![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI just stumbled across something about female characters and slash that pefectly expresses why I can't really get into slash. And the Very Special Princess Syndrome. Although I don't identify with Buffy like ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
double_helix does, I completely understand what she's saying. Ever since I was a kid, I read stories and found a single character that I would identify with very strongly, and usually that character had to be female. If there wasn't a cool female character, I would latch on to the nearest okay-seeming female character and make up cool stories for her so that she would be the star. This resulted in many funny fantasy games with my sister and my cousin, in which I would say, "Let's play a game! I'm going to be a girl called Eowyn who rides Shadowfax and is courted by Faramir and Aragorn." You get the point. I think I may have stopped doing this to some extent, becuase I was reading this and realized that this hadn't happened to me in either Buffy or Angel. I started watching Buffy because of Spike, and right now, I'm very very invested in Spike. The rational side of me says that comparing Spike and Angel is stupid because they're obviously different characters, but the involved side of me says Spike is much better because he went to get the soul by himself, nya nya nya, and he should get Buffy in the end for ever and ever and ever. As I said, very rational of me... In Angel, Cordelia used to be my girl. Now I think I've moved on to Wesley, but in any case, I'm not as passionate about any of them as I am about Spike.
Previously, though, I always needed a female character. I identified with Scully big time, and generally in any books, I'll find a female character who will be elevated to the status of "favorite," and I'll defend that character through anything. For example, Eowyn. And if I can't find a good female character, I will make her interesting by dwelling obsessively over the few pages she's in and wondering what she's thinking. Even in shows like Gundam Wing, where the females are woefully underdeveloped, I latched on to Noin and created an entire backstory for her, very tragic, making her a lot like me. Hopefully not too Mary-Sueish, but there was great over-identification going on there. And aside from the general non-turned-onness I get from slash, this is very big. I need to have a female character somewhere in the story. Even though I am obsessively invested in Spike, I still can't manage to read Spike/Angel. I think it's because when I become invested in fictional male characters, it's always as a type of crush, whereas I constantly identify with female characters.
Big spoilers for Fionavar Tapestry ahead
So while I adored Diarmuid in the Fionavar Tapestry and was crushed when he died, my "favorite" was still Sharra. Although the Fionavar Tapestry has a good deal of female characters I liked: Kim, Jaelle, Sharra, the poor lios alfar of the Swan Mark who saw Lancelot (I have a thing for Elaine). Surprisingly, I didn't like Jennifer. I don't have anything personal against the character, but identifying her with Guinevere did it for me.
I found also that while I identify very strongly with female characters and crush on male ones, when I truly hate a character, she's always female. I hated Guinevere. Passionately. With male characters, in general, I'm less emotionally involved. I wonder why this is? I wonder what this says about me... Maybe I'm starting to get over this now, because I haven't done this with a female character for a while, at least not for any of the shows I've been watching lately. I have no idea why I haven't picked up on a favorite female character in Buffy, considering the fact that there are so many good ones. I have nothing against them at all; I honestly do admire Buffy for what she does, although I have to admit I like Willow more. I definitely like Anya now, and have liked Dawn for a while. But none of them get to me like Spike does. Willow, especially season 2 Willow, gets very close though. I think if I had started watching the show back in seasons 1 and 2, Willow would have been my main identifying character. In Firefly, too, I started latching on to Simon for some reason. And in Alias, if I ever get into Alias, I will latch on to Jack Bristow. But this is because the only females I get to choose from are Sydney and Francie. Francie is a typical boring sitcom/drama "best friend." Sydney kicks ass but is also emotionally stupid (as of ~7 episodes in).
And since I'm already rambling on characters, I find I also have the tendency to go for characters who don't seem all that popular just to be perverse (with the very large exception of Spike, but Spike is simply too charismatic and interesting to spurn on the mere basis of popularity). In general, I don't identify with the main character, mostly because I always feel that things will end up going their way no matter what. I like having secondary characters that I can focus on and wonder about, ergo the joy of fanfic.
