A new robot boyfriend at long last! @heartofafae commissioned this wonderful story and I can’t wait for you all to read it.
You had recently gotten a job working at the infamous Hephaestus Academy. It was a dream career you had been hoping for. You were working in the therapy center, helping students and instructors alike. It was amazing, but then there was your coworker, Booker.
He was a cyborg. At one point he had been a normal man, but he had donated his body to science and research. All the remained human of him was his brain, or so he claimed. As far as you could tell there was nothing mortal about this guy anymore.
He was tall and heavy, his body is like black armor. He wears suits, but even under the clothes, you can see the flashing lights of his body underneath. His head has a smooth face where lights shine, showing off his expressions and emotions when he wants.
Ever since you started working at the academy, the two of you have had to work together. According to your supervisor, she wanted both a human and a robotic element in the therapy center. She wanted to make the students, especially the robot ones, feel more welcome and able to open up. With both of you, that was possible.
But Booker seemed not to want to work with you. He often went over your head or ignored your recommendations.
The Shape of Water – Elisa x Amphibian Creature – A mute woman with a mysterious past encounters a peculiar creature trapped in her workplace. Turns out, not only is he a live experiment, but also the key to her heart.
Ex Machina – Caleb x Eva – The final steps of this AI’s development process requires a human subject to run a Turing test over the course of a series of sessions. Seems like just another day at the… uh… hidden testing facility?
Avatar – Jake x Neytiri – A man travels to a foreign world, intent on getting some thrills and scouring for precious resources, but finds love with a native female instead– WAAAAIT, this is just Pocahontas, isn’t it?
Shrek – no really, they had babies–
Hellboy series – Liz x Red – A supernatural creature with hellish abilities and a human woman (with powers of her own) navigate the seedy, paranormal world in which they live in while also navigating their feelings for one another.
Romantic Visual Media
Her – Man x Operating System – A philosophical exploration of how human lives entwine with technology. How far is too far? How weird is too weird? Does it even matter?
Megamind – Megamind x Roxanne – A blue-skinned alien with a bulbous head grows up inside a prison and is raised by inmates. Is it any wonder his evil-genius antics aren’t appreciated by his wise-cracking, ethically-sound, average-citizen love interest?
Marvel Universe – Vision x Scarlet Witch – Oh yeah, they’ve been a thing for a while. After they fall in with the Avengers, they also fall in love. Aww, who knew the daughter of Magneto and the son (?) of Ultron could make for a cute, Good-Side couple? They even have kids! (Don’t ask me how that works)
The Bee Movie – According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly–
Platonic or Familial Visual Media
A Monster in Paris – Frank “The Monster” / Main Leads & Town – A monster has been spotted stalking the streets of Paris, but will anyone stop to look past the frightening visage to see the gentle soul within? Also take a look at Lilo & Stitch.
The Cat Returns – Haru / The Baron – A girl thinks the life of a cat isn’t so bad, but what about being a cat’s bride??? Hi-jinks ensue as she tries to escape her fated wedlock and her newfound furry friends come to her rescue!
My Neighbor Totoro – Girls/ Forest Spirits – Another Ghibli movie! a sweet tale of two girls moving into town and encountering the supernatural around their rural home. A charming bond forms between the girls and the local forest spirits.
Robot and Frank – Titular Frank is an elderly man who is way past his prime and living alone, but when his son gets him a robot to help take care of him and the house, Frank thinks it might be time to team up with his new metal friend to get up to his old tricks – mainly, heists and robberies.
The Iron Giant – Hogarth/ Iron Giant – When a giant alien robot crashes on Earth, a human boy has to protect their odd (and possibly dangerous) friendship from his mom, the town, and the U.S. government.
Honorable Mentions
Warm Bodies – Julie x R – I only didn’t include this because, come on. A zombie is still pretty human. But you’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty fun spin on the classic zombie apocalypse setting when one half of your leading couple is one of the walking dead; see also: The Corpse Bride.
Beauty & The Beast – titular characters – Take your pick of which version. Only put this down here because the Beast usually turn into a human at the end. Same deal with Spirited Away.
Bicentennial Man – Similar to The Little Mermaid, titular character here slowly becomes more human on the outside to pursue romantic interests, and changes as a…. person (?) as the result.
The heroine is certainly not as attractive as her beautiful best
friend who gets her own interesting plot line.
The
Darkangel (the Darkangel Trilogy, #1) – Meredith Ann Pierce
The protagonist starts out as unattractive, later she undergoes a transformation of
her appearance which represents a turning point in her character development.
This book has lots of female characters of all shapes and sizes.
The main heroine is plain and a bit overweight. Another important
famale character is dead and looks the part. Both have very
attractive love interests.
This heroine is actually very attractive by human standards.
Unfortunately the male protagonist isn’t human and he finds her
appalling and he’s just as ugly to her. The like each other from the
start.
Stolen
Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1) – Danielle L. Jensen
The heroine spends her time around
(mostly) human looking and extremely attractive trolls. She’s not
quite up to their standards.
