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Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">

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There are easy answers, like that it’s just fetishizing.  And like, I find men attractive, yes.  But I also find women attractive.  I don’t have a problem with enjoying het romance, assuming I can find good ones.  I enjoy stories with female characters I can relate to.

But there’s something much deeper at play, IMO.  A friend of mine who is a gender studies professor was the first person to point this out to me, but a lot of women enjoy m/m romance and gay porn because of the lack of women.  It removes a source of pressure and sexism.  Without any women present, you don’t have to constantly evaluate the sexism of their portrayal, or be reminded of negative experiences in your own life.  It allows women to experience romance and especially sexuality without all the baggage that comes with it in our patriarchal society.

This was recently illustrated to me rather dramatically.  I read a recommendation for a het romance.  And it sounded cute, and came highly recommended.  The tropes at play were fun.  Until I read a snippet and realized this was a romance between a woman and her boss.  I had a visceral negative reaction.  

Instantly I’m thinking of sexual harassment stories I’ve read and heard from other women. I’m thinking of how uncomfortable it would be to have your boss develop feelings for you.  How icky the power dynamics would be, etc.  

And then I realized…this wouldn’t bother me if it were two men.  Now, there’s no logical reason for that.  Sexual harassment is just as wrong when its object is a man.  But I know I’ve read fics with a similar premise and never thought about it.  Because when it’s two men I can accept this is just a light romance, a fantasy, meant to be fun and sexy and not to represent the real world.

But I can’t when it’s a het relationship.  There’s too much baggage there.  Too much societal history of abuse.  I can’t relax enough with the premise to enjoy that story.  

Now some people can.  And that’s fine.  And some people are never going to be okay with power imbalances like that regardless of gender.  That’s also fine.  I don’t think having either reaction makes one morally superior.  It’s okay to just enjoy light entertainment for what it is without going into deep analysis.

But I wanted to highlight one set of tags (via @reallifepotato​ )

Because I AM comfortable with my sexuality and fairly comfortable with my body, but still, this resonates so hard as someone who has always been overweight.  The amount that our society teaches women to constantly compare ourselves, almost always negatively with every other woman out there, can utterly ruin our enjoyment of this kind of thing.  Like how many times have you tried to watch a mainstream romantic comedy where some utterly gorgeous actress is bemoaning that she can’t get a date, or WORSE is made out to be less than attractive.  And you look at her and go…but she’s fucking perfect?  And you just want to puke.  

#this was very eye-opening for me thank you for writing this out so that I may understand#i agree with all of this but the last comment rang in my head#the distinguishing between fetishes and enjoyment of the romance is not something I’ve seen in conversation#which made me adverse to women consuming m/m romance. I only heard of the m/m fetishization which as a gay man makes me incredibly upset#i understand now that there are multiple sides to this idea of why women consume m/m media#and that the distinction is so important#thank you again for posting this#you have opened my eyes to new possibilities and I have new knowledge in my back pocket so that I do not make any more#hasty judgements on ladies who consume m/m romance#thank you for pointing out a prejudice that I held in such a way that wasn’t babying me or others while still being kind about it#i have some processing I need to do. some rewiring of my brain.#thank you again#(I hope I worded this correctly and that I didn’t upset anyone with my tags.)#I had a femme friend who would exclusively read yaoi and would gush to me about her ‘uwu soft bois’ and ‘how gay they were for each other#‘and how they should just fuck already.’#‘but they’re my uwu soft bois and they’re so cute’#fuck it made me nauseous#I know now what I knew then and that was that what my friend was doing was fetishizing m/m relationships#and that is what soured me on the idea.#this post has turned my head to new ideas and feelings. thank you#while the fetishization of m/m relationships still greatly makes me upset and uncomfortable#i now know that that is not the only reason why women consume m/m media.#thank you

Mostly for personal reasons, because I’ve gotten a good amount of animosity and anon hate from gay men (or those claiming to be so) as a result of this post, so this was nice to read.

As usual I think people need to be much less kneejerk in how they relate because all humans are complicated. A lot of women need to consider how they talk about objects of their gaze because it often makes me uncomfortable. But also we are all motivated by a variety of factors. For example perhaps your friend you mention was really drawn into nonthreatening portrayals of masculinity and that’s the aspect she focused on for a reason.

Damain: [Justice not vengeance, justice not vengeance. Bats don’t kill, we don’t kill, we don’t kill.] No. It appears I cannot think of any ideas.

Marinette: ..Are you sure Dami?

Damian: ..I’m sure.

(TW: The character analysis contains talk of trauma and conditioning. The story contains murder, dead children, violence, and mention of gore. The story turned out a lot darker than I anticipated.)

This dynamic is beyond interesting if cast in a slightly more serious light.

