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metafandom a bit too much lately. But the Female Character Flowchart has been making such extensive rounds that I've started to see it elsewhere as well. It's popping up on facebook, twitter... and I'm fascinated by how, outside of LJ, all of the reactions I've seen have been "Yeah... the state of female characters is pretty sad," whereas most of us in this corner of fandom are up in arms about how some of our favorite female characters got thrown onto the chart or, from a wider standpoint, how the chart implies that any female character that serves a supporting role is not a "Strong Female Character". Some of you might remember my last diatribe on "Strong Female Characters" (which is locked due to real-life things touched upon in that entry, sorry), which mostly boiled down to my conclusion that 80% of the time I don't hold up to most "strong" character standards, so what are we even looking for if real, actual people don't pass muster? (And this happens on the list, too. I mean, Yoko Ono is on it and, as much as she's reduced to a trope in pop culture, she is still a real person.)
And this is where I would wave my hands around and shout "Stop conflating 'strong' with 'well-written' in terms of characters." Nevermind how 'strong' tends to be a masculine ideal and putting the first on the list of traits for a female is counter-intuitive at best... well-written is what matters. (And I can't even get into the whole problem this raises with flawed vs. too flawed. And goodness, once we've determined, in that straight little line that supposedly leads to narrative perfection, whether someone is flawed enough or not they get dumped into the same reductionist morass as everyone else that can't carry their own story or exists as a soapbox for someone's ideas.) So let's say that our gold-star "Congratulations!" category is for Well-Written Female Characters. But I'll be honest here, I suspect that Lara Croft makes it across that fine line at the top, and in a chart where that happens but Faye Valentine and Zoe Wasburne are relegated to substandard status is more than a bit flawed (not that both of those characters don't suffer from writer-inflicted oversight problems). And that's my main argument against the chart. It's more concerned with a war against tropes than it is with what actually makes a good character, regardless of gender, and it doesn't seem to distinguish at all between the different roles protagonists play versus supporting characters.
But I'm determined not to go off on another rant on this stuff. Instead, I want to have a bit of fun with this chart. I've been skimming through it for the better part of a half-hour now, trying to figure out where I fit on it. I mean, I'm constantly going on about how my life has a secret author, after all, so it's only appropriate for me to figure out where I stand.
I'm going to come straight out with my hypothesis (because otherwise I will never manage to organize this entry at all). Because if you take your own life as a story, where you fall on the chart depends entirely on how you cut it. Every story is just a piece of a whole world (that's why fanfic has a place to flourish), and all of the characters in it technically have their own individual story going on. And I think this is something it's fair to assume for every character, whether the writer actually manages to portray that or not. I mean, let's face it, one-dimensional and stereotypical characters do serve a purpose (though I'm certainly not going to argue that they're always going to be put to good use). And, honestly, look at the people in your life that you only sort of know. The check-out guy in the grocery store with the weird haircut, the bank teller you always see, the boss you have that shares random out-of-context personal details. Are these three-dimensional characters? No, not from your point-of-view. But are they not real people? (Without straying into philosophy here, guys.) I like to think that there are three dimensions to any character, even if we don't get to see them, and that's the way I view most fictional characters. If it's not there, I tend to make up the rest, and that's probably why I forgive so much I shouldn't when it comes to writers messing things up.
So. Back on track here, a character's role and dimension depends on how you slice the story. I'm currently fascinated by the role I fulfill if you just lift my office out into its own narrative. In this scenario let's assume we're working with an ensemble cast and I'm not the main character, so that automatically bumps us down to the villain question. With a few exceptions mostly having to do with my hatred of our process servers, I don't really fit the villain category, and I'm not a love interest. Since we're looking at my office, it is a team-oriented story, and that gives me approximately eight choices for who I am. If we're telling the story from any other department's point of view, I'm almost invariably the shy-nerdy voice of reason. If we're looking from an attorney's point of view, I am anywhere from Rogue to Punching Bag, depending on the day and whether I've tried to contact a certain stupid large national bank that is not our main client lately (since there doesn't seem to be a 'She does whatever we throw at her/Jack of all trades' category, I suppose I'll say I'm mostly a Rogue in regards to the attorneys). And if we take it from my department's standpoint, I get to hop over to the circle of 'Leader' characters. Ignoring my propensity to categorize my job as a horror story, I'm not violent and I'm certainly not 'nearly-perfect,' so that leaves me in the 'Married to her job' category. Which isn't terribly inaccurate, I suppose, but apparently still makes me a not-strong female character. But let's go back to 'nearly-perfect' because I love this one. It gets leveraged against female characters all the time, because something deep in our insecurity makes us point to other girls and go "Too perfect!" I have, in fact, had this finger pointed at me at work several, if not many, times. Because I'm a goody two-shoes, because I put in extra hours without complaining, because et cetera. And so here, because some of the other women in my office resent the fact that, by not complaining about extra work, I am actually obligating them to do more work without complaining as well or risk irking the bosses, I slip into the annoying overachiever category (or, assuming an audience that isn't my co-workers, I am an 'Ideal Woman', presumably because my male bosses like me. But if I was a bit older I would be a wise crone, and maybe miraculously I wouldn't be resented anymore? Or, if the genders in my office were switched and the female attorneys liked me more than my male co-workers, I would be a Mary Sue?)
At this point I feel like my point would be made better by walking an actual, fictional, female character through this chart, so the nonsense you encounter by trying to implement this really comes to light. Because what it's coming to, outside of the meta issues at stake here, is that the role of all of these female characters boils down to point-of-view. (So, what does it say about our point of view here that I (we?) disapprove so intensely of this chart? What does it say about the chart-creator's point of view?)
I was going to take Temperance Brennan through the chart, but I realized pretty quickly that, since she is a titular character of a show she pretty much gets a free pass through the top line. Congrats, Bones, you can hang with Lara Croft. So I suppose it follows that this chart is effective as an argument against the lack of female protagonists. But that makes the whole bottom of the list terribly unnecessary, and as much as I'd like to look at the chart in this light, even my powerful inclination to retcon things doesn't extend that far.
And actually, I think that might be where all of our problems arise. The first question is whether the character can carry her own story, but that question then seems to be treated as whether the character does carry her own story. Just because some of these women are not written as main characters doesn't mean that they couldn't carry their own story, it just means that a different point-of-view was chosen for telling the story they were involved in. (I'm confident that the original authors of several of these characters, at least, would do a fine job of making them into main characters in their own stories.) And it's an even bigger problem that, since all of the first three turn-offs lead to the same place, it's basically implied that all the women in the branches off of the main line can't carry their own story, and are either too perfect or too soapboxy. I think it's this implication that has people up in arms, and I'm left thinking maybe without the examples, this would be a much better chart. (So I erased everyone. Which I guess makes me a villain.) Without the pictures we could stop focusing on figuring out how certain of our favorite characters were deemed unable to carry their own story, or without flaws, or too representative of an idea, and focus instead on how, if you're a female leader of a team, it's still possible for your main purpose in the story to be "the Gossip". (What?) Which is the sort of error that's the real failing of this chart. The examples lead to the dead-end logic that characters don't fit more than one trope, but more importantly the lines themselves lead to overly reductive and dismissive conclusions about female characters in general.
