#I’m way too obsessed with this whole this would be mysoginistic if she was a man

[clementine-thedestroyer]

Warnings for kind of dark stuff, I guess, but this really just me talking about Valeria having kind of a pregnancy kink because… you know. It’s her, and I’m me.

Au where reader is Valeria’s trophy wife and Valeria refuses to let her do anything about her period cramps. No pain killers, and certainly no birth control. It’s half a control thing- she’d rather have you lying in bed, curled up in her arms with a heating pad than covering the pain with ibuprofen and going about your day.

She wants you to be completely dependent on her, and for the most part, you are. She’s the one that tells you what to do, she’s the one that gives you attention, she’s the one that provides a roof over your head, buys you pretty new clothes, and makes sure you have only the best of everything. But that’s not enough. She wants to control when you eat, when you sleep, when you’re in pain and when you’re not- if there’s something she can exert control over, she’s going to, and that includes deciding when your cramps are “bad enough” for you to get an ibuprofen.

But it also stems from a raging breeding kink. Letting you on birth control to reduce the frequency or intensity of your periods? Fuck no. Not in a million years. Valeria has a very clear vision in her head: you, swollen with her child- in all your aching, hormonal glory.

It could be seen as just another way of claiming you- if marking you as completely and fully hers. She wants you to carry her kids- specifically hers. She’s set on the idea of a heir (and if you want to get into some sort of mob AU, maybe the heir has to be biologically hers in order for their succession to be seen as “legitimate”) but she’s also set on you being the one to carry it.

(After all, you’re her wife, and the way she sees it, you have a duty to her to bear her children. The fact that she doesn’t have a cock dosent change anything about that)

And of course, she can’t carry the baby herself. She’s much too busy for that. The strain it would put on her body, the time she’d have to devote to getting back to her pre-pregnancy fitness levels- she doesn’t have time for that. Not to mention the danger she deals with on an average day. She’d be essentially painting a faint target on her back if she became pregnant.

No, it was much better for her wife to be the one to carry her child- where she’d be able to keep them both safely tucked away and away from harms reach much more easily.

But anyways, the idea of birth control just puts her on edge. The thought of her not being able to drag you down to her doctors for yet another round of IVF at a moment’s notice just�� rubs her the wrong way. She’s always operating with the mindset that it’ll take any day now, and that for all thoughts and purposes, you might as well already be pregnant.

[overheard-at-camp-half-blood]

in what ways do you think piper’s arc was mysoginistic

So, it’s not really just Piper, it’s more of the Aphrodite cabin was treated in general, which was really outlined in Piper’s arc, because in TLH especially, she had alot of internalized misogyny, and often the narrative praised her for it, instead of having her combat it. There are many reasons why, but it comes down to; an old white man was writing a teenage BIPOC girl, with no experience being a teenage girl or BIPOC, and it also comes down to tropes.

As a Disclaimer

I still love Piper, even though I’m criticizing her arc a bit (really, though, I’m criticizing Rick’s writing more).

I also want to say that I reference “traditional femininity” a lot throughout this explanation, and I want to specify what I mean, because traditional femininity covers a lot, from stereotypical personality traits to gender roles. What I mean when I reference this is traditionally feminine interests, such as doing makeup, nails etc.

Also, this is critical of the Heroes of Olympus series, specifically The Lost Hero.

Piper, herself.

Piper embodies the “not like other girls”, trope that was extremely popular when The Lost Hero was written ten years ago. Now, while most people now are starting to realize that this is a disgusting trope, as far as I can remember, this trope was actually seen as progressive at the time it was used.

The issue with this trope is that it’s whole existence fuels on comparing the female protagonist with other female characters, who are always either the main antagonist or minor characters. In this case it was minor characters, which included a minor antagonist (Drew).

So how does it translate into Piper’s arc?

