Oversexualized female characters
I've read many webnovels and came to realized that most female characters are described as pretty. It's nothing bad to be pretty but 1st impression narrations of MCs tends to over detailed their appearance by how much pretty said girl is like emphasis on sexiness or huge boobs and such.
Even male characters either mc or supporting characters are sometimes portrayed as ordinary or sinister looking but female characters are just different kind of prettiness and exaggerations like old witches are portrayed as young woman or the supposed cold female team leader still flawless pretty despite being an active melee fighter where wounds and scars are common and etc .Like can't we have barbaric woman, exhausted looked- female teachers ordinary nerd girl genius as supporting characters without romantic entanglements.Webnovels without this are hard to find
KR Webnovels are more and more like jp mangas and novels with pretty females and harem setting as mainstream with downgrading quality full of fanservice.
Messages
The point about old women- WHY ARE ALL OLD WITCHES HELLA YOUNG? There is nothing ugly in being grown up, or older, our mind gets poisoned with the idea that life and our stories reach
Its peak when we are 21 year olds- like older women are the most interesting characters for Christ's sake WRITE THEM, PAINT THEM WITH DIGNITY imagine how intriguing the plot can become when you release your characters from those "ugh pose sexily, blush more, be attractive, don't age, make babyface" frame
Like it's not like the novel wouldn't survive without pretty female characters. Many novels have amazing premise but my aversion to harem-like atmospheres makes me lose interest in most of them midway reading. It's hard to distinguish them without reading it but 1st signs usually appears within 20chapters. I distinguish it based on how MC describe a 1st appearance of a female character(potential supporting) and MCs intro monologue like aspirations, fantasies and past. If MC have fantasies of debauch life with many pretty girls in 1st few chs. that's a big NO but if MC only want money and early retirement or only wanted to create a family with wife and 1 daughter then it's still SAFE.
Like 1 pretty heroine love interest is okay but 5-8 pretty girls and centered around MC is a big NO and I get averse by it and automatically drop it . I like balance ratio like ORV and TCF.
Fr like in fantasy mangas for eg, the women most of the time are given healer-type magic or is made to be a pretty elf and it's just gets boring and weird cuz im like u have these amazing ideas for male characters, but for female characters, its the same overdone bs. Either the woman will betray the mc or is a characterless love interest that only relies on the main male character. Even when it comes to armor, like, why are u giving men these good armour that hides everything, and then u give a woman a really short skirt with a metal plate that doesn't even cover her boobs and leave it at that LIKE????? Fanservice, esp when it includes minors should be stopped!
fantasy that targets a male audience is the absolute worst. tried to watch SAO and it’s literally what u just described. PLUS HAREMS?? ew
so reallll i hateeeeeee sao sm. Fantasy targeted towards men+harems gotta go onto the hall of fame of the worst themes/trope
this is so true, i’m so glad u mentioned this! just the other day I was on a light novel website and one of the tags was “beautiful female lead” and i just thought for a moment like: does that really need to be a tag?
i just found it odd how something so insignificant has a tag and if people only read things with beautiful main characters
Yeah but no one wants to see that
id love realistic portrayals of women . i’m sick of authors putting this stigma that no matter how or where a women is, she must be attractive
The authors don't want that themselves, but hell they manage to make rather mid-looking characters anyway
REALLL but i doubt it'll stop
RIGHT
it’s common for there to be average male MCs but no one wants to do the same for girls if anything, they’ll just SAY she’s ugly but still draw her drop dead gorgeous (but then add freckles bc that makes u ‘ugly’ for some reason)