraw's in 0079.

-Between Reccoa possibly having feelings for Scirocco and Mauar protecting Jerid, it's evident that in this universe everyone suffers from having Bad Taste in Men. Y'all could do better, queens!

-Also everyone punches and slaps each other so much. And it's not a love language. It's just another language that everyone just use. (There's even a punch compilation in tumblr, it's hilarious).

-I really hope to eventually get an explanation of what's up with those kids that Char brought from Earth, because so far their only purpose is to fuel Fa's maternal instincts.

-Episode 33! We're finally meeting those funny guys from Axis. This is also full of high quality Char moments.

-*Char has flashbacks of him playing with toddler!Mineva and also gets angry when he realizes how much they have manipulated her* Aww, daddy Char.

* Char unnecesarily beats the crap out of Kamille, five minutes later* Hey! What the hell, Char?!

-Char: "I have never betrayed anyone in my entire life! Ever!

lol, a classic.

-Help! Char is starting to have a similar effect on me as the one that other horrible and pathetic fictional white men have on tumblrinas.

-Seriously though, if UC Gundam were more popular in the western hemisphere, Char Aznable would totally be a Tumblr Sexyman. *shudders*

-Me: I see, so Reccoa actually has a death wish, she recklessly jumps into the battlefield on a desperate attempt to find her own demise, but she doesn't know it.

Z Gundam: Actually Scirocco is brainwashing her with space magic and she's sexually frustrated with Char.

Wha-?

-Reccoa has so many death flags that I'm always surprised whenever she survives. Her fake "death" and its consequences were really well done. I particularly liked Kamille's reaction.

-Maybe the most effective death flag in Zeta is being close to Jerid. That's more letal than the birthday song or being near Amuro's range.

And that's all for now. Join me next time as I try to watch Z less slowly so I might be able to watch "Char's Counterattack" before Christmas 2023.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Pleasure Is My Business: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.1k

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

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

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

x

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

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

It wasn't fun.

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

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

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

"Maybe you can go to the other one."

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

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

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

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

You might be able to attend your reunion after all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you mean?"

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

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

"You want to play them off each other?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How much younger?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yeah, Hotch?"

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

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

"Yeah."

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

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

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

"Well, hello, you two!"

"Are you the--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Was he poisoned?"

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

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

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

"I know this unsub," you say.

"You do?" Hotch asks.

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

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

"The lipstick is new."

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

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

"Which one of you is Aaron Hotchner?"

"Me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Excuse us."

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

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

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

"Everything?" Larry asks in uncertainty.

"Everything."

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

x

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[bcbdrums]

👛 your favorite rare pair?

♟️a character you feel is overrated?

🤍 a fandom you’ve only recently discovered?

thank you for the ask!! since you didn't specify a fandom, i'm gonna go two.

👛 your favorite rare pair?

For Kim Possible - Ron x Yori. Is it rare? I dunno. I never see it. Maybe it didn't used to be. But maaaaan I think there's SO much incredible character development potential there for Ron. I still think of Ron x Kim as endgame, but...could be interesting to explore the boy figuring out his life without Kim and with someone else for a bit. Ultimately to make him better for Kim. I don't say any of that against Yori, I just don't think she's the one in the end. And I also don't see him dumping Kim for Yori, more a thing of happenstance.

For Soul Eater - This was a hard choice. And I don't want to call a pairing with less attention but clearly an obvious pairing "rare." Like, Ox/Harvar doesn't get much notice but I wouldn't call it rare. So.... here we go. Spirit x Azusa. Hear me out... You've got two extremely driven, hardworking people. They went to school together. You have Azusa who's a bit of a feminist and so would naturally see Spirit's actions in a negative light, since on the surface he appears to treat women as objects at least as a teen, and then there's the drinking too which she likely wouldn't see positively toward academic/career success. Then there's Spirit who is in fact genuinely hardworking despite his faults, and he makes death scythe before her. She probably doesn't think he deserves it. There's also the age difference; Azusa is the youngest (except she's probably older than Sid, but she's younger than Marie and we know Spirit is the oldest so yeah). So Spirit probably did think of her as an annoying bossy tattletale brat. But thinking of them in the anime especially, stuck in the Death Room during those crucial moments... And just her time there in Death City after all those years apart. She'd have gotten to see Spirit shine. He'd have gotten to see her grown up and shining in her role. They're not kids anymore, a lot has changed, and they have so much in common now... This would be a wild one. This one would be hard work. This isn't some fall into lust/infatuation romance. This would be a relationship built on respect over time. But I can see it... There's some great art of this ship on the blog "Illogicat" sorry I can't tag it.

♟️a character you feel is overrated?

