Female Besties?

Seconding all of these: Azumanga Daioh! – they really do feel like an actual group of teenage girls, which is a ridiculously hard thing to find. Other ‘moe’ shows (and I really don’t think Azumanga fits that definition, but I won’t go into that here ) prefer to stuff their female characters into nerd fantasy boxes rather than let them act like real people, but this show thankfully avoids that trap. It’s sadly refreshing.

Haibane Renmei – another show which is all about its female ensemble cast, and the friendships in particular between Rakka and Reki, and also Rakka and Kuu, are so well-written and moving. I won’t give spoilers here, but it’s obvious throughout the story that these women and girls care deeply for each other.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic – like Azumanga, this one’s great at representing the diversity of women and of the friendships we can have, which is especially impressive given that its target audience is 8-year-olds. I don’t care, I love it Just because Rarity’s the frilliest pony in town doesn’t mean she can’t get along with the down-to-earth Applejack, for example. And while Fluttershy might be gentle, she certainly isn’t weak when it comes to standing up for her friends. We need more kids’ shows like this, for sure!

Aaand adding some mentions of my own! Angelic Layer has quite a few good female friendships, and the main one is between Misaki and Hatoko. They bond over playing Angelic Layer, and both of them being a lot smaller and younger than any of the other players. Eventually they team up and work together in the final round of the tournament, and kick much doll ass.

Black Lagoon has about as many good female as male characters, which is unusual for a show so centred around action, in particular Revy and Edda. Edda’s a nun, Revy’s a pirate, they get drunk together and wreck shit up and it’s a lot of fun. (Just a quick warning though – there are some skeevy bits and some pretty triggering storylines, especially in second season, so look it up first if that would be an issue for you.)

Higurashi (When The Cicadas Cry) has an almost entirely female main cast, and while it looks like your standard new-dude-and-a-bunch-of-girls harem anime setup to begin with… It’s actually a horror. Each arc has a different character get cursed and kill everyone else, and the only cure is friendship! It’s much better than it sounds, and all of the main cast care a lot about each other.

Some games too, since I can’t seem to stop rambling! Final Fantasy is actually pretty good for this, and I remember X, X-2 and XIII in particular all have great friendships in them. In X, Yuna and Lulu seem to respect each other greatly – Yuna as the summoner who has to give her life for the world and Lulu as her guardian who will protect her until she does that. Then in X-2 the main trio of Yuna, Rikku and Paine go around being treasure hunters and it’s all a bit silly but still really fun. In XIII you have Vanille and Fang, whose friendship is basically the entire reason for the plot and way too deep and awesome to give the space it deserves here.

And Recettear! You’ve got Recette, a young girl who has to turn her house into an item shop to settle her father’s debt, and Tear, the fairy debt collector who helps her. They don’t start on an equal footing, but by the end they’re pretty close friends. The many other female characters you can recruit as party members are all really enjoyable, and a more minor character, Alouette, quite clearly just wants to be Recette’s friend behind all the rich-girl posturing.

I… Think I’m done? >.<

Heh. Buffy and Willow were the first example that popped into my mind too. Their friendship is pretty much absolute.

For a literary example, try Annice and Stasya in Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff. Essentially they’re bards in an open relationship because they spend months out of the year traveling around the land. Despite the fact the book opens with Annice pregnant by a man she slept with, this never really changes their relationship (aside from in the most practical ways)–Stasya is certainly never at any risk of being edged out.

I would avoid the other books, mainly because after the first certain preferences (like Staysa being a lesbian) are out the window and EVERYONE IS BISEXUAL (even being bi myself I find that really obnoxious) and suddenly every book has to end with the most contrived happy endings imaginable. Just so everyone’s happy. But the first book is awesome!

It is a very cool arc, which she gets to herself! It shouldn’t have to end like this – TV characters get shot all the time and go on just fine. Garcia did, even. Unless they make it utterly impossible, I’m going to assume that reports of Prentiss’s death will be exaggerated, and some future season will have her come out of witness protection and rejoin the cast. And then JJ leaves the Pentagon because she has ethical conflicts with her boss or something and rejoins the team too, because why not go all-out when inventing fantasy future seasons?

