The Unpopular Woman Love Post

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Guys, what's up with halfamoon this year? It's so very, very quiet... Anyway, to breathe a bit of life into this community, I decided to come up with the ever popular Unpopular Woman Love Post.







I simply nicked the rules from bofoddity's fabulous post in 2011:

1. Start a thread and put the character's name and the canon they come from in the subject line.

2. Those who love the character comment on the thread with squee, thoughts, fic/art/vid recs, picspams, essays, links and everything they can think of. Make sure your character gets all the love and the attention she deserves.

3. If a character has a thread and you want to talk about her, comment to the thread in question. General comments and threads for new characters go to the main post.

4. Focus on the love. This is an all positivity, all time post. Embrace your happy!

5. Absolutely no bashing allowed. Please avoid making negative comparisons to other characters, other character types and "well this character sucks more!" kind of comments as well as disparaging remarks about actresses or other versions of the same character. Those characters, character types, and actresses have their fans too and hey, it's a love post. Save negativity for other things.

In other words, this post is all about celebrating and loving our favorite unloved women. Now, love away!

Comments

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Subject: Anastasia "Dee" Dualla (BSG 2003)

(SPOILERS)

So, I'll just start with threads for the female characters whose images I have just posted above.

Dee was a character that was criminally underused by the writers in canon and often abused in fandom for taking part in the infamous Love Quadrange of Doom. But Dee was just this young woman thrown into the most horrific situation imaginable, who tried to make the best of what she still had (seeking some sort of love and solace after the literal end of the world) and who was not afraid to voice her opinion when things mattered to her (explaining her loathing of Tom Zarek, giving Adama a much needed talking to, conspiring to keep Roslin in office and thus suppport the search for Earth...). And as much as I hated that the writers killed her off, at least she went out on her own terms.Oh Dee.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Dee was flawless, but caught up in a giant mess. I like to think she and Felix are having fun in the afterlife together.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Subject: Jesse Flores (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

(SPOILERS)

Jesse Flores is seems to be rather overlooked among the women of T:TSCC - probably because she's the Connors' antagonist. But I like that she is an antagonist with such valid reasons and motivations. In a show full of mother figures and fighting women, she is both a woman who has lost her unborn child and a commander who has lost her crew to the machines. And so she decides to become a combatant in a different way, to protect humanity like she thinks it should be done. She has the same goals as Sarah and John - and that is why she undermines them. She wants to save - and that is why she is willing to coldly sacrifice someone who loves and trusts her. Like most additions to the T:TSCC ensemble, Jesse is pretty damn complex and fascinating.

[thingswithwings.livejournal.com]

Love Jesse. Love her. Adore her. If this were DW, I'd use one of my Jesse icons, but since I can't I'll just say: THERE was a character who did shit on her own terms, who made her own decisions, who saw the game that was being played and, in a way, opted out of it, or chose to make her own rules. I love her relationship with Sarah (OTP!!!) and their tense mutual recognition and antagonism. She and Sarah were aware of each others' intelligence and strength, and I would've loved to have seen how that relationship developed had the show gone on.

Also, every scene where she's Riley's (unsafe) top? HOT LIKE BURNING. Oh god she's so pretty.

JESSE!

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Subject: Riley Dawson (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

(SPOILERS)

Riley is a character who was both dismissed (for interfering with a popular pairing, I suppose) and criticized (for being "fridged"), but as depressing as the end of her arc was, I think her role in that universe was an important one: the pawn and consummate survivor. She's the unwilling recruit in an apocalyptic war, and despite her feelings for John and Jesse, I think her greatest driving force was the wish to stay alive. It's a thankless role to be the cannon fodder, but Riley made me care for her, as yet another girl in that war - not an officer like Jesse or a machine like Catherine and Cameron or a warrior like Sarah, just a girl and still a fighter to the very end.