Marinette does have a temper underneath her perky and upbeat exterior. She can be petty, mean, and questionably immoral when pushed to extremes; see her irritation with Chole and Lila and hell her first interactions with Adrian, her jealousy with Kagami, and her reaction to inconveniences which is "steal first, ask questions later". But I don't think that's why her sense of morals and framing of justice would be so opposed to Damian, or rather, Batman's moral code. No, all of that they would be okay with. Each and every person of the Batfam has serious anger management issues and breaks countless laws in order to be a vigilante. It's the bigger picture that would cause the problem

Marinette as Ladybug, and as the Guardian has a duty that would require her to think not only of her own morals - which are very justice-based, and trend towards the kinder option, remember we are talking about Tikki's wielder here - but of the greater picture. In short, I think her overall outlook on duty and morality would be a lot like Wonder Woman's. In that she would rather extend a hand in peace before violence, but when push comes to shove there's a reason Wonder Woman doesn't have a Rouge's gallery.

When she has a villain that can not be reasoned with. She ends them. Permanently.

I think that in the end, if it was necessary, Marinette would be capable of great violence and killing. She embodies luck and creation - but with that comes order and balance and sometimes to achieve peace, destruction is unavoidable. That's why Misfortune and Destruction are the opposites for her. With a proper partner, Ladybug doesn't have to do much of that, but on her own as a single Guardian of the Box, she would have to maintain balance.

Plus, the older she gets the more she becomes exposed to the grey realities of the world - especially in a joined MLB/DC universe here (which I like to consider is real-world logic applied to both properties). Defeating Hawkmoth won't be easy. The options are death (unlikely for a children's television show) or facing serious prison charges (unless there's a city/country-wide mindwipe, which... lame.) Even if the option is a prison, a lot of people will call for Gabriel's blood. If he does go to prison the effects of what he's done are not going to go away. How many people are going to suffer in that final battle? How many people will suffer until that battle occurs? How much destruction and violence will be wrought across the city? How many times is Marinette going to have to use Lucky Charm to revive the dead? How many times in the show must that have already happened even though we don't see it on screen? (Because, again, children's show.) What are the effects of years of emotional repression on a citywide scale? On a scale of millions - 2.61 million people live in Paris. Knowing that, at any moment, your own emotional weakness will be turned against you and weaponized to hurt the people around you. It is a cruel reality that will never be fully explored in the show. If carried out to its logical extent the severe repercussions on not only the types of criminals in Paris (which we know Ladybug deals with as they do have a regular patrol, and help the police with those crimes) but also in forming the morality of the superhero, and young adult, who has to deal with that type of climate, that type of pressure, and the trauma remaining once the whole situation is resolved.

Marinette will only grow more and more pragmatic and calloused. Even under the influence of Tikki, one of the kindest beings in the show, I think Marinette's sense of justice will take form in a way far harsher than Batman's strict moral code allows.

Because, despite the joking nature of the original post, she will learn the world exists in shades of grey, and her job, her duty, is to maintain a world of fluctuating consequences, and sometimes that requires harsh and unforgiving decisions. Because it's not justice that ultimately drives her, but balance. (Again, not a conclusion that we will see fully explored in the show - although the episode with Adrian receiving the snake miraculous does a pretty damn good job of it. And that's only a small part of what happens when a Guardian allows her/his personal feelings and morality to dictate a situation. When playing with the powers of gods petty things like feelings of good/bad pale in comparison to concepts like order/chaos and balance.)

Damian on the other hand was taught violence and destruction from birth. That the best enemy is a dead enemy. He had to spend years under his father's strict moral code and his family's love to begin to unlearn that to the point where violence and death were no longer his first reaction. And even then it is hard, which is why he still struggles with it, much like Jason. And so he holds himself so strongly to that moral code his father espouses even though he may see the same grey realities Marinette does, he can only bring himself to act in black and white. Because, to betray that, would be backsliding into the teachings of his mother, grandfather, and the League. To betray that code would mean exclusion from the only people in the world to give him love and acceptance and kindness because of who he is, not what he can do. And if all that requires is adherence to this one rule, Damian will follow it. He has to follow it.

The alternative is too painful, and lonely, to bear.

When placing those two harmonized but different moralities into a situation I think that would create an outcome much different than the general image we have of Damian and Marinette's relationship. In post after post, story after story, we see Damian defending Marinette, Damian fighting, scheming, and sometimes, killing to protect her. Violence against those who harm her, retribution against those who cause her pain. And while yes I do think he would be a protective partner both on and off the field I think we overemphasize his past under his League training rather than focusing on his training and moralization under his father.

