Subtle Like a Bat'Leth To The Face

R.O.H.G.E.

captlebubbles — Sun, 05 Mar 2017 05:31:12 GMT

Okay so you’ve got these five high school girls, right?

Rachel is your typical Alpha Bitch. She’s the head cheerleader, the most popular girl in school, all the boys want her on their arm, she probably sleeps around, she’s always stylish. She doesn’t see herself as “not like other girls”, she sees other girls as not like her- but obviously she’s everything a girl wants to be and everything a girl should be.

Opal is the goth-punk-emo-rocker girl who has just discovered feminism, and isn’t quite sure what to do with it yet. She wants to throw off the shackles of the patriarchy and embrace all other women in the solidarity of sisterhood, except for all the ones who are still conforming to social expectations of women because they’re obviously The Enemy™. She’s not like other girls- she’s far more enlightened. She’s openly a lesbian and has some terfy leanings.

Hannah is the athlete, the star of the girls’ basketball team and the girls’ track team. She scoffs at weak, shallow girls who don’t have the wherewithal to go through the intense training she does, as well as scoffing at the frivolity that comes along with it. They care far too much about clothes and make-up and boys and she doesn’t have time for any of them.

Gertrude is a tomboy, kind of plain and unassuming and frequently mistaken for a boy. She’s “just one of the guys” and prefers it that way, because girls have too much drama and boys are just easier to talk to in general. She’s never worn a dress in her life and jokes about how much it “burns” if make-up even comes near her. Everyone assumes she’s a lesbian but she’s not.

Eloise is the smartest girl in school. She gets straight-a’s, wins academic awards left and right, and has never missed a day of school in her life. Everyone already knows she’s going to be valedictorian and they’re only sophomores. She, too, has recently discovered feminism, and knows exactly what to do with it- she spends quite a lot of time talking down to the other girls in school for not being more like she thinks they ought to.

So you’ve got these five girls, and you’ve got this secret organization who are researching genetic engineering. And for some plothole reason they need a bunch of teenage girls to subject to some experiments to do with superheroes. And they decide to pick the girls who are The Most™ because they’ll be best suited for some reason. And the girls consent, and next thing you know you’ve got these five ordinary teenage girls who now have superpowers and have become very technopunk magical girls and are helping the secret organization to save the world or something idk I’ll think of it later.

The point is, most of the character development across the story is going to be about the girls becoming better people and learning and growing and realizing that “not like other girls” shouldn’t be a weapon against each other, and they shouldn’t be competing for the approval of men but instead uplifting and supporting each other.

Also Rachel and Hannah end up being a couple because I want to play around with the “jock gets the cheerleader” trope a bit.

captlebubbles — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 06:18:02 GMT

I was thinking about Coupling and how I might rewrite it to keep all the things that charm me about it while making the gross icky parts less gross and icky, and I realized that ninety percent of the changes would pertain to the handling of Jane and Jeff’s backstories.

Because Jane was a bisexual woman repeatedly being told that she wasn’t, was obviously suffering from depression, and was very clearly desperate for meaningful companionship (it should be noted that after bonding with Sally and Susan, and to a lesser degree the boys, she loosened her hold on Steve), and Jeff was an abuse victim whose mother had so badly twisted him that his concept of appropriate behavior was vastly skewed, and all of this was clearly dismissed by friends who, while obviously disturbed by his history, tended to write this history off as just Jeff being mad.

Both of them deserved so much better than the treatment they got, and honestly I would love to see them handled better.

captlebubbles — Sat, 21 Jan 2017 03:27:41 GMT

Today's tiny accomplishment that I feel shows great improvement: did one (1) whole sit up without my feet stuck under my dresser and they only came up a teeny bit off the ground. \o/

In other news, I've been having bad head days again. It's always really easy, when I'm feeling good, to pretend that the bad head days are gone, but of course they always come back, lurking in the back of my mind to tell me all the reasons I'm worthless.

Did my workouts and drank my water and ate my sportscandy anyway, because fuck you bad head days.

captlebubbles — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 22:40:00 GMT

In a continuation of Project Theo, I've decided to learn ASL, because not only will it be useful in general, it'll look good on future resumes, and give me something to do with my hands when I've got that itch burning under my skin and no viable outlet for it.

