#bodyshaming

I hate bodyshaming so much.

Everyone that bodyshames should BURN.

There are a couple things that I think need to be addressed which is:

1. Using fatphobic statements and bodyshaming Tyra Banks and thinking that it's justified becos she had made fatphobic and bodyshaming statements before, does not make you any better than she was. You are still bodyshaming. Also seeing White women thinking they are justified in shaming a Black woman's body? No, fucking no.

2. The individualizing of systemic problems to Tyra Banks. Banks is literally not the only person on ANTM who bodyshamed the contestants on the show. The other judges had participated in it as well, and it tells you a lot about the modelling industry in general. Banks has also been criticized and denied jobs in the past for not meeting beauty standards as a curvy Black woman. Is it too far of a stretch to consider that in order for her, a curvy Black woman, to succeed in the modelling industry, she'd internalized a bunch of toxic beauty standards?

All this to say, I think it's possible to re-evaluate Tyra Banks' legacy and hold her accountable for what she has said and the harm she's complicit in upholding, while also making space to be compassionate and nuanced about her. I mean, if (mostly White) women can see Ballerina Farm as a victim while she's been profitting off promoting white supremacist, cisheteronormative patriarchal values in a pretty soft-lit package to young impressionable pple, I think we can do the same for Tyra Banks?

Anyways, please read this:

“Barricade!” Prowl exclaimed as his brother stepped into his chambers. Even though Jazz had said his brother was here, he had not believed it. He did not give Barricade the chance to notice their company and ran to his brother and embraced him in a Praxian hug. Barricade nuzzled his crest. “I wondered if it would be vorns before our procreators dined to travel here.”

“They didn’t,” Barricade told him. “I ditched them in Uraya. The Omni was in port. I asked our uncle for a ride.”

“Progenitor will have his helm if he has the chance,” Prowl said, worried.

“Come, sit down,” Jazz interrupted, gently. “The port’s a long ‘nough way off, yer brother might be close to overheating.”

“I’m fine, but thank you,” Barricade replied. “My uncle gave me reflective paint. I could hardly leave our lodgings in Uraya. It feels more manageable here.”

“All the same,” Punch spoke now. “We’ll call Hotwire back ‘n she can outfit ya wit armour more suited for Polyhex.”

“His Majesty, King Punch,” Prowl introduced his brother to his originator in law. Barricade would have bow but Prowl held his arm tight, hardly able to believe Barricade had made the journey. “Originator to my consort, Crown Prince Jazz.”

“Can yer progenitor make trouble for yer uncle?” Punch asked.

“Unlikely, Your Majesty,” Barricade replied. “Since the Crown of Praxus has had a warrant out for his helm for decavorns and haven’t managed to collect, Crosscut doesn’t have much of a chance.”

“There’s a story there,” Punch said.

“Someone ordered fuel?” Prowl was surprised it was his consort’s twin and not a servant that brought in a tray of coolant. “I heard there was an unexpected guest.”

“Yes, Rico,” Punch said. “I may need ya for this. Ya know o’ the Omni?”

“Sure,” Ricochet replied. “They don’t sail under any colours but their friendly to Polyhex. If they ain’t hasslin’ slavers, they trade crystals, mostly.”

“That works for me,” Punch said. “Pour the coolant, Ricochet. Barricade, why does Praxus want yer uncle’s helm.”

“He sunk the jewel of their fleet,” Barricade explained. Prowl’s optics went wide, he had not heard this story. “After their progenitor died, our progenitor arranged a bonding for his brother with the admiral of Praxus’s fleet. The mech had a dukedom and promised to pay a huge dowry. Camshaft, our uncle, didn’t care for the match and escaped on a ship the mega-cycle the Rites were supposed to be spoken. The admiral gave chase at the helm of Praxus’s newest war ship. Camshaft manned the canon that sank it.”

“Are they still in port?” Jazz asked.

“For now,” Barricade said. “His conjunx has family in Staniz. I’m staying with them.”

“Ya’ll stay here,” Punch said. “So ya can enjoy the visit wit Prowl. Ricochet, invite ‘em for a welcome feast, next cycle.”