For Kim Possible - Wade Load. He's just the deus ex machina guy. He exists to give Kim a magical way out, and there's nothing else to him... Well, actually I see a LOT of villain potential in him. But in terms of people acting like he's an important main character... Well, yeah, I guess. Kim would have died many times over if not for him. But that's all he does... A quick phone call, magically he's already put exactly what she needs in her backpack without her knowledge somehow for that exact predicament that no one knew she'd be in... Yes, it's a cartoon, this is part of the humor, I get it. But the only real he interest he holds for me are his villainous tendencies that show up at times. But in his assigned role... Sorry, he ain't nothing.

For Soul Eater - Crona comes to mind first... I likely wouldn't have thought so if not for the fandom obsession, but it's like... There's not much to Crona? Crona is sort of a....blank slate. For self-projection. Yeah... All Crona ever seems to get noticed for is "cute when shipped with Maka" and never acknowledged for the things that matter like, abuse by parent/"sibling" and madness (serious, serious mental health issues here) and we could use Crona to talk about those topics in ways that matter. I'm not saying it's not valid to make a ship cute because you like cute, absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there's other issues (I briefly addressed in a prior ask maybe even today actually) and it's just... Crona could be so important. But that's never what I see in fandom. Overrated for the wrong things, underrated for the right things. (And like, the fandom targeting random ppl who haven't read the manga to tell them it's bad cuz you don't like Crona's ending... Come on, fandom.) I'm keeping this extremely brief for the sake of post-length.

🤍 a fandom you’ve only recently discovered?

It's been some months now, but, Psycho-Pass. 😌 I have a Soul Eater crossover fic to thank for this (my GOSH if any characters ever belonged in another universe.... SE chars belong in Pyscho-Pass my GOSH). I'm stalled on season 3 though because there's no dub and I haven't had the energy for the sub in months.... But I've been itching to get back to it and heh I just may have energy now...

Psycho-Pass is an anime crime drama. Pretty gory actually, so for me I do have to look away from the screen at times (also - two SE voice actors star as the main characters!). Each season/movie jumps to a different point in time, but it's all one big connected story in the end. Season 1 is the best (so far) and my goodness... The themes are mature. If you enjoy deeply intellectual shows, you'll enjoy this. It's also a lot of mystery. I like the animation style too, it's really stunning.

Here have some amazing Soul Eater x Psycho-Pass crossover art because IT'S AWESOME.

[orkbutch]

your nun au. i like it very much. if you don't mind, can you tell me more about it? like what is shadowheart's story? what is up with lae'zel? why is karlach so cute?

Absolutely, I am very eager to talk about it! This is gonna be long tho haha. tw for addiction and self-harm

Shadowheart grew up in a relatively normal, casually Catholic family, but shes always had shit going on. Clinically depressed, and she definitely has a personality disorder, probs BPD, defs not diagnosed because its the 90's and shes masking HEAVY. Even as a kid she was pretty into catholicism though, and liked Christ and his weird more-than-human self sacrificial vibes.

At 13 while in boarding school she got lured into a cult (where she was given her name). This was a mix of older girls and a few much older people outside the boarding school, all women. They were a political cult of feminist seperatists, but also had a layer of idiosyncratic spiritualism originating entirely from the cult leader Shar (real name Sharon). Edgy stuff about darkness, the night, pain and sacrifice being good. But in particular there was a focus on pursuing oblivion, and that resulted in Shadowheart doing some very destructive substances at a very young age, and learning how effective numbness was when coping with being a depressed teenager with BPD. She realised she was a lesbian while in this group, and that wasn't great because Shar was Not chill about that at all. These were radical second wave feminists that considered sex inherently reproductive of patriarchal power dynamics, and the cult was firmly asexual; lesbians were considered gender traitors and particularly looked down on. (Transgender people were not even acknowledged; truly old school r*dfems.) Her attraction to women is what made her question things most throughout her time there, but she was very young and impressionable; she wouldn't start to really firmly question things until she was 16.

She was, through all of this, a big fan of Christ; in fact some of the cult's ideology kinda deepend her concept of Christ and martyrdom, which she admired greatly. Self sacrifice was The Ultimate Virtue to her; a loving masochism, which really spoke to her (and her self-harming tendencies).

She escaped at 17 and didn't return home; she immediately became a novitiate within an Irish-Catholic cloister. This would have been in the early 80's. She dove head first into being a dedicated cloistered nun; it wasn't that different from her time in Shar's group except a lot more sober. When she took her vows and became a full fledged nun, she descended further into worship and over her 10 years there, she became more and more... Medieval with it.

