ishtar79

Due to technical difficulties yesterday, I'm doing the last two days in one post.

Day Twenty-Nine: A female-centric fic rec:

In Loco Parentis by dolores_crane Snape/Harry Harry/Hermione

Do not be fooled by the pairings listed: this is a Hermione story, first and foremost. The Hermione in this story is complex, well-written and very close to the one in my head, which is a bit ironic in a story featuring a slash pairing, since all too often, female characters in slash tend to be completely written out or vilified.

This story touches on so many themes most fic tends to leave unexplored-politics, how inherently fucked-up certain aspects of wizarding society are, and abortion rights. And while Snape and Harry undoubtedly play a crucial role, they never overpower Hermione's story, and her personal journey. Bonus points for interactions between women, especially Hermione and a wonderfully fleshed-out Hestia Jones.

Day Thirty: Whatever you'd like! Rather than come up with a new “favorite” category, I'd like to include some of the wonderful female characters I would have liked to make entries for, but that the limited space in the meme meant I had to skip:

( And there are quite a few )

( Days 1-30 )

Well, this was beyond fun. While posting this meme I had to contend with two deadlines and painters around the house, proof positive that I definitely can find more time for posting than I usually do!

Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for: Martha Jones




I don't write fic to have a personal canon in that sense, but if we're talking about the character I enjoy reading the most about outside of their canon timeline and have adopted some of the developed fanon about them as truth, then it's definitely Martha. I think a lot of it is feeling deeply unsatisfied with how her arc was handled and desperately need to read her from the POV who isn't writing her every scene with a Rose boner. Also, you just know there were a lot of interesting stories in that “stuck in the 60s” story that never made it on screen.

Clearly, Martha deserved so much better than the treatment she got (from the Doctor, the show, take your pick) and the appearances and cameos were not sufficient appeasement to me. I liked her working for UNIT, but clearly she wasn't very happy with them by the end, so there's the question of where she goes next. And for all the WTFness of the surprise!Martha/Mickey, I can actually deal (hey, they looked wicked hot in their combat gear), but I'd love to read how it came to be. In my mind, I'm imagining an epic story where Martha decides to go solo on the alien sleuthing, and somewhere along the road runs into Donna and starts looking for a way to help her and man, talk about a candidate for the “female characters screwed over by canon” slot.(as long as that solution doesn't involve Jack because, um, no).

( Days 1-30 )

Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship: Buffy and Dawn




It shouldn't have worked. The character of Dawn was retconned into the narrative in the most literal way, and accepting the “monks rewrote history” within the story was challenge enough: making the character's sudden ties to the regulars believable was another thing entirely. And yet, somehow they managed to sell it. I could see Dawn's being Buffy's sister, from all the annoying displays of little sister behavior to the desperate need for approval underneath. And yes, there's the whole “Key to the universe” plot point and the constant peril it put Dawn in, but even after she found that out, Buffy didn't protect the key-she protected her little sister (after she was done with the -completely justifiable- freakout).

As epic as the whole storyline that culminated in The Gift was, my favorite part of this relationship is not about Buffy making the ultimate sacrifice (although I found that she put her sister over the world interesting-it's not the traditional hero stance, but it felt more realistic to where Buffy was at that point). It's the little moments, like the mutual snark, Buffy's clumsy attempts at acting as the parent after Joyce's death, Dawn's grief at her sister's loss, Dawn's helplessness at not getting through to her sister in S6, and in later seasons, how they started interacting on a more equal level. And as great as Buffy protecting Dawn promising Spike he would wake up on fire if her hurt Buffy again still wins all the badassery awards.

( Days 1-30 )

Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship: Kahlan and Kara




Ok, so “platonic” might be stretching it a little bit as I chose to read Kara as desperately in love with Kahlan, but nothing ever happened in canon.

Legend of the Seeker was a show that I enjoyed primarily for the pretty settings and pretty people, but that always failed to engage me. I thought Kahlan had potential, but since I had zero interest in her doomed love with Richard, it was hard to get emotionally invested in anything. Kara grabbed me from her first appearance, though was worried when they brought into the main cast, since it looked they would be heading towards a classic love triangle scenario. I've never been more glad to be wrong. For all her “Yay, Lord Rahl” Richard cheerleading, the person Kara is most deeply focused in is Kahlan. They certainly didn't get off on the right foot, what with Kara having murdered Kahlan's sister and the Mord Sith and Confessors being mortal enemies (and how much did I love that detail), but watching their interaction has been the high point of the show for me. Kahlan was infinitely more interesting and in touch of her darker side around Kara, and Kara allowed cracks of vulnerability show through the Mord Sith conditioning around Kahlan. And of course they were amazing once they got to the point of being friends (or, you know, “friends”), fighting together like a well-choreographed killing machine, saving Richard's ass on multiple occasions and the amazing Pain Dildo Healing Scene (seriously, that show's imagery is as filthy as you get without filming porn).


( Days 1-30 )

Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon: Cordelia Chase



There was a depressingly high number of contenders for this spot (“the entire female cast of BSG” was but one of the possible answers), but I decided to interpret “screwed over” on both an intratextual and extratextual level. Because the writers had so thoroughly destroyed every single thing that made the character who she was, that by the time she came to her unpleasant end, it was an actual relief to see her written out of the show.