Which feels like a conclusion in a crappy college gender studies essay, but whatever. It's Sunday night and I have nothing better to be doing.
I guess, what I'm generally getting at when I pick up these arguments is that it's absurd to have some predetermined "Ideal Female Character" archetype, because there is no way it can be fulfilled realistically. And yes, I think that is what this chart is implying, because it relegates every trope to substandard status. So, in order to be a strong female character, you need to carry your own story, be just flawed enough, and not representative of anything readily recognizable (which I can only assume is how a lot of those characters got onto the bottom of the list). I remember having this argument countless times in college, with people who would tear other people's writing apart for "clichés" that were really just tropes. People have a habit of thinking that, just because they recognize something as an idea they've seen used before, that it must be a cliché and taken out back and burned. I feel like I tend too much toward ultra-realism in my demands for fiction, but at the same time, an unattainable standard for a certain group of characters, especially an entire gender's worth of characters, is arguing too hard for ultra-fiction.
metafandom a bit too much lately. But the Female Character Flowchart has been making such extensive rounds that I've started to see it elsewhere as well. It's popping up on facebook, twitter... and I'm fascinated by how, outside of LJ, all of the reactions I've seen have been "Yeah... the state of female characters is pretty sad," whereas most of us in this corner of fandom are up in arms about how some of our favorite female characters got thrown onto the chart or, from a wider standpoint, how the chart implies that any female character that serves a supporting role is not a "Strong Female Character". Some of you might remember my last diatribe on "Strong Female Characters" (which is locked due to real-life things touched upon in that entry, sorry), which mostly boiled down to my conclusion that 80% of the time I don't hold up to most "strong" character standards, so what are we even looking for if real, actual people don't pass muster? (And this happens on the list, too. I mean, Yoko Ono is on it and, as much as she's reduced to a trope in pop culture, she is still a real person.) And this is where I would wave my hands around and shout "Stop conflating 'strong' with 'well-written' in terms of characters." Nevermind how 'strong' tends to be a masculine ideal and putting the first on the list of traits for a female is counter-intuitive at best... well-written is what matters. (And I can't even get into the whole problem this raises with flawed vs. too flawed. And goodness, once we've determined, in that straight little line that supposedly leads to narrative perfection, whether someone is flawed enough or not they get dumped into the same reductionist morass as everyone else that can't carry their own story or exists as a soapbox for someone's ideas.) So let's say that our gold-star "Congratulations!" category is for Well-Written Female Characters. But I'll be honest here, I suspect that Lara Croft makes it across that fine line at the top, and in a chart where that happens but Faye Valentine and Zoe Wasburne are relegated to substandard status is more than a bit flawed (not that both of those characters don't suffer from writer-inflicted oversight problems). And that's my main argument against the chart. It's more concerned with a war against tropes than it is with what actually makes a good character, regardless of gender, and it doesn't seem to distinguish at all between the different roles protagonists play versus supporting characters.
But I'm determined not to go off on another rant on this stuff. Instead, I want to have a bit of fun with this chart. I've been skimming through it for the better part of a half-hour now, trying to figure out where I fit on it. I mean, I'm constantly going on about how my life has a secret author, after all, so it's only appropriate for me to figure out where I stand.
I'm going to come straight out with my hypothesis (because otherwise I will never manage to organize this entry at all). Because if you take your own life as a story, where you fall on the chart depends entirely on how you cut it. Every story is just a piece of a whole world (that's why fanfic has a place to flourish), and all of the characters in it technically have their own individual story going on. And I think this is something it's fair to assume for every character, whether the writer actually manages to portray that or not. I mean, let's face it, one-dimensional and stereotypical characters do serve a purpose (though I'm certainly not going to argue that they're always going to be put to good use). And, honestly, look at the people in your life that you only sort of know. The check-out guy in the grocery store with the weird haircut, the bank teller you always see, the boss you have that shares random out-of-context personal details. Are these three-dimensional characters? No, not from your point-of-view. But are they not real people? (Without straying into philosophy here, guys.) I like to think that there are three dimensions to any character, even if we don't get to see them, and that's the way I view most fictional characters. If it's not there, I tend to make up the rest, and that's probably why I forgive so much I shouldn't when it comes to writers messing things up.
So. Back on track here, a character's role and dimension depends on how you slice the story. I'm currently fascinated by the role I fulfill if you just lift my office out into its own narrative. In this scenario let's assume we're working with an ensemble cast and I'm not the main character, so that automatically bumps us down to the villain question. With a few exceptions mostly having to do with my hatred of our process servers, I don't really fit the villain category, and I'm not a love interest. Since we're looking at my office, it is a team-oriented story, and that gives me approximately eight choices for who I am. If we're telling the story from any other department's point of view, I'm almost invariably the shy-nerdy voice of reason. If we're looking from an attorney's point of view, I am anywhere from Rogue to Punching Bag, depending on the day and whether I've tried to contact a certain stupid large national bank that is not our main client lately (since there doesn't seem to be a 'She does whatever we throw at her/Jack of all trades' category, I suppose I'll say I'm mostly a Rogue in regards to the attorneys). And if we take it from my department's standpoint, I get to hop over to the circle of 'Leader' characters. Ignoring my propensity to categorize my job as a horror story, I'm not violent and I'm certainly not 'nearly-perfect,' so that leaves me in the 'Married to her job' category. Which isn't terribly inaccurate, I suppose, but apparently still makes me a not-strong female character. But let's go back to 'nearly-perfect' because I love this one. It gets leveraged against female characters all the time, because something deep in our insecurity makes us point to other girls and go "Too perfect!" I have, in fact, had this finger pointed at me at work several, if not many, times. Because I'm a goody two-shoes, because I put in extra hours without complaining, because et cetera. And so here, because some of the other women in my office resent the fact that, by not complaining about extra work, I am actually obligating them to do more work without complaining as well or risk irking the bosses, I slip into the annoying overachiever category (or, assuming an audience that isn't my co-workers, I am an 'Ideal Woman', presumably because my male bosses like me. But if I was a bit older I would be a wise crone, and maybe miraculously I wouldn't be resented anymore? Or, if the genders in my office were switched and the female attorneys liked me more than my male co-workers, I would be a Mary Sue?)
At this point I feel like my point would be made better by walking an actual, fictional, female character through this chart, so the nonsense you encounter by trying to implement this really comes to light. Because what it's coming to, outside of the meta issues at stake here, is that the role of all of these female characters boils down to point-of-view. (So, what does it say about our point of view here that I (we?) disapprove so intensely of this chart? What does it say about the chart-creator's point of view?)
I was going to take Temperance Brennan through the chart, but I realized pretty quickly that, since she is a titular character of a show she pretty much gets a free pass through the top line. Congrats, Bones, you can hang with Lara Croft. So I suppose it follows that this chart is effective as an argument against the lack of female protagonists. But that makes the whole bottom of the list terribly unnecessary, and as much as I'd like to look at the chart in this light, even my powerful inclination to retcon things doesn't extend that far.
