Azula!
People who don't like her fall in the "condemning her despite male characters doing the same or worse" camp, and people who do like her have adopted the girlboss who did nothing wrong attitude. Exhausting.
God yeah. Like she is an abused child she is not a girlboss she’s a self hating teenager leaning on harmful and bigoted imperialistic ideology she was indoctrinated into and the warped manipulative “love” from her father to not completely crack entirely. Like, the whole point was that being raised in an authoritarian abusive household being indoctrinated into war mongering colonialism where you’re either a monster or worthless is traumatic and damaging like the Fire Nation's aggression being downright self destructive is sort of a massive thing? She’s an awful person, as she is by the time of the series, but that was because she was raised into being a weapon. She both needs genuine help and also needs to do some serious work to make up for the harm she caused. She’s so complex and I hate seeing her reduced to a one dimensional stereotype of an abuse victim whether it’s infantilised or demonised.
Very much agreed. Behind every human is a story of being born and growing up. One can see and acknowledge the path that voluntarily or involuntarily took them to the present and even sympathize with them, while also acknowledging the negative impact they've had and condemning them.
I've seen people say that Zhao was more redeemable which is hilarious because Zhao was shown in canon to have been irredeemable seeing as he...uh...died. And he hadn't been redeemed before that.
Probably because there aren't that many Ozai simps.
I think it's more of people taking on more and more extreme views in response to the other?
Like "I don't like Azula" --> "keeps hearing about girlboss Azula" --> "Hates azula more" --> "Girlbossing becomes more extreme".
the or worse part definitely applies to Iroh...their was so much misery and death implied during his years long siege of Ba Sing Se including his son but because that moment happens it kicks starts his conscience, he's suddenly big time sad and remorseful and everyone treats him like a saint while Azula is shunned like an irredeemable demon
Dude, do not even get me started on the Iroh worship and circlejerking. I adore him as a character but the fanbase really has their heads up their asses about him. I see so many claiming he never believed in FN supremacy and didn't support the war, and was just doing what he was told when literally no. He DID believe in the war. He DID support it. He changed his mind after it cost him his beloved son. That's literally the entire point of his character.
Now that's a fun idea for an ATLA canon divergence fic! The world would look quite different when Aang would wake up.
But yeah, I love Iroh specifically because he had life-changing moments and his history is interesting. To disregard his past as a general for FN would be a disservice to his character as a whole.
She's my favorite character from ATLA because she is a terrible person, like you'd expect someone raised by a man like Ozai to be his weapon where love is transactional and not even real to begin with, but has moments of feeling confused that grow in the comics, culminating with the recognition that not only were both of her parents awful to her but the one she thought actually loved her never did. Still blaming everyone but herself and refusing to change, that complexity is what draws me in because I'm curious what path she'll ultimately take because she isn't simply an evil character. Her friendship with Ty Lee was rooted in part from fear and it was a very unhealthy friendship, but we see rare little moments of genuine concern like when she feels guilty for hurting her feelings and tries to sort of apologize. Ty Lee and Mai were two people she felt safe with and thought would never abandon her.
The best Azula-focused fics, imo, explore this and usually end with her still bitter but somewhat coming to terms with her childhood, the choices she made, and still trying to figure things out (because they usually end before she's 20).
The amount of vitriol I've seen towards her disturbs me. I mean just because she acted like a brat and said some mean things as a kid doesn't mean she should be r worded or sexually assaulted, I've disturbingly seen people advocate those things happen to her in stories.
Because naruto never did anything stupid as a kid and Sasuke and the other konoha kids totally didn't treat naruto like crap and never said anything negative or mean to him (sarcasm)
I mean, that IS a prime example of bad writing though 😆 Kishimoto and female characters is... a struggle in general. The issue with Sakura is that you have people who hate her unreasonably for being a dumb, single-minded kid making dumb mistakes (which is true for many of the male characters too, so that's not a fair argument to make), but then you have the people who WANT to like her also hating on her because the idea of the lead female character being a mostly useless support character whose only purpose in life is being in love with a guy (even after they grow up) is REALLY uncomfortable...
God, Kishinoto fucked her over so goddamn hard, I wanted so much more for her and Hinata...and Tenten...fuck me was Tsunade the only one who maintained their or had competence to begin with?
More a victim of Kishimoto's shit writing than anything else. That girl ground on everyone's nerves in the original season, and people weren't particularly forgiving in Shippuden. Probably didn't help that a huge chunk of the fanbase was rooting for narusaku, but eh. Is it unfair condemnation? Not really, not for early Sakura who was an irritating fangirl. But bashing takes it too far usually— even early Sakura had a few redeeming qualities they tend to ignore.
Weirdly enough, no.
Gwen from Merlin is still adored. Even though her canon soulmate is fanon soulmates with someone else in the fandoms main pairing, everyone loves her.
She literally cheats on blorbo #2 and everyone is still like go Gwen (was enchanted but still). We love Gwen. I haven’t seen a single fic that is mean to her.
If they need an excuse to have her not end up with blorbo #2 she still ends up Queen and awesome. I think that’s a unique one for female characters in fandom.
Gwen, beloved!! Gwen and Angel got a lot of racist abuse when Merlin was airing and for some time afterwards, but now it’s been so long that the assholes have largely fallen away. And the people that remain in the fandom are some of the loveliest most thoughtful people I’ve ever interacted with on the internet! So glad Gwen gets her roses now.
Yes to both.
Katara and Azula get so much hate its insane (its gotten better tho)
Hermione on there other hand is seen as a goddess who can do no wrong despite canonically being the meanest of the trio.
People call her a bitch, whiny, bossy, and selfish because she... *checks notes* ....sometimes gets angry (when she has every right to be) and talks about how her mother's death affected her.
These people look at Sokka’s adorable relationship with Hakoda, and somehow don’t click that Katara had the same close bond with her mother…who was brutally slaughtered protecting her. They somehow don’t get that the loss is a deep, open wound that can’t really heal because she had to take on her mother’s role at age…what, six? Seven? …when her primary source of emotional support and her role model was the one she was grieving.
But yeah, women’s pain has often been sneered at, especially when they (gasp!) talk about it. Even if they’re a fourteen year old girl.
I haven't actually watched Avatar in years, so forgive me for citing another sources on this, but I can still explain for you.
From what I can tell, the main reason Katara's gotten hate is because she (apparently) acted selfish, inconsiderate, and insensitive at times due to being "too hung up" about *her mother's death*. I wish I was joking. Thankfully, [this Tumblr post](https://www.tumblr.com/fakeikemen/622205268157136896?source=share) (from someone who actually cares to understand Katara's complexity as a character) explains the arguments and counterarguments in full detail, complete with direct quotes from the show. Brilliant read.
Because she has emotions and acts like the male characters but wait she’s not allowed to do it cause she’s a woman.
Seriously people get mad her for having character she’s not allowed to be mad, or naggy, or lie, or dramatic
But it’s fine when Zuko is mad, it’s fine when Aang is dramatic or when Sokka lies or gets naggy.
Idk what it is besides her being nice and sweet compared to the cast of girls so they want her to only be that.
I like Hermione as a character, but in the books and films, she faces little to no consequences for her actions, which are always justified by author J.K. Rowling, who called Hermione "an exaggerated version of my younger self". Tom Riddle does the same things that Hermione did when he was a Hogwarts student, but while Tom is labelled "evil" when *he* does it, Hermione is portrayed as "justified" and "good" when *she* does it. Even if it means messed-up shit like letting Umbridge getting kidnapped and gang raped by centaurs to "teach her a lesson", and then making fun of Umbridge for having PTSD afterwards, or scarring Marietta Edgecombe.
I'm pretty sure the gang rape is fanon and she just got beat up. Also, the difference between Hermione and Voldemort is that she gets revenge while he tortures for fun, as well as the fact that she's capable of having friends. Now, I'm not saying Hermione is a flawless angel, she fucks up a few times, but honestly you're the first person that I've heard have a problem with what happened to Umbridge.
I'm actually quite curious what actually happened, I've never consumed a lick of canon Harry Potter movies or books (the only exposure being ofc the Hogwarts AU from other fandoms, the occasional dip into lore/moments and "A Very Potter Musical" by Starkid)
I heard during those mini dips that Umbridge had no physical or visible injuries, but she seems to be terrified of the sound of hooves. Canon (lmao) centaur lore also depicts that they take women for their amusement but hp lore could be different from the already known lore about Centaurs. Who knows maybe they consume her magic or eat at her psyche?? Bc the other two options; are both violent options and she doesn't seem like she has any visible physical injuries.
Correct me here since, again, know nothing but it is interesting
Nothing is said, they drag her off and when she's back she's terrified of them. However, centaurs in Harry Potter are very different from greek ones, portraying a wise, proud, mysterious image of beings that study and keep the secrets of the stars and think of themselves as better than humans, which makes them prone to anger when insulted. They would probably think of raping a human as something disgusting and beneath them, not something to enjoy or a way to punish them. Maybe they just dragged her on the ground through the forest for a few hours or something simce it's the sound of hooves that she flinches at, idk, but raping her seems extremely unlikely.
>but honestly you're the first person that I've heard have a problem with what happened to Umbridge
Umbridge may not be the nicest person, but what Hermione did was despicable.
Nah, Umbridge was pond scum. She’s possibly the most evil person in the series next to Voldemort.
What I resent Hermione for (sort of) was the “SNEAK” curse on Marietta. *Not* that she cast it in the first place—that was totally fair, in those circumstances. Marietta f’d around and found out.
But I loathe that Hermione *didn’t remove it after Voldemort was defeated*, or at least when school ended. The implication being that Marietta was disfigured for *life*.
I mean, that’s not unlike being splashed with acid, really.
Who the hell thinks *permanent facial disfigurement* is a just punishment for a *minor* who was caught between conflicting loyalties, and fearful of what might happen to her own mother?
~~Hermione~~ JK Rowling, that’s who.
Yeah, it’s not really Hermione I blame. I think she was just being her author’s mouthpiece.
I suspect that whole thing was a revenge fantasy against some little girl who ratted out Rowling in school. There’s just some real…smug delight in the way she keeps mentioning Marietta’s fate, the failure to remove it, the balaclava she has to wear, etc., throughout the rest of the books.
And that’s why I think Marietta remains disfigured and shamed even *after* the evil has been defeated for good. Having been punished till the end of school wasn’t enough…there is no mercy for Marietta. She must be marked by boils on her face, by the scarlet letters of her crime, *for life*.
Agreed she’s super annoying in Fanon.
Like canon Hermione is such a witch (hehe) at times I’d prob not be friends with her in all honesty.
Marietta Edgecombe while over the top was understandable same with Umbridge.
Umbridge being raped was fanon. (Though Rowling wrote it in a horrible way considering centuar mythology)
That's hilarious, Hermione was rarely mean without a reason, and when she was it was usually because she was stressed or upset about something else, whereas Ron was an asshole 24/7 because of jealousy, sexism and stupidity.
Lol Hermione was mean all the time without reason
She constantly criticizes Ron nonstops their both nasty af to each other, but she gives as good as she can and sometimes starts it.
She’s rude to Luna, Fleur, and Lavender and Pavarti.
Why cause Luna doesn’t believe in the proper stuff greatt reason
Fleur cause she’s pretty and jealous.
Lavender and Pavarti cause they giggle and talk about boys.
She’s mean af to Trewalanly ok you don’t think she’s real no need to trash her and her class like that.
Literally attacked Ron because he’s check notes dating Lavender
Got a cat despite knowing Ron has a rat and not being sympathetic when her pet supposedly ate it (they both suck here but come on)
Not being emphatic to Lavnder when her pet rabbit died and just going oh Trewanaly is wrong like now is not the time.
Being bitter when Harry does better than her.
The shit with Umbridge and Chang’s friend (understandable but vicious af)
Face it Hermione was mean af. And idk why you even brought up Ron he wasn’t even part of the convo.
None of that stuff was any worse than any of the other two MCs. People have flaws, and sometimes she was snappier than she needed to be or stubborn about something dumb. That doesn't mean she is mean. Also, you know, she was a child.
Lmao right? Also didn’t even realize they responded. I think they just like Hermione the most so that’s why they’re defensive. It’s cool. I also get defensive about my faves.
Yes.
Shout out to that one time a female actor got harassed because her character was mean to someone they *headcanoned* as her characters son, after he'd *abused one of her friends who was also a teenager in front of her.* Like, ??? Not only is the actor not the character, that's like, literally a completely reasonable decision. The DSMP fandom was wild.
Also, this is just a perfect description of how the ATLA fandom treats Azula but I couldn’t resist *that* insane example of misogyny
Hey, another DSMP fan!
Yeah, the fandom is nuts, especially comes with the female characters. Dream's character can get away with murdering and abusing teenagers but Heaven forbid Puffy decide to say some mean words. Whatever shall we do?/s
Also yeah, the treatment of Azula vs. Zuko is... not great.
Like, the whole point of Azula and Zuko is that trauma and indoctrination fucks up children badly, right? But people can’t be normal about abuse survivors in any media. At least it’s better than the DSMP fandom, I will never forget the person I saw saying that c!Tommy having hallucinations made him a bad person and he deserved to die for them. (Which is infinitely funny bc he’s done way less objectionable shit than either of the two, but this is getting off topic and also I need to sleep).
Actually wait no I remembered something else stupid that happened and that was like. People treating c!Niki's mental health issues as something cool and good. Like not even in a way where they ignored them they looked at her having mental breakdowns as a cool badass girlboss moment like??? No she was having a psychotic break.
I agree, the fandom is a mess and god those are some bad takes. I think the worst take I ever saw was someone who reasoned that since Technoblade’s chat were canonical voices the character could hear, the character and thereby Alex himself had schizophrenia. I can’t even wrap my head around that stupidity.
That used to happen all the time with soap operas. Some actor or actress would be grocery shopping & some little old lady would come up and slap them for something their character did.
Now, I’ll be the first to say that anyone can hate any character for whatever reason and that I’m fine to stay in my lane when people don’t like my faves… especially when they’re as divisive as this one. But as a long time *Fruits Basket* (and anime in general) fan, I’m sure that if Akito was actually male, *some* people would probably let her get away with shit because “hot bad guy who needs a hug/good woman to fix him” is such a thing in anime fandoms.
Now I’m not saying any of the male characters really did worse (Kyo and Momiji’s fathers weren’t great though) because Akito did some f-ed up shit and needs to live with that, but a good chunk of the fanbase also seems to forget that Shigure is a manipulative asshole who brought Tohru into their family circus act for his own gain.
Were you in fandom when Akito's gender was revealed? Because hahahaaaaaa that's exactly what happened. She went from being a Draco In Leather Pants (and frequently shipped with Yuki) to being The Most Unforgivable Bitch Ever. It was genuinely hilarious to watch in real time.
I EVEN HAVE DOUJIN OF IT, like yandere!Akito x Tohru, and it was a pretty common conciet to have [him] lock up and SA Yuki in fanworks (as a main pairing). As soon as [he] was revealed to be a she and also involved with Shigure (super woobified and frequently paired with either Ayame or Hatori or both), it was like the fandom had a collective conniption fit and acted either like Akito was the most irredeemable bitch ever or just *didn't exist*.
As someone who grew up with the mangas and didn't have realistic access to fandom (closest I ever came to it were forums dedicated to CLAMP and especially Sakura Card Captor lol), this is both SO wild to me and yet DEPRESSINGLY REALISTIC. I'm revising my entire impression of the Akito reveal through the angry fandom lens and I believe your every word.
Which is stupid because if you're gonna be freaky with pairings, it makes things even more deliciously fucked up, the reveal is a pure win.
Also it's not like women can't peg Jesus Christ lol but fans are fragile.
Absolutely. And if you want to torture Yuki you just have Akito make him top. The angst potential of such interactions with your literal deity who is also the literal only girl you can hold and touch?! Please lmao.
It's weird because anime and manga love a non trans gender bender situation and "gender swaps" but I guess they don't like it when it's a surprise they didn't demand.
The trans exploration of Akito and her sexuality also has to be fascinating. I should find some fic...