Piper constantly compares herself to other girls, and has a lot of internalized misogyny. She enters the Aphrodite cabin, and assumes they are all shallow, because in a lot of the time in this trope, feminine = shallow- which of course is sexism. The issue with the way the narrative presents Piper’s internalized misogyny; instead of having her combat it and realize that the other Aphrodite kids aren’t shallow and weak just because they like traditionally feminine things, they treat Piper like she was right in believing this, because they ARE presented as shallow and weak.

The Aphrodite Cabin

It’s no surprise that a cabin mostly comprised of girls who embrace their femininity and are okay with being traditionally feminine (doing makeup, wearing fancy clothes), are portrayed as shallow and weak. For the longest time, and to an extent, even now, writers would bash traditional femininity instead of letting girls who weren’t traditionally feminine be seen.

This was supposed to empower women, but it was the same sexism that fueled the “not like other girls trope.” It said, “It’s okay to not be like those other girls, because those other girls SUCK” instead of, “It’s okay to not conform to these standards, because society shouldn’t tell you what you should and shouldn’t like just because you’re a girl.”

While not all the Aphrodite cabin weren’t all bad people, they were portrayed as very shallow, as they were obsessed with looks and image, and also weak, too timid and shy to stand up to Drew. This stems from the idea that if a woman likes things like hair, makeup and god forbid the color pink, that automatically means that’s all she cares about, and that’s not true.

Now of course, this isn’t the case with every single Aphrodite character, as I feel Silena Beauregard was allowed to be both traditionally feminine and strong, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to know her that well, and seeing as how she was the only daughter of Aphrodite who was like that, it really is a shame.

In conclusion...

The thing is that while it could be argued that children of Aphrodite are like this because all cabins have at least one kind of stereotype (Apollo children are arrogant, Ares children are violent, Athena children are smart), it does seem kind of coincidental that the same negative stereotypes that are correlated with girls with traditionally feminine interests is associated with the cabin with mostly females who like traditionally feminine things.

Also, while I will say Piper’s arc got better in the course of the series, and I think if anything the problematic aspects in the first book were a product of the time it came out, it’s still important to look at these things with a critical eye. These things are now considered problematic for a reason, and by addressing this, we are also possibly preventing this trope from resurfacing in the future.

[mysticdragon3md3]

Ranma ½ is GENIUS. Here’s Why by  Bonsai Pop

The thing I really appreciated about Ranma ½ when I was younger, was that it was a discussion about gender without getting sidetracked by sex, the way most “sex comedies” did, especially at the time.  At the time, publishers tried to market Ranma ½ as a “sex comedy” in the vein of raunchy college-setting Hollywood movies or fanservicy Male Gaze series (compare “Futaba-kun Change” or the proceeding “harem genre” that Ranma ½ started).  But Ranma ½ felt more like a discussion about gender more than sex, or even more than sexuality.  And being an AroAce kid, who didn’t know what AroAce was at the time, but was very confused about my gender, I really appreciated Ranma ½’s focus on gender over sex, fanservice, and heterosexuals navigating (sexual) relationships—which, I *cannot* express enough, was the saturated majority of all anime/manga, that even came close to discussing gender, at the time.  I just wanted a discussion about gender, gender roles, complaining about presumed traditional ideas about gender, and how to define one’s own gender despite society’s pressures about gender.  I wanted a discussion about Strength, that the martial arts genre did so often, without an advocation for sexist ideals, toxic masculinity, stereotypes about “feminine” being weaker (even as warriors), fixated only on romance, or any number of female stereotypes, etc.  I feel like I can’t remind people enough of how it was back then, when not only were these toxic mysoginist ideas portrayed frequently, but they were also portrayed as good, true, “right”, or unquestioned.  At least when Ranma Saotome was being a sexist jerk, he was punished for that terrible thinking or eventually had to reconcile with his dissonance.  And Akane Tendo was revolutionary at that time too.  It used to be that on the Shonen genre side, we had only hyper fem, passive, romance-fixated, love interests, OR nagging, cold female characters that really felt like the author was conveying all their horrible views on women in general, OR sexy eye-candy that had close-ups on their boobs or butt so frequently, that it completely made their lack of focus on romance or anything else in their personalities, secondary.  Then on the Shoujo genre side, we had girls who were fixated on nothing but romance, constantly jealous and possessive—and often over guys who hadn’t even proven themselves worthwhile to pursue romantically.  Let’s face it: A lot of Shoujo leading men were often jerks, treated their female love interests badly, and for some reason, she was just supposed to play the devoted “Lady Murasaki” and be totally “in love” with him.  Whyyyyyyyyyy?????????????  Even worse on the Shonen genre side too, because he treats her badly, it doesn’t get portrayed as bad treatment, he doesn’t understand why she’s angry, so she just looks like a volatile nag all the time, often existing only to be objectified or serve as a flimsy motive for his character arcs and actions. It was a pretty bad time.  Not that now has eliminated those problems, but when Ranma ½ and Akane Tendo seem like the shining lights of something different, maybe then you can understand how much I sorely needed Ranma ½ and Akane Tendo at that time.  