[cantarina]

Riley, you were amazing <3 Watching you learn to stand up for yourself was one of the best moments of T:SCC.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Subject: Catelyn Tully-Stark (ASOIAF/Game of Thrones)

If I were to write about the disproportionate and ridiculous amount of hatred that Catelyn receives, I'd still be sitting here tomorrow, so let me just say that she's among my Top 5 characters from that universe. She is usually not one I loudly and madly squee about, but she is a character that this series really, really needs: she is a fairly conservative, competent woman, trying to act within her society's limited gender roles and aiming to further her family's political and personal fortunes. Of course, like so many other people in GRRM's world, she doesn't succeed, but she usually tries her best with whatever she is given. She tries so very hard to be the voice of moderation and reason in politics and to negate her own wishes and emotions in private. And, well, barely anyone listens to what she has to say, and her feelings are just drowned in grief, and there is hardly another character around to show her support and kindness (except for my bb Brienne ♥), and her story just kills me. In the end, that complex, living, breathing, feeling woman becomes a creepy metaphor for the destructive forces of vengeance, a mother without mercy and with a heart of stone, and it almost breaks my heart.

[sophia-gratia.livejournal.com]

♥ Cat! ♥

First, some shameless self-promotion, in the form of feel-good Cat-fic. Because let's face it, Cat and Cat-fans alike could all stand to feel good about something:

A Short Grammar of Eros and Honor: On Naming (http://archiveofourown.org/works/279763) : Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark : Rated T : ~1329 words

‘As the Lady of Winterfell, she has learned to take practical matters into her own hands. She sees no reason why the intimate matters of her marriage should be any different.’ Pre-canon.

*

And now a wee tiny bit of meta.

SPOILERS

I think Cat's story is such a clever parable of what happens when implacable strength meets the brick wall of patriarchy. One of the great things about ASoIaF is that it provides such a huge range of female characters, each with her own distinct relationship to her culture's norms of femininity. Cat's fascinating, because despite some basic tension and difficulty, she embraces her role as wife and mother – and tries to fulfill that role to the greatest extent possible. She is, allegedly, doing everything that you are supposed to do, as a woman, under patriarchy. It gives her power, for a while. And then it kills her. And then – death not really being her thing – re-animated into irrational pursuit of vengeance, she gains the power to avenge herself and her family only at the cost of her basic humanity.

And it's so wildly compelling. Oh, Cat. I'll be in your corner, cheering for you against the odds, forever.

[ladygawain.livejournal.com]

Subject: Bonnie Bennett (The Vampire Diaries, show)

I'm not sure it's possible to capture just how criminally underrated this character is, not only on her own show but by the fandom at large. The excessive hate she receives is troubling on many fronts, her being the only series regular who is also a woman of color on a show that is riddled with problematic racial/gender politics as it is.

Despite the problems with the show's writing, Bonnie's still one of the most compelling characters I've come across on any show. She's a witch, she's powerful but over the course of three years she's come to learn painfully that that power comes with not just a great deal of responsibility but also loss, and grief, and agony.

Witches occupy a very complicated text in the narrative as a whole and Bonnie exemplifies that in really interesting ways. They're tasked with being "servants of nature", with doing whatever they can to maintain the balance of a universe that holds monstrous creatures and humans (who can be rather monstrous too). At the same time, each one of these witches is human with all the frailties and flaws that implies. Too often their hearts and their loyalties can get in the way of them fulfilling their "calling", even as they spur them to do really amazing things, and yes: save the town (world, etc.) again and again. They get no thanks for it nor any praise. Because of what they are, they lead rather isolated lives (a theme of the show as a whole that plays out differently for different supernatural creatures and normals); and things rarely end well for them. As in, they are more than likely to die painful, miserable deaths than not. Nature gives and nature takes away, Bonnie's living with the specter of her own death or at least grievous personal injury every single time she does a spell. And too often, those spells aren't for herself. She's willing to die to protect her loved ones and protect the town, and that's awesome.

She's also kind of brilliantly flawed. And complicated. Fandom tends to treat that like it's a bad thing. Which, no one is surprised.

[cantarina]

I love how well-rounded the character is, how perceptively she often sees a situation or another character (Damon, you're fun, but she has every reason to be suspicious of you and the rest of vampirekind). And even so, I love that she's not always right, that there's nothing that's simple about Bonnie Bennett. So much love for the entire Bennet family, really!

[rubberglue.livejournal.com]

Subject: Guinevere (Merlin BBC)

I have so much love for her. She's the moral center of the show, honest, brave, sensible and a whole bunch of other wonderfully positive adjectives. Awful things happen to her through no fault of her own - her father is killed, she's thrown into prison almost every series, kidnapped, hurt by her once best friend, exiled by the man she loves, captured as a slave and so one and she weathers each and every incident with dignity and quiet strength. I could go on about how much I love and respect her but that will take me days at the very least.

