(I promise this post is not as inflammatory as the title suggests, lol. Bear with me).
I was just thinking the other day about how, when I was younger, all my favourite characters (whether it be from TV, movie, or book) were female. All my favourite toys were female.
Now, this may be because I'm a cis girl and identified pretty strongly with feminine things (and later grew up to be attracted to women). Basically, if it had pretty hair and a pretty dress, I loved it.
Until I started reading slash fic.
The internet became a Thing when I was 10, and I discovered fanfic when I was about 12-13. And then I discovered "yaoi." And I don't know if it was just an anime fandom thing, or if this was typical of ALL fandoms at the time, but there was a pretty strong culture of hating any and all female characters that interfered with ones otp. Which was then carried forward 100x over when it came to female OCs (Mary Sues). Pretty soon all of my favourite characters were men.
Fast forward over a decade later, and I'm in my 30s kind of re-learning how to like and identify with female characters.
This was really ramble-y and not well thought out, sorry. I was just wondering if anyone else might have the same experience.
When did you start hating female characters?
I was just thinking the other day about how, when I was younger, all my favourite characters (whether it be from TV, movie, or book) were female. All my favourite toys were female.
Now, this may be because I'm a cis girl and identified pretty strongly with feminine things (and later grew up to be attracted to women). Basically, if it had pretty hair and a pretty dress, I loved it.
Until I started reading slash fic.
The internet became a Thing when I was 10, and I discovered fanfic when I was about 12-13. And then I discovered "yaoi." And I don't know if it was just an anime fandom thing, or if this was typical of ALL fandoms at the time, but there was a pretty strong culture of hating any and all female characters that interfered with ones otp. Which was then carried forward 100x over when it came to female OCs (Mary Sues). Pretty soon all of my favourite characters were men.
Fast forward over a decade later, and I'm in my 30s kind of re-learning how to like and identify with female characters.
This was really ramble-y and not well thought out, sorry. I was just wondering if anyone else might have the same experience.