#wrinkles and imperfections be damned

[ostdrossel]

In personal news, my hair is growing back slowly but steadily around the burr hole spots, and right now, I have tufts like a baby House Finch 😆 (My hair is normal and long all around, just not in these two spots.)

[itookyoudown]

raylan making faces that give him forehead wrinkles and ava having arm hair and boyd's receding hair line and tim's lil imperfect teeth and rachel being the size of a teacup. justified casting was so spot on letting characters be normal hot without everyone having to be hollywood hot all the damn time.

[therealdisneyfan2319]

Heaven Itself | Wanda Maximoff

Summary: The soft, smutty, and sweet Stripper MILF Wanda brain rot everyone asked for.  Enjoy!

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Male Reader

Warnings: Smut (minors DNI), language, age gap relationship

Word Count: 1.4K

Masterlist

Babe, aren’t you supposed to be leaving soon?” you asked Wanda as she sat wrapped in her towel on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah,” she shrugged.  

“Everything okay?” You frowned at her admission.  While she wasn’t totally in love with her job, for the most part she enjoyed going to the club.  It was a break from the tribulations of having to actually make house calls.  You noticed a bit of an extra pep in her step on those days.  She enjoyed working with the girls as opposed to being on her own.  The back room banter, gossip sessions, and mid-shift griping made it feel like she had a normal job.  So you were surprised to see your girlfriend so out of sorts when it came to work.

“I don’t know if I want to do this anymore, Y/N.”  She rested her head on your shoulder as you sat down next to her, the bed groaning under the added weight.  You sighed as you leaned down to kiss the top of her head. Her long red locks had recently been exchanged for cropped blonde ones.  It was her version of a midlife crisis.  The momentary panic you felt upon seeing it for the first time was abated the instant you realized it was still long enough to pull.

“Okay…did something happen?” 

“No.  I just don’t want to anymore.”  She gave a small sniffle as she wrapped her arms around your torso and flopped the both of you onto the quilted comforter.

“Wanda, you can talk to me.  If you want to stop doing this, that's okay.  But if something happened at work I need to know about it.  That way I can make sure I stop at the gardening store to pick up a tarp for the body.”

“My knight in shining armor,” Wanda teased, planting a kiss on your cheek.  

“Anything for you, m’lady,” you cheekily responded as you trailed a hand up under her towel.  “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“I’m too old for this, Y/N,” she sighed.  “I’ll be 40 next week and…I don’t know, all the new girls are half my age.  Yelena is only 22, Carol’s 28, and I’m the grim reaper.  I’d kill to look like them.  I look in the mirror and see the start of wrinkles and all those stretch marks and that damn scar.  I’m practically over the hill as it is.  Honestly I wonder why you’re with me when you look the way you do and could easily land a girl like them.”

“Mmmm I think the voice in your head and I need to have a talk, because I don’t see any of that when I look at you.”  By now you’d rolled over on your side and we’re looking down at Wanda.  Your fingers traced lazily over her cheek and up into her hair.  

“And what do you see what you look at me?” she asked, gazing up at you with her entrancing green eyes while the corners of her lips slightly curved upward.

“A goddess.  Your body was hand sculpted by the divine, a gift from the angels for me to worship. There’s no one else in the world as beautiful as you.  I don’t see imperfections when I look at you, Wanda.  I see Heaven itself.”  Every word of your last sentence was alternated with chaste kisses planted on Wanda’s lips.  

“You’re ridiculous,” she scoffed.  The spreading blush on her face told another story.  While she loved you deeply, she was still quite insecure about dating a younger man.  Body image issues plagued her on a regular basis and it took all of your love and reassurance to remind her that you thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world and worthy of your love.

“And you’re ravishing, my love,” you whispered as you kissed her once more.  Warmth flooded your core as you felt her smile into your lips.  You rolled on top of her, straddling her as she wrapped her hands around your neck.  Wanda moaned into your mouth at the sudden intrusion of your tongue.  The touch of it against her own sent shockwaves through both of your bodies.

“Looks like I’ll be a little late tonight,” she breathed as you paused momentarily to unwrap her towel, letting the ends fall to either side of her ethereal body.

“Yeah well they can deal with it.”  Quick hands made work of your jeans as Wanda’s hands reached down your boxers.  “Fuck,” you moaned as she began massaging your hardening cock. 

“You know, you never fail to make me feel 25 again, sweetheart,” she chuckled as she placed her feet on the edge of the bed, spreading her legs wider to give you full access to her arousal.  You grinned as you wiggled your pants down your legs, lining your now pulsating erection with her entrance. Both of you let out a simultaneous groan as you entered her with ease.  

As you began to thrust into her, you let your body collapse down on top of hers.  She wrapped her arms around your back, rolling her hips in time with your thrusts.  In this position you were able to rest your head right next to hers and whisper sweet words of affirmation in her ear.

“You’re so beautiful, Wanda.  You’re so beautiful when you let me fuck that sweet pussy of yours.  I love watching you fall apart while I’m inside you.  You’re too good for me, baby girl.”

Wanda whimpered as you continued to shower her with praises.  Wet velvety walls squeezed you with every thrust.  The combination of your sweet nothings and your cock angled perfectly against her sensitive spot was drawing her closer to ecstasy.  

“That’s it, Wanda.  You’re doing so well.  You’re taking my cock so well. God that pussy of yours is absolutely perfect. I’ll never get tired of how good you make me feel. You’re the only one I want, the only one who makes me feel like this.” You smiled as you watched the older woman’s insecurities melt away while you treated her like she was the single most important person on the planet.  

“I’m close, hon,” she mewed as she balled her hands into fists on the back of your t-shirt. 

“Be a good girl and let go for me, Wanda.”  Your words were the last push she needed to be driven over the edge.  Wanda threw her head back into the pillow, groaning loudly as her orgasm washed over her.  Her walls spasmed around you, drawing out your own orgasm.  You bit down on her neck as you came inside her. 

“Oh wow,” Wanda gasped.  “Baby, that was so good.”  You groaned in agreement as svelte fingers traced their way up your back and twisted themselves in your hair.

“Yeah it was, wasn’t it?” you joked, kissing the tender spot you just bit. “Feel better?”

Wanda nodded. Her eyes were glazed over, staring in your general vicinity as absolute bliss overtook her body.  Her fingers tousled your hair absentmindedly in her hazy state.  A small whimper escaped her lips as you pulled out of her, your cum dripping out of her glistening cunt. 

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, Wanda Maximoff.  Don’t you ever forget it.  I don’t care how old you are, you’ll always be beautiful to me,” you whispered mere inches from her face.  She blushed a deep red at your compliment.  It was sweet and sappy, but it was true: Wanda was the only woman for you.  Everything about her was beautiful in every way imaginable.

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” she wondered aloud.

“I could say the same thing,” you chuckled.  “I’m a lucky man.”

Wanda smiled as she pushed on your chest.  “As much as I want to continue this, mister, I’ve got to get to work.”  You groaned as you rolled off of her, not wanting to leave the warmth of her embrace.  “But I think we should definitely continue this when I get back.”

“Mmmm, I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”

“Good,” she replied in a sultry tone, tracing her finger around your jaw.  “Because I have some ideas.”

“Like?”

“You’re just gonna have to wait and see, lover boy.”  You knew that devilish look in her eye.  Wanda had something up her sleeve and you couldn’t wait.

[sunflowersandsapphires]

Congratulations on the milestone!! That's so exciting!!! 🙌🏻🎉❤️

Can I send Mikey a sunflower for some hurt/comfort? Maybe Reader is in need of comfort after a day of hearing too much internal negative self-talk?

Note: there are descriptions of hair in this drabble! Specifically of brushing it and pulling it back. 

Tugging at the hem of your shirt, you sighed as the material failed to fall in a flattering way. Time was running out and you needed to settle on a damn outfit. Chewing at the flesh of your bottom lip, you rushed back to your closet, hands coasting over fabric as you searched for a more suitable outfit. 

Nothing felt appropriate. All too bland, or revealing, or preppy for a night out with your gorgeous husband. Flexing your clammy hands, you blew out a tight breath, pulling another handful of tops off their respective hangers. 

You’d tried on half your damn closet by the time Michael walked through the bedroom door. Normally, his footsteps made you grin, his presence reminding you that you were safe and loved. Today, though, the sound of stairs creaking made your hands tremble, nearly smearing mascara across your cheekbone. Tossing the closed wand aside, you fumbled for your brush, yanking at the rat’s nest of tangles on the back of your head. If you could just get it tied up before he walked in the room…

The door opened. As always, your husband’s resting frown softened into an affectionate smile when his gaze wandered over you. 

“Hiya pet,” Crossing the bedroom in long strides, he knotted his burly arms around your waist, drawing you close. “Fuck, it’s good to see ya.” 

“You saw me this morning,” You chuckled weakly, shoving at his arms so you could finish styling your hair, praying he couldn’t see how frizzy it was from where he was buried against your neck. 

“Been so long,” Michael purred, nudging your ear with his nose. “Could barely stand it.” 

Snorting at his exaggerated whine, you shook your head. “Missed you too. Let me finish getting ready and I’ll be all yours.” 

Mikey gave a dramatic huff, plopping down on the edge of the bed to watch your reflection in the standing mirror. Heat clawed at your cheeks, your eyes avoiding his loving gaze and focusing on the imperfections along your hairline instead. You batted at the flyaways with a scowl, anxiety swishing in your gut when they refused to fade into your hair. 

