rionaleonhart | We Think The Women Should Be Allowed To Fight.

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We Think The Women Should Be Allowed To Fight.

A while ago,

misscam posted an entry about the hard time female characters get in fandom and invited everyone to talk about female characters they loved in the comments. I thought that this was a lovely idea, and so I am completely stealing it. Because I do tend to talk about male characters far more than I talk about female ones, and that's not right. There are plenty of female characters I adore. Here are some of them.

I love the women of House. I love poor adorable Cameron and her tendency to become attached to patients and her emotional masochism. I love longsuffering, sarcastic, awesome Cuddy. I LOVE THE BUDDY COP DUO THAT CAMERON AND CUDDY HAVE FORMED IN MY MIND. I love Thirteen when she is vulnerable and when she has that ridiculously cute grin or that little smile and when she is rolling her eyes and when she is going 'THESE ARE NOT THE CORRECT DRUGS; THEY ARE INSUFFICIENTLY CRAP' and when she is saying words and when she is on the screen.

I love Donna of Doctor Who. I love that she could so easily have been a shallow, exaggerated comic character, but that the writers instead took her and made something wonderful. I love that she made me emotionally invested in Doctor Who again; I cared about what happened to her, which was something I hadn't felt about any Doctor Who character (with the possible exception of the Master) since Eccleston's regeneration. I love that she will stand up to the Doctor, and she won't take 'I AM A TIME LORD AND THEREFORE MORALLY SUPERIOR' for an answer. She is compassionate and awesome and ridiculous and amazing and I adore her.

I love Toph of Avatar. She is mocking and hilarious and kicks arse, and the way she uses Earthbending to see is utterly fascinating. Katara, meanwhile, is lovely and awesome in equal measures, and Ty Lee is just the most adorable antagonist ever, bless her. I also love the fact that Toph and Katara both have very real flaws, and that these flaws in no way stop them from being wonderful.

I love Annie of Being Human, because she is adorable. I love her inept attempts to conform to the cultural image of what a ghost should be like. I love that she wants to be in Hufflepuff and make glittery cards. I love the little things she does for Owen, and her little smile when he notices them (even if he does not deserve them. Why don't you adorably haunt my house, Annie?). I love her friendship with Mitchell and George, and the ridiculous amounts of chemistry they all have.

These certainly aren't all the female characters I love (Carla, Elliot, Tosh, Sharpay, Fran, Celes, Selphie, Quistis, Freya, Yuna, Rikku, Lulu, Paine, Larxene, Ruby, Bela, Pamela, Ellen, Gwen, Morgana, Rose Tyler, Alex Drake, Samantha Carter, Luna Lovegood, Sara Tancredi...), but it's a start. Who are your favourite female characters? I'd love to hear about why you love them in the comments.

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FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU- WHY DO YOU ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS.

Obviously I love Donna, because she's the first character who's not been head over heels for the Doctor, but she's got such an amazingly close relationshop with him anyway. And that she's showing girls everywhere that even temps can be special, that's the main thing I adore about her - the way she thinks she's nothing but it turns out that she's everything.

And and and, um... I love Lyra! From His Dark Materials. 'Cause she's really only little, and yet she does all these amazing and courageous things. Maybe due to being stubborn, maybe due to her desire to rebel against people of authority, but still she saves the goddamn world and rescues people from hell and still, at the end, has the strength to say goodbye to the first boy she loved because all of the windows have to close. geafeahfksdh I cried at the end of those books. Now I want to read them again. Damn.

*thinks* I love Yuna!! The willingness to die to save everyone? Hells yeah. And falling in love with a guy who is essentially seen as crazy and is pretty much a gigantic doofus, that's something to love about her. She may have been quiet (and rather physically weak, unless you went the wrong way on the sphere grid and ended up with her doing 237189237 damage ALL THE TIME), but that doesn't stop her from being one more amazing female character saving the world. I love Lulu, too, 'cause she's sassy. xD

In the old Crash Bandicoot games I heart Coco Bandicoot, 'cause she was such a nerd. xD She barely got any lines or anything to do (until the third game when she rode a tiger cub around, and that was badass), but the beginning of Cortex Strikes Back when she's tapping on her computer has stuck with me. It's just what I remember her to be. And that's an awesome memory. But then the new games made her a dumb blonde-type character and I raged.

