Ok...so I am trying to feel things out for the relationship between my antiheroine and what I would call her best friend/comrade/ally who serves as a male medic. I want to collect some thoughts from you to see if I'm going along a good direction. I will speak what's on my mind here. If you've read any of my other posts, my antiheroine is a crime boss (oversees a criminal organization). As she's earns a reputation of being a very dangerous criminal, there are only a handful of people she totally trusts. The one she trusts the most is what I would call her most trusted servant (a male medic). Now, I wouldn't call their relationship romantic...more of a best friends or very strong comradeship type...I guess they would get to the point of loving each other as a brother and sister. My male medic is a little soft-spoken and my female crime boss is a quite the opposite. She is the fighter and he is her healer. Even though she's the boss, she doesn't hide behind her henchmen...she likes to do her own dirty work...she isn't a coward. My male medic is a coward to battle but he will do anything to assist my female crime boss. She is physically stronger and taller than he is...she has an intimidating aura about her but she does have a heart for some especially my male medic. I think having a healer as my female crime boss's righthand man would be a good thing for the story. They aren't exact polar opposites but they would blend together well. My crime boss is a private woman but she gets to the point where she is very comfortable with my male medic. She will eventually get some severe wounds on her body during battle that he will come in and take care of. He is her emotional support, there will be a point where she undergoes a bit of depression (maybe suicidal thoughts) phase and he helps bring her out of that. There is an important scene in the story I plan to write involving my female crime boss revealing her battle scars to someone and sharing stories about how she got them and I think the only someone she would ever do that to is my male medic since she trusts him so much. Some of her scars are in odd spots on her back, abdomen, and even one near her heart...she would be comfortable enough with him to remove her clothes to show him but not anyone else. Nothing romantic or sexual between these two, just really good comrades/friends. My male medic has great respect for my female crime boss because...well...she's his boss of course ultimately. Does that sound possible to have such a tight relationship between a guy and girl? If my female crime boss had any sort of romantic relationship, it would be with another female because that's just how she would operate. This other female would be another one she trusts very much as well. I feel it's important that my crime boss has two people she can truly invest in to trust, to back her up. Two people that would make her enjoy her life a bit more. But between the two, the male medic would be the one she would trust and care about the most. A very unique bond. Since it's between a male and female, is it possible to form a type of relationship between the two that is very close yet doesn't imply romance? Any thoughts on my ramblings here would be more than welcome. Thank you in advance!
Sounds like you're having some difficulty on determining exactly what there relationship is, what it's based on and how it works. How should you make this work? I think this is a case, as is it often IMO with character issues, a matter of details. If they have a close comradery now, how exactly did they come by that? How do they interact now? If you work on some details you should be able to flesh something out. As to the question of male/female relationships outside of romance- of course the answer is that you can have very close personal friendships with people of the opposite gender. You suggest the female lead would have a relationship with another female (why if? seems like they would probably have some romantic history and/or romantic pursuits during the story). Does this mean they are lesbian or bisexual? Because if they are lesbian, why are you even worrying about misleading romantic undertones, when one of the characters is categorically not attracted to the other?
I'm trying to figure out if she's bi or not. She's for sure attracted to women. Before she came the leader of her own criminal organization, she went through the military and received a lot of bullshit and backlash from men...and for that matter maybe that's a little bit why she's not attracted to men. She of course works with them and hires them as part of her organization but romantic ties probably don't exist. She has a handful of men in her life that she has a strong bond with or cares about, especially the male medic who is her best friend literally. He would never turn on her. Now..if she had a romantic partner in another girl...I could see this girl turning on my antiheroine...perhaps trying to trap my antiheroine and turn her in for the bounty on her head. Might be a little twist. I could see my antiheroine wanting a little bit of romance in her life but only with another female.
The character's sexual and romantic life is something I would personally want to see. It doesn't have to be a big plot thing, but it's a big part of most people's lives, so I'm kinda expecting to see it for most MCs.
It sounds like you are kinda pushing your MC into a sexual relation that they are not really into. Unless you can build her interest in men overtime, then it would be better and you won't have your readers scratching their heads with their sudden jump into a relationship that doesn't make sense or typical for your MC. So show the progression of her change into building a relation with the Male Medic, and you should be good. Though you have a lot of directions open to where you could go with this whole thing. Even to the point where she plays everybody just because she is a seedy character in the first place. So if it helps write out some different scenarios that could possibly play out and decide which one feels right for your MC and their story.
I mean personally, I think platonic friendships between men and women are underrepresented. So if you did end up with them just having a solid friendship, I think that'd be cool.
I can’t imagine why a platonic male/female relationship would be a problem. Go for it. Like Muse said, they’re under-represented.
