…

“I don’t buy this garbage about how female characters need to always be role models. Let me tell you something. Reading about an enforced ‘role model’ is about as interesting as watching paint dry. I want to read about CHARACTERS . Characters who aren’t created to pound a message into your head or be who i’m supposed to be but characters who tell a story.” Amen. I sort of picked up on that double-standard from reviews of Bad Teachers. Cameron Diaz’s character is a pretty awful person (a la George Constanza from Seinfeld or pretty much every guy on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), but I think reviewers came down harder on her character than comparable male characters.*

*Also, it probably didn’t help that the writing wasn’t very funny. I think viewers give the writers more latitude when the writing is entertaining.

OH MY WORD THIS. Totally this. That is also my big pet peeve more than anything. It’s why I hate Groin Attack Humor so much. Just augh…..

In my opinion I like characters who are just….female. It’s not a big deal, they’re not better or worse than anyone else they just are. I hate how people think there are female traits and male traits. No. there are female and male PEOPLE.

I don’t buy this garbage about how female characters need to always be role models. Let me tell you something. Reading about an enforced “role model” is about as interesting as watching paint dry. I want to read about CHARACTERS . Characters who aren’t created to pound a message into your head or be who i’m supposed to be but characters who tell a story.

Also no double standards please. No moments where one gender does something and its wrong while another gender does something and its okay. I hate those. Being a certain gender should not change whether something is morally right or not. Because gender has nothing to do with it. If it’s wrong for females its wrong for males and if it’s wrong for males its wrong for females.

I hate female characters that come along and treat all males like dirt or just act like jerks to anyone as a show of “Girl power” . Eugh no. We have a word for that on TV Tropes. Jerk Sues. That is not “Girl Power” . In my opinion ‘Empowerment’ of one gender should not equal ‘hating the other gender or finding them inferior. How would you feel if a man said that treating women like they’re weak and or hysterical/dumb was ‘male empowerment? It’s the same thing. A female kicking people around and treating others like crap isn’t cool It’s freaking annoying.

I was going to name types and cliches, but really, it all depends on what the story needs, what type of story it is. A well-written character has what the story needs, and a badly written character does not. As that’s a little vague, I’ll try to elaborate, but I’m not sure that I can do so and make it universal. But where there are exceptions, I’ll try to name them.

I would say the rule of thumb is not to make the character seem special just for being female. Don’t make her better or worse developed than other characters because of her femaleness. Don’t make her more or less competent because of her femaleness. And don’t you dare make her the only female important to the story. (EXCEPTION: A world or species in which one gender is much less common than the other for an explained reason, such as a species based on ants or bees)

That’s not to say you can’t make the character different from male characters because of her femaleness. Fighters are a good example. Given equivalent training, a woman will be less physically strong and more physically flexible than a man. This makes for interesting differences in fighting style, if you have a cast of male and female characters with equivalent training. Similarly, men and women think differently, on average. A female engineer may be the one of two women in her class, and feel challenged in having to fit in with the guys, or make friends with a girl she has very little in common with.

But show diversity. Usually, there is more variation within sexes than between them. Do not cast all your female characters from the same mold, and vice versa for the males. Men and women are different on average, but averages aren’t absolutes.

Useless characters bug me as much as…as… (struggles to come up with a metaphor) as they bug other people, ’nuff said. That doesn’t mean I have a problem with physically weak female characters, with nonviolent female characters, with damsels in distress, or even with submissive female characters. But none of those things should equate to uselessness. A damsel in distress can be written well, too.

Also (done to death as well) men in dresses. Not actual crossdressers, that’d be interesting to see. But female characters who are just like male ones. There are two types of this:

1. A female character who is literally a distaff counterpart. These characters are superfluous, and usually just cheap knockoffs of the original. Female characters must be characters in their own right.

