halfamoon | The Unpopular Woman Love Post

bofoddity.livejournal.com posting in

It's pretty natural that some female characters do worse in fandom than others, right? And sometimes it's difficult, if not downright impossible, to find a place where you can fan these characters in peace, or fellow fans to fan them with. Not to mention trying to find fanworks about them. Experience says: It hard.

So, stealing the idea shamelessly from

doyle_sb4's Women of Doctor Who celebration post, here is a love post for the unpopular female characters. Like in

doyle_sb4's post, you start a thread with the character's name and their respective fandom in the subject line, after which people are free to share fic and vid recs, picspams, links to essays, defenses or simply thoughts of love about the character in question. Because unpopularity is a subjective thing most of the time, the character doesn't have to be somebody you know to be the fandom underdog for sure, but if the character also has a large number of fans it would be good to give some reasons about why they're hated and why it's wrong. Links to the character threads will be collected in this post.

Being a post for unpopular characters, this is a bashing free post. If you have any negative opinions about the characters discussed or the fandom rivals of the character of your choice, please keep them to yourself.

And now, knock yourselves out!

ETA: The character and the fandom should both be named in the subject line, I forgot to mention the fandom initially. Sorry about the inconvenience!

ETA 2: If you want to share you thoughts about a character who has a thread, please reply to the thread in question. General comments and threads for new characters go to the main post.

Threads:

Diana Fowley, X-Files (Vid rec, Fic Recs, Fic recs)
Jennifer Hailey, Stargate: SG1
Sakura, Naruto (Fic recs, Author rec)
Dawn Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Anastasia Dualla, Battlestar Galactica (Comic rec, Reasons why Dee is awesome)
Lana Lang, Smallville (Vid recs)
Maya Herrera, Heroes (Vid rec)
Relena Peacecraft, Gundam Wing (Fic recs)
Cally Henderson-Tyrol, Battlestar Galactica
Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Jennifer Keller, Stargate: Atlantis (Community link, Fic recs, Fic recs)
Niki Sanders
Freya/Anise, Stargate: SG1 (Fic rec)
Maria Hill, Marvel Comics
Thirteen/Dr. Remy Hadley, House MD (Picspam links)
Bela Talbot, Supernatural (Fic rec, Fic)
Shiori Takatsuki, Revolutionary Girl Utena
Tifa Lockhart, Final Fantasy VII
Max Guevara, Dark Angel (Vid rec, Fic rec)
Elizabeth Swann, Pirates of the Caribbean (Author rec)
Cynthia Velasquez, Silent Hill 4
Allison Cameron, House MD (Meme rec)
Liz Sherman, Hellboy
Dr. Camille "Cam" Saroyan, Bones
Ruby, Supernatural
Chloe Sullivan, Smallville
Sakaki Ouka, Weiss Kreuz
Jo Harvelle, Supernatural
Inara Serra, Firefly (Fic Rec)
Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann, NCIS
Director Jenny Shepard, NCIS
Lilly Kane, Veronica Mars
Kate Austen, Lost
Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Teyla Emmagan, Stargate Atlantis (Link, vid rec)
Alex Drake, Ashes to Ashes
Anya Jenkins, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Fic recs)
Koriand'r, DC Comics
Sam Carter, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis
Ana Lucia, Lost
Padme Amidala, Star Wars
Arwen, The Lord of the Rings
Martha Jones, Doctor Who/Torchwood
Kennedy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Lois Lane, Smallville
Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter
Shmi Skywalker, Star Wars
Mai, Avatar: The Last Airbender (Fic links, Fic links & recs)
Keiko Yukimura, Yu Yu Hakusho
Orihime Inoue, Bleach
Yakumo Tatsuro, Shinzo
Sakuno Ryuzaki, The prince Of Tennis
Tenten, Naruto
Anzu Mazaki, Yu-Gi-Oh!
Temari, Naruto
Himawari, xxxHOLiC
Karen Kouzuki/Kallen Stadtfeld, Code Geass
Yuuki Miaka, Fushigi Yuugi
Meg Griffin, Family Guy
Elliot Reid, Scrubs
Princess Zelda, Legend of Zelda series/Brawl
Mizuki Kaho, Card Captor Sakura
Colette Brunel, Tales of Symphonia
Kaoru Kamiya AND Tomoe Yukishiro, Rurouni Kenshin
Ninian, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken
Katara, Avatar: The Last Airbender (Vid rec)
Naomi Hunter, Metal Gear Solid
Scheris Adjani, Scryed
Silk Spectre II/Laurie Juspeczyk, Watchmen
Jun the Swan, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
Hinata Hyuuga, Naruto
Momo Hinamori, Bleach
Miyako Inoue, Digimon 02
Misa Amane, Death Note
Juri Katou, Digimon Tamers
Asuka Tenjoin, Yu-Gi-Oh GX

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

visiblemarket.livejournal.com

She was never exactly my favorite character, and the direction they've taken her lately has really annoyed me, but I had a genuine fondness for her in S2.

