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In reading kouredios's friending meme post, I came across someone who listed one of their friends list turn-offs as people who list 100 favorite male characters but can't think of one female character they genuinely love.

Which, you know, totally fair point.

So, who are the female characters you absolutely adore and why? I'll take characters from any media source - books, comics, TV, film, whatever.

( My list of awesome fictional women. )

It is interesting but not particularly surprising to me that most of my favourites come from books rather than TV. I find that even strong female characters on TV are often a foil for their eccentric and engaging male co-stars rather than the kind of quirky character I am drawn to themselves. It's the Mulder and Scully pattern of male-female co-stars. Or perhaps I am over-generalising.

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I am trying so hard not to be the asshole nerd historian going around correcting people about the so-called Mayan-predicted end of the world on Friday.

And I'm failing.

But! But!

The Mayans didn't predict the end of the world; their 5000+ year calendar just happens to end on 21/12/12! The calendar in my kitchen ends 31/12/12. It's just a sign that it's time to get a new calendar.

(And my asshole nerd historian husband points out that the calendar in the kitchen actually has a little January 2013 preview page at the back. We deserve each other, we do. We promised to love, honour, cherish, and spoil each other's punch lines until death do us part.)

Seriously, though, there are absolutely no ancient Mayan doomsday predictions for Friday. None. At all. The first reference to a 21/12/12 apocalypse came in a 1966 book by an archaeologist obviously willing to sensationalise and warp the truth for book sales.

Besides which, as a comedian on BBC radio pointed out a few days ago, if the Mayans had the ability to predict the future, there would still be Mayans. Given the fact that their empire crumpled and fell, I think we can all consider ourselves safe.