[penandnotebook]

Her strength comes from a place of both experience and faith, she's been downtrodden time and again so she knows better, but at the same time she's clear-thinking enough to realize the potential for goodness everywhere she turns, and I think this is why she brings this forth in most people. I love how she's so balanced and steadfast, she's outstanding because of her integrity and inner strength and there is just no world in which I don't admire a woman like that.

[such_heights]

Subject: Martha Jones (Doctor Who 2005)

SHE SAVED THE WORLD, YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

No, okay, okay. Martha is amazing because she's a wide-eyed adventurer who's not afraid to call bullshit when she needs to. She's strong and brave and smart and also an adorable dork who helped defeat evil via use of Harry Potter that one time. She's been through more than most and come out of it all more amazing than ever, always holding on to her sense of justice and her ability to care for others.

ALSO SHE SAVED THE WORLD. BY WALKING ACROSS THE PLANET FOR 365 DAYS AND GETTING PEOPLE TO LOVE HER AND BELIEVE IN HER. BECAUSE SHE'S MARTHA JONES AND SHE'S AMAZING.

[evewithanapple.livejournal.com]

MARTHA JONES IS A HERO. ALL OTHER INTERPRETATIONS ARE INCORRECT

[mind-conundrum.livejournal.com]

Subject: Cersei Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones)

“A little more humiliation, a raisin for my porridge. She would not give them the pleasure of hearing her beg. I am Cersei of House Lannister, a lion of the rock, the rightful queen of these Seven Kingdoms, trueborn daughter of Tywin Lannister. And hair grows back.”
- Cersei II, ADWD

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

\0/

I must admit that my feelings on Cersei are complicated and a bit messed up (so I feel they reflect her character pretty well :P), but those chapters in ADWD made me feel so defensive of her. Tamed and broken, my ass.

[such_heights]

Subject: Jennifer Keller (Stargate Atlantis)

So as we know, most female character hate is spawned from shipping wars (oh, fandom, that's really got old now), and Keller was a particularly awful example of this. Keller is made of adorable! I loved seeing a character who felt genuinely out of her depth in Atlantis, the way you or I would, and watching her grow and learn and find her place halfway across the universe was really just the best. She's smart and kind and in many ways braver than anyone, because she had an awful lot of fears to conquer, and I have huge admiration for the journey she went on. Also, did I mention the adorable? Because eeeeee! <3333

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

So much love for Keller, so much. I liked that she was there because she was a good, competent, doctor not because she was The World Genius In X Field. She knew how to help people, and that was what she wanted to do, and she did it. Even when she was terrified.

The adorable didn't hurt!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Subject: Sansa Stark, Game of Thrones/ASoIaF

SPOILERS

Some reasons Sansa Stark is better than you, in no particular order:

1) Or maybe he'll give me yours.
2) Oh wait, I just realized I don't care.
3) Brave. Sansa took a deep breath. I am a Stark, yes, I can be brave.
4) All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs.
5) My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.
6) "There are gods," she told herself, "and there are true knight too. All stories can’t be lies."
7) Some lies you have to tell. Lies had been all that kept her alive in King’s Landing. If she had not lied to Joffrey, his Kingsguard would have beat her bloody.
8) Sansa quailed. Now, she told herself, I must do it now. Gods give me courage. She took one step, then another. Lords and knights stepped aside silently to let her pass, and she felt the weight of their eyes on her. I must be as strong as my lady mother.
9) They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her fathers head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.
10) There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. "Life is not a song, sweetling," he’d told her. "You may learn that one day to your sorrow." In life, the monsters win.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Sansa >>> everyone. IT IS KNOWN.

[mfirefly10.livejournal.com]

Suject: Dr. Lauren Lewis, Lost Girl

(Potential spoilers, maybe? Nothing big)

Oh, Doctor Hotpants...On a show with plenty of fascinating female characters to choose from, Lauren quickly became my favorite. I love her quiet strength, her passion for her work, her protectiveness over Bo and her ability to geek out over everything from human bodily fluids to baking. I love that she's one of the few human characters on the show, but that she has so readily accepted this supernatural world and she's learning how to operate within it. I love that Lauren is incredibly flawed, like all the LG characters, but that her flaws aren't counted against her. I love the slow-burn of her relationship with Bo, as well as the fact that should that relationship not work out, I have no doubt that Lauren would continue to support Bo without question and show up for Bo whenever she asked.

