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:

marinarusalka.livejournal.com

She's tough as nails, and totally unapologetic. She knows exactly how much people hate her, and she knows exactly why, and she doesn't see it as a reason to change. She was self-aware enough to recognize that she was unqualified for Nick Fury's job, and to resign in favor of Tony Stark, whom she hated. The fandom thinks she's a psycho fascist bitch. What's not to love? :-P

I think I need a Maria icon, dammit.

(And if anyone actually has any Maria Hill fanworks to link, I'm gonna fall over dead from ~~shock~~ glee.)

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

I think

samdonne plans on Maria Hill fanfic. Also, I agree on your description, and am very glad she's currently getting character development and much narrative space in Invincible Iron Man. Though I must admit my No.1 tough as nails, hated and unapologetic agent/organisation leader is Abigail Brand, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy Maria Hill, too.

From:

marinarusalka.livejournal.com

I think samdonne plans on Maria Hill fanfic.

Oh, that would rock! I love

samdonne's fic!

I'm fairly new to comics fandom, so I'm not familiar with Abigail Brand yet, but Maria happened to be getting a lot of page time just around the time I started reading Invincible Iront Man and Iron Man: Director of Shield, and I quickly became a fan. :-)

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

Brand was invented by Joss Whedon for his Astonishing X-Men run, where she was a great character who was both antagonist and occasional ally for the heroes of the story (who start out seeing her as a ruthless fascist bitch, so, you know...). She's the head of S.W.O.R.D (SHIELD's pendant in space - SWORD deals with off-world business and alien threats). Mike Carey and Brian Bendis both used her for the Secret Invasion storyline as well. They let the Skrulls destroy SWORD, which I'm a bit cranky about, but on the bright side of things they let Abigail Brand kick a lot of ass; she basically ends up taking a Skrull ship on her own (it helps she's half alien herself - species not yet determined, but she has natural green hair and is able to generate heat with her hands) and thus able to bluff via Skrull language skills) and saves Tony & Co. from the Savage Land where they were temporarily stranded in time to ship them back for the big Secret Invasion showdown in New York.

Some of the reasons why I love her is that she scores with the dialogue, as in:

Brand: Thats a whole world gone because of one mutant. That wouldn't be a first now, would it?
Emma Frost: Jean Grey is dead, Agent.
Brand: That'll last.

and:

Sydren (think Deanna Troi type of empath stating the obvious, only this one looks like a dragon and is one of Brand's SWORD employees): I sense... destruction.
Brand: Really. You sure? You don't wanna look at the photo of the enormous destruction some more before you make such a bold statement?
Sydren: You look it, I feel it.
Brand: Congrats on that.
Sydren: If I ate your head, two thirds of your agents would praise me in poems and song.
Brand: So my approval rating's up. Tell me what you got.

She also develops an interest in the most ethical of the X-Men, Hank McCoy (they're a kind of reversed Pride and Prejudice, with Brand as Darcy and Hank as Elizabeth Bennet), which leads to repartee like:

Brand: I think we ought to split up.
Hank: At least we agree on something.
Brand: You're coming with me.
Hank: And so ends that era.

And then they get a canon "have to share heat in a snow storm" situation:

Hank: I truly dislike this world.
Brand: Tactical weather deployment, Professor. Dig faster.
Hank: And how many people will be caught in this besides us?
Brand: Kruun will do whatever he has to.
Hank: Reminds me of someone.
Brand: Why can't you let up for one second?
Brand: You're amoral, you're abrasive, and right now you're looking at me like I'm a Taun-Taun.
Brand (removing her gloves in the newly created shelter): You can stop whining. I don't need your guts to keep me warm.
Hank: Oh. My.

(I, err, have written some fanfiction, including some encounters between her and Tony Stark, as Marvel hasn't indulged me with dialogue between them yet. (Though we did see her both with Nick Fury and Maria Hill early in AXM.) If you want to have a quick look, here's one set directly after Secret Invasion and before Tony gets dismissed as Director of SHIELD, All Quiet on the Western Front (http://selenak.livejournal.com/438635.html).

From:

marinarusalka.livejournal.com

Cool! I'll check it out. Abigail sounds like my kind of gal. :-)

From:

the-wanlorn.livejournal.com

Ha, I was just coming here to post about her. :D I fucking love that she did the best she could when she was set up as a patsy and given Fury's job, and refused to apologize for it. Since, you know, it wasn't her fault.

From:

marinarusalka.livejournal.com

Yeah, she basically got stuck in the same untenable situation that Tony got stuck in later, but without Tony's inside knowledge or power. And she did what she thought needed to be done, and never made excuses.

From:

muccamukk

YES! I love how she refused to do what some random band of heroes told her to do, just because they told her to, even though they wouldn't give her any information. She made SHIELD a lot more independent than I had been before.

I also like her in the IIM run these last few months, where she's snarky, kick ass and sensible.