#kill off the girls and then give their roles to their male counterparts... so lets not do that'

[burning-thistles-bt]

semi-context here

not even sure what to write lol just messing around with some ideas/concepts/aus... evil Ferncloud and evil Brightheart au but their evil in opposite directions and both think they're in the right (but like. Brightpaw's is a Catra kind of "I'm in the right" where she knows she's wrong but she's Going Down With It And Taking Everyone With Her. a The World Hurt Her so She'll Hurt the World)

meanwhile Fernpaw is in a cult (but not Frostfur's) and Did Some Things and has just realized it and is struggling to come to terms with it

no i will not elaborate

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

SAKURA HARUNO (NARUTO)

1.) 1.) It is repeatedly stated throughout the series the areas in which she excels. We are told over and over again that she is gifted (early on in the series) or tremendously strong (end of the series) and yet with the exception of of the Sasori fight, there seems to be a staunch refusal to actually SHOW her being competent in a fight. 2.) her backstory ties into nothing plotwise as far as the overarching world and history of the village and its families. The three other leads (Sasuke Naruo, Kakashi) all get their own relevant backstory that gets delved into. But Sakura? Neither has one nor goes off and embroils herself personally into one of these overarching plot points. She is constantly forced to just be a companion/side character to the stories of her male counterparts. 3.) She’s given so much potential for a great powersuite and those all either go unrealized or she gets shown up by other characters. idk if this is what was meant by propaganda but its what i got

2.) Despite becoming the world’s best surgeon and doctor at age 17 (including doing open heart surgery in the middle of an active battlefield), her achievements are routinely undercut and underplayed by the canon.

It’s all the more disappointing because in some ways, she’s a very realistic and humanistic depiction of a teenage girl. Unlike her teammates, she grew up in what we would consider a pretty average family situation (two living parents who love her, even if they don’t understand her choices), and has relatively average goals at the beginning. Compared to her teammates who are orphans from dynastic ninja clans, who were basically born to a lineage of massive amounts of powerful ninja magic; Sakura’s civilian family has given her no genetic predisposition to being powerful. Despite this, she’s shown to be highly intelligent, achieving top scores on exams and having a deep knowledge for theory and concepts.

She begins the story having a crush on Sasuke Uchiha, a boy who has no interest in her, and hating Naruto, their village’s Omelas Child. However, as she works with her team, she bonds with them on a deeper level, and works very hard to meet their natural level of skill and not be deadweight on their team.

However, despite the fact that trios are treated with deep cultural and narrative significance throughout Naruto, the narrative quickly abandons the “Team 7 Trio” framing in all the ways that matter, becoming the Naruto-and-Sasuke show in all ways that matter. When Sakura gets her time to shine, she’s always undercut. Her massive physical strength and strong sense of self in Shippuden are never treated with the same reverence as her teammates’. Despite the fact that she can easily shatter rock and manipulate the ground with her sheer physical power, and that she was originally presented as good at genjutsu (illusion magic); she becomes a field medic/doctor – a carer/support role, rather than a DPS. Her decisions to advocate for herself and the people she cares about (such as trying to kill Sasuke) are treated as foolish and naive, not a heroic choice to try and help her friends at a large personal cost.

She also basically never gets to fight a man, except for one important case: Sasori. This is important, because the female characters in Naruto are routinely presented as less powerful and less of a threat than male characters. While her fight with Sasori is a fantastic arc, it ends with Sasori undercutting her victory by being like “well actually I wanted to die”, implying that he’d chosen to let her win, not that her win is well deserved. This is at the start of Shippuden, she doesn’t get a solo fight arc after that.

Of course, the most egregious thing done to Sakura is that she’s married off to Sasuke. Despite the fact that Sasuke is never once shown to give a shit about her, and the fact that her character development in a large part was about her giving up the childish and misogynistic desire to be a wife to the cute guy in her class, suddenly they’re together. Sasuke is a deadbeat husband, however, and immediately fucks off, to the point where he doesn’t recognise their child when he meets her, and tries to kill her. Sakura-the-housewife-waiting-at-the-window-for-her-husband’s-return is again now deeply in love with a man who doesn’t give a shit about her. The only photo she has of them together is shown to be a cutout of another photo of Sasuke stuck on a photo of her. She’s again trapped in a housewife box, her achievements and skill sideline to her ability to rear a child for the male lead. And worse, despite the fact she’s a very confident person who otherwise has no issue advocating for herself, she doesn’t really seem to fight back against this awful status quo in her relationship, grateful for the scraps of affection Sasuke delivers to her once a decade.

3.) Despite being on a team of three, she’s always side lined for the other two. Her whole thing is healing, then in a major arc at the end of the main series a character gets hurt and when she goes to attempt to heal them, she is pushed aside so Naruto can do his amazing magic healing that he just learned and is already better at it than her.

HINATA HYUUGA (NARUTO)

1.) When Hinata was introduced she goals, weaknesses, interesting interactions and relationships with characters other than naruto and a personality of her own. Post timeskip in shippuden, however, she was reduced down to simply ‘naruto’s future love interest’ and little else. The entire Hyuuga plotline was dropped and she no longer had any relevance or personality outside of naruto. Part 1 hinata was shy and insecure on the surface but underneath that she was determined & hardworking, even to her own detriment. Her struggles were compelling. Her interactions with neji and her family are something you look forward to seeing more of. In shippuden she’s like a flat carboard cutout of hinata. Her shyness exaggerated, her relationship with her family suddenly perfectly fine and boring. In part 1 naruto inspires her to keep trying but he isn’t the reason she’s working so hard, in shippuden he’s pretty much all she thinks about. Her change in character design really highlights these changes - the perfect little wife for cishet men to fantasise about.

2.) Her entire personality and arc is boiled down to “shy uwu waifu in love with Naruto” and basically any development she gets, which is barely at all because Kishimoto hates women, is as attributed to NARUTO and Naruto only. Even her reaction to her beloved COUSIN’S DEATH makes her be like “omg I love Naruto” and serves to further NaruHina, which is absolutely insane she would Not react like that. Naruto only starts being romantically interested in her at the beginning of like, The Last movie, which is after 500ish episodes of her being treated as the sidelined love interest who is devoted to a guy who only cares about her when she’s a damsel in distress on a fight.

There are so many parts of her character that are/could be interesting, like her part in the Hyuga Clan due to being born as a superior and her dynamic with her cousin Neji as a result, (which could have had SO many great moments of reconciliation and standing up for each other grrr grrr) an exploration of the impact of her bullying & being looked down upon (even when she’s supposed to be a superior member, which adds to the shame) LIKE MANY OF THE CAST, seriously the people Naruto trauma dumps to are mostly consisted of people unfairly treated like that and it could have been used to further NaruHina WHILE showing her struggles

She is an incredibly capable fighter but the moment Naruto is there, she instantly becomes defenseless and needs to be saved by her crush, mostly as a “wow look at him isn’t he so brave and kind to do this for her?!”

There’s an episode where she is literally used as a defenseless punching bag for Pein by trying to sacrifice herself for Naruto and telling him she loves him, JUST so he can be more angry and have more motivation to beat Pein’s ass (aside of the yknow. Killing his loved ones thing) AND her confession is ignored by Naruto for the rest of the series. Just like any moment she shows her crush for him is met with obliviousness, which would be fine if they weren’t the main couple and didn’t go on for THE ENTIRE SERIES!!!!

In Boruto, the shitty sequel, Naruto is basically her deadbeat husband in her bland lavander marriage and Boruto is rightfully mad about Naruto’s distance from the family and even says he left her basically a single mom and barely pays time to the family, and Hinata’s role in the show as the housewife is being like “no you see Boruto you have to understand your father’s pov as the Hokage” and the narrative treats NaruHina’s marriage as a Good, Healthy Thing as if the characters are not miserable in this marriage.

3.) Man I don’t even like her that much but she deserved SO much better. She was introduced as the heiress of a really powerful and renowed clan with complex dynamics, yet the author somehow decided to do almost NOTHING with the potential she had, and gave her very little personality besides being shy and fawning over the protagonist. She gets slightly more active in Shippuden (part 2), but her character still pretty much revolves around her love for Naruto, which sucks because again, she has so much potential. It’s no secret that women in Naruto are badly written, and Hinata certainly is no exception. The male characters get dozens of episodes/chapters about their motivations, their backstories, what pushes them to keep going, and Hinata gets almost nothing besides her lifelong crush on Naruto that we are reminded of literally every time she’s on screen.

[ooops-i-arted]

ahsoka still calling anakin a 'good master' after everything he fucking did to her oh my god, ENOUGH!

cowboy hat man won't give it a rest. he wants to throw ahsoka in everything and have her ascend to glorified creator's pet status, but he still can't figure out how to feature her without making her whole worth and existence about anakin. a two year relationship that ended with the master nearly murdering his padawan gets to be highlighted repeatedly, as if it was the most emotionally resonant thing to ever happen to ahsoka and anakin. instead of literally any other relationship that could be explored more.

screw ahsoka's other relationships from the jedi temple or the clones. she can hang out with rebels characters who are reduced to hollow husks of themselves while she has the charisma of a plank. but let's remind everyone how special and awesome she is because anakin was assigned to her for a short time. ahsoka is almost fifty years old now, were the options really that limited? screw respecting anakin's kids who achieved their own legacies and played important roles in the rebellion, defying what he chose to become. luke and leia are barely present in these galactic events and it's rare for their names to be mentioned at all. and who the hell is padme at this point?

ahsoka's writing has been unimpressive for a while now and i haven't cared about her story beyond fandom osmosis. but her show probably isn't even servicing people who actually liked her from tcw anymore, it's about whatever caters to filoni's warped perception of these characters.

Not only is it egregious because we know Anakin is a child murderer, Ahsoka NEVER moves on or comes to terms with it! She just keeps wallowing in it so Filoni can wank off to Anakin licking Ahsoka's butthole. Also: two years. There's no way she's near as speshul to him as Padme (the woman he was in love with for 10+ years and his wife) or Obi-Wan (his Master who was like a brother to him, again for over a decade) or Shmi (his freakin' mother and likely his one point of stability in a chaotic childhood as a slave). Don't even tell me that if Anakin was dropped in the World Between Contrived Time Travel he would save Ahsoka over any of them lmao. Or drop her like a hot potato if he had to choose between Ahsoka and Luke, his son and the last remnant he has of Padme (her son), Obi-Wan (guarded and trained by), Shmi (her grandson) and pretty much the one person he was able to commit an act of true, unselfish love for (killing Palps).

I do feel bad for the fans since I've seen plenty of comments that it's "not her" and that RD's portrayal is just so flat and devoid of smirky smugness/cheekiness/whatever. I personally may hate it but it is part of her character. And you're right, why is it only people she isn't connected to? She barely knew the Rebels crew and mostly as Fulcrum, so a professional relationship, not a friendship. Not to mention Sabine being forced into a Jedi Padawan role despite NEVER showing Force sensitivity or any interest in being a Jedi, and she lived with two of them for years. She had plenty of opportunity to ask Kanan if she wanted to be trained! But nah, we gotta give Ahsoka a Padawan and throw in some forced girl power stuff on the side. (As a former little girl who deeply craved female representation in the male-dominated stories I loved, I can tell you, little girls can tell when it's forced.) (Also Sabine choosing to force herself into a Jedi role out of grief for missing Kanan and Ezra instead of actually being into it or confronting her feelings of loss could've been a really interesting character moment. But nah.)

Side note but I also find it interesting that Rex is barely in this show. Wasn't Rex Ahsoka's clone counterpart? They're very close friends? He's still alive and kicking and could help her out? That would be a really cool relationship to explore? Or did Filoni realize he can't whitewash a real Māori man the way he can animated clones?

(Also I saw this ask before bed and woke up thinking about Mara Jade and Jaina Solo, a female teacher-student relationship that was so badass, and now I want Mara Jade being Rey's teacher and helping her confront her relationship to Palpatine and Rey having the guidance of someone who Gets It, can you imagine. We could've had it alllllllll)

[dalasteller]

shadow and bone spoilers! malina/mal fans this is not for you but it’s not pro-darklina either. i’m an alina x alina supremacist

so, somehow, the show made me like book!malina more than show!malina after weeks of thinking the opposite would be true. i don’t even like book!mal/malina, but my neutrality towards them is nothing compared to how much i detested show!malina.

I WANTED THE TV SHOW TO MAKE ME LOVE THEM. the trailers made me think i would!!! i'd heard screeners and reviewers talk about this epic love story that transcends everything—these two people who would do anything for each other—and i don't disagree, they definitely would. i just wish they would shut the fuck up about it.

sorry.

looking back, i'd rather the show gave us mal with flaws, who wasn't perfect to alina, who would die for her, but still said the wrong thing and flirted with other girls and was afraid of her power at first. archie did a great job. he just couldn't make me love mal, and neither could the writers opting to make him main character no. 2 and alina’s prince in shining armour who supports her endlessly and has never done anything wrong in his life ever. writers, please, why did you think that was a good idea? when i said i wanted a more likeable mal, i meant i wanted his flaws accompanied by positive traits, by compelling backstory, by personality outside of being alina's hot best friend who never noticed her. i didn't mean i wanted a guy who could be wrapped in a gift box and sold as a robo-boyfriend designed for romance.

no, i mean, they really did write him that way.

what i definitely didn't mean i wanted was over an hour of the show dedicated to watching mal’s perspective of hunting the stag and making besties with his military bros and writing letters to alina and getting shot at a bunch of times instead of letting the book characters who were already beloved by fans get the screentime they deserved. what i wouldn't do to have gotten more genyalina and well-written zoya instead of mal dissecting deer shit...

you would think with how much talk about malina basically being soulmates, childhood flashbacks, fighting and nearly dying for each other at least four times (and did i mention more narration about being soulmates?) that i would take the bait and just let malina set sail. but this show held me at gunpoint for eight hours straight and told me that these two are going to have the same cultural influence as new romeo and juliet and that if i disagree i am going to be killed on the spot. because of this, i have now died.

don't tell me what to do, narrative, because i'm not going to do it!

i am also annoyed that they took the time to redesign mal in perfect childhood-friends-to-lovers dreamboat fashion but refused to retcon zoya's stupid misogyny-fueled bitchy YA girl arc and instead made it even worse by having her be racist to alina? what was the thought process there? they seriously fucked her over. i tried to pretend it didn't happen moving forward but why do they want to use racism as a tool for developing a "bully" character anyway, especially a woc? am i meant to forget about it? they lost me there. i feel like the female characters, with the exception of inej, generally weren't given the same care the male characters were. there was a lot of sidelining in favour of mal's redemptive rewrite and the darkling's 15 minutes of half-assed backstory and crying in every scene for some reason. “make me your villain” .... okay, simpboy, i’ll try my best.

i've already talked about why i hated mal's role (i clarify his role, not his character, because there was literally nothing wrong with him and that’s why i hated him so much) but i'm going to address it from the perspective of my love for alina and why i think this decision was so disrespectful to her. alina in the books was already in need of more characterization, time for herself and her internal development as opposed to her relationship with the three male love interests she acquires through the series. somehow this show took a main character already underused in her own story (though at least the books are told from her pov) and neglected her even further. alina is tied almost entirely to her male counterparts, mal especially, but i'd say the darkling is used as a narrative rebound. i think they both have chemistry and can serve a purpose in the story but the emphasis on codependency is impossible to ignore.

in the first four episodes, every scene that could have been alina struggling to settle into a new life and dealing with the emotional weight of her pressure as a saint was instead about mal. she writes him letters, and cries over him, and slips him into conversations that have nothing to do with him, and gets sad after slipping him into conversations that have nothing to do with him, and can't use her power because she's thinking of him, and then only decides to fully accept her power because of his absence.

alina's feelings are lended to nothing but her missing mal. he isn't just her best friend and love, he's this colossal piece of her identity that she doesn't get to exist without, even when he's gone. the show's exhaustive attempt to make mal loveable and make malina an epic love story turns our female protagonist into a sulking, miserable shell of a character everytime he's mentioned, which, by the way, is like, every two minutes. and apparently it's necessary to draw parallels to the same three flashbacks in all of them. i knoowwwwwwww, they held hands and now they can't anymore, i knowwww. they ran through a meadow, i knowwwwwwwwwwwwww.

watching her scenes almost drove me to printing out a bechdel test and ticking off as many boxes as possible.

i hated it. it made me sad.

i wanted more alina. i want her power to be her own. i wanted that tension between her and mal in the books because his flaws gave her a chance to stand up for herself and say that she liked being powerful. that summoning is a part of her and she would never give it up. that there was a tinge of corruption, of greed, of wanting to be the sun summoner, and it was intriguing! mal's issue of not accepting alina's power allowed her to express how much it meant to her. i wanted the alina who said "the night was velvety black and strewn with jewels. the hunger struck me suddenly. i want them, i thought." i wanted a hint of the sun summoner who decided when it got dark and relished in it (yes i know this can be expanded upon in s2). alina has a cocky side, her insecurities are explored and she finds strength in her new gift and eventually has to find strength outside of it, but in the show the catalyst to her powers is mal. always. is it romantic? sure. but it's hard to enjoy the romance when all we see of alina is her romantic connection to mal. can't she be more than that?

[supernaturallyobsessedchic]

Finding Him

AU!Dean x Reader

Warnings: Kidnapping/taken, angst, mentions/implications of rape, mentions of blood, gruesome I think, maybe. (If I need more warnings, I’ll add them. Not sure what I need for warnings right now) I would recommend to being at least 18 to be safe.

Summary: Dean doesn’t come home from a supply run. Sam and the Reader find the Impala, but no Dean. Who would take Dean? Why? Clock’s ticking.

Word count: 2,400-ish

a/n: Inspired by a fic called Lost by @talesmaniac89​, only I switched the roles and the whole premise of the story in comparison.

Finding Him Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Mobile Masterlist

~

His vision blackened by the dark hood that covered his head.

“See boss, I found him, one of the Winchester boys.” A male voice says. As if he were expecting a prize.

“Yes, I see that, you were also to get his little brother you nitwit!” another man shouted.

Dean could hear growls in the distance. Meaning he was dealing with more than just one monster. Also, what kind of monster?

“But doing this draws out his brother. Once he is out and about, I’ll get him.”

“You better, but watch out for his mate. I hear she’s feisty.”

Y/N, they knew her as well. But she was only with the brothers for, not even, 6 months now.

“Why again are we doing this? Why don’t we just swarm their base now? I mean, we can use his scent to lead us there.” A female voice was heard this time. She sounded rather annoyed by the whole situation.

“Because, it’s her I want.”

“Why?”

“She’s a half-breed. First of our kind. Her mother was human. They say half-breeds are weaker than their pure bred counterpart. But I beg to fucking differ!” the boss man got furious at a memory.

Y/N’s a what? Dean thought. He could only huff against the gag in his mouth that was tapped in by duct tape. His hands were bound by all kinds of bindings. Rope, tape and even chains. These werewolves took precautions to prevent Dean from escaping or fighting back.

Y/N must have done something to piss this guy off. He thought.

“Just bring the other Winchester, Lure this bitch out. I want her now!”

 “Sam, I found the impala but no Dean.” She said into the phone.

“Store clerk said no one was following him in the store. So it must have happened outside of the store on the way home.”

“I don’t like this Sam, who would take him and why?”

“I don’t know. Come swing by, pick me up and I’ll drive Dean’s baby home.”

“Sure thing, then we’ll get hunting for your brother.”

She hung up the phone. She could smell it. It’s faint but it’s werewolf. Maybe it’s time to come clean about her lineage to Sam. It might help in finding Dean.

