I told my mom today that I watched TVD last week, and she was all "NOOOOOO, I was so proud of you I thought you quit" and I was all "But Stefan mom, and you had to see the way he and Elena looked at each other tho, and it's possible Elena is really back and maybe this all has been a bad dream" and my mom was all "you are going to regret this so hard tonight you know it" and I was all "mom, whatever" and then I watched it and like, first I was mad but then I was mostly like, huh what?

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I have a cold, and I am dying.  So as I lay here, cocooned in pillows and blankets with an overlarge box of lotion tissues and an excess of orange gatorade, I thought I would list some thoughts about recent TV.

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I'm going to go finish dying now.

I've watched a lot of TV and I have (started) playing a lot of games.  And I have come to a conclusion about things:

a) I don't often like what most people like
b) I am too negative for most fandoms because I am really critical of things
c) I need to probably watch less TV and play less games (HAHAHA)

But there are two media things (a tv show and a game) over which I literally have not a single terrible thing to say.  I love absolutely every character, the set design and costuming is A+, the cinematography is perfection, the soundtrack is glorious, the acting is actual perfection and basically they have the best storylines and most consistent and tight plot ever. (Plus I spend literally clutching pillows and alternating between squealing and crying because they are literally all my babies and I didn't know I could ever ship old people more than I ship young people but you can apparently.)

Anyway, I just started watching BSG again, and like--I literally don't know what to say.  I mean, it is actual perfection.  It has the best casting of any show or movie I have ever seen.  The acting is actual perfection.  The characterization is perfect.  It is full of actual strong female characters who are actual still women, not a woman meat suit hung on top of a man skeleton and character.  The male characters are, subsequently, not just oafish morons who only exist to prop up the brilliantness of the female characters, but actual people who are also as flawed and perfect as the female ones.  And there are more relationships beyond the romantic ones, and those relationships matter. They help build the characters up, not break them down.  And it does complicated love triangles and relationships (like where you love someone but are not in love and don't want to be with them but are still sexually attracted to them and then where love and in love and sexual attraction are all there) in the most brilliant way ever.  And when a guy does accuse a woman of being a whore?  Yeah, he gets punched in the face by said girl (and then he punches her right back which is PERFECTION) and yeah.  Plus, Laura Roslin is smarter than all of you.  Basically, this show is perfect, that is all. (Plus the cast is beautiful and the costuming is perfect and they actual use color where it makes sense and like yeah.)

And Assassin's Creed.  Fuck, who would have thought I could have fallen in love with pixels but I mean, aside from being beautiful, he is also amazing.  Like, god, they somehow manage to not make him an person who kills people but has a heart of gold---even though he is a person who kills people but has a heart of gold.  I dunno, but they balance this amazing line where he loves the fuck outtta life and people and places and the world but also knows that sometimes things get fucked up and you have to try and fix it as best you can, and you can get tired and beaten down and hurt but like, in the end, the world is never not a beautiful, broken place.  And he would never want to leave it.

The bottom line is you should watch BSG because it is perfection, and if you are a gamer (which I think no one on my flist is) you should play Assassin's Creed.  They will make your life better and I can't even complain about them, so you know they are good :)

I've been thinking a lot lately about women, and female characters in the specific.  I've really been gaming a lot lately, and watching a lot of TV, and I've been reading a lot in the fandoms about women characters.  I'm involved in a lot of fandoms, at least insomuch as I read a lot and pay attention to things, and I've noticed a lot of really interesting trends that I'm curious about.  A lot of these trends, most of them actually, connect to the idea of a "strong female character" and why people, especially women, like and dislike certain female characters in a fandom, how they respond to male characters, and why media is framed such as it is.  I plan on this being a long series of posts over the course of a few weeks/days (I'll likely get ADD at some point and run away) but I'm going to try to keep my focus.

Below is a list of some of the thoughts I have in my head right now, and where I might be going with this:

1. What is a strong female character and why does it suck
2. Women of power and why they go nuts (and why they are taken down)
3. Sexuality and "sexually liberated women" (plus virginity as a tool)
4.the term badass
5. Why interchangeability of the sexes isn't necessarily a good thing (femininity does matter)
6. Why we like "strong" women and what are those characteristics

The fandoms I want to touch on include TVD, OUAT, ASIOF (and how it relates to GOT and why Martin got it and HBO didn't), Brave, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Battlestar Galactica and others I probably just can't think of right now.

This post is kind of rambling...its more of a way for me to try and get some ideas out before they float away, and then like, come back to this later.  So yeah.  But anyway, I'm basically attempting to do some short series on female characters, and why I despair so much.  I'd love feedback and input, mostly because I am genuinely curious about what other views are, and because I am going to be making some general statements and assumptions, and I don't mind if I get a different bit of input!

What follows are thoughts on a variety of fandoms (which probably know one cares about, but you know.  I just like to get my thoughts out.)

Firstly, I have discovered recently that I am a very negative person (ha ha).  Like, I tend towards a glass half empty approach, and I am a critical bastard.  Also, I am often unreasonable.  And even when shit makes me mad, I just keep watching.  There are worse flaws I guess.

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