This was a Problem, because this was the late 80's moving into the early 90's in the UK - not only was Vatican II well and truly instilled in the practices of all cloisters, but feminism had been kicking around for a while now and had only gotten more popular. Nuns being hidden away from the world, participating in shame circles and self flagellating was well and truly Over and were banned practices. But Shadowheart researched older methods of worship from deeply devoted cloistered nuns and dove in, because they felt meaningful, helped her cope and they made her feel special to Christ.

Something that had a big impact on her was her duties as a volunteer nun overlapping with the AIDS crisis. She found that she had to consistently fight her sisters and abbess to be allowed to assist people with HIV. This forced her to contend with her queerness, the morality of her relationship to other gay people. That prompted her to start exploring lesbianism and queer community secretly, which tempered her obsessive cloistered nun tendencies; she still self flagellated and prized self sacrifice, but her shame was being challenged, and she had felt how much she wanted diverse, queer community.

Her and Lae'zel started hooking up when she was 25; it started as moments of desperate desire for relief and comfort, but became a little more than that as time went on. (It fucked with Lae'zel A Lot.) Shadowheart was finally kicked out at 27 when not only was she caught with another nun (not Lae'zel), the extent of her self-harm was seen on her body. She became too much of a liability for the cloister. Very soon after that, Karlach appeared in her apartment.

I'll expand on Lae'zel in a reblog >:)

[bluedalahorse]

I’ve been writing since I was a little kid, and I’ve had friends who were also writers since I was a little kid.

For most of late elementary school into the beginning of middle school, I wrote a lot of stories about girls on quests. This is probably unsurprising, given that a significant portion of my reading diet involved Alanna and Daine and Cimorene and Lyra and Susan and Lucy Pevensie.

I distinctly remember a moment, however, when one of my fellow writer friends said to me, kinda dismissively, “Oh, every time you tell me a new story idea, you begin by saying it’s about some girl! I’m writing a story about a sixty-year-old man who digs graves and lives all alone.”

And the way this friend said it, it sounded like she was saying, here’s my more artistic story, because it’s about a man.

Now, full disclosure, this friend later got into feminist theory before I did, so we’re all on our own timeline and she’s called me out more than once. But I remember that marking a turning point in the kinds of stories we wrote in our friends group. And it was around the same time we all started writing Gundam Wing fanfiction, too, in a very boy-dominated way. We seemed to all absorb the idea that boy characters were always “better written” and “more interesting” and there isn’t much to be done about that.

I wrote boy characters for years after that because I worried that girl-centered stories wouldn’t be good or prestigious enough. It took a long time for me to be able to just see female characters as characters like any other characters.

And nowadays I see that idea echoed on tumblr dot com with a kind of fatalism, usually in discussions of female characters showing up in fanfiction. “Oh, well, there’s so few women who are interesting and written well! They are just such a rare species!” And like, I kinda get it, I’m a fan of Shakespeare plays and some of the gendered ratios + gendered expectations there can be just brutal.

But I also just… I wonder if maybe things aren’t as bleak as we sometimes say they are? We live in a world with Claudia the Vampire and Sara Eriksson and Felice Ehrencrona. We live in a world with Ashley Bennet from The Black Kids and Lily Hu from Last Night at the Telegraph Club and Marin from We Are Okay. We’ve had Katara in the 00s and Utena and Anthy in the 90s and Ramona Quimby in the 50s. Anne Shirley and Jo March and Fantine have all been with us for a long time!

I do think there are legitimate concerns we can have about how women are written and have been written historically. I get that. But I wonder if we maybe shouldn’t be leaning into our fatalism as much as we do.

[inolienkiki]

sit down, I'm going to talk about how expressing interests and preferences and opinions is viewed as inherently childish and therefore societally unacceptable

--

First, for clarification: by interests, and preferences, and opinions, I am referring to several related concepts.

Interests include: Media! A TV show, a book, a toy line, a video game, a comic that is particularly meaningful to you. A subject or field of study that just gets you excited. A species you know loads about, or a machine that you could take apart and put back together. A holiday, a craft, a sport. Literally anything that makes you spark.

Preferences include: A way you prefer to manage your surroundings or stimuli. Maybe you don't like crowded places, or hearing something loud makes you uncomfortable. Maybe you feel comfortable only in specific clothes, whether because of their texture or just their look. Maybe you need a particular set of conditions in order to sleep. Maybe you don't want a romantic partner, maybe you find it helpful to listen to music while you work, maybe you don't like certain foods. Hell, maybe you just don't like someone. Literally anything that you can improve your life by having some control over.