 “So you’re a half breed. Half human, half werewolf? How’s that possible?” Sam asked. Not a hint of malice in his words, no hint of anger or hostility in his body language.

“My mom was human. My dad was an alpha werewolf. But my mom died giving birth to me. I never really had a mother. But there’s this other pack, my dad went rogue on them when they started killing humans. He’d kill his own members to save humans.” She explained.

“Your dad sounds like a good man.”

“He was. Then his alpha found us. Tried to take me. He fought back. Or, tried to. I managed to get away. But in the woods I could smell my dad’s blood. He kill him. I’m more than sure, he’s the one that took Dean. He’s trying to lure me out.”

“He really shouldn’t underestimate the Winchester way of doing things.”

“What do you have in mind, I do see those wheels in your head turning?” she asked.

“We’ll need Cas’s help. I’ll even see if Bobby or any of the apocalypse hunters are up for some fuckery.”

She smiled, what does this guy have in mind, must be awesome.

 Weeks pass.

Sure he’d feed Dean, give him water even. But the alpha has a plan. And it’s not a great one.

He’s building an army.

“It’s my daughter, Alpha. She’s presenting, and I feel she is suitable for bearing a half breed.” Said a woman behind the door.

“Once she is fully presented, we’ll put him to work. And soon she will bear a half breed. Because if that bitch won’t come to me, we’ll come to her, with an army to boot.”

Dean swallowed thickly.

Already several scared girls had come in, he was forced to impregnate these girls. In hopes of making werewolves just like y/n.

He’s not dumb, half breeds are not as weak as people or other monster claim them to be. Because of their human counterparts, they don’t give up.

“How many have we made so far boss?” the same wolf that kidnapped Dean asked.

“9. Nine half breeds. And 5 of us. Two omegas, one beta, and two alphas. The half breeds don’t even need to present. That’s the thing we need to research further.”

“I’m sure our doctors in the sandy hills would love to look at them, and this girl of yours.”

“I’m sure. But, she’s mine. Mine to tame, mine alone. I’ll make an omega out of her.”

“You want to see what offspring you and her would produce?” he asked. Seeing his masterplan now.

“We need an army. Those British hunters already got the drop on us and have killed most of ours. But now, with us being mostly half breeds. We’ll see how much of a match we are to them.”

“Impervious to silver. But they’ll die like any normal human.”

“Maybe so. But we’ll train them in combat. We will win this.”

His comrade nodded.

 A low growl could be heard from y/n as she paced the library.

“Weeks Sam, it has been weeks. We need to find him.”

“I know, Bobby’s trying to round up everyone.”

“I can feel them doing something to him, it’s not good. We need to hurry.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t describe it without making you feel uncomfortable. But it’s not good. Let’s just put it at that.”

Sam’s phone rang. Caller ID, Bobby.

“Hey, Bobby, whatchyou got?”

“Sam, bring your girl and come to our hide out. It’s getting bad out there.”

“Bad, bad how?”

“We’re out numbered. The amount of werewolves is growing. More than what we can keep up with.”

“Okay, we’ll pack what we can and meet you out there.”

Sam hung up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Their numbers are growing.”

“I told you it was bad.”

“What are you saying?”

“He’s making an army of half breeds. Like me. And he’s using Dean to help in that process.”

“You mean, he’s forcing these wolf girls to rape my brother?” Sam asks, growing sickened and angry.

“Yes. Which is why we need to hurry. Let’s just go where we need to go. I’ll tell you what we can do to win.”

 “Great, not only are you like a human, but impervious to silver. So our bullets and knives won’t kill you.” One of the male apocalypse hunters fumed.

“So how do we kill them?” Meg asks.

“Just like how you’d kill any human. An ordinary weapon. But don’t injure them. Or Don’t waste time on the kill. They…we can heal quickly.”

“You have to have some kind of weakness.” Bobby says.

“Well, we’re not totally impervious to silver. I learned that the hard way from you hunters.” She says. “Just before I met Sam and Dean, I ran into a hunter. He learned of what I was. And tried to kill me. His silver blade slashed my arm. I had this nasty looking infection. But really it was poison.”

“Dean brought you back, and we healed you up.” Sam added. She nodded with a sad smile.

“That’s why you didn’t tell us. You were afraid we’d do that to you.” Sam says. She cast her gaze to her feet, fiddling her hands at her waistline. She felt Sam’s hand at her cheek. Coaxing her to look up at him.

“You had our backs, you saved Dean from shifters and wendigos. You saved me from vamps and werewolves. Cas from angels. Hell, even our own mother from a number of monsters. We wouldn’t have hurt you darlin’.”

“When he saved me, Dean. I imprinted on him.”

“How’d you…”

“I’m not sure. He felt safe. I felt safe. It was after he saved me, I’ve been able to feel what he feels. Know exactly where he was. Or is. Some say imprinting anyone, a wolf or human, is done by sex. But we didn’t do anything. He just held me. Safe in his arms.” She explained.

“Could be that. Could be a soul thing.” Bobby says. “Soulmates.”

Sam and Y/N nodded.

A moment passed. Y/N shook her head out of her thoughts.

“We need to get Dean back before the Alpha kills him. When he deems Dean no longer useful. I can, feel him. He does feel far. But I’m sure I can find him.”

“Well, let’s do this. Bobby, you, and the hunters try to get their numbers down. Kill as many as you can. Y/N and I will get Dean out of there. Then after—”

“I’m killing that Alpha, once and for all. More lives are in danger with him alive.” She growled.

Sam could only nod.

 A shot rang out.

“All the guards outside are half breeds. Aim for the head.” She ordered the hunters that came along.

Shot after shot rang out.

She took in their scent. They weren’t that old, freshly presented. She stared at them in confusion. Half breeds don’t present. Unless a certain gene allows them to present or not enough research went into half breeds.

“Sam, you and I we need to move in. now.” She ordered. Sam nodded.

“Keep them from entering.” She told the hunters.

“Sam, let’s go!”

And they ran their way inside.

 “Get the human!” the alpha ordered.

Dean, looking a bit rough from weeks and weeks of rough sex, little food and water and no sleep. The wolf picked him up by the collar, Dean grunted against the motion as his hands were bound behind his back since the day they brought him in here. His wrists have been cut up and bloodied from his struggles.

“I’d be happy to rip his heart out for ya boss.” He sneered.

“NO!” The alpha shouted.

The wolf shuddered.

“He’s mine.”

He threw Dean at the Alpha’s side.

Dean landed on his side with a hard thud and grunt. He was too weak to play the tough guy. Too weak to give a witty comeback.

He just laid there, waiting for his death.

 Sam, preoccupied by other wolves in the warehouse as Y/N walked into the Alpha’s Domaine. His den, his ‘Throne Room’. He stood on a balcony meant for loading large machinery. It had no railing on one side.

She could smell his blood. Causing a growl to emerge deep within her chest. Her fists clench so hard she could draw blood.

“There she is.” The alpha growled.

“Here I am. Do you want to end this or should I?” she asked. Glaring down at him.

“You dare talk like that to your Alpha?” he growled.

“You are not my alpha, I’m no one’s alpha. You are a murderer.”

“Now, I’d beg to differ on that. You killed your own kind.”

“I have two kinds. Human and wolf. Humans seem a lot better than you.”

He growled at her remark.

“You mean, like this human!” he pulls Dean up by the collar. His sheer strength alone allowed him to hold Dean in the air, hanging him by his collar. He hung him over the ledge with no railing. Intending on letting him either hang to his death or drop him.

Her heart dropped.

Dean kicked, trying to get free. He began gagging for air.

“He’s weak, just like your father was. Your father was infatuated with a human and it weakened him. He was my right hand man!” he shouted.

She tried to keep a good poker face going. But Dean’s eyes began to roll as he was loosing more and more air.

“You are just like him. Infatuated with a human.”

“Let him go.” She says. Demanding.

The Alpha cocked his head, cocking an eyebrow, smirking. Oh, she thinks she’s going to have it easy. He thought.

“Please, I’ll turn myself over to you willingly. But you have to let him go. Alive!” she demanded.

“Hmm, such a tempting offer.” The Alpha says playfully. “But, no. I think I’ll pass.” He says.

He repositions Dean so he could easily wrap his hand around his throat. She could tell he was squeezing the life out of him, he kicked furiously, desperately trying to get free.

I hope this will work. She thought.

She darts, climbing up a stack of crates leading up to the platform.

She managed to get on the platform without him noticing. She could see the color to Dean’s face changing. His eyes rolling.

A fire burned in her eyes. He’s not going to take him from her.

With her claws now drawn, she forces her hand through the Alpha’s back and through his chest.

He can see what looks like silver nails on her claws.

The impact causes him to drop Dean.

He drops on to his back with a hard thud.

The Alpha gags as the poison from the polish is coursing through his veins.

“You really should have taken the deal.” She says. Pulling her hand from his back the Alpha drops dead with a thud. On the concrete ground below.

“Dean!” she gasps. Seeing him not moving.

She rushes to him, cutting him free. She brings her ear to his mouth. He’s not breathing.

“No, no, no. Dean, please.” She begs.

She works him over her shoulder as she get’s him to a more flat surface.

“Dean!” she heard Sam shout.

She laid Dean flat on his back and began doing chest compressions.

“Sam, Bobby, we need to get him help.” She begs as she worked on him.

“Cas!” Sam prays out loud. “Cas, if you hear me please, we need you to save him!”

“Cas!” she adds on. “Please, I can’t lose him!”

“Sam, Y/N.” Cas says behind her.

“Cas, help him.” She begs. Her eyes blurring with tears.

“I will try.” He says.

He places two fingers to his forehead. Only to see limited injuries healed. But Dean took in a deep, much needed, breath.

Cas falls back, weakened.

“I do not have enough grace to heal him completely. My grace has been depleting lately. Once I am fully regenerated, I’ll heal him again.” Cas says.

“Thanks Cas, it’s something.” Y/N says. “Let’s get him home.”

 ~

Part 2

What’d you think? Want more? Let me know either by ask or reblog. Remember, feedback is fuel.

~

Dean Girls:

@pandazombie69​, @luci-in-trenchcoats​, @supernatural-jackles​, @becs-bunker​, @jayankles​, @mlovesstories​, @winchesters-favorite-girl​, @akshi8278​

~

Copying and reposting someone else’s content is plagiarism and illegal. This work is property of supernaturallyobsessedchic. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. These works contain material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of these works may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. An electronic reference link to the original posted work may be provided for purposes of promotion or assistance of publication by the readers discretion, if proper credits are given to the author in the re-post. 2/8/2021

[jokerfan99]

My Top 10 Favorite Anime Heroines by DarkChild316

Being a hero isn’t easy, but someone’s gotta do it! And these ladies have shown to be just as capable as their male counterparts. Now I’ve already done a list showing everyone “My Top 10 Anime Villainesses”, but I figured: “Hey the good girls deserve some love too,” so I decided to give you guys my list of my Favorite Anime Heroines as well. So, with that in mind, here’s my list:

#10. Saeko Busujima (Highschool of the Dead): This is an anime that will give you plenty of two things in abundance…boobs and zombies! While it may seem like your run-of-the-mill apocalyptic fanservice anime, among the well-proportioned ladies is this kendo warrior who’s more than capable of holding her own against any foe and would fit right in with even the most old-school samurai-themed anime. When the dead start to walking most of the cast usually reach for a form of firearms, not this lady who prefers to slice apart the undead with the greatest of discipline and precision, whether it be with her signature bokken or her deadly Murata-tou sword. There’s no denying that Saeko’s the ideal companion we’d want on our side for a zombie apocalypse.

#9. Touka Kirishima (Tokyo Ghoul): Living as a ghoul isn’t easy, especially when you’re trying your damnest to retain what little remains of your humanity. Starting off as a cold, yet collected individual, Touka found shelter in both the horrors of her dark past and her constant hunger for flesh in her day job at a café as a waitress which serves other ghouls and as a hangout stop for ghouls. While she grew warmer as her relationship with one Ken Kaneki grew, she’s not without her bestial side, possessing an abject hatred for the CCG after they killed her parents. In a series where everyone seems to be on the edge of insanity and turning into a rampaging, bloodthirsty monster, Touka is one of the few characters genuinely fighting for a chance at a peaceful life.

#8. Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist): Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye is undoubtedly one of the best female anime characters of all time and for good reason, she is truly the perfect soldier. As both an Amestrian State Military’s officer as well as Colonel Roy Mustang’s bodyguard, Riza Hawkeye is a dangerous sharpshooter and firearms specialist. From the outside she can seem strict and even a little cold, but those close to her know that there’s much more to her than her strict no-nonsense attitude, including a courteous nature in the presence of her allies and a desire to protect those she holds dear. Beneath the strict persona is a kind soul who understands the difficulty of carrying a heavy burden and let’s not forget…she’s a true badass in every sense o the word!

#7. Erza Scarlett (Fairy Tail): She went from child slave to arguably one of the strongest mages in all of Fiore. All while battling against S-Class mages, terrifying demons, and even her own psychotic mother, now that’s dedication folks! Forced by her possessed childhood friend to build the Tower of Heaven, she manages to escape her captivity and make her way to Fairy Tail, where she would soon rise to become one of Fairy Tail’s youngest S-Class mages and one of the most truly badass fighters in Fairy Tail’s ranks. With her magical ability known as Re-Quip, she has an unlimited number of weapons and armors at her disposal, each possessing their own devastating abilities. She’s a stoic warrior with a soft heat and a dark past, and you can bet your ass that she’ll fight to defend her Nakama to the bitter end.

#6. Ryuko Matoi (Kill la Kill): Her choice of armor may be a bit on the revealing side but going against this rebel isn’t the smartest idea if you value your life. You’re not likely to find a more stubborn soul in this absolutely whacky series and trust me…NONE of these characters are on the subtle side of things. In search of her father’s killer, Ryuko takes up the sentient life-fiber uniform Senketsu, and openly battles the dictatorship that is the Student Council. Stubborn as hell, Ryuko will always stand up to anyone who gets in her way, no matter how badly the odds are stacked against her. How can you not love someone with that kind of drive!

#5. Saber (Fate/stay night): Before she became a hero in the endless Holy Grail Wars, Saber was actually Artoria Pendragon, known throughout history as King Arthur, the mythical King who united Britain. As the Saber-class servant, Artoria generally tries to hide her identity in battle by using an invisible sword. When pushed, she can brandish Excalibur instead though, a sword she wields with unmatched skill and can do long-range attacks as easily as close-range. With her holy sword, and her “Mana Burst” ability, she is one of the most powerful Servants. Saber is loved by fans worldwide for good reason: she is kind, valiant, and fierce, all traits that make for one divine heroine. None would mind putting the fate of the world in this blonde beauty's hands.

#4. Mikasa Ackerman (Attack on Titan): Attack on Titan's Mikasa is one of those reserved, stoic characters who doesn't speak very often and seems to be stuck in her own head. After all the trauma she’s experienced living under the looming terror of Titans and the carnage she witnessed while part of the Survey Corps, not to mention the brutal murder of her biological parents by criminals, it would be difficult to come out unscathed. Perhaps it’s endurance that is one of Mikasa’s most relatable traits. Despite her often-cynical comments about the world around her, she manages to retain her humanity. Mikasa herself said, “This world is cruel. And yet... so beautiful.” The stereotypical boy-saves-girl gender roles that play out in media are also very much reversed when it comes to her relationship with Eren, which is a refreshing and welcome change of pace to see, though her protectiveness of him seems a little unhealthy at times. On top of everything mentioned, she’s also totally ripped.

#3. Asuka Langley Soryu (Neon Genesis Evangelion): I just couldn’t leave out Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Asuka Langey Soryu from this list of awesome female protagonists. Asuka is a classic anime heroine and remains beloved by fans of the show to this day. Asuka is an American teenage girl who serves as an Eva pilot for the Evangelion Project and pilots the Evangelion Unit-02. Asuka was raised in Germany and often swears in German. She was a child prodigy with a college degree at only fourteen years old, but definitely has her human flaws. She has a temper and is obsessed with being the best at everything she does. Despite these flaws, Asuka is hilarious in her own way and has the kind of confidence and pride you rarely see in a young girl. She knows she can do her job well and isn't afraid to tell you about it. Asuka is relatable in that she is stubborn and often has a hard time properly expressing her feelings and vulnerability to others. Her eventual nervous breakdown shines a light on her humanity-- she is not a perfect person and she is still a child forced to do a job that no child should be forced to do.

#2. Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell): Major Motoko Kusanagi is one of the primary protagonists of the popular Ghost in the Shell franchise of manga, films, and animated series. Motoko is a cyborg who works as a field commander for Public Security Section 9 on the Japanese National Public Safety Commission. Motoko is a very physically strong and incredibly intellectual who that is quick-witted and an excellent hacker. But put a firearm in her hand, and she’s especially deadly. As a child, Motoko was comatose following an airplane accident. After her health began to steadily decline, her consciousness was put into a  "full-body prosthesis,” an augmented-cybernetic human body. Motoko causes us to question exactly what makes us human. She is an emotional, stoic, strong woman who fights for the citizens she protects, yet she lives inside an artificial body. But her greatest use is as a platform to speak on the nature of humanity in a technological age. She's a human mind that has been stuck in an artificial body since childhood, and her life and trials bring up the age-old question, "What does it mean to be human?"

#1. Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon): You really can’t have a list of awesome female protagonists without including everyone’s favorite schoolgirl superhero: Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon. Usagi is the embodiment of an empowering female in anime in her fearless display of conventional femininity without any implied weakness. Usagi is your typical teenage girl who is all about her friends, food, and cute things, while simultaneously being a badass heroine who cleanses the streets of evil. In the original manga and anime, Usagi was portrayed as reluctant to be a superhero and would often run away from fights and be a crybaby. However, through her careful character development, Usagi becomes a brave, reliable, and confident person who cares deeply for her friends. She becomes a better version of herself without stereotypically “shedding” her girliness. Instead, her femininity becomes a defining feature of hers, deconstructing the idea that being girly makes you weak. On the contrary, Usagi’s girliness makes her funny, relatable, and a good role model for young girls. Usagi set the template for a generation of female heroines for generations to come, and it’s for that reason why she’s well-deserving of my #1 ranking on my list.

So that's my updated list, what did you guys think about it? Love it, hated it? Go on and tell me what you think and let me know who your favorite anime heroines are. See you soon!

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/darkchild316

[dwellordream]

“If any character in English popular culture stands for the sheep, it is Griselda. Her chief detractor is, not surprisingly, the shrew. In Robert Snawsel's A Looking Glass for Married Folks, Eulalie preaches the Griselda gospel to Xanthippe and Margery, urging them to bear their husbands' blows and drunkenness with meek loving kindness. This is too much for Margery: "Are you a woman, and make them such dish-clouts and slaves to their husbands? Came you of a woman, that you should give them no prerogative, but make them altogether underlings?" Margery's scornful reference to slavery goes to the dark heart of the Griselda myth. Folklorists have argued about the ancestry of the famous tale for more than a century. 

William Edwin Bettridge and Francis Lee Utley have made a strong case that Griselda owes her features to a folktale from medieval Smyrna called "the Patience of the Princess." A prince buys a poor girl from her father and lays a wager with her that she will not be able to submit to all his demands with utter composure. The prince shuts her in a tower alone and tests her for twenty years, repeatedly impregnating her and then taking away her newborn infants, telling her that he is going to kill them. She builds a mother doll out of clay to talk to and cry to but never loses her patience, and in this way she wins the bet. 