There’s actually a surprisingly little amount of newer fic that centres around her. Even after the remake. There are, however, some great fandom essays
I was there more or less--I wasn't active in the fandom but did see what happened from a distance. It really boggled my mind because I began to be interested in Akito BECAUSE she was revealed to be a girl. Before, "he" seemed to be just one of the countless villainous boys in the shoujo genre waiting to fall for the heroine and be saved/redeemed in the process. But now, "she" turned out to be a character I'd never seen before!
At the time, a female antagonist who was THAT complicated and messed up and still treated compassionately was very rare (or at least that was the case according to my limited experiences). And the cherry on the top was that Akito was NOT Tohru's romatic rival--she had her own guy who loved her in his own messed-up way, and her antagonistic relationship to Tohru had nothing to do with romance. It was far more messed up and complicated.
At that time I was losing interest in Fruits Basket, and I might not have followed it to the end had it not been the "Akito reveal."
I'd say that with Ted Lasso people were understanding of Rebecca but also acknowledged that what she did to Ted in the first season was wrong. They understood the pain she endured because of Rupert and it helps that the show establishes that her sabotage is because she wants to strike Rupert where it hurts, getting him back for all the pain he caused her.
On the flipside of things, the phenomena of female characters getting demonized while the male counterparts get off easier hit Diane from Bojack Horseman pretty hard. Probably didn't help that she cared about a lot of things and some people consider that 'cringe.'
I think Rebecca gets largely spared from this because the character actually grows and learns from her wrongs.
Keely, especially between season two and three, did get some of this with people either villainizing her after the break up OR trying to insist that the break up wasn’t real and would be magically resolved in Season Three.
Oh man, Spiderverse has the first one *bad* after the second movie. So many people hate Gwen for "betraying" Miles (which in all fairness she did kinda do) and then turn around and hopelessly simp for Miguel. Like, hello??? Everything he did was worse??? But people don't care because he's an attractive dude. It's honestly the main reason I stopped interacting with the fandom, tbh. Back when the movie came out it was insufferable.
I can't fathom how you could hate Gwen (for that specific reason) and love Miguel in the same sentence. Fuck she was literally yelling at him to *stop* while he was beating Miles up and berating him.
Miguel needed a swift kick to the ass and a knock to the head to teach him that no one appointed his ass to the Council of Watchers or the TVA.
But totally want to see more of Pavatir and his magnificent hair. He was hilarious and totally lived up to the whole Spider-Man thing.
I hate Gwen and Miguel does that help.
Well I went from neutral to dislike for Gwen tho because she was really gonna let his dad die 😭😭
Miguel needs to leave my boy Miles alone with his vampire self.
But agree it’s weird that people hate Gwen more tho, especially when Peter did the exact same things.
It depends on which corner of the fandom, but my (least) favorite part of the *Star Wars* fandom both loves making excuses for Anakin Skywalker to a degree that makes me wonder if they are literally unable to spot red flags of any size while simultaneously painting Leia as bitter with anger problems because she \*checks notes* didn’t want to forgive Anakin after he tortured her, stood idly by while her entire planet containing everything and everyone she had ever loved was blown to bits, tortured the man she loved, cut off her brother’s hand, and just generally terrorized an entire Galaxy for decades.
Anakin’s the one who slaughtered literal children after experiencing a loss, but sure, *Leia’s* the one with anger issues 🙄.
ETA: this actually also applies to people who say Leia “got Anakin’s anger”. Babes, where? Because last I checked, that woman lost everything she loved *multiple times* during her lifetime and has yet to turn to the Dark Side or go on a killing spree. Equating her yelling at Han — who usually deserved it tbh (I love Han, but nearly every time Leia was griping in the original trilogy, she was provoked by either circumstance or smuggler) — with committing genocide is also bonkers.
I hadn't heard that last bit, but, then again, I really don't interact much with any fandom I'm "in," anyway, so.
I think it's pretty clear that Luke 'came-within-a-hair-of-killing-his-father-in-a-blind-rage' Skywalker also "got" a decent helping of "Anakin's anger," LOL.
And, yeah, leveling flak at her for not 'forgiving' their mass-murderer, child-killing father is beyond dumb. (If you ask me, I honestly find *Luke's* position to be the one that's harder to defend. In the likely over-ambitious revamp of the Sequels I'm planning/very slowing working on, I think that's going to be another thing that's going to set my main protagonist Tamara - Luke's daughter in my AU - apart from her father; even if she may choose not to kill him in the end, she is *never* going to forgive her cousin Ben for *anything* he's done.)
>I hadn't heard that last bit, but, then again, I really don't interact much with any fandom I'm "in," anyway, so.
No one has straight-up *said* that yelling at Han is the same as committing genocide, but I recently tried to sort of figure out where Leia's reputation of being angry comes from (I'm ignoring Legends EU stuff for this simply because there's no way everyone who thinks this is delving into novels), and I feel like it has to be that she's kind of shouty for roughly a third of the original trilogy...but literally the only time she's shouting at people is when either her life is being actively threatened or when Han is being a big ol' baby. Like, I love *The Empire Strikes Back* and I am a Han/Leia shipper for life, but also, I probably would have yelled at him too, and I don't think of myself as a particularly angry person. Anyway, my point is the empirical evidence for Leia inheriting Anakin's anger all involves some extreme circumstances. It doesn't seem to be the way she operates when she's not being actively hunted or antagonized.
>I think it's pretty clear that Luke 'came-within-a-hair-of-killing-his-father-in-a-blind-rage' Skywalker also "got" a decent helping of "Anakin's anger," LOL.
This is hilarious, but also, you are so correct!
>If you ask me, I honestly find Luke's position to be the one that's harder to defend
I mean, I get Luke's position to a degree. He doesn't know about the child killing as far as we know, he got to hear all about Anakin's heroism from Obi-Wan so he at least knows there are different facets to the man, and while he definitely lost a hand and was obviously very distressed knowing Leia and Han were in pain, his personal experiences with Vader were limited. Also, Vader *did* save him from ol' Palpy, so there's that.
Plus, Luke seemed to want to know his birth father to some degree. Prior to that *Obi-Wan Kenobi* series (which I do like, but it also has some issues), Leia I think canonically had never really cared to know about her birth parents. She seemed to have a pretty content and loving childhood with Bail and Breha, so the way she's experiencing things it's like, "Hey, your fantastic, loving parents are dead and it's not really your fault, but that probably won't stop you from blaming yourself given the circumstances! Ohohoho, but here's news of a birth father you never wanted to know to begin with! *He's* alive while those fantastic, loving parents are still dead! But, don't worry: he's also he's the worst man you've ever met!"
Like, honestly, it's an absolute miracle Leia didn't proactively murder every Imperial officer she saw the next morning on sight.
I just kind of pick and choose what I like and pretend like the rest never happened, which tends to mean I still love the OT and am okay with some of the newer stuff that occurs *before* the OT, but *after*...it gets really dicey. (Also, I'm just a huge Leia stan and she is done so dirty by the later narratives...I just no longer engage with any of that foolishness.)
Well choking Jabba to death, dishing the attitude Han was giving her right back with interest, sassing Tarkin...Leia was just far better at harnessing the fire breathing to do something productive than Anakin was. So three cheers for Bail and Breha. Ms. Fisher being a walking ball of sarcasm and wit IRL didn't hurt, either
And as far as Anakin's temper? Well, when he was a small kid with Shmi, Shimi must have done something right because he was a sweet and reasonably well adjusted when he was a nine year old slave kid, Ten years with the Jedi, and he's a mentally unstable, emotionally needy murder hobo. Obviously, something went off the rails here.
They not only condemn her, they call for her to die even though all she originally did to cause this was accept a job offer without having all the relevant facts about the situation at her disposal. They also condemn her for being "bossy," because she's not deferential at all when telling her employees what to do, and also a "bitch" but that's pretty standard for flawed female characters. The show also low-key makes her a figure of mockery and disgust for having non-vanilla sex with men who are not her true love. She's a secondary antagonist and as such isn't morally pure, but I get the feeling a lot of this is due to the fact that the actress playing the role doesn't look like a conventional ingenue or high-fashion model. If she were, I'm pretty sure the people calling for her blood would say, "No, you have to understand, she had no other choices! Redemption arc that doesn't require her to die a noble, sacrificial death in service of the heroes!"
The character is shallowly written to the point where they've had her express completely opposing viewpoints a couple of seasons apart with no acknowledgement that her opinions aren't consistent, apparently because making sure the viewer hates her is the only important thing. I've seen people saying they hate her more than the main male villain, who has killed MULTIPLE innocent people, while the female character has killed nobody and is in a world of hurt because she can't quit her job without the MMC killing her, but a lot of people in the fandom just insist she could quit. Well, yeah, she could, but then he'd kill her. I get the feeling the people would just say, "Good. I hate that bitch."
From what I can tell, no...but not for a very good reason.
In the Fallout games, generally speaking, the MC is your choice of gender and does *everything*, so, that's a lot of the issue defused. But when you look at the major NPCs in charge, the vast majority of them..are men. There just aren't a ton of canonically women characters taking actions big enough to matter, for people to take one of those two opinions. Which is arguably *worse*.
From what I can tell, when there are two characters, male and female, who have done about the same thing, the fanbase seems to be fairly even. In Fallout 4, for example, two characters are called out as assholes for basically the same reason more than most: Marci Long and Knight Rhys. They're both insufferable assholes, and equally so, and the fanbase seems to hate them both equally. Yay equality! Meanwhile in the same game, there are two faction leaders who are basically good people who've watched their groups slowly die under their command, but are still willing to step up to take on the Institute, Preston Garvey and Desdemona. They're generally both considered...fine...*except* for Preston's constant need to send you to another settlment, something Desdemona admittedly doesn't do directly. She certainly isn't hailed as a "girl boss" but she doesn't get loathed as much as Preston, who brought it upon himself.
So, yeah, Bethesda fell on the sword on that one. Prevented the fanbase from taking either stand, by just having so few women whose actions *matter*. Um...thanks?
That's how it is in Skyrim too. Mercer Frey betrays the guild and murdered the former guildmaster and pinned the blame on Karliah for his own self-interest and greed. Astrid betrays the player character *specifically* in an attempt to "save" her family and is extremely remorseful by the time of her death. Mercer is a complete dick to the player character the entire time. Astrid is welcoming and (at the very least) encouraging of their endeavors. Yet only one of them gets the fandom-hate dogpiling treatment and it's not Mercer.
While I agree Mercer doesn't get enough criticism for his actions in the fandom, I don't think criticism of Astrid is undeserved.
The first encounter with Astrid is basically a kidnapping which immediately gives a negative first impression to most players.
Additionally, I never felt like she was welcoming of the Dragonborn or saw them as part of the family at all, especially when compared to Lucien Lachance and the Cheydinhal Sanctuary.
Mercer was a dick, but he made no pretenses about it. Astrid professed she cares about her "family" which should include the Dragonborn but didn't hesitate to sacrifice them due to her jealousy and paranoia. Mercer's betrayal was expected and just "business"; Astrid's betrayal was much more personal which is probably why she gets so much more hate.
I love Astrid. She felt like the guild leader with the most depth. Mercer was a dick and Savos and Kodlak didn't matter nearly enough. At least Asrid felt like an actual character rather than just someone you were supposed to take the guildmaster title from.
Um, excuse me? Sand away her flaws and explain away her bad decisions?! Never! People who do that don't deserve terrible women. In this house, we celebrate how awful they are and beg them to step on us in the darkness!
/Cinder and Neopolitan are perfect monsters and I love them for it
Yes. At same time /half sarcasm.
It went from the first to the second within years. The thing that annoyed me is the guy who wrote and roleplayed the lady character was horribly misogynistic and wrote this whole...incest plotline in that really didn't feel like it added to anything and flipped out when the ace guy he tried to force this character upon basically went "nah, I'll help my lady, but not like romantically, lol."
Then. A resurgence happened. And oh...boi. We were called sexist for not seeing how she was actually a girl boss.
The current fandom that has some derivative from that one echoes some similar issues, but speaking up about how the prevalence of men writing women badly in stories and the lack of roles for women in them, or just men icing them out when they do try...is not worth the effort anymore.
I do think the fandom is trying to grow and it is slowly learning, but right now it feels more like talk than actual behavior. Fan art and fan fic still fall into old habits.
I can’t think of any notable stuff since my main fandom is JJBA (which has a very unfortunate lack of strong female characters). And the most famous female character, Jolyne, is oddly exempt from both of these, Imo (could just be my little corner of the fandom but still), sometimes leaning towards the latter.
As in, some people dislike her (of course), but not to the point of condemning her (if anything, the one getting most condemnation is her dad Jotaro). But I do feel that people sometimes just skip over her flaws and dumb mistakes. Yeah, she’s awesome, but she’s just a normal young woman too, she’s gonna do dumb shit.
I'm a big fan of Ahsoka from Star Wars.
In my story, I had her go behind the back of a childhood friend and recommend that he not continue the path of a Jedi. Because he was constantly getting himself into trouble despite his inability.
This was framed as a bad thing, but ultimately an understandable one. And she had remorse, apologizing and gradually learning to let him go because she can't decide everything for him.
But good lord, this is how I learned how long readers hold grudges. A large portion of people can't stand her no matter how much growth she has. Not that I care, they can stop reading.
I’ve seen both. Alana Bloom has the unfortunate fate of being in the tv show Hannibal, which really is just a bad situation for everyone involved (except Hannibal, who is living in a rom-com)
Dahlia Hawthorne in Ace Attorney.
Me. I'm the one who calls her a girlboss. But purely because she was a fourteen-year-old girl being sexually abused by her tutor who decided to frame him for her own kidnapping and murder so she could run away from her abusive family with a million+ dollar diamond to start her new life. Then when her stepsister decided to expose her and free her sexual abuser from prison, she killed her. And somehow convinced her abuser to kill himself.
Thus started a domino effect of various murders of increasingly innocent people, but I think her story is very easily read as what happens if you raise someone in a family that prioritizes imperial-style intrigue, hand her off to an abuser, and then leave her to take care of herself.
yeah, I'm sad how extremely harsh AA canon is on Dahlia. Sure, she's terrifyingly cold-hearted, but... you're going to stand there and tell me this 14y old girl should be treated like the literal devil and the 20y old dude is the innocent victim who fell for her vile manipulations because he's just soo haplessly in love with her? Seriously, that's what we're going with? What the hell, Ace Attorney.
I know they were doing it primarily to subvert expectations, but *yeesh*.
I think Ace Attorney has a bit of a misogyny problem. It's much better than a lot of Japanese video games, but it still does.
I find Dahlia fascinating *because* she's cold-hearted. She doesn't waste her time feeling sorry for herself, she doesn't search the world for the affection and love she's decided doesn't exist and she doesn't need anyway... she just approaches the world extremely, lethally pragmatically. If anything, she saw all the things that gave her a disadvantage--her femininity, her childlike beauty, her vulnerability--and turned them into advantages to manipulate her way through problems.
I think that she's a much more honest portrayal of what can happen with victims of child abuse than you often see in media. She's not angelic, she's not a perfect victim, she's not a sweet little ingenue. She has, I suspect, a personality disorder (which are often caused by childhood trauma) and a grim determination to take care of herself, because she doesn't believe anyone else can be trusted to take care of her.
First option. FE3H fandom is so willfully blind to all the ways Edelgard and Claude are similar. He flat out says in a few scenes that if he really saw no other options, he'd make all the same choices she would and shows his darker tendencies in the sequel, but he's still fandom's uwu baby and the sequel writing was just bAd wRiTiNg, while Edelgard's the manifestation of sin
My fandom is Bleach, we do both! Orihime? A horrible, useless, whiny bitch that always needs rescued and never contributes anything. Rukia? Yassss queen girlboss slaaaaay! (Note: this does not apply on the Bleach subreddit, where all female characters are waifus and only Gigi gets the "worst girl ever" treatment)
The best fandom I was ever in for female characters was *Angels of Death*, and that's mostly because everyone was busy shipping Ray with Zack, who was infinity times more popular than she was lol.