“Will do,” Ricochet replied.

“I have never met our uncle,” Prowl said.

“Neither had I,” Barricade said. “But I heard progenitor curse him and the Omni often so when I heard the ship mentioned at the docks, I went to see if he was still captaining it. He and his conjunx have made a hobby of harassing progenitor’s ships if they don’t care for his cargo.”

“I like’em already, Jazz said.

Prowl did too. Even if bringing Barricade to Polyhex was just an act of spite, it was agreeable to Prowl. Hotwire came and she cut armour for Barricade in a similar style to the first design she made for him. It suited him well, as did the wrapper Punch gave him. Jazz and his kin left them alone to visit. He had been afraid to write letters, knowing that their procreators would surely intercept it and he had not wanted them to know of the disaster of his bonding cycle. Barricade listen as Prowl described the disaster as it had unfolded and Punch’s gradual chase of spark. He revealed his carrying and the bitty bump not quite hidden by his wrapper but not precisely displayed either. His brother was happy he had settled and happier knowing he had shared his bride price with the poor mechanisms of Polyhex. Their procreators would call it a waste when they learned. But if it would bring their disapproval, it appealed to Barricade.

“It was brave o’m to come,” Jazz told Prowl later. “To trust a mech, even an uncle, he didn’t know to make that sailin’. Polyhex ‘n Uraya ain’t been at war in a long time but we ain’t friendly either.”

“Barricade is fearless,” Prowl said. “If our positions had been reversed, he would have done as our uncle did. At least he would have tried. He would not wanted to be a thing our procreators were selling.”

“Did ya think about doin’ the same?” Jazz asked.

“No,” Prowl replied. “I am not so daring. I thought Polyhex would be an escape on its own. It has been. I am fortunate to have you for my conjunx.”

His belly rounder still as he rode his consort for the second time of the evening. Prowl could not linger on his uncertainty over his growing curves, not with the way Jazz worshipped them. Though his originator had told him he was expected to lie with his conjunx whenever the prince required it, describing it as a duty, Prowl found interface to be nothing like the chore his originator had described. Jazz squeezed Prowl’s aft as he rolled his hips, their arrays ground together. Prowl’s anterior node was stimulate so well when he did this, at the same time, his consort’s thick spike stimulated his gamma cluster. It was impossibly good. He moaned for Jazz and squeezed his own wells as Jazz watched him “dance”. Prowl could have danced the whole dark-cycle with him.

“Oh Jazz,” Prowl moaned as his conjunx took him from behind.

It starts like this: an average-sized woman with short brown curly hair, glasses, and a bit of a belly is trying on clothing in a shop. A slender blonde Barbie-type saleswoman snatches it away from her, snaps "We don't have anything in XXL!" and literally kicks her butt out of the shop.

The customer falls down in a mud puddle, her shorts split and reveal her underwear, and she starts to cry with embarrassment as the saleswoman points and laughs. Then a charming gentleman rushes over to help the fallen woman, chivalrously putting his jacket around her shoulders and asking if she's okay.

Cut to a new scene: we see her now cleaned up and standing facing the camera. There are options for "improving" her displayed around the edge of the screen. First of all, her breath is awful (illustrated by green clouds coming out of her mouth)! We make her brush her teeth, and as she does so, two meters at the side of the screen slowly go up: "hygiene" and "charmingness".

Next, her belly is slightly convex. We certainly can't have that! An exercise machine appears and we make her start running on it. Not only does her belly become slim and muscular, but her entire body type magically changes - she's smaller and has an athlete's frame now.

She's still unhappy with her unfashionable clothing, though, so we scroll through some outfit options, Landing on a Beauty-and-the-Beast-style red and gold floor-length gown, we click it...

... and this woman with short curly brown hair and glasses changes into a completely different woman, thin and blue-eyed with long wavy blonde hair, wearing the dress we selected. She now looks identical to the nasty saleswoman from earlier.

Cut to a new scene: We see her wafting past a hot male fitness instructor who's helping the bitchy saleswoman balance on an exercise ball (fully standing up on top of it?!), but the moment he sees our "new and improved" woman he forgets his client and gawks with heart-eyes.