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Jul. 1st, 2013 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotI like a cold, rainy summer but then I feel bad because it sucks for the farmers. But it makes me so much more comfortable.
This morning I was thinking about this story I've had going for forever (I started the original draft when I was 17, when I got my first laptop and it needed a wireless card to get on the internet and I couldn't do anything but type) and how a) it reflects my love for what ofhouseadama calls "pawn narratives" and b) it has always made me really uncomfortable in that "I can totally imagine how Tumblr/parts of LJ would rip me to shreds for using Bad Sexist Tropes" way, mainly because the villains are female. The main villain is the heroine's mother, who is utterly ruthless and emotionally abusive; her two step-daughters aren't really villains, more obstacles and unpleasant people. There's a guy that's in the mother's pay who's more mercenary than evil and eventually turns away from her. And on the good side, there's the heroine's long-lost father, obviously male, who does have faults but is essentially a good figure, and the love interest (who's actually not very involved with the plot), and the love interest's female cousin (who I LOVE). So for the longest time I was beating myself up over this. Since obviously Real Feminists would never write female head villains, while simultaneously not writing women as uniformly good and not having female baddies that are secondary to male villains.
My realization today was that part of the reason the setup appeals to me is that when it comes to dysfunctional families in fiction, you tend to see abusive fathers and victimized or ignorant mothers, or understanding fathers and mothers who rigidly enforce femininity. Actual abusive mothers are fairly rare.
I want to go on a bit more about various stuff, but it's time for bed and I've spent quite a while on these pleats.
This morning I was thinking about this story I've had going for forever (I started the original draft when I was 17, when I got my first laptop and it needed a wireless card to get on the internet and I couldn't do anything but type) and how a) it reflects my love for what ofhouseadama calls "pawn narratives" and b) it has always made me really uncomfortable in that "I can totally imagine how Tumblr/parts of LJ would rip me to shreds for using Bad Sexist Tropes" way, mainly because the villains are female. The main villain is the heroine's mother, who is utterly ruthless and emotionally abusive; her two step-daughters aren't really villains, more obstacles and unpleasant people. There's a guy that's in the mother's pay who's more mercenary than evil and eventually turns away from her. And on the good side, there's the heroine's long-lost father, obviously male, who does have faults but is essentially a good figure, and the love interest (who's actually not very involved with the plot), and the love interest's female cousin (who I LOVE). So for the longest time I was beating myself up over this. Since obviously Real Feminists would never write female head villains, while simultaneously not writing women as uniformly good and not having female baddies that are secondary to male villains.
My realization today was that part of the reason the setup appeals to me is that when it comes to dysfunctional families in fiction, you tend to see abusive fathers and victimized or ignorant mothers, or understanding fathers and mothers who rigidly enforce femininity. Actual abusive mothers are fairly rare.
I want to go on a bit more about various stuff, but it's time for bed and I've spent quite a while on these pleats.
