![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- death note,
- fandom,
- meta,
- rants,
- saiyuki
The Het Girls Creed
I love my friends, but they are all slashers.
I am not.
So here follows the het girl's creed- an open love letter to why I love het.
Because the best-written het has a relationship between two people with different views and the world, different perspectives, who are nevertheless equal.
But really, because I like girls. In lots of shows girls, women, they get the short end of the stick. It's hard to find cool female characters in books and movies. I challange you to find a female Light who's in a series anywhere near as popular as Death Note, much less the main character. When I was younger, one of my first critiera for reading a book was, "Is there going to be a girl in it?" I didn't demand that they be the protaganist (though I prefered it that way) but that they at least should be a main secondary character.
I stil like and relate to girls. So slash really doesn't have a draw for me- and for shows like Death Note or Saiyuki, I don't need to spend more time with the guys. I see that from the source text. What I'm intrested in are the women, the characters who don't get that massive amount of screen time. I want to know why Yaone willingly walked into the Centipede Demon's lair. Did she do it because she was ordered to? Because she thought she was saving her village? Why? I want to know what happens when Light's little sister comes across a scrap of the Death Note (what do you bet she likes apples?) I want to know why Naomi willingly gave up her badge, and how she caught her first serial killer, and how many times she's gone through the door with gun in hand (I highly doubt Kira was the first case where SHE was risking her life.) Most especially, I want to see Naomi and L working together. These are the stories I want told.
And also, I like romance. I just do. I like that little giggle I get when I know the characters like each other but they haven't admitted it yet. I like watching two characters snip at each and realize that there's a little bit of attraction hidden in there. I like it when two characters are enemies but cant seem to treat each other that way. I love when it's clear that two characters really love each other, are married and still so in love.
That's why I love het.
no subject
(BTW, I love your fics and metas.)
Some of the friends I have are into slash, and while I can see what might draws them into it, it does nothing for me. Like you, I really really like women characters to the point that whenever I make an OC or a lead character out of a original story, more than likely the character be female. Sometimes I change my mind and create a male lead, but have a supporting female character that is his equal. I've always believed that the basis of good story telling is not letting the hero have all the power and the responsibility in the end, but rather his equals and his allies to help out in the fighting. That's what's pissing me off so much in Naruto: Naruto, by rights, should NOT be having superstrength. That's Sakura's ability, the only real power she has given to her by the author himself, to make her distinguished and needed. With Naruto having Sakura's strength, Sakura has become overcasted and thrown to the sidelines as a team mate.
(Oh wow, going horribly off tangent here.)
Going back to slash, I just don't find myself paticularly caring for it. Maybe it is just two guys to have similar viewpoints and there is no contrast as a result, but I just find slash (the good and the bad) just . . . lacking. (Though as an AMV maker, there is some really good slash vids that's not bad at all.)
And speaking of female characters, have you ever read Animorphs by K.A. Applegate? Totally awesome female leads there, they are practically the guys' equal.
no subject
Slash totally falls flat for me, because I'm all about the female characters, and then I don't find the thought of two guys having sex sexy.
That's what's pissing me off so much in Naruto: Naruto, by rights, should NOT be having superstrength. That's Sakura's ability, the only real power she has given to her by the author himself, to make her distinguished and needed. With Naruto having Sakura's strength, Sakura has become overcasted and thrown to the sidelines as a team mate.
*nods* Oh, don't even get me started on that. We finally get a technique that takes advantage of Sakura's natural talents (chakra control) and then Kishimoto starts making every female a medic nin or some varient thereof, and gives Sakura's superstrength, with totally level the playing field of Sakura with her normal amount of chakra and Sasuke and Naruto with their acres of it, and then gave Sakura's talents away.
I am beyond pissed about that.
And I have read Animorphs. I would say that series does a great job of having an equal mix of characters, and each character has a mix of male and female traits.