And actually, I think that might be where all of our problems arise. The first question is whether the character can carry her own story, but that question then seems to be treated as whether the character does carry her own story. Just because some of these women are not written as main characters doesn't mean that they couldn't carry their own story, it just means that a different point-of-view was chosen for telling the story they were involved in. (I'm confident that the original authors of several of these characters, at least, would do a fine job of making them into main characters in their own stories.) And it's an even bigger problem that, since all of the first three turn-offs lead to the same place, it's basically implied that all the women in the branches off of the main line can't carry their own story, and are either too perfect or too soapboxy. I think it's this implication that has people up in arms, and I'm left thinking maybe without the examples, this would be a much better chart. (So I erased everyone. Which I guess makes me a villain.) Without the pictures we could stop focusing on figuring out how certain of our favorite characters were deemed unable to carry their own story, or without flaws, or too representative of an idea, and focus instead on how, if you're a female leader of a team, it's still possible for your main purpose in the story to be "the Gossip". (What?) Which is the sort of error that's the real failing of this chart. The examples lead to the dead-end logic that characters don't fit more than one trope, but more importantly the lines themselves lead to overly reductive and dismissive conclusions about female characters in general.
Which feels like a conclusion in a crappy college gender studies essay, but whatever. It's Sunday night and I have nothing better to be doing.
I guess, what I'm generally getting at when I pick up these arguments is that it's absurd to have some predetermined "Ideal Female Character" archetype, because there is no way it can be fulfilled realistically. And yes, I think that is what this chart is implying, because it relegates every trope to substandard status. So, in order to be a strong female character, you need to carry your own story, be just flawed enough, and not representative of anything readily recognizable (which I can only assume is how a lot of those characters got onto the bottom of the list). I remember having this argument countless times in college, with people who would tear other people's writing apart for "clichés" that were really just tropes. People have a habit of thinking that, just because they recognize something as an idea they've seen used before, that it must be a cliché and taken out back and burned. I feel like I tend too much toward ultra-realism in my demands for fiction, but at the same time, an unattainable standard for a certain group of characters, especially an entire gender's worth of characters, is arguing too hard for ultra-fiction.
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From:
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I took a look at that flow chart thingy. I've seen it crop up before, but this is the first time I've bothered to look at it. Who made it? I assume they pulled it straight out of their ass, but I could be wrong: maybe they have a media studies degree.
I tried to find my place on the chart, which necessitated me choosing "yes" for the question "Does she represent an idea?" (The idea I represent: "There's no situation that doesn't call for sarcasm.")
I came up with "The Final Girl" as typified by Ripley from Alien (BAD ASS!), and "The Wet Blanket" as typified by Dorothy from The Golden Girls. Either of which I would be quite happy to own up to. (Though I suspect "The Wet Blanket" is the one that's closer to the truth.)
It's more concerned with a war against tropes than it is with what actually makes a good character, regardless of gender, and it doesn't seem to distinguish at all between the different roles protagonists play versus supporting characters.
I think you've nailed the failings of that flow chart right here. That's the thing about characters (especially supporting ones): they're created by writers to serve a purpose in a narrative. Many times this purpose fits the description of a trope, and that's not bad: that's writing.
My main problem with that flow chart, and with many discussions on "strong" female characters in general, is the underlying misogyny of the people who refuse to acknowledge more than a handful of female characters as being worthy of attention. If you're making a cipher for strong female characters and Ripley, Dorothy, Sarah Connor, and Marge Simpson don't cut the mustard, you are doing something wrong. You may need to relax a little bit, and cut the sisters a break!
I consider myself a "strong female character" in my own life, and yet I spend way too much time talking about my hair. For serious. I mean, there are days when I am just waiting for someone to bring it up so I can talk about a new shampoo I found. And while there are about a million strengths and weaknesses that I value as more important to my character, there are some days when I just want to talk about my hair, damn it! And I don't think those moments should relegate me to the role of "The Ditz" or "The Attention Whore" (thought God knows I've played both...)
This is the point in the comment where I'm just rambling aimlessly without any further point to make, so I'm going to say goodnight. I do love your thinky meta posts. :)
From:
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What fantastical shampoos have you found? I have a thing for Lush shampoo bars, but it's mostly because I like not having to find a way to get the last of the shampoo out of a bottle, it makes me feel just a little environmentally superior, and I just pick things that smell good. (-;
Ah-hem... but really, that's exactly it. We all have times where we're easily boiled down to a trope, but that doesn't make us poor female characters, and even if someone snaps a picture of us at that particular trope-y moment, we probably wouldn't even deny that it was us (except me, because I hate pictures of myself). So, provided we're written well in that moment, there isn't anything terrible inaccurate about tropes. Except when they're overused, I guess, which isn't a point that's really made in the chart anyway.
Blah blah tropes are not evil blah blah. (-;
I'm glad you actually read these things, and then comment. It makes me very happy to have people to talk to when I get all meta and thinky.
From:
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(Hey, Sherlock's gonna be on Masterpiece Mystery starting the 24th! Sorry, as usual I have about 7 tabs open at once, and I just saw the ad on another one.)
Now, let me get in my girl-talk pose and tell you something about my hair: I have a really oily scalp, and really dry ends. Because of the oily scalp, I need to shampoo everyday, which dries out the ends more. (Also, about a year ago I was a bleach blonde, and I'm still growing out that part of my hair.) I started using Neutrogena Triple Moisture, which is making the ends really soft, but it's making the roots TOO moist and cling to my head.
I'll have to try these shampoo bars. I think there's a Lush in the mall, but I hate the mall, and usually only go when dragged by a friend.
When I was employed full-time, I really enjoyed Aveda shampoos and conditioners. All natural and they smell and work AWESOME. However, now that I am a full-time student and a part-time math tutor, I cannot afford such elegant hair cleansers.
(I was going to ask you who Chris Nolan was, but then that's what God created google for, isn't it?)
We ARE strong female characters, damn it! And someday we will team up and fight crime. And then all the fangirls will bitch that you're "too smart to be believable" and that I'm "too shallow" because I talk about my hair all the time and we'll just have go sit our pretty little selves down and let the boys handle it.
From:
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I have the same kind of problem, but I also abuse the crap out of my hair by stuffing it into a bike helmet daily, so I get all kinds of stray frizzy bits up top if I don't get things exactly right. And I basically never get things exactly right. Though last time I got my hair cut I did let the girl talk me into getting some Aveda flyaway control stuff, and man, that stuff is expensive but it does wonders.
The Lush bars are a little on the expensive side (~$10), but they tend to last a little longer than bottled shampoo. I think. It's actually been a few years since I've had a bottle of shampoo. The Lush shop tends to weird me out, though, because the girls automatically glom on to you and want to talk about how your hair behaves and I never know how to answer those questions and I tend to be like "Well, it's hair, I guess, and it's straight and it sits there, except if it's windy, um..." Nevermind when I try to buy soap or skincare products.
See what you've done here? This was a perfectly legit conversation about feminism and charts and now it's about PBS and hair products. (Crime doesn't stand a chance against our meandering!)
