Oh, I wait until Dawn is in her mid-to-late twenties to make the Dawn/Giles happen, so it's certainly not the same thing logically. But I think it sort of comes from the same place--it's Dawn's adolescence which attracts me to her character, because she's able to live out the adolescent fantasy which to me Buffy is all about. That "child" aspect of Dawn is forever associated to her with me, so that even when she is on paper an adult her acting like an adult hits one of my kinks (which is why I love writing her post-"Chosen"). Becoming an adult and a possible lover and thus equal to Giles-the-father-figure (the ultimate expression of her maturity) is for me a type of coming-of-age story, just as the romance Ari's painted between movie!verse Maltilda/Miss Honey is a coming-of-age story where Matilda earns her independece (rather than, Ari argues persuasively, merely transferring her obedience to a more palatable parental figure) and becomes an equal to the adult. A lot of potentially squicky pairings--basically any parent!kink or teacher!kink--suddenly make sense to me on this level. (It'd all depend on how well the writer could persuade me that the child/adolescent figure really was capable of acting as an adult and thus have the ability to consent.)
non-adults who want to be (treated like) adults, which is where my interest lies (having been one of those children/teens)
I still support child suffrage, although not in the same way or quite as vehemently as I did as a child.
I find myself thinking that Matilda found a person with whom she could safely be a child
That makes sense, and I think you could support that reading if you had seen the movie, but that's not the place Ari's post sent me to. I tend to think that Ari was</> setting up Miss Honey as Matilda's intellectual equal (or close enough), especially with her comment about the Dickens moment (which I don't actually remember). Also, I find myself convinced by the post that in the movie that Miss Honey isn't an emotional adult (although Matilda is), and so I think the ending montage is as much about Miss Honey reclaiming the happy childhood Miss Trunchbull never let her have than it is about Matilda.
Hmm, now I really want to write movie!verse Matilda/Jenny and explore these dynamics.
no subject
non-adults who want to be (treated like) adults, which is where my interest lies (having been one of those children/teens)
I still support child suffrage, although not in the same way or quite as vehemently as I did as a child.
I find myself thinking that Matilda found a person with whom she could safely be a child
That makes sense, and I think you could support that reading if you had seen the movie, but that's not the place Ari's post sent me to. I tend to think that Ari was</> setting up Miss Honey as Matilda's intellectual equal (or close enough), especially with her comment about the Dickens moment (which I don't actually remember). Also, I find myself convinced by the post that in the movie that Miss Honey isn't an emotional adult (although Matilda is), and so I think the ending montage is as much about Miss Honey reclaiming the happy childhood Miss Trunchbull never let her have than it is about Matilda.
Hmm, now I really want to write movie!verse Matilda/Jenny and explore these dynamics.