“Stop tha’,” Michael scolded gently, cupping his massive hands around yours, shielding your hair from further torment. “Ya look stunnin’, pet.”

“Thank you, Mikey.” The smile you directed at him didn’t meet your eyes. You looked awful. Worn out and ashen. Michael deserved someone beautiful, and put together, and confident. Not the mess of a woman he’d settled for. 

Tucking your trembling fingers around your elbows, you ducked around Michael, firmly ignoring his crossed arms and furrowed brow as you dug through the pile of clothes on your bed to find your phone. “You ready to go?”

“Hold on a minute, love.” You froze, hands half buried in a heap of wrinkled cotton. His disappointment was palpable, forcing a lump to your throat. You couldn’t ruin something else for him. You couldn’t–

“Wha's wrong, pet? Why won’ ya look at me?” Calloused skin rasped over your hands, turning you by the elbows until Michael could study your scrunched face. “Talk to me, please.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Mikey. I promise–” Swallowing the crack in your voice, you tried to reassure him, but he persisted. 

“Don’ lie to me. Somethin’s botherin’ ya.” Lifting one hand to cradle your cheek, Michael’s eyes dug into your own with a concerned intensity. “Did I say somethin’ wrong?”

“No, of course not. You never do, I just–” Inhaling shakily, you leaned into the arm he wrapped around you, resting your face against his shoulder. “I don’t feel like I’m enough today. The thought of going out is making me…nervous.” 

“Why didn’ ya say somethin’?” He murmured, thumb brushing over the baby hairs lining your nape. 

“You’ve been looking forward to our date all week,” You pouted, blinking back frustrated tears. “You deserve to have fun, Mikey. I didn’t want to drag you down with me.”

“I’ve been lookin’ forward to spendin’ time with ya, pet.” Your husband’s lips brushed over your forehead as he spoke, breaking the sentences up with a sweet kiss. “Doesn’ mean we needta go out.” 

“It doesn’t?” You borrowed your eyes skeptically, sure that he was lying to spare your feelings. 

“Course not.” Mikey smiled, scratching underneath your chin. “I’d much rather stay home with ya, eat on the couch and watch that show ya like. How’s tha’ sound?”

Chewing on your bottom lip with hesitant optimism, you nodded. “Good.”

“Why don’ ya bring a blanket downstairs and I’ll order take away?” With a sturdy push, he tilted your chin up, planting a stubbled kiss on your lips. “Ya can even take yer clothes off, if ya want. No needta keep ‘em on if we stay ‘ere.” 

You laughed brightly as he grabbed a handful of your ass and smacked it lightly before releasing you from his grip. “If I’d known you had ulterior motives, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“Can’ help it, pet. Yer too damn gorgeous, how am I supposed to keep my hands off ya?” He waggled his eyebrows at you, beaming when you giggled. “I love ya, pet. Never wan’ ya to feel nervous. Not ever, ya?”

“I love you too, Michael Kinsella.” You pecked his cheek, grinning into his beard as the weight of your anxiety fully dissipated.

[mangoshorthand]

Arrow of Time- [Five Hargreeves x F Reader]. Chapter 2 (Hard Feelings Part 5)

SUMMARY: When the mother of all teenage tantrums causes time itself to fracture, Five has to travel back to 1831 to repair the damage. But will he be able to cope with what he finds there? On to Chapter 3 >> << Back to Chapter 1

Aoife cheats on her math test...with disastrous results.

Blue balls for Five ahead.

Chapter 2: The Bike Shorts

When you enter the bedroom, Five’s lying on top of the sheets, still in his cycling gear (minus the helmet).He looks almost entirely calm now, chest rising and falling only slightly harder than usual. He flashes you his most charming smile, however, patting the bed beside him. 

“Aoife ok?” he asks.

“Fine. Back to rolling her eyes.”

“Good,” he grins up at you, “well that was a shitshow.”

You flop down next to him and melt into his embrace.

“What brought it on?”

“It was stupid. I rode past the Argyle Public Library.” he runs his fingers through his hair, “it’s been demolished.”

“Oh.”

You understand immediately. It had been his and Dolores’ home base, enough of the internal structure left standing to provide them with shelter to sleep. It had been the closest thing he’d had to a home for him for forty years: the longest he’d ever lived anywhere.

“Wanna know something funny? They must be halfway through: the way they pulled it down, it looked exactly the same. The same parts were left standing.” a bitter smile pulled at one corner of his mouth, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

You know his mind now almost as intimately as your own: he’s not just talking about the way the two timelines rhyme.

“It’s been ten years since I had a freakout like that,” he says, resentfully. “I been to therapy every two weeks minimum , I take the damn pills religiously and still I lose my ever-loving shit over a building.”

You ease his hand out of the fist he’s screwed it into. You take a breath to respond to him but he plows over you.

“And I know what you’re going to say: the state I was in when we got together, it’s amazing that I haven’t had a major freakout for ten years. Maybe if I weren’t taking the pills, I’d be losing my mind every damn day, and I know therapy isn’t a cure-all, it just helps you work with what you got but…”

He pauses for a second, frustration on hold as his conscious mind catches up with what he’s said. Then he gives a rough laugh.

“And you’d be right,” he rolls to face you, smiling genuinely now.

“You said it all for me,” you shrug, smiling back at him.

The realization seems to have bolstered him:

“So, all in all, I give myself five stars for that panic attack. Threw it off like a champ.”

“You did,” you smile, leaning over and kissing his lips gently.

He’s always thought you have the sweetest lips. Maddening, in fact.

Even after all these years, the lines of your body are still the delight of his eye, particularly the ones that have developed since you’ve been with him. Everything you’d tell yourself is imperfection is, for him, just another object of devotion. After all, the stretch marks, wrinkles and reduced elasticity are all products of the fifteen years you’ve given to him: sixteen Christmases; fifteen fourth of Julys; fifteen whole trips around the sun that you chose to spend with him when you should have run a mile right at the start. 

He wants to celebrate that, wants to love you physically and worship your body with his.

The kiss you give him is only just beyond a peck, but he leans into your perfect mouth and works his way between your lips. You pull away before he’s half done. 

Honestly…it’s been a while. He’s kept his frustration quiet: work has been troubling you. It’s fine: it’s just a matter of feeling stressed on top of getting a little older. He knows it’s not because you love him any less…academically, at least. He can take care of himself ok and even if you never had sex ever again that’s perfectly fine: he’s in this for the long haul, no matter what. 

He’d cope…he’d adapt. He’d find a way to not ogle you, mouth dry, every time you get undressed. He’d spent most of his life having, (with all respect to his first long-term partner), sub-optimal sex. Now he’s had fifteen years of amazing sex, it’s almost unbearable to imagine having to just  ‘make do’ again. But he will if he needs to. 

He hates feeling needy. It’s a form of vulnerability he’s not yet able to reconcile in himself. It doesn’t feel so long ago but he remembers how you used to look up at him with needy eyes… Maybe tonight can break the dry spell.

“Say…how about you and I…”

You look at him with amusement, “Really, Five?”

“Come on….” he adjusts his body so he’s leant against the headboard and you can see his hand skimming down his body towards his crotch, “you know you like the bike shorts.”

“You’re seriously going straight from a major panic attack to horny?”

In answer, ghosts his fingers over his package. The shorts certainly are tight… Were you in the mood, something about them would make you want to reach in there and root around to see what you can find. They cling attractively in all the right places, stopping an inch or so above the knee. As if his bulge wasn’t enough, the way they sculpt themselves around his muscled thighs and perfectly peachy ass is…noticeable, to say the least.

“I’m a little tired.” you say, not wanting to burst his bubble but hoping he’ll take the hint. 

“I can be quick,” he says, trying to keep the slight plea out of his voice, “you could call me daddy again, if you want. Aoife hasn’t called me that in years now.”

“Nice try, Five,” you smirk, “maybe next time.”

“Oh, I’m not trying,” he says, rising to a kneel, turning and straddling your thighs, “I’m succeeding.”

He’s half-joking but nevertheless trying his luck, deliberately raising a rock-hard tent beneath his hand. Then, he rises on the bed into a high kneel.

Even in your totally unaroused state, the look he fixes you with almost makes you feel like a hooked fish being reeled in. He looms over you, head tilted and arrogant smirk firmly in place. He looks down his long nose as he paws at his boner, circling his hips. The shorts really are obscene. They would only have to be one iota tighter for them to cling to every single vein on his fit-to-burst shaft. As it stands, the lycra outlines the bell-shaped tip of his cock in minute anatomical detail.

It's a beguiling sight, but not beguiling enough.

“You’re still one hot grandpa but I’m sorry, I’m really not feeling it.”

He gives a small smile of acceptance and kisses your forehead before he swings his leg over and gets off you, heading for the ensuite bathroom.

“I’ll take care of myself,” he says as he peels off his cycling gear.. Then, in a final bid, he adds, “guess I’ll have to take a shower, lather up real good, lean up against the tiles and whack myself off with the suds…”

“Yeah, guess you will.” you say, picking up your reading glasses and the book off your nightstand. 

Five stifles a sigh and enters the bathroom; boner leading the way like a perky seeing-eye-dog. As he shuts and locks the door behind him, he leans against it.  It looks like it’s another night of jacking himself off into the shower tray. He tries not to feel hurt, tries to keep in mind all the reasonable thoughts from before. The humiliation of trying so hard only to be rejected? Rejected kindly, lovingly, but still rejected. He’s not going to degrade himself so far as to beg for sex. He’ll never be that pathetic. 

