#They're not actually pregnant

[astral-corner]

We've been shuffling things around to put together posts about some of our aus, and I found this gem

[gingermintpepper]

Obsessed with the way Evadne's relationship with Apollo is described. Obsessed with the way Apollo was especially gentle with her because she was sheltered, hidden away and hadn't had any sort of experience with love prior to Apollo (and due to it being described as her 'first learning Aphrodite's joy' through Apollo', it was probably her first time even being attracted to someone). Obsessed with the way when she runs away, she stops in a violet patch to give birth. Y'know, violets, very famously the flower so strongly associated with Aphrodite that they were used in love potions? Those violets. Obsessed with the way that when Apollo realised his lover was going to have to deliver their child alone, he sent BOTH the goddess of childbirth and ALL THREE OF THE FATES to help and support her. Obsessed with the way that Apollo sends snakes to feed his baby honey straight from their fangs because Evadne abandons their son out of straight primal fear when her stepfather finds her and how the description of that honey is 'sweet venom' [ἰός] of the bees and is DEFINITELY a poetic pair/pun with [ἴον] aka violets and that every single thing about this relationship, conception and birth is a complete and utter fairytale down to Evadne's insanely overprotective stepfather having an immediate change of heart when he learned Evadne's child was an actual, legitimate Son of Apollo and the babe, after being cared for by his dad's honey-fanged snake buddies, was found perfectly healthy five days later swaddled in a blanket of violets (y'know the flowers so strongly associated with Aphrodite that they were used for lo-) and they called him Iamus aka Boy of the Violets which is AAAAAARRRR I AM GNAWING AT MY ENCLOSURE

Iamus was made of love. Everything about him was surrounded by deep and profound love and like, let's not even talk about his whole Thing of when he came of age and was like "I need to find out what my purpose is" and he literally had a Disney Protagonist moment where he ran out into the wilds and was like "Father!! Grandfather!! Tell me what I'm supposed to doooo!!" and then APOLLO FUCKING ANSWERED AND LED HIM TO ONE HIS TEMPLES ENTIRELY BY TALKING WITH IAMUS AND LETTING HIM FOLLOW HIS VOICE FOR THE WHOLE JOURNEY LIKE -

What do y'all know about the kind of SSS tier romantic escapades Apollo had fr?

[bedlamsbard]

okay what I've learned from this semester and this round of grading is that if I ever use an essay prompt about premodern women again (extremely likely) I'll have to say "you cannot talk ONLY about how women were oppressed by the patriarchy or I will fail the essay" instead of "talk about the ideal woman of [insert historical time period + geographical location] vs. the reality of women in [time period/location] based on the evidence that we have" (obvs it was better phrased than that on the actual prompt and it would probably be different in another context).

I...I restructured the entire class so that we'd be able to talk about stuff Greek women actually did based on the evidence. thanks for showing you didn't come to class that day, look at the powerpoint online, or do the reading.

[uncanny-tranny]

The number of people who ommit complications or lie about pregnancy just to prevent people from being "scared out" of pregnancy is astonishing. If you have to coerce people into being open about pregnancy, maybe that's a bad sign. We need to make sure people are informed about the good and bad things that can happen to pregnancy, not only for the safety of a child but also because the parent deserves to have the chance to know the risks. Pregnancy isn't as simple and uncomplicated as people make it out to be.

[stevieharringtonwifeguy]

i love a/b/o steddie where they get started like so young that if it was someone i knew irl i'd have a panic attack. like,, mated right out of high school, baby pops out a year later, they've got like five kids by the time they're 25

thinking about an au where they were already together pre- start of s4 and steve goes through the whole thing like three months pregnant. like he's stressed about the baby and eddie and eddie's SUPER stressed about the baby and steve, like eddie's trying to get steve to sit this one out for the baby and steve has to yell at him to stop bc yeah, he's worried about losing their first child, but if he sat at home while everyone else dealt with the upside down and someone didn't come back??? he'd never be able to live with himself

and when the bats get eddie and steve tries to use the mating bond to share some of eddie's pain, help him hold on until they get to the hospital, eddie weakly tries to tell him not to, to think of the baby. and steve's just. not having it. and once eddie wakes up from his medically induced coma he's like :(( why'd you do that and steve is just. so mad. he says yeah, if i had lost the baby (he doesn't, she's fine) that would have been the most terrible pain i'd ever felt. but it would have been worse if i lost you. and eddie's like. oh. bc maybe part of him has always been thinking that steve's only stuck with him bc he's the father of their kid. but no, steve loves him.