(Project Theo is not just about physical improvement but also improving in any other ways that strike my fancy.)

captlebubbles — Sun, 08 Jan 2017 04:38:09 GMT

I add a new stretch to my routine every day. I didn't start out doing this intentionally, I just kept thinking of new ones I wanted to try.

The current routine is push into each stretch until I can feel it, then hold it for a ten count. The idea is to gradually get to the point where I can go farther (and longer) until I'm as flexible as I want to be. My soft goal for the end of the year is a split- I've always wanted to be able to do a split, but never felt like putting in the time to learn- I'm a very instant gratification kind of guy and this is something that takes time and effort. But I figure as long as I'm doing this, I might as well make it a thing I try to do.

Pushups are still hard. I'm not really trying to up the ante with those yet, since I can still barely do the ten I've decided to set as my starting point and half the time struggle to get through all of them in one go. But, again, this is one of those 'it takes time' things; it's not like I was expecting to just jump into one-armed pushups the first week.

(Though I did just drop and try them, just to see- I can hold myself up with my right arm, but I can't start lowering. My left arm is a pansy and dropped me immediately.)

Operation Be a Better Theo checklist (physical version, step one)

captlebubbles — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 16:30:56 GMT

Just to get things in writing

One fresh fruit or vegetable a day (try to eat the whole thing)

One glass of water a day (preferably in the morning but any time is fine)

Stretches after waking and before going to bed

Pushups before bed (try to keep a consistent schedule for these)

I'll update the checklist as more things become realities but this is just the beginning.

(The mental version of the plan doesn't have a checklist, it's mostly just trying to stay positive by avoiding drama and not seeking out negativity. That's harder to quantify as a checklist.)

captlebubbles — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 00:36:26 GMT

Also, "Sportacus would be proud of how much I've managed" and "Sportacus would be proud even when I failed, because I tried" are two of the most inspirational thoughts I've ever had.

captlebubbles — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 17:16:22 GMT

I made a joke last night about how I love Magnús Scheving (creator of LazyTown, and the actor who plays Sportacus) with all my heart, but I realized this morning that it's completely true. I've been going through a really rough time lately, both emotionally and just meatspace stress in general (holiday season, and I work in retail) and watching LazyTown and enjoying all the bts stuff I can find with Magnús and the others has been one of the only things able to keep my spirits up during it.

He's just a really good dude? There's jokes about not knowing where Magnús ends and Sportacus begins but jokes aside, he very much is the sort of person Sportacus encourages us to be, and that's not a bad thing. He's kind and friendly, he likes to have fun, and cares about people, he works hard and he has nothing but glowing praise for the people he works with. Watching him in things he's adorable, the way he just lights up with delight. He might be a little bit extra, what with all the sports tricks, but to be honest I know that if I could do that kind of stuff I'd never stop either.

He's even given me the last bit of inspiration I need to actually start taking an active role in trying to get stronger, rather than just waiting around for something to happen, though I'm putting it off till after the holiday season because there's some minor logistics I need to sort out and right now I'm just too tired.

captlebubbles — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 05:25:35 GMT

I changed my Tumblr url to Sportabean, in case anyone had been thinking of looking me up.

I loved my old url, wyomingsmustache, and it's a wrench to change it, but I feel like it's time for a change, and anyway, wyomingsmustache is associated with too many things that hurt now. So I'm sportabean now. (It's a lazytown url.)

I've been thinking about Hope and Dark lately, and I've got this idea for the fourth arc that involves the third arc ending with Dark killing the big bad, because he can see (where Hope can't) that there's no reform for this guy, and that given the sheer number of people who have died/are going to die because of him, he also doesn't see that he deserves it.

But Hope is one of those "give everyone a chance" heroes, and never wanted to make the decision for anyone else, and can't grasp the whole idea of "sometimes it's you or them". I blame the fact that his first two villains got redemption arcs. It set a precedent.

