Designated Girl Fight/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Women always fight other women.

  • Straight: The Action Girl and Dark Action Girl square off.
  • Exaggerated: Two armies, both having soldiers of both sexes, face off. Every female soldier on one side fights a female soldier on the other side.
  • Downplayed: The Action Girl and Dark Action Girl target each other most of the time, but they do not fight each other exclusively.
  • Justified:
    • It's Personal between the Action Girl and Dark Action Girl.
    • Alternatively, the Action Girl's skill set is the best suited for dealing with the Dark Action Girl (or vice versa, depending on which side gets to dictate the terms of battle)
    • The Dark Action Girl is Ax Crazy and The Chick is the only brave one to face her.
    • Basically the Dark Action Girl is a violent sadist whom is known for brutal attacks towards male genitalia, which is the real reason why the men are rather hesitant on fighting her.
    • Men on both sides have "won't hit a girl" policy.
    • The main fighting characters consist mostly (or completely) of Action Girls.
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted:
    • The Action Girl and Dark Action Girl face off, size each other up... and switch to different opponents
    • Alternatively: One of them turns out to be a guy in drag.
    • For a Third Option, the fight is just getting started when one combatant proceeds to Curb Stomp the other, and moves on to another opponent.
  • Double Subverted:
    • Both the Action Girl and Dark Action Girl easily defeat their respective opponents, then fight each other.
    • Or both choose the only other women on each team for their opponets, so the fights are still both girl vs. girl.
  • Zig Zagged: The Dark Action Girl beats the Action Girl and moves onto another opponent... but then the Action Girl gets back up, and the fight continues.
  • Parodied:
    • The Action Girl and the Dark Action Girl start fighting, and their male teammates stop to watch.
    • Or when they deliberately play up the Foe Yay then Les Yay but the tone is still light hearted.
    • The matches are horribly unbalanced! For example: The "good" guys send the little and fragile White Magician Girl (that's an Actual Pacifist to boost!) against the murderous and nigh unstoppable Brawn Hilda. Seriously, what the hell heroes!?
    • The two have a pillow fight.
    • The pair start at opposite ends of a massive battlefield, and ignore all other potential targets in order to fight one another.
  • Deconstructed:
    • The Action Girl is mentally unable to fight at her full potential against men due to a tragic accident in her backstory.
    • Or they do go the Les Yay / Foe Yay route but have the Dark Action Girl be a Psycho Lesbian who wants to rape the Action Girl (if she hasn't already). And even if the scene is played for Drama it both of these ladies are an example of Ms. Fanservice can invoke certain other reactions as well. (Though to be fair there is a chance for it to be intentional especially if its a dark comedy.)
  • Reconstructed: She overcomes her mental block, but still happens to have the skills best-suited to taking down the Dark Action Girl. Now, though, she can keep fighting after.
  • Averted: The female characters on each side don't fight each other.
  • Enforced:
    • "We can't have The Hero hit a girl! Have the Action Girl fight her instead."
    • Alternatively: "We need fanservice".
  • Lampshaded: "Look, there's a girl on the other side! Fortunately, we've got one on our side, too."
  • Invoked:
    • The Dark Action Girl joins the fight for the express purpose of having a chance to rip her goody-two-shoes counterpart's face off.
    • Alternatively, one team recruits an Action Girl for the sole purpose of countering any Action Girls their opponents may have.
  • Defied: The Dark Action Girl wants to fight the Action Girl, but her male teammate's skill set is a better matchup against that particular opponent, so she lets him handle it. She fights a male opponent whom her skill set is better suited to dealing with.
  • Discussed: "Woo, catfight!"
  • Conversed: "So why is it that the female characters in action movies always fight each other?"

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