hackthis_archive (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-10-25 03:14 pm
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-10-25 03:14 pm
Entry tags:
I don't meta, I babble.
I have learned a few things today. I am going to share them. It's called Tell & Tell.
1. Opening your self up to people is some seriously fucking scary shit. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes you remember why you lost faith to begin with.
2. Turin Brakes. Anybody else notice that Gale looks like Weiss from Alias?
3. .![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ethrosdemon is always giving me shit about my distaste for the female protagonists in my (current and prior) fandoms: Lana, Hermione, Anna, Summer, Chloe, Rogue, etc etc... and I've thought about it and it basically comes down to my inability to relate to them on the personal level I need to feel a decent affinity with my character, and therefore write them in what I consider to be "in character."
For example, with a character like Lex, yes, I adore him because he's clearly mental and unhinged and full of great ideas and not so great follow-through. It's nice that he's pretty and bald and clearly so in love, when he does fall in love. That's all nice, I agree -- kind of like chocolate milk is nice. But I don't love chocolate milk; I like skim. I like the stripped down, Lex to-the-core who's devoted and sneaky and is all about being morally questionable. Before everybody shouts, 'he's evol!' let me point out that I didn't say I loved Lex Luthor, I said I loved Lex. There is a difference. Lex wants to be great; Lex Luthor doesn't think he has any choice. Lex wants; Lex Luthor is willing to kill for his obsessions. I'm digressing.
The point in all this is that Lex is multi-faceted and complex. He has character. He's three-dimensional and full of holes and faults. These characteristics don't appear in Clark to the same degree, and you can forget about Lana. And yes, some of those characteristics apply to Chloe too, but not in the same way. There are things I see in Lex that I've done and actions that I identify with. I can identify with the questionable past and actions and the sense of 'I'm trying even if I keep fucking up'. I don't identify with the 16 year-old some-what irritating Girl Friday. I don't identify with the homecoming queen. This does not make those points of view any less valid, I just don't identify with them.
I also don't get 'the obvious hero' thing. I don't relate to the good overcoming evil at all costs. I don't even think there should be a scale, because to me there's nothing good or bad, there's just the gray area in between. Which means that any female character who's tossing around any sort of 'all XYZ are evil' just immediately turns me off.
And then when you have a character like Hermione, the know-it-all, who always has the answers and is first in her class, I can't even stomach that sort of business. Not only do I not have all the answers, a lot of the time I don't even know the question... but I do believe in faking it until you can sort things out. Which pretty much makes me a Slytherin by default. Hermione, however, is just too flawless. The hair and the teeth are just red herrings to hide her ability to be everything to everybody all the time. You know what? Trying to do that is ridiculous and implausible. No one can be everything to everybody all the time, and she just seems to be the ultimate deus ex machina -- if Hermione says it is so and so it must be. She grates on all my nerves until they're shredded and I want to AK her myself.
Summer? Too vapid, though she has promise. Anna? Too understanding. Marissa? Oh please, spare me. And the day I decide I want to be Stella Kowalski or Frannie Vecchio, you have my permission to shoot me.
IMO, the female protagonists these days all seem to be perky, Girl-Fridays who put up with being stepped all over or princesses who pretend to have all their shit together. That's not me. It's never been me. The last female character I related to was Bridget Jones. And before that it was Angela Chase. You all remember her, right? The fifteen year-old girl from My So-Called Life with the bad dye job who was in love with somebody who maybe was or wasn't in love with her. Angela wasn't the head of anything or the perfect anything. She had spots! And she hated her sister! And she didn't get on with her parents and she sometimes she was really mean and petty and shallow, but not all the time, and she was fucking brilliant at it.
I haven't seen anybody like her since. So until society gets it through their thick heads that women aren't perfect, and, in fact, have spots and fall in love with people who aren't supermen or saviours of wizarding kind, I'll just keep on relating on these male characters who are at least allowed to have faults.
*ETN: I never loved Buffy, but I did think Faith was the shit, at least until they stuck her in a coma. Plus, hey, eventual redemption and all that nonsense.
4.
- So this is what dS looks like when they give them money! Why don't we have car chases on network TV anymore? Man, TV execs suck!
- Chicago? Beautiful place. God, imagine what S3&4 could've been with a real budget. Again, TV execs suck.
- When you watch a lot of episodes back to back, you really get an idea of what's stock repeat footage. The El going into the city at night anybody?
- The season as a whole was great, but it didn't really suck me in until 'Gift of the Wheelman' - at that point I realised I was running circles in my flat and by the 'The Man Who knew Too Little' (evol!Turnbull) I was just beside myself, literally.
