inmh
in
anti_bella
Extolling the Virtues of Seriously Awesome Women (Tess Mercer, Smallville)
Hello comm! Glad to be here. :3
The part about us being able to state our love for women who eat, sleep and breathe awesomeness is part of what drew me to join this community, because what I more or less do to deal with the sheer rage that Bella and her whiny, immature, and ridiculously codependent behavior is to meditate on my favorite fandom women who could more than easily kick her silly-twit butt.
So... Smallville, anyone? I've only just gotten into it, but I have a favorite woman already- And she is badass.
TESS MERCER
(AKA: That one person you never want to get on the bad side of)
Tess is a beast. She really is. Lois even outright states that Tess has a “thing” for physical violence. And it’s true: She gets herself into a number of brawls over her three seasons on Smallville:
Tess vs. Lois
Tess vs. Chloe
Tess vs. Zod
Tess vs. Oliver
Tess vs. Oliver (With KNIVES)
…And countless other fights with characters that either didn’t last long or were more one-sided.
Point being, you don’t screw with Tess. LOTS-A people found that out the hard way.
“Stay the hell away from Oliver.”
(BANG)
“…Pretty please?”
This guy kidnapped her some years ago.
Now he wishes he hadn’t.
And then this scene, which had no words and was just sheer BADASSERY:
Zod, above, sent one of his men (a rather monstrous fellow, I might add) to get some information out of Tess. You may have noticed that while she does fight a lot, Tess does not physically appear to be very imposing. And she STILL, presumably, kills the guy and mails his bloody dog-tags to Zod, standing across the street to see his reaction (And then she just does a magical-disappear when a truck passes by, which actually SCARED me a bit).
Tess takes no crap. She really doesn’t. She was abused as a child and has, in general, not had the best run of luck with men. So what does she do? She makes herself strong. She makes herself into a formidable opponent. She gets smart, she gets power, and she gets downright ruthless at some points to make sure she keeps it.
Tess is, for seasons 8 and 9, essentially a villain. She isn’t trying to destroy the world (Quite the opposite: She wants to reverse the damage that humans have done to the planet), but she unfortunately allies herself with some nasty people to get it done. It’s only after getting violently burned by Zod at the end of season 9 (and effectively dying and then being reborn) that she starts to realize that she’s been taking the wrong route and becomes desperate for redemption.
SO, in season 10, she becomes a good guy. She becomes apart of the Justice League, and works in the Watchtower.
(She’s moved to tears that Clark and Oliver asked her to join.)
She takes care of an innocent little clone of Lex Luthor-
-who goes bad, and then goes good again. She plays a motherly and then a big-sisterly role for him (Though I feel I should note that this doesn't consume her life- She doesn't just magically give up being a badass and work just to be his mommy).
She gets DRUNK-
-Sings KARAOKE dressed as JUNE CASH-
-And has sex with EMIL. ON CAMERA.
(God I love that episode)
Eventually, though my heart breaks to say it, she dies (Or rather, is killed)- But not before wiping Lex Luthor’s memory clean of all things that could do damage to Clark or the League. She single-handedly makes it possible for Superman to rise by making it so he doesn't have to worry about Luthor revealing his identity.
My overall view on why I like Tess: Well, for one thing, she’s a badass (I'll need to go back and count how many times I've said that). An unrepentant one at first, and then eventually reels herself in a bit and uses her badassery for good. She is extremely intelligent (she got into college at fifteen and graduated as a Marine Biologist at seventeen), driven, clever and independent. She is capable of forming loyalties that aren’t blind (after, of course, she learns the hard way by trusting Lex Luthor).
She’s also brave- though in the first two seasons that feature her, there’s more than a bit of arrogance mixed with it. She faces down with Zod, this incredibly powerful Kandorain capable of crushing her like a piece of flimsy cardboard, and she uses her brains to outwit him: She stealthily pulls out Kryptonite and renders him helpless, even beats him silly with it in their final fight (prior to him burning half of her face off).
Don’t even get me started on her hair. It’s always flawless. I fricking love this woman's hair.
Not to mention, Cassidy Freeman’s laugh? It’s contagious, it really is.