Marinette, on the other hand, had no other mentor. Fu? Sure, until his memories are gone. Tikki? An immortal goddess intricately part of yet distant from humanity, kind yet oblivious to the internal moral decisions Marinette might not bring to her attention. Her parents? Unaware their daughter has taken the emotional weight and safety of an entire city onto her shoulders? Alya, Nino, Adrian, hell even Luka, and Kagami? All in the same position Marinette is in. Children having to learn to be moral in a world that has turned upside down and cruel. Where magic negates death, and butterflies are a reason for nightmares and PTSD attacks. Where they wield the powers of gods, power over luck, creation, destruction, time, space, illusion, and the elements? Teenagers?!?! Yeah, no, Marinette is going to come out of all of that with a warped sense of morality and the power to back up her views.

(Not to mention if we add in here my personal Headcanons on why the training of miraculous users starts so young it becomes even more warped. Younger users allow for ease of molding. Why go for an adult who already has a firm understanding of morality and a definitive nature of how the world works? Why not a teenager, a young teenager in the case of Marinette and Adrian, who grow into puberty along with magical connections to literal gods (and we know age plays a part in the miraculous mythos because Hawkmoth literally says he's able to use his powers more effectively than children under the age of majority (or a biologic explanation; when early physical puberty tends to draw to a close in males and females)) their bodies growing up with that power, their minds and morality being shaped by magic and immutable energies of existence. Of course, you go with children for that, fully formed adults wouldn't be able to handle the strain on rebreaking everything they know to be true and entrusting them with cosmic power on top of that. See Hawkmoth as an example (I would also include Nathalie into that, but she's also being affected by a broken miraculous and it's hard to tell what side effects come from that, what come from a cruel purpose, or how much that cruel purpose is actually an example of the magic breaking down a person's sense of morality, place in the universe, and their body in order to house the condensed powers of gods.))

All that being said, this is why the relationship between Damian and Marinette plays out all wrong in our current stories. Damian is not a morally loose, violent defender and Marinette is not a bubbly ball of sunshine who's strong enough to turn the other cheek when bad things are committed against her. Damian is a devout follower of strict moral code he believes is a key to his family's continued love (or if he actually internalizes that code and starts following it regardless of purpose then he becomes a vigilante against the insane and psychopathic villains of Gotham who refuses to kill on the chance of possible redemption in such twisted individuals - or to avoid legal consequences, take your pick.) and Marinette is a heavily traumatized, morally subjective, powerful as fuck, a vessel of a god, defender, and Guardian of several more, who already has a petty and vindictive streak a mile wide.

Marinette is the one who would go too far. Not Damian. He may want to sometimes, may even be capable of it in the heat of the moment, but that's why he relies on the rest of his family to hold him back. Because they are a support system for each other. Marinette doesn't have that, she never has. Separated as she is from the rest of her team simply by being Ladybug and the Guardian. And when she's working with the Batfam? She may fight with them, but there is a separateness to her. She knows Batman doesn't like magic and powers, and so she tones it down. She tones down how much power bubbles underneath her skin, the type of power that makes you sit down, shut up, and listen, the type of power that grants authority. She tones it down.

But she can just as easily use it.

(STORY)

Imagine, if you will, a night in Gotham. It's been a long hectic week. Maybe multiple prison breakouts, maybe even a few Rogues on the loose, but there's this one case that has been on everyone's mind. It's late - even for Gotham - and the team has been hunting down a particularly deplorable human being. Their chase has stretched into the early hours of the morning, and everyone is flagging and ready to collapse from exhaustion. But not yet.

They corner the rat in an abandoned warehouse (isn't that always the case) and the fight is short but hard. It's been a long week. And everyone is tired.

Robin's bleeding from several gashes. Orphan is sporting a broken arm. Nightwing's fighting a severe concussion and a rolled ankle. Red Hood has multiple bruised and possibly broken ribs. Red Robin doesn't even look human, held together with nothing but espresso, spite, and desperation. Hell, even Batman, stubborn and unbending as he is, shows a little limp in his gait as he goes to interrogate the piece of scum holding the key to where the children are.

Thirteen children are missing. The only signs of life have been occasional audio files released to the news media. Sounds of children screaming, begging, crying, and a harsh metallic clack ringing in the background.

Over...and over...and over again...

It's late and everyone is tired. But there is work to be done.

The man laughs through pain. He's not the Joker. He's just your average normal man although he has a hell of a punch and is quick on his feet - not too tall, not too short, friendly-looking even. Until he gets that look in his eye. You know the one, you've seen it before on people on TV and movies, god help you if you've seen it in real life. It's the look that makes your skin turn clammy, that stops up your breath in your throat and makes your stomach flip, it's the look that revels in suffering, there is no empathy, no light in that look. Nothing but deep pools madness, willing and wanting to suck in everything that surrounds them.

They try everything.

He laughs.

Round after round. Question after question. They ask, they threaten, they plead.

He laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

Eventually, the sun threatens to spill out onto the horizon. They've gotten nowhere. A window creaks open on the second floor. The family quickly turns toward the sound, weapons at the ready. They loosen when they see it's only Ladybird.

Dainty feet pad across the concrete floor.

"How's Spoiler?" Red Robin asks.

