#WELL-WRITTEN FEMALE CHARACTERS

[bellwethers]

Her.

[ancientbread]

The hunger games: capitalism pits individuals against each other in order to prevent us from uniting against the systems in power that maintain our oppression

teen dystopian YA for the next decade: light hair good boy 😍??? Or dark hair bad boy 🫣😈😈

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[creatordisc]

where's that post about having female blorbos i'm feeling it really hard rn.

[shslprince]

Honestly I'm glad I stopped going "maki may be horribly written but I still like her!" years ago bc I think she's one of the most well written characters in V3 Actually.

I love how her caregiver and assassin talents are deeply interlinked with one another despite being at odds with each other, as she only became an assassin as a way to protect the orphanage she deeply cares for.

I love that she relapses in chapter 5 because despite wanting to change herself and reach out to others, you can't Power Of Friendship away years of training and abuse. For once she wanted to use her talent for (supposed) good only for it to backfire spectacularly and hurt the one person she wanted to protect the most!!

And I also think her romance is great Actually, as it was thanks to those feelings that she was finally able to believe in herself, that even if it was all fictional those feelings were real and were hers alone which resonates with the overall themes of V3!!!

Harumaki is great. We love Maki Harukawa.

[elvyn]

She.

[invisible-pink-toast]

[roseworth]

misandry in fandom is real to me and im the one doing it. i hate this male character because hes getting in the way of my wlw ship :/ hes actually irredeemable and everyone that likes him is toxic. the female character that did the same thing is fine though bc shes actually a really complex character and shes completely justified

[ot3]

double whammy of invoking bioessentialism for media analysis and then namedropping shonen manga as the best female character writing you've ever exposed yourself to.

[hedgehog-moss]

My top 10 nonfiction reads of 2023 (the asterisked ones are in French with no translation as of yet) :

Belle Greene, Alexandra Lapierre

The Indomitable Marie-Antoinette, Simone Bertière

Reporter: A Memoir, Seymour Hersh

Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Erich Schwartzel

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Keefe

Servir les riches, Alizée Delpierre*

La Comtesse Greffulhe : L’ombre des Guermantes, Laure Hillerin*

Le Courage de la nuance, Jean Birnbaum*

The Book Collectors of Daraya, Delphine Minoui

Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement, Hawon Jung

[atomicjellyb3an]

Arcane season 2

seeing some of the comments and takes people have about Arcane is crazy, bc why is being a Caitlyn Kirammin stan starting to feel like being a Abby Anderson stan

i’m being so serious the lack of media literacy and empathy in discussions surrounding those characters is CRAZY

“i don’t like Caitlyn bc Vi chose her over Jinx” -for one thing it’s far more complicated than that, secondly be mad at Vi then?? 😭

Arcane has complex characters for a REASON, same with tlou, there is no “good” or “bad guy”. Also (no hate to Jinx bc i love the character) but bending over backwards to excuse EVERYTHING she’s done, but tearing down Caitlyn for literally anything? It’s hypocritical at this point,

[thousandyearphantombunker]

"We want more morally grey/flawed female characters"

You bitches can't handle APPLE WHITE!

like people keep saying "you couldn't even handle rose quartz" but this is even more pathetic to me. How can y'all make this kid into a monster?

[mechamwa]

just finished the brothers sun on netflix and i'm thinking about alexis. because the story follows charles, we're supposed to root against her when she betrays him. after he leaves her apartment, the audience sees that charles is hurt, so we're supposed to be feeling some type of way about her character. she put a tracker in his phone!! it was always intentional regardless of whether or not he let her work with him -- all that effort to get a warrant, talk to the fbi, set up a team and take charge of said team to track him.

but in a show where women's agency is an important element (as seen through mama sun in the later episodes), i love how they write her. alexis never compromises her values or career. the boxes in her apartment were unpacked for three years because she was so busy with work. she goes into evidence without the proper clearance to pursue the triad case. she leads the raid on the square. even when charles is in holding, there's a pause between them where we think she'll let him go. except she doesn't because as much as she likes charles, she leads with her head and justifiably chooses her interests over him (i even thought she was going to let him go because that’s usually how these holding scenes go). so at the end when alexis gets the glory for busting the case wide open, she deserves it. every choice she has made is with intention -- and it got her to this point.

[yarrayora]

while i do joke about reborn as tsuna's daddy issue a lot i tend to 'err' when it comes to actually calling reborn as tsuna's father figure because to me what they have as a mentor and apprentice is a stronger bond than assigning them nuclear family roles

compared to making reborn "im the stepdad who stepped up" i prefer their relationship as something like an old knight who watched his squire grew up to be the hero king

[cozyforjate]

It surprises me when people say Chapel doesn’t have a trait, personality, or plotline other than being Spock’s love interest... Let me list all the things we know and have seen about this amazing character.

Christine Chapel is a nurse on The Enterprise. She is on civilian exchange from the Stanford Morehouse Epigenetic Project. She is also a part of Starfleet’s initiative to better observe alien cultures without contamination.

M’Benga treats her as an equal. Pike called her “doctor” in the very first episode which suggests that her medical knowledge and experience must be impressive.

She is an expert on genetic modification. She can mess with your genome and temporarily turn you into an Alien. And she makes it look easy.

She is also interested in archeological medicine. She is doing fieldwork, making discoveries, and writing papers on the subject while doing her other duties on the ship.

Long story short she is quite the genius!

She is outgoing, friendly, witty, funny, adventurous, strong, brave but also compassionate and emotional.

She doesn’t judge, she accepts people for who they are.

She is confident in her abilities. She doesn’t take anyone’s BS. “I don’t think the Vulcan Fellowship is ready for me”… No one, not even Vulcans can bully or make her feel insecure.

But when she was a kid she was bullied. Milo, her Malamute, bit one of those bullies. Good boy!

As it was implied in one of the episodes she is most probably bi.

She has a vulnerable side. She is afraid of commitment. Afraid of romantic relationships getting deep. Perhaps even afraid of falling in love. She uses humor when things get too serious or personal for her. There is a story waiting to unfold in time. And i can’t wait to know more of it!

She was in the Klingon War with M'Benga. They witnessed the ugly face of war and had to make some hard decisions. They used (perhaps even developed) an illegal serum that temporarily gives them enough power and stamina to survive against Klingons. This left a scar on her as much as it did on M'Benga. We will revisit this story in episode 8 (i guess).

She knows how to fight. She is a quick thinker during stressful situations. And she is a badass. For example, she can handle space pirates and all she needs is a hypospray! She can deal with baby Gorns and survive!

She is heroic. She would jump into space without an EV suit to prevent a war.

Oh and she is also Spock's love interest and it's a delicious relationship that enrichens both characters.

This is what we got in 15 episodes. I'm sure we'll learn more about her and she will get new storylines in the seasons to come.