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Sep. 8th, 2008 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo last week I went with my roommate to see Vicky Christina Barcelona. The narration introduces Vicky and Christina by explaining that they are best friends, see the world the same way, and have identical tastes in everything except romance. This is the one and only time the idea that these two best friends, who have identical tastes and interests and have chosen to spend a summer together, might have a conversation about anything other than romance is even obliquely referenced in the film. And it is not a conversation, it is narration.
I wish that I came out of the movie more surprised by this.
More cheerfully:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shoroko tagged me for the top seven character 'ships meme! I am not a hugely 'shippy person and my 'top' anything tends to vary wildly depending on the day, the hour, and what color top I happen to be wearing, but I will give a shot at providing At Least Some 'Ships I Like. The rules of the meme are:
1. List your top seven character ships
2. Put all of them in order of your love for them; 7 to 1, 1 being your main fixation.
3. Name the movie/show/book that they're in.
4. Supply photos for said people.
5. Tag seven people.
1. Okay, I am limiting myself to one entry for Diana Wynne Jones 'ships, and that has to go to Howl and Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle (if only because they're the only one with a workable picture, thank you Miyazaki!)
The ultimate Howl and Sophie image: Howl, having just flooded the place with green slime, attempts to charm Sophie. Sophie looks deeply skeptical!
Okay, maybe not. Let's try this:
Howl is, as I said recently in a back room post, the Lord High King of Fabulous: super-talented, super-gorgeous, super-intelligent, super-vain, a show-off and a manipulative flirt. Sophie is strong-willed and kind and talented, and also nosy and stubborn and narrow-minded, kind of a bully and deeply insecure. They are both hugely flawed people, and those flaws are exactly what make them work together. Howl constantly pushes Sophie's boundaries; Sophie stands up to Howl and refuses to indulge him. There's a balance in their relationship that makes them stronger people, and I love that a ridiculous amount.
(And I know I said only one listing for Diana Wynne Jones and am therefore skipping sadly past Millie/Christopher and Helen/Jamie and Maewen/Mitt and Mordion/Vierran, but I have to give a quick honorable mention to Maree Mallory and Rupert Venables from Deep Secret, for, again, flaws that work together. He thinks she's self-indulgently depressive and she thinks he's a tremendous prat and the first time they meet she's holding up traffic doing a crazy witchy dance and he stalks out and gives a tremendously dignified and ridiculous speech at her. It's AMAZING.)
2. Bennetts!
Yes, Noah Bennett is a jerk and Sandra deserves about a million times better and memory-wiping your spouse is NOT OKAY, but I love them anyways. I have loved them from the early days of Heroes when he was the Secret Agent and she bred show dogs and I kept imagining hilariously wild theories in my head of how they could have met in the first place, and I loved them when Noah Expressed His Caring in the Creepiest Way Ever. I loved that the focus, for a brief minute, was on a middle-aged married couple, and that the story cared about them and made them people. And I loved them even more when she learned everything and told him that she knew how to keep a secret and was used to playing dumb, and I thought the balance of power was going to swing and the partnership was finally going to become equal.
It hasn't really yet, but I keep hoping. I was rooting for Sandra when she threatened to walk out, true, but really my ultimate wish is that Sandra continues to quietly take charge of things in her own right and then Noah has to chase after her and prove that he's mended his ways and they become an awesome married taking-down-the-company partnership. Or they end up on different sides and have to work against each other while still being in love and it's awesomely tragic, I could deal with that too. Sadly I do not think the show will give Sandra anywhere near that much importance this season, but I CAN DREAM.
3. If I say, 'Willow and Oz', I suspect that several people on my flist will say 'but what about Tara!'
But I will say it anyways, because while I love Tara a lot, I think Tara/Willow was a much less healthy relationship than Willow/Oz and Tara is kind of better off out of it. Um, you know, she would be if she weren't dead. (Yes, I am a hypocrite, Sandra/Noah has very similar balance of power issues to Willow/Tara, but . . . middle-aged adorableness! Also I tend to feel that Willow's abuse of power is a little more selfish than Noah's. Also Noah eventually gets his memories wiped too, so at least it's even.) Also, I have been watching season two of Buffy recently, and Willow and Oz are just so cute then. He falls for her while she's dressed as an eskimo! The animal crackers speech! They're approximately the same height because Seth Green is miniscule! I am occasionally reduced to squeaks.