Anyway, Dark kinda enjoys killing Kickstarter, he gets a thrill from it, and Hope can see this, so he gets angry, and there's some displacement and they argue and Hope ends up telling Dark the fuck off and don't come back. So Dark does, and the fourth arc is a recovery arc from the first three as the story shifts into a new arrangement.

At some point during the separation, Dark's original fire-based powers come back, so part of the arc is him learning to use his powers in conjunction with each other. This makes him one of only two characters to have more than two base powers, the other being Trinity, who has three but can only use one at once. (Everyone else has two and can combine them. Dark gets three, and expects to have the same limitation, except that he can combine his, and is very confused. Unfortunately the scientist studying the "outliers" is part of their group and he stubbornly refuses to be the one to go back to Hope. If Hope wants him back, he'll have to do the legwork himself.)

At the same time, serious talk is popping up on the news and in the media about these outliers and how dangerous they are and whether they should be allowed to continue, because no one in this verse has read comic books or something. Though some excellent points come up about how, sure, some of the outliers have been sure not to cause trouble, but some have gone out of their way to, and humanity is dependent on other outliers to prevent them from causing harm. In Amity it gets especially brutal because Claudia's research ended up drawing a lot of outliers, and Kickstarter's plot created more, so now a small rural town is basically crawling with heroes and villains, and while they were pretty chill with one each, dozens and dozens is more than they're prepared to deal with.

Don't get involved with someone you can't talk about your crushes with.

captlebubbles — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 03:38:02 GMT

So one of the things that's really important to me with Hope and the Dark Destroyer is making it clear that with all of my villains, regardless of their motives and their backstories and no matter how sympathetic they are, all of them made the conscious decision that "it doesn't matter how many people get hurt, as long as I get what I want". Whether what they want is a chance to lash out, a need to feel powerful, material gain, or just wanting to cause pain, for all of them it was a conscious decision. They knew what they were doing.

And like. Sure, some of them were talked into it. But none of them were forced into it, and for the ones that get redemptions arcs (several, some for plot-relevant reasons and some just because of how the third arc-on villain works), it's always because they chose to change.

And this is really important to me.

(Have I told y'all about Hope/Dark?)

And not just cause Magnus Scheving is hella

captlebubbles — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 02:53:50 GMT

At some point over the past week my Tumblr went from "occasional reaction posts about Lazytown, which I watch while playing Pokemon" to just a Lazytown blog. My blog is so very Lazytown. How did this happen.

On the bright side, I have two fanfics being written. One is a deage fic that is about halfway done, the other is birthday-party fic that I'm writing for a friend of mine, and probably won't be that long.

Also, I'm super gay for Sportacus. Yesterday I officially crossed from "lol jokes about how sexy he is" to laying my head on my desk and repeating "he's so cute????? he's just so cute" over a twenty second video my friend sent me of Magnus answering an interview question so I officially have it bad. Why is he so cute. Who authorized this.

Are any of my lj peeps into Lazytown?

captlebubbles — Sat, 05 Nov 2016 02:08:14 GMT

You really should have talked to me when I was having that breakdown, hon.

Because now I've had time to stew over the fact that you waited till I was having a breakdown to tell me that you needed space. That you ignored me just trying to find out what you needed. That you went off on my friend for trying to help. That you acted like that one, small, five second courtesy was too much to ask. That you've left me hanging for six fucking days because I said I didn't share your headcanon. That you put words in my mouth. That you are, quite frankly, treating me like absolute shit for what amounts to a reasonable mistake that I fucking apologized for immediately.

You should have come and talked to me when I was having that breakdown. Because now I can't promise that I'll be there to listen when you've decided I've waited long enough.

(Except I probably will. And I'm not sure which I'd hate myself for more.)

What am I supposed to do just sit here and not fall in love with you

captlebubbles — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 13:33:10 GMT

I will say this, of all the storylines I'm looking forward to this season, I'm really looking forward to how Yang's recovery from losing her arm will go. I trust RT, I honestly do, and I'm really hoping that trust won't be misplaced.

