Lost Girl and the writing I'm still not doing

Yesterday I finished watching the Lost Girl box set by staying up really late. Not because I was enjoying it. Because I knew if I didn't I'd be the same annoyed today.

Does nobody in television stories have a deliberate wanted baby with someone they love due to consensual activities? Presumably in genres I don't watch that happens, but in F&SF, everyone goes to the creepy place. And it's the worst.

I mean, the opening titles of 4 seasons of Lost Girl, and the high point of the final boss fight, says 'I shall live the life I choose'. So why is the story they actually show us about not being able to choose?

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So added all together Lost Girl had a lot of frustrations, some layers of could do better, a few where they along with most TV must do better like race, and two giant good points in how many women there are and how there are actual bisexual and lesbian characters routinely.

But even there, the way stories treat women with power as potential monsters was never subverted. Power was always monstrous and virtue lay in learning how not to use it.

And it epically misunderstood what a Queen is. It got it right in the Garuda story, a Queen is someone who her people care about enough to set their other differences aside and set their strength to her use. But after that it was much less about politics and bringing people together, and much more about Bo levelling up and wondering if she's a monster.

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So while I was watching I liked the characters and I liked a lot of the stories, and it has so much more of the good stuff ie women. But as soon as I stop and think about it I just get really annoyed. And while I do pause and wonder how much of this is a fair standard to hold a show to - I know I'm super cranky this week, I know some of it is my mood, but - some of it is actual important fail on their part.

But then I wonder if I'll ever be happy with anything ever.

Ugh.



But I also feel like I shouldn't crit anything unless I, personally, can do better.
... which is daft. They're whole different degrees for a start.

But whenever I sit down and try and words for stories, all there is is this huge bundle of frustration and anger and occasionally cry, and criticism that just gets all over anything I even start trying to think about, and then just... nothing. For years. The words place is full of feelings and they're not nice feelings.


So from that angle everything that actually gets made is made much better than anything I make, and then I feel foolish.



But we need better stories. Getting only one thing kind of a bit right is still not good enough. We can't say there's good stories for women even in Lost Girl because there's bugger all women of color and the few that occasionally arrive have very bad things happen to them and get dead a lot. Good stories for white women just isn't enough. Like good stories for lesbians and bisexual women isn't enough if the only story about a trans woman is so gross. Women is women is all women, so it has to be good at everything at once, to be good at any of it.

Except high standard much?

So I don't know.