The heroine is almost a cyborg. Her extremities were replaced by
completely overpowered prosthetics after a horrific assault while
working as a government agent. She’s traumatized, in pain, doesn’t
have full control of her new body and hasn’t come to terms with her
new menacing look. The rock star demon elf protagonist is very much
into her. Yes, really. This book uses and often subverts every trope
known to fantasy and science fiction.
Herb-Witch (Lord
Alchemist Duology, #1) – Elizabeth McCoy
Within the world described in this book the heroine’s look is not only considered
ugly but also shameful as it reveals her barbarian heritage.
The protagonist starts out as rather plain, later she undergoes a transformation of
her appearance which represents a turning point in her character development.
The heroine is fat. She does lose weight while trying to survive
on a hostile alien planet though. The lizard man protagonist is
interested in her either way. All kinds of trigger warnings for this
book: violence, rape, gore, death. It’s also over 900 pages long.
Crazy.
This one stands out as it’s the only book written by a man. It’s
also one of my earliest conscious encounters with an unattractive
female protagonist. For me that was a formative experience. Rather on
the hard side of science fiction the narrative follows the good
looking male protagonist who is a kind of emissary from a culture that values
aesthetics to the extreme coming to a planet where people live by a
more practical approach to life. The female protagonist assigned to him as his assistant is so ugly to him that he can’t
stop staring. After some culture clashing they get married.
I’m always looking for more of my beloved ugly heroines. They are quite difficult to find. So if you know of a book or a movie, please let me know! Reblog this with your suggestions, chat me up, ask or submit. All suggestions are welcome.
TAG: On my blog I use the “unconventional looking / conventionally unattractive heroine” tag.
suggested for Brienne and Jaime (I haven’t read ASOIAF, so I don’t know how they are described in the book but Brienne and Aria from the TV series are certainly great unconventional looking female characters.)
I can’t believe I forgot this book the first time around. The heroine is plain and capable and has a sexy voice but not when she sings. It’s weird. Great book.
I haven’t read this one yet but Tanith Lee is always highly recommended.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand another addition…
Older Women Getting the Hot Guy in Fantasy and Science Fiction
I have thought long and hard if I should make a separate post or just add it to this one. I decided to do the latter because the list for older heroines is so ridiculously short (as of yet) I wouldn’t even call it a list.
Ok, first let’s define “older woman”. According to who gets storylines that center around personal growth, getting it on with a desirable love interest AND saving the day, thirty is the onset of old-age in genre fiction. Very, very seldom have I read a book where all those good things happen to a woman older than twenty-nine. Oh and BTW I’m practically a crone by these standards. So if any of you are offended by this just remember that this post is written by the most offended old hag aka ME.
“But,” some of you might say, “there are plenty of BAMF woman over thirty in fantasy and science fiction.” Yeah, true but they get different kind of stories than woman below that magic age ESPECIALLY in books.
And that’s because these woman are so very mature that having adventures, falling madly in love and behaving accordingly is absolutely beneath them. Also there is no more character growth possible because the typical human woman is mentally complete by that age. Excitement, immature decisions and the use of sarcasm are also absolutely out of the question.
Have you read the last paragraph in a sarcastic voice? If not, try again.
“But,” I hear some of saying, “I know tons of really cool female characters over the age of thirty or at least played by actresses older than thirty on TV and in movies who fall in love, make mistakes and learn from them, save the day and go on great adventures.” Very true, I agree. And out of all these cool characters I will take Captain Janeway as example. She’s smart, capable, the hero of her own story, feminine AND strong, just a great character in short. She’s also physically attractive. I’m not holding that against her character but it’s just a perfect example how not being young anymore is not much of a problem if the female character in question is beautiful. Beauty trumps age in the visual medium. In genre books however any women above the age of thirty is “ewww old” apparantly.
End of rant. Here is my (very short) list of books with older women in genre fiction:
The heroine is 47(!). And she’s not even compensating it by being stunningly beautiful (for her age). How dare!!! AND the LI is an Orc. 🙂 If you want to know more @ever-hungry-aria has written a great review here.
Not sure if this one qualifies because the heroine is 37 or 38 if I remember correctly but ends up looking like 17. The character doesn’t change her behaviour. She continues to act believably like a woman closer to 40 than 20 which is sometimes hilarious. Great book, some LGBT themes and hard to pin down genre-wise.
It’s DEFY THE WORLDS launch day! Hit your local bookstore to find out what happens next for Abel and Noemi. Separated by the Liberty War for the independence of planet Genesis, Abel and Noemi have an entire galaxy between them. When Earth strikes at Genesis through biological warfare, however, Noemi is forced to venture back into the greater galaxy in an attempt to find help. But doing so puts her incredible danger–from which only Abel may be able to save her. Yet Abel knows that stepping forward to help means exposing himself to his creator, Burton Mansfield, who will stop at nothing to reclaim Abel for his own.
Did I mention DEFY THE STARS is $2.99 on all online platforms this week? BECAUSE IT IS. Time to plunge in, people!
Monsters and Villains 