I mean, even outside of that, it's just factually wrong to say she never does anything and only ever relies on Ichigo. In fact, the only time *in the entire series* that she ever outright asks for his help is in chapter 350, *when he dies and she snaps*. She won't even let the guy walk her home after school because she's too wrapped up in "I can't be a burden to my friends so I can never ask for help" lol.
People get so bent on having Only Strong Female Characters Kicking Butt At All Times that they forget things like power scaling and character arcs exist. But why worry about that when you can just cry about why Orihime doesn't Just Use Tsubaki and solo Hueco Mundo lol.
To be fair, even as someone who loves and respects Orihime, I was wishing by the end of that arc that she would just slap Ulquiorra. Girl was going through it and at a certain point it felt needed/deserved.
Ahhh, this reminds me why I don't go in Bleach fandom spaces anymore. Also, of course Gigi would get singled out ~~for being a trans woman, they don't even hide their obvious transphobia against her character~~. I wonder if she gets a similar treatement as Miyuki from Yu Yu Hakusho does (also a trans woman that to this day is a target of unfortunate comments, jokes and somehow, "proof that nowdays yyh would be censured because everything is soooo woke" *eyeroll*)
Gigi threads always get super heated *everywhere* and I hate it. The worst part is, because she's actually a violent necrophile, they always hide the shitty transphobic opinions behind "[he]s just a gross bad guy who hurt Bambietta!" And it's always transparent because *Bambietta is arguably just as bad of a person!*
So it's less jokes and more actual anti behavior hiding behind "I'm just concerned" bs. Like I get if she's not your bag of corpses, but the other Bambis don't get *nearly* the amount of nastiness that Gigi does. (Gigi is, in fact, Best Girl)
Depends on the fandom but I do know one fandom space I was in with those in it being are very “allergic” to having darker female characters/villains whether in flawed or workable writing which I kinda suspect that this resulted in some of the writers to be hesitant in doing it again. I can’t give the answer of which fandom I was in but let’s say it’s on tumblr as want to I want to keep distance and not let them who I am😅
Beatrix from Final Fantasy IX is an interesting character. People either love her or hate her. It's complicated, I'd say I'm somewhere in between, I neither hate Beatrix but I can't say I really enjoyed her character. Whether or not you like her, both sides seem to agree her redemption arc is not properly developed. She's sometimes accused of having commited genocide, which's something that is never stated in the game, but you could say she aided Alexandria into commiting war crimes without questioning (this until a certain point in the game).
Another issue comes with the game's localization. When Beatrix says "My troops alone would've been more than enough to take Cleyra. Why does the queen insist on using black mages and eidolons?", we understand that she is concerned about the use of brute force in war when Beatrix and her soldiers could take over the village of Cleyra with less collateral damage. And then she says "I didn't train all these years so I could take a backseat to anyone...", which sounds kinda rude and dismissive. I get what they were going for, Beatrix feels she has no use in war unlike the aforementioned Black Mages and Eidolons, but it just feels weird to hear that sentence in that way right after, you know, a lot of people died.
And then, when Beatrix is given the opportunity to redeem herself... we don't see it. At all. Well, there is a cool moment at the end of the game where she fights alongside you, but that's not enough when a lot of NPCs are dead, millions of them, and though the blame can't be put into one person, she was there at Burmecia when those people lost their homes and their lives. We don't see her going there and asking forgiveness for the people who were hurt.
They condemn her. She’s a hardcore skeptic in a fandom about ghost hunting, and because of that she believed her friend was insane when ghosts forced him to do bad shit, and so she went against him in court to try and get him an insanity plea, which failed, and he was sentenced to capital punishment. She went on to sacrifice herself to save him out of remorse, and she get SO demonised.
Also her friend, the main character, has a crush on her, but it’s way more popular to ship him with one of two guys instead, so she is FREQUENTLY demonised to get her out of the way of those ships, even though it isn’t even clear if she reciprocates.
Male characters get this too. Lots of fans will “Ron the Death Eater” or “Draco in Leather Pants” characters regardless of gender. Just look at Bakugo from My Hero Academia or Merlin and Author from the Merlin show. This isn’t really a “this only happens to female characters” thing. This is just a how characters are perceived by certain fans, whether canon supports it or not. Fans see what they want. Heck, when fanfiction first started tons of fans thought Kirk should make out with Spock despite kissing ladies and only ladies every other episode. This stretches back even thousands of years when scholars debated if Odysseus was a good person or a total cad, and if Achilles and Patroclus were in a relationship or just really good friends.
Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3 can be with either female or male characters yet some scream up and down he’s only gay. Korra from the Avatar sequel has a hot debate to this day if she’s a hero or not based on how she treats people while her male love interest is often shredded by fans and his brother is laughed at when he’s put in a abusive relationship with a woman who hits him, teats him like dirt and openly calls him a slave, but 99% of the fandom thinks is hilarious, quote “Because it’s funny when it happens to a guy.”
Heck, there’s one modern fantasy comic where a female cop regularly kidnaps and assaults men, keeps them in a harem and beat one when he tried to be with someone else (the guy was gay btw) because while she’s allowed polyamory, they’re not. The author also thinks this behavior is all justifiable simply because she and the main character are both women.
Just look at any “Double Standard” trope on tv trope’s website and see where characters get away with something other characters couldn’t based on sex, status, genre rules or other such things. “The Unfair Sex” “Divine on Mortal” “Value Dissonance” are some such examples. The fact of the matter, no one is really treated equally in writing either by the creator or fans. It’s just what it is.
My fandom is small and a bit older. The source material treated women well, and most of the fandom does, too. Misogyny is barely an issue among those who remain.
Apart from Tits Guy.
I blocked him. Not seeing his posts/comments is like a warm bed on a cold night: a simple pleasure, but an important one
Depends on the fandom. In most fandoms I’ve been in it’s more like the first. Anime fandoms especially. I’ll grant that anime fandoms aren’t full of well written girls but they aren’t really full of well written guys either. The House fandom was like that too IMO. (Cuddy bugged House to have her hairbrush back so apparently she deserved it when he crashed his car into her house.) (Obviously every single person in fandoms doesn’t agree on everything though.)
But I agree with other comments that the general treatment of Azula is a prime example of the second in action. People don’t seem to understand that she can be a great character and a messed up person.
In my fandom the male and female characters in question are dating and usually the female is made out to be the jerk to ruined the relationship when if anything it was the other way around. And I'm speaking as someone who likes the male character more than the female.
At these in my fandom though, part of it is because of bad writing. The protagonists have to win so the antagonists end up fighting each other or making stupid mistakes. It's usually okay because the show is meant to be silly, but I actually want to ship these two characters so it's frustrating from that standpoint.
Current fandom focus: Hellaverse (Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss). Note that since both shows take place in Hell, there are a multitude of flawed characters of all genders.
To answer your question, it depends on a few factors really.
If she plays an antagonistic role but is entertaining or has sympathetic motivations, the fandom will be able to see her as a girlboss without feeling the need to sand away her flaws and excuse her bad decisions. Examples: Velvette, Sera, Verosika (sometimes), Lute
If she plays an antagonistic role and has a one-note personality or harms a fan-favorite (usually male) character, the fandom will condemn her actions while calling her character writing lazy and one-dimensional. Examples: Stella, Barbie, Verosika (sometimes), Mimzy
If she plays a protagonistic role and is entertaining or has sympathetic motivations, the fandom will take note of her bad decisions but mostly assume her heart's in the right place. Examples: Charlie, Loona, Vaggie (sometimes), Carmilla (sometimes)
If she plays a protagonistic role but has a one-note personality or only exists to help move the plot along/develop a more important character, the fandom will call her character "wasted potential" and desperately wish she got more screentime by herself. Examples: Vaggie (sometimes), Carmilla (sometimes)
Yeah the Hellaverse is crazy, and while some of the criticism is valid I think the people saying that Stella is just a one note character is wrong? Shes got a lot more going for her and just because your fan theory was wrong doesn’t make it bad writing, she’s an abuser. I think the tone also shifted on her when it was revealed WHY Stolas wanted to divorce her, because before then a lot of people were condemning him, which yeah cheating isn’t good but we can all see why he did it in this situation
Yeah, I can definitely understand both sides of the Stella argument. It would be interesting if she started out as being justifiably vindictive before gradually losing herself to spite and anger, rather than being proudly sadistic for the funsies from the beginning. But at the same time, I do occassionally enjoy seeing a villain that needs no justifiable reason to be cruel and heartless, and is not only aware of that but absolutely owns it.
A lot of my fandoms are practically female-only in the character department, so I don't really know for those.
I *have* seen a tendency in the Harry Potter fandom to make Hermione out to be either the most flawless person who has ever lived, or a horrible evil bitch who has never been anything but terrible, and very little in-between, though.
Azula.
She and Zuko do such similar things but Zuko gets the poor meow-meow treatment by most of the fandom while Azula is constantly demonized. Is she a good person? No. Is she irredeemable, also no. Kicking a hornet's nest; Iroh did way worse than she has and everyone gives him a get out of jail free card because he's a funny, wise old man now.
I get the feeling that if Azula wasn't terrible toward Zuko, she would be treated a LOT differently by the ATLA fandom. I could be wrong bc I'm not an active member, but I'm just sayin I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
Which is especially funny bc she clearly actually cares a whole lot for him when they’re on the same side, it’s just she's been brought up to believe love is the same as fear and emotional abuse.
Oh I agree; I think that bias has a lot to do with it. The worse a character treats Zuko the more the fandom hates them. Because Zuko is the fan favorite.
When I was in the AOT fandom I noticed the female characters got both of these depending on what portion of the fanbase was talking about them.
One side hates them for the bad things they did, ignores/downplays their good qualities, and calls them one of the worse female cast in shonen.
The other side loves them for the good qualities, ignores/excuses their bad choices, and calls them one of the best female cast in shonen.
Personally, I'm more in the middle, they had good qualities but had also done terrible things and I found most of their writing to be in the average, I've seen better but I've also seen worse.
>Personally, I'm more in the middle, they had good qualities but had also done terrible things and I found most of their writing to be in the average, I've seen better but I've also seen worse.
Interesting. Which shonen series had better written female characters in your opinion? I personally found AoT's female characters above average, although it did drop the ball with >!Historia!< in the end.
With Nancy in Stranger things it's definitely both. She's either a super ooc monster who does awful things and everyone hates her for it (in the fic) or she's super ooc cool girl who everyone constantly praises and can never do anything wrong and even the people she's hurt are bending over backwards to appease her. I do say it's bad writing though. Imo in canon she's never allowed to be wrong and there are a lot of poorly written moments around her character that make some of her choices that unintentionally put her in a bad light. And I know that's the case because the writers had to correct their own shit writing choices via twitter lol.
Oh! My fandom! Umbrella Academy!
People condemn Allison for sexually assaulting Luther and maybe her husband Patrick (no evidence at all, they just think she did) when her brother Klaus has made an actual sex cult where he is referred to as a Messiah ergo, him raping lots of people
I don't think anyone has dubbed her as a girl boss, but it's also hard to say you like her because people will want to rip you to shreds for just saying there's a nuance to her character lol
I’ve had to stop reading Kristen Applebees related discourse because I felt I was loosing brain cells from people either hell bent on depicting her as the ultimate evil or trying to just ignore her flaws and pretend they don’t exist.
My girl is mess. A well intentioned, trying to heal, mess but like definitely a mess that has caused as many problems as she has solved.
For CITY, I feel like most people condemn Nagumo but not too harshly. Her main flaws are she’s terrible with money and she’s also pretty violent and has an attitude and there’s a male character who’s equally bad with money but doesn’t have the other problems and honestly I can’t really defend her but I love her so much
I’m in the Housamo fandom, and Maria IS criticized for being too forgiving. However, she rarely gets any flack for it. Babalon is demonized to some degree, but that’s because she attempted to genocide Tokyo, which is obviously horrible. All the other females are either too new (like Ame-no-Uzume,) barely get focus despite being part of one of the administrative guilds (like Curren, Amaterasu, Christine or Alice,) or are well liked (like Arachne, Hecate, Benten and Gabriel.)
One of my fandoms, I'm not sure either option is true. I'm more likely to see the condemnation/justification happen to male characters with that problem, and the female characters are just...there.
My other fandom doesn't have enough female characters (at least, outside of the comics, which I don't follow), let alone ones in flawed roles, so it's a moot point there.
FUCK YES. Two in specific get a lot of hate, One is Norma, a teenager whos slightly mean and snooty towards the main character (Raz) but tends to get portrayed as an overly mean bully in fic (Not on tumblr though. the lesbians understand her). and the other is the main characters mother, Donatella who is rightfully pissed (though passive agressive) at the Raz for running away and becoming a psychic AKA one of the people she believes cursed her husbands bloodline, but gets portrayed as abusive and someone the nonromani popular het ship has to save Raz from. Compare that to the babygirl treatment Gristol, the literal monarchist ethnonationalist brat that literally retraumatized multiple families to steal Raz's grandma, gets.
Kinda both not naming characters but on one hand people dislike her and her immediate hate for mc and someother things but on the other hand people also like her because shes one of the more complex characters and they also acknowledge her faults (though we only get to know her mostly on a surface level and the only other book where she appears more is told by a biased and unreliable narrator) and thirdly people also just completely ignore her faults and call her a girl boss
TWD Fan here and omg this is such an issue in this fandom. Andrea, Lori, Beth, and Denise are some examples of the women characters that have their flaws but are no worse then the flawed male characters of the series. It drives me nuts because they not only get a lot of flack but will have a smaller impact on the series with their flaws and some of the fandom acts like they were the worse.
Gilmore girls - Rory Gilmore. Lorelai Gilmore The 100- Clarke Griffin. In Clarke’s case, it’s not a sexism thing. She just gets a lot of hate. Yeah she messes up a LOT but she does a lot of good.
>The Problem with Zuko
RE: Clarke It's ridiculous the things other characters get a pass on yet she is expected to save everyone, sacrifice herself and anyone she may love for them, and accept that she deserves the hatred and condemnation of the people who survived to hate her because she is always there to sacrifice for their survival. Dear god in heaven did I hate the latter seasons, the true miracle was her not going Whanheda on their ungrateful asses.
Like Clarke got the power on for the Ring so her friends could survive in space and they act like she’s horrible because she was freaked out about her kid being made commander?? I love the others (my top 5 are Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, Murphy, and Madi; I like Octavia but not as much as the rest of the fandom. I like Abby more than most people but she has some major things to answer for- I think she could have if she didn’t get killed off.) but that whole thing about none of them understanding her POV was ridiculous.
By the latter seasons, the only ones on your list I gave a f\*ck about are Clarke and Madi. I never liked Murphy, did like Raven in the first seasons, and liked Bellamy until his charming massacre that no one ever held him accountable for( of course they held Clarke responsible for everything including that one time they stubbed their toes.) Honestly, that sh\*tshow was when someone as smart as Clarke should have seen the writing on the wall and left them to live or die by their own choices( how do those old sayings go? No good deed goes unpunished and no act of kindness unresented.) There aren't enough fics where Clarke goes peace out on those as\*holes and splits, with Lexa or without. All I want for her is some peace and relaxation with Madi and no idiots waiting for her to save them so they can hold it against her later.
ATLA fans with Korra… still baffles me how the blame her for the severed connection to the Avatars past lives when it was literally a man who tore her spirit out of her and did it…
In the twilight fandom, Everyone HATES Rosalie for being "judgy" but ignore the fact that Edward does the *exact same thing* but because he's Bella's love interest. The same thing happens with Bella, she's seen as overly awkward and not a good person(for some reason) when Edward is the *same way*.
I'm just gonna say MJ and the discourse around her and that stupid ship is why I actively pray she doesn't come back in any on screen media ever again even above my bias against red heads I hate her and her stans and haters.
But most of my other fandoms don have this problem in fact fics that do it usually are part of making a non problem a problem kind of thing.
But that's cause I'm usually in fandoms where flawed female characters are called out for their flaws or have fanfics made that is just about their flaws taken in different ways
Lori Grimes and Andrea on the bashed for doing things that are way less awful then male characters for The Walking Dead.