From:
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I...don't even know who I would recommend Sherlock to! I honestly don't think any of my friends take any of my TV recommendations seriously. I got two of them to give Doctor Who a try, and they both hated it. (Though one of them just happened to tune into DT's last episode which, besides being terrible, is a rather confusing intro to the show. She has promised to give it another try: I'm going to show her The Eleventh Hour.)
Yes, hyperactive sales girls is one of the reasons I hate malls. Though I did have a "hair consultation" with a lady at an Aveda, and it was highly enjoyable! A whole conversation focused solely on MY HAIR! For joy!
See what you've done here? This was a perfectly legit conversation about feminism and charts and now it's about PBS and hair products.
I will do that. It's probably the closest thing I have to a superpower, my ability to take any intellectual conversation and completely derail it. I don't know how it's going to help us fight crime, but I'm working on it.
ETA: BTW, have you written your Dark!fic for
From:
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All the people I would recommend Sherlock to already know about it. Or I got a hold of them and made them watch it shortly after it aired (as is the case with the people I usually have Doctor Who night with). And oh geez, The End of Time is an awful place to start. I mean, everything else aside, it includes ten nearly uninterrupted minutes of Ten's trademark Stare of Great Time Lord Intensity masquerading as his final goodbyes. (I... really enjoy making fun of that episode. ^_^)
Honestly, that is an excellent superpower for defeating the sort of villains that monologue before doing anything. We'd just have to make sure we faced off against the right sorts.
(And no... I am having a bit of a rough time with this whole dark!fic thing. I have a lot of vague ideas, but I can't get them past that point. I'm not sure what kind of soul-crushing thing I want to inflict. Or even what kind of soul-crushing thing I have the chops to invent. Because my guess is it's going to take a lot of work to keep it from being tongue-in-cheek, or secretly fluffy or something. Or literally just "dark fic," where there are no lights. (-;)
From:
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answering machinevoicemail! I ♥ that man.I am very jealous that you have friends to have a Doctor Who night with! I will make at least one of my friends like Doctor Who, I WILL! (I'll just keep the rest of them away from The End of Time as long as possible! Oh good God, how I hated that episode! Why did they do that to us? WHY??)
Honestly, that is an excellent superpower for defeating the sort of villains that monologue before doing anything. We'd just have to make sure we faced off against the right sorts.
So: Bond villains and Fox News pundits? You know, I'm starting to think this could work...
I cannot write that fucking dark!fic, or the original short story I'm supposed to write for another competition I'm in! Grr!
Or literally just "dark fic," where there are no lights. (-;
Some members of Team Sherlock actually came up with this as a plan! We were informed by our mod that it's not allowed. ;)
From:
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It took a lot of coincidence to get my friends into Doctor Who... I got one of my college friends kind of into it, mostly by proximity, and we watched it every once in a while. More recently, he was on a crusade to get his wife into nerdier television, so it made it onto a long list of sci-fi shows he subjected her to, and lucky for me it happened to be the one she decided she liked. So now we have the occasional Doctor Who night. Mostly, though, when I try to get people into the show they end up showing up for Doctor Who night and it'll be an episode like Love and Monsters. Heck, we even failed this year with The Beast Below, because I had to keep explaining how the sonic screwdriver was supposed to work and how it wasn't quite magic but yes, basically it was. (Methinks our victim was a bit too used to hard sci-fi.) Unfortunately there aren't a whole lot of episodes that are good jumping-in points. Eleventh Hour would be my choice, too.
I think of The End of Time as the culmination of RTD's strange feud with his past selves, in which he endlessly tried to outdo his previous finale. By that point, there really wasn't much else you could do other than pick up everything that was left lying around the room and throw it into a script. (Which is why I was angry at Moffat for taking the trend a step farther and then destroying the entire universe, even if it was just temporary.)
My dark!fic is going to end up either being a morality play or... actually, the other idea is just a slightly-less-obvious morality play. Sigh. I'm going to set it at night or indoors anyway, just so it's a little dark. Darn the embargo on lighting loopholes!
From:
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But, when I start getting all pouty about my fic, I know it's time to take a step back and get over myself. I'm writing stories based on a Sci-Fi kid's show, for Chrissakes.
It's always hard to get people into television shows. I know I'm always resistant when someone does it to me. It's so uncomfortable when you notice them watching you out of the corner of their eye the whole time to see if you're laughing/enjoying the show.
The sonic screwdriver is...kinda hard to explain. It's basic the Magic Plot Device of Expedience and Convenience. It basically does whatever the Doctor wants it to do, unless what the Doctor wants it to do would cause the episode to conclude in fewer than 45 minutes.
From:
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I really enjoy fic that's a bit unusual or challenging, but I've always run into The Comment Problem with things like that. I wish I'd come up with a good way to get around feeling like whatever I'd just written wasn't good enough, because I'd totally tell you what the secret was. :/ I liked it, though! For what that's worth. ^_^
I'm downright terrible to people who recommend shows to me, unless they're one of about two or three people whose opinions I trust. Otherwise I snark at it ruthlessly, regardless of whether I'm enjoying it (probably so people will let me watch things on my own, just so I won't have to worry about them checking to make sure I like it).
This is precisely what I love about the sonic screwdriver. It should also be a giant fiction no-no, since it's pretty much just a portable deus ex machina, but... it's deus ex machina that makes a little "schweee" noise and lights up! (Why does this make me want to write a mock episode where the Doctor accidentally solves everything in less than 45 minutes and has to Suffer The Consequences?)
From:
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Umm, because that's an AWESOME idea that NEEDS to be written!
Now I feel bad for writing that thing about comments, because I was sitting here thinking: "Have I read any of
I need to get over my comment-whoring mentality. My archive at AO3 really pushes me over the edge, because it allows me to see how many hits each of my story receives. Most of the gen fic I write for Who tends to be Rory/Amy-focused, which seems to be a niche market in the Whofic world. Those stories get a few hits and the occasional comment or bookmark, but nothing big.
I also archive all the smut I write for the kinkmeme there. Anything Rory/Amy-focused gets as much attention as my gen fic. Throw the Doctor in? Or, better yet, make it Doctor/Amy? Mega hits!
The real winner though? I archived my fic from the first challenge at
Ok, slap me: tell me to get over myself. Even I'm starting to get sick of me now!
I wish we could brainstorm! I think if we left out specifics, it should be fine. I don't know, do you have any ideas, because I'm comin' up snake eyes! (To clarify: not to steal them, to find out if someone else is in the same boat.)
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And don't feel bad about complaining about comments! Heck, I linked to my fic journal with a disclaimer that basically said "Don't let me catch you actually reading this!" Once I post something I'm actually invested in, it'll probably go up on my journal here so I can comment whore and obsessively check the stats on it. (-; Until then, no guilt is to be had over not reading something I've written (and really, even then...)
Statistics like that always intrigue me. Especially that Amy/Rory smut is equally niche as Amy/Rory gen. I wouldn't have guessed that. I suppose I can see the addition of the Doctor getting more attention, since he's pretty much everyone's focus. But I've never really understood the popularity of pairing the Doctor with people. I see him as pretty much as ace as ace can be, and I know in Classic Who that was generally how he was played, too, but with New Who I feel like I'm projecting (with Ten, especially... Darn you, Tennant, and your Sexy!Doctor).
