#the aim would be the love interest trope subverted and 'she's still figuring herself out' which is good in its own right

[mettywiththenotes]

From the image of Uraraka that she posted, it would be fun if she decided to stay with toga and not with Deku as everyone expects

It would be! Sometimes I wonder if Hori would make Ochako seemingly not end up with anyone but shown being close with Toga (interpret that as you want, whether implied gfs or "newfound friends") and what happened is Ochako realized her crush on Izuku was just admiration

I always thought that would be an interesting way to do it, though it does feel unlikely because Shounen. If Hori did something like that I would be impressed

Imagine if Hori were to show it explicitly though?? Omg I would be very happy

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

More Female Characters to Avoid in Your Writing

A long while back, I typed up some posts ranting about characters and tropes I disliked.  These were Male and Female Characters to Avoid in Your Writing, and they’ve become my most popular posts yet.  Recently, I was struck by some topical inspiration, and decided it was time for a sequel!  

One again, these are my personal, subjective opinions!  No one dictates your writing or portrayals but you, and no one can or should decide how you consume fiction.  Also, as you may notice, I actually like most of the ladies below;  I just don’t like certain aspects of their portrayal.

Enjoy, and happy writing everybody! 

1.  The Daenerys (i.e. the spontaneous war criminal)

Image source

Who she is:

The formerly heroic Mother of Dragons, who randomly charbroiled a city full of innocent people.

Why it sucks:

I’m not even talking about this from a feminist standpoint, or how one of the most consistently heroic and powerful female characters took an abrupt and undignified backflip into the Dark Side.  I’m speaking from a writer’s standpoint.  

Regardless of whether you liked Daenerys, she was rivaled only by Jon and Brienne as the show’s most consistently heroic character  From locking away her dragon children to ensure the safety of her subjects, to freeing countless enslaved citizens, she’s spent a decade proving herself to be an altruistic and noble figure.  And then, in the final two episodes of the entire show, the writers dracarys-ed that shit.

For some comparison, just imagine how ridiculous it would be if Jon Snow suddenly went batshit and started hacking up citizens because he was feeling stressed.  That’s about as plausible as Dany’s sudden passion for genocide.

And for the record, I’m not opposed to Daenerys becoming Mad Queen.  If it was done properly. This would mean informing the actress far in advance so she could modify her portrayal accordingly (which they didn’t), and building up to it through foreshadowing and established attributes.  Not at the last fucking minute.

Honestly, the only characters who remained narratively consistent to the very end are Drogon and Ghost, who are both precious babies who did nothing wrong.  

How to avoid her:

Decide as early as possible where a character arc is going.  Contrary to what Game of Thrones seems to believe, the character arc is important.  It should have a beginning, challenges that incite development, and a satisfying conclusion that showcases how a character has changed and evolved.  

And if you didn’t decide early?  You still have to come up with a conclusion that makes sense for your character, and not slap on the most unexpected ending possible in the name of Subverting Expectations.

On that note?  Subverting expectations isn’t always a good thing, and a reader predicting your ending isn’t the worst possible outcome.  Focus on telling a good story.  

2.  The Rayon (i.e. the transgender stereotype)

Who she is:

A transgender woman (portrayed by the male, cisgender Jared Leto) dying slowly of AIDS in Dallas Buyer’s Club.  Her role in the narrative is to teach the supposedly heterosexual (more on that later) main character that queer people are human beings.  

Why it sucks:

Rayon is many things in Buyer’s Club, and most are firmly rooted in stereotypes.  She’s a sassy, flirtatious, clothing-obsessed, self-loathing, drug-addicted prostitute.   She’s hypersexual, but never treated as romantically desirable.  She’s tragic, but also one of the few consistently comedic characters in an otherwise bleak film. 

It’s her job to gently goad the main character into treating her with basic respect, but he never quite gets there.  He refers to her with male pronouns throughout the entire film, and never acknowledges her as a woman.  At one point, he aims a gun at her genitals and offers her a “sex change operation.”  Which, is supposed to be comedic.