"Alive." Ladybird states, her eyes drifting over to the man strapped to the chair. "Anything?"

"Nothing."

"Hmmm..." Her face is uncharacteristically blank and serene. "Let me try?"

Red Hood lets out a sharp scoff. "This is a little different than your normal fare. He ain't gonna break with kindly asked words and luck."

Ladybird doesn't seem to take offense. "Let me try." This time it's not a question.

There is a momentary pause, everyone looks to Batman. He stares at her, and she stares back. He nods and the family parts, stepping into the remaining shadows that linger as the sun rises. Ladybird approaches the man and stares at him.

He laughs.

"I don' 'hink you can do anythin' to me doll, 'hat your friends haven' tried," he slurs through a mouth of missing teeth and bloodied gums. He looks her up and down with a cloudy gaze and a crooked salacious grin. "Though you certainly pretty, maybe I might be willin' ta trade!"

Robin steps forward one hand on his sword a snarl on his lips, but a single gesture from the woman stops him. Ladybird remains passive. She bends closer to the man.

"I'm going to ask this once, very nicely. Where are the children?" Her voice is light almost as if having a conversation about the weather.

"That ain't-" starts Red Hood before it's ruthlessly stopped by an elbow to the side.

The man laughs. "Nope! Nah! NO!" His cackles grow wilder. Ladybird does not move. Does not say a word until the chuckles begin to fade.

"You'll have to try harder 'an 'at lil'miss."

"Very well, the hard way it is." She brings her hands up and hovers them around the man's head. "Do you know what the difference between probability and luck is?" She shifts her stance, her shoulders straighten, her voice rings. "No? Luck is uncontrollable, it just is. An immutable fact. Something that can or can't happen. It's a coin flip." The hands don't move, but the air around them starts to vibrate, the man's breath gets caught in his throat.

He stops laughing.

"Probability, on the other hand," Ladybird keeps talking in that smooth serene tone. "Is the chance that something can happen. It has a type of certainty to it. A type of numerical calculation. Probability can be manipulated." The air around the man's head grows more violent, shockwaves pounding against his skull. His eyes roll back.

"We could rely on luck to find where the children are, but I have always been more fond of probability. So, I'm going to ask again."

She leans forward.

Her eyes are glowing.

"Where are the children?"

The man lurches forward, dragging in a gasping breath. "Down, down, underneath-" a harsh gurgling cough escapes his throat. "Underneath here."

"You fucking bastard," spits Red Hood. A scrambling of limbs ensues. A door at the opposite end of the warehouse finds itself kicked open. Footsteps descend into the basement. Ladybird remains standing over the man her face blank, her eyes glowing.

"All underneath," he says, his eyes coming back into focus. "All of my children here ta stay with me forever."

It's only the beat of a moment before a horrified cry fills the warehouse, and then there's a distinct sound of retching.

The man begins to laugh again.

"~Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home~" He sings.

The steps returning to the ground floor are heavy and quick.

"~Your house is on fire and your children are gone~"

"They're dead," croaks Nightwing, stumbling through the door. "Hung up by-" he can't even say another word before he retches on the ground. The rest of the team emerges from the doorway, all in various states of shock and disgust if emotions can even be seen behind their masks.

"~All except one, and her name is Ann, and she hid under the baking pan!~"

"All thirteen?" Ladybird asks her tone flat, but still ringing in an odd expansive manner.

"Hard to..." starts Red Robin, his voice shaky. "Hard to tell. There were certainly... thirteen heads."

"Hmmm..."

"I'm calling the authorities, the rest of you can leave. This place will be crawling with cops and media before the hour is out." Batman growls, but it betrays a tinge of shakiness.

It's been a long week. And they are tired.

The man laughs again. A thin weedy rasp.

"One moment," says Ladybird. Her hands rise again, and the air begins to vibrate. It harmonizes with the sound of the man's laugh.

"What are you doing?" asks Robin.

"My job."

A tangle of webs erupts from her hands spiraling out into the air around her and the psychopath strapped to the chair. They wave and dance in a non-existent wind, little red lines connecting. All attached to the man.

"What the-"

"They screamed so pretty, so high and loud, but no one came, no one ever comes!" laughs the man.

Ladybird watches the lines as they flutter around her, before looking back at the man.

"You've done this before?"

"Never got caught till today!"

She tilts her head. "And you're proud of it now?"

"It was a masterpiece, oh you should've seen it!"

"And you'd do it again?"

"YES!" his eyes shine. "I'll wait and wait and wait until I can be free and then I'll gather them up and- URK!"

The human neck is not meant to twist that far.

"Ladybird!"

The man slumps back against the chair. His eyes are still open, staring blankly at the opposing wall now. Face twisted in a malicious grin.

"You killed him," states Batman.

"Oh thank god," mutters Red Hood.

"Yes." Her eyes have stopped glowing.