Really surprised that this video essay didn’t mention Jackie Chan.  The thing that differentiated Ranma ½ from so many martial arts battle anime/manga at the time, was that Ranma ½’s style of martial arts was inspired by Jackie Chan.  Meanwhile, all the other Shonen martial arts manga/anime were so serious and based more on “cool”, “action” genre toned martial arts movies.  

I’m intrigued by this video essay’s idea that Ranma ½ the series isn’t sexist, but rather, characters within the series are sexist, and are so in order to make a point about how them being like that is messed up.  I need to grapple with this because one of my problems in looking back at Ranma ½ is that it can be a little transphobic and/or homophobic at times.  Like, I’ll never forget when Tsubasa Kurenai was introduced and, Akane, this character that we’re supposed to completely sympathize with during this series, just keeps screaming in Tsubasa’s face that they are a “pervert”, simply because it’s revealed that Tsubasa identifies as a boy but dresses as a girl.  I think the episode just ended like that, and that was supposed to be a joke, but I don’t know whether the reveal’s shock intended on the audience was supposed to be conveyed through Akane and we were expected to have the same reactions as her, or if we were supposed to be shocked at Akane’s reactions and her reactions being ridiculous were the joke.  I dunno; it was a long time ago, I don’t remember much context, and I really should look it back up.  But frankly, there’s a lot of Ranma ½ to sift through and that’s more time than I have, writing this post.  Akane does seem to repeatedly have instances of being perfectly nice to characters, but when she discovers they’re actually guys, she spends a lot of time yelling “pervert” in their faces.  Sometimes I don’t know if we’re meant to see how ridiculous Akane is being or if we’re meant to agree with her.  Again, I watched/read the series a long time ago, and maybe if I re-watched/re-read it now, it would be clear to older me.  Because, when it happens between Akane and Ranma, Ranma has a specific line, grummbling about how Akane was perfectly nice to him, up until she found out he was actually a boy.  And Ranma was a bit nice in his characterization up until that early line of dialogue, so maybe we were supposed to be on his side in that thought.  So maybe Akane spending the rest of the series yelling “pervert” at Ranma (repeated so often it’s essentially their running gag), is supposed to be a joke laughing at how irrational Akane is being.  o.o?  I’d hate to think we’re supposed to be on Akane’s side, repeatedly calling Ranma a “pervert” over a curse that he had no control over getting, and early on was portrayed as a misfortune that the audience was supposed to sympathize and pity him over.  Maybe the whole thing is supposed to point out Akane’s flaws, since everyone in the series is pretty messed up.  (Even Kasumi unsettled me a bit when I was younger, in that she dropped her entire life, to replace her mother’s role when she died.  For me, being a young girl who didn’t buy into those traditional female roles, that were still at the time, strongly pushed onto girls in society, that was a little unsettling.  Still love Kasumi as a person though.)  Akane did have reason to “hate boys”, as the series specifically states early on, but I’d like to think that she was given this flaw as a point to grow away from.  Just as this video essay calls to attention Ranma being sexist and, over the series, eventually growing out of it.  But back when I was young and initially into Ranma ½, I feared that some of these sexist or even homophobic ideas in Ranma ½ were actually reflective of thoughts that Rumiko Takahashi advocated.  After all, there’s a point in Maison  Ikkoku where Kyoko berates herself by saying all women are fools.  Maybe I was too young to see the nuance in a character berating her own mistakes in her love live, vs the implication that all women are “properly” stereotyped into being obsessed with love and end up acting foolish for it.  Nowadays, I can see how we can berate ourselves whenever our specific actions can slot us into generalized stereotypes, and we curse ourselves for falling into proving stereotypes true on occaision.  But back then, when I was younger and watching Ranma ½ for the first time and reading Maison Ikkoku for the first time, I was afraid that such lines were reflective of Takahashi believing such stereotypes as truth.  Which is why I was so happy when sometime after Ranma ½, Inuyasha had a canonically gay character, and instead of Inuyasha calling him a pervert the entire time, he just got exasperated with his non-stop flirting, the way that all the female characters from Ranma ½ are tired of guys who won’t take “no” for an answer.  At the time, I thought, “Yay!  Takahashi has evolved to a less homophobic stance!”  But maybe, all this time, she was always against such things, and merely portraying them, even through characters we were supposed to sympathize with, merely to show how messed up such ideas are.  I really like that thought which this video essay presented.  

