I finally broke my writers block and started into Act 2, Chapter 2 of the Vek-10 (space monks) side of Parallax, and I realized something about our lead character, hypermath prodigy/catwitch Olivia: I couldn't think of a single other character in media to model her on. Not off the top of my head.

I did finally come up with a few. I'm sure there are plenty of obsessive, impetuous career-science women in literature, but almost everyone I thought of in film/TV was not only recent, but from a certain narrow band of modern animation, basically the "New SIncerity."

So... Princess Bubblegum, Entrapta, Twilight Sparkle, Agatha Heterodyne, and maybe Webby Vanderquack (at 24, with a math degree, having put all her XP into INT and none into WIS).

And maybe that's just my brainstorming failure -- I'd love to hear more if you can think of any -- but I'm still feeling pretty good that I'm putting a character archetype out there that's still badly underrepresented.

Hooray for irresponsible female power nerds!