The Sherlock fandom seems to be both massive and voracious. More than 400 hits in a month... that's almost one hit per word! I wish I understood why this series was like the fandom perfect storm. I could harness that and use it for good. (Or evil, depending.)
I have ideas, but none of them are good. Or, well, actually most of what I've come up with falls into a horror category more than "dark" as it was described in the challenge. My original idea was to delve into Sherlock's network of homeless people and tell one of their stories, because there's bound to be something dark there, but I realized I was going to end up either grandstanding about Sherlock's exploitative relationship with them or it was going to be so obscure that it would be out-of-sync with the show as a whole. So I ditched that idea. Then I thought "Well, let's be spooky and do something supernatural" which turned into a "John accidentally sells his soul" fic which had a tangent "Really awful Gift of the Magi fic in which Watson sells his soul and Sherlock sells his intelligence", but I knew that was going to be too long and also not really within the boundaries of the challenge and... okay, you're right, I don't have any ideas, either. At least, not any useful ones. In fact, the one I'm actually writing could easily fit on this list as well, but darnit I only have two days to write it now, so I'm not changing my mind again.
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While I'm not particularly into slash, I've read enough of it to know, generally, what people want out of their slash fic. As for femslash? I need to read some more as research, 'cause I have no clue. I'll probably fall back on smut, since it seems the easiest way to please. (And I love writing River in smut!)
The Sherlock fandom seems to be both massive and voracious. More than 400 hits in a month... that's almost one hit per word!
After I wrote that, I went back and checked my AO3 stats: it's actually close to 500 hits in about two weeks! (My latest isn't going to be as successful, I fear, as it's not Holmes/Watson-focused.)
Speaking of which, I WROTE MY DARK!FIC! (I have not, however, finished the second half of my art appreciation assignment, which is also due Sunday. That I'm leaving 'til the last minute. Priorities: F'ED UP.)
All I can say is: it's really very dark. When I go dark, I tend not to pussyfoot around.
I should think a horror story would be fine for the challenge! I love all of your ideas, though you're probably right that some of them wouldn't work with the word limit. If those are the ideas you've rejected, I can't wait to see what you do write!
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Femslash seems to be the niche market of all niche markets in fic. I see requests for it all the time, but I rarely actually see it written. As such, I don't think I've read more than three fics ever that involved it. (Then again, I don't read many slash fics in general.) Props to you for offering to write it, though! I was really shy about going outside my comfort zone on this one, so I basically said "genfic only (or slashy fluff if I really have to)."
Yay, darkfic finished! (Yay, backwards priorities!) As soon as I'm done sorting out the internet (which could take anywhere between another hour and another day) I'm going to sit down and write mine. I seem to have a functioning outline, and most of the dialog sorted out, so hopefully I won't still be hitting my head against the keyboard tomorrow. ^_^ I think whether I de-anon this round is going to depend on whether I'm successful in making this fic properly dark. If it ends up as unbalanced (mechanically, not psychologically) and grey as I think it'll be, I'll probably stay behind the curtain. But if you're still curious after voting I'll let you know which one it was. (-;
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My challenge is this: A short (3-5 songs?) playlist illustrating or engaging with all or a part of the Female Character Flowchart. ^_^
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Meanwhile, the condensed version:
Bad Female Characters Need Love, Too!
a fanmix
Each feather it fell from skin
Till threadbare while she grew thin
How were my eyes so blinded?
Each feather it fell from skin
I just love you more... (x100)
I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE! (x100)
Nipple to the bottle, you satisfied
Huddled on the floor till I make you cry
Don't speak don't think don't ask why
Don't ever leave Mommy, don't say goodbye.
Hush now, baby, don't you stress:
I'm gonna fill your mommy complex.
He tried so hard to please her
He sold his soul to keep her happy
But nothin’ he did impressed her
She always left him feelin’ shitty
Every girl that I've seen since
Looks just like you when I squint
I know you said it's for the best
I still don't understand why you left
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I feel like I'm a bit late to my own party here. I had grand plans to make a fancy cover and all sorts of other things, but work is eating me alive and all that survived of my grand plan is that I stuck with female artists. So, I offer a belated, stripped-down version of: Why Else Isn't She Married (it all goes downhill pretty quickly here).
Sarah Jarosz - I Can't Love You Now (She just isn't ready yet.)
And time moves on
And leaves me here all alone
Never felt this way before
I can't love you now
Eisley - Brightly Wound (She loves you, but not as much as her fantasy world.)
I shall never grow up
Make believe is much too fun
Rilo Kiley - Better Son/Daughter (She has other issues to work out first, thanks.)
Crawl back into bed to dream of a time
When your heart was open wide and you loved things just because
Micachu - Eat Your Heart (She loves you but, actually, she's a cannibal. Sorry guys.)
and your large heart melts my brain
yeah, your large heart melts my brain.
cos' I could eat your heart
Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton - The Lottery (Or, even worse, she's a militant feminist.)
I only wanted what everyone wanted
since bras started burning up ribs in the 60's.
And the secret hidden bonus track: St. Vincent - Marry Me.
As for me I have to agree I'm as fickle as a paper doll
being kicked by the wind when I touch down again I'll be in someone elses arms
Oh, John c'mon we'll do what married people do
Oh, John c'mon we'll do what Mary and Joseph did, without the kid
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First: I love you for including a Rilo Kiley track! They're my favorite band, and I'm so sad that they're basically defunct. (I like some of Jenny Lewis's solo stuff, but...it's just not the same!)
Also, that song by St. Vincent? Quality! Very "woman as agent".
I hadn't heard the other tracks. I like the Micachu song, it was very fun; I'm gonna look up more of their stuff. I'm also going to have to check out more from Emily Haines and the Soft Skeletons and Eisley.
I feel like I'm a bit late to my own party here. I had grand plans to make a fancy cover and all sorts of other things
Aww, you can still do it! This is what weekends are for. I wish I had graphic-making capabilities. I do what I can with MS Paint.
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Micachu is a lot of fun. It took me quite some time to warm up to her stuff (it struck me at first as the kind of obnoxious sort of lo-fi noisy a lot of indie music has been tending toward), but lately Jewellery has been my go-to album when I need something to bounce around to.
I heartily recommend Eisley as well, but I'm not a huge fan of their most recent album (Combinations), as it traded a bit of the fun and innocence for polish and girl rock toughness. Room Noises is definitely an excellent album, though.
I so don't have any graphic-making skills. Which doesn't stop me from trying when the mood strikes. (-; I imagine I'll end up making the rest of this fanmix sometime Saturday when I should be writing my dark!fic or editing things for the fanzine I got myself involved in.
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Really, this is just another occasion where my mother has mistaken our family for The Brady Bunch, and has cast me as Marcia Marcia Marcia. It's going to take some doing to snap her out of it this time.)