4. This is totally cheating, but I don't care: SOKKA/THE LADIES.
NO I DO NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE. If forced, I would say that I want Sokka to date Suki for a while longer and then break up in a friendly and normal teenaged fashion and then ten years in the future Toph can hit him over the head with a rock and make out with him. Meanwhile he will continue to look wistfully at the moon and make soppy comments about the moon goddess. Best of all worlds!
(For those who do not know Avatar, a.) why don't you? b.) Sokka is the one without special powers who is badass anyways, and is kind of a genius and gets all the girls. But his relationships with them are adorable and well-balanced and allow them to kick ass in equal measure. And he will not kiss his new girlfriend in front of the moon, because the moon is his ex, and he is classy like that. I WOULD DO AN ACTIVITY IN A PLACE FOR SOME TIME WITH YOU, SOKKA.)
5. I refuse to use pictures from any of the film versions, because they are Not The Same.
But I have been rooting for Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey for a very long time, ever since my mom and I listened to Strong Poison on the drive up to my grandfather's house that one time, and Gaudy Night remains one of my favorite romance novels - because it is a romance novel, as much as a mystery, and one that tackles some of the most difficult questions in romance. To what extent should love and loyalty take precedence over personal moral codes and self-respect? It shouldn't, is the answer, and if it has to then something's wrong. That's what makes Gaudy Night such a great book, and that's what makes Harriet and Peter such a wonderful couple in this book, because they have to get to the point where they can both bring their strength and self-respect to the table.
6. This one may possibly take a little: Tam Lin and the Fair Janet.
I am using the cover of the book, because I like it, but I don't just mean Pamela Dean's. I love this particular fairy story because of Janet's strength and her mad boyfriend-rescuing skills, and books based on the trope are almost guaranteed to get me fully behind the love story. So by doing this, I can get in Janet and Thomas from Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, and Kate and Thomas from The Perilous Gard (she keeps him sane by talking to him about his farm!) and Polly and Tom from Fire and Hemlock, and probably others I'm forgetting. And that is how I cheat!
7. I allow myself one OTP that Never Was But Totally Should Be.
YOU KNOW YOU WANT THE CRAZY HOT DOUBLE-CROSSING MIND GAMES TOO, DON'T LIE.
I wish that I came out of the movie more surprised by this.
More cheerfully:
shoroko tagged me for the top seven character 'ships meme! I am not a hugely 'shippy person and my 'top' anything tends to vary wildly depending on the day, the hour, and what color top I happen to be wearing, but I will give a shot at providing At Least Some 'Ships I Like. The rules of the meme are: 1. List your top seven character ships
2. Put all of them in order of your love for them; 7 to 1, 1 being your main fixation.
3. Name the movie/show/book that they're in.
4. Supply photos for said people.
5. Tag seven people.
1. Okay, I am limiting myself to one entry for Diana Wynne Jones 'ships, and that has to go to Howl and Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle (if only because they're the only one with a workable picture, thank you Miyazaki!)
The ultimate Howl and Sophie image: Howl, having just flooded the place with green slime, attempts to charm Sophie. Sophie looks deeply skeptical!
Okay, maybe not. Let's try this:
Howl is, as I said recently in a back room post, the Lord High King of Fabulous: super-talented, super-gorgeous, super-intelligent, super-vain, a show-off and a manipulative flirt. Sophie is strong-willed and kind and talented, and also nosy and stubborn and narrow-minded, kind of a bully and deeply insecure. They are both hugely flawed people, and those flaws are exactly what make them work together. Howl constantly pushes Sophie's boundaries; Sophie stands up to Howl and refuses to indulge him. There's a balance in their relationship that makes them stronger people, and I love that a ridiculous amount.
(And I know I said only one listing for Diana Wynne Jones and am therefore skipping sadly past Millie/Christopher and Helen/Jamie and Maewen/Mitt and Mordion/Vierran, but I have to give a quick honorable mention to Maree Mallory and Rupert Venables from Deep Secret, for, again, flaws that work together. He thinks she's self-indulgently depressive and she thinks he's a tremendous prat and the first time they meet she's holding up traffic doing a crazy witchy dance and he stalks out and gives a tremendously dignified and ridiculous speech at her. It's AMAZING.)