See, right now she's still in the depression part. She went through a hecka traumatic experience (and then a little more trauma just to put the cherry on the cake), the season opener has made it clear she's suffering from PTSD, and everything we've been shown in trailers and the opener (we're two episodes in, hers won't likely be till next or next-next episode, since she's the Y- depends on if they combine her with Blake to save time) that her recovery is still in the pretty early stages.

Which is understandable! The v3 finale was brutal, even the fandom is still recovering. It's completely understandable that, as of right now, she's barely started recovering.

But I also know that Kerry and Miles are good writers. And I know that they've proven time and again that they're willing to handle delicate subjects carefully. I trust them. I trust them to give me a story of Yang recovering and becoming someone new, not her old self because that's not how it works, but someone who has been through hell and come out the other end still strong and still smiling.

Now if the fandom could shut up about how her not being given a cool robot arm five seconds after losing her real one is "illogical" and "unfair", I'd be really well pleased.

Everything is all that I love about you

captlebubbles — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 12:52:24 GMT

My mom has started going to this new church and a lot of her new church friends are vegetarians, so she's started experimenting with vegetarian cooking so she can feed them at church events (which is cool of her). She's also finding that there are lots of vegetarian recipes that meet her weirdly specific dietary requirements (my mom has health problems coming out the wazoo), so she's started incorporating them into her own diet for health reasons.

I was teasing her last night because she was saying it advised not going off of meat immediately because it would shock your system if you did.

"Yeah, my system would be pretty shocked if I stopped feeding it meat too."
"It'd demand to know what was going on."
"What are you doing."
"Why are you like this."
"Please just give me a pork chop."
"Theo please."

captlebubbles — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 06:16:32 GMT

I may have had a small breakdown on Tumblr

Talk about embarrassing

How dare that main character get screentime.

captlebubbles — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 13:18:51 GMT

My favorite thing about Mercury's fanbase is that it's the least toxic part of the RWBY fandom. And I mean, this isn't a high bar to clear anyway but like... Mercury fans are one thousand percent prepared to admit their fave is garbage, and half the humor about him is jokes about dunking him headfirst into the trash where he belongs.

But we also cry over his backstory and are absolutely sure that the problem lies heavily with Cinder and Salem, and long for a redemption arc because we want him to have better.

We have no problem admitting what a garbage fuckboy he is. We just want him to get recycled.

I'm a neon rainbow and you're no fun

captlebubbles — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 12:26:37 GMT

Here's the thing about Jay Branwen:

He caused harm, yes. His bitter attitudes toward his own brother are part of the reasons for his nephew's self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy beside his sister. Qrow never felt badly that Raven was the heir, but because of Jay he always felt like he should.

But Jay doesn't know that. It's not like he sat Qrow down repeatedly and told him "hey you should be bitter". He always admired how close Qrow and Raven were, admired the way Qrow could be so devoted to Raven and not resent her for getting their birthright instead of him.

No, he never meant to drive Qrow to self-loathing and bitterness. He just got so caught up in his own head that he never realized his young nephew was picking up on his feelings of resentment to his brother and applying them to himself and his sister.

And I can't possibly imagine why a character like that would be so important to me, or why I would want to write him.

captlebubbles — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 02:29:48 GMT

Because if I don't, I'll say

Sometimes that headcanon helps them deal with the shit in their own head, why is yours any more important?

Because I'll say, I didn't belittle or mock you or call your headcanon stupid, so why are you acting like I did?

Because I'll say, I spent six damn months trying to make that headcanon work for me because I knew how much it mattered to you and hated that I couldn't love it too.

Because I'll say, I've rewritten entire story arcs for you, abandoned fics I wanted to write for the fics you wanted to read, left behind ocs that meant the world to me because you admitted you hated their archetype, rewrote an oc that I sympathized with because your first reaction to me telling you about him was "stab him" and then "intent doesn't change the harm caused" when I pointed out that his actions had been accidental.

Because I'll say, you mean the world to me and seeing you happy is all I want, and it's tearing me up inside that you're upset with me but it also hurts that you'd vague about your headcanons being belittled when I tried so damn hard to love them.

Because this morning you vagued about adoring me and I can't even begin to understand why, after I hurt you so badly, you could still feel anything positive about me at all.