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

Lauren!

I have little else to say but *see icon* :)

[thingswithwings.livejournal.com]

Subject: Seven Of Nine (Star Trek: Voyager)

A lot of people bash Seven for, I guess, being gorgeous and wearing a catsuit, but beyond sketchy wardrobe decisions, Seven was one of the most powerful and complex female characters on my tv while I was growing up. There are whole season-long plot arcs devoted to her struggles with morality, individuality, and society; her friendships and relationships are frequently given center stage (and I will never get over her relationship with the Captain or her relationship with B'Elanna: female friendships that aren't easy or automatic or perfect, but all about complex people trying to make room in their lives for one another); and on top of that she's just awesome - does her own thing, becomes her own person, loves science and math and music, and is BFFs with a ten year old (Seven and Naomi: adorable, or most adorable?) Jeri Ryan is amazing in the role and I'll never stop being grateful to her for making it her own.

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

Seven of Nine was one of the very best things about Voyager. I remember her fondly!

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Brienne of Tarth (ASOIAF/Game of Thrones)

I'm not even quite sure if she counts as wildly unpopular, but she's underrated nonetheless. Okay, in dudebro!fandom, she tends to be often dismissed (and on one very special website even hated on), but she comes across as well liked on places like LJ and DW and tumblr. Maybe it's my own total and utter stanning that shines through here, but I think Brienne doesn't quite get enough credit for exactly how awesome she is. Much of the appreciation for her character gets drowned in a fairly popular ship she's part of (and ... I can even blame myself for that tendency, at least when it comes to some of my fannish activities in ASOIAF fandom), but she's more than amazing in her own right. I think she's a excellent take on the warrior woman trope in epic fantasy - not the cliché of sexay bad-ass babe in the chainmail bikini, but basically a sweetie pie with a huge two-hander sword - and a firm believer in the ideals of knighthood, even while all her idealism gets slowly stripped away. (If GRRM zombiefies her, I will never ever forgive him.)

[mfirefly10.livejournal.com]

Oh, Brienne ♥

I love that Brienne has managed to hold onto her belief in the GOOD in people, despite everything she's been though. And I think she still has a certain innocence about her in a world where innocence is usually crushed right out of the cradle and I LOVE that. Also, her sense of loyalty and duty is RIDICULOUS, in the best way :)

[romanaone-fan.livejournal.com]

Subject: Bela Talbot (Supernatural)

(Spoilers to the end of season three)

The Supernatural fandom is a funny one, because everyone always seems to complain about how all the women get killed off, or are unpopular, yet whenever a female character is introduced almost all of the fandom goes into an epic rage and demands that she perish in the fires of Hell (quite literally in Bela's case). Bela Talbot is my favourite of all the SPN women, and gets a fair bit of hate, because she frequently outsmarted the Winchesters. Bela is smart and badass, yet at the same time has this heart-breaking backstory that makes me want to hug her forever. For a character who was in no more than six or seven episodes, the development she gets is excellent. Alas, it was not to be, and she was eaten by Hellhounds.

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

Bela was pretty cool. Not all SPN fans are women haters!

Even though I have not ficced a whole lot about Bela, you might like to check out my journal and my Women of Spn project... I concentrate on writing stories about the many many MANY awesome and fantastic women that we are given tiny glimpses of on SPN. Sam and Dean may have the weight of the world on their manpain shoulders, but strong women make the spn world go around.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

Gillian Darmody (Boardwalk Empire)



Gillian Darmody is not a monster, I would like to make that perfectly clear.

Is Gillian scarily twisted in the head? Yes.

Does Gillian look down on a lot of fandom's woobies and say mean things to them? Yes.

Has her love for her son gone so far beyond motherly and straight into a hellish mix of Jocasta and Lady Macbeth? Most definitely.

However, we should remember that Gillian had one of the most horrific childhoods in existence - pimped out to middle-aged men at 13, impregnated by her rapist, and left to raise her son with only her pimp to depend on. She survived, and maybe the way she raised her son in the backrooms of vaudville/burlesque houses (with occasional trips to his father's creepy-ass mausoleum of taxidermied animals) wasn't "normal", but as she says, "it's normal for us".

