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.

Anyway, I will never forgive SVU for what they did to Dana Lewis. A strong, driven, smart, capable, likable woman, who is successful and respected in her career--let's disrespect everything about her character by having her downfall be tied to some guy! Because as we all know, women can't just have their own motivations and personality, it all has to be because of jealous, man-driven woman brain. They also screwed Olivia out of what was and could have been a really positive friendship with another woman, which is also annoying and disappointing. "Developing her character or at least sticking to what made her likable is cool, but how about we trash all of that and turn her into a sniveling, cowardly murderer who risked her career over angst caused by a romantic relationship instead??"

SO IRRITATING.

If I had to read it, u do too

Birds of Prey (2020, Cathy Yan)

I have seen a lot of people saying that the show makes Alicent more sympathetic and it honestly pisses me off. Why all of those changes? Why couldn't she be an ambitious woman to be sympathetic?

Many say that the books aren't canon or that we don't know what actually happened, but the book has less abuse towards women than the so called "feminist" show. The Alicent of the books was eighteen and married a twenty eight widowed king, an adult woman who chose to marry and have children and oppose the heir. She was the leader of The Greens, she set everything in motion, not her father.

Now, Alicent in the show is a perpetual victim. She is a sixteen year old forced by her father to marry an old King, forced to have children, forced to raise her children to oppose the heir and forced to start a war. Even adult Alicent is nothing but a victim. She isn't a leader, everyone controls her one way or another, she has no agency.

My question is, for a "feminist" show, how is this better?

How is turning an ambitious woman into nothing but an idiot who doesn't know what the council was planning (despite being part of it in the previous episode) feminist?

Does she have to be abused by everyone in order to produce sympathy?

Are they really so bad at writing that brutalizing woman was the only way they could make people feel for them?

While I did not like book! Alicent, I respected her. Show Alicent just bores me and doesn't even seen real.

From Alicent, to Laena and to Rhaenyra, in the book they weren't mistreated by their husbands, but in the show all of them were.

How is taking away their agency better?

Alicent, Rhaenys and Rhaenyra are active characters in the books and are the ones who want to kill their enemies. In HotD all of the leadership and decision making that belong to the women they gave It to the men.

They really love their "women are peaceful" agenda. Women can be evil, they can be violent, they can be political, they can't want what was promised to them, they can be proud, they can want to marry, they can want to have children, they can want the same that a man wants.

If a woman has traits typicaly asociated with men, they can be sympathetic?

I despise the way George Orwell writes women. Maybe its because Wilson smith is a morally grey character, but fantasizing ab boning and sh0oting a woman half your age bc she’s in an anti-sex league is VERY offputting?? Does anyone else feel this way??

decry the works of lewis and tolkien as sexist all you want because 'there's no women in them' or whatever, which isn't even true but fine, just know that like. you're wrong. quality over quantity. every single woman in their works from nienna and miriel and arwen to polly and susan and aravis all have a purpose in their respective stories and are a brilliant example of what writing good women looks like, much more so than many of these modern stories that we're getting now. because instead of just shoehorning women into every possible corner of their work, and then settling for paper-thin caricatures of "strong women" (i use this term very loosely; most of these characters are much closer to caricatures of Macho Men™ than actual women) the women in tolkien and lewis are important to the people around them, they each serve an important role in their stories and most of all, they are permitted to be women. how many women do you know who are Super Strong, all the time, and who never allow themselves to express discomfort beyond frustration at the designated Feminist Issue of the week? now, consider something else. how many women do you know who struggle in childbirth, who become something of a second mother to their younger siblings when their parents are unable to be there, who ultimately find more fulfillment in their own womanhood than they ever would in a life like that which hollywood promotes now, a life of rampant misandry and pent-up frustration? the women of lewis and tolkien's respective works are not center stage all the time, that much is true. but why must that be a bad thing when every moment that they are given is incredibly, intensely valuable to them and to the narrative itself? quality over quantity. and these stories, written by old men in the forties, offer a much better picture of good female characters than most of what we are getting now that claims to do the same.

Sarah Kazansky and her place in the Fanworks vs Source Material

Some background:

I only just got into the Top Gun fandom, only having watched the original movie a month ago so that I could be prepared to watch Top Gun: Maverick. Top Gun (1986) is entertaining but not something I’m particularly attached to. The two most compelling parts are Gooses death and the handshake/hug at the end. Overall I walked away, having been entertained but not overtly attached.

TGM is another story. It’s extremely well done, emotionally deep, and really cool. (Is it also blatant military propaganda? yes, but that doesn’t stop it from having a compelling story) Probably the best scene is between Maverick and Iceman. Unlike so many sequels where rivals/enemies become friends at the end of the original and then clearly aren’t, this scene demonstrates a deep love and respect between the two characters without destroying the banter filled rivalry that makes the relationship interesting. Now part of this might be the fact that this sequel takes place over 30 years later, and I’m sure Ice and Mav butted heads over the years, but it shows that ultimately they both stuck by their words to be each others wingman.

