My rainy day craft box

( The prompts )

Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship - The reason this entry has taken so long is because I have actually been trying to come up with an answer for this one for several days and I can't. So I give up on it. Because I don't really know what is meant by "platonic relationship." Is it only friendships where there has never been an attraction? Do exes count? What if the attraction is there but they've had "the talk" and have decided to just remain friends. Honestly, I think people are misled by the term "platonic" into thinking it means sexual attraction is not and has never been an issue. It's there, you just choose not to act on it. This makes it problematic for me in storytelling because I like stories where the decision to act on that tension is part of their character arc. Friendships where attraction never matters tend to not be memorable to me. So whatever, I pass on this one.

Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship - I'm going to assume this means favorite romantic relationship as seen from the female's point of view rather than favorite romantic relationship between two female, if only because the latter leaves a very narrow list of options.

My vote goes to Lily's (Mia Sara) relationship with Jack (Tom Cruise) in the fantasy film Legend. You know, that movie where Satan (Tim Curry) is trying to kill unicorns. They didn't make Lily a damsel in distress but they didn't make her an action heroine either. She uses her wits and actually manages to beguile the Prince of Darkness. That's pretty badass. And she does it all in the name of love and atoning for a mistake that she's made. All the while Jack is trying to get to her and never stops believing in her, even at a crucial moment where she seems to have gone over to the dark side for real. I don't care how much you hate Tom Cruise. Listen to his younger self as he pleads "I trust you, Lily!" and I dare you not to shiver.

Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship - I already listed Ellen Ripley from the Alien films as my favorite all-time heroine. Then I realized that because she is my favorite heroine that means I can technically list her as many times as I want. I mean, she's my all-around favorite, right? That means she's good at lots of things.

Ripley and Newt aren't biologically related but that's why watching the mother/daughter relationship that forms between them (and which is not even directly addressed in words save for one exclamation by Newt at the end,) is so fascinating. Aliens probably has more explosions per minute than any film about a mother and her daughter ever made and that relationship never stops being what is at the film's heart no matter how many times Bill Paxton reminds us that we're fucked and that it's game over.

LOL, I don't even know how many days I'm back up now but I'm not giving up!

( The prompts )

Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character - Swan, the semi-eponymous heroine of Robert McCammon's post-nuclear fantasy epic Swan Song. She is a girl with the power to make plants grow and therefore is the key to repairing the radioactive world. Unfortunately, in addition to your garden variety post-apocalyptic warlords raiding and enslaving their way across the landscape there is also a demonic force interested in keeping things exactly as they are. Swan is a true pacifist and sickens at the notion of even having anyone shed blood to defend her person. Needless to say, things get very interesting for everyone involved in her life and she winds up with some interesting choices to make.

Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character - Shale from Dragon Age: Origins. Depending on the dialogue options you choose it is possible to spend almost the entire game not knowing that the cheerfully homicidal stone golem in your party is in fact female. Cheerful sociopaths who gleefully remind you that they'd love to murder you if they could get away with it shouldn't be endearing or make you like them. Shale is noteworthy because they pull it off with her.

Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist - The God from the Silent Hill games. It's always God, never Goddess, presumably because she can appear in whatever form those trying to incarnate her think of her as. (Yes, that means if you think of J. Edgar Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy us all.) But in-game texts and characters always refer to her as female regardless. And she is just... well, she is responsible in one way or another for EVERYTHING in Silent Hill. That should say it all right there.

( The prompts. )

Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie. Well crap, I already listed Ripley from Aliens. Since it's my overall favorite movie I guess I'll nominate Izzy/Isabelle (Rachel Weisz) from The Fountain. I've never seen Weisz in a bad role or a bad film and I think The Fountain is her best work. She brings such incredible mortality and fragility to a character that is, in a very real sense, immortal and eternal.