This isn’t to say that there are no sassy, flirtatious, clothing-obsessed, self-loathing, drug-addicted transgender sex workers, nor is there anything wrong with “stereotypical” trans people.  It isn’t the job of the marginalized to dispel stereotypes.  And if real trans people had created and portrayed Rayon, she could have been a realistic, dynamic, and compelling character.

And I say “created” because Rayon is strictly fictional.  Outside of this film, she didn’t exist.  

“Well, at least they tried to offer representation!”  you protest.  “What else was it supposed to be about?  A straight dude in the AIDS epidemic?”

Well, no.  Though the main character, Ron Woodroof, is presented to us as a violently homophobic, transphobic, womanizing asshole, the real Woodroof was, by all accounts, kind-hearted, open-minded, and bisexual.  

What could have been a powerful story of a queer man defying his diagnosis, living joyfully and meaningfully, and helping to prolong the lives of countless AIDS-sufferers, was instead watered down to a story of a straight, pugnacious asshole and his stereotypical, long-suffering, transgender sidekick who dies to Teach Him Compassion.  

How to avoid her:

Read books by trans people.  Consume media they create or endorse.  

List of youtube channels created by trans people here, and 21 books for trans awareness month here.

Put out a special call for transgender beta readers to point out mistakes, misconceptions, and offer tips on an authentic portrayal.

Garner insight into their perspective and experiences, and give them personalities outside of being trans.  

3.  The Piper Chapman (i.e. the unflavored oatmeal)

GIF source

Who she is:

The “protagonist” of Orange is the New Black, and its least compelling character.  She and Larry are the sort of people who would ask me for a threesome on Tinder.  

Why it sucks:

Piper’s hook is that she’s a privileged, affluent white woman who unjustly finds herself in prison for -- well, for crimes she committed.  But expected to get away with, because, Privilege.

This isn’t to say Piper is boring.  She’s far from likable, but being likable and being boring aren’t the same thing.  In another series, watching a relatively cushioned, naive, bourgeoisie woman string along various significant others, thoughtlessly incite violence, and navigate an unfamiliar prison setting would make for thought-provoking and hilarious satire.  

But when compared to her charismatic supporting cast, with richly developed backstories, motivations, and relationships, she’s painfully bland.  I would much rather watch a series centered around Suzanne, Nikki, Taystee, Poussey, or even Pennsatucky.  They’re just more developed, opulent, enjoyable characters. 

It could be argued that Piper is the viewpoint character, whom the audience is supposed to relate to.  But I can assert that I don’t relate to Piper.  At all.  Her lack of empathy towards others -- such as leaving Alex after the death of her mother, cheating on her fiance, and inadvertently starting a *ahem* white power gang -- alienated me to her.  

Which might not be such a bad thing, but Piper is (supposedly) the protagonist.  We don’t need to like her, but we should probably be able to relate to her.

Or maybe I’m just jealous that hot women aren’t inexplicably fighting over me.

How to avoid her:

Your protagonist doesn’t have to be the most likable character in your story.  They don’t even necessarily have to be the most interesting character in your story.  And certainly not the most morally good, powerful, or knowledgeable.  But the viewpoint character is the character who we spend the most time with, and from whose eyes we perceive the story.  It’s important that we understand and relate to them emotionally.

Look at examples like BoJack Horseman, Holden Caulfield, Tony Soprano, Beatrix from Kill Bill, Mavis from Young Adult, Nadia from Russian Doll.  All are complex characters, with varying degrees of moral ambiguity.  Yet we can empathize with them emotionally and identify with them.  Even if we’ve never been in their situation, we see where they’re coming from.

4.  The Charlie (i.e. the dead lesbian)

Who she is:

One of the few recurring openly queer characters in the incredibly long-running Supernatural.  A lesbian who’s journey was (sort of) brought to an end when she was killed and dumped in a bathtub to incite drama.