Hrm. Three sentences have been written of The Thesis, chapter 2. Outline for the religion paper due Friday is done. No studying yet for the Thursday midterm. And instead of doing any of those things, I'm going to watch the new Angel episode. I love wildfeed.
double_helix does, I completely understand what she's saying. Ever since I was a kid, I read stories and found a single character that I would identify with very strongly, and usually that character had to be female. If there wasn't a cool female character, I would latch on to the nearest okay-seeming female character and make up cool stories for her so that she would be the star. This resulted in many funny fantasy games with my sister and my cousin, in which I would say, "Let's play a game! I'm going to be a girl called Eowyn who rides Shadowfax and is courted by Faramir and Aragorn." You get the point. I think I may have stopped doing this to some extent, becuase I was reading this and realized that this hadn't happened to me in either Buffy or Angel. I started watching Buffy because of Spike, and right now, I'm very very invested in Spike. The rational side of me says that comparing Spike and Angel is stupid because they're obviously different characters, but the involved side of me says Spike is much better because he went to get the soul by himself, nya nya nya, and he should get Buffy in the end for ever and ever and ever. As I said, very rational of me... In Angel, Cordelia used to be my girl. Now I think I've moved on to Wesley, but in any case, I'm not as passionate about any of them as I am about Spike. Previously, though, I always needed a female character. I identified with Scully big time, and generally in any books, I'll find a female character who will be elevated to the status of "favorite," and I'll defend that character through anything. For example, Eowyn. And if I can't find a good female character, I will make her interesting by dwelling obsessively over the few pages she's in and wondering what she's thinking. Even in shows like Gundam Wing, where the females are woefully underdeveloped, I latched on to Noin and created an entire backstory for her, very tragic, making her a lot like me. Hopefully not too Mary-Sueish, but there was great over-identification going on there. And aside from the general non-turned-onness I get from slash, this is very big. I need to have a female character somewhere in the story. Even though I am obsessively invested in Spike, I still can't manage to read Spike/Angel. I think it's because when I become invested in fictional male characters, it's always as a type of crush, whereas I constantly identify with female characters.
Big spoilers for Fionavar Tapestry ahead
So while I adored Diarmuid in the Fionavar Tapestry and was crushed when he died, my "favorite" was still Sharra. Although the Fionavar Tapestry has a good deal of female characters I liked: Kim, Jaelle, Sharra, the poor lios alfar of the Swan Mark who saw Lancelot (I have a thing for Elaine). Surprisingly, I didn't like Jennifer. I don't have anything personal against the character, but identifying her with Guinevere did it for me.
I found also that while I identify very strongly with female characters and crush on male ones, when I truly hate a character, she's always female. I hated Guinevere. Passionately. With male characters, in general, I'm less emotionally involved. I wonder why this is? I wonder what this says about me... Maybe I'm starting to get over this now, because I haven't done this with a female character for a while, at least not for any of the shows I've been watching lately. I have no idea why I haven't picked up on a favorite female character in Buffy, considering the fact that there are so many good ones. I have nothing against them at all; I honestly do admire Buffy for what she does, although I have to admit I like Willow more. I definitely like Anya now, and have liked Dawn for a while. But none of them get to me like Spike does. Willow, especially season 2 Willow, gets very close though. I think if I had started watching the show back in seasons 1 and 2, Willow would have been my main identifying character. In Firefly, too, I started latching on to Simon for some reason. And in Alias, if I ever get into Alias, I will latch on to Jack Bristow. But this is because the only females I get to choose from are Sydney and Francie. Francie is a typical boring sitcom/drama "best friend." Sydney kicks ass but is also emotionally stupid (as of ~7 episodes in).
And since I'm already rambling on characters, I find I also have the tendency to go for characters who don't seem all that popular just to be perverse (with the very large exception of Spike, but Spike is simply too charismatic and interesting to spurn on the mere basis of popularity). In general, I don't identify with the main character, mostly because I always feel that things will end up going their way no matter what. I like having secondary characters that I can focus on and wonder about, ergo the joy of fanfic.
Hrm. Three sentences have been written of The Thesis, chapter 2. Outline for the religion paper due Friday is done. No studying yet for the Thursday midterm. And instead of doing any of those things, I'm going to watch the new Angel episode. I love wildfeed.
Tags: