#female characters

[plip-plap-plop]

Any of you following my ao3; you haven’t met Cassandra yet; you will. And the answers are… duh

things to ask yourself when designing a female character:

how much blood is she covered in

are her eyes filled with madness

can she rip things to shreds with her fingernails

[3hks]

How NOT to Write Female Characters

One of the most common asks I receive revolves around female characters. Oftentimes, it's a writer who wants to know what I think of their character because they've gotten backlash from said character. And while initially, I wanted to make this post about how to CORRECTLY write female characters in recognition of these struggles, I just can't because there's no exact "right" way to write a gender.

But with that being said, there are many wrong ways to write them. Remember that these are all my opinions; if you disagree with anything, that's completely fine!

So, let's begin!

1. Filler For Diversity

Sometimes, you just have to include characters of different genders with the idea of adding diversity in mind. And while that's not the sincerest reason for including them, it's not a terrible one either.

However, if you're dealing out these characters as fillers with little personality, screen time, and/or importance just to claim that you're inclusive, the truth is, you're really not. As much as I appreciate the thought, it doesn't really make a story diverse.

2. Soft and Cute

I watch anime, so I can most definitely assure you that the "soft, cute, and innocent girl" trope is quite popular among this media. And to be frank, it annoys me to death.

If you're creating a cute female character to attract guy readers or to make other female readers swoon at how adorable she is; please don't. Not only are these characters inaccurate, but they often have VERY little dimension and/or personality. It's hard to read knowing their lacking purpose in the story.

3. Overly, Unnecessarily Tough

Let's talk about the direct opposite, now! As much as I love a good, tough, female character, sometimes I see the same issues with this trope as the one I mentioned above.

And that problem is a lack of depth.

Being tough is not a whole personality set. And honestly? It can get boring and annoying fast. Your character doesn't need to be tough to be strong.

4. Toxicity DOES NOT Mean Power

Out of all of my asks regarding female characters, most of them are probably asking about the toxic ones.

I see a lot of readers having this misconception that toxicity (for females), equals power and/or dominance when it couldn't be further from the truth. Toxicity is not something that should be empowered, and definitely not something that should be encouraged, no matter the gender.

5. Forgetting Personality

Sometimes, there seems to be nothing really wrong with the character, but they're just boring. And this brings me to point 5: women have personality too.

I think that some writers forget that females can be funny, they can be sarcastic, and they can be relaxed. Strength doesn't always have to be defined physically; it can also be seen through personality.

6. STOP OVERSEXUALIZING

This speaks for itself, guys. Stop sexualizing girls for no reason. When a female character is introduced, the first line I see should NOT be something about her "voluptuous chest".

7. Forgetting Development

This one isn't the biggest deal for me, but it adds on to number 5. Once in a while, I'll see a really intriguing character, only for the author to completely abandon developing her. And if it's an important character, that's just such a huge loss.

8. Introducing Them Purely as a Love Interest

When I see female characters, I naturally expect them to be a love interest because that's, y'know, their most common role. And I understand, sometimes it's necessary. But with that being said, I do think that we should stop restricting girls to the roles of love interests.

Sometimes, they can just be friends with each other and remain at that.

But what do you guys think? I'd love to know!

Happy writing~

3hks ^^

[ebenelephant]

i'm kinda fascinated by this strange form of legitimate affection we see ruby feeling for sam in between her tricking him into starting the apocalypse and dean finally killing her.

[sarafangirlart]

How I talk about my favorite female characters

[marshmellowed]

every time.

[noperopesaredope]

I wish we had more female characters like Eleanor Shellstrop. One of the most unlikable people you've ever met. Read a Buzzfeed article on most rude things you can do on a daily basis and decided to use that as a list of goals. Makes everyone's day worse just by being there. Dropped a margarita mix on the ground and tried to pick it up, only to get hit by a row of shopping carts which pushed her into the road where she was hit by a boner pill delivery truck, killing her instantly. Cannot keep a romantic partner despite being bisexual. Had a terrible childhood but will die before she gets therapy. Best employee at a scam company. Just the worst but also can't help but root for her to improve.

Absolute loser. Girl-failure. Bad at almost everything. Literally perfect female character.

[hacked-wtsdz]

You can’t win as a woman in fiction. Be too positive, you become a Mary Sue, have flaws and those flaws are why almost nobody likes you. Be moderate, you have wet-cabbage personality, be exuberant, you are an unrealistic example. Have strong morals, and you’re badly developed, be morally corrupt and you’re hated with such vigour fans will send hate mail to the actress who plays the character. Be kind and soft and in love, you’re a representation of sexism, be cruel, harsh and cold and you’re just a bitch. Be a complex, realistic, ambiguous character, and either your flaws or your positive traits will be ignored or blown out of proportion and into oblivion. There is no winning for female characters.