Despite the weepiness, despite the lack of control, despite the complete and utter dependence on her brother and the fact that she completely played into Sylar's manipulations, I still felt for her. Maybe because of all that, actually, and maybe because of the fandom's reaction to all that.

Because Mohinder in S1 was just as easily duped by Sylar (more so, in my mind, because at least he knew about the existence of Sylar, and should've maybe been a little more suspicious earlier), and that whole adventure bred most popular pairing #1, Mylar. And Peter was just about as indecisive and ultimately dependent on his brother to keep him from killing tons of people, which brings us to most popular pairing #2, Petrellicest. Neither of those characters are quite as generally disliked as Maya, which automatically made me a little protective of her.

And while I might have been frustrated by a lot of aspects of her character, I didn't hate her. I actually found a lot of her most frustrating attitudes, towards her power and her brother, to be logical extensions of what she'd been through. There were hints enough of her past that made me think before it all got started, she'd been a pretty interesting and independent young woman, within the confines of a still very machismo-focused culture.

She spoke English even though her brother didn't, for one; I realize it was most likely for plot purposes, but I liked the idea of it, of her getting educated and wanting (in my mind at least) to improve her situation a little.

The depiction of her faith also interested me; Heroes treads lightly on questions of religion (or did, up to S3), but I think realistically certain characters would definitely embrace their faith to get through all the crazy stuff they're going through. And it didn't seem heavy handed with Maya; that good old standby for angst, Catholic Guilt, was a lot more better played with her than it ever was with Sylar, at least in my mind. Less drama, less creepy rooms, but a genuine crisis of doubt and attempt at forgiveness.

So I liked Maya. Hated her storyline, but not any more so than I hated most storylines in S2, but liked her. Of course S3 ditched just about anything interesting about her and turned her into sluttily-dressed and strangely-accented eye-candy, or Mohinder-bait, but I see that as more the fault of the writers than the character. And I'm frankly glad she was smart enough to get her power taken away from her, and got out when she could.

From:

anenko.livejournal.com

I see that as more the fault of the writers than the character.

I wish more people thought the same way in any number of fandoms.

From:

ryf.livejournal.com

Hell yes!

From:

bofoddity.livejournal.com

This is EXACTLY how I feel about Maya too. No, she may not have got the best stories, but there was nothing fundamentally wrong about the character herself, and I really hoped they would have given her the stories she deserved in S3. With the way things went eventually, I was glad she at least got to exit the series alive, though it's sad that was the least one could hope for.

I see that as more the fault of the writers than the character.

Like

anenko, I wish this was a more common statement everywhere.

From:

pervyficgirl.livejournal.com

I liked Maya as well, and the unsatisfying end of her story is one of the reasons that turned me off the show entirely.

From:

some-stars.livejournal.com

I love Maya, even as I acknowledge that the writers completely wasted her and had no idea what to do with her and pulled some incredibly offensive shit. I love her because she was GOOD, but still scared and sometimes weak and occasionally selfish; because she was so determined--even if it blinded her sometimes, but she had a goal and she kept at it and ACHIEVED it; because of her beautiful hopeful smile at the end of S2 that has spawned a thousand AUs in my head where she and Mohinder and Elle have ADVENTURES; because when she wasn't in acute distress she had some common fucking sense which is a serious rarity on this show.

From:

visiblemarket.livejournal.com

Oh my god, I'd forgotten how truly lovely she looked when she smiled. But she does, once they give her a chance to do something other than cry and panic (or in this season panic and have sex with Mohinder), show hope beautifully, and reacts in a way that makes actual sense to things.

From:

bofoddity.livejournal.com

Grace Cathedral Hill (http://pixie.fanfib.org/vids/vids.html) by

kuwdora is a wonderful character study about Maya, and one of those vids that really make you see what a character is about when the show itself isn't successful.

From:

lenija.livejournal.com

Oh, I agree with you! She had so much potential, it's not her fault the writers didn't use it.
To be honest, I never quite understood why she was hated by so many...

From:

visiblemarket.livejournal.com

I think it's mostly the fact that her introduction was so closely tied to such a pointless and frustrating storyline, one that also kept a fan favorite away from the main (allegedly) action, in NYC. She's just associated with most of the things that people hated in S2, and she's the only holdover from it, although not anymore, as I think even the writers would prefer we forgot S2 all together.

From:

liviapenn.livejournal.com

I thought Maya was fascinating since day one (such a weird, creepy power!) and her desire to find Mohinder, even if she had to walk across the entire continent, was a great "quest" type of story.

The problem with Maya's plotline (I always thought) was that it took *way* too long for her to meet up with other characters. I wish she'd met up with Sylar, Mohinder, etc., a lot earlier in the season, because her dynamics with them were great.