Very Old Memes
This is my day of completing ancient memes. In that spirit, I finally answered all the requests at that curtainfic meme from December.
The second meme I completed is that letter meme that was going around awhile ago. I'll post it here, because I'm happy to give a letter to anyone who wants one:
1. Leave a comment to this post!
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and your thoughts on each. The characters can be from any media.
For my first letter, D, from likeadeuce, I challenged myself to talk about only those characters with double-barreled D names.
Daredevil: I never cared about ol' DD before Mark Waid took over the title, but now the book is easily one of my top 5 favorites month in and month out. I love the idea of a man who's had so much angst and so many horrible things in his past attempting to turn over a new leaf and try to live his life to the fullest, like he did early in his history. Plus, he's got a great costume, fascinating powers, abundant charm, and a truly lovely relationship with Foggy Nelson. In the hands of the right writers and artists (which he's in right now), Daredevil is one of Marvel's best character.
Dum Dum Dugan: He's a giant redhead with a handlebar moustache and a bowler cap who could kick your ass in a minute flat but is still a teddy bear at heart. What's NOT to love? The heart and soul of the Howling Commandos, Dugan makes any comic he appears in 10 times better, and I'm so glad he apparently got the age-defying serum to let him still be active decades after World War II. He's also one of the few people I seriously ship 616 Nick Fury with.
Dr. Doom: I haven't read a lot of Dr. Doom canon, but when he's being ridiculously over-the-top and pompous and talking about himself in the third person he's my absolute FAVORITE kind of villain. I want him to be absurd, not understatedly sinister like the movie version. If every story could be like that time he was defeated by Squirrel Girl, I'd be very happy.
Don Draper: Don is not a role model in any way, shape, or form, but it says a lot about the strength of Mad Men's writers and of Jon Hamm's acting that I'm still interested in this character after all he's done. He's not a nice man, or a good man, but he's endlessly compelling and much more complex than he may initially seem. I'm usually the first to turn off a piece of media that asks me to focus on a reprehensible protagonist, but Don is my exception. I'm fascinated by his relationships with everyone else on the show, and I always want to know even more about him.
Dewey Duck: This is the point where I ran out of DD characters and had to pull one out of nowhere. I could have gone with Daisy or Donald, but I don't have strong feelings about them. I can't say I have strong feelings about Dewey EITHER, but I really liked the triplets in Ducktales in my youth, and Dewey was the smart one, making him automatically my favorite. Yay for color-coded ducklings!
For my second letter, R, from second_batgirl, I didn't have such a clever idea, but I did manage to restrict myself to only characters whose first names start with R, rather than last names.
Roger Davis: Roger was basically patient zero in my OTP theme of "I don't really like this guy much, but the character I identify with does, and I would like to see them hook up." It happened with Jack/David, Scott/Logan, Steve/Tony, and countless others. But just like Jack, Logan, and Tony, Roger eventually grew on me. His angst is a bit overblown, but he has legitimate reasons for it, and I love that he so clearly cares about Mark (and about all of his friends) despite his general self-absorption. And he's probably the reason I will always find boys with guitars singing about their manpain embarrassingly sexy. Adam Pascal's existence is also a contributor to this theme.
Riza Hawkeye: When I first started reading Fullmetal Alchemist, Riza didn't make much of an impression on me. She's so quiet and so much in the background that I really only thought of her as, "That badass girl who saves Roy's ass every other day with her smarts and her guns." She was cool, but she didn't seem all that deep. But as I read on, and as likeadeuce shared her fanon, I began to see what an incredibly complex and subtle character she could be. Her relationship to Roy is fascinating, but so is her backstory with her father, and her existence in a still mostly-male military. I'd read a billion words of fic about her -- so it's a good thing, as my last post indicated, that 'Deuce has written them.
Rachel (Animorphs): Even in middle school, I knew I could never be like Rachel. Headstrong, confident, brave to the point of recklessness, a true warrior -- Rachel was AWESOME, in so many ways, but she was also completely alien, someone I would want to hang out with just to find out what makes her tick. Her relationship with Tobias formed one of my very first OTPs, and I loved how the narrative never backed down from her masculine coding. I still resent her role in the very end of the series, but until that point, she was one of my favorites, and remains so to this day.
Rue (Hunger Games): Rue is great in the books, and her fate (is that a spoiler? It's the Hunger Games) is tragic and heartbreaking. But I don't think I ever felt so strongly about her as I did when I saw the film. Amandla Stenberg did a truly remarkable job with the role, especially for someone so young, and I hope she has a long and fruitful career ahead of her. While I loved what Rue represented as a symbol in the novel, I love her even more as a PERSON in the movie.
River Tam: If I'm ranking my favorite Firefly characters, the list usually goes like this: 1.) Simon, 2.) MalKayleeZoe, 3.) Wash, 4.) Jayne, 5.) River, 6.)InaraandBook. So while River isn't my least favorite character (and while I really do love ALL the characters, and even these rankings are very close), she's never been a primary interest for me in the show. What I do love, however, is her relationship with Simon. Because of what happened to her, she's usually inscrutible as a character; there's not much to grab onto. But seeing how Simon feels about her, watching him trying to protect her, nd then watching her try to protect him in return, is really the core of the entire show for me. I'd watch a million episodes about their sibling love, and I'm so glad that, if nothing else, Serenity was able to close up that loose end with flair.