Gillian didn't let herself be trapped into a loveless marriage. She didn't allow herself or her son to become a punching bag for anyone. She saved up enough for her own apartment, and she worked to support herself and her son. Definitely a woman ahead of her time.

Moreover, Gillian Darmody is *awesome*. Exhibit A - the way she deals with Charlie Luciano, a man she knows was hired to kill her son. She sees straight through his "roughneck" side, and suckers him in good. Just when he's at his weakest, she lets her son wake him up with a cup of hot coffee to the chest and steals his gun. Exhibit B - her 25-years belated revenge on the Commodore for raping her. Punching and slapping a man who's had a stroke may not be the most PC way of dealing with it, but as Kander and Ebb said, "he had it coming". Gillian is cunning as hell, and this show needs more women like her, to keep up with all the dangerous men running around.

She's the uncrowned Queen of Atlantic City. Long may she reign.

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

This post makes me want to give BE another try. When does she show up?

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Subject: Kennedy (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

Let's go back to season 1 of Buffy. Buffy is 16 years old, she's introduced to her Watcher, who happily slams down a big book on vampires in front of her and takes for granted that she'll say "Yes sir, how high would you like me to jump?" And she says hell no. Even after she grudgingly agrees to be a Slayer, her arc from s1 through s5 is heavily based on this: yes, but on her own terms. She's not a tool, she's not a soldier blindly taking orders, she demands a say in what she does. Giles has authority by virtue of who he is, by virtue of what he knows, but also by virtue of simply being The Man In Charge. Buffy demands to share that power.

BUFFY: And you'll be stopping me... how?

So, by season 7, Buffy is in charge. Nominally. She has the power, but it's limited power since she doesn't have power over much. Enter the potentials, supposedly a bunch of scared teenage girls who might be The Slayer (singular) at some point, who must be protected, who whine endlessly while not doing much. Except Kennedy.

KENNEDY: Hey, are we getting weapons? Trained fighters? Patton is coming? I've heard worse ideas.
ANNABELLE: We'll be armed when the slayer feels we're ready.
MOLLY: I feel ready.
ANNABELLE: You're frightened. You must learn to control your fear.
KENNEDY: Hey, you know what would help with that? WEAPONS!

Kennedy gets a lot of flak in fandom. She's a bitch, she's whiny, she complains, she doesn't trust Buffy, blah blah blah. And this in a series where the main arc of the main character for 7 years has been to question established authority and claim it herself?

BUFFY: Are you sure you know how to use it?
KENNEDY: Since I was eight.

Kennedy stands up to Buffy or anyone else in charge, questions their decisions, not just to be contrarian but because she refuses to blindly respect established authoritah and hand-me-down rules. She doesn't want to be cannon fodder for no good reason. She doesn't want to nod and follow orders. She doesn't want to sit back and be saved. She doesn't want to wait for what might be coming to her. She doesn't want to accept that things are the way people tell her they are, that people are who they say they are, and that's it. In a season where everyone else is either panicking or complaining or retreating, Kennedy is the one who keeps asking "What do we do about this? How do we fix this?"

KENNEDY: Group together! Form a circle. Nobody panic. It's all of us, one of him.

Why should she trust Buffy just because she happens to be The Slayer, anymore than Buffy trusted Giles just because he was The Watcher? Kennedy's issue isn't that she doesn't trust authority - it's that she demands authority to be legitimate, to show why she should trust and support it. Given that, she's loyal to the end. Hers not to do and die, hers but to reason why. Yes, she goes over the top sometimes, she makes mistakes - she has to, she only has half a season to drag the potentials through the same arc Buffy spent 7 years on.

And without that, without having to defend her decisions, any authority Buffy can wield - or share - would be empty. There can be no democracy without opposition.

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

Kennedy rocks. And she's wicked hot. I love how she sort of becomes the drill sergeant for the potentials.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Dawn Summers is better than EVERYONE. Chances are, if you don't like Dawn, I don't like you.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Subject: Dawn Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

I'll make this short and sweet.

Dawn Summers is the girl who, upon finding out that her sister is the Chosen One who has to save the world, refuses to be impressed.

Dawn Summers is the girl who, when her mother dies, refuses to accept that death can be final... and then refuses to accept undeath as an alternative.

Dawn Summers is the girl who will climb up on the rickety tower that holds the worst memories of her life to save someone she loves.