AND I SHOULD BE QUIET NOW I'm talking nonsense. Gosh.

Ooh, let's see. First of all, I love Katara, because she's just so likeable, and as you said, both lovely and awesome in equal measures. She's a really well-rounded character and is the first one I really fell in love with on Avatar.
Kaylee and Zoe from Firefly are quite possibly my two favourite female characters ever. Kaylee just because she is so incredibly sweet and cute while still being an incredibly proficient mechanic. The episode where she goes to a fancy ball in a pink frilly dress - happy as a clam - and starts talking to these men about the ship is fantastic. As for Zoe, well Zoe kicks arse on so many levels, it's unhealthy. She's got a fantastically deadpan sense of humour and she's like the character that... I dunno, *grounds* Serenity, if that makes any sense. You don't watch Firefly, do you? That paragraph probably went right over your head, then.
ANNIE! Pretty much for all the reasons you mentioned. She is just adorable, and I want her to haunt my new house.
Shiki, from The World Ends With You. I didn't like Shiki at first, but then as the game progressed, her bond with Neku (the main character) strengthened and you hear more and more about her Very Tragic Backstory. I never really sympathised with a game character until I got to a certain point in TWEWY and felt so sorry for what happened to Shiki.
Geeky awkward first-season Willow. I haven't seen the rest of Buffy yet (because I'm a terrible person) but first-season Willow is ADORABLE. And she gets some fantastic lines, and she's just perfect! Even though I know she changes, I don't want her to! Can't she just stay how she was in the first season? We need more adorably awkward geeky female characters in the world.
I could go on and on for even longer than the length of this comment, but I'd better stop now. There are so many female characters who I think are fantastic and wonderful and all kinds of awesome. I've probably neglected some of my favourites, but I'd better finish this comment off.

Donna Noble. Yeeeesss. I would go on about her, but you have done a very good job of saying what needed to be said, and without the number of keyboard smashes that I would have used. (Donna ajfkdlas;fjas)

Georgia Lass, from Dead Like Me, because she is stubborn and sarcastic and strong-headed and doing a very, very good job at what she has to do, considering the circumstances. I mean, she screws up a lot, but that is because she has her own way of doing things and isn't just going to let someone boss her around for what looks like it might be an extremely long time. Someone tells her not to touch the fire when she doesn't know what 'hot' is, and she doesn't just sit there like a coward. She touches the 'fire,' has a bit of a cry or a bitchfit about how much it hurt, and then knows not to do it again. (Or does it again even though it did hurt, because it hurts more not to. Because she is complicated and sad and I love that.)

Oh, and Pam Beesley, who will never not be absolutely adorable, and who, after three years of the show, was like "YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WALK ALL OVER ME." And then she re-invented herself as Fancy New Beesley and ~followed her dreams~ and just gets more and more amazing/adorable with every episode. Seriously.

Oh, and every woman on board Serenity.

And Rose Tyler. And Eowyn. And Dana Scully. And Jordan Cox. And Sam from American Gods. And Aeryn Sun, and Chiana, and jfaksl;fjas Zhaan.

I got so lazy in this comment so fast. It's astonishing.

Obviously I love Donna, because she's the first character who's not been head over heels for the Doctor, but she's got such an amazingly close relationshop with him anyway.

I forgot to mention that! That's another thing I really love about her. DONNA. YOU ARE AMAZING.

Oh, I need to reread His Dark Materials. I loved those books so much when I was younger.

