The Unpopular Woman Love Post

[bofoddity.livejournal.com]

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

Comments

Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[wakeupnew]

I'm not in the comics fandom enough to know how the character's treated there, but when it comes to movie fandom, a lot of fans seem to really hate Liz, which surprised me. She's a way stronger character than fandom gives her credit for, and she isn't the bitch, either. She's practical and sarcastic and maybe a little suspicious, but she's warm, too (no pun intended).

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

....you have got to be kidding me. Liz is pretty much the only reason I bothered going to see the second movie. (and yes, it was pretty, and there were elves who weren't annoying, but that's beside the point)

I. What.

If Liz weren't there, the ENTIRE MOVIE would have ended in the first half hour with a bloodbath.

Plus, she's juggling a life and her powers and case work and just living.

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[waterdaughter.livejournal.com]

Man, Liz is practically the only thing I like about both of the movies (although the first was slightly better). I love her snarkiness, but yeah, she's so much more than just a bitch.

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

People hate Liz??? That's awful! I love movie!Liz, and the movie HB/Liz dynamic.

Here's a Yuletide story that was written for me, a few years back: A Thousand Words (http://www.goldenmaze.com/thousandwords.htm), by rheanna27. Pre-movie, about Hellboy and Liz' relationship.

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[wakeupnew]

I was completely astonished to find out that people didn't like her, when I started reading through some opinions on fan communities and took a look at the slim pickings available for fic; Liz gets no love in fic, and a lot of the characterization is just ... hurg. People seem to either complain that she is useless and whiny in movie #1 (which is completely untrue) or a giant bitch in movie #2 (which I can't even address because it makes me see red in my defensiveness). She is so sharp and so badass, and her dynamic with Hellboy is one of my favorites out there!

I love "A Thousand Words"; it's one of the (sadly) very few awesome Hellboy fics out there, but it's awesome enough to almost make up for the dearth of good stuff. It's such a great look at Liz.

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Useless in movie #1? What, like more useless than Myers? (Not that I hate Myers or anything; I think he's adorable, and I wish they'd kept him in the sequel-- but really, he doesn't do much except trail around behind Hellboy and make silly faces for half the movie.)

I had serious Liz issues with movie #2; anybody would have been bitchy in the ridiculous, horrible situation they put her in. Literally begging Hellboy not to stick her toothbrush in the catfood, and him just blowing her off? Why can't Liz have her own room? Why does being Hellboy's girlfriend mean she has to live with him, and he doesn't have to adapt to her at all? Blah. I just pretend most of it didn't happen. I do like the idea of Hellboy and Liz as parents, though.

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[m-crowley.livejournal.com]

How can you not love a pyrokinetic who lights her cigarettes with her fingers? I mean, common.

Now Mignola confessed that for a while he had no idea what to do with Liz and had in fact planned to kill her off. Another artist cried out in protest against this and since then Liz has grown to become a staple member of the core of BPRD along with the other special abilities agents. Her powers still occassional prove to be a source of fantastic angst, but without them we wouldnt have Roger the Humunculus now would we?

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[wingslapped.livejournal.com]

All of the people I know who have seen it love her.

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[wakeupnew]

I'm thrilled to hear it! I love her like crazy, and most people I know personally who have seen the movies liked her, too. I just wish more people in the fic-writing side of the fandom felt the same way. It feels like half of what I read pairs Hellboy with either John Myers or a female OC, and in the process of doing so, vilifies the crap out of Liz.

Re: Liz Sherman, Hellboy

[wingslapped.livejournal.com]

I had to look up who John Myers is. I completely forgot about him. It's been a while since I've seen the first movie. OCs in fanfic annoy me many times because they come off as mary sues most of the time. With a strong female character like Liz already in the fandom who's a good match for Hellboy, who needs an OC?

I love slash, but there is a bad habit out there among some slash writers in fandoms. Vilifying any potential het romantic interest. Is that because the woman's 'threatening' their OTP? That's just pathetic. Thankfully the majority of slash in the fandoms I read is not this way, or I would never have anything to read.

I've seen this done in het fandoms too where authors vilify a girl/guy who is a potential love interest. When I was in the Enterprise fandom, it got very ugly between fans of Archer/T'Pol and Trip/T'Pol. I wish this kind of BS in fandom would stop. Shipper pairings are a preference like liking vanilla with chocolate over chocolate with mint icecream. People liking another pairing is not hurting someone else, so why attack them for it?