(This month, I'm contributing to #femslash february by highlighting female character-centric and femslash-centric tags at AO3.)
So, this was meant to be an exercise in "Quick! Name 50 canons with black female characters off the top of my head!" It quickly devolved into 2 hours of "Omg, I knew her name, that lady in the thing with the vampires." /o\ And then a bunch of those I could name don't appear on AO3 because no one's uploaded anything with them yet. This just hammered home the reality I think we're all aware of on some level, that there simply are
not enough canons with black women in prominent roles.
On the plus side, I met Micchone and a couple other ladies through Femslash February, so thank y'all!
1.
Nyota Uhura [Star Trek: TOS]
2.
Zoe Washburne [Firefly]
3.
Gwen [Merlin BBC]
4.
Ororo Munroe [Marvel, X-Men]
5.
Teyla Emmagan [Stargate Atlantis]
6.
Sally Donovan [Sherlock BBC]
7.
Tiana [The Princess and the Frog]
8. Valerie Smith [Josie and the Pussycats]
9.
Kasidy Yates [Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]
10.
Claudia LaSalle and Kate Masseau [Macross]
11.
Martha Jones [Doctor Who]
12.
Jessica Pearson [Suits]
13.
Lisa Turtle [Saved by the Bell]
14. Tzipporah and the Queen [The Prince of Egypt]
15.
Michonne [Walking Dead]
16.
Bonnie Bennett [Vampire Diaries]
17.
June Ellington [White Collar]
18.
Olivia Pope [Scandal]
19.
Queen Nefertiti,
Cleopatra VII, and Hatshepsut [Ancient Egyptian RPF]
20.
Tara Thornton [True Blood]
21.
Shirley Bennett [Community]
22.
Monica Dawson and Nana [Heroes]
23.
Miranda Bailey [Grey's Anatomy]
24.
Elaine Besbriss [due South]
25.
Allison Blake [Eureka]
26.
Annie Sawyer [Being Human]
27.
Shana Elmsford [Jem and the Holograms]
28.
Lilith Iyapo [Lilith's Brood aka Xenogenesis]
29.
Lauren Olamina and
Zahra Moss [Parable series] (empty Yuletide tags)
30.
Anyanwu [Patternist series] (empty Yuletide tags)
31.
Mercedes Jones [Glee]
32.
Astrid Farnsworth [Fringe]
33.
Mahandra McGinty [Wonderfalls]
34.
Nasuada [Inheritance cycle aka Eragon]
35.
Hilda [Eureka Seven] (you'll need to look under the generic
Hilda for previous works)
36.
Jessica Williams [The Daily Show]
37.
Joss Carter [Person of Interest]
38.
Rue [Hunger Games]
39.
Jazmine Dubois [Boondocks]
40. Nadia la Arwall [Fushigi no Umi no Nadia aka Nadia of the Blue Water]
41. Amarone Slaintheav [Vandread]
42. Sherry Walken [Gungrave]
43. Celie, Shug Avery, Nettie, Corrine, et al [The Color Purple]
44. Janie Crawford, Phoeby, Janie's mother, and the female neighbors [Their Eyes Were Watching God]
45.
Susie Carmichael [Rugrats]
46. Comfort Fedoke [So You Think You Can Dance]
47.
Carrie Dwyer [Elementary]
48. Cassie Logan, her mother, and her grandmother [Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry]
49. Beatrice Okoh, Elewa and her mother, et al [Anthills on the Savannah]
50.
Maya St. Germain [Pretty Little Liars]
(I tried to leave off characters who died in the same episode/chapter/issue they were introduced in. I may not have been 100% successful.)
Any character without a link is a character who doesn't yet have a tag on AO3. I would love for that to change. So my challenge to you is: if you have a work about
any of these characters, could you please upload it there? Art, Vid/AMV, Fic, Podfic, anything. And if you've already uploaded but the tag isn't showing as canonical, holler and I'll look into it.
Who are your favorite black female characters?
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