Women I Love - Spotlight: Felicia Day

The month of March is Women's History Month. As such, I will, from time to time, be posting blogs about women I love. Wellllllllll, admire. Love is a strong word, and as I don't actually know any of these women personally, that would be weird. But I digress... Anyways, here is one of the aforementioned blogs about a woman that I admire...

Queen of the Internets.

Oh, the lovely Felicia Day: actress, writer, gamer, accomplished violinist. While she might not be a household name (yet), she is a lightening rod of affection and awe in the geek/nerd world. She has also caught the eye of many not in this subculture by, well, look at her. She's an amazingly attractive redhead.

And she sticks it to the man.

Miss Day's early career consisted of stage performances or bit parts. One of her first roles to give her exposure to a worldwide audience was as the potential slayer Vi in the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This character has become quite popular, and Vi has even shown up in the Season Eight comics.

Just another reason that I thank Joss Whedon every day.

After her initial paring with Whedon, she portrayed a number of different roles on screens both large and small, probably the most mainstream being Bring It On Again. But then, in 2007, something awesome happened. Felicia took her love of (and addiction to) video games, and created/wrote/starred in the internet series The Guild. It tells the story of a team of MMOPRG players (or, alternatively, guild...which is where the name of the show stems from), who are, in their own different ways, extremely damaged, but highly entertaining. You should watch it.

There's sometimes multitasking involved.

In 2008, things got even better. More mainstream attention came Felicia's way in the form of a guest spot on the Fox hit House. Exciting as that might be, it pales in comparison to what happened next. As you (imaginary readers) hopefully remember, a little thing called a writer's strike halted TV & movie production. All hope for awesome new content seemed lost, until, as though a fairy (like the one she sometimes portrays on fellow internet series The Legend of Neil) came down from the subspace anomaly known as Heaven, and Miss Day's path crossed once more with NerdGod Joss Whedon's. In the midst of the strike, Whedon & crew wrote & film the internet smash hit Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog. It may be the greatest thing ever. The grassroots mini-series became an instant hit, even crashing the site when it debuted. Day played Penny, the love interest of the "evil" Dr. Horrible and the "good" Captain Hammer. It, unfortunately, was a "women in refrigerators" role, but it did give us all the chance to enjoy (and be surprised by) her tremendous singing voice.

Also: NPH was there.

Season 2 of The Guild also premiered that year, furthering the misadventures of the gaming group in the real world. The internet show has become a huge hit, winning multiple awards. It has branched out from it's mostly webcam-view roots to feel like it takes place in a very real world. In Season 3 (and continuing into Season 4), something wonderful happened. Wil Wheaton joined the show as recurring nemesis Fawkes. Yes, that Wil Wheaton.

Wesley!

They play extremely well off of each other, and if you follow them on Twitter (@feliciaday & @wilw, respectively), you get the feeling that they're great friends.

That was a segue to use this wonderful piece of van art.

Day & Whedon teamed up again(!) for two episodes of Dollhouse, where she played, in the interest of brevity & ease, a freedom fighter named Mag in a future that has been taken over by mind-wiping technology. She's a pure badass in this role, and I can't help but think that this was the role that helped her get picked to play Virginia "Red" Sullivan in SyFy's awesome retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" in Red: Werewolf Hunter.

Don't piss her off. She will end you.

Miss Day has also done voice work for multiple video games, including Rock of the Dead, Fallout: New Vegas, and the upcoming Guild Wars 2. The future is looking bright for her, and 2011 looks to be a great year for her, with a role in the upcoming season of SyFy's hit show Eureka, the upcoming fifth season of The Guild, and, possibly most exciting, the online mini-series Dragon Age: Redemption, which she also wrote.

Yes, she looks gorgeous.

Also, she looks like she'll stab me.

NOTE TO FELICIA DAY: I'm (obviously) a big fan of yours. If you're reading this, first of all, I want to thank you for your body of work. Secondly, I hope you enjoyed my tribute to you. It would mean a lot if you were to comment on it or (far more awesomely) follow me on Twitter. I'm waiting with great anticipation for the new season!