2. A female character who is an over the top masculine stereotype, where no justification is given. I’m fine with masculine female characters when there is a justification for why they are masculine (and no, she’s a lesbian is not a justification, it’s an even worse stereotype). Maybe they were raised by a single dad. Maybe they are bigendered/agendered/androgynes. Maybe they dislike their own femininity, consider it weak, and repress it. And maybe they are just tomboys, but if that is so, don’t write every competent female character as a big tomboy, and do give them other traits besides tomboy.

Also hated: Beauty Is Never Tarnished (it’s a trope, look it up). A waifish female character can still be plenty useful. She can be agile, intelligent, ruthless, or persistent. But DO NOT make her the physically strongest character in the story, unless there is some sort of magic going on. And while we’re at it, don’t let strong women get out of battle without (PHYSICAL) battle scars. Male characters have them, so why can’t females? Thirdly, in most media, ugly/fat female characters either don’t exist, or are treated in an unsympathetic manner. Try to do better.

But all of these have some exceptions, and none of them are my biggest pet peeve. My one, my only, my BIGGEST PET PEEVE is villainous female characters who get treated as heroic because they’re female. As for the type I mean, I mean the manhater who is shown to be strong, witty, and justified where a misogynist character would be considered unjustifiable. Or the female character who kicks her boyfriend in the groin and no one considers it abusive. The female villain who is treated as “just misguided/misunderstood” and is spared or reforms so that she doesn’t have to be killed where all the male villains are. The verbally abusive, henpecking wife situation where the characters have the audacity to condemn the husband for being a victim, rather than the wife for being an abuser. STOP IT! It’s okay to show villainous female characters, and it’s okay to give them their comeuppance like you do with male characters. In fact, it is your duty to do so. Not doing so is sexist against men, which is just as bad and perhaps more prevalent than sexism against women.

(Since this Thread discusses female characters, I thought this would be the place to put it)

….First of all my outline does call for Amber to experience a heel face turn…but not right away. You’d notice that I included the line ‘she almost believed it too’, right after she swears to be good. I realize that those types of things take longer, and its supposed to take over half the novel before it happens. There’s also a bit of complicated stuff, which is not to spoil my final chapters, but I think the pivotal moment will ‘speak for itself’.

…I can’t give everything away, but as was implied two chapters ago, and in the first chapter… Amber has committed murder/cannibalism before. (Werewolves are conscious when they transform)

It takes a lot for a person like that to change, but I’m definitely not using the cliched
methods so often found in most works.

I think I answered why Reyes was so upset at Amber. In the last chapter I mentioned how Reyes thought she could be reformed, against his better judgement. He’s been pretty much ignoring her manipulative behavior, telling himself that she’s not as bad as he knows she is.

That’s why he felt her assault on his brother was just the final slap in the face.

….Another thing I can definitely promise… is what everyone’s been waiting for:

Next chapter will be written from Mendoza’s POV!

*Trust me, Mendoza is completely his own character.*

For the wings and tail, they will come out of Macy when she is about to fight. She does go to school, so that would be like her day job. The tail would be moving like a cat tail almost. It would be able to pick things up and perfect for fights, like tripping foes or knocking them over. Since she can go through solid objects, Macy can also drag foes into them to, except the foes won’t be able to move like she can.

One thing that Macy is has trouble seeing in is bright light.
Her weakness by the way is emeralds. Yeah I daydreamed about her weakness being green at first but I didn’t know what the green thing was. Emeralds will attach onto her and her tail and wings will go back into her body. Macy will lose her powers until the emerald gets off of her.
About the superhero name; Would any of these work with Shadow as the nickname?
Vast Shadow
Hidden Shadow
Silent Shadow
Swift Shadow
Shadowstar
Shadow

…

Macy does have some of my personality give or take some characteristics. I’ve actually daydreamed about being a superhero. Similar to Macy. Not in the Mary Sue way. But hair and eye colors stayed the same. Age stayed the same. The personality and flaws were changed.

