#Fictional women

[idle-teen28]

Loving a fictional character is like marriage

You fall for the character, become obsessed with them to the point where you think that they're the only fictional character you've ever loved, like if they were real, you'd marry them in a heart beat

Then you fall for a new fictional character while still being obsessed with the current one, it feels like an affair, but you accidentally became too obsessed with the new one, so you start to ignore the current one slowly, until you completely ignore them, and start to focus on the new one, falling for them now, it's like divorce and remarriage

The cycle continues until you have at least 10 fictional characters

Then you remember your previous fictional crush that you were obsessed with 2 years ago, and then you fall for them again, and become obsessed with them like you used to, it's like falling in love and marrying your ex-spouse again

And then you break-up

And the cycle continues like this, FOREVER

[green--tea-owo]

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

My favourite game to play in fandom spaces is the age old "is this female character actually awful or is she just a) outspoken, b) not designed to be palatable to a male audience, or c) the canon female love interest of a male character more popularly shipped with another man?"

[sserrafeim]

thinking about her 🥰 (she’s fictional)

[ink-5oul]

You can only answer with a fictional woman, if you're not sure if they count maybe pick a different character. You may choose an oc but of so please specify why you have classified them as such, thanks!

It would be nice if you could reblog for reach and put the character and status in the tags but don't feel pressured

[allyneedsasnack]

Am I ovulating or do I need therapy?

[moonysreid]

i’m always so busy.. i eat cake, read fanfic, and sit around waiting for a cute fictional character to walk through my door

..haven’t got time for myself istg

[theletterboxstuff]

I love it when fictional women finally lose their calm and finally decide to listen to their rage and dance along with it. Its every girl's wildest dream but its also something that can only happen in fiction because in reality, whenever a woman tries to express herself. She's hysterical. Hysterical and Wrong. Liar, overreacting and just bit 'always on the edge'

[i-chew-on-pushpins]

I saw @starfoozle do this & was fascinated by the clear throughline so now i wanna play & see if that's also evident in mine? (Some of these are girls, not adult women, but I feel like it still counts.)

Im tagging @spaceswordblaster @youllneverseemerelax @goatmattersinc @gayweedelf or whoever else

[lipstickmarks]

looked at my Mor pfp and sighed😔

[maxdibert]

I also think that what contributes to the popular opinion among the fandom that Lily is a saint or an extraordinarily kind person is because Snape sacrificed so much for her, his past memories are mostly about her, his feelings and sacrifice are dramatic and romanticized, therefore people assume she was someone special, but they ignore the fact that Snape was an abused and socially deprived child and these children often create unhealthy attachment to the first person who show them genuine affection and friendship. His unhealthy attachment might have just made him ignore her major flaws and put her on a pedestal therefore the readers also put her on a pedestal. His memories create this saintly light around her, because that's how he viewed her, therefore the readers were forced to view her like that too. If he grew up in a loving home he might have just seen her like a normal person that can be sometimes a jerk like everyone else. The fact we don't know much about her doesn't help either because it creates a mystery we want to solve. And with all of what I mentioned it is easy to just perceive her in the same way Severus did.

Absolutely. I agree 100%. Completely. No doubts about what you’re saying. You’re absolutely right.

I’d just like to add that Rowling conveniently uses Lily to justify James. Lily doesn’t just have this saintly image because Severus idealized her, but because the narrative itself frames her as a kind of moral totem by which we’re supposed to judge whether a man (sic) is on the right or wrong path. The only proof we have that James changed is that Lily accepted him, which indirectly implies that she was so good, so ethical, so morally unassailable that if she chose someone as her partner, it was because that person had truly proven they were worth it. Even though the story never explicitly shows this supposed change—and there are even moments suggesting it wasn’t entirely genuine, like when Remus and Sirius admit that James just got better at hiding his awful personality rather than completely changing.

Rowling doesn’t just portray Lily as Severus’s best memory or the best thing that ever happened to him—already suggesting she must have been exceptional to have been so important to one of the most complex characters in the series, to the point that he risked so much for her. She also tells us Lily was so good, so incorruptible, that she could change men. This idea makes my stomach churn and fills me with frustration because the concept of the "healing woman" in fiction and the "woman as a catalyst for male redemption" trope disgusts me. I find it deeply misogynistic because it denies women the right to be imperfect, to be broken, flawed, morally questionable, or to commit immoral acts. It forces us to embody moral perfection to the highest degree. Honestly, it’s something I despise, and it infuriates me that Rowling portrays herself as a feminist because, if I were to do a gender analysis of her series, I could write another thesis for my degree.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. That said, we also have a third factor that ties a neat bow around Lily’s sanctification: she’s Harry’s mother. She’s the mother who gave her life for him, whom Harry always idealizes, and about whom he only ever hears that she was beautiful, popular, and the best person ever. It’s normal for Harry to idealize his parents because he never knew them, but James at least benefits from some depth in the narrative, thanks to the flaws Rowling gave him and the fact that she has the decency to give him friends who can talk about him. Lily doesn’t even get that. Lily has one known friend in the series—Severus—and he’s a mistreated boy for whom this girl was his emotional anchor throughout childhood and adolescence because she was the first person in his life to show him kindness. Everything Harry sees of Lily is filtered through an extremely subjective lens where she’s always the good one, and outside that lens, there’s nothing to contrast that image with because Rowling didn’t bother to create any of the supposed friends Lily had as a "super popular girl" who might still be alive to talk to Harry.

Lily is never given her own identity. Her identity is built around the men who orbit her; it’s constructed through the impact she has on them. But she herself has no personality because her entire existence in the series is shaped by the male gaze of the men around her.

Everything about her character is so problematic. People excuse Rowling by saying she started writing the books in the ’90s, but come on—there was plenty of literature in the ’90s about feminism, gender roles in fiction, and the issues with the male gaze in female characters. Rowling simply has a very archaic view of women that’s riddled with clichés, and with Lily, it completely got out of hand.

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

Worst Crimes a Female Character Can Commit (By Order of Severity)

10. Theft

9. Tax Fraud

8. Murder

7. Terrorism

6. Violating the Geneva Convention

5. Being impolite (esp. to male characters)

4. Being feminine but in a way that is neither childlike nor sexy

3. Being even slightly "like other girls"

2. Being mildly annoying

1. Being the canon romantic interest of a male character who is more popularly shipped with other men

[foobars-cool-car]

dee reynolds i love you

[r0semaryt3a]

“I don’t have a type in fictional women”

Then there’s the fictional women I like:

If you can label the things they have in common I’ll give you a pat on the back