"Icky" is a 4-Letter Word

[smittywing]

One of my favorite people was talking about the phenomenon "girls are icky" showing up in certain corners of fandom, which is always guaranteed to get my righteous rage up. And there's nothing like righteous rage to bring on a MEME

Comments

[greenygal]

Pepper Potts is awesome because when things are blowing up--figuratively, literally, whatever--she keeps it together and just deals with it, competently and forcefully. And if she freaks out later, well, she's probably earned it.

Leia Organa is awesome because being a distressed princess in a pretty white dress didn't mean she couldn't outshoot, outsnark, and outthink the guys trying to rescue her, and because she fell in love, got married, and had kids while still being totally In Charge--and having a husband who was just fine with that.

Catherine Chandler is awesome because she was a sheltered society flower who suffered a violent assault, and not only didn't she break but she said "You know what? There are other people this is happening to that I could be out helping, right now," and worked at that and kept working, no matter how hard or dirty or dangerous the job got.

Sally Acorn (Sonic the Hedgehog) is awesome because she's a strong leader who was fighting a guerrilla war before she was even out of her teens, who's good at unconventional tactics but is perfectly capable of the direct approach when necessary, and who can break up open combat with the sheer force of her glare and then keep it broken up with her diplomatic skills.

[smittywing]

I totally approve of this epic pimping trend. Especially when the subject is an animated squirrel. Paying mercenaries with cupcakes = genius tactician.

Pepper Potts is absolutely deserving of the occasional freakout, considering what her boss puts her through!

Awww, Catherine! I totally wanted to be her when I grew up, at one point. Sans violent assault, which I think my mother wouldn't let me watch anyway. Still, she was awesome. And then she was Sarah Connor.

And Leia! She was the epitome of awesome for so many people.

[greenygal]

I love Sally more than possibly should be legal. There's more than a couple of kickass girls in the Sonic comics (let me tell you about Bunnie Rabbot, southern belle cyborg warrior with a cowboy hat). But at the end of the day it's all about Sally; she's got brains, passion, authority, snark, and a fierce sense of duty to top it all off--and hey, I can listen to her and Sonic tease each other all day long. The comic has apparently not always done well by her, but the current writer pretty clearly came on board with an agenda of Making Sally Awesome Again, and it's been working out nicely.

Have you gotten to IM2 yet? Pepper is ridiculously cool in that (and boy, does she deserve to smack Tony repeatedly).

And then she was Sarah Connor.

...you know, while of course I knew this, I don't think I'd ever thought about it quite like that. Now I want to see the universe where Catherine has to fight off robot assassins from the future.