The tale, which matches the European narrative more closely than any other yet found, throws into stark relief the specter of female sexual slavery that haunts Griselda's story. The most striking variance between them is that the girl from Smyrna is sold into involuntary servitude by her father, whereas Griselda has a choice and agrees to voluntary and total obedience. Passing into European culture, the story came to Boccaccio. In reworking it for the Decameron he reclothed it in local garb, fashioning his novella partly in terms of Italian wedding and dowry customs that were sharply weighted against brides and wives. Boccaccio thought Griselda's story significant enough to give it pride of place as the last tale on the book's final day of storytelling. 

Petrarch read the novella and converted it to an exemplum in Latin for male scholars. Griselda entered English culture through Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale," which is largely based on Petrarch's version. Plays, ballads, and pamphlets on Griselda issued forth on the continent and in England throughout the early modern period, with a cluster of publications and performances in the mid- to late sixteenth century. Arguably the most radical change between versions occurred when Petrarch reworked Boccaccio. The Decameron's final tale is told by the satirist Dioneo, a crucial choice by Boccaccio. Refusing to let the happy ending stay happy, Dioneo spells out the political import of the story and caps it off with a horn joke against the marquis: 

Everyone was very happy with the way everything had turned out ....Gualtieri was judged to be the wisest of men (although the tests to which he had subjected his wife were regarded as harsh and intolerable), and Griselda the wisest of them all ....What more can be said here, except that godlike spirits do sometimes rain down from heaven into poor homes, just as those more suited to governing pigs than to ruling over men make their appearances in royal palaces? 

Who besides Griselda could have endured the severe and unheard-of trials that Gualtieri imposed upon her and remained with a not only tearless but happy face? It might have served Gualtieri right if he had run into the kind of woman who, once driven out of her home in nothing but a shift, would have allowed another man to shake her fur to the point of getting herself a nice-looking dress out of the affair. 

Scholars often downplay Dioneo's bitter words about pig-tending and his final putdown of Gualtieri, attributing it to his cynicism; but their labors to match the tale's disturbing sadism with an uplifting exemplary meaning are less than persuasive. The passage is much more than a glib throwaway, as Edward Fechter points out: "the climax angrily repudiates theological allegory and exemplum." Certainly, it seems fitting that the last lines of the last tale in the Decameron should recapitulate the Boccaccian theme of cuckoldry as female revenge. Dioneo's parting shot about "the shaking of the fur" is also an invitation to his listeners and the book's readers to come up with better interpretations than do the silly sheeplike courtiers of the tale, who judge "Walter wise and Griselda the wisest of all." 

Furthermore, it is a jest that asks for scornful laughter, especially from listeners who have grutched throughout the tale at Walter's arrogance, egotism, and sadism. Petrarch told Boccaccio that the story so fascinated him that he decided to spread the tale to scholars abroad. So "snatching up my pen, I attacked this story of yours." The angle of Petrarch's attack on the novella (which he termed "a little too free at times") becomes manifest at the cuckoldry-free conclusion of "A Fable of Wifely Obedience and Devotion," in which he erases Boccaccio's satire and his bawdy call for female revenge: 

This story it has seemed good to me to weave anew, in another tongue, not so much that it might stir the matrons of our times to imitate the patience of this wife-who seems to me scarcely imitable-as that it might stir all those who read it to imitate the woman's steadfastness, at least; so that they may have the resolution to perform for God what this woman performed for her husband ...Therefore I would assuredly enter on the list of steadfast men the name of anyone who endured for his God, without a murmur, what this obscure peasant woman endured for her mortal husband.

Petrarch's straight-faced version has none of Dioneo's political satire or irony. He is writing in Latin to male scholars, not in vernacular Italian to women and men, as Boccaccio had done. Nonetheless, it is Petrarch that Chaucer credits by name in the vernacular, mixed-audience "Clerk's Tale," although he departs from Petrarch in crucial ways. The Clerk does follow his source in insisting that his moral applies not to wives but to all humankind: This storie is seyd, nat for that wyves sholde Folwen Grisilde as in humilytee, For it were inportable, though they wolde; But for every wight, in his degree, Should be constant in adversitee As was Grisilde .... (I 142-47)

Chaucer actually intensifies Petrarch's warning that wives should not try to imitate Griselda, calling her example "inportable," or unbearable. (The Merchant, whose turn comes next, blatantly ignores this caveat, complaining "Ther is a long and large difference I Bitwix Grisildis grete pacience I And my wyf the passyng crueltee.") Still, scholarly attempts to align Chaucer's Walter with God do not work because Walter is described as "tempting" his wife, a word almost always associated with sin and vice. In another departure from Petrarch, Chaucer's Clerk breaks in several times to condemn the marquis. After Walter first decides to try his wife, the Clerk interjects hotly what neded it Hir for to tempte, and alwey moore and moore, Thogh som men preyse it for a subtill wit? But as for me, I seye that yvele it sit T'assaye a wyf whan that it is no nede, And putten hire in angwysshe and in drede. (45?-62) 

Chaucer's version subtly calls Grisildis's ovine quality into question. The lamb of God is Christ, of course, and Grisildis' meekness when her daughter is taken away resembles his suffering: "Grisildis moot al suffre and al consente, I And as a lambe she sitteth meke and stille" But "moot" she? Within English popular culture, sheep and lambs do sometimes stand for the positive values of resignation and endurance-for example, in emblems on patience. But there is no doubt that sheep generally connote passivity, cowardice, and stupidity. In terms of sheer frequency, the negative secular connotation overwhelms the positive religious one.

 A related complicating effect is the criticism leveled at "the unsad" (that is, fickle and sheeplike) people of the realm, who at first deplore Walter's acts but change their minds when they see the pretty new queen (actually his daughter), leading "sadde folk" to exclaim: "0 stormy people! unsad and evere untrewe!" As the Clerk finishes his tale, he shows that he is fully aware that not all his listeners will appreciate Griselda's virtues. With teasing wit he acknowledges the Wife of Bath, who has been called the tale's motivating force and dialogic counterpart. Just before the comic envoy he promises "for the Wyves love of Bathe" to gladden her "and al hire secte" with a song urging them to ignore Grisildis and revel in shrewdam (rr69-74). 

By shifting the Clerk's role from that of the preacher of a pious exemplum to a merry jester-singer, Chaucer undercuts his clerkly authority and blurs the moral legibility of his tale, already obscured by Griselda's lack of moral agency and her husband's viciousness. Nonetheless, Griselda quickly proved alluring to husbands, and she retained that allure despite proving highly problematic as a pattern for wives. Like the new husband in the jest about the pottage, men who wanted very much to promote Griselda as a model found her too hot to handle. 

In the training manual he prepared for his young wife in the 1390s, the Menagier de Paris offers a confused and troubled account of why he wants her to learn about Griselda. He rushes to assure his wife that he'll never torment her "beyond reason" as the "foolish, arrogant" Walter does Griselda, nor does he expect such obedience: I have set down this story here only in order to instruct you, not to apply it directly to you, and not because I wish such obedience from you. I am in no way worthy of it. I am not a marquis, nor have I taken in you a shepherdess as my wife. Nor am I so foolish, arrogant, or immature in judgment as not to know that I may not properly assault or assay you thus, nor in any such fashion. 

God keep me from testing you in this way or any other, under color of lies or dissimulations …I apologize if this story deals with too great cruelty-cruelty, in my view, beyond reason. Do not credit it as having really happened; but the story has it so, and I ought not to change it nor invent another, since someone wiser than I composed it and set it down. Because other people have seen it, I want you to see it too, so that you may be able to talk about everything just as they do.

What he really wants, it seems, is for his wife to be au courant. Griselda had "much currency off the page as a talking point in the late fourteenth century" and was "a subject about which wives might be expected to have an opinion." Codified as a way to get women talking (instead of shutting them up), the narrative about testing is itself a means of testing a woman's opinions and conduct. Is Griselda sick or stoic? Enslaved or free? Is hers a saint's tale, with Walter an abstract tool in the central mystery of her endurance, or is it as much a story about Walter and his court? Is he a cruel tyrant or a stern but loving husband with every right to test his wife? Is Walter God and Griselda a female Christ or Abraham or Job? All these positions have been argued during the six centuries of the debate.

Some recent readers still find Griselda admirable and even question whether she should be regarded as a passive victim. Harriet Hawkins has argued that Chaucer's tale should be read as a criticism of unquestioning obedience to authority, even divine authority, while Lars Engle hears "an implicit voice of sane moral protest" in Grisildis's mild objections to her husband. Such strained attempts at recuperation show that Griselda disturbs more than she edifies, raising but failing to answer questions about the limits of obedience in the face of tyranny and the conflict between Christian duty and wifely subjection.”

- Pamela Allen Brown, “Griselda the Fool.” in Better a Shrew than a Sheep: Women, Drama, and the Culture of Jest in Early Modern England

[ohbyunhunn]

Same as my Hiruzen post, just wanna keep this analysis using the feminist (I hope I did it right and my Literature teachers won’t roll their eyes at me lol) (but it’s just for Twitter so wtvr) approach on my Tumblr too. Was posted on July 11 2020:

Ok this has been in my (Twitter) drafts for so long but I wanted to wait till I finish all 500 episodes to post this lol. I love Naruto but God, the writing for its female characters is shit. This is written based only on Naruto and Naruto Shippūden (manga and anime). I think it got better in Boruto but I’ve yet to see it. Anyway

Women are not given the burden of carrying important roles that represent relationships built throughout the series, as if, they are not capable of creating bonds strong enough to drive a character even though it is what Naruto is all about; the importance of bonds between humans. 

Examples of relationships; 

Friends: Naruto-Sasuke, Kakashi-Obito 

Kouhai-senpai: Itachi-Shisui 

Siblings: Itachi-Sasuke 

Student-teacher: Naruto-Jiraiya, Naruto-Iruka, Asuma-Shikamaru 

Patriotism: Itachi-Konoha, Shisui-Konoha 

Lovers to enemies: Hashirama-Madara ( :p )

These relationships as we all know are the basis of the series’ plots and developments. I mean, if not for Naruto’s feelings towards Sasuke, the anime won’t exist... and if not for Sasuke’s feelings towards Itachi, he wouldn’t have abandoned Naruto... and if not for Itachi’s patriotism towards his village, he wouldn’t have killed off the Uchiha clan, which is the reason why Sasuke hated him in the first place. These three related, complementing events are I think crucial instances of what the Naruto universe is built upon. They also are the reason other relationships were able to be expanded (i.e. Itachi-Shisui share the same loyalty and love for Konoha, Naruto became Jiraiya’s apprentice to be able to compete with Sasuke). 

And as u can see, no female characters are involved at all. Only time female characters are seen creating bonds and/or have a role to move the plot is when they are driven by romance (e.g. Hinata-Naruto, Tsunade-Dan, Karin-Sasuke). This paints the idea that women are only concerned of men and romance in the anime?? Even a simple friendship between female characters was almost impossible to be portrayed healthily (i.e. Sakura-Ino are supposedly good friends but they always put down each other). 

The anime itself has agreed that the sole reason a female is present amongst male characters is because they are able to be motivated when a woman is around to be impressed, which will lead them to wanting to improve themselves and become better shinobi. 

When Kakashi asked Hiruzen why were Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura put together in a team, the answer he got was because Sasuke needs someone with the experience of using Sharingan to be there for him when his is activated and in order to be able to control the Kyuubi inside Naruto in case it goes berserk again, Sharingan is needed, which is a sound reason why the two of them are put together. 

And Sakura??? Hiruzen said (omg it still pisses me off), she’s only in Team 7 because that would drive the boys to become stronger because they would want to impress Sakura. Like?? She only exists to be a fucking trophy that could be won is it?? That’s it?? I think this was why at first I was against Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship. IT DIDN’T SEEM TRUE. Yea yea I know there are scenes that have suggested their feelings are mutual but lol let’s be real. Boruto saved it. If not for how they’re presented in Boruto,,, lol. 

Anyway, Kakashi was seen to be on the same page with Hiruzen because he was reminded of how Obito worked hard to catch up to him so that he could impress Rin. The same thing happened to Hiruzen’s team; Jiraiya wanted to beat Orochimaru just to catch Tsunade’s attention. I understand that it is natural for boys (and girls) to improve themselves in order to attract the person they like but to give female characters no role other than to be a trophy?? That’s just dumb and objectifying. 

Sakura got a shit ton of hate ever since Naruto (her character only improved A BIT in Shippūden), and honestly, Idt it’s her fault. Her character writing was so shit that all she ever did was scream Sasuke’s name and when Sasuke is knocked out, she’d call for Naruto. She has a great potential to become a kunoichi of the same level as her teammates but the anime never tried to put the spotlight on her. A lot of times we saw other characters say “wow Sakura has potential” but we never see that being polished on screen. 

If only she was given the chance to take an active role in battles, maybe the anime would’ve appeared better in regards to its treatment towards female characters. The only battle that I remember of with Sakura taking an active part in it??? Her fight with Sasori. Not saying that her role during the war is insignificant but even with that in mind, when Sasuke is present, she could only think of him?? 

And SHE COULD’VE STOPPED MUGEN TSUKUYOMI BY DESTROYING OBITO’s RINNEGAN BUT BECAUSE SHE HESITATED, MADARA MANAGED TO STEAL IT!! 

[ This video has all the Sakura scenes that pissed me off. ]

Why did she hesitate?? She’s a medic nin fgs?? This is what I meant by her writing is shit. The Sakura that I know wouldn’t think twice to do what she needed to. AND to think that just a few moments before, SHE SAVED NARUTO’S LIFE?? BY PUMPING HIS HEART USING HER HAND??? And he survived!! With her aid!! The fact that she managed to pull that off but not destroying Obito’s Rinnegan is just pure bullshit. 

But I’m sort of glad they had the filler episodes where they showed Sakura’s (and Ino’s) growth, how they went thru their training and stuff. It’s not much but thanks for the fillers I guess?? The manga can go suck some balls. 

Another mention of a female character being disregarded as an important ninja would be Konan. Throughout the Naruto vs Akatsuki arc, Konan’s skills and determination have been displayed countless of times. And I’m glad she was given the chance to prove her ability but what rubbed me off the wrong way was Jiraiya’s opinion on her. Every time he spoke of the three orphans he took in, he always mentioned Nagato’s strength and Yahiko’s desire to bring peace in a positive manner. But when it comes to Konan, his only adjective for her was “pretty”. 

Konan is more than just a feminine presence with beauty as her only personality?? She’s a strong-willed person who is able to stand alongside her comrades in fighting for what they believe in. She was willing to sacrifice herself in order to defeat Obito/Madara in a heartbeat!! Jiraiya could’ve said better things about her. 

From this, we can say how biased a male character’s view is on other females?? As if, only men would fight against injustices of the shinobi world but women?? uwu she pretty yes she will grow up to be a beautifoOl woman. 

Kishimoto couldn’t write women very well and he admitted this himself but God, I wish he would’ve tried harder. Not able to write women well is such a shitty excuse for a writer... especially when we know his female characters are capable just as much as their male counterparts. 

Also I try to take this positively but you know how during Naruto’s time, the only medic nins are his female characters? (i.e. Sakura, Ino, Tsunade) I think he meant to portray women as healers and that’s a pure intention but lol it also sort of sends the message that to him, no matter how smart and talented a woman is, they shall not be given the duty to fight!! They should just wait and be ready to receive injured comrades while the boys go fight evil and bring peace!! I wanna give credit to him for making women healers but lol does he deserve it?? 

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[script-a-world]

(sorry this is long) I'm creating a fantasy matriarchal society that's a combination of like America post WW2 and like the amazons/valkyries crossed with magical girls. I could use some help figuring out the gender dynamics, since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them. I'm trying to figure out if it's better to have the men be primary caregivers (1/?)

since there’s no reason to assume that the gender that gives birth has to be the caregivers) or if I should go the “matriarchal society would value childrearing above other jobs” route. Some thoughts I had: Women are the main magic-users in society (magical girl/amazons blessed directly by the god who rules the city with power)and that perhaps all young women are expected to go through military service of some sort before becoming matrons, politicians and doctors. (2/?)

Maybe women are associated with Life and Death and “important duties” that revolve around them, including duties regarding both killing and saving lives. So healing, leading armies, fighting, hunting, childbirth (possibly care?) and politics are feminine jobs, while “lesser duties” that revolve more around menial labor are relegated to men (manual labor, maintenance, ‘uneducated’ jobs, support jobs like scribe and secretary, cooking, cleaning, perhaps some jobs like fashion design or art). (3/?)

Do you think this is a good balance? What are some other ways I could divide gender roles? The world situation is a magical land with about early 20th century level tech (trains and private schools and like phones/radios).Also, what is the best way to objectify men in this society? I was thinking of making it so men are seen as useless/only for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure and siring children to women. (4/?)

They don’t’ actually create children or take the ‘important jobs’ (the poor dears just don’t have the brains for it, they’re too simple and direct, men don’t have the emotional maturity to handle serious issues, they lack empathy, they only want sex anyway so it’s not like you need to worry about their emotional needs, etc). I’d love some suggestions on how a society like this might work or if there are other ways to divide the gender roles, (5/?)

as well as some ways men might experience objectification in society. How would fashion be different, and how would this society put pressure on men to look or act in certain ways (and women as well). Any suggestions? Thanks, and sorry for the long question(6/?)

Mod Miri Note: If you have a question that requires multiple asks, please use the google form! That way there’s no risk of parts of the question being lost.

Tex: “Do you think this is a good balance?” No, I do not. I disagree with the notion that a group of people ought to be objectified, neglected, abused, pigeon-holed, or otherwise mistreated under the guise of inversion as a way to tout a certain prescription of thought. I think this methodology perpetuates stereotypes, and with stereotypes come all the -isms that are used as excuses to treat people poorly just because they’re different from the originating group.

I’m going to be radical and say “none of the above”. There’s a few reasons for my answer, but aside from the brief overview in the previous paragraph, let me go through and try responding to all of your points in a more precise manner.

Let’s start with American culture post WWII - and I’m going to assume that, because of this choice, you’re working from an American perspective. This is important! But I’ll handle that detail in a bit.

Post-WWII culture is heavily influenced by WWII culture. For women, this meant enlistment in the military, as well as filling the gaps in the domestic labor force left by men being shipped off (History.com, The Atlantic). Their service in the military - quite often voluntary - was as critical and crucial as their domestic work (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2, Wikipedia 3). They usually received lower pay than men, true (though interestingly the women in the UK were often treated better; Striking Women), though governments of the time admitted that without women the war effort would have crumpled.

Rosie the Riveter is a popular piece of propaganda (where it was also considered patriotic for women to join the workforce and military service; National Women’s History Museum), but don’t let that dissuade you from thinking that women were not recognized for other types of work during the war. Many women in the US were recognized for their military service (USO), and other women’s histories endure today - Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Wikipedia), Vitka Kempner (Wikipedia), and Virginia Hall (Wikipedia). I’m going to toss in the official synopsis of Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in her own military to round things out (The Royal Family), complete with a picture of her in uniform (Wikipedia).

Many women after the war went back to strictly domestic duties, and I think that parallels their wartime efforts - both situations are of the “all hands on deck” type, but the play of gender roles here means that the duties of a functioning society are divvied up by different functional spheres - and make no mistake, men and women relied on each other equally as much to cover the gaps, despite the sexism inherent in modern Western society. The difference between war and non-war time cultures was that the latter wasn’t necessarily cultivated by patriotism that could unite the different “factions”. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History gives a thorough examination of this topic.