Thank god for his left hand: it’s been there for him for nearly 80 years now and it’s always in the mood whenever he is.

The Trevor Dalton school covers PreK through to 12th grade. You’d initially felt conflicted about sending Aoife to private school but, for Five, only the best education money could buy would do for his daughter, regardless of your ‘commie bullshit’. You couldn’t help but agree emotionally; she deserved the best.

Overall, you’d been pleased with her progress: she had a firm group of friends and she enjoyed her extracurriculars- particularly band. Despite this, her math scores worried you both. Though Five had taken to tutoring her himself, she was showing little improvement in school. You’d both been pleased, therefore, to see how much time Aoife had spent holed up in her room studying for an upcoming math test.

Aoife certainly has been studying for her math test…just not in the way you and Five might think. She’s been practicing religiously every night before sleep. Every time, her temporal jumps are getting longer and without the need for all that stupid math. Last night, she managed to reverse an entire hour without even turning a hair. She can do it quickly too- she doesn’t have to force herself through the seconds like her dad seems to: she can just do it. He won’t know what’s hit him when she shows him what she knows. 

Were she to sit down and analyze her feelings, she’d be unsure precisely why she wants this so much, whether she wants to make him proud or piss him off. Most of all, she wants to prove that she’s not a baby. All she can do is imagine the look in his eyes when she jumps through time with him along for the ride.

The math test will be her first time using her skills in the real world. She never blinked at school, (she’d learned early on that letting too many people in on the fact you have superpowers doesn’t end well) but jumping through time was different: when you went backwards, you’d erase anyone’s memory that you’d done anything unusual.

The test was in-class, and Aoife had taken care to discover the format before the big day. Mr Douglas would put the questions up on the board, the class would have thirty minutes to answer the questions and then, at the end, they would pass their answers to another student to mark and he would reveal the answers.

Sitting at her desk now, she’s full to bursting with nervous excitement. She can barely concentrate during the test, (not that she needs to), but she fills in stuff anyway. When Mr Douglas calls time and reveals the answers, she’s trembling so much that she’s surprised nobody’s noticed.

She passes her piece of paper to Izzie seated behind her and takes Jack’s from up ahead. Ignoring his paper, she grabs a fresh sheet of her own and begins to write down the right answers. This is what she’ll hand in…now she just has to make sure that this piece of paper is the one she passes to Izzie.

Holding her correct answers in one hand to exempt it from the reversal of time, she reaches easily into the abyss. It’s second nature now; couldn’t be any easier. It’s cool to watch. Alone in her bedroom, it was hard to see the effects; it's different in a crowded classroom. Jack’s pen reverses, going from right to left; eventually, he turns and takes his test back from her desk while Izzie hands Aoife’s over her shoulder. This, Aoife screws into a ball and drops into her backpack. The answers on the smartboard disappear as Mr Douglas moonwalks into his chair and the booger Kevin Simmons flicked across the room returns to his finger and he places it back up his nose.

Aoife lets go. Only somebody watching her closely would notice her jolt.

“And that’s time,” said Mr Douglas, “pass your test to the lady or gentlemen behind you. Ladies and Gentlemen at the back, bring your tests to the front of your row.”

Grinning all over her face, Aoife passes her new answers to Izzie.

Five spent most of the day with Luther who, for once in his life, has had a brain wave.

They’d been in Five’s bedroom, using the huge dry-erase and a plethora of colored post-its to plot out his idea: a non profit focused on helping male survivors of sexual violence. 

Five helped mainly out of solitarily with Luther: arranging support groups and having to break the ice with the story of his own rape wasn’t exactly appealing, but Luther’s bright blue eyes were so alight at the the possible scope of the idea (that he dubbed ‘The Umbrella Foundation’), that Five was willing to put his misgivings aside for now. He'd suck it up if he had to. 

When Aoife gets home from school she barrels into the room when he and Luther still stand, contemplating the timelines and tenuous organizational structure they’ve drafted. 

After a quick hug for Luther, she passes Five her test and smiles coyly at him. 

“What’s this?” he says, smiling back.

“Unfold it and see!”

He does so and his eyes light up, even as he affects to look casual. He stands with one hand in his pants pocket and his hips loose

“An A+? Jeez, where was this the other day? And not a single wrong answer?”

“You’re surprised, right?” she smiles up at him

“Surprised? Proud is what I am.”

He grins and pulls her into a full hug which she, for once, reciprocates.

“Ben fatto, tesoro. Hai lavorato sodo.”

“ Grazie papa.”

She has worked hard for this. Maybe he wouldn’t think of it that way, but she has.

“Well done sweetheart.” smiles Luther, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“You see what you can do when you set your mind to it?” says Five, kissing her forehead and holdung her at arm’s length, “How about I take you out this weekend? Maybe we take Izzie too? What do thirteen-year-old girls do these days? The...mall or whatever?”

Aoife snorts laughter at this, “yeah sure Dad, we’ll go to the mall.”

“Well I don’t know what you guys like to do. You’re the first teen girl I’ve spoken to for fifty-five years!”

Five’s never sure why, but he never feels as old around anyone as he does his daughter. Despite speaking seven languages, Teen Girl is one he can’t get his head around.

When Aoife bounds out of the room again, Luther turns to Five with a significant look on his face.

“She just runs into your bedroom...without knocking?”

Five knows exactly what he’s referring to. 

“Yes,” he says, testily before looking sidelong at Luther and lowering his voice, “not exactly much for her to walk in on these days.”

Luther gives him a sympathetic look and turns back to the dry erase.

When you arrive home, long after Luther’s drifted downstairs, you’re instantly more skeptical than Five. To go from a D+ average to an A+ with no steps between? You smell bullshit. Perhaps it’s a fluke…but something about the way Aoife shows you the test sets off warning bells in your head. You don’t want to accuse her if this really is the product of hard work, but you’re worried you’ll have to. While she practices the drums after dinner and you sit with Five on the couch, already feeling guilty about raining on his parade.

“This math test…pretty surprising, right?”

From the tone of your voice, he immediately realizes your implication. Fifteen years of a relationship has given you so many little shorthands and layers of implication that would be lost on others. The line between his eyebrows deepens as he considers.

“You think she cheated?”

“I don’t know, but it seems a bit too good to be true. When her homework’s been so poor and she could barely do simple algebra last week?”

His lips pull inwards. He’s by nature a rather cynical man, tending to believe the worst in people until they prove him wrong, but he has a blind spot the size of Jupiter when it comes to his daughter.

“She knows how important it is that she learns. She wouldn’t mislead me.”

Really Five? You raise your eyebrows at him incredulously.

“She’s a teen. Pushing boundaries and lying to their parents is what they do.”

His scowl deepens, “I still don’t think she’d lie about this.”

You sigh.

“Well, I’m going to go talk to her. You’re telling me she didn’t seem weird to you? Like she’s got a huge secret?” 

He nods slowly, considering. 

“Do you remember when she was six and stockpiling candy under her bed? She was pulling the exact same face.”

Reluctantly, Five follows you as you knock at her bedroom door. It’s amazing she hears you over her drumming, but she does. When you both walk into the room together, she stiffens and puts down her drumsticks

“Hey honey,” you say, Five at your shoulder but skulking slightly behind, “we just wanted to have a talk.”

“What about?” she says, too quickly. She’s immediately on the defense and even Five notices.

“Well, we were just talking, and we’re concerned.” you cross to the bed and sit down on it, trying to appear less threatening. Five remains standing, hands (as ever) in his pockets and head tilted. You catch his eye and prompt him.

“Did you cheat on that test?”

Great job Five. Subtle as a flying brick.

Immediately she looks panicked.

“No!”

“Just tell us the truth and we won’t be mad," you say, trying to keep your voice calm.

“I said I didn’t!” she snaps, firing up immediately.

You move to placate her: it suddenly strikes you how unjust this would be if she actually did earn her score.

“I know you’ve been studying this week and if you’ve got this score because you’ve worked your butt off then we couldn’t be more proud of you, it’s just…my Mom senses are tingling. I know when you’re hiding something.”

“I’m not!”

“Okay,” says Five, stepping forward and grabbing a notebook and pen from within his jacket pocket. He scribbles rapidly and then slaps both down on her dressing table.

“How about you prove it? Expand this.”

He looks more pissed than she’s ever seen him directed at her. Feeling a mixture of shame, anger and injustice Aoife stands and approaches looking down at the scrawled problem:

5(12c + 7) - (1 - 55c)

There it is. The familiar panic that sets in when she encounters numbers in almost any context. She picks up the pen. She knows where to start but when she tries to perform the expansion, it’s like her brain crashes. She tries to concentrate and can’t…especially with both of them staring down at her.

“That’s way too hard!” she whines, “I can’t do that one. The test was easier. You just make them way too complex because your brain is all weird about math.”

“Oh, well that's interesting.” Five’s voice is dangerous- almost a whisper. “Now I know you’re bullshitting me. Wanna take a quick guess how?”

She doesn’t answer, even when he jerks his head towards her.

“No answer, eh?” he turns from her to you, “Do you want to know how I know she’s bullshitting us, Mom?”

You frown in slight disapproval of this theater, but it’s about time Five stepped up to be the bad guy so you keep your mouth shut. He turns back to Aoife, teeth slightly bared,

“That was a question ON the test, genius.”

Her face heats up and eyes prickle. Five just gives a disdainful scoff, shakes his head and looks away from her.

“Tell us the truth, Aoife,” you say, sternly, trying to keep your own temper under control, “you cheated, didn’t you?”

