i'm so good at word using-i-tude

I do I actually have a ton!!! But just as some forewarning, some of these are not strictly B99, so you’ll be getting a mishmash of other things by following them. They’re all wonderful and fantastic and I love them all with my whole heart tho so you should 100% follow them!!

I’ll throw it all under a cut to keep from spamming dashboards :)

NOTE: I AM REFERRING HERE TO AESTHETICS, NOT MORAL/SOCIAL ATTITUDES. RACISM IS GROSS AND ENOUGH PEOPLE IN ~YE OLDEN TIMES~ WEREN’T RACIST THAT IT’S NO EXCUSE

papers are praising Emma Watson to the highest heaven for refusing to wear stays and a hoop skirt in Beauty and the Beast and honestly, I’m kind of sick of it

yes, it’s a fairytale, but Belle is living in 18th-century France. she probably would have worn stays because they’re a basic foundation garment that provides breast and back support and pretty much every woman wore them. probably hers would have been laced more loosely because she’s not upper-class. and yeah, she would have worn some kind of hoops or panniers under her fancy ball gown. which would have been significantly fancier than the new adaptation is making it and needed the support and can you tell how hard I am side-eyeing the designers

in a fairytale it doesn’t matter so much. I’ll concede that the movie’s not actually set in real-life 18th-century France, so they can do what they want. but it’s a trend I see a lot in historical fiction, too. Miss Whatsherface is a Liberated Strong Female Character and doesn’t wear a corset! how shocking! how perfectly tailored to appeal to our modern sensibilities!

here’s a truth-bomb: women wore corsets. most women didn’t lace them at all tightly and some took them off upon returning home for the evening like we take off our bras today. nevertheless, they did wear them, in almost every echelon of society. factory girls, servants, farmers, sex workers, artists, aristocrats, the earliest female politicians and doctors- almost all women. the only time I’ve seen “liberated woman doesn’t wear corsets” done well was with a character in the Artistic Reform dress movement started by pre-Raphaelite artists in the late 1800s. and then the author actually did research to reflect that Artistic Reform was more than just not wearing corsets

most women also wore skirts most or all of the time (with notable exceptions like Amelia Bloomer, Anne Lister, and other singluar ladies who defended their right to pants). many also wore hoop-skirts, panniers, or crinolines. and guess what? they were still badass.

Ada Lovelace made her groundbreaking mathematical discoveries in the dorky balloon sleeves and puffy skirts of the 1830s

Madame C.J. Walker became the first black female millionaire in the US and ran her beauty empire in bustle skirts and corsets

Mary Shelley invented science fiction in stays and an Empire-waisted dress. Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake got commonlaw married and wrote reams of poetry in the same

Dr. Shih Meiyu got her medical degree from the University of Michigan in a corset, as did Dr. Kang Cheng at the same time

B99 + Mafia AU: in which Jake and Amy are New York’s Most Wanted… or so he thinks. Amy’s actually an undercover cop meant to take him down – except it’s a year into the assignment, her fake feelings for him are a bit too real, and she just can’t imagine turning over this big misunderstood softie to the feds.

Jake is kingpin of the infamous McClanes, the mafia rumored to have ties with everyone from your average petty theft to the Pontiac Bandit. For Amy, being assigned to gain his trust, uncover the secrets of his criminal network, and ultimately throw him and his cronies in jail is a dream. 

It’s two months into the assignment and one month into their fake relationship when he finally starts to let her in. She’s ready to hear him name his next main accomplice, but she’s not at all prepared for his speech on his Robin Hood way of thinking. It’s messed up, it’s convoluted, but holy crud does it make her realize the world isn’t all black or white. 

It’s ten months into the assignment and nine months into their fake relationship when he holds her close, wipes the blood from her temple, and says “I love you” for the first time. Her response comes out almost instantly, and it scares her how easy it is to say it back, to feel it back. 

It’s twelve months into the assignment and eleven months into their fake relationship when the higher-ups decide it’s time to send someone else in. 

“You alright, babe? Who’s the butthead I have to send a hitman out for?” “My boss.” “Gonna need some more details here, babe. You know my assassins aren’t the brightest… Alright, paper and pen ready, who’s your boss?” “The FBI.”

Props to @cassianperalta for linking me to this mafia au prompt and helping me come up with the story for this!