Opinions include: Well, by opinions, I'm mostly talking about attention to detail, talkativeness, or anything that can be vaguely construed as idealism. For a great example of all three, there's that really long post about ageism and youthlib that you're five paragraphs deep in right now

--

Yes, all these things are more likely to be encountered by neurodivergent people. Interests- particularly strong, persistent ones- can manifest as autistic special interests, ADHD hyperfixations, or the comfort media of highly sensitive people. Preferences often stem from over- or understimulation. Opinions are more likely to manifest for any number of reasons: talking through feelings helps some people understand them better; sometimes, the only way to curate your surroundings is by explaining why it's helpful; and, to put it frankly, neurodivergent people have a lot of things they need to talk about. Of course we're more likely to voice our concerns about ableism, infantilization, and the ways the world is more difficult for us. [Also... and this is me... my ADHD makes me TALK. When I'm understimulated, the way I stimulate myself is often to start rambling, or explaining something, or writing a very long Tumblr post.]

Despite this, they're much more common than they're given credit for. Interests, preferences, and opinions are something everyone experiences. My mom- who I very recently made a post about probably being neurotypical- has an unusually intense interest in the Donner Party, a thorough preference for organization, and absolutely cannot sleep when exposed to any light or noise or the smell of somebody making food. My friend, who (to be fair) cannot get a psych evaluation if he wants to keep his job, is so fascinated with planes and flying and space that he's dedicated his life to it. My dad, a bird biologist by degree who works for the Fish and Wildlife Service- as you might predict- really likes birds. So much so that his entire front yard and backyard and various locations he's volunteered at around the city are explicitly cultivated to provide habitat for native birds and other species. You don't hear people assuming that sports fans or cat people or feminists must be neurodivergent because they express natural human variation.

These interests, preferences, and opinions tend to pop up in kids... for all kinds of reasons. Children are encouraged from a young age to figure out what they're interested in. They're presented with various subjects and fields of study in school to develop tastes for, pushed and often required to read books and write essays and fiction, and highly encouraged to "entertain themselves" with TV, video games, and other media to lighten the load on their caretakers. Kids are also more likely to have preferences, or voice those preferences: they're more likely to have fears of places or situations they're not familiar with, especially if they've been led to believe they're incapable or naive; their boundaries are crossed way more often when they're exposed to things they don't like or aren't comfortable with, and have no way out; and their senses are literally more sensitive than adults'. Of course a child will be uncomfortable in a room with a loud noise playing at a frequency adults can't hear, whether due to electronic noise or purposeful "teenager repellent" speakers. Of course a child will be upset if someone says something hurtful to them, because confidence and self-assuredness are considered negative and "disrespectful" traits in children, and so aren't encouraged. Of course a kid won't like the food they're being forced to eat, because up until a certain age, children actually can't taste certain flavors. And in many cases because of these more intense preferences, kids HAVE to understand, and voice, their opinions. Any situation that might make an adult feel uncomfortable could also make a child feel uncomfortable... but that child cannot leave that situation. A kid who is hurt by a classmate, a teacher, or a family member doesn't have the option to cut that person out of their life- no matter how little that relationship is worth. A kid who is eating something chosen for them that really doesn't agree with them doesn't have the option to stop eating that thing, because in many cases it's their only opportunity to eat. A child who is overwhelmed or being made to feel ashamed at a party- whether for children or adults- cannot just walk out and drive away. When kids are in a bad situation, talking about it is the only option. Like neurodivergent people, kids' opinions are also strengthened and exacerbated by their interests and their unique, forgotten marginalization. Kids are stereotyped as "whiny" when they talk about small issues and "naive" or "idealistic" when they talk about big ones. That is, until they reach a certain age, when it becomes "hormones" and "teenage rebellion". (News flash: All emotions are caused by hormones and neurotransmitters which vary in abundance when people are exposed to stimuli. Saying teenagers are emotional "because of hormones" is like saying your dog is wet because it's raining. Yeah, that's how water works... but it's only happening in the first place because you locked your dog outdoors.)

So, what? Neurodivergent people and children have a lot in common? Big surprise, some of you are saying, but you're missing the point.

I am talking about how the things that are regularly construed as shameful, or weird, or not worthy of respect, in adults... are viewed this way because they're affiliated with children, a marginalized group. A lot of the ableism that neurodivergent adults face is misdirected ageism. And no, I'm not even faintly saying that ableism isn't real, nor am I saying that neurodivergent adults are basically children or deserve to be treated like children do. (Nobody deserves that, including children.) Just like many people who perpetuate aphobia and amatonormativity probably don't know that aroace people even exist; just like gender nonconforming people and people with gender expression that strays outside of norms are misidentified, and insulted, for some perceived "gayness"; ableism can be so uninformed it's mistargeted.

