If this list were longer it would have a hell of a lot of Tarantino in it.
So I was thinking, "Aww, man, it's been like over two months since I did a meme, THAT IS JUST TOO LONG." And then I was lurking around my new friend kleine_aster's journal like a creeper and LO! I FOUND THE PERFECT MEME. It creates love where love is needed.
Because you know who needs more love? THE LADIES.
Thusly, I bring you the My Personal Top 10 Women in Fiction meme! ...You will notice a strong preference for badasses. :D
10. Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)
"I'm no ordinary woman. My dreams come true."
I love Dany because she changes and grows so much from who she is when we first meet her. She starts out as a victim, and you feel so sorry for her, and you feel so angry, and you want to shake her, tell her don't let them do this to you!, and then you feel bad because you know she's alone in an impossible situation and there's really nothing she can do. ...Except that she does it. Girl steps up. She finds her spine, and then some. Completely by chance she finds where she belongs, she just slots into place and it changes her. And she is badass. She has charisma in spades, and she carries her power with grace and beauty and command and true kindness and compassion, and people just fall over themselves to follow her, to obey her, to die for her. I am helpless against this woman. I can't help but cheer for her. I want her to win, I want her to burn the world to the ground and then rebuild it in her image. I want the series to end with Rob Stark King in the North and Daenerys Stormborn Queen of everything else, ruling the world with an iron fist, oh yes, GO GO GO, CONQUER EVERYTHING, DANY, I'M ROOTING FOR YOU~! Those of you who read the books, please for the love of god don't spoil me, I will murder you. Or Dany will. That will be worse.
Honorable Mention: Catelyn Stark, Brienne of Tarth.
9. Adelle DeWitt (Dollhouse)
"If you don't return my Active, I will send someone to cut these off. You will be killed horribly over a long period, and never found. Now look me in the eyes Stuart, and tell me if I've learned how to bluff."
GUH. ADELLE. I love this woman. She is so... complicated. She is perfectly in control and efficient and stylish and polite and as mean and as cold as a snake and weirdly maternal and so so so very much smarter than you. She is terrifying and tragic and lonely. She has the perfect poker face. She is caring and heroic and brave. She runs the Dollhouse with an iron fist and the perfect cup of tea. She is gorgeous and you can never quite tell whose side she is on and it doesn't really matter because you're rooting for her either way and I just... I love her.
Honorable Mention: Bennett Halverson, Ivy, Dr. Claire Saunders.
8. Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway (Contact)
"For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer... I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?"
Contact is one of my very favorite movies of all time, and Ellie is my goddamn hero. I just- she is brilliant, and driven, and passionate, and fearless. Her thirst for knowledge cannot be contained. She cannot be contained. She is terrible at politics, because she values truth above all else, and even if she is punished for it she will only ever speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She chases her dreams as hard as she can, regardless of other people's opinions of her. She is confident in who she is. She is overwhelmed by joy and wonder at the beauty and mystery of the universe, and she just feels everything so strongly. She is an incredible human being and ought to be a role model for everyone.
7. Dr. Miranda Bailey (Grey's Anatomy)
"I've been gone two weeks. Two weeks! And you ran off two residents. I've got people phoning me at home, screaming, telling me my interns are Rosemary's babies! Nobody wants you! Do you think I have time for this? I am pregnant! I'm supposed to be on bedrest! I'm supposed to be growing a human being. I am supposed to be calm! Do I look calm to you! Did I raise you fools to be pariahs!"
I love Miranda Bailey because if you don't know her, if you just look at a picture of her, okay, she seems tiny, she seems like a wee little person. But she is not. You don't really notice that Bailey is tiny because she fills the room with her presence. She is loud. She is large and in charge and she is not taking any of your bullshit and if you try to argue with her she will stare you down until you buckle. All of the interns are terrified of her. All of the doctors, too. Even the Chief of Surgery, and they're friends. ...I love Miranda Bailey because she is passionate about her work, about her career, and she will not compromise her own success (and, you know, the saving of lives) just because a man wants her to. And she is loud and obsessed with her work and not in any way built like a Barbie but she is radiant and everyone sees it. And she is a good mom and she loves her son. And... as you go through the series and get to know Bailey you fall in love with her, and then you find out she wasn't always this way. She, like Dany, had to find her spine. She was born intelligent and driven and compassionate, but she wasn't born a badass. That didn't happen by chance; it was an act of will. She made it happen. And that... is awesome.