Why it sucks:

I love Supernatural  but it can be remarkably tone deaf towards queer people, women, and marginalized groups.  Which, probably merits fixing, considering its following is largely comprised of queer people, women, and marginalized groups.  

I probably shouldn’t have to explain why killing off women and queer people for drama is Bad, but I’ll delve into its history a little:  from what I’ve read, censorship laws of the twentieth century forbade the portrayal of queer people unless they were ultimately killed or “reformed.”  This is why so much LGBTQ+ fiction is essentially gay tragedy porn, and why gays are so frequently buried to aid in the emotional narrative of their straight counterparts.  

That’s not to say queer people can never be killed off.  I might not have an issue with Charlie’s death (especially in a show as violent as Supernatural), if she weren’t the only openly queer character at the time.  

And there’s plenty of room for representation!  If Dean was openly bisexual, if angels were vocally confirmed to be nonbinary, and if there were more recurring, respectfully portrayed female and sapphic characters, Charlie’s death might not feel like such as slap in the face.  But as it is, it feels like a contribution to an ugly pattern.

In fairness, Supernatural has since improved in its portrayal of queer people:  two gay male hunters were introduced and given a happy ending, an alternate universe version of Charlie was introduced to the cast, and God is portrayed as a bisexual man.  

Yes.  All of that happened.  You have to see it to understand.

How to avoid her:

Educate yourself on the history of censorship in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as hate crimes and decreased life expectancy.  Make sure you aren’t contributing to the suffering of queer people.

If you have only one confirmed queer character in the midst of a very large cast, I’m inclined to think you need more.  You could say I’m BI-ased on the matter, though.

Look up “fridging,” and think about how many stories use the death of female characters to incite drama for men.

5.  The Allison (i.e. the reformed feminine)

GIF source

Who she is:

She’s one of the most interesting members of the Breakfast Club, and that’s saying something.  A self-proclaimed compulsive liar who will “do anything sexual” with or without the promise of a million dollars (as well as one of the most quotable characters in the film) she demonstrates the emotional pain and complexity that’s often ignored or shrugged off as teen angst.  

And then she gets a makeover and a hot boyfriend, and suddenly everything’s better.  

Why it sucks:

It would be one thing if Allison’s problem was that she didn’t feel pretty or desirable.  But she never (to my recollection) offers any indication of that, and that’s part of what makes her such a refreshing portrayal of insecurity.  She’s emotionally neglected by her parents, and that is appropriately treated as devastating.  

It’s a complex and beautifully-portrayed problem that deserved far more than such a superficial, slapped-on solution.

Similarly, there’s no reason why Allison is paired up with the jock at the end of the film.  Neither showed any romantic interest in one another until her unnecessary makeover.  

A much better ending to her arc would be her finding acceptance among her newfound friends, and finally garner the recognition and acknowledgement she never got from her parents. 

I was torn between using Allison for this example, or Sandy’s makeover from Grease.  In both, girls are encouraged to alter their appearances to solve plot-related problems.  And both were “fixed” to conform to some standard of femininity or feminine sexuality that they didn’t meet before.

How to avoid her:

If a character feels the need to change their appearance to accommodate others or be respected, that should probably be treated as a negative thing.

Your character’s appearance can be a good tool to represent emotional changes.  If they alter their appearance, there should be a meaningful reason behind it -- outside of fitting into societal norms or garnering the approval of others. 

A girl putting on makeup isn’t a groundbreaking plot point, and girls who don’t perform to standards of femininity aren’t broken or deficient.  They don’t need “correcting.”