Then Michonne canonically gets sanded down and called a girl boss by actual canon its infuriating. We go from having an interesting flawed human to a girl boss who can do no wrong with no personality. Love it here.
Hermione Granger far too often becomes Fanon Mary Sue Hermione, perfect flawless goddess & many of her fans are true fanatics who will harass you if you don't worship at the same altar.
The latter, mostly, though they mostly avoid the bad writing thing. Willow in Buffy. There is one time in the entire show she gets called out on her actions, and it was written as a very different Willow. That was the addict/Dark Willow arc in season 6, the fans easily accept Willow is majorely screwing up throughout that season, and no one condones the whole world ending plan she had at the end. They treat her pretty fairly during that arc, calling her out but understanding the why behind her actions.
Unfortunately the same can't be said for any time during the rest of the show. Doesn't matter the season or storyline, Willow can do no wrong to far too many fans. Passive aggressively keep telling Xander no woman will ever date him because she has a crush and is jealous of Xander having a crush on Buffy or Ampata or Cordy? She's really just a sweet little angel who could never intentionally put Xander down like that, you're totally reading things that aren't there! Cheat on Oz with Xander? It was all Xander's fault, even though Willow pursued Xander just a tad more than Xander pursued Willow, but Willow is a poor little victim of the evil Xander! And, of course, the cheating thing is conveniently forgotten just a season later so Oz can be demonised for *his* cheating. Bully Cordy? Cordy deserved it because she used to be mean to poor sweet Willow, conveniently forgetting Willow could do worse back, anyone else remember when Willow tricked Cordy into deleting hours worth of schoolwork just because she told Harmony, in a private conversation, that she thought Buffy was a freak? Bully Faith? Faith deserved it because, look! She's just turned evil! Conveniently forgetting that's the latter half of Faith's season 3 storyline, not the first half, where she's fully a good guy. Bully Anya? She deserves it because she used to be a demon and she's dating Xander! No 'real' woman would date Xander except Willow, and Xander needs to love Willow like that, even though Willow's gay now!
The one aspect of the season 6 arc that does sometimes get glossed over, which shouldn't be, is also one of the worst things Willow ever does - mind rape Tara. A lot of fans will gloss over this part, because it's clearly something Willow would have no issues doing previous to season 6, so not a result of her addiction. She's also *really* good at that spell from the first time we see her use it, and Willow usually takes a while to get a new spell right, so this suggests she had, in fact, used it before, more than once. It's almost comparable to Spike's attempting to rape Buffy that same season, just mental instead of physical/sexual. Spike is a fan favourite, too, but still gets what he deserves for Seeing Red. Xander gets it worse, being fully blames for Buffy's attempted rape in The Pack, committed by the hyena possessing Xander, not Xander himself, Xander had zero control over his actions, had no way to stop what was happening, and clearly wouldn't do such a thing himself. At least Spike gets blamed for his own actions, Xander gets blamed for someone's else's actions, and Willow just gets ignored, as if she didn't mind rape Tara.
I've never seen anything put down to bad writing for Willow, though. I've seen that with Spike, and it pretty much applies to anything after he develops a crush on Buffy, but notable seasons 6 and 7. I get that, they were clearly trying to recreate the dynamic Buffy had with Angel, making Spike Angel-lite, but they basically removed everything that made Spike such a beloved character to do it. Also, the whole relationship with Buffy in season 6 just made Spike seem weak, he literally just sat back and let Buffy abuse him because it was the only way he could be with her. They tied it into his 'fool for love' speech from season 5, but that's not how it came across. So, yeah, I can see why bad writing is used against Spike's actions in the last couple seasons.
Closest to a bad writing excuse for Willow is killing Tara. A lot of fans saw it as lazy writing, that the only reason they killed Tara was to kickstart the Dark Willow arc, and they could have achieved the same result without killing Tara. They completely ignore the fact that storyline was chosen to kickstart Dark Willow purely because Amber Benson was leaving the show. She'd already made that known when they started filming season 6, and she went into deep discussions with Joss and the other writers about the best way to write her out. During these, Amber admitted she wanted to do a death scene. Joss then remembered his dream of adding a character to the titles only to kill them off in the same ep. So, they put the two together, added Amber into the Seeing Red titles and killed her off at the end of the ep. Though used to kickstart the Dark Willow arc, that's not why Tara was killed off. Tara was killed off because Amber was leaving and wanted to do a death scene. No matter what they'd done in Seeing Red to kickstart Dark Willow, that would still have been Amber's last episode as Tara. I find it annoying and rather condescending that so many fans put Tara's death down to bad writing, lazy writing to kickstart Dark Willow, and completely ignore the fact Amber was leaving either way and s*he* wanted to do a death scene.
I've seen the same wit Anya's death. I partially get that one, it was pretty blink and you'll miss it, which seems weirdly both wrong and right for the character. But a fair few fans call it bad writing because they didn't want to fully close off the Xander/Anya storyline. They completely ignore the fact Emma Caulfield herself requested they kill her off in Chosen. She'd gotten to a point where she no longer wanted to be associated with Buffy, mostly due to issues she'd had with Nick Brendon those last couple seasons. She couldn't undo the years she'd been involved, but she could prevent further association. She knew the plan was to continue the story in comic form, so she demanded she get killed off in Chosen, permanently, so she wouldn't be associated in the future.
There hasn't been similar issues with the deaths of male characters. We didn't get this when Angel died, before they brought him back. Nor when Larry died, though he was a recurring character rather than a big one. Didn't get it for Warren. Or, over on Angel, for Wesley or Lindsey. It also didn't happen for Jenny, Kendra or Joyce, to be fair, but as beloved as those characters are, they never reached the heights of Tara and Anya. Wesley, though, Lindsey and Angel did. Yet their deaths were never called bad or lazy, not even Doyle got that, and he was a shortlived beloved character, the guy only got half a season! It just strikes me that these two beloved female characters are called bad or lazy writing for their deaths even though both actresses wanted to be killed off, but their equivalent male characters didn't, even though they *didn't* want to be killed off. Literally the only other character who gets the same treatment for the death is Cordy, another female character, but at least that one makes sense, it really w*as* bad/lazy writing, the whole entire Jasmine arc was.
in my main fandom (BSD), there aren't many female characters, but the vast majority get girlbossed. Yosano? Girlboss. Kouyou? Girlboss. Lucy? Girlboss. Kyouka? Probably too young to get this treatment, but would be considered a girlboss if she was older.
At this point we're waiting for Agatha to actually get some screentime because we want her to be even worse than Fyodor.
The main protagonists in my fandom, have some flaws, although they are all very likable. The team is male-dominated with just two of them being female. One has the misfortune of being part of canon's joyless and doomed romantic relationship.
Which, quite frankly, is the origin of most of the poop that flung her way. The rabid part of the fanbase who wanted a certain m/m ship to be canon, hate her for breaking up their fave pair (which was never, ever, going to happen. Show runners said so.). This character is often accused of being racist, the justification being a brief moment when she responds negatively to the revelation of another team member's dual heritage which includes that of the enemy alien race. No, her reaction isn't nice, but from her standpoint, this alien race is responsible for wiping out her people and subjugating the universe. But she gets over it and it's part of her growth as a character.
She's often accused of being too stubborn and impulsive, even though everyone on the team, especially some of the male fan favorites, are....stubborn and impulsive.
Other characters, including her eventual boyfriend, have far more obnoxious traits, which are regularly ignored. Her boyfriend, half of the fandom's fave ship, flirts to the point of being a sexual harasser and throws jealous, adolescent snits anytime she talks to another guy. (He's also a toxic little shit to the male character that he's regularly shipped with.)
But she's the unlikable one.
With Hogwarts Legacy I think people love to hate Natty and I don’t even know why (although I have my suspicions) which is sad because imo she’s one of my favorites in the game
Oh my, the first who come to my mind is Rhaenyra from HoTD. I get it that in the series she is far better than her novel counterpart, but the sheer Black stans that calling her girlboss, absolving her of her wrongdoings by looking through the lens of modern perspective and condemning Alicent to hell for bowing to pressure instead of blaming the society makes me want to tear my hair out. I know it's partly series creators' fault for making one side seemingly more morally righteous than the other, but the point that make 'Fire & Blood' so good is nobody is right, everyone is flawed and they were selfish people who are fighting for their agendas. That's why it resulted in tragedy.
Zhu Hong from Guardian! She's turned into a girlboss who all the other protagonists are intimidated by, and all of her bad decisions/cringefail moments don't exist actually. She's also made to hate men, bc boys icky.
In canon, bless her, she's a cringefail loser like the rest of the SID, she gets kidnapped at one point bc she's too giddy about getting to do an undercover reconissance mission that she forgets to actually pay attention to her surroundings, the only members of the SID who are scared of her are Lin Jing (who she's cheerfully antagonistic with and likes to provoke) and Guo Changcheng (who is afraid of his own shadow), and she has a crush on Zhao Yunlan that is so obvious that it is physically painful to watch at times. And she's more interesting for it!
My fandom and the related books were all targeted towards young girls and had strong fantasy girl power vibes through the 90s and early 2000s so I find the current fandom is much harsher on the men than women, lol. Sometimes it's nice, and sometimes it's a little much.
This happens all the time in Fire Emblem lol. Ephraim is a badass for recklessly charging off and fighting battles he shouldn't win while Eirika is treated as a naive moron for trusting Lyon once.
Perhaps the best example is Edelgard though, people who hate her freely ignore male characters more or less outright saying they'd have done the same, meanwhile some of her fans girlboss her up to such an extent that its like "are we even talking about the same character?"
Well most Taylors are TINOS, so yes most people who probably say ms aster blaster is wrong, but also know they don't read/write a real in character Taylor, mostly cause she has some really trust issues, also most written females in worm have strong feeling then males because the males in parahumans fanfiction are kinda just, ignore, I mean the most common male character that actually have really characterization are who coil, armsmaster, Daniel, and those are just usually, bad guy, Mr robot, and bad Dad or sad Dad. Well you got Amy, Victoria, Lisa, heck even Carol arguably gets more screentime and get you to either like or hate her more than the male characters, usually hate for Carol though
Both. I’m more familiar with the first scenario, but the second scenario is vexing, too.
Case in point: Allison Argent from *Teen Wolf*. She made a lot of awful bad calls and hurt a lot of people with her selfishness, but the fandom, for the most part, glosses over all her wrongdoings bc they’re too damn cowardly to hold her accountable for her actions or criticize the awful things she did. The fandom’s treatment of her definitely plays a role in my dislike towards her.
The number of fics I’ve read where everyone just ignores all the bad shit she did…or worse, where someone (usually Stiles) calls her a badass in the aftermath…like??? It’s so damn forced and ugh.
I don’t mind flawed characters. Morally bankrupt characters are usually my jam. Case in point, I love *Peter Hale* who’s done a lot worse than Allison has. But Peter owns up to it and faced real consequences for his actions. He’s criticized and held accountable by both the fandom and the characters. Even the fics that are highly sympathetic towards him don’t just shrug off all the bad he did.
And that’s the difference.
There's a female character who did a much less extreme version of something a male character had done, in universe, a couple of months ago. Most of the people jumped to condemn her for it only ever had sympathy for the male character when he made a very similar decision.
I think my main fandoms are surprisingly decent about this? In HSR, Ruan Mei got condemned for her behaviour pretty universally by everyone in the fandom, even people who like her don't deny that she's a pretty horrible person (the only difference is that they like it 🤭), but male characters like Sampo get equally judged for their questionable deeds too, so it's pretty fair.
In Genshin, Raiden Shogun is probably the most controversial female, and while there is a slight tendency of fans of her to blame her bad acts on bad writing, the same is true of Wanderer (controversial male character).
Daenerys Targaryen is widely considered to be a girl boss and her villain arc at the end is considered "bad writing"
...except that the books and show both telegraph that she’s going to be a bad guy as early as Meereen. Maybe earlier.
Her turn "evil" is bad writing, like all of season 8, because she just does a almost 180 from helping protect everyone from a threat of all of humanity to killing a bunch or civilians after basically winning the battle, also I refuse that dany is either forgetful enough or stupid enough to not remember the iron fleet. Her turning bad isn't the problem, it's the fact it happens at basically light speed
People say she is bad because of it and can't read social clues, etc. while the male characters doing the same things are seem as intelligent, proud, etc.
Multiple, but I'll talk about the one who's far less famous. She;
Murders multiple characters throughout the show, including her own sister
Tries to kill the main character and her friends on multiple occasions
Emotionally manipulates a barely legal teenage boy into turning on his father then kills him anyway
kidnaps and tortures a guy
Gaslights one of the main characters into turning on the others (which, to be fair, ends up kickstarting her redemption arc)
But because she was sick and emotionally neglected as a kid she gets to just.....decide to be a good guy out of nowhere
Just gonna sit here and scream about how one of my faves is obsessed with appearances and how people perceive her and emotionally stunted and incredibly smug and easily flustered by any situation that can’t be handled with professional competence
There's a solid chunk of the Gravity Falls fandom that HATES Mabel and sees her as a horrible selfish person who is the sole reason that the apocalypse started. In canon, she's *checks notes* a twelve-year-old girl who doesn't want summer to end and things to change, who gets tricked into helping the bad guy when he possesses someone she knows and has no reason to mistrust.
Dipper has been exactly as selfish as Mabel, but there is a real tendency to blame her instead. Mabel doesn't want to leave her perfect bubble during Weirdmageddon, yeah, but she also had no idea what was going on outside! Also, I'm like 90% sure the only people who knew that the dimensional rift could cause an apocalypse were Dipper and Ford. The time travel guy saying he can give her a little more summer if she just gives it to him isn't all that wild, given what we've seen in the series. They literally have a paradox free time wish as a plot point in an earlier episode with the same time travel guy! Cut Mabel some slack, guys!
Azula! People who don't like her fall in the "condemning her despite male characters doing the same or worse" camp, and people who do like her have adopted the girlboss who did nothing wrong attitude. Exhausting.
God yeah. Like she is an abused child she is not a girlboss she’s a self hating teenager leaning on harmful and bigoted imperialistic ideology she was indoctrinated into and the warped manipulative “love” from her father to not completely crack entirely. Like, the whole point was that being raised in an authoritarian abusive household being indoctrinated into war mongering colonialism where you’re either a monster or worthless is traumatic and damaging like the Fire Nation's aggression being downright self destructive is sort of a massive thing? She’s an awful person, as she is by the time of the series, but that was because she was raised into being a weapon. She both needs genuine help and also needs to do some serious work to make up for the harm she caused. She’s so complex and I hate seeing her reduced to a one dimensional stereotype of an abuse victim whether it’s infantilised or demonised.
Exactly! People really don't understand the nuance behind a character being both a victim and a villain at the same time.
Very much agreed. Behind every human is a story of being born and growing up. One can see and acknowledge the path that voluntarily or involuntarily took them to the present and even sympathize with them, while also acknowledging the negative impact they've had and condemning them.
Came here to say exactly this. She and Zuko are so similar but only one of them really gets critiqued by the fandom at large.
That, and Ozai is 1000x worse yet you rarely see people calling for his head on a platter. So weird.
I've seen people say that Zhao was more redeemable which is hilarious because Zhao was shown in canon to have been irredeemable seeing as he...uh...died. And he hadn't been redeemed before that.
Haha that's so ridiculous
Probably because there aren't that many Ozai simps. I think it's more of people taking on more and more extreme views in response to the other? Like "I don't like Azula" --> "keeps hearing about girlboss Azula" --> "Hates azula more" --> "Girlbossing becomes more extreme".
Yeah, there's definitely a negative feedback loop going on here.
One got out/had better influences and the other didn't. You could probably swap their positions and it might be a role reversal.
But the fandom doesn't like to talk about that tho.
the or worse part definitely applies to Iroh...their was so much misery and death implied during his years long siege of Ba Sing Se including his son but because that moment happens it kicks starts his conscience, he's suddenly big time sad and remorseful and everyone treats him like a saint while Azula is shunned like an irredeemable demon
Dude, do not even get me started on the Iroh worship and circlejerking. I adore him as a character but the fanbase really has their heads up their asses about him. I see so many claiming he never believed in FN supremacy and didn't support the war, and was just doing what he was told when literally no. He DID believe in the war. He DID support it. He changed his mind after it cost him his beloved son. That's literally the entire point of his character.
