The best and one of the most important characters of our time.

Abby Anderson has to be one of the best and most accurate female characters in recent times, her impact on femme gamers is still felt everywhere. 

As soon as the game released we seen videos discussing the body of our beloved character, "is it possible for women to look like this", debates we're everywhere. It's ridiculous how many debates and YouTube videos were made dedicated to Abby Andersons build, considering she's modeled after a women in the first place. It also really highlighted how much society and the gaming industry expect and represent women to be smaller, not capable of being physically strong, and overall made to be physically appealing to the male gaze. 

Femmes in games are always made to function different than the men. Giving examples staying in the series, playing as Ellie vs Joel you're expected to be stealthier and not need to use physical strength. In team based games the female characters are always geared towards support, health, or doing damage from within the group, not so much to lead the group or be able to go out on your own. When you want to do some serious damage and play as aggressive as the others it's almost expected to drop your feminity and play as a male character to achieve these results. 

Playing as Abby, you get the experience of being the strong main character without the sacrifice of being a character you feel represents you better. Abby's entire role or story in tlou2 is really refreshing to see being done by a woman. She works directly under the groups leader and is one of their top soldiers, she's respected by the group and not questioned on if she knows what's shes doing or where her place is. In fact she is at times the decisions maker for her people. 

In a world where women with credentials are often dismissed or not believed compared to the general trust given to men it's really fulfilling to finally get to play as a women of the same status.

Although Abby is muscular, very muscular, she represents a lot of us who aren't represented in games. Women are always made small, if they're made chunky in any fashion they either fall into the super sexualized trope, or the fat funny comedic relief trope. 

Abby is a medium sized women especially when compared to Ellie's model, and a lot of chunkier fems finally got to look on screen and see someone who wasn't being over sexualized or made to be the butt end of a joke. We got to see her be a bad ass without showing her ass. The best part is, her body was never brought into conversation, she was allowed to be as she is without people pointing it out or making her feel uncomfortable in any way for the way she looked which doesn't exist for medium and plus sized characters in media or quite frankly a lot in real life. 

All of this is wonderful, spectacular even. But what makes it even better was the fact that this is also how Abby's feminity shined. 

The body that was so criticized by....a particular group I'm sure you can guess who.

Was also her main tool for her feminity. Her physical strength that gave her the ability to carry and care for yara and lev when she first saved them, or they saved each other.

She was able to protect her group by being a top soldier. 

Despite the fact she is the aggressive character we always wanted a women to be, she's still a nurturer and a protector. She's a rounded out multi faceted women. 

Abby still cries, she still has feelings, she's still vulnerable and tries to hide it from others.

Don't get me wrong I love Ellie, Ellie in part 1 was so important to me. I was a 15 year old girl myself when I played. She taught me so much, and gave me the cocky attitude I have today. I still to this day have so much love for her in my heart as well. 

But when I first saw Abby on screen and I was waiting for the first jab about her weight to come and it didn't I wanted to cry. 

When I learned Abby was a leader and well respected I fell in love. 

When I finished the game and seen Abby was the gameplay experience that the guys get and we're always deprived of while still being written as a women, and not a cringe women you can tell us written by a dude who knows nothing about them, but a fully rounded, complex, motivated women. I was inspired. 

She actually changed my life, she made me love my body more than I already did. She made me start going to the gym 5-6x a week but not because I wanted to lose weight or appeal to anyone, but because I wanted to be strong like her too. 

I hope any Afab gamers can realte. 

I hope any amabs who's stuck around and read this can appreciate or learn something from this.

If you didn't like the last of us 2 or didn't finish I hope this can reignite your will to give it another go. 

Lemme know your opinion on Abby below.