But I will disagree with this video essay on 1 thing:  The manga is better.  I’m not trying to be elitist.  I realize that comedy has a very subjective sensibilities, and the anime leans into awkward silence type comedy, whereas I am sick of that type of comedy.  But so many visual gags and jokes in the manga, and Rumiko Takahashi’s style in general, involve panels that are almost completely re-drawn, with only 1 element changed—the gag element—suggesting that the eye is supposed to read from panel to panel quickly (since the human eyes/brain filters out a lack of change, and is hard-wired to focus on changes from previous conditions).  To me, this suggests quick punchlines, whose sudden oddity is supposed to shock, implying an intended fast pacing to the jokes.  And yeah, Takahashi will draw seemingly normal scenes, detailed with all the normalcies of a commonly recognizable environment, then suddenly the next panel is exactly the same except a character is contorted into a silly pose or an absolutely ridiculous creature with an intentionally nonsensical facial expression has suddenly appeared, amid that completely “normal” scene, with all its “normal” details _redrawn_.  It’s why the “evil oni” episode in Ranma ½ had a ridiculous face, despite its supposedly ominous background.  In fact, anywhere Takahashi can fit a gag face, especially if it contradicts the surrounding scene’s/story’s serious tone, she will do it.  She has even said in interviews that if scenes are too serious, she will try to put in a gag in the corner.  I remember reading Maison Ikkoku during a depressive episode (for both me and Godai) and suddenly Yotsuya had poked his head through a hole in the wall, into the scene, shining a flashlight onto his own face, like a kid telling a ghost story, all while he made funny faces and Takahashi’s typical gag with the sign language “I love you” gesture.  The woman cannot let things stay serious (except for Mermaid Saga, parts of Inuyasha, and some short stories), and I love her for it!  ^o^  But the way she suddenly injects ridiculousness into scenes and character designs, suggest, at least to me, an intended fast paced delivery with the jokes.  That sudden shock when you notice Yotsuya making faces in the corner of a depressing scene. That sudden shock, when Ranma is hiding from his mother, and is clinging to the ceiling or futons like Spiderman, and Akane is just supposed to act natural so Ranma’s mom won’t notice where he’s hiding.  To me, this suggests the punchline is supposed to come at you like a sudden punch, unlike awkwardness that hangs in the air.  So when the anime tries to make the joke linger, I just don’t enjoy it as much as when my brain can dictate the faster pacing I want (and believe better fits) while reading the Ranma ½ manga.  