Macy is stubborn and has a sharp tongue. She’s sorta reckless when under presure. Macy is determined to do the right thing and she’s reliable. She is about revenge and enjoys taunting foes……………unless they are stronger then Macy and are trying to kill her. Because of her shadow powers, she is silent when she walks, runs, or jumps.
Macy’s main goal is to defeat the leader of villains. Her name is Hecate. Hecate can summon demons from the underworld and never fights fair. Macy will team up with a friend that she made named Luana. Luana’s family was killed by Hecate and I still haven’t decided if Macy’s family will die the same way.
Macy is half-demon. When she gets really mad, her eyes will turn red and she will have fangs for teeth. Her demon side is violent, destructive, and stronger. So after Hecate is defeated, the demon will leave Macy and there’s a new foe. An even deadlyer one.
Luana is a psychic with long pink moving hair which is the source of her powers. I did read about psychic problems, but for Luana, anything that she picks up with her powers will glow pink. Other then that she can heal wounds and fly by floating.
Macy is lead to fight Hecate and later her demon from Hecate’s plan. Hecate is finding heroes and giving them a choice. Join the villains or die. Luana refused. Macy will refuse. Macy is a student by day with an enemy at school. Nancy and everyone who is in Nancy’s group.

I’m going to try and learn to draw so I can illistrate my book or comic book. I don’t want to take a chance on the cover and having the picture be wrong. I see that on books often which really annoys me. I’m on chapter 7 so far.

I would recommend swapping out “invisible air” for something like the ability to blend into shadows. (It’s a bit more coherent with the shadow theme).

Macy has a tail. She’s human, right? In a comic book, it could be a bit tricky to give a human protagonist a tail without it looking strange. What sort of visual style were you thinking on those?

The character doesn’t look extremely powerful, but regeneration and invisibility would probably make it pretty hard for regular mooks to challenge her. I think weakish supervillains could challenge her. (For one thing, I imagine some of her powers wouldn’t work very well if bright lights were on, so there are some pretty simple ways to surprise her).

Besides the potential issue of the hero looking strange, I think the tail will give you interesting visual opportunities during combat.

Macy is an unexpectedly cheerful-sounding name for a shadow-themed character. Fresh!

“Dark Shadow”–> I would recommend swapping out “Dark” for an adjective that says more. Shadows are already dark, so it’s a bit redundant.

…

Some questions about things besides superpowers:

What’s her personality like? What’s her main goal?

She seems unusually young to be a superhero. What led her to make that decision? Is she a student by day?

I think “Shadow” would make a more natural nickname than “Dark.”

Name: Macy
Superhero name: Dark Shadow
Super nickname: Dark
Age: 13
Hair: brunette
Eyes: brown
Height: 5 ft 2″
Macy has two primary powers; dark energy and sorta an hard to decribe this power but I’ll say what it can do.
Dark Manipulation: Self explanitory

Other power: Turn body into liquid, elastic body, she can arrange her body parts, mutate herself, she can aborb color and change it, she can shift her weight. by that I mean she can become light enough to stand in the air or even lift herself with one finger, she can regenerate, she can go inside of solid objects like the ground or a wall and flies inside with her wings

Invisible air: She can turn the air surrounding her invisible. Macy must be careful though not to fly to fast and go out of the invisible air plus it’s difficult to attack while inside of it

Flight: Macy can fly/glide with these tendrils coming from her back instead of wings. At the end of the tentrils are some kind of………..gosh ard to describe but it’s webbed to glide through the air I guess……….

Tail: Macy has a long and thick tail that is about as tall has her. Her tail moves and is like an extra hand. Her tail is used for tripping foes, and pulling them a couple feet into the ground. Easy win on weak villains? Macy’s tail is what balances her while she flies. If she loses her tail or wings and must get them back since those can’t be regenerated, story idea?

Costume: Black leggings and black long sleeve top. Black tail and wings. Black mask. Actually black everything since Macy can disapear into the shadows.

I think that’s all about Macy~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m just still a bit worried about them.

And glad that I rewrote my novel when I did. Otherwise this would be a direct attack on my writing.