[ultraericthered]

DAMN. Lois made it through this round by a single vote! All the yaoi shipping fans who hate on these two are absolutely mental.

Round 2

Propaganda under the cut

Lois Lane

She's Superman's girlfriend/wife (depending on the continuity you're reading) and while she's generally well loved, some fans, for the sake of shipping Supes with Batman, will either a) completely ignore her existence or b) perform character assassination on her for the sake of their ship by making her shrill, unlikable, and downright abusive.

pretty self explanatory, you've probably heard of her! generally hated on because she gets 'in the way' of popular superman ships, like superbat, supercorp, etc etc

She’s one of the first female characters to be introduced in comics ever and she’s been ignored for years by fandom because of Superbat fans.

Relena Peacecraft

She made the mistake of having a crush on the serial killer/child soldier lead character, and also wearing pink. Like, she's one of the OG characters to have a "-bashing" tag on FFN and then AO3. The other half of the yaoi pair was a boy with a butt-length braid, a fake American name, and a priest outfit. Poor Ms Peacecraft never stood a chance.

Relena is a very competent and accomplished character with her own plot lines and goals in a series full of complicated political and military upheavals. The main characters are 5 teenage boys who pilot Gundams, and each boy has at least one potential female love interest counterpart (all of whom are interesting characters in their own right). Relena is the counterpart to the main pilot, Heero. Her importance to Heero and the story is substantial enough that yaoi shippers often feel the need to kill her off specifically, while other female characters get to play the roll of supportive fujoshi friend to the yaoi ships instead. The hate for Relena was truly vitriolic in the height of the yaoi fandom in the mid 90s/early 00s, so much so that the memories of her tortures live on in my memory to this day…

she suffers the indignity of being an implied LI in the most fujobait season of gundam ever and for that she had to die (in fanfiction) just look at any 1x2x1 fic on any platform, be it ffn or private website or anywhere, she gets vilainized to hell and back, if relena does not win this fuckign poll i'm goign to jump off a bridge she was villainised SO FUCKING HARD have you ever tried looking for any 1x2 fic that doesn't have relena bashing. it's impossible. she deserves a hefty victim's compensation from Big Yaoi is all i'm saying.

[queen-paladin]

I love you hated female characters. I love you female characters who are flawed. I love you female characters who mess up and try to do the right thing after. I love you female characters who get the undeserved vitriol from fans. I love you female characters who fans completely condemn because of one mistake they made. I love you female characters who fans completely condemn because of one mistake they made as a child. I love you female characters who people blame for ripping apart their ships instead of the larger forces that be. I love you female characters who get all the hate as the male characters who do worse in canon get absolutely none. I love you female characters who get hated on because they told a man “no.”

[suzannahnatters]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[writtenbycassandra]

most female main characters in ya fantasy usually don't have their parents around/are orphans/ran away from home (e.g. the mortal instruments, lockwood & co, a deadly education, ...), which is why there are often no adult figures around to manage the (magical) chaos the teenage characters have to untangle standalone.

but the raven cycle is different — the adults work together with the teen characters, actually listen to them, and try to help them with their quest. blue doesn't have only her friends around to help her out, she also has a giant home with different, female rolemodels. calla, persephone, maura, and all the other aunts and friends — they give blue something most ya characters don't have.

and as the series continues, she also meets the grey man, who becomes a familiar figure for her, too.

instead of having not enough help and support from adults, which is a thing most ya protagonists struggle with, blue has so many people constantly trying to protect, guide, and help her, and i think that's awesome.

she has a family, and they're actually a part of the story.

[ultraericthered]

Also, they're two halves of one whole Bernadetta.

✨Collage updated with 10th anniversary outfits & improved sleeping image✨

Originally requested by @xxg0th6463xx 😁

[writeaboutit]

I LOVE WHEN FEMALE CHARACTERS SPIRAL AFTER GRIEF AND BECOME UNHINGED AND EVIL🗣️🗣️🗣️

[ebenelephant]

freddie lounds is so funny. she antagonises violent criminals for the entire series. the stories she gets scoops on should be on the news but she writes for her gossipy private website. she's a sensationalist tabloid journalist talking about active serial killers. her hair is amazing. she's a girl's girl. she's career-driven. someone faked her death. everyone hates her. she's right about everything from day one. will's mad about it but he is doing murder now, so... 🤷‍♀️

[twistedshipper]

MERLIN 5.01 Arthur's Bane