DAWN: Well, I can't take you in a fight or anything, even with a chip in your head. But you do sleep. If you hurt my sister at all... touch her... you're gonna wake up on fire.

Dawn Summers is the girl who will stand up to a poltergeist and perform a fucking exorcism even as she's beaten bloody rather than walk out the door that's 10 feet away.

Dawn Summers is the girl who, when told that her sister will betray her in the apocalypse, doesn't freak out. Doesn't go complaining to someone else. She just calmly starts carrying a taser and goes about her business.

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

you're gonna wake up on fire.

EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE STARS IN THEIR EYES.

[ladyrostova.livejournal.com]

Regina Mills/Evil Queen ––– Once Upon a Time
So, let's hear it for this bitch. She's intrepid, fierce, powerful, and she doesn't take shit from anybody. Odds are she's always one step ahead of you and if you try to cross her you'll regret it. I just, GUH, all the Regina feels. Like, just. Think about it. She's so intense and so dead-set on getting revenge that she killed her own father. That's dedication trolololol. Okay, no, but in all seriousness, I want to know what Snow did to her. It must have been pretty shitty for her to do all that she's done so far. I've heard talk that Regina's mom, Cora, is going to play a huge role in Regina's ~evil factor past, but I really just need to know how she became as twisted as she is. I just love it, though. She's so tragic, you know? More tragic than anyone else in the show, in my opinion. She's so broken that she wants to break everyone else, that's the only way she can feel just the least bit satisfied. I find this so fascinating. In order for Regina to care so deeply about getting revenge, she must have cared exceptionally deeply for whatever it is Snow took from her. This proves that the woman can feel, to all those in the fandom who insist she can't. I mean, look at Henry. She loves him, she truly does, no one can question that; and yet he doesn't love her. Is this harkening back to the 'void' she will never be able to fill, as is the price she paid for the curse? AH JUST ALL THE FEELS, ALL OF THEM. Regina is the most tragic and broken and lonely and pitiable characters in this entire damn show, and I'm tired of people hating on her without taking a second to look back to why she's this way, why she is so pained and so miserable and why she did this in the first place: because she lost something, someone, she truly loved. This just makes her so heartbreakingly human, to me. As humans we can be rash, and prideful, and vengeful, and when we lose something that important to us, we lash out. How is Regina any different? Her descent into misery and what some people refer to as 'evil' is nothing more than one of the most basic human tendencies. I feel like this makes her the most relatable and deep character on the show.
/rant
/sorry uguise i just liek her so much
/...all the feels

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

The epitome of "I reject your reality, and substitute my own."

Rock on.

[thingswithwings.livejournal.com]

Subject: Sara Ellis (White Collar)

Sara committed the horrible sin of getting between the slash pairing on White Collar, so. But let's take a moment and talk about how lovely she is! She's the kind of lady character we don't see enough of on tv - smart, motivated, and driven, and using her talent and drive for her own ends, not for the sake of the male characters on the show. I love that, when push came to shove, she made her decision to end things with Neal - like, she had a line she wouldn't cross and she didn't cross it. In a lot of episodes she was ambiguously placed, not necessarily on the side of law&order but not on the side of criminals either - and I always thought she was interesting for that, that she had her own set of principles and her own idea of what she would and wouldn't do. I respected Sara, is what it comes down to, and I'd love to see her come back sometime. The episode where she and Neal have SO MUCH FUN shopping and blowing a bunch of money on purpose filled me with vicarious glee.

[jeymien.livejournal.com]

Yes. You know, sometimes I hate the slasher types. But I really won't go into that. Sara. She's like a mirror of Neal. If he hadn't been caught and working for the FBI, I could see a cat and mouse with these two! In fact... the reason the slasher types hate her... she's Peter and Neal as one person - in a skirt. She's got the skills, she's sexy, she doesn't take shit from anyone. I miss Sara and everytime I see White Collar's credits with Hilarie Burton's name in it.. I wait for her to come back.