Because I can never say these things, because they'll make things worse, because I hate myself even more for feeling like a victim when I was wrong, because you have every right to be upset and I know you'll be okay with me again, maybe soon, and we can put this behind us.

Because I want you to like me again, and I'm afraid if I say anything right now you won't.

captlebubbles — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 01:17:35 GMT

Hi my name is James Theodore Jackson and I love the taste of my own feet

I may fall but you won't be the one to do it

captlebubbles — Sat, 29 Oct 2016 18:01:59 GMT

Me: James Ironwood is so important to me, everything about his characterization resonates deep in my very soul
Also Me: Haha, robonip

I scored the robonip url on Tumblr today! I wanted it months ago, but a friend beat me to it, but apparently he got rid of it and now it's mine. That means that between my main url, my hub url, and my spoiler url, I have the three best urls on Tumblr. Hooray!

Take these broken wings and learn to fly me to the moon

captlebubbles — Sat, 15 Oct 2016 18:28:40 GMT

Last night I dreamed that I was with a group of dimension hoppers and we came home and it was a few years later and we had hopped in in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. It was never explained why we didn't just hop back out, but I woke up in the middle of the first act so maybe that came up later idk.

Anyway after I woke up I lay in bed for awhile trying to make sense of the story to see if I could make it something coherent. This is what I came up with (bear in mind that I was half-asleep and trying to keep true to the spirit of my dream, as well as dozing off and redreaming stuff while I thought).

First off, I decided that the dimension hopping gear we used needed to charge. It did that on its own, but it took time, and our group (there were half a dozen of us) were looking for shelter from the zombies while we waited. For the sake of story and creating tension, I decided the gear takes about three days to charge. I also decided that while we had a backup (because you don't want to hop into an active volcano and not have an escape plan), the backup was destroyed because we had already put it away when the zombies turned up, thinking we were home and that it wouldn't be needed. Also I'm going to say right now I'm aware of how similar this concept is to Sliders, which was weird to me because I haven't thought of Sliders in ages.

So, we hop into this danger zone, think we're safe, put away our equipment, and are on our way back to wherever (a house? a lab? who knows!) when we get attacked by zombies. The zombies destroy the backup equipment, so we're stuck here a few days while we wait for the main equipment to charge. Also it's established in the fight that zombies can't climb (we climbed up on the back of a semi trailer to get away from them). I'm pretty sure that was going to come back to bite us if I hadn't woken up.

We reach a house, which happens to belong to a member of the group. I think it belonged to one of my characters (I was playing multiple roles in this story), because my dogs were there (and not zombies???) as well as a bag of the dog food I use. There was a weird subplot to the dream of me trying to track down a bowl and feed them since they hadn't eaten in a few years (????). Weirdly, this is not the first time my dream has had this subplot, though this is the first time it was actually my dogs and not just some random dogs my dream provided me. Apparently I'm really big on feeding dogs? Anyway. We reach this house and we're trying to lock it down so we'll be safe while we wait for our equipment to be ready.

While we're there, a doorknob starts rattling and there's this whole "oh no the zombies can use doorknobs!!!" tension moment, but false alarm, it's just someone who has the key and... lives there... for some reason. The other thing that starts happening while we're there is that rumbling up above draws our attention to the fact that the sky is a false projection on a steel dome, and that there are several bridges running up and over the city. This is not explained in the dream, so I had to wing it later. I decided that the person who lived in my house was my character's roommate (they were the ones who'd been feeding my dogs, which was nice of them, though this entire sequence will likely be changed later on, once I come up with something more coherent, because a lot of it doesn't make sense).

Roommate explains that a few years ago, right after the group left, zombies started turning up. The government, being genre savvy, decided they were just going to contain the contaminated area, so they set up a barrier around the town and surrounding areas that the zombies couldn't get through. How did they just have the barrier? We ask, but get no answer; roommate just shrugs and says they'd made it for something else and it turned out to work.

