Hannibal Forge
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Quick PSA: Regarding Leonidas & Love Interests
🕑 Added 2026-01-17 16:58:30 +0000 UTCNot gonna type a big long thing, just a general note.
I just wrote an almost 4K chapter (wordcount, not image quality, KEKW) dealing with this, but I want it to be clear: I really welcome feedback regarding Leonidas' relationships.
Believe it or not, I am in fact not that confident at writing women, and while I have several phenomenal Author friends and Editors that are women, my general fear trends toward stereotyping accidentally, or portraying something in an alienating way.
Despite common belief, I like the women in my stories to be independent entities and I tend to like to write strong women like Ceruviel, Aylar, Synthra, et cetera. They have quirks, they have funny personality traits, and to some extent they are there to be love interests (in Aylar and Synthra's case), but that's an element of what they are, not who they are in their entirety.
Thus, if you see something that you think is alarming, untoward, or generally rips you out of immersion:
Please don't hesitate to politely comment and point it out. In fact, I welcome and encourage it.
LitRPG is a male-dominated medium, but I don't want my books to be read as male-centric fantasy tropes. I have so many female characters because I generally just enjoy having female characters. I think both male and female sexes working in unison bring something important to creating a holistic narrative.
So, please, point it out. Do it. I'll thank you for it, as long as you're not a wanker about it.
Cheers.
P.S I guess I did type a big long thing, oops.
Comments
Matthew
I dont read as many female lead books as I used to, but if you ever read the Throne of Glass series, I think it's one of the better stories about how to write a woman protagonist, especially in the first book. Later books are not as great about it because I feel Sarah J. Maas really failed on the romantic part and made her character not as well-written or independent. All of Marie Lu's books are really good. They deal with young romance but also make the females feel not subservient to the men in the stories. Some Examples from Marie Lu. The Young Elites is a perfect example of a Young Woman losing her mind and becoming the Villain of the story. The legend series, unlike the Young Elites, has a dual protagonist, one male, one female,e which is quite gripping, and they have their own side plots till they merge later on. These are the writers I think of when I think of well written Females. All these books are YA, though. Some people dont like that kind of Literature. Marie Lu seems the most grown-up to me.
Hannibal Forge
Actually, it's more that Kairi is just a bit immature and caustic on a social level, tbh. The insults are a coping mechanism, one I based on a friend of mine. I can look at some of the language, but the point of her antipathy is to give her a point to grow from. If she's perfectly rational despite everything she's been through and suffered, at the current age of 21, I'd be worried about her mental health. Immature reticence is actually a healthier sign in someone that age than unnaturally mature mental clarity.
Bryn
Nothing has jumped out at me as being a problem yet
Antver1
On the topic of writing women. Please consider editing out or replacing most of the appearance-based insults from the sister. Is there a reason for this internal conflict with Synthra? Even if you are going for the overprotective sibling trope, why does it stop with Aylar but not Synthra? All the insults and hate come from nowhere, are incredibly infantilizing to Kairi's character, and actively make the story worse. Also, I genuinely hope there are no repeats of this with other relatives. Nothing would be more exhausting to read than "10/10 PRINCESS DOESN'T DESERVE MY PRECIOUS-MC SON" dialogue.