Honorable Mention: Dr. Cristina Yang, Dr. Callie Torres... oh, the whole bloody female cast, really.
6. Barbara Gordon (DC)
(I could not actually pick just one quote for Babs, so... she gets two. Because she's just that awesome.)
"Dad thinks I'm too short. My Sensei thinks I'm too 'girly'. But just like the principles of Jujitsu--I use their expectations against them. That will be their weakness. Not mine. Let them all underestimate me. Let them think they have the upper hand on the little girl. Let them relax while the adrenaline leaks out of their systems. Let them believe they're closing their grips on a shrinking violet. And when their guard is down and their pride is rising...let me kick their butts up around their ears."
"I have to find another path. Divine my own future. One uniquely mine. Not a page from someone else's book. Not a fate that begins and ends on page one."
What can I say about Barbara Gordon? Ohmigod she is my hero. There are a lot of different versions of her and I love them all, but for brevity's sake I'm going to concentrate on Post-Crisis comics canon. ...Most people know Babs as Batgirl; that is how I first knew her and I love her that way. Because she was AWESOME as Batgirl. I love Babs because Batgirl sort of happened to her by accident, but she saw that she could do good with the mask, so she embraced it, and she did it without the help or endorsement or approval of Batman, or any other man. She never ever in her entire life said, "I can't do this because I am small, I am weak, I am young, I am inexperienced, I am a girl." She only ever said, "Yes I freaking can, I can do anything, because I AM AWESOME." Babs is strong and strong-willed and beautiful and so so so so smart. I mean she is literally a sexy librarian. ...I love Babs because something horrible happened to her, but she didn't let it destroy her. In a dick move that totally falls under Women In Refrigerators aside from one small technicality (she didn't die), Alan Moore has the Joker shoot Barbara in the spine, turning her into a paraplegic and confining her to a wheelchair. The next writers to get their hands on her however, bless them, did something amazing. I'm not saying it wasn't hard for her, of course it was hard, it was horrible, Babs had to deal with depression and anger and despair, the life she loved torn away from her... but she said, "You know what? I am not going to let a wheelchair stop me." And she takes what she knows about computers and hacking and information technology and she becomes Oracle, the eyes and ears of the superhero community. Oracle sees all, knows all. She is freaking scary. I think even Batman is a little scared of her. I'm sure at the very least he recognizes that she's smarter than him. She becomes an excellent leader and mentor for other lady superheroes as well. And she doesn't give up on being physically strong, either... she trains diligently to master escrima, and is no less dangerous than she ever was for being stuck in a wheelchair. Ra's al Ghul sends assassins after her, and does she need to be rescued? HECK NO. She kicks their asses! ...I love Babs because she is strong and smart and unstoppable, she is an inspiration to librarians, the disabled community, and women everywhere. SHE IS AWESOME.
Honorable Mention: Stephanie Brown.
5. Donna Noble (Doctor Who)
"Listen, I don't know what sort of kids you've been flying around with in outer space but you're not telling me to shut up."
GUH, DONNA NOBLE. She is my very favorite Doctor Who companion ever. OF ALL TIME. Because she is loud and sassy and deeply compassionate and mostly because she doesn't put up with the Doctor's shit. Most of the companions recently have been fangirls, they go all sparkly-eyed for the Doctor and let him get away with anything. Donna wants nothing to do with the Doctor's pretty face; she's his friend, his equal, and when he is being a giant dickbag (and, let's face it, this is pretty often), she calls him on it. I love Donna because she don't take none of your disrespect; she demands respect. Loudly. I love her because she is filled with joy and exuberance and energy. She has a gorgeous heart full of compassion. And she is just so incredibly awesome in so many ways, but she just doesn't see it... she thinks she's nobody special, which is so, so sad but makes me love the Doctor for knowing better. Donna, I love your snark and sass and unquenchable attitude, YOU GO GIRL, KEEP BEING AMAZING.