Roommate goes on to say that since the barrier was never meant to work full time, the government had also built a steel dome over the entire area. They also hadn't given the humans a chance to escape, because they've seen this movie, okay, they'd rather sacrifice a couple thousand humans than let the entire planet fall by risking those humans being carriers. Makes sense, in a really cold kind of logical way, but it still sucks for the people inside and there's absolutely the narrative implication that it wasn't a hard choice for them to make, there was no moral dilemma for them, and they've already written off the now only a few hundred people living in the contained area.

Final bit of exposition is about the "bridges", which are covered sci-fi looking walkways that had already been built between us leaving and the zombies appearing; they were created as an experimental transit system, and after the zombies arrived the lifts were destroyed so they could only be accessed by ladders and people use them to get around. The survivors all live in raised shelters which were originally intended to be the access points for the walkways. Like the walkways, they're only accessible by ladder now. Yes, I'm aware that it's not very disabled access friendly, but it's also not zombie friendly. I'm sure that would have been elaborated on later, when we were actually there. Even if it was a negative scenario. I don't know. Like I said, I only made it about halfway through the first act.

Also, there's a skylight that opens about once a month and brings in supplies for the survivors via chopper, as well as scientists who are trying to study the phenomena in question. So, to recap: we have a lot of convenient things in place to make a containable zombie apocalypse that no one saw coming, as well as methods to keep human survivors from interacting with the zombies, and scientists who bring supplies and arrive every month to study the zombies, and all of it is government funded.

Roommate explains that we've got about a week before the next drop, and we can come stay in the shelter and wait for our equipment to recharge if we want. Our leader (also me) is down, and we all start heading to the shelter, which is about the point I woke up, so that's as far as the dream goes, except for one cliche scene at the end of the three days where we decide to stay for awhile longer to try to figure out what's going on with all this blatantly suspicious bullshit that got infodumped on us in the first part of the first act.

He's even gone rowing with an orangutan

captlebubbles — Sat, 15 Oct 2016 04:23:45 GMT

Have I ever told you guys about how I've fancast Brian Blessed as Mustrum Ridcully in my head so hard that I sometimes forget he's never actually played him?

I never meant to hurt you

captlebubbles — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 21:32:47 GMT

Been thinking of original story ideas left and right lately. Probably won't turn any of them into anything, but they're fun to work with! I've also remembered and revived some of the more colorful stories I made up to entertain myself as a teenager; I've always dismissed them as generic and nothing more than idle entertainment, but when I sat down nd tried to remember some of the details, I ended up finding that between what I could remember and what I made up to fill in the blanks my memory left, the ideas had some real merit to them- certainly enough to revisit the ideas now, and see what I can make of them.

The Dark Destroyer is a supervillain who loves his job. He has no moral bearing and cares for no one but himself. But when he finds that the hero thwarting him at every turn is suffering from a pretty heavy cocktail of depression and anxiety, all that changes. It's up to Dark to become the hope that Hope needs.

After all, it's not like anyone else is volunteering.

Hope and the Dark Destroyer follows the exploits of the Dark Destroyer, a supervillain who finds himself looking after the emotional well-being of his rival. From no-holds-barred battles meant to give Hope a chance to unload, to befriending him in his civilian life, to arranging a parade and holiday for him with the city, Dark does everything he can to keep Hope happy, or failing that, to give him a shoulder to lean on when he isn't.

Godchild is the story of what happens when gods go missing. After the five local gods of Wymsea vanish, their power is transferred to five ordinary human children. Now, with the help of the demigod Luna and her pals, the kids must step into the roles the gods have left behind, as well as fight the vicious godeaters, monsters who devour the power of gods.

Godchild follows the exploits of five kids who inherit the powers of their local gods. This is, as we find out later, a worryingly common occurrence, with gods vanishing frequently, leaving behind their power. The main conflict of the story comes from the godeaters, interspersed with day-to-day conflicts as the children try to do the jobs of the gods. Over time, though, we begin to learn that while gods have always vanished, they are vanishing at an alarming rate. What's more, a single force seems to be controlling the godeaters. The story becomes instead about the kids stopping this force.