- Fraser is the woobiest woobie that ever did woobie.teenygozer wrote this beautiful explanation in nifra_idril's LJ of why she was so disappointed in season 3&4 Fraser versus seasons 1&2 that I didn't really get that until I saw this. Oh, how I wish PG hadn't decided to change Fraser from the way he was, because S1 Fraser is just... He's so amazing.
I mean yes, he's lonely and clearly insane and full of good intentions that generally don't come out right, but he's so amazingly flawed. Oh, he's so flawed... It makes him so appealing to me. It doesn't really hurt that mygodisthatmanfine.serialkarma wants PG to play Cary Grant, I just want to see him shirtless again. Or covered up. Dude, I don't care. That scene in 'The Deal' when Elaine was cleaning Fraser's cuts? Okay, a) so that's what really chemistry looks like between the male & female leads, who knew? b) It was so hot my eyeballs have scorch marks.
- How can people hate on Vecchio? He is Teh Man! A balding Italian man with questionable fashion sense, but a man nevertheless. He's so devoted to Fraser; I'm just in awe. He was Teh Shit in 'The Deal' too! I think watching this season of dS may be the first time in years that I've watched a show and thought, 'no, no slash, but YES, they are friends'. This is what friendship should be like. This is fucking devotion.
- So, who wrote the meta comparing the Vecchio/Suzanne Chambers storyline in 'You Must Remember This' to the Fraser/Victoria thing? I know it must be out there; it was so obvious I still have a bruise from the anvil.
- I fucking loved the fathers/son storyline in 'The Gift of the Wheelman'. It was just... AHHHHHHHH! Ray talking to his father too. Plus, Dead!Bob! He really does have the best intentions, of course those are always jacked up, but he tries.
- I hated 'Invitation to Romance' (the episode with Jane Krakowski from Ally McBeal) because of the female lead. She made my eyes hurt and my ears bleed.
- Victoria's Secret ripped my undead heart out my chest and threw it into Lake Michigan. That kind of devotion and love and revenge you just don't get much these days. It's v sad. That Victoria put Fraser through all that, and he still wanted her just proved a) how nuts he is b) how devoted he can be c) Fraser's fucking crazy.
- I'm sure I have other thoughts but they're not forthcoming right now, but what I'd really like is some friendship Vecchio/Fraser. Does that exist, kids, or am I searching for the Holy Grail?
1. Opening your self up to people is some seriously fucking scary shit. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes you remember why you lost faith to begin with.
2. Turin Brakes. Anybody else notice that Gale looks like Weiss from Alias?
3. .
ethrosdemon is always giving me shit about my distaste for the female protagonists in my (current and prior) fandoms: Lana, Hermione, Anna, Summer, Chloe, Rogue, etc etc... and I've thought about it and it basically comes down to my inability to relate to them on the personal level I need to feel a decent affinity with my character, and therefore write them in what I consider to be "in character." For example, with a character like Lex, yes, I adore him because he's clearly mental and unhinged and full of great ideas and not so great follow-through. It's nice that he's pretty and bald and clearly so in love, when he does fall in love. That's all nice, I agree -- kind of like chocolate milk is nice. But I don't love chocolate milk; I like skim. I like the stripped down, Lex to-the-core who's devoted and sneaky and is all about being morally questionable. Before everybody shouts, 'he's evol!' let me point out that I didn't say I loved Lex Luthor, I said I loved Lex. There is a difference. Lex wants to be great; Lex Luthor doesn't think he has any choice. Lex wants; Lex Luthor is willing to kill for his obsessions. I'm digressing.
The point in all this is that Lex is multi-faceted and complex. He has character. He's three-dimensional and full of holes and faults. These characteristics don't appear in Clark to the same degree, and you can forget about Lana. And yes, some of those characteristics apply to Chloe too, but not in the same way. There are things I see in Lex that I've done and actions that I identify with. I can identify with the questionable past and actions and the sense of 'I'm trying even if I keep fucking up'. I don't identify with the 16 year-old some-what irritating Girl Friday. I don't identify with the homecoming queen. This does not make those points of view any less valid, I just don't identify with them.
I also don't get 'the obvious hero' thing. I don't relate to the good overcoming evil at all costs. I don't even think there should be a scale, because to me there's nothing good or bad, there's just the gray area in between. Which means that any female character who's tossing around any sort of 'all XYZ are evil' just immediately turns me off.
