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So I've left my proper comment on the LJ entry. Here's to you guys!

I'll add Menolly and most of the Headwomen--Hall, Hold, and Weyr--for the more average Pernese women. They aren't warriors, but you can't tell me Manora and Silvina aren't awesome.

~Neshomeh

I'm with you, Sedri--I'm all for female empowerment, but I draw the line when, for example, feminism is almost the only method of literary analysis I hear about in my Lit classes. Sometimes enough is enough.

That said, I can think of one author who consistently writes good, strong, capable, and yet feminine women leads, and that is Sherri S. Tepper. Some of her work is distinctly feminist (The Gate to Women's Country), but most of it (The Family Tree; Grass; Shadow's End) simply has so much going on in the social, religious, scientific, and near-fantastical aspects that you can't help but be sucked in by the sheer complexity of it. I'd recommend her to anybody.

I don't think women need to be macho to be as strong as men. Men and women have different strengths and weaknesses. We need to accept that.

~Neshomeh, who finds really good women leads hard to come by.

...of Tamora Pierce!

Keladry of Mindelan, Rebeca Cooper, and Alanna the Lioness are my favorite Warrior Women. Neither are 'Sues in any way (except Alanna has more dei ex machina than I can count on both hands as well as the power of the Gods...). They are not especially beautiful or graceful, and they actually use ARMOR THAT COVERS THEIR ENTIRE BODIES. Whoa. And they actually had to LEARN how to use weapons. As in, it took YEARS for them to master them.

There are others that I'm not thinking of right now, and I'll probably post them later.

Rukia, Soifon, Yoruichi, Halibel and Matsumoto from Bleach are all good female warriors. They're strong, capable of holding their own against the men of the series and most of them hold quite high ranks. Armour isn't really an issue, since it's a rare thing for someone in Bleach canon to wear armour, but they do mostly cover up/wear the same uniforms as the males around them.

Sakura, Tsunade, Tenten, Temari and Hinata from Naruto can also hold their own against men that are considered as strong or stronger than them. They're not push overs, and woe betide anyone who thinks they are. Again, they don't wear the kind of skimpy clothes that you'd see a Sue wearing (except in bad fanfics where they're sleeping with every man in sight).

The Weyrwomen of the Pern series aren't warriors in the traditional sense of the word, but they do fight to protect their world from a deadly threat, so I'll count them here. Lessa, Moreta and Sorka especially stand out amongst them. They're level-headed and mentally strong enough to handle riding a queen dragon, with all the responsibility that entails.

to understand why he does it doesn't change what he's done. Call me cruel, but I'd be glad to kick him no matter how desperate he is, because it might just give him the push he needs to go out and improve his life instead of blaming the world, making himself a victim and ruining things for other people.

*sigh* Sorry, I ramble. But I know how you feel. There are times I just want to shove into their faces the fact that I have gone from a similar state to them (though thankfully never that dreadful) to having a great life, BECAUSE I CHOSE TO DO SO. If all he's after is a sense of superiority, he's never going to be happy no matter what he does.

And yeah; for me it boils down to the fact that he can ruin his own life as much as he wants - it's the only way he'll learn - but when he spoils things for others, my sympathy is gone.

... I'm in a cruel mood right now. I need to go and write a mission...

Perhaps we can nag the FFN mods to watch this LJ community (or a forum), so we can report for them that way? If we imply that it'll save their inboxes, they might just do it.

So to not spoil anything, I'll just go whoa my God you both are nuts. And awesome. XD

Ooooh. My kinda zebra~ 8D

I think there are more than enough "symbols of power and independance" for women around. Not to say that women don't deserve such thing, but quite frankly, we already have it, and I think a lot of women nowadays are throwing their victory into everyone else's faces. It seems like the pendulum has swung too far.

That said, I do like strong female characters. The one whom most fits your description is B'Elanna Torres from Star Trek: Voyager, but the one I most admire in terms of being a strong woman is Mara from Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts' Empire series - she makes her victories by being clever politically, and has no skill at all with weapons. I like that. On a similar note, I love Yvaine from Stardust - the movie adaptation more than the book, but still. She is a fiercely strong-willed character, but I like that she keeps her strength without ever picking up a weapon (though she does wield her 'Super Shine Powers' (thankfully not referred to as such) to defeat an enemy).

Hm, I ramble. And aside from B'Elanna, I don't think this is what you wanted. Still, I wanted to say it. I like warrior women - I'd call myself one - but I tend to avoid them because from what I see in society today, I think it's overkill. We know women can be strong; what's unexplored is how strength, how the ability to fight and win, doesn't require weapons or battle cries. There are many I would call warriors that don't fight.

She's brave. She's graceful. She hasn't got a stitch on.

Many OCs we see shoved awkwardly into fanfic fit this description:

Mary Sue the Warrior is well known for unrealistic clothing, but you'd think that she'd at least cover up enough so that her vital areas aren't exposed in battle. Not so. While Warrior Sue is often armed to the perfect sparkling teeth with swords too heavy and weapons too awkwardly placed to reach, she fails to dress in the kind of outfit that would actually protect her from harm.
Armor and fighter clothes must be practical before they can be aesthetic. Gauntlets are not something you put on because they make you look sexy when you fight. Also, long flowing hair isn't a good idea—it's liable to get caught, pulled, or blown in one's face, obscuring the vision.