--

The only other thing I want to mention here: how do neurotypical kids, with lots of interests, preferences, and opinions, lose those with time? Answer is: well, first, they don't always. My friend who really likes planes was dismissed as "overly optimistic" and "naive" by many of his friends and mentors. He's doing great in navy flight school... I think the words they were looking for are something more like "ambitious", or "determined". Turns out he's been cool this whole time. In this way, traits which are dismissed or misidentified in kids actually become VALUED in adults. My dad and his volunteering, my mom and her cleanliness, my old PI and his dedication to mentoring, etc. etc. As adults gain more influence over their surroundings, their preferences begin to be considered valid. And of course people get quieter when they aren't forced to speak out.

Yet... obviously this isn't it. I think the missing element is internalized ageism. I can only speak to this as someone who was assigned female at birth, but one way this manifests is clear enough to me: "I'm not like other girls!" This is common enough that lots of people seem to see teenage women's experiences and their individuality as immature in and of themselves. But it seems clear enough to me that, more than anything, this is a desperate demand for maturity. As a teenager, I felt incredibly pressured to shed my previously "childish" interests and preferences and change them for more societally acceptable, "adult-like" ones. I can't tell you how many times I was about to drop my lego hyperfixation, but every time I came close, they came out with something so much better. But, up until I was sixteen, I felt shame over it- and shame over my continued interest in Warrior Cats, over the kids' cartoons I still like to watch, over a fox hat that I wore to one class, one time, that I was legitimately very scared would impact everyone's perception of me- and the truth is, it probably did. Everyone seems to think this kind of thing is because of peer pressure, but the nature of that claim as a misguided assumption is so much clearer to me because I didn't go to middle or high school. I was partially homeschooled, and I partially had an incomplete patchwork education that drew from various online and in-person classes. This is fine and not actually a negative thing and genuinely was not a bad experience at all. (I'm completely, 100% serious. Educational freedom, tailoring to kids' interests, and acceleration/skipping grades is often extremely beneficial and doesn't hurt the kid. My ADHD wasn't diagnosed until recently because, as a kid, I was almost never put in a situation where it held me back.) Of course girls put on makeup and revealing dresses and get into relationships very early, because they're trying to show their maturity, and female maturity is often societally equivalent to sexual maturity and romantic entanglement. (I could talk about this all day... the intersectionality of so many different types of specific, inconsistent, and misdirected marginalization is fascinating and horrifying.) Because of this, for most women, internalized ageism seems to manifest as "I'm not like other girls, because I'm a woman, and I deserve independence and respect." For me, without the "peer pressure" (but more relevantly, without the peers) it was just the last half. It's so easy to blame kids' problems on peer pressure when 99% of kids are forced to constantly be surrounded by their peers. asjdflksjlasdhkg

I don't actually know very much about what internalized ageism is like for people who were assigned male at birth, but bravado, insecurity, and toxic masculinity seem like pretty obvious outcomes.

--

Ok, lesson from this extremely long post: if someone is telling you that something about your interests, preferences, opinions, or personality is childish, you may be inclined to pull your age. Adult or kid, the "that's for babies" response is a natural defense, but kinda misses the point: the person saying that already thinks you're a baby! Correct, productive response: Do you think that's a bad thing? Why?

If you're an adult who's part of a group that is stereotyped as "childish" or "immature"- which covers a hell of a lot of marginalized groups- know when you're seeing misdirected ageism. Once you start paying attention to it, it'll help you understand kids' experiences so much better.

Don't be ashamed of yourself for acting, or feeling, like a kid. That's valid. It's not hurting anyone. And it's not even uncommon.

Definitely don't be ashamed of yourself for being a kid. You're cool. Trust in yourself, and keep speaking out.

[echoes-lighthouse]

Had a heartfelt conversation with a friend at work today about our Harry Potter phases and decided to draw up my existing selfships for that universe! I kind of vacillate between not wanting to engage with the fandom and wanting to rub my grubby little genderqueer feminist fingers all over it. Neither of these ships are getting a tag because they're not going to be reoccuring on this blog, but this is just a today thing.

V1: Minerva McGonagall Timeline

My s/i comes to work at Hogwarts after the First Wizarding War, helping the kids recover from the war and the widespread loss of parents. Their eventual goal is to specialize in non-human therapy in the Wizarding World, so they keep going to the Forbidden Forest to interview centaurs, but they also care a lot about the students.

They have a little Yorkie dog as their familiar, who's always tip-tapping down the stone corridors after them. He's also an emotional support dog for the students, they can hold him during sessions.

Dumbledore and I have a mutually wary relationship, but so far we've been working towards the same goals, so the wariness is mostly expressed in being overly cheerful with each other and always buying each other candy. But we're side-eyeing each other the entire time distrustfully.

