Still cranky...

[lyssie]

Fandom is why we can't have nice things. Like strong female characters.

Fandom loves cock. Fandom does not like girly bits or women... Fandom claims to like women, and yet, when female characters appear, they're dissected down to their bones and called all sorts of things from 'boring' to 'unrealistic' to 'Mary Sue'.One of the things the recent

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[lizardbeth_j]

Oh SING IT!

if there was one thing that kept me OUT of PotC after DMC was all the ranting about "Mary Sue" Elizabeth. And Mary Sue Kara. And Mary Sue ANY-FRELLING-BODY. Were people celebrating that Elizabeth was being rather anti-historical and wielding a sword and flintlock pistols like they weigh nothing? No. She was "too perfect" and therefore despised, and yet all her faults were ALSO labeled. ARRRGH. It frustrates me so much. (couple that with the popularity of a (het) pairing that I can't stand and the general derision of MY (het) pairing (because Will/Elizabeth wasn't cool enough, yanno), and I could barely dip my toe in).

Fandom can't EVER look at a female character and see her as just that character, it always becomes weighted down with that character having to hold the entire weight of femininity -- and somebody's always pissed off. Sure it'd be nice if there were more women characters, but even that turns into an excuse, doesn't it? BSG has four main female regular characters, and there's nowhere near four times the meta or female centered fic for BSG than in something like Supernatural where there aren't any female regulars at all. (And because I'm fair like that, SPN fandom going by the main newsletter watch list, is also three times bigger, so factoring out the size, maybe we do write more fic with women in them, but... anyway... I had a point. I know I did.) Lost my rant in the detail.

To a tangent of sorts: I'm continually surprised there aren't more slashers in BSG, with the prevalence of good-looking guys, but I guess that's because they've mostly gone to SGA and SPN, and only dabblers like me are around.

Admittedly I'm in fandom more often for the pretty, kick-ass guy, but combine that with a pretty, kick-ass chick and that is how things oughtta be (thus Kara/Anders, yes). If I ruled the world.

[lilacsigil]

it always becomes weighted down with that character having to hold the entire weight of femininity
Which is why I like shows/books/comics with more than one female character, to avoid the "one symbolic woman" problem. (Well, I don't watch BSG, because I'm scared of apocalyptic shows, but otherwise, yay BSG!) It's a problem in the source material (see any movie where the heroine is super-tough until suddenly she needs saving for plot reasons) and it's a major problem in fandom. Bechdel's law should be compulsory for all shows, then I'd have more fantastic women to read and write about. (Supernatural, I'm looking at you - more Jo, Ellen and Mary, please!)

[lizardbeth_j]

Yeah, as much I enjoy watching Supernatural (which I do, for the pretty and the mytharc), I've found I can't write fic for it because I don't have an "in." The addition of Jo and (especially) Ellen helped, but when I found myself genderbending Sam because that was the only way I could deal with it, I threw up my hands and stepped back to just watching the show. But then again, some people can write epics with Dean/Tessa the Reaper, so I guess it's my own deal.

I used to be more into comics but the return of the company wide crossover, an upsurge in gratuitous violence (IMO), and a baby all made following the stories too hard. But yeah, Jen Walters, Jean, Birds of Prey, etc. were some of my favorites for awhile. :)

[lyssie]

The Mary Sue Elizabeth tag annoys me as much as Mary Sue Sam Carter does. For one thing, the men are just as Mary Sue. But it's ok, because they're BOYS, so fandom never rants about it.

Elizabeth/Jack? Because, honestly, Pirates is one of the best examples of why there should be OT3.

BSG (and Farscape) are two of the exceptions to the rule, generally. Although they're both dominated by a het pairing. But the other interesting thing is that, despite the prevalence of women, there aren't as many of them as there are of men on BSG. I tried to do a "88 Lines about 44 Women" filk for BSG, and discovered that there aren't 44 women to fill it with. Not even 44 bit-part women. Even counting KACEY. So while it seems weighted towards women, that's only in the main cast.

I think BSG gets more fic and meta about the women, if only because there's enough variety, that you can find one woman in the lot that others will like.

Trucco has brought the slash, I imagine that may start to change (also, it'd be kinda hot if he started kissing boys, but that's my Torchwood-influenced brain noting that).

We should rule the world. Obviously. (also, Sam Anders gets more fic outta me because fandom doesn't like him)

[lizardbeth_j]

hmmm, could you do 44 MEN for BSG? No question there are more men, but 44, that's a lot. I can get to 25 pretty easily, but after that I'd have to go ep-by-ep to come up with them.

Sam Anders gets more fic outta me because fandom doesn't like him
Hee. And I have the same stubborness. It explains Sam, it explains my liking for Will and WIllabeth, and even Sinclair probably. But I don't think increasing popularity is going to make me go away from them -- I'm pretty fixed unless canon does something to change it.

It would be indeed rather hot to have Sam going around boykissing. Too bad I like Sam/Kara and Helo/Sharon better than Sam/Helo or I'd be writing the last all the time. *g*

And God Sparrabethers... the 'ship that frelling ATE the Fandom on LJ. think rabid Sam/Jack-ers and you've pretty much got the image. It was one of those things where it was SO popular and SO rabid, that I hated it on general principle. I KNEW there'd be a ship war when spoilers started leaking for AWE (cuz, dude, how much more obvious could it be that J/E wasn't going to "win"?), and yep, that's what happened. So much hating on Will and Elizabeth, both together and separately. But Jack got to skate through. At least it's done now, and the crazies are jumping off the fandom bandwagon.

[maigrey_star]

Were people celebrating that Elizabeth was being rather anti-historical and wielding a sword and flintlock pistols like they weigh nothing? No. She was "too perfect" and therefore despised

ICAM, as much as Jack was amusing and Will was pretty what made me love Pirates was Elisabeth, I was so expecting her to be the love interest/ damsel in distress like 80 percent of the big action/blockbuster movies and then she end up being so much more, and then I go check the fandom reaction to such a kick ass character, and why, why I was surprise that was mostly about Jack and slash and how much of a mary sue she was, and of course how evil and mean she was when she tricked poor innocent Jack...WTF Why was I even surprise again?

and my big issue with AWE is about her, I hate that after all she's done, her last shot in the movie is her waiting for Will, Couldn't they just show her ship or something? even if I know there is no way she would spend 10 years doing nothing, I would like to see that, but that's the problem with having no imagination, like my sister tells me;)