And hearing it out of a character generally so serious, it sounds really nice.
She DOES NOT need a man to function, and woe be to the poor soul who dares to imply that she’s inferior to them. She relentlessly tries to find Lex Luthor, and then MAJORLY screws him over by declaring him dead and merging his company with Oliver Queen's when she finds out that he’s pulled a seriously Edward-Cullen-Flavored bit of crap put some kind of mini-camera thing in her optic nerve (and presumably her ears as well) so that he can see and hear everything she does. Because he’s a creeper like that.
Oliver cheated on her with a waitress (Or a hostess, she couldn’t remember and frankly I don’t think she cared). Years later, she has sex with him, and then very bluntly tells him that it meant nothing- "I had an itch, you scratched it." (Ouch). The particularly painful part about it is that you can tell she really used to care for him.
She frequently reminds Zod that she can outdo him whenever she has to.
And while Tess doesn’t think that she’s the best damn thing on the planet, she knows she can take care of herself. She has confidence. She knows she’s smart, strong, and that she can manipulate people.
She is also- God forgive me for this pun, because I really am sick of this song- sexy and she KNOWS IT.
SHE KILLED ZOMBIES. WITH A SWORD. Fanservice? What Fanservice?
Oh. And this is her license plate:
Yeah. That’s awesome.
Along with Tess being badass, we also see her vulnerabilities- for all three seasons. We don’t just abruptly get an ‘Oh this is why she’s such a bitch!’ thing: We find out a number of things that humanize her as seasons 8, 9 and 10 go on. In particular, the fact that throughout most of her life she's been abandoned/betrayed by people she's loved- And so underneath everything else, she has a really desperate need for love and acceptance, but she doesn't let it control her life. She’s tough without being a total sociopathic bitch though I’ll grant you she toes the line every now and then.
And again, she dies a hero. That makes her doubly awesome.
(I also feel obliged to end with this: Tess sleeps around a bit during the show, but never actually gets a One True Love. They kind of imply that she and Emil Hamilton are good for each other, but we never see anything come of it. Shock, shock: A woman who ACTUALLY managed without a TWU LUV).
The part about us being able to state our love for women who eat, sleep and breathe awesomeness is part of what drew me to join this community, because what I more or less do to deal with the sheer rage that Bella and her whiny, immature, and ridiculously codependent behavior is to meditate on my favorite fandom women who could more than easily kick her silly-twit butt.
So... Smallville, anyone? I've only just gotten into it, but I have a favorite woman already- And she is badass.
TESS MERCER
(AKA: That one person you never want to get on the bad side of)
Tess is a beast. She really is. Lois even outright states that Tess has a “thing” for physical violence. And it’s true: She gets herself into a number of brawls over her three seasons on Smallville:
Tess vs. Lois
Tess vs. Chloe
Tess vs. Zod
Tess vs. Oliver
Tess vs. Oliver (With KNIVES)
…And countless other fights with characters that either didn’t last long or were more one-sided.
Point being, you don’t screw with Tess. LOTS-A people found that out the hard way.
“Stay the hell away from Oliver.”
(BANG)
“…Pretty please?”
This guy kidnapped her some years ago.
Now he wishes he hadn’t.
And then this scene, which had no words and was just sheer BADASSERY:
Zod, above, sent one of his men (a rather monstrous fellow, I might add) to get some information out of Tess. You may have noticed that while she does fight a lot, Tess does not physically appear to be very imposing. And she STILL, presumably, kills the guy and mails his bloody dog-tags to Zod, standing across the street to see his reaction (And then she just does a magical-disappear when a truck passes by, which actually SCARED me a bit).
Tess takes no crap. She really doesn’t. She was abused as a child and has, in general, not had the best run of luck with men. So what does she do? She makes herself strong. She makes herself into a formidable opponent. She gets smart, she gets power, and she gets downright ruthless at some points to make sure she keeps it.
Click to viewTess is, for seasons 8 and 9, essentially a villain. She isn’t trying to destroy the world (Quite the opposite: She wants to reverse the damage that humans have done to the planet), but she unfortunately allies herself with some nasty people to get it done. It’s only after getting violently burned by Zod at the end of season 9 (and effectively dying and then being reborn) that she starts to realize that she’s been taking the wrong route and becomes desperate for redemption.
