BSG, fandoms, etc...

[dangermousie]

I am sure everyone has seen the promo S4 Battlestar Galactica photos.



1. The hair! Is it to indicate inner turmoil or something? Both Anders and Lee should seriously learn to spare the hairgel. It's not like they can make more.

2. I remain, as always, humbled by the sheer anatomical impossibility of Six' outfits.

3. I am sorry, that suit, in combo with the pose and hair, makes Lee look not like a defender of rights and freedoms but a sleazy personal injury lawyer from a firm that advertises on billboards with slogans like 'Injured? In trouble? In jail? Call Lee 'the Hammer' Adama, always there for you.'

4. Helo and Athena always makes me squee. If they kill either one off permanently, I will...likely do nothing. But will sulk.

5. Starbuck! Lots of Starbuck. OMG is always appropriate.

6. Baltar's hair seems to have migrated from his head to his chest. Thought of either is unappetizing.

7. Airbrushing of doom.

In other news, this is something that I was thinking about in response to one of meganbmoore's posts. I realized I am rather weird in my fiction preferences in one respect: I've seen a lot of comments by people through the years that in order to really enjoy book/movie/whatever, they need a character they can identify with. And I realized that I not only do not need it, I prefer not to have a character like that. Because if there is one, I either get distracted by personal issues or bored because they aren't 'new to me.' I know I generally read/watch to get away from things in everyday, but that is pretty odd. I prefer to have no one to identify with, even if I do usually want characters to like. As I posted in the comments, 'my favorite narratives/characters are never that [identifying-with]. My favorite books are either Lymond Chronicles or Remarque's Three Comrades and I have no identification with any characters in them, male or female. My fave shows are BSG and Farscape and I really have no character who is 'like me' at all in it and don't identify with anyone. Even for my dramas, I don't really identify with most anyone in my fave dramas at all...'

To use the freshest example, I am adoring Hello My Teacher, but even though Bori is an awesome awesome heroine (smart, and optimistic, and kickass), I don't identify with her at all. And I adore Tae-In (ep 7? best confession of love ever. I loled so hard) but it would be a bit odd for me to identify with a 19-year-old troublemaker/gang leader from an abusive family with a dorky sense of humor. So yeah.

Anyway, is anyone else like this? Preferring to have characters to like but not identify with or as a POV character?

Also, checking for Hong Gil Dong subs is torture. But reading Kitchen Confidential is not.

Comments

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I like to identify, and sometimes it is something silly and small in one or another character I can identify with..

Also, checking for Hong Gil Dong subs is torture

I will be dead from waiting soon, good job I am busy at work!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

No subs yet! *weeps*

[thelana.livejournal.com]

It probably depends on how you define "identify with". I tend to think that the character whose position you take, whose points you see the most, who you have sympathy from is a character you identify with.

Which for me is less "This character is me/like me" but more "I can put myself in their shoes and really understand what they are going through".

So if you cry for character X losing his lost love or get angry that his father beats him then you feel for them, which to me is a form of identification.

But other than that, yes, I tend to stay away from characters I have a lot in common with. For one I KNOW what my life is like. I gain no additional information by reading about it. It just holds little interest. And secondly, I don't really like the thought of doing the story injustice because I might end up projecting myself too heavily into the characters. The characters/authors should get the chance to tell their own stories rather than me trying to mold them into me or my stories.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

So if you cry for character X losing his lost love or get angry that his father beats him then you feel for them, which to me is a form of identification.


But I don't know, that just means you are capable of feeling for someone i.e. you are not a sociopath. I'd feel bad for anyone being abused, it's an automatic reaction, but it doesn't mean I identify myself with him/her in the least...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I don't quite get the "I need to have a character I can identify with" thing myself. The only time it's an issue for me is when I'm clearly MEANT to identify with a character, but then I don't. Which is really where a lot of shoujo and I don't work out, but shounen and I do...so much of it seems to expect me to and rely on my identifying with these girls, and most of them I couldn't when I was 16, much less now that I'm 27, whereas most shounen doesn't seem to really rely on any identification at all, but if I do stumble across a character to identify with, it's usually a supporting character in shounen.

I think it's also part of why I prefer Angel the Series to Buffy(though, of course, I like both)...Buffy relies a good bit on putting yourself in the place of one of the characters and seeing the insanity of their lives as allegories for yours. I could only ever do that a bit with Willow, and even then only the first few seasons. AtS, though, didn't rely at all on identification or allegories, and was just straight up pulpy noirisj urban fantasy. (That's only a small part of it, though...really, AtS is just more my type of show that BtVS is.)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I liked Buffy but never identified with anybody in it. I just liked the pulpishness of it :)

[weissman.livejournal.com]

I truly believe that both Sharon, Helo and Hera will make it to the end of the series, they are the point of the series.

Bob

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I so hope so.

[ulkis.livejournal.com]

And I realized that I not only do not need it, I prefer not to have a character like that.

Oh, I'm definitely like that. I can't really relate when I see people say, "Oh, I'm so like this person, that's why I can't be hard on them." I'm more, why would I want a character who is me? I'm with me all the time! :)

I am sorry, that suit, in combo with the pose and hair, makes Lee look not like a defender of rights and freedoms but a sleazy personal injury lawyer from a firm that advertises on billboards with slogans like 'Injured? In trouble? In jail? Call Lee 'the Hammer' Adama, always there for you.'

Bwah! Now I'm thinking Starbuck is saying, "yeah, that time I plowed into a plowed my viper into that raptor, Mr. Adama fixed right up nice for me! He can for you too!" (Although I actually do think they look quite romantic there.)

6. Baltar's hair seems to have migrated from his head to his chest. Thought of either is unappetizing.

At first I thought Baltar moved into some spaceship version of Hugh Hefner's mansion what with the smoking jacket, but I guess those are supposed to be priest robes? Either way, Baltar's poses never fail to amuse me.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Bwah! Now I'm thinking Starbuck is saying, "yeah, that time I plowed into a plowed my viper into that raptor, Mr. Adama fixed right up nice for me! He can for you too!"

I'd pay to see this!