In all types of media?
I'm partial to Willow and Tara from Buffy (despite how their storyline played out...); young me was such a fan and it felt so groundbreaking to see them as a couple on TV. I also really adore Callie from Grey's Anatomy, she's got such spirit and I loved watching her realize her bisexuality. The Wire has one of the greatest TV characters of all time, Omar, a gay man on the wrong side of the law; I did like the lesbian cop Kima too, but I mean, no one's as cool as Omar. (He's based on a real person, and they had to literally tone down the awesomeness for the character to be believable.) Then there's The L Word, though I stopped watching after season 3- it has some polarizing characters I was quite fond of, like Jenny the neurotic, slightly pretentious writer coming to realize she's gay... and some simply adorable characters, like Alice and Dana.
In terms of books, the ones who've made the biggest impression on me are Anne Rice's gothic, romantic bisexual vampires Louis, Lestat, and Armand. She has written some great bi women (she tends to shy away from writing fully gay/lesbian characters) but they are usually more minor ones, and don't carry their own stories like the highly entertaining Lestat. I'm thinking of the 1920's flapper witch Stella from The Witching Hour as an example of a great but sadly minor bi woman character. (I mean come on- a 20's bi flapper witch, she should have had her own spinoff novel...) I did also really become attached to Lynn Flewelling's Seregil and Alec in the Nightrunner espionage fantasy series. And Richard Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes grimdark fantasy trilogy stars not just an awesome, wiseass gay male war hero, but an equally awesome lesbian war hero (who is a sort of half-human half-alien but the aliens in question are depicted like fantasy novels usually depict high elves).
Sadly there aren't as many (positive) depictions of trans characters in any media... I did think the trans woman character Ricky in Boy Meets Girl was very endearing, and thankfully they chose an actual trans woman to play the part. I've been trying to get into Sense8 because it's an interesting premise but something about the story-telling is off to me... they do seem to have a pretty cool lesbian (bi?) trans woman on that show, though, named Nomi. She's a blogger and "hacktivist" and also played by a trans woman actress. (Not surprising the Wachowski sisters would handle the issue well, given that they're both trans women themselves- oh and speaking of the Wachowskis, I ADORE the 90's lesbian film noir Bound, I highly recommend it!!)
EDITED because I forgot to mention the women in my forum avatar! They're not explicitly confirmed to be in love but I mean.... it's a bit more than subtext. Fang and Vanille, from a video game, Final Fantasy 13! (Fang literally says at one point of Vanille "I'd tear down the sky if it'd save her.")
Fellow AWers, who are your favs?
I'm partial to Willow and Tara from Buffy (despite how their storyline played out...); young me was such a fan and it felt so groundbreaking to see them as a couple on TV. I also really adore Callie from Grey's Anatomy, she's got such spirit and I loved watching her realize her bisexuality. The Wire has one of the greatest TV characters of all time, Omar, a gay man on the wrong side of the law; I did like the lesbian cop Kima too, but I mean, no one's as cool as Omar. (He's based on a real person, and they had to literally tone down the awesomeness for the character to be believable.) Then there's The L Word, though I stopped watching after season 3- it has some polarizing characters I was quite fond of, like Jenny the neurotic, slightly pretentious writer coming to realize she's gay... and some simply adorable characters, like Alice and Dana.
In terms of books, the ones who've made the biggest impression on me are Anne Rice's gothic, romantic bisexual vampires Louis, Lestat, and Armand. She has written some great bi women (she tends to shy away from writing fully gay/lesbian characters) but they are usually more minor ones, and don't carry their own stories like the highly entertaining Lestat. I'm thinking of the 1920's flapper witch Stella from The Witching Hour as an example of a great but sadly minor bi woman character. (I mean come on- a 20's bi flapper witch, she should have had her own spinoff novel...) I did also really become attached to Lynn Flewelling's Seregil and Alec in the Nightrunner espionage fantasy series. And Richard Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes grimdark fantasy trilogy stars not just an awesome, wiseass gay male war hero, but an equally awesome lesbian war hero (who is a sort of half-human half-alien but the aliens in question are depicted like fantasy novels usually depict high elves).
Sadly there aren't as many (positive) depictions of trans characters in any media... I did think the trans woman character Ricky in Boy Meets Girl was very endearing, and thankfully they chose an actual trans woman to play the part. I've been trying to get into Sense8 because it's an interesting premise but something about the story-telling is off to me... they do seem to have a pretty cool lesbian (bi?) trans woman on that show, though, named Nomi. She's a blogger and "hacktivist" and also played by a trans woman actress. (Not surprising the Wachowski sisters would handle the issue well, given that they're both trans women themselves- oh and speaking of the Wachowskis, I ADORE the 90's lesbian film noir Bound, I highly recommend it!!)
EDITED because I forgot to mention the women in my forum avatar! They're not explicitly confirmed to be in love but I mean.... it's a bit more than subtext. Fang and Vanille, from a video game, Final Fantasy 13! (Fang literally says at one point of Vanille "I'd tear down the sky if it'd save her.")
Fellow AWers, who are your favs?
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