so eddie's crying, and steve's crying, and then steve shows eddie the ultrasound they did during eddie's coma to check the baby hadn't been hurt by the week of stress and danger and pain-sharing, and it's the first time they've been able to actually see the shape of a baby in all the weird white noise of an ultrasound, and now they're both crying even harder

[leohttbriar]

beyond the creativity of the whole starship being accidentally pulled into some sort of space-rut with space whales, all because evidently the starship and the giant space squids move about with like warp technology or something (always hard to figure out what star trek characters mean by "signatures"), beyond the way they first try to participate in the rut like an elk digging his antlers in the dirt to make himself seem bigger and then attacking some other elk-guy, beyond the way they're only participating in this sexual behavior as a collective organism in a ship that the first episode has already explained is in some way composed of biomatter is because they don't want to kill any of their weird alien suitors, beyond the way tuvok gets to say "guess we're not cute anymore" all while the other plot of the episode is kes being just so goddamn gross and secreting all sorts of nonsense all because the horny space-creatures and also because she wants to have a kid with neelix of all things, beyond the fact that the thesis statement to this episode is just attenborough aggressively explaining how weird sex is, beyond all that: the fact that chakotay says this straight-faced and sincere while looking up at janeway is wild.

chakotay frequently gets to be the character to acknowledge the particularity of the perspective of whatever creature the crew happens to be dealing with that episode. giving narrative utility to the character's sensitivity. in this very weird episode, they block it so when he offers the right solution to the plot, he's standing below janeway who mostly just seems to be frowning in confusion the whole of the episode and being somewhat useless but for listening to her crew. which seems significant.

and like two episodes later they have a plot be resolved through the logic of surrender. a strange mini-plot in the overarching one of trying to get back home: the power of yielding, of submitting, in a way that only undercuts dignity if one isn't choosing it. and chakotay speaks of biological behavior on a ship he never intended to be on, in a part of the galaxy he has no connection to, in a uniform he'd set aside very deliberately before being tossed thousands of light years away, second-in-command to someone who seems constantly caught between fighting and giving up, depending on who/what she's facing on any given plot-day.

like the participation in whale-alien sexual rituals is funny. but whoa.

[marc--chilton]

hey, i’m usually not into mgv stuff because it squicks me very quickly but the way you write it is really cool and interesting! i read your post about house and wilson ending up having a pup because he partially blamed house for not being a parent yet (and also both of them have secretly wanted it for years), and that’s the exact type of risky and angsty that i could see them going with (especially with like, the initial feelings of rejection and wrongness because it would take them a while to get the romantic stuff going on). however, as a lighter but not any less insane counterpart, i want to know your thoughts on them ending up with a pup because of one of their stupid bets where they both secretly hope for that outcome. and then when the results of the bet are in they have separate crises about it <3

aww!!! i'm glad you're having an unexpectedly good time here <33

HONESTLY...... them ending up with a pup because of a bet or a prank is as feasible. like wilson makes a passing comment about his childlessness, house starts half-jokingly theorizing that with all the sleeping around wilson does, he should have had at least one runt by now so the fact he doesn't is probably because "your sperm gives up just like you do with every relationship."

"i don't 'give up' in every relationship."

"you don't. not with me." and house thinks about that for a second. gets this glint in his eye that foretells wilson that he's about to hear something worth institutionalizing for. "we're going run a test."

"i'm not giving you a sperm sample, house."

"good, i prefer the old fashioned way anyway."

"i'm going to regret asking but..... how?"

"my next heat. i'll stop taking birth control, we're gonna go discovery channel, hump each other raw, and if i don't come out of it knocked up, we'll know where the problem lies: in your balls. and i'll get to make fun of you forever. and if i do, then congratulations."

wilson's gone scarlet at the thought of breeding his best friend but still manages to snark back, "like you're in pupping prime yourself!"

and house just glances down at himself -- middle-aged body, bum leg, cane -- and shrugs, not quite looking back at him when he replies simply, "i've been pregnant at worse times."

the infarction. stacy. he'd been thinking about it in the back of his mind but wilson still reels back on hearing house bring it up. he can count on one hand how many times house has talked about it, and wilson still has no clue how to navigate that minefield even after all these years.

but house just chirps, "see ya in my bed in three weeks!" and staggers back to his own office. wilson's face is hot when he puts it in his hands, miffed and drained and purring in the back of his throat and giddy with anticipation.

house, for his part, does his best in the time between their conversation and doing the test to ignore the instinct-riddled corner of his brain that intercepts every other thought at random points of the day, an excited reminder of gonna have a pup! alpha's pup! will they look like him? hope so. he'll take good care of us.