The following era - typified by the birth of the Baby Boomer generation - saw a marked increase in economic prosperity (Wikipedia). With that came increased social mobility for women (Citation 1), usually catalyzed by the actions of their fathers (Citation 2). This may typically be achieved by consistent, conscientious public policy formation (Citation 3). In short, many cultures - if they haven’t already - are realizing that it’s good for business to let women control how they participate in society and the flow of money.

In the US, this was precipitated by the boom of social development (American History; archived version). Aside from the Truman administration negotiating price fixing to prevent inflation, a significant factor was the passing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (AKA the G.I. Bill). This primarily benefited the Greatest Generation, though other pertinent legislation by the 79th Congress benefited the Silent Generation onwards: the Fair Deal, Revenue Act of 1948, Taft-Hartley Act, Employment Act of 1946, National School Lunch Act, and Hobbs Act.

It’s debatable how well this impacted long-term economic development, considering the almost immediate rise of McCarthyism in the US in 1947, which was heavily intertwined with the Truman Doctrine that precipitated the Cold War. The results of the war, at least economically, were… mixed (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2). I have no doubt that this impacted the social mobility of women in all affected countries - which is all of them, but I’m sure hairs could be split on this if you wish.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s tackle the Amazons.

The modern, popular interpretation (that is slow to be shaken by archaeological evidence) is mostly mythological (Wikipedia). While some ideas are thrown in the way of a Minoan Crete ancestry to the myth, there are more similarities drawn to the Scythian and Samartian cultures on the Eurasian Steppe (CNET). It’s possible that instead of the equally-extreme pole end of the gender dichotomy that is patriarchy-matriarchy, the Scythians just scandalized the Athenians with a comparatively more fluid society (Smithsonian Magazine).

As for Valkyries… there’s been a revival of them in pop culture, probably as a net-casting to see what’s out there aside from Amazons. TVTropes covers the many, many ways media utilizes them as a trope, to varying degrees of mythological and cultural accuracy. As they state, valkyries are a form of psychopomp, as they decide who among the battlefield’s dead will go to Valhalla (ruled by Odin) or Fólkvangr (ruled by Freya). Freya seems to have assumed the “type” (as opposed to characteristics salient to a particular individual) of a valkyrie, as the female counterpart the warrior archetype. To wit, Freya herself may be a type (Wikipedia).

Here’s where the issue gets thorny - modern popular understanding of valkyries, and by extension Scandinavian women, is skewed through the modern lens.

@fjorn-the-skald has a lovely series called Viking History: Post-by-Post, or An Informal Crash Course & A Historical Guide to the Vikings, that typically focuses on medieval Iceland. In his post “Lesson 13.c - Women in the Viking Age, Part III: Were Women “Vikings”?”, discusses the particular penchant of modern times to romanticize and/or skew history to their own biases - in this instance, how medieval Icelandic women functioned in their culture, as well as how valkyrie myths play into this.

The TL;DR of that is: “viking” women were a societal anomaly, the battlefield was a male domain (and they were expected to die on it), a woman’s prowess of the domestic sphere was highly respected to a level often equivalent to men, and the domestic sphere was the sphere of commerce. Scandinavian culture prized strong women, just as they prized strong men, and their culture rested upon the concept of different genders having their own distinct, complementary, and equal domains.

Fjörn builds upon this history in an ask about gender roles outside the usual dichotomy of male-female. Valkyries, and shield-maidens, may be classed as a third gender in medieval Scandinavian culture, because women were temporarily occupying the male role in their society. While valkyries are of divine origin, shield-maidens are not, though they seem to have taken on a supernatural bent by performing feminine qualities while living in the male sphere (something that they can literally wear, by the donning of their armor).

That probably comes across as distasteful to, especially, a modern American perspective, but many ancient cultures are like that. There’s a footnote on that ask about links to a contemporary perspective of same-sex relationships, as well, to round out that talking point.

With those historical and mythological details discussed, let’s move on to magical girls.

Interestingly, the genre and trope derive from the American TV show Bewitched (Nippon.com). Its evolution reflected Japan’s changing tone about female sexuality, focusing on girls.  Magical Girl doesn’t seem to be intended to attract the male gaze in a sexual light - and in fact was generated as a form of female empowerment by by way of growing up (TVTropes), but it seems to happen anyways (TVTropes).

Magical girls, as a genre, originated in the 1960s - the archetypical Sailor Moon encompasses not only magical girls, but also the kawaii aesthetic. Kawaii, incidentally, followed after the magical girl trope, and plays upon women performing as girls in society.

As magical girls are intended for young girls, a demographic known as shōjo, it is considered a subgenre of the target audience. Please note that shōnen'ai (Fanlore) and yaoi (Fanlore) are also subgenres of shōjo.

For some context, the adult female target audience is known as josei, the young adult men is known as shōnen, and adult male audience is known as seinen. Many manga and anime are often misattributed to the wrong category, so it helps to know which is which, and why.

Kumiko Saito argues (through an unfortunately paywalled article that I’m more than willing to disseminate to those without JSTOR access) that magical girls reinforce gender stereotypes as well as fetishize young female bodies. She argues this point more eloquently than I can, so I’ll be quoting a few sections below.

Page 148 (7 of 23 on the PDF):

The 1960s “witch” housewife theme waned quickly in the United States, but various cultural symbolisms of magic smoothly translated into the Japanese climate, leading to Japans four-decade-long obsession with the magical girl. Bewitched incorporated the concept of magic as female power to be renounced after marriage, thereby providing “a discursive site in which feminism (as female power) and femininity has been negotiated” (Moseley 2002, 403) in the dawning of Americas feminist era. Japans magical girls represented a similar impasse of fitting into female domesticity, continued to fascinate Japanese society, and came to define the magical girl genre. In direct contrast to the American heroines Samantha and Jeannie, however, whose strife arose from the antagonism between magic (as power) and the traditional gender role as wife or fiancée, the magical girls dilemma usually lies between female adulthood and the juvenile female stage prior to marriage, called shõjo. In other words, the magical girl narratives often revolve around the magical freedom of adolescence prior to the gendered stage of marriage and motherhood, suggesting the difficulty of imagining elements of power and defiance beyond the point of marriage. In fact, these programs were broadcast exactly when the rate of love-based marriage started to surpass that of miai (arranged marriage),4 which implies that the magical girl anime, founded on the strict ideological division between shõjo and wife/mother, may have been an anxious reaction to the emergent phase of romance.

Page 150 (9 of 23 on the PDF):

The combination of magical empowerment and shõjo-ness framed by the doomed nature of transient girlhood naturally created ambivalent, messages in Akko-chan as well. In the societal milieu in which Japan was undergoing the politically turbulent era of Marxist student movements at the largest scale in the postwar era, Akko-chan’s super- human ability to transform into anyone (or anything) is quite revolutionary, implying a sense of women’s liberation. Despite this potential, her metamorphic ability never threatens gender models, as she typically dreams of becoming a princess, a bride, or a female teacher she respects. The use of magic is also largely limited to humanitarian community services in town. Akko-chan’s symbolic task throughout the series focuses on how to steer her power to serve her friends and family, leading to the final episode in which she relinquishes magic to save her father. Akko-chan embraces the cross-generic mismatch between the radical idea of empowering a girl with superhuman ability and the hahamono [mother genre] sentimentalism idealizing women’s self-sacrifice. All in all, the new setting adopted in this series, that a mediocre girl accidentally gains magic, became a useful mechanism for the underlying theme that the heroine is foredoomed to say farewell to magic in the end. This rhetorical device transforms latent power of the amorphous girl into the reappreciation of traditional gender norms by equating magic with shõjo-hood to be given up at a certain stage.

Saito discusses the thematic shifts in the magical girl subgenre in the 1980s to a more sexualized view, and the according rise of both an older audience and otaku fans, the latter of whom, she clarifies, make a habit of recontextualizing canon to categorize characters into stereotypes that are stripped of the majority of their original context.

On pages 153-154 (12-13 of 23 on the PDF):

The conventions of the magical girl genre transformed significantly against this paradigm shift. Both Minky Momo and Creamy Mami originally targeted children, recording a decent outcome in business and eventually leading to the revival of the genre. Because the plots are directly built on the genre clichés, however, the jokes and sarcasm of many episodes appear comprehensible only to adult viewers equipped with the knowledge of the Töei magical girls. The intrigue of these programs largely lies in the way they parody and mock the established genre conventions, especially the restrictive function of magic and the meaning of transformation. The genre is now founded on the expectation that the adult viewer has acquired a diachronic fan perspective to fetishize both the characters and the text’s meanings.

Creamy Mami presents the story of fourth-grader Yū, who gains magical power that enables her to turn into a sixteen-year-old girl. Yū’s magical power is more restrictive than Momo’s, for her superhuman capacity simply means metamorphosis into her adult form, who happens to become an idol singer called Mami. Given that the magic’s ability is self-oriented cosmetic effect and bodily maturation, the heroine’s ultimate goal by means of magic is to grow old enough to attract her male friend Toshio, who neglects Yū’s latent charm but falls in love with the idol Mami. The series concludes when Yū loses her magic, which correlates to Toshio’s realization that Yū is his real love. Mami’s thematic messages teach the idea that magic does not bring much advantage or power after all, or rather, magic serves as an obstacle for the appreciation of the truly magical period called shõjo. The heroine gains magic to prove, although retroactively, the importance of adolescence preceding the possession of “magic” that enables (and forces) female maturation.

It’s noted in the article that the 1990s-2000s period received criticism for showing a physical maturation of girls, so codified euphemisms via garment changes such as additional frills and curled hair were used instead. This “third-wave” magical girl challenged standing norms of its predecessors by doing things such as likening adult responsibilities (“childrearing and job training”) as a sort of game, as well as the transformation implying that the character’s power is in being herself, something that juxtaposes previous norms.

Due to shifting power dynamics and other changes in Japan’s culture, it became more common for boys to become magical girls as well, further separating the magical girl concept from a strict reflection of gender roles. As such, Japanese culture - insofar as my English-based research can guide me - no longer immediately implies a direct and distinct correlation between magical girls and the female gender.

An analysis of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM) by Tate James (2017; PDF) discusses an additional dimension of the magical girl genre. Two pertinent points of the piece is that 1.) PMMM dismantles archetypes pitting women against girls, and 2.) PMMM reinforces the gender stereotype that the best type of girl is a passive girl.

Now for the issue you’ve raised about who ought to be the primary caregiver of children.

Consistent, immediate, and continuous interaction between a mother and her child benefits both of them (Citation 4, Scientific American 1, Live Science, Citation 5, Scientific American 2, UNICEF, WHO). Mothers have a distinct neurobiological makeup that predisposes them toward caring for infants (Citation 6), and likewise infants have a predisposed preference to their mother’s voice and heartbeat (Citation 7). I would like to think that is sufficient evidence as to why nearly all cultures encourage mothers as the primary caregivers.

This said, cultivation of a father-child dyad is immensely beneficial to the child (Citation 8, Citation 9), and can alleviate the effect of maternal depression on the child (ScienceDaily). Partnered men residing with children have lower levels of testosterone but a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and adiposity (Citation 10). It’s interesting to note that higher prolactin levels in the mother’s breastmilk has a correspondingly higher level of sociosexual activity with their partner in cotton-top tamarins, which stimulates pair bonding (Citation 11), as well as in other species (Citation 12).

Paternal postpartum depression is recently recognized in fathers, to severe and reverberating deleterious effects on themselves and their family (Citation 13). Screening tools for detecting depression in Swedish fathers is not sufficiently developed, and many men may be passed over despite reaching cut-off suggestions in other criteria for depression (Citation 14).

It has been observed that while human mother and fathers have the similar oxytocin pathways, the exhibit different parenting behaviours when exposed to elevated levels of oxytocin - primarily that fathers will react with high stimulatory behaviour and exploratory play (Wikipedia).

Men being socialized in a culture of stoicism and an encouraged reaction pattern to violence have poor mental health that can culminate into death and other long-term effects (Citation 15). Suicide in the US is currently the leading cause of death at time of posting this response, that the total suicide rate increased 31% from 2001-2017, and in 2017 male rates were nearly four times higher than females (NIMH).

On the topic of magical culture: it’s incredibly difficult to research because it’s a component of overall culture, and one that’s not typically available to strangers/foreigners/the uninitiated. As such, a lot of authors default to what they already know. It’s not a bad thing, but if someone wants to reach outside their comfort zone, they’re going to have some trouble.

I’m going to go off the three, four-ish, cultures you’ve already come to us with: American, Scandinavian, Scythian/Samartian, and Japanese just to round things out.

For a very, very rough overview of America, we have:

Native Americans of the contiguous US

Hawai’i

Alaska

Whatever the colonizing peoples brought over (including, but not limited to, English, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, German, and Italian)

Whatever the myriad cultures of Africa brought over as slaves

Hispanic

NB: I’ve put Hawai’i and Alaska as separate items because they’re not part of the contiguous US.

European settlers were of a few groups:

The merchants working on charters

Indentured servants from the merchants’ homelands

Slavs

Immigrants in post-colonial eras

This is an important distinction because 1.) contemporary culture matters a lot politically, 2.) how people came to the US determined how they and their family were treated, and 3.) the contemporary job culture determined their social class.

(Slavs, as a note, are the origin of the English word “slave”, something that Western Europeans historically liked to propagate.)

I’m not going to go into the details of everything the US has to offer in terms of cultural diversity aside from a nudge in the direction of Santería. What you pick up to research is up to you.

Scandinavian folk magic is known as “trolldom” (Swedish-language Wikipedia), and the region was known for their cunningfolk. Please note that klok/-a, klog/-e, and related words relates to the English word cloak, and these people are so named because wearing one was an integral part of how they interacted with the supernatural.

The InternetArchive has a book (albeit in Swedish) about the history of magic in Sweden, which is available in multiple formats. If you’d prefer to have something in English, you can either buy this book, or inform your library you’d like to them to buy it for you.

I’m a little surprised you hadn’t mentioned either the völva (Swedish Wikipedia, English Wikipedia) or seiðr (Wikipedia), as they’re quite a well-known part of Scandinavian folk culture. Fjörn, as always, is my first stop for this area of research, with the post “Lesson 7 - Viking Spirituality”, the Víkingabók Database, the tag of Old Norse words, and the post “Norðurbók: A List of the Tales and Sagas of Icelanders” as incredibly good starting points. I encourage you to peruse them, especially because the words you learn will help you be more precise during research.

The Scythian culture is quite far reaching, as they had occupied most of the Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, and much of this area can be found in modern-day countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, among others. Because of how far their peoples spread out, the Scythians intermixed with their neighbors, and as such there are sub-groups to the culture.

The Sarmatians were more Russian, as that’s where a large amount of their territory laid, and were absorbed into early Slavic culture. Both their and the overall Scythian language group is eastern Iranian.

In order to help you orient yourself, here’s a map from Wikipedia:

Description: Historical spread of Iranian peoples/languages: Scythia, Sarmatia, Bactria and the Parthian Empire in about 170 BC (evidently before the Yuezhi invaded Bactria). Modern political boundaries are shown to facilitate orientation.

Japanese magical culture is intrinsically tied to their religion, and as such it would be beneficial to read about Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism. The wiki for Japanese mythology is a thorough primer, though if you get stuck, then I’m sure @scriptmyth would be glad to help you on not only this culture, but others.

As for the jobs you’ve proposed - I’m going to jump right into scribes because the irony of that is it’s historically a male-dominated job, and is the progenitor of jobs such as “public servants, journalists, accountants, bookkeepers, typists, and lawyers”. It is, with even greater irony, European women that are noted in Wikipedia, and that medieval women are increasingly thought to have played an integral part in manuscript writing (New Scientist, Science Advances).

I’m not the best person to ask for medieval culture, unfortunately, so you’ll need someone more knowledgeable than me on the subject to direct you to the finer points.

The wiki for women in war links to a lot of lists, so I would suggest poking around for historical references by era (that will likely lead to by culture) to orient yourself on how women have participated in war in the past. There’s quite a bit of mythology to be found there, as well, so if you pick up some specific goddesses you get stuck on, then pop over to @scriptmyth.

Likewise, the wiki for women in government is an interesting read, as is women in positions of power. Since both are primarily modern-times oriented, I would suggest looking at the list of queens regnant for a more historical perspective. I would have difficulty giving you more than that, as you would need to pinpoint your reference cultures first.

As history often neglects women’s contributions to society if they weren’t a ruler or similarly powerful ruler - and, frankly, that frequently applied to men as well the further back you go - I’m going to toss a couple of starting points at you for the area of medicine:

Women in medicine § Ancient medicine - Wikipedia

Women in medicine - Science Museum: History of Medicine

One thing to keep in mind is that as goalposts changed for medicine - the standardization of knowledge and the need to attend a medical school to be legally allowed to perform medicine - the availability of women to participate went down.

Another is that medicine, historically, relied upon herbal medicine, and Wikipedia itself notes that there’s a heavy overlap with food history - something that’s traditionally a domain of women. This abstract by Marcia Ramos‐e‐Silva MD, PhD, talks about Saint Hildegard von Bingen, and the first page available tells you that medieval women were in charge of quite a lot despite not being allowed to participate in the male-dominated sphere of war. The Herbal Academy dips briefly into not only the saint, but other historical aspects of herbalism that might interest you.

The wiki of women in the Middle Ages, along with that of Hildegard of Bingen, nicely rounds out this particular topic.

I need to bring out the fact that Ancient Egypt was and is well-known for the equality and respect afforded to their women - in the interest of staying on subject, particularly in the field of medicine (Ancient History Encyclopedia). Isis was well-known as a goddess of healing (Wikipedia), an aspect she has in common with goddesses in many other cultures (Wikipedia). As an added side-note, Merit Ptah in her popularly-known context has been concluded to be an inflated misunderstanding - and misconstrued interpretation - of a historical figure with significant fabrication (LiveScience, Oxford).

The presence of women in medicine fluctuated in every culture, an in ancient times often shared some correlation with the use of magic (Citation 16). Healing, historically, has a high correlation with the supernatural - and if you care to look, women are usually responsible for the domain of the supernatural. (Or at least the feminine part, which was complementary and complemented by the masculine part.)

I’m going to hop back to politics real quick to bring up abbesses, particularly the social power they exercised as women heading religious orders. An article by Alixe Bovey for the British Library gives the TL;DR of medieval women and abbeys, though if you’d like something with a bit more detail, Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Edna Power is also available.

Abbeys, with their rise and fall, are important to modern American culture. Midwives, to be even more particular, have the most direct impact. In Western Europe, a midwife may under certain circumstances perform baptisms. This was a debated topic of its time, as baptisms were rituals of the Church, and the Church had strict regulations allowing only men to perform their rituals.

During the 1500s - and up to the 1800s, in some cases - midwives were defamed to be witches. You’ll notice that this corresponds to a standardization of medical knowledge, with its corresponding legal restrictions on who may practice medicine. For the Church, the politics playing behind the scenes of midwifery and female physicians fluctuated with their observations about women’s power relative to their own (Citation 16).

Malta is an excellent case study of this phenomenon (Citation 17), and encapsulates the movement of witchcraft accusations that took place throughout this period - something historians noted as corresponding to the rise of Protestantism (ThoughtCo). There’s some debate that the increasing orientation to wages in contemporary economy facilitated this adverse behaviour against women, as well as various other social pressures as politically mitigated by the Catholic Church (Wikipedia).