"There are rule-"

"Those are your rules, not mine." Her voice may no longer ring but it is firm and steady. Her eyes narrow.

"One more death does not make up for the thirteen lost."

"No. Nor does it make up for the thirty-four other children buried underneath the concrete flooring down there." She steps forward and unties the man from the chair. He falls out and onto the floor. "Dead is dead, and the dead do not hold opinions for the living."

"Thirty-four," mutter Red Robin.

"However, one death more than makes up for the fifty-two other children that would have lost their lives at his hands, had he been allowed to live."

Batman shifts. "You killed him for future crimes?"

"Yes."

"You can't do that."

She tilts her head and smiles thinly. "I just did."

"We are not judge, jury, and executioner."

"You are not," she agrees.

"And you are?"

"I am balance."

He stalks forward, pushing into her space. "We are not gods! We do not get to decide when people live or die! We do not impose our own morality on the world when people act horribly! If you do that it makes you no better-"

"You're right, you are not gods," says Ladybird softly. Not even flinching at the angry stance of the man standing opposite her. "But do not insult yourself, or me, by implying that I'm not." Her eyes are glowing again. "I'm not sorry for preventing future suffering." She backs away.

"If you do this again-" he threatens.

"When I do this again. You'll what? Put a stop to me?"

"Ladybird..." starts Robin.

"No," her voice is tight, manic almost. That smooth sereneness has faded leaving the cracked human underneath. "With this power, with this duty, I don't get to have my own moral code. I don't get to decide where to draw the line in the sand and say here; this is where I will not cross. I do not have that luxury. Not as I am." She glares, her voice choked with heavy breaths. "Do not judge a weight you have chosen not to bear."

She turns towards the exit.

No one follows.

It's been a long week. And everyone is tired.

But the real issue here is using impulse control and “maturity,” or a lack thereof, as a justification of taking away rights from children and young adults. There should be no litmus test to determine who has bodily autonomy and who doesn’t. A toddler definitely does not have impulse control and they should still be afforded basic rights of bodily autonomy. As the primary caregiver of my own small children I try to carry this into my interactions with them. Even when I feel it necessary to intervene in their activities to keep them safe I try to do so in a way that respects their personhood and affords them as much autonomy as possible. With extended family or medical providers we enforce their right to decline physical contact and to assert their own boundaries.

We see this play out similarly with neurodivergent people as well. These same litmus tests of maturity and impulsivity are applied to neurodivergent adults with the same intention to justify stripping away their autonomy.

Whether you’re a teenager or a neurodivergent adult, the problem with being infantilized isn’t that you’re unlike a child and therefore deserve better treatment, it’s that children are an oppressed class and you’re being lumped in with them.

“Beautiful Writing and Good Plot” Compilation Part 1 

We got a request at some point for stories with “beautiful writing and good plot” and I missed it back then, but here’s my compilation, just from going through my bookmarks and looking for key words like *beautifully written, *lyrical, *epic, etc. So, in absolutely no particular order, please enjoy! [And feel free to list your own, and we’ll do a Part 2 Compilation for all of yours as well!] ~ mojo

~*~

take me back to a time by DizziDreams (T, 144k, wangxian, my bookmark, PODFIC) - lwj time travels to modern wwx

❤️Dignity and Animality by Anielka (G, 37k, wangxian, my post) - wwx is reincarnated as a rabbit for the 13-year interval: watership down fusion… not necessary to be familiar with watership down

hills and rivers by LtLJ (T, 70k, wangxian, 4 works, my post) - post canon wwx settling into his new life with appropriate drama and angst

help is on the way by Vamillepudding (M, 15k, wangxian, my post) - dreamy, shadowy fairy tale feel about lwj crumbling/recovery in wake of yiling patriarch’s dramatic demise… happy ending!

wide enough and wild by impossibletruths (E, 64k, wangxian, my post) - Noping Out Of Society With Your Boyfriend And Your 50 Wen Refugees: The Novel

❤️We’d roll and fall in green by x_los (E, 27k, wangxian, WIP, my post, 2 works, series in progress) - in which canon wwx was always a girl

Vagabond by xantissa (E, 65k, wangxian, my post) - post canon case fic

❤️The Fire Lapping Up the Creek by notevenyou (E, 66k, wangxian, my post) - seriously injured wwx after Qiongqi Path canon divergence: lwj caretakes

❤️A Burning Cold by MountainRose (G, 29k, child wei wuxian, my bookmark) - child wwx barely survives homelessness, is chronically ill, and all of canon is slightly different