Day Thirteen: Favorite Female Character in a Book. White Crow from Mary Gentle's Rats and Gargoyles. This... is a weird book. In terms of weirdness it makes China Mieville or M. John Harrison read like Dostoyevsky. White Crow makes the whole thing work. It's a story about a city ruled by the thirty-six aspects of God where humans are subservient to anthropomorphic giant rats. White Crow is a heroine of uncertain background and motivation who ties the whole crazy mess together. She's sexy without being fanservice and smart enough to go up against God without seeming like an overpowered Mary Sue. The book is hard to find but worth it if you like strong heroines in surreal settings.

Day fourteen: Favorite older female character. When you read a lot of fantasy "older" is a very relative term. The eighty year-old crone with the wart on her nose doesn't have much on the 5000 year-old elven princess in terms of wisdom and experience, right? Right. I think a favorite of mine who encompasses "older" in sense of both age and timelessness is Morgan La Fay from the Arthurian legends. She's rarely depicted as an old woman, but she is often depicted as a force belonging to an earlier time, trying to hang on to what was lost. She makes a cameo appearance at the end of Vivian Vande Velde's novel The Book of Mordred where she is depicted as a femme fatale whose appearance sometimes "slips" to show her true age when things aren't going right. It's a more outright villainous depiction of her than has become fashionable in the post-Marion Zimmer Bradley world, but I thought it spoke to a core part of her traditional characterization very well.

( The prompts... )

I have gotten myself involved in some contracting work. It's work-from-home, but time consuming so I haven't kept the female character ball rolling like I should. Here we go again.

Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show If you consider a web series of strung together five minute segments a comedy show (and I do,) then I'm going with Codex from The Guild. I can't say enough nice things about Felicia Day as an actress. I think she's really brilliant. She writes for her audience, giving them exactly what they like and can relate to. At the same time she pokes fun at herself with a character that lets the audience poke fun at themselves without feeling bad about it. I think it's healthy.

Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show Since the Law & Order franchise tends to be my default viewing when we can't find anything else on TV I'll go with Olivia Benson from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. SVU is a pretty overwrought show at the best of times and I feel like Mariska Hargitay brings an earthiness to her character without which the show would probably fly right off the rails. Olivia definitely radiates the strong warrior/protector/mother vibe but without coming off as an archetype or just a foil to the hot-blooded male characters.

Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show Dating myself here. Agent Scully from The X-Files. I went through my teens more than a little in love with her. She was a tough redhaired scientist who could use a gun and fought monsters. She was so badass she could even kill monsters she didn't even believe in which was most of the time. Tell me you would never fall for a woman like that and I'll call you a liar. Although I'll be honest: the whole fantasy is kind of spoiled knowing she had to film all her scenes with David Duchovny while standing on a milk crate because he's like a foot and a half taller than her in real life.

( The prompts... )

Wow I got behind! Yesterday was exhausting and I couldn't make myself type anything. But now is the time for catching up.

Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show I don't watch "male-driven" shows. I don't really know what the term means. To even find a show that qualifies I have to go all the way back to the original Law & Order and the character of Lieutenant Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkeson). She's a force of female authority and sensibility that never gets turned into a mother figure, which is difficult to pull off. Merkeson's dry delivery of her lines really helps. She has a distinctive voice and line delivery method that speaks volumes about the character as a person despite the fact that, in true Law & Order fashion, revelations about her background and personal life are few and far between.

Day Six: Favorite female-driven show Buffy! Xena! Nah, just kidding. That would be too easy, although I do love those shows and think they're huge milestones for the depiction of women on television. But I'm actually going to go with Judging Amy, which if you don't remember it was a drama series from the early 2000's about a family court judge and her mother, a social worker. Amy Brenneman and Tyne Daly played the respective leads and were just awesome onscreen together portraying a very believable mother-daughter relationship. It was a drama that dealt with serious issues, yet I found it a great show to unwind and relax to. It's great rainy day, wrapped in a warm blanket and drinking cocoa viewing. Of course a lot of people say the same thing about Buffy and Xena but I get psyched watching those shows. Amy just puts me in a good mood.