As the practice of medicine was segregated according to sex - male patients to male physicians, female patients to female physicians - there were proportionally fewer men in trades such as midwifery than women despite the medieval shift toward male encroachment of territory (Wikipedia). This corresponding money- and thus male-oriented intrusion into the female sphere of medicine can be seen with the invention of the obstetric forceps (JSTOR). The rising culture of appropriation constituted the witchcraft trials that, incidentally, influenced American culture during their colonization years.

A pertinent name to remember for American history of the witchcraft trials is Margaret Jones, a Puritan midwife and the first person to be accused of witchcraft in the trails taking place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Wikipedia).

The Salem Witch Trials, as an offhand note, could well be an anomaly due to ergotism (Citation 18).

One thing I’m willing to bend on - a little bit - is manual labor, but mostly because you’re describing something very similar to what’s already been invented: corvée labor. There’s plenty of other forms depending on what culture you’re going for, though unlike what you’re proposing, does not necessarily imply the direct and permanent subjugation of people.

I will absolutely quibble with the idea of “uneducated” labor equating to “less valuable” labor - universities offer non-vocational degrees, typically in the areas of research and/or religion, and guilds were created as a means of quality control (that unfortunately got out of hand and committed crimes such as rent-seeking). Women in guilds were a thing, vulnerable to the same fluctuations as their other occupations outside the house.

If we are defining “uneducated” labour as “menial” labour, then this set of occupations inherently varies by culture, as does its relative weight of importance. One example of this would be writing; it may be menial but important, whereas holding negotiations could be a “major” role but wouldn’t exist without the support of workers “less than” them.

Correspondingly, gender divisions may not necessarily mean an assignation of “lesser” or “greater” when compared against each other. In medieval Europe, at least, the creation of textiles was split along the general lines of spinning and weaving. Women held the former (hence “spinster”), and men held the latter. Spinning was often not formalized into guilds then, but it was an important cornerstone of the economy that could support entire families. A guest post on The Freelance History Writer’s blog seems to indicate that this gender division was due to influence by the Bible, which seems to corroborate with the history of both professions as detailed on Wikipedia - the further back we go, and also the less connected to Christianity, the more textile work women presided over. This granted them greater control over their presence in society, since the selling of textiles was useful leverage to support themselves and others.

A similar discrepancy can be found with agriculture. Hamer women in Ethiopia are traditionally the one to cultivate sorghum, a cornerstone crop to their diet, and they exhibit preferences in which varieties they grow according to criteria such as which is easiest to grind and long-term storage feasibility (Citation 19). Accordingly, there’s been an increasing orientation around the growing of crops rather than the pastoralist habits of their men, with trading standards occuring at one goat for one Dore (“pile of maize or sorghum”) (Citation 19).

A study examining the male sphere of hunting within a society discusses the various cultural implications of defendable vs non-defendable meat sharing, with respect to how the meat is distributed and its corresponding social range (e.g. immediate social circle vs entire community), something I find interesting given that the kilocalories obtained from meat is roughly equal to that of the female sphere-acquired agriculture/gathering (Citation 20). The division of labour along gender lines when it comes to food flow in a community seems, historically, to be both comparable and compatible to each other - a recurring theme with many of the topics I’ve already covered.

Gender roles in their historical perspective - especially the further back you go - are often complimentary to each other, and are an economical way to divide up the burden of maintaining a society to a functional level. There are plenty of exceptions to this (see: third genders), as well, and many cultures exhibit the idea that a productive person is good for society; their roles may look a little different from the person next to them, and not only is the work considered equal in terms of importance, but also with a bit of poking around, you’ll find that few cultures have harsh punishments for anyone “stepping outside” their predicted roles.

Men are already objectified plenty. That their treatment by society looks different than women’s, or other genders, is by no means an excuse to sweep things under the room and pretend that they have it best - or worse, purposefully ostracize them in a fictional work to further mock, ridicule, and isolate them. This contributes to the societal issues in your culture that you wish to address, and stems from a uniquely pervasive perspective from modern American culture that differs from many other cultures in the world.

TL;DR - The way you wish to objectify men is already being done, especially in American culture. It is harmful, and will have an impact that will reach further than you might anticipate. This approach is counterproductive to your goals, and the cultures/media you cite either directly contradict your beliefs of said sources or otherwise undermine your beliefs. It is vastly more productive to take a deeper look at the origins of the issues you wish to address in your writing, as well as the reference material that you wish to use. Learning perspectives outside your native culture will benefit you immensely, and the results could surprise you.

Citations

Citation 1 -  PDF - Doepke, M., Tertilt, M., Voena, A.. (2012). “The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights,” Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-372, 07.

Citation 2 - PDF - Fernández, R.. (2014). “Women’s rights and development,” Journal of Economic Growth, vol 19(1), pages 37-80.

Citation 3 - PDF -  Duflo, E. (2012). “Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4: 1051-79.

Citation 4 - PDF - Crenshaw J. T. (2014). “Healthy Birth Practice #6: Keep Mother and Baby Together- It’s Best for Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding.” The Journal of perinatal education, 23(4), 211–217. doi:10.1891/1058-1243.23.4.211

Citation 5 - Faisal-Cury, A., Bertazzi Levy, R., Kontos, A., Tabb, K., & Matijasevich, A. (2019). “Postpartum bonding at the beginning of the second year of child’s life: the role of postpartum depression and early bonding impairment.” Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 1-7.

Citation 6 - PDF - Bornstein, M. H., Putnick, D. L., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., Swain, J. E., Suwalsky, J. T., … & De Pisapia, N. (2017). “Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(45), E9465-E9473.

Citation 7 - PDF - Webb, A. R., Heller, H. T., Benson, C. B., & Lahav, A. (2015). “Mother’s voice and heartbeat sounds elicit auditory plasticity in the human brain before full gestation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(10), 3152-3157.

Citation 8 - PDF - Pan, Y., Zhang, D., Liu, Y., Ran, G., & Teng, Z. (2016). “Different effects of paternal and maternal attachment on psychological health among Chinese secondary school students.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25(10), 2998-3008.

Citation 9 - PDF - Brown, G. L., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Neff, C. (2012). “Father involvement, paternal sensitivity, and father-child attachment security in the first 3 years.” Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 26(3), 421–430. doi:10.1037/a0027836

Citation 10 - PDF - Lee T Gettler, Mallika S Sarma, Rieti G Gengo, Rahul C Oka, James J McKenna, Adiposity, CVD risk factors and testosterone: Variation by partnering status and residence with children in US men, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 2017, Issue 1, January 2017, Pages 67–80, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eox005

Citation 11 - PDF - Snowdon, C. T., & Ziegler, T. E. (2015). “Variation in prolactin is related to variation in sexual behavior and contact affiliation.” PloS one, 10(3), e0120650.

Citation 12 - Hashemian, F., Shafigh, F., & Roohi, E. (2016). “Regulatory role of prolactin in paternal behavior in male parents: A narrative review.” Journal of postgraduate medicine, 62(3), 182–187. doi:10.4103/0022-3859.186389

Citation 13 - PDF - Eddy, B., Poll, V., Whiting, J., & Clevesy, M. (2019). “Forgotten Fathers: Postpartum Depression in Men.” Journal of Family Issues, 40(8), 1001-1017.

Citation 14 - PDF - Psouni, E., Agebjörn, J., & Linder, H. (2017). “Symptoms of depression in Swedish fathers in the postnatal period and development of a screening tool.” Scandinavian journal of psychology, 58(6), 485-496.

Citation 15 - Pappas, S. (2018, January). “APA issues first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys.” Monitor on Psychology, 50(1).

Citation 16 - PDF - Kontoyannis, M., & Katsetos, C. (2011). “Midwives in early modern Europe (1400-1800).” Health Science Journal, 5(1), 31.

Citation 17 - PDF - Savona-Ventura, C. (1995). “The influence of the Roman Catholic Church on midwifery practice in Malta.” Medical history, 39(1), 18-34.

Citation 18 - PDF - Woolf, Alan. (2000). “Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials. Journal of toxicology.” Clinical toxicology. 38. 457-60. 10.1081/CLT-100100958.

Citation 19 - PDF - Samuel, T. (2013). “From cattle herding to sedentary agriculture: the role of hamer women in the transition.” African Study Monographs, Suppl. 46: 121–133. [Alternate PDF link]

Citation 20 - PDF - Gurven, Michael & Hill, Kim. (2009). “Why Do Men Hunt?.” Current Anthropology. 50. 51-74. 10.1086/595620.

Further Reading

Harry S Truman § Domestic Affairs - Wikipedia

Marshall Plan - Wikipedia

Interstate Highway System - Wikipedia

Medieval Icelandic Law (The Grágás) – Women’s Rights: On Reclaiming Property during Separation. By @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s Library

“Notes on Valkyries and the like?” by @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s chronological tag on women

Epigenetic correlates of neonatal contact in humans - Development and Psychopathology

Feral: So, obviously, everything Tex just said- round of effing applause!

I do want to hone in on one specific part of your ask, “since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them” and direct you to this blog post on Mythcreants specifically addressing the Persecution Flip Story and why it’s not a great idea from a social justice perspective.

Happy reading!

[davidmann95]

All-Star Superman #3

This is gonna be a tough one.

Not the toughest, mind you - that’s probably going to be #7. But after two issues of establishing the tone, aesthetics, and thematic concerns of the series, this is one of the pair of issues in All-Star that for the most part functions as a ‘normal’ Superman adventure story, though in this case one following up on the themes established by the previous issue, while #7 will set up the one coming after it. It’s also likely the most commonly critiqued issue of the series in retrospect its use of Lois Lane as an essentially passive figure to be fought over, and while her characterization here lends some interesting dimension to that choice, it’s hard to disagree it’s the series’ most unfortunate framing and substantial missed opportunity. None of that however can overrule that on examination, there’s still considerably more going on in here than the traditional tale of Superman beating down monsters and showing up bullies, the harsh slap to the face of reality for Clark after his actions last issue and his redemption in the form of showing what makes him different from his predecessors as the strongman-savior template.

So I haven’t talked the lettering much in this series - it is, they say, the invisible art - but Phil Balsman absolutely kills it here with KRULL WILL EAT YOU!, and the decision on the next page to render the ZEE ZEE ZEE ZEE of Jimmy Olsen’s signal watch in the font of the title pages is absolutely inspired, nevermind what he does with the Ultrasphinx later on. The bombast of the bastard lizard prince of the underworld and his cronies wreaking havoc aside though, what this page succinctly does is set up the entire conflict of the issue. It’s not just a monster, it’s a monster out of the past mimicking the cover of Action Comics #1, and apparently by way of terraforming Metropolis via steam clouds, trying to take control of Superman’s ‘world’. From Krull to Steve Lombard (“You tell me what a spaceman flying around in his underwear can give her that a good old hunk of prime American manhood can’t?”) to Samson and Atlas to the Ultrasphinx, this is a story of Superman up against dinosaurs in his image.

Ironically, however, it’s this Superman vs. Bros comic that has perhaps the most Bro sensibilities in the series. Per Morrison on the subject, “For that particular story, I wanted to see Superman doing tough guy shit again, like he did in the early days and then again in the 70s, when he was written as a supremely cocky macho bastard for a while. I thought a little bit of that would be an antidote to the slightly soppy, Super–Christ portrayal that was starting to gain ground. Hence Samson’s broken arm, twisted in two directions beyond all repair. And Atlas in the hospital. And then Superman’s got his hot girlfriend dressed like a girl from Krypton and they’re making out on the moon.” That’s not unto itself a problem; it’s a precursor to Morrison’s t-shirt and jeans reinvention in that sense (which leapt back from the 70s to the 30s for inspiration), and when Superman himself finally gets his own back here it’s more than deserved. But it becomes a problem when Lois at theoretically her literal most empowered does little with her new powers and is framed narratively as a prize to be won in this ‘game’ of godlings, with Superman literally muttering “What do I have to do to make you keep your hands off my girl?” Morrison seems to be somewhat aware of the problems given Lois’s reasons for playing along (which are actually rather significant to the point of the issue) and her amused distaste at the suggestion of being ‘won’, and the issue is ultimately something of an argument against the macho storytelling tropes that drive that thinking. But it’s a far cry from the nuanced look at her and Superman’s relationship last issue offered, and there’s no virtue in overlooking it. As will be demonstrated again later on in the series in less structurally-embedded but more pointed ways, this was written almost 15 years ago, and mistakes were made.

Now we get to the book’s superheroed-up takes on Samson and Atlas, who are such delightful assholes. Occupying the Mxyzptlk/Prankster/Bizarro-in-his-friendlier-moods role of being the enemies to make Superman go ‘oh god, this guy’ as much as direct counterparts to him, they’re basically fratboys tooling around history and getting into trouble together, and Superman’s clearly had to clean up their messes before. They’re the champions of myth who operate by a morality that in no way precluded thievery, deception, and murder in pursuit of their grand ‘heroic’ conquests, the alpha male swaggering dipshit dudebro operating on Superman’s scale. And as much as they’re a pair of craven dumbasses who literally compare cock-sizes in here who Lois has no real interest in, their appearance is also the first and one of the only times in the series Superman puffs his chest out and does some traditional iconic posing, and he has good reason to be threatened - they’re trying to ply her with gifts and tales of miraculous feats basically exactly the same way he did last issue. He may have started to come clean with her, but he’s still playing his old Silver Age nervous bachelor games, and now that she’s got powers and costume to match his she’s showing him exactly where that bullshit is going to get him, teaching him a lesson just like he tried to teach her so many once upon a time.

As we’re around the midpoint of the issue, let’s talk the art. Quitely and Grant aren’t as showy with the tricks and effects as the first two issues; the one real noticeable structural thing is a consistent rhythm of zooming in-and-out on our four leads throughout the issue to keep a sense of momentum to a story mostly driven by conversation, culminating in the hyper zoom-ins of the Ultrasphnix sequence. But GOD there are so many perfect little details in here. The bow coming undone on Lois’s present, the glow of the super-serum (it feels so right that it literally glows, the ultimate alchemical potion), Lombard’s bouquet for Lois’s birthday party while Jimmy is bringing a conch of some sort as a presumed gift to whoever they’ll be meeting at Poseidonis, Jimmy’s happy-meal looking signal watch WHICH HAS A WRISTBAND SHAPED LIKE AN S, more beautiful Metropolis architecture and a good look at how the Daily Planet globe actually works, poor dopey-lookin’ Krull bursting through the satellite twirling around like a cat in a half-second of freefall, the Chronomobile, the far-off monumental stone towers of the Subterranosauri, the glow of the lava fading out as Samson reveals Superman’s fate, the bioelectric crackle around Atom-Hotep, mermaids waving up at Superman and Lois, and of course the pinup. It’s such a damn pretty book.

Just before the arrival of the Ultrasphnix, we have the mythic architecture of the series explained to us, naturally by the figure out of myth:

As noted by Morrison, the exact nature of the 12 challenges are never explained within the story because it’s only in retrospect that history will declare those specific feats as being of note in light of them being Superman’s last accomplishments before his ‘death’; Superman himself isn’t sure how many he’s done later on. It’s an apt if seemingly out-of-left-field bit of commentary on the way epics of the kind this story itself aspires towards are reinterpreted over time, but hindsight being 20/20? That this is a story of a massively iconic, archetypal take on Superman being brought out of the public eye to his physical and emotional lowest at every turn (hence the ACTUAL structure of the series being a solar arc across the sky, from day to a nighttime journey through the underworld and back again), that is now generally thought of being a fun fluffy story of how great and perfect Superman is, entirely bears it out. The 12 Labors of Superman are what Clark’s roughest year looks like to the awestruck onlookers, both in and as it turns out in large part out of text.

After Samson and Atlas seemingly show nobler colors by offering Superman aid in a genuinely stirring moment before Superman accurately dismisses it as the empty machismo posturing it is, Ultrasphinx - yet another super-champion of the past, this one an amoral god rather than a ‘hero’ on a quest - poses the unanswerable question of what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object with Lois both alive and dead until he does (one of those unions of opposites Morrison loves), basically creating a high-stakes literalization of their relationship. Superman and Lois Lane had been playing will-they-or-won’t-they for almost 70 years at the time this was published (culturally at least), her trying to pry into his secrets while he screwed around with her in turn, running in circles until we finally reach the acidic psychodrama of Superman’s Forbidden Room and something has to break one way or another. And Superman answers that it’s time to surrender. Has he inspired the car ad we see at the end of the issue, or vice-versa? Either way, it’s illustrating by example what the deal is with the super-labors.

Superman, learning his lesson as he has and showing his greater heroism stems from his nobility, intellect, and willingness to transcend his worst instincts, still takes a minute to teach Samson and Atlas a well-deserved lesson (paired with that absolutely perfect shot of the rock cracking on Lois’s head), before taking us to my absolute favorite statement on why Superman loves Lois Lane which also connects back to the idea of surrender, and the iconic moon shot. And as Superman holds her as she falls asleep, his Clark voice in all its vulnerable humanity manifests itself as he tries to propose; the tough guys of the past wanted Lois for a day when she was finally operating on ‘their level’, Superman ‘lowers’ himself to his most human alongside her reassumed mortality as he tries to tell her he wants her for what lifetime he has left. We’re only halfway there at most, he still hasn’t admitted his condition and she still can’t accept that he’s Clark, but this is Superman taking his first step along his quiet character arc.

Additional notes

* Interestingly, the original solicitation for this issue declared “Meanwhile, Lex Luthor's plans simmer as the criminal mastermind exerts his charisma and intellect over the hardcore inmates who share his maximum-security prison.” One of many bits that changed in the process of actually putting the book together.

* Perhaps this story of very manly men out of time doing manly stuff and getting their asses kicked for it across generations is represented in part by Krull being the son of a king whose battle cry is KRULL WILL EAT YOUR CHILL-DRUNN! That might be reading a *bit* much into it though. That Morrison describes Krull in backmatter however as “the living embodiment of the savage, swaggering ‘R Complex’ or reptile brain” definitely plays into the ideas of the issue as I understood them.

* Jimmy’s declaration of “Ms. Grant, Mr. Lombard, I’m taking immediate steps” is a perfect little moment for him - he’s calm and on top of things, but there’s also that little touch of naive ego in thinking that it’s thanks to him that Superman’s going to notice the dinosaur invasion of Metropolis.

* In backmatter and interviews Morrison had substantially further fleshed-out backstories for several of the new characters here. Samson is indeed the original champion, plucked from his era by a pair of foolish time-travelers searching for a savior; instead, enamored and corrupted by future culture he stole their malfunctioning Chronomobile and went on adventures to slake his lust, for fortune, flesh, and adventure alike. Atlas meanwhile is the boisterous yet quietly burdened young prince of the New Mythos, a society of super-godlings torn between New Elysium and Hadia, Morrison’s vision of a Jack Kirby Olympian saga for DC following in the wake of Thor’s Norse myths rather than the full-blown invention of the New Gods. And the Ultrasphinx “is the super-champion of a lost Egyptian Atomic Age in the 80th century BC. When he crashed to Earth his otherworldly science founded the advanced, ancient dynasty of Atem-Hotep [sic], a civilization eventually destroyed by the nuclear war that left Northern Africa a desert”. A. Morrison backmatter rules and you should read it whenever you get the chance, and B. This notion of proto-civilizations mirroring the eventual legends of a mere handful of millennia past is one he followed much further in Seven Soldiers of Victory with Shining Knight and its antediluvian Camelot.