Also, the manga is better because those manga filler episodes were not as well written as the manga.  Rumiko Takahashi is a master of short stories.  And that shows when you run into the less-effective filler anime episodes–even when you don’t know they’re filler episodes!  I remember watching the Ranma ½ anime before reading the manga, before there was even internet lists of which were the filler episodes, and coincidentally, all the filler episodes did not make me laugh out loud, whereas every episode up until that point, had made me uncontrollably laugh.  I feel like the anime thought that because Ranma ½ was an episodic, very silly series, they could just insert anything and it would fit.  But clearly, only  the manga-based episodes—and even individual scenes!—had the nuance of Takahashi’s writing and pacing, to make even an episodic, ridiculous series work.  

  Also, I love how this video essay just lavishes the love on Rumiko Takahashi.  ^o^  

Another thing this video essay pointed out that I appreciate about Ranma ½ is how indifferent Ranma is to all the advances of his suitors or even accidental fanservice.  All the consequential “harem genre” series that tried to emulate Ranma ½ always seemed to include male protagonists who were surrogates for the audiences’ intended horny reactions.  But Ranma was neither turned on, enticed, nor tantalized by even accidental fanservice falling into his lap.  (As Mother’s Basement has noted, harem genre protagonist have a penchant for accidentally falling and grabbing a girls’ boobs, or their face falling into her boobs, or accidentally put into a position to forcibly see up her skirt, etc.)  If anything, he’s more embarassed that he accidentally walked in on girls in undress, rather than enjoying the view OR reacting so long, that the scene drags on, fixating on the accidental nudity/groping/fanserivce.  And I was about to postulate that maybe because most harem genre and fanservice series are usually made by straight men for an audience with a Male Gaze.  But Takahashi wrote Maison Ikkoku’s Godai, right before she created Ranma ½, and he very much enjoyed the view, took peeks, and fixated on any accidental fanservice.  So it’s actually Ranma himself who had reactions and a perspective that were very agreeable to this asexual.  

I hadn’t noticed before this video essay said it, but Happosai really is condemned much more for being the “pervy old man” archetype, whereas other series are very permissive towards that same archetype, even when they’re being sexual predators.  I’d like to attribute this to Takahashi bringing a woman’s perspective, but Sailormoon was also written by a woman and (if I remember correctly) Rei’s grandpa’s pervy ways were reprimanded in only 1 episode then permitted as a running gag in the rest of the series (thankfully, not often).  Then again, lots of the Shoujo genre also advocated for many toxic traditional ideas about gender (like girls picking romantic partners who don’t respect them, and girls being fully devoted/invested in such guys, because they “once” meet the bare minimum for human decency by being nice to them once).  So maybe it was uniquely Takahashi’s prerogative to not let the “pervy old man” archetype slide as supposedly “endearing” silliness.

[electricrogue]

Teslen appreciation week- day 4

Ah shit I am really late with this one. But on the bright side it’s still Tuesday in Canada so I would say it still works :P

So. Amanda and Jonathon appreciation day. Well this is going to be a pretty long and personal rant so yeah if you’re not interested you can skip it xD.

Thing is, me and Amy Amanda go way back . I started watching Stargate when I was like 6 and soon enough I wanted to break the FBI database when I grew up because hey who the fuck needs Barbie dolls when you have Sam Carter, right? And alright, I didn’t know the whole story back then, like how Amanda almost ditched the role because she didn’t want to do what she had been told and look sexy and be just “the girl” on the team, but she was still awesome even without me knowing that. But then the channe; that was airing Stargate in our country decided to stop and I was left without it and Amanda for like 10 years...