❤️Dream a little dream of me by Moominmammashandbag (M, 60k, wangxian, my bookmark) - fix it where wwx never dies, he was imprisoned by the Jin and now is rescued

other earths and skies by binghecarer (T, 54k, wangxian, my bookmark) - East of the Sun, West of the Moon fairy tale au

mercy, tear it down. by orange_crushed (E, 33k, wangxian, my post) - wangxian find peace during Sunshot with dom/sub

and his wanting grows teeth by yukla (T, 25k, wangxian, my post) - au where wwx grows up outside the cultivation world but lwj finds him anyway, casefic

the red dark shifting by typefortydeductions (E, 16k, wangxian, my post) - Star Trek, Tarsus IV au

Imperfect Memory by xantissa (E, 62k, wangxian, my post)​ - war prize lwj au

❤️爱不释手; never let me go by yiqie (E, 69k, wangxian, my post) - post canon case fic

two guys r in love thats literally it by victortor (M, 11k, wangxian, my post) - time travel fix it

seldom all they seem by Fahye (E, 25k, wangxian, my post) - in which wangxian have been betrothed since childhood

come morning light by wolframvonbielefeld (maknaeline) (E, 17k, wangxian, my post) - canon and post-canon, grief, character studies and healing

bring you home by Alasse_Irena (T, 28k, wangxian, my post) - modern au with grief and ptsd and healing

in your skin by darkredloveknot (enheduane) E, 10k, wangxian, my post) - post canon case fic with a little body horror

Grave of a Living God by Gotcocomilk (T, 35k, wangxian, my post) - wwx time travels… but ends up in wen ruohan’s clutches

From my heart’s ground. by orange_crushed (E, 38k, wangxian, my bookmark) - lwj learns a new cultivation in the 13 years interval

set your old heart free by words-writ-in-starlight (Gunmetal_Crown) (E, 42k, wangxian, my post, 6 works) canon and post-canon feels and catharsis

❤️As It Should Be by kuro (M, 37k, wangxian, my post) - arranged marriage angst

❤️Ribbons and Heartsongs by jeyhawk (E, 37k, wangxian, my post) - kind of a mesh between space/fantasy/urban fantasy AU

Concerning Rabbits by manta (G, 28k, wangxian, my post) - grief and healing, bunnies and friendships

between the shadow and the soul by cl410 (M, 22k, wangxian, jiang siblings, my post) - post burial mounds wwx is feral and needs help, dreamy fairy tale feel

A Lot of Edges Called Perhaps by hansbekhart (E, 22k, wangxian, my post) post canon getting together

Lost and Found by dea_liberty (M, 36k, wangxian, my post) - post canon healing, but maybe not *plotty*

Yúyīn 餘音 by riotintheheartt (E, 18k, wangxian, my post) - au with god lan wangji and amputee wwx hiding/living in his temple

~*~

Under 10k (so maybe slightly less plotty)

~*~

After by tellthemstories (G, 5k, lan sizhui & lan wangji, my post) - parent-child relationship, grief and healing, 13 years

tonight i can write the saddest lines by sarahyyy (G, 4k, wangxian, my post) - amnesiac lwj learns to love wwx all over again, post canon

the field meets the wood by astronicht (T, 8k, wangxian, my bookmark) - horror with serving of yiling patriarch retribution

you, whose heart would sing of anarchy by doodlebutt (T, 9k, zhuiyi, my bookmark) - #sizhui has full custody of the brain cell; and #rule breaking as a love language

how to tame a dragon by lanwineji  (E, 6k, chengyi, my post) - Spirited Away au where lan jingyi trips into another world and discovers jiang cheng

The Feathers in the Thread by deliciousblizzardshark (M, 4k, wangxian, my bookmark) - The Crane Wife fairy tale au

Buried in the Sky, Hallowed by thy Depths by themunchking (T, 9k, wangxian, my post) - in which the Twin Jades are sirens

the sleeper’s gift by iliacquer (T, 6k, wangxian, my post) - fairy tale au inspired by Maleficent

the shadow of a name in skin by iliacquer (E, 9k, wangxian, my post) - amnesiac yiling patriarch, fairy tale feel

❤️tie a knife with a ribbon by iliacquer (E, 5k, wangxian, my post) - war prize lwj au, there is some plot with the pwp

~*~

Joey Batey is really approximately the same size and shape as Henry Cavill, and there are a number of clever techniques in pretty much all Jaskier's costumes to hide this fact and make him look about three or four inches narrower than he actually is. The costumers work really really hard to make him look that twinky, often with cleverly cut shoulder decorations that pretend he's trying to look bigger than he is and have the actual effect of making him look a lot lighter.

On a Doylistic level this makes sense, because it's hard to make Geralt look Huge and Imposing next to your non-combatant harmless sidekick if said sidekick is a jacked six foot burly man.

"But, sir, you could look ripped!"

"Absolutely not! I must look slim and gentle and unassuming!"

"As you wish, sir... So do you wish it to be cut with much excess fabric, so that you look small and also very wealthy to afford so much?"

Creating an illusion like this has two main components: shape (the style lines created by the clothes), and fit (the way the clothes hang on the person’s body), and is the result of close collaboration between the designer and the production team. 