* The main inspiration for this particular story was the frequent use of ancient strongmen as rivals to the Man of Steel in the Silver Age, which Morrison noted preferring to the use of analogue characters like Majestic for their broad cultural standing, culminating in this:

...though with Atlas swapped in, as Marvel already had the definitive take on Hercules in superhero comics (and, one imagines, since putting Hercules in the comic where Superman gets 12 labors would have had to be addressed), though he’d tackle him later on in the...controversial Wonder Woman: Earth One. Morrison’s analysis of this cover in Supergods basically lays out the thesis of this issue quite cleanly: “This was what happened when you couldn’t make decisions or offer any lasting commitment. Samson pounced on your best girl. And for Superman, it was a horrific challenge to his modernity. Was he really no better than these archaic toughs? Or could he prove himself stronger, faster than any previous man-god?” Fun fact: I myself hate this comic because it’s an entirely standard issue that fully returns to status quo by the end, sullying the good name and promise of Imaginary Stories for nothing more than fooling readers into thinking this was one of the issues were anything could really happen. Shameful false advertisement.

* Worth noting this is a rare instance where the glowing-red angry heat vision eyes work for me. Those two were real dicks and had it coming, and for that matter Superman looking for all the world a wrathful god promising banishment to a very different sort of underworld more than underscores his relative position next to the suitably abashed adventurers.

* It’s an interesting choice to use Poseidonis here, the capital city of Aquaman - it’s a sensible place for Superman to travel (though the real implications regarding the Justice League in this world won’t be for awhile yet), but it’s Tritonis that’s the undersea home to Superman’s onetime love, the mermaid Lori Lemaris. Perhaps Morrison just didn’t want a subset of readers in the know and pining after all these decades for Clark to find succor in the arms of his fishy love to dwell on that particular what-could-have-been; either way, Atlantis in general as what sprung up from a devastated ancient civilization is a perfectly logical inclusion for this issue in general.

* Lois’s description of her super-senses is not only lovely, but sets up the victory of #12 right in the first act. Additionally Lois keeping a cactus is such a perfect little bit for her character - it’ll prick ya, but she’s working to keep the thing alive.

* The journeys to the moon and ‘underworld’ for this issue, but in playful and romantic contexts, marks this issue as the (depending on whether you read it as a 4 or 6 issue arc) final installment before All-Star Superman begins its structural descent into the night.

* A very happy birthday to Justin Martin (and a day-before-birthday to myself) with this, annotations of the issue of All-Star Superman about a birthday. Birthdays themselves being a signpost of time and evolution, a forward march, making it a potent occasion to highlight in this series in general and this installment in particular.

[rebelcourtesan]

Furry Comics with Bite Part 3

This is actually a manga, (Japanese Comic).  I found this gem while browsing through manga and noticed the cover of one had animal people wearing school uniforms.  Curious, I read the first few chapters and was completely drawn into the characters and plot.  

OMG!!!!  This has become one of my favorite manga.  It avoids that pitfalls that other manga fall into via melodrama, tropes, and cliches.  The story is engaging and all the characters, even side and background characters, are all lovable in their own different ways.

The world is VERY VERY similar to Zootopia.  There is a species gap between carnivore and herbivores (sometimes called prey) animals.  The movie and the manga came out in the same year, but are very different in that while Zootopia is handled by Disney and keeps things family friend, Beastars takes off the kid gloves and dives deep into how dark that world could be.

In the Beastars world, carnivore animals have to deal with a constant desire for meat.  Being larger and stronger than their herbivore counterparts has their advantages and disadvantages.  While some carnivores uses their dominate status to get ahead in the workplace, others take more extreme measures to be openly accepted by all animals.  Like the lion politician who had his sharp teeth surgical removed and replaced them with false teeth so his smile doesn’t intimidate the majority of the voters or bears having to take medicine that inhibits their strength, but has nasty side effects.  

Herbivores live in fear of the carnivores, often mistrusting them and avoid being around them and for good reason.  In one shocking scene, a carnivore student is goofing around with a herbivore classmate and accidentally rips off the student’s arm.  Most herbivores are small in stature and weaker, which makes it harder to compete against carnivores.  Some animals have found a healthy balance between the two sides while others still struggle.

Cherryton is boarding school open to both carnivores and herbivore students.  There’s a fragile peace between the two sides until one day an alpaca student is found murdered on school property and a carnivore is believed to be the culprit.  With tensions running high in school, we meet Legosi, the main character of Beastars and one of the best male leads I have ever seen in a manga.

We meet Legosi, a very large grey wolf, in the first chapter, shortly after new has gotten around school about the murder.  He watches from afar, hunkers in the darkness manning the stage lighting for the drama club, and stalks a fellow student who is an angora sheep girl.  Looming over his classmates with hunched shoulders, he appears to be a hulking monster, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Legosi is a shy, sensitive, boy who is aware that his size is intimidating so he keeps his distance and walks with a slight crouch so as not to appear so large.  And the reason why he stalks the sheep girl is to give her the love letter the murdered student, his friend from drama club, had been meaning to give her.

Legosi has never question his role in the world nor has any struggles with his carnivore side until one fateful night, he attacks and almost kills a dwarf bunny named Haru.

First, I should point out that sometimes (maybe a lot of the time) the desire to eat meat can be taken as an allegory to sexual desire.

Thankfully, Haru isn’t killed, but it sets Legosi on a path to understand himself and what it means to be a carnivore.  He loves his friends and never wants to harm them, but there’s a predatory instinct that is part of himself that can’t ignore.  Also, Haru holds a fascination for him that he cannot get over and doesn’t know if his fixation is a desire to eat her or love her.  

Everything I’ve discuss happens within the first five chapters of over hundred chapters if this ongoing manga.  It’s a long read, but the story holds up throughout, never feeling dragged out or repetitive.  Some chapters take a step away from the main story to cover the life of a background character or side character.  I never feel that these are filler or wasted chapters as they aid in world building and always good stories.  

Be warned for those who are sensitive to gore and blood.  There is a lot of it in this story and sometimes it can come out of nowhere.  A day out in the city is suddenly disturbed when the group of students come across a homeless herbivore who offers to let them eat his few remaining fingers for money.  He hold up his mauled hands, displaying his thin fingers while the stumps stand out with the bone still exposed.       

The icing on the cake is Beastars is actually getting an anime release in October through Netflix.  

[megashadowdragon]

jaune will have a confrontation with yang when he finds out the truth

that yang was keeping raven branwen being the spring maiden a secret while before she told ozpin no secrets or half truths ( while then keeping a secret herself and that ozpin kept secrets to protect them and the world in contrast to yangs secrets

itsclydebitches . tumblr . com/post/181776207310/a-response-to-the-claim-that-yangs-secret

the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee . tumblr . com/post/180434178440/yangs-secret-and-its-potential-risks

(edit:  and this might  be driven in part due to the deaths of  people jaune cares about like nora or ren dies (and/or his family members  if the jaune is from atlas theory is true) protecting the relic of knowledge so it will be put in the vault  for the relic of creation  that would give jaune even more incentive to be pissed at yang for yang didnt even try to get raven to relock the vault  and the entire reason they went to atlas was to find a safe place for the relic because they didnt have the spring maiden

(

imagine how nora would react if ren died protecting the relic and then found out yangs secret ( noras based on thor who fought against the giant sea serpent Jörmungandr (the midgard serpent )  and yangs named after a chinese dragon ( which  are associated with the sea/water   

they have snake like bodies and in some stories like light novels eastern style  dragons are mistaken for  snakes/sea serpents (heck there was a story wherein eastern there is a myth about how dragons first start of as snake like creature but then they will grow and shed the skin of a snake and become a dragon   In the sixteenth century of our era a Japanese author1 spoke of an old (certainly Chinese) tradition, according to which a dragon’s fetus lives during a thousand years in the sea, for a thousand years in the mountains and, after having been among men (“in a village”, says the text) for the same long period, it finally is born, becomes a dragon and ascends to the sky2. During these three thousand years the fetus lives as a very small snake within astone, the dragon’s egg, which is first lying at the bottom of the sea, then comes to the mountains (how it got there is not explained), where after a thousand years it is picked up by somebody who carries it home and preserves it on account of its beautiful colours, or uses it as an ink-stone (suzuri, 硯 ). As it invariably has the remarkable peculiarity of constantly producing water (the dragon’s element), it is a very convenient ink-stone indeed3. But woe him who possess such a stone at the end of the millennial period which the fetus must pass among mankind, for then the stone splits, and a small snake creeps out of it, which in a few moments becomes larger and larger, and with a terrible noise forces its way to the sky, smashing the roof amid thunder and lightning, and ascending in a dark cloud. The little reptile has become an enormous four-legged dragon, which leaves the narrow abodes of men and frees himself in this terrific way.”  japanesemythology . wordpress . com/stories-of-dragon-eggs-a-ka-dragon-inkstones-in-japan/

. Jaune’s episode in V5 chapter 11 shows that he’ll take the deaths personally. 

)

as many people know I believe that jaune’s evil counterpart is salem given the many parallels and that I believe that jaune will come around to understanding ozpin and realizing the truth of the mission and that oz was right  ( with oz  joining team jnpr as jaunes partner the new p) 

megashadowdragon . tumblr . com/post/157918109672/oscar-pine-will-join-team-jnpr-and-be-the-new-p/embed

and that jaune will realize its not ozpins fault pyrrha died remember that oz told them to leave but pyrrha chose to  fight cinder despite not needing to  and jaune and ozpin will become partners ( jaune realizing that oz had nothing but bad options and had no choice but to seek a replacement for the fall maiden to get the powers to keep the fall maiden powers from going into salems hands) and pyrrha was just the best option. and that ozpin gave pyrrha a choice and gave her time to think it over ( for jaune would realize that pyrrha would normally say yes immediately ) and explained all the gritty details. ozpin did his best to make pyrrha feel safe ( and that ozpin doesnt know pyrrha as well as he does  so acting like it was all his fault pyrrha died just because oz’s group went to  pyrrha to become the fall maiden is ridiculous just like its ridiculous to to blame the guy who gave a mission out to a team for a death on that team) oz never manipulated pyrrha megashadowdragon . tumblr . com/post/152357996242/salem-is-jaunes-evil-counterpart/embed

alexkablob .  tumblr . com/post/179967541409/i-just-cannot-believe-for-years-now-ive-been

I just cannot believe

for years now I’ve been saying Arkos was classic heroic romance tropes with Pyrrha in the classical male role and Jaune in the classical female role

and this is actually true in-universe, because Pyrrha parallels Oz and Jaune parallels Salem.

Arkos is paralleling Ozpin and Salem but better and not screwing up the way they did, with Pyrrha as Ozpin and Jaune as Salem

(the multiple scenes where ozma disintegrating in the exact same fashion that pyrrha nikos had disintegrated in at the end of v3

(the multiple scenes where ozma disintegrating in the exact same fashion that pyrrha nikos had disintegrated in at the end of v3

There’s also the part where Jaune was unable to save Pyrrha  and had to struggle with a death wish (seriously jaune was borderline suicidal and some may say that was until his fight with cinder  but I think its still there )

alexkablob . tumblr . com/post/179997954479/ozmas-pyrrha-parallels-are-making-jaunes-current?is_liked_post=1

Ozma’s Pyrrha parallels are making Jaune’s current suicidal tendencies even more painful tbh

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT OZ AND SALEM WERE ACTUALLY GENDER-FLIPPED ARKOS “

I mean seriously Ozma is destroyed by the God of Light  and darkness in the same manner that Cinder destroyed Pyrrhas body

and I forgot to add about how salem was suicidal

another post on ozpin and pyrrhas parallels 

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aspiringwarriorlibrarian . tumblr . com/post/179972347584/edelblume-righteousness-n-the-quality-of#notes

Righteousness  n. the quality of being morally right or justifiable.

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So.

Ozpin interrupting the Light God to say “I’ll do it” before he fully understood what was being asked of him.

And the Light god just taking it as assent without explaining further.

Wow I guess we know now why he looked so stricken when Pyrrha did the exact same thing before he’d finished explaining.”

note and as sunder-the-gold  sid

sunder-the-gold

And then Ozpin said, “No, please, let me explain what this could do to you.”

and then he proceeded to give her time to think about it

.”  basically he saw the parallels between himself and pyrrha how  they said yes before they fully understood what was being asked of them and told her to think it over and explained what it could do to her and the way he described it sounded just  the way he described what was happening to oscar and him .

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“ wanted to delve deeper into the idea that jaune and pyrrha are also mirrors of ozpin and salem. but here, jaune is the reflection of salem, while pyrrha is the reflection of ozpin. pyrrha was the righteous, moral, talented soldier while jaune is the grieving person that was saved, and sought vengeance for their lost love. pyrrha also stuck to a moral code, like ozpin did, while jaune and salem both used alternative, immoral methods to reach their goals. there’s also the fact that salem’s emblem looked like jaune’s AND jaune’s semblance has the same visual look of the magic that made salem immortal “

and yang xiao long  is chinese for  little sun dragon and the god of lights can turn into an  golden/yellow eastern dragon 

not only did salem in her first meeting gets mad at the god and yell at him but later on managed to turn people against the gods and head to the god of lights domain

 which makes me wonder if jaune and yang will have a confrontation and if something jaune does causes people to turn against yang   like ren and nora for example ( plus the fact that jaune has a knight theme while yang is named after a dragon and how knights slay dragons / are enemies typically  in fairy tales makes me wonder  not to mention jaunes sword being named crocea mors which means yellow death not saying jaune will kill yang  though  I once made a theory for fun about yang turning evil and the thing that killed her being jaunes sword    just jaune and yang will have a confrontation)  

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Monty Oum was a huge BlazBlue fan and based Penny’s fighting style (and possibly her origin as a robot girl) on Nu and her Murakumo Unit “sisters who were made with souls like how penny is a robot girl with a soul) with those floating swords her weapon is divine radiance murakumo which starts off as a big sword it turns into 8 floating blades surrounding the user, and their armor. . and I think qrow with his giant sword that can turn into a scythe may have been inspired by ragna whose giant sword can turn into a scythe

and yang xiao long took inspiration from bullet (their weapons

who appeared before her Bullet was included in the JPN 1.0 arcade version, which came out in November 2012, while the Yellow trailer was June 2013.

So yeah, it’s impossible for Bullet to have been inspired by Yang, and there’s a greater-than-zero chance Yang was inspired by Bullet, especially considering that Namine from Dead Fantasy 6 (8?) copies moves from Nu 13 (the most obvious is Nu’s 5C).

both of them had someone disappear from their lives  tager ( who lost his memories ) and raven ) and they chased after them  going around trying to find info but while tager cared about bullet raven straight up abandoned yang.

the seemingly minute differences between Aura/dust and Magic is a leftover from how Ars Magus and Magic work in Blazblue.

, Qrow is basically just a color inverted, older version of Ragna the Bloodedge, down to their  weapons.

the finale of Volume 6 has a LOT of similarities to the ending of Chronophantasma, what with the heroes fighting a giant artificial enemy bring about a change in the protagonist.

and yang losing  arm  to adam with his katana reminds me of ragna losing his  arm due to  terumi a psychopath with a katana and they both replaced their left arms with  a artificial limb (azure grimoire in the form of an arm) and when terumi took ragnas arm he was possessing jin  ( and both jin and ragna were kids when this happened ) jin would later on become an iaijutsu practicioner like adam taurus  and would have some yandere tendencies // mental unstability/ax crazyness.

)

and in blazblue continuum shift  ragna ended up losing his other arm ( the one that had been a real limb )  and being forced to get another artificial arm

so either when yang lose her other arm it will be a reference to how ragna lost his arm in continum shift or it will also be another reference to how ragna lost his arm to jin influenced by terumi . when jin influenced by terumi  ( terumi )  meddled with his mind ) cut of ragnas arm he blamed ragna for what happeend going its your fault  after  he cut off ragnas arm so maybe yang will lose her other arm to someone blaming her for something (possibly someones death given that the nun who took care of ragna, jin and their sister saya died)

hakumen who started off as jin who was often called the hero of ikagura  from an alternate timeline lost his love interest a red head named tsubaki who died and was sent back to the past injured where rachel  offers to help him become a true hero. From here, his soul is bound to the Susano-o armor, and he becomes Hakumen  the leader of the 6 heroes  who is one of the strongest in the game

so  jaune who has a desire to be a hero like his ancestors to the point he cheated his way into beacon  and had a red haired love interest who died could be compared to hakumen/jin in that sense though their personality’s are completely different  like how bullets personality is different from yangs

(also the fact that jin was adopted into the kisaragi family a noble family thats part of the 12 originator families  in blazblue (and didnt care about bloodline and gathered talented people around the world) could be referenced with jaune being adopted into the arc family and is just so close to them  that  he doesnt  care about them not being biologically related to him theyre family. and jaunes insecurities (and a possible previous event in his life given that jaune said in volume 1 that he wanted to stop  being the guy stuck in a tree as his friends fought for their lives so its possible someone close to him died 

so either if this is true  with the jin and jaune connections and they do another blazblue reference with yang losing her other arm  jaune could be the one to do it due to blaming yang  for what happened .  as a reference to jin going its your fault brother plus jin  and hakumen had the desire to kill ragna in alot of the game series so what if jaune wants to kill yang )

another reason why I connect jin with jaune is due to how qrow rubys uncle she learnt everything from is  alot like ragna and jaune and ruby are foils to each other so it fits

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“ jaune is a foil To Ruby. She’s a prodigy who quickly became a deadly warrior at a young age and is welcomed into Beacon two years early as a result while Jaune is a hard worker who progresses slowly and had to lie his way into Beacon because of his nonexistent combat background. Ruby is a strategist specialized on pre-defined team attacks and wields a self-made weapon capable of long range combat. Jaune is a tactician specialized in creating new team attacks according to his analysis on the battlefield and wields a family heirloom only capable of close range combat. Ruby has a rather broken family but they fully support her decision to become a huntress while Jaune’s family is large and united but they don’t support his choices nor have any faith on him. Ruby is a tomboy who dominates the battlefield but doesn’t enjoy dancing whereas Jaune tends to act girly and is initially terrible at fighting but also a great dancer. The more you look into them as a pair, the more contrasts that can be spotted in the details.”

jaune has a more “feminine way of dealing with emotions” while ruby has the more masculine way of dealing with emotions

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“Joan of Arc is known for breaking gender stereotypes about what it meant to be a woman. And if you think about it in a lot of ways Jaune doesn’t fit into the stereotypical “man box.” We are don’t “men don’t cry.” He wears his emotions on his sleeve. While in the real world men (and in the world of RWBY BOTH men and women ARGUABLY) are told to be strong. And that many people superficially equate physical strength with heroism (Raven?) it is fitting that Jaune’s semblance doesn’t so much doesn’t so much empower himself, as it empowers others. (as well as himself but its more effective on others in the team since they are more skilled than him) The so called “Feminine” strength.” P.S. Hmm as a follow-up to my The Importance Of Foils Part 2 post. I think that Ruby, despite being a girl, fits into the “man box” better than anyone else including it’s UNHEALTHY WAYS OF DEALING WITH EMOTIONS. The only difference is on remnant, it’s not because a man doesn’t cry. But because “a hero doesn’t cry.”

ruby first activated her silver eyes leading to her to learn about them when she saw pyrrha jaunes partner impaled by cinder and burnt to ash failing to save pyrrha  her awakening being in reaction to her death while jaune activated his semblance and realized what it was when he saw rubys partner weiss  impaled by cinder and  was able to save her  life awakening his semblance to do so allowing him to learn what his semblance was ( which is a good example this is an example of them being foils  and how its been shown and effected their storys )

@kali-tmblr

@darksaiyangoku

@gorillageek27

@thehtg-therealone 

[rosecorcoranwrites]

The Obligatory Strong Female Character Post

What constitutes a "strong female character" (or SFC for short). As a person on the internet, I’m obligated to weigh in on this. Everybody’s doing it! But what do we mean by “strong”? Is a strong person the same as a strong character? And do we need more SFCs in fiction?

