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

Re: Teyla Emmagan, Stargate Atlantis

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I like way too many of the female characters on this list for my own good. That said, there are some that deserve being complained on by fandom more than others.

Teyla? In my mind totally doesn't deserve it. What exactly has the done? When I started watching SGA people always talked about her like she was the stereotypical alien big busted bimbo, but when exactly has she ever been that? Why do people act like she is a Mary Sue when she is anything but? She is not useless to the mission (and therefore annoying because she is being dragged along by the plot even though she is useless), not is she completely overpowered to the point where it becomes ridiculous (there are several other characters who fit the bill much more), she is neither perfect nor a secret bitch to others while being praised as a saint. She doesn't have people flocking to her and worshipping her without any basis (popular complaint against unpopular characters like Lana or Thirteen or Kate). She is played by a capable actress (so she doesn't fullfill the "played by a bad actress" complaint leveled against other unpopular characters) who is beautiful but not over the top annoying beautiful.

So really, what exactly has she ever done wrong? Why does she get such a bad rep?

IMO Teyla is the clear example of a character people judged just based on their own expectations and then never bothered to actually go and check whether she was anything like those negative expectations. Because she totally isn't. She is the antithesis of the untalented, useless, overeposed and worshipped for no reason character.

Teyla is the true underdog of SGA and it kills me that so many people apparently never gave her a chance (including the writers).

Re: Teyla Emmagan, Stargate Atlantis

[azure-horizon.livejournal.com]

including the writers

That's it, right there. She was never WRITTEN well... or written to her full potential and that, I fear, is where a lot of complaints come in about her.

Another one of my fave Teyla moments is in season 5's, The Queen. She does kick ass in this but again the PTW struck and she wasn't as 'kick ass' as she would have been in say, season 1. TPTW had difficulty with her before, but when RL became pregnant, they lost track of her character completely.

She was never given a chance, though why is beyond me. She was beautiful, smart and she tried her best to integrate while still being part of her own people. She was friendly with pretty much everyone - we saw her interacting with numerous members of the expedition (Kate, Lorne, Weir, her team, Michael, Carson) and the friendship was that - a friendship. She was equal to them (for the most part) as they were to her.