TAKING YUNA IN INAPPROPRIATE DIRECTIONS ON THE SPHERE GRID IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS TO DO IN FINAL FANTASY X. I love watching her run up, give the enemy a gentle tap with her staff, and do one million damage. And she is just so brave. Also adorable.

(Am I crazy blind or is there no Harry Potter in this entry?)

I loooove Olivia Benson on Law & Order SVU. She is so my favourite. She's hot and kickass. She's a great cop and she works through being kind of emotionally damaged. (And she loves Elliot ♥)

I love Elliot on Scrubs and I would totally date her even though she's crazy.

I love Ruby even though she's most probably evil and will make me sad in the end.

I love Luna! She's adorable and weird and I wish I could be her friend in RL. Hermione kind of annoys me sometimes, but she's really smart and that's awesome.

I LOVE Sabriel from Garth Nix's Abhorsen series. Do you read teen fantasy? It's one of my most favourites ever.

I love Cuddy also. And Debbie from Queer as Folk US. And others, but that's all for now. <3

How did I forget Pam in mine? PAM!

(Sorry for hijacking your comment <3)

I adore all the female characters of Scrubs, because I adore all the characters in Scrubs. For a long time I wanted to hate Kelso for being an evil bastard (even if it's fictional, cheating pretty much always rubs me the wrong way, especially when the character acts like they deserve to cheat), but I can't even hate him!

I love the ladies of FFX (but I'm less-than-in-love with Paine, so not so much FFX-2 I guess) and probably would like the girls of FFXII very much if I ever picked the game back up. >.>

I LOVE ELPHABA AND GLINDA OF THE WICKED MUSICAL SO MUCH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I want to paint myself green for Elphaba, that's how much I love her. On the note of musicals, I love Hairspray's Tracy and Penny absolutely to pieces, and Mrs. Turnblad just as much (even if she's played by a man, she counts, right?), and I love Kate Monster and Christmas Eve from Avenue Q (I giggle every time I think of Christmas Eve shouting "GO GET JOB!" and There's a Fine, Fine Line is absolutely wonderful [and so is Fantasies Come True, but that's mostly because it's so heartbreaking — which is the same reason I like There's a Fine, Fine Line]).

In comics, I like the girls of the Runaways more than any other in comics, mostly because they're treated with respect. Like real respect, too. They're given personalities and not driven crazy (or bitchtastic) by their powers. Molly, Karolina, and Gert are the best; Nico is... well, all right, I don't suppose I love her, but she has awesome moments. I'm not yet used to Klara (given that I've read all of two issues with her in them?) and not yet completely convinced Xavin isn't struggling with gender identity, so I don't include them (though I do like Xavin... but probably only about as much as Nico, or maybe a little more).

I love Doctor Girlfriend of the Venture Brothers (and Triana, to a lesser extent, given her lesser involvement) so freaking much, I immediately developed a mini-crush on Doc Hammer (one of her creators and her voice actor). Of course, the fact that he proved to be insanely awesome and hilarious in real life helped. I only bought two poster-type items at NYCC, and one was an unofficial drawing of her.

Like you, I, too, love Toph, Ty Lee, and Katara of Avatar. In fact, one of the best things about Avatar for me was how much I adored the female characters.

And Gwen and Morgana! Especially Gwen. Her role may be comparatively small, but she's got something so sweet about her.

Harmony Faith Lane from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I mean, I am all about the Harry/Perry when it comes to fanfic, but in the movie Harmony was a perfectly awesome part of their little group. Sure, she is a little ridiculous at times, but they all are!

Olive Hoover from Little Miss Sunshine. Little girl, big win!

Juno, Bren, and even Vanessa from Juno are all different kinds of awesome. Juno is snarky awesome, Bren is motherly awesome, and Vanessa is... an entirely different sort of motherly awesome.

Hermione, Molly Weasley, and Luna Lovegood. Tonks and Ginny were a part of that for a while, before book six, and after book six I did like Fleur almost as much (almost).