Physical Strength

Obviously, “strong” and “weak” can describe someone's physical attributes. A strong person is physically fit and muscular. They can lift heavy objects and carry weights great distances, and sometimes know how to fight. A physically weak person, on the other hand, might be sickly or flabby and can't lift or carry much at all.

Hollywood churns out many physically strong female characters, although many of them are played by actresses who might blow away in a strong breeze. Most of these so-called SFCs could be replaced by sexy, physically fit lamps, because while admittedly strong, these ladies are not in fact characters. They are hollow beings with very little personality and characterization beyond “She kicks butt!” Thus, while these are "strong female somethings", they can't be called SFCs.

I have two issues with people who think that there are not enough of this type of “SFC”. One is that there is an underlying idea that, to be as good as male characters, the female in question must be as physically strong, if not stronger, than her male counterparts. Because apparently physical strength is the height of worthiness and likability, or something? Often the idea of role-models comes into the conversation regarding SFCs, in that people think little girls need better role-models. To such people, I ask, would you teach little boys that in order to be good enough, you must be as physically strong or stronger than your peers, and that anything less than that is not worth imitating? Of course you wouldn’t! So why should little girls learn the same lesson?

As an aside, I also think it’s funny that in a time where we are so cognizant of unattainable female body images, we perpetuate them in the type of physically strong female characters we portray. Again, Hollywood has willowy actresses habitually dropping men three times their size with one punch, not with magic, nor with martial arts designed to make up for smaller body sizes, but just sheer physical strength. And this actually does have an effect on real-life expectations: I went to a firing range as part of a Citizen’s Police Academy class, and the men in my group could not get it through their heads that I—a tiny, 5'3" wimp—couldn’t lift a police-issued shotgun long enough to aim it properly. I physically could not do what they could do without trying. I’m not saying writers can’t have physically strong women characters, I’m just saying that, maybe, take into account that that strength might require a larger body, muscles, training, or strategy. But I digress…

Strength of Character

Thankfully, most people who call for more SFCs are not talking merely about physical strength, but instead something more like strength of character, or strength of will. Someone with a strong character doesn't give up easily. They've got chutzpah, and moxy, and gumption, and a bunch of other words that are fun to say. Yet I quibble with people’s call for more and more such SFCs, because there are already plenty of characters like this. And there always have been. Books for children have always featured girls with just as much grit and wherewithal as boys, as have many classic books for grown-ups. Think about Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Shirley, Mrs. Frisbee, Mina Harker, Sara Crewe, and Gerda from The Snow Queen, just to name a few off the top of my head.

So where is the "there aren't enough SFCs" crowd coming from? These people, in my opinion, want women who never need, nor want, any help. Such a character is smart and capable enough to do everything by herself. She not only has a strong will, but is strong-willed. She doesn’t ever cry or get freaked out or feel helpless—because these are signs of weakness! She has guts, i.e. plot armor so thick that she will never ever meet an obstacle she cannot surmount. Which is… really boring, honestly.

Captain Marvel is a shining example of this type of so-called SFC: literally nothing affects her, physically or emotionally. There’s this line about how she’s supposedly too emotional, but she never shows any feeling besides a little smirk. Is cockiness an emotion? Anyway, there’s one scene where she finally realizes that everything she knows is a lie and that she’s been used by a genocidal race of space goons. This would have been a great moment for her to lose it, to scream, or cry, or use her powers so much that she accidentally blows off her inhibitor chip. But no, having her get frustrated or sad would show that she’s not 100% in control of everything, which would make her look weak. And human. And relatable on any level. I don’t know if you could tell, but I did not care for Captain Marvel.

Again, people who advocate for this type of SFC want role-models for little girls to look up to, without realizing that these super-capable, unassailable SFCs are just as unattainable an ideal as physically strong yet-muscleless ladies. Some girls are naturally shy and mild, other are unsure of themselves, and a few have actual anxiety-related issues. Are these types of girls weak? Again, let’s look at our male counterparts. Would you tell a shy little boy that he’s weak because he’s not as bold as his peers? Or that he shouldn’t seek help from others because he should be strong enough to do it by himself? Or, instead, would you tell him how to show true strength—the Mina Harker, Mrs. Frisbee, Sara Crewe type of strength—by persevering even when things are hard, and you do feel small, and things don’t go your way? Maybe we should be teaching girls the same thing.

Strong Characters, Female or Otherwise

So then, what is a strong female character? Is it a character who is a strong female, like a woman who can take down twenty guys in a fight? Or is it a female with a strong character, who never gives up no matter how tough it gets? I submit that it is not—necessarily—either. An SFC is, in short, a strong character who is female. Clear as mud, eh?

What no one ever seems to ask in all the SFC discourse is what, pray tell, do we mean by a "strong character"? Maybe the easiest way of answering this would be to find some examples of weak characters of either sex.

Bella Swan springs readily to mind, as do half-a-dozen female YA protagonists who might be described, in the most charitable terms, as “one-dimensional”. They lack agency and personality, generally because they are meant, more or less, to be reader inserts, so that the audience can imagine themselves in that role.

I submit that Ray, of the new Star Wars trilogy, is also a weak character, but in a different way. She makes decisions, sure, but without any motivation. She wants to stay on her planet and wait for her parents, because she needed a backstory, but then she’s fine going across the galaxy with Finn to drop off a droid, because otherwise she wouldn’t be in the rest of the movie, and she eventually decides to join the Resistance because that’s what a protagonist would do. Then she goes to train with Luke, apparently forgetting that she was waiting for her parents. Then she goes to try and turn Kylo Ren good because that way they can have a cool fight scene. She definitely has strength of character, in that she makes good decisions and isn’t easily swayed from doing whatever heroic act is required in any given scene no matter the odds, but there’s nothing behind any of her actions. There’s no there there. She does what a protagonist would do, not for any reason of her own—for example: because of her deep love of the Jedi, because she wants to find out the truth of her parents, because she’s wanted on her home planet for droid theft—but because the story requires it. And “because the story requires it” is never a good reason for doing things!

Lest you think I’m picking on the ladies, let me name the weakest character of all (and I apologize ahead of time to fans of the series): Ender Wiggan, of Ender’s Game. He has less agency than Bella and less reason for his actions than Ray. He might make one or two decisions in the entire book, the rest of the time just sort of moving around and doing things without purpose. We never see why he wants to do anything. His one character trait—and an informed one at that—is that he’s smart. That’s it. You could replace him with a lamp that’s intelligent enough to complete the objective of a war game (no, really, there’s a scene where all he does is complete the object of the game—get to the goal rather than focus on killing everyone on the other team—and he is lauded as a super genius) and nothing would change about that story.

What do all these weak characters have in common? Lack of personality, agency, goals, interests, quirks. Put simply, they are not well developed; their characterization is weak. Developing a character is a lot like developing film: the better you do it, the clearer the image should become. Thus, weak characters are a dark film that someone wrote on: “Bella is average and loves Edward”, “Ray is Force-sensitive and always tries to do the right thing”, “Ender Wiggam is a genius”. The end. Those don’t give a very clear impression of who we’re dealing with.

A strong character, i.e., a well-developed character, is one who we will know like the back of our hand by the end of the story, because we have such a clear picture of them. We know what drives them, or what makes them content. We know what they like, hate, and fear. We know odd little facts about them the way we know our friends’ foibles and eccentricities. A strong character feels like a real person.

Note that this in no way means that characters who are strong in the other two senses—physically fit or strong in character—can’t also be strong characters. There are plenty of multifaceted bruisers, fighters, and macho characters of both sexes out there—just watch anime! There are also, obviously, characters who never give up but, rather than being one-dimensional heroes, have traits that make them interesting and likable, like those who do what’s right despite wanting glory and money instead, or who are pure hearted but kinda dumb, or who became a hero due to some complicated backstory that still informs their actions. What I’m saying is, it’s possible to be a physically-strong strong character who also has strength of character!

But that’s not a necessity. Obviously, physical abilities are not a prerequisite to a well-developed character, but nor is a strong moral compass and grit. Take someone like Starscream, the ever scheming and completely untrustworthy second-in-command of the Decepticons in Transformers. Although tenacious in his own way, I don’t think anyone would hold him up as a model for “strength of character”. He’s backstabbing, weaselly, and willing to betray anyone (even himself!) to achieve his goals. No one would describe him as a weak character. What about Javert, from Les Miserables? He’s definitely got wherewithal—he needs it in order to obsess over one stolen loaf of bread for twenty years—but in his final hours, he gives up and chooses suicide over a world that doesn’t jive with his vision of justice. That might, ultimately, make him a weak person, but it cements him as one of the best examples of a strong character: he has a worldview and a goal and an obsessive personality; a real person like him would do something like that when his world comes crashing down. Many weak people, if depicted intricately and written clearly, might make strong characters.

We Need More Strong Female Characters

So, with this as our definition, do we need more SFCs in our fiction, or are there enough already? Yes, we do, and no, there aren’t. I’m not one of those people who demands a 50/50 ratio of male to female characters, but I do wish that the female characters we do have were stronger characters. The problem is that when we say “SFC”, writers hear “woman who can hold her own in a fight”, “woman who can save herself”, “woman who can’t be beat”, etc, and think that that absolves them from giving said women anything resembling a personality. They check the SFC box and pat themselves on the back for how great they are at writing "strong females", forgetting the “characters” part of the equation.

Honestly, I think the reason so many so-called SFCs are weak is precisely because it’s currently anathema to present a woman as anything but totally strong. Take Rey: having grown up on off-brand-Tatooine, she could have been savvy and money-hungry, perhaps planning on selling BB-8 back the Resistance instead of just delivering him. She could legitimately want to help Finn and the little droid get home, but might as well make a quick galactic credit while she’s at it. This would also payoff later, when she learns that she’s Force-sensitive, because there might actually be a temptation to the Dark Side—the easy side—contrasted with her innate desire to do the right thing. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Too bad! Because girls aren’t greedy! Girls can’t be tempted to take the easy way out! Girls need strong role-models! Role-models can't show weakness!

Which is dumb, because real people—men and women—are weak sometimes. People have physical and mental ailments. People have blind spots, and bad habits, and temptations. Even characters who are meant to be role-models can do so by showing that weaknesses can be overcome.

And this next statement might blow some people’s mind, but not every character, not even every female character, needs to be a role-model. The dearth of female characters in a lot of stories isn’t going to be solved by adding in a dozen women who are all do-gooding übermenschen; if you’re going for realism, you need characters with a diversity of goals, traits, and personalities, not just a diversity of sex.

Give me those meek and mild well-defined female characters. Give me shady, cowardly, or stingy ladies who feel like someone you could meet in real life. Give me musclebound fighters who have intricate motivations and backstory, or snarky fly-boy type ladies who totally can’t put her money where their mouth is. Give me female characters who struggle to do the right thing, or get exasperated with other people who they don’t consider up to snuff, or are super gung-ho with their hero duties to the detriment of their own safety, or any combination of the above. Basically, give me female characters who are as multifaceted and developed as the average male character.

We do need more SFCs in fiction, so we need to stop praising half-hearted, one-dimensional substitutes who happen to be female, because such characters are anything but strong.

[octaviainthewasteland]

Wonder Woman: on female characters in comics PART 2

part 1, 2, 3

Please bear in mind that English is not my first language!

Part 2:  Useless pretty, sexy bad and second-hand skirts

Summary: A classification of female characters in comics.

Before we get going, an important note: this is not character bashing. I may sound extremely critical and snide at times, but it doesn’t mean that I hate these comics or these characters or even these authors! Batman, for instance, is my absolute favorite fictional character. I also have the biggest soft spot for Harley Quinn and Lois Lane. However, it doesn’t mean that it gives them a free pass. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Text under the cut.

In the previous chapter, we’ve touched on ‘fridging’ and why it’s not cool (ha-ha see what I did here). Due to particular conditions, women were pretty much absent from the picture and therefore, could not influence how women were portrayed for a while. Male visualization of women turned out to be quite… limited. Reading comics, I have noted that female characters in the comic books can generally be divided into four categories. There are, of course, some exceptions, but the percentage is far too small. As I thought about these categories, I’ve realized that three out of four are constructed though the sexism of the superhero narratives, while the last one is in a constant struggle against it. There are damsels in distress, femme fatale, gendered spin-offs and the female superheroes. Some characters fluctuate from one category to another, or fit into more than one. Let’s talk a bit more about the first three, so it’ll become clearer, why the female superheroes are so important for representation of women.

 The first category is the damsel in distress: the mother or the aunt, the girlfriend, most often powerless.

It includes such characters as Lois Lane, Vicky Vale and Iris West. Interestingly, all three of them are journalists, which arguably justifies their rash behaviour, which often lands them in trouble. They are nice, generally understanding, but quite often annoying, as they manage to land themselves in trouble yet again. It’s like they don’t understand that they should just sit down, because they either land in villain’s hands or they pressure the hero to quit heroing. With time, they have become snarky and easy-going, and obviously able to take care of themselves (until they aren’t) but the truth is, they are indistinguishable. They are cut out from the same piece of cardboard, as precious time for character development cannot be wasted on them, and they serve as conscience, motivation and ‘someone to come home to’. They are the classic ‘women in the refrigerators’ (Simone, 1999) and their interests and plot arcs rarely transcend the love interest, or in case of Iris and Aunt May, the relative of a superhero.

Probably the most notable example will be the Injustice franchise, where Superman becomes a tyrannical dictator, stricken with grief after the death of Lois, who has also been pregnant with his child at the time (Injustice: Gods Among US [I] #1, 2013)*. The comic series depicts the extent of Superman’s psychological trauma, as he is deceived by the villain into killing Lois with his own hands, thus, focusing not on the tragedy itself, but solely on Superman’s reaction to it. By the end of the series, the reader still has no idea, what kind of person was Lois. She is not important, what is important is that now the superheroes have an excuse to fight each other. Nobody in the comics really mentions her. The only time someone does, it is to reprimand Superman for his actions, all while Superman plans kidnapping Lois from another dimension because she’s just replaceable. Of course, this isn’t a story about Lois, but if a main heroine of Superman family cannot get a decent dealing, what’s there to hope for, for a lesser female character? We do not see her family or friends. She doesn’t really have a life outside her husband and it is precisely her connection to Superman that gets her in trouble. I might be picky, but having a joint surname (Lane-Kent, West-Allen, Watson-Parker) isn’t enough of a feminist statement for me.

The second category is the femme fatale or a seductive villainess, such as Talia al Ghul, Poison Ivy and Catwoman.

Most often, she is attracted to the superhero and tries to sway him of his righteous pass with her female charm, while he treats her as a lesser threat than male villains, because he believes she can be ‘good’ again. If she rejects the ‘good side’, she gets further from humanity and, thus, loses her chance for sympathy, absolution and happiness. Seductive villainesses often find themselves in a situation where they have to resort to their sexuality to distract their opponents or to persuade men to work with them. They are reduced to sexual objects for the male characters and by extension for the spectator, meaning the reader of the comics (Mulvey, 1975: 62).

They perform the role of the seductresses, trying to lure the hero from the path of righteousness and virtue. While being positioned as the erotic object, they are at the same time completely dehumanized. Talia turns from a villainess in love, who cannot decide on her loyalties, into a full-fledged assassin, and she is portrayed as a cold-blooded maniac, who drugs and rapes Batman, brainwashes him, clones their son and kills him (Robin: Son of Batman, 2015). In Harley’s absence, Poison Ivy does not value a human life at all, manipulates people and is more plant-like than human (Austin, 2015: 294).

The relationship between female empowerment and male disempowerment can be described as dichotomous. There is a prevailing narrative that a woman with power is a threat (Austin, 2015: 286). She defies male dominance and dares to enforce her own rules and focus on her own desires. The man tries to regain control over the dangerous woman. (Mulvey, 1975: 67) Notice how generally these women have a good cause at heart: Talia’s aim is to preserve the planet from disastrous actions of human kind; similar to Poison Ivy, who is concerned with flora; Catwoman protects felines and girls and women of lower classes and is essentially a version of Robin Hood. Harley Quinn has a mental illness, and copes with it by adopting animals and looking after them. Killer Frost is a heat-vampire and when she finds a cure (Firestorm) she pretty much stops attacking people, because she was doing it only to survive. Another interesting observation: it is their connection to men that pushed them to extremism. Talia is manipulated by her dad (who assures her of his love for her to save him on numerous occasions, but in the end kills her and uses her body to store his consciousness (BTAS)). Pamela Isley is nearly murdered by her male colleague. Selina is sexually abused by men. Killer Frost is locked up in a working reactor. I would assume everyone knows what’s the deal with Harley. Most often it contrasts with the actions of the hero: he tries to help her, make her normal again, fix her. This perpetuates a stereotype of how women are wrong about their prejudice against men, because ‘not all men are like this’. What is also inevitably and unknowingly created is that these women do not need fixing, it would change them at core. They aren’t even evil, as much as they would only help a cause if they believed in it. Even if they try to change for a man, they relapse: but through relationships with women, they are healed and they are able to embrace their power and be good, be evil, be something in the middle – and being true to themselves at the same time.

 Obviously, I am going to talk more about Harley Quinn. In the case of Harley Quinn, Joker physically and psychologically abuses her, manipulates her, makes her lose her job and her degree, drives her mad and so on. When she exercises her agency and comes close to killing Batman, successfully trapping him – something Joker himself had not succeed in – he angrily sets the boundaries between himself and Batman, their relationship, and Harley, who must only follow orders (Mad Love #8-72, 2009). Man games are one thing, and woman must never intrude! Harley learns it the hard way – it costs her almost every bone in her body. Joker ‘owns’ Harley and when she leaves him, he is livid and immediately sets to return her into his possession (Gotham City Sirens #10-26, 2011), exemplifying how Joker is unable to accept Harley’s existence beyond him (Austin, 2015: 285). On the other hand, Batman tries to establish his authority over her by bringing her to justice and rehabilitating her. He perceives her as a victim and someone, who despite being as dangerous and cunning as Joker (Mad Love #8, 2009), still needs saving. Harley is caught between two men, and while Batman is genuine in his desire to get her away from Joker (plus he doesn’t have romantic feelings towards her), it’s a no-win situation for Harley, because she can’t break away from her dependence issues. Enter Poison Ivy. By making Harley immune to all toxins, she both makes Harley stronger and cancels her main advantage over her. Poison Ivy doesn’t see Harley as a sidekick or a child who doesn’t know any better – she makes it possible for Harley to keep up with her. It also transforms Poison Ivy’s character. From then on, writers have abandoned the trope of Poison Ivy’s occasional boring crush on Batman.

 The third category is the ‘spin-off franchise baggage’ (Scott, 2013). It is quite easy to spot this type of characters, as their names are literally the derivative of their male (the original) counterpart: Batgirl, Supergirl and She-Hulk.

She does not have a sound or at least unique backstory, she is essentially the female version of the character, but secondary to him: weaker, less interesting, less popular and less developed (Fretheim, 2017: 32-33). Supergirl is another survivor of Krypton; She-Hulk was created literally by blood transfusion from Bruce Banner to his cousin, Jennifer Walters (they wanted to give her his rib, but it sounded vaguely familiar for some reason).

