I’ve had a run-in with something that reminded me of the one thing that really agitated me in the Percy Jackson fandom, a few years back.
That, for a while there back in the day, I got shit for writing mpreg Percy.
Look. There are fandoms where I can... vaguely understand why people who are against mpreg would be irritated by an intake of mpreg fanfiction, but if it’s literally canon in your fandom, you gotta shut your face and move on.
I’m very happy that nowadays with the increasing number of ABO-fics, no one’s questioning mpreg anymore. You just slap “Oh, this? This is ABO” onto your fic and you got a universally accepted justification for mpreg. Yay.
But I did specifically pick a fandom where mpreg is canon just to get shit about it and it still baffles me that this ever happened, considering especially in the early days I elaborately justified myself for anyone who doesn’t know their myths.
There is literally a myth about Poseidon, aka Percy Jackson’s father and the one whose abilities Percy inherited, and Nerites, a male sea god, having a kid together - Anteros.
That’s the thing where I took my thing from. If it’s literally canon that Poseidon can have kids with dudes, then fuck yeah, his son can too.
And, granted, I’ll give it to you, this is a bit of a dig - which I had done in 2012, because I wanted to be accurate, like I was specifically looking for a reasonable justification to have mpreg in my stories, I didn’t just think “That’s neat, I’ll just make that shit up”, I went and looked for it and it was right there so I took it.
You don’t even have to dig that deep to get canon mpreg in Greek mythology though. Heck, mpreg is literally canon in the Percy Jackson universe already.
Have you met Athena? No? Well. Guess who was pregnant with her. Zeus. Yeah, that.
And, honestly, two dudes fucking and one ending up pregnant is infinitely more reasonable than one dude all on his own knocking himself up with a thought and giving birth through his head. He... He literally gave birth by splitting his head and Athena springing from it... but... sure... a guy getting a round belly because he’s pregnant and then having a c-section is gross. Go figure.
Seriously, I have never been able to understand why anyone in this fandom in particular was struggling with mpreg. Far weirder shit has happened in Greek mythology, mpreg nonwithstanding but still included.
“Well this queen getting fucked by a bull and giving birth to a half-man-half-bull creature, that sounds perfectly reasonable, but one guy getting another guy pregnant via anal sex? NO."
“Zeus turning into dust to get a woman pregnant? Okay, sure, but one guy getting another guy pregnant via anal sex? UNREALISTIC.”
“Zeus knocked this lady up while he was a swan and she then laid two eggs from which four kids hatched, of whom only two were actually Zeus’... but those didn’t even hatch from the same egg. One Zeus kid and one kid from her husband each shared and egg. That is totally normal biology also let’s not think on a swan impregnanting a woman, it’s okay. But one guy getting another guy pregnant via anal sex? No, that is gross!”
“So, Uranus’ dick got torn off and tossed into the water. And the entire damn ocean got pregnant and gave birth to Aphrodite. That sounds likely. But one guy getting another guy pregnant via anal sex? How does that make sense?”
“A woman gets her head chopped off by a dude and a winged horse and a human guy sprang forth from her neck. Wow. Awesome. So creative! But one guy getting another guy pregnant via anal sex? How would that work?”
And I mean, those are all very widely known, popular myths. Those aren’t niche myths only the huge nerds know. But absolutely no one’s questioning those.
I would just like to know where exactly the line is drawn for some people.
As long as it’s A Man knocking up A Woman (even in Aphrodite’s case; the sea back in that time was represented by Uranus’ sister Thalassa so you can argue she is Aphrodite’s mom), it’s a-okay, however unrealistic and bullshit it actually is, but don’t you dare challenge gender-norms...? Even if they too are canon in mythology, but if you do it, it’s wrong..?
I mean, it’s already beyond ridiculous to complain about mpreg in a fandom where mpreg is very much canon, but even if it weren’t and even if you don’t bother reading the A/Ns that explicitely point out the canon mpreg myth, where do you get off to complain about One Weird Pregnancy when the entire damn Greek canon is just one weird pregnancy after the other...?
