butterfly | Female Characters, Endings, and 'Shipping (Reply)

As I try to do often, I've been trying to make sense of my fannish loves. Why do I instinctively like Lois Lane? You know, I think a big part of it is because she annoyed Martha Kent. Lois' brand of... directness is not appealing to everyone, and when you have a sympathetic character recognize a flaw in another character, it cements it as real for the fictional world as well as the real one. Lana annoys me often and never seems to annoy people on Smallville (certainly no sympathetic main characters), so though she has flaws by real world standards, they don't exist according to the way people treat her in show.

So, I don't like 'a free ride', as it were. Which is actually why I maintained a dislike of Willow for the first six years of Buffy -- she got away with all manner of shit without getting as in as much trouble as other people who did the exact same thing. Whereas the only person who gave Buffy slack was Giles and he's... incredibly biased, enough that I found it believeable. Everyone else calls her on things when it bugs them, and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. So, while Lana and Willow are completely different archetypes, they really do both annoy me for the same reason.

One of the lines that I adore most about Fred is season five, after she's died -- "I think I hate her a little for that." The honest, anguished anger that often comes in the midst of grief, that reminds me of the reality of Fred and not an ideal. But I enjoyed her all throughout the season and in retrospect, through all of her appearances. When I rewatch, she jumps out off the screen at me, a scared woman who just keeps fighting for normal and for life. She fights so very hard. She has a violent streak and she has a crazy one. And, of course, a sympathetic character disliked her (Lilah), which always makes a character more real to me. With Cordy, I always saw the ego, but with Fred, I see determination. Darla, of course, was disliked by most of the main characters, so that was okay.

All this may be part of why I preferred Ezri to Jadzia.

And I've been slowly pinning down why Aeryn bugs me (I already know why I adore Chiana), despite the fact that she does not get let off the hook the way that Willow and Lana do. And I think that it's the 'special' card. Oh, Aeryn was conceived in love. Aeryn was told by her mom that she was a love-child. Aeryn was told by Valorek that she could be more. Aeryn was told the same thing by John. I was okay with John saying it. Once. But (as shown by my mini-rant for The Way We Weren't) I got annoyed when I found out that some other guy said the exact same thing first. Seriously, either I buy that she's special or I don't (for the record, since we've seen several other PKs with the same capacity to care, I would say that she's not... at least not as special as the show makes her out to be).

I've never watched a show and been displeased by the ending. Of course, I don't watch all that many shows through to the end. And I've often been displeased that a show is ending (AtS, Firefly). But if I trust the journey, I'll trust the ending. If I like a show enough to watch it consistently, then that generally means that I buy into the story that the writers are selling.

I bought into Buffy, which was always about her. I've gone on and on about how perfect the ending feels to me. Open road, hint of a smile. Good times. I bought into the journey of Angel, though not until late in the game -- I didn't care about the main character until the very end of season four, but once I did, I was invested in seeing him get an appropriate ending. due South was about a man, exile, and working through issues. In the end, he got to go home. Everything else (like RayK) is icing (quality icing, not that crap standard stuff) onto that one thing -- Fraser got to go home. After all the pain and everything that he learned, he was able to take that back home with him. In Dawson's Creek, the couple with actual chemistry got together and I sighed with relief.

With DS9, I revelled in the long good-byes. We'd known these guys for seven years. It was nice to take our time to see them leave. In LotR, I felt the same way, where each bit of closure was like another soft step out of a fairyland. I didn't want to say good-bye, so it helped to see the good-byes, to make it all feel real.

My approach to 'ship depends greatly on the fandom. I don't read Farscape fic nearly at all, because it's so hard to avoid the John/Aeryn vibes. Even non-J/A fics have the vibes, because J/A is The Canon Relationship. I 'ship John/Chiana and I've found less than a handful of good stories (and I mean that as in less than five).

Fanfic-wise, I read my pairings. In most fandoms, I only read my pairings. I've found myself reading a lot of gen in Stargate, but that's pretty rare. I find it very hard to read a fic that's about a pairing that is inimical to my pairings of choice, but am quite capable of 'shipping multiple pairings with one character if I feel that they don't conflict (In the Buffyverse, I 'ship Tara/Willow, Buffy/Xander, Buffy/Angel, Darla/Angel, Angel/Wesley, Wesley/Gunn, Gunn/Gwen, Wesley/Fred, Wesley/Illyria, Angel/Spike, Angel/Lindsey, Doyle/Cordelia, and Doyle/Angel, plus I'm willing to read most pairings, with the exception of Buffy/Spike. which I used to be able to read, back before season four started). I 'ship what I see. In BtVS and AtS, I can see many pairings (Firefly, too, actually. Part of me wants the movie to end with a big space orgy.).

In Stargate, I really really see Jack/Daniel. I can see Daniel/Sha're easily enough (actually, Daniel has chemistry with pretty much anyone he's onscreen with ever, even more so than Michael Rosenbaum's Lex does, as I can't think of anyone that Daniel doesn't make more interesting). I can see Jack/Sara in the past, though I can't see them ever working things out post-Charlie (mostly because, well, they didn't). I can't see Jack/Sam. Since the idea of the relationship bothers me (it's the 'sir' thing), I don't really try to see it. I see a connection between Daniel and Teal'c that doesn't strike me as 'shippy. I like Sam with most of her doomed love interests.

In Smallville, I saw a lot of Clark/Lex for the first three years. Now, of course, my L&C background, coupled with the fact that they did not screw up Lois Lane, has turned me into a Lois/Clark 'shipper. I can't actually, um, read Clark/Lex anymore. I went onto Smallville Slash the night after Crusade aired and couldn't get into the idea of reading Clark and Lex as more than friends. I was 'shipping Lois and Clark long before Smallville went on the air, so once Lois was there, my 'OTP' thing kicked in. Like Fraser/Kowalski for due South, I see Lois and Clark as inherently more suited for each other than anyone else, ever. And now that they've been on my screen and connected, I want to see more of that.