It's especially sad because of the squandered potential. Now, I loved Cordelia as far back as her relatively simplistic Queen C BtVS season 1 personna. I know a lot of people in fandom have issues with the Mean Girl-ness of her, but honestly, even her cruelest put-downs were thoroughly enjoyable to me because of the wittiness and delivery (and even back then, there were hints she was more than the typical Popular Girl-it was S1 Cordelia who drove her car into Sunnydale High, in her own crazy Grandtheft Auto With Demons game). As fond as I am of the Scooby Gang Dynamic, there was something refreshing about a character who refused to be drawn into their Buffy-centric worldview, and who dealt with Apocalypses and things that go bump in the night with the same casual annoyance that she displayed for a bad fashion choice. The scene that epitomizes high school Cordelia for me is in the aftermath of the Slayerfest misunderstanding, where Cordelia faces off with the cowboy vampire in the library. Alone and without the ghost of a chance in a physical fight, Cordelia manages to scare off that vampire by not only convincing him she is a Slayer, but that she is the alpha Slayer that he would be a fool to even consider trifling with.

As fun and infinitely quotable as Sunnydale!Cordelia was, I didn't fall in love with the character until her move to Angel. The first two seasons of the show did amazing things with the character, tempering her unshakable confidence with a cynical world-weariness, giving her both a burden and a purpose in her dedication to help the helpless (more so once she got the visions) and for the first time having her build really meaningful and deep relationships with the rest of the cast. Her growth was an organic extension of the character's potential.

Until it wasn't. I think where things went wrong is that the writers started writing her not as person, but rather as some ideal that Angel strove towards, and reduced all her story and motivation to supporting Angel, helping Angel along his journey, and loving Angel. Ironically, I shipped them pretty hard in the first two seasons, until they decided to turn her into a cipher, and then every shippy scene and references to “champion” produced much groaning and eye-rolling. It especially bugged because of the nasty subtext that all those inexplicable changes were part of somehow making Cordelia "worthy" of Angel, which, excuse me while I go get my vomit bucket. I do think Charisma realised how made of crack her storylines were (the pseudo-familial scenes with baby Connor, the sexing of teenage Connor, the freaking Saintification and the Beast clusterfuck, UGH!), because she seemed to be operating on autopilot for the last seasons, and all the spark and joy was sucked out of her performance.

Plenty of Whedonverse characters had less then stellar character developments, but what was done to Cordy was an abomination. R.I.P., real!Cordelia. We'll always have those five seasons of snark.

( Days 1-30 )

Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character: Caroline Forbes




This the second woman from The Vampire Diaries to appear on the list and honestly, if there wasn’t so much competition from amazing characters from other canons, I could probably fit all of them in it.
I love Caroline because on the surface, she comes off as the type of character to be at best dismissed and at worst vilified in other shows. She’s the popular blonde with superficial interests, is bubbly and not exactly cerebral, and she’s often as self-absorbed and shallow as the typical teenager. And yet, she’s a wonderfully three-dimensional and sympathetic character in addition to those traits, and not in spite of them. Like the quality of the show itself, I wasn’t sold on Caroline from the outset-indeed, in season 1 her role seemed to be that of perpetual victim and showcase of Damon’s Evil Evilness. But like the show, she quickly turned from something “meh, but pretty” to something made of pure awesome.
A huge part of that was the major change she underwent in early S2. I was initially afraid they’d pull a Vicky, but instead they went on to make Caroline one of the most interesting, charming and infinitely relatable fictional vampires in television. It’s not that she got a personality transplant: Caroline’s cheerful façade still covers up insecurities, she’s still terrified of rejection from friends and family, and she still has very teenage relationship angst-but what she also got, for the first time, is agency (unless she’s being manipulated by Katherine, because Katherine > the world). I cheered when she opened a can of well-deserved whoopass on Damon, and things only improved from that point. And the friendship that developed between her and Stefan is not only a high point in Caroline’s storyline, it’s made Stefan infinitely more likeable to me (in a way his scenes with Elena and Damon fail to).
( Days 1-30 )

Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character: Zoe Washburn




Zoe was the character that automatically came to mind for this one, and not just because she's referred to canonically by Wash as “warrior woman”. While I love all Whedon heroines, Zoe is special to me because she doesn't fit any of his more beloved tropes-she's not a deceptively frail looking girl with a destiny (instead, fighting is very much her conscious choice), she's not a weapon, she doesn't swagger and deliver quippy one-liners. But she absolutely is the person you would most like to have on your side in battle.