Christopher Moore has made some female characters I like very much, in particular Jody the vampire, Abby Normal (for comedic purposes, mostly), and Molly Michon.

MOSTLY EVERY FEMALE WHEDON CHARACTER EVER? Okay, that's a bit overboard, but to start — Buffy, Willow, Tara, Dawn, Zoe, Kaylee, Inara, River, Fred, and there is even potential for me to really love some Dollhouse girls, but the main ones are dolls, which complicates things. :P I dunno, I like the bits of Echo that come out of her on her own, but sometimes Caroline's flashbacks make her personality kind of rub me the wrong way. And there's been so little seen of Sierra and November beyond the dolls — although Sierra gets to be awesome vengeful, I think I mostly identify November as Mellie. :/ I dunno. WE'LL SEE. Adele is pretty cool, too, and so is Paul's FBI co-conspirator lady whose name I can't remember. Although Topher's assistant is cute, I also would like to see more of her before passing official do-I-like-her judgements, since so far she's mostly just been upset about having to get snacks for him.

Olive and Vivian of Pushing Daisies, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Chuck and Lily. But! Olive! I did not know of Kristin Chenoweth until Olive, and I love her so. And Vivian is just so... so... I want her to be my slightly off aunt.

Juliet and Vick of Psych are quite awesome.

Satsuki and Mai of Totoro, and Kiki of Kiki's Delivery Service and Chihiro of Spirited Away are all awesome. Hayao Miyazaki is not bad with respecting girls. :D

There are more, I'm sure, but I've listed a lot here and should probably sleep at some point. :P

WAIT FUCK— Envelope Girl from The Engima! I don't know why I love her, but I do. (See icon!)

(I only tagged it with Harry Potter because of Annie's adorable desire to be in Hufflepuff. But I do like Hermione, and oh, Luna! How could I have forgotten about her? Her bedroom ceiling in Deathly Hallows! My heart!)

I am so curious about Ruby's intentions. I do hope she's not entirely evil.

I love Sabriel, who saved the fucking world from zombies and continues to save it, every year; who could walk you into death; who rescued her own damn prince and married him and continued to wear the pants; who went out to find her father and found a responsibility instead; who never turned aside or looked away.

River Tam, who is broken; who's broken edges cut; who is quirky and adorable; who is very crazy; who is very smart; who loves to dance; who could kill you with her brain (and her hands and her feet and everything in the room). Who is kind of a brat. Who's food is problematic.

Alyx Vance, who has a giant robot that she upgrades herself. Who is lonely. Who loves her dad. Who is full of rage, constant, futile rage at the state of the world. Who could kill you nine ways before you hit the ground and who makes doofus-y jokes about 'Zombines'.

Elika, who is sarcastic with an excellent vocabulary. Who is sustained, literally, only by her need to save the world. Who does everything the Prince does with bare feet and bare hands. Who is scarily determined to fix her father's mistake. Who is one of the saddest characters I've ever seen for that reason; so unable to imagine any way but tradition. Who doesn't know how to play I-Spy.

And her predecessor, Farah, who is sarcastic and perky; who clearly thought the Prince was a moron and took none of his shit; who gets oddly happy about finding cracks in walls; who is so tiny and vulnerable yet incredibly tough. Who knows the only way to get anythng done is to damn well do it yourself.

EVE! OMG EVE, who could blast you pieces and yet exists to seek life. Who watches romantic musicals with WALL-E and thinks they're awesome. Who can solve a Rubik's cube in a second and blow holes in the roof rather than take things outside; who is impatient and easily frustrated and has a hell of a temper. Who is so very, very sad when she can't complete her task. Who learns to care. Who loves to fly.

I LOVE ALL THE FEMALE CHARACTERS HATED BY FANDOM. YES, YOU HEARD ME.

