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:

cypsiman2.livejournal.com

She is not useless, she is not a bitch-harpy-whore, and she does not give a friendship speech every time she opens her mouth.

She is a support character, and she does a damn good job of it. Yuugi and Yami are both fully aware of how lucky they are to have her as a friend.

And if you need direct ass-kicking, look in the first seven volumes of the manga; she actually does kick ass on occasion in the more literal sense.

From:

dropsofgleam.livejournal.com

Indeed! Anzu deserves much more love. =D

From:

cypsiman2.livejournal.com

You know what, I think I'll let Anzu speak for herself in my icon.

And yes, she needs all the love she can get; she gives so much of it after all!

From:

rezo-eris.livejournal.com

Lol, yeah. I'll let her speak in my icon too!

From:

bofoddity.livejournal.com

Anzu is beyond awesome. I even liked her in the dub, her crowning moments including her duel with Mai for Yugi's sake and when she, Jonouchi and Honda protecting Yugi's soul from Pegasus. And I loved her and the friendship stuff in those first volumes of the manga. It just works for me, and I'm honestly confused why it's such a problem for everybody else!

From:

cypsiman2.livejournal.com

For me, her crowning moment of awesome in the manga was during the Monster World RPG in Volume 6 and 7 of the manga. Anzu blew up monsters all over the place their and kept everyone alive and was just plain Most Valuable Player. Hell, she gets the killing blow against the big bad of the arc, how's that for awesome! And yeah, leading the charge in protecting Yuugi's soul from Pegasus was also pretty damn awesome.

As for why the fanbrats have a problem with such an awesome character? She's not a hot boy dressed in leather. The fanbrats hate that.

From:

akai_senshi.livejournal.com

ANZUUUU~!!

She whoops a lot of ass for herself. People who deny she does have only seen the anime.

From:

cypsiman2.livejournal.com

She can swing a mean globe in the manga, true fact; so long as Anzu has a globe, we have nothing to fear from zombies.

From:

justaminuet.livejournal.com

Anzu~~! ♥

Seriously, even the anime version wasn't that bad or washed out as fandom would like to make her out to be. So, she couldn't really play Duel Monsters. Normal Bakura couldn't either, but don't see people bashing him around in fandom.

She was also loyal to the utmost extreme, and the ONLY other person in Atemu's group that Kaiba showed true respect for at any time beside Atemu/Yuugi. And Kaiba is the sort of guy who was cold enough to not even care when Jounouchi was nearly killed. But he still RESPECTED THE ANZU.

And that should be enough to let you know how kickass she was in her own way.

From:

cypsiman2.livejournal.com

And Mazaki blows up the sues for great justice!!!

But then again, what fandom DOES do to regular Bakura really isn't much better then outright bashing. I know if I were Bakura I wouldn't much appreciate my "fandom".

Being friends with Yuugi from before he solved the Millennium Puzzle would take a HELL of a lot of loyalty. As for Kaiba showing Anzu respect, when was that? I don't doubt that he did respect her, but when did he show it? (It's been a little while since I've gone through the series.)

But yes, Anzu was definitely kickass, no ifs ands or buts about it.

From:

justaminuet.livejournal.com

It was pretty much at the time that she saved Mokuba when the two of them had been captured by Malik to be used as bait for Atemu and Kaiba. Kaiba actually wound up being the one to save Anzu (and he's had plenty of chances to save others in the group after this arc, both Yuugi and Jounouchi, and didn't bother). And, it seemed ever since then, if Anzu was the one who spoke up or stood up to him, he'd grunt at the most, but he'd never talk back to her or against her.

I certainly don't think he liked her (Takahashi admitted Kaiba didn't even like Atemu at the end of it all, and only thought of him as his rival), but I do think he had a grudging respect for her. Even if it was only because she saved his brother, who's the one person in the entire world Kaiba does like. Somehow, doing right by Mokuba is akin to being good enough to not insult when the opportunity arises. Which is probably Kaiba's only way of showing respect.

From:

cypsiman2.livejournal.com

Ah. See, I didn't remember that, since that scene didn't happen in the manga. But if I recall correctly, Anzu's speech to him after his duel with Yuugi at Duelist was something that he had a hard time standing against; mostly, and this is to me I'll admit, because he knew on some level that she was right, even if he wouldn't admit it. And that was well before Battle City.