She turns to you and stamps her foot in a way you haven’t seen since she was six, “Just shut up Mom!”

As Five gives a sharp reprimand for her speaking to you that way, you speak over him,

“First you cheat and then you keep denying it? You’re still lying. I’m so disappointed that you’d be this dishonest.You’ve not just cheated us, you’ve cheated your classmates and you’ve cheated yourself too!”

Suddenly, Five turns back to her, shoulders rolled and hunched in the awful posture he adopts when stressed or angry.

“You know, I couldn’t give a rat's ass that you cheated. I’m just still trying to get my head around the fact you lied to me about this !” he begins to pace distractedly, “you know how important it is that you UNDERSTAND basic mathematical principles. It’s a matter of life and death! ”

You turn to Five, angry with him now.

“So you don’t care that she lied at school, only to you?”

Five tosses his head and returns his gaze to his daughter standing between the pair of you. Hormonal rage courses through her. Right now, she’s as erratic as Five ever was in his prime.

“I don’t even need math to be able to use my powers! It’s not my fault your head’s so far up your own ass that you can’t jump a few minutes without filling a whole wall with equations!”

“Aoife!” you rebuke, shocked by this attitude towards her father, but she ignores you.

“I did cheat, okay? And you wanna know how I did it? I just wound back time-”

Five blinks at her, dumbstruck. He looks as if he’s been clubbed over the head.

“-and you know what, Dad? I’m still here. I didn’t end up years in the future and get stuck there like a dumbass! ”

You spring up from the bed, grab her shoulders and turn her to face you. Her eyes are wild with anger, face red and teeth bared even more than Five’s had been only a minute or so before.

“How can you speak to your Dad like that? How dare you? After-”

But the rage that’s been building in her bubbles over. All she wants is for you both to get out of her room. You think just because you’re her parents that you know better? You don’t: you especially don’t get it. Always so far up your own ass, judging her for every time she falls under your ridiculously high moral standards. Nothing short of sainthood is good enough for you.

She can feel full-body tingles growing as anger descends over her. It makes her grab your forearms. If she’d been less angry, she might have noticed the crackle of electricity or the feeling of polarity accessed in her mind…the feeling of the last jigsaw piece slipping into place…

“JUST GET AWAY FROM ME, MOM!”

…but the whole puzzle explodes as she pushes you abruptly. She only means to shove you in the direction of the door, but the portal that erupts swallows you whole, collapsing in on itself before you can even stumble.

Tag list: (please comment to be added or removed.) @dilfjohhny , @sunsunhe, @w4stedtr4sh, @nevbrooke-555, @theredvelvetbitch, @td-miley01, @five-hxrgreeves, @rorygi1more, @jamiebower88

On to Chapter 3 >> Masterpost

Alternatively, join me on A03.  Here is a link to the whole series

[ddaz3d-and-cc0nfused]

alright so daryl x reader who draws a lot, and one day he sees their sketchbook on a table or something : when he flips through the pages he finds a lot of drawings of him (not in a creepy way lmao)

ofc he gets flustered because they’re just friends right?? but it somehow leads to them admitting their feelings :)

༉‧₊˚. 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 || 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐱𝐨𝐧

― pairing: daryl dixon x plus size!reader

― era: season 4

― summary: you liked drawing pretty things, and daryl was just so damn interesting.

― warnings: none!

― wc: 902

⋆ a/n: i was very excited to write this! it's honestly such a cute idea, especially since i made the reader's love language drawing him, and even her confession was a piece of art.

masterlist | AO3

You didn’t know why, but Daryl was so fun to draw; with all his wrinkles and expressions, the indents of scars and beauty marks that marred his aged skin, the little details of him that caught your eye were enamoring. You hadn’t noticed how many pages Daryl had started to take up before it was time for you to get a new sketchbook, so it was safe to say that your old one was well hidden under your pillow in your cell.

Your favorite time to draw him was when you were sitting on one of the benches in the prison yard, watching as he killed walkers that lined the fence, or embarrassingly enough, when he’d just stand there and eat. Sketching him was your way of confessing to him, telling him that you thought he was the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen, that he was perfectly imperfect to you, even if your courage would never allow you to do so.

Daryl was surprised to see your sketchbook sitting unsupervised on the table, seeing as though you always held it protectively in your hands, often shying away when people asked if they could see your drawings. He wasn’t going to lie and say he wasn’t curious to, but he would never be brave enough to approach you and ask you to see something so intimate to you. He hesitantly picked up the leatherback notebook. He knew that you would be positively shitting yourself when you’d figure out that you didn’t have it, and in Daryl’s humble opinion, he was the most reliable person to get it to you.

Well, that’s what he thought.

He ended up dropping the flimsy thing, a silent ‘shit!’ slipping out through his lips as it fell on its back, opening up on a page with an image that looked eerily similar to him. His eyebrows furrowed as he bent down to pick it up, staring intently at the lines. It was him. He could recognize his own stance anywhere.

It was from earlier that day where he was standing next to Carol, hands clasped with a bowl as he chatted with the woman behind the grill. The background was a practical reflection of the prison, the bodies of people sitting at tables were light strokes, even Carol was; it was made evident that he was the main focus of this piece. He couldn’t help himself as he flipped back a couple of pages, coming across many more pictures of him. He knew he should’ve found them creepy, maybe even a bit stalkerish, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel that way, especially not when he felt so flattered.

He was certainly blushing, the butterflies in his stomach raging inside of him like an uncontrollable storm. He didn’t know what to do, nor begin to comprehend what any of the drawings meant. Of course, a part of wanted to believe that maybe you felt the same about him, that you found him as interesting as he found you, but that self-deprecating part of him that always seemed to win spoke louder, forcing him to snap the book shut and continue his search for you.

He found you in your cell where you had pretty much torn the place apart. Your pillow was laying limply on the floor, your sheets tossed on the ground as well, the drawers of the dresser you had found and put in your room – with Daryl’s assistance – had been ripped out, the objects inside of them strown in random places.

He called out your name as you turned to look at him sheepishly. “You alrigh’?” He asked in concern as he took in your once neat cell.

“Yeah, it’s just… I can’t find my…” Your eyes landed on your sketchbook that he was holding. “Book.” You ended breathlessly. His eyes followed yours where he gulped, extending out his hand. “I uh- I found it sittin’ on top of one of the tables.” He said sheepishly as you took it out of his hand, your fingertips brushing his rough skin, leaving a tingling feeling behind in its wake. “Oh, well, thank you for bringing it back to me.”

There was a beat of silence that passed.

“You didn’t… you didn’t look in it, did you?” You asked nervously. The looks that he gave you was one of guilt, the exact look you had feared the man would give you. “I dropped it,” That was evident by the scuff marks your fingers trailed over on its spine. “And it jus’… opened up.” He explained. Your anxiety threatened to swallow you whole as you thought of what to say, how to feel; should you explain yourself? But he looked inside of it which was an invasion of your privacy… but he said it was an accident, right?

“Did I creep you out?” You couldn’t help but ask. There was nothing you feared more than freaking out the guy you were in love with. If you had managed to scare the scruffy redneck away, you don’t know what you would do. “No, I- I liked ‘em. They were real nice.” You let out a sigh of relief, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips.

“I only draw people I like.” You made sure to add, which caused him to look at you with wide eyes.

“Not everyone gets that much detail.” You said teasingly.

ೃ⁀➷ my lovely taglist!: @alina02 @louderfortheback @minervadashwood @fandomsarelifee @theendofthe70s @nomajdetective @mgg-theprettiestboy

[savage-rhi]

In case you need it today:

The quality of your life matters more than the quantity you produce

Your wrinkles, blemishes, and imperfections are cute AF

You're the embodiment of everything I like about this planet

It's okay to rest

You're alright if you don't get things done or are "lazy"

You're not a machine, and you shouldn't ascribe yourself to that fate

You're gonna get to the good again

I love you 💙

*kisses your forehead*

Water your damn plants and feed your critters

[bellysoupset]

inspired by the laugh ask, tell me about everyone’s smiles? do they show their teeth/ do they have dimples etc. would love to have a visual whenever one of them smiles in a fic :) 🍄

Aw man I love this ask, is so cute!

Vince rarely smiles with teeth, normally closed mouth and he's got a very distinct wrinkle that appears on his cheek. What they call a lopsided smile. When he does smile with teeth, Vin has a bit of vamp fangs, just a smidge.

Lucas and Jonah both have a million buck smiles. Perfect blinding white teeth and just the right amount of gum showing. Jonah rarely smiles showing teeth, which is funny because him and Wendy are the only ones of the gang who pay for whitening. Luke's perfect smile is bc he wore invisible braces until he was 13, he used to have a little bit of a gap and Veronica got it fixed.

Wendy and Leo both have dimples!

Leo's bottom teeth are a bit crooked (think Cavill's or K4ty P3rry's bottom teeth smile) and it bothers him, so he's the king of smiling like this 🙂, which Jon haaates bc Leo's smile is so damn cute, it's also very large.

Wendy's front teeth come down a litte, a bit bunny like.

Unlike the others who are more insecure about imperfections, Wendy really likes her smile and refused to get her teeth "fixed" when her parents insisted. She smiles with teeth a lot.

Max already has thin lips, so his upper one all but disappears at even a hint of a smile.

Bella has really round teeth, which make her smiles sooo cute and friendly. So of course, with strangers, she's rarely smiling. Gotta keep her bad bitch façade.

[waltwhitmansbeard]

my fair lady: chapter twenty-nine

we are so close to the end y'all! catch up here. still inspired by @romeoandjulietyouwish!

