The Great Fandom Myth about a lack of “strong female characters”

[littlesammy]

Hi. I'm Sammy. Some (few) of you may know me from back in the day when I dabbled in male/male fandoms and I was kinda hopelessly crushing on the Sentinel boys and Benton Fraser and RayK. It was a fun time... mostly. Because the male/male fandom is a wonderful and creative and supportive place, and they get a lot of shit done, as a fandom collective

Comments

[trueromantic_1]

YES! Yes to all of this

[littlesammy]

I agree completely on all of this, and it actually brings up another pet peeve of mine - the imo idiot mantra of "You don't need a guy to complete you, you need to realize you can be perfectly happy on your own

[littlesammy]

Funny enough, this just popped up on my Tumblr dashboard and I'm pretty sure you'll get a kick out of it.

[ext_1171099]

I agree.

And I have thought this for a very long time.

I like what George R. R. Martin said when asked how he could write such strong and realistic female characters.

He said "I write people."

[gingerstorm101]

I love love love what you have to say about this!

[ext_3578473]

Late to the party (again), but I just wanted to add my hearty AMEN to this. Strong characters (male or female) aren't the ones who are perfect; they're the ones who mess up but keep on trying. Some of my favorites have been ones that have had me going, "Yup, been there, done that." And sometimes I've wanted to reach through the screen or pages and shake them because they're being stupid. Because I care. And I care because the author has made them real, human. Those are the kinds of characters I want to see. :)

[nelly40430]

I saw a lot of that during my slash years in the respective fandoms Back then I had a few discussion