We’re going to talk about season one, because that’s where the difference is the most obvious. Take a look at Geralt:

First, let’s talk about shape. The goal here is to make Geralt look strong and imposing, and the best way to do that is to exaggerate the triangle of his upper torso. See how much broader his shoulders look than his waist in both images? A loose shirt over tight pants is a classic way to establish this, because the shirt blousing at the waist (note that the pants sit high up at the natural waist) makes the hips looks narrower in comparison. Note also that his shirt has an asymmetrical closure - a centered vertical line down the shirt would make him looks slimmer, while the off-center one adds width.

His armor does this by giving him those massive shoulder pieces, which both lengthen and raise his shoulder line. I would estimate that they raise Henry Cavill’s shoulder line by a good two inches just from the bulk of the leather alone. His torso armor also does a really clever thing by having a very subtle V shape to the vertical lines, making his waist look smaller. If you count the number of stripes above and below his belt (again, sitting high at the natural waist), you’ll notice that the narrow stripe at the front edge of the armscye disappears, which allows the side stripes to make that V shape.

Now let’s talk about fit. The fit of Geralt’s shirt looks simple but is actually super specific. It’s very easy for an actor to get lost in a shirt that is too loose - if there’s too much extra fabric then it will just make the actor look smaller by drawing attention to how baggy it is. This shirt fits just right: the sleeves are full enough to allow for movement but still relatively fitted (and rolling up the sleeves actually also helps add breadth to Geralt’s torso by continuing the horizontal line at his waist). The body of the shirt fits smoothly across the shoulders and chest, and has just enough fullness to drape at the waist without feeling baggy.

Now let’s look at Jaskier.

We’ll start with this look. Shape and fit are very interconnected here so it’s just gonna be a jumble. First thing I notice: the jacket. Unlike your traditional fantasy/historical doublet, all of Jaskier’s jackets end at the waist, rather than continuing into a peplum/skirt like Geralt’s armor does. This cropped jacket is evocative of childhood/immaturity, an association that is generally considered to have its roots in schoolboy uniforms of the 19th and early 20th century (see the image of schoolboys wearing “Eton Jackets” below)

Jaskier also tends to wear his jackets open. This creates a vertical line down his torso, which is generally slimming, but it also totally obscures the shape of his torso. The brain is going to take the line of his hip, which we can see, and the armscye of his jacket, (which actually looks to be cut ever so slightly artificially narrow but it’s hard to tell) and fill in a line between them, which is likely going to end up being slightly narrower than his actual ribcage. He does have poofs at the top of his sleeves, which can be a technique used to add width, but if they’re cut and fit carefully you can actually hide some of the breadth of the shoulders inside the poof and make it look like the fullness comes from the poof and not the body.

Note: the “armscye” is the technical name for the armhole, but specifically the torso part. The corresponding sleeve part is the “sleevehead.”

Again, we have another open jacket, this one with strong vertical lines. See how the line of Jaskier’s hip flows up through the edge of the doublet all the way up through the armscye? This makes his torso look narrower despite the jacket’s shoulder tabs. In contrast, this line is always broken on Geralt’s outfits, whether at the waist with his shirt or with the giant shoulder pieces with his armor. Jaskier’s pants also tend to fit more loosely, which de-emphasizes the triangle of his shoulders to waist.

Okay this is my favorite image to illustrate everything we have going on here. Look at Jaskier’s jacket. What’s the first thing you notice? The bright yellow inset slashes in his chest. The high contrast in color draws the eye inwards and distracts from the breadth of his shoulders, where we have another cleverly cut poof. His jacket is again cropped, with strong vertical lines, over the baggiest pants he wears in the season.

Now look at Jaskier and Geralt together. Jaskier is all about long vertical lines, while Geralt’s predominate lines are either horizontal or diagonal. Additionally, Jaskier’s hips look even to his shoulders, even if they’re not, and Geralt’s shoulders are exaggerated. The two characters have a very different presence, even if the actors underneath are similar.

one thing the tags have been quietly driving me nuts about on this discussion is also... look okay, my original shitposting from last year? is very much based on the belief that the body you’re born with does not define who you choose to be. Jaskier’s costuming choices are most interesting to me as a conscious choice for several reasons, and I’m gonna rant for a sec because look I had a point there I wanted to jokingly but very seriously talk about and the costuming shit is all very well and good but I wanted to talk about what it means for the character to choose to dress and present himself this way. what does it mean in story fucking terms to have a big buff dude that presents himself as non-combatant, as vulnerable, as gossipy and a little swish but not a physical threat?

see, masculinity is often defined negatively, as “whatever isn’t feminine”, and the constructed artifice of deliberate appearance modification is pretty clearly coded feminine in mainstream Anglo culture (which is what I have access to, gender is complicated, but I’m going off here). what this means is that visibly trying to control your appearance and the way that people perceive you is something that is often assumed to undermine masculinity, which has all kinds of super special social drawbacks for men/AMAB folks who don’t perform masculinity well because misogyny+sexism+transmisogyny do fun things together. 