Vax counts each breath, paces them against the distant, hollow drip echoing throughout the empty dungeons. For each one, he thanks the Raven Queen, and asks for another. He does not want to take more time than the goddess of death has seen fit to grant him, but if he could just stay long enough to see his wife one last time, to feel her heart beat beneath his palm, to look her in the eye and apologize and thank her and say goodbye. He does not wish to fight death, but each breath is a gift, and he will not take a single one for granted.

He doesn't know how long he has been kept down in these holding cells, each smaller than his little bedroom back home with his sister. (Vex'ahlia; he promised her he would return.) There is no sunlight here, no way of naturally tracking time, except, he supposes, that damned drip, the one that is driving him mad. He sits on the floor, rank and damp, with his knees up to his chest, his head back against the stone. It is his fault he is here, his fault that he might die before he can see his wife and sister again; if he had kept calm, kept his mouth shut, he could possibly be up with her right now, kissing away her tears, telling her all the final things he needs her to know before he is gone.

(How very perfect she is, in all her imperfections. How he has had so little to believe in throughout his life, so little to rely upon, and yet he is more confident in her ability to lead her people than he is in the sun's daily path across the sky. How the way her nose wrinkles when she laughs is his favorite thing about her, on an endless list of favorite things. How he fell in love with her one spring day when she was in her garden, up to her elbows in soil, her tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated on pruning a rhododendron, the sun flickering in her hair like fire. How he knows she will find love again. How he needs her to. How grateful he is that she has others in her life to love her, when he is no longer able to do so.)

The steel bolt to his dark hole clangs, and low torchlight floods the room. Vax blinks at the silhouette that has appeared in the doorway there, and after a moment's confusion, he scrambles to his feet and lowers into a deep bow. "Your Majesty."

The sovereign takes the torch from the guard who had opened the door and steps inside. His expression is enigmatic, and Vax wonders if his life won't be taken by him before the Raven Queen can come for it. "I have spoken with my daughter." Vax doesn't say anything. "It seems she is...quite fond of you." Again, he stays silent. "She has instructed me to release you."

"She is...well, Your Majesty?" Vax tries to keep the quiet desperation out of his voice.

"She has seen better days." Vax sees the worry dancing around his eyes. "When I was shown the evidence of the attack in her chambers...and then for her to be missing..." He runs a tired hand over his face, and for the first time, Vax truly considers that his sovereign is just a man. "Despite my...distaste for what has transpired between you and my daughter, I cannot deny that I owe you my very life for keeping her alive."

"She acquitted herself quite well in the struggle," Vax replies with a soft smile. "Her power is formidable." He pauses. "I think perhaps you do not need to worry for her quite as much as you do."

The sovereign huffs out a breath of a laugh. "That is the thing about being a father, Vax'ildan: the worry never ends." He sighs. "I will be letting you go, and then we will be discussing what happens from there. But first, I must make something quite plain to you, Vax'ildan." The sovereign enters the room further, bringing the torch close to Vax's face. The heat makes beads of sweat prickle along his hairline. "If you hurt her, if I get a moment's suspicion that your...intentions with her have been anything less than honorable, you will die a villain's death. Am I clear?"

Vax doesn't even blink. (There is no point in telling him that there is no we will, that he has no need to worry for the future, that soon, he will stop being the sovereign’s problem.) "Your Majesty, I have traded my very life for hers, and it is an exchange I would make again and again without hesitation."

The sovereign's eyes narrow, unsure if Vax is being literal or not. "Very well. She is resting in a suite in the guest wing. You may go to her now." He turns to leave the dank little cell, then stops, turns, and says, "You know, my father did not wish for me to wed Keyleth's mother." And with that, he sweeps out of the cell, and Vax is once again alone.

.

Keyleth stares up at the ceiling with a huff. Night has fallen, and still she lies alone, in chambers that are not hers. It has been several hours since her confrontation with her father; why hasn’t Vax been released yet? She is bone-tired, afflicted still by whatever strange magic struck her last night, and Pike has advised her to rest—all she has been doing is resting, she is so very tired of resting—but how is she meant to sleep when her husband’s fate is unknown?

Groaning in frustration, she swings her legs off of the bed and pads over to the window, where she watches the low moon beginning its crest through the inky blue sky. Her body is sore, as though she is a dishcloth that has been wrung out and hung to dry, but lying down feels too passive. She is tired and agitated and worried and angry and she just wants her husband.

She leans against the window, the cool glass soothing against her cheek, and her eyes slide closed. She can feel herself starting to drift off when a loud creak from behind startles her. She whips around to see the door to the room cracked open, a familiar face hesitantly peering inside.

“Vax!” She hurls herself across the room, throwing her arms around his neck with a gasp of relief as he just enters the chamber.

He catches her with a small laugh, pulling her in close. “You should be in bed.” He pulls away, putting his hands on either side of her face to inspect her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she insists, and she is, now that he is here and alive. “What of you? Your leg—you were hurt—“

She looks down to where she remembers seeing cracked, blackened flesh, but he has changed clothes since last night, so there is no more gaping hole in his trousers. He shakes his leg like a dog. "Completely fine. I've just been to see Mistress Pike; she finished your incredible work."

"And my father? Have you...did he speak with you?"

Vax takes her by the hand and pulls her over to her little sofa. "We spoke, yes. He came to release me personally." Keyleth worries her lip between her teeth. "We...have come to something of an understanding."

Keyleth waits for elaboration, but none comes. She tips her head onto his shoulder. "I am glad you are here with me. I know my father is still not pleased with what we've done, and it will take time for us to earn his trust again. But we have time now, and I promise, he will grow to love you as I have."

Vax doesn't answer, merely wraps his arms around her and tips his head atop hers. Now that he is here and she is enveloped in his embrace, his scent, she is once again reminded of her profound fatigue. She plays gently with the fingers of one of his hands. "Would you mind terribly if we went to bed? I'm still trying to sleep off last night's terrors."

There's a brief hesitation, and then Vax kisses her atop her head and murmurs, "Of course." He stands, pulling her up with him. He smiles teasingly. "Now I do hope this is not an attempt to seduce me, my beautiful wife. I will not be beguiled into distracting you from sleep."

She kisses him, a long, languorous kiss that loosens her body all the way down to her toes. "I shall try to behave myself," she quips back. Then she tugs him toward the bed, toward sleep, toward peace.

.

Vax is awake. He has been since Keyleth laid him down, curled up atop his chest like a cat, and fell asleep. He, too, is exhausted, can feel his eyelids yearning to close, but how is he meant to sleep when each passing moment brings him closer to his last? How is he meant to close his eyes and miss his final minutes with her, this woman who has so sensationally changed his life?

He knows he should have told her. He had the opportunity, the responsibility to let her know what was coming for her, but it is against his every instinct to do the thing that brings her pain. He should be the one to dry her tears, to remind her that she was a force of nature before him and she will be once he is gone, to give her a final kiss that contains within it all of the promises he had ever hoped to keep for her.

Instead, he lays here, in the still of night, stroking her hair and watching the dance of her eyes behind their lids. He wonders what she dreams of, if she is haunted by the ghosts of last night's attack or if she has imagined for herself a brighter day, one in which they are together and the shadows of this world cannot touch her joy.

He is a selfish man, and he has stolen from her her final moments with her husband in order to watch her sleep, to let the last image of her in his mind be one of peace, of quiet, of her and him and the moon's descent toward the horizon. He knows he will have to answer for his crimes once he belongs to the Raven Queen, and he will accept his punishment gladly, for there is nowhere on this realm of mortality he would rather take his final breaths than here, in this bed, with this woman, on this late summer's night.

[gndr-reading-responses-1-10]

GNDR Reading Responses

1. ) HEALTHY AND DISEASED BODIES

I oppose the debate over, whether healthcare should be a right or a privilege. The reason is I think the answer should be obvious. Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege because if you’re poor in America, you’re screwed for how much healthcare is here. There are many videos where people in Eastern Nations or just people who live somewhere with universal healthcare, judge America for how expensive healthcare is: they are shocked by the fact. This chapter also dives into illness and disability. People with illnesses and disabilities tend to be overlooked because they don’t fit the description of what a “normal body” should look like. This social construct is sickening to me. People with disabilities have accomplished great things. For example, Matt Klotz is an Olympic swimmer. Matt was born deaf, even with a disability he’s still accomplishing greater things than the average person. I’ve noticed that if people with disabilities are noticed they tend to be looked down upon, hated, or pitied. But why? My little brother has autism and I will be damned to let anything happen to him. A childhood bully in my grade would target my little brother, and what did I do? I made sure he didn’t talk about my brother ever again so I beat his ass (excuse my French). Imagine being hated by people for something you have no control over. I deem people with disabilities no less human than I am. I wish everyone had this mindset but unfortunately, that is not the case. However, my family is a special case. We knew my little brother was going to have autism even before he was out of the womb, yet we still wanted him. My parents are very religious and in Christian beliefs, those who are disabled are imperfect and are cast aside. My parents realized this belief was nonsense. We love Preston unconditionally. 