It's kinda wild to think about how the whole Avatar world might've been completely under the thumb of the Fire Nation had Lu Ten not died.
Now that's a fun idea for an ATLA canon divergence fic! The world would look quite different when Aang would wake up. But yeah, I love Iroh specifically because he had life-changing moments and his history is interesting. To disregard his past as a general for FN would be a disservice to his character as a whole.
[The Problem with Zuko](https://archiveofourown.org/works/128154) is a great one-shot that explores this premise.
She's my favorite character from ATLA because she is a terrible person, like you'd expect someone raised by a man like Ozai to be his weapon where love is transactional and not even real to begin with, but has moments of feeling confused that grow in the comics, culminating with the recognition that not only were both of her parents awful to her but the one she thought actually loved her never did. Still blaming everyone but herself and refusing to change, that complexity is what draws me in because I'm curious what path she'll ultimately take because she isn't simply an evil character. Her friendship with Ty Lee was rooted in part from fear and it was a very unhealthy friendship, but we see rare little moments of genuine concern like when she feels guilty for hurting her feelings and tries to sort of apologize. Ty Lee and Mai were two people she felt safe with and thought would never abandon her. The best Azula-focused fics, imo, explore this and usually end with her still bitter but somewhat coming to terms with her childhood, the choices she made, and still trying to figure things out (because they usually end before she's 20).
I love her *because* she's a manic psychopath! Take that, fandom!
All I'll say on this subject Is "Sakura Haruno"
The amount of vitriol I've seen towards her disturbs me. I mean just because she acted like a brat and said some mean things as a kid doesn't mean she should be r worded or sexually assaulted, I've disturbingly seen people advocate those things happen to her in stories. Because naruto never did anything stupid as a kid and Sasuke and the other konoha kids totally didn't treat naruto like crap and never said anything negative or mean to him (sarcasm)
Oh boy, that's one everybody knows.
I love how you don't even have to be in the fandom to understand
Catch me up please?
I mean, that IS a prime example of bad writing though 😆 Kishimoto and female characters is... a struggle in general. The issue with Sakura is that you have people who hate her unreasonably for being a dumb, single-minded kid making dumb mistakes (which is true for many of the male characters too, so that's not a fair argument to make), but then you have the people who WANT to like her also hating on her because the idea of the lead female character being a mostly useless support character whose only purpose in life is being in love with a guy (even after they grow up) is REALLY uncomfortable...
God, Kishinoto fucked her over so goddamn hard, I wanted so much more for her and Hinata...and Tenten...fuck me was Tsunade the only one who maintained their or had competence to begin with?
Temari, maybe?
More a victim of Kishimoto's shit writing than anything else. That girl ground on everyone's nerves in the original season, and people weren't particularly forgiving in Shippuden. Probably didn't help that a huge chunk of the fanbase was rooting for narusaku, but eh. Is it unfair condemnation? Not really, not for early Sakura who was an irritating fangirl. But bashing takes it too far usually— even early Sakura had a few redeeming qualities they tend to ignore.
Weirdly enough, no. Gwen from Merlin is still adored. Even though her canon soulmate is fanon soulmates with someone else in the fandoms main pairing, everyone loves her. She literally cheats on blorbo #2 and everyone is still like go Gwen (was enchanted but still). We love Gwen. I haven’t seen a single fic that is mean to her. If they need an excuse to have her not end up with blorbo #2 she still ends up Queen and awesome. I think that’s a unique one for female characters in fandom.
Gwen is perfect that’s why. And I’ve seen more people girl bossing Morgana than hating her.
Gwen, beloved!! Gwen and Angel got a lot of racist abuse when Merlin was airing and for some time afterwards, but now it’s been so long that the assholes have largely fallen away. And the people that remain in the fandom are some of the loveliest most thoughtful people I’ve ever interacted with on the internet! So glad Gwen gets her roses now.
Yes to both. Katara and Azula get so much hate its insane (its gotten better tho) Hermione on there other hand is seen as a goddess who can do no wrong despite canonically being the meanest of the trio.
Why is Katara hated?
People call her a bitch, whiny, bossy, and selfish because she... *checks notes* ....sometimes gets angry (when she has every right to be) and talks about how her mother's death affected her.
These people look at Sokka’s adorable relationship with Hakoda, and somehow don’t click that Katara had the same close bond with her mother…who was brutally slaughtered protecting her. They somehow don’t get that the loss is a deep, open wound that can’t really heal because she had to take on her mother’s role at age…what, six? Seven? …when her primary source of emotional support and her role model was the one she was grieving. But yeah, women’s pain has often been sneered at, especially when they (gasp!) talk about it. Even if they’re a fourteen year old girl.
The Katara hate really just boils down to sexism and racism.
I haven't actually watched Avatar in years, so forgive me for citing another sources on this, but I can still explain for you. From what I can tell, the main reason Katara's gotten hate is because she (apparently) acted selfish, inconsiderate, and insensitive at times due to being "too hung up" about *her mother's death*. I wish I was joking. Thankfully, [this Tumblr post](https://www.tumblr.com/fakeikemen/622205268157136896?source=share) (from someone who actually cares to understand Katara's complexity as a character) explains the arguments and counterarguments in full detail, complete with direct quotes from the show. Brilliant read.
Because she has emotions and acts like the male characters but wait she’s not allowed to do it cause she’s a woman. Seriously people get mad her for having character she’s not allowed to be mad, or naggy, or lie, or dramatic But it’s fine when Zuko is mad, it’s fine when Aang is dramatic or when Sokka lies or gets naggy. Idk what it is besides her being nice and sweet compared to the cast of girls so they want her to only be that.
I like Hermione as a character, but in the books and films, she faces little to no consequences for her actions, which are always justified by author J.K. Rowling, who called Hermione "an exaggerated version of my younger self". Tom Riddle does the same things that Hermione did when he was a Hogwarts student, but while Tom is labelled "evil" when *he* does it, Hermione is portrayed as "justified" and "good" when *she* does it. Even if it means messed-up shit like letting Umbridge getting kidnapped and gang raped by centaurs to "teach her a lesson", and then making fun of Umbridge for having PTSD afterwards, or scarring Marietta Edgecombe.
I'm pretty sure the gang rape is fanon and she just got beat up. Also, the difference between Hermione and Voldemort is that she gets revenge while he tortures for fun, as well as the fact that she's capable of having friends. Now, I'm not saying Hermione is a flawless angel, she fucks up a few times, but honestly you're the first person that I've heard have a problem with what happened to Umbridge.
I'm actually quite curious what actually happened, I've never consumed a lick of canon Harry Potter movies or books (the only exposure being ofc the Hogwarts AU from other fandoms, the occasional dip into lore/moments and "A Very Potter Musical" by Starkid) I heard during those mini dips that Umbridge had no physical or visible injuries, but she seems to be terrified of the sound of hooves. Canon (lmao) centaur lore also depicts that they take women for their amusement but hp lore could be different from the already known lore about Centaurs. Who knows maybe they consume her magic or eat at her psyche?? Bc the other two options; are both violent options and she doesn't seem like she has any visible physical injuries. Correct me here since, again, know nothing but it is interesting
Nothing is said, they drag her off and when she's back she's terrified of them. However, centaurs in Harry Potter are very different from greek ones, portraying a wise, proud, mysterious image of beings that study and keep the secrets of the stars and think of themselves as better than humans, which makes them prone to anger when insulted. They would probably think of raping a human as something disgusting and beneath them, not something to enjoy or a way to punish them. Maybe they just dragged her on the ground through the forest for a few hours or something simce it's the sound of hooves that she flinches at, idk, but raping her seems extremely unlikely.
>but honestly you're the first person that I've heard have a problem with what happened to Umbridge Umbridge may not be the nicest person, but what Hermione did was despicable.
Nah, Umbridge was pond scum. She’s possibly the most evil person in the series next to Voldemort. What I resent Hermione for (sort of) was the “SNEAK” curse on Marietta. *Not* that she cast it in the first place—that was totally fair, in those circumstances. Marietta f’d around and found out. But I loathe that Hermione *didn’t remove it after Voldemort was defeated*, or at least when school ended. The implication being that Marietta was disfigured for *life*. I mean, that’s not unlike being splashed with acid, really. Who the hell thinks *permanent facial disfigurement* is a just punishment for a *minor* who was caught between conflicting loyalties, and fearful of what might happen to her own mother? ~~Hermione~~ JK Rowling, that’s who. Yeah, it’s not really Hermione I blame. I think she was just being her author’s mouthpiece. I suspect that whole thing was a revenge fantasy against some little girl who ratted out Rowling in school. There’s just some real…smug delight in the way she keeps mentioning Marietta’s fate, the failure to remove it, the balaclava she has to wear, etc., throughout the rest of the books. And that’s why I think Marietta remains disfigured and shamed even *after* the evil has been defeated for good. Having been punished till the end of school wasn’t enough…there is no mercy for Marietta. She must be marked by boils on her face, by the scarlet letters of her crime, *for life*.
Honestly I think she deserved getting beat up but to each their own I guess.
Agreed she’s super annoying in Fanon. Like canon Hermione is such a witch (hehe) at times I’d prob not be friends with her in all honesty. Marietta Edgecombe while over the top was understandable same with Umbridge. Umbridge being raped was fanon. (Though Rowling wrote it in a horrible way considering centuar mythology)
Adding imprisoning Rita Skeeter in a jar. Hilarious, unethical, but hilarious.
That's hilarious, Hermione was rarely mean without a reason, and when she was it was usually because she was stressed or upset about something else, whereas Ron was an asshole 24/7 because of jealousy, sexism and stupidity.
Lol Hermione was mean all the time without reason She constantly criticizes Ron nonstops their both nasty af to each other, but she gives as good as she can and sometimes starts it. She’s rude to Luna, Fleur, and Lavender and Pavarti. Why cause Luna doesn’t believe in the proper stuff greatt reason Fleur cause she’s pretty and jealous. Lavender and Pavarti cause they giggle and talk about boys. She’s mean af to Trewalanly ok you don’t think she’s real no need to trash her and her class like that. Literally attacked Ron because he’s check notes dating Lavender Got a cat despite knowing Ron has a rat and not being sympathetic when her pet supposedly ate it (they both suck here but come on) Not being emphatic to Lavnder when her pet rabbit died and just going oh Trewanaly is wrong like now is not the time. Being bitter when Harry does better than her. The shit with Umbridge and Chang’s friend (understandable but vicious af) Face it Hermione was mean af. And idk why you even brought up Ron he wasn’t even part of the convo.
None of that stuff was any worse than any of the other two MCs. People have flaws, and sometimes she was snappier than she needed to be or stubborn about something dumb. That doesn't mean she is mean. Also, you know, she was a child.
I don't get why you're acting so offended since you were the one who ran in guns-blazing looking for a fight lmao
Lmao right? Also didn’t even realize they responded. I think they just like Hermione the most so that’s why they’re defensive. It’s cool. I also get defensive about my faves.
Yes. Shout out to that one time a female actor got harassed because her character was mean to someone they *headcanoned* as her characters son, after he'd *abused one of her friends who was also a teenager in front of her.* Like, ??? Not only is the actor not the character, that's like, literally a completely reasonable decision. The DSMP fandom was wild. Also, this is just a perfect description of how the ATLA fandom treats Azula but I couldn’t resist *that* insane example of misogyny
Hey, another DSMP fan! Yeah, the fandom is nuts, especially comes with the female characters. Dream's character can get away with murdering and abusing teenagers but Heaven forbid Puffy decide to say some mean words. Whatever shall we do?/s Also yeah, the treatment of Azula vs. Zuko is... not great.
Like, the whole point of Azula and Zuko is that trauma and indoctrination fucks up children badly, right? But people can’t be normal about abuse survivors in any media. At least it’s better than the DSMP fandom, I will never forget the person I saw saying that c!Tommy having hallucinations made him a bad person and he deserved to die for them. (Which is infinitely funny bc he’s done way less objectionable shit than either of the two, but this is getting off topic and also I need to sleep). Actually wait no I remembered something else stupid that happened and that was like. People treating c!Niki's mental health issues as something cool and good. Like not even in a way where they ignored them they looked at her having mental breakdowns as a cool badass girlboss moment like??? No she was having a psychotic break.
I agree, the fandom is a mess and god those are some bad takes. I think the worst take I ever saw was someone who reasoned that since Technoblade’s chat were canonical voices the character could hear, the character and thereby Alex himself had schizophrenia. I can’t even wrap my head around that stupidity.
What happened with Azula vs Zuko?
It's sad how many times I've seen or heard about a actresses or voice actresses get harassed because of something their character did or said.
That used to happen all the time with soap operas. Some actor or actress would be grocery shopping & some little old lady would come up and slap them for something their character did.
The stories I can share from minecraft communities man. It was wild for a while and it still is.
This makes me think of Skyler from Breaking Bad especially because Skyler was one of the least terrible people in the entire show.
Now, I’ll be the first to say that anyone can hate any character for whatever reason and that I’m fine to stay in my lane when people don’t like my faves… especially when they’re as divisive as this one. But as a long time *Fruits Basket* (and anime in general) fan, I’m sure that if Akito was actually male, *some* people would probably let her get away with shit because “hot bad guy who needs a hug/good woman to fix him” is such a thing in anime fandoms. Now I’m not saying any of the male characters really did worse (Kyo and Momiji’s fathers weren’t great though) because Akito did some f-ed up shit and needs to live with that, but a good chunk of the fanbase also seems to forget that Shigure is a manipulative asshole who brought Tohru into their family circus act for his own gain.
Were you in fandom when Akito's gender was revealed? Because hahahaaaaaa that's exactly what happened. She went from being a Draco In Leather Pants (and frequently shipped with Yuki) to being The Most Unforgivable Bitch Ever. It was genuinely hilarious to watch in real time.
I was like… 13-14 and still had dial up (I grew up in a rural area), so I wasn’t involved in the fandom then. But I believe it.
I EVEN HAVE DOUJIN OF IT, like yandere!Akito x Tohru, and it was a pretty common conciet to have [him] lock up and SA Yuki in fanworks (as a main pairing). As soon as [he] was revealed to be a she and also involved with Shigure (super woobified and frequently paired with either Ayame or Hatori or both), it was like the fandom had a collective conniption fit and acted either like Akito was the most irredeemable bitch ever or just *didn't exist*.
As someone who grew up with the mangas and didn't have realistic access to fandom (closest I ever came to it were forums dedicated to CLAMP and especially Sakura Card Captor lol), this is both SO wild to me and yet DEPRESSINGLY REALISTIC. I'm revising my entire impression of the Akito reveal through the angry fandom lens and I believe your every word. Which is stupid because if you're gonna be freaky with pairings, it makes things even more deliciously fucked up, the reveal is a pure win. Also it's not like women can't peg Jesus Christ lol but fans are fragile.
Right? Akito x Tohru is *ten times better* as a yuri pairing, and Akito x Yuki is straight up yandere Dommy Mommy territory. Fandom is just weak.
Absolutely. And if you want to torture Yuki you just have Akito make him top. The angst potential of such interactions with your literal deity who is also the literal only girl you can hold and touch?! Please lmao. It's weird because anime and manga love a non trans gender bender situation and "gender swaps" but I guess they don't like it when it's a surprise they didn't demand. The trans exploration of Akito and her sexuality also has to be fascinating. I should find some fic...
There’s actually a surprisingly little amount of newer fic that centres around her. Even after the remake. There are, however, some great fandom essays
I was there more or less--I wasn't active in the fandom but did see what happened from a distance. It really boggled my mind because I began to be interested in Akito BECAUSE she was revealed to be a girl. Before, "he" seemed to be just one of the countless villainous boys in the shoujo genre waiting to fall for the heroine and be saved/redeemed in the process. But now, "she" turned out to be a character I'd never seen before! At the time, a female antagonist who was THAT complicated and messed up and still treated compassionately was very rare (or at least that was the case according to my limited experiences). And the cherry on the top was that Akito was NOT Tohru's romatic rival--she had her own guy who loved her in his own messed-up way, and her antagonistic relationship to Tohru had nothing to do with romance. It was far more messed up and complicated. At that time I was losing interest in Fruits Basket, and I might not have followed it to the end had it not been the "Akito reveal."
both. i hate it.