Fast forward to the day where I heard that she was doing another show called Sanctuary and of course I had to check it out, from the webisodes (she was a bit too Gothic there if you ask me, like I get the point of being Gothic, trust me, but that was a bit overdoing it. Still, I got immediately hooked up, and a great part of it was (at the time) because for the first time Amanda was a lead and not the Hammond type of lead that stays at home mostly and sends other do missions, no, she was the type of lead who went out on the field and actually took part in everything. And it only took the scene with her and Ashley with “I’m cutting off your allowance” - why the heck did they delete that one in the show, btw? to make me love Helen.

Now Helen was great, but well, I’m not saying I wanted her to be hooked up with someone, but her only options for that were a kid and... ugh. Do I really need to say it? And it felt wrong, ok, like you don’t put someone who is basically a feminist icon in a lot of ways with someone who well I think it’s pretty safe to say he was a mysoginistic pig like you don’t remove female body parts if you like them you know?

But then I searched on Wikipedia and I found out that Amanda will be kissing a vampire and well. I still can’t explain what I felt that day other than the fact that it was probably of my trust in Amanda. Like I had a major allergy to vampires because Twilight and all but still. I knew it wasn’t going to be like that and I knew they were going to be on equal planes despite the whole food chain thing and that this has the potential to be something great.

What I didn’t know was that in like half of year I would be asking myself why the fuck aren’t they together already and then... well, I will admit this. I had like 6 months when I was really pissed on Amanda, because there was that Tapping Tuesday thing in which she said that John is Helen’s true love or something and.. no. Just no, ok?

I did forgive her in the end. You know why? Because she is the sweet soul that suggested Helen and Nikola would kiss in the finale. I mean sure, she said it was a common decision and Jonathon didn’t know that and said it was in the script and then he acted like a total dork and said that whatever Amanda said is true, but yeah. She probably was the one with the idea. Do I blame her for that? Hell no. Like the only reason I’m blaming her for is that she didn’t do that like three years before.

Which brings me to my next point, which is Jonathon. To say I am obsessed with him would be a bit of an understatemet. Like the reason I am late with this post is that I spent like 4 hours repairing an umbrella I bought the first night I met him so yeah.

Why do I feel this for him? Well, it’s not the fact that he’s gorgeous (even though that helps, a lot) and it’s not that he hands down did the best portrayal of Nikola Tesla in everything ever (sorry, David Bowie, rest in peace, but no). It’s not even the fact that he managed to create a character which was more than a vampire and more thank Nikola while maintaining parts of both and it’s not the fact that he inserted all these little things that reminded of Nikola in his role like the wiping hands and I don’t know if the “I wish I could stop counting but it’s not my nature” thing was his, but quite probably and yeah.

Also, what he did, and I know he did that because Amanda said so, was he added that “Remember” at the end of the Vienna line and changed it forever. Like it was bound to sound a bit nostalgic maybe in the end, but with that word and that bloody tone of his? That is the kind of stuff that fueled a lot of fanfics and headcanons, and he did that with one word. One.Word.

But no, this is not what I like the most about him. What comes really close to this is the fact that he did pretty much all of his role in Sanctuary while going through personal hell and I know I can never even begin to understand how that feels like, but to do this character while going through what he did and to do it so flawlessly... That seems almost impossible, but he still did it somehow.

The truth is I love him most for what he is. And ok, maybe I don’t know much of that, but what I do know is that he is this amazing man who after everything that happened to him, good and bad, he is still grounded and kind and makes time to talk with fans after the show and OK my talking to him was basically either me bad flirting or asking business questions, but that was my fault only and I like to think he doesn’t hate me too much for it. I can’t say I know him, really, like he has moments when he’s super cute with fans and talks to them and he has moments when he’s a bit on the run we’ll leave it at that no hard feelings  and he has moments when he’s a total dork and runs to get his backpack after forgetting it and I just love all these faces of his, alright?

Ad yes, case you’re wondering why I know that well that’s because I’ve been kinda following him since 2016 when he came to Europe with Betroffenheit?

So yes, long story short, I think we couldn’t have been more luckier with Teslen being played by someone else other than these two babies and we honestly don’t deserve them