2.) AGING BODIES

Oh, where do I begin with this one? Let’s start with feminine beauty in comparison to masculine appearance. So, for women, they have to look young. I mean looking young makes you more attractive so why do we have this standard for women but not men? Many products alter a woman’s appearance like makeup. That is a big one—or even skin care. I see women hold themselves to high standards regarding their appearance. Sure it is nice to look nice - to present yourself in the best way possible. However, this mindset can also be damaging. Our body has natural responses due to hormone fluctuation. These responses can cause acne, pimples, and blackheads. I have gal friends who freak out when they notice something as minor as a singular pimple. This pimple would also be very unnoticeable unless someone were to point it out. They hyper-fixate on small things that could make their appearance “imperfect.” As men, we don’t worry about it. We simply have them and do not have a second thought about it. We can blame these social constructs revolving around women. In the modeling agency, they must present no wrinkles. Every model is young and skinny or puts makeup on to make the model look younger. It doesn’t stop there, even when you see models on billboards, posters, etc. If you were to look close enough you’ll see that the appearance of these women is modified by modeling agents. This is why women have these high standards for themselves. Males don’t have the same struggle because they don’t have these standards. For movies, the actress tends to be younger to fill in the role of an older person. For example, Mila Kunis was 16 substituting in a 18 year old role. Whereas every guy there was older than the actual age of their character.

3.) REPRODUCING BODIES 

This chapter is mainly about women reproducing and what they experience in different cultures, what rights they have, and also how men and societal norms affect the reproducing body. I want to talk about how women who reproduce in America experience menopause differently than women who reproduce in Japan. Here menopause is an issue for women. I thought this was an issue every woman experiences after childbirth, but I now see that it is not the case. In American culture, we view menopause as a scary thing for older women. We view it as a dangerous thing, so as soon as women stop menstruating they undergo hormone replacement therapy. In Japan, women experience hot flashes much less frequently. The severity of their hot flashes is also relatively low. Menopause is embodied as a biological and cultural blessing. Which is why women there are not medicalized for menopause. I find this fact very interesting because I grew up in a place where menopause is a common issue people face, so I assumed it happened everywhere.The book mentions that reproductive rights are more controlled by institutions and men rather than women themselves. I know this part is true. For example, some hospitals don’t give out birth control because they don’t want to and the right to an abortion varies by state. Since the beginning of time, it has been a societal norm that women should only have sex for the sole purpose of reproducing. Having an abortion is strictly forbidden. However, for men, they can sleep with whoever they want and get praise. The double standard is that women should save themselves for marriage and men can go around sleeping with whoever they want. How is this fair? If a son were to sleep with a girl, the dad usually is proud of the son, however, if the daughter were to sleep with a boy, the dad would get mad at the daughter. We should put restrictions on boys too. 

4.) RACIALIZED AND COLONIZED BODIES

Racism has been an issue for as long as anyone can remember. A big event in history is the Atlantic Slave Trade. During this time the Spanish were invading the thirteen colonies spreading the three G’s known as God, Glory, and Gold. During this time, those who were white took over other cultures and land imprinting their norms upon those people, and then enslaved them. In the Bible, a section describes the roles of white people and those of color. It said that white people were fallen angels who needed to spread God’s word and people of color have risen devils that require cleansing. Following this ideology is how religion influenced racism. After the Civil War in America, slavery was abolished. We were either the 14th or 16th major country that abolished slavery. Even with slavery abolished, racism was still a very big problem because everything was segregated. Segregation is essentially discrimination by actively separating a group of people from others. From segregated bathrooms to segregated schools. Those who were white would not interact with those of color. People of color were also placed in designated areas of every town and white people had the right to have a home anywhere else. These areas would typically be very poor. The reasoning behind this was to closely monitor their actions. It was believed that those of color commit more crimes such as robbery, drug use, and murder. People of color would also get paid less than white people so making a living was significantly harder. Along with police brutality where white people can get away with more crimes than black people. These are issues we still face today. Although these problems are reoccurring, we are slowly going in the right direction. More people are aware and speak out about this issue. 

5.) GENDERED BODIES

In today’s world, society has placed a set of rules and regulations based on gender. Still to this day, society thinks that gender and sex are the same thing when they are indeed not. However, I do understand why there is confusion. I don’t blame those who don’t understand because when it comes to gender, people like to make things up. So for example, being sexually attracted to inanimate objects is considered a “gender” to some people. I wish I was making this up but I am not. How are people supposed to believe about the importance of gender when they hear stories like that? Also, from my experience of education, there are three different views of sex and gender. Biology says that sex and gender are the same thing and that there are only two genders. Psychology taught me that sex and gender aren’t the same thing but there are only two genders except for non-binary and transgender. Sociologists say that gender and sex are not the same thing and that gender is a spectrum. If three different views are being taught then how can everyone come to the same conclusion? Anyway, the reason why people identify as something other than male or female is because they don’t like society’s expectations for their gender. For example, the man is typically the one who mows the lawn whereas the woman is in the kitchen making dinner. This is an example of many. So those who feel like they don’t fit society’s description of a male or female, feel like they need to form a label for themselves. This society also determines how you should look based on your gender. For example, women should have this “hourglass” figure. Seeing how society claims what you can or should be with your identity and body is why gender classification is important. Because not everyone wants to fulfill these standards rather than be themselves.

6.) SEXUALIZED BODIES

Going back to my “gendered bodies” response - I mentioned that a standard for women is this “hourglass” body figure. In class, we talked about Barbie representing what a woman should look like according to society’s standards. This body type is very unrealistic. It makes you think, what unrealistic body standard is placed on men? Shocker, it is nothing. Men have no shackles weighing them down. If a man is fat, he may have less respect but it’s fine that he is fat. If a woman is fat she gets called a whale. If a man has a dad body, society accepts that. If a woman has a little fat on her, she is told to lose more weight. If a man is nothing but muscle he is respected whereas if a woman is nothing but muscle it is not natural. Diving into the topic of intersex, many people don’t realize this is a thing. People think that there are only two sexes. Intersex is where an individual is born with both male and female body parts. When an intersex child is born, it is the doctors who determine its sex and gender. Later, this child will undergo surgeries to make it strictly male or female. Some people are aware of the existence of intersex but identify it as a disorder or a deficiency. Well, it’s neither one of those. If you call it a disorder, you’re implying that this condition affects their everyday life. Some studies prove that intersex doesn’t negatively affect bodily functions, though it may be a little different. A deficiency implies this is a shortcoming when it is not. The individual may experience a lack of testosterone but that can be treated. Intersex is very rare, but because is rare, it shouldn’t be looked down upon, it just makes the individual unique. 

7.) CLASSED BODIES

It’s hard to believe that body types are also indicators of class. I know what you’re thinking, how could body types be indicators of class? Well, in the past, those who were overweight were deemed wealthy. Typically they were because the wealthy were the only ones who could fill their stomachs with food. Because of their wealth, body type didn’t matter, in fact to some it was worshiped or even envied. Nowadays, being overweight is looked down upon. People who are overweight are deemed as disgusting and lazy. These classifications are given without a second thought. Without knowing what the individual could be going through. What if the person has an eating disorder or was born with extra fat in their tissues? Would their opinion change or stay the same? Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that question. I just know that I don’t have that mindset and that’s all I care about in this instance. Being very skinny has the same identification as it did in the past. Many saw that being very skinny was an indicator that the person was poor. In the past, this may have been true because the only ones who could fill their stomachs were those with money in their pockets. Today’s classification isn't much different. There are mixed views on those who are very skinny. Back then it wasn’t attractive at all to be skinny but now some think it is very attractive. When you see a very skinny individual you think middle or lower class. Never have I heard someone thinking upper class when identifying very skinny people. But I think in the modern day we are starting to not assume someone’s class based on their body type. I never related body type with class. I see people of all body types in every class.

8.) BEAUTIFUL BODIES

We see all these models on billboards, signs, and other advertisements. We take a glance and say, “She’s beautiful” then turn away. Little did we know that these models are edited on these advertisements. Their faces are edited to be slim, their necks are longer, and they put more emphasis on detail in the eyes and collarbones. In the modeling industry, you don’t see many plus-sized women. We are just now being inclusive to plus-sized women. Usually, models limit what they intake and some don’t eat at all. A method to look skinnier is to not drink water. It makes you more defined than you are. This method is in no way healthy but is used for TV stars and models. In stores like Victoria’s Secret, the clothes are there to make women feel more beautiful. They don’t fit all sizes because they only fit “beautiful” women. To my knowledge, they don’t have any plus-sized clothing in stores. But did you know the person running Victoria's Secret isn’t a woman, but a man? Going back to Barbie, the cooperation-making Barbie is also run by men. Barbie and Victoria’s Secret have made major impacts on the market with their targeted audience being women. Girls would say they want to be just like Barbie because of how she looks. Victoria’s Secret sells very nice clothes that attract many girls to their store. With no options for plus-sized, women would get the urge to get thinner to fit into this clothing brand. What a coincidence that these two companies portraying high body standards for women are being run by men. Psychologists say with this overwhelming presence of beauty in our everyday lives it is hard for men and harder for women to find satisfaction with how they look. So boys, if you wonder why your girlfriend is asking what dress she should wear, it is because she has this high standard for herself to look pretty. 

