This is where Avatar fandom needs a hug

[lizbee]

I was looking over the nominations at rarewomen, and it sort of struck me that Avatar fandom is kind of well-off, in that I don't think there are any named female characters who are badly ignored by fandom.  Kya, maybe -- you don't see much Kya fic -- but for everyone else, if you said, "Hey, I really want a fic about Yugoda," or Kanna, or Song, or On-Ji, I've seen some around.  I mean, their representation in fic is more or less proportionate to their appearances in the show, but they're not actively ignored by fandom.

...okay, I can't think of a single fic about the Herbalist from "The Blue Spirit".  So there's that.

Comments

[loopy777]

I'm proud to be responsible for 50% of the Aunt Wu fic on fanfiction.net as of this writing. Granted, that's only one story, but to my dubious credit, I kept an eye on the character list and updated my fic to include her as soon as she was available.

Granted, she makes lots of cameo appearances in more involved fic.

[lizbee]

Two fics on all of FF.net probably counts as under-representation for Aunt Wu. *reluctantly concedes*

[ambyr]

You probably saw it, but I put together a list of eligible female Avatar characters over in the comm. Numbers in parens are the number of ff.n stories they show up in. Loads of women I want to know more about!

(And I have a WIP with the Herbalist in it as a supporting character...)

[lizbee]

I didn't see that list! Otherwise I probably wouldn't have made this post, since actual numbers trump my vague remembrance of ... stuff. I can't believe there's no Li and Lo fic!

[ambyr]

Me neither! I have some drabbles about them I should probably stick on AO3, but still, that's drabbles. They're definitely going on my nomination list if no one else does 'em. Talk about characters in need of development.

[recessional]

First disclaimer is that, as well we know, I live in my little corner and ignore everything else, so I have no idea what happens at ff.n or whatever.

But I think the thing I've noticed in my happy little corner is that interest in/etc the major female characters is plentiful, and the interest in minor female characters is at the very least ON PAR with the interest in minor male characters. And that none of this arises in a concerted "push back" against a dominance of attention to male characters - that it arises organically, out of what people want to read/write/draw/whatever.

[lizbee]

I think you've probably expressed my feelings better than I did -- this isn't a fandom dominated by Any Two Guys slash pairings or anything like that. And it's pretty easy to ignore the dominant pairings of Kataang and Zutara, because whatever ship wars there were in the past, they pretty much keep to themselves these days. (Except on FF.net where you still sometimes get Mai-bashing fic labelled as Mai fic, but I usually hop around looking at people's favourites rather than browsing at random.)

[avendya]

This!