Bad feminist. No biscuit.

[baratron]

I realised last night, I'm on page 37 of my novel and there hasn't been a single female character yet. Not one with actual dialogue. One's mentioned in passing and the other is a horse - I hardly think this counts. The only exception would be if you don't know that I Only Write Slash and assume that the first-person narrator is a woman. Damn!

This is doubly annoying since it's fanfiction, so I'm stuck using the characters who exist in canon. In the scenes with the Blades (the Emperor's bodyguards), I've tried to use the female ones, but there are only two of those. Even worse - and for this I really am a bad feminist who won't be getting any biscuits, my original character Alix moans about a couple of female Mages Guildhall heads. Both of them are incredibly annoying & incompetent in the game: one, who only cares about her own research, not about the welfare of her fellow mages; and another, who has virtually no magical ability whatsoever and only got the job because of who she knew.

This really sucks and I don't know how to fix it. There is a female alchemist, and Oleta, the country's best Restoration trainer, who both have to be written into the chapter I couldn't face writing - oh, and a woman town guard. That's about Chapter 3 of this, if the novel was structured like that. Oleta comes up again in the second-to-last chapter when Alix is completely broken following [MAJOR SPOILER]. There's also a female archivist in the Mages Guild Library who has a part somewhere around the middle. Apart from those, I'd be adding women for the sake of adding women. Hmm.

In other news, I will be at neither the bisexual activists' weekend nor Birmingham BiFest. My body is beyond broken right now. In fact, I've had so much time for writing due to being completely unable to sleep because of pain :/ Right now I can walk about 5 m, and it's fricking agony. Dragging my arse into College today for the first time in two weeks, then home to collapse with the laptop. Urgh.

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Comments

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Empress Martina Septim (http://baratron.livejournal.com/734653.html)? The thought of that makes my brain break.

To borrow stellarwind's description, "That makes me think of one of those over-sexualized RPG female characters - but STILL WITH SEAN BEAN'S VOICE!"

Also *shuffles feet in embarrassment* I have A Thing for Hot Boy On Boy Action, and do not have A Thing for Hot Girl On Girl Action, unless I happen to be one of the girls. It's very odd, that.

And I find hurt/comfort squicky if the person being hurt and then comforted is female. It's too... close to real life. Whereas it's the biggest kink I have if they're male.

So, in short... the only way I could write it genderswitched would be to leave Alix and Martin as male, and then switch some of the minor characters. Which I think would just be Odd, and would change some of the dynamics (especially if the monks ended up as nuns - do there exist anywhere orders of nuns who are retired soldiers and keep swords stashed away under their habits? Actually, that in itself is awesome enough that I might have to write a short fic just with the monks).

[firecat]

I totally want to see fic about retired soldier nuns with swords under their habits. :)

That aside, I think you should write your fic exactly the way you want it even if it doesn't have female characters. Writing exactly what you please is feminist in and of itself.