9.) MODIFIED BODIES

Let’s start with tattoos. The meaning of a tattoo is to imprint. In Western society a tattoo symbolizes deviancy. In Western Society, Christian beliefs are very common. It is against Christian beliefs to have a tattoo. My argument to that is if we weren’t allowed to have tattoos then why were we born with birthmarks? In a way, these could also be classified as tattoos. I mean, they are imprinted on our bodies after all. The older generation has this common view of tattoos symbolizing deviancy, however, people get tattoos for a variety of reasons. Some cultures believe having a tattoo could protect them from evil. Most get tattoos because the tattoo has meaning. A common reason is the loss of a loved one. Just something meaningful to the individual is imprinted on their body. Some think tattoos are just cool and so they get them. I think the deviancy ideology of tattoos goes back to people in prison getting many tattoos. A person I know who went to prison for a few years for the use of marijuana - before prison, he had nothing imprinted on his body but came out with around twenty tattoos. Body notifications happen more than we think. Today, tattooing, scarification, piercing, body painting, and other forms of permanent and temporary body modification are found in every culture. Scientists discover that these modifications are used in ways to communicate, express, and maintain status and identity. Though some body modifications may be a little extreme such as tattooing your eyes are adding horns to your head - I think it’s looked down upon because we aren’t used to seeing it. If we saw these modifications more often I think it would be more socially accepted. I think this is why people with transgender status are looked down upon because undergoing the surgery of changing your sex is an extreme body modification. 

10.) RELIGIOUS BODIES

I do believe that most of these standards we have on bodies, gender, and sex are mainly from religious beliefs. As a gay man, I face trouble with acceptance daily. Either accepting myself or acceptance from others. As I get older, it doesn’t bother me as much because I have faced so much of it, however, when I was younger this struggle I faced was consuming me. I do think hatred towards homosexuality is more about ignorance instead of a justifiable reason. In the state of Ohio, religious hospitals can refuse healthcare to people of LGBT status. Going further into religious bodies, when it comes to women, it is said in the Bible that Eve is punished for tricking Adam into eating the apple. This sparked the ideology that women are manipulative and will tempt men into doing their bitting. This is why in some religions, women cover themselves up because if they don’t a man will be tempted by her. The Bible says women will face punishment for the eaten apple. Christians use this to explain why girls have periods. It’s so crazy to me because men are the manipulative ones. They created all these rules, regulations, and standards. We deem God as a man and guess what, he has every firm believer in the palm of his hand doing HIS bitting. Now that’s manipulation. When it comes to sex, sex is to be only between a man and a woman for the sole purpose of producing offspring. It is a sin to have sex before marriage as well. But sex can now be between people of the same sex. Actually, that was always a thing, it is more common now because it is more accepted in modern society. It could be due to more people turning away from religion, or people realizing that these rules are just obscured. 

[shadowydreamlandwonderland]

The Rulers who Bargained with Death - CHAPTER 17

The moment he stepped into the entrance hall Albus heard a familiar voice cut through the heavy silence like a knife; speaking in a shout from the second floor. Gellert was always shouting at someone, these days. "No, he writes too damn badly! Rosier can do it - where the hell is she?"

"But why can't you-"

"Because I don't have time - how many times do I have to say it? I'm meeting the Minister in less than four hours! Find Rosier and bring her to my office."

In the next moment, Gellerts' loud steps echoed through the silence as he stomped down the stairs, and for a second Albus considered rushing back into the rain and hiding. But there was no time, for then the boy appeared in his field of vision; tall and beautiful and radiating anger. His curls were wild and untamed, falling before his corpse-white face, and for the first time since meeting him there were traces of stubble under his lower lip and down to his chin. He was wearing a shirt with stains of what looked like blood on its sleeve, the black waistcoat was wrinkled and missing one of its silver buttons.

It was all so very unlike him, so far from Gellert Grindelwald's usual, physically perfect state, but it did not matter how imperfect he was in this moment. Seeing him still had the same, usual effect on Albus Dumbledore. He felt his mouth go dry as a desert, felt his heart tighten in his chest and his legs begin to turn to water, and when their gazes met he was not even able to move. Gellert froze as well; froze as soon as he reached the staircase landing and caught sight of him, eyes widening slightly. There was something very different about those eyes, Albus realized. Not only were all traces of happiness gone, but so were the intriguing, mismatched color of them. His eyes were now clear blue - almost entirely the same color as Albus' own, and the color they had been the first time he met him - and though they were pretty, they were not beautiful in the way his natural ones were.

They were just not right, not him.

But this was not the time to reflect over Gellerts' eye color, Albus had to remind himself, and he no longer had the right to convince him to keep and cherish his unique eyes. Not now, not after what he had done, and not after everything that had transpired between them.

For several seconds the two boys just stood there; frozen in time and looking into each other's eyes. But then, suddenly, the breathless moment was shattered as Gellert finally parted his lips and spoke, almost harshly: "Have you seen Vinda?"

"No, I only just came", Albus replied, and his voice sounded surprisingly strong. "What's going on?"

"Insurrection Juste has written about us in The Prophet again. I'm looking for someone who can write them an answer, but everyone who can write reasonably well seems to have disappeared without a trace..."

"I can do it."

He offered before he could stop the words from leaving his lips, offered even though he knew it was not a good idea; because Bathilda was probably right when she said that more work was the last thing he needed right now. Still, Albus wanted to bury himself in work; wanted to distract himself from the absolute agony of being apart from Gellert, wanted to remind him of just how ambitious and intelligent and talented he was, what he was missing out on by not being with him... Besides, Gellert was obviously terribly stressed, and he did not want to add this to the list of things he had to take care of himself.

Now, Gellerts' eyes once again made contact with his own; the expression in them hard to identify, before he slowly lowered his head in a nod. "Could you? That would be good - since you write amazingly... Very well then, I want it sent in by the day after tomorrow. Thank you."

Without saying anything else, without even looking at him Gellert walked past him into the drawing room; with swift, hasty steps, as if he wanted to run away from him. Barely registering it, unaware of what he was doing and what he was going to say, Albus hurried after him.

[lovelyfirebouquet]

I was going to put this in the tags, but no.

What is the POINT?!!? Why preserve a memory that doesn't exist?

The point of a photo is a snapshot, a moment of life. And God fucking damn it, life is NOT perfect smooth faces and smiles. Life is ugly and that is why it is beautiful!!!

Look at your lover, your friend. Look at their wrinkles and imperfections. Do you hate them? Do you despise these things that make your loved ones human? Your child, your sibling, your little cousin. Would you rather a false creation, an image of a still porcelain curse or would you rather see chocolate smeared on their face after their 3rd birthday, dirt on their knees and arms as they run in the mud. Why make false photos, why try so hard to memorialize an event that never was and never could be?

It truly fills me with dread, how easily we can fake our greatest moments, pretending they're perfect. I love your plastic snake, OP. I hope when you are gone they see that snake and love you as you are and always were.

Every time I see that G--gle phone photoshop commercial my heart is filled with infinite sadness, like, yeah it's cool you can have a good family photo, it's cool you can do that, but god, there is something to be said for the honesty of a family photo where you're blinking, or crying, or have ugly wrinkles.

What is too unsightly for you? Would you swipe-click-replace out the image of my cousin crying on our Florida trip family reunion photo? Would you remove the plastic snake I have clenched in my grip, which I still have to this day? Would you scoff at the wrinkles around our eyes and the strands of hair on our faces as we squint into the wind, the day before the massive storm? Would I remember it if I didn't have these reminders, if the picture was perfect and clean, all children in a row with perfect gleaming white tombstone tooth smiles? No tears. No plastic snake.

Everyone is beautiful and no one looks genuine.

[whumpdrabbles]

Whump writing, but based on true events, i guess??

idk i have a shit body and it's tried to take me out more than once, and although I actually pride myself on my mental health, all things considered, some nights i can't stop reliving those moments. anyway... going to be slightly altered for anonymity's sake, but let's take a little trip down nightmare lane shall we? gonna just write this in little sections, so stay tuned!

The Liminal Space (pt. 1)

CW: Medical Trauma, Coding, Near-Death

Waking up, at least in this body, is never a sunshine-y blue-jay chirping feeling, its usually more like swimming through a murky pond, thick with algae, searching for a ray of sun to show you to the surface, but the day is cloudy and you can't see a damn thing, so you sort of claw madly around in the water until air hits your face.

This morning was neither.

Today was the washing-machine current of a twenty foot wave. Gravity was pulling in all directions, prying one eye open and slamming shut the other. The pillow under your head was both anchored to the molten center of the earth, yet rocketing towards the outer rings of the universe. Up and down had no meaning, there were simply sensations crawling over your skin. Eyes opened but remained unseeing, only flashes of light, maybe the sun, maybe hallucinations. This was wrong. It scared you.

The only blessed relief was back to the darkness. The darkness quieted it all. The soundless roaring and blinding nothingness dissipated. Back to nothing.

Hours, seconds, years?

There was more light this time around. This time the hurricane settled to a storm. Unruly and wild, but survivable.

Your eyes opened. The world dumped.

Waves of nausea hurled themselves at you, and while your eyes screwed shut still your vision swam.

Deep breaths.

Just find something real.

Its time to get up.

Your fingers feel the cotton strands woven together in your blanket. The imperfections little bumps of braille reading to you.

Deep breath.

You imagine what the blanket looks like under your hands. Soft grey, with that thin white stripe running across your legs. Wrinkled and wrapped around your legs.

You could feel them too, now. Like whispered phantoms, but still there, just below you.

The water in your head began to still, and again you chance a look into the morning.

You squint again, willing your eyes to find some detail of clarity within the clouds. Still unfocused, like an arrow missing its mark just so.

Get downstairs.

They'll know what to do.

[secretskincream]

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[zhangsanjian]

Never Far

Original essay: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/u8CseBNi4Kkye56u63XFSA

On the first day of each month, you can often see "Hello a certain month" in Moments. Everyone hopes that this month can always be happy and cute, or hope that the hard work this month will be rewarded… In short, we have good expectations for the future.

