After a week of doing things, but not quite remembering what, I decided to venture into the city centre on Saturday. Mostly, to go to the Birmingham Stitch n Bitch (which I am going to again this coming Saturday) and also go to the market/vintage shops.

Well, by 3 o’clock came, I was fed up of town. I’d been knitting, got the zip I needed to get (& promptly I lost in New Street station!) and felt a little cheated in the vintage shop (charity shops have been the ruin of me!), so I opted to catch the train home. On my way to the station, I stopped in borders - not intending to buy anything, but just to have a look. Lowe and behold, when I got there, the new issue of Lula sat on the shelves gleaming at me! What could I do, but fork over £5.99 for a copy?! I don’t buy many magazines anymore (most bore me & are too expensive!), but since Lula is bi-annual, you can justify £5.99 for it.

Anyway, I finally got round to starting to read it last night (yet to finish though) and I came across an article on.. alternative heroines shall we call them? Girls like Wednesday Addams (from The Addams Family of course), Angela Chase (from My So-called Life - can you believe I first watched this just a few days ago?!), Violet Baudelaire (from A Series of Unfortunate Events), Violet Parr (from The Incredibles) and other characters I’d not heard of before like Enid Coleslaw, Lydia Deetz, Margot Tenenbaum.

I’ve never really talked about my fondness for these type of characters before on the blog - I’m not quite sure why. The darker, thoughtful, quiet & probably quite bizarre characters in stories that I, like April Long (writer of the Lula article), relate to most. I’ve just always thought these characters were infinitely “cooler” than the more conventional girls they are cast against. If you were to look on the Coral Stars myspace page, you’d see that in the “heroes” section, I have Wednesday Addams & Angela Chase listed (and shall be adding some of the other characters once I have investigated & decided whether I think they are actually “cool”) because I genuinely and always have, preferred to admire these kinds of characters.

Images taken from Lula #7 & google

Maybe you’re wondering why that is and my only attempt at answering can be to say that I see myself a bit like these kinds of characters. Okay, maybe not in the dressing in black aspect (though, despite not  being completely outlandish in my attire, what I wear is occasionally “different” to most other girls in my school/local area), but in other aspects yes.

For example, unlike almost all other girls around my age (not all), I don’t fantasise about my wedding day (I don’t even know if I will get married yet!) or start going “awww! loook at the baby!” when I see someone with a child (I am like that with cute dogs though!) or try desperately to be “cool” and “accepted” - I know it kind of sounds like I have this mental image of myself of being an outsider kind of like these characters, but it’s not that. On the whole, I’m not an outsider, I fit into many bubbles in life, but to me, it doesn’t matter whether I fit into these bubbles or not. I just like to do things my own way! I like to wear things the way I want to, I like to have strong-minded, self-assured friends (I don’t have a vast many friends, but those who I actually consider true friends, are all very aware of themselves & are happy about who that is) and I like to be an occasionally quiet but fully independent person.

Lula was precisely on point with the article (well worth a read if you manage to get hold of a copy) and it rang so many bells for me personally. Not everyone will like or relate to these types of characters and there is nothing wrong with that. But the point with these characters, is that they demonstrate that it’s okay to be you and ultimately, the person who you need to please most, is you. As Lula says, “They realised so much earlier than the rest of us that the only way through life is to be true to yourself - and every decision they make, every line they drop, every dress they put on is a testament to that.”