2. Bennetts!
Yes, Noah Bennett is a jerk and Sandra deserves about a million times better and memory-wiping your spouse is NOT OKAY, but I love them anyways. I have loved them from the early days of Heroes when he was the Secret Agent and she bred show dogs and I kept imagining hilariously wild theories in my head of how they could have met in the first place, and I loved them when Noah Expressed His Caring in the Creepiest Way Ever. I loved that the focus, for a brief minute, was on a middle-aged married couple, and that the story cared about them and made them people. And I loved them even more when she learned everything and told him that she knew how to keep a secret and was used to playing dumb, and I thought the balance of power was going to swing and the partnership was finally going to become equal.
It hasn't really yet, but I keep hoping. I was rooting for Sandra when she threatened to walk out, true, but really my ultimate wish is that Sandra continues to quietly take charge of things in her own right and then Noah has to chase after her and prove that he's mended his ways and they become an awesome married taking-down-the-company partnership. Or they end up on different sides and have to work against each other while still being in love and it's awesomely tragic, I could deal with that too. Sadly I do not think the show will give Sandra anywhere near that much importance this season, but I CAN DREAM.
3. If I say, 'Willow and Oz', I suspect that several people on my flist will say 'but what about Tara!'
But I will say it anyways, because while I love Tara a lot, I think Tara/Willow was a much less healthy relationship than Willow/Oz and Tara is kind of better off out of it. Um, you know, she would be if she weren't dead. (Yes, I am a hypocrite, Sandra/Noah has very similar balance of power issues to Willow/Tara, but . . . middle-aged adorableness! Also I tend to feel that Willow's abuse of power is a little more selfish than Noah's. Also Noah eventually gets his memories wiped too, so at least it's even.) Also, I have been watching season two of Buffy recently, and Willow and Oz are just so cute then. He falls for her while she's dressed as an eskimo! The animal crackers speech! They're approximately the same height because Seth Green is miniscule! I am occasionally reduced to squeaks.
4. This is totally cheating, but I don't care: SOKKA/THE LADIES.
NO I DO NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE. If forced, I would say that I want Sokka to date Suki for a while longer and then break up in a friendly and normal teenaged fashion and then ten years in the future Toph can hit him over the head with a rock and make out with him. Meanwhile he will continue to look wistfully at the moon and make soppy comments about the moon goddess. Best of all worlds!
(For those who do not know Avatar, a.) why don't you? b.) Sokka is the one without special powers who is badass anyways, and is kind of a genius and gets all the girls. But his relationships with them are adorable and well-balanced and allow them to kick ass in equal measure. And he will not kiss his new girlfriend in front of the moon, because the moon is his ex, and he is classy like that. I WOULD DO AN ACTIVITY IN A PLACE FOR SOME TIME WITH YOU, SOKKA.)
5. I refuse to use pictures from any of the film versions, because they are Not The Same.
But I have been rooting for Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey for a very long time, ever since my mom and I listened to Strong Poison on the drive up to my grandfather's house that one time, and Gaudy Night remains one of my favorite romance novels - because it is a romance novel, as much as a mystery, and one that tackles some of the most difficult questions in romance. To what extent should love and loyalty take precedence over personal moral codes and self-respect? It shouldn't, is the answer, and if it has to then something's wrong. That's what makes Gaudy Night such a great book, and that's what makes Harriet and Peter such a wonderful couple in this book, because they have to get to the point where they can both bring their strength and self-respect to the table.
6. This one may possibly take a little: Tam Lin and the Fair Janet.
I am using the cover of the book, because I like it, but I don't just mean Pamela Dean's. I love this particular fairy story because of Janet's strength and her mad boyfriend-rescuing skills, and books based on the trope are almost guaranteed to get me fully behind the love story. So by doing this, I can get in Janet and Thomas from Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, and Kate and Thomas from The Perilous Gard (she keeps him sane by talking to him about his farm!) and Polly and Tom from Fire and Hemlock, and probably others I'm forgetting. And that is how I cheat!
7. I allow myself one OTP that Never Was But Totally Should Be.
YOU KNOW YOU WANT THE CRAZY HOT DOUBLE-CROSSING MIND GAMES TOO, DON'T LIE.
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Date: 2008-09-08 06:21 pm (UTC)