RELATIONSHOP. How did I manage to misspell that. xD

I should really start the game again and take all the characters in the wrong directions. Yuna and Lulu will go down the physical strength path, Auron and Tidus will become black mages with terrible attacks, and Wakka and Rikku will be white mages. Or I could just teach everyone Holy, that could work too. Unless the enemies are invulnerable to Holy, then I'm screwed.

... are there enemies that aren't affected by Holy?

OH I FORGOT: I love Jessie from Pokemon. 'Cause she's really cool for a constant enemy who loses at everything. She's just awesome and persistent and I love in Pokemon 2000 when she and James and Meowth decide to be the good guys for once. Also in Pokemon 3, but 2000 is my favourite film.

(Oh I see now, I had mostly skipped open that bit cos I haven't seen that show. I want to over summer hiatus though :))

Me too on both counts. I'm hoping she's just devious.

YES THE CAKE DRESS. And Kaylee's all, "I want to fit in!" and then she realizes that the girls at that ball are no fun whatsoever. (And Serenity is not luh suh.) And Zoe and her amazing relationship with Wash, and her ability to make Jayne shut up (although I do love Jayne). Yeeesss.

And Willow is really always geeky, even when she is not so much computer geeky.

YES LYRA. But not so much movie Lyra.

I feel like I can finally admit that the movie sort of sucked. SIGH. But book!Lyra is awesomecakes!

I enjoyed the movie, but probably moreso because I wanted to enjoy the movie rather than an actual enjoyment of the movie. Book!Lyra is definitely better, even though I do hope they continue to make the movies. Because more people need to find out about the books and go off and read them. =D

(Sorry, you don't know me.)

I don't know anyone who's read Sabriel anymore! If my books hadn't been lost to a fire I'd want to start rereading now <3

I think I love you for saying Eve :)

I did enjoy it a bit at the time, and it wasn't as if every little part of it sucked, but I do want a do-over. :[

I think I may have a copy of Sabriel somewhere, but I haven't actually read it. You're making me want to change that.

and who makes doofus-y jokes about 'Zombines'.

I read 'Zombines' as 'Zoombinis' and now I am quite disappointed that this was not, in fact, what it said.

Oh, and EVE! Yes!

I just can't forgive them for leaving out the end. What on Earth, writers? (Also, their Lyra did not fit my mental image, and the MASSIVE BATTLE BETWEEN EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING was just unnecessary and dull.)

Excellent! It's an awesome book. It has zombies and a sarcastic cat!

'Zombine' is a combination of 'zombie' and 'Combine', and they sadly don't resemble Zoombinis hugely. I don't think you're likely to have set many Zoombinis on fire. Or crushed them with cars. Or hit them with heavy objects. Or thrown grenades at them. Or perforated them with lead. (Or maybe you have; I wouldn't know.) Though, I'm sure Alyx wouldn't mind dealing with Zoombinis for a while! It'd be a break from the hideous part human monstrosities attempting to exterminate the human race.

EVE is lovely! I have a little fluffy EVE toy who threatens my trade paperbacks and hugs my little plastic WALL-E.

I'm absolutely with you as far as Donna and Cuddy are concerned.

I also love:
- Willow from 'Buffy' (but pretty much every female character Joss Wheadon ever wrote is awesome), who's lovely, quirky, geeky and super-smart.
- Garcia from 'Criminal Minds', because she's such a character.
- Abby from 'NCIS', because she's very quirky and uber-goth but also very good at what she does. Plus she's very caring and protective.
- Ellen Ripley from the 'Alien' movies, because she kicks serious ass. That bit at the end of 'Aliens' where she fights the Alien queen inside that freight robotor? All kinds of awesome.
- Mrs Weasley. I won't even try to explain this because it's a bit of a mystery to me.
- Lorelai from 'Gilmore Girls'. She's a grown woman who has tons of Hello Kitty merchandise, is a total movie geek and loves coffee almost as much her daughter.
- Elvira, mistress of the dark. Need I say more?
- Miss Parker from 'Pretender'. Asskicking uber-bitch and scared little girl roled into one.

