take that moon and wrap it in cellophane

[lotesse]

meme, snagged from astridv:

Name a fandom you know (that you think I know too!) and I'll tell you

1. The first character I first fell in love with
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now
3. The character everyone else loves that I don’t
4. The character I love that everyone else hates
5. The character I used to love but don’t any longer
6. The character I would totally smooch
7. The character I’d want to be like
8. The character I’d slap
9. A pairing that I love
10. A pairing that I despise

Comments

[lotesse]

Oh yay, I get to blather about Alcott!

loved first: this comes down to a tie between Rose and Alec, and really it's the both of them together - those opening scenes of EC are too sweet and lovely and dear for words. I loved her first for her bad spelling and him first for loosening her belt, and the sweet way they're both open about how strange their relationship is for both of them, the way they share that uncertainty.

love more now: the plotline in RiB with Charlie. I never shipped it, so as a kid found it somewhat tiresome, but now -! What a depiction of patriarchy! From the way Charlie manipulates Rose to her feeling of moral responsibility for him, the way people expect her to Change Him With Her Love, the way her love cools into responsibility and boils away into shame - ultimately leading to the resolution that you can't change men with love, you have to change the society that screws them up and protect your own heart. It's breathtakingly radical even now.

don't get the love: continued from the above somewhat - Charlie. Charlie was never attractive to me, I don't know why, but it seems like a lot of the fanwork I find for these books is either trying to redeem him or enjoying his wickedness. Yeah, I'm just not there. Never was, don't think I'm ever likely to be.

nobody else gets the love: FOR MAC! I mean, the author does, so I can't complain too much, but seriously y'all Mac is a mensch.

love less now: Aunt Jessie. I find now that she mouthpieces for all Alcott's positions that I don't share - opposition to slang, for one thing! Interesting that the male mouthpiece (Alec) gets the good lines, the female mouthpiece all the ones that police pleasure & so put me off.

kiss: Either Mac or Alec, depending on what book we're in :)

be: as above with The Dark is Rising, Rose is a character I've always seen myself in, the reason why I love these books best of all Alcott's work. Rose represents something you don't see that often in girls' lit - a nice prettyish girl who isn't a tragic figure or an outcast, but who still has to struggle to find out what she wants to be, how she can fulfill her ideals, what the right choice is and what the wrong, how to balance social expectation with individual growth. She's not a shocking beauty, but she's also not an ugly duckling - and she's a blonde who isn't a Barbie. As a character, Rose helped me come to terms with the fact that even blonde girls with loving families are allowed to have problems, to feel unsure or alienated, to struggle. That girls who aren't geniuses can still be smart and good, that ordinary virtues can and do matter.

slap: Aunt Clara? Prince Charlie - particularly in the affair of the ear-rings? A horrid spiteful part of me always wants to fly up at Aunt Peace for being a Dickensian angel in the house without any of the charm that Beth March brings to the part.

pairing I love: Mac/Rose. Many a lamplit evening have I spent poring over the last chapters of RiB, many a gusty sigh have I vented. It's everything I want in a box, wrapped up with a bow.

pairing I don't: Archie/Phebe. I mean, I think I could like it, but as written it has this odd feeling of slow inevitability that isn't at all attractive to me. Either more or less?