#op-me

Can Gaby let herself fall in love with one more person she might lose? Can Illya overcome his own self loathing to fight for what he really wants?

This is a romantic, erotic, suspense story with lots of explicit sex scenes (once we get to them) and several references and depictions of violence, torture, creepy images and behaviors.

When I was on a long distance hike, and had to bail, my husband -- who had just finished flying across the country on a red eye flight-- was gonna go to bed after reading my text. He believed me when I said I wasn't hurt. He trusted in my ability to take care of myself. He only came to get me because he knew I was going to be bummed out and stuck in a shitty campground. I didn't need to be rescued but I wanted to be. His coming to get me wasn't about him, it was about me. Not because I couldn't do it, but because why should I have to when he could come help. What made it romantic was the sacrifice of it. He was exhausted, yet drove four hours to pick me up, not because he had to because I was weak and needed him, but because he loved me, and didn't want me to be miserable.

I have often told the men in my life that what women want is to be thought of. They complain 'she wants me to read her mind!' and I say, 'no, she wants you to pay attention"

I saw a great little post about this too, I don't know where to find it now or I would link it. A woman was saying "I remember" was more romantic than "I love you" She was talking about a guy she hadn't seen in a long time, making her a meal, and she said 'I'm celiac' and he said 'I remember, I already got your favorite chickpea pasta' and how that made her feel more loved than any of the men who'd said 'i love you'. (very much paraphrasing)

They talk about this in the video, the fantasy of the male love interest being obsessed with the female lead, but I don't think we need obsession -- though some men might feel like that's what it is, much in the way they perceive women talking 30% of the time to be dominating the conversation -- but we want them to care enough that they notice, that they pay attention. That we are enough in their mind everyday that they go, 'oh, today must have been a long one because she threw her purse on the table when she usually hangs it up' or something similar.

Most women pay that much attention to the people they love, which is why it hurts when they've bought flowers in their man's presence multiple times but when he goes to buy flowers for her he buys roses instead of the tulips that she likes. Because he would have known if he paid attention.

(He will say: i'm a man, i don't pay attention to details, but if you quiz him on sports, or dnd, or comics, or star trek, he suddenly has a steal trap of a mind for details!)

This is so damn long. omg. But my one last thought was that this helped me see more clearly why I didn't like these girl power movies he brings up. They really are always getting it wrong, and then they take the wrong message away from it!

Over the top pompous movie exec voice: "No one wants female centered movies!"

The main character in the 2016 Ghostbusters was weak and awkward and embarrassing to watch, and it wasn't used in a way that made her endearing or benefited the story. And I know some people are sick of romance but also if you are going to make her that awkward and constantly rejected by men but clearly want to be loved, that's a losing combination. They would have given a male character like that a hot girl who was into him but they didn't do that for her. They could have made her not interested in sex or romance but no. And maybe that's 'realistic' but -- again, they wouldn't have done that with a male lead.

Captain Marvel is a little tougher. I think that character would have been accepted, as is, if it was a man, and that is a problem. I did like it, I liked a lot of things but it didn't resonate. I think they should have -- because again they are just putting a woman in a man's fantasy with this -- they should have gone a little more Steve Rogers and less Tony Stark. It's there in the get back up montage.

on a side note to this, once a guy asked who my fave superhero was, and I said Spider-Man. He said women always like Spider-Man, which irked me, but if you think about it, Peter is one of the most empathetic superheroes. He cares so much, sometimes too much. He restrains his full power to keep from hurting people. And he's funny. I personally love funny guys. (the sidekick is almost always my fave.)

I think women want a character who wins because she's not a man. If she's all powerful, she found or earned or is stronger in that power because she will do something that a man would quail to do. Captain Marvel tries this with the 'control your emotions' thing but the emotion they chose was anger, which is the one Manly Man approved emotion. BUT there is the angle that women aren't supposed to be angry! So I get it! but... it's just

If I could choose to be a superhero, I would also chose Spider-man! I want to think of myself as a determinator. I think the women in these romantasies are determinators, and that is an aspect of what women like in them.

#not all women lol but ... think of that video clip of a martial arts competition where the tiny woman climbs that huge guy and takes him down. Women are almost always smaller than the men around them and they want to be strong in that, victorious in the face of that. It's annoying when the FMC is always tiny but when I look at it from this angle I can see more why she usually is. Take a girl, push all the stereotypes to full except for being helpless she's not helpless, no! and even in the face of being made powerless, she refuses to be powerless. idk. I think there's something there.

BTW determinators can take many forms. Elle Woods is a more realism version of one. Elle cries, then she overcomes.

Rey, I actually liked Rey, I just hated so much else about those movies, and where they went. Not the first one, I liked the first one. The other two were bad stories. I don't care that Finn was a 'simp' because he was also a badass? Obviously they sidelined his character and it was so stupid but that's a different subject. Focusing on the first film, Finn is a badass. He overcomes conditioning he's been subjected to since childhood, defies everything he's ever known, even knowing how dangerous it is. He picks up that laser blade thing and goes to town.

Guys who don't like Finn in the first movie are most likely just being toxic. But in my circles of ladies... everyone liked him. If you genderswapped it, I don't think women would roll their eyes at that character as a female** -- until she gets brutally injured and then sidelined for the rest of the movies. UGH!

(I keep imagining Finn and Poe in an Empire Strikes Back type adventure -- with or without the romance I would have been so down! That's what we should have had!)

Okay, actual last thought this time. Back to Elle Woods. Women cry. It doesn't actually make us weak. And that's part of what's missing. There are things that women do that are stereotypical 'women' things that have traditionally been presented as bad, weak, stupid, whatever and even women have bought into that lie. That's why some women were annoyed that Zoe from firefly wanted a baby. But what we really need is exactly that. This womanly thing is not weak and this character can fully embrace being a woman and not be weak. The counter is to have a character that seems domestically coded to not want kids. Women are diverse!

The problem is, we are still so sparsely represented that a warrior woman wanting a baby is painful to all the women out there who don't want babies and want to be represented, but a warrior woman who doesn't want a baby is too stereotypically Strong Female Character.