Time to embarrass myself. I’ve a list of science fiction characters I’d like to be.
I’d want to be Sara in Anne McCaffrey’s Restoree: rescue (and marry) a hero after being mysteriously plucked from Earth by aliens in a traumatizing experience that everyone I care about would admire me for overcoming. Plus I’d get a new nose. What’s not to like?
Somewhat more ambitiously, I’d get a kick out of blowing everyone away as Aeryn Sun in Farscape. I wouldn’t want to have a baby like she does, although doing the will-we-won’t-we ballet with drool-worthy John Crichton would be delicious.
If I switched genders, I’d want to be Rustum “Bat” Battachariya in Charles Sheffield’s Dark as Day and Cold as Ice: a food-loving, extremely antisocial, relic-collecting hacker-genius.
Or Miles Vorkosigan in Lois McMaster Bujold’s novels: a physically challenged and psychologically damaged yet pedigreed person who comes into his own.
Most of these are tortured characters who have physical or mental problems that I wouldn’t want to have in real life, but I relate to their angst, and I respect the way they succeed despite their problems. I don’t have it in me to do as they do; I’d just curl up in a corner and whine, or stand around with my hands on my hips and complain.
So, one more for the list, someone less angst-ridden. Let me be Kaylee in Firefly: good with engines, always cheerful, surrounded by a loving group of capable and loyal friends, and possessed of (ahem) healthy appetites.