SO, in season 10, she becomes a good guy. She becomes apart of the Justice League, and works in the Watchtower.
(She’s moved to tears that Clark and Oliver asked her to join.)
She takes care of an innocent little clone of Lex Luthor-
-who goes bad, and then goes good again. She plays a motherly and then a big-sisterly role for him (Though I feel I should note that this doesn't consume her life- She doesn't just magically give up being a badass and work just to be his mommy).
She gets DRUNK-
-Sings KARAOKE dressed as JUNE CASH-
-And has sex with EMIL. ON CAMERA.
(God I love that episode)
Eventually, though my heart breaks to say it, she dies (Or rather, is killed)- But not before wiping Lex Luthor’s memory clean of all things that could do damage to Clark or the League. She single-handedly makes it possible for Superman to rise by making it so he doesn't have to worry about Luthor revealing his identity.
My overall view on why I like Tess: Well, for one thing, she’s a badass (I'll need to go back and count how many times I've said that). An unrepentant one at first, and then eventually reels herself in a bit and uses her badassery for good. She is extremely intelligent (she got into college at fifteen and graduated as a Marine Biologist at seventeen), driven, clever and independent. She is capable of forming loyalties that aren’t blind (after, of course, she learns the hard way by trusting Lex Luthor).
She’s also brave- though in the first two seasons that feature her, there’s more than a bit of arrogance mixed with it. She faces down with Zod, this incredibly powerful Kandorain capable of crushing her like a piece of flimsy cardboard, and she uses her brains to outwit him: She stealthily pulls out Kryptonite and renders him helpless, even beats him silly with it in their final fight (prior to him burning half of her face off).
Don’t even get me started on her hair. It’s always flawless. I fricking love this woman's hair.
Not to mention, Cassidy Freeman’s laugh? It’s contagious, it really is.
And hearing it out of a character generally so serious, it sounds really nice.
She DOES NOT need a man to function, and woe be to the poor soul who dares to imply that she’s inferior to them. She relentlessly tries to find Lex Luthor, and then MAJORLY screws him over by declaring him dead and merging his company with Oliver Queen's when she finds out that he’s pulled a seriously Edward-Cullen-Flavored bit of crap put some kind of mini-camera thing in her optic nerve (and presumably her ears as well) so that he can see and hear everything she does. Because he’s a creeper like that.
Oliver cheated on her with a waitress (Or a hostess, she couldn’t remember and frankly I don’t think she cared). Years later, she has sex with him, and then very bluntly tells him that it meant nothing- "I had an itch, you scratched it." (Ouch). The particularly painful part about it is that you can tell she really used to care for him.
She frequently reminds Zod that she can outdo him whenever she has to.
And while Tess doesn’t think that she’s the best damn thing on the planet, she knows she can take care of herself. She has confidence. She knows she’s smart, strong, and that she can manipulate people.
She is also- God forgive me for this pun, because I really am sick of this song- sexy and she KNOWS IT.
SHE KILLED ZOMBIES. WITH A SWORD. Fanservice? What Fanservice?
Oh. And this is her license plate:
Yeah. That’s awesome.
Along with Tess being badass, we also see her vulnerabilities- for all three seasons. We don’t just abruptly get an ‘Oh this is why she’s such a bitch!’ thing: We find out a number of things that humanize her as seasons 8, 9 and 10 go on. In particular, the fact that throughout most of her life she's been abandoned/betrayed by people she's loved- And so underneath everything else, she has a really desperate need for love and acceptance, but she doesn't let it control her life. She’s tough without being a total sociopathic bitch though I’ll grant you she toes the line every now and then.
And again, she dies a hero. That makes her doubly awesome.
(I also feel obliged to end with this: Tess sleeps around a bit during the show, but never actually gets a One True Love. They kind of imply that she and Emil Hamilton are good for each other, but we never see anything come of it. Shock, shock: A woman who ACTUALLY managed without a TWU LUV).