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Not to mention that I can't get a read on the author's opinion on the phrase "Strong Female Character." The thesis of the article I linked above (and she linked it too! Right there in the article where she presented the flowchart!) is basically that it sucks because nobody knows what it means anymore, but then there it is on the flowchart under the word "Congratulations!"
Nevermind how 'strong' tends to be a masculine ideal and putting the first on the list of traits for a female is counter-intuitive at best... well-written is what matters.
THANK YOU. To paraphrase one of my points from your earlier post, the important thing isn't to worry about whether female characters are "strong," but whether they are the heroes of their own stories and serve the plot in a diverse range of ways.
Arrrgh I could go on but I really really need to get my homework done now. Oh, except that I think that the reason you weren't really able to decide where you would fit on the chart is that even in an ensemble cast, you would be a Strong Female Character (assuming we're using the term). :)
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I was thinking about this issue this afternoon, as far as supporting vs. main characters go, and I've decided that what the chart really needs is an entire other flow-chart branching off of Strong Female Character. In fact, we could probably turn most of the current one upside down, and just erase a few of the the nonsense options like "Mary Sue". Also, we need to erase that "Congratulations!"
I like to maintain that I am not a Strong Female Character, just because I don't like the term. How about Dynamic Female Character. I mean, most people only ever see one or two dimensions of someone anyway (otherwise why would people you knew years ago boil you down to that one weird thing everyone remembers you doing in high school?), it's just a matter of having a wide variety of one and two dimensions to choose from. Kind of like a tesseract of characterization. ^_^
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why would people you knew years ago boil you down to that one weird thing everyone remembers you doing in high school?
HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT oh wait you were being hypothetical. Never mind.
Anyway, I'm also for getting rid of the "Congratulations!" and "Mary Sue." Can "Useless Female" be another? Because okay, I hate to be a grouchy feminist*, but what is that even supposed to mean? Why is there a picture of Uhura? I haven't seen any of Star Trek TOS (although I did see the new movie), but I was given to understand that Uhura was, if not as important as some of the others, still a valuable member of the team. The term "useless female" smacks of sexism to me. It reminds me of the saying that a woman has to work twice as hard as an equally competent man to be considered half as good. I have never heard anyone complaining that a male character was "useless," and I imagine it's because male characters who don't directly advance the plot are never held to the scrutiny that female characters in the same position are...because male characters aren't really held to any kind of scrutiny, period.
I'm glad you agree about the discord between the chart and the article. Because the article was written two years ago, I suppose it's possible her opinions have shifted. You would think they would shift toward greater cohesion, but who knows. I dunno, I suspect she wasn't really thinking too hard when she made the chart (or maybe some of the conflicting bits came from her coauthor), which is a shame, because it's a very pretty flowchart and it's gotten a lot of attention.
*Wait, no I don't.
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(This flowchart thing really has legs. I hope the next fandom talking point that takes flight isn't the "What you think is racist isn't racist enough to be racist" Inception kerfuffle going on now. As a middle class midwestern white girl I'm not even allowed to get involved in those arguments.)
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Sorry to butt in, but: ooh, what is this about?? I...still haven't seen Inception and don't follow the fandom.
As a middle class midwestern white girl I'm not even allowed to get involved in those arguments.
Wait a minute...I'm a middle class midwestern white girl! I'd hate to think there's a brawl going on somewhere, and I'm not allowed to be a part of it...
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Well, "allowed" is probably a poor word choice. I just know I don't have much to contribute to the discussion, because I tend to be in the "be and let be" camp, and when it comes to fighting against/figuring out racism (small as this particular offense seems to me), that's not really a respectable camp to be in. I tend to overlook instances of what seems like minor racism to me, but being someone who's never encountered "real" racism against my particular group, that standpoint is pretty much unearned and so I generally can't argue my opinion without looking like I'm just lounging around in my particular privilege. Which, in all honesty, I probably am.
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I was in the women's studies dept. at UM and involved with several student groups there, before transferring to EMU to major in Social Work and becoming involved in activism groups there. It has been DRILLED INTO MY HEAD that I must speak out about isms wherever I encounter them, or I am JUST AS BAD as the ism-ists themselves. I have Unpacked the Invisible Knapsack about a dozen times. I am, in general, an outspoken and mouthy person. It's not in my nature to stand on the sidelines of a debate.
But there are some subjects I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
It's funny, because I read
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I'm hoping someday a good racism debate will come up where everyone has stepped back enough that other people can get involved without treading on toes. I think the key to this will be it starting as a discussion and not a rant that doesn't leave any room for disagreement. I kind of wish fandom wouldn't hop into the fray on issues like this and try to engage in debate when everything had already started off with something that amounts to "This ruins everything!" Tempting as it is to argue when things are phrased like that, it usually isn't an argument that's going to get anyone anywhere. Then again, I feel ridiculous suggesting that because I can't say "Hey everyone, calm down and speak rationally when you're offended so we can dissect the issue and ponder society at large through the lens of your discomfort!"
I feel like I have a really weird relationship to race issues in general. I grew up on the "good" side of a bad town, and a lot of my classmates and friends were black, which I knew was Something because my mom remarked on it every once in a while, mostly in regards to the birthday party I threw for myself in second grade without telling my mom first. She had to turn my friends away at the door because she wasn't going to be home the rest of the night or something, and she was really worried about some of the families thinking she was sending them away for racist reasons. But at the same time, until I moved in 5th grade I was pretty much always in "gifted" classes so I was completely removed from the rougher aspects of the area, so I have what I suppose is a whitewashed view of the whole experience. Then I moved to a podunk school district in the middle of cornfields where I didn't see a single other person of color in my classes until well into high school, when a couple of hispanic kids and one black kid were adopted by local families (who apparently registered these kids in the school district as white, because our school district demographics still read as if we have no people of color whatsoever). Many of the parents blamed the district's long-standing drug problem on the appearance of these kids (despite the fact most of them had grown up in the town, and knew about the drug problem when they were in school. Sigh). I was one of the only people there who wasn't afraid to go into the town where I grew up, and I wore it as a "Heck yes, I'm not a racist!" badge of honor. But then I moved to Chicago, and my first experience of Hyde Park, touted endlessly as a "diverse" neighborhood, was that all the black people were driving buses or selling me groceries and all the white kids were going to school and looking down on all the neighborhood people. It was like a perfect storm for reinforcing stereotypes. I was always kind of uncomfortable in the neighborhood, and it took me a long time to realize this wasn't because it was a particularly bad neighborhood, but because there are deep and complex tensions here between the university population and the neighborhood itself, for everything between discriminatory bus routes and the closing of neighborhood gardens for parking lots to stupid students doing stupid individually offensive things. I was downright baffled when someone in the freshman dorm threw a really terrible (as in, attended by about five people) theme party called the "Straight-Thuggin' Ghetto Party", later dubbed the "Racial Stereotypes Party" by the student body, that got people so up in arms that the kerfuffle actually made it onto MTV News (as well as other, more reputable news sources) and we all had to attend seminars on racial sensitivity, which seemed absurd to me, because I just couldn't get my head around that sort of thing not being obvious, and so obviously the party-throwers must've done it ironically and it was a stupid idea and clearly a terrible party anyway, so why did we care?