Ugh, I just typed up a huge comment, accidentally hit a keyboard shortcut and lost it! Let me retype... in MS Word this time.

Oh, that's a shame! I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Right! Here we go (this may take more than one comment... damn rambling):

-Rinoa from Final Fantasy 8 – I know, I know, loads of people hate Rinoa. I was like 8 or 9 when I first played FF8 though and loved her… quirkiness (as well as Squall’s broody, stand-offishness) for some reason. She even got the honour of always being in my party when she could! Nostalgic love!

-Fran from Final Fantasy 12 – Fran is AMAZING. Not only is she part of an on-screen platonic relationship (ie. not the FF style of “look at these people and their developing romantic relationship of plot convenience!”), but the actress is a very good voice act and makes her seen inhuman – which she is – but also likeable, and having the own cultures and traditions of her race. What’s not to love?

-Ruby from Supernatural – Actress voice of the first Ruby probably plays a role here too. But! She’s kickass, she’s morally ambiguous, she’s a character there to create conflict not just because she can but because she has her own agenda (that may or may not be the same as Sam’s) – that’s pretty good going as far as characterisation is concerned (especially when people complain of Supernatural’s female characterisation typically not being good). I don’t tend to like romance in my shows but I Know What You Did Last Summer didn’t bother me at all, which must say something about how much I like her!

-River from Firefly - Again, “quirkiness” is probably a good description here – I really like River for many reasons, mostly because of how off balance is, how unpredictably she acts, and some of her lines. Actually, the opening scenes of Objects in Space which is (as far as I’m concerned) in River’s point of view is brilliantly directed imo (I’m erring on the side of caution and being vague in case you haven’t seen it) and makes me love the character even more.

-Robin from How I Met Your Mother – I really love this show, Robin in particular as she’s such an untraditional character (I’m actually doing a university essay on her –glee-) for a girl. She doesn’t (as of season 3 anyway, haven’t seen season 4 yet) want to be settled down, she doesn’t want (or even like) kids, she’s not into coupley stuff, she’s independent and far capable of standing up for her own feelings, she prefers casual relationships, she’s into stuff like guns – she’s pretty too. Non-cliché female character – whoo!

-Rose from Legend of Dragoon – When you consider that while Rose is with you, you have Shana with you, any awesome that you might feel gets multiplied because of the fact that Shana is the most useless video game character I’ve ever seen in my life. Even Garnet/Dagger during her “Dagger can’t concentrate!” spell wasn’t that bad. Rose is intelligent, not afraid to speak her mind, has an attack that heals you AND hurts the enemy, doesn’t get kidnapped, have ankle twisted etc. Great girl!

-Ace from (original series of) Doctor Who – How can you not love somebody who hits a dalek with a baseball bat? Really. Ace is amazing! Some people don’t like the later Doctors so maybe they wouldn’t like her… but daleks! Baseball bats! (Also, she loves bombs and apparently sneaks them around with her. This is worrying, but useful for evil aliens I suppose!)

-The whole female cast of Monster (a manga) – is that cheating? – Not that the male cast or any less amazing here! But the whole cast here is very, very, very well characterised as the writer (Naoki Urasawa) puts in amazing detail – this could be a book, the plot is that intricate and the characters that developed. Eva in particular is great to watch from her chucking engagement, the tragedy that happens, her alcoholism (and total psychosis), her wake-up calls (various of them)… for a character initially so unlikeable, she sure gets a lot of development – depth of character!

-Eiko from Final Fantasy 9 – I have no idea why I love Eiko, really. I think it’s just that she’s a bit of a precocious brat and hilarious when with Vivi (who I also love)… good enough reason, right?

ALSO, I TALK FOREVER. I WILL STOP THIS COMMENT NOW.

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We Think The Women Should Be Allowed To Fight.

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I also love Rose :)

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Re: I also love Rose :)

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Re: I also love Rose :)

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