Minerva and I were also kind of wary of each other initially, but I was also very open about how cool I thought she was, and wanting to socialize more with her. I'm friends with most of the professors: Rubeus, Filius, Ponoma, even Severus, although I had to learn not to pry as much as I naturally do.

The more Minerva and I started socializing, the more we enjoyed each other's company, and one thing led to another and now we're married, although the students don't know. Minerva's pretty private, so we told the staff but not the kids. There's always a couple of them who figure it out, but they're usually queer as well, so they keep it quiet.

V2: Severus Snape Timeline

My s/i in this universe is three years older than the main cast! Both of my Hogwarts self-inserts are Halfbloods, but this one cares a lot more because they're in Slytherin, so it's a bigger deal.

Basically I transferred over from Canada in my Fifth Year and I was like 'wow everyone must have a crush on Professor Snape' and everyone else was like 'what the literal fuck did you just say with your mouth?' and I realized that it was not universally agreed that he was the sexiest professor and decided to basically campaign for my perspective.

As a result, all of the students and staff know that I have a crush on Severus: Severus hates it for several reasons: he thinks that I'm annoying, the other teachers tease him about it, and it's just uncomfortable and he wants to absolutely find an excuse to get me out of the school entirely.

Anyways, I'm generally a big sibling figure to the other non-conforming Slytherins: half-bloods, muggle-borns, queer kids, kids who've broken with their families, I kind of collect them. Me and Luna are also very close, and we dye each other's hair and go to games together.

I graduate in Harry's Fifth Year, but when shit really starts to hit the fan, I organize the alternative Slytherins and get them out of there. I end up tied in with the Order of the Phoenix because of my little student team, and their familial connections to some Death Eaters, that enable them to get us information.

By then I'm all grown up and aware of how uncomfortable I made Severus, so I try to be extra nice to him but not in a creepy way, and he's like 'goddamnit they're competent and good at taking care of their people and they keep making me tea and it makes me feel weird when they have flowers in their hair but they're kicking ass in a dueling session' and then I nurse him back to health after the climax and we fall in love okay??? okay ^w^

Also me having taken all the cool Slytherins is why the whole house is dicks in the final book lol

[the-marron]

When I was a kid I used to love Britney Spears. Her music videos fascinated me - they were colourful and they seemed to have a story to tell, so I adored watching them and making up my own stories that went along with what was happening on the screen. I didn't know English back then at all, so I didn't understand a word, but her songs brought me joy and I adored her.

When I got a bit older, around maybe 8 or 9, it turned out that liking Britney Spears is BAD TM. Because she is a stupid blonde, you see. My parents told me I was too smart to listen to trashy pop. They helped me get the CDs, yes, but they were always given to me with a 'eh, I hope you will grow out of it soon'. I was a smart kid, I shouldn't listen to stupid things.

My peers also mocked Britney, telling me all the other artists that were better to listen to, like Christina Aguilera. She was the smart, edgy blonde, so if I had to listen to silly songs, then I could at least pick a more mature, better option.

There were other artists I listened to, of course, it's not like Britney was the only one that spoke to me, but when I learned English enough to understand what the songs were about, I grew to like them more - the songs about trying to be your own person, about not accepting what other people tell you you should be. About parents deciding what you should do and like. They resonated with me, even though I was 'too smart' for that sort of music.

As most kids do, I started to hide it. When I was 10, maybe 11, I made a very good impression of being over it. I listened to Rammstein now, sometimes to Linkin Park. It was much better, according to many.

My dad told me he was proud of me when I told him I enjoyed Sabaton. "Finally, you grew out of your stupid era!"

I was sufficiently shamed by that point to never mention my Britney Spears phase. It was the butt of jokes at family dinners still, because it was such a funny thing for a kid to like silly music. Now that the kid was over it, we should mock it as viciously as possible. Just in case said kid wants to revert to the old ways.

To be completely honest, I copied that approach - my victim of choice was Adele. It was in high school already, and I absolutely abhorred her songs. I found them whiny, overhyped, unnecessarily tearful and man-oriented, they all sounded the same to my ears, so whenever someone said that their favourite song was something of Adele's, my first thought was 'but you are smart? Why her?'

Fast-forward to now, and with Britney Spears's book released, it turns out that listening to her is okay now. It's feminist. It's fine and even good to say outright that you are a fan. Because she is a victim of abuse now, so it's fine and morally correct to like her. Her songs and lyrics have value now. Curious.

The thing is, I truly did grow out from my Britney phase. I retain some sentiment for a few songs, but either it's simply not who I am anymore, or I successfully eradicated my interest in her to stop feeling ashamed whenever her name comes up in a conversation. Doesn't matter which one it is, the effect is the same.