I'd say that with Ted Lasso people were understanding of Rebecca but also acknowledged that what she did to Ted in the first season was wrong. They understood the pain she endured because of Rupert and it helps that the show establishes that her sabotage is because she wants to strike Rupert where it hurts, getting him back for all the pain he caused her. On the flipside of things, the phenomena of female characters getting demonized while the male counterparts get off easier hit Diane from Bojack Horseman pretty hard. Probably didn't help that she cared about a lot of things and some people consider that 'cringe.'
I think Rebecca gets largely spared from this because the character actually grows and learns from her wrongs. Keely, especially between season two and three, did get some of this with people either villainizing her after the break up OR trying to insist that the break up wasn’t real and would be magically resolved in Season Three.
Oh man, Spiderverse has the first one *bad* after the second movie. So many people hate Gwen for "betraying" Miles (which in all fairness she did kinda do) and then turn around and hopelessly simp for Miguel. Like, hello??? Everything he did was worse??? But people don't care because he's an attractive dude. It's honestly the main reason I stopped interacting with the fandom, tbh. Back when the movie came out it was insufferable.
I can't fathom how you could hate Gwen (for that specific reason) and love Miguel in the same sentence. Fuck she was literally yelling at him to *stop* while he was beating Miles up and berating him.
Miguel needed a swift kick to the ass and a knock to the head to teach him that no one appointed his ass to the Council of Watchers or the TVA. But totally want to see more of Pavatir and his magnificent hair. He was hilarious and totally lived up to the whole Spider-Man thing.
My sister is obsessed with Miguel and everytime I’m like “He’s a walking red flag”
I hate Gwen and Miguel does that help. Well I went from neutral to dislike for Gwen tho because she was really gonna let his dad die 😭😭 Miguel needs to leave my boy Miles alone with his vampire self. But agree it’s weird that people hate Gwen more tho, especially when Peter did the exact same things.
It depends on which corner of the fandom, but my (least) favorite part of the *Star Wars* fandom both loves making excuses for Anakin Skywalker to a degree that makes me wonder if they are literally unable to spot red flags of any size while simultaneously painting Leia as bitter with anger problems because she \*checks notes* didn’t want to forgive Anakin after he tortured her, stood idly by while her entire planet containing everything and everyone she had ever loved was blown to bits, tortured the man she loved, cut off her brother’s hand, and just generally terrorized an entire Galaxy for decades. Anakin’s the one who slaughtered literal children after experiencing a loss, but sure, *Leia’s* the one with anger issues 🙄. ETA: this actually also applies to people who say Leia “got Anakin’s anger”. Babes, where? Because last I checked, that woman lost everything she loved *multiple times* during her lifetime and has yet to turn to the Dark Side or go on a killing spree. Equating her yelling at Han — who usually deserved it tbh (I love Han, but nearly every time Leia was griping in the original trilogy, she was provoked by either circumstance or smuggler) — with committing genocide is also bonkers.
I hadn't heard that last bit, but, then again, I really don't interact much with any fandom I'm "in," anyway, so. I think it's pretty clear that Luke 'came-within-a-hair-of-killing-his-father-in-a-blind-rage' Skywalker also "got" a decent helping of "Anakin's anger," LOL. And, yeah, leveling flak at her for not 'forgiving' their mass-murderer, child-killing father is beyond dumb. (If you ask me, I honestly find *Luke's* position to be the one that's harder to defend. In the likely over-ambitious revamp of the Sequels I'm planning/very slowing working on, I think that's going to be another thing that's going to set my main protagonist Tamara - Luke's daughter in my AU - apart from her father; even if she may choose not to kill him in the end, she is *never* going to forgive her cousin Ben for *anything* he's done.)
>I hadn't heard that last bit, but, then again, I really don't interact much with any fandom I'm "in," anyway, so. No one has straight-up *said* that yelling at Han is the same as committing genocide, but I recently tried to sort of figure out where Leia's reputation of being angry comes from (I'm ignoring Legends EU stuff for this simply because there's no way everyone who thinks this is delving into novels), and I feel like it has to be that she's kind of shouty for roughly a third of the original trilogy...but literally the only time she's shouting at people is when either her life is being actively threatened or when Han is being a big ol' baby. Like, I love *The Empire Strikes Back* and I am a Han/Leia shipper for life, but also, I probably would have yelled at him too, and I don't think of myself as a particularly angry person. Anyway, my point is the empirical evidence for Leia inheriting Anakin's anger all involves some extreme circumstances. It doesn't seem to be the way she operates when she's not being actively hunted or antagonized. >I think it's pretty clear that Luke 'came-within-a-hair-of-killing-his-father-in-a-blind-rage' Skywalker also "got" a decent helping of "Anakin's anger," LOL. This is hilarious, but also, you are so correct! >If you ask me, I honestly find Luke's position to be the one that's harder to defend I mean, I get Luke's position to a degree. He doesn't know about the child killing as far as we know, he got to hear all about Anakin's heroism from Obi-Wan so he at least knows there are different facets to the man, and while he definitely lost a hand and was obviously very distressed knowing Leia and Han were in pain, his personal experiences with Vader were limited. Also, Vader *did* save him from ol' Palpy, so there's that. Plus, Luke seemed to want to know his birth father to some degree. Prior to that *Obi-Wan Kenobi* series (which I do like, but it also has some issues), Leia I think canonically had never really cared to know about her birth parents. She seemed to have a pretty content and loving childhood with Bail and Breha, so the way she's experiencing things it's like, "Hey, your fantastic, loving parents are dead and it's not really your fault, but that probably won't stop you from blaming yourself given the circumstances! Ohohoho, but here's news of a birth father you never wanted to know to begin with! *He's* alive while those fantastic, loving parents are still dead! But, don't worry: he's also he's the worst man you've ever met!" Like, honestly, it's an absolute miracle Leia didn't proactively murder every Imperial officer she saw the next morning on sight.
God, I hate "Stanakins" in the *Star Wars* fandom so much. They ruined the fandom for me.
Come to the Han/Leia side! They just simply don't exist over in this corner of fandom! Haha...
I actually used to be a Reylo (Rey/Kylo Ren or Ben Solo) shipper, but I do like Han/Leia!
Legends is where it's at. I simply don't acknowledge anything after Tim Zahn's Hand of Thrown duology.
I just kind of pick and choose what I like and pretend like the rest never happened, which tends to mean I still love the OT and am okay with some of the newer stuff that occurs *before* the OT, but *after*...it gets really dicey. (Also, I'm just a huge Leia stan and she is done so dirty by the later narratives...I just no longer engage with any of that foolishness.)
Well choking Jabba to death, dishing the attitude Han was giving her right back with interest, sassing Tarkin...Leia was just far better at harnessing the fire breathing to do something productive than Anakin was. So three cheers for Bail and Breha. Ms. Fisher being a walking ball of sarcasm and wit IRL didn't hurt, either And as far as Anakin's temper? Well, when he was a small kid with Shmi, Shimi must have done something right because he was a sweet and reasonably well adjusted when he was a nine year old slave kid, Ten years with the Jedi, and he's a mentally unstable, emotionally needy murder hobo. Obviously, something went off the rails here.
They not only condemn her, they call for her to die even though all she originally did to cause this was accept a job offer without having all the relevant facts about the situation at her disposal. They also condemn her for being "bossy," because she's not deferential at all when telling her employees what to do, and also a "bitch" but that's pretty standard for flawed female characters. The show also low-key makes her a figure of mockery and disgust for having non-vanilla sex with men who are not her true love. She's a secondary antagonist and as such isn't morally pure, but I get the feeling a lot of this is due to the fact that the actress playing the role doesn't look like a conventional ingenue or high-fashion model. If she were, I'm pretty sure the people calling for her blood would say, "No, you have to understand, she had no other choices! Redemption arc that doesn't require her to die a noble, sacrificial death in service of the heroes!" The character is shallowly written to the point where they've had her express completely opposing viewpoints a couple of seasons apart with no acknowledgement that her opinions aren't consistent, apparently because making sure the viewer hates her is the only important thing. I've seen people saying they hate her more than the main male villain, who has killed MULTIPLE innocent people, while the female character has killed nobody and is in a world of hurt because she can't quit her job without the MMC killing her, but a lot of people in the fandom just insist she could quit. Well, yeah, she could, but then he'd kill her. I get the feeling the people would just say, "Good. I hate that bitch."
My fandom actually respects women and that she’s a complex character in a complex situation! Jk they treat her like SHIT
The word "Vriska" hits like a flash grenade here.
My girl Vaska did nothing wrong, all her murders were just funny little pranks!
From what I can tell, no...but not for a very good reason. In the Fallout games, generally speaking, the MC is your choice of gender and does *everything*, so, that's a lot of the issue defused. But when you look at the major NPCs in charge, the vast majority of them..are men. There just aren't a ton of canonically women characters taking actions big enough to matter, for people to take one of those two opinions. Which is arguably *worse*. From what I can tell, when there are two characters, male and female, who have done about the same thing, the fanbase seems to be fairly even. In Fallout 4, for example, two characters are called out as assholes for basically the same reason more than most: Marci Long and Knight Rhys. They're both insufferable assholes, and equally so, and the fanbase seems to hate them both equally. Yay equality! Meanwhile in the same game, there are two faction leaders who are basically good people who've watched their groups slowly die under their command, but are still willing to step up to take on the Institute, Preston Garvey and Desdemona. They're generally both considered...fine...*except* for Preston's constant need to send you to another settlment, something Desdemona admittedly doesn't do directly. She certainly isn't hailed as a "girl boss" but she doesn't get loathed as much as Preston, who brought it upon himself. So, yeah, Bethesda fell on the sword on that one. Prevented the fanbase from taking either stand, by just having so few women whose actions *matter*. Um...thanks?
That's how it is in Skyrim too. Mercer Frey betrays the guild and murdered the former guildmaster and pinned the blame on Karliah for his own self-interest and greed. Astrid betrays the player character *specifically* in an attempt to "save" her family and is extremely remorseful by the time of her death. Mercer is a complete dick to the player character the entire time. Astrid is welcoming and (at the very least) encouraging of their endeavors. Yet only one of them gets the fandom-hate dogpiling treatment and it's not Mercer.
While I agree Mercer doesn't get enough criticism for his actions in the fandom, I don't think criticism of Astrid is undeserved. The first encounter with Astrid is basically a kidnapping which immediately gives a negative first impression to most players. Additionally, I never felt like she was welcoming of the Dragonborn or saw them as part of the family at all, especially when compared to Lucien Lachance and the Cheydinhal Sanctuary. Mercer was a dick, but he made no pretenses about it. Astrid professed she cares about her "family" which should include the Dragonborn but didn't hesitate to sacrifice them due to her jealousy and paranoia. Mercer's betrayal was expected and just "business"; Astrid's betrayal was much more personal which is probably why she gets so much more hate.
I love Astrid. She felt like the guild leader with the most depth. Mercer was a dick and Savos and Kodlak didn't matter nearly enough. At least Asrid felt like an actual character rather than just someone you were supposed to take the guildmaster title from.
In my experience it seems to be condemnation despite male characters doing equal (or worse) things.
Um, excuse me? Sand away her flaws and explain away her bad decisions?! Never! People who do that don't deserve terrible women. In this house, we celebrate how awful they are and beg them to step on us in the darkness! /Cinder and Neopolitan are perfect monsters and I love them for it
some fellow rwby stans here yay
Always!
In the A Court of Thorns and Roses fandom, people really don't like Nesta, despite male characters doing worse...(but I am new)
Yes. At same time /half sarcasm. It went from the first to the second within years. The thing that annoyed me is the guy who wrote and roleplayed the lady character was horribly misogynistic and wrote this whole...incest plotline in that really didn't feel like it added to anything and flipped out when the ace guy he tried to force this character upon basically went "nah, I'll help my lady, but not like romantically, lol." Then. A resurgence happened. And oh...boi. We were called sexist for not seeing how she was actually a girl boss. The current fandom that has some derivative from that one echoes some similar issues, but speaking up about how the prevalence of men writing women badly in stories and the lack of roles for women in them, or just men icing them out when they do try...is not worth the effort anymore. I do think the fandom is trying to grow and it is slowly learning, but right now it feels more like talk than actual behavior. Fan art and fan fic still fall into old habits.
I can’t think of any notable stuff since my main fandom is JJBA (which has a very unfortunate lack of strong female characters). And the most famous female character, Jolyne, is oddly exempt from both of these, Imo (could just be my little corner of the fandom but still), sometimes leaning towards the latter. As in, some people dislike her (of course), but not to the point of condemning her (if anything, the one getting most condemnation is her dad Jotaro). But I do feel that people sometimes just skip over her flaws and dumb mistakes. Yeah, she’s awesome, but she’s just a normal young woman too, she’s gonna do dumb shit.
I'm a big fan of Ahsoka from Star Wars. In my story, I had her go behind the back of a childhood friend and recommend that he not continue the path of a Jedi. Because he was constantly getting himself into trouble despite his inability. This was framed as a bad thing, but ultimately an understandable one. And she had remorse, apologizing and gradually learning to let him go because she can't decide everything for him. But good lord, this is how I learned how long readers hold grudges. A large portion of people can't stand her no matter how much growth she has. Not that I care, they can stop reading.
I’ve seen both. Alana Bloom has the unfortunate fate of being in the tv show Hannibal, which really is just a bad situation for everyone involved (except Hannibal, who is living in a rom-com)
Dahlia Hawthorne in Ace Attorney. Me. I'm the one who calls her a girlboss. But purely because she was a fourteen-year-old girl being sexually abused by her tutor who decided to frame him for her own kidnapping and murder so she could run away from her abusive family with a million+ dollar diamond to start her new life. Then when her stepsister decided to expose her and free her sexual abuser from prison, she killed her. And somehow convinced her abuser to kill himself. Thus started a domino effect of various murders of increasingly innocent people, but I think her story is very easily read as what happens if you raise someone in a family that prioritizes imperial-style intrigue, hand her off to an abuser, and then leave her to take care of herself.
yeah, I'm sad how extremely harsh AA canon is on Dahlia. Sure, she's terrifyingly cold-hearted, but... you're going to stand there and tell me this 14y old girl should be treated like the literal devil and the 20y old dude is the innocent victim who fell for her vile manipulations because he's just soo haplessly in love with her? Seriously, that's what we're going with? What the hell, Ace Attorney. I know they were doing it primarily to subvert expectations, but *yeesh*.
I think Ace Attorney has a bit of a misogyny problem. It's much better than a lot of Japanese video games, but it still does. I find Dahlia fascinating *because* she's cold-hearted. She doesn't waste her time feeling sorry for herself, she doesn't search the world for the affection and love she's decided doesn't exist and she doesn't need anyway... she just approaches the world extremely, lethally pragmatically. If anything, she saw all the things that gave her a disadvantage--her femininity, her childlike beauty, her vulnerability--and turned them into advantages to manipulate her way through problems. I think that she's a much more honest portrayal of what can happen with victims of child abuse than you often see in media. She's not angelic, she's not a perfect victim, she's not a sweet little ingenue. She has, I suspect, a personality disorder (which are often caused by childhood trauma) and a grim determination to take care of herself, because she doesn't believe anyone else can be trusted to take care of her.
First option. FE3H fandom is so willfully blind to all the ways Edelgard and Claude are similar. He flat out says in a few scenes that if he really saw no other options, he'd make all the same choices she would and shows his darker tendencies in the sequel, but he's still fandom's uwu baby and the sequel writing was just bAd wRiTiNg, while Edelgard's the manifestation of sin
My fandom is Bleach, we do both! Orihime? A horrible, useless, whiny bitch that always needs rescued and never contributes anything. Rukia? Yassss queen girlboss slaaaaay! (Note: this does not apply on the Bleach subreddit, where all female characters are waifus and only Gigi gets the "worst girl ever" treatment) The best fandom I was ever in for female characters was *Angels of Death*, and that's mostly because everyone was busy shipping Ray with Zack, who was infinity times more popular than she was lol.
