“It needs more pink.”

“It’s not girly enough.”

“Why is the one with rainbow colored hair so athletic? Is she a lesbian?”

“There’s too much focus on self-exploration and comedy. Girls aren’t into that. We need makeup, dresses, cooking, that sort of thing.”

“Really, we have demographics for a reason, Ms. Faust.”

Lauren trembled under the stone-faced stares of the five executives. Three men, two women, not one under fifty, controlled the fate of the show she had spent so much time developing—at their behest.

Under her palms, the six preliminary characters seemed to drain of their bright colors. She wasn’t doing a good enough job protecting them. A plaintive cry rose in her mind. Please don’t let them change us just because we’re different.

If she didn’t fight for them, no one would. She steeled her resolve. “You trusted me because of my past successes. Where is that trust now? Believe me, I can make a successful show for girls that doesn’t put them in neat little boxes or treat them like idiots.”