I’ve wanted to tip the Hathor Legacy crew off to the Australian TV series “Rain Shadow” for a long time. It’s a really well-written show about the two veterinarians in a small rural community (with a secret!). At first, the tough and experienced owner of the practice can’t stand the young bright-eyed assistant who wants to do everything by the book, and the assistant is severely put off by the town’s (and the boss’) secretive and rude attitude. But, over time they develop a grudging respect for each other, which slooowly turns into some kind of friendship. Just like a cop show! (Love them cop shows.) Except they’re both women! (And not cops, but veterinarians may be more similar to cops than I thought)

I made it sound way more cliché than I think it is, but their relationship really is based on a very male formula – as in, they both identify strongly with their work and their abilities, and serve the community in a way that is often considered stereotypically male. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the boss even has a dark secret extremely similar to the dark secrets of male loner heroes, except turned on its head. It was very refreshing to see a show about women that wasn’t a show about women. Being female is just one part of their lot in life, not their entire personality. I also loved seeing realistic women who actuallydo things, instead of just sitting around and sometimes talk to people a bit.

Also, I think a lot of shows/plots about women make a huge point about following your heart, which to me seems like it’s based on the stereotype that women are ruled by their feelings, but choosing to show the good consequenses of this, instead of the bad ones like more misogynist stories do. I’m not saying that following your heart is wrong – in a lot of situations it’s absolutely the right thing to do – but I think women even in shows that try to be feminist are too often painted as people who follow their hearts because they can’t choose anything else, like they don’t think about it and just know through their women’s intuition what to do. Not in “Rain Shadow”, though. These people have goals and morals and dilemmas! And internal conflicts about right and wrong that aren’t about which guy they should pick! And vaginas! Can you imagine?

*steps of soapbox*

True; lots going on with both of them.

Speaking of maybe-lovers, Carrie Stetko and Lily Sharpe from Greg Rucka’s Whiteout.

While it seems like one hell of a stretch to call them equals, Sarah Jane and Maria from the Sarah Jane Adventures follows a lovely arc from grumpy mentor and sidekick to friendship – culminating in a scene where Sarah Jane’s been told by a precog to give something to the person she trusts most in the world, and chooses Maria (Which I also like, because mentoring a bunch of kids in the fine art of alien-wrangling is something that Sarah Jane got to be grumpy about rather than maternal) (Maria’s been written out now though – her replacement character rocks too, but her dynamics are different).

Honourable mention: they’re not friends, exactly, but something that’s just as rare between female characters. The thing that more stayed with me from Caitlin R Kiernan’s Threshold was the relationship between Dancy and Sadie. Sadie is a rather bitter person, with carefully nurtured cynicism; Dancy is a drifter, running on empty, who’s given her life over to fighting monsters, because she doesn’t know of anyone else who can or will. And Sadie ends up deciding she has to help Dancy because she can’t live with not doing so – basically, Dancy inspires her. Sadly, they’re not the main part of the story (I like the main part too, don’t get me wrong, but Dancy and Sadie were special).

I just looked at my bookshelf, and the only thing I can think to add that isn’t already up here is the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Pretty sure everyone’s already at least heard of it, but it’s kind of about stories, and all 8 main characters are women in 2 different generational groupings so there are a lot of complicated relationships there, not the least in the stories they tell too.

I always saw Sarah Jane as a mentor to Maria (and later Rani). IMO the only female friendship between equals in the Whoniverse is Amy Pond & River Song. Which is kind of ironic since Amy is an ordinary 19-year-old human girl and River is a time-travelling archaologist who may or may not be the Doctor’s murderer and/or wife. But I guess they bonded over their shared hobbies: saving the universe and destroying fezes. *gg*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvWYw0CnuSI

River and Amy are a better example, yes. I believe in the new series, they destroy a stetson too. But hey, if Amy can flat out [i]order[/i] reality to have the Doctor in it, and have reality blink first, then she’s anyone’s equal.

But Amy would have never remembered to challenge reality, if River hadn’t given her the diary. So I say it was teamwork.

Also, it’s kind of hilarious that one of the big spoilers for the next series is: Amy & River destroy a stetson. lol

I think the world is totally ready for a Amy&River – Rocking the Universe spin-off. The only problem is: noone would be watching DW without those two.

btw: I just found this cool Doctor Who/Star Wars crossover. And who ends up defeating Darth Vader? Is it the Doctor? No, it’s Amy Pond, because it’s just so obvious that she’s more badass than the Doctor and Luke Skywalker combined. lol (And I can just guess that River in her black catsuit is stealing money from the Emperor *gg*):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL5ud5_K-GY

Classics: Esther and Ada in Dickens’s Bleak House, Sara and Becky in Burnett’s A Little Princess, Bonnie and Sylvia in Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Oh, and I just thought of some of my favourite books as a tween: the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce. THe main characters didn’t start out really liking each other at all, but were fire-forged into a closer-than-siblings status (and there is only one guy in the group of four, who is treated more like one of the girls). As well, the women whose house they live in are long time best friends, and even though they don’t feature very heavily, the vibe is definitely there.