Honorable Mention: The TARDIS. :DDDDD
4. Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop)
"Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. We deceive or we are deceived. Thus, we flourish or perish. Nothing good ever happened to me when I trusted others. That is the lesson."
Faye, ugh, I love Faye. At first glance she seems like the token eye-candy character but oh god, she is so so very much more than that, she is so incredibly complicated and interesting. She is simultaneously deeply tragic and, like, triumphant. Faye was dealt the very crappiest of crappy hands, just thrown into this completely impossible situation, and she not only managed to survive, but actually sort of thrive. I mean, it breaks my heart that she had to, but... she really made something of herself. ...Well, she made a weapon of herself. She is tough and smart and beautiful and deadly and devious. She is badass and she cannot be trapped or contained. And you get to know her and discover the horrible tragedy that is her life, how sad and lonely she is under the smirking and strutting, and you see her find, finally, a place where she belongs, a family, a home, and just- ugh. FAYE. I LOVE YOU.
3. Zoë Washburne (Firefly)
"Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later."
So now we're getting toward the top of the list, where the ladies are so awesome that the sheer mass of their amazingness has its own field of gravity strong enough to bend my sexuality around it. I AM SO GAY FOR THESE LADIES. Starting with Zoë Motherfucking Washburne, OH MY GOD. ...I love Zoë. She is fiercely loyal. She is cool and calm and sensible. She is always the voice of reason. She is completely badass, I mean, like way dangerous, you do not want to be at the other end of whatever weapon she happens to be holding. She fights bravely and she loves fiercely. She has a dry and flawless sense of humor. She has class and grace and oh my god look at her, she is so freaking gorgeous. TT_TT Just- this woman, seriously. I don't know if I want to be her, or have her. GUH.
Honorable Mention: Kaylee Frye, Inara Serra, River Tam... Saffron... WELL, BASICALLY EVERYONE.
2. Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Battlestar Galactica)
"You know, everyone I know is fighting to get back what they had. I'm fighting because I don't know how to do anything else."
UNF. So gay for this woman, SO GAY. I just... well, we were just talking about Zoë, I like my women a little butch? XD; Okay a lot butch. Starbuck smokes and drinks and swears and fucks and gambles and punches people in the face and pilots a Viper like a badass motherfucker. She is hotheaded and cocky, but she is really fucking good at what she does, and everyone knows it. She is smart and capable and passionate, and she is deeply loyal to her friends but you have to earn it. She is deeply flawed in all the best and most interesting ways. And she is so, so, so, so sexy, I mean, Katee Sackhoff, FUCKING LOOK AT HER OH MY GOD.
Honorable Mention: President Laura Roslin.
1. Alice Morgan (Luther)
"No, it's true. I'm a bit like that. A bit random. Slightly kooky."
Okay so this is where we should probably all be deeply concerned that the woman at the top of my list is a dangerous and deadly sociopath. And also that I'm deeply attracted to her. WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT ME? It's a bit worrisome. ...BUT I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF. I love love love love love Alice Morgan, oh god. She's introduced to you and you think you know what to expect, but you just... you just don't. I love Alice because she is cool and calm and competent and dangerous and way way way smarter than you. She is CREEPY AS FUCK and she pulls it off so well~. She says and does the most amazing things and is always always laughing at her private joke with the world. And she's another of those characters that changes during the story... in a really big way, for her, but sort of thankfully not in that big of a way from our point of view... she never stops being herself. It's just that... her motivations change in a way that is completely pivotal, and changes the way she acts in a way that is really interesting. She is... kind of impossible to put into words, you really have to see her for yourself to understand. I just- GUH. I LOVE THIS WOMAN.
Honorable Mention: Rose Teller.
...So there it is. I could go on and on and on, there are so many awesome ladies, but I made myself stop at my top ten, so. Thems my favorite ladies of the moment. ...SO TELL ME ABOUT YOURS! :DDDD
Gaaaaahhhh this is making me want to rewatch ALL OF THESE SHOWS AND MOVIES. Plus the ones with my eleventh and twelfth and twentieth and so on ladies. SO MUCH LOVE.