And then when you have a character like Hermione, the know-it-all, who always has the answers and is first in her class, I can't even stomach that sort of business. Not only do I not have all the answers, a lot of the time I don't even know the question... but I do believe in faking it until you can sort things out. Which pretty much makes me a Slytherin by default. Hermione, however, is just too flawless. The hair and the teeth are just red herrings to hide her ability to be everything to everybody all the time. You know what? Trying to do that is ridiculous and implausible. No one can be everything to everybody all the time, and she just seems to be the ultimate deus ex machina -- if Hermione says it is so and so it must be. She grates on all my nerves until they're shredded and I want to AK her myself.
Summer? Too vapid, though she has promise. Anna? Too understanding. Marissa? Oh please, spare me. And the day I decide I want to be Stella Kowalski or Frannie Vecchio, you have my permission to shoot me.
IMO, the female protagonists these days all seem to be perky, Girl-Fridays who put up with being stepped all over or princesses who pretend to have all their shit together. That's not me. It's never been me. The last female character I related to was Bridget Jones. And before that it was Angela Chase. You all remember her, right? The fifteen year-old girl from My So-Called Life with the bad dye job who was in love with somebody who maybe was or wasn't in love with her. Angela wasn't the head of anything or the perfect anything. She had spots! And she hated her sister! And she didn't get on with her parents and she sometimes she was really mean and petty and shallow, but not all the time, and she was fucking brilliant at it.
I haven't seen anybody like her since. So until society gets it through their thick heads that women aren't perfect, and, in fact, have spots and fall in love with people who aren't supermen or saviours of wizarding kind, I'll just keep on relating on these male characters who are at least allowed to have faults.
*ETN: I never loved Buffy, but I did think Faith was the shit, at least until they stuck her in a coma. Plus, hey, eventual redemption and all that nonsense.
4.
- So this is what dS looks like when they give them money! Why don't we have car chases on network TV anymore? Man, TV execs suck!
- Chicago? Beautiful place. God, imagine what S3&4 could've been with a real budget. Again, TV execs suck.
- When you watch a lot of episodes back to back, you really get an idea of what's stock repeat footage. The El going into the city at night anybody?
- The season as a whole was great, but it didn't really suck me in until 'Gift of the Wheelman' - at that point I realised I was running circles in my flat and by the 'The Man Who knew Too Little' (evol!Turnbull) I was just beside myself, literally.
- Fraser is the woobiest woobie that ever did woobie.
teenygozer wrote this beautiful explanation in nifra_idril's LJ of why she was so disappointed in season 3&4 Fraser versus seasons 1&2 that I didn't really get that until I saw this. Oh, how I wish PG hadn't decided to change Fraser from the way he was, because S1 Fraser is just... He's so amazing. I mean yes, he's lonely and clearly insane and full of good intentions that generally don't come out right, but he's so amazingly flawed. Oh, he's so flawed... It makes him so appealing to me. It doesn't really hurt that mygodisthatmanfine.
serialkarma wants PG to play Cary Grant, I just want to see him shirtless again. Or covered up. Dude, I don't care. That scene in 'The Deal' when Elaine was cleaning Fraser's cuts? Okay, a) so that's what really chemistry looks like between the male & female leads, who knew? b) It was so hot my eyeballs have scorch marks. - How can people hate on Vecchio? He is Teh Man! A balding Italian man with questionable fashion sense, but a man nevertheless. He's so devoted to Fraser; I'm just in awe. He was Teh Shit in 'The Deal' too! I think watching this season of dS may be the first time in years that I've watched a show and thought, 'no, no slash, but YES, they are friends'. This is what friendship should be like. This is fucking devotion.
- So, who wrote the meta comparing the Vecchio/Suzanne Chambers storyline in 'You Must Remember This' to the Fraser/Victoria thing? I know it must be out there; it was so obvious I still have a bruise from the anvil.
- I fucking loved the fathers/son storyline in 'The Gift of the Wheelman'. It was just... AHHHHHHHH! Ray talking to his father too. Plus, Dead!Bob! He really does have the best intentions, of course those are always jacked up, but he tries.
- I hated 'Invitation to Romance' (the episode with Jane Krakowski from Ally McBeal) because of the female lead. She made my eyes hurt and my ears bleed.
- Victoria's Secret ripped my undead heart out my chest and threw it into Lake Michigan. That kind of devotion and love and revenge you just don't get much these days. It's v sad. That Victoria put Fraser through all that, and he still wanted her just proved a) how nuts he is b) how devoted he can be c) Fraser's fucking crazy.
- I'm sure I have other thoughts but they're not forthcoming right now, but what I'd really like is some friendship Vecchio/Fraser. Does that exist, kids, or am I searching for the Holy Grail?
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