esmenet | (no subject)

I really hate it when people try to un-queerify Ranma. It's just like ... wow, are you EVER missing the point of, like, the entire canon. But it's also really funny! So many people trying to make things heteronormative, when canon is basically made of infinite queer. (Never forget the levels of pseudo-heterosexuality built into Ranma 1/2 that actually make everything LESS heterosexual, e.g. Ukyou and Konatsu.) What really upsets me, though, is when critics who should damn well know better dismiss Ranma 1/2's gender stuff as 'rudimentary' or 'shallow'. That's just ... really upsetting to me, because that manga is the queer text of my heart.

On another note, I kind of want to write some sort of Ranma/Yobei Heron thing (you remember him, right? the hot-springs guy who got girls to stomp on his head to try to find Ranma?) but I once wrote an entire page on why the manga's ending was the symbolically perfect happily-ever-after for Ranma and Akane, and I feel kind of bad writing anything to mess with that. :(

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What really upsets me, though, is when critics who should damn well know better dismiss Ranma 1/2's gender stuff as 'rudimentary' or 'shallow'.

OMG. Just about everyone in the entire cast fucks with gender norms somehow (not even on purpose, and even the ones trying to uphold said gender norms.) Even everything between Akane and Kasumi. Akane is happy her hair is *finally* as long as Kasumi's, then Ranma and Ryouga are stupid and her hair stays really short for the rest of the manga. Also how Kasumi is the homemaker and Akane can't cook at all. Or how Ranma is pleased that in girl form she's "better built" than Akane is. *Or* that one of their favorite insults of Akane is "macho chick." OR that Akane gets them back repeatedly for all of this bullshit.

I once wrote an entire page on why the manga's ending was the symbolically perfect happily-ever-after for Ranma and Akane, and I feel kind of bad writing anything to mess with that. :(

Hey, now--Ranma and Akane could totally have an open relationship!

This is true! Wendy Watson, you're the only one who gets me.*

*I have The Middleman on the brain.

Not gonna lie, everyone in my head is polyamorous.

(Also: OMFG your prompts for

gen_battle!)

I had so much fun coming up with those! There was one more I really wanted to put for either Kodachi or Lydia from Teen Wolf -- 'bleach, lighter fluid, ammonia, gasoline, I don't know, lady stuff' -- but I was so tired I forgot. Next time, I suppose.

Dear lord in heaven EVERYONE in Ranma goes against gender norms at one point. And while it's entertaining, that doesn't automatically mean that it's shallow.

Exactly!

And it's so not shallow that I actually use it as a comeback to people who say they're 'just writing to entertain'. Oh yeah? Well, so was Takahashi Rumiko, and SHE entertained people with the most nuanced depiction of a genderqueer character in mainstream media up to and including the present day!