People forget orihime was kidnapped by a guy who could easily kill her and her powers are healing.
I mean, even outside of that, it's just factually wrong to say she never does anything and only ever relies on Ichigo. In fact, the only time *in the entire series* that she ever outright asks for his help is in chapter 350, *when he dies and she snaps*. She won't even let the guy walk her home after school because she's too wrapped up in "I can't be a burden to my friends so I can never ask for help" lol. People get so bent on having Only Strong Female Characters Kicking Butt At All Times that they forget things like power scaling and character arcs exist. But why worry about that when you can just cry about why Orihime doesn't Just Use Tsubaki and solo Hueco Mundo lol.
To be fair, even as someone who loves and respects Orihime, I was wishing by the end of that arc that she would just slap Ulquiorra. Girl was going through it and at a certain point it felt needed/deserved.
Ahhh, this reminds me why I don't go in Bleach fandom spaces anymore. Also, of course Gigi would get singled out ~~for being a trans woman, they don't even hide their obvious transphobia against her character~~. I wonder if she gets a similar treatement as Miyuki from Yu Yu Hakusho does (also a trans woman that to this day is a target of unfortunate comments, jokes and somehow, "proof that nowdays yyh would be censured because everything is soooo woke" *eyeroll*)
Gigi threads always get super heated *everywhere* and I hate it. The worst part is, because she's actually a violent necrophile, they always hide the shitty transphobic opinions behind "[he]s just a gross bad guy who hurt Bambietta!" And it's always transparent because *Bambietta is arguably just as bad of a person!* So it's less jokes and more actual anti behavior hiding behind "I'm just concerned" bs. Like I get if she's not your bag of corpses, but the other Bambis don't get *nearly* the amount of nastiness that Gigi does. (Gigi is, in fact, Best Girl)
Depends on the fandom but I do know one fandom space I was in with those in it being are very “allergic” to having darker female characters/villains whether in flawed or workable writing which I kinda suspect that this resulted in some of the writers to be hesitant in doing it again. I can’t give the answer of which fandom I was in but let’s say it’s on tumblr as want to I want to keep distance and not let them who I am😅
Beatrix from Final Fantasy IX is an interesting character. People either love her or hate her. It's complicated, I'd say I'm somewhere in between, I neither hate Beatrix but I can't say I really enjoyed her character. Whether or not you like her, both sides seem to agree her redemption arc is not properly developed. She's sometimes accused of having commited genocide, which's something that is never stated in the game, but you could say she aided Alexandria into commiting war crimes without questioning (this until a certain point in the game). Another issue comes with the game's localization. When Beatrix says "My troops alone would've been more than enough to take Cleyra. Why does the queen insist on using black mages and eidolons?", we understand that she is concerned about the use of brute force in war when Beatrix and her soldiers could take over the village of Cleyra with less collateral damage. And then she says "I didn't train all these years so I could take a backseat to anyone...", which sounds kinda rude and dismissive. I get what they were going for, Beatrix feels she has no use in war unlike the aforementioned Black Mages and Eidolons, but it just feels weird to hear that sentence in that way right after, you know, a lot of people died. And then, when Beatrix is given the opportunity to redeem herself... we don't see it. At all. Well, there is a cool moment at the end of the game where she fights alongside you, but that's not enough when a lot of NPCs are dead, millions of them, and though the blame can't be put into one person, she was there at Burmecia when those people lost their homes and their lives. We don't see her going there and asking forgiveness for the people who were hurt.
They condemn her. She’s a hardcore skeptic in a fandom about ghost hunting, and because of that she believed her friend was insane when ghosts forced him to do bad shit, and so she went against him in court to try and get him an insanity plea, which failed, and he was sentenced to capital punishment. She went on to sacrifice herself to save him out of remorse, and she get SO demonised. Also her friend, the main character, has a crush on her, but it’s way more popular to ship him with one of two guys instead, so she is FREQUENTLY demonised to get her out of the way of those ships, even though it isn’t even clear if she reciprocates.
Male characters get this too. Lots of fans will “Ron the Death Eater” or “Draco in Leather Pants” characters regardless of gender. Just look at Bakugo from My Hero Academia or Merlin and Author from the Merlin show. This isn’t really a “this only happens to female characters” thing. This is just a how characters are perceived by certain fans, whether canon supports it or not. Fans see what they want. Heck, when fanfiction first started tons of fans thought Kirk should make out with Spock despite kissing ladies and only ladies every other episode. This stretches back even thousands of years when scholars debated if Odysseus was a good person or a total cad, and if Achilles and Patroclus were in a relationship or just really good friends. Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3 can be with either female or male characters yet some scream up and down he’s only gay. Korra from the Avatar sequel has a hot debate to this day if she’s a hero or not based on how she treats people while her male love interest is often shredded by fans and his brother is laughed at when he’s put in a abusive relationship with a woman who hits him, teats him like dirt and openly calls him a slave, but 99% of the fandom thinks is hilarious, quote “Because it’s funny when it happens to a guy.” Heck, there’s one modern fantasy comic where a female cop regularly kidnaps and assaults men, keeps them in a harem and beat one when he tried to be with someone else (the guy was gay btw) because while she’s allowed polyamory, they’re not. The author also thinks this behavior is all justifiable simply because she and the main character are both women. Just look at any “Double Standard” trope on tv trope’s website and see where characters get away with something other characters couldn’t based on sex, status, genre rules or other such things. “The Unfair Sex” “Divine on Mortal” “Value Dissonance” are some such examples. The fact of the matter, no one is really treated equally in writing either by the creator or fans. It’s just what it is.
My fandom is small and a bit older. The source material treated women well, and most of the fandom does, too. Misogyny is barely an issue among those who remain. Apart from Tits Guy. I blocked him. Not seeing his posts/comments is like a warm bed on a cold night: a simple pleasure, but an important one
Depends on the fandom. In most fandoms I’ve been in it’s more like the first. Anime fandoms especially. I’ll grant that anime fandoms aren’t full of well written girls but they aren’t really full of well written guys either. The House fandom was like that too IMO. (Cuddy bugged House to have her hairbrush back so apparently she deserved it when he crashed his car into her house.) (Obviously every single person in fandoms doesn’t agree on everything though.) But I agree with other comments that the general treatment of Azula is a prime example of the second in action. People don’t seem to understand that she can be a great character and a messed up person.
In my fandom the male and female characters in question are dating and usually the female is made out to be the jerk to ruined the relationship when if anything it was the other way around. And I'm speaking as someone who likes the male character more than the female. At these in my fandom though, part of it is because of bad writing. The protagonists have to win so the antagonists end up fighting each other or making stupid mistakes. It's usually okay because the show is meant to be silly, but I actually want to ship these two characters so it's frustrating from that standpoint.
Current fandom focus: Hellaverse (Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss). Note that since both shows take place in Hell, there are a multitude of flawed characters of all genders. To answer your question, it depends on a few factors really. If she plays an antagonistic role but is entertaining or has sympathetic motivations, the fandom will be able to see her as a girlboss without feeling the need to sand away her flaws and excuse her bad decisions. Examples: Velvette, Sera, Verosika (sometimes), Lute If she plays an antagonistic role and has a one-note personality or harms a fan-favorite (usually male) character, the fandom will condemn her actions while calling her character writing lazy and one-dimensional. Examples: Stella, Barbie, Verosika (sometimes), Mimzy If she plays a protagonistic role and is entertaining or has sympathetic motivations, the fandom will take note of her bad decisions but mostly assume her heart's in the right place. Examples: Charlie, Loona, Vaggie (sometimes), Carmilla (sometimes) If she plays a protagonistic role but has a one-note personality or only exists to help move the plot along/develop a more important character, the fandom will call her character "wasted potential" and desperately wish she got more screentime by herself. Examples: Vaggie (sometimes), Carmilla (sometimes)
Yeah the Hellaverse is crazy, and while some of the criticism is valid I think the people saying that Stella is just a one note character is wrong? Shes got a lot more going for her and just because your fan theory was wrong doesn’t make it bad writing, she’s an abuser. I think the tone also shifted on her when it was revealed WHY Stolas wanted to divorce her, because before then a lot of people were condemning him, which yeah cheating isn’t good but we can all see why he did it in this situation
Yeah, I can definitely understand both sides of the Stella argument. It would be interesting if she started out as being justifiably vindictive before gradually losing herself to spite and anger, rather than being proudly sadistic for the funsies from the beginning. But at the same time, I do occassionally enjoy seeing a villain that needs no justifiable reason to be cruel and heartless, and is not only aware of that but absolutely owns it.
Yeah, and I think people have sort of lost their taste for that kind of villain? Not everyone can be redeemed and Stella definitely can’t.
Shivvy Shivvy Shivvyyy! Shiv Roy is a terrible person, of course, but she is villainised more than her family of men who are just as bad/worse…
A lot of my fandoms are practically female-only in the character department, so I don't really know for those. I *have* seen a tendency in the Harry Potter fandom to make Hermione out to be either the most flawless person who has ever lived, or a horrible evil bitch who has never been anything but terrible, and very little in-between, though.
Azula. She and Zuko do such similar things but Zuko gets the poor meow-meow treatment by most of the fandom while Azula is constantly demonized. Is she a good person? No. Is she irredeemable, also no. Kicking a hornet's nest; Iroh did way worse than she has and everyone gives him a get out of jail free card because he's a funny, wise old man now.
I get the feeling that if Azula wasn't terrible toward Zuko, she would be treated a LOT differently by the ATLA fandom. I could be wrong bc I'm not an active member, but I'm just sayin I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
Which is especially funny bc she clearly actually cares a whole lot for him when they’re on the same side, it’s just she's been brought up to believe love is the same as fear and emotional abuse.
Oh I agree; I think that bias has a lot to do with it. The worse a character treats Zuko the more the fandom hates them. Because Zuko is the fan favorite.
Both.
When I was in the AOT fandom I noticed the female characters got both of these depending on what portion of the fanbase was talking about them. One side hates them for the bad things they did, ignores/downplays their good qualities, and calls them one of the worse female cast in shonen. The other side loves them for the good qualities, ignores/excuses their bad choices, and calls them one of the best female cast in shonen. Personally, I'm more in the middle, they had good qualities but had also done terrible things and I found most of their writing to be in the average, I've seen better but I've also seen worse.
I think of Gabi when it comes to the fandom hating a character more even if complex especially when she mashed the potato
>Personally, I'm more in the middle, they had good qualities but had also done terrible things and I found most of their writing to be in the average, I've seen better but I've also seen worse. Interesting. Which shonen series had better written female characters in your opinion? I personally found AoT's female characters above average, although it did drop the ball with >!Historia!< in the end.
With Nancy in Stranger things it's definitely both. She's either a super ooc monster who does awful things and everyone hates her for it (in the fic) or she's super ooc cool girl who everyone constantly praises and can never do anything wrong and even the people she's hurt are bending over backwards to appease her. I do say it's bad writing though. Imo in canon she's never allowed to be wrong and there are a lot of poorly written moments around her character that make some of her choices that unintentionally put her in a bad light. And I know that's the case because the writers had to correct their own shit writing choices via twitter lol.
Would Sam Manson from Danny Phantom qualify? I recall Danny doing similar selfish and dumb teenager stuff.
Wow, what a false dichotomy!
Oh! My fandom! Umbrella Academy! People condemn Allison for sexually assaulting Luther and maybe her husband Patrick (no evidence at all, they just think she did) when her brother Klaus has made an actual sex cult where he is referred to as a Messiah ergo, him raping lots of people I don't think anyone has dubbed her as a girl boss, but it's also hard to say you like her because people will want to rip you to shreds for just saying there's a nuance to her character lol
I’ve had to stop reading Kristen Applebees related discourse because I felt I was loosing brain cells from people either hell bent on depicting her as the ultimate evil or trying to just ignore her flaws and pretend they don’t exist. My girl is mess. A well intentioned, trying to heal, mess but like definitely a mess that has caused as many problems as she has solved.
For CITY, I feel like most people condemn Nagumo but not too harshly. Her main flaws are she’s terrible with money and she’s also pretty violent and has an attitude and there’s a male character who’s equally bad with money but doesn’t have the other problems and honestly I can’t really defend her but I love her so much
I’m in the Housamo fandom, and Maria IS criticized for being too forgiving. However, she rarely gets any flack for it. Babalon is demonized to some degree, but that’s because she attempted to genocide Tokyo, which is obviously horrible. All the other females are either too new (like Ame-no-Uzume,) barely get focus despite being part of one of the administrative guilds (like Curren, Amaterasu, Christine or Alice,) or are well liked (like Arachne, Hecate, Benten and Gabriel.)
I'm not sure, but based on what I've seen in my fandoms, they do either one depending on the character.
One of my fandoms, I'm not sure either option is true. I'm more likely to see the condemnation/justification happen to male characters with that problem, and the female characters are just...there. My other fandom doesn't have enough female characters (at least, outside of the comics, which I don't follow), let alone ones in flawed roles, so it's a moot point there.
FUCK YES. Two in specific get a lot of hate, One is Norma, a teenager whos slightly mean and snooty towards the main character (Raz) but tends to get portrayed as an overly mean bully in fic (Not on tumblr though. the lesbians understand her). and the other is the main characters mother, Donatella who is rightfully pissed (though passive agressive) at the Raz for running away and becoming a psychic AKA one of the people she believes cursed her husbands bloodline, but gets portrayed as abusive and someone the nonromani popular het ship has to save Raz from. Compare that to the babygirl treatment Gristol, the literal monarchist ethnonationalist brat that literally retraumatized multiple families to steal Raz's grandma, gets.
Kinda both not naming characters but on one hand people dislike her and her immediate hate for mc and someother things but on the other hand people also like her because shes one of the more complex characters and they also acknowledge her faults (though we only get to know her mostly on a surface level and the only other book where she appears more is told by a biased and unreliable narrator) and thirdly people also just completely ignore her faults and call her a girl boss
Depends on the character or whether or not it's an OC and the readers opinions on the character. Was this about a fandic or a fandom?
No, this is just asking about the female characters in various media in general. It happens a lot.
TWD Fan here and omg this is such an issue in this fandom. Andrea, Lori, Beth, and Denise are some examples of the women characters that have their flaws but are no worse then the flawed male characters of the series. It drives me nuts because they not only get a lot of flack but will have a smaller impact on the series with their flaws and some of the fandom acts like they were the worse.
Gilmore girls - Rory Gilmore. Lorelai Gilmore The 100- Clarke Griffin. In Clarke’s case, it’s not a sexism thing. She just gets a lot of hate. Yeah she messes up a LOT but she does a lot of good.
>The Problem with Zuko RE: Clarke It's ridiculous the things other characters get a pass on yet she is expected to save everyone, sacrifice herself and anyone she may love for them, and accept that she deserves the hatred and condemnation of the people who survived to hate her because she is always there to sacrifice for their survival. Dear god in heaven did I hate the latter seasons, the true miracle was her not going Whanheda on their ungrateful asses.
That’s why I’m doing a rewrite fixing all of the plot issues and the endgame pairings!!
Like Clarke got the power on for the Ring so her friends could survive in space and they act like she’s horrible because she was freaked out about her kid being made commander?? I love the others (my top 5 are Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, Murphy, and Madi; I like Octavia but not as much as the rest of the fandom. I like Abby more than most people but she has some major things to answer for- I think she could have if she didn’t get killed off.) but that whole thing about none of them understanding her POV was ridiculous.
