Meme #4 - clothes, and character tropes
After a short break, we're back. 
frayadjacent asked me two things!
-Clothes! Whatever you feel like saying about them.
Clothes! I love clothes and I think I pretty much always have. As a teenager, I was super-awkward and convinced I was hideous - and, in retrospect, fighting some kind of internal war against my own queerness - and it took me quite a long time to actually start dressing in ways that made me happy and suited me. Part of it's been growing up, and partly it's been the privilege of disposable income, of course. (Something that's nice: here in my late twenties, I've actually started seeing myself in the mirror. It's funny how that works. I never could see myself in my reflection, and now I can: the girl in the mirror with the hipster glasses is definitely the same person who lives inside. It's nice.)
So, anyway, things I like! I like dresses, usually short ones with tights and boots (in winter) or sandals (in summer). I really like natural fabrics; I love brushed cotton, real leather, and wool. I like everything cut femme - lace necklines; frock coats; A-line skirts - except sometimes I like really chunky, military-ish boots to go with them. I don't wear trousers, except for jeans. I wear a lot of red and black and deep colours in general; I'm brown and I dress accordingly, mostly. I have some wardrobe staples that I really love, like my winter coat, which is out of the cupboard again - it's a black frock coat with a copper lining (though the autumn-spring coat is a brightly coloured flower-print on black confection from Desigual, and I like it a lot too); and my handbag is this gorgeous brown soft leather satchel (from Rowallan, I think?) that holds a tablet, a book and all the rest of my crap, and cheers me up every time I pick it up.
And, you know, I do think clothes are important as armour. it's very easy to think you're a bad queer or a bad feminist for loving clothes, but that's such nonsense, I'm finding. I used to hate dressing for work when I was a trainee, because I hate "traditional" office clothes - I hate suits and and I hate synthetic fabrics and I hate the way women's shirts are always tailored for women who a) are significantly taller and b) have rather more up top than me - and rather cathartically gave all my old work outfits to Oxfam when I qualified. I now work somewhere with no real dress code and have enjoyed watching my clothes and aesthetic settle into something that makes me happy, and makes me feel like myself and like I can really take on my life and everything in it every day. That's worth having.
Also: what are your favorite character types and/or story tropes? I.e. tell me about sad robots and other things.
Aha, you know me well! I love sad robots (and I was very much in a sad robot place when
frayadjacent visited) - because... well. I suppose, the character and story trope I love is the story of almost, but not quite. Characters who look like they ought to be part of their communities, but for one reason or another, are balanced on some sort of edge (see Commander Data; Breq from Ancillary Justice; Simon Illyan; Remus Lupin, oh my god) between belonging and not.
(Actually, I'm not sure if my love for this trope or Remus came first. Oh, Remus! I love him so, so much, and still.)
Other things! I love characters who act as human moral compasses (see: Daniel Jackson; Toby Ziegler; Spock, who is not human but whatever). I think off that list of characters I imprinted on it at an early age, but I love it like burning. Both the fact of it - all those characters have their counterparts, Jack and Bartlett and Kirk, who love them and trust them so much that they're willing to be guided like this - and the narrative weight of flipping the trope over. (Take Stargate SG-1, a show I adore but has no shortage of wacky plots and cheesy tropes and just general ridiculousness, that turns around and gives you an otherwise unremarkable episode, "Serpent's Song", in which Daniel tries to commit a murder and is stopped by Jack. It's completely devastating and it's because of this trope.)
Unsurprisingly, I also love friendship tropes and everything that comes with them, often more than I like romantic tropes. I love best-friends-since-childhood (Marauders!); I love friends in adversity; I especially love adversaries-becoming friends (Hawkeye Pierce and Margaret Houlihan are my favourite example of this! So perfect).
The thing that’s my number one thing, though: characters who have to do a thing, because, ultimately, there are no good choices left. The ones who fight to the bitter end; who die gracefully; who jump off the roof in each other’s arms (oh, Amy and Rory!). And relatedly, characters who sacrifice part of themselves, for something greater than themselves. Witness Benjamin Sisko, standing up at the end of "In The Pale Moonlight", telling the camera that if that's all it took - just that he lied; that he cheated; that all it took was the self-respect of one Starfleet officer, well: "I can live with it. I can live with it." And Tuvok, compromising his own (Vulcan!) ethics so Janeway, whom he loves, won't have to (“Someone had to spare you the ethical dilemma. I was the logical choice.") And Rupert Giles (“She’s a hero. She’s not like us.”) And Aral Vorkosigan ("You don't remember the first time.") There's also Leonard McCoy, who carries his friend's soul around in his head; Hawkeye again, who will not touch a gun ("Why are they bombing us? We're already bombed!"); and Ned Mathey, who lets himself be arrested for sodomy, to save the life of a man he wishes were dead. No good choices, and they still choose.
I just - moral courage is the thing that destroys me. What I want, actually, is to see this trope much much more in women. Leslie Knope is as good as an example as she can be, from a sitcom (e.g., that episode where she's on rollerskates filibustering to save the votes of the people who are out to destroy her!) and Hermione Granger putting a memory charm on her own parents comes to mind, but, urgh, needs more ladies.
(Actually, the very best example I can think of a lady fitting this trope - Code Name Verity. And now I'm sad.)
raven is also at Dreamwidth: there is or are
comment(s). Comment there or here.
frayadjacent asked me two things!