Because you know who needs more love? THE LADIES.
Thusly, I bring you the My Personal Top 10 Women in Fiction meme! ...You will notice a strong preference for badasses. :D
10. Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)
"I'm no ordinary woman. My dreams come true."
I love Dany because she changes and grows so much from who she is when we first meet her. She starts out as a victim, and you feel so sorry for her, and you feel so angry, and you want to shake her, tell her don't let them do this to you!, and then you feel bad because you know she's alone in an impossible situation and there's really nothing she can do. ...Except that she does it. Girl steps up. She finds her spine, and then some. Completely by chance she finds where she belongs, she just slots into place and it changes her. And she is badass. She has charisma in spades, and she carries her power with grace and beauty and command and true kindness and compassion, and people just fall over themselves to follow her, to obey her, to die for her. I am helpless against this woman. I can't help but cheer for her. I want her to win, I want her to burn the world to the ground and then rebuild it in her image. I want the series to end with Rob Stark King in the North and Daenerys Stormborn Queen of everything else, ruling the world with an iron fist, oh yes, GO GO GO, CONQUER EVERYTHING, DANY, I'M ROOTING FOR YOU~! Those of you who read the books, please for the love of god don't spoil me, I will murder you. Or Dany will. That will be worse.
Honorable Mention: Catelyn Stark, Brienne of Tarth.
9. Adelle DeWitt (Dollhouse)
"If you don't return my Active, I will send someone to cut these off. You will be killed horribly over a long period, and never found. Now look me in the eyes Stuart, and tell me if I've learned how to bluff."
GUH. ADELLE. I love this woman. She is so... complicated. She is perfectly in control and efficient and stylish and polite and as mean and as cold as a snake and weirdly maternal and so so so very much smarter than you. She is terrifying and tragic and lonely. She has the perfect poker face. She is caring and heroic and brave. She runs the Dollhouse with an iron fist and the perfect cup of tea. She is gorgeous and you can never quite tell whose side she is on and it doesn't really matter because you're rooting for her either way and I just... I love her.
Honorable Mention: Bennett Halverson, Ivy, Dr. Claire Saunders.
8. Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway (Contact)
"For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer... I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?"
Contact is one of my very favorite movies of all time, and Ellie is my goddamn hero. I just- she is brilliant, and driven, and passionate, and fearless. Her thirst for knowledge cannot be contained. She cannot be contained. She is terrible at politics, because she values truth above all else, and even if she is punished for it she will only ever speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She chases her dreams as hard as she can, regardless of other people's opinions of her. She is confident in who she is. She is overwhelmed by joy and wonder at the beauty and mystery of the universe, and she just feels everything so strongly. She is an incredible human being and ought to be a role model for everyone.
7. Dr. Miranda Bailey (Grey's Anatomy)
"I've been gone two weeks. Two weeks! And you ran off two residents. I've got people phoning me at home, screaming, telling me my interns are Rosemary's babies! Nobody wants you! Do you think I have time for this? I am pregnant! I'm supposed to be on bedrest! I'm supposed to be growing a human being. I am supposed to be calm! Do I look calm to you! Did I raise you fools to be pariahs!"
I love Miranda Bailey because if you don't know her, if you just look at a picture of her, okay, she seems tiny, she seems like a wee little person. But she is not. You don't really notice that Bailey is tiny because she fills the room with her presence. She is loud. She is large and in charge and she is not taking any of your bullshit and if you try to argue with her she will stare you down until you buckle. All of the interns are terrified of her. All of the doctors, too. Even the Chief of Surgery, and they're friends. ...I love Miranda Bailey because she is passionate about her work, about her career, and she will not compromise her own success (and, you know, the saving of lives) just because a man wants her to. And she is loud and obsessed with her work and not in any way built like a Barbie but she is radiant and everyone sees it. And she is a good mom and she loves her son. And... as you go through the series and get to know Bailey you fall in love with her, and then you find out she wasn't always this way. She, like Dany, had to find her spine. She was born intelligent and driven and compassionate, but she wasn't born a badass. That didn't happen by chance; it was an act of will. She made it happen. And that... is awesome.