Tomorrow (or Friday): belated music memes!
The second meme I completed is that letter meme that was going around awhile ago. I'll post it here, because I'm happy to give a letter to anyone who wants one:
1. Leave a comment to this post!
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and your thoughts on each. The characters can be from any media.
For my first letter, D, from likeadeuce, I challenged myself to talk about only those characters with double-barreled D names.
Daredevil: I never cared about ol' DD before Mark Waid took over the title, but now the book is easily one of my top 5 favorites month in and month out. I love the idea of a man who's had so much angst and so many horrible things in his past attempting to turn over a new leaf and try to live his life to the fullest, like he did early in his history. Plus, he's got a great costume, fascinating powers, abundant charm, and a truly lovely relationship with Foggy Nelson. In the hands of the right writers and artists (which he's in right now), Daredevil is one of Marvel's best character.
Dum Dum Dugan: He's a giant redhead with a handlebar moustache and a bowler cap who could kick your ass in a minute flat but is still a teddy bear at heart. What's NOT to love? The heart and soul of the Howling Commandos, Dugan makes any comic he appears in 10 times better, and I'm so glad he apparently got the age-defying serum to let him still be active decades after World War II. He's also one of the few people I seriously ship 616 Nick Fury with.
Dr. Doom: I haven't read a lot of Dr. Doom canon, but when he's being ridiculously over-the-top and pompous and talking about himself in the third person he's my absolute FAVORITE kind of villain. I want him to be absurd, not understatedly sinister like the movie version. If every story could be like that time he was defeated by Squirrel Girl, I'd be very happy.
Don Draper: Don is not a role model in any way, shape, or form, but it says a lot about the strength of Mad Men's writers and of Jon Hamm's acting that I'm still interested in this character after all he's done. He's not a nice man, or a good man, but he's endlessly compelling and much more complex than he may initially seem. I'm usually the first to turn off a piece of media that asks me to focus on a reprehensible protagonist, but Don is my exception. I'm fascinated by his relationships with everyone else on the show, and I always want to know even more about him.
Dewey Duck: This is the point where I ran out of DD characters and had to pull one out of nowhere. I could have gone with Daisy or Donald, but I don't have strong feelings about them. I can't say I have strong feelings about Dewey EITHER, but I really liked the triplets in Ducktales in my youth, and Dewey was the smart one, making him automatically my favorite. Yay for color-coded ducklings!
For my second letter, R, from second_batgirl, I didn't have such a clever idea, but I did manage to restrict myself to only characters whose first names start with R, rather than last names.
Roger Davis: Roger was basically patient zero in my OTP theme of "I don't really like this guy much, but the character I identify with does, and I would like to see them hook up." It happened with Jack/David, Scott/Logan, Steve/Tony, and countless others. But just like Jack, Logan, and Tony, Roger eventually grew on me. His angst is a bit overblown, but he has legitimate reasons for it, and I love that he so clearly cares about Mark (and about all of his friends) despite his general self-absorption. And he's probably the reason I will always find boys with guitars singing about their manpain embarrassingly sexy. Adam Pascal's existence is also a contributor to this theme.
Riza Hawkeye: When I first started reading Fullmetal Alchemist, Riza didn't make much of an impression on me. She's so quiet and so much in the background that I really only thought of her as, "That badass girl who saves Roy's ass every other day with her smarts and her guns." She was cool, but she didn't seem all that deep. But as I read on, and as likeadeuce shared her fanon, I began to see what an incredibly complex and subtle character she could be. Her relationship to Roy is fascinating, but so is her backstory with her father, and her existence in a still mostly-male military. I'd read a billion words of fic about her -- so it's a good thing, as my last post indicated, that 'Deuce has written them.
Rachel (Animorphs): Even in middle school, I knew I could never be like Rachel. Headstrong, confident, brave to the point of recklessness, a true warrior -- Rachel was AWESOME, in so many ways, but she was also completely alien, someone I would want to hang out with just to find out what makes her tick. Her relationship with Tobias formed one of my very first OTPs, and I loved how the narrative never backed down from her masculine coding. I still resent her role in the very end of the series, but until that point, she was one of my favorites, and remains so to this day.
Rue (Hunger Games): Rue is great in the books, and her fate (is that a spoiler? It's the Hunger Games) is tragic and heartbreaking. But I don't think I ever felt so strongly about her as I did when I saw the film. Amandla Stenberg did a truly remarkable job with the role, especially for someone so young, and I hope she has a long and fruitful career ahead of her. While I loved what Rue represented as a symbol in the novel, I love her even more as a PERSON in the movie.
River Tam: If I'm ranking my favorite Firefly characters, the list usually goes like this: 1.) Simon, 2.) MalKayleeZoe, 3.) Wash, 4.) Jayne, 5.) River, 6.)InaraandBook. So while River isn't my least favorite character (and while I really do love ALL the characters, and even these rankings are very close), she's never been a primary interest for me in the show. What I do love, however, is her relationship with Simon. Because of what happened to her, she's usually inscrutible as a character; there's not much to grab onto. But seeing how Simon feels about her, watching him trying to protect her, nd then watching her try to protect him in return, is really the core of the entire show for me. I'd watch a million episodes about their sibling love, and I'm so glad that, if nothing else, Serenity was able to close up that loose end with flair.
Tomorrow (or Friday): belated music memes!