-Clothes! Whatever you feel like saying about them.
Clothes! I love clothes and I think I pretty much always have. As a teenager, I was super-awkward and convinced I was hideous - and, in retrospect, fighting some kind of internal war against my own queerness - and it took me quite a long time to actually start dressing in ways that made me happy and suited me. Part of it's been growing up, and partly it's been the privilege of disposable income, of course. (Something that's nice: here in my late twenties, I've actually started seeing myself in the mirror. It's funny how that works. I never could see myself in my reflection, and now I can: the girl in the mirror with the hipster glasses is definitely the same person who lives inside. It's nice.)
So, anyway, things I like! I like dresses, usually short ones with tights and boots (in winter) or sandals (in summer). I really like natural fabrics; I love brushed cotton, real leather, and wool. I like everything cut femme - lace necklines; frock coats; A-line skirts - except sometimes I like really chunky, military-ish boots to go with them. I don't wear trousers, except for jeans. I wear a lot of red and black and deep colours in general; I'm brown and I dress accordingly, mostly. I have some wardrobe staples that I really love, like my winter coat, which is out of the cupboard again - it's a black frock coat with a copper lining (though the autumn-spring coat is a brightly coloured flower-print on black confection from Desigual, and I like it a lot too); and my handbag is this gorgeous brown soft leather satchel (from Rowallan, I think?) that holds a tablet, a book and all the rest of my crap, and cheers me up every time I pick it up.
And, you know, I do think clothes are important as armour. it's very easy to think you're a bad queer or a bad feminist for loving clothes, but that's such nonsense, I'm finding. I used to hate dressing for work when I was a trainee, because I hate "traditional" office clothes - I hate suits and and I hate synthetic fabrics and I hate the way women's shirts are always tailored for women who a) are significantly taller and b) have rather more up top than me - and rather cathartically gave all my old work outfits to Oxfam when I qualified. I now work somewhere with no real dress code and have enjoyed watching my clothes and aesthetic settle into something that makes me happy, and makes me feel like myself and like I can really take on my life and everything in it every day. That's worth having.
Also: what are your favorite character types and/or story tropes? I.e. tell me about sad robots and other things.
Aha, you know me well! I love sad robots (and I was very much in a sad robot place when
frayadjacent visited) - because... well. I suppose, the character and story trope I love is the story of almost, but not quite. Characters who look like they ought to be part of their communities, but for one reason or another, are balanced on some sort of edge (see Commander Data; Breq from Ancillary Justice; Simon Illyan; Remus Lupin, oh my god) between belonging and not.
(Actually, I'm not sure if my love for this trope or Remus came first. Oh, Remus! I love him so, so much, and still.)
Other things! I love characters who act as human moral compasses (see: Daniel Jackson; Toby Ziegler; Spock, who is not human but whatever). I think off that list of characters I imprinted on it at an early age, but I love it like burning. Both the fact of it - all those characters have their counterparts, Jack and Bartlett and Kirk, who love them and trust them so much that they're willing to be guided like this - and the narrative weight of flipping the trope over. (Take Stargate SG-1, a show I adore but has no shortage of wacky plots and cheesy tropes and just general ridiculousness, that turns around and gives you an otherwise unremarkable episode, "Serpent's Song", in which Daniel tries to commit a murder and is stopped by Jack. It's completely devastating and it's because of this trope.)
Unsurprisingly, I also love friendship tropes and everything that comes with them, often more than I like romantic tropes. I love best-friends-since-childhood (Marauders!); I love friends in adversity; I especially love adversaries-becoming friends (Hawkeye Pierce and Margaret Houlihan are my favourite example of this! So perfect).
The thing that’s my number one thing, though: characters who have to do a thing, because, ultimately, there are no good choices left. The ones who fight to the bitter end; who die gracefully; who jump off the roof in each other’s arms (oh, Amy and Rory!). And relatedly, characters who sacrifice part of themselves, for something greater than themselves. Witness Benjamin Sisko, standing up at the end of "In The Pale Moonlight", telling the camera that if that's all it took - just that he lied; that he cheated; that all it took was the self-respect of one Starfleet officer, well: "I can live with it. I can live with it." And Tuvok, compromising his own (Vulcan!) ethics so Janeway, whom he loves, won't have to (“Someone had to spare you the ethical dilemma. I was the logical choice.") And Rupert Giles (“She’s a hero. She’s not like us.”) And Aral Vorkosigan ("You don't remember the first time.") There's also Leonard McCoy, who carries his friend's soul around in his head; Hawkeye again, who will not touch a gun ("Why are they bombing us? We're already bombed!"); and Ned Mathey, who lets himself be arrested for sodomy, to save the life of a man he wishes were dead. No good choices, and they still choose.
I just - moral courage is the thing that destroys me. What I want, actually, is to see this trope much much more in women. Leslie Knope is as good as an example as she can be, from a sitcom (e.g., that episode where she's on rollerskates filibustering to save the votes of the people who are out to destroy her!) and Hermione Granger putting a memory charm on her own parents comes to mind, but, urgh, needs more ladies.
(Actually, the very best example I can think of a lady fitting this trope - Code Name Verity. And now I'm sad.)
raven is also at Dreamwidth: there is or are
comment(s). Comment there or here.