I’m so sick of the whole attitude people in this fandom have of “If you think these female characters are pricks, why don’t you hate the male characters just as much? Obviously it’s just misogyny.” First off, quite often I DO also hate the male characters just as much as the female characters with similar behaviors. I hate both Melanie AND Tim. I think they’re both frustrating to listen to, because I don’t like people who make their anger everyone else’s problem, regardless of how justified that anger might be. I’m an equal opportunity hater, and it’s very irritating to me when people assume otherwise.
Plus a lot of the male characters started out tolerable and then became more blatantly dickish over time, whereas characters like Basira, Daisy, and Melanie showed a lot of their most hateable traits (like being a cop or being an asshole to everyone around them) in the beginning and then got better over time. And it can be a lot easier to hold a grudge than it is to grow to hate a character you already like. Especially for me personally, because I’m very loyal to those who I like, but I’m really not the forgiving sort.
((CW for mentions of police brutality and SA) Plus, sometimes it’s just that some of the characters have shitty behaviors that feel more grounded in reality than others. As a kid, I was never told to be careful not to cross paths with a scary Eye man who will force me to tell him all my secrets. Because that’s not something that happens irl. But when I was younger, I WAS told not to fight back if an on-duty cop tried to rape me, because if they arrested me for assaulting an officer, it would be my word against theirs. So emotionally, I have a much stronger reaction to, say, Daisy doing police brutality than I do to Jon doing spooky shit, and I think I’m perfectly justified in that reaction.)
Anyways, I just want to be a hater in peace without having to try to prove that I don’t hate my entire gender. 90% of my favorite fictional characters are women. I’m allowed to have 3 fictional women who I don’t like.
.