Why doesn't her profession come before her perm?
_____

The physical description is just the tip of the iceberg, but since we can all remember instances of more painful canon warping, I thought I'd let you off easy.

The sad thing is, the woman warrior has the potential to be a symbol of power and independence for women. It can possibly break a lot of molds around stereotypes of women. Yet Suethors take the idea and turn it into one big cliche. Even worse, these strong-willed women are usually bashed or warped in fanfiction, which makes them into weeping romantics or violent femme fatales.

Now, considering how much we all love good stories, we must have run into really awesome warrior women in our reading or viewing the canon we love. So, PPCers...let us know how it should be done! (You can name someone from literature/movies/TV, or even a goodfic OC, if there's one to be found. Historical figures, unless they're from historical fiction, don't count.) Pick a non-Sue woman warrior, and show the canon love. I'll post this to the PPC LJ entry after we're done.

I will, of course, contribute myself, but I want to see what you guys come up with.

Apparently my having the 'flu means that me and Pads are extra productive; this time, I present to you the sporking of a Real Person Slash Mpreg Fic; Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have a baby. Yes. You read that right.

The fic was in French. Pads doesn't really speak it and my French is six years old and very rusty, so translations were courtesy of Lee Trynace, my sister, Pads' dad and one of Pads' friends. Oh, and really silly translated sentences used for comedy are courtesy of Google.

You'll want to read this one, there's a bit of a ... surprise at the end. Heheheheh.

Linkage: http://agenttrojie.livejournal.com/29064.html#cutid1

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1569278/Kelilah

How much spare time does this guy HAVE?!

... and is desperate for any sense of superiority he can get from anywhere, so he gets it by sending death and rape threats to eleven-year-old kids.

If not for the fact that I don't want to provoke him and I wouldn't be able to see him cry, I'd send a message to him saying "You think I'm worthless? That's interesting, because last time I checked I am the one who had a tested IQ of 120, eight GCSEs at grade B or above, probably four A levels of similar grades though I haven't got the results yet, a conditional offer to a wonderful college, money in my bank account, family who love me very much even though they will not put up with me living in their basement into my thirties, and an entertaining and creative hobby which I enjoy with my many good friends in between work and other hobbies such as caring for my pets - who, I may add, are perfectly healthy and happy and going to remain so despite your verbal spewings against me and them ... and YOU were the one who thinks that the most productive use of your time is to spend day after day sending obscene and pointless messages to complete strangers."

I can't stand seeing people do this. How many people would be willing to do something like this?

It eats sue. The sparklier the better.

Maybe if they open their inbox to a few thousand complaints they'll pay attention. I've sent a few dozen copies of a complaint to them today and I'll keep doing so until something is done.

His other account is posting graphic child-rape scenes with summaries and titles copy-pasted from real fics to "disguise" them. Interesting how they ignore this yet if you put up a PG-13 fic featuring two uses of the f-word they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.

Think we should set up an lj comm and/or Pit forum just for tracking down and reporting trolls?

I wish to request the attention of the Permission Givers.

I am requesting that my two Agents be given PPC status and allowed to start patrolling the continuums.

First Agent:

Luana Starlight
She is 24-years-old, with dark blond hair and gray eyes. She is a 5'10". She is slightly more responsible and a little less insane than her partner. The writer of the pair, she tends to get frustrated when something isn't easy to read. She enjoys reading well-written fanfiction and can't stand it when other people write Mary Sues or self-inserts that make no sense in the course of Canon. She does not mind reading AUs, except when they are badly written.
Because of her lifestyle, she enjoys different types of genres. This can include anything from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars to Monty Python. She has also already adopted a Mini-Balrog, Haildar, who is currently living in the family oven (don't ask).

Second Agent:

Orange Plaid
She is the younger sister to Luana Starlight. She is 20-years-old also with dark blond hair. She has blue eyes and is about 5'8". With a tendency to slack off when it comes to certain things, she is also the insane one of the pair. She also enjoys reading fanfiction with a tendency to stick to oldies but goodies. Loves to complain, loudly, about certain writers and their stories. With certain movies, she loves to MST them while watching, to the enjoyment of her sister/partner and their father, but to the annoyance of their other two sisters and mother.

They wish to join the Department of Floaters. They do not have any particular Canon they wish to join so they feel this would be the best place for them.

Here is a couple of samples of writing:

This one was written as a POV fic for a class.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1860044/1/GimlisStoryafterMoria

Here is my account on ff.net. I do not know what else to offer for review.
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/u/526002/LuanaStarlight">http://www.fanfiction.net/u/526002/Luana_Starlight

Danke, danke~ :D I'm sure I will~~~

I emailed the admin about him with a full list of everything I had seen from him. Several points:

* he was being very profane

* he was abusing the author ("you should just commit suicide and rid the world of your pathetic self")

* his reviews weren't even about the stories

This was several weeks ago and I am not sure if anything was done about this. Maybe if more people made complaints, they would actually do something.

Hallo~ :O

So - what, exactly, does a carnivorous rubber zebra eat? And thank you muchly for the urple welcome mat~ :O

Welcome, welcome! Hope you have fun.