However, now I am old enough to see that what was done to my Britney phase, I applied to other singers - Adele, Billie Eilish, to name a few. There is always a woman singer to hate, someone whose lyrics and music "you are too smart to enjoy".

There is no real take away from it really, all of that are just musings born out of an idle mind, but now I believe that songs are a bit like poetry - you either connect with it or you don't, either it touches you or it doesn't. One person will see themselves in Adele, someone else will find themselves mirrored in Billie Eilish, someone else feels seen whenever they listen to Mitski. It's a universal feeling we all experience, to like a song and think 'wow, this speaks to me!', we all just have different tastes and different experiences.

I just know that right now, I no longer want to be the person who says 'I thought you were smarter than this?' whenever someone shares their favourites.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Do you mind if I ask your top 5 (or top 7) favorite BL and your top 3 (or top 5) favorite GL? And why do you love them? It can be from any media : books, manga, anime, manhwa, tv series or movies.....

Hard question again! I'm going to do 7 for GL and 7 for BL, again under the cut!

In no particular order:

GL:

Revolutionary Girl Utena - is including it on this list cheating since it's not primarily GL? I don't care, it's too good to not recommend. A teenage tomboy fencer gets 'engaged' to a mysterious girl by winning a duel, many more duels happen alongside symbolism, feminist messages and a really mature handling of topics like depression and abuse. REALLY dark though, but worth it! Deserves its place as one of the classic anime.

Bloom into you - incredible handling of internalised homophobia, first love, high school relationships both in the platonic and romantic sense and golden child syndrome. A heartwarming but occasionally heartwrenching story that felt very real. Bonus points for the author actually being a sapphic woman.

The Handmaiden - sapphic thriller from Korea set in the early 1900's! Dark but incredibly engaging, surprisingly happy and hopeful despite how much the girls have to suffer to get their happily ever after. The book it's based on, The Fingersmith, was also great!

GAP - Thailand's first GL series and got so popular there are now multiple other projects coming this & next year! The protagonist is a uni graduate hired in her idol's company only to discover the lady is both meaner and hotter than she thought. Lesbian crisis and full-on romcom shenanigans follow, though the series also comments on traditional family values in Thailand acting as an excuse for homophobia (the idol, Sam, is in an arranged engagement to a man as ordered by her grandma). Don't worry though, the show is mostly very fun and light & ends very very happily for the ladies.

Whisper Me a Love Song - look, as a former band kid I can't not mention the band lesbians manga. It's a highschool romance full of miscommunication and funny/cute shenanigans with occasional sadness to balance it all out. Very relaxing. It's getting an anime adaptation next year so looking forward to that!

Riddle Story of Devil - as an action series fan this was pretty incredible. A school full of assasins, everyone is sapphic and they're all badasses? High school me was obsessed and I still am. The manga is much better though, the anime is both way less gay and develops the characters much less due to the story being compressed into 12 episodes.

Legend of Yunqian - short fantasy drama from a small Chinese studio, it's about a regular young lady going back in time via a magic fan and falling for a magical warrior woman. Lovely and available on Youtube for free!

Honorary mentions: Flip Flappers (anime), Clear and muddy loss of love (novel), She likes to cook and she likes to eat (manga & TV series)

BL:

Heaven Official's Blessing - come on, it's incredible. Dark fantasy with immortal love that breaks even the most powerful curses, a complex and deeply human protagonist, a lot of emotional moments and incredible use of flashbacks to slowly reveal his backstory to the readers- what's not to love? Just a warning, when I say it's dark fantasy I'm not kidding. The series has funny and light moments but when shit gets real, it gets REAL.

No.6 - just like RGU isn't technically GL, this isn't technically BL but I am gonna talk about anyway, it's incredible. It's a dystopian sci-fi story about Shion, a teenager who discovers a government conspiracy and works to stop it alongside his new friend/love interest Nezumi. It treats the gay relationship super casually, there's no sexuality angst or anything, it was super refreshing! Read the novels though, the anime compressed the story a lot.

The Untamed/Mo Dao Zu Shi - love the intrigue, love the main romance, love the fantasy elements! My first Chinese series and one I hold dear for introducing me to the wuxia (Chinese fantasy) genre. Any version of the story is great but I'd recommend to start with the series and then read the books.

Kinnporsche - it's deeply insane and I love it for that. Everyone is gay, everyone commits crimes (they're in the mafia, so. Yeah) and it makes for a really entertaining show even if its darker elements aren't always super well handled.

