Crushing on your characters Part 2

Male-Female relationships are interesting. They just are. If you put a man and a woman alone in a room together and watch them from a psych student POV, you'll see what I'm talking about. Of all the dyadic combinations in human interpersonal interactions, I think opposite-sex dyads are the most entertaining to watch.

Now I already wrote about this stuff in my original post. I was trying to explain the cocktail of characters/personality traits that shaped the heterosexual love interest in my story. So when I ran across this song on youtube I knew I had to post it up! Shang is definitely crush-worthy and he shares similarities to the character in my novel. 

Shang and Mulan have a very interesting relationship because for three fourths of the movie, Shang and everyone else believes Mulan to be male. Anyway, I like Shang because he's a no-nonsense badass. And I like men who are obvious alpha types who put themselves on the same hierarchal level as women. Despite his hypermasculine status, Shang doesn't "coddle" Mulan or try to act in a chivalrous manner. Their relationship is unique in that Mulan never needs/expects Shang to ride in and "rescue her" (odd for a Disney film, I know!) They are perfectly interdependent. You might also argue that Shang is gay since he is attracted to Mulan before he realizes she's a girl, hahaha...but that's a different blog post altogether. Is the movie Mulan kinda sexist? Yeah...probably. But at least the heroine is allowed to 1. save the world without turning into a damsel in distress in the process and 2. get the guy without "deferring" to traditional gender roles.  


I guess I should mention that the homosexual love interest in my novel is based on a combination of girls/women I loved through school. Some of them were my teachers... Maybe another blog post. 
VC