❝
The LEGO Movie was my favorite movie of 2014, but it strikes me that the main character was male, because I feel like in our current culture, he HAD to be. The whole point of Emmett is that he’s the most boring average person in the world. It’s impossible to imagine a female character playing that role, because according to our pop culture, if she’s female she’s already SOMEthing, because she’s not male. The baseline is male. The average person is male.
You can see this all over but it’s weirdly prevalent in children’s entertainment. Why are almost all of the muppets dudes, except for Miss Piggy, who’s a parody of femininity? Why do all of the Despicable Me minions, genderless blobs, have boy names? I love the story (which I read on Wikipedia) that when the director of The Brave Little Toaster cast a woman to play the toaster, one of the guys on the crew was so mad he stormed out of the room. Because he thought the toaster was a man. A TOASTER. The character is a toaster.
I try to think about that when writing new characters— is there anything inherently gendered about what this character is doing? Or is it a toaster?
❞
libations-of-honey-and-milk:
In fairy tales and fantasy, two types of people go in towers: princesses and wizards.
Princesses are placed there against their will or with the intention of ‘keeping them safe.’
This is very different from wizards, who seek out towers to hone their sorcery in solitude.
I would like a story where a princess is placed in an abandoned tower that used to belong to a wizard, and so she spends long years learning the craft of wizardry from the scraps left behind and becomes the most powerful magic wielder the world has seen in centuries, busts out of the tower and wreaks glorious, bloody vengeance on the fools that imprisoned her.
That would be my kind of story.
leerans:
Cool ideas: the “gentle giant” trope, but women.
Imagine, please: HUGE lady, very kind, gentle, easily flustered
Imagine: Small tough girlfriend has to climb stepladder to kiss huge girlfriend on the cheek, huge girlfriend blushes furiously
The signs as the best rom-com couples of all time (TV shows)
Aries: Ross and Rachel (Friends)
Taurus: Nick and Jess (New Girl)
Gemini: Monica and Chandler (Friends)
Cancer: Pam and Jim (The Office)
Leo: Lily and Marshall (How I Met Your Mother)
Virgo: Leslie and Ben (Parks and Rec)
Libra: Barney and Robin (How I Met Your Mother)
Scorpio: Andy and April (Parks and Rec)
Sagittarius: Chris and Ann (Parks and Rec)
Capricorn: Chuck and Blair (Gossip Girl)
Aquarius: Michael and Holly (The Office)
Pisces: Phoebe and Mike (Friends)
sibiet:
i actually like asshole couples best like the couples that pick on each other so much and call each other names but it’s okay because you know they’re actually totally in love and none of it is meant in a mean way and every insult is punctuated by a sweet comment to remind the other how much they actually adore them and i’m sorry but there isn’t anything cuter ok