Not me the series - Motorcycle gang of young anarchists against corruption! Very radical and critical of capitalism and the police system, engaging and fast paced. The director/showrunner is a trans activist/filmmaker so it's not like she doesn't know what she's talking about. It's very universal so I'd recommend it even to people who normally don't watch BL. One minus point for minor queerbaiting with 2 side characters, nothing major but it did bother me a bit + felt unnecessary in a series full of queer characters.

Cherry magic - queer office romance + mind reading! If that combination sounds interesting please do check it out, it was super cute. Bonus for very realistically human protags and an explicitly aroace side character.

Semantic error - opposites attract-type romance between an introverted, collected STEM prodigy and an extroverted art student partnered together for a project. The protagonist is autistic and written pretty well so I latched onto the show immediately, bonus points for side queer representation (bi character who's a super cool and pretty lady, love her).

Honorary mentions: Word of Honor (series), Yuri on ice (anime, only homoerotic sports anime to make the gay explicit, iconic), Nobleman Ryu's wedding (series, short but v heartwarming!)

[sunlightandsuffering]

Lys, what's the deal with frat boy Eren and feminist Mikasa's past? I know they met at least in high school and are neighbors, that their friendship took a turn for the worse. Did Eren take Mikasa's virginity in high school or college?

omgomg, okay this is getting added to my drabble doc lol, so don't be alarmed if I copy and paste this and ur ask appears again on another post lol!!! But honestly I think I have to figure them out, I really like them being like chilhood friends first, like it jsut adds a fun extra layer to their dynamic! Bc they can drive back home from school together and u have their moms conspiring to get them together and Mikasa is like I HATE HIM!! And u know they do Christmas Eve together and shit lmfaoooo and it causes MUCH chaos !!! BUT i think i wrote a drabble that sort of explains it already, don't know where it went tho lmfao.

But basically, at some point in high school, Mikasa goes Feminist Ultra TM and it becomes part of her personality, and Eren is all for it at first. AND THEN, it begins bc men are awful and Eren is like hOW AM I SUPPOSED TO COMPETE WITH THIS!?!?!? Bc all of Mikasa's friends start getting boyfriends and as occurs in high school relationships, drama ensues and jealousy and it all just poisons Mikasa against men further. And there is Eren, her best friend, 'only man she trusts' AND HE'S BASICALLY BEEN COCK BLOCKED MY FEMINISM!!! She's like I'm never dating, ew men. And Eren is sitting there like 😦😧🧍🏻 I AM A MAN??? I found the drabble tho i'll paste it at the bottom and u can sort of see what I'm going for? Idk if it makes sense tho lol!! Essentially tho, Eren is kind of hopeless bc Mikasa is always hating on men, and he's like a little kid, any attention is good attention, even if it's bad. And so he become MENINIST EREN !! Just bc it gets a rise out of her, and at the very least, she's looking at him now as more than just her wholesome best friend who doesn't count as a man lmfao.

As for the virginity part, as much as I'd love for it to be in high school and have them like have a more solid history, I think it happens in college purely bc that's just where their relationship really sparks ! But idk i gotta get my thoughts together before I write a HARDCORE drabble for them, this was just me spitballing i think

It’s not that Eren hates women. He doesn’t, he really doesn’t, he actually loves women, adores them. 

Mikasa, his childhood best friend turned enemy, well she just brings it out in him. 

He loves watching her get riled up, the fire in those beautiful silvery eyes of hers, it was intoxicating. Fighting became foreplay, and before he knew it, he was a glorified meninist, whatever the fuck that is. 

He can still remember the day it started, the tenth grade probably, Mikasa merrily stomping into class, armed with new knowledge: the wage gap, benevolent sexism, implicit gender bias. And Eren had watched, with horrified eyes as his tender spark of romance with the world’s most beautiful girl, the love of his life was crushed, lit aflame right in front of him… by fucking feminism of all things. Because how was he supposed to compete with a concept, even attempt a relationship when there were limitless facts about how awful men were? How was he supposed to compete with the faults of mankind? Thus, Mikasa didn’t date, she was waiting for a boy so perfect, that he could combat sexism itself, a feminist ally she said. 

Newsflash, they didn’t really exist, at least not in Eren’s experience, and thus, Eren became the very antithesis of everything she represented. And well, here they are. 

He’d been intrigued the first time it happened, an accident at a frat party when she was too drunk to remember much of anything at all. They’d made out a little before snuggling in his bed and Eren had slept contently for the first time in years.

He’d woken up the following morning to a scowl on her face and a hand on his dick, demanding he teach her what all the fuss was about. They’ve been enemies with benefits ever since. 

And Eren finds that despite their rabid dislike of one another, that he quite enjoys their new dynamic.