[tumblunni]

fuck, that story did so many complex things with morality, i think that’s why ultimately it was his most well remembered story like the basic premise of a unicorn looking for the other unicorns is basically nothing compared to the MILLION DEEP QUESTIONS it kindles in childrens’s brains along the way! and like, the fact that it was even aimed at children despite having so much dark imagery and psychological horror. and how the psychological horror comes from weird places?? like, it subverts and analyzes the fairytale genre and turns a lot of commonly accepted ‘happy ending’ things into absolute burning hell and eighty million other far more interesting plotlines springing from the corpse of the cliche it just killed. I love it. I LOVE IT.

Random examples of stuff that really intrigued me as a kid!

* the whole idea of how it starts off, that this unicorn just legit doesn’t know that anything happened to the rest of her people. she’s lived alone for centuries and doesn’t even know what loneliness is until she finds out that the world has changed while she wasn’t looking, and her assumption that there’s a million other forests with a million other unicorns was false. And like.. her journey is really complex because of it? her motivation is less about saving a family she personally knew, and more about the fear of being forgotten like they were, and like.. ‘do i even have any value if i’m not defined as a unicorn anymore, if people forget what unicorns mean?’ And like the idea of her first meeting other unicorns for the first time and having even mroe challenges to her perception of reality, like thats not even something she WANTS but the same somewhat rude and egotistical sense of honor she has as an immortal is gonna keep her going towards an ending that probably won’t be happy in any way.

* the many many nuanced moments where the unicorn completely fucks up and is generally allowed to be a flawed protagonist, despite existing in a narrative that’s from her perspective and paints her as perfect and her philosophy as the only thing that exists. And like.. how many of her fuckup moments are ABOUT her being this perfect godly figure to everyone else! How molly breaks down at seeing a unicorn NOW, instead of back when she was young and had hope of a happy fairytale ending. How she feels like she isn’t worthy of a unicorn even looking at her anymore, and how it manifetss into screaming anger, blaming this thing for being too late. And how the unicorn didn’t even know that this woman was waiting for her, and hinging her entire life worth on meeting her, and like.. molly isn’t prepared to look at it that way, if anything its even scarier to think that the people you idealise just DIDNT CARE. And how its complex cos i mean its not like the unicorn is bad, either?? She just didnt know what she meant to humans until she got out of her forest and started meeting them. She was so self-absorbed and proud about being immortal without even knowing the reason why magical creatures are considered godly. And its so complex cos the way she figures it out is via the actions of an asshole villain, like seriously its SO SAD that she gets to see little human kids feeling like they have a reason to live just from seeing the false image of a unicorn that the creepy slavemaster witch lady shows to them. the unicorn herself was powerless to be what they needed her to be, and all she even cared about was judging the humans as rude bastards for not being able to see her, rather than thinking about it as it really is, and realizing that its not like they don;t want to, they’re absolutely desperate to...

* and okay just seriously THE COMPLEX NATURE OF HUMANITY! cos she sees all the worst of humans and all the best of them too, and the story doesn’t even draw any conclusions as to whether we’re worth it, it’s up to you to decide