Zoe is the perfect counterpoint to Mal's more impulsive and nihilistic battle tactics, and their rapport was one of my favorite dynamics of the Serenity crew. In a crew of misfits getting by on pure improvisation and bravado, she's the indisputably competent one, never once losing her head, even when Mal's crazy schemes inevitably go wrong. Which was why that scene where she went medieval on the Reavers in Serenity was as heartbreaking as the death that caused it-because it was Zoe breaking down, therefore all hope was lost. At the same time, for all her stoicism, she's far from a one-dimensional soldier archetype-she's got a wry sense of humor, was half of the most loving and healthy married couple in television (certainly the most functional relationship in the Whedonverse) and while she's fiercely loyal to Mal, she still calls him on his bullshit in that understated, chain of command way. And on a shallow note, Gina Torres is sex on a stick, and I loved the wardrobe choices which allowed her to be hot as hell while still being all business.

( Days 1-30 )

Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc:




Even before I started doing this meme, this was one of the few questions where the answer was simple and indisputable to me. Peggy's growth over the series is nothing short of amazing, but at the same time executed in the subtle and understated way everything happens in this show.

More importantly, as much character growth as she undergoes over the course of the series, her core personality remains unchanged. She might grow in assertiveness and somewhat temper her social awkwardness, but at heart she'll always remain an odd duck, and continue to speak volumes with her silences.

A lot of discussion about Mad Men is about the sexism of the era, but I find Peggy's journey to be one of the most feminist stories I've ever seen on TV. It's not that she moves from the secretarial pool to essentially being Don's lieutenant in creative-it's how she does it. She's a chameleon, trying on continuously evolving roles until she finds one that fits, and even her attempts at following the sexist rules of the time feel ephemeral and original rather than depressing, because it's just a temporary disguise. Unlike Joan, Peggy doesn't try to win at an inherently rigged sexist game-she's rewriting the rules.

Her personnal evolution is just as compelling as her professional one. The major stuff (Pete, the baby, her family) is riveting too, but I'm personally in love with the little moments. She goes on a date with a gay guy and gets a makeover, she beats the pervy colleague at his own sexual harassment game, she's Peggy Olson, and she wants to smoke marijuana. And my absolutely favourite relationship on the show, no contest, is Peggy and Don. While I can't help myself in slightly shipping them, their dynamic is not about that. She's both his reflection in some ways while absolutely surpassing him in others, and in the end, they know each other in a deeper way than any two people on the show.

( Days 1-30 )

Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book: Hermione Granger




Hermione was the first character I loved from the books on my first read (mid-2002, I believe). Almost a decade later and after being in HP fandom for what feels forever, she's still one of my favourites.

Given that so much of the theme of the books seems to be value “bravery and heart” above all other traits and the danger of certain kind of knowledge (but the central themes of the book are subject to a whole other post, that I'm not up to writing at 1AM), it's good that one of the central characters actually places a great value on curiosity, knowledge and overthinking things. Because, let's face it, for all that Hermione's often single-minded attitude towards academics and swottiness gets mocked by the other characters (and frequently the narrative), the fact remains that those traits save the day more often than not, even if they're less flashy than Harry's heroics. In fact, if Harry had stuck to the “Just listen to Hermione” motto at all times, a signicant percentage of classic Harry Potter blunders could have been avoided.

Not that Hermione is defined by that one aspect. She's brave and loyal to her friends to a fault, more so, I could argue, than they can be to her. She's also kind of a control-freak, single-minded in her pursuits to the point of throwing her customary perceptiveness out of the window and being wilfully unaware of when her help is absolutely not wanted (S.P.E.W., anyone?) and can be chillingly ruthless when she feels her actions are justified for a greater good. She's the girl who spent hours looking up legal texts to save Buckbeak's life while in the midst of an exhaustion and emotion-induced breakdown , the girl who thought nothing of permanently disfiguring a schoolmate for essentially being a tattle-tale and the girl who wanted to protect her parents so badly she actually messed with their very memories. It's the complexity of the character that makes her fascinating to me, even if the official philosophy of the books tends to downplay those flaws among the authorialy-approved characters. I loved that Hermione's book-long feud against Umbridge wasn't just about her understanding the danger of the Ministry's restriction of knowledge, her reading of the political subtext and the actual physical abuse heaped upon Hermione's friends, but the fact that Umbridge's very philosophy and tactics deeply offended Hermione on a personal level.

( Days 1-30 )

Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show: Lisa Simpson




I'm aware that's cheating, since the Simpsons is not, strictly speaking, a children's show but...kids watch it too? More for the visual jokes, Homer misadventures and Bart one-liners than the pithy social commentary, but I can see the all-ages appeal. Either way, Lisa is an amazing character, and I certainly hope she's been watched by/inspired enough little girls in the show's 20+ year run (along with the not-so-little girls).

She's genius-level intelligent, idealistic, driven, precocious, artistic and a whole range of other things one can't help but wonder how she came by (the leading canon theory seems to be Grandma Simpson, since the rest of the family are not exactly likely candidates). Not that it all comes easy to her-she lacks her brother Bart's (questionable in method but undeniable in result) social skills, can't seem to make a friend for more than one episode, she can occasionally be a swot and a bit like an overenthusiastic first-year-student in her myopic and naïve embracing of certain causes (which, given that she's EIGHT, is not bad really) and she's very much aware of her intellectual and moral superiority to the rest of her family. All her traits, positive and less so make her one of the most interesting, endearing and pretty damn emulation-worthy characters to appear on television.

( Days 1-30 )