Man I wish there was a Gilligan fandom.

captlebubbles — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 16:44:21 GMT

So I've been watching Gilligan's Island lately, and I remembered that once when I was waiting to meet with my advisor at school I was wandering up and down the hall and I overheard a class that was discussing Gilligan's Island. I don't know what the class was, but in it the teacher was talking about Ginger and Mary-Ann. She was saying that Mary-Ann was a more feminist character than Ginger because Ginger was the glamorous movie star with feminine wiles and Mary-Ann was just an ordinary girl who works in a general store in Kansas. And I remember being really annoyed by it because:

For a start, neither Ginger nor Mary-Ann are particularly feminist tropes. Ginger is the glamorous Hollywood woman. Mary-Ann is the girl next door. Both of these tropes are things that exist on part to appeal to the male gaze. On the part of the writers, this contrast was intended to set them as a contrast for each other as the show's two young women. They're two young women around the same age but from vastly different worlds, and that comes out a lot in their personalities.

However, this doesn't mean they aren't feminist-friendly. While there are going to be some obvious issues for any female characters written for mainstream television in the sixties, both girls actually are really well-written. They both get fleshed out personalities, backstories, storylines, a friendship that is consistently portrayed as positive and mutually-fulfilling, and perhaps most importantly for the context: neither of them are defined by their relationship to a male character.

The thing that bothered me was that the teacher was arguing that Ginger was less feminist than Mary-Ann because she was always talking about her boyfriends, or men she found attractive, always paying attention to her appearance, and was kind of vapid and shallow. She also had a lot more blurry-screens than the others, and a sexy saxophone progression that played when she was trying to be seductive.

But set that aside and consider Mary-Ann through the male gaze. As I said, Mary-Ann is the girl next door. She does a lot of the cooking and cleaning. She gets flustered and needs to be rescued more. She often wears a dress with a wide, flared skirt, giving her a more girlish appeal, and her alternate outfit is a two-piece swimsuit that accents her figure but still looks pretty tomboyish and suggests friendly intimacy.

Both girls play up a specific part of the male gaze. Ginger is the girl you go out with, but Mary-Ann is the girl you bring home. Many of their contrasts are based around that, too: Ginger is glamorous, but a little aloof, whereas Mary-Ann is ordinary and feels like your best friend. Ginger wears an elegant, womanly, figure-hugging evening dress, Mary-Ann wears a fun, girlish flared skirt. Mary-Ann's alternate outfit is the still somewhat-tomboyish swimsuit, Ginger's is a dress made from the Minnow's sail, rather plain but it accentuates what it needs to. Mary-Ann tries to do things herself and gets flustered when she fails, but in a cute "you tried, now let a man do it" way; Ginger sees no need to dirty her hands when she can get a man to do it instead. In both cases it's "let a man do it", but Mary-Ann is presented as a "it's cute that you tried" and Ginger is presented as a prize to be won for competency.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Neither girl was written from a particularly feminist perspective. And that's a discussion that could go one forever and ever, and if there was a Giligan's Island fandom I would probably be happy to have those discussions. But Saying Ginger is "less" feminist than Mary-Ann because she likes boys- because she's glamorous- because she uses her glamour to get what she wants- is a load of crap.

What's this 'and the rest' crap?

captlebubbles — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 14:38:23 GMT

One of the trippy things that always comes from watching Gilligan- or really any show from that time period- is casual references to things that in their time are quite recent, but for us are a thousand years ago (or, almost a century, anyway).

The Skipper fought in WWII and is still in his prime, he’s not an old man. Mr. Howell speaks of the Great Depression and the stock market crash, Mrs. Howell talks about movies and people that were big in the thirties (and in fact talks about the thirties in general). At one point they even have a WWI vet turn up and he’s not an old old man either, a little past his prime but still spry enough on the whole.

It’s so weird to think about. Gilligan and Mary-Ann and Ginger- they’re young enough that they were probably born just after the war ended, the Professor was likely a small boy during the war, and of course the Skipper served and the Howells were already in their prime. And these aren’t old people. They’re young, except the Howells, they’re spry and active and not the way we would think of someone who was alive at that time.

Idk it’s just really trippy to hear casual references to the war as if it was something recent when watching young (and young-ish) people talk.