Honorable Mention: Dr. Cristina Yang, Dr. Callie Torres... oh, the whole bloody female cast, really.
6. Barbara Gordon (DC)
(I could not actually pick just one quote for Babs, so... she gets two. Because she's just that awesome.)
"Dad thinks I'm too short. My Sensei thinks I'm too 'girly'. But just like the principles of Jujitsu--I use their expectations against them. That will be their weakness. Not mine. Let them all underestimate me. Let them think they have the upper hand on the little girl. Let them relax while the adrenaline leaks out of their systems. Let them believe they're closing their grips on a shrinking violet. And when their guard is down and their pride is rising...let me kick their butts up around their ears."
"I have to find another path. Divine my own future. One uniquely mine. Not a page from someone else's book. Not a fate that begins and ends on page one."
What can I say about Barbara Gordon? Ohmigod she is my hero. There are a lot of different versions of her and I love them all, but for brevity's sake I'm going to concentrate on Post-Crisis comics canon. ...Most people know Babs as Batgirl; that is how I first knew her and I love her that way. Because she was AWESOME as Batgirl. I love Babs because Batgirl sort of happened to her by accident, but she saw that she could do good with the mask, so she embraced it, and she did it without the help or endorsement or approval of Batman, or any other man. She never ever in her entire life said, "I can't do this because I am small, I am weak, I am young, I am inexperienced, I am a girl." She only ever said, "Yes I freaking can, I can do anything, because I AM AWESOME." Babs is strong and strong-willed and beautiful and so so so so smart. I mean she is literally a sexy librarian. ...I love Babs because something horrible happened to her, but she didn't let it destroy her. In a dick move that totally falls under Women In Refrigerators aside from one small technicality (she didn't die), Alan Moore has the Joker shoot Barbara in the spine, turning her into a paraplegic and confining her to a wheelchair. The next writers to get their hands on her however, bless them, did something amazing. I'm not saying it wasn't hard for her, of course it was hard, it was horrible, Babs had to deal with depression and anger and despair, the life she loved torn away from her... but she said, "You know what? I am not going to let a wheelchair stop me." And she takes what she knows about computers and hacking and information technology and she becomes Oracle, the eyes and ears of the superhero community. Oracle sees all, knows all. She is freaking scary. I think even Batman is a little scared of her. I'm sure at the very least he recognizes that she's smarter than him. She becomes an excellent leader and mentor for other lady superheroes as well. And she doesn't give up on being physically strong, either... she trains diligently to master escrima, and is no less dangerous than she ever was for being stuck in a wheelchair. Ra's al Ghul sends assassins after her, and does she need to be rescued? HECK NO. She kicks their asses! ...I love Babs because she is strong and smart and unstoppable, she is an inspiration to librarians, the disabled community, and women everywhere. SHE IS AWESOME.
Honorable Mention: Stephanie Brown.
5. Donna Noble (Doctor Who)
"Listen, I don't know what sort of kids you've been flying around with in outer space but you're not telling me to shut up."
GUH, DONNA NOBLE. She is my very favorite Doctor Who companion ever. OF ALL TIME. Because she is loud and sassy and deeply compassionate and mostly because she doesn't put up with the Doctor's shit. Most of the companions recently have been fangirls, they go all sparkly-eyed for the Doctor and let him get away with anything. Donna wants nothing to do with the Doctor's pretty face; she's his friend, his equal, and when he is being a giant dickbag (and, let's face it, this is pretty often), she calls him on it. I love Donna because she don't take none of your disrespect; she demands respect. Loudly. I love her because she is filled with joy and exuberance and energy. She has a gorgeous heart full of compassion. And she is just so incredibly awesome in so many ways, but she just doesn't see it... she thinks she's nobody special, which is so, so sad but makes me love the Doctor for knowing better. Donna, I love your snark and sass and unquenchable attitude, YOU GO GIRL, KEEP BEING AMAZING.