[the-crow-binary]

Tfw you look up images of pregnant women for a drawing but end up just weirded out and gives up the idea altogether

[exocbxmp3]

if pregnancy and birth sounds so abhorrent to you that the only way you could feasibly do it is by getting paid obscene amounts of money and getting a ~nice and easy c-section~ you'll be shocked to know that it's literally a major abdominal surgery that cuts through 7 layers of your body that you're completely awake for and feel every part of sans some numbing tho js

[iregreteverythingpleasehelpme]

btw i have successfully gotten my friends into watching bad MMD videos

[pynkhues]

So I started watching Succession somewhere between s2 n s3 and till yesterday, I was under the impression Rava Roy(?) is supposed to be of Indian descent (though why someone would name her after food idk) but then I saw some bts of s4 with the actress and I'm sure she's white or not idk 😂 Point is, can you tell if the kids are supposed to be adopted? (That's what was suggested in an article) like I'm so confused??? Are they biracial? Is her ethnicity ambiguous? I feel like maybe you might have the answer for me 😅

It's never explicitly stated, anon, but I'm pretty sure Rava is supposed to be Jewish.

Natalie Gold, the actress who plays her, is Jewish herself, and the name Rava actually has Hebrew origins dating back to around the year 300CE. Interestingly enough, it's actually traditionally a boy's name in Hebrew meaning a father, which feels pretty deliberate given the nature of the show. I think too that her being Jewish makes sense given the tension between her and Logan, and Kendall's hyper-sensitivity to Logan's anti-semitism, most notably in 3.04 which happened pretty quickly timeline-wise after Kendall retreated to (and took over) Rava's apartment when he didn't have anywhere else to go.

In that sense, I do think we're supposed to understand that Sophie is adopted, yes. I've talked about it on here before, but I tend to think that Iverson is biological, and it's that, plus him being a boy and white, that causes Logan to simultaneously dote on, weaponise and abuse Iverson more directly and visibly on screen than he does Sophie. As far as Logan's concerned, Iverson is the only heir beyond his children, and it's pretty clear that he's been found wanting. What that means for Sophie who is, of course, just as much Kendall and Rava's child, is open to speculation, but I think the show is deliberate in the way it focuses on Iverson and forces Sophie aside.

[angelsaxis]

Pro lifers ain't saying nothing about the terrible conditions pregnant Gazan women are going through rn. Not that I'm shocked.

[enobariasdistrict2]

i like how haley has like three sisters but they rarely show up and her parents go absentee on her after she gets married

[quietwingsinthesky]

living for the way ianto checks out whenever rhys & gwen & jack start having a domestic in front of him

[realasslesbian]

So I’m watching that Jeffery Dahmer series and the one thing that gets me (other than the gruesome serial killing lmao) is how Dahmer’s mother is portrayed as this self-centred bitch who doesn’t give a shit about her kids, while Dahmer’s dad is a poor helpless man who is just doing his best. But he left Jeffery alone just like the mum did? 

In fact, the mum left because the dad was abusing her. She tried for full custody, but since Dahmer was legally an adult, she couldn’t force him to go anywhere or do anything. So he chose to stay in the house he was raised in, while his mum fled with his younger brother, for her own safety irt to The Abusive Father (but even before she left Dahmer alone in that house, she’d cooked a bunch of food so that this grown adult man wouldn’t starve lmao). And then she threw herself into raising that boy and working for a womens centre. But somehow she’s still the crazy villain and we gotta have cameos of her driving dangerously and screaming about aliens?

Meanwhile, where tf is Dahmer’s dad? Oh right, he was off banging another woman. And three months later when he decides to check in on his kids he figures out that *shock horror* the female who is supposed to be wiping my son’s grown ass is, in fact, not doing that. And does he step up to be the parent at this point? Lol no, instead he fobs Dahmer off onto his elderly mother and disappears with his new girlfriend again. But still this man’s being portrayed as the ultimate victim in all this? Like bro, your serial killing kid is probably in some major part your entire fault lmao

[hedonicghost]

You'd think Michael would be smart enough not to make more Aftons...

as an afton you either have to be a good manipulator or easily manipulated. michael has both; he takes after his dad, afterall!