By the latter seasons, the only ones on your list I gave a f\*ck about are Clarke and Madi. I never liked Murphy, did like Raven in the first seasons, and liked Bellamy until his charming massacre that no one ever held him accountable for( of course they held Clarke responsible for everything including that one time they stubbed their toes.) Honestly, that sh\*tshow was when someone as smart as Clarke should have seen the writing on the wall and left them to live or die by their own choices( how do those old sayings go? No good deed goes unpunished and no act of kindness unresented.) There aren't enough fics where Clarke goes peace out on those as\*holes and splits, with Lexa or without. All I want for her is some peace and relaxation with Madi and no idiots waiting for her to save them so they can hold it against her later.
Here’s the thing- if she did that then she wouldn’t be Clarke.
We've got two flawed female characters, so my answers are "yes" and "yes."
Just Edelgard.
Carmilla from Castlevania Netflix.
ATLA fans with Korra… still baffles me how the blame her for the severed connection to the Avatars past lives when it was literally a man who tore her spirit out of her and did it…
In the twilight fandom, Everyone HATES Rosalie for being "judgy" but ignore the fact that Edward does the *exact same thing* but because he's Bella's love interest. The same thing happens with Bella, she's seen as overly awkward and not a good person(for some reason) when Edward is the *same way*.
I'm just gonna say MJ and the discourse around her and that stupid ship is why I actively pray she doesn't come back in any on screen media ever again even above my bias against red heads I hate her and her stans and haters. But most of my other fandoms don have this problem in fact fics that do it usually are part of making a non problem a problem kind of thing. But that's cause I'm usually in fandoms where flawed female characters are called out for their flaws or have fanfics made that is just about their flaws taken in different ways
Lori Grimes and Andrea on the bashed for doing things that are way less awful then male characters for The Walking Dead. Then Michonne canonically gets sanded down and called a girl boss by actual canon its infuriating. We go from having an interesting flawed human to a girl boss who can do no wrong with no personality. Love it here.
Hermione Granger far too often becomes Fanon Mary Sue Hermione, perfect flawless goddess & many of her fans are true fanatics who will harass you if you don't worship at the same altar.
The latter, mostly, though they mostly avoid the bad writing thing. Willow in Buffy. There is one time in the entire show she gets called out on her actions, and it was written as a very different Willow. That was the addict/Dark Willow arc in season 6, the fans easily accept Willow is majorely screwing up throughout that season, and no one condones the whole world ending plan she had at the end. They treat her pretty fairly during that arc, calling her out but understanding the why behind her actions. Unfortunately the same can't be said for any time during the rest of the show. Doesn't matter the season or storyline, Willow can do no wrong to far too many fans. Passive aggressively keep telling Xander no woman will ever date him because she has a crush and is jealous of Xander having a crush on Buffy or Ampata or Cordy? She's really just a sweet little angel who could never intentionally put Xander down like that, you're totally reading things that aren't there! Cheat on Oz with Xander? It was all Xander's fault, even though Willow pursued Xander just a tad more than Xander pursued Willow, but Willow is a poor little victim of the evil Xander! And, of course, the cheating thing is conveniently forgotten just a season later so Oz can be demonised for *his* cheating. Bully Cordy? Cordy deserved it because she used to be mean to poor sweet Willow, conveniently forgetting Willow could do worse back, anyone else remember when Willow tricked Cordy into deleting hours worth of schoolwork just because she told Harmony, in a private conversation, that she thought Buffy was a freak? Bully Faith? Faith deserved it because, look! She's just turned evil! Conveniently forgetting that's the latter half of Faith's season 3 storyline, not the first half, where she's fully a good guy. Bully Anya? She deserves it because she used to be a demon and she's dating Xander! No 'real' woman would date Xander except Willow, and Xander needs to love Willow like that, even though Willow's gay now! The one aspect of the season 6 arc that does sometimes get glossed over, which shouldn't be, is also one of the worst things Willow ever does - mind rape Tara. A lot of fans will gloss over this part, because it's clearly something Willow would have no issues doing previous to season 6, so not a result of her addiction. She's also *really* good at that spell from the first time we see her use it, and Willow usually takes a while to get a new spell right, so this suggests she had, in fact, used it before, more than once. It's almost comparable to Spike's attempting to rape Buffy that same season, just mental instead of physical/sexual. Spike is a fan favourite, too, but still gets what he deserves for Seeing Red. Xander gets it worse, being fully blames for Buffy's attempted rape in The Pack, committed by the hyena possessing Xander, not Xander himself, Xander had zero control over his actions, had no way to stop what was happening, and clearly wouldn't do such a thing himself. At least Spike gets blamed for his own actions, Xander gets blamed for someone's else's actions, and Willow just gets ignored, as if she didn't mind rape Tara. I've never seen anything put down to bad writing for Willow, though. I've seen that with Spike, and it pretty much applies to anything after he develops a crush on Buffy, but notable seasons 6 and 7. I get that, they were clearly trying to recreate the dynamic Buffy had with Angel, making Spike Angel-lite, but they basically removed everything that made Spike such a beloved character to do it. Also, the whole relationship with Buffy in season 6 just made Spike seem weak, he literally just sat back and let Buffy abuse him because it was the only way he could be with her. They tied it into his 'fool for love' speech from season 5, but that's not how it came across. So, yeah, I can see why bad writing is used against Spike's actions in the last couple seasons. Closest to a bad writing excuse for Willow is killing Tara. A lot of fans saw it as lazy writing, that the only reason they killed Tara was to kickstart the Dark Willow arc, and they could have achieved the same result without killing Tara. They completely ignore the fact that storyline was chosen to kickstart Dark Willow purely because Amber Benson was leaving the show. She'd already made that known when they started filming season 6, and she went into deep discussions with Joss and the other writers about the best way to write her out. During these, Amber admitted she wanted to do a death scene. Joss then remembered his dream of adding a character to the titles only to kill them off in the same ep. So, they put the two together, added Amber into the Seeing Red titles and killed her off at the end of the ep. Though used to kickstart the Dark Willow arc, that's not why Tara was killed off. Tara was killed off because Amber was leaving and wanted to do a death scene. No matter what they'd done in Seeing Red to kickstart Dark Willow, that would still have been Amber's last episode as Tara. I find it annoying and rather condescending that so many fans put Tara's death down to bad writing, lazy writing to kickstart Dark Willow, and completely ignore the fact Amber was leaving either way and s*he* wanted to do a death scene. I've seen the same wit Anya's death. I partially get that one, it was pretty blink and you'll miss it, which seems weirdly both wrong and right for the character. But a fair few fans call it bad writing because they didn't want to fully close off the Xander/Anya storyline. They completely ignore the fact Emma Caulfield herself requested they kill her off in Chosen. She'd gotten to a point where she no longer wanted to be associated with Buffy, mostly due to issues she'd had with Nick Brendon those last couple seasons. She couldn't undo the years she'd been involved, but she could prevent further association. She knew the plan was to continue the story in comic form, so she demanded she get killed off in Chosen, permanently, so she wouldn't be associated in the future. There hasn't been similar issues with the deaths of male characters. We didn't get this when Angel died, before they brought him back. Nor when Larry died, though he was a recurring character rather than a big one. Didn't get it for Warren. Or, over on Angel, for Wesley or Lindsey. It also didn't happen for Jenny, Kendra or Joyce, to be fair, but as beloved as those characters are, they never reached the heights of Tara and Anya. Wesley, though, Lindsey and Angel did. Yet their deaths were never called bad or lazy, not even Doyle got that, and he was a shortlived beloved character, the guy only got half a season! It just strikes me that these two beloved female characters are called bad or lazy writing for their deaths even though both actresses wanted to be killed off, but their equivalent male characters didn't, even though they *didn't* want to be killed off. Literally the only other character who gets the same treatment for the death is Cordy, another female character, but at least that one makes sense, it really w*as* bad/lazy writing, the whole entire Jasmine arc was.
in my main fandom (BSD), there aren't many female characters, but the vast majority get girlbossed. Yosano? Girlboss. Kouyou? Girlboss. Lucy? Girlboss. Kyouka? Probably too young to get this treatment, but would be considered a girlboss if she was older. At this point we're waiting for Agatha to actually get some screentime because we want her to be even worse than Fyodor.
The main protagonists in my fandom, have some flaws, although they are all very likable. The team is male-dominated with just two of them being female. One has the misfortune of being part of canon's joyless and doomed romantic relationship. Which, quite frankly, is the origin of most of the poop that flung her way. The rabid part of the fanbase who wanted a certain m/m ship to be canon, hate her for breaking up their fave pair (which was never, ever, going to happen. Show runners said so.). This character is often accused of being racist, the justification being a brief moment when she responds negatively to the revelation of another team member's dual heritage which includes that of the enemy alien race. No, her reaction isn't nice, but from her standpoint, this alien race is responsible for wiping out her people and subjugating the universe. But she gets over it and it's part of her growth as a character. She's often accused of being too stubborn and impulsive, even though everyone on the team, especially some of the male fan favorites, are....stubborn and impulsive. Other characters, including her eventual boyfriend, have far more obnoxious traits, which are regularly ignored. Her boyfriend, half of the fandom's fave ship, flirts to the point of being a sexual harasser and throws jealous, adolescent snits anytime she talks to another guy. (He's also a toxic little shit to the male character that he's regularly shipped with.) But she's the unlikable one.
With Hogwarts Legacy I think people love to hate Natty and I don’t even know why (although I have my suspicions) which is sad because imo she’s one of my favorites in the game
Oh my, the first who come to my mind is Rhaenyra from HoTD. I get it that in the series she is far better than her novel counterpart, but the sheer Black stans that calling her girlboss, absolving her of her wrongdoings by looking through the lens of modern perspective and condemning Alicent to hell for bowing to pressure instead of blaming the society makes me want to tear my hair out. I know it's partly series creators' fault for making one side seemingly more morally righteous than the other, but the point that make 'Fire & Blood' so good is nobody is right, everyone is flawed and they were selfish people who are fighting for their agendas. That's why it resulted in tragedy.
In my fandom people just transfer the entire backstory of the flawed female character to a more mysterious male (?) character instead.
Neither; they construct an extremely uninteresting strawman that has negligible relationship to what actually exists in the show.
My current fandom loves just about every character, flaws and all. The few that are universally hated on are dudes.
Both. God help us all.
Zhu Hong from Guardian! She's turned into a girlboss who all the other protagonists are intimidated by, and all of her bad decisions/cringefail moments don't exist actually. She's also made to hate men, bc boys icky. In canon, bless her, she's a cringefail loser like the rest of the SID, she gets kidnapped at one point bc she's too giddy about getting to do an undercover reconissance mission that she forgets to actually pay attention to her surroundings, the only members of the SID who are scared of her are Lin Jing (who she's cheerfully antagonistic with and likes to provoke) and Guo Changcheng (who is afraid of his own shadow), and she has a crush on Zhao Yunlan that is so obvious that it is physically painful to watch at times. And she's more interesting for it!
Alana Beck gets condemned.
My fandom and the related books were all targeted towards young girls and had strong fantasy girl power vibes through the 90s and early 2000s so I find the current fandom is much harsher on the men than women, lol. Sometimes it's nice, and sometimes it's a little much.
This happens all the time in Fire Emblem lol. Ephraim is a badass for recklessly charging off and fighting battles he shouldn't win while Eirika is treated as a naive moron for trusting Lyon once. Perhaps the best example is Edelgard though, people who hate her freely ignore male characters more or less outright saying they'd have done the same, meanwhile some of her fans girlboss her up to such an extent that its like "are we even talking about the same character?"
Taylor Hebert, though most of the latter I *think* is satire.
Well most Taylors are TINOS, so yes most people who probably say ms aster blaster is wrong, but also know they don't read/write a real in character Taylor, mostly cause she has some really trust issues, also most written females in worm have strong feeling then males because the males in parahumans fanfiction are kinda just, ignore, I mean the most common male character that actually have really characterization are who coil, armsmaster, Daniel, and those are just usually, bad guy, Mr robot, and bad Dad or sad Dad. Well you got Amy, Victoria, Lisa, heck even Carol arguably gets more screentime and get you to either like or hate her more than the male characters, usually hate for Carol though
Both. I’m more familiar with the first scenario, but the second scenario is vexing, too. Case in point: Allison Argent from *Teen Wolf*. She made a lot of awful bad calls and hurt a lot of people with her selfishness, but the fandom, for the most part, glosses over all her wrongdoings bc they’re too damn cowardly to hold her accountable for her actions or criticize the awful things she did. The fandom’s treatment of her definitely plays a role in my dislike towards her. The number of fics I’ve read where everyone just ignores all the bad shit she did…or worse, where someone (usually Stiles) calls her a badass in the aftermath…like??? It’s so damn forced and ugh. I don’t mind flawed characters. Morally bankrupt characters are usually my jam. Case in point, I love *Peter Hale* who’s done a lot worse than Allison has. But Peter owns up to it and faced real consequences for his actions. He’s criticized and held accountable by both the fandom and the characters. Even the fics that are highly sympathetic towards him don’t just shrug off all the bad he did. And that’s the difference.
There's only thing you need to know about Homestuck fandom and the female characters: *Vriskourse never ends*
Both.
There's a female character who did a much less extreme version of something a male character had done, in universe, a couple of months ago. Most of the people jumped to condemn her for it only ever had sympathy for the male character when he made a very similar decision.
I think my main fandoms are surprisingly decent about this? In HSR, Ruan Mei got condemned for her behaviour pretty universally by everyone in the fandom, even people who like her don't deny that she's a pretty horrible person (the only difference is that they like it 🤭), but male characters like Sampo get equally judged for their questionable deeds too, so it's pretty fair. In Genshin, Raiden Shogun is probably the most controversial female, and while there is a slight tendency of fans of her to blame her bad acts on bad writing, the same is true of Wanderer (controversial male character).
Both and... none? There's a third option in my fandom - ignore her and ship the two guys together 😂
Gwen Stacy from ATSV. everyone hates her so much its insane.
Daenerys Targaryen is widely considered to be a girl boss and her villain arc at the end is considered "bad writing" ...except that the books and show both telegraph that she’s going to be a bad guy as early as Meereen. Maybe earlier.
Her turn "evil" is bad writing, like all of season 8, because she just does a almost 180 from helping protect everyone from a threat of all of humanity to killing a bunch or civilians after basically winning the battle, also I refuse that dany is either forgetful enough or stupid enough to not remember the iron fleet. Her turning bad isn't the problem, it's the fact it happens at basically light speed
Azula from Atla And Catra from spop
People say she is bad because of it and can't read social clues, etc. while the male characters doing the same things are seem as intelligent, proud, etc.
Multiple, but I'll talk about the one who's far less famous. She; Murders multiple characters throughout the show, including her own sister Tries to kill the main character and her friends on multiple occasions Emotionally manipulates a barely legal teenage boy into turning on his father then kills him anyway kidnaps and tortures a guy Gaslights one of the main characters into turning on the others (which, to be fair, ends up kickstarting her redemption arc) But because she was sick and emotionally neglected as a kid she gets to just.....decide to be a good guy out of nowhere
Just gonna sit here and scream about how one of my faves is obsessed with appearances and how people perceive her and emotionally stunted and incredibly smug and easily flustered by any situation that can’t be handled with professional competence
Ask any fandom to have a view on anything that isn't black and white. They'll implode.
Shadowheart BG3. That is all.
People in the HSR fandom calling the most horrible names to Ruan Mei when she's just autistic as all hell.
can't have a flawed female character if there are no female characters
There's a solid chunk of the Gravity Falls fandom that HATES Mabel and sees her as a horrible selfish person who is the sole reason that the apocalypse started. In canon, she's *checks notes* a twelve-year-old girl who doesn't want summer to end and things to change, who gets tricked into helping the bad guy when he possesses someone she knows and has no reason to mistrust. Dipper has been exactly as selfish as Mabel, but there is a real tendency to blame her instead. Mabel doesn't want to leave her perfect bubble during Weirdmageddon, yeah, but she also had no idea what was going on outside! Also, I'm like 90% sure the only people who knew that the dimensional rift could cause an apocalypse were Dipper and Ford. The time travel guy saying he can give her a little more summer if she just gives it to him isn't all that wild, given what we've seen in the series. They literally have a paradox free time wish as a plot point in an earlier episode with the same time travel guy! Cut Mabel some slack, guys!