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Plus this entire story is one that I can't bring up in these arguments because it looks like I'm saying "But I have Asian friends and live in a predominantly black neighborhood, so that means I get a pass on being aware of my own latent -isms" when what I want to say is "This is really complicated, so here's where I'm coming from on this, help me figure this out." (Also, it's incredibly long, and I'm sorry for throwing this Wall of Text at you... I think I just wanted to write this down so it wouldn't turn up as a response to someone's journal entry about racism. (-;)
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And don't worry about laughing at the knapsack: God knows I have! I have had so damn much education about privilege, and sensitivity and issues of racism that it's coming out my ears. I've been exposed to it so much, I'm always tempted to roll my eyes and shout: "can we move on please?" whenever it comes up. I forget that it really is important, and it does need to be talked about, and just because I've heard the same damn thing a thousand times doesn't mean I can't learn something new.
For instance, before I read about the Inception kerfuffle, I'd never heard the term "hipster racism". (I've witnessed it, of course, but never knew it had a name.) While I don't make a habit of it, I realized that it is something I've done in the past. While I'm sure there are some instances that are worse than others, there are implications I'd never considered before and will be more aware of in the future. So, there you go: fandom has educated at least one ignorant white girl!
I had a similar situation to the one you describe when I lived in Ypsilanti. Ypsi is home to my university, EMU. It's a small campus, and most students are concentrated around it. The wider community is quite atypical of a college town: 40% non-white, with a quarter of the population living below the poverty line in 2000. I lived in a building notorious for housing drug dealers. It was raided three times during the time I lived there, once by the SWAT team.
A very odd setting for a middle class white girl. I had many very interesting experiences living there. And yes, I felt a lot of the racial tension you described.
Because of my experiences there, I'm always tempted to think I possess a certain special knowledge that, in reality, I don't: I was a white, middle class college girl slumming it for a few years!
I guess my point is that we should hold on to our experiences and be thankful for them, but not delude ourselves into elevating them above their worth. I, too, would love to see a sensible discussion on race take place in fandom, but I don't know how likely I would be to jump in: as you said, it's so difficult to convey the right tone that conveys your precious.
And I count myself fortunate that I'm able to have a lot of those discussions in my real life.
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Debates about racism always make me feel like I need to separate and distance myself from my past and my culture in order to justify something about what I'm saying, because it doesn't feel right to have to keep myself out of an argument because of my background. But at the same time, when we talk about sexism or sexuality I don't try to pretend that I'm not a girl or something. I think it's just easier to talk about these things when you are part of the party directly experiencing the issue, and so when it comes to race I try to find ways in which I'm a minority among the majority when really there's more to be gained by just listening. There's a part of me that feels like it's wrong that I should stay out of these arguments because I'm white, but at the same time I get annoyed at guys that hop into conversations about feminism and point out that they're different from most men because sometimes they sit down and have a good cry and so here's what they think... and I'm like "That's not the point!" I think I'm doing the same thing here by trying to justify my position with experience, and it's something I need to keep more closely in mind. I mean, I know better than it in normal conversation. I don't even say I'm from the South Side here, because 'South Side' implies something completely separate from Hyde Park, and yet I sometimes act like it makes me part of that very something I otherwise readily deny it's a part of.
So, to move on a bit, the Ypsilanti article linked to the article on hipsters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_%28contemporary_subculture%29), and the quotes are all so amazingly vitriolic. It's like modern hipsters invented themselves as a catch-all for everything that white middle class 20-somethings do wrong. And I love when big academic words are leveraged with such anger. It's also surprisingly relevant to the discussion of the relation between the white middle class and racism. (I'm now off to do more research into the 1940s origins of the term, because I was only vaguely familiar with it before now.)
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No clarification necessary! I know what you meant. I have a lot of friends who live in Chicago, and I know the reputation the south side has, and a little bit about the different neighborhoods.
Usually, when you're talking about where you live with people who don't know the area well, you would indentify where you're from as the closest major city. (Like my friend Kelly saying she's from Chicago, when she's really from one of the suburbs.) However, if you're speaking to someone who does know the area well, you can get yourself in trouble, because being from the city carries with it a degree of credibility that you're falsely claiming for yourself.
This is especially true of Detroit. I usually say "I'm from metro Detroit", but then when you're interacting online with people from other countries, they don't know what the fuck "metro Detroit" is! In those instances I say Detroit, but I'm always waiting to get caught out and chastised by people from actual Detroit. (So yes, I know what you mean when you say you won't claim to live on the South Side!)
LOL @ my colossal link fail! I was researching the idea of "hipster racism" when I was writing that comment, and I have no idea how I linked you to that article rather than the one on Ypsilanti. Anyway, yeah, there's a lot of backlash against hipsters, which I have to say is at least minutely well-deserved. I just find it weird, because I've never been part of any identifiable social group. You couldn't look at me and say "hipster" or "goth" or "hippie" or anything like that. (I do have characteristics of all three, though.)
I hope I didn't come across as lecturing with my talk about the value of experience; I meant to be commisserating in the sense of being another well-meaning white girl who wants so badly to say that she understands! But as you observed, sometimes that's not good enough! (I am almost always annoyed by boys who want to jump into discussions about feminism, but occasionally I'll come across one that says something that's so close to getting it I just want to have his babies right there. Yeah, I am feminist to the bone!)
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I love the shading of "where are you from?" in and around big cities. And even small ones. When I refer to where I'm from in Ohio I say I'm from Youngstown, not because I was born there and lived there for a few years when I was little, but because where I actually consider myself to be from doesn't even make a speck on the map. And there are two other towns in Ohio with the same name. So I try to cut the suburbanites some slack when they say they're from Chicago... except the ones that come into the city itself and say it. "'Oh, where in Chicago are you from?' 'Naperville!' 'Er...'"
It always felt weird when I was in Europe and people would ask where I was from and I'd say "Chicago," though. None of the other travellers I met identified themselves by their cities--even Canadians, which ruins my theory that the US is so big (and featureless in the middle) that we have to identify by our cities. Then again, I could've easily gone along with everyone else and just given my country--I just feel weird saying "I'm from the US" because declaring oneself to be an American is the sort of thing rural conservatives do to prove a point, plus everyone knows foreigners hate us. (-;
And you did get the link right, sorry! (-: I was just noting that the article itself goes on about Ypsilanti being Ann Arbor's Brooklyn, which of course meant hipsters had to be mentioned, and I follow links like Neo follows white rabbits (which is why I wake up every morning hoping no one has linked me to TVTropes).
I am... probably a hipster. I'm into a lot of things hipsters are into, I bike around everywhere, I like to rant about hipsters, and even in my work clothes apparently I look like a hipster (I think this has to do with the beat-up Converses I wear, which I only started wearing because of Ten. Having a private reference to Doctor Who on my feet made going in to work every day just that tiny bit more okay. Then every third goshdarn businessman in the financial district started wearing them, too, and I wasn't different anymore.
