girls love bad boys! but not for the reasons you think.

[pocochina]

I was going to deny my rationalization-filled, navel-gazey, nosebleed-level theorizing on this? But then ever_neutral wrote this and kelpyfinners wrote this and I AM NOT MADE OF STONE, PEOPLE. Right now this is no longer locked because...I felt like it? Passing familiarity with TVD and Buffy will probably help, but I don't think there are a whole lot of specific spoilers

Comments

[snickfic]

And that is that they have a lot of traits which are coded feminine.

That... is more explicit than I've ever seen that thought stated before. Thank you.

Gah, I so want you to see SPN so you could tie Dean Winchester into this essay, too. (Except I suspect you'd hate SPN.) He's another "bad boy" character who's that way on purpose, who's playing the part, but also he is (especially in the first season!) coded very strongly as the 'female' of the family, the nurturer who's trying to hold the family together and take care of everyone.

[pocochina]

He's another "bad boy" character who's that way on purpose, who's playing the part, but also he is (especially in the first season!) coded very strongly as the 'female' of the family, the nurturer who's trying to hold the family together and take care of everyone.

OOOOH, INTERESTING. I've seen SPN mentioned enough to wonder if I should give it a try, which means I've seen enough of the frustration to wonder if I should let myself get attached. It sounds like I'd really like him, though.

[snickfic]

I think you would find it very, very frustrating. Basically: everybody dies; if you have a penis, you might get resurrected. And other issues. But Dean is awesome, and oh how I would love to read you writing meta about him.

[pocochina]

OH GOD THAT WOULD MAKE ME CRAZY. But yeah, Dean from all accounts sounds whiny and self-centered and therefore right up my alley. I'll probably wait for Netflix to make the choice for me and put it up on streaming.

[blueteainfusion]

But yeah, Dean from all accounts sounds whiny and self-centered and therefore right up my alley.

Butting in, because I love Dean so much and especially lately I feel the need to defend him against all the hate he's getting (I know you don't know the character, it's just a thing): Dean is as whiny and self-centered as Buffy in S6. Or, you know, a person with clinical depression and massive PTSD (let alone his alcoholism and general mental illness). Of course, he's got other serious faults, some related and some not, but all in all he's a character I think you would find utterly fascinating.

i no longer have any dean icons. have one of buffy being an awesome bitch instead

[penny_lane_42]

I didn't actually participate in SPN fandom even back when I was watching the show, but this is the first time I've seen someone explicitly say that Dean has mental health issues, and it makes me happy that you're saying that because he so does. His manifest themselves in very, very different ways than mine do, but they're so very evident and so much a part of him and why does this not get talked about more?

Re: i no longer have any dean icons. have one of buffy being an awesome bitch instead

[blueteainfusion]

I know right?! I think that most of the fandom likes to think "oh he's so funny/badass/heroic/loves his family/etc" because that's obvious, while completely misses another obvious fact that he's not quite right in the head, even when the show itself blatantly spells it out a couple of times. It's like people don't want to think of the hero of the story as a madman - because it makes them uncomfortable? They want the fun story of two brothers happily hunting monsters around America and realizing that at least one of them should get some serious psychological help instead wouldn't fit their description of "fun". I understand that you quit after Ellen and Jo thing, right? Well, after that was the mental hospital episode and while it touched upon Sam's anger issues, it also showed that when Dean was going crazy via some outside influence, he didn't even realize it, because he'd been that way long before. That's actually disturbing, if you think about it

Re: i no longer have any dean icons. have one of buffy being an awesome bitch instead

[penny_lane_42]

Yup, I gave up after poor Ellen and Jo (final straw, type-thing, you understand). But that particular episode sounds fascinating--yay for textual acknowledgment of mental illness!

Thanks so much for the link; I'll definitely check it out!

Re: i no longer have any dean icons. have one of buffy being an awesome bitch instead

[pocochina]

It's like people don't want to think of the hero of the story as a madman - because it makes them uncomfortable?

This phenomenon makes me so sad and I don't even know how to talk about it.

[ever_neutral]

Seconding this. Next to Buffy, Dean is probably the on-screen example of clinical depression that hits me hardest.

[pocochina]

DARN YOUR SINISTER WILES.

[ever_neutral]

I REGRET NOTHING.

[penny_lane_42]

Yeah, I think you would be obsessed with Dean in similar ways to your other obsessions. I watched the first four and a half seasons before I had to give it up. But even though the show itself and I have broken up, I am still a Dean girl. Always. He's messed up in all the right ways to make me love him.

[pocochina]

I think this is tipping me toward at least giving the first couple of seasons a try at some point! yay.