Sometimes such a character can break out of the limited space, provided by the legacy of the common root of the aliases (Bat-family, Super-family), for example, Barbara changes her line of activity after injury and Batgirl becomes Oracle, a character in her own right, giving voice to a readership with disabilities. It is also an example of how ‘fridging’ can be turned into a positive character development. In the Killing Joke, Barbara is harmed only because of her association with Jim Gordon, and the thematic purpose of her injuries is to provide emotional stakes for Batman. Nevertheless, she doesn’t stop being a hero and doesn’t become a liability. She is unique and interesting to read about. However, while it is possible, it is also reversible, as in 2011 Barbara puts on the Batgirl suit once again (Cocca, 2016: 78). Rarely, she can become more popular than the original hero, like Hawkgirl.

In terms of visual representation, it is quite easy to retrace sexual discrimination in the way that the male and female counterparts are portrayed. Although men with super powers do not need muscles to lift cars, they look jacked, a bit too much really. Hulk is positively ugly. Women, on the other hand, cannot let themselves be caught looking a tad less than ready for a Playboy photo-shoot.

Where male superheroes are embodying the ideal of masculinity, they are fit, muscled, and attractive – they are essentially the asexual subjects, while even their own gender-bent versions are put into suggestive poses and are given revealing outfits and heels (Batman: The Drowned #1, 2017).

Last but not least, the category of the female superhero. She is created as a distinct character, with her individual backstory and a set of powers. She is Wonder Woman, Starfire, Black Canary.

 The female superhero has her own backstory and her own set of powers. This doesn’t mean that they’re saved from the male gaze, unfortunately. The image above is one of the most modest costumes of Starfire I have found. This is particularly Starfire’s curse:

The female superheroes stand seemingly separate from the male superheroes, but men are still the part of the equation. Damsels, seductresses and knockoffs are directly linked to the male superheroes in forms of extensions of the mythos. The female superheroes exist in a state of eternal struggle against the male superheroes, male villains and male readers. According to O’Reilly, the female superheroes are restricted not only by the authorities, but even by their own sex (O’Reilly, 2012).

 To understand the mechanism of gender politics within the comics, let’s examine Wonder Woman against the male superheroes, namely Superman and Batman. While deconstructing their dualistic natures, we encounter a paradox of Otherness (Fretheim, 2017: 10-11). Every superhero has a secret identity. This duality attracts the reader, by making him or her identify through resemblance with the superhero’s disguise as the everyman or everywoman. The comic book promotes the idea of inclusivity, participation. It indulges the fantasy, providing the impression of the activist participation. (Pitkethly, 2012: 216) Superhero defeats the villain and saves America, and the reader feels like he or she has contributed to the victory of ‘truth, justice and the American Way’. It is no coincidence that the popularity of superhero comics correlates to the periods of the high and low threat (Peterson, Gerstein, 2005: 887). In times of the high threat, such as the Second World War, there is a significant increase in interest for ‘powerful’ and ‘tough’ fictional protagonists (889).

 Superman is also a meek reporter Clark Kent. Bruce Wayne is also a caped crusader Batman. As a superhero, Wonder Woman, too, exists as a heroic person and an alter ego of an ordinary woman, Diana Prince. Her otherness is expressed through being an Amazon, a super-powered being and a half-goddess. However, as a woman, she is also forced into position of the Other to Superman and Batman (De Beauvoir, 1949). If you’re unfamiliar with De Beauvoir, she referred to the socially constructed concepts of women and femininity in her Second Sex, written a year after women got the right to vote in France. The standards of the so-called femininity were established by patriarchal society and every woman was obliged to live up to these standards. De Beauvoir described the cultural symbols and social pressures put on girls from the very young age. Girls were taught to be passive and submissive, she did not have a choice as she was defined by the male dominated world to be a mother, a grandmother, a housewife. Men were the one, the neutral, the common, while women were the Other. While a man was the creator and the subject, a woman was an object in his power and always secondary to him. She also talked about the social taboos such as menstruation, criticizing pseudo-science that invented the idea of the biological inferiority of women. Menstruation was not the topic to talk about in public, since the very ancient times girls and women were locked in their houses during the periods. The female body is regarded as the Strange, Different, the Other. There is a cult of appearance; the women learn how to manipulate people with their looks. There are certain norms of how a real woman should look. The praises of female virginity and restrictions of the expose of the female sexuality were listed among the other ways in which the male society discriminated the female accumulation. Wonder Woman is, therefore, pitted as the Other to the male superheroes, while being alienated from other women.

 So we can see that no category of the female characters in comics are any better than another or have it any easier than another. Nonetheless, the figure of the female superhero is important, because it is a definite step away and open resistance to being background or second-hand. Girls couldn’t relate much to Lois, because, honestly, they were not supposed to – she was not their fantasy, she was male fantasy. There were some female superheroes prior to Wonder Woman, but yet again, they were created by men for men, and girls didn’t want anything to do with them. Industry naturally assumed that the reason is girls being generally uninterested in comics. As Dr. Marston noted, ‘not even girls want to be girls’ (Lepore, 2016: 187). He set to change that, and hence Wonder Woman was born.

*it needs another note: Injustice series is actually one of my favourite comic runs ever, and it has great female characters and great character development and is simply amazing. But it’s based of a game, and they had to work with the game premise, and they did a fantastic job doing it. Still, as I love it dearly, I’m allowed to critique it and so I will.

**despite the name, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane is a wild and fun comic.

Bibliography

Simone, G. (1999). Women in Refrigerators, available at: http://www.lby3.com/wir/

 Austin, S. (2015). Batman's female foes: The gender war in Gotham City. Journal of Popular Culture, 48(2), 285-295.

 Mulvey, L. 1999. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’ In Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 833–44. New York: Oxford University Press.

 Scott, S. (2013). Fangirls in refrigerators: The politics of (in)visibility in comic book culture. Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 13

 Fretheim, I. M. (2017) Fantastic Feminism: Female Characters in Superhero Comic Books. Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo

 Cocca, C. (2014). Negotiating the Third Wave of Feminism in "Wonder Woman". PS: Political Science and Politics, 47(1), 98-103.

 Cocca, C. (2016). Superwomen: gender, power, and representation.

 O’Reilly, J. D. (2005). The Wonder Woman Precedent: Female (Super)Heroism On

Trial. Journal of American Culture 28.3: 273–83.

 De Beauvoir, S. (1949). The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books

 Pitkethly, C. (2011). The pursuit of identity in the face of paradox: Indeterminacy, structure and repetition in Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 1-7.

 Peterson, B., & Gerstein, E. (2005). Fighting and Flying: Archival Analysis of Threat, Authoritarianism, and the North American Comic Book. Political Psychology, 26(6), 887-904.

 Lepore, Jill. (2015). The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York: Knopf.

[tibby]

hey! i hope your layover isnt too horrible and that you manage to survive 💓💓 please try and convince me to watch the social network because honestly i really cant comprehend how a movie about mark zuckerberg can be anything but awful lol

omg thank you lovely

first of all, i just wanna say that i totally felt the same way before i watched it. to me, a movie about facebook seemed so bad and uninteresting. i didn’t care about mark zuckerberg at 13. i don’t care about him now, outside of wanting him to redistribute his wealth and then die. so i see where you’re coming from, and i want you to know that this movie is worth it.

however, i feel like this movie is only about mark zuckerberg on a surface level. it’s the story of facebook and it’s creation, but i think it’s primarily a social commentary: on nerd culture and privilege and male entitlement and money and how social media impacts our relationships. i don’t think it would’ve gotten the acclaim it’s gotten if it was just a movie about mark zuckerberg.

anyway, under the cut because this got LONG:

let’s start with my favourite part of this movie: mark and eduardo. i know it’s weird to think about mark zuckerberg in a) a romantic context and b) a gay context, but i think there’s intentional homoerotic undertones to their dynamic. fincher and sorkin are both so specific about the stuff they make, that i don’t think they would’ve let this get through unless they intended it that way. additionally, andrew garfield has called it a love story. more than once. even if it wasn’t a romantic relationship, it’s a great dynamic: two people who love each other deeply (in whatever way) and change the face of human communication together, only to have their own relationship destroyed due to their lack of it. it’s tragic, and it plays out so well.

jesse and andrew bring such life to the characters. in the director commentary, fincher has this whole spiel about how mark is a character, and was written as a fictional one, even if he’s based off a real person. and so it gives us jesse’s mark, who is cold and petty and smart but is also a 19 year old who finds himself making decisions he’s not prepared to make. a character who’s not an asshole, he’s just trying so hard to be. jesse talks about how he studied real mark zuckerberg a lot to prepare for this movie, and you can see it in his weird quirks and sense of superiority - but he also brings such his own heart and wit to the role. you see mark at 19/20 but also at 25, see him go from a bratty college kid so desperate for recognition to someone who learns how to be slightly more considerate towards others, who regrets hurting the person who cared about him most.

and eduardo....ugh, my favourite boy! andrew was robbed of an oscar nomination for this role, he really was. he’s so open and honest and loving at the start, and watching him go from that to someone who is closed off and heartbroken and angry always gets me. he twirls when he gets into the phoenix club and rolls his eyes at sean parker. eduardo’s father is mentioned three (3) times in the movie but it’s enough to know that it’s not a healthy relationship, that eduardo’s biggest fear is disappointing him. his fatal flaw is that he loves and trusts mark too much. he’s so well-meaning and that’s ultimately what screws him over in the end. he’s objectively the only main player in this movie that always had good intentions, and he’s the character that loses the most.

we spend two hours with the 2 main characters but it’s enough to let us know that there’s a history there, that they’re best friends and have been for a long time, that they’re smart enough to change the world together but not smart enough to save their relationship. it’s a tragedy. mark and eduardo, as we know them in this film, aren’t the Mark and Eduardo of the real world. they’re college kids thrown into the adult world in the blink of an eye, and it’s bittersweet to compare them in the flashbacks to how they are in the depositions. they’re fascinating characters with such a wonderful dynamic.

honourable cast shoutouts go to: brenda song for being the most intimidating character in the film (if you end up watching the movie and enjoy it, PLEASE watch the director commentary, david fincher won’t shut ip about how great she is), justin timberlake for being so insufferable that he’s the only movie counterpart who is worse than the rl version, armie hammer for being twins, josh pence for doing parts of the better twin, max minghella for the comedic performance of our generation, rooney mara for killing mark zuckerberg twice in one film, and joe mazzello for playing my son dustin moskovitz.

fincher!!! i actually won’t elaborate here we all know how good david is. i know this site has an understandable love of gone girl but i’d argue that the social network is the superior film.

sorkin: this movie gets quoted all the time because this screenplay is fucking iconic. i love that it won an oscar because it deserved it, but primarily i love that it won for best adapted screenplay because i’ve read parts of the accidental billionaires by ben mezrich (which is what TSN is ~loosely~ based on) and most of this is just stuff sorkin came up with. i could post the whole script because it’s all golden but instead just look at this gifset. and also this one.

this movie has the most beautiful soundtrack. if you follow me on twitter, you know that hand covers bruise is my whole heart and makes me cry every goddam time. and then you have in motion and a familiar taste, which are the ultimate Get Pumped songs. intriguing possibilities and painted sun in abstract are perfect pieces of music for watching facebook get created and go live. almost home is simple but intense, and hurts like hell when you remember what scene it is from. really i could talk about the entire score, because trent reznor and atticus ross really gave their all.

deposition cutaways: so many scenes in this movie pull you in and either make you smile or break your heart, and then it cuts back to a room with the main characters and lawyers and you remember! you’re watching the aftermath of what happened, you’re watching mark and eduardo smile at each other right before you’re reminded that they’re in the middle of a lawsuit. the way the two sections of this movie contrast is so well-done and it gets me every time.

on that note, the editing in this film? superb. i’d argue that the facemash scene is the best example, but the office scene and the club scene deserve love and praise as well. like, god, even if you don’t wanna watch this movie for the story, watch it for the technical stuff because it’s all so well done.

like, i can’t really discuss is that much but the rowing scenes? fucking incredible sir david fincher take my whole life.

what i think really works in this movie’s favour though, is that it does take you by surprise. i know so many people who were like you and me. didn’t think they’d be interested in a movie about facebook. but because absolutely everyone involved in this film gave it their all, and they turned a story about a shitty rich dude who made a website into a fictional love story slash social commentary...it’s just beautiful to watch. there’s a reason that critics and the gays of this hellsite all agree that this is one hell of a movie. and this sounds like a cop out, but i really feel like you can’t really give a reason why that is: it’s just something you have to experience.

also, if nothing else: who doesn’t want to watch andrew garfield wear a suit with several buttons undone while he smashes laptops and says the words FUCK YOU FLIP FLOPS?

[justangrymacaroni]

Rachel Elizabeth Dare: An Essay

(a.k.a. a discussion of the portrayal of strong female characters and their relationship with fandom, canon, and a whole bunch of other shit i wanted to scream about at 1:50 am)

it really Rattles My Gears that a character as cool as Rachel Elizabeth fucking Dare is constantly thrown under the bus.

“Percy Jackson and Rachel Dare had a really genuine and cool friendship that became obsolete as soon as Rachel was no longer a potential love interest for him” -- @ofswordsandpens​ 

i’m gonna take it a step further and argue that Rachel stopped being a relevant character in the story as soon as she “lost” the role of a potential love interest. not to mention the fact that fandom seemed to collectively h a t e her ass because of that potential love interest. WHY THO? 

let’s fucking discuss.

unfortunately, no discussion about Rachel can occur without the mention of the ship of the century. percabeth. i’m going to assume that percabeth shares its origins with the pjo series itself, allllll the way back in 2005. (holy shit).

2005 fandoms were a LOT different than the fandoms we see today. remember, this was before DashCon, the Mishapocalypse, “fandoms grab your weapons”, and everything else that sort of.....gave fandoms a bit of a wakeup call. not that there was anything inherently wrong with it initially, but there was a shift.

2005 was before that shift.

the original pjo series percabeth romance followed a familiar young adult romance trope: boy and girl meet. girl is strong willed. boy is relatable. girl hates boy. they are thrust together through magical/extraneous circumstances. they become friends. then best friends. then hopelessly in love--BUT WAIT THE WORLD IS ENDING OH NO.

but what makes percabeth so popular? what makes it different from the other tropes we’ve seen? i think the answer lies in the characterization. sure, the tropes are there, but the characters sort of rise above them. annabeth and percy exist independently of each other. their relationship is healthy in that they are able to support each other without completely being reliant one another. 

but i think the most significant part of all this, especially in concerns to Rachel, is that annabeth and percy grew up alongside the readers. as the characters  aged, their actions and thoughts--a.k.a the writing style over time--became more nuanced. the stakes rose, the conflict became complicated. and their relationship progressed relatively slowly, meaning the ship had plenty of time to grow in canon and fandom.

enter Rachel Elizabeth Dare. her character at the very beginning didn’t have any obvious romantic implications. percy runs into her, they chat, there’s a monster, she gives him her number, and BAM. done. she’s gone until the next book.

but within that short amount of time, she is brilliantly characterized. her actions and thoughts are unique from what we’ve seen. she’s funny, demanding, sarcastic, and brave as fuck. 

next book comes out and “uh oh, she’s a love interest!!!! KILL HER BURN HER FUCKING ANNABETH AND PERCY ARE FOREVERWELHKWJGBKHWKJEK”

wtf.

let’s talk about annabeth and Rachel. i argue that fandom loves annabeth for the same reasons they hate Rachel.

she doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit 

annabeth: she’s tough and kicks ass!

Rachel: she’s mean.

she doesn’t put up with PERCY’S shit

annabeth: she’s so funny lol she’s the yin to his yang

Rachel: she’s mean and wrong for him.

she fights, even when people tell her no

annabeth: (example--not wanting to be given dummy questions from the sphinx) she’s smart and independent, she has her own mind and she uses it

Rachel: (example--flying into a demigod battle to warn the others) omg she’s a MORTAL why is she constantly bursting into this story? she’s annoying!!!

sadly, most of the reasons behind the fandom’s dislike of Rachel lie with her relationship to percy, in that people don’t want her to be in a relationship with percy.

but let’s fucking stop talking about percy FOR JUST ONE SECOND.

Rachel is an awesome character. she can see through the mist, and it’s because of this that she wants to learn more about half-bloods, not some hot guy she ran into once. like she says herself, percy was only such a fascination for her because he opened a door to an amazing world. she didn’t need him to be a part of that world.

(ok now we’re done talking about percy)

Rachel Elizabeth Dare has shown time and time again to go above and beyond what was needed from her. examples include walking into the labryinth to help some kids she barely knew, getting in a fucking helicopter and flying into a monster god battle, and allowing herself to be possessed by an ancient prophet spirit-ghost-thing.

she does all this because she wants to, because that’s who she is. she’s the girl that covered herself in gold paint for an art movement. she’s the girl who demanded to learn more about terrifying monsters and kids with swords. she’s the girl who threw a blue hairbrush at kronos.

not to mention how compelling her story is. a mortal who can lift a curse on an ancient prophet??? WHAT??? as soon as the love triangle is over, she’s gone. and i’m So Mad About That because she was so interesting! she goes off to private school while possessed, and thaT’S ALL WE KNOW????

it pisses me off how a character only seems to exist for a romantic subplot, but i’m used to it.

now, what’s really interesting is how this affects female characters in fandom. i can’t say male characters, because while they can be entirely subjected to this “i exist for the romance” trope--gayle from hunger games, bella’s high-school guy friend from twilight, hermione’s quidditch boyfriend holy shit i’m forgetting his name--when it comes to fandom, the girls are treated worse.

i’m going to cut to the chase and tell you why. internalized misogyny is a tricky thing. it can lead you to see a female character solely through her relationship to the male counterpart. it does not matter if she has wants, aspirations, or independent thoughts outside of that relationship. 

when it comes to shipping, she’s not even a character. she’s a threat. female characters are trashed mercilessly in canon and fandom when it comes to this.

look at mary watson’s and irene adler’s treatment in the johnlock fandom.

look at how lavender brown was viewed back in the old harry potter days.

look at all the dead girls from supernatural.

look at martha from dr. who.

skyler from breaking bad.

betty from mad men.

meg from supernatural.

rachel from glee.

guinevere from merlin.

mercedes from glee.

lana lang from smallville.

iris from flash.

terra from young justice.

and on and on and on and on and on

just. Yikes.

from now on, whenever i see a female character hated on because of whatever fucking “threat” she poses, i’m calling it the Rachel Elizabeth Dare Effect.

The Rachel Elizabeth Dare Effect: When a female character is treated poorly in canon and/or fandom, for reasons including any to all of the following:

-- she poses a “threat” to a popular ship

-- hypocrisy for hatred of traits (traits loved in one character but hated in this one)

-- a shallow refusal to see character outside of romantic pull/ties

-- pitting female character against another female character in a bizarre attempt to prove one is superior

not all of the ladies i listed strictly apply to the Rachel Dare Effect, but are worth mentioning because it brings up a topic that needs to be addressed in concerns to storytelling.

look. i love rick riordan’s stories and universe. the pjo characters mean a lot to me. i also love percabeth. do not mistake this post as a way to proclaim my hatred for certain characters and ships. that’s the exact opposite of what i believe. if you don’t like Rachel outside of the reasons i’ve shown above, then by golly, you do you. but this is about more than a personal preference.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and characters like her, deserve so much more than what fandom has thrown at them. please, take pride and care in what you write and read. it has a scary effect on young minds.