Honorable Mention: The TARDIS. :DDDDD
4. Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop)
"Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. We deceive or we are deceived. Thus, we flourish or perish. Nothing good ever happened to me when I trusted others. That is the lesson."
Faye, ugh, I love Faye. At first glance she seems like the token eye-candy character but oh god, she is so so very much more than that, she is so incredibly complicated and interesting. She is simultaneously deeply tragic and, like, triumphant. Faye was dealt the very crappiest of crappy hands, just thrown into this completely impossible situation, and she not only managed to survive, but actually sort of thrive. I mean, it breaks my heart that she had to, but... she really made something of herself. ...Well, she made a weapon of herself. She is tough and smart and beautiful and deadly and devious. She is badass and she cannot be trapped or contained. And you get to know her and discover the horrible tragedy that is her life, how sad and lonely she is under the smirking and strutting, and you see her find, finally, a place where she belongs, a family, a home, and just- ugh. FAYE. I LOVE YOU.
3. Zoë Washburne (Firefly)
"Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later."
So now we're getting toward the top of the list, where the ladies are so awesome that the sheer mass of their amazingness has its own field of gravity strong enough to bend my sexuality around it. I AM SO GAY FOR THESE LADIES. Starting with Zoë Motherfucking Washburne, OH MY GOD. ...I love Zoë. She is fiercely loyal. She is cool and calm and sensible. She is always the voice of reason. She is completely badass, I mean, like way dangerous, you do not want to be at the other end of whatever weapon she happens to be holding. She fights bravely and she loves fiercely. She has a dry and flawless sense of humor. She has class and grace and oh my god look at her, she is so freaking gorgeous. TT_TT Just- this woman, seriously. I don't know if I want to be her, or have her. GUH.
Honorable Mention: Kaylee Frye, Inara Serra, River Tam... Saffron... WELL, BASICALLY EVERYONE.
2. Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Battlestar Galactica)
"You know, everyone I know is fighting to get back what they had. I'm fighting because I don't know how to do anything else."
UNF. So gay for this woman, SO GAY. I just... well, we were just talking about Zoë, I like my women a little butch? XD; Okay a lot butch. Starbuck smokes and drinks and swears and fucks and gambles and punches people in the face and pilots a Viper like a badass motherfucker. She is hotheaded and cocky, but she is really fucking good at what she does, and everyone knows it. She is smart and capable and passionate, and she is deeply loyal to her friends but you have to earn it. She is deeply flawed in all the best and most interesting ways. And she is so, so, so, so sexy, I mean, Katee Sackhoff, FUCKING LOOK AT HER OH MY GOD.
Honorable Mention: President Laura Roslin.
1. Alice Morgan (Luther)
"No, it's true. I'm a bit like that. A bit random. Slightly kooky."
Okay so this is where we should probably all be deeply concerned that the woman at the top of my list is a dangerous and deadly sociopath. And also that I'm deeply attracted to her. WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT ME? It's a bit worrisome. ...BUT I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF. I love love love love love Alice Morgan, oh god. She's introduced to you and you think you know what to expect, but you just... you just don't. I love Alice because she is cool and calm and competent and dangerous and way way way smarter than you. She is CREEPY AS FUCK and she pulls it off so well~. She says and does the most amazing things and is always always laughing at her private joke with the world. And she's another of those characters that changes during the story... in a really big way, for her, but sort of thankfully not in that big of a way from our point of view... she never stops being herself. It's just that... her motivations change in a way that is completely pivotal, and changes the way she acts in a way that is really interesting. She is... kind of impossible to put into words, you really have to see her for yourself to understand. I just- GUH. I LOVE THIS WOMAN.
Honorable Mention: Rose Teller.
...So there it is. I could go on and on and on, there are so many awesome ladies, but I made myself stop at my top ten, so. Thems my favorite ladies of the moment. ...SO TELL ME ABOUT YOURS! :DDDD
Gaaaaahhhh this is making me want to rewatch ALL OF THESE SHOWS AND MOVIES. Plus the ones with my eleventh and twelfth and twentieth and so on ladies. SO MUCH LOVE.