Also, I go off on rants like that.^_^) But, like you, I've never really subscribed to a specific social group, and so suddenly looking like a hipster to everyone is weird. And I'm always kind of sad and frustrated when I meet real hipsters. Especially at concerts. Because you're not even supposed to look like you're enjoying yourself, and you certainly can't talk to people you don't know about any mutual interests you might have and I just don't see the point of liking interesting things if you're not going to share with other people--especially other people who are already interested. /outcasthipstergriping (-;You didn't come across as lecturing, don't worry. If anything I feel like I'm taking advantage of the fact that you're interested in these things. I get to talk about it so rarely that I'm just inundating you with random thoughts and information. So if you do feel the need to lecture or to tell me to cool it, you have my word I won't be bothered much.
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Re: You are going to get back on Sunday and have like, half a million replies from me, sorry!
I also found this in the article: "An episode of the TV series "Supernatural" called "A Very Supernatural Christmas" partially takes place in Ypsilanti."
Do you watch this show? It seems kinda random to even partially set a show in Ypsi...there's really not much to the place! (Despite Wikipedia's insistence that it's full of hipsters.)
I've been lost in TvTropes before. I discovered things there I never wanted to know.
I'm all curious now about what my clothing choices say about me. (My taste in music is certainly hipster-ish--aside from my love/hate fascination with Ke$ha.) What always gets me about hipsters is the "hip to be square" mentality where proclaiming yourself a nerd or a geek is a badge of honor. Well, as an actual nerd/geek I AM (slightly) OFFENDED! I am nerdy/geeky in ways that would make me socially awkward if I weren't psychologically incapable of recognizing my own social awkwardness.
(Well, I do realize it after the fact. A couple weekends ago, a friend had a small dinner party, and I got there early to help her get ready. I was peeling and cutting up apples when our other friend and her boyfriend got there. He asked me what I was doing, and I said I was, "Disarticulating the apples". Now, I meant this as a joke: "disarticulate" is a word you use to mean separating cuts of meat at the joint. I used it to mean I was "butchering" the apples, i.e. not doing it very well. Later, when I thought about the levels of thought necessary to get this "joke", I understood the look he gave me as well as the lack of laughter and the fact that he just kinda walked away.)
I would feel weird saying "I'm from the US" for fear that the person I were talking to would say "Well, DUH!" There's always the stereotype that you can spot an American anywhere.
Oh good. I worried about lecturing because apparently, in person, I can come off as "intense" in a discussion. I'd get into why that is, but the eleven hours of driving I did this weekend combined with the 7 hours of sleep is getting to me. I'll just cut myself off mid-ramble then. ;)
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Re: You are going to get back on Sunday and have like, half a million replies from me, sorry!
I am slowly being driven crazy by mainstream and hipster culture co-opting geekiness. It's...
but I was a geek before it was cool!... the theme of this thread is now "People who don't get it and pretend to be something they aren't appear in all facets of life and are always kind of annoying." (-; I guess it was one of the last remaining unexploited-but-generally-acceptable subcultures. I doubt hipsters will co-opt furries or something. Then again, you never know. (In fact, there was a guy I knew in college... plaid shirts, skinny jeans, ironic sense of humor... who also infamously showed up to calc class on a random day dressed as Blue from Blue's Clues).♥ disarticulating apples! (I would've laughed. Though I wouldn't have made it all the way down your tree of reasoning there. (-;) I've done things like that. I had quite a reputation as an aloof snob at work because it took me a long time to learn to watch what I say. I once told one of my co-workers to send a message to one of our clients that said there was a "fundamental disconnect in our communications." I was being deliberately obtuse, since people had just complained that we couldn't use multi-syllable words with them, but it was also a reference to some ridiculous political campaign buzzword or something that was going on at the time as well, that I really should've known better than to reference. They didn't even have the grace to stare blankly and walk away, they just came straight out with "Who talks like that, geez!"
... You know, on the "looks like an American" front, I'm always hyper-aware of looking like a city girl when I'm back home, but either completely forgot or completely missed whether I looked distinctly American in Paris and London. I probably looked like a tourist, since I was walking around with a camera and a notebook, and there's no missing the accent, but from a purely visual standpoint I really have no idea if that's true. I certainly can't pick out French or German or British tourists on the streets here until they say something, and I couldn't pick out other Americans on the streets over there (then again, I ran into maybe three Americans total. Everyone else was either from Europe or Australia/New Zealand. I guess Americans aren't travelling much right now).
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Also, another reason I don't like the term on the chart? If you get to the question "Is she useless?" and your answer is no, you have to a) justify your answer, wtf; and b) choose between "Team Mom" and being or having a "Mystical Artifact." What if she's, say, the peacemaker of the team (hence the "Emotional Core" that leads to the "useless" question), but has no maternal qualities to speak of? What if she's the comic relief on a team of stoics? I get that the chart is not exhaustive, but that is a seriously unfortunate implication.
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But, er, enough on the chart being broken, let's get back to semantics. I think what they're trying to get at with "Useless Female" is something more akin to "Token Female." Which is a linguistic cock-up of pretty epic proportions, considering the implications of "useless." It makes a little more sense to read it as "It's useless that this character is even female, and so obviously she's female just because we one in the cast." But you could say that about pretty much any supporting character whose trope has a male equivalent. Also it's a stupid argument, because of all the possible tropes/roles/character archetypes, are there really more than a handful that are only for one gender? It just seems like an excuse to be upset about a character not living up to expectations, and blaming it on the fact that the writer made them female, rather than the fact that the writer didn't write them on par with expectations. It's like everyone assumes an ulterior motive when a character is female, like someone is trying to prove something by writing a girl.
I, too, have read the wikipedia article on Uhura now. And it's left me thinking that perhaps there is a definition for "useless" that I haven't come across yet, that somehow encompasses something like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. thinking a character is important. (I mean, okay, if we want to be really obnoxious, from a modern standpoint it's easy to see that the importance was more symbolic than it was to do with character depth or quality, and it's unfair of me to equate cultural importance with being well-written just to make a point, but at the same time, if she was written poorly, I don't think it would've had the same impact. I mean, I'm really not a fan of Star Trek, especially the writing, but if she was just decoration would she really have played a major plotty role in so many of the movies?
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Agreed about Token Female just being more accurate in general. I don't see why "Useless Female" is on the chart to begin with. It's kinda redundant. Useless, if you will.
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I don't have any females in my icon collection. Does this make me a bad feminist?
The first question is whether the character can carry her own story, but that question then seems to be treated as whether the character does carry her own story. Just because some of these women are not written as main characters doesn't mean that they couldn't carry their own story, it just means that a different point-of-view was chosen for telling the story they were involved in. - THIS. I'm with you on all the ladies pictured down there that are freaking fantastic female characters, actually, and have awesome stories to tell. And yeah, I couldn't figure out where I would be on the chart. The chart is broken.
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It makes you so feminist you can transcend the supposed necessity of female icons.
I need to stop feeling like I need to make a new, actually-useful chart. I really have better things to do. (Though most of them involve responding to anon writing prompts. >.>)
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Damn right!
Hey, writing fanfic is totally a legitimate use of your time!