you’re allowed to control your appearance if you pretend that the reason you’re doing so is totally divorced from the way you look (I’m lifting weights to be strong/lifting weights because I want to be hot) and the artifice you use to execute the effects is completely invisible to the viewer (not wearing any kind of visible makeup, for example). so just from that perspective, the fact that Jaskier dresses consistently to make himself seem a certain way is interesting to me. his gender presentation is a deliberate choice, and it is a deliberate choice that erodes his social status in masculine posturing rather than shores it up.

the fact that Jaskier’s size also makes him a potential threat to other people and that he acts to minimize that is also interesting in the context of the way he earns his income. it’s heavily implied that he probably secures some of his patronage through a form of sex work (i.e. his patron the Contessa, who is both paying him and sleeping with him, which ends when she throws him out of the sexual relationship). moreover, he’s an entertainer, and being muscular and large isn’t very helpful when you earn your living via your fine motor skills: damaging your hands is potentially devastating if you earn your bread playing a lute, and getting into fights is therefore dangerous for his livelihood. threatening entertainers don’t relax people into parting with money and food and shelter.

we think of being threatening as an asset in all circumstances but that is fundamentally not the case. a large, hulking, threatening Geralt will incur a certain amount of posturing from dudes who want to feel big and scary and important in their home communities; Jaskier is likely to get ignored by coming across as meek and fairly non threatening. it’s a deliberate strategy, and we know it’s deliberate because he has the bulk and body size to present himself the way Geralt does if he wants. so he doesn’t want to do that, he must want to be perceived as expressive and a little swish and not dangerous at all and approachable, and he has clearly worked hard enough to get that across that it fooled a really ridiculously high fraction of the folks in my notes here.

this post has been really resonating with delighted surprised trans folks among other things and hey! I see y’all! you are still whatever gender you feel most comfortable in even if your body isn’t cooperating right now. you can choose a lot of the way you will be perceived by thinking about your clothing, your movement, and your postures, and you can learn to do all those things with practice and thought.

and I just think it’s neat seeing a character who easily has the body type to do a very normative gender thing choose to do a non-conforming thing in a way that you absolutely do not see much in media, because usually they fucking hire the twink instead of doing all that work to get the right gender presentation, and the story fucking suffers for it and people who aren’t naturally skinny waifs don’t get to see nice things that look like them in the show.

so.

Female firefighters at Pearl Harbor (1941).

Donna Tobias - the first woman to graduate from the US Navy’s Deep Sea Diving School in 1975.

Brave women of the Red Cross hitting the beach at Normandy.

Dottie Kamenshek was called the best player in women’s baseball and was once recruited to play for a men’s professional team.

Kate Warne - Private Detective. Born in New York City, almost nothing is known of her prior to 1856 when, as a young widow, she answered an employment advertisement placed by Alan Pinkerton. She was one of four new agents the Pinkerton Detective Agency hired that year and proved to be a natural, taking to undercover work easily. She had taken part in embezzlement and railroad security cases when in 1861 the Pinkertons developed the first lead about an anti-Lincoln conspiracy.

Catherine Leroy, female photographer in Vietnam.

The three women pictured in this incredible photograph from 1885 – Anandibai Joshi of India, Keiko Okami of Japan, and Sabat Islambouli of Syria – each became the first licensed female doctors in their respective countries. The three were students at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania; one of the only places in the world at the time where women could study medicine.

Female Samurai Warrior - Onno-Bugeisha - Female warrior belonging to the Japanese upper class. Many women engaged in battle, commonly alongside samurai men. They were members of the bushi (samurai) class in feudal Japan and were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honour in times of war.

One of the most feared of all London street gangs from the late 1880’s was a group of female toughs known as the Clockwork Oranges. They woulde later inspire Anthony burgess’ most notorious novel. Their main Rivals were the All-female “the Forty Elephants” gang.

Maureen Dunlop de Popp, Pioneering female pilot who flew Spitfires during Second World War. She joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in 1942 and became one of a small group of female pilots who were trained to fly 38 types of aircraft.

Take inspiration from our foremothers and continue breaking down barriers, wherever you are. 

Born in 1845.

In 1868, fought at the Battle of Aizu. Her father was the gunnery instructor, and she was trained on a Spencer carbine, which she used to defend the castle.

1871, divorced her husband and went to Kyoto to find her brother, who had been taken as a POW.

1871-1898, remarried a western-educated man, co-founded two schools (including a girls’ school), became a certified Tea Master and flower arranging instructor.

1890, following the death of her husband, became a Red Cross nurse. Served in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) leading a team of 40 nurses, and the Russo-Japanese War (1904). Decorated for her service in both.