Recent Crushes #2: Lana Parrilla
That part where I said my tumblr was 70% Amanda Tapping? That was like 2 seconds before this happened. (She's still there, though! Just uhm.... there's a lot of Lana too.)
It started simply enough. A friend said 'Hey, you should totally watch Once Upon a Time, I think it'd be right up your alley!'. And I thought 'Hmm, well, all my shows are on hiatus anyway'', and consulted another friend whom I knew watched the show as well. She said 'The ladies are pretty! ...but perhaps not really your type.', but I decided to give it a try. And so I watched one episode, and then two, and admired Jennifer Morrison's hair and general kick-ass-ness, and worried about the fact that it was so very character-driven (not my thing. I get nervous when there are no MOTWs to take a bit of focus off of the main characters). And I honestly don't know where it came from, but it must have snuck up on me from somewhere... one second I was casually watching, the next I was watching with interest for Regina's scenes, and then suddenly I was madly reading all the Swan Queen fics I could get my hands on.
But as much as I like Emma, and I ship Swan Queen LIEK WHOA, I'm totally and utterly in it for Regina. And I largely blame that on the fics. The show really hasn't shown us Regina's true colors yet, but who she could be is someone I am utterly infatuated with (and I feel like I'm setting myself up for disappointment by loving her because I don't trust TPTB for a second to give her a Happy Ending - and I'm not saying she shouldn't pay in some way for all the cruel things she's done, but I still want that for her so badly (after lots and lots of angst, of course)). At first this didn't even extend to Lana the actress, I mean I liked her, but when I half-heartedly watched a few clips from other shows on YouTube I found myself missing that perpetually superior smirk on Regina's lips, those 14 extra layers of truth/lies in her eyes every time she says something. Then my usual crush procedure kicked in, and I fell head over heels the way I usually do. :P Such gorgeous thick dark hair (which we all know I have a weakness for). Such beautiful eyes. Such an awesome twitter personality! Must immediately watch complete filmography! Which is kind of awesome. Bisexual swinger. Brilliant Miami doctor. In Witness Protection for giving up her mobster boyfriend whom she loved so much (totally my favourite, they could put her anywhere. Like, you know, Storybrooke or Univille...). Bitchy fraud-scheming scientist. And much much more that I haven't gotten to yet. Can you imagine the crossover opportunities?! Yay!
And I'm also gonna go ahead and paste something here that I wrote on tumblr, not because I think this needs to be explained to you awesome LJ people, but because this fandom seems to inspire saddening amounts of inter-character hate that extends to fans actually being targeted as bad persons for liking certain characters, and should someone happen to stumble upon this post I wanna have it here:
liking a character =/= condoning their behaviour
Regina is doing some really awful evil things. No-one is denying that. We don’t like the evil characters because they’re doing awful things, or because we condone their actions. I love them because they’re broken and lashing out and I’m hoping (often against hope) that there might be a way to save them (after, oh, 6 agonizing seasons of angst or so… but hope has to be there). (There’s a reason Xena got better ratings than Hercules. Redemption is a powerful and appealing thing.) But none of these things means that it’s OK to be evil. I want Regina to pay for her crimes, but that doesn’t mean I hate her character. I love her character, it’s by far the most interesting one on the show (and also, Lana is really hot).
And also, TV =/= real life. This is important. Liking an evil character on TV is not the same as condoning criminal activities in real life. Real people are not getting hurt, and it allows the viewer to explore the human mind in a space where possibilities are endless and the studies don’t need to be approved by the board of ethics. Because doing these things in real life would be WRONG. And we all know that. But that doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to love a TV character. It’s a safe space, and it’s a fantasy, and everyone is allowed to love whatever TV characters they want.
And also, it's totally OK to love a character just because they're deliciously evil, and it doesn't make you a bad person either. :P (But in the tumblr context I posted the above I think that would have been unhelpful to my argument.)