August is here again as scheduled, and the heat wave hits us with "enthusiasm" in this midsummer. It seems that it is the same as August of the previous year, there is no difference, but there is something different in my heart. There seemed to be a black hole in the deepest part of my psyche, a gap in my mother's heart—a black hole that would send my mother down to a planet of bewilderment, anxiety, and sadness.

I also know a group of people who will feel uncomfortable, uneasy, and difficult to regulate their emotions because of an upcoming day. It seems that everyone is longing for it, just like in the movie: Sooner is many years later…

Forever is not far away, just like every sunrise and sunset is a day in eternity, what should come will always come, no one can resist. As I wrote this, I stared blankly at the computer screen, unable to write for a long time, bursts of anger welled up in my heart, and even wanted to punch the computer screen. Obviously I was the one who went through all of this, so why should I show tolerance, open-mindedness, and friendship? Why can't I pour out my emotions wantonly?

Yes, I can't, I'm not the old me anymore, I can do better than the old me.

Friends who have supported me this year, please rest assured that I am fine. Recently, I have been exercising, boxing, and doing Pilates with my friends… These methods allow me to temporarily forget the troubles around me, and feel a sense of connection and solidity in the company of family and friends. Even basketball, which I hadn't touched in two or three years, returned to my palm with the encouragement and company of my friends, and I felt the hearty feeling I hadn't seen for a long time. Yes, I'm trying to recharge myself.

Back home, my mother has my company, and her condition is much better. Taking her to exercise together can see that her body is lighter and her wrinkles are gradually stretched. I can do better in the future. There are also those "people" who secretly "support" me, I know you want to see me knocked down, and then lie on the ground and give up struggling amidst your contemptuous ridicule , no longer being strong, convinced, and persistent. But I want to thank you for successfully arousing the "damn desire to win" in men. If I really fell down, I don't seem to respect your long-term "support". Just like in that song, "Indifferent people, thank you for once underestimating me and making me live stronger without bowing my head".

how far is Forever? Forever is not far, always in our hearts. Heart to eternity, forever is every day under our feet. How can we reach what we call forever without taking every step firmly and steadily? Live a good life, get what you want, abandon unnecessary quarrels and cares, pay more attention to some beautiful moments in life, and exercise with me until you grow old—you should also be a healthy and happy grandpa when you get old, Granny.

Perfect is not beautiful either. Family members, partners, and staff around you also have their own shortcomings and blind spots. No one is perfect, if you always look at the world with critical eyes, you will definitely not be happy. Try to learn to tolerate and appreciate a person's imperfections, and a bright light will be lit in your heart. This light will illuminate itself, and it will illuminate me.

I said I would be your Dark Knight, and I will always remember that. I will be there when you need me, and even if you don't need me one day, I will silently pay attention to and bless you. The journey is not lonely, you may occasionally want to get off the train and stop to enjoy another piece of scenery, it doesn't matter that the train will always be there.

Whether it is a new friend or an old friend, I will always smile and say to you: How are you? welcome……

[bilboyagathechickenfootedhobbit]

I am 42 years old and it literally took until I turned 40 to really and truly detox and reprogram my brain from the anorexic brainwashing I was subjected to in the 90’s. I think it may be hard sometimes for younger feminists to understand why older women can be so powerful in some ways and then fall back to “oooh, don’t call me ma’am it makes me feel so OLD! I don’t look that old do I???” The 1990’s were……ugly. Granted, some of the things younger women have to deal with today make me see red and want to go on a killing spree, but every era has its own challenges and for us in the 90’s it was heroin chic and skewed views of age. We were constantly bombarded with images of soaking wet, skeletal models and told that was the pinnacle of beauty. Then we would consume media in which a woman only a few years older than us would be playing a MOTHER to a male actor five years her senior. My god, the way the media ripped apart Renee Zellwegger for being “fat” in Bridget Jones Diary probably caused more cases of eating disorders than any other movie that came out in the 90’s.

The 90’s were the beginning of people having next to no idea what a normal woman looks like. People gasp when I tell them my age and remark how I don’t LOOK 42! I do. I very much look my age and I fucking LOVE IT because god DAMN have I EARNED this face and body with four decades of living. But nobody knows anymore what natural 42 looks like because we���ve had women in their 30’s playing grandmothers and women in their 20’s being the love interest to men in their 70’s and nobody knows what any age looks like anymore and we all seem to assume that women immediately dry up and become bitter old hags the second they turn 30. I honestly think that’s why people are shocked by my appearance; they truly think that by now, I should be wrinkled with paper thin skin and liver spots. Which, if things go well, I will be one day. Fingers crossed.

The point being, when you are raised in an era of body positivity (however poorly executed and imperfect as it may be at times), you have a lot less to unlearn than someone who was raised being told “90 lbs is fucking fat and disgusting and you’re an embarrassment.” No, seriously, go watch some Americas Next Top Model or The Biggest Loser if you want to see what my generation had to work to undo. It’s a LOT. And even the strongest, most empowered women I know will default to self-deprecation or insecurity because it’s what we’ve known for LITERALLY FOUR DECADES.

And I hate it. I hate it so much. I have seen so many of my female peers go through so much and come out so strong and then they just…..pinch their belly and say they need to drop another ten pounds. WHY??? TAKE UP THAT SPACE WITH YOUR STRONG AND CAPABLE BODY, BABE.

My own mother, in the last months of her life, suffering from dementia…..all she could focus on was how fat she was. This was a woman who taught generations, who opened people’s minds and worldviews, who traveled the world and raised two kids and impacted so many lives in so many ways, and all she could focus on as her mind went was how fat she was. It was so deeply ingrained in her to criticize her appearance that, even after she forgot my name and who I was, even after she forgot her own name and who she was…..she remembered that she was supposed to hate her own body.

I see photographers doing photoshoots with older women to help them see their innate beauty and I really appreciate that. I befriend grandmas quite a bit, and always make a point to tell the older women in my life how much I appreciate and value their friendship and wisdom. I think older women just sometimes need to be reminded of how much they mean to us, how so many of us look to them for inspiration and advice. As I’ve gotten older, I have basically become invisible, which to me is fucking fantastic, but I can see how, with women who have always placed their value on what others think of them, the invisible nature of getting older is quite the slap to the face. How can you gain approval if you’ve always looked outward for it and now nobody sees you?

I don’t really know where I’m going with this other than to say, I’m sorry. I wish you had more body neutral older women around. I wish it wasn’t considered radical for women to simply respect their bodies for what they do and not get hung up on the minutia of appearance. I wish it hadn’t taken me until 40 to look at my body and go ‘okay really, this time I mean it. I’m fine with you. We’re good.’ I wish every generation of women didn’t have to face some new form of fuckery concerning our vessels.

But also…..there are body neutral/positive older women out there. I’m one of them. I don’t always love my body but I accept it and what it does and offer it the same compassion and grace it gives me. Why would I hate the vessel that allows me to paint, to eat, to hug my child, to kiss my loved ones? Why would I hate my age? I lived every moment of my life that got me to this point, for better or for worse, so why deny the years that brought me here? They were good years. There were bad ones, too, but they only seemed bad in comparison to the good ones. Yin and yang, baby. Can’t taste the sweet as strongly without experiencing the sour.

You have such compassion in your words; I hope you carry it with you through whatever life brings you. It’s so easy to be angry, but it’s much harder to look past your frustrations and feel compassion for the people angering you. You have shown that in your words and that alone will help the women around you. Just keep at it ❤️

So sick and tired of the focus on women's ""beauty"". Older women seem to be more focused on looking "young" than they do being healthy. Skincare isn't by itself terrible, but it's often used as a proxy to the same problem and is just as much of an industry. Why is the focus on the "beauty" of my skin? I know more about how to take care of my female body at 20 than many older women do. I know more about my cycle and how my body functions. My skin is not the most important part, especially if it's not getting in my way or hurting me. The focus is always cosmetic. As usual.

It's just depressing to see, because I respect the wisdom of my older women; but I almost find myself (a bit unfairly) wanting to turn them to my side. My teacher (and friend!), one of the most bright and incredible women I know, often complaining in jokes about her weight. So many of my male teachers have been overweight. Not a single one has shown this behavior. My therapist, another brilliant and diligent woman, telling me not to make her feel even older and worrying about her age, just because I asked her how I should address her. This isn't uncommon, it's baseline. I've never met a woman who doesn't mention some form of this when I ask. It's discouraging. There's nothing more flourishing than having people to look up to who are unapologetic about their age, who focus on living healthy and productive lives, and these women are, by all means, so close to that! They're successful, they're brilliant, they're free, and yes, they are perfectly, physically fine! But for some reason, it always needs to come back to their ""looks"", or their age, or some other socially imposed insecurity I've never seen many men blink at to the sheer scope these women do. And I've had so many women in my life like this. My mother, my other therapists... No offense to her, but my sister doesn't even like the *idea* of being called Señora and I think it's telling how much women seem to despise it, while Señor is almost coveted.

This is not normal. This is not fine. And it shouldn't be radicalizing of me, or "feminist", to just want to live a normal life where I can be myself without making a statement, where I'm not afraid of just becoming older and looking it. Where every amazing woman in my life isn't cutting herself down over the stupidest (and I'm sorry for saying that, I know their insecurities have a reason) reasons. So many skilled women I've met, and not a single one hasn't made repeated or offhanded comments about some aspect of her body that's not "attractive."

It's so discouraging, and makes me feel so alone; as if I'm very radical just to expect them to respect themselves on a deeper level. I want older women to be my role models in more manners of self-acceptance too.