Thank you for this comment (and for the one above--I agree with what you said about escapism!), because it's incredibly relevant to my experience as a reader. Growing up, a lot of my favourite characters were male, and I remember getting teased for it... because of course the only explanation for liking a character is having a crush on them *eyeroll* But the reason that they were my favourites was because they portrayed someone I admired/wanted to be. And writing about that kind of character also makes sense to me!