[such_heights]

Subject: Mai (Avatar: the Last Airbender) (Spoilers)

Man, I don't even know how people can not like Mai. SHE IS MADE OF SNARK AND ALSO KNIVES, WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE? I love her so much, how she's all sarcasm and cold on the outside but motivated underneath but all kinds of secret feelings. (I love me a girl with secret feelings!) I love her deadpan approach to life, her cynicism, and the fact that actually, underneath all that, she really does care. <333333

[thingswithwings.livejournal.com]

~~~~~MAI'S SECRET FEELINGS~~~~~

Ellen Tigh (BSG 2003)

[pocochina.livejournal.com]

BIG SPOILERY SPOILERS

Ellen Tigh is PERFECT. Because:

~on the most determinedly bleak show this side of Breaking Bad, she's a ray of snarky sunshine.
~no matter how determined her social network and narrative were to slut-shame her, SHE AIN'T EVEN MAD.
~she had free will AND and an epic cosmic journey.
~she's a genius scientist who created immortality out of thin air and helped create an entire species. And when that backfired, she didn't go on some deranged quest for vengeance. She dealt.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

ELLEN. Ellen frakking Tigh, who was bitchy and brilliant and who NO ONE saw coming. Who loved her husband fiercely and loved other men just as fiercely, and it wasn't a huge deal. Who survived genocide twice and made an epic story even more epic by her return.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Subject: Mai, Avatar: the Last Airbender

MAI! She's an emotionally reserved ninja, forced to make difficult political decisions (save her brother and sacrifice the good will of the royal family? Or sacrifice him and preserve her family's standing?) at a young age. She's unpopular, of course, because she's f*cking Prince Zuko (I'm sorry but it's true!), and because she has the temerity to call him out on his bullshit and being insufficiently grateful (and traditionally feminine and emotional) for his attention.

I LOVE HER. She's wry, sarcastic, not overtly affectionate but very loving nonetheless. I love that her most naked emotion is the surprise in her face when, after she has betrayed Azula for Zuko and was facing certain death, Ty Lee defended her. I love that she blushes when she says the L-word ('like'), and that she's a product of an imperialist culture who can't understand why her boyfriend is betraying it, but she saves his life anyway because it's the right thing to do. MAI! ♥

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Ahem. (http://halfamoon.livejournal.com/258569.html?thread=1965065#t1965065§) ;)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Ekaterin Vorvayne Vorsoisson Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga)

(SPOILERS)

In a canon full of various kick-ass women, Ekaterin ís one that fails to be noticed a lot. Not hated on - just neglected and rarely talked about or fangirled. However, right after Cordelia, she is probably the female character from these books that I love most. She is the type of woman who tries to plays by patriarchy's rules. She does what her family expects from her. She then wants to be a good, supportive wife and a caring, loving mother and tries to build her entire life around these roles. And they suffocate her, slowly but steadily.

But still, even after going through ten years of an emotionally abusive marriage, she decides to leave her husband, take her kid and start afresh somehow. And when she becomes entangled in a terrorist plot by chance, she gives her kidnappers hell - and saves the fate of an entire planet, maybe even two. Then she decides to follow her passion, get an education, and work towards her dream job. But when the political enemies of the man who's fallen in love with her want to use her for airing dirty laundry in public, she stands up to them. Repeatedly. Unfortunately, canon itself then relegates her to a background of the hero's wife - but in that function, she is now responsible for the administration and socio-economic development of an entire district, and I don't get why fandom isn't more interested in exploring that. Also, it's pretty obvious that she also wants to have a career as a landscape gardener and designer for bio-tech projects, and that's cool.

In short, Ekaterin may look like a fragile flower of traditional womanhood, but don't you ever dare mess with her or her integrity or the people she loves. She has deep roots and prickly thorns, and she will weather your unpleasantness and grow and bloom.

[carawj.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhhh Ekaterin! So unassuming on the outside, and then, when it comes right down to it, she can take on anyone or anything, and come out better and cleverer and stronger and braver.

And yes, it makes me sad that fandom just isn't that interested in her, because she is at least as awesome and fascinating as any of the other brilliant women in these books!

[ladyrostova.livejournal.com]

Petunia Evans Dursley ––– Harry Potter
I just feel so bad for her. Like, imagine being constantly compared to your sister and constantly being told you're not as good as her, and then BAM, guess what, she gets to go to this fantastic magical world and you can't go because you're not magical. How much would that suck? There's so much hate for Petunia and yeah, she coulda treated Harry better, but he was an ever-present reminder of how much better Lily was than her, and it was excruciating for Petunia to face him every day. Of course she was a douche to him, I think many of us in a similar position would have been, too. Hey, she didn't have to take him in. But she did. That earns her some points, at least.