Okay Now to the point:

Sarah pretty much has a singular purpose in the movie, and that’s to make Iceman straight…(or at least in a m/f relationship). However it’s done in such a way that she doesn’t actually accomplish that purpose. We see her twice and she never interacts with Ice on screen: first when she greats Maverick and he reads Ice’s terminal diagnosis in her expression. It’s obvious she and Mav have a rapport and friendship. The second is at the funeral where she is presented with Ice’s flag. These two scenes along with the wedding band on Ice’s hand all are meant to imply that Sarah and Tom Kazansky are married. And I’m certain you’ll be able to find sources that explicitly state that but the movie isn’t one of them.

Because of this lack of confirmation fandom has done an interesting thing. Many with a queer reading of Ice have decided not to ignore Sarah but instead embraced the non explicit nature of her and Ice’s relationship and say that she’s his sister. And the fact of the matter is that she very well could be. A sister can just as easily be staying with her terminally ill brother. A sister can just as easily be his next of kin and take his flag. So many young soldiers flags are taken by their mothers or sisters.

Now having an explicitly cannon m/f relationship has never stopped fandom from deciding that a character is queer and writing them thusly. But I just find it interesting how Sarah treated.

Her being Tom’s sister isn’t the universal decision of the queer side of the fandom. I’ve seen fics set earlier in the timeline (specifically set prior to the DADT repeal) have her be a lesbian also in the armed forces marrying a gay Tom to protect both of them. There are also some where she’s unknowingly Tom’s beard.(but those leave a bad taste in my mouth realistic as it may be). I’ve even seen AroAce Sarah marrying Tom for taxes, children, and to protect him.

It’s nice that in general this fandom has refused to dismiss the new women who joined the story in TGM even while still maintaining the iron clad belief that Top Gun is about gay pilots. Many Fanfiction authors have given more consideration to Sarah than the actual movie. (Now it does suck when women are only in a movie to tell you something about a man. that’s a problem)

I wanna make a poll for 'favourite fictional woman', but I'm unsure which fictional women are your faves, the ones I can think of right away are Elphaba from Wicked, Hermione from Harry Potter, Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle, Nancy Drew, and I'm not sure who is the favourite Sailor Moon warrior? I liked Saturn the most.

(i'm also thinking about characters from Madoka, Ojamajo Doremi, Cardcaptor Sakura, but I'm unsure if these were everyone's childhood shows)

Tell me your favourite women from fiction! Who is mentioned the most will be in the poll.

Guys complaining about alleged "Girl Bosses" would not have survived the late 90s to early 2000s.

Hell, not even the eighties when there were a growing amount of girl characters taking sh*t and taking names. There might've been concessions in their characters arc in pertaining to men buuuuuut a whole lot of them from those decades would've cheesed off the Status Quo Warriors of today.

Back in my day, they were called Strong Female Characters(TM) by overcompensating male writers. None of this same stuff but different labels.

Some people wouldn't know a well-written woman if she hit them over the head because they latched themselves onto the ScarJo PowerGirl™️ of the last decade and don't think any other type of woman is allowed to exist in fiction anymore.

"Women, whether subtly or vociferously, have always been a tremendous power in the destiny of the world." – Eleanor Roosevelt, "It’s Up to the Women"

These fictional female characters have always been among my favorites. They've been a great source of inspiration for me, and I'm truly grateful for such amazing role models, even if they're only fictional. 🦸🏻‍♀️✨

More art/literature polls in my pinned post

Oh, to see without my eyes : the female gaze of tenderness

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987) / Anne With An E (2017) / Frances Ha (2012) / Carol (2015) / Parched (2015) / Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) / Jennifer's Body (2009) / Persona (1966)

"I raised my eyes then, and saw Doreen’s head silhouetted against the paling window, her blonde hair lit at the tips from behind like a halo of gold. Her face was in shadow, so I couldn’t make out her expression, but I felt a sort of expert tenderness flowing from the ends of her fingers."

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Women with facial hair in fiction

(Positive representation only)

Marian Halcombe, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Cheery Littlebottom, the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett

Princess Lisa Bolkonskaya, War and Peace by Tolstoy

Share your favorites

Hey! New thing for writeblr and readblr because I saw this post.

Who are some of your favorite fictional women, nonbinaries, and/or queer characters?

What media (book, comic, film, show, etc.) are they from?

Why do you like them and what brings them to life for you?

What's something that draws you to a character?

Do you have a favorite character to write (either original or fanfic)?

I'm curious!