* also it was really deep and complex how becoming human wasn’t just a cliche happy ending for her! it was TERRIFYING! being forced into a new body wasnt even the worst part, it was the loss of identity factor that hit her after she was limited into a non immortal mind and soul. she goes crazy ‘feeling this body die around her’ and gets scared that she’s going to forget her old self, and also scared of going back to her old self because she doesnt know if these things like love are impossible for unicorns and she’ll become unable to feel them anymore. her opinion of herself falls so far from arrogance into outright FEAR! and its so fucked up because being human is hurting her like this yet she’s also kinda idealizing humanity and blaming it for all her positive character development and like SHE’S ANGRY AND SCARED OF POSITIVE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT??? it fucking makes my soul weep and then the ending is so fucked up cos she does return to being a unicorn, and no she doesnt stop feeling love for the human guy she fell for, and all her human friends who helped her this far. but now she’s burdened with the knowledge that she will never die and they will, so the story just ends with her running away so she doesn’t have to feel that pain, or burden them with any more pain too. And she’s even more alone than she was at the start, because she knows that none of the other unicorns understand these emotions, they’re all like her pre character development self and she could never be part of their world again. Its complex because these positive emotions and this kinder personality is like.. a curse to her. because at least she didnt hurt when she was blissfully oblivious, and didnt care about anyone but herself. Its like.. was this newfound ability to feel love actually a blessing, if she gets the love but also the ability to have her happy ending is forever lost to her? so really all she gained was the power to be aware that she was suffering all along. and like even if she managed to get magicked into a human again, the story makes it clear that it’s intense suffering for her, its like walking on knives and her personality would just melt away and she wouldnt even remember why being able to love was so new and so important. it’d be just like someone else having a happy ending instead, and her ceasing to exist. But then the story also gives us this very clear binary where all of her personality is very much linked to being immortal, and her only choices are to live forever and be sad, or to die and not even fully be happy because she’d lose herself. and like all she accomplished was losing the option she never knew she had- to live in innocence without a concept of good and evil, and thus never regret. which isnt a happy ending either, but at least she wouldnt KNOW she was in a bad ending...

* fuck this movie is so hard to explain and so sad

* oh and!! the harpy was fuckin terrifying!! and all the morality around it was even more so! its the first time the unicorn really fucks up, cos she’s just running on the honor of all magical creatures, which is very far from concepts like good and evil. she has to free a fellow immortal, even if its clear that the harpy is evil and will only do harm. but she doesnt even fully understand evil yet, all she knows is.. like.. fear? and betrayal. she knows that for some reason she doesnt understand, she fears this other person who is like her. and subconciously she recognises the darker side of what an innocence of good and evil can turn you into. but she recklessly chooses to ignore the humans trying to explain morality t her, cos thats just a human thing she doesnt need to care about, right? and then what ultimately surprises and scares her isn’t that the harpy does what humans think are evil, but that the harpy has no loyalty to the one who freed her, and immediately tries to kill the unicorn too. And you even get the sense that the unicorn would have still freed her even if she expected this would happen, its just this sense of duty between immortals because being caged means so much more when you’ll never even have the release of death. And i mean.., that’s kind of a point, too. the story’s one moment of embracing cliches is that it says that the harpy is just inherantly evil and was born evil, rather than more directly placing it as a parallel to the unicorn’s absence of good and evil. how do we know that this thing really IS an embodiment of all hatred, and its not just a lost and deluded creature like our protagonist, whose moral neutrality got pushed down the wrong path due to the difference of life it had once it first encountered humans? i mean, the unicorn encounters plenty of shitty humans too, but she manages to at least find some good ones and like.. she had a starting point of assuming she was a proud and inherantly good creature, which was confirmed even by the humans who manipulated and hurt her. she gets to see herself worshipped by humans, even if its as a way to make a quick buck. and we don’t know how long that harpy was locked up in an even worse version of her situation, and whether the unicorn would have become just as hateful if she hadnt been resuced... Its just kinda lazy to say ‘wow its good that shitty mc fuckface locked up this inherantly evil creature, yet bad that she did the same thing to you’ But still it makes for a really scary scene cos the film really went all out in establishing what a born-evil creature would actually be like, and how fucking terrifying it would be to deal with something that just wants to kill and kill and will kill even if there’s no benefit and no logic to it. It’ll betray anyone who shows kindness to it, and you’re being stupid by treating it like a real sentient being with thoughts and a soul. And thats terrifying. But its also fucking sad. And its the one lack of complex morality in this story. but i guess maybe i wasnt supposed to be a story all about exploring complex versions of morality, but just.. different and interesting ones? so taking the ‘inherantly evil’ trope and being like ‘no, you dont get to use that lightly, this is how horrifying and child-unfriendly that would really be’ is still an intriguing idea in its own right

...anyway its a real good movie also my lunch is burning cos i couldnt take it out of the over til i finished rambling RIP salmon dinner